Is your glass half full or half empty?

It’s been awhile since I last updated my blog.

Okay, who am I to kid myself here?

A 5-month absence can’t really be classified as ‘awhile’ unless you are on maternity leave... or can it?


I do miss driving on occasions ever since I came here but seriously, who would bother driving when the public transport system is so convenient, not to mention so much cheaper?

Just the other day I was standing in the bus on my way to work (no, in case you’re wondering, I don’t drive buses for a living + driving while standing up will just be too plain dangerous!) when the bus stopped at a traffic light and a pick-up truck transporting foreign construction workers stopped beside it.

I looked at them and asked myself, “What have I done to deserve such a good life?”

We don’t get to choose where we were born or our parents. We don’t get to pick our race and whether or not we get to be born free of deformities.

Compare a child who is a genius with an IQ of 150 born in a small rural village in Bangladesh to parents who did not have any form of education and a child born here with an average IQ – who will fare better in life?

Maybe I consider myself more privileged than those construction workers but for them, perhaps they themselves feel that they are already much better off than the people left behind in their villages who did not get the opportunity to come here, earn some money and go home to become the few richer ones there.

We also don’t get to choose how or when we die (unless one decides to commit suicide but that’ll be just plain stupid) so why not enjoy our journey while we’re still here?

And to think that we moan about being in a cramped fully air-conditioned bus and when there are no more available seats left in the train.


“If you haven’t all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don’t have that you wouldn’t want.” – Unknown

To mom, with love

I don’t usually like talking to taxi drivers especially after a long and tiring day of work; when all I want to do is just sit there in total silence, stare out of the window, wishing I could teleport home instead.

The truth is that I’m not much of a talker at all.

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” – Plato

But I’ve came to realize of late that sometimes conversations with others can be eye-openers and quite inspiring, just like the other evening.

The taxi driver and I were talking when we came to the subject about mothers. & how no matter what we do in this lifetime, we will never be able to repay her for all that she has done for us.

For her carrying us inside her for 9 months, having to watch her diet because she only wants the best for her child, the back aches, swollen feet, uncomfortable nights

The pain she endured when we came out into this world and as she held the tiny us in her arms for the very first time, thinking to herself that it was all worth it

The breastfeeding, the sleepless nights

Being worn-out from all the running around the house in circles and back pains due to mommy's "little exercise machine" who has just learnt how to walk

The unconditional love throughout the years

All the endless nights of worrying during our growing up, experimental phases

The sacrifices she has made so that we can have the best of everything

And the fact that no matter what happens and no matter how old we are, we will always be mommy's little child in her eyes

I feel ashamed that I needed a stranger to remind me that my mother’s love for me is unconditional. When I knew it all along and can feel it every single day here at home with the cousin and baby Aydan.

"A little girl, asked where her home was, replied, "Where mother is." – Keith L. Brooks

Happy birthday, mommy.

If it makes you happy

The other day a dear friend commented that she enjoys my company because I'm (usually) always optimistic. Or at least that was how it came across to me but now it comes out sounding more like me blowing my own trumpet. Ha!

It's hard to be in high spirits all the time, especially on a sh*tty Monday morning (because you are, for once, wishing that you are "really" sick and still under the duvet). But it's important to always remember that the bad days are here to remind us to appreciate the good ones more as they come along and also to value all the little things in life that we usually take for granted. *nag*nag*nag*

Trust me, it gets easier with practice. Truckloads of them.


And here's a (non-exhaustive) list of things that never fail to lift me up, in no particular order:

- A good night's sleep but not without waking up in the middle of the night, looking at the clock and finding out that there's still at least one full hour left before the alarm rings

- Reading books with absolutely zilch educational value whatsoever on the train on my way to work and coming across a line such as:

" I'm being cruel, taking George to the same restaurant as Sebastian. But love has made me evil." - Candace Bushnell in 'The Carrie Diaries'

And then proceeding to laugh out loud until the people around me think that one of my screws fell out of my ear while I was tossing and turning in my sleep last night.

- Bopping my head and/or shuffling my feet to R&B tunes whilst commuting on a public transport - so what if people think I'm retarded?

Maybe I am. It's the same concept surrounding how people who are pissed but keep on insisting that they're sober. So there. I'm a cuckoo. Really.

- Walking faster than the guy in front of me on my way to my office building and overtaking him. Simply because I can.

- Ikura (salmon roe) especially if there's a mountain of them sitting on a bed of Japanese rice topped with salmon sashimi and avocado

- Stand-up comedy because I enjoy a good stomachache and my face being numb.

- Massages because pain is indeed pleasure - Mei Yen at Kenko Reflexology & Spa @ Marina Square has magic hands.

And no, she's neither my other cousin nor did she pay me to do some advertisement here.

