Personal Blather!

I've always wondered why everyone migrated over from ICQ to MSN a couple of years back. I liked ICQ, and the only pro I could see from MSN was the fact that it was fast. A few years down, MSN is now SO BUGGY that it hurts just to use it. It's riddled with connection issues, and it's SLOW as ever. ICQ had a lot of cool features which MSN had to emulate, and when it had 'successfully' done so, it turned out to be clunkier than ever.

Somehow, MSN seems to be having connection problems once every other week. Why everyone still insists on using it is beyond me. Losing the fastest means of communication within hall is frankly, irritating.

Moreover, the amount of memory such an application takes to run is astounding. Add the fact that it's laden with advertisements which you never ask for, Microsoft sure has gone out of its way to make this as difficult to use as possible.

But like everything Microsoft, people stick to it because of familiarity. It's too comfortable to start migrating away from something so familiar, and we're all resistant to change anyway. That explains why although I'd very much prefer GTalk (It's not only faster, it's a lot more lightweight and has less connection issues too), I still have my MSN. I'm looking forward to the day I can get rid of it totally, and that'll be the day mass migration takes place again... this time from MSN to GTalk.

So, what are you waiting for? If you're already on GTalk, add me at geraldchow[at]gmail.com

MSN can go die!

Today is flag day, where all the NUS students go throughout the nation collecting donations for charity. Noble intentions indeed, until I realised that NUSSU happens to be one of the beneficiaries.

I have nothing against charitable acts, but it appalls me how completely ignorant and selfish NUSSU really is. Yes, they're the highest student body in the whole of NUS, but one really wonders whether they understand ALL aspects of university life to be making certain decisions. Don't they realise that deciding to hold an event externally is an undue strain financially on other student bodies? Do they not also realise that as much as they want to go 'outside' they should at least have rendered some form of help to the struggling student bodies that are forced to follow their whims?

I'm pretty sure they don't.

Accusations of my credentials would surely ensue. Criticism, however, should be noted constructively. To put it plainly:

THE STUDENTS DON'T LIKE WORKING THEIR ASSES OFF SO THAT NUSSU CAN LOOK GOOD

Rag and flag is one of the most important events in NUS, though many will fail to see why. It may have started out with very good intentions, goals and visions, and I applaud the founders for such an event. Unfortunately, in recent years, it's become a debacle. Instead of the noble causes it stands for, it's now considered a hassle of a tradition in which STUDENTS largely couldn't care less for the things they're doing. Ask them the night before flagging if they can name even 3 of the beneficiaries for which they will be working hard for, and I'd bet 99 out of 100 would fail. They simply don't care.


It's about prestige and money. To NUSSU, a successful event like this would mean a good resume for their members, and lots of funding for their union. To the halls of residences, it's a way to show just how 'great' the hall is, ignoring the fact that thousands of dollars are thrown into the event and causing huge losses. The money would've been better off somewhere else. While there may be a few who actually still believe in the spirit of Rag and Flag, it's lost on the huge majority of students.

Students nowadays are selfish and narcissistic. A blatant generalisation perhaps, but by and large true nonetheless. Show me a student who cares for more than solely their own future or their own things and I'll show you a student with a vision for great things. They work hard, true, but only to improve their chances of 'success', defined in whatever way they want. I've met countless of people who couldn't give 2 hoots about helping others unless it's convenient and doesn't stretch beyond dropping that 10 cents into a tin can. There have been way too many articles about this issue so I won't embark on it.

I really wonder what rag and flag stands for to the students of NUS, and especially to the committee members of NUSSU. Prove me wrong, please, and show me that you're all actually DOING all this because you REALLY CARE for all those people in need, and not for some selfish reason. Prove me wrong by showing you actually want to help ALL student bodies, including halls and faculty clubs, to be able to put up excellent floats and performances for the public. Prove me wrong by doing SOMETHING apart from sitting on your high horse, telling everyone else what to do and ignoring cries for help financially or logistically. Most of all, show EVERYONE that you guys are not narcissistic blockheads looking for a good resume which reads "The one who brought Rag day out to Padang was me, me, ME, ME, ME! ME! ME!!!!111"

Technorati Tags: NUSSU, rag, flag, NUS

Everything happens for a reason... or so I thought...

Sometimes, when things happen to you, perhaps you should just take it at face value and simply ignore it and pretend it didn't happen. Some things happen to you prompting you to make decisions which you regret, so it would seem wise to just shrug off what happened and carry on as if it didn't.

Sometimes, even though you may have thought through everything carefully and tried to do the best thing at that point, it somehow seems to turn out bad. You might have taken the time to really sit down and consider the options, but STILL make a foolish decision.

