Instead, Instead, Instead

I'm appalled at the state of English spelling on the Internet. Kids out there seem to have brought their IRC-speak into SMS-speak and eventually allowed all of that unintelligible nonsense become some form of netspeak.

I'm not complaining though: I'm guilty of using my own abbreviations and shortened words as well, but a google search I did a long time ago (back when I was thinking about applying to B-school) showed me something interesting about misspelling words. I googled "INSEAD" and when analysing the search results, I saw links to: INSEAD's various websites; newspaper articles referring to the school; the odd gushy blog post from alumni, participants or newbie; and a whole ton of unrelated pages trawled out by the fantastic search engine.

The unrelated pages all had ONE trait: on each and every one of them, the author of that page had mis-spelt the word "instead". Instead of typing "instead", their quick fingers missed the 'T'. It's probably one of those mistakes which are rather easy to miss when scanning for typos. When Google bolds each and everyone of those mistakes though, it can end up somewhat embarrassing to look at.

Fast forward to present day: I ran the search again in Google today and it turns out that the search engine's code has been updated - it looks for INSEAD in keywords, titles, and in articles where words such as 'B-school' and 'MBA' appear. Sure took them long enough to fix it - probably attributable to the recent spike in Google hirings at INSEAD.

For the heck of it, I also ran the same search through Technorati and Google's Blog Search. Technorati's 5th ranked search result was a typo (top 4 were INSEAD related). Blog Search did better: result #75 was its first typo related retrieval.

Moral of the story? Having a name that is one letter shy of an easily misspelt and often used word is probably not a good idea.

PS: Some folks here have made a business out of helping folks out there with misspelt translations. Interesting stuff, but INSEAD is unfortunately not a misspelling for 'instead'... it is a real-life B-school alas.

PSS: Some folks mentioned in this article cashes in on the spelling misfortunes of others to make that quick buck on eBay. Damn... I should have thought of that. Sure beats some of the stupid business ideas I've heard in B-school.

PSSS: I'm putting a lot more hyperlinks in my blog these days - it makes the Snap Preview so much cooler (I do have a nagging feeling though that some folks out there dislike having hyperlinks blow up like word bubbles in a comic book)

Authenticity and Change - To Be or Not To Be

I was intending to reply to a comment to my previous post when I realised that my comment to that comment became longer than a comment merited, and my comment to that comment became its own post.

Confusing? You bet. That's what life's like when you comment too much. Instances of comments outdoing the post are all too common. Commentable comments aside, they somehow have little pride of place in the blogosphere - most comments are given RSS feeds to track back to (thus, comments kind of get... lost).

Still, the comment my friend made was regards authenticity. Bahloo said "If you are yourself and you don't like what you see, should you change or learn to accept it?"

Tough question. But if I can claim to having any pet topics at all, two of them are likely to be about authenticity and change.

My view on change is that it has to be accepted as a constant. It is like one of those undeniably powerful forces in life that shapes and molds one, and denial of, or resistance to, change is typically futile. One has to ride it out, take the punches like a man and move on.

My view on authenticity is that one should strive to be genuine, whether it be in dealings with others, or, more importantly, dealing with oneself. When you can see yourself for what you truly are, and acknowledge your wrinkles et al, then you can truly be comfortable with yourself, and therefore with others.

To change yourself requires a whole lot of courage - for one thing, it means recognising that you are not the person that you want to be right now. To me, it is not unauthentic to change; it is unauthentic though to change superficially. It is unauthentic, and a whole lot sadder, to change what you were born into.

For instance, take fake breasts. Suppose you are a girl and you don't like your breasts because they are too small. So you get implants and in so doing, double your cupsize overnight. What have you changed? Perhaps bigger breasts gave you confidence you never had, garnered you more attention from prying male eyes, and added that bounce in your step. But is that you? Do you really need fake breasts to become a new person?

My honest opinion: if you can face what you see in the mirror, you're authentic. Doesn't matter that cosmetic surgery gave you what you were not born with. What matters is that you re able to live with yourself as the kind of person you manufactured yourself to be. And in your dealings with others, when you can project your self-concept (your idea of who you are) that is consistent with your self-ideal (how you think you should behave), then you are consistent with yourself. There is nothing wrong with upping your self-esteem in artificial ways.

