Annual Ski Trip 2k7

Went skiing at Lakeridge on Saturday, it was a blast (my body's still aching though). Last year was my first time skiing in over 10 years so I am still a newbie. This year, I stayed mostly on the green hills and tried out a blue hill a couple of times.

The highlight of the trip has to be going up the ski lift with only one ski! My ski got caught in a pile of snow and it came off, but the operators did not notice to stop the lift so up I went. Luckily when they did notice they handed the ski to another skier to bring up with her, but I still fell when getting off the ski lift at the top of the hill :(

Speaking of snow, I saw something funny at lunch today. See for yourself:

Voltron!

Now here's a step towards giant combining robots in the likes of Voltron (those 5 lions that combine into a robot, how many of you remember that?) Each segment is an individual robot and can combine in different configuarations to do different tasks. Now all they have to do is supersize it :)

http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn11238?DCMP=Matt_Sparkes&nsref=modular-robot

The Second City

Yesterday was the celebration for releasing a new version of our product. The whole area (well, the ones based in Toronto, around 50 people) were treated to dinner and a show at The Second City. The show is composed on a series of short skits; I especially loved the one that makes fun of Air Canada, where the "travel agent" was charging extra for everything from bathroom privileges to landing! The last third of the show was an improv skit. It was hilarious especially when they make some silly bloopers along the way :)

Aside: I read this interesting article about chimps making weapons to hunt for food! Can you say: "Planet of the Apes"?

The Ugly Duckling

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/02/17/duck.legs.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Weird...

I think...

I think I had a revelation today. Actually, let me rephrase that: I had a revelation today. My revelation is that I prefix my speech with "I think" more often than I should. For example, I would say things like "I think the show starts at 9 o'clock", or "I think it will be freezing tomorrow". And it's not just me, many people have tendencies to speak that way. Why is that? When a person is saying something, isn't it obvious that he or she is saying what they are thinking? In that context, the "I think" becomes redundant.

But of course, most people (including myself) use "I think" in a totally different context. We use it interchangeably with the phrase "I guess" when we are unsure of something, or when there is a chance that what we say is wrong; and by prefixing the sentence with "I think" or "I guess", it's as if we are leaving a backdoor for ourselves to get out of trouble when things go wrong.

When unsure of something, the use of "I think" is understandable. The problem is when we get so used to using it that we habitually say "I think" even for things that we are absolutely sure of. When 8 out of 10 sentences we say begins with "I think" or "I guess", how can someone tell whether you know what you are talking about?

In the workplace, not only do you have to know how to do the job, you also have to assert that you can do the job right. I am working on the latter part and starting from today, I will consciously use less "I think" and "I guess" when I talk.