Blogpoints :: that I missed to blog

You wouldn't know how odd this is. At work I couldn't do much personal stuff now, but then I'd still love to crap about whatever that crossed my mind, so how? I'm such a messy/lazy/forgetful person, I survive on desktop post-it notes -- yep that's right I have a post-it notes just on "Blogpoints" -- which I told myself to blog each point per entry, BUT that means I'll have too many entries to post at the end of the day?!!

Bleuggh... so here's all my blogpoint anyway, if it makes any sense to you!

1. The %@^%$*!!@#^% SG team is a #$@^#@%#&^!$$!# pain in the arse! How dare he 'teach' me about 'Integrity' in his email reply to me, cc to all, trying to make me look bad infront of others in order to make himself look good. %%#&#&!!$!#@ The pot calling the kettle black!

[Today: The same thing happened! I think I started the email war by escalating a potential server low on disk space problem, and he replied cc to our manager, insulting not only me but my teamlead for not training me on how to do this inspite of having done this server maintenance on a daily basis for 2 years! Gossh... when I read his email, I want to bang my head, and to reply so sarcasticly that it'll probably cost my job. So after heeding my teamlead's advise, you know to get the greenlight to reply sarcasticly... there I went no remorse. I tried so hard to bite my tongue, and I phrased it so gently: "Appreciate if you could be more diplomatic & be a helpful teamplayer, I wouldn't have escalated to you if I dont need your advise in this. All I'm asking is if there's any files that could be removed off from C: to free the disk space." My teamlead was happy with my reply, and the reply that came from the idiot thereafter was more subdued, asking why didnt I state it clearly in the first place or phoned or pm to avoid the miscommunication! Oh @%&#$^*@!!!!!]

I think I just sent the message across to all: Dont mess with me! I'll see how long I can sustain in this corporate kungfu battleship!

2. Yasmin ~ the story teller. I really love her blog and reading all the comments by the ordinary rakyat. If you would have the time to go through each comment in her blog. Really gratifying to know there's still soulful believers out there in this country that I could really connect with, irregardless of the culture / race factor. Why are these people not found in the political front? I'd vote for Yasmin ~ the storyteller.

3. *Phew.. this point is very difficult to express, inspired by the Cameron trip journey sitting in the same car with 1 training-management-guru + 1 intelligent freethinker + 1 social-economy-activist.... ok im not going to start this, its too BIG a topic, where I'm not knowledgable enuff to talk about yet, damn mind-challenging.

4. Continue from the BIG discussion on religion - the freethinker asked "what if I'm born into a noble church-going staunch Christian family, will I be who I am today?" .... WHAT IF??? I never / hardly thought of those WHAT IF I was born this / that question. But if I have to answer, then I'll say it all really depends on the conditions / upbringing / my own level of intelligence / exposure / karma / journey of life chosen. So even if I'm brainwashed from young (like how I'm brainwashed into Theravada Buddhism since young) into having strong faith in God & Christ, with my level of inquisitive mind, I will somehow have doubts in the 'belief-system' as created by mankind. The moment I tried to free my mind, and read the first paragraph of the Bible -- im lost. It does not correlate with science and logic, not even history nor facts.

5. Wow, saw this blog of a person who'd died. I wonder when I die, will my family ever read my blog?! :D That would be such a legacy!

6. People with the best job on earth, that I wish to have:
a. Ian Wright - come take me! me! I want!
b. Samantha Brown - oohhh... yes I'd go Europe again & taste all the fanciful hotels, can we switch job?!
c. Datuk Dr. Victor Wee - "Oh let my check my diary, oh I'm flying off to Barcelona next week! There's a fireworks competition that I'm going to Malaysia..."
d. Yasmin Ahmad - read blogpoint 2 :)
e. Jamie Oliver - seriously I cant cook but I wish I can & also be able to showoff my cooking skills & have fun & eat & indulge & drink...

7. THIS ONE YOU MUST READ : I've just discovered another profession that I could be really good / passionate about -- to become a Buddhist Psychotherapist! That musical puja night, Dr. Patricia Sherwood from AU was introducing about this course (yes with diploma and even degree) in Buddhist psychology?!?! Oh my lord.. why didn't they have such a course in local uni?! You know I was already amazed at why 'social work' is even a university level course in Singapore and elsewhere but not here? Ok, the diploma external program would cost about A$3.5k! Anyway, maybe I can forget about MBA... just imagined...I have a master's degree in Buddhist psychology... waulaughh... sei mei...

