the one

i know you are the one, my black magic woman, when you dig the likes of journey, steely dan, earth wind and fire, kool and the gang, midnight star, whitney houston.

it's painful to be born in a place you dont feel you belong. sometimes u just wish you were born white, black, in UK, US, OZ, NZ..anywhere but..here.

the reality

everytime i think: oh how good it would be to do this or that, i end up disappointed 99% of the time. just like internships. wanted to do it so badly. but when ure in it, it's really overrated.

human nature is selfish. everybody's looking for that cute person for himself or herself, loving someone really for what he/she is, not who he/she is. it's this self-serving mentality that contributes to all these transient relationships, because people get into relationships for all the wrong reasons. go ask yourself - if one day he or she is ugly, fat, incapacitated, would your love for him/her waver? i cant even answer that myself.

when you donate half of your billion dollar fortune to charity, why not make it anonymous? we always want to make ourselves known. even when we act in apparent kindness, there's always this ulterior motive - to make ourselves feel good. altruism always has a selfish side - can one argue otherwise?

work is human-created. all these people who want to work more, is it because they enjoy their work? oh i enjoy serving my clients, making them happy. i enjoy this, and that legal work. that business. this work is just there for someone to profit, you do the work because you yourself want to profit from it monetarily or otherwise. this work i'm referring to does not include social work, etc of course. nowadays i see even doctors, nurses complain about their work. what happened to the nobility of the profession?

if you aint got no money take your broke ass home. how damn right is that. if i dont want to spend, i'm not able to meet those friends i have. socialising necessarily requires money. well yes you can go cheap, but you still need money. which makes u think very simplistically - no money = no friends? to a large extent this is also the ugly truth. unless u have working friends picking up the tab all the time, but it's just not sustainable, is it?

if you are really in long-term pain, only those suffering chronically will be able to empathize. the rest just think - well it's not my problem, what do i care?

i've lost the bulk of my passion for materialism. partly because i have enough, mostly because it just doesn't matter anymore. there's no enthusiasm for anything.

watershed

this victory will be extra sweet for me. all my good friends who know of this tumultuous journey will know exactly what i'm talking about. so this is a good occasion to thank my best buddies, my inner circle - Bryant, Weng Lock, Xiaohui especially. thank you for hearing me out.

i go into this with full knowledge that the corporate world is not going to be happy and dandy. indifference is the way to go. im past jaded. just acceptance. quiet acceptance. and a strong will to fight on.

unlike most people who bitch bout nothing, i actually have real, physical problems. but u know, it ain't over till it's over.

so right now, just waiting to graduate, pass the PLC, and many more hurdles lie ahead. waiting.

im not gonna be like yaya papaya about this though. i've learnt so much more about life this time. humbling experience is really an understatement.

i also say

don't be with someone u can live with,
be with someone u can't live without

cliche but classic. and true.

randomness

i saw this woman 2/3 days ago in the office lift. her eyes looked like they were wide open (the kind of look u give when ure shocked etc). i thought she was trying to be spastic. but then i realised that her eyes were like this involuntarily. man i feel so sad for her. thank God she's married (saw a ring on 4th finger - then again it doesnt mean anything nowadays) - at least someone sees the beauty in her. bless her dear Lord.

if i werent working, i'd be whiling away my time, doing stupid stuff and basically spending money without any input. thankfully i've overcome the initial inertia and out of my comfort zone. then again, i dont wanna be a no-lifer and work my ass off.

24 and prison break

these two fantastic tv dramas have taught me so much about life.

finishing 7 seasons of 24 and 4 of prison break is so emotional. it's like coming full circle. it's like at the end of your life, and you looking back at the defining moments. it's like finishing exams, or reading a book. books are especially so. u just want to flip each page and also read it properly to get to the end and know what's in store. when ure finally there, ure at a loss. suddenly there's like so much time, no more book to read, and the emo journey has finally ceased. it's like retirement. it's like servicing your car and not having a car for one day feels like not having it ever before.

but im really going to enjoy this hols. i wont complain abt boredom or miss the library. i wont even miss making money. because i'm kinda past all this. maybe i'm past this too fast. but growing up too fast is kinda like an insurance against winding up dead prematurely. so it's like been there, done that.

another random thought: is it better to lose your sight, or your hearing? i cant decide. but if push comes to shove, point a gun at me and i'll go for hearing - cos music is my life.

