Blog Blog Blogging away

It was with a heavy heart and mind that I left for work this morning with difficult decisions to make.

In the end, you made the decision.

When I received the news, it was like a huge whole fell away from my heart.

Perhaps, it was befitting that the sky broke and wept for you since I had to remain calm and normal at work whilst my heart wept inside.

Goodbye Honi, thank you for 14 wonderful years of bark and cheer. You’ve kept our house safe all these years and kept your step-brother Jojo company too.

May you find peace and joy in the kingdom of heaven together with your ‘Lao Da’ Bobby.

Since my mistress no longer use this site, I’ll do a little bit of my cat observations and opinions here.

What? Whaddya mean that cats aren’t dogs and thus have no treats?? I can piss to mark my territory as well as any dog near a lamp post. I can bark or meow when I need to. Infact, I’m above a dog…I can find my way home through the stars if I have to. So where’s my treat??

Check out my various other blog sites thru www1.webng.com/amateur

I am back for a while, just started a new blog site-away from Friendster because Friendster’s blog site SUX.

Anyways, I found out how ironic my father is.

He refuses to let me drive his car without him because he is always afraid that I might "ruin" his new car. He never lends me his car to work because he "claims" that I’ll be too tired to drive and thus be at more risk to be involved in an accident! <-how encouraging and supportive eh?

Then, I started my night shift.

For 3 days straight, he told me to use his car when I went to work for my night shift!
Mind you, my shifts starts at 9pm and ends at 7am the next morning-making it a full 10 hours or work.

So what did I do?

I blardy hell took his car to work of course! It was a real treat to drive at my own leisure to work and though my eyes could barely open when I am on my way home, I fought the urge to snooze while driving. What’s more, the sun rises in the east and thus as I head home on the ECP towards the east- I am driving directly into the sun’s glare. My eyes practically watered the first morning I was driving home and I narrowly missed slamming into the curb on the ECP. I could hardly see beyond the rear of any car infront of mine.

BEing smarter now, I decided to go home via the geylang route for purely practical reasons - traffic is pretty smooth in the mornings along geylang but a nightmare at night ( I was nearly late for work because of the Thursday night jam). I went to work via ECP because every car would be heading in the opposite direction from me since my day would only be starting at dusk whilst theirs ended.

However, on my last night shift, as I was heading home-I was a witness to an accident at Geylang/Alijunied.  In the space of a few seconds, the sun’s glare was shaded by the trees along the route and when my view was brighten under the sun’s glare it took me a few seconds to slam on my brakes, signal and swerve to the next lane before I slammed into the truck infront of me. The truck practically drove straight into a right-turning lorry. I would have
added on to the collision if not for the fact that I actually practised
safe driving by slowing down at traffic junctions!

Considering all the obstacles and concentration needed for driving after a long night at work, it is really ironic of my father to even suggest that I would be more at risk to be in an accident after a normal morning or afternoon shift compared to a night shift.

Of course, I never told him about any of the above- that would be pretty stupid of me. HOwever, it is such a waste now to everyday go to work during normal shifts and watch my father’s parking space be left empty. Damnit, its free parking too! Imagine, Mdm Wong actually requested for a parking lot at the hospital but was turned down because of the lack of space! Sighs. This would have been the only perk I benefitted from having a father who used to work at the hospital.

It is well-known that, history serves to remind us of the past and allows us to learn from our mistakes-as well as that of our forefathers.

How very true that saying is.

History does not just affect us in a general way but, in each of our individual lives, the choices each of us made were shaped by what we learnt yesterday.

We learnt mostly through our immediate social surroundings comprising of our parents, siblings, relatives, friends and peers before finally being affected by the larger societal environment-which is made us of our general surroundings like our workplaces.

I will always remember what Dr Vijaya Nair once told my sister and myself, she said,"It is not the present that made our decisions but, our past."

Despite my cynicism of the whole programme, I realised that what she said made sense. Everything we did was an indirect result of what happened in our lives before and how our memory serves to remind us each time we need to make a decision.

Another way knowledge of the past can also affect us is through our health-mentally, emotionally and socially. This is how depression takes root.

I know a child once who appeared happy and normal on the surface, and even startled adults with her level-headedness and maturity. Unbeknownst to most, this child had to grow up fast because of the extra emotional burden she had to bear from knowing her parent’s discord. With that knowledge burying and burrowing deeply in her heart and mind, she was constantly sick and withdrawn.

This child grew up with the same longings as her friends but because she knew that there were more important things than material possession, so she pushes it aside. As her friends slowly settles down one by one, she deludes herself by saying that she is happy being independent-which may be true to some extent but more likely because she was afraid of being like her parents.

Today, I think about how much I’ve achieved and I realised that I did not achieve anything I wanted when I was a child of seven years old but a trough of knowledge of the past that I did not need to know whilst growing up which shaped my formative years.

However, it is also these knowledge and events of the past that allows me to seek independence even more and appreciate the beauty of life everyday.

Who ever notices how the sunlight strikes the leaves of the plants lining the path to SGH? Did anyone even notice how striking the colour of green against the darkness of dusk during morning shift? No?

How about that small toadstool at the foot of the first tree to Blk 7 of SGH?

Or even that old lady shaped by the grey clouds in our sunny skies?

We are plagued everyday by what we know and we worry ourselves for tomorrow so much so that, even the little beauties that nature springs upon her landscape to enhance our world for us, are missed.

