Metamorphosis - Siu Kai's World

Things I want to do in my lifetime Updated

2009-12-28T22:38:00.000+08:00

Not in any order of importance...

1) Holiday in Denmark - Visit a Buttercookie factory :)

2) Holiday in New Zealand - Visit the place where the Lord of the Rings was filmed, the Shire

3) Holiday in Switzerland

4) Spend a real White Christmas

5) Holiday in Italy - Visit Naples, the birthplace of the pizza.

6) Holiday in England - Visit a real castle.

7) Watch a Man U match at Old Trafford

8) Publish a book

9) Learn how to play the keyboard

10) Create a PC game for sale

11) Watch the Cranberries 'Live'

12) Visit the Okinawa Aquarium in Japan

13) Own a Kitchen-Aid mixer

14) Have 1 million dollars in my bank.

15) Own a 5 feet planted tank

16) Successfully breed a pair of discus

17) Take a train ride along a countryside

Stop giving me Crap Work!

2009-10-28T23:28:00.003+08:00

I can't believe my project mate actually dare gave me work of that kind of standard. Don't know whether it's because he never put in any efforts or it's because he is just plain ******.

Twice, he has been late in submitting work when we had already agreed on the deadline. 2359, is it so difficult to understand? And when the work is finally submitted, it's crap...

Don't force me.

I don't want to mark you down for the peer evaluation.

Shall give you another chance...

On a side note, I'm really busy these few days with my projects, shall find a time to update, most probably this Saturday. Cya!

The day Siu Kai nearly call the police and other stories

2009-10-20T23:55:00.004+08:00

I nearly called the cops last night. No, not because I witness any ongoing crime or I saw Mas Selamat. Oh wait a minute, Massie is so old news already! Can't you do better siukai? Ha.

In fact, the reason why I nearly picked up the phone and dialed the nearest police station was because there were some really noisy kids playing at the playground directly beneath my block!

Wat? Is that is siukai? Have you lost it? You wanna call the police to arrest some kids who were PLAYING, at the PLAYGROUND some more?

Ha. I know that actually sound ridiculous but let me try to put things in perspective. First of all, it was 11.30pm, close to midnight. Second of all, they were DAMN noisy, shouting like some crazy kids. And finally, kids their age are not supposed to be outside of their home past 11pm anyway!

There! Now it doesn't seem so silly for me to call the cops on them right? Furthermore, there are old people in my block and they need their sleep! (Including me, though I'm not old but I still need my sleep.)

Seriously, what's wrong with the parents of these kids anyway? They should know better to allow them to play at the playground at such unearthly hours. In my opinion, these kids ought to be taught a lesson. And what better way than for the men in blue uniforms to conduct the lesson. Ha.

In the end though, I did not call the cops. Well, I gave them a chance and told myself if they were still so noisy by midnight, I would pick up the phone. Luckily for them though, they quieten down before that. Ha.

I really don't know what struck me because for the first time in my life, I actually had the impulse to call the cops and might I add over a "minor" incident? Maybe it's because of the stress of school projects and deadlines recently, put me more in a complain mood. Ha.

Since we are on the topic of complaints, I WANNA complain somemore! Ha. In the past few months, I've notice a surge in the number of librarians at the National Library branches. I'm not exaggerating people, sometimes there can be 2 librarians attending to one shelf! Maybe NLB do really wants to create more jobs in light of the economic downturn. It's a commendable act but PLEASE, can I appeal to the librarians not to be so EFFECTIVE and HARDWORKING?

Sometimes when I'm browsing through some books, this library attendant would stand in front of me and start to arrange the books nicely, as though I'm not there. Hello?! How can I see the title of the book if your head is blocking me? It's like you are eating at a restaurant and every time you take a bite from your steak, the waiter comes along and wipe your table. You get the idea?

ARGGG!!!

Ha. Deadlines coming up. Exams coming up. Soon it will be my Birthday, then Christmas, then New Year. Can't believe that 2009 is coming to an end le. Cherish the remaining time of 2009 people! Cya!

What's up?

2009-10-15T00:16:00.002+08:00

Wow, it has been so long since I last blogged. Almost 6 months le. Ha, you guys must have given up on me already right? Or u all missed me like crazy?

Well, actually I've always got a lot to crap about, just that I can't really find any motivation to sit down and start typing crap. Ha.

But I realized that since I stopped blogging, my mind seems to have become more rusty, especially when I want to write my school reports. Words no longer flow smoothly. Serious case of Bloggers's Block. Ha. So, people I've made up my mind...

Siu Kai is back.

Again?

Ha. Yah. Cheers. :)

Happy 3 years 6 months Anniversary!

2009-01-08T17:53:00.001+08:00

10 Jan 2009 marks another important milestone in siukai’s and dar dar’s relationship. It’s our 3 years and 6 months anniversary! :D Well well, who would have thought? Siu kai, a first timer at relationship being so successful in maintaining one. Ha.

So, what’s the secret siukai? Hmm, I think the main reason is that I’m a born natural. I have it in me all along, just that I did not realize until I was a young adult. Ha.

No lah, the REAL secret is… it all boils down to hard work and efforts from both party. As the saying goes, it takes two hands to clap. It is after all a relationship involving 2 people and naturally you need both to make the attempt to keep the relationship going.

Maintaining a relationship is always harder than starting one. If you have not dated before and you think dating is tough, I’ve got bad news for you dude. Being in a relationship is a lot more tougher!

Here’s my advice to you if you find it difficult to talk to the opposite sex. (You always find yourself drenched in your own cold sweat whenever you have to strike up a conversation with someone from the opposite gender.) Become a vegetarian today and start planning to join the monastery! Ha.

As for myself, I have to admit that the beginning of my relationship with dar dar was kinda unstable. It would only take the slightest provocation for me to throw my temper at dar dar. In my defence, I have to say that I’m still a newbie at that time! Ha.

Actually, that’s a lousy excuse for being a jerk. I guess I was still not conditioned to be in a relationship yet and it was always about me. It takes a while before the relationship moves from me, to us, then to dar dar. :)

Amazingly, during the ME era, dar dar and me did not have any direct confrontations and arguments. I define arguments as when both parties start to say/shout/scream negative things at each other.

Sure, we had our fair amount of conflicts but it never escalated into a full blown war. Yah, that is one very important advice; NEVER HAVE ARGUMENTS. But siukai, I thought arguments are supposed to make the relationship stronger?

Yes, that’s true. Conflicts do make you understand each other more and may even strengthen the bonds. It’s okay to have conflicts in a relationship but NEVER have a shouting match. I mean, sometimes in the heated moment, you might say things that you will live to regret later and it will cause a scar in the relationship; no matter what you do later on, you can never remove that scar.

So, whenever you are angry with your partner, don’t go be tempted to enter into an argument. If you are on the phone, end the conversation immediately. If you are face to face with each other, walk away but assured your partner that you just need time to cool down.

When we are angry, we tend to think less logically. Heck, in fact logic does not apply when one is angry! Ha.

Everytime when dar dar and me have a conflict, we will give each other maybe a day of cooling down time. During this time, I would think of the situation from her point of view and see why she reacted that way. Perhaps she misunderstood me or it was just a case of miscommunication. Or maybe she didn’t get the whole picture. Dar dar will also do the same thing.

Sometimes I will be angry with dar dar and after the cooling period, I would explain to her why I felt this way. Dar dar will apologize. Talking about apologies, I think it’s the best tool when in a relationship. Guys, you should never be afraid to say sorry if it is your fault, sometimes it’s not our fault but it’s still okay to say sorry if it is reasonable. Come on, be a gentleman! :)

For girls though, it is always nice when you make it an effort to acknowledge the fact that we give in to you sometimes. Don’t take it for granted. :)

Last year, I also met some new challenges in our relationship – Third party. Yah, what do you do if some other guy wants to get a piece of the action even when he knows that your dar dar is already attached to you? Well, some guys out there don’t play by the rules. As long as your girl is not married, they will take it that she is still available. Most will simply choose to ignore your existence.

So, what did yours truly do? Well, I went to the nearest DIY stall and bought a chainsaw.

Ha. Actually, that wasn’t anything additional that I needed to do. I just carried on doing my usual stuffs. Ha, I’m not boasting or anything like that. Let me illustrate it for you. And since I’m a computing guy, let me explain using the concepts of hacking.

Say you have a very critical computer system. You will take necessary measures to protect it from hackers right? You will install the appropriate antivirus software, firewalls etc to keep out intruders. I mean if you did not install any of those and left your system defenseless, it wouldn’t take an idiot to figure out what would happen the moment a hacker chanced upon your system.

Similarly for me, I made sure that our relationship was going smoothly. There would be weekly, monthly maintenance and periodic feedback. Ha. You need to update patches and plug loopholes you may find. :P Sometimes there would be treats and surprises.

Yah, everyone loves surprises. A surprise is always a good way to give a boost to the relationship. NEVER let the relationship stagnant. Now you know why Microsoft is always coming out with a newer version of Windows every now and then. Ha.

A surprise once in a while is always a good thing. It can come in the form of a treat, a gift, an excursion. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination!

And here comes my favorite part, when she ask how come you are giving her the surprise, a gift for example, reply this. “Do I need a reason to give a gift to my dar dar (or any other fancy names you call her) Ha. Sure guaranteed to melt her heart!

Of course, despite all the security measures, there are times when an intruder might manage to sneak through. In such cases, we may need to call for more drastic actions – The Chainsaw. Ha. Jus kiddin on that one.

Come on siukai, you mean that’s all to it? There must be some secrets of maintaining a relationship you are keeping from us. Well, there isn’t anything I can think of at the moment, unless you count writing letters to dar dar as a secret.

Ha. Yah, I still write letters to dar dar every one or two months, during our anniversary. Initially, it started out as a kind of monthly summary of the events that happened and an update on the progress of our relationship. Of course there would be reaffirmation of “I love you” and “Thank you.” That reminds me, girls will never be tired of hearing “I love you” from the person they love. :)

The letters are also a medium to converse thoughts that might be difficult or awkward to say out. Ha. I mean some things are better expressed in writing. When was the last time you received a handwritten letter from someone? Was the feeling different? It takes effort to write a letter especially these days when it is much easier to type. And your dar dar will certainly appreciate that extra effort. :)

Finally, it always helps to publicly declare your love and affection for your dar dar, like what I’m doing now! Ha. Girls feel assured and loved when their boyfriends say nice things about them. :) And also when they acknowledged that the girlfriend plays a part in keeping the relationship going strong!

The remaining part of this blog entry is for my dar dar. You may choose not to read it if mushy stuffs makes you want to puke. Ha.

Dar dar, thanks for being with me for the past 3 years and 6 months. Thanks for appreciating me for who I am and thanks for bearing with my bad temper especially in our early years. Thanks for everything that you ever did for me dar dar. Muacks. I love you and I look forward to spending many more great years with you. :)

Happy anniversary dar! :)

The pursuit of happyness

2008-12-31T00:56:00.000+08:00

Well, it's that time of the year again. Yes, just one more day to the end of 2008. I wanted to do the usual siukai’s year in review but thought that I might make it brief this year.

2008 has been a terrible year, the worst ever. Gys left us suddenly early in the year and the few months that followed was basically hell. I believed all of us close to him were very badly affected and as for myself, it took me a few months before my life could resume to "normal".

But what is normal really? How can my life ever be normal again, knowing that I will never see my dearest buddy again, at least not in this lifetime.

It is almost a year now since Gys left us. It seems like just yesterday when we were having a Christmas Potluck at Kok’s house. That was the last major gathering we had as a gang. I miss you man.

I still remember right after Gys’s passing, I emailed my lecturer informing him that I needed to postpone one of my lab sessions because I was quite distressed over Gys’ death. And you know what his reply was?

He just said, "Okay."

Not even a word of consolation. Nothing.

It’s a sad world out there.

Screw you man! (I just needed to get it out of my system!)

For a while, I was angry with GOD or whoever was in charge up there or down there for taking Gys away from us. I mean, he was such a good guy. Why him? And in such a cruel way? For a while, I lost all my beliefs in religion.

However, I chanced upon a book a few weeks back about a guy whose daughter was brutally murdered and one day he got a chance to meet GOD and ask GOD why he lost his daughter in such a way. Though the book is fiction, it opened up my mind. Maybe where Gys is right now, he is much happier. I mean, this world is a sad place; terrorists attacks, financial crisis, all other kind of crap. What’s there to miss about this world? It’s a fucked up place.

Maybe Gys is living a better life now, free of his illness and maybe he is even attached! Ha. Way to go man! :)

Things happen for a reason and I’m sure Gys wouldn’t want us to be sad anymore. Nothing will ever bring Gys back to this world and we all got to move forward with our life. So Gys, if you are reading this, I know you are. :) I just want to say that you are my best buddy ever and I will miss you always. We will meet again k!

Remember the goals I made during the middle of the year when I said I wanted to score 3As? Well, I did not accomplish it. I scored one A+ though, got close to another A and failed my Maths. Yes, it’s siukai vs Maths again. Am I disappointed? A little cos I thought I could at least get 2 As. As for Maths, I kinda gave up during the middle of the semester.

Yah, I know I mentioned that nothing is impossible, I still strongly believe in that. I’m sure with plenty of time, maybe like a hundred years, I would be able to score an A for my Maths. Ha. But, in the fast pace world of University, time is a luxury. Ha, so I know my limits and thus decided to give up my Maths module.

On the bright side, I no longer have to take Math modules anymore! And that surely deserves 3 loud cheers! Yip yip hooray! :P

Something "amazing" also happened during this semester. One of my tutors accused me of cheating on my tutorial. Apparently, my answers were quite similar to a few others in our tutorial class. This is what he wrote in his email.

RE: Cheat on Tutorial written submission

Folks,

Your written submissions for Tutorial Main Question are all the
same. I am wondering why.

Notice the email heading. Apparently he determined that we cheated on the tutorial already. And notice the email body. Yet, he is wondering why. Hmm… is he stupid or what? Ha.

A few explanations from those involved followed. Most of them were quite nice and humble, addressing my tutor as Sir (my tutor is not a professor, just a graduate student), one even added, "Thank you, very much. & sorry about the misunderstanding." Most of them were simply trying to polish his boots, kiss his ass, hold his balls and trying to get out of the situation.

What about your dear old siukai?

Well, what do you think? I gave him hell of course. Ha.

I wanted my email reply to be short and sweet, so I drafted the following:

RE: Cheat on Tutorial written submission

Screw you!

Lots of love,
Siukai.

But I thought it was missing something, so I came up with another draft:

RE: Cheat on Tutorial written submission

Fuck you!

Sincerely,
siukai

Ha. I wished. The final email looked something much like this:

Hi **,

First of all, I think it's really unfair that you use the word cheat in your subject without first doing any investigation. If you use the word cheat, it means you have already judged us. And this coming at a time when we are all doing our preparations for our exams, it's really very upsetting and disrupting.

I agree with *** and ^%^. If you look at the questions for tutorial, most of the questions are very straight-forward, Each player gets several million "things". So we just replace things with "bytes". It becomes each player gets several million "bytes". It's simply just replacing the word with another word. If that is copying. Wow, maybe I need to get another dictionary. Pardon me for my sarcasm; I'm really quite pissed off at the moment.

I'm really very disappointed that someone would accuse me of cheating on my
tutorial. To think I even gave you good reviews for the student feedback. I
guess I was very wrong about you. If you are convinced that I cheated, then
you can give me zero for this tutorial. Life goes on. No point explaining
further if we are already given the "death" sentence.

If not, I think you owe us an apology.

PS: I can't believe I spent 20 minutes drafting this email trying to explain
something which should be quite straightforward.

siukai

So, did I get the apology I demanded? Well, of course!

Hi, siukai,

You're right about my misusing of the word "cheat". I should not judge
you in that way before listening to your explanation. Sorry about
that.

So far, based on what I have heard from you guys, I cannot tell if you
guys have cheated or not. I will send your submissions to the lecturer
and let him to judge.

Way to go siukai. Just to warn you people not to push siukai around or he will give you hell. Ha.

But, how did this story ended?

His final reply came, (with the unaltered subject, RE: Cheat on Tutorial written submission)

Well, we have decided that no punishment will be imposed.

Regards

When I read that, I got all hot again. His reply implied that he still feels we cheated, just that no punishment will be melted out. It’s like being acquitted but not proven innocent. So, I drafted my reply:

Hi,

I think you should go for English lessons.

Regards,
Siukai.

Ha. It remained a draft though.

For the record, I still got an A+ for this particular tutorial. Ha.

Other things happened throughout the years but my memory seems to be failing me. Ha. So, we shall move on to my resolutions for 2009.

Top on my list: Be Happy. :D. I’m really tired of worrying about this and that and feeling frustrated every time. I just want to be happy. Life is short. It’s really a torture to drag your feet through life and pulling a long face everyday. I want to smile more, laugh more and be HAPPY in 2009.

Number two on my list is to score 5As this semester. Ha. This may seems a bit ridiculous and rather ambitious but hey, you wouldn’t know unless you try. So, why not? :)

Item number three is to pass my IPPT on the 4th RT session and obtain a Silver. Ha, yah siukai has failed his IPPT yet again and is condemned to another 8 weeks of Remedial Training. I have no complaints about that because I did not train at all. Ha. But I have to start training now; I’ve got the whole of 3 months!

Number four on my list is to love my family. We can’t choose which family we are born into. It is fate that we get a chance to be family in this life time, no matter what wrongs or how crappy their behavior, we are still family. And a family should stick together no matter what.

Number four on my list is to love my dar dar MORE. Nowadays, love is not enough, taken inflation into consideration, you need to love MORE. Ha.

Number five is to love my friends. I don’t have much close friends; only the loser gang. So this year, I wanna shower them with more of siukai’s love and crap of course. Ha.

Next is to blog more frequently, at least once a week. I feel that when I’m writing, I feel happy and alive. And it helps to polish up my writing skills. So, what the heck, more siukai crap for you guys! I’ll even throw in new siukai’s stories if time permits. Yeah!

And finally is to eat more healthily. My health has been quite bad in 2008, must be due to the junk food and the lack of exercise. So in 2009, more veggies, more fruits and less meat. Gosh, it’s going to be tough. Just typing about meat is making me hungry. Ha.

This unhappy year is going to end in a day’s time. It’s going to be a brand new year to look forward to. I hope that I can find happyness (purposely spelt like that) in 2009. And I hope you reading this will find yours too. Here’s to a great year ahead!

Happy New Year! :)

Life isn't about finding yourself. It's about creating yourself.

2008-12-28T00:22:00.002+08:00

siukai is really sick and tired of his current lifestyle. He is not happy with his current situation and is frustrated that he has lost the feeling of happiness.

And he is determined to set things right in 2009...

Return of the King... of Crap

2008-12-24T11:43:00.003+08:00

I pondered long and hard whether I should start blogging again.

My heart said yes but my mind said no. Dun noe why, but recently whenever I have the urge to blog, I will always pause at the login screen. Like now, I have no idea what else to write about and my mind is almost blank.

But I think it's important that I start blogging again. Because when I write, I feel alive! Yah, I think writing nourishes my mind and my soul. Ha. So I told myself, screw your brain siukai! It's time to write crap again.

Yah, and so this story continues...

Siukai will return next week... or even sooner. Watch out for him!

Over the years...

2008-09-30T00:30:00.001+08:00

Dar Dar's 19th Birthday - Chocolate Cake

My first ever attempt at baking a cake. Ha. Notice how the chocolate cream reminds you of... Ha. But remember, never judge a cake by its frosting. Despite the looks, dar dar said that the cake was delicious! Ha. It's more of the thoughts that counts!

Dar Dar's 20th Birthday - Mango Crystal Cake

Aha! One year on and this one looks more pro right? Ha. Of course! I took a 3 hours cake-making course that cost me 50 bucks. But judging by the impressed gasps and the "Are you sure you didn't buy this?", it was well worth it!

Dar Dar's 21st Birthday - Mango Fruit Cake

I tell you, I took 2 days to complete this masterpiece and at the end of it, I couldn't move my arms and swore off baking for a couple of months! Ha. But a 21st birthday deserves such a majestic cake, especially since it was for my dar dar! Ha. Luckily we only celebrate our 21st birthday once in our lifetime. :p

Random Mango Cake

Another Mango cake. Compare it with Dar dar's 20th cake. Can see the difference? Become more pro liao right? Ha. Dar dar says it's time I open a mango cake shop.

Christmas Mango Fruit Cake

Sorry, din noe how to bake log cake, therefore baked a mango cake for the Christmas eve gathering instead. It's actually the same as the above mango cake, just added some snowmen to suggest it's a Christmas Cake. Ha.

Dar Dar's 22nd Birthday - Chocolate Mango Cream Cake

Tada! siukai's latest creation! Ha. Compare it with the first choco cake I ever baked. Much nicer right? Ha. This cake is coated with a thick layer of dark chocolate glaze and it is filled with a generous serving of mango cream. Yummy!!!

Look out for more of siukai's cakes! :)

Garfield

2008-09-12T12:44:00.004+08:00

Have been following this Garfield comic strip in the Straits Times for the past few days. I think it's absolutely hilarious. Take a look. :)

The day siukai applied for a flat

2008-09-10T23:32:00.000+08:00

Hi guys! Long time no see! Yah I know I have not been updating for quite some time.

So siukai, what's up with you for the past few weeks?

Well, let me see... I was busy with assignments, struggling with my Maths Tutorial and just the other day, I applied for a flat with my dar dar. Yup, that's about it.

Wait a minute siukai! U what?!

Yah I know I know, I'm still struggling with my maths. That should not come as such a big surprise right? Ha.

Oh, u were referring to the flat?

Ha. Oh well, what about the flat you wanna know? Everything? Ha.

Oh okay, here goes...

It all started on Sunday when I was online and checking out the HDB website on this new Build to Order project - "Senja Green" at Bukit Panjang. Incidentally, dar dar was online too and she asked me what I was doing.

"Oh nothing dar, me looking at Senja Green, the HDB." I replied.

And then I sent dar dar the link.

"Wah dar, very nice!" dar dar replied a few seconds later.

"Dar, next time we buy 4 room flat?" I asked.

"Yes dar. 4 room. Muacks! Muacks! The place looks good!" dar dar said.

"So dar, how? You wanna apply?" I asked.

"Yes dar!!! Muacks! Muacks!"

Yup, and that was how siukai applied for a flat. Ha. Just like that?

I always thought that I would propose to dar dar in the most romantic fashion ever, like maybe parachuting down during the National Day Parade and with the whole of Singapore watching, pop the question, "Will you marry me?" Ha.

