21.12.12

is the day the ancient Mayans once predicted that earth will come to an end.

This is not the first time mankind got alarmed over such issue.

As a 90s baby, I had the chance to live through Y2K, which was also deemed as the apocalyptic year, and now this.

It is interesting how mankind always live in fear, wondering when will the world come to the end. As we strive through this rat race of life each day, to own bounties materially and emotionally, in the end, we will still leave the world empty handed when we return to the Lord, that is where we will have our eternal life not to mention all the blessings and happiness that come along at the same time. As for now, we still need to live each day to the fullest, as we do not know and will not know when will the world come to an end.

In the bible it was written, 

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father"

Mark 13:32

I should say that besides wandering what will ACTUALLY happen today, it had been a really good day for me. I had some decent alone time, which is a good breather for this whole hectic week, all in all, my weekend started well and who knows maybe it will get even better.

19.20s

2012 is coming to an end, most of us will be analyzing the resolutions we made for year 2012, and coming up with new ones for 2013.

Came across this in tumblr and found it rather applicable to me, personally, in many ways.

Hope that this would impact you in some way or another.

19 Things To Stop Doing In Your 20s

1. Stop placing all the blame on other people for how they interact with you. 

To an extent, people treat you the way you want to be treated. A lot of social behavior is cause and effect. Take responsibility for (accept) the fact that you are the only constant variable in your equation.

2. Stop being lazy by being constantly “busy.” 

It’s easy to be busy. It justifies never having enough time to clean, cook for yourself, go out with friends, meet new people. Realize that every time you give in to your ‘busyness,’ it’s you who’s making the decision, not the demands of your job.

3. Stop seeking out distractions. 

You will always be able to find them.

4. Stop trying to get away with work that’s “good enough.” 

People notice when “good enough” is how you approach your job. Usually these people will be the same who have the power to promote you, offer you a health insurance plan, and give you more money. They will take your approach into consideration when thinking about you for a raise.

5. Stop allowing yourself to be so comfortable all the time. 

Coming up with a list of reasons to procrastinate risky, innovative decisions offers more short-term gratification than not procrastinating. But when you stop procrastinating to make a drastic change, your list of reasons to procrastinate becomes a list of ideas about how to better navigate the risk you’re taking.

6. Stop identifying yourself as a cliche and start treating yourself as an individual. 

Constantly checking your life against a prewritten narrative or story of how things “should” be is a bought-into way of life. It’s sort of like renting your identity. It isn’t you. You are more nuanced than the narrative you try to fit yourself into, more complex than the story that “should” be happening.

7. Stop expecting people to be better than they were in high school — learn how to deal with it instead. 

Just because you’re out of high school doesn’t mean you’re out of high school. There will always be people in your life who want what you have, are threatened by who you are, and will ridicule you for doing something that threatens how they see their position in the world.

8. Stop being stingy. 

If you really care about something, spend your money on it. There is often a notion that you are saving for something. Either clarify what that thing is or start spending your money on things that are important to you. Spend money on road trips. Spend money on healthy food. Spend money on opportunities. Spend money on things you’ll keep.

9. Stop treating errands as burdens. 

Instead, use them as time to focus on doing one thing, and doing it right. Errands and chores are essentially rote tasks that allow you time to think. They function to get you away from your phone, the internet, and other distractions. Focus and attention span are difficult things to maintain when you’re focused and attentive on X amount of things at any given moment.

10. Stop blaming yourself for being human. 

You’re fine. Having a little anxiety is fine. Being scared is fine. Your secrets are fine. You’re well-meaning. You’re intelligent. You’re blowing it out of proportion. You’re fine.

11. Stop ignoring the fact that other people have unique perspectives and positions. 

Start approaching people more thoughtfully. People will appreciate you for deliberately trying to conceive their own perspective and position in the world. It not only creates a basis for empathy and respect, it also primes people to be more open and generous with you.

12. Stop seeking approval so hard. 

Approach people with the belief that you’re a good person. It’s normal to want the people around you to like you. But it becomes a self-imposed burden when almost all your behavior toward certain people is designed to constantly reassure you of their approval.

13. Stop considering the same things you’ve always done as the only options there are. 

It’s unlikely that one of the things you’ll regret when you’re older is not having consumed enough beer in your 20s, or not having bought enough $5 lattes, or not having gone out to brunch enough times, or not having spent enough time on the internet. Fear of missing out is a real, toxic thing. You’ve figured out drinking and going out. You’ve experimented enough. You’ve gotten your fill of internet memes. Figure something else out.

14. Stop rejecting the potential to feel pain. 

Suffering is a universal constant for sentient beings. It is not unnatural to suffer. Being in a constant state of suffering is bad. But it is often hard to appreciate happiness when there’s nothing to compare it to. Rejecting the potential to suffer is unsustainable and unrealistic.

