How to win a girl's heart

Step 1: Identify a cute girl



Step 2: Make sure she laughs at whatever you say


Step 3: Besides being cute, make sure she's witty as well


Once you have selected the girl, start on your winning-her-heart process!

Step 4: Write a very sweet poem to knock her over

Make sure she pins it up on her noticeboard so that she sees it everyday and is reminded of you(r sweetness)
Don't forget to accompany your poem with sweets and chocolates!


Once you have knocked her over, it's time to seal the deal -

Step 5: Write a song to declare your love for her



Step 6: Find the cutest teddy bear in the world



Step 7: Perform the song for her (even if you can't sing, the effort shows)



Step 8: Give her the bear + a nice card if possible



Step 9: Success :D




Step 10: Write a blog entry about it and spam disgustingly in-love photos to further disgust your friends





Oh, include a few retarded photos as well.







The End~

Moved!

I have moved to
http://alanzzzz.wordpress.com/

See you there!

[S] Early Development

After my exams, I will be trying to revamp my blog. Some things that I hope to do:

• Use a better layout (gonna ask the gf to help =X Wonder if she will haha)
• Update the sidebar ---->
• Add labels to as many (if possible, all) of my posts as possible. (e.g. humor, school, TV, etc)

I really love blogging, just that with Twitter and Facebook as more convenient alternatives (Twitter you can just microblog, and Facebook you just upload the photos and add captions, whereas in the past I would add photos and write stuff in a blog entry) it's hard to overcome the lazy nature in me to actually write a blog entry.

Anyway, I'm starting this new thing of 'mini blogs', which is something like a short thought I had that is too long to be expressed on Twitter. Yes, I know Twitlonger can probably accomplish the same thing, but I kinda want them to be archivable. These posts will be recognizable by the [S] in front of the title, meaning 'Short/small'.

Falling Below Second Upper Soon

I haven't been blogging for a while due to a number of reasons:

1. My blog inspirations normally arise spontaneously when I'm outside, and the idea usually can be expressed in a tweet. Hence I post it on Twitter instead of further developing it
2. I'm lazy to blog. Blogging takes time. Time is precious.
3. My blogger is tagged to my diabteo account, but my Gmail is tagged to my atqhteo Google account. Thus if I want to blog I have to sign out of my Gmail and sign in. (I've tried the multiple signins feature but it doesn't quite work somehow). Thus, additional trouble

I really do hope to blog more though, especially after exams! I definitely will be when I'm on exchange!

Speaking of exchange, I have rounded up the NUS people going to Boston University as well, all 6 of us. Three are PRCs, three are Singaporeans. Can't say I'm super pleased with that, but I'm trying to stay optimistic! Perhaps they are friendly, sociable, and easy to get along with. And most importantly, fun!
Unfortunately, atm only the girl from Arts seems to be fun and I can get along with. Sigh, we'll see how it goes.

Anyway, I have drifted far from the original purpose of this entry. I wanted to do some simple calculations for my predicted grades this sem. I think this sem will be my first sem using an S/U. I'm currently taking 2 modules that can be S/Ued, and I think I may S/U if I get a B or below.

I will do my module review after my last paper, as with every semester so far, but for now just some preliminary forecasting of my grades, without a full review.

My funny psych prof

It all began with this email which my lame Psych prof sent to all of us:

Beloved subjects,
Lo! How art thee? hast thou been hardworking? Thy notes for tis week onculture art up. Thou shalt seest all thee good comest from the notes. Thou shalt be earnest in printing them. alas!
Lord Lim of Yishun

Yes, these are his exact words. I have replaced his surname with 'Lim' in this entire post just for confidentiality's sake, but those who follow my more private Twitter account should know his real name.


I just got back my mid term test results a few days ago, and he did not reveal the median/mean, so I sent him an email to ask him about it.
And...

My email to him:

Dear Lord Lim,

I would like to seek thy grace in imparting me with the knowledge of our mid term test's Median/Mean. 

Thank you sire.

Your humble servant,

Alan

His reply:

hello humble servant,
it is not advisable for instructors to reveal. what is your score?
EL (his initials)

My reply:

Dear Lord Lim,
My score was 77. I shalt not disseminate to the other fellow commoners if that is thine wishes. I was just worried because my fellow commoners have obtained scores in their 80s and 90s and I was wondering how close to the gallows I was.
Thank you sire.
Your humble servant,

Alan

His reply:

hello alan,
I would just say that thy score is higher than average, not slightly higher, but moderately higher.
and I think you can give yourself a small celebration tonight ;)
EL

My reply:

Dear Lord Lim,
Thank you for thine kindness. Thine servant shalt return to his livestock and continue to plough the fields.
Your humble servant,
Alan

His reply

yes my humble servant,
have fun and chill tonight, before thou plough thy field :D

EL

Rofl. When you put 2 lame people together...

