Welcome to my Blog!

I have afterall finish my last paper on the 23rd June 2009. That day marks the end of my university course, as well as my life’s academic studies. Which means I will say good bye to school! And therefore now I am awaiting my transcript to be mailed to my house.

This post was something reminded me last time when I first started, even until today, after finishing. Though graduation is due only in a few months time, I’ll write it here the feeling I go through (and the rest of the part time students) when we study and work at the same time.

I often get people asking me this question. Especially working adults who will never had a chance to experience this. Some of us have the luxury of completing a graduate degree, before stepping out to work, so it is quite a different experience. For me it was the reverse; to work first so that I can support my family before funding for my degree course.

Let me just put the differences between 1) working and studying, and 2) working only.

1) Assuming you work 8-5 in a local firm. A typical nite class runs at 12 hours a week, including time for doing assignments, projects, and preparing for exams.

- You spent additional 30 to 60 mins travelling to your school after work duing school days.
- You need to eat your dinner fast! That means you might be eating junk, or spending more money.
- You reach school, get a seat, open your text book. Next you have 3 choices. Chat with your friends, read up and be hardworking, or sleep.
- You sleep throughout the whole lesson, thinking wouldn’t it be better if you had a laptop to do your assignments.
- You look at the time for a break, because you are very tired.
- Finally the lecturer releases you, right on the dot of 10pm. (You may choose not to come in the first place!)
- You get home +30 mins to an hour, and doing your usual stuff like bathing etc. It’s around 11:15pm.
- You start doing your assignment, or your project. It’s 12am.
- The next morning, you get so tired. Because right after 12 am finishing your assignments, you need to check mails, look at the latest handphone offers, run through a few web sites for information.
- You may need to take leaves, because the deadline for the project is today !
- If you don’t, you appear like a zombie at work.
- You have in total only less than 5 hours of sleep. (Because I take 30 mins to sleep, and 30 mins to wake up)

2) Assuming you work 8-5, and no part time study programs.

- Your after work time is controlled by you.
- You ask your friends / girlfriends etc out after work, the day before or even on the day itself.
- You have no time constraint. It’s ok if you are late 15 minutes… Just don’t do it again!
- You meet up, and decide slower, what to eat for dinner.
- You continue to chat about what happen today… last week… or even the whole of the month! (That’s because your time is free)
- You don’t feel tired. Who will be tired if you get to meet up with friends ?
- You don’t have to think about deadlines for any projects. Unless you have a tough job that gets you working even back home.
- You should reach home fast. Would you go somewhere far just for a dinner ?
- You reach home feeling rejoyced, because theres still enough time to rest and watch TV at home.
- You get yourself to bed, thinking what happen today. You still have 8 hours of sleeping time.
- You get up next morning feeling a good sleep, and get ready for another day’s work.

So you see the difference now ? If this goes on for two years, it does affect your lifestyle.
Not forgetting that a night course cost $10,000 to $20,000 a year, be it a Bachelor Degree or a Masters. That is what I call wasting time and money, and affecting your lifestyle.

I have classmates who work 8am-8pm, skipping the first few topics of a lesson. There are those who have to sacrifice for their family, including their kids. There are those who are unfortunate, whose family are poor, so they had to work first before studying. That means they have to save up for this course.

This example is only for weekdays. What about weekends ? I will be posting it shortly.

Some related posts:
I spent 12 hours, half a day at work

School projects non stop!

Managing part-time studies and full-time job

Previously on this post here: http://www.dennisquek.com/2008/09/the-human-7-intelligences, I mention about human beings like us not able to fully develop our intelligences. May the fault be the education system, the society, or just plain ignorance, we just don’t know our strengths and weaknesses.

Here I will just like to talk alittle about myself, how I try to develop my strengths whenever I have the chance, and how you could use this as an example to help yourself. I may not be the best, but if it helps, that would be worth your time reading.

So what activities I do to “train” all of the 7 intelligences ? Mainly:

1) IQ, Intelligence Quotient

7) Physical Excellence

 
 
Lets go through one by one.

1) IQ, Intelligence Quotient.
It is one of the hardest to achieve. It is our education system, that has completed taken over. It measures our ability to calculate Mathematics, Science, Logic etc etc.

In my opinion, this is a bad measurement. Because in the 20th century, alot of emphasis has been placed on IQ in regards to academic results. This is then judged by either your Parents, the society, or the employer hiring you.

How I do it:
All I can suggest is not to be lazy and I hope the best in your education system. (Because I am have this worst amongst all others.)

