Of food & life in the new year 2014

New year comes with new resolutions. With the new resolutions planned and noted down, I wish I can muster my strength and will to make of them achievable by end of the year.

Of course, working life is always full of ups and downs. It has been the fourth month for me trying to adapt well in new working environment.

Work life balance as what I used to emphasize always top my life priorities.

Of food and life in Jan 2014, a brief update as follows:

1.Had a nice gathering with university friend after been out of contact for nearly a 1.5 year @ 6 Jan.

Having our gathering dinner @ Ichiriki Japanese Food, Garden Mall.

2. Have the best rojak in SS15 Subang jaya with Lauren @ 12 Jan

Bumped into this long queue in SS15 Subang Jaya, wondering what is it and then went with Lauren to makan. We were in the queue for 15 minutes to eat. That is the best Mamak rojak, or Indian rojak, consists of a variety of deep fried dough fritters (that have different taste and textures), bean curd, hard boiled egg, cuttlefish, grated cucumber, and grated all in a thick spicy and sweet sauce rich in ground peanuts.

Prices as follows:

RM5- Sotong with egg

RM4.50- Egg or Sotong

RM4 -Kosong

We also had our cendol with gula melaka priced at RM2. For me, it is a bit too sweet. After all, it is a nice sunday outing with some shopping at Aeon Big and Rojak-ing in the fast food outlet. :p

3. Simple Life Restaurant Vegetarian @ 18 Jan

Went with my aunt and uncle to this vegetarian restaurant in Leisure Mall. I have been very emphasized on eating healthily and to embrace vegetarian. I have been fortunate enough to stay with my aunt because she is a full time vegetarian and staying with her basically make me a part time vegetarian, and on occasions, a full time one.

On last Saturday @ 18 Jan, we went to this vegetarian restaurant. I love the serving and the food served is really nice.

4. Watami Japanese Restaurant @ 1 Utama @ 19 Jan

Went to this Japanese restaurant with Vyian and gang.

The famous Ramen

Watami Sushi

The beef cooked in pot.

That is after all the updates of food and life in new year 2014.
More posts coming soon! :)

Some take away lessons from work

Teachers typically assigned to come for our class to teach us in school. We are not given any special right to choose whichever teachers that we like or favour to teach us in whatsoever subjects we want, unless it will be a different story if it is a tuition class.

In the workplace, it is just the same. When we step into the working world, we will have a manager whom we are supposed to report to and there will be no specialty for us to choose whoever person we like to be our manager or boss. Hence, having a good manager is definitely important in our career life.

I am blessed I can have experience for having various managers throughout my assignment in different departments. But at the same time, what I am aware of now is to take every opportunity present to learn as much as I can.

Well, yesterday, there is this manager whom I am now working with, giving me some valuable pieces of advices. I would like to share them here:

For a fresh graduate like me, it is better to make as many mistakes as possible and then learn from it. For a fresh start, it is reasonably to have made mistake because only through the mistake we make, we will be able to learn. Be patient even when you are scolded by your boss for the mistake you make for this will be a very grounding platform for you to always remember it and take it as your lesson.

Always give your 100% efforts in the work or projects your boss assigned you to do. After I have done with my project and present it to my manager, he asked me how many percent that I think that I have done for this project and I replied him I have given 70%. Then, he asked me back where is the other 30%. What I keep it for? The reason why I answered 70% is because I thought that I have still some things which I need to learn from him, but he said this is not what he mean.

Thereafter, he said to me that in order to get your boss to be impressed is not do what he expects, but beyond what he expects. Just say, your boss give you a project and want you to submit to him by tomorrow. If you submit to him by tomorrow, it means you are meeting his expectations. What if you submit to him by today, would you think he will be impressed by it?

Well, personally to me, it is not actually the time or the speed that counts, but the ultimate quality of the works that we produced. But somehow rather, my boss is right about it, only though speed and quality at both will we be able to make the good impressions.

