Here’s a nice lil’ story I received in an email yesterday. Think about it.
A Diamond in the Rough
A man was exploring caves by the seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake. They didn’t look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could.
He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!
Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left.
Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away.
It’s like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn’t look like much from the outside. It isn’t always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.
We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.
There is a treasure in each and every one of us If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth.
May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. May we see the people in our world as God sees them.
The Bible talks about hidden treasures too and the story also reminds me of a treasure that I already have. Interested? Click here.
I am Health Conscious
It’s Day #10 today. I’ll be heading off in a bit to run after I’m done with this post.
Making changes to my lifestyle and eating habits is not easy. It’s really difficult for me to not be out for meals with people and not end up eating fast food or stuff that would definitely not help me lose the weight that I wanna lose. I’ve been thinking more and more of just having lunch on my own just so I can have rice with more vegetables at the nearby chap-fan place. I really need to do more research on dietary changes that I need to make so I can maintain my weight healthily. It’s especially tough to say no to fast food and fried foods… heh. But I shall try and try until I succeed at disciplining my eating habits.
Anyways, here’s an update about my exercise regiment. I’m able to run 1.2km right now but my breathing is still not that great and I get pretty out of breath after about 6minutes or so. Does any one have any tips on breathing techniques that could help me maintain my pace better? Other than that I just upped the number of push-ups just yesterday to 15 push-ups. It’s slow-going but I know that I have a target and that I’ll be able to lose weight and be healthier if I keep this up daily. I already feel really good about running and even thought there’s little weight loss right now I am 100% certain that changes to my lifestyle will help me run this race of life better.
Change is not easy but it’s worth it. Here’s a lil’ something I read today Our Daily Bread about change which I could immediately relate to the difficulty I have in doing something about my weight and overall health. Look at the time… It’s time to go on my run. Thank God for the extra treadmills that they’ve added at my condo gym. What a blessing!
The Full Cast of Glee
I’ve been watching Glee almost all day today. I like it. It’s entertaining and it has all the drama of a teen show but what gets me the most is the music and choreography. The show is all about music and it has some of the best re-workings of hit tunes in every episode.
Every episode of Glee makes me wanna sit down and start writing a musical for church. I miss writing for church. I miss being in the director’s chair. I miss the thrill of seeing something I wrote being performed on stage, with my views and observations of the world around me being presented with a lot of what God has been saying to me about life weaved into the characters, situations and hopefully in the lyrics and music. I just don’t have the energy and discipline these days to write.
Tina, Kurt, Artie, Mercedes & Rachel
My favourite character is probably Sue Sylvester, the all-military cheer coach who is all about winning and whose single-minded ambition to destroy Will Schuester’s glee club makes every episode an entertaining one.
I give Glee a solid 5 Stars out of 5. If not the story definitely because of the music. Give this one a spin.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
1 Corinthians 24-27
I totally get what 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 says. More so especially as I’ve been working very hard in building my stamina by running the past few weeks. Running a race requires a total life style change what more the race of life? In order to lose weight I’ve been struggling a lot with overcoming laziness and also in being more disciplined in my choice of food. I’m not doing that great when it comes to food but I’m getting there.
Running, running... let's keep on running
Life’s the same as well… running this race requires not just the will to want to change but it requires changes in a lot of areas. The stuff you fill your mind determines to an extent what your life will be like. The people you spend time with makes a difference too. If you want to be better it also means being open to other people’s opinions and also being able to take criticism and learning how to change. Running this race is a team effort. We’re not alone really cos’ all of us have people around us to help us keep at it (much the same as some people have been really encouraging to me in my bid to run 3km non-stop).
I say let’s run this race together. Let’s all win the prize. Let us all make a difference in the short span of time we have here on Planet Earth.
Run.
Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
Not too bad. It had a predictable plot but on the whole “The Vampire’s Assistant” was kinda watchable. Highlight of the entire flick was John C. Reilly stealing the show. “The Vampire’s Assistant” is not your typical teen movie; in fact the premise is pretty darn weird with vampires and circus freaks being the order of the day. It was pretty cool that the movie had a pretty strong supporting cast made up of well-knowns like Salma Hayek and Ken Watanabe. You could do better at the cinemas but then again January’s pretty much a draught at the movies. Give this one a spin if you really don’t have anything to do; I think this one is already on its last legs.
Rating: 2 1/2 Stars (out of 5)
Legion
Gosh. I’ve not had the time to write a blog post so here’s a review of Legion which I caught last Saturday after an awesome team-building weekend with my company. Paul Bettany’s cool as the Archangel Michael and yup, one of my favourites Dennis Quaid is in the movie too! Ha ha! Anyways, Legion’s not too bad and made for an alright watch on a hot Saturday afternoon. The plot’s simple but the movie does have some cool bits and some scares. Not the greatest of movies but I kinda liked it. I give this one a 2-and-a-half out of 5. It’s an OK watch but you wouldn’t be missing a lot even if you don’t get to catch it at the cinemas.
