Ford Malaysia – Ford Driving Skills For Life
Paultan – Ford’s Driving Skills For Life kicks off in Malaysia
Motor Trader – Ford contributes to road safety

The reason I’m writing this article is to share the lessons learned throughout the course. If you are not interested on the practical part of the course and is only interested on the theory, or if you would like to start downloading the theory files while reading the article, please skip to the bottom of this article and continue reading after starting the download.

Ford Driving Skills For Life (17th Dec 2011)

Registration was RM50 as a way to filter in only owners who are both really interested and able to attend the event. There were 2 sessions (morning and afternoon) for that particular Saturday (17th Dec 2011) and I chose the afternoon session. I must say that the directions given to the venue (MAEPS, MARDI, Serdang) was pretty bad. Many went lost before reaching MAEPS and also within the MAEPS compound including myself. A point to take note by the organizer.

We (the afternoon batch) started off with lunch. While lunching, the morning batch was receiving their certificate of completion and also having the group photo session. After lunch we started off with theory in the briefing room by Harvinder Singh (Driven 8TV co-host). Besides being a funny guy, his resume is really impressive! (refer to the Ford DSFL Level 1 Basic Skills Slides PDF).

Theory

I know that you can read so I will not repeat the information from the Ford DSFL Level 1 Slides. The theory touches on topics such as seating position, steering method, understeed and oversteer, safety features on your Ford, taking care of your tyres and also a description of the practical exercises that we will perform after the theory.

What I learned that was not in the slides was the seat belt height recommendation. I can’t remember if I can adjust the seat belt height in my previous Proton Satria but I am able to in my current Focus. He mentioned that from his experience most accident victims who survive suffer cuts on their neck as a result from having their seat belts too high. It makes sense why we never thought of it because we won’t find anything wrong with the seat belt height until we met an accident, when our body lunges forward. So if your car has the seat belt height adjustment feature, set it so that the seat belt land on your shoulder comfortably. Too high will result in cut on your neck and too low will result in your arms being locked, or in worse case, dislocated.

Practical Exercise 1 – Slalom Drills

After the theory presentation we were separated into 3 groups, each with their own instructors, we ended up having Ching Eu Earn, a very cool guy. The reason for this is to save time, with 3 practical exercises and 3 groups, we all can start simultaneously and switch with other group once we’re done. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve never attended such courses, so everything that I did that day was new to me. My group started off with the slalom drills.

In more advanced driving technique, the weight distribution of your car and understanding them is very important. From there you will understand the behaviour of your car and how you adapt to it. As with understeer and oversteer where the weight is being thrown to the back or front. Slalom drills will throw the weight to the sides, left and right. From this exercise I have a higher appreciation on how the Focus handles such situation with relative ease without losing much control.

Practical Exercise 2 – Skid Control

While we were performing slalom we couldn’t stop noticing the group who is performing the skid control exercise. From our distance it was like those cars in the movies that screeches like mad which resulted in tyre smoke and skid marks. It was very generous of Ford Malaysia to supply us with 2 Fiestas for this exercise, 1 without ESP and 1 with ESP. We were told that the black patch at the skidding area was poured with oil, to induce skidding.

We did the first try with the manual Fiesta, I haven’t driven any manual car for almost 2 years, so it was quite awkward. We did 2 runs for the first try with the instructor sitting on the front passenger seat. For the first run we traveled at 60kph and we did an abrupt left turn to induce understeer, you will feel that even when the steering was turned left the car is still going forward. To rectify this situation you will need to lift your foot from the accelerator pedal and the car will slowly turn to the left. For the second run we traveled at 60kph and make a slow left turn, the instructor will then suddenly pull the handbrake to induce oversteer. To rectify this you will need to turn to the opposite direction, right in this case and floor the accelerator pedal.

For the 2nd try we did it in a dual clutch (PowerShift) Fiesta with ESP. We did the same 2 runs as in the 1st try and I can instantly feel the difference. The ESP is able to brake a single tyre to rectify understeering or oversteering which is not possible for a driver (unless we have 4 brake pedals!). You can really feel the ESP struggles to keep you alive. Like what Mr Lee, Head of Sales, Sime Darby Auto ConneXion said “It takes out all the fun, but keep you alive”.

Practical Exercise 3 – Braking Technique

This exercise was something that I always wanted to do myself, to test the ABS/ESP while driving in the rain, but didn’t because it will be really stupid if I ended up having an accident. Like in the slalom, we drove our own car in this braking exercise, so we can really know how the ABS/ESP feels like during hard braking. We did multiple runs of straight braking and also maneuvering while braking. Really nice.

Conclusion

For something that I would pay RM500 for, this was definitely a great experience and value for money. We learned something that we will never learn unless we attend a similar course. Mr Lee also hinted that there will be a Level 2 course in 2012. Let’s hope that it works out as well as this one.

FORD. Drive Safe.

Course Materials

Ford DSFL Level 1 Basic Skills Slides
Ford DFSL Video – 9-3 Hand Position
Ford DFSL Video – Cross Steer
Ford DFSL Video – ABS
Ford DFSL Video – ESP

Picture Gallery

Ford Driving Skills For Life – 17th Dec 2011

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1. Malaysia’s First Ford Focus TDCi Fuel Efficiency Drive Challenge 2011

Besides all those useless experiences, but experience nontheless, I was also into discovering deeper truths. When I started schooling, I was very interested in star constellations, the bermuda triangle, time travel, among others. There was a time when I have a theory that time travel is not possible. The reason is that if it is possible, people in the future already did that. I’m so proud because I read the same theory somewhere (newspapers, magazine? I can’t remember), but not published by me of course! Another theory is that even if time travelling is possible, there might be existing policies in the future that prevented them from using it.

