May your right hand wield Success, and from your left spring Joy.
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Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Exciting 28th Dec
Several events made today an exciting one.
1. I cooked my first meal since I returned to Malaysia. Grandma is staying with aunt now hence I am cooking lunches for myself. I cook vegetarian only, so I looked through the fridge and salvaged what I could find and voila~
1. I cooked my first meal since I returned to Malaysia. Grandma is staying with aunt now hence I am cooking lunches for myself. I cook vegetarian only, so I looked through the fridge and salvaged what I could find and voila~
A healthy mixture of pumpkin, carrots, garlic, shallots and kiwi fruit!
no salt, little bit of sugar, fried with little bit of oil.
tastes sour (kiwi) with some sweet (pumpkin).
I like! though I may be the only one hahaha.
2. My boxes arrived from California! All eight of them. I quickly unpacked them and within an hour, the boxes are flattened and the stuff....stuffed away into my room. My books are here! My desktop computer is here! And my bed companions are back!
RM1027...from Port Klang to ma house. The company who did my custom clearance and transport was good...if you need such service, ask me. I bagi contact. Thanks Mas for the recommendation.
Together again~
(hahaha...so girlish)
Unluckily, as I was unpacking my plates and cups, I dropped the spoon/ladle that my friend gave me. SO SAD. My heart broke on the spot too. It survived the journey across the Pacific, survived the rough handling at the ports, only to be broken by the person who was waiting for its arrival. I am going to try to mend it.
3. The praying mantis in mom's bathroom hatched! We both witnessed the female laying them about a month ago on the underside of the sink.
Now her offspring have hatched, and an active lot they were. Glistening dark dark blue, forearms up with sharp sawtooth ready, these guys were cute!
Of course a bathroom ain't a proper place for 17+ praying mantises so I transferred them to our garden, just before a heavy rainstorm hit. Hopefully these guys will do well and help us suppress some pests =).
4. I asked a girl out, and she said she would call me when she's free. Hahaha. I am so excited!!
Monday, December 27, 2010
2010
I attempt to record my highlights of 2010, with a little details to spice things up.
1. My loveliest dream was violently slashed to shreds, and then I had the worst few months of mental and emotional ordeal in my life. I look back and I still shudder at the manner in which I struggled through those months.
2. In the same few months, I wrapped up my last research season and graduated with my Ph.D which was apparently an admirable thing.
1. & 2. proved to me that I have the very useful ability of segregating work from personal issues, not letting one affect the other. This ability, much-loved by supervisors all over, also encourages me to take more hurt before saying 'No'--so it's not such a great ability really.
3. Mom attended my exit seminar which I thought I did a great job on. I have always been happy with my oral presentations, but this exit seminar was quite different. I didn't present my work in the most efficient format, opting instead to sacrifice efficiency for the purpose of showing my friends the values in failed experiments and pitfalls. My mom's attendance, and my own performance, makes Oct 6, 2010 one of the proudest days in my life, and definitely the proudest day in 2010.
4. For the first time, I designed and conduct a course on my own, 10 classes in total. The students and I loved it, we had fun and became friends, they learned to think and question, I learned to listen and care, and those were all that matter. Those 10 classes gave me life.
5. An unexpected visitor from Switzerland reminded me that it's a forest out there--try to look beyond one tree.
6. My research assistants taught me to treasure each person for his/her own strengths and weaknesses, personality and all. I was mistaken in jumping to conclusions, only to see my own judgment proven so wrong in a pleasant way.
7. In October, I visited Grand Canyon with mom. One childhood dream came true.
8. I bought two long-sleeve shirts for my job interviews. First time in my life!
In one simple way, 2010 was an ordeal for me. I lost that which mattered most to me, and now I know I have lost more than just that--I have lost a whole dream, a chance to be content and happy, and for a time, I lost self-confidence.
In many simple ways, 2010 gave me lots of joy and pleasant memories. My friends never left me, some even went as far as to open up their hearts so that they can peer into mine and help me. I graduated with many people celebrating this seemingly unimportant event. I made many new friends and rekindled some old friendships. My world is bigger and much more multi-dimensional now. Even that which I have lost has given me other things in return.
