I will not give up on you

I have been in a great relationship with Ningnong. We are deeply in love and care about each other. Sometimes, I expect too much for her to be successful and it made me upset when she seemed to be out of focus and can’t stop being so occupied with random things like video games or playing too much piano. I had a slight thought of quitting but I quitted thinking about quitting when hearing this from her.

“Love is constructive..
it made me want to be a better person
i totally appreciate your support/criticism as i know they’re meant to be constructive
i am trying to work on it and i am fortunate to have you as a supportive partner
i might not being doing a good job but i know i will.. i’m positive.”

My New Relationship

It’s official. I am in a relationship with Ningnong starting today!

She has some hesitation as she is afraid to be hurt by me. Plus she thinks she is okay being by herself. I will be the best lover for you, my dear.

Cloud Computing

Before Sunrise and Time

Today, I watched Before Sunrise again for the second time. It’s so true that when you watch a movie or read a book the second time, you would pick up new things and learn new perspectives.

This time, I noticed that there were many times in the movie that Jesse talked something about time.

“What good is saved time if nobody is using it?”

“Everything is so finite. That makes our time and specific moments so important.”

So I looked up IMDb and found that Richard Linklater, the director-writer of this movie, is someone who quite obsessed with the notion of time. Many of his movies take place within single day; Before Sunrise is about ayoung man and woman meet on a train in Europe, and wind up spending one romantic evening together in Vienna.

Another quote that I like, which is not really related to time, is this:

“We say good-bye and we don’t have to worry about it.”

Wisdom for happy life

Credit: Shaun Ayala

Show up
Follow your heart
Find a new perspective
Have a sense of wonder
Find people you love
Set goals
Help others
Dance
Pamper yourself
Face your fears
Go to a museum
Exercise
Limit television
Get in touch with nature
Lighten up
Get a good night’s sleep
Read books
Buy yourself flowers
Don’t compare yourself with others
Don’t beat yourself up
Be open to new ideas
Don’t focus on negatives thought
Focus on creating what you desire
Make time to have fun
Keep the romance in your life
Keep a gratitude list
Love your mother Earth
Want what you have
Be true to yourself

Experimenting Self-Directed Learning

Lifelong learning is inevitable to a successful career in the knowledge economy. I see self-directed learning as the way to go, after formal educations. While classroom learning has many merits in itself, there are many shortfalls:

1. Curriculum-driven rather than learner-driven. Each learner is unique and it is hard to have a one-size fit-all course.
2. Usually much more expensive, especially degrees from well-respected schools

While self-directed learning has many benefits, contrary to disadvantages of formal education, there are many challenges:

1. It’s not easy to set your own learning objectives. Quite often learners are novice in the area. Solution to this is to search around for school curriculum and try to see common theme.
2. Self-discipline is mandatory
3. This is probably the most difficult one: evaluation that you have already met your goal.
4. In many disciplines, especially social science and management, peer experiences are very important. I think webboard can be a potential solution for this.
5. Learners have to be highly self-reflective.

With many challenges, I still would like to make an experiment.

These are things I need to do:

1. Find a topic of interest
2. Research curriculum from well-respected universities and from list-mania on Amazon
3. Define learning objectives
4. Define evaluation
5. Subscribe to common-interest group and webboard
6. Obtain learning materials
7. Set schedule

Life Is So Uncertain

As many of you know, I belong to Toastmasters club and we usually have competition at area, district, and international levels. RT usually used to belong to my club and I have seen him a couple of time. He was a great fellow and very committed to Toastmasters. He often served as contest chairperson for our area.

Yesterday at 4:43PM, I received email from him as following:

“Unfortunately, I ran into a fairly major medical problem last week and will have to be off work for at least a month.

Would someone from one of the Area 31 Clubs please take that on?”

And today at 3:43, I received an email from JL stating that RT has passed away.

“Fellow Toastmasters, it is with extreme sadness to advise that RT passed away peacefully at home this morning.  This news has come as a surprise to everyone.  R’s leadership and many contributions to Toastmasters Community will be greatly missed.  Details on Funeral Arrangements to follow.”

Life is so uncertain, and I should appreciate every moment I have left.

Pity You!

I have had troubles with a peer, whose project my employees works in. Today, my employee invited me to a demo and the troubled little guy was so furious and canceled the meeting simply because I was there, even after I said I was there as a silent partner.

At first I was mad too, but quickly I felt so amused by and pity at him. I felt like a victory too; I didn’t know he gave that much importance to my presence.

Buddhism and Love

I have become very interested in the philosophical aspect of Buddhism. (Yep, I am still undecided on what religion I should be part of, and mostly likely never will)

My sister introduced me to the work of Ajahn Jayasaro, a British Buddhist monk, and I really like how he looks at things. Just like me, he begins everything with questions. You can download his books and audiobooks here: http://www.fungdham.com/book/chayasaro.html. All of them, except one, are in Thai. Perhaps I should see if I can work on translating some of his works.

The first work I read was “Why Was One Born?”, and the part that I really like related to love. He says that falling in love with someone is more like having a virus. You might have it for a short while, or all your life. You have to be careful not to think that your lover loves you because you are a good person. If one day your lover stops loving you, out of the blue, it must mean that you no longer are a good person. Actually, it might not be. You really have to know yourself.

The reason that I like this part is not because I am heartbroken or anything. I just think it is an interesting way to teach that “nothing is eternal” and “importance of self-awareness.”

Anyway, after translating this short paragraph, I probably should work on improving my English before I even think of translating one of his books.

Recession

The fact that the current recession is the worst since the Great Depression in 1930s hadn’t hit me until after New Year. Some people that I know have been laid off. I saw many workshops on how to deal with unemployment.

The fact that some laid-off employees wouldn’t know in advance that it would be their last days at work still makes me feel uneasy. Why is it a common practice? I hope that these people will find a better things in life, trying new things they have never dared trying, and, most importantly, never lose their self-esteem.