News business is the news business. They will always have news. If they don’t have real news, they will generate “new” news. Experts whose jobs are to write reviews, criticism, and various articles will also always generate opinions because that is their jobs. Not their fault.

News thrive on drama and for the past decade, negative drama. So, there will always be headlines like “Economy shrinks at worst pace in 26 years,” and additionally, for the past month, I have read “Oil below $xx [namely anything below 50] on record economic lows” on every single friggin’ day in finance news section. Can we move on now? Sometimes I feel like Wall Street and stock market is just like reality TV show. They keep repeating same freakin’ drama.

The economy is not good for sure, but because everyone is “hyped” about discussing economy difficulty and doom and gloom, if the media does not say “26 years,” the media will still say “Economy shrinks at worst pace in 9 years!!!” Put an arbitrary number to your liking.

Is the economy is bad shape? Yes. Has it been this bad for a long long time? Probably not. Is it really as bad as the media makes it sound? Maybe not. But in all honesty, I believe that nobody REALLY knows, just like nothing is ever certain in life.

No, I am not saying we should deny reality. That is another harmful thing to do, just like if we feed on to these drama. The media is merely doing their jobs, and it is our responsibility to observe what it truth to ourselves.

That is why I suggest that we shall take a step back when we listen and read from media. Learn what is going on but distinguish the drama.

I understand many are affected with layoffs, and personally, these things are starting to hit closer and closer to home. These will make “taking a step back” very difficult. But in another perspective, we can only do the best we can. It maybe painful. Very painful. But we just have to keep chugging along and stop holding onto the past, drama, and the “excess”.

If the bull economy is simply a bubble, meaning an illusion, and that many people’s life style are bloated, or simply unaffordable, maybe it is not so bad that such illusion and “bloated-ness” is beginning to fade away. Painful? Maybe it is because we are trying to hold on to it and nobody wants the party to end. But if it is an illusion, it would be better for us to wake up, right?

I sincerely believe that by shedding the accumulated excess will allow each of us to see more of what our life is about and thus lead us down to a better path. More on this next post.

ps. If you are here to find a bit of good news in this economy, visit this blog — Carpe Diem.

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I have mentioned a few times that I participate in the recruiting event for my company, and I had just visited a local university few days ago. Desperate time makes desperate students (people) *sigh*

Look for job is definitely money-releated, so I am going to offer some tips for students. Assuming you have the skills and technical criteria, I offer the following tips on how you approach and talk with company recruiters, and in all practicality, the tips should be also useful in your day-to-day interaction with people in general.

Disclaimer: I am not a “professional” coach — meaning, I have no certificate — but I do have the perspective of a recruiter, having done it more than I can count with my two hands and talked to hundreds, if not thousand of students.

Here I go.

1. Do not behave like a robot — You are not a piece of meat. The recruiter is not a piece of meat. No one is just a piece of meat. So don’t treat people like a piece of meat. Should not we treat all people courteously anyways? Examples such as…
   • Do not simply walk up to a recruiter and recite a planned speech or essay.
   • It follows that, greet the recruiter and do not ignore him or her when greeted with “How are you?” or similar questions. (That happened a lot.)
   • Similarly, it’s good if you have a plan, but if the recruiter behaves or responds “out of sync”, adapt.
2. Slow down your speech — It is great that you are prepared. It is okay that you are nervous. But it is NOT okay that you speak so fast that the other person cannot understand you, or simply zone out because you “buffer overflow” his or her brain. Speak at a decent pace.
3. Breathe — Yes, literally, you need to breathe. This goes hand in hand with your speech. First of all, without breathing, you die. Without enough air, your speech will suck, and then you will try to speak even faster. At which point, you will get even more nervous. Breathing also helps your body handle the adrenaline rush. So, breathe. Breathe between sentences. It is okay to have a moment of silence.
4. Stand tall — This will enhance your presence and image of confidence. Do not mistake this with puffed chest. Personally, I believe this has a huge impact on our impression on people in general, consciously or subconsciously. Fix your posture. If you don’t know what a good posture mean, go study what yoga, martial art, or singing talks about in a good posture.
5. A nice and firm handshake — Besides posture, handshake is another good sign of a person’s attitude and confidence. A nice firm handshake is one which two persons’ hands cross with the concave part between the thumb and the index finger followed by a quick but firm squeeze. Do NOT crush the person’s hand.
6. Pass on your resume once introduced and greeted — At career fair. This one is common sense, right? Give recruiter the resume so he or she can take notes of you and mark key points you that you are pointing out. (Literally, a few students did not give me the resumes until half way or when we are done talking… does not make sense, to me at least)
7. Format your resume for easy glancing or browsing — Especially for career fair, the recruiter is to find key information in very limited time. Format key information so they are easy to spot at a glance, like graduation date, GPA, companies and job description of your previous work, important skills for the job you want, etc. Ask friends, teachers, strangers and see if they can find those information in 2-3 minutes. That will most likely make them happy.
8. Resumes’s “One-page-ness” — This is targeted to undergraduate. Unless you have many very very important and relevant information that you MUST present, keep it to one page.

