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Jean's Journal
Below are the 23 most recent journal entries.
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2006.08.20 01.12
 | You scored as XI: Justice. The blindfold arbiter weighs the evidence and passes judgement without fear or favour. There can be no appeal.Justice is not necessarily the same as Law. True justice seeks out the spirit of the law, not just its letter. If a law is bad then true Justice will set that law aside. This is the sacred responsibility of those given the power to judge. If well aspected in a Tarot reading, this card can indicate settlement of disputes, the achievement of a just outcome. If badly aspected this card can indicate corruption and failure of justice.
XI: Justice | | 81% | III - The Empress | | 75% | XIII: Death | | 75% | I - Magician | | 63% | XIX: The Sun | | 63% | II - The High Priestess | | 56% | VI: The Lovers | | 50% | VIII - Strength | | 44% | IV - The Emperor | | 44% | X - Wheel of Fortune | | 38% | XV: The Devil | | 38% | 0 - The Fool | | 31% | XVI: The Tower | | 19% | </td>
Which Major Arcana Tarot Card Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com |
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2006.08.06 23.21
Are you a good catch?
Alexandra Blair
The days of walking into a top job are gone
In 1987, at the height of Thatcher’s boom, the world was the student’s oyster. Or at least it was for Angus. In his second year at the University of Bristol, he was captain of the First XI hockey and cricket teams. In between organising charity dinners he would scratch out an essay before dashing off to another match. Angus was offered a job with the Swire Group in Hong Kong before entering his final year. He was predicted to get a 2:1 but there was no pressure. With his winning Irish charm and a rounded sporting personality, the company wanted him anyway.
If only it were as easy today. Those halcyon days when students were an elite whose class of degree had little bearing on their career are gone. A study of Britain’s top multinationals has shown that even with the all-important 2:1, our graduates can no longer expect to walk into the best jobs. With 40 per cent of young people in higher education, the premium of a degree has dropped and a good class of degree has become critical. But while “ problem-based learning” still gives our students an edge in the global market, research has shown that degrees must also help them to become creative and innovative.
Yet with the demise of the grant for most students and tuition fees set to rise to £3,000 a year, more than half of undergraduates are working during term-time for an average of 13½ hours a week. Instead of playing sports or organising charity balls, students are poring over books or working to pay off debts. But now businesses are cautioning that this new hard-working ethic makes Jack a very dull boy who arrives in the job market without the basic social skills he needs. In February managers from Britain’s top 222 companies said that they did not expect to receive applications from graduates “with the correct skills” and were prepared, if necessary, to leave jobs unfilled. The reason, they said, was that today’s students spend too much time studying and not enough time joining clubs, where they might learn how to work in teams and give presentations. Poor spelling, grammar and arithmetic were also a problem. If students are not learning these skills in their leisure time, universities must build them into the degree course, managers say.
At the University of Southampton, the history department is doing just that. A compulsory second year module — the brainchild of Dr Adrian Smith — asks students to pick from subjects including “War and Chivalry in Tudor England” and “Cricket and Society in Hampshire”. They must then complete a 12-week project on their chosen subject as part of a six-person team. The assignment is worth a quarter of the year’s marks. Students learn how to write and research a long dissertation and develop leadership and presentation skills. Dr Smith says: “This shows that they have transferable skills that they will need in the workforce.” After three months they give a presentation, write a group thesis, a personal essay reflecting on their performance and carry out a “public service”, such as making a radio programme or teaching schoolchildren about their subject. James Harrop-Griffiths, 20, and his group focused on the role that the village of Hambledon played in developing the game of cricket. The project was invaluable, he says, for developing leadership and teamwork skills. “I’d have no fear now of going into a brainstorming meeting or working in a group.”
This year, four universities will offer degrees aimed specifically at small businesses that combine IT, business and project management. Professor Paul Hyland, director of history at the Higher Education Academy, says that traditional academic antipathy towards business is crumbling. “In the old days, universities regarded students as sheep processed through a factory farm,” he says. “Now, they realise that students must take away enduring life lessons from their studies.”
Industry’s cry for more value-added degrees to beat the competition from highly trained multilingual overseas graduates is a wake-up call to the UK’s 120 universities. The issue will become more acute with the introduction of top-up fees: school-leavers will be quicker to judge universities on the employment prospects they offer. Richard Wilson, head of business policy at the Institute of Directors, says his companies would welcome more courses like those at Southampton: “While grades indicate a level of commitment to a course, communication and presentation skills are equally important. If students can show evidence of taking on roles such as president or treasurer in university clubs, it will show that they are a rounded individual.”
