Para-Para Paradise

Paradise.
Funny that I still remember how I learnt this word.
I was six, eager to learn, excited to explore the world.
I had a kindergarden friend (her name rhymes with Petronas but I can't recall exactly), she told me how she had spent the weekend in Paradise Sandy Resort with her family. She told me how fun and beautiful Paradise Resort was.

I didn't care about sandy or resort, I just remembered Paradise, so I went home to ask my mother..
'Ma, where is Paradise?'

Her reply didn't satisfy me. She said she does not know where exactly paradise was, that it might be a place that does not exist here. Still unsatisfied, I went to my grandfather, demanding to know where Paradise was. Being a staunch Christian, he told me that its a place he will find Jesus and God waiting for him. Its where people loved by God would be, after they die.

I never understood why my grandfather loved to tell me about death and dying. He always reminded me, how we should not be afraid of dying, because there's a better place called paradise after death. I never gave much thought as a six year old back then. When he passed away, I went into his bedroom to look at his still body. I did not know how to handle a death in a family, but I guess my grandfather prepared me well. I knew my grandfather was happy in paradise and I should be happy for him. That's how I learnt one of the meanings of paradise. I finally found out where Paradise Sandy Resort was when I grew up :D

Where's paradise?
Is it above the fluffy blue clouds?
Or is it under the shades of the lush green trees?
Does it also appear when i'm in doubt?
Or only when I set my mind wild and free?

Where's paradise?
It might be just like what my grandpa used to tell me,
A place where he will be happy for eternity.
Will I lose sight of paradise?
If along the path I strayed aimlessly?


Where's paradise?

Akasaa Nominated for Great Women of Our Time Award

Reproduced from the Malaysian women's weekly blog.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2011

CATEGORY: Finance & Commerce

To vote via SMS for Akasaa: 

Send to 32733. Type MWW<space>GWOT<space>NAME<space>NRIC<space>08<space>EMAIL

Angela Yap, 30, Founder & Director, Akasaa 

When her former employer encountered financial difficulties and stopped paying her salary for eight months, she saw how even the most heavily regulated system was not foolproof against unethical practises.

“I saw how human greed could ruin lives, but felt that business still held that great potential to change lives.”

Combining her experience and knowledge as a corporate strategist, she set up Akasaa, a publications, communications and consulting specialist that does business with a difference – it helps companies execute business strategies with a conscience.

“I wanted Akasaa to become the change I wish to see in global business - by managing finances well, putting people before profits and to create strategies that will always be a force for good,” she explains.

Her social consciousness had an early start. Upon graduation, Angela worked with the United Nations Development Programme-TUGI, a regional programme dedicated to pursuing urban governance issues in South & Southeast Asia. At age 22, she became the youngest elected Board of Governor to Amnesty International in Malaysia.

In a short duration of three years, Akasaa has witnessed encouraging results, chalking up big names like Sunway, Astro and Public Mutual as clients. She has also contributed her knowledge to a diverse range of social, historical and economic issues by co-authoring or editing the critically acclaimed books like Answering is an Art, which has been praised by the Western Australian education council as an innovative approach to teaching business issues; Cities, Citizens & Civilizations: FAQ on Good Urban Governance for the United Nations Development Programmes (2004); Be Aware of Yourself C.C.C. (2009).

But like the breed of social entrepreneurs who go against the tide of "business as usual", Angela also likes to highlight lessons we can learn from the ordinary. Expressing her admiration for a popular burger seller, she writes in an editorial, “More than just a great meal, I'd just gained insight into a small business that chose to put people ahead of profits, a focus that many forgo.”

While social entrepreneurship is still a relatively new business model in Malaysia, pay-it-forward moments like this keep Angela motivated:

“After a motivational workshop I ran a session for refugees to help them overcome depression, a participant said the technique had worked so well for her that she taught other women. I'll never forget how that moment because it didn't hit me until then the immensity of what our work meant to others.”

“Every letter, card and thank you note sits on my shelf to remind me that Akasaa doesn't need to be a giant like Coca-Cola. We just need to do great work, with great sincerity and keep the courage to think different.”

“Everyone can choose to stand up and make a difference - to radically change humanity by using our knowledge the right way.”

Death & Depression: Stand up and speak!

As depression and suicide rates increase around the world, it's time we all reflect on life and ask: Is my life meaningful? Do I want this? and if it's not, what do I really want?

