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I came to the US as a student. I had heard about a lot of stuff about Americans and America but much of it I felt was plausible even though I had not set foot in the US...Below are some of the stuff I had to see or live in the US for a while before coming to terms with it.Building houses with wood...Coming from Asia most of the houses, even for middle class folks, are built with bricks. I was told they were built with wood/sheet rock but didn't believe it until I came here.Americans are very private, and value their personal space. ..I am not saying this is true for ALL Americans but feel 80% fall in this category. They won't invite you to their house for a cup of coffee and chit chat unless they know you really well. No inviting co-workers over and stuff like that. Again coming from the East, I found that a bit unbelievable but once I lived here, it dawned on me that this aspect was true. Back home we invited our neighbours and co-workers for all kinds of functions or for just chit-chat/gossip.High school kids and pre-marital sex: I saw and read of this in the American movies, but always thought, eh..the movies just want to sell more of their stuff by peddling nudity and sex scenes. Boy, was I wrong... in college we had designated areas across campus where the students could pick up free condoms, talk freely with resident counselors about birth control, and most of my American friends had lost their virginity by 18, the more ambitious ones losing it by age of 16. And even in their early to late adulthood, they are free to experiment and try out numerous partners sexually before deciding to get married with "The One"Prevalence and easy access to lawyers: Where I grew up either the lawyers were expensive for most households or corrupt or both. Going to a lawyer meant numerous nail biting conversations about what the next steps entailed. It is kind of a big deal back home. Here in the US, lawyers offices are everywhere and easy to find in Yellow Pages and approach and talk to.Hostility of cops towards African Americans: Again much of knowledge of this initially came from American popular culture like movies and rap songs, so I found it a bit specious. But once I came to the US, it was evident that the cops don't have good relations with African Americans, and also understand the reasons.People's love for pets: Americans love their pets, to the point that some feed their cats and dogs organic locally sourced gluten free pet food. My landlady would let her two dogs and cat sleep on her bed with her. That would not be acceptable where I lived back home. Keeping pets is one thing, letting them get on the couch and feeding them Whole Foods type meals would be grounds to have you arrested.Obsession with sports: People knowing the stats of baseball or NFL football or college football players and what year this team did this and that team did that. Entire radio and TV broadcasts are dedicated to sports analysis. I sort of heard of this from friends who went to America earlier than I did but the sheer scale of obsession with their national, regional and local sports teams left me amused.Adults/Seniors doing what is expected of young people mostly: This was just too shockingly funny to me. My 64 year English professor in college had a boyfriend. He would visit her sometimes on campus wearing tie-dye t-shirts, soccer mom jeans and sported a ponytail. She was just one year younger than my grandmother. Back home, boyfriends are for teens and young adults. Old people have husbands/wives or just pass away alone (assuming spouse dies before they do), maybe with a religious book/prayer beads/rosary in hand. No dressing up and hitting the clubs followed by wine and cheese parties. Just a bit bewildering to believe until someone from the East comes here.Returns/returning stuff/refund: This was hard to believe as well. That you can buy something, anything short of undergarments, and if you don't like it, return it for full refund (for the most part), and the cheery sales rep will take it back without any complaint. Back home, once you buy it, it is YOURS! no refund for you. One example: When I was moving from Ohio to Arizona, I decided to drive (about 2 days drive) instead of flying. I needed a new GPS as my old one wasn't working. When I went to Best Buy, I wasn't sure which GPS was the most reliable and cost effective. The one I really liked was really expensive. The sales rep says, "look, just buy the one you like...use it to get to AZ and when you get there, just return it to one of our stores. Make sure you have your receipt." Wow.Superficial wealth status: You can buy any expensive car or house as long as you have the desire (and decent to not-so-decent credit), even if you make McDonald's or janitor wages. I have been thrown off numerous times by people living in small houses, eating meager grilled cheese sandwiches/ramen noodles for lunch and dinner but driving a nice Porsche or Cadillac. The belief is: why shouldn't you own something you desire? This is America and it is your God given right to get what your heart desires. Back home, they will laugh you out of the expensive car showroom if you work as a janitor but desire the expensive car. And no, you won't get a higher interest rate (APR), even if you can afford it.

