VANTAN.ORG: The Daily Weblog

It is disturbing to see myself becoming tardier about punctuality. Over the last few years I have developed this unrealistic belief that more things can be squeezed into less time and that I can magically appear at another part of Singapore in a few minutes, in a parallel universe where no traffic exists and car park space is abundant.

Part of this tardiness is due to psychological reasons. Sometimes there is a fear of offending someone by walking out of an overrun meeting. So we leave late and start the next appointment late and the domino effect begins. I always marvelled at how American TV shows showing how schoolchildren packed up their books and left class as the schoolbell ran, even while their teacher was talking. They have less stigma about leaving on time.

At work, perhaps scarce rooms are a solution - when they’re booked at fixed time slots, the next group will be knocking on the door when time’s up, and the meeting will have to be concluded quickly. And perhaps rooms should only be booked for one hour slots or less, so that nobody should be late or longwinded or unprepared at a meeting.

The worst experience I myself have had as a customer, was with my new personal banker. I asked him to meet me at a restaurant near my office. I sent him a food review page from Hungrygowhere.com, which also contained a Google map of the place. He parked somewhere else, walked off in the wrong direction and lost his bearings. After a few phone calls he was still lost. When he finally found the restaurant, he was an hour late. He paid for lunch.

So, my two new mid-year resolutions are: To smile more, and to be on time. Dare I?

In the space of a few days, I was told by people from different walks of life - my mum, a random French shopkeeper, a couple of friends - that I should smile more.

The thing is, often I’m not feeling unhappy but my default expression is a :-| not a :-> and I don’t realise it.

Last night I was Twittering about how a local gal in French class was annoying me by pouncing on my every mistake. She’d go ‘Harh?!” when I asked a question or said something not quite right, even though she herself wasn’t that good in French either. She would also chat to the Brit guy beside her but not turn to talk to me. There are only 3 of us in the class.

In the light of the weekend’s feedback on my demeanour, I thought I could do a couple of things (apart from punch her in the face, which @dominik recommended :).

I could work harder on my French so that I’d make less mistakes and we’d learn from each other instead of pointing out each other’s faults.

Next, I could smile more and make the effort to talk to her, as much as I initially thought she was one of those who were nicer to expats than to their own kind. But we tend to stereotype each other when we have bad first impressions. Maybe she assumed I was unfriendly because of my serious face, and I classified her as a snob when she ignored me.

As it was, it was our second lesson together today and it was much more enjoyable because we actually loosened up more and found out more about each other. Somehow my French had also improved and the vocabulary I picked up 11 years ago was coming back, so I could enhance the sentences we were learning to make. We left, feeling positive about our lesson and looking forward to tomorrow.

I’m officially announcing that I will be doing my MBA at INSEAD this Fall.

It took me many years to decide to do an MBA, and it was not easy. I told God I could not do it without Him, and He answered my prayers.

Of course, an MBA is not an end in itself - as if any paper qualification would be, though some places peg your prospects to it - but I hope it will teach me things I’ve haven’t learnt at work, and open up more opportunities for me. There are many worlds I have yet to see, explore - and dare I say, conquer?

This explains why I have been rushing to take my French exam, as we need at least 3 languages to graduate at INSEAD. It is certainly not easy, but we’re up to the challenge. Being in an international school requires you to communicate in different languages. Speaking 5 or 6 languages at INSEAD is not too uncommon, from what I’ve heard.

I finally got to meet my classmates at the Open Day on Saturday and it was great. We spent the whole day together. I think there are many nice people around, and the number of countries we’re from is mind-blowing. Some may prefer US schools but I’m happy with going to a school where no nationality is dominant. A cross-cultural understanding is important in today’s globalised business world.

Some friends had the impression I would be leaving Singapore very soon. To be precise, I am going to my sister’s convocation in the UK in early July. My orientation and preparatory course (for those with no business background, such as ahem public officers) will start in August. The actual term will begin in September. Next Spring I intend to make my way to the Fontainebleau campus, and that is where I may spend 2-4 months.

