Seasons in the sun

There is a season for everything. A season where you wake up to white sheets of snow outside your window and a season where the leaves turn a shimmering tri-colours of golden yellow, red and orange. Then there are the seasons of emotions. A climate where warm light streak into the chambers of your heart and keep it fuzzy or a weather forecastof clouds that shields the ambers of sun from reaching your heart - slowly, denying it from heat and freezing it. Last weekend's get-away with sun, sea and beach kept me redolent of a summer love affair filled with laughters and delectable fun. The whole trip was a winsome combination of aestival. A season to ameliorate relationships and friendships with some scintilla of love thrown into it.

It all began a the crack of dawn. Us lugging our tired selves on board our ferry ride but filled with paroxysm of excitement. albeit the choppy rides on the waves, we slept the way through. stirring up occasionally to check if we are there yet. We carried a week's of stress on some of our shoulders - shrugged it and had it thrown into the seas of Langkawi. The sun shone on us while the 3 brats swam and yelled and scream like children in the sea while yours truly chose shades under coconut trees and read a good book. We ate like we have never tasted food so good. We turned 3 shades darker, reddish and brown, but it was a healthy tanning session and nobody gave a hoot. there were a mutlifarious of activities to be done on the island but time constraint prevented from going full throttle to have fun.

Despite the limited 36 hours we had, the rubbish car we rented, the heat from the sun and the long cumbersome car rides - I must confess, we are a garrulous bunch of four. Laudable for our enthusiasm and our facetious spirits. Deep down, each of us carried back not just souvenirs of chocolate bars and sandy slippers, but a veritable happiness. memories that are ingrained in our hearts. leaving a disconsolation we felt the weeks before behind. a refreshing start and a renewal of the tiresome soul. it was a caesura we all needed from the reality of life. we were tired of being sentinel to our surroundings and for once, we were carefree, ignorant and lead an ephemeral yuppie life on the shores of langkawi.

I cannot ask for more than this short weekend away. I am for one contented just to be in the company of genuine friends who could laugh with me, sing with me, banter with me and let me just be my silly self. who read the maps, watch out for road signs and drove the windy roads. who laugh like horses and take chill pills. a boisterious bunch of 4, overspilling with awesome-ness. It may not be the best trip, but it was one that left my heart longing for more, for another season in the sun...

 

A flawed diamond

When it comes to diamonds, you'd be a real fool to spend Tiffany-quality time, money and effort on a flawed one. Marriage-obsessed girls, like Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson's characters in Bride Wars, can rattle off the cut-clarity-carat-color rankings and their desirabilities in order of priority.


But since when do we evaluate human beings on the same callous categories of worth? Are we really going to throw someone out of our lives just because he/she doesn't seem to exhibit immediate potential? Are we going to allow our preformed prejudices and ignorances to blind us to the person within?

Never tell me that people aren't good at math. We pick and choose our friends based on some complicated mental algorithm:


[personal benefit] x [hotness factor] x [influential connections]÷ [threat to self-worth]


We consistently elect the better-looking politicians, side with the hotter babe even if she cheated on the less-attractive partner, judge acquaintances based on their looks, mock socially awkward people to their faces, and choose sex appeal over friendship when it comes to finding bridesmaids. However, God forbid that someone do the same to us... that just makes them shallow and judgmental.

I've been thinking about this topic all month, triggered by visiting family. I've been crossing threads about "how extraordinarily beautiful/ugly people see the world" and reading this new blog I found. What's the beauty in human perfection, anyway?

I like my people a little bit flawed, a little bit damaged. I like my men with rougher, calloused hands. Who wants a sissy boy whose hands are softer than yours? (You know who'll be doing all the dishes in that relationship!) I relate best to the friends who have suffered a little genuine sorrow or hurt in their lives.

If the biggest concern in your life is that your best friend won't speak to you over a misunderstanding, I don't really know how to comfort you. If your biggest priority in life is to make as much money as you possibly can, I wouldn't be able to give you ideas on how to spend it - because you aren't actually living a life. If you had everything you ever wanted, the moment you wanted, I wouldn't be able to relate to you because that, simply put, isn't really the story of my life.

