Shuffle The World Around You

The randomness of life is amazing, it may be good or bad but it does create a great variety, see more and do more, a wider view is always required for great accomplishments, but I’m not gonna talk about it in such a huge scale.

The example I want to use here is music, yes from my iPhone, I like wearing a huge ear set because it sort of isolate me from the world for a little while, my emotions would change with the song so would my perspective of the world around me, I like this way because I’m not affected by the ppl around me, their rush in the bus station, their boredom in the offices, so on and so forth, it makes me feel unique and special.

Usually I choose the song I want to listen to, so I have control over what I feel about what’s around me, but once in a while I like to shuffle, let randomness decide what I should feel about the world, it always gives me new perspectives, I’m at a school preparing to talk to a prof about some potential cooperations, the song goes from coldplay to Mozart and to sth else, it’s like 3 different movies playing around me, and trust me I really could imagine some story lines happening here, my imagination go wild sometimes and this surely is one of them, try it.

Good Old Stuff

I have a very weird habit, I need to watch Harry Potter every Sunday night, yes childish, but that does keep me alive at work, well maybe it doesn’t really do that, but at least it kept me in a good mood somehow. Interestingly, I’ve never seen the first episode in a Sunday before, but yesterday I watched it again, just thought after all these years the movie is still a great adventure, I guess that’s what they say about good old stuff, just like Desperado the song, after all these years it’s still better and more romantic than most of the songs created nowadays. They reignite our imaginations, bring out the greatest memories for some, keep the best of us.

Spirit

A nurse came to my house this morning, she was taking some blood samples from my grandma and other families for some examinations, it’s a good thing, we all got up at 7 in the morning (which is still way too early for me), but then the nurse really did light up my day.

She was a middle aged women maybe around 35, she smiled at me and kept chatting with my grandma, talking about everything, she really is the best sales person I’ve ever seen, much better than ordinary salesman who thought they can take care of everything with their lies and all the stuff.

I don’t know if she cares or not, but you can really see that everybody in the room loved her, she’s carefully listening to what we have to say, asking if we’re scared and putting the needle under my skin with perfect skills, it didn’t even feel like a scratch, so what made her that way? what made her so lovable although needles are always not welcomed in my family?

I really can’t say, it just felt like she has this peaceful and delightful spirit that takes all the sadness and boredom of everyday life away, has anyone ever experienced similar stuff?

A Random Social Network

What if the kind of social networks I’m looking for is not consist of my friends? What if people are looking for a local community when they get to a foreign spot? Where my friends can do nothing to help? with these LBS apps I can connect with random people in random places, the power of the randomness of social networks has not been tapped yet, everything is about people I know, this will certainly change in the maybe not so near future.

When there are just too many to follow

When you’re on twitter, if you’re interested in a specific area of things, don’t you think, there are just too many repeated messages? I literally got hundreds of feeds talking about iPad when it came out. When this happens, people start talking about filters. Well of course there will be things that Facebook does, categorize or sth else, how about if there are moderators, people or mechanisms that we can trust to deliver only things insightful and worth knowing, what if we don’t have to follow hundreds of expertise in one area but one moderator in one area, and maybe I’ll follow some moderators in other areas that I am not extremely interested in but doesn’t hurt to take a peek? We already have these people in our social networks, but they are not well pointed out yet, let’s see how this plays out.

Mum hit her head

It had made me so worried, my mum hit her head tonight, it made me realize how fragile we are, when we’re old when we’re little there are just too many threats out there that could make you lose our loved ones, how scary is that, should we stop them from driving?taking a shower? Probably not, then what should we do? Any ideas?

However scary, fear shouldn’t be the thing that stopped us from living the life we want, so making ourselves feel alive should be prioritized before staying alive? Our existence is so important to some but at the same time it could be vital for more, most people lve their lives for selected few like families and friends, but shouldn’t we be making things that improve the world?

Chatroulette, the randomness

While social networks like Facebook and Twitter showed us the potential of connecting with friends and fans, we have forgotten the attractiveness of adventures and randomness, everything has to be controled by the users, only relevant content is allowed access to our attention, not to mention the privacy issues, we are afraid of things and people we don’t know.