But I do object to people denying what they were born into. To over-dramatise it a bit, imagine a taiwanese Qiong Yao soap opera (complex relationships, prodigal sons, wayward daughters, unfaithful husbands, the works). A boy was born into a humble family, single mother raising 5 kids all on her own. Imbued with a hard-nosed work ethic and the notion that hard work and striving gets him far, he works hard and through his own merit, rose to a position of power and wealth. But when quizzed about his background, he disavows having been born of a single mother and living in poverty. He does not acknowledge his mother, despises the conditions he was born into, and feels disgust at dealing with his hicksville siblings, thinking them to be like moths drawn to the glory of his bright flame.

That is an unauthentic change of self: you may have achieved what you have desired and set out to do. You may have authored your rise to fame and glory, wealth and riches. But if you deny your history, if you deny your family and relations in some vainglorious attempt at attaining a higher state of self, then you do not deserve to be what you are. Assuming and attaining that isn't change of a genuine nature, for it meant change at the expense of denying what you were born with.

I don't like assumed attitudes and I certainly don't like airs. If there is one last thing I can say about the subject, it is that if you are not yourself, you are not doing yourself any favours. Sooner or later, the real self is revealed. Sooner or later, the truth is unearthed.

A Ball of a Time

Balls: you have them or you don't. (in which case, you're female, a wuss, or something in between. Eek.)

INSEAD Balls: You have two of them. Actually, two of two of them, which makes four. But never at the same place at the same time. You have two balls in summer, and two balls in winter. It's funny though: having Summer and Winter Balls in Singapore makes a huge mockery of the tropicality of the locale.

So, there are 2. (I sound like some jedi in the dumb prequels already).

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My impressions of Summer Ball (the Fontainebleau edition held at Courances):

Food ran out. Food came back again. Food ran out again.

Eating sushi off napkins. No plates and cutlery. Long queues for bite-sized morsels which don't taste good anyhow.

Food ran out.

Champagne drinking... Champagne ran out. Nevermind, switch to some other alcohol.

Oh yes, wonderful chateau. Huge big house with cobblestone paths that were made for horse carriages but not leather soles and pointy heels. Painful walks: should have just stepped on the grass. But hell, great house.

Food came. Food ran out again.

Two tents, two themes (notice how its always two). Picture scenes of people dancing to all kinds of music, no particular genre (no point, people too drunk). Picture also, if you will, some of the alumni, in their 40s and 50s shaking their booty to Staying Alive (shudder). Go for more champagne.

Champagne ran out.

Fireworks! Highlight for the evening; smell of gunpowder in the air. Pop, crackle, sizzle.

Back for more alcohol. Holding onto the glass for dear life in case they ran out as well (which they did... several times).

Danced like a feverish monkey in a macabre carnival of the animals.

Danced like a fiddler on a hot tin roof wearing only 3 socks. (hehe...)

Sitting in the rain, wondering what the hell's going on.

Talked. Talked. Talked. Hazy conversations and lazy monologues.

Had more alcohol. Ran out again.

Danced like a caged bird with cruel boys poking little sticks at it.

Turned around: where did everyone go?

Had enough. Headed to the car. Slept.

The end.

What's a tag?

I've been tagged by Ajaxus who has enigmatically noticed that I have started on a list of sorts and ended at 4 items (I intended for it to be 5, but came short). That smart guy decided that he should curse me with this silly tagging game, and here: my 'FOURs'.

BTW I don't bother being politically correct or even polite, so if you're a close friend, I would say it's better not to be reading this.