Yet I wonder if those beautifully marked with the scars of life's worst would think the same of me. Will they look at me and think, "She hasn't suffered loss of life or limb or loved one... Her behavior proves that she's still too shallow to understand even a fraction of what I'm undergoing." Would it really take that serious of a shock for me to deepen my empathy quotient? Or is it merely a discipline that anyone could master, given the effort?

We practice Heimlich maneuvers in First Aid trainings and drills, but walk past people suffocating for love without a second glance. We shed buckets of tears over the atrocities in Darfur, but the girl who sleeps around "deserves to be raped." We plan to spend our lives benefiting the less fortunate, but make cutting remarks against Mexican immigrants.

Do you think souls can be switched on like that? What if it's more of a sliding switch? What if when we come around for them, we find them shriveled and atrophied?

Whether its acquisition lies in discipline or empathy, compassion towards societal misfits is hardly a glamorous quality one checks off a brag list with aplomb - Mother Theresa was anything but traditional sexy. But even a feeble attempt to put yourself in one's shoes - to step out of one's comfort zone to invite another in - could go a long way toward brightening one hurting person's day, even if you end up the only person immediately improved for the interaction. Perhaps your simple action may save a life.

People aren't diamonds. That one person you touch is worth everything you invest, every time you invest.

Rumple me up

A wrinkle-free shirt is like a football uniform without grass stains: It makes you look third string. Hesitant. Pretty. austerious to an extent. A bench warmer who has never been in action on the field.

It makes you look correct, yes, but life isn't correct; it's wrinkled. Anyway, wrinkles are a badge. They're evidence that we've hailed a cab or reached for our wallets or leaned back in our chairs or fought something. They're proof that we've moved. An au fait with action on the field. There is a sublety between an insouciance to our appearance and a wrinkle shirt. a wrinkle shirt doesn't make us unlettered, it is just peccadillo, it makes us 'football' heroes who have scored a goal, raffled like barbarians and have heard cheers of a gazillion football fanatics.

A wrinkle-free shirt is for someone who wants to cover his tracks. It's a safe choice, and in style, safety is not a virtue. Texture is. We should look flawless only when we're standing in front of the mirror in the morning and congratulating ourselves on how wonderful we are. Venerate at our awesome self and glow like a firefly insight out.


Then, starting immediately, our clothes should start gathering a history. Attempting to convince everyone around us that we look this sparkly, this utterly without stain or spoil, is pretending we're someone we're not.

It's hiding. And if it comes down to hiding, and it always does, then we'll just put on our jacket.

Pieces of my missing heart

It is always from the simplest thing that stirs a sense of haunting and wanting, inciting the heart to yearn for the things we have lost in time. when our eyes catch a glimpse of something that jolts a hidden memory we were adamant to stash away. it is then the pandora box of our emotions open up and sent us spiralling to a state of poignancy. a momentary lapse of sensability and stoicism.

I never knew them. I never knew them until they began to linger like afflicted souls languishing for a chance at redemption. I never knew them until they resurrected in the form of strangers and passerbys. They were tiny instances and pieces of him: the guy in the jumper, the man with a brisk walk strolling by, the gentleman reading in the park. Suddenly, I found myself constantly reminded of him and I realized how I never knew the three poignant images he unwittingly ingrained into the deep recesses of my mind.

I caught myself lately in the habit of twirling my hair into tiny curls in those moments - only in those moments of anxiety, when I have no control of my personage. Those moments when we would both be quick to laugh about anything and everything, as filler for the dead air that would invariably beset the blank space between each line of dialogue that we drafted in the pages of our minds. Those moments where we still felt playfully tense. I would twirl my hair as I traced the features of his face with my eyes, looking for answers and reactions that were still unfamiliar. I was that girl named Maria in that Adam Duritz song that played on the radio when we were still feeling out the lines between wrong and right.

he was no longer here. Yet, he still remained all around me, embodied in every man I saw. A chuckle here, a smile there. These memories were indeed nuances, unmistakeable and irreplaceable, made noticeable only in his absence. Despite verisimilitude, they were mere spectres of his person, neither complete nor the same, except in his presence. And I missed him.

A scarlet letter

There are so many things I wish I could say to you. But given the contexts of our situation, I think it's best that they fall on deaf ears.

