Stumped

Question: What is your average productivity level (for a given measure) for the year 2007?

Answer: OK

??

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I had a pretty high fever last weekend -still haven’t fully recovered yet. Glancing through this particular response made my head spin again.

The Poor Teacher

Reading about this guy is kinda depressing.

I mean, it’s bad enough that he’s a millionaire doing what he likes at home, he’s getting paid to talk (!), I mean, give motivation (though that is still pretty much talking, to me) to corporations and other online business wannabes. He has written books, generated a great passive income for himself and he has a doctorate. All that and he’s not even 30 yet. Crummy.

I’m not jealous, in fact, I’m actually in awe. And very happy that a youngster of my ethnicity is so successful at such a young age. He’s definitely living proof that Malays are not lazy or unable to succeed without some sort of ‘tongkat’. In fact, his success story sort of reminded me of my earlier post not too long ago. Of course, with every person that loves your work, there are others who have doubts. But that’s life.

You certainly can earn a lot more money through business, may it be online or face-to-face dealings like our forefathers. As for me, business is and never will be my cuppa tea, so I’m just gonna do what I (think I) do best, that’s yakking nonsensically in class. I may not be able to become a millionaire through this profession (seriously, academicians don’t make money. The real dough is out there in the real world) but hopefully, I’ll have enough to live my life with my loved ones.

Going Green

During my short stay in the UK, several things struck me as unusual from our day-to-day lives over here.

• People walk more often there. Be it to the grocery store, post office, the University.. I walked more than two kilometers a day just going to and fro my house to the shuttle bus stop, whereas here, I sometimes drive just to get from one faculty to another (that explains the extra inch!). Then again, you can’t expect Malaysians to walk often due to valid reasons; (1) our weather is so totally not walking-friendly, (2) our roads aren’t many which are pedestrian friendly either. I can’t even begin to imagine walking along Karak Highway to reach my University, though the distance is similar to my daily walk in the UK. But I think this is closely related to point number 1 -got to do a research on this to confirm, hehe.. (3) hot weather + the polluted air = no, NO walking!!
• Women smoke a lot more freely, unlike here where female smokers are either “too pemalu” to smoke in public or not that many to begin with
• Obesity is a BIG problem, literally. From my preliminary observation, kids as young as 14 are too heavy to walk, hence the common sight of big-bodied youngsters riding scooters at public places. Nope, not those skateboard-like thingy where you slide on one foot, but the ones you ride on that are powered by motor. Maybe there is some truth in downing too much McDonald’s..
• Elderly folks like living on their own and are very independent. I was neighbours with this charming and ancient of a woman, and she lived her life in solitude pretty happily. Her home is filled with books. Well, what else is there to do anyway? Even at the city, you can see these veterans shopping by themselves, or riding the bus, with no kids or grandchildren to accompany them. The same thing can be seen here, though not common. I noticed most of our elders prefer to spend time with their offspring and grandkids at home. I attribute this situation to a good transport system. Not that ours are bad, but they definitely could do more improvements!

But one of the most glaring difference comes during grocery shopping. The Britons really do practise the use of recycle bags in good faith. Old or young, many shoppers are seen carrying their own re-usable shopping bags instead of putting their groceries in plastic bags each and every time they go grocery shopping. I noticed this trend, no, realization, is catching up in our country recently (public campaigns only started last year, right?). Six retail giants took part in giving awareness to Malaysian consumers on the importance of recycling. Kudos to Carrefour, Giant, Jusco, Mydin, Tesco and The Store for starting this initiative.

I admit I wasn’t that devoted in recycling before (not that I wasn’t aware of its importance) but it’s true that traveling and seeing different places open your eyes, and heart. I’ve begun to bring my own bag to the pasar malam, and it’s funny to see the hawkers’ reactions when I insisted on no plastic for their food. Some were intent on giving me their plastic bags anyway.. Hehe. Oh well, we got to start somewhere, right?

Me Dummy?

One of my respondents thought I was an idiot today. Not that he said it exactly, but the way he patronized my method and even suggested that I ought to do a pilot study first.. Well, he definitely thought I was an idiot. Adding more salt to thy wound, he said he “wasted” 15 minutes trying to load a certain page. Oh, the shame..

