BLOG

Bye 2011.

2012-01-01T01:50:00.001Z

2011 has come and gone. It has been a relatively uneventful year, especially when compared to topsy-turvy 2010 when things were in constant flux. Notable highlights were the Silverstone half marathon, the trips back to Singapore and to Barcelona and Scotland, and starting work at the new job.

In a sense, 2011 was built on much firmer foundations that had been built over the previous year -- a new job, new home, new licence, new lifestyle -- that I spent the year getting used to. Stability was supposed to be the reward of all that hard work, and I guess I did enjoy it for a while. But stability is like chewing gum: it's nice at first but then gets stale after a while. And one year is too long to spend chewing on the same piece.

Next year's focus will be on finding more pieces to chew. It's not going to be a pretty year by any forecast (especially the one by the Mayans), but as long as that one doesn't come true I should be fine.

Have a great 2012 everyone!

An update

2011-12-16T01:12:00.001Z

Finally got the willpower to sit myself down and blog. Things have been winding down of late due to the Christmas season so I have a bit more time on my hands (would have had more if not for those pesky e-learning courses).

Anyway much has happened since the last post. I’ve completed the 8-week induction course (my group won the case study competition – yay), and started proper project work. Right now I’m learning the ropes in business analytics; the pay might be colouring my vision a bit but I really do find it very interesting. Data visualisation seems to fit my interests perfectly, being a cross of graphic design and statistics, and when done right has that “wow” factor that makes all that routine data cleaning and crunching worthwhile.

Looking forward to the Christmas holidays, which starts the day after tomorrow through to 2012. Want to do some drawing again!

Dream

2011-08-23T08:14:00.001+01:00

Today I woke up with an inexplicable sadness, the only keepsake of a dream that had evaporated when my alarm went off.

Every departure is also an arrival

2011-08-07T21:18:00.001+01:00

A while ago, a friend of mine went on a skydiving adventure in Spain, where he completed a number of jumps to get his skydiving proficiency certificate. He told me that "after the first few jumps, you stop seeing skydiving as jumping out of a plane -- it's about entering a skydive."

I think I get it now.

After my family and friends disappeared from view as I made my way to the boarding gate, I could feel the dread of departure being replaced by the anticipation of arrival. There is my cosy room, my trusty Ford, and old friends for me when the plane doors open again. Better still, new colleagues, new experiences, and new challenges all lay ahead.

The walk to the boarding gate was a brisk one. I was no longer jumping out of the plane; I was entering the skydive.

To all the friends who I met this time back, and also to those I didn't (sorry!): Thank you for a great time and reminding me where home really is. Till next time, when we will all have new tales to regale each other with.

Yet another goodbye

2011-08-06T21:15:00.001+01:00

In less than 10 hours I shall be on my way to London. Not going 'back' to London, but simply going there. 'Back' is reserved for Singapore only.

As much as I dread leaving behind friends and family, I think what JY said is true (as always): Singapore is 650 sq km of comfort zone, and we only have this period to pull ourselves away from it for personal growth. If and when we finally decide to uproot ourselves from our jobs and return home sometime in the near/distant future, we'll probably never leave again.

This has been an awkward homecoming of sorts, since nothing much happened between now and the previous one. The next one will be better.

Hungry Ghost Festival jitters

2011-08-01T16:07:00.001+01:00

(sometime at night)

JY: Your toenails are disgusting!
YH: Fine lend me your clippers I'll cut them now.
JY: No you can't cut your nails at night.
YH: Why not?!
JY: People will take the clippings to make potions.

Celebrating mediocrity

2011-07-27T17:22:00.001+01:00

One of the most powerful lines I've come across comes from, ironically, a kid's film. In The Incredibles, Mr Incredible tells his wife that they shouldn't be restricting their kids from showing off their superpowers and joining society in 'celebrating mediocrity'. That sentence struck me pretty powerfully, and has remained with me since.

It seems that mediocrity has been ingrained in me since young, through both peer and parental pressure. Good grades, good schools, good job -- and when they were achieved, all I felt after the initial euphoria was a feeling that I was celebrating mediocrity. Why are we so content to play the game instead of changing it? Why do we blindly accept the rules instead of challenging them, and in so doing elevate ourselves to the level of those who make them?

Looking at the bigger picture, why are we not working towards solving the big problems? Child mortality, human trafficking, absolute poverty and other evils remain the niche domain of activists and development economists, while the best minds are preoccupied with playing a complicated game of numbers to the benefit of the people who least need it, and to the detriment of those already in trouble.

