龙门　　：：　Dragon Gate

'Egogooglebombing' is such a silly idea that... I can't help myself from joining in Siw Charman's attempt to associate her blog ChocnVodka with the name 'Simon Pegg'... Would I have done this if I'd read that entry first thing in the morning instead of last thing at night? We'll never know :-)

Also, Monday's Post from Morgan Stanley GEF is absolutely gripping reading for anybody who is interested in the economic relationship between China and the US, the US trade deficit and dollar vulnerability or, well, the global economy as a whole and interest rates in particular... Several very good contributions.

Good article in this morning's IHT: A tough combination to beat, about the growing links between India and China. Not a new insight by any means, but it's probably true that Western business doesn't yet fully appreciate the potential strength of this partnership. Also interesting in that it raises the idea that this is a way for China to help develop its poorer western regions.

Things I have learned this weekend:

• Lakh
• Crore
• The importance of the monsoon for India's economy
• Ba
• Belbin Roles
• Cynefin (PDF)

Fascinating - and a little sad: Geisha Photo Journal.

Today's highlight was an afternoon visit to the Singapore office of Cisco Systems, organised by the Student Committee. We had very interesting presentations from two of their staff, Alvin Ng and Shailesh Naik. I needn't repeat what they said; what was most striking was the impression they projected. Cisco is clearly an organisation that is demanding of its employees and doesn't carry any dead weight - but is very supportive, and incredibly focussed. Plainly, there is an incredibly strong corporate culture and esprit de corps.

The physical surroundings on the floor we visited were very interesting and geared to stimulate creativity: all of the walls can be used as whiteboards, the furniture is ergonomic and space-efficient et cetera, et cetera. Quite a mind-blower for someone like me, who's more used to working for under-resourced and either under- or over-managed organizations... I did ask about their approach to innovation; I wondered (given the surroundings) whether they had an Ideo-style, defined, methodology for promoting creativity. Sadly we didn't really have the time to follow it up.

Tom Peters refers in a recent post on his blog to a comment by Daniel Pink, namely that 'the M.F.A. (Master of Fine Arts) is the new M.B.A. People who are learning the design technologies are the ones who will be creating the visual images (thus stories) of our culture'. Well... :-) Obviously, I'm sinking a whole lot of time, money and opportunity cost into the acquisition of an MBA, so I hope this isn't entirely true - but I can see the point. One of my coursemates enquired what Cisco looks for in its recruits, in terms of background. The answer is - talent, I guess. Not just engineers, but lawyers, travel agents, all kinds of people are recruited if Cisco thinks that they can add value. Food for thought...

I absolutely enjoyed today's visit. Thanks to Cisco for giving us the opportunity!

When I was a child (and much later than that, in fact) I loved to open up an atlas and look at all the different colored countries, dreaming about the different landscapes, cities and peoples that each map represented. This morning I've been moved to take down my map of the world from the shelf by this article in ATOL: China is actively seeking to develop the Irrawaddy river in Myanmar as a delivery route for oil - which would come by ship from the Bay of Bengal, upriver to the port of Bhamo (go look at a map - it's a long way upriver) and then by road, rail or pipeline to China's Yunnan province. It's not the first article I've seen about this, but it's the first to indicate that the plan is quite well advanced. It's an interesting article that points out the advantages for China of this plan - lower costs and greater security. A number of pieces recently have mentioned how worried China is by the threats posed by potential piracy and terrorism in the Straits of Malacca.

Singaporeans will immediately see where that's going, and this other article makes it explicit: If the Myanmar and Thai proposals do succeed, the one country that would be severely affected would be Singapore. China is one of Singapore's most important oil trading clients, with a substantial proportion of China's oil imports coming via Singapore. Alternative oil routes would undermine that special relationship. . I don't have the figures for the oil trade but plainly the oil could be just the beginning - if this transport route is established then a lot of other traffic could shift from the ports of Singapore and Johore Bahru to Yunnan and Myanmar.

In the meantime, I'll let my imagination mull over "Yunnan, situated in the southwest corner of China, borders Tibet, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam". TOMA and I are hoping to go to Yunnan next year...

A quick post just to catch up:

After all the presentations, assignments and so on recently, my body clock won't let me sleep before midnight now.

