Yaco

Friday, May 29, 2009

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.

I got to thinking one day about all those people on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.

How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word "refrigeration" mean nothing to you?

How often have your kids dropped in to talk k and sat in silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television?

I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, "How about going to lunch in a half hour?" She would gas up and stammer, "I can't. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, it looks like rain" And my personal favorite: "It's Monday." She died a few years ago. We never did have lunch together.

Because Americans cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!

We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Steve toilet-trained. We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet. We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of "I'm going to," "I plan on," and "Someday, when things are settled down a bit."

When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Rollerblades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord.

My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process. The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.

Now...go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to...not something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?

Make sure you read this to the end; you will understand why I sent this to you.

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through each day on the fly? When you ask "How are you?" Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head? Ever told your child, "We'll do it tomorrow." And in your haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die? Just call to say "Hi"?

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift....Thrown away.... Life is not a race. Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over.

"Life may not be the party we hoped for... but while we are here we might as well dance!" Life is short; break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile.

http://www.rlnn.com/ArtMay07/OPNeverRegretAnythingMakesYouSmile.html

Last Barking On|7:05 PM|

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Sometimes i really wonder what is wrong with me.

I always seem to try too hard, take too long, do too much and always failing to do the right thing at the right time.

How much time and effort have i wasted on all of this already?

I can't help but feel like a fool whenever this happens.

Is there a point to it all?

Am I actually just being a bother while you are entertaining me, feeling annoyed but not wanting to voice it out?

Did I think too much, read too much into things and hope for too much or was I simply being led around like an idiot?

Does the problem lies with who I am, what I do?

Or am I a horrible person who keeps thinking that he is otherwise.

Sigh. Whatever happens, I am really glad that the weekend dinner chat gang is still around. I really appreciate it. I really do.

Last Barking On|12:25 PM|

Friday, April 24, 2009

ever had this feeling that there are too many thoughts going through your mind and you get the sense that they are all of importance to you but they are flowing through too fast for you to capture and hold on to them for long enough to make sense of them?

i think writing or maybe even blogging is an effective tool for you to hold onto an idea as it comes by and explore it a little, hopefully allowing you to realise something useful to yourself in the meantime.

there might be too many but it doesn't hurt to try does it?

you really do have alot of time to think about the things when you are outfield since 90% of the things you do don't require any brain power. still, your mind would still be blank 90% of the time as you are too tired to think about anything and just stone.

however, it did allow me to realise some things about myself though.

i always sorta knew it but it became more obvious for me recently. i am someone who takes an eye for an eye to the extreme. if you do wrong to me, i may not do anything back and forget about it in a while but it will somehow register in some part of my mind and when i get the chance to or when you need help, do watch out cos i may not be as nice as i seem to be.

on the other hand though, if you help me or are nice to me, i would rarely say a second word when you come to me for help or anything else for that matter.

the problem with this seems to be that i have selective memories and my memories seem to be extremely resistant to change. if i somehow accept the notion that you are a positive or a negative to me, it doesn't change easily as the same few memories of those incidents would override any more recent developments with few regards to their significance.

somehow i think i am blabbering and the above applies to everyone to a certain extent.

gah. whatever. i made a mental note of that as i thought that it's actually not a good thing, given that people do change and i am somehow treating these people inappropriately for what they have become.

humans have so many common flaws that we recognise at some point in time but refuse to or are unable to as they are part of our nature, our programming if you want to think of it that way.

when two different people see the same scene, they can develop vastly different ideas about the issue, depending on how much the issue affects them. when you see like 1000 people died in an earthquake in turkey, the impact it has on you is much less then when you saw the news about the few who died during the dragonboat incident in cambodia.

humans tend to only care about things that concern them. we can't really relate to the earthquake but the dragonboaters who died could have easily been a friend, relative or neighbour who affects your life in someway thus, making a much larger impact to you.

it's like when you see a car crash along the road.

