Queen Lisa

Lisarella

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Avatar - Lisa

look! this is how i think of myself.
honestly, i never did start out wanting to look this way.
it is funny how our unconscious mind works. especially through "play". i was told that during "play" our real self becomes more prominent. in a way,, there are no rules like the real world. it is a matter of "what you could do if you have freedom of choice" and for some people, all hell break loose.
so anyway, i dont know why i always name myself Lisa or Alisha. it is like a name that is plucked out of thin air and from long ago when i first had a PC and was microsoft comic chat, my nickname was Alisha. oh, i wonder how many people had done MSchat. it was like the coolest chat i have ever been. you take a character and conversations scrolls like a comic strip. you could have various facial expressions etc etc. it is now history but it was good.
i stumbled onto yahoo avatar last night and was initially choosing my face, style and accessory like in a normal fashion but took an instant liking to this particular one i've assembled.
this reminds me of the days when we used to play paper-cut-out dolls with detachable hats, shoes and dresses. mix-and-match just like this modern avatar. i shall create more styles later to show you. for now,,, Katcha!

much ado nothing

i had a rather unsual day on my birthday.
woke up at 3.35am and couldnt sleep more.
not that i didnt want to but i just couldn't.
the newspaper man came at 4.30am. i wonder how much margin he gains from dispatching newspaper. how much money does he earn and if it is sufficient for a reasonably good life.
cathy gave me a set of nailcare stuff, and a bottle of dead sea moisturizer. buffed my nails and they looked really neat and clean. read the papers and showered. and i was ready to go out at 7 in the morning. well, where can i go? i wasnt working that day. answered some questions at the "yahoo answers" website, hoping to earn my points for my first question. i want to ask "is loosing 35 to 50 strands of hair a day too much?" i have recently began to count the number of hair i loss after shampooing. averagely 35 strands. and reasonably 15 more till the end of the day. i dont think new hair grows at this rate. so, will i be having lesser or thiner hair generally?
i used to have hair so thick, every one has to comment. every hair dresser. and i remember trainee hairdressers would sweat and call out for their shi-fu to help. that thick. but not anymore now. it is averagely thick and i am thankful for it. i dont think one should complain about having thick hair cos one will appreciate having it when he is 50. crowning glory.
ok, so anyway, after i had my coffee and surfed yahoo, i bathed and lugged my 700 pieces of gold coins to the bank. i have decided to bank in my birthday present. boy, was it heavy. it was like carrying a 4kg bag of stones. the bank did not accept coin deposite on friday. they only do on tuesday and thursday. just my luck. no. i refused to accept this. lugged on and went to another bank. same rejection. gosh, i am perspiring like a condensing cold glass of water. not that i was worried or anything but under the sheer heat from walking 1 kilometre. ok, one last try at the 3rd bank. same thing but this time i decided to press on a little. i said "can you make an exception?" she went in for a whole 5 minutes and returned with a suggestion. leave it with them and they will count the coins and credit my bank at the end of the working day. of course i said thank you. ok, next, i walked into the chinese massage palour for a traditional chinese accupressure massage. boy oh boy, it was painfully good. some of my veins had old injuries and were achingly painful. most of my muscles are stiff and hard to the touch. the massue wonder how a person could live with such discomfort and this is not the first time i have been commented about this. the best part was the massage on my stomach. boy of boy, the pain shot right to my gastrics. pain like on a scale of one to ten, eight, kind of pain. why is it not painful normally? why are there no symptoms? why is it only painful when the stomach is being pressed on? i never did know about "wind" till now. so anyway, i was happy that i went for some detoxifying massage. i read that okinawa has the most centurians and they get their shiatsu massage weekly. in local context, i think it will be rather costly with massage prices here at $60. then i decided to go to the temple to pray. the chinese Kuan Ying temple at bugis. pray for good health and career for myself and family. world peace. on way home, shopped at bugis, no longer called seiyu but BHG and it is a lame name. its full name is "Be Here for Good things" gosh. it could only be the works of taiwan/china-chinese/japanese retail. in this case, i belive it is japanese. be here for good things. if it was local or european, the marcom team would have been fired. so anyway, i just bought a pair of earrings and a pair of stockings which i have to give away now, cos it looks bad on me. it is a very nice pair of striped stockings and i dont do justice to it. my calves are too big. so anyway, due to to massage and the 3-hr sleep i had the night before, i was terribly groggy and tired and took a nap in the afternoon. it was purely tiredness. woke up in the evening and went for dinner with val, bren, sis & tim at the steak house forrests at holland v. the food was ok only but we enjoyed the ambience. i dont normally spend $200 on dinner but this is only once in a while kind of dinner. val bought me deathly hallows and Opera mag which i used to love but had not read it for quite a while now.
the next day, i collected my phone from the service centre at wisma. my sony k800i is barely one year old and it has been serviced twice. the phone is draining the battery in a matter of hours even when on standby. had the phone back yesterday but it is still drinking my electricity (which is also $$) i always tell my husband he is always charging the phone and camera which he uses for work and i said the money he gets from his job should also cover the electricity that is being used for these equipment. you see, he works free lance and the pay is hourly rated. after petrol for the car and electricity money for the phone and camera that he needs to use every day, how much goes into his pocket? anyway, i am just making a point and not saying he has to do something about it. for the time being, the flexible work nature is good for us. anyway, back to my phone. the customer service girls are mostly philipinas and they are pretty and young, like 18 or 20. they are probably university educated or at least collage. i am just wondering say, ten years down the road, will we see many cross-marriages between our youths here and them. this is a social-economic culture and i feel that it is only natural to fall in love. so anyway, i will be going back to ask them to service my phone again or give me a new one.
went to help cousie anna choose her wedding gowns. she is really lucky to have so many flattering ones that suit her well. colour and style are complementing her. how sweet.
dinner at lavander hawker centre and headed home sweet home. my honey was waiting for me.
sunday, went for one more round of massage. yes, i want to treat my problem successively so that i can regain healthy body asap. did nothing much after that except having a can of organic clamp chowder soup which was blend for all its goodness.

