So yesterday I was in a shopping mall and stopped by a phone store to ask about the issues I've been having with my phone's display screen. "We can repair it in one or two hours for you," the guy said confidently. "That'll be RM100."
Hmmm.
He said it is a common problem all slider phones encounter sooner or later -- WHY DIDN'T ANYBODY TELL ME THIS -- something about contact problems, the ribbon getting dislodged over time as you keep sliding the screen section up and down. I told him I've had this phone since May 2009 and he said I was very lucky the screen had lasted that long! Some people, he claimed, run into this problem after a year.
I got distracted by the shiny all around me and started looking at the new phones. I've used Nokia forever because it was the most user-friendly phone way back when, and once I'm comfortable with something I don't switch, unless I've powerful reason to. The iPhone is a pretty powerful reason, but its price is also a pretty powerful deterrent!
Trying out the Nokia 300's touchscreen, I commented it wasn't as sensitive as the iPhone's. "Of course not -- you can't compare an RM400 phone with something that costs five times that!" exclaimed the guy. Point taken.
But what really decided me was when I discovered that you can't set any shortcut to go directly into composing text messages. I text a lot and this is one of the features I use the most on my current phone: Once the keypad is unlocked, all it takes is one press of the left centre button and I'm immediately in compose mode. On the touchscreen phone you need to go to Messages, then Compose, and with the fiddliness of the screen sensitivity, it's just not as convenient. So I got the non-touchscreen Nokia C2-01. Sticking with a dumb phone for now :p
Monday, March 26, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Having my cake but not eating it... yet
One reason why you should never go shopping when you're feeling down: you might end up with fourteen-dollar cake.
Not that I've eaten it, mind you. It's sitting in my fridge. But not for long!
I've been well and truly affected by the "city mentality", as I like to call it. My mother would be horrified at the thought of paying seven dollars for a single slice of cake, the same way she's horrified at the thought of paying ten dollars for cup of coffee. When I first came here as a student, I thought the same thing. Who needs Starbucks?
Of course a non-coffee drinker would find it easy to turn up her nose at the mad coffee worshippers who fall down at the feet of the corporate giant with the green-and-white logo. But my sweet tooth sits up and takes notice at the mere mention of the four-letter word starting with C. CAKE? Where??!? Gimme!
Expensive is relative. The first time you hear of it, yes, you shudder at the expense. The second time, you go, "Hmmm." The third time, you agree to give it a try "just to see". After you taste it, you think, "Perhaps it's worth it." The next time, you think, "Oh well, once in a while, it's a treat." And there begins the slippery slope downwards...
When we come down to it, RM7 isn't that expensive in the scheme of things -- or so we tell ourselves. It's about the price of a hawker meal + soft drink. It's less than a movie ticket. It's... "almost nothing".
I've never forgot what a financially-savvy friend told me once: these kinds of expenses are called the "latte factor". They're the seemingly small but recurring expenses that leech you of money unnecessarily. If you buy one Starbucks latte a day, she said, just imagine if you had saved that money -- at the end of the month you'd have RM220 (assuming you only buy it on weekdays, because that's when you most need the morning pick-me-up). By the end of the year you'd have RM11,440. In five years you'd have saved RM57,200. Do the figures make you feel a little ill? Because they do me.
Ever since that illuminating conversation, I've been slightly more mindful about my purchases. But somehow I can't cut out the little treats... right now there's a bottle of Lay's barbecue-flavoured potato chips sitting in front of me, at the table. It had served as munchies while typing my thesis the other day. There's still about half a bottle left, I believe.
Anyway, back to the cake... pecan butterscotch and Oreo cheese. I believe either would qualify for the perfect Saturday morning breakfast. Mmm-hmmmm. *slurp*
Not that I've eaten it, mind you. It's sitting in my fridge. But not for long!
I've been well and truly affected by the "city mentality", as I like to call it. My mother would be horrified at the thought of paying seven dollars for a single slice of cake, the same way she's horrified at the thought of paying ten dollars for cup of coffee. When I first came here as a student, I thought the same thing. Who needs Starbucks?
