It's all in the timing

I’ve been staying in this little apartment for almost 5 years; 4 years, 8 months & 3 days to be exact. When I first stepped into 2009, I had a feeling that I was going to move out of this place for good.

A week from now, I’ll be out of here.

But for a totally different reason than what I had in mind in the beginning of the year.

Even though my initial dream did not materialize, I felt as if God has been smiling over me – by giving me the choice of walking down another path.

The cold, hard truth is that sometimes people let you down (and vice versa), but at the end of the day, what matters the most is that you don’t let them get to you.

Always remember that everything in life happens for a reason.

Maybe it’s just that you haven’t discovered yours yet.

"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." – Thomas Edison

Breathing a sigh of relief,

She got it

Had my haircut last week.

Wanted to go back to the same stylist that I went to during my pre-CNY haircut rush (Chinese will understand this term very well) because my colleagues seemed to think that she was better than my usual stylist but coincidentally, she wasn’t working on that day.

Initially, I wanted to wait til the next day but on second thought, I changed my mind and went ahead to the saloon to put my life (read: hair) in the hands of another stylist.

If you think that by now, I’d put up some photos of my new haircut, then you are wrong. Obviously you don’t know me well enough to know that I somehow feel that the camera doesn’t do me much justice - I usually look absolutely horrendous in 98% of my photos.

That’s not to say that I look absolutely stunning in real life-lah, after all, who am I to defy the mirror?

Anyway, back to the haircut: it turned out pretty okay (like they normally do after all the blowing and products used. And more often than not, it’s next to impossible to re-create the same look at home. Hmm...I wonder why). I’m not very particular about how my hair looks as long as it doesn’t involve sacrificing my snooze time in the morning.

It got me thinking…

If you’ve always stuck with the same old stylist your whole (adult) life just because you think that he gives you an awesome haircut, what makes you think that another can’t do the same or even better than that?

I guess it’s the same with life, be it in terms of your job, your partner or even your lifestyle. Just because you enjoy it now doesn’t mean that you are obliged to be attached to it for the rest of your days.

That’s what I always remind myself when I envy those people who marry their first loves.

How would they know that their partners are the best if they have never been with another person before?

And will they ever learn how to truly appreciate the ones that they’re with since they have no other b*tchy, atrocious and inconsiderate exes to compare them with?

The same goes if you return from one of your saloon visits with a botched-up haircut. So what? It’s not like it’s permanent damage - your hair will grow back, (sadly), whether you like it or not.

It’s not like it’s a cosmetic surgery which cost you RM8,000. If you despise it so much, you always have the option of going to another stylist to fix it.

When it comes to relationships, it’s the same thing. Just because you’ve been hurt badly once, doesn’t mean that the next one who comes along will follow the footsteps of your ex (unless you’re blinded by the bling-bling or really super-duper unlucky).

It’s always good to be cautious but when the time is right, you should be prepared to let your guard down.

Allow yourself a chance to make it right this time around.

“Live life fully while you’re here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You’re going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problems and eliminate it. Don’t try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.” – Anthony Robbins

Moonstruck,

Ain't it funny

It puzzles me when I speak a certain non-English language to an individual and he/ she feels the inclination to reply in English in return.

This morning, I spoke to this Malay guy in Malay and he replied in English. Fine. I thought if I continued speaking in Malay, he’d follow suit eventually but that wasn’t the case.

I’m like, what the hell?

Most of the time, my previous encounters were with Chinese (taking into consideration the fact that my Tamil vocabulary is, indeed, limited) who chose to reply in English when I speak to them in Cantonese. It seems that some of these people think that "Speaking got more standard mah, talk in Cantonese no standard-lah. You think I dunno how to speaking meh???"

This kind of situation makes me marvel - since when do I look like an English teacher?

It’s like me asking for the time and the person telling me that it’s a Thursday.

Here comes the hypocrite part…

I remember doing the same thing when I first started working in KL 5 years ago (Oops, did I just revealed my age?). My clients would speak to me in Cantonese and yours truly would reply in English or Mandarin because her command of the Cantonese dialect s**ked big time (even though she watched a lot of TVB dramas during her leisure time).

Those were the days.

Nowadays, her Cantonese has improved compared to the olden days. Although every now and then, being the banana that she is, she still doesn’t have any clue of some phrases that her friends use.