But now that we are applying for a flat together... still need to propose? Ha. Does that mean that the proposal will be an anti-climax? Damn! I just screwed up my marriage proposal! Now I will forever be condemened as one of Singapore's most unromantic guy!

Imagine if one day, someone ask dar dar how I proposed to her. Her reply, "Nah, he didn't. He just asked me whether we wanted to apply for a flat. And he did it online."

Ha. Unbelievable.

Gotta Catch'em All

2008-09-10T23:10:00.000+08:00

I managed to download the Gameboy Advance Emulator for my psp. And you know what that means?

It's time to catch'em all!!!

Ahh... the beautiful memories are coming back... Ha.

The story of the lazy birds

2008-08-26T21:36:00.004+08:00

This is one of the question from my Maths Tutorial 1:

Ornithologists have determined that some species of birds tend to avoid flights over large bodies of water during daylight hours.

It is believed that more energy is required to fly over water than land because air generally rises over land and falls over water during the day.

A bird with these tendencies is released from an island that is 5 km from the nearest point B on a straight shoreline, flies to a point C on the shoreline, and then flies along the shoreline to its nesting area D.

Assume that the bird instinctively chooses a path that will minimize its energy expenditure.

Points B and D are 13 km apart.

If it takes 1.4 times as much energy to fly over water as land, find the distance between B and C.

Arrggg!!! Stupid lazy birds! Why can't they just fly from point A to B without stopping? That would make life simpler right? No no... they just have to stop midway to take a break and even plot to minimize their energy expenditure. Ha.

My answer to this question? I don't know. Because I was busy trying to shoot the damn birds. Ha.

Back to School!

2008-08-06T11:15:00.002+08:00

Hey guys, yup I know I have not been blogging for a week and that is pretty long for siukai's standard. U ppl must have missed me badly right? Ha.

Well, was busy with work and preparing for school reopening next week! It seems so fast; just like that 3 months have passed already. It's already August and 4 more months before the end of 2008.

Oh yah, I reckon that I will be rather busy once school starts, so sad to say there might be lesser posts. But I promise I will try my best to update during my free time! Ha.

Remember the goal I made to score 3 As this sem? Well, I tell u, I think I'm in for a hard time! Ha. I just took a peek at the Maths tutorials and I am already sweating at the first line of tutorial one: "Fill in your name." Ha. :p

NO! SIUKAI, YOU CAN DO IT!!!

Yup, must always be positive. :)

Before I forgot, here's one riddle I saw in an episode of "Friends" last week:

Part I: "What's green and says, I'm a frog?"

I put that as my nick on MSN and got quite a couple of answers. Ha. Fancy a try?

I also came up with Part 2 and 3 to the riddle:

Part II: What's green and says, "I'm a YELLOW frog?"

Part III: What's black and white and says, "I'm a frog?"

Ha. If you think you got the answer, post it on my tag. Sorry, no prize for the correct answer. Oh, alright, I'll give you a limited edition siukai's dairy signed by the great one himself k? Ha.

Dar dar has started her contract teaching already and from the stories she has been telling me about the students, it makes me feel for the teachers. Really, they are doing a very demanding job, especially with the kind of kids nowadays.

It's really a lot of sacrifices on their part, possible danger of high blood pressure, loss of voice, possible over-eating due to stress. The list goes on!

Not everyone can be cut out for a teacher, at least not for me! Even though my temper has been well under controlled since, I don't think I have the patience to deal with these kids, especially the more naughty ones. Ha. I think my first lesson will end up in a WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) style "Hell in a Cell" match. Ha.

So people, respect teachers for what they are doing. It's a hellish job and they put up with all these kind of crap because they have a passion to nurture and teach. So if you are a parent, do your part in educating your spoilt brat at home. Ha.

Right, you might think I'm doing freelance for MOE. Ha. No, I'm not. :p

K, I got to be going soon liao, got to prepare to bake my famous KC's Muffins for my colleagues. Last day on Friday. Ha. See u soon people.

Everest

2008-07-24T22:45:00.000+08:00

There was a super-fit man who wanted to climb Everest. To make his dream a reality, he trained his body to perfection until he was all muscle. He thought this would be enough. It wasn't until he actually found himself on the mountain, at base camp that he realized his stamina fell short of the mark.

His training was good, meticulous even; he could run a fast marathon, lift heavy weights and captain his body and mind through the most excruciating physical workouts.

But what he hadn't prepared for (actually, you can't really prepare for) was the actuality of being on the mountain. Because on the mountain, the air is thin. The lack of air makes breathing - even for the fittest athletes - difficult.

And the higher you go (as in life) the thinner the air gets. This is why on the higher echelons of Everest (and of life) there are very few people.

Now, although this man had been told many times in his preparations that the air on Everest was thin and it would make progress slow and breathing difficult, he never really heeded the advice. Until, that is, on day one when his chest was as tight as a fat kid's school shirt and he couldn't catch his breath.

He complained to his companions, all experienced climbers, that he couldn't breathe properly and they duly advised him (and reminded him) that, when you are on the mountain, this was normal.

"No", he insisted. "You don't understand. I'm a fit man. I am conditioned. I should be able to breathe easier."

Patiently the message was reiterated. "There is very little air on the mountain. The higher you go the less there is. The inability to be able to get your lungs full is normal." Again, he complained. He was fit. Not being able to breathe was not normal to him.

As much as his companions tried to reassure him, he would have none of it. He was convinced that his breathlessness was an early sign of some mysterious mountain illness. He bitched so much that in the end one of the climbers pulled him to one said and said firmly,

"Listen! We're on Everest. It's a high mountain. There is no air. If you want more air, climb a smaller fucking mountain."

And here endeth the lesson.

Every now and then, we need to be told to "stop the bitching and get on with it." On our way to reach higher peaks, we often find ourselves ready to throw in the towel, complaining about the discomfort, the lack of help, the inadequate industry support.

Well, I don't know about you but I don't want to climb small mountains. I want to ascend into the clouds with the legends. And if that means less air, then so be it.

Adapted from "Everything that happens to me is good" by Geoff Thompson

More than meets the eye

2008-07-24T22:11:00.003+08:00

Came across these 2 interesting videos on youtube. So I thought I should share it with you guys. :) The videos make you think; sometimes there are more than meets the eye.

Enjoy.

It's always darkest before dawn. But what if dawn never comes?

2008-07-22T10:55:00.003+08:00

As I write this, dar dar is in a secondary school beginning her contract teaching. Congratulations dar dar, you have finally fulfill your dream of becoming a teacher. :)

Dar dar told me that since she was young, she had always aspired to be a Maths teacher. She was inspired and motivated by her favorite Maths teacher who was very patient, great at explaining difficult Maths concepts and making sure everybody understood, even the weaker students.

The day dar dar decided that she was going to become a Maths teacher, she worked hard towards her goals, first getting into JC, then into Maths course at NUS and finally now at NIE.

I really admire and envy people who know from the very beginning what the heck they want to do with their lives and go all out to pursue it. As for myself, I'm still unsure where this current road will lead me.

When I was in primary school and we had to write a composition on "My ambitions", my favorite "ambition" was always to be a Scientist. Not that I knew exactly what a scientist does in those days. I mean my compo was very generic. I just wrote that I wanted to invent stuffs to help the world and so forth. Maybe I was "inspired" after watching those sci-fi movies or something. Ha.

A few years later, I wanted to become a wrestler. Ha. You know where that came from don't you? Yah, that's the side effects of watching too much World Wrestling Entertainment. :P

Then there was once I wanted to be a professional soccer player. I mean getting paid to play your favorite sports seemed to be the best job one can get! And the millions and millions of fans cheering you on when you score that winning goal... wow...

More years later, I wanted to be a game designer. And that dream was the longest I had. I held it all the way from secondary school until I completed my National Service.

Then what happened next siukai?

I was introduced to a friend known as "Real Life" and was hit by a dose of "Reality." Suddenly, everything seems so different out there.

I know how I have talked about positive thinking and stuffs but sometimes there are certain times when you just feel like whining a bit. Ha. And this is one such moment.

Frankly speaking, as of now, I really have no idea what the hell I want to do with my life.

It's already July of 2008 now and that means more than half the year has gone by. And well, look where I am now? Did I make any progress? What have I achieved?

Sometimes you work hard and when you hope to see results, you see none. Sometimes when you lament how some people get the easy life while you have to slog and sweat and endure all those crap life throws at you and worse, at the end of the day, you are still at square one.

Sometimes you just ask yourself, when will all this ends? When will you ever see that light at the end of the tunnel? Heck, when will you even get out of the tunnel? Well, how do you even know you are in a tunnel in the first place? Maybe you are in a sealed box - with no way out.

Sometimes you look up into the sky and ask whoever is up there, GOD, ALLAH, LAO MU, JESUS, SHIVA, whatever, whether they are done with you yet. If not, how long more? If not, is that the best they can do?

And you really want to scream at them, "Just bring it." But you are afraid that worse will come because your spirit is tired, your body exhausted.

They always say that it is always darkest before dawn, that once you have endure the darkest moments, good things will come your way. That it was darkness that invented the light.

Right, spare me those crap. I'm too old for that. Ha.

Sometimes you just wonder what if dawn just never comes? Or whether you will be stuck in the darn box forever.

But siukai loves challenges. He has always relish being the underdog. siukai don't believe in GOD, ALLAH, LAO MU, JESUS, SHIVA, whatever. Because he believes he creates his own destiny.

Stuck in a box? Then tear your way out.

Dawn won't come?

Then I jolly well got to create my own dawn.

Moral of the story? Just because life deals you a bad hand doesn't mean that you have to accept it. Fight for your future. Fight your way out of the box. It's never over until you say it's over.

Life never gives up on you until you give up on it.

Wow siukai, that is really one load of bullshit. But hey, it's very good bullshit. Ha. :P

Rude People should be shipped to Africa

2008-07-14T22:37:00.004+08:00

Went to Dar dar's commencement ceremony last Thursday. As mentioned in the previous post, it was also our 3 years anniversary! Thus it was a double celebration! Ha.

Surprised dar dar with a bouquet of Sunflower while dar dar also gave me a pleasant surprise when she baked some chocolate cookies for me! Thanks dar dar. Ha.

Normally it's the other way round cos I'm the one who's doing the baking, thus it was really unexpected when dar dar presented me with a tin of freshly made choco cookies. Muacks. :)

As for the commencement ceremony itself, it was kinda boring. Ha. Reminded me of my own graduation ceremony back in the poly days. But this one was more high-class and a very solemn affair.

Everyone was dressed in robes and the professors were seated on stage, facing the audience and there was this pro-chancellor who was like the "King" of the whole ceremony. Ha.

Everything was like so god-damn serious that I was afraid that my breathing would disturb the person sitting next to me. Ha.

And they even banned people from bringing flowers into the hall and the reasons given were that some people might be allergic to flower pollen (This reason I accept) and secondly because some wrappers might be a bit noisy. (That I find it hard to swallow.)

Come on guys! Relax! It's a graduation ceremony! Not some court, parliament or anything like that. It should be a time of celebration right? Ha. :P

But I guess it's the tradition of university graduation; it's kinda like a big deal and thus everything have to be perfect and SERIOUS. Think the national day parade when the parade commander will ask for the President's permission to begin the parade. Ha.

Perfect the ceremony was not because the first glitch occurred right at the start of the presentation. There was this Chinese guy who was the first to collect his scroll and the name that was read out was one of a Malay guy. Unbelievable. And the poor chap reluctantly went on to collect his scroll.

The second disappointing thing about the ceremony was the clapping. This one I can understand because who would continue to clap for someone he/she don't know for the whole ceremony? The same happened during my graduation a few years back. Clapping was almost non-existence unless you are a big award winner or you were very popular.

Fortunately for me then, the guys were there to cheer me on and I swore there were even shouts of "I love you siukai!" Ha.

It's about time we do something about this "clapping problem". Siukai's suggestion? How about we hire part-time clappers? Pay them like $10 an hour and sit them among the crowd and these guys will clap and cheer throughout the whole ceremony. It sure makes the whole event more lively right? Ha.

On a budget? Then how about pre-recorded clappings similar to pre-recorded laughs on those cheap-skate comedy shows. Ha. Any clapping is better than no clapping right?

Seriously, someone should take note of my suggestion. I'm quite confident that it will add to the atmosphere and make the whole event more worthwhile and memorable. After all, if you are the one collecting the scroll, you would want to do so to the company of thunderous applause and even some wolf-whistles right? Ha.

And for an additional price, these professional clappers can even give you a standing ovation. Ha.

One final thing about the ceremony. At the end of it, there were hundred of balloons that were released to the audience. And guess what happened? Everyone started to pop the balloons! I was really shocked by the people's behavior. Was this tradition too? Ha.

Frankly speaking, I had no idea but it was amazing seeing people dressed in suits and ties popping and kicking balloons like there was no tomorrow. Ha. Really an eye opener for me.

Well I still have not gotten to my topic of the day on why rude people should be shipped to Africa. Ha.

This afternoon, I received a phone call from an unknown number. I picked it up and there was this guy on the other line.

"Hello?" I asked politely.

"HELLO?!" the guy shouted.

"Hello? Who are you looking for?" I asked.

"AH CHOO?! AH CHOO?!" the guy continued to shout.

"I think you got the wrong number." I replied.

"Ah CHOO?!"

"I think you got the -"

He hung up the phone.

A few seconds later, he called again.

I picked it up.

"Hello. Who are you looking for?" I asked one more time, in my nicest voice.

"Mei Choo in?" the guy asked.

"There's no Mei Choo here. You got the wrong number."

"No MEI CHOO?"

"No, how did you get this number -"

He hung up.

What the *&%@&#^% is wrong with this guy?! He's really so darn rude! Twice he never bother to say sorry for wasting my time and dialing the wrong number and twice he dare to hung up on me. His mother surely never teach him properly.

Gosh. It was then I suddenly had this thought that all rude people should be shipped to Africa in a FedEx box labeled "Defective" and in their exchange a starving kid from Africa would take their place and get a chance to live a normal life. I'm sure these kids will appreciate life much better and treat their fellow human beings with respect and kindness.

There are three types of people that get on my nerve. Firstly, rude people. Then, lazy people and finally inconsiderate people. Looking back at the commencement ceremony, there was this auntie who was yakking on the phone for a good 30 minutes. Come on lah, your son/daughter might not be the one taking the scroll while you are talking but do show other people respect right?

What if it was your child who was collecting the scroll and there are people who are talking like nobody's business? You would be bothered too right?

Some people really don't know how to think. :(

But the world is just like this. If everyone was so nice and perfect, there wouldn't be war. Everyone would be happy, smiling and laughing. People would be sharing stuffs, greeting each other good morning.

But these only happen in fairy tales. In our world, rude people are still getting on fine with their lives while malnourished kids in Africa wait to die.

However I believe that eventually, their actions will come back to haunt them. This quote by Wayne Dyer, an American motivational speaker describes it perfectly, "How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours."

Right, someone please get me a box. Ha. :P

Happy 3 years Anniversary Dar Dar!

2008-07-10T00:40:00.001+08:00

Today is a special day for dar dar and me.

Yes, today is Bring your own bag day. Oops. Sorry that was yesterday! Ha.

Well, as you can read from the title already, today is dar dar and my 3 years anniversary, that's 36 months of togetherness = 156 weeks of blissful union = 1095 days of missing each other = 26280 hours = 1576800 seconds of thinking of each other = one load of mushy crap! Ha.

Sorry, my dar dar gets a kick when she sees numbers. Sometimes I do get a kick too. From my dar dar that is, for my careless mistakes when it comes to solving maths problems. Ha.

I was kiddin about the dar dar kicking me part. Dar dar loves me so much how can she bear to kick me? :P

Oh for goodness sake siukai! Please stop all this mushy stuffs! I can't bear to read on further!

Then don't. Ha. If you think that was bad. You have no idea what you are in for. Ha. Come on! Today is my 3 years anniversary lei. It's only fitting if this entry contains the most mush-iest crap siukai has ever written till date. Ha.

Incredibly, I have been attached for 3 years. Sometimes I still wake up in the middle of the night and wonder whether I am in a dream. I will pinch myself to double confirm. Sometimes I pinch myself so hard but yet I feel no pain. It's only in the morning when I see my brother's bruised arms that I know the reason. Ha.

To think that a few years back, I was still whining and worrying whether I would ever get a girlfriend. But now I got more than I bargain for. I got myself a lao po. Ha. If you cannot bear to read on, it's okay. I understand. This entry is mostly for my dar dar also. Ha.

Of course we all know that getting into a relationship is the easy part. Maintaining one is more difficult. Come to think of it, 3 years is not really that long. I've met people who has been in a relationship for 6 years yet it did not end in a marriage. But there are of course others who do.

Like the overused cliche describes, "It takes two hands to clap." Just like it takes two hands to make a prata. Or it takes two hand to fry hokkien mee. I mean you can try doing it with one hand but it would be quite a feat. Imagine trying to crack an egg and continuing to fry the noodles to prevent them from being burnt. Ha.

3 years of relationship might not be long for some but for a first-timer that's not too bad! Give me a high five! Yeah!

So is siukai a born natural when it comes to relationships? Maybe it's because I read widely and manage to learn something useful about the opposite sex. A highly recommended book is "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus". That's actually the bible for maintaining a relationship.

However if you can't afford the book or you rather spend money to buy Playboy or Maxim, you can always read the alternative, siukai's blog: Men are from Queenstown, Women are from Bukit Panjang Ha. :p

I think one very very important thing that is needed to sustain a relationship is communication.

Yes, you heard me. Communication is the most important thing. A lot of times we guys think we understand what a women is thinking and women thinks they know what guys are thinking. Well, sorry to burst that bubble. Unless you are a mind reader, most of the time we are clueless when it comes to interpreting the opposite sex.

That's why it is very important to let your partner know how you feel about him/her or when something bothers you. Don't keep it to yourself and assume he/she knows. How in the world would he/she knows if you don't tell him/her?!

Most misunderstanding happens because of miscommunication. Don't take the chance. Communicate. If you find it hard to tell him/her to the face, write a letter, like what yours truly does every month. Ha.

Yah, for the past 36 months, I have been dutifully writing a monthly letter to dar dar. Okay I admit I missed about one or two months but I still make it an effort to write some crap. Ha.

Sometimes when I run out of crap, I draw. Ha. With dar dar's permission, here is a glimpse of the comic strip I drew for her for our 33 months anniversary. You need to click on the picture to view it in its full glory.

The Legend of the Dugong

Not that bad lah. I'm not exactly an art student. Ha.

Besides communication, you also need to do reflections on yourself. How have you contributed to the relationship? If there is an argument, what went wrong? Why did he/she reacted that way? Most importantly why did you reacted that way? Always ask questions and try to think from your partner's point of view.

Don't always assume you are right. And especially if you are a guy, sometimes even if you are right and the matter is not that big a deal, you should give in too. Come on, be a gentleman! And for our efforts, girls should also make it a point to acknowledged that the guy has given in not because he was wrong but because he still love you and do not want to continue with the meaningless squabber.

No relationship can ever be without arguments. Sometimes it is these conflicts that make the relationship stronger. Dar dar and me have our fair shares of ups and downs.

No matter how bad an argument is, at the end of the day, always remember why you love him/her in the first place. Find that reason and your heart will soften and your anger will subside.

Well, that's all the advice I can give now. Ha. For more, you can visit my "dating" blog as mentioned above. :)

Incidentally, today is also dar dar's graduation day! Congratulations too dar dar! Muacks! I am so proud of you!

Ha. Double happiness. :) Oh yah, last week I bought a Jacket for dar dar as a 3 years anniversary gift. And guess what, dar dar also bought me one! Ha. Thanks dar dar! Muacks!

Jackets of Love

Happy 3 years Anniversary Dar Dar! We will have more good years ahead! Muacks. Love you lots!!! :D

Dream$ are made of the$e

2008-07-09T00:54:00.004+08:00

Hey, it's me again. Think I'm suffering from writer's block or something. Ha. Don't worry though, this happens to me sometimes, nothing too serious. :)

Having a writer's block is like... well... imagine a choked tap. Water just does not flow out as before. Like you know how long it took me to write the above few lines?

2 hours.

Ha. I was kidding. It was actually 1 hour 59 min.

Hey, I feel my crapping powers coming back now! Yeah!

Actually I had a couple of topics to blog about the last couple of days but every time I sat in front of the PC, it's like all my desire to crap just disappeared. Even the mere thought of logging into blogger seems intimidating!

Maybe it's because I'm tired after coming back from work or maybe because my current work is draining me of all my creativity! Ha.

For the curious, I'm currently working as a promoter at this gigantic supermarket, stationed in the electrical department. It's a no-brainer job, maybe that's why I'm becoming dull. Ha.

Anyway, back to today's topic. Kok once mentioned a few weeks back, "Everyone talks about dreams but to fulfill a dream, what do you need? You still need money in the first place."

I think that is very true. Some people dream of becoming their own boss, of setting up their own cafe or something. But at the end of the day, you still need the capital right?

No money, how to set up cafe? Unless your parents are damn rich or something. Even if your parents are damn rich, they still need to fork out the money to pay for the rent, supplies and misc stuffs for the cafe, which brings us back to the point, Money is still crucial if you want to reach that dream of yours.

I think this is the point I finally understood after like 4 years since I completed my National service. Darn kok! You should have told me this earlier! Ha.

Recently, some of my peers and even my cousin who is only a few months older than me have already gotten married or are planning to get engaged. As for me, I'm nowhere near that! I'm still studying for goodness sake!

When I complete my studies in another 2 years time, some of them might even be Daddys! And me? I will just be starting my career!

Why the diff even when we are the same age? How come there are those who already have a successful career while there are those who are still trying to make ends meet?

As I mentioned in my previous posts, what and where we are right now is all based on the decisions we made before.

Straight after my National service 4 years back, I made my first important decision; that was to join Gys and Kok to setup a dough nuts business at the pasar malam. As I have said a few times over, though that venture was not successful, I truly believe that it was a very very valuable experience.

My next very important decision came when I decided that my first real job was to become an IT trainer at a secondary school. It was there that I met my dar dar and we are together since.

I think the universe works in a strange way, everything happens for a reason. You see, if I had not joined the guys in the doughnuts venture, I would never had become an IT trainer because I would have took up another job when I completed my NS.

And if I did not become an IT trainer, I would not have met my dar dar and well things now might be a lot more different.

Everything happens for a reason I guess. Including Gys's death.

When Gys passed on suddenly, I was jolted from my dreams. I realized that we are not invincible and life is so fragile. One moment I was still talking crap at his house on Tuesday and he was gone just like that two days later.