As a startup founder of three years myself, I can relate to how legal housekeeping can be messy. Once a year, I have our own lawyers go through and do an audit of all of our legal paperwork (which costs a couple thousand dollars to be extremely thorough, but it’s worth it). Luckily, there are now many ways to easily manage and track all of your legal, financial, and HR documents via third-party sites that specialize in these management proceedings. I wrote a blog post about this awhile back titled “5 Ways to Save Time Dealing With Documents” which highlights certain sites that can be very beneficial depending on what paperwork you’d like to track or manage. They are as follows:1. GroupDocsGroupDocs is a new, comprehensive online service for document creation and management. It has multiple features, including a viewer for reading documents in your browser, an electronic signature service, an online document converter, a document assembly service, a feature for comparing different versions of a document, and an annotation feature. An individual plan is $10 per month for limited storage and 500 documents, while a group plan for up to 9 people is $19 per user per month. Based on the number of features and pricing, GroupDoc is a good-value purchase for a small business. As you’ll see below, GroupDocs can be cheaper than a service that offers only one such feature.2. signNowWhen you’re closing a deal and need to get documents signed, the last thing you need is a slow turnaround due to fax machine problems or the postal service. The solution is to use an electronic signature service such as signNow, which is one of the most popular e-signature companies in the world. This service allows you to email your documents to the person whose signature you need. Next, the recipient undergoes a simply e-signing process, and then signNow alerts you when the process is completed. Finally, signNow electronically stores the documents, which are accessible at any time. As a result, you can easily track the progress of the signature process and create an audit trail of your documents. The “Professional” plan is recommended for sole proprietors and freelancers, and costs $180 per year ($15 per month) for up to 50 requested signatures per month. The “Workgroup” plan is geared towards teams and businesses, and it costs $240 per user per year ($20 per month per user), for unlimited requested signatures.3. signNowsignNow is another e-signature service. Similar to signNow, signNow allows you to upload a PDF file, MS Word file or web application document. Next, you can edit the document, such as by adding initials boxes or tabs, and then email them out for signatures. Once recipients e-sign the document, signNow notifies you and archives the document. signNow offers low rates for these services: a 1-person annual plan with unlimited document sending costs $11 per month. An annual plan for 10 senders with unlimited document sending costs only $39 per month.4. ExariExari is a document assembly and contract management service that assists in automating high-volume business documents, such as sales agreements or NDAs. First, the document assembly service allows authors to create automated document templates. No technical knowledge is required; most authors are business analysts and lawyers. Authors have a variety of options for customizing documents, such as fill-in-the-blank fields, optional clauses, and dynamic updating of topic headings. They also can add questions that the end user must answer. Once you send out the document, the user answers the questionnaire, and Exari uses that data to customize the document. Next, the contract management feature allows you to store and track both the templates and the signed documents. Pricing is based on the size and scope of your planned implementation, so visit their website for more information.5. FillanyPDFIt’s a hassle having to print out PDF forms in order to complete them. Fortunately, FillanyPDF is a service that allows you to edit, fill out and send any PDFs, while entirely online. This “Fill & Sign” plan costs $5 per month, or $50 per year. If you subscribe to the “Professional” plan, you can also create fillable PDFs using your own documents. With this service, any PDF, JPG or GIF file becomes fillable when you upload it to the site. You can modify a form using white-out, redaction and drawing tools. Then, you can email a link to your users, who can fill out and e-sign your form on the website. FillanyPDF also allows you to track who filled out your forms, and no downloads are necessary to access these services.  The “Professional” plan costs $49 per month, or $490 per year.Switching firms can be a hassle. As a former startup attorney, I have a bit of advice about finding the right attorney for your business: it’s best to focus on the specific attorney you’ll be working with. He or she should have a solid understanding of the ins and outs of your business industry, a deep knowledge of the legal issues your startup may face, and previous work experience with startups to ensure a quality and efficient work product. This is absolutely key when matching our startup clients at UpCounsel to attorneys on our platform who can perform their legal work and hash out their legal projects in a timely manner. We also allow clients to store any and all of their legal documents directly on UpCounsel so they don’t have to go searching in alternative places for the correct paperwork. It’s proven to be a free and lightweight way to store legal documents that our clients love. Here's what it looks like:As I’ve mentioned, it’s more important to find the right attorney as opposed to the right law firm. And seeing as you’re a startup, our own startup clients typically save an average of 50-60% on their legal work, since the attorneys don't include overhead fees (a.k.a. the fees included for doing business with the firm itself) in their invoices.Hope this gives you a deeper look into what other sites and services are out there. If you have any questions or would like more information on how best to handle your legal housekeeping/ attorney matters, feel free to signNow out to me directly. As a former startup attorney at Latham & Watkins, I’d be happy to give you some guidance.

