One of the things about my current job is that I can afford to take a short time off work to spend half a day helping unemployed IT professionals get new jobs. This week I was able to perform screening interviews for a job I used to have with a major tech firm about 4 years ago.
Here are my observations. This observation is probably one small sample of unemployed IT professionals so that there is unlikely to be of any statistical significance. I think my learnings can help the reader protect their careers as they get into middle age.
a) Generally speaking, those above their 40s with a salary above $7,000 are at risk.
There is a large number of unemployed folks who have a previous salary of over $7,000 and above the age of 40. If you belong to this category, my only advice is that you begin to curtail your home expenses aggressively, start investing for yields and possibly spend your weekends getting your taxi license or giving tuition. Don't let the MNC you work for pink slip you into doing this out of necessity.
b) Most candidates lack communication skills, technical skills or both.
One of the trends I noticed amongst candidates is that they don't really have the right skills to explain complicated technical concepts to non-technical customers. People with a sales background can speak really well but can seldom dig within a component like a router to explain to me that they can understand IP address, packet sizes, etc... The technical folks who can do so somehow fail to inspire confidence in the customer. This serves to confirm that professionals who have both can develop more career resilience. Technical professionals should join a Toastmasters club, sales professionals probably need a to get a good technical credential like A+ or a Masters in Technology to remain competitive.
c) Foreigners are cheaper and better than Singaporeans.
It saddens me to say this but this is an inconvenient truth which I must emphasize to all my readers. Of all the candidates I interview, those who were given the highest grades were all Singapore PRs. Singapore PRs generally have lower pay scales and somehow combine technical savvy with better communication skills. I imagine that the local candidates who got through the screen would have to contend with pretty fierce competition. I pray we will learn that the deck is becoming increasingly stacked against us and it's time to call in favours and network with other Singaporeans to work better in this industry.
( If you want to know, I did ask the coordinator if we should only allow Singaporeans through the screen or forbid PRs altogether. After all, we believe that Singaporeans should come first. While this idea is nice, my organization cannot afford to lose its credibility to the MNCs as well, so that this is not an easy balancing act to do. )
d) Read here for the most controversial finding.
I am not trying to nasty or suggest that a statistical reality exists here, but a lot of the resumes I reviewed had Hwa Chong Junior College in it. It took me a while to decide whether to blog about this since I have no explanation for this finding. After all, HCJC is an elite institution in Singapore. A good way to explain it is that many HCJC alumni are mathematically inclined so would have been attracted to IT as an industry. I think there are worse ways to interpret these observations but I am not out to start a flame war here. ( Note that, personally, I'd rather there'll be less NJCians like myself in politics or the civil service. )
Nevertheless note that I speak on this blog as a ultra-capitalist finance author and not my day alter ego as an bleeding heart liberal IT manager and HDB uncle in a labour union.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
What will you be doing in your miserable 40s ?
"At 15 I set my heart on learning; at 30 I firmly took my stand; at 40 I had no delusions; at 50 I knew the Mandate of Heaven; at 60 my ear was attuned; at 70 I followed my heart's desire without overstepping the boundaries of right." - Confucius
Confucius was wrong, he never was an IT guy and given the complexity of the modern era, having no delusions in only the first step in planning for your 40s.
A recurring theme in my discussions with my IT team-mates ( who are coincidentally my age ) is that our career mobility faces a drastic reduction the moment we hit our 40s. This means that by the age of 40, it is vitally important that we position ourselves in a place where we can hold onto a job.
For IT professionals, this is bad news. The industry places a very low premium on the experience of most technical professionals, so to survive, we have to perform a balancing act of developing domain knowledge that is largely experience-driven versus keeping up with the latest developments in modern technology.
In the my current environment in NTUC, I urge my team not to benchmark internally, as others within NTUC become more valuable with more social capital, but for us IT guys, we need to convince ourselves that we can find employment somewhere else at the drop of a hat. It's too easy to get complacent in labour union.
So for myself, I have to lead from the front, I just scored my CGEIT, in the middle of my TOGAF certification and very likely to end the year with CRISC. My team has been asked to focus on security management, cloud computing and consumerization to remain relevant for the rest of the industry.
But somehow at the back of mind, for the generation of Gen-X executives, staying relevant within the industry is not enough, here are some of my thoughts which I may not find comfortable echoing within my workplace :
a) Your career income flow is only one flow.
While your dividend income moves with the markets, your earned income has a fluctuation of it's own. The amount of effort you need to maintain your earned income flow depends very much on political connections in the office and how useful you can make yourself to your superiors. You can have a few key projects in a peaceful year but staff turnover can result in a new boss the following year which can result in a personality clash. Having two flows with two different sources of risk can ease you into your 40s in a much easier manner.
b) Your 40s are going to be your most miserable years in your life.
My studies in psychology confirm that our 40s are likely to be our most miserable years. Our careers will become fixed at this stage and we're not likely to climb much further. Family men have mortgages to handle and young kids cope with. It is also logical that many of us will starting losing our parents to old age at this stage of our lives.
Singles are slightly luckier, but they will need to take their parents health as a key consideration for planning their career in their 40s.
c) Gen-X needs to loosen up.
Somehow I think that Gen-Y's priorities are very different and very new age. They probably will not face the same kind of misery we will eventually face because they were never sold to the world of corporate employment and mindless consumerism we were sold to in the 80s and 90s.
While Singaporean used to scoff at making meaning through artistic endeavour in our youth, it's time to use our financial independence to earn back at least a small part of our souls. This means doing something to enrich our experiences through art, entrepreneurship,travel or meditation.
This last point on loosening up is my weakest suit. I'm aggressively pursuing artistic pursuits and using this market downturn to pay for some courses.
Time will tell if I can succeed when I hit my big 4-0 in 2014.
Confucius was wrong, he never was an IT guy and given the complexity of the modern era, having no delusions in only the first step in planning for your 40s.
A recurring theme in my discussions with my IT team-mates ( who are coincidentally my age ) is that our career mobility faces a drastic reduction the moment we hit our 40s. This means that by the age of 40, it is vitally important that we position ourselves in a place where we can hold onto a job.
For IT professionals, this is bad news. The industry places a very low premium on the experience of most technical professionals, so to survive, we have to perform a balancing act of developing domain knowledge that is largely experience-driven versus keeping up with the latest developments in modern technology.
In the my current environment in NTUC, I urge my team not to benchmark internally, as others within NTUC become more valuable with more social capital, but for us IT guys, we need to convince ourselves that we can find employment somewhere else at the drop of a hat. It's too easy to get complacent in labour union.
So for myself, I have to lead from the front, I just scored my CGEIT, in the middle of my TOGAF certification and very likely to end the year with CRISC. My team has been asked to focus on security management, cloud computing and consumerization to remain relevant for the rest of the industry.
But somehow at the back of mind, for the generation of Gen-X executives, staying relevant within the industry is not enough, here are some of my thoughts which I may not find comfortable echoing within my workplace :
a) Your career income flow is only one flow.
While your dividend income moves with the markets, your earned income has a fluctuation of it's own. The amount of effort you need to maintain your earned income flow depends very much on political connections in the office and how useful you can make yourself to your superiors. You can have a few key projects in a peaceful year but staff turnover can result in a new boss the following year which can result in a personality clash. Having two flows with two different sources of risk can ease you into your 40s in a much easier manner.
b) Your 40s are going to be your most miserable years in your life.
My studies in psychology confirm that our 40s are likely to be our most miserable years. Our careers will become fixed at this stage and we're not likely to climb much further. Family men have mortgages to handle and young kids cope with. It is also logical that many of us will starting losing our parents to old age at this stage of our lives.
Singles are slightly luckier, but they will need to take their parents health as a key consideration for planning their career in their 40s.
c) Gen-X needs to loosen up.
Somehow I think that Gen-Y's priorities are very different and very new age. They probably will not face the same kind of misery we will eventually face because they were never sold to the world of corporate employment and mindless consumerism we were sold to in the 80s and 90s.
While Singaporean used to scoff at making meaning through artistic endeavour in our youth, it's time to use our financial independence to earn back at least a small part of our souls. This means doing something to enrich our experiences through art, entrepreneurship,travel or meditation.
This last point on loosening up is my weakest suit. I'm aggressively pursuing artistic pursuits and using this market downturn to pay for some courses.
Time will tell if I can succeed when I hit my big 4-0 in 2014.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
People who read "The Secret" hate me !
A series of events triggered this blog posting. I'm slowly coming to realize that there is a class of readers who absolutely hate my writings and form the core group of people who are my biggest critics.
This started when a colleague told me that he liked my writings but his friend does'nt, I asked him if his friend ever did MLM, and he said yes and then went on to say that his friend is also a fan of Rhonda Byrnes' best-seller The Secret. I asked if his friend has any alternative to my system of wealth management system and did not manage to get any answer.
Anyway, to my critics, my ideas are too conservative, conformist and conventional. To them, working hard, living frugally and investing intelligently is very boring. A life coach and insurance agent once admonished me for intellectualizing too much, to which I replied that I am sure that their commissions would be much higher if everybody stopped intellectualizing in this world.
