Learning preferences and strengths: sharing my method in 4 words

Since we were born, we have started learning.
Learning and living are integral processes.

Different people have unique preferences and strengths in learning. The secret is to identify our own preferences and strengths,
and optimize them to develop our talents and creativity,
so that we can be of great service to others (while earning a livelihood simultaneously).

Here are quick reminders for myself to effectively, efficiently & effortlessly learn:

1. Intelligence = nature (genes) + nurture (environment). But, better methods / strategies for learning can boost up intelligence. In an analogy, before dyes and color contact lenses, hair color and eye color were entirely genetic too respectively.
2. Learn from how nature works, when one path gets shut down, we can take a different route.
3a. Must build construct / architecture / framework / blueprint. When we have a construct, we can solve difficult problems even when there is a lot of missing information.
3b. Must summarize / make notes.
4a. Must link concepts / ideas with visuals / feelings (synaesthesia).
4b. Try to link together ideas that do not normally connect (use metaphor / analogy). With patience & perseverance, we can connect any subjects.
5. Must use both: repetition / rote memorization + holistic relating / inter-linking.
6. Must create: write, draw, take photos, make videos.

In 4 words:

Summarize
Memorize
Link
Create

Final remark: I appreciate that my ability to understand things effortlessly is improving everyday.

See also:
http://zenhabits.net/how-to-learn-more-and-study-less/

Holistic Learning by Scott Young

5 calming tips to overcome anger

It is OK for you to experience frustration / anger.
You are not alone.
We all experience frustration / anger in our lives.

Anger is not always bad,
anger helps us to assert our rights.

Anger, like other negative emotions and also positive emotions,
are normal and appropriate
under particular circumstances in space and time
(dynamic spatio-temporal context).

However,
when anger is prolonged / intense / unacknowledged,
it may lead to diseases,
which we do not want.

To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson,
“For every minute you remain angry
you give up 60 seconds of peace of mind.”

Negative emotions such as anger / frustration / resentment,
can be extremely destructive,
because these destabilizing emotions blur our vision,
disable us from rational and clear thinking,
and rapidly drag us down to regrettable paths of lives.
There is truth in the saying that
Anger Is One Letter Short of Danger.

It is all right to feel anger
but it is not all right
to express anger violently
or with cruel words.

Anger shows on our face,
can impair our potential to live a happy life.

Angry outbursts / aggression can become a bad habit;
the more one allows anger to take control,
the deeper the brain pathways are carved & reinforced,
because of brain plasticity.
Simply put,
Anger begets anger.

When people are stress / angry,
their body releases stress hormones
like cortisol & adrenaline,
that intensify the amygdala’s sense of danger,
& shut down the calming function of the prefrontal cortex.

We want calmer, more effective & more resourceful ways
to handle our emotions,
especially angry feelings.

We want to prevent ourselves
from getting stuck in deeper problems,
such as depression & anxiety,
in the long run.

Thích Nhất Hạnh / tʰǐk ɲɜ̌t hɐ̂ʔɲ views that
either expressing or suppressing anger
is an end of 2 extremes.
Expressing anger harms those around you,
destroys your relationship with others.
Suppressing anger harms yourself & your health.
Instead, choose to acknowledge our emotions.
Choose calmer & more soothing ways to attend to anger.

Melissa Costello shares that
anger can be a cover up for deep hurt & pain.
In 10 Mindful Minutes,
Goldie Hawn & Wendy Holden also shares that
anger can be due to fear.

The good news is
we can learn techniques
to overcome & deal with
our pain & fear.

Our brain is plastic,
we can train our mind
to be positive.

We can be creative
or learn from creative people
in dealing with our negative emotions.

Roger Weissberg of Yale University
contributed a technique using the traffic signal imagery^
to help people to deal with difficult emotions.

^ Children may prefer we call it traffic signal game,
instead of the traffic signal technique.

How to use the traffic signal technique?
You can get some paper & color pencils / crayons
to draw a picture of traffic signal.

Alternatively,
you can visualize traffic signal in your mind
When you are feeling negative emotions such as anger,
use the traffic signals to help you
to drive & steer your emotions safely.

