My Favorite African Parable

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows that it must run faster than the fastest lion or i will be killed. Every morning, a lion wakes up. It knows that it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.

It doesn't matter whether yoou are a lion or a gazelle: When the sun comes up you had better be running.

Walking in the rain

Sometimes, you just have to walk in the rain with your head held high.

Especially at times when you're stranded at your bus stop without an umbrella.

Don't pray for the rain to stop, or someone to bring you an umbrella. If you waited long enough, the rain would probably stop, or you could probably hope for HDB to build a shelter from the bus stop all the way to your door step. The moral question is probably how long do you wait.

But when you decide to go, go.

Don't run, just walk. Don't cringe or try to shelter any parts of your body with your hands or a plastic bag or a file - it doesn't work.

Walk calmly and proudly, as if there's nothing in the world that's stopping you.

As if it isn't raining at all.

Begin with the end in mind - a shower and a hot cup of coffee, and some time in front of your computer blogging the whole incident.

And if the rain stop just seconds before you reach your doorstep, you'll know that luck's not on your side and you should probably not waste any money on this week's lottery.

Don't Ask.

"Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible." - Viktor E. Frankl

Complaining and Advising

"I don't want to talk about it", is the usual response I give to people when asked about my apparent "problems" at work. Because I don't want to be perceived as any more whiny than I already am, and because I believe that it's difficult for people not in my shoes to give me any good advice anyway.

I was proven right again today when I was coerced into finally going into some detail about the specifics of my problems at work, and the complainee admitted, "Yah, I agree it's a hard problem, I don't know how I can help you."

That, I have to say, is terribly demoralizing.

It's like a kid who goes to his math teacher with a problem that he can't solve, only to have his math teacher say, "hrm, I'm not so sure how to do this either. You'll have to figure it out yourself."

Perhaps only Archimedes and Euclid will rise up to this challenge, the rest of us mere mortals will just decide to give up a lifelong career in mathematics instead.

Why Do I Like Coffee Bean?

No reasons in particular, in fact, any cafe would do. Coffee Bean happens to have starhub wireless internet, which has turned free (great customer service move by Starhub).

But here, there's ambient noise, bad lighting, and just me and my laptop. This, somehow, allows me to focus, to relax.

Sometimes, the most private place you can be, is in a crowd. Nobody looks at the person sitting next to you, or hears their conversation, because they are all too engrossed in talking, too concerned about themselves. You could walk around naked and I'll be surprised if somebody notices. (okay, maybe they would.)

In this busy and crowded cafe, I find solitude.

Or maybe these are the delusional effects of an iced latte.

Updates on the 9th of January

Someone commented on my good writing, and whether it was a blatant lie or dripping sarcasm, i've decided to take it as a compliment (ref: previous entry on self delusion), and amaze the world with more of my literary lack of talent.

Updates:

I'm back in Singapore, thrown into work force and have already started incurring huge losses for my company.

Recent obsessions include sprinkling half-baked japanese phrases all over my blogs and profiles, in hope that cogito ergo sum power will up my japanese level.

4 months in Singapore and no gym membership yet, someone please bind me up in chains and throw me onto a treadmill.

What else? Glad to be home, had no idea that I could adapt so quickly, forget the wonderful taste of natto so quickly, that time passes so quickly and things changes so quickly, and yet to a friend whom i haven't met for years, that i could still look exactly the same.

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今月経験した事に、色々を考えさせられた。仕事は、なんか、考えたより、ずっと楽しくて凄かった。卒業する前、ずっと仕事を始める事を怖がってばかりいて、仕事なんてやだなあって思って、でも、今は本当に会社と同僚の皆様が大好きになってしまった。人生が不思議なあって、思わせるなあ。

やっぱり、どんな事があっても、自分の居る場所と自分の幸せを見つけられる。夢と立志とか、いらない。自分の想像だけで限られたくないから。吃驚させられたい。驚かされたい。人生の奇襲、奇跡のように、自分の話を書いている。終わりなんて，まだ全然分からない。それは、生きているの楽しと思う。

The Feeling of Embarassment

As usual, I outdid myself again in publicly humiliating myself. I will not recount the event, but I did some really embarassing thing at work today, which I think will haunt me to the end of my days and beyond.. but nvm..

But as I was being tortured by this feeling of extreme embarassment, wishing there were holes in the ground I can throw myself into, or that there were tools I can start digging with, and eyeing the tempting darker areas in the local drains, I realise a few things about the feeling embarassed:

1. You really develop the ostrich mentality that if you hid your face, the whole world can't see you. I spent the entire bus journey home hiding my face behind a book. (to no purpose of course, since the people whom I embarassed myself in front of weren't in the bus).

2. Embarassment is possibly closer to a happy feeling than a sad one. I spent the entire time half grimmacing and half grinning. (which by itself, is pretty embarassing and probably also scared the lady sitting next to me on the bus)

3. Your vocabulary becomes temporarily limited to variations of "argh" and your hands go instinctively to either your face or your head.

Now that I've got this emotion all figured out, I can't wait to get out there and embarass myself all over again. =)