Is the pandemic over?

     In these few days, Taiwan's local infection cases have surged from two-digit numbers to 15,000 in a month. However, CECC still loosens the quarantine days from 10days to 7 days(3 days in separate rooms +4 days mandatory to wear masks and keep social distance) for the incoming foreigners from other countries.

    The advanced omicron is difficult to detect and now spreading rapidly in some countries. It is obvious that it has more transmissible than omicron, though not more severe. Some said that some have immunity from vaccinations and infections from the previous omicron wave may be protective. Still, the pandemic is not officially to be declared has been ended.

    It is been a difficult two years since the pandemic began. And now, just as we are starting a possible return to normalcy. However, I still cannot be convinced that it is over, the long-side effect cannot be predicted after several mutants variated at any time. Therefore I still keep staying at home instead of wandering outside of my house.

Testimonial again!

    Em, hey there! I am Christine from Malaysia. In this video, I am going to tell you how to stay motivated as you learn English. Frankly speaking, very few of us are able to stay excited about something a hundred percent of the time. Especially if that something takes a lot of time, effort, and energy to make happen, like becoming fluent in another language. It takes work and effort to stay focused. So let's join and visit the online community "Home English Language Practice". You can meet the proficient American teacher and all the non-native speakers from around the world. It is the easiest way to find English-speaking friends to get regular practice. This program is a safe and supportive space for students from beginner to advanced levels of English. It is incredibly fun and made you immerse yourself into a big home family. 

Come and visit us at  "Home English Language Practice".

What is the most embarrassing moment currently?

    I used to walk two dogs together in my neighborhood in the morning, at the noon, and at night before I sleep. This is my regular routine and habits for exercising as well. But sometimes I did not well conscious of what my dogs are doing.

    Once, my neighbor posted a video via the line group. He argued that my Huskey taking a pee in front of his house. I thought I was blunt when I woke up earlier, and I did not make sure where he was taking a pee. I apologized for it and will not do it again.

    I feel embarrassed when people argued about my mistakes. I know that this behavior is normal in a rural area but I still need to conform to the rules here.

Would you rather explore the deepest parts of the ocean or outer space

    If I had to pick one, it is easier to explore the ocean than outer space. I have more participation and engagement in ocean research. I can go to the ocean with the scuba equipment which is not too expensive or hard to use. If you think you have discovered the entirety of what is in the world. We only just scratched the surface. Literally, humanity has explored only five percent of the oceans, which means 95 percent of the ocean is still undiscovered.
    However, space exploration is very crucial to the technical progression of humanity. The current technology may cost me an arm and a leg. Using telescopes and landing robots on Mars or the moon can help us to discover a bit about outer space. Some satellites have reached other planets in the solar system and all we can see is in the images. Radar can penetrate the atmosphere to the spacer but it cannot penetrate the ocean floor.

Would you rather live on the beach or in the mountains?

    This is really hard for me to choose. I would like to choose between the beaches and mountains. I would like to enjoy the breathtaking beach view with thunderous waves, as well as fresh air in the mountains. That is so why so many tourist spots are located nearby beached on the mountain. Most of them have fascinating places but there are quite touristy for me.

    If I should make a decision between them. I would like to live in the mountains as I typically like the winter weather. I do like snowboarding, hiking, and sightseeing in the picturesque and sleepy countryside surrounded by dramatic mountain scenery. I could get plenty of amazing views, basically all of the land. It is a natural paradise,  my pets could live much more freely in the mountains. Getting far enough away from a city, I am likely to enjoy singing out loud on the magnificent peaks without any neighbors in eyesight.
    Otherwise, having a beach house is completely devastating when the salt and moisture in the sea breeze into your house. After a decade, there will be a corrosive house. All the metal material will be corroded or oxidized.

How to calculate FI number

 FI : Financial Independence Number: how much money do you need to successfully retire?

How to calculate the FI number?

FI involved societal circumstances and personal circumstances.

Step 1: How much money will you spend in retirement? Please calculate your one-year expenses. Perhaps I can calculate 75% of my current spending. However, I need to consider the inflation rate in the future.

Step 2: Pick the withdrawal rate, it is the percentage of your retirement portfolio that you will convert to cash every year. Refers to the withdrawal rate, which can ensure we never run out of money.

Step 3:

FI number=annual retirement spending/safe withdrawal rate

Your retirement nest eggs should be 25 times your annual spending if the withdrawal rate is 4%.

Would you rather know when you will die or how you will die?

     I prefer to know when I will die. I could calculate the rest of my money in my savings accounts. Somebody could inherit my properties or my belongings after I die. I will try everything I can do and achieve something in the time that has been given to me. I could arrange everything I have and divide the rest of my money among the people in need.

    That would be frustrating if you know how to die. You would try everything to avoid anything that related to death. You would become paranoid to avoid doing something that sounds dangerous to you.

