Come Come Paradise

Dear clients,

I am a design consultant. By coming to me, you have decided that you have a design issue. You consulted me to have your design issues solved. If you think that you can solve your design issues better than I can, then why did you come to me in the first place?

A doctor, like myself, is a consultant. Do you tell doctor "No, I don't want cancer. Give me a flu instead. But I want Tic Tacs instead of pills. Also I want neon green blood cos I hate red. I need to get cured by first thing tomorrow morning"?

Lawyers are consultants too. Do you tell your lawyer "No, I don't want the law to say that I can't blow people up. I need it to be legal so that I don't have to go to jail. What do you mean it's not right? I'm your client. The client is ALWAYS right. What type of lawyer are you? I want everything JUSTIFIED"?

No? Why not? What's that? It's not your field of expertise? You should just let them do their jobs? So you're not such an idiot afterall.

So STFU or GTFO.

Love,
Thye Shin
Copyright © 2010 because this is too awesome to not get credit for.

How Zan told me that my copy of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Collector's Edition won't be available for collection until next week. I couldn't wait till next week to play the game, so I bought a standard SEA Edition to keep myself occupied until I do.

So while trying to install it, the disc got scratched INSIDE the reader, and then the installation failed due to the scratch, and the disc could not be read. I'm back to square one, RM248 poorer. FML.

I guess some things will never become reality in life, no matter how smart you are and how hard you work, unless you gamble. Some things can only happen by pure dumb luck, and luck, like time, is something that never seems to be on my side. I am in deep need of a stupid metaphorical winning lottery ticket.

Reality: I am not going to earn my metaphorical first million anytime soon, and I can't get what I need with so little time left. The chances of me (or anyone else for that matter) seeing a huge metaphorical pile of money miraculously dropping from the sky are distant to none. One thing that could change this, is, in fact the oh-so-hard-to-win metaphorical winning lottery ticket. And being the sort of person who calculates his way through life, I know that I'll probably never make it in time if I don't take a gamble.

I think I finally have a valid reason to start.

/roll

Have you ever done something so stupid, you just can't stop thinking about it and then it haunts you for life? I have done many stupid things in the past with that sort of impact (moonwalk and IKEA for those who know), and this is one of them.

Last Friday, I was sent a link that led to an article on the satirical news site, nose4news. The article was about TNB suing WWF over Earth Hour, and it was a parody. The reason why I'm writing this is because I actually believed what I read, and shared the link with friends on Facebook with the comment "WHAT THE FUCK TNB?" attached to it for a good hour or so before realising my mistake. I started to question my own intelligence, and decided to recall what actually happened:

My friend, who also believed that the article was real, sent me the link. The first thing I saw was the title of the article, and not the site's banner for some reason. And so I went on reading. By paragraph 5, I was infuriated, and at the same time, I had some work to finish so I stopped reading. I decided that the world needed to know how fucked up TNB was, so I shared the link on Facebook. And then I went off for lunch. When I came back, I reopened the page to continue reading, and again, did not take notice of the banner. I continued from where I left off, and by the next paragraph or so, I realised what I had done: I had taken a satirical piece of news seriously, shared it with friends on Facebook, and made a complete fool out of myself.

OMFG THYE SHIN YOU'RE AN IDIOT /facepalm

I logged on to Facebook to check for any comments on my big mistake. A few friends of mine were led to believe the article (Sorry, people), and Masami pointed out to me that it was a spoof. At that point I wanted to jump off a building for being such a dumbass. It was embarassing.

Then I started to think about what led me to believe it without verifiying its truth, and why I ignored the banner. In my case, I was unfamiliar with nose4news, read only up to the 5th paragraph, and I was sent a link that led to a page featuring only that article, with no other article in context. Also it was very professionally written; the formatting and language were perfect. In fact I believe it was either written by a journalist with a sense of humour or a copywriter from an advertising agency. Then I started to relate it to my work, particularly advertorials.

The word "advertorial" is derived from the words "advertisement" and "editorial". Advertorials are designed to look like editorials, with the objective of making readers believe that what they read is, in fact, a positive review (like in magazines) or an actual piece of news (like in newspapers) instead of an advertisement. There are a few subtle hints in an advertorial; typically a small bar on the top that reads "advertorial", or slight modifications to the page's template. Judging from the number of advertorials I have worked on, I have reason to believe that they are really effective. Apparently readers typically ignore the slight changes to the page's template, thus reading it from a totally different point of view, and in a different state of mind. People usually believe the first thing that they're told, and I am no exception.

Still, that does not change the fact that I made a complete idiot out of myself. I have not gotten over it, and I literally do the facepalm thing everytime I think of it. And I have been thinking about it a lot. All I can do is acknowledge my mistake, learn from it, blog about it (so that you can laugh at me), and move on.

And so once again, I tendered my resignation. Only this time, it wasn't done aimlessly. Not that it was planned in the first place, but I guess some things just fall into place. Frankly, I love what I do here at my current workplace, but I guess when it's time to move on, you just have to. I don't quite know where to begin, but here goes.

I graduated with an IT degree and convinced myself to pursue my area of interest despite my lack of "certification" that I have a creative flair. I very foolishly chose to work in Singapore after miscalculating that it would be worth it. And so I came here 3 years ago and went through all kinds of shit, mostly involving crazy rent rates, traveling, cheap but crappy food, awesome but expensive food, the lack of a social life, work and declining health. The internet speed is probably the only thing that I have come to truly appreciate here. I have always, always looked back and thought of returning home.

And now after more than 3 years, I am, at long last, returning to Malaysia. The funny part is that what lead me back home was, to a great extent, my 3 years' worth of work experience in Singapore. I have somehow managed to "buy back" all the time I lost in university studying stuff I wasn't exactly interested in by spending time working in a field that I have a passion for. Obviously, it wasn't a very easy journey. Having gone through all that, I think I deserve some sort of reward, and I'm hoping that this is it. My resilient nature (and sense of humour) have somehow lead me to a place where I hope I can finally call home.

At this very moment, a few thoughts are lingering in my head. How am I going to move an entire room full of stuff out of Singapore in less than 6 weeks? What if this is yet another disappointment? Am I going to ever regret this decision? Will things finally start to work out for me? Am I good enough for this? There isn't much I can do other than to do what is necessary and to stop looking back.

I will be working in a company that is pretty much as old as Immortal (in case my future employer is reading this, did I mention that he's a pretty awesome guy? Like... totally cool. And handsome, just like me. And smart, for having hired a smart guy like me; wow we have so much in common! And really nice. And generous. And humble. And all that. I'd love him if I were a girl. But I'm not. But I still love him. Just not like how a girl would usually love a guy. Okay, I should probably stop.), doing a LOT more than what I have been hired to do in Singapore. A lot of which requires handling and overseeing people, but looking back at how I have led one of the most successful Taekwondo Club in TTSC's history as President and functioned as a pretty damn good Vice President of EMiNA, I think much of what I am required to do should be second nature, given the time to adjust.

In other words, I can't wait.