4 Guilty Pleasures
1. Watching anime (it's about the impossible bodies and huge eyes...)

2. Eating French Fries (and getting fat)

3. Surfing the net and reading gossip on blogs

4. Wanking?


4 Things You Never Want to Forget
See my previous post


4 Things I Wish to Forget
1. There are cruel women in this world, and I'll never forget the naive me, years ago, happily meeting the so called intended other on a date. Having been rejected many times over, and having lived through hurts many times over, I never learnt the lesson of letting go. So what does a cruel woman make one let go? By doing the most merciful thing she could have done to the naive me, saying the things which hurt the most. An 'Admission'. Looking back now, I don't suppose premarital sex was that big an issue; it certainly isn't for me now. But what hurt most was that this woman knew me well - she knew which buttons to push, and sadly, it meant for me the death of a soulmate. (Ed note: perhaps I should expand on this one abit more - what I've said here doesn't quite capture everything; the outpouring is therapy... of sorts)

2. Shitting in my pants as a kid in primary school. I'm NOT even going to talk about it.

3. The knowledge that my parents came close to having a divorce, and the reasons why.

4. Breaking up


Really Exotic Food I've Tried
I'm not that adventurous with my food... the one thing I can remember eating that probably few people have tried is kangaroo meat (even this sounds tame...)


4 Crushes
Woe be it that I reveal my crushes...

1. When I was 16, a certain sweet girl in school who shared my surname and little else.

2. When I was 18, a certain sweet girl who played chess with me, and purposely lost so that I felt good.

3. When I was 21, a certain sweet girl who taught me that love is fleeting and short, while memories never die.

4. When I was 24, a certain sweet girl showed me what it was to see a girl cry (and thus my older brother instincts were born)


Strangest Dream
I don't remember dreams - it is sad but my dreams are but hazy memories in the morning. At best, I recall little bites here and there, but I've never been able to recreate them again. Pity.


4 Favourite Superheroes

1. Though Neil Gaiman will strongly disagree with the categorisation, the one that tops the list is the Sandman.

2. Batman - I like tortured superheroes who aren't really that super (face it, he doesn't have mutant powers, just really nifty toys)

3. Can't think of any others... can I pick villians instead?


4 People on my Hate List
I don't hate people - I may dislike people or have a severe disincline to share the same space as some other people, but I never hate people.

I hate myself sometimes though, but I've gone past the stage where I think of myself as another person.


Close Brushes with Danger
Its when I was driving and it happened 2 days ago at a traffic light near INSEAD in Fontainebleau. No further details - I had the right of way btw.


Modes of Suicide
Death from an overdose of life

There Ajaxus, i'm all done. No curses on anyone this time.

I Scream!

As if we haven't had our fill of ice-cream, guess what we were plied with today for our Marketing exam? That's right. Yet another ice-cream case.

Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. It all started with a little Russian ice cream company...

Back in mid march when the second period at INSEAD was kicking into high gear, our Strategy professor (a certain Argentinian of much pomp and gesture) decided that the best way to "learn strategy" was to have us analyse the Russian ice cream market and do a strategic proposal for Ice-Fili (its an actual Russian ice cream manufacturer).

Well what did we learn from all that? Besides the obviously useless knowledge of how ice cream was manufactured, there was a Porter's 5 Forces analysis of the industry, a market sizing (you're supposed to do one for the present case and a forecast for the future), a value-chain analysis which revealed that distribution was the key problem for Ice-Fili. Furthermore, there was the ubiquitous Willingness-to-Pay (WTP) vs. Cost Advantage analysis, plus a detailed analysis of Ice-Fili's competitive advantage over its rivals.

Oh and it wasn't just a case of delivering the report and being done with it. It wasn't that easy - the Argentinian of dubious distinction decided that we also have to critique each other's reports. And the critiques must come with a sincere and frank analysis of why their analysis works / doesn't work and where it is lacking. Wow - in addition to having piles of assignments from Finance, Marketing, Process Operations Management, Managerial Accounting and OB, our Strategy professor wants us to READ the nonsense we produced, and DO his job for him.

How fun.

So we did. Sometime in early April. Then what?

So the Argentinian Aardvark (at this point, I'm not even certain he's Argentinian. Maybe he's Spanish but who cares? Let's assume he's Argentinian. On a side note, "Argentinian is a damn hard word to type. Damn that Argentinian) tells us that what we've produced was of 'tremendous quality', and we should 'leverage on the incredible learning opportunity', and that we had 'collectively learnt an enormous deal'. And so on with the bombast.

Then what?

