Quote of the Day

"All that the salvation of the world requires is the intelligent pursuit of our own self-interests..."

That one's from Robert Wright. I like the way it nudges me to lean back and look at things from a different perspective.

Be selfish and save the world. That's a new one. Or maybe not. With a little bit of thinking, I suppose some of us could arrive at the same conclusion.

If you want to know what I'm talking about, check out this talk he gave at TED.

Inspiring Story

I came across an article today in WorldChanging.com about a boy from Malawi whose ingenuity and resourcefulness made a big impact on his family's life and is now inspiring many people from around the world.

His name is William Kamkwamba, a 19-year-old who has had to drop out of school in 2002 because his family couldn't afford to pay the school fees. Despite this, however, he was still determined to educate himself as much as possible, reading books at a nearby public school library on his own. Here, he came across two books which caught his interest -- one talked about the principles of energy, and in the other was a how-to on building a simple windmill.

Living in a home with no electrical supply, he decided to experiment and tried out building a windmill of his own. Scrounging around for materials he could use in his village, and buying the other parts from money he was able to scrape together, he was able to build a windmill which, now, is able to supply the basic electrical supply needs of his home. They can now use light bulbs instead of relying on candles, and his family can now listen to the radio... and he can even charge the mobile phones of some of his neighbors!

Wow. Considering that he's a dropout from school, attaining only the equivalent of a primary school education, this is quite a remarkable accomplishment. He only had his intelligence, his ingenuity, his determination. And he was able to make a difference.

His accomplishments caught the attention of many people, including the organizers of TED Global Conference, who invited him for a short interview on-stage at the conference in Tanzania. Here, he had his first encounter with the Internet, and was immediately amazed at the wealth of information that it could offer.

Now, William is a regular blogger, telling readers about the further developments he's making in his windmill project. You can read and find out more about him at his blog, williamkamkwamba(at)typepad(dot)com.

This story is really a wow story for me. William set out to do something with the simplest of motivations -- to get electricity for his home. But in the process he has managed to do something great.

Creative Engineering?

Is there such a thing as a creative process engineer? Is there any venue in our occupation to express original ideas? To do something that can be most identifiably "us" or "me" or "you"?

Sometimes, it feels like we're just following procedures, SOPs... we're doing things the way it's been done for 10..15...20 years now. How many different ways can you size a vessel? How can you put more personality into optimizing that column? Or think about adding some flair or some weird twist to your hydraulic calculations?

I'm very much aware that I'm an engineer, and this is what engineers do... solve problems. This is the job I chose. I'm no painter nor singer. What am I doing thinking about creativity?

But still sometimes I crave for it. A little touch of myself in my job... a little spin to my P&IDs... a brilliant idea that I can just put out there on the table... an aha! moment. But then sometimes I get to thinking maybe I'm just not smart enough to be innovative in the type of job I'm in. But that's a bad way of thinking.

Maybe I _can_ be creative. Maybe I _can_ be unique. Maybe I _am_ full of good ideas. I don't know. Starting tomorrow maybe I can start finding out.

I need a new card reader!! I can't download our pics from our Hiroshima trip. And that also means I can't free up space in my digicam. Phooey! When we had dinner with some of our old projectmates last Friday night, I had to resort to deleting some pics from our soccer match trip the other weekend. Inisip ko na lang that I can rely on the pictures from the other people I was with at that time hahaha.

This weekend was relatively low-key, except for the much-fun dinner last Friday night. That one was spent laughing and throwing wisecracks at each other. I barely noticed the food, and that's rare hahaha! We even had coffee afterwards, and I was much regretful when we had to call it a night already and go home. I have three shots on my cam from the dinner, and I can't download any of them to send waaaah!! Definitely I should get a new cardreader soon, or at least fix the one I have now.

Yesterday I spent half the day in bed hehehe! I dunno, I guess I just felt like lazing around. I'd been planning to do it for a while now, what with the very hectic weeks I've had to deal with. Then in the early evening we went window-shopping and cellphone-purchasing at Keikyu department store in Gumyoji. There was a sale going on but the prices were still a bit too steep for us. I was able to get another pair of earrings though, dangling ones with jade-colored stones which matched perfectly with the shirt I was wearing that day hahaha! So yeah after paying for the earrings I wore them already. I notice I've become an earring addict. It's the accessory that I'm currently paying the most attention to, esp. since it can really liven up an otherwise boring outfit (most of my wardrobe is like that haha), with the most minimal of fuss.

After getting tired of window-shopping, we trooped to Yodobashi to get Erns a cellphone. She opted for the same one Elaine had, an Au-KDDI prepaid unit which she got for less than 8,000 yen, prepaid card and charger all in. She was so happy with the cellphone she was practically shining with glee hahaha!

After getting the phone, we went home to cook some sinigang and have dinner together. We dropped by a nearby grocery store which stays open till late, and got the ingredients we needed. The sinigang and rice were done in no time, and pretty soon we were eating away while watching a Bollywood movie entitled, "Bride and Prejudice." A fun movie, although it really isn't one for the Oscar's. It was all color and songs and dances and beautiful Indian women. Nice movie for a lazy evening. Elaine even brought over some delicious Franzia red wine, which I had two wineglasses of. It was fun. Next weekend we might be doing it in Elaine's room.

Today was just a trip to the library and more sleep. I wasn't able to catch up on anything on my to-do list! Haha! But I really love my library trips, where I get to pick out all the magazines I want to read and get engrossed in the most interesting stories. Today I read on brain-rewiring, how to manage gen-Yers in the workplace (that's us!), Paris Hilton's month-long stint in prison, dealing with stress, and some other odd little bits of articles. I also borrowed "The English Patien" and "I am a Cat", which is a collection of essays and stories from a Japanese author that caught my interest. Anyway, hopefully I won't be a delinquent borrower this time and return the books overdue, like I did last time. I really should force myself to set aside some reading time everyday. It's something that I think is really important for everyone. Anyway, I'll make myself do that starting this week.

Now I think I should go and do some Nihongo lessons. I'm annoyingly not making any progress in that area haha! But I really wish I had a Japanese person to practice with and correct my grammar and my pronunciation.