Crunch time

Things to be done for my Yoga Certification: I have one book report for Yoga Nidra, 1 last final exam question #31, 1 observation, a final presentation preparation to be done until the last weekend which starts on Friday night. It's exciting but very taxing. I hope the rest of the week will be quiet at work.

Meanwhile, everything in the house is still in order, and everyone is surviving.

Detachment

As much as I like to think that I believe in passion and compassion, one of the important qualities I need to practice is detachment. Without which, passion and compassion could become overwhelming.

In Yoga, we say that we practice daily, yet we are not attached to the result of our practices. In fact, detachment is probably the hardest thing to learn. One finds it hard to be detached with his job, his possessions, his love ones, his body and knowledge.

For me, I first need to be detached from my blog. If I found out how, I will let you know.

Mood

I just realized that when I'm extremely tired, nothing can lift my spirit, not even blogging.

I should just go to bed.

If you build it, he will come

Have you ever watched the movie Field of Dreams? I think amongst all movie genres, baseball movies tend to have strong moral and inspiring stories. Probably I get this impression from Field of Dreams.

If you have not watched it, please don't read on, as I strongly recommend it and I don't want to spoil it for you with what I'm going to say.

I don't remember much about the details, so the story I tell maybe skewed. Anyway, here's the gist of it.

This farmer had a farm and he was growing corn. For a few days he kept hearing a soft whispering voice: "If you build it, he will come." This part was pretty eery for me, but rest assured, this is not a ghost story. It is an uplifting, positive story about the great All-American sport, and a father/son's dream.

For a few days, the farmer got clues, and found that his true loved was baseball. So he spent a lot money, and perhaps borrowed money, to make part of the farm into a baseball field. Everyone around thought he was nuts, cause there was no baseball players around the town, and everybody around were too busy working. This guy not only destroyed his family farm, but also spent all his savings doing a deed that had no return. The farmer ignored all the criticism and laughter and kept on with his mission.

When the baseball field was built, sure enough, for a long long time, nobody showed any interest of using it, and the farmer waited and waited.

Finally one night, some baseball legends came out of the corn field and started playing games on the baseball field. The farmer's late father also walked out of the corn field and played catch with him.

These days I kept thinking about this movie, because "Salt Scrub" is like my "Field of Dreams".

I am correcting a few important details of the movie here today, 6/15.

Brussels Sprouts

If you don't have a chance to come by to Half Moon Bay, let me give you an idea what you could have seen here these days.

The farmers are growing brussels sprouts now. They sow the seeds in patches, then water one patch at a time.

So you can see in one patch, brussels sprouts seedlings are just peeking out of the soil. In the next patch, the seedlings are growing bigger and stronger. There are many different patches, and the plants they are different in size. 

I do enjoy watching the brussels sprouts grow day by day, week by week. Whenever I admire the healthy and green plants in the farm, I can't help but remember the seedlings that we tried to grow at home, which did not survive.

Sunflowers

Do you know that some flowers open when the sun rises and they close up when the sun sets? Yes, wild flowers like poppies, for example, are like that. I found this intriguing.
Last weekend when we drove by the flower farm, I was aimlessly looking at the few sunflowers growing in the field, and then I exclaimed:

"Hey, aren't all sunflowers suppose to be facing the sun? Why are they facing different directions then?"

Jack wasn't sure either and thought it was interesting.

The next few days when I drove by the farm again, I paid particular attention to the direction where the sunflowers were facing. Last time I checked on them, most of them were facing one direction, but a few odd ones were facing the opposite direction.

There maybe a scientific or botanical explanation to this, but I just think it is very cute.

What's in this facial cleanser?

Ying: "May I suggest for you to try the new facial cleanser we got? I really like this. It's cooling."

Jack took a look at the yellow tube, and said: "It looks like the one I found for you at Target." He liked the brand Burt's Bees.

Ying: "Yes, try it once and if you don't like it, don't use it again."

Jack: "OK."

