Aiming higher?

January has gone by so fast and uneventfully that I hardly noticed it. An evaluation on progress made to my new year resolutions were in order.

1) Get six packs

2) Blog at least 50times this year

Hmm...seems that I may have set the bar for 2010 a little bit too low. It just occurred to me that I can hit my targets tomorrow by using some marker pens (or going to buy some beer) and posting 50 nonsense blog posts (that's the problem/beauty of setting vague goals for yourselves - you have loopholes should you need to utilize them*grins*). Come December 31st 2010, will I be able to look back at this year and say with certainty that I've worked hard and achieved all that I've set out to do?

With that in mind, I think its not too late to add some new resolutions. Some considerations are...

1) Be a better man/nicer person.

One of the hardest things about setting goals about character improvement is that success is hard to measure. So let's just ditch this one... I'll work on it continuously and without a time frame.

2) Learn to swim.

Something that I've been thinking of since primary school. Unlike the previous one, results for this goal can be accurately measured - swim or sink. However the thought of going to a pool with little fabric over my loins and spending the afternoon with other 6 year olds kicking in the pool is such a put off.

3) Learn to read Chinese.

Being a Chinese and not able to read my own language is a handicap that I've endured for quite a long time. Previous efforts to rectify this problem have always ended in failure.

A book my wife bought me a few years back

Reading this two pages will take me longer than watching a footbal match

Trying to pick up a new language is never easy. It will take a lot of time and effort. Maybe I'll just stick to two new year resolutions for this year and be the guy with the great torso that has a lot of opinions. Come 2011, I'll consider working on my procrastination...

One Step Back, Ten Steps Forward

What do you do when you have achieved almost everything that you have aimed for and have performed consistently as the top in the world?

Take a break, of course!

Ferran Adrià, owner of the world famous El Bulli, has announced today that he plans to take 2 years off. El Bulli (a Michelin 3-star restaurant by the way) has been acknowledged as one of the best restaurants in the world and making a reservation is almost impossible as their bookings are always sold out on the day of being officially released.

Ferran Adrià admits that the decision to take a sabbatical will lose his restaurant the 3-star rating. However, he has a reason for doing so. "I need to to decide how 2014 is going to be," says Ferran of his decision to not take any customers for the years 2012 and 2013. "We want the year 2014 to stand out. I know that when I return it will not be the same."

Anyone who thinks that Ferran Adrià will take two years partying will be mistaken as a Ferran has insisted that 'these two years will be devoted to thinking, planning and preparing the new format for subsequent years.'

I would love to take a year off too actually. Who wouldn't? My wife recently commented that 2010 is our 7th year of having stepped into the working world. I know of friends who work 6 years and take a sabbatical every 7th year but that is something not viable for us at the moment. However as we all strive to achieve our goals in life, its heartening to see that ingenuity does not only require persistent hard work to achieve - but requires that we step back and recharge ourselves for inspiration and direction.

So you're obese? SUE YOUR GRANDFATHER!

We all more or less know the basic principles of genetics - we inherit our physical traits from our parents and thats why we look like them.

However, scientists have long suspected that its not only the genes that get passed down that expresses itself in the offspring, but environmental factors do play a part as well. What your parents eat and do may affect you in some way not yet known. Well some are obvious, like fetal alcohol syndrome, others not so.

Then came epigenetics. Epigenetics basically explains how everyday events like stress, the food we eat and the things we choose to indulge in may actually influence how our genes are expressed in our offspring. It does not involve any changes in the genetic code though.

An article in the Times magazine goes on to elaborate about this :

- In rare overabundant winters in Sweden, kids who went from normal eating habits to gluttony in a single season produced sons and grandsons who live shorter lives.

- Those boys who endured a poor harvest had grandchildren who live on average 6 years longer than those who had overabundant harvests.

- Boys who were early smokers ( before age 11-prepuberty, before sperm production) eventually produced children who have significantly higher body mass indexes than other boys their age, most likely raising their risk of obesity and other health problems in the future as well.

What this ultimately validates is that every action in this world will bear a consequence, whether immediate or delayed. Can you imagine what it will be like in the future when epigenetics is more widely studied? If you can sue your employer and prove that your lung cancer is caused by exposure to hazardous materials in your line of work that the employer has closed one eye to... then you might as well sue your grandfather for his lack of judgement when he was barely a teenager!

moar funny pictures

That is if he is still around by then...

Dark Ages

If there is any disadvantage in staying in Sabah at all, I'd say its the constant power cuts that spoils its utopian charm. Sabah's electricity woes are so legendary that Lim Kit Siang has hit out at SESB (Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd) in his book 'The Cries of Sabah'.

“Talking about power supply in my hometown, on average in a month, we will be in total darkness for at least 72 hours; the highest record was no power supply for 8 hours a day for 1 whole week!! If there is no power disruption in Sabah, then it’s not Sabah, SESB confirms to this, where SESB stands for SABAH EVERYDAY SURE BLACKOUT. If there were no power supply for half an hour in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, tomorrow it will be the top news in the media, but for us Sabahans on the other side of Malaysia, being drenched in total darkness for few others, causing traffics to go haywire, no one even bothered about us.”