8. Cj's impression about me (during induction camp, everybody were supposed to comment about each other) : "im exposed to many things in the world but im confused abt why things are like that..." that's what you said right, Cj?! To a certain extend, I'd agree. Yes even when I try to describe myself, I'd say I'm "naive in the worldly aspect". I dont live in this 'world' that is real to most of you, I live in different dimension! Somehow I'm like an alien trying to understand how come there are earthlings on this earth doing the things they do. Is that true about me?!?!?

Question: What is the purpose of life?

Hey J***,

I was thinking what the purpose of life is lately. Knowing that I failed to see the real purpose of life (eternally) I am loosing direction and loose out of focus, not knowing what I am doing and what I wanted to achieve. This brings to a certain extent of frustration.

I understand that everything in life is short and the way to eternity of life is to up bring the good values within us and to put in practice with the fullest faith that we have for God. But when we tend to loose the purpose of having faith to God then is a problem cos we do not know why we need to have faith to God… is like having faith to God for nothing? This sounded terrible and you know what, it makes you feels terrible as well… (to make it even worse, makes you feel horrible)

Somehow sometimes we will have the tendency to have bad thoughts “out of nowhere”, it just comes so naturally which I do not want to. I am thinking how we can eliminate those evil thoughts in our mind so that we can live life wisely. (Bad/evil thoughts here referring to: self-centered, selfishness, jealousy, our bad habits etc…) Whenever I have those bad thoughts in mind, I will tend to tell myself to correct it from there, but the thing is how can I not to have those bad thoughts/bad habits in the very first place? So that I would not have those bad feelings to feel bad about myself being a bad person…?

How to become a wise person with a peaceful mind?

~*~
To all readers of my blog, please help me to answer ~ MJ

~*~

23/8/2006, here's my reply --

Before coming to my answer, I'm curious about why / how made you question about the purpose of life. You said you failed to see the real purpose life.. has this just happened or you've always not known the purpose of life from the beginning?

Did you had the answer before but overtime had forgotten about it? And now you're trying to search for it again?

First and foremost, my advise is for you to clear your mind or brain sponge. Its like its too full, like a teacup, so when you keep pouring water into it, it will overflow. Since we cant get a new brain, so we just have to empty the cup / brain.. and then pour new tea / info to drink / absorb.

All that there is for us to know / learn = knowledge... knowledge is power. Aside from gaining knowledge, there's influenced, brainwash mechanism from young that we cannot argue about.. eg. for my case, I do not believe in God the creator and even if I'm not 'brainwashed' by the Buddhist teachings, I dont see myself following the majority of earthlings believing in God.

That makes me unique when I answer "what is the purpose of life, if I dont believe in God?" - this answer may not be acceptable by people who's looking at the question from God-honouring perspective. Just like an apple left on the table, I can point to it and say "this is green" but another guy will point to it and say "this is fruit".. and another guy say "this is apple"... etc..

Does that mean there's no correct answer to what all these ppl are pointing at? I guess you'll agree that all answers are correct / acceptable. Probably a scientist will point to the object (apple) and say "its atom and molecules"... The more important point is - is it more important to determine what is this object (ie. apple) or eating the object and keeping your stomach full as its gettng really hungry.

I dont agree with self-centred = bad thoughts. Self-centred can be view in a positive form, where a person is SURE / confident of himself/herself. You dont find many people who are so self-assuring, who are confident to speak and live up to his/her principles that he/she so strongly believe in. *ahem* trying to talk abt me la.. or anybody u see around u, who do things their way... becos they know they're happy / enjoy / wont regret doing things their way.. as long as the way doesnt harm / hurt other people.

About jealousy, selfishness and even confusion... these are the 3 evil roots of all human beings. Also remember, got jealousy = got love, got selfishness= got generousity, got confusion = got wisdom. Point is, every human is born with these nature.. unless we're robot, but we're not we're human with feelings, perception, brain, 6 senses etc.. hence we're conditioned to the world around us...

The wiser you get through the years, the lesser the queries you'll ask in your mind... you can get more wisdom through reading and understanding. But for some ppl who cudnt read.. its best to start with the basic. Eg. before turnin pro runner, a baby must learn to crawl before can walk, before can run. Einstein said we're only using 10% of our brain capacity (ok whoever said that, try verify the source).. its true we're so lack of knowledge. But majority of people do not read nor understanding what is life. So what's the basics?!

