A Mind of My Own

I love reading. Reading lets me escape from the world and fantacise in the world of Alice in Wonderland (the movie is coming), Xanth creatures and other beautitul characters with wonderful homes. For the past few months, I have been reading other books. Books that have helped me get better focus in life.

Dale Carnegie was a visionary; he knew that everyone would need help in How to Win Friends and Influence People. Long title but it impacted everyone who needed some help in the friendship area. The book isn’t just about influencing people. It’s about building good solid, sincere relationships instead of making use of people to help anyone gain in a one way traffic. Business don’t make money just on a one time sale. Such a business will go broke sooner than you can say “Donald Trump!”

Friends are treasures and real friends don’t cheat friends. Real friends help one another without thinking about whether the returns for the help is equal in value. If a friendship is based on equal values, how can it last long? It won’t even last more than a year.

As I was saying, books are my love and I have this growing stack of books that are for keeps. I also have another stack of books to be given away or sold. Go see if they might be useful for you since I won’t be reading them again as I feel that they are more useful to others.

It’s September and time does fly when you don’t notice it at all. Ever notice that between the age of 0 to 20 years, time seems to go so slowly as if it’s crawling?

From 20 to 40 years, the years just seem to disappear into a bottomless pit. Needless to say, from the 40th year of your life, time feels like the Road Runner zooming past with just its trail of wind on your face.

I have been hit with a few obstacles and overcame some of them. While some left me with a bitter taste, I have been learning to let go of them as they are the real stumbling blocks that won’t let me move forward if I were to keep them in my heart.

The year is coming to a close and it had been a great year since I made some changes in my life. My dreams are coming true and I will be able to fulfill my life long dream soon. All I have to do is to move forward, adapt and hold on to my dreams tightly.

DD coming into my life has been a wonderful change since it feels pretty awesome to have someone hugging you tightly for a reason called “Just because”.

I have made new friends and enjoying myself each day with hopes and achieving some improvements to myself daily. The years ahead will be even more wonderful.

Having seen the preview of Up by Pixar, DD and I were anticipating for it since the GPS dropped out of the sky by Russell. However, I didn’t expect the unbelievably cute clouds making babies of both animals and humans to be carried out by their storks to the respective homes. It was called Partly Cloudy as a short film just before Up was to be shown.

I love the poor cloud who was tasked with making the other kinds of animals from shark to porcupines to rams. He was really happy with his creations but when his stork arrived, the poor stork was abused by the babies’ natural instincts. Despite the abuse, the stork still loved his cloud and it showcased the strong friendship bonds between the two of them.

Up is about this old man who finally decided to take an adventure in his house literally. I just want to put a disclaimer, helium filled balloons can’t really carry a house no matter how many of them are tied to the chimney. What really touched was the meaning behind this whole adventure. We should grab hold of every chance that we have in life as we may not get a second chance again.

This movie may make the adults who understand the meaning behind the scenes cry while making the kids confused as to why their parents were wailing their hearts out. After watching this movie, I demand that someone create a real collar that allows the dogs to be able to talk.

Imagine your childhood friend comes along and tell you that he/she is having a business venture that is sure to have high returns and raving about how many people he/she has found. Would you want to know more? Of course! You would want to be a part of it even! Having prepared a sum of money that could be part of your marriage or other investment plans, you hope that the returns will be high since your good friend has raved about it so much.

However, when you arrived at your friend’s supposed workplace in hopes of passing him/her the money, the receptionist tells you that the friend is no longer working there for the past few weeks. After talking a while longer, the receptionist gently breaks the news that others have been cheated by this “friend” and all were school mates too.

You look at your envelope filled with money and get back to your routine job. A cheat, right? What kind of friend is this? I have no idea but I do hope that my friends are really good! Thankfully, I have good friends. The above scenario was shown in House, the series.

In desperate times, one would tend to listen to something that shouts “HUGE MONETARY RETURNS!” and forget to think logically. I would want to keep my friends and not cheat them with this low trick. Whatever it is, it is always good to do things with a clear conscience and sleep well at night.

I notice that old buildings are built bricks by bricks. I must say, it sure took a lot of workers to build a ten stories tall building with bricks and cement. That was more than 20 years ago. Now, I notice that buildings are being stacked together with pre-made and custom cut structures so that everything can be built faster.

It seems that our world has gotten to such a pace that I can’t even slow down once to take a breather. Patience is not my nature, I’ll admit that. However, over the years of work, patience sure paid off. All I had to do was to expect the best from the situation and I would be rewarded. Sounds too good to be true? Well, our minds form the outcome and how we handle it.

