Jaleen's Life

21DFC Day 8 – What is Your Favorite Fitness Activity?

2012-02-11T00:40:00.001+08:00

It was Day 8 yesterday. From the blog post, a question was posted to ask what my favourite fitness activities are.

I have a few favourite fitness activities. When I do fitness activity, I always need to consider the weather if it is an outdoor activity, thus I prefer more on indoor activities, especially the activity that can be done at home. So, both home aerobics and run in place at home are my favourite activities. I don’t feel bored when doing these exercises at home as I have something to concentrate on. I usually concentrate on movie, anime or mucic.

For outdoor activities, I like swimming the most. I’m a person that easily get sweat, so I like to stay in water. XD
I like cycling, hiking and jogging too. With all these activities, you will know that I seldom join other people for sports. I love to take my own sweet time to do whatever I like, without bothering who I’m staying with, what time I should end my exercise. =.="

Back to yesterday’s exercise, initially, I planned to go for cycling after I got back home, but I was exhausted when I reached home, so I went for a nap. By the time I woke up, it’s already 6:30pm, time to have dinner. =.="

I finally decided not to go for cycling, and changed my plan to run in place in my room for 45 minutes while enjoying my anime. I watched an anime about playing piano, so there are a lot of time that piano music was played in that movie. Again, I enjoyed the piano music, although I haven’t learned piano before.

Besides, yesterday, I weigh myself, I have lost 1 kg!!! Yeah~~~ I hope that the number will keep on decreasing~!!! XD

What about tomorrow’s plan? Tomorrow is a Saturday… Maybe I can go for a swim if time permits or else I will go for cycling as I missed it today.

P/s: Today, I counted, I have climbed 10 storey of staircase, separately. Haha~~ In the morning, I went up to my office in the 3rd floor, so I climbed 3-storey staircase. Then I get down to the venue of my class in the first floor of another building, I climbed one-storey staircase. After the class, I climbed up the 3-storey staircase back to my office again. After that, I went out to have lunch with my colleague and come back, climbed the third time of 3-storey staircase. In total, I have climbed 10 storey of staircase… >.<"

21DFC Day 7

2012-02-11T00:27:00.001+08:00

It’s been one week since I started this 21DFC!! Yesterday was Day 7, I planned earlier that I would go for gym in my college one hour after I took lunch.

I went exactly according to my plan! ^^

My class finished at 1pm, went to have lunch with colleague until 1:30pm, rest for 1 hour+, then bought a ticket to the gymnasium in my college. I started to run on the treadmill at 3pm, and stopped after 30 minutes. I ran for 2.6km, burned 153 calories. ^^

After taking the bathe and came out from the club house, I could see the mountain at the back of the club house, felt the wind, the feeling was really nice and relaxing!!

Again, I hope that I can make it happen for every Thursday of this semester!! ^^

21DFC Day 6

2012-02-11T00:23:00.001+08:00

It supposes to be the journal of 2 days ago, 8 February, Day 6. I got back home late. One hour after taking dinner, I ran in place for 30 minutes while watching anime. I usually run in place either by listening to music, or watching anime. To me, I enjoy activities like this to relax myself.

Although it was only half an hour, but at least I moved on with the plan.
And, on that day itself, another colleague said that I look thinner even I was wearing the same shirt like before!! That really motivate me to continue moving!

Day 7, my class will end at 1pm. After the class, I will go to have lunch with colleagues and then plan to go for gym in my college around 2:30pm for only RM1.50 per entry. After the gym, I will take a bathe in college then go to zither class straight away. I hope this plan moves for every Thursday of this semester (7 weeks) ~

21DFC Day 5

2012-02-08T00:56:00.002+08:00

Today, Day 5, finally I got the chance to do home aerobics for about 30 minutes. Below is the video clip of the home aerobics that I follow usually.

The actions are not too hard as I have knee problem, yet I start sweating after 5 minutes.

Tomorrow I will have class until 5pm. By the time I reach home, it will be late, so I guess I will only go for running in place as normal. Listening to music / watching anime will running in place is quite enjoyable to me. :P

P/s:
I just got to know that, yesterday I felt dizzy, and that was the vertigo effect. I knew the word in Mandarin, and today my friend just told me the word in English --> Vertigo. It is because of a dysfunction of the vestibular system in the inner ear. As far as I know, there is no medicine for this type of dizziness, usually it is caused by the heat within the body.

I ate too much of biscuits and Mandarin oranges during the CNY... That's probably the cause of the vertigo happening. :p Luckily, the dizziness has gone now.

21DFC Day 4

2012-02-07T00:26:00.002+08:00

Day 4, this morning, I had a sudden dizziness. When I was reading something on the computer, I suddenly felt that I was unable to balance my head. I laid down on my bed, and I felt that the room was spinning!

I fell asleep after all, but the condition remained the same after I woke up. In the evening, I took a bathe then suddenly I heard a sound “wong…”, and the dizziness had gone.

It was weird. However, I managed to do a simple walk for around 15 minutes, cannot make it for home aerobics again as my plans were massed up by the dizziness.

I really hope that I can make it for home aerobics tomorrow…

21DFC Day 3

2012-02-07T00:24:00.002+08:00

Day 3, or I should say, 5-Feb, I ran in place for 20 minutes. Due to short of time, I didn’t do home aerobics and the video clips I have for home aerobics are more than 30 minutes usually.

After all, I went out for a gathering with friends again until now, I just got back home after 12am. Because of the Thaipusam festival in Malaysia, it was all traffic jam everywhere. So I had to park my car far far away from the shopping center, which I needed to walk for around 15 minutes to reach the shopping center. It was a long way along the seaside, but I felt good breathing in the air from the seaside.

Tomorrow, I will do my home aerobics which I planned to do today earlier.

21DFC Day 2

2012-02-07T00:22:00.003+08:00

I have missed out the posts for 21DFC Day 2 and Day 3, and today’s post Day 4.

Today, it was out of my plan. I went out for whole day, from morning to night. However, I still managed to work out the body stretching for about 15 minutes. It is just some sort of body warming up activities.

Tomorrow, I will have another gathering with friends. If we go for photo shooting, then I will be walking a lot. If we didn’t go for photo shooting, then I will come back home for a home aerobics session.

21DHL–Day 21: Review & Your Best Health Ahead

2012-02-07T00:14:00.001+08:00

Now, come to today, the last day of 21DHL!! Hah! The time really flies, I have done the 21 days of healthy living challenge!!

However, I failed this challenge. No one failed me, but I failed myself because I didn’t get to reduce 3 kg according to my objective. I cannot get my reward from this challenge…

But, I would say that, I have done my best to keep myself following the challenge everyday. I learned a lot from this challenge! I learn to read the nutrition labels on the food packages, I learned to calculate the calories, and I got a lot of information from the internet about calculating the daily workout, etc.

I ate more vegetables within these 21 days, and I will continue with this habits. I did more exercise within these 21 days, although I didn't do more than 30 minutes everyday, at least I did some exercise.

I want to keep going on with the healthy life!

Now, I’m following the 21DFC –> 21 Daily Fitness Challenge! ^^

21DHL–Day 20: Start Your Healthy Living Guidebook

2012-02-07T00:02:00.001+08:00

Yesterday was Day 20 of 21DHL: Start my healthy living guidebook.

Yesterday, I went out for the whole day to have gathering with a group of old schoolmates. It's been more than 10 years that I haven't met up with some of them! The feeling was nice!

Now, back to the yesterday's task, Day 20's task, create a healthy living plan. I just uploaded the my healthy living plan --> 21DHL_HealthyLivingPlan

I have the plan to put them into a special note book to track my daily plan, if possible. :) I have bought a few small note books for my daily plan records.

21DHL–Day 19: Hug Yourself

2012-02-06T16:54:00.001+08:00

Now it is almost to the end of the 21DHL. Supposingly, the day before yesterday was Day 19. Due to short of time, I didn’t update about the task: hug myself. From what I understand about hugging myself, it is to show the love, care and appreciation towards myself.

I love myself, so I always do my best to make myself happy all the time. Whenever I feel sad or disappointed, I review what has gone wrong, and look forward for the next level.

I care of myself, so I have to start with a healthy life truly from heart. I will do exercise and eat more vegetables to keep myself healthy. Right now, I'm working on 21DEC. If I can go through these 21 days of exercising challenge without fail, there is no reason for me not to exercise more than 3 times a week!

I appreciate myself, appreciate my capabilities, my talents, all about myself. So, I plan to at least draw a picture every month, to show my life in that month, to express my feelings. I also plan to read at least 3 books (Not novel, not comics) in this year (I hope that I can read even more).

I also appreciate my family, my friends. This morning, I went for breakfast with family. It is a normal routine, but I appreciate that I still have the chance to hang out with family again. Later, I will join my friends for lunch. It's been quite a long time that I didn't hang out with friends.

21DFC Day 1 – It All Begins!

2012-02-03T23:57:00.002+08:00

For this 21DFC, there is no task given like 21DHL, but only have the progress thread of Celes coming up. Since 21DHL, I joined their runs officially, so the same for this 21DFC.

In today, Day 1’s post, Celes suggested a great website, Walk Jog Run. This website has a google map, where you can create a route from the map, and the website will help you to calculate what is the length of the route. It is used to calculate the distance of our exercising route, together with the speed and how much calories burned.

Today, as I mentioned in the post of Day 17 of 21DHL, I walked to the shop nearby my house to buy floss as the start of this 21DFC. It took me around 10 minutes to walk to the shop. From there, I walked again from shop to shop for window shopping. By using the Walk Jog Run website, I calculated it as 0.44 miles with speed of 1.6 mph, it burned 31.6 calories.

Over here, I used miles as the unit as I’m lazy to convert it to kilometers (km) again. For those who are interested to know how many km, here is the formula of conversion:

km = mile x 1.609344

In the afternoon, I went for cycling around the playground nearby my house. The distance of one surrounding area of the playground is 0.21 miles. I cycled with speed of 5 mph for 18 rounds, which is total of 3.78 miles and burned 543.6 calories. I’m not persistent to the calories burned for every activities, but since the website provides that information, I just recorded it down.

Yesterday, I went to Popular bookstore and bought a book that teaches us how to do body stretching. Just now, I did some simple stretching for 10 minutes. Before doing the stretching, I did a test stated in the book, and I was shocked that my body age is already 60 years old!! >.< I should start doing more stretching and exercise to prevent my body from getting older and older!!

So, do it now!!

I created a template to record my daily exercise activities through out these 21 days.
Here is the google doc for my daily exercise activities –> 21DFC_DailyExercisie

I hope that I can continue exercising without fail in these 21 days!!

21DHL–Day 18: Breathe

2012-02-03T23:13:00.001+08:00

This is today’s task: Breathe.

Everyone does know how to breath, of course. But do you know that breathing in a correct way is very important too? What is the correct breathing?

When you breath, supposingly the your chest, shoulders and stomach remain relatively still as air flow in deeply to the pit of your stomach. It should not be your shoulders rise and your stomach gets sucked in.

So, do try to practice this type of breathing if possible. According to researches, this type of breathing will help in thinking of innovation and help in memory.

I did practice this since I was young, but only when I was doing meditation. Probably, I should keep on reminding myself to practice more.

21DHL–Day 17: Floss Your Teeth

2012-02-03T22:32:00.001+08:00

The Personal Excellence website was down yesterday, thus, I just managed to read through the Day 17’s task this morning. The task was to floss my teeth.

Honestly, since I was born, I have never floss my teeth before, so I don’t even have a floss. Today, it is a starting of 21DEC, Day 1, so I decided to walk to the nearby shop to buy the floss for this task.

It took me around 8 ~ 10 minutes to reach to the shop. After I have bought the floss, I walked from shop to shop again, just like window shopping. Then I walked back home again (I will talk a little bit more details when I write about the update of 21DEC).

This was the first time I flossed my teeth. I felt fresh after flossing my teeth~! I hope that I have the patience to do it daily. It really takes time for me to complete flossing all teeth…

By the way, I will do my best in practicing to brush my teeth twice a day. One time in the morning and one time before go to bed. I hope that I will continue with this practice. (It seems that a lot of habits that I should go for…)

21DFC Day 0: Pre-Work: Create Your 21-Day Exercising Plan!

2012-02-02T01:50:00.002+08:00

While I’m still running my 21DHL, here I have another challenge coming in from Personal Excellence!! The challenge that's gonna start tomorrow will be 21DFC (21 Day Exercising Challenge), which is to exercise for 21 days without fail.

You do not need to exercise very hard everyday. It can be 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or even more. As long as there is a physical exercise, it counts. And daily, post a comment in the blog post to share what kind of exercise have been done, how long and what’s the feeling towards the exercises. It’s simple~!

If you are interested, you are encouraged to join! It is a self-committed program, no one is gonna judge us, and we are the one to judge ourselves.

Here are my details regarding 21DFC.

>> My Key Objectives for 21DFC (3 Feb – 23 Feb)
1. To exercise for at least 10 minutes without fail for the next 21 days.
2. To reduce my weight for at least 3kg.
3. To increase my stamina to run

>> My Game Plan for 21DFC
- Do stretching or self massage for at least 5 minutes every day.
- Cycling for at least twice a week.
- Swimming for at least once within these 21 days.
- Go hiking with friends / family at least twice within these 21 days.

>> My Biggest Obstacles
1. Laziness
2. Rain when I plan to go for outdoor exercises
3. Lack of time to exercise after working hours
4. Too tired to exercise

>> My Strategy To Tackle the Obstacles
1. Keep reminding myself to exercise, even for only 5 minutes
2. Do home aerobics / jump ropes / run at place as a replacement of the outdoor exercises
3. Wake up earlier to do 10 ~ 20 minutes of exercise before go to work
4. Walk for 5 ~ 10 minutes at home

Here is my google doc --> 21DFC_Plan

21DHL–Day 16: Improve Your Posture

2012-02-02T00:47:00.001+08:00

Today, Day 16 is to maintain good postures.

A doctor examined my spine last year, and he told me that my spine is slightly out of the correct shape. Although it is not so serious, it is very hard to straighten it back to the correct shape, unless I go for operation.

I didn't go for operation. I practice meditation. I heard a from a few people who meditate, their spine recovers to the shape after meditation. I keep hope on meditation. At the same time, I always remind myself to keep good postures, especially an IT person like me who always sit in front of computer to do my work. I write blogs, edit pictures, draw cartoons, watch anime / movies, do my daily plan, sometimes read novels from computer too.

One thing, besides maintaining good posture while sitting in front of computer, I get up or relax my eyes for 1 ~ 2 minutes after a period of time, say 1 ~ 1.5 hours. So I put a few of my artwork on the wall in front of my computer. Whenever I heads up from looking at my computer, I look at those work and I feel the satisfactory.

Another way to keep myself getting up from the chair is to drink a lot of water. I read an article before, we have to drink a lot of water when we face to computer for long period of time because of the radiation. To me, I drink a lot of water, so that I always feel to go wash room. Yeah, then I get up from the chair and do some simple actions to relax my body.

That's all for tonight. I'm out of time to sleep again tonight...

21DHL-Day 15: Practice Conscious Eating

2012-01-31T23:35:00.001+08:00

Day 15's task is to practice conscious eating.

Since I was young, my grandmother always stopped us from talking while having our meals. I can't remember, since when that I started to talk while eating, read while eating, watch movie while eating, and even play game while eating sometimes.

