21DJC-Day 12 - What Are Your Biggest Goals for the Next Few Years?

Today, the question from Celes is what are my biggest goals for the next few years?

Next few years. Honestly, I do a checklist every year to check how many goals I have achieved in that particular year. So this question is not new to me. But, one special goal that I would like to add in to my goal list, is to get married.

It is funny. If you ask me this question few years back, or even last year, I didn’t really think about getting married. It has never come into my life planning before, until this year. I have strong intension to get married now. Although you might be thinking whether is it too late to think about marriage now?

Aha, I always tell myself, there is never been too late if you start doing it right now. I’m still working towards my goals, including this. But, whether or not I can be succeed in achieving this so called special goal, I leave it to the fate, as I’m trying to get it.

Besides this, as normal, I plan to enroll master course, I plan to take the zither examination, plan to decorate my house, plan to invite my Mandarin teacher for a meal, plan to continue with my clay work / art work, etc. There are many goals in my plan!! I will complete it one by one. As mentioned by Steve Jobs, think that today is your last day, what do you want to achieve? Yes, just do whatever I want to, just enjoy my life with the fruitful experience!

21DJC-Day 11 - Out of Your 5 Senses, Which is the Most Important to You, and Why?

Today, It comes to a difficult question: Which of the 5 senses is the most important to me?

Hmm, If you ask me to choose one and only one sense, I would say, sight is the most important to me. Every time, when I look at those blind people, I cannot imagine, if one day, I lost my eye sight, I cannot see anything, what the feeling will be. I guess I will be going crazy, insane!

I use my eyes to see, to enjoy the views in front of me. I use my eyes to see the good and bad in this world, and from there, I learned. My feeling flows with the things appear in front of me. I use my eyes to express my feelings towards something. Without the eye sight, I will lose most of the happiness.

After all, all 5 senses are important. Appreciate for what we have now. Do not wait until one day, we lose any of them, and we feel regret. Regret is useless, appreciate them, and take good care of them all.

21DJC-Day 10 - Who Do You Enjoy Spending Time With?

In our lives, we interact with people around us. We cannot live without interacting. That is the beauty of the world in one aspect, if you appreciate the people around you. Today’s question: Who do I enjoy spending time with?

The first person that came into my mind is of course my dearest mum. I always think that my mum is a superwoman. She can talk about any topic to all family members. She talks about politics with my dad, talks about business world with my elder brother, talks about family problems with my sister-in-law, talks about education with me, talks about computers with my younger brother, anything. When my late grandmother was still alive, she talks about the history with my grandmother too. She can make us expressing our thoughts all the time, no matter what kind of incidents we face. She is always so wonderful!

Then, the next person will be my ex-colleague, whom we use to call him “Tai Lou” because he has a fierce outlook. “Tai Lou” means a big brother, especially when those gangsters calling their heads. Although he is not a degree holder, but the way he thinks is more than a degree holder like me. He was the one that guided me since the first day I stepped into Dell. He was the one that invited me for lunch on my first day as I didn’t know anyone in the department. He was the one that helped me to resolve server issues of the applications that I was taking care. Although we were colleagues, but our topics are always beyond the work, and I treat him to be one of my good friends. We talks about our problems, talks about our family, talks about our hobbies (both of us like photography a lot), etc. Now, I have left Dell, but we still keep in touch all the time through IM.

Also, there are many people that I treasure the friendships a lot. I enjoy hanging out with friends to have a chit chat, or have a meal, have a drink. I hope that our friendships will be forever. ^^

21DJC-Day 9 - What Drives You?

Yesterday, I was busy in setting test questions, so I missed this title. I guess, today, I will try to answer 2 at once, if time allows me to do so.

Today’s question: What drives me? What do I live for? Well, I always feel that, I live for happiness! As I mentioned in the previous post, whenever I’m to do something, I ask myself: Will I feel happy after doing this?

If the answer is No, then I will stop thinking about it; If the answer is Yes, then I will just go ahead doing it without thinking too much. Once I face problem with my decision, I know that I have made the wrong decision. From there, I learn, and I’m happy that I gain new experience.

There were times that I felt so depressed from my work, and every morning I felt so tired, so unwillingly to go to work. I had negative mood almost every moment in my workplace, argued with people all the time, even escalated my counter-parts to the director. What a terrible emotion! When I was driving, whenever someone overtake my car without the legal rule, I cursed the person. During that few months, I knew that I had to leave, or else I would be going to meet the psychological doctor very soon.