 
 
2) EQ, Emotional Intelligence Quotient.
A few factors affects it. Being strong EQ, it means you are aware of emotionals your family members, your colleague, your friends, the people you talk to, or just any stranger.

How I do it:
Reading eyes cues, looking at body languages, hearing voice tones, putting yourself into their shoes, and asking questions you should and shouldn’t, are some of my practises on developing strong EQ. Your senses should be telling you that people around you are happy, sad, annoyed, or just bored. If you could tell that just by watching, you’ve somewhat grasp hold of the basics.

 
 
3) Intrapersonal, self-intelligent.
By being street smart, it helps alot. Knowing what’s going on around us, cause-and-effect, understands clearly how things happen and the need to know, is what makes this up… I guess.

Hmm examples could be… You understand how the economy works and why things happen that way, like stocks and market shares. Or it could be thinking deep as to why you failed in an interview ? What about the cause of high turn over rates and staff quiting jobs, due to so-so reasons.

What about the reasons what the F1 racing is about (girls… high speed cars… advertising…franchise…) or why credit companies loves you when you borrow money, or even how the government policies work, to make sure a country prosper.

How I do it:
For every cause, theres an effect. For every action, there is a reaction. It is there for you to find out, to get a clear picture of the entire situation. Every wrong move you make leads to a result / feedback…

Using 2..3.. or 4 angles to look at a particular piece of news, decision, event, or subject gets your brain moving, leading you to become street smarter. There are people who simply don’t bother, and there are those who search an answer for themselves.

 
 
4) Spatial, Touch and Feel.
The rest of this article are mostly developed by activities like sports or involvement in some kind of activities.

Getting yourself, or your kids involved in sports is the best way to develop this. I am not getting at being phyiscally strong, but rather to be alert while playing games, while having a touch and feel bout games.

How I do it:
I always love to become better at something, but not too good at it. Let’s say I am able to pick up all types of ball games… except probably hockey and squash. Then there are games such as billiards, pool and snooker, where you are both physically and mentally challenged. It is the same as how Golf is played too.

Being an IT engineer, you’ve got to try, test, engineer, and make sure things work. This means you have to hands-on to touch and get a feeling of how things work. In other words, practise makes perfect, as these activites requires you to constantly practise and master the skills and techniques.

 
 
5) Auditory, Sensitivity to sounds
Have you guessed it right ? It is talking about music here? More or less yes! Although I have my personal site at http://www.singwithpiano.com, this is rather how sensitive you are to sounds, not just music.

How I do it:
I used to join a choir, since I was 12, all the way till I am 21. That doesn’t include when I started singing in halls when I was 5. Which means the ability to differentiate a good and bad music, not just vocals.

Then I learnt how to play beautful pieces on a Piano. Before buying one, I had to pick from over 60 over pianos. I had the chance to feel, touch, play and listen to each individual piano, and the ones that suited me. This chance allowed me to exceled both in the spatial and auditory senses. This is when speech intelligent comes in, because they are all linked up.

 
 
6) Verbal, Speech Intelligence
Verbal communication skills has become one of the 21th century top priorities, when employers hires someone. If the person can’t communicate well, problems are harder to solve, than any other technical issues. Communication is about listening, and talking, not one way but two ways.

How I do it:
I taught Martial Arts for 4 years during my teens. I’m responsibile for a class, which means I had to take charge of the safety, training and examination of those students in my class.I had to teach, by demonstration, as well as to talk to them. This helped in my public speech as as well thinking on my feet!

I am still practising my verbal skills to reach the next level, by giving free piano tutorials in my music site. Though not very good at it yet, I’ll try my best. The aim is to say it in a simple way everyone understood you, period.

 
 
7) Physical Excellence
This describes the very good sportsmen you see in Olympics, soccer, or just any sports athletic. They have what we call the sportsment blood… or the reflexes that allows them to excel in sports activites.
This includes using each person’s strength and weakness to make a great team.

How I do it:
If you look at all the other intelligences, combine point 3 and 4, add alittle bit of point 1, and guess what ? That is physicall excellence. In sports, team sports, there are many coordination, strategies and communications involved.

I played lots of hide and seek and catching games when I was young, as well as involved in sports meet where I took part in all the field events like, long jump, triple jump and high jump. Then I play all the ball games, mainly soccer and basketball, while learning Martial Arts till today.

Have you ever seen someone who never like to perspire or hate to even move a muscle. I feel they are very slow in reactions and might not communicate well, involving body languages. This is why it is better for your child to be involved in sports, it helps.
 