normally you would be like "oh. a car crash. lets see what's the car plate number, maybe can buy 4d"

but what happens when it's the car of someone you know? you would be like " omgwtf! is he ok? has anyone called the ambulance yet? is he still alive? %&^$"

humans are selfish creatures. i had to write an essay that goes something like " Do you think that everything that we do is for our own benefit?" and i agreed with the topic wholeheartedly. no matter what we do, we are doing it because it benefits us.

when we do charity, we feel we are doing a good deed, we feel good, we hope for good karma, we hope that if something ever happens to us, others would help us. whatever. we benefit, be it a mental or physical reward.

we would never do anything to hurt ourselves unless we think that we can get something out of it. as such, we would often interpret the things people say or the incidents you see happen in a way that's most favourable to yourself. it's like a mental failsafe of sorts. can you imagine what state of mind you would be in if you constantly see it from the other side? as such, we would often lie to ourself, even when you have this nagging suspicion that the other side of the coin in the right one.

hmm... too many things going through my brain right now and i am feeling super random. think it will take forever.

god. so much blabbering.

maybe i should go into studying about physology?

Last Barking On|6:57 PM|

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Interesting Article

This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.

This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.

This is for that time she left 40 urgent messages on your cell phone, and when you called her back, she spent three hours painstakingly dissecting two sentences her boyfriend said to her over dinner. And even though you thought her boyfriend was a chump and a jerk, you assured her that it was all ok and she shouldn’t worry about it. This is for that time she interrupted the best killing spree you’d ever orchestrated in GTA3 to rant about a rumor that romantically linked her and the guy she thinks is the most repulsive person in the world. And even though you thought it was immature and you had nothing against the guy, you paused the game for two hours and helped her concoct a counter-rumor to spread around the floor. This is also for that time she didn’t have a date, so after numerous vows that there was nothing “serious” between the two of you, she dragged you to a party where you knew nobody, the beer was awful, and she flirted shamelessly with you, justifying each fit of reckless teasing by announcing to everyone: “oh, but we’re just friends!” And even though you were invited purely as a symbolic warm body for her ego, you went anyways. Because you’re nice like that.

The nice guys don’t often get credit where credit is due. And perhaps more disturbing, the nice guys don’t seem to get laid as often as they should. And I wish I could logically explain this trend, but I can’t. From what I have observed on campus and what I have learned from talking to friends at other schools and in the workplace, the only conclusion I can form is that many girls are just illogical, manipulative bitches. Many of them claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when presented with such a specimen, they say irrational, confusing things such as “oh, he’s too nice to date” or “he would be a good boyfriend but he’s not for me” or “he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t possibly ask him out!” or the most frustrating of all: “no, it would ruin our friendship.” Yet, they continue to lament the lack of datable men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sympathize and apologize for the men that are jerks. Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my ability to fathom. I can’t figure out why the connection breaks down between what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this complete ass now!). But one thing I can do, is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phenomenon doesn’t last forever. There are definitely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and realize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for granted. The tricky part is finding those girls, and even trickier, finding the ones that are single.

So, until those girls are found, I propose a toast to all the nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hearing yourself described as ubiquitously nice. But the truth of the matter is, the world needs your patience in the department store, your holding open of doors, your party escorting services, your propensity to be a sucker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things you tolerate, for all the situations where you are the faceless, nameless hero, my accolades, my acknowledgement, and my gratitude go out to you. You do have credibility in this society, and your well deserved vindication is coming.

Fu-zu Jen, SEAS/WH, 2003

Last Barking On|10:19 AM|

Sunday, July 20, 2008

After so long...

Wow... I can't believe it's already almost a year since i last blogged. Haha... not very likely that anyone is reading this blog anymore so it would be easier to blog now. There are so many issues and things that are going on in my mind and i have a feeling that i am gonna be here for quite a few hours.

I can't really understand myself why i stopped blogging. Perhaps it's because of laziness? Or a lack of desire to blog about unhappy events or perhaps that life just gets so boring that I don't feel like blogging anymore?

