Monday, October 29, 2012

Video ~ Classical Guitar Cheat ~ 1 sound 1 frame at a time

Here's an idea of how you can get a video of yourself playing 
this very difficult piece on video.. 1 sound... 1 frame at a time.

Don't get me wrong, doing it the video editing way is just as difficult, 
if not more so... I think it's better to learn how to play it on the guitar.

===.
Video 1

{Classical Guitar}
The flight of the Bumblebee by Dimitris Kotronakis


===.
Video 2

{Video ~ Classical Guitar Cheat ~ 1 sound 1 frame at a time}
Guitar: Bumble - Flight of the Bumblebee in Stop Motion


===.

News ~ Inspiration ~ Jolted by teacher's harsh wake-up call

Wow! Some people are "born lucky". 
Is it lucky to be born poor? 
This lady seem to think so. 

Read on...

===.
Here's a bigger print for a shorter read. (Scroll down for a more detailed read).

Click to Enlarge

===.
News Article

~~~
.....
News ~ Inspiration:

Jolted by teacher's harsh wake-up call - The Sunday Times - Oct 28, 2012
by Fabrications About The PAP on Sunday, October 28, 2012 at 9:34pm

Picture Caption:
Former kampung girl Helen Ng used to live in a rented room. Now she is chief executive officer of Lock+Store, a company offering self-storage service, and lives in a bungalow in Serangoon Garden. 
-- ST PHOTO: LIM SIN THAI

By Wong Kim Hoh, 

meets... Helen Ng
At the end of her first year as a Humanities Programme scholar at Hwa Chong Junior College two decades ago, Helen Ng was hauled up by a teacher for faring poorly in one of her subjects.

"He told me to buck up because I was in the bottom 5 per cent of the socio-economic strata in Singapore," she recalls.

The remark needled because before that day, no one had ever told her to her face that she was poor.

"I told myself I'd prove him wrong," she says.

And she did. The schoolgirl who used to collect beer bottles to sell for pocket money has since climbed several rungs up the social and economic ladder.

She lives in a Serangoon Garden bungalow and is the chief executive officer of Lock+Store, which operates two self-storage facilities in Tanjong Pagar and Chai Chee. The company has an annual turnover of more than $10 million.

Those who know the outspoken Ms Ng describe the 41-year-old as a self-starter and go-getter.
She does not disagree with the labels.

"Being born poor makes you realise the importance of standing on your own two feet. You realise very early on that nothing's for free, and you've got to work for things," says the eldest of three children of a taxi driver and homemaker.

She grew up in a kampung in Serangoon, not far from where the nex shopping mall now stands. The family of five lived in a rented room in a house with a zinc roof.

"We had two double-decker beds and I remember my mother used to sleep on the floor," she says.
There was never enough money.

"My dad started working when he was 15 because he was the third of 13 children and his father died early. So he had to help support his mother and siblings even after he was married," says Ms Ng.

Her mother, a former shampoo girl at a hairdressing salon, took on odd jobs at home, such as sewing promotional buntings for beer companies.

As a child, Ms Ng used to run errands for neighbours for the odd Cornetto. When she was eight, she learnt she could sell used beer bottles for five cents apiece and took to scouring her neighbourhood a few times a week looking for them.

She was also an avid reader and a star pupil at the now defunct Aroozoo Primary School.

"I realised after my Primary 1 exams that you could get books as a prize if you topped the class. So every year, I told myself I must be No. 1 so that I could have those books."

Not only did she top her class every year, she also made class monitor and head prefect.

"I was the school star," she says unabashedly. "I was always the actress, narrator or director of any skit or play in school. If there was any competition - sewing, knitting, talking - you would see Helen."

She loved the attention.

"When your parents are too busy making a living, you have to create your own attention," she says with a laugh.

Naturally, she aced the Primary School Leaving Examination. Her teacher advised her to go to a Special Assistance Plan (SAP) school for academically strong pupils good in both mother tongue and English, whereas her parents told her to choose a school near home.

So she ended up at CHIJ St Nicholas Girls' Secondary School, and the transition from primary school came as a shock.

"I went from being the star of the school to being a nobody," she lets on. For the first time in her life, she also became starkly aware of how poor she was.

She remembers seeing schoolmates chauffeured to school whereas she sometimes did not have enough pocket money to eat at the school canteen during recess. "There was a big wealth divide."

But she performed well enough to win the prestigious Humanities Programme scholarship to do her A levels at Hwa Chong JC.

"The scholarship was $1,000 a year and there was no need to pay school fees. It was a very important motivation," she says.

For extra pocket money, she took on part-time jobs during school holidays and gave tuition several times a week, earning about $500 a month.

She rejected a Public Service Commission scholarship to study geography at a university abroad. "I didn't want to become a civil servant and be bonded for eight years," she says.

Instead, she funded her way through a Bachelor of Arts degree at the National University of Singapore, majoring in geography and philosophy.

"I spent more time giving tuition than I did at the university," she says with a laugh.

But that did not stop her from making the dean's list in both subjects. She graduated with a Second Class Upper honours degree in geography in 1994.

For six months after she graduated, she failed to get a job she wanted. "It was hard to find a job with a geography degree. I wanted a marketing or sales job but didn't want one which paid only commission, and not a basic salary."

So she decided to do her MBA at Imperial College in London instead, digging into the $20,000 she had saved from giving tuition.

"I chose the shortest MBA programme I could find. I had enough to pay for the school fees and buy my air ticket," she says.

For the first couple of months, she bunked with friends and survived on cheap student meals and £1 sandwiches.

She moved out after securing a gig teaching aerobics three times a day - at £20 per session - at the university.