The answer simply "just live life". In living your life, you try to cultivate goodness, by doing more good deeds and living a virtuous life. Eg. be more generous, give more, love animals, love family, love friends more, love plants, care for the people around us etc... these are very simple basics to teach anybody who's even illiterate. We cant teach our old grandparents how to read the bible / Buddhist books / einstein theory etc.. but we an encourage simple basic value of life for a living.

Have you heard of the phrase, "its not the destination, but its the journey that count". Smell the flowers along the journey to your destination. Breath in the air and smile that you're still alive today to breath. See the people / surrounding as you walk this journey... wow there's so much to talk about with this life journey.. is the destination important for you to worry about?

I can speak in more deeper level *ahem*, but hope this is apprehensive enuff for your digestion with tis email. It's not the end of the dscussion... its endless to begin with.

May I ask you - do you know what do you really want in life? *take your time.. dont have to answer immediately, it takes a life time for some ppl to find out the answer.. we'll see how long it takes for you to answer that :)*

...with warmest regards...
MJ

..to blog abt tea?

*blur* the brain is not functioning...

So how's the trip to Cameron? Yea it was good but I need to recollect back the thoughts that I had if I were to write, but how could I let go of thoughts so easily? I think its because of the winding drive up/down the highland that killed all thoughts. You know you cant have the best of everything in the world, sometimes I just cannot enjoy a roadtrip totally if I'm seated at the back seat of a not-very-slow-car circling the hillslope. No there's nothing to vomit out...

ok just shoot... I think the back seat of a Vios is too cramped for a restless passenger like me :P *soooory Cj!* I was 'inspired' from this trip to save up and upgrade my car (after finish paying off the SLK loan) so that next time, I could drive (a better drivable car), have the front seat and NOT feel so dizzy *hopefully*!

It reminded me of my awfully dreadful 8hr bus-ride to Redang from KL at night, where I couldn't sleep, it was too cold and I lie dizzy and awake the whole night.

But being there... the valley itself... the view was nice. And that's about it. There was not much of activity that we could do, except alot of driving which I dread... Ok maybe I'd say I'm more of a beach-person than a mountain girl. I would jump into the water *feet first* instantly then worry about not able to swim later. But I cant jump into the valley from high up the mountain leh! I can only breath in and just relax.. and... breath.

Yet it's just amazing to be there, and get the chance to be part of good old wonder nature that I'm so distant from. That I've always wondered how people could survive living inside with the forrest and trees. *maybe I dont know how to relax* I cant see myself sitting quietly still at the balcony staring into the beautiful valley, and just do nothing! My dad would love it, that's his idea of an ideal vacation where he doesn't have to do anything *cos he cant walk*.

What I enjoyed most is me being hysteria over climbing up into the tea plantation up on the hill, without knowing where's the trail leading to. Its funny / odd how I realised that many girls are not used to trekking. I thought I'm one bad trekking cos I freak out at worms and creepy crawlie but that's about it. I didn't know SF was so afraid of height and I feel maybe because she's afraid to fall?

I guess being me, I must be that proud of myself that I could venture out on my own, but of course it would be silly to trek out there alone *cos nobody could take picture for ME mah* and if I were to fall into from the hill then nobody will be able to find me lah! But still it doesn't sound so scary except unless I injured myself badly that I couldn't bring myself to safety.

I trekked up the hill, LY followed behind, wondering / asking each step, where / how to go. I think for this, I have to thank my 2 times adventure joining the outdoor ELC camp back in uni days. One was inside Mardi, my first time night-jungle trekking with my worst nightmare of 'sitting inside the jungle' after the rain in the dark, SF must have freaked out big time. What I was fearful about was not darkness but LEECHES! I couldn't SEE anything and I know there were leeches everywhere. At the end of that adventure, I knew I didn't overcome my leech-phobia but it was totally kwel walking alone with a candle by myself finding my way out.

The 2nd 'experience' was a very tiring long wild jungle trekking at Templer's Park where I was 'committee', supposed facilitator but still fearful of leeches. Multiple doh. 4 hours trekking from start till the end.. half way through it RAINED so heavily, and we were all carrying minibackpack. At some point, I had to be 'carried' up by the guys cos it was too steep to climb. Some tree branch were so torny and we just had to be careful everysteps! Wonderful memory, cos I thought I was almost going to give up... but I couldn't. The whole team of committee+participants has to walk together and finish the whole trail indefinitely. After completing that impossible journey, I really believed "Nothing is Impossible"! And THAT YOU CAN DO IT!

