busy putting out fires

by right, i am suppose to continue with the second part of my stories from the faraway land. however, i am so beat at the moment i can hardly focus my mind or get into the mood to tell the tale.

i came back to a silly non-functioning lockset that likes to ridicule me by failing to perform its duties at non-appropriate times. i can almost hear its evil laughter as once again, i am unable to open the door into my place. it has tortured me mercilessly over the course of one year as it selectively chooses to ignore my pleas to work.

this morning, the iron grille played 'follow the leader' and imitated its sibling, trapping me in my own prison for the better half of the morning. seeing that it was so much fun, the electrical department decided to join in the party. the phone rang continuously for no apparent reason with no caller on the other side. this spooked the internet connection, which also decided to follow the labour strike. bah wahhhhh! i am putting out so much fire that i am beginning to feel the heat.

office work is piling up so high that it is fast becoming a close match to malaysia's twin tower. on the personal side, it seems that my name is on everybody's lips. the phone is ringing non-stop with people pulling me apart with their demands for my attention. and as usual, all things cannot wait. my shoulders are tighter than before the holidays and i am ready to collapse.

this serves as my temporary therapy.

now i must go and continue putting out the fires before it envelops me.















see you around.

a two-leg journey

another school holiday has ended for the kids, filled to the brim with a bustle of endless activities and fun. i think the children had a great time with their cousins and i hope they have enough to pack away in their memory boxes for when days get longer and nights get darker.

i brought back stories from far far away and i shall tell them over the course of this week. hopefully, i can bring you along on this journey that i have travelled and show you what i have seen, through my eyes.



i was here for the first leg of my journey. i won't dwell on the why and the when but the where is singapore, the small dot down south. once my second home but now a distant memory in the past. looking back, it will seem that i have not been there for a few years now. the people have moved on. the places changed. what had once become a very cold place for me because of this alienation has suddenly turned into a warm and friendly place again this time round. all because i now know i have some friends on this little island, old and new. people who care, people who wants to know me for what i am. it makes the heart glow with warmth and the body a little reluctant to leave. it didn't matter that my schedule did not permit me to seek them out, their very existence is enough to make me feel a difference in the ar :-)

after an all-too-brief visit to singapore, we went on to hong kong. to search for the mouse. the elusive and popular mouse. yes, this time we ventured into disneyland.



i was mentally prepared for the various critique i have heard of this 'talk-of-the-town' place. disbelieving, i held the opinion that size will hardly matter, as long as we are having fun. infact, it will be refreshing to be able to move at a leisurely pace around the park. what i was not prepared for, however, was the heat. to put it in simple terms, this little pig was fried. and roasted. i was all armed with sun-block, water, cold towel and spaghetti straps. nevertheless, the heat made me wished i could peel my skin off, if only to give my skeleton frame some breathing air. HD said i was sure to have lost some weight from the dehydration, but it only serves to affirm my mental picture of a dried roasted suckling pig (incase some readers are wondering about this constant reference to the pig, i am miss piggy, born in the lunar year of the pig).

however, i am a highly adaptable creature and the heat alone is not enough to win the fight against my endurance. the thing that did me in was the discovery of some long-lost relatives at the theme park. some 'piau-chers' to be exact. having not had much experience with people from mainland china, i have always cut them some slack. even when another blogger proclaims them as obnoxious and loud, i put it all down to their upbringing. however, i draw the line when they start to encroach in my space. the personal yet intangible boundaries that everyone have around them.