Red = stop. Breathe mindfully / do some mindful breathing.
Yellow = consider all possible / thinkable / reasonable ways to respond.
In this yellow light stage, we activate our prefrontal cortex.
Green = Respond mindfully.

The traffic signal technique works because
according to Paul Ekman,
we begin feeling a strong emotion much faster
than we are aware of it.

When we use the traffic signal technique,
we allows ourselves to stop and think.
The technique lengthens the time between
the impulse / stimulus and response (either reaction or action)
as soon as
we realize and recognize
our difficult / negative feelings.

According to Victor Frankl,
between our stimulus and response
we have the freedom and power
to choose our response:
the most positive, mindful, meaningful response.
Through frequent practices
of the traffic signal technique,
we can build solid emotional resilience.

Last, but not least,
we can memorize some affirmations & scriptures.
They act as a short-cut
to quickly calm ourselves down
in the intense moment of strong negative feelings.

Examples of affirmations:
# The anger of today is the remorse of tomorrow
# If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. Chinese Proverb.
# People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing

Examples of scriptures:
# Proverbs 16:32 : “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that controls his temper than he who conquers a city”
# Proverbs 22:24,25 : “Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered”
# Exodus 2:11-15 : In a sudden burst of anger Moses killed an Egyptian and had to flee for his life! It then took him 40 years of patiently, humbly tending sheep in the wilderness, with time to listen to the Voice of God instead of his own impulses, before he was ready for the slow, la­borious, patient work of delivering the Hebrews from Egypt.

To summarize
@~@ Remember that anger++ = Danger
@~@ Neither express or suppress anger, but acknowledge it
@~@ Traffic signal technique
@~@ Remember that you can choose your response
@~@ Memorize affirmations / scriptures

How to deal with anger? 15 effective tips

Many times, as human beings,
we get angry because of the mistakes / misunderstanding caused by ourselves and people closest to us,
e.g.
our family members (spouse, children),
our bosses and subordinates,
our colleagues,
our clients.

Imagine a spouse who does not border to help you / who only knows how to nag and nag,
after you work hard and endure stress / fatigue / insult from the morning until night;
Imagine an in-law who only knows to blame you after you expend sweat, tears, and blood taking care of your home / spouse / children (fortunately my parents-in-law are very nice);
Imagine bosses who only know to instruct, take all the credit;
Imagine subordinates who do things wrongly even though you explain many times;
Imagine clients who refuse to pay their debts to you after you deliver the products,
or whose expertise is to complain and complain.

Anger is not always bad,
anger helps us to assert our rights.

Anger, like other negative emotions and also positive emotions,
are normal and appropriate under particular dynamic spatiotemporal context / circumstances in space and time.

However,
when anger is prolonged / intense / unacknowledged,
it may lead to diseases,
which we do not want.

Then,
how to deal with anger?

1. The ART of ENDURANCE, use THICK FACE BLACK HEART.
Some people may think that being thick face is to be shameless,
because the general perception of thick face can be exemplified by an adult child refuses to work but asks money from retired parents.
Thick face that I mean here means that we must be able to endure humiliation / insult / injustice / physical & emotional pain / stress that cause our anger.
Honestly, this is not easy but not impossible.

Black heart here does not mean being ruthless to others,
but be determined enough on ourselves so that we can endure hardship and protect the weak.
Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi are among the finest example of practitioners of thick face black heart.

2. Neither express nor suppress anger.
Both are at the end of 2 extremes.
Expressing anger harms those around you, your relationship with others.
Suppressing anger harms yourself, your health.
Then, what should you do?
ACKNOWLEDGE our emotions, I think this is a piece of advice that I learned from Thích Nhất Hạnh / tʰǐk ɲɜ̌t hɐ̂ʔɲ.

3. Realize that we are the MASTER of our EMOTION.
We have control of our own emotion,
instead of letting our emotion enslave us.
We can practice self-control,
our mind can win over our emotion.

