Procrastination

I keep immersing myself into the world of television drama,
as I do not wish to be back to reality.

I am not comfortable with being dependent on other people.

This is a writing about growing up.
Well, sort of.

Mother and I
Growing up with a relatively humble background, I never really have the privilege to travel around, I never complained much about that though. I was a chilled kid who day-dreamed a lot.

I have always thought that there is nothing much to learn from my parents. Only later do I realize that just because they don't lecture you with their voices, they don't have any educational background, that they are still poor, don't mean there is nothing to learn from them.

Graduating from university and starting my "adulthood" experience makes me cherish my parents and every one around me more and more.

We are all born with different circumstances. People are over- and under-privilege. My mother, albeit her love for studying, had to halt her education at the age of 7 due to poverty and to take care of her 4 other siblings. Her childhood, adolescence and basically the first 3.5 decades of her life revolves around doing hard work for the sake of her family. I don't think she has a choice, nor freedom.
I only appreciate her after I really "grow up" and started to think from her perspectives.

Unlike her, I have the opportunities for receiving educations, I have the freedom to choose. I have a lot of other choices that may seems nothing when I lay them out to you, but was luxury for her back then. She is the woman who feeds me everyday, brought me to school everyday, bought ice-creams when I asked her to, and endlessly cared for me. Parents are the only ones who would give up their own enjoyment for our well-being. And they never complaint about it.

(And I felt so bad for my puberty misbehaviour for my mother!)

Ever since I started working, the feeling of empowering myself and be able to take good care of my family is growing stronger and stronger. This is my goal and I will work really hard towards it.

Going to Places

However, in the coming years I will have to go abroad for further studies. And it was an unknown place for me. I know nobody there and I will have to work part-time to cover the cost.
I was very intimidated, nervous, scared.
It should be exciting. Everyone was exciting.
But no, there is no exciting, just freight and uncertainties.
And I must say, these feelings are originated from my own financial situations. I don't have a lot to begin with. And I will have to work really really hard in order to finish the course of studies. I don't want to be a burden of my family and friends. I hate being dependent on the others.
Unlike many of my friends, some of them are used to being taken care of, comfortable with parent's handling all the difficulties. I want to be able to beat the odds and I don't want my family to ever have to worry for me.

Now some people are probably thinking it's easy to move abroad and all the stress that I have are unnecessary. However I think you can only truly understand when you experience that by yourself. The stress and the irritation are simply there when you don't have enough money to survive!

Come to think about it, the coming years are all about
Saving Money + Working My Ass Off + Surviving in a foreign land!
It's exactly how my mom started out !
If your mom can do it, there's no reason to be afraid!

I must have the best positive mentality and an unbeatable energy level in the coming years!

Banks are robbers!

Banks are robbers and I just want to cry :(

My painful journey of trying to reinstall windows 7

My painful journey of trying to reinstall windows 7

I have a 64-bit desktop computer, and a 32-bit laptop.

The 64-bit desktop was the patient that needs to be cured.

I haven’t used it for 2 years, I can imagine how rusty/dusty it is.

Anyway, the first problem encountered with the desktop is [Long Beeping Sound during starting].

1) It continuously created this long beeping sound when turning on, and simply would not start.

//SOLVED!// Google solution:  It implied a RAM problem. So I opened the case, plugged out and plugged in the memory cards. Simple! The problem was solved.

And here comes the second problem. There was no problem starting the computer now. But the explorer was always freezing and not responding. I had to resort to press “RESET” to restart the computer. I think the windows was [CORRUPTED].

2) The computer just kept freezing / not responding.

//WORKING ON IT// Google solution: Re-installing the windows !

2.1)BROKEN CD/DVD ROM

I have done this before and this should not be hard at all. I still had my OEM windows 7 disk. I put in the disk and started to boot from cd/dvd rom. However, whenever I did this, it went straight to the log-in page like I normally did when starting the computer. It simply wouldn’t go to the install page. At this point I thought I didn’t something wrong, maybe I didn’t press the right key when starting up. Later I tried to input several other disc and test the cd/dvd rom, and realized that it’s a hardware problem, the cd/dvd rom was BROKEN or needed to be repaired, as it kept ejecting the disc whenever I inserted one. At that point I was pretty discouraged, as without a functional cd/dvd rom, I would have to boot from a bootable USB. However, to eliminate the possibility that it is a Dusty Lens that caused the malfunction, I even took out the cd/dvd rom and cleaned it with cotton swab and alcohols.

