A new hobby, that didn't last

I’ve always admired individuals who had a very well-rounded lifestyle. Having the commitment to balance work, family, friends and a sport or interest.

Developing a hobby or interest never really was my thing. Ever since I was young, the concept of a hobby that could sustain my interest was usually activities that:

a) Were solo activities
b) Were easy enough for me to take up

In primary school, athletics never interested me, because I was a pudgy fat kid. (Now I’m just grown up) So I wasn’t exactly nimble. I did try out the short putt, for all of 1 throw. Then I never really thought it enjoyable standing under the Sun, competing against other fat kids to see who could hurl preserved dinosaur dung across the sky.

The boy scouts never interested me either, because it was such a social activity, and I was terribly shy when I was young. So I eventually settled for the Boys’ Brigade, a sin I will forever remember. It was an ECA; I could never make much sense of. It involved us walking around in ridiculous looking uniforms and even more ridiculous looking hats- let’s not even get started on those shoes. For reasons still lost to me to this day, we had horse shoes fitted on the soles of our shoes, resulting in an unbelievably irritating cacophony of noise that resemble a karang guni man dragging his bag of cans on the floor.

I still don’t know why I joined the Boys’ Brigade.

Swimming was a half-hearted affair as well. I quit after 4 lessons, and still remember thinking I was drowning in the 0.5 meter baby pool. I only learnt how to swim in the army at the grand old age of 23. The only 3 words that kept going through my head during my first visit to Fantasy Island wasn’t ‘This is great!’ or ‘let’s go again!’ Before I plunged into any of the rides, I’d think – ‘Is it safe?’ 10 yr olds were whopping their ass off, while I was thinking. “Without any identification on me, how’d they identify my body?’

Then in secondary school, I found my thing – Basketball. (Besides the debating team) The fondest memory of basketball was the time when I scored 2 baskets (for a grand total of 4 points!) in match where we scored 30 points. We lost the match 76 to 30.

But I remember how I enjoyed the sport. My rainbow shots, arcing high up in the air landing snugly through the hoop with a swoosh. Sweet.

Tabla lessons came along, but it only lasted for 2 months. It was really a whim fueled by my wild ambitions to play an instrument in front of a crowd – thing is with the tabla, the hard part is getting a crowd interested in the first place.

But now, I think I’ve found a winner.

This new sport I’ve discovered isn’t entirely new. I’ve tried it before in the polytechnic, and then again in the army. But I was too lazy to pursue it any further – The Dragon Boat.

Rowing really is quite an oxymoron. Comprising 10-20 individuals paddling their lives away on a 3 foot wide tongkang, it’s a team sport, that doesn’t require much interaction with your team-mates. You’re not required to pass any ball or fake any pass, or do any over-lapping runs, or cover any gaps left by your team mate - You just row.

You just row till you basically feel like dying – which brings me to the point on how it really isn’t a solo sport either. Even if we had The Thing paddling at the back, it won’t do the boat much good, if none of us were in sync.

Rowing if anything relies heavily on the concept of ‘Besting your own team mate’. The harder or better a rower you are, you get to set the pace at the front. Then everyone on the boat deals with matching your pace. Even if you were a stronger rower than the pacer, you won’t be able to set your pace, because not everyone’s as strong as you. Everyone’s trying to match the pacer, and you do your best to keep everyone in sync.

So to a certain extent, it fits into both criteria a) and b). It is sort of like a solo sport (You can get by without saying anything during the row, just let your paddle do the talking). It isn’t exactly easy for me to pick up, but I enjoy it, plus it gives me nice muscles to keep the baby elephants away.

The timing couldn't have been worse. Just when I was getting into the hang of it, I'm having to have to take a year's hiatus from it for work.

I will miss it....

The arrival

There's that saying: You can either choose to become 'a big fish in a small pond' or a 'small fish in a big pond'.

I don't yet know which one i've opted for with this decisi on - come May 11th, i'll be departing Singapore to work in Beijing.

It took me about a month to contemplate the decision, doing the sums, weighing the pros and cons, assessing my current situation and measuring how strategic a move this measures up to. In the end, I decided the pros outweight the cons (as far as i can see), and decided to take the plunge.

Many people have congratulated me on the move and commented that it is a good decision. For me? The feeling is starting to sink in and I must say I'm feeling a slight jittery now. A new industry to work on, an entirely new market to work in and a whole new world of people and their idiosyncracies. But its like what they say: "In order to search for new land, one must sail far and away from home shores' (Or something like that) So that's that! This time its no turning back!

