An Interesting Insight ...

Where the battle for eyeballs in the blogosphere meets the global recession :

December 25th

Christmas was the day that Catriona turned exactly 2.5 years old - to the day. She was born on 25th June 2006 at 2356 hours and I still have the entry I made that day :

I was watching England vs Paraguay in the 2nd round of the 2006 World Cup in the room next door at the time when she decided to interrupt me. England won 1-0.

Well, at least I got my priorities right and was with Michelle at that time instead of the England match.

Anyway, the policy for Pantai Medical was that they wanted bonding ASAP so, as Catriona was perfectly healthy, they wheeled her into our room that night itself. I remember the first song I ever sang to her as I held her in my arms :

The parts of the song that I remember are the first verse and the chorus so those were the parts I sang. It's one of her favourite songs today.

I remember heading back home at 0630 so that I could bring my father and mother-in-law to the hospital and stopping first for dim sum because it was too early to rouse them. And it seemed such a normal everyday thing to do.

Anyway, a few people visited that day and some even helped to take photographs of us :

This photo, taken by Aunty Michelle is a favourite of mine.


And within the week, I had printed and stuck this on the fridge with a magnet :

CATRIONA CHONG XIN YUN

MISSION STATEMENT :

EAT. SLEEP. SHIT.
REPEAT.

On Top Of The World

So Man Utd have won the World Club Championship. I barely noticed.

Truth be told, it was always going to be either one one club from Europe or South America that would win it all. Money talks. And with every passing year, financial considerations tilt the odds more and more towards Europe.

As a fan, it was a good win but my interest is more towards the two main prizes of Premier League and Champions League. And to a lesser extent, the FA Cup.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

NB. I knew that photo would come in useful one day.

High Praise COOL Youth Camp 2008

I just spent 4 days the past week helping out at the High Praise COOL Youth camp and only got back at 1700 hours last Saturday. Most of the time up to now has been spent trying to catch up on e-mails and correspondence not to mention the Christmas party that was thrown by my company.

Anyway, other than being an additional pair of eyes and hands, I spent most of my time at the camp taking photographs. Photos ...

I've never quite thought of it this way, but, this is Zekey - Catriona's godbrother.

To get the edge off the energy, there were some games in the afternoon. As casual as it looked, the speaker selected the games specifically to teach certain principles.

This one here is called 'Evidence of malicious intent'.

Time was allocated to teach balloon sculpture and a few magic tricks. I made a balloon dog for Catriona which she promptly dismantled in about 2 minutes.

Exhaustion on the trip back to Subang Jaya after the camp.

Guy's getting a Divorce

I was just reading about Madonna and Guy Ritchie's divorce when I glanced at her birth date and realized that ....... she's 50 years old ! Wow !

When I first heard her album she was just beginning to create a small buzz - nowhere near famous. I still remember that her Lucky Star LP was among the first 3 vinyl LPs that I bought - with the others being

* The Smiths' "The Smiths" and
* Depeche Mode's "Some Great Reward"




I guess I should start getting used to noticing signs of time passing by but ...


It won't be through music as my musical boundaries have expanded way beyond those early years. I guess it's a little difficult to realize the passage of time when one is listening to The Beatles or Ella Fitzgerald amongst others.


And with the advent of Youtube, I find that there's really a lot on interesting stuff out there, like this one : http://www.tuesdayweld.com/

B.O.O.K.S.

Just last week, the baby sitter was telling me how much Catriona liked to read books. And this led me to reflect on the efforts that we had made to encourage her to read books. It was not so much a concerted effort to get her to learn her ABCs but more an initiative to get her to like books for themselves. Now whether it was Nature or Nurture, she likes to 'read' as these photos will attest :
* Her first favourite book - a dictionary which she repeatedly flipped at 16 months of age

* Doing the adult thing

* at Borders book store

I must confess that encouraging her to read is also aimed at discouraging an interest in video games or television. It's also my belief that she'll be more likely to learn proper English from books than she will from Malaysian schools. Besides, it gives her parents an excuse to frequent book stores on their trips to the shopping mall.

Potrait of an Artist at Work

Every week or so, Catriona would ask me to 'do painting'. This is normally the cue for me to bring out the paint, brushes and paper so that she can express herself in paint.

I had taught her to paint a few months ago so that she could be creative and have fun at the same time. The prospect of nurturing a little Van Gogh, to me, is more exciting than raising a boring accountant.

To quote George Bernard Shaw : "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. All progress, therefore, depends upon the unreasonable man". Now, I'm not saying that my aim is to raise a rebel. But considering our cookie cutter Malaysian education system, raising a child who can think for herself would not be a bad thing. All of this is on a conceptual level, of course, since Catriona is too young to be anything other than a toddler.

Sadly, she hasn't been able to produce anything to top her first maiden effort.

