Little O

Two photos of my little O, taken at the age of 3.

Backside

Mrs. O was wearing tight shorts and washing dishes after dinner.

Little O runs into the kitchen, then slap mummy's rear end and giggles non stop.

Mrs. O : "Wei Shan, why did you hit mummy's backside ??? Where did you learn how to do that ?? "

Little O : *Looking cute and giggle*

Mr. O walks into the kitchen

Mr. O : "Wei Shan, children CANNOT hit mummy's backside one OK ... "
"... only papa has the right to hit mummy's backside."

Mrs. O : " Oi !!! " * flings water and foam at Mr. O *

Both Mr. O & Little O running for cover, launghing and giggling.

Mr. O still doesn't know how or where Little O picked that one up.

And I was very very sure that Little O was fast asleep that night ...

Interviewees from Hell

There used to be a time when people were just grateful when some one made them a job offer.

There used to be a time when finding a job was very challenging and one would put so much of effort in wanting to win a job.

Gone are those days.

Back in those days, 1990 to be precise, I persistently called up a local IT company (it is listed on the KLSE Main Board today) wanting to speak to the marketing manager about possible vacancy in that business unit. He was never around or perhaps has not the time to return my call. My persistence caught the attention of the systems engineering manager and I was call in for an interview and subsequently hired as systems engineer. I was there for 9 years. 9 years in an IT firm in the 1990s was like 900 years there, that’s because people were changing jobs like crazy. Ex-colleagues used to call me up and said, “Eh? You are still in XXXXX ah ? Just make sure that you don’t become part of the furniture.”. The facts is that the pay was reasonably good, I get promoted once in a while and there are lots of things to learn.

Fast forward to 2005 : One of my managers interviewed an experienced candidate (3 years) that day and I had a look at the resume and OK it. But on the first day of work, before signing his letter of appointment he told us that he expected his salary to be RM4,000 instead of RM3,500 as we agreed earlier. And I told him that making such changes requires the finance department approval etc. and I said that our best offer on the table was what we agreed at RM3,500 per month.

He walked out of the deal.

Unbelievable.

Ungrateful.

Utterly disgusted I was.

He’s lucky I don’t have a Walter PPK in my drawer.

Some how people have come to expect that having a job is a God given right. Having a degree seem to mean that one should “demand” to be offered a job, on their terms. THEIR terms!

Am I on the wrong planet ?

That’s not all.

There were so many other cases I have encountered personally. Most common one is not showing up for the agreed interview and didn’t even bother to call in and inform us.

There were some who turn up. But their language and communications skills are non-existent. Their tenses are wrong, their vocabulary limited – they have Malay words in between English ones, so much so I can’t quite figure out whether the conversation is now in English or Malay. And the list goes on … care to add some ?

Now I know how the judges of Malaysian Idol feel.

First in a C class OR last in an A class? Part II

OK folks, here’s the conclusion to “Last in A Class or First in C Class?”.

Being the last in A class :

Good when you can rub shoulders with the best and you can (hopefully) learn from them. But child may end up having a self esteem problem when the pressure to perform builds up or the child may feel that she/he is not making progress. This factor depends on the parents as well - Do the parent(s) put undue pressure on the child is the question. May need a lot of attention and encouragement.

Being the first in a C class :

Builds self esteem but the downside is that the child may be mixing with the “bad hats” and pick up the wrong habits. We can only hope that our child end up influencing the rest rather than the other way around.


Which option to go for really depends on this child. If she/he is matured enough and able to handle competition or perhaps even exhibit a competitive spirit then being in an A class would do no harm.

I was in A class in primary, B class in most of my secondary years but I ended up being top 10 in university. I got thrown into a C class once when I was tranferred to a school in K.L. but I climbed up from there but never quite got the the A class. I excelled in that C class and it does feel good to be on top of that hill, for once!

I was a slow learner or a late developer, may be because I’ve always been a playful child! I’ve got the taste of real success during my years in university, scoring a distinction average in my final year has spurred me on to want to excel in my career and later in my MBA.

I think Jean did bring up a good point – peer influence carries higher weighting in the child/teenager’s mind. Therefore parent should get to know what sort of people the children are mixing with. A good idea would be to throw a party and see who he/she/they invite.

But all of this … to what end ? That is the question.

Everyone agrees that we want the best for our children, but seldom do we agree on what constitutes the best. And too bad we will only know these answers in retrospect.

As parents, we’d like to see our off spring doing well in life, in whatever they choose to do. But most of the time, parents have a tendency (intentional or otherwise) to steer the children to some where they want to succeed i.e. live their lives through their children e.g. “I have always wanted to be a doctor, I am sending my son to medical school.” I have heard this story so many times and I pray that I will not become like that.

My busiest 10 days of the year.

I have been so extremely busy with work for the past 10 days of so.

On top of my regular full time work, I have been on 2 writing assignments. Doing the research work has been very exhausting indeed. I have been staying up until 2 to 3 am everyday, read no less than 50 articles in my preparation to write a white paper for a client. This industry, technology and policy analysis article is expected to be no more than 25 pages. And it is not finished yet! Well, the first draft is already out, ready to be reviewed by the editor. There will be some "polishing" needed for the next 2 days to make the essay more fluid and coherent in its arguments. It's due on 26 July, Tuesday.

But that is not the end of it! Another article, approximately 1200-1500 works is going to be due on 31 July!

Hmmmm ... I did blog about "Pen for Hire" and right after that, all these things happened. I'm not complaining, in fact I am getting well paid for the work, it was more than what I expected but not as much as what I get paid for my full time work .... yet.

