the culprit reveals himself.

GG FAHJA!

Sooooooooo. at the strike of midnight on my REAL WORK DAY challenge, I had 106 awesome box clicks (value: 50cents each) and ONE stupid box click.

turns out that ONE stupid click was my dad. -.-

I don't even know how to comment to this... lmao.

and the results are in! real work day challenge wrap-up.

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for the tremendous amount of support!

What really just started off as one of my normal crazy ideas in the shower transformed into something really fun for myself, and reaches out to multiple good causes! For anyone who wished to 'support me financially', just feel free to donate yourself to World Vision here: clicky clicky

I don't need your money... but they do! (and you'll get your own tax receipt!... I feel like I'm supposed to say that as an accountant. =/)

Edit: Oh, and since I broke the $100 mark, I'll be taking a sabbath day... today! No school work for me =D. let me know if you want to hang out!!!!

The Results:

ALRIGHT everyone. Drumroll time!

***brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtttttttttttttttt*** (how do you make a drum roll sound?)

Total amount to donate: $368.00

The breakdown:

And of course, the shout-outs! In order of most honourable mentions!

WORK CLOTHES Full Day Challengers:

- Elena Wang

- John Kim

Full Day Challengers:

- Allison Wong

- James Ng

- Jason Chan

Pictures: Mikee Chan, Chris moo Chan, Chil Phil Chan, Bible Gabeway (Gabriel Loo), Liz Kao, Jacky Chan, Matt Wong (1st yr), Adrian Tang, Doris Tang, Portia Li, Steph Hadi, Clare Mok, Allan Wong, Andy Tse, Simon Ho, Winnie Li, Evan Chong, Clarissa Leung, Mary Chan, Jasmine Tong, Jacqueline Chan, Milton Chan, Jonathan Chan, Melving Ng, Salina Chan, Joses Wong, Allan Lo, Adrian Ang, Josh Kung, Stacey Chong, Jessica Wu, Irene Chan, Sam Lien, Keith U, Jon Ting, Denise Ng, Amy Lo, Sophie Chen, Jon Lin.

Extra props to Elena & Phil for helping me take so many pictures throughout the day!!! & Denise for buying me cookies!

And of course, the pictures I took with all of you was for this:

The 'awesome' box! closed as of midnight!

I'm surprised someone wasted their click to tell me that I'm stupid =p. (yes, you can only click one box, once).

I'm honestly overwhelmed by the amount of people that visited my blog today. It's more hits than I would normally get in half a month... annnddd definitely messed up my ability to track traffic visually on my blog for the next thirty days -.-

What are you talking about? Of COURSE I'm a man of my word:

I want to state that I don't mean to publicize this explicitly or make a big deal out of the donation I made... or allow it to be a statement of me, or how much money I happen to have. Normally I wouldn't publicize something like this, but I do believe in letting y'all know how things went since this all largely depended on you guys meeting the challenge! Thanks again!

A lot of people have congratulated me on the amount I 'raised'. I'd just like to clarify that I didn't raise anything. I just wanted to pour into a good cause myself and am extremely glad to do it in a very fun and creative way. I encourage you all to put your money where your mouth is too! There's way too much excess money in a world filled with an excessive lack of love. What I've done today is really just an insignificant act when it comes to my life as a whole. Remember to live, each and every day, learning to simply LOVE more and to put others first.

Stay tuned for a post on my blog, thelifemuse, as I'll probably explain why I really did this and my thoughts coming out of it.

Cheers&Blessings

-derek

the real work day challenge. 6.2.10.

OKAY peeps!

Here's the dillio.

Next week (the week before reading week) marks my busiest week of the term. Hence, I will likely have to nerd it up ALL weekend 8).

BUT instead of making this some lame normal super nerdy study session... I thought I'd spice it up a bit to challenge myself and to challenge you!

HERE'S THE CHALLENGE FOR ME: It's been about 6 months since I've been in an office environment. It seems like a distant memory to me, but I remember how productive I was during work terms (mostly working on non-work stuff... lol). In an attempt to MAXIMIZE my efficiency, I will be treating tomorrow, (Saturday, February 6th, 2010... 6.2.10) Like a REAL WORK DAY. I will set up in SLC 2nd floor from 9am to 5pm, no music, no slacking, have a 1 hour lunch break and best of all... I WILL WEAR WORK CLOTHES. YES. I will be done up as I would normally be for work... I'll even break out my glasses.

THE CHALLENGE FOR YOU: Well it's no fun if I go and make an idiot of myself w/o you guys doing anything. You guys have a list of potential challenges to make me donate $ to World Vision for Haiti support!

FOR ANYONE WILLING TO DO THE 9 TO 5 CHALLENGE WITH ME ALL DAY, no slacking, I will donate $20. ($30 if you dress up in work clothes)

FOR ANYONE WHO COMES TO TAKE A PICTURE WITH ME: I will donate $5

FOR EVERY PERSON WHO CHECKS THE "AWESOME" BOX at the bottom of this post, I will donate 50 cents to Haiti!

To top it all off, if I hit at least $100, I will take a sabbath day on Sunday (the following day). Want to make Derek take a break for once? Challenge yourself, to challenge me!

Straight forward? I hope so! It doesn't matter if you're a UWCCFer, an AFMer or just a random person, I WILL count you and your contribution!

Okay folks. It's a shame I didn't prepare this challenge earlier on, but if you snooze you lose! COME VISIT ME TOMORROW! Saturday, February 6th, 2010! 9am-5pm! SLC 2nd FLOOR!

