The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.
- Randy Pausch
… and it’s all downhill from here or so they say.
I have a lot on my mind and need to write that down sooner than later. I had the best birthday party and gift ever. Many thanks to my dear friends who traveled the distance. This is Gru, with my home-brew beer kit wrapped inside.
Do you live to eat or eat to live? I’ve been on both sides of the saying and I now believe that what we eat defines how we live. I’ve been following Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution and it’s been an eye opener for how little we know about the food we eat. And it’s even more embarrassing for how little we care to know about our food. I’m guilty of this and I know a lot more people who’re on the same boat with me.
Here’s a little push to your wake up call.
She put up a great fight for the last 20 months but she finally succumbed to her cancer today. She was in pain and had no recollection – she could not recognize my mother (her daughter). I’m sitting here, some 8000 miles away, trying to make sense of it all. I just hope that wherever she is now, she is not in pain.
My grandmother was a fighter with a pure heart, she fought hard so that she could be there for all of our weddings. I’m happy that she was there for our wedding 6 months back.
I’ve thought hard about the possible causes of her cancer and I strongly believe that it is the wood-fired stoves we use in the villages. Inhaling that smoke for over 40 years cannot be good for you. We need to fix this, now.
I’m fortunate to have had lots of fond memories of my grandmother and I will cherish them till the end.
Bye Ammamma.
I always wanted to write a paper such as this. Never thought I’d get beaten to it, so it’s a shocker to know that somebody wrote an entire paper on it, that too in 1995.
Please enhance your procrastination here:
A Systems Engineering Approach to Love, Dating and Relationships by Larry Kahn
On a side note, my life’s good. I’m feeling lucky as ever and I feel it’s time to give back and keep giving.
Imagine this.
You’re really really thirsty. You walk past a dozen vending machines but you don’t have enough coins. You keep walking, thirstier by the minute, till you reach a canteen. You look around for the drinks stall and rush in to buy a drink. You buy your favorite drink in its regular plastic bottle. After paying for it, you walk out calmly feeling relieved that you can now quench your thirst. Then you go ahead to open the bottle as always and hmm, the cap doesn’t budge a single bit. You give it another shot and still no improvement. Then you use your t-shirt for grip and try a couple more times and still no damn motion. Then you use your Timberland bag’s flaps for grip and this freaking bottle cap just refuses move.
Baffled, you decide to look like an idiot and ask for somebody’s help to open the bottle. Remember, you’re still thirsty, thirstier actually. You wait by the sidewalk hoping some gym rat walks by. You wait and wait and wait, getting thirstier by the moment and finally decide to lower your expectations. You ask the next random dude walking past you to help open it. The guy looks at you like this is a joke, tries opening it, swears and gives up. Action repeats for the next three guys you ask. You finally decide that this bottle is special and that nothing else will quench your thirst.
So, you open up your bag and look for anything that might be useful to open this stuckup bottle cap. During this search, you shockingly realize that you cannot find your apartment keys. You immediately make a few frantic phone calls till you establish that you forgot your keys in your room. Then you shift focus back to quenching your thirst. You find a small dinky key you use to lock your cubicle drawers. Using this key as a knife, you try to saw the bottle cap away from the grip-on. Not much improvement, you repeat this for another 15 mins. By then, you’re really really really thirsty, even your saliva tastes dry. But you don’t want to go buy another drink, you only want this one now.
After failing to saw the cap open, you try to twist it open again. But this time, the jagged edges left by the sawing cut your palms. It looks like a scratch first, but then you realize its actually blistered. You don’t give a damn about the blisters, you only want to quench your thirst. You try twisting the cap open again and this time the cut on the palm deepens. In this moment of pain you come to the realization that you’ve been trying to quench your thirst by being nice to the container. By being nice to the medium that’s coming between you and what you desire. You were trying to quench your thirst by being noble, by being non-violent. But what do you do when you get no result? You finally decide the medium has to be destroyed. You decide that you deserve to quench your thirst at any cost and you jab the bottle with the key.
And there you have it, a narrow but sure pathway to quench your thirst. Slow and troublesome, but it still quenches your thirst. Everybody in the bus-stop is staring at you, staring at the wierd dude who’s spent over an hour trying to open a damn bottle and then, drinking from it sideways.
But heck, you don’t care.You deserved your drink and it never felt any better.
I wonder if this is the kind of thirst that drives people to violence, drives people to do stupid things. I also wonder where to draw the line between passion and fanatism.
My right hand is blistered, by its not paining anymore. I managed to bowl with it pretty well, averaging 100 in all my games.
Oh, btw, I’ve moved to my new apartment. It’s at the Palm Gardens Condominium and it’s super awesome. I shall post pictures soon. My project, DA vinCi is close to getting approved and my GRE’s are two weeks away.
I went to the RSAF Open House today to catch the Air Show but I was a tad too late. By the time I got inside, the performances were over and I barely got to see the planes land. So yeah, a little disappointed there.
But I got to taste Ramly burgers finally. These things are really tasty. Its basically a chicken cutlet wrappen in chili sauce, mayo, cheese and a fried egg. It’s american equivalent would be the Bo-Burger. Ramly is a Malaysian brand and it’s my new favorite. Burgers never tasted this good at S$2.50
Proudly powered by WordPress
Theme: Esquire by Matthew Buchanan.