Note: Let alone the hard-to-browse resumes. I am very surprised to see many poorly done resumes yet these days. By that I mean, some of them are so obvious that the person did not even try.

Even though this may not be what all recruiters look for or how they feel, I believe these should be some good starting point, and the first 5 tips are generically useful for your interaction with other people in daily life. That’s all I have for now. Hope you find it useful.

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It’s been a week since I wrote, so perhaps some of you may think that I have fallen off the edge of the earth by now, but alas, I am still here and alive :) Today I wrapped up with jury duty which is quite disruptive to my schedule. Still, I found it a great learning so I will write about them today and some thoughts that came from the experience.

Selection Process

Someone shared his experience that his selection process took 2 weeks, so I guess I should not complain about my 2-3 days selection. Though, I cannot help but feel that it is a very inefficient process where there is a lot of 1 on 1 questioning, while 50+ other people were watching, but that does shave time from repeating questions and retelling of their expectation of jurors.

The selection process is tedious but it is a plus because it guarantees that people who do not want to be a juror, and whom will not do the job right anyways, will not be among the 12 jurors. In all honesty, if you really desperately do not want to be on the panel, it is almost 100% that you can do so by dramatizing past experience or making up stories. That, I chose not to do, so I was stuck in the box, but I was interested going through the process once anyways.

That said, the best story I heard of a person who got excused from jury duty is a Chinese engineer who studied in New York and lived in the U.S. for 16 years, who claimed that her English is not good enough and it is a result of her job not requiring her to have good communication skill. It’s a shame because I am of Chinese heritage and my job is an engineer. But no matter, I don’t consider myself Chinese anyways (nor do I consider myself American). I am simply a human being.

Besides that, I found that the final panel of jury is also somewhat dependent on the judge’s way of presiding and MUCH depend on who the lawyers choose to kick out. Herein lies a strategic decision for the lawyers.

Witness and Testimony

This is the most interesting yet exhausting part. It is interestinb because this is where you listen to testimony and observe the witneses, as those are “evidence” for your jury deliberation later, especially in cases without “hard evidence.” I already enjoy observing people and find that there is always more to learn about people, so that is not bad, but it requires attention the entire time, which is the exhausting part.

I cannot help but find that I have details I want to find out and more questions to ask. However, as we all know, jury is allowed nothing but to observe and listen. I cannot help but think that why there is not a “question period” for the jury to flush out some questions. Maybe I am too naive. As the system stands now, this is one of the biggest reason why you want a GOOD lawyer, who is adaptive, good planner, think critically, perceptive (down to the smallest details, and who ask good questions.

Jury Deliberation

This is the part where you enter “the room”. For the longest time, I was wondering we will deliberate as jurors, and so did the other 11 people. There is no rules, no system, and we were not allowed to converse until that point. In my case, I found it an enjoyable expericen (uh, more so than some meetings at work…) because we had an atmosphere where we openly conversed and contributed our opinions and ideas.

Funny part is, there is a large paper pad on a stand, and as we started using it to organize our thoughts and laid out the facts, the paper is running out. Upon asking the deputy for replenishment, he claimed that no one had used it before so there is no more. This makes me wonder how did many of the jurors deliberate before.

There is also evidence that is mentioned in the testimony but not submitted, which we felt could be key evidence and… shady. It’s almost like it’s so open to manipulation… which it’s how it really is though. The free format of jury deliberation is also prone to various human errors, but I guess hence we had the selection process and also, we can only do the best we can. There is almost no way for certainty in life and definitely in courtroom where it is simply, words against words.

