Career Change

In the course of joining the University of Hard Knocks, a life-long learning environment that encapsulates all the group dynamics imaginable and then some, one may undergone career change, some self-initiated such as driven by career advancement, while still some other, externally imposed but not always beyond one's control. As alluded to, those in the latter category may include under-performance, negligence, insubordination, disciplinary transgressions, etc. that could be self-inflicted.

However, being conscientious and capable is no guarantee for continuous employment too. Personality clash with superiors is one, though that is usually not the stated reason, and the resulting egress may be effected through a series of subtle job reassignment ranging from a less favorable deployment to outright cold storage.

At times of economic downturn, an oft-used “scapegoat” is business downsizing, right-sizing, cost cutting, and others of a similar ilk, and the decision as to whose tie is to be severed, no matter how hard thought and seemingly justified these decisions would seem, invariably leave a bitter taste in the mouths of those at the short end of the deal.

Involuntary termination, layoff, retrenchment, the proverbial pink slip, all are euphemisms for losing a job, joining the rank of the unemployed. And the emotional stampede that “stroke-of-the-pen decision” sets off can range across the spectrum of disbelief, disappointment, bitterness, shock, self doubt, to resignation.

Understandably, these initial reactions are to be expected, and one may well spend the first few days in wallowing, shutting off, one's mettle being put to a severe test of resiliency. These are also the times when one is most in need of the caring presence of loved ones and close friends, not necessarily to help reverse the fateful event, but rather to lend a listening ear, to empathize and share in the misery, so to speak. Having someone to talk to in times of emotional distress can be therapeutic, and goes some distance in helping one to rebound.

After a time of grief, it's essential that one picks up the pieces, and embarks on what can be a long and arduous road toward recovery, gainful (re)employment that is simply because life goes on. There are expenses to be met, bills to be paid, and obligations to be discharged. These don't just vanish when one is out of work.

It's also vital that one regains confidence, banishing any self doubt of one's capability to oblivion. As the popular saying goes, one door closes, another one opens, provided one seeks, one canvasses, one networks, perhaps lowering expectations somewhat to be realistic, even relocation just to buy time if need be. It's also a good time to review one's past achievements, or the lack thereof, and re-evaluates the way one handles matters, including inter-personal ones. Be less outspoken perhaps, or more networking. And more important, be prepared, both financially and emotionally, the former meaning putting funds aside for raining days, the latter, cultivating a calm mind and understanding that one cannot change the environment, but one does have the means to decide how one would respond to changes in the environment.

To achieve that positive of mind, perceive the layoff as an enforced rest, affording opportunity to have quality time for family, to pursue one's interest that has been put on the back burner due to work commitment, and to contribute one's time to a worthy cause, to volunteer for community service. In other words, to live more like a member of the community, cognizant of the many things that are crying out for attention, and give, rather than being obsessed with forging ahead in the rat race driven by wants than needs.

After undergoing the “ordeal”, one may realize that there is more to life than working for a living. There are roses to be smelled, love and kindness to be shared, and nature to be savored. If nothing else, this realization (hence, the Chinese character at the top) could well be the best thing that could ever emerge from the energy-sapping, emotion-draining, confidence-decimating experience of layoff.

Spring Plant Festival

It has been a while since we were at the USF Botanical Garden. So this year's Spring Plant Festival seemed like an opportune time to revisit this garden at our backyard, so to speak. And it happened on April 12, 2009, a typically sunny afternoon at this time of the year.

While many of the visitors were either lugging pots of flower/plants or pulling a wagon/trolley of similar purchases, we were criss-crossing the make-shift stalls practically empty-handed, except for the digital camera in my hand. Only our eyes were feted to the colorful display of the plant kingdom as captured in the following digital tapestry.

A butterfly clinging to a flower, no surprise there.

Wify and her favorite painting subject, the bamboo.

As the name plate indicates, this is bonsai territory.

Hooded pitcher plants.

