I’ve been meaning to write this blog entry for a while now, but I never got to it. Since I will be going on an overseas trip, I decided that this is a good time. Most of us carry a wallet or a purse to our outings. We store important things such as credit cards, cash, and membership cards in our wallets or purses. I have never lost my wallet before, but if I did, I would be quite worried. To protect myself, I thought that I would create a wallet inventory with a list of my wallet’s contents and their respective phone numbers to call in the unfortunate event that they are lost or stolen. I would encourage everyone else to do the same. Include other cards as well, so you know what you have lost even if it doesn’t have a phone number. Print it out and put it somewhere secure or upload it to Google Docs. If traveling, ask someone else carry it for you. Don’t put it in your wallet!

Here’s an example (private details hidden):
TD Green Visa – 1-800-983-8472 or 416-307-7722 (Collect)
BMO Mosaik MasterCard – 1-800-263-2263 or 514-877-0330 (Collect)
Driver’s Licence – Visit Office
Shoppers Optimum Card
TD Canada Trust Access Card – 1-866-222-3456
Citi Enrich MasterCard – 1-800-387-1616 or 416-947-2900 (Collect)
Student Card
Public Library Card
Business Cards
Scene Card
Insurance Card
Motor Vehicle Liability Insurance Card
Heart Saver (A) Card
Health Card – Visit Office
Smart Serve Certificate Card

Hopefully, this will help you avoid panic and will give you a peace of mind when you go out, partying hard!

Today, I will be writing my last exam as an undergraduate student at the University of Waterloo. I will be dressed in a suit, so I can impress some of those attractive classmates. Yes, I know it’s UW, but my last exam is for HRM 301 (Strategic Human Resources Management), an Arts course. Hence, attractive female counterparts do exist in that class and the usage of the word ’some’ can be justified. All jokes aside, when I leave from that last exam, I want to enter adulthood feeling and looking good. It will be symbolic of my transition from education to vocation. It has been 5 years of training. What have I learned? I have learned to learn.

So what’s next?

Vacation, unemployment, and continuous development.

Vacation: My parents have been waiting many years for the chance to bring their children to see Europe. Okay, my brother and I are no longer young children, but it has been our parents’ dream to experience Europe. In particular, it has been my mom’s dream since my dad would prefer to have more money in the bank account. We will be off for two weeks. It’ll be good to spend time with the family as I have not been home much this term.

Unemployment: I will be paying rent, beginning in May and as the months go by, I will be hurting financially. I have been working since I was 15 and have never had a full summer off since then. It’s about time that I finally get to feel what it’s like to be jobless. I’m not worried though; the economy is in recovery and I never get bored because of the next step.

Continuous Development: I will be discovering new knowledge, developing my skills, and improving my abilities. It’s never going to stop. I plan to take two remaining HR courses in the Fall and Winter to fulfill the CHRP requirements. Afterward, I plan to take music courses on production and private piano lessons. I have several business ideas, but those are for much, much later. First, I will be looking for a career in HR, specifically in recruitment. The job hunt will begin upon my return from vacation. As I search for an organization that fits well, I will be working out, going out, singing my lungs out, eating healthy (i.e. not out), and helping around the house, such as getting the dust out. It’s going to be interesting (like the previous sentence).

I woke up today from a dream. I rarely remember my dreams and it was quite a realistic dream. Please note that this was indeed a dream and dreams are not accurately representative of anything. Here it goes… I was running, but was not being chased. It was dark and it was raining. Every step on the concrete sidewalk caused a little splash of water. I was in a trench coat, running through a clubbing district. The clubbing district that I’ve seen in my dreams before. It is a single street running east to west with a very industrial feel. There are no tall buildings, but power lines and old brick buildings. It was too dark to see the graffiti as the street lights were malfunctioning and dim. There, I was running with no purpose.

As I was running east, many people were waiting in queue to get inside the clubs. I saw JL, someone who I always thought to be too young and innocent to go to the clubs. Surprisingly, he brought his little brother. They were first in line and as I ran past, noticing them, I turned my head, pointed and said, “Hey, be safe!” I caught a glimpse of the club interior and it was empty at the moment with flashy lights, laser beams, fog, and a few bouncers. As I continued running, I got looks of hostility as if I was an intruder. A look that said, “This is not your hood.” I kept running. Being so dark, I turned on my cell phone’s flashlight. You must be careful with a flashlight. If you shine it in someone’s eyes, they get pissed. So I ran with my flashlight pointed toward the ground, passing a few abandoned buildings until I reached a crowded entrance. I had to strategically manoeuvre myself to continue down the street. By this time, I think I was looking for someone. As I past by another crowd, I shone my flashlight into the mass of people, trying to find this person. Angry faces was all I got. The journey continues. I ran through a mini power station where a slowly paced woman was blocking the sidewalk. There were power boxes adjacent to both sides of the sidewalk and I could not squeeze through. I patiently waited as she moved through and then continued through.