Besides, speaking about the quality of the work. My boss is pretty particular about the slide show that we prepare and present. I would like to pinpoint some of the things that he is so particular about:

1.Font 

Do no ever use fancy fonts in your power point presentation. For example: How are you?
It is better just to stick to a proper one- Times New Roman: How are you?

2. Taboo while doing presentation

•  When presenter wishes to pause for a while and blank the slide, it is very common to see the presenter will use some cardboard or piece of paper to cover the projector screen. In fact, it is not necessary to do so because you can easily blank the screen by pressing the button SHIFT + B (if you want to blank the screen black) or SHIFT + W (if you want to blank the screen white). It is just as simple as that.
• Press the number 4 + Enter on the keypad if you wish to go back to the slide say number 4. You do not have to necessarily press the up and down button to go back to the slide you wish to. 

3.Do not squeezed the original size of the photos. It will just spoilt the image of the photos.

4. For drawing, make sure it is according the proper scale.

So, you could see my boss comments even when it is just a short presentation of my assignment. Working life is all about learning from scratch and be humble in our approach to seek knowledge! :)

Graduation Dinner

On the 12th October 2013, we have the yearly graduation dinner for all the Ma Sheng members.

It was a Saturday and I am able to make it for the dinner since I am staying in Klang at the moment. So, we have our dinner together at the New Formosa Restaurant @SS2.

it was my first time being there and the restaurant serves steambot style of food. I would not say it is the best steamboat in the town. The main ingredients of the food which is the steamboat soup is just so so, with rating of 5/10.

For the second round, we went to Ochado!:)

Anyhow, it is a nice gathering with the juniors and my batch mates who have graduated this year.

To current batch juniors Bee Heong, Amiko, Pei Chen, Ai Teng etc etc, do add oil in your batch for the Ma Sheng organization.

Last but not least, congratz to Alice, Zee Man, Apichat and Osward Kenji for successfully graduating this year! All the best in your future undertakings! :)

The art of teaching

I have been teaching for nearly 2 month and have been to 2 primary schools during my 2 month tenure of teaching.

Well, to be frank, I have no idea why I will end up in teaching during my 'free time' while I was looking for a career transition, and to be frank again, I thought I will enjoy teaching, but the reality of teaching in a school proved to be a tough challenge often make me think twice to make teaching as my long term career.

In fact, teaching is not a bed of roses.

I would like to share with my readers about an interesting and informative article written by Nithya Siddhu, a school teacher and also a keen writer for the STAR EDUCATE section.

In her article, she introduces us 3 Greek words: ethos, logos and pathos which will what explain about the art of teaching. The quote of the article as follows:

Ethos is the Greek word for “character”. It speaks volumes of the spirit, attitudes and beliefs of the speaker. A teacher’s disposition is determined by her ethos. You cannot gain respect as a teacher if you don’t even realise that teaching is classified as a profession and hence, bound by a distinct code of ethics. Being punctual, honest and giving immediate feedback are inherent in teachers with good character. Aren’t we more convinced by someone who has a credible character?

The second is logos. To me, logos is about content and logic — when a teacher clarifies, criticises, comments or expresses an opinion, it should ideally spring from rational thinking and reasoning. 

This knowledge and skill comes from diligent reading from varied sources, understanding the facts and organising them. Imagine a teacher who is ill-prepared and does not even know her subject content when she begins to teach!How can she hold a “reasoned discourse” with her students when they query her? Can a teacher who can’t support any argument with facts progress to using language effectively to convey content? 

Finally there is the quality of pathos — an appeal to emotion and feeling. The best of teachers are able to touch lives, arouse interest, inspire learning and motivate achievement. Emotional intelligence is needed for a meaningful interaction with students.I have learnt, from personal experience, that no matter how knowledgeable, passionate, prepared and ethical I was as a teacher, teaching was only effective if I was able to evoke a yearning to want to read, understand and appreciate knowledge in my students. 