Last month 45 top businesses were asked by the Council for Industry and Higher Education what they looked for in a new recruit. The most common answers were “innovation” and “the ability to think creatively”. Britain, they said, will never be able to compete with the volume of highly trained technical graduates from the Indian sub-continent and the Far East. However, while problem-solving remains at the heart of our university studies, a British degree will give graduates a lead in a rapidly changing world where innovation is key.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8159-2213468,00.html
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2006.07.23 17.26
YOUR RELATIONSHIP STYLE
The first step in discovering your best match is getting a clear picture of your own relationship style. Good or bad, your experiences with your parents -- in childhood and adulthood -- play a key role in establishing your relationship style and the kind of person who you're best suited for now. Based on your experiences, you will probably fall naturally into one of three categories:
Isolator: If you are an Isolator, you need a lot of personal space. Isolators minimize emotion, are often guarded and unconsciously push people away, keeping them at a distance.
Fuser: If you are a Fuser, you have an insatiable appetite for closeness and don't like being alone. Fusers crave attention and are sometimes described as clingy.
Ambivalent: If you are an Ambivalent, you are a little bit of both. Ambivalents like to pull away, yet they want to feel close at the same time. They can also be confusing and hard to read.
YOU ARE AN ISOLATOR
YOUR CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES
Your childhood experiences show that you are an Isolator. This means that as a child, you grew up in a family of loving parents -- who could also be described as overprotective at times. You were probably surrounded by a large, loving family and raised by very hands-on parents who doted on you.
However, there is a drawback to being given so much affection as a child. It may have been overbearing at times. In fact, your parents' good intentions may have been smothering, leaving you longing for your own personal space.
YOUR PERFECT PARTNER
Your perfect partner is actually your opposite type, a Fuser. You may have guessed just the reverse, that your best match would be someone who gives you all the space and freedom you crave. But "happily ever after" for you means partnering with someone who dotes on you, someone who shows his affection and expresses his emotions easily and often, much like your parents did.
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2006.07.22 21.18
The Five Love LanguagesMy primary love language is probably
Acts of Service
with a secondary love language being
Quality Time.
Complete set of results| Acts of Service: | | 11 | | Quality Time: | | 9 | | Physical Touch: | | 4 | | Receiving Gifts: | | 4 | | Words of Affirmation: | | 2 |
Information Unhappiness in relationships, according to Dr. Gary Chapman, is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. Sometimes we don't understand our partner's requirements, or even our own. We all have a "love tank" that needs to be filled in order for us to express love to others, but there are different means by which our tank can be filled, and there are different ways that we can express love to others.
Take the quiz
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2006.07.20 17.32
| You Are 44% Lady | 
You're part lady, part modern woman.
Etiquette is important to you, but you brush aside rules that are outdated or silly. |
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2006.06.14 21.17
| Greed: | Medium
| | | Gluttony: | Medium
| | | Wrath: | Very Low
| | | Sloth: | Medium
| | | Envy: | Medium
| | | Lust: | Very Low
| | | Pride: | High
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Take the Seven Deadly Sins Quiz
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2006.06.09 23.15
| You Have Low Self Esteem 16% of the Time | 
Which can be translated to mean, you have high self-esteem and a healthy sense of self worth.
You believe in yourself, and you know how to be the real you. You love yourself, imperfections and all. |
Your Seduction Style: Ideal Lover
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You seduce people by tapping into their dreams and desires.
And because of this sensitivity, you can be the ideal lover for anyone you seek.
You are a shapeshifter - bringing romance, adventure, spirituality to relationships.
It all depends on who your with, and what their vision of a perfect relationship is.
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2006.06.09 23.02
USATODAY.com
Not all successful CEOs are extroverts
Tuesday June 6, 11:33 pm ET
By Del Jones, USA TODAY
Chris Scherpenseel, president of Microsoft's 140-employee FRx Software subsidiary, is an amateur astronomer. "I hate to call astronomers lonely, but most people don't want to be up at 1 a.m. when it's cold outside," he says.
Alone is the way Scherpenseel likes it. So does his boss, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. But rather than being the exception, they have plenty of company among corporate brass in their preference for solitude.
It seems counter-intuitive, but introverts and closet introverts populate the highest corporate offices, so much so that four in 10 top executives test out to be introverts, a proportion only a little lower than the 50-50 split among the overall population age 40 and older.
