Summary 2014

It has been awhile since the last time I wrote an update about myself. I am here to write about my updates for year 2014, especially for my dear ones in the US whom hardly hear anything about me throughout the year, my apology.

I will update my life from 5 angles. Here it goes.

Family. My family life has been quiet, especially this is the first year (I am talking about 2014 here) that I could not spend time with my deceased grandma (passed away 21 Nov 2013). My brother started his own food and beverage company in One Mont’ Kiara. I hardly interact with him anyway. His business is improving. My sister is still pretty much the same, studying Animation in The One Academy. She is preparing herself to study/work in Japan in coming years. It is her dream to go there (and yes she can speak fluent Japanese). My grandpa has been sleeping together with me ever since my grandma passed away. He never liked to sleep alone (he is afraid to sleep alone :P). It is funny that I am so used to him sleeping with me because I didn’t realize it has been more than a year. As for my parents, they are absolutely fine.

Friends. Literally nothing much to say here. It has been expanding at a slower pace as I have been occupying it with other matters like love life which I am going to say next.

Love. Well… I thought I have met the love of my life this year. I have been single since 2011 and I found this girl in July 2014 in Malacca when I was shooting a proposal video for my cousin. She was one of the dance crews which volunteered to do a flash mob to surprise my cousin’s other half that day. I have done a video on this and I shall share it on Facebook later, my very first video assignment.

Her name is Jacqueline. Before I start, I shall let you guys know that we are no longer together now. We dated for 6 months and ended with various reasons. The main reason is that we are not compatible, and she can’t agree more on this. We still remained as friends now.

Let’s step back a little allow me to tell you how I have arrived to this relationship.

Before we started as couple, I had a crush on one of my close friends (whom the name shall not be disclosed) for a year plus. She did not show any signs of liking me but we just remained close friends and we hang out quite often, and she knew I liked her. I have done couple of things and I felt that she find it disturbing. So I slowly giving up on her. And then I found Jacqueline in July 2014 in Malacca. Yes she looks pretty so I tried talking to her for other various reasons and she responded well. After awhile, through very little efforts, we got together. After couple of days I spoke to my close friend (mentioned above) about me having a girlfriend already; she felt heartbroken. She wanted to get together with me after her trip to China in July but it was all too late. I could not suddenly abandon my girlfriend back then and go off with her right. The wise choice is to confront her and let her know that I would need to stick to my current girlfriend. It is a matter of principle.

So me and Jac hangout once every week. She stays quite far away and I had to travel 1 hour and 30 mins just to hangout with her. Usually I will go there on Friday, stay over for 1 or 2 days, and head back to KL. I put in a lot of effort into this relationship as compared to all of my previous relationship. It never worked out. We had a lot of communication issues. She is an introvert and she hardly communicate her problems with me despite I tried various methods to get her talked about her problem. I guess she does not feel 100% comfortable when she is with me. This communication really make me feel exhausted. I like to talk, I like conveying knowledge, but she does not seem to appreciate my efforts. We are just different. I felt like I was talking to a wall.

Plus, there was a huge retaliation from her mum. Her mum does not like me and always wanted Jac to breakup with me. I have spoken to her mum in attempt to solve the issues she has with me. She commented that we are not compatible because I have a degree and Jac does not, there will be knowledge gap. Second, she commented that I did not treat her well enough. Allow me to tackle the issue one at a time. For the knowledge gap issue, I explained to her that even though Jac has not much of knowledge (and also she cant speak good English), it does not mean that she would not have it later. I am here to guide her if she is willing to learn. She seemed to sink that in. Secondly, honestly I really don’t comprehend what she meant by I did not treat her well enough. For the fact that I travelled 1 hour and 30 mins to her home every week to be with Jac without complaining, I did not know what else she wanted from me.

After thinking it through, I have all these issues with her mum because Jac has not done a great job communicating with her mum. Jac should know me best. She just chose to ignore whenever her mum nagged Jac on any dissatisfaction about me. I also think that her mum should not interfere with our relationship. It is our life not hers! She said that she prefers the other guy whom go after Jac for a year plus but Jac never liked him. I was thinking, is Jac choosing her own boyfriend or her mum helps her to choose?

