i wanted to go to my favourite indian place for lunch today --- $4.50 for lunch.. oh, you can't beat that ANYWHERE in california and the naan and curry is just marvelicious... but pete and i forgot that it doesn't open on tuesday. ta mamama de...
so we ended up at starbucks and had a long & interesting chat. i like going out lunch with him cause we don't gossip (oh well, maybe for 5 sec and then that's it). we talk about life most of the time.
he knew about my car accident last weekend and the interesting thing was that before i went to bed yesterday, the whole incident started replaying back in my head. if there were a turn of events, i could have been lying on the hospital bed.
okay.. i'm not trying to exagerrate here.
1) i switched from the third to the second lane and then, i stepped on my brakes [dumbass me, i shouldn't have done that]. if there was a car behind me, it could have slammed onto me and with the driving speed @ about 80 miles/hour, my car and i could have been dragged quite a distance and another car could have hit me or vice versa.
but the blessing thing is that there were no car behind me.
2) after pulling to the shoulder, what is the odds that a marine trunk is also off the road and just less than 100m from you?
is like God knows that you need help and there he is providing these wonderful people to assist you.
pete mentioned about angels. jon told me that there is a guardian angel for each one of us. i'm not trying to dive into the spiritual thing here.. but then... if there were no blessings at all..
i could have been in the hospital with my head or whatever bandaged.
ah.. 25.. time flies. i'm done with school. career is next on the agenda; which i'm currently embarking on. before i can blink my eyes, comes marriage and then kids [....that should be it unless.. i decide to be creative in that route].
kids.. i'm not a big fan of these other species of the human race.
having kids is a huge responsibility and with huge responsibilities come worries.
you worry for every single moment of their lives.
you worry for their education.
you worry for their health.
you worry for the type of friends they mix with.
you worry for their education.
you worry that they might get hit by the car if they were to cross the road themselves.
why do people want to have children? are the pros really much much more than the cons? or that's the way tradition is?
tell you frankly, i could never see myself being more giving and gracious than my parents.
my parents are very thrifty and down to earth. my dad saves alot on himself, so that i can get my ass over here to have THE education.
i believe my coming here costs him at least $150,000 Sin.. you do the math! if i were to do the same thing for my child, i would have to start saving now. even if i start saving now, i don't even think that i could afford that, because there are other expenses to pay for in this expensive world.
how does one have a bigger heart suddenly? would the first cry from the child suddenly change a person?
this is something i can never comprehend till i guess it happens...
everything in california is crazy ---> even my car insurance.
i was pretty pissed when i found out that my insurance will now be $1800 instead of $600 just.... because I'M IN CALIFORNIA [because there are accidents here everyday!].
i'm pissed... but thank God Russell Peters calms me down with his comedy..
because adelphia cable service was down. i was UPSET. i miss the match between Germany & Sweden. i can only catch up on these games during the weekend.. why of ALL days, the service went down TODAY?
2 ---->one of my tires got burned out on the freeway.
it is Young's wedding next weekend so i went to the factory outlet to get him a gift. on the way back, on the damn freeway, my tire got burned out. i was pretty shocked when that happened cause i was driving at about 80 miles/hour (120km/hr) and i had to get the car from the most extreme left to the shoulder.
but God is my provider. i was kind of scared after i put off to the shoulder cause the cars on the freeway were driving so fast. the blessing and most amazing thing is that less than 100m away from me, a marine trunk was also off the road and 3 guys came up to me and asked if i needed help. they helped to replace my burned tire with a spare.
car is a LIABILITY and the thing is in this country, a car is a necessity not a luxury.
at least in singapore, i don't have to drive and even if something happen, i can call my dad, mum, auntie, uncles, friends... sometime it sucks to be living alone.
anyhow... i'm safe, i'm back home and i got my tire fixed [after waiting for 3 hours].
today, one of my co-workers told me that i'm a crazy girl...... but they like it.
i didn't know how to react to that comment.
i went back to my desk and thought about it.... ah... it's all good.
the reason why he said that was because i'm able to hang out with the boys.
to hang out with these boys---you need to play their game and talk their language.
you must be able to hold your liquor.
you must have a big heart.
Able to take jokes.