Of course a non-coffee drinker would find it easy to turn up her nose at the mad coffee worshippers who fall down at the feet of the corporate giant with the green-and-white logo. But my sweet tooth sits up and takes notice at the mere mention of the four-letter word starting with C. CAKE? Where??!? Gimme!
Expensive is relative. The first time you hear of it, yes, you shudder at the expense. The second time, you go, "Hmmm." The third time, you agree to give it a try "just to see". After you taste it, you think, "Perhaps it's worth it." The next time, you think, "Oh well, once in a while, it's a treat." And there begins the slippery slope downwards...
When we come down to it, RM7 isn't that expensive in the scheme of things -- or so we tell ourselves. It's about the price of a hawker meal + soft drink. It's less than a movie ticket. It's... "almost nothing".
I've never forgot what a financially-savvy friend told me once: these kinds of expenses are called the "latte factor". They're the seemingly small but recurring expenses that leech you of money unnecessarily. If you buy one Starbucks latte a day, she said, just imagine if you had saved that money -- at the end of the month you'd have RM220 (assuming you only buy it on weekdays, because that's when you most need the morning pick-me-up). By the end of the year you'd have RM11,440. In five years you'd have saved RM57,200. Do the figures make you feel a little ill? Because they do me.
Ever since that illuminating conversation, I've been slightly more mindful about my purchases. But somehow I can't cut out the little treats... right now there's a bottle of Lay's barbecue-flavoured potato chips sitting in front of me, at the table. It had served as munchies while typing my thesis the other day. There's still about half a bottle left, I believe.
Anyway, back to the cake... pecan butterscotch and Oreo cheese. I believe either would qualify for the perfect Saturday morning breakfast. Mmm-hmmmm. *slurp*
Monday, March 19, 2012
Consider this an ode to ankles
I twisted my ankle last week, slipping on the stairs. Missed the last step and... well, you know the rest. Being a doctor's kid, I decided it probably wasn't fractured because it didn't hurt that much, and since I was on my way out of the house, I continued on to the seminar I was attending.
Fast-forward two days later and I hobbled to work leaning on a walking stick and looking for all the world like a grandma, thinking, I can do this. But even though I tried not to stand or walk around too much, the ankle was getting more painful. My colleague scolded me for not getting it looked at by a doctor: "What if it's fractured?" That, coupled with the pain, drove me to the hospital next door.
The good news was it wasn't fractured; the other good news was that I got a week off work, with orders to stay off my feet!
The rest has done wonders, and taught me more about faith. You don't realise how much faith you put in all your body parts until they fail you. Now every time I take a step, I am wondering, Is this okay? Will the ankle hold up? Am I over-straining it? I really have never considered before whether my ankle would or would not take my weight. It simply did.
We talk about taking things for granted like that is a bad thing. When I was growing up, I heard a lot of sermons cautioning us against taking God for granted, and we're also often warned not to take our parents for granted. The funny thing is that when we are growing up, aren't we encouraged to take things for granted? You want your child to feel secure. You don't keep telling him how lucky he is that you decided to keep him, and that he has food to eat and a roof over his head, and clothes to wear. You don't tell him that he should be grateful he is loved. So when we're young it's okay to take things for granted, but when we're older we shouldn't? Hmmm.
I'm all for an attitude of thanksgiving, but I think taking things for granted is not necessarily bad. All these years I have taken my ankles for granted because they have been working the way they're supposed to. When you can't take something for granted, like now, it's a bad sign! Why are we made to feel guilty when we take things for granted?
So yes, I am very happy that I've had ankles which work well (not to mention other body parts), and I am amazed that I've never before given a thought to the importance of ankles, and I'm sorry for people who don't have ankles that work well, but I don't think it's terrible that I've never before thought to write an ode to ankles.
Fast-forward two days later and I hobbled to work leaning on a walking stick and looking for all the world like a grandma, thinking, I can do this. But even though I tried not to stand or walk around too much, the ankle was getting more painful. My colleague scolded me for not getting it looked at by a doctor: "What if it's fractured?" That, coupled with the pain, drove me to the hospital next door.
The good news was it wasn't fractured; the other good news was that I got a week off work, with orders to stay off my feet!