I now appreciate the people around me more, especially my dar dar and my dear buddies because life is just so unpredictable. So, if you are not doing it already, tell your love ones how much you love them every night before you go to bed.

I also begin to see life in a different light; life is too short to be angry or unhappy. Last time, I had quite a bad temper. My dar dar can "vouch" for that. I even threw temper at my IT HOD when I was an IT trainer. It got to such a bad extent that he wanted to fire me.

I could go on about the nasty stuffs I did when I was angry but I am afraid that after reading, you wouldn't want to be my friend anymore. Ha.

Anyway, nowadays I can control my temper so well that I was wondering whether it is still around. Ha. Even dar dar remarked that I have changed a lot since she met me, I mean besides the fact that my tummy seems to be growing forward by an inch every week. Ha.

I finally understand that there is really no point to be angry at someone or something. If someone or something upsets you, go and do something to change it. If you just shout and whine and complain, losing your temper in the process, would you achieve anything? Maybe your blood pressure will increase and you will feel like crap, that's about all.

If you can't do something to change the situation, then change your mindset. It's that simple. Live and let live. To forgive is divine.

Ha. I think the weekends Buddha teaching lessons are doing wonders for me. Just kiddin. :P

Back to the money topic. My financial health is so bad right now that I can barely afford a single table at a wedding dinner. And I'm like what? 26 already this year? Maybe Kingston was right after all. I'm indeed darn old!

Ha. Sorry, just could not resist taking a dig at him. Alright alright, I know, to forgive is divine right? Yah yah, I have already forgiven him, it was just a harmless tease okay? Ha. :P

But well, since we cannot change the past, we'll just have to cherish the present and make full use of lost time. That's why I have been doing all these kind of "sai kang" job for the past few months. Jobs that if given a choice, most people would not want to do.

I've also met a lot of different people from all walks of life. Like there was this auntie who told me that she was earning $3.50 an hour. I was shocked and stunned when I heard that. It's really exploitation. It's not ethical for me to reveal the place she works at. But here's a clue. "Yah coffee".

You guys are so smart, shouldn't be too difficult to guess right?

Doing these kind of "sai kang" jobs have also made me more determined to help these poor people. Some of these people are really stuck in the poverty cycle. Because they are not educated, they simply cannot find a way out and most of them are too old. Not because they do not want to upgrade but simply because they don't have the means or are clueless how to go about doing it.

That's why they stayed on to earn a miserable $3.50 an hour.

Sometimes when I see old folks going around selling tissue papers or uncles playing an instrument along busy orchard road, I wished I could just give them $50 and tell them to take a break for the day.

$50 might be small change for a rich person but for some people, it can last them for a month (before inflation) or one to two weeks. (after inflation).

That's why I swear that I have to be very rich and give a helping hand to those deserving people, starting from my parents and relatives. I think the moment you realize you have reached another stage in life is when you start to think about others and not only about yourself. Sadly, there are people who never get pass the "It's all about me" stage.

There are a lot of things I would like to do and a lot of people I would like to help and a couple of dreams I would like to fulfill. But like what Kok said, it all starts with money. Without money, you cannot do anything no matter how much you desire to do it.

That's why I have made up my mind that I will work very very hard for the next few years and build up a successful career. Pay off my debts, save money for marriage and give back to society. Hmm... I'm starting to sound like a potential MP. Ha. Vote for siukai? Ha.

Was watching Spiderman 2 on Sunday and this particular quote struck me. Spidey said this to Dr Oct towards the end of the movie during their final showdown:

"Sometimes... to do what's right... we must be steady... and give up the things we desire the most... even our dreams."

Of course Spidey was also talking about himself because he had decided to give up leading a normal life and getting married with Mary Jane but instead choose to become a hero to protect his city.

Well, siukai like spidey is just so selfless. Ha.

A final note on money, It's good to save money for the future but there are times when if you can afford it, you should spend it, especially on special occasions like anniversary or birthdays.

Which brings me to this other quote I would like to share, "What's the use of saving it all for later. When money cannot buy back the experiences you lost along the way?"

I'm almost at the end of my blog entry now. Pardon for the disorganization of the topics, this tap is still a bit clogged up. Ha.

Anyway, remember life is too short to be sad. Smile and be happy. Hope you will have a nice rest of the day! Take care! :)

The Banker and the Fisherman

2008-07-02T23:36:00.002+08:00

Hi there! My creative juices are not really flowing at the moment and...

Ha. You see, I don't even know how to complete that sentence. I think I need a break! :D

Well, for today's post, I'll share with you guys this story which Kok sent me via email. It's a nice read. Hope you all enjoy it. :)

The Banker and the Fisherman

An investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The banker complimented the fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The fisherman replied, "Only a little while."

The banker then asked, "Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more fish?"

The fisherman said, "With this I have more than enough to support my family's needs."

The banker then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, go for walks with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my friends. As you can see, I have a full and busy life."

The banker scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing; and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat! With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats.

Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to
a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to the capital city. After that, who knows, maybe you could take on the world!"

The fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"

To which the banker replied, "I'd say about 15 to 20 years."

"But what then?" asked the fisherman.

The Banker laughed and said, "That's the best part! When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions?...Then what?" the fisherman continued prodding.

The banker said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, go for romantic walks with your wife, and in the evenings you could sip wine, play guitar and sing songs with your friends!"

To which the fisherman mused, "Now isn't that strange? Isn't that what I'm doing now?"

Hmm... something for you to think about eh? Makes you wonder why you are in the rat-race in the first place...

Stop bringing your own bags and give our kids their childhood back.

2008-06-26T14:15:00.003+08:00

I hate BYOB day. That's "Bring your Own Bag Day" for you. I think we should scrap it altogether. Not that I'm not a green person, in fact I'm always in support of saving our dear precious mother earth.

However, BYOB day is another matter. Last time, it used to be the first Wednesday of every month but now it seems that it's BYOB day every Wednesday at NTUC fairprice supermarkets.

Well, I believe in taking all my medicine at one go; either you scrap BYOB day or you totally stop giving out plastic bags, like what IKEA is doing.

You know that sudden realization, when you are carrying a truckload of grocery and getting ready to pay for it at the cashier when you suddenly remember, "Oh shoot! Today is Wednesday! And that means, I have to bring my own bag!"

It is then you wished that you could time travel and instantly jump to Thursday. Or you could jump back to Tuesday and remember that you have to bring your own bag along when you go to the supermarket on Wednesday. Ha.

Gosh, I just realized I sounded so auntie. Fancy complaining about plastic bags and grocery shopping here. Ha.

Speaking about taking all our medicine at one go, like how the GST was raised from 5% to 7% at one shot, I think we should review the PSLE Maths papers now and raise the standard to such heights that only people from a certain country can pass it. Ha. :P

I mean, have you recently taken a look at the stuffs our primary school kids are learning nowadays? I tell you, some of the maths questions have left me scratching my head. Maybe I'm allergic to maths or something since my scalp always itches whenever I look at algebra or equations. Ha.

Not only Maths, even the science. People, these kids are studying animal reproduction in primary school already! The last time I was in primary school, I was still trying to figure out which came first, the chicken or the egg! Ha.

Even the English, the vocabulary these kids are exposed to and expected to know might even put some of you to shame. For crying out loud, you guys are reading this piece of crap right now while those genius kids are happily easily devouring the Straits Times and some even the Business Times. Ha.

My point in all this? Give our kids a break! Give them their childhood back! I shudder when I hear and read reports from parents that almost all kids nowadays have tuition because every other kid is having it.

I know I should not be going against the tuition era since my patapon dar dar is after all a tuition teacher and the food she brings to the table are all bought from the money she makes from tuition and boy are those nice food and I sure don't want to miss those food... oops, sorry I got distracted! Ha.

But I feel that everything should always be done in moderation. Some kids have tuition from Monday to Sunday, giving them no time to do the most important thing a kid should do. It starts with "P."

No, NOT taking Piano lessons but rather PLAY!

Kids need to play just like how fishes need to swim. I mean a fish won't be a fish if it didn't swim just like how a kid won't be a kid if he/she doesn't play! Ha. It might seems like a strange analogy but you get the point right?

A fish that doesn't swim is either a dead fish or simply a fish that has not been taught how to swim. And we all know what happens to fishes that can't swim, they all end up dead eventually.

A kid who doesn't play? Then where the hell is his imagination going to come from? What about his make-believe conversation with his imaginary friend, or his Steven Spielberg's talents when he directs his Spiderman action figure in his own version of Spiderman 4?

Wow, I just realized how much I missed those. Ha.

For the girls, no more imaginary tea parties or the pretending to be a cook games. No more, gasp, Barbie dolls and Ken. You know what that means people? It means that the entire toy industry could go down! Think of the repercussions!

Millions will be out of jobs. Factories that once churn out Barbie dolls could end up producing "How to ace your maths in 10 days!" instead! That is horrible! Ha.

So people, for the sake of the toy industry and our economy, stop giving the kids so much tuition! I mean, the only tuition I had was from Primary 3 to 6 and even that was a relaxing group tuition where we will spend 10 minutes to do our worksheet and the next hour playing block catching. Ha. Shh... don't tell my mum that.

What? You don't know what is block catching? I really pity you. Ha.

I had minimal tuition and look where that got me today?

...

Right, that wasn't such a great example. Let's move on shall we? Ha.

Point is, kids can have tuition but some time should be allocated to playing. You only have your childhood once and the moment you miss the train to childhood land, you miss it.

There's no second train or anything like that. You can't possibly have make-believe conversation with your Batman action figure when you are an adult, unless you are really directing the next Batman blockbuster and you need to do that to get inspiration. Ha.

Otherwise, sorry. The trip to childhood land is one way and they don't wait for late-comers.

That's why I have been trying to get this point to my dar dar about the future plans for our kids. Tuitions are allowed on Monday to Friday and half a day Saturday. After that, it's playtime and Sunday is family day! Ha.

What? You wished you were my kid? Ha.

But I'm still trying to get dar dar to sign on the dotted line just in case she backs out on our agreement for the kids. Ha. See, siukai is such a nice guy and would make the best father in the world!

Gosh! What the heck is wrong with me today? I'm already starting to talk about fatherhood when I'm not even married?! Ha.

Well, it's never too early to plan isn't it?

I always felt that I was much older than what my IC suggested. Maybe wiser is a more appropriate word. Ha.

In primary school, when the other kids were still catching spiders and grasshoppers, I was already at Tarantulas and crickets. Ha. That was obviously a joke. Point is, I think far ahead. Like currently, I'm thinking of what to have for lunch on Saturday. Ha. :p

Come on siukai! Can't you be serious for a second?

Right.

There. A second.

Ha. I can't be serious. I will bore you to death. The other time I tried to be serious, I was nearly arrested by the authorities for attempted murder by boredom. Ha.

Some of you reading this blog might think that siukai is the crappiest man alive and he is full of bull. Well, the truth is far from that.

My dar dar can attest to that; siukai can be serious and most of the time he is rather boring except when he is blogging. That's when another being seems to take over his mind and fingers and crap will just flow out, like now. Ha.

Okie, I got to stop soon. Need to head to work. Yah, I got another work as a traffic surveyor. Recently, I feel that I'm becoming more of an odd-job worker, all kind of work also do: Software promoter, Membership recruiter and now traffic surveyor. Ha. What's next?

This weekend, dar dar is cooking one of her specialty dish, "Tuna fried rice with sausages". Ha. Looking forward to it. Till then. Au revoir! :D

Siukai's weekend feast and other stories

2008-06-24T12:48:00.002+08:00

Hey hey, welcome back!

Wanted to update my blog yesterday but I guess I woke up on the wrong side of the bed (Not literally of course but just felt I needed to clarify since I share the same bedroom with my bro and there is a slight possibility that I might in fact roll over to his side of the bed in the middle of the night. Ha.)

Was feeling quite grouchy the entire day and had no mood to write any crap.

But siukai, I thought you say you must learn how to control your emotions and must always think positive thoughts?

Yah, I did say that but remember siukai is still mortal after all and there are times when it is just difficult to practice what you pitch. Ha.

But not to worry though, I'm alright now; nothing a good night sleep and an episode of Friends couldn't fix. Ha.

So, let's begin shall we? First up, the highly anticipated return of siukai's weekends feast! Ha. Yup, it has been a while now since dar dar prepared dinner on a Saturday due to her going for a holiday in Taiwan a few weeks back and my work commitments.

But it was my off day last Saturday and dar dar was eager to feed my ever demanding tummy. Ha. This week, dar dar decided to cook up a Rendang Chicken Feast! :D So, we headed to the nearest NTUC supermarket to purchase the necessary ingredients.

Ingredients

The ingredients are rather simple. They include potatoes, chicken parts and a packet of your favorite Rendang Sauce. :) Dar dar said that the process of cooking the chicken is top secret, so I am not allowed to reveal the details here.

Ha. dar dar did not say that, just that I'm lazy to fill in the details. Ha. :P Just look at the photos can liao lah.

Frying the chicken

Adding the potatoes

Adding the Rendang Sauce

Simmering...

After frying the chicken and potatoes together with the sauce, we need to simmer everything for about 45 minutes.

The Rendang Chicken Feast!

Tada! The Rendang feast is ready to be served! The bowls of soup is Tofu soup. :) Notice the strange fried chicken drumstick that looks different from the rest. It's actually chicken from Long John Silver, leftover from lunch. Ha.

Rating:

Review: Quite a tasty treat! But appearance wise, the dish seems to be lacking some green. :) Dar dar also said that the sauce was not thick enough, maybe we need to get 2 packets of sauce for 1kg of chicken. Nonetheless, it was a commendable effort! Thanks dar dar!

Verdict: Not bad! Can Eat lah!

Alright then, now that we got the food out of the way, let's get down to serious business. Ha.

Seriously? (Pun intended) Serious business at siukai's world? That's a first! Ha.

I think I need to write a disclaimer for the following paragraphs: What you are about to read next is purely written for entertainment purposes. siukai does not mean to insult anybody. :)

After a few weeks of working at roadshows and book fairs, siukai has come up with a list of the different types of customers he encountered during his sales experience. Take a read to see whether you belong to or encountered any of the groups:

(Not in any order and for convenience sake, all the customers are treated as males. )

1) The "Talk to the hand" group:

This group of customers are most commonly encountered. Their methods are crude but effective. The customer simply raise his hand, palms facing the salesperson (akin to a Stop! No Go! gesture) to indicate that he is not interested. No spoken words needed. This "Talk to the hand" sign is surely a front-runner for invention of the century! Ha.

2) The Head-Nodders

This group of customers will simply nod their head irregardless of what you say. They will nod their head, as if in agreement with what you say. While nodding, they will smile at you but continue to walk briskly away. A very curious group since nodding of the head indicate interest yet these people do not stop and listen. Hmm... they must be from another planet. Ha.

3) The Head-Shakers

In direct contrast to the Head-Nodders, we have the Head-Shakers. This group is more easily understood since they will shake their head to indicate that they are not interested in what you have to offer them. Some will still smile at you out of courtesy while some will frown at you, as if you owe them money or something.

4) The Direct-tors

These group of customers are one of my favorites. They get straight to the point and do not beat around the bush. Normally, their first question will be, "Free? Need money?" The moment the sales person explains that there are costs involved, their immediate reaction will be, "Need money ah? No thanks." Straight-forward and no time is wasted.

5) The "I can't see or hear salespeople" group

These group of customers are the rudest. They treat salespeople as if they are invisible. Despite the salesman's best effort to talk to them, these customers simply walk away, no smile, no waving of the hand, no nodding/shaking of the head, nothing. It is as if salespeople are invisible to them. It is very rude. I think their mothers never teach them properly. If you belong to these group, shame on you!!! :(

6) The "I've got a minute to spare" group

This group of customers are the nicest. They have the courtesy to stop and listen to what you have to offer. Some will even have a decent human conversation with you. :) Though not all of them will buy eventually, they will at least treat the salesperson like a fellow human being, with respect that is. Kudos to their parents for teaching them well!

7) The "I'm simply not interested in what you have to offer" group.

This group is the most curious of all. They do not even give the salesperson a chance to explain what he is trying to sell them. They simply show him the hand or say, "Not interested" before the salesperson has a chance to speak. Very curious indeed, what if the salesperson was trying to give them free money? Ha.

8) The Squeezers

This final group of customers pride themselves in being able to get out of "tricky" situations, avoiding salesmen at all cost. They will find a way to squeeze behind the salesman's back, even though there might not be enough space. They will twist and turn their body within the limited walking space just to avoid eye contact with the salesperson.

It is as if the salesperson's gaze can kill or will have a hypnotic effect on them. Ha. But of course the days of the squeezers are numbered. There will come a day when mutation allows salesmen to have eyes on the back of their heads too. Ha. Gross.

Really got to meet a lot of strange and interesting people during the roadshows, I supposed it's better than being coop up in an office. :) So, is siukai considering a sales job for his future career? Nah, don't count on it. Some things are better left to the experts. Ha.

Good day! :D

2008-06-21T01:55:00.005+08:00

Hello there! Don't be shocked okie, you are still at Siu Kai's World, just that I've given my blog a brand new look. Ha.

Yup, have been wanting to change the layout of my blog for quite some time, just that I was really busy with work the past few weeks. But I finally sat myself down and tada! Here's the masterpiece. :D

What? You think the previous design is nicer? Ha. I think so too but I feel that the previous design was not really reader-friendly. The words are too small and cramped. And seeing how siukai's posts are getting longer by the day, I thought I should not continue to torture my fans' eyes. Ha.

The design might not be that pretty but it's effective. Ha. I guess that basically sums up siukai's outlook/philosophy on life. I prefer practical and effective things rather than stuffs that look pretty on the surface but is really useless deep down inside.

As the saying goes, "Never judge a book by its cover." siukai says, "Never judge a blog by its skin." And of course, "Never judge a man by his crap." Ha.

And here's more good news for you siukai's fans! siukai's new blog, Men are from Queenstown, Women are from Bukit Panjang is finally up!

Ha. Yah, it was supposed to be a book but no money to publish lah, so blog first. :)

Have already posted some of the stuffs I wrote a few years back, some "tactics" might be a bit outdated but they still make for a good read and laugh of course. Ha.

And the goodies keep on coming! Do watch out for The Chronicles of siukai - The Fatman, the wardrobe and his oversize pants - another upcoming blog to satisfy your SKC addiction. Ha.

Enjoy! :)

I'm sorry but we might need to send you home...

2008-06-17T01:15:00.000+08:00

Hi! I'm back! Miss me? Ha.

Come on, I know you do. :D Admit it, you missed siukai's crap don't ya? Still not convinced? Take a look at the following symptoms and check for yourself whether you exhibit these signs:

1) You click on the siukaiworld link (which is already in your favorites list) the moment you log on to the Internet.

2) You are disappointed when you do not see any updates.

3) You click on the refresh button on the browser once in a while, hoping to see updated posts but in vain.

4) You read and re-read previous post just to pacify your urge for new content.

5) Before you disconnect from the Internet, you click on the refresh button one last time.

6) You become frustrated at the lack of updates and feel that something is missing from your life.

Ha! So are you a hardcore siukai fan and suffering from SKC (siukai's crap) withdrawal symptoms? Ha.

Not to worry, Dr siu is in the house to give you your much awaited dose! Ha.

First thing first, actually I was not even away; I did not go for my reservist. Before you pick up that phone to report me for AWOL-ing (Absent without Leave in army lingo), let me explain myself.

Ha. Of course you guys already know that siukai is patriotic and would not think twice to defend his country when the need arises. Think thrice or more maybe. But definitely not twice. Ha.

Anyway, there I was, waking up in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, bags packed and ready for my 10 days in-camp training (ICT). After saying a silent prayer, I put on my army pants and to my surprise, it fitted! A miracle! There is indeed a GOD afterall! Ha. :P

So, in high spirits, I boarded the first train to Choa Chu Kang, then to Bukit Panjang as my army stuffs were at my dar dar's place and Ed was coming over to fetch me. (My army camp was near dar dar's place, that's why I left my army stuffs there.)

Dar dar even bought us breakfast from McDonalds. :) Thanks patapon dar dar! Muacks.

Oh yah, let me sidetrack for a bit. For those who have no idea what patapon means, it's actually this game dar dar and me are currently playing on the psp. It's a rather fun and addictive game. Dar dar is quite addicted to the game, hence the nickname. Ha.

Back to the story... so after saying our I-will-miss-you and goodbyes, Ed and me made our way to the army camp. It has been almost 4 years since we last set foot in the camp and well the feeling... not that great exactly. Ha. It's never nice to go back lah.

After parking his car, we brought our barang barang to the training shed to await for further instructions. Saw a few of our former camp mates who were also there for their first ICT.

The first sign of "trouble" came when the instructors told us to assemble according to our company and sections and this being our first ICT, we had no idea which section we belonged to.

So we went to look for our names on the list. It took a while but eventually Ed found his name, however I still could not find mine. So I proceeded to the clerk and he scanned my NRIC.

"Hmm... this is strange, your name is recorded for this ICT but you don't seem to have any company or section." the clerk said calmly.

"Hmm... how come?" I asked, getting a bit excited.

"Are you still studying?" the lady standing next to the clerk asked. She was the chief clerk.

"Yah, I'm still studying." I replied, heart pounding faster.

"Oh." she said, a look of surprise on her face.

"So, what's wrong?" I asked, a smile was forming.

"Wait a second, let me check again." the chief clerk said and she went through the list one more time, this time more slowly. When she reached the end of the list, she looked up at me and smiled.

"I have to call HQ, maybe you can wait here?" she said.

"Oh okay, what might be wrong?" I asked, the grin on my face getting wider.

"Hmm... I think we might have already posted you out of this unit because you are currently schooling. But I need to double confirm."

"We might need to send you home." she added.

"Oh." I tried very hard not to let my emotions show but deep down inside, I was already jumping for joy.

A few minutes later she came back and the words that came out of her mouth were like the most wonderful melody to my ears.

"Congratulations siukai, you have won a million dollars!!!"

Ha. That wasn't what she said but the effects were similar.

"I'm sorry but I think you have to go home because you have been posted out of the unit and is currently on the holding list." I could not believe my ears and had to asked her to repeat herself.

And when it was all said and done, what choice did I have? I bid farewell to Ed and my former camp mates and made my way slowly out of the camp. I could have ran, just in case they said they made a mistake and wanted me to go back, but my barang barang was just too heavy. Ha.

And that very evening, I went for a buffet dinner with dar dar and family at Seoul Gardens. Wow. What a day! Ha.

Since I did not have any ICT, I went back to work and was quite busy for the past few days, hence the lack of updates.

