my toy friend

adeline is the only other person i know who frequently buys toys for herself just because she fancies it.

i had been keeping with me her birthday present since april till august when i finally got to meet up with her last friday. on the contrary, she showered me with more gifts that i have given her.

here's what i've received:-

a wind-mill pencil

a disco-ball key chain made from a pair of earrings

2 wooden fridge magnets wiht faces of an ox and a rat

1 lion figured lock &

a collage

i like the collage best. adeline is an insightful person and she has a nick and an eye for quotes and words of wisdom from people she reads about. she could put together very moving collages and i really liked them a lot.

she is the only friend whom shares with me the likings of witches, vampires, warewolves and she perpetually has black kohl on her eyes, not to mention perpetually in black. it is already a trademark of hers since i know her in 1998. gosh, it is nine years already?

she is the only person who will send me a postcard welcoming me home after i've confided in her that i was afraid i will never return from japan and my plane will crash and i will perish.

so you see, she is probably the few other persons who pamper my wild thoughts and sooth me.

what a friend indeed.

Thou Shall Not Complain

Today, I renewed my outlook on work.

Thou Shall Not Complain

It has been some time since i was overly stressed with work.
I discovered that I had over-identifed with my work and I will now put in concious effort to be in-charge of my life.

At the back of my head, I know what I should or should not do but the daily demand from me has clouded my wisdom & judgement. I even said that I finally know how a person becomes a Grouch.

So, now, I have stopped complaining about being over-worked and started with the following:-

Prioritize
not just prioritize my work but prioritize my life
If catching up with old friends is important, i will go ahead and meet them regardless.

If having one-hour lunch break is important, i will eat, relax and blog as long as i feel that i need the break.

If going home at 6 is important to me, i will go, and won't worry about the demanding tasks that are outstanding.

If the outstanding tasks are important, i will complete them without being unhappy.

Don't blame my boss
If i have told him i am over-loaded and the work continues to come, i will dismiss the over-flown and only handle those pressing or important ones according to my judgement.

As long as i know i have done a great job, i will not be concerned about how he will judge me.

I am already a star performer whether i do the hundred other tasks or not.

Decision
I have decided that i am good enough and i am much more than what my boss have bargained for. period.

you know, it is important to be aware of ourselves, our outlook and our stress level.
people says that old habits die hard but i say that old habits die hard only if there are no new habits to take their places. in our bodies, new cells replaces old ones. we only die when there are no new cells generated. It is not easy to break a habit but it can be done. so, i will not be intoxicated with grievances about work because my life is much more than work. i consume the work, not the other way around.

=)

Geylang

you know, once in a while, i go property hunting,, ie, meet agents or owners and view their apartments and sometimes show flats too.

this is just because my friend PW, bren & i have pledged ourselves to make ourselves rich by investing in property. in fact, we started our project some 3 years ago. but we have yet to make a deal, always due to some missing factors. we came close but have not had our maiden break.
nonetheless, we have been consistent with our efforts to be on the go, to put ourselves out there and get our feet working, view the houses, work our sums, etc. this is just preparation work which we believe will get us ready for the chances coming. in fact, i can shameless tell you that we have formed a club called "club eleven" for the sole purpose of dedicating ourselves to being enlightened millionaires. gosh, i cant believe i am telling you this. haha. it happened after i read the book "one minute millionaire" and we are in-the-works if you ask me.

so what's has this got to do with the pictures above? you ask.

ok, we are now eyeing on this property that is located at geylang. details aside, this unit is currently an artist's studio and we also met the few in-house artists who where there. they are interesting people and i must say creative work takes more discipline that what a lay person may understand. like this master-of-brush artist,, you know, the whole package comes with time and devotion, from qi-kong to meditation, to many preparation work behind the scence before the final work, that is physically painting the piece of art.

the second artist is a new yorker (born in singapore) but made good & gained fame in new york. anyway, he says he wants to paint geylang before it disappears. i guess we will never fully appreciate what we see day in, day out, until it is whoosh, revamped and retrofitted and then we say, oh, it was better the last time. and then nag about how our culture is lost. he was just telling us how he wants to capture the sights before it vanishes.

i really enjoyed the day. we spent the whole afternoon at the studio and the whole night talking to PW. i missed doing this and i realised that for a long time since i've worked here, i had not enjoyed a weekend this much.

i toyed with the idea to ask the brush master artist to tutor me.
we had great chemistry because we engaged with his work at another level.
i should not tell you too much or it will seem occult but it is just good old reiki that we relate to.
i am still toying with the idea of asking him to teach me because it is just too much work and discipline which i am not sure if i can commit. when monday comes, i am transformed back to a stressful worker and i absolutely am frustrated with the situation. i am not sure if i can pull out of this hence am non-committal. but i do day-dream about the ideal life of being an efficient worker at my current job and having a hobby so fine.
hummmmmmmm....... i shall ponder some more and see what comes up for me.

so there you go my friends.

our seventeen years

Jin & Val are my pre-u friends.
they came over last Friday and thumb through 4 or 5 volumes of my photo albums.
i could have more albums if not for the small space i have at home.
they were just wowing about our seventeen years of friendship.
i was never counting because the relationship means more to me than numbers.
anyway, Jin who is back from Taipei, will be changing career course soon.
she is going to switch from creative design work to baking. baking, not banking.
24 months of haitus to come. vermont, she tells us is the home to hersheys & ben & jerry.
i just hope Jin will find her happiness in what she does because i am concern about her.
i dont know,,, perhaps i should not worry about her. i have also made a round about turn in my career and i am doing great. so, yes, i wish she finds joy in what she will be doing. smelling all buttery and sweet. =)

Happy National Day

this morning i was totally embarassed with myself.

