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The Joy Of Writing

As I began to spend time during this holidays to account of what I have gone through the day and also to jot down my thoughts, I realised that I am beginning to enjoy sitting down on my old faithful laptop typing it all out on Word Pad and posting it up on my blog when I get online. It seems like I finally found a way to express myself freely whether it be things that I am struggling with or thoughts that come to my mind that seem to intrigue me. Many people have different forms of expressing themselves. Some may prefer to call up a friend and pour out their heart out to that friends, others may indulge in different forms of activities like painting, singing or chatting as a form of expression. I found out recently that writing seem to suit me more. It was really surprising when I found out how comfortable it feels to just sit down and write down my thoughts of the day. Besides writing, I have also tried other ways such as sitting down with a friend to talk or maybe singing as a form of expression of myself but I realise that I have never been able to express myself fully. What I want to express seem to be limited due to certain distraction that may come my way. So, I am pretty happy to finally found something that I am comfortable of doing and hope to pursue writing as one way of expressing myself and at the same time experiment with other modes of expression which may allow me to express myself more. I had a thought last time to maybe write a book one day since I am beginning to enjoy writing now. What will I write about? I really do not know. However, I hope to write something that is practical and that is able to help people in collecting their thoughts together. Fictions may come to me as something creative in expressing my thoughts in a more interesting way but it all boils down to what I want to write about and the message I want to bring across to the people who read my writing.

Besides that, I hope that by writing it will help me gather my thoughts in order so that I will be able to deliver them precisely without loosing focus of the topic of discussion and also to train myself to think before I speak.At the same time, I would like to make sure I use the propers words and diction when speaking. I hope that this would be one way to train me to be confident in front of people and to deliver the necessary message to the specific group of people. I guess in order to be confident speaking in front of people, one of the first thing to do is to gather your thoughts. And I realise one way of doing this is to sit down and write down what you want to say first before saying it. I need to make sure that I say the right things and not be carried away by other factors such as emotion and make sure I address the issue rather than the person involve. This is something I realise when politicians make an important speech. They always prepare a transcript before delivering their message. It is not a spur of a moment kind of things or something spontaneous. Though I sometimes disagree with the method of delivery of the speech but i agree that preparation need to be made before delivering an important message. Just like politicians, preachers does the same as well. Its difficult to be spontaneous because you may tend to run off the topic. At the same time, I also believe that the Holy Spirit has the tendency of leading us into speaking about another thing. However, that doesnt mean we should not be prepared. Well, its funny that while writing this thoughts, I find myself running away from what I wanted to speak at first. It started by writing to speaking about Holy Spirit guiding. Guess, our thoughts may even wonder when we write and I am a living proof to this. It seems that I really writing our my wondering thoughts and not making a statement which seem to show the tendency of how far thoughts can really go. Pretty interesting discovery as I write this. It feels like I tend to loose my focus quite easily. Something that I need to work on.

An Interesting Reading Session In The Daily Today

As I turned the pages on Session Two in The Star today, I found myself practically glued to most of the articles that were printed on it. It was simply interesting to read them all and gathered alot of interesting details about different things in life. Here are some of the feature article of the day and my thoughts on it;

Hypnotheraphy

It was a feature article of the day as it was on the front page of Session Two. The article was about helping people overcome their bad habits through hypnotism. Hypnotism? Yes, and it was a surprising fact to learn that hypnotism have be a certified medical method since 1958. The bad habit that was featured on todays article was about smoking. It dealt with the difficulty that fellow smokers who had a hard time kicking this habit away. How do we define habits? Habit are things that picked up and continously do it till it becomes a routine. It was something conscious that turn into something subconscious. In order to deal with bad habit such as smoking we need to deal it in two areas; the physical aspect and the subcontious aspect. The physical aspect would be the dependancy of nicotine and the subcontious aspect was to understand why we started smoking in the first place and how to find a relatively similar method in order to complement that action and to stop the habit all together. It seems that the latter is most difficult and that explains why some people return back to smoking after a day of stopping from it. In the end, it all depends on yourself whether you want to kick that habit or not.

