BIG DATA AROUND US

Shopping...

I happened to go to a few shopping malls during the Easter long weekend.

I went to Changi City point to buy vegetables from Cold storage, went to vivocity to watch a movie, went to Marina Square mall Home Fix to buy a towel hanger and to plaza Singapura for lunch.

Every mall had millions of clothes, jewelry and more clothes and jewelry.

This confuses me.

Do humans actually need so many clothes? 

We make clothes with nylon/mixed polyester these days which are highly durable. Even if it is pure cotton and silk, clothes stay unspoiled for many years. 

Then, what happens to all these clothes, which changes every season!

In the malls TV screen, there was a documentary going on about children who doesn't have any clothes in some other countries, can't we send some of these clothes to them, one winter season of a brand should be a good start.

Do Humans Need This Much ?!!

Enthusiasm aka Interest

We always hear about Talent. 
Born talent, clever by birth etc . etc. 

Most of the times, people consider this as something they got by destiny or given by god or whatever. 

Those 99% of the world who didn't get the talent, what do they do ?

Well, they just need to have "Interest" / "Enthusiasm" .

Tada .... Tada .... Tadatadatadaaa ........

Richest are those who have things that money can't buy

Richest are those who have things that money can't buy

Money can't buy most of the things.
Some of them which the Richest have are :

1. Love
2. Happiness
3. Truthfulness
4. Patience
5. Sincerity
6. Time
7. Peace
8. Talent
9. Health
10. Class/Manners
11. True Friends
12. Knowledge
13. Ability to observe without judging

A few things we need to fix right away

1. Stopping to use plastic. It is easy, every household could use more of steel, aluminum, glass and paper. Governments to stop creating plastic completely.

2. Clean up plastic in Ocean : Just set aside this years's war budget to invent an alternative to plastic and to change existing plastic debris to something useful, for example, fund the plastic to oil conversion project and fund the Ocean Clean up project.

3. Use Solar energy, again, stop war funding and use it to invent ways to get power from sun. Use the space  expedition funds for a year to fix the problems within the planet

4. No boundaries in the name of nation and region : Please guys, grow up! Share resources and money and look at the planet as a whole not by religion or color or nation.

5. Stop army and related funding, stop making weapons : Seriously, who are our enemies ! Use the protection schemes to protect one human from another. If we have criminals and bad elements around us, just use the collective human protection force to catch these elements. It feels so awesome to think of the day when all the great armies of the world unite as one.

6. Socialism, Capitalism, Communism etc. etc.: Please go beyond all these and practice humanism (think with your heart)

7. Stop Competition: I agree, humans are born with a mind which has envy, competition, greed and ego in it. But they are a disease to treat, not something to fuel. Teach our young ones to go beyond these feelings, it is possible to cure ourselves through the language of love. Instead of teaching these, you are teaching them competition in the name of education. Make them learned instead.

True patriotism is what we should feel for our planet. 
Mother Land is Earth, not the small pieces that you have made instead. 
Can we grow up to think bigger at least now? 
Don't tell me that common sense is not common in humans.

The Last Room Available :)

A conversation in Whatsapp
===============================
Friend 1 : Let us go to Melaka.I will look for options
Friend 2 : Done
Friend 1 : Hey, I got this resort, its totally awesome.
Friend 2 : ok, you book, because trip advisor says its just 3 stars, we will look for another option nearby.
Friend 1 : ok. but I read a blog which tells it is not too bad

After sometime  ……………

Friend 1 : We will also come there, oh no! no booking
Friend 2 Cancels the booking.
Friend 1 : Yaay, we got a room !
Friend 2: But we canceled, so let me rebook, oh no! no booking
Friend 1 Cancels the booking.
Friend 2 : Yaay! we got a room !
Friend 1: But we canceled, so let me rebook, oh no! no booking..

moment of realization : We were booking the same room in agoda!!!! 

Keep it simple silly!

No worrying thoughts,
No fears,
No trying to make an impression on others,
No preaching to others ,
No criticizing others,
No whining,
No controlling,
No blaming ----

Do all this consciously and you will be surprised to see that
1. You have a lot of time
2. You feel at peace
3. You feel happy

After a few days of not doing all this, you look new :)

11-12-13

INTERESting date!

