Pink Tuesdays

On the job, well, two days late but my father finally found out that I’m jobless. But the joblessness gave me time to do something. You see, my brother’s girlfriend have been chasing deadlines for weeks and nearing her first dateline for her first complete draft of her baccalaureate thesis, she just couldn’t do it alone.

You see, she had high aims and a tight schedule. While others research their English major thesis on surveys and the like, she did recordings of normal Malaysian student conversations in “English” (more like Manglish). Transcribing it however proved to be a pain.

I took one and a half days helping her transcribe one of the six conversations she had, allowing her to finish her analysis in the early hours of the morning. She was supposed to present it to her supervisor in the morning.

One thing I gained from the blood, sweat and tears of transcribing, other than the Jeffrey Archer books she promised, was that my view of Malaysian local universities have changed, greatly. Why? The conversation I was transcribing was three girls discussing a class they’re attending.

Plus, the amount of pain my brother’s g.f. is subjected to by her lecturers showed that while Malaysian universities isn’t Ivy League material, it isn’t a sorry excuse for a university either. Yes, there are factors that would overall lower the image of Malaysian universities - the tens of thousands of undeserving Malays gaining entry into universities thanks to affirmitive action, the creation of two sets of standards for Malays and non-Malays, and the subsequent mass unemployment of Malays - but all these won’t affect me.

Certainly, if I can do better with whatever results I get in March, I would. But I’m not going to squander years and thousands of ringgit just for the possiblity of attaining a degree by the more famous universities.

On a related topic, a couple of weeks ago I tested myself on SAT I using Kaplain’s specimen tests - I got 600, 660 and 640 respectively for Critical Reading, Maths and Writing (800 is the top mark for all these). My little bubble popped and I started studying - though I got a job, lost a job, got a job in transcribing within the space of these two weeks.

Today I tested myself, the scores were more of 780, 720 and 740 respectively. Heh… if I get those scores, I can apply for Singaporean universities. Granted, tomorrow might be easier than today - I cut my allowable time by 20% - prudence, and I sincerely doubt at the examination hall there would be an angry younger brother expressing his tantrum practising the piano, a mother and a brother discussing, loudly, job prospects and Spain across the hall, another brother jamming with his guitar… oh, you get my point.

So I have hope… haha . Speaking of Spain, my mother’s going thereon holiday tomorrow. Yeap, she can’t afford private college for me, but Spain, she’s going.

Found out what I was supposed to do is illegal in Malaysia, as are most things. *Sigh* More later.

Wanted to blog about this earlier. I’ve been through interview after interview after interview. And one job offer. I was practically jumping up and down when that happen last Wednesday (thankfully, no one was around). I applied for the position of Admin Asst. - clerical work, what’s so hard about that?

Then came Thursday where the company slowly broke the news that there is not Admin Asst position. The job goes in four steps, 1) You are supposed to study how to predict the ups and downs of the FOREX market, 2) make a lot of enemies and find your first client, 3) ??? 4) Money.

At first, usual lah - very angry. “What is this, wasting my time (and RM7.40 in transportation cost; ahh, sunny ol’ Klang Valley - where public transport is expensive and inefficient)”. But what do I have to loose? I know a lot more about how a limited-supply market works now. For example, I always thought money is made when the market goes up (”bull”) but now I know you can make money when goes down (”bear”). And these people spend the entire day predicting how the market moves and then at the end of the day put money on the market and usually leave by the end of the hour - usually (90% of the time) with their clients richer.

There’s plenty of stuff I’ve learnt - like when markets go way, way up, it’s usually a bad time to trade because the market is volatile and hard to predict. And that we have to wait till the Japs go to sleep and the Wonks wake up to make most of the money.

Since reading Rich Dad Poor Dad I actively thought of getting a sales job. In fact, moments before I got the call for the job offer, I was about to pick up the Classifieds and find one - highlighter in hand already. Then I got this job, and I went, “Ehh, if all things goes well, I got another century to live, I’ll get this job and some money and then latter consider a sales job”.

Instead, I got this job. Where I have to sell RM40,000 investments. The work of prediction isn’t complicated. Its more like tedious. But if I get a client, I’m sure I can pull it off, make a fortune for the lucky person and receive a cut from it (yeah, the pay I would get is commission based on number of clients/accounts, number of transactions and amount of gross profit created - no fixed salary kind of deal).

So what do I have to loose? So far, RM7.40 per day in transportation, ~RM5.00 per day in food, and a whole lot of face. Oh, and considering this is a grey area of the law in Malaysia (we never actually took to liking speculators since 1997 Asian Financial Crisis), possibly my liberty. Ehh…

Few months ago, my church board recommended that 40 ministries be created. My pastor said, “Oh, well, wait till next year”. I thought that meant (hopefully), “Not going to happen, fool!” (say in deep A-Team B.A. voice), but now it either means “Oh my God, my Board is really pushing this, I ought to say yes lest I get impeached or something” or “Hey, it’s a rather jolly idea”.

Granted, when the plan was announced today in church, the number of ministries in the church isn’t a humongous number of 40. No, thankfully, it is a much, much lower number of, well, 39.

