We were crossing the road at a car park and there was this car turning into the car park; beside us were this old lady on wheelchair and a middle age lady. The car was turning as we stepped on the road and it suddenly seem to speed towards us and my sister loudly exclaim, “What on earth is wrong with this car?”
Turns out that the car was picking up the 2 ladies beside us and the middle age lady was the wife of the driver. My sister felt embarrassed immediately upon realisation and decided that she must never insult cars so loudly again.
Christmas Eve
The dog appeared pretty cute. Its owner was hold it by the leash and talking on the phone and since the leash stretched across the pavement, we had nowhere to walk. As we approach the dog, my sister waved to it, hoping it might greet her or at least show her some friendliness. But the dog stared, with the cute frown and observed my sister for a while before barking so abruptly and loudly that my sister got a shock. It then went on barking and barking even as we walked away.
True Story.
It’s Christmas Eve but ironically my gatherings are all after Christmas because friends don’t want to disturb each other on the actual day and eve. I end up hanging outside on a home supplies restocking trip. Here are some random observations I made.
Instant Noodles
My favourite instant noodles the ‘Indomee Mi Goreng’ as become ‘Ibumie Mi Goreng’! Fair Price have their own Korean ‘Authentic’ Instant Noodles, selling at about $3.40 for 5 packets in the classy Korean Ramen packaging. I think there’s really too much instant noodles on the shelves nowadays and interestingly some even have the ‘Healthier Choice’ logo on them!
House Brands Promotion Ends
Outside Fair Price, a sign reads “Bid farewell to 2009 and the 5% discount on Housebrands”. According to the little footnote, the campaign was to help households combat the effects of the economic slowdown and high inflation. Perhaps the economy has turned for the better though I personally think that for the household they’re trying to help, the situation probably didn’t improve much.
Pricing in the Real World
While demand and supply sets prices, it often makes people wonder why 2 Correction fluid bundled with a free soft eraser can sell less than 2 Correction fluid on their own. The supermarket Kiwi costs $2.85 a tin and it sells $0.57 in the camps. Apparently that economy is not quite integrated into the rest of the country’s economy (which also explains the cheap beer that tastes kind of different). The barriers allow for these differential pricing. The same happens for the Correction fluid, which are treated as different products.
I happened to be at Iluma today and decided to get a cup of Chai Latte from Coffee Bean to strike out another item off my Drinks List. There was some 8-Day event there on 1st floor of the building with a crowd but The Coffee Bean is on the 2nd storey so I was a safe distance from the people.
I approached the counter with a maths worksheet in my hand (I was planning to work out some problems there while I sipped on the tea since I had some spare time on my hand and needed to exercise my mind) and made my order. The young man serving me immediately asked if I intended to sit around to study.
I commented that I’ll probably be around for half an hour and asked if it’ll be a problem. He replied that there’s an event downstairs and they anticipate a crowd so they discourage people from studying at the cafe. I kept quiet and took my receipt. I thought that the Large Chai Latte should at least buy me 30 minutes of time at the cafe.
Chai Latte from The Coffee Bean turns out to be pretty strong; I thought the milk was just okay but they could reduce the strength of the cinnamon a little. In any case, I took a seat and started drinking while working on my maths sums. They weren’t that difficult but I eventually took about 40 minutes or so.
Meanwhile, I was busy paying attention to the seats around me, careful to note if the seats are all taken – I decided that I’ve lingered long enough and if the cafe starts filling up, I’ll give up my seat voluntarily to any other customers who are interested for a drink. This opportunity never come, The Coffee Bean was only half filled at best, hardly any hint of the crowd the cafe was anticipating appeared.
Two question popped up in my head, which I quickly scribbled on a notepad I was using for the maths problems. 1) Where was the crowd the cafe was anticipating? 2) If a cafe wants to maximize their profits from a crowd and yet is limited by their available seats, how do they discourage people from studying there besides using attitude (which I assume is something I experienced)?
I decided to solve this 2 questions and I did discover the answer to the first one soon after. The 2nd question requires a little more pondering and discussion. I’ll be answering them over at ERPZ soon.
Xiayan suggested I share some useful tools I shared with him on my blog. So here you go:
Dropbox – File sharing/synchronization, online storage tool. Extremely useful for people with multiple computers and files to be shared between them.
