guardians of the galaxy vol 2

this was such an entertaining show. and its interesting for the fact that the story borders between science fiction and religion. but well, what worked for me for this movie was the fact that (1) there were a lot of songs from the 80s, (2) the crude, into-your-face, conversations, that touches your heart at times, (3) the strong acting, (4) the good looking casts, and of cos, the omg cuteness of groot!

enjoyed it lots!

no hk trip

this monday is labour day and thus, it's a long weekend. had planned to visit hong kong... made the decision sometime a couple of weeks back and had primed some of my hong kong friends about it. was looking forward to catch up with them. but it was not to be. checked the hotel prices and turned out that due to a major event being held there, the hotel price had tripled. and for a low-mid range hotel room, i had to pay some sgd400 per night.

this is too crazy. decided to give this trip a miss altogether. 

13th year

commemorated our 12th anniversary on 28 apr.

been 12 years already... (and for some unknown reasons, i kept thinking it had been more than 13 years..,)

gosh!

no penang trip

was supposed to head to penang with my ex-colleagues & bee over the last weekend to celebrate the birthday of one of them. we had planned for this trip for months. and after all the preparations, packing, etc.... it didn't happen. we didn't go in the end.

that morning itself, i got a call from bee. his mum couldn't breathe and had to be evacuated to the a&e. turned out - she had an anxiety attack. admittedly, i was angry. angry with how things turned out. it was a huge disappointment for me. i had looked forward to this trip so very much. it would be a good break for me after all the stress at work. and from the look of things, it looked like we will not be having any holiday soon. its vary frustrating cos for the longest time ever, i've tried to get him to go for a holiday with me. and every time it's a case of he cannot leave because of his work. and this time round, after months of planning, we finally managed to go for a weekend trip to penang and...

well, the penang trip did not happen.

wasted close to sgd900...

crazy work

work has been crazy...

reeeeeeally crazy. and to make things worst, i've got a highly dysfunctional team that comprise people who are not co-operative, people who are disillusioned, people who are so full of themselves, people who are so nonchalant, etc.... 

very challenging.

slipped disc

the doctor confirmed that i have slipped disk. but for now, theres no requirement to undergo any operations, he said, unless i wanted to. not a good sign. and with time, this can only get worst. 

haiz.

pop aye

caught this movie over the last weekend. it was an interesting show about the adventures of a man and his elephant. and if you were to look deeper into the story, it has a very strong buddhist slant, in my opinion. to me, this show is about life, about letting go, about self-discovery.

thoroughly enjoyed it.

cancer check

had a medical exam done and the doctor scheduled me for a colonoscopy. accordingly, this is advocated for men above 50 to detect possibility of colon cancer. the initial consultation to confirm i'm fit to undergo colonoscopy will be in jul 2017...

smurfs: the lost village

i had second thoughts before watching this. people around me, including bee, gave me the wet blanket and expressed things like - huh? smurfs? - when i asked if they wanted to watch it. so... yeah, you kinda guessed it. i went to watch the show alone. the cinema was near empty (i think i was one of the 2 or 3 people in the hall), but i didn't regret. i enjoyed the show. for the first time, the show gave depth to the background of how smurfette came about. and it was interesting cos after so many years, i never knew about this story. so... it came across as refreshing, and i actually liked it.

:-)

ah ma's red car

i had a very meaningful experience this afternoon. for that matter, i felt a little overwhelmed by how an old and frail elderly couple kept to each other, almost inseparable, and how the ah gong tried his best to seek medical help for ah ma. here's what happened.

i was at marine terrace earlier for my afternoon coffee. as i walked towards the coffee shop, i saw an elderly couple. they were probably in their mid-late 80s. both looked a little roundish, but frail. ah ma was on a wheelchair and ah gong stood at the back, hands on handles. they were at the linkway between two blocks and were hidden from the car park. as i walked towards them, they both smiled at me, the kind of gentle smile that we can only see in elderlies. and ah ma raised her hand slowly and called out to me in very soft voice - did u see a red car? the question came out of no where and i didn't understand what she meant. i walked towards her and moved my head down to her ears and asked - what red car? and she repeated softly red car as she looked at me, a little bewildered. i looked up at ah gong and he said - the red car that comes when we call 995.

my mind started racing. 995 is the number for medical emergencies in singapore. something must be wrong, i thought. i walked quickly out to the car park to see if there was an ambulance. the car park hidden away from the main road and where the couple stood was not visible from the car park. i walked back to the elderly couple. no, there wasn't an ambulance, i said. both of them looked worried but kept their half smiles. i told them to wait a while and i went to check again. i walked around the car park but there was just no ambulance in sight. when i got back, they had apparently gotten worried for they had also asked a few other passerby if they had seen a "red car". a few ignored them and walked off. i asked the ah gong if he recalled where he had directed the ambulance to. thankfully, he remembered and said "block 58". i walked out and looked up the block for the block number. it was block 59. oops...

