Today I plan very nicely, to take lrt at 2pm, reach Bkt Jalil by 2.30pm either walk to Endah Parade or get sayang to pick me. Bring my camera along, go attend an interesting Calligraphy exhibition launching... then after that go visit my bugz buddy to catch up with their babies.
ALL MY PLAN &%*(!~#$%&*%^$#%%~#@!~~*(!!!!
I even plan to get pregnant this year... but things do not just go as your plan. Of course people have told me, you cannot just expect to get pregnant with just one try or that when you think you'll get, you'll get. Things are not as "easy"....
Today, I didn't expect that AD hardening will spillover to Exchange patching shit... i don't really fancy Exchange becos everyone cannot survive without email coming into their mailbox. Its like your worklife is 'dead' when your emails or alerts stop coming in. And by the way, I'm not the primary support for Email Exchange servers.
No wonder the management actually promoted me instead of the other girl who's supposed to be primary support for Exchange. Cos i am capable of cleaning up sHITT!! Do other people's work, delivery things to my boss... i know i can do it... the question is always whether i WANT to do it?
Can i just walk out when the servers got trouble? No I can't. It's an opportunity to show that you can solve it. You can handle pressure, and you can solve problem!
What a life. I'm not sure if its a pathetic life, but sometimes I do see my corporate work life is so uninspiring. It's about the MONEY$$$$! There's always other ways to get income, but its not easy to walk out today, and still get the stable income flow that I'm currently getting. I got bills to pay and a livelihood to sustain. And if I plan to have a baby, then I'll also have to consider saving abit more in the future, common sense. If not the baby will really be a poor child, cos the mama just simply spend her money away... on travelling and hobbies and all sort of shopping stuff.
Back to my point again... things do not go as plan, it seems like the older you get, the more your plan don't really go your way. Like how I wish to go attend NKOTBSB concert in Jakarta, there's so many factor preventing me from going! There's the visit-relative-in-China trip happening, and I can't even tell if I'm going or not... cos it clashes with NKOTB and BISDS staff training! Brrrr.... life oh what a life!
Lucky thing I just went ahead to book my AirAsia ticket to Danang in Vietnam, I love ancient historical sites, esp if its UNESCO World Heritage sites. Its gonna happen in Sep, and if the baby plan works, then I shall be pregnant when I travel to Danang in Sep?! DOHHhh... if not its that easy to say oh i want to get pregnant now and the stomach will grow... no it doesn't work that way!
Oh my plans my plans.... whatever happen to my big Europe 2012?!! Where is my LONDON-PARIS with my mom?! Before you know it... AirAsia will stop flying to Paris or London....
Ahh... life is reaaallllly uncertain. And i'm not keeping up with the rate of change of all kinds of changes that's happening in and around my life.... suddenly a new camera model is out! Suddenly there's a groupon discount for photobook... suddenly my brother's wife is expecting... suddenly my sayang is flying to Sandakan... suddenly my a concert is cancelled... suddenly it rain....
Can I go back now? yes of course, oblivious to all these fast moving uncertainties encircling the planet.
Saturday, March 03, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Congratulation to myself!
I received my letter, promotion from AVP to VP1. I know if I write it on my fb wall its like too much... but its a public open secret anyway!
Initially it was Jack who spoilt my surprise, cos he congratulated me even before I received the letter. So I had no excited when I read the letter.
I'm not sure if I'm proud of my achievement, because it is heavily due to my own high expectation, my personality, my EQ (through my Dhamma work) that sets me apart from my fellow team mates. Am I more knowledgable or skillful than my team mate? Not exactly. I'm actually youngest in my team, and probably worked the least number of years. Yet I'm the only one who got VP1 the rest are still AVP.
Could it be that because I'm "lucky"? Or that my new teamlead really appreciate me? I'm pretty neutral about this so-called promotion. Within 3 years of my banking life, my grade was Assistant Mgr when I started, then emplaced to AVP, now VP1. My teamlead is a VP2. My boss is a FVP. After FVP, got SVP lagi! As you can see, there's many many levels of Vice President.
I don't know if my salary is on par with market rate, and its gonna be difficult to measure. There's always the pro & con, considering the perks, the job nature, the boredom, the traffic jam, the office politics etc. Income is relative. Some people spend less, they can see $$$ in their bank account. Some people earn alot but spend alot and don't see much $ in their bank account.
I will count my blessings for the now and for the future... for making my life pretty as per what I've wanted. As I said before, becareful of what you wished for, cos you don't know that if you might actually get it!
Right now? I just wish for.... a baby!
Initially it was Jack who spoilt my surprise, cos he congratulated me even before I received the letter. So I had no excited when I read the letter.
I'm not sure if I'm proud of my achievement, because it is heavily due to my own high expectation, my personality, my EQ (through my Dhamma work) that sets me apart from my fellow team mates. Am I more knowledgable or skillful than my team mate? Not exactly. I'm actually youngest in my team, and probably worked the least number of years. Yet I'm the only one who got VP1 the rest are still AVP.
Could it be that because I'm "lucky"? Or that my new teamlead really appreciate me? I'm pretty neutral about this so-called promotion. Within 3 years of my banking life, my grade was Assistant Mgr when I started, then emplaced to AVP, now VP1. My teamlead is a VP2. My boss is a FVP. After FVP, got SVP lagi! As you can see, there's many many levels of Vice President.
