随心笔：平静

这城市太过拥挤，

容易让人情绪混乱，

这节奏太过急促，

容易让人透不过气。

混乱，让人心烦，

郁闷，让人窒息。

松一口气，也像在叹气。

嘘一口气，也像在抱怨。

别放着不管，

幸福就在一念，

业障，也在一念。

让自己平静。

放空自己。

本无一物，何来尘埃。

大我，小我-无我

无物，载物-万物

随心笔：心魔

心魔是不受控制的情绪。

七情六欲全被倍数放大，

但只有当事人清楚眼前的战役，

周围的人根本看不到。

为什么看不到？不是放大了吗？

因为害怕被发现，所以隐藏，

越怕，越藏，越可怕。

越能控制自己情绪的“知者”

心魔越是入侵。

喜怒不形于色的人，内外不一，

失调，心魔生。

你找不到他，他不常出现，

他也躲，躲在你的死穴，藏在你的心结。

他寄生在你放不下的东西。

倘如你什么都能放下，心魔则无可遁形。

你放不下什么？名还是利？

为什么没有“名”，没有“利”的人，都放不下。

放下与否，就在一念，嘘...别让他苏醒

随心笔：蒙蔽

双眼被蒙蔽了，

什么也看不见。

世界黯然无光，

暗得连一步也去不敢向前。

前面会是更深的鸿沟吗？

失足后，怎么办。

双眼被蒙蔽了，不等于太阳消失了。

不向前走，怎么知道前方是什么？

别哀嚎。拿下眼罩吧。

别一直留在黑暗中。

Radom thoughts: Sillyinvestor INc 1H intern report

Chairman Message:

1H of 2016 is volatile, market first went through a correction with no apparent reasons in January and February, It is then when we get busy and bought ST Engineering, CMPH (Which is going to be delisted) and Venture. We also sold Cogent during the first Quarter. It turned out that the correction is what it is, and we made a good trading paper profits on those trades. Cogent was sold at a price of 45cents for a 30% profits but the profits would have been double had we hold. We made silly mistakes but we moved on.

2nd Quarter is famous for its Brexit event. We went 50% cash to take opportunity of market weakness. However, the market instead rallied and we have been scratching our head. Nonetheless, we felt that it is too early to say Brexit is a non-event, we instead feel that Market will priced in the uncertainty sooner or later. In going for cash, we decided to take loss for Sembcorp Industries and also Contra Loss for Silverlake axis

We have decide to include cash in our portfolio calculation hence forth.

Outlook:

Outlook is uncertain. Nothing much has happened to warrant the rally in the market except for the fact that Fed might hold off interest rate hike. We expect the market to be volatile with higher probability to the downside and has positioned ourselves to take opportunity of that when it materialized.However, we do not pretend to have in possession a working crystal ball and we react according to market circumstances.

Operation Review:

We have invested $51450 into equity but market value is only $49485. It is a 3.9% loss if we liquidated everything. Cash for investing stand at  $26000.

Dividends received for first half is about $2700. The dividends received are from Sembcorp Industries, Venture, MIT, A-Reit, LMIR, Lee Metals, Accordia Golf trust and CMPH.

Trading profits is $890. Much of the profits was offset by taking loss on Sembcorp Industries. Profitable trades include CMPH, FSL and Cogent.
Total cash returns over total asset value is $3590/$77459 is 4.6%.

Online Ad Revenue figure is negligible. I am too ashamed to report the figure to you.

Financial statement:

Investor relation:

The founder and director, greenrookie, has been able to inject cash of various amount into the company due to better cashflow management after taking up a tuition assignment. We hope our founder will continue to have faith in the fund and continue to inject cash into our company.

Random story: Game of life

Everything is computerized in the transist area. 

All the souls are awaiting to go through the portal to be reborned. They hold out their palms to be scanned. 

---------

Karma points: 187

---------

Do u wish to redeem your karma points? 

Brandon decided to key "No" and he left. He knows he will be reborned in the realm of humans and is not particular.