  

To end, This is a long piece of article which shows why humans are afterall still the smartest mammals on earth. It is ok to be ignorance now, and regret later why your Life ended up different from others.

That’s all ! Time for a long break ~

Human beings have 7 intelligences or more!. Yes SEVEN or MORE. I couldn’t give you a perfect answer right now because this is still under researched. But more than often, we used two or three of them only.

Since young, education systems are only able to access 1 out of the few intelligences we have. After being in the working society, we often require other skills or specialties. These are what I am going to post here.

I went to a course on NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) where I was taught the gist of NLP. To be good with NLP skills, you may need at least 6-12 weeks or practise and training, to be “familiar” since it is not a theory course. Nevertheless, I have “simplified” these are the 7 human intelligences in layman’s term, though these may not be the exact NLP theory:

IQ, Intelligence Quotient

Used in: Academics, education and studies, intellectual expertise, calculations and thinkings.
 
 

EQ, Emotional Intelligence Quotient

Used in: Interpersonal relationships, percieve emotions, showing care and understandings.
 
 

Intrapersonal, self-intelligent

Used in: Confident and works alone, high self-awareness, knows what’s going on around him.
 
 

Visual, Watch and Learn

Used in: Learn by watching, copying actions demonstrations, like dancing
 
 

Spatial, Touch and Feel

Used in: Get involved, actions and demonstrations. IT programming, cooking,golfing, dancing, or fixing up a cabinet.
 
 

Auditory, Sensitivity to sounds

Used in: Musicians have this most. People in general who could perform better with music.
 
 

Verbal, Speech Intelligence

Used in: Tasks involving communications, like sales personnels, speakers, customer service.
 
 

Physical Excellence

Used in: Sports, physical activities. Look at the athletics in the olympics.
 
 
And this is where I hope you realise that not everything is about certifications, academics excellent, and exams. Don’t feel bad if you are’t smart, because once you identify what you are good at, you can strength that area.

In my next post I will show what are the stuff I do, to make sure I have an equal balance among all the intelligences.

My Previous post on different methods of learning:

http://www.dennisquek.com/2008/07/different-methods-of-learning/

Here’s a more detailed knowledge written in Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences

In my country, we get all sorts of people from different country who come here to work and study. I must admit it is somehow attractive in my country due to its financial and security stability in South East Asia.

As more and more globalization takes place, people move from country to country to get employed and work. And being said so, I ponder about what employers are looking for, even though we have many nationalities working here.

And so I came to a conclusion.

In the early 1970s-1980s - Experience counts
In this period, employment was more to individual country and more or less peope were employed based on experience.

The middle working class especially, people were hired by the experience they have, and that is all to it. If you know something, and I need what you know, you’re employed, that’s it.
 
 
In the 1990s-2000s - Education chase
Then came the education certifications battle among employees. Employers used it as a guage to decide who should even be entitled an interview in a job.

As more and more people have the ability to graduate from a University, people were sub-divided into different level of education, including Honours / non-honours etc. And nowadays we are looking at Masters or even PhDs.
 
 
In the 2000s-??s - Performance matters
This is period now that we are currently looking at. I felt that emphasis on employees nowadays will tend to focus on performance, more than anything else.

If you can’t perform, you are out. That is why we see big companies cutting jobs in various sectors. This include utilising resources, and value-adding to the company. And the infamous word called multi-tasking means 1 person shouldn’t just do 2 person’s job. He/she must be able to do multiple jobs that varied from A-Z.
 
 
 
To end, I hope everyone have all three factors into consideration when you think about global as a whole. Be prepared of the worst!

Lets say everyone here are employed and worked for money. What are the pros and cons about it?

Buying or exchanging money with time

For most of us here, being an employee is quite common. We exchange our time and then we get paid. We either get paid by month or by hourly basis, etc. And so we get a sum of money, called salary or wages whatever you call it. Ultimately it is still exchanging time with money.

Working by the hours

Group A
I favour those jobs which are limited by the hour, because although working hours might sound like short, it is a good choice for those who want to have freedom and control. Its a good kinda of job hours to consider if you just want a part time commitment. Examples of these jobs includes giving tutions, coaching, part time staff etc…

Group B
There are another group of people who are employed full time. So at the end of the month, he’ll get paid. When I said by the month, I never meant to say 8 hours a day. It may stretch, for long working hours, and that might be some of the typical working culture for some of you. This is a common example, like most white collar officers. Jobs includes accountants, software engineers, designers etc…

Group C
And then theres yet another group, who have a hell lots of freedom in personal time. They have no bosses to report to, no fixed working hours, and probably work from home. No they are not bosses, but somehow they still fall under the employee category. They could be property agents, insurance agents, sales personnels etc…

Selling away our time… precious time

Time is precious, and everyone agrees with that. Time is used in spending time together with our family, going out with kids, relaxing our mind, doing things that we like. For teenagers, they’ll prefer playing PC games, hanging out at parties, dating, etc etc. But other than these activities, what do we do ? The answer is probably clear. It is a mindset that most people accept, its a matter of earlier or later.

