Starting Stoicism

I vaguely remember during my elementary school days, there was a TV ad with the song Que Sera Sera. That song looped in my head (and most of my friends) for a long time, it’s no surprise to hear one of us humming the tune during classes or recess. the song that seems innocent with its catchy tune might end up being my favorite life mantra.

Just like any other person, overthinking about stuff is one of many steps before falling asleep. You know the routine, wash your face, brush your teeth, drink your water, overthink about your life, and fall asleep. Just a normal step-by-step. Until I found out, that overthinking is not that good for the mind (and body).

GASP!

Getting older and more mature (I hope!), I try to think less about stuff. Okay, not less, but more selective! does it happen overnight? Of course not! I ain’t Bandung Bondowoso to do stuff overnight?

To start the story let’s trace back to high school Andy, I knew that I have an acquired taste. Music, thought process, and such. Back then, I was such a hard-headed opinionated, stubborn teen. I am guessing too much emo music (*painting my nails black). I felt like I know what I want and don’t want! But oh boy, what a child. As times fly by, I met more people, learn more stuff, what I thought as decisiveness, turns out to be more of ignorance. I have such a narrow point of view and tend to ignore anything else.

Let’s move to College Andy, older not necessarily wiser. There was still a trace of high school Andy here, loud and trying too hard to fit in. But I guess, that was a process of how we understand ourselves. A trial and error to find which one resonates best with us. I was lucky to find a group of friends that were pretty mature for our age. Other than typical young adult pranks and jokes, we never really went too far on jokes or any substances. It might be also the first time I applied stoicism, to let the things that I can’t control, without me realizing it.

It all started during exams when all of us as usual stressed about how we did and what grade we will get. I was never really an ambitious student that need to have the perfect score for everything, my goal was only to pass. anything above it I consider it a bonus. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t give my all during exams, I did my best, I studied and review the syllabus even on the bus on the way to campus. I did my exam seriously and try to nail every question. Same with my classmates. The difference is I don’t really stress it after the exam ended. Maybe I thought about it, for five or 10 minutes, and I move on. Back to the mantra Que Sera Sera.

But, along the year as we go on, we remember, all the time we, spent together

round of applause for those who sing along!

In all seriousness, over the year I have faced much more stuff (D’oh). While I can do the Que Sera Sera thing on the exam, I can’t really put it during a group exam, right? I mean, I can do it myself, but I can’t make my group mates take it as I took it. We are all independent beings, and I can’t make them do stuff. I can only share my idea of letting it go and letting them decide what to do. The same thing during the projects, there will always be people that do nothing. of course, it is case by case, they might have any other situation that makes them unable to do stuff. I do curse a little just to let off some steam and continue with the project. Now as I grow more the cursing changes to a little sigh and keeps marching on.

From what I experienced, a quick google search, Marissa Anita’s Video on Greatmind, and a book from Om Piring’s ‘Filosofi Teras’ I get more and more interested in stoicism. I am currently looking for a reference about stoicism and might get Seneca’s Letter From a Stoic for my next read.

Quick Update

Hello world!

I wanted to jot down a quick update as to push myself to write again, so I can get this brain running again. I have been on a slump lately, up to the point I feel that my brain is on idle. I couldn’t think as clearly as I used to, seems like every time I need to think about some stuff my mind just went, “nope, go back be a potato”.

It sucks.

So what have I done during these past months?

Mostly Genshin Impact, LOL, I played Genshin as if I am a pro gamer. Well, I started playing while I was in between waiting for orders back when the shop were still open. So, when it temporarily closed, I just got extra time to play. Speaking of shops, the actual building for my eatery is done. Now we just need to wait for the water line to be installed before we can finally built a kitchen and do reno for the decor and stuff. Well, not a building per se, it is a shophouse, but I know you know what I mean.

This means I need to contact my contractor to discuss about the plan for the site so I can pass it on to them and focusing on menu and operational stuff. although it will be a similar menu and concept just to make it more elaborate as we are going to be a dine in first instead of a take away/deliveries. I got my mind on stuff but, like I said the brain is still rebooting. Wish me luck for this new(ish) endeavor.

Youtube Phase

It couldnt be called a phase actually, I’ve been on youtube consuming content ever since Wong Fu Weekends were still a thing. Nowadays I like to watch some relaxing video of people vlogs. Mostly silent vlogs, be it travel, daily life, even a cafe vlog when I watch people preparing order for customers. I guess it kinda motivate me to actually do stuff instead of lazing around with comics and Genshin.

On Stoicism

I bought a book called ‘Filosofi Teras’, TL;DR it was a book about stoicism. After reading the book I find myself more and more interested about Stoicism. This is such a nice and easy book to read with great value and applicable examples. If you in the need of books to read, I highly recommend you grab a copy of it.

