Freedom

For 3 days, I broke away from my regimented life - it was vacation time.

Except for the kiddies I left at home, I was contented to just spend my days walking the streets in the humidity of Bangkok. It didn't matter if my idea of shopping was different from most of my colleagues, because I was never a groupie - I would always do my own thing - that is the idea of getting away from it all!

This trip, I decided to venture out into the back lanes - literally - to find the authentic Tom Yam Soup....I have had enough of wannabes from here right up to Cherating! I found it on my first night there - in the light drizzle of the evening.....paid 300 baht for it...but it was worth it...too many fresh prawns and the soup was light and tasty....not overpowering with the taste of lemon grass....In BKK, 300 baht was almost 4-star hotel pricing - but what the hell - it came in a claypot on a flame....

This is freedom - choice of paying the same price for the same dish but one could be eaten in air-conditioned comfort whilst the other meant, sitting on a stool, at some side lane - with the rain puddles and traffic fumes all adding to the ambience....

That single dish summed up my vacation - like this picture -

What you see are clouds, yet, no two are the same -

these days and those days

Peaceful days are always welcome - although the past week has been punctuated with my phone ringing almost continuously - I have had a relatively quiet day. Being a Sunday, it didn't come automatically to me, so it's only obvious why it was a welcome relief.
I wonder sometimes, how the world would be without handphones. I remember the late 80s when I started work - there were no cellphones, just pagers. Then shortly after that, the bulky handphones were introduced. I remember my first handphone, an OKI. I knew some people who were using the bulky Motorola 'brick'! These days, my mobile could be slipped into the back of my jeans - those days, I had to put the phone into my bag, with the antennae sticking out! Those days, my handbag was a wee bit larger than what I carry these days.
Those were the days.
I wonder what happened to OKI. Motorola is still around - very much so -
Without cellphones, I think I would have more peaceful days - people would learn how to better plan their schedules, since nothing could be arranged at the last minute....and perhaps we'd all spend more time talking face to face, then having the telco be the middle party all the time.
Those days will never come back -
We could just re-live them by thinking back and appreciating to some extent the simplier life.

why Vacation?

The happiest a person could be, besides shopping would be the idea of taking off for a vacation. I don't think it matters to most, where the destination is. I know many who have made plans to travel this coming school holidays - Great Singapore Sale or not!
People like me get out because it's a change of scene - and perhaps really taking a time-out. I'm no jet-setter ; I simply need space to be with strangers, in a strange land - a change of pace - a few days to be so happy that a few dollars could buy me a whole lot more of street food that I cannot find here.
Even when I go on a road trip in Peninsula Malaysia, I would always stop when the aroma of the hot food hits!
Vacations should be free and easy - allowing us to roam - albeit safely i.e. stay out of trouble zones etc. That is a time to recharge and get a different perspective of life. I'm no big shopper - I don't buy multiple numbers of bags just because it's cheap. I would bounce around the streets there, because the vibrant colours of the stalls, throngs of people - energy that's buzzing around would just make me come alive......yea, I'm a flea market junkie - but not one to spend - just an involved observer.......

Queues and their uses

Why QUEUE?
As in most things, there is good reason, but again, whether it's effective or pure silliness, would depend upon the circumstances.
In school, children queue to buy food during recess. That's to minimise accidents, injuries to other children who may be on the receiving end of a hot bowl of noodles.
At bus stations - commuters queue to board the bus orderly, again to minimise injuries that may be sustained should a person loose his balance and falls onto another.
At the airport, passengers board according to sections of the plane - after seating pregnant passengers, physically challenged individuals and parents with young kids - the reason is obvious - seats have been allocated prior, and it's just keeping the order.
When we pay bills, we queue to use the machine or to step up to the counter - again, it's keeping order.
We queue to maintain some order to prevent mishaps.
Question:
Why have a queue system for buying a $6m property? It's not $6 where 4.2m people could afford to purchase. When I was told of such a system, I was quite put off.
As a buyer, I would have taken my money and went elsewhere.
To my understanding, this system was put in place to give buyers an idea of the property's exclusivity.
What these people underestimated was how snooty that came across -
If a higher profile was the goal, then the method was all wrong. It's like placing an advert in the Fortune 500 magazine, and telling people that you've nominated yourself as the top 10 income earner in the world!
These people better take their property and keep it in the closet.