Anyway, quite alot has happened in that time period. After the A's ended, I experienced how difficult it is to find work again and after a long time, managed to find one that i had really wanted for a long time and worked at citibank for several months.

I was quite happy to realise that i enjoyed working, far more then studying or at the present, serving ns. It just sorta fits my character and beliefs cos i was able to finally totally depend on myself and my own income.

Some of my friends know that my family believes in financial independence. Not in the official sense of the word phrase though, which means that you are totally free from any debts and loan and have enough money and investment to not work anymore if you want to. My family usage of the word would be that your money is your money and i don't care what you do with your money as long as you don't ask me for any apart from the norm.

I guess that my family is a little unusual at this part. True, i think i had more allowance then the average kid when i was young if you exclude all the extreme examples of rich ppl but it was like 10-20% more. It came with some weird results though.

Since young, I was pretty much free to buy anything i wanted without having to ask for permission. How many p2-p3 kids do you know that can actually just go and buy a gameboy or those power ranger models themselves when they want it without asking? Though i liked to believe that i actually spent alot more on buying books cos i loved reading when i was young and still do.

There were also unpleasant things that came with that freedom though. I have to pay for just about everything that i wanted. Anyone of you have to pay your own share of the travel expense and accommodation like the cruise fare and the hotel room charge when you are travelling with your own family?

Some ppl think that i am actually rich from the way i spend money but that's kinda far from the truth. I was able to spend like I did back in sec sch was more cos i still had some of the money that my granddad gave me and that i had full access to my bank account unlike most ppl at that point so my bank account was more or less in a single digit state for much of the time since sec 2 or 3 till recently. And also because from around that time, i pretty much stop buying anything for myself apart from food and maybe clothes a couple of times a year.

Instead, i started to develop the habit of preferring to spend on others instead and gave treats now and then. I think it was because i somehow realised that it was easier making myself happy from seeing others happy then to spend on myself and trying to make myself happy. Though that has resulted in quite a few stupid or unpleasant incidents.

I think the habit developed from the first time i treated anyone to anything. It was during my birthday in sec 2 and i remember that it was on the way back from some school outing or the other. At that time, i really wanted people to celebrate my birthday because my birthday was pretty much not celebrated at all in the years before since my family don't really believe in celebrating birthday and my dad hasn't had any idea of when my birthday is for like more then 10 years.

I was desperate. And at that time, i also really wanted yinning to go along as well but couldn't think of anyway to ask unless there was a large number of ppl going along as well so i ended up treating part of the class to kfc because it wasn't likely that anyone would celebrate my birthday otherwise. No matter how it came about, it was really the first time that any group actually celebrated my birthday so i was really, really touched and happy.

To me, birthdays are really important since it's the day you came into this world and changed the lives of those around you so i really value birthdays. However, maybe it's also cause my family don't celebrate it and it's human nature that the more they can't or don't get something, the more they want it.

It's also for that reason that if you had read my blog in the past, you may remember that my birthdays after that were some of the most unhappy days of my life. I came to expect too much and i somehow ended up spending the actual day of my birthday alone at home for a few years after that feeling sorry for myself.

Anyway, on the subject of birthdays, yesterday was kobe'a 19th and one of my ex-collegue, guozheng's 21st birthday celebration. Kobe's was a k-box session and guozheng's was a bbq at his house. One thing really made an impact to me though and it was that guozheng actually requested to make a speech before blowing out the candles and cutting the cake. He thanked his parents for organizing the party for him and then proceeded to thank each of the different groups that came and how much he appreciated it and he was tearing by the end of his speech. Initially i was laughing and thinking that it was quite weird to be making a speech and then tearing by the end of it but when i thought about it, i think i may have ended up tearing more then him.