In today's day and age, days & dates are given a lot of value. Starting from birthday , may days all round the year … If there were no dates, life would be simpler. We don't have to keep track of a lot of things.

We could have lived by the moment and forgotten all what passed forever.

----

Chase your Dream

   I wonder, and have always done so, on the educational system we currently have in place. From young, some kids are said to be "not-so-brilliant" based on scores they get in school, especially in Mathematics. I guess its a global phenomenon:  most parents think that,  if their children are good in Mathematics, they indeed are brainy.

Now an interesting question is, how many of the children who got 100/100 for all Mathematics tests have actually invented a Mathematics theorem in their life? Very few. 

But the rest of the crowd who actually heard that they were not brainy and each time struggled with mathematics just decided that they are not smart enough, thanks to parents and teachers!

So children, its my humble request, don't listen to anything parents or teachers tell you that contains "you are not good enough". don't allow that to enter your belief system. 

You could look at Bill Bradley, the famous basketball player or Bill Gates, The richest man on earth and the founder of Microsoft. These people are part the 5% in the world who has been immensely successful, and if you you want to join them or, create a greater league of your own, you need to do what the 5% of the population is willing to do. Practice, hard-work, commitment.

Remember, 98%=Hard-work, 1%=Luck, and 1%= Talent.

You should never give up. That's what these people tell us.

• When everyone was playing and having fun, Bill Bradley was practicing Basketball with weights on his legs.
• As people laughed at Bill Gates at school, called him nerd, geek, the usual, but he believed in himself and continued believing in himself and continued having his notes in programming

Therefore it is not too late for you to get successful if you start now.

Follow excellence and passion,  and success will follow you!

(By Chaiyya...)

Difficulties of Life

Life is only as difficult as what we think it is ...

Anything that we have interest in is never thought as difficult...

We sure are interested in life

So life is not difficult :)

A Road Trip - For A Good Smile After 10 Years .

I would attribute this to my profession; I can only write in bullet points these days. Especially when I am trying to remember something.

My reason to write this is because when we read this next, I want the memories intact , after 10 years may be! I am sure this will bring a smile on our face.

