The One with the Zen Master

Yesterday was a great day for several reasons.

For one it was one of the rare 5 clubs mania day. i had some long runs with 5 clubs and almost consistently. It was 5 club heaven. Tried to think back how long ago it was that i started this 5 club journey. I can't even remember, it was that far back. but it's definitely been at least 2.5 years of periodic training.

Several old faces popped by, and it was nice catching up with them.

The most refreshing conversation was with the zen master, in the form of Ben the poi extrodinaire.

Me: "hey ben, it's been a long time!"
Ben: "yeah, i've been away for the last 6 months. went to australia and new zealand."
me: "was it a work trip or just to holiday?"
Ben: "somewhat like holiday. we went there to do some rock-climbing, and just drove around."

Turned out both Ben and his girlfriend, who are both rock-climbing instructors, quit their jobs and packed their bags and just left. They bought a car ("cost me $800 and we sold it for $1100") and drove around and slept in their tent for all 6 months.

Along the way they just climbed up whichever cliffs fancied them and met people and just drove and enjoyed the scenery.

Me: "it must be scary to do this. there's no income coming in and just money flowing out. must have made a dent in your savings."

Ben: "yeah, but you don't really need that much money to survive. we'll start again when we come back. We'll be here for a month or two, and then we're thinking of going to france. Drive, camp and maybe get some money here and there."

Me: "you can probably earn something doing busking"

Ben: "yeah. we met a guy in new zealand who cuts christmas trees in denmark during winter. no one wants to do it because it's completely dark during winter. but he does it and he sells the trees. maybe we'll join him and cut christmas trees and get some cash. (laughs) so we'll be cutting trees in the dark in denmark!"

Ben: "it was wonderful camping out in the wilderness. it's so quiet and peaceful. and then you come back to singapore and there's so much noise. it's terrible. you've been away before, you know what i mean."

Me: "this is so grand you know. you should hold workshops on 'how to live a carefree life'"

Ben: "it's all just a choice. anyone can do it. why? are you very burdened?"

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i've been trapped in this, for lack of a better term, rat race thing for a while now.
it's a constant desire to be something more than where i am right now.

i've been conscious of it, courtesy to the little nibbets of "what are you doing?! Reflect! think! are you sure this is what you really want?" reminders i let through from my sub consciousness periodically.

i am, however, not consciously trying to pull myself out of it.

There is a struggle internally. and the buddhist part of me knows it's not healthy. It's tiring.

and i see my goals shifting. the innocent desires fresh from graduation has moved to more practical goals. whether these goals are really mine or whether they stem from societal expectations is open to debate.

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from sociology class i've learnt that there are 3 types of elitism.
pple with power, pple with prestige, and pple with wealth.

successful hawkers have wealth but no power or prestige.
actors have prestige and maybe wealth but no power.
politicians have power, maybe prestige (unless your name is bush) and lots of wealth if you work in the little red dot.

so the rat race is not just about struggling for more money.
it's struggling for some or all of all 3: power, prestige and wealth.

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we've all heard of the magic term "financial independence".
you pay thousands of dollars (or none if you attend the introductory sessions only) to listen to gurus talk about how to get financial independence so you can get out of the rat race and do what you love.

Thing is, you need time to get financial independence. and lots of planning. and lots of stress. you're out of the traditional rat race but then again it's another race you're in.

So the laws of karma arranged a meeting between me and the zen master.
and he showed me the OTHER way out of the rat race.

Just let go.

"why? are you very burdened?"

I don't know Ben. I see now that some of the burdens are my own doing. i dug a hole, stuck my foot in and claim that i'm stuck.

maybe one day i'll have the mental strength to take my foot out and start walking.

Baby Lessons to Running a "Business"

My filipino colleague was telling me about his new business venture back home.
his brother started a company selling soft drinks wholesale and he invested some money in it.

"don't you have your own business too?"
"what business?"
"the balls?"
"hahahaahhaha....the balls...i make more money working in KFC!"

so i completed my 150 balls right, and finished up the workshop for some JC students.
i was surprised by how fast they learnt.
almost the entire class got 3 balls going in half and hour.

anyway, some of my singabolas didn't take the test of juggling very well.
the seal came off some of them and soon there was sand everywhere, especially on the teacher's table where all the ball casualties were gathered.
i can imagine the teacher coming in the next day to teach and screaming her head off at the amt of sand on her table.
it was pretty funny.

on closer inspection i realised the defect was due to the way i sealed the balls up.
those that were sealed by getting glue smeared all over was holding up well,
while those that had a nice pretty dot were coming off.

the irony was the smeared ones were mostly done by accident when i lost control of the glue flow, while the nice pretty dots were intentionally done with pride because they were neat and pretty!

So that was my first lesson in quality defects.