i guess it should have been heart-warming, discovering relatives that you didn't know you had. for what else could they have been with the physical closeness that they intended? then again, even relatives of the same blood will not demonstrate such unappreciated 'friendliness'. in a queue, they insisted on pressing their bodies up against mine, so close that even a bacteria would have to scream out for air. the body was hot but it was mine, not theirs. in that stinky, sweating and steaming place (a lesson in the alphabet 's'), i would have gagged even at the thought of mr hot-bod of the year sticking so close to me. all because they cannot comprehend the concept of joining a queue. their envitable quest after encroaching into my space was to move a few more steps in front; in short, to cut the line. i gave them the deadly look but obviously their skin was too thick from all the cosmetic they had on. in frustration, i turned and grunted out 'miss!', for that was all i could manage in their mother tongue whilst keeping my temper in check. they must have finally realised that i wasn't going to let them through, as they slowly gravitated towards the left for another victim, my brother-in-law. he must have fallen for the 'hot sexy body pressed tightly against him' trick for they managed to squeeze through before i even blinked my eye.

that experience must have really ticked me off for then onwards, i noticed many more 'piau-chers' haunting the park. wearing 3-inch high heels! i know hong kong disneyland has been famed for being relatively small, but can you imagine having to teether all around that still vast space in pointy and very high heels? their hair was all coiffered up and their bodies dressed in sexy half-length ball gowns! a little out of place, if you ask me. maybe it was sour grapes, for i was nearly melting from the heat and was hardly a sight to look at. still, i am bewildered by their dress code. after all, this is a family theme park and the prince in the castle does not really exist, in case they were wondering.

the rating: it was the most tiring and exhausting visit ever, to any theme park or anywhere else. i don't know if the kids were enjoying themselves much but little missy never did get her wish to have her photo taken with the big elusive mouse himself.

well, at least we can know claim that we have visited hong kong disneyland to all those curious and nosy relatives who know our travelling habits all too well.



can you guess which is mine?

leaving on a jet plane

this is perhaps the last post that you will be reading from me for a little while. once again, i am taking another short break, which is meant to coincide with my children's school holiday. perhaps the where is not so important, the whom and what being the integral part of the holiday. the places i will be travelling remains the same, the faces unchanged. however, time has altered everything else and i find myself feeling a little apprehensive about this trip. nevertheless, i look forward to the break and the opportunity to drop everything else and just bask in the love of my family.

as always, the pre-holiday preparations are the worst. the people in my company seems to have an extra-sensory antenna meant just for picking up signals of when i will be going off on my holidays. they will in turn pile up all the things that require my most immediate attention and request that it be done - yesterday. this time round, i have not given any of them advance notice. infact, i will be just slipping away, hopefully unnoticed. still, their high-frequency antennas seemed to have picked up the waves and all of a sudden, i am the most popular person in the company again.

for the longest time, i had this very sore back, which i have believed was from all the late night hair-washing. today, i realised that it is from stress that everybody piles on me. my dear friends and families will probably drop their jaws flabbergasted at the suggestion that this little lady is suffering from stress. since my work is invisible most of the time, many people forget that i am not a SAHM. infact, i am a WFHM. my limbs are elongated from all that simultaneous pulling by different quarters, all calling my name for their needs. they have forgotten that i have been created with only two hands and thus, can only handle at most two things at a time. if i start learning how to juggle now, i may be able to add one or two more tasks, but at the risk of dropping all if my attention is diverted for one nano-second.

i am so tired now that my brain can't think straight. plus the fact that the kids are going in and out of my room every two minutes and the phone ringing every five. the highly sensitive tele-tubbies with their supersonic antennas, remember? blogging is fast becoming a luxury for me.

my morning started way before dawn today. my deep and peaceful sleep was rudely interrupted by the little missy and like the elderly lady i am fast becoming, i couldn't go back to sleep for a long time. so, i can only operate on half tank today. from one chore to another meeting, from work to responsiblity, all the while i have to look at my watch so that one will not trespass the schedule of the other. my life seems to be dictated by the ticking of the clock. when out buying necessities that just couldn't wait, i kept looking at the watch. when meeting that business associate, i kept looking at the watch. when attending to urgent work, i kept looking at the watch. when picking up the kids after school, i kept looking at the watch. i will look at the watch all the way to my grave.