That was a very long time ago. Now, I see the concept of time as a different thing altogether. I no longer see it as a linear concept, like how our life and community based them upon. I now see time as a static concept, and everything that happens, happening and will happen is a branch from this static time concept. This concept is very complicated to explain, but most people call this “The Power Of Now”.

The Real Buddhism

As a kid, I am very curious into why different people have different kinds of belief, and hence, different Gods. To know them better, I need to know more about my own religion to start with, which is Buddhism. Buddhism was founded by Siddharta Gautama, who was born a prince, shielded away from sickness, aging people and suffering by his king father. Siddharta Gautama at the age of 29, having seen the first old man, was explained by his charioteer that all people grew old, he decided to embark on a journey far beyond the palace. Having experienced an ascetic life, a life of begging for alms (money and food) and also a period of food depravation that almost lead him to die of starvation, he finally achieved enlightenment at the age of 35. He was then known as Buddha, or the Enlightened One. Buddhism is a teaching and not of worship, it is one of the few religions that does not have a god. Buddha once said “Do not worship me, for the god is within you”.

This finding strucked me hard. This meant that what I’ve been doing, the worshipping of those idols at the altar at home is wrong and I’ve been doing that for 20 years! At that moment, I felt like I’m the biggest fool in the world! From that point onwards, I’m a true Buddhist, refusing to worship anything else but myself.

The Benefits Of Religion

It is true that I felt like an idiot when I found out that Buddhism is not a worshipping religion but of a teaching one, still it gave me a good structure to grow at a young age. Starting from the first day we are born, the environment or the community is shaping us towards a certain direction. With a religion, we have a guide on how we can live our lives and how we can lead a happier life. This is true until religion is not capable of improving us anymore, in other words, until we outgrows our religion. This is not a surprise because most religios materials are made out of writings from a thousand years ago, and to make things worse, those first written books or scripts are from words passed down orally after hundreds of years. This is like giving future Microsoft Windows 5000 user our Windows XP manual. It surely are not 100% relevant but still provides a good history background. Same goes to religion, one day, you will need to start finding your own truths, because religions can only offer that much.

The Effect Of Religions

After finding out the truth about Buddhism, I went further to understand more religions and the impact they have on the community and the world at large. The findings too, are not good. As a Malaysian, living in a country of multi-etnics, multicultural and multilingual society, I have a better view of what religions can do to a community. It’s really cool when people takes religion as guides, but things can turn really ugly when they are obsessed with it. They are the reason why communities of different race and religion doesn’t mix with each other, they create a transparent barrier between them.

Exorcism

Let me use exorcism as an example to explain why religion is man made. Recently I watched the movie The Rite, it’s an exorcism movie where those priests perform exorcism on patients suspected of being possessed. Imagine this, Father Lucas tried to coerce the name out of the of the demon as part of the exorcism process :

Father Lucas : Demon! Speak your name! Speak your name!
Demon : Argh… *$^)**@
Father Lucas : Speak you demon! Tell me your name!
Demon : Giong Siiiii….. (Vampire in Cantonese)

Father Lucas (calling Master Wong) : Hi Master Wong, this demon is a Chinese demon! Crap, not my department! Can you follow up?
Master Wong : Sure Father Lucas, let me know the details, I’ll be right there.

This was made up with some humour, but still the point remains. According to Wikipedia and Religious Tolerance there are around 40 religions in the world. So in the worst case scenario we need to forward that poor soul being possessed by demon 40 times around the world?!! Is that even logical?

You tell me…

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From this rule, the 80% are the followers whereas the 20% are the creators. Creators gains more wealth by giving and sharing more value and the followers often follows these creators and have less wealth. This sounds very disproportionate but it is a very balanced system.

Accepting Social Conditioning By Default

The reason for this happening is what I call accepting social conditioning by default. Most of us are born with parents, and it is from them that we learn our survival or living skills from. We will accept and inherit by default things like religion, god, behaviour and social practices (celebrating christmas, new year, birthday, etc) from our parents. This is what experts call “external factors” of social conditioning.

As we age, we will learn, accept and inherit social conditions from our colleagues, friends and mentors. Without realizing, you are already categorized as The Follower, and the more you follow, the more uneasy you will feel as this will restrict The Creator inside you from being able to express themselves. Wealthy people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs realized this at a very early age and rebel against the Social Conditioning System, they dropped out of college and went on to fulfill their goal as a Creator.

Dropping Out From The System

I’m not sure what got into me but I’ve always been a born rebel. When I was a kid, I always questioned why my family has a worshiping altar. They have idols like Guan Yin and Guan Gong but I don’t find them cool, at that age (I think maybe 5 years old?), I prefer to worship Ultraman, and I think many would agree with me!

As I age, I saw and found more flaws in the system, very much like how Neo felt in the Matrix. Having lucid dreams was one of those experiences that brought me to the edge. As a result, today I am a person that don’t believe in Demons (I won’t be afraid of them even if they exist), I don’t worship Gods (I will not respect them even if they exist) and I don’t believe in fear (I will try to conquer them one at a time).

What I believe is myself and myself only. I’m not saying that everyone should start worship me instead of God, but what I’m trying to achieve in this lifetime is to have as many people believing in themselves like how I believe in me.

