Time-out Tanjong Pagar

Over lunch today, I decided to give myself a lil break from work and from my colleagues. I had my little me-outing to the Duxton hill area for lunch and some book-shopping - while everyone else headed to PS Cafe@Ann Siang Hill for expensive overpriced lunch. The plan was to go to this new bookstore Littered with Books at Duxton Rd after checking out a new crepe place in the same area... and maybe pop by Flor bakery and treat myself to a cake or some freshly baked cookies. However, I also stumbled upon a newly opened photography school two doors down from the crepe place, and climbed up some creaky steps to walk into a shophouse full of nice photos... What a nice little adventure!

However my lunchtime outing plan was a tad too ambitious. Turned out that I was stuck in Littered with books for a good half hour or so and ended up having no time for cake. The books at Littered with Books all look so pretty it I felt like buying every single title! There only seemed to be a couple of copies of each book so each book felt particularly unique and it made me feel like I was picking them off someone's home bookshelf, not a bookstore. I ended up buying a C. S. Lewis book and a cheem book by A.C. Grayling that is supposedly a good read and will hopefully inspire me to reflect about the meaning of life... ;) I am building up a stash of unread books in my already cluttered room bleah.

My Monday Horoscope said...

You are focused on creativity and should find that ability to dream up new ideas and plans is equalled only by your ability to bring them to life. Show the world what you can do.

Not that I am a fan of horoscopes... but mum is..! (more for fun lah) So she showed this to me this morning when I was gulping down my milo... The english a bit convoluted, but uncannily today's msg actually spoke to me somewhat. Show the world what I can do eh...

Today was a depressing day... so had to have music therapy at night.

10,000 hours to become an expert at anything...

I just had to log in a short post about this 10,000 hr-rule cos for some uncanny reason I was told this twice today by 2 persons under pretty diff circumstances... Yesterday I was just reflecting on how I have not become really good at anything so far - be it tennis, photography, Japanese, baking etc although I like and enjoy doing all these things. I tried to figure out what the reason might be... and concluded that I am just not a very determined person and get easily distracted by new things :(

So this morning, it was somewhat consoling when a guest pastor, as part of his msg about it being human to err, shared this interesting piece of trivia. Then when chatting with Y just now, she highlighted this to me too! So Y pointed out that this implied that someone who practices XX for 8 hrs everyday...wld take abt 4 years to be an expert. If you're more normal (and devote say 8 hrs a week to this activity) - you will become an expert in... 28 years! When things are put in that perspective, it really feels not that bad that I am not an expert at anything... heh.

p/s: did a google of the 10,000 hr thing and it's apparently a common theme in Malcolm Gladwell's book - Outliers. Maybe I shld go read that some day :)