Oh yah, dar dar cooked chilli chicken on Saturday and it was delicious! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take any pictures because my sis took the camera with her when she went on a holiday. So, sorry guys, no pictures this time round.

Besides that, nothing much really happened and thus I think this might be one of the shortest post ever. Ha.

You kiddin me siukai? After waiting for one week, this is the best crap you can muster? Give me more!

Ha. Do I hear shouts of encore?

Ha. Okay okay, let me try to dig up some more crap from my arsenal...

Oh, okay, got it. This morning, at the AMK roadshow, I was introducing the benefits of the membership card to an auntie and was telling her how she could purchase movie tickets at a discounted rate when her son asked, "Uncle, where can we buy the tickets?"

That question earned the son a slap on the head from the mother. You would have think the mother told the son, "Don't anyhow call uncle, he's Gor Gor (big brother)"

In my dreams perhaps! Ha. Instead the mother simply said, "Don't interrupt." Ha.

Uncle siu ah uncle siu... Ha. Seriously, this is not the first time someone called me uncle liao lah. I'm kinda used to it though sometimes I still make my way to the toilet to wipe away the mysterious clear liquid that seems to flow uncontrollably from my eyes. Ha.

I think the first time some kid called me uncle was when I was in Poly. I was walking past this car with gys when suddenly this kid who was inside the car started pointing at me and shouted "Uncle! Uncle!"

I was "saun" by gys for the next few days. Ha.

That was the beginning of the Uncle siu's era.

My worst encounter? You might not be able to take it you know. It could either be the funniest or saddest thing you have ever heard. Ha.

There was one time when I was going home when this UNCLE called out to me and he asked, "UNCLE, how to get to the MRT station ah?"

Gosh. An uncle calling me uncle.

I was so upset that I could not eat for days and ended up losing a few kilos. Ha.

I think it was rather dark that day and maybe the lightings casted shadows on my face, making me look much older, or maybe that Uncle was drunk. Yah, must be lah. Ha.

Alright then, I'm done for the day. Not bad lah, still got 1300++ words, got meet the siukai quota liao. Ha. Don't worry, will be back soon enough. Till then!

The secret ingredient is.... nothing!

2008-06-09T23:57:00.002+08:00

I think I must be one of the worst salesman ever! Ha. After 7 days at the world book fair, poor uncle Siu did not managed to crack that big fat zero! If there was an award in my company for the most awful sales personnel, I would be a shoo-in for that. Ha.

Eh boss, I really tried quite hard liao lei. There were a few times I did come close but like what Jose Mourinho, the new manager of Inter Milan proclaimed, almost is not good enough.

I almost got a $150 sales, I almost got a $840 sales but almost is nothing. Maybe in the philosophy of a loser almost is great but of course we all know that siukai retired from the greatest loser club ever a couple of years back. Ha. Therefore, it was actually quite a disappointing 7 days for me. :(

I can blame the crowd, blame the organizer of the fair who did not try hard enough to promote the event, blame the customers who did not give me a chance. Maybe these factors do play a part in my disastrous result but remember that winners make sacrifices and not excuses?

Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a salesman. Ha. I was still afraid that my zero streak will continue since I was back at my other promoter job at Tampines mall. 1 hour before I knock off, I was still at zero.

"Die die!" I thought to myself. "Don't tell me I'm going into my 8th day without any sales?" Now I know how a striker feels when he is on a goal drought. Sometimes you just need that one goal to get the momentum back again.

So did siukai get that one goal?

Drum rolls...

Of course lah! Ha. It's uncle siu you are talking about here lei. The never say die, always positive uncle who never backs down despite the colossal amount of rejections. Ha.

I was almost using my level 3 mind control powers I learnt from Prof Xavier and "phys-co-ing" this uncle to buy with my unbelievable sales talk. Ha. And when he said, "Okie, how do I sign up?" I think I was almost in heaven. Ha.

I had to control myself from hugging him and giving him a kiss. Ha. Thank you Mr Rashid! I'm sure you won't regret signing up for this wonderful card!!! :)

Minus the lack of sales, the 7 days at the book fair was quite enjoyable actually. Met a lot of interesting and nice people. :) One of them is Alfred. Ha. He is like the NICEST and the most FUNNY guy there. Ha.

Yup, Alfred called me the other time and he asked me why I did not mention his name in my blog. Well, there it is. Alfred is the BEST guy ever. Ha.

Seriously, Alfred is one of the top salesman among the part-timers. I attribute it to his tactical use of words. Like when I told him I was 26 this year, he replied, "Oh, then you must be the biggest among us."

Notice he used "biggest" rather than the now taboo "O" word at siukai's world. Ha. His sweet talking must have won him a lot of customers.

Well, just in case you do meet other people who are much older than you, siukai has some wonderful words which you may use. Like you can say, "Oh, you are 26, how I wish I was as mature as you!" Or "26 huh, you must be very wise..." Or simply, "I like the number 26." Ha.

Now you see how powerful words are? And why it is always so important to use positive words? Let's try this experiment. Read the following short paragraph:

It's such a horrible day! The weather was so freaking hot and I waited like 20 minutes for the stupid train to arrive and worst of all it was so god-damn packed that I could hardly breathe. Stupid!

How did you feel when you read that? You felt crappy right? Now take a look at the other paragraph:

Bon jour! That's good day in French for you. :) Ha. It was a perfect weather today, alright I admit it was a bit hot but I could do with a tan seeing how my patapon dar dar has been commenting that I look like a bai zhan ji (White chicken). Ha.

The train today was a bit slow but thankfully I had my best friend, the MP3 player with me. :) Mr Digo is his name. Yup, I name all my stuffs like my mouse is called Miss Mousie while my handphone is Le Nokia. Ha. I just made all that up. Ha.

Well, you see the great difference? One is so full of negative energy while the other makes you feel happy when reading it right? That's why you must always be positive and use positive words. Remember that energy and mood is infectious.

Instead of being affected by the moods of others, why not be the one who sets the mood and pass on the good energy! Smile! Be Happy! Life is too short to be sad!!!

Ha. You suddenly feel very energetic now don't you? Ha.

Kok once commented that my writing was so powerful that if I wrote that I saw a Panda on Orchard road, you would have believed me.

Ha. Actually, he did not say that. I just made that up. But for a moment, you thought it was real right? Ha.

Talking about Panda, I went to watch Kungfu Panda with patapon dar dar last Friday. It's very NICE!!! Very funny! Must watch!

**SPOILER ALERT**

The moral of the story, "The secret ingredient is nothing." All it takes is for you to believe in yourself, then you will be able to achieve what you want."

Everyone in the world can don't believe in you, but as long as you constantly believe in yourself, you are good to go. :) Remember, the moment your dreams die, you are as good as dead.

Here's another great quote I picked up from a book, "Some people die at twenty-five, and aren't buried until they're seventy-five." Cheem ah? Ha.

** End of SPOILER ALERT**

The panda died in the movie. Oops!

Ha. Just kiddn lah.

After watching Kungfu Panda, I suddenly wanted to learn Kungfu, just like how I got this sudden impulse to learn Muay Thai after I watched Chocolate (See previous previous posts). Ha.

After watching movies, I always want to learn/do something new. Like Ratatouille, I was inspired to learn cooking. Speed. I wanted to be a bus driver. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: I wanted to eat lots of chocolate. Ha.

Oh yah, I just remembered, pre-orders of my latest book "Men are from Queenstown. Women are from Bukit Panjang" has just started. Get yours before it is too late! Ha. Order now and you will get this chance for an instant lucky dip! Ha.

I also realized that newly converted fans of siukai might find some of the stories here hard to following seeing how siukai has almost blogged for 7 years now, in fact even before the word blog was even invented. Ha.

Thus, there's a lot of back-story involved. Not to worry though, look out for the limited hardcopy edition book which will fill you in on the past 7 years of siukai crap. The book, "The Chronicles of siukai. The fatman, the wardrobe and his oversize pants." will be available at all major bookstores at the end of the year. Ha.

I also met this maths whiz kid at the bookfair. Okay, he was not exactly a whiz kid, but his maths standard was still good enough to impress me. I think he's in primary 2. I asked him, "How's your maths?" and he replied calmly, "Good."

So I popped in this Tough Maths CD-Rom for him to try. He tried a few questions and got all of them correctly (some of the questions were so cheem that I din even noe how to solve!) Then, I asked him to explain how he managed to come up with the solutions.

He pointed to some diagrams he drew on this rough paper I gave him and muttered, "This one is 15 then you add this one and that one..." I think he lost me at "this one is 15". Ha.

Nowadays kids are really getting smarter and smarter. Maybe it's because of the cartoon they watched?

Have you heard of Clifford the Big Red Dog? If you have not, welcome to my world uncle/auntie! Ha.

Apparently, Clifford is this red in color dog that is quite popular with kids nowadays. Well, I have no idea until I saw him at the world book fair! Ha. And when I was told that the dog was actually quite famous, I was dumbfounded.

I've heard of Barney, Pikachu, Mickey Mouse. But Clifford? The only dog I know is Pluto from the Mickey Mouse gang. Ha. A case of generation gap already? Ha.

Anyway, I think that Clifford is god-darn scary. Why is it even red in the first place? Ha. Just take a look at the picture I found on the web, below.

Clifford the scary red dog

Look at those scary big eyes and the gigantic paws. Ha. One K2 boy even cried when he saw Clifford. I think he will have nightmares of red dogs for a few consecutive nights!

I swore I had goose bumps when the giant Clifford Mascot brushed past me. Ha. Scary!

Well, this should be my last post until the weekend since I'm going for my reservist on Wed. Do look out for the return of siukai's weekend feast; dar dar is cooking lime chilli chicken and rice this Saturday! Yummy yummy! :)

Remember, you must always believe in yourself. The secret ingredient is... nothing!

i for ICT and IPPT

2008-06-05T16:30:00.002+08:00

Just took a peek at my In-Camp-Training schedule next week. Just like what Ed said, it is almost like a chalet camp! Minus the fun of course. Ha.

It's not that bad lah, from the looks of it, it seems that there will be plenty of lectures and that means some quality time at the air-conditioned auditorium. Ha.

Unfortunately, there will be a 2.5 days outfield exercise in week 2 and of course, every NS man favorite nightmare. The IPPT. Ha.

I think they are trying to reward those who have been keeping themselves fit all this while because those people who clear their IPPT on Thursday will not need to book in to camp on Saturday and at the same time can end their ICT one day earlier!

Darn! If only I knew... I would have stayed clear of those late night chicken chop and cheese baked rice at Xing Wang! Ha. Ed and me are almost certain that we will be joining the extra-training club. :P

Looking on the bright side, I think it's still quite okay; I think Uncle Siu can still make it back alive after the 10 days ICT. Ha.

Moving on, a few days back, someone asked me whether I believed in destiny. If that person has asked me the question a few years back, I would have readily said yes. I would have told her that, "Yup, I think I was born to lead the greatest loser club of all time, Losers.com to greater heights." Ha. (See Losers Era - siukai 3:16)

Ask me that question now and I will tell you, "No. I don't believe in destiny. I don't believe that all of us already have a path that the Almighty has set up for us. I believe that we create our own destiny. Simply put, we are the master of our ships, we are our own god and we create our own destiny.

There's this particular quote which I would like to share with you guys:

"Each day, life will send you little windows of opportunity. Your destiny will ultimately be defined by how you respond to these windows of opportunity. Shrink from them and your life will be small, feel the fear and run to them anyway, and you life will be big. Life's just too short to play little."

I believe that where we are now is based on the decisions we have made in the past and where we are heading will depend on the decisions we make in the future.

Like if you don't stop reading siukai's crap now and get your ass off the chair, you may not be in time to complete that last minute assignment. Ha. It is not your destiny that you will not finish the assignment on time, it is because of your choice to continue reading.

That's a wise decision of course. siukai's crap comes first. Assignments can wait. Ha.

The other time, I was talking about this method of taking one small step at a time in order to fulfill big goals. I mentioned that I would elaborate on that in another post and well, since I've got some spare time now, let me just give a mini siukai lecture. Ha.

This book which I read, "One Small Step Can Change Your Life - The Kaizen Way" mentioned that a long time ago when we were still cavemen, our minds were built in a simple way. Since we were not really at the top of our foodchain in those days, (There were the T-Rex and other dinosaurs that could devour us effortlessly, our mind was built for one thing only - and that was to survive.

Our mind was very sensitive to danger, that was why when we explored unfamiliar territories, our mind will warn us not to proceed further for the fact that there could be one hungry T-Rex just round the corner. Wandering from our comfort zone would trigger off a warning from our brain. That was how we made sure we survived longer than the dinosaurs.

A few million years later, things of course have changed dramatically. We are now at the top of our food chain and we won't hesitate to slay innocent sharks so that we can boil their fins to show off at wedding dinners (That is a topic for another day.) However, our danger warning part of our brain has not changed much over the years.

That is why when we want to try something unfamiliar or something that looks intimidating like public speaking, our warning system kicks in and gives us all those anxiety signs like profuse sweating, cold palms, rising temperature etc. Of course, no T-Rex is waiting to eat us alive but our brain do not know, it has been like this since millions of years ago. It just wants to warn us.

That is why most of us put off doing big tasks like maybe file our taxes, clearing the almost full cabinet of documents or even less intimidating one like going for a jog. The moment we think of such "big" tasks, our warning system kick in and it will try its best to prevent us from taking the "risk."

The brain thinks that it is helping us to survive but of course we know that filing our taxes or clearing our cabinet won't kill us unless you have a mountain of documents, then you run the risk of being buried alive.

So, based on the book, there is actually a way to avoid triggering the natural "defence" of the brain - that is to take one small step at a time. Because when the task seems small enough, the brain will not sense any "danger" and it will allow you to do it.

Let's take one example of going jogging, an activity that most people dread or put off even though they know that it is actually good for them. When you think about jogging what is the first thing you will think of?

You might imagine running under the hot sun, sweat trickling down from your face to your neck. Breathless, muscle cramps and aches all over your body. Wow, that seems like a torture! Ha.

So guess what your brain tries to do? It tries to prevent you from going jogging of course! But all is not lost! Help is at hand! Ha.

The Kaizen method is simple, you just take one small step at a time and repeat it until you feel comfortable to proceed to the next. So let's return to our jogging example. Let's say our first step is to wake up at 8.00am in the morning for a jog, but you normally wake up at 11am. You lazy pig! Ha.

So our first step can be to wake up five minutes earlier every day. That's not too hard isn't it? No objection from the brain.

Day one 10.55am. Day two 10.55am. Day three 10.50am. Day four 10.50am. You keep on doing this until you feel ready to move on to the next stage. Of course maybe instead of 5 minutes you can shave off 15 or 30 minutes at one time, as long as it is still within your comfort zone.

So, what happens next? Soon, you will find that you have no problem waking up at 8am every morning! Just take my case as an example, I used to sleep until like the late morning every day but for the past 1 month, I have been able to wake up at 8.30am almost every day, except on Sundays when I reward myself with an hour of additional sleep. :)

Now that you can wake up at 8am, what's the next step? Put on your jogging shoes! Putting on the jogging shoes is not that hard right? It's another small step. Then after that maybe you can just go for a 1 minute jog.

1 minute? siukai, are you kidding me? Ha. Nope, I'm not. Compare 1 minute to a 20 minutes jog, which one looks more appealing? If one minute still seems too long for you, try 30 seconds.

The science behind this method is that whenever you do something new, your brain starts to create new neurological paths. When you keep repeating the action/activity more paths are created and eventually they become very strong. Now you know why it is difficult to kick a bad habit?

So when you start to jog for 30 seconds for a few consecutive days, you do not raise any alarms in the brain defence system, therefore new paths are created. By the time these paths become stronger, 30 seconds will no longer be any kick to you. That's when you will feel comfortable enough to proceed to 45 seconds, a minute or longer. Jogging for 30 seconds become part of your comfort zone.

It may be a slow method but it will work. Taking 6 months to conditioned yourself to like to jog for 30 minutes everyday is definitely better than forcing yourself to jog for 2 consecutive weeks before succumbing to the old habit. Remember that a journey of a thousand miles always begin with a single step. It is a small step but it still has to be taken before there is a next.

Anyone interested to know more can pick up the book "One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way" by Robert Maurer at the nearest library or bookstore. Ha. Like book review like that.

I was doing this quiz I found on someone else's blog and the result is quite accurate, at least for my case. I seldom do or recommend quizzes here but since this particular one is rather short (9 questions), maybe you should give it a try too. :)

Here are my selected results:

Your view on yourself:

You are down-to-earth and people like you because you are so straightforward. You are an efficient problem solver because you will listen to both sides of an argument before making a decision that usually appeals to both parties.

siukai comments: Yup, I think this is quite true for me since I always believe there are two sides to a story.

The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:

You like serious, smart and determined people. You don't judge a book by its cover, so good-looking people aren't necessarily your style. This makes you an attractive person in many people's eyes.

siukai comments: Ha. This one is rather true too. I like independent and smart people, just like my patapon dar dar. :)

Your readiness to commit to a relationship:

You prefer to get to know a person very well before deciding whether you will commit to the relationship.

siukai comments: This one is a no-brainer. I have to make sure that my dar dar was neither a Liverpool nor Chelsea fan. My dar dar don't watch soccer. Ha.

The seriousness of your love:

Your have very sensible tactics when approaching the opposite sex. In many ways people find your straightforwardness attractive, so you will find yourself with plenty of dates.

siukai comments: This one though I'm not too sure because before dar dar the number of dates I had... well is too embarrassing to be printed here. Ha.

Who is your true self:

You are mature, reasonable, honest and give good advice. People ask for your comments on all sorts of different issues. Sometimes you might find yourself in a dilemma when trapped with a problem, which your heart rather than your head needs to solve.

siukai comments: siukai is a born problem solver. Need I say more? Ha.

Just an update on my exam results which was revealed last week. I think I did still okay lah though there were two modules that did not meet my expectations. I thought I could at least get an A-. Ha.

But it was a fair result because I only started to work hard towards the end. Gys's sudden departure was difficult to handle and that period was really a tough one. But I've told myself to stop making excuses for myself because you reap what you sow. You can't possibly expect to grow roses by planting soya bean seeds. Unless they are genetically engineered of course. Ha.

That one module I got C, I kinda expected it cos I have to admit I did not put in enough effort. I swear that it will be the last C I will ever get in my remaining 2 years of study. (Notice that I never say I will not get C+ or D? Ha. )

I have not always been good with maths or numbers and so that's why I have decided to set a challenge to myself. Next sem, I will be taking 3 modules that involves maths and I'm going to score 3 As. Yup, it might be a tall order but I just want to prove to anyone who is reading this now that the mind can achieve whatever you set it to do.

I believe nothing is impossible, it's either because you did not try hard enough or you run out of time.

Winners make sacrifices, losers make excuses.

One of my new found friend has been asking me for tips on how to maintain a relationship, seeing how siukai and his patapon dar dar is almost into their 35 months, reaching 36 in July. :) Of course it takes two hands to clap but the role the guy has to undertake is crucial nonetheless.

So, do look out for siukai's upcoming book, "Women are from Bukit Panjang. Men are from Queenstown." Ha.

Here's a little sneak peek:

Girls like surprises. Who wouldn't? Actually guys like surprises too. So, give your partner a surprise. If you are a guy, buy your gf a bouquet of flower and treat her to dinner. If you are a girl, cooking him a sumptuous dinner and topping it up with the latest psp game can do wonders too.

And when they ask, "How come you give me present today? What's the occasion?"

You reply, "Give present to laopo/laogong/darling/honey need reason meh?"

I tell you, that smile on her/his face would be the widest you have ever seen. Ha.

I have been typing this for almost two hours now. Ha. Yah, I'm full of crap. :)

Yesterday, I thought about my previous post on Kingston. Initially, I wanted to post a heavily censored M16 version taking into account those people who do not know siukai well and who happened to read the entry might think that siukai is actually a nasty guy trying to badmouth someone.

Well, I thought about it for a while and realised that there will always be two camps to a story, like how there will be people who think that terrorism is a good thing while the rest of the world opposes it. Of course, I'm not saying I'm comparable to a terrorist lah.

I was searching for this quote which I read a long time back but wasn't able to find it, so I came up with my own version but with similar meaning.

When we were young, we were always conscious of how people think of us, we put on our best makeup, dress up so that we will look our best when we walk on the streets. When we were adults, we try our best to climb the corporate ladder, to gain success and money because we were afraid how people would judged us if we were not successful. And finally when we are old and frail, we finally realised that all these while, no one has been judging us because most people are too busy minding their own business.

At the end of the day, the opinions of others do not count because as long as you know you are doing the right things, you have spoken the truth and your conscience is clear.

It does not matter if everybody else think that siukai is the nastiest man alive because as long as my patapon dar dar, my family, friends and fans know that in fact siukai is the nicest man ever, that is good enough for me.

Therefore I stand by my judgement.

Corsair is still better than Kingston. Ha :P

So siukai, how does it feels like to be 26?

2008-06-04T23:55:00.000+08:00

Hi, I'm back.

It has been a long week. I'm battered, my legs are like dao hui(soya bean curd) after 5 consecutive days of standing at the world book fair trying my best to promote some educational products. Hey boss, if you are reading this, I really tried my best liao lei. Really. Ha.

It sure doesn't help when you have an extra weight in the form of a tummy who as I mentioned in my previous post seems to have a life on its own despite me trying to shhh... get rid of it. And of course, my age has been dutifully running along side me and soon I will reach the grand number of 26.

When age catches up with you, let's just say that your body just ain't the same anymore. Yup, previously you needed one bowl of rice to fill that stomach, then 2 and now it just keeps getting hungry, like a baby. Ha.

Jokes aside, my once muscular legs which was at one time estimated to be worth 1 million dollars at the Commonwealth league, (one side mind you, so that's 2 million for a pair) is now so weak that even the garang kuni man will have to think thrice if i were to trade them for some old newspapers.

5 consecutive days of standing for up to 10 hours a day is really taking a toll on Uncle Siu's poor legs. Ha. :)

So much for the intro, now let me tell you about what happened during my five days at the bookfair.

I met some nice people :) and one rather interesting guy. No, I did not meet Xavier again (see previous post) or his minions, Cyclopes or Wolverine. Ha. Rather, it was this guy who seemed to have something against me which I will explain shortly.

This guy, let's just call him Kingston. Of course you guys know that siukai is a nice person and he never reveals actual names in his blog posts. So let me just reiterate that all the names in this entry are fictional unless otherwise stated. :)

There's another girl who plays an important role in this story and let's call her Chelsea. And of course you have yours truly, siukai who is obviously the protagonist of the story. Ha.