出路

stupid people makes me angry

i was telling my colleague about the case i read in the forum where a man had an asthma attack while at a shopping mall with his wife. the inhaler he had was out and they were in a panic as he was turning pale and had difficulty breathing. they quickly ran into a pharmacy to purchase an inhaler but there was no pharmist on duty. the sales people at the store refused to sell the inhaler to him because he did not have a doctor's prescription with him and they cannot be responsible for selling him a drug that needs prescription. that man's breathing was turning laborious and every minute spent negotiating with the staff was wasted breath. in the end, they had to rush home for the inhaler he has at home, all the while risking his death.
the thing is that the couple were willing to sign a form or to write an indemity letter on the spot so as to relieve the store on any liability but the idea was still being declined.

my colleague argued that the staff are not wrong not selling the inhaler. she says what happens if after using it, the man dies.

i said, they were not taking any risk, i understand, but if the man is dying in front of you,
are you gonna just watch him die?

ok, let's say this man is your friend, your brother, your father, your neighbour,
will it be any different?
i bet you will risk your job to smash the glass and retrieve the inhaler if you have to.
of course i am being dramatic here but it is a possible scenerio.

singaporeans are know for their kiasuism and now i begin to understand the kaiseeism.

this reminds me of another case where a police officer refused to give aid to an injured motorist a few feet away from his police post because HE WAS ALONE and the standing order is that if you are left with one man, that one man cannot leave the post.
the passer-bys were pleading with him to assist but he could not step out.
i wonder if there was a fire at the post, will he have fled?
obviously you can tell me that is different as it is obvious danger,
but rendering timely first aid is also crucial!
it is not like asking you to leave your post to buy coffee.

走出去就有路

we are just so rigid to take a step.

Unspoilt

I knew about Dumbledore being gay before I knew he was going to be killed.

You see, I had the sixth book lying on my shelf for the longest time but didn't lift a finger to it until last week. Mainly because i was a little disappointed after book 2 and felt that Rowling was trying to let new readers catch up and was re-capping about year 1 & 2 of Harry's life at Hogwarts too much. This is a bore to those who have read immensely on the earlier releases before the rest of the world caught up. My interest took a dip so much so that I have not bought the last- Deathly Hallows yet.