The Follower In Us
Believe me, being a 24/7 creator is a very tough job that even I think isn’t worth it. The reason we are living now is for us to have a chance to enjoy life. We do that by being both the creator and the follower. The follower in me loves Lord Of The Ring Trilogy and still finds that the best movie so far, and I enjoy listening to Rap music. You follow on areas that you do not excel in.

The Creator In Us
Every individual is unique. This statement is true even if you are born as a twins, you might have similar biological structure but your soul and mind is truly unique. Being unique guarantees each and every one of us to have the chance to do something that nobody else is able to achieve. Since I started believing in myself, I’ve shed many fears like fear of the dark, fear of heights, fear of approaching females, fear of roller coaster rides (no matter how high, fast or whatever), fear of correcting superiors/customers when they are wrong, fear of losing a job and many many more.

I think I excel in the fear of demons department, so much so that even if they exist they will fled the very moment they see me because I will tear them apart and send them to hell again. The problem is I’m not sure if they can die twice. With this kind of courage, I’m able to help friends close to me to shed their fear of demons and spirits. Even my most timid friends are doing quite well now. Somehow they are able to rub on my fearlessness and benefit from it. One of my dreams are to be able to sleep overnight in a morgue full of dead bodies, so if you know of anyone who can assist me, please let me know. I’m even willing to pay for the experience!

Living Life To The Fullest
In the end, what matters most is everyone is able to live their lives to the fullest. We are all Creators from the first day we live and have the right to create whatever it is that we want, so stop being a full time follower and for once follow your heart and gain the courage to create. It will not be easy, but the Creator will always be there to encourage fellow Creators and will reward those with persistence.

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So does that mean that we can live our lives any way we wanted? In actual fact, yes, because we are gifted with free will but is this ‘the way’ or ‘our way’? Well, that depends if you are truly happy adopting this kind of living. For me, I would like to live my life the way that I wanted but at the core of it, I still have my life purpose. That would make me more focused, complete, driven and whole…

The Five Pillars Of Life

In search of the way to live in a congruent and effective manner, I’ve come out with the Five Pillars Of Life. It is the result of all the living concepts that I’ve came across and fine tuned to be compatible with my life. I think after you’ve applied some minor personal adjustments, this concept can be applied to everyone. This is mentioned briefly in my first post The Beginning Of Life but I think this time I should elaborate more on how can we apply them in life.

The Five Pillars consist of Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Financial and Social. You can think of them like your five fingers when your palm is facing up. Imagine balancing a card on your five fingers pointing up, even when all of your fingers are of a different length, you will be able to hold the card by adjusting your palm and bending your fingers, but this will become more difficult if the difference in finger length becomes more or maybe you just simply choose not to use a particular finger or two. Doing this might tilt the card and force it to collapse entirely. This is the analogy that I would use to describe the same challenges in life, maintaining balance.

Physical

The Physical Pillar refers to the body, our avatar that we use to interact in this physical world. This is the most important pillar in my life and I am quite confident that it will remain that way throughout the course of my life. If you’ve read Social Omnivore, Excessive Workout Can Kill You and The Cause For Unhealthy Diet, you will notice that I take very much care of the well being of my avatar.

Those who pay no attention to their avatar will make no effort to maintain a healthy and efficient body. There are even some who wants to be fit but they cannot control their diet, simply put, those who’s action are not congruent with what they have in mind. These kind of people needs to strenghten their Mental self first.

Mental

The Mental Pillar is where the mind resides. This is the pillar where you improve on your intelligence, decision making, creative thinking, discipline and anything that relates to the thought process. Even with a healthy avatar, it won’t be efficient if you have a weak mind, after all, your mind is where thoughts are formed. Without a strong mind, you cannot express yourself honestly through your avatar.

A very good practice to improve on your mental self is to go for hiking, the more difficult, the better, especially those trips that needs you to be in the jungle for a few days. For many times, my strong mind is what keeps me going when my physical self surrendered. Your mind provides an energy beyond physical.

Spiritual

My spiritual journey started way before I knew it, as explained in Dream Control . I’m always curious about the universe, the paranormal, life and death, and the way our lives relates to it. I’m also curious as to what happens after life? These kind of curiousity led me to shed away my fears day by day until it got so scarse that looking for fear is one of my hobby now. Without fear, I have the ultimate courage to discover the truth, the answer to life.

Social

The Social Pillar is one of the pillars that I focused on at a later stage in life. I had a very unique kind of childhood experiences (I will explain when I’m ready) that resulted in me having very little (or none) social skill. As life goes on, I have no other choice but to develop them.

If you are still wondering if you can live this life alone, let me answer that now, you can’t. I’ve came to a conclusion that life is designed in such a perfect way that you have no way but to learn to love and live. I also believe in reincarnation and that those who took their own lives (by committing suicide) will be reincarnated over and over again until they finally learn the meaning of life.

Financial

Our society today has given money so much emphasis than they deserve, I have no choice but to include it in as one of the pillars. In my opinion, your financial condition should be very sufficient if your other four pillars are properly strengthened and balanced, but special attention needs to be given to it (a few years, perhaps) should you plan to be financially free before retirement.

Maintaining A Balance

As explained, an effort should be made to balance the Five Pillars to maintain a smooth sailing life with less obstacles. It is very normal for a particular pillar to be chosen as the core pillars and perhaps two other pillars as a supporting pillars, in my case, Physical as the core and Mental and Financial as the supporters. It might be entirely different in your case, perhaps 1 core with 3 supporters, whatever really, as long as it works.

When you begin to feel that there’s a void at a particular pillar, like when I have no choice but to strengthen my Social pillar to move forward in life and also to my Spiritual pillar when I doubt the existence of demons and gods, it is time to focus on them. I encourage for you to pick a pillar to focus on as a New Year’s resolution, different pillars every year.

