Woman of the World

Tell me how can she not be listed in Forbes' top ten most powerful women?

She's just so amazing.

She leads one of the biggest companies in its industry, breaking the gender barrier of the gruelling men-dominated position. Her wisdom, intelligence and integrity have definitely brought her up the ladder to the ceiling of corporate world.

Watch the above video and I'm sure you wouldn't mind having her as your boss. She's so funny and modest. 

Please also tell me you could hear her determination and tenacity in the voice when she told the story about her daughter's class coffees. To me, this lady is a perfect example of "desire to success".

And despite her success, she stays true to her country, her religion and her family.

She's an aspiration.

She's Indra Nooyi, Chairperson and CEO of PepsiCo.

Boo-Yah!!

I saw this at Waterstone's bookstore today!!

By the staircase! What a clever spot to place a skeleton.

Anyway, not many people know this but I secretly love bookstores. I can literally spend the whole afternoon just looking around for good books at Waterstone's or WHSmith, read a page or two then think for an hour whether to buy it or not.

And, more often than not, I'd find myself sitting on the bench flipping through the book, page by page. Hehe. Can't help it, it's just so relaxing!

I wish I have a section like this in my house.

(oh,  I'd like to blame this whole geeky thing on my dad)

Like most other fathers, going out shopping with him means my roaming the shopping mall with the sisters while he "waits" at mph. All we have to do it give him a cue when we're ready to leave. Sometimes we even end up waiting for him, and he'd happily emerge from the bookstore holding two heavy bags of books, pfftt :)

Anyway, while I was wandering around the self help corener, I found a really good book called "59 Seconds : Think a Little, Change a Lot".

And at this time of writing, I'm actually browsing through a few pages of this particular book in my Kindle. Yep! You can get book samples in kindle, to feed you with the gists of the idea presented in the book. Also, it helps you save money just in case you change your mind after a couple of chapters. How convenient, right?

You should get one too! Hurry before the price goes up. Again.

Btw, I really love these two Instagram photos,

Toodles!!

p/s : currently obsessed with Modern Family,

Food + Waste = ?

Imagine yourself working for a supermarket that promises fresh products only, then you found out that some of the bread aren't that soft anymore or the cookies aren't that crunchy anymore but they are still edible and good, what would you do with these wastes?

I would say, "Give them to us!!"

We at Food Cycle would appreciate every little help.

Last weekend, I went to a Sunday market near Bond Street to collect any leftovers from the morning sales. The people were so generous they gave us two full bags of vegetables, a bag of bread and a box of crisps.

It's so huge like a turkey!

Also, we had a fund-raising activity at Sainsbury's last weekend, where we helped shoppers to bag their purchases!! It may just be me, but I actually find it quite interesting to know what people have in their cart and how much they spend on groceries.

While my hands were busy putting stuff into the bags, my mouth was also busy working. I spent two good hours at the till, trying to convince people to donate to our charity club. The highlight of the night has to be the £20 note a guy handed me to put into our tin. So richhhhhhh .. If only I could do that, pfft.

At this point, I'm sure all of you must be puzzling, "what on earth is this girl crapping?!" hehe. Well, here's my little pitch about Food Cycle to the shoppers ..

"We are a group of students who try to tackle food waste and food poverty problems at the same time. What we're currently doing is we get food wastes from big corporations (for example, we're working with WholeFoods now) and market owners, bring them back, cook and distribute the food to refugee centres around London"

So, anyone interested to join? :)

Btw, this is the definition of food waste according to wikipedia : "any food substance, raw or cooked, which is discarded or intended or required to be discarded"

Love,

Which one are you?

One good thing about doing engineering is that we get group projects all year round. Ok, liar obviously. But studying in an international environment means I get to work with people of different cultures, different styles of working and different manner. I've been in groups where mostly are Asians, mostly non-Asians and a mix.

These two conversations I had reflect both of the extremes.

conversation one

person A : i'm leaving now.

me : sure. so what time tomorrow?

person B : is nine ok for everyone?

all : yea.

the next day, the first person showed up at 12 o'clock.

conversation two

person A : it's getting late, let's call it a day.

person B : okay. tomorrow?

me : yea, shall we meet up at ten??

person C : that early?!

me : fine, half ten?

person A : hmm.. okay...

the next morning, everybody was there by 10.30am.

I'm sure you can tell which belongs to which group.

I hate to generalise as it's rather unfair to judge someone by their geographic upbringing, but I also wasn't implying anything bad here. There's always a trade off in every situation; the people who come late are very hardcore - they don't mind working until late night to finish their work, and the people who come early must leave at five every day.

I'm feeling lucky to be able to experience these things.

Anyway, on a different matter, after three years of studying here, I've picked up my most valuable social knowledge. I learned that there are two people in the world; those who rise after a fall, and those who keep falling.

So, which one are you?

Happy Holiday :)

Current Obsession

"I'm beautiful in my way,

cause god makes no mistakes,

I'm on the right track,

I was born this way"

Isn't that just so meaningful? Look deeper :)

And this version has been on repeat. So much better than the original, in my opinion. Enjoy

When Opportunity Knocks ..

You Open the Door :)

I've been reading a book about how desire, and desire alone, can make you successful and rich. A few pages into this theory, I became a little bit skeptical. A few chapters later, I was able to see the logic behind it after a bunch of examples.

But, without motivations, how far can desire bring you? That, I leave for you all to think.

Anyway, it was Pancake Day yesterday. A very sinful day of ice cream, oreos, succulent fruits and everything sweet.

If you look up in the book or google (as some of you might have done already), Shrove Tuesday as it's originally known is related to Christianity. So, here's a note from the writer : We weren't celebrating, it was just an excuse to get these gentlemen to accompany me to My Old Dutch, whose pancakes have been haunting me for days. It was pure coincidence. Pure. Hehe.

As expected, there was a long queue outside the shop that was visible even at 1km away. And we did exactly the stupidest thing to do at that moment, joined them. Desire, people, desire.

After half an hour, we were inside at the waiting area. I was so hungry and I swear I could hear the guys' belly grumbling while they pretended to be busy with the phones.

Ten minutes of pretending to be so deep into the home decor magazine passed so slowly and finally, a table was cleared. It was time to remove the mask, as monsters we were!!

a minute after ..

The pancakes are so huge that you'd go back a happy man :) If only I could make that big of a pancake, I wouldn't have to wait for this day next year to get them to go again. hMm.. one slice of those is like the size of my whole kitchen ! Minus the big tong sampah at the corner, hehe.

Anyway back to work, now. Back to reality.

Le Soleil

If only mornings begin with this ,

artpixie.tumblr.com

I'll be smiling till the stars stop shining.

je me leve de bon matin

Skype

Last week, I had a date with these lovely girls.

I just arrived home from work that day when I saw Mila online.

She was so excited to try this new feature on skype, called me numerous times but the video call failed every time. Turned out that my skype was an old version and she forced me to get the new one, as well as the video conference trial.

The last time the four of us were in the same room together was during our Italy trip back in 2008. We're so much older now and no time for each other anymore, hehe.

So, whoever was behind skype's video conference is pure genius!

It was such a short session as everyone had to leave, and we decided to give it another try. Date and time were set and confirmed.

I woke up early on Sunday for our 8am date but nobody was online. By 8.30am, I gave up and went back to sleep.

And, in an attempt to make them feel guilty, I got these.

Skype is not so cool after all :(