One thing I love to do after coming home from work is browsing through traveling images.
After one whole exhausting day at work, all I want is simply returning to my source of rejuvenation and be inspired. Many of the pictures I find online are so surreal, they motivate me to work harder to make the surreal to real.Especially when my job is highly repetitive and partially disconnected from the outside world, seeing images of these breathtaking scenery widen up my sight and allow me to join in the virtual world temporarily. Hmmmm, I want to step foot on these places and breathe in the awesomeness myself.
The world is just so big and full of wonders, it never fails to amaze me.
I had my last lecture of the term on Wednesday, carrying a mixed feeling to class for all the things that had happened in 4 years, as that would be my last time sitting in a lecture hall if I did not pursue Master's degree in future. I spent a month revisiting building by building and taking my leisure time in different buildings for the past month, just to get the last few moments of a student's life again. I reassured myself that university life did make me feel good after all despite the stress and heavy workload, and it was indeed a place where I learned to be a better person, both personality and academic wise, from all the opportunities I was exposed to.
I never enjoy the feeling of ending something, but I'm getting better and better at getting rid of the emotional side of me by thinking and acting positively. Positive energy is the only thing that carries me on after all. Furthermore, a good bye could also mean a new hello to my new chapter of life, right? I shouldn't be so sad over those things that have made me the person I am today, because they provided me a clearer vision on my life goals.
I just want to say, thank you UBC, for all the good old times.
So what's up after graduation?
Not sure if you guys have sensed it already, but I've a growing passion in composing music and I wish to expand on that. One thing that makes me so proud is that I do not need a music sheet to play a song nowadays, and I can fully utilize my creativity in playing a song freely. I'm also learning on beats mixing to make my own composition more vibrant, but it's still too early to talk about that since I've not fully mastered the skills yet. That requires a lot of brainstorming and practice of course, as I'm never a spontaneous player and I really want to perfect my work as much as possible. However, reaching this stage itself is a tremendous growth to me, as I still remember how much I struggled at the beginning and could spend the whole day just to come up with a few lines. I believe that was not a stage many could persevere without enough passion to die for. Honestly, choosing a passion that you can die for is the most important thing because that makes you feel like the uttermost unique person on earth even when no one approves your work, it still comes within the voice of your heart!
Friends asked me to actually send out demo to music labels as a breakthrough in starting up my music career as a composer. Not that I don't want to, but I think there's still a huge area of improvement for me to work on before getting to that stage. I think I'm not up to the level yet, and I will definitely try when I think I'm ready.
Also, a friend has pondered a question on me for numerous times. He said: don't you feel lonely? His definition of lonely is having no one to share your happiness in life and someone to love. But that's just not how I define loneliness, to me, being lonely is not knowing what you want in life and losing the self esteem in you slowly. Loneliness only occurs when you do not love your life enough to have made it a better one by yourself and the people around you.I've so much plans in mind that I'd love to spend my whole life venturing into, so why should I feel lonely? Studies and music haven taken up most of my time, thus I really have no time remained to culture any sense of loneliness in me. To me, everyday is a day that's worth to be remembered and loved, and supportive family and friends always give me so much love and support that are beyond my needs, so much that I don't see the reason to mourn over something that I've no control in life. You guys have never stopped believing in my ability, and that really gives me endless motivation to keep trying for what I want. I genuinely feel loved everyday, isn't that the most important thing already?
I'm back to the mapleland after 3.5 months of pure fun and family time at home, and I'm prepared to do what I should do at this period of time, for the one last time until I put on the square hat. I consider next year's graduation as a new milestone for me to embark on a new journey and truly pursue my dream.I've always been doing what I like all the time, but to live a life out of pure passion is the life that I'm really seeking for . I told a few people about my dream, although it seems to be unpractical to many other people, I believe it's not something that's out of reach. Even if it was, I would find out the answer myself instead of allowing other people to let me down by telling me that I can't.
I can, when I really want to, so it's really a matter of determination in my opinion.
Academic performance is my main focus now and I'm surprised by my last year's performance with a 6% increase in my average. That has injected a strong confidence in me and I seek for a better performance this year to mark a good ending of my 18 years of education. Come to think of it, 3 years of uni just passed by in a blink of eye and I can't really recall most of the lecture materials that I've learned in these years. Seriously, I wonder if my total memory for the materials learned would sum up to a 30%? That really sounds like an epic fail considering the enormous effort I had put in every term.
But... I'll still wait for the day of honor and pride to come, when I can finally tell my parents:
'Dad and mom, I've finally reached the finishing line! Thank you for your tremendous support and love.' =) I know that day will come. And I know that my day will come too. Let's all work hard for what we yearn for.