I think I'm starting to get a grip on who my biggest critics are :
a) Someone who does MLM and thinks that its the best thing in the world.
b) Someone who likes authors like Rhonda Byrnes, Paul Coelho or Harv Eker.
c) Someone who focuses on the aspirational aspect of internet marketing but not the techniques will probably hate the stuff I write about.
c) Someone who is intuitive and not very judgemental and possibly not data driven, because they don't want to be challenged with statistics or proofs of concept.
d) Someone who aspires to be special and non-conformist and think that people who do a decent job are robots controlled by the Men in White.
A large part of my second book Harvesting the Fruits of Prosperity addresses my critics so much so that I wrote a special section on why MLM doesn't work most of the time. I shall not repeat them here.
Perhaps in a future piece of work, I will explain why concepts in The Secret are not designed to be falsifiable but I will need to draw some concepts from Philosophy to launch a credible attack on it.
This started when a colleague told me that he liked my writings but his friend does'nt, I asked him if his friend ever did MLM, and he said yes and then went on to say that his friend is also a fan of Rhonda Byrnes' best-seller The Secret. I asked if his friend has any alternative to my system of wealth management system and did not manage to get any answer.
Anyway, to my critics, my ideas are too conservative, conformist and conventional. To them, working hard, living frugally and investing intelligently is very boring. A life coach and insurance agent once admonished me for intellectualizing too much, to which I replied that I am sure that their commissions would be much higher if everybody stopped intellectualizing in this world.
I think I'm starting to get a grip on who my biggest critics are :
a) Someone who does MLM and thinks that its the best thing in the world.
b) Someone who likes authors like Rhonda Byrnes, Paul Coelho or Harv Eker.
c) Someone who focuses on the aspirational aspect of internet marketing but not the techniques will probably hate the stuff I write about.
c) Someone who is intuitive and not very judgemental and possibly not data driven, because they don't want to be challenged with statistics or proofs of concept.
d) Someone who aspires to be special and non-conformist and think that people who do a decent job are robots controlled by the Men in White.
A large part of my second book Harvesting the Fruits of Prosperity addresses my critics so much so that I wrote a special section on why MLM doesn't work most of the time. I shall not repeat them here.
Perhaps in a future piece of work, I will explain why concepts in The Secret are not designed to be falsifiable but I will need to draw some concepts from Philosophy to launch a credible attack on it.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Sustainable Artistic Pursuits with Astute Financial Management.
Today I just to share my ideas on pursuing one's interest in the Arts.
There are quite a lot of friends around me who want to be artists. Many want to publish a book of fiction, some like to draw, others want to pursue photography. A common grouse is that Singapore as a society does not respect the Arts and someone's dreams cannot be fulfilled because of other Singaporeans and their pragmatism.
We're currently in the middle of dividends season, and I just had an insight that I am probably closer to living a life of a writer than many of my peers.
Passive income is a "no-brainer" for artists. Steady cash flow is a welcome addition if you have a creative pursuit and may have to suffer an unpredictable cash flow if you choose to make it your primary income.
In fact, in Singapore, I may even argue that passive income is a pre-requisite for proper pursuit in the creative arts. If I do not have any fear of my family starving while I write my book or do my painting, I may be able to devote more time to my pursuits and take on bigger risks. This will buy time for me to practise and really become the best in my field.
As it stands, I have an opportunity to try something I'm really not particularly good at. I can spend my extra time to create a small piece of fiction, pay for writing lessons, pay for editing and float it into the book-stores.
It can sell zero copies, I won't be destroyed by my attempt if it fails. The next round of dividends can pay for my next version and so on...
Anyway, these are my plans I have brewing in the background. Next step is to pay for all the workshop events in the Singapore Writers festival and keep up the pressure to become a decent writer.
There are quite a lot of friends around me who want to be artists. Many want to publish a book of fiction, some like to draw, others want to pursue photography. A common grouse is that Singapore as a society does not respect the Arts and someone's dreams cannot be fulfilled because of other Singaporeans and their pragmatism.
We're currently in the middle of dividends season, and I just had an insight that I am probably closer to living a life of a writer than many of my peers.
Passive income is a "no-brainer" for artists. Steady cash flow is a welcome addition if you have a creative pursuit and may have to suffer an unpredictable cash flow if you choose to make it your primary income.
In fact, in Singapore, I may even argue that passive income is a pre-requisite for proper pursuit in the creative arts. If I do not have any fear of my family starving while I write my book or do my painting, I may be able to devote more time to my pursuits and take on bigger risks. This will buy time for me to practise and really become the best in my field.
As it stands, I have an opportunity to try something I'm really not particularly good at. I can spend my extra time to create a small piece of fiction, pay for writing lessons, pay for editing and float it into the book-stores.
It can sell zero copies, I won't be destroyed by my attempt if it fails. The next round of dividends can pay for my next version and so on...
Anyway, these are my plans I have brewing in the background. Next step is to pay for all the workshop events in the Singapore Writers festival and keep up the pressure to become a decent writer.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
What's next ? Some random thoughts.
Here are some random thoughts on writing, passive income and financial independence.
a) A financially independent employee/entrepreneur is better off than just simply being financially independent.
Just yesterday, most investors would have had a major pay-off from their dividends. There was enough for me to sustain myself for the next 1.5 months until my next set of dividend income which comes in on September.
Coupled with the recent downturn, I am pretty grateful for my work in the unions these days because it has become easier to use earned income to pick up some bargains on a market downturn, something which someone who is simply unemployed but comfortable is unable to do. ( Unless he is so rich he lives on the dividends of his dividends, something I hope to achieve before I die. )
Of course I can write an entire book on how staying employed gives a person the ability to achieve a state of flow and hang out with a nice bunch of colleagues.
b) Passive income from writing is something worth fighting for.
I have no illusions about how hard is it to make money by writing. It sucks ! Only a crazy moron would quit a job to write full time in Singapore. While its entirely possible to succeed, you can jeopardise your family by indulging your fantasies about having a book out on the shelves.
That aside, I get about $100 from all my books every month. Cheques come in twice a year and I make $3 USD every month on my $0.99 Kindle publication per month. The power of royalty income is that it does'nt really correlate with the markets. My books will probably sell in bad times or good times even though they always sell pretty badly.
When your day job is done and your investments are humming, building your passive royalty income will be really slow but can be personally satisfying.
c) Very few avenues to sharpen writing skills in Singapore
If you want to pick up fiction-writing, Felix Cheong is the Man!
NUS Extension Writing Class
I've done the classes and even read a book on an MFA ( What is CFA and MBA of the Arts ). My next step is to engage very aggressively the Singapore Writer's Festival, plonking $140 bucks into paid workshops and attending the talk by Steven Levitt.
Who knows, maybe in two years time in 2013, I'll be doing the talking and others will be paying me to understand how I write my books. ( One can always dream. )
a) A financially independent employee/entrepreneur is better off than just simply being financially independent.
Just yesterday, most investors would have had a major pay-off from their dividends. There was enough for me to sustain myself for the next 1.5 months until my next set of dividend income which comes in on September.
Coupled with the recent downturn, I am pretty grateful for my work in the unions these days because it has become easier to use earned income to pick up some bargains on a market downturn, something which someone who is simply unemployed but comfortable is unable to do. ( Unless he is so rich he lives on the dividends of his dividends, something I hope to achieve before I die. )
Of course I can write an entire book on how staying employed gives a person the ability to achieve a state of flow and hang out with a nice bunch of colleagues.
b) Passive income from writing is something worth fighting for.
I have no illusions about how hard is it to make money by writing. It sucks ! Only a crazy moron would quit a job to write full time in Singapore. While its entirely possible to succeed, you can jeopardise your family by indulging your fantasies about having a book out on the shelves.
That aside, I get about $100 from all my books every month. Cheques come in twice a year and I make $3 USD every month on my $0.99 Kindle publication per month. The power of royalty income is that it does'nt really correlate with the markets. My books will probably sell in bad times or good times even though they always sell pretty badly.
When your day job is done and your investments are humming, building your passive royalty income will be really slow but can be personally satisfying.
c) Very few avenues to sharpen writing skills in Singapore
If you want to pick up fiction-writing, Felix Cheong is the Man!
NUS Extension Writing Class
I've done the classes and even read a book on an MFA ( What is CFA and MBA of the Arts ). My next step is to engage very aggressively the Singapore Writer's Festival, plonking $140 bucks into paid workshops and attending the talk by Steven Levitt.
Who knows, maybe in two years time in 2013, I'll be doing the talking and others will be paying me to understand how I write my books. ( One can always dream. )
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Final Writing Lesson - Quick tour of the Singapore Literary landscape.
Friday was the last writing lesson for me. Most of us in the class felt rather sad. By the time the course ended, class participants have just gotten into the groove of making fiction submissions, it is too bad that this has to stop.
In the last lesson, Felix walked us through the literature landscape with some books to read. I will not spoil the full list here but I did see three familiar titles which I have read.
a) Gone Case - Dave Chua.
b) The proper care of foxes - Wena Poon.
c) If we dream too long - Goh Poh Seng ( By far my favourite )
Of particular is that some upcoming books were passed around the class. I was able to feel the book and assess the quality of the paper and art.