being a woman is not easy.
being a woman and a daughter is harder.
being a woman, a daughter and a grand-daughter is even harder.
being a woman, a daughter, a grand-daughter and a mother is even even harder.
being a woman, a daughter, a grand-daughter, a mother and a wife is even even harder.
being a woman, a daughter, a grand-daughter, a mother, a wife and an aunty is even even even harder.
being a woman, a daughter, a grand-daughter, a mother, a wife, an aunty and an employee is even even even even harder.
being a woman, a daughter, a grand-daughter, a mother, a wife, an aunty, an employee and a blogger is impossible.

yes, i indeed do look forward to this break i will be getting.

one more thing to share. this morning, as i brought little master to school, i arrived at the school yard at the same time as another guardian with a child. since i was just a few steps before her, i proceeded to open the front gate to usher my son in. this little grandma, or whom i will assume is the child's grandmother for i am purposely being a little harsh with my presumption here, promptly walked in right after him. without so much as a glance at me or a smile in greeting. had i known that she finds it in order to treat me as the neighbourhood door-woman, i would have stuck my hand out in expectation of a gratuity in return. damn! i could have earned myself a little side income there.

and who says malaysians are rude and they don't hold the doors open for strangers? malaysians are thick enough to make that presumption themselves.

a tradition of love

when HD is sad, i am sad. when HD is happy, i am happy. but today, HD looks sad......

another chinese birthday draws close, to mark another notch in my age. it is not such a big deal, i guess but each and every year my mother will prepare a simple meal of mee sua with 2 red eggs for me in celebration of it. provided, of course, that she recalls the day. and so, i make an extra special effort to remind her prior to that everytime :-) how else will i get my treat?

we have carried on this tradition for as long as i can remember and it applies for every member of the family. a simple meal but it brings such warmth to the heart. watching her move about in the kitchen, preparing that meal just for me, i am reminded that she loves me and cares enough to make an extra effort on that day. i guess it is something that i know, something that is sitting in the bottom of my heart. however, it is still very pleasant to be reminded of it.

watching her fingers red from the dye used for colouring the eggs, a warmth fills me. a red egg is but a symbol of the occasion. for that, she has to put up with patches of red on her fingers for the rest of the day as the colouring is usually semi-permanent. looking at it, it is like a badge of her love for me, worn for all to see.

to me, that is what a birthday should be about. not presents, though sometimes the presents are a mere representation of someone's affection. not delicious 6-course dinners, though once again it is also an indication that someone loves you enough to lavish the money and time on you. in my opinion, a birthday is not a celebration of the years that you have lived but an opportunity to be reminded of your worth in the heart of others.

this year, my mother came to me to remind me that my birthday is around the corner. unfortunately, she will not be around to prepare that special meal for me. i can see the apologetic look in her eyes and it is suffice to fill me with warmth again. i never meant for it to be an obligation to her. this year, the fact that she has remembered my birthday makes me feel like i have already eaten that very delicious and aromatic bowl of hot mee sua, complete with two red eggs, of course.

confidence betrayed

do you have someone in your life that you thought will never ever betray your confidence? someone whom you believed would never ever lie to you or go against their very word? someone that you have put all your faith in for the very reason that he will be the last person on earth whom you believed will be dishonest to you?

well, i thought i had one too. until yesterday. the very last soul on this earth that i thought i could at least trust, turns out to be human after all.

he may not be too pleased with the fact that i am blogging about it here but i have given him plenty of mental preparation that i will. and so, i am.

everybody has a good reason. for after all, why else would they be doing it? but reasons aside, it is still the very thought of the confidence betrayed that counts. and that will always hurt. confidence once shattered is not something that can be restored easily. he chose to satisfy his curiosity in favour of this valuable and rare, but perhaps intangible, wealth.

frankly speaking, i thought i will be far more devastated than the present condition i am. in another age and time, perhaps i would have been. was it that i have been betrayed once too often by others? or was it that i have known the fact for sometime, thus given myself ample mental preparation? or maybe i am already too old to be pointing fingers at others. that is indeed a very tiring position to hold. robin once told me that when you point your finger at people, you are pointing three other fingers at yourself. a very wise statement, i will say.