What most of us do for a living, is to “sell” our time to an organization, a company, a shop, a stall, known as slogging… err I mean being employed. This means that we are limited, in the sense that what we could do in a day. Read the following article to see how I spent my day at work and travel..
http://www.dennisquek.com/2008/06/i-spent-12-hours-half-a-day-at-work

When I say limited, I meant time and money limitations, for as long as we stay employed. For Group A employees, I should say they are not really limited by time, but the level of income varies by number of hours.

As for Group B, the good news is when there are increments and bonuses payouts, they differ from industries, trades and companies. Income stays stagnant for a year before some change. So you probably live the life the same way for a year…

Lastly for Group C, there is the good and bad, like I’ve mentioned. Time is more flexible, and I hope so for those who fall under this category. (They might be very busy now, but who knows?) They call the shot in meeting the clients, and probably their income level fluctates, according to the market, with the factors like business oppotunities and personal charisma.

So… towards the end of the road we are always finding what is our objectives, and probably this article might help… Things will start to get interesting…if we become employers or self-employed.

Like another other typical white collar worker, I spent my day in an office environment, filled with air conditioner, water heater, computers (and MORE computers), and that clock hanging 10 meters away from my cubicle, which gets the most attention during the 4:30pm to 6:00pm.

Here is my break down of the number of hours for work. After working for some time, I figured out that in my 8.5 hours work daily, I don’t really work that… short ? Where did the rest of the 3.5 hours go ?

I mention about a good office environment and culture before, right here What motivates you - Love, Money, or Family ? where it does some good stuff in motivating workers. My bosses allow us to report work at a flexible time. This means we can come to office between 7:30am to 9:30am. Add a 8½ hours and thats about the time we knock off. (It means we are required to work for 8.5 hours, as stated under the labour laws in Singapore.)

So how did i derived my 12 hours ?

1) 8½ hours - Working in office

2) 1 hour is a lunch break

3) 1 hours travelling time x 2- from the moment I stepped out of my house, to the public transport, and reaching my desk, and twice the time for me to travel back home.

4) 0.5 hours before and after work. Note that this includes eating breakfast, wearing my socks and shoes, ensuring my bag comes with a book to read and changing to my shirt.

I calculated this 0.5 hours because reporting for work is really tedious. Before we start, we have to get ourselves ready. For the ladies, its even worst. They’ll need make up etc etc … (sorry I know nuts!). When we come home, we have to undo what was done in the morning, and it is again time wasted due of work.

Overall breakdown
8.5 - Work
1.0 - Lunch
2.0 - Travel
0.5 - Preparation

12 Hours - Total

So do you know how you spent your time at work ? Time is money !!!

On and off we lose interest on daily tasks. After some thoughts, I figured out these few factors that kept people motivated. I felt that these factors keeps me motivated always.

Love

This is a big word. It has different meanings to some of us, because we do what we love right ? Unfortunately, there are things in this world where we are forced to do, like working in a job that is boring or tiring etc.

Be it rushing at a deadline for a project, studying for an exam or just to tidy up your room (mine’s quite messy), we need to find the motivation drive that trigger us. That is where I will list down some reasons why I like to do something particular, and then keep it refreshed in my mind.

And so, this is how I get myself motivated with love. For eg. I hate waking up in the morning for work and then walk 10 mins, just to squeeze on the public transport with a bunge of people who share the same fate as me. However after reaching my desk, I start to chat with colleagues on how I spent my night the day before (obviously I spent my night on my PC blogging away). My brain starts think and analysis, and get errands done for my superiors and bosses. One thing I got to admit, I have a very good work environment that is very motivating!

Money

Money money money. This is what we work for. Theres never too much of it. Looking at rising costs of fuel, medical and probably food in the coming years, I think we may need a whole lot more than today. Not forgetting inflations.

It is obvious that money motivates us, and the more there is, the more we put our attention to it. We get paid by the hour, or by commission by whichever ways to earn that sum of money, we do get excite. So why not we go though some of the stuff which we aren’t motivated at all, and try to put in a money element into it ?