Today's task is a good opportunity to review back all my bad habits, all the teachings from my grandmother. Yes, I should start to practice conscious eating again. It is not only good for health, it shows appreciation towards the person who prepared the food for me.

*******************************************************

After I got back from the family trip, I gained weight of 1.5 kg!! >.<

Then, I controlled my diet and did some exercises, finally my weight returned back to 76 kg today. I still have only 6 days to go for 21DHL. It seems hard for me to reduce even 1 kg...

Anyway, as planned, I exercised today, and I will continue for the rest of the days in this week. Then, as a continuation of this challenge, I have signed up for the next challenge - 21DEC to do more exercises, vary my exercise activities!!

And tonight, I took 90% of vegetables for my dinner. Although I didn't stick to my ideal meal plan, but at least I attached to my goal of eating more vegetables. After dinner, my mum found a Mandarin orange from the fridge, and of course, it is in my stomach now. =.=" Luckily, there's only one Mandarin orange left and not more than that...

Again, below is the update of my daily intake food. I recorded it everyday.
Daily Food Record

That's all for tonight, it's time to sleep now...

21DHL-Day 14: Review & Plan for Last Week Ahead!

2012-01-30T23:06:00.001+08:00

It's been 2 weeks for this 21DHL!! One week left... When I look back my first post of the challenge:

I hope that I will be able to lose at least 3kg from my current weight of 76kg. At least 3kg, that means, I hope to lose more than 3kg if possible. XD

It seems that I can hardly reach this target...
Never mind, as long as I have done my best!!

Now, review back my past one week, although I was traveling, but it was good that I still could follow the challenge everyday. However, if I would to rate myself for the performance of the past one week, I would only rate it as 7 (slightly better than the first week's performance).

I continued drinking at least 2 liters of water everyday.
I did workout 5 days out of 7 days although for some days, I didn't do workout for more than 30 minutes but just purely walking because of the travel.
I did meditation more than 3 times a week.
I sleep before 11pm most of the days because I needed to drive for long journey on the next day.
For the past few days, I kept on reminding myself to eat more vegetables, and I did eat more vegetables.
I didn't eat much of junk food other than formal meals as compared to the first week.
I hope that I can keep this record, or even make a better record!

Now I'm back to my home, I started to control on my diet again, eat less Mandarin oranges (In fact, the Mandarin oranges have all been finished). I finished more than 38 Mandarin oranges counting since the beginning of 21DHL... =.=" Gosh...

For the next one week, the last week of 21DHL, I plan to exercise everyday. How long? At least 20 minutes. I'm a person that sweat a lot, 20 minutes of running in place can wet off almost quarter of my shirt. If the time is allowed, I plan to go for swimming again~!

Also, EAT MORE VEGETABLES!!!

21DHL-Day 13: Explore Your Relationship With Food

2012-01-29T22:51:00.003+08:00

Today is the Day 13 of this challenge, started with the task: explore my relationship with food. This task needs my deep thinking on why do I overeat, or why do I eat even when I’m not feeling hungry.

So, I have to keep on asking myself the question “Why?”. Here I started the questions…

1. I asked myself, when do I overeat usually?
The answer is when I have meals with my family or friends, especially when I have gathering with friends / colleagues.

2. Why do I overeat during those occasions?
Because I see a lot of NICE food on the menu, which I like to eat a lot.

3. Why are those food that I like so much?
Those are meat food. Again, I like chicken and pork a lot.

4. Why don't I choose the food with more vegetables?
Honestly, I don't really like to eat vegetables. Or, I should say, I eat only a few types of vegetables. Besides, if I could get food with meat, I would automatically go for it, instead of getting a food with more vegetables.

5. Why do I dislike vegetables?
Simply because of the taste / smell. I don't like the taste of vegetables, such as bell pepper, lady fingers, leek, bean curd stick, mushroom, etc.

6. Why does the taste not good?
It is my personal taste habits...
However, when I think back about the vegetables that I like, there are many types too. I eat cabbages, carrots, long beans, tofu, potatoes, etc. It depends on me, whether I want to eat vegetables or not. When I see the food with chicken / pork, I feel like not missing the chance to eat them.

Back to the question #4 again, why don't I choose the food with more vegetables?
I feel that it is more worth to have food with meat, in comparable price. =.=" In some restaurants, both food with vegetables and meat are almost the same price, yet food with meat makes me feel full.

It seems like now come to the problem of worthy in term of money. =.=
All right, I should change my mindset on that... I should throw away the term "money" ($$) in my heart to compare the prices of the food with / without meat. I should think about my health before money.

I have to train myself on that. Eat more vegetables! It is not the problem about those vegetables that I don't like, it is the problem if I'm willing to eat vegetables.

Yeah, keep it in my mind when I'm eating --> Healthy!! Vegetables!!

21DHL–Day 12: Evaluate Your Relationship With Food

2012-01-29T22:51:00.001+08:00

I just realized that I skipped blogging on Day 12’s task yesterday.

Day 12, it's already more than 1 week of this challenge. Today's task is to evaluate the relationship between me and food.

According the thread, from the 12 Indicative Sign of Emotional Eating, I have 3 signs, out of the 12 signs of emotional eating.

You have trouble losing weight (due to the way you eat)
Your eating is out of control (You can’t stop yourself from eating)
You use emotionally-charged words to describe food / eating

From the test (?), I have the following result:
Group B: You have an okay, somewhat average relationship with food, which can be improved much further. While food doesn't cause you much anguish, it certainly doesn't serve your healthy living goals either. The next steps in the today's exercise will help you do that.

I have the same type of parents like Celes, my parents buy a lot of food for me and my siblings. They always afraid that the food is not enough for us, so they buy extra food. My mum always cook the food that we like to eat, so mostly are the food of chicken / pork / fish.

Besides that, sometimes I don't have regular meal time too especially during weekends, I may have only one meal for the whole day and I don't feel hungry.

I have to take off this habit off. I'm still doing my best to stick to the ideal meal plan...

I will post Day 13’s task later…

21DHL-Day 11: Identify Your Healthy Living Pitfalls

2012-01-27T22:51:00.001+08:00

Today, Day 11’s task is to identify my healthy living pitfalls.

Here are my pitfalls:

Laziness - If the time is too late, I skip doing exercise on that day.
Being choosy in food - I always like to have meat in my meals, instead of vegetables.
Meeting up with friends / family and have NICE food
Interested in many things, all activities need to spend some time to complete them - I'm a person that always like to make myself so busy, busy in anything that I'm interested in. For eg: reading, drawing, doing handicrafts, playing zithers, editing photos, being active in club activities, etc.
Reading blogs, view other people's art work, etc.
watch anime / movie - Although I seldom watch anime / movies, but once I started to watch a series, I can hardly stop myself from watching it, until I finish the whole series.

If I would to categorize my pitfalls, then they would be...:

Feel unmotivated to continuous exercising
Being choosy in food
Poor in planning

I have fixed my exercise days, but often due to some unforeseen incidents, like helping my family in doing something and it drags my time -- This is the excuse that I always give to myself.
So, I guess I need to adjust my exercise time...

And, to avoid choosy in food, I think I need to force myself to have more vegetables... Or... is there any better way to make myself to eat more vegetables? (Yes, I'm kind of forcing myself to take more vegetables these few days... =.=" )

Of course, this would be a continuous journey through out the whole life. I hope that I can do it.

By the way, today, I didn't take caffeine for the whole day. No coffee at all. Tomorrow, I will be going for breakfast with family, which will definitely drink a lot of Chinese tea. But the Chinese tea does not contain caffeine. :)
If anyone of you take Chinese tea, please take note on the content of the Chinese tea. Some Chinese tea contains caffeine, which I seldom take usually.

21DHL-Day 10: Have A Caffeine-free Day

2012-01-26T21:24:00.001+08:00

Today is already Day 10 of 21DHL. Today’s task is to have a caffeine-free day.

Honestly, 3-in-1 coffee and black coffee are in my ideal meal plan. I'm not a caffeine-addicted person. I put that those two items in my ideal meal plan because it is the easiest drink I can get for breakfast and lunch (Again, I'm a lazy person...). XD

In that case, I would change my ideal meal plan again. Usually, if I'm not rushing for early classes, I blend fruit juice as drink for breakfast and therefore I don't take 3 in 1 coffee for my breakfast on that day. Whereas during lunch, I still can change to order other drinks when I have lunch in the food court... Let me think, maybe I can get a cup of hot barley instead of coffee.

Hmm, yes, I can change my ideal meal plan as stated above.
Today, I already had my 3-in-1 coffee as my ideal meal plan. =.="
So, start from tomorrow onwards, I will do my best to have caffeine-free days until the end of this 21DHL.

That’s all for today.

21DHL-Day 9: Eat 5 Servings Of Fruits / Vegetables

2012-01-25T20:45:00.001+08:00

Now, come to Day 9: Eat 5 servings of fruits / vegetables.

I read through the list of items in the thread, it seems that is a little bit hard for me to get those vegetables / fruits. But, how can I measure whether I have enough of the servings of vegetables / fruits?

I went through the other websites, found out from this site, saying that one serve of vegetables is 75 grams, and one serve of fruits is 150 grams. With this guide, I will be able to measure if I have enough vegetables / fruits.
In terms of fruits, definitely I'm taking enough of fruits these few days. Mandarin oranges, I can take more than 5 per day =.=" I also eat apples, bananas, etc.

Whereas for vegetables, it is a little bit hard for me. I seldom eat vegetables and I'm now doing my best to eat as much of vegetables as possible. Keep on reminding myself that I need to eat more vegetables.

Keep going

21DHL-Day 8: Get A Great Workout

2012-01-25T20:22:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, I did the Day 8’s task: Get a great workout. But, because I felt tired last night, I didn’t update in this blog.

The thread said that we can increase our daily activity level. Yes, after I changed my job, I would need to climb 4-floored stairs everyday, not only once a day, but many times a days. In fact, I'm a lecturer in a college. My office is at the 4th floor, without a lift. Everyday, before / after the classes, I need to climb up and down the stairs back and forth my office and the venues. Some lecturers said, everyday, each of the lecturers climbs a 10-floored stairs averagely.. I agree. =.="

One thing I realized was that, my stamina does increase since the first day I start my working life in this college. Now, I can "educate" my students when I see them climb up to my office with all the hard breaths. XD
Other exercises that I usually do (just the matter of frequency of the exercises...):

Cycling
Jogging
Home aerobics
Swimming
Hiking

Today, I didn't do formal exercise, but I walked. Tomorrow will be a rest for the whole family. I will take this chance to go for a swim or jog.

One thing, I would like to share with you, the aerobics that I do following the youtube video clips.

21DHL-Day 7: Review & Plan for Week 2

2012-01-23T22:42:00.001+08:00

Today is the Day 7 of the 21DHL: Review & Plan for Week 2

If I would to rate my performance on my health and fitness in the past week, I would give myself a 6 from scale 1 ~ 10. Why? It's just because I couldn't follow my meal plan. I could follow my fitness plan to workout for 1 ~ 3 days in a week, but not for meal plan.

I didn't eat too much as compared to my meal plan, but I ate too less. I didn't eat vegetables. I did eat fruits, the Mandarin oranges especially. =.=" I ate a lot. Today, finally, I managed to control it because I was traveling for almost the whole day. XD

Still, I drank a lot of water, to prevent from illness in the CNY period of time. I really hate being sick while traveling...
Also, I didn't do meditation for many times. In fact, I plan to do meditation 3 times a week, but ended up done only once in the past week. Reason? I was busy preparing for Chinese New Year --> valid reason? By the way, any valid / invalid reason is invalid to me. I was just giving excuses to myself for being lazy. Ish... Doing my best to avoid from laziness.

Alright, for the 2nd week, I will be traveling for the whole week. I hope that I can continue with my meal plan. For the fitness goal, I believe I will be walking a lot through out the journey. In term of life style, yes, I would need to sleep earlier... and do meditation 3 times a week!!

That's all for today... and it is 10:20pm now, time to prepare to go to bed as my stated goal. ^^

21DHL-Day 6: Follow Your Ideal Meal Plan

2012-01-23T00:23:00.001+08:00

Today, come to day 6: Follow your ideal meal plan.

Today, I gave a good excuse to myself: reunion dinner.
Since it was a reunion dinner, I couldn’t eat less, right? XD

I know, I know, it is not a valid reason. Well, I still managed to control myself within the range of my TDEE calories. It was just that, I couldn’t stop myself from eating Mandarin oranges!!! >.<

Sigh… I just couldn’t help myself on that. I could control myself from eating other favorite food, or even junk food, but only this Mandarin oranges!! Why? Because I can only eat that during the Chinese New Year period. =.= This shows that I really appreciate the chances I have for anything at anytime.

Right, back to topic. After today (in fact, it should be today, the time is 12:21am now), I will be leaving for a family trip during the Chinese New Year period. I hope that I can still stick to my meal plan everyday. I will do my best! However, I might not be able to follow the challenge daily. Only when I have the time to look through the challenge’s tasks, then I will be able to follow the challenge.

That’s all for now. Time to go to bed. For those Chinese around the world, hereby, I wish you Happy Chinese New Year! Happy Dragon year!!

21DHL–Day 4: Create Your Ideal Meal Plan

2012-01-21T01:32:00.001+08:00

Day 4’s task: Create Your Ideal Meal Plan

Nothing much today, again, I spent a lot of time in creating this ideal meal plan. I kept adjusting the plan, and I uploaded the image file below a few times (5 times uploaded because of the adjustment). Well, here it is:

Hmm, when we say “Ideal”, yeah, it is really my ideal meal plan, but how many days can I maintain it? or how long can I maintain this plan?

Hah! Today itself, I didn’t follow it, I ate a lot of junk food today. I couldn’t stand with those junk food putting in front of me without putting into my mouth! Gosh! Especially mandarin orange, my favourite fruit for the whole Chinese New Year! You cannot imagine, I took 5 mandarin orange today! =.="

Definitely, the total calories taken today is already over, much much over from the TDEE calculated earlier on. Hmm… Tomorrow, I would need to control it back… Control, control, control!!!

Today, I updated the excel file again, added another worksheet Daily Calories, which is to summarize how much of calories taken everyday. For now, I just show until the end of this challenge, 21 days.

Alright, it’s time to sleep. After watching a nice detective movie series, I could feel the feeling of satisfactory! XD

Good night, all!

21DHL–Day 3: Calculate Your Daily Energy Expenditure

2012-01-19T16:55:00.001+08:00

Coming to Day 3’s task of 21DHL: Calculate your daily energy expenditure

Today, I spent 3 hours to complete this task… Not much actually, just that I wanted to go through what is talking about in the calculation process.

We are able to calculate the total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) by using the following formula:

TDEE = Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) + Calories burned from activities

BMR means the calories burned when a person do absolutely nothing. For BMR calculation, it depends on 4 variables: gender, weight, height, age. I’m using weight and height in metric unit, so the formulas are as below:

Women: BMR = 655 + ( 9.6 x weight in kilos ) + ( 1.8 x height in cm ) - ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men: BMR = 66 + ( 13.7 x weight in kilos ) + ( 5 x height in cm ) - ( 6.8 x age in years )

After the BMR is calculated, take the BMR to multiply with a number according to Harris Benedict Equation to obtain the minimum energy needed for the body. In my case, my BMR calculated is 1537.
Then, I’m a lazy person, do exercise only once a week, so I take my BMR multiply with 1.375 ––> 1537 x 1.375 = 2113.38 calories

That means, If I were not do anything in one whole day, I’m burning 1537 calories. Whereas if I were to do exercise, then I will be burning 2113.38 calories.

