crazy work place

the following are some of my work environment that i feel is getting out of hand and it is to a huge extend a result of management's fault:

• 3 years ago, we redesigned and implemented a new curriculum
  
• our manpower was subsequently `right-sized' (read - manpower cut) cos the new curriculum was supposed to be more streamlined
• a third of the new curriculum had been given to external tertiary professors to conduct
  
• with this change, our instructional development teams got disbanded
  
• apart from teaching, instructors also take on the role of instructional development. this was possible cos of the time released by engaging external professionals
  
• our co-ordinating office manpower was also reduced
  
• over the last 3 years, things slowly got into place when...

a new management came in mid this year. this new management is totally not in touch with the ground. and to make things worst, what is happening now seemed that new management seemed too eager to please higher management. also, as a show of support for the organisation, the new management felt strongly that we should actively reach out and increase our engagement to the organization. this created a tremendous strain on the existing set of people in college. next year, the new management has set the following new directions for current instructors:

• all instructors must now physically conduct and facilitate classes, especially for those that had been given to external tertiary institutes to conduct - reasons of leadership (to me, credibility and ownership of subject matter expertise is more important. leadership is but an escape clause)
  
• with no instructional design teams, all instructors have been roped in to the redesigning of a new curriculum that new management has been tasked to look into by higher management
  
• this new curriculum is intended to be in place by 2009. but for 2008, all current teaching materials and lesson plans have to be redesigned and streamlined further so as to make the current curriculum more relevant (wtf!)
  
• the current course capacity will be increased by about 20 - 30% but there will not no increase in instructors
  

despite our feedback abt the strain, the common liner by management has been that we should move out of the old paradigm and start to live in the new paradigm... and much as we tried, it is just not possible to meet the extra demands. our work now has resulted in many of us working till pass-10pm at a higher frequency these days... to make things worst, i also observe the following interesting phenomenon creeping into the college:

• the principal-equivalent (aka management) trying to micromanage the instructors (teacher-equivalent)
• the hod-equivalent (aka my immediate boss) who is not too in-the-know about how to manage the instructors and behave more like a principal
• another hod-equivalent who has been put in charge of running the course had also pulled 2 instructors (out of the 15 or so) to become his deputy - one for admin and one for education (read - paper writing)
  
• of these 2 instructors pulled out to help out with admin and paper writing know next to nothing about running classes - both have the reputation of being absent all the time. their class have gone to the extend of naming their class as the no-instructor class and/or go on a self-drive.
  
• all these amidst a turn over of some 20-30% of current set of instructors and management is looking at transferring their responsibilities to those remaining

it is no wonder that all those remaining behind - even those who have thus far been very committed and professional in their roles as instructors - are starting to talk about resigning... and i am glad i only have one more year to go...

it's official - singapore has legalised discrimination

it's a catchy title no doubt. but the start of having a law that formally criminalised one minority from the majority signals the start of discrimination in singapore, regardless of how we define this word `minority'. for today, it's gays, what about tomorrow?...

the pledge has got no more meaning to me and henceforth, i will no longer recite the singapore pledge.

i am not against the status quo to respect the majority's view and the continuation of progressing as the society matures, but i am, for one, a strong advocate of equality. if we want to keep 377a, then, let's keep 377. and if we want to repeal 377, then let's repeal 377a. we should be gender neutral. the act of the cock penetrating the anus (or into someone's mouth) remains unchanged, regardless of whether the anus or mouth belongs to a male or female. and i am sure, everyone, regardless sexuality, education or religious background, practices it (for that matter, even professors - both males and females).

the whole issue, was, in the first place, started by some minister who made an issue out of 377. if this issue had not started, it wouldn't have have divided the society in the first place. it wouldn't have created such a stir in the first place. it tells me that when our law-makers review the penal code, it is not based on principles of what we have been told - principles of democracy, equality, justice and so on... but rather, it is based on the `whims and fancies' or who calls the shots and perhaps possible impact on their votes in the next general election. it was so obvious to me when this whole motion was initiated by an nmp in the first place. and that even the opposition had chosen to keep silent or at best maintain a `status quo' don't rock the boat position.

well, watever the case, we have come to where we are today. of cos the other way of looking at it is that the whole debate had created a huge, huge publicity and that it had educated the public abt the plight of gays. it has also unveiled a more frightening finding of our state of social integration and indicators of how some individuals of a particular religious group (read - christians) has made use of their god as an excuse to initiate verbal / hate abuse on their fellow human beings; or for that matter, openly declaring that singapore is a christian state (and that females are inferior to males and so on). there are more than enough hate actions and articulations in the internet by these individuals and for that matter, even quote their church leaders about their anti-sentiments towards gays. it would not be illogical to assume that the government monitored such postings in the internet closely during the period of the discourse on 377a.

with the closure of the penal code debate, i think the ball is in the government's court to apprehend these people who incite hate amongst singaporeans. it is no different from how the government would use the isa to arrest people who incite hate or disinformation on another religion or minority race. if there are no clear actions carried out, it would further reinforce this government's lack of courage to face the current state of affairs and they would have totally lose the moral integrity to look after all of its citizens (regardless of sexuality) equally.

number game

call me too free on a lazy sunday evening... but looking at the number of postings in the keep377a.com and repeal377a.com sites, we can conclude the the majority has actually not spoken, very different from what was claimed by the initiators of keep377a.com. and if silence mean consent, then the majority had actually signaled that 377a should be repealed. let's look at the numbers below. my key assumptions - there are 5% gays in the population, the percentage of people posting against the motion in both website are negligible to the total number of actual postings.

possibility one
key assumption - people in repeal377a are only gays, lesbians and anyone less than perfect straightness and their agenda is nothing but one of gay rights, ie the whole motion is straight vs gay. then for the majority to have spoken, if repeal377a.com has 7500 postings, keep377a.com must have at least 150,000 posts. this is not the case. that is to say, the majority has not spoken as claimed by keep377a.com.

possibility two
key assumption - assuming that out of every 2 gay person, there will be one straight who supports their cause, then we can only consider 2/3 of people in repeal377a are gays, lesbians and anyone less than perfect straightness. as such, for the gay agenda to be the argument as the key motive for the repeal377a.com postings, we can only consider 5000 (2/3 of the 7500 postings) to be `qualified'. using the same 5% gays in the population, then we should have 100,000 postings in keep377a.com to consider the majority to have spoken. again, this is not the case.

possibility three
key assumption - assuming that out of every gay person who made the repeal377a.com posting, there is an equal proportion of supporter. as such, using the same argument as above, for the gay agenda to be the argument as the key motive for the repeal377a.com postings, we can only consider 3750 (1/2 of the 7500 postings) to be `qualified'. using the same 5% gays in the population, then we should have 75,000 postings in keep377a.com to consider the majority to have spoken. again, this is not the case.

and even if i were to adopt a 10% gay population (which the straight people will probably freak out), the numbers still lean towards a majority wanting to repeal 377a! or perhaps, the majority has actually agreed that this is an equality issue and not merely a gay issue?

how's that? the cynic in me tells me that in politics, statistics like this can be twisted and argued to suit what the people in power wants. let's wait and see. i don't have much hopes in this set of people. then again, when you are already the underdog, you have nothing to lose :-)

evil me...

somehow, the evil in me actually wish that 377a will not be repealed... cos with such a heightened profile both locally and internationally, if it stays, it means the country has created a new group of people, a group called the discriminated. singapore will henceforth never ever be called a fair country. and the country will now have a new stigma in the world. and this indirectly gives us a louder voice. this is my evil side speaking and thinking aloud. go on, keep it. if it is repealed, many of my friends will have nothing more to do :-)

also, if the people who posted ultra-religious views in the net are not apprehended, singapore will also be branded as a country that condone such extreme religious/ hate views by a certain group. this will do big time damage to social fabric and also the image of this otherwise clean and perfect country in the world.