On the stoicism itself, I planned to write another blog about it. Please wait for it. *also this act as a accountability post

On a more recent news, I just got my wisdom tooth extracted by surgery last Friday, and how I miss eating actual food with texture! The surgery itself wasnt that bad (except for the bill), but the aftermath is manageable. There are some discomfort, but it didn’t really hurts considering I got three teeth out of my jaw now. Tomorrow I plan to contacting the doctor for a follow up check, wish everything went well and I can eat fried food soon!

I guess this will be it for the post. I hope to write more in coming weeks.

Toodles!

2021 in a Glance

2021 was one of my major year. I open my first outlet in January, up and running until it must be put on hold in June. Oh boy, that might be the craziest six months in my life. Running an eatery, no matter how small it is, are no joke. I lost around 10-15 KGs while prepping (although gain it again later, thanks to stress eating). Running the shop was fun albeit stressful. I remember how easily triggered I was when the tickets are coming and how I cried after a couple days of low to no sales.  

All were done while still in the middle of the pandemic, no less. Now that I able to sit back and recap calmly, I must be mad back then. Again, I must be lucky to have such a helpful family and friends, esp. those in the same industry, whom I bother for even the menial things like operating the POS and groupbuy-ing paper roll for our thermal printer. (pro-tip, when you are a small business, find the same supplier with your friends so you can bulk order together for efficient cost!) 😛 

The decision to put this project on hold was also hard but necessary. Remembering how hasty I was during the preparation and building a kitchen with a minimum knowledge of construction, running all aspect solo (although I am thankful for a couple of friends that helps me occasionally). let see the process as a run-through for the overall project. This is only a pause, not a stop. 

2021 Was also a re-start for me to read more books, though still not a book a week as I aimed, it is better than 2020. Getting some limited printed books for a change of atmosphere from the usual ebook. Not gonna lie, I was sad when Kinokuniya Bookstore Plaza Senayan stop operating. I remember how I spent some afternoon there just to be surrounded by books in a cosy atmosphere (I do buy some magazine or light novel tho). But, thanks to Post Bookshop I am able to find more niche books such as Singaporean light novels and memoirs. These kinds of books have their own charms, I recommend you to find some short stories collections such as ‘Balik Kampung’ Series. 

To sum it all, 2021 was unpredictable. There were so many ups and downs compared to previous years. Regardless let’s get the ups to fuel 2022 and the downs to be a lesson to get even better! 

How have you been?

Are you eating well?
Are you sleeping well?
Are you living well?

Well, I have been hanging on as well as I could during the circumstances. although some bad news in these past days did hit me.

I am tired, I know that you also feel the same.

I can’t say anything but “Hold On”

Shits are tough, not like it was easy before, but it did seems a lot easier previously.

Find things that keep you afloat in these times.

alas

Just hold on.

Catching Up

Catching Up

It’s been ages since I write just for the sake of write. 

I used to have some little writing project back in the days, regardless of the quality of the writing. I have to post things up, and this was way before the algorithm craze. this is a way of me keeping myself accountable. Then I started to (kinda) write with purpose, a “food for thought” if you will, and I stop. Well, there was some incident that makes me really loathe writing, it gives me bad memories, to be honest, as I typing this down, I can kinda still remember the old incident. True it was partly from my ability at that time, but to quote Kim Cattrall “She could be more nice to people”.

Well, after some times I think I want to start writing again. 

No objective

No Goals

Just Write

about anything, catching up with myself, jotting down some thoughts, and sharing some little experiences. 

Okay, so I open up a small eatery now. Serving food that I love, simple and tasty. 

I know running a business is not easy and tiring, but even with early acknowledgment of the fatigue, it is still catch up to you. especially when the business is still small and you run it all by yourself. Friends and Family do help, but all the day to day, all the decisions made are handled by yours truly. Not to mention it is all in the midst of this crazy corocoro situation. If you were playing a game in Hard, this just switched to Extra Super Mega Hard. 

Why start a business in the mid of pandemic, you may ask.

because this damn thing happens in my 30th birthday. I have a nice plan from the start of the year to looking for places, setting up menu, doing the marketing and digital stuff, until it ready to launch in November, right when I turn 30. Yet, all this crazyness happened and we got stuck inside, hoarding as many stocks as our bank account (and supermarket stocks) allowed. Things got delayed, until when I turns 30, I decided to take the plunge. We don’t know how long this thing gonna last, might as well start now and adjust accordingly. 

year long planning stage, cut into one months (which I aimed for opening before christmas), got pushed to January, after the stress eat me out and make me loss 10 KGs (Which are welcomed, actually). Really, trying solo to open an eatery within 2 months from scratch, Not Recommended. 

