Without seeking acclaim

April 29th, 2007 at 21:25 · Filed Under Chinese, Martial Arts, Philosophy, Training Journal · Comment 

Sensei sent me the Rosenthal Translation of Tao Te Ching (Chapter 3):

By retaining his humility,
the talented person who is also wise,
reduces rivalry.

The person who possesses many things,
but does not boast of his possessions,
reduces temptation, and reduces stealing.

Those who are jealous of the skills or things
possessed by others,
most easily themselves become possessed by envy.

Satisfied with his possessions,
the sage eliminates the need to steal;
at one with the Tao,
he remains free of envy,
and has no need of titles.

By being supple, he retains his energy.
He minimizes his desires,
and does not train himself in guile,
nor subtle words of praise.
By not contriving, he retains
the harmony of his inner world,
and so remains at peace within himself.

It is for reasons such as these,
that an administration
which is concerned
with the welfare of those it serves,
does not encourage status
and titles to be sought,
nor encourage rivalry.

Ensuring a sufficiency for all
helps in reducing discontent.

Administrators who are wise
do not seek honors for themselves,
nor act with guile
towards the ones they serve.

Here is the original text in simplified Chinese:

老 子: 「道 德 经」 : 第 三 章
不 尚 贤 ， 使 民 不 争
不 贵 难 得 之 货 ， 使 民 不 为 盗 ﹔
不 见 可 欲 ， 使 民 心 不 乱 。

是 以 圣 人 之 治 ，
虚 其 心 ，
实 其 腹 ，
弱 其 志 ，
强 其 骨 。

常 使 民 无 知 无 欲 。
使 夫 智 者 不 敢 为 也 。
为 无 为 ， 则 无 不 治 。

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Protected: Dmitry’s 5th birthday party

April 22nd, 2007 at 22:06 · Filed Under At Home, Days in My Life, Dmitry, Family · Enter your password to view comments. 

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3 little tigers promoted

April 22nd, 2007 at 18:37 · Filed Under Days in My Life, Dmitry, Family, Karate · 3 Comments 

Today is the remarkable day for Dmitry. He was promoted, on his 5th birthday, to 9th Kyu (yellow belt) together with another two little tigers at Jasin dojo. It was a tiring day for me today. I drove to Kuala Lumpur at 0600 to teach a private class, reached home around 1300 and prepared to go to the Little Tigers class at Jasin. All of us felt excited and I forgot about the tireness.

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An ironic retrospection

April 20th, 2007 at 9:38 · Filed Under Blogging, Days in My Life, General, Karate · 2 Comments 

For years I continued to believe that there was a kind of karate-ka I wanted to be like. The problem that confused me for years, until the years and the people around me formed their own ironic answer, was what to do with my life as a karate-ka: not simply what kind of karate-ka I wanted to be, but how to grow up as a karate-ka and as a man.

Now have I found the true path and I continue growing and changing leaving behind the ironic retrospection. Be it, in future, my memory to be told to my children and let them continue my saga as their own, in their own time.

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Strict test, good training, nice foods and light moments

April 15th, 2007 at 21:16 · Filed Under Days in My Life, Karate · 3 Comments 

We woke up early in the morning to prepare to go to the centralized grading and group training organized by Seibukan Melaka. Dmitry was excited to have his first grading. R and N were there too. When we arrived, most of the students were already there, ready in their gi. They greeted good morning and I also wished them good luck in their grading.

30 participants attended. 24 were grading candidates. The test was conducted in the strictest manner. I think it was the strictest in Malaysia Seibukan history. First, I gave the grading candidates and training participants some briefing. Then, Beh, my Ikkyu student conducted the warming up session before the test began.

The candidates’ spirit were high. Some were doing very fine and were given a chance to have double promotion. Mohd Syafiq was doing Zenkutsu-dachi chudan tzuki. He earned a double promotion to 9th kyu.

Four little tigers participated in the grading too. Dmitry, 5 years old, was the youngest candidates.

And the ladies were not weak at all. In fact, they had demonstrated good spirit, loud kia and good kimea.

The senior belts giving revision to some female candidates. R was curious and joined in the practice with his balloon.

After the grading, Beh conducted karaerobics, the combination of karate and aerobics.

During the lunch break, there came the good food. Yummy. KFC, the Kentucky Fried Chicken, was the kids favorite food. The little tigers were really hungry and they finished all their chickens, buns, potatoes and salads. They were very happy and really enjoyed so much of their meals. I joined them with some light moments.

The group training ended at 1700.

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I can do it!

April 15th, 2007 at 1:42 · Filed Under Days in My Life, Karate · 1 Comment 

The betrayal of my two comrades have left me alone with all the organizing works unfinished. The event will be tomorrow and the foods have not been ordered, and I need to go shopping for drinks and lots of paper works need to be done.

This has been carefully planned to see I fail to organize the event. But all these have burnt my spirit higher and hotter. “I don’t need a comrade from now on. I can do it myself and I can do it better alone”, I said to myself.

After my evening class, I had dinner and bath. Then took my family along to do all the necessary shopping. In the Hypermarket, my spirit burned furiously. I had overcome the feeling of being defeated. I wanted to win and I won the first round.