    No matter how could you know when you will die or how you will die, I would not choose either of them. It is meaningless to know about your future. You will easily get depressed or anxious for the rest of your life. You cannot be happier, I could say ignorance is bliss. 

ASMR

    ASMR stands for an autonomous sensory meridian response. It is a tingling sensation that begins on the back of the scalp and moves down to the back of the neck and upper the spine. It signifies the subjective experience of a "low-grade euphoria", usually triggered by specific auditory or visual stimuli.

Autonomous: spontaneous, self-governing, with or without control.

Sensory: about the senses or sensation

Meridian: signifying a climax, a peak, a point of the highest development.

Response: referring to an experience triggered by something internal or external.

What is the best advice you ever received in your life?

     Always responsible for your life. You can take control of yourself, which included your energy, happiness, choices, career, and fulfillment. You are not responsible for others. I was a social butterfly, I love taking care of others' feelings without hesitation. 

    I have wasted my spare time getting along with them, I did not brush up on my skills or did my chores frequently. My rented room was a mess and chaos sometimes. I feel guilty when I did not complete my jobs perfectly or with no mistakes.

    Try to make new mistakes in your learning process. You will learn more than you could when you correct the mistakes that you already knew. I imagined that I was perfect before this advice.

What are your thoughts on giving money to beggars?

     I am not a wealthy person, but I am willing to give some necessary things to the people in need. However, this question is very clear that it cannot solve the problems and that would not be satisfying. Some person who was previously fit and healthy ends up sick and disabled, then we toss him some food, is it really a heroic thing?

    In Taiwan, citizens here are not possibly starving to death. There are a lot of food banks and non-profit organizations that will keep you fed. There are also many temples or religious places that can keep the homeless people living, 

If you could be any animal for a day, what would you be and why?

     The first come to mind is a bird as I like singing and flying around the world without any boundaries. I would fly in to the mountains or jungles, enjoy the creatures. I still can communicate with my friends or families, and feathers together.

    The 2nd thought should be panda, as it plays smart not to work too hard. They just can survive in a cold environment, I will feel more grateful as I love winter. People will treat me like prize, there will have many snacks or playground around me even though I just staying chill and nothing to do.

If I trapped on a deserted land, what should I bring?

If I know I would be stranded on deserted land, I should bring some necessary items:

1. Sharp knife

2. A good strong pair of  boots

3. Hand crank flashlight with kinetic energy from cranking

The above 3 items are the most necessary items that I considered to bring along with me. How about yourself?

Reading a novel

     I started immersing myself in reading the novel " Twilight", a romantic story about a vampire and a special woman. Nevertheless, I am not a big fan of reading, sometimes I read books too slow and need some time to mull over them. I have just been informed by Netflix about "The Twilight Saga", "Eclipse", "New Moon", Breaking Dawn" at least five-film series that will be departing on 22 April. That means I just have 2 days left to binge-watch these Vampire series.

    I guess I am going to watch it every night until then it was departing from Netflix. In spite of these series will be removed, I have an intuition that the novel books will be more intriguing than TV series as the storytelling make me have more imagination about the Vampire and the werewolf things. I could tell you my feeling after reading the novel "Twilight". I wish I could make it end before the end of May.

Gender equality

     Basically, gender discrimination is illegal in Taiwan, but it means differently and interchangeably sometimes. Employees are treated differently or less favorably because of their sex, gender, or sexual orientation.

    In most of the engineering fields areas, most women are paid less than a person of different gender identities to do the same thing or substantially a similar job. Being denied a promotion, a pay raise that is given to people of another gender who are equally or less qualified or eligible as me. Sometimes I felt disappointed that employees prefer to promote a man instead a woman to be a leader of a team.

How to get promoted?

     Why should I get promoted? This is an essential and important question to ask me. As it may influence my happiness in my future career. When I got promoted, but still cannot be satisfied with my job, I will feel regret being promoted.

    I have been working in PTI for 11 years old already, but I am not given a fair shake as my peers actually. I still worked as a senior engineer. But most of my peers are managers and directors around my age. I admitted that I am not a good leader, I have no confidence to convince my team members to follow my instructions. I am not an intelligent person but I am a responsible person who can be in charge of some cases individually from the start to the end.

    I do not have the strong leadership characteristic or charisma, but I feel fortunate that it can be learned and practiced, and mastered. Good leadership could confront the fear of failure, fear of conflict, fear of scarcity(lack of abundant information), and fear of vulnerability. As a leader, the ethical code about moral things is a good way to create valuable teamwork. No matter if you could fulfill all your team members' requirements, you need to let them know that genuinely care about their best interests. They will feel respected and understood after getting along together with him for a while.

    I am not good at solving problems quickly and in a creative way, but I could think about how to analyze problems, avoid using emotions, and try to think of different perspectives from many ways or angles.

