It's a polka dot day

Life can be so unpredictable. One day, you're happy and well, but misfortune could just be waiting outside your door the next day. I woke up early 2 days ago, just like any other Sundays. Everything was normal except that some pimple-like rashes have found their way to the side of my face. This is terrible.... As if it's not enough for me to put up with a swollen foot, now I've got this rash that sprang out of nowhere.

I went to SGH yesterday and both my usual doctors were unavailable. What luck eh, I thought? By the grace of God, a twist of events ended up having another doctor to see me. She gave me antibiotics for the rash but couldn't do much about my swollen foot except asking me to 'kiao ka' at home, aka raise it high up. Gotta take the AB every 6 hours, even in the middle of the night :( Hope my disrupted sleep pays off, the rash better subside before the end of this week. I feel like a prisoner cooped up at home. Of all days, why must it be this week?? *eyes rolling*

Thank God the swell on my foot has subsided much. At least it doesn't look like pig trotters and I could bend my toes now :) Looking forward to wearing heels next week and hopefully I don't need concealers to cover my polka dots when I go downtown.

My nest needs a transformation

A friend emailed me today that he's dropping by my nest after his kids' exams, to see the orchids at my place. OMG was the only thing I could think of when I saw his email. Firstly, I don't think there are many orchids blooming at my place at this moment. Secondly, my nest is not in a state to receive guests, and that's what's really bothering me. I wouldn't mind as much if it's a friend who's seen the worst of my place. But certainly, not someone who's coming here for the first time *omg*

Can anyone tell me when the exams will be over? Gosh, how much time do I have to transform my humble nest into a showflat? :( Few weeks ago, I visited K's new nest and I was impressed with the tidiness, cleanliness, cosyness of her place. It makes me wanna set an iron gate and chain over my nest in case someone takes a peek. Just last weekend, I popped by L's nest. She moved in 6 months ago and her place is still spick and span. I felt as if I have stepped into a showflat, except that it comes with a chihuahua that has a toy bear (oh my heart goes out to that poor bear).

I've long wanted to overhaul my nest but sigh, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Sometimes I wish I could just push things through but I know there's a price to pay after that :( I can't remember when I started to feel 'less is more' and I really wanted it, if I can have my way. Maybe it's a sign that age is catching up, priorities have changed. Perhaps, the key contributing factor is still the fact that I don't have as much energy and strength to maintain my possessions regularly. So the best option is to live simply and thou shall simply live.

Not too long ago, a friend of mine overhauled part of his nest and I saw the pictures. Frankly, before the transformation, the place was already in an ever-ready-for-guests mode. After the transformation, wow... it was another showflat although my friend modestly insisted that it looks spacious because he has neither budget nor space to accomodate more furnitures. Oh come on, my friend, less is more. The minimalist knows best.

Back to my humble place... perhaps next week is the only window for me to do some magic. Hopefully, both my spirit and flesh are willing and able :) You will know if I have succeeded, if you receive an invitation to an open house.

龙猫

Don't you think this cat looks like those in animation? So fat and cute.... I wanna have one. This video reminds me of how I place my furry friends in front of the dining table for photo shoot, except that mine doesn't move :)

Worldex Scam

I received a call from Worldex yesterday inviting me to attend a soft launch of their company. They promised a free holiday fully paid for upon the end of the presentation. It sounded too good to be true and I was skeptical about it. However, the telemarketer assured me that this is not MLM or timeshare and there is nothing for me to buy. He even gave me their company website URL www.globalsec.com, in the hope that the offer will sound more genuine?

I did a search on google this morning and confirmed my suspicion that this is indeed a scam. If you want more details, go check out this site. Spread the word, caution your friends and loved ones. Don't let the scammers have their way.

Counting down

I just saw a dance video on Youtube and oh.... how I feel like dancing again. I can feel my legs itching away. I can't wait for the next 2 weeks to come. I'm going for my kickboxing class after so many years. I guess that's the next closest thing to dance where I can stretch my limbs to the rhythm of music ;) Though it's just a trial session, I hope we can continue beyond that. If my kaki pulls out after that session, tell me if you're keen. I'll be on the lookout for new exercise/dance kakis.

Getting my butt off the chair

Who doesn't know there are many benefits to regular exercise? Besides the usual health related reasons, sometimes I go for a run when I need to clear my thoughts. The solution doesn't always come after a run, but I certainly feel better after sweating it out. I just found another reason to exercise. This may sound absurd to some, but I think it's not too bad a motivation either. Exercise when you are bored. Isn't it better than bingeing on snacks? So here I go again, my second exercise for the week :)

PS: As I was typing, my dad phoned me to stay away from outdoors due to the air pollution. But heck, I'm going ahead or else I'll go bonkers facing the walls, stuck in my work.

