Parents: Blessed "Irritants"?

I believe every single working beings who are reaching the end of your young people's era are also facing the same problem as me.

Parents. The 2 person that you love most of the times and would love to hate for the rest of the times. The 2 most irritating people at home that you sometimes feel like shrinking them into the size of long beans, throw into a box and lastly chuck the box in your safe or in your cupboard with the key hidden under your bed.

Well, at least I am referring to my parents.

Frankly speaking, a huge part of the reasons why I decided to move out (I am still looking for a place by the way so whoever has any recommendations, pls, pls inform me) is cos of my parents.

For the first, they keep forgetting that I am already 27 years old, not 7 or not 17 but 27, about to reach the end of my youth era and officially entering my early middle age era. Or in a common Singaporean term, an auntie.

Gawd, I hate the sound of that! Auntie! Yikes!

Anyway, back to parents. As I was saying, they keep forgetting my age and never seem to trust my maturity. And because of that, they are always nagging me, probing me and the worst, calling me every single bloody night if they find out I am not home at 10pm.

I mean, I appreciate the fact that I still have my parents to nag at me, parents who care and love me so much that they will never get tired of my constant childishness but its super irritating to have them calling you every single day, checking out who you are with, where you are and what time you will be back home. It reminds me of my school days, but during that time, I understand fully the reasons why they are doing that. Now? I am already going to reach my 30s! Goodness! Imagine your parents checking you out when you hit 30s?

Now try to imagine you were with your boss entertaining your customers at a bar and suddenly your parents called you. Because the place was noisy and you had to raise your voice to make yourself audible through the phone. And then try to imagine the look on your boss' and customers' face when they heard you saying, "Ma, I am outside, will not be back home so early. Yes, I will not drink, yes, I will stay away from strangers, yes yes yes."

Argh, just thinking about that is enough to make my blood boil.

Next irritation. My marital status. I think you should get what I am going to complain about now.

For the fuck out of me, I can never understand why the hell is my marital status such a big deal to anyone other than me. I already can barely tolerate all the worthless questions that my nosy relatives are always throwing at me, probing me about the non-existant men in my life. I believe I can safely say that I speak for most working singles out there with nosy relatives like mine.

And then imagine facing the same probings at home. My home, where I am supposed to be free of worthless irritations and problems that I myself have no idea how to solve.

"Jinghua, you are not getting young, when you going to bring a man home to let us see? You want us to introduce some guys to you? You must think of your future ok, don wait too long ok? Is it cos your taste too high thats why cannot find a man?"

You see how irritating that is?

First question, I already know I am getting old, I don need any more reminders. Second question, no, men are troubles. Third question, I do think about my future, why the hell do you think I am working so hard and trying ways and means to save as much as I can for my retirement. Fourthly, no, I cannot find a man not cos of my "high taste" for them but rather the taste that they leave in me. Man do have a natural tendency of leaving a bitter taste in your mouth and so I doubt I have a "high taste" when all I am asking is for a man who can leave a sweet taste in my mouth, pun intended if you get what I mean.

Now, back to my complaints about my parents.

Another thing that I hate about living with my parents is that whenever I inform them that I am going on a holiday, they would definitely say, "NO! Cannot go! Too dangerous!"

Actually, I was more like telling them I am going, not asking them if I can go.

Then when all else fails in getting you not to go, they will resort to the "act-pitiful" techniques of persuasion.

"Why you always like that one? We ask you not to go cos we are worried for you, we don want you to come to any danger. You know how dangerous other countries are or not?"

I know I am childish by being irritated here. Its indeed a blessing for anyone to have their parents around to nag at them when they are old, I count my blessings everyday that my parents are still around, healthy and alive and kicking strongly. But imagine if you face the same naggings everyday, the same probings on your personal life everyday and the same phone calls to you every single day?

I would not be normal when I say I am not affected by that.

Parents. What the hell am I going to do without them and what the hell am I going to do about them?

Now you see why I really really really want to shift out and live on my own? No matter how cosy my home is?

Should I get a car?

One of my new year resolution for this year is to get my driving license and I have recently enrolled into the driving school at Bt Batok. Its been quite an experience just enrolling. The curriculum is rather confusing and you have to attend lessons even for the basic theory test and even a mock test before you can actually sit for the real test. I am really looking forward to the practical lessons. I did try my hand on driving before, even had a chance to drive alone without any licensed drivers beside me. Of course, I ran into a gate and scrap the car as a result. Luckily the car was meant to be exported so no one found out my tiny accident. Heh.

Anyway, back to what I wanted to say tonight.