It is my assumption that most people wouldn’t care about their Spiritual pillars all their life but I think when they are really old and sick, and all they do is sleep on a hospital bed, since they have nothing to do, they will think about it. Imagine, “All my life I’ve believed in God and right until my dying moments I still couldn’t see or feel him/her, have I been mistaken all my life?”.

Perhaps your mastery in balancing these pillars will decide if your life falls under one of these 2 quotes from my Mentor :

“Life is suffering” – Buddha
“The reason to live is to be happy” – Buddha

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I always believe that everyone should own their home, regardless of the size and location. If you can do better, you can always upgrade to a better one, and if you’re in a bad situation, you can always go back to your home. I would also advice those who are keen on investing in a property to at least want to live in this house. Should your investment does not work out as expected (no buyer, not able to rent out, etc..), as least you can still use it as your home instead of letting it rot but still pay for the installments monthly. Another advice is that if you already have a car, try not to tempt yourself into buying another car instead of getting a house, always remind yourself that the car is the worst investment of all time!

I was purchasing a completed service apartment by applying for a Flexi loan. The procedures might be slightly different for you if you’re getting other types of property, and maybe under development, but I believe the overall experience should be more or less the same.

The Hunt

Choosing your home is no easy task. Even when I’ve decided on the condo/apartment that I wish to buy, I still need to view the units and make sure that it is the unit that I will be staying for awhile. One wrong decision here and you’ll be demotivated for a very long time (30 years usually). Perhaps this is the challenge for us who is buying a completed property, but I still think properties under development will have their own set of challenges. Lucky or not, I spent 3 months looking for my unit, and I got exactly the unit that I had in mind when I started!

Booking Fees

During my 3 months search, it got so competitive that I brought my cheque book with me when I went for viewing with the property agent so that I can place the booking on the spot if the unit is suitable. Most of the time, it is first come first serve basis when it comes to booking.

There was same issue the owner had with the existing tenant that hold me back from issuing my booking fee on the spot. I had to thank my agent for being able to convince the owner that I’m very serious in buying and there’s no need to ask for other agents to help sell the unit.

Once everything is cleared, I placed my booking fee. It should be around 2% or 3% of the purchase value, and you will need to sign on the Letter Of Offer. Bear in mind that the Letter Of Offer needed to be signed by the buyer (Purchaser) and the seller (Vendor) to be of legal value. Which means that the owner can still accept offers from other agents. Once the owner signed the Letter Of Offer, your agent will give you the original copy. With this Letter, you can now start applying for loan. At this stage, referring to the Letter Of Offer, you should have 14 working days to get your loan approved. You will be penalized/fined if you don’t, so start working on it!

Loan Application

My brother is a banker, so I got very detailed information on the types of loans available and how to apply them in a way that it gets processed quickly without delay, to avoid the penalty. There are generally 2 types of loans, Conventional and Flexi. I’m not going into the details on the differences of these 2 but basically Flexi loans (the one that I chose) have the flexibility for you to deposit and withdraw from a current account that you own, and the loan interest will be calculated daily based on the amount of extra cash that you deposited into the account.

Each bank has their strength and weaknesses, some has better interest for completed properties, some has better interest for Conventional, some has better interest for Flexi, some provides higher value for your property, hence the ability to get higher loans, and so forth. So it is wise to apply for several banks for more options.

To apply for housing loan, you need a set of these for every bank :-

1. Letter Of Offer
2. Copy Of Identification Card
3. Copy Of Income Tax Form
4. Copy Of Income Tax Payment Receipt
5. Latest 3 Month’s Salary Slip
6. Latest 3 Month’s Bank Statement
- First Page (That States Your Name And Account Number) & Statement, Certified True Copy (You Need To Go To The Branch To Get It Stamped) – Depending On Bank’s Requirements.
- Make Sure Your Statement Matches With The Amount On Your Salary Slip Or You’ll Have A Very Difficult Time Getting It Approved!
7. Name Card Current & Previous (If You Just Changed Job)

Getting A Lawyer

Once you have your loan approved, the next step is to appoint a lawyer to process the deal. Most of the time, the Purchaser’s lawyer alone is enough but sometimes the Vendor might want their own lawyer to protect themselves. The lawyer will prepare the new Sales & Purchase document where it will be signed by both parties, the Purchaser & Vendor. During the signing, you will need to pay the remainder of the down payment (usually 10% minus the amount you paid during booking).

At this moment, if for any reason that you’ve decided that you do not want to sign the S&P, you will lose your booking fee. And also, in the event that you sign it before getting a bank loan approved and that loan ended up being rejected, you will lose your 10%. So make sure to get your loan approved within 14 working days before signing the S&P! Once signed, all you can do now is wait for your lawyer to process the transaction.

It is very important to set up your current account before the release of fund from the bank, or the funds will have nowhere to go to. This is quite a tricky step if you are not confident of when the First Disbursement (the release of funds from the bank) will occur. Since the bank will charge a service fee (Rm 10 per month in my case), it is also not clever to set up your account too soon because the bank will charge you every month for nothing. Since I expect my First Disbursement to occur in between the 3rd and the 6th month, I set up my current account on the 2nd month.

Towards the final phase before I get the Key to my property, I was asked by my lawyer to do a joint inspection with the Vendor on the property. I think this is just a formality as I don’t think the previous owner will pay for any visible damage since you’ve already paid for the property, it’s yours now!

