Jarhad's Junk Site

"The Energy Bus - 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work and Team with Positive Energy" by Jon Gordon.

10 Rules for the Ride of Your Life

1. You're the driver of your bus.

2. Desire, vision and focus move your bus in the right direction.

3. Fuel your ride with positive energy.

4. Invite people on your bus and share your vision for the road ahead.

5. Don't waste your energy on those who don't get on your bus,

6. Post a sign that says "No Energy Vampires Allowed" on your bus.

7. Enthusiasm attracts more passengers and energizes them during the ride.

8. Love your passengers.

9. Drive with purpose.

10. Have fun and enjoy the ride.

Be a CEO - Chief Energy Officer today!

www.theenergybus.com

My Sunday was burnt attending PA Grassroots Seminar at Suntec City on 12 Jul 09.  Most of the pressing issues that were brought up were nothing new, but after so many years there just haven't been any solutions for them.  I was quite bored, and being one of the youngest in the hall , I was getting restless.  However, came Labour Chief Lim Swee Say's turn to share about bridging all estates as one - I think he was the most entertaining speaker of the day.

During the question and answer dialogue session, he was posed two questions: should volunteers be accepted even if they are volunteering with the objective of reaping certain tangible benefits, and should monetary incentive be given to volunteers?

Minister Lim replied in a little X-rated way, first with a anecdote - he likened it to a relationship between a man and a woman.  Men get close to women in order to sleep with them; women sleep with men in order to get close to them.  Just as the means of one party is the end to the other, volunteers should be allowed to reap benefits, provided they work for it - that way both parties are satisfied and achieve what they want.

Then he told a story: A man sees a beautiful woman in the park, and asks her if she would sleep with him.  The decent woman, extremely offended, exclaimed that she's not a prostitute and wouldn't do it no matter how much he was willing to pay her.  Then the man replied, "Who said anything about money?"  Moral of the story: money can be seen as an insult and it changes the whole equation.

Next up, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, in my opinion the second-best speaker of the day, expressed his view of why people continue to volunteer.  It was friendship that kept volunteers coming back together again and again, because they enjoy their time together.

These are the only things I remember from this seminar.

I recently read The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma - you should read it when you can.  It is the story of Julian Mantle, a superstar lawyer who suffers a near fatal heart attack in a packed courtroom, bringing on a spiritual crisis that leads him to embark on a journey to the east to find happiness and fulfilment.  He then discovers a powerful system to release the potential of his mind, body and soul and learns to live with greater passion, purpose and peace.  He returns to share his experiences and lessons learned to the narrator John.

The sages of the east told of a fable teaching the values of enlightened living:

You are sitting in the middle of a magnificent, lush, green garden.  This garden is filled with the most spectacular flowers you have ever seen.  The environment is supremely tranquil and silent.  Savour the sensual delights of this garden and feel as if you have all the time in the world to enjoy this natural oasis.  As you look around you see that in the centre of this magical garden stands a towering, red lighthouse, six stories high.  Suddenly, the silence of the garden is disturbed by a loud creaking as the door at the base of the lighthouse opens.  Out stumbles a nine-foot-tall, nine-hundred-pound Japanese sumo wrestler who casually wanders into the centre of the garden. The Japanese sumo wrestler is almost totally naked.  He has a pink wire cable covering his private parts.

As this sumo wrestler starts to move around the garden, he finds a shiny gold stopwatch which someone had left behind many years earlier.  He slips it on, and falls to the ground with an enormous thud.  The sumo wrestler is rendered unconscious and lies there, silent and still.  Just when you think he has taken his last breath, the wreslter awakens, perhaps stirred by the fragrance of some fresh yellow roses blooming nearby.  Energized, the wrestler jumps swiftly to his feet and intuitively looks to his left.  He is startled by what he sees.  Through the bushes at the very edge of the garden he observes a long winding path covered by millions of sparkling diamonds.  Something seems to instruct the wrestler to take the path, and to his credit, he does.  This path leads him down the road of everlasting joy and eternal bliss.

