Friday, August 28, 2009

A few tidbits

To follow on from my previous post, I have never been tutored and have never tutored anyone, so I have no experience of tutoring. Obviously I have helped people with their homework in boarding school but that is as far as my expertise goes. Tutoring only helps marginally - either you don't have the enthusiasm or intelligence to lift you any further than what you can possible achieve. Also people put too much emphasis on exams and school. There are people who don't conform to the rigid system that entails during our secondary school education but when they get to the real world, they can achieve anything. Exams and interviews do not properly correlate with work or school performance.

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I don't know why Apple allow downloading of music from iTunes for Hong Kong customers. I want to download music now, since I don't really want to buy albums but it doesn't let me. This is why people illegally download music - because there is no way you can legally download music.

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Why can't the normal population understand that when you have a disease or medical condition, these things take time to heal, they don't necessarily will heal 100% and there is a limit what medicine can do. Medicine is not voodoo magic - take one pill and you can heal all the sicknesses you have. Patients have become more and more demanding, thinking what they hear from other people or what they read in magazines and the internet is correct without considering the opinion of an expert. I do understand it is their body and their decision to make but if they don't listen to the doctor's advice, why do doctors even bother explaining to the patients.

It's the same thing with people buying shares. They need to understand that shares will not automatically rise in price, it may take time to increase in value and they can go down in price. That is why I don't have any sympathy for those Hong Kong people who buy funds with shares from the Lehman Brothers. They were told about these shares and they still want their money back. If you cannot bother to listen, why listen at all.

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I'm very satisfied with how Arsenal's start to the this campaign has gone. Four wins in a row and an easy Champions' League group. Didn't like how Eduardo dived to win that penalty against Celtic on Wednesday. Arsene Wenger should drop him for the next game, even if it is against Manchester United. I don't want players of Arsenal doing that.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Dent in the wallet

When I graduated, I promised myself I would stop illegally downloading TV shows, since I was no longer a poor university student but instead a poor intern with a meagre salary. I don't download music from the internet, since I'm not an avid listener. I used to get computer programs online but stopped recently (I explain why later).

Nowadays I stopped downloading the TV shows. The last TV series I illegally downloaded was the second season of "Pushing Daisies", a brilliant dark comedy series which was tragically stopped after only two seasons. I'm still downloading the entire series of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" since I started that quite a long time ago and it is still downloading. I still have too many DVDs I still haven't seen

Most of the time I'm downloading TV shows which I cannot get on DVD or other paid means, such as the current series of "Top Gear" or "Mock the Week". If there was a subscription service, I would pay for those programs, as long as it was a reasonable price. The other major media I download are podcasts. It is great to have podcasts, since they are free and if you don't like music, there is another whole world of media you can listen to. I recently become more infatuated with comedy, so I download more comedy such as The Guardian's coverage of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

(One thing I don't understand is why they need to call podcasts 'podcasts'. They're just downloadable radio programs or audio programs. They're only called podcasts as an amalgamation of iPod and broadcast.)

Since I've become a medical officer, there have been numerous dents in the wallet recently. Firstly there are aspects of my job which require money, such as membership to the professional associations. I also had to pay back my mother for paying for the last two holidays I went on. The first item I bought when I became a medical officer was a car - the new Volkswagen Golf TSI (Mark VI). Unfortunately, due to the high demand, the car will only be delivered by October. That's actually a good thing, since it will cost me about four months wages. So by the time it will arrive, I would have earned enough money to repay my dad who paid for the car.

Recently I have been replacing many of my electronic items. The first electronic item I replaced was my notebook. My old notebook has started to break physically with cracks appearing at the bottom of the screen, the power button is slightly screwed up and every time I use too many programs, all the programs automatically close. After a long time slating off Microsoft and Windows, I decided to convert to the Force and get a Mac. I got a MacBook Pro just a few weeks ago. Since my Dad works for an university, I got a discount on the MacBook Pro and also got an iPod Touch for free. It took me some time to get use to Mac OS X operating system but I'm finding it great. I'm using my old notebook just for downloading porn.

Today I went to an electronics fair in Wan Chai. Since there were many items going cheap at the fair, I decided to go and blow my hard earn cash. I bought a new digital camera, an iPod station for my iPod touch, a new USB hard drive and a digital photo frame. Before people start saying I'm deviating from my leftist roots and become a material hoarder, I like to say that I need all this stuff. The digital camera we have at home is not very slim and has a very long delay when you press the button to take a photo. Additionally it doesn't belong to me - it belongs to my parents. The USB hard drive is required for work and for backing up my files from my two notebooks. Lastly I always whine about people taking photos with their digital camera, storing them in their computers and never looking at them again, which is why I got a digital photo frame.

I think that will be enough spending for now - it will be just bread and water for lunch for the next few weeks.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Tutoring

This is my first blog entry using my new MacBook Pro. No, I'm not going to take pictures of my new notebook or christen the laptop with a funny name like Sebastien or Johann. I'm just going to treat my MacBook Pro like a MacBook Pro and not like the new baby in my life.

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I still feel despondent about work. I'm starting to become my worst fear - a doctor who is gradually become more dismissive of patients complaints.

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One of my cousins recently got his results for his HKCEEs, which is equivalent to GCSEs or SATs. Unfortunately the results were not very good. To continue his secondary school education, one is required to have attained fourteen points in his or her HKCEEs. My cousin only got six points. He is now at a crossroads, whether to continue with the books or seek vocational training. As my family are well versed on education, my dad has been given my aunt (my dad's sister) plenty of advice.

I hate to be harsh in this situation but I have to say that in society, there will always be people who are destined to be doctors, lawyers and engineers and other people who destined to be mechanics, cooks or salespeople. What I am trying to say nicely is that there are clever people and there are stupid people. That doesn't mean that mechanics, cooks or salespeople contribute to society or won't earn a lot during their lifetime. I know a lot of my friends who cannot change a car tyre, boil an egg or properly fold clothes.

What I hate about today's society is that we put so much emphasis on education or more precisely proof of education. I don't doubt that knowledge is power and useful towards your life. Yet people wants so many A's during their exams to get into a good university to get a degree to earn lots of money. What we learn in school isn't really that useful in life. When did anybody need to know the dates of the World War II battles or the use of differentiation in everyday life. What they should teach us in school is practical stuff, from wiring a plug, cooking (both boys and girls) and economics.

We have gotten to the stage that we think an university degree is so important, parents and students are willing to fork out thousands of dollars to pay tutors to teach them stuff they should be taught by teachers in school, and those souped-up faux tutors who grace advertising boards like they were superstars or models don't really teach them anything. Students get taught how to perform well in exams, not the knowledge or skills which will last them a last time.

Education is important but know what education is important is much more vital.