descriptor for 2010

it's time to put on my thinking cap again. need to think about the word that best describes this year. hmmm... let's see what happened...

family
- mum kept getting in and out of hospital
- health finally stabilized
- bro has a baby
- otherwise everything else seemed normal

work
- got a new job
- got promoted

self
- health remained stable
- no major issues other than me getting more deaf (i think)
- deepened spiritual well-being
- religious classes
- volunteer teacher

bee
- into our 5th year
- so stable that it might sound boring

friends
- again so routine nothing out of the norm happened

judging from the few points, it seemed like this year had been very stable and mundane. and perhaps the major excitement was in the areas of work. hmmm... perhaps i should just call it "year of new worklife"? or may be "a year of relative calm"? or "a year of peace"?

ok, shall kiv all these for now...

any views?

assumption of new post

in less than a couple of hours, i will be assuming my new post. then again, i really do not feel anything about it. still, the work has to be done. and things seemed to be coming forth very strongly. lots of things to catch up and lots of things to do. and the thing is, the person who is vacating the post will still be occupying the office, using my staff and with full intentions to poach him over, planting rumours to create rifts, etc... and he will still be there until feb at least...

hmmm...

then again, i keep reminding myself i have to be gracious and support him in whatever way i can. tricky business. and i recall my teacher telling me - enduring does not mean you have to suffer. that one have to act in one's self-interest if one feels that by enduring, one ends up suffering and feeling all tensed up...

77.9kg

omg! that's my weight when i weighed myself at the changi airport baggage weighing scale earlier on!

wah piangz!

:-)

it's my credit

what do you think of someone who consistently thumb you down and comment that things you do are useless becos the things you do are for someone he couldn't get along with. but when you present your work during management meeting and you get praised, he quickly says - "ya, this is what i told him to do..."

no respect.

character assassination

it's one thing to play politics but it's another thing altogether to consistently go into character assassination mode. it's unhealthy and it speaks volumes about the person doing it!

sad! pitiful! shameful!

and i have no respect for such people!



good dinner

i had a pleasant surprise this evening when 2 great friends bought us dinner. it was supposed to be a get-together meet up and we had dinner at marina mandarin. we had not met for a while and when kl contacted me, i readily agreed. felt it would be a good idea to catch up. and yes, it was a great dinner, and of cos, great conversations with them... and needless to say, lots of bitching about who's who... la la la...

and kl and dl told me when i volunteered to pay that this dinner was on them to celebrate my celebration! so touched. for the first time in my life, people actually buy me dinner to celebrate a promotion!

thank you kl. thank you dl.

:-)

the line

i bought my 2 staffs dinner at shangri-la this week. one of them brought his wife along. cost me close to five hundred dollars. but well, i felt it was a good dinner. it was to express my gratitude to them for their support over the last 6 months. they had been a great part of the team. and i am sad to see one of them go. he will be brought over by my boss with him when he leaves to another unit come 1 dec.

sighs...

wa... so big!

i had my airport pass made recently and collected it this week. when i first recieved it, i thought my face looked bloated and big. but i didn't give two hoots about it. and i went ahead and place it inside my office pass casing, back-to-back with my office pass. and it struck me hard! when i compared the airport pass photo with that of my office pass! in the span of 6 months (since i took the photo of my office pass), my face had indeed expanded at least 20 percent!

horrors!

argh!!!

lousy character

am now rather pissed off by someone. he's behaving like a superbly insecure old man who wants all the face he can get. and he does everything he can to grab things that would benefit him and couldn't give a shit to others (other than his own selfish needs). and he enjoys going around bragging about his own successes, while thumbing people down. and on top of that, it is second nature to him to plant rumours and part truths (and part lies) to different people in the same set-up thereby creating rifts between people.

cannot take it.

sighs.

the 5 regrets of the dying

The following is something I copied from Bhante Dhammika's blog and he had reproduced it after reading it from a book (I am assuming it is a book) by Bonnie Ware. I am copying it here cos the points resonate with me so much... And I can attest to the writings. Now, come what may, whatever life (or any organisations) throws at me, I will survive... and for me, I do not interpret the word "Dying" purely from the perspective of "mortality/ end of life". I personally feel that to do so would be too narrow and wouldn't do justice to the writings. Instead, I choose to interpret it as coming to terms and accepting with what you are, about living your life to the fullest, about being happy. for true happiness comes from within. and that is something achieveable only if you can be at peace with yourself. to know how to love others, you have to start by loving yourself.

read on.