Sometimes, you happen to be the person who does this most of the time.

Sometimes, you wished for more wisdom.

Sometimes, you wished you weren't you...

Here's a copy of an email I sent to AnimeTech:

Although I enjoy buying a lot of anime from your shops, I am terribly disappointed in your sales staff.

Today, I visited your Mid-Valley branch. I was very interested in getting the original Fate/Stay Night DVDs, especially after enquiring about the price. Unfortunately, your staff told me that it was sold out, which was perfectly fine.

I then asked her if she could check with your other outlets to see if they have any in stock, and if they did, if they could reserve it for me. She left and I continued browsing, and after some time, she came back informing me that the Sunway Pyramid branch and Centerpoint branch had a copy.

I asked her to reserve them for me, and left my contact number. She asked when I would be collecting, and I told her probably tomorrow or the day after.

Later in the day, I decided I couldn't wait and headed to Sunway Pyramid. On arrival, I enquired about my reservation only to find that that outlet too was sold out. Moreover, the only other branch which had a copy had already reserved it.

I asked as to why I had not been informed, but was told that since I specified that I would be collecting tomorrow, they had yet to inform me.

As a customer, I felt very cheated of my time and effort. I SPECIFICALLY enquired to find out if any branch still had a copy, and was INFORMED by YOUR STAFF that these two branches did, and that I had placed a reservation for a copy. She should not have misled me to believe that there was one when there was, in fact, none available.

Furthermore, the attitude of your staff in Sunway Pyramid was condascending and totally unhelpful. She was neither sympathetic nor apologetic. She did not even TRY to find out if there was any other way she could help me, or tell me when the next shipment would be coming.

I am a firm supporter of legitimate Anime sales and see your company as one of the few legitimate outlets where Malaysians can purchase quality original products. This incident has however, left me with a bitter feeling.

Your sales staff is your contact point between your company and your customers. It would be a shame if your company's good reputation is undermined by the impoliteness of your sales staff. A company of your reputation and stature should know better.

I feel that this matter needs to be brought to your attention. I hope that in future, incidents like this would not happen again, although I suspect you may be seeing significantly less of my patronage.

The past week or so has been rather hectic. Having a wedding is no joke, and I really underestimated the amount of preparation and time required to have everything running smoothly. My sister's been busy running everywhere making sure everything is perfect, and things haven't slowed down since. We went back to Sitiawan for a dinner on Saturday, rushed to Ipoh the next day for another dinner back there, then came back to KL this morning, only to see my sister and her 'husband' (well, technically not yet, but about there) rush off to meet some people to finalise some details for the actual wedding this coming weekend.

Me? I finally got my hands on a computer with an internet connection.

I liked my suit. I think it was a good fit and a good price. Surprisingly, I managed to get one off the shelf even though my build don't really suit my height.

Of course, the shining jewel of the weekend was the beautiful bride. I've never seen my sister so 'dressed up' before. I read the newspapers this morning, and there was a photo of some Miss Chinese Cheongsam something... seriously wondered why my sister never bothered to join; She would've crushed the opposition. (Or maybe her not so strong grasp of mandarin kept her away).

The collection of 'Ang Pows' (thanks to all the generous attendees), turned out to be an interesting event in itself. I guess it's practical to count up the amount and pay off the restaurant that very night itself so that we don't carry the burden of having quite a bit of cash on us. Still, it's not everyday you see such a huge stack of 50s, even if it disappears into the restaurants' cash registers seconds later.

So far, it's only been preliminary. The final hurdle will come this Saturday, and it's going to be a VERY LONG day. It's her day, so we'll all try to make it great for her.

Oh, my turn will not be coming soon in the unforeseeable future.

This phrase certainly sounds like a cliche, but I've learnt that all the 'cliches' are actually very good learning points, if we actually take the time to sit down and reflect upon them.

Life is a very bumpy ride, with a lot of ups and downs, and plenty of monotonous straights in between. We can't help but think about certain things and worry over them; It's kind of our nature. Fortunately, sitting down thinking and twiddling your thumb alone will not help you solve your problem, but it would be effective if the worrying actually yielded action and change. That's where this cliched saying comes in.

If you stop to think about it, it's funny how we actually like to grab on to our problems and try to solve them with our own strength, and then blame God when we fail. The power behind this phrase lies in the fact that there are a LOT of things that we cannot control, and YET we end up being frustrated and worried over. Things like whether the weather would be good. Things like how the other party thinks or would respond. Things like what other people think about us, or how a scenario may be played out. The things which we CAN control, God expects us to do our best at managing it, but He DOESN'T ask that of things which we cannot control. These are the things we HAVE to LET GO.