I went swimming the other day. I screamed all of my insecurities and my frustrations at the bottom of the pool, hoping to drown that part of me that you no longer felt inclined to love.
Remember how I once told you my greatest fear was drowning. I reviled the idea of being suffocated and inundated by fluid seeping into my lungs and pores until homeostasis was finally achieved through gradual osmosis. The idea of gradually fading into the blandness of the surrounding element was deeply unsettling to me. So I learned to swim. I swam until I rose above the rest, deftly treading on that oscillating line that bordered each element. I was never out of your element. You quipped that it could be quite poetic - my final moments deferring to the motions of underwater currents. "Fuck poetry," I retorted with a smirk, "it's resignation." I always was crass at the right moments.

Anyway, I didn't drown. When I ran out of air, I choked and effortlessly rose to the surface. It was instinctive. Self-preservation, that is. In many ways, I was always a survivor. It doesn't come out of choice. You would have been proud of me. Or maybe you wouldn't. It didn't take much effort. You only wanted me to make an effort.

I remember watching you sleep. How peaceful you seemed in those moments when your mind was finally offered a moment's rest. I wanted to tell you how serene you looked when you were at peace. But, rest hardly besets your waken mind. "Idle minds are wasted resources," you claimed, "I'm a conservationist." I'm a conservationist as well. But I'm saving the best of my mind for the right moment. Like in that John Mayer song, I, too, like to think the best of me is still hiding up my sleeve.

Sheer beauty forces my impulsiveness sometimes. Alright, maybe all the time. You see, I've always been impulsive. It's like the first time I told you I loved you. You laughed, called me "silly", and said that I couldn't possibly be in love in so little time. I was being impulsive. Like the first time we kiss. Simple impulse. But it's what you fell in love with. And it's what you fell out of love with. Impulse is instinctual. My instincts have never been wrong. I guess you always knew that. I guess you couldn't stand that. I don't do it by choice.

"I want to say that you had given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be."

I suppose you wanted the same from me.

But between your delusions and my delusions of grandeur, one would be surprised that there was ever a moment of truthfulness between us. Yet, happiness was a reality then. I think you'd be hardpressed to find two people happier than we. Still, the reality in which we thought we resided was simply a fabrication concocted from the finest materials of both our minds.

We were happy once. Once. We would remain in bed for hours on end. We bared our souls, lying totally exposed, only covered by the pristine white sheet of discretion that hid the lesser parts of us that we preferred not to reveal. But what we once knew, once shouted aloud became a murmur. A murmur much like the susurrous stories of fallen trees told by the whispering wind through the forest. The whispers that lulled all who bore leaves to sway in agreement. But it was what we preferred not to reveal that refused to yield. Maybe we should have been more honest - maybe we would have been deeper rooted. But like the unyielding tree with shallow roots, we were destined to fall.

You once told me you didn't believe in fallen trees. If no one stands to bear witness, if no one sees or hears it fall, the tree never fell. It didn't happen. So why waste time lamenting or thinking about it? It is what it is. I asked if you thought it grew in sideways. Its livelihood choked by the shadows casted down by the scorn of the masses above, who berated the iconoclast ways of the horizontal tree. You said it didn't matter. In time, it won't matter.

Anyway, I suppose that's right. You were always right. In time, all murmurs dull to a silence. All trees cease to sway. Time passes. Weeping branches shed leaves that cover the vestiges of the horizontal tree. And all that eventually remains is the stoicism of the steadfast trees standing tall, while everything else just fades away...

Enchanted: Falling in love

(abstracts from O-oprah Magazine) Oh Winfrey, you say it the best....

Psychologists tell us we're born afraid of just two things. The first is loud noises. Do you recall the second? Most people guess "abandonment" or "starvation," but neonatal dread was simpler than that: It was the fear of falling. Today we all have a much richer array of consternations, but I'll bet falling is still on your list. Why give up the prudent concern that brought your whole genetic line into the world clutching anything your tiny fists could grab? Fear of falling is your birthright!

Perhaps that's why most of us, at least some of the time (and some of us most of the time), are frightened by another deeply primal experience: intimacy. Allowing yourself to become emotionally close is the psychological equivalent of skidding off a cliff; hence the expression "falling in love." This gauzy phrase usually describes a sexual connection. But love has infinite variations that can swallow the floor from under your feet at any moment.