Ok, on my side, I did not act as if I am a perfect boyfriend, I had my flaws too. One of the serious thing I have done is that I somewhat indirectly imposed stress onto Jac. Well, I don’t mind she could not speak English with me because we can always communicate in Chinese. But I do hope that our children can speak fluent English because if they don’t know English later, I bet they will suffer in their life. I wanted her to know English is because normally children stick closer to their mother in terms of learning and as a father will have little to do on their education (that’s the case in Malaysia). So I tried to be encouraging when she said what if she still don’t know years later. I said it is okay as I never set any goal for her to achieve. All I wanted was her attitude not to give up on learning, learning can be slow mind you which is fine with me. For your information, she can write understandable English just need to improve on her grammar, vocab, and sentence structure. If she is entirely hopeless I would not be with her in the first place anyway. During the first few months she was absolutely fine learning English, in fact she bought herself a book to read (without me telling her to, and yes I never give her any direct pressure as to asking her to read this and that etc). Well, my English is not perfect anyway.

We broke up I think was due to the fact that the constant nagging from her mum onto her really demotivates her to go on with me. After all I am like 100 km away from her. I can’t be with her during most of the weekdays. Thus, she had slowly given up on me. I could not blame her on this issue knowing how her mum constantly mistreat Jac for her own benefit.

I really dislike her mum. You know I am an adult pleaser and I somewhat never failed to please adults in Malaysia. She is the outlier. There was a small party going on and she invited the guy whom chased after Jac but not me! Never mind that. I have got over it now.

In fact, after broke up with Jac in Mar 2015, I felt relieved. My colleagues actually commented that I am a happier person now. I guess I fought too hard just to maintain that relationship. Constant battle for the last few months really tires me. So it kind of sums up that we are just not compatible. Whatever that has passed will be the past.

Education. Some of you might have heard that I was actually studying CFA. Well, I gave up on this professional paper finally because I have determined that it will not help in anyway in my career later. It just takes too much pain from me to study for the papers. I am on level two now and I have failed twice (which is normal actually). You can only retake one every year and every year I will burn all my annual leaves just to study for this exam. Normally people take half a year to study for it but I took only 3 weeks. I don’t have the motivation to start studying earlier.

You know, giving it up really hurts my ego as giving up on learning is against my principle. I guess I will learn through some other avenues. I might be thinking of retaking it as I have changed employer and my current job gives me more time to do personal things. I will give it a deep thought this year and will take it next year June if I want to. Just never liked the idea of throwing all of my leaves into studying :P

Health. Nothing much. Signed up for gym membership but don’t seem to be fully utilizing it. On average I think I go once a week. Will buckle this up in 2015 for sure. Another good thing to note is that I do not eat much rice at night (since 2013), good move to control possibility of having diabetes as we have this inheritance in the blood of my family. In fact I consume less starch in the afternoon too (unless my appetite is really good :P).

Career! Last and most important piece to me. I have moved from being an advisor to a client company to the client company being a business analyst. Well it gives me more money and more time for myself. The most important thing is that I don’t feel that I am being mistreated anymore and my efforts are being appreciated. Back in the previous company, you will get fined as long as you do something wrong and the penalty is huge, I am talking about 15 to 20% of my monthly pay! I can’t believe I stuck there for 2 years. Just to give you a perspective, I paid fine of about RM18k (equivalent to US$ 5,100). But it does not come without its advantage, it is good to learn more things in that previous company. During my last month with the previous company, it was very unethical for them to hold my salary because they need to use my salary to offset the outstanding fine not paid to them. Oh well, it is already over!

I will be going to my father’s company next year. So I need to treasure my time working for other companies and learn as much as possible.

Sum in sum, there were a lot of ups and downs throughout the year of 2014. It is like now I have a new life in both love and career.

2014 Resolution

Hello...

Its time to make new year resolution again.

In the past, I think I often make long list of resolutions without huge commitment to commit it. I would narrow down to just a few:

1. Simplicity

My father is absolutely right about me. He confronted me today about it and I really should change, in fact, this is actually not something new that I dont know about. I have too many activities going on resulted in exhaustion. I often dont have enough of sleep as I dont have good time management. Failed in time management because I dont know how to say 'no' to invitations. This also directly affecting my quality of work and also time spent with family in 2013. I dont have more than 24 hours a day...

