Day by day, one step closer

2012-02-11T12:14:00.000+08:00

女人不必当妓，也是在卖身。

三寸日光

2012-02-09T20:25:00.002+08:00

I am going to restrain myself frlom listening to my Youtube's playlist.
I usually end up utterly distracted by any of these 3 songs

梁静茹《问》
严艺丹《三寸天堂》
黄小琥《没那么简单》

Lucky there's SKY.fm :)

Saw veron at school today, so happy :D

Defining this week

2012-02-06T20:55:00.003+08:00

若不全力以赴，我不甘心！

TENACITY! 再多累也总拼：）

Hopefully there's a bit luck too; Derivatives assignment was >.<

Hypocrisy

2012-02-04T22:40:00.004+08:00

Another item to add to the long list of self-improvement.

Jim Collins wrote in his book that top companies typically put their best people on the best business units/opportunities, not on the worst problems.

Does this apply in non-organizational context? Should I spend them improving my strengths, rather than improving my flaws? Maybe I should. Then again, at least at this point of time, I can't think of any strengths.

Can a lack of flaws be a strength? No. Definitely no...

二月二日

2012-02-02T19:56:00.000+08:00

生命好像失去了斗志，徘徊着。

我该立下目标。。。我只有长期目标。
我想做好我人生成绩单：做个好女儿，做个好朋友，做个好学生/同事，做个好情人。
现在回头看，好像没一样做好。
辜负大家，对不起。

我不想忧郁。眼前却一片空白，茫然了。

不管怎么样，还是得打起精神！
不准自己回去那段一直灌咖啡来欺骗自己只是身体疲惫的日子。

Sounds so horribly clinche, but life's an adventure.
You get your hands dirty trying all sorts of things.
You get your face dirty and palms scratched from falling down multiple times.
All just to catch a glimspe of the glorious view at the top of the mountain.
Before falling down again, of course.

I am going to:

Do AB214 assignment
Listen to AB213 Lecture 4 because I intentionally missed it (maybe I will do the tutorial too, depending on how guilt-stricken I am later)
Read through BF218 Chapter 4

四爷

2012-01-30T23:44:00.000+08:00

心里要是越害怕，脸上就要越镇定。

别人摸不清你的底细，自然不会轻易出手。

痴

2012-01-26T23:01:00.000+08:00

但曾相见便相知，相见何如不见时。
安得与君相诀绝，免教生死作相思。

“但曾相见便相知，相见何如不见时。”

前一句写出了二人之间蓦然激发出的情感，浅浅地模糊地勾画出了爱情的深度，只是一场相见，便是金风玉露，相知相许。

后一句蕴藏着的悲凉与落寞的情感让人心疼，“相见何如不见时”，此语是锥心刺痛之人发出的肺腑之言。

既然遇见你让我如此痛苦，我为何还要遇见你？

表面上明明后悔着那一场邂逅，然而心中却是爱得惨烈无比，明明口中说着那么决绝的话语，心中却如此彷徨彳亍不前。

“安得与君相诀绝，免教生死作相思。”

到底怎样才能彻底忘记你？到底怎样才可以摆脱轮回一般生生不息的相思？

爱得那么疲惫那么痛苦，到头来还是无法忘记对你的深情。

这句话点明了全诗的情感，唯有这一句话展露出了压抑着的情绪。

想和过去的恋人一刀两断，无奈心里却无论如何也放不下，只有生前身后唯爱一人，弱水三千只取一瓢。

Meaning taken from here

倒不觉得我这一生能体验这种刻苦铭心的爱，只能欣赏。

看一部戏，感触太多，感慨万千 ：（

佳句

2012-01-25T19:51:00.000+08:00

《梁书·到溉传》：

“如飞蛾之赴火，岂焚身之可吝。”

一股莫名的感触

2012-01-21T13:20:00.001+08:00

I am very proud of my friends: their characters, their personalities, their attitudes...all these make them awesome.

I was listening to Elton John's Can You Feel The Love Tonight when the memories of last night suddenly replayed in my mind.

I want to grow up with all of you - see you people get degrees, get jobs (and hear you bitch about it), settle down, and get married. I cant wait. Especially for egoh's kid LOL.

Bily, wo ye ai ni hehe :)

Faith

2012-01-16T10:47:00.002+08:00

I am not absolutely certain how will my future turn out. I am not even certain that i am on the right track.

But centuries ago, neither did the sailors know where the seas and winds will take the ships (and thus them) to.

