Back with a Vengeance...

A whimper of a vengeance - there's nothing to be vengeful about, and there's certainly nothing to cause a ruckus about either.

But I'm back nonetheless. I'm sorry (to all 10 of my loyal readers) - after I went to Goa on my grad trip, I just felt a lot of inertia and was not too eager to start sharing thoughts (though I had many). I blame Goa: white sandy beaches and amazing food meant that sloshing myself with food and alcohol at the beach proved more fun than tapping away writing meaningful stuff. I'm kinda regretting it: there's a ton of material during the last two weeks that might not get blogged about as a result (time waits for no man).

So how about a short update on what I've been up to? Then perhaps I can launch into something less mundane and more thoughtful...

1. I think I left my friends dangling with that last post: what was it about??? Well, I wrote this essay for my Ethics professor and decided that I wanted to post it here also. Although it is an academic discourse, I do think it is a pity that only an audience of ONE professor, a certain de Bettignies, is going to read that paper.

2. After that dangling post, I went for my grad trip to Goa - it took almost a week and I came back early morning last Wednesday, for the purpose of... (more on Goa in a separate post, with pics)

3. GRADUATION! I'm now a newly minted MBA. The class of December 2006 graduated last Wednesday (in Singapore) and Thursday (in Fontainebleau) and we never felt happier, nor sadder. In my opinion, the goodbyes started long ago: at the end of P4. However, I think the most poignant farewells were at the graduation ceremony and the subsequent...

4. Graduation party at MOS. Drank, danced, hugged friends and shook hands all night. I can't believe that INSEAD is at an end.

5. Over the last few days, I've been catching up with friends and clubbing rather more often than I wanted to (sloshed with alcohol some nights). Also, I'm having too many late nights, either up with friends chatting or partying. It's a little too much to take: I need to go back to what is probably a lot more important...

6. Which is my job search. Ack - I'm still looking for a job but half the world is busy with their holidays. I guess it will have to be in Jan 2007 when I start in my honest earnest quest for a job (and a paycheck).

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In other news, since I've had a little too much free time, I've updated the look and feel of the blog. Actually, it looks pretty much the same, but the advent of Blogger's new functionalities meant that I can now tag (Blogger calls it 'label') my posts.

For a long time now, I've toyed with the idea of tagging my posts using Technorati's tag feature. It isn't too difficult, but the hassle of tagging old posts as well just turned me off the prospect of playing around with too much HTML (I wanted to avoid that - I may be techy at times, but I'm lazy too).

Then when Blogger introduced Beta, I thought it was a godsend, but they didn't allow bloggers who also do group blogs (alas) to use Beta. Without wanting to relinquish my membership in that particular group blog (guys there hardly blog now), it was only recently when Beta became a full version that I started tagging posts.

So, while happily tagging away, I realised that finding the right tags to use increasingly becomes a problem:

1. First of all, you want your tags to express exactly what you mean in your post. Therefore, you come up with very descriptive tags that encapsulate in one or two words what you're trying to say. Simple tags like 'Photography' will include photos, and 'Travel' will be about your trips.

2. Then, when it comes to posts which consist of more topics, you try using two or more tags to express the idea behind the post.

3. But the problem comes when you started to realise that you're having too many tags (the problem I'm facing now). You need to be economical about your tags: after all, there are some tags that reference only ONE post, and what good is a tag if it only references ONE article? It's like, if each and every article is referenced with its own tag, the tagging system makes no sense.

4. So you start being economical about your tags... and that's another problem because you then start force-fitting your posts into your tags. That's not what blogging is about: you're supposed to write what you feel, and THEN decide what your tags should be.

Yuck. I hate tagging, but I'm doing it nonetheless. Tagging is an afterthought: you write a beautiful novel, with all thoughts and ideas expressed as per your plan, but you've conveniently left out the title of the book and now wrack your brains thinking about a suitable title, something that concisely encapsulates the main thrust of the novel, a short phrase that tells the reader all he needs to know about whether he should be reading the book or not.

So, with those thoughts in my head, I took on the onus of tagging all my old posts (to aid you loyal readers! All 10 of you!). I could only do 50 without collapsing from tag piling - I keep introducing new tags and failed to be economical about them. Sighs - there're guys who're able to be really efficient with tags, but I don't belong to that club.

Anyhow, the tags are there to help YOU. Yes, YOU the reader. I hope you find the reading experience enhanced as a result!

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PS: Will be posting pictures from my Goa trip (not many, but I think they're nice) and the said Ethics essay in due time. I just want this catch-up post to sit around for a day or two before proceeding with more catching up!