Sunday, May 29, 2005

Healthy Lifestyle Outing

In Singapore, a Community Centre or Club serves residents staying nearby. It is a place where there are activities for residents. It also serves as resident mobilization centre.

Today I took part in Healthy Lifestyle Outing organised by Sembawang CC. I used to take part in this kind of activities, but stopped for at least a year due to various commitments.

Today we visited the Chinese Garden. There is nothing glamorous, but with a piece of bread, a bottle of water and lucky draw costing S$2 departing at 7am, participants found it worthwhile. Besides, it is healthier compared to people who woke up late and did not do simple exercises.

On why I said it is a centre to mobilize residents, we can just take a look at turnout for today. There are at least 800 people with no less than 17 buses taking part. This is definitely a very important phenomena to notice.

I think this is one area that Singapore has done very well. Other than healthier lifestyle, it also fosters family bonding and cultivates good habit of waking up early.

Overall, I am satisfied and I would definitely encourage my family to take part more in the future.

Saturday, May 28, 2005

Mental Arithmatics

For the past few years, mental arithmatics has been gaining popularity in Singapore. I also noticed the same trend happening in Indonesia. Starting from pre-school age (kindergarten), children were attending enrichment classes teaching the subject.

I have tried myself to learn the technique. Being a math geek when I was younger, I found it very interesting and useful. The method really simplifies the addition and substraction without using pen and paper.

I don't know how it would affect the performance in school. Either it will motivate the children further when they can handle the subject or the children may feel overwhelmed with additional pressure on studying especially if they already have few other enrichment courses to attend.

No matter how the result maybe, it is important to have a balance coupled with individual's interest.

Friday, May 27, 2005

Eat-With-Family Day

Starting two years ago, there is a new day called Eat-With-Family Day in Singapore. It falls on the last Friday of May. It is a way by government to encourage companies to release employers to release the employees to go home earlier so that they can have dinner with family members. Today is such a day.

There is no special arrangement required. For my company, we were allowed to go home at 5pm. This is nothing special as people starting work from 8pm would have gone home by that time. Howeve, it is a good gesture from the company.

On my way home I say my co-worker. She was in a rush. I complimented her as a good mother and housewife rushing home to prepare dinner for the family to eat together. But to my suprise, she told me she was late for her appointment with friends at Orchard Road.

Well, there are many ways to celebrate any events. For her, perhaps, that was the best, since she might not have the chance to see and meet up with her friends as her work would only be finished after 6pm.

The whole idea to have such a day is very good, indeed. Finally, it is up to the individual to decide how best to utilise it without neglecting the true meaning of the special day.

Health Supplement

In my course on Fundamental of Nutrition, the author of the text book we are using explained in very detail about various vitamins and minerals including the optimum dosages for healthy body.

Although he explained about the natural sources of those important nutrients, he also advocated supplementing with health supplements.

For the past few years, I have been involved in few multi-level-marketing companies dealing with health supplement. The message is basically similar. Our nature is not the same as before. The natural food that we have does not have enough nutrients to supply and to give us the necessary nutrients to build and maintain a healthy body.

To stay healthy we have to supplement our food. Of course there are other things like exercise, stress management, healthy mental state, etc., etc. we need to take care.

In a sense I agree, but only to a certain extent. No doubt we have to supplement, but taking in natural food, especially the non-meat source is equally important. From the start of mankind, human has been living out of the nature. Health supplement is a relatively new intention. I believe synchronising our life with nature is equally important.

In conclusion, lead a healthy lifestyle, eat sensibly and take enough supplement and your health should be in a tip-top condition.

Choosing Primary School

When it comes to choosing primary school, most people will look at the school academic performance first. Other factors will come in later.

The same thing is happening to me as well. As parents we would want to provide the best to our children. So, this was the first step I did.

Along the way other factors come in, the proximity, the co-curricular activities, pastoral care, teacher's commitment, etc.

Primary one being the first time a child go for full session study can be quite stressfull. Besides, the need to wake up early in the morning to catch up with the school bus and to start the school early can be quite a difficult routine to adjust to.

Based on there two factors alone, the most important thing that matters is only one, the proximity. Then, how about academic that was supposed to be the most important?

Somehow, I noticed it is actually up to the child to put in the hardwork and discipline to be successful. No doubt the school and environment play a sold here, but ultimately it is the individual that will determine the success.

With this understanding, I realise I don't have to do much. Just find the nearest neighbour school with not-too-bad academic achievement and my children should be alright. I hope this is a wise choice.

Attendance at Rotary Club Meeting

Rotary club is a service club through fellowship. In order to achieve the objectives, there are two important things to be achieved by a club.