A hibiscus hybrid, unbelievable indeed, covering Wify's both palms.

Another unbelievable hibiscus, wielded in the same hand as above.

This is actually a cut plant affixed to the tent pole.

Another flower species seemingly spanning across the sky.

Wify knows the Chinese name translated as the embroidered ball flower. And I did the rest using the Internet search to come up with, viola, Hydrangea.

An Australian import: Ptilotus exaltatus.

Blink all you want but think

We blink all the time, as naturally as we breathe. However, blinking is also one of those few motor functions that we can control, at least for a time. Recall the blinking contest we used to have when young, out-staring each other until the eyes got so dilated that we began to see stars. For example, Don’t Blink is an exhortation to stay attentive, calling on the mind to exercise control over the eye-lid motion.

On the other hand, the phrase, in the blink of an eye, describes a fleeting moment of seeing, a happenstance so quick that the brain has hardly anytime to register and decode, a scintillating flash that apparently leaves no trace.

As an engineer, I have been trained to be analytical, to consider all things from all possible angles, to think long and hard, leaving no stones unturned so to speak, but within the time, budget, and resource constraints. So we engineers often have to base our decisions on imperfect information, to exercise judgment that, ironically, comes from bad experience. Indeed, uncertainty is a given in our profession. The natural, and actually logical, tendency under these circumstances is to err on the side of conservatism through the use of safety factors, and redundancies, sometimes too liberally at the expense of cost.

Invariably, these decisions are made after comprehensive studies and painstaking deliberations within a shortened time span, but never in the blink of an eye. This is simply because engineering works have a typically long gestation period, sometimes stretching into decades such as the Delta Works in Holland, which is a mammoth flood protection project started in the early 1950s after numerous studies, and was also accompanied by many more concurrent studies during construction and completed just before the turn of the present millennium.

Thus, engineers are accustomed to these planning horizons, some even protracted, inherent in engineering works, except perhaps in emergency response when calamities hit or are about to hit such as those in the aftermath of earthquakes, tsunami and hurricane landfalls. But even in emergencies, split second decisions are a rarity. There is usually time for deliberations to allow for informed decisions.

It is then understandable that I would view the book BLINK by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown and Co., NY, 2005), a copy of which I bought at the Temple Terrace Used Book Center some time ago, with healthy skepticism, healthy because I hold that authors of note, an esteemed category to which Mr. Gladwell definitely belongs because of the success of his prior publications, must have some insightful views to share upon which I will reserve judgment until I have read the book.

And that I did, over the last few days, a rare accomplishment for me these days since my now regular habit of intermittent reading means that I could only finish a book in weeks or even months.

When viewed in the context of the author’s tasks in writing the book as enumerated in pg. 14-15 (Introduction: The Statue that Didn’t Look Right), the expose does make sense when one goes beyond its cover that has the subtitle “The Power of Thinking Without Thinking”. These tasks are:

a) to convince the readers that “decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately”;

b) To acknowledge that our adapted unconsciousness, the celebratory source of our power of the glance, and the worthy counterpart to consciousness that is the seat of our considered decisions, is fallible, and by extension, to identify and understand the reasons when these powers of rapid cognition would go awry; and

c) To convince the readers that “our snap judgments and first impressions can be educated and controlled”.

And there are a litany of rear-world situations (in battlefield while engaged in tactical combat; in a basketball game when sub-second heroics matter; in emergency room when prompt diagnostics and response can mean the difference between life and death; and in improv shows when a moment of lapse can ruin the whole show) as cited in the book that lend credibility to the notion enshrined in (a), (b) and (c) above.

I especially like this particular quote by Keith Payne, a psychologist, quoted in the book (pg. 233) to caution us on one specific circumstance of (b):

“When we make a split-second decision, we are really vulnerable to being guided by our stereo-types and prejudices, even one we may not necessarily endorse or believe.”

