Say a lil prayer
October 18, 2009
As she held my hand and led me into the House of Gods, I thought to myself…
This a moment that I’ve been waiting for a long, long time.
This a moment that I’ve often doubted if it would actually come.
This a moment I felt compelled to share with those that knows it matters, especially to my wonderful mum who thinks religion matters the world to her and her son, but is willing to give in for the happiness of her son.
It’s been a long wait, but better late than never.
And as I lit up the joss sticks and close my eyes in front of the altar, I said a-longer-than-usual-prayer.
I thanked God for all the beautiful and good things that has happened to me recently. And even though I’ve always believed that God has good plans for us, He has spoken much louder with this single action than any others before.
Because you have to believe that…
September 21, 2009
Life can only get better.
Everything happens for a reason.
You’ll have to make the first move if you want things to happen.
Family and friends are just wonderful.
Life is wonderful.
What are you passionate about?
July 13, 2009
A friend posed a seemingly simple question, which I failed to answer confidently (or actually totally failed to answer), and it got me thinking for a long time (it’s been a week plus).
What are you passionate about?
Now, take a minute to think about it. Do you have an answer to it? But first and foremost, what is the definition of passion?
pas⋅sion [pash–uh
n] –noun
| 1. | any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate. |
| 2. | strong amorous feeling or desire; love; ardor. |
| 3. | strong sexual desire; lust. |
| 4. | an instance or experience of strong love or sexual desire. |
| 5. | a person toward whom one feels strong love or sexual desire. |
| 6. | a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything: a passion for music. |
| 7. | the object of such a fondness or desire: Accuracy became a passion with him. |
| 8. | an outburst of strong emotion or feeling: He suddenly broke into a passion of bitter words. |
| 9. | violent anger. |
Now obviously the subject of my blog post is number 6.
But then again, how into something must you be, before you can declare proudly that you’re passionate about it? Must there be a certain amount of money, time, blood, sweat and tears spent on it, before you can consider it a passion of yours?
I’ve always prided myself to be somewhat of laid back, moderate kind of guy. My motto has always been ‘Try everything once, and then do it again if I like it.‘
There are a bunch of things that I would of course like to invest time and money into, but then again there’s never enough money to allow me to do that. And if I choose to do that, then what about the other things that I want to do or try?
Having said all that, I guess I just have to accept Jasmyin’s comment on how ‘Meeting people – maintaining relationships’ as one of my passion. 🙂
Say, can drinking alcohol be a passion too? LOL.
See, Sue, how much your question bugs me?
pas⋅sion
// // <![CDATA[
var interfaceflash = new LEXICOFlashObject ( “http://cache.lexico.com/d/g/speaker.swf”, “speaker”, “17”, “15”, ““, “6”);interfaceflash.addParam(“loop”, “false”);interfaceflash.addParam(“quality”, “high”);interfaceflash.addParam(“menu”, “false”);interfaceflash.addParam(“salign”, “t”);interfaceflash.addParam(“FlashVars”, “soundUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fcache.lexico.com%2Fdictionary%2Faudio%2Fluna%2FP01%2FP0151500.mp3&clkLogProxyUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fdictionary.reference.com%2Fwhatzup.html&t=a&d=d&s=di&c=a&ti=1&ai=51359&l=dir&o=0&sv=00000000&ip=738463f7&u=audio”); interfaceflash.addParam(‘wmode’,’transparent’);interfaceflash.write();
// ]]><a href=”http://dictionary.reference.com/audio.html/lunaWAV/P01/P0151500″ target=”_blank”><img src=”http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/speaker.gif” mce_src=”http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/speaker.gif” border=”0″ /></a> [pash–uhn] 
Show IPA
–noun
| 1. | any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate. |
| 2. | strong amorous feeling or desire; love; ardor. |
| 3. | strong sexual desire; lust. |
| 4. | an instance or experience of strong love or sexual desire. |
| 5. | a person toward whom one feels strong love or sexual desire. |
| 6. | a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything: a passion for music. |
| 7. | the object of such a fondness or desire: Accuracy became a passion with him. |
| 8. | an outburst of strong emotion or feeling: He suddenly broke into a passion of bitter words. |
| 9. | violent anger. |
| 10. | the state of being acted upon or affected by something external, esp. something alien to one’s nature or one’s customary behavior (contrasted with action ). |
| 11. | (often initial capital letter) Theology.
|
| 12. | Archaic. the sufferings of a martyr. |
Of Jäger nuclear bomb, fun at the peak and mooning
July 12, 2009
Put a bunch of old friends at the peak of a mountain in the cold weather with a German spirit called Jägermeister (pronounced as YAY-gər-mye-stər), and lo and behold you’ll get a creative reversed version of the normal cocktail concoction Jägerbomb, which we aptly named Jäger nuclear bomb (many part of Jägermeister and only 1 part of red bull). The taste is awesome, the effects are as usual, disastrous when consumed in large amount. But I don’t need to remind anyone that there’s always a new experience to be found whenever large quantity of alcohol is involved.
