Still remember the water plum flower (also known as “Shui3Mei2″, Wrightia religiosa or water jasmine) that I told you previously? The plant produces seeds recently in our garden. If I am not mistaken, this is the second time I see the water plum seeds, it seldom produces seeds.

I have forgotten how it looked like during the first time because it was one or two decade ago. I cannot even remember when was it. But I have waited it for years. My blur memory about water plum seeds made me unsure that whether this plant got seed or not, until few days ago I discovered this inverted horn-shaped rows of seeds.

Multi-layer-petal Shui Mei.

Single-layer-petal Shui Mei.

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Forgetting and Remembering

Sometimes after we sensed something (through our eyes, ears, nose etc), the memories stay for our whole life and it get faded. But once we see it again, we can remember it quickly and our feeling on it will come again. Otherwise, I would not have waited for years to prove that this flower got seeds. No body ask me to wait, but I believe my internal memory (the eighth sense) make me to have a wish to see the seeds again.

For those of you who do not know about this flower, or never see this type of plant, you may ask what is so big deal about these seeds? For me, it is special because I have gone through the process of digging my memories, and given myself an answer. This is the most important part for me.

Believe me or not? Forgetting about something is more difficult than remembering. We learned our languages, we learned to ride bicycle, we learned to swim, and we also learned to drive, but we will not be able to forget it until the end of our lifes. Therefore, if you want to forget something, for example the person you hate, the things that you do not like, what you need to do is do not remember it or burn it into your brain. Remove it from brain is more difficult than storing it into the brain. We are not able to format our memory like what we did to a computer harddisk drive. Our memory is like a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, once burned, it will be permanently there, unless accident happen such as scratches and the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM develop bad sectors.

There are two methods to forget the things you do not want to remember, first never remember it at the very begining. Second, if it is very unfortunately that you have already remembered it, what you need to do is do not think about it at all. Just like if you have a CD or DVD that you don’t like, you won’t put it in your computer or DVD player. Everytime it comes to your mind, you have the right to chase it away then you can think about some other things.

Do not remember something that you want to forget later. It’s hard, but we should try.

#1

My housemate and I went cycling one evening and came back wet because it rained. I saw drops of water on our spectacles, and I immediately had an idea to take the pictures of our spectacles. I forgot either we went out for just riding or doing grocery. It was 5 years ago… … when I was in Australia.

#2

Do you think that these pictures of spectacles look like an advertisement? I used my old FujiFilm FinePix 2300 digital camera to take these pictures. This camera did not allow me to control anything such as shutter speed, aperture and so on, but the only thing I can do was to switch to the close-up mode so that I can get closer to the spectacles, the bottle of eye drops and the lamp. I supposed to use tripod but I did not have it at that moment, luckily the subjects were just right under the light of the lamp, so I still managed to get the picture sharp.

#3

#4

#5

Another Memory… …

I recalled another session when I helped a friend to take the pictures of stationeries to make catalog, it was about 200 types of different stationeries. It took me few days to finish taking those photos. From there I learned that arrangement of subjects, composition and lighting are 3 most important skills in commercial photography. Hmm… … It was 7 years ago while I was still using my old DSLR SLR Canon EOS 500 - a film camera. My friend bought the films for me to take the photos, he sent the films to develop and printed out the photo on his own, but he did not pay me as he promised. However I am happy with it because I had got a chance to practice advertising photography.

It was not his mistake not to pay me because at that time I was about to go to Australia to continue my study, I did not collect from him, and we both had forgotten about it. But today I recalled it… … may be I am now really poor and need $$$.

He was also interested in photography, before I went to Australia I passed him the whole set of my SLR, a fish eye wide angle converter, remote shutter control, a tripod, and a camera bag. It was early 2002, when I started to feel that a SLR is bulky and inconvenient for me to travel around, and I was aiming for my first compact digital camera, that was why I did not want to bring my SLR to Australia. Another reason was the cost to develop and print out the film is high which make me stop using my SLR until now. I think I had only contacted him few times while I was in Australia.

When I came back to Malaysia, and I got my camera bag from him, I discovered that the fish eye wide angle converter, remote shutter control, and the tripod connector were missing. He also stopped playing with camera because of the high cost of printing film. What I heard from him was he lent my camera to another person. He returned my tripod but without the connector to screw the camera so that the camera can sit on the tripod, so the tripod was useless. I could not find the replacement for the connector. Finally he gave me his big bulky tripod which cost him about RM500 as a compensation for the tripod and other missing items.

That is why I am now using a bulky tripod although my camera is small. :p It seem not balanced and funny. And I am looking for a smaller, thinner, lighter tripod.

He is still my good friend, and we never mention about this matter anymore. I think he had forgotten that he once bumped himself into photography. His bulky, heavy and expansive tripod is still with me, and I prepare to returned him anytime once he remember that many years ago he did interested in photography.

I have learned not to be calculative, I learned to forgive and forget (:p although I still remember, but I did not keep it in mind), I learned to handle others things carefully, I learned that lending other’s thing to another person without the owner permission is not good, I also learned that there is no right or wrong for some matter.

:p He does not read my blog. :p

Have you ever thought about how many days have you been staying on this world since you were born? I have found a quick way to calculate it using Microsoft Excel.

As the example above, if you were born on 8/8/2008, You are 74 days old today, and on Chrismas day of the year 2035, you will be 10000 days old.

Here is the trick:-
0.  Open a new excel files.
1. Enter your birth date (in cell B1).
2. Enter today date (in cell B2).
3. The answer for the number of days until today since you were born is =B2-B1.
4. The answer for the date of your 10000th day birthday is =B1+10000.
5. [for B3] After doing the plus and minus operation on date, excel may display number in date format because the answer is not formatted properly. Therefore, the next step would be formatting the cell B3. Change the cell format from date to number.

It is very simple and easy if you have the basic skill on Microsoft Excel.

I have a feeling when I look at my age in the unit of days. I have only been living in this world for 10700+ days. If I have a long life and can reach 100 years old, it would be only 36500+ days. I feel that life is short.

I should not waste anymore time, and should work harder to pursuit my happyness.