The IPPT (2)

As some of you may know, I previously failed my IPPT, and as a result I had to go for remedial training in the form of 10 sessions of 1.5-2 hour training at Maju Camp. :(

After these 10 sessions, you are supposed to take your IPPT again (on the 10th session), and this time they have 'modified' standards of passing which you are supposed to hit - if you attain these targets (or do even better and pass or get silver or gold), you have cleared your IPPT for the year. If you don't, you have to attend EIGHT MORE sessions of RT.

So after going through the hassle of 9 sessions, today was the day when I would be evaluated once again. It was time to take my IPPT again.

Attendance slips of the many remedial trainings I went for

My MLM Experience Part Two

This is the second part and sequel to my MLM Experience. If you missed the first part, do read it first before reading this second part.
My MLM Experience (Part One)



The Training


The next few days, I went down to the 'office' daily, just to hang out with J and B and also in hopes of getting some 'training'. J ran me through the general procedure:

First, you need to get your prospect to come down. Ask him out for a drink or a meal or something! Don't give too many details, just tell him it's flexible hours, good pay. If need to (e.g. he keeps questioning), just mention that it's a jewellery firm (which is partially true).

Next, when you've got him down, before you bring him to meet 'the boss' (this person basically is whoever is making the main pitch. In my case it was B, but for some of my future cases it was J who took over.), you have to 'build up' the boss. Talk about how much the boss is earning now, how talented he is, make it seem like casual talk but you're subtly promoting the boss and elevating him to a higher status.

The pitch begins, and you should be paying attention like it matters to you too. 'The boss' will eventually reach the climax and will pull out (HAHA INNUENDO INTENTIONAL) and it's your turn  to complete the pitch. Clear any doubts your friend has - most of the time it's apprehension, and share about how YOU also felt the same way and how easily you overcame it. The idea is that if your friend (you) can do it, so can you (him)! 

If the prospect does not seal the deal on the day itself, you must remind him NOT to tell his friends about it - and your rationale is that 'network marketing' has a stigma and people who don't understand it will slam it. (When the obvious reason is because network marketing IS bad and any rational person will tell you not to get into it)  

Learning these just took me a day, and I was encouraged to start calling up friends and asking them down. The thing I didn't like was after this, I was almost 'tossed aside' - they didn't provide me with much further guidance or interacted with me much.
I wasn't outright ignored, but I could sense the 'We've got you in, you have fulfilled your purpose' vibe. I ignored this, for now. Why do I need them when I can just 'close' my friends and get rich, right? 
(close = successfully persuade them to sign up, and they pay up)


Trying my Hand Out


The first person I talked to about it was bestie of course. It wasn't even a proper 'attempt', I just had dinner with her and told her over dinner what I had got myself into, and tried to explain it to her like how B explained it to me. I could tell she wasn't very convinced by my not-too-persuasive speech but she still 'believed' my conviction because she was my bestie. (I felt really bad about this later on)
She eventually agreed to come down and listen to J (but she didn't close, both because she didn't have the money and she wasn't convinced enough to come in. GOOD FOR YOU.)


My other attempts involved pewi, (if you're wondering how come I didn't ask my gf, it was because I didn't know her yet at that time ^^ ) and 2 other friends, let's call them Z and N. (These were the only people that actually came down)


I didn't manage to close because:
Pewi - wasn't interested in network marketing. He was never a very outspoken person to begin with.
Z - parents were involved before, with bad experience. Clearly wasn't interested halfway through the presentation already.
N - partially convinced, but didn't want to commit right away, chose to go home and consult parents, friends. Obviously backed out after that.


Thus, my success rate of closing 'prospects' was 0% !!! 


I think B and/or J could sense this feeling of failure in me, so they got their upline (without going into a full explanation of how network marketing worked, just take this to be their 'boss', the person that brought them in) to give me a pep talk, and he basically told me how he failed 27 times before 'closing' his first prospect, and now he was fetching 5 figures a month. (displays a dazzling diamond earring as some sort of vindication. B had one too)


I didn't like what I was becoming. I didn't have 'friends' anymore - everyone I knew became 'prospects' in my eyes. When I thought about every acquaintance and person I knew, I immediately assessed the probability of 'closing' them, and put in more 'social effort' to those who had higher probabilities. Every conversation with them was orchestrated to eventually slip into the pitch - 

'Hey, so you're quite free nowadays right? My company needs some part-time help, flexible hours, interested? Can come talk to my boss if you want" (The exact pitch isn't so direct, probably more spread out and natural in a conversation)

(I can still remember talking to multiple people simultaneously on MSN to try to achieve a higher efficiency rate)


My life revolved around trying to get people to come down to the office and have a chat with my upline(s). I was playing WoW at that point of time I believe, and thus I literally had no life - and didn't mind it.




How I Managed To Get Out


After a while, as you can predict, I didn't like it at all. It wasn't my cup of tea, trying to sweet talk people into parting with thousands of dollars. It seemed dishonest. Manipulative. Cunning. It went against all my personal values. The whole concept turned me off. I wanted out.


