Thursday, February 28, 2013

№ 115. Friday Find: How Will You Measure Your Life?

"My class at HBS is structured to help my students understand what good management theory is and how it is built. To that backbone I attach different models or theories that help students think about the various dimensions of a general manager’s job in stimulating innovation and growth. In each session we look at one company through the lenses of those theories—using them to explain how the company got into its situation and to examine what managerial actions will yield the needed results.

On the last day of class, I ask my students to turn those theoretical lenses on themselves, to find cogent answers to three questions: First, how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career? Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? Third, how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail? Though the last question sounds lighthearted, it’s not. Two of the 32 people in my Rhodes scholar class spent time in jail. Jeff Skilling of Enron fame was a classmate of mine at HBS. These were good guys—but something in their lives sent them off in the wrong direction."(HBR - Clayton M. Christensen)


Sunday, February 24, 2013

№ 114. Oscars: Best Short Animation

I was looking for Guacamole, but this isn't bad either.

 

№ 113. Oscar's Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis

He spoke his acceptance in the best possible manner. I guess, that's how to deliver the dish: warm and elegant, gracious with unrehearsed eloquence and laced with wit. Time to jot down notes.

I've been a fan since I saw "The Age of Innocence" and I'm still a fan as I watched "Lincoln". Good to know that some performances remain consistent.

Daniel Day-Lewis, a master of many selves and the finest among equals.

Friday, February 22, 2013

№ 112. Friday Find: Dickens's Letter

Here's a Friday find: Charles Dickens's letter to his youngest son.


"My dearest Plorn,

I write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my mind, and because I want you to have a few parting words from me to think of now and then at quiet times. I need not tell you that I love you dearly, and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you. But this life is half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne. It is my comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the life for which you are best fitted. I think its freedom and wildness more suited to you than any experiment in a study or office would ever have been; and without that training, you could have followed no other suitable occupation.

What you have already wanted until now has been a set, steady, constant purpose. I therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough determination to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it. I was not so old as you are now when I first had to win my food, and do this out of this determination, and I have never slackened in it since." (Brainpickings)


http://www.synthiasaintjames.com/Fatherhood%20Giclee.jpg
Synthia Saint James

Saturday, February 16, 2013

№ 110. Binondo Rising: Part 1

Say "Ahh" for Tikoy, kid.


Binondo is still a study in controlled chaos.

Many Filipinos already know that Binondo is home to Manila's Chinatown. Many Chinese-Filipinos call it their spiritual home, I think, mainly because it's a transplant of their roots in China. I had lived in Binondo for almost two decades before college beckoned me to the hills of Valencia.

Binondo is so different now and yet oddly familiar in equal parts.

For one, it has become gentrified: cleaner, although the esteros still stink; littered less with horse manure and other organic refuse; and, freshened up with new high rises and coats of paint. Another reason for the ambivalence is while I can still eat at the staple restaurants like The President's, Eng Bee Tin, Ha Yuan and Country Chicken, et cetera, there are many that have already upgraded while a few have not done so well.

Fried garlicky peanuts, chicha-corn
(dried and  fried crisp with coconut oil) and other street delights.





Thursday, February 14, 2013

№ 109. The Shell and the Book




 "A child and a man were one day walking on the seashore when the child found a little shell and held it to his ear. Suddenly he heard sounds,--strange, low, melodious sounds, as if the shell were remembering and repeating to itself the murmurs of its ocean home.

Monday, February 11, 2013

№ 108. Society in Flux

Modern family is being defined and redefined anew. Co-parenting agreements, shared custody, eugenics and biology without emotional borders are definitely new species in our accelerating evolution.

What would the world be one hundred years from now? It's 2013. Will 2113 still be recognizable in forms, manners or substances in which we understand, inhabit and navigate our world today?


Wednesday, February 6, 2013

№ 108. Reflections On Photography

"Essentially the camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own." — Susan Sontag 


"Simply stated, photography is taking pictures. But more than that, it involves the eye and the soul of the photographer using a mechanical tool to record both a physical reality and an inner reality. As a religious photographer, I try to reveal to the subject I photograph an inner dignity of which the subject may not be aware.