perhaps this is just an indicator of the fatigue that i am feeling after observing the episode unfold since many months back. i cannot wait for an end of this episode.

our time will come

i do not think 377a will be repealed despite all these hype. but the process of trying to get it repealed itself has achieved the purpose of raising the awareness amongst singaporeans. and of course the keep377a has unveiled a more serious confidence issue in the society.

this episode also tells me the time will surely come when 377a will be repealed. and i am very very confident about this. there are sufficient indicators - a look at the typical profile of the people asking for it to be repealed suggests it to be so - eg while it cuts across all race, religion, sexuality and age, we also see a very high degree of students who had posted. and the profile of these students cuts across the whole spectrum of the society. give it 10 years plus minus. when the current team of politicians make way for a new team, when these students move into positions of power, when the population gets more exposed to the world. when singapore gets more globalize. when singapore becomes more cosmopolitan. 377a will definitely be 377a-bolished.

it is not a matter of whether it will be, it is a matter of when. and i am sure our leaders see it coming. and perhaps, just maybe, that is it is a case of our politicians trying to find a fine balance and calibrating how it can be open up yet keeping the larger population quiet and taking into considerations the political costs in the next elections.

as i have said before, with or without it, life goes on.

invisible monsters

there are monsters. monsters that walk and dwell amongst us... and often we do not or worst, we choose not to see and acknowledge its existence. and when the monster finally consumes us, it is too late... i call these the invisible monsters...

this was the case when there were signs of ideological extremist who used islamic teachings as a platform to mount a terrorist war that resulted in 9/11. did we not see it coming? did we not pick up all the indicators? and regrettably, the peaceful religion of islam was dragged in and it soon developed into what some called a war between christianity and islam. how more wrong can this be? and of cos, it did not help when we have a highly developed country trying to impose it's form of democracy on another country that is totally not ready for it. look at where iraq is today? closer to home, just take a look at philippines. it has all the same structures of what would be seen as a western democratic country - a senate, a president, etc etc etc... but is philippines able to achieve a high quality of life for its people as compared to the western countries? of cos it has all the mechanisms of a full democracy, but so what? many of its people are still living in poor conditions and that living standards are not progressing as fast as some of its asian neighbours.

closer to home, the recent 377a debate showed up something more disturbing. looking and comparing the postings in repeal377a.com and that of keep377a.com websites, it is hard not to observe the following trends:

• profile. the profile of people posting in 377a includes a wide spectrum of the population across race, religion, sexuality, age as well as marital status. however, postings in the keep377a website seemed to be more skewed towards a more christian, married and straight segment of the population.

• confidentiality. ironically, there tend to be more people who indicate a proper name (i would assume it is the name of the person making the posting) in repeal377a.com. comparatively, most of the postings in keep377a.com tend to be under some form of pseudonym. and i don't understand this. if being straight and married is the norm, why the need to hide in the first place? i would have expected a higher percentage of pseudonyms in repeal377a.com instead. no?
  

• tone. the tone of the postings in keep377a.com tend to be very much emotional and dwells on the `what ifs'... comparatively, those who post in repeal377a.com seemed to be more composed and less emotional. and if being emotional is one of the traits of insecurity, then can we say that the postings in keep377a.com suggest that the people who post in the keep377a.com are very insecure?
  

• religion. and one extra worrying trend that i was able to observe is that there is a rampant use of the christian god (compare to the god/s of all other religions) to justify why 377a should be kept in keep377a.com. comparatively, those who post in repeal377a.com seemed to be more arguing from the point of equality and citing objective examples. there is a lot less posting in repeal377a.com about god (or any god for that matter). and to top this off, i see spin off websites/blogs that advocate the use of god's institutes (namely the church) to stage events and protests. ultimate of it all was that there are some posting that uses the christian god as an excuse to express their hatred thereby turning this debate into a hate campaign.

there are many other observations that i have made and i do ask - did the 377a episode unveil a more disturbing observation that in singapore, there is indeed a trend towards christian extremism and religious intolerance in our midst? there was one person that even went to the extent of proclaiming singapore as a christian state, that women should not be allowed to vote, that women should remain subservient to men, etc... looking at the profile of our population, are we seeing an elitist, christian-fanatic group of people that is totally intolerant to other non-christians growing in our midst? i am worried.

i also ask a more fundamental question - in our nation-building efforts that focused so much on racial and religious integration (esp after 9/11), have we missed somethings? have we inadvertently portrayed the threat and focused our attention towards our muslim citizens to the extent that we missed out other religious groups? what and where is our check system?

whatever the outcome of the 377a debate, the whole process is in itself a huge boost and success insofar as raising the awareness of gays and their plight in singapore is concerned. most importantly, to me, the biggest takeaway for us as a society, if i may suggest, is the revealing of the many monsters that exist in our midst; and that, if not nibbed at its bud, might tear our society apart eventually. i really think the authorities better look and scrutinize some of these issues than just treat this as a gay rights/ equality issue.

theory vs practical, head vs tail

it's been a really really terrible week for me. expected it to be so. but did not expect it to be so so so so terrible. it's one thing after another at work and having to cover for one after another. came home close to midnight every night since the start of the new course.

downsizing and rightsizing? and rightsizing to rationalize manpower requirements and optimize ops cost? well, all sound good and logical from an organisational management point of view. but regrettably, when it comes to the crunch, and where people are assessed by their ability to implement new things, invariably, it will boil down to imposing new objectives, new demands on the people at the end of the food chain.

and there is a limit to this. if not managed well, things will one day just collapse and come to a stand still. that, it perhaps what is happening now. everything that management wants, it's ok. and this ended up with everyone being drawn to all different directions. there is absolutely no capacity anymore to do what we are supposed to do. as trainers, we are now everything but trainers. yet, the direction is that we have to be with our trainees all the time to coach and guide the learning process. how? how? how to manage?

we cannot expect rightsizing to mean we can do news things immediately. we need new processes, we need new solutions, and even if there are new procedures drawn out, it needs time to stabilize. it needs time to reach an equilibrium.

these are basic management axioms. but sadly management does not realize this.

rat race...

i miss ron...

i was so elated when i opened my post-box last afternoon. i instantly recognized that handwriting on the envelop and felt it was really god-sent to receive something from someone whom I have tried to write to, search for for the last few years! the envelop bore kathy's handwriting but the letter itself had been typed out and printed. my happiness was short-lived when i read the letter. i felt a lump in my throat.

the year was 1993. i had been sent to canungra, queensland for a course. canungra was in the mountains about 45 min drive from brisbane. 5 min from my school was this little convenient store that i would frequent to get my groceries and stuff. one fine day, on my way back to my dorm, i saw this chinese lady by the side of the road. seeing an asian in a predominantly ang-mo country was certainly refreshing and quite surprising for me, and i guessed for her too. we exchanged smiles and self-introduced. she told me she was waiting for her husband ron. that chance encounter was the start of a very warm and endearing friendship that i shared with them both. kathy and ron would bring me around brisbane on weekends for barbeques, shopping etc. kathy would also cook me all her malaysian specialities on evenings when i was free. she took it upon herself to make me feel at home. to me, kathy and ron were my family and their home was my home, away from my home.