I don't know if my salary is on par with market rate, and its gonna be difficult to measure. There's always the pro & con, considering the perks, the job nature, the boredom, the traffic jam, the office politics etc. Income is relative. Some people spend less, they can see $$$ in their bank account. Some people earn alot but spend alot and don't see much $ in their bank account.
I will count my blessings for the now and for the future... for making my life pretty as per what I've wanted. As I said before, becareful of what you wished for, cos you don't know that if you might actually get it!
Right now? I just wish for.... a baby!
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
A New Year Message
I'm trying to write a new year message assuming the role of the president... knowing it takes a long time for him to write. Having read a bombastic-economy-related new year message from a bank ceo... I know this buddhistic message has to scew towards... *oh what the heck, lets plagiariate* oops breaking 2nd precept!
~*~
What a year that was 2011! First we started the intention to purchase a land to build a new centre.... meetings were held with architectures... fund raising projects were planned...
got the buy in from the committees that we should target to raise RM2 million each year...
kickstarted with the Korean cultural show... there we raised abt RMxxx....
then we formed the committee to organise the DINNER for a 1000 people, to reveal the plan for the new centre. Some how with the magic of karma / conditions, we managed to find a big corner shoplot at Ara Damansara for sale! And the EGM was held a day before the FOTG dinner, to get approval from members, to agree for the greenlight to purchase the new premise.
The FOTG eventually raised almost RM1 million! It was huge success, not only in terms of ROI, but also it was the first time we saw many diff english buddhist groups coming together like an all-star, for a grand gospel-like grand choir performance, of the most apt song 'guardian of the sasana'.... it was an eye-opener for many audiences that night! It was a dinner that brought all the thousand gems together.
BGF didn't have chance to rest after that mega fundraising project! She went on to organise the Food & Fun Fair, a fundraising initiative by the gemkids teachers & parents. In deed the last food fair being held 10 years ago.... this time the Food & Fun Fair chaired by bro. Tee managed to raised abt RM94,000... well we may ask, is it all worth it after all the hardwork by everybody, from the aunties / uncles who prepared the food, to the many youth volunteers who helped tirelessly from midnight onwards, to the organisers & sponsors. The answer? Yes it was well worth it!! It was worth every sweat of it... it was memorable to see our old friends sitting together at the same table chit chating and laughing away. Children having fun. Elderly and even the blind enjoyed themselves very much too!
Looks like the fundraising projects are not going to end so soon, as we are still at the shortfall of RM1million, to fully pay off the RM3.5 million new centre. It would be too texting on the same English-medium Buddhist community.... but we need to stretch our hands and legs to reach out and look beyond our community. We are fortunate to have made friends with the nice lady ms. Yudi Yap, who agreed to help us in our next fundraising drive! What initially thought was just a shanghai jazz concert with Yudi turn out to be a duo pact, with another friendly Taiwanese folk singer 曾淑勤 from Taiwan. BGF is proud to present "A Date with Love" or 《人间友勤》on 17-Feb-2012. Yes the timing is just right when Love is in the Air during this Valentine's season, and love is not just between a boy and a girl, its there's also the family, sisterly or even brotherly love! Of course the highest of level - the unconditional Metta love.
At this juncture, BGF is at the threshold of a renewed mission. BGF will continue to inspire and provide the impetus for the growth of Buddhism. With our new centre, BGF’s earnest wish is to continue our efforts in growing people, unearth new talents and skills, as well as inspire individuals from all walks of life! With your continued support, the flame that we lit together decades ago continues to burn stronger and brighter, illuminating the hearts and minds of all beings.
Let us all embrace the new year 2012 with open arms, plan for the best to happen and expect positive transformation. To kickstart the new year, we're glad to host Bhante Sanghasena (MIMC, Ladakh) in the early of January. Starting from February, the Dhammaduta team & DSTP team will bring you "Foundation of Buddhism" course, which will take place during Sunday@BGF timeslot. GemKids parents are most welcome to participate. In April, we will be receiving Ajahn Brahm from Perth, Australia. Then if all things go as planned, we'll be bring together another Food & Fun Fair with better experience & excitement!
There's still a long up hill climb. We believe we will only go... better.
~*~
What a year that was 2011! First we started the intention to purchase a land to build a new centre.... meetings were held with architectures... fund raising projects were planned...
got the buy in from the committees that we should target to raise RM2 million each year...
kickstarted with the Korean cultural show... there we raised abt RMxxx....
then we formed the committee to organise the DINNER for a 1000 people, to reveal the plan for the new centre. Some how with the magic of karma / conditions, we managed to find a big corner shoplot at Ara Damansara for sale! And the EGM was held a day before the FOTG dinner, to get approval from members, to agree for the greenlight to purchase the new premise.
The FOTG eventually raised almost RM1 million! It was huge success, not only in terms of ROI, but also it was the first time we saw many diff english buddhist groups coming together like an all-star, for a grand gospel-like grand choir performance, of the most apt song 'guardian of the sasana'.... it was an eye-opener for many audiences that night! It was a dinner that brought all the thousand gems together.