As I made a resolution to read all the unread books in my possessions before I buy anymore books, I had to read the half blood prince somehow.

First half of the book was okay but i couldn't quite peel myself off to bed as i moved toward the back. I kept saying "ok, one more chapter, just one more" but i kept tempting myself to the next leaf and the next. Alas, I finished the book last night and refused to look at the clock so that my body don't register the time. (in times like this, i would fool my body to think that it has enough sleep). so anyway, half the time i winced everytime i passage across Dumbledore's affection for Harry or any affection for that matter. Because i had the revelation by Rowling that he was gay.

I wished I didnt know, for I began to read between the lines. That is prejudice. That is No good.

Please dont get me wrong, i have gay friends, both male gays and female ones and i love some of them more than any other. they are no different. in fact, they are more. not less.

But it still didnt stop me from reading too much into the lines and i begin to wonder if Harry is borderly gay. *sigh* some information is better left unknown.

But I was glad that at least my eyes were brimming with tears after he died.

Well, his greatness and nobleness is still,, noble.

Gay or not gay, he was great. His greatness, fairness, love transcended above his sextual orientation and my heart went out to those whose lives he touched.

Well, it is just a book you say. ya, it is.

But it made me realise that i am not judgemental against gays in a bad way although i had naturally dwelled more into the character.

I often make a lot of self-reflection, if you could access my thoughts live, i think it would be mind boggling. I asked myself why i was uncomfortable with Dumbledore being gay, since I readily accept gay in general.

I realised that more often than not, some gay people are quick to tell me about the juicy romp and they are more than happy to tell me the details. that would make me rather uncomfortable but i do not want to stop them at their tracks in case they think i have an issue with them being gay. It is not that really. you see, even if a straight person tells me the details of their sexlife, i will be uncomfortable. so, the matter is not about being gay, it is just that gay friends of mine tend to tell me more. get it?

barbapapa

Does this bring you any nostalgia?

It surely did for me. this only existed in my memory which I didn't access until last evening,

I saw a 2008 calander-diary with this. my gosh, the memory flooded in. the cartoon clips and all. I know very little about this prodcution but i think it is British. I should research a little into this later. all i could remember is that there is this Papa & Mama with their brood of children. their bodies are flexible & elastic, they could mould themselves into various shapes and machines and use this gift to save the day! I think they don't talk much, almost like only mummbling or gesturing. that's what i remember...

TCM

I went to the Chinese Physician yesterday for my second batch of Herbs.

The look of it makes me think of those Martial Drama Series where the Gongfu practitioner goes up to the mountains to "cai yao"- collect medicine, for a certain problem or illness, etc.

You know, the Singapore General Hospital has teamed with a group of Chinese Doctors from Beijing or Shanghai or generally, China and they have set up clinics at the hospital to complement Western Medical Practice with Traditional Chinese Medicine.

I wonder how it works out but I believe there are many properties of the Chinese medicine that are wholesome and we know but just a little of it.

Anyway, I like the fragrance of my packet of herb while brewing and although it taste bitter, it is bitter-sweet and not as bad as many modern people make it out to be. Just think Stout. I guess not many people I know likes Stout. Incidentally, I do. "Trained" by mom, I always say.

For the herb, you take 3 bowls of water, bring to a boil and let it simmer for about 30 mins till you get 1 bowl of the concoction left. Not a lot of work if you ask me. I asked YC if I should use a big bowl or a small bowl. she said up to me. she then said that it will be better to use a small bowl. good thing i asked why. she said, so that you dont have to drink a big bowl of the yucky bitter medicine, you can finish a smaller bowl quickly.

i see,,, that is her logic.

i have no qualms about having a bigger bowl and i think if i use a small bowl, it will all dry up too quickly.

So anyway, I am going back to the gynea for a final check later this afternoon and I will return to work tomorrow.

work.

I must appreciate my work cos it gives me the money for everything else.

but I must treat my work as secondary and treat myself primary.

You see, we have 24 hours a day.

let's break it down to blocks of 3.