i got worried for them and told them to wait while i walked out to the car park to check again. and to be sure there was indeed a call registered, i called 995. i spoke to the operator and explained the situation to him. thankfully they had their records and the operator told me their ambulance should be there within 5min. to be sure they get to the right location, the operator requested for me to help guide the ambulance when it arrives. i walked back to inform the elderly couple and they heaved a sigh of relief. i walked back to the car park and kept a look out as i kept visual contact with ah gong. when i saw the ambulance enter the car park, i waved at it frantically and managed to guide it to where i was. at the same time, i signalled for ah gong to push the wheel chair out. he had some difficulties  and i ran to him to assist. the whole feeling of pushing the wheelchair certainly felt so familiar. i had done the same for my own mum way too often back then. the memories just flashed by. 

the ambulance stopped and then we came faced with another issue. the ambulance attendants were all malay and the elderly couple spoke only mandarin. naturally, i became the translator. what happened? did you fall, did you experience chest pains, did you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart issues, medical history, etc etc etc. and after taking down the notes, they said they needed to transfer ah ma onto the collapsible bed. no i cannot, said ah ma. my legs are painful. i cannot stand. no, no, i cannot stand. she said as she grabbed the handle of her wheelchair tightly. her words all sounded way too familiar to me. my own mum had said the same thing back then. instinctively, i turned to her and calmly explain to her that the attendants will help her. she looked at me, understood me and let go of her hands. she looked at me again and she tried to stand up, amidst some pains. the attendants came together like a drill and held onto her diapers, waist and her shoulder and eventually managed to place her onto the collapsible bed. all these while, ah gong stood and looked on. and then came another issue. 

uncle, you cannot bring the wheelchair along, the attendant said. you need to bring it home and we will wait for you here. it took a while for ah gong to understand. and ah ma was obviously getting very worried. where is he going, where am i going. will i be going alone... she asked as she kept straining her head forward to catch sight of ah gong. seeing her in this state, i quickly reach out to her, held her hand and explained to her slowly about the wheelchair. as i spoke with her, i looked into her eyes and noted the blur cloudy eyes so commonly seen amongst elderlies. ah ma, don't worry ok, ah gong is going to put the wheelchair home and he will come down and accompany you to the hospital. i had to repeat it a few times before she understood. after i calmed her down, i walked quickly up to the ah gong who had started to walk home as he gingerly pushed the wheelchair. ah gong himself looked so frail. it was heartbreaking. i walked alongside and assured him all's well and that ah ma will be in good hands. and as i spoke to him, he suddenly turned to me, and held my hands with both hands, looked me into my eyes and asked in chinese what's your surname (in chinese, we don't ask for names, we ask for surname). i want to thank you...

it was really very touching. 

love, in dollars and cents

i noted a very interesting conversation between a father and a daughter that sat beside me during lunch.

the daughter said something about her mum rejecting her offer to buy the family dinner once a week and to foot the car parking charges for the family car when she drives. the father smiled and in response, casually asked if she's gonna cover the petrol and whether she's also gonna get a cash card for her own use (for car parking)... the daughter's stared at the father and very quickly told the dad that he's pushing a bit too far. she added that if that's the case, she'd seriously reconsider buying dinner after all. she finished off by saying that the dinner would likely cost more that the petrol and the cash card, lalala...

i stopped listening at that point as my mind starting reflecting on this whole conversation. there were so many layers in this conversation that made me feel disturbed...

firstly, it was the transactional nature of this conversation. offering to contribute back to the family was so much simpler when i was younger. supporting me was something done without questions as what all parents would do and returning back was an act of gratitude that was done from the heart. it wasn't so transactional. it was just a case of me offering a certain amount of money to my mum from my pay to help with household expenses. no questions asked, no negotiation.

secondly, i pondered about the values inculcation journey of this young lady. in another words, did the parents actually bring her up well? we have here a young lady who went to the point to consider taking away a dinner because her dad suggested she also cover the petrol... i've never dared talk to my parents in such manner and tones. i deemed such responses disrespectful.

lastly, i asked if we, as a society, have reached a point where we become so materialistic - so much so that we have to be so calculative and go to this detail in accounting for expenses. and to stretch this thought further, have we inadvertently commoditised (to a small extend) the whole idea of relationship?

ok, i think too much. maybe the long and short of this was simply - a generation gap.

it's nice to just sit down and write.

