Will's Fountain of Useless Info: Reloaded

Yup I'm posting from Toronto right now. Been here for slightly over a week already (since last Sunday, 20th Dec).

Fancy coming to the place that I missed 10 years ago because we didn't prepare our visa. Back then when we went for a road trip from Michigan all the way to New York. We even stopped by Niagara Falls on Buffalo side, but just can't cross over to Canada. Oh I miss that road trip very much indeed.

Weather was, well, chilly. Temperature averages between -6 to -2 Celsius for the last couple of day. Too bad no rain clouds so there has been no snow since I arrived, just some minor flurries. I heard that the week before the weather was quite harsh though. So I guess I'm lucky.

Have been neglecting my blog for some time. So, what have I been up to? Travelling... quite a lot of travelling.

For the past month or so, I've been to Kuching and Kota Kinabalu for work, and Bangkok to attend my uni pal's wedding. That's like 6 flights and counting. I will still be flying to KK every week for a ongoing project, probably until next Jan.

Bangkok trip was awesome. Was great to catch up with my uni buddies once again. Food was awesome. And the famous mall, Siam Paragon... one word, wow. Easily put KL Pavilion to shame, I kid you not. Seriously if not because of the recent political unrest, BKK would have been much much more better than KL at any given day.

我觉得，人会随着时间的流逝，因为各种原因而失去一些最初的原则与执着。就像我自己，有时候会觉得有些矛盾，因为做了很多原本以为不会去做的事。

一开始，当然觉得很难过，愧疚，觉得自己好像是在说一套，做一套。但经过一些思考与经历，开始有更深的领悟（或许是给自己的借口也说不定）。

有些时候，人是不能硬是抓紧自己的原则不放。要懂得圆滑与变通，很多事情才能圆满解决。就好像我所学的合气道一样，当对方向你攻击时，绝对不能采取硬碰的方法，而是要看能怎样把对方的攻击力量引导并被己所用。

同样的，当我们在解决一些难题时，不要把自己锁在一个框框里。有时任由自己天马行空的思考，或许可以想到一些非常好的解决方案。

Been reflecting about what I've achieved so far. Still not something I'd expect. Been talking to a friend about some arrangements. Tempted to execute it ASAP, but need to work out an exit strategy first. How I wish I could think of a win win situation so I won't disappoint any party.

A good friend have been having some relationship issues of late. Been trying to give her advice and support. Hope things will work out for her.

Another friend just shared with me about some family issues he's been having. Very headache stuff... This I really do not know how to help him out. Feels helpless.

Very tempted to tell a girl that I liked a lot bluntly that I like her. Haha. Just afraid it might scare her away. Very very tempted to do it.

This weekend will be attending an Aikido seminar. Hironobu Yamada Shihan has flew in and will be hosting the seminar over the weekend. Looking forward to learn something from this awesome teacher.

Suddenly had this oldie song from Alex To, 如泣如诉, playing in my head... very nice song. In fact I don't recall the name of the song, but the first sentence of the lyrics was playing in my mind: 未喝酒便己醉倒...

Well, just got back from a training trip to Bengaluru (company HQ). Very inspiring session. I like how the Hongkee trainer pitch his business case... impressed. Doesn't have very strong spice smell when I came home unlike the last trip. :P

Yesterday I had a really funny dream... involving friends that I've not met for quite a while. Really random stuff.

曾几何时，看过这样的一句话（大概是这样吧）:

不要因为别人的过错而用生气来折磨自己

我看了就好喜欢。也偶尔用这句话来劝一些正怒火中烧的朋友。是啊，人们时常说发脾气对身体不好。那我们为什么要因为别人的过错，而和自己的身子过不去呢？愿与大家共勉之。

Yeah, it was my birthday 2 days back. Had an absolute great time celebrating with some friends who bought me a nice dinner at Avanti @ Sunway.

Then yesterday celebrate it with a Sake 'n Sushi party at my friend's place, whom one shared the same birthday as me, while the other 2 days earlier. Had a lot of diving friends came by and we had a real blast hanging out. (A bit smitten to see her again at the party... but somehow feels like there's a wall between us, so didn't dare to make a move :P)

Happy happy. :D

Last weekend was the Malaysian Aikido Association's 11th annual seminar. For the past few years we always have Sugano Shihan over to chair the seminar. But this year he wasn't able to join us, so he sent one of his best student, Hanan Janiv Shihan from Australia to come on his behalf.