You're securely installed in a relationship, marching through life, keeping your nasal hairs decently trimmed. Then boom! You hear a song and know that the composer has seen into your soul. Or you wake up, bleary with jet lag, in a city you've never seen before and feel you've come home. Or the wretched little mess of a kitten you just saved from drowning begins to purr in your arms. Suddenly — too late — you realize that your heart has opened like a trapdoor, and you're tumbling into a deep, sweet abyss, thinking, God, this is wonderful! God, this is terrible!

The next time this happens, here's a nice, dry, scientific fact to dig your toes into: The sensation you're feeling is probably associated with decreased activity in the brain region that senses our bodies' location in the physical world. When this zone goes quiet, the boundary between "self" and "not self" disappears. It isn't just that we feel close to the object of our affection; perceiving ourselves as separate isn't an option. Some being that was Other now matters to us as much as we matter to ourselves. Yet we have no control over either the love or the beloved.

The horror! The horror!

We focus attention on stories about people, from Othello and Huckleberry Finn to the lusty physicians on Grey's Anatomy, who trip into versions of intimacy (passion, friendship, parental protectiveness) they can neither escape nor manage. These stories teach us why we both fear and long for intimacy, and why our ways of dealing with it are usually misguided. Two of these methods are so common, they're worth a warning here.

Bad Idea #1: Guard Your Heart
There's an old folktale about a giant who removes his own heart, locks it in a series of metal boxes, and buries the whole conglomeration. Thereafter, his enemies can stab or shoot him, but never fatally. Of course, he also loses the benefits of having a heart, such as happiness. The giant sits around like Mrs. Lincoln grimly trying to enjoy the play, until he's so miserable he digs up his heart and stabs it himself.

This grisly parable reminds us that refusing to love is emotional suicide. Yet many of us fight like giants to guard ourselves from intimacy, boxing up our hearts in steel-hard false beliefs. "I'm unlovable" is one such lockbox. "Everyone wants to exploit me" is another. Then there's "I shouldn't feel that" and "I have to follow the rules," etc. Whatever your own heart-coffins may be, notice that they're ruining your happiness, not preserving it.

As poet Mary Oliver puts it,

Listen, are you breathing just a little,
and calling it a life?…
For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!

If you've buried your heart to keep it from hurting, you're hurting. You're also in dire danger of using …

Bad Idea #2: Control Your Loved One
"If you don't love me, I'll kill myself. If you stop loving me, I'll kill you." Some people believe such statements are expressions of true intimacy. Actually, they're weapons of control, which destroy real connection faster than you can say "restraining order." Though few of us are this radically controlling, we often use myriad forms of manipulation and coercion. We can say, "Sure, whatever makes you happy," in a tone that turns this innocuous phrase into a vicious blow. To the extent that we try to make anyone do, feel, or think anything — whether our weapon is people-pleasing, sarcasm, or a machete — we trade intimacy for microterrorism. So, if neither control nor avoidance works, what does?

Good Idea #1: Be Willing
In The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams reveals the secret of flying. Just launch yourself toward the ground, and miss.

"All it requires is simply the ability to throw yourself forward with all your weight, and the willingness not to mind that it's going to hurt … if you fail to miss the ground. Most people fail to miss the ground, and if they are really trying properly, the likelihood is that they will fail to miss it fairly hard."

This is the best advice I know for coping with fear of intimacy. Avoidance and control can't keep our hearts from falling, or cushion the landing. Why not try throwing yourself forward, being willing not to mind that it's going to hurt? Please note: "Being willing not to mind" isn't the same as genuinely not minding. You'll mind the risks of intimacy — count on it. Be willing anyway.

How? Simply allow your feelings — all of them — into full consciousness. Articulate your emotions. Write about them in a journal, tell them to a friend, confess them to your priest, therapist, cab driver. Feel the full extent of your love, your thirst, your passion, without holding back or grasping at anything or anyone (especially not the object of your affection). The next suggestion will show you how.

Good Idea #2: Go "Whoo-Hoo"
Author Melody Beattie took up skydiving and was scared senseless. Another diver told her, "When you get to the door and jump, say 'Woo-hoo!' You can't have a bad time if you do."

This phrase works as well when you're falling emotionally as when you're falling physically. When fear hits, when you want to grasp or hide, shout "Woo-hoo!" instead. While there is never — not ever — a sure foundation beneath our feet, the willingness to celebrate what we really feel can turn falling into flying. You don't need an airplane to practice woo-hoo skills. For instance: I'm writing these words at 2:15 in the morning, because writing, like other intimate pursuits, often occurs at night. As I type each word, I come to care about how it will be read — about you, there, reading it. Caring is scaring. It makes me want to stop right now, or spend years composing something flawlessly literate. Unfortunately, my deadline was yesterday, and Shakespeare I ain't, so … woo-hoo!

