Another Nice Anecdote

Ever heard the story of the giant ship engine that failed? The ship's owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure but how to fix the engine. Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a youngster. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.

Two of the ship's owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed! A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.

"What?!" the owners exclaimed. "He hardly did anything!"

So they wrote the old man a note saying, "Please send us an itemized bill."

The man sent a bill that read:

Tapping with a hammer ...........$2.00

Knowing where to tap .................$9998.00

Effort is important, but knowing where to make an effort in your life makes all the difference.

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True. Maybe if we stopped channeling our energies to futile goals and project it in the right way, we might make a difference.

An Inspirational Tale from the Net

I happen to come across the following story on the net. Pure fiction but also bona-fide inspirational:

A boy was born to a couple after eleven years of marriage.

They were a loving couple and the boy was the gem of their eyes. When the boy was around two years old, one morning the husband saw a medicine bottle open.He was late for office so he asked his wife to cap the bottle and keep it in the cupboard. His wife, preoccupied in the kitchen totally forgot the matter.

The boy saw the bottle and playfully went to the bottle fascinated by its color and drank it all. It happened to be a poisonous medicine meant for adults in small dosages. When the child collapsed the mother hurried him to the hospital, where he died.

The mother was stunned. She was terrified how to face her husband. When the distraught father came to the hospital and saw the dead child, he looked at his wife and uttered just five words.

Questions:

1. What were the five words?
2. What is the implication of this story?

Answer:

The husband just said 'I am with you Darling'.

The husband's totally unexpected reaction is a proactive behavior.

The child is dead.

He can never be brought back to life.

There is no point in finding fault with the mother.

Besides, if only he had taken time to keep the bottle away, this would not have happened.

No one is to be blamed.

She had also lost her only child.

What she needed at that moment was consolation and sympathy from the husband.

That is what he gave her.

If everyone can look at life with this kind of perspective, there would be much fewer problems in the world.

'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step'. Take off all your envies, jealousies, un-forgiveness, selfishness, and fears. And you will find things are actually not as difficult as you think.

MORAL OF THE STORY:

This story is really worth reading.

Sometimes we spend time in asking who is responsible or whom to blame, whether in a
relationship, in a job or with the people we know.

By this way we miss out something called LIFE.

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Minus, the cheese, the story seems practical on how we sometimes forget to live.

Weekly Digest and An Announcement

This week on the whole was just filled with excessive BP with a surprising final exam on Monday followed by one on Friday which was known for quite sometime (nevertheless still an exam). How the exam timetable eluded the whole class with none of us knowing is a mystery worth a Bermuda Triangle or shows how bad inter-department miscommunication can be.

Besides that, everything was simply as usual busy with added pressure thanks to this.

And I have added the Youth Says Broadcaster thingi in the blog, so don't be shocked or anything if anything pops out.

Art in Action: Miming

I recently went to an event which was sadly very disappointing as many expected performances flopped to an embarrassing extent.

However, suprisingly a miming sketch put up by some young people was artistically funny and good. Great white dolled faces and gloved hands which accentuated expressions with vigorous actions and comical props pulled the whole thing off. A history of sporting events (which I think was certainly more for entertainment than credibility) pulled the laughs from the start till the end in which they jumped off the stage to the crowds. Minus the incoherent sound system, a job well done for the performing arts team. Finally, something that befits the name.

Sadly, no pictures available.

An update on the previous post: they never learn.

National Postal Service and Private Courier Services: Compared

I had the recent misfortune to be in the using and the receiving end of the NPS i.e. National Postal Service (there is no need to defame them by naming them as they do it well themselves). I only required one private courier service experience to go high and mighty with the NPS.

I mean almost all postal services have websites serving not only as information bases but also most importantly tracking services of your precious courier. While the private companies give you pinpoint details up to which line or port, the NPS has a defunct Track and Trace service.

I mean, for the charge we pay, we do not obviously expect minute details but at least whether it is still on the way or delivered should be good enough?! Is it too much to ask for especially when you reside in universities and residence halls?!

I received my very precious parcel exactly 2 weeks after it was posted and this was no international one (just across the Peninsula). The time delay was not my concern but the whereabouts is most depressing especially when your cargo is expensive and rare.

Today, I called to check on a registered post I sent yesterday evening and the response I got from the sleepy phone customer service person was "You sent yesterday? Then must wait ... 4 days." My post was just across 3 states and obviously by two days if all goes well it would have reached its destination. I mean what is the point after 4 days the customer gets to know of the stats unless (a) you want to waste money or (b) you are just so "confident" in your service (c) All of the above and in short you are plain inefficient.

There goes my ramble and now I sit pondering of the lousy language droning on the automated response when I dialed for their customer service. Choppy, lack of fluency and invoking the feeling of attending a funeral is more like the three best words to describe the monotone.

Irritated

I normally do not whine like this (on the internet at least!) but well, if you had your pencil box with an expensive scientific calculator in it HIDDEN behind a 20, 000 ringgit Muscle Man Model during a dissection section, then you would.

Not only did I end up searching like a fool throughout the dissection hall, I went messaging around 70 people to ask if they had seen it. Thankfully, some people responded and led me to the discovery of my lost pencil box.

I mean if they (meaning the people organizing this treasure hunt) had time to do all that, they would rather … never mind, they could have done a 100 other things. I personally decided not to look for that person/s. I have at least a few better things to do.

All I have to say is that I probably lost a few stones with all that running and adrenaline rushing. Not to mention a way lot of pressure as this is the second time it happened. Thank you very much.

In addition to that, I had the fortune to be the subject of temper and ridicule for some people today … It just confirms that my once thought suspicions as being disliked by most people is true. I sometimes think that people wish I were invisible and kept very quiet. Maybe I will just do that.

Nah, nothing shuts me up but maybe I will be quieter. HEY, I at least do not go around hurting people. Even if I do it is purely accidental, I try to apologize A.SA.P.. But at least this gives me the insight I need to understand about people whom I thought I knew. Well, well, the world is full of surprises... If I am going to be a subject of attitude, I too can do "attitude"but fortunately I was brought up and not dragged up, and that is the silver lining at the end of the day.