Also, another task, I was requested to calculate the difference of my ideal weight and current weight, and see how much of weight that I should reduce. Now, I go for my targeted weight first because I’m having a bet with my friends to see if I can reduce 10 kg before 10 April.

Now I have reduced 2 kg, thus I still have 8 kg to go. 8 kg = 2.2 x 8 = 17.6 lb.

To lose 1 lb, I will need to reduce 3500 calories; 17.6 lb will require to reduce 3500 x 17.6 = 61600 calories.
Assume that I wish to reduce 61600 in 80 days, meaning that everyday I will need to reduce around 770 calories.

Meaning, if my TDEE is 2113.38 calories, then I should intake only 1343.38 calories, or if I intake more calories, then I will need to do more exercise to reduce the calories. What a hard job… But I will still do my best, but I know, if I would to reduce that much of calories, it is not healthy. Again, I will do my best in a healthy way.

Anyway, I have updated the google docs: 21DHL_Calories
Added 2 worksheets:

TDEE for the calculation of Day 3's tasks
My daily food record - I hope that I won't lose track for this worksheet...

I will keep it updated from time to time.

21DHL–Day 2: Create A Calories List

2012-01-18T23:40:00.001+08:00

Today, the 2nd day of 21DHL, which came along with a difficult task for me: Create a calories list.

The task required me to come out with a list of food taken within the past one week, and find out the calories and fat contained in the food listed.

Hmm… I have never done this before. To me, it is very difficult for me to control my eating habit, that was the reason why I didn’t create one. However, when I started to create this list, then only I realized… how hard to create a list of this. Since I’m following this challenge, yes, this is a challenge to me, and I will complete it.

It spent me hours to search around for the calories contained in the food items. Although I didn’t take much of different food, but it was still hard for me to search in English. >.<

Well, my English is not so good, and the English websites categorize the each food item in a very detailed method, include how the food is cooked. Wah… that was tedious to look through all items and figure out how the food was cooked… =.=" Luckily, I found a website in Mandarin that was recommended in the thread, which allows the users to check the calories in Mandarin. XD

Here I upload the excel file into the google docs: 21DHL_Task2_Calories

I included the food taken today, as requested in the Day 2’s task. And yes, this is also a continuous task until the last day of this challenge.

Lastly, today, I drank around 2.5 liters of water – just a record for myself.

That’s all for tonight. Good night!

21DHL–Day 1: Drink The Right Amount of Water

2012-01-18T00:28:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, I started another challenge: 21 Days of Healthy Life. Today, here starts the first task: Drink the right amount of water.

According to the thread, we can roughly calculate the amount of water that needed by our body everyday. There are 2 ways of calculations:

If you calculate your weight in pounds, divide your weight by 2. That is the amount of water (in ounces) needed by your body per day.
If you calculate your weight in kilograms, divide your weight by 30. That is the amount of water (in liters) needed by your body per day.

Then, assume that the fluid contained in the food you take contributes 20% of the water we needed. So you may take the result calculated earlier, multiply it by 80%. That is the water you should take in everyday.

For me, I use the second method. My current weight is 76 kg, so the amount of water needed by my body per day:
76kg / 30 = 2.53 liters of water needed per day

Then, deduct 20% of the fluid contained in the food intake:
2.53 liters * 80% = 2.02 liters of water need to be intake per day

In this case, I'm wondering, should I change my ideal vision to be around 2 liter of water, instead of 3 liter of water per day? In fact, I'm taking more than 2 liter of water everyday. As mentioned in the thread, I usually drink water before I go to bed, after I wake up, before / after my meals and during my working hours.

I started this habit only 3 months ago. Before that, I seldom take water, and I didn't feel thirsty at all. I drank water only when I felt thirsty. I knew it was a bad habit, but I always forgot about drinking water. Now, I put the water bottle in front of me most of the time, either in office, in class, in my room, or anywhere. It is to remind me of drinking water.

I will continue this habit not only in this 21DHL, but the rest of my life.

21 Days of Healthy Life (21DHL)

2012-01-16T18:32:00.002+08:00

After a rest from this blog, again, I’m back; again, I’m following a challenge in Personal Excellence. What is new now? Again, I’m late, late to this challenge again. I just started it today.

This is a challenge that touches my aim in losing weight. This challenge is 21 Days of Healthy Life (21DHL).Yeah!! What an encouragement! So, I began.

First of all, I’m requested to start a pre-work task before I really start it off. There are 3 steps:

Step 1: List down my ideal life style, ideal weight and ideal diet

My ideal weight is 65kg, not too thin, but fit.
I'm well-fit into those dresses sold in the market.
I have good stamina for hiking in shorter time.
I'm taking less chicken and pork, more vegan diet and fish
I drink at least 3 liters of water per day
I take more iron contented food to increase the volume of hemoglobin
I exercise 3 times a week: Monday, Wed, Sat / Sun
I sleep between 10:30 ~ 11:00 pm every day

Step 2: State my target achievement after this 21DHL
Definitely, I would like to lose weight! I hope that I will be able to lose at least 3kg from my current weight of 76kg. At least 3kg, that means, I hope to lose more than 3kg if possible. XD

Step 3: List down the necessary steps to complete this target in step 2

Exercise at least 3 times a week, at least 45 minutes every time
Take less chocolate food and meat
Take more vegetables and fish
Have dinner before 7pm every day
Go to bed before 11pm
Meditation for half an hour, 3 times a week

Whether or not I’m able to achieve it, it depends on my determination. There are too much temptation out there. How much I can control myself? Let’s work it out! I know I can!

21DJC-Day 21 - What is Your Biggest Wish for the Future?

2011-12-11T22:59:00.001+08:00

I have finally come to an end of this 21 Day Journal Challenge. Today is the last day of this challenge, ended with the question: What is my biggest wish for my future?

I always tell myself that, I have achieved all the goals in my life, except one: to form a family.

I wish to have a husband with a few kids. I believe that with the family, I would be able to learn even more and move to the next level of my life.

I hope that my dream would be achieved by age of 32. I really hope so, and I’m working into it as well.

Tonight, I ended this last post of 21DJC with a short one.

21DJC–Day 20 - What Limiting Beliefs Are You Holding On To?

2011-12-11T00:00:00.001+08:00

Today is the second last day of this Daily Journal Challenge program from Personal Excellence. Today’s question is: What is the limitting belief that hold me back from reaching to the next level in my life? (Phew~ a long question!)

With this long question, there is only one word as my answer: Confidence!

Yes, I don’t have confidence enough on myself. Before I’m to do something, I would ask myself: what is I cannot make it? What if something happen in between? What if… Many “what-if” questions would appear in my mind.

I know my appearance is not good enough, that’s why I’m lack of confidence. And that is the reason why, I accepted the challenge from my friend to reduce my weight for 10kg in 6 months. It might be tough for me, as this is my very first attempt to reduce my weight, but I would try my best.

I know my teaching skill is not good enough, so I try to be creative, inject a few new ideas into my lessons. Some of them failed, while some of them succeeded. From those ideas that failed, I figured out what the students think normally, and I would try to tackle their interests. (Sigh, it seems that it is not easy to be a lecturer. We still need to tackle the students’ interests in order to make it to be a good lesson)

I know my communications skill is not good enough, so I try to learn to communicate by joining Toastmasters Club. However, due to some issues, I decided to leave next year. I would concentrate on my Master course after that. It is not to say that communication skills is no longer important to me, but it is just that I know I cannot handle too many things at once. I would need full concentration in only one thing most of the time in order to come out with a good result. That is one of the reason that I decided to leave.

I know my drawing skill is not good enough, so I decided to start learning drawing myself, by taking note on how people draw and how I draw. I hope that I can enter to the competition one day too!

I know my photography skill is not good enough, so I decided to learn taking photos and edit photos in different styles, but not limit myself to only one style of photo editing. I would let my feeling flows!

All these happened because of lack of confidence in myself. So I started to take corrective actions. I would not let myself hold back with what I have planned and what I wish to achieve so much in my life, before I leave this world.

Go on! I can make it!

21DJC-Day 19 - What Words Best Describe You?

2011-12-10T00:15:00.001+08:00

It is the 19th journal that I have written for this 21 Daily Journal Challenge. Today’s question is what words best describe me?

If I would to describe myself, I guess, the way people see me and the way I look at myself would be different. If other people look at me, they would always think that I’m a cheerful person. I always have smile on my face. But, I would to describe my own characteristics, I would say, I’m an emotional person. I’m easily affected by other people’s emotions. That is the reason why I always want to make people around me to be happy, because I want myself to be happy as well.

Besides, to myself, I think that I’m a highly motivated person. No matter how bad of feeling I have, I would be able to recover in a fast manner. I know that I have to go on with my life, so I cannot stop at the same place for long time, I cannot afford to. That is how I live until today.

In term of appearance, hmm… I have a bad word to describe myself, too casual. I seldom take note on my appearance, as long as I feel comfortable, I will wear the clothes. It is good in a way that I know what I want, but it is bad in term of trying out new clothes. I know I might have new taste if I would to try out new style of wearing. I know, just that I do not have the guts to try it out. =.="

That’s all for tonight. I feel kind of tired today, driving and working the whole day. Wish you enjoy your holiday.

21DJC–Day 18 - What Matters Most To You?

2011-12-08T13:43:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, I skipped this journal again because of the business in preparation for today’s class. So today, I have my day 18’s question: What matters most to me?

After thinking for some time, I think, the only thing that matters me, is smiles of the people around me. I always hope that the people around me will be happy and smile. When they smile, I will feel happy.

Yes, I always mentioned that appreciation with sincere heart is important, and I’m a self conscious person, always thinking to make myself happy. This is the way how I make myself happy, or you can say that it is the matter of chicken and egg. Is there chickens exist in this world before eggs or vise versa?

I wish to make myself happy, so I make the people around me to be happy. The people around me feel happy, so I feel happy. To me, both are the same. So it doesn’t matter if I make people happy because I want to feel happy, or I feel happy because the people around me are happy.

Whether or not I’m doing good in making people to feel happy, I guess I will still in the learning stage, learn to make people feel happy. If it is not offended to my principles, I can be a clown, can be a laughing stock for the people around me.

As said, smile can draw relationships to be closer, while laughter can cure diseases. So, why not all of us smile or laugh all the time, so that we will have better relationship and keep ourselves away from diseases? Try it, we can always smile, if we have the wish to make the rest of the people to smile. We can always smile, if we take note on the details in our lives. We can always smile, if we appreciate for what we have currently.

21DJC–Day 17 - If The World Came To An End Today, How Would You Feel?

2011-12-07T00:10:00.001+08:00

Today’s question is a common question, how would I feel if today is the end of the world? This topic always appears during the Toastmasters meetings, or even when we were writing essay in the secondary schools.

Different age, we have different thinking. If I were in secondary school, I would feel that I have not enough time to enjoy the life, enjoy the world. If I were in college, I would feel that I have not enough time to achieve my dreams, achieve my goals. And now, I’m an adult, and I have nearly achieved all my goals in my life, except for forming a family.

If today is the end of the day, how would I feel? I would say, yes, I’m ready to go, ready to leave this world, ready to survive in other spaces, if there were other spaces after we transform our lives. Since everything is the end, why should I still be persistent with my goals and desires? No matter how, everything is gone, there will be nothing left in this world, in this earth.

Maybe, we would have a different lives in the other world? Or maybe, we would transform to a new type / style of life? I would say, I always appreciate with what I have now, so there’s no regret, nothing left behind that I haven’t made it. So, just appreciate every moment we have, do not waste the time too much on unnecessary thing. Appreciate so that we have no regret! By the time when it comes to the end of the world, we would be able to say, YES, I’M READY!!

On the other hand, to prevent the world to come to an end, just appreciate the earth that we currently have. Do less damage towards it if possible. I’m practicing that as well. Just try my best to protect it (while I’m still turning on my air-condition system, as the weather is really hot nowadays…). I know everything will come to an end one day, but what we can do now is to prolong the life of our mother Earth. So, let’s work it out together.

21DJC–Day 16 - What Makes You Happy?

2011-12-05T23:23:00.001+08:00

Yesterday’s question talked about pain, while today’s question is talking about happiness. What brings me happiness?

This is a simple question, but complicated answer. I would just say, there are 2 situations that make me happy. First, is that I’m able to be with my family / friends. Hanging out with family / friends, just to have a short break, or a meal. That’s good enough for me to feel happy, and let me know that I’m still alive, still having members supporting my life. Without family and friends, I have nothing left.

Second, is that when I feel satisfactory in me. There can be many reasons for me to feel satisfactory. For example, when I finish a craft work, a drawing, photograph editing, etc. Those are the satisfactory towards myself, my achievements. Sometimes, if other people achieved something, I feel happy for them as well.

Not long ago, 2 groups of my students, 30 students overall, all of them passed the test! I felt so happy! I felt happy not because I was good in teaching, but because of their efforts put into the assignments and tests. I felt happy to see them grow. Although they complained a lot about the difficulties of the assignments / tests, but at last, they passed! They have shown their efforts that they were able to make it. That was what I felt happy about.

Some of my friends said, they always can see smile on my face. Yes, I always feel happy that, I’m alive now. We don’t know what will happen in the next minute, or even the next second, so just appreciate what we have right now. If we have the chance to be happy, don’t hide, just explode it out and spread the happiness to the people around us! Let them feel the happiness together!

21DJC-Day 15 - What is the Most Painful Thing You Have Ever Experienced To Date?

2011-12-04T23:33:00.001+08:00

What is the most painful thing i have ever experienced. There is only one thing that stuck in my mind since my childhood.

It was an incident that I couldn’t even tell my family. I know, once I say it out, things will change. That was during my childhood time. And now, I’m already an adult. I can tell, but I choose not to tell. I hope that time will cure my pain.

And yes, time cures it, slowly. Up till now, I’m slowly released from the pain. How many years that I have beared the pain? 5 years? 10 years? No, it has been 20 years. It became a nightmare for me when time past. Now, I want it to become a past incident that I can tell off, just like a story telling. So, I started to tell my friends about the story, but not to tell my family about it.

Anyway, it was pain. Now, it has past, and I’m released from it slowly. I know, I will be fully released one day.

21DJC-Day 14 - What Is Love?

2011-12-03T23:30:00.001+08:00

Now it comes Day 14, I have done this journal series for 2 weeks! (In fact, it is more than 2 weeks, as I have skipped 2 days before) Today, the question is: What is love?

What does love mean to me? How do I identify that I’m loved by someone? What is the word that I can use to describe love?

Well, I always stress on “Appreciation”. Appreciate what other people have done to me. When I have the feeling of appreciation towards others, I have the feeling of love from them. It is pretty simple, isn’t it?

Just think about it, let’s say one day, you had everything running so terribly, all the things were messed up. Your work was wrecked out, your plan was ruined, you was escalated to your boss or your director, or even you are fired, retrenched, and you felt so depress about all that. You sat on a chair at the roadside, thinking about what had happened through out the whole day, and you was trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Suddenly, the rain fell down from the sky, even the god was trying to ruin your day. Your feeling went down to the bottom of your heart. And then, a stranger walked nearer and nearer to you. He stood beside you, holding an umbrella on top of your head, and asked you, “Friend, are you ok?”