I would like to elaborate more as this term "simplicity" is the root cause of many problems in myself if I dont practice well. There are just too many things I want to do in my life, simply dont have time to do them. Dont even have time to practice it to perfection. Simplicity will result in a few things I should be doing and therefore doing it better. This is what my father has been conveying to me all the time but I just could not embrace it with reasons that to stretch the capacity in myself (or to be "superman", a term my father used on me as I like to handle a lot of things).

I only want to spend time with those whom I should value and treasure. In fact, I started practicing it awhile ago and rejected few outings. I felt that I can actually breathe better. I was actually forced to do this because I need to catch up on my work.

I used to have wild imagination of all things, including people I met. So my expectation of them are pretty high, particularly on the CEOs I met. I used to think that they are "superman", able to do a lot of different things in their life. In fact, these successful (some are some are not) CEOs characteristics are not as what I imagined. They are very focused in doing things, and that has to come with a price, meaning ignoring other stuff that are not important to them. I understand now and I will embrace and apply them. I must do it despite the pain I am going to face.

2. Career

Nothing much to elaborate here. Simplicity will guide me to do well in my work assuming I practice it well. I had not been doing a good job at work. However, I dont think there is anything I cant handle at work given that I focus on doing them.

I am actually handling some managerial role in a number of projects, also handling international clients. I love the learning experience at work place but it comes with a cost, monetary cost. Just gotta look at the goal and keep focusing.

3. Relationship

Dont have one now but will continue to open my eyes for it. The approach and thinking now is different than in the past. I dont look for perfect girls, I look for girls who have values and know what they want; at the same time compatible to my personality. Just as simple as that. "Perfect the imperfection". Need to stop fancying hot, smart, kitchen friendly girls, LOL.

4. Healthier body

Gym, gym and gym. Did have time for the past 1 month. And I guess simplicity will guide me to do that. Trust me. Need to solve the root cause first!

If I cant solve the root cause, no point proceeding because I wont succeed in life. I will do that first!

That will be it.

Justin Soh

My grandma - the most wonderful person in my world.

Where should I start?

My grandma is the closest person to me, she had always been. When I was born, she was very sticky to me. Still remember the times when she fed me with rice when I was little, for every scoop of rice, she often test the heat of the food with her mouth (by putting the spoon into her mouth) and the fed only when the heat is appropriate. Even my mum didn't do that to me, lol. Forgot to mention that my grandma is a good cook too. She cooked everyday for home until she was not able to about a year or two back. I will never get bored of the dishes she cooked.

Then, when I entered primary school (elementary),  she walked me to school every day, through and flow. Still remember the times when she stopped walking home, then I stayed back and play basketball with the standard six' seniors, it was my first exposure to basketball. Then she walked to my school with a cane on her hand as she was worried as it was already well past noon and I'm still not home yet.

There was one occasion when I have done something wrong, and I looked myself into my parents room before she found out. She then asked me to open the door for her because she wanted to cane me nicely. Of course I was so terrified that I refused to open it. She threaten me by saying that if I don't open the door for her, she will cane me badly. Of course, like any other normal and honest and good kid, I went ahead and opened the door for her to welcome the cane. At first, I thought there should be some leniency applied because of my softened heart and perhaps my watery eyes. But no! She still caned me as if the bargain didn't exist!

On to another instance, I remember once I was behaving very very (unusually) naughty. I pushed my friend off the truck and he fell on the ground; he cried for help. His mum came out from the house and scolded me but my grandma jumped in into the conversation and apologize on my behalf. I was really afraid at the moment, I ran into my mother's room and just kept quiet. Then my mum tried to comfort me of course,  I wonder why, maybe I didn't tell her the story truthfully. After awhile, my grandma stormed into my mum's room and scolded (or caned me, I can't remember). I can't remember if my mum even helped me at that point in time.

There were many more stories but I could not remember very well......

Taking care from birth until present, she always ensure I never starve at any point in time. Even midnight when I could not sleep because I was starving. She was only cooked instant noodles for me, and warned me not to drink the soup as it was all msg.

In primary and secondary school life, we often watch Hong Kong drama together at night, from 7.00 pm to 10.30 pm on Astro. 4 different drama showed for that duration. I missed those times. When I entered college, life became busy and I started to hangout with different friends. I didn't watch drama with family then, and the time spent with my grandma getting lesser, and at the same time, her health began to deteriorate. All kinds of health sickness, to name a few, high blood pressure,  diabetes, kidney failure, digestion problem....  Then recently cancer, stroke (due to blood cot as she fell down about a month ago)... Back to the story, after college, I went to the US to further my studies in Drake University, Iowa. Evidently, time spent with family got even lesser.