we kept in touch after my 6 weeks stay in australia. they had a child, natasha, 2 years later and they brought her to visit me in 2000. that was the last time we corresponded. we lost contact after that. my attempts to trace them thru emails, etc did not meet with any success. i had left their address stucked on my notice board and frequently i would see it and wondered how they were. other than that, i knew i would never be able to trace them again.

until i received the letter.

when i read the letter, i was shocked and so very affected to learn of ron's passing on. he had a heart attack 3 years ago and left behind kathy and 9-yr old tasha. it broke my heart to learn that someone whom i really cherished had left this world and i had not been able to keep in touch with him all these while. the rest of my day was in the pits.

nonetheless, i was glad that i am able to reconnect with kathy. i wrote her an email in the evening and managed to get a reply today. kathy told me that ron became a buddhist before he died. his ashes had been placed around the world. kathy has since moved on and she is slowly piecing her life together again.

to ron, rest in peace. and to kathy, i wish her well.

stupid?

for the longest time, i have been a highly disciplined person. one who's values and priorities are totally aligned to my organisation. and sometimes, i wonder if, in doing so, i am just plain stupid...

my grumpy dad

i came back from my weekly marketing this morning to find my dad grumbling away... issues from long time ago such as how some of his frds would only visit during chinese new year, how my uncle would speak bad of my mum behind her back, la la la... and together with his long strings of hokkien expletives came out...

i was not really prepared for this on a nice sunday morning. nonetheless, i chatted with him and whenever i can, i attempted to calm him down and tried to tell him nicely that he should not jump to conclusions of why some things happened in the past and perhaps there are other reasons why these things happened the way it did.

my mum, on the other hand, was not so patient. she snapped at him and told him off for being consistently grumpy. she told me that of late, he has been grumbling and has been talking about issues that happened years ago, as long as when 20-30 years back... and when i heard what my mum said, i got worried. perhaps i was jumping to conclusions, but what i have learnt so far is that it is not a good sign when old people begins to talk and grumble about their past.

i hope i am wrong.

'cuse me again

paid a visit to my doctor this morning for me regular check-up. told him of my recent periodic check-up with my company doctor and about the hearing loss.

he seemed worried and shared with me that there are many possible causes for such hearing losses. one possibility could be that there is a cancerous growth on one of my hearing nerves. and usually such growths are benign. nonetheless, trends have shown that such cancerous growth will grow and may complicate matters. and to treat it, it would usually involve undergoing an operation to remove the growth. nonetheless, he advised me to go for all the test possible first before making any conclusions.

so, in the meantime, i will have to wait for my follow-up checks...

managing relationships

managing relationships have been on my mind for the longest time ever and today, i decide that i will write something about it. it may come across as disorganised, but hmmm, i need to start somewhere rite? so here goes...

i am that kinda person who would withdraw into myself when things around me stresses me out (esp when people behave in the manner that does not commensurate with my expectations). when this happens, the turtle personality in me would take over. it is the kinda personality that chooses to withdraw into oneself and that would enter into a reflective mode to analyze why things did not go the way i envisage it would go. and often my reflective mode upsets people. and i really wish that when i get into such reflective self, i could be left alone so that i can sensemake peacefully.

people who donno me calls me moody and that i have many mood-swings and then they get upset and starts to question/ confront me. this would only make me withdraw further and often actually become moody in the process. i would very much prefer if the person can assure me calmly and talk it through with me. and of cos a hug or a cuddle would be most appreciated. anyway, when i emerge from my reflective mode, i would have already concluded how i should tackle such situation when it arise again in future. and often, i find myself getting into a self-blame mode and if the tension was due to my behaviour, i will end up choosing not to behave the same in future.... in short, i get more and more jaded...

this perhaps explain how one person's behaviour can be shaped and changed over time by the people he hangs around with. often, when a person is faced with an environment that does not live up to his expectations, he either adapt or withdraws, or worst still, withdraws and tries to adapt. and the same dynamics also occurs internally in the opposite party. and depending on how each other interpret and receives each other's change in behaviour, tension may arise. this tension must be removed for if this tension is not clarified, it will built and grow...

overtime, the tension will reach a tipping point where everything will break loose... that is where arguments, fights, disputes, or even relationships will break. so there is a lot of truth in the saying that `one should not go to bed with his partner if there is a hanging tension'.

my conclusion is that, the tension is created due to the differences of perspectives between the 2 persons. and this is to be so becos both are borned of different parents and have gone thru different life's experiences. therefore, both needs to communicate (now, this is a big word that no two person has the same definition). both needs to clarify the source of the tensions. take away all the inferences, assumptions and anger and drill down to the crux of the matter - be it sexual needs, differences in intellectual capacity, attitude to specific issues, etc... ultimately, both may not agree, but at least both will have a better clarity of the source of frustration/ tension. also, make the communication explicit.

don't assume that everything u do is understood or perceived by the opposite party to be the way you intended it to be. assuming makes an ass out of both parties. and often, it is not how much you do or say, but rather, how you make the other party feel that is important. and when you do this, make sure the other party understand ur purpose/ agenda. again, don't assume the other party understands ur actions. don't take the chance. this clarity will make the effort to adapt easier - eg you cannot say `i want you to communicate' or for that matter, communicate intellectually, and expect it to happen suddenly. you need to help nurture it, you need to help the other party. and that, is where the actual communication process comes in - it is abt communication & not conversation. communication is a process, not an end-state.

and despite all this, if one party refuses to bulge or expect a change without lending a hand to the other party during the process, there will be no solution. it will only end up with the both parties getting more tense. a relationship is not much different from a transaction. both sides need to negotiate. and for that matter negotiate on a win-win basis. and to be able to do this effectively, the layers of assumptions need to be taken away and the empirical factors involving individual needs must be made explicit. often, one tends to be more critical about his own partner as compared to his friends. why is this so? one should never take the relationship for granted.

eugene once told me this 3 yrs back - in a relationship, both parties need to grow. and i do add here - that both parties need to help each other grow. to make a relationship work, you need to take cognizance of these 2 points and prioritize your resources (time, money, effort...) accordingly. work towards going into a positive cycle where ur efforts will result in the opposite party's effort and in turn drive your effort. avoid going down the negative effort spiral. once you hit the negative spiral, it is difficult to go up. it takes two hands to clap. if one hand refuse to clap and only focus on one's own needs, the relationship is doomed, either it will break-up or one party will commit suicide.

in a relationship, if one party refuses to do it, it is better to break off early. don't let the tension disguise itself in the form of one-sided accommodation and built over time. you will be robbing each other of the time that could have been better spent on someone else. and it is detrimental to both parties. short term pain for long term gain - sounds familiar?

finally got this written down. it is easier to write about it retrospectively and i admit i have, as one of the two clapping hands, contributed to the failure of my relationship. and from this perspective, i would also want to suggest that there is also some truth in the phrase that says - with age, comes wisdom... or to reword and to take away implied assumptions that age equates to experience - with experience, comes wisdom.

do i make sense?

my dad's birthday

tomorrow is my dad's 74th birthday* and i actually forgot abt it... until my brother-in-law text me and suggested going out for dinner! wtf! angry with myself.

