Cleaven Chia’s Edublog

First 2 months of school over. What have I accomplished? It’s hard to say much in the early stages of school life, but I do definitely enjoy my class – 07S43! And addictively chionging tutorials (which reminds me, I need to go photocopy Inequalities tutorial and also get more interesting games on my GC). Hopefully SC elections will go well for me haha.

With that, I leave this picture for everyone to ponder over – Dave Cheong’s “10 R’s to apply if you want to succeed”. 

 Click on thumbnail to view a larger version.

Which should explain the name of this category – “Reflect and Review”. Really, it awes me to think about why this has become an intuitive process. It’s the quest for success muahaha (=.

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From http://-icebubble.blogspot.com, 2 Feb 2006. Article is preserved in its original flavour, save for comments, which are rendered in italics.

By the way, this is a very apt entry from the perspective of a concerned voter that I was last year; it is especially so since I will be running for SC this year. 

Now, I will proceed on to the canvassing for Students’ Council. I had this question that just popped up, and I thought I could have asked this to the councillors. I could have asked: “What do you think an SC should be like?” Another variation could be: “How would you describe the true essence of SC?” Many possible answers could pop up: “To cater to the welfare of the students”, “To organise fun events for the school” just to name a few examples.

Do we imagine an SC (council or councillor) to be strict, rule-abiding, fun-loving, enthusiastic, passionate, organised, serious, admirable or responsible? (The list of adjectives is non-exhaustible.)

Honestly, I felt today’s speeches by the SC nominees were disappointing on a whole. There were only a few things that they assumed (or as a matter-of-fact) that the SC should/could do. “I love organising events”, “I think that I have the ability to lead”, “I am able to hone my leadership skills”, “I want to know everyone” just to state a few quotes. Yijin’s idea of the IP SC “being the bridge between the IP and the college” sounded interesting, and Qianyu’s idea of having a prom was 50% decent – at the least, it sounded attractive for a while. Jastine’s speech was creative, but unnecessary, because it did not emphasise on why people should vote for him and, like many nominees, tend to focus on grabbing attention, which should not have been the emphasis.

I think a good speech for an SC canvassing should consist of:
a) An introduction to who you are
b) Qualities that you have that makes you the best candidate for SC
c) Things that you can do for the IP (primary) and college (secondary & optional) when you are in the SC
d) Things that you hope to see after your tenure in SC (in yourself as well as in the IP)
e) As a matter of fact, “Please vote for me for SC because (insert stuff that you have mentioned in (b) and/or (c) to reiterate)!” or any other variations like “I am the choice, (insert slogan)!”

This template should be adequate for a speech 2 to 3 minutes long. Attention catchers should be:
a) Slogans, not long stories. People remember phrases better than stories, unless it is part of a joke that was (vaguely) heard before.
b) Forceful delivery, with emphasis, of key words (not an exaggerated one of course)
c) Reiteration, to remind people of what you have been talking about

And here’s a not-to-do list:
a) Monotone
b) Start off your story with a joke (might help to plug one, but in the middle)
c) Distracting hand gesticulation
d) Start off with “I know, after x speeches you might be bored” or “I know I am the xth person to speak” as x tends to infinity (ok, ignore the last 5 words if you want to, but we’ll be meeting those in differentiation). Do not directly grab their attention, spring up a surprise.
e) As I told my fellow VIPer sitting beside me, “Do you know the type of mechanical pencil that, when you shake, will allow the pencil lead to come out? ___ should not shake their microphone as if the wire will grow longer.” In short, speak into the microphone – ask for a stand if necessary.

Some things that can make the whole canvassing better:
a) Draw lots to decide who would go first, second, third and so on.
b) Question & answer session: a slip of paper should be given to people who want to ask questions. This prevents unnecessary machine-gunning of questions (as we might say, “@#$%!!! _______ ask like free liddat”) and consequently less waste of time.
c) More voting boxes, thanks.
d) A tea party for VIP students to interact with SC nominees (possible but might not be feasible)
e) My GSE report thank you very much. Just joking. (=

And with that, I end my ultra-long blog entry. I shall redo my Trigonometry 5 assignment.

