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The reason why you’re so tired at work: Context switching
I love Cal Newport’s advice in general. For example, this video gave me an aha moment which made me realise why I’m so gosh darn mentally exhausted at the end of a work day.
I was context switching all day, and having work chat on (for eg slack) beside me all the time was literally doing my brains in. (And that constant desire to look at my damn phone… I feel like I may have to exile my phone from the home office from now on.)
But then, I feel like I couldn’t really apply his advice. Working in uninterrupted stretches of time is nigh impossible at some workplaces. For me to do so, I’d have to start work either much earlier than 9am or after 6pm, when everyone has clocked off.
During intense periods of times, I often do that, which doesn’t do well for me because I’m often expected to be “on” until 6pm, which means I could easily work up to 12 hours as a result.
Besides that, there’s also the way the project management software, Jira, is set up. I love Jira most of the time – it keeps teams accountable and helps us track our workload. Rather than an amorphous blob, my tasks are represented by tickets, and the project manager can easily see if someone is overloaded by seeing the number tickets someone is dealing with.
However, due to the fact that work is broken down into so many tickets, and discussions around work can still take place outside those Jira tickets in disparate places such as chats, meetings and more, one can’t help but bounce from one context to another in a frantic blur.
However, even Cal admits that his advice isn’t perfect, but “at least we know what’s the source of the problem so you can do something about it.” (Paraphrased).
So I’m pondering on how I can be managing my Jira tickets better.
I’m contemplating a few strategies (based on Cal’s advice). Say I have a task to update Product A’s documentation:
- Work on the doc, shut off all comms channels for an hour. Update Jira tickets once completed. (Context-specific task focus)
- Day-specific tasks. For eg, some days are full of meetings, which makes it challenging to get working on focus-specific tasks. So, to work on meeting-related work on that day only (such as writing reports) and have specific days to work on docs. (I know this is a luxury though, and most probably not possible).
- Work on focus-specific, writing-heavy tasks in the morning, more Jira/update docs in the afternoon.
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Weekend Tales #6: The Paris Olympics fried my brain
If there’s a range when it comes to social media endurance, I’m probably at the low, low end. Like, the weakling end.
I have a natural tripwire; when my brain has had enough of the chaos and noise of social media, it just nopes out, and when it does, it nopes out hard whether I like it or not. During these periods, I worry about losing friendships because I become this intense digital hermit. Because these periods can last for weeks.
However, for some reason, this week, my natural tripwire did not trip. I found myself totally entranced by the Paris Olympics, and not in a good way. Specifically, the ghastly opening ceremony that many Christians around the world regard as blasphemous.
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Learning Chinese vocabulary as a headless chicken
Not gonna lie, when I read Victoria’s Study Notepad: Language studies or Magda’s Mandarin Weekly, I feel like a total slacker.
I have a vague-ish study plan somewhere in my noggin’, but there’s no way I can get organised enough to do pie charts, or count the number of hours I spend learning Chinese.
For one, Excel makes my head explode and I am already dealing with spreadsheets at work, and don’t really want to do it after work, thank you.
Yet, I totally understand the value of tracking stuff, so I’m glad that Tofu Learn at least has some stats thingy that I can keep track of.
My main learning goal for Chinese is to read as soon as possible, so my language learning activities are geared towards that.
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I once tolerated Kuala Lumpur. Now, I love it
I never drive to Kuala Lumpur. The car I bought in 2015 has only 41,000 km on it. That’s how much I dislike driving to “KL”, as we locals call it. I rather battle the heat and rain, being squished in public transport, than endure her infamous jams or unpredictable floods. (Yes, floods! If it rains around 5pm, most office workers would brace themselves for a flash flood in the city.)
When I was a young student, I attended a college deep in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. The only way to get there was via the unpredictable, maybe once-an-hour trains from my town to a stop about 5km from the college.
From that stop I’d have to take a “mini bus” to another bus stop where I’d take yet another bus to finally arrive at my college. A lot of times I’d have to stand on the steps of the bus as it whipped through town, with its doors open to let in the air in the stuffy, non-air conditioned bus.
There was no light rail transit (LRT), no proper pedestrian paths, and the traffic was an utter nightmare.
Back then, I was a slim bunny because I’d prefer to walk 2-3km to my train stop rather than take a bus to it. I was often there much faster than if I’d taken the bus. There’s nothing worse than sitting in a non-airconditioned bus breathing in exhaust fumes.
My memories of KL then was of a hot, grimy, dusty city with barely any trees. I’d have to avoid being hit by cars and motorbikes as I walk on road side as there were no proper pedestrian paths. Frankly, I’m surprised that I didn’t end up with a deep loathing for public transportation and become a car junkie.
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A secret Pentagon campaign to spread vaccine disinformation has come to light
So, Reuters broke this story recently: “Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic.”
This couldn’t have come out a worst time. Whatever credibility the US government has, after its disastrous decisions and actions with Gaza, is lowered even further. If it’s even possible.
Now, lawmakers in the Philippines are demanding for an investigation into these allegations and are saying that these allegations are “likely true”.
And of course, China is mad about it.
Pentagon is not helping matters by not denying that this clandestine operation happened.
Apparently, it’s a bid to “counter ‘malign influence campaigns’ run by Beijing.”
Well, okay, so what if a couple of Filipinos died because of this right? Are Filipino lives just consumables, ask this Global Times editorial?
