Went to visit a physiotherapist today, her diagnose was: I have an Achilles Tendonitis. I thought the visit would only last for half an hour, but I ended up staying there for about an hour.

I was asked to do some exercise and stretches, she also did a little massage on the heel.

She noted that my calves muscles are really tense and that’s due to my laziness in stretching. I used to incorporate stretch in my exercise, but I haven’t done much this year, since I have to switch my gym sessions to early morning and in a very limited time: 6am - 7am.

The other thing that she noted was my lack of balance. So she asked me to stand on this equipment that shaped like a see saw and I basically have to keep standing without falling down. It’s very hard. Also I doubt I can do this at home since I don’t have the apparatus.

Interesting quote from the link above (emphasis mine):

Achilles tendonitis is a common overuse injury that tends to occur in middle-age recreational athletes.

Middle age!!! Argh, so it’s true I am getting older!

I will have a week off this week. I am quite looking forward to it, I hope I can spend more time with Lina and to lesser extent with Jet.

I must restrain myself from doing too much thinking, reading (got few books on design patterns that I would really love to read), architecting and coding during this week, I actually planned to take my SCJP exam during this break, but since there has been some development in my work situation, I think this exam can wait.

Some of things that I plan to do:

• Go to see a physio and have my right foot looked at. DONE
• Have a Chinese massage DONE
• Perhaps buy parts for my new PC DONE
• Go to La Perouse DONE
• Convert Why Not series to MP3s
• Make blog posts or articles of some sort, out of Why Not series, perhaps in Indo so that I can send them to my family
• Try out that 85 derajat cafe. DONE
• Do lots of cleaning up and throwing out/giving away things. Sort of DONE.

I sort of finished reading What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-hunters and Career-Changers by Richard Nelson Bolles few days ago. I read the 2006 edition.

I think this is the most comprehensive and useful book in job hunting that I have ever read. Given that fact, please bear in mind that my reflection upon my first reading below will not do the justice to the book. It’s an excellent book let me start by stating that, you owe it to yourselves to at least have a quick read through it as I have.

In the early chapters, the author contrasts ways that job hunter’s preferred ways to find jobs and employers’  preferred ways to hunt for employees. Richard shows that often job hunters think that mass sending their resumes is the effective way to hunt for jobs, however employers’ most preferred ways of hiring is through hiring from within and/or through colleagues or contacts.

I said earlier that I sort of finished the book, but I cheated, because I didn’t really do the exercise in the book. The exercises are to determine:

1. What skills you enjoy most using?
2. Where do you want to use your skills?
3. How do you find the person who will hire you for the job that you are looking for?

The best thing I got out from first reading of the book is, I am reminded that I have a lot of choices in terms of careers/jobs (this is particularly true as I’m blessed enough to live in Australia, I can’t help but thinking will not be the case if I were to live in poorer countries).

One practical advice that I want to follow is: talk to the people in the company before deciding to take a job. As a job hunter, we should screen companies before we join the company not after joining. My other personal take after reading this book, when looking for a job instead of hitting the job boards like SEEK, etc2, it will be far better if you research and compiled a list of companies that you want to work for and talk to people who work there.

The bad thing about this book is in a way it promotes self centeredness, it is all about me and my happiness, it is about what job I want to do, where do I want to live etc2. The author is highly optimistic that everyone can find the career that they want by utilizing the techniques described in the book, I however don’t believe that as there are things that you just can’t control in life (for example: you might live in a poor country, you might have mental disability etc2). Also from the Christian’s perspective, it is not that awfully important for someone to have that "perfect career" in his/her life.

The author ends the book with a chapter on finding your mission in life, in which he explains the spiritual side of work. He shares how his faith in God as a Christian shapes his attitude towards work and job hunting. To be honest, I gave this chapter a cursory glance, especially as I myself am a believer so I already have some understanding how my relationship with God shapes my career or my work. Another reason why I didn’t read it in details is because I am uncomfortable with some of his conclusions. 

As mentioned earlier, this book is content heavy, I should read this again on between jobs, it would make more sense then. I definitely want this book on my bookshelf as reference.

