telephone interview

Yesterday, I took a telephone interview for a management trainee job in China for a British famous company.

I prepared a bit but I don't think that I performed my best during the interview. It was probably the longest tele interview I ever had, lasted for 66mins.

I wasn't nervous, but I knew that I must treat it seriously.

Somtimes, your brain just didn't work that fast to keep yourself satisfied. It always happens that you have a better example when you finished the interview for illustrating your point, your achievement and outcome.

But for many things, you won't know it is good luck or bad, until you came over it.

A little bird

If I were a bird, I would be happier.
If I were a bird, I'd like to fly, all around.
If I were a bird, I will never stop singing.
If I were a bird, Where shall I go?

Only among the trees? Picking the worms? But, at least, I feel so much more free.

I will shine my fur by the rain;
I will dance my legs over the buds;
I will clear my throat through the air;
I shall be dreaming most of the time...

If I were a bird, I will love blue sky more;
If I were a bird, I shall live in the medow;
If I were a bird, I wish I could rest on streams.

If I were a bird, only if...

remmberable childhood and hometown

I was born in a small countryside village of China, in 1974. My family was comparatively rich since my father worked so hard, doing some small businesses.

At that time, China was quite poor and much under developed. In Chinese culture, we seldom say love between family members. There was also no kisses nor hugs. But in most of the families, usually, the parents love their children so much that they would like to do anything for them without any hesitation.

I respect my father, I love all of the family as well. I performed very well in school until I dropped myself out of the junior middle school. But, the father, tried all he could to save my future and did whatever he possibly could, to let me have another chance. That was already very wise and bright at that time in a rural area of China. Then, I luckily entered the First Middle School, the Key and the Best one in and around our city.

Three years' PRISON life in the key middle school, I was enrolled by a suitable level university to myself , saying goodbye to the bicycle, saying bye to yellow soil, bye to hometown accent, bye to the small place I used to be very much familiar with.
This changed my life completely. Without going to Univsity, I won't get a chance to learn Science nor English, nor finding a proper job in cities, as a countryside boy.

I love countryside. I love living in small town or a small city like always, not a place that is too noisy. I feel delighted whenever I am walking on the medow, seeing the vast forest,idling along the small brooks.

Most of the things I loved disappered from my hometown. It only stayed in my memories, only. Is it due to the fast economic developing? What about sustainability?
Like someone said, if we don't consider all of these enviromental friendly issues now, we will soon find it too late.

We are beautiful

We are beautiful when we are young. We sing, we jump, we laugh. Beauties are on our faces.

We are beautiful when we have children and bring them up, we are losing our younth. Beauties are on our daily chores, on our responsibilities. (Do you remmber how we were brought up?)

When one day that we turn old, we will still be beautiful because we have contributed ourselves to the world, to the place where we live, to the land we always love. Seeing the changes of the world around us, always to better, we are beautiful.

We are beautiful, because we are human beings.
Youth is beautiful, look at your skin.
Senior is beautiful, look back your footprint, the history you wrote.
We are beautiful.

written on 10/3/05, edited on 26/04/05

alex

Mottos that I like

A university education ought to be a guide to the reading of a lifetime.
Sir Wilston Churchill, House of Commons, 1950

"We have in our hands the power and obligation - never given to any other generation at any other time in human history - to banish ignorance and poverty from the earth."
Gordon Brown, British Chancellor of the Exchequer

You never get the second chance for the first impression.
Anonymous

I don't have time to write you a short letter, so I write a long one.
Mark Twin

“Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.”
Mary Schmich

"You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind."
From Roger Darlington's Thought of the Week

"Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Think about future, forget chores and be happy.
Alex Yong

Listening is even more important than talking in communications. That is the reason why we'v got two ears but only one mouth.
Paul Gaffney

Give before you can get.
Alex Yong

Give other people some allowance.
Alex Yong

How important a group work is?

Team work means so much more now than it did, to me, and it also means so much more than it appears.

