I love how some reporters discussed the most recent World Figure Skating Championship:

Asian skaters have elevated the skill level in women's skating. But the sport needs an American woman on the podium — the next Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, Kwan. For the third straight world championships, there wasn't one — prompting Kwan and Sasha Cohen to hint at comebacks. Rachael Flatt and Alissa Czisny finished fifth and 11th, which means the U.S. will have only two women in the Olympics instead of three.

Predictably, the rant concluded that the current Code of Points is flawed because American women didn't get any medal in Los Angeles. Obviously the reporter hasn't seen the U.S. ladies skate. With two falls in the short program, the U.S. champion Alissa Czisny couldn't medal anyway even under the old judging system (6.0 = perfect). Rachel Flatt wasn't polished enough. It's her first senior level world. She should be happy with her 5th place finish.

If an American skater is worthy of being on the podium — great technique and artistry — sure, she should get a medal. And she will get a medal even under the new system. But I've seen new American girls skate. They're subpar compared to Mao Asada, Kim Yuna, Miki Ando and Joannie Rochette.

It's whiny to complain about the judging system that's not going to go away, and it's racist to complain that it only lets Asians win, conveniently forgetting that the new silver medalist Rochette is Canadian and white. It's not like the Code of Points is a huge secret. Everyone knows what one must do to win. And it's not just doing a ton of jumps. If American girls aren't getting medals, it means they aren't very good. Frankly I thought Czisny's 11th finish was generous.

Anyone else seen the World? Any thoughts on the competition?

P.S. I'm sorry I've been MIA for so long. Will have more updates later. :)

Jennifer alerted me to WIP Wednesday, and I figured, why not? :)

All the King's Women's still unfinished. I'm working on the revision. It's taking so much more time than I expected. Probably because I was stooopid and gave myself less than one month to wrap up the revision (don't do this!).

The 1st draft came out strong, and it has all the plot elements, etc. I need. The thing I need to do now is focusing on smoothing things out, adding key elements such as body language, vocal cues, world-building details, etc. without boring readers. So sometimes it takes me days to go through a chapter and make all the changes on the hard copy, then implement them on my soft copy. When I do the latter, I go over my notes again and make sure they still make sense. (Sometimes I think of something even better than my original notes. :) )

Agent hasn't seen any of the drafts. I haven't sent her anything except my old synopsis. I want to make the manuscript as clean as possible before I send it to her, mostly because I feel very embarrassed when people read my early drafts. But another reason is that I don't want her to feel “burned out” from reading one too many drafts. I get fatigued when I read multiple versions of the same story. I noticed this when I was in a crit group, and this was one of the reasons why I told people I don't read 1st drafts. I'm assuming that other people feel the same way, and if I'm wrong to assume so, er…do let me know. LOL.

Happy Friday the 13th!

Last night I spoke with a friend of mine in the States. I haven't talked to her in … forever, it seems. I wanted to tell her about the wedding over the phone and invite her. Other than my family, she's the only one from the States who I'd love to have at my wedding. Given the horrid economy in the States I'm not sure if she can come, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

And speaking of weddings — I had no idea how time consuming and expensive it is to have one in the first place. I've been to three wedding venues, and you can't do a banquet for less than $150 / person. It's uber-fancy 4 to 5 course French or French-Japanese fusion cuisine, but holy cow. (BTW — since this is Japan you get like two bites or so per course.) Of course you also have to pay for the thank-you-for-coming-to-my-wedding presents. Per one of my Japanese friends, you need to prepare three presents totaling $70-100 per person.

Mom is determined to buy ridiculously expensive and 100% impractical gifts for Hero Material's family. I told her it was completely unnecessary, and that it'd only make them uncomfortable. Mom of course insisted that's how you do things back home (meaning her native country), and I had to remind her that the wedding is in Japan, and Hero Material's family is 100% American. Hero Material is flabbergasted since he doesn't think it's necessary, so I'm going to have to contact her again and tell her to hold off on the gift buying spree.

I think the real reason for Mom wanting to give presents to everyone, including yours truly, is because she wants something back in return. The first thing she told me after I announced my engagement was:

Hero Material loves kids. I'm sure he wants two children. Preferably as soon as possible. You know, you guys aren't getting any younger.

BTW — do you have any tips for wedding planning and dealing with an overzealous (and overly excited) mother?

I came across something that I think is important. Probably every person who reads this blog has at one point or another has lamented the sorry state of American public education. Well, now you can do something about it, and it won't cost you a cent. Tim Ferriss, the Four-Hour Workweek guy, is tweeting up a storm, and for every new follower he gets in the next two weeks, he and another anonymous donor will give a total of $3 to DonorsChoose.org, the money to go directly to underfunded US public school classrooms. You can read about the details here (it'll only take about five minutes — really).

