Conference.

As a Toastmaster, going for a district conference is always something to look forward to.  And for a rather  newbie Toastmaster like myself, it was also very exciting.  I was looking forward to the competitions, looking forward to the workshops, looking forward to the keynote speeches, and of course, looking forward to meet Toastmasters from other parts of South China.  You could be surprised, but the way Toastmasters is developing in China is so quick that it was really amazing to see all these clubs springing up, and many of them are getting a lot prestigious recognitions from Toastmasters International.

The Conference itself was very fruitful.  The keynote speech by Dr Vikas Jhingran was a very enlightening one because he touched on things that I previously didn’t really think about – talk about inspirations from a world champion!  And then the workshops were also very useful and while some of them were giving me a lot to think about, I would say that I learned quite a lot through them.  These workshops gave me new perspective for my speeches in the future and I hope I could see improvements from my speeches.

And of course, what would a Conference be like without the competitions?  The evaluation and humourous speech contests were held during the Conference and I would think the results generally fell within my expectations with a couple of surprises.  But what I really felt strongly about was the level of English of the Toastmasters from Mainland China, as well as their competency in speech delivery, were just excellent.  In fact some of them were so good that they made a lot of us in Hong Kong look bad.  Of course it isn’t fair to compare like that, but I would really think that we in Hong Kong have a lot of work to do if we want to keep our level high.  And I am confident that with hard work and support from the Toastmasters community, we would be able to produce a world champion from Hong Kong!

One slightly down side about the trip was that besides the venue of the conference, I hardly had time to tour around Huizhou and it was pretty much straight back to Hong Kong after the end of the event.  I think perhaps the next time I would just take one or two days of leave so that I could have some time to walk around!

Decision.

I hate it when I have to make a decision between two things that I want to do badly.

There’s going to be a football match between Hong Kong and Uzbekistan tomorrow, which Hong Kong must win to keep its hopes of going to Asian Cup 2015 alive.  The two teams played to a goalless draw in February and there is a genuine hope that the team could get a result against the Uzbeks.  Being an avid Hong Kong supporter, going for the match seemed like a no-brainer.

But my Toastmasters Club is also having a very interesting meeting tomorrow.  It is going to be a joint meeting with another club and I have always wanted to try a joint meeting.  In addition to that, the theme for tomorrow is rather interesting and I’d really want to be part of it.  The worst thing is that there is a clash in time between the two, which means that I could only choose to go for either one.

I’m sure if I don’t turn up for the match, my mates would be upset with me and I might miss an opportunity to witness history being made.  But at the same time if I don’t turn up for the Toastmasters Club meeting tomorrow, I might miss an interesting evening, as well as an opportunity to meet new people…

I’ve got a little less than a day to decide.  Ah, decisions.

Dreams.

We all have dreams.  Some big dreams, some small dreams.  We have all lived through our lives having people telling us to “live our dream”.  Sometimes regardless of how unrealistic or daft our dreams could be, we would continue having them because we believe those dreams would come true.

As time goes on, we find that reality and dreams sometimes do clash.  Most of the time we do want to continue dreaming, hoping that situations would arise when one fine day the two don’t clash.  And we continue dreaming.

But after some time, we realize that the reality becomes hard to overcome, and the likelihood of the dreams becoming reality go slimmer by the day.  But we’d still continue to dream.

And then one piece of harsh reality smack right in, and we realize that the dreams that we’ve been making are nothing but a dream.  So we stop making that dream any more.  Instead, we start dreaming of other things.

Isn’t life just a cycle of dreaming, waking up, and dreaming again?

Defeat.

Nothing comes worse than this – losing a final without losing a game.

But I guess FC Seoul fans can be very proud of their players.  The pre-match talk of how Guangzhou would walk all over FC Seoul did not happen.

Ignore me for tonight, and take your gloating about Guangzhou winning the Champions League elsewhere.  I’m not in a good mood at all.

Upset.

Despite the title, I think I am not really like very upset.  It’s just that I’m a bit exchausted physically and mentally, and this exhaustion is making me feel a bit upset.

