NaNoWriMo - 3 Lessons Learned

My apologies for the lack of posts - it has been a busy couple of months for me. Most of the time, I don't have anything interesting to say so I just don't say it, but I have learned that it can be valuable to post more often to get into the habit of quicker thinking. I'll tell you what I mean later.

This past month in November, I participated in NaNoWriMo.

Now I had heard about NaNoWriMo before (and for those of you that don't know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month). In November, everybody gets together and participates in "30 days of literary abandon". People sign up and right at 12 am on November 1st, they can start writing. The goal is to reach 50,000 words in 30 days, or approximately 1667 words every day.

I knew about NaNoWriMo in the past but being in school (and November being the month before finals), this was a difficult project to take on with limited time. Since I'm now working full time, I thought it might be a challenge but I would at least have more time than my days back in University.

I have always been a big writer -- short stories and poems are my favorite mediums but I thought writing a novel might be a challenge. I'm oversimplifying but I felt that it would be like writing several short stories in a serial fashion.


As you may have guessed, I did reach my 50k goal by the end of the month. Thirty days of literary abandon just like they said and you know what, I learned a few things too about participating in NaNoWriMo and really, about how it might affect my productivity.

1. Daily goals make things manageable
2. Catching up is difficult.
   
3. Having a buffer gives you flexibility 

1. Daily goals make things manageable

Right from the start, I already knew which approach I would take to reach my 50,000 word goal by the end of the month.

From reading many of the e-mails that NaNoWriMo sent me, there were two kinds of people participating: tortoises and hares (my own analogy). Tortoises took things slow and steady. Sometimes, they reached the daily word count, other times they would go over and still others would be a little behind but try to write something every day. Hares, on the other hand, would spring as quickly as possible to the finish line (the 50k word goal) then take a break, madly spring again, take a break, and rinse and repeat. As I browsed through the site, NaNoWriMo users have word counts beside their profile names and I saw that a lot of them already had 30,000 - 40,000 words by the end of the week. To me, that was insane!

I think you can guess by now which approach I decided to take. I'm actually fairly lucky that November 1st was on a Sunday and that I had a decent idea to write about already brewing in my mind. I managed to not only get to the goal of my daily word count of 1667 words, I managed to create a one day buffer on the first day as well!

Depending on how fast you type, you may be devoting half an hour to an hour a day contributing to your novel. My average seemed to be about an hour and a half and let me tell you, it was so difficult to sit down and just write. For the first 2 weeks, I seemed to know where things were moving along and things moving along swimmingly. There were certainly times where I faltered and had writer's block but I managed to segue into some random segments and achieve my daily goals any way.

At the end of each writing session, I felt extremely happy to post my word count to NaNoWriMo and watch as others increased their word counts each day. Back in University, I started out cramming quite a bit for exams and really not doing that badly on the finals. This was not a superior use of my time though and although it did help that I was studying fields of science where concepts built on top of one another (and therefore, not understanding one topic will hold back your understanding of the next concept), things were almost always easier (and less stressful) when I did a small amount of studying or work every single day as opposed to cramming it all into one session.

It was the same thing here. I would never have enough ideas (or energy) to write a blast of words like other people. It also made it easier that I wouldn't be taking long breaks from my writing, so I wouldn't have to read back on what I've written before in order to continue.

2. Catching up is difficult

Around week 3, I had writer's block almost every day. It was such a crucial point in the story as well because I was trying to build towards the climax at that point but didn't have any good ideas as to where I should go. I knew how it started, I also knew how I wanted to end up, but I didn't have a good idea of the big problem and the resolution. You may think it weird for someone to write without knowing all these things beforehand, but NaNoWriMo encourages writers to write - whether or not they had something to say is different. At some point in your writing though, you do find a plot and that's what eventually happened to me.

In week 4, I had several commitments outside of work that took up my time and my time started inching into sleep as I struggled to set out some time for all my responsibilities. I think around day 23 or 24, I slipped - I wrote a few hundred words and then had massive writer's block combined with a late night.

Things didn't go well there and although it never crossed my mind that I wouldn't reach that 50k goal, I did think that I would have to stay up on the weekend to catch up or ultimately finish the novel.

Why was catching up so difficult? Hey, reaching the daily word count was difficult enough. Trying to reach 2 or 3 daily word counts so that you've 'caught up' was not fun at all if you're experiencing writer's block. This is a big reason why creating and reaching daily goals was incredibly helpful to my sanity.

3. Having a buffer gives you flexibility 

On day 1, I immediately jumped ahead in the word count having an extra day's worth of 'words' in my word count. When I started writing, I was filled with the excitement of writing and wasn't really thinking about reaching a certain word count or anything like that - rather, I was interested in just writing and seeing where it would take me.


The whole time I was writing, I never thought about not writing on any one day because I would then lose the buffer I had maintained so painstakingly. It was partly because of the daily word count that I wanted to hit every day, but it was also the fact that I did NOT want to lose the buffer I had built up.

In any case, around week 4, I did sleep as I mentioned before but with a buffer, I managed to not lag behind too much. I was slightly worried though during week 4 because although I thought I was right on track (after missing one day), I looked at my word count and calculated where I should actually be and panicked that I was a day behind.

Suffice to say, I was very lucky that the last days of November was the weekend and I caught up easily.



If you've read this far, I commend you for reading stuff that is probably pretty obvious to you already. What you may find interesting (more interesting hopefully) is that I'm going to try to apply these to everything I'm trying to learn.

My next goal is to learn Japanese. I could tell you about the multitude of differences between learning a language and trying to write a novel but I'm going to tackle it the same way:

1. Have a daily goal to reach

Whether its learning a few vocabulary words every day or learning how to count to 20 (which I've done through an interesting youtube video), I should try my best to learn at least one thing every day. And by learn, I don't mean read over once, repeat it a few times and then leave it. I mean actually learn so that I can recall it in a few weeks.

2. Catching up - just don't do it

Never fall behind. One of the best pieces of advice I received from my biology professor back in University was to make use of all the time you have. Say you're waiting for the bus for 10 minutes every day - USE those 10 minutes to learn one word. Are you walking to work every day? Listen to a japanese audio pod cast!

3. Having a buffer gives you flexibility

This is much less important for learning a language since you won't necessarily have a deadline, but if you do and you have extra time - why not go ahead and learn a few more words?



Lastly, I am posting an excerpt of my novel below. If you're interested in reading the full novel (I'm warning you in advance, its long) send me an e-mail.

He dreamt that he was in a library. There were shelves upon shelves of books; he tried hard to read the titles of the books on the shelves but like all dreams, he could only make out blurs. He saw himself walking through rows upon rows of books with heavy footsteps.

He thought maybe if he picked up a book on the shelf and opened it, he would be able to make sense of it all. He went to a random book on the shelf near a wall and opened it. Blurs inside as well. All he could make out was red and blue on the covers and pictures that looked like they had the wind filter applied several times in photoshop in multiple directions. Dissatisfied that he could not read the wealth of knowledge in his subconscious, he put the book back on the shelf and started to walk away when he noticed that the book did not quite fit so snugly in the shelves. The book jutted out a little and being inside a library, albeit inside his subconscious, he felt compelled to put the book back into its place on the shelf.

He gave a slight nudge to the book but was surprised to find that it did not move an inch. He looked around incredulously but being inside his own dream, there was no one to look surprised at to. He pushed a little harder but again, was surprised that it did not move. The book being misaligned with the rows upon rows of books was starting to annoy him now. Finally, mustering an incredible amount of strength and willpower, he punched the book with all his might. The book aligned itself with the other books but as it did so, he heard a click and then a small churn of a motor behind the wall. That was strange, he did not expect to hear a motor in the library and especially not in his dreams. He stepped back to see that a nearby wall was now misaligned with the other walls, just like the book that had annoyed him before. Again, he tried to push the wall back in, but as the motor continued to churn, the wall slid to the side, revealing a secret passageway.

My Friend, the Toastmaster

As some of you know, I am a part of Toastmasters International. I've actually been a part of Toastmasters for about 2 years on and off. I think when I first started back in 2005, I was already pretty good and I'm not sure I've challenged myself to do different things with my speeches in a while. In any case, in all the time I've been a part of Toastmasters, I never really got a chance to compete. I won my club's contest when I was part of a university club but couldn't make it out to the next contest (where the winners of different clubs compete) because I had to pick my Mom up from the airport.