I did juggle some balls to test run if they could be juggled,
but i guess i took more care than buyers would.
some pple really go all out to see if they can peel the damn thing off.

and of course you also have the perils of mass production.
under time constraints to produce a large quantity, things get overlooked sometimes.

the quality improvements were easy to handle, but then comes the lesson on customer satisfaction and complains.
how do you appease someone who paid for the ball and then 5 minutes later the seal comes off?

during the workshop the students didn't pay for the ball,
and i just let them change out the balls they were using (along the way re-assuring some terrified faces that no, they don't have to pay for "damaging" the ball).

but i did get some who bought the balls home,
and it was those i was worried about.

Without re-QC-ing all my balls, i'm not too confident about them at the moment, especially while staring at all the sand on the teacher's table.

I did give them my number, and told them to call me if something happens to the balls.

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Some of my practices aren't very sound business tactics.
With the amount of leeway i'm giving to "customer satisfaction", i'm practically making nothing money-wise.

but that's the cool part of being my "own boss",
i get to make decisions i'm comfortable with without having to answer to someone else.
and besides although it would be nice to see something come out of this,
i'm not really taking this as a "business" per se.

More like a tool to spread juggling to more pple,
and a means for me to be a self sustaining juggler (no need to buy balls ever again!).

i am trying to learn business practices out of this though,
so if you see a sudden spurt in singabola marketing, it's just me experimenting with marketing tactics.

anyway, whatever i'm comfortable with.
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BT told us about his damaged brand new clubs yesterday. Each club cost about US$25, excluding US shipping costs.

"the knobs came off 2 out of 5 clubs! the screws broke off! and i just bought them!"
"oh no, then how?"
"i emailed the shop. you know what they said? they replied with 'i'm sorry, but your clubs were part of the batch of 100 clubs with inferior screws.' "

"huh? so did they offer to exchange your clubs?"
"NO! they told me to extract the broken screw and buy a screw with a bigger diameter to screw in!"
"hahahaha...oh no..."

"and then i emailed them to say i don't know how to extract the screw, and they replied that if i know how to juggle, then i should know how to extract screws! wah liao!!!"


at about this time, one of my singabola customers, who just bought the balls and were juggling around us, came to me and showed me the ball and the seal that came off.

"HOR!!!!!" there was a chorus of exclaimation from the jugglers around me.
"this is the end of the singabolas!!! balls are not good!!!" they all started ribbing me.

I looked at them and replied, "i'm sorry. but these balls are in a batch with inferior seals. please buy your own glue gun and seal them up yourself. if you can juggle, you can seal balls."

anyway, for the record, i let the customer change out the ball. and then he came back with 2 more balls with no seals. i was so embarassed i offered to loan him all the balls i had with me, until i gave him some good balls the following week.

Good thing he was quite nice about it, and didn't want to take all 9 balls. in then end i told him if the balls did break down, i'll deliver the good ones to his house.

it's so tiring doing damage control.

it's also quite scary selling things you know, cos pple are paying real money for some real stuff.

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it was damn tiring as well carrying 150 balls for that JC workshop.
i neglected to take into account that the combined weight of the balls was 13.5kg.

as i huffed and puffed the balls to and fro,
i tried to remember what this is all about.

it's abt getting new experiences,
and doing the things you love,
even if it means pulling 13.5kg worth of balls up a 30 degree slope for 10 minutes.
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PS: darren suggested that i fill the singabola up completely and see if it rolls well. if it does, it can be a contact juggling ball! and if i get a few stocklings, i can get sock poi!

one singabola, many ways to play!

Things to Waste Time On

30 more balls to go!

Only stopped because i ran out of sand.

i've tripled the capacity of my production line, Mom says i look like a professor doing experiments.

i'm looking for names and slogans for the balls and for myself, this is what i have so far. i welcome any suggestions.

All slogans courtesy of http://cooltext.com/.

Don't you just love those little d*ck like things. i meant to say ducks. i think they are meant to be ducks. for real.

Hey guys, if it ain't fun, it ain't worth it.

Still waiting for someone to order 40 A cup Bloody mary Red.

The Great Ball Adventure

MJ and I have single-handedly raised the prices of plastic hollow balls in singapore.

Between the both of us, we have probably snapped up all the plastic balls in toy stores all over the island.

Plastic ball suppliers here must be wondering who is snapping up plastic balls by the hundreds in a manner of days.

(SOS phone call to MJ)
"MJ!!! Do you still have any balls left over from your last juggling workshop?"
"i think i have about 30 with me"
"great! can i have them? I went to Toa Payoh and they sold out!"
"that's where i went too. then i went to Toys r us, but the balls are too huge and expensive."
"THAT'S WHERE I AM RIGHT NOW!! Toys r us! you know for the price of their 100 balls, i can buy the WHOLE BALLOON HOUSE with 100 balls inside at Toa Payoh."