This afternoon, we had a very interesting and candid presentation on the role of venture capitalists, delivered by Alain Vandenborre, speaking in a personal capacity. Mr. Vandenborre was born Belgian, but took up Singaporean citizenship last year, publishing a book about it. I would have been interested to hear more about that, but he had to leave for another appointment before I could ask. He asked us at one point how many planned to become entrepreneurs after we finish our MBAs - not many! He looked surprised.

Over the weekend, all of the papers splashed the news of the media consolidation between the two big players here, Singapore Press Holdings and MediaCorp. My e-commerce project, the one that caused me so much heartache, was actually based on the assumption that the media scene here couldn't carry on as it was; I felt a bit stupid when I handed it in because, well, who am I - a lowly MBA student - to say that the media is in a poor state? Well, the timing was serendipitous - I feel vindicated. Of course, just because I got that bit right doesn't mean that my proposal was workable, sensible, or even coherent. The article I link to here mentions that the door is still shut to foreign media, though, so maybe I got that wrong. Other interesting comments here, here, and here

So, Jiang Zemin stepped down after all...

Sometimes I can be a bit over-suspicious, so apologies in advance to the person concerned! I sometimes get email from people who read this blog, and it's great to hear from you; I'm glad you enjoy reading this. Over the weekend, I got one message from someone with an address in the asia.com domain; I found it a little odd because asia.com's web site says that the domain has no email service. Maybe the person concerned could just drop me a line about that? Again, sincere apologies if I'm being over-suspicious!

Picked up a Poljot Okean Chronograph over the weekend, just like the one in the picture (mechanical, not quartz). I couldn't really afford it, and it needs servicing, but it was a bargain and I've wanted one for a while...

Hmm: gmail can handle unicode simplified chinese characters in messages, but not in the user id. Pity.

One reason I started worrying about my e-commmerce paper once I'd handed it in, was that I made some blunt comments about the nature of the market and culture here in Singapore. The number one reason to worry is that maybe I've got my facts wrong, in which case I look very stupid indeed. The second worry, whether or not I'm right, is that such comments could be taken badly; after all, this is Singapore and criticism is often taken badly, right? On the other hand, I suppose that one thing Singapore and its government are famous for is being pragmatic and realistic, who look at things as they are, not as they want them to be.

Our e-commerce Professor has avoided talking about specifics of technology, and has tried to encourage an enthusiasm for, and awareness of, the radical changes in business behaviour that technology has caused, is causing, and will cause. Now, I'm from an I.T./technology bckground, and I'm already pretty enthused; his focus was a problem for me to an extent, because I was looking for more actual case studies on how to implement I.T. projects within an organization. Still, I agree with him that it's important to be aware that technology has changed business behaviour dramatically and will likely do this again.

Anyway, in last night's Sun Zi class, our Professor asked us all to write down our answer to the question "You are number one in the market - what is the first thing you do?". Most of us, myself included, wrote down defensive answers, along the lines of "protect our position from competitors". Our Prof. asked - wouldn't it be better to work harder, and increase the lead, widening the gap between ourselves and the competition?

Why am I talking about this? Because these events from yesterday seem to be addressed directly in a paper from leadership guru Tom Peters, published in his tomAto TOMaTO post. The pdf file is here. There are a number of quoteworthy phrases, but I particularly like:

They say “Life is a marathon; husband your strength.”
I say “Life is a sprint. Begin planning your World-beating Me Inc. start-up … TODAY.”

and:

They say “Peace, brother.”
I say “Bruise my feelings. Flatten my ego. SAVE MY JOB.”

But there are many more.... Read it now!

Update 23 Sep: The tomAto TOMaTO pdf has been updated; the new version is here.

I have a few minutes to sit down and take stock before going to get the bus to the Sun Zi class at Orchard Road. After that, I have a couple of days clear, and no major assignments, presentations or deadlines for a few weeks.

That's a really good thing. I think I'll just take tomorrow off completely, to just sleep and get off-campus. I'm exhausted, and for the past couple of weeks I've been going on willpower alone - which unfortunately means that I can get so fixated on achieving a goal that I tread on people's toes. When I'm this tired my judgement gets worse, and my temper shortens, so I need to relax and unwind before I offend any more people!

I've handed in my e-commerce assignment this afternoon. As soon as it was in, I was wishing I had done it differently. Still, no point worrying. I don't think it's anywhere near as good as it might have been, but under the circumstances, I think it was the best I could manage.

Still, let's be positive! Today is a month since TOMA and I got together, and if that isn't a reason to celebrate and be cheerful, I don't know what is!

