Questions Questions Questions
Who am I? What’s this blog about? Why should you be interested in reading this weblog? What’s in it for you? What’s in it for me, the blog owner?
Alvin who?
As most of you would have guessed from the aptly named domain, you should have a pretty good clue of the blog owner’s name by now.
He is currently a 23 year old NUS (National University of Singapore) 2nd year undergraduate pursuing a 4 year direct-honours Computer Engineering degree from the SOC (School of Computing).
Yet another blog?
You might be tempted to associate this blog with thousands of other blogs where someone simply publishes his/her daily quirky encounters and thoughts.
Well, don’t let that thought mentally fixate just yet.
You might just find something worthwhile and different here.
Okay, why this blog now?
It all started over a kopi break with a good old friend today. We had planned to meet to further discuss a certain topic that ensued his sister’s birthday party..
Let’s call him B - I’m not sure if he would mind me mentioning him here, so let’s make do with that till I obtain the green light for his identity disclosure.
Both of us just fresh from exam fever and savouring the start of a 3 month long school vacation, we thought hard about how to best use this holiday.
The usual suspects popped up - internships, part time jobs, freelance work, self improvement, catching up, and enjoyment - probably stuff that most students would think whilst planning for their school holidays.
One other question that surfaced was: what does my future hold? Where do I see myself 5 years down the road?
By the end of a 4 hour fruitful exchange of ideals and thoughts, we summarised what we wanted and needed to do this holiday and most probably for the rest of our lives:
- Finding one’s passion
- Offering value to others as much as one can
What’s so important about discovering what you are passionate about? Why would you want to offer value to others as much as you can?
Passion
I’ve seen a good number of people getting by in school or even life not sure of what they are truly passionate about, and not really bothered by it.
Although I dare not profess to be entirely sure about what I’m passionate about (how many people can be 100% sure anyway), I have a rough idea of what’s in store for me.
I like IT, the web and it just so happens that I’m learning this fantastic web framework called Ruby on Rails.
Passion is defined as “an intense desire or enthusiasm for something”.
How can you ever love your job/work without being passionate about it?
Offering Value
Offering value has always been beneficial. It fosters friendships, builds lifelong community of colleagues, contacts and even mentors. No man’s an island. No one can get very far in life alone. It even helps with self improvement. For instance, in a trivial example, when you offer some value, the person on the receiving end might give suggestions for you to improve.
WIIFY? (What’s In It For You?) - The Blog Audience
As this weblog is planned to be structured around finding passion and offering value, you could probably benefit from me relating my experiences in pursuit of passion and see how you can get started looking for yours too.
During a bus journey home with a friend J, we’ve discussed where J’s passion about organising events. It’s interesting learning about one another’s passion and thinking about possibilities.
In terms of offering value, I’ve got plans to blog about a couple of things that would be useful (duh). So stay tuned!
WIIFM? (What’s In It For Me?) - Me, The Blog Owner
Simple - as I blog about my quest of finding passion in myself and people around me, I better understand and learn when actually penning down these thoughts. Comments would also definitely serve to help me improve and bond with my readers.
Providing valuable articles and content also serve to help me get acquainted with more like minded people, not to mention attaining a high readership and earning passive income through Google Adsense (evil), but don’t worry - my main focus would still be on providing value, as it would be unwise to spend the bulk of my time tweaking Google Adsense instead of providing quality articles.
1.30AM
Time for bed - more to come! Just you wait!