Bushed, Beat, and Broke

I'm so tired. I'm so tired from reading. There's so much to prepare before a class, and it really frustrates me no end that some folks DO NOT actually prepare their work and can breeze through class. Its so not me: back in the great NU of S, I've never read my textbooks, worked on my tutorials, nor even folded the pages of my notes (you know, like when they're stapled in the corner and you flip the first page over?). In the INS of EAD, I'm suddenly a superman - reading, digesting, working, spreadsheeting away... till the wee hours of the morning at times.

I'm beat.

To give you an idea of a typical week (not that there is one anyhow - each week is an entire adventure!), here's my Outlook calendar:



Click on the image to view the fine print.

Confused? Let me explain what some of the items mean.

French class means French class (Voulez vous couche avec moi, c'est soir?). So far, I haven't learnt much French. The teacher hasn't done a good job of livening the class up and the French lessons I did about a year ago didn't help a bit. The whole experience feels like being a plush toy - someone squeezes you and so you make a noise. Whether or not that noise sounds intelligible doesn't matter. As long as phonetically, you make a noise akin to 'something frenchy'. Looking forward to the next boring lesson - let's hope things liven up a bit.

The blocks that start with Career Svcs refer to activities organised by Career Management Services (CMS). Things at INSEAD happen on mainly 3 fronts: the academic aspect, the social aspect, and the career aspect. CMS organises events to cater to the career aspect of the MBA student: this means getting companies to come recruit on campus, workshops to brush up interviewing skills, info sessions on various after-MBA careers and the like. For some of the MBAs, I know this is one of the reasons why they come to a premier business school: that after-school thingy.

There were a couple of items that started with the word 'Brazilian'. Those events refer to the current National Week event. Here's another lengthy FAQ: National Week is some INSEAD tradition whereby a country's students will organise activities throughout the designated week to showcase the culture, food and general gaiety of their country. Brazilian Week played host to meaty Brazilian dishes, a dance workshop for a uniquely Brazilian martial art Capoiera, a visit by the diplomats from the Brazilian embassy (well, you never get enough visitors it appears) and movie screenings of popular fare such as City of God.

The stuff that sound really academic are the courses themselves. For the nerdy folks, this IS INSEAD. For most of us though, these are the pain-in-the-ass lessons that we have to sit through to get that brand / badge / accolade (actual phrasing depends on your point of view). However, business school is already taxing enough without imposing the additional burden of boring lessons, so most professors try to liven things up a bit. The stats lecturer (the course is, bombastically, titled 'Uncertainty, Data and Judgement') makes lessons somewhat fun by betting with us. The problem though is that he knows the real odds, while we tended to perceive our odds to be better. Try this at a party next time: In a room of 50 people, bet that there are at least 2 people with the same birthday, and dare anyone to counter. The odds? 0.97 in your favour.

Sighs - in the time I took to wrote this post, I could have done the readings for tomorrow's class. Guess it's back to burrowing in my notes again.

P.S.: Keep the comments coming! It's great to know people are reading my ramblings. :)

Hazed

There is this big secret about the INSEAD experience that I so want to blog about... but I can't. The title is the biggest clue I can let out about what has happened over the past week or so - beyond that, little else can be said. Sighs - it would have made a great entry.

Some Learning Experience

I've learnt recently that if it's square, it's a cushion. If it's rectangular, it's most likely a pillow. If it's too rectangular (like too long on the long side, and too short on the short side), and it's kind of small, it's a cushion, the long and huggable kind. If its cylindrical, its a bolster (no brainer, that one). And if its big and square, its still a cushion. If it has leather or suede, doesn't matter if it's square or rectangular, it's a cushion. Pillows aren't cushions, and the same applies the other way around. You may hug bolsters, pillows and cushions, but you may not place your head to sleep on a cushion (not unless you're unlucky enough to get the couch).

I've also learnt recently that regular hunky Europeans feel no shame carrying a foldable umbrella. You know - the kind that my mum stuffs into her handbag, with telescopic extenders that snaps together when you pull it out (it's kind of like having an erection: you yank at the bulky part of the brolly, where the 'skin' flaps over itself, stretching it out; and when you're done, it has grown to an unnaturally bigger size).

Apparently, the foldable little umbrella counts as a 'functional' thing, and not a fashion accessory. And when I show up with my golf umbrella feeling like Anakin Skywalker with a vengeance, I'm apparently faced with a 'problem' of where to stash the umbrella (eh... under the seat?). Still, you can't wield those auntie brollies like my golf umbrella (Take that you little phallic underachiever!).

Another thing that I've learnt recently is that John Nash is right. Well, at least the John Nash as played by Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. John Nash (of the movie) had this flash of an inspiration when he saw all the guys at a bar instinctively drawn to the hot blonde. Unfortunately, when all the guys go for the blonde, they 'cancel' out each other, and none of them ends up with the blonde. Also, it was then not good settling for the brunettes, cos they don't want to be second choice.

