Muselisation

Earlier on was just talking to a neighbor at the office about diving... Something that seems so 10 years ago.

I first got my open water when I was 17 years old, right after I finished my O levels. Back then it seems to cool, being one of the first and youngest diver among the friends. At those days, without fail, weekends are delicate to diving trips off to islands around Singapore. Being young and a big noob, all I could do was to follow my father everywhere he goes, since I don't have to pay for anything anyway.

Thanks to my father, at the age of 18, I already owned full set of diving equipments from head to toe. I must say, those were really Rolls Roy series, among the diving equipments. The only thing was that, there were no photos taken back then, due to the fact that, digital cameras were still non-existence. Therefore, all the memories about those days could only come from my very own in-built hard disk up in my head.

However, what happened then remains then. It's been almost 10 years since I last did a dive, although in between I did do my refreshers for dive attempts, but in a way or another, those dives just didn't happen.

I remember back then I was telling my father, I should work hard on getting my class 3 license, so that we can get a Kangoo and load the diving stuff into the car. Which somehow I feel is so cool too... Hahaha... I guess, when we were young, we try and do things base on if we think its a cool or not. Which, the car did really happen. My dad bought the Kangoo as soon as I got my class 3, even without going for a test drive! But ferrying the diving gears around, never happened! Not even once for the last 5 years.

At the age of, coming to 25 soon, I guess its time that I should stop waiting for my father and get myself involved in diving trips once again. The neighbor had in fact just invited me to join her for a dive in Tioman this coming April. I'm so looking forward to it, hopefully I will be able to take more photos during that trip.

A simple note for you... to remind you of your own existence...

Ever caught in a situation:
"As you and your group of friends were out, when it comes to time to make decision, everyone starts being wishy washy and the word "anything" seems to come in handy at this very moment. Eventually someone just had to be the hero deciding on where to eat, what movie to watch, etc. Well, the thing here is when the outcome is receptive by the entire group, no one seems to appreciate the hero act of this person. On the other hand, when the outcome turns out to be negative, inevitably the hero starts feeling guilty out of the blue. People start pointing finger behind hero's back about the super duper lousy choice that he/she had made."

Many times, when encountering situations like this, I can't help but wonder, "Are we really that nice and easy-going as a person or are we simply trying to avoid bearing the consequences of the choice that we had made?"
Taking myself for instance, I have to admit that I used to be in the "anything" group most of the time, especially when it comes to meeting friends whom I only see like once or twice a year. Reason being? Well, it was simply for the reason that I only met these people once or twice a year, with regards to the type of things they like, I am totally clueless about it. So, instead of pleasing someone, and at the same time making someone unhappy, might as well just say "anything" and throw the ball to another person's court.

At the age of 25, I finally grew up to have my own opinions on things that are happening and learn that, "sometime someone just have to be the hero, even though heroes die young."

(**Suddenly wondering what had happened to me over the past 24 years of my life, leaving others to decided my life for me...**)

Then again, here comes the other side of life when you decided that you should not be so wishy washy, instead be firm and decisive! You start being sensitive and cautious on others' reaction about the decision you made. No matter how many million times you told yourself, "you can't always please everyone, just go with the majority, " you can't help but still feel the need to please everyone and when you realize that one person, out of the rest of the ten, is not enjoying, you will start feeling bad and guilty. From time to time, you even start having doubts on the choice and decision you have made on behalf of others.

Say that I am sensitive, but somehow, many times, I do kind of felt that people are talking behind my back or pointing finger at me when I take on the role as the decisive one. Then again you may be wondering just how accurate my level of sensitivity is? Well, at least I am quite sure my sensitive-ness hits the bull eye at least 80% - 85% most of the time. (**Sometime, I am amazed at the accurateness of my "sixth-sense"**)

Seriously, why do human function in this manner? Or is it only us the Chinese, or even the Singaporean that is functioning like that???

You only live your life once, you have the right to choose the way how you want your life to be. Should you always be looking back and thinking, "this this this and that could have better result if i thought about this." Then you are seriously going to spend your whole life regretting about the decisions that you have made...