The rest has done wonders, and taught me more about faith. You don't realise how much faith you put in all your body parts until they fail you. Now every time I take a step, I am wondering, Is this okay? Will the ankle hold up? Am I over-straining it? I really have never considered before whether my ankle would or would not take my weight. It simply did.
We talk about taking things for granted like that is a bad thing. When I was growing up, I heard a lot of sermons cautioning us against taking God for granted, and we're also often warned not to take our parents for granted. The funny thing is that when we are growing up, aren't we encouraged to take things for granted? You want your child to feel secure. You don't keep telling him how lucky he is that you decided to keep him, and that he has food to eat and a roof over his head, and clothes to wear. You don't tell him that he should be grateful he is loved. So when we're young it's okay to take things for granted, but when we're older we shouldn't? Hmmm.
I'm all for an attitude of thanksgiving, but I think taking things for granted is not necessarily bad. All these years I have taken my ankles for granted because they have been working the way they're supposed to. When you can't take something for granted, like now, it's a bad sign! Why are we made to feel guilty when we take things for granted?
So yes, I am very happy that I've had ankles which work well (not to mention other body parts), and I am amazed that I've never before given a thought to the importance of ankles, and I'm sorry for people who don't have ankles that work well, but I don't think it's terrible that I've never before thought to write an ode to ankles.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Dumb phone or smart phone?
My cellphone is dying -- or at least the display is. I'm trying to decide if I should stick with a non-smartphone Nokia or go over to the Dark Side. Here's the dilemma:
I guess if I were to win the lottery tomorrow I wouldn't think twice -- I'd just get the iPhone. Of course, to win the lottery you actually have to BUY tickets...
- I'm pretty sure I don't need to have 24/7 access to the Internet. I don't want to spend extra on a monthly data plan. But having a smartphone without a data plan sounds a bit dumb too, like putting yourself under a handicap. In Mr TDH's words: "It's like buying a car without wheels!"
- If I were going to get a smartphone, I'd get the iPhone because I believe it's the best on the market right now. But it's HELLA EXPENSIVE. And I'm sure I don't really need all those features...
- ...which are nevertheless cool to have, and useful even -- some of them, at least. I like how you can easily back up data on the iPhone by syncing with iTunes, and how it organises SMSes so you can quickly find a past SMS you've received or sent, and I really like the quality of the iPhone camera, dammit.
I guess if I were to win the lottery tomorrow I wouldn't think twice -- I'd just get the iPhone. Of course, to win the lottery you actually have to BUY tickets...
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Let's not add to the damage, eh
I think I know why the Ph.D is popularly known as "permanent head damage". Because if you spend THAT much time doing research and writing your thesis, you are bound to end up with head damage! Research and writing are generally solitary pursuits. You're going to end up living in your head! And as we all know, that ain't exactly healthy...
I love what Sir Ken Robinson says about education: that the more we have of it, the more it seems to focus mainly on what we have in our heads, and if you do things right, if you rise up to the pinnacle, you end up becoming an academic -- a university professor.
"There's something curious about professors -- in my experience, not all of them, but typically -- they live in their heads. They live up there, and slightly to one side. They're disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads. It's a way of getting their head to meetings." I love his humour.
So, yes. Working on my Master's thesis I already feel like I am getting head damage. I don't exactly want to make it permanent!
I love what Sir Ken Robinson says about education: that the more we have of it, the more it seems to focus mainly on what we have in our heads, and if you do things right, if you rise up to the pinnacle, you end up becoming an academic -- a university professor.
"There's something curious about professors -- in my experience, not all of them, but typically -- they live in their heads. They live up there, and slightly to one side. They're disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads. It's a way of getting their head to meetings." I love his humour.
So, yes. Working on my Master's thesis I already feel like I am getting head damage. I don't exactly want to make it permanent!
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Education and passion
I was listening to a TED talk two nights ago when I heard a very interesting story about a lady called Gillian Lynne (the story starts at 15:15 in the video). The story goes that there was once an eight-year-old girl who was, in the storyteller's words, "hopeless" at school; teachers complained she had difficulty concentrating and couldn't sit still. They suspected that she had a learning disorder. So her parents took her to see a specialist, who, after listening to Gillian and her mother, told Gillian that he had to speak to her mother privately. The two adults withdrew from the room, but before doing so, the doctor turned the radio on.