It pretty interesting to find out why each one of us have habits on our own which we find it so difficult to stop from doing it. For me, it would be laziness. Looking at this holiday, the habits seems to speak for itself. Everyday, I would wake up around 10am, have breakfast, spend the next 1 and a half hour reading newspaper, having lunch, seeing TV, sleeping, seeing TV, dinner, seeing TV and sleeping. It seem like something relaxing to do, something that I am waiting to do ever since coming home for holiday. However, it seems pretty unproductive where the days just passes by so quickly and at the end of they day, I asked myself what I have achieved. Nothing. This is what I call a bad habit. Something my parents are constantly annoyed and have always been asking me to get a part time job rather than staying at home and wasting my time. Most of the time, I distest that idea but it seem pretty true when I sat down and wrote it out, what have I achieved throughout the day? Zero. Elek. Kosong. Is this really what it measn about holiday or should I be doing something beneficial rather than hanging around doing nothing? I sit and wonder and I realise there are many things to be done but I am hesitant in carrying it out. Things like clearing out my stuff I brought back after shifting, rearranging my room, applying for my industrial training, researching on my Final Year Project, learning some web skills that maybe useful for my industrial training and reading the Bible. The list is endless but what I am doing. Nothing. Its kind sad to realise it while writing this out. I guess I need to kick myself in the butt and get myself moving and settling all this stuff that are in the list and not making the list even longer with unfinish business.

Starting Young

This was a really interesting article that feature young people who were already making a mark and owning a business at a very young age. All of them were in their early 20's and were already having dot com companies, a graphic company, a tattoo shop, a record label and several restaurant. As I read, I realised that most of them were not high achievers. Some already graduated with a degree in hand, some didn't even complete their degree. It seems to show that all of them had discovered a niche that they were proud to be involved in and it wasn't about the grades that had but the talent they have which they have use it to their advantage. Initially, many of them faced alot of discouragement especially with their parents who viewed it as uncertainty and obtaining a degree seem to look more stable. Others were supportive of their child's venture and supported them financially. In the end, their initiative paid off and their family began to accept their new endeavour after realising that it was profitable.

It was pretty interesting to acknowledge that money seem to be the key to survival. As in, what we do is mainly for sake of money. Parents seem to disagree when things are uncertain and a piece of paper or a certificate as some may call it seem to provide something we hold on for security. It always seems like a paper would bring you far in life and that that single paper is able to make you millions where life would be easy and comfortable with all the riches we possess. Is this how humans view life is? Is money the thing we life for to make it us succesful in life? I agree to the importance of money and how money is the only way we have roof over our heads, food on the table and clothes to keep us warm. It seems like the world revolve around money alone. People are attracted to us when we have money but despised of us when we do not have them. The rich are adored, the poor are neglected. Is this how we view humanity as? Looking at this fact, I can help to say that I am in the middle of the money issue where we commit ourselves to. My parents are very concerned with the issue of money nowadays especially when my younger sister will be going to university soon and that would mean more money to be spend. I understand their struggle and realised that I need to save as much as possible so that my sister can have an education. Though, with loan and support coming from my uncle in terms of my education, my parents are still worried about it. They have been constantly asking me not to go out so much and giving me a figure of the amount of money that I would be wasting away when I stepped out of the house which may be incurred through spending, parking and petrol. It was better for me to stay at home as a hope to spend less. One of the reason why I decided to stay at home and not visit places was because of this. Guilt seem to surround me everytime I am out. Is this how it should be? It seems a rather drastic act to take and sometimes i feel frustrated over the issue of money though in my life, I am not the type who spend much. Most of my expenditure would be going places or having a meal. Besides that, I feel I am consider pretty meagre in my spending, as compared with friends that I have. Money alwasy seem to be an issue in life. Has it grip us to the fact that we became so dependable on it to survive? I think we have subconsciously without realising that life is far more than money alone.

Ideas of My Own

As I read all this little interesting stories of people my age succeeding and having companies or restaurant of their own, I can't help to think about plans which I have in the future. I can say that sometimes i dream of doing many things. One of them is to set up a restaurant. As I was watching Discovery Travel and Adventure on Celebrity Restaurant, I can't help to imagine a restaurant of my own of somewhat similar. I always enjoyed the combination of interior and food merge together to present a perfect ambience. I guess when you dream of starting your own restaurant, you would immediately think of what makes your restaurant different from the other restaurant around. As I walk around especially in shopping malls, I have always a habit of observaing eateries. It was nice to observe the way the restaurants makes an impression through its deco to the throng of people that passes by and the myriads of foods it served that cause people to merely stop by to see what is on the menu. In my time observation, I realise a lack of eateries which served Malaysian food. What do I mean by that? I know that there are many restaurant that served Malay, Indian, Chinese and Western cuisine but yet to find a place that combines the flavours of all this varieties of food into a signature dish called Malaysian. It is certainly a blessing to live in a land called Malaysia where the multi-racial citizen all present a respective type of cuisine by itself. How each flavour is disticnt which differentiate them all together. So, what do I want to be serve in my restaurant? I would like to see a mixture of taste of Malay, Indian and Chinese, prepared in a Peranakan way, presented in a Western setting.

Why a mixture of Malay, Indian and Chinese?
To resemble the diversity of our culture and merge of difference in preparing a menu of cuisine that would combine us all.

