I have been getting a lot of ideas lately. There's so many that I started the habit of carrying a little notebook around again. I would say a good ninety percent of those ideas is about food, which might be the influence of the movie Chef I watched a while ago. I also have been getting some ideas about crafts, mainly surrounding the possibilities of paper, which probably is an after-effect of me making a paper wallet out of a Starbucks paper bag.However, I didn't write any of this to tell you the ideas I got, I wrote this to guide (I am not qualified enough to use the word teach) people how to get ideas and work from there.
Now, before you start to do whatever work that requires you to have ideas, get everything you need in place. Pen, pencil, paper, tea, computer, and so on. Put them all down on your workstation before you start any actual work. Ready? Go.
1. Write a title for your ideas. Make it simple and to the point. For example, I need ideas to write a blog post. I would write something like, Ideas For A Blog Post. With a title, it will be much easier for you to write anything.
2. List out all your possibilities, the major ones first if you can't manage. Using my previous example, my possibilities would be: Tutorial, Food, Thought, Rant, and Diary.
3. By this point, some people might be stuck at trying to think of more exact ideas. For this, I suggest you to do something else that is related to what you are trying to do. For me, if I am stuck at writing a blog post, I would read other people's blogs for inspiration.
4. Now that you have a general idea of what to write, write a draft. It doesn't matter if it's in point form or paragraph form, just write down everything you can think of. Ignore the little mistakes here and there, you have plenty of time to correct them later on.
5. Compose your work. Weed out things that are irrelevant or with insufficient evidence support, then regroup by order what is left.
6. Take a break and look at what you have so far. Get a glass of whatever you fancy, just make sure you don't add too much sugar and get jittery from it. Good? Moving on.
7. Expand. From the previous steps, you have already formed a skeleton for your work. Just expand what you have so far, but keep it relevant. Try not to repeat points or add unrelated subjects. If I'm writing a blog post about a restaurant, I shouldn't go off and talk about how to do photography.
There you go, seven steps (or six if you didn't take a break) to getting ideas and working your way from there. It might or might not work for you, but it worked for me. Take a shot, what is there to lose?
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Yesterday was Sunday. I got bored of my four-walls house scene, so I decided to call my aunt to fetch me to an event I read on Facebook the other day. The name's Foodgasm Fest, and it's organized by Rock and Tulips, whoever they are. My aunt agreed to drop me off, and we embarked on our journey.
Before we go to Foodgasm Fest, we went to a lunch appointment with my aunt's friend at her father's restaurant. The restaurant's called Cafe Vietnam and it's located in Puchong, and they have a mannequin dressed up in Vietnamese clothing standing outside. (SPOILER ALERT: They are opening a new branch called Cafe Vietnam Express, with less varieties on the menu.) Let me tell you, this cafe serves the BEST authentic Vietnamese food around. I promised to come back again to give them a proper review because it is an insult to not write about such a good restaurant.
After the eventful lunch date with two little boys running around in glee initially and quieted down after getting scolded and punished (with some tears shed no less), we set off to the actual destination the Foodgasm Fest, held at Taman Rimba Kiara at Taman Tun Dr. Ismail. I got off the car and walked to the venue, hopeful that my expectations are met.
The first thing that I saw: people. People everywhere. People of every age walking in and out of the park entrance. After staring at the ridiculously huge lines of people, I started my walk to the actual entrance of the event. It's a good thing that the park has a lot of trees because the combination of haze and human heat is slowly rising the temperature of the surrounding air.
The event was packed with people. Being a leisure-style picnic event. a lot of people was sitting around on picnic mats with their foods and drinks. One thing I noticed right away was the loooooong lines to buy drinks and ice creams. They, are, so, long. I walked around the entire venue to survey what there is. After ten minutes of brisk walking, I had come to an unhappy conclusion that there wasn't a lot of worthy booths. I did however found one booth that proved to be very interesting. Their name is Ladle & Whisk. They specialize in boutique catering, anything from dinner gatherings to afternoon tea parties. I bought two cakes from this nice lady who spoke with passion (and THAT, people, is how you recognize commitment) and told me about their establishment. Naturally, I took a name card for future reference.
I wouldn't pin the event down as a disappointment, but it didn't live up to the expectations it generated in me. With cakes and fried chicken in my hands, I left the event for dinner with my aunt and grandma to this famous franchise that got a lot of attention lately: Johnny Rockets. In hindsight, I regret for not having taken any pictures, but I will try to illustrate my experience there with mere words.
We went to the franchise that opened in Avenue K, which is located right opposite the Petronas Twin Towers. The entrance was sandwiched between two other establishments, one's a restaurant and the other is a pub. We were led into the restaurant and the staff collectively greeted us. All of them wore uniforms that look like waiters at an American diner from decades ago. The restaurant itself looked a great deal like a diner too, with its bar, cushion sofas, and a jukebox (that doesn't let you play your own choice of music, but still plays music nevertheless) . We sat down at the cushion sofa tables that has a tiny jukebox (that doesn't play music at all but is a nice decoration) and ordered our dinner. I ordered a Route 66 burger with chicken patty and a mango shake, while my grandma wanted a Tuna Melt with no cheese (oh grandma) and my aunt ordered some spicy chicken wings (or something, I don't much care for spicy stuff). About five minutes after we ordered, the music changed and got louder. The staffs gathered as if on cue and started dancing. Some people looked and laughed good-naturedly while some simply ignored the dance routine. They danced for a good three minutes before going back to their bussing.
Our orders arrived and my first impression was the onions falling out of the burger. After trying to put the onions back into the burger to no avail, I cut my burger in half and started eating it. The burger buns have an unmistakable taste and smell of shortening, but the mushrooms and onions more than made up for that. The chicken patty was not hard and dry like a certain franchise's burger, but was tender and juicy enough for me to rank it higher than some franchises. The mushrooms and onions were cooked to the Maillard point, giving them a nice sweet and grilled taste. The only thing I didn't quite like was the large amount of fries served together with the burger and made me wish that I told them to hold the fries. I tried some of the wings my aunt ordered and had to take several large sips to rid of the spiciness. Johnny Rockets, being famous for their shakes, changed my perception towards shakes forever. The shake was so creamy and had the prominent sweet and sour taste of mangoes, at just the right temperature. There were so many of it that they served the leftover in a metal shaker. The dancing happened again when we were almost done with our meal. Following that, we settled our bill and set off for home.
That was one heck of a Sunday I had in a long while. Minus the disappointments, it was a fairly fun run. Looking at the name card now, I know who to call when I want to organize a send-off party when I leave for USA.
Until next time, I wish you interesting Sundays with surprises in store.
(P.S. Stupid computer won't let me post pictures.)
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