BGF didn't have chance to rest after that mega fundraising project! She went on to organise the Food & Fun Fair, a fundraising initiative by the gemkids teachers & parents. In deed the last food fair being held 10 years ago.... this time the Food & Fun Fair chaired by bro. Tee managed to raised abt RM94,000... well we may ask, is it all worth it after all the hardwork by everybody, from the aunties / uncles who prepared the food, to the many youth volunteers who helped tirelessly from midnight onwards, to the organisers & sponsors. The answer? Yes it was well worth it!! It was worth every sweat of it... it was memorable to see our old friends sitting together at the same table chit chating and laughing away. Children having fun. Elderly and even the blind enjoyed themselves very much too!
Looks like the fundraising projects are not going to end so soon, as we are still at the shortfall of RM1million, to fully pay off the RM3.5 million new centre. It would be too texting on the same English-medium Buddhist community.... but we need to stretch our hands and legs to reach out and look beyond our community. We are fortunate to have made friends with the nice lady ms. Yudi Yap, who agreed to help us in our next fundraising drive! What initially thought was just a shanghai jazz concert with Yudi turn out to be a duo pact, with another friendly Taiwanese folk singer 曾淑勤 from Taiwan. BGF is proud to present "A Date with Love" or 《人间友勤》on 17-Feb-2012. Yes the timing is just right when Love is in the Air during this Valentine's season, and love is not just between a boy and a girl, its there's also the family, sisterly or even brotherly love! Of course the highest of level - the unconditional Metta love.
At this juncture, BGF is at the threshold of a renewed mission. BGF will continue to inspire and provide the impetus for the growth of Buddhism. With our new centre, BGF’s earnest wish is to continue our efforts in growing people, unearth new talents and skills, as well as inspire individuals from all walks of life! With your continued support, the flame that we lit together decades ago continues to burn stronger and brighter, illuminating the hearts and minds of all beings.
Let us all embrace the new year 2012 with open arms, plan for the best to happen and expect positive transformation. To kickstart the new year, we're glad to host Bhante Sanghasena (MIMC, Ladakh) in the early of January. Starting from February, the Dhammaduta team & DSTP team will bring you "Foundation of Buddhism" course, which will take place during Sunday@BGF timeslot. GemKids parents are most welcome to participate. In April, we will be receiving Ajahn Brahm from Perth, Australia. Then if all things go as planned, we'll be bring together another Food & Fun Fair with better experience & excitement!
There's still a long up hill climb. We believe we will only go... better.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Live and Learn
It's the first night without sayang as he's on his way to Delhi with some of the BGF exco. I'm somewhat looking forward to the solitude at the comfort of my own home. Am I going to complain about my own ocd husband at my blog? Not now after I've attended Jeff Oliver's "Live and Learn" workshop today....
It was good that I can finally put into perspective on why certain unwholesome thoughts appear in my mind. Before today, I was thinking to rant about why I don't feel its good/healthy for both husband & wife to be working in the same organisation, esp when both are very strong-headed /opinionated. Before today, I was quite convinced that I want to step down from Exco role, and let him take over my position, since he's the one who has the most to say.
I wanted to take the back-seat, one car cannot have 2 drivers. Even if he's driving and I'm at the passenger seat, I'm not supposed to give directions whatsoever, and vice-versa. That's how it is.
Coming back to what I've discovered from Jeff Oliver... when you feel hurt, or when you (intentionally or unintentionally) hurt someone else, seek forgiveness! Not just forgiveness from others, we must try to understand the emotions that came about, was it 'selfishness, anger or confusion' that led us to being hurt / hurting people? It is possible that during that moment, we were unwise and we didn't understand the true nature of things, that's why we get upset or we take things for granted or we harm people. Which in the end, we feel guilty or we harm / hurt ourselves. One must learn to FORGIVE oneself. Say "I forgive myself..."
It was very powerful... its true that I was not wise enough to comprehend fully everything. When there is high-expectation, there is high-disappointment! That's the natural law. Of course this 'expectation = desire' led me to another confusion, that is why would a leader set high standard? Whether setting high standard for oneself, or high standard for the company/organisation/team that we work in?
Wish I can clarify this with another Dhamma teacher who's not tooo laid back in the Theravada Vipassana tradition, perhaps someone more socially engaged with the worldly conditions that we currently dwell in.
Yes I can sense / observe that I'm stucked in samsara...
Through mindfulness / awareness practise, I'm noting the thoughts that arises from moment to moment, sometimes I analyse too much, sometimes I don't get it. Mantra sets in... "I forgive myself"
This post is about my experience and what goes through my mind/heart about being with my other half. So this solitude that I've been looking forward to, is for me to be at peace with myself. No expectation, no question to ask, no sight of OCD-behaviour. Just relax...
How can one be in an unconditional-love relationship with a spouse? How can both husband & wife not have any expectation of each other? How can both party truly accept, embrace, forgive, love and care for each other unconditionally?
For Jeff Oliver, he said he can....
For me? I'm still discovering / learning the art of exemplary happy married life!
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Property investment turn into future biz plan
dear diary,
I just wondering why the MRT plan has so many 'stations' at Kota Damansara? I was trying to check out, where exactly is the exact station gonna be, seems there's one at PJU5, which is so near to Dataran Sunway station, then another station further up at TheCurve.
If its gonna cost multimillion dollar for construction, why do they want to 'construct' a few stations so near each other? Why don't they try to save cost?!
Now im looking at investing in a SOHO at Nexis by SunwayProperty, which is right beside Giza, supposedly 100m away from the MRT station. Sounds good yeah?
Next to Nexis, also got development by Cascade & GardenOffice by Encorp... all very huge retail business! On top of that now already got TheStrand & Giza already in operation. Hmmm, then how will the traffic jam gonna be like in the future?!
