Tuesdays with Morrie

I spent the Christmas weekend reading the book "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom.

The book is a dialogue between the author, Mitch, and his dying professor, Morrie. Because of mom's illness, I could relate with some of the emotions and issues mentioned. Because of my immaturity, I couldn't fully comprehend some of the insights shared.

Nonetheless, I was drawn to the book's honest, personal discussions about life. At times, I was moved to tears.

On Love
"The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in."

On Fear of Aging
"Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth."

On Death
"Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live."

On Emotions
"...by throwing yourself into these emotions, ...you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.'"

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone :D
Selamat Hari Natal!

Nasi padang

The bad thing about having a bunch of Indonesian colleagues is that I often get labelled as the "foreigner".

The good thing about it is that I get free lessons on Bahasa Indonesia, and to appreciate nasi padang food.

The Salero Bundo Padang nearby is one of our favourite nasi padang haunt for lunch. I learnt that nasi is rice and padang is a place in Indonesia. Here're some pictures:


So much chilli! My colleague sure enjoys makanan pedas (spicy food).


I prefer kari (curry) food: opor ayam (non-spicy curry chicken), kari lodeh (curry vegetables), and bayam (spinach).


I also love bubur hitam!

Help..I think I just had an overdose of coconut milk...

Rainy days

It's been raining and rainy days always get me down. Travelling becomes a hassle and the laundry wouldn't dry.

But, it's rather enjoyable walking in the rain, complete with a comfortable ensemble of long sleeves, short skirt, flip flops.

And a nice jazz album :D

www.streetdirectory.com

I had to make a trip to DSTA.

As always, I checked www.streetdirectory.com for directions.

The website returned me [bus1, mrt, bus2, walk] as the route to my destination.

But somehow, my "brilliant" memory told me that maybe I could just take one direct bus there from home. I checked SMRT's website for that bus and sure, my new route has been shortened to [bus2, walk].

Hm, I wonder how many detours I have made from my past dependence on streetdirectory.

From a consumer's perspective, I wonder if streetdirectory has any dealings with the major transport operators here.

From a programmer's perspective, I do understand it's not easy to build the streetdirectory expert system.

Hmm..what's the moral of the story?

Star Awards 2006

The only thing that fascinated me at the Star Awards was this question: What makes a good actor/actress? It fascinated me because the question popped up several times at the Awards and no one gave a neat answer. It's also fascinating because I have a friend who told me he wanted to be a star :D So I came up with my own criteria, from the point of view of an audience/fan.

A good actor/actress must:
1. have depth,
2. be able to age gracefully and
3. have decent, good looks.

An great actor engages his audience and makes the fake come to life. To do this, the actor must be in touch with the realities of life - history, culture, society, human good and bad, etc.

Actors have to age together with their fans too, to retain the fan base s/he has built over the years. Aging does not make the actor less popular, but adds points to his/her maturity factor. Maturity is a form of attraction too.

Decent, good looks: needs no explanation right?

At the Awards, "good looks" appear to be the dominant answer to the question above. However, to me, good looks alone does not maketh a good actor. Have a look at 陈宝国 (汉武大帝) and 陈道明 (中国式离婚). Certainly not the best-looking actors around, but they have depth. They could make the unreal real.

Have a look, also, at Karasawa Toshiaki (唐沢寿明). I first watched him play a prince charming in Imouto Yo (Tokyo Cinderella). I thought he only had capacity for this sort of role until Toshiie to Matsu (利家与松). He played Toshiie, a somewhat naive and clumsy feudal lord. I came to accept his "non-prince charming" role soon enough.

He was near becoming my idol until Shiroi Kyoto (白色巨塔) . He played a baddie elite surgeon, possessing exceptional skills with lofty scientific dreams for cancer research. Unfortunately, his ambitious nature made him unscrupulous in his attempt to obtain prestige in the medical community. He was really such a baddie but he was really such a talent too. I was torn between loving and hating him.