I am hopeful; maybe I will discover America ;D

To-read

2012-01-12T16:49:00.000+08:00

I was going to publish a post on 3 MUST-READ sites (detailing what's e sites about, etc), but it didnt get published and the draft was half of the original content. Therefore, I am just going to list the 3 sites:

1. Seth's blog (link)

2. Freakonomics (link)

3. FastCompany (link)

And to keep these 3 wonderful sites from from vying for your attention in overcrowded inbox-es, please do use Google Reader (link).

-

It's kind of weird that people make resolutions but don't resolve to do them.

Your journey

2012-01-04T01:08:00.003+08:00

Usually, self-improvment articles tend to be recycled and/or windy. E.g. I lost count of the number of articles writing about how useless New Year resolutions are (because people set lousy goals), and how to set not-lousy goals i.e. S-M-A-R-T goals.This seems different enough to worth a share (perhaps I am baised since I subscribed to almost every of the 'obsessions'). Hope it enlightens :)http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/7-obsessions-guaranteed-to-improve-your-life/

愛的代價

2012-01-02T13:12:00.002+08:00

Even if you don't have any inclinations towards chinese songs,

even if you don't have any inclinations towards love songs (this is actually not a bgr love song),

even if you don't have any inclinations towards songs w lyrics,

this song is worth a listen.

I love my youtube playlist :Ppartly it's geting harder to download songs from china's websites lol.

A comment from 李圣杰's 痴心绝对:
最好的情歌会引起无数的表白。

2012

2011-12-27T22:29:00.001+08:00

Resolution:Iprove self-esteem.Unforturnately, unlike losing weight, there's no way i can measure my progress (or lack thereof).

Today

2011-12-19T23:31:00.002+08:00

I just became very high -.-

I remembered that I have some issues with my hearing and my self-esteem. I think Bily and my youtube playlist cheered me up heh.

SKIN, WHY YOU SO BAD ):
want skin to be like how it was in jc times...
as a girl, i have a perogative to be good looking.
i try.
ignore people who say that i am short and look like a balloon -.-

tony buzan! my reading list just went down the drain.
idea of justice is too dense.
no mood for mgmt consulting.
finished The Bookseller of Kabul.a huge myraid of emotions. (cc: egoh felice sheryl)

-everything is gonna be ok someday soon-

AHHH PERFECT COMPANY IS LOVE!

IE

2011-12-14T09:02:00.001+08:00

A short post before I start to work!

Ok I seriously love IE :D

Very nice people here

i had some queries and I asked A; A was kinda busy with China so A referred me to B. Talked to B for more than an hour, all queries answered.
A colleague (from another division; never talked to her before) gave me Colombian coffee!!
Today i met a guy who though was standing near the lift, graciously let everyone entered first.

Chill environment :)
Free coffee machine
LOTS OF MAGAZINES! Not Cleo of 8 Days...more of Harvard biz sch, Bloomberg, and The New Yorker. Never read the last magazine before till I came here. Read an article by Malcom Gladwell, about Steve Jobs! Two giants :D

Bye now~

P.S. The Bookseller of Kabul is a very very very mesmerizing read. Non-fiction.

New Divide

2011-12-04T01:43:00.001+08:00

Judging & thanks

2011-11-27T23:52:00.001+08:00

Today, i finally understood what it meant by

Even God doesn't propose to judge a man till the end of his days, why should you and I?

For the discerning ones, this quote comes from the bible :) I doubt the quote is word for word though.

Then, what role does the law play? Can it judge? Does it recognise Man's fallacy, for it merely requires us to "don't harm thy neighbor" instead of what the Bible proposes to "love thy neighbor"?

Just recalled that one reason why I was tempted to join Christianity a couple years was that the stories and discussions are interesting. But I am content being a free-thinker. Need verbal sparring partners though :D

-

I can't reacll being so tired. Not sure if it's due to the lack of sleep, lack of motivation, or both. There's this jaded feeling (partly contributed by school) that makes smiling harder. *hearing Huishan's rebuttal lol*

But but but, I have reasons to give thanks :)

This sem, I am glad to have met Siqi (re-met actually), Suen Li and Mak. There's Shanyne, Sheryl, Soon Heng, Sidney and Shu Yi too (omg almost all starts with S!!!). Three cheers for them :D

-

Wondering if I should 自然醒 tomorrow hah.

回忆在夜里闹得很凶

2011-11-24T23:58:00.001+08:00

When you talk to yourself, is "you" equal to "yourself"?

A man within every man. Be concious of the little man.

-

An insight reached today. 心很痛。
Many insights into BF219.
Glad that this semester i found good study buddies.