So say if my wish to invest in property turns into biz wish, then I figured out myself, during my backpacking experience, the hostel must always be near MRT stn, and it can be in office building, so long as its convenient, cheap & got internet / computers for yuppies.
Shhhh.. this is my idea! It came up from my brain, a combination of hostel business & Paper+Toast (http://paperandtoast.com/) concept. I'm blogging it now cos I need to refer back to my 'thoughts' in case I forget. So many wondering thoughts appear in my brain as if it never stops.
Of course money is a perpetual concern. Its either I register for a property unit and rent it out in future for other people's business, or I run my own business on the same property to be invested? Who'd want to co-invest with me? Who would trust me that my biz plan would give good financial return, just base on a wish?
I do wish I can hire all my friends that can work very well, that I can rely on... opportunity for my friends to grow in their asset with me along the way! :D
...happy day dreaming away!
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
runaway to singapore!
for some strange reason the previous post was truncated and i couldn't rewrite the whole story again... so forget it.
im really looking forward to throwing everything down and lug my basic stuff like money & camera.. of cos passport and go away!
this is it... spore... seeing new people I dont see in my daily life.. re-seeking the meaning of my life and enjoying the wondering around with just me and my bag. i'll go eat what i want.. go see who i wanna see... go talk about what i wanna talk... go smile with a newborn infant... just go away!
go away from everyone.... well just for slightly less than 4 days nia. suddenly im missing the solo elephant ride in the jungle of chiangmai :P
im really looking forward to throwing everything down and lug my basic stuff like money & camera.. of cos passport and go away!
this is it... spore... seeing new people I dont see in my daily life.. re-seeking the meaning of my life and enjoying the wondering around with just me and my bag. i'll go eat what i want.. go see who i wanna see... go talk about what i wanna talk... go smile with a newborn infant... just go away!
go away from everyone.... well just for slightly less than 4 days nia. suddenly im missing the solo elephant ride in the jungle of chiangmai :P
Monday, March 28, 2011
the black general
I was contemplate to write this post in my private blog (where nobody can read) or on this blog where perhaps my friends can read. Its abit private, well to him at least. Cos talking about him is a private affair and he don't condone me openly sharing my thoughts with regards to him. The point to pen down is, first time I saw him 'summon' the North General through the Taoist ritual ceremony. The 5 direction of generals are also recognised by their colour, and he wears the black cloth around his waist over white-chinese-kungfu-pants & temple shirt. Of cours he looks 'macho' in that attire, but when he do the chanting and ritual with
Monday, February 14, 2011
Happy Chinese New Year 2011!
This year will be the second year that I'm celebrating CNY as an angpow giver. The most common 'wish' that family members will wish me is 'nin sang kuai ji' meaning wishing that I'll get an offspring soon! The usual way of brushing off the topic is saying the year is 2012 - dragon. And I need do some math - if it take 10 months to deliver a baby, then I'll have to conceive it starting from this year, from May 2010! :) But what if I wish to give birth to a December capricon baby, means I'll have to conceive in Feb 2011? Which means I might be pregnant already when I travel to Europe in Spring 2011 :P doh...
Well I'm the sort of person who goes by "Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail". Everything destination starts with an intention, a wish, a want and then a plan! Horoscopely speaking, a 'rabbit' would be very much compatible with 'goats' like me and sayang. But I just can't have a baby so soon, perhaps mentally we're both not ready and infact we've got a 12-day Hangzhou-Shanghai-Huangshan-Putuoshan trip to fulfil come Sep this rabbit year! The unfortunate part is abang in Shanghai might not be around then, cos he's potentially moving back to Spore... and this is hush hush shhhhhhh cannot tell anyone!!! (don't know some people are so good at not spilling words out too soon so unlike me)
Good news is abang & ahsoh is expecting a baby rabbit girl this year! :) yay a girl for the Wong family! I purposely wish that the baby will be a girl, cause of the idiotic fact that my father-in-law would rather wish to have a second grandson - why son?! Well for convenient sake (due to my busy lifestyle), I thought having a son would save me the hassle of dolling up the kid, but its perfectly alright with me to have a daughter! Even if I were to have only one child and its a girl.
Because of this chauvinistic thinking by my f-i-l, I think I'll want to have a baby dragon girl next year then, just to purposely 'kek' him :P kekekeke... I still don't know why I like to challenge people.
My only brother, my sai-loh is planning to get married! Sometimes I do feel emotional, when it sinks deeper in me, that my sai-loh is really getting married?! Gossh... I used to just whacking him and teasing him and forgot that he's all grown up! Even perhaps my sai-loh will become a new parent sooner than his tai-kai-che. How come my younger brother grow up so fast? He's earning a good living working as a Siemens Engineer, even I don't get hired by Siemens but my less-than-smart sai-loh do. He even got awarded 'best performer staff', like what?!! My sai-loh who used to suck in maths and need me to give him free tuition as he was suffering through his diploma years? Anyway good luck and all the best to my bro and his pretty fiance of his. I hope his future wife will be able to replace my role in the kitchen to help my mom come CNY, cleaning, washing, serving the guest etc!
No wonder my f-i-l is so proud, he got 2 sons and if he were to wish to have more children, he'd probably wish to have all sons! So then he'll get many more daughter-in-laws to help cook in the kitchen!