Jill Mansell had always been my favorite writer, come to think about it, it's been a few years since I started reading her book back in uni days.

As the saying always goes, "One man's meat is another man's poison." I guess not many friends around me appreciate this sort of scandalous novel as much as I do. Nonetheless, I believe there are many more others out there who are just as scandally in love with Jill's novel.

Anyway, in this most recent book of hers "Rumour Has it", I do see a little of change from her past novels. The magnetic force about her books that keeps you going back to her are definitely the kinky stories and how she was able to fill you in with the bit of kinky details yet pulling the apple an inch away from just as you were about to get it. However, in this new book of her, she added a bit more emotions to it. This morning as I was reading chapter 47 on the bus, I was on the verge of tearing when reading about how Stella, one of the quite irritating character in the book, pass away. Seriously, it's been quite a long while since I had read a book that made me tear over for. This book definitely have got some substance there...

I have always remember, the first ever book that I was able to complete reading without having my mother to scream her head off me was "Red Sky in the Morning". That was my literature book in sec 1. Can't really remember who the author was, but trust me, out of the 4 times that I had read this book, not a single time I never shed a tear when Ben died. Maybe I should try reading it for the 5th time and see how things goes...

A recent chat with a friend whom I was pretty close with, made me further realize as to how someone can really change over time due to unforeseen circumstances that took place.

So much for me feeling sad for myself from time to time about the things that has been happening, it was when I heard what had happened to my friend and his family that I realized, "Boy, he really don't deserve this."

This past close friend of mine was telling me that his mother had commit suicide while he was on detachment in Australia. With the fact that the mother had always been someone who was really cheerful and happy-go-lucky sort of person. It was even a harder fact to digest when she was so loving with her husband and close with the kids.

Everything happens for a reason, and I bet the mother of my friend might to glad to see how much her son had change since the incident took place. In a way, she might be really be happy to see that he is so much more a sensible person now, as compared to what he used to be.

Should we call this a blessing in disguise? Or is there something more appropriate that I could use? Because I bet having someone committing suicide is definitely not a blessing...

我任为要建立一段爱情的材料, 最重要的就是 "信任" 与 "尊重".
至于友情呢? 就是 "尊重" 与 "意气".

其实在家时, 我们与家人之间的家庭关系也是需要适当的材料与调味料来经营.

往往当我们都很专著的在建立爱情与友情时, 我们都忽略了我们从出世就认识的家人.

几天前, 当我和我老爸在收看 "糖心风暴" 时, 他就说到: "家人之间的凝聚力是很重要的. 一个家, 只要凝聚力强, 无论外面刮多大的风, 下多大的雨, 你们还是会稳固如山".

家人为我们做的一切事, 在我们眼里都是理所当然的.
试想想, 如果我们在面对家人时, 也能象我们面对爱人与朋友时, 多那一份尊重, 包容与了解, 那不是很好吗?

我周围的朋友当中, 有好几位和家人的关系都不是太好. 有些动不动就是吵架或打架, 而另一些就完完全全没跟家中的的某位成员不说话. 当我听到这类事情, 很多时候我都会感到十分的心寒.

其实在几年前, 我与我家中某位成员的关系也不是太好. 当初的我总认为, "为什么他只疼他和她们", "为什么他对他们那么好", "为什么总是不把我放在眼力", 为什么这个为什么那个. 过了两三年, 情况不但没好转, 反而越闹越将, 甚至曾经到一个地步我完全没跟家里的任何一个人说话.
发生了一件事情后, 瞬间让我领悟到了我经常都对自己说的一举话: "要别人尊重你, 首先你得先去尊重他人". 如果对于朋友, 这个 equation 是有效的, 那为什么我不能把这个 equation 用来对待我的家人呢? 始终是要有人跨越这第一步的, 而且这份失去依旧的信任与默契并不是一夜之间就能把它找回来的. 这一年来, 我与家人之间的关系的缺融洽与改善了很多. "When there's a will, there's a way... Also, it's better late than never..."

