With a hectic pace of life, it is ironic that we only slow down when we're sick. The long weekends no longer serve as a break but rather an opportunity to play catch-up with whatever work that need to be done (granted that it could be argued that its the person doing the work). Its been a long time since I caught the flu, fever, cough and the whole shebang and while I am lying sick at home on the first day, I am partially glad that I finally have some time to take it a lot slower and just rest. Partially because after 2 hours of "resting" I got restless. I could not sleep 'cos my body is too hot (pardon the pun) and cold at the same time. Being wrapped up only serves to increase my core body temp but not doing do make my extremities go numb. I could not concentrate on reading and neither could I play any games either for the same reason. So what did I do? I stared out of my widow for prolonged period of time of that equates to about 15 minutes. I went down often to buy myself food, drinks and other miscellaneous stuff. Anything to kill the time.

Its strange that now I've time to actually rest, I can't do it. Thankfully the fever has gone down to about 38.2 making me a little more lucid to think straight and allow me to do some work.

One reason why I don't write as often anymore is that I'm simply to tired (and lazy to do so). After a 12 hour day at work, I come home and all I wanna do is to just slack. I can empathise with people who used to tell me when I was working at the boardgame cafe that all they want is a "brainless and fun" game after a long day of work.

Driving has been great. The freedom it affords really is boundless at the moment. I don't have to squeeze with like 10,000 other people in the train nor do I have to deal with silly parents who refuses to compact their baby pram even though the kid is being held snugly by the mother. I don't have to deal with people blasting their oh-so-horrible-music in my face anymore. What I do miss though it the freedom to read on the bus.

Okie. Back to work .....

So .... I finally bought a car, albeit a second hand one, on the 12th of March. Rather, I received the car on the 12th.

It's one of the things that I told myself back in 2006 that I'll do by 2008. While I'm a little late on that promise but I still made it good. Forking out the cash was a little painful though but I had saved enough to afford a down payment and still have enough reserves to last me for a while. I must say that even thought I've driven in the years since I came back from Australia, I never really felt a much pleasure in driving those cars. However, this changed somewhat for this is MY car and it has given me much pleasure since. I had even missed driving it when I was away for the cca training trip up north and I am most glad to be able to sit in it once more and drive around.

Strangely, I've yet to take a photo of it. Of the car I bought in Australia, I only have one singular photo of it left after my HD crashed all those years back. Well, this is definitely a moment to remember and I will take a snap shot of it soon. For the moment, its enough to know that I've a car to call mine after all these years =)

I can't really think of a title for this post. There are things on my mind and yet I've no idea of where to start and more importantly, whether I would want to finish writing about it. Since this is a place for random thoughts, I might as well just write it down so I could just get it off me.

Every year I look forward to the tenth week of each term as that's where I could take a little break and not worry so much about dealing with work. Of late my tiredness has taken a toll in my teaching. It has affected the "person" that I am in class and it bothers me that I cannot function at my best (or at least my perceive best). I want to engage my students but the end result is usually one of a vicious cycle. Questions that are directed to students are not answered and as a reaction, more questions are asked and it continues to go unanswered. More questions, silence and then boredom. sigh. The ironic thing is that with each passing year, I've seen how the off-handedness and spoon feeding dependency of students bring them towards fostering a habit that is not very conducive for learning and studying. I try with the following batch to make certain changes in order to wean them off such dependency and yet, not only would I fail to steer them in the "right" path, I would start adopting rigid methods in which to combat this problem. The end effect is that I find myself becoming a little less effective in carrying out my work and that affects my morale and .... yeah, so the spiral goes.

Then again, it all boils down to perspective.

On a side note, I've realised that my climbing capability is probably round the 6A region. Still lacking in technique but I learn as I go. One thing I would like to do well is to learn how to shift my body around effectively so that I would be able to evenly distribute my weight. However, when I'm on the wall, thinking about how to shift my body around comes secondary to the fact that I am expending energy and strength holding onto the wall and hence. Its always a pleasure watching people move so gracefully while climbing and I hope to one day be able to do just the same. Recently returned from a trip to KL with the kids and I must say that the gyms and climbing parks there are definitely "A" grade quality. The only one I found odd was the rock wall at Genting. It seem a little out of place and at one point of time, there was even a sizeable crowd watching us climb! It does not help that there was a barrier between us climbers and the general crown. That made me feel like I was some caged animal on display and the public were there snapping away with their sony cameras going "ooooohh" " ahhhhhh".

After 3 days of intensive climbing, the third phalanges of all my fingers on my left hand, plus the fleshy area just below the thumb of both hands and both my forearms are now protesting against the strain I put them though. Oh well, no pain no gain I guess. it had been fun and I would very much like to do it again.

I said before that this will come in little pieces but I never said how far these pieces would be hahaha.

I better write them before I get lazy and busy.

Was typing a message and a usual, my fat fingers would slip and press another button causing another word to appear instead. Usually its a normal word or gibberish (depending on what's in the T9 phone dictionary) but this time round I'm somewhat surprised when the word "klingon" appeared. Imagine that the dictionary would not have words like playstation stringed together but actually have "klingon" as one of its official word. I can imagine the person who designed this probably added words like "nemoy" and "spock" into it as well hahahaha.

Speaking of which, when is that damn new Star Trek movie gonna come!!??!??!

Ok ..... 2 cents for now.

