Babe In Total Control of Herself (or Him?)

Yesterday, the conversation between The BF and I evolved into an interesting topic.

It started when I shared with him the conversation between me and a gf. She was going OMG OMG I have big big news, coz she just heard that a common friend is getting married next year. My antenna had already picked it up a couple months back and I was as surprised as she, then.

You must be thinking it doesn't sound like we're surprised in a good way. Well, getting married is a happy thing and not uncommon (some would say a wee bit overdue) amongst people of my age range, and we are genuinely happy for him. Honestly genuinely. But this dude, at the point when he proposed to his gf, has probably only been going out with her for a year and half max, based on my best estimate. We wondered how well they really know each other to make this kind of commitment and what possessed him to propose and her to accept! We also thought she's a little bit of a control freak...

The BF got interested at the mention of control freak, and asked why we made such a comment. I guess it's hard to pinpoint at a glaring display of control freak-ness by dude's gf but since we both independently formed that opinion, it must be true somewhat, no? OK.... maybe control freak is too strong a description, but she is kinda controlling-ish.

Anyway, The BF then told me that over lunch a couple of days back, his colleague Cindy asked him whether his gf is a control freak. Apparently he paused for a bit and in a voice not entirely convincing said "I don't think so...", to which Cindy laughed in his face. According to her, he's totally pwned and didn't know it, haha. "Is that how it works?" he asked, wearing the expression of a confused puppy dog.

Honestly, I don't know if I'm the kind of person Cindy said I am. At most, I will admit to being slightly manipulative (obviously in a good, angelic, harmless way) but definitely not a control freak. Do let me clarify a bit on the manipulative bit: I believe you can convince people to do things for you if you know what to say and how to say it. All women know that, and some men too. It's very much people management so, I probably shouldn't call myself manipulative, coz that sounds so sinister.

Whereas men, on the other hand, are prone to displaying control freak tendencies. I can almost hear a collective cry of protest but it's trueeee. Let's face it, men are born bossy and some developed very fixed opinions on things too. How many times have you got the "it's either my way or the highway" from men? The BF (yes you, I know you're reading this), as awesome as he is, is not an exception. Suffice to say he couldn't muster any retort when I gave him examples of his mild controlling-ness, hehe.

I think it's fair to say most of us, if not all, do have an inherent controlling trait. The only difference is how much control you want to have. And since no man is an island, that has to be balanced with how much control your partner or people around you will take. As long as we can strike a good balance, I'm pretty certain there will be peace on Earth...

Oh, and Merry Xmas!

watch and eat

I went for a cooking demo today and learned that it's actually very easy to make cake pops. It's soooo easy you wouldn't believe it. I can throw such awesome parties now!

I also learned how to fillet a whole salmon fish. Not that there's any need for me to fillet a whole salmon (or buy one in the first place) but I once watched an episode of Masterchef where the contestants had to fillet a salmon fish and some of them did it rather hideously. I guess the knowledge would come in handy should I want to fillet any fish. It should work the same way, right?

Anyhoo, the salmon fillets were used to make gravlax, like the ones they sell in Ikea. The instructor also taught us how to make bouncy poached prawns. It's in the ice ice water baby. No wonder mine always turn out slightly mushy.

Here comes my favourite, mince pies! I was thinking of making some for an xmas party next week but I thought it's kinda complicated-ish... so I chickened out. It's definitely not as easy as cake pops but not as hard as I thought.

This is Chef Bernard Lee in action. He's funny and because of that the class is pretty interactive.

Of course, we get to eat everything after that and have seconds AND thirds. Much fun!

stay hungry. stay foolish

R.I.P.
Steve Paul Jobs
February 24, 1955 - October 5, 2011

********

A prepared text of the commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs at Stanford University on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

it's alchemy baby

I’m mad addicted to a new game on my phone. It's called Alchemic Phone 7.


An island, ta-dah!

What you do is you combine two elements to create a new element. The game starts you off with the basic air, earth, water and fire elements and you make them react with each other to create other or more complex elements. If you can create 1,521 elements then it would be the World as we know it.


Looks like it'll take me a while to make a Man...maybe I'll need Monkey and Evolution

Have I lost you?