caller went:" hello, may i have extension 200"

I went "extension 200? who are you looking for?" (extn 200 is for my boss)

caller: "kann chia"

I went: "kann chia is at extension 203, yes, how can i assist you?"

caller: "i want to speak to kann chia"
(obviously he doesnt know it is me already on the line with him, he thought it was the operator)

I repeated: "i am kann chia, how can i assist you?"

caller: "i want to speak to kann chia"

me: : " i am kann chia how can i assist you?"

then he said:" kann ah? this is david. david ang" (one of the buyers from my anchor account)

silence.

i was flabbergasted.

david: "wah, you so fierce, last night boyfriend never give ar?"

flabbergasted again.

i went: " oi, david, sorry la. i thought who was looking for my boss"

then we went on with work matters and he tried to be nice by cracking some other lame jokes about my boss being bald.

i was totally ashamed of myself.

i think i am pretty rude and impatient when i am engaged. it is like when i am so damn busy already, with thousand and one things on to-do list. like many "important" things, "urgent" things, "urgent & important", "not urgent but important" and "things to be done when there is time" kind of things. so i became crude and abrupt. that is nasty and people are surprised when i am like that. they have told me later that i am fierce. well well, i guess i am and i am sorry to be impatient. *sigh* i am normally not like that!

**************
this year, i didnt watch NDP rally, PM's speech nor watch the maiden NPD parade on water.
it is like there was no NDP for me.
except the fact that i went to esplanade to view tim's design that were displayed at the entrance.
tim is great. (tim is my sis's BF) i do hope that get marry emmmm by 2009.

ok back to ND.

i went to Usha's house on ND.

usha is an indian national from chennai. she lives alone here and is grateful to me for encouraging her to apply for permanent resisdency because she had always thought she would never be successful and i have always told her to try, try & try.

so yes, she is a PR now and she is just glad she has me as a friend.

her brother raju is in town. he is a lecturer at las vegas, business school i think. anyway, he has 3 months worth of summer break and was here. nice guy who travels quite a bit and he prefers malacca to singapore. he feels that the chinese there are more pronounced in the religious practices especially the taoist & buddhist. he feels that the peranakan culture there is also richer.

so anyway, i must tell you something about me.

get ready---

it is not in my nature to socialise.

dont get me wrong, i love many people. more than they know.
i am just not sociable,, like, i dont know how to make small talks, i dont know how to ask abt them and be really interested in what they have to say. and my memory is rather short, i dont remember things and events, my history & geography is poor. so i cant really make small talks or any long conversations mostly.
i rarely go to any form of gathering or home visits if i am not very familiar with the host or the people who will be there.
it is like dragging myself to the gym-- laborious.
BUT, it is like after the gym -- wonderful feeling of content & satisfaction!
what im saying is that i would always feel dread to go any party where i only know the host, or where the host is a new friend whom i dont really know.
but after im done, i am always very happy and glad that i went. becos it would normally be a wonderful PM (my coined phase of "Precious Moment") -- ya, precious moments are events like home visits, BBQ, wine chilling, etc where you really sit down and have a meal or a drink and talk about just anything and get to know each other the way you never get to when you were together. do you understand me? if you attend a gathering and all you did was "oh how are you? fine thank you, oh see you soon, take care, good bye." that is not a PM. at most, it is an event.

ok, so.
i was glad i went to usha's house. she cooked vegetarian dinner. broccoli (spelling?) soup, stir fried noodles with red pepperoni & onions. lastly, diced fruits with ice cream. it was simple and she painstakingly made sure we were ok with the indian spice becos the last time we were at her place, another ex-colleague didnt touch her mom's cooking and was too nice to say anything.

one man's poison is the other man's meat.
so i always respect the fact that we are different.

so, anyway, we finished dinner pleasantly and talked about the volunteer work she does at batam, bringing food to homes on the swamp & slump. i asked to join her the next round.

raju insisted we watch a VCD- Singapore Dreaming and i am glad we did.

although of course not everyone in singapore or every household is typecasted, i am sure we can relate to the theme. it says about a middle aged man whose dream is to win the lottery- TOTO and he would always snip news paper cuttings on codo & sports utility car. he would say that he couldnt endure those perverts who pees in the lift in his HDB block. little does he know that it was his son-in-law peeing in the lift. to irritate him as well as to vent his frustration. the SIL is an ex-army personnel who regertted leaving the army to join "financial planning" selling insurance. everyone in one way or another avoids insurance sales man.
his wife on the other hand, is always commenting and demeaning his job. she sits at the back of the car and the husband becomes the driver or "ahmad" in our local term. most women do not realise that to demean anything about a man is to demean the man.
she is heavily pregnant and worries about not having enough money as the husbands brings in meager pay. plus, her insensitive boss asks her to do everything from coffee to cosoling his wife to tendering on projects to photocopying of document.
she is frustrated becos she is efficient and intelligient but she is a secretary who didnt have a degree not that she couldnt intellectually but that her parents are biaised with gender and her ingrate brother gets to go abroad for tertiary education but not her.
so anyway, the main character - the middle aged man, died of a heart attack after winning the 2million lottery and was about to be recruited into an elite membership.
so came the funeral and it was hinted that the man has a mistress and a young son.
the story ends with the wife of the man giving $1000 to her son, $300,000 to her daughter, some money to the mistress and the rest was to repay debt from sending the son overseas.
she retires in muar- malaysia where she originally came from.

how apt that i watched this on National Day.

wah haha hah.

my conclusion:-
every one has their problems & angst and we should really stop it at us.
dont pass the bug around. dont nag at your husband, dont put down your wife, dont accuse your maid, dont abuse your secretary. just be sensitive to people around you. let the angry bug stop with you.
this will be my Singapore Dream.

amen.