* actually tomorrow is not the actual date. none of us actually know the actual date cos my grandma smuggled my dad to singapore from china and when she registered his birth here, he was already one year old. that means, he should actually be 75 years old around this time... and for purpose of referencing, we all agree that 3rd oct will be his birthday, but we will count from 1932 and not 1933 when he was registered officially... but all's not lost cos we know his lunar birth date and that he was born in the year of the monkey :-) complicated hor?...

exhausted

sometimes one can get so exhausted mentally & emotionally that one just wants to take a break from life... and that is how i am feeling now. guess it must be the stress that has been building up, especially since last month. tying loose ends of the last course, managing a new course, doing my masters, planning for a new course in 2009, awaiting and preparing for next year's course, having a new boss, having a new boss's boss, etc... and to top it off, planning and seeing the end of my current career nearing... and not being able to prioritize my time to attend to managing it... can be so overwhelming...

yet, no one seemed to understand...

refreshing article

too much rantings abt gays and lesbians and same sex stuff these days in the open media. and often, it is from a very one-sided angle. i get rather exhausted reading all these writings. too skewed, too one-sided and often laced with loads of remarks that reek of discrimination & homophobia. str8 people trying to justify why this should not be done and that should not be done. all sound so righteous from a str8's point of view. but so bloody discriminating from a gay's perspective. and on the other hand, gays (largely gays) who went on and on about how they want to get 377a off, etc etc etc... and often, it come across as too gay-sided too. also, very tiring.

and last night, as i flipped thru the strait's times, i chanced upon and article abt homosexuality by t wong. it was about how she has a frd mark & how she, through time, realised that her views on homosexuality had been coloured by prejudices and homophobia. the article also spoke of how she eventually came to accept mark as a person - for what he is worth, not coloured by his sexuality. it was such a refreshing article. one that brings things down to the human-level, to a very personal-level. a level that recognizes that hey, homosexuals are no different from anyone else.

i ended up getting out of bed to pen a thank you mail to her.

friends, health & idiotic motorcyclists

some tidbits to capture the last couple of days...

• made a new buddy dennis. v nice person. was good chatting with him over the past couple of days.

• hooked up and corresponded with a person who was able to discuss at length abt life - including my past and about relationship, etc. i shall not describe nor name this person (abc) as i do not want to cause any discomfort in the dynamics between abc and abc's friends. am appreciative of abc's effort to share views about my relationship and my tensions. very objective based on what i have furnished. anyway... thanks abc. you know who you are.

• went for my medical check-up round up. no big surprises - high cholesterol (needs to maintain compliance for my medication), loss of hearing (needs follow-up with a specialist), no relapse of my black-out/ epileptic spells and asthma for the last 2 years (and that is a good sign). my only peave was the medical officer aka doctor... he seemed so totally bo-chup (nonchalant, don't care attitude) during the whole consultation and he even had the audacity to answer phone calls (3 calls for that matter) during that less than 10 min consultation (how urgent can a call be if he went something like - hullo! who is that? arhhh... ok... oh... hi. i don't know leh... maybe lor... ok, we'll see ya?.. alright... byeeeeeeee...) is it me getting old? or is it that doctors nowadays are getting less professional in their conduct?... so unbecoming.

• had a frustrating encounter with a motorcyclist (think his bike registration number is ft 150) last evening on sheares bridge. you see, these days, after drawing 4 lanes out of the original 3 lanes, the lanes have become narrower. and this made the squeezing between cars v v v difficult for motocyclists. wat happened was that i had this guy who tried to squeeze between me and the car beside me. as he got too close to my comfort, i honked at him - a short beep-honk type of honk, not the long blasting hey-you-fucking-knnbccb!!!-type. anyway, he took offence, rode his bike in front of my car and slowed down to 10km/hr. and when i tried to change lanes, he did the same, and this went on and on, change to left, change to right, etc for a whole stretch of distance from the top of sheares bridge to the fort road exit. i was so frustrated i really wanted to knock him down and hopefully kill that bastard! for that moment, i could feel my heart pounding furiously it almost took control of my brain. ultimately, logic prevails. i exited from fort road to allow myself to cool down before i really end up killing him...

happy children's day

today is children's day. and invariably, the children's day song will ring in my ears (see below). i simply love this song... we would sing it once a year during children's day and i think many of us singaporeans would be able to associate our childhood with this song. and often i wonder how many children (or for that matter, singaporeans - adults inclusive) actually understand and appreciate the meaning and the values that had been weaved into the song. and tis morning, my frd dennis confirmed my thots... v farnie...

well, here is a short clip from our chat:

xxx says:
hey, happy children's day
dennis says:
happy children day too
xxx says:
heh heh... sama sama maju kehadapan....
dennis says:
pe lang ja lee pen lang ja la..
dennis says:
not correct lyrics
dennis says:
but i thinki its how it sounds like
dennis says:
I LOVE this song last time in pri school
xxx says:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.......
dennis says:
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHH
xxx says:
it is SOOSOSOSOSOSO farnie
xxx says:
now i can see a non malay interpreting his malay song
dennis says:
yes, only one of my close fren from uni remember this song too. and we kept wonderinng whether there is an mp3 version we can download
dennis says:
LOL




semoga bahagia
sama-sama maju ke hadapan
pandai cari pelajaran
jaga diri dalam kesihatan
serta sopan-santun dengan kawan-kawan
dengan hati bersih serta suci
sama-sama hormat dan berbudi
jaga tingkah pemuda-pemudi
adat dan budaya junjung tinggi
capailah lekas cita-cita pemudi-pemuda
supaya kita ada harga di mata dunia
kalau kita lengah serta lupa
hidup kita sia-sia
jiwa besar sihat serta segar
rajin dengan sabar tentu bahagia
lemah lembut perangai pemudi
cergas tangkas wataknya pemuda
suka rela selalu berbakti
sikap yang pembela dan berjasa
capailah nama yang mulia pemudi-pemuda
rajinlah supaya berjaya semoga bahagia

English translation
may you achieve happiness
together we progress
clever at seeking knowledge
take care of your health
and be courteous to your friends
with a clean and pure heart
we respect and do good to each other
watch your behaviour, oh youths
respect and honour your customs and traditions
quickly reach your goals/dreams, oh youths
so that we'll have our worth, in this world
if we are lazy and forgetful
our lives are worthless
a big heart and a fresh mind
hardworking and patience definitely brings success/happiness
soft-spoken is the lady
energetic and tenacious is the man
charitable, always contributing
having a righteous spirit and doing good
attain a respectable position, oh youths
be hardworking so that you will succeed, may you achieve happiness

career options

attended a 2-day workshop on managing career transition and as part of the programme, i had to participate in a survey. the survey helps to surface, to the individual's awareness, his strength, weaknesses, interests and affinity towards a particular field of jobs... and interestingly, i discovered/ reaffirmed the following:

• i do well in people-related jobs (despite the fact that all my personality surveys tell me i am a v v v introverted & reflective person), leading teams, etc. some suggested areas that can be considered my strengths are in coaching, team-building, facilitating & leading.