Example: Water + Fire = Smoke + Dust, or Colours + Bleach = White.

Sometimes it's not very scientific at all, like Salt + Sea = Dead Sea. Haha, kinda hilarious isn't it? More often than not, it's bordering on frustration really, when you keep making combinations but it just wouldn't react! But frustration aside, this game actually makes me feel somewhat smart, like when I thought up Perpetuum Mobile *smug*

Well, today I discovered machine, engine, river, lake, pond, island and... Ha-wa-eee ;O) (it's Volcano + Island in case you're curious).



But for now I'll concentrate on creating the Sun. I've been one step away for almost 3 days now! 3 DAYS. Anyone knows how to make a Sun??

*Update*

August 23, 2011
I finally found the Sun dammit! Woohoo!

being chinese

I struggle to bite my tongue on so-called sensitive issues in this blog. I practice self censure because it gets tiring and repetitive after a while, but mostly because I'm afraid the government will use ISA on me.

However, the PM Najib Razak has promised that the government will never censor the Internet and that it’s important for bloggers to put forward their views so that the government can build a better future for our country. The PM calls for constructive criticism and will allow freedom of speech on blogs. So here is my two sen worth of constructive criticism:-

Dear PM Najib Razak,

Utusan Malaysia has started yet another racist rant, this time calling for its owners, UMNO, to spearhead a 1Melayu 1Bumi movement involving all Melayu parties. Zaini Hassan wrote that:-

(1) The Melayus are not united and that the Chinese have already controlled everything and is now aiming for absolute political power.
(2) The Chinese community is especially united, and would help each other economically.
(3) The Chinese are proud of their language and even Chinese who cannot read Chinese will still buy Chinese newspapers.
(4) The Chinese are actually very fortunate to be in Malaysia.
(5) The Melayu parties should unite to fight for the interests of their race that is increasingly being left behind.

I find it rather seditious, but I guess the government doesn’t think so, since no one was arrested and the DPM Muhyiddin Yassin said the media should not be prevented from expressing its views, even if there were parties that disagreed with the messages put across. I applaud the government for taking this open-mindedness stance and let this be a record the next time a blogger or an editor gets hauled up for reporting facts.

Now, in exercising my freedom of speech, I disagree whole heartedly with Zaini Hassan on point number 3. Firstly, no Chinese, or any other race or rational human, would be very clever to buy newspapers in a language they cannot read in. I do not have the statistical data to refute his claims but I do speak for common sense.

I agree with Zaini Hassan that the Chinese are united, but not in every facet of life and only because the UMNO putras made us this way. For some reason, the existence of Chinese in Malaysia is like the pimple on the arse for the UMNO putras: painful, annoying, wouldn’t go away fast enough…. We are constantly reminded that we’re pendatang (foreigners or immigrants) and that we’re a lucky lot to be able to plant roots in Malaysia.

I am a third generation Fujian Chinese in Malaysia. My great grandfather sailed the seas in search of better living conditions post war-torn China and worked as a sinseh. I do not know of any relatives in China and I do not have any other home other than the roof over my head in Malaysia. I have a blue IC like any other people born in Malaysia, but I’ve been told I’m only a second class citizen. Many a times the Chinese have been told to balik China (return to China).


(Shanghai) (Image courtesy of ayakovlev.info)

If “going back to China” would accord me with rights equal to any other citizens of China, I would gladly do so. But alas, I’m not sure if I could afford China. In the past 10 years or so, China had undergone huge economic progress, boasting billionaires, highways, skyscrapers and all that which is superior to the modern and democratic Malaysia. The cost of living in urban cities in China is easily double of KL. There’s no way I can afford China but if I can’t “go back to China” and Malaysia doesn’t want me, where can I go?

The Melayus are pendatang too, from Indonesia. They are not the original settlers of Malaysia. What right do they have to claim Malaysia for themselves only? For all the cries of balik China, we don’t ask you to balik Indonesia.