How would you feel?

Yes, to me, the stranger, even though he was just a stranger to me, he had brightened up my day. He didn’t need to be my friend, didn’t need to do anything, just a question, and he could make me feel that I’m back to live. I would feel appreciate of his greeting, even though it was just a simple question. At least, there was someone out there that concern about me. Wouldn’t you feel warm?

So, just go on, concern about your friends. You might not be able to help out with their problems. But you can still be an audience to them. Show your love to your family members, your friends, your partners, your spouse, or even to a stranger that needs help (Of course, you need to take note if the stranger is suspecious…). Remember, your question of concerning, might turn a person alive again.

Personal Dictionary #1

2011-12-02T23:05:00.001+08:00

Today, I decided to start off my personal dictionary by collecting the vocabularies while I’m reading the English posts / novels. I will make sentences with the new vocabularies. I’m to improve my vocabularies.

1. mediate – (v) 调解，劝说；(adj) 间接的
: I tried my best to mediate the misunderstanding between them, but I failed.

2. trauma – (n) 创伤，伤口
: I always believe that time will reduce the trauma in our heart.

3.heed – (n) 注意力，关怀，注意；(v) 注意，听从
: The incident brought up my heed and so I noticed about his suspecious actions.

4.intimidate – (v) 恐吓
: He intimedated her for not telling her family about what he has done to her.

5. perpetuate – (v) 延续
: The existance of this statue perpetuates the spirit of the great leader!

6. intervention – (n) 干预，加入
: Your intervention will just ruin the whole project.

7. qualm – (n) 疑虑（指对所做的事是否正确的疑虑）
: He has no qualms in crossing the line of labour laws.

8. amiable – (adj) 和蔼可亲的
: You can hardly find amiable students in this class because they are reluctant in getting to know each other.

21DJC-Day 13 - What Do You Fear Most?

2011-12-02T22:33:00.001+08:00

Last night I had a gathering with my zither mates and back at home quite late, so I missed this journal again (2nd time). Today, I will continue with the question, what do I fear most?

After I calmed myself down, I asked myself again, what do I fear most? I know, many people afraid of dying. In fact, if you tell me that I’m going to die tomorrow, I have not much fear, as of now. I would not say that I’m definitely not afraid of that as I wouldn’t know what I would think of when the situation comes.

To me, currently, what I fear most is illness, diseases. I live to be happy, so I always concern about how much happiness I can bring to myself in my whole life. I want to make sure that I have no regrets when I leave this world. But, when I hear about my relatives or my friends’ family members getting cancer, or any diseases, I feel that it is even more fearful than dying itself.

If a person dies straight away without much pains, I would say the person is lucky enough to have a good ending in his life. Whereas, if a person dies after the torturing of diseases, he is leaving the world unpeacefully. Further more, when the person is suffering from diseases, it is not himself the only person to feel the pains, but it brings a chain effect to the family members as well. Family members feel sad and worried when looking at the expression of the person while having the pain. It is also a torturing to the family members.

Thus, I’m to say that, health is always more important than wealth. I have to take good care of my health – this is the recent concern to myself. That is one of the reasons, why I started to work out to reduce my weight. I have never wished to be a pretty lady. I was born to be in this way, that is given by my parents, and I appreciate it. I just want to live with a healthy body. That is not to let my parents worry about me, and also a way for me to keep myself happy.

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

2011-11-30T23:36:00.001+08:00

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?

2011-11-29T23:47:00.001+08:00

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?

2011-11-28T17:31:00.001+08:00

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?

2011-11-27T22:39:00.001+08:00

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?

2011-11-25T23:23:00.001+08:00

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?

2011-11-24T23:53:00.001+08:00

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.

I knew a new friend, and he passed away.
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.
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.

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.
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
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?

2011-11-23T21:07:00.001+08:00

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?

2011-11-22T23:48:00.001+08:00

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?

2011-11-21T16:04:00.001+08:00

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!!

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

2011-11-20T11:15:00.001+08:00

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?

2011-11-19T14:50:00.001+08:00

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?

2011-11-19T00:12:00.001+08:00

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.

===================================================================================================

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!

FQ: What are five things that you're most proud of?

2011-11-16T21:39:00.001+08:00

Well, today, my topic will be the 5 things that I’m most proud of. I would say, I’m a person that does not really care on my results while I was studying. However, there were times I felt great about my achievement through the learning journey in my life.

1. My result in Mandarin in SPM
I didn’t go through the formal Mandarin class when I was in Form 4 and Form 5, dure to the racist principal in my secondary school. My father helped me to write a letter to the government of Education, and I got all the signatures from my schoolmates, for getting a Mandarin class opened in my school for Form 4 and Form 5 students. But, my principal held the letter, didn’t send to the government department.

In the end, we could only attend the informal Mandarin class while there was only less than half a year left till SPM. We went thru a tough time in that half a year, or more precisely, only 4 ~ 5 months left, before we took the exam in SPM. Luckily, our Form 3 Mandarin teacher helped us to invite a Mandarin teacher from Chung Ling High School to teach us after school, while other people have left.

At the beginning of the year of my Form 5, when we registered for the SPM exam, my class teacher even asked me to drop Mandarin subject, as there was no Mandarin class in our school. But, of course, I got a good result, a 1A in my SPM for Mandarin subject. I proved to her that, I had made it.

2. My result in Diploma
After SPM, originally, I planned to go to teacher training schools, then become a primary school teacher. It had been my dream job since I was in primary school. However, my dad disagreed with me because he was a teacher before, and he knew how hard a teacher had gone thru. I got no protestion, but I was unhappy.

I went for my second plan: applied the education courses in university. Unfortunately, no news from all universities. Thus, I went for my last choice: applied the IT courses. It was just because, I got no choices, IT was my last choice, since my elder brother studied IT course as well. And, yes, I got the application approved.

I started my new life in TARC, Penang. At first, I thought it would be hard for me, as I have never touched much on computers. The only thing I knew about computer was MIRC. I didn’t know what programming was, I didn’t know what network was, I didn’t know what function keys are doing, I didn’t know… many things about computers. Yet, I got a distinction in my Diploma. Of course, I learned bit by bit, searched through the internet for information. In fact, 11 years before, there were not much information available in the internet, and I did it!

3. My achievement in Dell
I must admit that, I’m not a brilliant person. In the heart of my friends, or even my family, I’m just an ordinary lady, or even an innocent lady. When I worked in Dell, there was the first time that I achieved “Excellent” in my performance.

And, I was recommended by my users, said that they felt happy to work with me. But, to me, I felt great to work with them, I learned a lot from them, and they taught me a lot of things, helped me out in solving issues, guided me through what I should have done.

I appreciated them, I wish they could always do good in their lives too.

4. Achieval of my dream job
As I have mentioned above, I had dreamed of becoming a teacher since I was in primary school. Yes! I have achieved that! Although, through out the years, I have gone through a path towards IT end. But, I still hoped that I could achieve my dream one day.

Now, I’m back to my school, to be a lecturer in TARC, Penang. Of course, I don’t waste my father’s effort of getting my Degree in Computer Science. I’m now teaching programming in TARC. My dream is not a big dream, I don’t want to be a politician, or a big person. I just want to be a teacher, sharing out my knowledge to other people as what I have learned. That’s all. Is it a small dream? Yet, I took years to achieve it.

No matter what, I feel great that I listened to what my father has said to me. It is not easy to be a primary school teacher. Now, while I look at my friends, who are primary school teachers, I feel that, it is not the way I want…

5. …
Hmm… I got no 5th thing that I’m proud of… Anyway, I will do one more for it. I wish that I can form up a family in these 2 years. I know my age, and I know that I should have a partner. Although it is not for the sake of getting married, but I have to plan further for my life. I hope that, the 5th thing that I’m proud of would be, I have formed up a family. I’m telling myself: Hope to hear good news from you soon!! XD

That’s all for now. Wow… it’s a long post huh!! Anyway, time to go to take a bath after exercising! ^^

FQ: What’s the most surprising thing someone has ever said to you?

2011-11-13T23:06:00.001+08:00

Every time, when I try to write in my English blog, I always have to scratch my head for the ideas in blogging. This has never happened in my Mandarin blog. Whatever I wish to write, I will write in Mandarin, that is why I really seldom update my English blog.

I have thought of writing 2 copies of blog posts, one in Mandarin and another one in English, but it will be kinda time consuming, as there were times I wrote the blog post in a rush.

Anyway, since I do not wish to keep on scratching my head for ideas, I think I got to get some ideas from online. Here I have a good suggestion for those who are in the same situation with me: Featured questions from Xanga. There is a topic posted in that page every day for people to talk about it.

The question I choose for today’s topic: What’s the most surprising thing someone has ever said to you?

I would say, someone confessed to me that he likes me. Although it wasn’t a good relationship, but still, that was the most surprising feeling, and I still can remember the feeling, up till now.

Couple months ago, when I was chatting with a net friend, he said something weird… which I was kinda surprise too, although that didn’t mean anything, I guess.

He mentioned, if he would to have chemical effect on me, he would have gone after me.

Yes, I guess, most of the guys do so. But unfortunately, you don’t have the effect on me. Or maybe you have it, but not much. As you have mentioned to me, most of the time, you tend to fall in love to someone that you just got to know her. That is your style.

Thus, I don’t think that I’m your cup of tea. Just forget about it, although I, have had the feeling or chemical effects as you said, towards you since long time ago.

Whatever, that’s all for tonight. I wish that I would have a good sleep tonight. Wish myself good night, and wish you good night.

TM Speech (CC# 4) – What’s happened to the students?

2011-02-04T18:39:00.001+08:00

It’s been a long time that I didn’t update my English blog again… Well, I will remember to update my English blog only when it is something related to Toastmasters, I guess… And for sure, now, it’s again, a script that I used to present for my CC# 4. In fact, I have done my CC#5 half way. Half way? Yeah, I will tell you about that later…

Here is the script for CC#4, presented on 19 Oct 2010:

What’s happened to the students?

“Miss, what is my grade for your paper?” “Miss ah, Do you think I can pass your paper ah?” Those were the questions that my students asked me after the final examination.

Some of the students, they even told me, “Miss, you have to pass me, or else ah, I will be retained for one year, you know?”

“I know. But the future is yours. You are the one to pass yourself and to prepare yourself to face the difficulties, not me! Teachers are just to provide knowledge to you, and to guide you. We are not here to pass you or fail you.”

However, I have no idea, how many of them actually really go and understand my words.

After the release of the exam result, one of my students sent 7 to 8 SMS to me, saying that he failed my subject, wanted me to remark his answer script. And he even blamed me in the facebook, saying that I didn’t let him pass in the final exam. Actually, I knew, I knew that he failed while I was marking his answer script, because I could recognize his handwriting. But, what could I do while everything had come to the final stage? The final exam!

From the examination results, I just realized that, most of the students who failed in final examination are the students with rich family background.

Because of the good environment provided by their parents, they just don’t realize how important does the education meant to them. They can spend whole night playing games and late to the class, giving the reason “not enough sleep” to the lecturers.

When I had 11 am class, the students came to the class and told me, “Miss, can we end the class earlier? We haven’t taken our breakfast.” 11 am! “Did you have class just now?” “No, we just wake up, and we didn’t have time to take our breakfast.”

You see, where is the responsibility of a student nowadays? They just don’t have the sense of responsibilities; they can’t even be punctual to the class!

My colleague told me, “You don’t need to care so much about them. Their parents can afford to spend for them for whole life. Why do you want to worry so much about their results?”

I say, Yes, of course I need to worry about their results, because if they fail my subject, they will keep bugging me with SMS, just like the student I mentioned earlier.

Last week, I just got to know from my friend, who is a secondary school teacher, saying that recently, there are a lot of cases about self-injury. Self-injury is an activity, which a person who takes knife or sharp weapon to hurt himself.

More than 10 students from my friend’s class are committing self-injury. When she asked the students, why they were doing so, the students just said, when they were not happy, or feeling too stress, they would cut their hand. And when they look at their hands bleeding, they will feel released and happier.

Can you imagine that, a 13 ~ 17 years old teenager, having this kind of scary thought in their mind? What if they accidentally cut their artery, then they are not just committing self-injury, but they are actually committing suicide! This action just shows that they are avoiding from taking up the responsibilities!

And the problem is, when my friend met a mother, told the mother about what happen to the child who commit self-injury, the mother just said, “It’s a normal thing what.” K So, you can see that the parents are the problem too.

Normal? If you think that, what is done by the student is considered as normal, then I will think that the mother is abnormal at all.

Is it the stress of children are too high for their study? Or is it the children are too pampered until they can’t even adapt to the stress? Or… is it anything wrong to our education system?

I believe, all of us have to take a look into this issue seriously. In any case, the students nowadays are just different from our old days, in terms of their thinking, their mindset, and their actions. As an educator, I wish that I could to find a way to let the students aware that, they need to be a better person. They can be not excellent in academic, but they must be good in personality.

Whereas for parents, please do not pamper your children too much. Just let them explore their world, explore their interest, and explore their future themselves.

Let us work together to in building up the sense of responsibilities in children, because they are the future of the world. They are the owners of the future!

Evaluation to this speech:

Good starting
Do not use jargon, for eg: SMS – changed to messages thru phone
main veins
good conclusion – call for action
Grammar:

You are the one who is responsible…
failed in my subject
come from a good family
to feed them for the whole life
how scary is that

Time: 6 min 56 sec
Ah-counter: 4 “right?”

say NO!

2010-08-08T09:04:00.001+08:00

When I worked in Dell, many of my colleagues said that I was too good to everyone, and I normally didn’t reject anyone’s requirements. No matter how much of unwillingness, still, I would accept it and think off a way to resolve it.

Yes, I was just too soft, I didn’t wish to hurt anyone, and I didn’t wish to break the relationship between me and other people in the office. If I did so, it was pretty sure that I would make my working life even more hard to go through. I believe, how I treat people, how other people will treat me back. I tried to be good, and so, even until the last moment that I left the company, I got a lot of wishes from all around the world. How good that feeling was!!

However, many people still asked me to learn to say “NO” to other people, or I’m just making myself to be busy for other people, but not for myself. Well… I don’t really able to say “NO” to other people. Why? Hmm… Probably the blog post 7 simple ways to say NO can conclude everything.

Haha, by the way, when I face to my students, and they requested me something, it’s easily for me to say “NO”! Just because, I want them to go and search the information by themselves. That was how we learned in the previous days. We went and found all the information by ourselves, and we applied the information into our assignments, did them by ourselves. Nowadays, the students are just too dependent.

At first, I thought it’s just happening in Malaysia, but according to my friend who is currently working in Singapore, leading a software development team, he said that the new comers in Singapore show their dependent attitude too. They are just waiting for people to spoon feed them, or they will not move on. I wonder, what’s wrong with the education standard nowadays? Who are the ones that create this kind of teenagers?

Wondering…

Had fun in Dell TMC

2010-08-01T19:47:00.001+08:00

Last second Thursday, I attended the Dell Penang Toastmasters Club (Dell TMC) meeting as usual. I just couldn’t miss the happiness that I always have through out the meeting! XD I like the environment over there, which all of them are so crazy of it, not too serious compared to other community TMC.