Now it's 2:20 a.m. My writing partner, a fat, age shih tzu named Happy, snores contentedly at my feet. I'm revisited by a worry that was born the day I fell in love with his puppy self: the dread of the moment that snuffly breathing stops. This is my cue to throw myself forward, drop deeper into my affection for this ridiculous dog. Tomorrow I will let Happy teach me to roll in the grass, to howl in ecstasy at the sight of good food. Of any food, actually. Woo-hoo!

Which takes me to my final point.

In Preparation for Landing
What I really panic about nowadays isn't falling; it's landing. But even that concern is fading, because I've realized there are only two possible landings for someone who embraces intimacy, and both are beautiful.

The first possibility is that your beloved will love you back. Then you won't land; you'll just fall deeper into intimacy, together. This is how bald eagles prepare to mate — by locking talons and free-falling like rocks — which is deeply insane and makes me proud to call the eagle my country's national bird.

The other possibility is that you'll throw yourself forward, yell "Woo-hoo!," and smash into rejection. Will it hurt? Indescribably. But if you still refuse to bury your broken heart, or force someone to "fix" it — if you just experience the crash landing in all its gory glory, you'll create a miracle.

A Jewish friend told me this story: A man asks his rabbi, "Why does God write the law on our hearts? Why not in our hearts? It's the inside of my heart that needs God." The rabbi answered, "God never forces anything into a human heart. He writes the word on our hearts so that when our hearts break, God falls in." Whatever you hold sacred, you'll find that an unguarded broken heart is the ideal instrument for absorbing it.

If you fall into intimacy without resistance, despite your alarm, either you will fall into love, which is exquisite, or love will fall into you, which is more exquisite still. Do it enough, and you may just lose your fear of falling. You'll get better at missing the ground, at keeping a crushed heart open so that love can find all the broken pieces. And the next time you feel that vertiginous sensation of the floor disappearing, even as your reflexes tell you to duck and grab, you'll hear an even deeper instinct saying, Fall in! Fall in!

Small girl in a Big world

I know I havent been a great friend lately. I havent rang, I havent text, I havent chatted, I havent emailed and most importantly entertained you with trivial bits of my life set in comedic pentameter. Believe it or not, I have actually been quite busy! Since my last update, I packed up my earthly brain matters and moved it to a whole different level to keep my parents proud of their multimillion dollar investment on me.

It's almost mandatory for members of the doctor's shed to write a New Years review and introvertly assess one's progress so far. 2008 came and went and for me, 2009 has been more than just a symobolic transition into a new year and new life. I closed 2008 with the forfeit of my law student life and started 2009 with a new city, new identity, new job, and a new life. To be honest I am experiencing a bit of new life/career shock. On more than one occasion I caught myself in awe and disbelief, wondering whose life I have murdered and assumed the identity of.

It's already 3 quarters of the year gone and I am still as this stage where I am fumbling with the switches around my life. I am no stranger to pressure and responsibility, but recently I keep wondering if I have finally bit off more than I could swallow. I came into this with the knowledge that it would be a big life change and expected myself to be fully capable of meeting the challenge head on. Now amidst the transition I find I am doubting the validity of my decisions and yearning for the familiarity of things and comforting friends. I am more than a little frightened of the implications that these thoughts. I am terrified deep down swimming in this deep ocean with no sight of land and no life line to grasps at. Inside, I am still a little girl yearning for daddy and mummy's constant assurance.

The pragmatist in me knows that I made the right choice and that in the end, all will end well. Yet regardless I inexplicably worry. It sounds silly, but I always thought I would be able to set my roots deep into whichever grassy field I found myself in, regardless of which side of the river said grassy plain laid. I've dealt with college, I've dealt with work, I've tasseled with the usual large life transitions and have come out stronger for it yet this one somehow feels inexplicably different from the others.

Perhaps when one gets to a certain age, one inevitably finds the nouvelle excitements difficult to bear start looking for stability and the comforts of familiarity.

It is the personal journeys and the discoveries of the self that are the scariest.