I usually say 8+ because people have varying definitions of what it means to speak a language. Here are all languages I have ever studied for more than a few hours, in chronological order. I have marked the ones that I'm intermediate or higher in with an asterisk. * German (language) - 0 years old - my native language. Obviously fluent in it now, I have created 500+ language lessons for it as the host of GermanPod101 and I sometimes teach students over Skype.* English (language) - 10 years old - learned it as my first foreign language at school in grades 5-13. For the first few years I was really bad at it, but then I got English-speaking penpals, I hung out on political discussion forums online and I started voice-chatting, so that it started to feel like another native language around age 17 or so.* Latin (language) - 12 years old - my second foreign language at school, grades 7-11. Started studying Latin because it was a mandatory choice between either Latin or French and I thought Latin would help me with other languages in the future. After three years, my teachers recommended me as a tutor for weaker students and eventually I started teaching Latin online on Myngle and Edufire. Udemy course to appear soon.* French (language) - 14 years old - my third foreign language at school, grades 9-10. I really struggled with this language and quit after grade 10, but I had online friends who wouldn't let me forget it completely. I visited Montréal for a month immediately after graduating from high school and stayed with a French-speaking family, from where I picked up my passion for the Québécois variant. When I needed a linguistic-oriented university major to go with my study of computational linguistics, and I was too late to inscribe for English Studies, it was easy to decide on French Studies instead and my trusty online friends helped me re-activate my French in time for the initial evaluation exam. I speak French fluently now and I enjoy reading some classic French literature.* Esperanto (language) - 14 years old - the first language I studied outside school. I had read a popular science book about linguistics, which dedicated a few pages to Esperanto and mentioned that it was the most successful of all constructed languages, and designed to be super-simple. I thought to myself "If it's so simple, I should be able to pick it up without effort, as another notch in the belt. If it gets too hard or annoying, I'll just drop it, no regrets". So I signed up for the German Esperanto Youth's free e-mail-based course and got a mentor who was a student at Berlin Technical University. Learning Esperanto was exhilarating, the only language before or after that was intrinsically motivating to study. I finished the course in 5 months, then attended a weekend course for intermediate students in Berlin that my tutor invited me to, and by the end I was comfortable in Esperanto. Read also how Esperanto changed my life: http://www.quora.com/esperanto-best-of/How-Esperanto-changed-my-life* Italian (language) - 16 years old - my fourth foreign language at school, grades 11-13. Started studying this because of the vacuum left by quitting French class. By the end of grade 13, when I chose Italian for my oral baccalaureate exam, I was able to talk fluently about technical matters I had studied before, for example the causes of Venice's frequent flooding problem. Then I didn't use Italian at all for the next 5 years or so and I'm afraid it's not as fluent as it used to be, though I have started to use it a bit more regularly. I still regularly read books in Italian.* Modern Greek (language) - not sure exactly when I started studying it, because a Greek friend kept teaching me a few things here and there and eventually I decided to pursue it more seriously. I learned the basics in self-study and from my friend, then to signNow intermediate level I used the Assimil method Greek course and an online tutor. Right now I'm conversational but not fluent and I have read four non-simplified books in Greek without the help of a dictionary.* Mandarin Chinese (language) - 18 years old - I've always been fascinated by Chinese characters, so when I heard about a federal competition for high schoolers starting to learn Chinese, and I was in my last year of high school, that was all the motivation to start it then. I studied it by myself for half a year, then won the competition (prize: scholarship for 6 weeks language school in Beijing), sat in 1 1/2 semesters of Chinese at my university, then those 6 weeks in China (2004), then some more self-study, which tapered off... in 2009 I decided to get serious about it, studied 2500 characters in that one year, then have been steadily improving since. Last week I had a 2 1/2 hour conversation all in Mandarin about all kinds of topics, but I still search for words occasionally. I have also read almost a dozen books in Chinese by now.Thai - 19 years old - learned maybe 100 words and phrases just for fun. Been re-discovering it recently, but still not sure where I want to go with it.Czech (language) - 22 years old - I got the opportunity to attend a seminar in the Czech Republic, so I studied some Czech, maybe 500 words, even though the seminar itself would be in Esperanto. I haven't done anything about Czech since this trip, so I forgot it all.Swedish (language) - 24 years old - exact same as for CzechLithuanian (language) - 24 years old - exact same as for Czech. I'm happy I learned it, because otherwise I would have missed my flight back. After the seminar, the bus stop to get to the airport had changed and none of the passer-bys were able to speak English or another of my languages.* Kiswahili (Swahili) - 26 years old - I want to study some languages that are truly different from the ones I studied so far, and Swahili sounds really cool. I learned it from the Assimil course. I haven't had a chance to speak it much, but I can read and write it well enough to keep a diary in it for example.* Dutch (language) - 27 years old - As Dutch is so similar to German, low-hanging fruit so to speak, it would be stupid not to pick it. Some language geek friends and I made a challenge to learn Dutch in 6 weeks of self-study. For proper motivation, I signed up to give a 45-minute presentation of the German language, in Dutch, at a language festival in Leeuwen exactly 7 weeks after we started. I managed, though only a Dutch attendee could tell you how many mistakes I made. These days I'm keeping my Dutch active by reading books and listening to the political radio program "Met de oog op morgen".