While Jack was putting it on his wet face, he said: "It's a little tingling, not really cooling, just tingling." I checked on the ingredients to see what brings the tingling/cooling sensation. I couldn't understand much of the ingredients, there were phrases with aloe something and bees something. A smart consumer always read the labels and check the ingredients. Finally, I found a chemical name: sodium chloride.

"Hmm, sodium chloride is salt, right"? I asked.

"Yes." Jack said, with his eyes closed and massaging his face.

I asked, "hey, why don't they just say salt then?"

"Because it's not food," he said in a nonchalant way.

Always... no, no... never... forget to check your references.

This is a quote from one of our favorite movies, Real Genius.

Hey guys,

There have been questions on if it's OK for you to quote anything from this blog. I don't mind you quoting my blog posts as long as you are not for profit. When you do so, please make sure to give me credit and source back to this page. If you are a for a profit website, please contact me separately to discuss. You may creating a comment and leave your email address and I'll email you back.

Thanks for your inquiries.

Happy blogging!
Ying

So you want to start blogging?

It's easy to get started, and you don't have to code HTML.

Use any existing services like blogger.com or worldpress.com. There must be a lot of other services out there that allow you to use rich text editors and provide multiple widgets for you to be creative.

Somehow worldpress sounds more prestigious, but the first site I tried was blogger.com and I thought it was acceptable.

In terms of how to tweet your posts out. One of the services is called hootsuite.com. It allows you to distribute your posting to multiple social media websites/services.

OK, I'm advertising, but I don't get paid by them. I just want to help out my readers.

Enjoy!

Safeguard your work on the web

I have a feeling this question can't wait, so I'll give a short answer.

Make sure to save your blog post once a while, like monthly or weekly, depending on how active you are. Blogger has a way to export your blog to XML, or allow import from XML. It's under settings->others. If you can't find it, just get more help from google search.

In terms of other Internet activities, remember,

• Don't trust anyone you don't know. If someone unknown to you send you and email with a link, don't click on it; don't extract or run any attachments from people you don't know.  If your friend send you an ambiguous message and tell you to click on a link, don't click on it unless you are certain about the purpose. Hackers have become very good (mean) on the way they trick internet users, so it's important to be guarded. There were some recent incidents these months when people hack email accounts and send phishing emails to their contacts.
• Always log out from your personal accounts before you leave the computer, or better yet, shut down the internet browsers you had been using. This is especially important if you are using a public computer. 
• Change your passwords frequently.

That's all for now...

Motivation

Dear Anonymous,

I believe this week has made a small yet significant milestone for my blogging journey. For the first time since the launch of this "Salt Scrub" in December 2009, I am honored to have received numerous comments on one of my blog posts. It is significant because until now, I didn't know anyone but myself had been reading my blog. I would like to thank those who followed me; who provided your support, encouragement and feedback. Please don't be shy and keep them coming. It is the best gift an aspiring writer can ever receive.

I am 1 month away from the completion of my 200 Hour Sri Yoga Teacher certification with Jean Mazzei and Brenna Geehan, so I won't be able to write more posts until July. I have 4 book reports to write and a final presentation to make by the end of June. Also, I have been sequencing poses, and hoping to do student teaching. With all that an a demanding full time job, I think I will keep a low profile, and try be focused.

Don't worry, I will be back.

Have a wonderful evening, and sweet dreams!

Ying

Dear Diary

Sad Dog Diary

Click on the link above, it is so funny!

Yahoo! doesn't take me seriously

I'm one of the early adopters of Yahoo! mail, and I can't part with it since most of my personal emails are on Yahoo! So everyday I check emails on Yahoo! mail and count on the Yahoo! to bring me the daily news. Over many years of the company's ups and downs, I still remain a royal Yahoo! user.

Ever since Yahoo! new CEO took the helm, and as they were riding the recent business analytic wave, Yahoo! has been analyzing its users' browsing habits to customize users' home pages.