Without doubt, the single most important lesson, or change in my life in 2010 is that I have learned to love.
Yes, to love is innate, but so is to love with conditions, to love with considerations for one self. I think that if left to subconscious, we all love selfishly.
To truly love is to love without shame, to love without seeking returns, to love indiscriminately, to love to best of one's ability.
My dream was broken because I didn't know how to love.
I spent months trying to mend the situation, yet it was doomed because my fundamentals were heading the wrong way.
Jay taught me some love, my parents demonstrated it to me, my friends showed me theirs--there are flaws in these people, but I see those flaws and I began to understand how they love me.
Close to Christmas, I pick up a book in a bookstore as I was shopping for Christmas gift: Leo Buscaglia's "Loving, Learning, and Living". Coincidentally (or not, could be kismet), that book summarized the lessons I learned in 2010.
1. My loveliest dream was violently slashed to shreds, and then I had the worst few months of mental and emotional ordeal in my life. I look back and I still shudder at the manner in which I struggled through those months.
2. In the same few months, I wrapped up my last research season and graduated with my Ph.D which was apparently an admirable thing.
1. & 2. proved to me that I have the very useful ability of segregating work from personal issues, not letting one affect the other. This ability, much-loved by supervisors all over, also encourages me to take more hurt before saying 'No'--so it's not such a great ability really.
3. Mom attended my exit seminar which I thought I did a great job on. I have always been happy with my oral presentations, but this exit seminar was quite different. I didn't present my work in the most efficient format, opting instead to sacrifice efficiency for the purpose of showing my friends the values in failed experiments and pitfalls. My mom's attendance, and my own performance, makes Oct 6, 2010 one of the proudest days in my life, and definitely the proudest day in 2010.
My lab space of 4 years. I don't miss it. I miss the people around it.
4. For the first time, I designed and conduct a course on my own, 10 classes in total. The students and I loved it, we had fun and became friends, they learned to think and question, I learned to listen and care, and those were all that matter. Those 10 classes gave me life.
5. An unexpected visitor from Switzerland reminded me that it's a forest out there--try to look beyond one tree.
6. My research assistants taught me to treasure each person for his/her own strengths and weaknesses, personality and all. I was mistaken in jumping to conclusions, only to see my own judgment proven so wrong in a pleasant way.
7. In October, I visited Grand Canyon with mom. One childhood dream came true.
8. I bought two long-sleeve shirts for my job interviews. First time in my life!
In one simple way, 2010 was an ordeal for me. I lost that which mattered most to me, and now I know I have lost more than just that--I have lost a whole dream, a chance to be content and happy, and for a time, I lost self-confidence.
In many simple ways, 2010 gave me lots of joy and pleasant memories. My friends never left me, some even went as far as to open up their hearts so that they can peer into mine and help me. I graduated with many people celebrating this seemingly unimportant event. I made many new friends and rekindled some old friendships. My world is bigger and much more multi-dimensional now. Even that which I have lost has given me other things in return.
Without doubt, the single most important lesson, or change in my life in 2010 is that I have learned to love.
Yes, to love is innate, but so is to love with conditions, to love with considerations for one self. I think that if left to subconscious, we all love selfishly.
To truly love is to love without shame, to love without seeking returns, to love indiscriminately, to love to best of one's ability.
My dream was broken because I didn't know how to love.
I spent months trying to mend the situation, yet it was doomed because my fundamentals were heading the wrong way.
Jay taught me some love, my parents demonstrated it to me, my friends showed me theirs--there are flaws in these people, but I see those flaws and I began to understand how they love me.
Close to Christmas, I pick up a book in a bookstore as I was shopping for Christmas gift: Leo Buscaglia's "Loving, Learning, and Living". Coincidentally (or not, could be kismet), that book summarized the lessons I learned in 2010.
Love yourself, make yourself the best version of what you love, always seek to improve yourself. Give your true self to others, do it without shame, and because you are always seeking to improve yourself, you will always be giving your best to others.
Such is love.
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