This time it would be different. Up against, one other club member, I won the speech contest and moved on to the Area club contest where I would compete with other club winners in my area. Though nerve wracking, it was a good experience, especially since the contest was a humorous speech contest.

I think luck was on my side that day: I was up against one other person again and managed to eke out a win. The win meant that I would move on to the Division contest (and if I won that, I would move on to the District, the final one I believe).

Imagine an early Saturday morning. You just came back to Edmonton from Calgary the night before on a long bus ride home and now you have to give a speech against other winners from the Area contests.

This is what happened:




and here is my speech as I wrote it out (though probably different than when I actually said it out loud).

My Friend, the Toastmaster

Thank you mr. toastmaster, fellow dawnbreakers, most welcome guests and honored judges.

Today, I want to talk about a good friend of mine, a fellow Toastmaster. We have been friends for a few years and he is probably in his 30's now. Some would say that he's middle aged. Others may disagree. I only bring up the age to highlight the fact that he's been a Toastmaster now for almost all his life.

What I wanted to share with you today are some of the traits my good friend has as a Toastmaster. Perhaps these are traits that some of you may already have or are looking to gain. Some of his many great qualities that I will be talking about today include his use of pauses and silence, his passion or heat for being a Toastmaster and his obsession with toasts.

First, let me talk about his use of pauses and silence.

My friend says very little in his day to day life but that doesn't mean that the words that he does say do not carry a lot of weight. He doesn't say much but when he does say something, it is meaningful, relevant, profound and he says things with authority -- like a small bell in a large room. People often listen to his eerie speeches full of pauses and silence and when he finally speaks up, people are happy, they are excited. They even stand up after they have heard his words of wisdom. You may have heard the quote "a watched pot never boils". By his silent speeches alone, he has coined the phrase "a watched Toastmaster never toasts".

You might mistake this as a lack of passion or heat for being a Toastmaster. Make no mistake about it though, he has a burning desire to be the best Toastmaster there is.

His passion has often been described as a flame that would consume anything and everything if not kept in check. Luckily for us, he keeps it in check. As an example of how he keeps his heat in check, every single time I have seen him make a toast, he always ends at either a minute, a minute and a half or two minutes. You can be sure that when he finishes, it is never over the time limit. In fact, he is so consistent and so precise, some even think that he is a machine. Due to his punctuality and his profound toasts, he is often requested by friends to make toasts in their honor.

That leads me to his third characteristic: his obsession with toasts.

A toast as you know, is a drink and small tribute in honor of a person. Like I said, he is often requested by friends to make toasts in their honor. By now, you must realize that all he seems to do is make toasts - why the obsession with toasts, I do not know. His toasts can range from light toasts that are crisp and to the point to dark toasts that are sometimes difficult to swallow. As an example of his obsession with toasts, I have seen him make 2, 3 even 4 toasts, simultaneously to honor 4 different people. Whatever the occasion, he can make the right toast.

Let me now end by showing you a picture of my friend, the Toastmaster. Although he is quite shy, I managed to snap a picture while he wasn't quite plugged into the things around him. I think that many of you may recognize him as he is quite famous for his toasts. As I show you a picture of my friend, I will conclude by reiterating many of the points I have made so far.

- He's been a toastmaster for almost all his life.
- His great qualities include his use of pauses and silence, his passion or heat for being a Toastmaster and his obsession with toasts
- He says things with authority, like a small bell in a silent room
- He coined the phrase, a watched Toastmaster never toasts
- He is so consistent, so precise, some people think he is a machine.
- He has an obsession with toasts
- His toasts range from light toasts that are crisp and to the point to dark toasts that are difficult to swallow
- As an example of his obsession with toasts, I have seen him make 2, 3 even 4 toasts simultaneously to honor 4 different people.

Fellow dawnbreakers, most welcome guests, my friend, the Toastmaster.

Back to you Mr. Toastmaster.

I didn't win that day but it was definitely one of my better speeches I have given.

Web Apps - Evernote

I'm a huge technology buff, especially web and desktop applications. I'm particularly interested in different web applications and the value that they bring to me, either personally or professionally.


I wanted to do a highlight of one of many web apps I use almost daily - Evernote. Evernote has often been called "your second brain". It is an extremely powerful note taking application that saves all your notes, organizes them in folders and allows you to tag notes for quick ways of slicing and dicing notes.

I have a moleskine notebook that I use for when I'm on a bus or feeling particularly inspired to write but more often than note, I'm in front of the computer. Whenever I think that an article is particularly interesting or something that I might want to refer to later, I clip it to Evernote using the handy bookmarklet that they provide.

What kind of things can you clip and save to notebooks or tag? Here are some of the things that I store in my Evernote notebook in no particular order:

• Recipes that you want to try later
• Books that you want to read or purchase
• Receipts (I haven't done it myself but you can snap pictures of your receipts and Evernote will read the text on the receipt when you upload the image - pretty nifty way of tracking your expenses)
• Articles that you may want to refer to later
• Sheet music for songs you'd like to play
• Ideas (anything about speeches, humor, stories)
• Everything related to the job search, including resumes, cover letters and job postings (sometimes the job postings get taken down and if you have several interviews, you'll want to refer back to your job posting to figure out how to prepare for the interview)
• Diary - (almost) daily entries of my thoughts and feelings
• Skills that I'd like to refer back to later
• Gift ideas for friends (sometimes friends refer to things they need or want and it's hard remembering what it is a few months later)
• Dreams

What are some other things that you can clip or save to notebooks?

• Research - if you're writing papers, you can organize different articles you find on the internet (or by taking pictures of magazine articles or textbook pages) into notebooks. If you also take down where you found the article, you'll never have any trouble with giving credit to the right people.
• You can save your floor dimensions in a note. This really only works if you have a smart phone with web browsing but the next time you go shopping for furniture, you never have to worry about whether you have enough space for it in your room; just refer to the note and double check the dimensions.
• Although I haven't tried out this functionality, you can also share notes with other Evernote users or even share whole notebooks. Perhaps you and your friends like to share different recipes with each other (did you see the shared notebook I have for the recipes that I'd like to try?)
  

You can see that the uses for Evernote are limited only by your imagination (and sometimes by a lack of a smartphone heh)

There have also been many articles about how to use Evernote as a way of getting things done. 

Personally, I don't use it as a way of getting things done. I use my e-mail inbox for that, but that's another post. Evernote does help me organize many of the things I do need to do though.


Basically, if you're looking for an easy, secure way of taking down notes, sharing notes with others, always be a search away from that interesting article you read and generally keep track of anything and everything you want, Evernote is definitely a good way to go.

Do you use a note taking application? If so, which ones and how do you use them in your life?

Review and Preview of the Year that follows

Last week was my birthday. Every time it rolls around, I take the time to reflect on all the things I have done and then think about what I want to accomplish in the coming year. I can't remember where I learned about this (I know that it was during my university life though), but I remember someone telling me that writing down goals makes you more likely to achieve them. It was an exercise of sorts, we were to write down a goal that we wanted to accomplish that year and then evaluate at the end of the year whether we reached the goal. If not, we would then have to analyze why we didn't. Was the goal still attainable? How can what we have learned be applied to new goals?

For that very reason, I'd like to take an opportunity to review some of the things that I have done this year and then list some of the goals that I will strive for in the coming year. I can do this privately, but when my close friends read my goals, I will feel more accountable to accomplish them.


Review: (or a list of my goals from last year)

1. Get a job

It's hard to believe that the same time last year, I had just finished up working on Imagine for the summer and was starting to document all my knowledge down for the next coordinator as well as transition out of the job.

When I finally finished in October, I realized I had landed smack dab in the middle of the recession. For those of you who have gone through this or is going through looking for gainful employment, I sympathize. You can't imagine how many nights I went through worrying; what kind of resources I had to dig through; what kind of jobs I had to take in the mean time in order to keep myself sane. I am extremely grateful that I found the job I have now during the time I did. Many companies are now going through hiring freezes and there's no clear sign of when everyone will recover from the recession (which I believe is officially over though that doesn't mean the effects will be gone any time soon).

2. Improve my Public Speaking

Back in 2005, I remember doing coop with PMC - Sierra in Burnaby. Some coworkers suggested that I try out this club during lunch time called Toastmasters. Since then, I've been a part of Toastmasters on and off in total for about 2 years - a part of me wishes that I had continuously gone but then again, it's hard to figure out whether I'm just being hard on myself or whether I would have actually benefited from continuously going.

