completed flagship event

this past week was a defining one for my whole team. we conducted the company's flagship learning event locally and managed to accomplish close to 10,000 attendance for training. it was superbly draining for me particularly as i was single handedly doing logistics runs daily between the different locations across the island. glad its over. next week, gonna head back to office with one whole week of backlogged to clear...

not looking forward to it, frankly

zoo & river safari

bee and i visited the zoo last weekend and the river safari yesterday. i really enjoyed the trips. for some reasons, i've always been attracted to the wilderness and wild animals and i have always enjoyed trips to such places. anyway, shan't write too much about that here.

the reason why i wanted to write this post was that the two visits made me reflect about life and death and how everyone of us, including the animals, will take the same path. during the visits, it struck me that many of the animals (that i had known since years ago) have either passed away or are dying from old age. one of the most high profile passing was that of the zoo icon ah meng the orang utan in jun 2008 at the age of 48 years old. and after that, i witnessed one animal after another leaving, the last being omar the white tiger two months back (pic above shows winnie on the left and omar on the right, winnie died in 2014 of a jaw tumor, and omar in jun 2017 of skin cancer and joint degeneration). and i made this reflection when i saw the old and tired looking inuka - the resident polar bear in the zoo.

inuka is 26 of age this year and has outlived the normal life span of polar bears kept in captivity. he was the first polar bear to be borned in the tropics in captivity. i still recalled how cute he looked when he was born (above picture) and how he was looked after by his mother, sheba. sheba died in 2010 of old age at 35 years of age and inuka had been living alone since then. he looks really tired these days and suffers from arthritis. the zoo had announced that they will put him down if his condition deteriorates to the point where his quality of life is threatened. and from the look of things, i do expect him to be put down very soon (in a matter of days or months at most). it's gonna be a very sad day when that happens.

anyway, at the river safari yesterday, i made a remark. i said that for some reasons, all the zoo rangers seemed very young, almost like little kids. i pondered if they indeed are indeed so or that was a simple case of an enlarging age gap between me and the rangers. and it is not difficult to conclude which is which.

:-)

respect

"no one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion..." (or, if i may add, his sexuality)

obama, quoting mandela 

snatched

some words that came to my mind when i watched this show include seriously?, stupid, unbelievable, heartwarming, wtf... well, you get what i mean. yup, if it was not for the fact that there was no other shows i watched, i wouldn't have even bought the tickets for this show. then again, such brainless shows are quite good for the soul once a while, especially when you are really stressed out and just wanted to blank off...

grindr sex

i have the grindr app on my mobile. going into this app has become a habit for me as i am always either curious who's gay around me, how many gay cuties are there nearby, or whether anyone has send me any messages... (ya, i even roll my own eyes at myself for doing all these).

i remembered some years ago, i commented that many in grindr somehow registered their age as 23 years old (and i recalled many of my blogger friends responded that they indeed reflected themselves as 23 years old!). but this time round, i noticed people in grindr around me tend to be 25 years old! lol! do i sense a shift in perception of "ideal age"? anyway, i don't really believe what's posted in grindr. many indicate an age that is easily 5 years younger than their actual age. and this is clear cos when they send you their pic, its so obvious. also, i do see many posting things like "friends only, no fun" or "strictly chats". but when they text you, their first few messages invariable include things like "top/ bottom?", "1/ 0?", "do you want to play/ have fun?", "fun?", "seek?"... or some even went as far as "cf?", "i wanna top you". i even have some who initiate a conversation with their cock pics and measurements! so... it's a world of make believe in there. and naturally, many i know shared that what they see is always not what they get... and mostly, people are nice from far, but far from nice. i can totally understand. lol!

so yeah, it's a world where physical attractions is the order of the day. as superficial as it might seem, it's just a fact. of cos, don't judge me like a few did. they asked - you are attached, so how come you are in grindr? oh purleese, this world can really do without such judgements. it's a free world and we can do what we want. since when partnered people cannot download grindr? 

gintama

watched this show last evening. i was told reviews of the show rated this a 5-popcorn show. frankly, i don't understand how it can be rated 5-popcorns. i would perhaps give it a 2-popcorn rating only. 

