28 February 2009

How to be remarkable

from Seth's Blog

1. Understand the urgency of the situation. Half-measures simply won't do. The only way to grow is to abandon your strategy of doing what you did yesterday, but better. Commit.

2. Remarkable doesn't mean remarkable to you. It means remarkable to me. Am I going to make a remark about it? If not, then you're average, and average is for losers.

3. Being noticed is not the same as being remarkable. Running down the street naked will get you noticed, but it won't accomplish much. It's easy to pull off a stunt, but not useful.

4. Extremism in the pursuit of remarkability is no sin. In fact, it's practically a requirement. People in first place, those considered the best in the world, these are the folks that get what they want. Rock stars have groupies because they're stars, not because they're good looking.

5. Remarkability lies in the edges. The biggest, fastest, slowest, richest, easiest, most difficult. It doesn't always matter which edge, more that you're at (or beyond) the edge.

6. Not everyone appreciates your efforts to be remarkable. In fact, most people don't. So what? Most people are ostriches, heads in the sand, unable to help you anyway. Your goal isn't to please everyone. Your goal is to please those that actually speak up, spread the word, buy new things or hire the talented.

7. If it's in a manual, if it's the accepted wisdom, if you can find it in a Dummies book, then guess what? It's boring, not remarkable. Part of what it takes to do something remarkable is to do something first and best. Roger Bannister was remarkable. The next guy, the guy who broke Bannister's record wasn't. He was just faster ... but it doesn't matter.

8. It's not really as frightening as it seems. They keep the masses in line by threatening them (us) with all manner of horrible outcomes if we dare to step out of line. But who loses their jobs at the mass layoffs? Who has trouble finding a new gig? Not the remarkable minority, that's for sure.

9. If you put it on a T-shirt, would people wear it? No use being remarkable at something that people don't care about. Not ALL people, mind you, just a few. A few people insanely focused on what you do is far far better than thousands of people who might be mildly interested, right?

10. What's fashionable soon becomes unfashionable. While you might be remarkable for a time, if you don't reinvest and reinvent, you won't be for long. Instead of resting on your laurels, you must commit to being remarkable again quite soon.

26 February 2009

hip..pop

weijie+hip shaking=just does NOT work.
I had my most embarrassing phy ed class, ever.

Since most of the class was away for Kiwanas, we joined another class for hippop lessons.
Big, big mistake.
For some weird reason, most people wanted to dance to Diva-Beyonce rather than the oh-so-slow-so-therefore-implied-easier Heartless. Why? Probably a recent head injury. So for one hour and 20 minutes, we did slides (okay, manageable), steps (relatively easy), chest pops (err, no.) and various other things I rather forget.
Being the stiff non dancer I am, I just look totally retarded doing hippop dancing (or any form for that matter...). Maybe that's why clubs are so dark.

25 February 2009

liars!

watching House really takes a lot of work.
a lot of work.

After missing it on TV for acrobats, and coincidentally seeing an ad for it on the way to downtown, I came home hoping to find it uploaded on megavideos. Lucky for me, it was! hurrrray! All was fine until it just stopped working at 30something minutes.
It just stopped...
after a few (angry) clicks on refresh, it shows a message saying it's temporarily not working. okay... So I decided to go shower and perhaps by then it would be fixed. I couldn't have been more wrong. After googling for alternative sources till almost 12, I decided once again to wait, this time until tomorrow. So I rushed home, opened up the computer, went to megavideo...oh darn, it's still down. Back I go to google, after several redirects, I found a working video. hurrrrray!
However, working is barely applicable. It wouldn't respond to any mouse clicks, so I ended up wasting 30 minutes of my life waiting for the video to get to where I was. Mehh, I can stand it, until my mom called me to dinner at 20mins. Since I couldn't pause it, I had to close the window and reload it after dinner...

but it was all worth it *u*

24 February 2009

acrobats!

Yesterday, I went to see the National Acrobats of China at Massey Hall in downtown. This would be very photo heavy...except we weren't allowed to take any. Below are my attempts are describing it by word:

-plate spinning: oh so awesome. There was 7 plates being spun on a thin metal rod in EACH hand. I find it mind boggling how they manage the 14 plates and dance/spin around at the same time. Highlight of this segment is on top of the 14, she also spun a extra large plate on top of a 2m long bamboo rod ON TOP of a chopstick balanced in her mouth...

-hoop diving: bunch of guys somersaulting, back flipping, cart wheeling through a hoop about 2m in mid air.