My m-i-l is one of a kind. If I had a tough time trying to keep up with my mom's mega effort in the kitchen, try help my m-i-l with her asam laksa party feat! Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't ask her to cook asam laksa for our open house... she'll be cutting, cooking, cleaning, serving, washing, replenishing, watching over the fire, stirring, washing, wiping the table, cleaning, arranging the cutlery, repacking, and repeat the steps all over - from dawn till dusk!
Now you see where my sayang get his perfect melancholy syndrome from? From BOTH his parents! I am a ZERO melancholy person. I don't go for details, infact I can't see details like average people do, you can observe that in my photoshots, I hardly zoom in details unless I change to the 50mm lens (that I'll hardly use for event). I can live my putting all the dirty dish all into the big sink and let it pile up until its too high, THEN one shot wash all up - save water & washing detergent! But for the Wong family? Cannot. EVERY single plate or spoon or chopsticks that comes near the sink will be cleansed with detergent (whether oily or not, even if its a glass which only contained plain water) thoroughly.
Oh while washing repeatedly, the table cloths will be rinsed just as many times to wipe the kitchen top. Can't we just save a bit of water by not being that OCD? No I can't ever give this silly suggestion, or else I'll be doomed, as the lousy daughter-in-law who not only intentionally postpone her getting pregnant, but is messy and dirty!
M-i-l taught me how to use detergent to rinse the table cloth, so that when we wipe the kitchen counter top, it will smell with fragrance. Yes true - but i can't imagine if I put a bread / food stuff on the table (layered with detergent) and then put it back into my mouth. Anyway, just listen obidiently and nod my head. The difference between helping my in-laws vs helping my own mother in the kitchen, is I get 'shut up, listen & follow'. With my mom, I'll talk back & get on my mother's nerves - which may not be a good thing.
On 1st day of CNY when I had a quick visit to my maiden home, I had to hold back my tears upon seeing the glee revealed on my parents face when they saw me after missing me for days! Or was it the other way round, I was missing them for 3 days!
Anyway, on the note about giving angpow, this year I don't have to give double, just one angpow, it was natural to give out angpow to whoever that I'm supposed to give, even to other little stranger unmarried people, well its just RM4 inside, don't think anyone would receive angpow value lower than what I could wrap?! :D For me and sayang, our network of people we know can be very wide, so for us to give high-value angpow (or bak kum) to all the people we know, could be impractical. So for us (or for me in particular), give less give more - quantity equals quality!
I don't have big wish for this rabbit year, except just wish for good health and to receive expected bonus in March. Good news is that for this year, the industry dealing with 'wood' and 'metal' element will be very good - bank is money is metal!
For my friends and family, esp those who'd invested under me before, I really wish that they're global funds investment will bouce back la!
Well I'm the sort of person who goes by "Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail". Everything destination starts with an intention, a wish, a want and then a plan! Horoscopely speaking, a 'rabbit' would be very much compatible with 'goats' like me and sayang. But I just can't have a baby so soon, perhaps mentally we're both not ready and infact we've got a 12-day Hangzhou-Shanghai-Huangshan-Putuoshan trip to fulfil come Sep this rabbit year! The unfortunate part is abang in Shanghai might not be around then, cos he's potentially moving back to Spore... and this is hush hush shhhhhhh cannot tell anyone!!! (don't know some people are so good at not spilling words out too soon so unlike me)
Good news is abang & ahsoh is expecting a baby rabbit girl this year! :) yay a girl for the Wong family! I purposely wish that the baby will be a girl, cause of the idiotic fact that my father-in-law would rather wish to have a second grandson - why son?! Well for convenient sake (due to my busy lifestyle), I thought having a son would save me the hassle of dolling up the kid, but its perfectly alright with me to have a daughter! Even if I were to have only one child and its a girl.
Because of this chauvinistic thinking by my f-i-l, I think I'll want to have a baby dragon girl next year then, just to purposely 'kek' him :P kekekeke... I still don't know why I like to challenge people.
My only brother, my sai-loh is planning to get married! Sometimes I do feel emotional, when it sinks deeper in me, that my sai-loh is really getting married?! Gossh... I used to just whacking him and teasing him and forgot that he's all grown up! Even perhaps my sai-loh will become a new parent sooner than his tai-kai-che. How come my younger brother grow up so fast? He's earning a good living working as a Siemens Engineer, even I don't get hired by Siemens but my less-than-smart sai-loh do. He even got awarded 'best performer staff', like what?!! My sai-loh who used to suck in maths and need me to give him free tuition as he was suffering through his diploma years? Anyway good luck and all the best to my bro and his pretty fiance of his. I hope his future wife will be able to replace my role in the kitchen to help my mom come CNY, cleaning, washing, serving the guest etc!
No wonder my f-i-l is so proud, he got 2 sons and if he were to wish to have more children, he'd probably wish to have all sons! So then he'll get many more daughter-in-laws to help cook in the kitchen!
My m-i-l is one of a kind. If I had a tough time trying to keep up with my mom's mega effort in the kitchen, try help my m-i-l with her asam laksa party feat! Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't ask her to cook asam laksa for our open house... she'll be cutting, cooking, cleaning, serving, washing, replenishing, watching over the fire, stirring, washing, wiping the table, cleaning, arranging the cutlery, repacking, and repeat the steps all over - from dawn till dusk!
