self-interest

when it comes to people, the only thing that is constant in this whole world is - self-interest.

i had this little debate with my friends earlier and i made this point just to tickle their thinking process. so far, none of them can proof me otherwise. my argument is that in everything that a person does, the motivation can always be traced to his/ her own self-interest. do you agree? another area that i tried to tease their thinking include - "you cannot survive on hope. there is a fine line between hope and delusion"... agree?

i am such a ,u@#r0*&%^w4re*%^....

lol!

心猿意馬

i was reading a forum for gay men this morning when i noted a topic about "actors you wanna have fun with" or something along this line. looked inside and someone gushed about the gay sex scene in this movie. i thought it was interesting for a fact that many of the actors in the show are rather famous. in no time, i was hooked onto it. it was an old hong kong production, probably in the early 2000s.

the title "心猿意马" can be roughly translated as: "a heart like a capering monkey and a mind like a galloping horse -- restless; be prone to outside attractions; fanciful and fickle; harbor monkey-feelings and horse-thoughts; in a restless and jumpy mood; one's heart is agile as an ape and one's thoughts swift as a horse.; one who can't settle down to his job; perturbed; the heart of an ape and the mind of a horse; with one's mind running wild; when one meant gibbon, he thinks of a horse -- wavering in purpose.; restless and whimsical; unsettled [fickle] in mind"... you get the idea.

the show depicted 3 parallel stories involving a cat-3 actress, a straight couple, a gay pick up, and a pilot and spans the duration of one night. quite a bit of flesh, but sex scenes aside, i thought the show really brought across the whole idea of fleeting desires - how couples and individuals handle love and lust, and how they lie to each other even as they play outside the relationship. and what i liked about the show was that it touched on both gay and straight relationships. 

do watch it, and make sure you watch the full show till the last couple of minutes to fully appreciate the fleeting nature of desires.

translation from http://eng.ichacha.net/心猿意马.html 

4d

i walked pass the singapore pools shop yesterday and decided to buy 4d. 4d is the singapore version of public lottery and there are 3 draw days per week. the purchase was just that spontaneous and despite the objective side of me saying i would probably end up throwing my money away, i decided to just take a chance out of fun and just proceed to buy. heh heh...

let's see my luck for today and this coming wednesday.

loneliness

these days after mum left, i find myself often feeling lonely often. i would wake up on weekends, lie in bed or on the sofa and just refused to get up. there are just no motivation to get up and go out of the house. and even if i managed to drag myself out of the house, i do often end up moving from point a to point b rather aimlessly. perhaps i am lazy, but there is really no one that i want to spend time with (it's just too much effort), etc... as for bee, i really hope he can be around but i have come to the point where i told myself i cannot have any expectations. he has his preoccupations - his mum, his work, etc. and even if he has time, i think he prefers to laze in his own place.

hmmm... and it is times like these that i pondered if there was some wisdom in mum's constant nagging - "you must get married and have children, else when you are old, there'll not be anyone to look after you..." of cos, i know these are not possible if it is read from a straight perspective. but yeah... just cannot but think about her words.

anyway, here i am, having just finished my forest hike and sitting in a coffee shop drinking my afternoon coffee. i am simply wilding my time away, resting and at the same time aimlessly reading the malay signs that scroll endlessly in front of me - nasi goreng ikan masin, nasi goreng ikan bilis, kangkung belachan, mee rebus, mee soto, mee siam, mee bandung, mee hong kong, mee hailam, mee goreng thai...

:-)

backache

i suffer from chronic backache and would experience back sprains almost every 2 years. the last major attack i had was last jul. it occurred early in the morning when i went for my morning walks where i felt a slight click on my lower back when i tried to bend down to pick something from the floor. it quickly developed into a bad back and it got worst with time. at its peak, i couldn't stand nor sit properly and had to hold onto things to stabilise myself. thankfully, that superbly painful period was over. but the lingering pain persisted till today. 

i had managed this pain by doing my regular walks and going for my chiropractic treatments. unlike previous occasions where the back would recover after a week or two, the pain continued this time round. it got me worried enough to seek professional help. the specialist i saw 2 months back suspected it could be due to an annular tear but needed to put me through an x-ray and an mri before he can be sure if it was the case. he also referred me to the physiotherapist to help strengthen my back.

the physiotherapist saw me last month. and he assessed that it was due to weak muscles instead of an annular tear given that the pain had subsided quite a bit. and he also taught me some basic exercises to strengthen my back. i went for the x-ray and the mri scan this morning and will be seeing the doctor next week. let's see what he says...