4. IMAGINE / VISUALIZE that your problems / pains are over. Visualize your trespasser as a little baby / child. It is hard to be angry at little children.
Ask yourself, will things / people that cause your anger matter in X amount of time (e.g. 1 year, 5 years time)?
You may not bump into the person again.
You may have moved to better places / positions.

5. Use the ART of DETACHMENT.
We can care / love others, but we have to be detached from our care / love.
We can continue to care, give best advices, but separate our feeling from the outcome of our efforts.
If they do not want to listen to our advice / to receive our kindness,
we just accept their response,
no need to feel bad about it.
Do not attach our happiness to others,
i.e. do not let our happiness be dependent on others (including their thought / words / actions).

6. LEARN from difficulties / crisis.
Believe that opportunities arise out of our difficulties.
There are always things to be learned from every situation.
There are things worth fighting,
there are things that are better ignored,
e.g. the rudeness of rude salesperson / customers, the ruthless bosses.

7. Use POSITIVE THINKING. Reframe our PERSPECTIVEs. There is no failure, there is only feedback.
Be aware that our trespasser(s) may cause unhappiness transiently, but they cannot rob away our capacity to generate inner happiness (including peace of mind, wealth).

8. LOWER / have NO EXPECTATIONS.
Accept things and other people as they are.
It is hard to change other people.
To change a person may be harder than to move a mountain.
Instead of wasting time to change others,
it is better to improve ourselves.

9. Use TALKing therapy,
but you have to find a listener,
who will listen without giving advice
(sometimes when we are angry we may perceive their well-meant advice as something negative).
Do not talk to every person you meet,
because not all people can give you empathy and sympathy in every situation / circumstances,
they may perceive you as a whiner / complain king,
we may end up transferring our pain / anger to other people.
Choose whom to TALK to carefully & wisely.
Many times, I TALK to God,
because God can take our anger / frustration.
Sometimes, I TALK to my wise mentors.
They are my role models,
and I would imagine what they would do if they were in my situation.

10. Use WRITING therapy.
This is what I exactly do now. I wrote this post because I was angry, and I want to find solutions on how to deal with anger.
Then, I think that my tips / strategies may be useful to others and decide to share them with the world.
When you write, do not worry about writing style / grammar.
You can make yourself your audience.
Keep your writing in journal / diary or
you can throw / tear away,
like cleansing / declutter your problem.

11. REST & SLEEP.
Take a power nap.
When we suffer from lack of sleep, we may become cranky.

12. MEDITATE / PRAYER.
Prayer is powerful.
Prayer = talking to God.
God can patiently listen without giving comments.
God can embrace our anger.

13. BREATHing exercise.
Imagine a balloon expanding & contracting in your lower abdomen.
Siberian North Rail Road for Stop, Notice, Reflect and Respond.
Stop to take a deep breath. Taking a deep breath can really calm our minds.
Reflect why you are angry from a 3rd person perspective (neither victim nor offender).
Respond. You always have control / choice in how you are going to respond. Be the master of your emotion, instead of letting your emotion winning over you.

14. EXERCISE e.g. yoga / qigong 气功 / jogging / hiking / swimming.
Physical activity can release emotion,
because our mind, body, and soul are inter-connected.
QiGong can help us to keep a focused mind, good posture, and help us to relax.

15. Use palm-size thermometer.
When we are angry,
blood is diverted from our extreme parts of bodies to vital organs,
our fingers turn cold.
Count to ten.
1 … 2 … 3 …. 4 …. 5 … 6 … 7 … 8 … 9 … 10 …
Focus on calming down until our fingers become warm.
PS: I learned this tips from Oprah Winfrey, thank you!
See also my green old A4 notebook page 32, 129.

If you find my writings are helpful to you, please donate to me by clicking here.

China Innovators

This post is based on the book Chinnovation. I also note down my ideas based on the things I read there.

INNOVATION.
Definition: doing the same things in a new way (process) or doing new things (creating a product / service) pxii.