15. Stop approaching adverse situations with anger and frustration. 

You will always deal with people who want things that seem counter to your interests. There will always be people who threaten to prevent you from getting what you want by trying to get what they want. This is naturally frustrating. Realize that the person you’re dealing with is in the same position as you — by seeking out your own interests, you threaten to thwart theirs. It isn’t personal — you’re both just focused on getting different things that happen to seem mutually exclusive. Approach situations like these with reason. Be calm. Don’t start off mad, it’ll only make things more tense.

16. Stop meeting anger with anger. 

People will make you mad. Your reaction to this might be to try and make them mad. This is something of a first-order reaction. That is, it isn’t very thoughtful — it may be the first thing you’re inclined to do. Try to suppress this reaction. Be thoughtful. Imagine your response said aloud before you say it. If you don’t have to respond immediately, don’t.

17. Stop agreeing to do things that you know you’ll never actually do. 

It doesn’t help anyone. To a certain extent, it’s a social norm to be granted a ‘free pass’ when you don’t do something for someone that you said you were going to do. People notice when you don’t follow through, though, especially if it’s above 50% of the time.

18. Stop ‘buying’ things you know you’ll throw away. 

Invest in friendships that aren’t parasitic. Spend your time on things that aren’t distractions. Put your stock in fleeting opportunity. Focus on the important.

19. Stop being afraid.

As we converse daily,

more often than not, we always take the context of our daily conversation for granted. 

Research shows that words have emotional, physical and spiritual impact. The words we speak can lift an individual up or send him into a downward spiral. They can cause physical changes in one's body and change the spiritual atmosphere.

Words have the power to build bridges. They have the capacity to close the gap between one and other. They can also demolish bridges and make it impossible to heal a rift.

God spoke words in the spiritual realm to make things happen in the physical world. When God wants something to happen in the natural realm - He speaks. God spoke our physical world into existence.

Words, the basis of communication, are more powerful than we realize. They have the power to wound or to heal; discourage or encourage; tear down or build up an individual, just by words. 

Once again, today I am reminded that words could be hurtful. The logic behind this is because mankind feel words with their hearts, they will be hurt when they received words their heart would forbade them from saying to certain people.


As our days pass by, how many of us actually think about the words we said and the power they carry? 


“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.” 

― Benjamin Franklin

1st of December 2012 marks a historical day

because after 134 years Thomas Edisson first invented the light bulb, for the FIRST time in my life, I learned how to change a fluorescent lamp(and also the starter). This sounds rather bimbotic ridiculous of me to say this but but but IT IS INDEED HARDWORK WITH A LOT OF SWEAT AND TEARS SHED AT THE SAME TIME BESIDES SUMMONING ALL THE STRENGTH WITHIN ME I DID ALSO GATHER MY WARRIOR SPIRIT this is indeed another stepping stone into adulthood. 

Seeing how one need to consider all these external factors of besides a substantial amount of physics knowledge, height, strength, weight in tasks as such, no doubt all these repair work always fall to men's responsibility. Hence, we have foreMAN, not foreWOMAN; repairMAN, not repairWOMAN; stupidMAN, not stupidWOMAN; pacMAN, not pacWOMAN oh wth, so yup there is my point. 

Ahhhhhh the sense of fulfillment and joy when the lamp lit up, THOMAS EDDISON I FEEL YOU GAAAAH December began well for me

Dare you to move

Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here
Everyone's here
Everybody's watching you now
Everybody waits for you now
What happens next
What happens next

[Chorus]
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before

Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
Tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

[Chorus]

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened before

A friend of mine introduced this song to me not long ago, it came into my mind quite frequent these days. It is an old song from Switchfoot, the band which also sang few songs in the movie, A Walk to Remember.

I like how it is mentioned in this song "everybody is watching you now", "everybody waits for you now" because this is really how life turns out to be. People are subjected to judgement by the norm based on every single opinion, action, perception, idea, thought of theirs. Under such circumstances, the old saying of "think before you act" is no longer ought to, but rather NEED to be applied strongly on every single waking hours of ours. 

clinging on to memories,

just because we are humans and we are emotionally wired that way.

Biologically, the red highlighted area is where our memory is being stored.

The hippocampus is a horse-shoe shaped area of the brain that plays an important role in consolidating information from short-term memory into long-term memory. It is part of the limbic system, a system associated with emotions and long-term memories. The hippocampus is involved in such complex processes as forming, organizing, and storing memories.

From time to time, if not most of our waking minute, we constantly find ourselves swimming through waves of memories. Good or bad, they can be easily triggered by familiar person, objects, scent, surroundings or sounds. 