So, it all begun on a sunny Saturday afternoon at the world book fair at suntec city convention hall. Oh yah, Chelsea and Kingston are both my colleagues at the world book fair, we are part-timers. So, it happened that Chelsea and me were in the morning shift and after some "Hi, I'm Kaichong and Hi, I'm Chelsea, we begun our search for our first customer.

Soon after, Kingston who was in the afternoon shift came along and he went around the booth introducing himself. Quite a friendly guy, I thought to myself.

When it was my turn, Kingston asked me whether I had any English name. You can call me KC for short, I told him nicely. "Oh KC", he replied, smiling. "How old are you?" he asked. "I'm twenty six this year." I replied. "Oh 26, he smirked and nodded his head. (For the record, Kingston is 23)

I wanted to ask him why he had that look on his face but then decided not to. I was not there to chat but rather to help my boss make some sales for his education products. (You hear that boss?!) Ha. :p

Anyway, after a while Kingston left me alone and he proceeded to talk to Chelsea. For the next few hours, Kingston was chatting with Chelsea and did not give a hoot about the customers who walked past. That of course made him a bad salesperson since he did not attempt to get any customers but unbelievably, he did made one deal while poor siukai, the hero got none even though he was like working his ass off.

That brings me to the next point: Life is not fair. Don't worry, I know that like eons ago but I just wanted to warn the readers who still do not know this important fact of life; Life is never fair except in the movies where the underdog wins. Most of the time, the underdog will always remain where he is. Under and a dog. Ha.

So, the sooner you get over this fact, the faster you can move on in life. Repeat after me, Life is not fair and an underdog will always be an underdog. He can never become an abovedog and God forbids, an abovecat. Ha. Right, that's a bit lame.

Okay, so where was I? Oh yah, Kingston talking to Chelsea. Chelsea on the other hand, I think she wanted to be a decent saleswoman so she was trying to get some sales while Kingston was not chatting with her. Occasionally, she would come over and we would talk A BIT. Not a lot ah boss, my eyes are constantly scanning for customers even when I'm chatting. :)

Why am I telling you so much crap? It's all part of the story, be patient! The best part is yet to come.

Anyway, for my dear friends who are smart and experienced, you may already sense what I'm getting at. Kingston seemed to be interested in Chelsea and I can almost confirm on that suspicion when I kept seeing him look at my direction while Chelsea was talking to me.

If looks could kill, I would already be dead.

So, let me summarise up till this point, for those who are lost. Kingston likes Chelsea. Kingston sees siukai talking to Cheslea. Kingston thinks siukai is a threat. So, Kingston decided to deal with this "threat"

siukai of course is not a threat because we all know that siukai has his patapon dar dar and they are happily "married" for almost three years now. But Kingston do not know it, at least not yet.

Just to add, siukai CAN be a threat if he wanted to but not in this case because siukai LOVES his patapon dar and no other girls interest him. :D Hear that dar dar?! Don't be jealous k! :P

So, what the heck did Kingston try to do to "intimidate" this threat into backing off? Firstly, when siukai was talking to Cheslea while at the same time on the lookout for customers, Kingston circled us, like a lion stalking his prey in a National Geographic special. His eyes were constantly observing us, ready to pounce should we make any sudden move.

I think he was like sizing me up and at the same time trying to warn me that I had put one foot too many into his territory and he wanted me to back off immediately.

Wah siukai, you are a really good mind reader lei, just one look and you can know what he is thinking already ah? Yah, don't you know, I learnt my trade from Xavier and didn't you hear that the eyes are the window to your soul? Ha.

I chose to ignore Kingston of course. But I did not really enjoy the constant stares he was giving me.

Then while I was alone, he walked over to me and asked me, "Hey KC, so how does it feels like to be 26?"

When I heard that question, I was like shocked because hey, no one has ever asked me such a question before! As we all know, age is a sensitive topic, especially to ladies but hey, no one said that age is not taboo to guys! Ha.

Actually, it was not the question but rather the tone of his voice when he said it. I'm certain the hidden meaning in his question was, "Hey old man, you are over the hill already, leave the young girls to me. So back off!"

I was rather offended by that question.

But that's not all, a while later, he returned and guess what he said next?

He came over and he asked, "Hey KC, don't you feel OLD?!"

I was like what the -?! If this was the old (pun not intended) siukai he was talking to, I'm sure he would immediately pounce on Kingston and give him the best stonecold stunner he could muster. But this is the new siukai, the siukai who has mellowed and attained enlightenment. The same siukai who believes that we should make love, not war. Ha.

At this point of time, I was darn pissed off with him but I calmly replied, "Why do you keep asking me that?" making sure to add a tone of annoyance in my voice.

"Well, because everyone else is like 19 or 20 and you are like well, 26."

Wow. If Xavier was there, he would immediately stop listening to my mind cos the explicit language might be too much for him to take. Ha.

I smiled and walked away.

Not wanting to get embroiled in a meaningless territorial battle, I backed off. For the record, dar dar who saw Kingston on Sunday remarked that I would kick his ass, hands down if I were really to have a faceoff with him. Just look at the size of my tummy. Ha.

However, i guess I did not back off far enough because he seemed to want to drive the final nail in my coffin. He came back to me after a while, looked at me and mumbled, "Wow, 26", shaking his head in mock pity. (Maybe it's real, I'm not sure. Ha.)

Ouch. That was really like too much for me to take. If those words were arrows, they would have struck through my chest, deep into my heart and exited through my back. I ran to the toilet and cried my eyes dry. Ha.

No lah, I just took it like a man. No point wasting my breath with this kind of immature people.

He did not attack me after that and when he knew that I was already "married" to patapon dar dar I thought I detected a breath of relief from him. Ha. :P

Nothing else happened that evening and for the next few days, Kingston continued his chasing game and having realised that siukai was no longer a threat, he did not bother me much.

Some of you reading this now might think that I'm bias and in fact it is me who has something against Kingston. Well, I tell u I've seen my fair share of people and Kingston is definitely one master player, although Kok might have something to add to that. Ha.

The tactics he employs to chase Chelsea is so old school. We guys call it Cocky Humor. You first start by teasing the girl of interest so that you get her attention. So instead of praising her you say things like, "Oh, you look so ah-lian or oh, you are such a bad salesperson. You get the point? More details in siukai's upcoming book on The Black Art of Chasing Girls. Ha.

Cocky humor works based on the fact that girls are naturally attracted to "bad" guys; guys who can make their heart pound faster. I mean who will make a more lasting impression? A nice guy who talks to you about boring and politically correct stuff OR someone who keeps insulting you and teasing you?

Now you know why nice guys never wins?

Anyway, I guess it's okay to use Cocky Humor once in a while but not to the extent that you actually offend a girl. That's what Kingston did as he said something nasty to Chelsea which made her so upset that she cried.

That's plain stupid really. Yup, he should count himself lucky that the new no-temper siukai was in the house and not the old (once again no pun intended) one.

The amazing thing? Chelsea apparently forgave him after a while because he bought her a good luck charm and attached a "I'm Sorry" Note. (Actually, Kingston bought the good luck charm before the incident - another old school tactic.)

And you know what Chelsea said to me? She said, "I didn't know that he's such a nice guy."

I was really speechless, loss for words, cat got my tongue, stunned. Nice guy? Then what would that make me? A saint? Ha.

You call someone who says offending things to a lady to the extent of sexual harassment a nice guy? Wow. The world has really changed.

But I guess girls are strange beings. Like when my patapon dar dar told me she thought I was the handsome-est creature she set her eyes on when we first met. I immediately advised her to get her eyes checked at the nearest clinic.

Just like in sales where some customers are easily closed by the salesperson persuasive sales talk, some girls are more prone to sweet-talk and actions. Now you know why most nice girls go for the bad dudes.

But of course siukai, who are you to judge someone when you barely know him? Just because he said rude things and offended you on the first day, you condemned him to hell? Maybe he is actually a volunteer at the old folks home?

I hope not because I really don't know what the heck would happen when he goes around and start asking everybody there, "Hey, don't you feel OLD?" Ha.

Gosh, siukai is such a nasty man. :p

Siu Kai's Tummy, Xavier and other stories

2008-05-29T12:13:00.002+08:00

Hi. I'm back. My apologies for the lack of posting; my dar dar came back from her holiday and I was busy making up for 10 days of lost time! Ha.

Yup, 10 days of not seeing dar dar, it's like not bathing for 10 days. Oh, wait a second, that didn't seemed such an appropriate comparison. Ha. Let's give it another try. 10 days of not seeing dar dar is like... how about it's like having no heart for 10 days.

Since I gave my heart to dar dar and she took it to Taiwan with her, so in her absence I had no heart. Ha.

Wow siukai, that is unbelievably crappy and kinda gross too. Ha.

Anyway, today's posting will be somewhat random because I don't really have a main topic in mind, I will just blog whatever that comes to my mind. And also, this might well be my last post for a while because I'll be starting my part-time job on Friday lasting a period of 10 days.

After that, I will be heading for my reservist. So, don't miss me when I'm gone. I'll try my best to update too so you guys who are bored (read no life) can be entertained by siukai's crap. Ha.

Talking about reservist, it's my first in 4 years! Yup. Actually I really dread anything that has to do with the men in green. Holding arms and drills have never been part of my forte. Make love not wars. Ha.

That is of course not meant to be taken seriously because if a need arises, you can bet your ass that I'm be defending my country, my loves ones and my fellow people! (That was just meant to make me sound more patriotic so people won't think I'm a selfish slob and coward. Ha.)

But seriously, if we really need to go to war, I guess we must do our part. A man has got to do what a man's got to do.

Eat less that is. Ha. That is strictly for my case. You can throw in exercise more also. :) I was trying out my army pants in anticipation of the reservist in 2 weeks time. (Anticipation seems too positive, change it to in response. Ha) and I was kinda shocked when I had to stop breathing for a full 15 seconds before I could button the pants together.

Actually, that's a bit exaggerating. I was not shocked. Ha. I kinda expected it since I had been gorging myself silly for the past few weeks. But still, it was not a pretty truth to take.

Looking at the bulge from my tummy, I was tempted to ask it where the hell it came from. I resisted asking it because I was sure 1) My mum would think I was crazy talking to my tummy. 2) I'm sure my tummy would reply(if he could) that it was all my fault. You greedy man. Ha.

What could I do? I had to secretly get rid of it. (I made sure my tummy was not looking at this when I typed. Ha.)

The master plan is rather straightforward. I will continue to feed my tummy normally so that it won't raise alarm bells. Then I will go jogging while slowly and gently stroking it, like how a mum will stroke his baby's back to facilitate the baby to burp. This is to reassure my tummy that everything is okay.

Then when it starts to complain that it feels hot due to the burning of fats, I will assure him that it's because of the weather. Darn the hot weather. Nothing to worry about.

Slowly but steadily, my tummy will become smaller and weaker until one fine day, it will simply cease to exist. Ha. He wouldn't even knew what hit him. I'm such an evil genius ain't I? Ha.

Okay, got to stop this topic now. I think he's waking up. Ha.

Moving on, I had a close encounter with the third kind while I was at the library a few days back. There I was sitting on this black couch minding my own business when suddenly he came along.

This strange guy with a laptop slung over his right shoulder and holding a thick comic book in another. I say he's strange not because he looks like ET or something since I thought you might relate "third kind" with aliens or supernatural stuffs. Ha.

He is strange because of his not normal behaviour.

Ha. If you are sharp enough, you will realise that the statement obvious is flawed. It's like saying A is stupid because he is not smart. Ha. Get it?

Anyway, when this guy strolled past me, he happened to catch my attention. So my eyes followed him to see what he was up to.

The strange guy walked a few steps towards the tables then glanced around, looking for an empty seat. To his disappointment, he did not find any. But then he did something rather amazing. He walked towards this lady at the last table and proceeded to ask her whether she could give up her seat so that he could use his laptop.

I was shocked. He simply just went up and requested the lady to move away. Maybe he thought he was professor Xavier of the XMen who could control minds. The lady did not budge of course. She kindly pointed out that she was doing some work and could not give up her seat.

Seeing Xavier's disappointed look, another lady who was sitting on the floor using her laptop kindly invited him to join her since there was an additional power plug.

To which Xavier replied, "May the force be with you."

Oh wait, that's from the Star Wars series. What the hell does Xavier say anyway? "I can read your mind?" Duh! Ha.

Xavier's reply was, "No thanks. There's a lot of germs on the floor." Gosh. There are germs everywhere prof! Maybe he was afraid that additional contact with germs would hasten his mutation. Ha.

So, Xavier started to pace up and down looking for a seat but found nothing after like a few minutes. Then he went over to the other side to try his luck. I thought to myself, "What a strange man!" and continued to listen to my audio book on my mp3 player.

There was this auntie beside me who was reading a book too. The couch was a two seater. This is a very important fact as I will explain next.

I was engrossed in my audiobook, (I was listening to Duma Key by Stephen King, my favorite author) when suddenly a shadow hung over me. I looked up, it was Xavier. No rather it was Xavier's butt. He had his back to me. And you know what he did?

No, he did not tell me that he could read my mind. Ha. He did not even say a word but just sat down between the auntie and me, on a two seater couch!

I was like, what the?! The auntie was rather annoyed because Xavier's butt bumped into her leg while he sat down and proceeded to make himself comfortable. Despite the auntie's and my annoyance, Xavier felt nothing wrong and started to read his comic.

I was really in disbelief. Could he really read my mind? Ha. I guess not because if he could, he would have asked me about some of the profanities I directed at him. Ha.

I looked around, wanting to confirm that the couch was indeed a two seater and I did not wrongly accuse this man. Yup, it was a two seater because the couch was in fact two separate ones joined together. So, what the heck was this guy doing sitting in between of us?!

Anyway, since I was a magnanimous man and I suspect the auntie was not too picky herself, we decided to not make a big deal of it and let Xavier stay. Partly because I was afraid that he was indeed the REAL Xavier and he would call upon Cyclopes to shoot laser at me. Ha.

About an hour later, Xavier stood up and walked away to see whether the tables were now available. Immediately, the auntie and I kicked into action. The aunties shifted herself slightly to her left so that she occupied more of her seat while I crossed my leg to my right. Our combined efforts effectively blocked out any empty space in the middle. I started to wonder whether the auntie could read my mind. Ha.

Satisfied with our ingenuity, I continued with my audiobook. But guess what happened next?

Xavier came back a few minutes later and he approached our couch! I was thinking to myself, if he really comes here and asked to sit down, I will tell him, "Sorry prof. Can't you see that this couch is clearly meant for 2 person only? If you can read my mind, read it now and you will know what I'm telling ya. It's two words" Ha. :p

His distance from the couch shortened and his pace started to gather. Soon, we were face to face again. I braced myself.

"Excuse me, do you mind?" Xavier asked POLITELY.

This is it. I thought to myself.

I spoke.

"Sorry. You. This. Couch."

"Huh? Do you mind?" Xavier repeated glancing at the "middle space" of the couch.

"You. Couch."

"Err.. yah, I want to sit in this couch." Xavier smiled.

What could I do? I conceded and uncrossed my legs.

"Thank you." Xavier said.

I tell you, I'm sure he controlled my mind during our brief interaction. How else can you explain why I went down without a fight? Ha.

No lah, I did not talk to him but he really did ask me whether I mind. I stared at him but could not bring myself to say those nasty words. I was after all, a good guy. So I just reluctantly let him sit loh.

Anyway, the auntie left after a while and Xavier shifted to her seat. So, all was well. Until Cyclopes came along and demanded that everybody else gave up their seats to Xavier. Oops. I think that happened when I fell asleep. Ha.

Exam results will be released tomorrow. A bit nervous. Not too sure how I will do this sem. Will I aced it like back in the poly days? (Unlikely) or worse will I get relegated?! Ha. Most probably I think it will be another mid-table effort. The fight for the champions league spot continues. Ha.

Till then people, see you guys again! :)

Ha. I just saw this quote from our dear Kok's MSN. He's always full of crappy quotes. But I find them rather interesting. So this time round we have, "Why do human fall asleep, only to get up after that? Simple. Get your ass up after every fall in life!!" Ha. Nice. :)

Kings of Mahjong

2008-05-25T11:10:00.004+08:00

Went to Alan's house yesterday to have a mahjong session with the gang. I think it was only the 2nd time I played with them. My Mahjong virginity was lost a couple of years back when Alan and I was introduced to this amazing/wonderful game during the CNY period.

I was not really into Mahjong after that first time cos the game seemed so complicated. So many rules to remember and the various confusing combinations to score points made the game more difficult to pick up.

It was only recently that I started to pick up Mahjong again, after Gys introduced me to this online multi player mahjong game, viwawa, which incidentally was introduced to him by Alan.

Dar dar loves to play viwawa too that's why after a few games of online mahjong with her, I got hooked. Ha.

Besides "training" online, I also started playing the hand phone version on my Nokia Mobile. Heck, I did not even know such an incredible game existed in my hand phone all along! I had to make up for lost time as I dutifully play whenever I had free time on the train, while waiting for lectures or even when having big conferences in the loo. Ha.

So, armed with my new found confidence after about 2 months of intensive training, I took up the challenge when Alan suggested heading over to his house for a game of Mahjong. I think they were all happy that they had found a new "victim" to "slaughter" Ha.

I was determined to prove them wrong.

However, let's just say that Mahjong online or the mobile version is way different from the real life one. Ha. Had no idea how to stack up the tiles and it was only after some rather patient guidance from the guys that I slowly picked it up. :)

Incredibly, the first real "noob" mistake of the game did not come from me, rather the honor fell to our one and only Figo. Ha.

For non-believers of Mahjong, there is this rule in the game which specifys that whoever fasely declares a win (Zha Hu) will have to pay for the whole game. The guys were kind enough to grant me a one time "Get out of Jail" card should I declare a false win since I was afterall a Noob.

Figo however, let's just call him the Zha Hu King, was way too experienced for that. Ha. He won the first game but it was only after some sweat inducing moments.

"Hu!" Figo declared triumphantly. But when Kok asked him, "Are you sure or not? You got any Tai?" (Tai is the Mahjong way of keeping score. To win you need at least one tai.)

Instantly, Figo tried to covered his tiles rather desperately with his hands and succeeded partly. Ha. Peeking at his tiles, he heaved a sign of relief after what seemed like mahjong eternity.

"Heng ah, got one tai." he exclaimed.

Ha. It was then that Alan and Kok told me that it was normal that Figo will Zha Hu and we just have to wait for that one chance to win all his money. Ha.

My first noob mistake came after a few games when I forgot to discard one tile after a "Pung" (In Mahjong, Pung is when you have 3 identical tiles") but instead drew another tile. I ended up with 14 tiles and therefore could not win the game anymore. Ha.

This mistake came about because in online mahjong, once I "Pung" I will AUTOMATICALLY be directed to discard one tile whereas in real-life mahjong, I was on my own! Ha.

Overall, I think I won about 3 games, including one Big one with 4 Tais. Figo was the ultimate winner despite his infamous Zha Hu reputation. Incredibly, he had a near perfect game that whole afternoon with no Zha Hu to his name. Ha.

The guys were telling me stories of how Gys used to play Mahjong with them and it made me feel regretful. Regretful that I never had a chance to play mahjong with Gys. Haiz.

Apparently, Gys was darn good at Mahjong and he will normally win everybody's money. Kok said that there was one time that Figo threw his wallet at Gys in frustration because he really lost badly.

"Take lah! Take everything in my wallet!" Figo screamed.

And you know what was the best part? There was not enough money in the wallet to cover his losses! Ha.

Well, things will never be the same again now that Gys has left us... It's almost 4 months now... Sometimes, I think that maybe deep down inside there's still a part of me that has not fully accepted that he is gone forever. When I think of him, it seemed so surreal.

I think I've blocked parts of my emotions because if I don't, the flood gates will open. I guess this is for the best.

No doubt that time will heal the pain and there's little purpose in lamenting what could have been. Just have to appreciate the gang I still have more and remember Gys in my heart.

Next time man, when our journey on this place ends we'll seek you out and we'll have endless sessions of Mahjong. Ha. Don't worry about losing though, there's always Figo the Zha Hu King. :)

Missing you.

Dar dar and other stories

2008-05-23T11:50:00.002+08:00

Dar dar will be coming back in 3 days time! Yeah! Really miss my dar dar. :) Though she likes to nag at times, I'm starting to find my new-found peace a bit too much for my liking. Ha.

siu kai ah siu kai, talk crap when dar dar is not around ah, wait till she comes back then u noe. Ha.

Kok was fooling around on msn a couple of nights back and he commented that I was a "free" man this week and asked me how I was going to "enjoy" the sudden freedom.

My reply was simple.

"I'm 100% committed."

That earned me a "wah power" comment from Kok and a virtual pat on my back. Ha. Yah, I'm not getting any younger and dar dar meets my requirements. She's smart, independent, can cook. Good enough for me. :)

Ha. Yah, siukai is a simple man.

I always feel that ppl who can do maths are smart. How they can come up with instant solutions just by glancing at the problems really fascinates me. Dar dar told me it comes with hours and hours of practice. I beg to differ. I'm sure it must be some kind of sixth sense or something.

Maths sense maybe. Dar dar is particularly sensitive to numbers. She can smell a prime number miles away from her. Whereas I wouldn't even know if a complex number sneaked up from behind me and attacked!

Dar dar's maths standard is God-like compared to mine. Ha. However, I have not always been that poor in Maths; I aced it when I was in primary school. Then something happened during sec school.

And I never looked back when I was introduced to A-Maths. Additional Maths. I really have no idea why we needed Additional Maths. Can't we have subtractional Maths. Ha. Less maths? Get it? Ha.

Just for the record though, I aced my E-Maths, passed my A-Maths and got a distinction for my poly maths. Ha. So it seems that my maths actually not that bad what. Well... back then maybe not that bad but now... bad would be an understatement. Ha.

Dar dar is independent too but she also leaves some problems for me to solve. Ha. You see, we guys are problem solvers so we like to solve problems. If a girl becomes too overly independent, the guy will feel that he has no problems to solve, then it will result in a problem. Ha.

Yah, seriously, girls CANNOT be too independent. Leave something for us guys. Like most girls are clueless when it comes to electrical appliances or DIY stuff like drilling holes etc. That's when the guy can come in and fix the light bulb or nail the picture to the wall or choose the latest HD TV.

That is the realm of the man, if the girls enter and worse dominate that realm, the guy will feel that he is no longer "important" because the girls can do EVERYTHING by themselves. Since our cavemen times, it has always been the men who went out to hunt and bring back food. So I guess it's built into our system. That's why most men are "head of the household." Though most of the times, it's just in name lah. Ha.

