Yin Teing’s Life Blog

A number of teenagers poccess special skills but left it behind as they venture into adulthood because everyone around them convince them that ‘it’s just not practical earning a living doing that.’

Jenny Y is a friend that I’ve known since high school. We were classmates for 3 years before going our separate ways and lost contact for many years. Jenny is very talented in art- both drawing and colouring. She can come up with beautiful pieces in a short time. To me, she is naturally gifted and very creative. We always look forward during art classes to see the pieces drawn by Jenny.

Jenny drew the most beautiful birthday cards that I’ve ever received. For 2 years of my birthday, I’ve received birthday cards from her. Even though so many years had passed, I’ve kept this cards well: 

The contents of a birthday card by Jenny on my 16th birthday (many years ago)

Another creative birthday card by Jenny

She even had my name drawn creatively on the birthday envelopes

my name, Yin Teing, scribbled on the envelop

Another creative scribble

We parted ways soon after Form 5. I continued my Form 6 and she went to college. Then, we met again two years ago at an old classmate’s wedding. Jenny never looked a day older- she’s one of those who are naturally gifted with a high metabolic rate- that means that she is not able to gain weight no matter how much she eats. I know many girls will kill for that, hee hee.

Feeling glad to see her, I’ve taken the chance to ask her if she is involved in arts since she has displayed great potential in drawing and creative design. She told me that she had left the skills behind and what she does for a living had nothing to do with her childhood skill.

Bear in mind that Jenny had drawn those pictures without requiring any guidance or formal training, it was just impromptu drawings or what she would probably referred to as ‘quick sketches’.

Leaving the childhood skills/interests

If we think back of something that we love when we are young, most likely that we would have said goodbye too as we headed towards adulthood. Such gifts, as I would like to call them, would be good to keep at least as hobbies or something we retreat to when we want to destress from this competitive world. Keeping the interests alive also nurture our creativity skills, which once developed, can spill over into other aspects of our lives.

Sometimes these interests are prelude to bigger things to come- if we spend time to nurture them, we will never know. Like for me, I have love crafts, coloured ribbons and beads from a young age- this interest led me to subsequently made my own website to share the interest with people. Today, I love to blog and blogging had helped to improve my writing skills and allowed me to express myself better. Also I love making my own websites and with writing, had become invaluable in my career previously.

Therefore, don’t leave your childhood skills behind…. who knows, it may evolve into something. And one day, you could become someone whom you thought you could never be.

Last Thursday, the world went into shock over the sudden death of legendary King of Pop, Michael Jackson.  By Friday, the news of his death becomes the breaking news of all the cable news network.

Michael Jackson is truly a gifted person- he became a superstar before I even started schooling and I remember growing up listening to his hit songs Billie Jean, Bad, Thriller, Man in the Mirror, and so many others. Michael had his own style of dancing, dressing and singing that no one during his time had. He never copied anyone’s style- and being given the freedom to examine his talents and gifts was what that shot him to super stardom, making him rich beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.

Still, like many famous icons before and after him, he paid the ultimate price of fame, amidst embarrassing controversies and lawsuits. And he was known to splurge millions on things that does not serve much purpose like building and maintaining his own Neverland. Because he was not able to accept himself for the unique person he is, he spent millions on cosmetic surgery and bleaching- when the whole world loved and adored the young and innocent child star that he once was.

Michael Jackson (1959-2009)

I remembered years ago I read about someone who openly predicted that Michael Jackson will die in his forties by committing suicide- he had outlived a few years from the prediction and we all know that Michael had been extremely unhappy with all the harsh words that he was getting. His life sadly echoed life of others- like Elvis Presley, an exceptionally gifted entertainer- also with his unique dancing style.

Many of us are born with unique gifts or creativity that can once realised, can launch us into paths of richness and fame that most people can only dream off. But for those who reached fame and stardom, life’s no fun- it is different from what they expect. Whatever happened to their private lives become the headline for the next glossy or gossip magazine or now… within minutes, millions of people read about it on the internet.

Let’s now examine our own lives. How about you? Are you already using your gifts- perhaps creativity in writing, being a successful motivation speaker or a vice president with many staff reporting to you? How do you feel when you are ‘already there’ enjoying the realms of what others referred as success?

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Today, while casually browsing through YouTube to add a few songs in my playlist , I found out that The Really Useful Group, is putting up high quality videos of Andrew Llyod Webber’s plays. I’ve always have high regards to works of Andrew Llyod Webber- his plays and songs inspire emotion, and the songs are always sang but singers with very strong and suitable vocals.

Here are some of my favourites and I will start with a little story on Starlight Express-

Starlight Express (my favourite):

Starlight Express is about many different types of trains competing to see who is the fastest. Different human characters played different types of train. If you want to know more about the show, check the explanation video here.

Source: http://www.leftlion.co.uk/images/1/Image/StarlightExpress1.jpg

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Do you experience difficulty in dragging yourself out of bed every morning? Especially if it is on a Monday morning? All you feel like doing is to stay below the sheets and sleep forever?

We would think that there is nothing unusual about this since if we were to ask around, many of our friends seemed to have the same predicament.

Statues of little novices sleeping peacefully. Taken in Kong Meng Shan, Singapore.

However, if the issue gets more serious, ie you wake up everyday feeling more tired and demotivated- and you do not seemed to have any energy to greet the day- it could be an indicative of what you truly feel inside…. that….

Subconsciously, you are not looking forward to life. Why? Because deep down, you may be very unhappy but does not know it.  Or living the kind of life that you actually do not want.

A lot of inner unhappiness and discontent gets masked by compulsive shopping, addiction, substance abuse, etc. Most of us know that habits like smoking, overeating are bad for our health and compulsive shopping makes us broke but seemed powerless to stop it.

