Monday, June 23, 2008

Graphing Calculator

Has anybody used graphing calculator before? I think I did, in the 90s. I remembered when I just bought it, I felt on the top of the world, as if I had one of the coolest gadget ever. You know, like the mini-computer. So nostalgic.

Though it was supposed to be a high-tech graphing calculator for the high school students, I remember the only graphs I was busy plotting with the calculator was those I've already known. The cosine, sine and tangent. One of them look like "2 mini mountains"! Even that can make people laugh for the whole day. Silly -.-"

Guess how advanced the graphing calculator nowadays, not only they can plot some "mountains" but they were able to make them 3D! You'd be wrong if you think only the engineering and science students will be drooling over such devices, but even the business students are benefiting from such tool too.

If I ever touched one of those again, I think the only graph I can ever plot will be those I've been plotting 10 yrs ago. What a shame! But well, at least "the mountains" and "'the valleys" (that were formed by the graphs sometimes) are pretty entertaining too.

Friday, June 13, 2008

The 500 (Part 2)

Nahhh .... I won't scare you with my 500 again it's just I don't know how to title this post :p.
It's the continuation of previous posts where I'm going to share with you the great points of those people who have helped me with the 500 challenge. This time I'll feature Babi, HC, MC, FC and IT. (Geez. So many Cs). Enjoy!

1. Babi
Who is she? The most carefree person I've ever known in my entire life. People may think she is not very grounded to earth but to the contrary, whatever she thinks of, she does it. Bite that, earthy people. She is definitely one of the being who really lives her life to the fullest without her knowing it.























2. HC
I treat him like my elder brother (though it's so obvious that he's younger than me). He's my rock when I'm down and always there when I need a pair of ears or eyes to confide in. He's dependable and a gentle kindhearted Leo.
























3. MC
One of the very first person I knew when I just entered the university. How can I not remember her, we have so many similarities. We were both an only child, we speak Mandarin and we can't stop talking. Though we hardly meet (don't know why le!! Why ah??), we still yak a lot. :-)





















4. FC
My treasured best friend ever. Someone who's there when I'm down and stick with you till the end. Not only she understands me but she knows how to pick up my pieces and gel it back together.























5. IT
My childhood friend. We grew up together, separated by location for a while and yet we are still growing up together now. We used to learn a lot of things together and she didn't mind me being goofy and talkative. She always made an effort to meet whenever I happened to be in town. Appreciate that a lot. :D

It's Time to be Nottie

This is an image file. Just in case you can't view it, you may view it here by clicking this link. -> Here. Here. Click ME!

Thursday, June 12, 2008

The 500 and More ....

Warning! This post may take hell of your time. Please read when you are really free! It's really long!!!!! Thank you! :D

So, I was challenged earlier on or should I say, was given a unique piece of homework by a friend of mine. I need to list down 500 things that are good about me (sounds narcissistic eh, trust me .. when you tried to write more than 50 ... you thought you are having some type of medication) and that's all about it. I am allowed to seek help from others and not allowed to disagree with what they say (unless it's absolutely 100%-ly rubbish).

I am still not sure what's the purpose of this challenge. To some, it seriously sounds so silly. It sounds like you are so full of yourself to even think you should bother so many people about this. I wonder if some really think I (in its most crooked mind) came out with this myself as I need to seek some attention. To tell you the truth, I love myself but I don't love myself that much that I can spell out 500 good things about myself like that!!! It's not easy, okay!

And this exercise has directly involved 26 people (27 including myself, since I'm also a human being), 6 days and 4 countries and 6 cities. It has also tapped on the indirect source from 7 other friends of mine. Crazy or what? But it's all worth it.

I thought this exercise will only help me to know myself better but apparently it has taught me so much more:
  1. I've made a better epic movie than 300 as mine is 500!! (Panci's stupid comment -.-" ... sad ... but true).
  2. You can't do it alone. To make it an epic, you need more.
  3. You thought you know who you are but apparently you are more than who you are.
  4. You thought you know who your friends are but apparently you may not. They are much better than you think.
  5. You will see who've given their best, take you seriously despite of your ridiculous plea.
  6. You will see who doesn't take you seriously and think you are simply crazy and have nothing to do.
  7. You will make better close friends.
  8. You will then realize that the amount of time spent hanging out with someone isn't necessarily proportionate to the quality that you have in mind.
  9. You will discover that true friends do not need much touch-base, but once put together, magic begins.
  10. And in the end you may realize, that 500 is apparently not that bigger deal after all. Because you are not alone. You are bigger than who you think you are and you are connected to many great beings. Even if the number reached 10,000, it may be tough to find the right vocabulary to describe you anymore, but possibilities are endless.
I am finally ready to present what all of you have helped me to accomplish. You know who you are. Every single one of you, even though it's just one silly comment, it counts. I'm sincerely grateful and blessed for your presence and the gift of time you've generously shared with me. As a token of appreciation, I will in the return your effort by getting your good points noted down too. People should know how wonderful you are (even though most of you are written in initials). And most importantly, you should know how good you are to me.