Finally, I reached the end of the street. It was blocked off by the police. There were 3 officers each grappling some men. A few arrested men were sitting against a chain linked fence. Behind the blockade were many people surrounding the club and police lights flashing, blue, red, blue, red, blue. The people sitting down looked like nice guys. The police officer wanted to show me something. He had some clippers in his hand. He told one of the men sitting by the fence to give him his hand. The officer proceeded to clip the man’s pinky finger. The man’s facial expression showed no fear, but pain. A pain that he was now fighting. His nail was lifted and blood began to fill the void space. “He was a nice guy,” I thought. He did not deserve that.

There, my journey ended and I woke up with 7 minutes to spare before my alarm clocked would ring. What did I learn from this dream?

First, the world is unpredictable. To survive, you must adapt to your surroundings. The environment is never constant. It could be raining, it could be dark, and it could be filled with hostile people. Be aware of your surroundings and adjust accordingly.

Second, people change. JL has grown up and is exploring new things. His little brother is being influenced in the process. Sibling and peer influence is very powerful. If you have peers that do risky things, you may feel inclined to do the same. Choose your friends wisely.

Lastly, the world is not always just! As the just-world phenomenon states, people want to believe that the world is just. However, the world is unpredictable as mentioned earlier. Anything can happen. Even nice guys get into trouble. Stay out of trouble!

Out with the old and in with the new! The old media centre that I built in 2006 is long gone with a bad motherboard and an old Celeron processor. Although overclocked, I can’t believe that I used a Celeron processor. It’s now at the electronics dump. The new home theatre PC was built over a year ago, but I made sure that it had HDMI capabilities with a low wattage 64-bit dual core processor. Fortunately, it can still decode 1080p without lag. It’s running Windows 7 x64 with RAID 0 on the OS partition and RAID 1 on the Data partition. Now with a new LCD television, it was about time for a new setup. I didn’t have a sound system, but my dad had a Yamaha AX-570 receiver and a pair of old school Tannoy Oxford speakers. It looks like a decent setup with a mixture of old and new components. Here are the pictures. I’m not going to include any captions because I think you’ll know which is which. Cool, eh?

I have been using Windows 7 for the past few weeks and when playing videos, I noticed that they were washed out or faded. These were the same videos that I watched in XP and they looked very different. Windows 7 includes most video codecs to play anything that you download or encode, such as xvid. I installed Shark007’s Windows 7 Codecs pack to see if it would make a difference and it did not. I changed the default codecs to not use the Windows codecs and video playback was still washed out. It turns out that the gamma setting on my laptop screen was too high by default. If you are experiencing washed out video playback in Windows 7, try adjusting the gamma settings by following these steps:

1. Click on Start > Control Panel
2. Click on Appearance and Personalization
3. Click on Display
4. Click on Calibrate color
5. Run through the Display Color Calibration tool

Now everything looks a lot better. Try it for yourself!

When I read the news, I think that the end of the human species is not a farfetched idea. Future intelligent species will examine our technology, study our history and look at our ruins. They will come to the conclusion and say, “What an idiotic species!”

Our Technology
Our ancestors began using tools to increase the chance of survival. Discoveries such as fire brought heat, light, and the ability to cook. Inventions such as the compass helped in navigation. Innovations such as irrigation has increased crop production. Think about the internet today, it brings communication with other parts of the world to your fingertips. We have become masters of our environment.

Our History
Our cultures are diverse, we have a vast amount of languages, we trade resources, and we share our talents. Human history spans over thousands of years. Knowledge of ourselves and our world has grown exponentially.

Our Ruins
Technology advances the most in times of war where research and manpower is devoted to weapon and defence development. With nuclear weapons, the Earth can be destroyed within a few hours. Warfare is always a threat. That is, war between humans and humans; a race to destroy each other.

The End
Our technology enables us to destroy each other. When we attack each other with such great power, we are destroying ourselves. War has its consequences. When we no longer exist and our ruins are discovered by some future intelligent species, not only will we look idiotic, but they would think, “What a waste of history, technology, and culture!”

The video shown above is one of my favourite videos. It displays training at the gym with psychological, behavioural and physical factors. In this review, I will be commenting solely on the psychological factor of self-efficacy expectations (confidence). After all, the title is suggesting that it’s a psych up. For a behavioural review from a coach’s perspective, read Dave Tate’s review.

From what I gather from the video, the person performing the squat is Matt. He is attempting to set a personal record (PR) of weight squatted. His goals are clearly documented in the video. Frank Yang is the man who is doing most of the psych up, especially at 1:32 in the video.

There are 4 sources of self-efficacy expectations:
1) Personal Accomplishment
2) Vicarious Experience (Watching similar others perform successfully)
3) Social Persuasion
4) Emotional Arousal

Matt’s performance goals are set and are illustrated in the video prior to his attempt. This goal is in his mind before and while he is performing the squat.