I will then need to contact my lawyer to let them know if the property is in good condition and if they should proceed. Once you give them the green light they will proceed to process the loan and will instruct the bank to release the First Disbursement. In my case, since the previous owner bought the property in cash, I do not need to wait for the Second Disbursement. This reduced my waiting time by 1 to 2 months.

The Key!

Once the First or Second Disbursement is released to the Vendor, the lawyer will contact you to pick up the Key! Congratulations! The first phase of your headache is now over! At this point, most buyers will want to at least do some renovation, according to budget and taste. This will further increase your wait to an extra month or two.

So that’s all you need to know to get your own property! Like in all of my articles, I hope to provide some kind of value, not just empty blogging. So once again, welcome to the year 2010!

There’s no place like home!

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Culture

I’m a Chinese. For those non-Asians, we sort of originated from China and are very well known for cooking. Since Chinese cuisines have many styles and variations, this is where the problem starts. When you have choices, you tend to try. Trying is the problem here. Hopefully staying and cooking on my own can solve this issue.

Besides those domestic issues you have the social culture at large. This is where your parks, towns, states, countries and world falls into. These are influenced by sustained product marketing. Look at Cokd and McG (sure hope they don’t sue me for affecting their market share..:D ) for example, 100 years of promoting their product as hip and convenient is surely a brainwash, and an effective one.

To keep it short, below are the top 10 food to stay away from your daily diet. This list is for those who wish to improve (i think most will use the word “sacrifice”) their diet for a better health and a stunning body. After all, when all else fails, you only have your body to count on.

Top 10 Food To Stay Away From Your Daily Diet

1. Sugar Water

By sugar water I mean everything which is on sale besides bottled mineral water and green tea. A can of soft drink contains 16.5 teaspoons of sugar. Can you believe that? Try eating 16.5 teaspoons of sugar accompanied by warm water, it is inconsumable. How has technology made it so easy to consume sugar nowadays.

If you really need some taste, green tea is the best alternative that I can find so far. You can opt for soy drinks too but most on the market are too sweet to be of actual benefits, keep looking.

2. Rice (especially nasi lemak)

I’ve reduced my rice intake by 80% since a few months ago and I don’t see any different on my body weight at all, so I’ve come to a conclusion that rice is not needed in my diet. Try to reduce your rice intake, especially nasi lemak. They ain’t called “fat rice” for nothing.

http://www.timeoutsydney.com.au/restaurants/pantry/nasi-lemak.aspx
http://www.malaysia-hotels.net/food_dining/malay-food.html

3. Cut Down On Meat

I was a pure meat eater previously so I know how it is. Try to do your part instead of indirectly causing the slaughter of animals. Animal lovers who eat meat? Yeah right. Take fish instead if you wish to start things off slowly because they don’t cry while being butchered, it can really heal your conscience, seriously.

4. Bread ,Buns and Donuts

Hoho! I called them the deadly trinity! Enough said. If you must, choose whole wheat bread instead of white bread.

5. Junk Food (sweets, crackers, fries, cakes, chips, nuts, etc..)

They come in all ways and seems to appear always. Just choose and eat wisely. I found the low fat raw almond nuts to be quite inviting sometimes, just don’t chew off the whole packet!

6. Alcohol (beer, wines, liquor)

You’ll be safe if you are able to prevent yourself from crossing the thin line between casual drinking and senseless drinking. I couldn’t, which was why I ended up shying away from most drinking gatherings. The word “health” gets a whole new meaning after a few shots of liquor.

7. Chocolate and Ice Creams

They should belong to the junk food categories but I gave them a special slot since they were once my favourite food. When I was a kid I swore to never turn down any chocolate and ice cream offers. Looks like it doesn’t turn out well.

8. Caffeine

I was thinking of taking less coffee but caffeine is the culprit here. Checkout the link below for more details on the pros and cons of caffeine :

http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?id=1378

9. Whipped Cream As Toppings

Any kind of whipped cream as topping is a sin. Get it and you’ll be whipped.

10. Milk
This one is kind of personal. I’ve had stomach discomfort for many years and I struggled to find the cause. Since replacing milk with my protein supplement, the uneasiness seemed to disappear. I also read that 75% of the world’s population has problems digesting cow’s milk, maybe that could be your problem too?

Now I ate less than 50% of the portion that I used to eat 2 years ago and I’m feeling better than ever and I believe that things can only be better!

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Since my last entry in January, I’ve experienced and gone through some major tuning in both my sleep cycles and also my diet. For a start, my personal trainer’s recommendation of 4 days training per week almost destroyed my physical body. How is that so? It took me almost 3 months to realize it! I’ll explain.

Personal Training

For those who’ve been through the personal trainer’s torture, you will understand the true meaning when I say that they DO push you to the LIMIT! Not able to turn your steering wheel properly, not able to scrub your back during shower and unable to walk straight are common side effects. The first month was bad, returning to workout after a year’s break was painful. I quickly adjusted having a 3 days per week workout and an extra day with my trainer. I started off by taking GNC Pro Performance® Mass XXX™, a weight gain supplement since they are having a buy 1 get 1 free promotion at the time.

It increases my weight from 65 to 70kg from the 2 X 6lb(s) container in the course of 3 months. The taste (both chocolate and vanilla) was not great but it worked, I guess.

The 2nd and 3rd month were the same but I can see and feel that I’m having results, weighing more and growing stronger knowing that I’m carrying heavier weights. At this moment, I started to feel lethargic during work as I go to work after workout in the morning. It got worse from week to week until I fell sick at the end of the 3rd month of workout in March. That really surprised me as I rarely get sick. With the fact that I’m exercising regularly it made it even more difficult for me to find the cause of my sickness. I took a week’s off from gym to recover and I continued my usual workout routine after that.