And able to make jokes.
in singapore, my good friends are mainly guys [coz guys gossip less and are not so narrow-minded] and i guess that trained me up to handle these big boys in the corporate world. seriously, if you can't take jokes, you would be really miserable in my office. some of the jokes were pretty harsh and alot of times, you really need to know how to talk back to shut them up.
this weekend, the guys are all going up to vegas to celebrate Y's bachelor party and also partly as jerry's leaving party. one of the guys felt bad for not inviting us ladies and he asked if i'm upset about it. yah right! i've more important stuff to worry about than to be upset over this and besides, why the heck should i go since it's a bachelor party?
the reason why he asked me was another girl was not very pleased that she was not invited. wah wa.... damn bo liao leh.
anyway... girls.. we need to let guys have their own space..
let the string roll abit then pull it back... leave abit then pull it back... if you keep on pulling, that thin little string will SNAP.
mr fei: eh.. sorry ah, did you call me just now? i just woke up.
me: huh??? what you mean you just woke up,? aren't you supposed to be @ work NOW?
mr fei: world cup wat... i will only go in to the office in the afternoon.
talk to him for a bit then he passed the phone over to his wife.
me: eh.. hi...did you watch soccer with him?
phoe: of course. i'm a bigger fan and supporter than he is.
me: ******** peng. don't know what to say.
how i wish those americans would appreciate this sport. wat an ignorant bunch! all they know is baseball and basketball and they think that this is a stupid & boring thing.
what they don't know is that the rest of the world plays and lives soccer EXCEPT them.
also, why are they the only one who uses pounds and miles? ----> make me so confuse. i miss my kilogram and kilometer.
i just realised something ----> where you sit is actually very important to your well-being @ work.
my desk is closest to pete, thus i always get to talk to him. as time goes by, wa.. la.. a friendship develops.
also because his back is facing me, he will always have to turn his head and roll his chair over to my desk to talk to me. haha, thus it seems to my boss and the others that he is always the one who wants to talk even though i'm the guilty one.
+ the position of my desk is the only place that can see most of the actions in the office. whoever comes in, i will know, who is talking to who, i also know lah. well, the flip side is that whatever i do, people also know.
DY and me, our back faces each other so even though we got alot to talk about, it is hard for us to communicate + his desk is DIRECTLY OUTSIDE my big boss's room.. [therefore, he is always monitored by him; whatever crap he does and whatever things he said on the phone, my boss can definitely hear him]
also, i strongly believe that his desk got very bad feng shui. i would never ever want to sit there. morale of the story ---> where your desk is really really matters!
my aunt & her family came back last friday to spend the weekend with me again.
you know.. i thought since they chiong all the amusement parks [disneyland, adventure world, san diego zoo, seaworld and wild animal park] during the week already so they would just kick up and relax this weekend when they are here.
but i'm wrong. they want to go to Six Flags on saturday.
the word Six Flags === GIANT ROLLER COASTERS doesn't really sound very appealing to me.
the older you get, the more bo chi you are. Agree???
but heck lah, whatever, just try once and puke all you can and at least you had that experience before.
after i reached there and looked up @ these monsters. i know this is NOT going to be a good day for me.
my older cousin is damn adventuous [he's only 10 or 11, but he even tried skiling down black diamond]. anyway, the parents had to take care of the younger one so my responsibility is to go whenever the elder one wants to go. ... @ the end of the day, i totally had nothing left in my system. my heart, liver, bladder, kidney all out.
nice meh? 360 degree turn, being tossed up and down, center, back.
plus, we had to wait so long for the rides.. at least my cousin and i had pretty good luck with the rides but my aunt, her husband and the small little one waited 4 HOURS for just one ride and in the end, they told her she had to leave cause they had to shut the thing down for a while due to some technical difficulties.
wau lau.. wrong thing to do.. never ever PISS my aunt off. she is a very cin cai & easy-going person but if you go over the limit, you're going to get the hell of your life. she started reasoning with the people cause is ridiculous ---> they didn't even make any announcement that the wait is going to be so long and in the end, they just asked people to leave. in the end, she told them if they are not going to make it up, she's going to complain and then started taking pictures of the people.. HAHAHA; that was damn classic. ALSO, the rest of the people in line also joined in and said that they can be the witnesses.
friends are important when you are alone in a foreign land.
never in my life would i dream of knowing clifton, wenyang, louanne, zhenlin and myself when i stepped foot into arizona.