I really envy those ppl who have tight-knitted, happy families who feels comfortable hugging their parents and siblings as i saw guozheng doing every few minutes. Some ppl always seem to keep complaining about how their parents would forbid them from doing this and restrict them from doing that and how much they wanted freedom. But ppl will always just want what they don't get. I got freedom, as much freedom as anyone wants but sometimes i actually end up thinking that i would be quite happy if my parents sometimes ask where i am going and when i am coming back. My family is pretty a individualistic style and everyone just go about doing their own thing. It's not like I hate my family or anything. I believe that my parents are good ppl and it's not like they dun care about me or anything but we just don't know how to or feel uncomfortable about expressing our feelings, resulting in rather bad relationship. My mom and sis are quite close to each other, mom and dad can't stand each other and my sis positively dislike/hate my dad while i am pretty much in neutral grounds and ignores everything.

Mom and dad just don't get along with each other and my dad has been sleeping in the living room for like 8 years now. With me being the neutral party, they always complain about each other to me and I grew numb to it after a while. I tried to tell each of them what the other thinks at the start but both of them are too stubborn to listen. I think the main reason that we are still living together and they have not divorced is that it is too troublesome to get one with all the procedures and that neither have any kind of financial ability to do that or to move out. My sis, being close to my mom thus hates my dad and always express how useless she thinks he is.

The reason for that is because she still can't understand why my family is in such bad financial condition. My dad is a butcher and unknown to most ppl, most butcher actually do quite well financially and that was the case in the past when granddad was still alive and well and my uncle and dad was working under and listening to him. But as my granddad got cancer and then past away, the family's financial situation became worse and worse because my dad and my uncle both doesn't have any kind of financial sense and aren't exactly wise. When ppl move house, most change up or just change location but my family moved from a 2 floor hdb to a 4 room one then to a 3 room one and now my dad is talking abt selling it and i have no idea where's next. The problem initially was because of gambling but the cause for the recent ones doesn't seem to be cos of gambling. It's more like because they have no business sense because i have no idea how can they keep owing money when they are butchers.

Many of the ppl who knew me from the army often thinks that i am quite money-minded since i am always reading some books about finance and stocks and the likes. But i think it's pretty normal when i think about how much money affects my family's life. I think it's also the reason why I am so interested in banking, finance, stocks and the like.

There are many who grew up in pretty well to do family and often, they have no idea how hard it is to make money or suffer from a lack of it and results in them having mentality that makes me agitated when I hear them saying stuff like how unhappy they are cos they can't get that new/pretty whatever or stuff like uni fees are cheap while I am trying to think of ways to fund my uni education cos my parents would be unable to pay any of it.

On the other hand though, when I really think about it, I can't really complain too much when you know that there are many ppl who have it worse then you. There are those whose family have split up or have lost a kin. There are those who are in even more dire financial status. There are those who are unable to do anything about the situation they are in.

At least I still live with my family. At least I still have a home. At least whatever financial problems I have went through has matured my thinking and will drive me and give an edge in the future. At least I am born with reasonable intelligence and sense. At least I have an education. At least I am given the chance to fight back and change things.

Last Barking On|8:42 AM|

Monday, October 15, 2007

getting too lazy to blog recently since there weren't that many events which i can actually be bothered with but i felt like slacking and this is as good a use of slacking time as anything else so here i am!

come to think of it though, quite a few things happened over the past couple of weeks.

got back my prelims results and it was pretty much what i expected, a mixture of c's and d's. should be alright if nothing goes wrong.

anyway, something really embarrassing happened the day before we graduate. when i went onto the stage to collect the econs quiz prize, i fell off the stage when i was walking down the steps and landed on my butt in front of the whole j2. -_-''...

god, at that point i seriously wanted to find a hole and just bury myself in it. it's like so paiseh la! fall down for no reason in front of so many ppl.

then it was the graduation ceremony on wed where we saw ppl collect prizes and then was shown some video clips made by the tutors. pretty interesting clip and pretty funny too, especially the gp part! i think jc teachers are more sporting and have less of a need to keep up their image as compared to secondary school ones since we are really old enough to tell what is an act and what is not.

