Over the Holidays, things are a little less strict when it comes to revision and practise. I have a theory about violin practise, and was helped in this theory by an anime I have recently finished. Princess Tutu.

If you stop practising for one day, you will notice the difference.
If you stop practising for two days, your teacher will notice the difference.
If you stop practising for a week, your audience will notice it.

(Princess Tutu)

My own theory is that when you play violin, the skin on your fingertips goes hard and calloused.  After a while, the skin heals and your fingertips go soft again. Technically, if you practise enough, your fingertips should never go soft. A true violin master always has tough fingertips, and so the periods of practise should always be done before your fingers go soft again.

Tough fingertips, and a tough soul.

2010 is the Chinese Zodiac year of the Tiger, or so I’ve been told. This year is a year of triumph, of hard work and determination, and I’m going to need it if I’m going into my senior years of schooling. I am a little apprehensive about the upcoming year, but I know I have friends to support me and to keep me happy through the rest of my life.

5+ Weaknesses for the Interview

This is in continuation to the earlier post named “5 Strengths & 5 Weaknesses @ Google!” since the weaknesses described in it couldn’t be used for a real interview.

We deceive!

We Live to deceive!

We  Live to get deceived!

We  want people to deceive!

No matter how much you sugar coat Lies and words of Self-Deception, they still remain what they Really are. Does Reality matter? I am not sure about it anymore really. Growing up in life, Growing up to life all those years, I have not been able to make up my mind on that and the notions I held in my years of innocent childhood have been tarnished by the ugly reality of the World I live in. Why is it that Truth doesn’t get us the desired results in life?

When it comes to interviews especially, one of the most likeable and expected questions is “Describe your strengths and weaknesses”.

I would certainly find it not very hard to answer that question but to answer it As Expected by the Interviewer is another story.  Over the years, I have come to realize that my Dictionary meaning of the Term Weakness when it comes to Interviews is completely wrong.

Dictionaries might describe Weakness as:

1. An inadequate quality; fault
2. A flaw or weak point
3. The property of lacking physical or mental strength; liability to failure under pressure or stress or strain

My version of Weakness means: “An extreme personality trait or characteristic (that you may have or not have) sugar-coated to highlight that it acts as a merit for earning big buck to the hiring company.”

Another important fact of life that I have learnt is that everything in the world is Relative.  Thus, naturally my definition of Weakness is discussed in the context of the interview.

Though I have always wanted to speak my mind on what I really believe my weaknesses would be in front of an interviewer but believe me, this will not get you anywhere especially in a job market. One in a million HR managers would actually admire your Truthfulness in this regard and you would surely face more rejections than approval to do the same. I still can’t comprehend the idea of what the interviewers really intend to understand in us from our reply.

Is it the skill and tact with which we can lie? Is it our ability to think One Step Ahead and get things done before being asked? In this case, the homework we might have done to have a well prepared answer. Is it the quality of shrewdness and self selling ability (i.e. marketing) in us? Or is it the diplomacy and ingenuity with which we handle the question?

However, I still want to maintain a shred of decency and truth in my reply to the prospective employer in hand. This is because I can’t think of losing my Truthfulness for one and secondly because my notions about life are quite different and distinct and I believe no matter how the world works as per others, it works how you want it to work for you; it works how you perceive it to work. Since discussing this is irrelevant to the scope of the current post, I would just resort to a quick list of 5+ Weaknesses that I believe can be used for the interview.

1. Lack of Experience: While I know that I don’t have any Direct experience for the position I am being interviewed for, I have professional experience that required all the desired qualities of professionalism.  My previous employer can second that I was effective and efficient in my previous job and I believe I can contribute and deliver fully to the new one. If given a chance and little time, this weakness can be overcome easily with my professional attitude.
2. Carefree Attitude: (While this is strength on one side, it can also prove to be a weakness. Dynamism and passion/enthusiasm is required to lead.)I am only carefree and relaxed till I think everything is under control. As soon as the deadlines and pressure pump in, I become proactive to meet them in the most efficient manner.
3. Working Alone: I prefer to work alone as I think I can deliver my best, concentrate and can avoid spending my energy on the team issues.  But since I like challenges and my past work didn’t really allow me to coordinate and work in team much, I am looking forward to grow in that area professionally.  I am excited that this will enable me to define some best practices in the area.
4. Getting Over Burdened: As mentioned earlier, I want to deliver my best and this perfectionist attitude makes me reluctant to delegate work to my subordinates. I can’t trust fully on their abilities and therefore, I over burden myself with work. The over-whelming feeling does take its toll sometimes. I realize this clearly and consciously and I have tried to work on it. Recently, I coordinated an event and tried to delegate as much work as possible and stick to concentrate to my duties.
5. Time Management Skills: Sometimes my perfectionism can affect my time management skills. Both of these are related and as I manage to curb that weakness, I believe this will be solved too.
6. Lacking Assertion: I don’t believe in coercion to get things done. My lack of assertion also stems from that fact. But I realize that this attribute is greatly required to build a strong character.  I have been working on this in my personal life as well as my teaching career and have successfully managed to have an upward graph.
7. Lacking Rational Thinking: Sometimes, I get over sensitive to what others have to say about my actions and notions. This is especially in areas of personality. I can’t meet everybody’s expectations and I can’t stop implementing the decisions I believe are right in my heart. I have tried on work on this area by researching and reading on human psychology and have managed slightly to understand and read people’s psychology and view every statement or comment in the light of practicality and rationalism.

