impressions of dubai

on my way to dubai from abu dhabi, i was told that the way to identify the border between abu dhabi and dubai is when the row of trees stop. apparently, in dubai, they do not focus so much on planting trees as they do in abu dhabi... heh heh... if everything about abu dhabi is big, everything about dubai is even bigger! lots of skyscrapers. and of cos, who can miss the burj khalifa, the burj arabia (the one single hotel by the beach that is the icon of dubai - i think it is called this)... i was told abu dhabi is playing catching up to dubai. and given the recent collapse of dubai's economy, abu dhabi is certainly increasing it's momentum and it's a matter of time before abu dhabi catches up.

ok, back to dubai. as i said, everything was big. humongously big. burj khalifa is o-m-f-g tall! from faraway as we were driving towards dubai, we could already see it. and it certainly reminded me of superman's home in the antartica. tall, spiky, shiny, simmering and one helluva beautiful! of cos, we also had the opportunity to shop around in the dubai mall (which again is one helluva huge). and certainly the dubai aquairum was really majestic! the dubai fountain simply blew us off, despite the fact that it was only a 5min performance. we managed to also take a walk at the mall of the emirates (which, of cos, is also huge). and i was amazed by the fact that they actually have a huge dome for snow ski-ing within the mall itself, complete with slides, viewing tower etc. it was superbly huge!

the thing about hotels in dubai (as i noticed) was that they all have their gym and swimming pool located at the hotel roof-top. so from where i did my treadmill, i could see the burj khalifa as well as all the other skyscrapers around me. at the edge of top floor, i looked towards the horizon and could vaguely see the outline of the palm-tree reclaimed land. i do wonder why they need to reclaim so much land and build so many things when the place looked pretty quiet to me...

:-)

ps: i noted that the people in dubai were a lot more cosmopolitan. and i saw something that kinda surprised me. after having come from abu dhabi where also everyone seemed very conservative, i saw a woman (who was also similarly covered up) carrying a baby. the baby cried and the next thing i knew, she removed the piece of cloth covering her chest, took out her breast and started breastfeeding her baby openly. hmmm...

impressions of abu dhabi

the sound system announced that we were descending into abu dhabi. yet looking out of the window, i saw a great vast expanse of the desert. tens of thousands of kilometers of it. it was simply endless. from the sky, it looked no different from a distant planet from afar in some sci-fi movies. everything looked so clean. they looked so abstract. and they certainly made me feel rather thirsty! and then i started seeing square green patches. the square patches were arranged side-by-side in very orderly fashion. there were perhaps hundreds of these green patches! and each single patch measured possibly a few kilometers by a few kilometers. and when i thought about it, i was speechless. just imagined the amount of efforts the abu dhabi government had put into greening the desert! it was almost a wonder by itself. welcome to abu dhabi. the land where people made taming the desert part of their life. for that matter, abu dhabi itself rose from the desert over the past 2 centuries.

over the next 2 days, i travelled over land to the different sites where my staff were deployed. there were construction all over. yes, abu dhabi was a huge construction site! it reminded me so much of shanghai in the 90s. everywhere you see, you have constructions going on. and the buildings they are building are huge! and very beautiful. lots of curves. there is even one award winning building that is shaped like a magnifying glass standing up! and looking at it, i do wonder how they are going to clean the building exterior! and of course, i was told that compared to dubai, abu dhabi has so much more greeneries (and i later confirmed). and of course, speaking of beautiful buildings, it is difficult not to miss the sheikh zayed grand mosque (picture). didn't have the chance to visit. but from afar, it certainly was superbly grand!

:-)

i am home!

9 long days... and i was almost sick throughout... i so dislike duty travels. anyway, i survived. abu dhabi was ok, the local staff there had all the plans lined up. it was tiring but ok. the job got done. but dubai was bad. before i even reach there, the local staff went on emergency leave. in the end, i went to the office, did a training for half a day and had the following 2 days free. ended up staying in my hotel room and wilding my time away watching tv, playing computer games on my handphone and getting into a semi awake state throughout. then again, it was ok cos i was feeling feverish since my second day there. survived the whole duration with bad throat, no voice, dry weather, la la la...

i am so glad i am home.

:-)

duty travel

this will probably be my longest duty travel (of cos the one in 2004 didn't count, that was considered a posting of sorts)...

i will be away for the next 9 days...

i am so not looking forward to it...

sighs...

there's so many things to pack. and i have just done with it.

back!

bee bee is back!