Anyway, I'm posting my final submission here. My classmates commented that the story opened well but I should have expanded on the first half instead of coming up with the morbid second half.
----
Boris' nipples hurt – a lot. To him, nipples are not quite different from an elected president, both are used for ceremonial purposes.
But he can only blame himself as his freshly installed nipple-ring scraped against his bear outfit. It has swollen to the point of becoming red. Perhaps Boris might end up with an infection on the wrong part his chest. But in a few moments, the pain would have been considered all worthwhile. Boris has been waiting for this event to happen all his life.
It started with an Internet Chat-Room called #bearyland, Boris has been lurking and participating in the chatroom for many years. #bearyland was a a very special chatroom, instead of the normal IT geeks and chicks who frequent the Internet, #bearyland is a chatroom that caters to furries, people who have a kink or personal attraction to other people dressed as furry stuffed animals. While amateurs dismiss furries as just people are into Sesame street or the Muppets, a true furry can spend thousands of dollars on an outfit, complete with flaps placed strategically at different parts of their bodies, to facilitate acts that only a furry would know and understand.
Boris has spent years asking for a meet-up with fellow furries, but most of them were quite shy. A lot of furries are a little ashamed of their own inclinations and having an actual meet-up would be the last thing on their minds.
But not today. The folks who frequent #bearyland now have a way to meet without making the public feel at ease. Today is the cosplay convention at Singapore Expo and this is Boris' chance to meet his other friends who has his own interests.
Boris likes the colour pink. He gets turned on by other furries who dress in that colour. You might say that Boris wants something feminine but Boris would argue that it does'nt matter who is behind the outfit, the outfit is the real deal. The outfit allows the furry to express himself as how he genuinely saw himself. Besides, sexual orientation and gender are concepts that are so 20th Century.
Boris walks into the crowds of cosplayers who are reveling in all that attention from an eager group of photographers. Some girls walked by were wearing Sailor Moon outfits ( Tramps ! ). Seconds later, a section of Stormtroopers marched by (Fascists !). Boris ignores them all and begins to look for other furries just like himself.
He is soon in luck. Pink paw gestures to Boris from the corner of his eye.The paw belongs to a creature that looks like a cat in all it's pink glory. The cat has a sweet smile and adorable disposition.
As Boris got nearer, the enigmatic Pink Cat placed a tiny card on his brown furry paws and then waved goodbye to him and danced away.
The condominium is located on the East Coast. Boris could change into his outfit at the fitting room on the ground floor before taking the lift to the unit where the party takes place.
The condominium unit that Boris walks into is not something that he has expected. The rooms looks dilapidated and gives an eerie feeling to Boris that he cannot explain. The television is on, playing some creepy horror movie that involves zombies.
As Boris trundles into the center of the living room, the door slams shut and Boris can hear a click as the locks become. activated.
Emerging from the shadows is the Cat in Pink, the expression on the costume looked somewhat different from the cheerful expression what greeted Boris in the Expo. The Pink Cat looked a lot more feral and what used to be a smile now looked like a scowl. Boris swears that the Pink Cat's eyes are glowing red.
The flaps on the Pink Cat costume opened. To Boris' horror, a stream of what could be thousands of tiny rodents with glowing red eyes began to scurry down from the Pink Cat's opened flap at its groin region, they raced towards Boris who is too stunned to react.
Boris began to scream and stomp as the gerbils started to surround him, driven insane by the cacophony of chittering noises.
It felt ironic that throughout his entire life, Boris wanted to be surrounded by furries. Now thousands of furries are surrounding him, trying to squirm and wiggle into his costume. Before he blacked out, he could feel something small and furry dive crawl up his rear-end.
In the last lesson, Felix walked us through the literature landscape with some books to read. I will not spoil the full list here but I did see three familiar titles which I have read.
a) Gone Case - Dave Chua.
b) The proper care of foxes - Wena Poon.
c) If we dream too long - Goh Poh Seng ( By far my favourite )
Of particular is that some upcoming books were passed around the class. I was able to feel the book and assess the quality of the paper and art.
Anyway, I'm posting my final submission here. My classmates commented that the story opened well but I should have expanded on the first half instead of coming up with the morbid second half.
----
Boris' nipples hurt – a lot. To him, nipples are not quite different from an elected president, both are used for ceremonial purposes.
But he can only blame himself as his freshly installed nipple-ring scraped against his bear outfit. It has swollen to the point of becoming red. Perhaps Boris might end up with an infection on the wrong part his chest. But in a few moments, the pain would have been considered all worthwhile. Boris has been waiting for this event to happen all his life.
It started with an Internet Chat-Room called #bearyland, Boris has been lurking and participating in the chatroom for many years. #bearyland was a a very special chatroom, instead of the normal IT geeks and chicks who frequent the Internet, #bearyland is a chatroom that caters to furries, people who have a kink or personal attraction to other people dressed as furry stuffed animals. While amateurs dismiss furries as just people are into Sesame street or the Muppets, a true furry can spend thousands of dollars on an outfit, complete with flaps placed strategically at different parts of their bodies, to facilitate acts that only a furry would know and understand.
Boris has spent years asking for a meet-up with fellow furries, but most of them were quite shy. A lot of furries are a little ashamed of their own inclinations and having an actual meet-up would be the last thing on their minds.
But not today. The folks who frequent #bearyland now have a way to meet without making the public feel at ease. Today is the cosplay convention at Singapore Expo and this is Boris' chance to meet his other friends who has his own interests.
Boris likes the colour pink. He gets turned on by other furries who dress in that colour. You might say that Boris wants something feminine but Boris would argue that it does'nt matter who is behind the outfit, the outfit is the real deal. The outfit allows the furry to express himself as how he genuinely saw himself. Besides, sexual orientation and gender are concepts that are so 20th Century.
Boris walks into the crowds of cosplayers who are reveling in all that attention from an eager group of photographers. Some girls walked by were wearing Sailor Moon outfits ( Tramps ! ). Seconds later, a section of Stormtroopers marched by (Fascists !). Boris ignores them all and begins to look for other furries just like himself.
He is soon in luck. Pink paw gestures to Boris from the corner of his eye.The paw belongs to a creature that looks like a cat in all it's pink glory. The cat has a sweet smile and adorable disposition.
As Boris got nearer, the enigmatic Pink Cat placed a tiny card on his brown furry paws and then waved goodbye to him and danced away.
The condominium is located on the East Coast. Boris could change into his outfit at the fitting room on the ground floor before taking the lift to the unit where the party takes place.
The condominium unit that Boris walks into is not something that he has expected. The rooms looks dilapidated and gives an eerie feeling to Boris that he cannot explain. The television is on, playing some creepy horror movie that involves zombies.
As Boris trundles into the center of the living room, the door slams shut and Boris can hear a click as the locks become. activated.
Emerging from the shadows is the Cat in Pink, the expression on the costume looked somewhat different from the cheerful expression what greeted Boris in the Expo. The Pink Cat looked a lot more feral and what used to be a smile now looked like a scowl. Boris swears that the Pink Cat's eyes are glowing red.
The flaps on the Pink Cat costume opened. To Boris' horror, a stream of what could be thousands of tiny rodents with glowing red eyes began to scurry down from the Pink Cat's opened flap at its groin region, they raced towards Boris who is too stunned to react.
Boris began to scream and stomp as the gerbils started to surround him, driven insane by the cacophony of chittering noises.
It felt ironic that throughout his entire life, Boris wanted to be surrounded by furries. Now thousands of furries are surrounding him, trying to squirm and wiggle into his costume. Before he blacked out, he could feel something small and furry dive crawl up his rear-end.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Fiction Writing #7 : Opportunities, Scholarships and Competitions.
This update is going to be really short. For folks like me, writing is an attempt to build a third source of passive income. It's slow, has a ridiculous low ROI, but writing creates cash flows that do not vary with the prevailing economic situation.
With books at $0.99 in Kindle, you'll likely make the same amount of money during a downturn. If your book actually describes what to do in a downturn, then it'll probably peak during times of economic distress.
It may take someone like me 10 years to pay off my electrical bills with my book royalties, but hey, you'll never know if you'll luck out and have a bestseller in your hands if you just keep on trying.
I won't really go into detail into this lesson because I think interested folks should give Felix Cheong, my instructor, some business. This one lesson itself is worth the price of the entire course fee.
Anyway, today's lesson is the most important one for the product creator:
a) It lists our the key local publishers that a writer can approach to get his book out on the bookshelves.
b) It discusses some sources of funding from the government as well as scholarships.
c) It provides a list of writing competitions to keep the deliberate practice going. ( And thought the Golden was the only thing which I can participate in. )
Anyway, we're almost to the end of the course so the last write-up will be next week.
With books at $0.99 in Kindle, you'll likely make the same amount of money during a downturn. If your book actually describes what to do in a downturn, then it'll probably peak during times of economic distress.
It may take someone like me 10 years to pay off my electrical bills with my book royalties, but hey, you'll never know if you'll luck out and have a bestseller in your hands if you just keep on trying.