I was almost tempted to buy the whole balloon house, but my parents wouldn't be amused i think.

for the curious, the reason for this ball buying frenzy is because i have a workshop coming up of which i need 150 balls.

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY.

a few days ago i thought i needed only 75, and i'm just about done after backaching hours manning my one woman ball making factory.

and then came the sms that 75 has now become 150. gasp.



it's a bitter sweet thing. i complain about it, but it's also quite amusing and fun in a skewed way.

Here are some fruits of my labour:

Presenting the SingaBola!

These are the colors available (shown in photo): Bloody Mary red, Vodka Lime Yellow, Blue Lagoon Blue, Green Green grass of home, Light Blue Lagoon Light Blue, Pink Santana, Mandarin Orange.

2 sizes available: A-cup (5.5cm in diameter), and B-cup (6.5cm in diameter)

(Gosh i love the A-cup and B cup names! but Boon just msn-ed me that it sounds like a porno pamplet.)

"can you imagine your PE HOD ordering 50 A cups Pink Santana from me"
"yeah she's gonna have a hard time explaining to the school's adminstrative manager and the Principal what she got during budget debate."

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Carrefour Suntec - The Walmart of Singapore

So i went down to Carrefour Suntec the other day. On an emergency errand to buy balls and other stuff.

Carrefour Suntec and Walmart at Alabama feels the same.

There is the dim lighting, the utterly confusing layout, the sensory overload experience, and best of all, the staff walking around wearing "may i help you" shirts but with expressions that say "you better not ask for help"

So it was near closing time, and i didn't have the luxury of moving around in their maze to look for my balls.

I was at the toy section and found no balls (which i know they have because i just bought some from carrefour plaza singapore)

"Excuse me," i asked a staff wearing a may-i-help-you uniform,"where can i find small hollow plastic balls?"

"there", he pointed at a basketball.

"no, small hollow plastic balls. for kids."

"oh, i think you go to baby section"

so i went to find the baby section, which was all the way at the OTHER END of the massive carrefour shop space.

i found many pregnant women, but no balls.

"Excuse me," i asked a staff wearing a may-i-help-you uniform,"where can i find small hollow plastic balls?"

"box?"

"no, balls. small hollow plastic balls. for kids."

"i think you go to the stationery department"

"stationery? not boxes you know, BALLS. BALLS.....BALLS"

"ya. here don't have. i think stationery got"

i wonder how many pple he has directed to the stationery dept whenever he hears something unfamiliar. imagine "hi do you have baby wipes?" "go to stationery" or "hi do you have pampers?" "stationery"

anyway i was quite sure the balls weren't at stationery, so i walked all the way back to the toy section, and searched all the shelves at the toy section, and finally found the balls i was looking for, just across the aisle from the first may-i-help-you guy i asked.

alas, i needed 2 bags, and i only found one.

so i went searching for another may-i-help-you, and asked if i can have another bag of these balls.

"sorry, if not there, no stock."

i already half expected to hear that, and i didn't bother to probe further. i mean, why would any may-i-help-yous in their right mind go through the trouble of checking the warehouse which i suspect to be as massive as carrefour itself. especially when it's near closing time.

obviously if carrefour were to sell balls, they would only have ONE bag.

i walked a little bit, and decided to try another time with another may-i-help-you.

To his credit, this guy actually walked back with me to where i got the balls, and walkie-talkied to someone i assume was in the warehouse and not sitting on toilet bowl somewhere reading the newpaper.

"*ka-chhhhk* Calling warehouse. Do you have any of this (reads product code of the balls)"

"*ka-chhhhk* no, no more"

Someone should flash mob Carrefour one day wearing T-shirts that go "Please don't help me. i'll go to Stationery."

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PROJECTS On THE PLATTER

so now that short and sweet is over, i'm looking for new excitement and i'm a tad worried i'm biting more than i can chew.

so far i have the singabolas, 2 wedding presents to plan for (for close friends who are weird, a wrapped jade bracelet wouldn't do.)

Also thinking of going busking, and then i started and joined the Singapore World Juggling Day Elite Organizing Parliamentary Committee 2007 (SWJDEOPC 07).

and then i'm flying off with boon on a trip where we eliminated almost all the countries on this part of the world. "australia" "too boring". "new zealand?" "cold". "china?" "too hot" "thailand?" "been there". "Tibet?" "no air"

and at work the infamous customer is coming again, where his one day of visit can amount to one week of work to clear his action items.

oh boy.

one third of me thinks i'm just trying to speed up time and distract myself from the real world, one third of me thinks i'm fat, the last third thinks it's all quite dumb. and the last last sixth (i'm fat so i'm more than just one whole), just goes "hell yeah let's do it!"

maybe the dots will all connect one day.

right now it's so random that it looks like i'll get a mosaic instead.

time to start making balls.