Anyway, the theme of that meeting was “You Are A Star!!” Hmm… I'am a star? Star of myself, I guess. Everyone must have confident on himself, must be his own star. That is to motivate himself to work better in his life.

During the Table Topic Session, I was called up to the stage. Nah… My hand is always so heavy to be put up, so I need someone to call me up to the stage. =.=" And the person that called me up to the stage was Christopher!!

When I was called, they threw me 2 questions, not one question!! FIrst question, they wanted me to tell them who is my star. =.=" Gosh… I don’t have any star in my heart… Do I admire anyone? Nor… Hmm… What a hard question huh!! The Table Topic Master then asked me to choose among all the attendees, and see who was my star… =.=||| Aha… of course, I would revenge on Chris!! XD So, I chose him to be my star!!

The second question threw to me was: If you have a chance to open a business with Christopher Choong, will you take the chance? Why or why not?

Aha… of course I won’t. My answer was just simple.

1. I don’t want to break the friendship that I have with him. As we know, everything that touches money, it will cause problem. No matter it is friendship, or brother and sister. We heard a lot of news about the breaking of friendship / relationship because of money. Even I and my brother, when we talk about money, we will argue for it. Thus, I don’t think that it is a good idea to open a business with my star.

2. I am not a rich person. So, if I would to open a business with him, Chris, you definitely need to lend me money. I don’t think that he is so generous to lend me his money, while the benefits are shared by both of us, right, Chris? XD

So, conclusion, the answer is NO. However, if I would to open my own business and he open his own business, we share our ideas, work with each others, then I think it would be good. It is just like the sharing that we had in our Toastmasters Clubs. We share and we learn together.

Wah… what a good reason. XD In fact, I don’t even think of opening my own business. I don’t like to do business at all. =.="

After me, of course, my turn to called Chris up to the stage!! Ehehe… but I know, going up to the stage is not a problem for him. He can manage any question that thrown to him after all. :P And, we kept on making jokes within me and him as my star, created many funny problems to the Table Topic Master and the Evaluators.

Haha, we just had fun, made a lot of jokes over there. All people laughed and the meeting ended in laughter. Of course, I would try to join as many clubs’ meeting as possible, if I have the time. I hope that I can adapt to any environment that comes to me. :)

TM Speech (CC# 3) – Appreciation

2010-07-29T22:46:00.001+08:00

On 20-Jul, I attempted to work on my CC# 3, with the title of “Appreciation”. It was just the only topic that I could think of at that time… By the way, I’m on my way to prepare for the CC# 4, if possible, target to be on next month.

Below are my script of the speech, just for recording.

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When we are done for an event, we usually have appreciation session for the committee members to appreciate the efforts they put in to the event to make it a success. Today, I would like to have an appreciation session for a person, who made my life a success. She is none other than my grandmother, who had influenced me a lot through out my growing journey.

She was the person who educated me when I did anything wrong while my parents were not around; She was the person who taught me the China Hokkien Language, which most of my friends don’t really understand; She was the person who told me all the incidents that she has gone through since the Ching Dynasty, until the establish of the Republic of China, until the World War II, until 26 June 2010. Yes, she has just completed her life of 100 years, a century. It was a long journey for her, but it was a short journey for me to be with her.

Since I was born, she baby-sat me until the last moment of her life. Every time, when I went out with my friends, or went out for any event until late at night, she would sit in the living room and wait for me. No matter it was 8pm, 10pm, 12am or 2am, she just sat there and waited for me to return home. She just wanted to confirm, to make sure that I returned home safely.

And, every morning, when I woke up at 5am, I saw her sitting in front of the Buddha statue. She prayed to Buddha, she prayed for us, hope that all of us have safe journeys to work, to the school and back to home. She prayed for us, hope that everyone of us meets kind people outside, so that our work could be done smoothly. I know, the care and love that she has towards me, and even my family, can be endless mentioned.

I thanked her for the care and love, and I thanked her for the understanding and encouragements. When I was in Standard 1, there was once the nurses came to the school for an injection. I was very afraid of injection at that time, so I appealed to her, saying that I didn’t want to go to the school because of the injection. She didn’t scold me, but she explained the purpose of the injection, and she told me that, I need to go and face all the difficulties and fears in my heart by myself, because she and my parents will not always be there for me.

When I went up to secondary school, I got the first for the whole academic year. She was so proud of me, although I was not from the famous schools like Jit Sin and Chung Ling. When I graduated from the university, she was so happy until she even called up my relatives in China to inform them about the news of my graduation. When I bought a car, she felt so glad of me and asked me to fetch her everywhere. When I bought a house, she was so excited to pack her things and waited there, to move in to my new house.

From her expressions, from her actions, I know that, she was truly happy for all my achievements.

I still remember, when I just finished my SPM, she fell sick. A very serious illness until she couldn’t even wake up. However, she still managed to teach me how to cook lunch and dinner for my family. I personally don’t like to cook, even until now. At that time, because my parents were working, so I took care of her day and night. During that period of time, when I was free, I would sit down beside her, chit chat with her, and listened to her stories, again and again.

I knew that, she may leave me one day. Therefore, I decided to jot down all the stories told by her. Now, she has left me, and I managed to jot down 15 chapters of her stories. Those are truly grandma stories, which are the stories about a great wife, a great mother, and a great grandmother. She will always be in my heart, and I will always miss her.

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Comments to myself:
A lot of vocabulary problem… =.=" Need to improve on voice tone, and body gesture.

Planning for the next one…

Memory of Graduation

2010-07-11T18:02:00.001+08:00

Last few weeks, when I attended TARC convocation ceremony, I heard this song, which I miss it a lot!

Yes, “Graduation”, this was a song that released in year 2000, the year we graduated from high school.

In year 2000, I was a girl that didn’t talk much, I was always quiet. But, I sang this song again and again with my good friends, Erika and Caren! We kept on singing as if we were going to graduate on the next day. XD

Time flies, now, Erika has a baby boy, and Caren is working in KL, whereas I’m working in Penang still. Many people said that me and Erika are always a match of sisters. We went everywhere together since high school. Haha, yea, we went to the same class in Form 3, 4, 5, and then went to the same class in Diploma as well as Degree courses. After that, we even went to work in the same company –> Dell. It is just that, our working plants are different, and our jobs scopes are different too.

She goes towards the way as a mummy, and I go towards the way of single life. However, we still keep in touch always. Sweet memory always!

Wish Erika and Caren, have bright future always! :)

A sudden incident

2010-06-28T23:24:00.001+08:00

I would call it as a sudden incident, while it was not a sudden one, too. Since my childhood, my grandma used to tell me, "I will not have the chance to look at your graduation from university…" "When I die one day, you will need to help to put these clothes on me…"

All these words, I can even memorize in my mind, as I have heard of them for more than 20 years. She showed me all the jewelries that she bought for her children, grandchildren, one by one, she mentioned to me, "This is for you… this is for your elder brother… this is for your younger brother… this is for your sister-in-law… this is for your aunt…" Everyone has it. Of course, I couldn’t remember which is for who, but I remember, she was ONLY 70+ years old. Yes, ONLY 70+ years old, and now, she is 100 years old in lunar calendar. Isn’t she great? There is not many people could live until 100 years old, and she is one of them.

She has gone thru not only a few decades, but a century, gone thru all the wars, from Dynasty Ching to the forming of China Republic country. It was not easy for her to survive from all the wars, the hunger, the poorness. She had done everything best to go thru all those, and now, she had done good to leave us, too. She left peacefully, without noticing anyone of us. However, her eyes and mouth closed nicely, very nicely.

She has prepared her will since 20 years ago too. Everything has been nicely arranged and we could make everything done quite fast. I guess she is blessing us on the sky. :)

I cried for 2 days, even though I didn’t really flash back the memories I had with my grandma, but the tears dropped down automatically. I tried to stop it, but I failed. I controlled myself from crying out loud, and just sob aside. This morning, I told myself, I cannot cry anymore. But, when I was alone, tears dropped down again. I couldn’t control it. However, I believe, I can get it thru. Everything will be fine soon.

Grandma, I wish you Rest In Peace. Just let everything go. We will take good care of ourselves.
And, We appreciate all the kindness and great effort you put on us. :)

Something about me

2010-06-12T22:58:00.001+08:00

As usual, most of the incidents happened in my daily life were updated in my Chinese blog 梅人馆. Just an automatic thinking to update my Chinese blog. Thus, most of you might not be knowing me even if you read thru my whole English blog. Instead, you may know all about me thru my Chinese blog, even what I always had in my mind, what are my characteristics, what I like and dislike, etc.

Today, let’s just have a brief introduction about myself. Besides what you knew about me thru the blog post regarding my Toastmasters Club (TMC) speeches CC#1 and CC#2, you may know more about me thru this post. I hope so. :P

As you know, recently, I just changed my job from an IT person to a lecturer. A big change, eh? Yup, it is a big change in job scope, big change in workplace, big change in culture, big change in time management. Many friends of mine asked me, "So, you will have more time for your personal life loh, right?" Honestly, not really.

When I told my colleagues about my daily life, I was shocked with all the schedules I’m working on nowadays too. Below is how my daily life going on when I don’t work:
Mon – I go swimming with friend.
Tue – I go for TMC meeting, alternative weeks.
Wed – I straight away back to home, as my classes finish quite late.
Thu – I go for zither class.
Fri – I go swimming again.
Sat – I spend half a day for zither class.
Sun – The only one day for me to rest, watch movie, do some handicrafts, drawing, etc.

Isn’t it a busy life to you? But, to me, I feel that it is a great life! At least, I do exercise every week. At least, I mix with people every week. At least, I release my tension thru instrument. At least, I have some time to spend for the things I like to work on. At least, I have some time to be alone, and yet, I am not lonely. XD

This is the life style that I have dreamt for a long time. And now, I have achieved it! What’s more? I need to maintain it, or even enhance it! Haha, it’s just like enhancing a system. I will not just let my system running in that way all the time. I will improve it.

Guess what? I’m planning to take a zither examination on this Sept. ^^ Next week, I need to get the form from my zither teacher. I want (not wish, but want! XP ) to know, after 4 years learning zither, what my level is currently. I plan for my new target –> go up to the stage to perform! And, I know that this target would be a long way to go. I hope I can achieve them one day!

Ish… I have a lot of targets which I’m working on right now, and I really do not have the time to work on all of them in parallel. Here are my new list of targets, small targets, I would say:
1. I want to pass the zither exam. –> Need to be more hardworking on zither… Hehehe…
2. I want to go travel to China –> Planning for the trip to Shanghai EXPO in Sept too, after the zither exam.
3. I want to improve my teaching way, looking at it and see which students suit to which way of learning –> Still in progress, which I’m getting input from other lecturers…
5. I want to enroll MSc course within these few years. –> After researching from USM, it seems that I have to take research mode for the MSc course… It is the only one part time course. =.=" Still planning.
4. I want to be a responsible member in TMC as the role of VPM within this year. –> Explore myself in leadership and relationship with people around the world.
5. I wish to complete my CC assignments within this one year, and go on with my CL manual. –> I just completed 2 assignments in one year!! Gosh!! >.<
6. I wish to come out with some craft products as giveaway for family and friends. –> This is not so important, but it is one of my targets too…

One thing good for my currently job is that, my daily schedule changes every semester, depending on the teaching timetable. To some people, it might be tedious to keep changing the life schedule. But, to me, I prefer to change it all the time, or else, I will feel that my life is dull after some time, keep having the same schedule for all the life…

Ah… a long stories of me. Hope it doesn’t bored you guys out there! Wish you have nice weekend!! ^^

Grab the chance :)

2010-06-02T22:27:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, I attended another Toastmasters Club meeting. There was an election of executive committee (Exco) for the new term, which will start on this coming July. And, I was elected as Vice President of Membership (VPM)!!

Actually, it was not surprise to me when I was nominated as the VPM, because I received a call on Monday, from one of the existing Exco members, telling me that they nominated me as VPM. They would like to ask if I'm willing to take up the challenge. Sure, I’m willing to take the challenge.

There are a few reasons for me to take up this challenge:
1. I have the plan to build up my leadership skill. As I have chosen this career path, leadership skill is definitely a must for me, in order to be succeed in education field. Indeed, not only education field, but anyone should have leadership skill in him / her.

2. As I have joined the education field, I know that my relationship circle will become smaller, as compared to MNC. While working in MNC, I met a lot of people from all around the world. Now, the people I usually meet are only the lecturers and students, or the college officers. Thus, I need to find some way to expend my friendship circle. I do not plan to do any business or go for any direct sales, insurance fields, but just want to input more knowledge from different areas.

3. As I have free up some of my time, compared to my previous job, I definitely need to do more things to fill up my free time. I understand that time is precious, I need to learn as much as possible. I don’t want to let myself fall into the comfort zone. Keep going!

4. I wish to know how to run an organization, the processes and procedures. I know it will not be easy, but I must give myself a chance to learn about it. Who knows, I will own a business myself? At that time, I will definitely need to know how to run an organization, and how to rule everything nicely. :P (Anyway, for now, I do not have the plan to own a business…)

Basically, these are the reasons I decided to grab the position. I know that I will face difficulties during this one year, but there’s where I learn, I grow. Try my best!! ^^

Good night, everyone!

Wesak Day Photoshooting

2010-05-30T23:21:00.001+08:00

Previously, whenever I had public holiday, I felt very happy because I didn’t need to work on public holiday, and I must remembered to set Out of Office message on. Right now, whenever I have public holiday, it worries me. Although I still do not have to work during public holiday, but I need to make replacement class. I need to make sure all syllabus can be covered within the semester. Luckily, it is not necessary to call out replacement class during public holiday, or else, I will be headache with the public holidays. XD

Last Friday, was our public holiday, Wesak Day, which is the Buddha’s birthday. Everyone went for holiday, and of course, me too!! Yeah~~ what about replacement class? Hehehe… I told my students, if they did not wish to have the replacement class, then they will need to complete the practical questions in 2 hours, or else I would plan for the replacement class. :P What an evil lecturer! Hehehe…

And of course, I got to go for my holiday happily, and I enjoyed the photoshooting on the Wesak Day with Keith. We went for a lunch, then we went to a Siam temple nearby Butterworth Chung Ling High School. Wesak Day is always a big day in Malaysia, as it’s a big day for Buddhists. All Buddhist temples celebrate for the day. I took a lot of photos for that day, as below~

While I was waiting for Keith to take photos, I saw my student walked pass the road!! Ish… He acted like he didn’t see me, and I was sure that he saw me. =.=" Anyway, it was ok, probably it was jus that he felt shy, I guess.

By the way, I enjoyed it a lot, although it was a tiring day. ^^

That’s all for tonight. I’m going to meet my Mr Moon now~ Wish all of you have a good week!

The Guy in Mc Donald =.=

2010-05-20T17:52:00.001+08:00

It’s been a week that I thought of having Mc Donald as my breakfast while on my way to college. Today, I have made it!! Wakaka~~ A simple little thing can make me so happy, and that’s me. XD

Well, because of Mc Donald, I purposely departed from my house at 7am and took ferry to Penang island. When I reached Mc Donald at Gurney Drive, it was 8am. Besides having Mc Donald breakfast, I was trying to estimate how long do I need to take to college by ferry. It was still under my estimation, and I still had time to buy a breakfast set with RM4.50 excluding the tax, sat down at a seat beside the window, enjoying my delicious breakfast set.