In a nutshell, I enjoy reading the book enormously, not the least of which is the section on autism, and the notion of mind-blindness. It’s definitely not an indictment of our thinking faculty as one would judge by its cover. And I realize that thin-slicing, instinct, hunch, gut feeling, and an assortment of other names subsumed under the BLINK, all have a place in decision making. Conversely, there is also a place for THINK, the rational analysis, the deliberate assessment, the elaborate evaluation that engineers are enamored and wont to doing by training, the risk of paralysis by analysis notwithstanding.

And understandably so, THINK: Why Crucial Decisions Can’t be Made in the Blink (2006) has been conceived as a repartee to BLINK by Michael LeGault. Maintaining the same position as before, I would too refrain from judging the book by its cover, though by kindred spirit I may be better aligned with Mr. LeGault’s thinking by virtue of my professional training. Fortunately, all this would be made clear soon as I had just received a call from the Temple Terrace Public Library this morning that my reserved copy of THINK is now available for collection. I figure I would take the same length of time to finish reading THINK whence I would most likely echo the sentiment of this particular reader (Dave Lakhani as quoted here):

“This [THINK] is a book about critical thinking, Blink is a book about intuitive thinking.”

But we shall see.

Enabling Karmic Blessing and Admiring Nature

It's hard to remain focused these days when newspapers continue to churn out daily the worsening state of the sputtering economy. One of the MSN Top news is titled “Jobless rate soars to 8.5 percent in March”, the highest since 1983. The Tampa area is especially hard hit, the unemployment rate escalating to more than 10% in the past weeks. That means 1 out of 10 is out of work, and with that, out of means of sustenance as well. The figure is even more staggering, bordering on being mind-boggling, when part-timers and discouraged workers are factored in.

How did we get to this sorry state of affair? The rational side in us would want to blame it on cyclicity, as if such troughs in the business cycle, a rather ominous term, are an immutable facet of life, even citing past crashes as indisputable evidence. But is it? Or is it self denial, it being easier and less painful to ascribe the downturn to some unknown forces that we have no control over? However, the truth, no matter how unpalatable it seems, is largely human greed, too little money chasing after too much wants instead of being contented with satisfying our needs.

Some may say this is Karma, a collective one, being retributions for the collective wrong that we have inflicted on each other and the environment. While karmic retributions cannot be eliminated in the sense that past wrong cannot be undone, they can be transformed into karmic blessing by doing good and not merely avoiding committing wrong, by being compassionate toward all sentient beings, by giving, by putting others before self, and by imbuing wisdom in what we do, day in and day out, starting right this minute.

Indeed the power to change things for the better is wielded by no one but us. No good deeds, however insignificant it may seem, is beyond nor beneath us. Each of us just has to do our part, all of us being the cogs, big or small, that push the wheel of life forward for the betterment of all.

And while doing that, do take an occasional rest here and there to savor what nature brings, even in photos and painting. Those calm-inspiring and awe-instilling moments engendered in the process, the unraveling of nature's wonder and human creativity, are therapeutic to say the least.

This is a painting of Mudan (Peony) taken at Brother Yang (Wify's Chinese calligraphy teacher)'s residence.

This is a shot of a potted flower plant taken at Linda's residence.

And a blooming bunch of flowers brightening up our home.


Backdropped against the azure sky, a seemingly "dress-up" tree exemplifies the interdependence, and synergy, observed in Nature.

Bundled and yet discrete leaves of a pine tree taken skyward at USF.

Three boats approaching the shore, leaving a trail of square wave pattern in their wake, fronted by a curvilinear near continuous wave crest pattern that is wind-induced. No, they are actually duckies, as seen on the scenic pond across from the Psych Building, USF.

Trees on wheels, at the end of a transit trip and awaiting replanting on ground seen at USF.

And here's one lady who knows a thing or two about enjoying nature, the locality being sandwiched between the duck pond and the trees on wheels seen on the previous two images.

Beyond desolateness ...