Speaking

There is no way for me to explain how sticky I can be, when it comes to expressions and clarity. I believe it's important that we are clear when speaking - and I'm not referring just to diction. The sad thing here, in Singapore, is that when a local is being interviewed, even those prominent characters, they fail terribly in verbal delivery. I cringe, when a spoken statement is grammatically incorrect. I wonder what went wrong with them - did they miss a whole bit of English Lang class? Considering, our schools have done away with automatic promotion to the next level of learning, what happened?
Whatever happened, we now have this huge mass of people, who do not speak well - not even passable. It's acceptable to be informal, speak a smatter of dialect and English and forget about sentence structure - but when appropriate, good delivery is crucial, because it's embarassing for a country like ours, to boast of being an educational hub - when the locals fail at speech. I'm referring to the working class - not our kind aunties/uncles from generations ago.
Being explicit does not equal to being a fuss-pot or a hoity-toity character. It's all about minimising miscommunication - and clarity. Without clarity, there will be room for misunderstanding and to clear that up, you'd need to elaborate further, thus wasting more time in getting to your objective.
So, when someone says he doesn't understand, then perhaps, we should think about whether we delivered the statement correctly, or that the person we are speaking with, has simply fell through the cracks somewhere, that he could no longer comprehend English Language, the way it's supposed to be.
If the sentence delivery is correct (assuming we did not use uncommon descriptives) then, we cannot possibly simplify it further now, could we?

Walking Distance

In the course of marketing properties, there is this favourite phrase : WALKING DISTANCE TO MRT. That's because proximity to the MRT is so crucial for working class people, who do not drive for whatever reasons, or that they have school-going children who take public transportation.
When we use this term, it's almost common sense that we do not mean a 30-minute walk - a walk that long is great for exercise, moving from shopping complex to shopping complex, but certainly not walking to catch a train - at 30-minutes away, it may make more sense to take a feeder bus.
Well, I had an interesting enquiry - a lady caller wanted me to tell her, exactly how many minutes it would take to walk to the MRT. When I explained that it would depend upon how fast a person walks, she responded : "normal walking speed".
That is really annoying.
I guess it didn't occur to her that what is normal to one person can either be fast or slow for another. There is no moderate speed, because how fast we walk, would also depend upon whether we are late for an appointment, what kind of shoes we are wearing, the weather and the list goes on.
She refused to listen to the rationale. And so I ended the conversation with:
"Sorry, we didn't use a stopwatch to time the distance, therefore, I cannot give you the exact timing".

Shisha

This is my first Hookah or Shisha contraption. My gf chose this bottle - I thought it's really unique and the broad base helps keep it steady, since I do have a parrot and blind cat who may tip it over.

Since I purchased this, I have been reading up about it. I find it interesting since you could flavour the session with almost whatever you wish - mint leaves, lemon..whatever. I like the mint leaves addition.

For a person like me who hardly ventures out after work, I need to depend on my circle of friends to keep me updated on what's going on! It's so pathetic, but that's the story of my life.

Nevertheless, I didn't just have shisha & dinner, but I found myself totally updated in a 3 hour sit-down. Consider this a Mother's Day awakening for me...after all, it's my gf's daughter who took us out for dinner - not as a celebration or anything, but for me to unwind and for us all to catch up, leisurely.

No regrets in getting this Hookah - it's great to use and an eye-catching tableware!

What money cannot buy...

I have a friend who used to tell me : "Money can't buy you love, but it can still buy you a whole lot of other things". True.
In the business of my work, I meet many kinds of characters - the good, the bad and the ugly. It's not always proportionate either - because I tend to attract the bad and the ugly more than the good. So, when I get a 'loaded' bad/ugly person, I remind myself that they cannot afford me or my time. It's important to do that, because sometimes, such people forget that there are other things more valuable than their having lots of cash - our integrity, for a start.
Take the case of a rich lady, who keeps repeating, and praising herself - it's tiresome. Once, I will let it go, twice, I will change the subject, any more and I'll correct the statement. My time is mine and not for anyone to dictate or take control over - it's amazing how presumptous these people can be. She baits people - like in fishing, only she doesn't use a fishing rod or reel and it's not fish she's trying to hook - it's attention and people's time, my time!
So, I think she needs a lesson in what money can buy and what it cannot.
There may be people who are able to tolerate this repetition and self-praise with dreams of getting a foot into the bank- but for me, I'm not high on compromise and I shall just do a shut down - I won't bother to reboot - because I was never into banks anyways -