While I was enjoying my coffee and reading an ancient China novel "Shan Hai Jing", there was a guy phoned to someone and shouted to that person in the phone loudly. He kept on scolding that person for at least 10 minutes!! Gosh… all my mood wat spoiled. >.<" Early in the morning, can’t you just give other people a peaceful environment? You didn’t have good mood, but can you please think of other people? I know you are a business man, but business men do have brain, right? Why didn’t you have one?

Anyway, I didn’t really explode my feeling on that, just continued with my reading. I was thinking that, his whole day was spoiled by the call that he made too. I remembered that he told the person in the phone that, he was sick for the whole week and he just went back to office on Monday because he wanted to sign an important check. Haha, a person that sick for the whole week still could sit in Mc Donald enjoying his breakfast? What a liar… And this is what we call "business man", especially a Chinese business man. XD

Of course, that was not my matter. I just finished my coffee and went off. Why do people want to get angry? Hmm…

just listen

2010-05-19T23:41:00.001+08:00

I’m used to listen to red.fm while I’m on my way to college or back to home recently. Last time when I worked in Dell, I usually car pooled with 2 guys, and they used to listen to Chinese radio channel or CD songs.

To me, actually I do not really like to listen to Chinese radio channel. I just feel that, nowadays, the artists are trying to follow the styles of English songs, and yet, they cannot reach the level as in English songs. At the end, the songs composed are neither Eastern style nor Western style. Why do they want to follow other people? Why can’t they just create their own style as a Chinese style?

Anyway, that’s my personal opinion. Let’s listen to 2 songs from One Republic, which I feel they are not bad to me. :)

Before this, I have heard to the song “Apologize” from One Republic too, and I like that songs a lot too. The song “Secret” was a song that I heard from red.fm, while “Stop and Stare” was a song I got from internet when I was trying to search the song “Secret”.

Hope you enjoy the songs. ^^

My very first class

2010-05-19T21:06:00.001+08:00

“All right, guys. Please come over here to sign your attendance and settle down yourself.”

“The students at the back. Please keep quiet. You are disturbing other students.”

These sentences are the sentences that I have heard from my teachers / lecturers when I was still a students. And right now, these are the sentences that come out from my mouth. =.="

Before I entered to the class, I have heard many comments from other lecturers that, those classes of students are having some problems. They do not actually listen to what lecturers say in the class. And today, I experienced it. However, I would say that, it was still not in that bad situation. They were just talkative, and they were not disturbing the lecturer (It is an indirectly disturbing indeed). XD And, some other students that willing to learn actually helped me to ask the students to keep quiet. At least I was solaced with those students’ action because there were someone that still willing to listen to me. :P

However, the hour allocated to my course are too long. I finished 20 slides in 1 hour but actually there are 2 hours allocated to the lecture classes. =.=" Before I left office, I went to my colleague’s room, and she suggested me to distribute some work to the students while giving the lecture, just in order to utilize the 2 hour lecture.

Yea, that is a good way, and I can think some questions to help the student to understand the concepts. Or it’s possible that I can play a game with them huh. :) All right… just think about it.

That’s all for my first lecture and that was the last class for this week too. I only have one lecture class in one week and this week we do not have tutorial classes. XD

Teacher or not?

2010-05-17T15:53:00.001+08:00

Today is the first day of a new semester. However, it is not my first day of teaching. My first lecture class will be on Wednesday, which is a 2 hour lecture class. Many people asked me what is my feeling to be a lecturer. Am I nervous? Or am I feeling any excitement? Honestly, nothing much feeling I have in me. Maybe it is because this is not the first time I teach.

I was a temporary teacher before, although it was only a 2-day temporary teacher. Because of certain issue, I did not continue my wish to be a temporary teacher at that time. However, I had the experience in teaching (Yeah… they are not big kids as students I’m going to teach now), and I appreciated those 2 days of teaching life.

There was once I flinched from my dream to be a teacher, especially when I faced those naughty students. They were the last class’s students, who did not even bother what the teachers said. I was frustrated although I just taught them for only 2 days. I asked myself, whether I was suitable to be a teacher? Was that really what I want?

Yes, I told myself, this is what I want, and I believe, I will not regret for what I have chosen. That is just what I want to be. :)

I hope, I could let all students and let them understand that, study is not the most important thing in our life, but it is necessary for us to learn, to study.

A careless day…

2010-05-05T22:30:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, one of my primary classmates SMS to inform me to go over to her Toastmaster club. I replied and said yes, I will go over to take a look. She also informed that I will be the “Ah Counter” this round.

At night, after I fetched penquin, I straight away headed to Seberang Jaya Safira Club to join the Toastmaster meeting. Once I reached there, I told the committee there that I was the Ah Counter.

When I settled down, I looked around, and I didn’t see my primary classmate there. When I looked at the meeting agenda, there was no name stated for Ah Counter in the agenda. I started to feel curious, why my primary classmate wasn’t there?

As the meeting has started, I just could SMS to my primary classmate and waited for her reply. She didn’t reply me at all, so during the break time, I tried to called my primary classmate, but I failed. Thus, I just looked for the president of the club and asked whether my primary classmate belongs to that club.

Surprisingly, the president told me, she does not belong to that club. Oh gosh!! I went to the wrong club!! And I even grabbed their Ah Counter role!! What an embarrassing situation!! Ah~~~

Although they said that it’s ok, not a problem, but I felt like finding a hole and skip myself into the hole!! Ish!!

Anyway, from there, I knew that my primary classmate is the president of another club, and her club is in Northern Tower. Northern Tower!! It’s very far far away from the Seberang Jaya Toastmasters Club!!

Sigh… I really couldn’t imagine that I was such a careless girl… Wordless…

TM speech (CC# 2) - Secret

2010-04-22T22:58:00.001+08:00

On the past Tuesday, I attended the Seberang Jaya Toastmasters Club meeting with Penquin, as she is looking around to join the Toastmasters Club that is near to her house. It was a good experience to go around outside and join with other people from other clubs. There were a few people from some other clubs that attended the meeting as well.

I realized that, every time when I have something in my mind, and I wish to talk about that, my hands will automatically turn to be very cold, and even shaking. Indeed, I don’t even get up to speak yet!! =.=" And, that is why, I feel that my hands are so heavy to be put up and say I want to have a try on the table topics session. >.<

Anyway, today, I attended another meeting, which was the Dell Penang Toastmasters Club meeting, and I presented my speech for assignment# 2. (Gosh… I have joint for more than half a year, and yet, that was only my 2nd assignment!!) The speech presented is as below. Some of the sentences could be different from what I presented, but the ideas and meanings are still the same. I try to put down here as a record for future reference on what I have presented.

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Title: Secret

After I graduated from the university, I bought a car and a house in 3 years time. I’m not proud of what I have achieved, because right now, I’m suffering from the car loan and the home loan. Indeed, those are my goals, my dreams.

Just right after I bought the house, my brother brought me a video clip, which teaches us how to achieve our dreams, how to achieve our goals. All and all, it talks about the law of attraction. It means, whatever we think in our mind, it will create an attraction to the universe, and the universe will arrange the things to be in the situation as what we think in our mind.

After I watched the video clip, I look back at my past, I realized that, the way I used to achieve my dreams, my goals, are the same as what was presented in the video clip. The title of this video clip is “Secret”. I believe, some of you might have read the book, right? So, today, I’m going to share with you the summary that I made after watching the video clip. The 2 main points of the video clip that I captured from the video clip.

First point, is to ask yourself, ask yourself, what you actually really need to have in your life. You can write it down on a piece of paper, write with the sentences in present tense. It means, you need to imagine that you have achieved your dreams. You can imagine the feeling that you have after you have achieved it. Imagine, imagine with the senses of your body. You can feel with your vision, what you can see; your hearing; you can smell it, probably; or the taste; or even the touching. It will increase the passion you have towards your dreams, your goals, and it will motivate you move forward to achieve them.

In addition, if you want to make it to be better, you can try to find the picture that related to your dreams, your goals and cut it down, paste it on some places that visible to you. For example, if I would to buy a 2nd house, I can go and find a picture of the house, which I like the design a lot, cut it down and paste on the wall, or somewhere that visible to me, so that every time, when I pass by the place, I will look at it and imagine that I have got my 2nd house. It will really motivate you to achieve it.

For the 2nd point, is to accept. Accept everything that comes to you, accept it with the positive way, whether it is a good one, or a bad one. If it is a good one, of course, you don’t have any problem to accept it, but how about the bad one? You will have to accept it, and pray for it to get away from you. When you pray, you will need to use the positive words in your prayers. Try not to use the negative words, for example, “no”, “not”, “don’t want”, all these negative words. For example, let’s say, today I have diarrhea, then, tonight, when I go onto the bed, I could pray for it. I could pray that, “Oh, I hope that tomorrow, when I wake up, my stomach will be OK.” Try not to use the negative words, something like “Oh, I hope that tomorrow, when I wake up, I will have no more diarrhea.” Although the meaning of these 2 sentences are more or less the same, but try to think carefully. When you say “I have no more diarrhea”, but it’s possible that you might have some other problems on your stomach. So, not to use the negative words in your prayers.

I have tried to have discussion with my friends, who have read the book “Secret” before, most of them feedback to me that, this Secret is best used when you are finding car park. Anyone of you have tried for this? For those people who have not tried out before, you may go and have a try. It works for me.

To me, I used this secret to achieve 2 dreams: one is to buy a car; 2nd is to buy a house. And now, I use the secret to achieve my 3rd dream, which is to be a lecturer, as I mentioned in my first assignment. I have achieved it!

So, just remember 2 points:
One is to ask yourself, what is the things that you really need to have, imagine it and visualize it.
2nd is to accept all the things that come to you positively.

If I can use this secret to achieve my dream, so you can do it as well!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The time presented was 6 min 33 sec.
The main comment was that, I need to have a stop while I was doing the transition from one point to another. It is to let the audience to have a chance to digest for what I was talking about. :)

Alright, that’s all for tonight. It’s a tiring day, but the meeting was really really fun!!

My Photography Coaches :P

2010-04-19T21:55:00.002+08:00

Recently, I’m kind of addicted to photography. But still, I do not plan to buy a DSLR camera for now, as I’m lazy to bring a heavy camera along the way with me wherever I go. No way…

However, I wish to explore my capability on photography with my current Canon IXUS 80IS and see how far I can go with this compact camera. ^^ Probably I just wish to prove that compact camera can produce a nice picture as a DSLR too.

Yea, I got recognized by my coaches of photography ( I call them as my coaches, as I learn photography from them too :P ), saying that I did a good job on taking pictures by using a compact camera. Yeah~! I feel so happy on that~!

One of my coaches is my ex-boss, CH, an interesting guy. XD He has a lot of funny actions, and recently he seems to get himself into his own taken photos a lot with those funny actions. To me, he is really a talented guy, and I like all photos taken by him, including the ideas of photo taking angles. ^^

Another coach, Christopher (Chris), is working in the same company as me, and he is a part time wedding photographer. He is the consultant of our company Shutterbugs society, presents the theories of photography and teach us how to take a good photo too. :)

Yea, today I introduce 2 guys that appear in my life. Hmm… not my dream guy, anyway. Hehehe~~ Hope you enjoy reading their blogs.

Good night! ^^

Photowalk sessions ^^

2010-04-18T23:21:00.001+08:00

I have been to photowalk for 2 times, with Dell’s shutterbugs members. Well, those are nice experience on shooting different things from different angles. Our consultant taught us how to shoot some photos as well, how to get the nice angles, how to shoot with the settings, etc. Although those settings might not be available in my compact camera, but still, I managed to use my own setting to get some nice pictures ( I think so… haha).

Below are my first photowalk on 10-Apr-2010. ^^
Although the titles are in Chinese, but I guess more or less, you should be able to see what are in the pictures.
If you really can’t get what is the stupid thing in the picture, just let me know. :P

And, below is my second photowalk on 17-Apr-2010.
The objective was to Heritage Shooting. But, I seemed to fail the objective. =.="
I snapped a lot of pictures which are actually out of topic. Haha~~

Alright, that’s all for tonight.
I actually planned to do some backup on my data in the notebook, but I failed my plan again. >.<
I did all the nonsense and yet nothing being backed-up. =.="

Anyway, still, good night, and wish all of you have sweet dreams!

Table Topic session…

2010-04-09T23:26:00.001+08:00

Every time, when I think about the Table Topic sessions in the Toastmasters Club meetings, I keep struggling, whether or not I should go out to have a try. At the end, of course, I failed to make the step on. Only when the Table Topic Master calls up my name, then I will go forward to have a try.

I just back from Bagan Ajam Toastmasters Club meeting. As usual, I was called up to take part in the Table Topic session. The topic given to me was “Milk + your brother”. =.=" What a weird topic for me to talk about… My imagination is not creative enough to link up milk and my brother, but I definitely have to come out something with these 2 stupid unrelated things!

In the end, I just told the story of the younger brother, how he react when he wanted milk when he was a baby. A simple one, right? Even I couldn’t get to organize my speech well… Having a lot of problems in my speech… I wonder why I couldn’t make it huh… Anyway, at least I tried. Moving forward, could I make a step forward to take part automatically? Trying hard.

I have one idea in my mind, probably I need to train up myself to think faster (Nah… This is not the first time I talked about it, man). How to do it? Whenever I see something, try to create sentences for the things in front of me, just create sentences, either it is a silly one, serious one, crazy one, whatever, just think about it.
(Until a circumstance, I might be going crazy with all the things appear in my eyes. =.=" )

Alright, going to have a sweet dream tonight. Tomorrow I will have to wake up early although it is a Saturday. I will be going to have a photo walk tomorrow, with my colleagues. ^^ Wish all of you have a nice weekend!!

Photography session ^^

2010-04-08T23:04:00.001+08:00

Today, I attended the gathering of photography society in the company – Shutterbugs. Last week, we did have the gathering as well, and what we learned were all theories.

Basically, as what I could remember, should be the below 5 rules for photo composition. It does not necessary to have all the 5 rules, but a good photo need to have at least 2 or 3 rules fulfilled.

1. Simplicity: Keep the picture simple, avoid odd things or rubbish from the photo.
2. Balance: Take note on the object’s position, colors, lighting to balance the subject.
3. Rule of Thirds: Imagine there were 2 horizontal lines and 2 vertical lines crossing each other on the picture evenly. Try to put the object on the point where the horizontal line and vertical lines are crossing at.
4. Tilting: Tilting the picture so that it could provide a better effect.
5. Depth of field: It shows how high the level of bokeh is in a picture.

Rules are set by human beings, and of course, the rules can be broken, in order to get a better picture.

Anyway, the pictures below were taken during the practical session. Today, we learned how to take photos on food, so that the food looks delicious... This shows that most of the pictures on the menu in restaurant are lying, and yet we always like to order food based on the pictures presented on the menu~~ XD

Hehehe~~ Please comment on the photos, if you have any comments on them. ^^

Alright, time to get onto my sweet sweet bed~!
Wish you have sweet dreams!!