The Transition

I resigned at the end of April. Having the knowledge that I might need to work late in the future, I’ve decided to have a normal sleeping cycle (12.30am to 7.30am) compared to previously. During this period I finished my weight gain and my trainer adviced me to take MuscleTech® Nitro-Tech Hardcore, a protein supplement.

I would really recommend this if you plan to build you body. Besides the protein it has enough nutrients for your body. You can practically drink a scoop of this and forget everything else for your breakfast. It tastes good too, both chocolate and vanilla. I’m taking 2 scoops during workout day (1 before and 1 after workout) and 1 scoop for breakfast during non-workout days. Most importantly, drink with cold water as hot water will kill off the protein.

I’ve been consistently having my 4 days workout (sometimes 5 days when I can make it!) throughout April and May until I broke down again during the last week of May. This time it freaked me out, getting sick twice in 3 months is unacceptable. Something is very wrong! As with the first, I could not find any reason apart from the rigorous training schedule. So I have no choice but to reduce the frequency to 3 times a week. I took 2 weeks off from training to fully recover. Few weeks down the road as more projects came in I dropped my frequency to twice a week. I’m free from sickness since then..

Listen To Your Body

I’m sure you have experienced a different feeling after eating some particular food, be it spicy, sour, sweet or whatever. Observe and pay attention to your body before, during and after eating and see how your body respond. Most of the time your body will be telling you something, it just depends on how you respond to it. Whatever you do, just treat your body well because your life depends on it, naturally.

I’m quite proud of my body overall but I always feel ashamed every time I’m able to squeeze a chunk of fat from the area around my abs. I did some observation and research on my eating pattern and I found out the cause. I will reveal this in my next article…

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1. Being An Early Riser

I’m an efficiency freak. I’m a freak that refines every processes everytime I receive a job. I’m always thinking of ways to reduce the time spent on a repetitive job.

New Year Resolution

With being healthy as the first priority in life, I made myself a new year resolution for 2009. To buff up myself physically with a “social omnivorian” diet, which basically means half vegetarian.

The previous community gym that I went to does not have proper equipments for weight training. So as a sign of commitment, I registered myself for a 2 year membership in a well known club with additional personal training package.

My trainer recommended me to train 4 days a week, which was a 100% frequency increase from my previous workout routine. This will really disrupt my activities after work like overtime, freelance meetings and work, social gatherings, casual dating and most importantly, time for myself. It will simply turn me into a hard working moron! This just cannot be the way forward.

Challenges

From all of the methods that I came to know, rising early seems to give me the best fit. But the issue is that I’m not good at waking up early, all these years, I developed a habit of staying up late (on average until 5am) if I’m not working (or studying) the next day. In essence, I’m the exact opposite of an early riser, I’m a late sleeper. However, the benefit of total freedom after work far outweighs any cons, which was why I gave it a try anyway.

My plan was to wake up at 5.30am during gym days and 6am during non-gym days. I haven’t decided if I want to wake up early during weekends. Most probably I’ll shift my sleeping hours few hours in front, allowing me to sleep later, I’ll play be ear as time unfolds.

Waking up early one week before the start of my training schedule was actually for me to get used to it. As expected, I got some physical readjustment symptoms like slight headaches, mental fogginess and a weak body. However to my surprise, I was able to internalize the habit within 10 days.

Natural Highs

My overall mood skyrocketed since my first day of training. I got back the natural high feeling that I used to get during my previous training days few years back. If my body would allow me, I felt like working out on a daily basis.

Going to the gym in the morning is a further boost as there are not many people, giving me the opportunity to use any machines or weights without having to wait. Therefore, I am able to complete my training routine with less time needed, further increasing my efficiency.

The Results

Honestly, this is just the third week of the year and my trainer estimated that I will only see results at the end of 3 months. Perhaps I will write a different article with more details regarding my gym routine when the time comes.

Besides having a better quality of life during the day, I also have extra hours each day to pursue the things of my interests. These interests will change the course of my life in the coming months, hopefully for the better.

So stay tuned and expect more out of the norm articles from me at Selfmod.Net!

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1. Excessive Workout Can Kill You

Ghost Oppression Phenomenon

I think I had my first sleep paralysis at the age of 10. The chinese called them the ghost oppression phenomenon because they believed that you are not able to be awake because spirits are lying on top of your body causing you to be paralyzed.

It was around 5pm in the evening when the sun’s position was just right where the ray was able to reach where I was sleeping. I woke up and heard some noises in the living room but I panicked when I was not able to move! I knew that the sun’s ray was right on my face because I can see them through my eye lids, not unlike what you would see when you direct the flashlight to your eyes with your eye lids closed.

As a member of a very superstitious family or race to be more precise, ghost oppression was the first to came to mind. I started to think which spirit is doing this to me and for what reason. After much thought, I decided to force myself to be awake, but to no avail. After spending around 5 minutes figuring out a way to wake myself up, I finally gave up trying. I went back to sleep out of exhaustion.

I woke up around 20 minutes later (as an estimation based on feelings) and I was still in the same state. This time I was getting more pissed off than fearful and I started forcing myself to be awake out of brute force. I tried for around 10 minutes and I finally managed to break out of paralysis. I was sweating when I woke up, mostly due to the direct sunlight and also the amount of energy I used. If I would put it into words, the feeling of waking myself out of sleep paralysis is like lifting a refrigerator that is lying on top of your body with sheer strength. I call this method force wake.

