Selling Blogs

With a title like that, you would probably expect some advice on how to make money from your blogs. Sorry to disappoint you if that was your expectation when you clicked in.

What I mean by selling blogs is selling the idea of blogging to someone who doesn't blog - something I have done a lot in the past months (well, ever since I started to blog myself). Naturally, some of these people (to my surprise, actually) started blogging and some of the more established ones are by:

• Regina Escobar (a student at NUS)
  
• Shubhangi Faujdar (a student at NUS and an AIESECer)
• and, Won Jang (an AIESECer from Korea who is currently visiting India, then returning to Singapore)
  

So my dear readers, do check out their blogs because at least one of them told me my blog inspired them to start writing, which is a very heart-warming compliment indeed.

And while you're at it, two more people have joined in and they have some impressive posts, to say the least. They are by:

• Muhammad Usman Aslam Mahar (student at NUS and an AIESECer as well)
  
• and, Vasudha Ram (student at NUS and an AIESECer too)
  

So hang around their virtual homes (i.e. their blogs), read their stuff and comment if you will.

The exam period is floating in the air in NUS and everyone is tensed up in this Reading Week, so a little distraction might only help. (Sorry if it doesn't!)

Disclaimer: I should say that I wasn't the only factor to have influenced the above-mentioned writers to start blogging; all I am saying is that I played a role (to whatever extent) in convincing them to start writing, and this is my way of showing my appreciation for them by making this post.

All About The Money

You're always happy when you are out spending money, aren't you? But is that really happiness? Is that really fun?

Think about it. You go out with friends, watch a movie, grab a bite to eat, stumble upon a bar on the way back where you have a few drinks, and maybe grab an ice-cream somewhere along the way. As you go to bed that night, you have a smile on your face that says, "I have friends. I hang out with them and it's fun. I am so lucky."

And that is the story of just one day when you went out to have a little fun. There are at least 30 days in each month (yeah, yeah, I know that about Feb).

All is well until you reach the end of the month (or the beginning, depending on your cycle), when you start receiving your bills and (oh no!) bank statements. Only then you realize how much fun it had really been.

Unfortunately, we soon realize that money doesn't grow on trees. And if it did, others wouldn't have been as lazy as you and would've gotten to them first, leaving nothing for you. Yes; yes. I am not writing anything new here. This is not a new phenomenon I have discovered. It's an age-old adage.

It forces me to think, why, after being such smart and intelligent people (at least most of us), why do we keep doing the same things? Vicious circles. Why are we so afraid to say no?

Are we afraid that we might be disliked by our peers? Or looked down upon?

I don't know about you all out there but I could certainly learn a lesson or two in the art of saying 'no' and sticking with that decision.

And while we're on this, why can't people understand that 'no' doesn't mean, "Keep asking me again and again until I say 'yes'"? That's like offering someone a cigarette over and over again when they just announced they've quit smoking.

*Madonna sings in the background: "'Cause we are living in a material world..."*

I just wish I would not get suckered into this capitalist mumbo-jumbo about money making us all happy just by spending it. It does not give us all we need in life. I don't buy it.

But I see no outs.





Sometimes I find another world inside my mind
When I realize the crazy things we do
It makes me feel ashamed to be alive
It makes me wanna run away and hide

It's all about the money
It's all about the dum dum du du du dum
I don't think it's funny
To see us fade away
It's all about the money
It's all about the dum dum du du du dum
And I think we got it all wrong anyway

We find strange ways
Of showing them how much we really care
When in fact we just don't seem to care at all
This pretty world is getting out of hand
So tell me how we fail to understand

It's all about the money
All about the dum dum du du du dum
I don't think it's funny
To see us fade away
It's all about the money
It's all about the dum dum du du du dum
And I think we got it all wrong anyway, anyway

'Cause it's all about the money

It's all about the money
All about the dum dum du du du dum
I don't think it's funny
To see us fade away
It's all about the money
All about the dum dum du du du dum
And I think we got it all wrong anyway

It's all about the money
It's all about the dum dum du du du dum
I don't think it's funny
To see us fade away
It's all about the money
It's all about the dum dum du du du dum
And I think we got it all wrong anyway, anyway

Job Interviews

G-E-E-K-!

I am a geek. It's official.

I can't help but to have outbursts of geek talk. It doesn't matter if I am sitting in a group of non-geeks. I just can't help myself.

I start Facebook groups like Revive BillMonk to protest the errors in the BillMonk service (which is actually an excellent service by the way). And my reason is that I just can't believe there's a fantastic website out there that has a major bug and it's not being fixed.

I use Mozilla Firefox because it has add-ons like the Facebook toolbar, the Google toolbar, SearchStatus 1.21 that shows Alexa and PageRank rankings, and Screengrab! 0.93, that helps save the entire web page as an image (very useful).

I also manage to hang Firefox because I don't restart it for days, have more than 15 tabs open at any given time, and I have two different versions of Adobe Acrobat (8.0 and 8.1) installed on my computer. There are times when I open a page that requires a Java applet to run (Internet banking or Facebook image uploader) while I open an Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) document in another tab, when at the same time a Facebook Notification (from the toolbar) pops up and that totally crashes my browser.