There may be times when everything sounds too good to be true. I would say that easy and fast money is too good to be true. I would go for the building of the foundation for my money to be coming in strong and steady. It may be slow but “Slow and steady wins the race.” Didn’t the tortoise win the race despite being slow? It was patience and persistancy to get to the end of the race. Even relationships need to be established too, right?

Our computers are being built to run faster yet hotter with each passing time. Hence, cooling systems are being created just to cool down the fast spins. I wonder if a faster computer can really help in lives when our own human brains can’t process all those speeds.

I have taken up offers that screamed out fast money only to be disappointed. A strong foundation is important for anything and sometimes, certain things can’t be taken at face value. It will only serve to disappoint you when you didn’t look at it in a different light.

The same goes for closed minds. Once the mind is closed, the patience won’t be there.

I have been bitten by the “Aggressive Reading Bug”. Just before CNY, I went to the nearest regional library and borrowed 8 books because they have a promotion. A pity that they can’t allow that for everyone except for the premimum membership that I never got around to applying for. Although I have gotten myself into the volunteer programme for NLB.

That was when I saw the box to drop off adult fiction and unwanted spectacles. The novels are to be used for the Book Crossing scheme while the unwanted spectacles will be used to reduce blindness for the poor countries. NLB has partnered with The Lasik Clinic, yes, the one that I did my Lasik at.

Since I’m in the midst of writing some erotic fiction cum mystery cum suspense, I borrowed the following books to help my writing muse.

River Road by JoAnn Ross – Definitely a sexy book whereby the eldest son is ready to tear off the clothes off a popular actress who is being stalked.

I Heard That Song Before by Mary Higgins Clark – Suspense is what Clark does best and the plot got thicker and thicker.

Gift of Fire by Jayne Ann Krentz – Physical and mentally attuned to each other, I can’t believe how much chemistry the two main characters have for each other.

Love, Lies and Liqour by M. C.Beaton – Agatha Raisin the tottering old lady that most of the police department except her friend Bill Wong would like to believe often has flashes of intuitions to solve crimes that the police can’t. This time, she is framed for the murder of another lady and after supplying her alibi and that her scarf was lost, she finds herself being embroiled in a series of digging out skeletons that the dead lady had acquired.

Chow Down by Lauren Berenson – Dogs rule here and solving a murder while chartering between an unforseen contest and dog shows wasn’t what Melanie had in mind at first.

Agatha Raisin and The Haunted House – A handsome neighbour moved into James’ old cottage has piped Agatha’s interest and she went along with his idea of being a ghost buster only because she was fantasizing about love again.

Don’t Talk Back to Your Vampire by Michele Bardsley – The sizzling attraction to Lorcan was so powerful that Eva couldn’t help but imagine being ravished by him even though he was the one who made her a vampire in the first place.

Because Your Vampire Said So by Michele Bardsley – That white wolf keeps saving Patsy and even though she tells herself not to love any men again, she was strongly attracted to him. Never mind that her womb was removed after giving birth to her son before turning into a vampire by Lorcan.

To Kiss a Spy by Jane Feather – Duchesses have the fun of kissing unbelievably handsome men of all statuses. Unfortunately, this particular duchess needed help from a spy to find her son.

Househusband by Ad Hudler – I was rather intrigued by the title and I must say, it’s the first time I have read a book that includes recipes at the end of some chapters.

Bury The Lead by David Rosenfelt – Full of legal terms yet riveting enough for me to keep reading on to find out the serial killer.

The Winter Queen by Devin Cary – A young queen forced to take on the role of a regent against the council’s denials that women can’t be kings after her king died due to a freak accident. Although her lack of control for sorcery may help her but she couldn’t display them as the elders couldn’t accept such witchcraft.

Agatha Raisin and The Deadly Dance by M. C. Beaton- Agatha is at it again bumbling into cases that irk the local police but yet finding clues that they never seem to be able to find.

Kissing Christmas Goodbye by M. C. Beaton – Agatha does it again and this time, she is jealous of her young detective who seems to have youth and skills that match hers except for the age part that she is horribly jealous of. And she keeps fantasizing about getting back with James Lacey her ex husband for Christmas.

After reading the books, I realise that I have never managed to borrow any series that is from book one to the current ones. I usually start off from the middle of some sort, take Gift of Fire and the Agatha series for example. Over the years, I have come to the sad conclusion that the public library will never be able to stock the books in series according to when they were published.

A feeling of nostalgia overcome me when I watched shows like The Days, Hana Kimi and Brown Sugar Macchiato. School crushes were a plenty of course. What’s growing up as a teenager without girly crushes over that cute guy in class or another class?

