Learning Mandarin.

Today there was a family who brought their young daughter to the child care centre for orientation. The parents & family are from China, so obviously they could not speak English well. The father seemed to have no difficulty with the English speaking bit from what I could gather. However after having a simple chat with the mother, I realised that she had difficulty in communicating in English.

Unfortunately the family was from the northern part of China, so they did not speak any Cantonese, else i could have been more help to them. Even If they came from Shen Zhen or Hong Kong, I might have been of better help to them.

When I do return to Malaysia, I believe its high time to learn up Mandarin.

Even in learning Korean, once we reach Intermediate level, much of the vocabulary refers back to 'hanja', which is korean for chinese characters. This is as up to about 600 years ago, Korean was written in 'hanja' characters. Hence knowing how to read Chinese characters aids in remembering multiple korean vocabulary. 

However in the mean time, I am just going to have as much practice in Korean conversation as this might probably be the last opportunity for me in a very long time once I leave Sydney!!

CY

The straw that broke the camel's back.

So today was not one of my better days.

I had been feeling low throughout the day, and by the time it was almost an hour to going back, a comment from a junior staff made me go into tears.

I could not cry loudly, but that was basically the straw that broke the camel's back. She was basically throwing some rude comment about eating chocolate cake and lazing around.

Normally, that would not affect me, but I was already feeling rather down by then.

She probably later realised that I was upset, via comments from other staff, and did not apologize.

But she had a guilty look on her face much later, and smiled at me. I later told her after clearing my emotions, that I didn't really care too much about some chocolate cake, but I was just having a really bad emotional day

It was a miracle that I was feeling much better by the time I finally left for home.

Sent from my Nokia phone

So I finally tendered my resignation.

So I had wanted to resign earlier in mid year, but due to unforeseen circumstances, that plan was cancelled.

Finally on Monday this week, I finally tendered in my resignation. I gave it to my Supervisor who forwarded it to the Boss.

Then the Boss came to me and spoke the next day, asking if I could delay my departure to another two months (making it a five months notice!).

I did go home to have a think about it. However after having a chat with some mates, I decided that I had to know my priorities.

Spending time with my family (no matter whether we see eye to eye on certain things), friends and loved ones, to me has more priority.

I may have to speak again with the Boss some other time this week, but at least that would have given her some time to let the information sink in.

May God grant me the wisdom, serenity and strength to settle this time of change.

Sent from my Nokia phone

Leadership styles.

So it's Freddie Mercury's birthday today. Google claims it on the search engine. (Not that I care very much). Did some checks on StatCounter, and found that my childhood blog, and my skincare blogs
apparently are the more popular of  my blogs, average about 55-60 page loads over a period of 90 days.
That's a good thing, I hope.

So anyways, today is my day off, and I am trying to finish up my literature research report on Leadership Styles, namely Participative vs Autocratic Leadership style.

I'm now in the library of University of Technology, Sydney, trying to complete my report. Anyways, I don't normally state the name of my institution, but seriously, unless I am writing some unsavory report
of the institution, I really do not have much I should think about. I now have about 9 pages, with at least another 5 pages to go before I finish my report.

I've been working on the report since the last three weeks, reading up the first week, and starting to write on a skeleton framework from the second week, and this third and final week, just summarising and writing out my thoughts into cohesive readable paragraphs.

Anyways, when I am finally done with it, and get it back from my lecturer, I will post it up on this website, with its relevant references and all. Now let me brainstorm a bit before I start on my
report.....

Now why does one say that leadership style is important?

In any organisation, it is essential to have good management. Good management is needed to (Daft,p22, 2005) maintain a "degree of stability, predictability and order through a culture of effeciency.
Management is different from leadership in the essence that  it helps the organisation consistently achieve short-term results, and meet the expectations of various stakeholders, wheras Leadership creates
change, within a culture of integrity that they survive over a long term period with a long-term goal, and move the organisation into the future. (Daft,p.22, 2005).

References:
Daft, Richard L (2005) The Leadership Experience 3rd edn, Thomson
South-Western, USA

How much do you love your mom?

Teacher to child:

Teacher: how much do you love your sister?
Child: lots and lots and lots.
Teacher: how much do you love your mum?
Child: (thinks for a while, then..)
I love her as much as my sister.
Teacher: (laughingly) Heh, good answer..

Teacher recalled story to the child's mother later.
Mother: Heh, she's being diplomatic.

LOL.