Too late for change

How did a relationship turn? These were the questions I needed answers to, as an old friend finally decided to talk about his 30 year old marriage. It was common knowledge that he was always surfing the streets for a pick-up then - To me, he didn't care - he had the means, thus he felt, he had the right. I shared an apartment with this good friend many years ago, as I was posted to the same city he was working in. I knew his family, albeit not very well - but well enough for the wife to know I'm there. I remember very clearly, one evening, when I turned the key to the front door, opened the door to find a woman, ironing his clothes. For a split second, I thought I was in the wrong apartment. I also remember that this friend, brought the guy I was seeing, out one evening and both of them met 2 local girls and spent a good part of the night at some joint.
Today, he's into his 3rd marriage. His religion permitted him to have 4 wives. I find that a confusion. He's lost and I felt, not in a better position than he was back then. At least then, he had some direction - running a travel agency, etc....Today, I'm not too clear how he earns a living - and I'm really not interested either. I am there as an old friend - 'old' because of the years we've made acquaintance - nothing more. His reason for his disillusionment is because of his 1st wife. I think that's lame - because you do not make a right, by building nests around the region - that's spreading your expenditure and prolonging the problem.
He wants to talk about it - but after 30 years of sowing his wild oats, outside 3 marital homes, I think it's a bit late. He should just live with the problem - what's another 10/20 years of the same....after all, it's been 30, right? It's too late to change the circumstances, because at this point in life, when you're hitting 60, you should have a more practised path to prayers and patience.

The idea of "NEW"

The thing about shifting/moving, is the clearing of clutter - there seem no end to clutter and me. I could spend my weekend clearing out paperwork that has become unimportant, documents which are archived and dust - yet will always find more, the next time I take a trash bag to fill up.
This brought me to wonder, how on earth, people gather so much of 'rubbish' time after time. We know that we should not accumulate rubbish, yet we do - whether consciously or not. My colleagues and I spent the entire morning, just unpacking and organising space at our new workstation. Parking in the business district is very expensive, and so are our table spaces - because we lost our shelving unit with this new configuration. The space below my table has now been converted into my 'filing cabinet'.
It seems to me that, it's my destiny, to be seated at this new place, because a year ago, I was seated right here, when I was on T-loan to another dept. Now, I'm back here again, at the exact same spot - minus the shelving unit.
As with all new things, we look forward to better whatever - If we got new shoes, we hope to have happier feet - if we got a new car, we hope that the car would give us a trouble-free drive - if we got a new apartment, we hope for happiness and laughter - if we got a new cellphone, we hope that it will not fail us - if we got a new bed, we hope for a more comfortable sleep, now that we got a new desk space, we hope for more months to be in the black.

Adios to this seat!

Today is historical for my department, because we are swopping places. Monday, we start at the other unit and hopefully, a change will effect a better karmic resolution for all of us. We have been split, sitting in an L-shaped formation, making communication difficult and our group, divided. Not that we were unable to stay together, we were just 'separated' in seating, and that caused us to be split into 2 groups, from one huge one.
Perhaps this move will really be a fresh start for everyone - the excitement is there, and even I got myself psyched up - wanting to buy a plant for my desk - just to start on a more positive footing. It has been a struggle the past year for all.
Until then, adios to this seat as the saga continues...........

Spiritual life

I had a small exchange with my colleagues yesterday about the 'holy spirit' and/or it's equivalent i.e. spiritual life, over brunch. My colleague wanted to know why it was necessary for me, to re-visit a shrine, given that GOD is everywhere...this was between 2 buddhists and one christian.
My illustration to him was simple.
GOD is everywhere, we don't dispute that.
BUT when we are in trouble, and we kneel and pray for guidance.
We walk away and months later, we feel better, things work out.
What do we do? We give thanks -
Next question, why do we go back to the same shrine? My response was again courtesy...if your friend helped you, you thank him, not his neighbour. Sure, GOD is everywhere, but when we go back to the House of God (so to speak), we go back to thank him there - polite thing and correct way of conducting ourselves.
Some people like to celebrate mass at a particular church, because when the church is full, and the hymns are being sung, you can feel the energy of life, love and forgiveness - I would get goose-bumps...that is the positive energy we tap onto - to better our life.
Philosophy? Perhaps - but it's our responsibility to ensure that our spiritual life gets fed with the right energy - for us to be on the correct path.
It may seem like I'm giving myself endless trouble, having to go back all the way to that one shrine...but I would be in a lot more trouble if I didn't even bother - because that is no way to say thank you, and it's certainly not how I would want me to be - ignorant and ungrateful.
We all move at different paces before we reach a point when we realise - our spiritual life needs to be fed. The sooner we get to that point, the clearer life will get.
He's a good friend, this colleague of mine - he just hasn't gotten there yet....

