Monthly Archives: September 2011

So What If?

★ Posted on at 10:32 pm ★

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Sometimes there’s no light left, so you are left with trying to make soft images with subtle details.

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Need to hit home the idea that I need to just try it, and if I have to fail to get the experience, so be it. I’ve had the time to nudge myself each day and I can see myself closer to getting things done.

The best example I have coming from this week is that I’ve been wanting to make pizza dough for probably the last 3 years. I’ve always put it off because I’ve never been comfortable with handling flour. I always think of the worst possible end results, such as the thing ending in disaster and becoming inedible.

After quitting work, I started breaking down these barriers. Sure I might fail, but what if I succeed? Heh, maybe I didn’t think that far, but I guess it’s ok to fail, then at least you can tell yourself you have tried it, instead of wondering what if? I’ve had many attempts at making pasta, so I felt comfortable enough to tackle pizza dough, which had the element of proofing yeast.

So I picked a date and decided to do it. It was quite successful, and discussing it with Vyanne I gained a little more insight on baking.

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Growing up, it was sort of ingrained in me to fear failure. Maybe it’s a Chinese thing, being practical and all, but I don’t want fear and being risk averse to grip the rest of my life. I know a little bit of stuff here and there, but have never dared to put myself out there to be judged and criticized because of being fearful that I may fail. Heh, it’s not even 100% guaranteed but even 1% is enough for me to shy away from things. That is why we end up being mediocre.

The pizza analogy is just saying that you gain success in tiny steps. Trying out making pasta gave me confidence to test out making pizza dough (it’s probably not as hard as it sounds, but we give ourselves mental blocks anytime we get the excuse to do so).

I’m taking tiny steps now towards setting up my business plan. I am still afraid I might fail, but at least now I’ve added the scenario that it might work out after all.

It’s All Coming Back to Me

★ Posted on at 05:11 pm ★

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A close up of the leaves sprouting on my maple tree in the backyard. The blue background is of the pot for the lemon tree and that gives some nice contrast against the red and green leaves.

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Been spending the last few days reading and coding stuff for a website. Heh, it’s sort of like riding a bicycle, you never quite forget how to do it. I’ve picked up some new practices along the way and have implemented them really quickly. Talk about standing on the shoulders of giants, it wouldn’t have been so easy to prototype a new site without all the frameworks that have been setup in the last few years for web design.

I just need to write a few lines of code and the magic happens, displaying consistently across all browsers. Maybe my mind has become a little more sophisticated, I don’t struggle that much with Javascript any more, and neither do I have to worry about CSS breaking that much. All those many hours spent long ago pulling my hair out trying to figure things out have helped to get me up to speed with the latest trends really quickly.

Just putting my efforts into learning new things and immediately putting them into practice. I’m enjoying the challenge at the moment.

Further Progress

★ Posted on at 08:49 am ★

leaves

Was trying to capture flare effects by shooting at the sun, but that only left me half blinded by the end of it. Heh, it’s one of the advantages of having a Canon I suppose, since Nikons are so technically well built, that they resist flare. It’s a joke we had at the photo workshop I was at earlier last month.

These are the leaves of the pussy willow outside my front door, and I like how the light from the setting sun just makes the leaves glow.

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Reading up on stuff I know I need improvement on. It’s supposed to be common sense at times, but you have to think things through before taking further action, otherwise you aren’t really adding the required value to what you should be doing.

I have identified some areas in my skill sets for photography and web design that needs to be brushed up on, so I’m taking the time to read up on those things now. Mentioned previously on how I prefer physical books over reading on the iPad. I have become accustomed to reading some material on the iPad, and I was in a perfectly placed spot earlier this morning trying to read a PDF on it. I was just sitting at the dining table, great morning sun shining through the windows, with my feet up on one of the other chairs, and iPad sort of on my lap but propped up against the table. A single swipe brings you to the next page, and while I’m still not too familiar with how to get back to the table of contents, I manage to get my way around and I’ve been using the bookmarking function to keep tabs for easy reference on some ideas I may have read earlier.

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In this modern day of multitasking, I’ve had to consciously tell myself not to flip between activities (since it’s so easy to switch from one application to another on computers) so that I get the most out of what I’m currently doing. Heh, hence also trying to get one blog post out in one sitting. It helps when you are focused, to just get things done. It’s been a while since I’ve forced myself to sit and drill the material I’m learning into my mind.

At least now I’m happy with the effort I’m putting in because I know exactly what I want to get out of it.