The same thing happens when you have too many guys in a course, and too few girls (3:1). The hot gal (a Chinese babe with that Girl-Next-Door-bring-home-to-mum face) had so many guys hitting on her that she's going to have a real good year ahead (as in many guys doing real nice things to her, and not the tyre).

Hmm... and what was I supposed to be learning at INSEAD? I forgot - the 3 lessons above have been too much more fun. :)

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?

A Command Prompt and an Active Imagination

Like most boys, I grew up playing computer games. Never got too obsessed with them though, but the immersiveness of it all did creep into my life sometimes. There were so many times I've gotten myself so deep into a game that neither sleep nor food matters. And games these days follow a somewhat staid formula: you do a whole bunch of shit, mostly repetitively, and with some variation in storyline; at the end of all that shit which you had to do (some shit are more interesting than others), you get a 3D video clip as a reward to nicely tie up the story. After that, credits roll (doesn't it make you wonder why games have to be end like movies?)

Well, back when I was a kid, games were much simpler - technology hadn't introduced us to 3D animation as of yet, and games relied a lot more on your active sense of imagination. Like now, games were immersive - you can seriously get yourself lost in one. But they had less whiz-bang graphics and tinny sound effects (I remember the first time I heard sound coming out of a soundblaster and thought that it was the coolest thing on Earth to hear bloodcurling screams of a banshee getting hacked to death in a D&D game).

The really stripped down game was the text adventure, a very early form of the RPG on a PC. In the text games, the player is typically an avatar, and things are seen through the eyes of the avatar. However, the scene around you is described in text form - it is very much like reading a book of fiction. The difference though is that the avatar tends to go over the same ground while walking around, and repetition does set in when you keep reading descriptions of the same scene.

The interface is really simple - all you're presented with is a command prompt:

>

That's it! How simpler can a game be? The learning curve isn't that steep: all you have to do is type in commands such as "Go north", "Examine door", and "Talk to Edmund". What's more, the commands can usually be shortened, so gameplay is a whole lot easier. And like any RPG, its easy to get stuck: it's really bad to get stuck in a text-based game not knowing what to do, as there's no visual cue, and hardly any option other than to refer to a walkthrough.

It may not sound like much to people these days, but some notable text-based games that I remember playing were The Hobbit (of Lord of the Rings fame) and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (I got stuck walking around a spaceship with Marvin the paranoid android).

Oh, on a side note, the text based adventure later took on a more interactive element as MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) in the Internet, but are now long forgotten due to the likes of whiz-bang online games like WoW. Most MUDs played like a D&D game, but with a computer describing the scene for you rather than a dungeon master. Dice rolls were truly randomly generated by the system as well.

Over time though, this kind of games lost its allure. It's not hard to see why: the demand was for more graphic intensive adventures, with sound effects to add to the realism of it. Technology kept up and the result is the plethora of games we get nowadays deluged with moving images and mindblowing sound effects. Hardly anything is left to the imagination anymore: the world of computer games took the same route that movies did, by moving beyond imagination and text to visualising directly for the consumer.

Thus, it was interesting for me then to discover that the text-based game isn't dead though. There is a small pool of enthusiasts keeping it alive via a competition. The Annual Interactive Fiction Competition is an annual competition to see who can create the best text-based adventure, with judging entirely done by the public. The best games read like a well-written book, with descriptions that are vivid and characters with distinct personalities (most game characters these days are cardboard cutouts - after all, you can't really delve into their minds like you do in interactive fiction).

Much as these games bring back a sense of nostalgia in me, they aren't likely to ever become mainstream again - the dynamics of the gaming industry have shifted to the ever more visually appealing. Sadly, this means that the text-based game (or interactive fiction) is relegated to the cottage industry that it is, supported only by enthusiasts and individuals with a love for words. Still, I like to think that such games have so much more 'soul' than the whiz-bang stuff I see nowadays. Oh, that and the fact that I can actually play them at work without attracting too much attention - long live the text-based adventure!

New Year's Eve - before the day is over...

There were so many ideas that I wanted to have penned out. I owed Stripey a short note on an interesting site I found (about something which has taken a whole lot of my time). Last week's shenanigans as well - haven't had the energy to pen them down. Plus, the GF returned and left again, leaving me with NYE's alone (only metaphorically, since there're plenty of friends to hang out with). Oh yah, and there was this draft of a post about Losing Winners - that one hasn't seen the light of day. Yet.

The idea was to do each of these in their own short little note, which you should see in the entries above this one. Initially I was lazy: I wanted to dump them all onto this post. But hey, what better way to up my post count huh? :)

Happy New Year! 2006 is happening too soon...

When Winning Hurts

If you're at the top, there is only one way to go: down.

Winning is not good. When you win, things happen which serve to undermine what you acheived when you won. People are too eager to please, and compliments rain upon you like November showers. And when there are dissenting voices, you tend not to hear (you're a champion after all, what's there to criticize?). Criticism isn't welcome, and genuine advice isn't that forthcoming when you are a winner.

