Reading List, Half Year Check

It’s June the 1st tomorrow, and five months down the road, I rediscovered this post on my New Year’s Reading Resolution, and decided to take a pulse check where fiction titles are concerned. Here goes.

Against this original list:

1. Elizabeth Kostovo’s The Historian 
2. Silverfish New Writing 6 
3. Tash Aw’s The Harmony Silk Factory
4. Zadie Smith’s On Beauty
5. Haruki Murakami’s Dance Dance Dance
6. Hari Kunzru’s Transmission
7. Adibah Amin’s The End of the Rainbow
8. Augusten Burroughs’s Running with Scissors
9. Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things
10. Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale  
11. JK Rowling’s Deathly Hallows, when it hits the bookstores
12. For book twelve, I will have to decide among Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story, Mary Gaitskill’s Veronica, Philip Roth’s Everyman, and Peter Carey’s Theft. Everyman’s at the top of the list for now, followed by Veronica.

I have, sadly, only finished two books: Hari Kunzru’s Transmission and Zadie Smith’s On Beauty. I still have put Tash Aw’s HSF on hold, along with Kostovo’s vampiric tales (and vampire tales are usually my favourite; what’s happened?). I have just embarked on The Thirteenth Tale, because I couldn’t wait, and after that, will probably move on to Running With Scissors, if JK Rowling doesn’t get me first.

I did finish Albom’s For One More Day, though it was such a short story, I hesitate to classify it as a novel, and did enjoy Frank McCourt’s Teacher Man thoroughly (but this was last year so it doesn’t count, I suppose).

So, five months into 2007, I have only completed three complete fiction titles.

Hmmm….

It seems rather pathetic given how I used to consume four novels in a weekend (albeit in my single years, and albeit, Agatha Christie novels). But truthfully, I’m not too disheartened. I just need to make sure I fling these books into the passenger seat when I drive so that when I get stuck in massive traffic, or even while waiting for the light to turn green (it always seems to take ages when you’re waiting, doesn’t it?), I can steal snatches of passages and march on in the story.

Postscript: Writing this post reminds me that a good friend wants to restart a reading club, and I might just say yes to joining it. Perhaps that would spur the fiction reading….

Filed under: Books, Reads

Bringing Office Management Skills Home – Better Not

If you’ve ever wished your home was as organised, orderly and as disciplined as the workplace, and if you have ever wished that your kids would respond the same way to performance measures and deadlines as you and your colleagues do, then you may have been tempted to transfer some of your executive skills to the home. Think twice before you do, as this article advises:

It’s one of those mistakes easily made as the line between work and family vanishes: thinking that the very expertise and practices that work well to get results and build influence at work will work just as well at home. You don’t need to have much pull in the office to recognize that you have even less at home.

“I not only don’t have any authority,” says Leonard Clapp, a retired lab technician with a penchant for sciences, “but my wife, who is something of an insomniac, immediately falls asleep as soon as I begin speaking on the subjects which are dear to my heart.”

“It’s not just the authority that declines,” adds Bob Hoffman, a chief operating officer. “The whole economic system shifts, from capitalism at work to communism at home.” If metrics existed for the family as they do for business, “you’re measuring gross family happiness and yours doesn’t count more than anyone else’s — and probably less,” he says.

(Why We Can Manage Staff but Not Our Own Families, WSJ Career Journal, 30 March 2007)

The article goes on to say that the reason work and family life are so different in modern times is because industrialisation has effectively separated the home, from the office. Prior to industrialisation, the article pointed out, agricultural economies revolved around farms that are usually family-owned and operated. On a point related to this, would people in family businesses then find that their authority in the workplace, working styles and management approaches work equally well in the home?

I do like what the article says about how family life influences, and shapes, attitudes at work:

Family life informs work more than the other way around. It goes beyond boasts that a company is one big, happy family. The home hones skills, such as fostering development, and virtues, such as patience. It’s easy to delegate once you’ve learned to let a toddler spend 23 minutes buttering toast without an overwhelming urge to intervene. One study shows employees rate their bosses with dependents more highly than they rate their bosses with none.

And as a Career Mom with two feisty boys, I can definitely attest to the truth of this:

Families don’t have to buy what someone who can’t fire them sells. “You can be a great boss at work but you can’t get your two-year-old into the bathtub,” says Ellen Galinsky, co-founder of the Families and Work Institute. 

But the part I especially love is the article’s parting shot on performance reviews (in the home):

Bringing proven office solutions home seems like a good idea. Analyst Chris Moule attended a conference last year in which an executive explained how she used “operational analysis” and color-coded spreadsheets to show progress with family goals. Mr. Moule tried to brandish his “project decomposition” skills by breaking down planning for a camping trip into small tasks. The reaction was unwelcome.“You don’t have performance reviews at home, except my wife gives me looks,” says Mr. Moule . “Usually her look says an awful lot.”

In essence, work and home are separate, and we should keep them that way.

Filed under: Newsprint, Personal Note, Women, Work & Productivity

Asia’s Progressive Women

(This is old news by now but I’ve been busy…) 

It’s always heartening to see Malaysian women named in regional and world lists. This time, it’s Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, our Central Bank governor who has deservedly earned a place as one of Asia’s Top 20 Progressives, “individuals driving Asia forward – those that are helping to bring about rules-based civil societies, or who are advancing the cause of better governance, be it in business or government.”