8 hrs for Sleep (say for me, it will be 11.00pm to 7.00am) though i normally sleep later than 11.

8 hrs for Work ( 8.30 am to 5.30pm) That is 9 hrs in the office and please remember, the 1 hr lunch break is "YOUR TIME"

that leaves you the last block of 8 hrs, which is rightly yours.

1 of the hour is lunchtime, you should eat at your pace and not rush. (my bad habit was to rush and continue with my work, thinking that by doing so, i could finish more work and go home earlier)

1 of the hour is commuting time. i am lucky that i could spend about an hour odd to and from work. (if you need to spend more time on the road, perhaps you could read a book or listen to some music on your MP3, etc, or unwind. you know, just to make your time more quality)

1 hr in total as "Grooming"- you know, the usual, bathe, shampoo, styling and make-up.

5 hrs left.

exercise, TV, communicatng? on-line shopping (takes up more time than you'ld plan). socializing, read, knit? just kidding. meditate? prayer? catch-up with your family & friends? talk on the phone? visit someone? i mean, this is just me, i am free&easy. if you are with kids and more traditional obligations like got to do cooking etc, then, you may use "your time" for all these responsibilities.

the point is, we should always remember that we have "our time" too. and these minutes and hours are for us to allocate. this is something i always forget. i kept using "my time" for work and more work, which was endless and needless. 8 hrs is more than enough. if i have a problem, i ought to better look at how i priortize my work and to tell my boss to reallocate them.

if everyone else in my office is managing well, and i am the only person over-worked, the problem lies with me and i must learn to address it.

okay, so much so about this. if i have more stuff to blog about, you will know that i have more time! *smiles*

Tribute to my coolest EXILIM

Time to pay tribute to my camera.
It is not working very well after four good years.
I dont think they retail its battery anymore, the battery is refusing to be charged.
Most of the pictures on this blog is taken with this ultra sleek camera.
After 4 years, 3.2 mega pixel is dated.
Some mobile phones now matches or exceeds this.
I love it for its compactness, for its slimness and it fits into all my small bags to be carried with me every day.
I prided it because I always whipped it out everywhere I went. I took "every day" photos, seemingly insignificant events as it was so small I carried it with me every day.
That was before phones had high res cameras built-in.
If it was still retailing, I would buy it again. (!) yes, you can count on it.
I dont care that there is no optical zoom. i really dont.

You know, I "re-bought" the same model of hairdryer just before it went out of production.
That was after 3 or 4 years when the first one broke down and I was very lucky to have bought the remaining stock that they were clearing. I should have bought one more to keep, but I guess electrical items may not work if kept unused for long. I am keeping my fingers crossed on the one i'm still using because it passed 6 years and counting. Gosh i am crazy. before you think i am crazy, i must justify that it has this big, round thingy where you could "volumize" your hair. It works like a big hairbrush and for me, it is practical cos i dont comb my hair. (!) ya, so there goes my secret.

Back to my Casio.

It was the coolest when it was first in the market.
I am a sucker for all things slim, besides my figure.
I have a "film watch" and coincidentally, it is a Casio.
hummm, to think about it now, it may not be coincidence.
Maybe Casio, like me, has a fetish for all things slim.
The watch got its name "film" not for any visual or filming feature but becase it is slim like an un-rolled film. dont laugh, it is not lame. I am wearing it for nine years and still counting!
but two months back, the face broke. cracked. it was lined across the face and looked bad.
the watch was very worn and dirty-looking but i love it. I should have taken a picture of my beloved watch... Now that it returned after servicing, with a new glass face and new straps, it looks and feel VERY different. To be fair, i must say that the feeling is GONE.
I hesitated before i threw the pack that contained the old straps.
That night, i decided to put the old strap back but my husband had emptied the waste!
I dont think I could go dig it from the rubbish chute but it sure crossed my mind.
oh gosh, i had to LET GO.
I think i am mad.
I honestly miss my watch.

Playing "House"

When we were young we always play House.

I will always be the "baby", my cousin yann will always be the father and the rest will be teacher, student, mother, bus driver and groocery man.