也许有空时, 不妨想想: "When was the last time you did something for the people at home? Have you been neglecting them for the longest time ever?"

A series of revamp works took place over the place over the pass few weeks.

First of all its definitely the revamp of my blog skin as well as the blog name...
As you have already realize, the new blog is now accessible at www.muselisation.blogspot.com
The word "Muselisation" is a new creation by me, forming from the two words 'Muse' and 'Realisation'...

This new blog skin that you are looking here is definitely represent me more as a person as compare to the previous one.

As you can see from the illustrated characters right at the top of the page, its the many me that you can imagine me to be in...
Some days:
I am just the girly girl in me, dressing up to be as lady-like as possible...
I am just the sporty girl in me, diving into one adventures one after another...
I am just the princessy girl in me, receiving showers of love and pampered from all around...
I am just the fairy girl in me, wanting to give the best to the people around me...
I am just the homely girl in me, nua-ing at home and dressing as sloppy as can be...
I am just the animal girl in me, that I want to be nice to Th Dog at home and pampering him...


Another revamp work took place right at home...
It's the revamp work done to my room!!! The room was previously painted in lighter shades of pink as well as darker shades of purple... Somehow, been rather tired of the color and on many days, it was just too girly for me to accept it. So, this time round, I decided to go for black and white theme... And all furniture are to go white as well, really hope that this is gonna work out somehow...

As the revamp work at home is still in the process of construction... Photos of the revamp will be uploaded in the later entry...

最近迷上了 “命中注定我爱你” 这套戏。
剧情使我回想起一年前的今天我做的一个决定。
“当初的坚持就是希望他会有改变的一天，左盼右盼， 终于我还是选择了放弃。”
试想想，就算有一天真得让我坚持到了结婚的那天。
得到了他的人，但是心不在这里，那还叫幸福吗？

一直以来我都很希望在三十岁以前能够结婚，所以当我遇见他时我就很开心，以为我再找得他终于出现了。
他简直就符合了我 checklist 里90%的要求，那我又何必要去纠正那10%呢？反正，在这世界上，没有人是完美的。而且，和他在一起时，我真的有一种很被宠坏，很幸福的感觉。就好像老天爷派了一个为我量身定做的男朋友。
但童话始终还是童话。
到最后，我们终究还是分手了。
这个符合了我 checklist 90%的男人，到最后还是从我身边悄悄的远离我了。

一年后的今天，虽然很多时候我都告诉自己与身边的好友“我对这个人已尽死心，我以近放下他了。”
但我知道，在我心里的某处还是很想他，真的真得很想他。

到今天我还是很希望，时间能冲淡一切，把脚步都带走，把痕迹都插掉，让伤口赶快愈合。

Since the day I completed my uni course and graduated with my bachelor, the question of "Why did I choose to study this???" keeps running across my mind constantly. Despite the amount of hard work I put in and the excellent results that I had obtained during my uni days, it still could not stop me from having the thought. It especially does not help at all when my parents constantly question me about my choice of course. So much for these disagreeing that only came after I have completed the entire course. As such, the guiltiness and regrets I have continues as the years gone by.
***Frankly speaking, since young I was never an academic student. As a kid, I had always love to deal with handy crafts, drawings and even Design & Technology stuffs in sec sch. However, the result that I had score in Uni was pretty impressive, especially to myself, for the fact that, these are all English theory modules that we are talking here.***

Recently, I met this man, or should I call him a wise man? Anyway, this person here reassure me that, in the first place I did not choose the wrong course when furthering studies at the university. Secondly, instead of thinking that I had made the wrong choice, I should just continue practicing what I had learned.
"WHY is not the word that you should use to question yourself. You should stop asking yourself WHY WHY WHY."
"Writing is also a way of displaying your talent in terms of creativity. Someday you will come to realize what is the genre that you enjoy writing and from there you may begin contributing."
"Continue writing and keep your articles, do not publish it immediately. Someday down the road, take out the article and read it again, trust me, there will definitely be a lot of changes that you will want to make to it. Do this a few round..... and you will see your success."
Taking the man's encouraging words with me, I will probably have to try to see things from another perspective?

