another milestone.

in the long, long run for my degree, i have passed another milestone.

was having another fyp meeting with my prof yesterday. as usual, it was thought-provoking and many avenues were suggested for our own exploration at this final stage of the project. the report was largely ok, with some alterations required.

the best news of the day? the next time i meet my prof is when i submit the hard copies of the report. no second drafts, no nothing. just the finalized report.

wow!

that marks the end of an enduring year. last year, around this time, i was trying to juggle 4 cores and an elective. the cores were full of projects that i was really breathing hard for air. apart from that, i was looking around for group mates, topics, and supervisors.

at that time, my heart wasn't exactly in marketing, but finance. not the very complicated types of finance, but something which i, who studied only 1 finance module, could do.

then came the group mates, friends who i looked up and looked me up to collab on fyp. it wasn't an easy decision to make, considering that it is going to be a year long project with plenty of effort, initiative, and commitment. topic was also critical.

supervisors, had some in mind and emailed them to ask what kind of topics they research in.

took about 2 weeks to settle these stuff, next was coming up with a topic.

my prof did not specify what area of research we should do. instead, we should come up with the topics we like, and propose them. i still remember that we only had one-liners i.e. just the topic without any research questions that we would like to answer for each topic. the meeting wasn't exactly smooth so we went off to brainstorm for more.

eventually came up with a topic and defined the scope of study. somehow, our initial topic branched off to a relatively new field, both in academia and industry. that was just shortly before i had my exam.

off to PA. not much of reading up on topic... some search for articles.

shortly after the end of PA, went to search for books related to this field. because it is new, not many books were written about it.

then school started again... year 3.

i remembered looking through a webpage full of sub-topics for that field. was debating which topic to choose... took a pretty long time but was finally settled.

off to the report by having the literature review written. it was submitted and approved... major relief. then it was exams again.

after exams... no surprise as to what i did for hols. more fyp... writing the motivation, research design, survey generation...

and when school started the survey was administered after getting approval from my prof. collected and analyzed the data for months jan and feb, with feb devoted to writing the full report.

and yesterday, after a long meeting, came the good news. and the realization that after a year of sweat, late nights, long days and loss of millions of brain cells, its going to be over!

next meeting, shall be getting the report touched up with the blushers, mascara and eye shadow. haha... just to spice it up and clean it up.

glad its over.

was chatting with a friend on monday, some catching up on each other's lives. the things we talk abt dun usually deviate much from r/s... the all-too-expected, but always full of things to say topic.

mayb i shall have an entry for this next time... not the details but a rather interesting (to me at least) application of the stuff i learnt in school (how is marketing related to r/s??).

ps my eye's been twitching since sunday. both eyes, left of late. if the left eye twitches, is it good or bad? or is it the right eye twitch that is good? i forgot.

well perhaps sthg interesting is going to happen soon... good or bad, dunno...

can determination and dedication overcome the dread?

have a serious dread for mondays and tuesdays.

I dun dread mondays cos i have no monday blues. since there are no lessons for me on mondays, i can't have the blues and so, can't dread it right?

damn wrong.

mon and tue are the days which i give tuition to my p3 kid.

and it is not the first time i feel the dread and the desire to quit it once and for all.

but having only gone in a month for this new kid, it's far too early to quit.

not when i tip the scales in favor of money.

the reason why i contemplated quitting? it's really hard to keep him focused.

on top of that, it doesn't seem to work when i raise my voice a little. or when i use some sarcasm.

all these, in a bid to keep him concentrating on his work and stop fiddling around.

raising my voice after a long, tired day is extremely easy because i'm really beat and a little pissed. raising my voice really loud is even easier. scolding and perhaps, a shout here and there ought to work.

but patience has always been my friend, and today, it is still my friend.

taking into account that he doesn't really have a complete understanding of his surroundings and the demands imposed on him, i find no reason to shout or raise my voice.

and the fact that threats only work if they come from the father, so far my guess is that with time, i can make my own threats work. but issuing threats is something i very much despise, and is often the very, very last resort (the time for this to happen might be mightily surprising to you).

simply lack the strength to even raise the tone a little. of course, being patient works.

the only form of punishment, if that can even be construed as harsh, is that i took away his privilege of sitting down to do his work or answer my questions.

ok, if you count writing a word over and over again as punishment (so far, i ask for 10 of the same word, eng or chi), i have 2 forms of punishment. but how can this be punishment? i'm not making him stay back after class to write stuff like "I shall do my work properly next time" 100 times. it's decent writing practice!

the reason why i took away his chair was apparent. the floor in the kitchen itself does not provide ample grip on the chair. so you can sit on it and slide about in the kitchen. the thing is, his sitting position is sometimes so bad that i need to hold the chair properly in order to keep him from sliding off the chair.

and he fell today, though no injuries at all. he might have as well hit his head on the glass table when he was picking himself up.

perhaps this is the way to go. for repeated nonsense and bad attitude, i start taking away the privileges.

by no means is it harsh... it's by far the most non-violent way for me. i view shouting as violent already (think hitting with a cane. hey, i'm here as a tuition teacher, not torture master)!

so, standing up includes standing up straight and on two legs. no things like putting one leg on the chair still, or leaning against the chair... etc.

i sure hope the title for this entry will come true.

i even contemplated not having children after marriage! serious!

but as an afterthought... nvm.

putting off the births are ok. but no matter...

this decision i leave to my wife to decide.

of cos la - she's the one slogging 10 months away and i'm just having a wild nite!

muz be fair... muz be.