Lessons learnt from "The Diary of Amos Lee"

For those who understands me, it's really tough to get me to read a book. I've bought many books where I've had the urge to read them, but really, they just end up in a pile in some corner of my room. I want to read them. I just haven't found the right timing (maybe...). There has only been a few books which I really read them, page to page. Harry Potter being one of the series. If you count graphic books, I'm following a series by a famous Taiwanese blogger/illustrator.

It's just like blogging. No point saying I want to pick up blogging again if I end up not doing it! Figured I would just write whenever I feel like to. Or like keeping a diary like in "The Diary of Amos Lee".

It's a new book I got from Popular bookstore on Saturday evening. And I couldn't really put it down. It's a book for Young/Intermediate Readers - so it's simple and easy to read, not a lot of text, has attractive illustrations. But I also thought it was interesting! In fact, after finishing the whole book, I found some of the stories quite motivating.

It's written by a local author, Adeline Foo (whom I later found out to be the wife of my brother-in-law's boss). And it began with the boy ("Amos Lee") starting to write his diary in the toilet "when (he is) doing (his) big business." Story after story, the diary takes the readers into the mind of a 10-year-old boy living in Singapore. Amos Lee writes about everything and anything! Things that happened in school, activities he did with his family, assignments his mother took him and the sister out for, his relationship with his best friends, things he desires/enjoys, things he hates, things he did good or wrong. He is absolutely honest in his diary, despite knowing that his mother is reading it (and father too). While I wonder how much of all that is true story, and if any of it is true, it was entertaining to pick up a few facts (on frogs and pangolins!), and just see what life of a 10-year-old boy could be like. (I thought Amos Lee is rather fortunate to have experienced all that!)

You may also find some of the stories rather motivating for adults.
For example, a 10-year-old boy who makes his goods to sell? I'm sure adults can have more better ideas at entrepreneurship! What about a 10-year-old who raises funds to help a schoolmate who has bullied him before? We can do more with being generous and forgiving in this society!

I've never paid much attention to local publications. But I think "The Diary of Amos Lee" has completely changed my opinion. It's a diary, basically one anecdote after another, which makes it real easy to just pick up and put down the book anytime and anywhere you want, e.g. while waiting for bus to come, commuting on MRT to work, at a restaurant waiting for food to be served, on the bed waiting to fall asleep or when you're in the toilet for 'big business'! Most of the stories are lighthearted to read. Some may get down to more serious business, but things do smooth out eventually. There is a lot of character development towards the end of the book too.

"The Diary of Amos Lee" series also had great illustrations. That was what caught my eye at the bookstore. Illustrated by local designer/illustrator, Stephanie Wong, the doodles are cute, interesting, eye-catchy, appropriate, making the book an enjoyable item to hold and keep.

Overall, a thumbs-up for this book! Also, I just went to the bookstore today and bought #2, 3, 3.5 and 4 of the series.

Interesting: iPhone UI Stencil [Product]

For any iPhone app UI designers or developers, this will be a nice (geeky) addition to your gadgets collection -- an iPhone UI Stencil!!

Source: qiqufaxian.cn

A little Google surprise (trick)

I was told that I would find a little surprise if I try to type the words below in Google.

Follow these instructions carefully until the surprise happens for you, don't skip or read through them first!


1. Go to Google homepage


2. Type d in the search box ('D' or 'd' doesn't matter)


3. Type o


4. Hit 'spacebar' once

If the surprise still hasn't happened yet, continue on...


5. Type a

See it yet? Maybe a little bit more...


6. 'Spacebar'


7. Type b


You should be able to see the surprise by now. Like it? :p

Q-ing up at Taxi stands

I hope in reading this, nobody gets offended. I'm writing this in general and not against any individual who may be included in my photos. (Because I have seen some 'nobody' getting spiky before!) So don't take this too seriously please - this is all just for laughs!

There is a very strange phenomenon at the Bugis Junction taxi stand. Most times, people just can't queue up properly at the taxi stand - despite railings and arrows were laid out to guide them how to queue for taxi, people have chosen to ignore and form their own queue outside of the taxi stand.

This is what I mean:

Long queue forming -- Bugis Junction taxi stand

But the actual taxi "stand" is empty!!

First off, how did this happen?

This may seem stupid. Well, I guess it's really the 2nd to 3rd groups of people that can decide how the queue will turn out to be. I have drawn up a some diagrams to illustrate this.

First group - not an issue yet - people naturally walk up to the very edge, so can accept that.

Second group is most likely going to set the tone, but if the third group is not "smart" enough to try to stir back to the right path, then it's going to cause a situation as below:

And it's only natural that the rest follow suit - for fear of others not acknowledging them in queue:

This can cause serious clogging issues on the pathway if the queue gets too long! So far, I've only seen this happen at Bugis Junction's taxi stand. Probably it's the design of the taxi stand that is too counter-intuitive for most people to queue up properly.

Just a fun observation :p

Another revival? Multi-blogging on food, life...and the Arts.

I was just checking my blog stats, and I'm actually getting more consistent page views on this blog than my food blog!

*pat on my own back*

I'm thinking it's because I've owned this blog for a lot longer, there's more content, and that I did more work in trying to promote it in the past - submitting to blog directories and search engines etc. Makes me wonder if I should also revive this blog as well... Just posting interesting things in my everyday life or on topics I am passionate about - still "creating new memories" to stick to the original theme.

Can't believe that I'm actually doing a lot now to get back into blogging. Despite all the new social media channels popping up now and then, blogging still seems to be a popular activity - the intensity of content, and being always readily available is hard to match up with with channels like Twitter, where there's usually an information overload due to the speed at how fast information comes and goes on your timeline. You really need to be there constantly to not miss a thing.

Went to the National Museum of Singapore yesterday with my family. First time there, and even though it's no where near spectacular like the MET museum, it's still worth a visit once in a while. A Musée d'Orsay Paris collection of masterpieces has definitely sparked an interest in learning more about the different art movements/styles in history. (Vaguely remembering all those big names like Renoir, Monet and Cézzane from an Art class in middle school.)

I had the urge to wake the artistic side of me - the side that had me choose Arts elective classes and eventually tried to study architecture in college. I seem to have lost that side after moving into business and marketing.

So I started a photo blog on Tumblr where I plan to document all the art pieces, architecture, and historical facts that I find. Hopefully, it helps others to learn a thing or two and get inspired as well.