2nd blog post: an interpersonal conflict

If it was not for this blog post, I would bury this story forever until someday I dig it out to remind friends and relatives of mine of a lesson learned in a hard way.

It happened when I was in junior college, sharing a room with a friend. The two of us started off playing basketball together, and then later on after getting to know one another, we became friends. The ambiance of the room was fine at first because we shared many same interests, and most importantly our benefits hadn’t clashed yet.

One day, I purchased a dumbbell for exercise and we both loved it. While I wasn’t using it, he would take it and play with it; I felt terrific. However you never know when the evil worm of selfishness bits you and makes you suffer. A few weeks later, it came to my knowledge that someone else had a heavier dumbbell and was willing to exchange it for a lighter one; I was eager to make the transaction. I thought about what my roommate might react to this exchange and that feeling would definitely not rhyme with happiness. It was because he could barely life the old dumbbell, let alone play with the new heavy one. I did it anyway. When he came back and noticed the old dumbbell was gone, I told him I replaced it with a heavier one and he could still use it. I even demonstrated a few moves he could take on. I will never forget the look he gave me, as if I was a stranger to him. He said nothing of it later on and never even touched the new dumbbell. After this happened, I always felt a sense of distance with him.

I admit I was selfish at the time, but there’s something else I wish to bring out. Friends, even war brothers, are likely to turn their backs on each other when interests, especially those involving money, clash. That’s why a successful businessman once said “never partner with your relatives, because you will regret the day your relationship with him/her becomes sour out of uneven split of profits.”

Do you think friendship is meant for life, always?

1st blog assignment

Why effective communication is important for me.


Effective communication is mainly about delivering oral and written messages through to others in various social settings like home, workplace and so on. As a year 3 collge student holding a foreigner pass, I will explain the importance of effective communication on several levels.

Firstly as a person living in a multi-cultral society, I ought to be an effective communicator so as to have meaningful and pleasant conversations with people. These days relationships are largely built on conversations, whether it be faca-to-face or not, and therefore an effective communicator can get things done. Imagining I’m in a meeting with a Musilim client and start talking about how I enjoy eating pork and engaging in pre-marital sex,totally disregarding his cultual beliefs and tatoos, you’ll get the picture. Surely effective communication goes way beyond just attending to others’ cultural beliefs, but that’s just how crucial it is.

Secondly written forms like resumes, application letters are of utter importance to me, since I need to soon be ready to apply for interships. A good resume gives an employer a That-is-the-man-I-need kind of impression. It tells about my level of intelligence, various skills and character, and so it has to be cautiously tailored to be fit for me as analogous to making a right suit for an important party. Hence in order to be a catch in the job market, I better equip myself with these necessary communication skills.

Thirdly as a future engineer, my job description requires me to write sound articles like project proposals, research papers and so on, which falls under the category of written communication. I believe any career oriented person, me included, wouldn’t wish to let great ideas go down the drain just because of wrong choice of words or crappy grammer.

So to sum up, effective communication is a what a man needs if he wishes to succeed in life.

This is a blog for Professional Communication