Protected: 09 April 2007 - Very unhappy

Very unhappy at home. Really pity my mom, what a fucked up father I have. My brother also another crazy fucker, scold my mother for nothing.
Can really empathize with Jay Chou's lyrics:
如果真的我有一双翅膀二双翅膀
随时出发偷偷出发我一定带我妈走

Looking for the original TJC forums?

Have been getting a few visitors who are looking for the TJC forums. Well, the bad news is, it doesn't exist anymore. The school admin decided to pull the plug without informing us. The promise of an "upgraded" forum has not been realised. You're still seeing the message below, after the forum went offline for like 2 months?


However,  the good news, is that ashke has started a new forum for us, called the TJ Rebel Forums. Instills some revolutionary vibes, hmm. Anyway, if you are looking for the original TJC forums, you'll probably be better off starting here.

Poly route shut for average students

Recently, there was this letter to the Straits Times about average students being squeezed out of the poly courses of their choice by students who could have made it to JC.

Article can be found here.

Students also weighed in with their opinions in the Sunday Times. Polys are cranking out more attractive courses and it is increasingly easier for diploma holders to go on and obtain a degree (not necessarily from a local university), I guess that partly explains why more students are opting for the poly route.

Are there any implications when many highly qualified students take to the polys rather than the JCs? For one, will it raise the quality of the poly education? Can we assume that by and large that these students will take the top positions in poly? Granted that poly education is a completely different kettle of fish from both secondary school and JC, let me indulge in this little thought experiment a while. If this is true, that is, people who excelled in O levels will generally perform well in polys, then what does it imply for the 'mountain range of excellence' that PM Lee was referring to?

Taken from a MOE speech:

Let me start with many peaks of excellence. It’s something we have been talking about for quite some time. But it’s something which we continue to work on. To develop each child, his unique interests, his unique talents.  To help him to grow, and if he has something special, to enable him to express it, and to achieve that excellence, that fulfilment, that ability to become what he could be and make a contribution. Not all kids are the same. Not all kids can take the same approach. Some we can lecture, some we have to guide, some we have to encourage, others we work with them hands-on and inspire them by your presence. But whatever the kid’s interest, we must provide many paths for him to grow and to develop.  We need to build up this whole mountain range of excellence so that individually we are strong, but as a team, we are invincible.

Well, for one, having more peaks of excellence does not mean more people will reach the top. It could be the case that the people occupying the top positions are the same ones who would have done so anyway. They are just doing it in a different area. So the picture is that instead of 50 mountain climbers gathered on the peak, we have 10 peaks with 5 climbers on each. The status quo remains, but they have more oxygen to themselves. In the spirit of widening the definition of success, I'm not sure if that is all that different. Because, besides recognising success in different fields, another factor to consider is social mobility. How easy or hard is it for people who aren't traditionally considered excellent to grow and develop in the field of their choice?

Obviously, the concept of the "mountain range of excellence" is more important to those who aren't already strong academically, because of the qualifying criteria of certain schools and courses. But if these students are being displaced by better qualified students from their preferred schools or courses, I'll think that it will be harder for them to be strong individually. I'm assuming that students who get into the first one or second course of their choice will have greater passion than those who don't and this is a critical factor. This doesn't always hold of course, but in general I think it is the case.

Of course, this is just looking at the issue from a very narrow angle. Being the meritocracy that we are, it is logical to accept that better students should have more choice. After all, they've earned it. And quotas on course enrollment is always bound by the iron laws of supply and demand.

Some guidelines when choosing a job - 2007

Was talking with a friend about career options the other day, and was discussing what factors influences one's decision to choose a job over another. He sent me a SMS with the following guidelines, which I found to be an easy guide to follow. Shall keep it in mind.

Knowledge

What skills and qualifications do I need/have?
What kind of knowledge and training can I get (can be technical, managerial etc)?
Does the company encourage a culture of learning and knowledge sharing?
Exposure

What other aspects of the company's business will I be exposed to?
What opportunities are there to explore beyond my core capabilities?
Are there opportunities to venture overseas?

Money

Besides the monthly or annual salary, also look at other components like bonuses, leave, medical benefits, insurance or other kinds of flexible benefits scheme.
Power

Who will I be reporting to?
Who will be reporting to me?
What is the power structure like?
What sort of decision can I make on my own?
What kind of impact can I make?
Environment

Where is the workplace located?
What are the working hours like?
What is the working culture like (is it family-friendly, does it encourage work-life balance, etc) ?
What kind of people am I working with?

Well, Straits Times published some articles about Singapore's IT sector booming. Hope that a rising tide lifts all boats, including mine. Anyway, found this tool by MOM. It lets you do sort of a wage search. Overly simplistic in my view. If you really want to see the sort of wages people are earning, you can find some of the reports here. It's a bit dated, but I think you can factor in a 10-15% increase if you decide to use it as an anchor for salary discussions.

Protected: 21/98 class gathering on 03, Mar 2007

Met at Mind's Cafe or something for our class gathering, it's been almost 10 years since we first met. Played some board games, talked a bit about how each of us is doing. Overall pretty enjoyable. Some updates :
Shao is in the US studying for his PhD.

Rak is pupil in a law firm (Drew and Napier) under some MPs (Indranee Rajah and big boss Davinder Singh)

Erv has started his own company doing some photo-related stuff after dropping out of his course. No recent news from him.

Ah-wei is a contractor after doing his biz ad course. Last minute flew us pigeon.
Charles is in London with KPMG, while his Malaysian girlfriend is in Amsterdam.

Beng is a lecturer at RP and has an eventful day before coming to meet us.

Kai is at SIA cargo as a key account manager and had arrived from Japan on the day of the meeting itself.

Feng-jie is still doing petrochem.

Ivonne and YF are getting married, but not to each other...lol. The grooms are also from TJ.

Important task completed - lessons learnt

Finally completed the important task early this week, the tight deadline didn't allow for much room for errors, but this year's job seems especially problematic. The documentation is quite outdated, and the scheduled timing of the jobs are way off. This affected with the planned execution, and the problem was exacerbated by the shorter working days due to Chinese New Year. Then the network was constantly disconnecting, so there was a need to constantly monitor and rerun the jobs. And it's my first time running the jobs, so needed a lot of help from users, colleagues and some trial and error.

Overall, I did learn some things:

1. Creating an index on database tables is not sufficient to ensure fast queries. Always check the execution plan to see if the index is being used, as sometimes overindexing will cause Oracle to use a full table scan instead.


2. Be careful of ending commands and statements in SQL Plus with "/" instead of ";". If a command such as "spool C:\file.txt" is ended with "/", the last run statement will be run again, which can be a problem.


3. If the rollback segment is insufficient, it may be possible to split the query into smaller batches to run and thus not trouble the DBA.


4. Always check if an object with the same name already exists when creating new objects in scripts and do not commit in the script to save some headaches.


5. Check if CPU usage in Win XP is a bottleneck by checking if the TaskManager constantly reports a usage of 100%.

Tang Lingyi on “Way To Go”

Even though Tang Lingyi (汤灵伊) was eliminated in the first round of Project Superstar, you can still get to watch her on TV  on Channel U's "Way To Go". She's the one in orange, for those who don't know. She's not the only cutie on the show, watch out for Macy Chen (陈美心) too. Macy is also appearing on "On The Beat".