There are many ingredients to success, and one of the most obvious has always been an outgoing, gregarious personality that lets fast risers stand out in a crowd of talent. But successful introverts seem to have mastered the ability to act like extroverts. Some liken it to an out-of-body experience that lets them watch themselves be temporarily unreserved. They remain introverts to the core, and if they don't get down time alone or with family, they feel their energy being sapped.
The list of well-known corporate CEO introverts reads like a Who's Who, starting with Gates, who has long been described as shy and unsocial, and who often goes off by himself to reflect. Others widely presumed to be introverts include Warren Buffett, Charles Schwab, movie magnate Steven Spielberg and Sara Lee CEO Brenda Barnes.
"I've always been shy," Barnes told USA TODAY in an interview early this year at her Chicago office. She turns down most speeches and nearly all interview requests. "People wouldn't call me that, but I am."
Former Sun Microsystems executive Jim Green, now CEO of Composite Software, has jogged the streets solo from London to New Zealand to recharge. SkyeTec CEO Chris Uhland was at a wedding recently where he snuck off by himself to watch golf on TV. His wife was not happy. Patricia Copeland, wife of former Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu CEO James Copeland, understands. She told USA TODAY three years ago that even at family get-togethers in Georgia, her husband will soon be found taking refuge in a book.
Copeland sent an e-mail of clarification last month from a ConocoPhillips board meeting in Houston. He says he is insecure in social settings, but enjoys other people when there's a problem to be solved.
"I tried to deal with my weakness" by being active in such endeavors as the United Way, he wrote. That seemed to work, but throw Copeland into a cocktail party and watch him squirm. "In purely social events, I just toughed it out and did the best I could."
Many CEOs rise from marketing and other arenas of extroversion. But they're just as likely to come from the finance or information technology disciplines. The software industry might have the highest proportion of CEO introverts, starting with Gates, says astronomer hobbyist Scherpenseel, who began as a certified public accountant.
Introverts say they succeed because they have inner strength and think before they act. When faced with difficult decisions, introverts worry little about what other people will think of them, Uhland says.
Although reclusive by nature, shy CEOs seem to have been making more than their share of news lately. When USA TODAY ordered up handwriting analyses two years ago of CEOs facing criminal charges, three different experts called former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling an introvert and inhibited loner. The other former Enron CEO on trial, Ken Lay, was often seen making small talk with strangers in the courthouse hallways. But Skilling typically restricted himself to speaking to his wife or his lawyer, Dan Petrocelli, who in his closing argument last month called Skilling anti-social. A jury convicted Skilling and Lay of hiding Enron's true financial condition from investors.
Another CEO to make headlines, William Swanson, says he was "extremely shy" when he first joined Raytheon as a young engineer. He rarely spoke at meetings, but rather scribbled notes of observations that he said led to his publishing decades later of Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management, a booklet recently discovered to be so plagiarized that the Raytheon board of directors denied him a pay raise.
Typing test
Research on introverts and extroverts in leadership goes back at least to World War II and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a personality test now given to about 2 million people a year.
Introverts are not shy by definition, but they become drained by social encounters and need time alone to recharge. Extroverts, on the other hand, are energized when with people and find time alone to be draining. Extroverts typically have many friends. Introverts prefer to know a few people well, which fits many CEOs who often say that it's lonely at the top and that they confide in a small circle of friends.
It's not fully understood why some people are introverts and others extroverts. The ratio is changing over time. CPP (formerly Consulting Psychologists Press) is the publisher of the Myers-Briggs assessment and has testing data going back 50 years. It plans to release research showing younger generations are becoming increasingly extroverted. Those born before 1964, including baby boomers, are split about 50-50 between introversion and extroversion, but 59% of Generation X (born 1965-81) are extroverted, as are 62% of Millennials (born after 1981).
Introversion might be partially explained by culture, genetics and upbringing. More men are introverts than women. Masatoshi Ono, who resigned as CEO of Bridgestone/Firestone during the tire scandal of 2000, lived in Nashville for seven years but was practically unknown even by neighbors when he returned to Japan. Avon Products CEO Andrea Jung told USA TODAY in a rare interview in 2000 that she is not shy, but grew up in a traditional Asian household and was, therefore, "reserved."
Jim Collins, in his 2001 bestseller Good to Great, was one of the first to dispel conventional wisdom that successful leaders climb to the top because they're naturally outgoing. He found that the most successful companies rarely had so-called celebrity CEOs, but rather had CEOs who were self-effacing and humble to a fault. Charisma was a handicap, he concluded.
A study of 2,300 people in 12 industries released last week by Cleveland human resources firm PsyMax Solutions looked at "sociability," or the ability to relate to others in a "highly-engaging, expressive and lively style," says PsyMax CEO Wayne Nemeroff. Extroverts would score high in sociability. "They're almost the same thing," Nemeroff says.