* Spanish (language) - 27 years old - Spanish is similar to Italian. I wanted to study it but found the course too boring, so I jumped straight into reading "A Space Odyssey" in Spanish. Spanish and Italian keep conflicting in my mind though, whenever I want to speak one, I keep thinking of words in the other language, so it requires concentration. Reading Spanish or understanding TV is no problem at all.Arabic (language) - 28 years old - I studied it non-seriously before but always got discouraged quickly. In 2011, I finally managed to bring Arabic up to A2 level, but then I lost interest because the people I was planning to talk Arabic to moved and there's not much to read in Arabic even if my level was better.Finnish (language) - 28 years old - This language never really interested me, but some language geeks made it a challenge to spend 35 hours on Finnish in one month and see how far we'd get. I used Assimil, Teach Yourself and a word frequency list supplemented by sound files from Forvo. At the end, my level was evaluated as A2, but I didn't continue to study Finnish. The challenge thread: http://how-to-learn-any-language...Japanese (language) - 29 years old - I spent 50 hours on it for the August/September 6 Week Challenges in 2012 (those challenges occur 4x a year now). My main goal is to understand the anime series "Hikaru no Go" and Japanese Go (board game) lectures and I don't care about much else for now, so I tried a new method that involved flashcards made from Hikaru no Go episodes (try Subs2Srs, it's awesome). After just 50 hours in this challenge, I was able to understand two thirds of a new Hikaru no Go episode without subtitles, and my Japanese was useless for anything else. I have started to take conversational classes. EDIT: I just posted a description of how I signNowed this level so quickly as a step-by-step guide on my blog: http://temp.learnlangs.com/step-...* Indonesian - 29 years old - My most recent addition. I started to learn Indonesian because the Indonesian embassy in Berlin offered a free beginner's course in April 2013. Then they announced a speaking competition for June 2013 and I challenged myself to participate in it, so that I suddenly had to learn Indonesian quite quickly during the May 6 Week Challenge. You learn more about my method and results here. I'm happy to say that I'm currently almost B2 in Indonesian.I recently collected the most useful Language-Learning Advice I gave on Quora. Also check out my blog about language-learning, which includes personal updates as well as advice on methods etc., at http://www.learnlangs.com , and my Quora board about languages: http://www.quora.com/selected_language_postsIf you're looking for language geeks like the crazy ones who started the challenges with me, http://how-to-learn-any-language... is your best bet. And if you want to experience intense language self-study, why not sign up for a 6 Week Challenge? http://6wc.learnlangs.com/howto

I’ve been through the process of self-publishing on Kindle and learnt a few things. Now, I can share my tips, so you don’t make the same mistakes! I’m a commercially published author now, but I understand the frustrations of trying to break into conventional publishing, because it took me ten years to get my big break. [ http://graemeshimmin.com/a-kill-in-the-morning-shortlisted-for-terry-prachett-prize/ ] Before I got my publishing deal, I self-published a short story called Veronika, [ http://graemeshimmin.com/veronika-short-story/ ]using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) with modest success – it has been in the Amazon top 50. Self publishing does have the advantage of getting your work out there, which can lead to attracting attention and sales. Why Self Publish on Kindle? Amazon’s two main competitors, Apple and Barnes & Noble, both claim to have gained a 20+% market share of the eBook market, leaving Amazon with something like 60%. But surveys of self-published authors have shown that Amazon’s share of self-published eBook sales is much higher – more like 80-85%. Whether the true figure is 60% or as high as 85%, Amazon is the biggest market by a long way, and KDP makes the process of self publishing on Kindle relatively easy. Self publish on Kindle: Step 1 – Your Book First you’ll need to sign up for KDP. Then you start by clicking Add a Title. The important options to fill in are: 1. Book name 2. Description (up to 4,000 characters – use it to sell your book to the reader) 3. Book contributors (you as the author) 4. Categories (whichever genres you are writing in) 5. Search keywords (up to 7, add the themes of the novel, don’t duplicate the categories) These other items can just be left blank/default: Subtitle, Series, Edition Number, Publisher, Language,Publication Date, ISBN. Verify Your Publishing Rights As you are self-publishing your own work, and so you have copyright, select This is not a public domain work and I hold the necessary publishing rights. Convert your book to Kindle format KDP accepts three main formats: * Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) * Ebook Formats (Html, Mobi, Epub) * signNow PDF It is possible to send Microsoft Word and signNow PDF documents direct to KDP, but the formatting is far from ideal if you do. If you want a really professional looking book then you should convert your book to Kindle’s HTML format yourself before uploading. I found the easiest solution was to convert the formatted manuscript [ http://graemeshimmin.com/manuscript-format-for-novel-submission/ ]into Kindle specific html. How to do this will be the subject of a separate answer. But, as we’re doing things the easy way for now, I suggest you just upload the manuscript and let Amazon reformat it for Kindle. Use Kindle Previewer If you have created an HTML format file then you can use Kindle Previewer, a downloadable Kindle emulator, to check how your book will look on various types of Kindle . What I found was that without careful tweaking, my book looked good on one type of Kindle but not on others. Kindle Previewer allows you to quickly switch between Kindle versions and see how the book will look on each type. Upload Your Book File Once you’re happy with the format, you can upload the file to KDP. The only option is Digital Rights Management. This is your choice. Choose Enable if you want to make it harder for people to copy your book, or Do Not Enable if you prefer to make your book available without restrictions. After you’ve uploaded, there’s an online previewer to check the text still looks right. Self publish on Kindle: Step 2 – Cover Photo There are two options, design your own cover or use the template-based Cover Creator. I recommend designing your own cover. The book cover is critical to attracting readers and a template based design is less likely to stand out from the crowd. The picture at the top shows what the cover I designed for Veronika looks like on the Kindle. Designing your own cover doesn’t have to be difficult. At the simplest, it’s just a question of finding a photo, making it the right size and adding the book’s title and your name to it. Find a Cover Photo There are two options: use an original photo or artwork of your own or download one from an image library. The cheapest and easiest option is to use your own photo. Make the Cover Photo the Right Size and Add the Title You’ll need some image editing