Forward Planning for Productivity Improvement

I saw this article in The Star yesterday :

Fewer days of annual leave for new civil servants
By SIM LEOI LEOI

PUTRAJAYA: Come Jan 1, those joining the civil services will only be entitled to 25 instead of 30 days of annual leave regardless of their tenure of service, says Public Service Director Tan Sri Ismail Adam.

Those who are already civil servants will have a choice of reducing their annual leave by five days or not in a move by the Government to promote efficiency and productivity.

Currently, civil servants who have served more than 10 years are entitled to 30 days of leave.
Ismail said civil servants did not need to get “unduly upset” by the option as they could still choose to remain under the old scheme.

“The option is given to see if civil servants are willing to sacrifice five days of leave for their service,” he said in an interview here yesterday.

I would like to commend Tan Sri Ismail Adam for his efforts to improve productivity in the civil service. While the suggestion for civil servants to sacrifice five days leave is admirable, I have my doubts about the number of civil servants who would take up this suggestion without any compensation whatsoever. Come to think of it, I doubt that there would be many in the private sector who would take up a similiar suggestion as well.

This being the case, that would leave us with only the new civil servants. And since the additional five days leave entitlement only applies to those who have served more than ten years, we should be able to see this improvement in productivity in about ............ oh, ten years time.

Cupcakes

I clicked on a link today and ended up at this blog : http://cookingismypassion.blogspot.com/

The thing about blogs, Youtube, Facebook and their ilk nowadays is how much they change the way we connect and communicate with others, sometimes even total strangers. Just take Barack Obama as an example - in time, he'll be known as the first American President to have used the internet effectively as a main strategy for his election campaign. And any study of his election campaign would show striking differences from other election campaigns in the use of the internet. Anyway, I'm not about to do a treatise on the social, political, business, etc. impact of blogs, Youtube, Facebook, etc. on society as a whole. That's best left to the 'experts'.

What I like about http://cookingismypassion.blogspot.com/ are the pictures of the blogger's culinary creations as per the samples shown below. And yes, they really are cakes.

And another thing about the internet. I checked 'treatise' through an online dictionary. Haven't used a print dictionary in years.

献给所有为爱而生的人

你是为爱而生的人

在你的生命中正享用着那份爱

你是为爱而生的人

在你的生命中正享用着那份爱

自从太初以来亘古不变神的爱

借着我们的相遇结出果子

因你在这个世界之中真实的存在

我们因此而喜悦无比

你是为爱而生的人

在你的生命中正享用着那份爱

你是为爱而生的人

在你的生命中正享用着那份爱

在你的生命中正享用着那份爱

당신은 사랑 받기 위해 태어난 사람

당신의 삶 속에서 그 사랑 받고 있지요

당신은 사랑 받기 위해 태어난 사람

당신은 삶 속에서 그 사랑 받고 있지요

태초부터 시작된 하나님의 사랑은

우리의 만남을 통해 열매를 맺고

당신이 이 세상에 존재함으로 인해

우리에겐 얼마나 큰 기쁨이 되는지

당신은 사랑 받기 위해 태어난 사람

지금도 그 사랑 받고 있지요

당신은 사랑 받기 위해 태어난 사람

지금도 그 사랑 받고 있지요

지금도 그 사랑 받고 있지요

You were born to be loved

And you are receiving that love through your life.

You were born to be loved

And you are receiving that love through your life.

The love from God that started since the beginning of your birth

Becomes connected with us meeting each other.

You were born to be loved

And you are receiving that love through your life.

きみは愛されるため生まれた

きみの生涯は愛で満ちている

きみは愛されるため生まれた

きみの生涯は愛で満ちている

永遠の神の愛は われらの出会いの中で実を結ぶ

きみの存在が 私にはどれほど大きな喜びでしょう

きみは愛されるため生まれた 今もその愛受けている

きみは愛されるため生まれた 今もその愛受けている

Five-day weeks are the way to go

If you haven't worked a six day or a five-and-a-half day work week before, you probably wouldn't realize what a huge difference it makes to your weekend. The whole getting-up-on-a-Saturday-morning to commute to the work place and the getting-back-at-3pm really eats into the weekend. And that's provided you get off at 1300 hours.

I wasn't working today and this is what I ended up doing :

* Taking Catriona to the park

* Taking her to lunch

* Taking her to the swimming pool

And by the time she had a bath and fallen asleep, it was 1600. If I had been working, 1600 would probably mean that I had work, lunch and a shower.

But what I love most about Saturdays off are the opportunity to watch Celtics games on ESPN as those (if scheduled) are on Saturday mornings.

Negotiation Genius

Yesterday I attended a session by Deepak Malhotra (bio : http://www.deepakmalhotra.com/)
on negotiation and strategies on influence. The dude's an Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

He's also got a book out : http://www.negotiationgenius.com/

Since the session lasted only some 7 hours, he obviously wouldn't have time to distill an entire book / lifetime of research into the session. But from what I've seen of him, the dude's good.