Ok where was I... so the tea plantation was easy water trek la... but I was trying to fight with my camera... you see, when there's a beautiful sky... and when my camera cannot capture the sky as sky... I die! I dont know how to win this battle with my camera.. URRRRRgggghhh!

Definitely enjoyed the company of the people that came on this trip. There were lotsa noise, chats, laughs and even fights! Oh boy.. what is life without ups and down, or high and low. I know tym was trying to cope with stomachpain and HC suffering from migraine. And every driver getting overpaid! I really hate this, but the resolution set for the most beautiful taken was by mistake -- too low! I have NO IDEA how I set the mode, I'm going to bang my head on the wall.

But then, I'm back to reality so fast. Had to switch on the work-brain so soon. No time to recover over my stupidity.

Thank you for the wonderful enjoyable and most definitely fun trip with Tea!

Bummer..

who very fai? Me. Myself.

The whole week, I'm supposed to process my application for a new job. On Monday, I was given the HR forms to fill in, and told to send it back before the end of the week.

Things I need :-
1. my passport photos
2. photostate ic / cert / last payslip
3. complete the checklist
.. hmm wait i dont have a big envelope, ok must go out to buy..
....hmm... what I dont my passport photo, shoot must purposely go out Tuesday night to do it.

Shit, I forgot to bring the certs to photostate on Tue, so wait Wed kau tim everything, so by thursday can tumpang my dad to hand it up on his way to work.

SHIT, Wed evening I realise I left my cert / file in the office!

Fine, I still got Thursday, photostate everything, oh last thing is to drive out purposely buy envelope.

Thursday night, I told my dad what to do...

Thursday night, I started packing all the non-related to the job application stuff and went over to my cousin house to close a UT deal. I came back to sleep.

Friday morning, woke up.. realise.. HEY I HAVENT GET READY THE Docs and my dad has LEFT to work!

Shoot... jumped off the bed, to arrange the stuff and fill up the gaps. And pray that my mom wouldn't kill me for asking HER to drive all the way to TPM to hand in the doc.

Lunch time, mom buzz me said dad came back from work, probably to help me get the doc. Then I guess both of them went all the way to hand in the docs to the guardhouse of the company.

I sms my member working inside the co if his supervisor received my doc, he replied "I dont think so, he's on leave today."

I rest case.

(see, I dont have to go thru my parents-trouble, if I can GO on next Monday just because I wanna leave up to the expectation of handing in up by this week!! I've already taken 1/2 day mah for next Monday!! Isssh... really want to strangle somebody... myself probably)

I dont kacau u, u dont kacau me..

Am I afraid? With all due respect its 6pm now, and its after my contract office hour. But I'm writing a blog entry from my office desk.

Maybe I'll be caught, but who's the spy? Yes I've been 'warned' by my teamlead (during private team mtg) that there are some gold finger around. Nice of her to point out to me who's that, no other than the guy from the other team sitting same row as me. Gosh.. how do I feel? Hmm... actually not that bad, cos I know he's not such a reputable figure, just one of those k-p-c, who makes up of a boring Asian office 'culture'.

AT was suggesting to me to read more about cross-cultural differences / stuff, where I lack the knowledge on, that's why my puzzlement in understanding people behaviour / opinion. I graduated with the hope and aim to work in American-type MNC, well lucky enough my first job exposure was very much like my dream job - American culture. Seriously, nobody care if I'm late or early or taking leaves or not. Infact in my first job, not even my teamlead nor manager cared about my annual leaves. I had to keep track of my own. There's this mentor / counsellor program which I truly wished I was part of (but back then I was just a contractor, so I was not assigned a mentor). Nonetheless I was on good terms with the boss and made him my referee before he left. Glad to know he still remembers me whenever potential hirer gave him a call. *the holy one*

My current job culture, is totally ... crap. How can your own colleague backstab you? If you're a snob and enjoy boasting about yourself and gaining credits, its fine by me... but kutuk other people?!? That sounds really foolish to me, it doesn't give the kutuker any credit, infact if I'm the manager who received such tiny-whiny complain about my own staff - I'll be like "why you have nothing better to do? should I assign you more task?"

Oh.. how nice my mom try justifying to me why are people like that in this typical Cinapek culture -- cos other people jealous of you mah! *pluurrrssstttt*. You wanna know how Cinapek this culture is?

*I cant eat infront of my PC, I must go the pantry & sit there (staring wall).
*I cant surf the net during office hour, or else the spy will report me.
*I cant blog / chat / check personal email during office hour.
Here's the funny part..
*I cant listen to music on my earphone. IISSHSHHHH SERIOUSS?!?!?!

