que pasa

After I read this article, I'm starting to wonder if I'm mucking things up for myself by blogging.  Will you please let me know if I've gone too far?  I might not like what you say but I will appreciate your checking me.

And for you momsies and pappies who blog about your kidsies, beware your kids eventual ability to read and search the internet.  I suppose one way of working around this is to restrict who can read your blog.

Wow, I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden my apostrophies have gone screwy.  I just corrected this month's and last month's posts.  I could have sworn they didn't look like that before. 

Argh, hate cleaning up!

Not that I'm anti-family or anything like that, but I sure hope it doesn't take a public holiday for Singaporean parents to get the family together for an outing.

Supposing discounts are the main draw for families going out together, I don't see why we need to make it a holiday for that. Any weekend will do. Discounts can be offered anytime. If tourist attractions and services want to get more local customers, perhaps they could just coordinate and offer discounts on the same day on a periodic basis.

It's sad times when we need a public holiday to celebrate having a family or even to get together.

Read this.

The seriousness of an internet affair aside, I find it funny that the help hotlines provided for those who presumably have an internet affair (verified by answering Yes to the 6 questions listed) are for Cyberwellness Centre (sorry, it just sounds weird), The Institute of Mental Health and The Centre for Internet Addiction Recovery.

In line with the guy vs girl thing, here is the Wife's Bill of Rights and the Husband's Bill of Rights.

This woman writes about what it takes to be the perfect boyfriend. It's reasonably true, I might add. Guys, you might want to pay some attention here.

This guy writes about how to be the perfect girlfriend. Us girls should take heed. But first, I need a guy to assess its validity...

Update @ 24 Apr: Hmm, no takers from the guys.  Too bad, us girls will just have to keep guessing.  Don't blame us if we never ever get you guys.

You've probably tried to google somebody to see what the person has been up to, or to get some background info before.  This works especially when the subject has an uncommon name. 

I periodically google myself too.  I use various combinations of my name plus certain keywords just to see what's out there and how easy it is to find me.  No, this action is not about ego-stroking but to get a feel of what a stranger would find if he/she was checking out my background.  (Why they would though is an entirely separate matter...)

Generally, it's very hard to find information about me unless you have some really relevant keywords.  Just using my name isn't enough... too many people with the same name out there who have achieved more, and greater, things. 

I hereby classify myself "generally un-google-able".  I like that :p

Jukebox commented that I looked like I came from the movie-set of Ju-on in this picture.  I think she's right! Lol.

I wonder if anyone took this guy up on his offer.

This week I was busy preparing for to present our company's projects to a visiting Dutch delegation. They were on tour in China to get a feel of the country, the market, and visit some companies, and I was contacted to see if our company would like to present on Friday (yesterday).

They wanted to hear from a foreign investor's perspective what it was like to deal in China, things to look out for, lessons learnt and so on. They also were interested in companies pertaining to new media and so we offered to introduce 2 of our projects to them.

Jose did the investor perspective presentation and I would prepare the material for the project companies. Since one of the project CEO's was able to speak English well enough, we let him present one and I would present the other project. So it was back to slide churning again.

After you get your final deck of slides, then it's practicing your presentation. The way I saw it, this was an opportunity to get an early stage investment partner in for our projects. And it was also an opportunity to show our value-add as an investor to this project's CEO and to the visiting delegation. So I knew I had to be good.

And now that the seminar is over, I know that my pitch worked. You can feel it when you've connected with the audience, you can feel the high attention level. And you know it for sure when you get complimented repeatedly on an entertaining and really good presentation, applause and all that.

But I know also that the project itself is interesting, it's exploring a new frontier in China. That's why it had gotten people's attention, that's why they were expressing interest. We had dinner with a small group from the delegation last night and after that, 2 of them pulled Jose aside and expressed intent to invest in this project. So there'll be more work after this.

I am encouraged because these are indicators that we are doing something right. And that we are working well together for this project. The CEO does his thing to create and deliver a project that is meaningful and valuable in China, and that as the first and main investment partner, we seek, pitch and sell the project to potential investors, and do the negotiations. 

There is still a very long way to go, and no deal has been made yet. But gosh it feels good to have a sign that says you're headed in the right direction.