and then some weeks ago i stumbled on this short clip from ira glass (from this american life radio show) giving advice on story telling and it really hit home to me, especially because it sounds true for most creative work.

so what i am trying to do right now is figuring out what i want to do next. exploring possibilities and producing more, giving myself assignments, even if the result is not so good - just pushing me to keep going and stop whining about stuff.

one day my work will be as good as my ambitions.

let me know if something is out of place :)

estava eu a estudar a geografia de madagáscar e que vejo no oceano? as ilhas do glorioso!

será que foram fundadas por algum benfiquista moçambicano? :)

yesterday the clerk at the postoffice gave up and spoke to me in chinese (which was better than his english) and a lady in the queue even told me my chinese was good :)

persistence seems to be paying off!

there must be a color named “malaysian blue” - if there isn’t, i think i’ll name it. it’s the color of the sea in malaysia, the impossible mixture of green and blue, unbelievably dreamy and beautiful.

the water was as warm and clear as promised. the sand was white and there were lots and lots of colorful fish swimming in amazing coral reefs. our week in redang island was short and sweet, but felt like a month away from shanghai.

malaysia caught me off guard in many aspects, but made such an impression on both of us that i can see us living in kuala lumpur in the future. what an exquisite mixture of people, architecture, colors, cultures, languages…

more on this soon. meanwhile, thank you to everybody who wrote or twittered me happy birthday! turning 26 on the beach and sharing the cake with impromptu friends pretty neat. :) and now, on to another brilliant year!

time for a much needed vacation, with white sand beaches and clear water. see you soon! :)

picture from nahele, on flickr.

i stumbled upon a brilliant comparison between cooking pasta and launching a startup a while ago, and it’s been on my mind since then. here it is:

How do you cook linguine? Yesterday, I made linguine. I cooked the pasta while my wife made a delicious lemon basil sauce. After about eight minutes, I tasted the linguine to see if it was done. It wasn’t, so I cooked it for a couple more minutes. Now some people don’t taste pasta to see when it is done. Some people throw it all around the kitchen to see if it sticks on the walls. That seems odd to me. The point of cooking pasta is to make it edible, not sticky.

Attitudes about starting companies, especially web companies, are not unlike methods of cooking linguine. Some people think that you “throw something out there” and see if it sticks. If it sticks, it’s done and you’ve cooked up a startup success. Figuratively speaking, there are a lot of awful-tasking starchy strands of uncooked linguine sticking all over the web.

The best way to get a startup right is to cook it for a reasonable amount of time and then taste it to see if it’s done.

All metaphors break down if you push them too far. So I’m not going to keep stirring the pot here. Startups that make news and make people happy are cooked to taste. The founders are personally interested in the product. They don’t throw the idea out to see if it sticks (i.e. see if millions of people happen to think it’s done). Founders of successful startups know that if it tastes good, people are going to like it.

Here’s a lesson learned. Entrepreneurs need to learn how to cook.

these days of instant startups, it seems to be all about “sticking”, and much less about doing something remarkable, or being the best at something.

sigh. fatigue 2.0, anyone?

Everyone knows that literacy in Mandarin means hour after brutal hour of memorizing and practicing a script whose design clearly shows the influence of sadistic genius.

from Beijing sounds

Canadian human rights groups are calling on women to take part in a unique protest against Burma’s military junta.

The Quebec Women’s Federation and the activist group Rights and Democracy are coordinating the Canadian edition of “Panties for Peace!” — an international campaign to pressure the Burmese government towards democratic reforms.

Organizers say the idea began after the Burmese government cracked down on pro-democracy activists. Last fall, pro-reform demonstrations led by monks garnered international attention after the military attacked protesters and arrested their leaders.

The idea behind the campaign has to do with the superstitious beliefs of Burma’s military leaders. Human rights activists say the leaders believe that contact with women’s underwear will sap them of their power. Women — and by extension their clothing — are considered inferior by powerful men in Burma, say campaign organizers.

what an unusual protest! ladies, if you don’t feel like doing the underwear - send it in!
if it works, it will definitely be worth it! :)

the full story, here.