I shall take into account these points while formulating my speech. Thanks to myself from a year ago!

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From http://-icebubble.blogspot.com, 2 Feb 2006. Article is preserved in its original flavour, save for comments, which are rendered in italics.

I had some random inspiration to blog something about self-motivation and maybe give my views on the canvassing for the Students’ Council elections.

The thing about self-motivation is that it must come from within you. With self-motivation, one can fuel himself (”him” as a neutral gender) over a longer distance. You may, at times, need others to motivate you, but what if that motivation is gone? Who will be left to fuel you? Self-motivation gives you a lot of power, but it is difficult to achieve, and even more difficult to maintain it throughout a long period of time.

To achieve a state where you are able to self-motivate, you should condition your mindset – tell yourself: “I must do this.” A better alternative would be: “I want to do this – I like it so much, when I do it I don’t feel like doing work.” That was a quote from Confucius – “Do what you like doing best and you will not feel like you are working at all.” (This is a very good quote to abide by!) Therefore, the first step should be to tell yourself that you like doing it. This form of motivation, I will term dangling-carrot self-motivation.

It might help to start off your journey of self-motivation by setting some tangible rewards (a 10-minute break or a small snack for example) – then as you continue to employ this strategy, do away with the physical reward and instead aim for some psychological and emotional reward – “I am doing this because it gives me some emotional satisfaction.” (Refer to my post on the (10+2)*5 procrastination hack by Merlin Mann.)

I can testify that the method works, even though I jumped straight into aiming for a psychological reward. I feel a sense of satisfaction when I do my extension for my mathematics assignments (I started doing so since the start of this year), partly because mathematics is one of my favourite subjects, and also partly because I am aiming to score well in mathematics – both will consequently lead to some form of emotional satisfaction.

From this year, I resolved to play less and do my work before I play. The reward was: firstly, a more organised, on-task self; and secondly, better grades. Looking at my grades last year, I resolved to improve on them as I felt there was room for improvement, and hence the self-motivation regime.

Another method of deriving self-motivation is to remove all (or nearly) all forms of distractions (present and potential) so that you can stay focused on the task at hand. I will term this forced self-motivation. This may work because without any distractions, you will not be tempted to do something other than the task at hand. This is a good method, but it might compromise the end results as you are forced to complete the task, and you might not have put in your best in accomplishing the task.

There’s another form of self-motivation which I will name chain self-motivation. In this case when you accomplish some task and achieve some self-satisfaction, you might be motivated to do better because you like it, or that you want to get more satisfaction. This should preferably be combined with dangling-carrot self-motivation because DCSM is the starting fuel, while CSM will serve as a motor that will move you all the way. In short, this is a way of sustaining the self-motivation in you.

And I shall end my essay there. It was kind of impromptu, and hopefully it wasn’t too long-winded.

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It has been 5 weeks into school and I’m getting the feeling of being trapped in the vicious cycle of procrastination again. Skipped blogging last week because I was really very busy finishing my research attachment report. Shall make up for it by blogging 3 entries – one in “Tips and Advice” (which is this post) where I’ll talk about some things to do in school (with The Potential Blog being my main source); in the other 2 posts I’ll recap what I blogged about exactly a year and 2 days ago – self-motivation and SC speeches.

Disclaimer: Some articles may have been truncated, or some elaborations omitted for brevity.

What can we do in boring lectures? In my post on http://icebubble.wordpress.com today, I said:

…actually I thought it through – multitasking during lectures is better than ponning them: firstly, you will be there to take down important and crucial notes (but that’s about it), and secondly people won’t arrow you. You also get to increase productivity, since you can do more work in the 70 minutes, as compared to just listening to the lecturer – honestly, who listens to the lecturer 100% of the time!? Those are the reasons why I wouldn’t ask people to pon lectures, and instead ask them to increase productivity.

Which is really what The Potential Blog suggests you can do in boring lectures:

These are five things I like to do in lectures when I just can’t pay attention. The key to doing other work in lectures is making it look like your actually paying attention (so listening to your MP3 player, reorganising your makeup bag, making phone calls/sending text messages etc. aren’t recommended). Make whatever you do involve a lot of writing and be as subtle as possible.