//SOLUTION// I will have to create a bootable USB with Win7 DVD/USB tool.

2.2)FAILURE to Create Bootable USB with the Win7 DVD/USB tool

I tried to create a bootable USB from both 64-bit desktop and 32-bit laptop.

Only that, my ONLY functional 4.0 GB USB thumbdrive (Sandisk Data Traveler) seems to be malfunctioning too.

Whenever I inserted the USB thumbdrive, it occasionally asked me to reformat it (on both computers) . Initially the thumbdrive stills worked. So creating a bootable USB thumbdrive is totally workable. I was set out to do that. After downloading the Windows 7 ISO (64-bit) from the internet, which took about 1 hour, I used the Windows 7 DVD /USB  tool to create a bootable usb from my 32-bit laptop. I realized that you must download the bootsec.exe in order to create a 64-bit bootable usb from a 32-bit operating system. OKAY, I tried that too. It just won’t work. The program kept saying that it was unable to copy the ISO to the USB drive. I did not know if it’s the USB that caused the problem or the dvd/usb tool that is the culprit. At this point I have already tried this process for several times to make sure I did nothing wrong in the process.

I also tried to create a bootable usb from my 64-bit desktop. But as mentioned above, the 64-bit desktop was constantly freezing, so there are times when I had to force restart the computer. It was impossible to finish the process. I pretty much gave up creating the bootable USB with the 64-bit desktop.

//SOLUTION//Creating a bootable 64-bit usb with other method.

2.3)CORRUPTED WINDOWS 7 ISO FILES with the DISKPART method

More google time revealed that I could use the DISKPART method to create a bootable USB drive.

And I decided to give my 64-bit desktop a last chance to create a bootable usb. It is because I did not know how to create a 64-bit bootable device from a 32-bit bootable device without using the Windows 7 DVD/USB tool.

DISKPART method only works on 64-bit to 64-bit, 32-bit to 32-bit.

So I followed one of those Youtube Tutorial to carefully type in the commands and tried to transfer the ISO image to my thumbdrive. I tried Diskpart for a few times (as the computer freezed occasionally and I have to restart the process again.) with the same Sandisk Data Traveller USB. Finally it seems to work! The files were all transferred to the thumbdrive successfully. COOL. Now I can officially boot the desktop from my USB!

And so I did. Every things go smooth, I enter the windows installation page, it asked for my preferred languages and I pressed English , this and that. And then a tab popped up and said “No drivers were found”. Damn , another obstacle again. More google time.

I realized that the reason for that Error was a corrupted ISO files that I have downloaded from the internet. The Diskpart method was okay. That means I will have to find an uncorrupted Windows 7 64bit ISO from the internet again. Another hour was gone.

Okay My mistakes. Creating a 64-bit bootable USB from a 64-bit desktop is ideal only if your desktop is functional!  Mine is simply not working much. I should have just resorted to create a 64-bit bootable USB from my 32-bit desktop, without using  the Windows 7 DVD/USB tool, and a semi-broken USB thumbdrive,  even though I don’t quite know how to achieve that!

//SOLUTION//Creating a bootable 64-bit usb on a 32-bit platform

2.4)DISKPART METHOD, second try! Forget about broken thumbdrive, I bought a NEW ONE!

So after re-downloading the 64-bit Windows 7 ISO, I then downloaded the 32-bit ISO as well.  And I officially gave up the semi-broken usb thumbdrive, I thought I have given all my due benefit of doubts to it. It should die happily after causing me so much pain and patience. I bought a new 16GB USB and decided to use DISKPART method to create the bootable drive from my LAPTOP.

This time, I first used the diskpart method to transfer the 32-bit ISO images to my new USB, using my 32-bit laptop. And then I delete all the files inside the USB thumbdrive. Next I unzipped the 64-bit ISO image, copy and paste all of it to the thumbdrive. Everything goes smooth this time. DONE!

I patiently inserted the bootable USB to the desktop and finally re-installing the Windows 7 successfully!

CONCLUSION

Looking back, there are a lot of chances that I could have saved my time and jump to certain workable solutions. I could have simply bought a New DVD/CD rom, that would sort it out easily.

I could have bought a new thumbdrive earlier. Or I could have jumped to last solution as well.

But most of the time, it’s impossible to realize what the problem really is until you encounter the problem.

Time was consumed. And I can only comfort myself with finally reinstalled windows 7 after all this painful process.  Plus I am convinced that my patience tolerance has been boosted drastically, and I learn that MONEY can really save time! Haha.