Just a simple update of this blog :P

2010-04-07T22:40:00.001+08:00

It has been 2 months that I didn’t update this blog. Hmm… actually, whenever I think to write a post for this blog, all of the ideas will be gone. Probably it was because I was restricting myself to write a better post for this blog, so that I do not publish some ‘rubbish’ on here. XD

Now, I’m trying not to restrict myself from putting any idea I have on here, no matter it is a so called rubbish or not. Haha~~ And, I will try to use as simple wordings as possible, not to stress so much on the vocabulary, because I actually realized that, by stressing myself is not a good way for me to produce a good post, instead, no production at all. =.="

I will just write as how I talk. :P Probably this is an excuse for me to be lazy to think of the new vocabulary, and write in proper English. But, anyhow, at least I produce something, right? :P

I have provided the URL of this blog to my colleague from Dell India team. I assume they will keep on reading the updated posts in this blog (although I am not sure for that), so I must keep on my production here. In future, I will try to make it as interesting as possible, talk about my interests, my activities, my life, etc. Of course, it might be the same content with my Chinese blog sometimes, as most of my effort are put on that blog.

That’s for all tonight. I’m going to have a good rest tonight, tomorrow will be another busy day. :)

Sweet dreams, everyone~!

Experience of an SAA

2010-02-08T21:46:00.001+08:00

Well, I didn’t really describe what I felt when I was doing my presentation for my icebreaker speech last 2 weeks. By the way, I felt that it was really a great speech of mine, as I didn’t really feel as nervous as the first time standing in front of all people.

By the way, I just felt that my content was too serious. I know, it was an icebreaker speech, and it supposed to be relax and fun. However, whenever I talk about my dream, it is always my dream, and I am automatically turning myself into a serious face. =.="

*************************************************************

Last week, our Toastmasters Club held a contest “International & Table Topic Speech Contests 2010”. I tried to help out as a Sergeant-At-Arm (SAA) & Registration Manager. Wow~~ What a nice title with me in the progress of the contest. XD

It was the first time for me to be an SAA after nearly half a year of joining Toastmasters Club. And, I would rate myself a B as an SAA. Haha~ it was just that I didn’t really know what should be done as an SAA in the contest. From that experience, I saw, I heard, I learned. :)

Anyway, that contest was a fun one, I met up with a lot of outsiders. Although I didn’t really talk to everyone during the contest period, but at least I still manage to recognize some faces, who I have met them before in Vista Toastmasters Club.

After the contest, there were a lot of food left on the table, and so we got everyone to take some food back home, or the food would be just ended up in the dustbin, what a waste~~ When it was my turn to take the food, one of the guests from other club, took a piece of cake and said, “This is nice”, then put that cake into my container. Then, he took up another piece of cake, same types of the cake and said again, “This is nice too”, then put that cake into my container again. Wah~ He put more than 3 pieces of cakes into my container!! =.=” How could I finish so many cakes??

Then, I said, “Are you planning to increase my size again??” =.=” He said, “It is not easy to keep this size, you know?” Hahaha~~ So did he mean that I should keep going on with this weight?? Ish~~

Hence, that night, I ended up with full stomach laying on my bed, couldn’t really get into a nice sleep. =.=" This can be a moral story for kids, talking about a girl who is GREEDY. XD

By the way, I still got a certificate for the title of SAA. :P

Ha~ OK, I’m gonna take a good rest tonight, definitely. I’m gonna get sick soon~~ >.<

Return to Innocence ^^

2010-01-30T00:08:00.001+08:00

In the Toastmaster meeting yesterday, I was the Word Master besides presenting my first speech.
The word that I introduced was:

Devote (Verb, used with object)
1. dedicate; pay full attention to something; to give up or appropriate to or concentrate on a particular pursuit, occupation, purpose, cause, etc.
E.g.: to devote one’s time to reading.

2. to appropriate by or as if by a vow; set apart or dedicate by a solemn or forma act; consecrate.
E.g.: She devoted her life to God.

And, for the Thought of the Day:
Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

After the meeting, my friend asked me, where did I get the word “devote” from?
Aha, actually, I got it from a song, a famous song of Enigma, and it’s my favorite song as well.
It is the song “Return to innocence” ^^

Return To Innocence - Enigma

Love - Devotion
Feeling - Emotion
Don't be afraid to be weak
Don't be too proud to be strong
Just look into your heart my friend
That will be the return to yourself
The return to innocence
If you want, then start to laugh
If you must, then start to cry
Be yourself don't hide
Just believe in destiny
Don't care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don't give up and miss the chance
To return to innocence
That's not the beginning of the end
That's the return to yourself
The return to innocence

OK, time to go to bed~! Wish all of you have sweet dreams, and happy weekend!!

First TM speech (CC# 1) - Who am I?

2010-01-28T23:13:00.001+08:00

A couple weeks ago, when I was chatting with my friend, my suddenly threw me a question, "Do you know who you are?"

"Me? Of course I know! I’m Kah Moey!"

Then, he said, "No no, I don’t mean such a simple question. What I mean is that, do you know what do you want to be? Do you know what is your interest? What is the future life that you would like to have? And what is your strength that can lead you to achieve you dreams?"

"Huh?", I was stunt there, "Who am I then? What is my strength? And what is my future?"

I went back and thought about it… Do I have a dream? Yes! I have, I wan to be a teacher! This is my dream. This is my dream job since I was small. I was influenced by my father who was a teacher before. I was attracted by his teaching skills, his teaching style, when I first saw him teaching in the school. I would like to share my knowledge to other people, and I would like to discover how people learn. Different people learn different ways.

However, after my Form 5, my father discouraged me to be a primary school teacher (because of the low income). Therefore, I continued to pursue my study in Computer Science. After the study in Computer Science, I involved myself in the IT area, from a website developer, to a programmer, to an application support, and now, I’m a business analyst.

My role as a business analyst, I am like a communicator among the business partners and the programmers. I gather the business requirements from the business partners, write the System Requirement Specification (SRS), and communicate with the programmers, explain to them what are the logics for the system.

Although I’m in the IT area, but I still haven’t given up my dream to be a teacher. I wish to teach small kids. Children are the future of the world. We must take the chance to build up their characteristics, build up their good virtues so that they can devote themselves to the world, to the society.

I wish to teach the kids thru the art work. Thru the art work that is done by them, they will be able to learn the philosophies and theories of the life. So, I go and learn up all the art work. I learn painting, I learn paper craft, I learn handicrafts, I learn clay sculpturing, and I even go and learn up the music instrument.

But then, after few years of working life (I have been working for 4 years), I discovered that, the income of a teacher that teaching small kids, are not enough for me to cover my car loan and home loan. Thus, I decided to extend my dream to be lecturer, instead of a teacher.

in order for me to be a good lecturer, I must have good presentation skill, good communication skill, good speak skill. That is why, right now, I’m standing here, giving my very first speech to my fellow Toastmasters. I hope that, thru these meetings, I will be able to train up my skills, to be a good lecturers.

I hope that, within 5 year time, I will be able to achieve my dream, to be a lecturer!! ^^

My first speech in TM

2010-01-25T22:39:00.001+08:00

I have been preparing my very first CC TM speech for quite some time. Today, while I was practicing the speech, I tried to record down my voice. Here is the recording. XD

Title: Who Am I?

Yeah, I know… my voice is not strong enough, I wished to speak with more “ohm”, but seemed like not successful. =.=" Anyway, it is still a good try for me, at least. I hope that I could present better to my mentor tomorrow. :)

And, this coming Thursday, it will be a great day for me to share my speech to other TM members. XD

NLP

2010-01-16T22:04:00.001+08:00

Recently, I bought a book regarding NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). It is not a programming book (Nah… I don’t do programming since I graduated from University), but is a book on how to increase a person’s determination and passion on his own goal achievement.

I have been searching for the books regarding NLP for long time. However, it seems to be hard to get this kind of books in Malaysia, or even in Penang. And now, I have got it! Once I got to see it, I immediately bought down the 2 books, and I was so excited!! The books are in Chinese, they were originally written by 2 Japanese NLP trainers separately, and lately they were translated into Chinese.

I just started to read the first book, which is training book, train us to drill down into our minds to get the actual goals of our life, and it shows us how to achieve the goals step by step. The book “Secret”, seems to have the same theories as what NLP mentions, and it can be said that Secret is part of NLP. NLP teaches in a more detailed way, and provides the guidance towards success.

I really like this book a lot!! ^^

2009 / 2010

2010-01-02T00:05:00.001+08:00

It is a new year, year 2010. Through out the day, I have read thru many blogs, which were talking about the feelings that they had or the events that they met within last whole year of 2009. Here my turn to talk about mine.

In year of 2009, I changed my sleeping habit. Although I didn’t manage to change the habit totally, as I am still thinking that sleeping is an enjoy activity, and sleeping can refresh myself from tiring life. However, I started to learn a lot of things, started to enforce myself not to sleep if it was unnecessary, especially during noon time of weekends. That was the reason why, I started to learn clay modeling, to avoid myself from feeling sleepy. XD

In year 2009, I thought of improving my English, and so I joint Toastmaster Club. The idea was brought up by my colleague. She suggested me to join Toastmaster club with her together, and so, I started another new experience of my life. The first time I stood on the stage, it was not a real stage, and I was just standing in front of my fellow toastmasters, I trembled when they called for my names, and I was forcing myself to say something for 2 minutes! =.=" Anyway, it has passed at the end, and I got encouragement from the fellow toastmasters. The feeling was great!! From there, I noticed that, I should speak in a slower manner, so that I could have more time to think what should I say next, and speak slower would calm down myself too. I am still learning about it, and I used it in a job interview. ^^

In year 2009, I got a great appraiser from my co-workers and business partners regarding my job performance. The appraiser comforted me and raised me up from my emotional downturn. Although I got no promotion due to the company economy downturn, and we did not even got the salary increment, but it was really revivable to me. ^^

In year 2009, how much I had achieve? How was my performance in terms of life improvement? I would rate myself as 78% achievement. It was a B level. :P Haha~ I hope that this year 2010, I would have a huge breakthrough in improving my life, not only my life style, my career, but also my habits, my thoughts and my actions. :)

preparing speech…

2009-12-27T00:36:00.001+08:00

I am now preparing for my presentation, preparing for my speech. Monday, will be a memorable day for me. The presentation on Monday will create a history in my life!! Haha~

I presented my speech to mum just now, and the comments I got from her was that, I talked too fast, and the audience may not have the chance to catch up for what I was saying. Yes, I know that, and I was trying to slow down my speed, but I couldn’t… My speed kept on increasing once I started to talk. Nah… there must be a way, nothing is impossible, I know.

When I talk fast, my mind would be jammed up, and I couldn’t get the chance to think about what I was gonna talk about next. Yeah… I definitely need to improve that, need to slow down my speed. My speaking speed is not fast when I speak Chinese though. Hmm… Probably, I really need to train up myself to think in English… Is it possible to change this nature? I will have to try.

Wish me luck, hope that I will sucess in my presentation on this coming Monday!! :D

p/s: honestly, I am thinking if I should change my writing style from a formal one to be an informal one. It is just too formal for me, and I don’t really get use to it… =.="

Certificate

2009-12-23T21:29:00.001+08:00

I just snapped a photo of the certificate I got for attending the training program last Saturday.

Yea, I am going to start my own training for the preparation to present a speech of the very first project in Toastmaster Club. It is an easy one – Ice Breaker speech.

I planned to talk about my ambitions. Yes, I am now getting nearer and nearer to my ambition, my ambition since I was small. I hope I will succeed to achieve it!! ^^

Criteria of a good speech

2009-12-21T23:24:00.001+08:00

Before go to bed, I just wish to put on few words to this blog. I attended a seminar held by Toastmasters Club in KDU Penang on last Saturday. The seminar with title “Speech Contest Judges Training Program” was actually to teach us how to be a judge.

To be a judge for the contest, a person not only need to be a member of Toastmasters Club, he must have completed 6 projects for Communication Competence (CC) and above.

Although I haven’t reached to the level to be a judge, but at least, I know what does the judges look for in a good speech. The judges are just the ordinary audience as the rest of the people in the contest. It’s just that, they have the authority to judge people, to give marks to the contestants.

From the perspective that judges are looking for, I know how I should do in order to deliver a good speech. It is not only for the judges to judge how good I speak, but it is to train up my speaking skill in order to have better communication skill and presentation skill with people. Below are the criteria of a good speech delivered to the audience.

1. Challenge the mind – it’s to challenge our mind to give a speech / message which is out of the ordinary one. Do not under estimate the audience. They can be cleverer than you. So, we need to think of the contents that are beneficial to the audience. Make sure they will bring home with some useful information. Thus, we need to study a lot, do survey, so that we are delivering the correct information to the audience.
2. Touch the heart – Be yourself, and create connection with the audience. Tell something that you have experienced and be informative to the audience.
3. Tickle the funny bone – To make the audience enjoy your speech, and not to be a too serious one. It can be a humorous speech, which do not need to be funny, but will let audience think about it, and laugh.

I know, the above 3 points are only the theories. I will need to practise more to get those 3 points realistic. How far I can go to train up my skills? I do not have the answer, but I would like to try, so that I know, how far I can increase my own value of competencies.

The most challenging part of each meeting, is the table topic session, as we need to talk about a given topic on the spot. This is really challenging my mind in order to think fast, not only take care of the messages that I would like to pass to other people, but also need to take care on the grammar, vocabularies, body language, eye contact, etc. This is not an easy way, but I know, I have to go through that, no matter how, no matter what.

I remember, last time, one of my teachers told me, if I would to improve my English, I would need to train up myself, not only to “speak” in English, but need to “think” in English too.

Ha, anyway, I still like Chinese a lot. I will never stay away from Chinese, just because, I am a Chinese. ^^

Good night, everyone!

My imagination?

2009-12-14T21:52:00.001+08:00

Today, I’m released a bit compared to last week, as most of the issues for the project have been fixed during the weekend.

I read a lot of blogs after back to home, and found a nice drawing blog~ It’s about drawing, the blogger posts all his master pieces up in his blog, and they are so nice! This is the ideal blogging way in my mind since I started blogging in year 2005!!

However, I’m not good in imagination. Even if I have the inspiration of drawing something, I can never draw it nicely. Whatever in my mind, something else is produced. I imagine a tiger, it may ends up a cat on the paper. =.=”

See, this it is. Hehe… I laugh at myself when I look at it…. Haha

Anyhow, this is a good way to release my stress. I’m a happy-go-lucky person, but I still have stress, although the word “stress” had never come into my mind until I started to work in the current company. What a lucky girl I am! :P

I will continue to produce “unwanted” drawing when I’m free. It could be a few minute work, or a few hour work for drawing, as if we are drawing using our hands with the real brush and colors, not the Photoshop brush. Hehe

Good night, and sweet dreams!

Time is precious

2009-12-13T22:41:00.001+08:00

During my childhood, I always thought that I had too much free time. And, I always tried to find something to do, in order to fill up my free time.

Gradually, I grew up, yet my thinking was still the same, I was just too free that I like to sleep a lot. Whenever I had so called “free time”, I always filled up the time with a nice sleep.

Up till last year, I realized that, I wasted too much time for sleeping. Having a good sleep is necessary, but it was just too much as if I was a decadent. In fact, I’m interested in numerous fields, from languages to cultures, from crafts to arts, from music to instruments, from stars to astrology, from movements to meditation, etc. However, I was just a lazy-bones that did not want to take initiative to involve myself into the erudition of those fields.