- Outdoor yoga (same concept as massages - see above) - the sweat dripping onto the mat, the quivering muscles, the sun, breeze, mist of rain

I'm not sure about you but my favorite pose is the Savasana (corpse pose)

- Coming across a good quote, e.g. "At 38 years, I finally got me the woman that said those six words I wanted all my life to hear: "My dad owns a liquor store."' - Mark Klein

- Something to look forward to, preferable in the near future - a day off, a movie, long weekends, a vacation, your immediate boss finally coming back from her 4-month-long maternity leave

- The smell of rain

- The sunlight on my face accompanied by a light breeze (but no more than 15 minutes MAX)

- Hearing a song that I have not heard for ages on the radio. Last weekend's was Christina Aguilera's 'I Turn to You' on a Chinese radio station

When I'm lost in the rain,

In your eyes I know I'll find the light

To light my way

- Being awakened on a Saturday morning to the sounds of a cheerful soon-to-be-2-year-old Aydan singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star when the sun is scorching outside.

Somehow, someway, the cousin and cousin-in-law must have got their formula right.

- Spending the whole Sunday just bumming around at home, on the couch, reading the weekend paper leaf by leaf and suddenly, out of nowhere, a good article or a phrase that someone said just caught your eye

If there's none, I'll settle for a good food review anytime. With photos, please.

- The "Oh, yesssssssss, finally, it's about friggin' time, isn't it???" feeling I get at the end of my treadmill sessions/ 3km runs

So yeah, maybe some of the best things in life are indeed free.

A year older & hopefully...

a year wiser.

This is the last year when I can write my age with a number 2_ at the front. I'd rather not dwell too much on how scary it is sometimes when you stop to wonder where the hell has all the time gone.
(2010 has been quite alarming. It's approaching 4Q already??? You must be kidding me!)

And who am I to judge whether or not I am indeed wiser?

All I can say is that I do honestly feel that I've never been happier at any point in my life compared to right here. Right now.


Surely I'll be more delighted if I can get a better job offer tomorrow, with a fatter paycheck and manageable workload.

Or if I can meet the man of my dreams next week, marry him in a whirlwind (not bad, ok?) romance, proceed to have 3 beautiful children & live happily ever after in a house with a white picket fence.

When I can finally afford to buy myself a VW Golf GTI.

And what can be better than if I can eat all & whatever I want and never have to watch my weight and/or cholestrol?

I'm looking forward to the day when I can tell the one & only garbage truck in my life to his face that he can go and burn in garbage incinerator hell for all I care.


But while waiting for all these to happen...

What if I walked out on the streets tomorrow and get hit by a bus and coincidentally, am wearing my floral granny panties on that fateful day?

Or if I am to go for a medical check-up next week and the doctor discover that I have stage 3 lung cancer?

Or on my way to my dream vacation, the plane encounters engine problems, has to make an emergency landing but unfortunately, crashes into the sea?


The truth is that if you can't be happy and count your blessings right at this very minute in your life, maybe you will never ever be contented with what you have.

Because you have not realized that what you currently have is considerably so much, so much more than what the 72-year-old auntie selling packets of tissue at Hong Lim Complex has.

*

My wish is that when my next birthday comes along, I'll be sounding like a broken record, saying the same thing I've said today: that I'm so much happier at that moment then than I've ever been before.

And I could not have asked for more.


"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." - Meister Eckhardt

Flexing those muscles

I was in my yoga class the other day when it dawned upon me that no matter how much I practise, I may never be as flexible as the most flexible girl in the class.

And even if I spend days & nights at the gym working my ar*e off and adopt a goat's diet, I will never be as skinny as the girl that I saw the other day in her white bandage dress.

Because everyone is different - unique in their own little ways.

But that doesn't mean that I will stop trying (being more flexible, that is) as I've discovered recently during my weekly runs that a competitive side of me actually exists.

As long as we do our best, that, by far, is and should be good enough.


"If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We live, we learn

Every person that steps into our lives is meant to teach us something, regardless of the experience, good or bad.

And when a relationship falls apart, most of the time, it’s not only one party that is at fault. But often, it’s so much easier to put the blame on the other person.

Just because the person is perfect, doesn’t mean that he or she is perfect for you.

And no matter how hard you try, you can’t make someone love you - it just doesn't work that way.


“We can only learn to love by loving.” – Iris Murdoch

I will remember you. have to. must.

It's been awhile.

Funny that I didn't realize how precious my weekends are until recently. I have so many personal, non-work related stuff that I want to do and hopefully this time it's not just another case of NATO (No action, talk only).

*

Occasionally, in life, it takes something, an incident, perhaps an individual experience, to make us realize how significant some things in our lives are to us.

If you're one of those unfortunate ones, you won't until you've lost it.

I thought I've learnt a very important lesson back in 2003. And then I discovered that the truth is that people forget - I feel as if I'm back to my old selfish ways of putting myself first in front of everything else. Again.

When I'm well aware that each & every one of our days on the face of this earth are numbered.

And understand that there's indeed a possibility that a day called 'tomorrow' might never come.

And I've learnt that when a person you care about deeply is gone, it doesn't really matter how much tears you shed afterwards or how many times you place fresh white lilies by his grave because you will never get a chance to tell him again how you really feel.

I know.

Because I've been down that road before.

And yet, at times, I tend to forget & get my priorities all screwed up.

So I have to keep reminding myself over & over again.


I miss you, James.


"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." - John F. Kennedy