Alvin's Blog

HeartBlog 1

2006-10-27T16:02:00.000+08:00

It’s raining outside.

I am now cracking my brains through some algorithm mathematics and its raining outside… I hear the rain sweeps through the roof top.. and the familiar sound of the rain hitting soft on the ground.. yar, it’s raining quite heavily..but, it reminds me of something though.

Home.

I still remembered how I used to do my maths or dug into some very very delicate equations or proofs during my high school time and sometimes it rained outside my window.. just like now, I really enjoyed those time, because raining is such a common phenomenon during the end of the year, I mean literally from October onwards, it usually rains in this tropical region of Asia. Yeah, its sure feels cozy inside my room where I do all my stuffs while it is raining but the sudden chill or breeze from the rain do refreshes me and keep me intact to my work.

Now… my little room seems so far away from me. Home seems so far away. Although I live in east Malaysia and it just takes less than 5 hours for me to travel to Johor Bahru and take a flight back to where I live… I am stucked with my work here in the dorm I am currently living and what’s worse… exam is coming…

Ha, suddenly I have the urge to listen to Home, by Michael Buble.

NTU BPC 2006

2006-10-21T01:05:00.000+08:00

A number of learning lessons in the auditorium today…

After hearing from Dr Tan, the 12 teams, Mr Lawrence, some networking with the finalists, and a hell fulfilling of buffet(actually… I had 4 rounds : p), the result was announced, I was actually thinking of voting team 11: Dream Venture as my favourite team but they dint make it to the top three. The top three are:

1^st – team 4: Revoice – a team that sells VoiceOver, a device that is said to be able to translate over 50 world languages…

2^nd – team 12: LightMill – this was the team that won the BPC 2005. They claimed that they came back with new innovation upon their initial product. They sell energy saving light system and gadget which based on a ‘plug n play’ basis…

3^rd – team 7: Air Shield Technologies – As air pollution and air-borne disease problems getting more n more severe nowadays, this team sells an air purifying systems that utilizes TiO2 technology…

I forgot the positions for the consolation winners…

Nevertheless, the top three teams are very very competitive indeed. The 2^nd and 3rd winners actually have their product out there in the market at this current moment… Air Shield Tech is said to have its AireTotal and AireLite prototypes placed in running in SGH(Singapore General Hospital) and soon in NTU while LightMill has already won 3 awards. So in terms of feasibility and potential, Revoice is essentially outreached by both of them.

Frankly, I have no idea about the Revoice’s product: VoiceOver. I mean, I did see the product flashing stylishly in the presentation but just like one of my friend told me, its quite impossible to develop such a translator device that could be widely used. Scrap the GUI, it would be difficult even for the device to detect English spoken from two different people…let alone 50 other languages. As we all know, translators could be seen in big scale conferences, like the UN-ASEAN conference but for the consumer market… I doubt the demand would be high enough. The device itself is hard to model because each of us has our own ‘slang’ or unique’ way of speaking; even if it really works, it would need some ‘customization’ and this is really going to take a long time. The bottom line is: If you don’t understand what the other guy is talking about… would you trust your VoiceOver to ‘understand’ for you?

For BPC 2006, it’s really all about technology. Teams like Cuboids(locker service), Hepta(Charlton School of Phonetics), The Alchemists(stiletto heels), and Bright Minds(His Grooming Room) which sell services are clearly being pinned down by the others. Although they did show how they differ from their competitors but new innovative technology are fresh… Investors like to look at new things because they open up new market and that’s what venture capitalist is about… so they just don’t stand a chance.

I opted for Dream Venture because what they are selling is clear: Save the woods! Not only that, they also know what the investors want to see…. Results…MONEY! Yep, not all those long-winded speech about how good your product is but how good your product in generating revenue, they delivered just that. This can be seen by their structured slide and just one slide about the technology used… Its simple. Bad things go in…good stuffs(your wood fibre)come out...Of course, it is also about the ethical side where all of us would like to take part in – protecting mother nature. Again, this is the only team that touched about SOWT analysis and 4P’s… Although this is the second last team to present but the energetic presentation makes me quite high-spirited, I don’t understand why they couldn’t make it to the top three(could be the executive summary? Or perhaps the booth?). However, if I want to make a business presentation, I would do it just like them :).

By the way, my pal Ridz actually won the $2500 Lenovo laptop! Haiz….. just when I thought I had the luck…. Congratz anyway :)

Geezzzz, it’s getting late, I think I better hit the sack… Any comments? Ideas? Do write for me:)

Live a happy life... get what you want the most .. : )

2006-10-14T01:40:00.000+08:00

OH NO, why is this happening to me again??? Why do I have to put up with all these sh*t, isn't it enough of it last week??? "This won't work... I might as well quit...." "Hopefully, someday I will be able to finish off all my debt...." Why are there never ending workload??? When do I get the chance to rest???" "Damn, why aren't I making enough money???" "When can I actually get a date???"... Blah blah blah...Sounds familiar?

The list goes on and on. These are all the things that we commonly hear from people surrounding us or most of the time - directly from ourselves. Yes, some of us spend half of the time grudging about the bad luck we had the day before, about the never ending cyle of work, about the poor relationship we have or had with others, about money and a lot of stuffs and its quite obvious that all of these could be summed up to only two words -- LIFE SUCKS~!!! Putting myself in these guys' shoes who spent half of their day or maybe several days or maybe partial of their lives experiencing "A series of unfortunate events", I totally agreed with them, yep, life really sucks when things dont turn out the way that you want them to be or you are not getting want you want or what you are getting is actually not what you want.

