I am awake!!! Coffee helps!

Been busy for the last month that I have not been able to update anything. =) Well decide to update with a email sent me from my friend.

Food for Thought ~ Coffee

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university lecturer.

Conversation soon turned intocomplaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the lecturer went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and anassortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, some plain-looking and some expensive and exquisite, telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the lecturer said: "If you noticed, all the nice-looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to wantonly the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the better cups and are eyeing each other's cups."

Now, if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life, but the quality oflife doesn't change. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it.

Don't let the cups drive you...enjoy the coffee.

I guess the value we need to learn after reading this story is : CONTENTMENT.

The question we should be asking ourselves is : "Do I take time off to count and enjoy my blessings?" E.g Take time off to enjoy time with our family and friends. Do something that we like jogging or reading a book.

I pray that we all can learn the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want!

I am BEAUTIFUL =oP

Recently, there was an advertisement on TV, TV mobile and MRT stations that really caught my eyes. And the only way for me to share why it caught my eyes is to let you see it. I manage to find one similar advertisment in you-tube that was shown overseas. Enjoy!

Interesting advestisment, right =) It is an adverstisement for

Campaign for Real Beauty

This could me into thinking........What is this campign about????

Went to the website www.campaignforrealbeauty.com.sg and found out this is a campaign started by Dove to raise the self esteem of girls and women.

"Every day we are bombarded by hundreds – if not thousands – of airbrushed images of “beauty”… images with the power to affect how we see our bodies and our selves.

But who defines these beauty standards? How can we turn the tide of such beauty pressures and encourage young girls and women everywhere to embrace a more positive body image? We believe it’s time to find the answers… with your help.

Too many girls develop low self-esteem from hang-ups about looks and, consequently, fail to reach their full potential in later life.
So, Dove created the Dove Self-Esteem Fund as an agent of change to educate and inspire girls on a wider definition of beauty."

(Taken from www.campaignforrealbeauty.com.sg/dsef/temp1.asp?id=6495)

Personally, I do agree that the media does affect our perspection of who we are and how we feel about ourselves. We may unconciously feel inferior or ugly because we do not measure up to the stars as shown on TV or movies. Honestly, I think the girls shown in the advestisement looks pretty. Yet they do not feel so because they feel they do not mesure up to what the media protrays as beauty =(

Well, I think we all need a change of mindset :

Look not at the outer beauty

but at the inner beauty!

Outer beauty will fade away but the inner beauty of a person in terms of his character and substance will last the ages!

Now the next important question I will like to ask is :

When they will start a campaign to help us guys get a true picture of manhood? =)

Q2

After posting about Queuing in my entry "Q Q Q Q Q", I was pleasantly surprised when an article came up on Sunday Times (28 Jan 2007 article) titled “Great Singapore Q” by Michelle Tay.

It was an article on Singaporeans who would queue up for their favourite food or die-die-must-have goodies. The twin national pastimes of shopping and eating have bred a third : queuing.

What caught my eye was this comment made by one of the people interviewed :
She stood in line for an hour and 45 minutes to buy 5 dozen donuts because she had read about the outlet in LifeStyle last week.
Her daughter was with her on her day off. Both stood patiently in line “just to find out if the donuts are as good as reported”. Unfortunately, “they were just so-so.”

How many of us have similar experience?

We follow the crowd and join the queue to get something everyone is raving about. E.g.

• eat a famous food, watch a movie,
• buy the latest model of car,
• get the hottest property

Yet when we get the thing we have been queuing up for, we find that it is not as great as people had made up to be. The food is so-so. The show is good but could be better.

This is called the follow-the-herd mentality. Well, there is nothing wrong with it. Sometimes, we do need to help us make choices especially in things we are not so sure about.

However, I think it can become a problem when you waste too much of your time, money and effort on it. For the things we are queuing up for are only temporal and the satisfaction they gives us are not everlasting :

• the food only tastes good while in your mouth
• the movies can bring tears or joy while you are watching it
• the car would be scarped in 10 years time
• the house may be nice but it is the people living in it that made the difference.
  

At the end of the day, let queue up for the RIGHT stuff : Things that last and have more lasting value !

Found a you-tube video that shows in a funny way what I am trying to say. Enjoy!

Teacher Prayer.. And it is not to make the whole class disappear =)

Today I was teaching at NBSS (guess which school is this =P ). As I was walking out of the school, I saw something inspiring on the notice board.

A Teacher's Prayer
James J. Metcalf

I want to teach my students how to live this life on earth,

To face its struggles and its strife And to improve their worth

Not just the lesson in a book, Or how the rivers flow,

But to choose the proper path, Wherever they may go.

To understand eternal truth, And know right from wrong,

And gather all the beauty of A flower and a song,

For if I help the world to grow In wisdom and grace,

Then I feel that I have won And I have filled my place.

And so I ask your guidance, God That I may do my part,

For character and confidence And happiness of heart.

I really enjoy my job as a CRuSH trainer. Yet at times, I do get tired by the teaching and take it as just a job. As a result, I can become functional when I interact with my students.

This prayer really inspires me that it is not just knowledge, rules or know-how I want to pass on to the students. But I do hope to impart to them the passion to live life, the joy of discovering who they are, the love for people and the wisdom to know right or wrong.

Of cos, this seems impossible! Well with man it is impossible. The only thing i can do is learn from my Master Teacher up there =)

Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q

I have a question for you :

What is something that you had queuedor would queue up overnight for?

Can you humour me and think for a while =)Think…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Think some more……………………………………………………………………………………..

Okay, what is your answer? I asked around and these were 3 answers I got from some people :

Hello Kitty!!! (there was a craze 10 years ago)

See a super star!!!

(www.kpopmusic.co.uk/posts7756-highlight.html )

To sign up for Project Superstar!!!!

(www.8tv.com.my)

Well, this question came to my mind after I read that more than 15,000 people queued up to get the new expansion pack of World of Warcraft last Tuesday at Suntec.

These people must be real passionate about the game. Imagine the things one has to endure through the long period of waiting time: boredom, tiredness, weather conditions (think it rained on Tuesday), etc.

But I can imagine the joy of getting your hands on the expansion pack and going home to explore the new WOW maps as well level up to the new levels.

However, it is important to be balanced and realistic when it comes to such joy. I got worried when I read in the newspaper of people who spent the whole week playing WOW new expansion and neglect their own needs, families and friends.

Like it or not, we may be high level characters in the game and had lots of treasures. But all these are VIRTUAL (not real). If the game crash, we lose it all. But each one of us has a REAL life with a REAL character. We also have real treasures. These are the people in our lives : our families, friends, colleagues, etc. We need to make effort to level up our real character and seek and store up these treasures of relationships by looking out for their needs.

My motto of the week :

LEVEL UP YOUR REAL CHARACTER

STORE UP REAL TREASURES OF RELATIONSHIP

Side note : Hmm, maybe you are wondering, ”What would I queue up overnight for?” Honestly, I think I would not really queue up for anything. I am quite functional. For example, I always go for the shortest queue when I buy lunch at food court. If I do queue, it would be queuing up for something that a family member or friend wants.