Cut to May. As a part of my transition to Edmonton, I decided to join a Toastmaster club. Basically I went on to google, searched Toastmasters in Edmonton and then looked through the sites until I found one that matched my schedule. The one I go to is early in the morning and there are times where I think it's way too early but the fact is, I am getting a lot out of Toastmasters in terms of both public speaking, thinking on my feet and networking and leadership.

3. Be Healthy

For the most part, I've been fairly healthy. I limit my intake of junk food, candy and such but I certainly drink from Starbucks or have some cake for special occasions once in a while. I never eat too much though and I always make sure that I'm exercising regularly. Since living on my own, I've been heading to the gym in order to get rid of all the excess fat that I have and while I haven't been 100% successful, I'm making an effort and that's what counts. (technically, I also won't see results until 6 months in either).

4. Learn about different careers and figure out what I want to do exactly

This one was a bit tougher. When I first started my job search, I had a particular role in mind but as I started doing more searches, I realized that that's not really what I want to do all day for the rest of my life. I am a very ambitious fellow and I'm generally not happy with a career that isn't challenging and doesn't have a lot of growth. I dislike being stagnant; I like getting things done quickly and I like getting things done now.

I'm not very good at networking but I am developing some of these skills through some of the mentors I've been talking to at Toastmasters. There is a guy I know who is an insane networker and I have been slowly absorbing as much knowledge as I can about networking from him. Although it seems very early in my career, I figure I might as well get a head start on things if I want to get to where I want to be in a few years.


Preview: (or a list of my goals for the coming future)

1. Absorb more knowledge

University taught me some very important things; one of those things is I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. It isn't just any knowledge though, it's usually on fairly unusual things as my interests are fairly eclectic but lately my interests have been piqued by programming and learning new programming languages, books on the brain, specifically on things like learning, knowledge, memory, etc. and I am trying my best to improve my cantonese and I would also like to improve my mandarin and french (as well as learn some new languages as well - I'm eyeing japanese and korean now).

2. Stand-up Comedy?

I put a question mark next to this goal because I don't think I have it in me to do standup comedy. I think that I could be a very funny guy but I just haven't got the knack of figuring out how to come up with all this good material to talk about - until then, I'll just be writing funny speeches and such once in a while. I find it interesting that many people have suggested to me that I'd be great at standup comedy.

3. Slam Poetry

Many of my friends don't know this about me (and that's really because they've never asked) but I have written (and continue to write) many short stories and poems. Slam poetry is something that I've looked into but have never had the guts to pursue. I love that it combines some of the skills that I already have (public speaking, writing poems) into one - it's such a different beast from speeches but then again, there are a lot of similarities. Who knows, maybe I'll have some success and maybe I'll fail but at least along the way, I'll learn something.

4. Learn to Cook Better

Cooking all started with my strange obsession with fried rice. The first dish that I ever made was fried rice - I know some of you are laughing because it is an easy dish to make but you'd be surprised at what you need to know to make it an extremely good dish (controlling heat, knowing what to cook and at what time in order to fully cook everything, seasoning, etc.). Ever since learning to make fried rice, I've been watching my mom and basically copying some of the dishes she has made.

Now that I'm living on my own, I do a lot of experimentation. I'm a fairly healthy eater but I'm also efficient (read: lazy) and from time to time, I experiment by adding fruits into some of the dishes I make. For example, the other day I added halved red grapes into my stir fry - the consistency of the grapes is a lot like red onions actually and I quite enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, my kitchen is fairly old and I don't have a lot of different techniques to draw upon, but I try to mix different ingredients together to obtain new combinations all the time.


Anyway, if you see me, hold me accountable to these goals - ask me about it, make me feel guilty! =)

What about you? What kind of goals do you have and what kind of things have you done to achieve them? Are there different techniques or strategies you use to accomplish your goals?

Elevators - 3 features I'd like to see

In my residential building, the residents are all served by 3 elevators. Although you expect to wait, there were times where I have waited for 5 minutes plus and gotten incredibly frustrated because it makes me late getting to work.

It provided me with some time to think about how, if I was designing elevators, what kind of things I would add in terms of features.

The first thing, I don't know too much about the mechanics of the elevator but let's just say that if I was designing it, it would have all the same features as the ones today in terms of safety and the pulley / counterweight system - the mechanics would most likely be the same.

The features I am talking about include:

1. Ways to cancel service to a certain floor

Let's say that you're heading to work. You need to catch a bus / walk to work and you leave at around the same time every day and have never had problems. This time, you leave your apartment / condo on the 15th floor and you call the elevator but unexpectedly, the elevator takes an incredibly long amount of time to come. As a result, you are late to work.

Most people, after waiting a certain threshold of time, would just give up on the elevator all together and take the stairs down. I've certainly done it many times as well: when you're short on time, you just decide that you can't take the elevator and that the stairs would be faster.

If you're going to stop waiting for the elevator - why should the elevator stop at your floor now (presuming that you're the only one waiting for the elevator on your floor). Why should anyone that is in the elevator wait for the elevator to service your floor and then realize that nobody is actually there to be taken down (or up)?


Those would be fairly normal cases but there are also times where I have gotten into elevators and have found all the floors to be pressed - presumably someone who likes to inflict this annoyance on others. How great would it be to cancel all the floors that you do not want to go to and just leave the one floor that you do live on to be pressed? Pretty fantastic if you ask me and a great way to save time, I think.


2. ETA's on each floor

This is connected to the first feature I'd like to see in elevators - an estimated time of arrival. People are always rushing to get to places and if people actually know how long they have to wait, they can then judge whether or not it is worth it to wait for the elevator or not. You press the button, figuring that it would take about 5 minutes for the elevator to take you down and see that the ETA reads 15 minutes. "To heck with that", you yell, and you decide to take the stairs instead (hopefully after canceling the button on your floor).

Another useful thing the ETA can do is if all the elevators have broken down - each of the ETA's can have the sign for infinity - people would not only realize not to take the elevators because there's something wrong with them, but they'd also learn some math at the same time :)


3. Full capacity warnings

There's been a few times where I've waited for the elevator, waited for a long time, and then when it finally came, the elevator was full and I couldn't get in.

Wouldn't it be nice for the elevator to detect when the passenger car is full or cannot accept any more passengers? Imagine that a car fills up with passengers on the top floor and they all want to get down to the ground floor. Would it make sense to stop on any floors in-between the top floor and the ground floor? No it wouldn't, because no passengers want to get off and no passengers can get on. With this feature, the elevator can detect, based on weight capacity or on physical space, whether or not the car can accept more passengers. If it can't, then it acts like an express elevator skipping any floor where passengers want service until there is room in the elevator car.

Ideally, in the first scenario with a full car, if a passenger / passengers did get off at a floor in-between the top floor and the ground floor, the elevator would then be able to accept a certain number of passengers in-between the floor that the passenger (s) got off and the ground floor.

This is also where the ETA would come in handy - elevators that are full in capacity would not be servicing any floors that is not the target floor inside the elevator - the ETA could then reflect these express elevators and update as soon as express elevators are available.


4. Proximity buttons

This feature is a bit of a stretch I have to say which is why I didn't include it in the features that I'd like to see, but it is an idea to decrease wait times and to help the elevator run faster.

The idea is that there are times where you'll get into the elevator with other people and they will all live around your floor - i.e. you live on floor 9 and two others get into the elevator who live on floor 8 and floor 10. In elevators now, each person would have to wait for the elevator to stop at 8, 9 and then 10 to get to their floors.

But what if the people living on floor 8 and 9 didn't mind taking the stairs? In this case, the elevator would stop at floor 10, everyone would get off and the two people living on floors 8 and 9 would then take the stairs down to their respective floors.

Why would this be handy? Imagine getting into the elevator and you live / work on the 28th floor. 3 others get into the elevator and they all press 8, 9 and 10. If two of them didn't mind taking the stairs, the elevator would stop at the one floor and then head on up to the 28th floor - it would be faster for you this way.

I know, I know, a bit of a stretch.

How would this be designed in the elevator though?

Imagine that in a 11 story building, there are no individual buttons but instead, buttons that read 3, 4, 5; 6, 7, 8; 9, 10, 11.

People that wish to get off on the 3rd floor would press the 3, 4, 5 button - the elevator would then stop off at either one of those floors (if on the 4th or 5th floor, the person would only need to walk down 1 or 2 flights of stairs to get to their floor). In this way, the elevator would not have to stop on each individual floor for people who live near each other (floor-wise).