Dreaming

I wanna put on a pair of shoes with wings. With my shoes, I embark on my journey to the ends of the earth. Lifting my head, I soar higher into the sky, the cool wind ruffles my hair and brushes against my cheeks. My eyes were closed. I don't know how far I have gone. I hear birds chirping and I find myself in the midst of a flock of migrating birds. How beautiful it is to be flying up close and personal among the paradise birds.

I followed the birds and entered into an enchanted forest where the flowers and trees exist only in fairy-tales. The trees clap their hands as the flowers dance to the humming of the birds. Even the ants were doing line dance while carrying their food on their backs. I peek through the tall bushes and saw a family of hedgehogs dancing in circles. Grandpa and grandma were dancing too! I smile to myself.

Everything looks so happy and perfectly harmonious here. The rich colour of the forest simply blew my mind away. This must be the lost paradise of Kutalu. I had thought it was only a legend...

Itchy eyes, itchy ears

It''s kinda strange how the human eye wants to see what it wants to see. Others can tell you a thousand times otherwise but if you already have a pre-conceived idea or have made up your mind about something, nothing simply can change you.

Likewise, we often hear what we want to or like to hear, regardless of what others caution us. And when things turn sour, we regret and say 'if only'. No wonder ancient chinese says 忠言逆耳。

难道人真的都那么犯贱吗？

Talking to Greenpaws

I logged in facebook and I logged out of it. I opened my messenger, typed a word and I deleted it. Where is the best place to say what I feel like saying? Not revolutionary ideas or great discoveries, just thoughts or feelings for that moment, which may have no value to others at all :P I decided to just drop the thoughts here. Some will never get to see.

Thought at the moment: Why don't I feel hungry? Should I even bother to cook?

Lunch thoughts

More than 30 minutes to prepare, 5 minutes to wash up, 5 minutes to eat and minutes later, it is 'finished'. Kinda 'bo hua'... I wanna hire someone just to prepare healthy meals for me.

Poll: Which hairstyle?

Thinking of a change......which hairstyle would you vote for?

1. Long with curl ends

2. Long curls

3. Long natural wave

4. Shoulder length w curl ends

5. Bob (1)

6. Bob (2)

Why did you die now?

One of the things that I dislike doing is to remove dead fish from the fish tank. Whenever I have to look after the fishes, I'll inspect the tank anxiously when I feed them in the morning. And I'll feel relieved when I don't see any fishes swimming backstroke.

As usual, I inspected the tanks this morning...tank 1 cleared, tank 2 cleared, tank 3..... alamak! Of all tanks, why must it be this one?! One of his big fat goldfish has called it a day :( The thought of using the tongs to grip the soft dead fat body just gives me the creeps *shudder* It took me three flushes to send the fat goldfish to heaven. What a way to start my day.... I hope there'll be no more casualties, at least for the next 3 weeks *praying look*

Fight H1N1 in style

I came across this picture while researching on the internet. Don't you think this is a cool way of wearing face mask now that we have H1N1? :P

Where huh?

It's lunch time again. I'm too demotivated to go under the hot sun or whip up something in my little kitchen. Where can I order a vending machine for my home?

Less is more - Part 2

Continuing from my previous post, here's the additional nuggets that I'd like to share with all. This is about asking ourselves the following questions regularly. It helps us to stay focused while eliminating the 'less important' (perhaps even unimportant) tasks.

1. If you had a heart attack and had to work 2 hours per day, what would you do?

2. If you had a second heart attack and had to work only 2 hours a week, what would you do?

3. If you had a gun to your head and had to drop 4/5 of time-consuming activities, what would you remove?

4. What are the top 3 activities that I use to fill time to feel as though I've been productive?

5. If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?

6. Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important?

Another tip to accomplish more in less time is this - shorten schedules and deadlines to force focused action and prevent procrastination. This is based on Parkinson's Law, which states that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. If you were give 24hours to complete an assignment, the time pressure forces you to eliminate the non-essentials and focus on execution. If you were given a week for the same task, you'll be spending your energy and brain juices for 6 days trying to perfect it. Often, when you look at the end result, the end product of the shorter deadline is almost inevitably or equal or higher quality due to greater focus. And when I think of my own past experiences, I fully agree with this :P

In conclusion, we can adopt these 2 approaches to increase our productivity:

• Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20 rule)
• Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson's Law)

Combining the 2 approaches offers the best solution: identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and set short and clear deadlines for them.