There could be a much bigger list to use for the interview but since it was to match my Friend in order to carry the element of Truth in it, I have tried to keep it precise.  Also I believe that if asked to provide for 5 weaknesses or more, you should avoid the exact count since it makes the interviewer believe that you have had it planned already and that’s why he is unable to check your ability to respond to something out of the blues.

Some old fashioned, stereotypical employers do want the candidate to be well prepared and well read for all the questions so this decision will be based on your own personal analysis of the interviewer.

I personally believe that you can’t use one answer for each and every interview. Just make sure that your answer matches the position and business for which you are being interviewed. Analyze the interviewer’s personality, try to get into his mind, be attentive to his line of questioning, his attitude and what the things are he is stressing on.  For instance, if he’s insisting on finding the right candidate who can Grow with the company, you have to mention that this is one of your wish and desire. If you have had a couple of years experience with a previous employer, highlight it. If you don’t have this, then explain implicitly that its always been your dream and intention to Grow with a company but you also believe that you can and should not continue to work any longer when you start realizing that you can’t deliver your 100% and can’t work to your full potential. Since this won’t be honest and truthful to yourself and to your employer and you can’t continue something with a guilty conscience.

Another handy tip is to always have personal and professional experiences related to your strengths and weaknesses prepared since mostly the next question in line is to give an example to support your claims.

In a Nut Shell:

1. Be truthful.  Keep your conscience Alive.
2. Your strengths can actually be used as weaknesses.
3. Reply dynamically (as IT people would say). Base your reply on the given situation analysis. Avoid using the Prepared answer if it doesn’t fit well in a given interview scenario.
4. Understand the True definition of Weaknesses in the given scenario. Don’t start babbling your A, B, C ….Z personality weaknesses. Keeping in perspective the Job and Position, draft your weaknesses.
5. Your weaknesses are Actually things you professionally lack right now but are active and willing to develop.

The last thing to note here is that every person is different so no matter how much articles you read, no matter how much research you do on the Best Practices, there aren’t any hard and fast rules or text book definition of interviewer’s expectations or interviewee’s responses.

If you need any more examples to tricky interview questions, use a comment section below.

Share It!!

Regular practise is more effecitve than occasional bursts of effort. This holds true even if the irregular surges add up to more time.

The Vancouver Canucks may be getting an offensive boost on its road trip this week as Daniel Sedin is inching closer to returning from injury.

Sedin, who has been recovering from a broken foot, skated on his own the last few days and is on his way to Dallas to join the team for practice on Sunday. His status for Tuesday’s game in St. Louis is uncertain.

The 29-year-old Swedish winger suffered the injury when he was hit by a puck during Vancouver’s 7-1 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Oct. 7.

In four games this year, Sedin has four assists. He was the Canucks’ leading scorer last season with 31 goals to go with his 51 assists.

The Canucks are two games into a five-game road trip. They split the first pair of games with a 5-2 victory in Minnesota on Thursday before falling 2-1 to Dallas on Friday night.

Ronaldo out for a monthWith no road wins, ‘Nucks face Chicago

The Olympic torch is lit and on it’s way, after mega testing done by sumo wrestlers, Su Shee and Upyur  Goziama successfully did their part for the test run.

While the torch has many miles to journey yet, it will culminate with the sumo boys , after having consumed several barrels of beans (pork was eliminted because of swine flu fears), blow a big one on laser sight line aimed at Mt. Garibaldi.  Mt. Garibaldi holds status as the next , new ski hill in British Columbia.

Test runs went fine, save for a worker who got in the way and now supports 3rd degree burns. Su Shee and Upyer Gozamia experienced minor hair singeing.

VANCOCK committee spokesperson, Gaseous Clay, says the worker is fine and feels honoured his burns depict a giant Jesus on his chest.  The countdown to the OWElympics (thank Alison at Creekside for having coined that phrase) is fast approaching with still not enough money in sight.

B.C. Premier Gordoff Campbell says he will introduce legislation to have the homeless wear vests with the Olympic logo on them and all money collected going towards this mega athletic event.  Campbell will not let Olympic beggars keep a red cent of the take, saying, ‘They got themselves into their mess on their own so they can damn well give back to a good cause”.  Former Alberta Premier, Ralph Klein has been appointed as CEO of the collection committee, while Social Developement Minister, Rich Colemanstove will oversee the lighting of the ass torch.  He warns, “If anyone gets in the way they’re gonna get burned and our province is just not into burning anyone except bums…like real bums, you know , the kind with addictions and mental illness that we will force into shelters”.

喝采 (cheers!).

BILLIE JEAN KING

Champions keep playing until they get it right.

