Skip to main content

Commitments

"When you commit for something, it becomes some sorts of responsibilities."

I came back to SG to attend the commencements few days ago. Actually, I didn't intend to come back so soon. Firstly, I still haven't finished the voluntary job in One-Man university(wanmen). Indeed, I enjoy it so much that I spend days and nights coding the system. Secondly, my favourite profs are not attending the commencements(Indeed, I think my favourite prof would rather me to work harder on the great projects than taking a photo with him). Thirdly, the commencement of CEG(computer engineering)takes place in different dates with SOC and Engin while my most projects are actually accomplished with SOC peers. However, I finally bought the air ticket, firstly because I have committed to Sharon(the NOC Israel coordinator) that I'd better come back to attend the commencement day since it is one of the most important days in one's life. Secondly, our iOS team has committed to attend the iCreate competition and I've got to work things out before the last minute. Another commitment is to Prof.Anthony when I told him that I'll start working with him from August 1st onwards. However, this commitment doesn't require me to come back so soon. I also told my little brother Rick Qing that I'll probably visit Chendu (with 70-80%certainty) when he's on vocation home in Sichuan. I've got a cousin from Fudan University who's coming to NUS for exchange next semester, thus there is a responsibility that I shall at least pick him up in the airport(August 1st) and treat him a dinner.  By coming back to attend the commencements, I actually can fulfil most of the commitments(Sharon's sincere suggestion, iCreate, Prof's work, cousin) by sacrificing some of my own passions(staying longer with the One-Man U team, traveling in Sichuan).

Most of my decisions are actually influenced by the opportunity cost of different commitments. For instance, an important reason I took Prof.Anthony's FYP is that I've worked with YunReading in CS3216 which is a digital publishing project. I don't want the project to die because of my own lack of continuity in moving this project forward. If I don't touch the digital publishing related area for the last year in NUS, I will probably never touch it again for another few years, which would be really really bad. It is me who decided not to accept the 6k purchase of the system, I shall have the responsibility to move it forwards(at least pay off the teammates' talents and hard work).

My initial commitment to One-Man University(Wanmen) is to make an iOS app for them during the summer. However, they have got no website yet. Since the NGO has got no extra hands to help it out, I've got to pick the skills up and build the web system. It's not a Coursera for the Chinese students, but a knowledge curation system which helps integrate useful online academic resources to the mass public. I built a basic version using Rails. However, there are not enough contents yet, thus we still haven't officially launched the system yet. To make it a nicer system, we've got to work with more talented designers/developers.

These few days, I'm learning Node.js because I've committed to the GSOC organisation that I'll work this project(patient timeline viewer) out in the summer. The main purpose for doing the GSOC is to financially support my voluntary work in Wanmen and learn more some stills along the way. However, when too many commitments come along, they become burdens. These few days, I stay late around 2-3 am finishing either GSOC or the Wanmen project. In the first two days back in Singapore, I stayed overnights with Zhixing to finish the icreate iOS demo.

In August, I'll move forward to other projects(primarily ReadPeer, CodeRobot) and hopefully not too many other commitments will come along. Otherwise, I'll have no life.... Currently, there are some potential commitments from other project teams and I have to learn to DELETE and FOCUS.













Comments

Popular posts from this blog

InnovFest 2015

I attended the innovFest 2015 event. It was quite eye opening. Besides the booth, some topics in the forums also interested me. The first topic I joined was the Kopi Chat with Yossi Vardi, a famous Israeli entrepreneur and investor. He is straightforward and humorous. When talking about the most important reason why people wake up with a great idea but ended up sleeping without executing anything, he collected answers from the audiences. One answer pretty much fitted his appetite-- "People fear about losing faces". He shared his opinion with the quotes from Theodore Roosevelt, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually st

Consistency Matters

I didn't post anything last week, which means consistency has been broken. There's a need to reflect the task management skills, otherwise I'm very likely to driving the wrong road Priority changes. A good exercise would be to list the priorities down everyday and assign reasonable time to the tasks. Then never second-doubt. 100% focusing on the task when doing it. Priority changes from time to time.  Human minds are single-threaded, thus, we'll need to keep focused when doing one particular task. Be Grateful. I received the confirmation from NOC Israel that I got admitted by the programme and I'm heading to Israel next Jan:-) Thanks a lot for Prof.Ben and Karl's help. Ultimately, it might be a plan from God. Thanks every one. The additional interview from Google went well, however, I didn't get the winter intern opportunity this time. Though it's a bit too greedy to ask for too much, I still feel a bit sad after informed that I didn't get th

Super Fruitful Weeks

These two weeks are extremely fruitful. Almost all my expectations for coming to Beijing have been met in such a short time-- to form long term relationship with entrepreneurs here, to work with talented designers, to improve my coding skills, to experience the tech entrepreneur life, etc. I'm loving the city. Though not as clean and nice as Singapore, this is a place for young dreamers to pursue their careers. As a famous song writer wrote about Beijing, " 我在这里欢笑(I'm laughing here) 我在这里哭泣(crying here) 我在这里活着(living here) 也在这里死去(dying here) 我在这里祈祷 (praying here) 我在这里迷惘(confusing here) 我在这里寻找(seeking here)  在这里失去(losing here) ". The extreme inequality creates a lot of diversities and opportunities here in Beijing. The youth have a strong desire to be successful and they form active entrepreneurial communities in cafes, meetup groups, incubators,etc(mostly in and around Zhong Guan Cun). Here is a photo taken in Cheku Cafe which is a tech hub for young entrepreneurs