This New York Times piece talks about suicide in North Korea, but it's really reflective of all that's happening around the world as we all become more affluent, and life gets more meaningless for many.

By the way, national suicide rates in Malaysia and for many Asian countries are hush-hush and kept under lock and key. Research methodologies are private and very few article address this deeply disturbing trend among us.

Suicide is one... but what about the number people who are depressed and don't have an outlet to talk to? What about other suicidal tendencies... self-mutilation, alcoholism, drug abuse.

When will we all grow up enough to be able to talk about this? Or are we waiting for it to happen to someone we know before we look life in the face and have the courage to address the ugly and work to turn things around.

Let's stop sweeping things under the carpet and start addressing things to make a change.

Read this NYT article: Stressed & Depressed, Koreans Avoid Therapy

You've got 15 SECONDS to make them HAPPY!!

For Sandy Greenawalt, this is her purpose every day as she wakes and goes for work as a toll collector.

I've heard about this HAPPY woman as i was watching another episode of Oprah Winfrey's farewell season show. She was interviewing "Happy People" with Goldie Hawn co-hosting. As an avid Oprah Winfrey show fan, she played a huge part in forming the person that I am today as I watch her interview countless inspirational individuals. (between you and me, and anyone who will read this, i cried like a newborn baby when her talk show ended.)

Today, I was inspired by a woman who collects tolls.

Here is an excerpt taken from Pennlive :

Winfrey marveled at Greenawalt’s ability to enjoy a job many might find dull and thankless.

“She said the worst job must be in a toll booth. She asked if I like coming to work,” the 56-year-old Greenawalt said.

Over a live Internet telephone/video connection — Skype — she told Oprah she loves it. Brief chats with drivers are sprinkled with endearments. Everyone is sweetie, or hon or darlin’. She makes change while singing to Beach Boys and other '50s and '60s tunes on the radio. She wears costumes on holidays. Regular commuters share good news and pictures of their children.

On a recent frigid day, Greenawalt revealed her celebrated charm. “You be careful out there now, OK?” she said to a driver.

She asked others about road conditions, their work day and health. “Out there in the lanes is where the fun is,” Greenawalt said. “I love people. I really do. You have 15 seconds to make them smile and 99 percent of them will smile.”

Some cherish her simple courtesies. A woman whose car hit a deer along the highway parked at the interchange, stepped out and wrung her hands in distress. Greenawalt consoled her. The next day, a lush poinsettia plant came with a note of gratitude."

Upon hearing about her, I can't help but smile. Her happiness is contagious and it made me realized that the power of happiness lies in our own hands. Happiness is LEARNED, therefore we can CHOOSE happiness. Greenawalt was taught Happiness by her mother, and she chose to live Happy.

If a toll collector all the way from Pennsylvania can make me smile in 15 seconds, then I know i can do the same for those around me. If everyone feels the same way, then the world would be a happier and better place wouldn't it?

We've Lost A Legend

 Woke up to the saddest news today - the world has lost a legend.

Steve Jobs is dead.

He defined the defiant spirit of a rebellious generation and typified the best of what it meant to be an intellectual rebel. Just spoke about him yesterday and he leaves an emptiness in the world of being a truthful individual, caring about consumers getting a good deal and making life beautifully seamless in technology.

Deeply influenced by indian spiritualism in his early days, he was a practitioner of the path who never said what was popular or politically correct, was deeply driven by a need to be honest in all aspects of work and changing the world. He's done more than any other thinker in the way we perceive and relate to technology.

http://www.tech24hours.com/2011/08/kainchi-ashram-in-nainital-uttarakhand.html

Some time for mourning for a great soul.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/business/steve-jobs-of-apple-dies-at-56.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

Who Are We?

In an ever-expanding Universe... who are we?

How we live in our comfort zone thinking and believing that we are important, that we make a difference, that our lives have a meaning. Yet when stacked up against an ever-expanding infinity - we're not even a speck in time and space.

This can only be seen in two ways:

#1 Nothing matters, so why bother?

#2 Nothing matters, so what do we have to lose?

I've always been in the let's-go-for-broke camp :)


Am reposting the article that triggered off this rambling... from the New York Times who took this off the wires:

Studies of Universe's Expansion Win Physics Nobel

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: October 4, 2011 at 8:51 AM ET

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STOCKHOLM (AP) — Three U.S.-born scientists won the Nobel Prizein physics on Tuesday for overturning a fundamental assumption in their field by showing that the expansion of the universe is constantly accelerating.