On her return, she became a project executive with property developer Tong Lee Co Pte Ltd. For nearly three years, she worked on a project to build and then market 16 houses in Cactus Green, off Yio Chu Kang.

Not only did she get to work closely with architects, designers and consultants, she also learnt to source building materials, buy them in bulk and negotiate prices.

She got her next job with property developer Ang Oon Hue Pte Ltd by chance. She was in a music shop at Sembawang Shopping Centre when she learnt that the manager of the centre was retiring.
Ms Ng decided to apply for the job.

The mall was not exactly bustling then. "It was run-down and had the wrong tenant mix; a lot of contractors had their offices there," she recalls.

She rolled up her sleeves and set out to turn it around.

"I read up a lot about mall management, joined the International Council of Shopping Centres and visited a lot of malls to find out what needed doing," she says.

She launched marketing efforts, holding concerts and other promotions to bring in the crowds. She introduced a more diverse tenant mix, getting rid of the contractors and bringing in retailers selling home furnishings, antiques and stationery and Giant hypermarket. She also turned the adjacent piece of land into a satay club, and introduced a feeder bus service to attract shoppers from nearby areas.

The strategies worked. Within three years, she managed to turn the shopping centre around. The visitor counts show that its traffic increased from barely 100 a day when she first took over to more than 10,000 three years later.

The results did not come easy.

There was a lot of hostility when she first started. She had to contend with tenants who snorted at her marketing efforts. A belligerent tenant paid her more than $1,000 in $2 notes.

There was a tangle with a triad member. "He parked his car in the loading and unloading bay so I had the wheels of his car clamped. He came into the office, banged on the table and threatened me, saying he was from Ang Soon Tong," she says, referring to a secret society.

"He refused to pay (the fine), and the security guards got scared so they unclamped his car."

Refusing to be intimidated, Ms Ng made a police report. "The police took it quite seriously. They would come around to make sure nothing happened to us. We found signs of abuse on the property such as paint sprayed on the walls and lights broken," she recalls.

A relative, who knew some elders in the gang, finally helped to make peace.

Ms Ng was promoted from manager to general manager and was soon tasked with marketing Greenview Mansion, a block of apartments next to the shopping centre. For two years, she also travelled between Singapore and Perth, overseeing the concept and execution of a makeover for one of the company's properties, the Comfort Hotel Perth City.

Despite a demanding full-time job, Ms Ng, who married a financial investor in 1999, found time to open a bar and restaurant in 2001. And she went on to have two children not long after too.

"I know, it sounds crazy but when you're young, you do crazy things," says Ms Ng, who started My Dining Room and Union Bar in Club Street with her savings and a loan from her husband's family. She would close the bar at 3am and turn up for work barely six hours later.

"I managed with great difficulty. Luckily my mother helped out a lot with my daughters," she says.

She quit her day job in 2006 to spend time with her children. By then, Sembawang Shopping Centre had been sold for $78 million to CapitaMall Trust.

"At that time, one of my daughters was two years old, the other was four and didn't really know me. I decided I could not let that happen," she says.

Two years later, in 2008, she closed the restaurant and bar when her landlord wanted the space back.

The idea of starting a storage business struck while she was trying to find a place to store the furniture from her restaurant.

"Unless you lease a very big warehouse for a very long time, you really do not have that many options," she says.

Socio-economic factors, she noticed, were also pointing to a demand for storage solutions.

"Singaporeans are getting richer and many have some kind of collecting hobby. I had a friend who had seven bicycles and didn't even cycle. Another friend collected comics. So I told myself this could be a lucrative business."

Excited by the idea, she travelled to Hong Kong and Australia to explore how storage facilities work.

"After doing my sums, I realised it was a very expensive proposition. So I wrote a proposal to set up a storage business and sent it to a few private equity firms."

In 2010, Temasek Holdings' property arm Mapletree Investments decided to sell its self-storage arm, Lock+Store. Southern Capital Group bought it for $50 million and asked Ms Ng to become its CEO.

Again, she set out to zealously revamp the business. She launched marketing efforts to spread awareness about self-storage, brought in a trainer to help staff grasp the finer points of selling space and introduced processes to make the business efficient.

"When I first took over, there was a lot of delinquency in payments. One way to solve this was to increase the number of channels for people to pay," says Ms Ng, who introduced online payment options as well as payment at 7Eleven outlets.

The results are showing. The customer base went from 2,000 when she took over to 3,000 now; and annual turnover went from $6 million to more than $10 million last year.

She has already expanded the 144,000 sq ft facility in Tanjong Pagar by another 38,000 sq ft, and will be adding another 50,000 sq ft to the Chai Chee facility.

Ms Anita Sam, owner of furniture company Journey East, has known Ms Ng for more than 10 years.

"She is very focused. She knows exactly what she wants and how to go about getting it. She's very sharp and sizes up a situation in no time. If she doesn't like something, she will show it," she says.

She adds that, like many people who are direct, Ms Ng can sometimes be misunderstood. "But she also has very loyal staff who have absolute confidence in her," Ms Sam adds.

Although she has come a long way in life, Ms Ng - who sits on the board of Ju Eng Home for Senior Citizens - is determined that her two daughters, now six and 10, should know all about poverty and that nothing in life comes without hard work.

She has taken them on trips to orphanages in Cambodia, and ropes them in to help distribute food to poor residents of one-room flats in Singapore.

"And if they want pocket money, they sweep the floor and clean the windows," she says with a laugh.