The first is attendance at weekly meeting to build the fellowship among members. The second is the membership classification rule. It means that the club will only admit professionals/leaders from all professions up to a maximum of 10% of the membership. It means there cannot be more than 10% of members with same profession.

Personally I think the weekly attendance is the most difficult, but it is not impossible. It is even more difficult for busy professionals. This is where the Rotary E-Club of 3310 comes is. Instead of weekly meeting, we meet over the cyber. It means we discuss matters and interact with each other through our online forum. However, we are unique. We always have once a month physical meeting. This is very important as it will further foster a stronger bonding among members. It can become the catalyst to boost the bonding and fellowship.

No doubt we are still a prototype club, we are pioneering many 'firsts' in the Rotary world. I will discuss the others in the future.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Foreign Domestic Worker (FDW)

In Singapore, the above term is used as a politically correct term to refer to maid. It is not that maid word not sound nice, but there are too many terms used by various languages that the government find it necessary to officially adopt a name to use for this purpose.

With the policy to have a good balance of quality workforce and to satisfy resource intensive requirement for certain sectors, Singapore has to control the number of maid allowed in the country.

The most obvious is the requirement of the employer to pay monthly levy. In most cases the levy is more than the maid's salary. Imagine how much more the maid would receive if there were no levy. Of course, it is not always straight-forward and the relationship is not always linear.

There is also a S$5000 deposit as guarantee that the maid does not run away and will return to the origin country after serving the stipulated period of work permit timing. The deposit is also used to make sure that the maid does not marry & have children while in Singapore.

Although it is not straight-forward, there are still many people who desired and aspired to come to Singapore as FDW.

Searching for Better Prospect

Today I had a series of email exchange with an Indonesian. She is a bright student from Indonesia currently studying Information Technology in Taiwan.

With her good academic results, she managed to enter local prestigious university reading English. But half-way through the university, she left Indonesia to study in Taiwan. Now alone in foreign land she is short of money and needs to find a decent work anywhere as long as it is not back to Indonesia.

I can understand her reason not to go back to Indonesia. I can also understand that there is something more that she did not reveal. It does not seem so simple.

She even proposed to come to Singapore as nanny or domestic helper while waiting for any suitable job. Personally I do not think this is a good idea as there are other things involved. Also, there is a sense of urgency to quickly leave Taiwan in the tone.

As a Buddhist, I should not worry too much on unnecessary things. What I can do now, perhaps, is to offer her some ways to tide over the current crisis and pursue her dreams.

I have no idea now. But, the answer shall come when the seeker is

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

The Basic Recipe

The main procedure in doing EFT is called The Basic Recipe. It consists of the setup, sequence, 9-gamut and sequence again.

The Setup is used to clear any psychological reversals that might hinder the problems from being resolved.

The Sequence consists of tapping the 12 to 14 points. They are inner eye brow, side eye, below eye, nose, chin, collar bone, arm pit, (bellow nipple), side of thumb, side of index finger, side of middle finger, (side of ring finger), side of small finger and karate chop.

The 9-gamut consists of nine tappings sequence with eye movement and humming to improve the left and right brian coordination.

Overall, this is all there is to EFT. For further information, you can visit www.emofree.com.

Emotional Freedom Technique

EFT, also known as Emotional Freedom Technique, seems like simple words with nothing special about it. I have stumbled upon the term few times in the part, but I have never given any attention to it.

It was not until end of last year that my friend introduced it to me. He told me that I can get results within minutes, even seconds, which is extraordinarily quick compared to other techniques that I have encountered before. It seems like too good to be true.

With a bit skepticism, I went to the website www.emofree.com to take a look. The appearance looked ordinary. But, upon reading the introduction, I was intrigued to try it out. I downloaded the free manual and started reading.

The theory is simple. Your emotional problem can be traced to the disturbance of the energy flow in your body's meridians.

The technique is simply to tap on the affected points. Our body has few hundreds meridian points. But we only need to tap on one of the points along the same meridian. Since there are only 14 main meridians, we only need to tap 14 points to get rid of almost all of the emotional problems.

Of course it is not that simple. There is something called aspect. A simple emotional problem may have more than one aspect associated with it. So, we need to discover all the aspects and tap them away.

I have personally tried and tested the EFT in numerous occasions. Majority of the problems were cleared within a short period of time.

Please feel free to contact me if you want to discuss

Monday, May 23, 2005

CC Open House

In Singapore CC stands for either Community Centre or Community Club depending on the building & facility. The one near Khatib MRT is Nee Soon South Community Club.