I'm not crapping you! I read that from a book! Ha. Yah, if a guy feels that he can no longer contribute to the girl, he will go to someone else's place to drink soup.

Third important point I like about dar dar is that she can cook. Not gourmet standard but at least she tries. Mind you, I'm not expecting dar dar to cook like a maid when we get married. In fact, I don't mind cooking myself. :) I love to cook.

It's just that if a girl learns to cook for a guy, it's shows her commitment, determination and that she don't mind getting oily and dirty so that she can feed her family. That is good enough for me even if it means I have to eat the same dish for everyday for the rest of my life. Ha.

Told you I was a simple man. :)

You see, sometimes it's the actions and thoughts that matters. Not really the end result. As long as you remain committed to your cause, one fine day, you will get the result you desire.

That's why I'm working hard for the past few weeks because I want to buy dar dar a nice present for our 3 years anniversary in July. :) Ha. 3 years lei, that's really quite a milestone for us, considering it's my first relationship. :)

Love you dar dar. Muacks!

Had an "impulse moment" on Wednesday and I decided to discover the Southern Ridges as NParks put it. From the NParks website, "The Southern Ridges comprise a 9-kilometre chain of green, open spaces spanning the rolling hills of Mount Faber Park, Telok Blangah Hill Park and Kent Ridge Park before ending at West Coast Park."

So, they recently completed the development and opened up the place to the public. The trails link Mount Faber to Telok Blangah Hill Park and Alexandra road.

I suddenly felt like going for a short trek after my interview at Boon Keng. So I boarded the train to Harbor Front. Armed with a 1.5 liters bottle mineral water which I bought from Vivo and an Curry O from Old Chang Kee I started my "adventure" in smart casual attire.

I must have looked a bit strange, in my G2000 long sleeves shirt and jeans. Nobody treks in a long sleeve shirt! Ha. I tried hard to ignore the stares I was getting. Ha.

The impromptu trek was still quite okay, not really THAT tiring. The terrain was relatively "friendly" except the stairs at the beginning that nearly took my life. Ha.

My best record so far is still the crazy long walk I had with Gys a few years back when we trekked from Commonwealth to Tampines that spanned 12 hours! Ha. It was inhumane.

Saw some interesting animals and there was this beautiful bird in particular that really took my breath away. (I'm not sure whether it was really the bird or due to the climbing of the stairs.) Alas! I had no camera with me! But wanting to share this beautiful sight, I decided to give my best artist impression of the bird.

It's really a beautiful bird!

Of course I forget to mention that I was not exactly the model student when it came to art. Ha.

I'm also currently trying out an experiment to determine the effects of mind power. I'm planning to use my mind power to get rid of the distracting looking tummy that has popped out without my authorization.

Of course I'm not going to just sit there and use my mind power solely. That might work but I fancy it would take maybe like one or two eternities. Ha. I'm going for regular jogging sessions and I visualise the fats burning in my tummy while jogging. The results seem favorable so far. Will update you guys of the progress. Ha.

I've got other stories to tell but it's almost afternoon now, got other stuffs to do. So I'll cya guys next time!

Remember, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." "You can do it!"

The Dream Team Alliance

2008-05-21T11:09:00.004+08:00

GOOD MORNING!

Went jogging yesterday evening. It was the same route that I used to jog with Gys on Saturday mornings. This is the second time I went back since he left us.

Well, it's not the same when you are jogging alone. I still remember the crap we used to talk about while jogging on Saturday mornings. We will talk about our dreams and how we are going to succeed in the future. And sometimes he will talk about the girls he is currently chasing, those usual crap. Ha.

There was once i think he slept at about 4am because he was chatting online with this girl. But he still came jogging with me at 8.30am. Though he was mostly walking lah cos he said that he was very sleepy. Ha.

But at least he came. That showed his commitment. Of course there was also one time he overslept and did not turn up at all. Ha. Then he messaged me in the late morning and apologised. I ignored him. He called me later that night and apologised again, thinking I was angry with him. Ha. I wasn't at all lah. :)

When Gys and me decided to work together on the game project, he told me that we were a team now. A Dream Team Alliance as he called it. The purpose of a Dream Team Alliance was to motivate one another in the team. He told me that if ever I were to feel down or dis motivated, he will shout at me, ask me to get my ass up and never give up.

Likewise, if he were ever feeling the same, I will have permission to kick his ass too. Ha.

Yes, sometimes in life you really need such an alliance. Because there will definitely be downs in life. Sometimes you just wake up feeling like shit for no apparent reason. For the girls, maybe it's the monthly thingy. For guys though, maybe your favorite soccer team just lost the league to the Red Devils. Ha.

But sometimes, you just wake up and feel lousy. Then u start asking yourself questions and feel sorry for yourself. It is at this point that your dream team alliance comes in and shouts at you to WAKE UP YOUR IDEA! and that YOU CAN DO IT! and NEVER GIVE UP! or HANG IN THERE MAN! Ha.

It's not a silly idea. It does work, really. When gys and me were working on the game project, we made it a point to schedule our daily meetings at 8am in the morning. I live quite near Gys so it was okay, but I still have to wake up at about 7am because I walked over to his house.

Gys would also wake up at 7am and then bring his parents for breakfast. There were times when I woke up and felt darn tired. But when I thought that Gys will also be waking up at this time, I "forced" myself to wake up too. Because I could not let him and myself down.

There was one time when I was really veri tired and I wanted to postpone the meeting to 9am. But Gys wouldn't let me. He told me, "Come on! So fast already want to slack liao ah! 8am means 8am!"

That message gave me a sudden burst of energy. Ha. And we started our meeting promptly at 8am that day.

Now that Gys is gone, I'm really missing my Dream Team Alliance. Nowadays I wake up at 8.30am because I want to make full use of the day. The earliest bird catches the worm right? But the earliest worm get eaten up by the earliest bird? Ha.

Gys feels that Sleep is a waste of time and it's all in the mind. I only agree with him partly on that. Sleep is NOT a waste of time because we need it to recharge ourselves. But too much sleep is a waste of time. Sleeping is actually a habit. Most of us really just need about 6 hours of sleep, not 8 as widely known.

Furthermore, it's the quality rather than the quantity of the sleep that is important.

I have started my new habit of waking up at 8.30am for about 2 weeks liao. So far so good but these few days, I'm starting to wake up at 8.45am instead. Starting to feel my will power decreasing! This is the time I need someone to shout at me and ask me to get my lazy bum off the bed!

Any takers to sign up as siukai's dream team alliance? Ha.

Gys and me really shared a lot in common, our way of thinking towards life and our strict standards towards achieving success and perfection. Yah, both of us are staunch perfectionist. Now it's only me left and sometimes it's quite difficult to keep the mood up when there's no one beside you to give you a push and shout motivating words into your ear.

The temptation is really there to just give up the dreams and follow the "stable" and conventional route to life. I mean it's really so easy right. Why bother to purse your dreams? You can't feed yourself on your dreams right? Especially in Singapore. Come on Siu Kai! Join the crowd! Run the race with us. Put on your jogging shoes. Ha.

I can't. A gecko died there. (see previous post)

I think Gys will come and find me in my dreams if I really just give up like tat. I can't let him down and most importantly i can't let the people who still (I hope) believe in me down.

When I think of dar dar, siukai Junior and our dreams together, I tell myself that I MUST SUCCEED! Oh wait a minute, that sentence might be a bit misleading. siukai JR does not exist yet. It's part of our 10 years plan. But no, he's still not physical. Ha. Don't think otherwise. :P

And dar dar has been so nice and patient with me. :) I CANNOT LET HER DOWN!

Here's an experiment you can try now. It will prove something veri interesting. Close your eyes for a moment and think of a color. Say Yellow. Concentrate on that color and then open your eyes. Scan the place you are at now and you will suddenly see that all things that are yellow seems to be more obvious to you.

Close your eyes again and think of another color. Then open your eyes and repeat. Did the objects of the color of your choice seem more prominent now? Amazing right?

This experiment actually proves that whatever the mind concentrates on, the things will become obvious. So we can use this effect to our advantage. If we concentrate on say business opportunities, our brain will become more sensitive if one comes along. Or we concentrate on how to make money, then suddenly all those opportunities will suddenly seem to pop up from nowhere.

Similarly, if we think of negative stuffs, our brain will concentrate on those too. That's why it's so important to think positive. One very interesting stuff I read about professional F1 drivers is that because they know about this function of the brain, whenever their cars skid off the track, they DO NOT look at the wall but rather concentrate on the track.

Because they know that if they concentrate on how to avoid hitting the wall by looking at the wall, they will HIT the wall. That's the power of the brain.

Ha. siu kai likes to talk a lot of crap right? Ha. Actually siu kai just wants to inspire people who read his blog and brighten up their day. Because I know how sometimes the stress of life gets to you. So I hope that when you are unhappy or feeling down, reading some siukai crap will cheer you up.

Yah, because sometimes when I feel down I also hope that someone can cheer me up too. :)

I'll close with another "heartless quotes" Yah. Kok always like to give me his nonsensical but most of them time meaningful quotes. Ha. How can something be nonsensical and meaningful at the same time? Can. At siukai world loh. Ha.

"If there's something tat you wanna do tat makes u happy, go ahead and do it." The next line I added myself. "Life is too short to be sad. Don't worry. Be happy. Make Babies:) Live life to the max!" Ha.

GOOD AFTERNOON! and HAVE A NICE REST OF THE DAY! :)

Night of the Gecko II

2008-05-20T11:30:00.001+08:00

I think my house has a serious case of Gecko Infestation. Something so horrible, so disgusting happened to me last night that I was having second thoughts whether I should even blog about it.

The terrible images, the flashbacks in my mind whenever I think of the incident still give me the creeps. Even as I am typing this, my fingers are trembling. Oh, maybe that's because my fan is at the maximum setting now. Ha. Curse the darn hot weather.

So, what the heck happened last night? NO, a gecko did not drop down from the ceiling into my soup while I was having dinner. YUCKS, that would really be one heck of an experience. And no, I did not find a gecko sharing my delicious bowl of mee siam. I don't think geckos like spicy stuff anyway. Ha.

Rather, the incident happened while I was in the bathroom, in my birthday suit and scrubbing my sports shoe. You want to ask me why I was in my birthday suit with my sports shoe? No, not because I enjoy scrubbing things while naked. Ha. Because I was about to take a shower and my sports shoes needed to be cleaned.

Aha! Siu kai, you must be scrubbing the sports shoe halfway when suddenly a gecko dropped down from the ceiling and onto... you know...

Ha. No way man. That would really freak me out. And maybe the gecko. Ha. Shall not go there, or else the MDA will have to slap a R21 rating on this blog entry. Ha.

Anyway, don't keep thinking that Geckos fall from the ceiling. Accordingly to what I learnt from Discovering Channel, they have rather "sucky" feet's that enable them to stick onto the walls rather securely. Thank GOD for that!

The only time I saw a gecko fall was when I was about to open the door grill and heard a tumbling sound. To my horror and disbelief, I saw one large gecko on the floor, desperately trying to get back up. I'm sure it was a drunk gecko because I swear I could smell alcohol. Oh, maybe it was my own breath. Ha. No lah, everybody knows that siukai can't and don't drink. :)

Kk, shall stop the suspense and get back to our main story. So, there I was happily err.. maybe not that happy lah. I don't really like to scrub dirty sports shoes. Ha. Okie, so I was scrubbing the shoes and I decided to soak them in soap water so as to remove the dirt quicker.

I filled up a shallow bucket with water then proceeded to add Dynamo washing powder, Dettol, Pantene Shampoo, Follow Me Conditioner and some Lux Beauty soap. Ha. You must be asking me why the heck did I add all those stuffs? Well, I figured anything that smells nice will help to clean my dirty and stinky shoes mah. Ha.

So, once I got a rather nice lather from my "secret" potion, I proceeded to dump my shoes into the bucket and let it absorb the cleaning agents for a few minutes. Then I took one shoe out and started scrubbing it.

Well, being the impatient guy I was, I scrubbed the first shoe for a good one minute before I went for the next one. I picked it up and was about to scrub the interior of the shoe when I saw the little baby gecko at the center of the insole. It was a bit pinkish and rather thin.

I was so stunned that I threw the shoe back into the bucket. The shoe made a splash in the water before sinking to the bottom of the bucket. Luckily I did not scream. That would be embarrassing!

It was a while before I regained my composure. And my first thought was, "Was that guy already dead before I started scrubbing? It seemed so because it looked a bit dried up."

I took a quick peek at the bucket. The baby gecko was floating. It was not moving. "Thank the Gecko Gods!" I thought. Then it started to twitch. WHAT THE HECK!!!

Have you seen a dying gecko swim? I assure you that it's not a pretty sight. Think those Japanese horror movies where the ghost moves awkwardly. It looked something like that.

Before I could react though, it stopped just as sudden as it had moved. I think the lethal combination of the Dettol, Pantene, Follow Me, Lux and Dynamo took their effects.

Gosh, I couldn't believed I actually took a life on Vesak Day! I said a silent prayer, hoping that the baby gecko will go to Gecko heaven and then flushed it down the hole. As for my sports shoes, another one or two scrub and I was done. No way I was going to continue scrubbing after what just happened.

You know what, I think I actually saw the baby gecko before. Yah, it was living under the basin, where my sports shoes were located. Now, I'm sad. :(

Yes, there's a whole generation of geckos living in my home. There's Daddy Gecko and a few mummy Geckos I think. Because I keep seeing Daddy Gecko with another mummy Gecko every few nights. They will normally come in through the window and Daddy Gecko will make some gecko sounds to indicate that he's home.

Then there's Grandpa Gecko who moves rather slowly and he's rather big-sized. I think it was him who felled from the door grill a couple of weeks back. Grandma Gecko I have not seen for a few days... Maybe she went to Gecko heaven too...

There's Boy Gecko who's rather daring because when I wake up to go to the toilet at night I will see him on the kitchen floor searching for food. There was one time when I was watching soccer and eating my usual potato chips when he actually dashed towards my packet of chips and tried to grab a bite.

Luckily I reacted quicker and managed to save my chips. But I still took pity on him and threw him one large chip. Surprisingly, he took a whiff and ignored it. It was then I realised that geckos don't like spicy stuffs. The chip was hot and spicy from Jack and Jills. Ha.

Finally, there's Uncle Gecko who I believe is a Man U fan like me. Most of the time, he will accompany me to watch late night soccer. And whenever man U scores, Uncle Gecko will make a strange sound; It sounds something like that, "Grooook" I think that's how Geckos say "Goal!" Ha.

You see, with such a close knit family of Gecko living in my house, I'm quite devastated that I actually took the life of one of their dearest. Accidentally of course. I hope Grandpa Gecko will start telling his grandson geckos to stop treating my sports shoes as a playground, not matter how tempting it is. Or else another accident is bound to happen.

And finally of course, please take everything you have just read with a pinch of salt. Not literally pls. Ha. The drowning really did took place but NO DAR, I DID NOT throw a potato chip to a gecko. :)

Let's get this party started!

2008-05-19T12:23:00.006+08:00

As i am typing this entry, dar dar is like 2000 miles away from me. Yah, she flew to Taiwan with her mum and friends 2 days ago for a well-deserved holiday.

So what does this mean?

Simple.

FREEDOM!!!!

Ha. Just kiddin lah, dar dar will kill me if I do anything funny. Her instructions before she left were quite clear and straightforward: 1) No fooling around. 2) No monkey business 3) No heaty food 4) Don't be clumsy.

Ha. Of course, I made up the first two. I'm not a monkey. Brrrrr. That was quite a cold one isn't it? Ha. Okie, hw about this, No monkey business for me because I'm afraid of being fined by the NEA for feeding the monkeys at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve.

Wow. I can't believed I actually typed that. It's like so god damn lame. Ha. Talking about the monkeys, I actually took this module last semester about the Natural Heritage of Singapore. Quite an interesting module to take. Well, just want to reiterate NEA's stance on not feeding the monkeys.

Don't FEED THEM because if we do, we are actually disturbing mother nature's delicate way of working and when the monkeys become dependent on us for food, all hell or in this case monkeys will break loose! Ha.

Enough about monkey though, so where was I? Or yah, dar dar's 10 commandments. Ha. No lah, not actually that much, dar dar just wanted me to be careful and take care of myself because I'm like kinda clumsy. Ha. I'm already missing her nagging though.

Talking about dar dar, she likes to give me nicknames. I have nicks such as "Chipmunk" (she said I look like one), "Dugong", "T-Rex" (she said my hands were like a T-Rex while I was trying to pick some food at dinner) and the latest ones are "Currypuff" and "Pancake" (Because dar dar said my hair look like currypuff and pancake.) Ha.

Naughty Dar. :)

Went to watch the latest Thai flick, "Chocolate" with dar dar on Friday night. The movie, from the director of Ong-Bak's is about this autistic girl who is darn good at Muay Thai. I won't reveal too much of the plot here. Oh wait, I don't think the movie has got much of a plot anyway! Ha. Yah, it's just fight fight and more fight.

But the fight scenes are really quite spectacular at times. So I guess it's still quite a good movie to catch. As to why the movie is called Chocolate, I shall not spoil that for you.

After watching the movie, I was suddenly inspired. The Muay Thai was like really so impressive and cool. So I went back, put on my gears and headed to the nearest Thai Express. Ha. Nothing beats having a hot sumptuous Tom-Yam soup meal after watching a Thai movie. Ha.

Dar dar said that I should go learn Muay Thai too or maybe Taekwondo. It will help to get rid of my tummy which seems to have taken a life on its own these few weeks. Ha. Talking about Taekwondo suddenly makes me yearn for Korean food. I think my tummy has taken over my brain. Ha.

As for the weekend without dar dar, I was actually working at a roadshow promoting membership cards as I mentioned in my earlier post. It was quite fun, met some nice fellow promoters. :) But it was tiring too. Age must have caught up with me because I swear that I could not move the moment I laid on the couch after a hot bath when I reached home.

I tried to move my legs but they did not seem to response to my commands. It was only when I thought of eating some potato chips that I suddenly found godly strength in my legs again. I think I almost ran to the nearest Cheers outlet to purchase a large packet of potato chip. More evidence that my tummy has taken control of my cerebrum. Ha.

At the roadshows, there were some not that pleasant times too like the hot sun and some rather rude customers; people who think that you are invisible or they are just too important to talk to you.

Come on lah! At least have to courtesy to smile and say no or politely wave me off. Don't pretend you didn't hear me mah. These people I will just smile back but curse them silently. I curse that they will regret their decisions and then come back to subscribe 10 membership cards from me. Ha. I'm such an evil genius.

Dar dar will be coming back next Monday. That means 7 more days to go. So what am I waiting for? Let's get this party started!!! Ha.

Winners Make Sacrifices, Losers Make Excuses

2008-05-15T20:52:00.004+08:00

I went for a briefing/training for my part-time job this afternoon. My main duty for this assignment will be to promote this membership card to potential members, more or less like a sales/recruiter job lah.

Anyway, I realised how much I have changed and learnt throughout the years. A few years back, I would never even in my wildest dream have thought that I will one day be taking on a sales position. You see, from young I was always the quiet and obedient boy sitting in a corner minding his own business. Ha.

I still remember the first time I actually went into sales; it was in 2004, the year when Gys, Kok and me decide to bravely and perhaps a bit foolishly invest money to purchase an automated doughnut machine and happily started to pursue our doughnuts empire dream at the pasar malams.

Before we could open for business though, we had to locate the Pasar Malam organiser in order to rent a stall at the Pasar Malam. I can still remember that I did not even dare to approach anyone. It was mainly Gys and Kok who did all the talking. Ha.

Yah, my skin then was extremely "thin" and I was not called "shy boy" for nothing. I had a reputation to maintain lei! Ha.

It was when we actually started selling the doughnuts that I began to open up. I had to because the sales figure was disastrous! I think we made our first sales of $2 after about an hour, far off our projected sales!

As the days went by, I began to enjoy myself more. We were actually singing crap and shouting crazy doughnuts slogan so as to attract the crowd to our stall. It was then that I realised that nobody actually give a damn about you, as in you make a fool out of yourself, people might laugh at you but after a while, they will leave. They will get on with their life and forget all about this group of crazy clowns. Ha.

Furthermore, if you are shy and you are afraid of this and that, you lose out. I think it was around that time that my skin started to thicken. :) Side track for a bit, I suddenly remember this particular episode where we sold a doughnut to an Eurasian.

He was quite a strange man as in he did not talk but just smiled at us and indicated that he wanted one stick of doughnuts. So we conjured up our masterpiece through this wonderful doughnut machine and handed it to him.

It was then that Gys decided to follow the man and see what was his reaction after eating the doughnut. (Because we did not have much confidence in our doughnuts). Ha. Gys followed the guy for a while and then he suddenly ran back to our stall, almost breathless. "He's coming back!!!" Gys exclaimed.

For that moment, we all thought that maybe our doughnuts really sucked so much that he was coming back to demand a refund. But guess what happened?

He actually came back, gave up a thumbs up, smiled and then left! Ha. That really made our day sia. Customer satisfaction to the max.

I think the doughnut venture though not successful really pushed me towards the path of entrepreneurship. After that I went on to sell muffins (a few years later without Gys and kok) while Gys actually went on to join 2 other partners to set up a company and eventually went solo to set up his own company.

Talking about Gys, there's really so much I wanted and could learn from him. Among us in the gang, I believe he's the only one who walked the walk. He wanted to pursue his dreams of making games. He told himself that he wanted to be his own boss and he really went for it.

He cut all the bridges and burnt the ships, he never looked back. One thing I really admire about him is that despite all the stress and hectic schedule that comes from being an entrepreneurship, his number one priority in life is still his family and friends. :)

Haiz... really missed that crappy guy.

About a few months back, I was complaining to Kok about how difficult my programming module was and how I was finding it difficult to cope because I was from the poly and this module was particularly theoretical and mathematical intensive.

Kok said something that really made me think hard for a while. He said, "My bro told me this, Winners make sacrifices, losers make excuses."

That statement is very very true. And I think this mentality is what differentiate the winners from the losers. Deep down inside, I know that if I really put in effort and more hours to study for this module, I will be able to do well, after all I'm not THAT stupid. Ha.

But was I willing to do it? No? That's why I was coming up with all these excuses so as to make myself feel better. Losers = Excuses. Winners = Sacrifices. Which are you?

A lot of people say they want to be their own boss, start their own business. But I realised that most of them are all talk no action. I witness for myself the serious extent of Loserisum.

The 2 years I was working before I started my studies at Uni last year, I had the opportunity to work at various places, some were quite an enriching experience while some really cannot make it.