It'll be too ambitious to write down all the good points of my 26 contributors at this one posts, so I'm chewing them slowly, may be 3-4 at a time. Please be patient ... :-) You know the 500 didn't come that fast. But I promise I'll make it happen to all of you. Bear with me.

And now, I'm presenting the 500 (+some little extras) to you. The colors used didn't represent anything at all -.-" .. (if you happen to be pink doesn't really mean you are as sweet as bubblegum) ... and the order of the names just happened to be the order of the person whom I've approached and responded to me. I chose myself the color white because without all of you, the chart will not be as colorful. So thank you again for making this exercise a fun learning experience. :-)

Happy reading and make sure you have time for it.

Love ya all! :D

P.S. Everybody, you should try to do this exercise! :) It's pretty enlightening and an eye-opener.

P.P.S. As I couldn't paste the table here as it's tooooooooo HUGE!!! Can't fit lar ... So, I've made mine as a PDF files and you may view them by clicking the links below. You need to have Adobe Reader to view the file. If you don't have it you may download it here. For the rest, I managed to make them into image files. Those that have the wordings too small, please click on the image for the bigger version. Hope all works fine ... (Never expect these hiccups but oh well...that's life I guess)

Today's special:

1. DD & The 500
(By clicking the file, it will direct you to another site - www.mediafire.com, to download the file). See lar ... so troublesome! When I'm a bittttt free, I'll cut all the tables down to 10 images and shall post it as a separate entry. Aiyoyo.... Really apologize for the trouble!


2. ST
Who is he? The person who gave me this challenge. A great person to be with. :-)





















3. Jack the Beanstalk
Who is he? One of the character from the fairy tale. :p Nah ... he's someone whom you can talk to especially you need a very unique opinions :D He does see world differently and most important he's very open minded.





















4. Panci
Who is she???
Needless to say!
She's a cooking pot!























5. Aunty Cheng
Ah ... my beloved student when I was a teacher 3.5yrs ago. Someone whom I smuggled to cinema after school hour. HAHA. And I still smuggle her to cinema to this date.




Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The Old Fashioned Way

Every year, without fail, the Mouth & Foot Painting Artists Pte Ltd (which is directly link to AMFPA - Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists of the World.) will send a pack of cards to me. It's a charity organization which supports artists who are so talented that they are able to paint with their mouth or foot. (I can't even paint properly with my hand!!!)

Anyway, I've seen this card since I was really young. My dad always received it and never once he rejected it. Guess I pick on the habit from him. What this organization do is they'll send you a pack of cards (or sometimes some other products such as bookmarks, etc). They'll enclose a return envelope to you in case you are interested in the cards and would like to buy from them, you may send your cheque to them. If you are not interested in paying, you may choose to return the whole pack of cards or you can keep the cards and be guilty forever? :p The choice is up to you.

Well, since my family already has this tradition, I'm continuing on. I remember it was not that difficult to send out cards to people back then. I was probably in my 14-17 years of age. I may or may not need stamps but I'll definitely finish all the cards given. And during Christmas or Chinese New Year or Valentine's Day, I'll buy even more cards to be sent out.

Now, I have 2 packs of cards. (One from last year) And I realized, I've not been writing at all. How sad. I found writing cards are not as easy as it used to be anymore. 50 was an easy number then but now I can hardly think of 10! Partly most of the people are contactable by emails (and I seriously don't have their mailing addresss), but mostly, I don't know what has happened. Is the technology taking over the personal warmth and message that we are all capable of? May be. You can't rule that out just yet.

Out of the 13 cards I have at the moment, I managed to send out 4. 1 being my mom's birthday card, 1 for my Chinese tutor whom I never failed to write every year, 1 to my friend who's going to have her birthday in July (happened to have her mailing address, thank God), and lastly to my friend's (who's like 10 yrs older than me) mom whom suddenly crossed my mind, and yes, thank God I asked for her address from my friend before. I hope it'll be a nice surprise to her. The last time I saw her was in 2006 when I went back to Jakarta for a family reunion during Chinese New Year. At that time, I think I've not seen her for more than 15 years, easily. And when we both saw each other for the first time, don't know why, we both just shed tears. I seriously can't explain why. I saw her old and frail body. It's so different from what I saw when I was a little girl, playing around in her backyard with her dog and birds. How time passes and how I wish I could spend much more time talking to her. (Tearing as I'm typing this .. hmm time to add "cry baby" to the 500 list now).