What about you? What features would you like to see in elevators? Are there any features in elevators that you wouldn't want?

Don't Look Now! Advanced Math at the Gym

I have way too much time on my hands. Seriously, I head over to the local YMCA probably 4 or 5 times a week. I know, I know, there are other things that I could be doing with my time - like going to school, or taking some night classes at a college to improve some of my language or tech skills. I guess what I'm really focused on right now and until I can find another productive way of using my time, I am focused on just getting into the best shape of my life.

In any case, on one of those days I was at the YMCA, I was sitting on an exercise bike on an 'alpine hill' setting. I have been following the Tour De France lately and the cyclists really inspired me to push myself on the exercise bike. I know it's not the same but I couldn't help but feel like I was racing towards something on that bike as I tried to burn off calories. Going up and down mountains, it was just a normal stage on the Tour De France and it is probably what inspired me to try out the alpine hill setting on the bike.

This is what greeted me on the bike:

For the longest time, I always looked at that screen and figured that the bike would simulate the hills on the left of the bike screen.


But that's when I came to a pretty geeky discovery: they actually were first derivatives of the hill I was climbing.


Normally, when you're on an exercise bike, all you really should be thinking about is how to keep breathing and moving your legs (and possibly trying to keep pace on high difficulty settings). As I said, I figured that those hills were the ones that the bike was simulating, but as I got to the highest difficulty level (the middle peak), I realized that that was not what the bike was simulating at all. If you're already at the top of the hill, it would not be that difficult to pedal.

That's when I realized that the bike screen was actually showing a fairly rough graph of the first derivative of the height function of the hill. What I'm saying is that the graph on the bike screen is showing how difficult the climb is (ie. how steep the hill is). And I mean rough because I would assume that if the bike is simulating a hill, there would be an upwards ride and a downwards ride with flat rides as well (and if there were flat rides, then the first derivative would be 0; contrarily, the bike screen showing the 'rough' first derivative would never reach 0 unless it was set to 0 by the user).

Of course, I'm just assuming that there are flat rides, it is entirely possible that you are always climbing up the hill (in which case, the first derivative of the height function of the hill would then always be positive). This may be the more plausible explanation.



And of course, maybe I am the only one who really thinks about this kind of stuff at the GYM.


More geeky things that I could cover in this post but won't:

- Area underneath the first derivative = height function of the hill you are climbing
- Second derivatives and what it means in this context (acceleration - how fast you are ascending)
- Actual height function as depicted by the first derivative (most likely three 'hills' - think a three - step staircase and you have a rough idea of the hill function assuming you are always climbing the hill and never going down it. In the case that you are climbing down the hill at some point, the first derivative has a y-value of 0 at a certain level of the 'graph' )

Practical Applications of Priority Queues

A few weeks ago, my two week free trial membership to the downtown YMCA expired. On the last day, I went in to get my annual membership. The YMCA was just about to close at 7 and I figured I would have enough time to get my new membership and then head into the gym for a quick cardio workout.

I believe it was around 5:45 that I started waiting in line and since I wanted to head into the gym to do some cardio, I needed about half an hour. I didn't think that it would take that long, especially with 2 counters open and only 2 people ahead of me in the line. I didn't have the option to go into the gym to get my membership another day because my membership had already expired.

So, I diligently waited in line.

I waited. Waited some more. Then after I got tired of waiting, I waited some more.

It was like everyone ahead of me was signing up for a new membership and they all had some problem or another with the computer or with ID or what not.

It was then, as I was waiting in line, that I came up with a pretty great idea. READ: crazy.

Normally when we are lining up for something, the lines act a lot like queues from Computer Science; ie. they act on the FIFO principle. FIFO stands for First In First Out, in other words, if you are the first to arrive in the line, then whenever the service is available to you, you would be the first one out of the line.

My idea consists of using priority queues instead of queues. How are priority queues different from queues though and what would it mean if places that had lineups acted like priority queues instead of queues?

Priority queues are different from queues in the sense that they do not act on the FIFO principle (unless the priority was measured by how long an object first entered the queue - in the real world, it would mean that whoever has stood in line the longest would get service first, which is essentially the same as a regular queue / lineup nowadays)

Instead of acting on a FIFO principle, it 'chooses' its next object to exit the queue by way of some measure of priority. In the example above, the priority was based on time spent in the queue. Priority can also be measured by things like sorting the objects (an equivalent in real life would be prioritizing based on a sorting of last names in a line) and how important an object is (again, if you're at a hospital, you would get service first depending on how sick you are).

Okay, so what does that mean in the real world though? How do we assign priority in the real world?

Let me talk a bit about why I think a priority queue makes sense to me in the real world.

Imagine you're one of 10 people in the line. You are last in line (bummer!). There is only one counter open to service customers. To make matters worse, the guy in front of the line wants to do a task that you know, will take at least 1 hour. Everybody else in line (the 9 others including yourself) just want to complete a task that will take only a minute each.

I feel like it would make sense to assign some priority to the 9 other people whose tasks only take a minute each and then to give better service to the guy who needs to complete a 1 hour task.

Take a look at the total wait time between the two different scenarios:

1 hour
1 hour + 1 minute

..

..

1 hour + 8 minutes

compared to:

1 minute

2 minutes

..

..

8 minutes

Obviously the example is a bit contrived. If priority was only assigned based on how long (or short) of a task would take, people could keep coming in with 1 minute tasks and always be served ahead of the guy with a 1 hour task. Clearly, the priority needs to have 'input' from both how long the task would take as well as how long the guy has spent in the line.

In fact, it seems to get even more complicated as there are more counters open. (Well, technically if there were 10 counters open then everybody would get serviced and it would make the solution easy).

Caveat:

This certainly isn't an idea that I have fleshed out a lot. I do know that the priority function would take in both the time spent in the queue (people can't wait forever) and the importance of the task as values (by servicing those with small tasks first, wait time overall would be decreased) and then output a priority but I'm not sure what other values it would rely on as well. There would also be real time updating of the priority as people waited and entered the line.

What do you think of the priority queue as a real life application? I'm not even sure how that would work at somewhere like the bank though I could imagine some fairly crazy scenarios of how a bank might implement something like that:

Imagine a kiosk that you would go to at the start of the line where you would input your task. The kiosk would then output a ticket with a number (kind of like at shopping markets). You would take a seat and then wait until the bank displays your number above a counter. As people file in, they are given numbers as well but the priority is changed for both them and existing members of the queue. As counters open up, customer service representatives would press an 'Open for Service' button and the algorithm in the background would choose the customer with the next highest priority to be served.

This could even go a bit further, if customers needed more than a certain amount of time to be serviced (say 1 hour) then the computer would tell them as such and estimate a time when they could come back. If they don't like that option, they could even have the option to schedule an appointment with a separate customer service rep to get the best service possible.

Just something to think about :)

Some tips on adjusting to a new location

I have to first say that my blog is slowly shifting towards new topics. I had originally written this blog with a mathematical focus in mind but as I slowly entered the work force and began professional life, I have seen a lot of value documenting some of my struggles. In fact, because I graduated somewhat sooner than most of my friends, I find myself being somewhat of an expert on the job search, a lot of strategies which I used during my own job search a few months ago. In any case, I hope that I'll be able to more consistently write posts on mathematics that I see in the world but for now, these recent posts are some that I felt like documenting.

Since the move to Edmonton, I have been really homesick. In fact, it even culminated in flying back home one weekend just to see friends and family that I haven't seen in a few weeks. Now that I'm back though, I don't feel as homesick as before and there's really a couple reasons why. This post is going to explore some of those reasons:

1. Coworkers

One source of comaderie I get is from my coworkers. This is an obvious place to create friendships because you see your coworkers every day. In fact, I read that you will like your job more if you make a friend at work. It's not that I need a motivation to like my job more, rather, it is that extra something to make you enjoy going to work and it may even increase your opportunity to do things together after work or on the weekend.

Of course, the big problem with working at the Alberta Law Libraries is every coworker is female and they all have families and established lives. As opposed to a university setting where people are around my age, have similar interests and are at the same place in their lives (just beginning their professional careers and don't have families to go home to), I'm at a place where my coworkers all have families and they really don't have time to 'hang out'. It's something unfortunate that I didn't really think of when taking the job but certainly not a deal breaker; I really would have liked to have coworkers around my age and at the same place in their lives.

