I've been robbed . . .

It has finally sunk in and I am going to admit it: the lifestyle I had been practising six months ago was comfortably supported by the income I was getting six months ago but the same lifestyle today can no longer be supported by the same amount I was getting six months ago! Pay same, way of living same but today  I can't afford to continue the way I have been living - I actually am slowly but surely being forced to downsize!

I guess what happened is as I went to work, slept and lived my normal life, the cost of living just rose slowly but surely and like the proverbial frog being boiled slowly in a pot, I never knew I was getting cooked until my wallet began to hurt!

After several years of living with enough and a little extra to bless others, I am back to those old days when I lived in lack. Ouch, never thought I would return to those 'terrible lean years'!

So I have begun looking for ways to trim the fat, deciding what I can discontinue, cut down or stretch but I fear the pay I am presently getting can only be stretched so much before it goes 'poof' (disappears into thin air). I guess its back to doing two or three jobs at the same time (those 'lean years' pushed me hard). I've identified 7.30-11.30am as the time I can do something else and am looking to be actively doing something(s) during this time to generate between RM1000 to RM2000 a month.

Any ideas/suggestions?

As a stop gap measure I will be selling off some of my belongings beginning with some books from my library - keep in the loop (visit my FB) to know what I am selling off. 

I hope you are having better days but take my case as a call to look at your situation - is what you are doing and what you are getting financially enough any more or have you been robbed too?

Edit like this laa

There's no room for lapse of attention or ignoring a single word (what more a sentence) when editing news.

Got gently rebuked and reminded on two matters:

1. For a picture caption story, look at the picture (and if pictureS, select the best) and make sure the sentences fit the picture. Also, for caption story there must be at least 2-3 sentences (not one complex sentence).
2. The paragraph that says where and when some guy said something important which was used in the first paragraph must only appear after third paragraph. Do not insert the info (where, when) in first  paragraph.

Then there's this question: Is it 'an initiative BY the government . . .' or 'an initiative OF the government . . .'? Chief editor says its 'OF' and not 'BY'. Any English masters wanna comment?

A question of importance (reports and reporters)

Lesson #101
When editing a news report, make sure you transfer paragraphs with important information and personalities to the top of the article (note: reporters don't know this and write what they want and put information all over the article - editors have to go collecting and rearranging. Go figure). Problem for me - how do you decide/know who and what is 'important'?
Also, I must remember to pick and chose and rearrange sentences so that the report is less cluttered and all the facts tally. Wow . . .
With this new knowledge, how I wish certain writing-challenged reporters be released from duty and I guess whenever SP sends in reports, I must remember Lesson #101.

Do it right

Write

5-year-old

not

5 year old

and

all numbers from 1 to 9 must be SPELT

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine

OK BOSS

Enjoying what you do

I am beginning to see that I desire a workplace where I am challenged to do something great/significant for the life of an individual or many. Also the environment has to be positive and encouraging - people care about you and are friendly and good work is noticed and praise is a constant. I guess making a change in people's lives and doing something, no matter how small, that makes a difference for somebody, somewhere, is what excites me and makes my day. News editing . . .

Green company encourages biking to work (if only!)

As a former mountain bike enthusiast who tried to ride to work, I read with amusement the chronicles of a journalist who tried to do the same in KL.

I think it’s a great idea if:

• We can reduce the heat outdoors to a spring-time low of 22 Celsius
• Build side lanes for bicycles
• Have companies that seriously encourage staff to come to work on a bicycle

Wouldn’t it be great to have a company that was serious in encouraging all its employees to come to work riding a bicycle? How can a company do this? Here are my ideas:

• Give bicycles or cash aid to buy bicycles
• Build shower stalls in the office building (I get all hot and sweaty by the time I arrive) and changing rooms (don’t expect me to wear long sleeves and formal pants while riding – you must be joking or crazy)
• Have a parking bay for the bikes
• Provide free bicycle care/workshop
• Have outings/activities for staff where bicycles are needed.

The benefit: healthy staff, less pollution and boasting rights as a green company.

Any company want to do this?

Leave your heart with us . . .

Read in a local newspaper recently  an issue very dear to me - organ donation. I signed up as an organ donor some years ago and I believe every caring and responsible human should leave behind their organs when they die (you are not going to use them and in a few hours all your organs will begin to rot away).

As  Christians, the belief that the physical body is a temporary tent and that God has promised a new body in the resurrection are good enough reasons to donate our organs the moment we die.

I also learnt that giving your organs when you die is known as cadaveric donation.

I then learnt that you can donate some organs while you are still ALIVE – life organ donation. Wow, that’s a challenge I would consider if I could give away something I could spare so some one else may live . . .

Being an ‘idea man’ I had this crazy idea: create an advert for newspapers and billboards with the phrase ‘Please leave behind your heart when you leave . . .’ with a suitable background picture. Anybody want to add to this idea or take it up?