1. Prepare for tutorials
This can often be subtle AND related to the lecture topic. Very productive activity.

2. Engage in forward planning
Writing to-do lists, writing information in my diary etc. Can be subtle, makes you feel very organised.

3. Do reading
(Hard to do pull off, though, if you’re in a history lecture and taking notes from a giant book on your desk called “Material Chemistry for Engineers”)

4. Plan essays
The problem only occurs when you run out of essays to plan.

5. General other studies
If there’s anything else you have to get done try doing it. Got a computer and need to look up the call-numbers of library books? Do it. In fact, this one is a lot easier on a computer – the internet is a wonderful place. But you could also try writing essays or assignments or blog posts (not entirely school-related, I know).

Meanwhile, at home, do you find it hard to focus? The Potential Blog’s entry on “On the merits of a stopwatch” redirected me to Merlin Mann’s procrastination hack:

How it works
It’s called “(10+2)*5” and here’s why:

• 10 – Work for ten minutes with single-minded focus on moving toward completion on a single task. Ten minutes, and that’s all you’re allowed to do is work, work, work. No cheating, because (DING!) you actually get a break when you’re done…
• 2 – After ten minutes of sweaty, dedicated work you get a 2-minute break to do whatever you want—drink coffee, read 5ives, call your bookie, whatever. When the two minutes are up, it’s back to work on the next task on your list. This is important.
• *5 – You’re going to iterate this four more times for a total of one hour’s working/breaking

Important squirrely rules

• You do not need to finish your task or your project in ten minutes; you just need to move it forward
• If you finish a satisfying amount of work in fewer than ten minutes, STOP, and go right to your 2-minute break, than start another 10-minute dash
• Do NOT skip breaks! You are not allowed. Breaks cannot be missed. Period. Go surf the web. Now. Seriously. GO!

“(10+2)*5” can be adapted in any number of ways (change any of the three numerals to your liking), but remember: these goofy hacks only work because you’re a pathetic bastard like me whose mind can be tricked into work as easily as it can be lulled into torpor. Set your rules, follow your rules, and keep moving forward. Snap that procrastination by slipping your work through the back door.

Now go take a break. You’ve earned, you hard-working hacker, you.

And here’s a few tips on how to lighten your backpack. The Potential Blog loves the colour coding idea, and I share the same sentiments:

Lighten Up the Load

• Use a flash drive.
• Download reading assignments. Most flash drives can hold entire books in their memory. Many classic books you read as assignments are available as free downloads at sites like Project Gutenberg.
• Use your iPod as an external memory.
• Email your assignments to yourself. If you don’t have a flash drive or an iPod, you can send your assignments to your own email account.
• Color code your classes and tools. If your school work is organized, you won’t need to carry everything you own all the time. Color code your work so that you know the days of the week by “colors.” If green is the color for science class, and you have science every Tuesday and Thursday, then you will know to carry your green supplies and folders on those days.
• Throw things away each week. Yes, it’s a hassle, but it’s worth it. Make time every week to go through your book bag to discard the things you don’t need.
• Keep two sets of books. This may not be possible with all your texts, but it might work for a couple. Try to get your hands on an extra text so you can leave one at home for homework assignments.
• Take advantage of study hall. Remember you really can complete some of that work in school!
• Create a locker system. Create a system that allows you to identify exactly what you do need to carry home each night. For instance, you could start your day with all books on the top shelf of a locker. Between each class period, move the books you’ll need to take home to a lower shelf. If you come up with a system, you will be less likely to carry everything all the time.

That should be about it. Not too late to start now!

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This is beginning to look like a weekly editorial.

I was thinking about how commercialised sports have become. The focus has shifted from physical excellence to competitive excellence. Competitiveness has been rooted in all sports all along – sports were created to determine whether who/which team was more physically advantaged, dominant and stronger. However, this friendly competition has turned into hungry battles for trophies, and these battles repeat themselves years after years.

All because of money.

