Randy Pausch's Last Lecture and other stuff hmm..sometimes it feels like such a chore to blog.. and i wonder whether there are people who actually visits this site. At any rate, the written word serves as a good reminder of things past, of things to come, and of things that will remain. Haha Meyy perhaps you're right, it is the story that becomes the legacy, and as such it is important to chronicle the thoughts and deeds in case this will be the only legacy i leave behind.

A few random thoughts on a few random issue..



1. Randy Pausch's Last Lecture
Randy was a former processor with the Carnegie Mellon University. Former, because he just passed away sometime this week. In the university, there was a series of lectures called the Last lecture, essentially a chance for professors to imagine what the end of their life would be like, and how to impart pearls of wisdom to their protege and students. In Randy's case, the irony of it was that he was truly giving a last lecture. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, having 10 tumors in his liver, and the prognosis then was only about another 3-6 months to live. And he gave this wonderfully superb lecture, which you can find on youtube.

Meyy gave me his book as a graduation gift and I just started reading it about a week ago. And all i can say up to now is that I've been completely awed by his tenacity, his zest and his drive for life, and how his life lesson's truly are applicable to all. One quote that i'll like to put here ,which i think wil be relevant to me in the next few months is this "When you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they've given up on you." Sometimes a little bit of scolding goes a long way, and it's not because the person has a grudge against you, instead he is only interested in you going far i.e. the person has not given up on you.

There are plenty of other gems in the book. I like how Randy as an individual basically chased after his dream, and such a dreamer was he. He was willing to take risks, to let everything go , just in order to obtain his dreams, something which I think will be hard for me personally to do..if you have the time, do watch the video, and if you want to experience his words like I did, i would gladly lend you the book. A little bit like Tuesday's with Morrie but i think for me personally, it's much more impactful and relevant.



2. Rubik Cube
Hmm I think all of you should be familiar with the Rubik cube....I was toying with one some moments ago, and a few observations entered my thought (i've never been able to solve a rubik cube)

a. What might seem impossible is actually quite possible.
Well to all us normal average sentient beings not blessed with tremendous intelligence and have not been able to solve a rubik cube in our lives, sometimes it would seem that the cube is just one impossible problem. Can it really be solved? is it for real? maybe it's just a trick to cheat people, u know maybe they mixed up the colour on purpose and there is no real solution. Well when i was young, that was what entered my mind, and that's what caused me to give up on the cube, proclaiming it as simply impossible. Truth of the matter is, it isn't impossible. When the cube is new, all the colours on each face is the same, there isn't any trick to it...simply put, when you turn things around and mess it all over the place, you should be able to turn it back.
Thus an impossible problem actually isn't impossible at all...but anyway, i wont bother to attempt the cube cause i'm not too interested in it (i have Attention deficit disorder i think..hehe)

b. Sometimes things doesn't happen as you want them to
haha okay, so the cube was nicely fixed, all colours on the right face. Being the brat that I am..i wanted to make it a bit more tougher for my brother to solve the puzzle. I wanted to have each of the 9 boxes on each face to be of a different colour... but the more and more i tried, it looks as if i was m ore closer to solving the puzzle than messing it up. Haha i guess the lesson here is that sometimes things just happen, and we shoudln't try too hard. And sometimes we shouldn't want things so badly, that it has the potential to affect us in a negative manner (this will be quite hard for me in certain areas). If not we'll all end up like whiny spoilt brat.

c. Make sure the things that you want to do is possible
okay on the converse of my impossible is possible, make sure that the possible is not impossible. Like i said earlier, i wanted each of the 9 squares to have a different colour on a single face. I was trying very very hard to get 9 different colours on one face, but all the time, I ended up with 2 or 3 squares having the same colour. I forgot, that there are 6 faces on a cube, and thus it is utterly impossible to get 9 colours on a single face, talk about achieving the impossible. Whenever you're doing something, know your limitations, know what you're doing, and know what is possible and impossible.