Since I uploaded my baby cola collection album onto Facebook, I received different responses from my friends. Some funny ones would be:
“Wow, your room must be like a recycling factory! I suggest you frame your cans so that they look more artistic.”
“What would you do if someone threw all your cans away?”
Hmm, these are good questions which may take time to figure out the answer.To me, the latter question is similar to asking you on your response if I took away your bolster which has been accompanying you for years. You get the idea now?
Over the years, my project has become a joint-collaboration among my friends because they are being so supportive of my hobby. Just recently, I received 2 very special cans from my friend.
Let me open up my happiness to you.
Firstly, Michael got me this 2008 Beijing Olympic Cola Box Set when he went back to China for CNY.
Eu even said it looked like 皇帝诏旨because there’s a layer of yellow cloth embracing the can.
Like this:
Seriously, empty cola can in a box @.@ !! I’ve never ever had a box for my cola can and that’s what makes this commemorative gold can special.
On the same day, I saw this:
This is the cola can which is released in conjunction with the celebration of Canadian Men’s Ice Hockey’s Gold Medal in Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010.Instead of joining the craze and running nakedly in Downtown, I chose a much more peaceful way to celebrate their victory- Drink coke at home.
It has been almost 1.5 years I haven’t carried a dozen of cola cans home. The last time I did that was also because of the Vancouver Winter Olympic 2010 can.Mom was beside me at that time and she encouraged me to bring it home.
“Just buy it and then finish it slowly.”
How sweet my mom was!! She never objects my hobby although it’s not that healthy. Also, I know my dad doesn’t like us drinking carbonated drinks, so I promised myself to halve my Coke consumption in appreciation of their support.
Nowadays, I usually drink Coke for the can.
However, nothing beats this:
It’s one of the limited edition bottles which was distributed during Winter Olympics at Yaletown (The place which I regretted the most for not going when Eu asked me.) Like how it’s shown on the video, it’s a glow bottle and it changes to 4 different colours when you switch on the button at the bottom of the bottle, and there were only 12000 bottles available for this design.
The awesomeness is really beyond description, it's like a light appears and shines on you when you're super gloomy and can't sleep at night.Yesterday when I was walking back to my dorm, I saw something hanging on the door handle. I opened up the small card and my name was written on it. When I went inside my room,I looked up the gift bag and I saw the Coke Glow Bottle.
Awesomeness to the maximum!
Thank you Michael, I will definitely add your name to the supporter list of my project.
Tada! So here's my collection in Vancouver 2009/2010 so far.
Surprisingly, I only bought 1 can out of the 6 cans there. Sincerely thank everyone for the hard work in helping out my ongoing project, making my series of coke collection a wonderful and enjoyable one. I’m glad that my hobby has made a difference in some of my friend’s life, because they will now think of me whenever they see coke. To me, that’s a sweet way to remember a friend.
I realized that I haven't really blogged about Coca-cola although I’ve been keeping up with this habit of collecting cola cans for 8 years.
I started collecting cola cans when I was 13 years old. One day, when I was in a supermarket in Shanghai, I saw a coca-cola can with chinese writing on it “可口可乐”. I thought it was an interesting thing to collect cola cans from all over the world since they consist of different languages, sizes, designs, and also some limited editions cans when a special occasion is around. That marked off the start of my habit with coca-cola cans.
When people go for travelling, they’ll usually make up a list of must-do-things in a foreign country. A little different from theirs, one of my must-do and must-buy things in a new place would be coca-cola can, therefore drug marts or supermarkets will usually be one of my targets.
Why do I love coca-cola so much? Why not pepsi since you like blue colour?
That’s a good question. I guess it’s the mouthfeel of cola because I’ve been drinking coke all the while.It’s more gassy, less sweet and tastes better. So if I were given a chance to collect something between these two brands, I would definitely go for my personal favourite.
To me, coke somehow resembles world union because it does not discriminate, it is universal and majority of the people from all walks of life love it. Everyone will be able to get a can of coke with less than 2 dollars. Coke speaks different languages too, although the taste may be different for different countries,but when I see the red can, I know my love is somewhere near. Having said that, I’m not really crazy over coke and I don’t drink it every day. Over the years, my main reason of drinking it is to collect the can, besides the sudden crave occasionally.
I took some pictures before I left home last year, when I was packing for my new home.I roughly calculated my cola cans and they were approximately 110 cans.
She is someone that I truly salute from the bottom of my heart.
Lee Hee-ah(이희아 李僖芽)is a Korean disabled pianist with fantastic talent in piano. To her, 10 fingers are not a luxury she can entertain.However,this does not stop her from persevering on her dream- to continue flying with her gifted piano talents.
