Fearless

I'm back at home for easter break, and have till this coming Sunday. I would say it has been relaxing so far, but what with the pressure of having to study, and not actually getting much productive study done, it has been somewhat stressful. But it has been fun being back, catching up with family and PS2.

Watched the the latest Jet Li movie Fearless which was really good. Both in an action sense, with awesome fight scenes, and a philosophical sense, covering issues like respect for others and national pride, among others. But strangely, what I found most interesting was seeing not only the fantastic martial arts skills on show (boy are Jet Li's fists fast!), but other shows of skill and ability, like the drummers at the final tournament. To have the discipline to really apply oneself consistently, to constantly strive to improve and to be really really good at something, that is both amazing and admirable. When I look at myself I regret not having that sort of self-discipline, that sort of passion to strive to be the very best at something. The only thing I've been marginally good at was soccer and maths, but in neither was I brilliant, nor did I really try hard to be the best at. Especially now in my final year of uni, I'm getting more and more lazy. Not only am I questioning how I got to the position where I am, but how I am going to cope with the increasing work demands and study demands once I graduate. Hmm... -_-"

On a lighter note, I went surfing for the first time today. It is this council run program where they teach people to surf over 4 days, for 2 hours each day, and today was the 1st day. Was friggen hard at first, especially since I'm a slow swimmer and so paddling out was a struggle, but balancing on the board wasn't too bad and I even managed to stand up on the board twice, albeit for a few seconds only. All in all, it was tons of fun and I can finally (somewhat) understand why surfies want to go surfing day after day and not get sick of it. But I think I'll be quite sore tomorrow...

Closure

I thought I'd share a really lame joke that Shaun told in our PBL tute today (guess you had to be there):

"There are two types of people in this world. Those who don't need closure, and........................"

I think I'm the second type ><"

I found out that a high school friend recently changed his first name. As in he had it legally changed, from his old korean name, to "Mark". Apparently he had a friend who had difficulty getting a job after graduation, but once he changed his name he got a job. So the parents of "Mark", being the typical asian parents paranoid about racist aussie bosses, forced him to change his name too. But in thinking that a name change was the key in getting that other guy his job, I think they are confusing association with causation. An example would be if you look at all the people that had a car accident in the past year, and see how many of them ate bread on the same day of their accident. It isn't unreasonable to assume that perhaps half of them ate bread, so statistically you could say that eating bread is associated with car accidents (as ludicrous as it sounds). But can you say that eating bread actually causes car accidents? Of course not (unless it were alcholic bread or something haha). Anyway, I think I'll still call "Mark" by his old name. I wonder what name I would pick if i were to change mine.