Lastly, something that REALLY irritates me – there is no clear place or person to contact in Kuching for organ donation. If you know anything about this, PLEASE  let me know. I’ve got friends who want to give their hearts (and kidney and eyeballs . . .) away.

Teachers making a difference

OK, here's the idea. I'll put it up here so there's a record and maybe somebody would even respond to it (if anyone reads this blog . . .).
Several weeks ago I preached on the importance of more Christians purposely choosing to become teachers and the need for them to aspire to become the BEST teachers and the BEST witnesses in whatever school they are in.
I also noted that for this to happen there needs to be a body dedicated on doing this - a body I dream of forming and maybe Shalom (the church I am presently pastoring) would play a key role in.
Then I cam across www.teachforamerica.org and its Malaysian counterpart www.teachformalaysia.org
What a wonderful programme and I pray something great will come out of the Malaysian one.
So what can I do? Here are some ideas (I got lots of them, remember):

• hold an annual booster retreat for teachers and teachers to be where they are pampered and provided talks/workshops by great Christian leaders/teachers on how to become the best teacher and evangelist they can be
• encourage volunteer teaching especially for the poor and rejected by (a) running weekend classes, (b) edu programme for kampung schools during holidays and (c) free pre-exam revision classes/seminars

Now, is this a good idea or a God idea and how to make it a reality?

Second name fiasco

Ooops . . . made a mistake concerning second mention of names in my editing yesterday. 

This is the rule: the first time name of a person is mentioned in a report give it in full. Subsequent mentions use his first name (for Chinese) or surname.

My mistake: Dayak names - do you use first name, second name or third name? I assume if the guy's name was Anjie Jingga, then second mention I'll use 'Jingga' (i.e. his surname) but then I was wrong. I was informed 'Jingga' would most probably be his father's name so for Dayaks (to play safe) use 1st name, i.e. 'Anjie'.

But then there are exceptions. Datuk James Jemut Masing is 'Masing' not "Jemut" . . . ah! the joy of learning the exceptions.

Many good ideas, no good work

I am slowly resigning myself to the 'fact' that I am an ideas man - I always have many ideas of what should or could be done and even go as far as planning and sharing my ideas but almost all (the ideas)  have never taken off; it's so frustrating when I think of what could but didn't.
For instance the idea of having a house near UNIMAS and UiTM to serve as a safe haven for students to get a feel of home, affordable food and a safe place to relate that can serve as a platform for outreach and community (student) work. . . yet no lift off as no house and rental money, no cook and no manager for the home.
And the idea of doing something for teachers - start an organisation to promote Christians to become teachers and then have events and back-up strategies to help these teachers become the best teachers and best Christian witness in their schools. Nice idea but do I have the manpower, the means etc etc etc . . .
As I said I have many good ideas of what would be good to do but . . . fantasy is fantasy, isn't it?

Its all about the Lead

Sometimes what a writer presents as the lead for her story is unsuitable and as an editor it is my responsibility to source out a ‘better’ and ‘new’ lead from the article written. This was the advice given to me recently when I faithfully accepted a lead concerning social responsibility and religious obligations in a certain news report. I got this note:

Social responsibilities and religious obligations are important but not strong enough to be a lead. We (editors) need to highlight something ‘new’ or ‘rarely heard’. In the news report you edited, I believe the suggestion to provide a discount and hour before the breaking of fast something rarely heard of . . .

Sometimes the lead story is ‘stale’ and may have been touched on in the past. Again, something fresh needs to be the replacement lead; for this to happen  you need to remember past news and be able to ‘see’ new and exciting’ leads.

Lastly, find something that is ‘big’ to be a lead. Which one is bigger – donating RM35K or 1000 martial arts exponent to attend? The original lead was ‘donating RM35K’ which was seen as common and not a VERY large sum. The new lead was the participation of 1000 performers. Got it? Big.

This dog learns new things daily

Learning continues almost every day here at the editors work room . . . programme is with two m's and something else has two l's after a vowel, create a space between paragraphs, a press release is about 500-800 words only - cut out everything else and leave the basic 5W's about the event being released to the press, base jumping is spelt BASE jumping, headlines in present or present continous tense and cut out 'together' from the phrase 'together with' - faham? Yup, nemu aku!

Oh ya . . . yesterday I completed my first 30 days at work . . . still adjusting

Missing

The painful reality is setting in. I've missed Friday and Saturday night with my daughter as I'm at work and she's at home playing and watching TV without me . . .
My wife's attending a 3 night Christian concert which began yesterday and I'm not able to be with her and enjoy the concert too . . .
Though I have the mornings with her and pockets of time with my daughter, I miss them and the night events I can no longer attend . . .
Is the sacrifice worth it? Only time will tell.

Careful always

Meticulous - 1. Extremely careful and precise or 2. Extremely or excessively concerned with details.