• the fields that i am least suited for include those related to the arts, literary, scientific research, fields that requires me to strategize... (may be that's why james always had tensions with me when it came to literary stuff! it's just not me! hmmm, i was so rite when i told him to stop trying to make me be like him)

• the fields that i am most suited include those that deal with knowledge-specialist areas, jobs that has a high-level of social service-relatedness as well as jobs that has a high degree of being outside (outdoor activities-based).

and coupled with a few other factors surveyed, it suggested that i should look at events management-related, education/ training-related, social service management, administration management-related fields... so what other jobs are there that suits these description?

lots of food for thought!

legendary courtesan

managed to catch the show `hwang jin-yi' last evening. the show was based on a legendary courtesan who lived in 16th century korea. overall, i found the show quite boring, felt more like a tv serial. but assuming the show has done sufficient research to accurately portray 16th century korea - it's culture, costume, people, etc, i must say i was quite impressed and have actually learned a bit more abt it. also, i was rather awed by the beautiful hanbok as well as the very very big and beautiful hairdo - very drama :-)

freaking shagged out!

it's been a freaking busy week... co-ordinating learning activities for the new course, external lecturers who're the who's who in their respective fields coming in to lecture/dialogue with the course, discussions and plenaries, etc... and to top it off, half of my fellow colleagues involved in facilitating their respective classes were either sick, involved in external meetings or managing their out of college obligations. and all these means i have to pow-kah-liao (do everything).

and really, at one stage, i was running across all 9 classes! topping if off, i had to be involved in curriculum review discussion for the course in 2009 as well as deconflicting the requirements for the coming course in Oct 07! also, the week coincided with my career transition workshop! it was pure mayhem! i saw the same for my colleagues and witnessed angers flaring, tensions etc. so much so for transforming to create capacity for future! cut training staff, cut curriculum development personnel, cut learning & admin support staff, expand curriculum demands and expect the smaller pool of staff to deliver significantly more. really think we are bluffing ourselves!

anyway, to cut the long story short, it had been a freaking shagged week and am i glad weekend is finally here!

omg!!!

i received an auto-generated message in my email recently from someone from fridae. well, not a big and surprising thing considering i get these `thank you'-type or `hi'-type of messages from people i do not know once a while... the person said he had read my blog and liked the way i put things... what i found most interesting abt the mail was the tone of the message... it sounded very warm and in a very `i-know-you' kinda manner. but of cos, i did not and could pay much attention to it as i was not able to log in to my fridae in office due to the firewalls etc...

and when i opened my fridae acct last evening, i almost freaked out. the face i saw staring at me was that of charles's best friend - someone whom i considered attractive and had also told charles about... and had asked charles to keep it between two of us (you know, it was the `tell-but-don-tell' kinda thing). and when i saw his face, i knew at that moment that charles had leaked it out and i was like going omg! omg! omg! :-) it was so embarrassing! so unbecoming rite? a 40-over year old man still behaving like a teenager... so funny... anyway, learnt from charles later that he had told his best frd abt me and had been `forced at gunpoint' to reveal my blog url... and then everything fell in place...

but i must say, i still don't believe charles when he told me he said nothing at all abt me... :-)

then again, i am glad i have made a new friend! oh, i am such a slut! ;-)

from a kampong boy to a hdb flat kid...

the years 1973 - 1974 marked my no-turning back transition from a kampong boy to become the typical urban-creature that so characterise almost all singaporeans today.

by mid-73, due to the mass re-deployment of the population to government's relocation order as a result of the mass housing programme, we had to vacate our kampong (and might as well for things were also getting a bit uneasy with the not-too-friendly neighbours in the kampong). my dad was told he had successfully balloted for a flat in marine parade. the flat would only be ready in jun 74. in order to give me and my sisters a seamless year in school, my parents decided that we had to transfer school and start term in the new school term come jan 74. and naturally, my dad decided to rent a room in his friend's house in joo chiat - a place that was a mere 5-min from my pri school and less than half hour walking distance to our new flat. i remembered leaving my kampong with a heavy heart for i had planted a mango seedling hoping to enjoy the fruits one day. when i left, the seedling was as tall as me. to a 6-plus year-old me, it was my everything. that was also my first experience with loss... and heartbreak.

the joo chiat place residence was an old bungalow that had been converted to a metal recycling factory (in hokkien, we call it the chow-ti-long). the whole place was filled with old discarded metal items savaged from all over the area. and because of the rust and the thick black oil / grease used, the whole place smelled heavily of metal. i use metal as a descriptor here for i cannot find a more accurate adjective for it. i wouldn't call it an unpleasant nor good-smelling. but it certainly reek of a distinct smell that is somewhere between that of rancid oil/ grease and that of freshly-produced metal sheets. and given a choice, many people would not want to stay in it for too long nor be associated with it. despite this, my brother and i played catching amongst these waste metal parts, climbed all over the metal beams and make a lot of noise (well, which 7 and 4 year olds do not make noise rite? :-)... ) however, my dad's plan to stay there till the marine parade flat was ready was disrupted when my dad's friends complained we were too noisy. in the end, we had to move to my second aunt's place in toa payoh.

toa payoh (omg! i just found out from wiki that the name means `the big swamp'!) was a new hdb satellite town then. everything was modern and hip - from hawker centers to community centers to shopping centers - could be found in toa payoh. but to me, this also meant long bus-rides to and fro my school in telok kurau. the daily 5.45am bus trips on service 152 took me through pig and poultry (chicken & ducks) farms and swampy areas that spotted the potong pasir areas at the outskirts of toa payoh. i still recall the daily distinct farm-smell (some called it kueh-sai bi or chicken-shit smell) and sights of morning mists lifting from the kampongs. those were perhaps the only few things i could remember cos i would be dead asleep through most of the journey... the early morning journeys ended in jun 1974 when we finally moved to marine parade.

today, the swampy areas has been filled and has been replaced with the central expressway (cte). the places where smelly farms used to be has been occupied by the multi-storeyed comfort-delgro transport company building. nonetheless, whenever i travel pass by the area, the memories of the smells and sights still return.

wtf! i feel the earth move...

been superbly superbly busy with work. end of one course last week, last minute co-ordination for new course next week, preparing for another course starting oct, and then discussing new curriculum for the 2009 course! all coming together! and amidst all these, i have to attend to my masters module!

and here i am, was not in a terribly good mood these fews days. so i decided to take a day off today to relax my mind and to ease things off a bit. and what do i get? - this steeeeeeewwwwwwwpid neighbour's apartment below mine undergoing renovation! and at least 2 pneumatic drills are going drrrrr-drrrr--drrrrr---drrrrrr at the same time!!! at top volume too!

wtf! wtf! wtf!

habits...

oh it's so hard to wean off a habit...

reddish

finally had the chance to sit down and have a proper dinner with reddish. it's been almost 4 years since we started corresponding with each other - first thru fridae, then sms, and then the occasional chancing on each other at the pool and it's always the `ok-let's-meet-sometime' kinda thing whenever we bump into one another... until 2 weeks back... when we decided it's time to act on it! v nice evening chatting and catching up and getting to know each other better. but i must say that it's kinda weird cos after all these years of chatting/sms-ing, when you finally meet the person face-to-face, it's like getting to know him all over again! :-)

but it's a nice feeling after all. making a new connection. makes one feel alive and kicking!

arctic tale

it was amazing how the producers managed to capture the close up shots of the bears and the walruses. some of the scenes really made one wonder how it could ever be done! eg, baby polar bears barely being borned, walruses mating, etc... from this aspect, it was certainly an eye-opening and at the same time educational experience for me.

the way the story was told, it touched the hearts of many viewers. polar bears and walruses that were to become the key characters of the show (never mind that they were actually composite animals captured and stitched together to make a congruent story) were given names. those without names were the `supporting-casts' and it's kinda expected that in the end, they either leave the show quietly or they get killed - eg by starvation or became prey to a stronger predator... and by naming the key characters, the producers had successfully put a human front to the animals. and by showing scenes that touches one's more affective side such as animal mating, mother protecting the young, training the young, etc. and i could hear many sniffles amongst the audiences when something tragic happen to the animals. often, i had to remind myself that - hey, this is the animal world, it's survival of the fittest. if you are weak, you die. simple as that...

nonetheless, the show did successfully bring across a more worrisome message - that of global warming, of how we human have contributed to it and how it is affecting the lives of many many other species of animals that share this fragile global ecosystem with us.

overall, i found it an educational experience. not as impactful as march of the penguin, but it has it's own charm. i do also wonder - did the producers actually let the polar bear cub die of hunger? if they did, are they not guilty of murder? they could have provided some food for the cub and saved it. ethical issues... i have no answers.