All these rules above are considered very very the lame. Somebody pls shoot me first. You think I'll follow these silly rules??! Yeah, maybe you'll see me throw in my letter first, hmmm maybe they're waiting for that. It's a conspiracy theory! *Yiakss!*

Well, here's just another useless point to share. Just last week when the SG 3rdlevel support teamlead came to 'see' us, after all the conference meeting is over, that uncle came over to my seat & starting speaking Mandarin with me. I'm like replying in English, and he continue talking in Mandarin with me. *what?! you speak chinese-accented-English with everybody but speak Chinese with me?! why?!*

Then I told my lady-teamlead, she joked "oh he likes you". Ewwwww..... Oh and I wonder what this uncle tell his other teammembers in SG about us, one of the guy told me on msn that I'm the beauty of the team. *Cough cough*. So what's the problem again, yeah... the problem is they think they could the get data that I've painstaken collected through all my investigation, and then remodify it and call it THEIR analysis, which btw my teamlead do not want me to give.

Aiya... all these taichi kungfu very wuliow ah. Of course, if I can ignore the golden fingers and all the crap from everybody... I still have to put up with my own most confused teamlead!

There is a big problem that our team is facing now, and the management would not have any mercy on us if we fail to meet the SLA after having engaged the expert solutioning for us. My teamlead would be first to be terminated. And since she'd want to salvage the team, she's embark on a mission for all 3 of us to keep fixing as many cases, going beyond expectation, even if it means going back later (*abit*). Towards the end of the week, she started questioning herself -- What happens when the mgt found that we could ACTUALLY could solve so many cases per week?! -- She started to ask us to hold back the number, to make our team dont look too good.

Oh my god... give me a break. Secretly inside my heart, I hope that I could take over her job as make things better. But how on earth could I backstab / wish bad things to happen to her?! She'd fought hard to help me get this job with a good pay, and I feel that I should be grateful for her help and not wish her gone!

I wish that my appraiser / reviewer would notice all the effort that I put in to support my teamlead through this mess!

Well, what goes around comes around. I came to my own conclusion that if I dont want people to mess with me, then I must first dont mess with (or have bad thoughts on) other people la! :D

Setting the record straight

To all the people who'd not seen me for a while, and suddenly found out I have double eye lid, who thought that my eye is swollen or I went for eye surgery... for the record, I didn't do anything. All I can think of is straining the eye infront of the monitor for too long AND 'age' is catching up! :D

Fairly odd enough my dad and my aunt only began to have double eyelid at much later years of their life, but I'm experiencing the 'aging' sign much sooner, that's all. Then my bro start introducing his anti-aging products and my mom reminding me of not staring at the monitor so late into the night.

It's weird, I didn't rub it... just one day, out of no where, when I woke up, blink-blink, and the double eyelid wont disappear. So who cares, not like I'm gonna stare at the mirror longer.

Ok, now what's the other record?! Oh ya.. Malay Mail Weekender sucks! The frontpage so-called 'news' this weekend was a total disaster. Why would there be a government body / authority playing spy or God, monitoring bloggers in our country?! The Internet is THE space on earth where anybody and everybody can & should be able to speak, for all their wishes, to all their hearts' content. For better or for worse, it's the ONLY place, where there's no cencership board, no editor, no fear - where we call it in English - freedom of speech (sarcasm intended: *where with great freedom comes with great responsibility*).

Of course, this blog is not for over-sensitive serious issue, so I'll just throw in my towel & ignore that I'd even came across a silly newspaper like that one you know what I'm talking about.

For the record, am I really that serious / cold a person when it comes to dealing with platonic friends or people that I dont really care about? Come to think of it, yeah maybe I am so strangely repulsive!! (*not sure if I used the right word, just googled the word, am trying to find the antonym to the word 'flirtatious'*). Psychologically / emotionally, I dont have a problem with myself, but matter of factly, I just observed that I might get that tingling /irritated feeling when I see people at work flirting with the opposite sex outwardly.

My dad admited that even he flirts with almost everybody at work, just for fun as he thinks he's a casual funny fellow and there's nothing wrong about it. Alright, so it is nothing wrong even to my rational mind, but I'm still keeping my record straight -- that I cannot bring myself to flirt with guys at work or make jokes with 'certain' people. *certain here refers to people who ask me useless / boring questions*. Not sure if this record can (or should be) be broken, not sure if I want to try to break it, knowing it would do me no harm & have the positive effect of making many people happier (in dealing with me).