I decided that he's still my idol in the end. Simply for capturing the complex nature of a human - the good and dark side - so well.


Our local actors have much to improve on, I think.

Lifelong learning

My parents were wondering out loud to me yesterday.
(f= father, m=mother)

f: 悦, I'd like to do further studies.

qy: Mm hm. What would you like to study?

m: Medicine.

qy: [blink blink] Okay..

m: A GP (general practitioner)?

f: What, no. A surgeon.

f: [looks at me] Will you sponsor me? :)

m: Wow, you'll be 70 by then.

---
My father, a 70-year-old surgeon? Very cool.
I'd send my father to medical school right away if I am rich.
---

qy: :^)

Heart to Heart

I had a chat with my father sometime back. He left me something that still rings in my heart.

“人生道路上要有朋友。人生其一大幸福是能够交到毫无居心，一年见不到几次面也能找时间坐下聊聊心事的知心朋友。”

Allow me to translate.

"Friendship is one of the greatest gifts in our lives. To have friends who are devoid of intentions, whom you may rarely meet, but whom you can still have a heart-to-heart talk when you do meet, is a real blessing."

How true.

I recently met up with two such friends. I needed to space out. I shared with them about everything that has happened - life's perplexities, vulnerabilities, career, mom's illness, disillusions and such.

Although having been distanced by space and time, we were still able to sit down in the middle of Orchard Road or by the river at Esplanade and just talk. Heart-to-heart. About anything and everything. As though nothing's changed.

This is both amazing and touching to me.

I have two beautiful gifts. Kinship and friendship. I hope to reciprocate these gifts to the people in my life.

First marathon

I was at the Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore 2006 last Sunday with my colleagues. We took part in the 10km race. My boss, the fit one, did the half-marathon.

I started the race a little flustered. Some of my colleagues were late; some forgot to bring the all-important bib; finally, we lost one another in the midst of thousands of others. Before I knew it, the race began. I guess I started mine without any warm-up.

I met different people during my run: boyfriend-girlfriend team, friendship team, father-daughter team. I saw several campaigners too. The most memorable one being the lady who harnessed a tyre and a box of recyclables on her waist while she ran. She was campaigning for the environment.

The marathon itself was great. But I cannot help to think that it can be better. For example:
the participants can observe some running etiquette: walkers stay to one side and the runners on the other;
the drinking stations can be less wasteful in their use of paper cups;
let there be more cheerleaders around! I found myself smiling whenever I see someone cheering us on.

The best part of the race for me was near the finishing point. That's when I start to hear the cheers, the DJ's booming voice and Bond's "Victory" pumping away. Adrenaline took over and my legs never felt so light. Stride by stride I sprinted, with the banner that says "Impossible is Nothing" as my added fuel, I finished my race.

My legs ached for the next few days but the marathon was certainly inspiring. It was a reminder that I can achieve the seemingly impossible once again. I will definitely participate in another one next year :^)

Wacky ideas

My colleagues and I were having an informal project discussion yesterday. There came a point when we needed to think of a meaningful name for a menu item that will reset the application back to its original state. We ended up with lotsa wacky, nonsensical ideas. Here're some:

Delete all Settings (quite boring)

Reset to default factory settings (also boring)

Rebirth (cool)

Be Reborned (hmm..)

Delete (this happens when the programmer is too lazy to think of meaningful names)
[press]
All settings/data deleted.
(I can imagine the user having a heart attack at this point.)


Delete all data/settings here. The programmer is too busy to create the confirmation window next. So please confirm now. Sorry ah!
(yes, have mercy on the programmer please)


Press Me (I came up with this one :p)
[press]
All data deleted.
You were too curious.
Who ask you to Press Me?
(Quite evil right? My boss will kill me.)


In the end, we chose something more sane, fortunately or unfortunately. If we were to use such crazy descriptions, the users will be more interested in pressing the menu items to discover what crazy messages lie ahead, than in using the application itself. Haa. Crazy us.