After learning from the West, it is time for me to focus on learning from the East this year.
Wu Po Chi (HKUST) proposed that "the Chinese and the American culture are different.
The Anglo-Saxon thought, business, legal, medical system is based on the Greek system of linearity – very nice and clear separation of right and wrong. The Chinese are very holistic; little good and little bad.

… the functional MRI of a person thinking in Chinese, many more parts of the brain light up.
The Chinese language is more complicated in sound; it is graphical (so it is very good for descriptive purposes). It requires context.

The English language is not nearly so rich but it is precise."
Blueroselady learned (from an English man at the birth town of Shakespeare) that the English language is actually pretty rich by constantly adapting and adopting, as compared to e.g. the French language.

Perhaps, Blueroselady has to let her children learn some graphical languages, e.g. Chinese, Arabic.

What did you do when you hear the news of Michael Jackson’s death?

My office mate suddenly shouted something that I would not write here. No matter what, he is a nice chap who offered me a headset to prevent me from hearing his loud machine.
A China innovator rapidly secured the rights to build a Neverland Ranch in China.

These innovators capitalize on events happening in the world.

QUANTITY counts.
Do you know that the Chinese Academy of Sciences alone produces ~ 100,000 PhDs / year?
Wuxi Pharma Tech.
Let’s go to visit / invest in Jiangsu.

No wonder that there are so many influx of PhDs from China to the West.

The best businessmen in China are not Shanghainese, but the businessmen of Wenzhou and Hangzhou.
It is neither because of the innate human talent of Wenzhou and Hangzhou is superior nor the probability of succeeding in Hangzhou and Wenzhou is higher.

It is because (1) everyone in Wenzhou and Hangzhou is trying to succeed as an entrepreneur, so the absolute numbers of attempts generate a lot of successes, (2) failure only leaves the option of trying again. Sorry, no comfortable white-collar job.

RELATIONSHIP & HUMILITY matter.
"good relationship with gov officials in China are much more important thin in other countries.
Building a good relationship with gov officials can reduce unnecessary trouble." (p55).

connectedness = renqin (p53).
"Prioritize RELATIONSHIPS over laws." (p56)
"Remember that people with bigger networks tend to do better."

Zou Bo of Senodia (MEMS-based chips producer) shared 2 avenues which he used to establish connections.

1. government.
The gov would introduce many resources.
2. investors.
Investors have many connections with other similar / related establishments. Zou Bo found the investors back in the US and brought them to China.

Old friends / classmates are existing channels (p243).

Lim Sah Soon (Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce) advised that in expanding to China, you should gain the good impression of being a modest and trustworthy race of people. Do not make the mistake of treating the Chinese as an inferior or backward race as this would cause the loss of trust, and definitely hurt relations for the future." (p184)

While the advice was meant for foreign players intending to expand into the China market, Blueroselady thinks that we should be modest and treat nobody as an inferior (regardless of race / social / economic background).

Perhaps the notion of inferior raised from the relatively poor quality of "Made in China" products in the past, but today many high quality products were also Made in China, such as my laptop.
Moreover, to many Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans), face matters a lot. Being treated as an inferior cause them to lose face.

RESTRICTIONS.
"Often the best movies were shot under budget constraints so severe that the director had to innovate – and the same principle apply for start-ups" (p15)
This phenomenon reminds me on Uncle RT who was poor in Berkeley yet produced excellent results.

The Chinese / The Zhejiang entrepreneurs are not easily deterred by the politic-economic conditions unfavorable to business formation. (p102).

Beijing is a cultural, political, economic & IT center because the Chinese gov is in control of significant resources. (p24)

5 Ms of Zhejiang entrepreneurs:
markets.
masses.
mobility.
management.
meshing / adapting best practices from other industries.

MARKETs / CUSTOMERs
Listen more to market (shichang), listen less to the governor (shizhang) which can be disguised in the form of generous grants / funding. (p102).

Markets believed by most people to be dead tend to have less competition hence lower cost of doing business. Be courageous to enter such markets (p103).

"Technology innovation should be market driven and not technology driven. We need to cater to consumers, just like why Cisco changed its logo" Zou Bo of Senodia (p245).

Management = innovation + operations (p104).