:-)

fruitful

thought these 2 days had been rather fruitful. renewed dog license, got my phone back from the tp, cleaned the house, vacuumed the floor board of my car, cleaned and wiped the interior of my car, washed my laundry, lots of work admin done, prepared sapphie's medication, la la la... hmmm... feels good actually. yup, it sounded routine alright, but these are the stuff that make me feel good.

the next 2 days are gonna be rather busy too. needed to get quite a few things done before i leave for my business trip. this will be the first time in my whole life where i will be spending my birthday working overseas. it's gonna be interesting. and yup, i just found out that i needed to get a suit. apparently, the working attire in the middle east is suit. coat, shirt, tie, pants, the complete works.

let's see what else needs to be done... get a suit, pack my luggage, get mum her oil, go for my medical appt, mop the floor, wash the bedsheets, give sapphie a bath, buy sapphie's food, dinner with my and lk on sat evening at my's place, dinner with sam on sunday...

hmmm...

discreet tim

had a good little sms chat with discreet tim. and i was rather appreciative that he was open enough to share with me a little more about himself. thank you my friend. thank you for the trust.

be strong. jia you!

:-)

civil servants! hmmph!

today i had a good dose of bad civil servant customer service... ok, to be fair, i cannot use today's experience to generalize. so... today, i got a good dose of fucking bad traffic police customer service attitude... you see, two days ago, my phone was seized by the traffic police. and i was told that i could call a particular number (of a certain tp officer) today to request for the processing to be expedited... and that was what i did.

i started calling at 9am. the phone rang. and rang. and rang... (i thought they had a customer service standard of no more than three rings?)... hmmm... and then, i got transferred to another line. and it rang, and rang, and rang... i waited until the line cut. i called again, the same happened. and i repeated again... and again... and again... until i decided there was no point trying. and so, i checked the internet singapore police force website. got the traffic police hotline, and was given the number of the boss of this particular officer. and i was told that if i also fail to get him, i should then fax an urgent memo to them. so, i called this boss of the officer... and the phone rang, and rang, and rang... you get the idea... i repeated calling from 9-ish all the way till about 1145am. and i gave up. i went for lunch. and i started calling at 2.15pm again. and the whole cycle of unanswered calls repeated again... i thought to myself - if this is how they treat people under investigation, they should be damned over and over and not be given the chance to be reborn! such audacity to even dare claim they have good service standards! i decided to call and call and call none stop. decided that if they want to test my patience, i can play with them... sure enough, after about 15min, the lady officer answered.

when i explained to her about how urgent i needed my phone and that i would be heading for a overseas business trip on monday, and she said she need to follow rules and would try her best and that she would call me back. and i was like - hello! you haven't even ask who i was! so how do you know who to call back!?! and so i asked again if she got my name and my number. and she raised her voice and started talking down on me. and she went on and on about how she have to follow procedures and she needed to be fair to others who were booked before me, how she is a uniformed staff and has to obey rules... and so on. i said i understood her and that if it helps, i could go down to her office to assist in her investigation. and i added that all i needed was for her to help me as i have to go overseas on monday... it shocked me when she suddenly raised her voice again and again and said something like "hey, you said you understand me, but obviously you did not. i told you so many times and you still keep asking me to tell you when i can process your case. i already tell you i will try my best. and by telling me you want to come to my office, you are obviously pushing me and now insisting on wanting me to give you an answer! i am a very busy person you know? i have to go to supreme court, i go to.... la la la... you don't expect me to be at my office all the time right?..." well, you get the idea.

i was one helluva pissed off with her attitude. why was she talking to me and treating me like as though i was a criminal? couldn't she at least have some basic courtesy to talk nicely to me? why was she putting words in my mouth? why was she insisting that i was forcing her? i was totally pissed off. and i hit my threshold. and i started bitching her. of cos, i did it in a nice way, the way where i sounded like i-was-smiling-when-i-said-"fuck you" kinda tone. and from her response as i bitched her, i concluded she was rather shocked cos she kept mum and only could murmur "ahuh ahuh" continously. and i continued adding pressure... i went something like... "and now all you could say is ahuh, ahuh... i am only asking if you can give me an indication if i could get my phone tomorrow. if your answer is no, then say so and i would just go and buy myself a phone. and if it is yes, then just tell me and no need to say all the things about how busy you are. i know you are busy, i know you go to supreme court, i know you are a uniformed personnel, i know you have to follow rules, i am also a uniformed personnel and i know everything that you said, all i asked for is for you to give me an indication if i can get my phone back..." well, you kinda guessed how pissed off i sounded.

