Today marks the end of my third year in University. Looking back, time really went past quickly. In a blink of an eye, here I am, having just finished my paper for HR2002, the last paper of my third year in NUS. It just seems real soon that it’ll be the fourth year, and then before I know it, it would be time for my commencement ceremony.

And it is at this stage where you stand and look back into your life and then you look forward, and you wonder, where is life going to bring you? Life was so full of hopes and dreams when you apply for the SIA scholarship, and it turns out that, hey, nobody’s really interested in a guy with a 4.61 cumulative average point, two times deans list, 4As student with 2 S papers, one distinction, one merit. You can’t even beat A level kids who don’t know what they really want. You don’t even get a chance for an interview. And yes it sucked.

So you lost direction and you wonder what’s next in life. What’s the next thing to dream about? What do you want to do? What is your life plan? And you suddenly realize, you have no idea. And successful people have an idea of what they want to do in their lives.

Anyway, I just watched an episode of “How I met your mum”, a US drama serial. In it, Barney was being his usual confident self, and then he showed a video resume, which was really nothing but it seemed impressive. In it someone asked him a question. I forgot what it was, but it involved him saying things like he goes beyond impossible, to the place where possible and impossible meet, a place called the posimpleble. Wow.

Which got me thinking about my life, and hence this blog post, and hence the title. At my crossroads, wondering where my path lies.

In less than a year it’ll be time to send out resumes, hoping to get a job before graduation, and at that time, I don’t want any more rejection. It’s going to be one whole year of preparing myself for the working world, and landing the job that I want to work for. And it begins right now, from finding out about companies and talking to people about it.

And it’ll be a journey of self-improvement. A start of a really awesome journey, beyond classrooms. I don’t know where it will take me, but I should be prepared.

Anyway its the end of the examinations, and there are things to do. Here’s my current to do list:

1. Prepare for IPPT
2. Study Japanese for the test to go on to Intemediate 2
3. Finding out about JLPT, how to go about registering, when the test is and getting ready
4. Catching back up on finance
5. Reading up on other kinds of books

There you go. A short, tentative list. And I think I’ll be ending my NextTutor site soon. The domain name is going to expire, and I think it is a little pointless for me to hold on to it. It was great whilst it lasted, its time for me to devote to another project. And it’s time for me to think what type of project I want to look for.

So there, back to some slight relaxation!

Today marks the end of EE3001 after the last ordeal, the presentation, was performed in front of the professors. I wouldn’t say I loved the way it ended, because of two reasons.

1) One of the professors said he had 3 questions, yet none of his “questions” were questions. He didn’t allow us to explain properly, and seemed to be a retort instead. He seems to be wanting to teach us instead, but its really stupid because this is a QnA and you have to let us show you what we think!

He said our marketing analysis was narrow. He didn’t want to listen to my explanation. Yes of course its narrow. We had little time, so I focused on the more important competitor’s analysis! Yes we might be better off comparing with entertainment systems instead of only dance mats, but hey, the target market is quite a niche market right? It’s not like we didn’t do the analysis. We didn’t have time to talk about so many things! Its insane. 30 minutes have to factor in Question and Answer, plus go through technical details of our product, marketing aspects and finance! How do you do a study on a feasibility of a product and really tell anyone the details in 30 minutes.

Plus he got into this stupid discussion about the finance department. Our ROI was 121% over 3 years. Meaning a 6.6% annual rate of return. We compared it to fixed deposits and risk free treasury rate (5%) and said it was a better investment. He wasn’t convinced. Fine. But you know what’s his argument is?

There are mutual funds and stocks that one can go into. And he says mutual funds give about 7% of annual returns. Why invest in our program when we can get 7%?

Omg. He didn’t want to listen to my explanation about mutual funds and unit trust, and he only wanted our Finance Manager to answer. And its really stupid. Mutual funds do not give you 7% returns, risk free. And please don’t think we have no idea what mutual funds and stocks are. I might actually have more knowledge than you in this aspect.

There are different schools of thought, so this discussion sucks because there’s no way to adequately convince anyone. But the idea is this. Mutual funds are not risk free. You do not get guaranteed returns. Much less 7%. Hello? Insurance agents are using the S&P 500 as well as the Dow Jones Industrial Average to say that they can get 9% of returns. But that’s NOT mutual funds! Mutual funds have a certain degree of risk as well. Since when does mutual funds guarantee you 7%? Insane! It’s really irritating when the professor thinks you are just not knowledgeable enough, when you could have an intellectual discussion on this topic. And stocks. Was I wrong to suggest the rates of return differ based on different people? It’s really ignorant of him to talk stocks. Warren Buffett does 20% annual rate of return. Can anyone else do that? Not many! Most people lose money and get burnt. What does this tell you? It’s really insane. Studying till a PhD in Engineering does not make you knowledgeable in Finance!