software to make the cover the right size and to add the title and your name as the author. The free and easy to use image editing programs I recommend are iPiccy and Pixlr. Use the image editor to crop the photo so it is 1,563 x 2,500 pixels, as in the diagram below: The cover should also be in colour, despite the fact the most common Kindles only display black and white. This is because the Kindle Fire and the Kindle app on iPhone, Windows etc. can display colour. Both iPiccy and Pixlr have a variety of free to use fonts. Experiment with a few different ones until you find one you like. Upload the Cover This is simply a matter of clicking Browse for Image… selecting the cover you’ve designed and then clicking Upload Image. Design a cover using the Cover Creator Alternatively, if you just want a simple cover, use the Cover Creator. Step 3 – Rights and Pricing Verify Your Publishing Territories Select Worldwide rights – all territories. Your book will then appear on all the different Amazon sites around the world. Choose Your Royalty I suggest you set your price so that you receive the 70% Royalty – which means a minimum of $2.99 / £1.49 after that it’s up to you. You can set prices worldwide automatically, based on the US price, or customise your prices for different territories. It might be worth setting prices manually to exploit psychological price points like £1.99. Self publish on Kindle: Final Step – Publish! Now just click Save and Publish. That’s it. In a couple of hours your book will be on all the Amazon stores around the world. See – I told you it was easy! More Details There are more details, including links to all the tools mentioned, on my website at How to Self Publish on Kindle in Three Easy Steps [ http://graemeshimmin.com/self-publish-on-kindle/ ]

I’m late, but I hope my answer will help you. I ended up writing more than I intended to, but tl;dr, just jump to the last paragraph. Hope it helps you.I will tell you why I decided to learn Auslan, despite all the reasons why it might have made sense for me to learn ASL instead.Background: I have been moving countries for a lot of my life. I spent my childhood in Malaysia, my teenage years in Singapore, and my uni years in Australia (and now, my working life in Malaysia again).I first encountered a sign language when I was in Singapore. My school had a volunteering in a home with lots of old folks. I took pride in the fact, that as a Malaysian Chinese, I could converse with the old folks in English, Mandarin, Cantonese and Malay, while most of the other students could not.It was there that I met a Deaf person for the first time. A guy. I did not know how to talk to her, and froze a bit.I went home and googled, ‘Sign Languages’. I was very lucky that Singaporean Sign Language is mostly descended from American Sign Language; back then I didn’t know about sign languages being different in different countries. Taught myself some fingerspelling and a few lessons from Bill Vicar’s page (which I am glad that I stumbled on it so early. It taught me that the grammar a sign language might not be the same as a spoken language).All excited, I came in the next week to find a Deaf lady. I went, ‘My name is E-U-G-E-N-E’. I could answer her when she asked me if I was Deaf or Hearing. But after that, I realised that I was at the limit of my vocabulary, and froze. I ended up awkwardly dismissing myself to go to another old folk.In Australia:So, it was a few years later when I decided that I might try learning a sign language again. I was in uni, I had time to try new things. But, I wasn’t sure where I would be in a few years time. Would I be heading back to Malaysia, my home country; or would I be staying on to work in Australia? I decided, because of this picture from wikipedia, that learning ASL would be the logical.Source: Sign language - WikipediaNo matter which country I ended up working in in the future, I would have the highest probability of encountering a sign language related to ASL (all the shades of blue are sign languages from the LSF-ASL family).More online resources to learn for free.Back then, the Auslan Signbank website had been down for years. I was hesitant to commit to the $200+ Level 1 classes at Vicdeaf.I discounted learning Singaporean or Malaysian Sign Language since there were practically no resources I could find online (as good as the Bill Vicar’s page).Why I decided to learn Auslan?I learnt something really quick. It is absolutely boring trying to learn a language without practicing with anyone else. I quickly lost interest in it.I later decided to enroll in those Vicdeaf classes. I wasn’t sure which country I would end up in; but I have been uncertain my whole life. At this rate, I would never learn anything because it wasn’t the ‘right’ moment. $200 was quite steep for a uni student; but at that time, I had a part time job already. It didn’t feel like as much anymore. I had also read some inspirational blog post at the time: better to just do something rather than live the rest of your life wondering what it would be like if you had done it.The classes.So I enrolled in Level 1. Enjoyed the experience. Met a whole lot of interesting people from all walks of life who had interesting reasons for wanting to learn Auslan. My previous dabble with ASL confused me a little bit, but got over it quickly (eg. ASL ‘where’= Auslan ‘What’, ASL ‘Deaf’ = Auslan ‘Hearing’- x2). Had a Deaf instructor from Queensland who kept complaining that the signs in our notes were ‘wrong’ (I later learnt from other people in the community about the difference between the ‘Northern’ and ‘Southern’ dialects of Auslan.Didn’t feel that I learnt enough, so I enrolled in Level 2. This time I had a HOH instructor who occasionally spoke during the class (the first class was completely ‘voice off’. This one was partially voice off). She expanded our vocab greatly, taught us Deaf culture relevant topics, etc. I’m glad that the first class was ‘voice-off’, since it taught me how to communicate when you don’t know the signs (and do lots of fingerspelling to ask how to sign things).After the ClassesSuddenly, there weren’t any classes. The next level was Cert 2, on the way to becoming a proper interpreter. I was an international student, and wasn’t eligible for it (and, I was already in a full-time course, my post grad degree). I tried to find people to practice with. Had exchanged emails with my former classmates, but none of them were really available for a meetup. Looked at Meetup.com and found a group that had been inactive for years.So, for almost half a year, I didn’t really get to do any signing. (Vicdeaf liked to say in their youtube ads that learning Auslan was better than learning French, since you will