• Road trip itinerary :  Singapore to Kuala Lumpur to Cameroon Highlands to Malaka and back to Singapore
• We started on 27th April 2013, a Saturday morning @ 7AM looking forward to the good drive, open roads and everything else that is in store in a drive holiday, oh what fun! 
• The first excitement happened when instead of going towards the west, we missed an exit and got routed towards Changi airport in the east. No, we are on a drive holiday and definitely not taking a flight to KL from Singapore.
• Getting through Woodlands exit was a breeze and we were on highway E3 in Malaysia in 30 minutes. 
• After a sumptuous breakfast of doshas and poorees at a little restaurant called 'Amma' in Johor central, we set off towards KL.
• Let me just avoid putting the speed camera part , flashes etc. in writing LOL! Can't forget the porche anyway. (chuckles)
• Chaithanya has the knack of getting everyone to eat ice cream , this is what she said, "the last time we came, in Baskin Robins they mix our choice of ice creams with our favorite toppings, pour chocolate sauce over it lavishly and place a cherry on top, yum!". So after an ice cream treat just the way she explained, we continued our drive.
• After Baskin robins, we had an awesome lunch at KL, I forgot the name of the hotel, but its hard to miss - was it Bombay Palace? I guess it was, a chain, but don't try the one with a similar name in Queenstown, its fake. 
• Our hotel, Shangri-La was on Jalan Sultan Ismail. Now, the GPS or the most updated google maps couldn't direct us right and we ended up on road for an hour going round and round.. I guess, thats one tiring memory but I am sure would be remembered for a long time to come, after the cold tent at Sarchu, Leh puking my head out due to high altitude sickness, this is another unforgettable memory of going rounds on the same road about 20 times.
• Anyway, Shangrila didn't disappoint as usual. Cozy rooms, food and decor. They are one of my favorite any day.
• I AM ALMOST WONDERING IF THE BLOG WILL HIT A 1000 pages at this point...I want to keep this real short.
• That evening, while chilling at the lounge, we decided to go shopping at KLCC. Mark and Spencer is kind of a weakness always and other  stuff at KLCC and we decided to have dinner in the mall. 
• We decided to walk coz one thing, too scared if we will ever find our way back and second too tired to drive. 
• KLCC is a stone's throw from Shangri-La Hotel and on the way, we saw a series of pubs and night bars which the guys hopped after dinner. I won't go into details because as we all know, blogs are public.
• Dinner was quite amazing but shopping was not so good as expected. 
• All the time I cross Miu Miu, I remember what Chaiyya told me looking the model when she was smaller. "Mom, is the lady very poor that she has no money to eat?" I answered, "May be she is, after buying Miu Miu"LOL! But the model they have now looks a bit better nourished all the same.
• The next day, after the simple breakfast at the lounge for fear of winding roads to Cameroon, we packed a stack of sandwiches for the trip and set off. (Chaiyya wants to go back just for the sandwiches)
• Drive was just as beautiful and can't forget the way temperature dropped as we climbed up. After numerous photographs, halts and excitement we arrived at Strawberry park resort. 
• Rooms were very very spacious and the scenery , just amazing. It was such a wonderful feeling to be there. Not forgetting the drinks, and yes dumb charades  . I need another bullet point for that one.
• The way Hari & Ashish acted "Titan's curse" ... was .. well let me just put it this way :- "if me and Sandy had the time or energy during the non stop laughter to record that one, we would be millionaires today just through youtube clicks".
• Thai dinner was horrible-- stay away from that Thai place in strawberry park resort. The good part is that we checked out all other resorts around Cameroon Highlands for food the next day.
• After a good sleep and morning walk, we set to check in and around the place, basically, tea gardens, strawberry gardens and more tea gardens and more strawberry gardens and some more tea gardens .... 
• One important mention is the 'smoke house' , after 30 minutes of discussing a nice spot for lunch we were taken to a nice spot and they said "Sir, you can sit here after lunch, we don't serve food outside". (Eyebrows touched the tallest tree in the vicinity for that one)
• After that, we did have a good lunch, but I have forgotten the name of that place. something to do with roses ? hmmm. its right next to the smoke house.
• More tea hardens , dinner and rest back at the hotel.
• Chaiyya made friends with a cat at the hotel, she got so attached that I feared about the customs when she asked if we could bring the cat back home to SG. Anyway, the cat didn't come back the next day and thats that.
•  The next day, we had our next long drive to Malacca. 
• It rained cats and dogs all through out and we lost our way. after a long haul and a broken back, we reached Hatten hotel in Malacca. barely had time to gulp the dinner buffet and turn in.Dead tired.
• Spa next day was purely with the hope that we recover from the previous day's backache and it was not that bad. We checked out the malacca center and chilled a bit in hard rock cafe before the excellent drive back. 
• Home sweet home was hit in 3 hours and lucky to have witnessed that beautiful sunset at Johor strait. 
• Welcome back @SG.

Birthday Thoughts

A few thoughts:

"The cake is yum"
"My family is the best"
"'Age' exists only because a fool invented calendar"

A very nice article from chicken soup for the woman's soul

For all Mothers
 


(including soon to be Mothers) 

MOTHERHOOD

We are sitting at lunch one day when my daughter casually mentions that she and 

her husband are thinking of "starting a family." "We're taking a survey," she says 

half-joking. "Do you think I should have a baby?"

"It will change your life," I say, carefully keeping my tone neutral.

"I know," she says, "no more sleeping in on weekends, no more spontaneous 

vacations."

But that is not what I meant at all. I look at my daughter, trying to decide what to 

tell her. I want her to know what she will never learn in childbirth classes.

I want to tell her that the physical wounds of child bearing will heal, but becoming 

a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will forever be 

vulnerable.

I consider warning her that she will never again read a newspaper without asking, 

"What if that had been MY child?" That every plane crash, every house fire will haunt 

her.

That when she sees pictures of starving children, she will wonder if anything could 

be worse than watching your child die.

I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit and think that no matter how 

sophisticated she is, becoming a mother will reduce her to the primitive level of a 

bear protecting her cub. That an urgent call of "Mum!" will cause her to drop a 

soufflé or her best crystal without a moments hesitation.