Developing an out-going personality wasn’t enough. It had to come in tandem with a persuasive way with words, actions and facial expressions. It’s no joke being a teacher!
Students are naturally drawn to teachers who appeal to them emotionally which is why young teachers must work on their people skills in order to generate warmth and affection in their charges. When they teach, they have to be audience-sensitive.
Are their students interested and attentive or bored, restless and tired? How do they create a positive emotional response in them? This art of being interesting, kind, understanding and approachable while remaining firm takes time, skill and experience. Academically-weak students need an extra dose of empathy and compassion. Being credible, logical and compassionate is what ethos, logos and pathos are all about.
If you are interested in being a person of positive influence, then the three words should not be all Greek to you! As Aristotle himself put it: “Quality is not an act, it is a habit.”

Source: Lesson Reinforced

The benefits of study group

Since young, I have always enjoy teaching, I am often seen as a student who are willingly and enthusiastically to teach and share with other classmates of mine about school lesson that we learned and the exercises that we did. The teaching and sharing session is what we commonly called it as study group.

Study group has always been my favourite past time, the activities which I enjoy the most with friends besides hanging out together and chit-chatting in the mamak. The study group activity becomes more frequent during the time when I was in Matriculation and University. It has become so embedded in my university life that I view it as part and parcel of a preparation towards facing various exams.

The only study group which will prove to be effective is when you achieve the target or objective that you set at the end of the study group. This could only happen when your study group members are serious and have a strong desire to learn and study. It will only end up in a chit chatting session if one or more group members are not serious and joking around in the study group.

Of course, I am very glad to have found my own gang of members who are serious enough in study group, that we admit that we sometimes ( not all the time) did joke and tease, but ultimately, we managed to achieve the target that we set before the study group. Talking about it really make me miss the moment so much.

To those who think that going to tuition is a necessity to survive in the paper chase environment, you may consider study group as a viable option to excel in study without having to pay extra fees for tuition. I firnly believe that if you are serious enough to study, no matter what circumstances, study group will greatly help you in achieving the result that you want!

A TFM fellow's reflection after 5.5 month into teaching in high need school

I have stumbled upon a blog by Miss Sarah. I have not known her personally, but I feel what she write ought to be a reflective point to all teachers who are or will be teaching in high need schools in Malaysia.



[Warning: This post is going to be very long, honest and potentially quite brutal...let's see how I go.]

So. I have neglected this blog for quite a while. Truth to be told, I am not one for articulating my thoughts and feelings in writing, let alone on a blog. I am and have always been a talker so this would probably be better in a video format. However, somehow, today I feel like I just need to get all my thoughts and feelings down on paper. I feel like it is high time I wrote a true and honest reflection, and not only the ‘sugar-coated’ updates that I have been posting on Facebook. More than anything else, this reflection is for me. I feel the urgent need to just pour out my emotions and to clear my head. A billion people are coming to observe me next week, the NAZIRs (I think that is how you spell it?), TFM, IAB, etc. and I need to make sure I am as clear-headed as possible lest I blow or worse still, suffer another anxiety attack. I don’t even know where to begin but let me try. So here goes…


These past 5.5 months have without a doubt been the most DIFFICULT 5.5 months of my life. I thought that doing IB whilst being a prefect, prefect treasurer, the international students’ committee vice-president and juggling a billion other clubs and societies was quite challenging. I thought that being the President of MUOSS together with committee positions in 3 other clubs and societies, whilst juggling university and my social life was at times difficult. I thought honours was the most challenging thing I had ever experienced, well parts of it at least, but this, this makes everything seem like a walk in the park. I am one of the most optimistic people I know, and yet I will be honest and say I have never complained, cried, swore, gotten angry, upset and just been plain negative so often in my life. I have cried in front of my students, my teachers, my principal, my LDO, my fellow TFM-ers, my boyfriend, my parents, and probably to lots more other people that I don’t even know about. For someone who does not have mood swings, well these past 5.5 months, I have gone through the biggest mood swings I ever thought possible. I never knew it was possible to have so many extreme highs and lows within a period of the school day. To be honest, I even fear that cancer cells are starting to breed within me.