- “The cries of Sabahan”

I can assure you readers from West Malaysia that, YES, its that bad. Everytime there is a power cut, it will undoubtedly affect my workplace - how else can I key in sales transactions when the monitors are all blank right? So we have to rely on manual written transactions that will be entered into the POS once the power comes back on.

This is really bothersome, especially if you have multiple customers waiting and you are copying down all the barcodes, prices, items and whatnot furiously while trying to counsel them at the same time.

Looking through all of last year's transactions, I've counted a total of 42 power cuts during office hours. Thats like almost one every week! Mind you, this is not including power cuts at odd hours of the night that wakes us up in a pool of sweat, only to get back to sleep by losing consciousness through extreme heat exhaustion.

As much as I hate power disruptions, there are times when I long for it. Oh say when the telly is showing Sir Alex like this...

Sir Alex's nasal follicles are longer than my beard!

Having nasal hair that shows is a greater sin than having inappropriate relations with your pet dog. I find it difficult talking to people who have such a substantial volume of hair in the nose that wave to you everytime they exhale. What's worse is that they seem to be proud of it. I've always believed that it takes a great deal of apathy towards personal hygiene and grooming for it to ever reach such a level.

Speaking of apathy, that's the general feeling towards power cuts now in Sabah. Talk to any man on the street and yes he will be pissed at SESB but the conversation will always end with 'What to do? Don't get electricity from them, who else can you get from?' We've all learnt to adjust and live our lives around this terrible inconvenience. Apathy has become acceptance in a way.

Maybe I should start getting used to nasal hair as plan B in case I can never grow a moustache.

Book of the Year 2009

Looking back at my past choices for my personal Book of the Year(BOTY), I realized that they are all non-fiction. If there is ever going to be a fiction book up for that title, 2009 will be the year.

I'll always remember 2009 as the year I became a fan of Terry Pratchett and the Discworld series (Yea I know...what took me so long?). Ironically, I started picking up his books when I read an article about Terry Pratchett being diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. Moist von Lipwig was the first character I grew attached to.

Admittedly, reading Making Money first before Going Postal was like putting underarm deodorant after a heavy gym session...then going for a shower. However even if you read the series out of sequence, you will still be guaranteed a laugh out loud experience. Terry's wit and humor, especially in wordplays, fills his books with many classic quotes. There are times when I look forward to coming home after a 13 hour work shift and just really soak in the brilliance.

I love every single Discworld book I have read so far (and I'm sure the same goes for those I have yet to read) and therefore it cannot be considered for the BOTY honors. Including it for consideration will mean Terry winning the BOTY for the next few years at least.

There is one other book that I have enjoyed reading and will not hesitate to recommend to anyone.

I bought this book early 2009 to prepare myself for my marriage. This is not a 'how to' self help book that teaches you techniques but rather it is a very well written book that urges its reader to grasp how and why our emotions can make us or break us. The book starts off with an anatomy lesson - specifically discussing the cortex and the limbic systems in our brains that are responsible for rational thinking and emotional processing. The first part can be boring and I suggest you skip this part if you hate reading all those medical terms.

The book then goes on to touch on a variety of topics, gender specific emotional expressions, emotions in marital life, relationship between emotions and our health, conflict resolution, teaching children to control their emotions and so on.

We have a culture that glorifies grades above all else. How else can we explain local newspapers giving front page coverage to students with impossible number of As? Don't get me wrong, grades are important. If my children come home with Ds on their report card then of course their career options will be limited...unless they want to be the President of the US.

Parents will surely be happy when their kids get good grades. Rather, good grades and skills are like bullets in a handgun while your emotional intelligence allows you to read the situation and decide when to fire.

So there, the most memorable book that I've read in 2009 is Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence. As for this year, I'm trying to read more fiction. Anyone can suggest some good fiction novels? There will be lots of Discworld novels too this year to read ...heheh.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

As 2009 comes to an end - and what a year it has been for me - I came to realize that despite all the challenges, every year has always been better than the last. There's always just so much to be thankful for that all grievances are insignificant. And I do hope that it I'll always have this mentality for the many years I still have left.

A very Merry Christmas to all of you and a very Happy 2010 ahead!

Wire-gra™

My tomato plants were growing up very well on its own until it started doing this.

Before Wire-gra™

Normally a male will be well beyond his fifties before something like this happens. I guess in tomato years, my plant is an old man.

After doing some research and discovering that tomato plants need support, I decided to build something to help it. I also made a mistake when I sowed the seeds, shouldn't have dumped it all in one place. It may look fine now but it will hinder the growth of the plant eventually.

The tricky bit was separating them. The saplings are really fragile and flaccid. Half of them died in the transplantation.

Tomato on Wire-gra™

Ta-daaa! I admit it looks hideous now but I'll do something about it once it grows more substantially.