Working as a team, team leader is essential. No matter who it is, he/she needs to lead the team to the right direction and spot the shortcomings of the team and have it/them corrected. But, most of all, he/she should recognize the team member's work, big or small. Equal distribution within the team is also important for the members to have a good feeling of the team. Planing ahead and effcient are another important parts of it.

A team can achieve a lot without a happy atmosphere, but in a longer term view, it may be able to achieve more if it does have it.

But, anyway, team work is vital, fundamental, no matter you like it or not.

I am not entrepreneurial

These day, we are always in the group meeting for either business plan or Easy group suggestion and analysis. It has been like this for over two weeks by now. These couple of days made things worse. I have experienced long long working hours, even, somtimes, without food.

This reminded me the experience of running your own business. I have never run my own business myself. Once, the dream of mine was to have a business of myself and then have it grown day by day, and enjoy the process of creating it, developing it!

During this MSc course, I very much realized that I am not an entrepreneuial person. Not very happy to take risks, not very happy to work long and hard hours, not very much need to make this achievement at the moment. But, actually, all of the elements are the basic needs of being an entrepreneur.

I still enjoy recalling the happy time that I did business for big cooperations. There was a huge giant behind you and supporting you, financially, emotionally.

I, will be a more successful manager rather than an entrepreneur, if I got a chance.

leadership definations, again

the activity of leading; "his leadership inspired the team"
the body of people who lead a group; "the national leadership adopted his plan"
the status of a leader; "they challenged his leadership of the union"
the ability to lead; "he believed that leadership can be taught"

www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

I remmbered that a leader meant that someone could see the goal far away and make his team believe his belief and work together towards the aim.

Genuine leadership demands a sense, not of glamour, but of responsibility. The true leader is concerned not so much with the opinions of others as with the truth, with getting a job done, with inspiring others to join him in working toward a worthy common goal.
Leadership Means Responsibilityby J. Donald Walters (Swami Kriyananda)

(http://www.anandaseattle.org/articles/LeadershipMeansResponsibility.htm)

leadership and dominate

I am a good team player. I do know that and I always try to learn the leadership as well since I think that I could improve my own performace overall a lot by being more creative and entreprenerial.

But I do notice that some guys' leadership style is just being tough to others or too much dominate, which I don't really agree. Sometimes, I also realized that they didn't listen to their team members at all! what a mistake in my eyes.

I remmbered that a lecturer of mine said once, " Listening is more important than talking in business and life that is why we'v got two ears but only one mouth." It did give us some hint on communication with people, didn't it?

What is your thought, dear readers?

Women's clothes

OH, gosh, that is a huge stocking, isn't it?

One of my lecturer said in the class:" One day, guys, if you are married, when you get up from you bed and open your wardrobe, you will find 80% of the clothes inside are your wife's. And, at the very corner, you may find your shabby place." Lively, isn't it?

My wife bought me a sweater which is nearly light blue colour. I thought it was a bit too lady like, especially on the colour point of view. Some of my classmates joked with me, maybe she bought it for herself and she found it too big then...

Recently, she is wearing my that sweater at home for leisure dress, though it is a bit big. She seems doesn't mind at all...

Most of the ladies love shopping, esp. for purchasing clothes, cosmetics... I really couldn't figure out the reason... They seem never be tired, even for only looking around without buying! How amazing!

Love them, love their dogs, anyway.

A man over 30

There is an old Chinese proverb, saying: A man over 30 should be independent. Though I am independent at them moment, I don't think that I have achieved anything encouraging as a man approaching middle age.

It sounds a bit depressing and a bit too "old" in thinking. But, actually, It is time to achieve something for myself, for my family even for the society.

Aim: Read more and try to get some idol in my heart, in real life. No worries about chores, anymore, think big!

The latter part of the Chinese saying is: A man who is over 40 should be knowledgeable, getting to know everything. A man who is over 50 should fully understand his fate.

In my understanding, it is time for a man over 30 to be self confident, be able to lead a team, have your own thought and fight for it without hesitation!!!

Life is short. Act big from now.