I won't really go into detail into this lesson because I think interested folks should give Felix Cheong, my instructor, some business. This one lesson itself is worth the price of the entire course fee.
Anyway, today's lesson is the most important one for the product creator:
a) It lists our the key local publishers that a writer can approach to get his book out on the bookshelves.
b) It discusses some sources of funding from the government as well as scholarships.
c) It provides a list of writing competitions to keep the deliberate practice going. ( And thought the Golden was the only thing which I can participate in. )
Anyway, we're almost to the end of the course so the last write-up will be next week.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Fiction writing lesson #6 : Genres
The last lesson had almost no theory. We spent the greater part of the day going through the works of other writers and coming up with a criticism of their work.
Genres can be thought of as imaginative or realistic.
Imaginative genres include fantasy, science fiction or even wuxia. Law of physics can be bent and it's normally expected that wizards can cast spells.
Realistic genres include detective, romance or historical genre. Even though the events are fictional, they can possibly happen in the real world.
Authors write within genres because it's easier to ease the reader into their world. Bestselling ideas often involve mixing and matching different genres. For example, teenage vampire fiction like the Twilight series mixes the horror and romance genres.
My own personal project which resulted in a Golden Point submission this year is sort of Harry Potter meets Song of Ice and Fire in the Singapore school system.
Genres can be thought of as imaginative or realistic.
Imaginative genres include fantasy, science fiction or even wuxia. Law of physics can be bent and it's normally expected that wizards can cast spells.
Realistic genres include detective, romance or historical genre. Even though the events are fictional, they can possibly happen in the real world.
Authors write within genres because it's easier to ease the reader into their world. Bestselling ideas often involve mixing and matching different genres. For example, teenage vampire fiction like the Twilight series mixes the horror and romance genres.
My own personal project which resulted in a Golden Point submission this year is sort of Harry Potter meets Song of Ice and Fire in the Singapore school system.
Saturday, August 06, 2011
Fiction Writing Lesson #5 : Perspectives
Writing class is now starting to become interesting. As the homework submissions become larger, we now spend more than half the time reading and critiquing other people's writing which I think is really good because it shows us how to sharpen our own writing skills.
In a good writing class, theory should be thin and to the point. The rest of the time should be spent on critique and writing fiction itself.
Today's lesson is on perspectives.
When writing in first person perspective, we write from the point of view of one person. Sherlock Holmes stories are written from the perspective of Dr. Watson. This form of writing is fairly common. This form of writing gets especially interesting when you write from the point of view of an evil character. You may have to introduce a long stream of rationalizations into your writing and narrations can be unreliable as well. George R R Martin's Song of Fire and Ice divides his chapters into multiple first person narratives and is a good showcase on the power of using this technique for writing.
When writing in third person perspective, you become some sort of godly being that can move from different points of view from multiple characters. Dragonlance, Lord of the Rings employ this approach. This is the most common perspective found in fantasy fiction and most plot driven narratives.
The hardest perspective to write with is the second person perspective. The book addresses the reader as the protagonist of the story. Uncommon in literature, the second person perspective has spawned the gamebooks genre like Choose your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy series where you get to be the fantasy hero of the story.
" You step into the Dungeon of Chaos and find an orc eating a pie. He draws his sword and charges towards you. If you strike him down turn to page 69."
Unfortunately for all of us students, we would have to write a story based on second person perspective and submit by next Friday. Fortunately, my many years as a Dungeon Master will be useful for this exercise as it is the primary mode which I narrate a game to my players.
In a good writing class, theory should be thin and to the point. The rest of the time should be spent on critique and writing fiction itself.
Today's lesson is on perspectives.
When writing in first person perspective, we write from the point of view of one person. Sherlock Holmes stories are written from the perspective of Dr. Watson. This form of writing is fairly common. This form of writing gets especially interesting when you write from the point of view of an evil character. You may have to introduce a long stream of rationalizations into your writing and narrations can be unreliable as well. George R R Martin's Song of Fire and Ice divides his chapters into multiple first person narratives and is a good showcase on the power of using this technique for writing.
When writing in third person perspective, you become some sort of godly being that can move from different points of view from multiple characters. Dragonlance, Lord of the Rings employ this approach. This is the most common perspective found in fantasy fiction and most plot driven narratives.
The hardest perspective to write with is the second person perspective. The book addresses the reader as the protagonist of the story. Uncommon in literature, the second person perspective has spawned the gamebooks genre like Choose your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy series where you get to be the fantasy hero of the story.
" You step into the Dungeon of Chaos and find an orc eating a pie. He draws his sword and charges towards you. If you strike him down turn to page 69."
Unfortunately for all of us students, we would have to write a story based on second person perspective and submit by next Friday. Fortunately, my many years as a Dungeon Master will be useful for this exercise as it is the primary mode which I narrate a game to my players.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Fiction Writing Lesson #4 : Characters
At this point of our classes, we will spend more time writing and discussing the merits of our works so there is less theory to share moving forward.
Yesterday, we studied how to create believable fictional characters and once again we were introduced to two concepts, that of an archetype versus a stereotype. Once again, my engineering instincts kicked in and produced an equation to make understanding fiction much easier for us Techies type.
Archetype = Stereotype - Exaggeration
An example of an archetype commonly found in fiction is the The Artist, someone who is cast as somewhat eccentric, angsty and wants to bring something from his internal world into an external representation like a book or a piece of sculpture. Some experts claim that there are about 45 standard archetypes in literature and fiction writing.
Archetypes makes characters more believable.
A stereotype is an archetype on steroids. Add exaggeration to an archetype and you will get a stereotype. The character loses his political correctness and becomes more unbelievable. imagine a story of multicultural Singapore where Chinese gamble, Indians drink and Malays take drugs, and you catch the drift.
The best value from the course comes from the idea that a character becomes much more interesting if you introduce contradictions into his character.
Instead of a starving artist, perhaps the Artist in the story is a vulgar drill sergeant who imposes a life of strict regimentation his recruits who actually secretly paints in his spare time. Once an author finds a way to twist a character, the character becomes much more memorable.
Yesterday, we studied how to create believable fictional characters and once again we were introduced to two concepts, that of an archetype versus a stereotype. Once again, my engineering instincts kicked in and produced an equation to make understanding fiction much easier for us Techies type.
Archetype = Stereotype - Exaggeration
An example of an archetype commonly found in fiction is the The Artist, someone who is cast as somewhat eccentric, angsty and wants to bring something from his internal world into an external representation like a book or a piece of sculpture. Some experts claim that there are about 45 standard archetypes in literature and fiction writing.
Archetypes makes characters more believable.
A stereotype is an archetype on steroids. Add exaggeration to an archetype and you will get a stereotype. The character loses his political correctness and becomes more unbelievable. imagine a story of multicultural Singapore where Chinese gamble, Indians drink and Malays take drugs, and you catch the drift.
The best value from the course comes from the idea that a character becomes much more interesting if you introduce contradictions into his character.
Instead of a starving artist, perhaps the Artist in the story is a vulgar drill sergeant who imposes a life of strict regimentation his recruits who actually secretly paints in his spare time. Once an author finds a way to twist a character, the character becomes much more memorable.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Fiction writing lesson #3 : Plot, Reversals, Recognition and Beats
Yesterday we got into a detailed discussion on how to construct a plot.
Stories can be plot-driven or character driven. A plot-driven story is somewhat like Transformer 3, a lot of things happen, but the author has to intervene and make the entire plot gel using a series of contrivances or coincidences. Plot-driven stories may have logical loopholes and tend to disrupt the suspension of disbelief. In Avatar, nature has to wake up just when the humans are about to destroy the Na'vi.
Stories can also be character driven. These stories are more carefully crafted and often are told from a person's point of view. The strength of this approach is that causation for the events are clearly spelled out so there is usually stronger logical consistency. The weakness is that character driven plots can be boring. I just read a Dance with Dragons and it's a very character driven fantasy series. In book 5, there is so much stream of consciousness writing that nothing much happens for thousands of pages until the author decided to fuck this shit and started killing the key characters in the story.
The best stories should a combination of both.
Then the lesson starts getting interesting. Due to my engineering inclinations, I can summarize storytelling into a simple equation.
Beat = Reversal + Recognition
Imagine a set of scenes as programmable objects that you use to develop a story otherwise called a beat. Fundamental in a good story is that the protagonist encounters an obstacle (reversal) and then experiences a personal change (recognition).
Chaining these beats allow you to methodically build your story into a climax.
Stories can be plot-driven or character driven. A plot-driven story is somewhat like Transformer 3, a lot of things happen, but the author has to intervene and make the entire plot gel using a series of contrivances or coincidences. Plot-driven stories may have logical loopholes and tend to disrupt the suspension of disbelief. In Avatar, nature has to wake up just when the humans are about to destroy the Na'vi.
Stories can also be character driven. These stories are more carefully crafted and often are told from a person's point of view. The strength of this approach is that causation for the events are clearly spelled out so there is usually stronger logical consistency. The weakness is that character driven plots can be boring. I just read a Dance with Dragons and it's a very character driven fantasy series. In book 5, there is so much stream of consciousness writing that nothing much happens for thousands of pages until the author decided to fuck this shit and started killing the key characters in the story.
