Saturday, January 03, 2015

More Work, Less Facebook

Just a short note-to-self. I needed to remind myself that my mornings are more productively spent on email and a review of my daily working log book, than on catching up with friends on Facebook. Yes, I disagree with a recent op-ed that checking email is mostly a brainless activity which tends to sap one's energy if done early in the day. In a way it is brainless, but it is also the case that I need to be able to catch important notices at the start of the day, that I may act on them in the course of the day.

I have a tendency to keep checking Facebook, obsessively even. I am guessing that stems from my eagerness to see people "like" my posts. I also enjoy interacting with the friends whose company I enjoy but who are physically too far away. However, Facebook also has the nasty tendency to feature annoyingly negative comments from friends (or worse, friends-of-friends) ... even after I had trimmed down the amount of news feeds I get. Now these really sap my energy for the rest of the day, Facebook "surfing" being a brainless activity notwithstanding.

So I am going to try to put in some workflow discipline from now to the mantra of "More Work, Less Facebook"

Youtube on the other hand ... is going to be another different story, hehehe.

20 comments:

Kevin Jang said...

You are at least doing some work. I am not at this stage. I figured out that whatever happens, I am calling in to see if I can do some part-time tutoring in between doing my own studies and writing.

Chee Wai Lee said...

Well "work." It really is just an exercise to keep my mind focused on something related to what I used-to-do/might-do. Really more a way to keep me from sinking into the depths of depression.

Tutoring in Singapore isn't really a bad idea for making some cash. Unfortunately, I cannot stomach it. I'd rather be educating the child for free and for fun, than funneling the same child through a brutal education regime that imho ultimately hamstrings the poor kid in her ability to think critically.

Kevin Jang said...

If you even take a look at the tuition centers in the malls in Singapore, such as Ang Mo Kio Hub and so on, you will realize that these centers are mills to the core--milking innocent students and their parents alike by making them think that the grades and number scores are all that matters. This is arguably very much an East Asian thing, common in countries like Japan, South Korea, China and Singapore, where entrance exam scores (numerically) determine your 'future' in terms of the course you can gain admission to, your aptitude for 'succeeding' (even if the truth is somewhat harsher in muted sepia tones)

I remembered how when I was tutoring on an ad hoc basis in 2011 for those 6 to 8 months in order to save up some money for funding my Korean studies after being back from Canada and a 17-day trip in South Korea, the parents of most of the kids were all just about a hard-and-fast one lesson miracle. Some would then make the usual decision of terminating a tutor(me included) just after one lesson, simply based on whims and because they did not see the son improving after ONE lesson. I pity the kid because whatever the outcome of his results after all these changes, I doubt that they will all ever realize the true value of what an education should be about. It is not about good grades, or how much money you can earn; it is about the value that it can bring to your life to make you a better equipped person to change this world for the better in one way or another.

Chee Wai Lee said...

yah, that's how I feel about the whole sordid affair of "tuition" in Singapore too. I gave it some thought as a career option, and quickly discarded it.

I wanted to do it right by the kids, and I didn't want to butt heads against an education system and culture I strongly disagreed with.

Kevin Jang said...

You might want to tutor foreigner kids (South Koreans, Indonesians and Taiwanese) since these kids' parents tend to stick around with the tutors for a period of time before they decide whether they want to continue or not.

Chee Wai Lee said...

Not for now at least. I'm not in a position where I'm desperate enough to want to put myself through it.

I'd very much prefer to teach to educate and inspire, not to help kids get grades. Until this place learns to sort out the differences between the means and the ends, I'd prefer to have no part of it.

Kevin Jang said...

Ah yes, my own morale was pretty low when I did tutoring. The only ones who happened to be the better lot were the Korean parents. One of them offered to teach me Korean then(when I barely knew enough to get through), but in the end, I got the position in Japan, and so, did not stick through with her homestay kid (or ward) beyond 9 months.