Ever since sports began being professionalised, there has been no turning back. People are paid to play. People are paid to keep fit. People are paid to fight these battles that they know they should never lose or they will face repercussions. But it is this professionalism that has raised the overall standard of play.

Football clubs began to become commercial companies, earning their keep from this competitive nature of humans. The spectators are enjoying the results. The clubs begin to charge these spectators for entry.

The players themselves, instead of becoming true pursuers of the sport, become puppets and commodities, signing contracts and being bought/sold. If you’re good, you’ll get a higher pay, or set off to a better club; if you’re on the slide, you are sold for a cheap price. Is it possible to stay loyal to one club for a life? On one hand you have to be able to withstand the various temptations (money, game experience (especially if you’re playing for a lower league club)), and yet on the other hand you have to do your best to stay.

Will continue on this post tomorrow. My workload is getting heavier by the day ><

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Well I thought I might give some of my thoughts on leadership. I was pondering whether to join my college’s Students’ Council.

In my opinion, a good leader is one who is able to relate to people – that I cannot do very well, but I’m willing to try. To be able to serve the school, one must be able to understand the school and its components – the student body. What is a school without its students? But what, then, are students if they are not given the chance to lead? Hence, the term student leadership arises - at the micro scale we have class committees, subject representative; at the macro level we have the prefects, the councillors to lead the school.

The teachers in a school can only cater to (at least) the educational and pedagogical welfare of the students, and usually do not have time to take care of welfare in the school context (this refers to student’s all-round development, including recreation and relaxation). This responsibility would then fall onto the student leaders – specifically, the SCs. I still remember one notable contribution by one recent batch of councillors – the Student’s Lounge, with movie screenings, a pool table, a dartboard and a room where students can play PS2 games.

Leadership is not only about bringing positive changes in the school environment, but also growth in the student body. For that, I believe an open 2-way communication system is vital. By this, I mean that students and student leaders alike will not be afraid to share their views on how to improve students’ lives or the school environment. Student leaders also have to understand the dynamics of the student body – how they would respond to certain changes, how they react to existing infrastructure in the school – in order to administer suitable corrections, changes or introductions that would improve students’ lives.

However, leadership is not about serving and giving – there are lessons that can be learnt that can benefit the student leader themselves. People usually do not know how to garner respect from others, usually thinking (superficially) that money, good looks or good grades are enough. As the old adage goes, for others to respect you, you must respect others first. Leaders will show that they care not only about the results of a project but also the welfare of his team along the way – by rendering tasks to the abled, by helping people through difficulties, by working through obstacles as a team and not abandoning your members at any stage.

Committment, perseverance, time management, confidence and decisiveness are also other traits that a leader must have and will be able to refine as a leader.

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What exactly does the media do? I personally think that it is a medium via which information is dissipated – specifically information from places that we were unable to reach physically. The reach of media developed from that of a community to national reach (with the rise of nationalist movements like the French Revolution) to regional and slowly to global.

We can also see that new forms of media began to emerge. The invention of the printing press saw the birth of the newspaper, the invention of the transistor saw the birth of the radio and the cathode ray tube brought about the first televisions. More recently, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, which slowly developed into the Internet that we know of today.

From this we can see that the media first developed in terms of its reach – then when the maximum possible reach was hit (and restrained due to many factors, more commonly technology, financial strength and maybe the mindsets of people) alternate forms of media began to emerge.

However, in a conversation that I had with Shannon, he claims that the media shows relatively “unimportant” stuff that does not pertain to the local or regional scene, and instead showing more news from the international scene. Some questions may sprout:

1. Why should we care for people in other parts of the world when we do not even care enough for the people around us?
2. Why should we care for people in other parts of the world when incidents that occur around us have more geographical significance and thus we should accord priority and attend to these first.

Shannon continued on by saying why our media does not report news on people who urinate in lifts and yet report news on terrorist attacks. Shannon also talked about fictional news, which I will touch on later.