What is a blog supposed to be like? About me, about what i should be, about what i want you to be?

-

Net present value is applicable to relationships too. Haven't figure out the discount rate. Does relationship have time value? I think so. If the good stuff happens only in the far future, it is not a good investment. Unless discount rate is small, or the good stuff is really good.

Discount rate is opportunity cost. Value of being absolved of the relationship.

But I think there are some relationships that you should not discount. Some relationships are meant to stay, regardless how much negative the cash flows are.

From Sunday 20th Nov

2011-11-23T14:16:00.001+08:00

Sunday's night was pretty cool, eating dinner with family at Pu Tien. Good food and rather nice family time :)

Monday: very happy to received birthday wishes (and two songs from jw :)) :) QiMin always come to mind HAHA then uhm the contemplation of botanic garden with sei & girls...mak and soon heng were happy surprises :)

and it kind of went downhill thereafter.

Very thankful for BOO and Siqi and Suen Li.

Heartbeat

2011-11-20T22:43:00.001+08:00

This song is uber good!

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/P0kMLzrqf7g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
*in case the embedding doesn't work, the word 'song' is hyperlinked :)

Doing all I can do, just to be close to you.
Every time that we meet, I skip a heartbeat.
Always up for a laugh, she's a pain in the ass.
Every time that we meet, I skip a heartbeat.
I skip a heartbeat for you.

<3

And here's another song! Perfect Company by A Cursive Memory

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BQ7EYx-CwOk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I've been to just about a million places,
With placid seas and perfect scenery,
But just to know you're right here with me,
Well you make the perfect company.

Oh my God its true,
If time stood still I'd wait with you,
If time stood still and still it stood I'd be with you.

I just want to tell you I love you (I love you), and
everything is gonna be okay someday soon.

Pre-exams

2011-11-13T18:39:00.001+08:00

And thinking about post exams D:

I am determined to jump-start my readings after exams:

The Idea of Justice by Jen,
Fooled by Randomness by Taleb,
Two Consulting handbooks,
The Old Man and The Sea by Hemmingway,
Phantom of the Opera by Leroux.

If there's time, I think I would like to reread Twilight (Breaking Dawn) and Justice by Micheal Sandel.

Reading ^.^

And I need to jump-start my fitness :/

***

There's this conversation I had with Jun Wen that is very memorable.

Me: You know about those dramas, whereby a girl/guy will leave the bf/gf because of medical reason/family pressure/i-just-want-to-protect-you-from-future-unhappiness reasons. What will you do if you got some terminal disease?

JW: aiya you know those drama very drama ma.

Me: But dramas mirror real life. So what will you do? Will you give me some reason to break up or..?

JW: No la! I will tell you, then you see you want to stay a not.

Me: What if I dont want to stay?

JW: Hmm ok bah, I can just play soccer everyday till death comes lalala

Ok, this isn't the exact transcript, but you get the gist. Quite interesting to think about this HAHA by the way, jw really did say lalala :P

Starstruckk

2011-11-12T20:43:00.001+08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvf--10EYXw

LOL at the song HAHA

ok i didn't know the lyrics were so suggestive till i checked them out...

Anyway, the beat is awesome!

Cheered me up while studying for Computing >.<

**Blogger has some issue with embedding,
but no worries, the link is hyperlinked :)

Coffee and dreams

2011-11-07T23:20:00.002+08:00

I think I have an unhealthy appetite for coffee. It is currently making up about half of my liquid intake. Not that i drink that much coffee; i usually have an issue with liquid consumption.

It may be due to coffee intake, or other matters weighing on my heart; my recent dreams have been ... weird.

I had this dream. I was at a seaside chalet/resort with JJ girls. We were chasing each other around on the beach. It was fun :) even as i was dreaming, i was concious that i was dreaming, and that i was smiling (not the me in the dream, but the me dreaming). Then, jw popped up, said he missed me, so he came to find me. I think he just booked out from camp.

A happy dream, but there was a sense of melancholy. I dont know if it's because "I dont know when I will have such fun with them again" or it's because of more morbid matters.

The dream last night bordered on the vulgar D: makes me wish i know how to interpret dreams.

But something good is happening soon! It's the last installation of Twilight :DDDD I hpoe i can resist temptation and watch the movie only after exams end :/

&&& taylor lautner is HOT. I am kinda torn between taylor and hugh jackman HAHA i used to like tay ping hui, but he now has this mustache which is...ew.

Speaking of Twilight.. if the female lead is Betty instead of Bella, she would have chosen Jacob (think only Egoh, Sheryl, and Sei will understand HAHA)

Who do you want to be?