Thus, I decided to change the job, and I found my dream job – lecturer!! Although I’m still new in education line, but I still have my passion in it. What I need to do now, is to maintain my passion towards my dream job. So, with that, I need to grow, equip myself with more powerful skills! Of course, it is not only in term of technical, but in term of soft skills as well. I know, if I want to do it, I can!!

That’s all for this post. It is already late, so I guess I will leave the next question to tomorrow.

21DJC-Day 8 - On a Scale of 1-10, How Much Do You Love Yourself?

Through out my life, I have heard the phrase “Love ourselves, treat ourselves nicely”. But, how much do I love myself?

I would say, I spend all of my effort to love myself. I’m a heavy self conscious person. I know what I want, and I try my best to go for it. Whenever I think how to resolve a problem, the first question that comes into my mind is: Will I feel happy after doing this?

In a different perspective, you may say that I’m a selfish person, I admit that. There is no right or wrong answer in this kind of philosophy question. To you, I’m a selfish person, but to me, I feel that there is one and only one of ME accompanying me through out my life. How can I leave myself being unhappy? I know, I will regret one day if I do so.

However, to make one self to be happy, there are many ways, depending on the person’s attitude too. From my characteristics, my feelings actually follow other people’s feelings. Other people’s feelings may affect my feelings, my emotions. So, as long as it is still under my limitation, I will try to make other people to be happy.

That’s me. I would say that I’m selfish in a way that I always think to make myself to be happy. How to make myself to be happy? It is to make other people to be happy.

I feel good whenever I have done some effort to make people to be happy. It might be a matter if the person does not appreciate my effort, but that is to show that I can improve myself. From there, I learn, I reflect, and I grow. Doesn’t it a happy experience?

So, how much do you love yourself?

21DJC-Day 7 - What is the Most Important Thing You’ve Learned in Life So Far?

Today is the 7th day I started off this Daily Journal Challenge. Time flies, it’s been one week!

I have tried my best to maintain my momentum in writing an English blog post everyday. Today, let’s talk about what is the most important thing I have learned in life so far.

About this question, it always brings me back to year 2001, 10 years ago. That was the year that I suffered the most, and that was the year that I changed the most. I changed from a quiet person to a talkative person; I changed from a passimistic person to an optimistic person; I changed from a guy’s mindset to a girl’s mindset person.

The only one thing I have learned: There is no chance to feel regret in my life, appreciate everything I have!

I was in Diploma that year, my first year in Diploma. I kept on telling myself, I have to change, because I was to prepare myself to get into the society, prepare myself to step into the real world.

And I told myself, I don’t want to leave any regret in my life by the day I leave the world. Whatever happened before, it’s past. I should not keep it in my heart all the way. I should let it go and look at everything that I had have. For those bad happenings, I should take it as a lesson learned, reflect to my present and apply in my life.

Before I decided to change my mindset, I could say that I didn’t really have a good luck.

1. I knew a new friend, and he passed away.
2. I wanted a mountain bike, so I requested my dad to buy one for me if I got into the first class, but ended up I went to the second class because of the quota of student numbers in that Malay school.
3. Some of my friends thought that I was autistic because of my bias thinking towards guys.

Just right after I changed my mindset (I will not mentioned how hard it was, but I have succeeded to go through it), I could feel that I have changed my luck too.

1. From my DIploma until now, I knew many gentlemen that took good care of me, either in my daily life or my working life. They taught me a lot of knowledge and trained me to be better.
2. I got the mountain bike now, although it does not really belong to me. In fact, it belongs to my younger brother, but my younger brother does not take bike anymore, so I own it automatically. XD
3. Now, my friend circle is enlarged, not until the other end of the world, but at least, I have known many people from different states in Malaysia, and even from different countries!

So, I succeeded! I changed! Although even until now, there were times I stay quietly, especially when I’m in a crowd or a group of people, I tend to listen to people more. Until today, I still keep on reminding myself: Appreciate what I have now. Be gratitude towards people who have helped me. Leave no regret!!

My thinking might be extreme, but this is my favourite quote (created by myself… Haha):
Only cowards keep on feeling regret towards their pasts, because regret is useless. You cannot hold back the past, so hold back your present, and make full use of the chances you have!

21DJC–Day 6 - What Frustrates You?