==========
The 5 Regrets Of The Dying

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learned never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them. When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. It is very important to try and honor at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realize, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard. This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence. By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings. Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result. We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying. It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5.  I wish that I had let myself be happier. This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called "comfort" of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again. When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is your life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly.

By Bonnie Ware

announced

my promotion has been formally announced.

:-)

infected ear

... no, not me. sapphie. she has been scratching a lot lately. and at times, she would yelp in the middle of the night. and this was becos she scratched her ears and hit a sore spot. rather funny i must say.

and so, i decided to use a cotton to check her ear canal. and true enough, i saw white powdery looking patches. took her to the vet, did some tests and finally confirmed that she was having a serious case of bacterial infection. otherwise, her blood test showed good signs of liver, thyroid and kidney functions. so now, i have to clean her ear canal with medication twice daily. when i cleansed it the first time, i noticed gooey substances (looked like mucus) coming out of the ear canal. and they came out in "blops". rather sickening looking. reminded me of human nose mucus when you get a cold except that this time round, it came from a dog's ear and had a sickly brown-green colour...

hmmm, ok, shan't describe further. this should be gross enough...

:-)

deafness

been increasingly finding myself hard of hearing. cannot seemed to catch what people are saying these days. and at times, it felt kinda weird to see people mouthing words and i cannot hear them although they are sitting right in front of me. am i getting deaf too?

ps: my first indication of a hearing loss was in 2007 when i went for a medical check. it was found to have gotten worst in another check in 2009. going by this trend of development, it seemed like i would become deaf in no time!... hmmm...

throbbing headache

have been getting bouts of throbbing headaches these days. and the frequency seemed to increase these couple of days... is this a sigh of an impending stroke?

coversations in the toilet

i walked into a shopping center toilet yesterday and when i saw the people inside i got a little worried. there were about 4-5 teenagers inside and they looked rather punkish in the way they dressed, complete with long unkempt highlighted hair. some wore ear studs. and given the recent spate of murder/ slashing cases by teenage gangsters, i felt a little intimidated by them. and they were not at the urinal. rather, they were looking into the mirrors and trying to neaten their hair! imagine them picking a couple of strands of hair on one side, bringing it to another side, turn their head left, look and check if it was in place, turn their head right, and then look and check again... and repeat the process...

anyway, i walked into the toilet, went to the urinal, did what i wanted to do (pee! if you have other ideas... heh heh...), washed my hands and left. and just as i was about to walk out. one of the guy said to his friend... "oooi, tomorrow holiday huh!" his friend (malay i think) replied "ya, hari raya haji"... and a reply came immediately "arrr... what is hari raya haji huh?"... and his brudder replied "oh, hari raya haji is..." and the conversation trailed off as i walked away...

hmmm...

inter-racial education (even amongst gangsters, if they are indeed gangsters) at play... so singaporean.

i like.

:-)

holiday / wednesday

today is wednesday and i am so glad it is a holiday. in a huge way, a break on wednesday effectively break the work week into 2 parts of 2 work days each. and such a situation, work pressure becomes a lot more tolerable and manageable.

:-)

updating facebook status in class

have been feeling tired easily these days and often i find myself dozing off during my dhamma classes. this week's class is the last for this year. and to keep myself awake, i typed some of the lines that i thought was meaningful as my status updates in facebook. the following are some of them.

• the mind is pure. thoughts, emotions are simply objects of the mind. our attachments to these objects prevent us from achieving clarity of the mind. practise. know. just know. strive towards minfulness. that is where purity exist.

• mindfuless is momentary as a norm, to have clear insight, strive towards achieving continuous mindfuness.

• the key to practise lie in the practise of the mind.