That's about all I wanna share. Hope you find it useful as much as I do :)

Less is more - Part 1

What is the most common thing you hear from people around you, be it friends, colleagues or even relatives? 'Very busy, a bit busy lately, no time for.....', right? Busyness often gives one the feeling of being important, useful or even successful. And it's so very often that we hear people remarked how busy they are at work, at home or even social life. I think generally, people 'feel good' about being busy. But do we really have to be so busy that we always don't have time?

We often create stress and make ourselves lethargic because we want to 'do everything ourselves'. But if we were to slow down and ask ourselves 'if today is the last day of my life, will I still want to do this?', it becomes clear where our priorities should be. I am not undermining the necessary task of housekeeping etc. It is important to keep your home, workplace in order, spick & span. It saves you time and increases efficiency. However, there are some other tasks that are unnecessary time-eaters and I'm sure we all know what we are guilty of.

I like what I read from a book recently. It says that the key to having more time is doing less and the way to get there is to do this - define a short to-do list and a not-to-do list. Both of these should be used together. How often have we come up with a long to-do list only to feel disheartened at the end of the day because we couldn't complete it? Be realistic, list down what is do-able within the specified time frame and you'll feel good when it is accomplished.

I don't want to sound 'preachy' but I thought it'll be good to share with friends what I've read and found beneficial. There are a few other points which I think is good and I will leave that to my next post. Don't wanna make it too lengthy here ;)

On time management

I have long heard of Timothy Ferries' book 'The 4-Hour Workweek'. It was only until recently that I laid my hands on a copy (from the library). I'm not done with the book yet but the first few chapters already challenged my thinking. I particularly like the chapter on time management, or in this case, the chapter title is 'The end of time management'.

Most of the time management books that I've come across talks about prioritizing your tasks, doing the most difficult task first (to get it out of the way), keeping your work area organized to increase efficiency etc. The very first advice that this author gave was to 'forget all about it'. Most of us tend to fall into the trap of trying to do more each day, filling every second with work or some sort of activity. As the author put it, being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions. For instance, organizing your contact list in outlook, mobile phone, PDA and so on, or calling meetings when you can settle it by email or phone call.

Here's another 2 golden nuggets from this book:

1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.
2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.

What you do is more important than how you do it. If we attempt to do everything perfect, we'll probably never ever get started. But if we'll just do it, we can always tweak as we go along. This is a good reminder for myself too ;) Effectiveness is doing the things that get us closer to our goals, whereas efficiency is performing a given task (whether important or not) in the most economical manner possible. While efficiency is still important, it is useless unless applied to the right things.

Elizabeth, the cat

I thought this cat is pretty funny, sharing with all here... And btw, Elizabeth was actually a stray cat. There's another video on youtube showing how its new found owner picked it up.

Boring Cats

With much anticipation, I went to watch Cats this evening. How disappointed I was?! The songs were not quite my cuppa tea. The storyline doesn't quite appeal to me. The movements, well er... am I watching a musical or dance performance? By musical standard, it's considered not bad. But there were so many dance movements, I feel like I'm watching a dance performance. And if I were to view it like a dance performance, sad to say, the standard is not quite there yet.

Despite the loud and fast music, both of us fell asleep. This is the first time I drifted into slumberland while watching musical *omg* I was so glad when intermission finally came and we left.

鸡犬不宁

夜半鸡啼啼不休，
啼声嚷嚷喋不休。
细听方知鸡啼因，
开门见山解鸡愤。
鸡愤怒气冲霄天，
滔滔不绝亦难眠。
此时无声胜有声，
闭门熄灯欲入眠。
辗转思索吾错焉？
终结癫鸡亦疯犬。

无言

千言万语，不知从何说起？
轻声一叹，诉尽心中话语。

I saw rainbow again

Hey, I was right! Rainbow appeared in the sky once again this evening. In a short span of 1.5 weeks, I've witnessed rainbow twice :D This time, the rainbow didn't last very long, probably about 5 minutes or less. Check out the picture I just took, fresh from the oven ;)


Did you notice the bright light below the arch of the rainbow? Maybe it doesn't look as bright in this picture but when I took the picture, I could see that it was so bright and contrasting to the dark clouds above. I couldn't help but feel something might just rise up from below the arch. Maybe Jesus? :D

I was just thinking.....such are the simple pleasures of life, yet it brings me so much joy.

Rainbow again?

It's happening again....heavy rain in the late afternoon. The sun seems brighter than earlier but it's still raining cats and dogs. Will I see rainbow again later? I've got a good feeling about it.

I wanna be a cat

This cat sure knows how to enjoy life - sunbathing on a lazy afternoon, nonchalantly wagging its tail and totally oblivious to my presence.