Random words

If I ask you to note down 20 random words came up to your mind without thinking, what would you write down? Have a try yourself and compare with mine as listed in the following:

reactive, relentless, entreprise, control, hard work, achievement, self confidence, interest, passion, intuition, knowledge management, change, adapt, fundamental, essential, rigor, strategy, innovative, creativity, culture, education, backgroud, nature, leadership...

Sorry, I lied, these are just a random notes that I took from a lecture, but a very interesting and useful lecture... (in which the lecturer himself has so much passion... encouraging, isn't it?)

Wish you can sense something from it...

Will you be able to express your vision of the future and enable some of the members around you to join you and make the process happen?

knowledge management

What is knowledgement? It must be hard to manage "knowledge".

A widely accepted 'working definition' of knowledge management applied in worldwide organizations is available from the WWW Virtual Library on Knowledge Management (http://www.kmnetwork.com/):
"Knowledge Management caters to the critical issues of organizational adaptation, survival, and competence in face of increasingly discontinuous environmental change.... Essentially, it embodies organizational processes that seek synergistic combination of data and information processing capacity of information technologies, and the creative and innovative capacity of human beings."
In simpler terms, Knowledge Management seeks to make the best use of the knowledge that is available to an organization, creating new knowledge in the process.

What would you say about it?

Self Confidence

How much do you have it?
It was said that it is very much fundamental for success. I believe so, but how could we improve our self confidence? By studying and gather more knowledge?By learning from others? train ourselves more? Get more experienced through working, practising?

Come on, everybody has its shortcomings, why only you be so timid?

Time flies

It seems like yesterday when I was in the university, first year, second and so on...
It might because that I am growing older and older, then times flies faster and faster...

I have some dreams, and I would try to achieve some after my studying which will appoach soon. I had lots of dreams, many of them have broken when the time passes by.

Determination is even more important than ideas. Action then might count the most important for your dreams, beautiful or not.

Stopping talking and get down to work has been my motto once. But I now realized that talking is very much important as well to a business man, or to any sucessful people.

Learn to talk, learn to get your hands dirty, soon.

Bad day

It has been a bad day today. Everybody has bad days, I believe, might be emotionally, or depends on luck.

I am not a very much happy person as I was, unfortunatly, especially when studying rather than working. I have enjoying my works so much, cooperating happily with all of my colleagues, achiving our goals with emotion, and always have been cheerfully staying with all of my customers. What a history.

Look foward to the future.

What do you normally do when you have a bad day?

Finish 'in time' is better

I believe that finishing your task in time is much better than finishing it on time or even slightly over the deadline requirement. Since, it definatly gives you more time to check through, and more time to make up if anything goes slightly wrong.

But, most people work more efficiently when the deadline is due which means when the pressure is really on their shoulders. Shouldn't we change that and leave the peaceful to the end rather than relaxing too much at the begining?

So, get things organized. Finish as early as you could and celebrate the success afterwards.

Sadness and delightful

From my personal experience, the sadness normally last longer inside of me than the happniess if they are on the same level of emotional degree.

What about you? is this just an individual thing?

Dislike someone?

When I was in the middle school, I was always surprised to hear that someone disliked some others. Might be because of I was too childlike, or ... I just simply like anyone around me, I think.

Things changed the time came to my university life. Might be because there were more people I needed to face with, might be because I grew up to more mature, anyway, there were a couple of people that I didn't really like, even one or two I hated to see or being together with.

Then, it came to today. There are always someone around you you found a bit annoying, are there? How about you, my dear readers?

Greeting letter

A greeting email from a very close old mate really pleased me the day before yesterday.

Having not seen him online for nearly 3 weeks, that worried and confused me about his current business and personal life situation and his consideration of our "business-planing" going.
Wasn't he much happy?

But, when a close friend/or family members said hi to you even after arguement, it is just very nice, isn't it? That is why the friend called CLOSE friend and the member called family member.

Starting bits are too difficult

Yesterday, I went to london. and On the way back to oxford, I was all the way thinking of creating a business, how and what and when and where?