• there's a difference between watching your anger and partaking in it. when there's anger, watch it, don't analyse it, watch the feeling from a third person point of view... let the energy come and go. when it goes, anger disappears. know. just know.

and it helped me keep awake.

:-)

going down

no, i am talking about going down on anyone... if you know what i mean... i have been so busy with work and so caught up with targets, gossips, unproductive chats, work relationship dynamics (call it politics), la la la of late that i have nearly neglected my own spiritual well-being. and i find myself going down and down and down insofar as my ability to stay above distractions these days. i find myself getting agitated faster. i find myself getting worried about things. i find myself getting worried over little things. i find myself getting anxious over a lot of things...

and it is really draining. i supposed the end of school term (which mean i am not bounded by the discipline to reconnect with the dhamma on a weekly basis) made it a little more difficult for me to focus on my practice. or perhaps i am just lazy... no good. no good. all these are happening and i think i have gone into a negative cycle of things. i need to pull myself out of this cycle.

cleared

cleared my first round of discussion on next year's target. such a great relieve!

:-)

love language

simply love this very simple but beautifully produced video. and oh, i thought the guy is cute. especially the dimples. and the expression on his face at 1:44 - 1:46... the "bashful-omg-she's finally here" look is a real killer. and of cos, in a huge way, it reminded me of my early days when i waited and finally get to meet bee...

:-P

asian games

somehow when i watched the asian games opening ceremony, i was reminded of the inaugural youth olympics opening ceremony conducted in singapore just 2 plus months back. apart from the format (which i supposed was the same for all games), there was the one-sided audience gallery facing the water (instead of the usual all rounded stadium), the heavy use of multi-media on screens that formed the backdrop, the torch bearer running on water, and so on. it got me wondering if these were really coincidental...

but well, apart from these similarities, i enjoyed grandeur of the whole event, particularly the creativity in the torch lighting segment of the ceremony. on the whole, i thought it brought out the chineseness of the chinese culture.

:-)

duty travel

this week had been rather hectic. it passed by superbly fast. monday, it was a rush of meetings after meetings. went on duty travel to jakarta from tuesday to thursday and during the trip, i had to do briefings after briefings almost non-stop. you see, i landed at about 10am and was rushed to the office where i did a quick briefing. lunch followed and immediately after lunch, i did another brief to the top management there. the day ended at close to 9plus before i checked in to the hotel. it was a 4-star hotel but the experience seemed worst becos the hotel was old. the bed mattress was lousy and i did not sleep well - not to mention, the alarm clock was set by the guest before me at 5am. sighs... the same hectic pattern repeated on wednesday. and due to the lack of proper sleep, it was rather draining. so, understandably by yesterday, i was totally exhausted. it was a short trip but i felt glad to be home. and by the time i settle down to sleep, it was 1am.

and today, it was a whole day of meetings and catching up with other work. and it seemed like there was a lot of backlogged despite the fact that i had my blackberry with me and was able to clear my emails daily. hmmm... but well, in a way, i enjoyed the week. yes, i do sound a little crazy but yes, i did enjoy the pace. perhaps it was a case of me feeling useful and that i was able to see things happen, people getting bought in, people moving along... but really, by the end of today, despite being dead tired, i felt good. anyway, weekend is here. and i probably need to do a little more catching up on work before another major meeting on this coming monday morning.

:-)

travel history

before i leave for jakarta, i need to review and update my trips around the world list... :P

2010
may - malaysia (jb)
oct - indonesia (bintan)

2009
jun/jul - australia (perth, cervantes, margaret river, augusta, walpole, denmark, pemberton, manjimup, albany, hyden, corrigin, york, fremantle, joondalup)
jul - malaysia (malacca)
sep - malaysia (malacca)
nov - malaysia (jb)

2008
jun - thailand (phuket)
oct - malaysia (malacca, kuala lumpur)
dec - malaysia (cameron highlands, malacca)

2007
apr - malaysia (malacca)
apr - china (beijing)
jun - australia (perth)
aug - vietnam (hanoi, haphong)
aug - indonesia (jakarta, bandung)
dec - china (shanghai)

