Life is tough. I'm scared

I have been at my workplace for two weeks now. It's very tough, demanding and high pressure. I have canceled my plan twice already - even at the weekend.

I expect that my work will be busy, but nothing prepares me for the demanding nature of the work. I always think of myself as a strong person who will never give up easily. But I have shed tear many times lately. It's just a mixed feeling. I was feeling the pressure and the blame and at the same time I was afraid of losing you. I haven't cried for so long, and it's kind of hard to bear. It's hard when you arrive at the final month of the project.

I'll stay patient and strong. I'll do my best and hope for the best. I will come back here and update how it goes.

Last Day at Work

Believe it or not, today is my last day at work. Life moves pretty fast, especially if you reminisce. I just graduated last year and now I'm moving to a new workplace. Pretty crazy if you ask me. Mixed feeling I am having. Office is so quiet.

Hard To Say Goodbye

Saying goodbye is really not easy. I finally told my boss about my new opportunity. I was asked whether there is any change that would make me change my mind. I was asked about my comment about the current working environment and projects that I’m working on. After telling what was on my mind, I was told to be more open, to better communicate about my needs to the employers and to let your employers know what can better my working situation. I appreciate the sincere comment and intention of her to better my career and to avoid the trial and error path. I was also asked if I want the contact of some key persons who used to work in the field and seek out their comment. I must say I feel sad to see the disappointment in other people. She also told me that she hoped that I would have a good employer.

I should be excited about joining a new firm, but in fact the feeling is mixed. I submitted my resignation letter, so now my resignation is official. I love this quote from a small but full of personality cafe shop: "Explore new roads, follow your heart, don't be afraid to embark on new adventures. You never know what you might find!"

My Commitment

In the next few months, I'd probably go back to this blog to read about my commitment.
I will stay persistent. I will keep calm. I will stay positive and try my best. I will put out the best work that I possibly can. I will ask questions, try to enhance my technical knowledge and soft skills. I will communicate what I enjoy and what I enjoy less in working and try to figure out what can be done differently to move myself and the company forward.

Weekend

This week we finally can watch Beauty and The Beast. I'll also taste Poke if everything goes according to plan. Sunday we plan to go to RUFA to celebrate its 100 year anniversary. Let's see if there is any surprise along the way.
I'll be back here hopefully next week.

Sometimes things just work out

Wow. What can I say. It's been a busy week. I've met with two companies. Recently, I just accepted a job offer from a company. I plan on joining the firm after the new year. After all the stress, the fear, the preparation, I got the job that I believe will take me closer to my dream. Well, writing this blog really let me revisit the old feeling that I had a few weeks ago. Now things just work out if you put in the effort. Life is not all rainbow and butterflies but it's not always dark cloud and storm either. I'm writing another chapter of my life and I don't know where this life is going to take me to. I understand the challenge and stress of this new position, but I'm sure after two year, I'll look back at what I have done and I should smile. I must stay committed and produce the best work that I can.
Looking back, I've done many things for the past few days. I finish The Alchemist, The Little Prince. I've joined many festivals, indoor mountain climbing, football. I haven't gone swimming in a while, but let's take it easy

The Weekend

I'm riding my bike to Bakkheng this Sunday. It's been a long time. I have football to play at the weekend, so i didn't want to push myself too much. I also want to finish some of the work and I need to push myself on that. Ohh I'm going a Lebanese place which should be fun. I like to explore next place and new food.
Have a great weekend!

What A Week!

What a busy week it is. I began the week with a job interview, followed by an international flight to attend a conference. I met many researchers at a think tank, university and diplomats and other young professionals at my age. I had such a good time, visited the landmarks, tried the local food. During the conference, I received an email that I passed the first round of interview and had another interview this coming Monday. I have mixed feeling about the outcome of the interview. I'm excited about getting a job in the industry that I like, but also I understand the challenge and workload. Well, I guess I am young and I should build myself and I am ready for the new challenge. 