Jigsaw Puzzle

I used to be a fan of spending hours with jigsaws. It was exciting, fitting out tiny pieces together, a test of patience. The largest piece I've done was one on Africa - too many pieces. I think the anti-climax came when it was almost done, but I had some odd pieces missing. I wasn't mad or anything, because it was just a few - this was a puzzle, larger than the width of a standard coffee table. I was about 11 when I did that one - bought the puzzle with my own money from a jumble-sale at school. I never found time after that, or a decent enough puzzle to have the 'want' to fit it all up.
When I compare that, to what's going on in my life, I think jigsaw puzzles are a breeze. When you take the pieces out of a box, you know what it's going to look like - you just deal with your visual cues. When life becomes like a jigsaw puzzle - then it's more complicated because the whole picture is not on 'our' box, since we didn't come in any set package.
BUT life IS about fixing up the puzzle - finding the missing pieces and fitting it squarely in.
I know I'm definately at the crossroads of my life - yet, I have no idea what the big picture is. Going with the flow is not a solution because there is no general direction except to do what is right by my conscience and know that I'm being directed where my life is supposed to take me.
Just how sure can we ever be, that we are not picking up wrong cues? We can never be.
Which brings us to 'trust'.
As with Karma, we must take the unpopular road, if there is a need. Some would say, there is no such thing as having to definately take a rough road - but there is. There are many times in our lives when we are down and out, yet when we hit the bottom, we find a penny. You could have never found that penny, if you didn't hit the bottom. 'chicken and egg'.
Life is a jigsaw puzzle - and if we have the right vision, we will be able to fit all the pieces into slots which they belong. After all that, the picture will be crystal clear.

Happy & Sad

It's strange how life can be sometimes. After more than 15 years, I found a lost friend, only to find out that another member of our group passed on just 40 days ago.
I don't know which was worse - not meeting this friend, or knowing the other was ill, without letting anyone know.
We all hung out together, travelling anywhere the cars would take us - drove over potholes, had near accidents, drove through plantations, ate durians in the middle of nowhere and basically lived our reckless life and spreading our luck thin. Looking back, I wondered what caused this loss in communication - it's too long, and I can't remember.
BUT along the years, I met with one of them, and we kept in touch, a few times a year - had a common denominator - same industry of work, and always trying to find this other one.
I guess we knew we had to go our own way at some point, yet we kept in touch the best we could - I am sad, knowing that I didn't even know one was ill.
So now, we sit, thinking aloud about the past, the fun we had, how far we've come - how old the kids have grown and other friends in the group spread out in the world. Yes, we are planning to meet everyone up again. It's time to meet, catch up, before someone else decides to check himself into a hospital and slip into a permanent coma.
The first to leave us, is the one with the most laughs. The one whose squash ball hit me during a game and the one who always kept in touch with everyone, with everyone not knowing...
I'm happy, because this is full circle - but I'm sad, because I never got to say goodbye. So, Goodbye Rahman - may you rest in peace - and chuckle your way to heaven.

Communication Miss

Just how many times do people say things they claim they didn't have intentions to? Far too often.
Actually, verbal cues may not apply at all in some situations because people like to believe that they are being 'politically' and/or 'socially' correct and that they were compelled to respond that way.
BUT take another person, who not only observes such political/social cues but corresponds that with non-verbal cues. Cues may be cues, but non-verbal cues are quite the different story - it's almost unconscious. We hardly think about it. So when drawn into a situation like this, where all cues correspond - we get 'chemistry'.
There is no chemistry, if non-verbal cues are not involved.
So, if a person tells you, he has miscommunicated his intentions, then that's crap because with intent there is consciousness.
Then why do people do that?
I guess it's got to do with their inability to be surefooted. No one likes to think that they are not in control - it's a control issue - Relationships are never about control - our jobs are. If a relationship is reduced to that like a job, then you'd be holding 2 jobs, one that pays and one that hurts.
So, what do we do, when caught with someone like that?
Treat him like a job.
Perhaps, when we do that, he'll realise that with a booming economy, jobs (he) are not that special and not hard to find - and that he was not miscommunicating to us, but to himself. If he can't be honest with himself after too many years, then he'd be running in circles for a long, long time, and one day, all his circles will become one piece of artwork entitled :
MISSED NETWORKS

