Salad-n-Noodles: The Best of Both Worlds

Business Cards

I've finally organized all the business cards I collected at various networking events. They were once neatly organized in my roller deck, but somehow additional ones were creeping into my piles and I just had to reorganized them.  These  3x2 cards hold a lot of information. As a reader, you may even be able to get a glimpse of the brand or personality of the company or this person.

I love business cards that are vertical instead of horizontal, they seem more creative. I like clean looking cards where I can easily find the key information: name, company, phone number, email, and tag line. I don't like glossy ones because I cannot write on them. How will I know who you are after I've filed your card away if I don't write something about where we met when I first received this business card? 

As I went through my pile of business cards, I ended up tossing away one third of them. Why? because I don't remember these people (they didn't make an impression on me, probably I didn't make much of an impression on them either!), or I believe that they are not relevant to my business or networking effort. However, I've kept some business cards even though their line of business is not exactly going to cross path with mine. I kept a funky card of an interior designer just because she had a full color, vertically oriented, double-sided business card, On one side is the usual information, on the other, is a caricature of a big hair blonde woman with exaggerated hip poking her head out from a door frame. What an image!! I love it. I love its bold statement. I love its uniqueness. And, to a certain extent, this business card screams the personality of the lady, who happened to sit next to me at the networking event. 

If you could design your own business card, what would it look like? Full color? Fancy fonts? or plain and muted? Tell me.

Transition

I moved to a new apartment two months ago. I'm happy that my new place is slowly coming along. Yesterday I cleaned out my patio and arranged the plants. I noticed a lizard, small and slimy with protruded eyes, climbing out from a pot of cymbidium I uprooted. Ewweeeeee.... Today, I hung more pictures and was quite happy to see smiling faces of my friends and the clear blue skies of Santa Cruz smiling back at me. I'm pleased that I've cleared most of the boxes and put things away. Now I can practice yoga in my living room!

Transition is never easy. I remember William Bridges, an English teacher turned management guru, says, transition is a chaotic time when old rules don't apply anymore, but it's also a very creative time when you can make up your own rules and unleash your creativity. As I unpacked and organized my stuff, I've put things away, organized them, only to take them all out and reorganized them or repositioned them in a different manner. I remember how I arranged my stuff at my old place, so I have a tendency to replicate that arrangement. But the old arrangement does not always work in my new place (duh!) and I need to rethink what's the best way to organize my stuff in this new environment. 

Just like in our lives, we can be creatures of habit sometimes. It's comfortable (and feels safe) to stay in our comfort zone, to practice the known and familiar. But when the external environment (or internal environment such as our mindset or feelings) has changed, the old way of doing things just doesn't fit anymore. We'll need to go through some "chaotic" period to reevaluate, readjust, and rearrange so we can live in harmony in the new environment.

As I continue to explore new places, meet new people, and experience new things and adventures in life, I can't help but notice how great it is to shake things up from time to time. Just so I can feel alive! Like they say, shake away the cow-web in our mind so we can remain sharp. :)

So let's not let our inertia or fear keep us from experiencing life. My aunt in Taiwan who has a grandchild, but proclaims that she's forever 27, is a great model. She's so full of joy and fire. She travels. She learns to use the Internet. She even has a blog!! Let's try at least one new thing a day, even as small as taking a different route to work. I bet you'll notice new stuff on your new road and be amazed at what's out there. 

A desert flower in bloom

The flower has bloomed. Not any flower, I'm talking about THE flower in my very own pot of cactus!  

Three days ago I noticed a tiny little red bud on a branch of my cactus on my patio. It was just barely poking its head out from a bunch of unruly stems. Two days ago the bud had grown a little taller, still no sign of any flowers. Yesterday morning before I left home, it's still the same bud enclosed in tight sepals, just showing more signs of red between the cracks of sepals. Then, (drum roll please), when I came back around 4pm, I was awe struck. 

The flower has bloomed! It's not just a little shy opening from its tight bud, it's a full bloom! It's as if it has announced to the whole world "I have arrived! Look at me!"  It struts its extended petals and long filaments in full stretch. Look at me! I'm so happy to be out of the bud and show the world how beautiful I am. Look at my long filaments. My anthers are full of pollen, where are the birds or bees?

How amazing! I sit on my sofa looking through my full-length windows to see this tiny bud transformed into a full-bloom dessert flower in just a few days. Everyday I watch for signs of growth but detected nothing. Then suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, it's here. Unlike other dessert flowers that boost rich color petals, this one just has a hint of vanilla and a trace of light yellow. Its filaments are long and holding up the anthers at a 45-degree angle. I smelled it. Nothing. No trace of fragrant. But it sure looks happy and wears a big grin. 

Just when I thought this flower had bloomed 100%, it amazed me by going to 120%. It seems even bigger today. It's still holding its head up high, and its grin is now a full-belly laugh! 

I still can't stop marveling at the great transformation of this bud in a few hours, five and a half to be exact. What a transformation! From a closed bud to full bloom. It seems that there was no "in-between" phase. For four days, It was a bud. On the afternoon of day five, it was a flower. Won't we do the same? When the time is right, we just burst out of our cocoon and announce to the world, Hey, I'm here! Look at me! I'm giving you my 100% today, maybe 20% more tomorrow!