Seriously if the prof wants to make a point, at least do it convincingly. And allow us to discuss instead of shutting us up. And he’s late. What kind of prof is that.

2) The f**ked up PRC in the 2nd group. They are really assholes. Our slot was at 9am. Naturally we would be setting up and rehearsing at 8.30am. They wanted to come in and set up and rehearse also! Use your f**king brains. Soon it’ll be our presentation and you want to do all these?

And you know what makes me pissed? The PRC insist in charging into the room at 9.30am because it is their slot. Come on. It’s stupid. People are presenting halfway and you come in and disturb. Don’t you have any manners? So we kindly offered him the option to go and discuss with the professors before we began our presentation. He refused. He asked us to ask. It is NONE of my F**king business to ask for you. You go and ask it yourself. Why? No balls ah?

He kept making it seem like its our duty, but the prof came late what? We didn’t purposely not start. Stop making it seem like you’re the victim and we’re not. Another asshole that’s wasting a slot in the university.

Finally he grew balls and walked in to ask the prof. The prof asked him to leave and said he’ll call them in when its their turn. Asshole. If they charged in at 9.30am, it’s going to look so bad on them la. And disturbing presentations. I’ll so love to open the door and throw coffee inside at 9.45am so they get a huge shock. Assholes.

And sometimes people wonder why you just get so biased against them. There are alot of PRC friends that are nice. But it’s really hard to remain unbiased towards those you do not know because generally some of them like to spoil our mindset of them.

If they want respect, stop acting like assholes. And if they haven’t realized yet, the stupid NEA advertisements about littering and spitting is obviously targeted towards some people!

Overall the presentation went well. Not as smooth as the laptop died halfway due to no batt. I wonder why we didn’t switch on the AC. But its a mistake and we handled it quite well. Kudos to Yanling, who was nervous but still managed to remember the stuff she needed to say without using the slides. Thankfully Bernard manage to save his com and put the slides up right before Finance ended and the conclusion begins. It was a cock up on our part, but luckily we were cool. It’s another thing to learn, that is to expect such problems and prepare for them.

And I asked Tai Man to make a joke which goes like this when its his turn to present the conclusion: “I can assure all of you that Mfeel will not die on us like that”. Which made the professors smile. Love this sentence to defuse some tension. It’s great.

Ah well. EE3001 is over. Hopefully we did well for the presentation. Hoping to get an A for this module. Really needed that A.

Time to continue for HR2002 and we’ll then be free of the semester on Thursday!

I created “The Box Theory” today whilst talking to Ko Ko. And the theory goes like this:

We all have a box that our past experiences and ideas helped to shape. And other people have their own boxes, and they are of a different size. Even within different categories of ideas, our own boxes have different sizes.

Take for example in the field of design of webpages. Someone with experience has a bigger box than someone who doesn’t. And hence, when the experienced guy thinks within the box, to the inexperience person, it is out of his box already. That is because the designed that the experienced guy had seen helped to widen his box. Get it yet?

Hence in different areas, other people may or may not have a bigger box than you. We always have to get more experience to shape our box and enlarge it. Such that even when we think inside the box, it’s outside of someone else’s box.

Do you have a moment that defines you? A moment when people will look back and think about it, and say, that was his wow moment? Something amazing that happened that left people feeling that you’re great in that particular thing that you did? Something that people is going to give you recognition for?

Well. I think I just had that wow moment this afternoon, during the rehearsal of my presentation with the professor who’s the supervising tutor for my project. Although the better wow part would be for Monday’s presentation, when the professor said he enjoyed my presentation, I felt a sense of pride and satisfaction. He did not give me any comments to improve, but did give my other team mates things to improve on.

To be fair, I practised for the past 5 days, and they didn’t had the time to. Hence, things like them looking at the screen was due to their lack of rehearsals than their presentation skills. But for the record, it made me happy that I got recognized by the professor, not that I was better or what. Cause it does not mean I’m a better speaker or anything.

I had great help from Steve Jobs. This guy is amazing. I saw the book, “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs” for a long long time already, and for this presentation, I got Ko Ko to buy it on my behalf, so I had time to read and digest. This guy is the master of presentations, and it is not hard to see why. Instead of boring presentations with lots of words, his slides are simple. Nothing fanciful. Yet you understand the main point of each slide. You follow his presentation and you are captivated by his charm.