~~~
===.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Psalm 125 ~ Friend's Version of My Original

This psalm was sung today, 30th Ordinary Sunday (Year B).

Here is a friend's version of this psalm, which was a variation of my original composition.

This is an example of the flexibility I allow in interpreting my arrangements/compositions. 

A friend of mine was on duty as Cantor and liked the tune of the last verse and wanted to make all the verses the same. We worked together and came up with this version which I equally like. She even altered the melody to suit her voice & range... and raised the key from C Major of D Major. 

My only 2 comments were,
1). I think tempo should be a little faster.
2). Microphone was too near the Choir (too loud) but I understand the constraints.

For a look at my original composition to compare, click HERE.

===.
Here are Links to her version or rendition:


===.
Responsorial Psalm 125
30th Sunday Of The (Year B)
2nd Sunday of Advent (Year C)
5th Sunday of Lent (Year C)

R/.
What marvels the Lord worked for us, indeed we were glad.

V1
When the Lord delivered Zion from bondage, 
it seemed like a dream.  
Then was our mouth filled with laughter, 
on our lips there were songs.

V2
The heathens themselves said: "What marvels 
the Lord worked for them!"  
What marvels the Lord worked for us!  
Indeed we were glad.

V3
Deliver us, O Lord, from our bondage 
as streams in dry land.  
Those who are sowing in tears 
will sing when they reap.

V4
They go out, they go out, full of tears, 
carrying seed for the sowing: 
they come back, they come back, full of song, 
carrying their sheaves.

===.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Lyrics & Chords ~ JOY WAS IN MY HEART

Haven't sung this song in a long time.
I managed to find the lyrics on the internet.

===.
Lyrics & Chords ~ JOY WAS IN MY HEART

[Chorus]
[C] Joy was in my heart, [F] allelu- [C] -ia,
[G7] when I heard them [C] say:
"Let us [Dm] go [G] to God's [C] house."