encounter for Deaf people in Australia. At that time, it felt like I was encountering more French people than Deaf people. I had several French friends through my other hobbies: Parkour and Juggling. Granted, some of them were New Caledonian; but I guess they still count?).First MeetupSo, one day, a meetup did show up on that Meetup.com page. I showed up for it, very nervous. Everyone was better than me by loads, and I felt that I didn’t even know how to sign at all. This was where going to the Vicdeaf classes really helped. I wasn’t going in completely blank. They felt like advanced signers to me. There were some students too (like Cert 3 onwards). They introduced me to the Auslan Matters facebook page (search it up). It’s quite a large group on facebook.So, it was through this group I found out about other stuff.I went to my first Deaf event (‘Colour’ Day, hosted by NMIT; Free Food. You come dressed as your favourite colour).This was an eye-opening experience.I said that I would attend on the facebook event. Caught a tram to the park on the day.There were so many people. I didn’t know that there were so many Deaf people in Melbourne.I wandered around, trying to find some sort of central point. I felt so lost. I tried listening for someone speaking, but there was no one.It was a while later when I found the club house area where they were grilling the sausages (It was your typical Aussie barbeque, just sausages on white bread with BBQ sauce, or veggie burgers for the vegetarians).I found one of the students running the event. (BTW: NMIT is the old name for the current Melbourne Polytechnic. It’s the only place in Melbourne teaching the Auslan Certs. As part of their course, these students host a ‘Deaf Day’ and invite the Deaf community; so that they can get signing experience from the community).I nervously signed ‘Colour Day’ to ask if I was in the right place, and she told me that it was. Grabbing a bite, I found a small group sitting at the edge of the clubhouse under the sun. I heard them speaking, and felt relief. I approached them. I told this woman about how I felt then. And she told me: “That’s what Deaf people go through everyday in the Hearing world.”——————————-It was not long later when I found a new group; the facebook group ‘Auslan Meetup Melbourne’.I joined them. They were largely NMIT students doing Cert 2 (so it was great to practice with people who were closer to my level). Eventually, we had more experience signers and native signers (Deaf, HOH, CODA) joining the group too. Held every sunday at cafes and bars all over the north east (near NMIT).My Auslan improved rapidly. Faster than my Level 1 and 2 classes. This group was voice off, but was pretty patient with newbies (I had to go ‘Sorry, Again’, so many times. Lots of fingerspelling to ask what that sign meant). I met people from all walks of life, and had loads of fun chatting with them becoming friends.Back to MalaysiaSo, eventually I ended up moving back to Malaysia after graduating. But, I don’t regret learning Auslan while I was in Australia. It opened my eyes to Deaf culture, I made lots of friends.I am currently taking BIM courses (Bahasa Ishyarat Malaysia, ie. Malaysian Sign Language). The one part of Auslan that was also transferable to BIM is just experience of trying to get your point across visually even if don’t know the signs. I don’t give up so easily and ‘freeze’ like I did before. I even managed to have a conversation with my instructors on my first day, with lots of fingerspelling when I see an unfamiliar sign, don’t know a sign or if I accidentally use an Auslan sign (I have to try very hard not to).(Turns out that the BIM and ASL fingerspelling is not quite the same. ‘G’ and ‘T’ are different).So…. final advice.Learn Auslan, or the sign language the community around you happen to sign. Why? Because, it is very, very difficult to try learning a language that no one around you speaks. You cannot practice it with another person (who is ideally a better signer than you). It is demotivating.You will make real friends. You can talk about things you happen to like (sports, tv shows, cooking, etc.), and your vocabulary will improve with the topics you happen to talk about. You will learn different signs; recognise when you see a Queenslander or Sydney-sider sign. You will learn that some signs are really only used by old people, and what the modern signs are.You will open your eyes to the ways of life of different sections of the community (And I don’t mean just the Deaf community. There’s a big diversity among the people who sign).It will be fun.Enrol in a class if you can (I recommend one of the state bodies, eg. Vicdeaf for Victoria)Learn how to fingerspell first (I used to practice on the tram by fingerspelling every random word I happen to see). Make sure it is the Auslan alphabet (your first google search for ‘fingerspelling’ will give you the ASL one).Don’t worry. You will stumble around, you might accidentally offend people; but you will learn.A bit corroded. Got this after Level 1.Resources:Auslan SignbankAuslan Matters Facebook Group

I became a writer by accident, and have now published four books. So, I know what it’s like to have little writing experience, and to grow to writing a lot. I’ll start off by saying that most people have false beliefs about how a book gets written. I used to think that to write a book, you would just sit down and write a book straight through. This is probably why I hated writing until I was deep into my twenties! The steps I recommend are designed to break down what can be a painful process into smaller, less-painful steps. Step 1: Build a Tiny Writing Habit The first thing you need to do is to build a habit of writing. Many people will tell you to build a habit of 1,000 words, but that’s just insane. You might meet that goal the first day, and maybe even the second, but then what happens? You oversleep your alarm clock a few minutes or you catch a cold, and you use that little thing as an excuse to not write today. I interviewed Stanford professor and habits expert BJ Fogg on my podcast [ http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/bj-fogg-podcast/ ], and he told me about “tiny habits.” Basically, you should shoot for the smallest habit you can possibly imagine. That might be to write five words a day, fifty words a day, or even one hundred. The point is that you pick a habit that is so small, you can’t possibly make an excuse not to write. It becomes harder for you to do the habit than it is to not do the habit. If you keep writing every day, suddenly, you’ll be able to write much more, with less pain. Stick with the tiny habit, but if you write more than that target, that’s fine. Just don’t write