I feel that I should warn her that no matter how many years she has invested in her 

career, she will be professionally derailed by motherhood. She might arrange for 

childcare, but one day she will be going into an important business meeting and 

she will think of her baby's sweet smell. She will have to use every ounce of 

discipline to keep from 

running home, just to make sure her baby is all right.

I want my daughter to know that every day decisions will no longer be routine. That 

a five year old boy's desire to go to the men's room rather than the women's at 

McDonald's will become a major dilemma. That right there, in the midst of 

clattering trays and screaming

children, issues of independence and gender identity will be weighed against the 

prospect that a child molester may be lurking in that restroom.

However decisive she may be at the office, she will second-guess herself constantly 

as a mother. 

Looking at my attractive daughter, I want to assure her that eventually she will shed 

the pounds of pregnancy, but she will never feel the same about herself.

That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child. 

That she would give herself up in a moment to save her offspring, but will also 

begin to hope for more years, not to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her 

child accomplish theirs.

I want her to know that a cesarean scar or shiny stretch marks will become badges 

of honor.

My daughter's relationship with her husband will change, but not in the way she 

thinks.

I wish she could understand how much more you can love a man who is careful to 

powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his child.

I think she should know that she will fall in love with him again for reasons she 

would now find very unromantic.

I wish my daughter could sense the bond she will feel with women throughout 

history who have tried to stop war, prejudice and drunk driving.

I want to describe to my daughter the exhilaration of seeing your child learn to ride 

a bike.

I want to capture for her the belly laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a 

dog or cat for the first time.

I want her to taste the joy that is so real it actually hurts.

My daughter's quizzical look makes me realize that tears have formed in my eyes. 

"You'll never regret it," I finally say. Then I reached across the table, squeezed my 

daughter's hand and offered a silent prayer for her, and for me, and for all the 

mere mortal women who stumble their way into this most wonderful of callings. 

Please share this with a Mum that you know or all of your girlfriends who may 

someday be Mums. May you always have in your arms the one who is in your heart.

By Dale Hanson Bourke

'Chicken soup for the woman's soul'!

worry? No worry !

A page from my diary – The day before Christmas

Everything doesn’t go right all the time in life, but I guess how we look at things is purely up to us. And if we want, we can make every day to be a peaceful and productive one.

My 22^nd December came with the news that mom is not feeling well. She went to the doctor but had not got better and I got very disturbed. I worried on how this could have happened, the more I thought of the various sources of catching an illness a bunch more possible disease came to my mind. The more I thought about it, the worse I felt!

The next day, my computer’s hard disk crashed. Ooooo! All the videos, all the data of so many years, my child’s videos, I may lose them all … I was like what the hell, this had to crash now…

The very same morning, I noticed that our living room’s plaster on roof has started peeling off. It obviously is the air conditioning’s duct. I have to get that repaired too. I felt, this had to come now, as if I didn’t have my hands full!

During the day at work, both the issues kept creeping into my mind leaving me tired than usual. My stomach started to malfunction; it bloated up so much that I could not even drink water. Ancient sages of India explained that the chakra related to worry is situated around your stomach, it seems it is  true!. My work was affected too; the program I usually write in an hour took 5 hours that day still left with so many errors to fix. On the way back home, the train looked very dull, usually I find all the ladies pretty in trains and that day all looked worn out with their make-ups skewed. I tried to do the heart feeling and heart breathing that HeartMath guys tried to teach me for years but just felt high frequency heart throbs, coming one after the other which shook me each time.

I guess I hardly slept that night, when I opened my tired eyes the next morning, the sky was still dark, and it may be 4 or 5 AM in the morning. Something from inside asked me, are your situations feeling any better by feeling sad and worried?  Your mom will have to go through the course of her illness, it will take its time if you feel sad or not. You may lose all the data you have collected over years in your computer but you will not get it back by feeling sad. Your roof will not repair itself if you feel sad. And, then after a long pause came the truth, if you felt energetic, you can go through all that and still feel peaceful, still sleep tight and actually do something about them. That was a great insight. I decided to act than react to my situations.

I slowly got up, prayed for mom to be better. Send all the positive energy I have towards her, smiled at her, told her that she will be all right soon. I decided that if apple care can’t recover my data, I will focus on getting better videos in the coming weeks.. And last, but not the least, I decided to call the contractor to get a quote on the air conditioner ducts. It may cost some, but not worth my worry and an upset stomach, no way!