I need a change of environment if I'm going to make progress on this project, so I'm going to the cafe at Jurong Point. While I'm waiting for my printer, slashdot this morning pointed to a great article - Science Fiction writers discuss the future.One of the participants, Bruce Sterling made a great point:

“Civilization is better than barbarism. I'm not sure I believe in 'real world government,' but global civil society attracts a lot of my attention. 'Globalism' used to be a synonym for 'Americanization', but nowadays it's starting to look a lot more genuinely global: Iranians in Sweden, Serbians in Brazil, global Bollywood movies filmed in Switzerland, a real mélange.”

And of course, TOMA and I who come from countries very far apart, meeting here in Singapore.

Well, the 'different' approach I tried for my Sun Zi presentation ... didn't work as well as I hoped. Afterwards, the Prof. even asked if I was enjoying the course... maybe I gave the impression that I don't. Actually, I do; it's my favourite course this trimester! Oops.

Afterwards, I met TOMA, and we started a busy day. We met at City Hall and, via a second-hand bookshop, went on to Café le Caire in Arab Street for a coffee and a bite to eat. From there, we went to a Hong Kong coffee shop at the junction of Upper Serangoon and Upper Paya Lebar (sp?) roads. This is owned by a friend of one of TOMA's friends, someone neither of us have met before. We ate a lot :-) and chatted for a long time with the owner about trips to Mongolia, Xinjiang and Beijing, about Cantonese opera and, well, lots of things. A few hours later we moved on and went to Little India for the rest of the evening. I forget the name of the big Hindu temple, but although I've been there before, that was in the daytime. At night, it was an overwhelming experience. Neither TOMA or I knows much about Hinduism, so we tried to be unobtrusive, but got pulled into a small crowd, and had our foreheads dabbed with red dye... The image that really sticks with me is a statue of Kali (? I think) devouring the entrails of a young woman; standing before it was a grandmother and a small, very young girl, with the older woman plainly explaining to the child what it was all about... One of TOMA's classmates is a Hindu, so we're going to organize a return trip with her as a guide.

We explored little India pretty thoroughly, eating and drinking here and there, looking around in shops small and very large (finally went to the famous Mustafa's!). In one shop I met some people who know the area near my home town :-) We talked a lot; still getting to know each other better. Our childhoods were so incredibly different: me in a lush, green hill country, TOMA in the desert. Both of us were star pupils at school, but that's about all we had in common! We wound up coming back very late.

Today is not being very productive. I'm trying to finish my e-commerce project, but it's going very slowly.

I have a plan taking shape for what to do after the MBA, career-wise. I've also thought of an internship opportunity, which could be terrible if I'm not careful, but could be very, very rewarding if I handle it properly. It's going to need careful planning to pull it off. Well, strategy is something an MBA student should be able to deal with, and I have plenty of time to put my arrangements in place.

Just finished my Sun Zi presentation. I'm happy with it, and plan to present it in... a novel fashion.

My KM presentation seemed to go well, not really sure. Didn't get hard questions like some others, which I think is a good sign.

Discovered that my home country has trade missions in Beijing and Shanghai... hmmm... I sense opportunity...

I've woken up to a world in which everything tastes and smells of durian.

'Cyber-muckraking' sites reflect the Chinese Communist Party's internal power struggle, according to this ATOL story.

MMMMMmmmmMMMm!! TOMA bought me some durian! I love durian, but I haven't had any for some months now. It really is an acquired taste, but very yummy :-)

Seeing TOMA was just the thing to cheer me up. For the last couple of days I've been feeling a bit melancholy - for the first time in nearly two years, I've been missing the mountains of home; the fresh, cool air, the long views far inland, the sea at the mountain feet. I miss knowing the stories and the history associated with the places where I go walking.

Still, I miss Beijing just as much: the ready smiles, the Qianmen hutongs, the night-time walk from Houhai to Andingmen... I hope I'll be able to go there with TOMA next year. Like several others of my batch, I want to go to Tsinghua University on exchange; I hope that will work out.

#*@%! DBD::mysql won't install. Why not???? OK, I give up for tonight, I'm too tired for this. Off to see TOMA for 5 mins, then back to read up for tomorrow morning's Financial Accounting lecture.

Well, my KM presentation for Friday night is more or less finished. I can polish off the rough edges tomorrow. Since then, I've been trying to write my contribution for the next Sun Zi group presentation; it's not going well. I know roughly what I want to write about, but I can't find any good examples to cite. It's time to take a break for a while.