2011-10-26T18:58:00.002+08:00

Since young, we have been posed this question:

What do you want to be when you grow up?

You may want to be a singer, a lawyer, a ballerina, a president, et cetera.

Hardly, if ever, we were posed:

Who do you want to be when you grow up?

The 'who' here doesn't necessarily refer to an idol. It refers to the traits that you wish to behold.

Instead of saying "I want to be a doctor", how about "I want to be a selfless person, who will sacrifice my time/money/treasured possessions to light up other people's lives".

Can you see, how the 'Who" question opens up your mind?

Maybe, you can argue that it's the same. Once you settled on a desired profession, you will try to emulate whatever qualities that are needed to be in that profession.

But, your profession is not everything, beacuse the qualities of a trade is not encompassing of who you are. If you are a selfless person, you can be a doctor, or perhaps any other professions that need you to make quite a bit of sacrifices. You can be selfless in other aspects of your life as well, such as being there often for your loved ones.

Try to define who you want to be :)
And work towards it - one trait at a time :)

2011-10-16T21:52:00.001+08:00

盲目追求其实不是一件坏事。

比如，我追求荣华富贵。能让我取得这个目标的事，我一一做到。

直道有一天，我发现 “钱不是万能” 这个道理。

我茫然了。大半辈子追求的却一无是处，也不知道现在该怎么做。。。没有目标了。

有些人会说盲目追求代表空虚的心灵。

若你活得比我好，比我开心，我佩服你。若不是，好让我继续盲目追求吧。

p.s. the example is not representative of the author's self.

2011-09-25T23:33:00.000+08:00

Hello, everyone :)

Beiyi & I have initiated a Reading Interest Group at our Community Club (Jurong Spring CC). We are recruiting members for this new club and hope that you are able to join and/or pass on the message of this awesome club :D

Before the monthly session (one hour each, drinks provided), readers read an article/short story/movie/video/music (yes, the list is endless), and recognise the emotions/thoughts/opinions that the story etc provokes. During the session, everyone will participate and share their own opinions and perspectives in an inclusive environment. Our hope is that you leave each session a better person, one who is able to appreciate others' points of views and be more aware of issues in the world.

There are not restrictions on the mediums of stories - we will try to explore different mediums (a short story this month, a video the next!). There are no restrictions on genres too, though the general topic will be on society (relationships between parents and child, boy/girlfriends, growing up, etc) and world issues because these topics have the largest impact and/or closest to our hearts. That said, we are open to ideas and suggestions for the next session :)

Please find out more about us through our blog here (you can sign up here too!). We hope to see this group grows, and will definitely appreciate your support! Thank you :)

TED & selling

2011-09-14T14:25:00.001+08:00

Have you heard of TED before, and/or watched its videos? It's really awesome beacuse:

Some (or rather, most) of the talks here are amazing. You get powerful insights to seemingly mundane matters, or discover a new product/idea that can potentially save many lives.
You learn how to present, by self and by slides. I think you get obtain many tips by seeing how the speakers use the voice, body movements, hand gestures and of course Power Point to intereact with the audience.
The above-mentioned ideas are not fluff. Although a number of speakers use historical and current eevnts/data/other info to extrapolate in the future, there exists a large possibility that whatever they are selling will work or provoke actions for the ideas to work.

That brings me to another topic: Selling.

If you had read The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, you may remember a section whereby Randy's professor encourages him to take up teaching. Because every professions sell something, so Randy might as well sell something invaluable (i.e. education).

Think about it. What is your profession selling? Are you selling labor, products, or intellect?

I find that many of what one sells cannot be valued monetarily. You might say, products can be valued by the sum of the costs of the parts. The cost of a packet of potato chips is the cost of potatos, the manchinery and ingredients to convert the potatos to yummy slices, and the bag itself.

How about the cost of a phone? You can use the summation of costs, but you are likely to run into a problem: costs of patents, costs of R&D et cetera. How do you value a patent, copyright, et cetera?

I think we are moving into the age of intangibles. And because we can't value ideas et cetera, most of it is free (hooray!). Think: cloud (refering to the computing cloud, not the astral object).

Back to TED: what it sells? I think by bringing many bright minds together, it hopes to create/develop upon innovative thoughts/stories/products. It may be pushing for actions too, since some of the speakers propose solutions, or raise alarms on certain sectors (food, education etc).

It seems to be selling a better world.

Hmm what am I selling through this blog post?

TED?

Nope, think again.