You'll want to check out what he has to say 'cos, let's face it, everybody has to negotiate - even if it's a question of who's supposed to bring out the garbage.

It's Thanksgiving today

We in Malaysia don't celebrate Thanksgiving but I think that this strip sums up sentiments in the US of A.

We Don't Need No Education..

This little piggy went to market.

This little piggy stayed home.

This little piggy had roast beef.

This little piggy had none.

And this little girl went to school yesterday.

For the first time.

It was only last week when Michelle's sister mentioned that her 6-year old son was going to tuition. And Michelle was saying "Isn't he a bit young ?" Truth be told, at 6 years, I think some restraint has been shown by the parents as I've heard of kids who started much earlier. It's not something that I would impose on Catriona, if possible - although I understand where they're coming from.

Of course, now that Michelle had asked that question, it had to turn around and bite her on the butt. Which is how Catriona ended up going to school at all of 2 years and 5 months. Mind you, it was only a one-time class and for only a few hours. And we didn't push her into it as it was the baby sitter who had suggested it. Still.....

At least Catriona was excited about going to school.

A Milestone

We had our 5th anniversary last Saturday and I must confess that I've not felt those years pass by.

In that time :

* I've changed 2 jobs and Michelle 1

* I've stopped reading newspapers in newsprint

* My soccer news now comes from soccernet and not the local newspapers

* I've witnessed the rise of YouTube and Facebook - and have hooked up with some Old Frees from my year as a consequence

* I've seen the raising of political consiousness in Peninsular Malaysia and now find that 100% of my time in Malaysia is in Pakatan Rakyat-controlled states including the trips to Penang.

* I've seen the USA elect a coloured President and immediately heard it described as an Obama Moment

* Seen the Boston Celtics go from bottom feeders to NBA champions

* Discovered online chess

* Stopped playing football and futsal and returned to playing badminton

* Added a few pounds :

pants... so.... tight

* and co-authored a major production :

Time flies. I still remember the 1st show I watched on television on my wedding day right before the wedding dinner. It was England vs Australia in the 2003 Rugby World Cup Final and I delayed the dinner a little bit more to watch Jonny Wilkinson kick the winning drop goal with 20 seconds to the end of extra time :

木婚

时间真的过的瞒快的，结婚原来是五年前的事了。这段时间有起有落，有欢笑当然也有感伤的时候。生活就这样过了。

结婚五周年纪念原来叫木婚，到金婚还有好长的路。好在有你牵手一起走。。。

A Question of Time

Every once in a while I count how I've been using my time. Usually I count on a weekly basis and then average it out to a day - that's 24 hours.

It's not just a shiok sendiri exercise, but more a case of determining if I'm spending my time the way I want to. Not how I should spend my time, but how I want to spend my time. And once I've broken it down, then I know whether I'm spending my time the way I want to spend it. Of course, how I want to spend my time is a very subjective matter, but that's a story for another day.

For instance, when I was working in central KL, smack in the middle of the Golden Triangle, I was spending on average 135 minutes a day commuting to and back from my workplace. So when an offer came to work in Shah Alam which entailed 60 minutes total commuting time, the time savings became an important issue. At 75 minutes a day for 20 working days a month, I was going to have an additional 1,500 minutes a month just on commuting - that's 1 whole day a month.

When you think about it, that's 24 extra hours of sitting in the car every month. Just that thought changed my perception of working in Shah Alam. Suddenly, it seemed a lot more desirable than having a Starbucks in the office backyard. And I decided that sitting in a car was not how I wanted to spend my time.

I guess now that Catriona is here, time has become a more precious commodity because she wants to play with me. And sometimes it's difficult because I would rather be off doing my own stuff. But at the back of my mind is the thought "She's only going to be this age once, and the time will come when she would rather play with others".

It's a sobering thought. And one that helps me to focus on what I want to do.

How Great Thou Art

Living with a 2-year old, I often discover (or am subjected to) random acts of art :

All I have to do is keep a keen eye out for it as I never know where I may find it. Being observant also prevents unwanted falls or breaking said pieces of art. In a way, it’s exciting because I never know what objects are going to be used in any piece of art. Building bricks, books, kitchen utensils, stickers, clothes and even onions have all been used by the resident artist in my house. They are pieced together in common groups or combined creatively just about here, there and anywhere. Sometimes, when I walk into a room, I see it. It’s just there - Art.

It’s a bit like how an archeologist is excited by the sight of some prehistoric bones from some long forgotten animal.


Now unlike archeology, these pieces of art don’t last as long. Some last for hours and others last for weeks. It really depends on whether the artist goes back to the scene of the art and decides to express herself again. If she does, then something new will be created. And if she doesn’t, then that’s eye candy for me.

Some particularly favourite pieces are recorded.

As always, beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I find that some of this art makes for unique wallpapers.