I never shown my bravery at telling any of the crushes that I remotely liked them. The girls in BSM were brave to tell them. One even made a scarf for hers. I can’t knit at all despite a few attempts. I have never had such adventures like Ashiya Mizuki in Hana Kimi with so many guys. Actually, in real life, it’s impossible to actually sneak into a boy’s school unnoticed.

I mean, not all girls can actually disguise themselves as boys so well. Sometimes, I wondered where all the handsome ones had gone to and realised that dramas chose only the cute ones to act. Pretty girls don’t study at the same school either. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a title called School Belle in the first place.

Come to think of it, I can’t remember if we had any School Belle in Secondary School either. Did I miss out something in my bumbling years? I still remember this primary school Science teacher. Somehow, she was stalking me by entering the same secondary school I was attending!

The horrors! Everyone was afraid of her because she was fierce. Especially during her pregnancy. I wonder why. It was by pure luck that I wasn’t assigned to the class where Home Economics was part of the subjects.

Frankly speaking, I fell asleep by the 3rd lesson of History within 5 minutes. World War II and all about how Singapura became Singapore was really old news. Why can’t we learn about Pernarakan Culture or the differences between Taoists and Buddhists? How many different religions do we have in Singapore actually?

How many different dialects do we have actually? I don’t even know which Lunar day of the month we have to pray to the different gods. I don’t even know what customs we have to observe during a birth, 1st month for the baby, wedding and different things to say during Chinese New Year.

I don’t even know how long some of the buildings have stood in certain places either. I wonder what I learned during my school years besides Mathematics, English, Electronics, difference between like and love. Forget like love since such feelings are still new.

Sometimes, I wonder if the school years could have been more interesting if I had done something brave. Like actually remembering the script on stage when I was performing. That’s when I realised that I have severe stage fright.

We were young once. We want to show the world that we are no longer kids and want them to acknowledge our presence. In our own ways, we wore Armani, Burberry or Moschino apparel, carried Issey Miyaki or Guess bags, and even perfume to school. We wanted to show them that we are capable of making decisions for ourselves and didn’t need any babysitter every minute.

Image via Wikipedia

The boys would show off their powers by joining the big brothers who would say, “I look after you. Nobody bully my brother one!” They would often skip classes and sit at the coffeeshops or void decks and check out the pretty girls by wolf-whistling.

As time went by, they would get bolder, from stealing food to money. Each time, they weren’t caught, they broaden their “rewards”. The boys would also go to discos and Fire Disco was a popular place for seeing them dancing and playing with the girls.

The girls, on the other hand, would dress up and try to wear the shortest skirt that is allowed to school. Some would pull down the tucked in blouses as tight as possible into the skirt to show off their curves. Others would attempt to hide their hair highlights.

Yet other girls would continue wearing that threadbare blouse to show off what they were wearing inside. Or maybe it wasn’t to show off what they were wearing inside.

Those were The Days. I had the pleasure of viewing a Boi Kwong film made just for remembering those days. It is based on a true story about himself and his younger brother. It was a misguided attempt to ensure that his beloved brother would be protected that he pulled him into his world.

The movie captured the vulnerability of teenage years and their impression of being protected by the big brothers. Fighting and staring were often part of their lives. During the 1980s and early 90s, carrying parangs was part of protecting one’s life and to attack the enemy.

The Days opens on 11 Sept, 2008. The movie is just 100 minutes long due to cuts as it contains vulgar languages that were limited to the famous “Your father”. It’s a pity as I have heard far more colourful words being sprouted during my teenage years.

Stay tuned after the credits have rolled. To catch that handsome Zi Long a.k.a. Tai Zi, the cast will be at the stated places.

I have only one question for the director. How come Tai Zi wasn’t at the Cinema Europa one?

PS: This was made possible by GV Blog Aloud session. Thanks!

This trip was a long one in the making. Originally, there was supposed to be 4 girls, NL, ES, HF and me. Unfortunately, the delay took more than a year to get to this trip. NL couldn’t take any leaves at all in August. We asked RK if she would be interested in a massage trip in Batam and she nodded her head immediately.

With 4 girls confirming the trip, we looked around for hotels that included the spa package with accommodation. Finally, we settled on Harris Resort Batam even though Holiday Inn had a package. It just didn’t feel worth the price for a 2D1N stay. RK’s beloved offered to help us book. Sweet!

After the calling back and forth with RK and the Five Stars Tour, we managed to get a spa slot at 11am, Batam time. It was freaking early as we had to take the 9.20am ferry. That meant meeting at 7.30am for breakfast before collecting our tickets.