Just this morning, as I was checking up on my yahoo's email account, it is the email that I never pay attention to and its always flooded.
To my surprise, one of the email was actually about someone commenting on one of my blog entry that was log in some 3 years ago, Memoir Of Harry Tan.
Seriously, back then when I was blogging this entry, I did not expect anyone will be interested or want to comment about anything. 3 years down the road, apparently, this post had caught the attention of a few. **Then again, maybe its Harry that they are attracted to, lol** Nevertheless, while reading the post again, it really amazes me as to how I could still relate the feeling.

It is really fun digging out and reading the stuffs that you used to write, be it school assignment articles or emotional letter for the so and so. Maybe I should start to do some compilation work for my past years writing and who knows I may be able to find something interesting from it.

Just a few weeks back, a close friend receive news about company is gonna sponsor her to further her studies. Seriously, with terms like that, who is not happy about it. Then again just today, she was telling me about how worried she is, in terms of the depth of her knowledge as well as her professional experience. So I gave her a golden words of advise that I hope will help her and maybe other people that are around me:

Do not whine about the PAST
Do not worried about the FUTURE
Just enjoy the PRESENT...

Think it through, when we were back in the primary school days, don't we always whine about how stupid this teacher is and how lousy that principle is. All we were looking forward to, was just the secondary school that we will be promoted to.
Then again when we were in secondary school, we started arguing with my English teacher about why she should not penalize us for such small mistakes. Thinking back at how nice the primary school teacher was, she would have just warn me and give me the mark still. Cursing and swearing at the syllabus that MOE had came up with, thinking that if only all the syllabus are as easy as it was in primary school.
The same thing goes on and on even through the JC days, the Poly days and even the Uni days.

If you realize, these opportunities only come by once. Think back and you will realize, the type of experience that you go through at the different stages of your life is different.

Someday, you may graduate from a university with a Bachelor Degree, and after working for a few years, you decided that you wish to further your knowledge and so you went on to Masters Program. Even if you get back to the same school, being monitored by the same mentor. Trust me, the experience that you are going through will no longer be the same as the one you had.

So instead of whining and worrying, why not just appreciate the process. Who knows, you may in turn see things that you could not have seen.

It was a long weekend that everyone was looking forward to, for a weekend getaway, for a long break, etc. For me, it was a trip down to Tioman Island, the place that I had always wanted to return to. For some reason which I don't know, I actually say "ok" to my father, when he ask me to join him for the trip. To add on to the excitement, we had decided to go diving. Its been years since I last jump into the sea and say hello to the fishes.

Although things tend to happened without a reason, say that I am superstitious, but you still have to agree that many times there are little hints around you as a form of warning.

Was running a fever on the day before trip, but surprisingly, neiter did that dampened or stop me from continuing with the trip. So we set off together with other boats from the club as planned. It was a sunny day with a fair bit of clouds. Being the slowest boat among all, we were left behind in no time.

Everything was moving smoothly, however, out of nowhere, the statellite GPS went haywire. For some reason, it was not receiving signals anymore, so we had to rely on a manual compass to navigate our way. Along the way, the engine was working fine and not giving much problem.

As we were close to the Limau Chanel, already crossed over to the Malaysia water, the power went off suddenly and there were black smokes coming out from the engine room. (5 mins before all these happens, we were still checking out the stern of the boat to ensure that there were no black smoke, and everything was fine.) My father went down to take a look at what went wrong. The other 2 ladies on the boat starting dialing for rescue, trying to get someone to come and tow our boat back to Singapore, but to no avail. As instructed, I went into the cabin and try to locate for the fire extinguishers. This was not the first time that the engine was throwing tantrum and spitting out black smokes, but subconsciously, my father just felt that we should get the extinguishers out and put on our life jackets this time round.