3. Hair for Hope
well what can I say, a picture says a thousand words and there are plenty in the earlier posts. Enough pictures to make you rich if I would ever become the prime minister, the president or some rock star. You could either a) blackmail me with those pictures, b) sell them to the press or c) do both and end up living a very comfortable life. haha. It's been 20 days since the event and i've got a bit of hair back. I look more like a monk now...and well to be honest i dont quite like this hairless or short hair look. I'm guesssing it'll take me around 2 more months or so for my hair to go back to a length i'm comfortable with. But what the heck, it was for a good cause although it was somewhat traumatizing. I remember sitting on that chair, and seeing the hairdresser pull out clumps and clumps of hair..OH GOSH!!!. Proud of what i did? Certainly. Like my 'new' hairstyle? Certainly not! Do it again next year? only if my donations hit 5k...hehehe shall not announce this to the world. But it goes to show, if we have so much issue with thte hair, what more the kids afflicted with cancer who have more of an inferiority complex, especially when they have to deal with tactless peers.

4. Work
I haven't talked much abnout work yet, just started less than a month ago. But basically this is my work place


I work in the World's Busiest Port! Wow what a statement to make... (as a janitor) haha kidding. but yea that's where I work. Most days, when I'm allowed to go out and play in the yard, I feel like i'm a little kid again playing with all these gigantous monstrous machines and they are really, really cool! Pity that due to security reasons i cant bring ppl around to tour the place. it would be really really cool to show this place to friends and family.
Got a wonderful bunch of colleague that i work with ( have to write this,, at least ONE of them reads this blog, yes YOU! hehehe) but at the moment things are still pretty slow on the work front. We're LIABILITIES to the company (for those who want a refresher in accounting , asset + liability = equity, you want more asset and you want to get rid of liability) and hopefully our liability status will be converted to asset status in a few months time (asset = get more scolding) haha..basically it's still a honeymoon period where we're being exposed to the work environment etc before they let us plunge into the deep end. I'm waiting to see how things will turn out for me and for everyone else here. Exciting times ahead certainly...maybe in another post i'll tell you y i chose this job instead of joining some other MNC, or becoming an investrment banker, or personal banker, or gigolo boy (as if) haha...when i was offered the job, i signed on almost immediately :p (that is how strongly i felt for the company)

till next time...goodnight  ¶ 10:25 PM 1 Comments

  The aftermath Slightly photo intensive page...

the aftermath of hair for hope 2008

donations so far 4154 and rising...

posing with all the mei nu's that came and support me that day






having a chat with the hairdresser (begging her for mercy) she's kinda cute no?



and so we begin...







halfway through the process...i might try this hair style one day...











chilling out after the event's over...and trying not to think about it :p i think i look like raja petra hehe








found a girl who daringly did the same thing...grabbed her to take this pic :p










at the end of my convocation ceremony with my parents  ¶ 5:37 PM 3 Comments

  A short one - The aftermath




well..here's just a short update

July 1st - Start new job (Done)
July 6th - Hair for Hope (Done)
July 7th - Graduation (Done)


some picture appetisers before the main course comes along and makes u lose ur meal :p plus i'm a bit tired so more detailed updates on job, convocation and hair for hope later... gotta report back to work tomorrow...  ¶ 11:07 PM 1 Comments

  Hair for Hope 2008

I was thinking that there are very few people who bother to read what i write and thus I shouldn't make the effort to write. Nevertheless, I owe it to these very few people to write my thoughts out, even if at the end of the day there is only 1, 1 is much more than 0. So thank you to all of you who are frequenting this site, especially those of you who were here since the beginning.

Hair for Hope is a project initiated in Singapore. I've been giving it a bit more thought these few days especially as the looming dateline draws near. The actual event will take place on 6th of July 2008 from 12pm to 7pm while the slot where i'll be shaven bald is supposed to take place at 2.30pm

I guess some of you must be wondering what made me take this drastic step. Especially my mom who is at the moment thinks i'm crazy enough to go bald..especially 1 day b4 my graduation ceremony. This has been something that i've wanted to do for a while, having wanted to join the previous events last year and the year before that but not having the courage to do so. That and more often than not, the dateline has passed when i realised about the event. This year, i chanced upon the poster early and immediately went to check it out. Of course i pondered over the decision on whether to do it, i guess for a few days as i still didn't have the guts to do it.