The reason why I am taking driving lessons and my driving license is cos I am contemplating on getting a car. My plan is to get my own car if I am not married by 30. Yes, I have already planned out a route for myself. A car first and then perhaps a house cos I want to have my own house, regardless of whether I have my own family. I think its most likely I will not have my own family, I just cannot imagine that I will have my own family, not cos I do not want it, but rather I do not see that day coming. I think I will be destined to live alone for the rest of my life. Anyway, I have even decided on what car I would like to get; a Toyota Vios or a Kia Picanto.

However, getting a car in Singapore is not easy. There are the installments, the insurances, road tax and worst of all the COE ie: the Certificate of Entitlement. There was an article in Sunday Times today talking about how more and more young adults, just starting to work are getting a car of their own. Some rich parents are even getting cars for their kids before they even got their license! Singaporeans are getting really rich...

The problem with getting a car is that you are basically throwing your money into a pit. The value of the car will depreciate the moment you buy it. At the end of it, you might even had to fork out money to sell the car!

So you ask, do I really need a car. To a certain extent. My office is shifting soon to a very deserted area. Cabbies do not even want to go to the area! I figured since I will be working late almost every night, I might as well arrange for my own transportation instead. And having a car just solve my problem. Besides this, I have gotten into a habit of taking cabs every where I go. With the increasing fare of taking cabs, it would be more economical to drive my own car instead!

Oh well, its still a long way to getting my license. I might as well use this time to earn as much money as I can and save as much as I can and decide on whether I should get a house or a car first. Whatever the case, its gonna be tough on my wallet.. Sigh....

Dead or Alive

I have so much to say but whenever I want to put my thoughts into words, the words seem to fly away from my grasp.

I have so much feelings and emotions that I would love to dump into this blog but I cannot bear to let the feelings and emotions go, I want them, or rather I need them to make me feel alive.

In the midst of it all, in the midst of your life, has anyone ever stop and think. Think about the reason why we are doing what we are doing and living the lives that we are living? Is there more to life than just living everyday as it is, working, eating, sleeping, shitting, is that all it is in living? What defines living? What defines being alive? If you are alive but yet drag everyday of your life, does that constitute being alive? Why are we made to sustain our life and yet at the end of our journey, we are going to lose it all anyway? What is the point in living then? Why am I made to live my life when in the end it will be taken from me anyway?

What is the point of striving to survive in the best way that you can and then some years down the road, you will still lose everything?

I am alive and kicking, but there were times when I feel its better to be dead than alive.

Sponsorship to the hospital

I almost got involved in an accident today and ended up earning a sponsorship to the hospital, in the words of Mike.

I was riding as a pillion on his bike this evening; he was sending me home from work. We happened to be the remaining 2 in the office and he offered to send me home. I was enjoying the ride in the cold wind, clearing my head of work related issues and some complicated personal issues. It was a very smooth sailing ride. Until I reached my place.

Near the junction outside my place, where he had to make a right turn into my place, there was this brown Beamer in front of us. The driver was chiong-ing and turning right, never even stopping to take notice of an oncoming white car that was also chiong-ing straight into the Beamer's path. The Beamer should have stopped and let the white car pass cos it was the red lights and it should not turn at all in the first place. But since it was already in the oncoming path of the white car, common sense would have prompted the driver of the Beamer to chiong all the way and avoid the oncoming car.

The fucking moron of the driver chose to stop in the path of the oncoming car.

Fortunately, the driver of the white car was alert and sharp enough to swerve and avoid hitting the Beamer.

Me and Mike were directly behind the Beamer and saw everything, in slow motion, Matrixy style.

Then, as the white car passed and the brown Beamer continued in its path, Mike raced up beside the brown Beamer to look at the driver.

It was driven by a female driver.

And she was sms-ing or dialing on her handphone.

When I was getting off Mike's bike, he said, "Lucky the white car swerved, otherwise we would have been sponsored."

"What sponsored?" I asked.

"Sponsored to the hospital lor. If the white car hit the BMW, it would have turned behind and hit us directly. We would have flown off the bike and got sponsored to the hospital lor."

"Then MO would jump." I called my boss MO.

And so, I almost got sponsored to the hospital today.

I think I have had enough of riding as pillion on bikes. Riding on a bike does not only mean you have to trust the driver, it also means you have to trust ALL drivers on the road to not knock on your bike. And the chances of surviving intact in an accident while riding as a pillion is almost as high as jumping off a cliff and not splitting your head on the rocks below the cliff. I know cos I got a colleague whose boyfriend lost his hand while riding as a pillion on a bike.

Honey, why you callling me so late?