:-)

stress-induced dream

i think it was because of my work stress that i ended up having this interesting and very intense dream last night. and i can kinda guess what this dream meant broadly. you see, out of the so many briefings i had to do and prepare, i was especially stressed out over a particular briefing. nonetheless, i was kinda cool about it and didn't too much a damned over the slides despite knowing it was something i should work on. my cool care-less attitude towards this particular briefing was because after i prepared the draft and presented to my department lead (as she had to lead this brief to a particular member of my top management), she kinda tore it apart yet couldn't really give any clear directions. and i sensed that even my department lead was trying to second guess what to present. and this was becos this top management person i'm supposed to brief is "unbriefable". almost everyone else i'd met thus far shared that regardless of how hard work i worked and what i prepare, i will still be torn apart by this particular top management person. apparently, she simply likes to scold people and make snide remarks just so she could tear people to pieces. and after hearing all these inputs, i started adopting this - "prepare also get killed, don't prepare also get killed, might as well just go in and get killed" - attitude. and i did so cos i wanted to channel my energies to the other briefings that i had to prepare too. i concluded it would be more productive this way... regardless, i was constantly irked and reminded at the back of my head that i have this lingering brief that i had not done enough of... anyway, here's my intense dream:

for some reasons i was in an old lorry (truck, to some), the type that was used often back in the 60's-70s, and it was driven by a tv actor (cannot recall his name, but this person is a small time local tv personality). he was driving the lorry through some rough terrain and i was a passenger in the lorry passenger seat. there was another person beside me - i don't know who but i can only say this was a familiar person as i knew his voice. we were heading home and the landscape was that of my grandparent's village back in the 60s-70s. 

we were on the dirt road when suddenly the driver took a detour and drove "cross-country". he started cutting through the grass patches, the metal yards (that had waste metal strewn all over), as he picked up speed. the voice beside me started screaming for the driver to slow down and demanded to know why he went off track and took a different road instead. the voice started sounding fearful and angry. as for me, i took it in stride. i knew the driver knew the road and his way around the area. i was confident he was taking a short cut as the route he took seemed familiar to me. 

as we picked up speed, the lorry began to rattle and bounced rather hard. we were after all, travelling cross-country and the grounds were highly uneven. soon, a river emerge and the lorry drove alongside the river. i recognised this river. it was located behind my grand parent's village. i looked into the water and there were many animals. the animals were all motionless and seemed to be frozen in time. amongst the animals was a white dog. it sat motionless with a pleasant looking smily face. it was submerged in the water and stared blankly into no where.

suddenly, the driver drove the lorry into the river. at such a high speed, the lorry crashed into and break the water surface and created quite a huge splash. it moved on towards the opposite bank. but before it could reach the bank, the lorry died. we were all submerged in the water and started sinking. at the moment, everything seemed to disappear and i was simply focused onto the dog. it was obviously dead and seemed to be frozen in time in the water. i reached out to it but it didn't move. it reminded me of sapphie although it wasn't. and next thing i knew, another dog appeared. it appeared to be struggling and swimming towards the bank. i reached out to it and it happily allowed me to embrace it as i carried it in my arms and walk towards the bank.

the dream ended there.

stressed

i've been so caught up with work so much these 2 weeks.

and it is all because this week alone, i have to attend/ prepare/ conduct 6-7 briefings to different members of my company's top management. and along the way, shit happened, my staff had to go on compassionate leave and i had to cover him, two of my staff went on scheduled leave and i had to cover them as well, and my boss-2-levels-up decided to do an impromptu activity in a workshop that required my immediate attention to develop the activity, prepare slides, develop materials, work out the logistics, draft the instructions, and... yeah, you kinda get the drift.

anyway, things have panned out rather ok so far. and without going into details, things kinda fell into place slowly. people helped, circumstances changed, meetings got postponed, new meetings were convened where people gave their inputs/ support, etc... i am almost through with this week. one more day and one more major event and i should be done for the week.

whew...

:-)

april fool's day

i was rather mad with one of my ex-colleague who texted the group (that i am quite close to) expressing shock about her "pregnancy". of cos a few of us got worried as we had been cautioning her about her new relationship with this australian  man (whom she had just gotten to know)... 

and as the title had already indicated, it turned out to be an april fool's joke. seriously, one should never play such jokes on people who truly care for you. it is nothing short of cruel. and it wears down the trust people have in you. 

seriously...

power rangers

have never been a power ranger fan. but still i decided i should watch this show and yeah, i enjoyed it tremendously. i supposed it was the whole escape from the current reality that this show provided me with. had been stressed by lotsa stuff lately. that would be another story altogether. anyway, this show didn't steer too far away from what i knew of power rangers - there are several of them and one of them turned bad and they (the good ones) had to go into battle with it (can be him or her, depending on which series...).

should watch it if you have not.