My lifeline came, ironically, from their greed. (Ironic because it was their greed that led them to pull me in - and it was the very same thing that was my ticket out)


A quick explanation of MLM  - Every 'member' of this MLM network has 3 downlines (basically a chain of people under you). Their aim is to build their downlines as much as possible, and this contributes to a recurring income. (You can talk to me personally if you want to know more, quite interesting really. You get fancy titles like 'Regional Manager' and 'Regional Director' upon hitting certain targets)


So I actually entered as J's downline I think, but from what I understood, B and J wanted to maximize their profits better, so they wanted to reallocate me to another person's downline. This meant that I had to submit an application for a refund of my $2000, and then re-enter under that other person. (Apparently you can refund within 2 weeks of joining or something like that)


YES. MY TICKET OUT. 


It wasn't an instant refund - I was told it was quite a long administrative process.




My Counter-Manipulation


Now, the thing is, I had two worries at this point of time:
Firstly, the refund was said to take weeks - I didn't know how long I could hide this from my mom. And the feeling of the $2000 hole in my pocket just SUCKS. I was dying a little every day. Second, I wasn't entirely sure if the refund would actually reach me - I was worried that my 'bosses' would basically be informed when the 'refund' was ready, and they could just make the switch to the other person's downline, and I would be entirely detached from the process.


I needed a Plan B, and hence I hatched a devious plan which basically required outright lying to my friend J. I felt, and still feel kinda bad for doing it, but... I could say they drove me to it. And my justification for it was that HE manipulated me first, and I was just counter-manipulating him. Plus, if this MLM thing was as lucrative as he promised when I entered, he would earn it back real quickly anyway. If it wasn't... He lied to me to get me in, I don't feel bad doing this at all then.


I developed a story of how furious my mother would be if she found out about this (she DID find out later on, and was understandably upset, but she's not the kind to be SUPER furious and want to disown me kind), and rushed J for the refund. I can't remember to what extent I exaggerated the story, but I know it got his attention. I then asked him if I could borrow money to put into my bank account - I mean, it's better to have $1000 missing than $2000. I actually aimed to borrow $2k, but that wasn't feasible.


My plan was simple - I would borrow this money, deposit it, and IF the refund came, I would return J his money, and refuse to put the $2k back into the new downline, but if the refund DIDN'T come, I would ask him to take his money from the company. (damn asshole right me!! I think it's quite an asshole move, but BO BIAN. I'm still ashamed of this today, but yea whatever.)


This actually worked - J lent me about $900 I believe.. I recall holding the $900 in cash (the most cash I've ever held), the thick wad of notes in my pocket, and quickly getting to a bank to deposit it. I thought to myself 'Oh well, at least I only lost $1.1k'. Better than nothing.


After almost a month I think, my refund DID come. I gladly transferred J's money back to him, and of course kept my $2k without putting it back in the company. They can go F themselves.




Final Evaluation


I was liberated - free - lesson learnt - whew. 


But, there was one tense moment though - after I got my refund, I told them that my mom found out and she was pissed and she locked my bank account, thus I couldn't put it back in yet. I didn't explicitly tell them that I wanted to quit (which I think was because I didn't want to make my counter-manipulation obvious.) 


And lo and behold, one fine day (it was night time actually) when I was going home, J was texting me asking to meet up (wants the $$ obviously), and I made the excuse that I was busy, and was heading home. 


Then upon arrival at my block... I actually saw J and B waiting at my house's carpark for me!! WTF!!


Yea my blood froze when I saw them from a distance, and I realized there was no avoiding them - their position had full view of the lift/stairs and there was no way I could get home without them seeing me. So I pretended not to see them and pressed the lift, and they saw me and quickly strode over and called me to chat for a bit.
(They probably got my address from the company records)


Basically they painted some sob story about how entire up/downline was having their pay suspended/delayed because my $$ wasn't back in yet. In my mind the whole time I was thinking 'SERVES YOU RIGHT. NO CHANCE IN HELL I'M COMING BACK IN'
Instead I just told them that my mom had my ATM card, it was futile, I couldn't get the money out, I'm so sorry (not), blabla. They even asked me to go up and ask her now, but I said she was sleeping already. 


I was sooo worried that they would want to come up and try to persuade my mom -_- That would be the worst. But in the end, seeing how I was not going to budge about it, I took my leave and left them to settle whatever problem they had. Good riddance!


Through this experience, I've learnt to be less gullible, less trusting of even my closest friends, and of course never ever to dabble with MLM / network marketing ever again. I was one of the lucky ones to get out with my money - I knew of at least 2 other friends who were in MLM but eventually quit as they were clearly not succeeding, but never got their money back. 


Never again. 

Psycho Douchebag

I am a drama magnet.

Well, at least when it comes to group projects. I seem to attract the weirdest and most complicated group members in my projects in school.

If you have not read about my experience last year with my SEA group, do check it out here.

This post is about my philo group this semester, and the drama that has occurred.