A couple of good ideas are in my mind, but the initial investment is a bit like dream. I do believe myself as honest, hard working, intelligent young man, but who else?

If only can I get a couple of hundred thousand pounds, then I will be able to talk to the bank manager for more loan to start the profitable dream.

Can you help?

what is weblog on earth?

A weblog is a public web site where users post informal journals of their thoughts, comments, and philosophies, updated frequently and normally reflecting the views of the blog's creator.

www.geocities.com/Athens/2405/glossary.html



An online journal or diary that is frequently updated (also referred to as a blog).

www.feedforall.com/rss-glossary.htm


A weblog or "blog" is a web site that contains brief, discrete pieces of information called posts that are arranged in reverse chronological order. A weblog can contain a wide variety of content including written essays, annotated links, documents, graphics, and multimedia.

www.xinfomodel.com/glossary.html

Dinners Club and JCB

Dinners club card is royal card, though it isn't still widely accepted by the merchants. But, if there is someone holding this card, it probably means they are somebody...

14 digits of card number, started by 36, I think. It has the format of 4-6-4. I guess it was mainly for the royal dinner at the begining of the story of this company's history.

JCB is Japan card bureau, and it is also a bank now, offering mainly card services and other finacial services to Japanese.

AE card

American express is an old established well known company for having an excellent finacial service over 100 years. They started as a transporting company for goods and cargos? that is why it was called express.

AE card is bit different to other cards, since it has only got 15 digits for card number rather than 16. and, it starts by 37, having the format of 4-6-5 digits. The security code for AE card is the four digits printed on the front of the card above the main card number.

Blue card is its classic one, then golden one has normally higher credit limit and better benefit. Then, it comes, platinum card, the same to apply other credit cards.

There was a single transaction for AE card in HK years ago, 1990s, which was a huge amount accounted to more than 10 million HK dollors. But it simply was a blue card.

American express traveller's cheque is even popular than its card. I am sure that the traveller's cheque is one of the best and reliable and popular one in the whole world, as you may have already know.

Master Card

Quite similarly to visa card, master card has 16 digits as well, but starting from 5.

The first four digits were printed in black just under the original card numbers.

You will find a world map as the image of Master card, below which there is a red and yellow interfered cycles to stand for Master card. Beside which, there is a MC symbol to stand for Master card as well, but it was writen in an art way.

I like the advertisment for MC, which is on TV, saying: " There is something (in the world) that money can't buy,(like love, your won health,true happyness, geniue friendship, trust, etc.) for anything else, there is Master Card." Isn't it cool?

On the signature strips of both Visa or Master card, the Visa or Mastercard were printed on, in color normally. But, these letters are forward leaned, which is against the normal way of normal printer's printing. This is mainly for antifraud as well.

Certainly, on the signature strip, there is 3 digits as the security code as well to make sure the card is in your hand when you do the phone or online shopping as well mentioned earlier.

Tax Year

Today is the first day of tax year, 2005-6. Certainly, yesterday was the last day of last tax year.

It means you can pay your new lot of lump of money to your ISA account if you got one.

If you don't search online for Mini Cash ISA or talk to your bank to have a high interest and interest tax free account. Its mainly character is you can only deposite £3000 per tax year no matter how many withdraws you made, plus interest tax free and normally it is comparatively high rate account for your savings.

Use MSN money compare, by selecting ISA, you will have some rough ideas of which bank or building society is offering the best interest rate for your account.

It is the money with your name on it, claim it. (as the ad. of Inland revenue, not for ISA though, but maybe for tax credit.)

Visa

Visa card has a couple of features that other credit cards won't have.

It has 16 digits as its card number started by 4.

It has a peaceful pigeon picture symbol on the right hand side lower part of the plastic card, which could be seen flying wings if you move the card forward and backward.

Normally, the first 4 digits would be reprinted in black color on the card, just below the original card numbers. This is for security reasons, to anti making fraud card.

It has a forward lean "V" (stands for visa) at the bottom of card, nearly the middle but a bit right hand side.