It’s so easy to play the blame game. When BN turned in a less than stellar performance at the recent Sarawak elections, it’s the Chinese’s fault. Former PM Mahathir Mohamad accused the Sarawakian Chinese of rejecting multi-racism. Utusan Malaysia’s Awang Salleh wrote that BN should punish the Chinese voters who did not support the ruling coalition. The Election Commission accused DAP of running a racist campaign in Sarawak. From what I can see, all the campaigning was largely anti-Pek Moh and cried for a change.



So yes, the Chinese are united because we want change.

We don’t get handouts from the government. We don’t get scholarships from MARA. We don’t get investment funds for the hardcore poor Chinese. In fact, like the Indians or the Yang Lain-lains, we don’t get a lot of things that should be distributed equally amongst all citizens of this country.

So what do we do? Sit and stew? Blog about how unfair the government is? Lead a protest group to the parliament? How will this change anything for the Chinese?

Life goes on. We just make the best out of it. The fact is, the Melayu will always form the majority and socio-economic policies will always veer in their favour. I don’t foresee anything to change too drastically.

Personally, my wish list is for a better education system. No more flip-flopping between Maths and Science in English or Bahasa Malaysia. The teachers of our future generations should be highly educated as well, and not the third or fourth grade graduates who could not qualify to go into science, medicine, engineering, legal or finance. Let those who wants an education, gets educated in what they want, here. Not every Chinese family can afford private education.

I want to see the wealth of the country being used in a rightful and economically beneficial manner. Monies sourced from Malaysian soil should be used in a way that would benefit the population as a whole. Channel money from super projects into the rural areas of East Malaysia that are still lacking in basic necessities such as electricity, running water and proper roads. Corrupt officials and politicians should be sacked and meted out just punishment. How can we trust a politician who is not honest to work for us?

Please stop portraying the Melayu as a weak race that needs help all the time. If you say that often enough, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Instead of telling them they are victims and the Chinese are largely at fault for their current situation, empower them to change and strive for the best life can offer. The government did not look out for us, and if we can survive, so can anyone in Malaysia.

It’s never about the Melayu vs the Chinese. We just want to be treated like citizens of this country, without any grades. And while you, dear PM Najib Razak, try to convince us 1Malaysia is the way to go, your little Napoleans are running amok creating havoc. I don’t know whether you approve any of it for you seem awfully quiet while your little dream is under siege.

Actually, you don’t need bother selling us 1Malaysia. The Melayus, Chinese, Indians, and Yang Lain-lains can live and work side by side. Our money could be better spent re-educating the UMNO putras instead. Stop their rant on Melayu vs Chinese or that the Melayu is a superior race, you would not have any real racism issue at hand.

I could go on and on, for the malaise that hounds Malaysia is never ending. I hope you take my constructive criticism constructively. After all, I also want only the best for my country.


Signed,
Pendatang who will vote for change

i discovered Pearl Jam!

I know, some people may say WTH, which shell you've been living under? Or, don't you have music where you come from?

For the record, I've HEARD of Pearl Jam... I just mistakenly thought they're some heavy metal band, which I can't stand at all. The urge was never there for me to check out Pearl Jam.

So thank you, Capital FM, for this enlightenment. I simply love that station. Will share my other discoveries from Capital FM next time.

My two faves from Pearl Jam, so far. Enjoy!

A for Alessi

It finally arrived!

Many minutes of many days has been spent at the Alessi section of Tangs and Parkson, admiring and waiting...


#1. Horrors of horror..look at the condition of the box :-O

I gave it one, two gentle shakes and didn't hear any broken pieces *phew*... So we're left with one other worst thing that can happen, which is one of them could possibly be dented. All the way home my hand would automatically hold onto the box whenever I brake or maneuvered a corner, juusssst in case.


#2. Turns out they're all in nice little boxes swaddled with layers of bubble wrap.


#3. Clockwise L-R: Miniature kettle by Michael Graves, Josephine Banana kitchen timer, Banana Boys bottle stopper, Parmenide cheese grater, Magic Bunny toothpick holder and Hug Tree figurine.

The mini kettle and figurine are just for display purposes, and I don't know how much baking/cooking I'll do (considering it's close to nil most of the time), and I don't use toothpicks...

But they're so nice to want, aren't they?

Now, there's also this set of cool ice-cream spoons, and soy sauce container...