The guys held a farewell for me last week. A tad early, but what the hell, it was fun nonetheless. Here are the pictures:

You could have just taken one shot of me and superimposed them in all of them.

Here's what i'll be bringing to Beijing:

My 300 comic and Art of the Film book given to me by Mr X

My ROC and TFT CD to keep myself occuped on lonely nights

My 2 favourite books by Mr Ogilvy - to keep me inspired

This book - a must read.

Destroyed the cards I don't need to keep things simple.

And of course my 2 big guns

The departure - Part 2

There are essentially two types of agencies.

a) The Creative Hot Spot - where ideas take centrestage and every effort within the agency is making a great idea come to life. The general belief here is that:

Agency creates Big ideas ---> Big advertising---> Big results--->Happy clients

b) The Integration and Adaptation shop - usually spawned by corporate behemoths who engage both the Creative Hot Spots as well as these types of agencies. Functioning like the tentacles of an octopus, they carry out, as the name suggests-Integration and Adaptation work. Here it usually means:

Client gives instructions-->Agency downloads artwork----->Makes local adaptation--> Release the work.

Evidently, the two play vastly different but equally important roles in the commercial world. Having come from an A-type agency, I have been drilled in the art and science of nourishing big ideas for the clients. The energy and culture that resides in such a working environment is especially conducive to the creation of big ideas. As much as it was inspiring and exciting, it was also unbelievably draining and I had to get out before it drained my passion for the work.

I unfortunately found that my experience in a B-type agency was not to my liking. I found the work ethic and environment valued people with vast experience and skill sets to make things run like clock work. I also found that the culture within the agency was not something that I was comfortable working in. It didn't feel like the atypical ad agency and felt more like a bank.

Needless to say, management was particulary furious when i told them my intention to leave after a week. Fair enough, I should have done more research and prepared myself for what to expect, but I didn't expect it to be so drastically different.

Lesson learnt: Never be tempted to join a company just for the money. It can't sustain your interest in the place long enough.

Fortunately, I was given an opportunity that was ripe for the taking...

The departure - Part 1

What better way to start something new than with a topic on the old.

Here's the farewell note I had sent to my colleagues and clients just before I left the place.

To all my clients and colleagues,

Today is my last day of work in XXXXX which means it is time to say farewell to you!

I will commence work in my new job on the 16th of April and will be staying within the dark realms of advertising (the casinos aren't hiring yet) but will work on the consumer electronics industry.

Working in XXX has been a dream come true. Conceived when i was still an earnest undergrad, the names XXXX and Hugh Hefner created the most impact on the idea of careers I wanted to pursue. Since pornography is illegal in Singapore, I decided advertising had to be the next best thing. And this dream came true on the 17th of July 2005, when I began work on the XXXX. (What did i get myself into?)

The past year and 10 months has been, for the lack of a better word - 'Amazing'. From the late nights, the brainstorms, the arguments, the meetings at the XXX , the revelation of BIG ideas, the endless laughter in the XXX , to the smokes at the balcony, every encounter with every one of you will forever remain in my memory for
they have made me stronger, wiser (XXX would surely disagree) and shaped me into who I am today.

I will improve on these new strengths and work on my weaknesses to build on the strong foundations I had formed in XXX to achieving my new dreams and aspirations.

I wish you all the best in whatever you may pursue, and I would like to share two of my favourite quotes as I end this email:

"Always Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish and Stay Curious" - Steve Jobs

“Encourage innovation. Change is our life-blood, stagnation our death knell." - XXXX

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I had farewell gifts that noone could complain about.

First there was the farewell card.

The folks in the office knew of my crazy infatuation and my dreams of being one of them - Alas, this was as close as I would get in achieving that dream.

The headline couldn't be more true.

Turned out everyone had something to say to me (all nice things..the liars) and Rach had to extend it by another 2 panels,

Apart from the awesome card, they also pooled money to get me $200 worth of vouchers at Club 21!

Of course when I was looking for something to buy in the boutiques, I found out that everything in there cost more than $300!

There was this pair of YY shoes that really caught my eye...

It cost $600+, no way i was going to pay that kind of money for it.

I finally decided to get this pair of Lacoste shoes. Quite decent looking, and surely handy for any kind of occasion.Cost me $100 + $200 vouchers.

And what farewell is complete without a round of food and drinks no?

All in all, it was a good end to an even greater time within Big Red.

I was all set to start in my new place....or so i thought.