I am officially convinced that ‘Minutes to Midnight’, LP’s latest offering is their best album.

It is the album that we’ve all been waiting for for the past year. It is worth every damn dollar to purchase and it makes online downloading stupid.

Yes, I’ve heeded the call for anti-piracy and bought the latest Linkin Park album for $17.50 and I’ve not regretted it so far.

The album proved that the group has matured and evolved from their last album, bringing in a new edge to their songs. The album is also distinctly LP somehow, so there’s no mistaking them as being another group.

My favourite thus far includes,Leave out All the Best, Bleed it Out, Shadow of the Day, Hands Held High, Valentine’s Day, In Pieces. As you’ll realise-its half the album.

Shadow of the Day reminds me of what U2 used to sound like but LP managed to bring out the right chords and flow to bring the whole song to its fitting momentum.

Mike Shinoda excelled in Hands Held High with his best verses delivered with perfect underlying pipe organ and snares. My fave quote…"when the rich wage war its the poor who die," gets featured.

Chester Bennington is definitely the LP singer as proven in In Pieces with his vulnerable unbroken boy-voice bordering on choir boy perfectness that can change suddenly into a Metallica angst screech.

Perfect. The album is absolutely perfect. I’d recommend anyone who has always wanted to know what LP is all about to purchase this album.

Don’t bother settling for anything lesser than the real thing!

I read the most disgusting news ever, in the Straits Times today.

It was reported that a british bloke actually ate a Corgi-a blardy cute dog, mind you. WTF?!

The reason the bloke cited was to protest against cruelty to animals by the british royalties, namely Prince Philip. So why eat the dog? Because it is the same breed as the Queen’s pets.

The bloke also claimed that the dog had already died and thus, was not made to die for this cause especially. In my opinion, dead or not dead, eating a dog as cute as a corgi is pure sickness in the mind. I still don’t see how this bloke is going to highlight his protest by eating a dead dog? Isn’t he just as guilty of the action of cruelty to animals by disrespecting the dead? Imagine eating your dead grandma just to protest against human rights abuse……

D-UH!

And don’t tell me its different for humans, because it isn’t.

It is always such stunts that really disgusts me and turns me off such societies like PETA and etc, even though I am against cruelty to animals. Their actions make them look stupid and neglible, worse, they are almost similar to being media whores-bringing attention for the wrong reasons and creating an even murkier image for their cause.

Today is a lucky day for the blogger. I have so much to say.

By the way, I have a separate blog site for my PRCP experiences: http://nypanna.blogspot.com

Do feel free to roam there if you wanna read more about my agony or you wanna relish the "suffering" and "pain" I am going through… hyuk hyuk.

I have discovered a few things about myself. MY face is quite transparent. I have hollow eyes that borders on being ‘panda-like’. I am too pale to the point of being bloodless. I have lots of stress that needs relieving.

So, to address my discoveries I’ve decided that:
1) Physically I cannot do anything about my face or eyes (unless I go for cosmetic surgery-NOT)
2) I am already eating more leafy greens for IRON
3) I do go under the sun, occasionally
4) More importantly, I will address the issue of stress.

STRESS, the way I can deal with it…with the options available to me:
A) Jog it off after work, on morning shift days or day offs
B) Drink more tea, get more chocolate snack for the endorphines
C) Visit the NSA(NAtional Shooting Association)  more often with my bro to shoot the stress away. I still need to master the load, reload, shoot in quick succession.
D) Sign up for Krav Maga (an Israeli self defence course)
E) Watch more candy floss K-dramas and escape the REAL world.

Next, I have been thinking about my upcoming holiday (x-ing fingers for lucK) in July. I had planned to do some short distance travelling on my own via train to M’sia and then to Thailand. I figured, Japan is way out at the moment since I can hardly speak the language, I only wanna stay at family -run inns, I only want to visit Kyoto or Hokkaido-and they are damn expensive to get to. The other option is to follow my sis to the US for hols but, I don’t want to spend any $ on credit!

So a short trip over the causeway is more feasible. Yes, that’s it….a train holiday ala Mark Twain.

So, if anyone is interested-you know who to look for.

I went for ‘AN Evening WIth Friends’ (ACJC choir) at the Esplanade Concert Hall with MElissa on Monday. It was actually really good, the performance by the choir. OUr seats were also good, unobstructed and thankfully the temperature in the concert hall was just nice as well. The whole performance was conducted by Mel’s cousin.

I was struck by the performance of one particular piece, ‘King Lily of the VAlley’. It was truly a beautiful piece that was performed with such controlled yet, emotive vocals that resonated within me. Truly a wonderful piece. The other performance was a more contempory piece, ‘The Way you Look Tonight’. This is one of the most sung and played song ever but, the choir managed to pull it off almost similar to the classic itself.

I really enjoyed the performance on MOnday night and I also noticed that the ACS/JC/I are truly a connected and well-supported bunch of people. Now I understand why parents want their kids in any part of AC.

I have been thinking about it for a long time…

to quit or not to quit this blog.

Lately, it has gotten slower in terms of loading time and sometimes, some functions even go missing.

However, this was the only avenue for me to update about my goings on with my friends….

Though about it again and have finally decided, I’ll keep friendster blog strictly for the quirky news or thoughts I wanna share. *grin*

Am gonna revive an older blog site I had…..if I can find my password *hee*

And so, I will reserve my PRCP weeks for it! STay tuned for the new blog address!