i don't feel angry, sad perhaps. then again, when it is someone very close and dear, one mistake doesn't erase all the years of loving and all the love and attention he has showered upon me. one wrong doesn't negate all the rights.

he is human after all.

old friend

how do i begin this post? too much thinking and analysing in my life. maybe i should just jump in with both feet and let my feelings bring us along.

today is a very interesting day for me. i was supposed to catch up with an old friend that goes all the way back to primary school. can you imagine meeting up with someone you have not seen for .....*counting fingertips* 21 years? the last time we saw each other, i was probably wearing pig-tails, for goodness sake. pig-tails at 14? okay, maybe i was being a tad melodramatic but it was supposed to be a figure of speech anyway.

back to story. anyway, he was someone that i have totally written off my book as never being able to meet up again. in the movies, you see people bumping into each other after decades apart and you go "no wayyyyy". it is way too corny and fate doesn't always deal you such a fair hand. you usually end up bumping into the class misfit or the one person that you totally want to avoid. yes, i had a couple of those as well. even in the very slim chance that i may have bumped into him on the roads, i will never recognise him. heck, his physical image in my mind's eye is so blurry that i will need high-precision glasses to fine-tune the picture.

but life is strange. and so it was, i had the chance to meet up with a very old friend again today.

it is a very strange feeling. the name itself is very familiar. the sound, however, is alien and the looks even more so. almost as if the face and voice were a total separate entity from the name. i looked at him. no bells were ringing in recognition of the person. all the time a tiny voice in me kept going "sooo, this is how he looks like now". a very itchy curiosity was scratched.

it was a very pleasant lunch, albeit a short one in my opinion, considering that we had 21 years to catch up with. towards the end he did seemed a little eager to dismiss me but i have never been able to understand how this one ticks. was it me? anyway, we walked down memory lane a little and satisfied all the idiotic curiosities that were burning inside me. questions that i never thought would be answered. he may have been perplexed at the non-stop firing squad i was aiming at him, but i consider it close to a miracle that i am at last able to ask these questions that perhaps have been in my unconscious mind for a long time. i have always imagined in that grey cranial temple of mine that there was a doctor walking around bearing his name badge but i couldn't have been further from the truth. it's almost like in the movies, after 'the end', you have this dying curiosity to know what happens after that. i have been given the opportunity to find out about the epilogue.

lately i seem to be meeting up with more and more old friends and each time, i feel very satisfied. almost like i have found some lost treasure. you know what they say, "new friends are like silver but old are like gold". granted, they may or may not be a totally different person from when i knew them and are no more closer in terms of familiarity than the stranger on the road, but i am very happy knowing that each and every one of them are presently healthy and doing well. and hopefully, happy in their life :-)

monday sucks

when you get older, there seems to be less things that make you happy.

laughters are fleeting and smiles momentarily. the heaviness in my heart, however, seems here to stay. small things, insignificant things bring my mood low. that hardly seems fair to my mind, who is but an innocent bystander to all these external stimuli.

sunday, i asked HB (hubby dearest) if he had any reply to a question i had asked him to put forward to my sister-in-law. he handed me the phone and asked if i wanted to call her myself. maybe it was unfair to him, but emotions know no rationale. it ticked me off. my hands are not amputated. my lips are not super-sealed. if i had wanted to ask her myself, i would have simply lifted the handle off the phone and made the call, instead of asking mr. jerk here. over the past decade, that was his style. which is quite infuriating, really. given the situations were reversed, he would also gladly pass any associations to my family back to me, not to say that we don't love our individual in-laws, but i guess it's just a natural in-built instinct. so, it makes it even more infuriating that he doesn't understand it when the tables are turned on him. arggghhh! that earned him half day of stone-walled silence from yours truly.