If you read this part, I congratulate you on making this far. I don’t think such a long boring passage about the trial and error on re-installing windows will be of ANY interests to any people. Thanks for reading though!

MASSIVE INTERNET PURGE

MASSIVE INTERNET PURGE, and bring back the old internet!

I believe there is an instant need for an internet purge that deletes all the duplicated, unnecessary, spammy content.

The massive redundancy of the internet is reducing efficiency for people who are looking for information. Only the sites with true content should be left and those spammy websites that merely copy and paste information should be deleted from the search result.

The muji Product Fitness 80 Page

I was browsing the Muji website this morning and realize they have this Muji Product Fitness 80 Page that I have never seen before.
http://www.muji.net/lab/fitness80/en/
It turns out Muji has implemented ways to minimize their design to promote sustainability and reduces wastes. I like the idea so much. Reducing waste + Minimalistic = My Fav!

Twistable lightweight bottle design
It is not something new. The first time I have seen it is from the Bonaqua Water Bottle Design. This design encourages the users to reduce their impact on the environment and save recycling space by twisting and shrinking the bottle.
Speaking of this type of reducing material uses and encouraging recycling, it keeps me wonder if one day it would be possible to have people bringing their own sterilized/cleaned bottles to the stores and just purchase the liquid the sellers.

Downsized card
I am not particularly sold to this idea. Primarily because I am the kind of person who does not like to have cards at all. Plus it can get quite clumsy when the cards are not in a uniform size and you will have to search through the pocket to hunt down the card. It would only work if most cards issuers begin to downsized together and then the wallet designers customized for the change accordingly. It would be even greater if one day, all the different card details can be encrypted into a single card (although that probably embarks a lot of security issues...).

 

Shorter Cotton Bud 

This is just sweet. How come I never realize that most cotton Bud are unnecessarily long? Come to think about it, a lot of the tools that we used in our daily life also have extra dimensions that can be cut in order to save materials, for example: straws, usb cord (this might be a bit debatable. haha), towels, toothpicks, spoon, etc. Although it is quite counter-intuitive to think that, actually most manufacturers have already think about each dimensions accordingly before producing the final products, but I think it doesn't hurt to redesign and re-modified to suit the current situation.

Fewer ring binders

I seldom buy notebooks and I mostly just use recycled paper if I have too. I am not very fond of writing on papers but I think it is an absolute good ideas to reduces the number of ring binders, plus it's easier to pull of the sheets of paper !

Stuff I really like from MUJI!

I love MUJI stuff,
although in my opinion, it is a bit pricy. But consider that the stuff are made in Japan,
I would give it a go.
Let me show you some of the stuff I like from MUJI!

For example, this Acrylic desk rack is perfect for anyone who needs to use stationary for their daily life a lot.

This transparent rack is just perfect. They have some other smaller size if one doesn't need that many space.

 

Acrylic desk rack

But they are not very cheap (it really depends).

If you want to save money, you can just buy a piece of 4mm or 5mm acrylic, laser-cut it (or hand cut it), use chloroform to glue the partition deck and you can get a similar one.

Acrylic Magnetic Frame

Next, I LOVE these Acrylic magnetic frame. The smallest one is very cute. Actually, I ONLY Like the smallest one. I like the simple idea that the frame is only made up by two acrylic blocks with magnets embedded in each block. I think it is quite a decent gift for a friend if you also embed a picture in it!

 Bedlinen

The bedlinen from muji is more expensive than those from ikea and other places. However, the cotton they used are quite comfy and more importantly , (WHICH are not shown in the picture above), is that the bedlinen has rubber cord covering (not just the four corner of bed linen) all around the perimeter. Therefore the bed linen will stay put even if you have violent activity on your bed. It helps to keep your room tidy and neat! I also quite like the color scheme of MUJI (usually beige color )

Small bag organizer

This is not the type that I like , but since the other types are not avaible on their website, I will just use it for it. Basically I am digging their small bag organizer that has a lot of partitions! I like organizing stuff and put them in proper orders, therefore their bags are very suitable for me. Plus these kind of bags are really small and can be put inside a handbag/schoolbag/any bag. Occasionally they are on sale and I only buy one when it's cheaper.

Silicon Candy House Mold

I don't have an oven. But I find this quite adorable! You wouldn't expect something like this from a store that carry the word simplicity as its motto. It's not just the shape that appeals to me, the pockets that got boolean out are perfect for adding other sweet ingredients into it !