There are two major events in Phnom Penh that I want to do this weekend. One is the Phnom Penh Food Festival and Cambodia International Film Festival. We all have a busy weekend and our weekend time is very limited. That's why it's important to choose people to spend the weekend with. So if someone agrees to spend his/her weekend with you, be happy because you are an important person to him/her.

Thousand Things inside My Mind

A thousand things are running inside my mind now. I'm trying to do some preparation for my upcoming interview, but I just could not concentrate. So I was thinking that maybe updating this blog should help. I'm at a coffee shop which I've never been to on Saturday morning. I'd like to go to places that I have never been. I don't think there is a brand loyalty within me. How can I stick to one place all the time if there are literally hundreds of brands enticing clients to use their product/service.

Family Dispute

Anyway, I had breakfast with a colleague who is my referee for a job search. We've talked about work and marriage life. Since he is my senior, he has a lot of experience to share. He also talked about some family dispute. 

Well, one takeaway from this discussion is that before marriage, both parties should be honest upfront and let each other know what they want, so everyone is on the same page. It's better to solve any disagreement before marriage. There is nothing worse than knowing what you want are different after the marriage.

Job Interview

Back to my interview next week. I have some clue about what to expect for this position. But there are just too many things that can be asked. It's probably a better idea to just focus on 3 top questions that have a high possibility of being asked.

Do What Makes You Happy

Forget the ego. Forget about looking needy and desperate. And use that energy on communicating. I feel a lot better knowing that I've done the thing that I could do rather than regretting not doing something.

First Post: The Struggle of Life

Yesterday 23 Feb 2017 I joined a Start Up and Angel Event at Raintree. It was good to see the new startups and young entrepreneur in Cambodia. I can't help but compare myself to them. I know it's not a healthy thing to do by comparing yourself to another, but I can't help. The young entrepreneurs have done a lot of things, met a lot of people from investors to fellow entrepreneurs. Some of them have secured thousands dollar of funding as seed money to expand their business. I am in a 8-to-5.30 job and not sure where my life is heading. I've listened to the pitch of Bookmebus (a mobile platform to buy bus ticket), Mediaload (online media provider) and Codigate (IT solution).

Networking

On to networking, I don't know why I still can't find the courage to go speak to experienced and senior people. I just didn't have the confidence. I only managed to talk with a few friends and some new people. I've talked with many young entrepreneurs. Some of them were like only 20. Well, I just want to talk with them about their business ideas and vision, but I also get the impression of expectation from those young entrepreneur. I did not speak to them with the intention of funding their business or anything. I wanted to speak with the foreign expats dressed in suit and tie, but I just couldn't find the courage to do, as I know that I have almost nothing to help them.

Play and Relationship

I'm pretty active with my life actually. That's one of the positive thing that I can be proud of. I do a lot of cycling, swimming, table tennis, football. I also went to many events lately. Doggy Day, Acoustic event, Scholar Library event, alumni association anniversary. I hope to bring my own dog to the event sometime soon hopefully. Also tried different types food - Middle eastern, French, Japanese. I hope we can explore more food places together: Mexican, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese, Korean and join more events together: Farmers Market, Food Festival, Music Festival, Movie Festival and travel to new destination whether it's local or international - Kampot, Koh Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thai.

I'm thinking of joining Kizuna festival this Sunday. Also I'm traveling abroad M to join a business conference as well, which I am very excited to contribute and meet other professionals from all over ASEAN. I hope to build good relationship with them, as I didn't seize full opportunity of such events in the past.

Where do I go from now?

This part of life is called "Struggle" - struggling between choosing what kind of job to do or starting your own company. I think for now I would concentrate on working first to get more experience, meet more people and save more money. Also I don't have this groundbreaking idea for a business. What I can think of right now is a mobile platform to connect dog owners to dog service providers, from dog salon to dog walking. Also this mobile platform can help find a date for their dog as well. Another hot industry right is financial technology (Fintech). Well, I need to do more research on this hot sector.