Back to my questions. To the two questions that I posed (answers are targeted not at specific questions but are general answers to both):

• There is an increased global awareness due to the global reach of modern media.
• Besides, there is little chance that a whole population will be interested in helping the people around us – same applies in cases of rendering aid to other countries. Additionally, there are people who are selfish and care for self-interests only.
• Geographical significance does not necessarily equate to urgency – the scale and magnitude of the incident does.
• Some local problems do not have immediate – or rather, effective – solutions that can be undertaken. Also, the public may not be able to render help in the right form. (For example, helping the poor get out of the poverty cycle – this requires implementation of government policies to be effective, even though donations by the public may seem to be an immediate relief measure; contrast this with the seemingly much easier form of providing relief to other countries by donating necessities.)

With regards to why some news are shown instead of others:

• Degree of impact – some news are more likely to draw attention than others. A murder case, for example, will stay in the media for much longer than a case of theft.
• Importance of dissemination – some important news (especially those regarding government policies) may be important and needs to be spread among the public as fast as possible (e.g. the infamous 2% rise in GST (again) and the implementation of policies to offset effects of that increase).

In fact I retorted to Shannon, “What the heck is the media for if local news are not reported at all?” Despite the fact that the media allows us to know more, we don’t have to know everything.

Shannon also raised an interesting point about fictional/manipulated news. Imagine this scenario:

1. A terrorist attack occurs somewhere in Singapore.
2. Witnesses of the incident are silenced (i.e. they do not spread the news).
3. The media does not report it either.

Shannon says that the media should not report it at all since it will cause a big hooha out of it. “Ignorance is bliss”, as the old adage says. At first thought I would agree with him, since we will not be able to render help immediately (unless we are at the scene), and then people will start pointing fingers at who will be the mastermind.

In the case where the media actually reports the incident on the news, Shannon claims that one terrorist group will come out and claim responsibility (regardless of whether they were responsible) since some terrorist groups are out to get publicity of the group and their aims; on the other hand, I stood my ground by saying that terrorists do execute plans in line of their aims and goals, but will tend not to get in the way of law. Shannon followed up his argument by saying that since terrorists are out to get publicity, the media would be one cause of subsequent terrorist attacks (this rests on the claim that terrorists execute attacks to stike fear and destabilise peace, which may be their goals). I did not agree, and I said that the media is not the catalyst of subsequent terrorist attacks. I reasoned that terrorists groups would have different agendas (this would not exclude Shannon’s scenarios) and that some terrorist attacks that may look like follow-up attacks by first glance may be executed by a different group (also to strike fear and destabilise peace).

In such a case, should the media report a terrorist attack on the news? Stay tuned for Part II.

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Well, before school starts, I thought I might just list some resources that I’m using (or going to use):

• This is a link which gives an introduction to 90 online file storage services (from Lifehack.com).
• Backpackit: Get organised! “Backpack is a simple web-based service that allows you to make pages with to-do lists, notes, files, and images. Backpack also features a Calendar and Reminders that can be sent via email or to your cell phone at predefined times.” – Backpackit.com
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets – an online word processing and spreadsheet program that allows collaboration between users. Requires a Google Account.

That’s it for my current list!

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So I have figured that it might be useful to post some of these here.

School’s starting tomorrow! The first week is Orientation – but despite not having any academic workload, I still think it’d be more appropriate to get myself slowly into the mood (rather than starting on academic work feeling like you’re walking out from a dream into a nightmare). Here goes!

Having trouble waking up on time? The Potential Blog gives a tip (along with 2 other sites that were linked to the post):

So my tip? Get a new alarm with a significantly different beep to your current one. Make an effort to train yourself into sitting/standing up when it goes off. Soon you’ll be doing it automagically!

Meanwhile, Steve Pavlina gives a personal anecdote and suggests practicing getting awake on time:

Go to your bedroom, and set the room conditions to match your desired wake-up time as best you can. …Set your alarm for a few minutes ahead. Lie down in bed just like you would if you were sleeping, and close your eyes. Get into your favorite sleep position. Imagine it’s early in the morning… a few minutes before your desired wake-up time. Pretend you’re actually asleep. Visualize a dream location, or just zone out as best you can.

Now when your alarm goes off, turn it off as fast as you can. Then take a deep breath to fully inflate your lungs, and stretch your limbs out in all directions for a couple seconds… like you’re stretching during a yawn. Then sit up, plant your feet on the floor, and stand up. Smile a big smile. Then proceed to do the very next action you’d like to do upon waking.