Chatroulette proved otherwise, if you haven’t heard of it it’s a video site that connects you to random people’s webcam on the net, if you don’t like it then switch to the next person, it has gained traction among users. This randomness, this adventure is what the Internet was for when it first emerged, connect you with anyone anywhere possible, without restrictions, It’s especially good to kill time, and we all have time to kill if I may say.

Most websites and applications are designed for certain user scenarios, rare are they designed to explore the world, I’m expecting to see a trend with more applications designed for adventures.

Trip to Japan – Differences

Just got back from a trip to Japan, enjoyed snowboarding and everything, I’ve heard people talking over and over about how different Japanese are, I never thought they were so different since I also grew up in one of the many Asian cultures, but here are the couple of interesting things I discovered

• 80% of the people wears black in a winter day
• They sell fish eggs in a convenience store
• Mobile phones have to be turned off when you’re on a bus so you won’t annoy other passengers
• They kept speaking Japanese even though they know you don’t understand, in a very polite way
• Very late dinner in Tokyo, 9 o’clock restaurants are still full of people
• Too clean to liter, I have garbages in my pockets all the time
• Tooth picks comes with your chopsticks, how considerate
• They love taking their shoes off, that means they’re relaxing
• Extra charges required for using gym in the hotel
• Toilet seats are heated, you wouldn’t know how good it is in a day cold as hell
• Seats on trains are also heated, too considerate
• In general when there are too many people on a subway, people standing tend to stand in 2 rows each facing their side of the window
• There are no fat people
• I saw only one person using iPhone at the last day of my trip
• No one in Ginza is wearing sweat pants like I do

Though I don’t get much comment but feedbacks and add-ons are always welcome. Anyway, love the country.

Thank You Olympians

It’s quite shocking to see someone so young enduring so much pressure but still performs well. Watching the figure skating competition in this winter Olympics has given me much to think about.

A 22 year-old Japanese standing on the ice, looking so young even a little immature comparing to his opponents, he posed he turned he jumped, every move was done perfectly until his shoe laces were strangled which render him falling on the ice. It’s a breath taking experience to see him performing and hoping he can finish the show, he did look disappointed, 4 years of hard work all go in vain because of broken shoe laces, how could this happen? Who knows if he will still have the opportunity to participate in the next Olympics? It surely is a life time experience that everyone craves for.

He walked towards the ring side and asked for a timeout, fixed his shoe laces and went back on the ice, still he seemed so full of energy despite what just happened. After he finished the whole set he still had the smile on his face, I guess that’s one of the manners that he was trained to do under all conditions. Couldn’t hold on to his tears during the interview, he was still speaking positively.

I’m a horrible writer, but this really touched me on a certain level, so thank you Olympians, thank you for all the hard work you’ve put into this game, thank you for being so mature while you shouldn’t be, thank you for pushing the boundaries of excellence every 4 years.

Shaun White is An Idiot

Though I’ve been snowboarding for quite a while, but this is honestly my first time watching the winter x games, undisputably Shaun White was the best of all, he still is, but this is not what I want to talk about but the fact he fell horribly in a practice before the game.

If you haven’t seen the video yet, go see it, his was hit in the chin knocked his helmet off and I really thought he was dead until he climbed back up, a concotion seems unavoidable though. Here’s where most people say “I’m done”, and go on with their lives taking some rests from this accident, but apparently Shaun White didn’t, the second time he tried he won the gold.

He didn’t back out even a little, he tried the same tricks even harder ones during the game, is this courage? Or is this simply idiocy, ignorant of risks and families and friends’ carings? Is this what it takes to be on the top of the world? Or can there be some balance? Can we and should we be like him? What does No. 1 in the world mean to us?

Apparently being the number 1 isn’t necessarily everyone’s goal in life, usually we be the best we can be and suck up our failures. I still believe that the ultimate goal of life is to live happily and have no regrets, the only way to do. That is do what you love and make contributions to all, in this case the fame and individual success of being the number one just doesn’t seem as important.

We all have our own ways in the pursuit of life, those who are very capable live lives like Shaun White, pushing everywhile boundaries of the possible and impossible, normal people (those who would say I’m done after the crash) like me make the most contribution we can to the world.