still, i think it was pretty bad that i didn't feel all that much emotion when we were supposed to have " graduated". it was more of the "graduated then graduated lor... still need to study for A lvl..." that kind of mood.

i suppose the real impact of graduating will come when we finish the last paper ba.

mugging for the A's seriously screws up your interpersonal skills. can you even recall the last decent length conversation about nothing, ie chatting was?

now everyone is like almost a hi bye friend or just some people who happens to have the same meal time or share the same studying space as you and not so much people who you can talk to now, which is kinda saddening.

hopefully things will pick up after the A's if not jc may seriously become something that doesn't leave much memories.

as much as i hate to say this, i have no love for my class at all, compared to the times in xinmin where i actually care about what is happening to almost everyone in the class and would willingly spend tons of time on doing stuff for them. for the jc class though, it is more like i can't be bothered to give a damn.

it may be a problem with me or with the class or just simply with the way our lessons separates us so much. i suppose the real reason is that we simply don't click ba. i actually get along much better with random people from other classes that i have no connections with( like not same cca, no similar lessons etc) much better then i do with the people from my own class. kinda sad that this had to happen.

however, like in ny has generally been pretty good though. i have had some good teachers( hazel ho, jane chong, mr ng) and some bad ones whom i think everyone knows. pretty interesting that we call most of the teachers by their full name for those without christian names and those with christian names by their christian names+ their surname without the mr/miss/mrs infront. seems kinda rude but there's just too many teachers in a jc so too many people share the same surname. it's more for convenience sake rather then out of disrespect.

mr kwek is a good guy, down to earth and real. how many principals do you know that will actually chat to you and greet you before you greet them? he is one of the principal that i respect the most so far. true, he is kinda lo sor at times but he is not talking complete rubbish all the time so it makes it much more bearable then it might be.

then of course there's db! i think i would have sunk into depression and become anti-social ages ago if not for this interesting bunch of people, made up of the weirdest group that i can imagine together. i think i shall do a walk down memory lane with you guys after the A's are over, kinda like what i did for 4e4 back then. man... gonna take up a good part of a week if my memories serves me right.

still, gotta do it for you guys since you guys deserve it!

and then there's the different groups of people whom i have met through different activities and have become good friends with as well! 0607, orientation 1 de og, 0g 13 and the different people whom i have got to know through the interactions in jc as well! if there's one thing i didn't regret, it's taking part in as many of these extra activities as i could since i have met so many people that i wouldn't have otherwise.

so much that is about to just become memories...

it's just two weeks till the A's are here and one more month till the end of it!

i am both dreading the end of it since i have no idea of what's to come and at the same time, can't wait for it since i am honestly super sick of studying le.

i guess i shall see when the time comes!

i don't think i am likely to be blogging much more after this though so i shall come back after the A's~

oh yeah, i am enlisting on 11 apr, bmtc 1 at 10:30! anyone else same as me? i know of quite a few already.

Last Barking On|12:19 AM|

Monday, October 08, 2007

怎么去拥有一道彩虹
怎么去拥抱一夏天的风
天上的星星笑地上的人
总是不能懂不能觉得足够

如果我爱上你的笑容
要怎么收藏要怎么拥有
如果你快乐不是为我
会不会放手其实才是拥有

当一阵风吹来风筝飞上天空
为了你而祈祷而祝福而感动
终于你身影消失在人海尽头
才发现笑着哭最痛

那天你和我那个山丘
那样的唱着那一年的歌
那样的回忆那么足够
足够我天天都品尝着寂寞

当一阵风吹来风筝飞上天空
为了你而祈祷而祝福而感动
终于你身影消失在人海尽头
才发现笑着哭最痛

如果我爱上你的笑容
要怎么收藏要怎么拥有
如果你快乐不是为我
会不会放手其实才是拥有

知足的快乐叫我忍受心痛
知足的快乐叫我忍受心痛

Last Barking On|3:33 PM|