Choices and Direction

At the end of the day, it's what matters most to you that gives you direction.
Life is about choices, and i believe that will guide me.

I don't know yet what lies ahead, but I know this is one of the best decisions I've ever taken.

May His presence be with us...

The Waiving Man

This photo of Bush & Obama walking in the White House is taken by AFP & found from quite an interesting article on Bush's most memorable pictures during his presidency tenure. Please pause a moment before continuing reading, and look at the picture again. What do you think is going on in the picture?

Excerpt from the article:
ERROL MORRIS (Interviewer): Yes. Why do you like the picture so much?
VINCENT AMALVY (Photo Editor of AFP): We don’t understand what is going on. Why does the shadow appear? I suppose it’s a shadow of somebody else beyond the corner. But the picture is only of two guys walking. It’s a profile of George Bush and Barack Obama. And he’s near the Rose Garden of the White House. And so in the back is a shadow of somebody who says, “Bye-bye.” And it is looking like a joke, but it is amazing.

My initial thought of the picture was that there must be some bodyguard behind them, trying to stop someone (presumably the surrounding press agents) to approach nearer... But as one of the article's readers' comment pointed out, it's actually Obama's shadow (you can see a little bit of his finger under Bush's cheek, that becomes part of his shadow). What intrigues me is that even the editor himself can miss the factual circumstance of a photograph. It just reminds me how perception of readers can be so much altered by a selection of photos put on a newspapers or even video shootage on the news.

Wise words from Seth Godin

From the blog of a business guru:

What are you good at?
As you consider marketing yourself for your next gig, consider the difference between process and content.
- Content is domain knowledge. People you know or skills you've developed. Playing the piano or writing copy about furniture sales. A rolodex of movers in a given industry, or your ability to compute stress ratios in your head.Domain knowledge is important, but it's (often) easily learnable.
- Process, on the other hand, refers to the emotional intelligence skills you have about managing projects, visualizing success, persuading other people of your point of view, dealing with multiple priorities, etc. This stuff is insanely valuable and hard to learn.

While I don't really agree that Content is the easy one & Process is the hard part. (I think it can be well the opposite actually). I like the way he separates the attributes necessary to market yourself into the 2 sides. We always strive to achieve both.

Clearance Sale!

I don't usually get goodies at Sale, that's why I don't usually go rushing for them, unless I really know I will find what I need. But yesterday, I decided to push for my little luck once more & went to Plaza Indo for a book sale. So as to prepare for a possible disappointment, I went there to also watch a movie (Bride Wars!), and I even had a back-up movie (Bank Jobs) in line.
However, when I stepped into Ak.'Sa.Ra and digged futher in the fiction section.... waw... books at idr 50,000 & 100,000... and then I still thought 'ah they must be selling only the ageing displayed books that noone wants to buy...'. But what do u know... I actually saw a few familiar writer names and they were in that 50,000 rack... This must be a lucky sale for me...

I got myself:
- Haruki Murakami "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" - Collection of Short Stories. I've read his book on Norwegian Wood before & he does have a certain style: if it was a fabric, it would be soft delicate linen, if it was an activity, it would be strolling in the park. airy & breezy.
- Irene Nemirovski "David Golder". I've enjoyed her Suite Francaise a lot.
- Aravind Adiga "White Tiger" - This one not on discount, but I wanted to buy one of the newer best selling books around. The story set was in India, perfect! I'm currently loving books with a particular country & culture setting. It makes me feel like travelling when reading it.
- Muriel Barbery "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". I've never heard of her/the book before, but the cover review was interesting & I couldn't resist the material of the cover, it was smooth like a photo-poster print, but a little bit thicker.

I was thinking to buy Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go' as well, but I was not sure if my eyes would last reading the 8-sized fonts novel. Sigh... it was also selling at $5.