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| halt!my job is about making things happen within the given deadline,
but there's no reason my life should be the same.
why let tomorrow's deadline become today's worry anyways?
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| move along, move alongmy friend L and i are genki sushi freaks.
and tonight, when the sushis are gone and the green tea is low, we started bitching about life and about this place we call home.
come to think of it, there's a list of things that i hate about this place. let's begin with this.
1. you need a plan for everything
you go to the movies, you need to pre-book tickets.
you go for food, you need to call beforehand and reserve a table, while you're at it, might as well order the dishes as well.
you want to go to a place? check the map, the bus route, the ferry schedule, the walking distance.
a hair cut? definitely call beforehand and make sure your dresser will be there to entertain you.
a concert? a theater play? call way ahead to secure a 400 bucks ticket so you get to sit at the back of the hall where you probably won't see a damn thing.
something wrong with your computer? file a case with the customer service representative before sending your machine in.
feel like meeting up a friend? better call up first and check his/her
schedule, make a booking like you set aside time to meet with your boss.
my problem with the question "do you have a reservation/case number/order number/confirmation code/pre-booking reference?" is what if i didn't freaking plan my day and just felt like doing something spontaneous? seriously, what if i decided one day i'm not going to map out my day-to-day details with a pen and a pencil and quit carrying 3 different schedule and calendars around everyday?
my problem with having a plan all the time is we never get to live and enjoy the present, and we never get to be free, because we're always bounded by a plan and worried about the future, worried about making more plans. my problem is, when all we do is making plans, we start having the ability to pack our schedules to an extent that we simply live with the plans instead of actually enjoying life itself.
the other day at work, someone said it's a good practice to start planning for the next vacation when you're having on one. what if i just felt like hopping on a car and taking the next entrance onto the highway and go wherever the road takes me? then we'll start worrying, where are we going to stay for the night? what are we going to eat? is the place where we stay for the night safe enough? is it going to be boring?
and then, we say, nah.... let's have a plan.
we think too much, because we need to make plans, and we make too many plans, because we think too much. but there's always one thing we can't plan for, and that's to be free and spontaneous.
the majority of us feel like we're trapped in a prison, at work, at home, in a relationship, whatever. then, we think to ourselves, things will get better if i changed my job, or spouse, or partner, or whatever. effectively, we're jumping from one prison to another, possibly a bigger one, but nonetheless a prison, and we kid ourselves thinking we did something brilliant for ourselves.
my challenge then is if we spend so much time on planning, why don't we start making a plan that's a bit more meaningful than what's the next movie you're going to see and the next restaurant you're going to next and start having a plan to get ourselves out of this prison.
my challenge is if we pride ourselves so much in being a well-planned person, then let's make a plan to free ourselves, so we no longer need a plan and can still be at peace with this world and ourselves.
[Note on title: lyrics of All American Rejects' "move along" keep ringing in my head, which might be a fitting description of my current mindset.]
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Rar, it's summer in hong kong, so i have every reason to be grumpy.
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| Drift (Away)i think i know why a lot of people drift instead of live.
because in a way, we've been too single-minded, purpose-driven, and result-oriented.
what if we didn't worry this much?
what if we didn't have to consider that much?
what if we could just care less and say "you don't rule over me" to more things?
what if we can just say "this will just have to wait" to more things?
what if we didn't try to accomplish 20 things when there's really only time for 10?
what if we didn't try to just get as much as we can for ourselves?
what if we shared a little bit more? cared a little bit more?
what if we just let go of the things that we realistically can let go of?
because we focus too much on the day-to-day things, we try to have a plan from this minute to the very next one; because we always try to conquer the world and climb the ladder, we only see what's ahead of us and forget what's behind and around us.
because we think there's one purpose in life and one result to achieve, we think there's only one path to walk.
what if we took a detour?
what if we took our hands off the steering wheel for a minute and switched off our mind's auto pilot for a second?
where will your mind take you to?
what if we took our feet off the gas paddle and let ourselves run on cruise control for a bit?
where will life take us?
let's all learn to drift now, so we won't be drifting off in the long run.
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| Not-so-Sweet 16"All those things are great, and I'm so proud of them, but, you know, you always like 40 more minutes. We're not
going to get it. We're not going to get it on the court. We can get it
somewhere else, but (we're) just not going to get it on the court."
- UW Men's Basketball Head Coach Bo Ryan
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| Yeepe!Madison breaks 100 inches
Bill Novak
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3/24/2008 7:23 am
Madisonians of today will finally be able to
tell future generations, we lived through the 100 inches of snow in
2007-08.
Snow showers Sunday pushed the seasonal total
over the century mark, with the all-time snowfall record now
standing at 100.4 inches.
For those who tend (or want) to forget, the
previous snowfall record was 76.1 inches, set in the winter of
1978-79.
The average snowfall in Madison is 49.9
inches, so local residents have shoveled more than double what we
normally could expect.
And we're not done yet.
Light snow is forecast tonight, with a
half-inch or less expected, and more light snow could come through
Wednesday through Friday.
Temperatures will be cooler than normal
today but warming up to about 47 Tuesday, then staying in
the low- to mid-40s the rest of the week.
The mild temperatures and more precipitation
this week will not help bulging rivers and streams in southern
Wisconsin.
The National Weather Service said flooding is
expected along many rivers in east central, south central and
southeast Wisconsin because of the continued snow melt.
As of early this morning six rivers in
Wisconsin were at or near flood stage, with minor flooding reported
on the Rock River near Newville south of Lake Koshkonong in Rock
County, the Crawfish River in Milford northeast of Lake Mills in
Jefferson County and the Fox River near New Munster in Kenosha
County.
Sunday's high in Madison was 38, 8 degrees
below the norm for the day. The normal high today is 46 and the
record high for March 24 is 76 set in 1939. | | |
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