So, I'm looking again at installing a blog on my Powerbook. I started off thinking that I would use Movable Type, but after a bit of searching around, got curious about what James Seng is using. This turns out to be drupal. So, I've downloaded that, and I'm getting ready to install. I haven't turned on Apache, mySQL etc since I upgraded to Panther, so I'm encountering some glitches. In particular, there seem to have been a lot of changes to PHP in the last 9 months, so a lot of the things I know by heart just aren't working any more. Lucky the PHP documentation is good; I can't afford to buy new books again!

Anyhow, the AMP setup seems to be working OK now, so it's full speed ahead for the drupal install...

Why, oh why, didn't I remember to copy my text before submitting? Once again, Blogger has lost my post. Much more of this, and I'm moving to another blog host.

What did I say in that lovingly-crafted, lost post? Dunno. Here's what I can salvage from memory:

Top find of the day: this Guardian Online article. The City of Light has a special police unit to patrol the vast network of Roman-era tunnels and catacombs far beneath the surface. One unit discovers a huge, previously unknown cavern. Inside is... a cinema! Returning for further investigation, the police find the evidence destroyed, save for a note which reads "Do not try to find us". This story pleases me on so many levels I find it difficult to find words to explain. How bizarre! How romantic! This could surely only happen in Paris. It reminds me of the stories of homeless troglodytes living in the tunnels of the New York subway. I had always assumed those to be an urban myth - until I saw the documentary.

Speaking of romance, TOMA and I managed to grab a few hours together today. TOMA came to my room and studied as I prepared some of Friday night's presentation. It's good to share time in amongst the stress and activity of our studies. One of my classmates commented tonight "I just don't know what day it is anymore", and I know exactly what he means.

Aha: according to this Straits Times article, Sumatrans are to be issued with masks to protect them from the smog from forest fires. So there are big fires in Sumatra; that explains the odd redness of the moon the other day. I have to say that the air was very bad on Sunday night here in the west of Singapore, and over the last few days the air has been smoky on a number of occasions. A personal reminder that ecological catastrophe is no respecter of national boundaries...

I've just tried the 'next blog' button, and wound up on what is obviously a teenager's site... All I can say is, thank goodness blogs weren't around when I was a teenager! The thought of all that angst preserved forever on some Wayback Machine is too appalling to consider.

TOMA's on the way over so we can go together to Jurong Point, from where I'll head on to Geylang and my wushu class.

Another link: The TAO of topic maps.

What would I do without Wikipedia? (notwithstanding recent criticisms).

1. Semantic Network
2. Semantic Web
3. Resource Description Framework
4. Friend of a Friend (IBM, not Wikipedia)
5. Dublin Core
6. Ontology (in the Comp. Sci. sense, not philosphy)

So, I was reading Professional XML Meta Data over lunch, and it looks as if XML Topic Maps are the technology I need in order to define my data and the relationships between nodes, as well as for recording where and when I encountered a given piece of information, as well as the context (which other pieces of information were in the same lecture/handout/article etc). I obviously have a lot of further reading to do about this, but probably this would best be defined in XML, stored in a database, and used to auto-generate HTML reports, etc. What I don't immediately see is how I link it to my feelings about a given piece of information - question, reports of who said what in class, whether or not I was hungry at the time - ie all the things that I might put in a blog entry rather than a dictionary entry. Perhaps I would need to put anchor targets inside each blog entry, and include them as trackbacks in the topic markup...

I'm just about to break for lunch after a varied morning's work. I've started on the e-commerce report, which is based on a proposal for Singapore Press Holdings. It's writing itself, really; the report is to be between 10 and 20 pages, and I'm already up to 5, just with the skeleton structure and some basic text. Researching this has led me to some interesting resources on how the government of Singapore is planning to develop its creative/media industries, and on how it sees the development of the Singaporean identity. The following are all PDF files, and worth reading if you're interested in Singapore's future:

• Renaissance City 2.0
• Design City
• Media 21

How to approach knowledge management for an MBA course's contents? First, I guess I need to identify a suitable taxonomy, to pin down concepts, terms, names and so on that do, will, or may crop up in different courses. Then, to actually record information captured from lecture notes, articles, web sources and textbooks. Lastly, to identify the best way in which to visually present the relationship between nodes.

