Important Lessons from Yo-Yo Ma

Long ago...

2008

At the age of 55 (as of year 2010), Yo-Yo Ma looks young at his age. Browsing through his fans site and official website, it's not hard to notice, this great musician had not changed a lot throughout the years, except for the hairstyle and the spectacles.

I never interviewed him (DUH~), but through his numerous interviews, performances, videos, music, I have concluded one thing about his secret to stay young.

Be passion, stay young, never stop learning, and help others to success!

Be Passion
Needless to say, Yo-Yo Ma's music is one of the most fascinating ones. His passion was fully expressed in his work, and when you're in his live performance, the happiness from the music, filled the entire hall. That will bring you to tears, that will fill your heart.

This passion, I believe, is what that keeps him so young and happy, even at age of 55.

Stay Young
From his videos and interviews, I always imagine Yo-Yo Ma to be a playful person. Traveling around the world, knowing and giving young musicians advice, playing music with people from all walks of life, he always seems to be such a happy person.

Never fear of trying, I think is how he stay young at heart at all times.

Never Stop Learning
He's never content with just classical music. That's why, he explored tango, original soundtrack of a lot of block buster movies, Silk Road Project etc.

Never stop learning, keep going.

Help Others to Success
The most beautiful concert this year, will be Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Road Ensemble. I love Yo-Yo Ma even more, and I discovered my love to another younger musician, Wu Tong too. Immediately after the concert, we were goggling about Wu Tong and found that he owed part of his fame, to Yo-Yo Ma.

In the concert back in April 30th, we could clearly see how Yo-Yo Ma gave the attention to Wu Tong instead of himself. Even though he truly 100% knew, 100% of the audience were there because of his name. But the center stage, was mostly given to this younger musician.

This selfless image of Yo-Yo Ma, had taught us to help others to success when you're already had enough of it.

So remember,

Be Passion at What You Do

Stay Young at Heart

Never Stop Learning

Help Others to Success

And you will stay young forever!

我与九寨沟——无缘

和姐姐盼了很久的九月份九寨沟之游，即将成为我们这趟旅游的遗憾。

去年，想去四川，但因为汶川大地震，心里觉得不好受，没去。可今年年头，我们定了下个月的机票，可是人算总是不如天算。近来，暴雨连连，很多地方都遭洪水破坏了，淹水，塌方。很多旅游的地方，都受影响。通往九寨沟的路线，也暂时关闭了。

原想去那里，学长曼玉“轻功水上漂”，也没有机会了。都江堰、黄龙、卧龙、九寨沟整条路线玩不成。乐山峨眉，好像也去不成了。

唯有重新做功课，计划另一条路线。（现在，四川新闻网天天上，关注气象和灾情路况）

看来，我们还是会再到四川，祢补去不成九寨沟的遗憾⋯⋯

Addiction

It's not too difficult to sink myself into waves and waves of addiction.

I've found a very addictive website, which I think it's too good to be kept for myself.

The Pioneer Woman

Cooking & Photography, enough to get me clicking the pages on and on...

My Cool Brother

The moment I saw this photo at En's FB profile, the first thought I had was an image from any random page of magazine. But, the colour was wrong.

So, as a beloved Er Jie, I can't help but to get the original photo from him, and turned it into something I prefer.












Kinda star look, isn't he?

Happy Birthday En En!

Photo courtesy of Ah Yang

This cute little boy is my younger brother, in case you don't know him.

He turned 18 today! Time flies and I always wish he's still the little brother I "used" as remote control back then. But we can't stay cute forever, so he's all grown up to a.... much normal adrenaline high teenager.

Cat acting, Sing Sing Car, traffic jam cars, Mahathir posters, volcanoes, bowling pins, soccer etc etc, those were all back to the good old days. Now, he's a 100% tech savvy and car lover. Though he no longer is my remote control, he's a very reliable driver at home now.

Not long after today, he'll be flying out from home, studying elsewhere in University and bringing home girl friend(s). Man, I still wish he's the little boy!!!

Anyway, Happy Birthday Ah En!

Er Jie loves you :)

Inception

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I wanted to and tried to blog about this movie after I watched, but I can't put words into it.

So, I just want to tell you.

JUST WATCH IT!!!!


P.S.
I love all the casts in the movie. I always am a fan of Leonardo, and I like Ken Watanabe since he played in The Last Samurai. But now, I like Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt), Eames (Tom Hardy), Ariadne (Ellen Page). Especially Arthur to be honest, I really think he's very cool!

:)

Nodame Cantabile Finale

Finally, after a 3 months of long wait, the finale is here!