FOCUS & ELIMINATE distractions.
To focus, people choose to work in Hangzhou than Shanghai even though the typical wage is RMB3,000 vs RMB 6,000. (p104)
A big city like Shanghai has too many distractions!

Picking the right battle to fight is a form of focus.
Sun Tzu once said: "If you try to fight every battle, there is no hope of any victory."
Carefully select where to invest / expend resources (time and money).

How to out-innovate the MNC (multinationals)?
Do not fight the elephant head-on.
You will be crushed.
If you are the nimble mouse hat can find the crevices to exploit, your chances of winning are much higher (p265).

OPPORTUNITIES
problems = opportunities.
the larger the problem, the greater the opportunity. (p37).
"To the trained eyes, innovation opportunities appear frequently in daily life." (p56)

Start SMALL, think BIG.
"Every great fashion enterprise, every outstanding financial institution, every mammoth IT company, and every great invention began in the imagination of some one person." (p80).

GROWTH
A company’s growth is the same as a person’s.

Liu Jiren (Neusoft) explains: "You need something when you are young, then you need other things when you become older.
A company with ideals should have a long-term plan.
You should think about your mature phase when you are young.

But in the process of development, you can’t make every step develop as you expected from a microcosmic angle.
…
Now, when you look forward to to the company’s future, you will find what made you prosper in the past may become what holds you back in the future.

…
restructure …." (p252)

DIVERSITY of experiences leads to critical thinking (p43).

PASSION / love.
Qiu Xuefan (Wenzhou entrepreneur), "Love what you do, because you will have to do a lot of it." (p179)

Blueroselady agrees. It is not only about doing what we love, but also loving what we do. It is bidirectional and must act in sync.

Zhang Gang, the founder of Little Fat Sheep mentioned that "I always wanted to have a basic business, selling something simple that people wanted. Many people grow a company like raising a pig. The pig gets fat; you kill it and make money. I grow my company like raising a son. The average life of a restaurant is less than three years in China. I want Little Sheep to last a century". (p202)

Wow! A brand that lasts a century sounds highly ambitious yet cool! This is what visionary leaders / entrepreneurs / innovators should aim for.
Blueroselady was grateful for enjoying a hot pot with Little Fat Sheep recipe (with friends from China), but thought that it was not for her. She felt very thirsty after the meal and decided NO more. Fortunately for Zhang Gang, not all customers are health conscious and bland preferring as Blueroselady.

DETERMINATION matters.
The 30th US President Calvin Coolidge famously remarked,
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." (p46)

PEOPLE / TALENT / human capital

According to Ray Zhang (eHi), people need to find meaning and significance in the things the company does. They need a common platform, an environment where personal careers and company growth are in sync, with no differences between the two (p259).

Vincent Tai (CEO of RDA Micro) repeatedly said, "The mind is a terrible thing to waste".
He trusts his employees even though they make mistakes.
He would sit down with an employee who had made a mistake, asking why it happened and what lessons the employee has learned. (p85).

A way to attract investors is by becoming a magnet talent e.g. Lee Kaifu or Li Kaifu (p110).
Lee / Li won a loyal following from Chinese students through his numerous coaching books, public speeches, blog posts, and most importantly (Blueroselady thinks) his accomplishment in high tech (Apple, Google, Innovation Works).

I am going to read Li’s old book "Be Your Personal Best" published in 1991, perhaps re-published in 2005.

Be doggedly persistent in attracting talent.
Treat talent as though they are family (p130).

Blueroselady notices that her best friend also treats her mentors as family, thank you!

A random quote that comes to my mind "千里马常有,而伯乐不常有".

Be CONTRARIAN.
If an opportunity is obvious to all, it probably has no profits. (p176).

Experiment with the uncommon for supernormal returns.
Judy Leissner (President, CEO of Grace Vineyard) shared her winning strategy, "Whatever old traditional Chinese wine producers do, we don’t." (p142)

Most old traditional China wine producers spend significantly on advertising and pay restaurants to serve wine, Grace Vineyard does not advertise.
Leissner opened up a wine bar to brand her wine. A wine bar allows 2-way communication.

