Victoria Sapientes Elegit the minimalist blog by syarif

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I yelled again.
I hate my feelings now...

Sorry, but this sucks.


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As you can see in the picture, tonnes of paperwork are on my desk. A few projects and a few office admins were some of my the things I needed to tick off last week.

But hey, observe carefully, and you'll see FB's Farmville game is on my laptop screen. Yep, I play the game, but mostly either very early in the morning (before office hour) or very late in the evening (after office hour). There are times that I skip lunch and play the game.

Anyway, Farmville is not the main essence of my thought today. Noseree.

But I'm more in the mood of talking about the balance of work and play.

Up until now, I couldn't find the perfect balance. Most of the time I feel like the hours I have in a day is shortening - as I'm struggling more and more to meet deadlines. But at the same time I'm mentally challenged to make all the thinking and decisions (the cure for that is usually a good 'play' to release the steam).

What happen is now I'm tired by the end of the week and just sleep through the weekend (when I have any, of course). Yes, though I'm somewhat bright and fresh on Mondays, but it made my routine becomes a repetoire. Boring. Stagnant.

Thus I need to find that balance. I need to work with all the energy on weekdays and still conserve some for the weekends.

I guess everyone should find it.

Well, this entry doesn't make much sense, but hey, that's me! :D



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Death? Certainly.
Near? Maybe.
Willing? Unlikely.

Why is it such a sweet sorrow?



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There are a lot of choices for any human being to pick when it comes to handling stress.

Some sing.

Some eat.

Some go around and yell at people.

Some throw things.

Some resolve to violence.

I used to pick the choices above.
Besides singing, I have vowed to stay away from those choices. It was one of my silent resolution.

But I admit that I have lost it, particularly the throwing and yelling part. Honestly I can't remember when was the last time I throw things out of stress and/or anger, but I'm pretty sure that I did in the past 12 months.

Yelling, somehow I can't help it. I lost it last February, on the least day, and to the least person that I wanted it to happen. I'm very sorry. I still have issues with myself and I'm struggling my arse off to solve it.

Just now, I almost do that again. Perhaps my voice did rise a bit, but thank god it was not actually "yelling".

But please, as much as I want to please everyone, I do want to make myself happy too. Sometimes not talking about things would be much better. I know I'm like the most difficult person to talk to. I know I'm the most stubborn people in 6000 miles radius. But, hey, give me a break. I can't afford a shrink to help me. I'm doing it solely with self-help pep talk.

Along the lines perhaps it may sound truly unfair, but I am changing myself. I want to change.
In order for me to avoid conflict (at least for now) I prefer just to stay utter silent. I would prefer just to mum the word.

Thanks.

P/s: I noticed that I may react better when I write or type. Perhaps that's the better way to talk to me when I'm stressed or when you think the topic that's gonna be brought up is stressful.

God bless everyone.


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Somebody told me that my blog is lengthy and has too much words, very less picture.

Lads, here's my explanation:

1- the reason I WRITE a blog is to express myself. Sometimes it can be in form of pictures, sometimes words and sometimes a combination of both. However most of the time it'll happen just like that and I'll just type away- along with all my arguments. As I'm using a handphone to make an entry, it's rather hard (and annoying) to look for pictures then do the copy and paste just to make the entry looks nice. I'll just leave the pictures to your imagination. That's the beauty of it- you can decide.

2- if I'm putting more pictures (or too much pictures) then it'll become a PLOG. Flickr will be much better. And it defeats the purpose of a BLOG.

3- if I were to use less character, I won't use it here. I have an account on twitter (which is a microblogging in case you still don't get what the hell twitter is for); thus whomever wants to read about me nagging, just send a request to follow me, aight? And just a wee reminder to those who use tweetlonger (or is it twitlonger?) to make a tweet more than 160 characters, you have just defeated the true purpose of twitter. Why? Just look up for the term "microblogging" on Google. You'll get it.

Thanks for reading.
Cheerio all!



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More often than not I can't choose which one is better. I love coffee for the good 'kick' it offers. I like tea for the subtle taste and thirst quenching experience.

Cham Ais would be my choice if I can't figure out which one I needed the most at a particular time. Huhu!

Oh, look at the time, it's time for an iced-cold coffee! Or maybe tea... Ah, shucks!


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Theres an age old question in choosing one of those. Should a leader protect the nation's economy or improve the national education? Of course choosing both is the ultimate option. However, in reality, there are things that we need to sacrifice.
 
