Friday, March 25, 2011

I'm Still Here!

It's been over a week since I last touched the camera. I got distracted with helping my mom clean her entire house and now I want to make up those 15 minutes lost during the past week and my weekly photo venture. Unfortunately I didn't take any before and after pictures of my mom's house because I totally forgot since I was super focused on reorganizing and cleaning. Anybody that knows me, knows that I am a bit of a clean freak and I love to reorganize things. So one day of helping my mom turned into three full days! I was paid with my grandma's homemade food, which is priceless :)

Anyway... I have also been pondering about what to do with my life. I still haven't found the answer but I realized who are the people in my life that are positive and who are negative, and there is a lot more negative people sadly... But I understand that it's our nature to expect the worst but I have been feeling so positive after I quit my job three months ago and FREE to do anything I want, that I really dislike it when people just shut down any possibilities that seem unattainable now. I feel that I will get there someday and I am enjoying the process of exploring who I am.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Preparing for a Disaster

Today I am breaking my 15-minutes-a-day-photography streak because I spent the entire evening buying supplies to prepare for the family's emergency kit. The unfortunate current natural disasters are a wake up call of how unprepared I am if an earthquake or tsunami were to hit Southern California. We have so much to learn from Japan and how graceful they have reacted by helping each other and remaining calm. Your character truly shows in a state of chaos and Japan has been so exemplary, I keep them in my thoughts every day and I hope that everyone affected by these terrible disasters are able to overcome all the challenges. We are also being affected indirectly but definitely not to the extent that Japan is and I can only imagine how difficult it must be.

Remaining calm is probably one of the most important qualities to have when an emergency strikes. Otherwise, your common sense is clouded and your next action could mean life or death. I highly recommend http://72hours.org/build_kit.html to get acquainted with the how to's of natural disaster preparation. It is quite an investment in terms of money, time, and space but I think our survival is worth the investment. I spent a couple of hours at the 99 cent store getting a lot of these items and since I am preparing a kit of 7 days, it was the perfect place to head to as a starter. However, there are some items that are more efficient to get online, especially for the quality. For example, a multi-functional tool (think the movie "127 Hours"), quality flash lights, or protein bars.

I am probably about 40% done with the family's emergency kit and  and have so much more to go but hopefully by the end of this month I am better prepared if something terrible were to happen in the foreseeable future. They have been saying that the "big one" is coming to California for a long time but I never really paid attention to it until now. Anything can happen in a blink of an eye and it's better to be over prepared than not prepared at all. Reality sinks in when you have to include a photo of every member of your family in case someone goes missing. When I think of the suffering in Japan, I feel so heart-broken :( I wish everyone well and hope things get better...

Friday, March 11, 2011

Japan's Earthquake and Tsunami - 3/11/2011

My thoughts and prayers go to those affected by Japan's earthquake and tsunami that occurred approx. 12 hours ago in the middle of the day local time in Japan. This is a reminder of how minuscule and weak we are compared to mother nature's forces. We can build skyscrapers, cities, bridges, malls, etc. and it can all be brought to nothing in a matter of seconds. I urge all of us to prepare an emergency kit and discuss with our families what to do in case of emergency. 


We are not invincible and our time is limited. I recently watched Steve Jobs' commencement speech from 2005 at Standford University and it reminded me so much of The Alchemist. It was such an inspiration and I love the message: to reach for the stars and don't let anybody's noise put you down and to pursue whatever your heart tells you because the only thing you will end up regretting at the end is not failure if you attempt it but regret for never letting loose and leaving your comfort zone. 


As Steve Jobs said at some point, we should stop living somebody else's life. It's time we define what our life should be like  and strive to reach our goals every single day. I have left my comfort zone since December 14, 2010 when I quit my job as an auditor at a Big Four and it has been the happiest I've been in a while. Don't get me wrong, I learned a lot through my 2.5 years at a Big Four but I knew after a year and a half of working as an auditor that it wasn't what I wanted for my life. A tragedy like the one that just occurred in Japan is an encouragement to live life to the fullest and don't be tied down by things that you don't aspire to.