[Verse 1]
And [C] now our [G] feet are [C] standing, alleluia.
With- [G7] -in your [C] gates, O Je- [Dm] -ru- [G] -sa- [C] -lem.

[Verse 2]
Je- [C] -rusalem, most [G] beautiful [C] city.
So [C] strongly compact, [F] allelu- [C] -ia.
[G7] On you con- [C] -verge all the [Dm] tribes [G] of the [C] Lord.

[Verse 3]
May his [C] peace [G] reign in your [C] walls.
[G] Happiness and [C] love in all your homes, [F] allelu- [C] -ia.
[G7] For you are the [C] house of the [Dm] Lord, [G] our [C] God.

===.
Picture that came with these lyrics


===.


Alleluia - The Gatlin Brothers ~ Lyrics & YouTube Link

Lovely song, 
lovely lyrics, 
lovely harmony, 
lovely prayer.

===.
Alleluia - The Gatlin Brothers
Words and music: Larry Gatlin

Lyrics:

May all our alleluias
When spoken and heard
Be heartfelt thanks to Thee, dear Lord
And not just lovely words

And may each passing moment
Till the ending of our days
Be filled to overflowing
With our never-ending praise

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia

===.

Alleluia - The Gatlin Brothers


===.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

3 Birds on a Telephone Wire

===.
Cute Cartoon Picture
~ 3 Birds on a Telephone Wire
~ 3 Birds on an Empty Clothes' Line

===.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Trying to understand a Quote

This quote sounds so nice... 
but personally, I think it does not hold much water.

===.
In the end we will conserve only what we love;
we will love only what we understand; and 
we will understand only what we have been taught. 
~ Baba Dioum

===.
Here is the quote again with my comments in below it

In the end we will conserve only what we love; 
{this is the only line that is true}

we will love only what we understand; 
{what rubbish... love has no boundaries}

and

we will understand only what we have been taught. 
{not always, sometimes still cannot understand}

===.
I've learnt that...

even though we will love only what we understand, true love calls 
us to love... especially so... even when... we do NOT understand.

true love means we continue to love even and 
especially so... when we do NOT understand. 

We can only love 'WHO' and never 'WHAT'.

We cannot love 'what' but 'who'.

===.
and then I realize that...

this quote is not referring to 'WHO' we love, but 'WHAT' we love.

and... 'WHAT' you love... is not the kind of love worth talking about... 
unless it is just small talk.

===.

Fear Of Spiders

===.
This is useful for those who want to fight their 'Fear Of Spiders' or 'Spider Phobia'. 
Play with it. It will just follow your mouse. After awhile you should be cured.



===.

My 2 Favorite Saints of Our Times

I saw these cute posters of Saints at Church of the Holy Spirit on
Sat, 2012 Oct 20 in the morning and found the drawings very cute.

These pictures are by Victor Teh and more of it can be found at his...
Blog Website Link ~ http://www.happysaints.com/
Facebook Website Link ~ http://www.facebook.com/happysaints.

Pictures taken by my humble Samsung Galaxy Ace and I had to 
edit it using Windows' Paint because my smart-phone just couldn't 
get the whole poster.

There were many other saints' posters around the church,
these are just 'My 2 Favorite Saints of Our Times'.

This was the morning, we (EBS, PFL, Mum & PGA) had Brunch 
(Breakfast & Lunch) at Penang Recipe (selling Chur-Char kind of 
food, but don't think they'll last) near Holy Spirit Church.

Note: Click on images to enlarge

===.
Edited Pictures (using Windows' Paint)
{check-out my very basic editing skills}

 


===.
Origin Pictures (by Samsung Galaxy Ace)
{check-out my limited photo taking skills}

 

===.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Joke ~ Playing Church

Someone just sent me this via email.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: un-disclosed
Date: Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 9:10 AM
Subject: Christian Cartoons
To: un-disclosed

Have a great weekend people.
God bless!

===.
Joke ~ Playing Church

Johnny's Mother looked out the window and 
noticed him "playing church" with their cat.

He had the cat sitting quietly and he was preaching 
to it. She smiled and went about her work. 


A while later she heard loud meowing and hissing and ran back to 
the open window to see Johnny baptizing the cat in a tub of water.

She called out, "Johnny, stop that! The cat is afraid of water!"