talking about SPORTS here

There is this debate about the promotion of Sports here. Could we ever churn out great sportsmen who are children of the land? We have imported talent, from shuttlers to swimmers and even the kopi-tiam table-clearers. What's happening to our people - the born and bred by natives?
Frankly, most have flown the coop, or are just too busy making ends meet to have left over to fuel the sports component for their kids. What has become priority is not swimming lessons, as much as tuition. Our education system, and securing of a job, doesn't include trophies for sports. When we fill out a job application, it's your educational qualifications that you fill in, along with schools that you've attended AND other relevant work experience. No one cares if you've done 5 different jobs if they are not related to the job you're applying for. There is no column for SPORTS.
If SPORTS does not have a priority from the start, then how will it ever be important enough for people to pay attention to. Take the athelete who have spent years training, yet perhaps never made it to any International Meets. He grows older and suffers from sports injury - no accolades but the injuries are still real. It's part of the game, some may say, but why bother, if at the end of the day, you've overworked your joints for none the better.
People excel in sports because firstly, they enjoy it. It's not having a world-class facility. It's having the opportunity to participate, regardless of connections, club memberships etc. In Brazil, the kids play football barefoot anywhere, not just a stadium with trimmed grass. It's their love of the game that drives them to perfection. AND for them, football can be a career. Over here, it's still a 'weekend' job.

Don't Compromise

We spend a great part of our lives looking for someone we think we can spend many years with. To say, 'til death do us part' is a bit too cliche for me. We make sacrifices, we try to adapt, we go beyond the necessary to convince ourselves that THIS IS THE ONE. 20 years on, what happens?
To put it in a nutshell, I don't believe in automatic happy endings, because I have always believed in myself and only me. My mother was a phone hogger, and I grew up with a step-father who couldn't careless if we ever had a decent conversation because he was busy gambling. By a stroke of chance, I grew up with a set of ethics that came out of weekly cathecism classes and just by feel. I didn't have a role model to admire, nor did I ever had sit-down dinners in the evenings to wind down the day.
For that reason, I always believe that whatever we are INSIDE cannot be easily manipulated - because it's who we are. Perhaps, that's the reason I could never find anyone who is ideal for me. I'm too complicated and very unorthodox in how I approach situations. I have expectations that even people don't have for themselves. The best part about me is : I am self-sufficient ; emotionally and intellectually. I do not have the need to belong to anyone, any group or any thing.
For this reason, I should have never tried to be like everyone else i.e. get into a relationship and try to believe myself to be like most. I am not.
I know many who are able to stay with one spouse for years on and still have that attachment. Long-term relationships are meant for those who are patient, forgiving and accepting. I am none of the listed. The sooner we understand ourselves, the better the outcome will be, because for the past 20 years, I have been trying to normalise and it just gets worse. I am more unhappy now than I was 5 years ago, and goodness, dare I compare that to 10years back?

Sometimes we think we need someone, because the thrill of being with someone is 'exciting'. BUT seriously, how exciting is having differences of opinion till it runs into pages!!? Too much of anything becomes a chore and a pain. When we want something for whatever reason, we cut corners and make exceptions. Think years later, with added responsibilities, pressures, recurrances of disagreed behaviours; exceptions would not be our priority anymore - it's annoying.
Perhaps I'm not part of the many who would walk behind the shadows of anyone and keep the peace to 'save face'. Nope. To me, 'saving face' is about what I can live with, not what other people can live with; because if I can't live with myself, then why bother about what others think?

Bottom Line: Don't sacrifice your ideals because you want to keep the peace - do it because it's right - People don't change - and you don't want to be like me - wake up some years later and then it hits you - shit - I have compromised beyond my limit.

Forget the Peace and get it right

I had a traumatic sleep. I was plagued with dreams of non-blood relatives, whom I detest. I feel that, when people make decisions to raise children, they should teach them the very basic - MANNERS.

When parents fail to do that, their kids grow up and do not know when to APOLOGISE, nor do they know the gravity of NOT realising their mistake. As a cut and dry person, I do not take into consideration, age, race or culture. What is wrong is wrong - If you cut into another drivers lane, for whatever reason, you're wrong. As a driver, you raise your hand to apologise. When you do that, and don't see why you're wrong, then something really screwed up in your life - believe me, it's not the world.

As a child, if you take something from your friend's pencil case, and forget to return, you should be disciplined - because never ever take anything that doesn't belong to you without permission. BUT if we make excuses for the child at that point in time, they will grow up stealing big time.

When a person is really great at 'pulling a long face' - do we let them off? Nope, not me. When we do that, we allow the other person to get away, yet one more time, we are reinforcing their negative behaviour.

When in a delicate relationship, what do we do? Do we correct that behaviour and ruin the peace, or do we turn a blind eye and keep the peace?

For most people who are insecure, they will prefer the latter.

I could never keep the peace - because nothing is ever worth more than the very basic principles that I honour and keep. That makes me able to sleep well, and it helps me in being honest with people I deal with. After all, why laugh if it's not funny?

The world is laden with people who think the rest of the world owes them and that they are better so, they are spared the embarassment of having to ever apologise. I think it's high time they woke up from their dream.