If you are a Christian, read this book for its practicalities (again very excellent book in this matter) but not for its philosophies (although the author claims that he’s a Christian himself).

This is the 16th book I read this year.

It used to be a simple task for me, but now it’s getting more complicated to the point that I have to enlist the help of accountant to do it properly.

This year’s complexity mostly caused by my purchase of AGL few years ago. Sometimes down the line AGL bought Alinta, so I then own 2 shares of AGK (the new code for AGL) and Alinta. But not long after that Alinta was sold to Babcock and Brown and in returns I’ve got another 5 different shares! What a mess! I sold them all.

Anyway, my point of this post is, there’s got to be a better way to do Tax Return. If you think about it, in Australia, you’d have to supply Tax File Number (TFN) for a lot of occasions like opening term deposits, bank account, managed funds or buying shares. So why can’t the government just gather information from the financial institutions based on this TFN? Sure, we cannot trust any automated process just like that, but wouldn’t be nice to have a centralized automated system that work out roughly how your Tax Return should look like and then you can do your own homework to double check the correctness of it. 

This manual process (and paper based) of doing Tax Return is quite annoying to be honest, I spent a lot of time keeping track of dividend payments, deductions etc2.. There’s just got to be an easier way of doing this.

I just finished reading The Greatest Networker in the World by John Milton Fogg (the link will take you to the author’s website). Again I picked up this book from my company’s library.

I thought this book was about how to build people and contacts. But it’s actually more about Network Marketing, or more commonly known as Multi Level Marketing (MLM).

The book was written in the style similar to Rich Dad Poor Dad, whereby the author was fortunate enough to meet and then be coached by this highly successful individual, the best in the field who happens to love sharing his knowledge, this individual is aptly titled "The Greatest Networker in the World" (akin to the Rich Dad in Kiyosaki’s book).

The author’s main point seems to be: to be successful you need to change your habits of belief, replace the old and bad habits with the ones that will help you achieve what you want, for example: if you keep on believing you are fat, that you will stay that way, instead you need to change the beliefs with what will your life looks like if you are slimmer.

The author goes on great details describing the networker’s perfect life: big house, nice cars, horses, great & happy family, a Japanese house maid (who happen also to be his no 1 distributor in Japan) and how in the end the author can achieve the same thing (in the epilogue John mentioned that he bought the networker’s house). Describing extravagant success in details seem to be the norm for this sort of book and the author seems to suggest that success in life can only be measured in what one can gain materially. 

I guess it wasn’t a fruitful reading for me as I am not really into MLM much anyway although Lina was doing it a bit before. But it was short reading and an enganging one so at least I learn a little bit about writing. Would I recommend this book? Heck no, unless you are doing MLM yourselves.

And that my friend was the 15th book finished this year.

I noticed starting the last year or so, my physical recovery time has been getting longer. Sunday sport has taken more toll on me than before, I think my reaction has been tad slower as well. 

I am quite happy with my current form, I have been able to be more consistent with the weights. I think I’ve got a routine that works for me, although I am thinking of re-orientating my workout to include more core exercises which focus on stability and balance rather than strength/muscle building, but I don’t know how to do that yet, got to read up.

One sign of getting older is this annoying pain on my right ankle area since few months ago. I am not sure what’s causing it,I’ve got a feeling the one Sydney basketball meetup that I went to few months ago, might have something to do with it, but it could also due to other things like incorrect running technique. The pain has prevented me from running too long on treadmill, which is quite disappointing as running is definitely THE aerobic exercise for me. I have been doing elliptical instead, but it’s just not as satisfying.

I think a visit to physio is long overdue.

I just finished reading The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell recently. I borrowed the book from my company’s library.

I’ve listened the audio book of the original Five Love Languages which is directed for couples. This book is a spin off from that.

I’ve learned a great deal from the original book. Especially I found the categorizing how people want to be loved into these 5 languages making the abstract nature of love to be more understandable (and actionable). I was also aware that the concept can be easily transferable to different groups of people (ie not only to your spouse). 