I went with RK since she lived nearby and we were the first to reach followed by ES and her dear hubby who took the effort to wake up early to send her off. Aww. HF was the last to arrive as her alarm failed. We settled out ferry tickets and proceeded to the gate.

Although the crowd was choking the gate, we managed to find seats in the air conditioned portion and talked all the way until we reached Water Front City terminal. There, we queued up at the wrong counter as the Harris counter sign was hidden by the queue. They need a bigger sign board.

With our passports settled, we queued up for the free shuttle bus. When the bus arrived, the crowd moved and an auntie with 2 of her family members rushed from behind us to board the bus. They were obviously late for some appointment.

We took the small van as they only have a bus or a van. The ride was short as we didn’t realise that the resort is so near to the ferry terminal. Since our rooms weren’t ready, we went to our spa after requesting that we wanted 2 connecting rooms. With the request completed and our room numbers confirmed, we headed across the pools to the spa.

The spas were located on the rooftop and I liked the nature feel to it. It wasn’t a good idea to request for a room for 4 as it didn’t come with an attached shower. We ain’t gonna walk around wrapped in sarongs when there were so many guys having their spa and male workers too! We stuck with 2 per room.

Image via Wikipedia

The body scrub did smooth our skins. I was the only one who chose Hot Stones massage while the rest did the aromatherapy massages. During the scrubbing, I fell asleep. It was that comfortable. RK and I showered off the scrub and waited for the massage. My massage was good as the masseur did a lot of massaging my shoulder ache away. When the hot stones came, it was a little warm. By the 3rd time, my skin felt as if I was on fire. I thought my arm hair was being burned!

However, it was worth it as I would inform her that it was hot. After it was over, we proceeded to the bath tub for our milk bath but it didn’t look like milk bath. More like herbal bath as we saw some black leaves. The water spurts were at intervals and it didn’t feel like being in a jacuzzi at all. It was also horrifying to see the water level being drained away the longer we stay in the tub and it wasn’t even overflowing either!

Image via Wikipedia

When I finally stood up to shower off, the water level was less than half of the tub. My body felt oily all over but smooth despite my attempts to use the given shower foam. RK and I asked if ES and HF had the same experience with their milk bath but they didn’t have the water level being lowered.

We went to check in since we needed our lunch. The room was fantastic. It was spacious and we opened the connecting doors. There was also a balcony over looking the pool. After admiring the room, we went on to have our lunch at 3pm, Batam time.

Thinking that the pizza was big enough, that was from the way the waiter used his hands to mimic how huge it was, we ordered 2 pizzas using our entitled vouchers. When the pizzas arrived, the pan was huge but the pizzas weren’t that big. The dough base was think, and crispy almost to the point of biting down on a biscuit.

The waiter asked if the pizza was big enough when we were done, we replied, “Too small.” He was helpless as he couldn’t do much about it. We ordered drinks and felt the soft drinks were way over priced. There wasn’t any need as they provided iced water too!

Since there wasn’t much else to do, we decided to play in the pool with the free ball. It was fun using the ball to splash water onto each other using as much force as possible. It was like dodge ball only, using water. The game lasted about an hour before HF decided that she was hungry.

We proceeded to wash off and ordered room service as we felt that the BBQ and buffet dinner was too expensive since none of us eat much. Dinner arrived just as all of us had completed our baths. ES loved the Cabonara Spaghetti and the fish chilly sauce. The omelette was too salty but the salad that came with it was great. Thankfully, the carrot soup was bland enough to balance the salty omelette.

ES suggested Mahjong to spend the night but the set and table weren’t available, so we request for confirmation from the reception who never got back on the availability because the person renting it was happily using it through the night. There is only one Mahjong set and one Mahjong table for rental.

We tried again after breakfast while waiting to kill the time but only the set was available. The table wasn’t. We couldn’t even borrow the Mahjong paper because the person didn’t seem to understand. Ultimately, we didn’t get to play Mahjong to pass the time, we played Big 2, Dai Dee. The night before, it was more exciting as we had forfeits. RK was the one who suggested a change of the forfeit and she was the 1st one to do it. Evil, ES took photos as proof. And NO! None of you will get to see them!

After checking out, we had about an hour plus to kill the time. Thus, we used the vouchers for a free bowling game per person. The game was way cheaper than playing one game in Singapore. We played 2 games but kept having troubles with the bowling balls being stuck in the gears. The guy had to sort it out for us more than 5 times.