:-)

john

i first met john at the pool many years back when i was still serving the force. it must have been about 10 years? there's something very different about him that made me remember him - he has a beard. not very common for a chinese. after seeing him a couple of times at the pool, i didn't get to see him again as i stopped going to the pool eventually. i forgot about him altogether after that.

fast forward to about two years ago, i chanced upon him at katong pool again. and since then, i had seen him quite frequently. each time i see him, he would give me that "you look familiar" kinda look. and each time we meet, i would smile at him and he would reciprocate. and all these while, i didn't have the chance to talk to him as we were a distance away. moreover, i am not one to approach people. but last week, things changed. it was during my off day when i decided to head to the pool for a tan. 

i had just changed up after my shower when he walked into the toilet. his entrance took me by surprise. as usual, i smiled at him and he reciprocated. it was then that i thought that perhaps i should just muster my courage and speak to him. and after some initial pleasantries, i asked if he'd like to keep in touch. it had been over a decade and i told myself it was then or never. frankly, i felt really shy doing it and quickly retracted when he paused and showed some hesitance. well, it's ok, thanks, i said and wanted to leave. but after some momentary silence, he agreed and gave it to me. those moments were superbly awkward for me. anyway...

yeah, am glad i've got a new friend. 

:-)

rejecting an applicant

there was an internal staff who applied for a job in my department. she was desperate to find a job as the project she is currently supporting is coming to an end and once that happens, she'll go jobless. and while she was offered another position with another project, she didn't feel good about it as it was a 2-year stint. but as i do not have the necessary position for her, i told the talent acquisition team to reject her. i also thought it was not very nice to simply reject her, and so i asked to meet up with this staff...

in the end, i spend some 90min chatting with her to explain why i didn't accept her application. and went into my career coaching mode and asked her to consider accepting the short term job as she keep her her options open. i even shared with her how to prepare her resume. am glad that she walked out of the conversation feeling energised and raring to go.

glad i could help her see things a little differently.

confirmation

my boss came to my desk yesterday and asked to speak with me in private. got me worried for a moment. it turned out that she wanted to tell me the big boss is happy with me and has signed my confirmation letter, so... don't be surprised when someone come and hand over a confirmation letter to you k? she said.

time flies right?

:-)

"reservist"

i had a weird dream last night.

i dreamed i was called back for reservist and the unit i was posted to was (now get this) my previous employer. and there i was, with my current colleague at the start of the dream but as it went on, i had to walk through a river and suddenly i found myself sitting in my previous office desk working. the vp hr was seated behind me and i didn't give a damn to her presence and continued to do what i needed to do. and in the dream, one other colleague (who had also resigned) was also working in the office. and the next thing i knew, i found myself laid on a bed (of sorts) and trying to change my pants. i was conscious that i was changing in front of my colleagues and felt a little exposed but still i continued changing. i couldn't give a shit about people's presence. 

weird dream... 

kong: the skull island

this was an interesting show and for some reasons or other, i ended up watching it twice over this weekend. heh. anyway, it deviated from the usual traditional "king kong" show where a giant gorilla christened "kong" went to ny city - the famous king kong on empire state building image that we are all so familiar with. perhaps this show has nothing to do with ny city or the empire state building. it was about a giant gorilla that lived on an island somewhere in the pacific, and how man intruded it's peace and attempted to take control of the island (on the pretext of some scientific experiment).  i suspect it had leverage on the name "kong" to get the attention it needed. 

but yeah, i would perhaps interpret the show as one that illustrates, once again, man's insecurities, greed and want to take control over the world. lines such as "he is not the killer, he is just protecting his land... (or something to that effect) puts in perspective the behaviour of this gorilla. the sad thing is that this gorilla is, by sheer laws of nature, doomed as his parents had been killed, and he is but the only giant gorilla left on the island. sad to think of it this way. really. don't you think so...

i missed the closing trailer and from what i read in the internet, it looked like there'll be a sequel to this show - something about kong and godzilla. kinda interesting if i were to take a step back and see things in perspective. end of x-men, start of new avengers movies, start of giant animals and perhaps even a 4-part sequel to avatar in the works...

nice. 

logan

it was a superbly intense movie. the initial scenes felt somewhat depressing, particularly when it showed the main x-men characters so down and broken - an old nonagenarian charles xavier who's incapacitated, a logan that's probably in his 60s and constantly being beaten up, and instead of the shiny futuristics looking hideout, they now live in a shabby-looking farmhouse, not to mentioned, professor xavier being kept in a collapsed water tank. sad right? these scenes are not something we have been used to. but yeah, that was the scenes we get in this movie. and the fights were so gory it reminded me of the movie 300. heads get blown off, hands and legs get chopped off, blood splattering all over the place... ewwww...

but yeah, with the death of wolverine, this show perhaps closes the whole series of x-men movies that had run for the pass decade or so. and who knows, the next series of mutants that's gonna come will make reference to this as the beginning. 

we'll see...

$5.95

i was at the mall checking out places for dinner and as i checked out the menu at yoshinoya, the auntie waitress came up and said: you can get a meal for $5.95 if you're a senior citizen...

i walked away after that. should i feel offended?

lol!

mindfulness

or the lack of it...

seemed to be getting less mindful these days. just minutes ago, i washed my hair with my body foam. and i only realized it when i thought it didn't smell right.

haiz...