Breakfast Thoughts

I'm positive that every thought that's popped into my head and every epiphany or conclusion that I've arrived at has been come to by someone else during the course of time. Sometime or somewhere in the span of the cosmos someone has looked up into the same night sky and pondered the same questions and arrived at the same conclusions. It doesn't dawn on us that we are actually looking at the same bright sky no matter where in the world we may be. While societies and circumstances are different the important questions never change.

Why are we here? Who am I?

And why do we treat each other the way we do?

It is amazing how the human race could have survived for so long and never have learned anything from each other. The common adage is to avoid learning the lesson the hard way if we can so choose it. But really no lesson can be truely learned unless it was hard, unless it was experienced - firsthand. Humans are pitiful short-lived creatures; it is a shame that we cannot continue our dreams during the prime of our developement or at least pass on the knowledge we've collected. Just when you've got things figured out life changes and fucks you where it hurts the most.

But then again maybe it is because of our constraints that we achieve so far. We take what brief time we are granted and borrow/steal what we can get to squeeze out every last drop of precious opportunity. Each and every one of us needs to experience the lessons of life ourselves, firsthand - the hard way. We may want and we may try but the lessons never pass on. It is through this strange and torturous proccess that our truths today are more true than than they were yesterday - because each succeeding generation has been forced to find them ourselves and refilter everything untill we are closer to perfection.

Finding the B-spot

I was chatting with the journalist cum writer the other day- sneaking on msn during work hours, absolutely my idea of wild adventure. The cacastrophy of being caught is explosive. I still do it discreetly. Its my thrilling magic carpet ride. We chatted about the variety of topics bloggers blog about. The myriad stories that people tell on virtual world. The little secrets that the world spill onto the pages of their blogs and tainting the mind of innocent readers with the wonders of the world. Taunting some to curiosity, lurring some to a fantasy world and driving others to boredom.

Jason Mraz, God bless his sweet voice, if granted access to read my blog while pooing in his toilet, would describe that the kind of words I write kind of turn themselves into knife. if i don't mind his nerve, I can call it fiction because he likes to be submerged into my contradictions. Although I am biased, he will still love my advice. My comebacks are quick and they probably have to do with my insecurities. but hey, its no harm being crazy depending on how my readers paraphase my words and the relationship i am stagging. My blog in summary is a beautiful mess of emotions. singing and dancing in this magical sweetness, i steal your heart. Mes-Meh-Raz me and I'm yours to cuddle and tickle.

I enjoyed salivating over the pictures from the journalist's blog. She tempts me with the posh and exotic food she is forced to try. Her nature of work brings her to places I want to go but would never make plans to go. She has a whole list of celebrities she has interviewed, wink at, flirted with and I am sure she will yawn at my girlish squeals if I see Jason Mraz. She has visited the most remote and relaxing hotels in Malaysia. Bascially, she travels extensively. So she is the blogger who tempts and lure readers to her web of....enjoyment? yuppie living? Binge eating? Luxury spending? Then there is Plan Bee who blogs in funny english and talks about things he 'see' from his window. Munchkin who pens about life and the idiocracy reserve for us. The podiatrist who yaks about the Hongkie life. The volleyball freak who rants about what else..vollyeball...and her ridiculous life in high school. typical hormone raging adolescent angst.

So what typically attracts you to someone's blog? The little spice in it that keeps you coming back for more? Could it be: -

1.) First Impression -

They say first impression is everything. This holds true in business and pleasure which midly includes reading/invading the not-so- private rantings of another earthling. We base so much on that first reading of an entry. There's a lot of luck involved. People like me are lucky when we can control what we read and not let our mind screw anything up right off the bat. OK, maybe there is some control over that, but what about subtle things?

2.) Chemistry -

When my high school teacher told me that everything a human does is based on chemical reactions in the brain, I was floored. From then on I walked around wondering about the chemical reactions going on in my head that made me wave to a friend, or snap my fingers along with a song. Hell, how do the chemicals in my brain even make me like a song?With so much complex brain chemistry telling us what we like, what we do, who we are, and if we are happy or sad, we are lucky that people even exist that we can blend with. I am convinced that my brain chemistry is so scrambled that there are no possible compatible blog site that I am addicted to. But I'll keep looking, and perhaps I will be lucky enough to find one which is not only compatible, but makes all my brain chemistry happy.