At that time, it was more of trying out something new (i've never been bald before) or simply trying to act a little heroic by doing something others wont do (my fren ms sam will attest to this hero complex within me). However, I have to admit here, that I am getting a little bit of cold feet trying to imagine what it'll be like for me to be bald... especially since now that D-day is at hand. This was especially so when i sat in the volunteers briefing, and saw my other compatriots with me, that i realise that there's no turning back, that what started of as a dare or a challenge is now taking place...that maybe..i dont want to be bald!, that i'll be laughed at!

Self esteem has never been my strong point throughout all these years. I'm always wary of how i look like although a strong pretense might make others think that i'm actually not aware. Having been on the obese side when i was younger (and now as well) i've suffered endless tauntings and pinchings, and teasings, which made me even more sensitive to the situation. The confident individual, poised up on the stage to deliver a speech or rebut a point, that many people know of, is more of an act i would say, one of the many masks i wear. As such, i'm never confident of how i look nor feel confident about myself which is why i started to doubt myself with this shaving thing. I mean..going bald? never in my life would i have thought that! not even when the government almost made it compulsory back in secondary school...and here i've already signed on for it. maybe it isn't too late to just disappear, pretend that it didn't happen.

However, as the night wore on through the briefing, a different realization dawned upon me and i began to take strength and courage from others, especially the cancer kids (or children with cancer) They weren't there but their stories certainly did inspire me.

Childhood cancer, is different from adult cancer whereby it is not the fault of the child that s/he is afflicted with the disease. Through some cosmic imbalance or wonder, the child is born and later on develop cancerous cells that rampage and ravage through the body. The child does not torture his lungs with black acid smoke from a cigarette, neither does he burden his liver with tons of alcohol in binge drinking. Yet, unlike an adult who calls upon himself the disease, the child is afflicted all at once through no fault of his. What is sad is that a number of these children will not be able to go through their teenage years while if they survive, side effects will still linger on. These disease such as leukemia, neuroblastoma etc does not discriminate and can happen to anyone.

While i worried about the shame and humiliation i might have to endure by going bald, or reflect on the tauntings i had as a child, someone spoke of the bullying and mental agony that this children will go through. EVen as adults, be we male or female, we shun the thought of being hairless or ball although we're too polite to say so. But then what about the children? imagine, after all the radiotherapy and chemotherapy, the child will be without eyelashes or eyebrows and even hair. What will happen when this child goes back to school? or to society? many other children will stare and taunt him, and tease him calling him a freak and such. I think at the end of the day this is one of the reasons why i'm doing it. To tell the child, that although it may be embarassing, it is no big deal, that people who say such things are stupid and ignorant in the first place, that the child, having had the courage to go through this series of treatment, is far braver than others who go through normal lives, that these child have a heart far stronger and more beautiful than others. And through this, i've taken courage. I only hope that what I've done can make a difference and hopefully we're closer towards eradicating cancer from this world.

I'm not here to ask for donation, as i'm doing this for myself, absorbing the strength from these children. However, if you feel compelled to donate towards the cause, the website is at http://ccf.org.sg/hfh with my own personal profile at http://www.ccf.org.sg/hfh/webApp/shaveeBIO.php?shaveeId=392 . Any donation done on or before july 2nd will be matched by my brother Kenneth, while all credit card commision charges will be born by totalisator board so your entire donation will go towards the foundation. The foundation itself is involved in programs such as therapeutic play where children coming for treatment can play in the centres which are located within the hospital. This is to give an impression to the children that hospitals are not only about needles and drugs, but is a place where play happens as well, so that they are not traumatised about it. Likewise, the foundation offers bereavement services to the families of our little friends who God found to be more precious and more needed in heaven. The foundation has also confirmed that at least 86% of funds collected will go towards the beneficiary, with the remainder being used for administration cost.

I think that's all I have to say for now..thank you for reading.  ¶ 11:21 PM 5 Comments