I went up to the machine. I clicked "yes"

Please decide which area would u like to allocate points to:

1) Loved ones 

2) Health

3) Career

4) Wealth 

5) Intelligence 

6) Wisdom 

7) Courage

Hmm... 

How should I choose? Maybe add some points to wisdom. Hey! Why is my wealth bar so low to begin with? Maybe I will add to wealth bar? 

I don't want to be born too poor. Ok. I will leave some next life. Just increase my wealth score. I Clicked "ok"

------------

Democracy has catch up with the afterlife. While the realm is pre-determined, souls have options to choose how to spend their karma points or accumulate for upgrade to another realm. 

------------

The maker asked the engineer to analyze the trend of choices of the souls. 

The results were as follow:

Those with high scores or scores within striking distance of an upgrade usually leave the points intact for accumulation. 

Those with lower scores usually redeem their points.

For those who made their choices, the order of preference is: 

Health, wealth and loved ones. 

Suddenly the system flash and an alarm went off! The engineer panic. It seems there is a virus affecting the attributes, whatever choices the souls made, have their scores mixed up. The engineer tried fanatically to restore the system.

No worries no worries, the engineer told the maker, I have a back up! I can restore the system. 

The system was restored. It seems only one attribute was not affected by the virus. 

The maker saw the report and smiled.he said: As I expected, technology also followed the law of nature. No worries 

He gave the engineer a pad. The engineer shouted: I will

Improve it so that it will not happen again.

The marker didn't say anything.

It will always happen.

Random thoughts: Forced Savings?

I have heard of this term rather frequently.

Basically, we forced ourselves to put aside a sum of money so that at the end of duration, we got some money saved up. 

Buying university insurance plan is one of the most commonly utilized "forced saving" which is through an endowment plan. 

Recently, my wife ask my sis for endowment plan, I ask her why is there a need to do that, since she is investing under my advice. I told her I am confident of beating the 2% guaranteed rate and the project rate is 4%, which is not a tall order for me too. 

She thinks it is more secure and it is a form of risk spreading. I am fine with that,  and she ended off with saying "forced saving" ma. 

Case number 3, I had a close friendwho stayed   with in-laws, rented out their HDB, and hoot a 1.5 mio private property at a prime place.

He is very capable, and already communicated with her wife that the unit will be sold in 10-15 years time (depending on market) and they will downgrade to HDB resale again to free up the cash. This is their mid-life crisis plan, an option to downgrade, and having lived in a nice private property in their lifetime. 

He believed the odds for capital appreciation in 10-15 years time is very high, but if the sale value just break even, so be it, take it as forced saving lor. I do think he is plan is rather sound, but I have issue with the loose use of "forced savings"

It seems "forced savings" is becoming more and more like an koyo to sell something ... And people actually buy that.

Hmm... For my wife case, if she is so afraid of risk, just do VC to CPF and transfer it to SA. Same same what, paid 10, roll over 10 years. Almost 55. The excess of MS can be taken out. 4% guaranteed some more, no need projection.

Wonder why dun believe me... LOL

Random thoughts: Putting ourselves in others' shoes?

I think we have all heard the above phrase before. 

Can we? Really?

If we can't see ourselves clearly. We can't.

Recently, my wife and MIL have been trying very hard to console someone close to them to snap out of her depression and her negativity.

Usually the person get on my MIL's nerves by being too negative and grouchy. While I feel that her predicaments are largely due to her own earlier actions, I cannot quite agree with some of the comments made by my wife and MiL.

When we are low in our life, some of us wallow in sorrow for a while and stand up. But there are others who cannot wake up.

I dun agree that she is depressed and sucidal, but I do think she is sick mentally and she need help. 

I tried cajoling her to do chanting at temple and borrow books for her to read. No use. I told my MIL to advise her to see a counsellor whom I know. I think she is mentally sicked. 