The exhaustion I am experiencing are multi-fold.  First of all is of course about work.  It’s not like I’m hating my job, but it’s just that there are so many things that I have to be doing that it’s getting a little stressful.  I was worried about not being able to do my work well, so I was putting quite a bit of my energy into it.  As a result, I’m getting really tired physically and mentally.  That is something that I perhaps just need to get used to.  After all, I’m about 2 months into this role and I guess this “getting-used-to” period probably is going to last a little longer.  But compared to the period when I first came into this job, I think I’m doing much better already.

The other reason that I’m getting a bit upset is actually something to do with my feelings and all that.  It’s like, I know I’m never one who could express my feelings well, so sometimes people either misunderstand, or they just don’t get it.  And sometimes I don’t know if they even know how I’m feeling, so I have a knack of trying to tell myself how the others are feeling, and many times they don’t come out well.  It’s like I would think “oh, that person is ignoring my messages, there must be something wrong with what I’ve done” or “oh, that person is not paying so much attention to me as before, something must have happened” and I get myself all stressed on these things.  Of course, I would think sometimes I’m being unrealistic as well as far as these feelings are concerned, because sometimes some of these feelings are just feelings in which the reality would probably be hard to achieve, even though they might not be entirely impossible.  I guess sometimes I ought to be a bit realistic about what I think about.  I mean, sometimes some things may look nice but they may not turn out well.  And then there will be times when things don’t look good, but there could be reasons to be optimistic.

I guess I’m writing a little more frequently these couple of days because I really have quite a bit of feeling and stress to unleash.  Anyone keen for chicken and beer this Saturday night?

Future.

Some of you probably have realized by now that I’ve actually gotten a promotion at work.  Not exactly something to be overly delighted about because ultimately, things that I have to be doing are still the same, and I have more to look after now.  Obviously I appreciated that my bosses thought that I was good for the job, and I’d just want to keep working hard.  My portfolio at work has changed quite a bit, and I am now part of something big and I hope to be able to handle all these.  It’s not going to be easy, so I need all your prayers and support.  After this promotion, I am actually finding myself to be even more involved with work, but at the same time, I am worried that I would be consumed by only work.  I am still trying to leave office early, but I am seeing my knock-off timing getting pushed back further and further.  Some of my colleagues who have been used to doing that would probably think that there’s no big deal with that, but for me, it’s almost like a whole new ball game that I’m trying hard to get used to.  But I know I could do it – after all, I got through a difficult period at the start of my current job and did decently enough, so I guess I would be able to do it.

One thing though that I am getting a little concerned is actually my future.  I mean, I have a decent job that pays well, I have my own apartment to live in, I have some decent academic qualifications – all seem good, doesn’t it?  But recently I have been thinking about going back to school to study.  I know I already have a Masters degree, but let’s be honest, that Masters degree isn’t really helping me with my job except that it allows me to have a slightly higher pay.  And it’s actually my dream to be able to study abroad.  I never had the chance to study out of a place that I’m familiar with, and I hope to be able to do that sometime in the future.  I know there would be a lot of things to worry about before I could actually take that step, but I’d like to keep that dream going.  I’m not sure where I want to go yet, but I see my future being in Asia, so probably somewhere in Asia would be good.  And you’ve guessed it, I’m thinking about Korea.  One of the reasons is obviously my interest in the country, but to be really honest, I just thought that this country is pretty amazing.  Completely destroyed because of the war 60 years ago, and now being one of the biggest economies in the world, as well as a highly technologically advanced country.  The experience is definitely something to learn from, and if I were to come back to Hong Kong or Singapore after that, it would be something to take home with.  And of course, and perhaps most importantly, there is another selfish reason to it.

By the way, some of you guys were getting a little bit over-excited about the picture I posted in the last entry (as well as on my Facebook), but let me clarify certain things.  I’m sure all of you have, at some stage of your life, be a fan of some artist, footballers, or famous people in general.  The pretty lady, whom I took a cute picture with, is actually a radio DJ and a former artist with one of the biggest entertainment companies in Korea.  And because I listen to her program very frequently, we kinda know each other and I make it a point to visit her at the studio every time I go to Korea.  So it’s not what you lot are thinking about.  As I always say, there’s always more than meets the eye, and there are times that you have to see beyond the surface.  If you are really keen to find out more about that, my next chicken and beer session would be on you.  Hahaha.