My initial feeling is that a private blog is the way to go. Something like Moveable Type, which can be installed on my Powerbook, and has features enabling the use of post categories. On the other hand, will this be fine-grained enough to identify different uses and locations of a given topic (eg demand curve) - implicit as well as explicit? I guess there's only one way to find out.

I am trying to approach my career so as to avoid this:

Other status seekers prostitute themselves to climb the corporate ladder. They put in 60-plus-hour workweeks and kiss up to their bosses, smilingly willing to uproot themselves and their families for a few years in Dubuque, Tuscaloosa, and/or anyplace else the company wants to dump them. They endure years of theoretical crap in an MBA program so they can put those three letters on their resume. And for what? So they may finally get a title of director or vice president, and after their 12-hour cover-their-butt workday, collapse on their sofa, get blitzed and stare at their oversized living room in their oversized neighborhood wondering, "Is that all there is?"

Found here via here.

I've only just discovered Crossroads Dispatches, and a lot of the thinking there about creativity and living a full life is very relevant to an MBA wannabe like me...

I'm reading "In good company: how social capital makes organizations work" (Cohen & Prusak, 2001). It's reminded me how easy it is to simply absorb facts that are given to us (in lectures, for example) and repeat them afterwards, thinking that we know them. In fact, we often don't truly understand them and the assumptions and associations underlying them. I really need to keep this in mind. I'm wondering what sort of knowledge management system I could set up to keep track of what I learn from my different courses, and to identify linkages and themes between them. I suppose this blog could fulfil part of that, but really I would prefer a) to keep this blog at more of a meta-level and b) to have a knowledge management system that runs on my Powerbook so that I can tinker with it...

What's going on? The deadline for the e-commerce project that I've now got to write on my own has been pushed back to next week. The deadline for my 25-page Sun Zi essay has been moved back into October. And HMV are selling the VCD of Zulu for only $4.95. It's too good to be true! I can't wait to see the Chinese subtitles for 'Men of Harlech'...

Gradually I'm working my way through the five chapters of reading in preparation for tomorrow's macroeconomics class. I'm enthusiastic again; reading Snapshots cheered me up a lot, and today i see that Businessweek's b-school journal writers are posting new stuff. Some of them echo my feelings towards all this.

When I bought Snapshots, I also bought a couple of other books that have turned out to be good choices.LCCI Book Keeping and Accounts (author, Kyaw Maung) makes accounting clear and obvious;I find that our actual set text just makes it confusing and obscure.

Colloquial Cantonese and Puntonghua Equivalents by Zeng Zifan (tr. S.K. Lai) is simply the best phrasebook I have ever seen for Chinese. It has lots of sentences in Cantonese (traditional characters), Mandarin (simplified characters and hanyu pinyin) and English that I will actually want to use, unlike most textbooks and phrasebooks (although, respect is due to the Lonely Planet phrasebook). Some of the language (in Mandarin) is apparently very colloquial: TOMA laughed out loud, and can't believe they used some of the phrases they have... It's all current vocabulary, though; no dated slang.

TOMA and I have spent the afternoon and evening at the Festival of Lights at the Chinese Gardens. This year's theme is Sun Wu Kong, the Monkey King - which IMNSHO is a vast improvement on last year's Hello Kitty theme! I'v taken a lot of pictures; hopefully some will turn out OK.

Aargh, I upgraded Firefox, and lost all my bookmarks! I had saved bookmarks.html to a different location, but somehow that got erased as well. Blast.

I am now totally enthused by the Friday night Knowledge management course; we've just about reached my knowledge level now, so from here on it's all new material. I'm working on blogs, XML, rss etc as I decide what to do for my upcoming preesentation and project; in the process I'm reinstalling Apache, MySQL, PHP and various blog/KM tools on my Powerbook in order to play about with them. I'm realizing that in the 9 months since I finished work, I've forgotten quite a lot!

It really is a small world: I've just discovered that Britchick and I went to the same school. How weird is that?

Relief. My FA assignment got an A. The mid-term exam got a C-, not the F that I genuinely expected. Other people did get an F, so perhaps there is some hope for me.

I don't know what's happening with the web access; my Blogger posts aren't showing up (although the flakiness of Blogger is part of its appeal). In fact, the problem might not be with Blogger, as all of my web access is really, really slow. On the other hand, i'm not having any problems with iTunes (and bassDrive are playing some excellent music tonight).