Thankfully, Mozilla saves all the web pages that are open before it hangs and when I open it again I get the option to 'Restore Session'. *smiles cheekily*

When I talk about things that totally inspire me, people often zone out because they don't want to listen to geek-talk (or know how to). You could get me started by saying something absurd like, "Yahoo is better than Google".

I am so passionate about most Google products that I just won't tolerate an accusation like that. Yeah, I use most Google products: AdSense, AdWords, Analytics, Base, Blogger, Calendar, Docs, Gmail, Groups, iGoogle, Maps, Notebook, orkut, Picasa Web Albums, Reader, Talk, Web History, and Webmaster Tools.

Why was there a need to make this post? Why tell the world you're a geek?

It's fairly simple - when people hear me talk (yap!) about geeky stuff, they feel like calling me a geek. But people are polite (yes, it's true!) so they don't.

But I don't mind being called a geek. It's only true. So go right ahead. Say it.

PS. This post may not make any sense at all. If you bothered reading it, you are either jobless or you just can't consume any more text books (reference to the NUS exam period). To the latter, I wish good luck.

Whims and Feelings

It's a weird feeling to not feel. To not care. To be oblivious to life. Desensitization.

You feel larger than life. You think life will bend to accommodate your whims and fantasies. Not the other way around.

You stop valuing people. Relationships. You give up hope on humankind. You fall into a downward spiral.

You feel better when you think of her. You continue to dream, to fantasize. And life starts to make some sense again. Until you get that email.

You try to contain it all in your head. You tell yourself you can deal with it. You can make it.

You just need someone to hold your hand.

PMS - Verb or Noun?

Sure you think it's a sensitive topic to discuss - whether you're a guy or a girl, or anywhere in between. But it's a fact of life, you know, like death, or halawa. These things exist in life and you have to learn to deal with them.

Personally, I think PMS is great if you're the one who's doing it. (In this context, PMS means whining - read on for more details.) For example, my computer has been PMSing since a few weeks now. Low disk space errors, viruses and what not. I finally reinstalled Windows but the errors continued. So I re-reinstalled it. It feels much better now after I have given it enough attention but every now and then it asks me to restart it so that some new updates can be installed. But I have too many PMSers to deal with. So I'm moving on.

That brings me to the question of what is this PMS. How do you pronounce this word? It's pee-em-ess by the way, and that is the noun form, and so is PMSer - a person who is PMSing. Pee-em-ess-ing is the verb.

PMS is the state/act (noun/verb) of acting out on an impulse of your emotions. To PMS effectively, you must make sure you don't rationalize or use any logic. Intuition and bad judgment will get you the attention you deserve.

To tackle PMS, think of it as war. Either you can be the brave warrior that fights on the forefront and doesn't step back. The warrior would continue to battle until he either dies or wins. Or you can be the one that runs away - hoping the war would end soon on its own and life would return to normal.

PMS is exhibited by many but only a few people realize they are dealing with it when they are dealing with it. Your cell phone could be PMSing, or your browser, your guy friends, your girl friends, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your siblings, the weather, the stove, school assignments, your leather boots, Photoshop, bank balance - just about anything!

So watch out!

Disclaimer: I used the computer's PMS as an example to illustrate that this phenomenon is not observed in just one gender or species. I am definitely not comparing women to computers. PMS is prevalent in every living and non-living thing and the sooner we become aware of it (and learn the tackle it) the better off we will be. Good luck to you.

31 days

After such massive abuse, there is no choice left but to reinstall Windows.

Status Updates on Facebook

March 13:

Nabeel is running through tissue paper rolls and cussing at the NUS CCA points' system.

12:03pm

Nabeel is running through tissue paper rolls.

7:27am

March 10:

Nabeel 's greatest dream is to see ZERO UNREAD emails in his inbox...

8:41am

March 9:

Nabeel is pulling his hair out!!!! *&%^$%@!

7:11pm

March 6:

Nabeel is sick and tired of being sick and tired.

7:35pm

March 1:

Nabeel wants to ride the world's largest observation wheel and then compare it with the eye in London.

8:46pm

February 28:

Nabeel has Chlorine in his lungs.

8:48pm

February 27:

Nabeel is keeping the faith...

5:25pm

Nabeel feels like a tabula rasa.

1:38pm

Nabeel is grilled.

1:31am

February 25:

Nabeel is in for some massive grilling.

2:47am

February 22:

Nabeel is dead dead dead (and the week has not really ended for him).

3:49pm

February 21:

Nabeel is dead.

11:46am

February 19:

Nabeel is going through his crisis week.

8:30pm

February 17:

Nabeel is sneezing like a pig... Oh wait, do pigs sneeze?

5:21pm

Nabeel is looking for Sweeney Todd but can't find it on Ares.

6:11am

February 16:

Nabeel is lovin' it.

3:09pm

February 15:

Nabeel is the internal communications expert in Yahoo!

3:27pm

Valentine's, what else?

Last Valentine's I was miserable and I shared this video on my blog.

This year it is different for some reason but those glazy eyed, dazed-face couples and the heart-shaped balloons still annoy the hell out of me. Whatever you guys do when you're in love, keep it in the closet! PDAs aren't really my thing. (That's Public Displays of Affection you geek!)

Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day to you all. If you also think this day is stupid, that's cool, but don't sit home alone tonight. Go out and buy yourself some chocolate.