Instead of restaurants, Grace Vineyard serves Grace Vineyard wine in the best hotels, leading airlines (e.g. Cathay Pacific’s 1st class and business class flights serve Deep Blue of Grace Vineyard).
Grace Vineyard also avoids area where dominant local wineries exist.

Blueroselady thinks that everything popular is not always right.

Some interesting COMPANIES / virtual PLACES with potential useful service to you & me:

Baidu
the leading Chinese-language internet search provider.
Baidu name refers to a line from a Song Dynasty poem, meaning "search for one’s dream". Blueroselady thinks that name matters. name = branding.
founder Robin Li, Eric Xu (a biochemist).

Wukong.com
Search engine that aims to be Baidu’s No. 1 competitor.
Nick Yang.

dianping.com
online crowdsourcing guide, paid search, e-coupons.

restaurant review site.
China version of Yelp.

www.5xue.com.
Lee Kaifu, PhD computer science CMU: machine learning, pattern recognition.

Ctrip.com
Co-founder Neil Shen.
NASDAQ-listed.

Tudou
Gary Wang.
Besides watching Youtube, I want to learn more from Tudou.

QQ
QQ has more active users than Facebook (p13).

Career Album
a social platform for individual careeer development and corporate talent hunting.

founder: Crystal (Yanjing) Yin (Stanford).
Blueroselady thinks that this is a place where you try to put everything together, a LinkedIn combined with deviantArt; but Career Album is still in beta version as of Jan 2013. Blueroselady will not use it for the time being.

Fields that Blueroselady are going to explore:
PROPERTY.
Segments of the Wenzhou population speculate in property to get rich. They buy entire plots of buildings. Speculate based on careful planning (p101).

BIG DATA.
"The realm of technology is constantly striving to encapsulate larger and larger volumes of data in smaller devices" (p255)
To win customers, offer quality, convenience, portability.

Places that Blueroselady wants to visit / TRAVEL to:
Bama, Guangxi. Why? 1 of every 3,400 people is a centenarian. Perhaps, I will arrange visiting both Guilin and Bama in a single trip.

Pingyao, Shanxi. Why? The small town of Pingyao, in Shanxi province flourished as the financial hub of China for 300 years, in spite of poor soil and accessibility.

It was home to 22 banks, collectively controlling more than 50% of the nation’s wealth.
The secret of its success? innovation. Pingyao people ventured out to places such as Mongolia and Russia to trade.
The reason of its subsequent failure? complacency.

Always remember that innovation and reinvention is a continual process.

Christmas 2012: I think I am a geek

While people are in the mood of celebrating Christmas and New Year, I am finding myself to be more motivated and hardworking than ever.

I had shopped for Christmas gifts early (I did it simultaneously when I shopped for groceries and there were sales / discounts). No last minute shopping for me. Thank you for the new bag and book for my Christmas gifts!

I am learning to forgive my boss who is dragging me down. He is slowing the progress of my work. I am also learning about patience.

Due to medical reason, I am not allowed by my doctor (and mother) to go out (including to go to my workplace, church). Fortunately, I can still work using my laptop, read, reflect and think. Pretty happy.

Counting my blessings:
@~@ Finished reading and understanding a couple of books.
@~@ Have consulted and learned from my mentors more than in 2011: the super kind MT, Uncle Zhou, Aunt Ning, Aunt SQ (Dec), Uncle Toni, Uncle Roger (Nov), Brother Adam, Brother Tim.
@~@ Planned for the education of LS and obtained the approval from the father of LS. See pink 2012 notebook page 51.
@~@ Reflected on my lessons (Always remember that there are no absolute failures, but temporary setbacks), past achievements (e.g. PhD), and future plans (including being a business-owner entrepreneur, an agent of positive change).