the six of us. WE ARE ALL ONE OF A KIND. most of us hung out with different groups of people in singapore so if this situation didn't bring us together, i doubt our paths would ever crossed.
for the past 2.5 years, we eat, sleep, shout, curse, play together. our lives pretty much revolved around each other.
we do grocery together. we eat together. we drink together. wenyang used to be my pole when i'm upset and clifton is the logical one, who most of the time will help straighten my mind if it becomes too complex and if he is not too drunk. louanne and i lived on the second floor, while clifton and wenyang stayed on the ground floor. mark used to stay in the same apartment complex with us but he moved out later.
is sad.. is sad that now wenyang has moved to japan. louanne might be leaving soon. i'm in california, mark has graduated and clifton is graduating soon in dec.
if not for the five of them, life in arizona would be a complete different story. tucson is a pretty boring town. when my dad came, he lamented that this is worse than sembawang. each of them had brought a new meaning towards the term friendship and life is just so wonderful with each of you single one around [though at times, we get damn pissed with each other lah].
i shall not say anymore. pictures are worth more than a thousand words.
Yap, we do stupid things together too. in the morning, we eat cheese, ham and drink wine. we adopted this lifestyle when clifton came back from spain. is actually pretty shiok once you get used it. WHERE IS MY GOUDA CHEESE?
we pretty much celebrated all our birthdays with one another.
in fact, we had 2 21st birthdays. one is louannes's and the other is zhenlin's. clifton is the only one that we didnt manage to celebrate cause it is in the summer and is either he's gone or we are gone. sorry bro!
haha.. and check out clifton's face looking @ wenyang cutting his cake. damn classic!
singapore/malaysia food cookout! classic time together :)
the amount of food we ate for the past years is HUMONGOUS. we are not starving students. we have nothing but food and more food.. food is very important to both clifton and wenyang and the best of all, if i feel like eating something, i just have to ask clifton or mark to cook.
1. belacan kang kong 2. tahu goreng 3. roti canai 4. satay 5. popiah 6. bak ku hae mee (this one lucky shiok!) 7. 2 plates of hor fun
yah 8 dishes. when my aunt and her family came down here yesterday, i brought them to little malaysia. among the 5 of us [actually consider 4 coz there are 2 kids]. there was what we had. eat till puke!
On the issue of.....Understanding, Knowing, Finding the Truth before Concluding
circumstances, people you meet, experiences, upbringing are very powerful.
Because, all these mould the way we feel about things.
all these years spend growing up, one thing that i have learned and tried to do is to understand the situation first before making any assumptions and remarks.
sometimes is hard. when i hear things that i don't think is right, it is very natural for me to become defensive and try to argue the case. now, i try my best to first take a deep breathe and step away from the situtation to look @ things in a bigger picture. we humans, tend to be very myopic; alway looking at things right in front of us. BAD!
for instance, i FEAR having kids coz i have heard enough bad stories of the pain of pregnancy. but then, i don't know, maybe i'm wrong, maybe is not so bad after all. who knows? maybe after i've been through the whole experience, i will realise that hmm... is not too bad and shitty after all.
take for another instance, before i became a believer, i HATE christians coz i think all they want is MONEY and i don't agree with how some of the churches approach the topic!
i have been a believer for emm.. 2 years. you know what i learned --- there are always bad apples around. nothing is perfect. NOT u and NOT me too.
i'm blessed that i got to know christ through love. when i first attended the fellowship in tucson, NONE of them approached me about whether if i want to be saved. if they did, i will ask them to go eat DA BIAN and also, at that moment, i'm enjoying my life too much to give a damn about religion.
however, one day, i decided to find out the TRUTH. what the heck is christianity about? is it just another religion? what's the deal about going to hell if you are not saved? (to me THEN, this is utter bullshit) What's salvation? zhun bo?
i always thought that the bible does not allow people to drink liquor. i remembered me telling mark. siao liao lah.. i cannot do this! ask me to choose between alcohol and bible, of course drinking with friends lah!