less. Congratulate yourself just as much for writing fifty words as you do for writing 1,000 words. Step 2: Learn About Books Most of us take books for granted. We don’t think about how much thought and consideration goes into getting people to want to buy a book. Make a habit of downloading free Kindle samples of books. Read a bunch of them. Think hard about why someone would want to buy the book based upon the title and subtitle. Read the Amazon reviews. Why did someone love the book – why did someone hate it? Even more valuable, why did someone almost love the book. As you read Kindle samples, ask yourself if you’re personally compelled to keep reading as you get to the end of the book. The beginning of the book is really a part of the sales funnel, so pay close attention to it. Step 3: Build a Publishing Habit There are lots of emotional barriers to get over in writing, but also in putting your work out there. If you have a writing habit, you’re busting through those barriers for writing on a daily basis. Now you need a publishing habit. Make a habit of publishing something every day. Again, you can start with a really tiny habit. I think Medium is a good place, but you could even do here on Quora if you’re practicing for nonfiction on a topic. As you publish, pay attention to the fears that you have each time you publish. You’ll probably publish many things where you feel embarrassed or afraid, only to find out nobody really cares. You’ll also publish things that you expect people to really love, only to find out the same. I like Medium because you can see what people highlight, and the “clap” feature also helps you see what resonates. This is all very valuable information, because it helps you see in real time what resonates. Step 4: Build an Email List If you’re going to go through the trouble of writing a book, you want someone to buy it. The best way to find buyers for your book is to already have fans. Sure, you can build an audience on Twitter or Facebook or here on Quora, but you don’t really own a direct line to that audience. This is why you need an email list. You can start with a simple sign-up at the end of each post you publish with your publishing habit: “Sign up to get updates from me »” You can build up to giving bonuses for each sign up, such as a short story or a list of tips. I provide a list of tools I relied upon to 4x my writing output [ http://kadavy.net/tools ]. ConvertKit [ http://kadavy.net/convertkit ] (affiliate) is the best email provider for authors. I personally use ActiveCampaign [ http://kadavy.net/activecampaign ] (also an affiliate), which is a little more complicated. I’ve written detailed comparisons of ConvertKit vs. ActiveCampaign [ http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/convertkit-vs-activecampaign/ ], MailChimp vs. ActiveCampaign [ http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/mailchimp-vs-activecampaign/ ], and an AWeber Review [ http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/aweber-review/ ], if you want to delve into this topic in detail. Step 5: Write a Book Title That Will Sell I cringe when I think back to the book title ideas I had for my first book ideas. Heck, I cringe when I think about some book title ideas that I have currently. Coming up with a good title for your book is very important, and very difficult. You want to balance having the right keywords with having something compelling or clever. Keywords are important because people search for books on Amazon. I have a book called How to Write a Book: An 11-Step Process to Build Habits, Stop Procrastinating, Fuel Self-Motivation, Quiet Your Inner Critic, Bust Through Writer's Block, Let Your Creative Juices Flow [ http://kadavy.net/wab ]. I admit, that’s a ridiculously long title and subtitle combination, but I called it that for a reason: It’s jam-packed full of keywords that I know, through research, that people search for on Amazon. The book gets lots of organic sales! You can also attract people to your book with a clever title. But it has to be a title that is 1) clever or cool-sounding 2) conveys what the book is about in some way 3) passes the “cocktail party test.” Imagine you’re at a cocktail party, and you’re telling a friend about a book you’re reading. How does it feel to tell them you’re reading that book? Does it feel good? Does it make you look good? This is why a book like Deep Work passes the cocktail party test. It feels good to tell someone the work you do is “deep.” If a book were called The Small Penis Owner’s Handbook, that would not pass the cocktail party test. Step 6: Write an Outline for Your Book We’re halfway through the process, and we’re only now writing an outline!? If I could blame one thing for why I hated writing as a kid, it would be the outline. Every damn English teacher I had made us write an outline before we wrote a paper. Well how the hell are you supposed to know what you’re going to write about before you write it?! Through your writing and publishing habit, you’ve started to develop a “universe” in your mind on a particular topic, or a series of topics (even if you’re writing fiction). Now that you have some idea what you want to write about, you can try to give structure to that writing. I personally never have a completed outline that I stick to. I start to outline, and then if some prose comes to me on a particular bullet point, I start writing prose. The next day when I come back, I’ll start writing an outline all over again from scratch. Force yourself to write an outline of your book. Accept that it’s imperfect, then move on. Step 7: Write a First Draft of Your Book Now that you have an outline, you can write the first draft of your book. Channel your writing habit into filling out that outline. Your tiny habit will have to get a bit bigger now. Make a habit of writing 500 words a day, filling out that outline. I like a program called signNowner for writing really organized projects, but use whatever you’re comfortable with. Let yourself be sloppy here. Remember, it’s a first draft. Step 8: Read the First Draft of Your Book It’s an amazing feeling to print out your book at Office Depot and bring a stack of papers to a cafe. Sit down, shut off your mind, and try to react to your book like you’re someone who has never seen it before. Don’t bother marking down spelling and grammar mistakes here. You’re trying to feel the book as a whole. If you think about details, it will distract you from that. Step 9: Restructure Your Outline Now that you’ve read the first draft of your book, you can restructure your outline. You may need some incubation time between reading your first draft (maybe a couple of times) and restructuring your outline. Stephen King recommends