But for now, my prototype for the work that I want to do is to become an investment manager within the next 5 years. So I hope do more investment evaluation, study more industries, learn more about deal structuring. I also look forward to talking with finance people in private equity and venture capital.

I promise to update this blog with another post next week. Will try to update what has happened in my life on a weekly basis. 

Until next time.

Favorite Animation: Up

              

The theme of Pixar’s Up, at least to me, revolves around letting go off the past and looking forward to the future. The first 10 minutes of Up is probably the most emotional scene of all of animations and it’s even more touching than other love stories out there. Carl is a timid guy who does not like to speak much, while his partner Ellie has a strong personality which is a complete contrast. One thing they have in common is their love of adventure. Ellie’s dream is to fly to South America and live in a house at Paradise Fall – the land lost in time- for an adventure of a lifetime. Carl and Ellie got married, did all the cute couple things. Their goal is to fly to Paradise Fall, so they start saving. To quote Remy from Ratatouille “the predictable thing in life is its unpredictability”, they need to use the savings for other emergency cases. Sadly, Ellie fell ill and passed away with her dream unfulfilled. It is amazing how Pixar can make you care so much about the two characters with just 10 minutes into the story almost without any dialogue. We, the audience, care because we saw their sincere feeling and care for one another and we can’t help but feel sorry for Ellie and Carl that their dreams did not come true. The first 10 minutes show us clearly Carl’s motivation to reach Paradise Fall with his house tied with balloons.

             Along the way to Paradise Fall, Carl was accompanied by a little boy, Russell, who is a wilderness explorer. He has awarded all the badges except the badge for assisting the elderly. We later learn that the main reason he wants to get the assist the elderly badge is because his dad had promised him that he would attend Russell’s ceremony once Russell is promoted to be a senior wilderness explorer. Along with his innocent, happy-go-lucky personality, Russell actually is having a rough childhood. He doesn’t have a close relationship with his father and he couldn’t talk to his father because a girl named Phyllis said that Russell is bothering his dad way too much. The backstory of Russell here is subtle because we didn’t get the full explanation of who Phyllis really is. I will devote a section talking about Phyllis and Russell’s relationship with his family.

              We saw that Carl did manage to fulfil Ellie’s dream by placing their house close to Paradise Fall. Carl, although he fulfilled Ellie’s dream, was not that happy. He opened Ellie’s adventure book and saw their memento of photos from young to old. One lesson we can learn is that adventure is not always about exploring the wilderness. What happens to us every day, whether it’s mundane or it’s extraordinary, is an adventure that we should cherish. We should not stand still in one place repeatedly thinking of the past and regretting what we should have done differently. There is new adventure out there for us to embark on and live a full life. We saw at the climax of the animation that Russell threw away his sash of badges to save Kevin. We also saw Carl threw away most of the furniture to lighten his house so that it can fly. I think this is a beautiful symbolism from Pixar. The old furniture in the house symbolizes the old memories between Carl and Ellie which Carl dwell onto and drag him in one place without moving forward and enjoy other great adventure out there. I’m not saying that memories are useless and we should throw everything away. My point is that we can’t keep holding on to the past and lose sight of what lies ahead of us. You never know what tomorrow is going to bring to you.

              We can see how Carl’s character develops from a grumpy, selfish, old man who refuses to interact with other people to a kind person who cares about Russell, Doug, and Kevin. Those are the people and things that matters to him now. He also said “it is just a house.” Which means he can now let go of his painful memories and begin to start a new chapter in life. Who would imagine an animation can be that deep filled with philosophical ideas?

Favorite Animation: Wall-E

Wall-E beat Kungfu Panda to win the Oscar for Animated Feature and that in itself tells a great deal about the caliber of this animation from Pixar. At that time there were a lot of talks going on about the fear that Pixar may lose it sense of identity with the acquisition from Disney in 2006, but I am glad that Disney would not interfere with the creative direction of Pixar but Disney may have interfered (I don't know). The only thing that I know is that both Ratatouille and Wall-E are a masterpiece and these two animations came out after the acquisition.

