A book about change.

There's a book called the 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People', its a very good book about self change. I never got to finish it, I couldn't get past habit 3 and every now and again I'd come back to that book, be invigorated to change myself and it works for a week then I caught up in whatever and forget about it for a good long time. Frankly, this book has been an immense help to my personal development. I think I discovered this book during the year of 2008 or 2007, it made me realize that the problems I face was not due to outside stimuli: God, genetics, politics, the world was not at fault. Things happen and as conscious beings we have the power of choice.

The book talked about choice, the concept of perception, and living by principle I'm sure there was much more if I had read it all. One thing I learned from this book was perception. This is my favourite excerpt from the book:

I remember a mini-Paradigm Shift I experienced one Sunday morning on a subway in New York.

People were sitting quietly -- some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed. It was a calm, peaceful scene.

Then suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway car. The children were so loud and

rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed.

The man sat down next to me and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation. The

children were yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people's papers. It was very disturbing. And yet, the man sitting next to me did nothing.

It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not believe that he could be so insensitive to let his

children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all. It was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated, too. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I turned to him and said, "Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more?"

The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, "Oh, you're right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't know what to think, and I guess they don't know how to handle it either."

Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? My paradigm shifted. Suddenly I saw things

differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didn't have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior; my heart was filled with the man's pain. Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely. "Your wife just died? Oh, I'm so sorry. Can you tell me about it? What can I do to help?" Everything changed in an instant.

The idea of paradigms and changes in perception liberated my mind from preconceptions and baseless assumptions. I do still assume things passively and subconsciously but I have yet to act upon it. That's only one of the things I've actually managed to integrate into my life from that book. I'm still undisciplined and my emotions sometimes get the better of me. Right now, I wish I had that book with me.

I still have so much to change in such a short time.

What I had for Dinner!

Fried chicken, has to be the most delicious thing to eat among the easy dishes to make. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1. Chicken
2. Salt
3. Turmeric Powder
4. Soya Sauce
5. Corn Flour

Instructions:

1. Clean the chicken first, pat dry.
2. Season with salt, soya sauce, and turmeric powder. Then add corn flour to thicken the mixture. The soya sauce will cause the oil to pop like a bitch, the corn flour remedies this.
3. Put enough oil to cook the bottom part of the chicken.
4. Make sure oil is hot before frying.
5. After two minutes on high fire, turn the fire down to slow cook it.
6. Once nicely golden brown it should be done. Though it wouldnt hurt to test one first.

Mine is obviously not golden brown, but it tasted awesome. Of course I may be blowing the taste out of proportion.

Hunger is the best spice.

I am the Boss! ME! Numero uno!

It’s been roughly a month since I left home and living on my own, well not really. Living in a hall or dorm is quite different, annoying sometimes, interesting other times. I mean you get to meet new people and all that shit which happens to be more boring than interesting but that’s not the point, living alone is awesome. I am my own boss, I cook what I want, I buy what I want, I get up on my own with no one there to pike my ear with screams of tardiness, I do my own laundry. Sure, most of these are chores but the freedom of doing things on my own is – liberating.

Maybe the mundanity of it all just hasn’t settled in yet. It baffles me, as to why I love this lonely situation. I’ve heard stories of people suddenly bursting into tears at random during the night, or being all homesick, most don’t I presume. For me, well I’m LL cool J with this shindy.

I like the quiet; of course everyone is asking the same fucking question in the most nagging tone imaginable, “Have you made any new friends?” Or, “Have you gotten Laid?!” Or, “Do you like the taste of my cock?”

Woah – wait, cancel that last bit.

The fact is; friend is a term I coin quite rarely I’ve met a ton of people more than I can remember till I’ve resigned myself to call anyone I recognize but can’t remember his name ‘dude’ and for girls address them with “Hey..... you.....” Friends, as far as I’m concerned I got maybe ten friends at most. Because to me a friend isn’t just some douchebag I go have fun with or talk to. It’s deeper than that; a friend to me is someone I care about. Someone I’d help and he/ she need only ask and I’d demand nothing in return, except maybe his soul or eternal loyalty as my slave. Everyone else is just someone I know, some better than others but still only less than strangers. That’s why I hate facebook so much, that: Add a friend thing just grinds my gears. I mean most of the people I see on facebook are not my friends and I’m pretty sure they don’t give a fuck about me either, the feeling is mutual. So when someone has a friend list of over five hundred – well buddy, the more facebook friends you have, it don’t add inches to your dick. Wait, what if that someone was a girl? Well I guess the more facebook friends you have won’t make you a hermaphrodite.