Now you see where my sayang get his perfect melancholy syndrome from? From BOTH his parents! I am a ZERO melancholy person. I don't go for details, infact I can't see details like average people do, you can observe that in my photoshots, I hardly zoom in details unless I change to the 50mm lens (that I'll hardly use for event). I can live my putting all the dirty dish all into the big sink and let it pile up until its too high, THEN one shot wash all up - save water & washing detergent! But for the Wong family? Cannot. EVERY single plate or spoon or chopsticks that comes near the sink will be cleansed with detergent (whether oily or not, even if its a glass which only contained plain water) thoroughly.
Oh while washing repeatedly, the table cloths will be rinsed just as many times to wipe the kitchen top. Can't we just save a bit of water by not being that OCD? No I can't ever give this silly suggestion, or else I'll be doomed, as the lousy daughter-in-law who not only intentionally postpone her getting pregnant, but is messy and dirty!
M-i-l taught me how to use detergent to rinse the table cloth, so that when we wipe the kitchen counter top, it will smell with fragrance. Yes true - but i can't imagine if I put a bread / food stuff on the table (layered with detergent) and then put it back into my mouth. Anyway, just listen obidiently and nod my head. The difference between helping my in-laws vs helping my own mother in the kitchen, is I get 'shut up, listen & follow'. With my mom, I'll talk back & get on my mother's nerves - which may not be a good thing.
On 1st day of CNY when I had a quick visit to my maiden home, I had to hold back my tears upon seeing the glee revealed on my parents face when they saw me after missing me for days! Or was it the other way round, I was missing them for 3 days!
Anyway, on the note about giving angpow, this year I don't have to give double, just one angpow, it was natural to give out angpow to whoever that I'm supposed to give, even to other little stranger unmarried people, well its just RM4 inside, don't think anyone would receive angpow value lower than what I could wrap?! :D For me and sayang, our network of people we know can be very wide, so for us to give high-value angpow (or bak kum) to all the people we know, could be impractical. So for us (or for me in particular), give less give more - quantity equals quality!
I don't have big wish for this rabbit year, except just wish for good health and to receive expected bonus in March. Good news is that for this year, the industry dealing with 'wood' and 'metal' element will be very good - bank is money is metal!
For my friends and family, esp those who'd invested under me before, I really wish that they're global funds investment will bouce back la!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
I'm sorry... I forgive you....
I'm so stressed out that I lashed it out at an innocent aunty who has caught me at the wrong time when i was most busy.
When the mind and body is not in sync, raw emotions can be difficult to be controlled. It's the beginning of the new year 2011 and I'm caught in this stressful never-ending infra support job. I feel like I need to take a break, but I just came back from a Buddhist pilgrimage just last month & that should be enough of a soul-cleasing spree...
There's just too much over-spilling calls and job responsibilities to follow up and to do. I don't see myself staying back LATE to "finish" the work because I will not have any energy left by 7pm when almost everyone has left the office. It's impossible for me to imagine how people can work through the night, or don't sleep for the whole week because of "month end" or "closing" or "project". Maybe the energy that these people drained on is periodical and not constant like in my line of daily-non-stop support job.
I don't wish to say bad things abt this uncle sitting infront of me in office, nor i wish to whine about a similar-annoying-aunty in the Buddhist circle who agitated me today. Somehow I must admit that people like them really get on my nerves so much, its hard to explain why! A friend once said "because you attract weird / strange people". Can this be true? How true is this? How can I get away from associating with them? They're not negative, they don't have ill-will. They're just plain painstakingly annoying and repetitive!
For the same thing that he can ask me to do, he can repeat it 100 times until you've done it. Why not ask other people to do? Cos other people don't sit next to him and worst still don't have the skillset to help him. It's just my somewhat-lousy-boss say "if I know you're good, then I'll let you do more things eventhough I know you already have 10 things on your plate!"
"Some people cannot even do 1 thing, so don't even bother give them do another thing".
....
My sayang certainly disagree with this theory. It works in my IT support line of job... similar to my volunteer work at Buddhist societies, just because you can do it - YOU DO LAH! If not who else to do?!
People can easily say "I don't know how to do la, please help me". Full stop.
Yadayada and all sort of nonsense life-balancing stunt. Oh ya you say its NOT nonsense, and its a birth right to reject and say NO to people asking for help... try being me, in my shoe and when helpdesk agent (with continous non-stop incoming calls) escalate an issue to you, and you reply "I don't know how lah, you solve it yourself lah!"
Its very easy to say "I DONT KNOW LAH"
Butttt... it takes alot alot alot of me to say that.... esp when you know the answer , or you know the way/method that could help the help-seeker. The more you know, the more people want you to help and naturally the more you want to help, perhaps solve a problem faster or in a more efficient way.
Help-seeker will not even bother to try to ask the other person in your same team, who either pretend don't know or really sorry-to-say don't know how to help. Its like a pathetic samsara life cycle or the 'Dependent Origination' where the first cause is "ignorance"... just START with "I Dont Know" and you'll NOT have to go through the whole pointless meaningless endless cycle of suffering.
Is it my ego, that makes me afraid of telling people "I Dont Know lah" fullstop?
My family wants to have a family gathering - call me to arrange for the accomodation.
Helpdesk agents want to solve a problem fast and instantly - call me to fix it.
Annoying aunty want me to send early notice to BGF egroup - call me & sms me to do it x2.