Cards start on 03/04 and ends on 05/06 mean it starts on first of march , year 04 and will expire on last day of may, year 2006.

Turn your card, you will find a black magenetic strip. All of your personal information related to this card is stored there.

On the signature strip, there are normally now 7 digits. The first four is the same as your last four digits of your card number. But the last three is security code which is widely required when you do internet shopping or telephone shopping, just to make sure that the card is with you.(you are the card holder) Since, you may just get someone's card number from a shop receipt and use it for shopping online. But, then, there is no way for you to get to know the 3 digits security code.

Many countries started to use chip and pin which may make the card transaction more secure. But, what if someone, by some chance, get to know your pin and stole your card to use? Maybe the chance is just too slim.

Do remmber, sign your card as soon as you get it. Never let anybody know your pin. (Maybe you have to let your wife know.)

Credit Card

Credit Card was started to be used from the end of 20th centry. (Don't be scared, not a very long time ago.) Roughly, from early 1980s?

At the begining, the main function of credit card would be counted as a convenient method of payment, a representative way of high class or rich, up to 56 days interest free benefit, safe to carry, etc. Most of the features are still alive today.

There are various kinds of credit cards around. Mainly, they could be classfied as Visa, Master, American Express, Dinners club, JCB(which stands for Japan Card Bureau, if I didn't remmber wrongly)

Each of the these above is an organization of credit card, which is not really a company, esp. for the visa or master as in the first two and the largest two. Most of the banks in the whole world are members of the organization which means that they have the right to issue visa or master cards but they need to share their profit with the organization as well.

In a country like the UK, they issuse millions and millions credit card each year. So, cards play a very important role in the daily consuming.
Here, people call credit card "card", or "plastic card", or even "Plastic". So, when you heard people saying, Can I pay by plastic? Don't be amazed.

In the USA, sometimes, people would say to the waiter in a restaurant, ''Can I charge?", it means they want to pay by card as well.

Engish Pounds

English pounds have been strong against dollors for quite a couple of years so far.

Strong GBP will make the importers happy since they spend less in buying commodities abroad and sell the same price to domestic customers.

For the same reason, the exporters will be sad since less people will come to buy their goods due to the high exchange rate. Their abroad customers will spend more on the British made goods. They then tend to go their alternative choices instead, like French goods or Germany ones.

But US dollors seem to be becoming bit stronger recently, one of the reason would be the increases of american interest rate, again and again.

But, as English salary maker, we would like to see the pounds to be strong which made it much cheaper for us to travel abroad or buying foreign goods.

But, for a scenario, what is the effect to Britain if (only if) the 1£=1$?? do you have any opinions, please?

friends

Seeing old friends is always a pleasure to me. As, I have never been an adventurer to seek for more new friends, unless there is a natural way, or chance.

But making new friends should be adding some colors to your new days. And, give you some chanllenge of getting to know more people, more news things you may have never gotten a chance to understand.

we are living in a world with love, care of family, being looked after by friends. And, we learn from friends a lot, don't we? Simply, we would just have a very good time, of a part of our lives, to be together with friends by joking, chatting, recalling the stories of before...
JUST LIKE BEFORE...

What about your opinion on you and your friends?

creating of the blog

Today, by chance, I found this space for me to create some blogs of myself which is really really good.The weather has been lovely today.

I'v got two friends visited me and stayed with us for lunch. He (together with his gf) is a wise man and believes very much in fate teller. we talked a lot about it and he is a pretty good story teller as well, esp. in history story of China.

I watched the film, Helen of Troy. It was a very very nice film but I hate the end.a: it was out of my imagination,b: it was too sad.I always had love the good people win the war and the loving couple live together, but ...The film's story flot is very nice and I love the way they speak English, not the American way, not exactly the English way, but a way you taste the past...

I would, write something about the past couple of weeks, and may add some simple reviews of the films I had just seen.
I would also talk about some of my understanding in Credit Card and financial borrowing soon as well.

Hope to see you everyday, here!