Paul Sloane at Lifehack writes a good article of a series talking on how to give effective public speaks. This time he focuses on preparation (full article at http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/how-to-give-a-great-speech-part-1-preparation.html).

I really agree on what Paul writes.

Among all these golden rules, for me is a really imprtant rule #8 “practise, practise, practise”: there’s nothing more awfull (and boring) of someone not prepared and not convincing. Also if you’re really confident with the theme, a fast “redoing” of the speach helps keeping the logic and main points in mind.

And let me add one more thing: don’t rely too much on “powerpoint syndrome”, because, again, people understand really well when those talking are not confident with the contents. And the shorten (but confident) materials you produce, the better will be.

This post as a comment also at http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/how-to-give-a-great-speech-part-1-preparation.html/comment-page-1#comment-343125

A New Yorker is approached in the street near Carnegie Hall, and asked, “Pardon me sir, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?” He replies, “Practise, practise, practise.”

My wife was reading in bed beside me last night when she started giggling and then asked if she could read me something from her October Cosmo magazine. It was from the “Confessions” section, where men admit their misdeeds for the reading pleasure of the magazine’s fans:

I had to make my first presentation at work and was really nervous, but it was going surprisingly well. I had brought in my personal laptop to do the presentation because I had everything saved on that computer. I got through all my PowerPoint slides and just had to show a YouTube video to finish. When I typed in the link for the video demonstration, everyone started laughing. I looked up at the screen to find that I’d accidentally clicked on a YouPorn link I had saved in my browser instead of YouTube — in front of all my co-workers!

Interesting divergence of perceptions at this point.

“That’s why you do a dry-run of your presentation.”, I replied.

“That’s why you don’t keep porn on your laptop.”, she said.

Both valid points, methinks.

The Whole Day

-the whole day is practice.

lough lene

As Long As

-as long as we are in the present moment, we are relaxed. -– Ringu Tulku

I’ve been thinking about my reading on Sunday a lot this past week. I suppose that’s only natural. I’d like to make sure that the excerpt I read is interesting and  since there are shifts back and forth in the story, I didn’t want to  confuse the listener, either. I’d sort of like to read the third chapter but I find it a bit emotional and so I decided to stick with something safer.

I’m to tell a little bit about the book, set up for the excerpt and then read for 10-15 minutes. They’ve allowed time for Q&A afterward. I opted for the minimum time, since this is my first time at such an event.

I had an email from another first time author who will also be reading and she tells me she hasn’t put a whole lot of thought into it. Although I have read my work in public on a few occasions to small crowds, this will be her first time. Is this a fool hearty move on her part? For a fleeting moment I thought, it sure is.

I like to be prepared. I need to be prepared. But when I stop and think about it all my preparation, all my fretting over which chapters to read (since they are short chapters I will need to read two) isn’t going to change anything the moment I start reading on Sunday. I’ll either mess up or I won’t. This other author will likely choose her excerpt and read it over a few times the night before. Likely when it all comes down to it no one’s even going to know the difference. I mean, how many times can you read something over? Even reading it over in practice you can stumble a time or two and even if you don’t stumble while practicing that doesn’t insure you won’t when you’re reading it for real . And is it even that big a deal if you do stumble? Heck I never signed up to be perfect.

I know I never seem to mind if I’m listening to someone else and they falter. In fact, I go away without thinking about it at all. Is anyone even going to care or remember once all is said and done? I’m not under any illusions here. I’m pretty small potatoes when it comes to some of the other seasoned authors who will be reading that day. I’m reading right after Vicki Grant…an award winning author. It might have been nice had they lumped all of us first timers together but for some reason the organizers at WOTS didn’t bother to ask my opinion. Go figure!

So I’ve prepared as much as I can. I’ll wait until Saturday evening and go over it a few times. I’ll arrive early at WOTS, hopefully meet some authors whose work I admire, perhaps buy some books. My son will snap some pictures of me smiling my face off. When 1:00 comes and someone from WOTS introduces me I’ll step forward and do my thing. Will I be nervous? You bet!! But likely there will be others who are feeling the same way.  It’s all for the sake of my book and putting it out there so I guess you do what you have to do. There’s no turning back now. Hopefully, someone will be interested in my book and when it arrives on the bookshelves they’ll buy it. Wish me luck, people. What have I got to loose?

drag of a grey morning, hard to shift the black dog off the bed. saved my life by blowing off work – couldnt get much done in the rain anyway, and keeping the practise alive kept me alive.

todays yoga music by Imee Ooi, her recording of The Chant Of Metta

http://www.immmusic.com/product/eng/product.htm

finally a long shower and shave and feeling human again. but the afternoon the sun as if in answer  breaks through. even the cat has found a dry spot out by the hedge to curl up and dream in. so Morgans home from school and shelly from teaching the a.m. Pilates class and the dog is mad to go for a walk so after homework we’ll treat ourselves to a walk by the lake. get some photos, get so earth under our feet, get some of whatever it is we’re meant to see.

earlier this year

todays tip: remember practise is a way of living, not dependent on mood or weather. do not turn it into a negotiable thing