So naturally I am excited reading "the children version" of the book. I did find it to be helpful and practical. For example, from the section on punishing the children, Gary and Ross suggested that parents should first of all assure that child felt loved (making sure his/her "love tank" full) before delivering the punishment. They also suggested against using the primary love languages as a mean to punish children, for example: if a child’s primary language is physical touch, then punishing the child physically might have a more detrimental effect than intended. Some other useful points include:

• Age and sex determine the appropriateness of showing your love, example: if have a boy whose primary language is physical touch, when he comes to his teenage years, refrain from showing your love physically in front from his friends or in public.
• If you are a single parent, seek help from your church or community, especially when your child is entering the teenage life, which he might withdraw himself from you.
• Use persuasion/request, command, gentle physical, punishment and behaviour modification in that order.

I found the authors have communicated the true sense of love quite strongly in this book, that is: love is all about the other person. You want to learn how to communicate love to your children for their sake not your own. The same message I also found from Gary’s original book.

I think the book can be made more concise, by cutting down the testimonies and stories, I just found them repetitive and too many. Although this book I think was intended for parenting in general, the authors being Christians themselves, they communicated how their faith made an impact on their understanding of love. They quoted some Bible verses to show how some of the points are supported by the Bible. I applaud the efforts from Christian authors writing to not necessarily Christian audience to do this. However I found that the usage of the Bible passages is often out of context (although I can’t remember an example and I have returned the book, but most of these out of context quotations were from the Old Testament).

I would strongly recommend this book for parents. It’s all about knowing your children better and then love them in the way that they understand best.

Book 14 finished!

Side note, I am also reading What Colour is Your Parachute, which is a very2 good and thorough book on career in specific and life in general. I think I need to buy this book (currently borrowing it from library) as the vast material in it needs to be digested slowly perhaps in the span of months. I think now my reading time would be taken by my SCJP Exam prep, so i won’t be able to finish too many books.

Well, it is getting easier, I wasn’t in tears as often as last year. Perhaps I can now move on a little bit. Instead of focusing on the sadness, perhaps I can think of the good times (and the bad times) spent with my dad. Below are random memories and reflections.

Having read (or listened to) the 5 Love Languages, I gained a better insight of myself. I think my primary languages are words of affirmation and physical touch. My dad definitely not a touch-y person. I wonder what his primary languages are, perhaps one of them is act of service, thinking how mom making sure everything is in order for him, he is quite particular in some of the things.

I remember he had a favourite chair in the living room. He strongly prefers that no one sit on it, especially our guess’. He always wipe the chair with his handkerchief (or maybe lap) before his sitting on it. When he got home from work or tennis, he’d sit there and read his newspaper.

I remember when I was little (maybe SD) I used to sleep on the same bed with my dad. And apparently he didn’t like it much, since I often pushed him to the edge of the bed (unconsciously of course!). I also remember that I often fall asleep watching TV (either on the floor or on my mom’s bed) and he had to carry me to my bed which was on the other room.

Finished reading this book sometimes last week. It’s the story of the most successful Turtle traders, Curtis. You’d heard of the story of Turtle traders if you are into trading.

Usually trading books are full of charts and formulas, so I am bit surprised by the simplicity of the methods outlined in this book. The trading system that Turtle uses is quite simple but Curtis assert that Trend Following system requires a very large fund to start with as you have to consistently follow every signals as well as be involved in several markets (he’s thinking $100k is a bare minimum).

Not sure whether I gained anything practical from the book since I no longer trade.

Book no 13 finished.

I had my 29th birthday yesterday. This year it was a little bit different as I was away at Engage Conference 08 with a bunch of Pelita people.

It was very nice of them getting me cake and all that. Thank you.

Usually me and Lina would go out on a date on my birthday, this year I think our date will be touring the Doulos ship. She’s very excited about it, I don’t know anything much about Doulos but I’m keen to find out more about them.

I also ha’ve been thinking about what should I blog about this birthday. I think I have written down some ideas/points, I just need to make sure that I do get it written.. Otherwise I’ll just settle with this uninspiring post..