School’s not enough
I guess it started when I read that novel online. The one about the kid with dyslexia working his way through life. And he said, "There's so much that school doesn't teach us!"
It's true you know. School is supposed to teach us to learn. Unfortunately, it doesn't even do that very well. But there's more to learn in life.
There's academic literacy, which school can teach. But then there's spiritual literacy that you often have to find at home. There's communications ability that you need to have as well. But then, there's one that most people don't ever even try to look for which is financial literacy.
How surprised was I to hear that, "You can be broke and still be rich. Broke is temporary. Poor is eternal."
It doesn't completely make sense because the person here uses the words rich and poor with a slightly different meaning than what we're used to. But it basically means that to be truly rich, you need to have the skill and motivation to change your financial ability to become better.
Schools need to start teaching financial literacy.
What I learned from debate
Debate is something that took over my life. I obsessed over it. I threw away weekends for it. When people invited me out, I'd say, "I can't. I've got debate." I even joined a facebook group of the same name (as the quote).
But it's something I have surprisingly few regrets about. It's such an enriching experience to learn, not just how to stand up and speak, but to do it in a focused and structured way.
1. It taught me where Iraq was.
I confess. I was horrible at geography and history before this. I could tell you that I had heard of North Korea but I wouldn't have been able to accurately point it out on a map.
Because of debating, I can safely say that I can at least point out a few countries.
2. It taught me to never stray from your objective.
You should never ever explain more than important. Because they'll stop listening to you anyway after they hear what they want. And all you'll end up doing is wasting everyone's time including your own.
And the importance of having a clear objective becomes that much clearer. Now, I utterly hate people who do things or say things that don't help them achieve their objective. Ok well, maybe I don't hate them. But it's so frustrating to hear them blabber on and on about irrelevant things, or to see them do so many things that are pointless.
Of course, to only do things relevant to your objective, you have to have an objective in the first place. Over 4 years, debate drummed it into me that you must always have an objective.
3. It honed my skills in explaining complex ideas in an economy of words.
You only have 7 minutes to explain how you want to save the world before bedtime.
Let's say it takes 5 seconds to say a sentence. That's only 84 sentences you can say to describe the political situation in some country on the other side of the world and explain why aid is the worst thing you can do to the farmers in the area as well as put forward your own solution for the problem at hand and of course defend it from the arguments of your opponent.
Did I mention you have to find the flaws in what your opponent says and attack those too? 7 minutes is waaaayyyyy too short.
4. It made me meet so many kinds of people.
There are a number of awesome people in this world. It seems that a huge proportion of them are in debate. Not only that, you get to meet so many varieties. I don't just mean in terms of race or culture. I also mean in terms of people who are just different. Their styles, their personalities, their very outlook on life.
And where else could you find such a diverse group who would be more than willing to talk and talk and talk and...
5. It allowed me to get away from the calculator.
I'm in engineering. The hard sciences don't give much room to discuss world issues in class. In law or economics or sociology, you discuss world issues all the time. So I stepped out of my classroom and tried to be a little more well-rounded. I didn't want to just be a guy who knew how numbers worked. I wanted to know what those numbers meant.
Engineering is supposed to use science to solve real world problems. How do I do that unless I know what those "real world problems" are?
So...
If you've got the time, join debate. It's so worth it.
If you haven't got it, make time.
Emotional Time
I sat down the other day and tried to go through my life and my memories to see what brought me here today. It's an interesting exercise. You should try it sometime. But it also made me realize the truth of something that I had heard before.
We measure time emotionally
We measure time emotionally.
Months can pass by without anything major happening. Life goes on as usual. When we look back on it, it'll seem like that part of life just passed by in a flash. But when those months are filled with emotional ups and downs, then looking back will give you such precious memories of that time. It will seem like so much happened.
Going through a lot of new and emotional experiences in a short time can make that time seem longer. It's why we can feel like we've known someone our whole lives when we've only met them a few hours ago.
We crave it
It's also what we crave for. Personally I go for adrenaline-inducing, heart-pounding things. Yeah, i'm an adrenaline junkie. Others go for sappy love stories, korean dramas, haunted houses, video games, etc. We crave the emotional ups and downs because it makes us feel alive.
Or maybe it's just me?
What I learned from theatre
I was feeling bored at the time, with a light course load that semester. So I wandered around, appearing more in the faculties of economics and human sciences than in the engineering faculty where I should rightfully have been studying in front of a textbook. I guess it comes as no surprise then that I had a lot more friends from other faculties. One group of them were English students whom I knew through my good friend Matiin.
And so I heard about how they wanted to cast a play (for an internal theatre competition) and how the English department had a lack of men (because they were taken up by the other competing plays). Put together a bored engineering male (student) and an English play that needs males; what do you get?
