on life, meaning, and everything in between
How to spell diarrhoea? (Wikipedia)
I had problem with that word since goodness knows when. 🙁
I’ve had it since Tuesday. Down with recurring fever, stomach bloatedness and diarrhoea. Feel very tired too, so I’ve not been able to come online pretty much.
A little bit of the mundane setting in as we’re settling into the beginning of 2007. As always, it’s getting less rainy, getting a little hotter.
Like a carrot to make us run faster, I think these few months make the rest of the year worthwhile. So many holidays squeezed together, ang pows to collect (keeping in mind the change in status soon, its not really something to look forward to), and bonuses, it’s all a ploy to make us work harder!
Things are starting to get rough at work. Demanding and impatient users, always a bad combination. I think it is a fine art, trying to balance client expectation with reality, and I honestly think we have not done that at all, so I am stuck directly in the middle, trying to match reality to never-ending-always-and-constant-and-daily absolutely MASSIVE shifts in expectations…
Other than that. Everything’s great! 🙂 Nothing much else to add. Just thought that this following clip is cool. You must have played Final Fantasy to really appreciate it though… Enjoy. There are 4 parts to this, so be sure to watch all.
College Saga Episode 1
College Saga Episode 2
College Saga Episode 3
College Saga Episode 4
I have sent a feedback letter to Today and SMRT concurrently, regarding the bus I took not too long ago.
I didn’t notice, but it was published last week! Woo hoo!
In case you didn’t read it either, I have attached it here. 🙂
A late Christmas post.
Ok… I’ve even passed Boxing Day… So this post is beri beri late… But aiyah… good story so must share right?
Its borrowed from an email from Robert G. Allen and Mark Victor Hansen’s EWI, Enlightened Wealth Institute. It talks about Enlightened Giving, and if you read the books by the authors, you will see why. And people from EMC would understand why this story means so much to me. Hmm… its also a little biased towards Christianity, but I think the story is warm just the same.
How much am I giving? I think it’s a question I need to answer myself.
————————
Adventure With Grandma
I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb:
“There is no Santa Claus,” she jeered. “Even dummies know that!”
My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her world-famous cinnamon buns. I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said so. It had to be true.
Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me. “No Santa Claus!” she snorted. “Ridiculous! Don’t believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad. Now, put on your coat, and let’s go.”
“Go? Go where, Grandma?” I asked. I hadn’t even finished my second world-famous, cinnamon bun. “Where” turned out to be Kerby’s General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days. “Take this money,” she said, “and buy something for someone who needs it. I’ll wait for you in the car.” Then she turned and walked out of Kerby’s.
I was only eight years old. I’d often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten- dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.
I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, and the people who went to my church. I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock’s grade-two class.
Bobby Decker didn’t have a coat. I knew that because he never went out for recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn’t have a cough, and he didn’t have a coat. I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat!
I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that. “Is this a Christmas present for someone?” the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down. “Yes,” I replied shyly. “It’s….for Bobby.” The nice lady smiled at me. I didn’t get any change, but she put the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry Christmas.
That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) and wrote, “To Bobby, From Santa Claus” on it — Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker’s house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa’s helpers. General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days. “Take this money,” she said, “and buy something for someone who needs it. I’ll wait for you in the car.” Then she turned and walked out of Kerby’s.
I was only eight years old. I’d often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten- dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.
I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, and the people who went to my church. I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock’s grade-two class.
Bobby Decker didn’t have a coat. I knew that because he never went out for recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn’t have a cough, and he didn’t have a coat. I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat!
I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that. “Is this a Christmas present for someone?” the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down. “Yes,” I replied shyly. “It’s….for Bobby.” The nice lady smiled at me. I didn’t get any change, but she put the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry Christmas.
That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) and wrote, “To Bobby, From Santa Claus” on it — Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker’s house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa’s helpers.
Grandma parked down the street from Bobby’s house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. “All right, Santa Claus,” she whispered, “get going.”
I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his doorbell and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma. Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.
Fifty years haven’t dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker’s bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: ridiculous.
Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team. I still have the Bible, with the tag tucked inside: $19.95.
—
“He who has no Christmas in his heart will never find Christmas under a tree.”
-author unknown-
We woke up early in the morning at 5am. Hwei min and I were the first to wake up, very gan cheong, I think we were both too excited in anticipation of the trip.
Checked the webcam for the traffic condition, found Tuas to be relatively lighter. Anyway, that was nearer to 8U’s (8th Uncle, dad’s younger brother) place. So we waited for his car and left in convoy. It is the same usual group this time, 8U, 8A, their daughters Wan Ying and Wan Mei, my 2A(2nd Aunt, dad’s elder sister) and my own family of five. We would be joined by my 1A(1st Aunt, dad’s eldest sister) and 1AU(1st Uncle, Aunt’s husband) when we reach their place later.
The first place we aimed for was Yong Peng. A quick stop here, mainly for breakfast. Ah…. if you have never tried, must try sai doh (Chinese literal translation : West Sword, don’t ask me why…) fish balls. Fish balls made from fresh sai doh fish. Their fish cakes are delicious too.
The trip did not start well for me actually. I had a bad digestion problem throughout the trip. Felt bloated. Had to clear my bowels, but I could not release unless I was very comfortable with the toilet. Thankfully the toilet at the said oh place was clean…
I ran into the toilet the moment I stepped into my 1A’s place. This might sound strange, but though it was a different physical place from the one I visited two years ago (they moved to a new home), the place smelled familiar. Strange hor? To think that I remember how places smell, and my body automatically feels comfortable.
It’s scary how fast we … Grow. My little nephew, Ken Li, grew up. Last time we spent hours playing toy cars with Ken, now we spent hours playing toy cars with his little sis, Rou Ting, no doubt influenced by her brother.
My dear aunts are visibly aging as well. More wrinkles… They were the happy kind of wrinkles near their eyes and their mouths because they laugh a lot.
Funny how its acceptable socially to tell someone :-
‘Oh, boy boy has grown taller hor?’ when they are from 0 to 18, then …
‘Oh, ah girl so pretty’ or ‘ah boy so handsome’ till they are about 25,
Then … silence from the years on.
Never ‘Oh, auntie has new wrinkles just above your eyes now, ooh… you look very wise lei.’ Or in my case, ‘Auntie, you have happy wrinkles. You are aging gracefully, and I want to be like you when I grow old.’
I mean it. And I have told Hwei Min as well… If we can live our golden years half as happy as my aunts are, we will be so fortunate.
What else had changed? There is one additional new member of the family since I last visited, a friendly and handsome Doberman pup. He’s a friendly puppy almost as tall as an adult when walking on hind legs. Very powerful dog that takes my uncle for a walk rather than the other way around.
I can no longer get away with sleeping in the living room like I used to anymore… Like some ancient rite of passage, I get the honour of having a room all to ourselves together with Hwei Min.
Predictably, my 1AU brought us out a grand tze char dinner, offering the best that KL can offer, and we spent the rest of the night, the younger kids playing Uno, the older kids playing gin rummy, a recent Tham family vacation tradition. That was what the trip was about, a fine predictable vacation, with family.
