Mel

Do you have ‘walking dictionary’ people around you?

I have a ‘walking motivational book’ friend!

I spoke to her last Sunday and now dedicate this post to her!

For the past 5 years of knowing her, I honestly can’t recall a moment when she doesn’t have any positive thing to say during predicaments.
Even when she’s the one who is struggling with circumstances, her well-stocked spectrum of motivational vocabularies are always readily available on her lips.

There are times where I do envy beautiful, popular, rich, smart, lucky friends around me. But that feeling fades away like cheap lipstick.

My envy for this friend?
It’s like Revlon.

It stays.

Pls believe me when I say..

My mother smelled something horrible in the storeroom. To her horror, she found that there was a dead rat hidden behind one of the many boxes.

As she continued to blame everything living around the neighborhood (yes, humans not spared) I was surprised to see many of my brother’s books in one of the boxes.

My brother has moved out many years ago and I truly wonder why he didn’t take the books with him. Many accounting, business, computer related books. There were even some company financial analyses/ reports. I could only identify a handful of words out of a sentence. I can’t help but marvel at my brother’s interest and his thirst for knowledge.

As I continued to dig deeper, I found some books that I could read.
They were motivational books and ‘How to’ books. Those books were yellowish but were far from tattered. Although I was amazed at the titles of his choice, the condition of the books were unsurprising because I know my brother keeps his books and stationeries with great care. Utmost care. Unbelievably utmost care.

Looking at the design and the yellowish-ness of the pages, I know that he must have purchased them back when he was in his teens.

As I plainly flipped the pages, I saw an old receipt that was used as a bookmark.
Anthonian bookstore! Dated 1989!
I bet nobody remembers this bookstore anymore. I wouldn’t either, hadn’t I have a brother who used to frequent there.

The book was something about studying smart and improving memory.
*counting with fingers* my brother was only 15 years old when he purchased this rm14.90 book!

Woah!... That’s a hefty sum!

Among the siblings, my brother is the most serious academician.
Back when we were still living in the same house, I could count on him to update me with general knowledge everything under the sun.
Like the rest of us, he was Malay-educated but he taught himself Mandarin and I could ask him to read some simple Chinese characters and translate some Taiwan jokes that I don’t understand from the tv.

Therefore I never hesitate to shower him with my genuine admiration for him during times when he’s down.
Sadly, he never took me seriously.

I also experience the similar feedback with my sister.
She was feeling a bit blue lately and I tried to perk up her self confidence by reminding her of her exceptional skills. Skills that friends and relatives repeatedly remind me I don’t posses.

“Aww, you really think so? It’s nice to know somebody feels so,” answered sis.

I really do wish my korkor jiejie (older bro sis) take me seriously.

Cobra

Cobra!!!
in my house.

I went downstairs and ... bam!! a 2 meter cobra startled me.
Dialed 994, no answer.

999, lady asked for name, house phone number and address.

20 LONG mins later, help came.

sigh.. my house ah.. what also got....

bliss-ED

I joined (self-invited actually) my sister with her group of friends for a 'yum-cha' session.

Yes, my social life has gone so bad that I'm destroying my sister's.
*Ok-lar. Won't do it again. Not in near future.hehe*

I saw an old lady on wheelchair seated across.
I thought, "Wah, no nice of her children to take her out. Despite the inconvenience. Hmm, now abled-bodied elders also hard to get out of the house."

Minutes later, I saw the same 'grandma' lighting a cigarette.
Wah lau!!!
I bend my neck to see a bigger picture.
She has her own personal cigarette container. - aiyo, i also don't know how to describe it. first time see. it just proves that she's a 'veteran' smoker lar.

Anyway, back to the story. For the first time in my life, I'm actually happy seeing somebody smoking. Yeah, I know. The cancer stick will send her earlier to her grave, but she knows what she's doing. And she really looks ... blissed...

time

I was going through some of my old notes back in 2003.

I was thinking, “Gosh! 3 years has gone and yet I don’t feel like it at all. 3 years…. If I was pregnant then, my kid could be running to me, calling ‘Mama’.”
- yes, it’s obvious I’ve reached an age where the maternity instinct is blasting.

It’s very frightening how time flew and I have so little achievement to commensurate it.

Opinions that unfortunately DO matter

Long time ago, a lecturer brought up the topic of ethical issues that occur in notable professions.

She used her personal experience to illustrate her point.
She testified the story about her brother mentally giving up the cancer battle after the doctor had told him that he had only half a year to live.
Her argument was- he could definitely have lived longer had not the doctor gave such prediction.
Conclusion= She blames the doctor.

I raised my hand because I thought this is one-sided story is very unsuitable for the passive journalism students to digest.

"I think the doctor was just fulfilling his professional duty to inform the patient based on his expert opinion. Afterall, our lives are all based on PROFESSIONAL opinions. Who builds the roads we use everyday? Who makes national policies? Who is to say what kind of clothes are suitable to wear? Ultimately we have to rely on the 'higher authorities' to run our lives. Blaming the doctor, is like blaming the teacher for failing the SPM student who later committed suicide because she was unable to accept her results" - this was the period where the results were just released, so, I used it as an example.

"It was in the examiner's professional opinion of the student's performance over the exam which ultimately reflects her intellectual capability. But why can't we blame the teacher for the actions the student choose to take?"

Till this day, I wondered if anyone in the lecture understood my argument because it was left just like that.....

Happiness

Happiness.

money can't buy happiness but...