Aftermath

Once we are done, we received our excuse letters. However, 3 or 4 of us had our names typed wrong on it. Mine also has the dates marked incorrectly. Talk about incompetency… so I had to drive to a separate location (Jury Commssioner’s Office) to verify and correct.

Upon arriving and asking, the clerk and comssioner simply said the computer system is correct and that they had “corrected” the date. The way they show me the date is corrected is by marking my piece of paper and initialed it. I’m like “uh, can I get a new print out please”. For which they are reluctant and said it will be fine. I pursued once more by asking for the commissioner’s card in case I really need the proof. I received the card, but the commissioner (a older lady) said, “what? you can’t trust me?” I simply took the card and left, but seriously, first of all, I trusting you is totally unrelated to the future scenario where I need to prove to someone else about my jury, if it happens. Second of all, I don’t know you, why would I trust you? Simply because of you title? Title means nothing.

Oh right, as a juror, you do get paid at a whooping($15 dollars + miniscuous mileage) per day, woohoo! Boy, am I sarcastic…

Two important things I learn though:

1. If you must to go to court, DO get a capable lawyer.
2. If a police or detective calls you out of the blue, it will be a good idea to be careful what you say and how you phrase it (even if you did nothing wrong).

All in all, I am glad I went through it and also glad that it is over becase my routine has been totally disrupted. Now I can get back on track and there is a jury movie called 12 Angry Men that I become interested in now.

Oh, did I mention that the case is related to child molestation.

What jury experience did you have?

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Have you ever wonder what your limits are? Physically? Mentally? Skill-wise?

Today I did leg-press at 235 lbs. More than I have ever done. Rar! More than I could barely do last week, which was 190 lb. Our body is truly an interesting and amazing piece of machinery.

By the way, some of you may think that is nothing… it maybe so, but keep in mind I weigh a little under 130 lb.

I mentioned the difference of 45 lbs in my ability to do leg press within a week’s period. Surely, my body hasn’t changed so drastically in a week’s time, and thus reveals how our mentality, attitude affects what we can do. This is the most amazing part about weight training. You start to discover what your body can do, what you are truly thinking, and what you, as a whole being, can do.

The process of weight training, not simply for health reasons, allows me to learn more about myself than ever. Of course it is a physical activity, but simultaneously, there is an internal aspect of it where you must be aware of your body (posture, breathing, [which] muscle tension), and also pay attention how your mind affects you during your routine.

Now the most interesting part…

At the point of exhaustion while moving some massive weights, when I feel that I am exhausted, the questions comes in… Is it truly physically impossible for me to move? Or is it that I am my mind affects me, or letting my mind acquit myself with excuses, and that if someone points a gun at me to move it, and will shoot me otherwise, I will muster up the strength to move agian? Which one is it? I need to be truly honest with myself. Can I move just once more to discover my limit? To overcome my limit? Despite the doubts. Despite the pain. Just to discover my own limit. And probably help myself grow.

This is the fun part to training. The process of growing and learning about yourself. I will be honest, that if it is only for the health aspect of it, I probably would not put myself in such god awful discomfort continuously. I will also be honest that, proper weight training WILL give you a better looking body :P

This idea of training is not only true for weight training. It is the same in just about any form of trainig… for physical activities and for art. You have to ask yourself and be fully honest, am I really reaching my limit? And if not, am I finding excuses? What is holding me back? How can I move beyond?

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I got called in for jury duty on Tuesday for first time ever. After two days of selection process, the jurors still have not been selected yet. I am one of the 20 prospective jurors right now, so we will see if I will be one of the 12 jurors. The court will resume on Tuesday. This really is a time consuming process!

Being a software engineer, my work is not too affected being able to work at home with flexible time, so I do not really mind doing this (except it is boring and lengthy at times). Even though I have heard and been told that if I insist on “some experience”, I can be excused but… I don’t lie nor do I have good enough excuse. So… if I am really selected, which is high probability, it should be an interesting learning experience.

In fact, it already has. As the judge and plaintiff were going interviewing all the other prospective jurors, one can observe so much about each person through their response. It is funny to watch as some do try to come up with excuse to be excused from jury duty. Hmmmm, makes one thinks.

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