Friday, September 17, 2010

11 rules your kids did not and will not learn in school

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Learn chinese in 5 minutes

Are you trying to pick up mandarin? Here's some simple phrases you can learn to help you get rolling. :P

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

I survived NUS!! (hopefully...)

I just ended my last and final exam in NUS on Star Wars day, May the 4th (be with you). geddit? :P

It was an awesome feeling, to finally finish my time in NUS. If all goes well, that is if i don't fail any module. You'll never know what the bell curve might do to you!

Spending 4 years in NUS, especially taking a Computer Science honors degree, is seriously no joke man. Ok... 3 years, i spent a year in Stockholm, Sweden. ;) In Computer Science, the modules are heavy, theoretical and the most taxing of the lot are the programming assignments. Programming assignments are a killer because they are extremely time consuming, where you have to first take time to understand the requirements, design the system, split it into different parts, (program and debug) x 100. I've never ever ever ever fully completed a major programming project, there's always something left to fix or improve. But somehow, I kinda enjoy doing that. The want to code up a working application from scratch and see it working gives me the adrenaline to program. I guess that's why I'm in Computer Science (CS). ;)

This last semester has been the most taxing of the lot where I had to clear all my CS major modules, 4 level 4000s, & 1 level 3000. And when you have 5 CS modules to take, means you have 5 major programming assignments plus the other mini assignments along the way! And every week I was just rushing to clear 1 assignment after another, late nights after late nights in school. And that's why the Computing Building is open 24hr for students, and it's definitely fully utilized every day.

And on top of school work, I'm also working part-time with my Swedish company 3S-Comaea for the last 1.5 years since I came back. More programming work, I just can't get enough of it. ;)

So now that my exams are over, I'm going to start doing some things that I've been putting off.
- Travel (going Phuket next week, yay!)
- Blog about my trips (Beijing, Santorini, Paris, Rome, Geneva, Spain... etc)
- Jamming & Songwriting (with my band Dreamfactory!)
- Train for IPPT in June
- Catch up with friends
- Go to the beach
- Some wakeboarding
- Go for scuba diving course
- Plan & discuss future business ideas

Despite everything, it has been a great journey in NUS. Though it was really tough & depressing at times, but God and my friends around saw me through it all. If not for NUS, i wouldn't have made such great friends that I have today. If not for NUS, I wouldn't have been able to spend a year working in Sweden & enjoying a time of my life traveling around in Europe. And if not for NUS, I wouldn't have gotten to know this wonderful lady called Peiyun. I guess it all works out in the end.

So, to all my friends still in NUS, NTU, SMU, SIM and whatever university you may be in, press on and keep walking the journey. Discover your purpose, reason and passion while you're there, and it'll all work out in the end. ;)