Maybe it's because mediocrity is so selfishly alluring -- a bigger screen on the latest phone, a higher pay that allows for a bigger mortgage -- while greatness demands so much sacrifice. And so we continue on like sheep, allowing ourselves to be led by the few shepherds and sheepdogs, all the while knowing that if we all acted together we could bring them to their knees, and all the while doing nothing about it.

A thousand mile journey begins with a single step.

Retaliation

2011-07-23T17:27:00.001+01:00

9/11 -- Bush: "We will hunt you down."
22/7 -- Stoltenberg: "We will retaliate with more democracy."

That's how you turn loss into victory. Amidst their tragedy the Norwegians have something to be proud about.

A short update

2011-07-10T16:49:00.001+01:00

It's difficult to start blogging again after a long hiatus. Lots of things have happened even though it was supposed to be a lull period before work starts: finishing up the illustrations for the book draft, volunteering, organising SUKA events, researching property, etc.

That said I still had free time left over which I spent with JY. We made a number of short trips to Spain and Italy and explored various parts of the UK on our weekends. Then there were the Groupon deals -- mostly food, and also a Segway rally experience that we enjoyed (at least I did). Then there was the molecular gastronomy experience at the Fat Duck which wiped out all our Groupon savings and more besides. The rest of the time was spent just hanging out with each other at home, playing Monopoly Deal and multiplayer games on our phones, which made sure that there was always something to look forward to everyday.

Although this period has been a relatively uneventful one (compared to the crazy days of university), it was time well spent. With both of us starting work at the same time, in jobs that will demand long working hours and frequent travel, who knows when we would have the opportunity to enjoy each other's company like this again.

Reminiscence

2011-04-09T07:45:00.001+01:00

Blogging because I can't sleep.

5 hours ago I was lying in bed while my mind was wandering elsewhere (as usual). But this time it decided to park itself in 2007, my first year at university, and suddenly three years' worth of memories flooded my thoughts and jarred me fully awake.

I knew I had no hope of sleep then, not with the musty smell of 163 Greenwood Court in my nose, my housemate's Geordie accent in my ears, and a wild flurry of images - all coloured by the warm glow of reminiscence - jostling for attention in front of my mind's eye. Memories of new worlds, failed conquests, of absent friends and the brash ignorance of youth...those were a crazy three years indeed.

I wonder how everyone is doing?

Thoughts and prayers

2011-03-12T11:00:00.001Z

for the people of Japan. Ganbatte kudasai.

Underground Riddle - SOLVED!

2011-03-09T23:21:00.001Z

I was the cause of great troubles,
yet, resting among leaves, I did nothing wrong.
After much waiting I was taken in hand,
passed from one to another.
Broken I moved beyond sharp barriers
and was cradled in wetness, mashed to pulp.
Soon I entered a dark tunnel
where bathed in acids I altered my being.
But what I entered I also altered,
bringing light where there had been darkness.
I brought strife where there had been peace,
pain where there had been comfort.
My journey ended in the place of corruption
but by then I had changed the world.

- George Benson, Poems on the Underground

This riddle had been puzzling me for weeks every time I saw it on my tube journeys; I would spend the entire tube journey thinking of possible answers. My girlfriend saw it once and got the answer before the end of the 15-minute journey. I’d like to think we solved it as a team (and hopefully preserve some shred of my dignity) but it’s up to you to judge.

The discussion went something like this:

JY: Look, riddle!

YH: Ya I’ve seen it a few times -- the best answer I can come up with is paper.

JY: … (brows furrowed) It’s obvious that it is food. Sharp barriers means teeth.

YH: That makes the dark tunnel the stomach! Stomach acids!

(Lots of discussion of how it made sense that the answer was something that was eaten)

YH: The answer should be a historical event, something momentous that happened once and it was because something was eaten.

JY: (without skipping a beat) The apple in the Bible?

So there you have it. The riddle that has been puzzling me for weeks solved in 15 minutes by my girlfriend, who found the answer ‘obvious’. Not since the Paris marathon when I was overtaken by three grannies in a row has my pride taken such a hit.

Back in London

2011-03-05T17:00:00.000Z

As much as I complained about the crazy gradients, I missed cycling through the rolling hills of Scotland as soon as I alighted the bus -- one more person crammed into the overcrowded streets of London.