Despite all this, my culinary interests and age fit right in with the coworkers I have. I don't think I'm as good as I think I am and I think there is some bias but I do think that all the things I cook taste really good (yes, probably bias). This interest in food has definitely led to some interesting conversations around the office.

I think it's funny that my age fits right into the conversations we have: as I mentioned, most of my coworkers have families and a lot of their children are around my age. Often times, they'll make some statement about the youths of that age and I sit there, almost amused, at the observations they make.

2. Sports

This is a two in one combo - it's a great way of keeping fit and also meeting new people. For example, the University of Alberta has a great selection of sport clubs to be a part of. You really have to dig around for information yourself if you want to find the clubs that you can participate in. Sometimes even after finding all the necessary information, you don't have the right equipment to play with (my racquet is back in Van). I suppose I should have brought it with me or even brought it over the time I went back to Van but I just totally forgot.

I do think however, this is a really good option for the two reasons above - it also helps that there is a University club because it is more than likely that the people playing there will be around your age (though they may not be at the same place in their lives with work).

3. Professional Organizations

During my job search, I talked about how important it was to network with your contacts and find jobs through your network. Not only are a lot of the jobs not usually posted on sites like indeed or simplyhired, but recruiters will often rely on referrals from coworkers or trusted people to hire people for the job.

I was fortunate enough to be a part of the Toastmasters International Organization when I was in Vancouver and when I moved over to Edmonton, I immediately thought of joining a Toastmaster club. Not only would it be a chance to meet some new people, but it would be a good chance to practice my public speaking and leadership skills. Just doing a google search on Toastmasters and Edmonton brought up numerous groups and I, wanting to be more efficient with my time, decided to join one at 7 in the morning before work. Needless to say, the days I go to Toastmasters are very long days. This seemed to be the most successful way of meeting people because the first time I went, I said that I was interested in networking and a fellow Toastmaster invited me out to a networking event on that same day. I was late to the networking event, plus my networking skills aren't that great but I did get to meet a few people there and had some really good conversations.

As an aside, I was also thinking about joining a professional product management organization - I think that that is what I will be doing eventually in the future.

4. Meetup!

I remember after reading through many tech articles, reading about a site called Meetup but I never gave it much thought because I was in Vancouver at the time and had plenty of things to do. One day, a coworker no less, suggested to me that someone she knew who was new to Edmonton had looked online and found a group of other people who were 'New to Edmonton'. It was a good way of meeting others with similar interests (in this case, everyone was new to Edmonton). She sent me a link to the meetup.com site and I checked out all the meetups in Edmonton. Some look quite interesting, in fact, so interesting that I have joined the Chinese and Japanese group. So far, I haven't been to any of these meetups but I know that once I get into these meetups and become a regular member, I will at least have some sort of base that I can connect to.

These are just a few of the strategies you can use to meet new people and to try to establish a new base of friends to hang out with. Between work, Toastmasters, working out several times a week and trying to figure out which meetups to go to, you can tell I've been busy.

Have you moved to somewhere new? How did you cope and adjusted to it? How did you meet new people?

The Power of Luck

As I talked about in my last blog post, I am now working in Edmonton. With no real base of support for me to rely on (a huge number of family and friends were back in Vancouver), I got quite homesick and even a bit lethargic. After 3 weeks on the job, I was on msn at night and my mom asked if I wanted to go home for the May long weekend.

I gave it very little thought and almost immediately said yes. Yes, I did want to go back home. I remember likening my return to home to a cellphone. You can take the cellphone everywhere but eventually, the cellphone needs to get recharged. And that's exactly what I needed, to recharge, to reconnect to my base of support. It wasn't that work was burning me out - on the contrary, it was not really that bad lately. It was mostly the fact that while other coworkers all had family or established lives to come home to, I had no-one. I'm usually a fairly independent person but even so, it was hard not to let that fact affect me.

In any case, I booked the flight and had planned to leave my apartment around 7ish for the shuttle to take me to the airport. My flight was at 9 and I figured it would take about an hour to get there from downtown so I thought that leaving at 7 would be a safe bet.

Once I got home from work, I wasted a lot of time doing lots of random things on my computer: reading rss feeds, posting on twitter and redux and even playing the random online game on the internet. As it started to near 7, I packed and made sure I had everything I needed for the weekend at home. Finally, I packed up everything and started to make my way to the front of a nearby hotel where the shuttle would pick me up to take me to the airport. As I left my building, I immediately realized I did not bring the power cable for my laptop and had to make a quick decision - did I absolutely need the power cable for the weekend?

Yes, I did. And that's when I frantically ran back up to grab the power cable. By this time, a few precious minutes had passed and when I reached the front of the hotel, a bus boy greeted me. I asked him whether the shuttle had passed by already and he said that it had just passed by a few minutes ago. I then asked when the next shuttle would be (the shuttle comes around every 20 minutes so it wasn't too big of a deal if I got there at 8:20) and that's when he said a quarter past 8.

8:15!?!?!? At this point, I checked my cellphone and realized that my laptop time had been on Vancouver time all this time. When I saw it reach 7 pm, it was actually 8 pm Edmonton time. With my flight leaving at 9, I had to take a taxi and bust it over there. I passed by a taxi on the way to the hotel so I ran back to the taxi I passed, got in and told the driver to book it to the airport.

We sped through downtown then sped through one major road that links to the highway to the airport. Along this major road, we were extremely lucky -- at one point, the taxi driver slows down to the point where I'm almost thrown to the front. We had been speeding through this 4 lane freeway in the 4th lane and my taxi driver spotted a police cop gunning people down for speeding. Of course, we were lucky because he had only been looking at the lanes closest to him and we were in the lane farthest away from him but it would have been a serious setback if we had been stopped at that point.

Unbelievably, we reached the airport in 25 minutes which my coworkers later tell me is amazingly fast. I check in, get through the security gates and then as I am boarding the plane, I finally breathe a sigh of relief.

That whole experience really got me thinking about the power of luck. I know it was lucky that the taxi didn't get caught by the police for speeding but was it lucky that I forgot my power cable and thus was late for the sky shuttle? If I had got on that sky shuttle thinking it was 7, I am pretty sure I would have missed my flight. And it got me thinking about a movie I had watched in the past -- Matchpoint. If you haven't watched it, I would suggest giving it a shot. It explores that very notion of luck and its effect on life. What is the effect of luck in your life? What does it mean to be in the right place at the right time? How often can we attribute luck to finding that special someone? Or finding the right job?

I have heard many people claim that they themselves are unlucky and while there is some merit of truth, luck balances out at some point. Being lucky isn't just about sitting around and waiting for something to happen. It's about putting yourself into situations where luck can come your way.

When you're somewhere new, find comfort in the familiar

It's certainly been a while since I last blogged - let me explain why right now.

Back in the middle of April, I had talked about receiving a phone interview with the Government of Alberta for an Emerging Technologies Specialist position. They liked me enough to fly me down for a second interview and I guess the second interview was also really good so they offered me a job working in Edmonton. 

To say that the decision was difficult would be an understatement.

On the one hand, I had been looking for work for 4 months and had not any successful job offers during that time though I did have several phone interviews which did not seem to lead anywhere. The job experience that I would get from this position was very good and may even enable me to gain an incredible job afterwards depending on the opportunities available.

On the other hand, to leave Vancouver to work in Edmonton would force me to uproot my whole established life and routine and plant it down in Edmonton where I had few friends, no family and almost no network of people I could rely on for support. 

I believe that the biggest factor for me for accepting this position was the fact that we were still in the recession and job offers did not come easily during this time. That's not to say that the job was bad, it is actually quite a flexible position with lots of ties into technology; I'm saying that given a job offer in Edmonton and a similar position in Vancouver, I would probably have chosen Vancouver. 

In any case, once I accepted the position, I had a few weeks to tearfully say goodbye to my friends, either through surprise dinners, planned dinners, coffees or lunches. The biggest worry that I had before my move to Edmonton was finding a place to live. Although there were many resources online that I used, it was hard to choose a place until I saw it in person. 

Fast forward a week or two and I have a bachelor apartment about 2 blocks away from where I work downtown. Though not as close to all the amenities as I would like, it certainly wasn't a big downside since the transit system in Edmonton was decent. 

Once I found housing, my concerns transitioned from housing to my daily and weekly routine, after all, I had full-time work now. I was terribly homesick, but I knew that once I got into a routine, my life would finally settle down and I would stop thinking about my home in Vancouver.  

