Syfer

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I haven’t been getting much sleep lately, but that’s fine. I love my girlfriend. Something great happened today. After a 11 hour work shift, I went to my girlfriend’s great grandmother’s funeral. I got a little lost trying to find the place and ran into what seemed to be a Russian church… I circled around again and finally found it. It smelled like cow on the outside, but that’s because their tradition calls for them to sacrifice cows. I felt very out of place as I walked inside. Everyone was a family member, except me and a couple others. I met an old friend there too. But the great thing was..

During part of the ceremony where direct family members were to bow down while holding this money stack to burn and pass on to the next life, my girlfriend’s dad asked me if I would like to join. I was so scared her parents wouldn’t like me, but after that… I felt so accepted. YES! I was dead tired the next day though. The ceremony lasts overnight. No family members were allowed to sleep, but I stayed up all night with my girlfriend. I just love being with her and I wanted to show their family respect. It was worth it.

No one is perfect. Everyone has lied. In the past, I have lied a LOT. It was really easy for me (Probably why I’m so ninja now.). Through all the times I have lied, I did feel bad. My conscience is always there, except I brushed it off by being stubborn and held my pride. Since after I left High School though, I have been leaning more towards my heart little by little. I started to realize a lot about my life and had myself figured out all wrong. I feel like I just did a 360. A small lie makes me feel REAL bad now. Going through all the wrongs in the past and coming to the good in the present, it is becoming harder for me to get close to people. Sometimes the truth is good, sometimes it is not. Other times you need to let the truth out and have faith in the other person. Conflict is never easy.

I brought this up, because I am facing a tough decision right now. Let’s say you are part of some group. You are in a high position in the group, but not the leader. You care a lot about the group and step up to show it. If the leader wasn’t around, and plans on ending the group without letting anyone know. Let’s say you found out from a source you weren’t supposed to have. You stumbled upon it from your campaign to show your care for the group. What would you do? The group will be gone at a certain date and no one knew, except you.

1) Announce to everyone you will be moving the group and you found out the current leader had plans to end it at a certain date, but didn’t want to let the group down so you assumed leadership. Keep in mind, the current leader has been gone for 3 weeks and had no intention of letting anyone know. However, the way you tell them will have to hold back some of the truth to keep the leader and the group from finding out how you got that information. While lying to cover up the truth, there is a bit of air that carries the smell of suspicion. People might feel something odd about you, but can’t quite figure it out. This in turn loses some sort of trust with you.

2) Announce the truth. How you got the information and that it was to keep the group alive. You don’t want to let the group down and there are also others that care, but only you have the power to keep it alive. This way the group won’t be suspicious and it keeps their image of you as having integrity. It risks losing the leader’s trust in you, because of how you stumbled upon the source.

3) Do nothing and let it die naturally so that you can retain everyones trust in you.

To me. 1 can work depending on how careful you are and it is the NINJA thing to do. 2 is what I would do, because I’m really not the type to stand around and do nothing. I am honest, but at the same time I care deeply for things. 3 would make me feel some sort of regret.

After pretty much catching up with everything it is I need to do for both home and at work, I got real bored. Haven’t played any games for a while, since most of my consoles are pretty much outdated or not working. My PS2 doesn’t even work, because I modded it wrong.

Anyway, I got me an XBox 360 Elite today! I also got Gears of War, Rainbow Six Vegas, and the greatest game ever (because ninjas are too cool) Tenchu Z! I’ll be able to ninja the whole world on XBox Live.

If anybody has Tenchu Z and XBox Live, my Gamertag is Syfer EX. Find me if you wanna die.

It’s almost like our hangout spot. Bangkok is a restaurant in Portland. The owner’s son happens to be one of the best students in the school. He left for college 2 years ago though. It’s so sad to see the class grow smaller and smaller. When I first joined Kung Fu it was so fun. We had a lot of students and a lot of high belts. Class was a lot harder, but class was also a lot more fun.

My friend Sky is the comical one in the class. It’s always fun being around him, but for someone as quiet as me. You can’t help, but notice what’s underneath. Getting together with everyone is always nice. I sensed a bit of the emotional side of Sky when our Sifu left Bangkok. And out in the parking lot confirmed it. It’s like father and son. Sky wants Sifu to be proud of him. I can understand my Sifu though, because I am almost the same way. The silent type usually aren’t the people that will give a hug. I am sure though, my Sifu is indeed proud of him. Being present is always a sign of care. For the people who haven’t had many people be there for them, they don’t know how to be compassionate. It is just sad to see it this way, but it was not my place to interfere. All things must come natural, otherwise it defeats purpose.

Normally I don’t take Saturdays off, but I took this one off. Today we had a get together for my 3 kung fu classmates that are heading out to college. I also thought it’d be nice to do something with my mom since I’m usually busy at work and my sister does her own thing.

I figure, let’s take her out to a movie. Being as Rush Hour 3 just came out yesterday. My mom had never been to the theaters before. I remember my first time at a theater. My aunt took me and my sis to watch Batman Forever and Power Rangers. It was one of the most memorable moments of my life, because the way we grew up. We were just experiencing the American life. We lived in poverty back home. This was a nice change. My mom had a good laugh. Rush Hour 3 was alright to me, but the first two were better I think.

I used to talk a lot when I was younger. I was the loud, annoying kid that wouldn’t shut up. I spoke everything that came to mind and if there was silence, I was sure to use it to get on someones nerves. One day, my friend made a bet with me. He bet me 5 bucks that I couldn’t stay silent for a whole day. Back then I really liked taking on challenges and proving people wrong. So I took up his challenge and stayed quiet for the whole day. After that day, I became quieter and quieter.