azur & asmar

watched azur & asmar on sat nite. it was such a colourful show! nonetheless, the story came across as a bit weird for in the end, according to one of the girls who exclaimed as she walked out of the cinema: "wow! it's like a united nations lor, each one fucking each other's woman lor..." well, not really, not in that crude manner. let me explain...

the story goes something like that... an arab nursemaid raises azur, the son of a french lord, and asmar, her own son. the two boys were as close as brothers despite the fact that one was white and the other coloured (arab/ middle eastern). the nursemaid would tell them bedtime stories, one of which was about the legendary "beautiful fairy of the djinns" from her homeland. she would tell tales of how many had ventured into the land of the djinns and fighting with magical creatures in order to gain the fairy's hand in marriage. both boys grew up, building a bond closer than that of friends. it so happened that one day, with the intent to stop asmar's bad influences (`bad' in the eyes of the status-conscious french lord) on azur, the lord decided to send away azur his son to town, and thereafter dismissed the nursemaid & asmar. the heartbroken azur grew up, convinced that he will one day crossed the sea to look for asmar.

well, the story was rather straight forward. after their reunion, azur & asmar embarked on the journey to win the heart of the "fairy of the djinns". they eventually found the fairy. the thing was, the fairy looked of arabic descent and given that both arrived at the same time, it was not possible for her to marry both. and after a long period of indecision, she asked for one of her fellow-fairies (her cousin - and a white one!) to help. eventually what turned out was, instead of helping her decide, the white fairy picked the the coloured asmar as her beau while the coloured fairy chose the white azur... oh, and for that matter, even asmar's mother also paired up with a french beggar... this ending was a li'l weird i must say and i guess it's a bit hard to swallow. so now, you understand why the girl exclaimed as such :-)

nonetheless, it was a really visually stunning show. love it! magical!

my best friend

it was a pleasant weekend despite all the rush. bs sent me a mail on thur abt his return from korea for his bro's wedding on sat. and i had to readjust all my weekend schedules... well, not much of a schedule in the first place other than having to attend an ex-staff's daughter's wedding dinner on sunday nite. anyway, bs returned on fri night. so, it was a big rush from collin's birthday dinner to the airport, picked bs up and sent him home. didn't feel too easy attending his bro's wedding despite him asking, never felt very comfortable abt weddings, well, u know... the usual questions will be asked. anyway, i felt bad turning down the invite and could sense his disappointment. nonetheless, met up with him and his whole family for sunday lunch followed by doing some shopping with them over the afternoon - a family kinda thing before returning home.

went for my ex-staff's daughter's wedding dinner, passed him the ang-pow and rushed off to sent off bs at the airport. this time round, his return was kinda last minute and was quite a rush. and at the airport, i was pleasantly surprised when he placed his hand on my lap occasionally while we talked - just like old days. it was a very warm feeling. a feeling of male-male bonding. nothing erotic. just warm and pure bliss. and for that moment, i was convinced and very happy that my best friend has seen me beyond my sexuality and accepted me for what i am. you see, we had been best of friends since our army days. he has since moved to the states, got married and sired 2 daughters. i came out to him in 2005, my darkest year in my life thus far when i was outed by my company and had subsequently gone into depression. altho he has accepted it, i couldn't help but felt a kinda gap created. but i guess my fears were unfounded after all.

thank you my dear friend.

big bird & elmo

saw this find your character @ brainfall.com site from a friend's (smarty22) bfriend's blog and decided to try out this "which sesame character r u?" test... :-) for the fun of it, not very me, but well, wat the heck rite? considering my bee bee always compare us to bert & ernie... and hey, we found out we are in fact big bird & elmo instead of bert & ernie... :-)

me: "You are Big Bird. You are something of an eccentric, and not everyone always gives you credit for your inventiveness and intelligence. You may not always know everything, but people turn to you for your sound, unique logic. Plus, you have a big heart. Really big."

bee bee: "You are Elmo. You are lovable and ticklish, and always inquisitive. Sometimes, though, your excitement about the world can make you seem childish, naive and occasionally irritating to others."

before & after

sometimes i surprise myself by my own writings. does not sound like me at all. made a comment in one of my friend's blog earlier... and reading it again, i thought to myself - `hey, how in the world could i have written such statements huh?'... anyway, here's wat i wrote - today is `after' framed from the perspective of yesterday but it is `before' framed from the perspective of tomorrow :) enjoy life. live it. flaunt it. anytime is young time. most imptly, learn from it. for today's lesson is a building block for tomorrow's wisdom. be happy.

friends

once a while, like today, i get this feeling that i have lost all my friends. and it's a scary thought. losing friends not by design but by the natural development of things. that over time, with lesser and lesser interactions, people drift, and you eventually loose contact with them.

it's a scary thought. life without friends. for me, a gayman, my friends are my family. my extended family. and this is the same for all glbts i know.

am not sure whether it is due to my being conditioned (self-imposed admittedly) after so long being attached to james who had refused to mix with my friends or a result of being strangled by the commitment i signed not to go to gay places - for it is these places that the define the gay social structure and that allows interaction.

whatever the case, once a while, i am petrified by such thoughts of isolation. for loneliness kills.

the truth hurts

it is not often tat one gets into a situation where he realizes that the country and the system he lives in is not as perfect as he had thought it to be. and that in reality, there are people & organisations within the system that systematically hunt and weed out people like us, puts a gag on us, corner us to a point where we either leave the system or if we choose to stay, become prostitutes of the system.

it was a rude awakening for one of my good friend smarty22 today. for he found out the extent to which this systematic hunt is being carried out. and he cried.

and to think of him crying hurts. it makes me sad. he must have felt v much betrayed. for he, like me, are so so so pro-system. we love our country so much. but, in a way, i was glad that he has been made aware of this rude truth. and am glad that he is now able to better appreciate what i went through. and better understand the depth of my frustrations and tensions.

life goes on. and as i told him - be happy.

of gaymen & asian women

saturday was not a bad day afterall :-)

it was an interesting day... well, apart from waking up early and then going back to sleep, managed to do many things too. let's see, met up with my, lk, lp for lunch to celebrate my's 40th birthday. t'was a good lunch catching up with them - my uni friends (all of them str8) whom i have kept in contact after all these years. anyway, lk and my know abt me and bee bee. but not lp. and despite having gone on holidays with lay pheng in beijing, she has always assumed that we are just nothing but best friends... well, of cos there were frequent questions of why we are so close, etc etc etc...

ok, back to yesterday - ended lunch with dessert at ah teng's cafe. and oh my goodness! there were so many gaymen there. almost every table! but of cos but of cos, perhaps having tea is something that more gaymen indulge in on a lazy weekend afternoons :-) drove lk to work after tea and had a chat with her in the car. we kinda think that gaymen tend to set the trends for many things, even the macho-ones - such as, rollerblading, canoeing, dragon-boating, surf-boarding, gym, etc... in the mid-90s, there were hordes of gaymen rollerblading and jogging on weekends at the east coast fort road area. these days, they have somehow all disappeared and instead, we get gay teams of dragon boaters,... and of cos, according to lk, all you need to get gay men to congregate is to open a gym :-)

caught the afternoon home song stories. a very real and touching but depressing story about a mother's struggles between her own life and desires and bringing up her children. the show was told from the eyes of the 10-year-old son, tom, and centered around how he tried to make sense of his mother's erratic behaviours as she grappled with life by using her body; and how he and his sister were thrust into the harsh realities of the adult world. i could imagine how traumatic it was for the pair to see their mother hanging from the ceiling. the scene that followed showing their helpless & desperate race against time as the sister tried to cut the cord while tom struggled to hold up his mother's limp body was most heart-breaking. i could hear many in the audience sniffling throughout the show. and to me, the show also reminded me of a more serious and sad fact - that of the helplessness of the asian women not too long ago. joan chen pulled off the role excellently. one of her best performance i must say. and i am sure we will be seeing more of the joel tok, the 11-year old boy who played the son. he is just so, soooo innocently cute!!! i enjoyed the show thoroughly.

