Following the tip-off of a friend, my family and I visited the wonderful MPH Warehouse sale at Singapore Expo and hauled back about 40 titles. Admittedly, most of the books were for my son as well as gifts.
I picked up a total of five titles covering digital culture, grassroots/evangelistic marketing, socio-psycho trends, social media marketing, and related topics. Beyond Buzz is actually a loaned copy from the wonderful National Library of Singapore’s public libraries.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I will spend more time reading and less time surfing…. Yeah right!
As we start a fresh new week, I thought its useful to consider for a moment how we can do things differently. It doesn’t have to be a huge paradigm shifting, game changing milestone, but just a smallish innovation that defies conventional wisdom. And nope, these aren’t New Year resolutions or anything as noble as that. However, they can apply equally at work, at home, at school, at church, or anywhere else.
The idea behind this is to gradually improve in baby steps which are less daunting than taking a huge leap into the unknown. They can be as small as replacing an unhealthy breakfast item (say fried bacon) with a healthy one (say a slice of guava), or perhaps slightly larger – like reading at least 15 minutes to half an hour every day. Doing something small and easy allows one to pick the low hanging fruits, boosting one’s morale and equipping one towards larger and bolder pursuits in life.
For me, I’m going to try to blog at least once every other day, no matter how tired, busy or lazy I feel. Writing gets better the more you do it, and the only way to open that tap is to just keep turning it.
If the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, forget about moving the world. Instead, begin by moving that itsy bitsy little obstacle in your life first.
Transitions are like the rainbow which appears after the storm (courtesy of pleem1983)
Everybody goes through transitions every now and then. Some are overjoyed by the experience. Others become truly terrified. These transformative phases molds and metamorphoses one, changing one either in a positive or a negative manner.
Transitions are the rites of passage which marks the end of one stage and the beginning of another. They are the indistinct stages of limbo, where one grapples with issues of identity and self-worth, while gearing up for a new role in life. Like the refining fire of a goldsmith, they can be hot and bothersome. However, they do lead towards a fresh understanding of what one’s goals and values are, making one see better in the long road of life.
On our last week of the mid-semester break, a couple of my friends from Graduate House and I decided to go for a short break to Wilsons Promontory located at the southern most tip of the Australian continent. Famed for its luscious combination of awe-inspiring mountains, luxuriant forests and breathtaking beaches, Wilsons Prom is located in the Gippsland region of Victoria, about 157 km Southeast of Melbourne city. Populated by indigenous wildlife like kangaroos, wallabies, emus, echidnas, wombats, numerous birds as well as venomous snakes, the park is a peaceful sanctuary for all manners of beasts – including the two-legged variety.
My telling of this tale will be spread over a few posts, beginning with our preparations here in Melbourne City.
This is the faithful Hyundai car which took us across hundreds of kilometres. It actually drives better than it looks.
Having great photographs always help (courtesy of the highly talented Nay aka tranquil niche – a friend from Graduate House)
Why do we return time after time to a favourite blog, Youtube channel, web forum, or Flickr group? What makes it seemingly easy for an individual to attract hordes of Twitter followers while you have problems breaking past the 500 barrier?
The answer lies in what I call the degree of interestingness of these user generated content creators. In other words, the quality of their writing, photography, videography, music making capabilities and how these can help to sustain an audience.
Of course, being able to build relationships are also important, but you can’t just befriend your way to blog superstardom if your blog posts, facebook updates and tweet feeds are complete bores.
On the 3rd day of our Easter holiday, my family and I went to the Collingwood Children’s Farm at the recommendation of Tim Richards, to experience its pastoral pleasures just minutes away from the Melbourne CBD. Apparently, it has a farmer’s market every second Saturday which offered fresh farm grown produce (many organic) from participating farms in the greater Victoria region which surrounded the city of Melbourne. What this meant was that the farms could sell directly to end consumers (many of them were small family-owned establishments) without having to pay middle-men like retailers and distributors their share of the pie.
For a flat fee of just $2 for adults (free for kids), you can visit both the animal farm itself and the farmer’s market too. That’s pretty cheap considering that normal admission prices are about $16 for adults and $8 for kids. Certainly, a delightful way to spend a Saturday morning!
Last Sunday, I decided to make a trip down to the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) International at St Kilda Road, having heard so many wonderful things about it. What I experienced was truly inspiring, and I spent more than three hours wandering and exploring its fascinating and sprawling galleries occupying three storeys. The scale of this attraction rivalled that of the Melbourne Museum, another masterfully built museum.
Established back in 1861, NGV International is the oldest and most sizable public art gallery in Australia (and most probably the Southern Hemisphere). Located in the arts and leisure precinct in Southbank of Melbourne, it has a significant collection of about 63,000 artworks and artefacts. They include artworks from masters like Rembrandt, as well as ancient collections from Pre-Colombian America, Egypt, Rome and parts of Asia. The gallery has a sister museum – The Ian Potter Centre of NGV Australia at Federation Square – which focuses on Australian art. Due to time constraints, I wasn’t able to visit that but I’ll definitely make a date to patronise it soon.
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