Archive for the ‘Lesson Learnt’ Category

Old Man

There was a man at Bukit Kayu Hitam (The border of Thailand and Malaysia). We will call him Nasir (from “pasir”). He was seen to cross the border to and fro everyday riding a bicycle with two sacks of sands.

One day, a custom officer, who we will call Faisal (From “officer”), noticed Nasir carrying the sack from Thailand into Malaysia. He immediately stopped Nasir and asked him what’s inside the sack. Nasir said, “it’s just sand, sir.” Faisal did not believe him. Who would waste time carrying in sands like that. There must be rice or illegal things inside. Faisal then smashed the sacks of sands onto the road and found that Nasir was telling him the truth. There were just sands. Nasir then slowly gathered what remains from the sands and filled it back into the smashed sacks.

The next day, Faisal, the immigration officer, stopped him again, and did the same thing, expecting he might soon catch Nasir smuggling rice, or drugs into Malaysia. But there were nothing else inside the sacks but sands. Faisal started to feel sorry for the old man. And Nasir continued bringing the sacks into Malaysia everyday for 2 years straight. Of course Faisal did spot check from time to time but to no avail.

After the two years, Nasir had stopped crossing the border. And one day during breakfast Faisal met his old friend, Nasir at the coffee shop looking quite wealthy and very different from two years back. After a long chit chat, Faisal asked Nasir.. “Now tell me the truth, why do you brought in sands from Thailand to here? What do you actually do for a living?”

Nasir said : “I smuggled bicycle”

(Source – Forwarded joke rewritten from memory)

Lesson learnt

  • We often see the world expecting everything will be familiar and easily understandable. We prefer not to challenge our mind looking from another perspective. For example, we look at a thin man with red eye, immediately we label him as a drug addict. He might just be Bill Gates trying out contact lense. Who knows? 🙂
  • Next time, we see anything. traffic jam, beloved parents, even jokes like the above, maybe we can try looking it from another point of view.
  • “Gajah depan mata tak nampak, Kuman seberang laut nampak pulak”

————— Personal Note ————————–
I don’t actually recall my first time riding a bicycle. But I remember exactly how my brother first learn to ride the bicycle. Our father forced him to learn, and in doing so, he injured himself falling. (Not to say injured, but fall down la :p). So one night, he actually took a knife to tear the bicycle tyre. I’m not so sure whether he succeeded or not, but the amazing thing is… the very
next day was the day he finally able to ride the bicycle. 🙂 So guys, how did you learn to ride bicycle?

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CEO

“HAHAHA I am the CEO of this company!!! I have ultimate power on my low level worker…I’m the most important person in this company, and without me… the company will go down the drain”.

Have you ever met anyone so arrogant being the boss or working in high position in a company. Well I have… Not my current manager obviously. It occured to me. Comparing the CEO of a company and the general cleaners of the company, who would be more important? The answer to this is simply by having them take a month off.

If the CEO of the company take a month off from working, can the company manage to survive and operate normally. I believe it can because there are so many people willing to take control the CEO’s power and do his work.

If the general cleaners of the company (any company) take a month off, what do you think will happen to the company? Rubbish left uncleared, stale fried rice still left at the waste basket, the toilet is unbelievably smelly. Can everyone do their work efficiently? Is there any people willing to do the cleaner’s job? I can guarantee you that they can’t even stand one week

So any of you guys have experience the no cleaner scenario? or no CEO scenario. Do share. let’s decide… who’s more important?

————— Personal Note ————————–
Again I appreciated all of you who frequent this humble blog. I admit, I’m not much of a designer. I guess it’s genetic. When I was a child, 5 to 6 years old, my parents did send me to a drawing class. The class is actually for Form 5 students. Did I tell you the art teacher is a friend of my parents. So we were supposed to draw some vegetables. Everyone was given one. When the class is over, everyone finished their work except for me. I am so into the details that I even draw every hairline and leaves exactly like it is. Spending all that time and still not a good piece. I persuaded my parents to give me other hobby to start 🙂 Good ol times

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Rocket

When I was studying, one lecturer gave me this story. See… stories make us better at remembering things. I doubt I even remember any formula from his lectures. Basically the story describes what engineering is really about. It is simply problem solving. I am not sure though whether the story is true or not, but I’ll share it with you regardless.

During the early years of space exploration, it is said that American astronaut faced one minor problem. The pen they are using just cannot function properly in zero gravity. If you notice, here on the earth, we usually fail to write something using a pen on surfaces like the wall or the ceiling. In zero gravity, obviously the situation worsen as there is just no force pushing the ink out.

Fascinated, the american spend thousands to overcome the problem. They come up with hydraulic system based pen. It is slightly heavier but then in zero gravity, that will not be a problem.

When the Russia start going into space. They encounter the same problem. they then used pencils.

/end story

The most important step in problem solving is actually defining the problem. You wrongly define the problem, you will end up solving another problem instead of the current at hand. Like in this example, the actual problem is “how to write?” and not “how to force the ink out of the pen?”. How to apply to real life? Simply put, just spend more time analyzing the problem. Redefine it again and again until you know exactly what’s the the problem.

————— Personal Note ————————–
First of all, I appreciate my friends who visited the blog everyday. I only know you via my statistic. For that I thank you with all my heart. I was wondering though whether to change my medium to Malay or stick with English? I’ve had some feedback that some people may not be comfortable with english and thus prevent them from writing any comment. To tell you the truth, what keeps me motivated to keep writing besides my newly found passion for writing, is the 20+- regular friends visiting this blog everyday. Again I thank you. If it’s not much trouble, do leave me some comments ya, Malay or English. I don’t mind. Just want to know the 20 of you better 🙂

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Children

I may not have any children just yet. But I have seen examples of “what in my opinion” mistakes parents do while bringing up their children. And these are not examples from tv series or anything. They were actually happening and done by my very own neighbours.

Mistake 1 – Don’t team up. When the father scold the children, the mother must not join the father and scold them. Instead she should play the comforting role and try to explain to the children why they are being scolded in a comforting but stern tone.

Mistake 2 – Do not go against each other. the mother should not go against the father and defend the children unless the children is innocent. In short, both parent should have the same opinion on the matter and the children must know this. It is still recommended that the parent discuss their argument behind the children to avoid lost of sense of authorization.

Mistake 3 – Never spoil the children. It’s a dirty job, but still somebody has to do it. Remember Anakku Sazali? Never spoil the children with love so much that the parent do not dare to scold them or punish them. Children are very understanding, and if explained properly, they will know what were expected of them.

Mistake 4 – Be smarter than the children. They will always test the boundaries of their limitation. Doing so doesn’t mean that they will become a bad person in the future. Some parent prefer to let the children explore themselves, which is good. What I am saying is that parents must always offer guidelines for those angels. For example the children may cheat sometime to see how you react. If no action is taken, they will assume it is ok to cheat.

————— Personal Note ————————–
These are just my opinion. Not being a parent myself, I hope some parents may enlighten me perhaps on their own experience. Children are not some experiment we can redo if we don’t like the results. That’s why we need to learn parenting skills. Read books, google the net.. There is just no other way. Some people claim that their ancestors need not learn this things and still they grow up alright. True.. but we are so connected via internet, why not we learn from each other and avoid repeating those bad-result experiments, Right?

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