and to top off the day, bee bee and i went to chinese garden for the lantern festivals... and ended with teochew porridge before heading home.

not too bad a saturday afterall :-)

zzzzzz

so defeated!!!

waking up early, marketing, la la la.... i was so excited abt the early start to the weekend... surprised my parents that i had actually done all my usual weekend morning stuff by 6.30am. cut up all the condiments and ingredients for my zichar hokkien mee. wrote my blog, woke bee bee up for breakfast. wanted to do something different this morning... should i go for a run? should i go for a swim, or hmmm... what should i do, i wondered.

then out of no where, i felt this wave of exhaustion and sleepiness.

and the sky turned dark, darkest ever i have seen for a while (no kidding!). then it starting raining.

such ideal conditions to zzzzzzzzzz.........

then i succumbed and reported to the zee-monster...

(and my bee bee is laughing at me now)

good morning singapore!!!

send off one of my foreign student at the airport at 5am this morning and decided that it's not a good idea to come home to nap again before doing my weekend marketing. so i decided to head straight to the market at just before 6am. not usual for someone who sleeps till 9-ish and heads to markets for breakfast 10-ish every weekend... and hmmm, the last time i went marketing at this god-forsaken time of the morning was when i was in sec school in the late-70/ early-80s :-)

and i was so so so overwhelmed by what i saw when i arrived at the market.

the freshness of the produce! it was like the fishes were shimmering and inviting me to buy them! the fruits & vegetables were all so fresh you can almost smell the morning freshness of the farm! and of cos, the every single store was filled to the brim with produce! and the hawkers were busy arranging the sea bass, the ikan kuning, ikan kurau, ikan selah, the sotongs, prawns, crabs, live frogs, etc etc etc... it was really a sight! and being so early, there was hardly any crowd! such a sight was something that i had not seen for a very long time!

and for that moment, i was lost in time. for that moment, i just stood there, not knowing what to buy, not knowing what i should cook. my senses were so overwhelmed!

good start to the weekend! wooo-hoooooo!!!

ps: since i was so overwhelmed and was so tempted to buy everything, i ended up buying almost nothing! (cannot possibly buy everything rite?) so i decided to cook something simple in the end... zichar hokkien mee :-)

month of life

if aug was a month of birthdays, sep must be a month of life. and i am saying this because in this month alone, i have experiences with all stages of life, in order of sequence - my colleague's wife gave birth last night, next week, i've been invited to attend the wedding of another colleague's son, this week one of my colleague got hospitalised, today is min yee's 40th birthday, two days back was ah bee's father's 60th birthday and finally one of my colleague's mum just passed away and i had just returned from the wake.

birth, process of aging (growth/life), sickness & finally death; it seemed like every stage of life have/will be flashing by me this month... and for that, i shall christen this month, september - the month of life.

dogshit!

since i've been talking so much about shit and that i have recently submitted my stools for tests, i would like to share another incident. thought it was very funny :-)

in end-1999 when james & i had just brought sapphie home, we had a lot of fun looking after her. like new parents, we were totally lost about how to take care of a puppy. and on sapphie's second month, we sent her for a medical check-up and was told that we need to send her stools for tests - think it was for worm test or something like that. of cos, being new and totally uninitiated in the field of collecting dogshit, it was a very challenging tasks for us!

you see, on that fateful morning, i had to convince my baby sapphie to shit on the newspaper in the laundry area (located in the kitchen). it was so difficult! well, after some huge amt of effort, sapphie finally did her business on the newspaper. and of cos, i collected a lump of it and placed it inside a ziploc bag. i went on to clear the soiled newspapers and had to place the ziploc on the kitchen parapet. and of all things to happen, my elbow accidentally pushed the ziploc bag and it dropped down onto the gala pole of a unit 4 levels down!

it was like omg!!! i was really caught between acting blur and going down to get it from the family... if i acted blur, there was really no way to make sapphie shit again! (and the appt time was closing), on the other hand, if i were to knock on the door, it would be most embarassing. can u imagine knocking on the door of a stranger early saturday morning and utter something like - `arrr, auntie, i dropped my dogshit on your laundry and would like to collect it,...' can imagine how awkward it would be?!!! or put urself in the shoes of the auntie... terrible rite?!

problem! problem! such dilemmas... anyway, after lots of deliberation and convincing, james went down to collect the shit for me and all's well that ended well... we got the dogshit, sent it for the test and sapphie was found to be worm-free... it was certainly an interesting incident that had slipped my mind until now when my bee bee started teasing me about collecting my stools over the weekend.... :-)

i hate twitching eyes

enuf said... my left eye has been twitching since yesterday!

& oh, my mum used to tell me that if a person's right eye twitches, it means something good will happen to him. & if it is his left eye, then something bad will happen... :-(

blood & gore

ok, ok... no gore... just shit (omg! i seemed to be talking about shit so much these days!).

you see, i went for the next part of my medical tests today. and i had to collect my stool sample (yes! that is a nice name for `collect shit sample') over the weekend for submission today too... so so so unglam! walking in to the medical center and then it was like `nah! my shit!' well, of cos, i did not say it this way la... will die a most embarrassing death if i were to do that. anyway, i walked into the medical center in a most discreet manner and passed it to the lab personnel... and stood aside while he prepare to suck my blood, well, using the syringe of cos! and the tourniquet the lab guy applied on my arm was so tight it felt like the blood vessels will explode anytime. and pwhhooooooooah!!! it was helluva lot of blood he sucked! a whole syringeful! by the time he finished, my hand felt limp and bloodless! well of cos, the lab guy explained that there are a series of many tests that needed to be done and that explained the huge amount needed :-)

so, for now, i will wait for the results... and of cos await to be scheduled for other checks - still to come - urine tests, bp, bmi, ecg test (i hope i don't do the one where i have to run with all sorts of stuffs stuck onto me!), doctor's interview, etc...

of sight... & excuses

i have asked this some 2-plus years back - are there blind gays? given that looks are so important, i can envisage how challenging life would be like for gays who are blind. not so much whether they can love people for i am damned cock sure they can, but rather, whether people can accept and love blind people given that looks is one super big criteria in the gay circle*. anyway, this is my morning-after reflections after watching `the willow tree' last night.

well, at that time when i asked this question, i had not bothered to research further. today, i did a google on blind gay and am surprised to know that yes, there are indeed blind gay people out there. and for that matter, they were blind from birth/ at such a young age that they have no idea what our world is like. and this hey, doesn't this further reinforce the notion that being gay is in-borne and not nurtured?

and for that matter, how many of us (both str8 & gay alike) view people through coloured and discriminatory lenses (often a result of our ignorance) to the talent and contributions by people (again both str8 & gay) around us? and we choose to disguise these discriminatory lenses by using excuses such as `conservative society', `dangerous', `potential threats', etc...