Everyone keeps on telling me to lower my expectations, to relax, to be patient, to not care so much, to not worry so much about PGDE, what others think, etc. But what they don’t realise is that for a high-achiever and perfectionist, this is quite impossible. Everyday I feel like I am failing. Faiing my students, failing myself, failing TFM, failing the Principal, failing my LDO, my mentors. I feel like I am already trying my best, lacking sleep, getting so stressed to the point of suffering an anxiety attack, and yet, it is not enough. How do you live with these feelings of not having done enough? How do you live with the knowledge that perhaps you really are not that great as your CV portrays? You are really not that ‘transformational’ after all? You are really not able to make a difference in these kids’ lives???? What if, all I am doing is just setting up my kids for failure?! I do not know how to teach English. Heavens, English was always one of my least favourite subjects and yet here I am teaching it and trying to convince my students that it is the most interesting subject in the world. Worse still, I am teaching it in an environment where my students and I can barely communicate due to their weakness in English and mine in Malay, Tamil and Chinese. I feel like a duck talking to a pack of dogs.


Over the holidays, I told myself that I would start trying to detach myself. I would try to stop caring so much because I know that all that is causing is the deterioration of my health. I told myself I would take the initiative to be more professional and to ‘man up’. Yet, after doing quite well for 3 days, today, I gave a stern talking to 3 of my 4 classes. With the first 2 classes, I was still okay. I just wanted them to know that they had to improve their work ethics and take the initiative to study and complete their homework. However, by the time I reached the 3rd class, my final class of the day – 2 periods with my ‘most aspring’ class. Well, by the end of it, I was ready to showcase my bodycombat skills on at least 3/4 of the class. Don’t worry, I restrained myself and stuck to a stern talking-to. Yet, even after scolding them in English, Mandarin and Malay (which is really difficult and really takes the steam out of your words, especially given my limited vocabulary), a few of my students still had the nerve to laugh and talk about a completely unrelated topic. That was it. I could not take it anymore. I knew I had to leave the room lest I say something I regretted. I packed up my things, ignored the students’ calls and stormed out of the class 3 minutes early.


Talk about feeling like even more of a failure. I could not even stick to my own ‘objective’ for more than 3 days. How do they do it? How do they get under my skin like this? Why do I care so much for them? Even when I tell myself that I don’t want to care anymore? That I can no longer take the disappointment and heartbreak I feel everytime they don’t hand in their homework, don’t study for their spelling tests, talk in class, even after repeated reminders and warnings.


Then, one of the teachers said something very interesting to me. He said, “Sarah, this actually shows that you are meant to be a teacher. You are only so angry and upset because you genuinely care for the students and you genuinely worry about their futures.”


This stopped me in my tracks. Here I was, doubting myself as a teacher. I was doubting my ability to teach my students anything of use. I was doubting the impact I was having on my students, if at the end of the day, it was a negative impact or if there was even an impact to begin with! To be honest, I am definitely not going to continue teaching after these 2 years as business is my true passion and I really am not one made for the bureaucracies and paperwork of being a civil servant. Yet, I have always enjoyed teaching for the the joy you get when your students, especially the ones who are really struggling, have that ‘aha’ moment.


The truth of the matter is this. I have thought about quitting, countless times, more times than I can count with all my fingers and toes. I especially think about quitting when I have had a particularly bad day, when I miss my parents, my friends, my boyfriend, when I miss MYSELF, ME as I used to be, not “Miss Sarah”. I think about quitting when the pressure from the school’s administration, TFM, the government, PGDE, but most of all, from myself, gets too much to bear. In my moments of self-pity, I even think about quitting when I think about the money I could be earning and the social life I could be having if I were not in this program.