Tell me what makes a blog tick?

Laling-2

Dearest Plan Bee,

I apologise profusely for the late reply. You must have been starving to hear from me, your beloved Maam. I hope you are in the pink of health (notice how I still speak to you in the Queen's english?) and still healthily cooking the infamous ginger soup for last I heard, ginger helps keep you warm during winter. Thus, it would be grand if you chew ginger before going to bed at night so when you wake up in the chilly winter morning, you won't feel any shivers because the ginger juice would be 'swimming' in your tummy and 'running' in your blood veins. :)

Do you know why it took me eons to reply Plan Bee? apparently your blog is un-google-able. It took me a long time to search for it. I have to access your site from another woman's site and its like a chain of clicking this link and that link before arriving at your lair of lard. I forgive you for your 'ill-knowledge' on this matter because I understand that growing up in vietnam was a difficult time for you and internet is an alienated word to you, what more you can now blog and write in such a style that will put william shakespeare to shame. (fuyoh baby!) I am so proud that you finally graduated in England and now speak with an english twang. Thus, the book. I have never been to Vietnam (though I would love to one day and maybe you can take me to visit your family and your dog) but I have heard a thousand splendid stories about it and that it has a long river. It must be that River Mekong that you constantly babble about where you used to bath naked in when you were growing up. (or did you say you came from Thailand?)

I am glad you've benefitted leaps and bounds from that book and my mini essay of encouragement. I must say I am furious at the same time that not only you took 6 months before reading the book but you also read my mini section of profound words to you last, after you have read the 10000 pages of that book. How dare you Plan Bee?!! Not only have you disappointed me greatly but you have also proven to me that once your maam is out of sight, you no longer think of her as much as she does of you. On a more forgiving note, I am glad you finish reading the book. It shows my years of dedication teaching you english has not gone to waste. I also thank you for your invitation to touch you. I must say it is very tempting offer and I will put a raincheck on it.

I end this with great sorrows and to tell you how much I miss your pole dancing shows. My roots have also grown out and I will need you to return soon, from that all important job of yours inventing washing liquid, to dye my hair a sunshine yellow. Make that soon ya Plan Bee otherwise your Maam will no longer glow like a sunflower. Till streamyx and Iyonder (or virgin, whichever provider you are using) meet again.

xoxoxo

Maam

p/s: You only rang me once?!!! of the 3 months away I was only on your mind ONCE?!!! Like I told you, vodafone and maxis doesnt really like each other.

Lean Back and laugh your heart out

There has been occasions at work when my desk is pile up with stacks of file that looks like two Himalayas have been erected. My clerks will snoop into my room while my face is glue onto the computer screen and quietly pile up those files like uno stackos. It wobbles and threatens to collapse on me on some days. I so fear that one day, they will find me dead under heaps of paper documents. For suing all those people, I am finally 'reaping' the juice of it. Death by the very documents I am issuing to default borrowers.

On days where the Himalayas surface miraculously on my desk, I have pulled my hair out and cry silently at the amount of stress the firm is putting me under. I work way past 7pm on some days and still suffer the need to take back work. Then I start regressing being a lawyer. I start wishing that I had been an astronaunt instead. I then try to buy a time machine and go back in time to stop my old self from going to law school. I will start tpying my resignation letter only to stop at the 2nd sentence. I was just filled with frustation. temporary malfunction of all logical sensibility. emotions take over and at the end, the mountain will just grow higher.

It is when days seem gloomy and every single damn thing in the office seem to be done by me, is the time when I start to count my blessings. Of course, I come back and moan and groan to my mum about the insane amount of work they force on me - "I'm not a labour worker!!" "They think I am their maid from Indonesia?!!" and etc etc...but I still lunge my weary self to work the next morning, run like a pyschopath in court, wait for upteenth hours in court, and a whole lot of mundane activities.

So while I was sobbing silently and starring forlornly at the 2 himalayas the other day, I tick of the reasons I should be thankful for today besides the hideous pilling of files on my desk:

I am thankful because:
 

1.) air is free - I don't have to pay for oxygen and I am thankful for that.

2.) Petrol is affordable - prices of petrol has gone down a wee bit and I am glad I can still afford it on my mere payroll so I don't have to walk to work and carry my 10tonnes of file all the way and back each day.