Random memory

2011-02-28T16:21:00.001Z

Enjoying some fantastic views of the Scottish countryside on my bicycle. A random memory just popped in my head as a flock of birds flew past: the song that the birds sang every morning outside my window when I was in primary school, living at Gilman Heights. It went something like this: cheep chirp CHIRPP chirpchirpchirp chirrrrp chirpchirpchirp chirrrp and then looped again and again. Pretty random but I decided to stop cycling and blog it down, because I actually miss it quite a bit.

Away for a week

2011-02-26T07:41:00.001Z

Blogging this onboard the easyBus. I'm heading towards the northernmost tip of Britain,
where I will be supporting Andy Jackson in the first leg of his epic run through the entire length of Britain. Any support will be greatly appreciated (especially towards the £250,000 fundraising target for Children with Leukaemia) -- head over to his website to see how you can contribute!

New year, new project

2011-01-18T08:20:00.001Z

Hopefully coming to a bookstore near you.

hap·pi·ness (n.)

2011-01-04T18:56:00.001Z

The pursuit of happiness begins with defining it. We each have our own ideas about bliss, mental pictures of what would make us smile or give us satisfaction: a new dress, a sunset, a goal met.

I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of happiness. I remember an assignment in primary school when we had to write down our ambition and draw a picture: mine said “I want to be a happy man when I grow up” with a picture of a smiley face next to it. I can’t remember what the teacher’s reaction was, but I like to think that it was one of those “wisdom from the mouths of babes” moments which give adults pause for reflection. (She probably just gave me a C and moved on to the next one -- it was quite a badly-drawn smiley face. I remember my classmate had a really nice astronaut.)

My interest in the topic of happiness continued all the way to university, where I studied it from an economic standpoint, and chose one of the pioneers of happiness economics to be my supervisor. Why didn’t the Americans, the Japanese, and the Chinese become happier over their individual “glory periods” when their countries enjoyed economic success? Why did most lottery winners end up wishing they never won? Why do people who reach incredible heights of success commit suicide?

Perhaps we should go back to basics, back to defining what makes us happy. We can start by boiling down our ideas of happiness into their essence – the needs that drive them. Although our individual ideas of happiness can take on vastly different forms, our basic needs are the same: borrowing from Maslow, they are self-actualisation, esteem, love, security and physiological. A new gadget boils down to satisfying a need for esteem, a higher salary the need for security. Our needs underpin our wishes, our desires, our hopes and dreams.

Viewing happiness as the fulfilment of a need has been a liberating paradigm shift. It feels like being elevated to a higher level of consciousness of myself. The allure of many a thing has diminished after I understand exactly what part of me they are tempting, which usually leads to the subsequent realisation that that particular thing doesn’t actually meet that need at all. Ever bought something that was so overwhelming when it wasn’t yours and underwhelming when it was?

Another insight is the recognition of the danger of our physiological needs. These are a cluster of short-lived, high-satisfaction desires: food, sex, sleep, et cetera. These are the “drugs” of the lot. If we look at the usual suspects behind unhappiness, we find that they usually link back to an over-indulgence of physiological desires. Families broken over a spouse’s sexual exploits, people going bankrupt in pursuit of the physiological thrill of winning. How many have spent their lives overindulging their physiological desires, oblivious to the very end that lasting happiness cannot be obtained from them?

Resolutions version 2.011

2011-01-04T02:35:00.001Z

I have resolved to make the new year one of personal alignment: by the end of 2011 I aim to have gained or improved on a number of things: love, compassion, tolerance and contentment. (It's all quite vague but that's the case with intangibles.) The idea is to get the big things right first before I start on the small ones.

I'm currently in the midst of exploring different avenues of attaining my goals: meditation, volunteering, self-introspection, reading spiritual books and et cetera. Any advice / recommendations will be greatly appreciated.

A belated Happy New Year to all and best wishes with your NY resolutions!

A pleasant surprise

2010-11-08T01:15:00.001Z

I received an e-mail from Abu Dhabi today. The title screamed “URGENT INFORMATION REQUIRED” and it came from a Faiz Ali.

Spam probability checklist

Unnecessary caps – check

Asking for information – check

Dubious location – check

Unheard-of name – check

Opportunity to enlarge your penis – no check, but still…

I had already clicked the e-mail, ready to send it into digital oblivion, when I noticed something odd: it was addressed to my name. That’s not standard scammer procedure. I decided to give it a chance and opened the e-mail, my antivirus programs at the ready.