Hmmm, at this point, you may be wondering: What the hell is this guy trying to do here? Blog about HOW CAN I make my dreams come true? Or blog about The 30 minutes guide to SUCCESS?? Nope, there is no 30 minutes guide for you to success ( if there is... I wont be writing this : )) But, you do can make you dreams come true (ya ya ya,i know, its those old cliche again: workhard, perserverance, workhard, perserverance, workhard...).
Ha, working hard and perserverance maybe true and they are the-must-ingredients for a person to achieve what he wants but what I am trying to blog about is essentially much more than that...

Have you noticed what is wrong with the first paragraph that I wrote? Well, there maybe some harsh words and incorrect sentence structures (forgive me...) but the truth is... The whole feeling that are associated with the paragraph is wrong! Dint you notice that they are all concentrating on the baddies that happened in their lives? Even if that particular incident is over?

Maybe you are currently thinking to youself.."Hey lol, this is nothing, everyone of us does that..." Exactly, that's my point...EVERYONE of us does just that... we iterally wasted our energy just on that while we could actually be more positive and concentrate on doing what we want! Yes, doing what we want! "Neh, I tried... but it didnt work...", "Its just too impossible to do that...", ohhh, so you tried? You tried hard eh? Tell me.... what are you doing now? Quit trying already? HA, that's the problem that's happening all around us! Why did you quit trying? Once a quitter, always a quitter... have you ever asked yourself why in the first place you tried to get the thing you want most but now call a halt on it? Didnt you intend to get it?

Yes, most of us have big goals and big dreams in life, but majority of us ended up watching other people achieving their goals and keep wondering what happened to our own. These majority of people either lose their initial intention or just being too wishy-washy about what they are thinking and didnt even get started at all. People lose their intention because something unexpected happens or nothing happens because they think its impossible to achieve after all... For those who are diligent enough to know, there are actually two key models to get what you want: 1) cause-effect and 2) intention-manesfestation. Now, i am not going to lecture about these, but essentially, i want to tell you that: You can get what you want by just thinking it! And dont stop thinking about it! And i am not kidding!

That's right... First of all, you ll need to decide on what you want to get and keep your intentions high, by all means possible, you may consider starting to imagine what you are going to do after you accomplish you precious goals. Lets say ermm, you want to buy a house for youself... but its no ordinary house, its a house somewhere in Beverly Hills with a gym, a billiards room, reading rooms, outdoor pool, tennis courts and bla... this kind of damn house requires more than $5 billions! Is it possible? Yes, absolutely possible! All you need to is to make a decision to acquire that house, take one step back and let everything happens for you.... Sometimes, you need to be patient because its logical that BIG thing takes LONG time... things will actually arrange themselves to suit your need and you just need to aware of that... there are times when somethings happen and it seems ridiculous for you to do them but you know very clearly that just by doing that, you ll get one step ahead from you current situation into achieving that goal.. then what are you waiting for? Just do it!

You may wonder: "Lol, now i made my decision, what am i going to do next?". You made you decision? Great! Now just stick to it! The worst part is you give up even before you start because you think that most of the things you require in order to start or most of the resources are hard to get or not available.. but if you actually think like this, you are wrong, the resources that you want would come online only after you make your decision and state to yourself that you want it! After making your choice, be certain and confident in it and believe.. Have faith.. Have faith that it would happen because you are believing it to happen!

Yes, be affirmative to yourself and be affirmative to the goal that you want to achieve. The goal would start to manifest itself, and that's what the key model intention-manifestation is all about, resources would come to fit in the picture like a jigsaw puzzle and eventually it would become obvious to you and the big HOW would be answered.

Many people usually focus on the HOW part too seriously that sometimes they lost themselves... in the end, they might get back on track on continue focusing on their goal or they might just sway off too far and lose the fight. There is also another glitch to this: When you are focusing too much on how to achieve when things seem to get stucked, you are more vulnerable to the 'unintentional take down' by the others: People might just say: "Oh, hey Alvin, that thing you work on... it sucks big time man, you wont finish it..." and I will find myself pondering over what he said and lose my concentration on the ultimate goal.....Whenever doubts occur, they could be goal killers. Better still, I could just neglect or ignore what the guy says because I believe that what I am doing is great and what I want will eventually comes true. In doing this, optimism actually plays a strong role, therefore you have to be a strong believer and stay positive all the while.

How to stay positive? That's what the first part of this blog is crapping about... where all the complaints and grudgings and etc etc keep coming.... It all burns down to your heart... your feelings... Are you feeling good today? No? Why? You are all stressted up? Hey... me either.. But I am feeling just fine man.... just fine...Are you looking forward to tomorrow? No? Coz its going to be another sucky day? Ha, dont think so man, because you know what? Tomorrow is going to be just fine, just like today and the rest of the days... and best of all.. I am going to get what I want tomorrow! Dear all, let me tell you guys.. how to judge whether you are on track? Simple. When you are feeling great, you are on your way and its coming at you!!!

Use your consciousness to create what you want. Its an art. We are all part of this universe and we are actually cohesive with it. Believe it or not. You just need to be congruent in your thought and be positive about it then things will start to take place. Manifestation of your thoughts will occur. If you think about bad things, manifestation of your thoughts will occur; if you think about good things, manifestation of your thoughts will also occur, so which one is better? It is a habit for us to keep recalling how something unpleasant has happened in our lives and what are the possibilities of it reoccuring again, because this is how we are taught to adapt to our lives, we actually need to remember and recall and maybe imagine or simulate how things had happened in order for us to avoid them, but the truth is... you know very well what to be done to avoid it.. so why linger on in the past? Be thankful of what you had or currently having and be positive that tomorrow will be a better day of your life. : )

Allow your goal to manifest. Be in control of your life!!!