The last place I worked at, the mood there was really so demoralising that you cannot help but be dragged down by them. People go back on the dot, have no pride in their work and are just counting the days to payday. That is really darn sad!

There was this guy who was scared of this, scared of that, scared of offending the users (we were doing desktop support) yet back at his desk, he will complain about this and that. Really a typical loser.

He says that he has no control. In fact, a lot of people I meet say that they hated their jobs but they cannot leave because they got commitments. And when I tell them I want to start a business, they will like admire me. (Maybe deep down inside they are thinking that this guy is talking crap. Ha. But little do these people know that they DO have a choice.

Before I continue further, let me tell you about one experiment I read in a book.

There was this hospital that housed terminally ill patients who had only a few months left to live. So, the doctors there decided to do an experiment. For the patients living on the first level, they did nothing. But for the second level patients, they actually gave them a plant to take care of.

The purpose of the plants was so that these patients had a sense of control of something. A few months later, most of the level one patients passed away while the second level patients who had plants were still alive. Some even showed improvement.

Then the doctors took away some plants from the second level patients and within a short while they passed away too. (I think the experiment was something like that, I can't really remember in details)

What did this experiment showed us? No, not that keeping plants can make us live longer but when one loses a sense of control of his life, he loses his will to live, in fact, when one feels that he is not in control, he finds little motivation to live.

Ask yourself this, on days when you really feel depressed, what was the reason? Was it because you dreaded going to work because you did not feel like it but you still had to go because you had "no choice"?

Most people feel very sad or stress especially when it comes to money and they are afraid of losing their job, that's why they keep working at it even though they really cannot stand it because they have to put the rice on the table.

These people whine, complain about mostly everything. They feel that their lives are out of their control but instead they are controlled by the environment/situation. Like if they get sacked by the company, they will say it's the company's fault. It's their bad luck.

But in truth, Everyone of us HAVE a CHOICE. It is just whether you are willing to bear the consequences if you make that decision. For example, someone who hates his job but cannot leave because he has to pay his house mortgage. He feels that he is trapped.

But no, he actually HAVE a choice. He can quit and find another job. But you must be saying, siu kai then what about the mortgage? Well, he can CHOOSE NOT to pay for it but it will of course not be practical right? So, maybe he can look for another job while he continues with his current job.

Perhaps the new job he finds is paying less than his current job. Well, he can either find another one that pays better or carry on his current job or take on other part-time jobs. You see, this guy has ample choices. Who says he is trapped in his job?

Losers make excuse. Winners make sacrifices.

Of course it is easier said than done, that's why I believe that your destiny is shaped by the decisions you make in every stage of your life. If you cannot afford the mortgage, don't buy a house yet. Wait till you are more stable in your career.

The people I cannot stand most are lazy people. Because these people thinks that the whole world owes them a living. Hello, NO ONE owes you a living. Singapore don't owe you a living just because you were born in Singapore. Your parents don't owe you a living just because they gave birth to you. (Maybe when you were younger they did.)

Sometimes I really don't know why people like to complain so much. Every morning when I read the Straits Times Forum, people complain about this and that. Can't they just shut the hell up and do something about it? Oh, maybe they are doing something about it by complaining. Ha.

I think I was suffering for Loserisum too for the past few years. When things go wrong, I will try to blame the situation, like maybe the task was too difficult, that maybe the client was too demanding. I did not take responsibility for the failure. I did not make enough sacrifices to ensure that I succeed. Instead, I came up with lots of excuses why I failed.

You see, it's never too late to wake up. Loserisum can be cured the moment you stop making excuses, take control of your life and take responsibility for the things that happen to you.

At the place where I'm studying now, I really don't like the competitiveness of the people. Most are self-centered and will go all out to score that all important A. But siukai, you are being naive, when you go out to work, it will also be like that what. People will compete to climb the corporate ladder.

That's what I hate about this. I'm not into climbing, I prefer crawling. Ha. You see, I don't like stress. Not that I can't work under stress, in fact I think I perform well under stress. Just that if I want to be stressed, I want to be stressed from within.

Like stress because I'm thinking of ways to outsell my competitors. Like stress from how to promote my new product I created myself. Not stressed from not being able to meet my bosses deadline for a presentation. Not stressed from not being able to come up with a good proposal for fear of losing that promotion.

You get the difference? Stress that comes from within I call it motivation. Motivation is good stress because you want to succeed for your own sake. Because YOU WANT TO. NOT YOU NEED TO. That's the difference!

Yah! I think I just reached another level of enlightenment. Ha. Need to = no choice. Want to = Got choice. It all boils down to choices again.

Of course there are people out there who have limited choices because maybe they simply do not have enough education to succeed or maybe heaven dealt them a poor card and they were born disabled or met with accidents.

These are the people I liked to help. But I cannot. Not I don't want to. But I cannot yet because I do not have the means. When I am rich enough, I will go all out and help people who really need the help; people who genuinely wants to climb up on their own feet but lack the means. NOT lazy people. People who can work but just stay at home and shake leg waiting for welfare money to come in.

I also want to help people with dreams. Because I know how much it means if someone can come along and give you a helping hand to push you one step closer to achieving that dream.

When I succeed in the future, I want to do a lot of things. I want to help my family, relatives, my friends and other people who really deserves the break.

Good guys deserves a good break. But sometimes the hand we are dealt with are just plain bad. I know how crappy it feels when you keep thinking but cannot fulfill that dream. So, trust me, I'll make things right the moment I succeed. :)

Remember, Winners Make Sacrifices, Losers Make Excuses.

I'll end with this quote from Will Smith's character in the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness. In the movie, Will Smith is a man who is trying very hard to survive and earn money to feed his son.

There was one scene which he told his son this, "Do not let somebody, not even me, tell you you can’t do it. People can’t do it themselves and they try to tell you you can’t do it. If you have a dream, go for it!”

Glory Glory Man United

2008-05-12T11:14:00.009+08:00

Ryan Giggs of Man U lifting the Premier League Trophy

Hell yeah! The Red Devils are the Champions of England once again. Ha. :D After 9 months of intense battle, Man U deservedly lifted the trophy once more! Glory Glory Man United!!!

Have been supporting Man U since like for about 12 years now, since 1996 when I first started watching the English Premier League. Then, I was attracted by the likes of Peter Schmeichel (probably the best keeper in the world and at Man U) and Eric Cantona.

Some Great Saves by the Great Schmeichel

I think it was the Red Devil's brand of attacking football,(the way the beautiful game was supposed to be played) and their never-say-die mentality that drew me to them. Their endless "come-back-from-the-death" goals never fail to make my heart work faster. Ha.

Who can forget their treble winning season when they scored 2 goals in the 90 seconds of injury time to come back from 1-0 down to win 2-1 in the Champions League Final against Bayern Munich.

And the goal I will always remember is the one in the 1999 Semi-Final against Arsenal when who else but Ryan Giggs (incidentally, I was known as Ryan Giggs in our former Sunday Soccer League aka the CWL. Ha.)ran almost 3/4 of the pitch to score the winning goal in extra time.

One of the MOST memorable goals scored by Giggs

When Giggs scored that goal, I was loss for words and in deep shock. Yah, I didn't know he has got SUCH a HAIRY CHEST!!! Ha.

One trophy down, another one to go in a week and a half time. 21 May. Man U vs Chelsea for the Champions League Title. Let's hope that the Red Devils will prevail again!!!

Happy 34 Months Anniversary!!!

2008-05-10T00:04:00.004+08:00

Today is me and dar dar's 34 months anniversary! That is 2 years and 10 months of togetherness. Ha. :) HAPPY ANNIVERSARY DAR DAR!!!

Declaration of Love

The Beautiful Game - The Girls just don't get it.

2008-05-08T09:41:00.003+08:00

So it all boils down to this Sunday. Wigan vs Manchester United. Chelsea vs Bolton. Equal on points, there can only be one winner.

Either Man U or Chelsea will be crowned the EPL Champions of 07/08. And I sure hope that it will be my favorite Man U!!!

My dar asked me, "What's so great about the League? Just let Chelsea win lah. So what? It's not as if it's life and death?"

I'm guessing for those who have partners who aren't soccer fans, the above statement might sound rather familiar. Ha.

Yes, like what Bill Shankly (a famous footballer) said, "Football is not a matter of life and death, it's much more important than that! Ha.

Even the acclaimed Ronaldo, not the current Man U one but the buck-toothed Brazilian Ronaldo who took the world by storm a couple of years back, claimed that Football is far more better than sex! I'm sure his partner then would be quite insulted by that claim. Ha.

So what is it about soccer, also known as the Beautiful Game that fascinates us men? Seriously, what's so beautiful about grown up men running up and down a pitch chasing a ball for the whole of 90 minutes, not including the added time?

Some fans might argue, "Hey, Ronaldo (current Man U one) and Beckham (Former Man U, not with Galaxy) are beautiful what!"

Sure, but I don't think the beautiful game is called beautiful just because of a few pretty faces. For every "beautiful" footballer, there are at least 10 that don't make the cut. Think Rooney, Luke Chadwick... The list goes on!

I think soccer is much more deeper than that. For the guys, I think it has got more to do with passion, excitement, can't-catch-your-breath action, unpredictability. Seems that you can have that with sex too! Ha. But a full soccer match last at least 90 minutes. Need I go on? Ha.

Seriously, I think guys who like soccer normally inherits this "trait" from the parents or grandparents. For me, I was interested in soccer because my father watched soccer too. Heck, my father was once a soccer player! (Back in Macau lah, not in Singapore.)

When I was younger and we only had one TV in the living room, my father would sometimes interrupt our daily Ch8 drama viewing ritual because there was a soccer match showing at the same time. (Normally it would be the Singapore/Malaysia Cup)

Then, I had no idea what was the big deal about soccer and would grumble why he had to watch the match. Like what my dar like to say, "Can always watch the delay telecast mah." Ha. Of course, now I know better. Watching delayed soccer matches is like eating one week old bee hoon. Ha.

Now, waking up at 2.30am to catch a Champions League match or Euro/World Cup is the norm. Sacrificing sleep just so I can lie on the couch, turn on the TV and sleep some more. Ha. Yah, sometimes I just doze off on the couch while watching matches. (Normally involves Chelsea! Ha.)

I really can't seem to pinpoint what exactly it is about soccer that turn us guys on so much. I guess we are just wired differently from most girls. Just like why we guys just can't seem to get why girls like to buy so many different handbags or shoes?! Surely one or two is enough? Why need to buy a whole cabinet? Ha. That is a topic for discussion some other day.

So this Sunday, it all goes down the wire. Hopefully at midnight, when all is said and done, the fans that are celebrating are the fans donning the reds of Manchester United!

Peter and The Magic Thread

2008-05-07T23:57:00.000+08:00

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Peter. Peter was a very lively little boy. Everyone loved him: his family, his teachers and his friends. But he did have one weakness.

Peter could never live in the moment. He had not learned to enjoy the process of life. When he was in school, he dreamed of being outside playing. When he was outside playing he dreamed of his summer vacation.

Peter constantly daydreamed, never taking the time to savor the special moments that filled his days. One morning, Peter was walking in a forest near his home. Feeling tired, he decided to rest on a patch of grass and eventually dozed off.

After only a few minutes of deep sleep, he heard someone calling his name. "Peter! Peter!" came the shrill voice from above. As he slowly opened his eyes, he was startled to see a striking woman standing above him.

She must have been over a hundred years old and her snow-white hair dangled well below her shoulders like a matted blanket of wool. In this woman's wrinkled hand was a magical little ball with a hole in the center and out of the hole dangled a long, golden thread.

"Peter", the old woman said, "This is the thread of your life. If you pull the thread just a bit, an hour will pass in seconds. If you pull a little harder, whole days will pass in minutes. And if you pull with all your might, months - even years -will pass by in days."

Peter grew very excited at this discovery. "I'd like to have it if I may?" he asked. The elderly woman quickly reached down and gave the ball with the magic thread to Peter.

The next day, Peter was sitting in the classroom feeling restless and bored. Suddenly, he remembered his new toy. As he pulled a little bit of the golden thread, he quickly found himself at home, playing in the garden. Realising the power of the magic thread, Peter soon grew tired of being a schoolboy and longed to be a teenager, with all the excitement that phase of life would bring.

So again, he pulled out the ball and pulled hard on the golden thread. Suddenly, he was a teenager with a very pretty young girlfriend named Elise. But Peter still wasn't content. He had never learned to enjoy the moment and to explore the simple wonders of every stage of his life.

Instead, he dreamed of being an adult. So again he pulled on the thread and many years whizzed by in an instant. Now he found that he had been transformed into a middle-age adult. Elise was now his wife and Peter was surrounded with a houseful of kids.

But Peter also noticed something else. His once jet black hair had started to turn grey. And his once youthful mother whom he loved so dearly had grown old and frail. Yet Peter could not live in the moment. He had never learned to "live in the now." So once again, he pulled on the magic thread and waited for the changes to appear.

Peter now found that he was a ninety-year-old man. His thick dark hair had turned white as snow and his beautiful young wife Elise had also grown old and had passed away a few years earlier. His wonderful children had grown up and left home to lead lives of their own.

For the first time in his entire life, Peter realised that he had not taken the time to embrace the wonders of living. He had never gone fishing with his kids or taken a moonlight stroll with Elise. He had never planted a garden or read those wonderful books his mother had loved to read.

Instead, he had hurried through life, never resting to see all that was good along the way. Peter became very sad at this discovery. He decided to go out to the forest where he used to walk as a boy to clear his head and warm his spirit.

As he entered the forest, he noticed that the little saplings of his childhood had grown into mightty oaks. The forest itself had matured into a paradise of nature. He lay down on a small patch of grass and fell into a deep slumber.

After only a minute, he heard someone calling out to him, "Peter! Peter!" cried the voice. He looked up in astonishment to see it was none other than the old woman who had given him the ball with the magic golden thread many years earlier.

"How have you enjoyed my special gift?" she asked.

Peter was direct in his reply.

"At first it was fun but now I hate it. My whole life has passed before my eyes without giving me the chance to enjoy it. Sure, there would have been sad times as well as great times but I haven't had the chance to experience either. I feel empty inside. I have missed the gift of living."

"You are very ungrateful," said the old woman. "But still, I will give you one last wish."

Peter thought for an instant and then answered hastily. "I'd like to go back to begin a schoolboy and live my life over again." He then returned to his deep sleep.

Again he heard someone calling his name and opened his eyes. "Who could it be this time?" he wondered. When he opened his eyes, he was absolutely delighted to see his mother standing over his bedside.

She looked young, healthy and radiant. Peter realised that the strange woman of the forest had indeed granted his wish and he had returned to his former life.

"Hurry up Peter. You sleep too much. You will be late if you don't get up this very minute." his mother nagged. Needless to say, Peter dashed out of his bed on this morning and began to live the way he had hoped.

Peter went on to live a full life, one rich with many delights, joys and triumphs, and it all started when he stopped sacrificing the present for the future and began to live in the moment...

Unfortunately, the story of Peter and the Magic Thread is just that, a story, a fairy tale. We here in the real world will never get a second chance to live life to the fullest.

Today is your chance to awaken to the gift of living - before it is too late. Time really does slip through your fingers like tiny grains of sand. Let this new day be the defining moment of your life, the day that you make the decision once and for all to focus on what is truly important to you...

Adapted from, "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari - A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams and Reaching Your Destiny" by Robin S. Sharma.

Intermission

2008-05-06T09:58:00.000+08:00

Exams are finally over and in the blink of an eye, it's May again. Almost half the year gone liao.

Had a really terrible/catastrophic start to 2008. As most if not all of u might noe already, Gys passed away suddenly. Shock, grief, regret. Yes, he was gone just like that; the unofficial advisor of the gang, he will and is still badly missed by us.

It's not everyday that you attend your best friend funeral, at a tender age of 25/26. It's just not normal. It was difficult to take obviously but life goes on. We have to keep on living, keep on breathing for the people who are still around.

2008 was supposed to be a brand new start for me, well I seem to keep saying that every year. Ha. But the sudden events that unfolded in Jan really turn things around. Life is unpredictable.

Still, all is not lost. There's another half a year ahead and of course much can be done. Slowly and surely, I'm finding myself again and deciding what I really want to do for the rest of my life - Relax.

Ha. Seriously, who wouldn't want to relax? But relax is not for me at the moment, I need to work hard now, to save up for marriage and the future beyond. Wow, suddenly Siu Kai is talking about marriage when a few years back, he was lamenting about the lack of a girlfriend. Yah, told you life was unpredictable.

Throughout the years, especially since after poly, I feel that I'm slowly maturing, like a fine cheese or wine, getting better with age. Ha. There were major changes in my thoughts, beliefs and the perspective on life. Besides the events I encountered, I feel that much of the change has got to do with the books I read.

There are a few books which really contributed much to these changes. The first one is "The Luck Factor" which is a book that seeks to prove scientifically that we create our own luck.

I still remember back in the poly days we used to call ourselves the losers because we do not seem to have any luck when it comes to the matters of the heart. Not only that whenever things go wrong we will comfort ourselves by saying it's okay, since we are losers anyway. Ha.

Like whenever we went out, the escalator at some place will breakdown. And we will point our fingers at each other and joked that it was us that cause the escalator to break down. Heck, we even had a slogan that goes something like this: "It's okay to lose. We like to lose. We are losers and we are damn proud of it!"

Ha. Really it was all meant to be a joke but we did not know then unconsciously we were making ourselves losers by thinking we were losers; what we think, we become.

It was not until I read "The Luck Factor" that i realised people who tends to get lucky is not because they were born lucky or because lady luck likes them. It's because of their actions and their beliefs. Simply put, if you think you are lucky, you will be lucky. It's all in the mind.

It's quite a good read, simple to ingest and it will really change your thinking on what is luck.

After reading the book, I was "enlightened" and from that day forth, I don't really believe in bad luck or anything like that. Because as explained, if you wake up in the morning and say you missed the bus or something and you start to think, oh hell it's a bad start to the morning.

And you go to work/school feeling that you are on an unlucky streak, you are sure to meet more "bad luck" for the rest of the day. Because you create the "bad luck" Your mood, your actions by believing that you will have bad luck actually cause "bad luck" to befall you.

Will stop explaining on this concept now or else it will turn into a lecture. Ha. Anyone interested to know more should pick up "The Luck Factor" by Dr Richard Wiseman.

The next book that made a difference in my life is "Rich Dad Poor Dad." I'm sure most of you would have read or heard about this book, it's the purplish covered books that you cannot miss at major bookstores.

The "Rich Dad Poor Dad" series changed my perspective on work and money. It made me realise that time is the most valuable asset and the concept of working for money and making money work for you.

Without a doubt this book kick started my entrepreneurship spirit. Is it a good or bad thing? Because now I cannot be like the "normal" people and work and get paid monthly. Curse or blessing? Only time will tell.

Another book that is equally important in my life is "The Success Principles" by Jack Canfield. The books talk about a lot of concepts but one that stuck out is on the topic of how we are in control of our own destiny.

The main idea is this, we always have a choice. The only thing that we have control over the whole wide world is our mind; how we think and how we react to situations. So whoever you are and wherever you are now all depended on the decisions you made throughout your life because you made the decision, you made the choice.

The book also pointed out that people complained about things which they can change, such as complaining about bad boss or terrible colleagues. But people never complain about things which they cannot change such as gravity. Have you ever heard someone complain about how gravity was preventing them from flying?

Unlikely because there is just no way you can resist gravity, so people live with it. Which brings me to the next point, When a situation occurs, you can either change the situation to what you desire or if it is impossible, you change your thinking towards the situation, you live with it.

It's a rather simple concept that I feel most people still cannot come to terms with. That's why after reading the book, I never or seldom complain anymore because I know that is is just futile. Either I change my thinking or I find an alternative.

Take the case of the rising rice prices. People complain this and that, complain that the government is not doing anything, complain how come rice increase so much. But it's a global phenomenon. Can we change the situation?

Possible but quite difficult unless you are the president of the United States and you hold lots of power. So, since we cannot change the fact that rice will keep on increasing, change our thinking/habits.

We can either work more to earn more money, stop eating rice and find other alternative food source or grow your own rice. Complaining? That doesn't solve the problem!

Note that the complain doesn't mean I don't send complaint emails or letters. I still do that because it's actually part of the solution to solve the problem. (For example complaining about bad customer services) Ha.

Finally, there is this recent audio book I listened to, "Awaken the Giant Within" by Anthony Robbins. It explains on how our brain associate events with either pain or pleasure.

For example, say you had a very good feast at some fancy restaurant and you really enjoyed it very much, therefore you brain will associate the event as pleasurable. Therefore you will want to go back next time. In contrast, when you are in the army you suffer a lot of hardships, pain. Therefore, whenever you see a green uniform now, you shudder.

But sometimes our brain can wrongly associate events. For example, let's say you have a bad day at work and you come home feeling pretty angry. Then you see your wife's face, makeup and all. If you focus on your wife's face, your brain might WRONGLY associate your wife's face with your anger/pain. Therefore an argument results.

And worse, next time when you see your wife's face, you may even feel a bit resentful. That's why when you are feeling angry, be careful of what you focus on because it may create undesirable associations in the brain.

Fortunately, we can make use of how our brain associate to our advantage. For example, let's say we use it to quit smoking. When people smoke, they feel pleasurable. So the brain associate smoking with pleasure and relaxation.

But you can change the association. Think of the cigarette and instead of focusing on the pleasure, focus on how the smoke stink, how much it is costing your wallet and imagine bad coughs and blackened lungs. Think pain.

The more you associate smoking with undesirable effects/pain your brain will slowly reject the cigarette when it sees one. Because we human beings simply don't like pain.

That is just one example. This concept which I just learnt recently taught me how we must be in control of our own feelings and always look out for wrong associations by the brain.

Wow, really write a lot here. Like giving mini lecture like that. Ha.

The school holidays have started but I'm not really looking forward to it because I know that I don't have the luxury of "enjoying" anymore. Really need to get my plans on track and not disappoint the people who have placed the trust in me. :)

There's another topic on the Kaizen method of Taking small steps which I mentioned briefly in my previous posts. Will talk about that next time. Ha.

Till then, remember a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Take action now!

Weekend Feast - Seafood Feast

2008-05-05T23:55:00.000+08:00

Hi it's me again! Sorry for the lack of posts, was having exams... but it's finally over! Yeah!!!

Well, even though there were exams , the weekend feast must still go on. Must still feed my ever growing tummy mah. :) This week, Chef dar dar prepared a seafood feast.

Before I go into that though, let me show you this bag which I got for dar dar's mum aka my FUTURE mother-in-law for the upcoming mother's day. Don't you think the bag resembles something? Yes! A Har Gao!!! Ha.