And when she can’t find the words in Cantonese, fret not, there’s always a substitute word in (i) English (ii) Malay and/or (iii) Mandarin.

Don’t we all love being Malaysians?

“Be what you would seem to be – or, if you'd like it put more simply – never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.” – Lewis Carroll in ‘Alice in Wonderland’

Amused,

One last cry

Right now, I feel as if I’m stuck in this never-ending tunnel. I can’t stop walking because I don’t have food with me and my water supply is diminishing.

I don’t even know whether I’m walking in the right direction. All I know is that I’ve made my choice and now I have to stick with it.

Every so often, I wish that I’ll get a glimpse of daylight, which will signal the end of my journey (no, in case you are wondering, I’m not talking about dying). And only then can I finally breathe a sigh of relief.

But at times, I’m apprehensive that the only light I’ll finally get to see is the headlight of an oncoming train.

I can’t wait for this passage to end.

If my life is a storybook, I'll gladly flip over to the last page right away.

It better be a happy ending.

“It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end” – Ursula K. LeGuin

Patience is a virtue,

Green is my favourite colour

You know how it was when you were a kid and your mom bought both you and your brother identical shiny, new toys? You were happy playing with yours at first but then after some time; somehow, it seemed that your brother’s toy appeared more appealing than your own.

This morning I felt as if I was back in my childhood again. This time I was envying something that an acquaintance of mine owns. The thing is that the said item wasn’t particularly attractive but somehow I was asking myself: if she can have it, why can’t I?

Maybe I am capable of making it happen but it’s just that at this juncture of my life, I have made my choices and obviously, this is not one of them.

Sour grapes.

Sometimes, what we see on the outside may not necessarily be the real deal.

It could be or it could be not.

Only she knows best.

“Envy is the art of counting the other fellow’s blessings instead of your own.” – Harold Coffin

The monster which is

grazing on grass at the

other side,

Size does matter

While having my Guacamole Bacon Burger at Carl’s Jr. earlier, I was suddenly reminded of the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility well into my third bite.

I think it had something to do with the bun, which wasn’t very fresh to begin with; coupled with the fact that they were stingy with the guacamole. Since I have this phobia of additional “seasonings” being added into my food complimentary from the waiter, I normally will not complain about my food if it’s well within my tolerance limit. (I know this will sound unbelievable but I'm not picky when it comes to food. Suprising, eh?)

After all, you don't really know what these guys are doing in the kitchen. Or even on the floor.

Anyway, the Law basically says that the more you consume something, the lesser you are going to enjoy it. I know I’m not the best Economics teacher in town, so if you’d like to refresh your memory on what it' is all about, you can read it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility

And to think that I spent the whole afternoon looking forward to dinner time.

In some ways, it’s almost similar to having the hots for some girl/ guy and one fine day, when she/ he is finally within your reach, all of a sudden the whole idea doesn’t seem as appealing anymore.

I think this is what they meant by 'the thrill of the chase'.

“It is better to want what you have than to have what you want.” – Proverb

I'm no E.T.,

Excuse me, do you have the time?

My radio alarm clock is indicating 12.30am while my watch shows 12.28am. I know my watch is 5 minutes faster than the clock in my office and the alarm clock is a few minutes faster than the former simply because I have difficulties waking up in the morning.

And I dislike being late.

Well, actually I hate waiting for people as I feel like they somehow have total disregard of the other party’s time by being fashionably late. And you know what they say about doing unto others what they do unto you… (Remember THE Miss Righteous-ness from the cinema?)

But often, when you know that the time shown is ahead of the ‘real time’, you actually don’t make much effort to hurry up.

And the Malaysian mentality is always somewhat along the line of: since whoever I'm going to meet is going to be late anyway, so why bother being punctual?

“Just around the corner, traffic jam-lah” must be high on top of the list of reasonings that we use for not being on time. When the actual fact is that there is not one normal school-cum-working day when the streets of KL are not jammed up during rush hour.

I think we really should come up with some better defense the next time around since this excuse is getting pretty stale.

How about my dog swallowed the car key? Since dogs are capable of eating a child’s homework, I don’t see why bosses or important clients won’t buy that excuse.

So back to the issue of time, a couple of months ago, the battery on my watch went kaput and obviously, that meant that the time shown after that was never the same again.

That is assuming that the initial time was indeed, the correct time.

So can anyone tell me exactly what is the time now?

"The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it." – Franklin P. Jones

Dazed,