It doesn't inspire me much on how she plays those pieces beautifully, what touches me more is her spirit, the way she believes in herself, which is one thing we need to instill in ourself to live in this doubtful world. Releasing album isn't her desire initially, it's the determination she has for piano which brings her closer to the public, for us, the global audience to listen to the joyful soul touching every of the note gracefully.
Being a piano learner, I definitely understand the route one has to go through to start as a beginner. Learning a music instrument is a never-ending journey, because it must be done without any compulsion,and determination must prevail until the day you decided to step out of it.Although born talent is a plus for a pianist,the key factor to stand on the cream of the crop is through a lot of gruelling trainings with 120% of enthusiasm. If this fails you, you'll hardly feel the excitement of being a part of the musical world. You feel forceful to have daily practises, you feel irritated at a glimpse of the piano examinations' pieces.If that's the case, what for paying yourself for a torturous course every week?
I recently told a friend that every achievement pays a price, because triumphs do not fall from the sky, if you want something badly, then you have to pay the price(badly) for it. While I was learning piano, I once came up to a point where I felt myself talentless, that even 5 hours of practice would be equivalent to 5 hours of sleep.The low confidence rushed up when I saw those professional pianists dancing their fingers on keyboard so easily.God sent me a message then,when I read articles about this korean pianist coincidentally,that I realised I need to conquer my fear to truly understand the objective of learning music.
" I like piano, and therefore learning it means making myself happy, and only I can feel the joy after much sweating"
I'm fortunate enough to have 10 fingers, it must mean that I still have the other 6 fingers to put effort on.Also fortunately, I was under good guidance by piano teacher at that time, that slowly brought me up from downhill.I reminded myself on the reason for my start, and began to understand the significance behind every music piece.Last time, I was way too rushing to reach the top technically, that I barely take the time to understand my emotions, how do I feel for the music that I'm playing.
" I must play emotionally, not just technically"
Until now, I've nothing to say about my piano skills because there are rooms for improvement. When I'm at 90%, I know that there are still another 10% for me to go on. When I'm at 100%, I must make sure that it never falls.Lucky for me, there are supportive people behind me to keep me up with my work.I'm glad I've met them- Ms Julie,Ms Bina, and always....my mom who never stops my passion. I feel warm with the encouragement and patience they shower on me, just like watering a small seed into a growing plant.
"Lee gives tribute to her mother for challenging her to master the piano and said that although her training was difficult, "as time went by, the piano became my source of inspiration and my best friend."
I'm glad I feel the same,because piano became my source of inspiration and my best friend. It has calming effect on me, accompanying me at times of ups and downs.
We never realize the importance of those things that we concern the most until we approach them and learn to make every bit of our effort to achieve it.The passion slowly grows in our heart, that it eventually stands up in the center of our circle of life.We wish to become the perfectionist of ourself,perhaps not among the cream of the crops from outsiders' views, just the best for our own soul.We wish to dwell in the ideal life like how it is imagined,we need a commitment from ourself,that will bring us there someday.This is the ever-growing passion I mean, the passion that will never come to an end, it will only stretch our self-limit,enhance our true talents.Because deep down inside, we know we're not going to chase them out of our world.These things are always there,and forever will be.
Remember those days when we were babies, we expressed ourselves through babbling and crawling.Reaching to the unreachable places was what we always thought of at that time, as if it was the biggest aim in our everyday lives.Until the day we learned to talk, we always wished to learn at a faster pace, to outstand the rest, we wanted to be the best among our friends.As we had reached the adolescent stage, we tend to have big dreams and were ambitious on our future. Coming to the age of 19,another step into the door of 20, we are mentally developed until it comes to a stage, that makes us feel: I just want to do the best on what I'm holding now, not what I'm carrying on the future. I'm uncertain on how many of you will agree with this.However, we never forget the one big dream in our heart, that we desire so much but knowing how far are we going to be from it, from the day we surrender to the reality. We switch off the power mode of our dreams because we do not want to remind ourselves on how much do we want it to come true in our life. Most people might think it this way, but I don't feel it that way to some extend.
Our current possession and effort might not match with the true dreams in our heart, but this one big dream is the only passion that will never disappear, it only grows immensely in our heart, together with our effort as well. We might success in some other fields one day, but this dream will remain as the same at the same time. It brings back reminiscence, it leaves us no regrets,not solely because of the thought of " a dream is just a dream, a dream will never come true".It is because that we transform the wants into a motivation , we put in as much effort that we will work on our dreams into the current things that we uphold. We want them to be as successful as our dreams. Say your dreams out loud, to foresee the courage you will gain to overcome the fear on things which you are working on,to believe that dreams and reality are both mutual to each other.
" leave no regrets on your dream, because you know it always stays"
Your future always stays as well.
=)Pui Mun says: My one big dream is to become a musician, to live in a world of orchestra and piano. I hope the passion for piano works equally well on inventing new food flavors.