Just so you can make fun at me I have 90 something ‘friends’ on facebook. I did not add any of them (well maybe a few, like 5), they added me and I remembered their face then accepted. Of course I’m not trolling on the popular facebook people, Hell I’m impressed. I mean I don’t have the gall to add every single Tom, Dick, and Harry I recognize somewhat. The fuck shit that people write on their facebook status is hilarious but it is more annoying and irritating when the fella is a total douchebag. Thinking about it, maybe I should fucking troll facebook. I mean I don’t give a rat’s ass about their opinion on me. Especially when I’m thousands of miles away from 90% of them – that, gives me an idea!! What if I troll the fuck out of a game, social network, or something and then write a blog post about it! Pure genius! I’m a mother fucking genius! Look forward to that!

Living alone has awoken my love for cooking. Man, I love to cook. So maybe I’ll document some of that on this blog. I forget, what the fuck was the point of this post?

Final note, I think I’ve read maybe one or two books so far this year. Which is really pathetic, I heard Oprah read one book a week when she was a kid. I guess I could do that, I mean come on Oprah did it!

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Tonight of all nights there was a bloody fire alarm in my hall/ dorm. I have yet to discover the true cause of this stupid commotion and frankly my dear, I just don’t give a damn. A little over an hour wasted in the parking lot on a pleasantly cool night, some people thought it was fun. I thought, ‘Monkey balls I have class at nine tomorrow. Shit.’

And so began my muttering of cursed words, and occasional ‘Fuck that’ reply to the people whom were all so damn excited and chattering needlessly about rumours on how the fire started, or that this was actually just a drill. I digress, and I may have exaggerated some points.

The point is that, the cool thing about Canberra for now is for one, the clear sky and two, the lack of city lights. Compared to Kuala Lumpur rain clouds litter the night sky very often and the city lights are a blaring yellow that are dirtily smudged all over the place. In short, I can see more stars here in Canberra than Kuala Lumpur.

I cannot help but look up into the night sky and adore the few stars that are there. I’ve seen a myriad of stars before twice in my life. Sad but utterly unforgettable, the first experience was during a family holiday to Sibu Island and I was twelve or thirteen. Mind you it was not a resort and they didn’t have a swimming pool, bar, or any of that sort. No, my family and I were transported through this questionably safe jetty boat from shore to Island. If memory serves me right it took the questionably safe boat a good half-hour to reach its destination as it boldly crashed upon every wave and knifed through powerful squalls. My parents were afraid of the deep sea because they couldn’t swim even with life jackets on. I was more fearful of my bag falling into the deep blue; swimming was never a problem for me.

The Island was largely barren except for the ‘resort’ facilities because of this the light pollution was very minimal. And the stars in the sky were lit, gloriously. Many patters of stars littered the black tapestry it was insane not to try and guess what was what. What caught my eye was a tight cluster of stars that made a long gash in the night sky; at that time I didn’t have a clear understanding of what was the ‘Milky Way’, so the ignorant child I was made the assumption that that had to be the Milky Way. Of course, I was wrong.

The second time I saw the night sky was quite recent, several months ago I had another family vacation to Egypt. It was during a van ride from Abu Simbel to Aswan. The road was pitch black and the driver could only see the road that was lit by his headlights and the other vehicles front and back that made up the convoy. Looking out the window of the van as dusk turned to night, the stars came up and they were bright and so clear. Although I did not see as many, possibly due to the lights of the convoy, but anyway that was the first time I actually recognized a constellation, it was Orion:

(source: da interweb)

The thing about Orion is that his belt is easily recognizable, but that was the first time I actually saw the whole thing. There were other stars but I did not know what they were.

So tonight or this morning, whichever that gives you a hard on, made me wonder. As I looked up into the night sky and as the people chatter I can’t help but think to myself, does anyone know what their missing? Does anyone wish that the night sky would show its true colours? More importantly, does anyone give a damn?

I doubt that anyone gave a damn. No one cares about the beauty of a night sky or the intrinsic value of dew in the morning, or the humming of the wind against the leafy fingers of a tree, or the serenity of a moment in silence. Maybe I’m too conceited to see that they actually do care. Or maybe I don’t want them to care, let me alone appreciate the beauty; everyone else – well they can go fuck themselves.

PS: its 3am right now.....balls.