To my disappointment, I found that the only headline news displayed on my Yahoo! home page are with topics such as,
"Who wears it better?"
"Mrs. Obama's new banks."
"Justin Bieber's [...]"
"[So and so] is pregnant."

You get the idea.

Seriously, I need to go to other news source to find true news of the day.

I scratched the last sentence as it sounded too judgmental to my taste. Sorry there is a problem of writing late at night, one tends to become too caught up with the ego.

Man crush

Last night we watched the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie for the nth time, and I found that Jack has a man crush with Mr. Darcy! The character portrait by Matthew Macfadyen.

Yes, I married a romantic.

There is nothing wrong with man crush, really. Like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory's crush with Leonard Nimoy and Spoke.

Jack refused to admit about this and told me to look it up. So here is what I found: Urban Dictionary's definition. So now Jack is not complaining anymore.

The speech I didn't make in my cousin's wedding

Last Saturday was my cousin Stanley's wedding. I attended the banquet at night.

It was a good banquet. There were entertainment, games and good food. The best man and the bride's brother spoke. I was not asked to make a speech, but if I were, here is what I would have said to the newly wed and the guests.

Stanley and I went way back. We went to the same kindergarten, and when we were kids, we hang out all the time during summer vacations. He was like my other brother. As you already know, Stanley was a smart kid. In our kindergarten, he was one of the 4 top troublemakers (四大天王), in fact, he was number 3. He was a very active boy, which was totally normal.

When he got older, school was easy for him, and he liked to read. After school, sometimes he would come to our apartment for lunch, and spend a lot of time reading, cartoons, novels, fictions, etc. When he was reading, he would put all his attention in it, and nobody could pull him out of it.

After we migrated to the U.S., we went to the same high school and college. We studied the same major in school, and we even went to the same company for internship. I am so happy to have a cousin like Stanley, especially when he helped me park my car or check my tires. Stanley and I worked together in Austin for a while, and that's when he proudly showcase his cooking: tomato, potato and tofu soup - this is a traditional Cantonese home-made soup for the summer.

I first met Brenda in Ashley (Stanley's sister's) wedding a few years ago. I thought Brenda was a very nice and pretty girl, so I called Stanley and said: "Why don't you ask Brenda to marry you already?" After a few years, they are finally getting married, so I am very happy for them.

From here on, Stanley will have Brenda to watch over him, and he to her. I wish you the best my dear cousin! I hope we can still hang out after you are married.

Spring Flowers

Beautiful flowers for the Spring! Every Spring I am amazed with the power of nature that can produce so many different shades of green. This year, with my new garden, I start to appreciate the different colors of flowers. Jack said I'm easily impressed, and perhaps I am.

How to clear your mind to find blog topics?

Today I received 6 comments for one of my 2010 blog post. I appreciate the comments from readers, whoever you are out there, I wish you well. Thanks for your support, and I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the posts.

One of the questions to me was: how do you clear your mind and find topic(s) to write about? Here are some tips, which I graciously received from people or books in my path, which I will pass to you.

First, to help clear your mind, you should try to uncluttered your senses, they are: hearing, vision, speech, taste and touch. Like I mentioned in one of my previous posts, titled "Silence", I simply stop listening to the radio or music CDs during my commute hours, and it releases some space in my mind and help me to be closer to my own self. Meditation and Kriya practice help too.

Secondly, it helps that I have a beautiful drive to work, which passes a nice surfer beach and drives around winding mountain roads. The scenery is different everyday depending on the weather. If you don't have a nice drive, then hang out in the nature once a while, and you'll find wonders in the way.

Next, don't forget to write down your ideas whenever you have them. Type it in your smart phone which you have access to all the time. Something someone said or done that make you laugh, happy, or feeling special would be something people like to read about, that is, if that's the theme of your blog.

Last but not least, practice, practice, practice. Write down whatever you have in mind, and just post it. Every time I read my blog post, I find something to correct or revise, and it's OK. Before you publish the post, though, it's a good practice to read the post out loud to find any obvious writing mistakes.