Johnny looked up at her and said, 
"He should have thought about that before he joined my church."


===.
Christian cartoons for a change!!!









===.

Final ~ Premature file naming happens to all of us

After encountering this when I first started, 
I make sure this does not happen to me by...
naming my files knowing full well that.. 
there's always a possibility for change.

'Change' ~ is the only constant.

===.
Final ~ Premature file naming happens to all of us



===.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

'Burrito' = 'Little Donkey' or 'Mexican Popiah'


Useful word to learn if you want an alternative to the usual expletive. 

To someone you're OK with, the word just means affectionately a Spanish or an Mexican 'Popiah'.

To someone you're NOT OK with, you're calling him a 'Little Donkey'. 

'Burrito' is English (US) or Spanish for 'Little Donkey' or 'Spanish Mexican Popiah'... you decide.

===.
Here's what triggered this post.

Popiah = Asian Burrito.

A friend of mine made this statement on Facebook.

"I'm having the 'Asian Burrito' for lunch. That's what my Caucasian friends call Popiah."
~ by Michelle

===.
'Burrito' ~ just an excerpt

A burrito (US English /bəˈritoʊ/, Spanish: [buˈrito]), or taco de harina ['tako ðe a'ɾina], is a type of Mexican food. It consists of a wheat flour tortilla wrapped or folded into a roughly cylindrical shape to completely enclose a filling. (In contrast, a taco is generally formed by simply folding a tortilla in half around a filling, leaving the semicircular perimeter open.) The flour tortilla is usually lightly grilled or steamed, to soften it and make it more pliable.

In Mexico, refried beans or meat are sometimes the only fillings. In the United States, however, fillings generally include a combination of ingredients such as Mexican-style rice or plain rice, refried beans or beans, lettuce, salsa, meat, guacamole, cheese, and sour cream, and the size varies, with some burritos considerably larger than their Mexican counterparts.

Etymology

The word burrito means "little donkey" in Spanish, as a diminiuitive form of burro, or "donkey". The name burrito as applied to the food item possibly derives from the appearance of a rolled up wheat tortilla, which vaguely resembles the ear of its namesake animal, or from bedrolls and packs that donkeys carried. In some areas, such as the Lower Rio Grande Valley, they are called patos, meaning "ducks", again presumably derived from their appearance (cf. golubtsy).

===.

Comic Strip ~ 2012 Oct 16, ST pg-C-13 ~ Stone Soup

Dedicated to those of you who'll be starting a family real soon. Time to get creative.

===.

===.

The Promise of LOVE ~ by EBS & PGA


===.
The Promise of LOVE 
(Wedding Song of PGA & EBS) 
~ words by EBS 
~ 01 Jan 1987 (Wedding Date) 

The Lord has been kind to us all
We were saved by His death on the cross
He has showered upon us blessings from above
Of all the gifts which He has bestowed 
The greatest of all... is that of His LOVE.

The LOVE we now share is so strong and so deep
Just as the Father has meant it to be, now that we... are one
Let our light shine forth for others to see
That by our example, His LOVE, they will know
This joy and peace that Christ gives His Church

We pledge our love to each other
We promise to be true in all we do
To love and to honor till death do us part
For this was the promise of love
We made to each other... in the presence of GOD

===.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Scrap-Booking Idea ~ Interesting Pop-Up Art ~ Is this possible?

===.
Scrap-Booking Idea ~ Interesting Pop-Up Art ~ Is this possible?


===.

What if the 'loud and aggressive persons' are people you love?

The 'Desiderata ~ by Max Ehrmann (1927)' is very good. However, I was just pondering over this line... "Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit...... and found out there are no easy answers... if... the 'loud and aggressive persons' are people you love... because avoiding them is NOT an option... not permanently anyway. 

Answers anyone?

===.

Message from GOD

===.
Message from GOD
• It's not the end of the world. Not until I say so, anyway. 
• Don't forget to your umbrella, I might water the plants today. 
• Please don't drink and drive, you're not quite ready to meet me yet. 
• If you think Mona Lisa is stunning, you should look at my masterpiece... in the mirror. 
• What do I have to do to get your attention? Take out an ad in the paper? 
• I was thinking of making the world black and white. Then I thought... naaah. 
• Could you imagine the price of air, if it were brought to you by another supplier? 
• I am here.

===.

