Career Entrepreneurship
I just read a short blog entry entitled “Entrepreneurship is NOT a Career Move” and I couldn’t agree with it more. And I know that I am very much an entrepreneur.
Most entrepreneurs are like artists: passionate and starving
While I am most definitely not starving yet, I have to say that I am going to get there. My monthly income is in the red. I have already instituted austerity measures in my life and I have managed to reduce my bleed-rate but I am still bleeding nonetheless. I am going to starve if I am not careful.
I still keep at it only because it is my passion, my love and giving up is not something I’d like do.
A student of mine asked me yesterday on how I could possibly live this way – working 18 hour days 7 days a week and bleeding cash – and the answer is simple. I am loving my work and living through it. I am well aware of the sacrifices that I am making but it’s all for the pursuit of happiness and I am happy.
It’s more than being a risk taker
That is true. If someone likes a game of chance, they are better served going to a casino. The odds are stacked against an entrepreneur and almost all startups fail. A person would need to be crazy if they decided that they had better chances of survival as an entrepreneur.
You need to have a purpose, something that you want to prove, in order to be an entrepreneur. In my case, it’s about saving the world, one bit at a time. I suffer from a messiah complex and that’s why I have been telling people that I’m starting a religion, not a business.
Hehe.
It’s who you are … all you know.
Again, it’s my life. I have not been financially dependent on my family since I was 12 (one day, I’ll write my autobiography) and that kind of independence changes a person. I cannot see myself working a regular 9-5 job. I generally suck at being an employee.
I don’t see how I could possibly be doing anything else, which is why I keep returning to it.
My Students
I’m not going to tell them this but I think that my students have been great, this semester.
I got to teach a class of 74 final year students and they were awfully good sports. My style of teaching is like play and it’ll only work if the students are active participants, which they were. Nobody fell asleep through the 42 hours of lectures that we had together.
There were several claims of bloody murder and cries of pain and terror. However, all the inflicted pain was always done with their best interests at heart. Although there were a few misses here and there, they were mostly able to hit the mark.
Some of them are graduating soon and their bags are already packed. I think that I will honestly miss some of the oddballs. It is fun to work with final year students when they are good enough to knead with. I hope that I did a small part in shaping their futures positively.
I keep using the word fun because it has honestly been – FUN!
I would like to wish them the best in their future endeavours and I hope that they will recall my oft uttered remark – ‘it depends’ – when someone asks them a really tough question for, in engineering, nothing is precise nor certain and everything is a shade of glee.
Maaf Zahir & Batin
8TV needs to be ashamed of itself. Learn a lesson.
Law Skool!
Yesterday, I managed to tick off more stuff from my list of resolutions this year.
Firstly, I finished filling up my professional registration forms for Chartered Engineer. Next stop, sending them off and working through the process – there’s still an interview to get through but at least, I’ve taken the first step.
Next, I received the results of my law school application – I got in! So, I’ll be studying law part-time next. I look forward to finishing all the modules as quickly as I possibly can. This means that I’ve accomplished 37.5% of my resolutions.
Yippee!
Some people have asked me why I want to study law – haven’t I done enough studying throughout my life, all through to a PhD?
My motivations, as always, are entirely selfish. I am studying law because I have a knack for it and I have come to realise that I need it more and more. Once you start doing adult things like have mortgages and debts, the law starts to get real interesting.
Did you know, that lawyers make an insane amount of money doing simple conveyance work?
I have been engaging lawyers more and have realised that it is far easier to talk to lawyers if I know how things work. So, I am studying law for the purpose of knowledge. I’d also like to do some simple legal stuff for myself. Therefore, I will pick and choose what I need, versus market needs.
Who knows, maybe it’ll be cool after this – offering both technical and legal consulting.
Yeay!
Hancur 1Malaysia
Oh my goodness. I had so many good things happen to me today but I’ve decided to blog about them another time because this just pissed me off! JAIS JAKIM has come up with guidelines on for Muslims celebration non-Muslim festivals.
WTF??
I have learned today that it is now ill-advised for non-Muslims to invite Muslims to attend and participate in any sort of religious festivities. Come on, if it is a religious festivity, there’s definitely going to be some amount of religious activity going on.
Instead of understanding and building bridges, our religious authorities are building walls.
Let’s be frank, the rest of us get Islamic rites shoved down our throats throughout our lives. Islamic prayers are recited at almost every function including at school assemblies. The rest of us maintain a respectful silence when this goes on but if the reverse were to happen, the Muslims would risk being fined or charged in court.