-body contortion: this girl bending her body in impossible ways. I swear humans are not suppose to sit on their heads...literally.

-grand acrobatics: highlight includes making a 4 story high human pyramid and leaping over all sorts of objects. Somehow they got all 20 people on top of each other...

-top spinning?: dunno what it's called, but it looks like a top, but in hourglass shape. They sorta juggle the top from person to person, doing some really neat tricks haha.

-Icarian: somersaults, back flips, tumbling all the jazz...on each other's FEET. This act won gold in some festival in France.

-straw hat juggling: juggling all sorts of straw hats, from flat ones to tall triangular ones, from one person to another, or just all over the place. Just imagine DDR on extreme, except replace the arrows with hats.

-bicycle: SIXTEEN female acrobats balancing and doing tricks on ONE bike. Makes me feel sad that I can't ride one...

So that's 2 hours of being extremely amazed.

22 February 2009

evoo

the spaghetti sorta looks like chow mien from the photo...

spaghetti with eggplant: loosely based on this recipe.
loosely.
I sorta forgot to buy the onion, ran out of the creme and just plain dont' like cheese. But the end (much improvised) result tasted pretty good. It consists of eggplant, tomato, ground meat in a ragu and ketchup sauce.
The tomato slices on the side is absolutely the best summer dessert EVER. So much more refreshing than ice cream. It's ridiculously simple to make, chop up some tomatoes, sprinkle some sugar, a while in the fridge and it's done!

21 February 2009

10:00

landscape=insanely hard.
3 saturday mornings of filling and blending colours:

the pole's actually not crooked, I just took the photo at a bad angle...

only part I'm satisfied with (the tree)... So hard to mimick oil painting using oil pastels.

19 February 2009

it's here...


in my house...
in my room...


Taken with my extremely crappy webcam. Absolutely no effects or edits, just with lights off and a really cloudy day.

18 February 2009

the curry



I'd comment on how awesome it tastes, but I forgot it in my locker.
thank you donna ^^

17 February 2009

cherry blossoms fall at 5cms per second

beautiful art and beautiful music, 'nuff said.
shinkai is brilliant.



How much must I lose, to have my heart forgiven?
How painful must it be, to meet you once more?

One more time, I hope the seasons do not change,
One more time, the times we wasted together.

Whenever things got complicated, I was the first to despair,
Your self-absorbed personality was what I fell in love with.

One more chance, my memories hold my feet down,
One more chance, I don't know where to go anymore.

I'm always looking for you, because you must be somewhere,
In that house over the streets, over the window at the alleyway, even though you can't possibly be here.

If something were to grant me a wish, it would be to take me by your side,
There is nothing I can't do for you, I'll embrace you even at the cost of everything.

If I wanted to hide this loneliness,
Any person would have sufficed, but...

It's a night when a star could fall off,
So I can't deceive myself.

One more time, I hope the seasons do not change,
One more time, the times we wasted together.

I'm always looking for you, because you must be somewhere,
At the crossroads, in my dreams,
Even though you can't possibly be here.

If something were to grant me a wish, it would be for you to see me again,
A new morning, from then I couldn't even mutter "I like you" again,
Memories of summer returns to me, with the absence of that (heart)beat.

I'm always looking for you, because you must be somewhere,
On dawn streets of Sakuragi-chou,
Even though you can't possibly be here,

If something were to grant me a wish, it would be to take me by your side,
There is nothing I can't do for you,
I'll embrace you even at the cost of everything.

I'm always looking for you, because at least a part of you must be somewhere,
On a newspaper at a tourist agency office,
Even though you can't possibly be here,

If something were to grant me a wish, it would be for you to see me again,
A new morning, from then I couldn't even mutter "I like you" again,

I'll always look for you, because your smile must be somewhere,
At traffic stops waiting to accelerate forward,
Even though you can't possibly be here.

If I could be born again, I want to be born by your side no matter how many times,
There is nothing that I want anymore,
There is nothing that I want beside you...

15 February 2009

downtown con't

Creative people make me sad:

Awesome Tylenol ad.


Window display for Gap? Old Navy? Floral ftw!

my new love: forever21.

14 February 2009

it eggceeded my eggspectations.

