~Wonderful day~

Today is such a wonderful day that I simply must blog about it. Today is 30th August, 2006, Wednesday.

Woke up slightly later than usual. Had a good dream. Dreamed of meeting up with dave and oscar again!!
/* wonder how is dave doing now.. hope he's in vietnam or somewhere.. and that he will call/email me soon.. looking forward to next march, and trashing oscar at tennis again!!
*/

Went to work as usual. Nothing out of the blue.

Had a surprise waiting for me when I got to the office. Chrys had brought me a mini-fan!! Woohoo!! Don't need to sweat during the afternoon liao!! So nice of her to bring her fan. And Jamie commented that I am spoiled.. (I think so too... =P )

Then while fitting the fan, I accidentally switched off Eileen's laptop... Shit...
/* Luckily it's the beginning of the day.. And she wasn't very angry */

Saw Markus' email saying that he can't make it for squash today. Must be due to the aircon yesterday. Was looking forward to a good match. I guess there will be always be another chance. =)
And luckily Junlong offered to play with me.

Yin Yee came back to the office this morning. He has rolled off the project, so it's good to see him again. Gonna miss eating duck rice with him. On a brighter side, he will be coming back now and then. Plus we stay so near each other anyway. Funny, my closest friends in this project all stay in hougang. And they have all rolled off... Haha

Went to suntec with Hong Tai to check out one of the promotion that HSBC is having. Went to draw money to open an account, only to be told that there are 6 people in front of me, and I have to wait 1 hour. So, will be going back again tomorrow. On the way back, it started to rain heavily. Super heavily. And at this time of the year. So, had to take cab back again. Poor Hong Tai, shouldn't have ask him to come along with me. Luckily we met quite a good taxi uncle. On the brighter note, at least we didn't get wet today. (since we would have gone to the outside coffeeshop and get stuck there had we not went to suntec.)

Oh, collected my Bree Organizer today. Florence helped me collect from the ulu post office. So nice of her. Hope she collected it before it started to rain.

It started raining heavily again when I was about to leave office with Jamie. By the time we hailed a cab, both of us already super wet. Then I think Kallang squash center is not along the way, so she had to go one big detour.. Hai, so paiseh.. Luckily Jamie is very nice, hmm, should treat my buddy teh next week.

Had a good game with Junlong just now. He improved quite a lot since the last time we played. Good game bro!

Just reached home. Ending my day soon.





One last thing: What's the morale of this blog?
Now that you have read this blog, what do you think of my day? Normal? Good? Super perfect?

What if you look at it this way:
"
Woke up late.
Didn't get a seat on the train.
Go to work and see that my squash game was cancelled because my friend is not feeling well.
Switched off colleague's laptop by mistake.
Wasted a trip to suntec.
Got stuck in super heavy rain.
Waste money take cab.
Got drenched on my way to squash game.
Reached home feeling tired and have to work next day.
"

Morale of the story: Always be positive. Appreciate the good things in life, and don't pay too much attention to the bad ones. You will be amazed by how things work out in the end.

And how do I find the day?
I think it is not perfect; since nothing is.
I think it's as close to being perfect as can be.

And c'mon. Where got everyday so many unlucky things happen one? Tomorrow's definitely gonna be a better day! ;)

Words from LKY

"I'm not sure whether there's a God or there's no God, I'm not sure whether the world was created by God or by an accident. But don't go around knocking other people's gods and other people's culture Even if there is no God, this group of people have been held together and sustained through all their tragedies and all their sorrows by a belief, by a certain belief that they are all together under one God... therefore they share certain things in common. Why should you go and demolish that? I disagreed with that profoundly."
Interview with LKY

"You've then got to access him for his sense of reality, his imagination, his quality of leadership, his dynamism. But most of all, his character and his motivation, because the smarter a man is, the more harm he will do society."
LKY's Speech in Parliament on the White Paper on ministerial salaries, Nov 1, 1994

"When you have a button, there must be a purpose."
LKY's Speech at the Victoria Theatre on Sep 20, 1965
/* What happens when Lee presses a button and nothing happens? */

"..look at Apollo 13. The Americans had to choose astronauts. The three astronauts had only one chance: listen losely to ground control, preserve power, take one swing around the moon and come back. If they had missed it, they would have gone on forever and ever into outer space. If any one of the three had panicked, all three would have gone.
"The Americans must have found some way of testing men in pressure chambers, claustrophobic conditions, simulated real crisis conditions to cause fright, and eliminated those who panicked. Because not one of the three panicked, Apollo 13 came back."
National Day Rally speech, Aug 9, 1979