It turned out to be a perfectly innocuous e-mail from an office worker who wanted to do an online degree. Worried that the online university he chose may be a degree mill, he turned to……me?

Apparently my newspaper article in 2007 on fake degrees had been quite well-received on the interwebs, and had been reproduced across various websites, forums, and databases. He had come across one of those reproductions, and e-mailed me looking for advice.

Flattered that I’ve become some kind of pseudo-expert on fake degrees, I helped Faiz do some preliminary research on the university he had in mind. It turned out to be a sham. It was such a sham they even had their own sham accreditation agency to say that it wasn’t a sham (which is actually a pretty common tactic employed by degree mills).

Thanks to the so-called “piracy” of news, I was able to save someone from wasting thousands of dollars on some worthless pieces of paper. (In some cases, they even provide you with car stickers so you can proudly advertise to the world that you are a degree fraud.)

…..

Looking from a broader perspective, this episode served to remind me of one stakeholder in the online news piracy debate that has gone largely ignored: the journalists themselves. The debate so far has mostly focused on the Rupert Murdochs demanding that news should be paid for and the Chris Andersens saying that information wants to be free, but what about the people who are actually writing and reporting the news themselves?

Implications to salary aside, I think it is safe to assume that most of us want our articles to be seen by as many eyeballs as possible -- we want our words to have impact and influence. And the main determinant of accessibility for online news is, by far, price. Just charging a cent in a sea of free articles causes the number of readers you reach out to to plummet dramatically. I wonder how the Times’ journalists must feel about their readership falling 87 percent after the powers that be erected an online paywall? My guess is, probably like performers at a once-full theater that has suddenly emptied by nine-tenths.

Referring back to my own experience: if the various dubious-looking databases and forums hadn’t illegally copied my article and kept it on the interwebs, my painstaking work would have disappeared after my newspaper had taken it down from their website. I wouldn’t have been able to warn people out there about these frauds, and somewhere in Abu Dhabi a man would be driving a car with the drivers behind him snickering at his car sticker.

So while I wish the Murdochs out there the best of luck in their search for a sustainable business model, I find it pertinent to remind them that, unlike them, news writers aren’t in it simply to make money. They are there to make a difference, to change the world, to wrest the truth from those who seek to conceal it. And even if all the news companies were to disappear one day, the news wouldn’t. There will still be the truth seekers, influence peddlers, change agents, gossipers -- and they will all be producing news, one way or another.

Confessions of a job hunter

2010-10-15T20:42:00.001+01:00

It’s been exactly one month since I handed in my notice at Luzerne. Since then it’s been a roller-coaster ride along the ups and downs of unemployment, driven by the energy of liberation, the adrenalin of the hunt, and a little bit of fear added into the mix as well.

One thing I hadn’t expected when I stopped working was that, unlike the money, the learning didn’t stop too. In fact, I learnt more over the past 30 days than I did for the previous 30, from all the networking, the skills sessions, the endless rounds of interviews, and the mind-numbing research into the industry. I even got used to wearing a tie – talk about achieving the impossible.

So for all of my friends out there who are still in university and getting ready to join The Hunt, here’s a little bit of advice that I hope will simplify what the recent deluge of fear-mongering literature has made to look like a very complex and daunting task: job-hunting.

It isn’t.

Job hunting consists of just two simple steps, in order:

1. Do everything.

Remember, job hunting is a tournament: it’s not about how good you are; it’s how good you are relative to everyone else. That means you have to do every. single. thing. that the careers website / booklet / advisor tells you to, simply because all those other graduates are doing it too. Fall short on anything – be it making a spelling error on your application form or being unprepared for a common interview question – and you become easy pickings for the HR version of Simon Cowell.

2. Do more.

After you’ve made sure you’re on par with everyone else, it’s time to step up your game. The good news is, unlike the first step where you had to do a whole list of tasks, here you only need to do one or two to stand out from the crowd. All you need is a thick skin (thankfully I was able to develop a rhino-like hide from my journalism days). Here are some of the things I’ve done that have been really, really useful:

Do some hardcore networking. That means going beyond the usual exchange of business cards, such as arranging a lunch appointment. I recently watched Wall Street 2 with a whole group of employees from one of the companies I was applying for, who had been working there for a couple of years (and so could answer my questions) and who had been perfect strangers not long ago. I learnt more about the company from the pre-movie drinks session than from the two hours I spent scouring their website.