Then the Argentinian (ah... I discovered copy-paste!) with his Hand of God decides that our strategy exam is going to be based on... you guessed it!... the Russian ice cream market, with particular emphasis on that hated 2 syllables: ICE-FILI!

By this time, we were going to riot. The worst was that he had the cheek to say that what we had produced in our reports was IT. Like in, 'go read your COLLECTIVE WISDOM and DISTIL IT into your exam answer'. Like hell that is helping anyone because nobody had any idea which report was good, and which was bad in the first place.

Ah well... Some changes took place and we now have a saner strategy examination - but it was still about Ice-Fili, like anyone really cared anymore. Everyone was sick of Ice-Fili, Russian ice cream and anything remotely related to ice-cream.

Oh, until today. Our marketing professor decided to join in on the act and gave us an exam case on - you guessed it! - ice cream!

But heck, I found it fun though. How do you segment the ice cream market in the UK? How do you position Delice as the ice cream sandwich of choice? What is the advertising strategy you'll employ?

I wrote and I wrote till my wrists hurt. And none the worse after coz I think this exam was a breeze. And what's there to do to celebrate the end of it?

I headed to the bar and ordered some ice cream. Yeah.....

Being the Singaporean Dude

I hate playing tour guide. More specifically, I hate being the local guy, the supposed-to-know-it-all. I hate being asked where Singaporeans hang out. I hate negotiations with hawkers at a food centre to make sure we're not being fleeced. I hate being quizzed on where to pick up cute chicks with non-too-serious commitment issues. I hate racking my brains over which are the hot nightspots to be checking out. I hate showing people how to eat crab like a Singaporean should (you JUST eat it lah!).

Well, its not like I had much of a choice. Having decided to do a post-grad course at a predominantly foreign institution, there is no choice but to hang out with all these foreigners (and I don't mean ang mohs only) and play the local guy. The local guy has to make recommendations: where to go, what to eat, what to look at (Look! Sir Stamford Raffles looking like he's trying to hide a hard on!). Thankfully though, there were 2 other Singaporean gals in the class and that helped (I would never know where to book a table for seafood and chilli crab!)

Okay, to put things in perspective, what happened last week was that I got to attend a pre-MBA course to get myself acquainted (and re-acquainted in some cases) with basic accounting, finance and quantitative stuff like statistics. Being the world-class institution that my school is, there were other students from overseas as well - in total, we made up 12 folks: 3 Singaporeans, 3 French, 1 half-Jap half-Italian, a Hongkie (Hongkonger just sounds funny!), a Brazillian who's spent most of his life in Switzerland, an English, and 2 Indians. The 4 days spent in classes, discussion and partying with these folks was the most fun I had the latter part of this year.

Kenji (the Jap-Italiano) was the most interesting of the lot, especially since we managed to talk about stuff, and this guy has a whole lot of opinions. He quizzed me on nightclubs and girls in Singapore to no end, having had little luck picking up a local for a semi-serious, non-commital, somewhat-friendly time in town. I thought that it wasn't a problem if you looked somewhat like Keanu Reeves (on a bad day). Maybe he just had to be a little less direct in his propositions (hehe).

On another note, the faculties teaching the course were right though: we had a headstart, and a taste of what's to come. Furthermore, there is already a cliche of people we now know even before school actually started. Somehow, we all felt like the money paid for this pre-MBA course was well spent, considering what we learnt, and what we gained out of it.

In any case, if anyone out there wants to bring out their hidden SPG natures, do let me know: I think you'll be far better in showing these fellas a fun time come next year - and there'll be more of them when the actual school term starts. Playing Local Guy is really too tiring when I'm not too into good food and the nightlife to begin with, so help me out yah?

Sorry seems to be the hardest word?

Well, that is according to some, but I don't think so.

Last Saturday, while hanging out with the guys, I went into one rather meaningful discussion with Stripey. We sometimes chat about more cerebral stuff whenever Stripey gets in the mood (I think he's into grown-up and marriage mode - something the rest of us juveniles should seriously give some thought too).