Sleep paralysis still occurred to me from time to time after that but I dealt with them with totally no fear as I already have the solution to deal with it via “force wake”.

Sequential Nightmares

Practicing force wake benefitted me in other areas of sleep, which is nightmare. I can always force myself out of a nightmare at will. So nightmares had little impact on me until when I was 12. Even though I had mastered force wake, somehow my subconscious mind are able to find a way to counter it, by forcing me to experience sequential nightmares.

During this period I was having very vivid nightmares and the worst thing was that they were sequential, meaning to say that those nightmares continue from where they ended prior to waking up. The was a time where I ended up having 6 sequential nightmare even after force waking myself for 6 times in the same hour. It goes like this :-

I took a bus and went to the back seat. It was around midnight and I was the only passenger. The bus went according to the route and then it went off into the woods. I started to be on alert but said nothing. The bus suddenly stopped in the deep jungle, and I stared at the direction of the driver. He turned off the engine and got up from his seat, heading towards me. It was dead silence. He started walking towards me. I had nowhere to escape as the only entrance was just next to the driver’s seat, so I forced wake myself.

Prior to this, after a force wake I will either not dream or in the worst case land myself in another different nightmare. So naturally I went back to sleep. To my surprise, the driver continued walking from where he left off before I woke up. I got really scared at this point and forced wake myself again. I repeated this cycle for 6 times where in the end the driver was only few feet from me. I could see his face clearly, he was an undead with a soft green aura around him.

I was tired of it and I knew he will get me on the next one, so I get off from my bed and joined my other family members in the living room watching TV. After 30 minutes of watching something I had no interest on and due to the fact that I need to go to school the next morning, I gathered enough courage to go back to sleep. Luckily for me, it didn’t continue, but it remained as my worst sequential nightmare in my life.

Joker Demon

At the age of 16, something more disturbing happened. I was having the same nightmare for 2 weeks. All of those nightmares were masterminded by the same joker demon, having the face of a joker.  This joker demon sent all kinds of creatures to attack, torture and even kill me as I was rooted to the ground, not being able to move and defenceless. Towards the end of the 2 weeks I got so mad I thought to myself, “Why am I allowing a demon, which is my own creation, to torture me every night causing sleepless nights?”. I told myself that I will do something the next time I see this demon, just something.

True enough, I met with the joker demon again that night but this time a very strange thing happened. Upon recognizing the joker demon, it confirmed that I was actually in a dream, it worked as a dream cue for me. It then activated the logical part of the brain which is usually shut off during a dream. This allowed me to have totally no fear for the first time in a nightmare. Instead of struggling for survival which I always do when I met the joker demon, this time I managed to stare right at his eyes without any signs of fear. I stared for a moment knowing that I was in control, and then I smiled, in the dream. The dream slowly faded and I was still smiling physically.

Lucid Dreaming

Since that day, I had similar experiences but it is not related to nightmares anymore. I call them dream control due to the lack of vocabulary.

I only found out the correct term Lucid Dream in 2001 when I was doing a research on dreams. I found a forum where people exchanged their experiences with lucid dreaming and also on how can we improve this skill. It lead me to have a lucid dream that week itself. In a lucid dream, everything in your dream construct sparkles with life. It is like you are connected to everything. Bring that mindset to the physical world and you will understand why am I behaving the way I am.

Download and listen to this podcast from Erin Pavlina here for a better understanding on lucid dreams, how to practice them (yes, anyone can have lucid dreams!), and how to improve them.

Angels And Demons

Lucid dream changed the way I look at reality. I began to believe that fear is never needed in our daily lives, which led me to begin my quest in eliminating fear from my life.

By eliminating demons from my life I also removed god from the picture. Angels and demons are only a different side of the same coin, one could not exist without the other. Gods are not needed when there are no enemies and vice versa. I ended up throwing the coin in exchange for total freedom, freedom from fear and worship.

Religion is also the cause of the worst war between humans. It forces us to look at others differently.  I prefer to look at everyone as a family, without borders, without fear. I don’t have any particular belief but I think being an atheist is natural for the time being.

The Reason Behind

Why am I having these experiences when I can find no one in my country who are having the same experiences as mine? It is not like someone introduced lucid dreaming to me and I started practising it. It just came out of nowhere. Whatever it is, I am actually grateful that I had such experiences. If I do not, I can imagine myself being afraid of ghosts, believing in god who does not exist and believing in superstitious craps.

Please don’t get intimidated by the effect lucid dreaming will have on you. Today I remember the joker demon as a spirit guide more than a demon. I will never be who I am without him. I can guarantee that lucid dreaming will be the best ride in your entire life! 1080 degrees cork screw is piss in comparison! But you will need a lot of work though. Good luck on that!

“Monks meditate daily hoping that they can wake up from a dream we called life”

References :-
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/01/stevepavlinacom-podcast-010-lucid-dreaming/
http://www.dreamviews.com/

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Penang is one of the most developed island in Malaysia. It was announced as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in July 2008. Besides being one of the most popular historical cities in Malaysia, it is also a food heaven. Me and my friends ate practically everything we can set our eyes on! As usual, we went to a few visiting spots and the highlight would be Bukit Genting. Besides it being my first visit I also enjoyed the sunset styled Thai food.

All in all it was a great trip! Or so it seems…

Losing Hunger

I went to work the next day. During lunch, my colleagues noticed that I ate less than usual. My usual would be twice their portion so it was quite obvious. I told them that my stomach might still be digesting the food from Penang.