Finally, we changed lanes in the middle of the second game. The monitor for one of the lanes was spoilt while the lane’s TV screen had too much flickering. We continued our games while I didn’t score any strikes, I did get a couple of spares. We kept hitting the pins to display goal posts too. The bowling balls got stuck a few times in the new lanes too.

I think the bowling lanes were under utilised and hence, the problems. We didn’t even have to wait for anyone to complete their games either. The guy was kept busying with our cries for help with the stuck bowling balls and pins.

It was time to leave Batam for Singapore. We had a great time being crazy in Batam, especially in our rooms.

This outing got huge. Usually, I would manage to get only at most 6 people confirming their availabilities. It was a huge surprise that I have 12 confirmations. I nearly fell off my chair when I read the email. Happy is WishBoNe.

Since HF and the rest have not been to The Cathay at Handy Road, we decided to go for Billy Bombers. At 2pm, NL sent me an SMS saying she was down with flu and cough. Naturally, MC wouldn’t be going either. Sad is WishBoNe. At around 4pm, RK SMS me that her SO was going since his work got canceled. Happy is WishBoNe. The total number came to 11. We were to start dinner at 6pm. Usually, the group arrived late but whenever we purposely put an earlier time, everyone arrives just within 15 of the said time.

CD was the last to arrive due to her cycling trip at East Coast Park. Her friend drove her from East Coast Park to Balestier, Bukit Timah, Lord knows where else, then to Newton and finally, Orchard Road. She wanted to tell him to go to a particular exit as it was faster but she wasn’t sure and kept quiet until she reached. Some people cannot accept road directions. Best to be quiet about it and learn the hard way.

Since all of us were done with dinner except her, we decided to go to another place and discussed for 5 minutes and came up with 2 options. TCC Orchard and KTV just near The Cathay. Another 5 minutes of choosing either venue and we finally decided on TCC. That’s when we found out that TCC is near PS, thus, saving us a trip to somewhere else along Orchard Road. That was 7.30pm.

CD had half her sandwich at TCC. We all got drinks after the waitresses at TCC helped to arrange the tables to accommodate all 11 people. A tight squeeze but we managed. With only 2 guys in the group, it wasn’t that difficult.

It was 8.30pm when we finished our drinks at TCC. Since the night was still young, we discussed if we should go to another place. Another 10 minutes of throwing up options and we decided on Marina at Keppel Bay. Only JC has a car, so the group had to be split into 2 cabs. I don’t know how the rest split up but since 3 of us knew the way, the ones who knew would take the cab with those who didn’t know the way. RK, RK’s SO and me took JC’s car. Happy is WishBoNe.

When we arrived at the place, the carpark was full and a valet helped JC but he didn’t know how to operate the doors for her 2-door Peugeot. I can’t remember which model but it’s one of the early adopters for auto-door in private cars. The rest had arrived earlier and the staff informed us that all the restaurants were fully booked due to weddings. We chose an auspicious date alright.

Since we had arrived and most of us had never been to the place, we took some time to walk around the place that we could access. I took a few photos and realised that I need more practice in night shots.

After walking around the place with TCC being the only available place to us, we decided to go have ice cream since ES was craving for it since dinner. Walking would be a breeze in the cool night but I wanted to take a ride instead of walking. So, we took the car with RK’s SO, the sweet man, gave the valet service amount to JC.

We arrived at Haagen Dazs at 10.30pm and asked for the seating arrangement for 11 people. After waiting for a few minutes, the rest had arrived and we got our seats. We ordered 7th Heave, waffle with ice cream and brownie. The flavours for 7th Heaven: Mango Sherbet, Cookies and Cream, Rum and Raisins, Belgian Chocolate, Strawberry Cheesecake, Green Tea and Berry something.

The white smoke is the dry ice in case you don’t know. We chatted until 11.30pm. From pool stories by RK with her job as a lifeguard to ghost stories and disturbing couples making out cars late at night when ES’ hubby and RK’s SO were young. Cheeky men.

ES’ hubby used to drive out late at night with his best mates with their cars mod with speakers that blasted out music at high volumes while parked in between the cars. They would even wave hi to the car owners left and right. Other antics included hide and seek in the 7th month at some haunted house. 1 seek, the rest paired up to hide.

Finally, we wrapped up the night and this time, JC sent HF, CD and me home. I saved a lot of transport money. Thanks JC! I have enjoyed my night. Been quite some time since we had such a huge gathering since our graduation. KY failed to turn up nor returned our calls. Wondering what she is up to.

Thus our night venues:

• Billy Bombers at The Cathay
• TCC just outside Dohy Ghaut MRT
• Marina at Keppel Bay
• Haagen Dazs at VivoCity

4 places in a night. Oh boy.