Now, I wonder what would happen if the non-Muslims followed the JAIS guidelines, but in reverse instead? It would be thorough chaos. No matter what the politicians say, Malaysia is not an Islamic state.
I shall produce the guidelines here ad-verbatim:
The 68th muzakarah of the National Fatwa Committee for Islamic Religious Affairs on April 12, 2005 discussed the Guidelines For Muslims Celebrating Religious Festivals Of Non-Muslims. The muzakarah has decided that:
In determining the non-Muslim celebrations that can be attended by Muslims, several main criteria should serve as guidelines so as not to contradict the teachings of Islam. The criteria are as follows:
- The event is not accompanied by ceremonies that are against the Islamic faith (aqidah).
The meaning of “against the Islamic faith (aqidah)” is a thing, act, word or situation which if conducted will lead to tarnishing the faith (aqidah) of Muslims.
For example:
- to include religious symbols such as the cross, installing lights, candles, Christmas tree and so forth;
- to sing religious songs;
- to put any religious markings on the forehead, or other markings onto parts of the body;
- to deliver speech or gestures in the form of a praise to the non-Muslim religion;
- to bow or conduct acts of honour to the religious ceremony of non-Muslims.
- The event is not accompanied by acts against the Islamic law.
The meaning of “against the Islamic law” is a thing, act, word or situation which if conducted will contradict the Islamic teachings practised by the Muslim community.
For example:
- Wearing red costumes like Santa Claus or other garments that reflect religion;
- Serving intoxicating food or beverages and the likes;
- Having sounds or ornaments like church bells, Christmas tree, temple or breaking of coconuts;
- Having ceremonies with elements of gaming, worship, cult, superstitions and the likes.
- The event is not accompanied by “acts that contradict with moral and cultural development of Muslim society” in this country.
The meaning of “acts that contradict with moral and cultural development of Muslim society” is a thing, act, word or situation which if conducted will contradict the values and norms of the Muslim society of this country which adheres to the Islamic teachings based on Ahlus Sunnah Wal-Jamaah.
For example:
- Mixing freely without any limit or manners;
- Wearing conspicuous clothing;
- Singing songs that contain lyrics of obscenity and worship;
- Organising programmes such as beauty pageants, cock fighting and such.
- The event is not accompanied by acts that can “stir the sensitivity of Muslim community”.
The meaning of “stir the sensitivity of Muslim community” is a thing, act, word or situation which if conducted will offend the feelings of Muslims about their beliefs and practices.
For Example:
- Speeches or songs in the form of non-Muslim religious propaganda;
- Speeches that insult the Muslims;
- Speeches that insult Islam;
- Presentations with the aim to ridicule the religious belief of Muslims.
- The organisers and the public are asked to get the views of religious authorities before organising or attending celebrations of non-Muslims.
Update@2011-08-22: As rightly pointed out below, the guidelines are from JAKIM.
Suing for a Scholarship
Disclaimer: I was a government scholar at Cambridge.
I read an article in TheStar a couple of days ago, about a teenager suing a GLC – Khazanah – for failing to get a scholarship to read Natural Sciences at Cambridge. From the article, “… to sue Khazanah Nasional Bhd, Yayasan Khazanah and its director after his son failed to get a scholarship offered by the foundation and the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust.”
Amazing!
After reading about the suit further, “Chan is seeking to invalidate the three scholarships already given out by the national investment company. Further to that he claims compensation and damages for distress and embarrassment due to being rejected.”
I thought to myself – what a well angled suit. It threatens to cause a huge public relations problem for Khazanah by seeking to nullify the other scholarships, and also claims a large amount of unquantifiable damages and compensation for emotional distress.
In the past, when someone did not get a scholarship, they would just swallow their lumps and move one. It may not have been fair but it built character at least. In 1999, someone cried to the news media and opened the flood-gates so that any crier would get a scholarship. Today, someone has up-the-ante by suing for a scholarship. I hope that the government settles out of court and awards the scholarship. That would bring the game to a whole other level – the height of incredulity!
I think that it is a great idea to sue for one reason – to highlight the systemic problems that plague the scholarship system in our country. We all know that there are serious problems with our scholarship system that get dragged out into the public eye annually for the last decade. Maybe it’s about time someone dragged it out in the courts.
I hope that this lawsuit would at least trigger a revamp of the system and a return to sanity.
It’s frakkin’ broke!
PS: That said, I think that it’ll do his son loads of damage at Cambridge but a father has to do what he has to do to help his son. As a retiring lawyer, he’s fighting the system with the best tool that he has.
Sybreon Ones Nought 