An important lesson:
Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

@~@ Have fed myself with positive food for mind and soul (almost daily and every morning). This is highly important because the Russian psychologist Blyuma Zeigarnik discovered early in this century that human beings remember unresolved problems, frustrations, failures, and rejections much better than we remember our successes and completions.
@~@ Being hugged every morning and night by my man. Tips: Women need to be loved, men need to be respected.
@~@ Sent personalized Christmas cards to my friends.
@~@ Ate Shepherd pie and banana pear yoghurt for the breakfast on Christmas Eve. Shepherd pie reminds me on cold and wet England in the winter.
@~@ No need to spend time on commuting means I can sleep more.
@~@ Delivered an almost 90-minute of talk (based on my notes from books I read in 2012) to LS, with breaks in between. Tired. I must train my stamina because I will deliver more inspiring talks in the future. See books2012.txt
@~@ Dressed up myself on Christmas day, though I could not wear my engagement ring (hopefully for temporary). I love the progress of applying make-up, transforming myself into more beautiful than ever.
@~@ Clean flat (since Dec 23rd) thanks to the cleaning lady. We are sleeping on my favorite bed sheets with the pattern of pink flowers and purple leaves. So far, we only have 3 bed sheets.
@~@ Not being able to attend a Christmas mass, I listened to "On Eagle’s Wings". Always remember that "He will raise you up on eagle’s wings".

@~@ Listened to the songs by Mindy Gledhill. Gothic. Soothing. Fairy Tales.

Finally, Merry Christmas to the readers of Blueroselady. I love you!

Today is my day, I climbed to the top of Senate House

I just finished a lecture at 12 noon, my stomach has made noises – very hungry. The lecturer is very good in teaching, a big shot professor in his field, but my hunger distracted me.

Then, F called, asking if I can come to the City Centre. I asked him to give me 15 minutes, for dropping my laptop, getting my camera & props, and cycling (I didn’t know that I can be so efficient!).

I thought we are going to climb up the St. Mary Church Tower, I’ve never been there as I am too stingy to pay 2 pounds :(, I think I will go there sometimes when the weather and light are appropriate for photo takings – anyway the $ will go to preserve the church.

Note added in 2013: Finally I brought Dad and Mom to climb up the Great St Mary Church Tower when they traveled to England for the first (I hope not the last) time to attend my graduation. That climb was my first climb to the GSM Church Tower. Sometimes, I cannot believe how frugal I can be. I can be very patient, really!

Back to 2008. But we didn’t go up the St. Mary Church, instead to my surprise, we went up to the Senate House rooftop. My greatest honour indeed.

First, I went into the Senate House before my graduation, Senate House is used mainly for degree ceremonies and not open to the public.

Second, I climbed up to the roof, at inner triangle roof (suitable for horror movie site) seeing some marks left by people dated as far as 17xx. Nowadays, not many Cambridge students are allowed to go up beyond the roof of the Senate House. The view from top is spectacular, I can see the St. John’s Tower, King’s Chapel, Caius Tower, and of course GSM tower.

The way up is okay as compared to monkey climbing in Fansipan, just that I am carrying my prop, bag with camera, etc – but they are not a problem. The way up to St. John’s Tower is longer as it is higher and I have done that! The custodian stayed with us and patiently waited while F and I are working. I am so blessed!

This is the best volunteering event I have done with my current university, considering I don’t do much as I am very occupied with my research – a desperate research student.

In my undergraduate, I served in 1st-aiding, mentoring primary school kinds, fund-raising for needy students, organizing university-wide events (I skipped the entire week lectures for 1 of them).

Once I was discussing with my course mate (SC) who now works as an investment banker, he proposed we grow bacteria that produce gold, I proposed we form a dream-realizing team, we do whatever things to realize our client’s weirdest dream, e.g. climbing Everest or taking videos of the Mariana Trench (oops…need to be trained in oceanography?) to bride hunting. Join force with me & let us be dream achievers!

Note added in 2013: I discover that I love to ascend, to climb, and to fly. Whenever and wherever I travel, I always like to climb a tower / an observation / a hill to gain the bird view.

The excitement aside, I received a newsletter from the Prison University Project. Inside it, there is a news on a former student who was shot while talking to his friend in San Francisco, he is 23 and has children to support. I am sad to hear that. We are very fortunate, living in a much safer environment.