Such a pity this alcohol isn’t available in Malaysia. It’s pretty good considering that it’s easier on the body than some of the other stuffs I’ve drunk, if you drank responsibly. But no, we weren’t exactly drinking responsibly last night.
Anyways, it was awesome fun meeting up with the same bunch that went to last year’s Sarawak Rainforest World Music Festival, only that the holiday is in a smaller scale in Genting, with considerably less people. There was Steph (and Peter), Sim (and Cc), Jee Wei, Duncan, myself and Joanne (with her entourage). We probably grew up slightly in terms of the things we do up there (no more theme park babeh, think Casino and booze), but our attitude and behaviour throughout the weekend could have probably rivaled kids 5 years younger than our age.
Sure, I came back half stoned, tired as heck, laughed a whole lot, a fair bit poorer than how I was on Thursday, and my body inside feels like a waching machine in spin cycle.
But isn’t that what having fun is all about?
Another weekend went flying through, another working week coming soon. Well at least 2 days in this week will be spent building teams with other DiGizens in Lumut. Not half bad, yes? 🙂
Now excuse me while I go detox quite a fair bit.
Love is in the air…
July 2, 2009
No no, not for me. For a few others, that is.
I hope they’re fine with me posting this. I mean, it’s a happy joyous public occasion, isn’t it? But then again, if you want me to take it off my post, just let me know, okay?
For those who are still clueless, I’m talking about people getting married, not attached, doink.
1. Melissa got engaged last month.
2. Fiza is getting married in a month’s time.
3. Nicholas got his wedding photos taken.
4. Wahida, a friend from high school sent a message through facebook to get addresses to send wedding card invitations.
5. My cousin just got/is getting married. (not exactly sure where their status is right now…it’s a long story)
6. And a host of others who are getting married somewhere between this year and early next year, including Giam, Melissa and Joanne.
Now of course I’m happy about all of these lovely unions, but the damage to the pocket in dishing out ‘ang pau’s…ouch…
Congratulations, and may you all have long, lasting and happy marriages. 🙂
Across the strait and back
June 23, 2009
While this is not exactly my first time to the city of lion, it was definitely better than the previous 2 times since I had much more time to explore this fine city.
Memories left over from the first time was expensive taxi rides from Johor – Singapore, lugging a bagful of tech brochures after Communic Asia 2008 to the night safari, and running after the bus crossing the strait like illegal immigrants after getting my passport stamped.
The 2nd time was a guided tour (I know, who comes to Singapore on a guided tour, right?) but I was with my family and my aunt’s family, and it made sense to have all our food, accommodation and visiting settled for us, lest I had to contend with a dad who refuses to participate in trying to find the roads and directions, and family members who gets frustrated after that. That was also when I was introduced to the red-light district of Geylang, but let’s not talk so much about that, eh?
This 3rd visit was definitely about one of the more spontaneous trip I’ve done, having planned it only about a month ago. Spurred by the promise of G2000 shirts for SGD 19, we booked cheap flights (Tiger Airways) and cheap accommodation (Fragrance Hotel, Geylang), and flew there one early Friday morning.
Let me just say that the MRT system is fabulous, the food in Geylang is cheap and not half bad by Singapore standards, the sales are good if you’re searching for branded items and have a few hundred bucks to spare, learn some Mandarin if you’re Chinese and planning to go there, because the Chinese people there will just automatically speak to you in Mandarin, and be prepared to walk. A LOT.
What’s a trip without trying out new stuffs. Here’s a list of things that we did/experienced whilst we were there. Now I know some of the things are quite commonly found/experienced somewhere else, but this is a new for me.
1. Got shooed aside by an old lady because we were hogging the escalator. Marveled at the speed of the escalators-on-steroids.