"It is amazing the number of highly intelligent persons in the world who make no contribution at all to the well-being of their fellowmen."
Speech at a conference on youth and leadership, Apr 10, 1967

"That which is written without much effort is seldom read with much pleasure."
Extract of what Lee told civil servants in Feb 1979

"And nobody ever remains in power for long unless he's good at seeing through people and judging them. You must be able to know the real man regardless of what his words are telling you. Assess him. Can this chap do it? Is he just flannelling away or does he know his stuff?"
Interview with LKY

Likes and Hates.. (lost entry)

Ten things I like:
1) Reading a good book
2) Watching a good movie
3) Making a good friend
4) Cycle (there's no such thing as a bad ride..) (ECP!!)
5) Playing a good game of racquet sports
6) Chilling with friends
7) Stoning with a good friend
8) Winning (with a passing shot or a sharp volley! ha!)
9) Improving (so that can keep winning) Losing, after putting in my best efforts
10) Having a bad day once in a blue moon

Ten things I hate:
1) (people) Mis-spelling my name as Li Tao (or in IBM, all possible permutations/typos. eg. Liato, Lita, Lito, Litau, Liaotao, ... Talk about being a GIE... darn..)
2) Pessimism
3) Fake optimism
4) Fake people
5) Sick
6) People with no time concept (I wonder why I said that.. I have no time concept either.. maybe I hate myself..)
7) Incompetent leaders
8) Paralysis by Fear
9) Not keeping in touch with good friends
10) (people) Still mis-spell my name after I corrected them

Note: Original entry drafted (but not published) on 19 Aug 06. Entries in red are fresh entries made today (15 Aug 10)

What it means to compete

Jack Welch said: If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete.

Michael Porter said: Almost any advantage can be imitated. Only relentless improvements can sustain it*.

(*taken out of context)

Safety Nets

I used to describe myself as someone who takes "calculated risks", and I take pride in it. Considering my inclination to analyze everything (almost everything), I think taking calculated risks is as natural to me as water is to fish. Now and then, I would enjoy taking the occasional emotional surge to "just do it". Like when I tore my return boarding pass from Cambodia and when I went for Polar Plunge.

Crazy as it may sounds, all these are actually carefully-thought-through before I take the leap. I weighed the pros and cons before making the so-called 'crazy' decision.

That is the problem with me: I am not a 100% risk taker, nor am I a 100% risk analyst. I would always prefer to use emotions to rule over my logics; yet, as a typical Singaporean, I cannot fully let go. Hence, I always have this 'safety net' mentality: that is, if anything goes wrong, I will always have something to fall back against. And this is something which I have always take pride in.

....


..until recently.

Reflecting on the choices I made in the past decade, sad to say, I realize that a safety net mentality does not work for everyone, and definitely not for me. Hence, I'm writing this blog so that months/years later, when I read this, I would know how much I have moved forward (or remained on the same spot).


Look before you jump, they said.
That is good advice.
Thing is, good advice isn't for everyone.
Leap anyway.
You know you may not die if you leap,
but you certainly do not live if you don't.

____________________________________________________

On a separate note, my company's advertising slogan is: Go on. Be a Tiger. Maybe I'm in the right company afterall.

My short term strategy: be Babe Ruth (until I found my direction)

My long term strategy: hit singles

Re-Introduction

This blog was created quite some time ago. But stopped blogging for some time due to 2Ps: Pessimism and Procrastination.

Regardless, time to start blogging again, to reflect about how things are developing and whether I'm going in the correct direction.

Been a real lousy week so far. If Saturday was heaven, then Sunday night has to be hell. Kanna food poisoning on sunday night (due to a certain ramen restaurant at hougang mall). Vomited a few times, and went to toilet every other hour.. On monday morning, I have lost 2 kg overnight... Went to see doctor and was given 2 days mc. Today is Wednesday (national day), and I am still not completely ok. Think the doctor gave me quite lousy medication. Or should be due to my own immune system. Anyway, it's times like this that make me think that I should really start looking after myself better..

Met up with Sean yesterday. He's going away for his PhD this sat. Sad beyond words. Not very very sad. Just sad. Cos he's like a brother to me; we grew together in NUS. We are very much alike, yet different at the same time. I guess the most significant differences between us are he knows what he wants and is focused towards his goals.

Wasn't feeling well yesterday, and was quite sick after the MRT ride. So we decided to have sushi, something light. I guess this is where the phrase: "jiu feng zi ji qian bei shao" comes in. In the end, we ate quite a lot.

Perhaps this quote best describes how I feel:
"How does one deal when the one person you can connect to is about to go away?"