After 3 months, I can't really remember the details of the first part movie. So, on Friday night before we watched the show on Saturday, we did our very own movie screening at home. So the first part ended with Nodame feeling sad that Chiaki can do so well compared to her. And her professor asked her to stay apart from Chiaki for some time, for her own good.

I like the first part compared to the finale. I think because the first part, Nodame was the Nodame we knew from drama, crazy and unreasonable. To the finale, Nodame has grown up, she's a little bit sadder in character, and more mature. Less craziness.

However, good thing about this finale was, some of the lovable characters from drama played a part too. Masumi, Ryu and Miki. It's just nice to see them together. And not to forget about Ryu's father. Kind and lovable, and creative on the set lunch's name, like "Nodame beef set lunch" :P

There's a new instrument introduced in finale, which is theremin. Watch this video to understand what is a theremin :)




But still, the movie guaranteed you a good laugh from start till the end. No doubt about that.

It's been so many years since we started to watch the drama. I remember we were still in our final year. And now, we're already in 3rd year of working life. Time flies.

The finale of Nodame is kind of like a "full stop" of certain part of the memories. Kind of.

Please, don't try to watch this if you've never watched the drama, the special episode, the first part!

The Soloist

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Plot:

Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr) from LA Times met Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) when he was playing violin by the street, with two strings. Steve found out that Nathaniel is a child prodigy and was once a student in Julliard College, and hence decided to write a column of Nathaniel's story.

On Steve's way to find out more stories of Nathaniel, they had developed a special friendship. While writing about his life, Steve was trying to improve Nathaniel's quality of life, and also the mental state. But frustrations came when Nathaniel refused to cooperate.

Steve's good intention wasn't fully received by Nathaniel, but the friendship remained.


Reviews:

It was a really funny show, and yet sad at the same time.

It did make me ponder, on the good intentions we have to help people, how much will it be well received by the receiver? How much did the receiver want help from us? Did we ever ask before we offer? Or we force our way through to earn our karma?

I am always a fan of Robert Downey Jr. And I've watched some shows of Jamie Foxx, but in this show, he's exceptionally good. Even better than Robert Downey Jr.


Verdict:

Definitely worth to watch!
(I wonder how did I miss this show last year. I found out from my colleague that this show was only shown in Singapore for a very short period of time, with almost no publicity. What a waste!)

The Best Love Story in 5 Minutes

Since I was in all the love story mode last weekend, I can't get rid of this best 5 minutes moment from "Up".

This was the best ever! Short & sweet, and touched your heart at every corner.

Despicable Me

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情节（如果不想破坏自己看电影的新鲜感，请看结论）：

Gru一心一意想成为世上的第一大坏蛋，得知Vector偷走了金字塔而引起世界的轰动而感到非常的不满，因此决心要盗个比金字塔还轰动的——月亮。

要把月亮偷来，就得靠“缩小”仪器（小叮当的百包袋里有），把月亮缩小才带回地球。可是那仪器落入Vector的手中，Gru想尽办法，都入不了Vector的城堡。

无意间，让Gru发现Vector爱吃饼干，而且，还轻易的让三个孤儿院的小女孩进入他家，兜售饼干，还下了一笔可观的订单。Gru因此到孤儿院领养三个小女孩，想趁她们送饼干的时候偷偷溜进屋子，把仪器偷走。

一路走来，原本很厌恶小孩子的他，慢慢地爱上这些女孩。而担当起一个真正的父亲的责任。

后来月亮偷了，也还给了天空。女孩子们变成了他的女儿，坏人留在月亮回不了地球。故事就这样经典的圆满结束。

结论：

很经典的动画故事，坏人好人两方拼。不同的事，所谓的好人，Gru也是个大坏蛋，只是有另一个比他更坏的敌人，Vector，而显示出他比较好。不过说了是经典动画故事，坏蛋总是有点疯癫，说坏嘛，也不过是搞笑。这就是动画美好的一面。

情节的节奏有点快，有些应该可以感人的地方，还是欠缺了一点什么。如果可以更细腻的描写角色的感情，就可以融合娱乐和感人于这部动画之中。

3D效果很不错，不过，动画的仔细程度，不能媲美近期也刚刚上映的Toy Story 3，故事情节也是输了一载。不过，下班后当作是纾解压力的娱乐，是相当合适的。

意外惊喜：

Julie Andrews竟然有为这部电影配音，配的是Gru的妈妈。

Minion原来是个荧光棒。（这个情节，是本人认为全套动画里最最最好笑的一节）



Thank you omy for the movie preview!