I went to the balcony to see sun rise, while I watched it with a calm mind I noticed with surprise that all the problems I had for the last 2 days were still with me, but I was able to smile at the rising sun as I watched it rise slowly changing the horizon from red to pink and to blazing white. Just how my heart got brightened up that morning.

I have learned my lesson. Worry comes for free with all issues but when we look at them without getting worried, we not only get solutions but peaceful sleep and a calm and energetic mind.

At about 10am dad called to say mom is much better. I am already charging my camera to shoot yet another great video of my family and yea, I am planning to buy a stack of RW disks on the way back from work to store them.

Everything in life passes, even our glum days! Thank god I am enlightened a day before Christmas on how to handle day-to-day worries – Merry Christmas to all !

Don't waste effort to buy land on Earth !

Earth is just an almost half-baked cake and humans live on the crust of it. Almost all humans are trying to get a piece of it. 

Some even manage a fairly large piece of the half-baked cake ; but Man! Below the crust is hot boiling lava. 

And the half-boiling cake is suspended in space from nowhere and it rotates around an enormous nuclear reactor called SUN.

Doesn’t make sense to invest in land on earth in any case. :P

Life Expectancy

The journey.

Is life Long or Short ? It all depends on one's perception.. But maths is Maths.

We calculate an year as the time earth goes around sun once. For the regions where they have seasons, when you finish a round of all 6 seasons, to put it simply, is an year.

Humans come with expiry date.
Average human life expectancy on earth is about 82 years, which is about 984 months ONLY.

If you are working and only have time for yourself during weekends, that is about 3936 weekends. (Let me just ignore the years before work and after retirement)


Different people take this differently. Some rush to pursue their dreams. Some others just start lazing around telling, there is only so much anyway, let us just chill it. Some others go all emotional.

Anyway, its all about living that 984 months (a maximum of) ..

So, LIVE IT UP....

Time Spent Vs Achievement – Where to draw the line?

One has a couple of things to balance on a daily basis. Family, Relationships, Career, Children, Hobbies, Work out, Leisure, Housekeeping, Socialising... That is a lot of tasks.

I wouldn’t think any is less important than the other; on the contrary they all complement each other - in an ideal world.

But ...

Most often than not, one feels that 24hrs is not enough to accomplish all these tasks in a day. So mostly, people prioritise. Since career brings the money for all other tasks, most of the time is given to it by many, fair enough; and work is structured in a way one cannot be out of its clutches these days.

Whatever one focus on, gets better. If one focused on career, that got better; if one focused on relationships, that bloomed; if one focused on socialising, the circle gets better etc. So there is no loss as such in focusing on a few tasks as long as one do not get frustrated. The lack of other activities should not set in to make one feel incomplete.

As You Sow, So Shall You Reap... But Time Lost is Life Lost.

How long should one sow and in what!!!! Interesting to ponder over,

And if there is someone who can split the seeds to all fields - - there you have a complete one.

Truth in Silver

At first, she thought it was a white thread that flew in from somewhere or a stream of shining light.

Then it occurred to her, it was a shining silver hair!

Nicely placed, just above her forehead to the right. She decided, “it is my snowy white dog’s fur, he is shedding anyway”. She pulled at it casually as if to sweep it away but it didn’t move. She looked at the mirror in a different angle to block the light, it was still clearly visible. Then she passed her fingers slightly over it; it came right up; half silver, half black.

After all the denial she knew, “I have started to grey”.

This is something she never imagined would come; she remembered her mom’s grey hairs, how she imagined that mother was very old then!  Was mom only as young as she felt now!!

One might say age is at heart ... but the truth is, we start aging the day we are born; it is just that a grey hair pops up just when we think we could never be old. As if to remind us ... You are not a completely green leaf anymore, yellow dots are to set in, you may like it or not.

Life’s ways are strange; it is better not to forget that all green leaves are to turn yellow and eventually fall....The one lone truth, surprisingly forgotten in spite of all the signs and samples around.

Live while we have life - Enjoy every bit and smile while we have teeth ;)