It was during the time that I was trying to figure out my routine, I realized that I reverted back to some of my old routines that I went through before. Like cooking extra food for dinner and packing the extra food for lunch the next day on weekdays. Or watching streams of my favorite shows aired the day before while eating dinner. Or even cooking complete meals in my trustworthy and reliable rice cooker so that I did not have to wait around for food to finish cooking. 

Why did I revert back to these old routines I had gone through before? Why didn't I just create new routines given my new environment and lifestyle? 

I guess it was because I found comfort in the familiarity of the routines.

Not only is it the reason I do those things, it's also probably the reason I order the same items (chirashi, sashimi) at all the Japanese restaurants I go to; it's probably the reason I really just shop for clothing at relatively cheap stores like Esprit and Old Navy; and it's probably the reason I cook the same things every week or so. It's easy. It doesn't require a lot of thought. And it reminds me of how comforting life was in the past.

And because of the routine, things are easy now; things dont require a lot of thought now; and things are fairly comfortable now. 

I also think it may be the reason people order the same things at restaurants or go to the same type of restaurants all the time (or even go to the same restaurant and order the same thing every single time). It's safe. It's (probably) good. And any time they become adventurous and order something else that isn't good, it seems to reinforces the idea of sticking with what is good and familar, rather than trying to be adventurous.

As a final note, I had to purchase some laundry detergent yesterday. I went to Shopper's

 Drug Mart, looked around and finally came to some different laundry detergents. As I always do, I compared the prices (locally on the shelves, and not at different stores) and finally landed on the Gain laundry brand which seemed to be cheap compared to the other detergents. There were 2 brands of Gain laundry detergent and I think if you saw the same thing I did, the choice would have been as obvious for you as it was for me. 

How do you feel? Are there routines that you go through just because you're familiar with them? Are there restaurants that you always go to or food that you always order? 

How I got my 'start up' at Redux Inc.

It all started when I was scouring job boards for technical entry-level positions. As some of you know, it started back in November and I've been chugging along, applying for the positions that I was passionate about and culminating in phone interviews at Google, Laserfiche and the Government of Alberta.

After sifting through various online job postings, I found startuply, an online job board that features startup jobs at startup companies. Maybe it was the whole story of how Google started out as a startup company themselves or the fact that there are several, very interesting startup companies with very interesting ideas currently out there now but there was a part of me that was intrigued by the idea of startup companies and what it would be like to be a part of one.

After I thought I had broken through the Catch-22 of technical opportunities (ie. you must have previous technical experience to get a technical job in the first place), it turned out that (in my experience) you need startup experience before you can get a startup job. I have always found that a bit strange but I suppose it makes sense -- how does one get the startup experience that they need then?

I suppose there are two main ways I can think of:

1. Start your own startup company

2. Intern for a startup company to gain experience

Actually, now that I've given it some more thought, there's probably a few more (like some where you're connected in some way to a startup company through your personal contacts or friends) but as I just graduated out of university and did not have many friends who were as passionate as I am about startups, that was not a strategy I could pursue.

I subscribed to the job feed for startuply and every day, I would look at the job postings thinking about how much more experience I would need until I could actually apply to the job (much less have the knowledge to do it). It's funny because the job postings were extremely motivational to me but at the same time, I knew that when I actually reached that point in my life, that particular job would probably be taken by someone else already.

That was when I saw a posting by Redux Inc. Here was a company looking for interns to post interesting articles, videos, images and all sorts of other links to streams on their site so that people would have access to the best links and comment and have discussions with others around that content. I applied and didn't really think much about it until I got an e-mail from an executive asking if a few more questions about my interest in Redux and why I would be a good candidate.

Well, it's been a month into my internship and I can say that it has been quite fun posting all sorts of good content on redux and having conversations around that content on the site. I subscribe to a lot of feeds on Reader and normally I just star the ones I like, maybe tag them with a key word and then move on to other things -- but that's all changed because now depending on the link, I may post it to FriendFeed, Twitter, Redux, Facebook, Tumblr, or all five! Suffice to say, it takes up some time when I have to post to that many sites (I am aware of ping.fm but I guess I'm not used to it yet)

What I'm really trying to say is that I was really lucky to find something I really like doing in my spare time and then finding a job whose tasks are almost exactly the same (and for a startup company too! That's got to be great experience for the future, even if I never work for a startup) and sometimes, you have to work your way from the bottom up. My Redux internship is providing me with valuable experience about sharing content, generating discussions and marketing Redux to other users and you never know when that experience will give you that edge in your next job application. I guess that's why they call it 'start up' experience because when you start, the only way to go is up.

A Day Spent in Edmonton

Today, I just flew back from Edmonton for an interview with the Government of Alberta. I am pretty dead tired, mostly from waking up at around 3:30 in the morning from the heat in my hotel room. Here are some of my random thoughts in somewhat chronological order from the time I boarded my flight to now.

• Headed to YVR about 2.5 hours early and went to the bookstores to find new books to read. After some time spent browsing the books, I went to Tim Hortons for a hot chocolate and to review my book on interview questions. With about 1.5 hours left, I decided to head over to my gate and plug in my laptop to talk to a few people about my interview.
• When I booked my flight online and looked at the seating chart, it showed that seat D out of the consecutive seats D, E and F (I was in F) was taken. Once I was on the plane and they shut the doors, seat D was empty - I wondered whether someone missed their flight, or perhaps the person in Seat D went to sit with others.
• I arrive in Edmonton after trying to lip read about half of the movie "How to lose friends and alienate people"
• As I wait for my luggage on the conveyor belt, here are some of the strange items I see: various pieces of luggage, large crate with marker all over, red tool box and then finally my bag!
• I arrive at the hotel pretty hungry so I drop off my stuff in my room and then head down to Madison's Grill (the restaurant in the Union Bank Inn) for a candy almond crusted salmon. I liked the mix of sweet and salty and want to try making it myself one day.
• Everybody else in the restaurant is dressed quite nicely. I, on the other hand, am dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and try my best to look as inconspicuous as possible.
• After eating the delicious salmon (love seafood!), I head back to my room to try to get some sleep. I totally forget about the jet lag and so I end up falling asleep about an hour after I try to sleep.
• 4 hours later, I wake up from the heat of the room. I had turned the fan off earlier (there was only one fan for the room and no separate fan for the bathroom) so that I could fall asleep but it had gotten so hot that I woke up anyway. I try to fall back asleep with various combinations of fans on / off, blankets on / off and with the window not opening, I get up and decide to prep for my interview by reviewing my questions and answers again.
• Around 7 AM, I get a wake-up call. Before I went to bed, I looked around for the fitness room and see that there is a treadmill and a step machine as well as a few dumbbells. I head down to the fitness room for a 20 min run and then come back up to shower.
• I head down to breakfast and order the West Coast Eggs (smoked salmon, poached eggs and a lemon dill hollandaise sauce with a fresh fruit salad and some taters). After exchanging some kind words with the waitress, I head back up to change.
• As I walk to the Law Courts Building, I realize that I did not bring enough clothing. It is -3 and significantly colder than I thought it would be. (Later on, I heard from my taxi driver that it was -42 a few weeks ago, I secretly feel glad that I wasn't here to interview then)
• I thought the interview went well - I got a tour of the 3 libraries and meet many of the staff working there. I also get a very cool story of the heritage room (built by the grandson of Nelly McClung). It reminds me of the heritage core in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.
• At around 11, the manager of the interviewed position, a coworker and I head to the foodcourts through the underground passages. The underground passages are very cool and remind me of the very cool +15's in Calgary
• I get to the YEG and try to find books to read that have nothing to do with interviewing or programming. I mull over buying the Watchmen comic book but finally decide to leave without it (though I feel that if given another chance, I would buy it)
• Once I claimed my luggage, I went to the bookstores in YVR looking for the Watchmen comic but cannot find it (oh well). I head home and now I'm going to crash

All in all, it was a great experience in Edmonton despite the cold and the lack of sleep.

Another Phone Interview But Not The Same Strategy

Recently, I had a phone interview with the Government of Alberta for probably one of the coolest positions I have seen in a while. I'm so glad that they called for a phone interview - even if I don't get the job, it helps to boost my confidence that I am putting out good resumes and cover letters that attract employers.

To prep, I did much of the same work I did for my previous phone interviews at Google and Laserfiche. I wrote down questions that I thought they would ask and then answered them myself while practicing my stories over and over. Even though I do have a pretty decent memory, I won't be able to memorize and recite any of my stories during the interview - but that doesn't matter, the fact that I have thought about the stories I want to talk about and also the different experiences that I highlight in each story helps me trigger responses during the actual interview.