Yes. He put up a great show. And that is what a presentation is all about. A great show. To me, my presentation is like my own orchestra. I became my own Chiaki senpai when I conducted my own orchestra for this presentation. A click of a button and the words appear, the magical things to say and many other things. The visual effects, the one main point for the slide that makes it clear what my point is. The uncluttered environment so people do not read the slides and not be able to catch on what I am saying.

Yes. I performed an orchestra to my liking. It was the best moment of my presentation life, and I hope I can be better for Monday’s presentation. Yes, its amazing and I am awesome. Ko Ko said she was touched by my presentation. The highest honour, I guess, for any presenter. To have people understanding what you are saying, and enjoying the entire process, I guess, it is the best gift a presenter can get.

And so what are the magical points I followed Steve Jobs?

1. I let my audience see my work flow. Before I began, I listed out the 3 main things I was going to talk about.
2. I kept things to a maximum of 3. There’s 3 main things I talk about. Within competitors, there are 3 competitors. Within consumers, there are 3 people representing the target market. Within course of action, there are 3 unique and interesting aspects of the marketing strategies. The rule of 3 is so great, it makes people retain the vital information because there’s only 3 things to remember.
3. I introduced my antagonist, which, in this case, is the competitors. And at the end of every competitor’s analysis, I hit them hard with a point that showed how my product was clearly superior.
4. One main point per slide. The one thing I wanted the audience to take away. I kept the main points and ditched my supporting points. And I did not use any bullets. NONE.
5. I used plenty of visuals. I didn’t let my audience read my text for long. They had time to listen to me, not to digest words on screen.
6. There are plenty of eye contact, as I had prepared my script well.
7. The entire thing is a show I created. From designing the flow on analog (paper), to thinking of how to bring the point across before finally designing the slide, the whole thing to me is a masterpiece.
8. Rehearsing and rehearsing. That’s the main point to any presentation. You just got to keep rehearsing so you know your stuff well. And then maintaining eye contact is a lot more easier.
9. And you must have a lot of enthusiasm. Job’s presentation is amazing cause he is brimming with enthusiasm. He clearly enjoyed his products. And I enjoy my presentation too. I enjoy sharing what my marketing department has done, and the audience can feel it too. They can feel your passion and enthusiasm, and this allows them to enjoy a great presentation.

And this is just how you can have a great presentation too.

Hopefully, when people think back about the times they had with me in University, they’ll look back at this moment and say “He’s a great presenter”. And this moment will forever be etched into their mind, redefining who I am and pushing me to glorious heights.

Just a little bit more. Chotto.

And the sem would be over. In about 2 weeks to be precise. One week to reading week, and my presentation and examination for HR2002 is also on reading week. I have to start studying for my HR2002 and making sure I understand my concepts. No time to lose.

Just last Friday my team submitted the 248 page report. We worked and slogged hard for it to be what it was. I remember sleeping at 3am cause I was waiting to see the final product. End up, I slept and let them continue cause it seems ok. In a way it was pretty frustrating because I woke up and there were problems.

It seems that I had forgotten to upload the cover page I made. Ko Ko made another one, but its not as impressive since its not the photoshop version where you can scale it nicely.

And when I reach the office I find that the things I had asked my group mates to edit weren’t edited. I thought it was too late since the cd has been burnt. Plus my surname was spelt wrongly, without a G. So pissed. Luckily they re-edited it and burnt it again.

But it was not to be. On saturday we still discovered errors. The analysis they stayed past 3 to rewrite was not there. The old analysis was there. So we’re praying that it would be noticed. After all, its a 248 page report and nobody would read the whole thing, right?

Anyway what’s done is done. No point raising fingers. Everyone was too tired anyway. And there was miscommunication. Next time we should maintain a to do list. But there’s no next time anyway.

So today is the time to work on my presentation slides, modelled from Steve Job’s presentation. Simple, uncluttered and I have a main point that hits the mark at every major slide. Just got a few more stuff to polish up, and it’s time to start the rehearsals.

Hopefully it’ll be polished and slick. An entirely new presentation experience that wows. First time trying it off. Good luck to me trying to pull it off. But once I can do that, it will change the way I do presentations in the future.

Good luck to my group, I guess. Semester’s ending. The final dash. Anyone with me?

Gosh. I had been in school in the evening till night. Thankfully a friend drove me home, else I might have missed the last train if I had to take one. Or a taxi and spend more money.

Theres another meeting tml. To tie up the loose ends and look at finance depts work. Today was hectic for finance dept because they realized that they needed to account for many additional things. As a result, they need to redraft all the financial tables. So they are having a tough time.