Do something reasonably crazy. The concept of reasonable insanity is beyond my ability to describe, so I shall use a pretty ideal example: football fans. Take out the word “football” and their actions sound pretty much insane. Some of them drive for hours to watch their team lose (see the away section at Old Trafford). Me, I drove two hours to watch a company presentation video that was available online. However, that fact came in very useful after the video ended and the networking began.

Sell, sell, sell. Become your own salesman selling, well, you. The recruiter didn’t visit your campus or set up an expensive stall in the exhibition hall just to answer your questions. The answers to every relevant question you may have are probably available on the Internet anyway, and I suspect most people are just asking them to show interest. Don’t show interest: make them interested. Go there with your elevator pitch about why you are the best thing since white rice (or sliced bread if you’re European), and give it to the recruiter right off the bat. My experience selling white cups and plates (try coming up with a Unique Selling Point for that) to stuffy middle-aged hotel managers definitely helped when it came to selling myself to nice friendly recruiters.

(You may have noticed that throughout this entry I’ve rather sneakily squeezed in a few positives about myself at strategic locations. That’s selling.)

And finally,

Don’t procrastinate. That’s why I shall end off this unexpectedly long entry here.

Whatchamacallit

2010-10-07T00:00:00.000+01:00

Call it chance or fate or divine intervention;
That in the absence of any conscious decision,
You and I have crossed paths time and again
From Singapore to England to France and Spain.

Call it luck or fluke or just my good karma;
That the person who ran 26 miles with me in Barcelona,
Who casevac-ed me in the army, who helped me through school,
Was one and the same person: you.

So call us friends or buddies or perhaps even brothers;
Who have navigated through life in the company of each other;
Who dealt with together what life threw our way;
Now that we’ve reached a new milestone, I just want to say

Happy birthday.

“If you don’t get what you want…

2010-09-30T21:53:00.001+01:00

…you probably didn’t want it enough.” – Anon.

A slightly scary quote that doesn’t draw the line between constructive passion and deranged desire, but I can relate to the spirit that hard work delivers results.

It is this quote that is keeping me going as I try to break into a new world and a new level. It’s been demoralising searching for friends who have successfully entered the industry in order to get some pointers, and finding none. (The silver lining is that I now have a very respectable list of things not to do.) But that is not to say I haven’t gotten any help – I’ve managed to link up with some really nice people working within the respective companies who have given me invaluable advice.

I’ll just give it my best shot, and if it doesn’t work out at least I have no one to blame -- not even myself.

Will keep you guys updated on my progress. Hopefully there will be a lot more “!!!!!!” rather than “….”.

Breakaway

2010-09-14T13:53:00.002+01:00

The present can have a scary momentum; maybe that's why it's called current. The relationships we build, the formal and informal systems of doing things that we knowingly and unknowing create, the major and minor commitments we make - be it signing contracts to printing namecards - they build upon each other and snowball. But a strong current does not mean it will take you where you want to go. It may well take you further away from it. Doing nothing will only mean you are pulled along with the current, building more relationships and creating more systems and making more commitments, until one day you are no longer able to go against the flow.

It was time to go.

There was guilt and regret and sadness as I broke the relationship that underpinned everything. It is only a matter of time before everything else unravels and leaves me free again. I had swum against the current; I had pulled myself out of the stream.

And now, on the shore of endless possibilities once more, I feel disoriented. There is no current pushing me, nothing to dictate my daily schedule. I feel nervous, because now I have to find a new direction to plunge into. I feel afraid, because now I am alone again.

But most of all, I feel hope. I had felt hope before, while still trapped in the stream, but it was a timid and desperate hope, that things will somehow, anyhow, change.

This is different: this is powerful and radiant, a happy kind of hope. It is, I suspect, the same type of hope that has driven mankind to all progress. The hope for the better. The hope that there is something greater out there, and that by leaving everything behind we have put ourselves in reach of it.

Creepy memories

2010-09-10T23:57:00.001+01:00

This gave me the creeps, because it reminded me of the days in City Harvest. The church stood out for two things for me: its emphasis on donating money, and its emphasis on recruiting your friends and family. (There are a few other organisations in Singapore that do that as well.)