I take my hats off to full-time housewives or homemakers as some my like to call themselves.

for me, it is pathatic to be waiting for your husband to return home, for your children to return home and to wait on them. pathatic is the wrong word to use because this is a great sacrifice and an act of spousal and motherly love which is one great love and i should not put it at that level but it was how i felt.

Enough about eating home cooked food for all its goodness.

I realise the good effects of home-made food and it is good. the only thing i could not get used to is that it is full-time work. for the 2 weeks i stayed at home, a typical day would be morning breakfast bread and butter with my hot coffee and my ever favourite The Straits Times. Then it is out to the market for some ribs and spices, veggies and eggs. then come the thawing, peeling, shelling, soaking, cutting, and this is just preparation! take a break, dare skip lunch. come 4pm, start boiling soup-of-the-night. start at 3 if you want a really good soup in all its glory. After the cooking, there is the washing! and the packing off utensils back to the racks so as not to clutter the drying rack. Not forgetting the mopping of floors to rid any grease. Floors in pural cos it includes the kitchen and living room as my flat is small.

I am just wondering if ever a housewife cooks and does so much and all the husband does is to either gobble the food or worse, critise the cooking. that will be just sad.

after some thinking, i think it is cheaper to eat out. cos there is the electricity for the stoves and cookers, plus the water bill for all the washing and cleaning.

Still, the goodness of home-cooked food for all its nutrients, less monosodium carbonate, lard and salt.

You know, the food at most of our foodcourts are souless nowadays.

soul-less, cooked without passion, without pride, without love, without soul.

the ingredients are mass produced, the cooking is systematic like factory-line and most of the time, i am left thirsty after eating.

gone are the days where we had the street fare and wholesome dishes.

I hope i can hang on to cooking, at least on the weekends and at least for myself.

Brendan for one always tells me it is too much work to cook, but for now, he leaves it to me.

The good thing is that my soups are good!

Of course they are, they are with so much ingredients and cooked in clay pot over hours.

So far, I only know of the few flavours- Sichuan with tomatoe, potatoe & carrots, ground nuts & garlic, etc. all with good pork ribs. Herbal chicken soup. Corn in clobs.

I learnt stir fry choy sim / spinnach with mushroom, black fungus, beancurd skin, with regular onion & garlic. Pig trotter in vinegar & ginger. best!

The end. this is the end of what i know to cook! help! what else?!

Birthday came early

For those of you who have just logged in, you will probably feel that i am having verbal diahorrea, suddenly having a flood of entries. well, enjoy it while it lasts cos i am contemplating of ceasing blogging. honestly, i am a very private person and the initial intention of having this blog was for me to be my real self, like talking to the world of strangers out there whom will not judge me. where i can be melacholic and express my angst and psycho thoughts, be idealistic. the truth be told, i do not let myself into people's heart.

i have a problem. i could love and accept most people but i kind of do not allow them to really know me. I give but i do not receive. why? why oh why? i have so much insecurities, i think i that if people really know me, will soon discover that i am stupid. how warpped can this be. look at me, i am good at so many things but i keep picking on myself on my weaknesses. i am self-critical and i am afraid people will be like this. this is my problem and i will have to deal with it in my own terms. i thought about ceasing because more people are reading and they are caring. how can this be bad? i dont know.

so, anyway, we'll see about it.

Birthday came early.

Like i told you before, every year, i break the piggy bank and count the gold nuggets which will be the money for my birthday.

this year, i have yet to do the counting cos it is only the beginning of november and my BD is 3 weeks away. but i have been toying with the idea of getting a lap top for a while and finally get into action. First, thanks to Val for telling me about the flexi max-on-line scheme which is just brilliant for me. I just pay $7.50 for 3 days broadband connection and the rest of the time, i could check-in to my hotmail and Brendan to his yahoo for free. the main draw was that Bren could now do the CPF e-submission for his friend's business at home. I hated it when he had to borrow my office's PC because my conscience says it is wrong. And i hated it cos he was doing for a friend and he is always so damn helpful at a cost and i love-hate him for that. i keep telling him, if your friend runs a business, he jolly well invest in infrastructure like PC and stuff cos these are the basics of a buiness. then he would counter me and tell me that the friend's business is a traditional hands-on one and it is barely making money and has no extra for infrastructure like PCs. we will have a short arguement and i will relent and let him use the PC and feel very uncomfortable about it. so now, it is good that he can help his friend and my conscience is crystal clear and i can love him for that. hahah.

