Some people say I cannot sing,
but no one can say I didn’t sing.Florence Foster Jenkins, American Soprano
It is better to have tried and failed than not to have attempted at all, no? It is indeed quite frightening to take risks and try new things. We think, “What if I fail?” What if you do? It won’t be your first mistake. And no matter how bad it is, it probably won’t be your worst mistake. Life’s saddest words are found on a tombstone that reads: “When it came time to die, I had not lived.”
Looking over the past dozen or so entries, I believe that I can see a trend!?
There was a string of entries related to Tango, followed by (most recently) non-Tango reflections and other thoughts. This coincides with a period where I devoted a fair amount of time to Tango (be it dancing as well as teaching). Now that I am back from my Christmas/New Year break and with a number of activities planned in the near future, I am sure there will be a lot more of Tango-related stuff appearing here soon!
Just finished watching the DVD Shadowlands which I bought during the Christmas break. As a matter of fact, I first saw this movie close to almost ten years ago by now, but happy to say I was still touched by the magic all the same.
This is the story of C. S. Lewis, who is perhaps nowadays more well-known for his Narnia books than any of his more serious works. Despite giving the world the magical world of Narnia, this is the tale of his own discovery of magic outside the safety of books.
A couple gems of quotes:
“We read to know we are not alone.”
“The pain now is part of the happiness then. We can’t have the happiness of yesterday without the pain of today. That’s the deal.”
Inspired by this, decided to create a similar list of in-built smileys recognized by :wp: out of the box for future reference.
Had another horrendous experience with Microsoft on my PC tonight. Frankly, if it was not for the fact that most of the softwares I use are Windows-only, I would have switched over to Linux long ago…
Out of the blue – in fact, after performing a routine defragmenting of the harddisk which is highly recommended on Windows platform – suddenly I was seeing the dreaded “NTLDR missing” error upon reboot. Actually, this is not really the first time that I see this error on my current system, but not so fortunate in recovery this time around. 🙁
Update:
After checking the harddisk with the Ultimate Boot CD (kind of an extravagant name, I know… but it does contain a lot of useful recovery/rescue tools for situations like this), it seems there may be some bad sectors – though I am not totally convinced because they could have been caused by other file corruptions. Well, in any case, it seems a total reinstall is in order. Oh well, such is life in the Windows world… 😥
Update 2:
The Seagate harddisk was finally diagnosed as faulty using Seatools on UBCD. Fortunately I received a replacement within a week – still within its 5 year warranty.
The long-awaited WordPress 2.0 has just been released a few days ago. Seems like there will be a new toy for the new year that is on its way!
I must admit, since migrating to :wp: about 6 months ago, I have been extremely happy with the ease of administration and customization, as well as the overall speed. However, as the latest new release is supposed to be a major upgrade from the previously stable 1.5 series (some plugins are are no longer compatible) and judging from the rash of upgrade-related problems I saw in the support forum, I will be upgrading my site slowly in the coming weeks. Hopefully this can minimize any unexpected catastrophes.
Just finished reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) over the Christmas/New Year break (partly spent in Australia). Without giving too much away, just let me say that Book 6 will not be the last and there are many shocking surprises in store! Things are definitely getting more interesting and action-packed as we see a slowly maturing Potter taking matters into his own hands…
Saw the following quote today. However, can’t say that I am entirely convinced by it.
We can judge others or we can love others – but we can’t do both at the same time.
Author Unknown
End of year: time for some new resolutions. Basically, don’t short-sell yourself! 🙂
Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others. Live in the faith that the whole world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is in you!
Christian D. Larson, American Author and Educator
The secret of happiness is the realization that life is a gift, not a right.
Unknown