The median sociability score for division heads and vice presidents was 72.2, slightly higher than the median score for all workers. But sociability among the 242 CEOs was much lower at 57.9, suggesting that if sociability leads to early success, it may be an impediment to those trying to take the last step up the ladder, Nemeroff says.
A separate PsyMax study of 240 presidents, CEOs and chief operating officers found creativity to be the one trait most common to highly successful executives. Past research, not associated with PsyMax, has shown introverts to be among the most creative people.
The sociability study also found scores vary widely by industry. Those in the insurance industry scored a median 78.8. Those in research and scientific industries scored a median 18.4.
In just-published research in the Academy of Management Journal, lead author Brad Agle of the University of Pittsburgh uncovered little that would discourage introverts from aspirations of climbing to the top. The study followed 128 large companies for an average of 11 years and asked 770 top managers to rate their CEOs (some of whom are now former CEOs) on charisma. Among those examined were Dan Amos of Aflac, John Bogle of Vanguard, Paul Allaire of Xerox, Bill Marriott of Marriott, Christie Hefner of Playboy Enterprises, Robert Johnson of Black Entertainment Television, Wayne Huizenga of Blockbuster and Tony O'Reilly of H.J. Heinz. Confidentiality agreements prohibit Agle from saying which CEOs scored high in charisma. The study found that the charismatic CEOs make more money, but make no difference to corporate performance.
Charismatic and extroverted aren't precise synonyms, but there is a close association, Agle says. "You don't have to be this big, magnanimous, extroverted, charismatic CEO. I think my study is good news for introverts."
However, an unscientific online survey by TheLadders.com job site for USA TODAY of 1,542 senior-level managers making at least $100,000 a year found that only 6% think introverts make better CEOs, vs. 47% who say extroverts are better. A sizeable 47% say it makes no difference and that other factors matter more, but 65% say introversion is an impediment to climbing the ladder.
Shyness = wisdom?
In some organizations introverts might not rise because they are seen as uninspiring, but the same personality trait is embraced elsewhere as calm, unemotional and wise. Scherpenseel says he often stays quiet at meetings while others debate into exhaustion. When he finally weighs in, the room falls quiet with attention.
"Shyness, if you know how to use it, can masquerade as wisdom," says executive coach Francie Dalton. Effective introverts can get away with saying little, but they must speak up at some point, she says.
Introverts aren't necessarily reclusive. Vic Conant, CEO of motivational tape company Nightingale-Conant, says he's an introvert who enjoys cocktail parties as long as he gets to be the person asking, not answering, questions.
Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli sounded energetic during an interview with USA TODAY last month. Does it come naturally? "You just kind of develop it over the years. I don't think I was born this way," Nardelli says. Is he an introvert? "Even if I said I was, the first person you asked would say no."
Nardelli has dined with both Gates and Buffett and says he doubts if sitting home alone at night in Omaha reading annual reports is a sign that Buffett is an introvert. "I think he's just a passionate businessman. I think Bill Gates is the same. He's just a very enjoyable guy," Nardelli says.
SkyeTec, in the business of evaluating homes and buildings for mold and water damage, was the fastest-growing private company in Jacksonville when it surged from $1.4 million in revenue in 2003 to $7.2 million in 2004.
CEO Uhland says he brings a lot of energy to work and that most of SkyeTec's 100 employees will be "baffled" to read that he is an introvert. "In meetings, I look at myself and say: 'What are you doing?' It's not faking it. It's a skill I've learned," Uhland says in a phone interview from his car.
Given a choice, Uhland says he would prefer down time with his family. But he expects his receptionist to greet people with a smile even when she doesn't feel like it. Likewise, he attends cocktail parties and does interviews out of a sense of duty.
"No offense," he says, "but I'd rather be driving down the road listening to music."
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2006.05.04 19.39
Thich Nhat Hanh (L) and Dalai Lama (R)-
Buddhist monks/teachers.
Lee Kuan Yew-
Singapore's founding father and Plato's closest match to the latter's model of a philosopher-king; philosopher-kings are the hypothetical rulers of Plato's utopia Kallipolis. If his ideal city-state is to ever come into being, "philosophers [must] become kings…or those now called kings [must]…genuinely and adequately philosophize" (The Republic, 473c).
Hypatia-
Prominent philosopher, teacher, and mathematician who lived in Alexandria and in Hellenistic Egypt.