Happiness can make money!!!!.

It's true, it's simple logic really.

People just tend to be more productive when they are 'happier'.

Also, because emotions are easily infectious,

People tend to rather be around 'happy' people and stay away from the otherwise.

Therefore, when you are happy you have already completed half of the core requirement of a successful business plan.

Good labour and market.......... you should also bear in mind the rest of the plan is unattainable with a sour face.

Sigh, it's not easy being happy. Yes, it's a choice. A choice like many others, - it requires discipline and conviction.

an inspiration

I've had this blog-post in mind for months but didn't dare to put it down for fear that the 'hero' of my story might read it.

Now, being so sure that he won't, YIPPEE!!! Ahem, here goes....

The morale of the story is - Never judge a book by its cover NOR underestimates a person's potential/capability.

During my stint at the bookstore, an experienced staff (Z) had guided me a lot. I'm just amazed at his capability of remembering titles of books and names of various authors. Man! He's like the walking Amazon search engine for the entire bookstore.

The bookstore has many rules about arranging the books.. and I'm not kidding about the descriptive "MANY", it's like to the extent of 'redundant' and 'leceh'... anyway, this guy - He is the bomb! He always manages to comply ALL rules. That's why he's put the key role.

This is the funniest part. He doesn't look the part at all. Matter of fact, if you are in need of assistance and even if you see HIM standing by, you'd think twice about asking him for Márquez or Lauren Weisberger or some Nyonya recipe book author. But his first impression will fool you,(I was) because just name it! He can take you automatically to the, and I mean, THE book itself.

(Z) = if you ARE reading this, no offense k? Please concentrate on the good part. Damn! i really do regret telling you about this blog.


How does he do it? It's simple actually.
He has the INTEREST and PRIDE in his work.

Seeing him work, just makes me wanna open a little bookstore myself.
What an inspiration..............................

Destiny

My sis asked, "Eh, that is new employee ah?"
My father explained , "Aiyo, very pitiful case, he had an accident and has lost part of his memory, along with his communication ability. He used to be an insurance agent. Sigh, now he can only perform simple manual task lar.."

My sister later told me that this testimony reminded her of another 'kisah benar'- another true story of relevance.
"HW was exceptionally good in mathematics. He once brought those little rythymic-blinking bulb toy and even tried to explain how it works. Stating that it's actually very simple mechanism. But after the accident, sigh, he was a whole different person."

I look at the people around me.
It frightens me that a person's destiny could drastically change like that.

...

My posts lately have been rather unmotivating.
I guess it clearly reflects my current state.

I have not been to any badminton games for the past weeks.

Both the psychiatrist and fortune teller have warned me about this.

weird

I had the weirdest dream.
I dreamed I was 10 years younger and am back in secondary school.
Suddenly a classmate gave me a file full of my favourite things.

The I woke up....
How weird...

so, what now?

I surprised myself when I said this phrase to a friend,
"Neh, you know at that point in life where you'd think anything is possible."
"Ha? You had such point ah? What happened now?"

.........................

have some backbone

I told the my friend that I hate one of my superiors.

He said, "Hey, you can't think like that. If you hate people, how would you feel if other people feel the same way about you?"

"Ha? So, I have to like everyone just to make myself liked ah?", I replied.

*I know a few who pretend to be everyone's friend for this sake. It's reasonable too, afterall, why make enemies?*

I continued, "If you don't know what you hate, How would you know what you love?

If you don't know what you despise,

How would you know what you respect?

29 July

Watched 'Lady in the Water'.
Hmm, M.Night Shyamalan never fail me.

You know, I think it's the lowest-budgeted movie he has made.
But still, it's just as impactful and meaningful as his previous movies.
I'm glad I watched it.

# # # # #
When I think about it, I really don't feel that life is short.

Our memory span is.

not yet a woman

I bumped into an old friend today.
She looked very different.

After our brief 'hello-s and nice to see u again-s', I marvelled at her, thinking that it was not too long ago we were tossing the netball at each other.

As she walked on, I turned to have one last glance at her.

She has advanced fast into being a WOMAN.

I looked at my own reflection...

Timing

Timing is everything.

I've been longing for it for so long.
And finally when I have it in hand, it doesn't feel like it should.

All I had longed for, was an illusion. I had believed a lie.

Perhaps if I had it the moment I wanted it, and not left it in my 'for later' list. Would it be far more gratifying then?

I won't be eating Ramli burgers for a very long time.

remember

There are things I remember, and there are things I don't remember.

Because I don't know the things that I don't remember, I don't know which facts are more important.

Even if the latter should be more important, I can't do much about it, simply because of ignorance.

I fear more about the facts that I DO remember.
Do I remember them correctly?
Do I put emphasis on the proper areas proportionately?

The fortune teller is right, I think TOO much.

Sports

I must say, at the moment, SPORTS is the strongest unifying language we have.

I played badminton with Bangladeshis today.

Although we did have minor difficulties in understanding each other, there wasn't any uncommon mistakes that had taken place during our game.

I'm sure they did enjoy the fact that their employer sucked big time with the racket, and they beat him in all games.

A friend told me that certain people are just talented in sports.
They are very inclined to have the agility, instincts and stamina.

It's true. Those Bangladeshis only started playing badminton when they worked here and yet, it was obvious that their position in the court differs from their employment.

I really had a great time.We understood the same jokes and tactics.. despite being so different..Amazing what sports can do, eh?