YET. And I am going to write this next section in capital letters (bear with me please), because this is the overriding truth of the matter.


I AM NOT GOING TO GIVE UP.


I am not going to quit on my students, on the school, and most of all, on myself. My parents did not raise me up to be weak, selfish and self-pitying. I was not blessed by God to have such a happy and loving childhood only to continue caring only for myself and not sharing my luck with those in need.


No, I am going to pick myself up and persevere. Somehow, I am going to get over this vicious cycle of self-pity, negativity and thoughts of quitting. Truth to be told, I have never learned so much in such a short amount of time. I have never been knocked down and had to pick myself up so many times. I have never learned so much about the world, learned so many skills, and learned the true meaning of ‘grit’ and being grateful for all that I have. Most of all, I have never learned so much about myself. It is really true what they say, that it is in times of difficulty that you learn the most about yourself, about who you really are.


I must say I have not really liked certain parts of myself that I have emerged these past few months. I never knew I could be such a complainer, a weakling, so negative and so emotional. But. I cannot stand being a mere shadow of my previous self anymore. I cannot stand carrying this negative energy around anymore.


So, I am going to take action from this day forward. It is time for me to grow up and man up. I am going to cut these parts off as much as possible. I am going to exercise again. I am going to try and adapt to this small town. I am going to make the effort to make friends and assimilate into this society. But most of all, I am going to continue caring for my students. I am going to pick myself up, dust myself off, and continue trying and doing all that I can (without killing myself of course! ). I am going to do my best to help my students be whoever they want to be and can be.


This is my pledge because if anything I at least owe that much to my students and myself.


After all, isn’t this why I joined Teach for Malaysia in the first place? (:

Source: http://teachingchampions.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/reflections-after-5-5-months/

I salute your positiveness and strength. Be all well with you and your kids. ;)

Leaderships 101

Today, I have learned leaderships stuff from some BFM podcast. So, I would like to sum up what I have listen from the podcasts.

The first podcast is from Kenneth Kwan. He is a High Performance Team Strategist in Deep Impact who has spoken to thousands of leaders and professionals in 10 countries. People are the key assets in any organisation, but how do you move them towards having a good performance?

Some leaders are soft and tough. Both have their own ways of management.

However, a good leader in any organization will:
1. Become proactive coach, help your employees develop the right skills.
2.Make sure pay attention to new employees. Give them guidance and coaching, Spend time with them. Don't get them in and leave them alone, it doesn't work. Don't let them hang around with the bad apples in the office.
3.Explain the roles and responsibility with the team very clearly. Demonstrate how their day to day task is actually impact on the overall well-being of the company. Make them feel part of the team. Give them immediate feedback.

High performing team--Consistently overcome the daily fire fighting mentality. Thousand of things screaming at them at single day but yet they are able to be laser beam focus, they know what are the objectives and they constantly stir themselves towards that direction, while still handling thousand of things that cream their attention.

In order to build a high performing team, proactiveness start from yourself.

Fire-fighting mentality-- If u go to any org, u would hear people said there are thousands of things on my plate and this never ends and it keeps adding on. And the question is what their boss really want them to do at the end of the day? People feel so disenchanted and feel so many things , but as they do dozen, doesn't make them feel like they are making a progress, and that is just terrible!

This is due to the fact that people don't know how to multi-task and don't know how to prioritise.

Team building play a role when people doesn't know people very well, and you want to bring them closer, get people very proactive. You want the person to said: 'If change were to happen, it must start with me first. I can do things to make progress!'

Eg: When account dept mess things up, people often blame the company names, but not just account. We play different functions but we are in one organization.The sense of collaboration need to be cultivated. Every person know what are doing , not in your own silo, working on your plate, but to engage what other teams are doing.