to authors to not even read the first draft of their manuscripts until several weeks after finishing it. You really do need some time for your mind to make connections. If you give yourself a few weeks before you restructure your outline (while still keeping a writing habit) when you revisit, something magical happens. Try to write a new outline from scratch. You’ll probably find your ideas are more crisp than ever. Step 10: Write Your Second Draft Now that you’ve written the whole book, consumed it, and restructured it, you can rewrite everything, using that new structure as a guide. There may be lots of details you need to research. Again, keep a habit, and stick with it. You’ll find parts of the second draft come very easily to you, since you already have the first draft in your mind. Things will be more crisp. Step 11: Write Your Final Draft Now, you can start worrying about things like sentence structure, grammar, and spelling. Print out your second draft, go over it with a red pen (I prefer green). Share it with friends or your fans. (I shared the second draft of The Heart to Start [ http://kadavy.net/hts ] with my readers on Google Docs, and they crowd-edited it.) You may also want to hire an editor or proofreader. Well, that’s how you write a book. Everything I’ve written here is in more detail in a book I wrote called How to Write a Book [ http://kadavy.net/wab ]. How to publish a book? As far as how to publish a book, that part is easier, if you’re willing to self publish. People forget that you can publish a book almost as easily as you can publish a blog post. In fact, How to Write a Book was originally just a blog post, also called how to write a book [ http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/how-to-write-a-book/ ]. If you really want to get a feel for how to publish a book, I recommend you go to KDP [ http://kdp.amazon.com ], and try to publish 500 words, on literally anything, under a made-up name. Your “book” will be available in the Kindle store within hours. It’s incredibly valuable just to go through the process of publishing on Kindle, just to see how simple it is. In fact, you should publish your first “dummy” book today before you even start any of the steps I’ve laid out above. It will change the way you think about book publishing. If you’re interested in more of my thoughts on self publishing, I wrote in more detail about self publishing, specifically what I learned publishing three books in only six months [ https://writingcooperative.com/24-things-i-learned-publishing-3-books-in-only-6-months-1b8f743e9e86 ].

If you really want to learn java swing then I would recommend you tube, which is my favourite teacher of all time! I never learn any language from codecademy, udemy, code school, etc. because we have to search up a lot and then sign up and so on to get the tutorials.! The best way is to watch the tutorial videos from you tube and then implement on your own machine to ensure correct results. Furthermore, download java e-book entitled “Java The complete reference” by Herbert Schildt where swing is covered in the last section. Read that and implement. Best of Luck.!A word of advice — Though you want to learn swing which is GUI of java but I suggest to just lookup for JavaFX on the internet and know about it a little bit. It is soon replace swings as java's standard GUI. The reasons are that it is more scalable, easily implementable supports numerous additional features(more applications). I have myself learned it and I think it is worth giving time.Hence if you have better option of learning better GUI, then why not go for it! I suggest JavaFX

It depended on who you were and where you were.Let me explain... at that time (IMHO) there were two types of people working in Bay Area dot-coms. The first group were what I'll call the Originals. These were the people who started doing web stuff in 92/93. They were largely true believers - and extreme form of idealistic early adopter. As one of these people, I can say that we honestly believed that we were changing the world. We were democratizing content, changing business models, disrupting entire industries. We were revolutionaries who were going to shake the status quo until all the dinosaur businesses came tumbling down.The second group were what I'll call the Carpetbaggers. These were the people who (in 97/98/99) noticed the boom and instead of taking jobs at Morgan Stanley or Enron or Bain or Oracle moved to the Bay Area and joined dot-coms. Their dream was less revolutionary and more mercenary. They saw a huge new industry being created and realized that could accelerate their earnings and their career by jumping in.When the shit hit the fan I think that most of the Carpetbaggers kind of saw it coming. Sure, you had the folks who'd bought $1M houses on no-money-down mortgages based on unrealized returns... but they were somewhat uncommon. For most of these folks the crash kind of turned into a big "eviction" party of sorts. People ran around trying to grab the aeron chairs and computers and such from their offices as they were closed. People went to rooftop cocktail parties to celebrate layoffs and went to raves to say goodbye to friends moving back to New York or LA. There was a "last round" kind of feeling that was half sad and half "what a ride."For the Originals, however, it was the end of a dream. The revolution had failed, the dreams didn't come true. The vision had been slowly co-opted and then undercut and then imploded. For these folks, the period after the crash was hugely depressing. For some, it was a call to change their lives. People moved to the desert, changed careers to "something more meaningful" or simply went wandering for a bit. These people had parties as well - but they felt more like wakes. A lot of these folks had advanced in their careers (due to the headstart they had) to the point where the actual crash itself was deeply painful. I know that I had to personally lay off a ton of people (shutting down entire offices). For zealots and idealists - this was a tough tough time.After everything shook out, the Bay Area effectively returned to life as you would have recognized it circa 1990 or so. Tech retreated to the enterprise. Jobs required effort, ability and connections to land. Compensation became standard again. Rents dropped some - but the big deal was that you could actually FIND a place to live again. Restaurants in SOMA closed. There was a sort of collective hangover at that point. Everyone was a little listless. A little irritable. A little grey and used feeling.And then the wheel turned again. And there were new true believers (a new generation of Originals). And the Carpetbaggers started showing up again.Here we are now.