Today is an Open Day at the CC. The event started from 9am up to 2 pm. There were many programs and activities during the day. There were also many visitors as well. I noted people coming from as far as Yew Tee, which is located at the other side of the island.

However, during the normal days, there are not many people coming to the CC. Either there are not enough activities organised or the programs are not interesting enough for the residents.

Talking about interest, there should not be any issue as the Open Day was full house. The issue could be either there is not enough activities organised or if there are enough activities, it could be the pricing that is too high.

All these are the possibilities. We will not know for sure before further observation and analysis. One thing is certain, we need to boost up the attendance and participation from the

Vesak Day

Yesterday was Vesak Day. It was a Sunday. So, today is the replacement holiday in Singapore.

Vesak Day is a Buddhist holy day. According to traditions, celebrates three major events: the birth of Prince Siddharta, the attainment of Buddhahood by the Prince and the Parinibhana (pass on) of the Buddha.

Personally, the holy day is our chance to reflect back on what we have been so far in accordance to the moral teachings of the Buddha.

The most basic of the moral code is called Pancasila, the five precepts. They are basically abstaining from harming living things, from taking what is not given, from sexual misconduct, from false speech, from intoxicating drugs or drink.

The principles seem very simple, but in actual fact we need to be mindful just to follow the five

Friday, May 20, 2005

Internet Network Marketing

Network Marketing concept is a revolutionary system that combines the multi level compensation plan with the power of networking to produce sustainable residual income. This is in theory. The actual fact is that it takes more than simple effort to eventually build a big enough network to produce sizeable income to reach financial freedom. This is the magic phrase that people in the industry are talking about.

The new breakthrough in the field is using the internet to build the network. From my experience in the past few years, I found out the gems and wisdoms of building a successful internet network marketing.

1. You need a strong and powerful company with desirable products that give you attractive rewards for your efforts. The company also needs powerful marketing systems in place with high conversion ratio.

2. You need good quality supply of unique leads with reasonable price. You need these to feed your network for growth.

3. You need good strategies in your network positioning to get cash out as soon as possible for the system to breakeven.

4. You need to have multiple streams of income on the premise that each must be self-funding.

5. You need to start with system that can give you back money fairly quickly to boost up your own confidence before embarking on middle-term and long-term systems that would be the eventual cash-cow.

Technical Analysis

Technical Analysis is a method of price analysis. The object of analysis includes anything with price trend movement. For example, stock price, commodity price, real estate price, etc.

I was told there are currently few thousand techniques categorized as technical analysis. This is a tremendously huge body of knowledge. Imagine the time it would take if someone were to take the time to learn everything, not counting the additional time it would require to master each individual technique.

Fortunately for the market professionals, mastery of few techniques alone might be enough to profit from the market. This is not to say that we can randomly pick and choose techniques that we personally like.

In a good system, synergy of the few techniques might be enough to build a very comprehensive technical analysis system. People generally have the misunderstanding that the more techniques they use, the more powerful will be the system they are building. This is far from the truth. What we need is few techniques that complement each other to cover the weaknesses of the others.

In my short span of time dealing with technical analysis, I was introduced to a powerful combination of the following:

Elliot Wave
Candlestick
Simple Moving Average Channels
RSI
Stochastic Oscillator
MACD

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Prioritization

Just like any other social and voluntary clubs, my Rotary Club is also facing membership retention issue. People sign up to become members with various reasons: the privileges, the prestige, the opportunity to serve humanity, the fellowship, the networking and many other reasons.

After the novelty of being a Rotarian rubs off, after people start to realize and understand the obligations, after they go through the processes, some of the new members will start to realize and think that maybe Rotary is not for them. Or, rather, they are not cut out to be a Rotarian.

Analyzing the real reasons behind we should be able to synthesize many theories. However, personally I think the main reason is the failure to participate.

I heard my mentors in Rotary said this few times, "Enjoying by participating." I think there should be some truth to this just like any old wisdoms that people like to quote.

I have noticed that those who seldom attend the meetings, let alone participate in activities, are the ones who are most likely to call it quit.

To understand a little bit more deeply, there is another wisdom, "What's in it for me?" (wiifm). When there is no benefit and compelling reasons for members to attend, almost certainly we can be sure that the membership retention will suffer.

Again, this can be like chicken and egg kind of situation. Which one should come first? Satisfying members' interest first for them to participate or for them to come in actively to satisfy their own interest.

Of course, this is a matter of priority for the club's Board of Director to decide. I guess the answer to this is to have a balance for both sides.

I don't claim that I have a solution for this. I just would like to throw some alternatives. In the first place, we need to set the correct mindset and perspective of new members when they join the club. Apart from the privileges, the obligations have to be spelt out clearly.