Macheist – Mac Community that raise funds for charity and give you lots of great Mac Ware at amazing prices (sometimes free too).
Lifehacker.com – Life-hacking tips and recommendations, a must-read-frequently site for GTD enthusiast.
Growl – Mac Notification tool, it’s basically an alert programme that seamlessly integrate with your mac and several other popular programmes.
I found a word document I penned about a year ago on ‘Thinking Smart’, largely to encourage people but I didn’t bother to distribute it at all so I’m putting it up here on my blog.
Thinking Smart
By Kevin Low
Preamble
Poor thinking practices leads to undesirable thoughts, poor discipline at work, lack of motivation to direct oneself towards one’s goal. As thinking directly impacts on our actions and emotions, sprucing up one’s thinking practices is vital to improve one’s life, and it has the potential of making it a better experience. Of course for those who choose to wallow in self-pity, it is best advised that you do not proceed beyond this point because this pamphlet will manage to maximize your potential and help you get your best in life.
By thinking smart, one could analyse matters objectively and well, leading to more accurate derivation of actions to respond to these matters. At the same time it reduces impulse and keeps emotions under control. Thinking is a self-reinforcing process and thus by allowing negative stuff to get into this self-reinforcing loop, one would only be thrown into a downward spiral. Of course, we do not advocate illusionary optimism; we want to create a positive attitude that facilitates working, achieving and stress managing rather than illusionary depression that can potentially lead to mental breakdown, self-pity and feeling of extreme helpless-ness.
Be Logical, be rational
Few people are rational because they are affected be factors outside the typical consideration of rationality, but we aim to be rational as far as possible by keeping by good logical reasoning practices. One of the chief demonstrations of the lack of logic is in procrastination. Procrastination is obviously logically unsound; it makes absolutely no sense to think that by postponing work or anything, it’ll be made easier or more relaxed. People who procrastinate and swayed by their moods but when you think smart, you’ll realize that those emotions are disruptive to your work and thus should be discarded. You are the only one who can best manipulate yourself to exercise discipline and if it benefits you, why not?
Another manifestation of lack of rationality is the denial of ‘Cause & Effect’. One’s performance in any test/examination is a function of the effort put into preparing for it, your natural talent as well as the degree of ‘smartness’ you work, that will maximize learning in minimal time. Of course these variables are subjected to an uncertainty factor that may result from chance and luck. You just have to be objective and recognize what is under your control, what have you not done well and what is beyond your control.
Multi-perspectives
Thinking smart also involves looking at the world from others’ perspective so that you may rationalize others’ actions and thus feel a greater certainty about reality. Sometimes we throw our arms in the air and ask why our boss make us do a particular thing, or why our teachers’ need to set exam papers that difficult. Putting ourselves in their shoes makes things much easier to swallow; our bosses have to answer to their bosses and if that small little things are not done, then how can bigger things that generate a revenue for the company and thus feed us be accomplish by the firm – therefore if you wish to get your pay, you should carry on working. Our teachers have to set difficult papers in order to identify the very top of all students and only by adhering to the teachers’ standards would you be able to be at the top – when you’re very good and studied very hard, you’ll also hope that you score better and not the same as those who slack (which can happen if your teachers set easy tests).
Think Positive
The point of good thinking practices (ie. thinking smart) is to garner the energy in oneself to carry out real changes in one’s life, actions and attitudes towards things. By thinking positively, one can radically alter one’s mood when engaging in a particular activity one doesn’t really like. Take National Service for example, you can spend 2 years trying to avoid doing work, trying to see the Medical Officer to get MC almost every other day, pretend you are weak and sick all the time or even down-PES by declaring that you have depression. On the other hand, you can embrace the opportunity to make new friends, learn to use the rifle (something you never get to touch in civilian world for Singaporeans), pick up work-related skills and have fun with your newfound buddies.
Endnotes
By now, you should be familiar with what it means to think smart. It is actually just about disciplining you and motivating yourself with the irrefutable logic of nature. It is recognition of the variables that you exercise power over and those that you do not, so you may manipulate the necessary variables in ways that will produce the outcome you desire. It’s about matching your goals to your present actions.