1. Clarity. 
Articulate clearly what are their business goals, not just the dept, but to individual level.
sometimes, doing lots of activities does not mean your progress. It just mean you have lots of activities.
Clarity of purpose.what exactly are they in the business.
eg: every dept exist for different purposes.HR, exist for serving the people, sometimes may get busy or too caught up with policy, and forget their role. They should help company to grow people.

2. Trust. 
How to build trust?
Trust build on character and competent.
Character is moral intent, this is what we stand for. If you believe sth , you act in a way that is consistent with your characters and you have very high moral values, people tend to believe and trust you because of what you stand for.
Competent. You have to be really good of what you do.Because if you don;t , people will just doubt your ability to handle things.
Both elements are important and they cannot exist without each others.
If you have character and don't have competent, you would said I am a nice guys you know, but I don't know whether I can work with you.
If you have competent and no characters, people said this guy is good but I don't trust him.

It starts from small things, responsibility that has been assigned to you.

3.Open communication
 Different from western. Focus on the issue, not the person.
Share their ideas without holding back. Important, because each person when share ideas, decision become very robust. because you get different ideas.Leaders have to mine for different opinions.
When people talk, they own an idea.
To make people who don't talk during meeting to talk: Pre meeting session, to warm them up, when in large group, they will feel intimidating. Let's argue and talk about it.


4. Accountability
How they constantly account for their action.
They meet on regular basis. They talks about what have we done in a week. Watever we are doing right now, and start making plan for next week to achieve goals. what are we doing to move closer.
write goal, but not follow up, leave it.
Follow through is important. it is a discipline of execution.
we are not interested you to setting great goal, but we interested on you to have the discipline to meet it every single weeks.

The Golden Quote

This is a repost, but I think it will serve as an encouragement to everyone of us here!

There are two days in every week about which we should not worry. Two days which should be kept free from fear and apprehension.

One of these days is yesterday, with its mistakes and cares, its faults and blunders, its aches and pains. Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control. All the money in the world cannot bring back yesterday. We cannot undo a single act we performed. We cannot erase a single word we said. Yesterday is gone!!

The other day we should not worry about is tomorrow, with its possible adversities, its burdens, its large promise and poor performance. Tomorrow is beyond our immediate control. Tomorrow's sun will rise, whether in splendor or behind a mask of clouds. But it will rise. Until it does we have no stake in tomorrow, for it is yet unborn.

This leaves only one day: today.

Any man can fight the battles of just one day. It is when you and I add the burdens of two awful eternities - yesterday and tomorrow, that we break down.

It is not necessarily the experience of today that disturbs one's peace of mind. It is often time the bitterness for something which happened yesterday and the dread of what tomorrow may bring. Let us therefore live one day at a time.

This is to remind all of us that while we should remember the past and plan and anticipate the future, it is critical that we don’t get paralyzed by either. By focusing on making the best of the present, we can actually make the past a sweeter learning experience, and make tomorrow’s hopes and dreams closer to reality.
Life has been full of ups and downs. But...

Restaurant Murni @ SS2

Nowadays, we would often heard of people lamenting about the cost of food skyrocketing in KL. You would hardly find food which the portion is matched to its price.

I myself, a big eater, though I know it is not proportional to the my weight . xD
Hence, it is quite normal that I will definitely look for food which is of large portion to satisfy my extreme hunger (only applies when I am EXTREMELY hungry!)

However, there is this one place which I find the food serving portion really matches its price and more importantly taste delicious! The restaurant is Murni located at SS2!

If u are going there at night, it is a normal situation where you would see a series of tables are setting up to cater for the crowds of customers patronizing the restaurant to tantalize their taste bud and satisfy their hunger!