After coming back from the shopping, I started to work on my computer to get the necessary paperwork out. My wife helped me with some small tasks. Thanks honey.

I finished all and it was already 0130. I packed for the morning and before I went to bed, I thought of what I have achieved a few hours ago. It is karate that moves me. It is karate training that keeps me going. It is karate training that keeps me fighting. It is love (my wife and my children) that makes all these possible.

From this point onwards, I don’t need inferior people around me.

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Betrayal

April 14th, 2007 at 10:31 · Filed Under Critiques, Days in My Life, Karate · 3 Comments 

I come to know that my so-called karate comrades have betrayed me.

They once spoke how highly about karate-do, their idealogue and passion. They once spoke and stood side-by-side with me for the betterment of karate-do. They once consented and fought hand-in-hand with me. One of them has many times been a guest in my home. When he switched back to Shotokan, he asked if we were still friends. Still friends we are, I said. But he switched back and join the other side.

Now, they turned their backs to me and betrayed me. Their betrayal makes me suddenly feel so lost and that I can trust no one in this world.

From this moment on, I draw my line.

I am reading Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata to calm myself.

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Peculiar behavior of Sed

April 7th, 2007 at 3:02 · Filed Under Ada, At Work, Call Me a Geek, Computing, Days in My Life, Hacking, Linux, Mac OS X, Software Development, Solaris · Comment 

What is Sed?

Sed is the ultimate stream editor. If that sounds strange, picture a stream flowing through a pipe. Okay, you can’t see a stream if it’s inside a pipe. That’s what I get for attempting a flowing analogy. You want literature, read James Joyce.

Anyhow, sed is a marvelous utility. Unfortunately, most people never learn its real power. The language is very simple, but the documentation is terrible. The Solaris on-line manual pages for sed are five pages long, and two of those pages describe the 34 different errors you can get. A program that spends as much space documenting the errors than it does documenting the language has a serious learning curve.

You can read more about Sed here.

My project uses a thick binding of PostgreSQL/MySQL called APQ. APQ is a project by Warren and I helped to host it at my server. See my post here. The configure and make process are not really stable which I think is due to various version of MySQL and the Linux tools such as sed.

To build APQ, first, two MySQL include files, errmsg.h and mysqld_error.h need to be parsed. These files contain MySQL error codes and they need to be parsed and translated into Ada syntax. This translated Ada code will be inserted into apq_mysql.ads.

However, this parsing and translation process are not working correctly as they supposed to be. When I look into this problem, I found a peculiar abnormality. The parser uses sed. When I built APQ on Mac OS X, FC5 and Solaris (Intel), the result in apq_mysql.ads is not consistent on these different OS.

After I upgraded to Mac OS X 10.4.9, the parser refused to work with some error messages which I think caused by sed. I was mingling with the configure script until this hour. Suddenly, something struck my mind. Why do I need to mingle with configure? The problem is the parsing and it deserves the highest priority. The build configuration does not perform a thorough check of the environment but it still works fine at this point. So, I moved my priority to write a parser in Ada to solve the parsing problem. This light shed on me at this whee hour in the morning and I was really too tire to continue working on the parser.

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Apple wireless keyboard

April 6th, 2007 at 1:44 · Filed Under Computing, General, Mac OS X · Comment 

I bought an Apple wireless keyboard on Monday. It is a real beauty and works seamlessly with Mac Mini Bluetooth.

The keys are crisp and there is no sticky key. The white keyboard is pleasant to look at but it can be a real hassle to clean. I tried to look for a keyboard cover which is made of silicon and molded according to the keyboard but seems like it is selling like a hot cake.

With this keyboard, typing is absolute pleasure. I was using a keyboard from one of my Compaq PC and the feeling is not comparable.

The installation and setup is a breeze. Just pop in 4 AA batteries. The power switch is located at the bottom of the keyboard. Switch it on for the first time and click Set up Bluetooth Device and in a few seconds, you will be prompted to enter pairing code on the wireless keyboard. As soon as you press Enter, you are on your way enjoying the keyboard. To conserve batteries, it will be a hassle to switch the keyboard on and off. It will be nice if the power switch is conveniently located at either side or at the back of the keyboard.

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MMU hooligans

April 4th, 2007 at 22:48 · Filed Under Critiques, Days in My Life, General · Comment 

I took my family to a near by shopping mall to get the kids some breads for tomorrow. On our way back, in front of Emerald Park, a Proton Wira suddenly overtook from our left with some speed and the engie roaring. I could see his car wobbling.

When the car arrived at the junction in front of our resident area, it suddenly slowed down and made a U-turn. It was not supposed to make U turn there. A few cars sounded their honk. I managed to take a look at the driver. Ha! An African student with his friends.

Many MMU‘s foreign students behave and drive like hooligans. These rascals ignore the safety of other road users. I once had a bad experience with a student from middle east last year. When I was negotiating the corner to my resident area, a car sped from the right and overtook my car at the junction. Luckily, I was alert and I was alone in the car. I chased him until he stopped at one of the dead end and I really gave him a stern warning. I guessed I scared the hell out of him.

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