Here’s how Matt performed with my comments:

• 215 lbs -- Matt -- Easy warm up
• 245 lbs x 1 -- Martin -- Success (Vicarious Experience)
• 255 lbs x 1 -- Martin -- Success (Vicarious Experience)
• 235 lbs x 2 -- Matt -- Success (Personal Accomplishment)
• 245 lbs x 2 -- Matt -- Success (Personal Accomplishment)
• 275 lbs PR -- Martin -- Way too heavy, Frank attempts to psych up Martin by screaming (Emotional Arousal)
• 255 lbs PR -- Matt -- Again psych up from Frank, but failure to complete squat (Emotional Arousal)
• 255 lbs PR -- Matt -- Second try -- Matt looks in mirror, engages in self-talk with social persuasion from Frank -- Successful -- Big achievement (Self-talk + social persuasion + emotional arousal)
• 265 lbs PR -- Matt -- More screaming psych up, but failure (Emotional Arousal + Previous Accomplishment)

Why was this psych up so effective and how did Matt reach a new PR?
Matt had all 4 sources that enhanced his self-efficacy expectations. He started with a warm up and then watched Martin successfully complete a few heavy repetitions. Matt successfully completes several repetitions, increasing his confidence. Personal accomplishment is most significant in increasing self-efficacy expectations. Emotional arousal can only do so much, but Frank does a wonderful job at this by maximizing the use of it. Frank is also consistently persuading Matt that he can do it.

What could have increased Matt’s self-efficacy expectations (confidence)?
By not having Martin attempt the 275 lbs PR, Matt may have done better. Consequently, Matt observed failure from someone similar and it also lowered Frank’s social persuasion value.

In brief, the video demonstrates a successful psych up. When training, it’s about pushing yourself and putting in effort. To be successful (in the gym), you need to work hard to gain personal accomplishments and have others psych you up. That’s why spotters are good. They ensure safety and help you improve.

Half of the summer school term has already passed. There is one textbook that I haven’t opened yet and it is the Organizational Behaviour textbook for PSYCH 338. Today, in the PSYCH 338 lecture, we learnt about goal setting. This is the same goal setting lecture that I have once paid attention to in my Winter 2008 term in PSYCH 339 (Personnel Selection) where I had the same professor. It’s based on Locke and Latham’s theory of goal setting. It’s very similar to the SMART criteria of goal setting.

For most of this term, I have not done much for school. I have been studying and completing assignments on a last-minute basis. My goal that I set at the beginning of the term for all my courses was a jokingly 100% and that is what I told my parents as well. I have already completed two midterms and have three next week. Failing to reach my goals and listening to another goal setting lecture, I think that it is time to set new goals… realistic goals. One thing that I was missing this term was progress tracking, which is an important feedback component of goal achievement. I also find that I have been too focused on getting marks and did not really care about the material (uh oh… too much extrinsic value and too little intrinsic value). I only find the material in my Intro to Tourism course interesting because it’s more business related.

So, here’s my new focus: learning. Knowledge is power. With knowledge, you make better decisions. For example, with goal setting knowledge, you can now set some goals that will increase the probability of positive outcomes!

Ever since the PSYCH 339 course, I have created a spreadsheet to track my progress. I mainly used them for predicting final marks and the total term average during the final examination period to gauge how much I have to study. This term, I only have two final exams, so I decided to create the spreadsheet today. With the ability to track my progress and a new focus on learning, the second half of this term should be much more interesting.

Compared to my other school terms, I have been doing rather poorly. By making this public (another component of goal setting), I am now accountable for what I have said and posted. It’s time for academic success. For those who are lacking motivation, feel free to do the same and create a spreadsheet to track your progress. It gives you an overview of how you’re doing academically and it’ll help you set/adjust your goals. And remember, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!

Winter 2008 -- 3A Term
Fall 2008 -- 3B Term
Spring 2009 -- 4A Current Term

TVB recently did a Sunday Report on a cappella groups and vocal percussion (beatboxing). To summarize, it said that a cappella is gaining popularity among youths in Hong Kong. I wish a cappella was more popular in North America, but it’s all about the mainstream music here. A friend of mine told me that my video was on TV, so my brother found it online and sent it to me. In the report, it mentions that the interviewee practiced for 3 hours a day while in school. That is a lot of practicing and if you want to learn how to beatbox, that’s what it takes. Props to Rahzel for pioneering the “beatboxing and singing at the same time” technique. The report also featured my If Your Mother Only Knew Tutorial and the interviewee said that it took him a long time just to learn a phrase. Well, I’m glad that I could help. Maybe I should make a Cantonese version of the tutorial.

My video was only on there for a few seconds, but it’s cool that people are learning from it. Check out the full report at the link below. My video appears around 9 minutes.

Link: TVB News – Sunday Report (2009-04-12)

My YouTube Channel consists of many beatboxing and random videos. Apparently, YouTube Insight reveals that it attracts a predominately male audience. This makes sense because the beatboxing scene is mostly male. I have a video of someone singing a Chinese song that I recorded from television and the male-female viewer ratio for that particular video is about 1:1. Videos with singing or a full band have more female viewers than beatboxing videos. I didn’t even bother looking at my random videos.

My goal is to achieve a more balanced audience. Seriously, too many dudes are watching me, haha. As a result, upcoming videos will have less beatboxing and more singing. Will there be less clothes you ask? You wish! I prefer to keep my videos at a G rating. So stay tuned!