My Cute Boyfriend :D

2011-08-27T16:53:00.000+08:00

i have a really really cute boyfriend :D

in a recent conversation, he refused to go Queensway (to buy new soccer boots) with me because it is "not romantic".

but, "eating meatballs at ikea restuarant" is romantic.

i love his quirks :)

2011-08-24T20:28:00.000+08:00

Rediscovered Khan's academy!! :D
I get cheap thrills discovering sites where i can learn!
Alright, here's the site: http://www.khanacademy.org/ :D

How's school so far?

I joined and quitted Banking & Finance Club
Green Funeral is in incubation
Need to pay more attention during class! (one of my instructor speaks in a monotonous tone and likes to stand at one end of the class for the entire 4 hour session ._.)
Wondering if I should join NTU SIFE
Kinda bothered about not getting any part-time work; should I just concentrate on studies?
Veron said my short hair is nice :D

This is how I looked post-haircut and pre-rebond:

In conclusion, I did rebond my hair :) forgive the eyes, they were half-asleep D:

Ciaos, people~ I'm returning to Equity!

2011-08-24T08:08:00.000+08:00

5 more days to a smartphone!!! can't wait for the increase in productivity HAHAHA but sure, it's useful :)

ok i just remembered ytd that i have an internship fair to attend tmr :/ should i purchase a planner? i'm using a notebook, but there's no 'calendar' and it's definitely big enough to draw my own.

i love the word 'per se'.

and i ran for the first time in 2 weeks yesterday :/

2011-08-16T22:35:00.003+08:00

today, i realised that how stupid/bad/horrible/darned decision i made about 2 weeks back.

as the story goes, spilt milk can't be recovered.

i hate me.

Hope

2011-08-15T23:40:00.000+08:00

Promotion from Beiyi's blog: Gives Me Hope!
It's reminiscent of IMMD, though GMH is more focused.

This is the second teaching week of school.
Recorded a first: borrowed a library book from school! :D

Another first: turning up for lesson when there's no lessons >:(

-

I have been thinking about my future (the rest of my life, rather than jobs prospects etc).
I wonder if I can be a succesful consultant. Or perhaps I will change my career choice.
I wonder if I can manage work and other Balls.
How about when i wish to set up a family? Will i quit working?
What if my husband want children but I'm focused on climbing the career ladder?

So many questions.

I look at my palms. Maybe they can tell me something.

-

Just yesterday, my uncle asked me why I never try for Law.
It reminded me of a similar episode a few months back, where my aunt asked why I didn't go to Med.

I said I don't like memorising.

Upon reflection, I realised that I should have been justifying the case for Business school. [It's more exciting, more applicable, whatever.] But I didn't. Perhaps my subconcious mind felt that my conscious mind is short-changing myself.

Or maybe it's just...normal. The rather standard decision flowchart for people who obtained many As for A's: Med/Dentistry (X's interviewers like to ask why didn't u apply for Y), then Law, then Business. I admitted this flowchart crossed my mind before (no Dentistry; teeth are so... ugh).

I'm in my second year of Business school. It's rather late. And one day, I can be a doctor, just not the kind that save people :P

Society

2011-08-08T19:30:00.002+08:00

我常想，除了手指头很厉害玩弄手掌里那块教人沉迷的东西，这些人虽活在社会上，但能明白最基本的社群意义吗?
-吴伟才，汇点，八月八日二零一一年

The author wrote that it's because we dont understand what does it mean to be a member of society, we neglect to be respectful and polite to others, as well as being thoughtful of others in public. The perfect example is not giving up seats on the train. Some other acts are: teaching your 4-year old how to board the bus and use the ez-link during PM peak hours; taking your own sweet time to pay the taxi fare, cross the road et cetera.

Your opinion?

Me: To be polite et cetera is not exactly something that is written in the social contract, but I believe that it's an insidious affliction.

子曰：“弟子入则孝，出则弟，谨而信，泛爱众，而亲人。行有余力，则以学文。”

Meaning: "When students are at home, they should be filial; when students are outside, they should listen to their teachers/elders/seniors; they must be careful with their speech, be a trustworthy person, and love others. If you have dutifully carried out such acts and have time left, you should learn ____ (in this case, 文 is not 文学； it refers to the Six Arts in Confucian time)."

{Oh dear, my translation is rather bad, but I hope those with good grasps of Chinese get the original message.}

Point is: Courtesy et cetera is fundamentals. Someone with little/no manners and high intellect is a house of cards.

I am going to teach my kid(s) all these. May no one ever comment/reprimand my descendants of 没家教.