We talked about that important precursor to marriage - the proposal. I think the proposal as we know it nowadays is a modern construct. That means to say that, like the concept of dating, it really is a recent phenomenon (Yes, dating is modern too!). In the past, the proposal took the form of a suitor seeking the permission of the parents of his intended partner to marry (cultural and periodic differences aside, I think this is mostly true). The suitor - oh if you insist - the groom, does not ask the bride directly.

Nowadays, this would be somewhat unromantic. The proposal has morphed to become something more elaborate, something worth remembering... a kind of story that you tell your friends and your children about. In other words, it has to be romantic.

Therein lies the problem with the proposal - the romantic aspect of it. Because the proposal is a romantic occasion (or meant to be so, given today's expectations), it needs to be 'perfect'. The proposal event (I was about to call it 'ceremony') becomes something of a Kodak moment - it cannot be ruined by a rejection.

But you ask - isn't a proposal just something of a question? Surely the proposee reserves the right of refusal. Certainly so - there is no law or doctrine that dictates that a proposal must be accepted. However, there is a certain expectation that she (he?) accepts the proposal - a kind of emotional blackmail takes place whenever one proposes. It is almost as if a 'No' is going to ruin all the effort, all the romance, embarass the suitor in front of the audience he chose to witness the spectacle.

The more spectacular the proposal, the greater the compulsion to say 'Yes I do'. Ironic what a little romance can do to screw you up.

Oh yes, to get more to the point of what I'm leading up to, the proposal is somewhat similar to this other regular occasion. While the proposal has changed from a simple affair to the elaborate set-up it now is, the apology has been much reduced in pomp.

There are cultures where the apology is a truly elaborate affair for the sorry one: Saharan Bedouins require the apologiser to sit in camel dung and recite the Koran; South American pygmies demand that apologies be written out in the apologiser's blood; and when seeking forgiveness in medieval Turkey, one is required to postrate himself before Allah and tremble in reverential awe.

Yup, I made all that up. :) The thing I'm trying to get at is that the apology these days are really too simple: "I am sorry". 'Sorry' is too easy to say - you don't have to mean it, you don't have to be sincere. The Japanese say 'Sorry' like it is a punctuation. 'Sorry' has become a polite word, uttered to make utterances sound polite and sincere.

There's really nothing wrong with saying 'Sorry' and meaning it - I'm always appreciative when one is sincerely sorrowful (incidentally, the words 'sorry' and 'sorrow' have the same root). However, the bone I have with this issue is that the culture in which we all live in now assume that uttering 'Sorry' puts a finality to the issue. It is as if uttering 'sorry' means that all is forgiven, and all should be truly well and forgotten.

That is not so. Depending on the severity of the issue, whether one can forgive or not is hard to say. Despite time, I've not been able to forgive a particular person for a painful past hurt. My feel is that most of us are internally like this too - we may say our bygones and move on, but the memory of the hurt sticks, and it occasionally digs into one's consciousness and causes new pain.

And for the apologist? Culture dictates that the only obligation he has to the wronged person is the common courtesy of saying 'Sorry'. Sure, he may do more to atone for his perceived sin, but the very fact that it was commited in the first instance is testament to the fact that he has no perception of the pain or hurt he can cause. Where an apology isn't accepted, it is now common to label the wronged party as being unkind, being unforgiving. We are conditioned to see that person as reveling in the fact of himself being wronged.

I know my statements are not entirely fair (I apologise, but I don't care if you do accept that apology). There are people who sincerely mean to apologise, and there are those who find it easy to forgive. Life is so much easier to live if we have short memories - there's little history to dwell upon and wallow in.

Perhaps, as apologisers, we should all understand what we are apologising for. As forgivers, we should seek to forget as much as possible. The word 'Sorry' has no meaning at all - don't say it. Do it.

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On that note, my dear, I am sorry for what I have done. However, I hope you are sorry too.

It's fine except that it never happens

I had my encounter with the Exception Monster today.

See, the first thing about our line of work is that there will always be exceptions. Exceptions are those things which nobody wants to really care about, but some stupid user will bring up nonetheless.

Exceptions are those things which some people insist can happen, and will happen, and must happen just to prove that they will and can happen. I have this nagging suspicion that these exceptionistas create the scenarios for exceptions to happen just to prove a point.

