Archive for March, 2007
29 Mar, 2007
Singapore Anti-Smoking Ads Disturb Kids
Just thought it was funny. Singapore’s always leading the way in creating gruesome anti-smoking ads.
Read more here.
28 Mar, 2007
How to be Confident
There’s a wonderful article on PsychologyToday regarding confidence, called Confidence: Stepping Out.
It gives a rough overview of what confidence is, as well as a few tips on how to develop it.
This four-page article also describes an interesting experiment relating the similarities and differences between two groups that had to give an impromptu speech.
One group reported feeling nervous, while the other reported feeling reasonably calm and relaxed.
The interesting thing was that their physiological responses were exactly the same — physiologically they were just as nervous as each other.
It was just that their minds made one group think that they were more nervous than they really were.
At the end of this article the author discusses how some people — including famously charismatic celebrities — overcame their fears.
The way of overcoming your fears is basically this: do what you fear most.
Keep doing it, practising it, until you get better.
The final line of the article sums it all up: “The lesson? Even exquisite discomfort has a silver lining.”
26 Mar, 2007
Like Chalk and Cheese
I told you we were like Chalk and Cheese,
Togetherness would be a mess.
You looked at me and smiled,
But you didn’t say anything.
I asked you if you knew what I was saying.
You said you did.
I was upset you weren’t upset.
Difference drives people apart!
Suddenly you got up, pointed at me, and said,
“You are the Chalk, and I am the Cheese.
Different as we may be,
Are we not often put together?
“People talk of Chalk and Cheese in the same
Breath when talking about difference:
That very difference —
It makes us as one.”
24 Mar, 2007
Making a Paper Box from Old Magazines
In this article, I will teach you how to make a multi-purpose box out of pages from an old magazine. Some uses of this box include, but are not limited to:
- Orange peels
- Peanut shells
- Fish bones
- Coins or loose change
- Keys
I had always used these boxes, but never had to make them because it’d always appear “magically” at home.
It is only now that I’m here, alone in Australia, that I have to make my own boxes.
Frustrations
Feeling frustrated that I had no where to put my orange peels or remnants of the fruit I eat, I sent my mom an e-mail requesting instructions on how I might go about making one of these boxes.
The instructions she sent me were so good, illustrated beautifully, that I thought it was well worth sharing it on this site. View the instructions by clicking the thumbnail below:
Pushing the Concept Further
Tip 1: What my family normally does is to open up one box to keep all the other “closed” boxes (as shown in the image on the left). This keeps the whole lot of them really tidy. Have fun!
Tip 2: Got a pet? And got food scraps? Use these as one-use pet trays. Every time we have fish for dinner, we always throw some fish bones into one of these boxes. Then we put it next to our cat’s food dish, and he’d eat the fish from it.
It saves us the trouble of washing the tray, as it normally just contains dried food and requires very infrequent washing.
Note: The strength of the box really depends on the quality of paper you use. Some paper, like those from the publications with financial statements that many large companies send their shareholders are exceptionally well suited for this endeavour. The magazine that I used in the picture above was “Muscle Mag” (given free with the protein powder I purchased). The paper was painfully thin, but it’d get the job done nonetheless. For more heavy duty use, like for the pet-tip above, use higher quality paper.
23 Mar, 2007
Wrong About You
The heart and mind of a woman puzzles everyone but me. From the way she looked and talked to me, I knew she liked me. I always had this instinctive way of reading things, reading people.
I prepared flowers, a short little speech, and a little gift wrapped and scented with a little of my favourite Hugo Boss perfume: “ammunition for the hunt”, as my friend would have me say. Guided by instinct, the hunter that was me was going for the kill.
Just as she was coming into sight, I prepared myself and went closer to where she stood. To my surprise I found that I was not the only hunter around. There was another standing with her, hands stained with the blood-red of cheap wine (and what was that? was he laughing??)
Thinking I had to save this pitiful woman from being hunted from such a horrible being, I shouted to her to stand back as I jumped in front of her to shield her from further torture. Heart pounding, knees shaking (I swear it was the alcohol) I looked him straight in the eyes proclaiming defiance in her name…
And that was when she pushed me away (how strange that seemed…)
Confused and confounded I looked at her and saw a coldness I had never seen before, like Jesus to the merchants at the temple.
What just happened? It wasn’t supposed to be like that. How awful I felt, standing there, protecting whom that didn’t need my protection, doing what that didn’t need to be done.
What an idiot I was.
What an idiot I was to be so wrong about you.