2006
apr - malaysia (kl)
jun - australia (sydney)
aug - thailand (bangkok)
sep-oct - indonesia (jakarta, bandung)
oct - thailand (bangkok)
dec - china (hong kong)

2005
feb - thailand (bangkok)
mar - malaysia
may - thailand (bangkok)
jun - indonesia (bintan)
jul - indonesia (bintan)
sep - indonesia (bintan)
oct - malaysia (kl)
nov - malaysia (jb, malacca)
nov - indonesia (bintan)
dec - taiwan (taipei)

2004
feb - taiwan (kaoshiung)
mar - taiwan (kaoshiung)
jun-dec - states (florida, new york, illinois, etc)
dec - china (shanghai, hangzhou)

2003
jun - australia (sydney)
sep-oct - taiwan (taipei)
dec - s korea (seoul, sorat)

2002
jun - england (london, oxford, etc)

2001
mar - states (california [la, sfo], new york)
may - taiwan (whole)
may - malaysia
jul - states (san diego)
dec - malaysia

2000
jun - australia (sydney)
dec - indonesia (bintan)

1999
feb - indonesia (jember)
may - england (london, brighton)
jun - malaysia
oct - japan (tokyo)

1998
mar - malaysia
jun - malaysia
sep - new zealand (christchurch)
nov - new zealand (christchurch, auckland)

1997
jun - indonesia (bintan, batam)
jun - thailand (bangkok, pattaya)
nov - switzerland (zurich, lucerne), israel (jerusalem)

pre-1997
lots of places but mainly in asia. these include east and west malaysia (lost count), taiwan (lost count), hong kong (twice?), australia brisbane, sydney, melbourne (1994), thailand (bangkok, kanchanaburi, chiangmai, chiangrai) (lost count), indonesia (bintan, batam, jember, surabaya) (trice?), brunei (lost count), etc etc etc...

volcanos

the last time i wanted to fly to london, the iceland's mount eye-a-wtf erupted. this time round, 2 days before my maiden work trip to jakarta, it looks like merapi might come in the way. keeping my fingers crossed.

hmmm...

megamind

some thoughts went through my mind as i watched this movie:

• good or bad, it's a matter of perspective
• there is the buddha-nature in everyone, regardless of whether he is good or bad
• live your life the way you want, not the way everyone wanted you to do
• it's about being comfortable with yourself
• good exists only if bad exists, and vice versa

despite being an animation, i think this show is rather mature in its theme... and no, i don't mean the hanky panky mature, i mean, mature as in in its depth of thoughts (in hokkien term - very chim)... and i enjoyed it.

:-)

image from http://moviesaddicts.com/movie-trailers/megamind/

happy birthday sapphie

today is sapphie's 10th birthday! and i can't give her her usual ground beef treat that i do every year cos she is now vegetarian. so... i gave her a papaya birthday "cake"! heh heh!

happy birthday sapphie!

number three

my keyboard has failed me over the past few weeks. i now have problems pressing the number three. also my shift key has gone bonkers. and i cannot type capital letters consistently.

that means, i cannot key in my bank account number, or key in my pin number, or anything that requires number three. damned it, so, i am now stuck as i cannot transfer my monthly allowance to my mum, do my monthly banking, check my visa bills, la la la...

i never know how important one single digit is until it is taken away from me. hmmm...

:-)

pant pant pant

got bombshell today. gotta come out with business plan for my set-up for the next year and be ready to present before end of the month. that means i have less than a week to prepare the plan before i pass them to finance to verify details la la la... and there are much market research to be done, not to mention, i also need to consult my staff. and to make things more challenging, i have duty travel next week.

on top of that, my big boss is also chasing me to work out the staffing and directions for another unit that i am a part of (and looking at how things are developing, i might also end up heading this unit on top of the one i am destined to take over next month). pant pant pant...

and all these come with the job that i will be taking over next month. and the current incumbent is on holiday, pushed all his responsibilities to me, apart from pouching my staff and stirring shit through and through in the current set-up before he moves on.

hmmmm...

jia you jia you!