Annoying uncle at work want me to help him remotely upgrade his AS400 software on 3000 over PC bankwide - call me because im the admin for the software deployment system
My uncle want to sell his jackrusell puppies - call me take photo for him & sell on internet
Another uncle want to sell his terrior puppies - call me to teach him how to blog
Mentally handicap girl gets bored at home nothing to do - call me ask when am I taking her out
Sunday school teacher couldn't find a photographer for an event - call me to become photographer
If in one day of my life, there is NO request at all... would I still survive?
What if I tell my uncles - "I don't know how to take photo lah!"
What if I tell mentally handicap girl - "I don't want to take you out lah!"
What if I tell sunday school teacher - "I can't help you lah!"
What if I tell BGF - "I don't want to be secretary or administrator anymore!"
What if I tell BISDS - "I don't want to do anything la!"
What if I tell my aunty - "I don't care about family outing, you all go without me la!"
... can I? can I? or will I?
I just had a revelation about "truly letting go". How do you let go? Do you let go the mess that you've inherited because you cannot take it anymore and pass on to whoever to take over from scratch / clean the shit? Or do you continue to persevere and try to do a proper handover / knowledge transfer / assign & delegate / find a willing successor / train your replacement... before you "truly let go"?
When the mind and body is not in sync, raw emotions can be difficult to be controlled. It's the beginning of the new year 2011 and I'm caught in this stressful never-ending infra support job. I feel like I need to take a break, but I just came back from a Buddhist pilgrimage just last month & that should be enough of a soul-cleasing spree...
There's just too much over-spilling calls and job responsibilities to follow up and to do. I don't see myself staying back LATE to "finish" the work because I will not have any energy left by 7pm when almost everyone has left the office. It's impossible for me to imagine how people can work through the night, or don't sleep for the whole week because of "month end" or "closing" or "project". Maybe the energy that these people drained on is periodical and not constant like in my line of daily-non-stop support job.
I don't wish to say bad things abt this uncle sitting infront of me in office, nor i wish to whine about a similar-annoying-aunty in the Buddhist circle who agitated me today. Somehow I must admit that people like them really get on my nerves so much, its hard to explain why! A friend once said "because you attract weird / strange people". Can this be true? How true is this? How can I get away from associating with them? They're not negative, they don't have ill-will. They're just plain painstakingly annoying and repetitive!
For the same thing that he can ask me to do, he can repeat it 100 times until you've done it. Why not ask other people to do? Cos other people don't sit next to him and worst still don't have the skillset to help him. It's just my somewhat-lousy-boss say "if I know you're good, then I'll let you do more things eventhough I know you already have 10 things on your plate!"
"Some people cannot even do 1 thing, so don't even bother give them do another thing".
....
My sayang certainly disagree with this theory. It works in my IT support line of job... similar to my volunteer work at Buddhist societies, just because you can do it - YOU DO LAH! If not who else to do?!
People can easily say "I don't know how to do la, please help me". Full stop.
Yadayada and all sort of nonsense life-balancing stunt. Oh ya you say its NOT nonsense, and its a birth right to reject and say NO to people asking for help... try being me, in my shoe and when helpdesk agent (with continous non-stop incoming calls) escalate an issue to you, and you reply "I don't know how lah, you solve it yourself lah!"
Its very easy to say "I DONT KNOW LAH"
Butttt... it takes alot alot alot of me to say that.... esp when you know the answer , or you know the way/method that could help the help-seeker. The more you know, the more people want you to help and naturally the more you want to help, perhaps solve a problem faster or in a more efficient way.
Help-seeker will not even bother to try to ask the other person in your same team, who either pretend don't know or really sorry-to-say don't know how to help. Its like a pathetic samsara life cycle or the 'Dependent Origination' where the first cause is "ignorance"... just START with "I Dont Know" and you'll NOT have to go through the whole pointless meaningless endless cycle of suffering.
Is it my ego, that makes me afraid of telling people "I Dont Know lah" fullstop?
My family wants to have a family gathering - call me to arrange for the accomodation.
Helpdesk agents want to solve a problem fast and instantly - call me to fix it.
Annoying aunty want me to send early notice to BGF egroup - call me & sms me to do it x2.
Annoying uncle at work want me to help him remotely upgrade his AS400 software on 3000 over PC bankwide - call me because im the admin for the software deployment system
My uncle want to sell his jackrusell puppies - call me take photo for him & sell on internet
Another uncle want to sell his terrior puppies - call me to teach him how to blog
Mentally handicap girl gets bored at home nothing to do - call me ask when am I taking her out
Sunday school teacher couldn't find a photographer for an event - call me to become photographer
If in one day of my life, there is NO request at all... would I still survive?
What if I tell my uncles - "I don't know how to take photo lah!"
What if I tell mentally handicap girl - "I don't want to take you out lah!"
What if I tell sunday school teacher - "I can't help you lah!"
What if I tell BGF - "I don't want to be secretary or administrator anymore!"
What if I tell BISDS - "I don't want to do anything la!"
What if I tell my aunty - "I don't care about family outing, you all go without me la!"
... can I? can I? or will I?
I just had a revelation about "truly letting go". How do you let go? Do you let go the mess that you've inherited because you cannot take it anymore and pass on to whoever to take over from scratch / clean the shit? Or do you continue to persevere and try to do a proper handover / knowledge transfer / assign & delegate / find a willing successor / train your replacement... before you "truly let go"?