Anyway, what am I blabbering?
Oh ya .. card-writing ...
There's something about the old fashioned way of getting in touch of people that is so heartwarming. Though it has so many steps in it (buy the card, write the card, seal the envelope, buy the stamp, paste the stamp and send the card) but somehow, the old way is much more meaningful. Though one day this trade may totally be wiped off, but it can't wipe away that special feeling one has when received a card that can be touched and filled with personal handwritten message in it.

Hope you'll consider writing cards once again to those special someone who've touched your life or simply passed by your life and made an imprint.


Sunday, June 8, 2008

Quoter

Remember my homework? Yep, the 500 things that are good about me ... erm, well, it's still not even halfway done! I'm doomed -.-" ... but in the process, I realize something. A friend of mine said one thing good about me is that I'm a quoter! I love to use quotes on my MSN Messenger display and apparently that's good. :o

How come I didn't see that in myself? I'm glad I have friends around me that become the mirror of me.

Inspired by the attribute given, I've created a new blog solely for the quotes I'm collecting. I realized I must have had tons of them being collected over the years but alas, I never collect any of them!!!

Every journey starts from a single step, here I am starting from ground zero in the world of great words ever spoken. I hope you'll enjoy it too. And at the right time, you'll find the right quote speaks right through you and remember to make it yours.

:-)

Friday, June 6, 2008

I Have A Homework ... URGH!

I was chatting with my friend that I may be going through a quarter-life crisis in a joking manner. How would I know I'll be swamped with a homework this weekend? .... :|
Well, he's a coach, I'd better take his homework seriously or else I'll be !@#!@#!@# .... T.T
What's the homework?
It starts with listing down 500 things that are good about me!!
Yes!! It's not 10 or 20 but
500.

How am I going to come up with so many???? He said I can ask my friends about it and if my friends have an opinion, I can not disagree!! GEEZ!!! WHAT??? :| Before I'm being "verbally abused" in the positive manners by others, I shall "abuse" myself first. Argh ... homework ...

Thank you, you-know-who-you-are! -.-"

The Art of Sarcasm

Have you ever seen someone who used "intelligent" sarcasms in showing that they do know it all?

Or how about when you've done something wrong, someone uses sarcasms to "soothe" your mistake and left you feeling unsettled?

Well, there are a lot of forms of sarcasms.
  • The ones who show superiority.
  • The ones who show that one is more knowledgeable.
  • The ones who are covering the angers and disappointments within
  • The ones who are purely for fun and nothing else (If you are interested to learn this, you may watch The Golden Girls and pay attention to the character, Dorothy Zbornak)
As I always believe there are 2 sides of almost everything in this world, hence there are the yin and the yang of sarcasm too. At times it can really be witty and fun but at the other hand it's downright irritating and demeaning.

But I think when it's abused and overly used, sarcasm is a way in covering the insecurities of oneself, something that he/she lacks of. Because when thing doesn't blossom out of love, it'll be springing from fear. And fear is not a pretty sight.

And yes, to be sarcastic, is a skillful art by itself. But when it loses its luster, you'll tend to hurt people without you even knowing them. Even though you may not hurt them in the most literal way, there'll be a "paper cut" to the soul which to those who can't let go easily, will be a mark carried through life.

Remember - A sneer is the weapon of the weak. - James Russell Lowell. So what do you do when you were attacked by one? You don't need to do anything, because no matter what, the weak can't beat the strong.

Vacation, Anyone?

Recently I'm so intrigued to see more of the world ... from my desk, for now. :p So, I roam around and found a vacation rental site with a cute name - www.goin2travel.com. (I do wish I'm doing what the domain name is saying ... argh!)

With the hike of rentals almost everywhere around the world, it'll definitely come in handy to have a guide for good accommodations list especially you are a frequent traveler. This site has listed vacation rentals that covers almost around the world. From Orlando to Florida and Florida Keys (I don't know there's such thing called Florida Keys). From Alaska to Africa. I was in the short-term accommodation business myself and hell I know how tough it is to find a perfect place to stay for short-term especially in Singapore. I don't think it'll be such a hassle elsewhere, especially not with such a comprehensive list exists.

One of my dream location will be Paris. Well known for its hedonistic lifestyle which where I am in right now, is very lacking of it. I'll definitely keep this site in mind when it's time to finally move my you-know-what and finally start discovering the world not from my desk. Like one of my cousin's boyfriend whom I can't help but admire, a true blue traveler who doesn't even mind to sleep in a cave for the sake of discovering a new experience. Not everyone can do that for sure, but well, everyone deserves to see more of the world, even if it's just for a while. I believe it'll be worth it.