In the US, she often asked my mum how I am doing. She never dared to call me because overseas rate was very expensive. Actually it was not, I'm not sure why. I told her about that but it just could not remove her old mindset (well, to start with, she was a full housewife after the age of sixteen, thus not generating income for the family and only know how to save). Nothing much happened with her when I was in the sates for 2.5 years.

When I came back to Malaysia for good, like everyone else, I was striving to get a good career. I don't watch drama anymore and I was always in my room doing my stuff. When work commenced, I don't even have time for family for most weekends. Then, maybe because I have a number of friends, I am out for birthday celebrations and occasionally catchup with friends. Never once I sit down having proper dinner with my grandma (we never practiced sitting down having dinner together because of crazy working hours we have), only have proper discussion with family when we dine out. Interaction with my grandma became worse...... Like no interaction at all except for asking her how is she doing everyday... How is she controlling her sugar level daily etc...

Recently, just last two weeks , she finally able to walk and talk with strength shown. Then I told her that I will bring her out last two Saturdays back as I have seen some improvement in her and she agreed. She always wanted to go to genting Highland for some small gambling activities. She was excited because I have never brought her there before, usually it was my family back then when she was healthier. But she said she had dialysis appointment made that Saturday, so had to postpone. On the Saturday where she supposed to do her dialysis process, she felt really sick. She said she has not been eating for 2 days and she was feeling really unwell. Me and my aunt tried to bring her to hospital but she refused to, even if I forced it through, still didn't happen. When my father come back later at night, he brought her to hospital as her situation worsened. I was taking nap so they didn't ask me to join them.

And because she often go to hospital, I thought it is just 'another' regular visit. So the next day, I stayed at home working all afternoon (attending virtual meetings with my boss etc). Later at night, father brought us to hospital to visit grandma. When we see her on her bed, there were many relatives there too, most of them crying. I was surprised by this visit and went ahead next to my grandma to see what's happening. She was striked by stroke, whole body paralyzed except for the leg. Could not stop the tears falling from my eyes when I witnessed such incident; someone so dear to me was in such condition.

Doctor said she maybe left a few days of life, asked us to spend more time with her. We asked grandma if she wants to go home, she replied yes by showing some movement with her legs...

For the next few days, except for work and sleep, I was always with her. Massaging her head every time I see her... She was responsive by moving her legs. And I am happy to see some improvement in her as days goes by. On Wednesday, she could open her eyes! Was so happy that night when I came home from work. Then I hold her hands and talked to her, asking her to give hope to herself.

The next morning (Thursday, Nov 2013), as usual, I visited her before I go to work in the morning. She was asleep and my aunt who took great care of her told me that she could even even move her arms and legs now! I was like 'yes!', she is definitely getting better, I went to work with happy mood. Same day, in the evening at 7 pm when I checked my phone, I received calls and texts. The text came in at 5.56pm, it was from my father, it said that my grandma passed away peacefully at 5.55pm... All I did was saying 'shit' in the office. For the next few seconds, I was stunned and mind totally blanked. It was totally unexpected, unpredictable in anyway makes sense. I kept my laptop in my bag and rushed to my car... I parked pretty far so made a few stops, mumbling 'ah ma' all the way to my car. I turned on emergency signals and used emergency lane all the way to my house as it was terribly jam after working hours, saw my brother on the way too (he said he took more than 2 hours to reach home from work while I used only 50 mins, and our work places are quite close to each other).

When I saw her lying down on the bed, I cried like I never did before, filled with regrets and my hands and legs went numb too... It hit me really bad as I was not ready for this at all after seeing all of the positive signs from her 'recovery'. Things were too late, no matter how I talked to her, she would no longer be able to respond in anyway...... Lesson here is always treasure the ones you love... Learning it really hard this time...

Have you ever thought of the time when you lost your dearest person?

Grandma's condition

Don't know how long my grandma is going to survive. Looking at the condition, it seems to me that very unlikely she will live past this year. Feeling hopeless to some extent. Really can do is to accompany her more. Full stop.