If you would to ask me, what frustrates me usually, it would be meeting with the people who neglect on other people’s feelings, and also neglect in achieving a common goal in a team.

I understand that it is hard to communicate with people. Every time, when it comes to the situation that I meet up with a person who doesn’t care on other people’s feeling and just do whatever he/she wants, I feel frustrated, but I don’t show out my feelings towards the person. I keep the feeling within myself, and that causes me feeling unhappy for quite some time.

I feel release only when I don’t meet up with the person again within a few days. Whenever I meet up with the person again, the feeling comes back. That feeling creates a perception in my heart towards the person.

Maybe, because of this perception, I started to look into all the bad things about the person, and I myself neglect on the person’s good points. I’m trying to learn to communicate with this kind of people without the influence of my own perception. I think I will need to take some time in achieving this.

Yeah, I hope that one day, I can go through this, look into everyone’s good points, enlarge the good points and reduce the weak points in them.

21DJC–Day 5 - Who Is the Most Important Person to You in the World?

Now, come to this quuestion, Who is the most important person in my life in this world? In the post, Celes mentioned that I can only choose one person, the most most most important person to me.

Well, as what I can think of, definitely, the most important person to me is my mum. She has been my idol from my young time, until now, and I believe, until I get married, I have children, grandsons and granddaughters, the rest of my life.

I have to say that, she is not a perfect mum. She doesn’t cook well (as I mentioned in my previous post), but I love the ways she treats my grandmother, the ways she treats my father.

I always believe that, it is not easy being a woman, especially when a woman getting married. When a man gets married, he is getting a person into his family; whereas when a woman gets married, she is moving to a new family. A new family with different family background, different customs, different habits, some families are even having different races, different religions, etc. With all these differs, do you think it is easy to survive in there?

To my mum, she can always treat my grandma very nicely. Although there were times she got angry with my grandma, but she still respected my grandma as an elder. She takes care of my father a lot too. In my heart, both my parents are the ideal couples, although both of them have some weak points, and they still could compromise with each other. They seldom quarrel, not even in front of us, children.

Now, she is also a mother-in-law, and of course, she has some unhappy feelings towards my sis-in-law sometimes, but she has never complained to my brother about that. She just cares about my brother’s feelings, she doesn’t want anything unhappiness happen in our family. And so, I become her audience, listen to her problems, listen to her nags.

From her, I learned how to be a good daughter-in-law, and I hope that I can be a good daughter-in-law after I get married too.

21DJC–Day 4 - If You Are To Travel Back in Time to 3 Years Ago, What Advice Would You Give Yourself?

As mentioned by Celes in the Day 4 post, today, the title need a little bit of imagination. If I’m to travel back to 3 years ago, what advice would I give myself?

When I flash back to 3 years ago, I was 26 years old, and I was working in Dell. However, except these 2 facts, I couldn’t remember much about my 26-year-old life. That is the reason why I keep my blog. Now, it is the time for me to flip back my blog.

Looking at the blog, I noticed that, I have gone thru a lot of experience when I was in 26!!

1. I went for a jungle tracking of 10 hours! (Where other people just took 7 hours for the whoe journey =.=” )
2. I learned swimming finally!
3. I learned Qi Gong for meditation
4. I confess to a guy that I liked
5. I went for the 2nd time of snorkelling in my life in Pulau Payar
6. I enjoyed in a theater for my very first time
7. I got a bad result in my health check

With all these experiences, I could see that although it was hard to work in Dell that time, but I seemed to be enjoying my life too! No matter what it was, good or bad, I would like to tell myself: Go one with your life, enjoy your life whenever you can!

Although I was not into IT life style, I didn’t regret in choosing IT course for my Degree. As the research in Dell, IT department was funnier compared to other departments. Because of IT, I met up with a lot of good friends in Dell, or else, I wouldn’t have enjoyed my life in Dell while working there!

So, I always thank my ex-colleagues, always mention about it to my friends: In Dell, the only thing that I appreciate the most was FRIENDSHIP!

I strongly believe that, we can have friendship in working life. It is not only the “colleague” relationship, it can be “friend” relationship in a workplace. It is just to see how you can adjust yourself to get into them, or how you treat people.

So, Go on!! Jaleen!!
You can do it!
Enjoy your life, make it to be full of fun and happy experience before you leave this world!

21DJC–Day 3 - What is Your Ideal Diet Like?