A huge portion of our memories carry the objective of  increasing mankind's productiveness and efficacy. In other words, we remember(generate memory) for the sake of achieving a goal. It could be as simple as remembering shopping lists to memorizing solid facts. 

The irony of mankind, despite having such highly functional brain is that the brain tend to generate its own "fictitious" memories, in other words, there is a possibility that our brain "remembered" something that did not happen. This is mainly the reason why human memories are considered unreliable.

 

Memories, be it good or bad will always be an undefinable paradox. Sometimes they will come in handy. Yet most of the time we find ourselves in a constant battle with an unforeseen victory ahead, the battle between remembering and forgetting. Hence, we hold on to our memories even tighter, but without us realizing, losing them too.

bible verses

are the words of God for us, to guide us through our daily life, hard times and also good times.

As a born Christian, I have been thought since my Sunday school years to memorize important scriptures such as

John 3 : 16 "For God so loved the world, He gave His one and only son, and whoever who believes in Him shall have eternal life"

Of course there are many more that came along the way and most of the time important bible verses as such will come upon familiar during sermons. I have always been trying to learn God's word by heart but this is certainly not an easy feat, considering the fact that there are 27 books in the New Testament; 39 books in the Old Testament. There are a total number of 22,485 verses in the Old Testament; while there are 7,957 verses in the New Testament. 

Some people will say, where there is a will, there is a way. This is certainly true.

Few months back I found a few bible verses that belongs to me. I do not think that this happened by coincidence, but just so happen these couple of meaningful verses coincide with my date of birth(1304). Hence, these are indeed my bible verses.

Philippians 4 : 13 "I can do all things in Christ who gives me strength"

1 Corinthians 13 : 4 " Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

These verses will come by useful during difficult and good times. When I need God to empower me or when I can give my praises to God for all the good things He had done.

I am sure that everyone has their own scriptures that are meant for them. So, what is yours?

Medical Breakthrough

There are tonnes of medical researches being carried out everyday, diverging from cancer cells, brain's immune cell, neural tube defects yada yada dida and the list goes on.

One of the great discoveries of mankind is how stem cells play an important role in human health.

I happen to came across this article today, on the Star newspaper. After reading this article, I  could never been more inspired and moved by Dr Ranjit and Dr Saw's success in using stem cells to regenerate our human body cartilage. 

Before I lost you guys, do allow me to explain. What is a cartilage?

In layman terms, cartilage is that white tough coating you will come across with every time you chow down a chicken drumstick. It is right at the end of the bones that will produce all the munching CRICK CRACK CRICK CRACK noise whenever you chew on it.

But medically,

It is a tough, elastic, fibrous connective tissue found in various parts of the body, such as the joints, outer ear, and larynx. There are three different types: hyaline cartilage, elastic cartilage, and fibrocartilage. This tissue serves to provide structure and support to the body's other tissues without being as hard or rigid as bone. It can also provide a cushioning effect in joints.
Another question you guys might ask, Why is it such a significant event to heal cartilage in the human body?

Well basically, it is because this type of permanent tissue is avascular, meaning that it is not supplied by blood vessels; instead,nutrients diffuse through the matrix. When tissues are not supplied by blood vessels, it is less likely for it to heal by itself since all the "HEALING FACTORS" could not be transported to the site of injury.

Quoting from the article,

“Cartilage basically does not heal,” Dr Hubert Kim, director of the Cartilage Repair and Regeneration Center at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center, is quoted as saying in an interview on the centre’s website.

Hence, severe cartilage injury per se, particularly in athletes could mark the end of their career. This situation was applied on Datuk Lee Chong Wei when he injured his right ankle. His outstanding performance during the Olympics came to everyone's surprise despite being wrote off his chances in doing well during the competition. The main reason behind all the glory was due to his stem cell injection treatment, that allowed him to heal quickly and perfectly.

Upon reading article as such, it reminds me one of the reasons why did I step foot into the Medical field. How there is so much more to be done yet with so little time left for mankind.

Dr Ranjit and Dr Saw left me in aw alongside a question in mind.

Since such healing power is made possible in cartilage albeit being a permanent muscle, is it possible for cardiac muscles(heart muscles) to share the same fate? Thus, this will greatly improve the prognosis for patients that had heart attacks, underwent heart transplantation? In other words, would this discovery make it possible to greatly reduce the morbidity and mortality of cardiovascular diseases?

Online newspaper article for this medical breakthrough could be found here

Miracles with Stem Cell

The definitions of "Test"

are

(1) : a procedure, reaction, or reagent used to identify or characterize a substance or constituent 

(2) : something (as a series of questions or exercises) for measuring the skill, knowledge, intelligence, capacities, or aptitudes of an individual or group

I think definition (2) can be well applicable to me after everything this whole week.

