rant on group work

Ok I have to blog this. It's a long rant and may not be coherent so.. up to you if you want to read on. I'll spare you with a page break.

I hate group work.




I've never been a fan of group work since JC. When I did my Project Work in JC, I was pretty much a passive person and let the leader of the group take charge and just assign me my job. Back then, I was still passive, and didn't really know how to work in a group I suppose.

After I went through army, I guess it brought out the leader in me and I developed my hidden leadership skills (haha) No seriously, I became alot more proactive and willing to lead and speak in a group kind of thing in army.  People often say army is a waste of time. Well, though I don't refute that point, army was a period of self-discovery for myself.

ANYWAY that is a topic for another day. My point is, I became more assertive, more directive, and more confident in leading something, anything.

With that in mind, why am in a dilemma often when it comes to group work?

On one hand, I have experienced people who have no initiative at all - everyone just sits around and waits for something to happen. And if you know me, I'm the kind of person who HATES that. I can't stand procrastination it drives me crazy. I'll want to get things done fast so I can rest / play after that. Not the other way round.
Thus in all my groups I'm usually the person who sends everyone SMSes, goes 'hey guys, our deadline is like, erm , tomorrow, let's get off our butts and do something now". No wait, I'm ALWAYS that person. Why?
I want a group where I can just sit back and let someone else kickstart things.

On the other hand, having people who are too assertive is a problem. Imagine a group discussion:
Me: So how about we do this this this.
X: No but I think that that that is better
Y : How about this that this?
Z : But I think That this That that is better!

Do you see how it is a problem. Some people in army have termed this the 'JC Student' phenomenon - JC students tend to want to discuss everything instead of just doing it, hence wasting time.

In group discussions like these, there needs to be someone to be directive and in a sense LEAD the discussion. That person has to help everyone come to a consensus, to create compromises for everyone, and more , to help the discussion progress.

And I'm always this person!
Not that I don't like it, I've developed quite some skill in it if I may say so. I can get everyone to settle on an idea, on one route, while being able to make it seem to them like THEY were the ones who came up with the idea (or supported the idea) by incorporating bits of their contribution in. Aiya basically, it's man management la I just put it in a very negative way haha.

You know what the problem is? I can't NOT be that person. Because when I have an idea, I'll be reluctant to let it go and do something else. So if someone else steps up and says 'hey lets do this instead' ill be quick to rationalize why mine is better, etc.
And this is not being defensive of my own ideas, sometimes my 'idea' can be simply to support someone else's contribution. And I'll vehemently stick to it.

I think so far it has been working for me because none of my groups has that same 'power' person. I'm not saying noone else has the 'leadership ability' that is something entirely different. I'm talking about having that stubborn persistence about my personal beliefs, and the desire to influence others to conform to it.
If ever I have a group with such a person, I think I'll fail that project.

Thus, I prefer to just work alone. Working alone, I decide the course, I decide the workload .

OH talking about workload, another annoying thing about groupwork is this tendency to want to have division of labor. While a division of labor is good, sometimes it is counter-productive.
A simple illustration:
Me: "Ok, we need to send this file to the prof"
Eager-to-divide-workload-member: "OK OK erm alan you type the title, then you send to me, then i type the group number, then i send to X, then X compose the email, then Y send the email to prof ok!"

...
Basically, some tasks are actually much better (and possibly quicker) when performed by an individual (or fewer people) , but because of the mindset that workload has to be divided, sometimes this tasks are unnecessarily divided.

Case in point, I was having a discussion with one of my project groups tonight and while discussion, I was typing up the proposal which was basically what we were discussing. Basically, multitasking la. Then we finish discussing I was almost done with it (It's a short proposal, not a long one) then someone asked
"Ok shall we now divide the workload?"

Me: " ??? I'm almost done"

And they were all like omg alan why u do everything etc but the thing is COME ON it's just a small portion it's not like I took 29387 hours to write that 1 page of what we have been discussing for the past 2 hours. There's no need to split everything -_-


OK this is a very long and incoherent rant and if you have read to this point you are either very free or you are very free. Happy valentine's day eve eve eve eve eve

Why my iPhone rocks.

(this post was written on 5th Feb)

FINALLY.

FINALLY.

After 21983721 years and 1298372 months and 91284712 days and 9128312 minutes and 12937123 seconds.... I have got my iPhone!!

Was supposed to get it on Feb 3rd, which was my recontract eligibility date, but because of CNY all Singtel shops are closed! zzz. Thus, I could only get it today, when Singtel shops were open once again.Ok I'm going to rant here for quite abit, to skip it just skip over the blue text and proceed to the more interesting part.

I was quite lucky that the first shop that I asked was the hello! shop at Bugis, and they told me that they restocked everyday. Every other shop that i've been to all said 'no idea when restock'... useless. Either they are ultra popular and so they get funneled alot of iPhones or their store manager has some tactic like store iPhone don't sell all till soldout so that everyday can 'replenish'.