When doing a phone interview, or any interview for that matter, every little bit helps. I didn't dress super fancy, but I certainly wore a dress shirt and some nice pants to help me feel that I was in an interview (or formal setting). I made sure that I sat up and my posture was good so that I sound confident and relaxed over the phone. Sure a lot of these things are in other interview articles but to read about them and to practice them are two very different things.

I think what was very different about this preparation however, was the fact that I actually tailored a lot of my answers to the questions I thought I would give. For instance, if they asked "tell me about your approach to problem solving", I would describe a time I solved a problem and all the steps I took, then (and this is the important part), I would think about what kind of problem solving this opportunity had and then tie that into my answer.

So for example: Tell me about your approach to problem solving (position is web administrator)

During my work as ... for ...

....

.... (story over)

I know that this experience in problem solving will be valuable in my role as ... when I am helping to troubleshoot bugs on web pages.


I'm not even sure why I never did this before because it is such a simple thing to do and makes it easy for the interviewer to see that

1. You've done your research and you're pretty enthusiastic about the responsibilities of this position

2. You have good experience and it is transferable to the new position

3. You sum up your answers (which is good if you've talked a fairly long time about your experience)


Good luck with all your job searches!

I've ran out of jobs to apply to.. what now?

I have been looking for and applying to jobs for a while now, about 4 months going on 5 to be more exact. Although I wasn't exactly conservative while there were many jobs to apply to, lately, I have been doing more research into potential jobs and the employers to see whether or not I really would be a good fit for that company. As a result of waiting (and the best things come to those who wait), I only apply to a few jobs a week now instead of the few jobs I applied to every day when I started out.

Sometimes, you'll find that there are no jobs which you can apply to, whether the requirements are out of your reach or you don't see the job as a good fit for you and it's a good idea to take a break when potential jobs are low just so that you don't burn out from doing research and applying every day.

But what happens when you just run out of jobs to apply to?

I can think of a few things that I'm doing now that might be good if you're not doing them:

1. Re-apply to those jobs you've applied to but did not hear from

Don't apply to those jobs that are filled obviously, but if they're still hiring, try applying again. This was a great piece of advice I got from a family friend and the worst thing they can do is reject you again anyway so why not try applying again? My one piece of advice is to update your resume before applying again though. While it's possible that you did absolutely nothing between the time you first applied and now, I think it is highly likely that you have accomplished something during that time (for example, building your own site, or starting your own blog, etc.) and you can add some of those things to your resume so that it isn't exactly the same as before.

And if you do get some sort of part time job or you've started to volunteer at a company, update your resume and then reapply to any jobs you really want. Again, employers can at worst only reject you again and maybe persistence is what you need to get that dream job you want.

2. Build your own site or Publish your own blog!

Check out some of these blogs: Jamie Varon, Lindsey Pollak, Cindy Burns.

The one by Lindsey Pollak isn't exactly a blog about someone looking for work but it features all these great articles about your career search and great advice for job seekers in general. The other two are blogs about job seeking.

What I'm saying is blogging about your job search experience is a great way of helping you to remember all the things you've done and to make sure you that you don't repeat any of your past mistakes. By entering the community of blogging and seeking out other job seeking bloggers, you won't feel so alone and hey, this is also a great way of developing your writing skills.

By building a blog or a site, you increase your online presence and make it easier for potential employers to find you on the internet - make sure to include links to your resume or online resume on your sites so that anyone who does make it to your site has an easy way of reaching you if they're interested in learning more about you.

I think the other great thing about blogging or building your own personal site is you develop some web 2.0 skills that are very valuable in a world where the internet is increasingly more important and vital for companies. Don't think of this as time wasted because this is a part of your job search! And this way, you won't be waiting around not doing anything productive while waiting for those potential jobs to come in - you'll be developing your skills, your own personal brand and your online presence all at the same time.

Phone Interviews: Personal Feedback and Strategies for the Future

Just today, I finished my second phone interview ( a pre-screen interview I think) with a tech company. My first was with Google and the second was with Laserfiche. I wanted to take the time to talk about the two phone interviews, how important they are and how I thought they went. Then, I'll try to talk about strategies for doing your best on these phone interviews.

Firstly, phone interviews are so important that you have to take them as if they were real in-person interviews. Especially during this time, companies have too many job applications and they have to filter through them somehow - one of these ways is through a pre-screen phone interview to determine things like technical knowledge, communication and the ability to communicate difficult technical concepts, and basically whether the candidate has the right qualifications and values - all this leads up to, most likely, an actual in-person interview. It suffices to say that if you do not perform well during your phone interview, you will not proceed to the next step in the process.

Google Phone Interview:

First, some feedback on my Google phone interview. I certainly won't reveal the questions they asked me but I will say that this phone interview was the most technical I've had in a while (even including all my in-person interviews with other tech companies). Depending on what position you are interviewing for, you will have to know your stuff inside and out. I certainly did a lot of research on how to prepare for phone interviews, and almost all of them mention that you should practice speaking on the phone, whether it be on your voice mail or with a friend quizzing you.

To prepare for my phone interview, I wrote down some questions that I thought the Google recruiter might ask me and then some sample answers as well. I then tweaked a lot of those answers so that they were focused, talked about my qualifications and how they matched with the job position's needs. I also wrote down questions that I thought would be good to ask Google. What makes Google tick? Well, I didn't ask that but I certainly gained a bit of insight as to what it would be like to work at Google.

Laserfiche Phone Interview

The Laserfiche phone interview focused very much on behavioral questions. Again, out of respect for the company, I will not divulge specific questions, but my recruiter asked me a lot of questions about who I was, why I made the choices that I did, and also a few questions about why I would want to work for Laserfiche and what values were important to me.

Again, to prepare for the Laserfiche phone interview, I thought of and provided sample answers to some of the questions that I thought they would ask. For both phone interviews, I did some research on the company, its products and thought a bit about what the direction would be like in the future. Again, I also wrote down some questions that I thought would be good to ask and I had a really pleasant conversation with the recruiter (we started talking about how I participated in Toastmasters and how she was involved in public speaking).

General Strategies for Phone Interviews:

Probably the most important thing is to get a good night's rest before the phone interview. If you need things like your resume or a note pad, set everything up on a desk where your phone is and make sure you know when exactly your recruiter will be calling (be aware of time differences!).

The next most important thing is to take your time to collect your thoughts before giving your answer. I was quite nervous during my phone interview with Google and it certainly came across as I rushed to orate my answers, but I tried to calm down as the interview progressed and I tried to think about my answers before trying to communicate them to my recruiter (it also helps that the problems were quite difficult and I needed time to think about them :P).

In regards to the above point, you should do a lot of research about the company, its products as well as its competitors (you never know what can come up in a conversation). You should also figure out if you need to brush up on anything (ie. from a technical standpoint, if the position is a development position in Java and you haven't programmed in Java for a while, you should really read up on documentation). I certainly feel a bit nervous but I'm actively trying to make an effort to read through documentation on programming languages as well as trying to find projects to implement so that I have a chance to practice.

When you do a lot of research, you'll inevitably have great questions to ask the recruiter - this will help to show that you did research and also show that you are very much interested in what the company does.

The other thing that I find is if you do get into long discussions, the discussion will a lot of the time focus on what you said earlier in the conversation (for example, if you mention that you have had great ideas at your previous workplace, your recruiter may ask you for an example). Make sure you have something in mind when you mention something very general or abstract - it helps to transition from one point to another without missing a beat because your thoughts and communication skills will seem very strong.

Well, that's all I can think of for now - hope you get to the next step in the interview process !

Job Search: General Search Sites and Using Online Resumes

I have still been searching for jobs and have not had many or really any responses for interviews yet. I'm really not sure if there's something wrong with my resume / qualifications or that the job market is not good / competition is high with all the layoffs.

When I first started, I used a nifty trick to find more job search sites that I liked. At first, I tried searching for any "new graduate job search" sites using Google - that worked out well but a lot of the sites that came up were based in the U.S. That wasn't a problem, neither was registering, but a lot of the sites ask you where you got your degree from and UBC isn't exactly known by all sites for some reason.

As I said in my last post, I had heard about t-net from many people giving me advice on the tech job search and in order to find eluta I used the "Similar Pages" function on Google to help me find related sites. It's a really cool tool to use because any time you hear about a new job search site that you really enjoy, the internet's bound to have similar sites and resources that you may also like.

