Edgar Chiang

24 Hours Doesn't Feel Enough

2011-01-23T10:00:00.002+08:00

Time feels a little short for me recently now that I am starting to prepare for my certification exams, the first of three to come. I have been wanting to start on the exams last month. But with all the festivities and lessons that needs to be completed, I never really have been able to sit down and concentrate on revising for it. But now that I have gotten most of my lessons out of the way, I can say that I am making more progress on my preparations. Hopefully I will be able to get over with the exams in a couple of weeks and I will be able to free up these studying times for...

35000 Feet Goals For 2011

2011-01-16T10:00:00.001+08:00

Three weeks of 2011 has gone just so quickly. Normally this is the time where I will have a clear idea of the resolutions I want to make for the year. But resolutions can be a little too specific and many things can easily not fit a resolution. So for this year I am going to go for a change and make goals instead for 2011. And along the way I shall do things that will map to the goals that I have set. So these are the 3 main goals that I have for 2011.

35000 Feet Goal 1 - Have Greater Financial Security: Yes I have a stable job now and I am getting a regular salary and I am living within my means so I am not in any financial difficulties. But at the same time, I should be starting to consider about future financial commitments which at this point in time looks like many. So I have to now up my game and start looking to increase my earning capacity. This would mean studying more conscientiously and working hard or working smart but most likely both.

35000 Feet Goal 2 - Be a Good Boyfriend: I have only just started out on this relationship, yet there have already been times where I find myself slipping into complacency when communicating with my special other or trying to understand her thoughts. Which to me is just not acceptable! What I want to do is to pay more attention to her and her thoughts and then pay even more attention. And also to make sure that my actions will continue to make her feel that she matters a lot to me.

35000 Feet Goal 3 - Be a Better Son: Looking back at the past year, I found that I have been showing and vocalising my displeasure more frequently and obviously at things that they say which are not wrong but just that it rubs my pride in the wrong way. But now when I think back at it, I do feel a little guilty for behaving so because it is only because they cared thats why they said those things. So this year, I want to strive to be more tolerant, or more correctly, to reign in this misbehaviour of mine and be more receptive to what they say even if they might rub me the wrong way a bit.

Writing Personally Or Writing Professionally

2011-01-09T10:00:00.000+08:00

When I re-start blogging again, there was a dilemma that I was facing. That is whether I should be blogging about personal matters or professional issues. Why did I have this dilemma?

Well I am a database administrator by profession, and from time to time I do scour the net for information on how to best administer the databases. Much of these information comes from blog posts and there is a very active community of bloggers who contribute very high quality posts on database administering. Furthermore, many of them do encourge people to contribute back to this community by way of blogging and I am being swayed by this calling.

So why am I not doing it?

The number 1 reason why is because I am an absolute newbie in this field. For me, there is still lots and lots of things about this technology that falls in the category of "don't know what I don't know". And because of this, there is this fear that I cannot get over. That is I may write something that is inaccurate, albeit unknowningly, and that somebody might just take it for real and cause some real harm to their production environment.

So for now, I think I shall just stick to personal blogging. But it is definitely an aim of mine to one day start a professional blog of my own.

The Year 2011

2011-01-02T10:00:00.002+08:00

As December comes to an end and I welcome the new year, it is time for me to shake off the lethargy from the festive month and start doing things that has been put off because of my procastination.

Top of the list is to get back my momentum to study. December has not been kind to me in terms of putting me into the mood to study because of the many festive revelries. But now that the festivities are over, I should start making up for some of the lost time.

Next up is to restart my exercise/running regime. Ever since I started going for classes, I have not been exercising as regularly as before and my tummy is bearing the consequences. While I have come to adapt to working, studying and exercising, the festivities has made exercising irregular. So with festivities out of the way, its time to exercise regularly again.

So thats the "to do" brought forward to the new year while I contemplate what I want to achieve for the 2011.

Reason Not To Work On Your Holiday

2010-12-26T10:00:00.004+08:00

Just a couple of days back, I received a bill shock for my handphone and I am still reeling in pain from it. But I have no one but myself to blame for it.

It all started when I went for a short weekend overseas getaway with my friends. All was happy and gay until I received a call from office. What I should have done there and then was to tell the caller that I am overseas and they should call somebody that is back home. Maybe because of some misplaced notion of responsibility or something like that coupled with not reading the rates of calling from that place, I continued to answer the call and tried to troubleshoot the problem for a good 20 odd minutes which eventually still needed somebody back home to do some intervention.

All in all, the total damage from this 20 odd minutes is 80 plus bucks. An expensive lesson learnt. When on holiday be on holiday.

Adult Kid's View On Patenalistic Parenting

2010-12-19T10:00:00.004+08:00

Parenting is a journey not a destination. Successful parenting is not finding a suitable parenting style for a kid and then just continuously using it. But rather, it is to change styles to adapt to the kid as he or she is begins a different phase of their life.

Most parents, usually older asian parents, prefer to adopt a paternalistic style of parenting. Nothing wrong with that. It is a style that comes most naturally to most parents and it is pretty effective most of the time especially with young kids. Paternalistic parenting entails parents telling what the kid should and or should not be doing, which is great when the kid is young, because it gives them a compass as to where is the "correct" direction they should be going towards. But as the kid becomes an adult, this style of parenting may cause some "problems".

For a fact, parents are going to have more life experience compared to their kids. But being an adult, the kid would want to be empowered to solve their own problems. And having more experience as parents compared to their kids just mean exactly that. It does not dimish the kid's capability in dealing with their own problems.

So unless of course the kid is doing something that is gravely wrong that needs immediate correction, as a paternalistic parent, instead of saying "You should/should not do this this this.", why not try saying "What do you think if this this this is being/not being done." or just "I think this this this should/should not be done.". Let the kid know your opinions but let him or her come to their own decision. And for all you know, now the parent's opinion is taken more into the kid's decisions, which is what the parents had wanted to achieve but initally failed because of their parenting styles.

Writing Again

2010-12-15T23:19:00.000+08:00

After a year long absence, I am finally writing again!

There were many reasons why I stopped writing, some were situational, some were personal. But I will leave what these reasons are for maybe another post. So why am I writing again? Quite simply, because "someone" said something nice about my posts. Of course prior to that, I already had some inclination to start writing again but was waffling a bit. Her words were just the extra motivation I needed to get started again.

Looking back at my previous posts, I must say most of it are just rants. Feelings and thoughts that I had without much or any critical thinking at all. This time round, I would like to publish posts that have more substance in it whether it is feelings or thoughts or just topics of interests. So I have decided to remove all my previous posts and starting from this post, I hope to achieve what I set out to achieve when I decided to start writing again.