in the end, she softened her tone and told me she would call me back. and she asked if she could call me on my office mobile line. i flatly said no, she could not cos my phone was with her. what a stupid question! took my phone and now asked if she could call me back using the same line. stupid woman! asking for trouble! and sensing her mistake, she quickly rattled off a series of number and asked if she could call me on that number. and i chided her for not even knowing that the number she rattled off was my driving license expiry date and not a phone number... (that was the clearest indication that she was panicking) hahaha... i thought i had scared her a little bit. at that moment, i was quite sure i made her feel damned fucking small. but of cos, i ended the call by thanking her.

anyway, in the end, she went back, called me back promptly and asked me to get my phone tomorrow.

what fuck-up traffic police customer service we have!

interesting feeling

it is an interesting feeling for me as i wrote about my post-uni personal life. i had been slowly building up my life story in this blog. and this whole self-reflective and inward-looking process had taken me a couple of years to reach where i am.

i started blogging in 2005. when i blog, i was capturing my own life as i lived it. and at the end of each year, i would write a summary to give each year a descriptor. and as i wrote on, i started getting the urge to want to capture my past. and i did. i started reflecting things topic by topic. and then, i started writing about my childhood, and my school days, and my ns days... and i kept on and on. i knew that one day, i would reach a point where my writings about my past would catch up with my starting point of my blog in 2005... and i can see that happening very soon! in fact, as i reflected on my post-uni personal life, i could also imagine myself writing about my post-uni work life (up till 1996). i think there would be a post about my personal life from 1996 till about 1998 when i got to know james... and probably one too on my work life during about the same period...

and after that... there is really nothing more to write cos my writing would have caught up with me when i started this blog! thinking about it, i could almost feel the sense of loss. probably that same withdrawal feeling a writer would feel after he/ she completes writing the last book of a series... no?

heh heh...

:-)

post-uni life, personal life

i would classify the years from 1991 to about 1996 as my post-uni life. those where the years where i lived a double life. a closeted gayman that couldn't accept my own sexuality yet lusting for men. i came out in 1996. and the rest was history. anyway for the period from 1991 to 1996, it was interesting how my life was a blur especially for my personal front. i supposed apart from being pre-occupied with work (which i will write about sometime), i was also actively suppressing myself due to my inability to accept my own sexuality. thinking back, i thought it was a little regretable but well, workwise, i guessed i was simply living that particular phase of my life (and i believe most people lived their life similarly too). so, in this post, i shall try to capture some aspects of that few years that i can recall.

- i graduated after 4 years of uni with an honours degree in botany in jul 1991. i suffered a serious case of burned out towards the last weeks of my uni just before my exams. i literally had a bad case of gastric problem and collapse in the middle of my lab experiment. my supervisor had to demand that i stop/ close my experiments and start to finish up my dissertation. after the honours year exams, i ended up with a bad case of memory loss. i actually couldn't remember a lot of things. and after that for a good 2 years, i had problems remembering things. it was like as though my memory space had max-ed out. i slowly recover my ability to recall things only after 2 plus years.

- as i mentioned, most of my time revolved around work (i would at times head to work as early as 6-ish am, and did not return till past midnight over a long stretch of period). this was especially so during my first tour. after my first tour when i was posted to gombak, i started to have some time to myself. and that was when i started to do things that i never did before...

- i started learning to dance. social dance for that matter. i enrolled myself in a class in marine parade community center. my teacher was this guy called charles. he was so campy that i thought he was gay... but well, i learned later that he was married. anyway, i enjoyed the classes so much that i continued into the intermediate class after i "graduated" from my basic class. and even after that, i went back and became a assistant dance instructor to my dance teacher.

- my love for dancing started from this and that was how i eventually adopted "dancer" as my nick. and i suffix it with a "66" as these numbers reflect my year of birth.

- i cannot recall if i mentioned this in my earlier post, but i first discovered fort road when i did my third year's science project at the east coast fort road drain. that was where i got to know about the happenings in fort road and the whole vicinity. after being posted to hq when i started having more time to myself, i started to visit fort road again. and that became kinda a norm for me for a long time to come. thinking back, my frequenting of fort road and the beaches there perhaps kept me from further socializing with friends. anyway... it opened me out to more people in the gay circle.