Still, the idiocity remained. There is a “Sound Room Ministry”, “Projection Ministry” and “Drama and Creative Arts Ministry” - as well as an Audio Visual Ministry. So lets say the church decides to make a video presentation - the Drama and Creative Arts Ministry would cast, record and direct. And then on the day or presentation, the Sound Room Ministry would handle the audio output, the Projection Ministry would handle the video. The Audio Visual Minister? Probably charged with pressing “Play”, “Pause” and “Stop” on the DVD Player.

Don’t worry, on the forms, it is required everyone pledge to accept training - so those involved in the A/V Ministry would be trained to know exactly the amount of pressure to apply in pressing those vital buttons on the DVD Player. It would be a great learning experience, the aunties and uncles can learn how to program their VCR! In Church!

Throughout high school, you’ve already heard, I had low self-esteem. A low self-perception. I had the excuses, the thing with excuses is that they are lies you tell yourself. Any how, this afternoon I went out for my second ‘yam cha’ [hang out, essentially] session with amongst the most popular guys in my high school.

I think you’re more attractive to people when you’re more attractive to yourself.

Certainly, they may have ulterior motives, but I’m using those motives to my advantage. They are high successful in this network marketing venture - those popular guys - some of them are earning in their tens of thousands. One of them even bought a car with his earnings. They benefit - they get bonuses and ommissions for whatever sales I make. But I benefit because I’m being mentored and trained by the more successful.

Why network marketing? It’s the cheapest way to go into business. Not only that, I have no experience in business and sales - I’m not looking at the profits, I’m looking at the experience I would be getting. Certainly, I wouldn’t be doing this for long, at least not as my main business.

But scale back a bit - how did I get in this ‘in’ crowd? I was simply helping myself - I bumped into one of them back for semester break, started talking and was invited out for to yam cha. If I had adopted the ‘I’ll never get fit’ thinking, I wouldn’t be out there.

Things start falling in place when you help yourself. So help yourself already.

Throughout schooling life, especially in Secondary School, I have a low self-perception, a low self-esteem and I was just plain bored in school. I didn’t apply myself, I didn’t think I was smart. Only at the tail end of last year I realize how much I had going for me. One week of studying fetch me a grade of 2.17 out of 4.0 (3.6ish if Maths wasn’t included). In Economics and Accountancy, I was in the top-5.

And Accountancy was the only subject I applied myself. It’s because I knew how to. I am very interested in business, so when it came to costing accountancy, I just applied whatever I’ve learned into my business plans I created to amuse myself.

Maths, however, was a sticking point. But it was merely two weeks before my final examination where all of my grade comes from did I learn that 1) I can do Maths and do it very well, 2) Maths is easy, 3) I just had to find my own way in learning Maths. Two weeks wasn’t a very long time to learn a subject.

So I wanted to take A-Levels, which is similar to the examination I took in syllabus and different only in examination style. I thought I could do what I couldn’t do in 2 weeks. I was dreaming of the Ivies, Oxbridge, etc. that I forgot to look up the price of doing A-Levels. RM2,400.

That’s a lot of money. That’s 27% of my father’s monthly pay check. Sure, I could think positively that I could get that money. Put that aside for awhile - look at this from a very business point of view: how much returns would I get from this investment? Very, very little. How risky is it? Very, very risky - I could get straight A’s like tens of thousands but still be rejected from UPenn.

Why do I want that kind of elite education? What is it that I would learn that I can’t learn at some third-rate mediocre institution passing off as a university, especially when I don’t plan to be an employee for long? Too little to justify risking such a huge sum of money. Deep down inside, all I wanted was bragging rights - London School of Economics sound a whole lot more better than Kolej Universiti Sains dan Teknologi Malaysia.

I asked myself, which I would rather hear myself say, “Oh, I’m going to Connecticut to finalize some multi-million dollar investments, sorry I can’t make it to your son’s wedding,” than “Oh, I’m going off to Connecticut to study in Yale, sorry I can’t make it to your wedding”. I’ll pick the prior.

My self-perception have changed a lot and my self-esteem have skyrocketed. I’m sure if I started applying myself (and learning how to do that), I could get into those schools. But I didn’t. I could repeat high school or I can move on.

I’m moving on.

I’ve decide, this year, I’m no longer to be a victim of my circumstances.

Two years ago, immediately after my senior pastor returned from a England and Wales missionary trip, he founded the youth church. He apparently got some vision there and wanted to bring this vision to fruition in Malaysia - amongst the original vision was a vision for a Malay language-centric multi-ethnic, multi-cultural church (my church has four sections - English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil).

For the first few meetings, things started out with a bang - there was high attendance, for one, though that’s probably because of a long schedule of special speakers. Eventually, though, things starts getting smaller and smaller. It started out with an attendance of 100, and it dropped and dropped and by time it celebrated its first birthday, it’s average weekly attendance was ~50 people. Because of poor management, the Tamils started leaving slowly until they became non-existant by the end of the year.

Around this time, the senior pastor’s daughter got married with a foreigner from Bible School. The senior pastor decided to make his new son-in-law the youth pastor. This, however, poses a slight problem: he can’t speak Malay. So the more-or-less bilingual congregation turned English-speaking. Half a year later, i.e. now, with attendance in its teens at best, the church decided to make the youth church a once-in-a-month feature.

