Journey mercies

... how such irony can exist.

One of the things I like about living in Malaysia is how we can still share a sameness despite being different.

Picture taken on the way back to the office after a meeting in town. It was heartwarming to hear the two gentlemen sitting in front talk. The guy on the left, a Chinese colleague was talking to the driver, a Malay dude, in the Malay language while the Malay dude was responding to him in English while mixing it with some Cantonese quotes.

I love it that we're a melting pot of different races and cultures, and yet, embrace all the differences as our national identity. I love it that we all celebrate Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, Deepavali, Diwali, Christmas together!

Sigh... my temper's been pretty thin this week. Twice in two days I've lost my cool and was very sharp and heated with some people in the office. I regret my two outburst but unfortunately can't take it back. And since I can't take it back, I'll have to just move forward.

My temper is one of my weaknesses. My strength? That I can admit it.

I performed my quarterly spring clean on my room today. Now, either I'm fastidious enough to repeat my spring clean every 3 months, or I'm that messy that I have to spring clean my room every 3 months. Urhmm... hate to say, but the latter is more closer to home than the former.

So this was my room before I started to clear up my room...





And tada! My after shot!!





As you might have noticed, I started when the day was really bright and ended when the night had sunk. Naw... I went to the gym and had dinner with my family before I came back and snapped my after shot.

Oh, and in case you're wondering why the quality of the picture is so grainy, it's because I used my new Motorala v3 phone!! That and because my cables and power cord is still in Australia and can't use my digital camera. I got a new phone because my old phone was super duper ugly. So ugly that I can't even take a picture of it to post it here because I'm embarassed by it. Although I must give it credit for being a darn sturdy phone that accompanied me for 2 years, and despite the abuse I've given it by dropping it over and over and over again, it has never ever complained or acted out against me. But it's so ugly, I've left it in my office toilet so many times, and nobody has ever touched it. :S

Bro O once pointed out about how people could mishandle success. I think I was unthinkingly veering towards that tendency until he made me aware of it and to exercise caution against it. I think I'm a little more cautious now, though I still feel pulled by it. Materialism is intoxicating.

As a student, I had just enough, but not more that I could spend with any ease of mind. There were things that I wanted but could never have, and those things used to taunt me. So there's a certain rush of power when I can now buy the things that I always wanted without a blink of an eye. That power is intoxicating. There's always a threshold though, when I've spent to a certain level, the same anxiety I used to have as a student would kick in. But even now, that threshold slowly goes up bit by bit.

So I guess it's time for me to check myself in this area of my life. I wonder, if I had my financial comfort stripped of me, will I be able to live contentedly with bare minimum: of clothes, food, bodycare and makeup and even readjust back to a life dependent on public transport?

First it was an ugly duckling, now I was a fat caterpillar?!?

Hehe... I got a call from Matthew Seeto yesterday to confirm if I would be attending his wedding in Singapore this coming October. After I said yes, he told me he heard a lot of stories of me. One particular one is about how from a fat caterpillar I have bloomed to be a beautiful butterfly.

Fat caterpillar?

Now from who did that come from I wonder?!?

Hahaa... for some reason, the conversation made me feel that Matthew is still the same old Matthew I used to know from Newcastle days. There's some sense of relief in that. That some memories don't just remain as memories. :P

Was I really that bad when I was a student?! No, wait, I don't think I want to hear the answer to that.

Hmm... something's wrong with Blogger. Or could it be user problem? I'm having problems publishing, editing or even deleting entries. Well, not that I have much energy left to do much blogging anyway.

I would talk about work, but I have resolved to try to center too much energy and focus on it. As adviced by my regional manager, be passionate yet remain disconnected.

But if I don't talk about work...

I remember when I was in Year 6 in primary school, one of the teachers was trying to scare us, telling us that secondary will be tough. Real tough. We would start to do real work, and we would be so busy we wouldn't even have time to pass motion. She managed to worry me, which is probably why till today I can recall her words.

But secondary school didn't turn out the way she said it would, quite the opposite in fact. But today... suddenly I find her words finally coming true. I've never felt so rushed, harried, pulled, squeezed, and any other adjectives that could describe my poor mentally harassed state of mind.

Surely life is meant to be much more. Surely this buzyness has got to be unnatural and unhealthy. I think I hear all my sane friends go, you think? with dripping sarcasm.

The last time I talked to Bro O, he challenged me, to consider if God were to ask me to sacrifice my work, just as He had challenged Abraham to sacrifice his only son to the knife, would I be able to do it?

I was taken by surprise by his challenge at first. There were no thoughts as to what I would say or do, but the emotions that coursed through me at that point was sufficient an answer. I felt dismayed that God could one day demand this of me. Forgo my sizable pay and luxurious lifestyle I've accustomed to?

Sometimes, unknowingly, we slowly start to clench our fingers over the things that are placed in our palms. And the tighter we hold on to the things, the harder it is for us to let someone take it away from us, and not without a fight. And I was slowly tightening my grip over my job and the things it offered me.

What a strong illusion that would have you believe that you had control over the things you owned, when beneath it, it is the things that you own that controls you.

Ahhh... time for me to sleep. It's been a pretty demanding week.

Hehehe... I like my new template very much! Darn... now I wish I had printscreen my other blog templates as memories of how my 'blog identity' has evolved. Oh well.

