wyred to the world
Entries on life events
I work 52 hours a week.
Took up 2 freelance projects.
Attend Japanese lessons every Saturday morning.
Have a few personal web projects of my own to work on too.
But still, at the end of everyday, I feel happy.
Because I enjoy everything I do listed above.
It’s a good time to be a web developer.
I do have other forms of fun too. Friday evenings, Saturday noon onwards till Sunday night is strictly reserved for gaming and movies.
You love to meet up with your friends and chat over dinner or drink.
You think organizing a meetup is as easy as creating an event in Facebook, adding people to it and just wait for the day to come.
And one day before the event, you check the event page on Facebook only to find that no one has responded or put their attendance as maybe.
What went wrong?
Nothing. It’s simply in Singaporean’s blood to “bo-chup” (don’t care attitude).
1) Decide a default location and time.
If you ask everyone about their opinions, you would most likely get none. And if you get opinions, great! Change it accordingly.
Those who do not respond are usually fine with any place.
2) Plan in advance. At least 2 weeks or even better, 4.
Most people usually have plans made for the week and the next.
Planning in advance shows that you really want to meet up with those invited. It’s like how people would book advance tickets for a show/performance they like as soon as the sales for those tickets begin.
And if you get the excuse that you’re planning way too soon, ignore it. It only goes to show that that person wants to reserve his/her time on that day for something else, and values that event more than meeting up with you.
3) When confirming attendance, call them or SMS them.
I’ve never seen a successful meetup planned using Facebook unless it’s a small group of very very close friends, or you’re someone so important that people want to be around you 24/7 and even when you go to the toilet.
Start confirming at least a week before so you know the group size and make reservations at the restaurant accordingly.
For those who sound unsure, tell them that you are making reservations at a certain date and you need to hear an answer from them by then.
4) Expect late-comers and prepare for it.
Despite Singapore being so small it takes less than an hour to travel from one end of the country to the other by car, people will still be late. But they’re not entirely to be blamed. Our “world-class transport system” has to have world-class failures too sometimes.
Plan your meetup in such a way that those who arrive on time won’t have to wait for those who are late.
If it’s a dinner meetup, go into the restaurant first with whoever is already there and start ordering and chat.
Or meet up at a game center first where people can play some games while waiting.
The last few movie gatherings I did for my anime club, we gathered at a fastfood restaurant so we can have dinner and chat before the movie starts.
Troublesome isn’t it? But after everything’s over, everyone will appreciate you for putting in all that effort to get them together. That alone is rewarding enough.
I once wondered why governments need to make things so complicated with complex tax systems and all that.
When the government gave out relief on GST to citizens a while ago, I thought to myself, “If you’re going to give the money back anyway, why not abolish GST in the first place?”
The answer came to me today as I studied the Singapore Budget 2012.
It’s like the Robin Hood style of stealing from the rich to give to the poor. But in this case, taxing the rich more, taxing the poor less.
And to do this, taxes are enforced for most financial transactions and then tax reliefs are given to people based on the size of their homes (rich people usually live in larger homes). Not 100% accurate but the gist of it is somewhere there.
Ha, I can’t remember clearly what new year resolutions I made last year. But I think it’s something along the lines of working harder for more money, and take up a part-time degree course.
I did work harder than I was in 2010. But I never got around to getting that degree because I was given a chance to work overseas for a year and I was keen on taking up that offer.
Then I got approached with a job offer, with same pay but much better working environment, more challenging work.
Maybe in a year or 2 after things are stable with this new job, I will look into studying part-time again.
With freelance work and a new job taking up most of my time, I doubt I have enough spare time to pursue other things.
So this year, I shall focus on my Japanese language skills.
I took the N2 JLPT test on 2011 Dec. The results won’t be out till a few months later. If I pass, I might try for N1 this year.
The problem I’m concerned is even if I can get an N1 certification, it only means that I can understand Japanese well.
I know very well I can’t make up sentences in conversations well enough yet.
Also in my Japan trip in 2010, when I met up with my Japanese friends there, I had a hard time understanding what they are trying to say when they speak among themselves.
Native speakers speak very fast and are very different from what you hear on Japanese dramas and animes. From what I’ve heard, people who appear on TV and voice actors have undergone training in their speaking.
Hopefully the current SGD – JPY exchange rate recovers back to what it was 4 years ago. Currently it’s 1 SGD – 59 JPY.
Seeing photos of my friend’s trip there makes me want to go back there again.
Hmmm… It’s there where the real JLPT is.
I…
have the tendency to want to tweet something philosophical when drunk.
:/