Randy Pausch - Really achieving your childhood dreams

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Here's something I wanna share with you on Life Lessons.

"The Last lecture" by Randy Pausch is truly amazing and inspirational. The speech was part of a series that the computer science professor Randy Pausch and other professors at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh were asked to think about what matters to them most and give a hypothetical talk.

Prof Randy Pausch age 47, with pancreatic cancer had died at his home in Chesapeake, Virginia on 25th July 2008. His last lecture titled "Really achieving your childhood dreams" became an internet hit with 6 million viewers. He had also published a book and it made it to the top of the non-fiction best seller lists.

Here's one of my favorite quotes from Randy :

Remember, the brick walls are there for a reason . The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people.

Check out his book THE LAST LECTURE

Transcript from the speech by Carnegie Mellon University CLICK HERE

Videos and Podcast can also be found in Itunes Store.

My cup of music

I'm very stingy when comes to buying CD these days. I used to spend lots of money on Cds and now I own at least 200CDs minus 100 that I had thrown or given away. A Cd cost about $20 on the average and multiply by 200 is really a big sum. So I've stopped buying them 5 years ago.

However, there's this CD I've been wanting to buy, the artist is Justin. For so many times at HMV, I put it back after picking it up. I just couldn't let myself buy it. So there's no music in my life for the last 5 years. This is sad and bad for a singer. But I thought, if I have to choose between singing and acting , acting will be my first choice.

Two days ago, Prince bought a CD for me. He got me Justin, the J TV album!! Awwwwwww.....

In my point of view Justin is the mixture of Taiwan's David Tao and Jay Chou and he's surely gifted in music. I must say I enjoy Justin's Cantonese album very much. I'm a big fan of Cantonese pop by the way and in case you didn't know this, I am a Cantonese.

So what are you listening to today? Coffee anyone?

Morning

What a wonderful morning! I'm all smiles. Coffee taste good. The air, something about the air today...... I smell happiness. It's a good sign. Now I didn't feel like repainting my room anymore. I realized I do like it as it is. Now that I feel much motivated, I'm gonna keep myself going. I can see myself working, reading, writing and typing happily all in my little cozy space.

Feels great to have a proper matching table in my room. But of course I shamelessly do admit that my room is still in a big mess. Land mines are everywhere. LoL At least the table is in and my bookshelf has been assembled with tiny help from my nieces. I haven't felt so good for a long time.

How are you feeling today? I hope you are well too.

There's room for transition

Talking about being diligent, I haven't been able to finish my spring cleaning. Shame on me. There have been too many excuses. The latest excuse now I heard from myself is that the laptop's back so I gotta test run it with my games and update my blog. Duh! Whatever it takes, I'll make a point to finish my spring cleaning by Monday.

Finally ML had spread her wings and off she flew to the states. Haven't seen her cry so much. The love of her life cried too of course. I admit I teared a bit. Good news is ML gonna be back during Christmas for a week or two. Brob has not been online lately. I wonder if he's doing fine.

My PC is not back from repair yet because I'm doing some major upgrading. The new graphic card, additional RAM, new hard disk and DVD writer stuffs. It broke down 18 months ago and I had let it rot in my room until my laptop too died on me a few days ago then I had no choice but to send both in for repair.

I'm "California dreaming" again. Missed my apartment in Santa Monica. I was amazed by the google map that allows me to see the exterior and the surroundings of the apartment! I wonder when will I be able to get back to Los Angeles. Don't think I'll rent the same apartment again if I ever get back there but I would love to stay in the same neighbourhood or somewhere in Marina Del Rey.

Yeah, I'm dreaming. Dreams are free and it cost almost nothing but a ton of sweat and blood to make it real and occasionally some tears too. Thats what we call goal. Without dreams there will be no goal in life. Without any goal in life, there is almost no meaning to life.

My Current Major Goals in Life:

1) Move to Los Angeles by 2010
2) Play Sims 3
3) Lose those 8 kgs I put on for 80s Rewind
4) Clean and do up my room
5) Grow and expand my computing business
6) Grow my acting business
7) Spend two or three weeks in India
8) Climb Mt Kota Kinabahru

Yeah, I included playing sims3 as one of my major life goals. LoL. It's the "pleasure goals" like playing sims3 that had kept me going and motivated to achieve those really difficult goals. Meanwhile I gotta work on my sub goal first, that is, to finish reading all the 20 acting books and 30 other books that has been collecting dust in my room.