anyway, trust the japanese to produce such a show - an over-the-top production that you cannot really appreciate unless you have some background about the anime series. you see, usually, we have production where cartoons/ anime imitates real life human world. but for this production, it was humans acting out a anime series. and so, we end up having a show where people behaved like anime characters - lotsa exaggerated actions, people shout at each other as they talk, punch and slap each other like as though it was the most natural thing to do, wore awkward-looking costumes that came across as trying too hard, slapstick jokes/ scenes, and so on... 

initially, i thought it was interesting, refreshing and somewhat funny. but when it kept going on and on and on, i started to feel somewhat irritated. it was hard to keep up with the show especially when i watched it after midnight. but well, after convincing myself that this is supposed to imitate an anime, the expectations dropped and i simply just enjoy the show for what it was. and of cos, just ogle at the few good-looking actors in the show.

2 popcorns. for the effort and the novelty.

handling crying kids

over time, i had observe how parents of different races handle their difficult children and i saw a trend. i suspect the differences in behaviour is due to culture. here's what i saw and some of my thoughts about it:

• local (generic term to include singaporean and malaysian) chinese parents tend to tell off their kids when the kids cry. not uncommon to hear the parents go "quiet! don't cry!" firmly - no opportunities given to the kids to reason or respond and so we often see local chinese kids pout/ looking sad. of cos there are some that do spoil their kids outright and give in whenever their kids cry but these are the exceptions and not the norm. as such, in public places, i do not see many wailing and spoilt local chinese kids... ok, maybe a few, but not the most... compared to...

• Indian indian parents tend dote on their kids. the parents will respond to them whenever their kids cry. at the other end of the spectrum of response, Indian indian parents let their kids continue to scream and wail and they won't really entertain them. in another words, i have never seen any Indian indian parents get firm on their kids. as such, in public places, whenever i hear screaming and wailing kids, more often than not, they are from india indian families. (note: i use "indian indian" to differentiate with singaporean indians. singaporean indians tend to behave more like local chinese [see above]).

• local malays tend to have many children and often whenever one child cry, it is the elder siblings that respond (surprising right?)... this is interesting cos malays tend to move around in family units and as their family units are relatively larger than that of chinese and indians, their internal family support is usually very strong. so, in public, i tend to see malay families being very noisy but seldom have crying children.

• caucasian (generic term for all westerners regardless of nationalities) tend to have a good balance between being firm and letting their children cry on and on. more often than not, i see the parents trying to reason with their child and if it fails, the parents will end up being firm. and if the child continue to cry, the parents will just leave them be. so, most caucasian families do not have crying babies but babies that, in a way, behave rather "maturely".

well... these are just observations of the behaviours of the different broad racial groupings. i do think the different responses is a reflection of the different cultures. interesting right? so... for me naturally, whenever i hear kids wailing, my natural quick conclusion would be - must be indian babies. what do you think? do you have similar observations?

52nd national day

today the country celebrates its 52nd national day. 

for me, it is a day to simply chill and relax. decide to just not do any work and give myself a mental break. have been working 18-hour days almost daily and that is not good. kinda crazy pace at this point in time and didn't help that i had 2 less people to work on the kpis. just have to pull up my socks and push on...

gonna sleep early and see how it goes. i might just wake up at 4am again...

fire & fury

i am shock to hear such words coming from the man himself. such words do not feature in diplomacy in my opinion, or rather, should be used only when relationships are in such dire state that the next option is war itself. it will be really catastrophic if the world gets drawn in all because of the loose tongue one old man who is taking some risks and playing some political games according to his own rules.

then again, i might have to reserve my comments as i do not know the whole story. but whatever it is, the fact that we have senior officials warning that such words are irresponsible says a lot about the man himself and the state of internal affairs by itself. not very assuring. and certainly not something that we expect from a country that everyone had, until jan 17, look up as the leader of many things. interesting and tough times...

let's see what happens next.

the dark tower

watched this movie on friday night. was totally tired out given the very intense week but was adamant to watch it as i wanted desperately to have a good early start to the weekend. so, nothing beats going for a show friday night. surprisingly, it was a good and interesting fantasy show. it had elements of science (portals, inter-stellar travels, space, etc) as well as superstition/ religion (devils, myths, monsters, etc). and it was really ingenious, the way stephen king, the author of the story, weaved in all these details.

great show to watch!