Conscience is a very funny thing, it will haunt and keep you in jail if you dont answer its calling.

So anyway, i decided to buy this lap top mainly because of that and also for myself.

like i told Val, i am a laggard when it comes to IT. i only know the few things like microsoft office and dabble a little here and there but i am never the first-in-line to own the latest gadgets like the best lap tops or digital cameras. I am also quite a sucker, like i am biaised with Dell and i just liked its direct sales strategy where i can order it on the phone, choose the upgrades and have it delivered to my door. Taa-daa! it is like Santa leaves you your present at your door. Santa-Dell.

ok, back to my BD. this lap top will not count as my BD present because i wanted it more for my husband. so it doesn't count. right?

Plus, i have not opened my piggy bank and i am not using it to pay for the lap top.

so we have to wait and see if i have any urge to get myself a real present.

in all tradition, i have always taken leave from work on my BD.

i feel that i should just go enjoy the day.

this year, i hope to have dinner together with Val at the Italian restaurant at Holland V. with brendan of course, the three of us. if PW was in town will be good too. and my sis, i got to ask if she's free.

akan datang... coming to a theatre near you.

Sneak-out

Last Sunday, i sneaked out of the house for a break as i was so bored of being at home for a week. I need the shallow things, i need fashion, i need to see people, i need to spend money, i just needed a walk but not in the park. please dont tell me that.

Boy, was i tired.

My body was just recovering and it probably needed more rest that i realised.

I just did window shopping from Isetan Lido, across to Tangs and then to Takashimaya and I was dead tired. I realised there was a strain in one of the veins on my thigh and it was probably due to my miscarriage. so i walked very slowly, like limping. You probably think that i must be crazy and for those who know me will know that i am.

I made an about turn and headed back home after reaching Taka.

Firstly, i was really tiring out and secondly, look at the madness, look at the crowd!

If you can count, i think there probably are thousands of people, and this is just the podium,

at the square. dont even look at the cashiers.

I can never be like these people, shopping like this is a major turn-off. puts me off right away.

then again, i needed to see the hustling and buzzling alive. i am a city folk and i will always need the city to feed me some energy and zest. this is me.

I shopped for a birthday present for sis but i was not satisfied with any.

I wanted to buy her a Coach bag but it was $945. wow, that is like one thousand dollar$.

hummm,,, that got to wait a while.

I would love to splurge on something like that. Expensive bags and diamond earrings.

I mean, there are people buying them like ordinary stuff, day in, day out. and for me, it would be some quality thing that i would use for some years and that is reasonable, wouldnt it be?

So, with a new mindset, i went to check out all the expensive stuff i wanna buy. the Loewe bags and diamonds at the cheaper joints like SK jewllery.

One day i am going to buy some of them.

and i wanna buy them for my sis, my cousins and my friends.

that will make me very happy.

well, if i can satisfy myself in body, mind and soul, i should also allow myself to be satisfied with material. this is no different.

The ‘M” word.

At first, I avoided using the word. I would rather give a lengthy description like
“the body voluntarily expels the tissue from the uterus”
which is what the doctor said in medical term.

In layman term, the word is “miscarriage”.

I thought I shouldn’t give that word such power over me. It is no big deal I said.
Aunt Ai Ling had a miscarriage, aunt Elsie also, my mom too, when she overstrained at work some twenty years ago. Giles’ wife-Alice, and more recently, Brendan’s brother’s wife, plus my cousin-in-law- Jessica, all had gone through the unfortunate experience.
And these are only the people I know.
But I soon realize that by refusing to acknowledge the word, I was in denial and was not coming to term with it.

