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...
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...
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, ...
The one thing I can't stand about game forums these days is the number of stupid people on it. With games gaining popularity all over, one is beginning to see the same kind of stupidity you see in yahoo chat and news forums. - You can't ask a question without someone flaming you or belittling you. - someone always tells a lame joke, or some joke no one understands except for an exclusive few. In fact several of them will do so all in a row of replies in attempts to jump on the bandwago...
I really would like to go down to Chinatown before chinese new year (CNY) and have a look around. But to go down this weekend would be suicide, with the holidays being a few days away. I heard from my friends who went last weekend that there was already a lot of pushing and shoving. I do hate crowds. But... I would really like to get some of the food stuff. Of course I can get some of the same stuff from the marketplace near my place. But foodstuff seems to taste better when you ...
It's that time of the year again, with Chinese Lunar New Year (LNY) just round the corner (in a little more than a week actually). The time of the year when families get ready to come together again for a reunion dinner and that once-a-year visit to show respect to their elders. My father's side of the family is an empire of traditional aunts, uncles and grand-persons, who believe in strict adherence to such traditions. Most of them have given up on ever seeing me on these important holi...
I haven't had coffee at all since my last blog and I'm feeling fine. I seem to be sleeping better these past nights, so maybe the coffee habit was the main cause of my chronic insomnia all along. In the day time, I pretty much feel the same as when I do take coffee but I don't feel as grouchy somehow. I am free. But at the back of my mind, I still seem to want that cup of coffee. The urge is there, so I guess it does take longer to get off it mentally.
I'm off coffee all together since yesterday (12/1). Somehow, yesterday morning, I just felt like I could and so I did it. I didn't take my usual morning cup of java. In the afternoon, headache did set in but it was a bearable throb. I drank lots of water and cooled my head by wetting my forehead with a splash of water now and then. This morning (13/1), the headache was gone. In afternoon, the headache returned but was even less severe than yesterday, a mere annoying tick and nothi...
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...
(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...