Honey, why you calling me so late
It's kinda hard to talk right now

Honey, why you crying? Is everything okay?
I gotta whisper cause I can't be too loud

Well, my girl's in the next room
Sometimes I wish she was you
I guess we never really moved on

It's really good to hear your voice saying my name
It sounds so sweet
Coming from the lips of an angel
Hearing those words it makes me weak
and I never wanna say goodbye
But girl, you make it hard to be faithful
With the lips of an angel

It's funny that you're calling me tonight
And yes I dreamt of you too

And does he know you're talking to me? Will it start a fight?
No, I don't think she has a clue

Well my girl's in the next room
Sometimes I wish she was you
I guess we never really moved on
It's really good to hear your voice saying my name
It sounds so sweet
Coming from the lips of an angel
Hearing those words it makes me weak
and I never wanna say goodbye
But girl, you make it hard to be faithful
With the lips of an angel

It's really good to hear your voice saying my name
It sounds so sweet
Coming from the lips of an angel
Hearing those words it makes me weak
and I never wanna say goodbye
But girl you make it hard to be faithful
With the lips of an angel
(and I never wanna say goodbye )
But girl, you make it hard to be faithful
With the lips of an angel

Honey, why you calling me so late?

A puzzle or a mystery

On the afternoon of October 23, 2006, Jeffrey Skilling sat at a table at the front of a federal courtroom in Houston, Texas. He was wearing a navy-blue suit and a tie. He was fifty-two years old, but looked older. Huddled around him were eight lawyers from his defense team. Outside, television-satellite trucks were parked up and down the block.

“We are here this afternoon,” Judge Simeon Lake began, “for sentencing in United States of America versus Jeffrey K. Skilling, Criminal No. H-04-25.” He addressed the defendant directly: “Mr. Skilling, you may now make a statement and present any information in mitigation.”

Skilling stood up. Enron, the company he had built into an energy-trading leviathan, had collapsed into bankruptcy almost exactly five years before. In May, he had been convicted by a jury of fraud. Under a settlement agreement, almost everything he owned had been turned over to a fund to compensate former shareholders.

He spoke haltingly, stopping in mid-sentence. “In terms of remorse, Your Honor, I can’t imagine more remorse,” he said. He had “friends who have died, good men.” He was innocent—“innocent of every one of these charges.” He spoke for two or three minutes and sat down.

Judge Lake called on Anne Beliveaux, who worked as the senior administrative assistant in Enron’s tax department for eighteen years. She was one of nine people who had asked to address the sentencing hearing.

“How would you like to be facing living off of sixteen hundred dollars a month, and that is what I’m facing,” she said to Skilling. Her retirement savings had been wiped out by the Enron bankruptcy. “And, Mr. Skilling, that only is because of greed, nothing but greed. And you should be ashamed of yourself.”

The next witness said that Skilling had destroyed a good company, the third witness that Enron had been undone by the misconduct of its management; another lashed out at Skilling directly. “Mr. Skilling has proven to be a liar, a thief, and a drunk,” a woman named Dawn Powers Martin, a twenty-two-year veteran of Enron, told the court. “Mr. Skilling has cheated me and my daughter of our retirement dreams. Now it’s his time to be robbed of his freedom to walk the earth as a free man.” She turned to Skilling and said, “While you dine on Chateaubriand and champagne, my daughter and I clip grocery coupons and eat leftovers.” And on and on it went.

The Judge asked Skilling to rise.

“The evidence established that the defendant repeatedly lied to investors, including Enron’s own employees, about various aspects of Enron’s business,” the Judge said. He had no choice but to be harsh: Skilling would serve two hundred and ninety-two months in prison—twenty-four years. The man who headed a firm that Fortune ranked among the “most admired” in the world had received one of the heaviest sentences ever given to a white-collar criminal. He would leave prison an old man, if he left prison at all.

“I only have one request, Your Honor,” Daniel Petrocelli, Skilling’s lawyer, said. “If he received ten fewer months, which shouldn’t make a difference in terms of the goals of sentencing, if you do the math and you subtract fifteen per cent for good time, he then qualifies under Bureau of Prisons policies to be able to serve his time at a lower facility. Just a ten-month reduction in sentence . . .”

It was a plea for leniency. Skilling wasn’t a murderer or a rapist. He was a pillar of the Houston community, and a small adjustment in his sentence would keep him from spending the rest of his life among hardened criminals.

“No,” Judge Lake said.

An interesting read, continue here

The look

"When you really love someone, you want the person to be happy, at all expense."

"However, does the other party know?"

Many times, I asked myself, why is love so complicated? Simply put. it does not require 2 persons to look at each other but rather to look in the same direction.

What does being in love encompasses? Who can properly define love? What is love?

To me, love means giving. It means offering your whole heart to bring happiness to your lover, sometimes to the point of self sacrificial. To the point when you are hurting and yet you still want to give, to give your very whole. It does not matter that the end may not justify the means, the only thing that matter is the smile that you see, the touch that you got and most of all, the look. The look that says your love is happy.

Does it really matter if your lover know? No, it does not, it does not matter at all cos you never really expect any rewards at all. The best reward is already there through his smile.

Is it worth it? Is it worth the pain?

Yes, it definitely does. Even if the result may not be what you wanted.