The notion of impermanence can be exemplified by the seasonality of change exhibited by the plant world: the verdancy of spring, the luxuriance of summer, the crimson foliage of the fall, and the desolateness of winter. And the cycle repeats. Thus, impermanence should be accepted as renewal, celebrated as rejuvenation, and embraced as hope. At the same time, we must recognize that glory is fleeting, that success and accolades will come to pass, and that beyond the peak is descent. Conversely, being down is not the same as being out, and there is always hope when there is a tomorrow. Just live each day to the fullest, undeterred by the tribulations of the past, nor cowed by the challenges of the future.

When the mind is calm, anticipatory but not mired in fatalism, we can see elegance in desolateness, as the following images of the plant world, all taken during our evening walks, would conjure up, and await the exuberance that would surely ensue.

Pondering on the Expressway

Wify attended a Buddhist Chanting session in the morning last Saturday at Connie’s home after which we were invited by her to a vegetarian lunch at her home to celebrate the arrival of the NIU (Niu being the Chinese character for the ox/bull/buffalo that is pronounced in the same way as New) year. After dropping off Wify and her entourage at Connie’s house, I proceeded to the office to do some works. In order to save time, I decided to take the only tolled expressway in town to the office, thinking that it will be a swift journey, what with the weekend traffic that is at worst light.

However, I sensed something amiss the moment I exited the first toll: traffic was piling up ahead, but I was too far to identify the cause. It’s only when I was inching near the next entry point that the reason became apparent, first being alerted by the strobic blue light emitting from the top of police cars, stopping all cars behind them. Then, one by one, the convoy of motorized floats began to emerge from the toll, flanked by police outriders on motorcycles. All in there was about a dozen of them. Then only it dawned upon me that it was time for Gasparilla Children Parade, which usually precedes the Gasparilla Pirate Invasion a week later. However, I found out later that this was to be postponed by another week because of the Super Bowl weekend on Feb 1.

For the rest of the way till my exit point, we all toed the line, doing about 30mph on the expressway, a trip that would have taken me less time if I had taken the state road. So much for my planning, as if echoing the adage that man proposes, but God disposes.

That would have been an uneventful end to the traffic disruption if not for the fact that I committed another mental error, due to my haste in getting out of the imposed delay. I normally exit at the Hyde Park Toll. Those days we were staying at South Tampa, and taking the Expressway to Connie’s home was expedient. Occasionally, we have also exited via an earlier westbound toll at Willow Avenue, which is unmanned. That is, either one pays with the right amount of change (75 cents) by throwing three quarters (or other combinations of coin denominations) into a funneling receptacle (I think it does not recognize notes, even though if one does not mind not getting the change back), or SunPass, an electronic prepaid card. Then I had neither, and worse, completely forgot that the station was unattended and yet took the approach to the Willow Avenue Exit.

By the time I realized my folly, I had already covered three quarters of the approach way, which is decidedly one-way toward the toll house. For several seconds, but it seemed like ages, I was considering my options. The first thought was to engage the reverse gear, and I actually reversed about a car length, skirting along the anti-impact rail. The constant stream of approaching cars from my rear view mirror convinced me not to compound my error with yet a bigger one.

So I pulled to the side, took out a dollar note, locked the car, and walked next to the receptacle. The first car had a SunPass, so could not be stopped. The next one was a van, driven by a middle-aged man in work shirts, ferrying other passengers spotting similar attire.

As the car stopped at the toll, I accosted him, putting on my best earnest look. “Could I have a change for quarters?” I blurted out, and at the same time noticed that he had a palmful of change. “Sure, I have just what you wanted.” And the exchange was concluded promptly, with profuse thanks from me to the good Samaritan. And the next moment I was in my office, reliving the eventful morning and being convinced that doing things the right way would always turn out to be right and expedient.

The MacDonald's float followed by another entering the highway to my right.

Another float just exiting the tollhouse, flanked by a police outrider (shot through my car's front passenger side window).

The caravan of motorized floats making its facilitated way into the Expressway ahead of us.