This is the 3rd day of DJC that I started off from Personal Excellence website. Today, the journal will be about my ideal diet.

Well, I’m not a person who cares about diet a lot. I have no balance diet. I like most of the chicken and pork meals. But, I still feel that the meals prepared by my late grandmother and my mum are the best.

My late grandmother was a good cook. She could turn all sort of raw cooking materials into delicious dishes, by adding in her own recipes. Everyday, she must have a fish as our dish for either lunch or dinner. Vegetable is for sure a must.

Whereas, my mum, although she can’t cook as good as my grandmother (I’m sorry to say that, mum ), but she knows what I like and what I don’t like. She konws that I like chicken and pork more than fish, so she always cooks chicken or pork as dishes. She knows my dad likes soup, so she must have a soup during dinner. She knows my younger bro doesn’t like to eat fish because of the fish bones, so she cooks fish without fish bones.

However, for now, as I’m keeping fit for a free travel (I will talk about that some time later XD ), I started to take fish more than chicken and pork. I take vegetables as much as I can. It’s lucky that I don’t really like junk food like snacks, and I seldom drink soft drink. Thus, it is not hard for me to keep my diet.

I’m just trying to take less food per meal, and do more exercise. I hope that I can make it! ^^

21DJC Day 2 - If You Are To Do Something For Free For the Rest of Your Life, What Would It Be?

What I would do for free for the rest of my life? It would be, learning and doing art work for my family members / friends – This was the first thing that came into my mind when I look at the question.

I like crafting, or any art work, including clay, paper craft, or even drawing, play around with 3D art work, photography, all sorts of art work. However, nowadays, as a full time worker, I have a lot of work to be done. This is always the reasons I gave to myself.

Sometimes, when I have the time, I would love to do some craft work for my nephew and niece, or even my friends whose birthday is getting near. If I have the intension to give a craft out as a present, I will need to prepare for the craft for a long time, to ensure that I have the time for it.

Thus, I would say, if I have the time, I always like to do some crafts for my family / friends.

I have a plan at my home as well. I’m planning to buy 2 big pieces of polystyrene foams, cover them with a big pieace of cloth and stick it on the wall in my living hall. I’m gonna design the foam and put on with the photos of our family!

I agree with what my friend said, “It is a must to have a photograph corner in a living hall!” It is not to show off what we have done with our family, but it is for the family members to flash back what we have done together. Whenever anyone of the family members encounters any problem / quarrel (touch wood!!), they may look at the photos taken and tells themselves, “Even if there is nothing left in this world, still, you have your family with you in your heart.”

This is my plan to decorate my living room. I’m gonna do it by this coming semester break! This is my promise to myself.

21DJC Day 1 - What would you do if you have 1 million dollars?

Personal Excellence -- I have followed this blog for quite a long time, but I didn’t really go through all the blog posts in it.

Today, while I was waiting for my car-pool mate to finish the class, I spared some time reading the posts carefully. And, I found out this program -- 21-Day Journaling Challenge! It is a simple challenge. Everyday, the owner of this blog, Celestine, posts a question on the blog. What we have to do is to answer the question posted so that to reflect what comes to our minds. Isn’t it simple enough?

It would be great if I could participate in this challenge! I knew that it has been closed for signing up, as I missed out the timing for signing up for the challenge. However, I still hope that I could participate in that, thus I’m just writing the journal here, to express my thoughts. Here, I would label all these posts as 21DJC!

I know I’m late for many days. They have started it off since 7 November, and today is already 18 November.

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Today, the first question: What would you do if you have 1 million dollars?

Seriously, this is an old topic that we got for our essary writing since our primary school, in different languages, including Mandarin, Malay or English. Many people would say, in different ages, we have different thoughts, different feelings.

However, to me, I seem to have almost same thoughts since my childhood. What would I do if I have 1 million dollars? I would not quit what I’m doing now, would not invest in business, would not donate for charities. The only thing I would do is, I would save them into bank, and withdraw out bit by bit for travelling around the world!

This is not the whole of my dream, but if I would to have so much money, I would have many travels to different places. It is just to widen my mindset, widen my thought, widen my knowledge.

Yes, my answer is short, but it concludes my thinking. XD

That’s all for tonight. Tomorrow, I’m going to answer the next question. Phew~ it’s just like a table topic session in Toastmasters, I’m required to clear off my mind before writing, and straight away express whatever comes into my mind.

See you all! Good night, and happy weekend!