Why Peranakan?
Been brought up feasting on Peranakan cuisine as my grandma is a Nyonya herself, I found out that the preparation of Peranakan food is fine and detail. This adds up to the painstaking task of producing a simple meal which brings out a total different flavour to even the simplest of food. As my grandma said, turning a poor man dish into a royal taste.

Why Western?
I have always admired the way Western cuisine in particular French dishes that served in a very neat and creative way. However, its frustrating to see it in a small serving laid out on a big plate with decoration at the sides. I would tend to change it into having proportional serving with a medium scaled plate to serve it in.

Other thoughts were to have cuisine served on a rather small portion for those who are going light on the stomach that is somewhat similar to dim sum or sushi for that matter. Besides that, it be pretty cool to take advantage on the myriads of desserts and cakes or should i say kuih we Malaysian that I believed can be much more appertising than the typical cakes or sweets the English served.

This are just thoughts or idea which may or may not materialised depending on the level of seriousness i take upon it. Other thoughts of restaurant would be to make a restaurant not a restaurant but to incorporate other facilities that would make a restaurant not a place only to eat but to meet up for meeting, social gathering, cheap accomadation for passing travellers or even a place where up and coming musicians will be able to showcase their talents. Sounds more like a hotel to me. It does minus the grandour and frills. More down to earth that would appeal mainly to the medium-level people in society. Besides that, I have even thoughts of setting up hawker joints that maintain the hawker like atmosphere where the food is good and cheap minus the rubbish and rats that may be a common site to many when it comes to hawker. At the same point, allowing flea market to run in between this hawkers stalls where anyone is able to ply their trades or sell things that they didnt need much. Seems like a pasar malam to me. True, so guess this idea need to be worked on its differences.

Malaysian Idol

It seems that reality shows and showbusiness seem to come hand in hand. Pop Idol seem to reap success. American Idol seem to garner a cult following. Well, in no time Malaysian will be glued on their monitor set just to find out who will qualify and become the very first Malaysian Idol. I had thoughts of joining in the beginning. Just a crazy idea of just joiningfor the fun of it since it was a chance of a lifetime being able to go for an audition and belt out a favourite a number. It be cool having to go throught what other have gone through in hope of making it big. Savouring the whole experience and not expecting to win at all. Well, guess that is one of the many favourite reasons i find many giving as they prepare to enter this type of talent search. I have to admit that I too would give a similar reason. However, I thought about it and decided to forfeit that idea, realising that it would be adding to another list of distraction that may cause me to loose focus on what I am doing right now. Besides that, it be a major setback for me if I do make it through the preliminary rounds. Not that I am all that good and believe I have what it takes to make it big. But I am thinking of the reality side of it. What if I make an impression which I never thought I would? What would be of me going through the preliminaries and making it to the final 10? What will I do with my studies, my involvement in church and CF, my friends? Would I leave it all and pursue a life of riches and being in the public eye?

There is so much things to consider when you go into a talent quest like this and sometimes many people fail to see where it would lead them too. Yes, it is fun to join for the fun of it. I would be tempted to but will i loose my focus in the end which would be studying for a degree in engineering which would be over in a year time? I think I would and I rather not risk taking that step although it be a small step. However, a small step can bring us far. Sometimes even further from what we can imagine or think of that we find ourselves lost in the end now knowing why we are here. If i really do want to be famous or to experience and savour the life as a singer, I would have been a singer at the very beginning and not get myself studying for a degree which I would forfeit and waste RM60,000 for that where the money could be gone to good used for something else. Guess, sometimes all the fame and glamour clouds our mind that we sometimes fail to consider all of this. Is this about myself or is this about others? Am I sacrificing myself or others who have gone along way in putting me through what I have gone through? This clearly shows to me personally how easily we are tempted that we loose focus on what we have in hands and try our very best to reach for other thing even before we are done with what we have. For those who are considering decisions in life, be it auditioning for Malaysian Idol or stopping school to earn big bucks, always make sure we do not forget to consider the people around us as in the end its not about us, but our decision may affect others as well. For those who really have a gift and realise that this gift should be out into good use and not wasted, pray before making that big step and if u feel the peace in your heart and that the people in general are alright with it, do not fear to move on. The important thing is not to loose focus and take things one step at a time. Be ambitious and at the same time, be modest in your ways as well.

Accountability

Well, I guess some people do read my blog and I thank you for reading my little thoughts. I always wrote my blog personally for myself in particular, mainly to jot down my thoughts and what I have gone through so as to reflect it a year later. I realised that whenever I write my blog, I am somewhat accountable to those who read them. So if you have any thoughts on your own or feel that my thoughts may be somewhat loosing direction or going sideways, do leave me a comment for me to ponder.