Just another manic monday...

after a very hectic weekend.

My aunt planned an early celebration of grandpa's b'day so my parents were in town. Dad has been in and out a lot recently but Mom only flew in on Saturday. The trip back from the airport stretched one whole day as we made quite a few stops along the way. First it was the famous Ng Ah Sio pork ribs soup for lunch with my aunt who tagged along. Next stop was Funan to shop for my aunt's mobile phone and unsuccessful attempt at scoring a new suitcase for my dad. After that, I dragged them to chinatown with me as I needed to find something there. Evening was spent at yet another aunt's place before we doubled back towards Ang Mo Kio to visit my great-aunt who apparently was recently hospitalized.

Grandpa's b'day lunch took up most of the day on Sunday. It's really quite sad how different things are without my grandma around...

I woke up early on Monday only to realize I had forgotten my "homework". Luckily I managed to calm down and coughed up the framework in about 1 hour's time. And even luckier as my boss was in a meeting the whole morning, so I had time to touch up the thing with more details. In fact, I think she totally forgot about it until after lunch, when I asked to see her for a quick discussion.

I didn't leave office until 7 pm as I wanted to recheck the figures. Lucky I did coz I caught some mistakes. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that I don't leave traces of anything major there.
Was supposed to meet up with a friend and his partner for dinner but sadly found my lancer refusing to cooperate. Dinner had to be rescheduled and I was stuck at the parking lot waiting for help, which cost me about 10% of my basic salary.
Just great...

Operation tight belt on!

My first nite...

I finally lost my world-cup virginity.
And thanks to Germany, I am $10 richer : )

I tried to arrange for a world-cup outing, but due to lack of experience :P the whole thing almost fell apart with people ready to just go home after we failed to get any table despite combing the Selegie and City Hall area.

In the end, we settled for this bar on 70/F with visuals but no audio. PL managed to get AO to replace AT. However, WE & KH couldn't get in because of the dress code and YK ended up as the only guy who made it.

I think world cup should be most interesting compared to whatever leagues and championships around.
I prefer to see the purer side of sport, where commercial decisions such as club financing comes into play.
Kinda a shame that I only started so late into the competition, but it's always better late than never.

Wonder if I should subscribe to the football channel in August so I can better educate myself  before the next world cup.... :P

Make a wish today....

It was Friday night. Netherlands vs Brazil was suppose to be on at 10 pm, but I couldn't find anyone to go and lose my world-cup virginity :P 

( I'm hoping the plan for tonight will work out somehow)

Determined to break my pattern of working overtime on Fridays, I decided to drop everything and leave around 6 pm. Whatever it was, it just had to wait. I told myself the world was not going to crumble if I send my report at 10 am on Monday instead of 7 pm on Friday. I have a life and people just have to accept it. 

On my way out I decided to call a friend. I knew she was most likely still at the office. 

Aside from being Capricorns, we do share a lot in common and I was determined to break her pattern too. 

I did manage to get her out of her office and we ended up in Novena area for a "budget" dinner, which turned out to be free for me as she insisted on footing the bill to cover her "taxi" fare. 

My friend asked to go for a round of drinks after that. She had had a rough week and I had nothing to do.
So I brought her to my secret corner on the 70/F -- a place I usually don't share with many people in my futile attempt to keep the place obscure. And she fell in love with the place too.

While my friend downed her first Cape Mentelle Sauvignon Blanc, her third drink for the night, she was lamenting how she was overworked, which was the extreme opposite of her situation less than a year ago, when she had been totally under-utilized and had wished she had more workloads and more important roles to play. Jokingly, I told her that the lesson learnt was clear: Be careful what you wish for.

I shared with her how I am a firm believer of the power of creative visualization.
As a kid, my family was on the weak side financially. Although I am blessed with very good parents who assured me and my brother of sufficient nutrition and healthcare (as evidenced by my size) and equally important education, abundance was not anywhere in sight.
Mom had to wreck her brain to feed 13 people with 1 chicken. The wonderful meals and treats she managed to whip up from time to time reminds me of Jesus with the five loaves of bread and two fish in the bible.
I remember seeing some of the well-to-do families we got to know from the buddhist group our family used to join, and I couldn't help but feel a bit envious. I remember as a kid imagining that one day I would be able to study architecture, study overseas, work overseas and drive a car (Our family of four had to rely on my dad's scooter then and I thought female drivers looked damn cool then). I wished so hard for it, I remember I managed to conjure up very clear images whenever I closed my eyes.

Dreaming was my hobby as a child.

Dream. So you can achieve.
Ask. So you will be given.
Fight. So you can win.

My Mom had taught me the above at a very young age.
I probably have written about this somewhere in this blog but I still feel like sharing the story.

There was no nursery in my Dad's hometown, where I  stayed with grandparents when my parents moved to Jakarta. When my brother started kindergarten there, there was nothing available for the 2.5 years old me. My grandparents who doted on me so much couldn't bear to see me sad & upset (read: throw tantrums) when I didn't have anyone to play with. They begged the principals to just let me wear the uniforms and hang out in class. They promised that I would behave myself and would not disrupt the class, which I did deliver.

When my brother and I were finally sent to Jakarta to join my parents, the school refused to acknowledge my kindergarten certificate as I was too young. I had to go back to year 1. Everyday after school, I would complain to my mom that school was boring as they kept telling us to draw lines and circles. Instead of taking it on herself, my mom threw the ball to me: "If you want to, you can ask the teacher to move you up to Year 2. You can then learn more interesting things there."

"But how do I do that? What do I say to the teacher?" I asked.
She then taught me a one-liner that I memorized and practiced a few times in front of her.
With a twisted feeling in my stomach, every morning for the next one whole week, I would run up to the teacher's desk before class started every morning and recite that one liner, before immediately turning away and running back to my seat.

Puzzled, the teacher finally asked to see my mom after that one week.
Thanks to my mom's bargaining skills, I got what I wanted.

It's probably one of the earliest lessons in life that Mom has taught me.
While I have not managed to fully implement it, there have quite a few occasions in which I have done so, in my school years as well as my work life:

Ask.
You might just get your wish.
And when you don't, ask again.
Fight.