Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Learning how to fail

Would you do the same job that you do now, if you do not need the money?

I think not many people would say yes, after all, we have to be practical and not follow our passions all the way to the long kang, especially if our passions cannot support ourselves financially. It's kind of sad, isn't it? Life is not too long nor too short, and here in Singapore we spend a good part of our lifetime educating ourselves. Thereafter, we spent another good part of our lifetime working, likely in a job that if we can afford to do so, we'll never do it willingly.

I'm sure you've heard many times about following your passions, and then the money will follow you. I won't say it's false, but sometimes, the problem is that our passions are really not marketable, or that we're really not good at something even though we're passionate in it. Kinda sad, but that's reality.

Therefore, I'm extremely fortunate that I stumbled upon something that I like to do and will continue to do so as long as I'm able to do so. I like teaching. It's not so much about loving the subject that I teach (some subjects I don't even like it myself) but more about teaching people. I love teaching young people. I love the sudden sparkle when they heard something for the first time, or see the world in a different lens that they've never used before. That is electrifying and very addictive to me. I feel more energised after teaching. When I feel depressed, I feel better after teaching. I really think that teaching is the way that I got myself out of depression in the past.

I wrote this article because the last few days, I knew of this very intelligent primary school girl who is suffering from mild depression because of stress in an elite school. It was so bad that she had to take MC to recover from all the issues from school. This is a complex issue revolving around low self esteem and inability to take failures. I was asked to help her out and I think I did something meaningful to at least let her forget her troubles for a couple of hours. I let her play with LEGO, something that girls of her age is not familiar with.

I did it out of instincts, even though I was asked to help her out on maths, which is the area that is causing her stress. But I thought that the root problem isn't the math itself but something deeper, so the best way is to use a non-threatening environment to tackle the root problem - low self confidence. What is LEGO if it's not a toy? So after conducting the lesson and letting her build a model of a race car, I guided her to come up with theories and then testing it to see if it's true. I want her to experience small failures in a very safe environment, where there are no marks or exam papers for everyone to see her failings. She also had some problems fixing the LEGO bricks (usually girls don't get to play with LEGO, so that sort of hampered her ability to connect the bricks compared to boys of the same age), so solving her own problems independently with my supervision will create that kind of safe environment to fail.

My idea is that the confidence and self esteem is like a muscle. To train it, you got to learn how to fail in small ways and progressively fail in bigger ways without letting that negative feelings overwhelm you. After all, to be successful in life is to be progressively defeated by bigger and bigger obstacles. If not, you're not growing.

I hope I've made her day. She probably had no idea that she taught me a lot more than I taught her.

Friday, February 08, 2013

How to register as a user in the cbox

Hi folks,

Those who had been to my site at bullythebear had always found that the cbox is one of the best things that this site has to offer. You can see a lot of people who came from all walks of life coming together to talk about almost everything. I had met a lot of people from different age groups that I would never had met if I had not the fortune to set up this cbox. I do hope that you would find it as meaningful and fortunate as I had.

Due to the nature of the cbox's structure, there had been quite a number of irritating incidents where you find regular nicknames being imitated. I think that's very irresponsible because there are some people who would use this as a way to create all sorts of mischiefs. In order to better regulate the authenticity of the users identity, and also to make this community an extension of the face to face meet ups that we have every now and then, I decided to make this cbox a little more exclusive.

New users who wishes to join the cbox can no longer log in directly. Instead, he/she now has to email me (my email is all over the place, do take some effort to find it!) and I'll assign the nicknames and password. This way, there will be less bot spammers and less human spammers, besides the obvious advantage of regulating the authenticity of the user identity.

Obviously this would create more work for me, but it's alright. I'll strive to reply the requests from new users as soon as possible, within 24 hours maximum, so that you can participate in the cbox as soon as possible. If the nickname is not used for 3 months consequentively, it would be deleted automatically and the user will have to re-register again so as to free up the nickname to others.

I take these steps to regulate the cbox to make it a more enjoyable experience, not to monitor your ip or your real name or any other nefarious schemes. Rest assured that whatever information you shared to be a registered user of the cbox will be not be used for any other purpose. You have my word of honour on it :)

LP
Blogmaster of bullythebear

Thursday, February 07, 2013

Results of cbox contribution fund raising

Hi folks,

This is a follow-up post after the call for donations to support the cbox contribution fund. First of all, thanks for all the contributors who funded the cause. I seriously didn't think it would work but if we don't ask, we would never get it, right?

A total of 8 contributors made the donation. I don't think I should put down the list of contributors because some of them privately messaged or emailed me, so I guess it's good to keep the names hidden this way. A total of $101 is collected (you know who the $1 belongs to, haha!). This sum is more than enough to cover 4 yrs of cbox fees, if they don't raise it further!

What am I going to do with the excess cash? Don't worry, it'll be used to do things related to the website for the service of the regular users :) Thanks for all the support folks!

LP
Bullythebear blogmaster

Friday, February 01, 2013

Cbox contribution fund

Hi folks,

Have you benefited from those who shared freely in the cbox? Did you get useful advice, not only in stocks, but also in other areas of life or other lobang? If you have and would like to contribute back, please do consider donating a small sum to fund the cbox premium, which is the cbox version that I'm currently using. The cbox had served me well and the platform allows me to meet a lot of new people whom I wouldn't have met otherwise because of the differences in age group or just plain shyness in real life.

If you've personally benefited from the transactions and exchange between all the regular cboxers, and there are quite a few, including:

1. Iphone lobang
2. Bags/t-shirts/shopping lobang
3. Stock picks
4. Advice on technical, fundamental, accounting, business, tuition knowledge
5. Advice from those who had experienced a lot more in life
6. News, broadcast from stocks to everyday news
7. Lunch/dinner treats from other cboxers who donated generously to our meal funds
8. Meeting new friends from all over the globe and from all walks of life

Did I miss out anything?

I couldn't subsidize the cost of this from my pockets all the time, even though the advertising do help a little to defray the cost. So please, donate a small sum, nothing more than a few dollars, to help pool the cbox fund so that I can defray the cost of the premium cbox edition. The current premium version would expire in 1 week's time, on 8th Feb 2013, and the cost of the premium version is all in this website link here. So do hurry and help contribute a little to the cbox fund!

Here's how you can contribute:

1. Paypal: duckula06[at]yahoo[dot]com, do replace the at and dot by their respective symbols....I don't want to get spammed ya?

2. My posb savings account: 543-60484-4

If you have any other ways that you want to pass the funds to me, just email me at the same address as the paypal account. In either case, do drop me an email too if you donate, so that I can thank you personally!

If I can't get the required amount, I might consider dropping the premium version altogether. Then we'll be back to the days where there'll be no administrative powers, irritating ads, constant pressing of the refresh button since there'll be no longer auto-refresh and many more irritating things that would dilute your cbox experience. I'm sure you won't want it, me too....so please, just a few dollars for the cbox fund.

Thanks in advance for your contribution!

LP
Bullythebear blogmaster