Recently in Lessons Learnt Category

The moment they were assigned to my team, I thought...

Just when we were doing so well... why? Why?!

They were infamous for being difficult to work with. They had strange and different ideas which the majority couldn't accept. To sum it all up, nobody wanted to work with them. They attended all tutorials and lectures, but failed to deliver, and word was going around that these two individuals were really fucking stupid.

My team was worried, so was I.

I was extremely pissed when a few classmates shook my hand and wished me good luck. I told myself that I was going to prove them all wrong.

We watched them closely and sent out reminders before deadlines were due. The written work they both delivered were sub-standard, I have to admit. We didn't know what to do with them. Until one day...

Student 1 came up with a brilliant project idea instantaneously, when all of us (without him) took almost 8 hours and failed to come up with anything half as good.

Student 2 designed a 30-minute long presentation within 2 hours. It would have taken us about 10 hours to do so... Moreover, the animations (done using a Mac) were breathtaking. He was a professional photographer, who so happened to be my junior in Victoria School.

That's it! We realized that they had what we all lacked. While we were focusing so much on productivity, we failed to realize what they had could actually have saved us a lot of time and agony...

Creativity. They dared to think outside the box when it came to problem solving, without any fear of criticism.

We immediately changed our strategy. Those two guys were instantly put in charge of all visual materials. We ended up topping the entire class in those project assignments and proved everybody wrong, but that's not the point.

The point is...

1. Everybody has their own strengths and weaknesses.
2. Leave them out in areas they are weak in, rather than try to force them to improve, unless it is absolutely critical that they do so.
3. Delegate tasks according to their strengths and... most importantly, encourage them!

To the teams who ostracized them... I hope your jaws dropped when you saw them perform well. All I have to say is... your judgement sucks!

I followed Jessie down to Furry Pets today. Since Jessie bought Dexter, she has always been sending him there for grooming every two months.

The 5-year-old West Highland Terrier by the name of Win-Win was no where in sight. She would usually come out to greet us and we would play with her. Instead, we found her crouching under a table.

The shop owners mentioned to us that Win-Win went blind in the right eye due to tick fever. They were extremely sad about it, but still grateful that she survived this highly lethal ordeal. Apparently, some of the dogs which came in for grooming brought along ticks and passed it on to her.

I didn't know ticks could be so dangerous. Looks like it's time to start bathing our dogs on a monthly basis with tick shampoo.

The dentist finally convinced me to floss every night, instead of just relying on the toothbrush and mouth rinse.

I wanted to ask him if I should SPEND more time on flossing certain areas, but somehow the words came out all wrong.

Me: Do I floss all the teeth?
Dentist: No, not really.
Me: ...
Dentist: You don't floss all your teeth.
Me: Oh...
Dentist: Only the ones you want to keep.
Me: HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!

I have oily skin and I'm well aware of it. Exercising just adds a lot more oil to my face.

So I thought that by washing my face with hand soap first, then using facial foam, I could keep my face dry and clean. True enough, my face felt extremely dry. But it became very oily (even worse than before) within the next 2 hours.

I continued this for two weeks or so, satisfied that I have washed my face thoroughly.

One morning, I woke up to an eruption of cystic acne and whiteheads all over my face. It was so bad that I didn't dare to look at myself in the mirror.

I stopped using hand soap to wash my face and the acne subsided. Nightly applications of pure lemon juice (stings like crazy) all over the face managed to dry out the remaining acne. I'll probably give it another few more days to clear up.

I'll never ever use hand soap on my face again.

Involving a taxi.

Smashed signal light, dented bonnet and bumper.

Front left bumper.

My first accident in almost 5 years of driving. I was at Bukit Merah Central when I had a minor front-to-rear collision with taxi. The taxi in front of me at the junction braked very hard at the junction to avoid a speeding car. I was looking out for traffic coming from the right, didn't notice the stationary taxi and ended up accelerating into it.

I was furious (which was very unreasonable of me) when I got out of the car.

Me : Huh?! Why did you jam brake?!
Taxi driver : If I didn't brake, I would have hit the car already.

Then I realized that there was nothing much to discuss about. The fault was mine. I apologized and exchanged particulars with the driver. Apparently there were only minor scratches on his bumper, while the front left part of my car was in a mess. The taxi driver checked if his boot was working, then told me that he wasn't going to claim anything. Just to be safe, I filed a report the next morning.

[ Update : 291009 ]

Taxi's bumper.

I have made a report and submitted the photos of the taxi's bumper, of which only the bumper sensor was slightly cracked.