The best stories should a combination of both.
Then the lesson starts getting interesting. Due to my engineering inclinations, I can summarize storytelling into a simple equation.
Beat = Reversal + Recognition
Imagine a set of scenes as programmable objects that you use to develop a story otherwise called a beat. Fundamental in a good story is that the protagonist encounters an obstacle (reversal) and then experiences a personal change (recognition).
Chaining these beats allow you to methodically build your story into a climax.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Fiction Writing Lesson #2 : Show, don't tell.
Show, don't Tell is one of those basic fiction writing concepts which have been something I've been trying to wrap my head around for ages. In fiction writing, the aim is not tell the writer of someone's feelings but to show it. This allows the reader to infer for himself what's really going on around the story.
Lesson 2's exercise is powerful and I find myself able to apply it to some of my electronic products almost immediately once I get around to rewriting some of the narratives in my fantasy RPG.
Original prose - He had never been so angry in his life.
After my refinement - His brows tightened as his face turned beet red. With a clenched fist raised to the sky, the teenager's voice thundered across the room.
I was not even sure if tightening brows signified anger but I'm still an amateur at this.
Some paragraphs later, I decided to go ape-shit with this concept.
Original Prose - She could not imagine how her precious baby had grown up into such a rebellious, defiant teenager with no qualms about saying untrue things.
After my refinement - The babe that used to suckle at her teats has now become a raging tornado of bullshit, threatening to despoil the truth with it's swirling nuggets of filth.
The flair for drama aside, I just recalled my good instructor reminding us not to mix our metaphors.
All in all, a good lesson not just in fiction writing, but also in good corporate communications. You can increase your persuasiveness by using metaphors in your speech and by using concrete images to sway your audience.
Now to "weaponise" this discovery for my friends who are still in the dating circuit.
Lesson 2's exercise is powerful and I find myself able to apply it to some of my electronic products almost immediately once I get around to rewriting some of the narratives in my fantasy RPG.
Original prose - He had never been so angry in his life.
After my refinement - His brows tightened as his face turned beet red. With a clenched fist raised to the sky, the teenager's voice thundered across the room.
I was not even sure if tightening brows signified anger but I'm still an amateur at this.
Some paragraphs later, I decided to go ape-shit with this concept.
Original Prose - She could not imagine how her precious baby had grown up into such a rebellious, defiant teenager with no qualms about saying untrue things.
After my refinement - The babe that used to suckle at her teats has now become a raging tornado of bullshit, threatening to despoil the truth with it's swirling nuggets of filth.
The flair for drama aside, I just recalled my good instructor reminding us not to mix our metaphors.
All in all, a good lesson not just in fiction writing, but also in good corporate communications. You can increase your persuasiveness by using metaphors in your speech and by using concrete images to sway your audience.
Now to "weaponise" this discovery for my friends who are still in the dating circuit.
Saturday, July 09, 2011
Fiction Writing Lesson #1 : Joys of discomfort.
Yesterday marks my first fiction writing lesson under Felix Cheong, who conducts a brilliant course on fiction writing with NUS extension. While I'm not a new as a student of Felix, having attended an earlier session on feature writing, this first lesson was a particularly useful one, because I found it a little uncomfortable.
For years, I have stayed within comfortable boundaries and leveraged my classes based on my strengths. Classes in finance and IT played on my traditional strengths of Analysis, Input and Intellection. For the first time in my life in a class, I had no strength or talent to draw from. All I have is the idea that with enough deliberate practice, I can take on fiction writing just like folks like George R R Martin and J K Rowling.
It felt funny being below average in class. Almost like taking Mandarin classes all over again.
I'm just going to highlight some of the high points of this class. I think many exercises cannot be done buy reading a book on fiction writing. You've got to sign up with Felix to experience it yourself.
a) Creatively generating multiple uses of an everyday object.
Felix took a water bottle and made the class think up alternative uses for it. I said that it can become a weapon for self-defense, another student said that it can function as a book-end. After a few rounds, conventional ideas started to run out and we began brainstorm some really zany ideas for the water bottle. Most of my ideas are X-rated in nature so I had to suppress sharing with the class how the bottle can be used for colonic irrigation or acting as a temporary storage on the way to the sperm bank.
b) Predicting someone's personality by looking at their belongings.
In the second exercise, we were made to read someone's personality by looking at four of their items. I had an unfair advantage for this exercise because I employed the OCEAN personality framework to create a fairly accurate profile of someone. The dude showed me an Economist magazine (turned to the pages on ETFs) and a bible, so using the framework I painted an agreeable, introverted and very conscientious personality profile of my target. One student wanted to offer me a job after my display, but it's really the framework in use that should be credited for it.
c) Generating a story by listening to a song.
This is the highlight of the evening. We listened to two songs and we then were made to come out with a story-line idea after the song ends. This exercise was way over my head. The songs were very alternative and the best i could do is visualize a scene which was spontaneously being generated in my head. I was unable to construct a setup, conflict and conclusion by listening to one song. But the amazing thing is, the rest of the class did! One lady who is in advertising came out with so much concrete detail it includes a twist in the plot of each tale, the specific locations where action is taking place and the the countries the characters come from. How so much information could be squeezed out of a song with lyrics that are barely audible baffles me.
To close this article, I think a fiction writing class can benefit technology professionals or suits. Felix taught me that people tended to frame their experiences in two ways. A Paradigmatic approach normally used by engineers in an attempt to bring order out of chaos is my bread and butter in my daily work. But the other approach is the Narrative approach which I am now trying to master. Crafting a story, enriching it with metaphors and symbols, is a rare skill in the Tech world.
We should heed the useful lessons of the liberal arts to advance our technical careers.
For years, I have stayed within comfortable boundaries and leveraged my classes based on my strengths. Classes in finance and IT played on my traditional strengths of Analysis, Input and Intellection. For the first time in my life in a class, I had no strength or talent to draw from. All I have is the idea that with enough deliberate practice, I can take on fiction writing just like folks like George R R Martin and J K Rowling.
It felt funny being below average in class. Almost like taking Mandarin classes all over again.
I'm just going to highlight some of the high points of this class. I think many exercises cannot be done buy reading a book on fiction writing. You've got to sign up with Felix to experience it yourself.
a) Creatively generating multiple uses of an everyday object.
Felix took a water bottle and made the class think up alternative uses for it. I said that it can become a weapon for self-defense, another student said that it can function as a book-end. After a few rounds, conventional ideas started to run out and we began brainstorm some really zany ideas for the water bottle. Most of my ideas are X-rated in nature so I had to suppress sharing with the class how the bottle can be used for colonic irrigation or acting as a temporary storage on the way to the sperm bank.
b) Predicting someone's personality by looking at their belongings.
In the second exercise, we were made to read someone's personality by looking at four of their items. I had an unfair advantage for this exercise because I employed the OCEAN personality framework to create a fairly accurate profile of someone. The dude showed me an Economist magazine (turned to the pages on ETFs) and a bible, so using the framework I painted an agreeable, introverted and very conscientious personality profile of my target. One student wanted to offer me a job after my display, but it's really the framework in use that should be credited for it.
c) Generating a story by listening to a song.
This is the highlight of the evening. We listened to two songs and we then were made to come out with a story-line idea after the song ends. This exercise was way over my head. The songs were very alternative and the best i could do is visualize a scene which was spontaneously being generated in my head. I was unable to construct a setup, conflict and conclusion by listening to one song. But the amazing thing is, the rest of the class did! One lady who is in advertising came out with so much concrete detail it includes a twist in the plot of each tale, the specific locations where action is taking place and the the countries the characters come from. How so much information could be squeezed out of a song with lyrics that are barely audible baffles me.
To close this article, I think a fiction writing class can benefit technology professionals or suits. Felix taught me that people tended to frame their experiences in two ways. A Paradigmatic approach normally used by engineers in an attempt to bring order out of chaos is my bread and butter in my daily work. But the other approach is the Narrative approach which I am now trying to master. Crafting a story, enriching it with metaphors and symbols, is a rare skill in the Tech world.
We should heed the useful lessons of the liberal arts to advance our technical careers.
Saturday, July 02, 2011
10,000 hours of deliberate practice : Maybe its time to realize my Fiction Writing ambitions.
The Golden Point awards submission closed on Thursday this week, and I have, a month earlier, submitted an entry for the English short story category. Perhaps after the announcement of the results, I can share my, as yet, amateur writings on this blog.
For the past 8 years or so, I took the easier road in writing and publication. Writing non-fiction does not really differ from project management. Simply start with a table of contents, break down the work structure until you can complete a section per sitting and start writing about 500 words a day. Rinse and repeat the cycle.
The tough part comes in after the manuscript is complete. As Singaporeans are not avid readers, you need to in-source a lot of functions like formatting and cover design to keep your costs at a bare minimum, by my third book, my cost per copy became as low as $3.80 a copy.
