YEEEAAAAHH...! Kiong Hee Huat Zhai!

One of the areas for improvement that was brought up during my half year performance review was to work on communication skills, and thus, improve on developing my subordinates, managing people, both upwards and downwards. My bosses still feel I'm a very shy person and feel that I struggle when communicating with people. To me, I just think it's harder for me to warm up to my ang moh colleagues due to the cultural differences and I'm not most comfortable trying to speak Aussie english.

Anyway, my performance manager is really concerned about our personal development, so he registered me for a seminar yesterday on "How to become a better communicator". Hey... a day without work, I'll take it anytime.

The speaker was really good. I normally struggle to stay awake during talks and seminars, but I paid attention most of the time (I still can't shake the after-lunch drowsiness). He's from the United States, most of his examples were about former US presidents but were somehow still relevant. He's a BIG guy but he also said that he's on a target to loose 100 pounds and he's already lost 60. He heavily promoted the world's 3rd best selling book, "7 Habits of Effective People" by Stephen Covey. My company only paid for the talk, not the books unfortunately.

Well, I did learn a thing or two. The concepts made sense, applying them would be another story. He talked mostly about conflict resolution. Just to quote some examples... starting with "I feel..." rather than "you..." when giving negative feedback as this would lighten the impact and create less tension. How to deal with different people: director-controller, thinker-analyzer, socializer-promoter, relator-supporter. When someone lashes out at you, you should be saying YEEEAAAHHH on the inside and smile for this would surprise the other person, and gives you time to think to say the right words.

.... This is my second year of celebrating Chinese New Year away from home. CNY in Perth is an uneventful event (excuse my pun). But this year was a lot better than last year as a lot of us are working here now and we don't get to go back for CNY. A friend from uni organised a pot luck dinner party. There were pork curry, potato salad, beef rendang, pork chops, wanton, chicken wings. I bought fried rice, hokkien noodles and crispy noodles. And for desert, there were chocolate cheesecake, red bean soup and custard cream puffs. Needless to say, that we had too much food. I've already brought back some of the fried rice and pork chops.

This was the only picture I could get. The host, Jer Sie and Marc (ladies, he's still single!) No pictures of food or the other guests as they were camera shy.

That about sums my CNY celebration. Unless there are other invitations. On CNY day 1 itself, tomorrow, I am actually doing the Matilda Bay triathlon near my house. Not actually in a very pumped up mood. Feet feels a bit funny too but I could be paranoid. A short race is just what I need to keep me motivated.