monday. mr male-menopause popped me a question out of the blue, just as he was getting dressed for work. what is the name of the brand of shirts he wears? i know mr pig-headed is extremely loyal to one single brand of shirt. and i have even bought a few for him on certain ocassions. but hello? this is not mng or zara that we are talking about. this is no three of four letter word. we are talking about somebody's italian or whatever-language name here. an information that i do not see or come across on a daily basis. damn, i don't even think about it for the last six months. i am supposed to recall that information at the flick of my hand? what am i? super-mental kid? i told him i don't know but i will if he gives me multiple choices. nooo, he wasn't in a very generous mood. i told him i will know it if i saw it in the shopping centre. but that wasn't good enough for mr male-menopause. he was unamused that his little wifey didn't have all these unnecessary information stored up in that grey cell of hers. since when is the ability to retain useful pieces of information a yard-stick for how important someone is in your life? i wasn't pissed when he could never remember my bra-size and for a guy, that's like the only information when their ears perk up.

he told me it started with a 'd' and a 'h' and to let him know when i have recalled it. duh! like i am even going to waste my brain power trying to recall that information. like it will make me richer and more powerful if i can suddenly remember the brand of his shirt. i could have easily opened his cupboard and find that information now, but i am not even going to do that :-p

next, i received a phone call which added the shade of blue of my mood a little darker. and it also sealed my decision not to blog about her anymore. so, my friends, i will not be talking about her here in the future. much as it does stabilise my emotions to blog about how i feel and the ups and downs i feel when i think of her, i have to respect her privacy too. please don't ask me anymore how she is for i all i will be able to say is she is fine.

i just read my mails for the weekend and my happiness indicator suffered another blow. a long-lost best friend shares with me the depression that she is presently suffering from. i don't know how to make her see the light and i don't know if my reply will be enough for her to see the picture but i hope the mere presence of my listening ears will help.

monday sucks!

jom, pergi makan

after many days of hard work and perseverance, not to mention orgasmic pleasure, i have graduated. ta dah! okay, for those who was just about to run out the door and register for the course, the orgasmic part was just a one-off split second thing. please, calm down and sit back in your chair.

as you know, i have been very busy doing some juggling recently. perhaps i should be hard at work today, making up for lost time. after all, from the very existence of this post, it will seem that i have some free time on hand. however, my friends, today is friday and what good is friday if not for slacking off? :-) besides, the boss is out of town and the mouse has come out to play.

i had a lot knocking around in that cranial center of mine lately, almost like the random movements of atoms. thoughts and deliberations were formed, but as time passed and i have failed to build on it, it vaporised into the thin air. the only part the qi gong hasn't seem to help is my brain. it seems to be as forgetful and muddled as ever. or maybe those are thoughts that my sub-conscious are not too keen to explore.

what my mind is more eager to note, perhaps, is the tendency of our people to celebrate each and every occasion with.............has anybody guessed it?......eating!

maybe it's just my family that is really strange but i do see this tendency everywhere i go. are we the only culture that celebrates so much and with each event... food, food and more food.

july perhaps was the worst. it started out with my bro and mum's chinese birthday, which of course, we had an in-house gastronomic fest, prepared none other than the great master chef herself; my mum. yes, i have often wondered about the wisdom of wanting to slave for others on perhaps the only day when you should be pampered and spoilt. you have another 364 other days to do that, if watching people savour your skills is your kind of thing. aha! i have digressed once more. then again, what is story telling without one for more detours?

the week after that was followed by my mother's actual birthday, whereupon we had a full i-don't-quite-know-how-many course dinner at the restaurant. this was the genuine shark fin, abalone, blah blah blah material and needless to say, i walloped everything.

scarcely three days later, my bro's birthday came and once again, we headed down to another restaurant for another round of over-extending our stomach. should we have abstained? it hardly seems fair to the birthday boy, for after all his birthday will always come a few days after mum's. so, come what may, eat first.

before that week was up, my cousin had a birthday. maybe this we could have skipped. but her mother was recuperating in the states after some intensive treatment for cancer and we didn't want her to celebrate her birthday all by herself. so, the entire extended family turned up with gusto, with empty stomachs and all, ready to pour the contents of the buffet table into our now-groaning and complaining stomachs.