They stood outside the room and watched as Gillian began dancing to the music. The doctor turned to the mother and said, "Mrs Lynne, Gillian isn't sick -- she's a dancer. Take her to a dance school."
And her mother did.
"We walked in this room, and it was full of people like me: people who couldn't sit still, people who had to move to think," Gillian recalled.
In the end she became a soloist with the Royal Ballet Company, eventually founding her own dance company and going on to choreograph and direct shows on film, television and stage -- including Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats and Phantom of the Opera. (Here's her list of achievements, if you're interested.)
What fascinates me about this story is that it could so easily have gone the other way. If her parents and teachers and the doctor had tried to push her into the conventional "student" mould, none of this might have happened. As the storyteller (Sir Ken Robinson) noted, "Someone else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down."
Sometimes I wonder how many of our students we are doing a disservice to by expecting them to fit into our "assembly line" system of education. How many of them would be outstanding or do great and wonderful things if they weren't trying so hard to fit into the accepted mould.
And sometimes I wonder how different I might be if my parents had been able to see outside that conventional academic mould and encouraged my interest or aptitude in writing. "We didn't stop you from doing it," my dad said recently, when I mentioned that I would have appreciated more support. Well, yes, but you never seemed particularly interested in it either!
Anyway, that's pointless speculation. I was watching another TED talk last night and decided to google the speaker, psychologist Dr Dan Gilbert, to find out more about him. (By the way, you should absolutely listen to the talk -- it might change the way you make certain decisions!). I was fascinated to learn that Dr Gilbert had been a high school dropout -- I wish I knew why, I'm so curious.
The story goes that he wanted to write science fiction, so he decided to take a writing course at the local community college. But when he arrived at the college, the writing course was full and the only course still available was psychology. In his own words: "I thought, That's got something to do with crazy people; maybe I'll write a story about a crazy person some day. I told them to sign me up." Long story short, he got hooked on psychology and is now a professor at Harvard, winning awards for his research, and has written a book. Not science fiction, though!
To me, the most wonderful thing about both Gillian Lynne and Dan Gilbert is that they both got to pursue their passion. The scary thing is that the conventional route was just rubbish at getting them there, and they could so easily have missed it. Yes, Dr Gilbert ended up in academia, which is not exactly unconventional, but he's only there because he wants to be there. It was a choice he made. None of those "ten-year plans" kinda stuff, where you plot to climb up the career ladder simply because it's there and that's what others expect of you.
Among my circle of friends I am one of the most unusual ones, having studied law, worked in journalism, then admin, then moved into teaching. I was determined to find my passion, and refused to settle for "a job". But I suspect that many people settle, not least because it's scary to go out into the unknown and deal with the uncertainty of being able to earn a living doing something new, but also because many of them simply do not know where their passion lies. I mean if you take Dr Gilbert for example, he certainly didn't have any inkling that he was going to discover the spark that would drive him for the rest of his life when he signed up for that psychology course!
I'm saddened by the fact that our schools and our education systems do not do much to celebrate the individual or help children develop as individuals. We don't help them to discover and nurture the unique talents that might help them become successful in the future. One reason for this is that our definition of "success" is so narrow. As Sir Robinson says, "Our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability. And there's a reason: the whole system... came into being to meet the needs of industrialism. So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas: Number one, that the most useful subjects for work are at the top... the second is academic ability, which has really come to dominate our view of intelligence because... the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not beause the thing they were good at at school wasn't valued or was actually stigmatised."
We tend to view white-collar professionals as more "successful"; this is mostly based on the size of their paycheques and the material things that they own. But I've often wondered: if that is the ultimate most desirable goal for everyone, who will help me fix my car when it breaks down? You never hear anyone say, "I want to be a mechanic"; people say, "I want to be an engineer." And if a kid were to say to his teacher that he wanted to be a mechanic, she might very well tell him he was aiming too low, or that he could do better for himself. But if no one wanted to take on blue-collar jobs, I think the world as we know it would collapse. Whereas if there weren't any white-collar workers, I daresay the world would still trundle on happily without too much interruption.