This happened for the first time: she could not recognize that she is in hospital... When she sees nearby, she was wondering why there are so many other races in the "house". She thought that she is home! What just happened? I'm blogging as I'm looking at her in the hospital by the way.

After a couple of test questions from me, I think she is just joking with me. Will just stop here and hopefully I'm right...

I think theway beside someone just pass away. People crying and many stood outside the wad. Whoever it is, hope that he/she is leaving this world happily. 

Time to change.

Just realized that I have not been as humble as compared to average people. Got to know it from friends. I think I lack of self awareness. This actually leads to another weakness of mine: lack of manners, particularly in communicating to colleagues as well as my small boss.

Today my small boss whacked me in my face by telling me off when they are giving me feedback on my corporate presentation to client this morning. It is due to some of the terms / words used not proper in some context. Lol, I didn't know it can be so damaging. Need to put this into my resolution already as it can be really penalizing in my career line.

On the other hand, one of my friends just commented that the way I speak is like wanting to argue. I guess this is one of the weaknesses being an enfj (I notice this behavior in my other enfj friend too, honestly if my friend does not point out I would have never realized it). I don't think this is going to work out considering that I often meet clients. Really need to nail this. But, just FYI, I really do enjoy speaking with the enfj friend of mine, entp works well with me too.

To stay focus

I can't stress how important is it to be able to stay focus. It has been my biggest weakness and till now I have yet to find any remedy for it. I will really pay for the remedy if there is any in the market. It is hindering my performance at work and studies.

Been reading a lot on men's health magazine lately and I love most of the contents posted really.

Will try to practice the step mentioned in the article below.

http://news.menshealth.com/defeat-distraction/2013/04/12/

Stress

Just a lot of issues arise lately, half financial issues, other half work issues.

Financial issues, despite having increment, passive expenses increase 3 folds. Need to drop the idea of getting a house at this moment. Also just spoke to insurance agent to temporarily reduce my insurance coverage, pending to increase back in Jan 2014. Plus, worse thing is that I damaged company laptop, need to compensate in full. 2k gone. Yeah you may think that I did not argue but as per company policy, just can't so much. I argued with the middle management but not helpful because big boss is always right. No point arguing to risk my career.

On the work part, dam a lot of work. I hardly go to gym during weekdays. Good thing is that I feel good learning. Bad thing is that I need to refrained from outings.

Work and financial issues also involved, I am not sure if I have communicated with you guys about 'detrimental' program that each employee will need to be bind with it. It is called staff entertainment pool fund. Whereby, each employee contributes to this fund if they make mistakes in their job, or being rewarded if they have done good job. Since the day I joined, I have never contributed, the only person from the investment team never contributed to this fund. But this month, I am contributing 400 plus into this fund. What a pain.

But the fund goes back to the employees, by the way of spending lunches, trips etc. Current status of the fund is about 22k. Shocked right? Yeah, our middle management contributed hell a lot. But it is accumulated since the establishment of the fund la.

Keyboard Buttons

These are the stickers which I was referring to in my previous post.

Turned from Worst to Fulfulling

Hello all,

Literally, this week is by far the worst week ever so far in 2013. And I am sure the weeks ahead coming towards the end of 2013 will not be as worse as this week.

In summary, I have learned many things the hard way. And I think this time really hits me badly.

The arrangement below following the timeline of the event.

Monday, I accidentally poured my cup of water onto my work laptop, resulting it being malfunctioning. As I poured on it, immediately I shut down the laptop (yes, all keys are still working perfectly fine). I did not turn it on after that. After awhile, I brought it to the gym which I have just recently signed up for because I need hair dryers in attempt to clean the water inside. So I used like 2 hair dryers at the same time to blow the sides of the laptop. I just left the hair dryers on the table blowing the laptop while I am just browsing facebook with my smartphone. Suddenly, something flew out from the laptop and I thought it was a just a sticker, so I did not bother it. Then after awhile more, more "stickers" flying out and I began to worry. Immediately, I turned my attention to my laptop and I realized those "stickers" were actually "keyboard buttons". I was like OmG! The buttons all partially melted by the heat from the hair dryer! I was like, I am in deep shit already. Immediately I brought the heated laptop back to office and placed it under direct air from the air con. After about an hour, it could not start. So my mind was like calculating things which I need to do to replace the laptop for the company.