By not talking for a whole day, I couldn’t do anything. It forced me to read people, position myself timely to be able to allow people to perceive my actions without verbal instructions, observe my surroundings, and listen. It was pretty much like losing the ability of speech.

If you take on this challenge you will find that you become more aware of things around you. Every single object, every contact, every expression on people’s faces, and even your other senses pick up a bit more.

This helped me organize my thoughts. It wasn’t until around my Sophomore year in High School did I realize this. It really helps and I suggest you all use pens from now on.

I used to love mechanical pencils, because I didn’t need to carry around so many. The bad thing with those was that the lead broke easily and the tip of those things are usually sharp. Regular pencils I always wasted them snapping at other people in Middle School. It was like a hobby of ours. We would carry around pencils and then when someone challenged us to a pencil fight we whip it out. We would do this for lunch money. Pens look more professional and they stand out when written. I used to hate them, because there were no way to get rid of typos or mistakes then. I also hated whiteouts.

When I joined High School, I started using pens when doing final draft papers. The teachers asked them to be specifically in pen. I always usually write with pencils until the teachers started wiping off my artwork on the desks in school. That was when I retaliated with ink.

When Sophomore hit, I started realizing that my essays and writing assignments improved. I realized with a pen, it leaves no room for mistakes. If you write with a pen, you have to get it right the first time. Ever since then I have been writing with a pen and have noticed my thought patterns seem different.

If you take on this challenge, you will find that you tend to pick your words more carefully in a way that it becomes most effective when you finally speak. It serves as a base for organizing anything else once you master it on paper.

A few weeks ago during a meeting held by my ACO (Area Coach of Operations), a 3 day seminar was introduced to all the managers. Some of which had already attended the class, which includes my ACO as well. Normally when people hear the word seminar, they automatically think “brain wash”. Of course, people will always put a label on things. Seminars are actually not bad. “Brain wash” is not far from the truth. A dirty, bad, or outdated mind does indeed need washing. Or if you prefer a less negative label, “a shift in paradigm”.

I decided to try the seminar. It was only $97 for a 3 day seminar, but you can also bring a guest. Which is what I did to lower the cost. $97 for 3 days do seem a bit much. Though I’m sure there are more expensive seminars out there, I tend to be careful about where I invest my money. I also tried it to be supportive of the other managers in the meeting. A lot feel they shouldn’t try it out. What better way than to break the ice? Of course, I willingly joined the class and so did they.

The first day of the seminar was quite long. We were up from 6am (registration was 8am). It ended 10pm, but I left at 6:30pm. It was really exhausting. It wasn’t so much the lessons that were being taught, but the emphasis on the promotions that turned my interests away as the day went on. Not to say the lessons taught weren’t beneficial. They were. You can tell he wasn’t making the stuff up. I don’t think anyone will stand up that long and speak with that much energy if it wasn’t something they felt strongly about. However, seminars aren’t exactly cheap. He explained a lot, but the thing that caught my attention most was I figured how poorly I managed my time and my money. Before this class I thought I was doing pretty well. The lessons that had a big impact on me this day were the introduction of different streams of income and the jar system. Most people do physical work for typical jobs you see out there today spending most of their time for a certain wage or salary. The class taught about different income types: Job, Savings, Investments, Passive, and Windfall. The first 3 should be what most people do everyday. Go to work for X amount of hours a day, dump it in your savings account to build the interest, and invest in things like a retirement fund. Windfall is stuff that usually comes without your control, like an inheritance. Passive income is money that comes to you without you having to be there to work. The wealthy people out there today build up several streams of passive income so they do not need to work. The jar system is actually a way to manage your money better. I mean I managed my money in similar ways, but this method seems more efficient. We were taught to give ourselves a value to how much we would need to make a year to become financially free. After that we distribute our income in this order: 10% FFA (Financial Freedom Account), 10% LTS (Long Term Savings), 10% EDU (Education), 55% NEC (Necessities), 10% Play, 5% Give. The rule was to put a percentage of your goal into each with every cash flow in that exact order. If you don’t have enough for the bills, it’s ok to leave it alone. Investing in the first 3 are more important. FFA focuses on developing different passive income streams. Education supports your own growth to seek opportunities. The other rule is to spend your Play account every month down to the penny to nurture your inner child. As soon as I got home I downloaded Quicken 2007 and organized my account. It was actually quite fun to do.

The second day of the seminar had even more promotions, but was still insightful. We learned of the different ways of making passive income. A lot of it people know about, but never really understood the why. That makes it more invisible. For instance, do you have any candy or gum vending machines around your area? I never thought about how much people make off of those. It costs around $200 for a gum ball machine and maybe $20 to get the gum balls itself. You don’t need to service it much, because of how low maintenance it is. The most is maybe every 2 months you need to service it. It brings in per month about $25 depending on the location. If you subtract all the costs, after about 6 and a half months it should start to bring you in passive income. You can even open several of them and wait. The hard part is to make the deal with businesses around your area.

The third day of the seminar was quite boring. I didn’t learn much. I left as soon as we got our lunch break. It was about how emotions affected our beliefs in regards to money and how it prevented us from pursuing opportunities. Not that it doesn’t help to learn about this, but it’s something I conquered a while back for myself.

If any of you are interested in joining this class, let me know so I can refer you. I do recommend the 3 day seminar. It’s cheap anyway. Or if you can’t afford it and want to discover more about my learnings, feel free to contact me. I don’t mind, but it is more empowering to be there to participate.