After about 15 mins of trying to someone, either from Singapore or the rest of the boats that left with us, the smoke just grew stronger. Seeing the situation turning from bad to worse, my father signal for me to launch the canoes and everyone to get ready to jump into the sea. Upon launching the canoe, I spotted the first sign of fire and it was so freaking near to my father. At this point of time, it was totally impossible for the fire extinguisher to put out the fire, so we had to abandon the boat and jump into the sea.

Floating on the sea, looking at the boating getting, it was definitely not a pleasant sight and really felt helpless. All I could do, was only to try to console the rest and myself by saying, at least we are still alive here. The longer we stayed in the water, the stronger the fire was growing, slowly it swallow the entire upper deck and I could see the cabin was burning badly as well.

Just before we jump into the sea, my father's friend manage to get call back to the club and get the club admin to contact one of them from group. They turn back to look for us, and that was only about 20 - 30 mins after we jump into the sea. We were save by the Malaysia's coast guard first.

Everything was gone, the boat was gone, our travelling documents were gone, and of course not forgetting our belongings too.

• My backpack that saw me through my secondary school, poly and uni days, was gone.
• My Nano that accompanied me through the long journeys across the borders and the many studying session, was gone.
• My laptop that weathered through the many boring nights with me, and the one who kept my deepest and darkest things about me, was gone.
  
• My "buddy" that slept by my side through the tearful night, was gone.
  
• My digi cam that capture my happiness and many memorable moments, was gone too.

After the incident, my father was telling, "This is definitely an experience of a lifetime that you will never forget."

The last we heard about the boat was that, while they were trying to put out the fire, they filled the boat with water and it ended up sinking into the sea.

It's been almost 6 months since my court case against my previous employer, who refuses to pay me my hard earned wages. Today, for the first time since the court case, I message my ex-colleague whom, I must admit, I was pretty pissed off with. It was actually one of the videographer whom I used to worked with encourages me to talk to her, as he said there were some misunderstanding between us caused by the ex-employer.

During the conversation, I finally heard from her the entire story about how my ex-employer suddenly disappear one day with all the equipments, and the amount of money that he had owed her in all. And of course, there were certain misunderstandings that I had about this ex-colleague that had been ironed out today as well. Once again, things have prove me wrong that, whatever that has been presented to you right at your face may not necessary be the truth. Of course, you out there, might think that, "Then what makes you think that, whatever she said is the true?" Oh well, I do have to give her my benefits of doubt, then again, it's her sincerity that tells me, she is not lying, and I choose to believe what she said. Of course, on top of that, the explanations that she has given me could be verify by myself. As such, back to basic, never let your judgments be blinded by what you have seen with your eyes.

For the past 6 months, I have been complaining about how sucky my life was, for all the miseries that has occurred. Until recently, the ex-videographer told me, "You really very lucky to run away so fast, at least you got back part of your money." Initially, I didn't really see that as "very lucky", rather I see it as a misfortune and kept thinking, "How how how? The fellow ran away and I still have $800 bucks with him. how?" But it was until today, after talking to my ex-colleague that I come to realised just how lucky I was. Putting aside the fact that, something like that actually happened in my life. View this entire issue from another angle, I was lucky enough to make the decision of leaving the company and charge him to the MOM's court while he was still in Singapore, and getting back part of my wages. Ex-colleague, together with another freelancer and translator who freelance for us, were not paid a single cent for the efforts that they have put into the projects.

When there is a small black dot on a piece of white paper, most of the time, people would only focus on the dot and ask, why is there a dot that destroy the entire piece of paper. Very seldom do people realised that, there are a big portion of the white paper that was not destroyed and could still be used to write or for other purpose. In this case, I must admit I am one of the majority who sees only the black dot and ignored the white. And today itself, I have come to realised how, "Seeing things from a different perspective," could really make you a happier person sometimes.

重话要轻说
好话要多说
伤人的话就别说了。。。


失重了很久，心情似乎平息的多了, 对于人生的看法与目标也有些不一样了。
伤心事就别提太多了。
今天就让这金句来陪你吧 ：-)