See, most people don't want to build complicated system processes just so that you can take care of that once in a year exception. Why? Because most people pay good money for complicated system processes. For that once in a blue moon thing? Don't bother - cross that bridge when you come to it. However, more than one client that I've been to insist on getting that 'bang for the buck', and so exceptions need to be handled.

These irritating exceptionistas don't have half a brain: Its either "Cater for it! I don't care how!" or "Document the exception handling processes, all 20,000 of them". I'm sick of it all - the world isn't ending just because your stupid exception is not being handled. And please wipe that stupid smirk off - I am not really impressed that you're able to find exceptions to throw in my face; I'm appalled that you're not helping with the situation by screaming at me about it.

Anyway, it never ends and that's why I sometimes hate system implementation. No matter what you do, and no matter how much you try, you WILL leave shit behind, and someone else has to clean it up. There are just too many things to juggle, and invariably, some unfinished business gets left behind, tucked nicely away for some unsuspecting soul.

Exceptions are one of those things I'm fond of sweeping under the carpet, so good luck to whoever's looking under the carpet! (you have my sympathies)

(Note: reproduced this post from my post here)

You can't win this battle

2 weekends ago, an event occurred which spelt tragic consequences for the rest of my life. It was to cause never-ending grief, locked in an eternal battle against relentless enemies. And yes, it was to make me enemies in places where I never previously thought possible. It was too late for regrets - the doorway has been walked through and the door slammed shut behind me. Locked in, I have no chance to reverse the chain of events which have led up to where I am now.

Oh, that event? I collected my newly purchased car.

:)

Yup, sure I'm now a happy car owner, but I've made enemies. Presenting here, in no particular order (though they are all annoying and irritating to different degrees), the rogues' gallery:

1. Trees - My tree hugging days are over. Trees mean leaves. Leaves fall when the wind blows, and this means leaves can fall on my car. Add in rainwater and damn do they stick like superglue. It is a nightmare walking towards my car and seeing the profusion of yellow and brown leaves plastered all over. No, I don't really need trees for shade - I don't often drive around noon anyway.

And the worst part about leaves? Those buggers can find their way into every nook and cranny of your car. I've had to dig them out of spots where my pinky couldn't even fit in. The moment I dig a leaf out, some other leaf manages to dig its way in. Argh...

2. Birds - These... these... fowl beasts. I don't think I need to describe the indignity of what these... fowls can inflict on one's precious. (oh do curb that Gollumic behaviour). White, brown shitstains with a touch of the acidic. The worst is when they land on windshields - the shit trails (depending on how wet they are) are just plain horror to clean off.

I keep wet tissue packets picked up from restaurants for the sole purpose of wiping fowl shitstains. And I'm already running out (four shitstains cleaned thus far - I'm an unlucky guy).

3. Lorries (and other big vehicles) - They go slow. They don't signal. I'm impatient. They're a nuisance. They don't look out for the little guys. They're big and they block my view.

Ok, I'm just impatient.

4. Hurricane Katrina, Saddam Hussein, OPEC, George Bush, the Middle East, Muslim militants etc - if nothing other than for the fact that all of the above tend to inflict upward trends onto oil prices. I should not pay THIS much for dead dinosaur mulch.

5. Rain - The worst thing the weather can do to a black car is to rain on it, then cook it dry. Something about the rain we have in Singapore is that it leaves behind this white residue-y stuff which clings onto a car and forms a film of whiteish stains. The only hope of salvation is for the next heavy rain to wash them off (with fingers crossed that this one doesn't leave white stains too).

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I think the battle with the elements of nature is one we are bound to lose - the car will always get dirty. I've realised that the moment I cleaned the car, I'm inviting a whole new host of dirt and other undesirables to invade my car. It is the leaves that are especially annoying - they find their way into the unlikeliest places, stick in there, rot, and refuse to leave.

In any case, if you do see a shitstained rain-splattered Mitsubishi Lancer with leaves stuck on like post-it pads zipping around with an SFY plate, be sure to wave --- it could be me. :)