Perhaps one reason why one listens less is because of the ego. The ego boost that comes from being at the top is blinding - the winner is seldom humble after having beaten the competition. The inflated ego only serves to reinforce one's own sense of superiority: what else is there to learn from others, especially the failures? The path carved out by the winner is surely the 'right' path.

Winners are really losers: they do not understand the importance of the lesson that is learnt with a loss. Only when you have lost before can you become a better winner. When you're winning, you may have a formula for why you're always doing that. But unless you learn what the wrong formulas are, you're never going to figure out why when your so-called winning formula doesn't work anymore (and you lose).

The lesson that comes with losing is well learnt, if learnt at all. That is why winners learn the most when they can learn from losers. That is why case studies of the losers tended to be more interesting that those of winners, for, after all, it is the pitfalls to avoid which are more noteworthy, and not the back-thumping self-congratulatory flatteries which add value.

Winners are unhappy unless they win again, and therein lies the problem: they're hard to satisfy. A loser will be really happy to have won, even once. A winner cannot abide by anything other than the champion's podium. Woe is the winner, for he can't see no other way in life. To win all the time is to be blind, obsessed, un-interesting. To win in an endeavour is to lose in most of all other pursuits in life. The winner loses more because of that, while the loser pursues other means of self-satisfaction.

Yes, I know this is turning into one big meaningless rant, but hey, see it from my point of view: I think the initial winners I have seen in my life don't adapt: they think they'll always be champions, and nothing brings them more back to earth when they realised that what they had achieved counted for little in the end. I'd much rather learn, adapt, and become a better person through my failures - not all battles are meant to be won: you need to know when to fight, when to concede, and most importantly, when to walk away.

Life isn't Linear

I've closed a chapter in my life and am opening a new one soon. Working in a consulting firm has been one heck of a rideand the best part about it had always been the people I got to work with. I'm sad to leave; I'm happy to depart. :)

Strangely, I did not feel too weird about moving on: it seemed natural. There are folks who leave with moods of lingering resentment, joyful elation, or seeming indifference. For me, I leave knowing that I'm leaving behind people whose lives I have touched, and whose actions have molded me, whether these actions were positive or not was another matter.

I do not feel like this is the end though - life is not a series of milestones that we set ourselves to achieve. The end of primary school may signal the start of secondary school. The departure from one job may signal the beginning of another (well, in my instance, it meant going back to school). But if we were to live life as breakpoints that we are to hit, then we're missing the point about living.

In any endeavour, the best part about it (as I have said before) is that we are given the opportunity to make friends. The business phrase is 'Networking', but that word does injustice to relationships that we build (it subtly suggest that we stand to gain something from it). The relationships we build do not end when that particular endeavour (a project, school year, NS etc) concludes. Rather, the relationships endure and we seek to build on them. Well, some of us do anyway.

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In many ways, we touch those around us, and those around us help shape what we become. It is more than the web of relationships we build - it is what we are.

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.

An Aspect of Expectations

Human beings are such selfish creatures.

(Author note: Before I go further, these comments don't apply to you, foccacia... views expressed here are born of the active imagination of a stilted mind)

(Hehe...)

There're so many ways for a person to be selfish, one of which, ironically, is through the setting of expectations.

The ironic bit is that some expectations are born out of good intentions. Supposing that I want you to improve, to perform at a higher level than the one you are at now. What I will do is to set some expectations of where I want to see you at, and thereby, you have something to work towards. It is a kind of win-win situation: I have standards which I want to see in you, and you know where I expect you to be.

However, an expectation, as I have learnt the hard way, is a double edged sword. Much as it serves to set a bar, it also sets a limitation. The expectation may be beyond what my abilities can achieve. The expectation may require too drastic a change in me. What then? It becomes something unattainable. The expectation becomes that little seed, when sown in such lethal ways, which blossom into the bloom of failure known as disappointment.

I don't think we expect people to change - we change our expectations knowing full well that people can't change. So many little hurts, disappointments, and broken promises litter the trash heap of junked expectations. We don't help build people by telling them what we expect of them: we are bringing them down.

Think about it: isn't the expectation a way of saying that you're inadequate now? Won't expectations hobble any dreams, perhaps lower the lofty heights that the 'expectee' might achieve? An unattainable expectation may serve to discourage, while an attainable expectation might mean undermining one's abilities - expectations, after all, aren't made with the expectee's interests at heart.

Therein lies the problem with an expectation - it is selfish. It is a creation of the expector, with little or no consultation from the expectee. Even in the instance where the expectee's opinions are sought, the expectee's views and critique invariably shapes the expector's expectations, whether or not the expectee liked it or not.

In other words, he has been judged even before the formal process (if there's ever such a thing) of expectation setting is concluded.

The question then, is: should we expect anything at all then, knowing that we open ourselves to the possiblity of disappointment, knowing that we limit the achievements we hope to see?

One can only hope (have faith; it is far better this way).