My first boyfriend in my life time

     SInce I was baptized as a Christian when I was 16 years old. I vowed to my God to restore my virginity until my marriage. I was a religious teenager in Methodist Church and devoted most of my time and energy to support the spreading messages about the Jesus things. Even though I graduated from high school and went to study abroad in Taiwan. I used to go church every weekend. 

    There was a man who has a crush on me since I was studying at Pre-University in Linkou. That year was too cold for me, and that is the first time that somebody give a precious gift to me, a bright purple puffer coat. I feel amazed and appreciated too much that someone care about me as I do not feel confident about myself on that time. I was too fat and a lot of pimples on my face.

    On my first year in National Taiwan university, I joined a community group, Overseas Student Association. There was a lot of foreign students gathered together . I decided to engage in some activities to acquaintance each others, such as dancing, traveling some places, or making some domestic food together. As I had been invited to dance with the guy who is crush on me, I do not know why I felt in love with him after the amazing activity. I know that I broke the engagement that I promised with my God, I feel guilty after meeting a boy. I feel I am mentally far away from my God since I met this guy. But I probably love him so much as he is my first love.

    When he said that he decided to quit his bachelor degree in Chemisty Engineer. I was woke that he is not mature enough to be my life partner. He did not care about his career to have a better degree, he just focus on his social matters and what made him become excited. He did not care about his degree status. Actually I felt regret that why I did not see him clearly on my years of university. If I did, I will find a better man on those years.

My Pre-University Experience in Taiwan

    In February of 2001, I enrolled the spring classes which were only available for Malaysians only. In the beginning, I would like to study group 3  which was associated with medical courses. However, I graduated from economic classes and I did not have any idea about it. My mother was so happy and excited if I could change my study course from business to medical, and become a doctor in the future. Half-year later, I feel frustrated that my academic performance was not too good enough to enter the medical courses. Therefore I decided to enroll in the Fall class in September but the duration time is longer than the Spring class. Fortunately, I have more preparation time to study and got better academic performance than those in the Spring class. Finally, I was admitted to National Taiwan University with Material Science and Engineering degree, which was the top three ranking in Taiwan that year.

Achievable goals

    Goals and objectives are essential components in all project management. In order to achieve the desired outcome, we need to create a direction, evoke motivation, and create a purpose and accountability. Here is the SMART goal framework if you want to work on some projects or goals.

S: Specific

M: Measurable

A: Attainable(Achievable)

R: Relevant

T: Time-rebound

Racing Bicycle Nyamuk

    Five years ago, there were 8 cyclists racing on the highway and being hit down by a car at the midnight. The teenagers, aged between 13 and 16 years old died and sparked an uproar in Malaysia. The bicycles that they were riding do not have lights and brakes. Even though I sympathize with the families for the loss of the children, a lot of questions arise, why there is no supervision accompanying these children and letting them race on the public road.

    The girl, who hit them to death has remained in the prison for almost 5 years. She started serving her sentence immediately after the judgment. Although she was not driving fast, or driving under the influence of alcohol, and was possibly driving under the road's speed limit at the time of the incident. At the end of the prosecution, she was sentenced to six years and RM6,000 fined.

    I feel disappointed about the judgment, why does the responsible driver need to be sentenced into jail and be fined? Where is the justice? What happened to the teenagers' parents? What are their punishments? If no further actions are taken, there will be increasingly more and more teenagers making fun on the public road without any public awareness.

Bucket list

     Before I am going to kick off my bucket, there are a lot of bucket lists in my lifetime. Since the pandemic, I start learning English online with a group of friends when I am walking with my dogs at night. I killed two birds with one stone accidentally. This topic was mentioned by the Iraq English teacher. He is a great teacher, he is willing to help us to brush up our speaking skills by discussing some interesting topics that suitable for all of us.

    I would like to rethink my bucket lists. The first one of my bucket list is I would like to learn how to do snowboard or skiing in any countries. I love dancing and adventures, showing my body balance and the moment of muscles forces at the same time, this is a great workouts that strengthen my heart.

    The second bucket list is I would like to write a book for myself in English. At the same time I wish I could speak English fluently and confidently in front of my friends and family members. No matter it is important or not, it is a good way to show that I am determined to be a better person

Testimonial video

    Hi, I am Christine from Malaysia. Here I want to introduce a free program which was introduced by Thomas who is living in the USA, Buffalo. He is a really amazing passionate teacher, he can hold at least 2 free lessons a day if he has free time. The lessons were incredibly fun and made you immerse yourself into a big home family. In order to let the beginner learners have more practice, he coordinates with NEO application, the artificial intelligence which can compare your accents tone with native English speakers. You can definitely learn how to imitate the natural English-speaking sounds and improve your English fluency.