… Now shake yourself off, restore the pre-waking conditions, return to bed, reset your alarm, and repeat. Do this over and over and over until it becomes so automatic that you run through the whole ritual without thinking about it. If you have to subvocalize any of the steps (i.e. if you hear a mental voice coaching you on what to do), you’re not there yet.

And Matthew Stibbe at Bad Language lists down how he made waking up earlier a habit:

1. Decided what time I wanted to get up.
2. Set myself a goal.
3. Promised myself a reward.
4. Tracked my progress using Joe’s Goals.
5. Get clothes, computer and breakfast ready the night before.
6. Alarms. I set my beside alarm for 0600 – and this is the clever psychology – I also set my telephone to ring at 0605 but I put the phone on the other side of the room so that I have to get out of bed to stop it ringing.
7. Naps. Sleep is like money in the bank. If you overdraw by getting up early, you have to pay in some other time.
8. Earlier nights. In the long run, going to bed an hour or so earlier and having lie-ins on weekends meant that I was getting the right amount of sleep. Like jet lag the adjustment is a little painful but it only took a week or two to get used to the new routine.
9. Boast widely about your new early-birdiness.
10. Always leave them wanting more! (See my post on writing top ten lists.)

[Emphasis original; some elaborations omitted for brevity.]

After waking up, it’s time to get straight into serious stuff! Dave Cheong, in 2 articles, lists a total of 29 ways of staying focused. My personal best 5 from his first article titled “11 ways of staying focused”:

• Breaking things into bite sized chunks. …Breaking goals into smaller actionable chunks (tasks) is great – it gives me motivation to start and allows me to get things done in one sitting.
• Planning ahead without fail. I’ve found it really helps to look at my goals and task lists periodically, so I can assess how much time it’ll take to do something and determine the best time to sit down and work on it.
• Having positive patterns in my routine.
• Blocking out some time. I’ve found that having quiet time, set aside specifically for accomplishing a given task, to be very productive. I also tend to be more focused in the morning after a restful night.
• Keeping the results clear in mind. By focusing on the results, it is easier for me to maintain my motivation especially when working on things that I am not by nature motivated by.

[Emphasis original; some elaborations omitted for brevity.]

And again, my personal best 9 from his second article “18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work” (some of the techniques might not be relevant to academics, but can be adapted flexibly in one way or another):

1. Write out a daily task list and plan your day.
2. Apply time boxing. Instead of working at something till it is done, try working on it for a limited period, say 30 mins. This way, you keep your work fresh and engaging throughout the entire working day.
3. Do not check personal email in the morning. Instead of checking your personal email as soon as you get in, try starting work straight away. This will build up some momentum as you ease into your work day. 
4. Use the headphones but leave the music off. If you’re doing some serious planning or something computational, having music blasting in your ears may not be the best thing for keeping focused.
5. Fill up a water bottle. This does a couple of things – firstly, it limits the starts/stops associated every time you get up for water and secondly, it avoids being sucked into lengthy discussions around the water cooler.
6. Clean up your desk. It also helps tremendously having all the things you need easily within arms reach. For example, if you need a place to write, having your pen and notepad close by and easily accessible is incredibly useful.
7. Get a good chair. [not when all the chairs in a classroom are the same and most probably non-ergonomic]
8. Use shortcuts on your computer.For example, if there’s a project folder you access all the time, try adding a shortcut to your Explorer or Finder so you can get access to it with a single click.
9. Change your mindset and make work fun. For my last tip here, I suggest you try changing your mindset or turning work into a game. An unfocused mind, is an unchallenged mind. So make things fun!

[Emphasis original; Italics and comments in square brackets mine, to denote tips that may not be directly applicable to life in school/college [and reasons why they may not be done so]; some elaborations omitted for brevity.]

Before I end this off, here’s more websites to check out:

• “10 tips for keeping your desk clean and tidy” at Lifeclever.com
• “Do something you love doing and admire” by Dave Cheong

For now I’ll end off my entry here. Hope to see you around soon!

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