As for marketing, which is my dept, our part is more or less done. The group, less finance dept, vet through the marketing parts and removed several parts that were not needed. Haha. I have to leave the rest to Koko as I cant do any project work during normal working hours. So she has to tweak everything and do it at an efficient and acceptable way.

Today koko surprised me. I had originally asked her to help me purchase a book on the presentation secrets of Steve Jobs. But considering how difficult it is, I said Ill get it myself. But she got it anyway cause I needed it to prepare for my presentation on the 19th. Ill be giving my best presentation so far in my life. And itll only go uphill from here. Ill make so many great presentations that Ill be a great person to have on any team. And its all part of the dream of te future.

Im really tired as it has been a long day at work and I have to go to school for more project meetings and work. Its really very time consuming and energy zapping. Got to go and sleep now before I doze off.

Just wanted to share this photo I created using the apps. Its from the 2nd Nodame movie where Nodame and Chiaki senpai are together at a bus stop.

It has been a busy few weeks, with many events happening in my life. I finally had the chance to sleep for more than 6 hours in a few weeks, so this gives you a rough gauge of how zombie-fied I probably look right now. I’m just glad that everything is going to an end soon, and my semester will be over on 22nd April. Then I’ll just have to concentrate on my Industrial Attachment, and I would be able to do the things that I want to do.

School
School is taking up all of my weekends and evenings. For about a whole month, I have been going home to work on the Marketing aspect of the project, and I have to source for the prices of pursuing certain marketing strategies. It is very difficult to get a rough gauge of prices from the marketing firms because their prices are “commercially sensitive”, as they call it. The internet does not show much prices either, so it has been quite tough.

Marketing also means I have to write a lot of text, covering things like product, price, placement, promotions etc. And about marketing segmentation blablabla. I have to think of how everything flows, and write more text.

HR2002 is also tough. Actually I spent far less time on HR2002 than EE3001, and we split the work amongst the team members for HR2002. Hence I only did one small component. Editing was the issue though. Everyone sat around, discussed each paragraph and try to edit the sentence structure. Or choose to remove or modify existing paragraphs. Not something to my liking.

I don’t like to follow such methods actually. I prefer that everyone came with whatever they have already done, and then discuss. I prefer doing the editing at home and then passing around for everyone to edit until the final part where we come and agree upon the edits.

I hated it when one of the group members has really bad english. So much so that you don’t really get what exactly the main point is, and then she adds in new input on the day of the edit? It’s irritating cause her input is good, and it means you have to find a way to add in. Imagine the rest of us thinking how to phrase the points to add it in. It’s like helping her do her job, because the rest of us already added our points in nicely.

Eventually, I left Taiman to find a way to add in those points, whilst Nelson and I just continued the editing for the rest of the parts. After it was done, I went to make the slides for the presentation. Everyone of us didn’t want to come back on Sunday again to work on this.

I sure hope I’ll get a decent grade for HR2002, considering that not much effort was placed into it. I can just rely on myself for the remaining 50% due for the exam.

Car Accident
I got into an accident along AYE on April Fool’s day. I didn’t brake on time and my car kissed the car in front of me. I spent countless nights not sleeping peacefully cause it bothered me that it wasn’t settled yet. There was this fear of getting conned when the person goes to repair his car. And there is this fear the price is going to be high. And this is my first time.

Frankly it was quite shocking. You don’t have time to react and you just sit there stunned. Cause you caused trouble to someone else. It’s not like accidentally kissing the pillar at the car park. This time there’s someone else involved. Anyone would be unsettled.

Luckily it was settled yesterday when the person went to the workshop. It cost me 80 dollars. Luckily it wasn’t a huge sum of money, else I probably would not have much money left to go for my grad trip.

I felt so alone the entire time, I thought how wonderful if there was someone who cared. Ah well.

I was playing with the iPhone today and trying to find apps that allow one to view video streaming for dramas. However I came to a blog that shows some really nice apps that edit photos. Since I tried them, I thought I should just blog about it via the wordpress for iPhone app!

The first app I downloaded was Free Photo Filters. This app takes the photos you have in the phone and converts them into different modes like lomography, polarising, black and white as well as retro effect.

The first photo I had was this:

After applying the black and white filter:

Then I used an app called Puri! Lite which is used to attach those 可愛い photo sticker booth stuff like heart shapes, text balloons and other stuff.

Hence it is like this:

The final app I used was the Polarize app. Its a very simple application that converts your photos into a Polaroid photo and you can add text to the bottom part. Sadly it only seems to support English. I couldn’t type Japanese characters inside. Haha.

So this is my final photo after using 3 apps, which are all free. Haha.