 Let the photos below to have a louder say:

Mee Raja! A must try dish! Cost RM8

Cantonese Fried Yee Mee. Cost RM6

Chicken Chop. Cost RM8

The customer service is good because:

• The waiter who served us is people with excellent memory. She just nodded her head as a sign of getting our order without having to jot the order down in a paper and the food served is perfectly correct!
• The food served come on time. I don't think it is on time actually, but way beyond on time, it came as early as we are not expecting it to be so fast-served. I believe there are many chef in the kitchen to cater for the large order!
• The plates are as obviously big according to the portion served. The waiter crews working there must have been trained professionally to hold 5-6 BIG plates at once serving! 

There is this saying: If you are UM-ers, it is impossible for you to miss out from patronizing this restaurant! I am glad I didn't miss out this restaurant. In fact I have been there twice! xD

Life of Pi- Of its essence and extraction

Yesterday was Selangor public holiday, thus it comes as a good news to all working folks from Selangor area that they can enjoy a day break free from works! I have no exception to that, having a day break from works really ease me down from the hectic of office works.

Since it s a day free from work, why not  heading to town for a movie? Hence, without any hesitation, I make a move with best buddy, Vyian for a movie named.....

Life of Pi is a movie directed by famous director Ang Lee! The plot is exactly the same as what was written by Yam Martel in his novel in 2001. 

'Moral value' which I have learnt from this movie:

1) Life is about exploring the truth. In this story, Pi was exposed to 3 different religions- Hindu, Islam and Christianity and he tried to understand God through the lens of each religion and comes to recognize benefits in each one.

2) Life is about learning how to survive. Pi was able to survive in the ship wreck in the middle of a big sea with of course luckily enough supply of canned food and sea water. Armed with a 'survival book' in hand, he is able to utilize it for building a small raft and survive a huge storm.What more staying close with ' Richard Parker'!

3) Life is about competition. Those who are strong will be the one who survive and the weaker one will be wiped off by the strong one. During the ship wreck,  the hyena kills the zebra, then the orangutan, much to Pi's distress. At this point, it is discovered that a bengel tiger named Richard Parker had been hiding under the boat's tarp; it kills and eats the hyena

4) Life is full of miracles. Do not ever lose hope in life, even in the most dire condition, living with the most intimidated animal and stranded in the middle of a big ocean, always believe the existence of MIRACLE. Pi is never ever lose hope and he still keep his prayer and communicate with God for guidance and light.

5) Life is about story telling. Two officials from the Japanese Ministry of Transport speak to Pi to ascertain why the ship sank. When they do not believe his story, he tells an alternate story of human brutality .Since the officials cannot prove which story is true and neither is relevant to the reasons behind the shipwreck, they choose the story with the animals. In life, you will face with different version of stories, in which it is upon you who choose to believe which one.

The movie is great to the extent that I can extract some 'moral' value out of it, isn't it?=p

Charity Car Wash

Yeah, It has been a while since I last updated my blog.

Life has been hectic all this while, with ' no works and plays make Jack a dull boy'.

In fact, striking a work life balance is what I really want to achieve.

Well, charity is always a good thing to do, if you consider about taking care of the welfare of others, especially those who are really in need of our help.

It is tough especially the cars which come for car wash were all big luxurious cars. How we wish we could wash kancil or kelisa cars which will make our life easy! LOL, but 'unfortunately', because of the good strategic of the location, rich people with big cars make up the large customers! 

Well, a weekend off for this charity car wash has taught me some lessons:

1) Appreciate the hard work by people washing your car even though they are paid. This work is never easy.

2) Charity is indeed a noble job but it takes times, efforts and strategies for making it a fruitful one. In car wash charity, what we look for is the money we gained to be channeled to old folk home at the end of the day. Marketing strategies are important in this aspect to make sure our target is achieved.

Yes, indeed, this car wash charity has proven to be a fruitful one as more than 6k target is hit for the 2 days efforts!=)

TedxYouth@KL

Yesterday was a day of inspiration! I was deeply inspired by all the awesome speakers in TedxYouth@KL, which is held at Menara SSM, KL Sentral.

