FBOTY

First Baby Of The Year!

Vivien gave birth at 2.15am on Jan 25th (Malaysia time) to a 4.14kg (9.1 lbs) boy! He is described by experts as being a "bouncy pretty baby with lots of hair". Congrats V!

QOTD

Quote of the day:

Many highly intelligent people often take up a view on a subject and then use their intelligence to defend that view. Since they can defend the view very well they never see any need to explore the subject or listen to alternative views. This is poor thinking and is part of the 'intelligence trap'.
Teach Your Child How To Think, Edward de Bono, page 6

Thanks to Al for sharing this little gem!

Peas in pods

Jo's got a scan of the pea growing inside her pod. More details to follow when (and if) Jo ever updates her updated-once-in-a-blue-moon blog.

Oh, and Vivian is just about to pop even as I write this... Congrats V! Oh, and as a bonus, you're officially the first person I know who has given birth in 2006! :)

Body fat

Happy... About a year ago, I was overweight at about 22% body fat. After about 4 months of TKD, my body fat has dropped to 14%! My weight has barely dropped, but I've lost two almost inches around my waist.

Not so happy... I think I overstrained my glutes. And my legs and tummy ache from the 3 week vacation I took off TKD. It's all Master Hung's fault for taking vacation to Taiwan. :) But now he's back, classes are back to normal, and I'm suffering thru the TKD workouts regularly as planned.

Goals (no matter how lofty) for 2006
- single digit body fat percentage
- compete (and win) at least one tournament
- do full splits

Showing off

Danny and I were playing with the camera after class today. The results...

Riches

One day a father and his rich family took his young son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose to show him how poor people can be. They spent a day and a night on the farm of a very poor family. When they got back from their trip the father asked his son, “How as the trip?” “Very good, Dad!” “Did you see how poor people can be?” the father asked. “Yeah!” “And what did you learn?”

The son answered, “I saw that we have a dog at home, and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden; they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lamps in the garden; they have the stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard, they have a whole horizon.” When the little boy was finished, his father was speechless. His son added, “Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are!”

John Maclean

Consider me inspired.

I had the pleasure of attending a talk by John Maclean earlier today. John is a paraplegic. He has lost the use of his legs when a truck hit him in 1988 and has been wheelchair bound since. Before his accident, John was a rising rugby star and a promising athlete. After his accident, John has become arguably one of the most impressive people on the sporting scene.

In 1995, John became the first wheelchair athlete to complete the Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon in Kona, Hawaii. Unfortunately, he missed the cutoff time and was not awarded an Ironman Finisher's medal. In 1996, he almost made the cutoff time, but was screwed over by a flat tire. He beat Hawaii in 1997 and became the first wheelchair athlete to be awarded the finisher's medal. He finished 946th out of 1421 able bodied athletes.

In 1998, he became the first wheelchair to swim the English Channel.

In 2000, he represented Australia in the Paralympic Games.

His list of incredible accomplishments go on and on. As recently as last year (2005), John became the first wheelchair athlete to complete the Molokai Challenge. But superhuman feats aside, what really got to me was hearing him describe the pain of being up there on top of the world and having everything taken away from you in a single split second, and then crawling back up inch by inch.

A few memorable things he said...

After he lost his legs, he wanted to be equal in his own eyes. And to do that, he had to be more than equal. Does that make sense? To me, it did. I wonder though, how "equal" are you when there are only a handful of people in the world who have completed the Hawaiin Ironman AND swum the English Channel, and none of them are wheelchair bound?

His formula for success was simple - 1) set a goal, 2) surround yourself with a positive team, and 3) work backwards to figure out how to get there.

It started out as his own quest to be "equal", but became, in his words, upon crossing the channel, "Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but I hope today I've won for all the little boys and girls around the world in wheelchairs. If they need someone to look up to, hopefully they've got someone to look up to now."

Overall, I was inspired by his feats, but even more so by his uber-positive attitude. That's definitely something to aim for.

Welcome '06

I want to write something about how crazy the weekend was, with Bruce and Evan both here from LA. I want to write about hanging out with them, going to the bars, getting coffee etc.

But instead, I keep remembering the fireworks. It was 12.15 or so. I was outside the club. There were maybe 30 or 40 people on the street just watching the fireworks light up the brand new 2006 sky. I was leaning against a tree, feeling kinda cold cos I was a little underdressed.

As I watched the fireworks, I felt an intense sadness, the kind of sadness that just grabs at your heart, and you feel this wrenching feeling inside you. And in the middle of the cold dark new year night, I started to tear. I don't know why I was sad. There wasn't anything on my mind. I wasn't drunk. I just felt really really sad.

A few minutes later, the fireworks ended and the sadness was gone as abruptly as it had come.