Given the insane bureaucratic muck that Katrina donations have gone through (much of the money is STILL being held up), my faith in the government to be able to do much of anything (non-military) has basically gone to zero. Worthwhile change in the future will most likely come from private efforts like this one. Checking in on Ferriss, he has already gotten close to 3,000 new followers, which means $9K – not too bad for 24 hours or so. Why not be one as well? Not only for the $3 that some needy classroom will get, but for the larger purpose of showing that this sort of charity can work, and encouraging similar efforts in the future.

If you're interested, click here to get more info on the Tweet to Beat.

Forbes reported that the immigration case involving Noriko Calderon is making Japan uneasy. I'm not sure if the reporter has any clue.

The facts of the case are very clear and cut-and-dried:

• The Calderons entered Japan illegally using forged passports.
• They stayed in Japan illegally, again without any proper documentation. They never made any effort to get visas or anything.
• They had a child (Noriko) in Japan.
• Japan does not automatically grant citizenship to people born in Japan. So as far as the Immigration Bureau is concerned, Noriko is not a Japanese citizen, despite her Japanese first name.
• Once the family got caught, the laws had to be applied to be fair to all law-abiding citizens and immigrants in Japan.

The Japanese immigration officials made several concessions and gave the family two options:

Choice A — the entire family returns to their home country.

Choice B — Noriko can stay in Japan and finish her education. She has a relative in Japan. But her parents must return to their home country. Usually deportees cannot return to Japan for five years, but the Ministry of Justice will waive the no-entry-for-five-years rule so that they can visit their daughter.

Some people seem to think that it's totally unfair that the family gets deported. But the Japanese immigration laws are very clear on the consequences of entering the country illegally and/or overstaying your visa. I'm not sure why people, esp. foreigners, think that the government should let the entire family stay just because the couple had a child in Japan. The last thing Japan wants is a flood of illegal aliens entering Japan on forged passports and having kids so that they can all live in Japan.

Besides, the consequences of allowing the couple to stay and the implication of the decision would be felt everywhere in Japan, esp. for immigrants like me. Japan will most likely increase random ID checks for foreigners so that they can identify and deport illegal aliens as efficiently as possible. I may not even be able to deliver a baby in Japan unless I can prove to my doctors that I'm a lawful immigrant. Furthermore, since the Calderons came to Japan on fake passports, etc. it may take longer to pass through immigration & customs at the international airports and seaports. And the Immigration Bureau will take longer to issue visa renewals, etc. to legitimate immigrants because it may need to check every passport's authenticity, etc.

All these things will increase the administrative cost, which will be passed on to Japanese citizens and legal immigrants via higher taxes and visa processing fees. The family was able to petition through numerous courts and legal due processes in Japan. Isn't it about time they accept that they need to pay the price for their actions?

I know it seems incredible that the market can still go lower, but I'm afraid it will.

It does not inspire confidence when the U. S. administration believes that the economic plans are showing results. I suppose it is true if the aim of their plans was to deepen the recession. But I thought they were trying to stimulate the economy.

Furthermore, Obama's statement made me go “huh?” It really showed how clueless everyone in Washington D.C. is about the market and how unqualified they are in giving investment advice to people:

What you're now seeing is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it.

I hate to ask, but what are “profit and earning ratios”?

The only ratio with P & E that I know of is the P/E ratio, a.k.a. P(rice) / E(earnings) ratio. In business lingo profit and earning are more or less the same thing, so it's a bit odd to create a ratio out of those two because the result will always be “1”. Also looking purely at the P/E ratio to evaluate any particular company stock's potential is utterly ridiculous. There are so many variables to consider, and historical performance is not indicative of future performance.

Furthermore, earnings (a.k.a. profit a.k.a. income) should be regarded with skepticism. There are many ways to fudge the data and adopt different types of amortization schedules and so on to either inflate or deflate income. This means you must read the notes and do some heavy-duty calculation (meaning accounting) yourself to ensure that the earnings data you're using for Company A is truly comparable to other companies within the same industry and so on.

This is why IMHO the most important financial statement is not the balance sheet or income statement, but the cash flow statement. If you don't have enough cash to operate your business you will go bankrupt (unless you're “too big to fail”). You'd be amazed at the kind of insight you can gain by looking at a company's cash flow statement.

Anyway, I'll be holding onto my cash until the market has truly hit the bottom.