Je suis etudiant.

As most of you know, I'm currently learning French. I'm going through Elementary 4 right now, and I hope to at least finish E6 before deciding whether to go on to Intermediate. Each module is 8 wks worth of lessons and costs about 300 bucks.

Learning French has been a really good experience for me. I have lots of fun in class, and I feel mentally engaged and challenged. At the same time, I feel like I'm learning something useful, and who knows what this experience might lead to.

Believe it or not, I actually enjoy going to class and doing homework. Just as I like playing silly flash games, the reason behind this is in the thrill of completing a challenge. And getting the right answers for my homework really makes me feel good as it shows that I understand the lesson and have been able to internalise some of it.

To reach the next step of ability would require me to immerse myself much more deeply in the language. This would entail French television, books, or even a person to converse to in French. With that kind of practice, a lot of sentences would become much more second nature, rather than me having to translate from English right now.

Some day, I hope to be able to write a short post in French. I won't even try now. :P

OMG OMG OMG

OMG.... *gasp*... Nov 7... who can wait so long?

Thoughts from an airflight part deux

So that’s that. The meeting is over and we are on our way home. Time now is 8.50pm on the way back to Changi. I’m waiting for dinner because I’ve had nothing since lunch, and lunch was a bowl of lukewarm beef noodle soup delivered to the office.
The meeting went fairly well. Personally, I didn’t rehearse my presentation enough, and didn’t know how to bring out the key issues quickly. I was also unable to answer questions about my work, though that was to a large extent, due to my inexperience with the subject matter and also my relative newbness to this whole “looking like you’re more intelligent than you are” thing,
It’s hard to sit in front of a whole panel of senior management, with an average of 20 yrs experience between them, each specialized in his own field, legal advice, financial numbers, technicals, business acumen, sense of market, etc. Without revealing the project I am working on, all I can say is that it was a very educational experience, as I learnt a lot from the people across me.
Just the same, they learnt some things from us too. We did a whole ton of research and it helped that my bosses knew what they were talking about.
Now that I’ve done this once, I know I can do it again. And next time I shall do it faster, I shall practice my presentation, I shall rehearse answers to potential questions.
I see a tiring month in front of me, but I also see lots of fun and lots to learn. I’m starting to get the hang of doing the slides, of knowing what my bosses expect. Now it’s a matter of building up the expertise, and my experience, and getting really up to speed on my work.
Now what should I buy for at DFS? :)

Thoughts from an airflight (09 Jul 08)

Today marks the first time I open Microsoft Word since joining the new job. Yes, I am a consultant now. I only use excel and powepoint in the office. I am writing this post from seat 35D on my way to Hong Kong for a client meeting. The time is 9.20pm at the time of this sentence, and I am one hour 30 minutes away from my destination.

It is also the first time I am away from home after the arrival of XP, and I must admit, I feel like what I am doing is wrong. I keep thinking I should be a good father and be spending time with him right now, not be stuck in cattle class halfway across the South China Sea.

And I have been neglecting him indeed. Since taking on this job, I have been working night and day, and other than the short break at AD’s place over the weekend, I worked through the whole of last weekend as well. Even now, this post is a break from looking at my slides, as I rehearse for my presentation tomorrow.

When I took this job, I must admit, I absolutely had no idea what I was in for.

I spent the first week waking up panicking and feeling like I could not breathe. At night, I couldn’t sleep as I worried about all the work I had not done. If I fell asleep, I did so from fatigue. It was the first time in my adult life that I felt such stress. All along, my whole life, all I have been doing was following the next step, up to and including the last 6 years. Every step was merely another pre-determined step I had to take, JC, the scholarship, college, coming back to do NS, the steady Govt job. I had never had to take a step out and make a decision on the future of my life. Even going from gayland to my 2^nd posting was a safe step. I always had the option to go back to gayland.

To a certain extent, I must admit, I miss my old job. I had been at that job long enough to be able to critique others’ work, to be the guy the boss turns to when things are driving us up against the wall, to know that whatever happens, I can deliver on the papers, the presentations, the meetings, and to know that my bosses valued me for my contributions more than the stupid shit I pulled. I know, I know, I have been talking about wanting to get out forever, but…. this is like the case where prisoners who spent 20 years in jail are actually afraid of the freedom outside. The loss of structure, the not knowing what comes next.

Therefore, stepping out was for me has been a big step. To be honest, when I signed the offer letter, I did not fully comprehend the consequences of my action. Just like when I signed the scholarship contract, when I got married , when I witnessed XP’s birth, all these would turn out to be monumental leaps for me, yet which at the particular time in life, seemed like just the next step in my path.

Not one day went by in the last week when I didn’t wake up and worry that I would get fired because I was not delivering, because I was not good enough, because I was not quick enough with my work. Not one day doesn’t go by when I stress over the deadlines, the work I need to do, the emails from my boss saying I need to accelerate my progress.

Over the weekend, I told Lovebell that maybe this wasn’t the right job for me. But how would I know that in 2 weeks? I have learnt a lot these last 2 weeks, learnt more than I have in the last 6 months in my old job. Yet I can’t keep help but think at what costs?

I certainly can’t keep this up. I know part of this whole stress is due to newbie jitters. I want to perform, I want to deliver, I want to start running like the rest of the team. Yet at the same time, it’s hard to join the Olympics track team, when all you did before was take part in the TNP big walk, no matter how much people tell you that you can run like them.