I am currently reading Financial Reporting Standard 16 (Singapore): Property, Plant and Equipment.

TOMA just called: have I seen the moon? It's beautiful... So out I go to take a look, and the moon is indeed beautiful. It's waning; gibbous and very golden. There's a very faint cloud layer, creating a large golden halo, which glows against the night sky. The unusual thing is, the halo is red on the outer edge. What would cause this? Maybe there are forest fires in Sumatra.... have to check the Straits Times' air quality index tomorrow.

TOMA's call came at just the right time; I'd just finished reading tomorrow's chapter for Financial Accounting. I'd budgeted an hour and half for it, but it took longer, because it's just. so. boring. I really am motivated; I know this is really important and should be straightforward. But my eyes just keep sliding off the page. I don't know why I even bother; tomorrow we'll get our mid-term exam results, and I won't be good for anything after that.

In fact tomorrow will be a bad day to end a string of bad days. E-commerce today was a mess. We had to give a 5-minute group presentation on a disruptive technology and how a Singaporean company could use it. In itself, really easy; it has to be followed up by a 10-page report, though. The problem was my group. Four or five meetings over the last few weeks, and absolutely nothing to show. I put forward a practical idea, which I know is workable, based on my experience. Another member suggested Wi-max. That's all very well, but it's like saying "Why don't we use the internet to make lots of money?". Great, but you need a more detailed plan. Which wasn't forthcoming. I put forward one idea, which got no response. And that's how things continued. No ideas. People turning up late for meetings or not at all. And then this week two people from the group informed me out of the blue that I would be doing the presentation. Thanks. So I presented my original idea; not only because I know it will work, but because I know I can write the report on my own in reasonably good time. Now the group are up in arms, and going to write their own report on wimax. If they have ideas, how come nobody thought to mention them in all the meetings we had? Incredible. It depresses me; I expected more from MBA participants. I came here to work hard and to learn, and I'm wearing myself out doing it. I expect the same of my classmates - not to have them try to get a free ride.

I went to a second-hand bookshop near City Hall earlier this week; I was looking for some materials for my Sun Zi essay. Didn't find any, but I did find a copy of Snapshots from Hell. I'd heard about this, but hadn't been able to find a copy - so I snapped this one up. Given that it deals with an MBA experience from the early 80s, I expected it to have dated badly and to be only mildly interesting. But no. It's really good, I've already nearly finished. It's all so true! His experiences and emotions about the course are just the same as mine - especially as I also consider myself to be a 'poet'. When he mentioned FIFO and LIFO I was, like, WOOHOO! I CAN EXPLAIN THAT! So maybe I have learned something after all... I am actually finding it to be inspirational and, well, comforting. Except when I remember that he wrote speeches for the President of the United States and attended Stanford with surgeons, fighter pilots, and pro athletes. And I'm not.

<Sigh>. Normal sunny optimism will probably be resumed. Sometime.

Well, my cover is blown: a couple of things came up that required me to let faculty know who I am. Cogito knows, although I'm not sure how many other students he's told. TOMA also knows now. This will affect the way I write here, but for the moment I'm not going to change my style purposely; the changes will emerge naturally because of the shift in the way I view this blog.

I went to my wushu class again last night. The lao shi is back from China, and was teaching a new style of Xing-yi that he learned while he was there. Physically it's hard work, but that's good. I need to do more physical activity, actually. Some of my fellow students were telling me that they go jogging at midnight because it's coolest then. (In fact, when TOMA and I came back from the cinema last Saturday night, we saw people jogging at 3am!). It's a slightly schizophrenic experience,attending this class: it is far more traditional than any martial arts school I've ever attended before. The lao shi last night was reminding people (and especially me, as a newcomer) to practice, learn through observation, don't talk. Don't leave until the class is over (even though the class overran by 45 minutes, and with a 90 minute trip back to NTU that's a problem for me!). The MBA, in contrast, is supposed to be teaching us to question, to explore ideas, and to be assertive. Suppressing this approach to learning in the wushu class can be a struggle.

Sometimes I get an 'aha' moment when I see something that embodies something that was on my mind, but not clearly defined. Anyway, via Smart Mobs weblog, I've found this article on weblogs as Knowledge Management tools. I've mentioned before that I really enjoy my KM Tools course, and this article fits really well with what we've learned. It just confirms to me that this is a field I'm interested in pursuing after the MBA.