I like music, as a leisure or as a hobby. I learn and enjoy what goes into my ears, but after awhile it just get boring (try listening to the same song over and over again). Have a look at my music profile before you continue: My music profile

At first it was interest that brought me there, but later on I realised there are people out there making money in music. It can be teaching, performances, a rock and roll band, or music related stuff. Along the way I discovered more motivating ways that kept me going on. But as I have said we should love what we do.

Family

What can I say. You work hard and at the end of day you go home and see you spouse and kids. They are the reasons why you get things done. Your kids will certainly motivate you! Though I don’t have a family, but I know I am working for my parents and doing my best for them.

And to other relatives, I try to do something proud and then tell them my achievements. This keeps my motivated as they share their experiences with me. Some of us may be unfortunate, where we were brought up in a unstable or less income family. It is a responsibility of each member to contribute towards the family. After all who would love you more than your family members ?

Summary

In short, if your want to be motivated in something, list out the reasons why you you should love doing it. And look at the potential of returns you can get. Ask and search around whether someone makes money out of what you are doing too. Finally do it so for your family and love ones. Stay happy too !

A few days ago I posted an article about pie charts, which I thought it might be more interesting writing something related to pyramids diagrams as well…
 
 
The triangular shape is a rough image in my mind. It is a hierachical representation of a subject that deals with populations or are classified into groups and grades. The pryamid differs from pie charts. It provides a top to bottom view, with the higher portion as minority, and the bottom as majority. The top usually represent the rare or unusual, while the base illustrates a more common type or group.
 
 
To analyse pyramids, the figure tells us the breakdown of population more clearly.

 
 
These shapes motivates me as I look at myself and wonder where I am. I often compare myself with things around me, and the ever changing environment.
 
 
What do I compare with ? Sadly to say in my company, I am still a junior staff as I have just started out working not long ago. I often thought about how long or how much effort I need to put in order to reach the top.
 
 
Other stuff cross my minds, like our income and salary. With people of the same age group, I see which percentile I stand in terms of yearly income etc…
 
 
I hope the article triggers you to think about planning your life because these small tricks help you with goals settings and constant feedback to yourself.
 
 

I decided to write this down because I kept thinking of it every moment. What is it ? Its about pictures and images of circles flashing in my mind. So what are in these charts, why are they so important ?
 
 

A circle can represent things like market share, percentages of a particular source or proportions of statistics data. It can show very clearly each type of sources and their % they hold against the total figures, by looking at the size of the pie.

Pie charts

 
This is an example of a pie chart, with a cut-up figures broken into months as a whole, represented in a diagram.

 
Why love them? The charts reminds me of how well the job market looks like in terms of jobs sectors and industries. In the working world, I constantly remind myself where my job stands in this big pie chart. If its a small percentage, it means I am in a niche market. If it is a big share, it means I can move about through different companies or industries, depending on my trade.
 
 
Visualise where your money goes to at the end of every month, with of a chart. Things like how much I set aside for savings, spending, holidays, education, and daily needs. It is good to know what is happening to your money. (I remember playing Management PC games and some games show this chart.
 
 
Another graph that I looked at and studied, is how are traffic driven to my site :). With google’s analytics, I see 3 types of traffic coming here. It is certainly useful and the picture of the division has been photographed into my head. If the porportion changes, I will notice that immediately!
 
 
With some practise, the usage of pie chart may improve our daily lifes by logical thinking as a visual aid.

There are many ways to becoming rich, but have you ever thought of it ?
 
 
I’ll list out some of the ways to get rich, be it illegal or not!
 
 
What you can do while daydreaming:

• - Blackmail some rich man’s son.
• - Sell guns and firearms.
• - Sell drugs.
• - Sell sexual related products or services.
• - Steal (from the rich of course)!

 
 
What you can do in reality:

• - Usage of your talent. It can sports, music, or other domain knowledge.
• - Start a business. Always start small, then expand, who knows ?
• - Start an online business! We don’t just live in the physical world, thats why you are reading this !
• - Become a forex trader, investment or private banker in a bank.
• - Become a property agent or insurance agent. Well, provided with good performance!
• - Find the right (rich i meant) life partner, and get married! Become rich in an instant.
• - Inhertit your parents or family’s wealth.
• - Be a professional in either Legal or a General Practitioner (Or areas relating to these)

 
 
These are some of the possibilities but I wont explain in depth…
 
 
Remember, working your heart out won’t bring you anywhere in life if becoming rich is your target. It just pay monthly bills. In the next posts I will discuss what are the key concerns and problems you will face in starting your own business