On friday the 13th (freaky that there's 2 of them this year...), I traveled 40mins to have brunch in downtown at a lovely and rustic restaurant Eggspectations:

We are a company committed to innovation and eggcellence. Meeting your "Eggspectations" is part of our everyday eggsperience, striving to surpass them is what makes us "eggstraordinary".



it's punny xD

The food is expensive...but comes in enormous portions. I ordered EggWhat? which consisted of Corned beef hash, two eggs (any style), grilled potatoes, served with toast and chef’s fruit garnish. My complaints are that fruit garnish is only a slice of melon and orange, and that they gave me wayyyy too much potatoes. But hurray for blueberry jam!!

photos:

window sticker!


whisk door handles


kitchen...I think


our booth


our menu


one of the rare times where industrial pipes make a good celling


beer bottle tree?

In conclusion, it was worth the 40 mins *cough some people shoulda came cough*

12 February 2009

浓雾散不开

^taken from 周杰伦-千里之外

pics from yesterday:



it was finally nice and warm, 7 degrees I think? But nooo, it had to rain in the afternoon! Great timing as I had to walk to McKee for reading buddy. But the fog in the evening looked pretty awesome, my balcony was enveloped in fog. Pretty sure the last picture is my building...

10 February 2009

national treasure


I will be VERY angry if anyone touches that again.
poor poor mickey, he's all dented and scratched (from varies other experiences).
I also need to run faster @_@

09 February 2009

blah @ promises

I finally got unlazy and uploaded the album...



作詞:方文山 作曲:周杰倫

妳的回話凌亂著 在這個時刻
我想起噴泉旁的白鴿 甜蜜散落了

情緒莫名的拉扯 我還愛妳呢
而妳斷斷續續唱著歌 假裝沒事了

時間過了 走了 愛情面臨選擇 妳冷了 倦了 我哭了
離開時的不快樂 妳用卡片手寫著 有些愛只給到這 真的痛了

怎麼了 妳累了 說好的 幸福呢
我懂了 不說了 愛淡了 夢遠了
開心與不開心一一細數著 妳再不捨
那些愛過的感覺都太深刻 我都還記得

妳不等了 說好的 幸福呢
我錯了 淚乾了 放手了 後悔了
只是回憶的音樂盒還旋轉著 要怎麼停呢

妳的回話凌亂著 在這個時刻
我想起噴泉旁的白鴿 甜蜜散落了

情緒莫名的拉扯 我還愛妳呢
而妳斷斷續續唱著歌 假裝沒事了

時間過了 走了 愛情面臨選擇 妳冷了 倦了 我哭了
離開時的不快樂 妳用卡片手寫著 有些愛只給到這 真的痛了

怎麼了 妳累了 說好的 幸福呢
我懂了 不說了 愛淡了 夢遠了
開心與不開心一一細數著 妳再不捨
那些愛過的感覺都太深刻 我都還記得

妳不等了 說好的 幸福呢
我錯了 淚乾了 放手了 後悔了
只是回憶的音樂盒還旋轉著 要怎麼停呢

怎麼了 妳累了 說好的 幸福呢
我懂了 不說了 愛淡了 夢遠了我都還記得

妳不等了 說好的 幸福呢
我錯了 淚乾了 放手了 後悔了
只是回憶的音樂盒還旋轉著 要怎麼停呢

08 February 2009

death in 20 days


Green=work.
midterm project work.
rly rly confusing relativity work.

maybe we can skip March...and April.

06 February 2009

"uncertainty will certainly kill you"

oh yes it will.

There are 5 different colour of houses, in each house there lives 1 person from different countries. Each person only drinks 1 type of drink, smoke 1 type of cigarette, and owns 1 type of pet.
-Person from England lives in a red house.
-Person from Sweden has a dog.
-Person from Denmark drinks tea.
-The green house is on the left to of the white house.
-Person from the green house drinks coffee.
-Person who smokes Dall Mall has a pet bird.
-Person from the yellow house smokes Dunhill
-Person from the middle house drinks milk.
-Person from Norway lives in the first house.
-Person who smokes Mixed lives beside a person with a pet cat.
-Person with a pet horse lives beside a person who smokes Dunhill
-Person who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
-Person from Germany smokes Prince.
-Person from Norway lives beside a blue house.
-Person who smokes Mixed has a neighbor who drinks water.

Who has a pet fish?

04 February 2009

panorama


cropped from original image.

It looks like it came straight of a folk tale...

03 February 2009

cc

My current addiction:
Cream cheese on bread.

ITS ALL YOUR FAULT JANICE D<

...
...
...

The sentence below is true.
The sentence above s false.

01 February 2009