Of Chinese chestnut soup and Mr LKY

Its a hot day, I think the hot and humid days of our tropical environment are back. The sun had been shinning for the past couple of days, notwithstanding the short bursts of drizzles that were familiar of tropical places.

Its been a long time since I enjoyed a meal with my parents. They were rather excited that me and my sis were at home for lunch and they cooked a couple of dishes and a soup. The soup was what I wanted to talk about. Its so gooooood! Chinese chestnuts, pork ribs with scallops and some herbs that I have no idea whatsoever on their names.

The point is, the soup was real good. I had so much that my tummy swooshed with it and I feel like a Telly Tubby now. At the rate that I ate at home, I would not be surprise if I picked up a couple of pounds on the way man..

Anyway, I was just reading the book titled Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew: From Third World to First. I was in awe of this man. He is not just smart but also shrewd and quick. Its not just the politics of Singapore he intervened in, but also in the politics of our neighboring countries as well. For those who read the book, you would know that the book talked about the early developments of Singapore, Communism, the Vietnam occupation in Cambodia, ASEAN etc.

I am not very satisfied with the way my country is being run at the moment but I really got to salute Mr LKY here. He, with the old guards grow Singapore into such a state today. Without their astuteness and their wit, we would never have been able survive. We would never have been taken seriously by the rest of the world in fact.

I am still reading the book. Its a very interesting read, to revive my general knowledge on world history as well as to understand my country in her early days better.

Go read it, its very interesting.

Mindless babbling in the wee hours

What do you do when you are awake in the wee hours of the morning with nothing else to do and cannot get to sleep?

You surf around and be a kaypo, reading about the details of other people's lives, perhaps trying to get comparisons with your own life.

Its 3.25am and I am sitting here with a mask on my face and not being able to sleep. I think its probably its way past my normal bedtime and my body is not feeling the tiredness or sleepiness anymore. So I went to hydrate my face with a Neutrogena Deep Hydrating mask while babbling here. And I think I feel like shitting, I would hate to sit in the toilet now.

Back to the topic.

I am bored, not being able to sleep and got nothing to do.

I think I shall just lie on the bed.

Sigh... I cannot believe I just wrote such a stupid entry in my blog..

Late night mahjong

I played mahjong today and surprises of all surprises, I actually did not manage to lose a lot! The emphasis is on a lot...

Heh.

I know the techniques of mahjong but I am real lousy at shuffling the tiles. And I like to win big so my chances of winning got reduced cos the bigger you wanna win, the higher the risk you would have to be prepared for.

And so, I choose to win small this time, hoping that I would win.

I didn't. Though I am quite happy with myself for not being the big loser.. Hah!

My loses: $11.40

The stakes: 10/20 cents each round.

Hah! Maybe my new year is not have such a bad start after all!

Happy New Year

I was feeling rather down for the past couple of days. Maybe its my menses, but they were already gone. Perhaps shes decided to revisit me again. Damn. I cried until my eyes were swollen and freaked my parents out in the process and I have to go out later. Another damn. My PMS is scaring me a little. I get really really sensitive when I am having that. And then my anger and emotions will turn inward and I would think of ways to hurt myself. Its scaring the hell out of me. I mean, I have PMS previously but not anything like this. And its getting worse as I become older.

Anyway, as the story goes, as soon as my bout of irrationality comes, it went as fast as well. I booted up my lappie and surfed around.

And then I hear the birds chirping outside, the sun shining outside and Ozzie walking lazily around and I figured, things aren't so bad after all. The world is still spinning and I am still alive. I am still young, though the idea of hitting 30s is scaring me a little. You've got to admit it, I am getting old. Shit.

I thought of giving up this blog, to go away and take a breather for a while so that perhaps I can clear my head a little and think about what I want but then I figured, whether I go away or stay here, no one is gonna care.

So, I just wrote this entry, just to perhaps let everything out a little, just this while.

Maybe life is really beautiful after all. I am alive, I have all that I need, more than what I need actually. I have a secured job, I am independent, I am healthy. Most importantly, I am young. I can do anything that I want and set my mind on. Its just a matter of determination and objectivity.

With the coming of the new year, I resolve to be objective and grow up. I was just telling my mom that I will hit my 30s soon and as expected she asked me to get married. *roll eyes*

My new year resolution for 2007 shall thus be as below:
1) To earn $10k for the year and grow my savings for another $10K
2) Build my career
3) Get a driving license
4) If I am not married by 30, I shall get myself a car and perhaps a house, all by myself.
5) Shed 5kg and 5 inch from my waistline.

This shall be my guideline for how I am going to live 2007, any other things that do not fall within these 5 objectives shall be ignored so that I shall not be distracted.

Happy New Year everyone, may you get what you want for the new year and fulfilled whatever resolutions that you have for the new year ahead. :)