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10/08/2004 Entry: "Excellence is No Accident"

I've been taking a continuing studies class at Stanford called 'Excellence is No Accident'. It will supposedly help me think like a professional athlete so that I can overcome mental obstacles in sport and in life. I've always been into sports, and I think I have a natural ability to be good at golf or tennis, but I always find myself 'choking'. It doesn't matter if it's a friendly game or a tournament -- I just always pressure myself to do well and it almost always backfires.

Hopefully this class will help me focus on the positive and eventually allow me to have fun and play to the best of my abilities. After 8 weeks I hope I will also come out with a stronger focus on what I want to do with my career. Patisserie or no patisserie, I just want to be able to make up my mind and stick with it.

My brother was asking for a recipe for lamb stew, so I tried a recipe for Mafe, a peanut butter lamb stew from Senegal. I used lamb neck meat and served it over white rice. It turned out quite similar to kare kare, a Filipino beef oxtail stew with peanut butter, served with bagoong (shrimp paste). It was a bit too rich and heavy for me though.

This weekend I am going back to Stanford for Eday, an event organized by the Engineering department as a get together for alumni. It focuses on a different topic each year, and tomorrow we will discuss "The Power of Play" (how play-based learning can lead to innovation) with David Kelley, the founder of IDEO. It should be a very interesting day.