Saving and Investing

The stock market was down 400 points or so yesterday, which makes me slightly happy that I dont invest in stocks, but I am still thinking it might be time to start. My friend showed me his portfolio today and directed me to http://www.scottrade.com/ where he does all his trading. He says they are the cheapest online brokerage at about $7/trade. He also sent me a referral to http://www.ingdirect.com which is an online savings account that boasts 4.50% interest rate and is also FDIC insured. I get $25 if I fund it with atleast $250 and he gets $10. I like the fact that its FDIC insured and almost as nice a return as a bank CD. The other option is to trade foreign exchange. I recently took a course at fxcm.com that has given me good beginners knowledge of how fx trading is done. I am eager to finish reading the lessons, buy the book, get proficient at trading in the demo account so I can start making some real money.

Blogging in 2007

So the question is, how do I make my blog interesting? I have embarked on a personal challenge to make my blog interesting. Inspired first by dooce and now by Adrian , I believe that I can do it! I found a blog article recently filled with tips for marketing your blog in 2007. The first step is to actually have something worth marketing, hence my new found desire to make my blog carry more substance than it currently does. I'm thinking I need to follow some coherent theme but that might not be so easy since I by nature am not a completely coherent individual. I think the best thing I can do is to write about all the new things that I am learning. That will make my blog a very stuffy intellecutal kind of blog, but I suppose I am in expiramentation mode where no one is really reading my blog, so I can write about anything. So for the next 6 months or so I wont expect much creativity to come from my head, just random thoughts or musings to atleast quench the guilt I feel for not having written more often over the years.

Actualized NOT Marginalized

Just got an email from somebody associated with Ardenne High, my alma mater. It was inviting past male ardennites to give a talk on the theme The Ardenne Male: "Actualized NOT Marginalized". As I have begun to make huge strides to improve my public speaking I thought that would be a very good opportunity to present something of worth. I have dreamed of going back to my high school and giving an inspiring speach that would inspire some soul to excellence. A few problems with me doing that speach tho are, for one, I don't live in Jamaica anymore and the event is set for Feb 20, 2006 (I am sure he meant 2007).

Second, now lets say that I was able to be there, what would I actually say? The email specifically stated that the speaker should demonstrate how they have acheived actualization over marginalization. Sad to say, that is still a struggle for me. Of course I could give a wonderful speach about why one should strive for actualization over marginalization, but I just couldn't at length make it personal. What is the difference you might be asking? The difference is simply actualization speaks to excellence while marginalization speaks to sub-standard acheivement. Now I have definitely acheived much, by the grace of God, but no where near my potential and that is mostly because of my leanings towards marginalization.

marginalize:
to place in a position of marginal importance, influence, or power: "the government's attempts to marginalize criticism and restore public confidence."

actualize:
to make actual or real; turn into action or fact.

Talking with my fiance this morning, I told her of my plans for the next 2 years. I told her how I plan to develop my leadership and public speaking skills and how I plan to start my company based on exciting trends that I foresee for the next 10 years. She said, "Alex I love when you talk like that, but usually when you do, you lose sight of your goal and switch to something else in no time" The thing is I have had many a brilliant idea but have yet to convert. I have yet to stick to it! So really although I would love to give that talk to those young guys at Ardenne, I dont have the necessary experience to do so. But I will! Its my very nature to keep trying. Probably my problem is still being caught up in doing things my way and not listening to hear what God wants me to do. One thing is for sure, I will acheive actualization and I will one day be worthy to give such a talk.

Raise!

I got a raise! A fairly generous one too. I suppose I deserve it for working hard. I do try! Ive been promised another big raise in 6 months as well as a bonus, if I can manage to implement a feature list handed to me by the boss. Its a slightly hefty list, but very much doable. One thing that came out of my performance review that I thought was interesting is that my manager says I have a high potential for innovation and should be allowed to show this more. Also the CEO says Im worth atleast another 20k more than my new salary. I like the sound of that. Alot of good things are happening in my life, so to God be praised. Somehow Im not that excited though! But I am still very thankful. I cant wait to see my new pay check but ill have to endure atleast one more old paycheck before I see the new one.

Combatting nerdiness and anti-social behaviour

In one of my deep personal introspections recently I came to the conclusion that I really am a nerd. I am also moderately anti-social. I am friendly, yet anti-social. And as always when I come to these conclusions, its like an "ah ha!" experience and a light bulb turns on in my head. Its not that I didnt already know these things, rather I didnt know how to change them or I didn't understand the contributing factors to my nerdiness/anti-social behaviour. This spells good things for me as now I can concentrate on not being so nerdy/anti-social by doing differently than Ive done before. For one I have to accept that I can't know everything, hence I shouldnt attempt to devour every book on every interesting subject. It seems the pile will never be finished, so I might as well learn what I can and just be happy to know what I know. I need to develop a plan as to what I want to learn so that I can filter out what is not helping me to acheive my learning goal. Further more, what is that learning goal anyway! As for being anti-social, I just need to go out more, preferrably to events/places that are low in cost. I still think its important to be frugal and its relatively easy to be social and still be frugal. Heck I do it all the time, I just need to do it more often and in a more effective way.

I also think I need to go out with those persons I really want to build strong friendships with as the default rule and not worry about those who Im not so interested in doing such with. Up till now Ive just been going out at random with whomever, once the opportunity arises. I need to be a bit more selective and really seek out good friends.

I also need to go back to school, even if its just to take a course. I think that is very important in satisfying my craving for knowledge. As always let's see how long I keep this resolve up for.

I love this picture. I took it at work while testing out my friends camera. A nice camera by the way, its an Olympus SP-510 UZ. Its got 10x zoom among other goodies. I have few more pictures like this on my picasa web account. When I look at the scenery at work I realise that we should really have picnics for lunch.