Ok.. why not just finish this off before I hit to bed. Well basically I'm done talking, my crap is not gonna change anything about me anyway. For the record, atleast I'm truly thankful for all the people I know, who'd (or tried) put up with me through the years and accepting the whole part of me, as being me, non-negotiably naturally. *yawn.. sounds a tad egoistic eh?*

Want some work-life update?

Isn't it boring to talk about your work life?! I used to tell people I 'switch off' my work-brain after I leave the office. So when my pharmacist friend would talk about how tired she is after a long day of standing... I just dont know what to talk about.

It's alot and alot of bullshit that I'm sucking in. I just wonder how / why our Malaysian counterpart do not articulate crap as good as the foreigners.

In my one and only dinner ever with some of the bosses, basically its just the Australian turned Malaysian, vs the Malaysian turned Australian yakking nonstop. The rest just listen and smile and listen and giggle. Is it the slang?! No i can catch all of what they're saying very clearly. But being the youngest small fry, I guess I wouldn't talk more than what my teamlead / malaysian bosses would talk.

Ever seen in the Buddhist community front, when a foreigner-monk / foreigner speaker were to give a talk, people just come in from everywhere all over, just to listen to them talk.

What am I missing here... is it because of the powerful slang / English accent, that command the powerful attention listeners provide to the speaker?! Then shouldnt English-speaking people, speak with more assertion and confidence and poise, irregardless of what race we are?

Then I'm thinking, what if people are Chinese-speaking. Do we give undivided attention to Chinese-speaking speaker? Yeah.. maybe if I'd a chance to listen to one speaker who speak Mandarin with power, confidence, poise. The Mandarin that we speak locally - sucks.

So, help me get it... isit the confidence that gives you strenght to articulate really well, or because of your strenght in articulation that gives you confidence?!

I'm somewhat thankful that I'm able to speak English properly with a foreigner, meanwhile I can understand fully well what mainland China people are talking about. Except when they get too technical, eg. maybe the 'ying pan' is having problem. Gosh what's Ying Pan!??! When the China onsite replied "40GB", I was still blur -- I thought "ying = hard", so the hardware is having problem and somehow 40GB is a cause of problem. Doh.. "ying pan" is hard..alright... harddisk!

Yay.. I'll always remember that...

I'll also remember the faces of the sly SG bosses tat I finally get to meet this week. Been stabbing our backs all these while and finally we get to meet face to face. Oh how pretentious! Even a smile couldn't be more crooked... Malaysian bosses are blunt, straight face-shooting but not so pretentious as them man. Ever heard of your boss telling you "I slap you then you know!"

Get this, from the HR Mgr's secretary raising her voice across the common area in Canto "have you finish what I asked you to do?... what? you have not? What did I tell you yday? Do you know what is more important?? How dare you not complete it yet... "

That's a shouting from the secretary sitting behind me, at the girl sitting diagonally infront of me.. across a few cubicles. It's very lame... I wonder if someday when I have just slightly abit more power, will I go shoot at people like they're not human.

Well even the dog I dont shout at. Talk work-life?!

Better watch my fotopages over and over again... :D haha..

Syiok sendiri with my own photos..

Wait a minute, I'm trying to keep my blog private and not publish my own pic nor spell out my name here... see I almost forgot.

Oh anyway, I wanted to shout out to the world about this pictures that I went to developed into 8R printout. There were many more 4R pictures developed, but when I finally saw this picture with my own eyes, live and touching it with my own hands -- *aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!

I quickly find a soul in my house to pour out my hyperventilation, dad goes "what you saw a rat?" "No I saw my own picture in the flesh! See I'm touching it!! Gosshhh!!!"

Lol... so proudly I waved the 8R postcard-like photo around, quickly ran to my uncle's house next door to showoff. Haha.. I'm crazy! Didn't know how much a beautiful picture means to me. I could be so overwhelmed by a photograph! Wow...

Ok finish broadcasting?! Hmm... well, here's somemore manipulated pictures. Well I didn't have the proper tools to make edit further, you know the 'yellow-robed-monk sitting by the grey wall', where I just want to show the yellow colour but the rest in greyscale. I could use photoshop?! But that's uninstalled from my laptop.

Ahhh... 'sampat'ness is bliss.