Meanwhile, the student cell/care group I’m attending started out very small (well, the first meeting was big, but shrunk greatly the next and slowly built up). Soon after, the cell leader had to leave to study in Scotland. Few weeks later, the assistant cell leader got a schedule with classes on Friday nights. So essentially - no leadership in the initial period. Everything was spontaneous, with the former cell leader’s sister just deciding the duty rosters and facilitate discussions. But we grew. Unlike the youth church, the cell group with no evangelizing intention brought in 2-3 people to the Lord. Attendance is regular, and for the past few months, outstripped the youth church. It’s already at a point where it needs to split.

What’s this all about? The youth church started in a bang and ended in a whimper. It follows a pattern for every other youth program in church for the past 1-2 decades. They try to emulate the successes of surrounding churches’ youth church without realizing all these youth churches started out small and grew. One youth church my classmate attends had many years where it was small before suddenly expanding rapidly. My church attempts to skip a few steps. The pattern this time is slightly different - first, there’s a non-local pastor and second it skipped the weekly-to-fortnightly step.

Soon, if the pattern holds, once a month cell group would be forced to cancel to everyone would go to Youth Church. And slowly the cell group would be disbanded by a failing youth church infrastructure. Rinse, wash, repeat.

The thing is most of the youth church leaders never even been in a youth cell - there are three successful ones. Two working youth adults that recently split and one student cell that would split soon. The church doesn’t pay attention to its cell group, using the institution as a very successful manner of reaching out and evangelizing. The world can have concerts, talent nights, sports competitions, marathons - but they, so far, can’t emulate the fellowship found in the cell group.

That classmate I was talking earlier have a brother who started attending this youth church cell groups. The brother accepted Christ and soon brought along his younger sister - my classmate - who soon accepted Christ. The process is currently being repeated with her oldest brother and have already been successful in bring their mother back to Christ. They all didn’t start off by attending a youth church concert, rather informal cell groups held non-threateningly in homes rather than in churches.

In Malaysia, many parents have objections to their children going to church - it is more foolhardy bringing them to homes rather than churches. But chances of my church learning this lesson is slim, the pattern is bound to end and be repeated soon. I predict, 2007 youth church would have its last meeting, 2008 there would be a spell of any major youth activity and 2009, the pattern starts all over again. My predictions have been successful before.

Even more sadly, God’s vision ended soon after it was implemented. Not the first time. Couple of years back, God sent a speaker from India telling us the Biblical manner to evangelize and what method the church should employ. Everyone was gung-ho about it. It died no less than two weeks after the vision was taken by the church. And every so often, preachers would preach that revival would come with a massive harvest soon - perhaps even this year! - and I have no choice but to snicker silently back that it would have been years ago if they kept God’s vision.

No use God speaking to them or sending visions or sending prophets - his message would only last 3 months at most.

I guess, give it time, and the most unbearable aspects of your life - things that you think might just drive you over the age, progressively becomes more bearable. Take for example, me moving out. Four weeks ago, that’s all I wanted. Now, not so much. Nothing change, I just learnt how to deal.

Anyway, this blog is resembling an echo chamber - 2 visitors a day, on average. I kinda like low-numbers, I don’t want my life to be read by thousands, but at least someone…

On Christmas day, one of my father’s newest business associate (well, I’ll use “business” in the most liberal of manner) gave a box of expensive Marks and Spencer chocolate-coated biscuits. With the gift he gave a condition - that my father must be the one opening it and sharing in the consumption. Even though he supposedly took off from work at the end of the year, it took nearly two weeks for us to open it because our father isn’t around.

Couple of weeks before Christmas me and my father had a major flare up. It was a stupid fight. I’m angry at him for not getting it, he’s angry that I’m angry, he tries to talk to me, I refuse saying that the conclusion is inevitable, *smack* *smack* *smack* he proved my point. At one point of the conversation, he defended his workaholic lifestyle (where coming home at 8p.m. is early, waking up at 4a.m. to work is normal) saying he’s doing it all for us.

In other words, he’s slaving (his choice in vocab) for us. Sad we - my brothers and I - needed a father not a slave.

There was a certain man without a dependent, having neither a son nor a brother, yet there was no end to all his labor. Indeed, his eyes were not satisfied with riches and he never asked, “And for whom am I laboring and depriving myself of pleasure?” This too is vanity and it is a grievous task. - Ecclesiastes 4:8 NASB.

The thing with him is that he works so hard and yet we are never better off. The harder he works, the more in debt he is. He is easy in granting wishes though - part of the whole Guilty Father Syndrome - hoping material presents would subsitute for actually being around. It’s quite frustrating he spending a chunk of his money spending us yet in the end, he can’t pay for my education. I either have to settle for much less than anyone around me, to a life of uncertainty or have to be above-average brilliantly smart, high-scoring and get a scholarship somewhere.

Many are successful without getting an higher education (though there is a higher amount of people who aren’t…), I can get around that. But my point is, he’s not my father. He just contributed half of my genes.