As mentioned in the previous blog entry, I have a glass display case in my bedroom room in which I keep thing I have collected from places I have been to. Here’s the most significant stuffs of the lot: 1) A wooden block with my name and two other of my classmates name written on it. This piece of artifact was something I picked up in secondary school. The year was 1991. It was left on the table after one of the boys was done clearing his table after his woodcraft class. I remember...

My earliest memory is that of my paternal grandmother singing to me "Jesus love me yes I know, for the bible tells me so, little ones to him belong, they are weak but he is strong..." Of course she sung it in the Hokkien dialect, not in English, the words are exactly the same in meaning. Of all things, she is the greatest influence on my choice of belief. She was the one who instilled in me Christian values even before I could speak. I don't know how old or young i was when she first sung...

So I already wrote that my father's father was tea merchant. My mother's father, who came up in the conversation over lunch with relatives today, was a blacksmith. As I heard it, he was chinese man who left his home in his youth and went to Thailand where he worked and got married. Unfortunately for him, his first wife passed on and so he came down to Singapore and married my maternal grandmother. Together they had eight daughters and one son. My mum was number 4. As I heard it, ...

I'm on day 4. I have not yet given it up completely and am still taking half of what I usually take in the morning. (I only take coffee in the morning.) It's funny how one never realises how much one is dependent on the stuff until one is trying to give it up. I think I'm beginning to understand what addiction is. For the past four mornings, I have taken half the usual amount of coffee I use to make myself that heavenly brew and it's only self discipline that has kept me from just giv...

It's not good to be addicted to anything, even the necessary cup of coffee, a simple pleasure. And so, I have decided that I'm going to start curing myself of the need for that drink every morning. Note that me not drinking coffee in the morning = headaches, grouchiness for the rest of the day. So I'm not going to stop suddenly, I will slowly adapt by taking less and less coffee, until I don't need it at all. Yesterday, I took about half the amount of coffee powder I would usually use ...

Let's have more of it! Have you tasted this one yet, it's new and interesting. You know it's just between you and me. Have some and see what others are missing. Over here! Maybe we can gain some juicy piece of secret we can be smug about. Look at me, I know something you don't. Don't you wish you know what I know? Let's give them a hint, entice them with the smell of someone else's filth. Let's gather a crowd, let's go out and have a mob! Then we'll dance and celebrate our own great...

As death toll numbers climb higher and higher, one feels a slow increasing despair for the plight of the people of this region and for those others who lost family or friends in this disaster. There is not much one can do except to give monetary contribution where one can. I hope, and I expect, they will start collecting used clothes soon because I certainly have quite a lot to give away. It is a frightening thought that the earth wobbled and that coastlines have changed shaped because of ...

The spontaneous attempt to write something insightful here has failed. So let me dig out something old: *rummages through an old drawer....* Weird to be this way, The need to be popular and liked and so easy to get swept into it and drown.... stupid isn't it? it backfires loving to be popular backfires. A diary entry from my young naive days (some ten years ago). I was trying to be popular, trying to impress someone only to end up having my character destroyed and my reput...

Should I send them out this year or not? Last year I sent out a few and got none in return. Most people are just too lazy in this day and age. But I think most people will agree that getting cards through mail is more exciting and meaningful than getting one through the email. I don't like e-cards at all. I think I shall sent out some cards afterall. It don't matter if I don't get any in return but it'll give me the right to grumble about it. heheh...

(This article is an extended response to MasonM's article " Perfection Is Overrated ".)   When I started writing again a couple of years back, stuff just sort of flowed out of me like water. There was no effort and it was a joy to write, poems, stories, whatever. In my attempts to do well and to impress more people, I might have caused an injury to my own creative spirit. About two years ago, I embarked on a quest to get my poems published. Knowing...

Most of my friends can really throw a good party. And I really think today’s party was a success, for my friend. And for me? I just don’t like being at parties, especially when I’m alone in a party where there are many people already in their own groups. The host is a good friend and who has many groups of friends, and all which she invited to her place to today. What happened was: that I arrived, had something to eat, talked a bit with our group and went off less than half an hour la...

Last night on the bus on the way home from the city, a lady (office-attired, probably in her 40’s) sat down next me. I was playing on my PSP with ear phones on and quite engrossed. She looked over at what I was doing, tapped me on the shoulder and asked me what that was. “Is this a PDA of some sort?” she asked. I paused the game, took my ear pieces out and told her what it was. She was very curious, and asked more questions about it. After I explained the functions of the PSP to her, s...

What happened the other day was a child riding on the escalator in town had a terrible accident. Apparently, while riding on the escalator, the kid's rubber shoe had somehow gotten caught at the side and the escalator had dragged her shoe along with her big toe right into its machinery, ripped it right off. It was on the news. They showed the poor kid, face wet from crying probably, her leg in a cast, bloody end where the big toe would have been. Doctors had done her a graft, since she h...

Yesterday on the bus, I overheard a guy talking on his cell phone. I never knew a guy could be so chatty, on the entire trip he was talking loudly, trying to counsel his friend on how to confront a project teammate. Now I wasn't exactly eavesdropping, since this guy was talking like there wasn't anyone around. It's funny how phone conversations can do that to you when you are totally engaged. That, or that people are still used to shouting into their cell phones even though these days, cel...