With the invention of the Kindle, authors now get direct exposure to international markets. While marketing remains a consistent problem for me, publishing a book priced at $0.99 can break even within a week. The Kindle based role-playing game I wrote actually sells about 15 copies a month.
Now it's time to move into the territory that I've been eyeing for years. Fiction writing is a big money loser in Singapore, and that's for our greatest literary talents. My distributor is always warning me about the perils of writing poetry in our business meetings, but I think the economics for Singapore fiction writing has changed, a short story can be floated on Kindle and if about 5 fans pick up a copy because of marketing over your blog, you can say that you've broken even. If you write a novel and can sell it for $2.99, your profit margin climbs up to 70%.
No paper publisher can offer terms like that.
Anyway, this years Golden point begins a fresh new cycle of deliberate practice for me in fiction writing. I can now say authoritatively that writing fiction is very hard and yield much lower rewards than non-fiction writing. But the process is psychically rewarding and you enter the state of flow much more easily.
Beginning next week, I will apprentice myself to a master wordsmith, Felix Cheong, who will smoothen some of my edges and, hopefully, make me a competent fiction writer who doesn't churn out drivel.
In the months that follow, I will share my vision for my fantasy fictional world of elite Singaporean secondary schools struggling for dominance in a Harry Potter cum Game of Thrones like setting.
I hope to target this product for teens as I now have a daughter to share my writings with in the future.
For the past 8 years or so, I took the easier road in writing and publication. Writing non-fiction does not really differ from project management. Simply start with a table of contents, break down the work structure until you can complete a section per sitting and start writing about 500 words a day. Rinse and repeat the cycle.
The tough part comes in after the manuscript is complete. As Singaporeans are not avid readers, you need to in-source a lot of functions like formatting and cover design to keep your costs at a bare minimum, by my third book, my cost per copy became as low as $3.80 a copy.
With the invention of the Kindle, authors now get direct exposure to international markets. While marketing remains a consistent problem for me, publishing a book priced at $0.99 can break even within a week. The Kindle based role-playing game I wrote actually sells about 15 copies a month.
Now it's time to move into the territory that I've been eyeing for years. Fiction writing is a big money loser in Singapore, and that's for our greatest literary talents. My distributor is always warning me about the perils of writing poetry in our business meetings, but I think the economics for Singapore fiction writing has changed, a short story can be floated on Kindle and if about 5 fans pick up a copy because of marketing over your blog, you can say that you've broken even. If you write a novel and can sell it for $2.99, your profit margin climbs up to 70%.
No paper publisher can offer terms like that.
Anyway, this years Golden point begins a fresh new cycle of deliberate practice for me in fiction writing. I can now say authoritatively that writing fiction is very hard and yield much lower rewards than non-fiction writing. But the process is psychically rewarding and you enter the state of flow much more easily.
Beginning next week, I will apprentice myself to a master wordsmith, Felix Cheong, who will smoothen some of my edges and, hopefully, make me a competent fiction writer who doesn't churn out drivel.
In the months that follow, I will share my vision for my fantasy fictional world of elite Singaporean secondary schools struggling for dominance in a Harry Potter cum Game of Thrones like setting.
I hope to target this product for teens as I now have a daughter to share my writings with in the future.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Why shouldn't Singaporean women be materialistic ?
The following article has created a minor storm on my Facebook, I thought I should comment on it.
Singaporean Girls are materialistic
So far, the reactions from a lot of folks were typical. A lot of ladies got upset and said that generalizations like this should not be made. A lot of guys snicker and accuse SMU of stating the obvious.
I'm adding my two-cents worth in this argument.
a) Maybe SMU should publish an article to demonstrate that Singaporean guys go for looks.
I'm with the evolution camp and while evolution makes women go after guys with more economic resources, women are also fairly diverse in what they want. Height, Facial symmetry are also factors in mate selection. They are actually more multi-dimensional than men.
The great thing about being multi-dimensional is that women can be subject to socialization.
b) Singaporean women HAVE to be materialistic.
Now a lot of poetic beta-males fantasize about European or Scandinavian chicks because they seem so liberal and are more willing to settle for love and compatibility. I don't think its the fault for Asian women to actually have standards compared to their European counterparts if you really understand the kind of societies they come from. If you observe these European women carefully, you will find that they come from countries that tax their working citizens to provide child support.
So of course Swedish and French women can accept the guy even if he is "useless piece of shit for a guy who can't get his ass off his bed to go out to work" because the State goes really far to look after the children. The Swedes and the French like to protect their men who can serenade their women and write touching poems.
c) Ergo, you want your daughters to less materialistic, pay more taxes !
In socialist Europe, more taxes will go a long way to help families cope with children. Childcare can be free all the way to university. But I don't think my single friends will want 15% GST and 60% income taxes like those in Europe so that they can find someone to love them unconditionally.
Of course, in such societies, particular breeds of unconscientious and unreliable dudes get to go on to taint the gene pool further. Why ? Because hard-working, conscientious and productive single men are paying to feed all those babies who might from the dudes who drink beer and can't hold a decent job.
Yup. You heard it. Women are not materialistic in high-tax societies. They are free to find some testosterone filled drunkard and have his babies because he may be tall and have better facial symmetry.
You, my hardworking, nerdy and geeky friend will spend your entire life paying 60% taxes and getting cuckolded by these non-materialistic and unconditionally loving women ! They simply develop a different criteria for mate selection. They love being serenaded and want love poems from a testosterone-filled guy with a neanderthal facial features. They don't give a shit about you even if you have money.
d) Therefore I conclude that materialistic Singaporean women are a good thing for us !
If women have are not choosy, men will have no standards, society will stagnate and we will be swallowed up by Malaysia.
Yeah sure, our local Xiao Meimei are a tad more materialistic than their Yankee counterparts, but that's easy for us guys because unlike facial symmetry, height or looking good with long hair on Harley motorcycle, SOCIAL STATUS CAN BE EARNED.
It is earned by careful planning, hard-work, resilience, superior salesmanship and ability to delay gratification. These traits can be developed.
Singaporean women are just telling us boys that if we want their love, we have to fight for it !
They are realistic and cannot be easily swayed by good looks, a leather jacket or a well-played ukulele.
Tell me why is that wrong with that?
Singaporean Girls are materialistic
So far, the reactions from a lot of folks were typical. A lot of ladies got upset and said that generalizations like this should not be made. A lot of guys snicker and accuse SMU of stating the obvious.
I'm adding my two-cents worth in this argument.
a) Maybe SMU should publish an article to demonstrate that Singaporean guys go for looks.
I'm with the evolution camp and while evolution makes women go after guys with more economic resources, women are also fairly diverse in what they want. Height, Facial symmetry are also factors in mate selection. They are actually more multi-dimensional than men.
The great thing about being multi-dimensional is that women can be subject to socialization.
b) Singaporean women HAVE to be materialistic.
Now a lot of poetic beta-males fantasize about European or Scandinavian chicks because they seem so liberal and are more willing to settle for love and compatibility. I don't think its the fault for Asian women to actually have standards compared to their European counterparts if you really understand the kind of societies they come from. If you observe these European women carefully, you will find that they come from countries that tax their working citizens to provide child support.
So of course Swedish and French women can accept the guy even if he is "useless piece of shit for a guy who can't get his ass off his bed to go out to work" because the State goes really far to look after the children. The Swedes and the French like to protect their men who can serenade their women and write touching poems.
c) Ergo, you want your daughters to less materialistic, pay more taxes !
In socialist Europe, more taxes will go a long way to help families cope with children. Childcare can be free all the way to university. But I don't think my single friends will want 15% GST and 60% income taxes like those in Europe so that they can find someone to love them unconditionally.
Of course, in such societies, particular breeds of unconscientious and unreliable dudes get to go on to taint the gene pool further. Why ? Because hard-working, conscientious and productive single men are paying to feed all those babies who might from the dudes who drink beer and can't hold a decent job.
Yup. You heard it. Women are not materialistic in high-tax societies. They are free to find some testosterone filled drunkard and have his babies because he may be tall and have better facial symmetry.
You, my hardworking, nerdy and geeky friend will spend your entire life paying 60% taxes and getting cuckolded by these non-materialistic and unconditionally loving women ! They simply develop a different criteria for mate selection. They love being serenaded and want love poems from a testosterone-filled guy with a neanderthal facial features. They don't give a shit about you even if you have money.
d) Therefore I conclude that materialistic Singaporean women are a good thing for us !
If women have are not choosy, men will have no standards, society will stagnate and we will be swallowed up by Malaysia.
Yeah sure, our local Xiao Meimei are a tad more materialistic than their Yankee counterparts, but that's easy for us guys because unlike facial symmetry, height or looking good with long hair on Harley motorcycle, SOCIAL STATUS CAN BE EARNED.
It is earned by careful planning, hard-work, resilience, superior salesmanship and ability to delay gratification. These traits can be developed.
Singaporean women are just telling us boys that if we want their love, we have to fight for it !
They are realistic and cannot be easily swayed by good looks, a leather jacket or a well-played ukulele.
Tell me why is that wrong with that?
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Field testing my retirement and the World's Cheapest Guides.