Rating: 2 1/2 Stars (out of 5)
Mission update: 81 kilos (Horror of horrors, I finally weighed myself today. I’m actually 3kilos heavier compared to my usual 78kilos – which is already way FAT compared to when I was actually 69kilos 2 years ago.), 1km in 10mins & 10 push-ups
Mission target: 75kilos, 3km in 30mins & 10 push-ups daily (I have still a very long way to go, keh keh!)
I need to jaga my diet now. I read somewhere that the suggested daily intake for meat is one portion of meat in one meal with the other meals to be made up of stuff like fish & vegetables. I’m gonna have to read up a bit more about weight management and stuff.
Good-bye McDonald’s… Good-bye Burger King. Does that mean good-bye to Subway too? I think this means a lifestyle change… cos’ changing my diet would mean following my colleagues out for lunch less. Rats! Does that mean lonely lunches with just me and Subway? 
Look out for Day #3 which will be coming your way this Wednesday.
I Feel Fat
I feel fat. Well. The fact is I AM overweight! The good news is that it’s not too late to change that and after my trip down to Singapore I am really more determined to do something about my health and more importantly my inglorious tummy. I know that I don’t exactly qualify as fat but having excess weight really puts a dampener in my self-worth. It’s funny that the state of my physical being matters so much to me the older I get.
The sad thing about being overweight is that it’s a cycle that perpetuates itself. You get depressed cos’ you’re overweight. You eat cos’ you can’t help but feel hungry. You feel it hopeless to change things. I think that’s why most people don’t do anything about their weight, cos’ it’s such a depressing state to be in and breaking out of it is tough. People saying I’m fat stings but it’s not exactly the right motivator to lose weight. I personally believe that negative criticism is the wrong way to go to encourage someone to be fitter. Asians tend to always pick on things and they call it “constructive criticism” – which really sucks. Nevertheless I know I want to be fitter for myself and I’m gonna really do something about it this year.
Today marks day one in my exercise routine. I ran 1KM at a speed of 7 kilometres per hour. It wasn’t a constant run because the treadmill I was on kept slipping. It’s a good thing that the other one was working properly. A buddy over in Singapore gave me tips on managing my weight and so here’s what I intend to do in the next 2 months or so to build my stamina and on top of that I’ve added my own diet plan.
- Run at least 3 times a week, starting with a distance of 1KM this week and raising the bar incrementally so that eventually I’ll be running a distance of 3KM non-stop. I didn’t do too well today and will do better in my next run now that I’ve discovered which of the treadmills is working properly.
- Do 10 push-ups every day. Why? Building muscle would aid in calorie burning I guess.
- Cut down on sugared drinks and drink more H2O.
- Eat more vegetables and less fried foods. Cut down on meats.
The regime sounds simple I know but if I can keep this up regularly I’ll soon be able to graduate to hitting the roads to run. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. In the meantime wish me luck and if you have healthy weight management tips for me; do drop me a line.
I hope that this post encourages everyone to do something about their health so we can run the race of life. Till next time. Happy trails!
Nando’s Espetadas. You. Have. Just. Gotta. Try. Some.
Nando's Espetadas
My colleague Bong and I had a really satisfying lunch at Nando’s today and I must say that Nando’s helpings are just nice if you’re hungrier than usual.
The outlet we were at took quite long to get the food out but the wait was worth it for my skewer of deliciously succulent chicken drenched with extra hot peri peri sauce. Let’s not forget the peri chips and peri corn that came on the side. Yummy!
Nando’s definitely did not disappoint today. I give their Espetadas a juicy 5 out of 5.
Rating: 5 Stars (out of 5)
I couldn’t resist catching this one late Thursday night but I must say that I am sorely disappointed by Terry Gilliam’s latest adventure. Perhaps it was caused by the untimely death of Heath Ledger, or perhaps the story in itself wasn’t well-crafted but I really didn’t enjoy Dr Parnassus.
The cast did a bang-up job in their individual performances but unfortunately that wasn’t enough. I particularly enjoyed Christopher Plummer in his role as the immortal Dr Parnassus and Tom Waits who played Mr Nick (a.k.a. The Devil). It was really good to see Heath Ledger and the movie is a tragic reminder of the loss of a great actor. Johnny Depp, Jude Law & Colin Farrell are all great in their individual performances but like I said, even with all the heavyweights there wasn’t enough in the story to hold my attention.
On the positive side of things the movie does display Gilliam’s vivid imagination and the main theme about making choices does stand out; of which I must give credit to the movie even though the plot felt very half-baked on the whole.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was a disappointment and not a very great way to start 2010 with at the cinema. If you’re thinking of hitting the cinema this week I would definitely recommend Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes which is a much better watch IMHO.
Rating: 1 Star (out of 5)
