Here are some pics taken during TedxYouth@KL at Plug & Play Technology Gardens last Saturday.

Our @Nikicheong talking about the importance of not just education but also the Lack of it, in his ‘Confessions of a 1A Student’.

It’s an inspiring story of all things that happen when one scores not 9,8,6…but just 1A in one’s exams..Niki did just that. Contrary to the common belief that students like him end up as failures, he ended up excelling in journalism, and is now a writer for The Star. He did what he believed he wanted to do, then put his everything into it.

It’s a typical example that again demonstrates how our education system and culture fails to raise a much needed generation of thinkers instead of doers; that we put too much emphasis on grades; and that we all focus too much on the destination, when what mattered the most was the journey.

TedxYouth@KL (Malaysia version lah) was not as glamorous as what the Americans get:

http://www.ted.com/talks/gero_miesenboeck.html

But like every other community event, it was great to share experiences, inspire each other and to network. Besides, it cost me only RM20 to enter, compared to RM x00 that I have to fork out at TED US.

Johan Farid Khairuddin, or whom we know as JFK who used to deejay at Hitz, used to have it all.

The high life, spotlight, bank busting salaries. Then one day came when he decided to drop EVERYTHING, go low profile, and return to school to fulfil his dream since he was 3 years old : to be a pilot.

I know..being a pilot’s not exactly low profile either..maybe I should say ‘go lowER profile’ hehe. But it really goes to show that it all starts with a dream, then that obnoxious drive to do that one single thing in your life that you really love. And one that will bring you happiness.

I would be happy too, knowing that I’m constantly surrounded by sexeh Airasia air-stewardesses.

Other speakers for the day include John-Son Oei, Navin Muruga, Sabrie Salleh, Alia Nadhirah and Aanantha, of whom all had interesting stories to share (original site at http://www.tedxyouthkl.com/programmes/ and http://www.tedxyouthkl.com/counsellors/ for more info).

There’s a somewhat negative stigma about young Malaysian achievers; Many think them overrated. I can’t resist the temptation to agree sometimes, but think about this:

How many of us can do what they have done?

How many of us have the pluck, courage, drive, and most of all, dare to fail or embarrass ourselves?

Each speaker on that day experienced different levels of success in their lives, and I admit that I found myself saying ‘What am I doing watching this fella speak?’ during a couple of the talks. But one thing was common between them: They didn’t believe in being normal.

If you look in the mirror and ask yourself ‘Do I wana be normal?’, and find the answer to be ‘no’, maybe it’s a good time to step out of the box and re-strategize.

Think about what you’re doing right now, then about what you’d rather be doing. If you find the gap between these two to be too wide, then perhaps it’s time to move out of that comfort zone…and into the battle zone.

Oh, inspired I am And I hate it that most of these kids are younger than I am…hahaha.

Kudos to the guys at Plug & Play, Entrepreneurs.my, Youthasia and speakers for the great effort.

Cheers!
EVo

One of the best-est trips I’ve ever been on: Salsa Cruise 2009.

Check out the Event page here http://www.salsacruiseasia.com/

…or check out future cruises here http://www.singlescruiseasia.com/

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I’m back from the Atmah Charity Treasure Hunt.

Saturday was the actual Treasure Hunt day, that started in the morning from Sunway to the evening in Simpang Pulai.

Within that 10 hours of hunting, I can summarize the whole thing into a simple equation:

”IQ is a exponentially inverse function of time”

Why? The answer lies in the following graph……

I tell you, treasure hunting is no easy business.

Now I actually have doubts about my intelligence…and even as I type this, I have half the confidence that I thought I used to have.

For those who are not familiar with motor treasure hunts, here’s a summary for you:

Participants travel from the start point and find answers along the way until the destination. You are given 2 things : Tulips and Questions. Tulips will help you navigate your way, bring you through the exact turns and of course, locations of the answers. Based on your interpretations of the questions, your answers are in the form of words / phrases / names which can be located on signboards, building names, posts.

For those who are familiar with motor treasure hunts, you will understand when we say that we are first timers…that our final score was 12/100.

SERIOUS DAMN HARD THE QUESTIONS! omgwtfknnccb.

The morning started at 7am sharp at the carpark of Monash Uni, Sunway..and there were 100 teams participating. Not a bad number, considering that there were only 60 teams in 2009’s treasure hunt.

Pimpin my ride with @Andygts.

YB Hannah Yeoh took part in the flag-off as well. She made it clear that treasure hunts weren’t really her thing, cos apparently she hates looking for things. Haha. I was surprised that she tweeted me back when I twitpic her! Follow her at @hannahyeoh if you will

Team spirit points for @Jasontkb and the Super gang!

It was quite a good feeling to be part of a 100 car convoy, except you know that the car next to you is waiting to pwn your face in competition. Every location given by the tulips were positively packed with treasure hunt cars. Once you see cars stopping by, you’ll know there are answers.

Even if it was obvious that there weren’t any answers, once we spotted cars at one place, we stopped also. Kiasu + n00b mah.

Girls working hard…

And girls hardly working… @meiyingt and @claudiasibert bersembang kat bawah pokok. ish.

This is how navigation looks like..more or less.

Let me tell you how we answer the treasure hunt questions, with one quick example.

Read this question for 5 minutes, then notice how your brain starts shrinking to the size of a tennis ball. That’s exactly how I felt when I read the question. I had ‘WTF’ printed all over my mind trying to answer it.

There’s something in Treasure Hunts called ‘anagrams’ that we failed to understand and use. Anagrams are the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase. Instead, we read the question literally and tried to answer it…well…literally.

This is how we did it:  We started by looking through the names of each shop and pairing it with ‘Henry Curious’ to see which made sense. Obviously, we got nowhere. haha..!

This was the closest that we had, and we decided, this must be the answer:

‘Henry is Curious? So Ah Tan Say Hoe (How) loh!!’

-________-

Now you know why we got only 12 / 100 points.

Cheers!
EVo

(to be continued in Part II…)

…or read my previous post on the treasure hunt.

Update : Check out @gladyslcp’s post on the treasure hunt here.