The taxi driver assured me that he would not file any claims since the damage was very minor. Guess what? I received a letter yesterday.

Claims Letter 291009.

I'm not paying $1,440 for a cracked bumper sensor and I'm contesting those claims. Luckily, Jessie's mum has tons of experience with car insurance companies and offered her help.

I made a very big mistake by taking his words for granted. I should have written it down (black and white) and got the both of us to sign.

I have heard a lot of stories about overinflated and double claims in accidents involving taxis, but have never expected something of this nature to occur to me.

[ Update : 110210 ]

The $1,440 claim for his taxi reverse sensors got through, together with other loss-of-use claims. One would expect the incident to end there.

No. The cunning taxi driver decided to push things further.

Almost 7 months after the accident, the taxi driver filed a bodily injury claim against me.

Bodily Injury Claim.

If you scroll up and look through the pictures, you too, would find it very suspicious that the taxi driver has suffered any form of bodily injury.

The pot.

I left 3 eggs to boil in a pot of water on the stove and went into the room to do my work.

3 hours later, I heard very loud popping noises coming from the dining room and went out to check. There were fragments of egg whites, yolks and shells scattered everywhere. My two dogs were hiding under the chairs. I rushed into the kitchen and turned off the stove. The explosion sent egg fragments flying out to as far as 3 metres away from the stove, into my dining room.

The dining room and the kitchen are in a huge mess right now.

I'll never leave my cooking unattended again.

I was searching for a way to download original photos from flickr in a batch mode. I tried several programs like Flickr Backup and Flickr Downloadr, but neither of both suit me.

Continued at...
Source : Vikingo's Pub.

I spent months looking for the perfect backup utility for Flickr. None of the backup utilities worked well (either crashed on long title names or downloaded the sets partially) for a huge collection like mine.

Using Juan Pablo's method, I was able to backup all 5,623 images (6.69gb) without a single error. All images were of original resolution.

So if you have a lot of photos to backup on your Flickr Pro account, forget about all the backup software. Just read the above mentioned article. You'll be damn glad you did!

The New Paper article 210209.

Drink driving, driving without licence, driving without insurance coverage, and driving whilst under disqualification are considered serious violation cases. Hence, if a motorist suspects that the other party in the traffic accident has committed one of these offences, he/she should call Police immediately to report the matter.
Source : Singapore Police Force.

This is the real reason why I'll never lend anyone my car. Neither would I drive anyone's car.

I keep a stopwatch on my computer table now. I start timing the moment I launch Mozilla and Thunderbird. The sole purpose of this stopwatch is to keep track of how long I take altogether to...

1) Check and reply my emails
2) Briefly view the few forums I'm a member of
3) Check the university blackboard for any new course material
4) Reply emails
5) Blog, as well as run through my blogroll
6) BBC and CNA news
7) Friendster and Facebook for any new requests (not cupcake and all that crap requests). Send and reply messages if I need to.

Altogether, I took 20 minutes (without publishing long entries with pictures on Orangeous). Without the stopwatch I would have spent almost an hour doing the accomplishing the same tasks.

The stopwatch ticking away, made me subconsciously aware of my time constraints, and as a result, I refrained from the time-consuming habit of surfing around, browsing through random stuff on Wikipedia, Youtube and stuff like that.

If you have a habit of surfing around aimlessly and wish to cut down, I hope this stopwatch method works for you.

Few days back some representative from a bank called. I just woke up, feeling a bit irritated to see a private number flashing on my phone.

Lady : Hi Mr Sukianto!

*instantly I knew it was from a bank because I've being using this name for every single bank account*

Me : Yes? What is it?
Lady : There's this package, whereby for $29.95/month, you can insure yourself up to $500 per day you're hospitalized. There is also this...
Me : Not interested, sorry.
Lady : Sir, with this package you will also...

This Indian lady sounded pretty desperate. I might as well finish listening to her, then turn her down politely. I closed my eyes, placed the phone on loudspeaker, and let her finish up.

Then...

Lady : You will receive a bill...
Me : What bill?!
Lady : For the plan, we can activate it now by phone for you.
Me : Hello miss! I didn't agree to anything ok! Don't make the decisions for me, and don't pressurize me to make one ok?
Lady : Sir..we..
Me : I DO NOT want to sign up for your package! Do not call me back! Bye!

I screamed into the phone because I was so furious that she was trying to twist the whole deal upside down to make a quick buck. Next time I'll just go with not-interested-thank-you-goodbye-hang-up.