The 7 Timeless Virtues of Enlightened Living

1. Master your Mind (The Magnificent Garden)

2. Follow your purpose (The Towering Lighthouse)

3. Practice Kaizen (The Sumo Wrestler)

4. Live with discipline (The Pink Wire Cable)

5. Respect your time (The Gold Stopwatch)

6. Selflessly serve others (The Fragrant Roses)

7. Embrace the present (The Path of Diamonds)

I was very fortunate to be an integral part of the 1st Asian Youth Games Singapore 2009 as a table tennis technical official with Singapore Table Tennis Association, and this is my first time being part of an international multi-sport event.  Here are my personal thoughts and feedback on what I've experienced at Toa Payoh Sports Hall during this event.

Food

It is very important to get proper nourishment in order to carry out one's duties effectively.  Although I was quite busy especially in the first few days that I didn't have the time nor appetite to enjoy proper meals, the food catered was less than appealing.  Granted it is our army caterer SFI, it was the menu that I was disappointed with - they served very similar western food for every single meal.  I could do without some of the potatoes and get some rice instead.  And try to have more variety in the type of food provided, I don't just want western food all the time.  Maybe this was just happening at my venue, I don't know about the other venues.

Competition/General Management

A successful competition requires a competent Competition Manager.  Yes, this is an internal affair of the table tennis fraternity, but I think people should be reviewed based on their performance and reassigned tasks that are more suited for them if we want next year's YOG to be successful.  However, I understand that due to some red tape, this doesn't happen, so everyone else on the ground has to pick up the slack to make things happen because the country's reputation is at stake.

That aside, I get the feeling that the various operations are very disjointed with little support for each other - the operations centre has its own Results team that keeps hounding me (STTA) for player lineups and results.  It would be much more efficient if STTA can handle the entire processing of the results without having to go through a middleman to get to the media and guests.  Furthermore, the runners who relay the results and operations centre do not seem very supportive of other administrative needs that STTA has yet demands so much from us.

Website

I was very disappointed that despite them rushing me for the results, they were very slow in updating them on the web.  I can forgive them for the slow speed, but they even posted several errors in the results that were different from the version I submitted to them.  Fortunately I was given access to the STTA website to upload the latest accurate results for people's reference.

Volunteer Management

It was the volunteers that made this event such a success.  There was such a huge pool of volunteers that many of them ended up having nothing much to do and were just there to soak up the atmosphere, as compared to us poor technical officials (TOs) at the field of play who do most of the work.  I think TOs deserve more recognition.  For instance, TOs are not given the same package of souvenirs that volunteers get (I'd rather get the nice cap with the red linings instead of the plain white one that says Technical Official on the side, and I was so looking forward to getting the waist pouch as well).  Don't give me the argument that because we are paid (it's just a pittance allowance) so we shouldn't get all the freebies - then see what happens if we TOs don't come, you can't even run the competition, whereas you can easily get replacements for volunteers, who don't need specialised knowledge and expertise.

Also, I would prefer not to have different volunteers reporting for different shifts every day, because that means having to waste time and effort training and explaining everything to them batch by batch.

Sound System & Announcer

There were a couple of announcers/emcees allocated to us, but they all had no knowledge of table tennis, and took turns coming on different shifts.  So it took time for them to learn about the sport and how to read the fixtures and results passed to them.  As for the sound crew DJ, they were quite new to a sporting event and were not supplied with the appropriate music to play during the event.  When I was more free midway through the competition, I brought my own discs to demonstrate the type of music and when to play them to pump up the crowd.

Audience / Spectators

Many of the venues had poor attendance and ticket sales.  Firstly, since the ticketing is managed by SISTIC, the price of the tickets become slightly overpriced, especially for people who want to come everyday.  Secondly, the timing of the games clashes with school time and examinations, so being the meritocratic society that we are, academic results are more important so many students would rather study.  It would be so much better if the school calendars could be tweaked slightly to allow educational field trips to the various venues to learn more about the different sports cheer on the athletes.

Basketball

I was very fortunate to be able to get half a day off to watch the basketball quarterfinals - the Anglican High School venue seemed rather well managed.  Pertaining to the game itself, I think their TOs had it easier since the matches were shorter and had long intervals between matches, totally unlike table tennis.  However, it is quite bad as the crowd had to be kept waiting for the next match.  Also, the FIBA 33 format cannot do with one referee, because the referee has to be positioned outside the 3 point arc and is unable to catch any violations at the baseline - the spectators could see many instances where players stepped out on the baseline but it is not evident from the referee's limited sight.  Two referees should be deployed for all games, not just the finals.