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2006.04.30 15.02
Hello, Chee Soon Juan! Kinda ironic you say that Singapore lacks free speech, considering that your book is on sale in bookstores here.
As written on the SDP webpage (http://www.singaporedemocrat.org/):
The Power of Courage:
Effecting political change
in Singapore through Nonviolence
write to
speakup@singaporedemocrat.org
Also on sale at
Select Books
Tanglin Shopping Centre
19 Tanglin Road
and
Kinokuniya Bookstore
Takashimaya S. C.
Orchard Road
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2006.04.30 01.42
schadenfreude: a German phrase that means to delight in the misfortune of others
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2006.04.29 19.11
Very nice to hear!
Vegetables Fight Global Warming
By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060424/veggies_pla.html?source=rss
April 27, 2006 — It turns out there's something anyone can do right now to make a big impact on global warming, says one climate researcher: Eat more veggies.
A new study of how much greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere by the production of food shows that the difference between a meat-based and plant-based diet amounts to the same as driving an SUV versus a small sedan.
The calculations are based on data and a basic ecological concept that have been around for decades, but no one had actually done the math.
"It's just never been done," said climate researcher Gidon Eshel of the University of Chicago. "The data is simply there to mine."
Eshel and colleague Pamela Martin have published their study in the current issue of the scientific journal Earth Interactions.
The ecological concept has been taught in biology classes for decades: As energy moves up a food web — from plants to grazing animals to predators — only about 10 percent survives each step. In other words, 100 calories worth of beef patty require about 1,000 calories of grain which, in turn, require 10,000 calories of sunlight.
So if you choose to cut out the middleman (the cow) and get your 100 calories directly from the grain, you only have to grow one-tenth as much grain.
Eshel and Martin gathered U.S. food statistics, along with other data on fossil fuel use by agricultural and personal transportation. Then they looked at how much greenhouse gas was generated by the production of food.
Among the ways food generates greenhouses gases is simply by the burning of fossil fuels to power all the farming equipment, trucking and processing plants. Eshel cites the U.S. Department of Energy, which reports that food production consumes more than 10 percent of all energy use in the United States.
More specifically, 17 percent of all fossil fuels went to food production in 2002, he reported. These numbers, plus information on other agricultural greenhouse gas sources, like methane from cows and animal wastes, helped the researchers hone their numbers to something they could fairly compare to auto use.
They found that an average animal-based American diet generates about 1.6 tons more carbon dioxide per person, per year, than an all plant-based diet with the same number of calories. And that, as it turns out, is about the same greenhouse gas difference between driving a Toyota Camry and a Chevrolet Suburban, said Eshel.
"If you are interested in doing something about global warming," said Eshel, "here is an excellent example."
"There is a real issue here," agreed climate researcher David Battisti of the University of Washington. "There's a huge issue."
The amount of carbon emissions at stake in the United States alone is approximately the same as that at the center of the hotly contested federal auto fuel efficiency standards, said Battisti. Worldwide, the stakes are even higher. The people of China, for instance, are steadily shifting to an animal product diet, he points out.
"Shifting all those people to an animal protein diet will have a cost," Battisti said. In fact in most places on Earth, when people can afford it, they prefer to eat more meat, he said. But we need to study and prepare for the environmental impacts, just as we've already done for automobiles.
"Don't look at only one term in the equation," said Battisti. "You have to look at the whole impact of humans on the environment."
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2006.04.26 19.23
With all due respect to My Heritage, I'm not sure if it's face recognition thang is entirely accurate:
Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder 2
Alfred Neuman!
I got Zhang Ziyi, and that should really make me happy hehe but I don't think this is accurate, aww! :(
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2006.04.15 18.12
From The Heart of Understanding by Thich Nhat Hanh:
"If you are a poet, you will clearly see that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. If we look even more deeply, we can see the sunshine, the logger who cut the tree, the wheat that became his bread, and the logger's father and mother. Without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist. In fact, we cannot point to one thing that is not here-time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat, the mind. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. So we can say that the cloud and the paper 'inter-are.' We cannot just be by ourselves alone, we have to inter-be with every other thing."
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2006.04.15 14.02
Seeing an ex-JC classmate go on to win second position in Miss Universe Singapore is very, very surreal. I can't quite put a finger on the feeling- it's a huge shift in mindset from classmate-to-celebrity. But I'm not really surprised by her win because she has always been a celebrity in her own way in JC. :) Congratulations Jade Seah!
http://www.msu2006.com.sg/jade.htm
First runnerup and Miss Photogenic
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2005.10.01 16.54
The Kraken by Tennyson
Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
badpet's journal