===.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Responsorial Psalm 125

===.
Post Update: 2012 Oct 28

This psalm was sung today, 30th Ordinary Sunday (Year B). 
Check out a friend's version of this same psalm, which 
is just a variation of this composition... click HERE.

===.
Responsorial Psalm 125

Original Post:

Responsorial Psalm 125
30th Sunday Of The (Year B)
2nd Sunday of Advent (Year C)
5th Sunday of Lent (Year C)


[R/.]
What marvels the Lord worked for us, indeed we were glad.

[V1]
When the Lord delivered Zion from bondage, 
it seemed like a dream.  
Then was our mouth filled with laughter, 
on our lips there were songs.

[V2]
The heathens themselves said: "What marvels 
the Lord worked for them!"  
What marvels the Lord worked for us!  
Indeed we were glad.

[V3]
Deliver us, O Lord, from our bondage 
as streams in dry land.  
Those who are sowing in tears 
will sing when they reap.

[V4]
They go out, they go out, full of tears, 
carrying seed for the sowing: 
they come back, they come back, full of song, 
carrying their sheaves.

===.

Avoid the Stare!

I just like this drawing.
Artist unknown.

===.

===.

===.
I found the starring auntie here.
http://www.avoidthestare.com/
http://www.avoidthestare.com/images/auntie.png



It's a contest to guess 'Why is auntie starring?'
3 answers to choose from.

1 ~ Tsssk! Customer got no change for one pack of tissues. Of course Auntie not satisfied what! 120

2 ~ Auntie's thinking about all the mopping up she needs to do ... hai ya! She's mad with the customer who created a mess just for a packet of tissues! 131

3 ~ Come on man ... what does the customer want? First he dirties the floor, then he hands over a $50 to buy a packet of tissues!

===.
And here...
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=545478582130686
http://sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/524620_545478582130686_447075441_n.jpg



===.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Scenery Pixs

Some scenery pictures to sooth the mind...

===.
The moat at the Imperial Palace. — in Tokyo, Japan

The moat at the Imperial Palace. — in Tokyo, Japan

===.
Kyoto-shi, Kyoto, Japan




 


===.

Agnostic Catholic (or Agnostic Roman Catholic)


~~~
Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—
especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, 
but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable.

An Agnostic is a person who believes... 
... that the existence or non-existence of GOD... 
... or the truth of any religion cannot be proven.

An Agnostic Catholic (Roman Catholic)... 
... is a person who, while still an Agnostic... 
... chooses to believe in Catholic Religion.

~~~

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Warrior of the Light (Volume 1) ~ by Paulo Coelho

===.
Paulo Coelho

About Paulo Coelho ~ At 16, Coelho's introversion and opposition to following a traditional path led to his parents committing him to a mental institution from which he escaped three times before being released at the age of 20. Coelho later remarked that "It wasn't that they wanted to hurt me, but they didn't know what to do... They did not do that to destroy me, they did that to save me." 
~ an excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho.

===.
To download the book:

===.
Click on image to enlarge:


===.
Excerpts from the book,
'Warrior of the Light (Volume 1) ~ by Paulo Coelho'

All paths in the world lead to the warrior's heart; he dives without hesitation into the river of passions, which flows unceasing through his life. The warrior knows he is free to choose that which he desires; his decisions are taken with courage, detachment, and - at times - with a certain amount of madness. Accept your passions and delight in them intensely. Know that one must not renounce the enthusiasm of the conquests; they are part of life, and please all who take part in them. But never lose sight of the enduring things, and the solid ties created by time. A warrior knows how to distinguish between that which is transitory, and that which is definitive. 
~ (from 'The transitory and the definitive' ~ a Chapter from the book, 
'Warrior of the Light (Volume 1) ~ by Paulo Coelho')

A warrior of the light studies very carefully the position he wishes to conquer. However difficult his objective may be, there is always a way to overcome the obstacles. He verifies the alternative routes, sharpens his sword, and seeks to fill his heart with the perseverance necessary to face the challenge. But, as he advances, the warrior realizes there are difficulties he had not foreseen at the outset. If he waits for the ideal moment, he will never move from his position; he sees that a little madness is needed for the next step. The warrior uses a little madness. Because - in war and in love - one cannot foresee everything.
~ (from 'Using one’s own madness' ~ a Chapter from the book, 
'Warrior of the Light (Volume 1) ~ by Paulo Coelho')

===.