Friday, November 26, 2010
my so-called buddhist life
i've been asked to write an article abt 1000-1500words for the ybam-spa abt my involvement / experience in the buddhist community work, esp being in the committee of bgf. here's how's im going to write...
~*~
I am a 'ENTP'; my temperament is choleric-sanguine; I wear a 'white-hat' mostly. What does it mean to you? I learnt to understand myself and to be able to describe myself easily through my years in organising Dhamma youth camps alongside other like-minded youths. It is through getting involved with so many Buddhist activities that I learnt valuable softskills and management skills that I'll probably not receive through formal education.
Let me share a little of my background. I often tell people that I'm born into a Buddhist family, I didn't have to think or choose my religion, my parents brought me along Wesak Day procession even when I was just a toddler being pushed in the pram. I was sent to the Buddhist Institute Sunday Dhamma School (BISDS) in Brickfields since when I was 10 together with my younger brother. Dhamma teachings was ingrained into my head since then, partly I had to sit for Buddhist exams and of course I enjoyed learning / discovering whatever the teachers would teach. I felt truly blessed and proud that since as a kid, I was being indoctrinated to practise the Five Precepts in my daily life, to observe the causes and effects, to witness happiness and sadness of people around me. Perhaps this Buddhist upbringing has made me more 'white-hat' (according to Alex Tan shared with me about what Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats).
The fact is that I went to the English-medium Dhamma class although I'm went Chinese educated. Being in my shoe, I'm able to make friends with fellow Buddhists who are either Chinese speaking or English speaking. Coming from urban city life, I was oblivious of the divide in the whole country until I went to University Putra Malaysia, a public university. From there I observed majority of the Chinese don't speak English like me, since I can't speak proper Malay so its hard for me to make friends with the Malay and there were very few Indians. Since I'm politics-savvy, I do feel like my country is quite a... like 'rojak'.
With regards to getting involved in Buddhist society / activities at University, I often imagine how nice if I can make the Chinese-speaking to be fluent in English, and vice-versa. How is THAT possible? Some people said it's impossible. Being the 'ENTP' that I am, nothing is impossible. I knew its will take many years perhaps few decades to re-strategy the policies in this country, I don't claim to know the answer but believe in the possibility that some day when people don't identify themselves as race first but as Malaysian first, then perhaps there'll be a viable solution.
I was introduced to the 13th INCOVAR Dhamma Camp when I was in my 1st/2nd year at varsity by my fellow Sunday School friend Philip Yeo. It was a relieved for me that I could actually join a Buddhist camp that I could fit in! It's unfortunate that I didn't master written-Chinese language well enough, and I could only understand 60% a Dhamma talk in Mandarin. In my own perception, on one side I found out about YBAM camps / training programme which catered for undergraduates from all varsities, and on the other side there's INCOVAR camps organised under the Buddhist Gem Fellowship (BGF). To me, the underlying objectives, nature of activities and target audience might be overlapping, wouldn't it be great to tap on and build on the overlapping resources?
Through joining as participants in the INCOVAR camps, I was self-motivated to be a facilitator and thereafter became very active camp committee. The experience I had of being involved with fellow Kalyana-Mitras in planning, organising and executing INCOVAR-style programme, is something unforgettable and memorable. Suffice to say, it builds a person character and calibre. Not through my formal education that I learn to understand deeper about oneself, or realising one's strength and weaknesses. But from breathing the core INCOVAR values of
- value Individual Expression
- treasure Unity in Diversity
- nurture a Family in the Dharma
that I am who I am.
Vital management skills and softskills that I learnt include knowing how to do SWOT analysis in getting feedback, applying the 'SMITH' methodology in planning, how to facilitate a brainstorming session, draw a mindmap, how to do sharing of merits, how to be an MC to introduce a speaker... the list goes on.
One of the most prominent knowledge or skill that I appreciate most is understanding personality types and temperaments. How to be tactful, effective and productive when working with people of different personality-types in a same team? This is where I learn about the MBTI, the Four Temperaments and various learning styles. It was particularly useful, in the workplace, when I have trouble seeing eye-to-eye with my boss, how then to relate to or comprehend my boss?
Experience gained through being involved in INCOVAR has consciously and subconsciously helped me in my professional workplace and even now being in the Exco in BGF. One aspect that I value in BGF is the non-sectarian approach. Coming from a Theravada upbringing, its inspiring to find myself being exposed to other Buddhist culture and learning from an international array of Dhamma teachers. It's heartening to note that, there is quite a pool of corporate / talented professionals who happens to be a Buddhist or member of BGF. Perhaps the future of BGF lies in the hands of the graduates from INCOVAR?
On a personal note, did I stop and think why should I volunteer my service to the Buddhist community? Perhaps its the conditioning of my way of life, since young I had to go to temple every Sunday. It's not a normal Sunday if I didn't go to temple, either to teach or to run around organising things or attending meetings. It's for me to reciprocate the Dhamma lessons that I've been taught by the volunteer teachers in Sunday School, I aspired to be a Sunday school staff once I've finished school. With the intention to give service / being a volunteer, I had no qualms in offering my service to another Buddhist organisation which is infact located very near to my house.
Of course I have to be mindful of not let conditionings make me complacent in my effort to continue to learn, to practise and to understand the Dhamma. My life has been rather interesting, somewhere in my past life I must be a Buddhist, as I vow that in my future life I may continue the journey to be in touch with the Dhamma.
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