They stood outside the room and watched as Gillian began dancing to the music. The doctor turned to the mother and said, "Mrs Lynne, Gillian isn't sick -- she's a dancer. Take her to a dance school."
And her mother did.
"We walked in this room, and it was full of people like me: people who couldn't sit still, people who had to move to think," Gillian recalled.
In the end she became a soloist with the Royal Ballet Company, eventually founding her own dance company and going on to choreograph and direct shows on film, television and stage -- including Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats and Phantom of the Opera. (Here's her list of achievements, if you're interested.)
What fascinates me about this story is that it could so easily have gone the other way. If her parents and teachers and the doctor had tried to push her into the conventional "student" mould, none of this might have happened. As the storyteller (Sir Ken Robinson) noted, "Someone else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down."
Sometimes I wonder how many of our students we are doing a disservice to by expecting them to fit into our "assembly line" system of education. How many of them would be outstanding or do great and wonderful things if they weren't trying so hard to fit into the accepted mould.
And sometimes I wonder how different I might be if my parents had been able to see outside that conventional academic mould and encouraged my interest or aptitude in writing. "We didn't stop you from doing it," my dad said recently, when I mentioned that I would have appreciated more support. Well, yes, but you never seemed particularly interested in it either!
Anyway, that's pointless speculation. I was watching another TED talk last night and decided to google the speaker, psychologist Dr Dan Gilbert, to find out more about him. (By the way, you should absolutely listen to the talk -- it might change the way you make certain decisions!). I was fascinated to learn that Dr Gilbert had been a high school dropout -- I wish I knew why, I'm so curious.
The story goes that he wanted to write science fiction, so he decided to take a writing course at the local community college. But when he arrived at the college, the writing course was full and the only course still available was psychology. In his own words: "I thought, That's got something to do with crazy people; maybe I'll write a story about a crazy person some day. I told them to sign me up." Long story short, he got hooked on psychology and is now a professor at Harvard, winning awards for his research, and has written a book. Not science fiction, though!
To me, the most wonderful thing about both Gillian Lynne and Dan Gilbert is that they both got to pursue their passion. The scary thing is that the conventional route was just rubbish at getting them there, and they could so easily have missed it. Yes, Dr Gilbert ended up in academia, which is not exactly unconventional, but he's only there because he wants to be there. It was a choice he made. None of those "ten-year plans" kinda stuff, where you plot to climb up the career ladder simply because it's there and that's what others expect of you.
Among my circle of friends I am one of the most unusual ones, having studied law, worked in journalism, then admin, then moved into teaching. I was determined to find my passion, and refused to settle for "a job". But I suspect that many people settle, not least because it's scary to go out into the unknown and deal with the uncertainty of being able to earn a living doing something new, but also because many of them simply do not know where their passion lies. I mean if you take Dr Gilbert for example, he certainly didn't have any inkling that he was going to discover the spark that would drive him for the rest of his life when he signed up for that psychology course!
I'm saddened by the fact that our schools and our education systems do not do much to celebrate the individual or help children develop as individuals. We don't help them to discover and nurture the unique talents that might help them become successful in the future. One reason for this is that our definition of "success" is so narrow. As Sir Robinson says, "Our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability. And there's a reason: the whole system... came into being to meet the needs of industrialism. So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas: Number one, that the most useful subjects for work are at the top... the second is academic ability, which has really come to dominate our view of intelligence because... the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not beause the thing they were good at at school wasn't valued or was actually stigmatised."
We tend to view white-collar professionals as more "successful"; this is mostly based on the size of their paycheques and the material things that they own. But I've often wondered: if that is the ultimate most desirable goal for everyone, who will help me fix my car when it breaks down? You never hear anyone say, "I want to be a mechanic"; people say, "I want to be an engineer." And if a kid were to say to his teacher that he wanted to be a mechanic, she might very well tell him he was aiming too low, or that he could do better for himself. But if no one wanted to take on blue-collar jobs, I think the world as we know it would collapse. Whereas if there weren't any white-collar workers, I daresay the world would still trundle on happily without too much interruption.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Woohoo!
My cousin paid me a huge compliment last night - she commented that something I'd written reminded her of Neil Gaiman's work :)
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