Life and Dots of Daniel

My reading corner

The reading habit of fellow Malaysians does bother me. I remember gathering facts and figures for my English essay during my secondary school. It was back in the 90s when Malaysians read less than 7 pages a day and on average 2 books per year.

Of late we are seeing more book stores and even book fest growing like mushrooms. Since so much of these book stores are up and running it should mean that the reading habit of Malaysians is increasing. One thing that turns me down is that books in Malaysia is rather expensive. The blessing is that we have sales and book fest to offer us a good buy.

Reading is Inspiring.

BookFest @ Malaysia is the 4th held so far in KL. If you are not aware of it there are two more days left - 30 & 31 August. It is held at the famous Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. During this sluggish economic period, people are stretching every worth of their ringgit. Event like this is great.

Wrist Strap

I begin to feel that I am running dry with words and expressions because of my lack of reading. People who do not read are genuinely boring. People who read are interesting and inspiring. After a short while spent on hibernating, it is time to take up reading. Reading shapes your vocabulary and writing skills.

This time around I stock my room with seven books and one for my office. Altogether it is 8 books! This is record breaking because never in my life I had bought so many books in a day. A little bit of world history, some fiction, some audacity of hope, a little bit of faith and some adventures should keep me occupied.

I heart these books

Books that I bought are Stephen King's Duma Key, John Grisham's The Appeal, Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope, Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, Don Piper's 90 Minutes in Heaven, E. H. Gombrich's A Little History of the World, James Patterson's Sundays at Tiffany. The last one being Perintah-Perintah Am dan Arahan Pentadbiran which every federal officer should own.

Now I am having trouble picking a book as a start. All seems delicious but I probably will go for Obama.

Reading keeps Daniel inspired!

PS: Meeting up with STP tomorrow. Coincidentally STP also means S'il Te Plaît (French: Please, informal). Haha!

Like it gold and white?

Today is already the second day of work. Basically I just spent my day at the library browsing some of the past projects so to get some idea of what I have to do next. Apart from that I also met up with my boss which then has made recommendation for my posting. All I know is he recommended some place near where I can complete my masters. So good of him. For the time being, I will just keep myself mum, you can start guessing if you are freaking free.

Last Friday, I managed to meet up with some of my coursemates at KLCC. While waiting for them, I bought one book which I remember mentioning about it briefly in my previous post. This book is really a must read. The words from His Holiness Pope John Paull II addresses some of the most asked questions in our time. Though religion is about faith, one has to believe in order to understand, at the same time one has to understand to believe.

If you are a Christian particularly Catholic, just as I am, I would recommend you to get yourself a copy of "Crossing the Threshold of Hope". First published in 1994, this book has been reprinted for the thirteenth time. Imagine that!

The cover of the book complement the Papal's colour - white and gold. I got the paper back version. Better still, it's available for DOWNLOAD. Somehow I found the link on the Internet for the PDF version. Still, it would be good if you could buy one.

Again, without fail, I must thank all my friends and fans who, when I am on MSN, never fail to show concern for me. I am fine and still surviving. Will let you guys know about my whereabout from time to time. Probably this Friday you will receive a text from me. In the meantime, if you see me less on your blog, it's because my Google Reader and loading. It's funny to see my Gmail working but not Google Reader.

Wave

There is this story about the little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He is enjoying the wind and the fresh air - until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore.

'My God, this is terrible,' the wave says. 'Look what's going to happen to me!'

Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, 'Why do you look so sad?'

The first wave says, 'You don't understand! We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn't it terrible?'

The second wave says, 'No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you are part of the ocean.'

This is a shot I took when I was in Uluwatu, Bali last year. I can't help but smile after reading this short snippet from Tuesdays With Morrie. He didn't mean ocean as in ocean, but ocean as metaphor for mankind and humanity.

When was the last time we keep watch of our human side? When we lost our humanity we are just like dead corpse roaming around just to past our days on earth. It is when we are filled with love, compassion and forgiveness for our selves and others that makes us human.

That's the story of the wave.

Many thanks to Emmelina for the Butterfly Award. She's a very beautiful teacher who knows dancing, do consider paying her a visit. Now I know my blog is one of the coolest blog she likes. Everybody loves Daniel, right?

I am supposed to pass this to ten people but I don't think this is the right time to do the nominating thing. I need to bury my face into my books. I am reading It's Not About The Coffee: Leadership Principles From The Life At Starbucks by Howard Behar. -_^