2. Picked up rubbish that was inaccurately thrown into the rubbish bin to throw it properly into the bin.
3. Did not jay-walk. Drivers did not attempt to run us over while we were crossing the street.
4. Walk and took the MRT to everywhere. Walked more in 3 days compared to 3 months of walking done in KL.
5. Took a cab after midnight. Did not blow our budget or wallet doing it.
6. Had Blanc beer at ‘The Clinic’, a delicious French White Beer at a hospital-themed pub.
7. Had a shot of the Jagermeister, Budweiser beer and supper at Hooters.
8. Had the Amsterdam Maximator (11.6% alcohol content) and sang before, during and after shower after consuming a third of the beer can.
9. Ordered roast chicken in Mandarin (plus a lot of hand gestures) at a Chinese shop to eat with our Heineken.
10. Navin and Jo tried the G-Max reverse bungy (gutsy crazy people).
12. Shopped quite a fair bit.
13. Went into at least 5 Guess shops.
14. Was offered service by prostitutes on the street.
15. Had chicken rice at least once every day I was there.
16. Tried the frappe at McCafe.
17. Got myself a new bottle of Glenlivet in the Singapore airport.
18. And a list of other stuffs I might not/feel not inclined to post/is threatened to not – remember. 🙂
Thanks Navin and Trevor for agreeing to come along for the trip, and Jo for being a wonderful host while we were there.
Till the next trip. Cheers.
See it through my eyes
June 7, 2009
So the trip to Kota Bharu came and ended. How was it?
To be politically accurate, it was an OK trip. However, you should always book your hotels in advanced as my family and I learnt in this trip. The idea to go there was my parents brainchild somewhere around a few weeks back, and they’ve only started attempting to book hotels then. And most of the better hotels are fully booked for some odd reason, and we’re left with the sub-standard ones.
As a result, we spent our first night in the so called Hotel Merry, which should have been more suitably called Rumah-Tumpangan-Tak-Merry-Langsung, and the 2nd night in Dani Hotel, which was slightly better, but not that far off.
The toilets reminded me of the toilet I had in my rented apartment back in Alpha year. The horrors *shudders*
Other than that, the duty free areas at Rantau Panjang and Pengkalan Kubor was full of shops selling fruits, pots and pants and imitation clothes which was a bummer (What! no alcohol??), there’s a grand total of 6 ‘Wats’ or Buddhist temples around Kota Bharu (Which I visited 2 and felt so holy after that), the town has some museums (which we didn’t go to any), and not very busy. And that’s it. We didn’t go to Golok since we didn’t have the car registration documents to buy insurance, and 3 days 2 nights was more than enough to be spent there.
The drive there took roughly around 8 hours, and overtaking on the trunk roads can shatter the nerves quite a bit. Nonetheless, the trunk road on the way back through Kota Bharu – Jeli – Gerik – Kuala Kangsar was just absolutely beautiful. Winding, headache and vomit inducing, but beautiful. The drive there was through the Gua Musang way, which was equally beautiful although I was asleep the first 50% since we started the journey at 5 A.M, and was too tensed up with the road on the remaining 50% since I was driving. Oh and I saw 2 accidents involving cars and cows.
Joanne was down over the weekend, and no one else seemed to be around to meet her, so I had her to myself. *grins*. We had a few peculiar conversations when I met her.
She told me “You should set your wedding date at least 1 and 1/2 years before the date“. To which I said “If I want to get married 2 years after meeting her, I’ll have to propose 6 months after getting together?!” I think I have a better chance of getting a slap than a ‘yes‘. Apparently she’s advising me as such, just because it’s hard to book a venue.
Somehow at this time being I can’t remember what other things we’ve talked about. Oh, one was about how mother-in-laws are the highest cause of divorce because they’re always physically around, while infidelity has a lower percentage, but that’s probably because most of the victims just suffer in silence for the kids. It’s a sad case, huh?
This and that and other stuffs.
I’m off to Penang tomorrow, and back on Tuesday. Another 2 days of back to back driving again. Gragh!
I’ve got a tons of other things I want to write about, but my head is just blank right now. Here’s to a good week people!
A dash of this and that
May 24, 2009
Last week was undoubtedly one of the busiest week I’ve ever had in my (not-so-long) career. Phew. I now have a slight taste of what’s it like to work as a vendor, though I’m pretty sure it’s potentially busier than that. Nonetheless, I think it’s a nice change from my usual slower pace of work, common to the operator’s world.
Anyhow, these are a few thoughts that I’ve collected over the past week or so.