Kevin Jang said...

http://neurotic-ramblings-sg.blogspot.sg/2015/01/let-it-go-let-it-go.html

This link might shed some light on the situation with immigration and moving out of Singapore for you. I think that the person's choice to to unsubscribe from news feeds of a negative nature concerning Singapore helps. I think that this includes certain news feeds from blogs such as LIFT's (LOL...) because he writes obsessively about SG. I did not even know about the news he writes about, because ahem...guilty as charged am I in not caring for Singapore news much....:p

Chee Wai Lee said...

hehehe, cool. I follow that blog too. Here's the comment I can relate to personally. It is what I had observed when I was in the USA too:

" I remember a lot of Singaporeans complaining that the FTs in sg clung to their old ways and stuck to their own kind, speaking their own languages. I can tell you that these "FTs" in Oz do the same thing too."

Kevin Jang said...

I do not actually follow him....I just happened to see you following him, and read that entry. Otherwise, I do not follow that blog. There is something which I tend to have against Singaporean or former Singaporean bloggers, insofar as their blog entries still revolve largely around the parochial axis of Singapore and things Singaporean. As for what he wrote, that is one of the major reasons why I do not stick around with Singaporeans when outside of Singapore, and I do my best to find friends who are locals or have settled in as immigrants for many years. Sad to say, the Singaporeans I know who migrated to Australia do not change as much as those elsewhere. Maybe Australia is a real comfort zone compared to elsewhere which accounts for why Singaporeans there either end up remaining the same or becoming more and more advocates of what they used to criticize.

Chee Wai Lee said...

As a quick followup, I liked his followup comment as well. It is something I have learned too - the world is a diverse and wonderful place. People ought to be allowed to do what their hearts feel without being persecuted, as long as it causes no harm.

" At the end of the day, your life, your choice, as always. As long as we have no regrets, it's all good :)"

Chee Wai Lee said...

I do enjoy his entries. They tend to be few, infrequent, and reasonably short. Then again, I'm guilty of confirmation bias in that he reminds me I'm not alone in thinking the same way in this world :)

Kevin Jang said...

A friend who used to work with Cartier and then left to set up his own consultancy told me that unlike European friends who let you be with regards to what you do, Singaporeans (friends and acquaintances and even strangers) tend to be dogmatic and prescriptive with regards to what they tell you. This is largely why I kept very quiet about my Australian residency applications, because I did not want debbie downer remarks, and even after I left my Japanese job, few people knew what I was going to do and where I was going to head. "Loose lips sink ships", as the saying goes.

Kevin Jang said...

A Singaporean friend who is still in Vancouver, Canada, used to tell me this, "I always stay around with friends whom I feel comfortable with and share the same values as me." He meant this in relation to why as much as we are often told to have different friends, it is not good to have those whose values are contrary to ours and even run ours down. I told you before about my bad experiences with sociopath/narcissistic friends, and that taught me that we cannot be trying too hard to make someone like us (as in, "like" in the sense of "same as" and "like" in the sense of "take a liking to"). Relationships should be organic, not stifling.

Chee Wai Lee said...

The same is true with my American friends. They will let me be if I asked. And they will come right back to comfort me, if I changed my mind.

Singaporeans in general tend to go into a hissy fit.

Kevin Jang said...

"Hissy fit" sounds a lot like the reactions of my high school frenemies....hahha...too bad...their hissy fits are more reflections of their values, and have nothing to do with me. I guess that at the end of the day, they still despise me anyway and secretly hate me for being me. If not, they just want to show that they are better than me when we ever meet(NEVERMORE NEVERMORE, as Edgar Allan Poe says hahah), which is why I choose to be nearer better people.

Kevin Jang said...

One of these days, I plan to do something which is in fact what these people hate even more: missions work! That is likely to get them to hate me even more if they ever hear of it.

Chee Wai Lee said...

Actually, have you considered that? For me, the equivalent is volunteer work since I do not believe. I had thought about it, but at this stage am not too keen to take the plunge (the volunteer work, not the belief hehehe.)

Kevin Jang said...

I do think that it will come up one day. The issue is which country and city to do it in.

Kevin Jang said...

If you ask me, there is nothing wrong with missions work and volunteering. Singaporeans are brainwashed to believe that if something does not serve them, then they should not do it. It is a wrongheaded idea and based on materialism and greed. Think about it, even some Singaporeans treat other people like commodities too, and if the person does not serve any good (in the sense of "What's in it for me?"), they dump the person aside even if he or she is family. This is wrong. I say this especially as a Christian because Jesus said very explicitly that whatever we do for the least (the poor), we do it for Him. Those who despise the poor in fact despise God as He had also implied.