Yup, that's the word that sum's up an editors work ethic and standard whenever he/she is editing. I learnt this the last few days after my edited reports where edited by senior editors and returned to me with many red markings/corrections (now I feel what my students felt . . .). What did the corrections in red whisper loudly to me?

1. be careful when deleting unwanted words and phrases - make sure you completely deleted everything
2. double check the days/dates mentioned (past and future events can be wrongly reported if you screw this matter up)
3. when there's a short point or sentence here and there, find somewhere in another paragraph to slip it in.

Well that's it for now. Gotta go, gotta be meticulous, man!

Better rewriting of news reports

What do you mean by this?

What is this?

Never cause your reader to ask these questions when reading a news report you edited is the latest advice I got.

I had allowed certain acronyms and names slip through that lacked explanation or was not understood and I did not call up the writers to clarify.

Also I was not sensitive enough to catch possible contradicting information in one or two of the reports edited yesterday.

Lastly, I need to make sure all information given is complete and learn to ask “Why?” and “What’s this?” when reading a piece to ensure it is complete and self-explanatory.

So much to learn and making mistakes here and there  . . . hope it won’t cost me . . .

Show and tell?

What's wrong with this heading?

Exciting plans for SJB unveiled

Clue: it has something to do with the rule "Show don't tell"

Apparently for newspaper headings, you don't include unnecessary adjectives to express opinion (i.e. exciting). Just 'show' what has happened or been done.

Trees to be planted at SJB 

or

SJB's green corridor to be extended

Another lesson to learn . . .

Two heads are better

I've made some improvement with my headers but there’s still so much room for improvement. For example, for an article about a man who published a book on his life on his 80^th birthday, I created the heading “80^th birthday book reveals author’s colourful life”. The heading was finally changed (and improved) by better editors to read “Octogenarian publishes memoirs”! Where did he find ‘octogenarian’? And ‘memoirs’ for ‘book on colourful life’ was just brilliant!

My other headers (I write about 6-12 headers for reports I am assigned to edit) that were changed reveal a lack on my part – I didn’t mention ‘who’ in the headline. “More campaigns promised” became “SMC promises more drives . . .” and “. . . family day a big success” to “. . . family day a big success for members”

Lastly, I also have a tremendous opportunity to better my editing skills. A senior editor took one of my edited articles and improved on it, showing me how much more I could have done to create a better edited report. I realise redundancy of words is a no-no and flow of information is important. Lastly, if only one guy is quoted saying this and that throughout the report, I can drop the “he said” and “he added” usually used. Thanks T.

Oh my headers

The heading for a news report is very important but one requires a unique skill to be able to create correct and interesting ones. I realised this when several headings I had okayed were changed before printing and the corrected ones were, I believe, better. I am thankful for these examples and the challenge to create better headings. Here are some samples of before and after headings:

B: Woman loses bag in car as she pops into convenience store

A: Woman loses expensive items when motorcyclist steals bag

B: Foreign duo held over RM480000 from robberies

A: Foreign duo detained to help in probe into robberies

B; Robbery spills into the great Rajang

A: Armed duo rob boat skipper

There's much to learn by just comparing these before and after headings - go figure!

Of writers and layout guys

Back to work after two days off. 

Today I learnt that as an editor I am not to assume what the reporter has written is completely correct and acceptable - I can rearrange paragraphs, rephrase sentences and even alter the focus of the news if the one selected by the writer is considered less important as opposed to something else also in the report. Even so, contacting the reporter first to discuss what he/she wrote and to run through changes you plan to make is a good idea. 

The page editing is also challenging especially when there are mistakes and changes you must make quickly and correctly before the page is approved and sent for printing. Today one of the layout guys was slow in preparing one of the pages I was assigned to edit - had to wait about 1 1/2 hours to get the finished page. Even so, glad he managed to get it done before 11 pm.

Ooops . . . oh no!

I made a grammatical error in one of the headlines last night so got called by the boss for a drink and a friendly rebuke cum explanation on my mistake and how to improve. This has made me more cautious and less confident in my editing abilities but this is how one learns . . .
Just realised I have to cancel several speaking engagements as they are all at night on days I am working. Will my social life (meetings, functions etc.) and ministry (night meetings) be affected by my work-at-night schedule to the point of it being detrimental? Only time will tell . . .
I'm on leave for the next two days (Wednesday and Thursday are my present off days).

New Life!

Yesterday I began a new career as an editor at the Borneo Post. Yes, I resigned from Lodge International School (goodbye school life and demands) to take up something new and challenging. It's interesting many ask me, "So what actually does an editor do?" Well, I'm slowly finding out.  I started yesterday by editing  8 news articles and then edited page 3 of the newspaper (yes, editing means checking the written work to ensure its readable, content-correct and grammatically right - just like what I did for all the essays my students wrote!). I got to work around 2 pm and finally finished my assigned task around 11.30 pm. Picked up some do's and don't's and began building some vital relationships.