Learned a lot from Hanan Shihan for the past 2 days. I guess everyone was tired after the event. I myself woke up today with sore thigh muscles... I think I'll be walking funny for the next 2 days :P

Yeah, passed my grading yesterday, though I felt that I didn't do too well. Didn't do very well on Koshinage especially. Kaitenage also so so. The only good thing is that I felt my stamina is much better compared to when I was doing 5th and 4th Kyu. Need to work on the techniques more, as going forward it would be much harder.

This week I attended an IBM boot camp cum certification thingy for 3 days. Yesterday was the 3rd day and we have to complete a certification paper online. Managed to do pretty well on it and passed with flying colors (everyone passed as well, I believe). The 2 trainers are from Canada, one a Chinese, and the other one I believe is a Hispanic. The senorita speaks funny English which had a lot of people scratching their heads. Example, cache should be pronounced like cash, but she said cae-chay. And my favorite is multiple, which she say mool-tee-pel, reminds me of how Leeloo pronounce "multipass" in 5th Element... LOL

And then I almost forgotten that my Aikido grading is TOMORROW! Just realized on Wednesday, when I kept thinking that it's one week later. But I believe shouldn't be too much of a problem. I should be doing fine. :P

Wish me luck!

PS: I just changed the blog template with one of the new ones that blogger offers. Looks pretty neat IMHO.

哈哈，说的是潜水。Last week finally made it to my first dive trip of this year, to Tenggol/Dungun. We did it slightly different from regular trips as we didn't stayed on the island. Instead, we stayed on Dungun side, and went on a day trip to the island because one of my friend owns a boat.

I guess this year was quite a slow start as there's nothing much to see in Tenggol waters. Even the nudibranches are far and few in between. We also did some wreck dives at a Japanese WW2 era warship at an undisclosed location. We're still trying to figure out which ship is this as there are 2-3 Japanese wrecks around this area.

Actually, shotgun marriage to be exact. Hahaha...

Lately my ex colleague was telling me that she needs to attend a shotgun wedding (i.e. the guy got the girl pregnant, so they have to quickly get married). So we were discussing how the term shotgun come about, and I was saying, probably because shotgun have spread bullets and it's easy to hit the target. LOL.

And then out of nowhere I called up a friend whom I've not been in contact for like 2-3 years, and the first thing he told me was he's preparing for his wedding. A shotgun wedding as well. My my what coincidence.

That's what you get for not having "protection" when you're doing it. :P

Time to save up some money for wedding ang pow now.

Yup, in a blink of an eye it's already May. Nothing much to update since I came back from India. Pretty much the normal stuffs.

This year I still haven't gone for any dive trips yet. Probably gonna join my friends in Dungun this weekend. Still undecided, need to give my friend a confirmation by tomorrow.

Haha pardon the pun... Tomorrow will be my last day in Bangalore and I'll be departing on a midnite flight back to M'sia. How time flies (I think I've been using this 3 words far too often :P ).

This surely has been an interesting trip for me, since I've never been to India. I'll list down some of my impressions:
1) Hygiene issues are not as bad as everyone says. Touch wood, but I've not had any problems with the foods here. Of course, I didn't dare to test my luck with the water served, though I believe it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Been living off Kinley (bottled by Coca Cola), but I do take chai and/or coffee every day.
2) As I mentioned in FB, I did not spot any Nissan cars, which I find kinda weird. There are a lot of Tata (not surprisingly), damn a lot of Maruti Suzuki, an influx of new Hyundai compacts, quite a lot of Innova (Toyota) and City (Honda). Fiat and Opels are also quite a handful. Even sighted a couple of Mercs, Beemer, an Audi A4 and Hummer H2. But no Nissan. Nil.
3) The people are out there to rip you off (since you're a foreigner). Most commonly the auto rickshaws, who demand for flat rate charges and refuses to run on meter. Kinda like M'sian taxi drivers. I've been to a restaurant that after I paid, the change was given with 10 rupees in coins hidden in the pocket of the bill holders.
4) The food portion are pretty huge. At least for the rice and noodles. The curries are very nice, and so are the hyderabadi biryanis (love the long grain basmathis). I finally get to differentiate my dosa(tosai) from my appams (I never really take note, only know my roti canai... which is supposed to be called parathas), and tasted a full set of Thali.