About taking photos of pitiful people

First time, I heard it from my Ac xcllg-carpool friend, when we were on the road to work, there was an accident, there's a dead body lying on the road covered with newspaper and the ambulance / police have not arrived. So I said 'if only i have a camera with me now, to shoot the scene', then came the respond from my friend 'I dont know why, I wouldn't take a picture of other ppl's suffering'.

Hmm.. I just wonder in my mind, is it becos its 'pantang'? Well usually I'll bring my camera along even during funerals, and I've always wondered if its ok for me to snap picture of the dead person.

Anyway, so on second occasion, somebody commented about my pictures that I took of the poor little kids in Cambodia. He said he doesn't have the heart to snap picture of these pitiful people, to explain his point he asked me to imagine if I'm in their 'cham' state will I want other ppl to snap picture of me?

Hmm.. that's not hard to answer -- I just dont pity them / feel awkward when I look at the Cambodia kids. Then I wonder if I'm heartless or if my heart is made of stone. If I'm a photographer / reporter, I should be taking more of the pictures that depict the poverty / realities of life for the whole world to see, for enlightenment / sharing / education / awareness purposes.

See, some friends have visited my photoblog and were touched by the people-pictures I took. Frankly speaking, I didn't know why does it look heart-warming. But I'll take it as a compliment.

When I'm taking pictures, (in the case of Cambodia kids), I'm really seeing simplicity of life. I went thru the last INCOVAR camp learning about appreciating the simple things in life and be happy simply... also remember what Lama Samten shared during his interview, when he advised youung people to explore the world outside, to see how other parts of the world live.

I agree with my dad, when he said, although the poor people may look poor in the outlook, but they are rich in other ways. *totally! my dad rocks!* The little kids that I saw in Cambodia, they were smiling, and playing with sands and stones with their siblings / neighbours / friends. When you were a child, would you be happy playing only with sand and stones under the hot sun?! I believe the kids that we know in Malaysia, are playing with video games or barbie dolls, but are these so-called better off kids really happy?

When I walk passed most really young kids in Cambodia, by the roadside, they'd innocently smile & wave back at me, knowing that my camera is pointing at them. Sometimes, I miss the shot, cos I was moving.

Ok, I do feel terribly odd, when I went for a full body massage. Cos I really think I dont need a massage, esp by another girl who's almost same age as me, and it cost alot to me. (my mom dragged me into it, k). I feel that I could use the same amount of money to donate to all the poor kids. Of course, thinking from another point, the massage lady must have a family to feed too.

Seriously, if I'm born very poor, thankfully with the Dhamma and family values that I'm brainwashed with, I know I'll STILL be positive / happy / grateful. Being born poor, gives us the opportunity to understand and appreciate the simple value of life's great lessons. Family bonding becomes much stronger, and maybe a poor person's spirit / motivation in life is bigger. I know most poor people strive very hard to be rich, but the born-rich people do not have a reason to work so hard ;P

HAha... gong lei gong hoi, ngo gong sai. Maybe I'm one of them, you know one of the carefree people that dont mind playing with sand and stones under the hot sun, that's why I dont see these people as pitiful! *will always remember losing tictactoe played on sand, to a bunch of Vietnamese kids, urrrggghhh!*

(Ok, I admit that have a big problem with not washing my hands before I eat, cos I'm afraid of worms that could go inside my stomach!)

The Great Camp

This 25th edition of the IDC was one of the most high-powered, higly spirited and energetic camp! I've never heard so many variety of cheers, where participants cheered so loudly for just about any tom dick and harry! There's INCOVAR clap, lengchai clap, lenglui clap.. even clap for bapa.. baby.. etc. I.gemz must be so blown away by all the participants warm hearts! (reh-ching)

There were some moment were I had to hold back my tears, like watching a heartwarming movie, I'll cry like shit without being able to control the tears. Camp specific moments, eg. when all the participants choreograph and came together to present the meaningful song 'My Beautiful Friend' with hand gesture. My digicam was rolling, and it must be less touching viewing it from the tiny lcd compared to experiencing the euphoria... just shift focus on camera rolling instead of get carried away and shed tear :P

Personally, what was most memorable to me, was the moment Nop said the first few words after analysing my signature. It was just Nop, Jic and me there... and I almost cried. Maybe its the way he explained it in the most plain simple slanged English. It's the shielded me, who I am inside. Nobody could see that, but he could see that from my signature! Oh my gawd.. My signature is reflective of my dad's signature, signing initial+surname, but mine was going upward and I sign very fast.