It is a big time in my life, as I step into a brave new world. In some ways I’m sad to leave some great memories and people behind; in other ways, happy and excited at starting life anew.

My blog was bombarded with comment spam an hour ago, and I could not log in to update anything because all the database connections were used up. My web host has since blocked all IP addresses that were attempting to connect to my database.

Contact me in case your IP was blocked and you cannot post a comment.

I’m quoted in the papers today regarding YouTube as an outreach channel. Thanks to Tan Weizhen for the coverage!

I was explaining how some may have concerns that uploaded videos could be downloaded and manipulated, etc. But this also happens with anything else you put online. You have a corporate website? Well, someone could modify your logo. If you’re afraid, then forget about this new outreach channel. Don’t be too upset if something rips your copyrighted videos and uploads them to YouTube instead - on the positive side, that gives you more exposure. If some have bothered to go through this trouble, it could indicate they’re interested enough in the cause.

And if you want to see what our youths can do in a user-generated video contest on health, check this out for quality and depth!

I’m fine with Maria Sharapova as a tennis player, apart from the shrieking. Now I’m more ingrigued to learn that Maria has now turned to her fans for advice online, since this smells of Web 2.0 spirit.

According to the Beeb, she’s protesting against a WTA ruling that she and other stars must do a publicity shoot possibly a day before the matches.

Her official website announcements are generally written in the third person. However, Maria’s personal tone of voice comes through in this message, which seems to be written by her (or someone on her behalf):

This links to the online poll, where you can also vote.

You can also view the results. Right now most of the 4,000 odd fans have voted for her to refuse to do the photo shoot.

Personally, I think she should just do the photo shoot but insist that the WTA refrain from such requests in future. To kick up a big fuss is not very sportsmanlike, and besides, other big tennis stars also have to do the same. It is usually easier to convince the authorities to chance a policy when you aren’t giving them bad PR in the first place.

I and two of my cousins played at my grandmother’s birthday dinner on Saturday. These are recordings from our rehearsal on the day itself. It was a last-minute affair, since we were ‘volunteered’ for it!

Violin and piano rendition of ‘Think Of Me’ from Phantom of the Opera, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Violin, cello and piano rendition of ‘The Prayer’, originally sung by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli, and written by David Foster. If you don’t have time, skip to the best part which is 2:28.

I don’t like reading scores, so I just read the chord names on top of the notation and made up the rest of the accompaniments along the way.

So it seems that a second friend has had her Facebook account broken into. I urge everyone not to list any personal details on their profiles, such as your email address and mother’s maiden name. If you haven’t logged in recently, do so just to make sure everything’s OK. Both my friends hadn’t logged into Facebook for a while, and didn’t realise what was happening immediately.

My friend told me that the only thing she recalled clicking on recently was Facebook Chat. I thought that couldn’t be possible, because that is an official Facebook feature. However, my Facebook Chat appeared at the bottom right corner of my screen, while hers was on top. When she clicked on it, apparently nothing happened. When I clicked on mine, I started chatting to my Facebook friends.

So now I have a question for my readers: If you’ve got Facebook Chat enabled, is your Chat window at the top or bottom right corner? Let’s get to the bottom of this.

…fell asleep earlier than expected, and woke up, also earlier than expected. Since that shouldn’t be happening on a public holiday, I went back to sleep. Sleep does magical things for mouth ulcers, like making them almost disappear overnight. I should apply more sleep for a longer-lasting effect.

Surfed the net as usual, bummed about. Explored some eating places near Mustafa Centre for lunch. Went to the neighbourhood mall to buy fruits and stationery. Went home and completed my French homework. I suck at doing homework cos I’m just lazy and every time I use my MacBook Pro, I end up surfing the web instead of looking up French conjugations online.

Went to Sin Huat Seafood restaurant at Geylang for dinner. Waited for nearly an hour, as is the norm, but other family members were too hungry, so we headed off to Roland’s for late night seafood. Moral of the story: Never go to a famous restaurant during peak hours, especially soon after it’s received a writeup in the papers - in this case, for its crab bee hoon.

Came home late. Surfed the net, as usual. Going to sleep. Felt I had to post something. Done. Zz.