So this faithful day of Feb 5th, I went to Bugis at 10+, since the shop opened at 11, I figured I'll go earlier and can confirm myself a quick spot. I reached there at 10.15, and there were already 6 people in line!! Ridiculous. And by 11, the queue was like 20+ people long. Lucky I went early!


So anyway the salesman managed to persuade me into signing a MioTV home plan... but it's mathematically sound I swear! We sat there for at least 30 minutes calculating and letting me think and re-calculate and I don't see how it's not beneficial. I'm lazy to show you the math here so you can ask me about it. 


OH YA I also only found out then that if you re-contract your line, you have to topup $300 to buy the iPhone! Ridiculous. He said it was since last year October implement -_- I thought only $100.(which was the case last time) And apparently by signing the new Mio home plan, I don't have to pay this $300! 


Ok the rest of this post is about WHY I wanted the iPhone so baddd.

1) Combined MP3 + Phone
No more having to carry 2 separate devices and feel the bulge in my pockets! Super convenient!


2) AWESOME GAMES

Henhouse!

Angry Birds!

Cut The Rope!

And there are many more games that I've played like Plants vs Zombies, UnblockMe, Anterim Escape, Cause of Death (fun ! wanna play volume 2!) and i have like at least 5 new games that i've DLed via iTunes that I've yet to try!!

Ok I realized that all my games were reset so I've to play everything again! zomg. I don't think I can play through Angry Birds all over again ><  Yea don't think I will unless I'm REALLY bored. It's not THAT fun it's just for achievement and I completed it already so I've achieved it before so yea.

3) Easy access to Twitter!

Can Tweet alot more and easily! 

It's super convenient I tell you, you can just take a picture from your iPhone and immediately tweet it. Don't need to upload to any site, shorten the URL or anything - The app does it for you! You can even upload videos!!

4) Easy access to Facebook

Haha same thing la, can upload stuff super easily, when take photos can immediately upload on facebook already! win win .

I'm so gonna be a social networking whore from now on. Well, I won't camp Facebook la I'm not that kind. Probably SPAM Twitter/FB more like it hahaa. fun fun fun.

5) HD recording + clear pictures

The camera is just 5MP, but the pictures it takes are pretty good! And video as well! Ok this video was not uploaded in HD, I'll try that next time! Anw this video is just to thank pewi haha

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE4vOnwugtQ]

6) Next bus!

No more not knowing how long bloody 10 is going to take! With the next bus app, i'll know exactly how long the bus is going to take to come! Awesome much!

SG Nextbus  - one of the apps that tell you how long more a bus will take to arrive

7) Battery information 

Ok I've been a long-term user of Nokia... I think out of the.. 6? or so phones I've had, only one was a Sony ericsson (C902, which i LOVED. but .. lost it. ) and the rest were Nokia. 

One well-known bug/problem that Nokia refuses to fix is the battery display - It always stays at 100% for very long, then when it starts dropping, it drops very fast.

If you didn't understand what that meant,

Time spent at 100% - 4 hours

50% - 2 hour

25% - 1 hour

Something like that. So the actual situation is like when it's at 100%, it may actually be at 80% or less already.

That makes it super irritating la! But the iPhone more or less accurately displays your battery information! So you will know exactly how long more you have left (Well not EXACTLY, because how fast your battery life depletes also depends on what activity you're performing, but ROUGHLY la ok.)

And one random thing I learnt while doing my pre-purchase research - You know when you buy a new phone then you'll receive the conventional advice of 'your first charge should be 6-12 hours' (actual number varies on whoever gives you the advice)
Guess what - this is extremely outdated advice.

Here's a link to an article that explains very clearly why you DON'T have to do so with Lithium-ion batteries, which have been around for quite a long time already. Let me quote the most important part:

Lithium-ion is a very clean system and does not need priming as nickel-based batteries do. The 1st charge is no different to the 5th or the 50th charge. Stickers instructing to charge the battery for 8 hours or more for the first time may be a leftover from the nickel battery days. 

You do NOT have to charge your phone for a longer time for the first charge. YUPP.


And I found out that you can actually charge the iPhone anytime you want, don't have to like wait till the battery drains out then charge (to try to prolong batt life or whatever) because that's just the way Lithium-ion batteries work! This info is from Apple's website so it's official and credible. You don't believe I can link you.




__


Eh ok la I tired already and you're probably tired of reading so HAHA k bye. Oh ya if you play Words With Friends add me ! My nick is crAzerk

Breaking Even

Although I don't like how American Idol has shifted its focus to try to milk the backstories of the contestants more (bring back Simon Cowell any day man... wtb more talent too), this back story was quite amazing.

Oh, he sings pretty damn well too. I would download listen to his songs!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elaXeN15isM]