3.) I had an Education - I am thankful I had the opportunity to be educated abroad and given the hollistic academics to save me from tolling my sweats out under the sun. I should be thankful I work in an air-conditioned room..my room!!

4.) Penang - I am glad I am still living on this beautiful island where the sun, sea and beach is free and the food is heavenly.

5.) I am His daughter - knowing that He is always watching out for me, comforting me makes it all better that I am not alone in dealing with the craziness at work

6.) I have a job - in the current dire states of economy where everyone is wishing they have a job, I am glad I have one despite the peanuts they are paying me.

7.) Internet is accessible at work - otherwise I would not be able to chat with proper, sane, tangible people after 6 and when the office is creepy and quiet.

8.) I still am sane - I am glad God kept my sanity intact above all else!

Everytime I am having a horrible day at work or even a hellish day, I lean back on my swivel chair, heave a heavy sigh and start thanking my lucky stars for the things I have always taken for granted. There are bound to be stress at work. In fact, it is the stress that makes the work challenging (this is the over optimistic me talking). A job that is not challenging is not helping you progress because day in day out, you will be wheel into the complacency of medocricy.

 I am not settling to be a hamster who is happy as long as he gets fed his barley or wheat twice a day and is even more estatic if it is given a large wheel to run on day in day out until he collapse out of exhaustion. I am not settling for an ordinary job. I sign up to do this 5 years ago. So when the going gets tough, God gets me going and I say, "Bring it on baby!!" I am a fierce fighter!

fuyooh...optimistic aint i...wait till i walk in to see 3 himalayas on my desk..! Breathe baby breathe..inhale,exahle!

Break it or Make it?

Our culture and media have given us an image of what a meaningful relationship is. No, I'm not talking about the sex-driven shallowness that we see on the surface. I'm talking about the feel-good heart-warming movies and stories. The growing-old together stories. The Notebook. Twilight. Anything with Hugh Grant. The ones where you fall completely in love and have a lifetime of emotional loveliness. Yes, there are fights and hard times and pain and stress, but every night, you and the love of your life will make up and look at each other, knowing the other person is the most wonderful person in the world and you pray that you will never be driven apart. THIS has been the concept that has been driven into my mind like a railroad spike. And I'm starting to somewhat doubt it.


Is this what you've been thinking, baby boo?


"For sure, I wish with all my being for that to be the case. But lately I've been wondering: what are my chances? Do I keep waiting for Mr.Right to come along? Has he already? Did I already blow my chance? (Sometimes it really feels that way.) Or is the whole concept screwed up?

Marriage is an institution established by God, between a man and a woman, the purpose of which is several things: as a symbol of the Holy Trinity, and as a pure expression of worship to God. (At least... this is what I've been taught, I haven't done the Bible study myself as of yet.) Assuming that this is true, you could correlate it to other forms of worship. We certainly don't always feel like doing it. We certainly feel like making bad choices and wrong decisions, but when you choose not to, that is still an act of worship through obedience. Now let's transfer this idea to relationships.

Say I have a boyfriend. I think he's very good looking. I like hanging out with him and I enjoy physical aspects of our relationship. We can confide in each other and be honest with each other. There are some things about him that I dislike, but I can tolerate. We're there for each other. Basically we have a good friendship.

But there's something missing... I love him and am committed to him, but I'm not in love with him as we would define it. I don't get weak in the knees, I don't think about him day and night, I'm not even inspired to write music for him. When I realize this, I feel like I'm at a crossroads. I can either

1.) Break up with him based on the belief that marriage wouldn't work out because I'm not in love.
2.)I can continue to pursue the relationship and eventually marry him, believing that I can grow and learn to be with him forever.


Which is the right choice?"

Dearest, I wish I had the answers to your questions. the cure to your worries and the solutions to your problems. or even so, crease out the frowning lines on your forehead everytime she drives you crazy but hey, guess what, I am 7 hours flight away - on a different continent seperated from your continent by a very huge and deep ocean. So while you bang out all your teeth and smashed you knuckles raw against the wall..I just want you to know, that I will always always be close by listening - allowing the telecommunications company to regale silly at my 6 feet long phone bill at the end of the month. :) I'll be there for you rain or shine...this is my promise to you! Though it might be very difficult to decipher what you are trying to say without the teeth and it might hurt to hold the phone too long with broken fingers - :p Silly!!