Suddenly remembered that I haven't been blogging for a while, and after logging in here, realized that I've actually skipped a month.

Well, quite some things happened in March, most significantly I've changed to a new job. The HQ is based in Bangalore, India. In fact, I'm leaving in a few days to HQ to receive some training and induction.

For some reason I kept thinking my flight is on a Thursday, while I know for sure it's on the 9th. When I checked the calendar again, I realized it's actually on a Friday. *sweat*

Last month I'm supposed to go for my Aikido grading, but at that time I was unsure of the date I need to go India, so I didn't register for it. In fact I think it's a blessing in disguise, as I am reminded that I do not learn this just for grading, even though grading is part of the learning process to gauge my advancement. Although I started of taking this as a form of exercise and to learn about self defense, I think I've gained more than I've expected. It's not easy to describe.

Yup... here comes another new year. How time flies. Wishing everyone a healthy and prosperous new year, and of course, as everyone likes to use the phrase, a year of roaring success.

I'm now blogging from my kampung with EDGE connection. Slow, but convenient nonetheless. The past few days has been scorching hot in this part of the world. Just hoping when I get back to town there would be some rainfall. Somewhere. Anywhere. :P

... inserting...




things into my eyes... hahahah

What were you thinking? :P

Yup, I've succumbed into wearing contact lens. I used to be one of those who does not believe in putting things into my eyes. In fact I was planning to do LASIK couple of years back... when it just came into Malaysia. I even started to save up for the operation. But after reading about some drawbacks of LASIK, I decided against it.

Of course, with myopia, there are a lot of inconvenience especially when I get involved in outdoor activities. For diving, it wasn't that bad because everything you see in the water is enlarged 33%... but nevertheless there are still limitations to the distance you could see. Therefore, since taking up diving, I've been planning to open up and try out contact lens, but always been procrastinating.

Finally, after almost 2 years, I took action and ordered some daily contact lens. And today is the day I went to collect them and try them out. It definitely wasn't easy trying to put things into your eyes. Now still trying to get used to it. :P

We pretty much knows that a lot of trends come and go. More so for technology. When Facebook started to gain popularity in Malaysia, that's when blogging began to dwindle. And now with Twitter alongside, I would say probably about 70% of the bloggers dropped blogging sites, while maybe 29% posted less. There's probably 1% who still blogs regularly, refusing to give the fort up.

A quick browse on all the blogs that I frequent shows that this is quite true. Most of them have already stopped blogging, a number of them have probably like an update every 1-2 months (I'm guilty of that too), and there are a select few (especially those who bought their own domain name) who still diligently keep their blog sites up to date.

In fact, I have not been checking on blogs much anymore now that I can get updates by the minute of my friends through Facebook (well not exactly by the minute as I can't access from work, but you get the idea). As for Twitter, I have yet to succumb to it for now, though more and more friends are asking me to join in. It has been said by some that Twitter would be a FB killer, though I think it's highly unlikely. From the way it looks, Twitter will probably blend in as part of the vital tools of social networking (for quick updates of status etc), while FB will still be the mammoth that offers everything from sharing of pictures, bulletin boards, events scheduling/invitation to games and so on.

I wonder what the future holds for social networking... we'll just have to wait and see.

What's so happy about a new year ah? Because we managed to survive it without dying from a nuclear holocaust? Or because we're another year nearer to our graves? :P

This new year I do not feel that happy after all, maybe because another year has passed and I still haven't achieved anything significant. Another year has passed and I'm still lost as ever. Another year has passed and I still haven't found love (ok, found it and then lost it).

2009 is the year where I start doubting myself very much. I used to have quite a bit of confidence on myself but most of it is already down the drain. Lack of motivation continues to plague me and I'm scrambling trying to regain any form of motivation left in me.

Sorry for the ramblings... I'll be ok.

Moving on, as most people would do (set resolutions and then break them :P)... This year, I wanna:

1) Train Aikido more often and get into V shape (in progress, now reaching H shape from A shape)
2) Make a decision to stay or leave
3) Think and do it... not just think alone
4) Get at least 1 project up and running
5) etc... (will add on as I go along... haha yeah I cheat!)

Wish you all have a happy new year.