A melody,
A simple tone,
A gorgeous sound,
that is music.
Flowing from high to low,
from low to high,
cascading notes of glory,
that is music.
From sounds to make you dance,
Songs to make you sing,
to voices to make you relax,
it is music.
It has always been a dream of mine to swim in the ocean, look at coral reefs, and see actual fish. Not just watching Finding Nemo, but actually swimming in it. To do that, I would have to snorkel or scuba dive.
It was really a happy moment, therefore, when my father told me we were going to Playa Del Carmen (it’s around 20 miles from Cancun, Mexico). It was a world-famous spot for scuba diving, looking at the coral reefs, and watching fish.
But there were lot of things to be considered, the most important one being the fact that I would need a license to go deep. I decided to go shallow. But even that needed some training at least; some type of “getting used to†lesson.
My dad and I found out that there was a special type of lesson just for getting used to scuba gear. It would allow me to try out scuba-diving gear in a swimming pool with instructors. It wouldn’t get me a license or anything of that level, but at least it would let me get a feel for the gear.
[ This isn’t my normal type of writing. This is a bit more technical, and I really should put it on my technical blog, but it doesn’t have anything to do with technology. So just have a good read while I experiment writing styles. This article is classified as “experimentalâ€, just so you will get the point. ]
Have you ever had that feeling where you didn’t want to give anything away? When you were a packrat? Well, there are ways to adjust; to be more generous and giving.
Sometimes, one can be a bit selfish. You don’t want to give away something really good because that doesn’t make you special or not. To see if this is true, do a simple test:
Would you rather have $100 dollars if everyone else had $50 dollars, or would you rather have $1000 dollars if everyone else had $2000? There are benefits to both options. With the first one, you might have less money, but you get to show off.
Most of us, although we say we would pick the second option, but in real life, sometimes we don’t do that. It’s a strange thing, and it’s almost etched into the way we work. So here’s how to overcome that feeling of having more than others.
A week ago, my father finally answered my prayers and purchased a gorgeous new twenty-two inch widescreen computer screen. The bliss!
It was hard to convince my father. He insisted that a huge screen was not a “needâ€. I insisted it was, citing a report about how larger workspaces increased productivity.
Finally he gave in and I spent a happy afternoon picking out a good-looking screen. In the meantime, I also convinced my father to buy me a new mouse and keyboard. The old ones were too loud, I said.
Rain on the sea,
The water in the breeze,
Watch it blow free,
The rain on the sea.
It slowly grows more,
The water more dense,
Slowly raining offshore,
That sound I adore.
My mom’s friends had come from China, and we had taken them to Galveston to visit the island. One of the attractions that my mom really wanted to take us to was the Titanica IMAX movie at the Moody Gardens.
The Titanica movie was a movie that showed the discovery of the Titanic in it’s sunken place in the ocean. It was showed on one of the biggest screens in the world: a 6 story by 10 story screen. I couldn’t wait to see the movie.
We had arrived at Moody Gardens a few hours ago but they had told us the next showing for the Titanica movie was at 9’ o’clock at night. So we had grudgingly left, and now we were sitting in the gigantic room, waiting for the movie to begin.
Ambient music played in the background and dim lights shown on us as we got comfortable in the chairs. There were many rows of seats, but there were only around 20 people in this late showing of the movie. Each group got a row to themselves.
The guests who had landed in San Antonio on the airplane was safe and sound now, and yesterday we took them to Galveston, Texas to live in a large hotel called the Flagship Hotel.
This hotel is special in many ways mostly because it is actually on the water. It is built on a large pier, and looking outside of the window will give you an effect like you are in midair above the ocean.
Before we could check in, however, we had to eat dinner, and my mom chose a Chinese cuisine. When we were finished with the meal, they gave us fortune cookies.
A few days ago, my mom decided to have a party to welcome some of her previous tutors from China who had come to live in our house for a day. Of course, this meant a lot of cleaning to do. My mom decided to stay home and cook for them while my dad picked them up from the airport.
So of course when my mom got a phone call from them saying they had landed in San Antonio (a city near Houston, where we lived), it was most certainly a surprise.
My mother was having a big party, inviting a lot of her friends. Her friends. Not mine.
So to compensate for the loss, my mother got two of my friends (Kev and his little brother) to come and play. I decided it would work and I was told they would come at 6:30 in the afternoon.
At 6:15, I set up everything needed to have fun: computers, wireless Internet, and I downloaded some games in case Kev’s brother was bored.
6:30 arrived, and one of my mom’s friends came. They busied themselves with the dinner. There was no sign of any of my friends.
Swimming is a sport I have loved and done for many years now. I joined a swim team and I swim there year-round, even through the winter, where the temperature is a few degrees from freezing.
Frequently, we would swim in the summer and I would swim with my parents. The other day, my dad and I decided to do a holding-breath contest. Whoever could hold their breath the longest would win.
I held up three fingers. Then two. Then one. I took a huge breath and dived underwater.
A few months back, we bought a set of HomePlug AVs, things that let you go on the Internet through a power line. As my dad and I eventually proved, it was extremely picky. We had to unplug my mom’s touch bedside light to make it work. Somehow it was interfering with the signals.
We kept it unplugged and the Internet worked. One afternoon, as my dad went into the dressing room to change out of his gym clothes, my mom complained to him, “My Internet isn’t working anymore.â€
My dad was half-way through changing. He turned the light off (we’re all into saving energy now that we got a $250 bill) and checked my Mom’s computer. Just as he stepped over, the computer flashed a message: System now connected to Internet.