Tuesday, I picked up my boss from his place when I was on my way to work. During the jam, we were actually doing appraisals for my performance. Of course I knew that I did not do a good job this year and I kept focusing talking about my weaknesses and how I should overcome them. This conversation was more on my input and he is just giving some feedback. And that is totally cool because I know my weaknesses are huge hindrance to my future career. The story up until now for today has got nothing to do with my salary increment, just FYI because I want to talk about the salary increment experience I had.

For the increment topic, it was held another time in the same day because we did not have sufficient time. So he asked me this question: "How much do you want for increment? You can say whatever amount but I may not necessary agree with it." I made a terrible mistake by giving him a "range" of amount where he just wanted "an" amount. I have him a range from X to Y, and he gave me X! This issue made me feel so bad. Because there are a lot of what ifs. If I said X only and he has given me X, I will be totally fine. But he gave me the lowest range which I asked for. And if you think I could go back to him on this issue then you are totally wrong. He is a lawyer, one of the top ones in his time, so he is always very careful when he is conversing with people. So now when I go back to him to ask for more, he will say "You are the one who asked for it and now you are not happy? etc etc" But its okay though, I think the increment is good enough. Plus it is a half yearly appraisal. I learned from this mistake and I will ask for more next time since there is no obligation, and I will only specify an amount only instead of giving a range.

On Wednesday, the most emo time for me because as a result of the appraisals, two of my colleagues got promoted to Senior Analyst. Three of us were in the same rank, and both of them joined the company about the same time as I did (one and two months earlier respectively). This is one of the days where I remained quiet all day and did not want to socialize. I am depressed because of the fact that they got promoted and I did not. Don't get me wrong. Actually I never expect that I will get promoted because I don't think I am qualified at all. And I am not surprised that I am not promoted. But the fact that among the three of us, I am the most incompetent. This challenges my ego a lot. Yes I was sad the day it happened, but after that I feel so much better because I know that I needed to be hit hard in my face so that I can have more motivation to climb harder. My boss made a good decision by not promoting me because I feel that there is a certain standard I could meet before I get promoted, and I love the challenge. All the while I wanted to put more effort into my work but I have not been committing much. I guess this downfall really hits me hard this time and I so want to contribute to learn more about work. Hey, it is about prospect which I can learn because it is going to be helpful in my career next time. I love the learning opportunity given in my job. The next appraisal is just 6 months away and I will definitely aim to get promoted then.

On yeah, on the same day, I managed to turn on my company laptop and it is still functioning as if it did not spoil. The speed to load the operating system is okay. But the only visible damage other than the missing keyboard buttons, the screen has water mark in it. The admin sent it to repair already. So the good news is that I dont need to pay for the full amount to replace the laptop but only the fee incurred to fix the existing problem.

Today, Thursday, I have a lot to do but I have not been able to manage my time properly, and this issue has been outstanding for quite some time. Resulting my sifu at work got pissed of at me. After this two hours conversation with her, it motivates me even more! I will push even harder for myself to meet the career objectives.

This is why I said I managed to turn from worst to good. (the laptop case is just lucky)

I hope to see a new me soon. The only difference is that the new me and the current me is only on the career focusing issue, while the rest remain untouched. Really need to spend more time, especially during the weekends, to gain a deeper understanding on the projects which I am doing.

Friends. I hope to have your support. And I know I always have it. I will fight hard. Life ain't easy, this term finally kicked into my belief system, and yay for that because I am going to work it out!

Perspective

I think it is a huge topic by itself and you could argue from various points. But today I want to focus on perspective of time in a relationship. It is going to a short one.

In the case where the guy falls for the girl, from the guy's perspective, he feels that it has been a long time since they last converse even though they just talked like yesterday. Therefore he will have huge urge to contact her again today because of this unreal "long-waited" kind of feeling. And when they talked, very likely he would feel that it has been awhile since they last conversed.

However, from the girl's perspective in which she does not have much of a positive feelings for the guy, she would feel that they just talked like moments ago. And if the guy contact her again in the next day, it is very likely she would respond "isn't it we just had conversation yesterday?" or "Man he called again and it is going to be hours" kind of thinking.

This situation works in vice versa.

Perspective of time is thus important. Knowing your friends well then you could better manage their expectations. :) human management.