- a huge part of my personal life was also spent with my camp buddies. and some of the interesting things i experienced include heading to merchinta (not too sure if this is how it is spelt) and spending the night there with bargirls (or dance girls or whatever they are called). it was weird for me. being a first timer, i did not know how the rules go and ended up calling number after number. i think i asked for at least 5 numbers through the night. and when i was about to leave, all of them returned to me and i was suddenly swarmed with girls literally crawling all over me! i ended up having to tip them for their services! it was a lousy but interesting experience.

- also, that was the period when r-rated movies started in singapore. and me and my buddy (this particular guy from the other company) often rode (i was riding a rx-motorbike) to bedok theatres to watch r-rated movies. it was literally soft porn. frankly, i was more turned on by the guys than the women... heh heh... but of cos my buddy didn't know... :-)

- i tried dating a girl called "jasmine" during those days. she was introduced to me by some of my army friends. but somehow, despite going out with her quite a few times, i couldn't even get myself to hold her hands. she was more of a buddy to me than a girlfriend. and i was quite sure she felt the same. there was just simply no bf-gf chemistry and in the end, she called off the "relationship"... and when she did so, i actually felt relieved rather than sad... heh heh...

- i bought my first car in 1993 (if i recall correctly). that was before i was posted to gombak and i thought it wouldn't look too right for a "senior"-rank person like me to be riding a bike to work. it was a 2-yr old second hand honda civic from a second hand car dealer in macpherson. sbj5677m. i eventually sold it before it reached 5 years of age and bought a brand new nissan sunny in early-1996. sce5248h. i drove this car for about 9 years before i eventually scrapped it in mid-2004. i changed to a newer model nissan sunny. i eventually changed to my current car in 2005 when i was outed by my office. this was to safeguard myself and to reduce my monthly expenses if i had to leave service at a short notice.

- as i mentioned, the years up to 1996 was almost fully occupied with work. and to a large extend, becos of my highly classified work, i learned not to socialize. it was partly also to safeguard myself. how can i possibly expose myself to people if i could only be referred to as a code for my email address at work? it was something that was hard to reconcile and the only way i could do so was to make a deliberate attempt to keep myself away from my overt social circle. the anonymity i enjoy in the gay circle and the fact that i was highly closeted at that time kinda fit together...

- i saved a huge part of my earnings during those years. and by 1996, i had saved enough to want to look for a property. everyone seemed to be doing so during that period. and i was so bloody naive at that time and i did not know anything about the property market. all i knew was the prices were spiralling like crazy. i met a friend at east coast park during one of my evening runs and he advised me to quickly get a property before the price went beyond my reach. i took his advise and bought my current property. one year later in 1997, the property market crashed. well, it was a hard lesson but i supposed to me, it was a paper loss cos today, the price has somewhat recovered. but i paid a heavy price for this lesson.

- ok, shall stop here... not too sure what else i can write... actually, it is rather sad to note that i cannot really think of a lot of things to write...

hmmmm....

impending overseas trips

this month will be the longest month for bee and i. ever since he started with his new job, we hardly have time for ourselves. he would be working almost daily till pass 10pm. even saturdays and sundays. and weekends for us now would be doing our work and meeting only after he knocked off for a quick dinner before heading home to rest.

and added to this hectic schedule is the fact that we both are expecting to do business travels occasionally. for example, tomorrow, he will be leaving for a business trip to kl and he will be away till this sunday. and next monday, i will be on a business trip to middle east for 2 weeks...

seemed like we have lesser and lesser time together.

sighs...

positive vs negative energies

my office was so peaceful over the last week while the previous boss was away in states. i took over him in the midst of his absence. and the office was really a cheery place to be. people are all smiley and cheerful. and today, he got back. and i could sense the negative energy straight away. everyone was so tensed up. there seemed to be an air of hostility. everyone seemed to be scuttering around doing what they were doing. everyone seemed a little disturbed knowing that he is back. it does not matter that he is not longer the boss. i am. but the fact that he still occupy the bosses' office, and that his mere presence alone made people uncomfortable.

i took the courtesy to pop my head into the office to say hi. and next thing i knew, i was caught in a half hour bitching session by him about how screwed up so and so is, how fucked up the hr department is, how...

such negative energies...

i can certainly do without all these hostility.

it's sad to see someone so bitter.

but well, it is his choice.

seized phone

i was on the phone talking to mum this evening while driving when i was pulled over by the tp. i ended up having my phone seized. and he told me i would likely be fined S$200... considering i was a first time offender.