To "do all the things we can do, and having done all else, to stand", is really something that isn't easy to do. Just as a student has studied hard for an exam, and has studied what he/she believes need to be studied, it is not easy to walk into the exam hall fully letting go and trusting in God, because he/she may never know if he/she might've missed some part or is unable to recall some information. We will always have our doubts and worries and reservations. This is where God needs to come into the picture.

I thank God that I've learned how to trust God more, even as He's been bringing me up to another level. My quiet time has never been more fulfilling, and I really feel that these few weeks I've been walking closer and closer with Him. This has resulted in me being able to simply trust Him in a lot of areas which I previously haven't been able to. I simply lay my worries, fears, doubts, uncertainties and reservations at His feet everyday, and even though I might sometimes pick them up unknowingly, I ALWAYS put it down again. This frees my mind to think about other things, to focus on things which I CAN do, instead of things which I have no control over.

Trusting God is not an easy thing. It gets harder as the thing you entrust to God gets more and more precious to you. Still, I've learned that you simply HAVE to do it, and it brings you much freedom. Let's put it this way, if this matter is God's will for you, it will work out right since you've done all you can, and you're putting your trust in Him. On the other hand, if things don't work out as you'd like, then that really isn't your fault... it's just probably God telling you His will is different, or the timing is off, or you need to hang in there a bit more.

I'll quote a verse which will help us see this clearly:

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

As much as I hold my country in high regard, there are a good number of things which I seriously feel it is lacking, and that's to say their not even TRYING to improve. Right now, as I am typing this up, I'll mention that it took me a whole 15 minutes to get to this point, where I can actually write something to post. It's one of the biggest thing I dislike about coming back home. To put it succinctly,

Malaysia internet connectivity hasn't improved since the invention of the 56k modem.

To its credit, Malaysia was one of the first country to have internet connection in the region. Unfortunately, just like every other 'project' in the country, that's as far as it gets. Since then, we have progressed into 'broadband' internet, or so we thought.

The unfortunate fact is that service providers here couldn't care less about improving their service or actually offering services that benefit users. The only widespread broadband service in the country is Streamyx, which has a reputation for being extremely sluggish, bad support, less than satisfactory bandwidth and even worse uptime. It is unfortunately, one of the only available and affordable avenues for 'broadband' access in the country, and everyone has to subscribe to it, like it or not.

While I've been away in Singapore the past six years, the service has NOT improved at all. If anything, the years have made it worse, since they keep asking for more and more people to sign up for it, but do not upgrade the infrastructure to support the additional users, resulting in a bottleneck in connection speed for ALL users. God only knows where the money subscribers have been paying have gone to since it's obviously not used to increase the reliability and speed of these connections.

Personally, I'm using an alternative 'broadband' solution offered by Jaring called SOMA. To be perfectly honest, it's pathetic. I can't even get a decent connection to do my holiday assignments, let alone try an MMOG. Loading pages take ages, sometimes taking even longer than the good old 56k. Perhaps it has to do with the location of the wireless modem, but the fact is still that I cannot get a reliable connection when I need it.

The fact that a website like this exists goes to show that I'm not the only one having gripes. Most people would complain about Streamyx because it's the most widely available option. Unfortunately for me, the alternative doesn't seem all that great either.

Perhaps I'm just asking for too much. After all, I do use my campus connection when I'm in school. That cannot be compared to the connections in private homes. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure connections in private homes in Singapore are pretty decent, as there are rarely any disgruntled customers, at least when it comes to connection reliability. Competition in Singapore is open and has driven prices down yet increased the quality of services. I'd have hoped that Malaysia wouldn't be too far behind in this area. After all, we also have rival telco wars just like our neighbours down south.

Wishful thinking...

You know there are times when you were thinking, hoping, expecting something, but then it ends up totally the opposite of what you thought? You know when you keep trying to be optimistic, to the point sometimes of being illogical, and then things turn out bad? You know when you sometimes tell yourself that it's a waste of time, but yet you somehow just try anyway, doing what you can and then things don't quite turn out the way you want them to?

I guess we all need better expectation management.

Having an optimistic point of view is great. I don't see why looking at the bright side of things can be a bad thing. And then there are those times when you keep trying and trying, hoping for the best, never giving up, persevering and pushing yourself, even to the point where you can no longer push yourself, and STILL not achieve success. I once saw this book entitled "Knowing when to give up", which although might initially seem a wrong mindset to have, might actually hold some merit if you delve deeper.