I was on my way home after dinner when my mum called. Her good friend's husband had passed away 4 hours ago, and she badly needed a lift to her place. So I picked her up from the hospital and we both went over. Mum told me what had just happened, during the journey there :

Mum received a call late afternoon from her friend. Her husband had a heart attack, collapsed at home, after complaining of chest pains. She called my mum who was at work. Crying over the phone, she wasn't sure what to do. Mum told her to get an ambulance. By the time they had arrived at the hospital, it was too late.

It was 11pm when I arrived. The lights in the house were still on. And I was greeted by a lady and her three children. All of them had swollen, puffy eyes after a huge bout of crying. I felt depressed seeing them. I didn't know what to say, except for I'm really sorry to hear about what happened, and I sat there on the sofa, silently observing everything that was going on around me.

Her husband's wallet was lying on the table. I recognized the typical huge bulgy worn-out black leather wallet my Dad always carries around. His handphone was switched off.

Mum and her friend, with her other friends, were in a room, discussing about casket services, insurance and autopsy procedures. He had his own business, so they were also discussing on issues relating to company accounts. Mum assured her that she would talk to the coroner. They picked out a suit for the deceased to wear, during the funeral.

I leaned back on the sofa, and thought of how sad it would be for me to lose my dad all of a sudden. I spoke to her daughter. And this was what she told me :

I had just finished my test. The results were instantly displayed on the computer and I had gotten full marks. I was so happy and I wanted to go home to share the news with everyone. Then my mum called and told me to come down to the hospital immediately. I rushed out of the lab. One of my friends accompanied me to the hospital, while the rest helped me pack up my belongings.

I felt so sad after hearing those words, and the only thing that came out of my mouth was :

You have really good friends.

I wished I could have said something which sounded better.

It was midnight when mum finished consoling her friend, who looked distraught and weak, we headed back home. Mum was hungry, so we stopped by the roadside for some prata. And we had a short conversation about the whole incident.

Me : Do you think anything could have been done after he collapsed?
Mum : CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation). But she was crying and in a shock.
Me : Could it have saved him?
Mum : Yes.
Me : How sure are you on that?
Mum : I'm a CPR trainer. What do you mean I don't know? It's been proven many many times.
Me : Then what if you're not sure on how to do that.
Mum : Just keep pumping away. Four-second interval. Now they are debating over whether it is possible to keep pumping away at the chest, without the need to blow into the mouth.
Me : So if auntie administered CPR, would he have had a second chance?
Mum : Yes, most likely.

If you're unsure of how to perform CPR, I suggest you learn it today.

http://globalcrisis.info/cpr.html

CPR might just make the difference between life and death, and one day, you might need to use it.

If you're skeptical about this, I'd suggest you jolly-fucking-well listen up. Don't ask me to touch-some-fucking-wood or any of those superstitious crap. Shit happens all the time, and when you would least expect it. It's how you deal with it that makes the difference.

Fines for overdue books.

26 bucks! I thought library fines were usually less than two dollars!

I've finally learnt to return my books on time!

I was down with a runny nose yesterday night, so I took one tablet of Rinafort (a prescribed flu medication) before heading to bed. I slept well because I was drowsy after that.

When I woke up to run this morning, I was hit by extreme thirst halfway through. My throat and mouth felt extremely dry and I was gagging instead of breathing normally.

I learnt from Mum (to put it in layman terms), that flu medication actually dehydrates the body thus preventing excessive mucus from forming.

I think I'll bear with the runny nose next time.

I have had a bad habit.

I've been biting my nails for the past 22 years. As such, my nails have never been long enough to clean my nose / ear in one single scrape. Sometimes, I'm so good at biting, that they bleed because the nail bed is exposed.

My primary school English teacher, Mdm Lim, got so sick and tired of my incessant chewing that she threatened to make me wear a glove if she caught me again. But of course, I continued, behind her back. Jessie would sometimes snap at me, because of the noise. Nothing deterred me from the good-old-chewing. I would start from the edge, then slowly work my way round the nail.

A couple of weeks back, Jessie helped me apply a layer of clear varnish over my nails. The pungent freshly-varnished odor did turn me off for the first day or so when I raised my finger to my lips. After the odor went away, I brought it back up again, this time, and chewed off a tiny edge of the nail. It tasted weird, and chewing that tiny bit brought out a small amount of the odor, again. I spat out that tiny nail bit, and somehow stopped chewing for the entire week.

After a while, the old habit just died.