ya, big deal...

stiff neck

this was probably the longest period of not blogging for me for a quite a while. well, i suffered rather badly over the last week or so. you see, last wednesday, i woke up, changed up and decided to sweep the floor before heading to work. while i sweeping the floor, i felt a muscle pull on my neck. the pull tightened over the next 5 min and next thing i knew, it felt like i had suffered a stiff neck. the pain was terrible. i did some stretching and continued heading to work. the pain did not subside over the day. and neither did it improve over thurs. by friday morning, just when i thought it had improved a little, i pulled the neck muscle again while ironing my shirt. and later on while driving to work, the same muscle pulled again. it was a case of my neck muscles going into involuntary spasm! arghhh... i endured the pain and hoped it would go. but it did not. when evening came, i decided i needed medication and i downed 2 anarex tablets (muscle relaxant). all these while, i didn't sleep well due to the terrible pain.

by sunday morning, i woke up feeling a little better. and just when i thought things had turned for the better, i pulled the muscle again. it was really terrible. again, i endured the pain and tried to do my activities as normal. by afternoon, my whole body was all so stiffened up i couldn't move my body without feeling pain. i came home from my bro's place and decided to lie on my bed. and it freaked me out to find that i couldn't get up as my neck was so painful it felt like snapping. and by evening, i decided i needed help. i headed to the hospital a&e.

the doctor gave me a jab, some muscle relaxant and a super strong painkiller. that jab was a life saver. for the first time in almost a week, i slept soundly. well, as of now, there is still a lingering pain. but well, at least, it is manageable and i am able to move about almost naturally...

:-)

mum's birthday

we celebrated mum's 78th birthday last thursday evening.

it was a simple celebration. a good homecooked dinner complete with a simple pandan cake that was mum's favourite.

and this year was a little more special cos of the presence of my little new niece...

was so happy to see mum cheerful and happy.

:-)

shake what?

just look at the comments and i can totally agree with them. ha ha... now, do you think gay men have better physique because of... and they don't need this gadget!

heh heh...

descriptor for 2010

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

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

work
- got a new job
- got promoted

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

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

friends
- again so routine nothing out of the norm happened

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

ok, shall kiv all these for now...

any views?

assumption of new post

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

hmmm...

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

77.9kg

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

wah piangz!

:-)

it's my credit

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

no respect.

character assassination

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

sad! pitiful! shameful!

and i have no respect for such people!



good dinner

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

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

thank you kl. thank you dl.

:-)

the line

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

sighs...

wa... so big!

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

horrors!

argh!!!

lousy character

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

cannot take it.

sighs.

the 5 regrets of the dying

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

read on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Bonnie Ware

announced

my promotion has been formally announced.

:-)

infected ear

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

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

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

:-)

deafness

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

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

throbbing headache

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

coversations in the toilet

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

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

hmmm...

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

i like.

:-)

holiday / wednesday

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

:-)

updating facebook status in class

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

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

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

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

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

and it helped me keep awake.

:-)

going down

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

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

cleared

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

:-)

love language

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

:-P

asian games

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

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

:-)

duty travel

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

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

:-)

travel history

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2002
jun - england (london, oxford, etc)

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

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

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

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

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

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

volcanos

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

hmmm...

megamind

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

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

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

:-)

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

happy birthday sapphie

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

happy birthday sapphie!

number three

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

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

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

:-)

pant pant pant

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

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

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

hmmmm...

jia you jia you!

feeling emo

feeling a little emo and blah now. i guess it is becos i feel kinda overwhelmed when i think back and look ahead at the same time. anyway, i think i'll sleep early tonight!

halloween

i see more and more people celebrating halloween in singapore in recent years. and it seemed rather weird from several perspectives...

firstly, people celebrating it did not seem to know what it is about, the history behind it etc. instead, everyone seemed to take it like a big scale fancy dress festival. and people are simply having fun (and i thought that was good).

secondly, it seemed like a lot (if not most) of people celebrating it are christains. and i thought it was ironic cos from what i know, the christain communities here have always tried to dissociate themselves from anything deemed superstitious or related to ghosts, witchcrafts, etc. well, then again, i do not know if there is any official stand about it and i just might just be wrong. and if so, i stand corrected.

thirdly, it is another case of an imported practise that is so so unrelated to any of the racial or religious communities locally (expats don't count considering the low numbers of ang mos here). and it reeks so so much of commercialisation where things happen because there is a huge commercial potential behind it, heck care the lack of heritage, identity, roots or whatever...