Now, Six months in the business, things are not getting easier. Not gonna lie, there are days when I just wish I have a money tree that I can just pick and live my life hopping from cafe to cafe, reading books and watching netflix. But, fairy tale is indeed a tale. The bad days are gonna happen and I need to push through it. There were way too many goals I dismissed just because of the obstacle I hit. 

Running a small business are not easy, being entrepreneur is hard, especially when you still have no team. But those hardships are bearable, I am lucky to met such a nice group of local small business owner, that we ended up supporting each other, as simple as wishing a good services, sharing suppliers, even ordering bulk items so we can get a lower price. 

Hardships are inevitable, we have to face it to move forward.

Blessing are also inevitable, We have to be grateful for it as little as it may seems. 

What makes a good review

I just recently did some research about logistic service that provide a service to send package between city on the same day. Couple clicks later, I landed on a bad review for one company. It says, that the service was bad and unsatisfactory.

Okay.

It is normal.

What boggle my mind is, the reviewer decided to sort of censored the company name.

If so, doesn’t it kind of defeat the purpose of the review? For information, this review is posted on a public forum, not the company page.

I mean, isn’t a review is supposed to be clear about what happens and whom involved? If they decided to censored the company name, wouldn’t it be useless. If the argument is to not give a publication for the company, instead of giving sort of a half-assed review, wouldn’t it will be better to just not post anything at all?

Of course it wouldn’t be fair if a reviewer just bash a company without any reason. It will be great if a reviewer provide a detailed chronology about what happens, also a solution for the problem. Not a mere “This service is bad”. Bad in term of what? Long queue? Not friendly customer service? Pricey? There are a lot of aspects that can affecting ones opinion. Not to mention a different person got a different tolerance level.

One might find a bad service a dealbreaker, while other might find it’s okay as long as it is cheap, and so on.

A good company should be able to handle any input provided from the customer. Isn’t it one way to improve the company product, especially the one that giving out service. Because in service, I believe customer satisfactory played a major role. Also being an approachable company could give an advantage, because the customer will feel that their voices are heard, thus will be more comfortable in using the product/service provided.

So is it still necessary to censored the company in a review? For me, it is not. Let’s tell it as it is, and ultimately be fair. If you felt the service/product is bad, tell it to the company first, then go write on your review. If the company happens to help and solve the problem for you, share the good news, if they don’t, tell they don’t. This way we can help others that in need about the kind of information related with our review.

Please leave a comment, I’d love to hear your perspective about this.

It Is Not Only About Beautiful Picture

When people looking for a review, what are they really looking for?

Cool places, beautifully plated food, amazing friendliness from staffs/owner, the actual taste of the food?

There are millions, that need to be considered to write a proper review, be it about food, book, cafe, movies, anything.

There are a lot of thoughts and process to make it, and to just snap some instafriendly picture and throw some ‘Good Food’, ‘Bad Food’, ‘Lousy’ on it, clearly not do any justice for all of us. It was not a good review for the reader and clearly not a valuable input for the business. If you believe that, they are not a to your liking, you can try to describe it over, is it overcooked, is it too salty, is it too spicy, the wait staff is not attentive, etc. Do not just left it in one liner and put the hashtag #FoodBlogger on your post.

You aren’t one.

Or, at least, not yet one.

Because simply ‘Good Food’ is never good enough. Let’s say you order a spaghetti bolognese, you can try to say “the pasta cooked perfectly, the sauce was flavorful, you can totally taste the tomato, although I would prefer it with a little bit of salt to enhance it more. All in all, it was a pleasant meal.”  

With a more elaborate review you can tell your reader how is your palate, but still giving out general information that should be the standard, like an al dente pasta, not hard like it barely cooked or a mush that can be smashed with your fork, but it has to give a resistance when you bite it. That is a good al dente pasta.

What I feel with a descriptive post about food is to built a relationship between you and the reader. With a more detailed post, the reader will get your tastebuds better and they will find whose taste suits who. Because food is surely an unique fields, everybody has their own taste profile. What greats for me might not suit your liking, and vice versa. That is why with a specific information we can give a more recomendation about food and places we loved.

This is not exclusively for a blogger or food writer that have their specific website. But I believe this is applicable even on Instagram or restaurant review site such as Zomato and such. I encourage you to read more cookbooks, or watch cooking show, a lot of cooking shows. It will helps to enrich us with a vocabulary to describing foods. Try watch Top Chef or Chef’s Table to get a chef’s perspective. For me, those things give me more appreciation on the food I ate.  

Beautiful picture is cool, informative review is awesome, both of them together is amazing, just like ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony, side by side on my piano keyboard, oh why don’t we. *high five if you got this song references.