I've been listening to this fantastic girl ever since one of my student sang it as an introduction to Literature Night last Friday. I could not believe what a great voice my student has and I must say I was utterly enthralled in that short min or so. So since there are still so many "fans" who linger still round this blog, this is from me to you.

And did I ever mention that I really really love acoustic music? No? Well now you do =)

It has been 43 weeks since the last post and I believe by now, no one visits this blog anymore. Its a good thing I guess for I had always wanted this to be somewhat of a blog that is visited little by strangers and less so by friends.

Life has been hectic. Hectic to the point where words no longer flow out as easily for my mind it always pre-occupied with something else. I would play games to take my mind off everything else and the only reason (ok 2 reasons) why I spend so much time playing is because 1) I don't have to think too much and 2) its a lot more fun than writing words ;p

Its been a while and I guess there are things that we can't stay away for long. Writing is one for me I guess. And reading too. I'm beginning to find a certain balance in which old passions are once again rekindled. I'm reading once more though on a much slower pace than before but i am at least reading.

I sleep early these days too for the demands of each day takes a steady toll upon my body. Hitting the big 30 seems to be like a big milestone that is not felt in one day but rather over the weeks and months. I've been running on a regular basis and while it does contribute to my physical tiredness, I do feel good when my ipod tells me that my personal best for the km is steadily decreasing. At the current moment, I clock 4.55m. Not to bad for an old man who struggled to pass his ippt and had not done long distance since 2003. Its in the plans this year to do a full marathon. Speaking of exercises, I'm also looking to do a level 2 certification in my rock climbing. Unfortunately I don't really get to train often on the high wall and my endurance plus technique still suck somewhat but i'll try and get as much time in as possible. Looks like 2009 will be a busy but also a keep fit year for me =)

Blogging brings back memories. There are days where I wish it was like 2006 once again. oh well ...

Taking things slow and easy ... the revival shall come in bits and pieces as well. =)

For the longest time I have not done work at one of my favourite Starbucks spot - Raffles City. Today I'm back once again and for the first time since November, I'm back at a seat that I had spent one November morning reading "Food of Love" by Anthony Capella (hmm which sadly now I don't have much time to read all the books I want these days).


This is the seat or rather the image above the seat. I used iphoto to take this so the angle was kinda odd.

The skies turning kinda dark and it would seem that it would soon rain. Pity. Its been such a good day so far before the need to do work sets in. Oh well .... I guess i'll just have to get back to it or rather get back to trying to start doing my work ;p

I say it once and I say it again.

Life has taken a turn. A turn in which sometimes we never ever look back. Almost anyways. I think about the times and the reason for setting up this blog in 2003. I cannot believe that it has been 5 years now.

What has changed? Everything but strangely, nothing as well.

Life, as elusive as ever, seldom gives us a direct hint as to what to look for but on the days that it does, it provides a refreshing look into something old. It gives us a new perspective into life and provides that tinge of being rejuvenated.

I found mine for this particular period. Have you?

I apologised for not writing about my life, my thoughts and my dreams anymore. T'is strange especially when I promised myself all those years back to write about my days and thoughts so that in the future, I'll remember what it was like all those years back. I used to back all these memories up but I stopped doing that a long time ago believing that the world wills as it is, what will be should be and will be. Plus that I got lazy as well. ;p

And so as I dance and breathe and sing amidst the bed of thorns, I learn to love and take things into stride.
_____________


It has been a while since I saw a movie that moved me. Well, it moved me a little but I guess sometimes its that little push that we all need to get going again. I hope this is the "little push" I've been looking for.

I had love the part of the movie where Ryan Renolds finally replied to the question why he had kept the book for so long.

        "It was the only thing I had left of you"

But this one rocks my world

    "I want to marry you because you’re the first person I want to see when I wake up and the last person I want to kiss before I go to bed every       night and when I saw this hands I knew that I wanted to hold this hands for the rest of my life. I want to marry you because if you love             someone as much as I love you that is the only thing you can do. So will you Ummmmm… Marry me?"

Ah ...

For all of you chappies who were not born in the 80s =)

I went down to my old time comic store today after an absence of almost 4 months and I find it in a midst of a renovation. What I noticed as well was that the miniature cupboard was cleared out ... along with my dragon!!

Now that piece of mine was memorable as I remember spending almost a week painting it up. Holes were drilled and pins inserted to make it more durable followed by layers and layers of paints to provide the necessary shade and colour tone. That was all in the summer months of 2001 just before I left the country for Down Below. When I left, I had left the piece behind as a display. In the years to come, it was relegated to the bottom shelf as whole armies of a specific race/type was displayed to portray the idea of impressiveness (and to sell more minis to the public).

This was all well and good as I soon forgot about it being there entirely due to me being away. However, all of that changed today as I noticed the usually packed display case now displays a gloomy, dusty and EMPTY shelves! My first reaction was "OMFG!! Is my dragon still there??!?!?!?!" Of course it was not. I asked the shop attendant and all he could say, or rather do, was shrug. He offered to ask the guys who cleared the shelf out. At this moment, it kinda struck me - I had left the miniature there for so long only to visit it once in a while and I had pretty much lived without it for a very long time. Thus it actually really does not matter if I found it back. I told him to forget about it and somehow when I said it, a chapter of my life kinda closed itself. Gone are my painting days where I guess now is something I might not re-visit again in the near future.

So now I shall bid thee formally good bye until maybe the inspiration might once again strike me.