hmmm... and looking at the many pictures in facebooks and the many advertisments about halloween parties, i started to wonder if we are really so superficial (or rather, the younger generation - i feel so old saying this!)?

and no, for the record, i do not have anything against halloween. when i lived in the states in 2004, i could see how it was celebrated as part of the community's culture. and together with thanksgiving, christmas etc, the whole mood was so strong. i can't find an adjective to describe it other than - it was so so so "ang mo". such a stark contrast to what i feel and experience here.

dreading work

i so dread going back to work tomorrow.

i have never had such feelings before until recently. i supposed i felt rather overwhelmed by all the amount of shit i have to clear and the amount of work waiting for me. i currently feel so unmotivated despite the fact that i will be given responsibilities.

if this were to continue, i think i will go bonkers!

or maybe i am just very tired? and made worst by the fact that i am feeling exhausted now...

maybe. maybe. maybe...

ps: and i have not even ironed my clothes! damned!

exhausted

i felt so exhausted today. perhaps it was the aftermath of the bbq. or perhaps it was due to the fact that i did not sleep well last night. i could hardly keep my eyes open whole day long. was very sleepy when i was at my mum's place. went to the pool and fell asleep for about 10min until the rain came. then went for a show and slept half the show. came home and collapsed on the bed. went for dinner and my eyes stinked. and i am now writing my blog while my head was half dead...

zzzz...

my blood

hv not seen my own blood for quite a while... until last evening when i dropped the flour container as i was trying to keep it and ended up getting a cut on my finger. my first feeling was a sharp pain and next thing i knew, bright red blood gushed out and dripped onto the table top. managed to clean it quickly and arrest the flow using paper napkins before anyone came to the kitchen. i pressed onto the wounds for quite sometime until the bleeding stopped. or so i thought.

the wound got red today. and it was painful. and through the whole of the day, the bleeding continued. on and off. rather irritated by the pain and the little mess actually. and everytime it occurred, i had to press onto the wound. the last time the wound bled was about 8plus. hopefully, it does not bleed tonight. i certainly don't want to wake up to a bloodied bed.

bbq-ed

the bbq came and went. lots of work. lots of anxiety. lots of food. lots of people and lots of catching up. i supposed everyone had their fair share of fun. then again, the bbq did not materialize per se.

you see, bee went down earlier to set the fire while schneider and i stayed upstairs to prepare the bbq food. i had just finished skewering the chicken that schneider prepared when it started pouring. it was a very heavy downpour. and so i decided to adopt the wet weather plan. i contacted all to come up to my place instead. and i decided to cook the food. after cooking a dish, the rain stopped - as suddenly as it started. but i decided not to back track and to go on doing it indoor. after all, i rationalized, the bbq area and the surrounding floor would still be wet and the whole place would be messy. i knew schneider was disappointed. but i thought since we have decided to adopt the wet weather plan, we might as well carry it through. i felt a little bad to disappoint him considering he had put in so much effort in the food preparation. we ended up cooking all the food he prepared except the chicken wings (which he took home in the end). as for the food i bought, i ended up giving most of them to my sis, uncooked. as for the bee hoon, i decided to throw them away.

i supposed to all who came, they were not aware of how anxious i was given all these last minute change of plans. and this was made worst by the fact that i had stopped cooking for the last year or so. as such, i do not have the necessary condiments, chopped garlic, sauce, oil, etc. the evening wore on. all the anxiety was made worst by the fact that i was also worried if people felt at home. for once, ed and st was amongst strangers, sam was new to everyone and was with my friends, lp's children was afraid of sapphie when they last visited... all these came together and i was rather anxious about how they would all fit in together.

so, the rain and the decision to do it indoor in addition to all these worries took a drastic toll on me. i did not want to change my mind about anything. never mind the fact that my house smell of oil, never mind that the place got messy, never mind that my stove was messed up big time with all the cooking (i have never cooked like that since i installed it some months back), and never mind the fact that i always find it very difficult to entertain people and have always avoided doing it. but well, i think things turned out well. as for me, with crowds in my house, i ended up as usual at a corner of the house or in the kitchen doing things by myself instead of mingling. not a sociable person and prefer to be alone amongst crowds. by the end of the evening, i was frankly very exhausted, both mentally and physically.

anyway, i am glad the whole event went off smoothly.

it was a terribly exhausting weekend.