In pursuing the latter objective the church employed various tactics, one of which is similar to what Facebook is doing: make it a competition. Reward the evangelistic ones with praise and prizes. It was a game of both carrots and sticks; for example, the church made its members write down a list of friends that they are “committed” to bringing to one of the church’s services and pass it to the cell group leader, ostensibly for the church leadership to “pray” on.

Very effective, very smart, and very scary.

Ruminations on $

2010-09-02T19:10:00.001+01:00

Three months of working life have forced me to confront and challenge my perceptions of money. Whereas in school I only had to verbalise my belief, in the real world I have had to fight and defend it. What had slipped so easily off the tongue has turned out to be incredibly difficult to uphold.

The power of money lies in its ability to become almost everything. If you have enough of it, it can become a Ferrari, or a jet plane, or a house by the beach. And because money is the only quantifiable measure of the unseen qualities of objects, experiences, and even people, it becomes the de facto barometer of value.

With that power comes the ability to define. We can omit every single detail and let the price tag do the describing for us. A million-dollar car. A two-dollar shirt. Both need no further adjective for our minds to be filled with a fairly accurate idea of the object.

But the weakness of money lies wholly in the almost. I’ll leave it to all the happiness studies and famous quotes and well-worn cliches out there to flesh out the point that money cannot buy everything (a cliche in itself).

And so I stand behind my belief that money is but scraps of paper; it is spending power to buy the things that are not really important.

I guess the hard part wasn’t defining money for what it is. The hard part was - and still is - preventing it from defining me.

家

2010-07-18T23:24:00.001+01:00

A blog entry is like a photograph in words. It is a snapshot of life in one particular moment, a freeze-frame of one’s mind in a point in life. It is said that reading without understanding is like eating without digesting; perhaps the same may be said about living without putting each significant event down into black and white. And that is what motivates this entry.

Living with my boss has made me understand not just the lifestyle of a businessman, but also a man with a family (he has two toddlers). From the crying at night to the trips to the hospital to the cuddling and kissing and laughing, I realise the sacrifices that a parent must bear. Seeing parent and child, and being a person in between the two stages, I am flooded simultaneously with memories past and dreams of the future.

The paradox of wanting to both rewind and fast-forward is a strange one. But had I the power to choose I would choose the former, and give up everything I did right for the chance to correct everything I did wrong, to the people I care most about.

A breather

2010-06-23T22:37:00.001+01:00

Am blogging this from the study room in my boss’ house; have managed to finish my tasks for the day early and so am taking full advantage of my break to sit down and write down something longer than three sentences for a change.

It seems so long ago that I stepped out of the exam hall feeling lighter than I’d ever felt in the preceding months to the final exams. The feeling of liberation then is truly unforgettable, but now it seems so stale, like a yellowed photograph from a time long past.

It has actually only been two weeks since I began working full-time at Luzerne, staying over at the MD’s place learning the ropes, commuting up and down the UK meeting clients and business partners. (I’ve driven more than 2,000 miles since passing my driving test last month).

Now I really am lighter, from the 17-hour days, the skipped meals, and from carrying all those cartons of heavy chinaware to and fro. Mentally it has been even tougher, knowing that JY was in faraway Coventry and my friends were living it up celebrating the end of exams, while I worked alone in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. But at the same time, I have never felt so alive, doing real work, learning real things, and earning real money.

From making coffee for clients (I’ve made at least 30-odd cups), to delivering product samples, to stock-taking an entire storeroom, to creating invoices, to planning shipment loads, to creating marketing leaflets, I now have a faint idea of what lies under the umbrella of “doing business”. For that alone, the sacrifice has been worth it.

The Deep End

2010-06-13T20:06:00.001+01:00

You know you are learning something when trying your best still isn’t enough.

Beginning of an adventure

2010-06-06T23:46:00.001+01:00

“See you on Monday.”

End of an adventure

2010-06-04T17:00:00.000+01:00

“Put down your pens, it’s over.”

Exams begin tomorrow!

2010-06-02T20:38:00.001+01:00

Too bad there’s actually nothing there.

Best comments

2010-05-29T17:45:00.001+01:00

Elizabeth Pisani and Chris Blattman talk about the “best” blog comments they’ve received [Elizabeth’s wins hands down]. I would chip in with my two cents’ worth too except that, given the number of comments my blog has received, it would be more apt to talk about the better blog comment I’ve gotten.

Post-exam plans

2010-05-29T14:42:00.001+01:00

~~Travel around Europe~~

~~Explore UK~~

~~Return home~~

~~Prepare for graduation~~

Start work immediately.