Besides asking me to slow down, he gave a very logical advice, that is for me to associate myself with more senior people, rather than mixing with people younger than me, if not I wouldn't know how to grow up. I mean all my life, I got no elder cousins / siblings to look up to, I'm always the eldest. Even among schoolmates, since I got stranded in remove class, majority of 'em were a year younger. Looking at the stroke of character 'M' ... its very prominent, but its overpowered by the bigger 'J' which is not me. He said I am represented by M not J, so in order for me be able to have control over other people, I should downplay J. Infact, its even ok to sign the J in small letter, which makes the stroke of my signature so much smoother ;)

When I was learning how to sign, I really wonder how to join the end stroke of 'M' with the start stroke of capital 'J'. Big M with small j is much easier, that would make me a better leader it seems ;) I'm not sure he said anything about my potential to lead, but he knows I'm ambitious due to my upward style, not aligned to a horizontal line -- WHICH is no good for me! URrrrssggghhh.. He said I signed too fast, meaning probably I dont slow down in my life adding with being ambitious - is not good for who I am. I will get cheated very easily if I invest in a business with a partner.

He proved himself correct by lying to me during the conversation -- Argentina beat Germany in penalty shootout. There I was happily grinning... the next thing I know the kitchen dudes where shooting at me for announcing the wrong info. I went back to ask PNop why he'd lie to me, he laughed and said "that's why you need to change your signature!"

Gosh.. I wanna bang my head.

The fact that I'm too kind (I guess he was trying to use the word 'innocent' / 'naive') will make me stagnant in my growth. I let people take advantage of me, and other people will grow, but not me. People just take and take.. and then I get hurt. Each time he say that I wanted to cry. It's the exact thing that happen in my life with people. I was even 'warn' by average people for not being too kind, which I boldly defended cos I do not agree with not-helping-people-when-u-can.

PNop was saying, I must 'understand' the nature of people, the nature of life. Not everybody is like me. Only when I KNOW / UNDERSTAND that people are trying to take advantage of me, then its up to me if I'd continue helping these people. For a moment, I realised that if I know I'm helping somebody that is not worthy of my help, then I wouldn't feel at all hurt if I got 'cheated' anyway.

Oh yes, on this note, I'd like to link back what PNop said, with what my vocal teacher said about me and =t=. She too was told by PNop by being not behaving her age, havent grown up... PNop saw that through our signature... our vocal teacher knew it from our upper body, aka the length of the vocal chord. The longer it is, the more mature a person / growth of person is. Vocal teacher said I have 10 more years to 'grow up' (in everyway).

It's not too doh... I agree with them. Atleast PNop has a solution to growing up, which is the first change my signature, and also to mix with older people. Dont expect my vocal chord to just expand or expect my body to grow longer like that!

So back to the camp, I'm very flattered in many ways, eg. when sister YaYing the temple caretaker & the nun were very friendly / supportive of all our request, there was no complain about us staying very late. wow... its amazing when you meet 'understanding' people that doesn't scream at you for breaking the rules ;)

I have a very lenglui guardian angel who gave me lotsa chewing gum to eat, and at the end she gave me a stone she got from india!

I had my signature read for free! (Gosh, PNop was saying he charge RM100 for each signature consultancy, and Rm1000 for house-fengshui consultancy. And there I was innocently bringing all you guys to let PNop read ur signature for free too, without even asking him in advance first!)

I had aircon to sleep with, plus nice blanket ;) -- friend I live in a very hot house --

I syiok sendiri by having fun with some crazy participants... you just dont know how gone case these young energetic lot are! Try talking to Eric, or maybe Kok sing, or even Teh.. dun even remind me of Michael... forget about Mike. Eeewww!

Totally cowabangga... It's a superb location for a camp, for me. I know how guys dont dig this place, but I just like this temple alot!

WAIT! Did I left out talking about the group cheers?!??!

"Joon, Joon, Joon......." (think MI theme). I laughed so hard, I could burst. The leader of that group, I dont even know his name, he's so funny. When they were lining up in boy - girl line, I just went up to him and ask "boy one line, girl one line?" he replied -- what do I look like to you?!

I went to facilitate this group sharing for SingSing group, the group members were just so unbelievable! Incidently, they're united at heart, all very 'holy'... they all have joy & Metta inside. I think even if the organisers were to do a poor job on purpose, these group of people will still enjoy themselves.

I guess this camp is gonna be more memorable, all because of the people who came together under one roof. Its like a Karmic pull factor that brought all these special breed of people together, coming under one INCOVAR roof.