              Let's look at the photos below along with their caption for more inspirations! xD

Huge crowd of people begin to show up around 12pm -1pm, waiting to be seated  in the Auditorium right at 1pm! Luckily I arrived early and managed to get a good seat!=)

Some of the participants are busy chatting and building networks!

We were entertained by this Chris Anderson Video upon entering the Auditorium.

Our host today!

Our Hope: One day every children in Malaysia will have the opportunity to have an excellent education!
In line with the mission of Teach For Malaysia: To end education inequality in Malaysia, I hope every kids no matter they are from the rural or urban area schools, of various literacy level, they will deserve an education and fells that education is so exciting that they won't want to leave at the end of schooldays!

The first speaker- Miss Suet Li, Fellow of Teach For Malaysia. She is a great speaker. One of her video  with her student names Jaya, inspired me a lots! There are still schools with students having low literacy, to the extent of not even know how to read and write a simple English word. That is the time we need to seriously reflect upon our education system and come with a SOLUTION!

2nd speaker: Sze Ning on ' Why the Indigenous Right Matter'. Amazing portrayal of Orang Asli in Malaysia. Indeed their voice need to be heard more often.

This is one of the organs from porcupine,  claimed to have cured cancer! In fact I feel that the biodiversity of orang asli's habitat should be well explored. Things such as the biodiversity of plants may makes a great medicinal value!

Third speaker: Mr Alex Au-Yong on ' The Xtramiler'. He is an avid runner and uses his gift, including the RM5 notes which he collects to give back to society! 

He receives amazing response. More runner come and join him for his great cause!=)

The awesome performance by Impatient Sisters! Look forward to their first  album soon! =D

Tea Break with Networking

4th speaker: David Lai, The Mentalist!

Inspiration: Nothing is impossible. Pursue your passion and make it into your career!

Calling up some audiences and show his unbelievable show!=D

The next speaker is Ninie Ahma, a Yoga Teacher. Below is her amazing stunts. Note that she is a pregnant but can still perform headstand! Unbelievable as it may sound, a few key points which she has mentioned in her talk:

- Yoga helps to oxygenate the body. Our body contains cancer cells, it is just the matter of whether the cancer cells are activated or no. Yoga which offers the possibility to perform outstanding and unbelievable stunts regardless of people from various age groups, has been quite widely practised in many countries.

In fact, Ninie Ahmad's talk will definitely encourage many others to take up yoga as part of healthy practice in daily lifestyle, which is exactly in line with her motto ' Impossible is only a suggestion!'.

This person can finally walk and perform headstand!

Amazing stunt!

Amazing stunt!

Amazing stunt!

Next Speaker: Lim Cheng Soon, on ' Hacking A Business'. A young entrepreneur and web developer, he is also the founder and curator of Hacker Monthly-Print magazine of Hacker News, being on the top sells in Silicon Valley.

Next Speaker: Lou Yeoh on ' Looking beyond boundaries' . 

Education should go beyond what lies in the textbook. Offering an IT solution to schools is a way to go of utilizing the use of IT to aid in school's daily administration.

Next speaker: Jason Leong, a doctor cum a standup comedian. He is also one of the speaker who make his hobby and passion out of his career. Love what you are doing, and you will see what's lies beyond the possibility! Indeed, I would call him a LOL- maker! xD

Next speaker: Bosillika An on 'A movement for change'. At such a young tender age of 18, she has been a great philanthropist , social entrepreneur and international role model. In fact, she is the role model for all youth!=)

The last speaker : Su Zen Low on ' Staring Vulnerability in the Face'. I couldn't been more by her talk!  A great ending source of inspiration!=D

All in all, thumbs up to the organizers and sponsors for this TedxYouth event! You guys have been doing the awesome jobs! All these talks and sharing have been a source of inspiration to Malaysian youth, in particular. 

We need to make a change, nothing is impossible, impossible is just a suggestion, be ourselves, and do our best!

Final great applause for the all the speakers!

 I look forward for the next coming event on next year soon! =)