1. Nothing beats unwinding from a long week by sitting down all weekend long with friends, food and coffee. Friday night was spent with Khek who’s back from South Africa (and Alan, Kim and Ah Wai whom I’ve not seen for a long time), while Saturday was with Eu Jin and Stella (whom I won’t be seeing for at least another 2 more months), and Sunday with the Gombak Gang.
Sunday lunch was at Hoxes Cafe, over in Damansara Perdana, a nice quiet cafe which I’ve visited once long time ago, only to find that it has been recently bought over by Trevor’s colleague who is also a senior of mine from MMU. Impressive for a lady who’s barely in her mid-late twenties (I’m not exactly sure how old is she though). Some of the food there were pretty good, especially the potato wedges, but the rest could do with a bit more improvement. The plus point of the place is that it’s cozy, comfortable, and you can enjoy a quiet afternoon with your friends there with a variety of board games.
2. If you’re around Subang and you’re looking for another good cozy place to eat, then you should definitely pay Ben & Nick’s Diner a visit. I would not bother to write a long review about that place, but click on the link and I’m sure the pictures and description from this other blog is enough to entice you to give the place a try. It’s located at the ground floor of one of the service apartments beside Carrefour Subang Jaya.
3. Good properties with nice location are hard to come by, so I think it’s worthwhile to be on the passive lookout for them, and then figure out the finances in any case that I’ve found a good one. A blog that I stumbled upon whilst on this quest is the Property Malaysia blog, which is actually quite informative. The other one would of course be a forum on Malaysia Real Estate property. Time to think ahead about my finances in case one attractive place comes along, eh?
4. Another interesting website to check out on banking stuffs.
5. I was checking out a brochure on The Great Singapore Sale just the other day, and was having dinner with Trevor, Navin and Barath when I brought up the subject on how nice it would be to go check out what the hype is all about. Not to mention the promises of G2000 shirts at the price of $S19. The next thing I know, we were setting dates, checking flight availability, and making plans.
Fast forward a few days later, the flight has been booked (although the payment has yet to be confirmed), and it looks like we are going. Whoever said guys don’t shop?
6. This is an interesting article about dating, yes? So does this mean that guys should not be too nice? Hmmm…
Well, here’s to an interesting month ahead, what with 2 trips and a massive workload. 🙂
An interview guide once taught me to answer this to the question…
“How long do you see yourself working in this company?”
So you might want to choose to answer – “For as long as I can contribute to the development of the company and myself.”
The big 3-0 isn’t exactly a bad benchmark when it comes to achievements, be it life, career, and what not. Having worked for quite a bit, I’ve seen what would be nice to be at 30, and what is not. Suffice to say there’s of course more ‘what-nots’, but there’s a glimmer of hope you can be the minority and become one of those successful young managers, no?
But 30 is another 5 more years from now. And all that’s playing in my head is the song from Muse, titled ‘Time is running out‘.
Today, I’ve learn that eschew is not used in a sentence as such “I es chew food”, but instead meant ‘to abstain or keep away from; shun; avoid.’
Meanwhile, endeavor meant ‘to exert oneself to do or effect something; make an effort‘. And propensity meant ‘a natural inclination or tendency‘.
And I thought propensity has the root word of propane. Ok ok, lame.
Wow, my friends really do use huge words.
It’s like this…
April 25, 2009
This is another one of those random thoughts post. Brace yourself.
1. I find that I refuse to look at things that I know I can’t get.
2. I feel a bit cluttered right now, but about nothing in particular. I need a getaway from everything. Life, work, thoughts.
3. I think I need a change of job.
4. TDC shares went up again yesterday. Top 20 movers yo. DiGi shares remained unchanged.
5. Today, is one of those days, and one of those weekends where I don’t want to do anything but have a nice dinner and a cup of coffee after that.
6. Next weekend will be packed. So packed. One thing after another. Therefore, I should enjoy the quiet weekend I have now.
7. This is probably one of the very few weekends where I do not have a squash appointment. Not sweating over the weekend makes me feel weird. On the other hand, it’s probably best not to put new bruises on my body parts. I’ve been getting a lot of questions from the 2 bruises on my both sides of the elbow. And people refuse to believe that it’s actually from squash.
8. My 3 lil cousins are over. So overly superbly adorable. But the 3 of them are a bundle of energy, running up and down, to and fro. Goodness, how their parents actually managed, I will never know.
One of the 3 balls of energy. Super cute, no?
9. Have you pitched your talent?
10. A friend showed me a blog that actually sells stuff for men (not that many around). Oh no, online shopping!
Transitory moments in life 