The story takes place in a dystopian future where we follows a robot, Wall-E of course, who is left alone on earth and continues his daily routine of cleaning up the waste. He meets another sleek robot Eve who is sent to scan the earth for something which I won't spoil here if you haven't watched it yet. Wall-E and Eve later go on a mission across the galaxy to change the fate of the earth. Does it sound like Interstellar?

The idea of 2 robots interacting in a dialogue-free animation for the the first 30 minute just doesn't work on paper, but Pixar somehow finds a way to do another brilliant job here with a beautiful and emotional touch. Again, the first 30 minutes is a bit slow which may not go well with the kids but to some adults, it is probably the best part of this animation.

Another special part is that my jaw "literally" dropped at the end of this animation. If you love animation and especially if you are a big fan of Pixar like I am, I definitely recommend that you check out this masterpiece as soon as possible.

PS: I can't wait for "The Good Dinosaur".

Quote of Wall-E: "I don't want to survive. I want to live."

How I Met Your Mother

I'm surprised by the fact that the writers choose to go with such a controversial ending given the nature of a sitcom. With all the character development throughout 9 seasons and how relatable the characters are, fans must be furious to say goodbye in such a fashion. Whether the sitcom ends with a good note or bad note, it's up to you, the viewers, to decide.

Favorite Movie: Edge of Tomorrow

Adapted from a Japanese manga, Edge of Tmr is a brilliant sci-fi action movie. Not to mention Emily Blunt is one awesome action movie star.

Favorite Movie: Life of Pi

"So which story do you prefer?" - Pi

Movie Quote: Fight Club

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."

Movie Quote: Cast Away

"I have to keep breathing.. For tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what tomorrow will bring." - Chuck in Cast Away

Boyhood

A film 12 years in the making, Boyhood depicts the life of a young boy growing up in Texas from a small kid to an 18 year old man. The fact that the director has casted the same characters for 12 years is an astonishing filmmaking technique. One takeaway from this film is that life is a serie of milestones and life goes on from one moment to another. Your philosophy changes as you grow up and experience new moments in life.

Favorite Movie: The Prestige

You know it's a brilliant movie when batman and wolverine go head to head. Obsessed with magic perfection, two former colleagues battle each other to reign supreme in the world of magic.

Cambodia: Keo Kalyan. former Fulbright Scholar

Cambodia: Keo Kalyan. former Fulbright Scholar

An email interview:

Q: Would you please tell me more about yourself?
A: I was born in Ta Khmao, Kandal province; but I grew up and started school in Phnom Penh. My father works at the Ministry of Education, Youths and Sports and my mother is a seller. I am the only daughter and also the youngest one in the family as I have two elder brothers.

I finished high school in 2001, and at the same year I passed a scholarship to study BBA, majoring in Accounting, at the National University of Management (NUM). In 2002, I started another degree, B.Ed, majoring in TEFL, at Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL). In 2004, I was selected as one of the four Cambodian fellows to join the SIF-ASEAN Students Fellowship in Singapore for 20 weeks. During that time, I was also taking some Accounting courses at Singapore Management University (SMU). Two weeks upon my return from Singapore, I flew to Australia for an exchange study under the Peace Scholarship Trust, initiated by IDP Australia. I spent 2 semesters studying at University of Tasmania (UTAS) in Hobart, Tasmania. Recently, I have just graduated from IFL and NUM.

Beside academic study, I have also been very active in participating in a number of extracurricular activities, community services and voluntary work. I am one of the founders of the Volunteers Without Borders (VWB), established by the Cambodian Alumni of the Fellowship in Singapore. I am also a member of the Australian Alumni Association (AAA) in Cambodia. Currently, I am also a teacher at New World Institute (NWI).