It had been a tough week, with workload few times heavier than the usual heavy workload, alongside with being unwell physically through out the week, God did put me through a rather difficult test this week.

Why does God put us through tests or trials? Why does He put us in situation that we might question Him, our faith in Him and our journey ahead with Him?

In my opinion, God allows us to enter into faith combat so we can see His deliverance and victory over our adversary. As we are faithful where we are (the test), God will give us a larger sphere of responsibility. 

Another reason behind God's test for us is for us to learn how to submit to Him and at the same time resist the devil's temptation during the course of trials and tribulations. 

But why do we have to deal with temptation? Isn't it tough enough getting through God's test alone?

Resisting Satan's temptation allows us to strengthens our faith, our spiritual muscles. If we didn't have to stand against temptation, we'd never know our own spiritual strength. Facing temptations will either bring out the best or worst in us. Sometimes God allows us to be tested because He's preparing us for promotion or all the big plans He has in mind for us.

We should always stand in faith, and resist the devil and his works. God's Word always work, maybe not instantly but we know that God's test is always an open book test since we have the bible. From when we take our stand on God's Word to when the answer manifests, constitutes the test.

Besides, God is always our loving father who has a big heart for all His children. He will never put us through great trials that could possibly cause us to stumble and fail forever. 

In 1 Corinthians 10:13, it mentioned that

"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."

Come what may, we have God as our mighty sword and shield, victory will definitely prevail.

I AM REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS WEEKEND WITH A LOT OF REST OH MAI GOSH THANK YOU GOD 

=)

Earth is populated

with people with all sorts of personalities.

You will undoubtedly encounter many different types of personalities, each with their own unique blend of nuances. But there are four basic types of personalities from which they are based, which is commonly referred to as A, B, C, and D. Although volumes have been written on such personality traits, here is a synopsis:


Type "A" Personality - Is a highly independent and driven personality, typically representing the leaders in business. They are blunt, competitive, no-nonsense types who like to get to the point. They are also strong entrepreneurial spirits (risk takers). As such, they embrace change and are always looking for practical solutions for solving problems.


Type "B" Personality - Represents highly extroverted people who love the spotlight. Because of this, they are very entertaining and possess strong charisma (everyone likes to be around them). Small wonder these people are sales and marketing types. They thrive on entertaining people and are easily hurt if they cannot sway someone (such as "bombing" on stage).

Type "C" Personality - The antithesis of Type "B"; they are introverted detailists as represented by such people as accountants, programmers, and engineers. They may have trouble communicating to other people, but are a whirlwind when it comes to crunching numbers or writing program code. They tend to be very cautious and reserved, and will not venture into something until after all the facts have been checked out.

Type "D" Personality - Is best characterized as those people who resist any form of change and prefer the tedium of routine, such as in clerical assignments. They are not adventurous, resist responsibility and prefer to be told what to do.

It is not uncommon to find people with a blend of personalities, particularly A-B and C-D. But these basic personality types explain why some people work well together and others do not. For example Type-A clashes with Type-D simply because one is more adventurous than the other, and Type-B clashes with Type-C as one exhibits an extroverted personality and the other is introverted. Conversely Type-A works well with Type-B, and Type-C works well with Type-D.

Upon reading this, some people will think that they are a blend of personalities. Well as for me, I am very much of Type A Personality. I like being organized, my schedule planned ahead and being on the right track. I do not like it when something surface out of the blue and interfere with my plans. Logic and practicality will definitely be the basis of many matters for me. Many a times, when it comes to serious work, people want to kill me and dump my dead body deep down the sea because I always suffocate them well, people will always give me the honour of being the one high and above because I am good in killing people when they don't get their work done somehow with a lot of effort and definitely alongside God's guidance, I drive people to positive outcomes.

It is certainly not easy to get along with a Type A, maybe that is why I am surrounded with plenty of Type Bs. These are the people whom will always remind me that everything will turn out fine and there will always be many ways in solving an issue while I am uptight and rigid. They are always the people whom allows me to spell "R E L A X, C A L M D O W N, H A V E F U N" whenever the huge tsunami waves of "S T R E S S" comes flooding me.

Having people walking in and out of your life is definitely part and parcel of well, life. Though we can be assured that since God is awesome in many ways, besides having a plan in life for each and every one of us, He knows who are the right people we should be with or keep for the rest of our lives and who are the people that we should murder keep a safe distance from.

So, what type of person you are after all?

Back

after taking a long break from blogger. 

I really hope that Rachel Ramble Babble will not be another impulsive action of mine.

I feel like I have so much to say, so much to vent, so much to express but this is my first post, I shall allow simplicity to take its course.

There will definitely be more rambling coming along.