Global Warming on My Car's Windscreen

For one who has acclimatized to the Malaysian climate, Tampa seems like the next best thing if one were to choose a home away from home. The summer is just like the normal Malaysian weather but minus the sweltering heat, perhaps because of the relatively lower humidity here. Spring time and fall time are the best, with frequent breezy days that make outing that much more inviting, except for the dreaded hurricane season, officially running from June 1 to Nov 30. However, we have been here for about five years now and have yet to experience the wrath unleashed by these gigantic weather “anomalies”, which are actually Nature’s way of self cleansing, releasing pent-up energy just like humans do.

That leaves winter, which is what one can reasonably expect of a mild winter weather, and never the frigid cold that pummels the northern swath of US from the northwest to the northeast. But when a cold spell hits, like in the past few days reaching a season low two nights ago, things can get a bit unsettling, necessitating switching on the heater, even blanketing oneself while on couch potato duty.

And a rare scene presented itself yesterday morning: a thin veneer of frost on cars, even though it was already past 8am. I was on my morning routine of garbage disposal but detoured back to home to get my camera for evidence gathering. The car's windscreen was rendered translucent, hardly conducive to driving. So I emptied half of my daily ration of bottled water as part of the thawing operation, but managed only to create two irregular “holes” through which I could peer through during driving.

And the camera came in handy, capturing the progress of the meltdown over time, being bombarded by the warm morning sun rays. It is as if I was watching the phenomenon of global warming unfolding before my very eyes, only on a vastly accelerated scale. Imagine the ice sheets thawing, filling up the ocean. But here the liquid water just forms rivulets that creep off the wind screen harmlessly. In the real world, the water has no place to go but up. And that would translate into a sea level rise, with potential to inundate low-lying coastal areas. Granted the analogy is tenuous, but the mechanism is not that much dissimilar. Some would argue that the jury is still out there on whether this supposedly anthropogenically induced doomsday scenario is part of the natural cycle of change. That is, humans are not at fault. But are we really above blame, collectively, I wonder.

The thin veneer of frost visible on car tops.

My windscreen, before the thawing operation. The tea-pot and the rosary beads hanging from the rear view mirror are a lucky charm for traffic safety given to us by Connie.

While I was driving through the USF Campus, under partial thawing.

Dropping off CE at Psych Building, the view improving.

And the meltdown continues ...

Along Fowler, the remnants of the ice sheet on an epic struggle to stay in shape.

And the meltdown was now complete while cruising along I-275. This was taken at an instant when traffic came to a halt, when some days are worse than others.

The Soothing Green in Nature

If only we could pause sometimes, we would be able to smell the roses. While roses may not be ubiquitous, we would definitely be able to see the trees, standing erect on the ground and looking askance at all the hustle and bustle that infiltrates our life. Then we would begin to appreciate how wonderful the world is, the symbiosis that inter-connects all lifeforms, and the synergy that ensues because of the connectivity. More important, the greenery is soothing, the leaves swaying in the breeze, the gentle caress seemingly lifting the day's gloom away. That was my state of mind while standing outside the town hall of the Regency Oaks community at Clearwater, during the intermission of the Dharma talk by Teacher Guo Gu organized by Peter and Nancy Kau last Saturday.

The subject of the Dharma talk on Zen Buddhism will be featured in a later blog. Meanwhile, enjoy the enveloping greenery as seen through my camera lens.

The lamp post and the tree trunk are joined as one, an unintentional quirk of my fortuitously chosen line of sight.

The earth path bisecting the green vista, but seemingly ending in green too.

The expanse of green, skirting the community in the garden.

The fish bone-shaped branches, giving a gapped appearance of the circular canopy.

Divergent at the top but joined at the hip, separate and yet co-joined: isn't that an apt analogy of life's connectedness?

Pattern in chaos.


Wify took this while we were crossing the W. Courtney Campbell Causeway flanked by the ubiquitous palms, being slowed down by the traffic pile up in front sufficiently for a scenic view of Tampa Bay.