Maybe I should explain just what the heck I'm trying to do. About 3 weeks ago, I left my job with a secure offer from another company. Because as a new dad, I asked for a later starting date because I wanted some time to watch my girl grow.
More interestingly, I wanted to field test the effects of early retirement.
My holiday was split into approximately 25 days, I wanted to wean myself from a day job so I gave myself three challenges :
a) Publish an e-book on Financial Independence.
b) Publish an e-book on Philosophy and move out from writing finance books.
c) Study intensively for an IT exam.
To make things more interesting, all three need to be done simultaneously and had to be complete before my IT exams finish.
My first book was published after 5 working days. My products are all designed with the same specs :
a) Targeted at International audiences.
b) Cost set at the minimum allowed by Amazon at $0.99.
c) No more than 10,000 words.
d) Facebook friends provide editing comments and proofing.
I wanted some sort of cheap alternative to a Dummies guide that contain a single idea in a Kindle e-book format. I want the series to grow with me as I develop new interest in other fields. For example, I am now aggressively reading books on Organizational behavior to glean some insight into Power and Politics in the modern office.
Anyway, my first book is on Financial Independence. It's nothing really new compared to my other writings but the investment examples had to be drawn from the US. For example, instead of business trusts, I had to write about Master Limited Partnerships.
Local readers probably don't have ready access to a Kindle, but to keep the long story short, Singapore is a dividends yields paradise. In the US, if you want fantastic yields, you gotta give Mortgage Backed securities a try.
My second book is on Life Philosophy. For a couple of years, I've been a following a good friend, Lau Kwong Fook, the founder of Singapore's first Socrates Cafe in his lessons on Philosophy. I thought it might be a good time to get into writing Philosophy to crystallize my thoughts on this interesting subject matter.
I think many of us who took professional degrees exhausted a large part of our youths to get a decent lifestyle, we never did have the time to develop a meaningful philosophy of life. My engineering background allowed me reverse engineer Ayn Rand's approach to Objectivism and rebuild it into a framework that can be used for anyone who missed out on a good liberal arts education. You can find the link again here.
The second book did not meet my deadline , but it went out the Tuesday night because Amazon needed to vet it before it goes live.
Lastly, I want to talk about retirement.
For month's I have split my earned income from my passive income and field-tested my family's ability to live on nothing but stock dividends. This is very much like a business continuity plan. Since I do it for my company, I might as well do it for myself.
Anyway, living on dividends is actually more challenging for a working man because going to work incurs costs like transport and more expensive meals in town. A retiree spends only a fraction of what a working man spends.
In the past 25 days, I lived out a life close to a being a retiree but in the end I don't think a life without working is right for me:
a) You can retire at 36, but your friends are working. Even if you can afford to do nothing and drink coffee with, who are you going to drink it with?
b) In the days where I was churning out 2000 words a day, I was very happy. There's stuff to think about. Frameworks to improve. Ideas to hack. Certainly better than idling the whole day.
c) Work provides more than pay and personal satisfaction. Work forces a person to interact with others and that interaction yield ideas that goes beyond what a person and dream out on their own. To be fair, I'm an extrovert, I'm more relaxed when I'm hanging out with other people.
d) I hate TV, my RSS feed is excellent but there are only about 1000 articles to read everyday.
Anyway, in the next few days, expect me to talk more about my guides with a focus on developing a life philosophy.
Regards
More interestingly, I wanted to field test the effects of early retirement.
My holiday was split into approximately 25 days, I wanted to wean myself from a day job so I gave myself three challenges :
a) Publish an e-book on Financial Independence.
b) Publish an e-book on Philosophy and move out from writing finance books.
c) Study intensively for an IT exam.
To make things more interesting, all three need to be done simultaneously and had to be complete before my IT exams finish.
My first book was published after 5 working days. My products are all designed with the same specs :
a) Targeted at International audiences.
b) Cost set at the minimum allowed by Amazon at $0.99.
c) No more than 10,000 words.
d) Facebook friends provide editing comments and proofing.
I wanted some sort of cheap alternative to a Dummies guide that contain a single idea in a Kindle e-book format. I want the series to grow with me as I develop new interest in other fields. For example, I am now aggressively reading books on Organizational behavior to glean some insight into Power and Politics in the modern office.
Anyway, my first book is on Financial Independence. It's nothing really new compared to my other writings but the investment examples had to be drawn from the US. For example, instead of business trusts, I had to write about Master Limited Partnerships.
Local readers probably don't have ready access to a Kindle, but to keep the long story short, Singapore is a dividends yields paradise. In the US, if you want fantastic yields, you gotta give Mortgage Backed securities a try.
My second book is on Life Philosophy. For a couple of years, I've been a following a good friend, Lau Kwong Fook, the founder of Singapore's first Socrates Cafe in his lessons on Philosophy. I thought it might be a good time to get into writing Philosophy to crystallize my thoughts on this interesting subject matter.
I think many of us who took professional degrees exhausted a large part of our youths to get a decent lifestyle, we never did have the time to develop a meaningful philosophy of life. My engineering background allowed me reverse engineer Ayn Rand's approach to Objectivism and rebuild it into a framework that can be used for anyone who missed out on a good liberal arts education. You can find the link again here.
The second book did not meet my deadline , but it went out the Tuesday night because Amazon needed to vet it before it goes live.
Lastly, I want to talk about retirement.
For month's I have split my earned income from my passive income and field-tested my family's ability to live on nothing but stock dividends. This is very much like a business continuity plan. Since I do it for my company, I might as well do it for myself.
Anyway, living on dividends is actually more challenging for a working man because going to work incurs costs like transport and more expensive meals in town. A retiree spends only a fraction of what a working man spends.
In the past 25 days, I lived out a life close to a being a retiree but in the end I don't think a life without working is right for me:
a) You can retire at 36, but your friends are working. Even if you can afford to do nothing and drink coffee with, who are you going to drink it with?
b) In the days where I was churning out 2000 words a day, I was very happy. There's stuff to think about. Frameworks to improve. Ideas to hack. Certainly better than idling the whole day.
c) Work provides more than pay and personal satisfaction. Work forces a person to interact with others and that interaction yield ideas that goes beyond what a person and dream out on their own. To be fair, I'm an extrovert, I'm more relaxed when I'm hanging out with other people.
d) I hate TV, my RSS feed is excellent but there are only about 1000 articles to read everyday.
Anyway, in the next few days, expect me to talk more about my guides with a focus on developing a life philosophy.
Regards
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Launch : World's Cheapest Guides on Financial Independence and Life Philosophy.
2011 has been roller-coaster ride.
a) My family downgraded to a 5-room HDB. It was not as tough as I thought.
b) I became a new dad to my daughter Clio.
c) I'm transitioning out of the private sector to a pseudo-government organisation.
One of things I promised myself is during the 20 days break between jobs, I do the following:
a) Take and pass the CGEIT exam on IT Governance.
b) Publish 2 books.
Well it's all done and get the rest of the week off to promote my books and update my blog.
So here are the links to my books.
Over the next two or three days, I'll talk about low-cost publishing on the Kindle Development platform and what this means to someone who wishes to become an author.
I will also take some time tell you more about these two new books I wrote.
Regards
a) My family downgraded to a 5-room HDB. It was not as tough as I thought.
b) I became a new dad to my daughter Clio.
c) I'm transitioning out of the private sector to a pseudo-government organisation.
One of things I promised myself is during the 20 days break between jobs, I do the following:
a) Take and pass the CGEIT exam on IT Governance.
b) Publish 2 books.
Well it's all done and get the rest of the week off to promote my books and update my blog.
So here are the links to my books.
Over the next two or three days, I'll talk about low-cost publishing on the Kindle Development platform and what this means to someone who wishes to become an author.
I will also take some time tell you more about these two new books I wrote.
Regards
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Some quick figures for 2010.
Quick quiet update in case some of you guys subscribe to my blogs.
Ok, this year is not as good as last year in terms of yields largely because of the problems in the shipping trusts I bought, but the capital gains are satisfactory so far.
So far my dividend income for 2010 was $25434.37 which was about 7% yields based on my current cash portfolio size. Capital gains have been ok judging from the nice run-up in January 2011.
2011 should be a better year yield-wise with great yielding new REITs IPOing. Hopefully, I would be able to hunt down a bunch of small-caps which yield above 8% to complement my REIT-heavy portfolio. Of course, if a REIT comes along with 8% yield and below 30% gearing, I will be all guns ablazing for 2011.
It's taken quite a while to get here, clearly $2,100 is barely enough to get along a month. I've got a daughter coming in April this year so expenses are bound to go up even though I have eliminated bulk of my personal spending.
Priorities for this year is :
a) Reining in my blood sugar levels ( 7.9 right now. Way better than my old HP-SGX days of over 10.1 ).
b) Preparing for the arrival of my daughter. Still can't figure out what the costs will be, but will channel some income to ensure that she gets a safe arrival.
c) Rapidly uncluttering all my belongings, first starting with all my RPGs and books and then moving all my assets into the cloud/hard-disk. By de-materializing all my needs, I can channel my finances towards my family.