We practiced day and night for months! Memorizing the scripts, acting out the lines, vocal training in the middle of the night... It was so much fun. We had a great director too who really knew her stuff and showed us exactly what we needed to do to get it right.
Then we reached the night itself and we performed in front of hundreds of people! I'll admit I'm an amateur but I didn't embarrass myself too badly that night. We came out of it feeling pretty good about ourselves. And I came out of it feeling a little wiser about some things.
1. It taught me that I've come far.
You don't know what you can do until you do it in front of 500 people. I've always had a bad reaction to speaking in front of people. And I've always tried hard to fight against it. Performing on stage was just the best test to see how far I'd come. I was pretty happy.
2. It taught me that rehearsing the same script a thousand times doesn't make it dull.
Repeating that script a thousand times didn't make it dull. It was the same script, day in and day out. But instead of boring me, it made me more connected. Once I knew them by heart, I could stop looking at the paper and really let my imagination move me instead.
But every time we rehearsed it, there would be something else that could be changed, something else to be improved on. So we practiced again and again, each time improving, until we could pull it off with the emphasis needed.
3. It taught me that I can do more.
Too many times I see people limited by what they do. Don't get me wrong, engineering is awesome, maths is fun and physics is the most interesting thing in the world. But they're not the only things I want to be able to do. I want to do more.
4. It taught me how to speak a little louder.
For those who know me, they know I prefer to keep my voice low. I hate people who shout for no reason, especially when they're on the phone. I always imagine that they're shouting because they're afraid the person on the other side is too far away to hear them. After all, they're sometimes a few hundred kilometres away! Lol.
Those vocal exercises they use are really good. They were good enough that they helped us 'project' our voice to the whole audience (we weren't using microphones). So yeah, I can speak a little louder now. But maybe I choose not to.
5. It taught me that you always need to have their backs (in a calm way).
Loyalty is good but it doesn't mean anything unless you can cover your friends' backs when they mess up. One of the things we had to be ready for is if one of us messed up during the actual play. If I forgot a line, or someone else came on stage a little slow, what do you do?
You have to be able to cover. You have to be able to calmly see that there's a problem and not freak out. then you have to do or say something that will prompt the person who made the mistake and get the play back on track again.
And you have to do this calmly so that the audience doesn't suspect there was ever a problem to begin with.
What it sums up to...
...is that theatre is a very enjoyable experience. If you ever have the chance for it, give it a try.
Exposed on the Internet
When people talk about how technology is bad, they're almost always talking about how there's good-for-nothing information on the net, or how people stop talking face to face because they facebook instead. But I'm more scared by continuous access we provide to our daily doings online. But I'm scared of twitter instead.
Privacy on the net
A growing number of people are now posting everything about themselves in facebook status updates and twitter updates. Including where you are. And if people know where you are, it also means they know where you're not... at home!
Don't waste time leaving the lights on
Whenever my family heads out on any vacation, we always leave some lights on. It makes sure that people don't see an empty home ripe for robbing.
We don't tell anyone either, except a neighbour (who we completely trust) so that they can check in one in a while. Other people stop their subscriptions to any magazines or newspapers so that there isn't a pile of newspapers out front to show that no one is inside to collect them.
We take all these precautions and all it takes is for someone to check twitter and see the words "With my family catching the sunset in the Philippines!" or "Cairo is really hot..." and they know that you're out.
GPS phones make it worse
Did you know you can update twitter and facebook from phones now? And if you choose to, they'll even include your location!
Check out PleaseRobMe.com and see how many people have that option enabled. Here's a quote from their website.
The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the Internet we’re not home.
It gets even worse if you have “friends” who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address... on the Internet... Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That’s right, slap them across the face.
- PleaseRobMe.com
Yes people, advertise that you're not home.
But it's not just that: Everything on the internet stays there
Make a post about how you hate work. Or what you did on your weekend. Or maybe it's your friend who makes that post and tags you in a compromising photo. Like one that shows you going rock climbing when you told your boss you were sick with the flu.
Whatever is posted on the internet will get up there and stay there. And your employer may very well find it if they just google your name. Do you know that some companies now force you to add your boss to your facebook profile? They want to make sure you're not hurting the image of the company.
And if they do find out and you plan to change jobs? The new company you apply at may very well do a google search on you too. You know, just to make sure you're not a convicted criminal or anything. But instead that embarrassing blogpost comes up about the time you complained about your company and told all your friends not to buy their products. And the new company goes, "I need a team player, not a whiner", and they don't hire you.
Maybe I'm just being paranoid
I could be paranoid. It wouldn't be the first time. I'm usually very paranoid about my privacy. So please don't EVER post anything that resembles my address online.