itsawomansworld

Feck April 22, 2009

Feck, feck, feck, feck, feck.

That’s my mantra after spending the entire morning getting ready for a big presentation with the BIG boss…only to get cut off because the other departments before us obviously do not know the meaning of time management!

I can’t decide what pisses me off more – that my projects, while always considered important enough for everyone to want to know what’s cooking (hence the NUMEROUS letters, memos, information notes to both internal and external parties), never seem to move ANYWHERE – or the wishy-washy answers of the coordinator of this high level meeting, resulting in not only me wasting my entire morning…but also 6 other higher ranking team members, one of whom is the nicest, most gracious, eloquent woman I have ever met in my limited working experience, had to (presumably) make a mad 15-minute drive over.

My only option for zen-ness during this fecking time? To take ALL of the papers on my desk – all the analysis writeups, letters, memos, tables, slides, charts, even those yellow Post-Its with important reminders – and letting the resident shredding machine have its way with it!

But since nothing is ideal in life, I’ll settle for blasting some feck-you-all rock song all this afternoon (hopefully I don’t break into a sing-and-dance routine cause you know I’m feeling the passion right now).

Any suggestions?

Pottering April 12, 2009

Since we moved into our ‘new’ old house (same lot but significantly renovated till it might as well be considered a new house), my family and I have pretty much neglected the few surviving potted plants that make up our garden. Naturally, after 14 months of being left on their own, our plants were in dire need of being weeded, trimmed, repotted and fertilised. Here is one of three bonsai trees my family owns.

BEFORE

AFTER

What a difference, huh?

Anyway, 8 ceramic and 4 small plastic pots, a washed up porch, 2 cleaned dogs (yes…for the temporary moment, I have 2 dogs in my house, but that’s for another entry) and 7 hours later, I’m glad to announce that my family house looks much neater from the outside. 

As for my room…hmmm…here’s hoping inspiration will strike again! 😀

Writing Well April 4, 2009

It was on a lazy Sunday afternoon, a couple of months ago during the Chinese New Year, that I came across an article by Dzoff Azmi in the Star newspaper. He was relating his experience teaching people how to write a television script and two points stood out.

1) Writing is less about “free and open creativity” and more about “hard work and structure”.

2) Writing is easy, writing well is hard.

Dzoff’s argument to this is simple. Writing is essentially about conveying a point, but because the product is only as good as its producer, to write well the writer must do so in a way that is honest to himself/herself. And because of the level of passion in writing, there is always the danger of ‘falling in love with your own words’ enough to dilute a paragraph expressly to slot in a clever phrase.

Although I found Dzoff’s points spot-on, if it wasn’t for that publishing project that just passed, I wouldn’t have appreciated his points as much as I do now. Although it was far and few in between, the amendments undertaken to the drafts that came to my colleague and I (who were the coordinators) were nonetheless necessary. Even one word made a mountain of difference to the flow of the sentence, or in some cases, brought an angle to it. I was thoroughly pleased, and deeply disconcerted.

Pleased because I now have an appreciation for detail in corporate writing, which I find to be the driest form of communication out there. Ironic, since that is basically what I do, day in and day out – reports, memos, notes, minutes, etc. 

Disconcerted because while this appreciation for words is has been lacking in most of us in the office, my three younger colleagues – ones who are my brother’s age nonetheless, scholars of the insitution I work for and  graduates of London School of Economics and Warwick University – have been discriminate about, judging from the office conversation we had in the dead of the night as we consolidated our points. It certainly takes your ego down a notch or two when you learn something, not matter how intangible, from people with less than half your working experience.

So now, I pay more attention to the words I use, that depending on the rest of the sentence, give markedly different tones and therefore convey a whole new meaning i.e. ‘disbursement’ vs. ‘payment’, ‘it has come to our attention’ vs. ‘we understand’, ‘endorsement’ vs. ‘approval’. 

And I hope to translate that appreciation to my blogging too. It’ll certainly require more time and effort on my part and perhaps might mean lesser entries in between…save for the impromptu entires (like yesterday). So hope you’ll bear with me as I  begin my quest to write well.