Oh my........ I almost forgot, I must first clean and do up my room before I can start my readings. ARRGH! Back to square one. I hate spring cleaning!!

Laptop Down

I guess I kind of deserve it. I have been abusing my laptop all these while. I'm gonna send it in to the "hospital" and so this means I can't update much here anymore for the next 7 days. Strange, just as I am starting to do spring cleaning, my hard disk died on me. I guess its a good thing, so now I can fully focus on doing up my room. I feel so weird now using my bro's PC.

Maybe I'll also upgrade the RAM, change the dvd writer to dvd rewritable. So if this happens mean I gotta pay $500 for all the hardware and stuffs..... By the way did I mention my laptop's fan has been making strange noises too? LOL Might a well get a new Acer laptop at $899. Actually my laptop is not that old. Only almost 2 years old. It had served me well but ungrateful people like me abuse it by turning it on 24/7.

Priority, priority..............

Objective: To create a comfortable, cozy and beautiful space for work, creativity and relaxation.

First thing first:
1) Spring cleaning : Throw out old and useless items in the room to make way for new incomings.
2) Fix the laptop only where it need to be fixed. Change only the hard disk.

Guess I won't be upgrading my laptop after all. LOL

On Wednesday after the new furniture comes in, it'll be "LEGO" time!! I'm really looking forward to it. It's fun to assemble your own furniture.

I hate spring cleaning because it's hard to throw things away. Too much sentiments in me. But I have been doing well for the last 12 hours, I hope so.

Spring Cleaning

I made muffins for the first time. It didn't taste good but still edible. LOL

Brob is leaving tomorrow afternoon so I can't go for the WallE Gala which happens at the same time. For the past two weeks I've been spending lots of time with friends that are going away for a long time, and also I played some catch ups with a few good old friends and people that I have been neglecting. I guess after both ML and Brob take flight, it's time to give lots of well deserved attention to my two nieces.

I bought some furniture for my room FINALLY. Those new pieces really means a lot. For a long time since I moved into this jumbo apartment, my room has only a 2 door conner wardrobe and a bed and two mismatch pieces from my old home, I've been using my mom's dresser next door. Mainly its because I thought I had over spent on my budget for my room in the first place. I kind of blew 2 thousand dollars away with the curtains, mattress, pillows, bedsheets, wardrobe and paint. So this trip back to Ikea, I got myself matching furnitures, a chest of 3 drawers which double up as a dresser, a book shelf, table lamp, a writing table and a chair and surprisingly it cost me less than $300 this time which includes delivery. The color theme of the furnitures in my room are, white and silver. Most of my walls are white except for one side which is painted in purperish-pink. My bedsheets are in whites and purpleish-pink and so are my curtains.

I'm making another trip back to Ikea to pick up some stuffs next week. Gotta get new bedsheets with matching curtains, a new curtain rod and some nice boxes to organize my things too. I hope I won't spend more than $200 this time because I am thinking of repainting my room.

By the way can anyone tell me where can I get a nice sleek looking fan in shades of whites and silver? Mom made it a law in the house that no one is to turn on the the AC........

Unjust

This is a very silly part of me, I know. But the inner child really wants to play. There's no logic and pretense to it. I must do it sometime, sooner or later. Worn out by the old age of empire, tired of holding on to the endless zero hour. I need to move on for my conquest to command and conquer and head back to some sim-plicity, at least for a while. Why is this happening to me?

Perhaps its the trip to the EA office that trigger all these mixed feelings. I can't help but to be awed by the wall of fame, 10 years of fun and for me it all started with the need for speed. The most painful moment was the feeling of so near yet so far. Those game testers were cruelly teasing my inner child with their super high tech machine and super big flat screen TV. So much envious for the 360s while the old halo looking rusty above my head. Those were the days.... I had to focus on what I was supposed to do instead and had to keep on reminding myself that I'm there at the EA office to work because that was my location on set, for the day.

An evil thought came into my mind this moment of time, especially after both Brob and Mag bought themselves new laptops. I have the urge smash my 2 year old laptop to make excuse for a new one, so that I can be reunited with my virtual world once more. Yes you may, go on and minus 80 points from both my IQs and EQs.

Picture paints a thousand love

Busy

Sorry ppl!! I know I haven't been updating my blog. I've been really busy with lots of things. Friends, family, shoots and auditions.

I haven't got time to even sort out the pics for my Tioman trip....
But I'll find time next week to put them up here. Anyway this weekend I'm going to chalet with my friends. Will update soon!