no more birthdays for the rest of july. ahhhhh! i could almost hear my tummy breathing out a sigh of relief. that was before we surprised it with a nightly gastronomic spread of supper during the entire 12 days of qi gong class. i think most of them looked forward to the food more than the class. i have no idea what qi gong has to do with food, perhaps it was a nice way to entice the students to continue coming back, after each back-breaking 3-hours sitting. everybody brought a little something to contribute and as a result, each night we were faced with the tiresome decision of which yummilicious food to restrict our stomach to.

food, thy name is like poison. looking at the calendar, i seem to have the rest of the month's respite. come september, i will have to once again brace my stomach for i know 15 people who are born in that beautiful month, including yours truly :-)

hmmmmm, is it too early to plan how i want to celebrate my birthday? that sounds like a post for another day.

inside my mind

BAA WAA!

walked into a familiar pharmacy today and was at once greeted with a 'have you put on weight?'. nevermind that the pharmacist is an idiot who doesn't know the proper way to greet a customer, i should perhaps be more resolute in losing a few pounds. no more food for me. i will be breathing air only for the next few days. breatheeeeee.....damn, i gained another pound. i forgot. air alone is enough for me to put on weight :-)

things have been swirling around me these couple of days. i feel like a juggler who has been thrown one too many balls to handle. i'm trying to keep my head afloat in the sea but the tide is rising fast. i'm sprouting cliches now. the threat of an imminent diet is frying my brains. :-)

grandma had another big fall again. a pretty bad one. just as she had recovered enough for her to walk a few steps, life has thrown her another hurdle. well, maybe not life. after all, she was the one who was being unreasonably obstinate and chose to take the couple of steps without a supporting walker that resulted in this unfortunate turn of events. now she lay, helpless in the hospital bed, waiting. waiting for the very slow process of healing. grumbling and agitated as she lay, waiting.

the entire sequence of events has also left me a little frustrated. at the once again lack of participation from immediate family members. the concern from some relevant parties is glaringly missing and i was left to hold the fort. i have never believed i possess surpassing virtues of filiality but i trust that even i will rush to my mother's side should anything undesirable happen to her. wouldn't you? anyway, it's not my position to judge. i should be grateful that at least i was given the honour to serve that dear ailing grumbling mumbling woman who went a-tumbling whilst she is still close :-)

my own mental state has also not given me any respite from these manic activities around me. i find myself questioning my own desire for blogging and writing. this, however, i need more time to mull over. at this juncture, time does not permit me that luxury :-(

my dear big little devil has returned from school and with her incessant chattering around, the process of thinking must also cease.

till tomorrow........

oh yes, and that loose fitting blouse i was wearing is going straight to the top of the pile of clothes for donation :-p

another weekend

the weekends have been flowing with activities for me. yes, baby, i'm a happening chick! :-)

saturday evening started off with a lively and exciting seranade by a young soprano in e-major. i must say that it was at once heart-tugging and entertaining, though perhaps i wish never ever to hear another repeat performance.

a very harsh critique perhaps? not really, considering that it was my little chap who was doing the screaming at the top of his lungs at the doctor's clinic. his suffering? he was having his big toe nail removed. eeeeewwww! yes, we can all imagine the horror and the pain, and my dear little devil had to go through it first hand. sigh!

i did the motherly job of holding his hands while they carried out the necessary procedures of cutting off the skin from under the toe-nail and thereafter, removing it in its entirety, all without local anesthetic. they did try to numb him with some very cold spray and application but believe me, he was screaming the house down! and yes, i was holding his hands because i was to afraid to look. hubby dearest, on the other hand, stood like a rock and silently observed the procedure without so much as a flinch. what is it with men? do they have to sign a pledge to forever be strong and steady whilst all types of gory and gross things happen around them? or do they quiver and shake like a baby when they go to the restroom a minute later? i have no idea how they do it but i guess i was lucky there wasn't two quivering shaking idiots hanging around the little boy that night.