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Recently, I have created a new site with the url: http://creative.yinteing.com/

For years, I have been compiling resources such as newspaper cutting, bookmarking websites and buying books/magazines on creative expressions, crafts, cupcakes, etc. When I find websites that I like, I will bookmark them- so much so that the huge number of sites are beginning to overwhelm me.  Since I have a site where I compiled all my favourite songs, I was thinking why not compile all my favourite creativity sites- all in one place?

It was something that I’ve really procastinated about it but when looking at my ever growing pile of newspaper cuttings (which are usually available online), I decided to work on the site. When I started compiling- it was a real joy and I have spent about 5 hours completely engrossed in my endevour. It was really fun. You will be able to see new websites/creative resource sites featured almost daily. The artist in me is brought to life again

Click to Enter

Let me know what you think or if you want to add your creative website/blog, leave me a comment or email me.

We seemed to be falling into hard times now. What we want, we never seemed to get- or when we get, eventually we end up wanting more.

Yet, they are happy and contended with little. Most of them never had the luxury of eating junk food or drinking a can of Coke, but they spend quality time with the kids. Parents will bring their kids to bathe in the river- using an old tyre or bamboo as makeshift floats. I stayed there for almost 2 months, and yet I could say that I would never look at life the same way I did before.

yep, there's really how we boiled water over there. Water is taken from the river that flows from the mountains

One of the most important lessons that I’ve learned is learning to be contended and thankful for what we have. 

Today, the reminder came again in another form. I was parking my car (alongside with other cars) illegally in front of a bus stop while waiting for someone at the hospital. I was catching up on some reading while waiting in the car. When I looked up to rest my eyes, I caught a sight that touched my heart:

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There are many websites that offers advice on how to declutter and organise your life. Decluttering is very important- for the sake of your sanity, getting things done in faster time, being able to find stuff and… even a good nights’ sleep.

How are we going to:

•  effectively manage time…. if we have to grope around stacks of stuff to find our car keys when we need to go somewhere urgent
• have a good night’s sleep… if chaos (messy cupboard with clothes jutting out of its untidy drawers; memorabias and albums being all over the place) is what our mind registers the first thing in the morning and the last thing before we close our eyes
• be healthy…..if we have expired can food and rotted vegetables/fruits in the fridge because everything’s all a mess
• pay our bills on time… when the bills laid buried under stacks of unopened mail, stationery
• perform at our peak…. when we cannot organise our emails, never organise our tasks and reminders properly or have tonnes of paper all over the place
• help but not feel overwhelmed and under pressure …. when everywhere we look is clutter, chaos and mess?

Even when running a business, as seen in this bag stall in Chiang Mai, customers will be less inclined to buy

Clutter robs us of quality life and it depletes you of your energy.  How we manage our outer surroundings actually give people an insight of our inner world. People observe us more than we know- and if we can keep our desk tidy and our inbox organised, it gives people the impression that we can manage our lives as well. Now if you are the boss and you have 2 employees- well, have almost similar performance levels. When it comes to promotion, who will you promote- the one who is neat and well organised.. or the clutterer who insists that he/she can find things even though everything’s a mess?

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I have great admiration on Ikea as I believe they are really brilliant in the way they market their products and services. Every season, Ikea will probably introduce a few new additions to their existing collection but they will find creative ways to market existing products. Below is their storage catalogue dated 28 May to 12 July 09.

Storage catalogue from Ikea

Rather selling individual furnitures/ pieces, Ikea creates lots of display so that the potential customers are able to get a clearer picture in how to play around with the layout and see the use of the product. They also produce a free catalogue which they distribute to houses. Production costs is low because it is subcontracted to developing countries like Vietnam. Ikea is doing very well because they know how to offer real value to the customers at a reasonable price.

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Adi Wong of Riceblogger.com came up with the list of the 100 Top Malaysian Blogs in May 2009. The list has been selected based on ranking in Alexa and Technocrati.  It is very interesting compilation- you will find blogs that deals with different topics- from politics, celebrity gossips, internet marketing, cooking, etc.  Surely some of the blogs will discuss topics of your interest- and much closer to home if you are a Malaysian. 

I am still going through the list and enjoying new blogs that I have discovered from Adi’s compilation.

Check out the listing from Riceblogger

To check out the top list, go to Riceblogger via the link below:

http://www.riceblogger.com/top-100-malaysian-blogs/

If you are an aspiring blogger who is procastinating about starting your own blog, I am sure you will be able to draw lots of inspiration from the listing. I surely have- you can see the ideas and implementation- from the style of writing, web and content layout.  And a number of top Malaysian blogs are actually hosted using free hosting like Blogspot.

You can also view an older compilation from Sabahan.com (dated in 2007):

www.sabahan.com/2007/02/06/50-most-influential-blogs-in-malaysia

Feeling tensed and stressed up in the quick paced world? Do you spare huge expenses every month visiting spas, massage, buying aromatherapy oils, etc to help you to relax?

Why not try a free relaxation method located right in front of your face? Relaxation using the breath.

Most of us take our breath for granted. If we really sit down quietly to evaluate our breath, it may not come as a surprised that our breath is actually short and shallow. Short and shallow breathing indicates that we are tensed and not relaxed. If that is the case, we should try to breath in and out more longer and deeper. Doing that will help to gradually relax us. Most stress management courses will teach you to practice deeper breathing everytime you are stressed or about to lose your temper. It really works.

We can still relax even though we are not able to go for holidays at the beachside

Everyday we spend a lot of time commuting to work, stuck in traffic jams, waiting in queues, etc. In the past, I had always have a book or reading materials in my bag to read. If you are one of those who cannot stand to be idle doing nothing and always have to open your PDAs or try to run your business while commuting to work, let me ask you if you often feel tensed or pressurized for time?

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