Though, I have to say it’d be much worse if Pentagon did deny it. Best to preserve whatever tiny bits of PR you have left.
Lastly, a journalist reacts to the news, calling it “shameful”: A shameful American pandemic propaganda program.
Glenn Greenwald, one of the better US journalists out there who dare to bash both the “left” and “right” of politics, also covered this issue:
My thoughts
First, I was so surprised that it was Reuters that broke the story. If anything, I expected a “China cooked up the virus in a lab” story.
During the pandemic, Malaysia was fighting so hard to get vaccines. There was a lot of hoarding of vaccines in Western nations so we could only get scraps. If not for the generosity of AstraZeneca and China who donated vaccines to us, where would we be today?
So, the news about this deliberate misinformation made my jaw drop. What a morally bankrupt, evil thing to do!
But then again, these days, the US actions on the world stage has just dropped down to such a low that I’m no longer surprised they would do such a thing.
What’s interesting is even in Malaysia we had “news” that Sinovac doesn’t work. There was a lot of sniffing about how AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines were better, and Sinovac shots are just inferior.
However, instead of avoiding it, many Malaysians accepted it as less effective and took the vaccine with the belief that “it’s better than nothing”. We are very practical folks after all.
Older Chinese folks preferred Sinovac because they believe it’ll help them visit China easier 😆. I know some folks who are more suspicious of the mRNA vaccines chose Sinovac as it uses a more “traditional” technology.
I have journal entries about my experience during the COVID-19 pandemic (I’m still rebuidling it slowly from my Twitter archives):
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The cold war in Chinese fandom spaces
ℹ️ I rewrote this newsletter several times. I want to be very careful not to make this an anti-West rant; the last thing I want is to make people feel bad about being born in a region; that’s not something we have any control over!
Also, the reason why I pivoted my newsletter to talk about cultural issues is because I want to promote the positive things about Chinese culture. There’s so much content that ends up making you angry at a country or a region – I don’t want to be a part of that. I want to be a bridge builder, not a bridge basher.
However, this is an issue that’s been nagging at me for years, and I want to get it off my chest. And I hope by doing so, you’d understand how careless, badly researched takes about a country can affect its citizens and her diaspora. There are forces in the world right now agitating for conflict rather than cooperation, and they are creeping into “light” spaces like fandoms too.
So, recently, I wanted to share an article about To the Wonder, a Chinese drama selected for the 2024 Cannes, in a Chinese drama Reddit forum.
I almost completed the post when I realised where the drama was set:
The mini-series is an adaptation of the award-winning essay collection My Altay by Li Juan, a renowned Chinese essayist. Set in Northwest China’s Xinjiang’s pristine Altay region, the eight-episode series offers audiences a fresh narrative and sensory experience, blending light comedy with Li’s literary aesthetics to explore themes of nature reverence, self-discovery, and the simple yet resilient spirit of the northern Xinjiang herders. – To the Wonder selected CANNESERIES, marking the first Chinese language drama in longform competition
Oh.
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The tricky art of learning Chinese characters
I used to believe that my memory was so terrible that learning Chinese characters would be impossible for me.
However, a few months ago I had to get a tech certification for work. I panicked. How was I supposed to remember all this information?
I tried mind maps, which helped me get a distinction in A-Level Law, but it took too long and a lot of the data I’m trying to remember didn’t relate logically to each other.
Then, I tried flashcards. It worked brilliantly. I took the tech exam and I passed and actually did well! I’m talking about a high distinction. Not bad for somebody with zero software engineering background.
Now, my Brainscape flashcards are being used by some folks in my company. Not bad for a non-engineer.
My attempt to earn the certification taught me that it was not my memory that was the problem, but my method of remembering.
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Substack round-up: Six newsletters from Asia
I tend to like reading quieter, less “popular” newsletters. While they may not have a girnomous number of subscribers, these writers’ words are worth reading. There are plenty of good stuff on Substack, but I want to do more to highlight writers from countries out of the Western sphere as they barely if rarely ever get top spots on the Substack charts.
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So I’m learning Mandarin
In language-learning circles, I’m considered a Mandarin “heritage speaker”.
Heritage speakers have “learned a language informally by being exposed to it at home as opposed to having learned it formally in a school setting.” (What is a Heritage Speaker?)
Technically, I don’t fit the label because my real heritage language (mother tongue) is Hokkien, an 8-tone Chinese language that is considered one of the oldest in China. And I learned Mandarin in a school setting!
Basically, I was thrown into Mandarin classes during my primary school years. But I was a terrible student who spent most of my time copying homework and doodling instead of paying attention to the teacher.
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Weekend Tales #5 My ambition is to have an unextraordinary life
After I returned from my Penang vacation in April, I quickly checked my balconies. (I have two balconies, one which overlooks the apartment complex, and another which has a view of the hills and has a stunning skyline of the city I live in. I know, I’m terribly lucky!)
The one with the less stunning view had the most thriving garden as it gets most of the sun. As I was sure that most of it would die during my two weeks away, I harvested most of them to cook in Penang. There were some left, but by some miracle, the water spinach was still clinging to life, and the Brazilian spinach cuttings I had left in water bottles on the balcony table were sprouting roots, ready to be replanted.
But that’s not the only thing I found. I noticed that there were dried leaves and debris on the wooden floor. Puzzled, I looked up at the money plant hanging on the wall.
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Elizabeth Tai 