The list of things I will be working on:

• ACC 684 Business Models - Individual project, Part 1
• ACC 683 PM - Read & Analyze Case #3
• ACC 621 System Reliability - Peer case debrief
• ACC 621 System Reliability - Group Assignment #2
• ACC 611 External Reporting - Hand-in Case
• PwC Multi 2 Mock Exam
• Campus Challenge 2010 Planning Memo
• thelifemuse blog post
• UWCCF Finances update/bank reconciliation

incapable

Clearly, I am currently incapable at keeping up with my blogs (besides my tumblr).

BAH.

In other news. WINTER RETREAT WAS AWESOME! What a way to end it all off...

Here's a few select pics:

FAMILY!

5th year G-stars. Don't mess... yo.

The Grads! We'll all be gone soon.



Okay. So that's it for now... Who knows when I'll get back to writing again, but things are definitely on hiatus since much of my writing time is devoted to my e-mail inbox. Meh. I'm sure I'll CRAVE to be writing again soon.

Till next time!
Cheers&Blessings.

being critical.

What does it mean to be critical?

I’ve found that once you master, or even engage in a certain action/skill, it’s really easy to subsequently become critical watching anyone else do that same thing.

Do you know what I mean? Sitting in classes I easily find myself critical of my peers presenting, thinking “oh, I would have said it this way... it’s more understandable like this”. Often enough, I’m running that line in my head in regards to my profs. Although I even don’t watch many sports... I don’t even think I need to belabour the critiquing that goes on there. Since I’ve long gone through my phase of being a singer/musician as a worship leader, it’s really easy for me to be critical of that as well. “oh... you shouldn’t have chosen to sing this song in this key. It’s too high for you... You shouldn’t have stopped playing in between these songs... what are you doing to the fllowwww????” Of course though, there are loving ways to use these thoughts in helping along people you are able to grace with you oh-so-great expertise... but that’s not the point here.

After doing the fellowship leading thing for a while, I’m sure there are people who are/have been critical of me and my style to things. That’s cool. We’re all geared differently and have had different experiences. My leadership style is actually based off of me being critical of my predecessors and imitating what I liked and adjusting where there was room for improvement. But we’re all works in progress. In any case, for anyone in my fellowship reading this, I encourage you to be critical, and to allow that to feed you in developing your own leadership style when you eventually are in position for others to be critical of you!

Alrights. I just wanted to share my thoughts on being critical. I think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, by the way... just don’t let it eat away at you and cause you to look down on anyone. Encourage/share with them your thoughts in love if you can. They’ll appreciate it if they know you’re doing it for their own good. But most of all, use it to figure out who it is you really want to be when it’s your turn.

Finally, there’s a sense of assuredness that I’ll never be able to be critical of the creator of all things.

Not like I’d change anything anyways...

WINTER RETREAT IN ONE DAY!!!!!!!

Team GoGoGadgetAwesome, 2009... with HATS.

a month of blogging and daily posts.

So it’s been about 1 month since I started running 3 blogs and just wanted to do a bit of a quick rundown:

Maintaining derkness and thelifemuse have been a bit crazy. I’ve considered merging the two of these since the thelifemuse isn’t frequent enough... but meh. Let’s see how it goes over the term. I still hope to hit 2 posts every month on that one.

My original plans for derkness were a bit more regular. With UWCCF stuff going full tilt, it’s been hard to give much extra time to things like blogging, let alone friends. Sleep eludes me, as always... so no changes there.

In any case, God has been throwing me down one heck of a crash course on wisdom the past month. It's been quite the roller coaster of emotions and experiences... but it’s always been this way... and I love it (in the end, at least). I’m thankful for blogging and to everyone who’s seen or talked to me on a regular basis for keeping me sane.

Although I haven't been doing it from the start (past 2 weeks only), I decided to set up a guideline for my daily posts on tumblr with cheesy alliterations. weeee:

Spiritual Sundays (there’s more to life than just this world...)
Maxim Mondays (my favourite quote picks)
Terse Tuesdays (one word only posts... for the less wordy)
Worry-free Wednesdays (your hump day pick-me-ups)
Thinking Hat Thursdays (deeper thinking, anyone?)
Fabulous Fridays (life is wonderful... posts to celebrate how great it is)
Senseless Saturdays (anything goes. the more random the better)

ALRIGHT, just thought I’d do a quick ‘top picks’ of my Tumblr (my daily posts). Here’s some of my most popular and my personal favs for the past month! Cheers!

#3 Smile. It’s contagious.

#6 Water your grass.

Your grass won’t get any greener by peering off to the other side of the fence.

#20 Take a break.

life can get hectic… sometimes overwhelming. Take some time to let your heart breathe a little.

heck, have some chocolate while you’re at it.

#21 Let loose.

Spice things up every now and then. Be quirky. Be loud. Be crazy. Anything.

It’s just like turning on the CAPS LOCK to your life.

It’s good to let loose every now and then.

#25 Be kind.

Would you really be able to look someone in the eyes and tell them that they know nothing about pain without even knowing the first thing about them?

Don’t assume everyone has it together. Not like you do.

DQOTD: Do you have a favourite post for the past month from any of my 3 blogs?
A: My fav would probably be this one: Things to do while bored in traffic & the pursuit. (thelifemuse)

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I've definitely bitten off more than I can chew...

But that's alright... when all is said and done... I know I'll come out better, wiser and stronger.

I wish I had more time for all the things in my life. It'll be another fun lesson in prioritization this term.

In any case.... /end emo-ness.

In other news... I'm planning Campus Challenge this year.. and I need LOTS of help (ahhh): http://campuschallenge2010.blogspot.com/ and so welcomes my FOURTH blog.

Obviously this blog and thelifemuse are taking a hit these days with less time on my hands.

okay. Back to school readings and crazy e-mails.