Imagine that you're in the position of power, where assuming that you can only choose ONE, which will it be?
 
I myself am struggling with the answer. Well, it's not that I'm running the country (yet), but I am in the position in providing about the same option to my own boss and/or my clients (and potential clients).
 
I'm a training manager. Education is the key to my work. And like many other company directors, keeping the company alive is the key task.
 
Now, back to the question.
 
Education is; for lack of better words; pain in the ass. Seriously, it takes time to plan, it takes time to execute and it takes really really really long for us to see the results. Take language for example, Malaysian students will learn Bahasa Malaysia (or Bahasa Melayu to a certain expert) for AT LEAST 10 years. Since Standard One where pupils learn the basics until Form Five where they learn the intermediate level. Those who opt for Kesusasteraan Bahasa Melayu in varsities will explore the advanced level. But with that, what is the result? Some of us can't differentiate between "degil" and "nakal", and some really thought that "motorsikal" is the correct spelling.
 
Some would say that language is something that changes all the time. We have seen the revolution of spellings (from "habes" to "habis") also the revolution of language rules; i.e. "Perdana Menteri" and "Arus Perdana" is using the same "Hukum DM" – BUT the "Perdana Menteri" is given an exception.
 
 However it's the same with almost every other subject in the world. We take Marketing for instance. From it was started, the concept of marketing is only 'location, location, location'. Then it began to evolve to 4P – product, price, place, promotion. Then more revolutions came in with to become 7P – and eventually, 11P and the latest one it has become 14P; where things like people, processes, packaging and 'purple cow' were added.
 
All that marks that everything in the world is evolving from the things we take for granted like language to something that we use to drive our business like marketing. Education or learning is a lifetime process.
 
Taking for that cue, it strengthens the fact that education is something that takes time to execute and more often than not, it's ages till we see the results.
 
But, education is not cheap. A simple public seminar on how to bake an orange sponge cake will cost you at least RM100. That's for ONE person, for ONE type of cookie – where you can find the recipes all over internet for free. Imagine that you want to learn something a bit complex. Like baking a triple layered moist chocolate cake a la soufflé (no, I'm not making it up) – the cost to learn can shoot up to RM 1,200 – 12 times from the basic sponge cake.
 
What I'm trying to say is that to learn something 'complex' or perhaps 'un-orthodox' or maybe 'new' can be really expensive. For a company to send 30 of their staff for a computer class can expect a 5-figure amount of expenses. And it may be not enough.
 
Thus, a company director will usually either:
1- take the cheapest bidder in the market (where in training industry would mean a free-lance computer geek who most probably not a certified trainer, who knows how to use PowerPoint but not in a way to "present to people" and copy all his notes from internet). This is just to show that he IS doing something for the company.
 
2- send 3 staff to go and assign them to teach the other 9 (which will translate to lack of enthusiasm, do for the sake of doing it, and most importantly incomplete transfer of knowledge). This is based on facts that usually a worker will only carry back 30% (max) of the things that have been presented during training.
 
3- just don't bother.
 
If you have noticed, each of the choices above will translate into 1 thing. Money. Which is pretty much related to the economic conditions of the company.
 
Tell me lads, if the company only have enough capability to sustain the staff and other overheads, where the hell are they going to fork out money to pay for training (or staff development)?
 
But we know that if somehow they do have the capability to improve staff, then there are greater chance the company would do better in the long run. But the subsequent question would be: When?
 
Now we can see how hard it is to make that decision is to be made. One cannot sacrifice the other without losing some. If they opt to do the learning, the economy might suffer, and vice versa.
 
Going back to the earlier context, if you're running the company, which one will you choose?
 
Personally, I would go for education. Not just to uphold my position now, but also that we're in deep economic turmoil – thank god it's not a breakdown yet. Since a lot of people are so goddamn stupid – not just academically but also in terms of common sense. Mass public education (or propaganda some might call it) as well as school education (perhaps to a certain extend I will hand-pick the teachers, and ultimately revamp the whole teaching profession). I will import teachers where necessary as theres no point a bunch of stupid buggers teaching the children.
 
Malaysian teachers ESPECIALLY the young ones, please be offended. I am reflecting much about you. Do not say anything to counter my thoughts, as if you do not notice until now, I'm that dude who did the RSE training. One thing I found after training almost 21,000 of you is that 20,000 always have excuses to TEACH LESS. An educator should not have that kind of thinking.
 
A bit sidetracked, I know. But heck. Ja!

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