The assertive and competent Zeti Akhtar Aziz was appointed governor of Malaysia’s central bank in 2000. Her appointment demonstrated to the world that being a Muslim woman in an Islamic country was not incompatible with either holding a position of real power or with south-east Asian traditions. She had held previous positions with the bank, including deputy governor, chief economist and head of the economics department.

Zeti was instrumental in advising the government to unpeg the Malaysian ringgit from the US dollar, as she had been in advising the government about implementing the peg in the first place. Many might have disagreed with the government’s decision to peg the ringgit in 1998 during Asia’s economic crisis, but few could argue with the competency with which it was carried out – Malaysia’s central bank is one of Asia’s most technically able and least corrupt.

Very complimentary words indeed and a wonderful boost for Malaysia’s reputation as a solid, moderate Muslim nation. Given that finance is traditionally considered a male domain, Tan Sri Zeti certainly broke new ground when she became the country’s first female Central Bank Governor. Now what we women sincerely hope is that the same approach taken to Tan Sri Zeti’s appointment be applied in other areas that affect women, especially in the area of family laws.

The other two women on the list are Thai: Tarisa Watanagase, the first female governor of the Bank of Thailand, the country’s central bank, and Jaruvan Maintak, Thailand’s auditor general. 

Three out of twenty is not exactly representative of Asia’s female population, but it’s a very good start, and quite encouraging, given that the list selects individuals who push for transparency and accountability. The list’s specific criteria for selection, though, is not disclosed.

Filed under: Collectibles, Islam, Malaysiana, Newsprint

Mini-Review: Transmission

Some stories make your heart pound.

Hari Kunzru’s Transmission is not a thriller in the style of The Da Vinci Code but an urban tale of three distinct but somehow interlinked individuals: Arjun Mehta, Class A Nerd and Techie from India imported to the US, Leela Zahir, the Bollywood star he idolises, and Guy Swift, a high-flying British marketing extraordinaire. What links them eventually is the computer virus Leela, and how she becomes unleashed to the world is all told in a narrative that beautifully brings out the gleam and decay of urban living, and highlights – not unkindly – our human frailties, and desperation.

Filed under: Books, Reads

Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all Mommies out there. I hope all your families are giving you the tribute you deserve.

To those of you who still have your Mothers around: Celebrate and Appreciate. There’s no purer love than a Mother’s; I’ve been lucky enough to be able to tell you how true that saying is, and unlucky enough to have it gone from my life. So appreciate your Moms while she’s still around, not just on Mother’s Day, but always, and not just through gifts and hugs and kisses but also by paying attention to her, by listening, by realising that she’s a human being too with her own needs, and hopes, and fears, and dreams. Your Mother was once a girl, with dreams of being a Princess; she was once a young lady, with hopes of raising a good family; she is also a woman who wants to know she has made a difference in this world. And she has made a difference, I am sure. To you, at the very least. Let her know.

Mothers are a refuge from the world, as summarised by this passage:

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away. 

~Dinah Craik (English novelist and poet)

Mothers somehow are able to see all the good in you, forgive the bad, and believe you can do and be better. They take you as you are – chaff and grain – and their love reminds you that despite your imperfections, you are still an individual worthy of love, and affection, and all the good things in the world.

I am now a Mother myself, and I take heart this advice:

The best advice from my mother was a reminder to tell my children every day: “Remember you are loved.”

~Evelyn McCormick (Artist)

Happy Mother’s Day.

Remember that you are loved.

Filed under: Personal Note, Women

How Wise Are You?

I found this test on The New York Times Magazine*:

The Wisdom Scorecard

Formulated by University of Florida sociology professor Monica Ardelt, this 39-question test measures wisdom in three dimensions – cognitive, reflective and affective. I took the test and found that a lot of questions deal with compassion, empathy, sympathy, the ability to understand a different point of view, the capacity to forgive and tolerate differences. Wisdom is a lot more EQ than IQ, according to this Professor, and I would agree.

Anyway, do take the test – some of the questions are good for self-reflection as well.

Oh, in case you are wondering, I scored a middling “Moderately Wise” – one can only hope that one’s wisdom quotient increases as we clock up experience points!

*I found the link during a serendipitious online wandering, from clicking to a book review article on Ms Bibliobibuli’s blog.

Filed under: Personal Note, Speculations

Women and MBAs

From CNN.com:

When asked to picture the archetypical MBA student, most people will describe someone relatively young, fiercely ambitious and focused on success. Oh yes, and most likely male.

While women make up slightly more than half the potential global workforce, they fill only around a third of seats in classrooms teaching MBAs and other graduate business degree courses. There are a number of reasons for this, everything from prejudicial attitudes towards women in the workplace to the greater demands family life can often take on businesswomen.

(Breaking the MBA Gender Barrier, 4th May, CNN)

I never thought of the gender issue in MBA courses before, and indeed, in the part-time MBA course I’m taking, it seems that half of us are women. Many are ambitious high-flying corporate executives in multi-nationals who seek to broaden their management skills by taking the MBA course, and in conversations with them, the gender issue where the MBA is concerned never arose. (In presentations and leadership roles within teams, yes, the men tend to be a lot more active but that’s a different topic for another day). 

Filed under: Newsprint, Women, Work & Productivity