I was thinking, am I too late to start it now? What I should do, is to start the first step to be enthusiasm for those fields. I know, once I started it, I will never have a chance to regret of doing it, and I will not.

Hence, I started to learn swimming, yoga, zither, and learn clay modeling this year. I believe, only practice makes perfect. Now, I even attend Toastmasters club, so that I could improve my English and public speaking. From the learning, I got to know which activities are suitable for me, and which are not. Even if I felt not comfortable with the activities, or probably because of the environment, I still learned something, which will always stay in my heart. I do not want to be a mistress of a department, or a company, but I just want to be a mistress of my destiny, my dreams. :)

Time is precious in our life!

The 3rd meeting in Toastmasters Club ^^

2009-11-28T13:08:00.001+08:00

It’s again, another Wednesday which has Toastmasters Club meeting in Dell AP1. Although we were late to the meeting for more than half an hour, but at least we still managed to attend the meeting, and I really enjoyed the Table Topic session.

To other people, it may be a scary session, because we need to give a speech with the given topic right on the stage. Although it was only a 2 minute session to speak, but it really squeezed my mind to at least provide some information, either it’s useful information, nonsense, or simply a joke.

This round, I got a question about love - "Should you tell the person that you fall in love to him / her?" Haha~~again, I talked about my love story =.="

In fact, I have confessed to the one I like (not LOVE, I know how I feel, ok), and until now, no result feedback. Haha, eventually, he has feedback the result to me. Of course, the result was a negative answer, otherwise, I’m not single and available anymore now. :P

Should I let him know? Yes, I should, at least, it’s a chance to me, and to him. If I didn’t tell him about my feeling, I’m actually putting myself into a cage, prevent myself from going beyond the limitation.

Ehe… an easy answer, right? I could talk about an easy answer for 1:55 minute. I think it’s good to me, but still, I wish that I can provide more answers in my next table topic. I know I’m a slow thinker, that’s why I’m trying to make myself to think more than what I normally can think of. How much I can go? It’s just a challenge to myself. :)

Besides, I learned a new word, and a new phrase:

1. coerce – forcing somebody into doing something
2. Beat about the bush – say something indirectly

From the comments given by the grammarian, I didn’t really have grammar errors. Thus, I think I need to improve my vocabulary in the next step. Hope that I can make it. :)

Tiring month

2009-11-15T19:53:00.001+08:00

Time passes fast. It’s been almost one month that I didn’t update this blog.

Within this one month, I faced a lot of issues, a lot of argument with different people. I even fell sick because of that. That was the very first time, I angry at a person until I fell sick. What a funny topic among my colleagues.

I was really frustrated with my work and my boss. However, still I had to overcome the issues. Haha, I had just attended a training “Responding to Conflict”, yet I was stuck in the conflict with other people. Learning to resolve the conflicts. The conflicts in an organization, it’s not as easy as drinking water… Humanity is really a hard topic to be studied on.

Anyway, I will still continue with my role, do whatever I will need to do… Try my best for what I can.

The song “Love Story”

2009-10-24T21:33:00.001+08:00

Just found a song, which I started to like it when I first heard about it.

I like the song’s rhythm, and it gives me a feeling of innocence.
It’s just a simple nice song. ^^

The 2nd meeting in Toastmasters Club :)

2009-10-23T21:52:00.001+08:00

Wednesday, I attended the Toastmasters meeting. That was the 2nd meeting that I attended as a Toastmasters member.

Because of the low volume of attendance, which were only 7 members turned up in the meeting, so I was picked to be the time keeper. It was the easiest role during the meeting, where by I just needed to take care of the timing and turn the lights on and off accordingly.

During the table topic session, I was called up to the stage with an easy topic (to me, I felt that it was easy), but I couldn’t really think of what to say within the few seconds. The topic was “Describe your happiest moment during your childhood to the middle age”. Isn’t it an easy topic to you?

However, when I thought of the happiest moment… Did I have the happiest moment? Basically, I had a lot of happy moments, but I couldn’t measure which moments to be considered as the happiest.

Out of a sudden, a person’s image turned up in my mind. Yes, it was he, the guy that sat beside me when I was in kindergarten; the guy that studied in the same secondary school with me; the guy that stayed beside my house for more than 10 years… and he was the guy that I admired for 13 years, but ended up with hatred among my family and his family. That was the end of story between us.

Was that moment the happiest moment to me? I do not think so, but it just appeared in my mind, and so I just took the inspiration to talk about it straight away. Of course, it was a good laugh to the members, because of the silly actions from me to get his attention when I was a little naughty girl.

At the end, I was the only person who exceeded the time given, which was only 2 minutes. I know what was my weakness when I spoke, and I’m trying to change it. I will see how much I could change. ^^

Playing For Change Foundation

2009-10-18T13:01:00.001+08:00

Found a great community called Playing For Change. It is a non-profit organization, which encourage to build up the music sense among all of the people around. They believe that music can make the world peaceful.

They get people around the world to sing the same songs, by just recording a base music from a single person, then let other people listen to the music and exert their inspiration to sing following the base music.

There are few videos that I like a lot.

"Stand By Me"

No Worries

You May click on below link to go to their official website to have a look on their vision for the organization. :)
Playing For Change

If you would like to watch more videos, you may click on below link for their youtube channel.
Playingforchange

I like the music there, they are really great~! ^^

New blog template ^^

2009-10-18T01:11:00.001+08:00

I just changed the template of this blog. The template was found from a website introduced by the blogger "LifeSoFake". There are many great templates in the website, and they are designed for Blogger.

If you are interested, you may go for a try to enhance your blog template. :) As long as you have a space to store those customized pictures for the templates, then it is quite easy to change your blog template. If you don’t have any storage for picture, you may register one from Photobucket, or, you may just use Picasa image storage site with your google email account. It is just free for you~

I personally like this template a lot because it is related to the natural GREEN color. ^^

That’s all for now. I’m going to have a good sleep. Tomorrow will be a busy day for me. Busy for clay class, and will be having dinner with friends~

Plan changed…

2009-10-17T20:20:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, Vinc and CA invited me to go to Pulau Paya tomorrow, for a package of RM100 only. Wow~~ so cheap? Very soon, I got the approval from dad. They told the price was yet to be double confirm.

This morning, CA told me, the RM100 package was for snorkeling at the beachside and will have a lunch box only. It is not worth compared with the package we went there during team building previously. Yea, if comparing with the package for team building, the price was different as well, it was RM250 or probably more than that.

Anyway, I was just hoping to get a rest during this long holiday, although it is just a 3 days off…

It was disappointed for me at first, but then, it is ok… because I always have a lot of activities during weekends, so it doesn’t matter if I have programs with friend.

Wish all of you enjoy your weekends. For those who will be having holiday on the coming Monday, wish you enjoy your long holiday as well. :)

Dreams and targets

2009-10-11T11:50:00.001+08:00

How many of your dreams have come true? Or, have you ever try hard to make your dreams come true?

I have a lot of dreams / targets, some of them are right now with me, some of them are yet to be achieved, and some of them were just my dreams flew through my life without my effort to achieve them.

Here are my dreams and targets~~

I wish to be a teacher (yet to be achieved…)
Since my childhood, I wished to be a teacher. When I was in the primary school, the teachers used to pass us a card to let us record down what were our ambitions. From Standard 1 until Standard 6, my first ambition was always to be a teacher. However, from my life experience, I have just been being a temporary teacher for only 2 days before I got into the college life. Will it be continued for the rest of my life? No one knows, and I do not really have the plan for it for now, as I have stepped into the IT field for 3 years. My passion of being a teacher has reduced since I joint the IT field…

I wish to have a car after graduated from university (achieved)
When I was in college and university, most of my classmates and friends drove to the college / university by themselves, either motorcycles, or cars. Those vehicles might not be theirs, but I was really envy with the feeling of having my own vehicle, so that I could go anywhere as I like without depending on other people. Since then, I set my target to have a car after graduated from university, probably in half a year time. (My dad does not allow me to learn driving a motorcycle, so I just have a car license) Yes, after half year of working life, I managed to buy a small local car, by using my own salary. I was really satisfy with the car, because it is all paid by myself. Although it’s a burden for me to pay for the car loan right now, but next year will be the last year of my payment to the loan. And, I will be freed up from the car loan after then. ^^ Will I change to a new car in next 3 years? I guess not, as I plan to have my own saving for a travel after that.

I wish to have a house 2 years after having a car (achieved)
After having a car, my next target was to have a house. I don’t like a big house like bungalow or a semi-detached house. It will scary if the house is too big, which you will not know if there is anyone concealing at any corner of the house. I have my own house now, a double-story terrace house, although it’s not fully paid by me. (Thanks to my parents for supporting me from the back. I really appreciate their great help and efforts…) It becomes another burden to me, as I have to paid the house loan. That will be 28 years to go. :)

I wish to take zither examination (yet to be achieved…)
I have learnt zither for more 3 years. Yet, I haven’t taken any examination for my zither knowledge. I’m not a professional performance as a zither player, but I wish to know what is the standard of my zither knowledge, what are the aspects that I should improve (yea… I actually know some of the aspects that I should improve, and I’m working on them). I believe it will be satisfaction even if I just got a passing result without excellent performance. It’s all my efforts. :) Yet, I couldn’t join the examination this year, because I’m just too busy with the work (Aha… excuse, excuse!!)

I wish to learn as much hand-made crafts as possible (in progress)
This was also one of my dreams since I was young. Unfortunately, I was such an impatient person. I always planned to do some crafts, but at the end, they were all just planned without execution. All of the projects were on hold, or even were cancelled. :P So, now, I’m planning for all the craft works, and will execute them, no matter how long is the lead time to finish all of the projects. This is my target, target to finish the art works that I have planned. ^^

I wish to utilize my weekends (in progress)
Previously, my weekends were very precious for me to have nice sleep, especially Sunday. However, I still felt tired when I went to work on Monday. Thus, I target to have nice weekends, fill up all the weekend free time with different activities. Nowadays, I go for swimming on Saturday morning most of the time, and go for zither class after that. For Sundays, I spend almost 6 hours for clay class, and for the rest of the time will go for my own hand-made craft works. Projects will keep going on and I will explore with my own ideas for that. :) From there, I will really learn a lot, not only for craft works, but increase my knowledge to different fields, because whenever I want to do an art project, I will definitely need to find the information of the particular project, so that I can make it a success.

I wish to speed up my thinking (in progress)
This is one of the reasons I joint Toastmasters Club. It’s not mainly for career achievement, but it’s more for my personal improvement. Speed up my thinking, will indirectly help me in communication with other people. I’m just such a person that is well-known to be slow in response, my weakness and I’m thinking to improve it. Of course, from various activities during my weekends, I believe I’m able to improve my knowledge and hence help me to relate all the knowledge together and apply in my daily life.

I wish to have a family (yet to be achieved…)
I believe, most of the girls wish to have a family, same for me. I will not put all my effort to work, although I’m forced to, sometimes. Anyway, it’s my dream, to have a stable family, a husband that loves me a lot, a few kids with me. It would be better if I could stop working and stay with my kids all day long. I would love to do so, for my own kids’ good. Of course, the condition is that, I will need to find a rich and hardworking husband. XD

So far, there were only 8 major targets for my life. For sure, I have some small small targets to achieve, but they are all categorized under these 8 major targets. I hope, I can really achieve all of them.

p/s: The 8th target was just added in, which was missed out… haha~ Why? Because it was not in my plan since I was small, and it appears only after I entered university life. :P

Ok, going for a shopping with my younger brother soon. ^^

A nice friday~ ^^

2009-10-09T23:36:00.001+08:00

After work, I went to Penang with colleagues to have dinner with my ex-boss and her ex-subordinates at Bali Hai.

I guess the restaurant is famous with the seafood. However, I didn’t really enjoy the seafood… It was just because, I seldom eat steam fish when I’m at outside, and I don’t eat crab. However, I finished 2 bowls of shark fin soup!! Aha~ I just like it so much!! Yea, I’m sorry, I’m not an environmentalist. I just do and eat as what I like.

By the way, overall, it was a nice dinner session for all of us, I believe. Although I didn’t really enjoy the food, but I’m still full now, because of the 2 bowls of shark fin soup. :P And, I enjoyed the environment over there, the atmosphere, the people, the restaurant’s decoration, etc. It was a nice one! Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my own camera, and so… I didn’t have the chance to capture any photo of the restaurant, what a waste…

When I got back home, surprisingly, I saw my younger brother Hao, with his long long hair!! =.=" How can he be such a lazy guy until he has never cut his hair since this year’s Chinese New Year??

After looking at him, I noticed there was something in front of him!! Oh, gosh!! He has a pen tablet!! This was what I wished to have as my birthday present previously~~!! I went around to different shopping complexes just to search for this pen tablet tool, so that I could draw in notebook by just using a pen, but when I looked at the price, wow… RM650!! It was just too expensive for me to buy one for myself… Hao bought his one just for RM250. What a good price he got for his pen tablet… I want to have one for myself too… :( I will ask Hao to buy one for me from KL, and ask elder brother to bring back for me~~ Kekekeke~~

Here are the photos of his pen tablet~~ ^^

A medical science book

2009-10-07T21:05:00.001+08:00

In Popular bookstore, I stood for more than one hour, reading only 2 books. Of course, no omission from reading crafting books, which was one of the 2 books I read.

Another one book I read, was regarding health. It is an ancient book named "黄帝内经", which was first edited since the Spring and Autumn period of China (春秋时代), 770 – 476 BC. It is one of the 4 canonical books in medical science, which is still available currently.

That was not the first time I heard about the name of the book. However, when I first heard about it from dad, I thought it was just another book talking about the means of politics. After searching around for the contents of this book, then I found out that I was totally wrong. It’s not related to politics, but related to our health, our daily life. And, it talks about Qi (气) that actually circulating our bodies every minute, every second, but only few of us know about the existing of Qi in our bodies. Also, it explains the relationships of organs in human body by using the 5 phases of Chinese philosophy (五行), which are metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

Although I was not able to finish reading the book (yea, I know how slow I read…), still, I’m quite interested in it. By reading the book, I knew something new about our bodies, and how an organ’s disabled may impact the other organs.

If I have the chance (of course, if I have the time, and capability), I will read this book. Not to be a Chinese doctor, but just to know my body better, take good care of my body.

Last month, the theme of Toastmaster meeting: Health is Wealth. The chair person asked, between Health and Wealth, which would you choose? Yes, for sure, I chose Health. Without Health, I cannot enjoy my wealth. Health, can never be exchanged by using money. :)

A new post after 4 years

2009-10-05T14:45:00.002+08:00

After 4 years, this is the second post of mine in this blog. Still, it’s under construction.

This blog will be all in English, which I will try my best to stress on the grammar, vocabularies, etc. in each of the posts.

I’m not sure how long it will last, or probably just one post after per year? Aha… Basically, I’m just an ordinary person who likes Chinese a lot. Currently, all my posts in the main blog are all in Chinese. Of course, from now on, I will continue with my Chinese blog, while trying my best to update this English blog.

I would say, I wish to improve my English while I’m having fun with it. I believe, learn anything by having fun will definately help a person to improve his knowledge in a fast pace.

I hope I could be the same, too. :)

this is my 1st blog

2005-09-13T10:11:00.001+08:00

this is my 1st blog here. it's still under construction.
please come again later.
thanks.