I went back home feeling tired. It got worse during dinner time, I had no appetite and started to have cold sweat. Those symptoms reminded me of the worse food poisoning that I had few years back. I slept real early that night.

To my surprise, nothing happened when I woke up in the next morning. Except one thing, I’m still not hungry. I haven’t eaten anything since lunch the day before. At that point, I’m freaking out. As a big eater, that never happened before in my entire life! I decided to see the doctor. He couldn’t find anything wrong with me and gave me some salt sachet to help restore my body’s proper electrolyte balance and vitamin C tablets.

It took around a week or 7 days for me to get accustomed to the new food requirements. If my previous level of hunger is placed on a scale of 1 to 10. I would say the highest achievable level of hunger after losing hunger would be on the scale of 3. In other words, I don’t feel hungry anymore. Scary huh?

I’ve always wanted to try being a vegetarian as part of my self development exercise. I never got to do it due to my enormous appetite for food and also being a meat lover. Since I’ve already accepted the fate of losing the sensation of hunger, perhaps this is the best timing to be a vegetarian.

Vegetarian Detox

To tell you the truth, the first few weeks after losing hunger really felt like I don’t need food for survival. I felt that having enough fluids is enough for my daily diet. I’ve even contemplated on the idea to go on a fluid diet and see how long I can survive. If losing hunger was the first wave, I’ve even considered the possibility of a second wave where I will lose the need for liquids. I think my fascination in Breatharianism and Sun Gazing is taking its toll.

I ended up eating for the sake of eating, just to prevent myself from collapsing. 5 years ago I will consider myself being vegetarian a joke because I was such a pure meat lover. So pure to a state where I can eat only meat in meals, I can even skip drinking water. So I’m considering this a divine intervention.

Going vegetarian was quite easy without the hunger factor but a few detox symptoms can be observed. My head felt foggy or floaty after the 2nd day. Minor flu started on the 3rd day, it was not serious enough for me to apply sick leave but irritating enough to affect your daily job. I would say that the cumulative effects of these detox symptoms decreased my efficiency by 20%. All detox symptoms, mental fogginess and minor flu was gone after 2 weeks on a vegetarian diet.

Pros And Cons Of Being A Social Omnivore

Pros

- Preventing heart diseases or diseases in particular

I consider myself very healthy, judging from the average of 1 medical leave day per year for the past 5 years. Since my father died of cancer, I have no idea if I am inheriting it in my genes as well,  so I am a very health conscious person as a result of that. Better safe than well, dead.. right?

From the many articles I’ve read, reducing the consumption of meat will reduce the level of saturated fat and cholesterol in your body which will prevent the blockages in the arteries that will lead to a heart attack. I can’t really prove this one but so far my diet hasn’t failed me.

- Save the animals

It removed the dread that I sometimes get when eating meat, it’s more joyful now knowing that I don’t kill on a daily basis. You might not know what the animals that you eat has to go through in life to end up in your plate. Without much imagination I can guess that it isn’t pleasurable or fun to be put into this world and be eaten before their premature death.

I’ve even heard some people declared that they are animal lovers but they still eat meat. How unconscious can they be? I mean, it’s okay to eat meat. Do whatever you want with your life, I’m a supporter of free will, but please don’t contradict yourself.

- Help reduce waste

Since turning vegetarian I don’t need to dispose of animal wastes like bones, heads (as a kid I do eat chicken brain) , etc anymore.

- Losing fat

It was very difficult for me to reduce stomach flabs with my enormous appetite before. So turning vegetarian has given me a second chance in eliminating stomach flabs.

- Breaking addiction

Besides the health and social reasons, going vegetarian is also a test for me to overcome addiction, the addiction to meat. I’ve seen friend’s and colleague’s mixed results in quitting smoking, most of them failed, unfortunately. Since I’m not a smoker I need to give myself similar challenge. Breaking the addiction to meat sounded difficult, so I took it.

Cons

- Social outcast

Only about 2% of the people I know are vegetarian. So it’s a real challenge for me to keep up with this practice. So in order for me to “blend in”, I allowed myself to eat meat during social gatherings. On average I eat meat about once a week.

- Stereotype

Most of the people have a stereotype about vegetarians looking pale, weak & sickly. I really have no comments on this but I will go on a weight training schedule for the next 6 months to see if I end up pale and weak. Most of the time I learn from personal experiences and I find these stereotypes highly inaccurate.

Darwin’s Theory And Vegetarianism

Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist, who realised and demonstrated that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors through the process he called natural selection. His theory :

As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.

Being a social omnivore for 3 months now, I began to imagine what would be the next step in human evolution. I consider Darwin’s theory observed the physical side of evolution and I think we’ve almost reached a stage of perfection, judging from our current physical ability and the number of World Records being broken every year in sports. If our physical structure has been evolving through natural selection all this while, I think the next step in mental or spiritual evolution will be based on conscious choice.

If nature chose the more resilient species to survive, I think now it has reached a stage where we must dictate our next evolution as nature is dwindling down in numbers, so to speak. Using our diet as an example, humans are omnivores by nature but herbivors by choice. It is really interesting if we would choose to be herbivors as a species as a solution to the impending global disaster such as global warming.

Is This Permanent?

I really have no idea if this is permanent and I have no idea if I will turn full vegetarian, vegan or even a raw foodist in the future. Being a pure meat lover is definitely a no. Most probably I will stick to my current eating habit for awhile, eating meat socially or being a social omnivore. But one thing is certain, I will surely aim to improve as time goes by, definitely by conscious choice..

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1. The Cause For Unhealthy Diet