.....but then, i'm WRONG. the bible didn't say that we cannot drink. mark mentioned that even jesus drinks wine. the thing that the bible is asking is not to over-drink=drunk.
so.. i began my journey of finding the TRUTH.
it has really been a fascinating one. a journey that i will never regret.
just that my heart always drops everytime i see pictures of singapore.
i have been away from home for nearly 4 years. how time flies!
everytime when i see familar pictures of home, i just stared at it.. for a very long time. always wondering.. how it feels to be at the exact same spot right now.
then memories started flowing. yah.. i have been there not too long ago. the 1st picture down below is near clifford pier --- fullerton. yes! i remember fullerton, that is one of my hang out places. my favourite cafe -- bakers inn is there.
boat quay, raffles city and marina square are nearby too. i used to frequent all these places with my friends and family. i wonder how they look like now?
singapore changes so fast. when i was still a student, it looks different every year i go back. it has been 2 years since my last trip home. oh my...i think i will flip when i get back.
i think i have mentioned this before -------> where is home? what clifton says is true. we are like the transatlantic birds..migrating around trying to find the perfect place.
i have lived in singapore for 21 years of my life --- the most important 21 years, before coming to the states.
been in tucson for 3.5 years and suddenly, tucson feels like home to me.
now.. i landed my butt in california. will i call california home too?........... i don't know but i don't think so..
i think singapore is still the only one and true home to me. i grew up there. that is where my family and friends are.
i'm still listed as an alien here and i NEVER will give up my singapore citizenship to get residency here.
however, i'm scared to go home.
will i get used to the culture back home? that is my biggest concern. i'm used to being direct [and i know where my limit is]. @ work here, the policy is OPEN COMMUNICATION and HONEST OPINION, sometime i think that we are too honest to the stage of being hurtful. well.. well this is the typical american corporate culture.
i think that if i do just that back in singapore, i will get my ass fired within one week on the job. most chinese/singaporeans want FACE. NO FACE NO TALK. me cannot handle that. i hate chin-na boss.
and.. how to deal with those kan-cheong aunties and everything must be first singaporeans ah?
i think in the rocket-paced society back there, i will always be the last. die lah, like that how?
only the lord can help to ease my anxiety and i shall trust in him for directions.
as i age, i tend to be more cautious as to what i put in my mouth.
also, being in the food industry, i get to learn so much more stuff that the regular consumer.
take for instance, a small amount of carbon monoxide is injected to packaged meat so that they would look red and "fresh" for a long time.
also, they used to bleach chicken so that it would look white and "healthy". your white sugar is also beached!
and also those stuff that contain hydrogenated oil.. is something that you want to eat less of if you want to decrease your chance of getting coronary heart disease.
it is hard for me also to avoid that cause some of my favourite cookies contain that evil thing but i try to control my intake.
when people get sick, they then start to treasure their health so why not start eating healthy?
so.. this is what the casino would look like in a few years time huh!
i can't believe that the government is allowing to have TWO of these creatures in singapore.
WHY?
is it necessary?
will these really help to drive the economy and increase employment?
i totally agree with what mark said. years down the road, singapore will have some serious social problems.
what has this old rustic city become?
i grew up in the 80's. i love the wet market. though is dirty, it is dirty with CHARACTER.
why must all the housing estates LOOK pretty? for who to see?? oh well.. maybe they think we would feel better looking at that after a shitty 12 hours day at work is it? but then, it is already dark when we get home, so how to appreciate the PRETTY COLORS?
well.. i don't think upgrading and all these improvement projects are a bad thing but i think that there should be a limit.
there's a difference between a cool person and a POSER.
two casinos in a frickin small city and one looks so frickin ugly.
singapore trying to be vegas..yah yah my backside..
this place is only a 5 mins drive from newport yet is a completely different world over here. the waves are different, the slope of the beach is different and a totally different weather from newport and balboa.
the weather may be gloomy but then, there is something amazing about the waves here. i stood down there for a long time just starring out. is amazing.
we couldn't stand the gloomy weather over at huntington so we decided to head back to balboa/newport.
this weekend was very different from the last. we were at the exact same spot but the waves were stronger and prettier today. everything was just very amazing.
mark told me the waves were caused by the wind in alaska, thus the result of waves. nature is a very beautiful thing.
i can just stand down there for hours just looking out at the vast ocean.
i am thankful and also at the same time, i can't believe that the lord has blessed me so much.
Me graduated! the simple and carefree life is LONG GONE but I'm trying very hard to get it back! I treasure every single moment when i'm @ the beach, drinking with my friends and spending time with my family & mark <--- the last two are the two most frickin important things to me. screw money and status!
and.. i love & thank the lord who has blessed me abundantly and helped to keep me sane in this insane world.