Ruminations

2010-05-24T16:45:00.001+01:00

Everything only makes sense on the surface. Dig a little deeper – start asking the bigger questions – and the threads of logic start to unravel. If you refuse all the shallow answers and continue digging, you enter a realm where reason is irrelevant and logic is illegitimate. And that is where you find the madness that gives you peace.

"His madness keeps him sane."

"And do you think he is the only one, my sister?"

– The Sandman

[Artwork from Hiyas]

The Tide (anon)

2010-05-20T13:07:00.001+01:00

Relentless

2010-05-17T23:43:00.001+01:00

Earth spins at 1,038 miles per hour, and now I feel its unstoppable momentum.

He has just died. I need to study for exams. My phone needs charging. He has just died. I need to pay the electricity bill. The leftovers need to be put in the fridge. He has just died.

It scares me because I am now studying, my phone is being charged, the leftovers are in the fridge, and the bill has been paid. He has just died, and Earth didn’t stop to take a breather. It just kept spinning, pulling me and everyone else with it. Except him.

I knew you for only an hour, and only as an opponent on the pitch. But you will be missed. R.I.P.

#1

2010-05-16T23:55:00.001+01:00

First is always special, always memorable: the first plane ride, the first marathon, the first kiss. It doesn’t have to be the best, and most times it turns out to be the worst. But it is outstanding by virtue of it breaking new ground.

And so today another milestone is reached as I sign above the dotted line. She does a quick check, unhooks the keys from the crowded bunch, and hands them over to me. They are battered, greasy and scream “utility”, but they are the first.

As the saying goes: 马路如虎口, but today I was the tiger, albeit one with a 10-year-old 1.25cc engine.

Better late than never

2010-05-11T16:47:00.001+01:00

35 / 42.195

2010-04-11T18:19:00.000+01:00

Watching the crowd cheer the runners across the finish line was definitely more painful than the cramps that stopped me crossing it. Ironically, I learnt the most from the one marathon I didn’t manage to complete, compared to all of the previous ones I did. I guess the painful lessons are the ones you learn best.

Finally we meet again

2010-04-09T18:27:00.000+01:00

Today, I revisited a friend. She talked about the same things and didn't say anything new since we last met 15 years ago. But this time I understood her better, walking along the same narrow corridors as she did in the Secret Annexe behind the movable bookcase, and when it was time for goodbye I didn't feel that same sense of loss. Because it was now abundantly clear, from the long snaking queues and the crowded gift shop selling copies of her diary in virtually every language, that she still lives on.

Econ-men

2010-03-27T13:42:00.001Z

Tim Harford, a.k.a. The Undercover Economist, blogs about the credibility revolution that econometrics – the statistical branch of economics – is going through.

From my personal experience in the subject, for all its obscure statistical jargon, econometrics is an art; the art of arm-twisting numbers into confessing the answers you want to hear. Like any interrogator / torturer worth his salt, the econometrician has an array of tools to get his dataset to talk, each with varying degrees of invasiveness. The simple (and relatively painless) regressions not giving you the answer you want? Then subject the numbers to more sophisticated regressions such as Vector Autoregressive analysis, a technique so awful my professor discouraged its use for fear of overcomplicating things.

This brings me to my main point: Do more data, more powerful computers and more sophisticated techniques automatically lead to better credibility? The first two give you higher statistical power, which means you can be more confident in the results of your analysis, but they still fall victim to the basic and most crucial problems of statistics. And do increasingly sophisticated techniques necessarily inspire trust in readers and policy-makers? One is unlikely to be convinced by the results of a study if he does not understand the method used to derive them. And as anyone in the business of selling things should know, overcomplication is a sure-fire way of rousing suspicion. Economists too are salesmen, in the business of selling ideas and answers to the body of knowledge, and they would do well to remember that.

Déjà vu

2010-03-25T21:46:00.001Z

Today marks the end of the five-day trip to Durham and back with my dad, who is here on police business. As I write this he is driving alone to his friend’s place, where he will stay the night before boarding the plane home tomorrow.

As I watched my dad pull away and drive off into the night, I reminisced about a time when he still gave me toys and piggyback rides and sanctuary against my mother’s cane, when I would stand at the wrong side of the departure gates as he left, sometimes for months on end, and wait for the day he would return with a suitcase chock-full of magical items from faraway lands.

But this time I was the one who was away from home. And there is no more magic, or piggyback rides.