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Their discovery created a new portrait of the eventual fate of the universe: a place of super-low temperatures and black skies unbroken by the light of galaxies moving away from each other at incredible speed.

Physicists had assumed for decades that the expansion of the universe was getting ever-slower, meaning that in billions of years it would resemble today's universe in many important ways.

Then, working in separate research teams during the 1990s, Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess found that the light from more than 50 distant exploding stars was far weaker than they expected, meaning that galaxies had to be racing away from each other at increasing speed.

The acceleration is driven by what scientists call dark energy, a cosmic force that is one of the great mysteries of the universe.

The Nobel-winning discovery implies instead that the universe will get increasingly colder as matter spreads across ever-vaster distances in space, said Lars Bergstrom, secretary of the Nobel physics committee.

He said galaxies that are 3 million light years away from Earth move at a speed of around 44 miles per second (70 kilometers per second). Galaxies that are 6 million light years away move twice as fast.

The research implies that billions of years from now, the universe will become "a very, very large, but very cold and lonely place," said Charles Blue, spokesman for the American Institute of Physics.

In contrast to the big bang, that fate has been called the "big rip" to indicate how galaxies would be torn apart, he said.

Galaxies will be flying away so quickly that their light could not travel across the universe to distant observers as it does today, making the sky appear black, he said.

"For almost a century the universe has been known to be expanding as a consequence of the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago," the citation said. "However the discovery that this expansion is accelerating is astounding. If the expansion will continue to speed up the universe will end in ice."

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Perlmutter would receive half of the 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award, with Riess and Schmidt, a U.S.-born Australian, splitting the other half.

Perlmutter, 52, heads the Supernova Cosmology Project at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California, Berkeley.

Schmidt, 44, is the head of the High-z Supernova Search Team at the Australian National University in Weston Creek, Australia.

Riess, 41, is an astronomy professor at Johns Hopkins University and Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.

Schmidt said he was just sitting down to have dinner with his family in Canberra, Australia, when the phone call came from the academy.

"I was somewhat suspicious when the Swedish voice came on," Schmidt told The Associated Press. "My knees sort of went weak and I had to walk around and sort my senses out."

Riess said his "jaw dropped" when he received an early-morning call at his home in Baltimore from a bunch of Swedish men and realized "it wasn't Ikea," the Swedish furniture retailer. "I'm dazed," he told AP.

The discovery was "the biggest shakeup in physics, in my opinion, in the last 30 years," said Phillip Schewe, a physicist and spokesman at the Joint Quantum Institute, which is operated by the University of Maryland and the federal government.

"I remember everyone thinking at the time (that) there was some mistake," Schewe said. But there was no mistake, and in fact the basic finding was confirmed later by other measurements. For example, other scientists found evidence for it when they analyzed the microwave radiation left over from the big bang that still bathes the universe, he said.

Perlmutter told AP his team made the discovery in steps, analyzing the data and assuming it was wrong.

"And after months, you finally believe it," he said. "It's not quite a surprise anymore. I tell people it's the longest "aha!" experience that you've ever had."

Fred Dylla, executive director of the American Institute of Physics, said the prize confirmed an idea from Albert Einstein, called the cosmological constant, that Einstein inserted in his general theory of relativity, a cornerstone of modern physics.

Einstein later repudiated that idea as his "biggest blunder," but it did lead to a lot of theoretical and experimental studies, Dylla said.

The physics prize was the second Nobel to be announced this year. On Monday the medicine prize went to American Bruce Beutler and French scientist Jules Hoffmann who shared it with Canadian-born Ralph Steinman for their discoveries about the immune system. Steinman died three days before the announcement but since his death was not known to the committee, they decided he should keep the Nobel. Since 1974, Nobels have been awarded only to living scientists.

The Nobel Prizes were established in the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, and have been handed out since 1901.

Last year's physics award went to Russian-born scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for groundbreaking experiments with graphene, the strongest and thinnest material known to mankind.

The prizes are handed out every year on Dec. 10, on the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.

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Malin Rising in Stockholm, Malcolm Ritter in New York, Kristen Gelineau in Sydney, Jessica Gresko in Washington and Greg Moore in Phoenix, Arizona, contributed.