Indeed, there are certainly aspects of this job I cherish and love. It has been many moons since I felt my brain working so hard, I have not concentrated this hard on anything since I was in university. Lovebell will attest that I have actually stopped watching television (sometimes!) simply to stare at my excel model and wonder how the hell I need to build in a function that doesn’t seem to exist. The last time I worked this hard was when I was trying to fix my damn matlab projects in university…

The money is good too. Although I have yet to receive my first pay check, the 50% increase from my previous job is very important to me, because it is to me, the foundation of what I hope to give to XP - an overseas education where he can study what he wants, and then do what he wants from there. I want to give him more than I had as a boy. You may say, but everyone walks his own path. True, but if XP gets into JHU to do medicine, and it is really what he wants, I want to be able to support his desires. Just as Flo came overseas to work to support her son’s dream, I must therefore also make my sacrifices.

Yet at what costs indeed. No money in the world can buy back the time I lose being away from him and lovebell. I’m not just talking about the traveling. If I have to work every night and every weekend from now on, not only will XP not recognize me as his father, I think Lovebell will leave me soon as well.

This is the dream job I would have wanted, graduating from school, with a sharp mind, with no obligations, with an eagerness to explore the world. The flying, the projects, the new ideas, the cities.

Now, with my role as husband and father, this is the job I need, to give them the life I want them to have, to give them the life I will never achieve otherwise.

If you can’t tell by now, I am a deeply conflicted individual. The half of me that takes after my dad is poetic and tells me I should just relax and enjoy life. The other half of me that I got my mom is the side that says I should work as hard as I can to get the As, to get more money, to live the material life. Is it any wonder they broke up? :)

Enough emo talk for the night. I think I have grown as a man in the last weeks. I want to give this job a shot and I want to see if I can succeed. I know I can succeed in the Govt if I want to go back anytime. There will always be openings available. In the meantime, it’s time to see if I can swim in the big ocean with the big fish.

So wish me good luck, and if you see me online late at night anytime, say hi and give me a word of encouragement. :)

Deep Ocean Exploration

The professor is very inspiring, and you can tell he is very passionate about the subject. I really respect his love for the work he does and the way he wants to reach out and touch more people to have them see what he sees.

Life is ...

10% black, 10% white and 80% grey. We can choose to see the grey as being made up of black or choose to see that there is white with black in the grey.

Heard this while breastfeeding in front of the telly where Oprah was interviewing the lecturer who gave the last lecture of his life. A very astute observation, I thought, and a rather valid point made too.

He also made another observation.

People who are optimists tend to have others who would be very happy to lend a helping hand when they are in trouble. People who only see the bad side of things and wallow in self-pity, others would still help when they are in trouble, but they would be walking to offer their help rather than running to do so as they would for the first group.

And I have arrived at the same conclusion from my own observations too. I think it is only human's nature that we tend to be drawn to people who are positive and optimistic rather than people who give out negative energy. Case in point would definitely be PJ and Darth Binky. I have always envied them for the good friends they have in their lives who would always be there for them. Being their friends, I have also come to realise that it is their positivity that people are drawn to. It is not that their lives are more smooth-sailing than the rest of ours or that they have less troubles. Rather, it is the fact that they face everything with good cheer and the people around them just cannot help but want to offer their assistance to them when needed. It is also their winsome and charming way of accepting (or rejecting) help unreservedly that makes people comfortable with offering their help with no fear of offending them or rendering unwanted assistance.

At the end of the day, to quote the professor, we should all choose to be 'Tigger' in life. CHOOSE to see that there is white in grey; CHOOSE to see that the glass is half full rather than half empty; CHOOSE to count the blessings in our lives rather than the misfortunes; CHOOSE to spend our lives celebrating rather than mourning; CHOOSE to live and others will live with you.

The world is so amazing...

What is art?

That which invokes emotions... is.

Tribute to Arthur C. Clarke

clipped from www.nytimes.com Among his legacies are Clarke’s Three Laws, provocative observations on science, science fiction and society that were published in his “Profiles of the Future” (1962): ¶“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.” ¶“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” ¶“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

I am ashamed to admit that I have not read his famous work, "Space Odessey 2001", save for an excerpt that I did as an unseen prose exercise with my Literature class. I did attempt to watch the Kubrick's film but fell asleep in the first 10min when the monkeys did nothing but remained motionless.

May he rest in peace.

Food for thought

Came across this video while surfing mb's website. Regardless of its authenticity, I thought it was meaningful and thought-provoking.

You can also read a feature article on it here.

Time flies...

Time really flies doesn't it.... just last night Lovebell and I were saying how old my "snowman" (soft toy) looked, and then I realised that it has been more than 10 years since I bought him in Dec 1997 from the Sears or JCPenney at Pyramid Mall in Ithaca. I was feeling rather lonely back then, and he was so cute, I thought he would cheer me up if I brought him home.

Yes, that is how he looks brand new.

Since then, it's been 10 years, and I'm no longer the boy I was when I bought him. I'm now going to be a father soon, and in a few months' time, it'll probably be time for me to buy my kid his own snowman. As the Patek Phillippe ad puts it, "You never actually own a Patek Phillippe, you merely look after it for the next generation". Sadly, my Snowman is already in a state that cannot possibly pass for hygienic, but I hope to be able to find a replacement for my boy, so that it may also help him when he's down, and keep him company on rainy days.

"From the first time the doctor placed you in my arms
I knew I'd meet death before I'd let you meet harm"

- Just the Two of Us, Will Smith

What would you say if it was your last lecture?

Remember, walls are there to deny others, or as Seth Godin says, the Dip is there to make you prove that you want it more than other people do.