i tried to distract him with promises of ice-creams and asking him about his favourite choice. but if my son was at a more vocal age, he would probably say, "zip it, mum. who bloody hell cares about some freaking ice-cream when i am hurting so bad?". maybe i was trying to distract myself from the blood-curdling screams. that nerve-wrecking scream. i want my mummyyyyyyy.

after the interesting musical performance, we adjourned for dinner. any clever folks want to guess what we have for dinner?
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pork knuckles.



sunday night wasn't as dramatic, thank goodness. this little heart cannot cope with two stressful events in a row. we went to catch a nice movie

and we saw it here



under the stars.

and the moon.

and the blood-sucking pests. 

on strike

curiosity killed the cat

before you proceed, let me warn visitors that they may find today's posting a little crass, if not weird.

hello everybody.

are you all wondering what profound story this beautiful writer will be bringing you today?

well, as you all know, i am a very inquisitive person. i like to ask questions, but most of the time i direct them back at myself as i am very shy by nature (ahem!) however, there are some questions that even this ingenious brain cannot answer, and so i am forced to turn the direction of the arrow today. hopefully, you will be able to throw some light to my query.

first, we post the photo.

this is my toilet roll.

this is my daughter's toilet roll.

normally, as with everybody else i am sure, we don't take much notice of our toilet paper. if you were to ask me at point blank what colour is the toilet paper in my house, i will probably venture a guess of white colour. however, if you were to place it in an identification parade, pretty much like those for criminals, i may be able to spot my suspect. may be is the key word here since no person around me is crazy enough to carry out such a request. spoil sport.

anyway, one morning, through a series of coincidence, i realised that my daughter's toilet roll is actually very pretty. it is, isn't it? very sweet, with nice pink flowers all over. i didn't take much notice of it when i was doing the purchase. and you know what? it is perfumed. it is actually fragranced with a very delicate sweet smell. *taking a deep breath* ahhhhhhhh! the problem is...i look very funny smelling a roll of toilet paper.

which brings me to my question: why is the toilet paper perfumed? is there a bunch of people who goes around making all types of excuses just to have another chance to go to the toilet and smell the roll? or do people keep it in their desk, ready to whip it out in a second when they feel that they are in need of a quick olfactory perk? imagine layering your wardrobe with toilet paper and when your darling says, "honeyyy, you smell so good today. what is the fragrance?" "ohhh, it's just the 2006 dion toilet roll" :-0

when you buy the toilet rolls, they usually come in a bunch, all packed neatly in plastic. so, the fragrance is definitely not to captivate you to purchase the product. okay. so, you have made the decision on the appearance. therefore, i can understand the soothing peach colour and the sweet little flowers. but the logic still sounds a little warped to me. making it attractive enough for what? to wipe your bottom? sheesh!

so, when do you actually get to smell this fragranced product? before you use it? i am sure it is not going to be after you use it. which means that there will actually be people who are sitting at the throne with a section of neatly folded loo-roll, and sniffing away whilst they are hard at work. hmmmmmm.......i don't know how the makers of the fragranced toilet-roll came to that conclusion, but i am curious about the statistics.

do you smell your toilet-roll? do you know of anybody that does?

and for those who are wondering, i am not running out of topic to post. this is not, i repeat, not a post made out of desperation.

closed doors

whilst i continue to shiok shiok with my qi gong, i'll leave you with this:


there i was, sitting behind my desk, hard at work (as usual) as i valiantly try to make up for the time that i have wasted on blogging. slaving away, drops of perspiration started to form on my forehead. they don't call it hard work for nothing.

the clock ticked and tocked and time dragged past. the surrounding environment was getting more oppressive with each passing minute. it doesn't help that i was seated facing the sun and it was scorching its very best at the moment. i mentally ticked myself off for not taking into account the direction of the sun when i was renovating the place. as it is, i will be forever stuck in this inferno when i work. the glass doors are doing nothing in keeping the hot sun out.