I had a miscarriage two weeks ago on a Saturday night, past eleven to midnight.
I wonder why didn’t the doctor pre-empt me about the pain and what to expect.
The cramps came and lasted 3 hours which I eventually relented and went to the hospital after enduring the last hour of pain and breaking in cold sweat.
Why did the doctor say to expect just a week of light bleeding and did not say anything about the “tissue”, as they term it, being expelled in a chunk.

I was given two weeks leave to be resting at home.

In western medicine, you only need to rest, eat a balanced meal. There is no such thing as no drinking of plain water or chilled water for that matter.

I went to the Chinese “Sin-say” (physician) for treatment with the TCM way.
Sin-say said that the womb was weak, hence embryo were not likely to flourish, plus the “Qi” (breath) was weak and circulation poor. He prescribed some herbs for brewing and I asked if he will see me on a monthly basis to help restore my health.
He is an old man and I could sense his compassion when he said, -- “Sure, come back, take care, and in future, this will not happen.”

My friends were appalled that I was drinking plain water and that I wasn’t putting on long pants and sweaters. They were appalled that I washed my hair and did the dishes. They were appalled that I was going back to work. They were sorry I went to do marketing and had to cook for myself cos I had no help. I wasn’t sorry for myself. I could do it on my own, I don’t see the fuss except there was a little strain walking back with the heavy grocery, but I am fine. I have never been someone who will think that I should lay back and be taken care of. I am harden and do not think that it is bad.

Why are you doing this? – Val asked me when I told her I will just go back to work for a couple of hours 3 times a week.

Ya, why?

I did a lot of refection with the new-found time I have confined at home.

This is a big wake-up call.

I cried watching the movie “Click” on HBO

You wonder why, it was a comedy isn’t it?

Adam Sandler was as an executive architect, working long hours, always putting off dates for his children, holidays for his family and was always aiming for the next promotion, or, to complete the next project and yet another promotion. His priority was to “get there” (get to the top of the corporate ladder) so that he can then take things at a slower pace and have time and money for his family, which is his love.

On his birthday, he was presented with a Universal Remote Control that could let him have control of time. He could pause a scene, forward or rewind. He could set time in auto-pilot mode where he could just live through his life without the mental focus or being mentally present. This way, he was able to reach his corporate goals.

But time flew by and before he realized, he was old. Like 60 yrs old.

His children had grown up and he has become a stranger, his wife divorced him as he was emotionally absent most of the time, and he was most regretful that his father passed on and he wasn’t there.

He had a heart attack at his son’s wedding and he was at the hospital, deathbed. His son visited him and told him that he would cancel his honeymoon as there was some business meeting that came up which he had to take care. The son repeated what was drilled upon him, “Business comes first”.

“Business comes first, dad” he said to him while leaving the room.

No, no no., Adam tried to say. No, son, no.

But the son couldn’t hear him under all the breathing tubes.

He was desperate to correct the son. He pulled off all the tubes on him, ran out of the building under the pouring rain and risking his last breath, called out to the son.
Desperately he called out to him.

“Family first,,,,, family first”….

Of course this is drama but it drummed home to me that I should never loose sight of what is important in my life.
The regret of putting off little things that eventually hit back on me. The regret of neglecting my health in my process of pushing myself to the limit.
Prolonged neglect and the ignorance of thinking I was invincible. Thinking work comes first and letting sloth take over. Sloth in taking care of my health. Knowing what to do but succumbing to laziness and taking myself out or allowing myself to be talked-out, is plain laziness.

I was bitter that I had so much fear in me and I was not living my life as magnificently as I know I could. I was not free.

For one ounce of insecurity I had, I compensated with one pound of work.
I prided myself with my work achievements, the sales, the figures and results.

What was I doing?

Great job.

But it does not have to be at the expense of my health or of my family.

I had lost the balance and the fall was painful.

So now, I learn.

I learn about my own demons. My fear, my insecurities, the pretence of strength when it was brute. The camouflage of satisfaction. I learn about the depth of my unhealthy-tolerance, the weakness of my mind to be unwisely persuaded. I learn about the long term effects of relenting to the ease of things, to short-cuts.

There is no use crying over spilt milk. I can only be grateful that I learnt now.

Like Adam, the second chance is now.