blame it on the boogie

just like ABBA sang - thank you for the music, the songs we're singing, thanks for all the joy they're bringing. who can live without it, i ask in all honesty, what would life be? without a song or a dance what are we? so i say thank you for the music, for giving it to me.

one of my biggest regrets is not being able to play any instrument. do vocal chords count?

music is the love of my life. who would argue with that? wonderful. not just R & B, but good old 80s music. maybe it contributes to emo-ness, but it just makes me happy.

so being able to hear music is a gift. heaven sent. it's not so much like eating, where u can have 3 michelin stars, but it's just ingested, excreted and that's that. so much for food. nowadays im so sick of food. ok chicken? done. eat more veges? done. fish, duck, foie gras, snails, liver, intestines...beef? the rest is what...carbo? ban mian, noodles, rice, pasta, croissant, subway, burgers...everyday we eat the same thing it's just so sian. so i eat to keep full. but of course i do enjoy food. give me hokkien mee, sting ray, almond jelly, tony romas ribs, greenwood fish, gelare waffles, oh the works...anytime. that's the problem when u drive everywhere - u eat until sian. then it's all meaningless - refer to Ecclesiastes. meaningless.

but somehow music is different. it's indescribable.

sometimes i wake up and i think, what if i'm dead - i'm gone forever. it's such a depressing feeling, i imagine every part of my body vapourising. for a brief moment, i begin to treasure every part of my body. i begin to miss myself, looking at myself 100 years down the road when i'm dead and gone (yes, the song). how could life be so...sad

i drove back to chinese high that day. from the clock tower, i looked down at the track and saw all the little boys training. a few years back i was one of those minions slogging my life away, training 4 times a week for the 'glory of the school', then 2 years slogging for the 'nation'. everything is a process, u are just a pawn in this game. u are just another product of the factory. u are replaceable. if u're defective, off you go, from the production line, into the bin. and the cycle of life continues on and on. so you think u're a superstar, you're a gold medallist, a record holder. a few years later, some youngster will beat your record. a few years later, the same type of students will get the same scoldings from the same track n field teacher, get the same kind of academic results, go to the same schools, we cant help but put you in a box, because that's what life does to all of us. and occasionally there are the 3 dimensional people, the larger-than-life people, but these are few and far between, like the blue diamond being auctioned off for a record price. those are like vicissitudes of life - random and rare.

nevertheless, being gone forever is a sad thing. each and every person is unique. if they're gone forever, it's such a waste. there was once a GP question which proposed the statement : society needs its eccentrics. indeed, each and every individual is a unique entity and that's the concept - beauty in diversity.

but without a God, we're all gone. now you see it now you don't. how sad is that. all the achievements count for nothing.

on the other hand, being in heaven for an eternity is unfathomable. how? is there a middle ground between eternally alive and eternally gone? which one is better?

this is just about the epitomy of randomness

school of hard knocks

a lot of people wish they are schooling forever, refusing to start work.

my sentiments are quite the opposite. being financially independent is a form of self-empowerment. you have self-respect, u dont ask money from your parents, no one bosses u around (except at work). you dont have to always subscribe to what your parents think (this is different from respecting ur parents, if u know what i mean).

it's disappointing when people who do not earn their own money spend it like nobody's business. eat good food, buy good stuff. i am guilty of that, too. but at least i earn some of my own money.

when u only know how to enjoy life, not how to save, how to earn your own keep, that's when u should be worried. because u are a professional at consumption, which anyone can be good at, and not a professional at investment - investing in vital skills which will provide u with the necessary funds for consumption.

when your life is so happy and dandy, happening, social, u have financial freedom thanks to ur parents, good for you. but when shit happens, it's gonna hit one so hard he/she wouldn't come around to realising what hit him. and sometimes, one problem is all it takes to bring a person down.

a very good example is when u put a lot of emotions into one person. never ever let the person become your emotional pillar. it's almost always unavoidable, but when that happens, and when u lose the person, due to natural causes or otherwise, ur world crumbles. and people sometimes never recover from that.

i guess that's what a lot of people lack - lack of threats to emotional or financial security. i still believe that adversity hardens people. for me, for all that i've seen and experienced, it has made me numb. which isn't good. but living too sheltered a life is dangerous. sometimes protection is a form of harm.