I know that pursuing your dreams is not a bad thing, and neither is picking yourself up everytime you fail. To "keep on keeping on" is a phrase I've heard so often, it's become cliched, and while I still believe it holds true, I think the context ought to be taken into consideration instead of blindly applying this principle.

If you have a dream which is from God, and you KNOW it came from God, then by all means pursue it because I never believe God will let you down. I don't think God will give you a vision and then not help you as you run for it. The principle of perseverence quite obviously applies here.

But what of the things which God may not speak to you about? What of things that you don't know whether or not to pursue? I know that God speaks to you about all things in life, but there have been times when you thought He was speaking, but you were wrong. Claiming that God wants us to be "the head and not the tail" and thinking that if you work hard even when God has not spoken to you, you can excel in ALL areas seems a bit far fetched. I don't propose to put a limitation on God, but it would be naive to think that you could excel in anything just because you want it to happen.

A good illustration would be our talents and abilities. Sure, we could try very very hard to sing. We could go for singing lessons, practice everyday, listen to as many songs as we can, train our vocals and breathing techniques etc., but as much as we may want to believe that we can, there are many of us who really truly can't. There are many people who even after years and years of vocal training cannot really hold a tune, or are naturally tone deaf, and no matter how hard you work, and that's not to say you haven't tried, you just CAN'T. Even if you eventually DID, don't you think you could've excelled in some OTHER area that would probably have taken less time and bring you to that place of success much earlier?

The point I'm making is not to have a defeatist attitude, but rather to CHOOSE the areas in which we want to excel in. Why bother trying to train your singing when God has not called you to sing (in that you have neither the annointing nor the talent)? Why bother trying to train in a given sport when no matter how hard you try, you just can't have the kind of capability some other people have, especially if God has not called you to it? Don't you think a gifted musician who has all the talent to play a musical instrument, but perhaps have much less to offer in terms of physical capacity would be unwise to spend his/her time to pursue sports and be just above average instead of using it to be a genius in music?

This brings me back to the point about pursuing a dream: You have to KNOW WHEN TO GIVE UP, and that's when you find yourself pursuing a WRONG DREAM! Not everyone is called to the same field, although all are called to excellence. If you don't know which field you are called to, then as you try out each area, you have to be prepared to GIVE IT UP if you realise it's not for you.

To expect achievement and success when you're in this stage is premature. It would be detrimental as having a high expectation would undermine your self confidence if you fail. On the other hand, having too low expectations would not make you strive to do well. Hence, a balance must be struck between the two to ensure you can keep on keeping on.

So to bring all of it together, we really should know which area we are called to excel in, lest we end up pursuing something which is not from God and probably fail miserably despite our neverending perseverence. If we don't, then be prepared to give up certain things that aren't meant for you. It won't be easy, but it would be better in the long run.

I should know... I've been there...

I'm now back in Malaysia with my parents, planning for my sister's wedding. I guess you could say I'm 'home', although that may not be very accurate. I shall explore a little of what it means to be 'home'.

The initial reaction would be simply, "Where you're from." That's all fine and dandy until you realise 'from' is hard to define. I've often been asked this question, but I find it difficult to answer. I was born in Kuala Lumpur, but spent the most of my childhood in a little town called Sitiawan. After that, I spent two years in Kuantan, on the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia, and the next five years (my teenage years) in Subang Jaya, just south of Kuala Lumpur. I went to study in Singapore and I've been there for the past six years, with at least four more to go, and that's just the beginning.

Obviously, "where you're from" isn't a very good way to define home. You COULD say it's simply "where your parents are", but that too poses a problem. Unlike most people whose parents stay put in one location, the nature of my father's job required him to transfer quite a number of times. Hence, we were required to move as and when he was posted to a new place. A year or two back, whilst I was studying in Singapore, my parents actually shifted to Thailand, and I literally had no 'home' in Malaysia. Would Thailand then be considered my "home"? I don't think so.

Another way to look at it was "where you spent your formative years", as in which place had the most impact in your life. This too is debatable, since most of my childhood (definitely formative years) were spend in one place, my teens (also formative) in another, and young adulthood (again transitional and hence I deem formative) in yet another. Where's home? I really don't know...

I guess in the end, 'home' is really where you feel most comfortable to let down your hair and simply be yourself. It can be where your parents are, but the environment may not be really familiar or 'homish'. It can be where your friends are, unless you don't have a place to go back to after your friends go back to their respective 'homes'. Ultimately, it would be perfect as a place where both these concepts are melded into one, which is thankfully, what I'm enjoying now.

Comfort at home, friends of old, and a celebration to be had! What more can I ask for? It's HOME!