* here, i am assuming that blind gay people are perhaps not so conscious abt looks to the extend that they put so much energy to pump up their bodies to get the oooohhh -so -toned -& -smooth -an -ant -will -drown -in -perspiration -in -the -abs -crevice type of body!

shit magnet

totally not glam... totally not glam at all! and if the trend goes on, i will probably be known as shit magnet lo! was driving along orchard road again two nights ago and as i pass mandarin hotel, splat!!! a ^%&%$#*^ bomb dropped onto my car windscreen - a huge one too! larger than that one that dropped on my t-shirt couple of days back... (and yes, it's mandarin again!). second time in a week. and last night, when i parked my car after reaching home, i noted that there was a large patch of shit on my bonnet! luckily these two times, it was on my car and not me!

tscerk, tscerk, tscerk*... what the ^&;*$)%W&... if only i have this kinda luck with the lottery!

* henceforth, i shall spell it this way instead of using `tsk tsk tsk'. somehow, `tsk, tsk, tsk' sounds so ang-mo, spelling it this way also sounds more like the `tscerk' sound we always make when we are annoyed... you know... the type that almost always come with an `aiyo-yoooohhh' behind... (can almost picture the cheong-sum-auntie-with-big-mole-on-cheek-wearing-the-60s-pointed-specs- &-knuckles-on-her-waist pose!) oops, reverting to my mama-self again!... but u get the idea!

the willow tree

poignant. powerful. impactful. beautiful. profound. spiritual. simple. what was unsaid was louder than what was said. seeing more when one cannot see. clever use of symbolism. these are some of the adjectives and phrases that i'll use to describe the film `the willow tree' by majid majidi. very good acting by the casts. i was totally blown away by parviz parastui (youssef the lead), roya taymourian (roya the wife) and afarin obeisi (the mother) (pictures above from left to right). my only slight misgiving was that it came across as a bit too righteous. other than that, i was totally overwhelmed. i also came out of the show with a better awareness of iran, its people and its culture; and to a certain extend, a deeper appreciation of islam and the islamic way of life.

charles

chanced upon charles' blog while surfing the net yesterday. so happy. decided to drop him a mail and include him in my msn list... and next thing i know, he logged on! we had a good and nice chat over the msn. it was so nice to be able to reconnect with friends whom you have lost contact with.

anyway, charles was one of my staff some 10 years ago. he was the cutest and of course, one of my favourite. could sense he was gay (and i only learned from our chat yesterday that he only came out and accepted it some couple of years back)... anyway, i kept my distance. i was (and still am) very clear abt the line between work-self and personal-self. at work, i always have a very good working relationship with all my staff and there would be a certain of closeness between them and me to the extend that they could talk to me abt their life, their friends etc. this was the same with charles. and i recalled how he would also seek my opinions about some of his life's directions - like, for example, should he pursue his studies... so glad that he is happy and very successful in his career now! :-)

some recent shows

bourne ultimatum
to me, this is the best amongst the 3 (earlier 2 being bourne identity & bourne supremacy). the pace of the show picked up from the start of the show and went on and on and on... exhilarating! well, of course, there were times during the show that seemed unreal and that seemed like time & space does not exist (like how bourne can run from place to place around at world faster than a decision can be made!). also, doesn't bourne ever need to sleep? but well, this is a show right? just enjoy it! oooohhh, i loved the song & music! (oh, check out the website too, it's really good!)

poltergay
not worth the effort.

the girl who leapt thru time
ok, watched this show 2 months back, but still, i feel the need to write something abt it. so here goes - there were some loose-ends in the story that needs tidying up, but overall, a very enjoyable experience. somehow, i find myself enjoying japanese anime much more than disney/ warner bros,.. perhaps it is the theme of the stories - to me, japanese anime tend to dwell in fantasies that involves adults. and in watching them, it allows me, as an adult, to transit into my child-in-me mode of thoughts. guess it's kinda an escape for me. also the japanese anime production is somewhat more `cartoony' and that it has the charm of the age-old classic hand-drawn cartoon, very unlike western animation today that, apart from the characters, everything else tries to mimic reality, sometimes, so much so that it look and feel like the real stuff.

insomnia

it's getting worst...

jim carrey & suu kyi

"Actor Jim Carrey pleads for Myanmar's Suu Kyi in YouTube..."

with all respect, how much credibility does carrey has? even if he is, in all sense, very serious about wat he said, will people see this appeal as a joke?

god

i must say that most reviewers would not recommend evan almighty if you want quality serious stuff... i was lucky in the sense that i watched the show couple of days back with absolutely no expectations except to relax and have a silly laugh... and the show did not disappoint.

nonetheless, despite all the cranky jokes and the rather weak attempt at re-creating the story of noah's ark (in the modern context), i personally think there was a rather serious message in the show... in the show, mrs evan had prayed to god for a closely knit family. what happened was that eventually, when evan was so caught up with building the ark, mrs evan could not understand him and eventually left him with their 3 sons. god appeared to mrs evan and said something to the effect that when she prayed for a closely knit family, god cannot possibly give it to her.. not in the sense of `nah! give you!' but what happened was that in all that happened, god had created opportunities for the family to build bonds, to stick together, through good and bad times, and in doing so, given them the opportunities to be closely knitted.

i found this conversation very very interesting. for in effect, `god' himself in the show admitted that he has not actually done anything. but in asking for something, the individual has admitted his deficiency/ recognise his desires and more often than not, it is up to the individual's efforts and commitment to recognise opportunities to realise and overcome his deficiencies/ realise his desires. interesting... well, i also asked myself - so what is god in this case?

• is god an abstract created by human beings in an attempt to answer to his insecurities?

• or is god a manifestation of man's fear and uncertainties? something that man has not been able to answer based on his understanding of his surrounding? and that this probably explains the existence of god of fire, god of lightning, goddess of the moon...

• or is god an abstract created to explain the cause of human feelings eg pain & fear (god as fire, lightning, thunder...) happiness (god as nature, beautiful things etc)...

• as such, is god an excuse for man's ignorance? and if a particular religion thinks that it is god that created man, may i then ask, after reflecting - actually, who created who? did god create man? or is god a human construct (ie man created the concept of god)?

• and isn't god as powerful as what man made him to be (ie god's legitimacy is accorded by man)?
  

depending on who's perspective the questions are viewed from, it can be rather controversial and debatable and i do not have any clear answers. it would probably be a topic that will be and probably has been discussed at length by many theologists. no, it is not that suddenly i am interested in theology, it is not. it's just the effect the show had on me. and coupled with the fact that i recently got into this interesting online exchange with this christian lady who swore blind that god has all the answers and that homosexuality is a sin etc etc etc... and that homosexuals are condemned etc if they do not immediately repent so that jesus christ can save them.

i certainly do not accept her answers not because i am not a christian. but rather, i am the type of person who seeks scientific answers. and thus far, genetics is the closest answer i can find about the reasons behind sexuality. as for religion, i think a person's belief in god (regardless what his denomination/ religion is) is a very personal thing and that ultimately, what is most important is the positive influence his religion has on him and his conduct.

rata...

what more can i say... the way to a man's heart (and soul) is through food... food oh glorious food! the scene that i will always remember was when anton ego the critic tasted the ratatouille... oh, how true how true... nothing beats the familiarity of mother's cooking! the smell, the taste, the innocence, the house, the childhood... for that moment, i could almost feel the tears swelling in my eyes as i myself got transported to my kampong days... when my mum would shred fish meat and mix chopped chye sim into my rice, add a bit of soya sauce and... hmmm.... heavenly!

well i guess sometimes, it is not so much wat one physically sees, tastes or feels, but rather the feelings and emotions the experience evokes that matters most.

of waistlines & age

went to the tailor today to tailor my work clothes... and haiz... you know you are growing old (ok, ok... older) when you realize that your waistline is growing faster than your age... :-(