At the end of the day, it is the individual that matters. No matter how wonderful we make the club to be, if the attitude is already negative, I an afraid there is nothing much we can do.

Have a happy networking

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Tin Donation Mentality

An hour ago I received an email forwarded by a friend talking about the fate of three young girls being scolded by a lady for asking her to donate her loose change to the tin donation. The blog was written complete with few pictures of the lady in action.

The articles was alright. But I was disturbed with the fact that all the comments online only talked about how fierce the lady and the retribution she would get when her own children were asked by the school to go for the tin donation.

The whole issue started when the schools implemented the idea to ask the students to go out and collect donation in order to build and nurture the philanthropy in them. I think the children have a choice of what to do for this. But since doing tin donation is the easiest, nearly everyone would choose to do this.

Being charitable is good, but learning to be charitable by begging is another very different thing. I am not sure what is expected to be achieved from the whole exercise. But one thing is for sure, the children would just go out and beg until the required time is up.

At the end of the day, we may be nurturing a whole new young generation of people who only know how to beg and request for money when they need them, instead of finding legal ways to create the money out of their creativity.

This is what I call Tin Donation Mentality.

10am Ang Mo Kio

At 7am, from Yishun to KK we usually go through Ang Mo Kio, instead of CTE, due to the fact that there are many cars and there are few ERP charges, which would amount to $4.50. At 10am, the taxi would prefer the CTE as there is no ERP charge and it is supposed to be an 'expressway'.

The few times we traveled the CTE after 10am, there were accidents that caused the cars to crawl in low speed. The normal 45-minute side would take more than one hour.

Today, for a change, despite the fact that it was half past ten in the morning, I asked the driver not to go through CTE. He was not sure whether my request was logical, but he hesitantly followed my suggestion with a disclaimer that he would not guarantee if there would not be any traffic-jam at Ang Mo Kio. I told him not to worry as I wanted to try the route at that hour.

The journey was surprisingly smooth. Although there were many traffic lights, we reached KK in 20 minutes. This is the best record we have for the past five months. The driver was equally surprised.

I think, at the end of the day, it does not matter whether or not it is an expressway. What matters is the traffic pattern and most importantly, your luck at that moment. So, follow your intuition and you will not be

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Assisi Home and Hospice, Children Day Care

We just visited Assisi Home & Hospice, the Children Day Care. It is a nice place with friendly people. We registered Aaron there and left him for the full session.

Aaron seems to like the place. He has made friends with some of the children there. Today, there were only a handful of children, I think less than ten in total.

Beside toys and books, I could also see computers, PlayStation and X-Box. The multi-sensory room is impressive. It is like cinema with lighting effects. The room is padded everywhere, so it is safe for children.

My wife told me Adam was also there. Aditya was also attending the sessions there, but he was not around today. So, it is not a strange land for Aaron after all.

Toastmasters Club AGM

The Annual General Meeting for the Toastmasters Club of which I am a member is coming in one week time. This morning I received an email saying that not enough commited members have come forward for the nominations. Serving as the Club President in 2003 and being the only in-house Distinguished Toastmaster, I think I can motivate the members by sending out an inspirational email based on my experience when I joined the club in 2001.

It was truly an enriching and rewarding experience when I was fully involved in the Toastmasters movement for the part few years. I hope more people will come forward to serve, learn and gain from the experience in the Club Executive

Monday, May 16, 2005

Busy Day

What a busy day today! Even before I entered the office, my colleague pulled me to the conference call. I didn't even have a chance to check my email until lunch as I had a discussion and another conference call following that.

Many things happened during the day.

I was notified that SingPost has potential Open Buy. After checking, I found out that it is a follow through open buy. After discussing with Dad, I managed to get 10 lots at the price of 0.88. The closing for the day was 0.885. This was exciting as the counter was stucked for some time.

Upon reaching home, I realised that the material for my correspondence course, Professional Editing and Proofreading, has arrived.

Well. Now, I have another responsibility apart from my courses on Naturopathy Doctor, Numerology, Tarot and my involvements in the Rotary Club, StoresOnline and newly setup company.

Life is meant to be busy with learning to be

Sunday, May 15, 2005

New Diary

Out of the internal urge, I have decided to start my own online diary. In 2 weeks time, I will turn 36 and I think this is a good time to start something to leave my legacy behind.

Yesterday, we have just finished the first Board Director Meeting with me as the MD. Tonight, we have just finished our discussion on the system. We don't see any good signals to enter, though.

The next meeting is on Tuesday.

Posting From Email

I am about to switch off now. Just want to try out this feature.

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