Hao Gao Bag with cat

Found the bag rather cute and interesting so decided to buy it. Glad that Future Mother-in-law liked it.

Har Gao Bag

And here's some real har gao for you to compare. What resemblance! Ha.

Real Har Gao

Now, let's get on to the real food. For the ingredients we have caixin, prawns, sotong, fish, sambal chilli, banana leaves, big yellow onions and small lime. For the rice, dar dar decided to try this Hainanese chicken rice paste.

The prawns and sotong were marinated with seasoning and sambal chilli overnight. They were then pan-fried over banana leaves to add to the fragrance.

Ingredients

Prawns cooking

Sambal Prawns

Sotong Cooking

Sambal Sotong

Fish Cooking

Oh, and dar dar decided to try to roll the rice into the traditional Hainanese chicken rice ball which she saw on TV last week. And I must say that it was perfectly done!

Rice Balls

Seafood Feast

Rating:

Review: Quite a spicy meal that really stimulated the tastebuds. The prawns and sotong were just nicely cooked and was juicy to the bite. The simple vegetables soup also complemented the spicy dishes nicely.

Verdict: Not bad! Can Eat lah! Almost can sell liao!

Missing!

2008-05-01T00:00:00.001+08:00

My dar dar says she's looking for someone:

"Can you find someone who is named dugong has a face who looks like a chipmunk, has pancake hair on his head and a big fat tummy!"

Ha Ha. Wanna guess who he is?

Weekend Feast - Tofu with Pork Congee & Scrambled eggs

2008-04-27T23:26:00.005+08:00

Well it's time for Siu Kai's weekly weekend feast again! Ha. So what did the guy with the big tummy eat this time round?

Presenting... Siu Kai & Dar Dar's Tofu with Pork Congee.

This dish was a joint effort by Chef Siu Kai & Chef Dar Dar. Siu kai was in charged of cooking the congee while chef dar dar frying the meat and tofu.

Here are the ingredients:

Ingredients

We have of course rice(not shown in photo cos it was being cooked when the photo was taken. Ha), tofu, pork and parsley. Yes, it's quite a simple dish to prepare.

Frying the meat

The Congee in the big pot

Side Dish: Scrambled Eggs

Piping hot Tofu Congee

Rating:

Review: A simple but tasty meal. Not oily at all and definitely a healthy choice, especially when your tummy is starting to get out of control. Texture of the congee is smooth and silky; when the sweet juices from the cooked rice flows down your throat, the effect is heavenly! The flavor from the marinated pork and the sweetness of the tofu blends in perfectly to create an incredible masterpiece!

Verdict: Not bad! Can Eat lah!

Love = Endorphins + Oxytocin

2008-04-25T23:48:00.003+08:00

Before you think I've gone mad after studying for days for my drug paper, I just want to say, "I'm okay." Ha. Then why Love = endorphins + oxytocin? It sounds so chemical right?
Well, actually I read this article from the Straits Time, the Wednesday issue of "Mind your body" and found it rather interesting and so thought that it would be nice if I share this with my buddies who have finally found their one true love(you know who you are!)

Firstly, the "honeymoon" period of a relationship, normally lasting up till months from the day you finally touch her soft silky hands.

Passionate love is a state of intense longing for union with the other person and of intense psychological arousal, which can cause high energy, eurphoria, elation and even idealisation.

This effect is due to a potent cocktail of chemicals, one of which is adrenaline. Adrenaline caused increased oxygen intake and increased blood sugar to the muscles which creates the familiar "fight or flight" syndrome.

The frequent presence of a loved one can also trigger the production of a neurochemical called endorphins which produce a sense of calm and peace.

Endorphins are a group chemicals produced by the brain and as they travel through the bloodstream, they act as natural painkillers and also create a sense of well-being.

But of course we all know that eventually the honeymoon period will end. Then what keeps the relationship going? The answer is a chemical called Oxytocin which plays an important role in bonding.

In humans, Oxytocin is stimulated by touch and produces feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. (Now the more reason to touch your partner. Oops!) Oxytocin, is also released by both sexes during... The O word lah. Don't want to write the word here in case there are under aged readers. Ha.

That's why intercourse is part of the key to a successful marriage. Of course I'm referring to after marriage not before.. tzk tzk... shame on those naughty ones who break the rules! Ha.

Some more interesting chemical facts: Love cause serotonin levels in the brain to drop, causing obsessive behaviour. (Now we know why it's always to tough to shake off that pesky suitor!) Love also increase production of cortisol, which can cause high blood pressure and loss of sleep!

Ha, if you think all these chemical terms are too much to take, imagine how I must be feeling trying to remember hundreds of them!!! Ha. I'm glad I'm not a doctor. Or I'll just tell my nurse, "Err.. you go take that bottle of white liquid and give the patient one spoonful."

Nurse: Which one doc?

Dr Siu: Neh, that one loh, the one a bit thick one. Taste a bit sweet one.

Nurse: ... Err.. Doc, you mean that bottle over there, in cabinet A?

Dr Siu: Oh yah yah. That one. Sorry, can't seem to remember the name.

Nurse: Doc, that is Magnolia Full Cream Milk!

Ha. Last interesting fact, 60% cocoa dark chocolate can give the brain a more intense and longer buzz than the most passionate kiss. Wow, gonna pay a visit to my favorite candy stall tomorrow!

Night of the Gecko and other stories

2008-04-24T01:28:00.008+08:00

Needed to take a break from all those studying! Have been revising for a paper next week on drugs. Wah, all those drugs name, chemical terms are really giving me serious headache. Like what my dar said, "Read until want to vomit!" Ha.

Actually, had a few topics to blog on since Monday, but didn't have time. Let's hope I can still remember what I wanted to write. :) Oh, before I began let me tell you about the disgusting thing I saw while I was having a quick shower in the wee hours before the champions league match yesterday.

Yah, all those studying is really making me sweat. Ha. Guess what I saw while I was in the toilet? Well, if you are sharp enough, you would have relate what I saw to the title of this post. Yah, I saw one big fat pinkish Gecko! Affectionately known to most as a house lizard. Hmm and I'm sure it was pink...

Chee Ko Pek Gecko

When I saw the intruder i was stunned and a bit shaken for a while. Come on, I was in my birthday suit remember? Who knows what the Gecko might be thinking! A man is most vulnerable when he is naked. Ok, enough of that.

Anyway, after the shock subsided, I became angry. What in the blue hell was this Gecko doing in the bathroom, intruding my privacy and peeping at me! Not even peeping mind you but openly ogling! So, I decided to whip out... my camera that is, what were u thinking? Ha. And took a picture of this daring "peeping" Gecko so that I will have proof should this escalate to a court case. Ha.

Alright, let me move on before you report me to the SPCG (Singapore Prevention of Cruelty to Geckos) Ha. I know that's lame. :p

If you have been living in Singapore for the past 2 months, you would have known that SOMEONE escaped from SOMEWHERE and caused a massive manhunt that is still ongoing. The reason why I'm not writing the name here is in case my entry gets quoted should some reporter do a google search on HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED .

Sorry, I'm a Kiasi Singaporean and furthermore my dar dar is now officially a public servant. So better not get on the wrong side of the government. Ha.

Anyway, the report is out on how, oh drats, let's just call him Massy. :) So, the report is out on how Massy escaped. It all boils down to 2 main points. Number one. The guard who followed Massy into the toilet did not react fast enough. Let's see what he did:

When the guard in the toilet noticed that Massy was taken a awfully long time and he felt that Massy couldn't be having constipation, he decided to alert the guard standing outside the toilet. The guard outside the toilet decided to then informed another officer known as the Special Duty Operative. This female officer then informed a fourth person, Massy's assistant Case Officer to check on him in the male toilet.

Thank God the assistant Case Officer decided not to inform his superior since he was an assistant after all! This case officer then rushed all the way to the toilet and kicked the cubicle door only to realised that Massy has performed a David Copperfield. Time taken for someone to kick down the door to check on Massy: 11 minutes. Possible time that Massy took to escape: 49 seconds. You do the maths.

With my wild imagination, I came up with the following I emphasised imaginary conversation between the 4 officers.

Guard 1(in the toilet): "Hey Massy! You inside the toilet or not? Why so long?!"

Massy: No reply.

Guard 1(in the toilet): Hey Massy, turn the tap off can? Don't waste water lei! Expensive!

Massy: No reply. Tap continues to run.

Guard 1 then decides to inform guard 2 outside the toilet.

Guard 1: Hey, Massy not replying lei. How ah? He never switch off tap!

Guard 2: Sure or not. Don't bluff lei. No joking matter lei.

Guard 1: Yah lah. How?

Guard 2: Okay, we go inform the Special Duty Operative.

They rush to the Special Duty Operative.

Guard 1 & 2: Mdm Mdm! Massy in the toilet but no reply lei. How how?! (Starts to panic a bit.

Special Duty Operative: Confirm? Maybe he constipation?

Guard 1: No Mdm, I call him a few times already!

Special Duty Operative: Okay, so what happen if he comes out from the toilet now and both of you not around?

Guard 1 & 2: Oh. Yah hor!

Special Duty Operative: Never mind, I go and ask his case officer to kick down the door since I am female and I cannot kick open the door in the MALE toilet even though Massy is a dangerous guy who wants to bomb people. A rule is a rule.

So the three of them run to the assistant Case Officer.

Special Duty Operative: Sir Sir! Massy is in the toilet but no reply!

Assistant Case Officer: What the heck! Then how? I'm only the assistant lei!

Special Duty Operative: No problem Sir, I think you should be authorized to kick down the door.

Assistant Case Officer: Okay okay, I go kick but you three be my witness ah. Anything happen must vouch for me. In case I kick the door too hard and hit Massy.

All three: Yes Sir!

So they rushed to the toilet and the case officer gave his best imitation of a kung-fu kick to the door.

All Four: What the F***!!!

Another crucial mistake is that the windows in that particular toilet had no grilles. Apparently it was a miscommunication with the vendor installing the grilles.

So, the superintendant decided to take matters into his own hands. By using his vast knowledge and experience accumlated throughut the years and his top notched education, he decided to... (drum roll...)ask the vendor to saw off the handle because he reasoned that no one can open a window without a handle.

Wow.

He might as well ask the Vendor to put a "DO NOT OPEN" sign.

Kudos to his 100% creativity. And jeers to his 200% stupidity!

It's like saying I remove the handle of a mug to prevent you from drinking from it. I have no idea why the superintendant made that decision. Maybe because he foresaw that the price of rice would rise and decided to save some money.

Like one saying goes, "Smart is good enough. Don't act smart."

Anyway, no point crying over spilled milk. They have decided to improve the security features of the detention centre. Well, here's my two cents worth of a top class detention centre.

New Detention Centre

Pardon my child-like drawing. I hope the picture is self-explantary. Ha. Just in case, let me elaborate a bit. The new centre will be surrounded by a moat that is filled with crocodiles and piranhas that are only fed once a month. Surrounding the moat will be high voltage electric fence. And of course to make sure that our building is "Green" we have a rooftop garden!

So if someone to manage to escape from the centre, he will have to swim across the hungry crocodiles and piranhas infested moat. Let's say he heng heng managed to survive, the high voltage fence will stop him dead in his track. You know what happen when a wet body touch a live electric current right?

Even if the current is not enough to disable him, the shock will be strong enough to throw him back into the water where some new found friends are awaiting...

If all else fails, we always have the window with no handles and a DO NOT OPEN sign. Ha.

*siukai would like to clarify that everything mentioned in this post is purely for entertainment purposes. siukai do not mean any harm and he is in fact a pro-government singaporean and is confident that Massy will be caught eventually.

Exams exams and more exams!

2008-04-23T02:30:00.002+08:00

Wanted to blog but there's simply no time! Ha. Been studying from morning till night. Wah, damn tired! Gonna watch the champions league match btw Chelsea & Liverpool now... got to relax a bit mah. Ha. Hope I can make time for one entry later. Cya!

Weekend Feast - Black Pepper Chicken, Korean Meal & Devil's Food Cake

2008-04-21T00:17:00.003+08:00

Sorry to keep you guys waiting! Have been too busy preparing the feast and feasting at the same time! Ha. Oh, just to clarify, we didn't have Black Pepper Chicken, Korean Meal and the Devil's Food Cake all in a single day! Don't be mislead by the title!

First let me present Dar's and Mine Anniversary Western Dinner last Saturday to celebrate our 2 years and 9 months together; Black Pepper Chicken meal, one of my favorite dishes! The main course was prepared by head chef Siukai and the omelet by Chef Dar Dar! Ha.

Black Pepper Chicken Meal

Meal for 4!

Rating:
Verdict: Not bad! Can Eat lah!

Oh yah, when we prepare our feast we normally include my dad and bro's share. So please don't think that we eat so much! Though sometimes we do eat a lot... Ha. For this weekend, we thought of going Korea, seeing how there were 4 big packets of Korean Instant Ramen Noodles lying in the kitchen. :)

For those interested to prepare a weekend Korean feast, here are my humble ingredients: 4 Packets of your favorite Korean Ramen Noodles, Chinese White Cabbage, Tofu, Crabstick, Golden mushroom, Prawns, Eggs, Spring Onion and some chilli if u like your dish more spicy.

The Ingredients

Once again, I was the head chef this week while dar dar was the assistant chef. Yah, we take turns to head the kitchen. Ha. Here's a photo of dar dar steaming the toufu.

The Soup

Since this is not a cooking website, I shall not go into the details of how to prepare the dish, those interested can simply email me. :)

Korean Ramen

Korean Ramen Meal for 4

Rating:
Verdict: Not bad! Can Eat lah!

And for desert today, we have baker siukai preparing one of his speciality, Devil's Food Cake. Ha. Super sinful and fattening desert but the amount of chocolate inside is bound to make you feel europhic!

With Dark Chocolate Frosting

Coated with generous serving of Chocolate Powder

Slice of the Devil!

Rating:
Verdict: Wah! Can sell already!

Damn tired now after all those running about buying ingredients and baking and cooking. Gonna sleep early tonight. Ha. Bye! :)

Siu Kai's Weekends Feasts

2008-04-18T00:43:00.015+08:00

Was watching Arts Central Taboo series @ 10pm and today's episode was on extreme cusine. Wow, the things that some people eat! The appetizer to kickstart the episode day was this "Balut" which is a very popular snack in the Philippines. What exactly is "Balut"? It's actually a soft boiled duck embryo. YUCKS! In more details, it's a fertilised duck egg but in which the duck is not fully grown yet. DOUBLE YUCKS!

I thought of putting some pics here but then... better not. In case you are reading this and having your dinner at the same time. Ha. You can visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut if you are really interested to see Balut in its full glory.

Oh, by the way, just to clarify. This Balut has nothing to do with my title, "Siu Kai's Weekends Feast." Ha. I only like ducks when they are fully cooked. So why the title then? I'll come to it later.

Throughout the show, there were other exotic dishes that people eat like bats, grubs and even live octopus. Yes, small live octopus which people in Korea eat! No, it's not a typo, they do eat the octopus when it's still alive and the poor creature will struggle in the diner's tounge and mouth. It's actually quite a dangerous meal because there was a case of a man who died while eating one. OUCH!

So, now that I've whet your appetite, let me come to today's entry; Siu Kai's Weekends Feast. Yes, some of you might know that i enjoy cooking and baking and every weekend, my dar and me will take turns to prepare dinner. So I've decided to dedicate every Sat post to the delicious meals we prepare, pictures included of course. Of course you are might be interested to know that I'm quite good with photoshop. Ha.

Here are some photos from our previous weekend meals.

Bon appetite!

Chilli Roasted Chicken

Garlic Sasuage

Sushi Meal

Siu Kai's Mango Cake

A journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step

2008-04-17T01:34:00.004+08:00

Hi, it's me again. :) So sorry that I did not post any entry yesterday. Well, to act on my new found lesson on "One small step can change your life", I've decided to make it a point to write at least 5 sentences everyday and if the theory do work, then the crappy siukai will be back in business! Ha.

Since I'm feeling pretty talkative today, I shall blog a bit more. :) These few days, I've been preparing very hard for my test this coming Saturday. ie going to the library from 1pm to about 7pm daily for the past 3 days.

For some of you, that might not really be much of a kick cos i do noe some who mug 24/7 as the exams approaches. But for siukai, it is a BIG DEAL. Because I've not been so hardworking since... I think... during my O Levels Time! Wow! That's like a decade ago!

Yah, during my Os, I would stay at home and study from morning till the sun goes down. Ha, so why the sudden change siukai?

Well, contrary to what some of you might think, I have to admit I'm quite struggling in this new champions league; where everybody is so damn good that if you are just good, you are quite average. Imagine if you are just average...

I know I might cause an uproar if I say what I'm going to say next but I'm still going to say it anyway. Ha. I've never really considered myself a great student. I think I'm just pretty much above average, maybe bordering towards good. Ha. But back in the poly days, I guess everybody else was at least average, that's why I appeared to be VERY GOOD.

Now, that's a rather dangerous illusion cos it can do unrealistic boost to your confidence. Ha. Now in the champions league, the truth is out. And as we all knows, the truth always hurt. I'm pretty much just average, hovering above below average. Ha.

Yah, that's why I have to really pull up my socks and work real damn hard to avoid relegation. It's not really nice when you are at the top of the world one moment and then suddenly find yourself amongst the bottom. (Think Leeds United.) Ha.

Well, I also do not know why I'm so motivated to study these few days. Maybe it's the eagerness to prove myself wrong, that I am indeed quality material. Ha. Or maybe it's because I don't like to lose, that I don't like to be at the bottom. Hmm... I guess it's a combination of these two.

Before Gys's death, I was ready to quit school by this end June because based on our plans we would have developed and published a great game and I would then quit to concentrate on our newly formed business. Well, his sudden leaving really changes things quite a lot.

He was really the driving force behind the project, without him I don't think I will be able to continue. Not now, but I hope in the future.

Have been contemplating on quitting a few times after his sudden departure. I guess the stress from his death and school work was really too much to take. Have been coping better these few weeks...

It seems that a university degree is really important in Singapore as it opens up a lot of doors to your career. A check on the Singapore Prisons Website shows that a first class honors degree holder can get close to $3700. And he enters as an assistant superintendent. That's... rather impressive. Compared to a diploma holder? I rather not say.

But the thought of working in a 9 to 5 job, office bound really does not appeal to me, no matter how I try to imagine myself in such a job. I want freedom, I want flexibility and I want to make my own decisions. And at the same time you want to make lots of money?

Ha, I think everybody wants that kind of life also right siukai? Don't you think you're being a bit naive? Yes, maybe I am but it's always okay to dream right? If not, what's the point of living?

If I do complete my studies, it will be 2010 and I will be close to 29, just starting my career while my peers might already be holding senior positions or managers. That's not really a comforting thought.

But like what the Kaizen way teaches, "One Small Step Can Change Your Life and A journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step." Let's takes things slowly and one day I'm sure my dreams will come true. :)

One Small Step Can Change Your Life

2008-04-15T00:40:00.004+08:00

I'm currently reading this book titled, "One Small Step can change your life." So, I'm taking this veri small step of updating my blog. Let's see whether this small step will eventually bring back the writer in me :)

Thank you for your Friendship

2008-02-14T00:01:00.008+08:00

31st Jan 2008 was surely the worst moment of my life to date. My best buddy Gys passed away suddenly. When I received the SMS informing us of his demise, I was not able to believe it. I thought it was a cruel joke; maybe it is really a cruel joke played by heaven.

His unexpected departure really came as a shock to all of us. There was so much promise to his life, he had so much going for him, so much he wanted to achieve and then all of a sudden… gone… just like that.

The past 2 weeks have not been easy. Yes, time does heal the pain but the scar will always be there. Sometimes when it is quiet and I’m alone, my mind starts to wander… And I think of him… and I can’t help but shed tears, reminiscing the crappy jokes we shared, the common topics we discussed and the goals we so much wanted to achieve together.

This incident has also opened my eyes to the true nature of human beings. Not that I do not know about the “cruel nature” of men to begin with but rather it taught me not to judge people by their cover. Yes, I know that is very cliché but well…

From Gys’s funeral I was able to see a lot of things, who were the true friends, who were not. Who were the ones with a heart, who were the ones who don’t give a hoot.

I mean there was one friend who came all the way from Woodlands upon hearing the unfortunate news and he only stayed for a few minutes because he had to rush back to catch the last bus. The fact that he came all the way from Woodlands just to see Gys off really touched me. To think we even teased him during our poly days…

The former final year project mate who said he wanted to come but in the end didn’t even hear any news of him. I wondered what happened to him. Maybe he died too?

*Edited - To forgive is divine*

This episode also taught me to appreciate and cherish my friends and people I hold dear more. Never take them for granted. When they ask you to go out, try to make time for them. Don’t put off appointments just because you seem to be busy; find some time in your busy schedule to meet up.

Most importantly, I’ve learnt that life is too short and fragile. Till this point of my life, all I have been doing is waiting and waiting… waiting for what? A big break?

I’ve been putting off things that ought to be done ages ago. I’ve been avoiding problems by not thinking of them. There are so many things I wanted to do but I have not done so because I’m waiting for the right time.

Hello! There might never be a right time. You might just be gone tomorrow! So, why waste time? Why do things that don’t make you happy? Why pursue routes that you know have no future?

Gys has taught me a lot of things and one important lesson I learnt from him is not to be afraid of challenges. Just do it. Get the deal done. Worry about the details lately. Most often, they will come naturally.

I remember I had a lengthy msn conversation with him one night. We were talking about entrepreneurship. I asked him how he feels to know that he was no longer going to get a steady paycheck once he stepped onto the path of entrepreneurship. His answer was simple but enlightening.

He said, “There are times when I wake up in the morning feeling demoralized and afraid of what is going to happen next. But from that day I decided to become an entrepreneur, I knew I had to stick to my decision no matter what.”

Too often when stuck with an obstacle, I look for the nearest exit, hoping to find a better and easier path. But these paths are not what I wanted in the first place. For years, I’ve been wandering about, confused like a lost lamb…

No no, I’m not going to preach about how the Lord is my Shepherd and how he is going to help me find my way. Ha.

Promises I have made, yet I have not kept. Hopes I have given but yet always end up in disappointment. There are many times when I always tell people to go for their dreams and don’t live their lives miserably, yet look at me now. I am not practicing what I have been preaching.

It is time to stop the talk. Stop the Rot. And walk the walk.

Believe in yourself and go for it.

Enough said.

Life’s not a song.
Life isn’t bliss.
Life is just this.
It’s living.
You’ll get along.
The pain that you feel
Only can heal
By living.
You have to go on living.
So that one of us is living.