Thing is, which researcher in the right mind or anyone pursuing this sort of degree, for that matter, would conduct a survey without a pilot study? Uh, none. And just because one did a pilot, it doesn’t guarantee that the actual process will be a 100% smooth sailing. Some glitches here and there are anticipated so it’s a learning process, though kept minimal. Apparently, none of my guineas before faced the problem he seemed to have. Due to its online nature, I realized that there may be some annoying bits in the survey, like respondents would have to answer all the questions marked * before proceeding to the next section (essential for my analysis, so can’t do without it).. Or that they had to tick the box “Others” when giving out there own answers (technical issue, which I can do nothing about unless I’m an expert in HTML or programming).

Anyway, with those realizations, I also included a document version of the survey to my respondents with the hope that if (a big IF) something happens, then they’d be sensible enough to resort to the alternative, hence, not “waste” their precious minutes.

So what did I do? Obviously, being the student, I apologized for the inconvenienced caused and thanked him dearly for pointing out the flaw in the system. I even asked him which question was the culprit so I could do something about it. I also said that if he’s still interested to participate, he could answer the one in Word form that I attached again.

He just replied me back, with the .doc survey form. Not mentioning which question in the online version that was problematic. Oh well.. At least I got one response

Financial Freedom

I’ve been thinking a lot about the above for some time now. Not that it has never crossed my mind before, just that I’ve always been one of those people who’s pretty happy with the small things she has in life.. In other words, too scared to part with my money or lazy to acquire information. So why think about it now? Maybe it’s because I’ve got some free time in my hands (my Supervisors won’t be pleased with this).. Or perhaps, I’m just so in love with these two properties that are way, way off my budget. Depressing, ain’t it?

Though I may never be able to afford such homes in the near future, the thought definitely triggered me to start making my money work harder. Those saved in the EPF, for instance, are gonna be sitting there untouched anyway. So why not exercise them a bit? Plus, I won’t feel that I’m parting with my money whenever I’m putting my additional investments.

Democracy At Work

Malaysia just had its 12th general election yesterday and the result is pretty shocking. I’m not into politics and shall refrain from sharing with anyone who I voted for.. But several things are clear.

1. Malaysians, in general, don’t like arrogance (or too much power) among its leaders. I think this is just one way how the people scare the leaders a bit. Hopefully they’ll be more humble if they win again in future. Having said that, BN did an awful job strategizing for this election. They should’ve never underestimated the loss of Selangor.
2. A strong opposition is also good for any government -they maintain the ‘check and balance’ and a more transparent system. This way, hopefully, it will reduce corruption or any other unscrupulousness among the top guns as they’d be more wary of their actions. Plus, lopsided laws are not that easily made given now that less than 2/3 are in control in Parliament. Somehow, I think this is a good opportunity
3. People just get bored of the same thing, unless of course, it benefits everyone
4. Democracy is still very much alive here in Malaysia. The result of this general election proves that the peoples’ voices are heard. I bet many of those five million non-registered voters will vote in the next election.

Now, let’s all hope the new state governments can do better than the last one, eh? Otherwise, off you go too.

Waist-ed

I went to my tailor yesterday. Decided that I had nothing (this word is subjective in a woman’s point of view, especially when it comes to clothes) to wear for all (again, subjective) the impending wedding invites that I’ll be getting this year. So off I went with five types of fabrics, happily imagining the new kurungs and kebayas that I’ll have in a couple of months’ time.

Kak Jun didn’t see the need to take my measurements again as she thought I haven’t changed much physically. But me and my inquisitive nature insisted that she re-measure, at least my waist, so that I’ll have a more accurate cut for my new garments. So off she went and measured my waist -and not so surprising, it was an inch wider! I was hoping that I magically shrunk, or maintained, to say the least.. After that, she decided to re-measure the entire me all over again, and guess what? Nothing else seemed to expand apart from my waist.

Hmmph.

I’m not sure if this is any deal to begin with, after all, women only become superficial when they start comparing themselves with models or other stick figures they come across. And I’m actually quite blessed to have a high metabolic rate, which helped me remain thin despite not exercising ever. Guess I’m just annoyed ‘cos I’ve only given birth once and already I’m an inch wider. Hope it doesn’t start a trend where I’d gain an extra inch with every child I bear!

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In an unrelated matter, Tasha had her first bloody bruise on the knee and elbow last weekend. She was always an active child but had been lucky for not enduring any serious injuries. I think the unusual sight of red made her bawl her eyes out more, not the pain, as she’s used to that. Over the next two days, I had to stay home with her as she tiptoed around on her ‘injured’ leg. That sight was too funny for words as it was so melodramatic of her!

We’ve also noticed that she’s starting to have an imaginary friend. At times, she’ll be talking to shim (don’t know whether it’s a boy or girl), arguing who started a fight or something. Nothing to worry about? Hmm..