Reflection for the weekend

Perfect job

What is a perfect job? Some say it's one that pays you well, another thinks that it should be a minimum stress and reasonable pay job. Yet to some, being relatively free and able to knock off on time constitutes a perfect job. Or maybe a flexi-hour job? Can there ever be a perfect job?

Recently, someone whom has been in the real estate industry for years lamented that this is a tough industry and discouraged people from joining it. Burnt weekends is one of the key disadvantages of his job. Sometimes, he has to bring his customers for several viewings before a deal is made. And there are times when his efforts are futile despite countless viewings.

On hearing that, I thought 'but he makes a lot in one deal, so it is still worth the sacrifice and hard work'. However, to him who is in the boat, he might think otherwise. Then, I had a revelation. It doesn't matter if the job pays you well or if it burns your weekends. As long as you enjoy the process, it will be your perfect job. To one who loves interacting with people and enjoys the process of influencing or convincing people, they wouldn't have been so bothered by the burnt weekends or countless viewings. But to another one who's just eyeing on the monetary reward, every rejection just brings him one step away from his goal.

Are you having your perfect job? If not, what then would your perfect job be?

Thai delicacies

You may have remember that I was stranded in Bangkok last year while on route back to Singapore from Israel. Eventually, we (I was travelling with a group) managed to get out of Bangkok by taking a 12hr coach ride to Phuket then caught a flight from there. That coach ride through the night was most tiring and we hardly slept.

During one of the toilet breaks we had, I came across this stall that was selling uh.... 'cow spare parts'. We were all sleepy and tired but the signboard at the stall gave us a good laugh and something memorable of that journey.

Check out the pictures below. Oh, don't blame me if you lose your appetite ;)

A date with rainbow

Last evening's rain may have inconvenienced some office workers as they make their way home. But for me, it has brought a smile to my heart. From my living room window, I got a magnificient view of God's creation - rainbow. Since I shifted here some 8 years ago, I've seen rainbows a few times. But the one I saw last evening was one of the biggest and probably lasted the longest. Somehow, seeing rainbow just makes me happy. Hope it does the same for you today :)

The video was taken through my tinted window pane hence it appears a bit dark.

Mid life crisis

我的前半生还算过的多姿多彩，没想到现在居然会沦落到mid life crisis. 突然之间，生活好象变得很平淡，还真有点闷噎。是时候培养新的嗜好了。。。该学什么好呢？

Boring lunch

Why do we need to eat? Sometimes I really dread lunch time, especially when I don't feel like cooking or going under the hot sun just to tabao. Thought of ordering delivery but I can't meet the minimum order requirement. Furthermore, the variety is so limited and mostly unhealthy food. These are the times when I miss having office lunch kakis...

My love for stuffed toys

Happy New Year To All My Dear Friends

The year has just begun and I received news of 'abandoned pets' this week. Someone has packed 4 cartons full of unwanted stuffed toys for giveaway, simply because her kids no longer want it. I feel sad each time I hear of such stories. Although stuffed toys are not living things, the joy and comfort they bring to stuffed toy lovers can be comparable to that of a real pet.

Do you remember the time when your teddy bear was your confidante, your ever faithful best friend who always listen to you attentively no matter how sleepy he is? How those empathetic eyes look back at you when you were feeling down, telling you 'it's ok, I understand what you're going through'. Not forgetting those times when your teddy looks much bigger to you. But as you grow up, your teddy seems to have become smaller in your big hands.

I always find it very sweet when I see toddlers hugging their beloved stuffed toy. If stuffed toys have emotions, they have must felt like being on top of the world. Unfortunately, most children either chuck aside or give away their childhood stuffed friends when they grow up. Imagine how fearful that teddy must have felt, being stuffed among the shelves in the store room!

Believe it or not, I still have my very first teddy bear with me. It's now a vintage bear, those type with movable limbs and black/brown glass eyes. I also have my bunnies, doggies, duckies, hippo... with me too. Each of them accompanied me at my different stages of life. They have shared my happy as well as sad moments together. If they could talk, they would be able to tell you my life story :)

On and off, I would ponder over the future of my furry friends should I be gone one day. The news I heard this week triggered this thought again. I ever thought of donating my collection to the museum but I'm not sure if they want them. Alternatively, I can open my own stuffed toy museum :D but I'll need sponsors and investors (anyone keen? :P ) I don't think I'll bear to have them accompany me on the way home. It's so cruel to burn them, and I know they won't be with me even if they're burnt.

One way which I thought might be feasible is to will them to people whom I know will take care of them and love them as much as I do. This can also serve as a way for them to remember me. The only issue is, I have too many stuffed toys and not enough friends to adopt them after I'm gone. Hmm... I still don't have the perfect solution. If you have any bright ideas, do share with me :)