Did you know, I actually came back from work at 7.30pm today, and was stuck with my laptop until 1am, trying to change the template and fixing a blasted bug that was screwing my template?!? Well, I did take a half an hour break for dinner.

Haha... I was getting so frustrated I finally logged onto MSN hoping to find someone who knew something about CSS. And my neighbour, Mark, was telling me how nuts I am, especially for a non-IT person like me, to be addicted to programming! And to waste a Friday night on it!

There's just a satisfaction, in being able to see your own handiwork take form. I took the picture on the right that I used for my header when I was in Australia, as I was passing through Sydney Harbour Bridge.

I got bored with the old template so I decided to CREATE my OWN template! No, I don't have so much free time. But when you want to do something, you make time for it. I think the template needs some tidying up, and probably replace the font with something more simpler and cleaner. But I can only make so much time, so it'll have to do for now.

One of my colleagues at the office gave me a card reader to download the pictures I took with my camera, since all my cables are still in Australia. But for some reason, it couldn't retrieve all the pictures. Just some.

And since I'm in badly need of sleep, I'll just upload some pictures now of my trip in Australia and upload the rest at a later time.




My flight was at 5am Saturday morning, and I had had a full day at work, rushed home by 8pm Friday night, packed, was picked up by Yvonne at 10pm and went for supper with her and Steph, and the two super duper friends of mine dropped me all the way to KLIA at the wee hours of the morn. I was badly in need of sleep as I waited at the terminal for my flight, and had to lie down and rest at a bench but I couldn't sleep! I promised to myself I shall never be so silly as to get a flight at such an ungodly hour ever again.

While I was lying on the bench, looking up, I thought the lights looked very pretty. It reminded me of stars.




Muaahaha... when I got off the flight, I was holding on to my camera, waiting to catch the first moment Gurjeet saw me. I was right, the moment was priceless!




It's good to know some things just doesn't change - Gurjeet's appetite! First thing she did when we got back to her apartment was prepare something for her ever hungry stomach.

I walked into the office this morning, feeling a cross between 'bright and chirpy' and tired. When I saw some colleagues stepping out of the meeting room I smiled and waved at them, one of them immediately stopped me and asked me for help. The company had participated in the annual Rat Race jointly organised by The Edge and Bursa Malaysia, and half of those participating in the run conveniently pulled out the morning of the race!

So since I've recently just renewed my zest in getting rid of my cellulites, I accepted the request to substitute the last minute ditchers since I had nothing planned for the afternoon.

When we got to the Bursa Malaysia building, I was kinda taken aback by the throng of people there. Some of them like RHB really went all out in supporting the event by sending in 12 teams! Each team comprises of 5 people, and to register a team, it would cost the company RM10,000! Hehehe... most company sent only 1 team. And all the money would be used as donations to various beneficiaries. I think it's such a great idea.

There were categories besides Best Runners and Best Teams, such as Best Cheerleading Team, Most Senior Runner, Best Dressed Team, etc. And a lot of the companies that participated really went all out in their participations, which was really great. So much team spirit!

At first, my company's team felt a little shy, because due to some mishaps, we weren't really very prepared for anything. No banners, no uniforms, no theme, no clue. All we did was to tell the two fastest runners to just run and forget about us, and the rest of us will bravely hold the back. Heheh...

Oddly enough, the friends we made in the race were our 'competitors'; our dear hardware competitor and consulting competitor. Roshan was also there, who was with the GE team with really fantastic props (they won Best Dressed).

When we were standing at the starting line, everyone was chatting, making jokes and having a good time. In my excitement, I was talking to anyone and everyone, and in that moment, Bro O's words of me withdrawing too much came back to my mind. He's right of course, he always is. Me, shy? No, I never was. Just bitten.

Anyway, we ran all the way from Bursa Malaysia building, through Jalan Tunku Rahman? Was never good with road names. Past The Weld anyway, and then got unto Jalan Sultan Ismail, past KLCC, back unto Jalan Sultan Ismail and then went back towards Bursa Malaysia building.

When we reached the finishing line, we were in the 400ths. But one of our girls was the first in the women category!! Hehehe... we could finally hold our heads up high and puff up our chest contrasting with our embarassed 'tail-between-our-legs' state at the beginning.

All in all, it was a fantastic time we had. Now who said rat races can't be fun?! ;)

For pictures, click here.

Oooh... I think I shall try my hardest to avoid going to Cameron Highlands ever again! I'm afraid my stomach can't stomach the windy roads to reach Cameron and down. On the way down, I kept eating asam since Chinese aunties keep claiming the sour taste helps take away the nausea. I kept eating it until I was getting sick from the asam itself! Next best thing was sleep. The cure to everything.

So anyway, went up to Cameron for the Bangsar Lutheran Church retreat. It was nice. Was kinda reserved initially since I didn't really know much people. I smell something in the air, and it smells of God's meddling. I have a funny feeling that it was Him that stopped me from going back to UK, and again Him at work when I joined the retreat last minute. Wish I knew what He's up to.

Was chatting with an old friend who was sharing about the many problems her stressful work life has created on her body. She was always a worse workaholic than me. At least during college and uni life, I didn't really bother about studying, while she was always working hard to ace in her studies and projects. Her telling me her tales has made me a little more wary about pushing myself too much. When health starts to deteriorate, the company ain't gonna be able to help me replace it.

So hope this is the beginning of a less workaholic life?