Q: Recently you have passed Fulbright scholarship’s preliminary exam, what have you done to prepare yourself for this?
A: To get a scholarship, it is important that your academic background, particularly your study records, must be outstanding. I have always been one of the top students since primary school. When I was little, I would always have an ambition to pass the scholarship to study abroad - the US, the UK or Australia. Thus, I told myself to study hard and paved my own way to get to my ambition. I knew that the first step was to enhance my English proficiency and accuracy. Then, beside strong academic background and English, I also had to broaden my general knowledge and being active in participating in any extra-curricular activities in schools and in any community services or voluntary work in the community. And finally and foremostly is to improve my personalities and communicational skills. To get the scholarship you need to be interviewed and during the interview, personality is one of the crucial criteria in judgment.

Q: Any thoughts and advices for younger Cambodians to prepare for such a significant advancement?
A: As mentioned in the previous question, academic background is very important because they will ask for a submission of your transcripts. Thus, if you aim to get a scholarship, as I have already mentioned, you need to study hard and be an outstanding student. Also, it is important to start early! I mean shape your path to your aim very early. You need to know what you want and then try to find ways how to achieve what you want. Draw a milestone for your future.

Beside strong academic background, you need to be very active in helping the community by participating any extra-curricular activities or voluntary work in the community. This also helps build your communicational skills and personality, especially in teamwork.

One more thing is that you need to be knowledgeable in various issues in the world. Being an outstanding student, it doesn’t mean that you should only focus on one issue that is your major or specialization without caring to know other issues associated with or even not associated with. It is important to broaden your general knowledge, especially about the outside world and more importantly widen your network.

Q: What is your opinion about the younger generation of Cambodia?
A: Nowadays, young generation can access to better lifestyles, in particular there are more opportunities for them such as better education and more scholarships being offered. However, I can see only a few of them realise are trying hard to grab these opportunities. On the other hand, most of them are being too much entertained by the pop cultures and pay less attention to school work. I have observed so far that the quality of education among the young generation has significantly decreased. However, I am still optimistic that the future is not going to be worse. I believe that those young people are very bright, creative and enthusiastic. They have more access to new technologies, better health care and resources. I hope that one day they will change their attitudes and realise the opportunities they can grab for their future.

Q: Coming to blogging, you started to blog back in March 2005, why did you start having your own weblog?
A: At first I was introduced to weblog by my friends in Singapore, and that was back in 2004. However, at the time I was not very interested in blogging as I was at the time also designing my own website using frontpage and flash media with the help from my senior in Singapore. Besides, I was busy with the fellowship program. However, when I was in Australia, I was getting a bit bored, so I usually went online and browsed through this and that. I came across a few nice blogs of Cambodian students overseas, so I got interested and also my website was not hosted yet as I couldn’t find any free web hosting for my website. By finding out that blog is just like a website and it’s very easy to post and upload pic, so I decided to give it a try. Since then, I forget bout my website and I have developed my blog and it’s been very popular. ;-)

By having this blog, I can share my daily activities and thoughts with my friends and with other people around the world.

Source: 

A Yardstick of Quality: Attention to Detail

I have a confession to make. I am not a kind of person who makes meticulous decision and pay much attention to detail. For example, I put my maximum speed to finish a task, say, a writing. So what I was taught to do is to proofread your writing for any mistake and correct it. But in quite many occasions I also speed up the proofread part and lose sight of some errors which would not happen if I have proofread it carefully. There are some times that I somehow know it is a mistake, but I won’t make correction since I do not want to check other reference for the correct way. To put it in a worst possible man, I may be labelled as a “reckless” person. This is not such a good thing when I am learning to be a responsible and proactive man.

A Wake up Call

Recently, I have moved my house to live somewhere a bit far away my previous home. It is around 3 or 4 km away from my previous location. The house is recently built and all of our family members fall in love with the house and I wish we would continue to cherish the new place where we call home. I enjoy looking around the house and view the ceiling, the light, the door, the floor and wall tile and many other things in the house. And what really bothers me is the fact that there is some little attention detail which may make the house perfection. This is when I start to strongly believe in attention to small detail.