Ok, this year is not as good as last year in terms of yields largely because of the problems in the shipping trusts I bought, but the capital gains are satisfactory so far.
So far my dividend income for 2010 was $25434.37 which was about 7% yields based on my current cash portfolio size. Capital gains have been ok judging from the nice run-up in January 2011.
2011 should be a better year yield-wise with great yielding new REITs IPOing. Hopefully, I would be able to hunt down a bunch of small-caps which yield above 8% to complement my REIT-heavy portfolio. Of course, if a REIT comes along with 8% yield and below 30% gearing, I will be all guns ablazing for 2011.
It's taken quite a while to get here, clearly $2,100 is barely enough to get along a month. I've got a daughter coming in April this year so expenses are bound to go up even though I have eliminated bulk of my personal spending.
Priorities for this year is :
a) Reining in my blood sugar levels ( 7.9 right now. Way better than my old HP-SGX days of over 10.1 ).
b) Preparing for the arrival of my daughter. Still can't figure out what the costs will be, but will channel some income to ensure that she gets a safe arrival.
c) Rapidly uncluttering all my belongings, first starting with all my RPGs and books and then moving all my assets into the cloud/hard-disk. By de-materializing all my needs, I can channel my finances towards my family.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Presentation at Bar Camp 6 - Quarter Life crisis
Bar Camp 6 was a blast. I made a presentation entitled "The Quarter Life Crisis".
Too bad my laptop which runs Ubuntu would not project itself to the audience but thankfully I rehearsed my presentation a number of times and could run without the slides. For the benefit for the folks who might not have managed to understand the gist of what was presented, here are the points I raised.
1. Gen-X and Gen-Y have a different expression of the quarter life crisis. For Gen-X, the conflict is between isolation and intimacy. This means that resolution would mean finding someone to settle down with. Gen-Y's crisis is a conflict of role versus identity, many young people feel that they want something else out of life than the current jobs they have. The talk focuses on Gen-Y's quarter life crisis.
2. Human capital, or the present value of unearned income can shed light on important life decisions.
3. Human capital is increased by obtaining more qualifications, astute career management or monetizing your hobbies.
4. Human capital is protected by life insurance.
5. Wealth can be given away in financial capital ( assets ) or human capital ( creating a trust structure to insist on providing education for beneficiaries ).
6. Illustrations were supposed to be done using a demonstration of online tools at qwema.ca. but this did not take place so results were narrated to the audience.
7. First illustration is about a diploma holder who wants to get a degree. The change in human capital for a $20,000 degree can reasonably be as high as $1.1 millions dollars. This supports the idea that education is very often the best for of investment.
8. The second illustration is about a executive who wants a mid-career change to become a lawyer. The change is even more dramatic, enhancing human capital by $1.5 million dollars. But as the retirement age is reduced from the earlier assumption of 65, the value of the career change becomes smaller. To succeed as a lawyer beyond his current circumstances, he needs to work up till the age of 52 to "break-even".
9. The third illustration is about a banking IT professional who wants to risk everything to join a startup. The cost to human capital was found to be high and up till $1.2million of losses can occur. But it was emphasized that there is no price for self-actualization and people have a right to pursue their dreams.
10. Marriage is generally positive to a couple's finances dues to economies of scale and diversification in the couple's human capital pool.
11. Each child was estimated to reduce human capital by $250,000 but it was emphasized that children produce services and comfort at old age which can be beneficial to the parent.
Too bad my laptop which runs Ubuntu would not project itself to the audience but thankfully I rehearsed my presentation a number of times and could run without the slides. For the benefit for the folks who might not have managed to understand the gist of what was presented, here are the points I raised.
1. Gen-X and Gen-Y have a different expression of the quarter life crisis. For Gen-X, the conflict is between isolation and intimacy. This means that resolution would mean finding someone to settle down with. Gen-Y's crisis is a conflict of role versus identity, many young people feel that they want something else out of life than the current jobs they have. The talk focuses on Gen-Y's quarter life crisis.
2. Human capital, or the present value of unearned income can shed light on important life decisions.
3. Human capital is increased by obtaining more qualifications, astute career management or monetizing your hobbies.
4. Human capital is protected by life insurance.
5. Wealth can be given away in financial capital ( assets ) or human capital ( creating a trust structure to insist on providing education for beneficiaries ).
6. Illustrations were supposed to be done using a demonstration of online tools at qwema.ca. but this did not take place so results were narrated to the audience.
7. First illustration is about a diploma holder who wants to get a degree. The change in human capital for a $20,000 degree can reasonably be as high as $1.1 millions dollars. This supports the idea that education is very often the best for of investment.
8. The second illustration is about a executive who wants a mid-career change to become a lawyer. The change is even more dramatic, enhancing human capital by $1.5 million dollars. But as the retirement age is reduced from the earlier assumption of 65, the value of the career change becomes smaller. To succeed as a lawyer beyond his current circumstances, he needs to work up till the age of 52 to "break-even".
9. The third illustration is about a banking IT professional who wants to risk everything to join a startup. The cost to human capital was found to be high and up till $1.2million of losses can occur. But it was emphasized that there is no price for self-actualization and people have a right to pursue their dreams.
10. Marriage is generally positive to a couple's finances dues to economies of scale and diversification in the couple's human capital pool.
11. Each child was estimated to reduce human capital by $250,000 but it was emphasized that children produce services and comfort at old age which can be beneficial to the parent.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
What's marriage really competing with ?
When the government said that they want to have a sustained campaign to promote marriage to younger folks, a lot of folks took the opportunity to start whining about why Singaporeans are choosing to accumulate wealth over settling down.
I don't agree with this line of thought. This light of thought has been used in many scenarios.
Why are Singaporeans rude to each other? Because they are too concerned about money making.
Why are Singaporeans not getting married ? Because they are too concerned about money making.
Why some people are failures can't hold onto decent jobs ? Because other people are too concerned about money making.
I beg to differ about money making because, very often, guys save money in order to settle down and start a family. If marriage gets delayed, it is because we're not saving fast enough.
Wealth reinforces families and makes development possible. Wealth accumulation is not the enemy of family creation - it is an enabler. And vice versa. Married people pool assets creating a portfolio of financial and human capital that is more diversified than that of 2 singles. Marriage raises conscientiousness of males resulting in better overall health, longevity and wealth creation. Children, while a burden when young, provide income smoothing at the late stage of a person's life.
There is enough literature to establish marriage as generally a positive stabilizing influence on personal wealth.
Now let's talk about the real issue of Single-hood.
Marriage has to compete with the one valuable resource singles have can may not be as willing to give up easily - Freedom. Being single is just plain fun !
Many singles make enough to lead decent carefree lives. They can travel anywhere, buy whatever they want. Promote causes that they believe in. That translates to a whole lot of mobility. Generation Y would also not want to be shackled by the norms of Gen X society, they want to carve a set of values for their own.
In this world of readily available sex, tweets and Facebook, I'm betting that it'll be hard to sell the younger folks an ancient institution like marriage.
What price are we putting on their personal freedom ?
This leads to my very dark conclusion for policy makers.
What will happen when the campaign fails ? What will the PAP do ?
I would propose more draconian measures. Let me give you guys a small hint :
Since children produce income smoothing in most cases and function as annuities, CPF Life can be opted out by parents living with their kids.
I'm sure our government can do something along these lines...
Regards
I don't agree with this line of thought. This light of thought has been used in many scenarios.
Why are Singaporeans rude to each other? Because they are too concerned about money making.
Why are Singaporeans not getting married ? Because they are too concerned about money making.
Why some people are failures can't hold onto decent jobs ? Because other people are too concerned about money making.
I beg to differ about money making because, very often, guys save money in order to settle down and start a family. If marriage gets delayed, it is because we're not saving fast enough.
Wealth reinforces families and makes development possible. Wealth accumulation is not the enemy of family creation - it is an enabler. And vice versa. Married people pool assets creating a portfolio of financial and human capital that is more diversified than that of 2 singles. Marriage raises conscientiousness of males resulting in better overall health, longevity and wealth creation. Children, while a burden when young, provide income smoothing at the late stage of a person's life.
There is enough literature to establish marriage as generally a positive stabilizing influence on personal wealth.
Now let's talk about the real issue of Single-hood.
Marriage has to compete with the one valuable resource singles have can may not be as willing to give up easily - Freedom. Being single is just plain fun !
Many singles make enough to lead decent carefree lives. They can travel anywhere, buy whatever they want. Promote causes that they believe in. That translates to a whole lot of mobility. Generation Y would also not want to be shackled by the norms of Gen X society, they want to carve a set of values for their own.
In this world of readily available sex, tweets and Facebook, I'm betting that it'll be hard to sell the younger folks an ancient institution like marriage.
What price are we putting on their personal freedom ?
This leads to my very dark conclusion for policy makers.
What will happen when the campaign fails ? What will the PAP do ?
I would propose more draconian measures. Let me give you guys a small hint :
Since children produce income smoothing in most cases and function as annuities, CPF Life can be opted out by parents living with their kids.
I'm sure our government can do something along these lines...
Regards
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