Saturday, November 14, 2009
I'm just back from a YOG volunteers briefing. Today's one pertains to 'Language Services Volunteers', which includes language-related roles like interpreting and translating..
So language is a very important issue at the Games, since only 1/3 of the participants can understand English. And that really means that the language volunteers are expected to be highly-proficient in the languages. Which is why, among the 150-odd volunteers at today's briefing, some of them are native speakers residing in Singapore.
Being rather inconfident at my grasp of Japanese, I went on to express interest in other roles after the briefing, like NOC and protocol assistants, which need not require such a high-level of proficiency. They'll schedule me in for those briefings in future as well.
Personally I view YOG as an event not-to-be-missed, simply because it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of the Olympics. Since it's coming to our shores, I cannot find any reason not to be a part. It will also be the biggest-ever event that the country will be hosting, in a much bigger scale than any IMF-World bank meetings/ IOC meetings/ APEC/ any high-level Summits/ F1 etc. The additional fact that this YOG is the Inaugural one, definitely adds up to the historical significance and meaning.
Join me! The registrations are still open until FEB 2010, because they are filling up 20,000 volunteer slots, in about 400 different roles. Be it at competition venues or Youth Olympics Village or even the International media centre, you name the role--and they'll have it, as long as you're aged 14 to 65, and are willing to volunteer. Today I saw many foreigners eager to be part of the event, so as Singaporeans, I guess we should be more proactive.
人生是黑白的.
1:37 PM <3
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Friday, November 13, 2009
I'm sure everyone has their fair share of phone-scam experiences. I ended all my previous experiences quickly with cold tones like "Sorry, I'm not interested", and hung up on them.
But ever since, I've decided to get back at those annoying phone scammers. How? By Annoying them instead! My chance came today, but sadly, I let the opportunity slip!
Here's it:
"Hi sir, you've won a free photo shoot from XX studios...BLAH BLAH..NO HIDDEN COST, and you get free make-up, BLAH, you'll get to keep 2 photos for yourself..."
The caller was quick to attempt to establish trust, by bringing in KPE (though i didn't catch what the link is). And after alot of crappings, she finally arrived at the question..
"So sir, what are you working as?"
"I'm a student."
"Ohh, okay..........Erm we will call you again later."
See how practical these scammers are! I can sense how disappointed the caller was, when she realised my lack of spending power. Can't I be the son of one of the Millions-earning Ministers? And as you've guessed it, they didn't call back again! And hence, I've lost my opportunity to annoy them.
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Here's some possible ways I had come up with, applicable to today's context:
#1
They: "Hi sir, have you heard about the XX studios?"
You can say: "Why not, my dad owns the company. Do you want to speak to him now?"
#2
They:"Hi sir, have you heard about the XX studios?"
You can say: "Actually yes, we're your rival company, YY studios. We're actually planning a takeover soon, would you be interested to crossover?"
#3
They:"Hi sir, we're from XX studios, and you've won a free photo shoot!"
You can say: "Great! Hey wait a minute, did you say XX studios? I don't think it's a registered company under our ACRA database.. Are you sure you're a legitimate business entity?"
#4
They:"Hi sir, you've won yourself a free photo shoot!"
You can say: "That's good to hear.. OH I just realised--you're the 10,000th person to call, and you've won yourself $10,000! Please dial 99923723 for details on how to collect! Congrats and bye!"
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SO look, why get annoyed with phone scams? YOU have every right to ANNOY them back! Best still, have them blacklist you, and remove you from their scammie list! The next time any scammer calls me, I will not say I'm a student anymore. Muahahaha.
人生是黑白的.
11:13 PM <3
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009
With the ponning of a lesson tmr and webcasting another on friday, I've UNofficially made today my last day of lessons!
Which is so worrying! My brain's still so empty. And there're still so many things that i've not yet sorted out. And there're so many things that I KNOW i won't finish even if I stay up without sleeping for the remaining days to the exams.
This is already my 3rd exams in this competitive course. But I feel the least prepared this time round. But yet it's a critical one, because the stupid CAP will more-or-less stabilise after this semester, and it'll get increasingly difficult to attempt to pull it up.
The least thing I can do, apart from intensive mugging, is to sleep early + run at least once a week + maintain my health.
Remind me to go to bed if you still see me online at 1am.
人生是黑白的.
11:57 PM <3
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人生是黑白的.
12:49 AM <3
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