Table Tennis

I would like to improve our computerised draws system, as we've got feedback that it is impressive, but not yet by my standards.  It would also be good if we could have nice plasma TV screens at courtside displaying the scores just like in the Beijing Olympics, instead of the assistant umpires manually flipping the scoreboards, but this will require a lot of hardware and some software support plus some technically trained guys to update the scores play by play.

I think that's all I have to rant about... to a more successful YOG!

Wow, Michael Jackson sure created a hell of a furore when he went.  In fact, he almost took the internet down along with him -> see the CNN article here.

Celebrities get followed every step of their lives, right down to their last breath.  The more controversial ones create more buzz and are more easily remembered.

But about laymen like you and me?  How do you want to go?  How would you like to be remembered?  What legacy do you want to leave behind?  You may think that is very far away, but history takes time and effort to accumulate and become worth future generations studying.  Of course, I'm not saying we must strive to lead high profile lives and create a lot of hoo-ha.  What I'm saying is, what you do want to achieve in life?  As life is unpredictable, will you be able to attain your goals before you depart from this world?

For me, I just want to make every little difference I can in my community, to help others make their lives better.  I also hope to nurture others to become successful people and leaders in their lives.  It is good to know that of all the seeds I've sown, at least one has successfully grown the way I would have liked - thank you very much for that long chat with me, it was really encouraging to know the difference I have made in your life, though indirectly.  I will continue to keep trying and influence more youths, teenagers not to go astray, and to be able to think for themselves and make sensible decisions.

Here's an interesting ad from Durex:

It seems that it is very hard to get a whole bunch of people together just to catch up and have fun.  But tragedy is always able to do just that.  Somehow I feel that funeral wakes seem to be the time when I get to meet up with the people whom I've not seen in a while.  Of course with the backdrop of the loss of a friend (and sadly, young ones around my age) we can't really say that we enjoy that time we spend together.

Another thing we should realize is life is unpredictable and it can be quite short for whatever reason, just like for the dear friends whom we've lost.  Therefore, I am spurred to not just live life to the fullest, but also to take the effort to catch up with friends whom I may not have met in a while, especially during the free time that I'll have after the exams.  I do hope that they reciprocate and take time off their busy schedules to just chill out or have fun together, because it takes two hands to clap...

I read STOMP quite often, just to have a good laugh at some of the stupidity that people exhibit when they are ranting.  However, there are some very legitimate concerns that are surfaced there that seem to get authorities' attention and action much swifter than if the feedback had been sent to them directly, so one can understand what a powerful media channel it is.

Today, let's look at: http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/singaporeseen/viewContent.jsp?id=63477

"A STOMPer was at the newly-opened Pioneer MRT bus stop trying to take a bus back to NTU after running an errand but was not able to board two buses because they were so crowded."

I would guess this is someone who primarily stays in hall, probably a foreign student, and doesn't know about the 179 situation out there.  Pioneer MRT is very convenient to drop off at if taking MRT home, but if you're headed to NTU, all seasoned NTU students would know that you should board 179 from Boon Lay Interchange to ensure you are able to get on - during the morning peak there's also 179A which goes direct to NTU, bypassing all the bus stops in between.

Anyway my point is, this person's suggestion to have yet another bus service along this route won't solve the problem.  So just follow the crowd la, you won't go wrong! :p

I'm sure by now most of you would have heard of the tragic case of a NTU EEE student who stabbed his FYP professor and then committed suicide.

I was amazed at how fast news spreads, especially through word of mouth (not so much through Facebook though).  The incident happened this morning around 10+, but by 12+, SMSes were being exchanged, and students were already talking about it.  It is amazing because the campus is quite big, even if something newsworthy happens at one place, the rest of us in other parts of the campus won't know about it until it is officially communicated through email or reported in the media.

Some interesting banter that came up included School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering needing to create news for themselves for they were not to be outdone by Nanyang Business School making the top 24 list of MBA programmes in the world.  There was also some talk about nationalities and their stereotypes, but we shan't go there.

As this is the time where we're all rushing to complete our Final Year Project / Applied Research Project reports, some of us are under a tremendous amount of stress to meet the deadline next week.  However, different people have different threshold levels, and choose to deal with it differently.  Unfortunately for everyone, this particular student chose to cope through violence.

I believe that all problems can be solved, you just need to find the right people and the right time.  If you've been feeling under the weather, it may be time to seek help.  And help is available.

News articles:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/412478/1/.html

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/Singapore/Story/STIStory_344879.html