I write this piece in an attempt to shake the rustiness of my already lacking keyboard skill, as well as something that has been on my mind after I saw some review on the food service apps as well as #FoodBlogger at Instagram.

Tonight The Street are Ours!

I’ve been following a Singaporean Photographer called Aik Beng Chia for a while, he took photos of Singapore like nobody else. While people took all the mighty atas – atas picture of Singapore, he shows us Singapore from another point of view. He often takes pictures on the back alleys of Singapore, which give us another approach of Singapore. I have also been following his live session in Instagram where he shares the backstory about his projects and how he approach photography.

The song I used in this post is the song by Richard Hawley that he used on his project with the same title. If you have the time, I do reccomend you to look over his website, he took picture from everyday Singaporeans to an old school Teo Chew Opera Crew.

*atas – atas is a term in Singapore that used for explaining upscale lifestyle.

The Good Ol’ Days

Right now I am in the middle of The Romance of Three Kingdoms, Book Two, a Chinese classics. Which should not be a surprise for my friends, since they know what I am into. I always have the affection towards old school stuff, be it movies, books, fashion style, especially music.

I love old school music.

What I listen in the car is varied from my Spotify playlist, but mostly is a daily mix consisting of old Mandopop hits or a playlist from 80’s band or sometimes musical scores. I don’t know why, but classic hits always hit my soft spot. I am not sure if it is the arrangement that’s easy to follow, though sometimes the lyrics can be corny as hell, or simply it gives out such a comfortable nostalgic feelings. My analysis is heavy towards the latter since I am not the one with the musical talent.

My analysis is heavy towards the latter since I am not the one with the musical talent. That’s why I believe I have some sort of nostalgic attachment towards it. The weird thing is, I wasn’t born when the hits were written and put on the chart. That thing aside, I believe that old memories do affect our decisions in the present days and a big reason why nostalgia marketing is very effective nowadays. Just like the remake of Power Rangers or live action version of Beauty and The Beast. They took the old fond memories of the customer to push the sales, which I thought a smart move. Instead of throwing things that completely new, we take an old stuff that hits and tweak it a bit and put the technology that was not possible back then.

I am not saying that this is the best way, innovation is always a good thing. It pushes people to learn more and more. But, sometimes we do need to chill a bit and reminiscing the good ol’ days, don’t we?

Meanwhile, enjoy this amazing music from 1987 Mannequin Movie, “Nothing Gonna Stop Us Now” by Starship.

The Power Rangers I love

 

from here

 

I still remember during my childhood, I, just like any other Asian kids in an Asian household, have to go through a home tutoring session, even on Sunday morning. I was unlucky because my session starts at the same time with the airing time of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I remember I took a long drinking break from my dinner table to my living room for the sake of having a glance of that week episode. I feel that one hour of Mandarin lesson was a torture. Why I should learn these weird, strange, shaped character while five badass teenagers are kicking monsters out of the city of Angel Grove. I dreaded that hour (which now I regret why I wasn’t paying attention more to it), and kinda drive my tutor crazy and gave up teaching me, I was gladly accepting my precious time in savouring every episode of Power Ranger. Then comes the times where my favourite superhero got their first big screen appearance. The trip to the movie is already a fun activity and now I get to watch the badass power ranger out of my TV at home. It was a lot of fun!

Fast forward to 2017, the reboot of the movie is out, they cast a new member as the power ranger, give them superpower, and have them fight evil in the form of Rita Repulsa. As an homage to my childhood, I go and watch the movie. I was going to the movie with a low expectation because I have seen snippets about the zord and the armour on social media. To be honest, I hate it. Yes, they give out a new modern touch in it, but I feel it was too much. When I heard Power Ranger, I expecting to see five teenagers (with an attitude) in a bit tacky costume, not some armour from a cyborg or sci-fi movie. Same goes with the zords, it’s a bit too cool.

Storyline wise, it was not that bad. I was expecting to have a classic power ranger moment, rangers fight monsters, loses, got a new power, fight again, win. But, nope, they give out a bit of backstory for each ranger, which is cool! I do not love it very much, but it is a cool take on the story and it shows the differences and issues from the current community. Sick parents, LGBT, Autism, Sportsman gone wrong, and girls hierarchy. It is suited to a mature audience, whose the same person that went to watch the first movie back in 1995.

As I said I go with low expectations, to be frank, this movie maybe the first reboot movie that I watch both versions. I do not expect to go out from the movie with the same awe I had back then, but I must say this movie bring back the memories of the good old days. Because no matter how old are you right now, I am sure the moment you see the zords coming out with a back sound of ‘go go power ranger’ it will put a smile on your face. I recommend this movie for you, but do not expect for a highly rated cinematic movie like transformers or such. For me, this movie is pure for the nostalgic purpose.

Well, I think it is the time to say this.

It’s Morphin Time!