it is getting more unbearable. even with the air-conditioner turned on, it does nothing to alleviate the heat. i have resorted to wearing the bare minimum required for decency but short of peeling of my skin, it is not helping much either. hair pinned up in a bun, perspiration forming all over my body, i am starting to lose concentration. i feel like downing a tall glass of thirst quenching ice water.

restless, i got up for a walk. moving over to the balcony, i look out into the greens far below. as my eyes focus, something struck me. the trees are swaying from side to side. the realisation was slow to form but it finally arrived. heyyyyy, there is a breeze out there. then, why am i boiling in here?

only then did i realise that the glass doors to the balcony and the study are closed. gently, i slid them open and a cool breeze greeted me. ahhhhh! the gentle wind caressed my face, bringing immediate relief from the torment.

the room is now filled with a soft breeze, gently flapping the papers on the table and making the small tendrils on my hair do a slow dance.

i thought i was keeping the coolness in with the closed doors but i was actually keeping the breeze out. i smiled at my silliness and return to work.

have you opened the doors to your heart yet?

a master in practice

today the sun is shining brightly and it is time to move on....and smile a little smile.

as some of you know, i have begun my qi gong classes over the weekend. hey, before all of you start running away, thinking that this is another old fobbie's post on the most boring art of qi gong, i hasten to add that it is really an amazing experience.

stay a little while.

like many, i used to think that qi gong was for the oldies and usually some image will pop up of grand-daddies and grand-mummies moving slow-mo in tune to some silent dance steps. i'm not quite sure whether my line of thinking has changed.....or maybe i am now finally qualified to join the oldies but goodies group *holds placard up instructing readers that this is where they shout 'of course not'*

anyway, this little cynic joined the class with an open mind and hopefully, at the end of this 12- days course, i would have learnt something new. actually, come to think of it, this latest 'cult' group is more my thing since it basically only involves sitting and meditating for 12 straight days. for those who have grown up on a healthy dose of those chinese kungfu series will probably know that this is very much like the times when the sifu has to 'pai kwan leen kung' (i have no idea how to translate that but it's when the master has to go into caves or whatever locked rooms and re-energise himself by simply sitting down and meditating).

and mock not, those cynical disbelievers. it really works. amazing things happen to you simply by sitting there and breathing. before all of you rush out to get yourself a cave, i must tell you that there is a method to the breathing. whilst it is not difficult to learn, it is not easy to practice for all of us must learn to leave our thoughts and desires behind. yes, yes, very good indeed for ms cuckoo head here.

first day:

learning to let go, relax and not have a single thought in your head is veryyyyyy difficult. you keep thinking 'don't think of anything, don't think of anything' and then you realise, hey, that's thinking isn't it?

after several sessions, my mouth started salivating uncontrollably. well, not enough for me to fetch a pail and leave it nearby, but enough to have me gulping down large volume of saliva. whenever i breathe out, i can feel an oppression slightly below my chest area. not heart attack, okay, wise guys. it's the middle dan-tian and you are suppose to feel the 'chi' collecting there. many times i thought i was falling off the chair. sleepiness or entering into the tranquility mode?

second day:

having finally understood the breathing technique, i am now getting better at practising the meditation. during one session, i actually felt ripples going down my back. very pronounced rippling effect. and my friends, it was extremely pleasurable.

someone once told me that when you are able to achieve the final stage, it is equivalent to orgasm (now, you know why i volunteered so eagerly). then again, the person who said it could have been my husband, which immediately brings the question to mind 'what am i doing wrong in bed?' (don't even bother trying to answer that question, pleaseeee!)

i also felt pricking sensations in both of my palms. oh yes, baby, i'm on my way to be a real-deal martial art master. for those who tick me off the wrong way, beware! pretty soon, i'll be able to use my 'chi' to bounce you hundreds of kilometres away.

tonight will be my third class.

pretty soon, i will be learning shaolin moves like 'buddha's hand' and running across the surface of water.