Just be careful what you wish for ... it might just come true.

Sorry to have left you folks without a word for more than 10 days. I ahve very much alive and I have every intention of fulfilling my promise of concluding the "Last in A class or First in C Class" blog.

Stay tuned.

Be the first in a C class OR last in an A class?

Where would you rather be in school ? Or more precisely, where would you rather have your children? Be the top student in an average class or come in the last in the top class?

What are your thoughts? What are your experiences?

I’ll be collecting your feedback and blog my views.

Hit comment OR

if you wish to be anonymous, email me at alpha.orinis@gmail.com

When junior refuses to go to school.

Wei Shan started her kindergarten in mid May this year. She'll be 4 this September. For the first week or so, she was practically crying everyday I dropped her off. On the third week, things seemed to have improved. She cried less. Then came the school holidays and she was off school for 2 whole weeks and she had a good time not going to school, so did I.

It has been tough on her. We speak to her in Mandarin at home but in school, they only speak English. So the communication was a bit of a barrier already and she could hardly understand what the teachers and school mates say, let alone follow the instructions. But at least she knows what to say when she wants to go to the washroom.

This will be the 4th week since school restarted and she still cries every morning when she wakes up, knowing that I will take her to school. She’ll say “Papa, don’t want school!” or “Mama, don’t want school! No school today!”. On two occasions, the teacher literally had to tear her away from me as she was holding on to me so tightly – much to the shock and horror of the other children and their parents.

We’ve tried explaining why she needs to go to school. We gave her encouragements, hugs, kisses and sometimes we got tired and frustrated with her constant whining we, scolded her. Poor thing.

Somehow she seemed to think that going to school is some sort of punishment. We used to send her to the baby sitter’s but she only cried occasionally. We even checked with the teachers on whether she was being bullied at school, fortunately that didn’t happen.

The dilemma – should I continue sending her there and she is forced to adapt? Or spare her the pain and send her elsewhere?

Pen for Hire

or rather "keyboard for hire" may be more appropriate.

Why? Oil prices are going up and so are the prices of everything else. Last month, the CPI overtook the fixed deposit rate. Scary! And making ends meet will get more and more difficult. Just when you think that you have enough to get going for the month, some thing unexpected comes along and you end up being short of “vitamin M”.

Having thought thru it for the past 3 weeks, I have decided to become a part time writer. Primarily because writing is something I do enjoy; in fact I feel that I can express myself better in writing than in speech.

FYI I've tried applying for some part time jobs and did went to some interviews but they are not my cup o'tea. There is one job that requires me to calculate things. How ? They give you a stack of photocopied receipts and you are to add up the numbers. Each A4 sheet has 8 receipts and you are given 50 sheets per week. The pay ? RM60 per stack. Sounds OK ... until they tell you can you can only do 1 stack per week and if you make any mistakes, they will reject the batch. I didn't even bother to ask whether I will get if it is rejected. I was out of there.

Another one is entering email addresses - they will pay you RM0.02 per email. Do 2500 of it, you get RM50. Let's see, if I can do 1 email every 5 seconds, that 12 per minute, 720 per hour. To hit 2500, that will be 3.5 hours. That translates to RM14.30 per hour. Hmmm ... quite a lot of work for little $$$.

It was then I decided that I'd like a job that makes use of my intellect rather than just my hands. Writing is definitely it.

So what’s my specialty, you ask? They are analysis/research papers, white papers, magazine articles, business proposals and presentations. What subject or topic ? The information & communications technology (ICT) industry, that includes the electronic commerce and mobile industry as well. I’ve also got close to 15 years on work and entrepreneurial experience in this area.

I completed my master in business administration in 1999 and it does help when it comes to combining technology and business writings, especially when on “how technology will affect the markets and business strategies”. I have also been invited to speak at several conferences in the above areas.

Another area of specialty is executive development – I have written some articles for online magazines on the area of work life and MBA. I used to organize a web site on MBA and I was advising people on how to choose which MBA program. I even compiled a whole list of MBA courses available in Malaysia.

Not to forget …. I do write about my favorite topic and hobby too – Astronomy.

And I’d be more than happy to work with a team of writers on specific projects.

I am still very new when it comes to writing as a profession, your feedback, guidance and advice are most welcome.

And if anyone of you out there needs a paper or an article done, please feel free to email your request to alpha.orinis@gmail.com

My favourite nocturnal activity

After 2 weeks of cloudy nights, I finally got a break. Last Friday night was superbly clear and I hauled my telescope and started my favorite nocturnal activity ... wait a minute ... I mean : my second favorite nocturnal activity.

The setup took about 20 minutes and once I powered up the telescope, I headed straight for the biggest planet of our solar system, at 300x, this is what I saw :













Note : The 4 white little dots are Jupiter's 4 brightest moons.

And then I went for this :























It is called the Butterfly Cluster or M6, also known as NGC 6405, it can be found in the constellation Scorpius, it spans about 20 light-years and lies about 2,000 light years from earth. It is almost directly overhead at 11pm every night for this month.

What’s a light year ? One light year is the distance traveled by light over a period of 1 year i.e.

186,000 miles x 60 sec x 60 min x 24 hours x 365 days = 1,091,019,456,000,000 miles.

So M6 is 2,000 x 1,091,019,456,000,000 miles from here or 2,182,038,912,000,000,000 miles.

These numbers are ASTRONOMICAL.

Now you know how small we all are …

FYI, our galaxy is about 100,000 light years across.

There are billions of galaxies out there.