While I believed my MIL have good intentions, her words are neither hardly kind enough for one to feel love or harsh enough for one to wake up. And they complain loudly why is she like that. Having being through a rough period, I am not sure if myself, or my MIL or my wife can be any better if they are in her shoes? I should not take so long to snap out of it, I think.

Easy to say, difficult to put oneself in other shoes.

When I was 6 or 7, I remembered my brother having fever in the middle of the night. All the clinics were closed and my mum brought me and my brother to walk all the way to balestiar to see a 24 hour parkway hospital. 

When told consultation fees after mid-night is $60, my mum left without allowing my bro to seek treatments and scolded him harshly.

I felt that my mum dun love us enough and was very stingy with money.

It was only very recently, when I walk past the building again, and recalled this incident again ( dun ask me why).

I suddenly understand. She might not have $60 with her then. She must be very frustrated with the situation and not knowing how to manage it, ended up scolding my brother.

If I have no money for my son to see a doctor, I think I will feel super miserable. 

It took me 30 years to put myself in her shoes.

Who said empathy is easy 

Common traits of an effective teacher

Having the advantages of being in 2 schools and also in the vantage position of able to observe lessons of different teachers in action, I think I can start to see some common traits of highly effective teachers. 

By "Effective", I mean able to value-add in terms of marks. It is scientific and easily tracked, but I am not discounting the intangibles. So here go.

1) systemic approach with the end in mind.

All teachers have an approach to writing, reading, or whatever skills u are talking about. It's never about a lesson, it's about the year. There are various milestones to achieve, the work done by pupils are progressive and structured. 

2) Practicality trumps innovations. 

It might be counter-intuitive here. U don't see these teachers pursuing "flavors of the month", going for rara showmanship. One of them told me very bluntly, I use no ICT for my graduating class, very minimal unless mandated. She teaches a spectrum of pupils, both high progress and low progress, and are able to produce excellent results for any group.  

This is not to say these group of teachers are not receptive to feedbacks. To begin with, they would have given much thoughts to a lesson or a concept. When u give valid feedbacks, they are excited and adapted very quickly. 

If it is a new concept, they will try, and if does not produce "results" they will axe it and say it is useless. 

They dun spend time discussing, they do it and refine it. 

3) They "waste" a lot of time talking "male chicken" to their children

Again, counterintuitive. Ladies also do "make chicken" talking. They talk about their past, relate their experiences, in short, they work on the emotional aspect of their children, and not just their cognitive aspect.

4) They customize their work for their children.

A file check on these teachers, or lesson observations all show the same thing. We might have already jointly develop resources, discuss what is needed to teach a certain skill properly. They will go back, create additional PowerPoint, different practices, extra resources so that it suits their style and belief when executing those lessons. Same same but different.

5) Drill to the last detail and pursue the last enemy

This is the most ruthless trait of all. In writing, it goes down to the spelling of common words, daily spelling of it, frequent writing of it, staying back to teach slowly, finding whatever time possible for additional lessons. 

In oral, it goes to memorizing of conversation structure,1 to 1 coaching, reading of samples, fluency, confidence level and etc

I just finished my mid-year review for myself and my department. The results was rather bad, my pupils' included.

My P ask me to consult the "effective" teacher and ask how. I knew the answers but nonetheless have a talk with her. 

Well, I did gain some additional insights but her suggestions are more aligned to my beliefs than my P. My P ask if I want to deploy teachers to co-teach? Or get them to emulate "successful teachers" tactics. I said it will not work that way. 

The effective teacher said the same thing as me, it's about the teacher pursuing the last pupils down to the last details. He and she must be willing to spent extra time if necessary (do whatever I takes) to have enough frequency in whatever is done so that pupils can achieve competency/ mastery in what they need to do.

It is never about a lesson plan. Never about the tool of the lesson. They are important, but the teacher behind them

Make all the differences. 

Both the horse and the cart are important. Just don't put the cart in front of the horse. There is too much focus on methods and tools and too little focus on the teachers. 

Same same but different.