I truly want my house to be perfect in every possible way. Let’s put things into perspective. If other people want to receive a product/service from, they will trust that I will put my utmost effort into the task and produce a perfect result. If I ever want to succeed in life, attention to little detail would satisfy other people, including my clients or/and my boss, thereby enhancing trust and connection.

Source: http://sexualityinart.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/steve-jobs-be-a-yardstick-of-quality-copy.jpg

A Yardstick of Quality

To quote one of the most successful technologist of the internet era Steve Jobs, the co-founder and former CEO of Apple, “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” This quote pretty sums up the life of the legendary Steve Jobs. He was a perfectionist, notoriously workaholic who would make the impossible possible. This is not something easy to be done and to habitualize, but let’s try and make it happen.

Microsoft acquiring Nokia - Explained

Why Nokia??

The announcement of Microsoft acquiring Nokia may cause some eyebrow raising from the public - a company known for its software is entering the consumer device market. So why does Microsoft decide to buy Nokia at nearly 7 billion US dollars. The answer is simple: they have no choice but to do so. But why is it so? The answer comes down to Windows Phone OS for smartphone. Ever since the release of iPhone, technology has shifted its trend from PC to mobile phone and tablets. The top two contenders in mobile OS is iOS and Android with ## % market share respectively. Windows phone is the number 3 mobile platform and is playing catch up lagging far behind competitors. If it had not been for Nokia dissing its Symbian OS for Windows phone, Microsoft's Windows Phone would never hail the number 3 position in smartphone. In fact, Nokia dominates the Windows phone sale, capturing almost ##% of market share of windows phone sale.

The fear of Nokia jumping ship

Nokia is the undisputed king in the smartphone business in the world of windows phone, no doubt about it. As Nokia is relishing growth, what if Nokia has a plan B and partners with Android? This scenario would be a total catastrophe for windows phone, because without Nokia, Microsoft has to rely on HTC, Samsung and Huawei. But the prospect looks bleak, as Samsung almost spend nothing to market its Windows Ativ phone line. HTC and Huawei is not a strong OEM to compete with likes of iPhone, Samsung Galaxy or LG phone. Nokia is the only company that Microsoft can rely on to turn around its mobile platform. In other words, Nokia is the hope that gives them another shot to steal the market share of the big and keep Microsoft relevant in the coming year.

Nokia's people and infrastructure

- Supply chain

- Manufacturing facility

- Nokia brand value

- Nokia patents

Character Ethic vs Personality Ethic

So I read 7 habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey 3 years ago up until Habit 3 and I stopped. It's no surprise that I stopped reading the book, since I'm the kind of guy who are only enthusiastic about a particular thing for 2 or 3 months and then my enthusiasm will change again. That being said, I started to read 7 Habits of Highly Effective People again and this time I am telling myself that I definitely will finish it at all cost despite my understanding of the book. So that's a vow and no one breaks his own vow.

I went through a couple of pages last night and I feel like I should write about it, since it is an effective means to revise what you have learned. So they key to learning is 3R. Read, Revise, and Review. Right now I am at at the second stage: Revise. I have a strong perception that the more you share what you learn, the longer and better you remember it. Also it's boring just to read it all by yourself with having no discussion with your friend. Enough of the introduction.

I came across this topic here: Character Ethic vs Personality Ethic. What Stephen Covey means here about Personality Ethic is the external side of you and what you are trying to make others see of you. The example of Personality Ethic is about getting people to like you. The examples are trying to smile will bring more friends, positive attitude brings you to high altitude, saying kind words to other people, developing a common interest with someone. These are all techniques to win people around you. Although it may guarantee you success, the techniques are of course never without flaws. You might win people in the short run, but it is not a sustainable way to guarantee that you will win them in the long run. As times pass by, if your character is not sincere and with flaw, they may realize that the techniques you are using with them are manipulative and you try to take advantage of them to do something for you. As a result,