General Tech Search Sites:

I also have another cool strategy to use to search for job search sites. Often times when you apply for jobs, there is an online application form. The form often asks you about where you heard about this job (and those are the times you should always have some sort of connection, either through friends, family, facebook or linkedin, etc.) and a lot of forms have a drop down menu showing a bunch of sites where they might have posted their job. This drop down menu in job application forms is a great way to learn about new job search sites that you may not have found in Google Searches or using the "Similar Pages" function on Google. I am pretty sure that's how I found out about Indeed.ca and SimplyHired.com. What I like about indeed is that they are like a meta search engine - it searches through different job search sites and aggregates all the data on their page, which means that you could search through multiple job search sites at once using their search engine.

As an aside, I think a very important thing to figure out early in your job search is what you would like to do for work. For me, I figured I wanted to do something in the software or web development side (and I would not mind doing testing either because I think that's how a lot of companies hire entry level employees; they then move testers up into the roles of development after they've gained experience). I always knew that I wanted to do my MBA at some point because I do have a passion for the business side of things and did not want to stay on the technical side forever - which is when I saw the Associate Product Manager position at Google. I think that really is the dream job for me (yes, a job at Google but eventually a Product Manager that manages products for a technical company would be awesome too) - using my technical skills and working on managing the direction of products, eliciting requirements, the opportunity sometimes makes me giddy with enthusiasm. With that in mind, I can now do a focused search in the job search engines using keywords like "product manager" and "associate".

SimplyHired is the job search engine that LinkedIn uses and I think I can cover a bit here and a bit later when I talk about social networking to your job. It works a lot like other job search engines but the features I like about SimplyHired is that you can specify what industry you'd like to work in as well as the years of experience that you have (very useful when you're trying to sift and sort through thousands of job postings). I can't tell you how tedious it is to search through job postings, find awesome jobs with incredible responsibilities and then find out that it requires way more experience than I actually have.

Online Resumes

I have not used a lot of online resumes, mostly because updating one requires update of the others in order to maintain consistent information across the board but I do have one in particular on linkedin that I keep fairly up to date and consistent with my resumes. If you do not have an account on linkedin, I would suggest registering an account on there because it's a great way to use social networking to your advantage to find a job. Firstly, you have to find friends, family and colleagues that you may have worked with. During the time you wait for them to accept their invitations, you should start building your profile like your resume: put in your work history, education and specialties (linkedin has a useful 'scoring' function that takes you through all the steps of building your profile).

Once some of your invitations get accepted, start to ask for recommendations on your work. The recommendations are a lot like referrals and are a great way for you to stand out from already great accomplishments in your work history. Be nice and recommend others on their work if you find that you're not getting very many recommendations.

Another thing I would highly suggest is joining groups (for example, if you've just graduated, you could join your University's Alumni Group or suppose you worked at specific companies for a while, you can join the company's alumni group as well ie. Telus Alumni Group). The groups are a great way of increasing your visibility to others that may be working at companies you'd like to work for. I joined my university's faculty alumni group for computer science and started a discussion telling everyone about how I was looking for entry-level work. A few weeks passed and honestly no-one responded in any way but I finally got a private message from an alumni working at Google who said that he could refer me to their company! I was disappointed that I didn't get any more responses but a referral to Google from my university's alumni? That was incredible. I guess this is just a testimony that social networking can help you out even if it's only to give you a boost to your job search confidence.

You may think that posting up a resume on linkedin will do all your work for you and I actually thought like that too but I realized that you get what you put in. This means that the more work you do to actively build connections, update your profile and follow discussions (and post to them!), the more visibility you'll have in the group and the more job opportunities will start to appear to you. Sure, you could post up a linkedin profile and passively look for jobs, but you'll learn a lot more about yourself (and get more out of it) if you actively seek out people that can help you. As an example, I got great job search advice from a Toastmaster that randomly added me. I did not know her and she did not know me, but because she and I were both toastmasters, we connected. She sent me a message and a big discussion followed about how she did her job search and strategies she used and I really learned a lot (in fact, I am incorporating some of her advice now). I could have been really shy and just thanked her for the add but I decided to actively seek her opinion on job search and ask her if she knew anyone that was hiring. It just goes to show that positive results come to those that actively pursue it.

Job Search: Online Sites and Resources I use (University, Tech Job Search Sites)

Lately, I was inspired by Cindy Burn's blog, located here. To be honest, I noticed some comments on her twitter feed and many commented on how good of an idea it was to have a blog chronicling her search because it can not only increase her visibility online (and thus increase the number of potential recruiters seeing her) but also give some helpful advice to those also on the job search (and let them know that they're not alone). I certainly felt that way when I was reading her blog - that I was not alone in this bad economic situation right now.

I had planned to post on my blog after my job search was over but as of yet, it isn't (yes, a subtle hint I am still unemployed). Before I go into my post, let me give you some background and some context - it may help you figure out the resources that are helpful for you.

I graduated this past May 2008 with Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of British Columbia. I figured that with all my work experience both in coop and at UBC (if you're curious as to what kind of experience, you can look at my linkedin profile here ), I was at least going to get several interviews, if not job offers from several companies. Obviously that was not the case and after finishing summer work in October, I looked for work but to no success. That would be my background.

To give you some context of what kind of work I am looking for, I graduated with Computer Science and Math and was looking for technical work, software or web development more specifically. And because I recently graduated, I was looking for some entry-level work. This means that the resources I will be listing will mostly be of the entry-level technical kind (but there are some general sites I use, and a lot of the technical sites have jobs for other specializations, like Commerce, Accounting, Business Administration, etc.).


Now, onto many of the resources I am using / have used:

University:

The first thing that I used was the career services site of the university I graduated from. The site is here and I started looking through all the full time job postings for any entry-level work related to my specializations. While I did not find many, I did find a few and I kept a task list of all the jobs I did apply for as well as some companies that I found interesting so that I may apply to them if future opportunities popped up.

Side note: I started using the zenpages on Zenbe when I first started to help me with my task, filtering all my e-mails through a work-centric gmail (using my name and adding .jobs) but as I applied to job after job, it started to fill up. I decided to switch over to www.rememberthemilk.com to keep track of the jobs I applied to, the job search sites I used as well as the interesting companies that did not have any current job opportunities but that I wanted to keep an eye on. I think the advantage of using rememberthemilk is that I can add tasks from twitter, e-mail or Jott (from my phone) if I needed to.

The idea that I could look through job postings from my university's site inspired me to look at other universities and their job posting sites. You do have to be an alumni to use those sorts of services, but if you're lucky enough to know people that went to those schools and if they are nice enough people, they'll either offer or you can ask to borrow their id and password to use those resources.

Other than being able to access the job postings board of the universities, I almost forgot about checking the human resources site at the universities to look for work in the universities! Doing this is easy enough, just google "human resources" with the name of the university you are interested in and you'll find the site right away. Of course, there's an added bonus of you having worked at a university before because they'll often hire internally but for any other universities, you will only be able to apply to their external positions.

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Tech Job Search Sites:

From very early on when I was looking for work, I was intrigued by the opportunities of new graduate leadership development programs. These programs almost exclusively accepted new graduates (in my case, technical graduates) and was a great way to gain experience working in the different departments of a large company and contributing a lot of value to the company at the same time. You could build up a network of contacts and get a good sense of direction with your career from mentors. I may not have the right resources but it seems that there aren't a lot of sites that list those new graduate leadership program opportunities, rather, you have to be connected with the company somehow to know that they offer those kinds of programs.

What I did find though was a site that searched through all companies in Canada based on your degree and specialization. www.eluta.ca is a site I still like using because it has a great list of companies that have job opportunities in your specialization and it also usually has information about the company's culture, average salary and how many people they've hired in the past. Although I did use their job search feature, I also just went through the list of companies and looked through the career opportunities on each of their sites just so that I wouldn't be missing anything that the eluta search wasn't picking up.


Another job search site that everyone I know keeps telling me about is t-net. The really good thing about this site, other than listing all the local technology companies here in British Columbia, is the fact that it is really up to date with job postings. This is a site I search probably once every couple of weeks just to see if anything comes up (and again, I like to look through their list of companies and look for job opportunities / interesting companies so that I can keep an eye on those things.

More on general job search sites, social networking and other resources that are helpful for job search in later posts :)