.::The Pursuit of Happiness::.

Xin.
~~Searching for a goal, a purpose, a value in life which is worthwhile as an end in itself and not merely as a means to some other ends~~

Life's journey.
Life is not gentle - far from it. From time to time, it will hand you disappointment, grief, loss, a formidable difficulty, often when least expected. But never forget you can surmount the worst it brings, keep on going, and make your way up again. You will find that you are stronger and maybe better off for having had some bad experience. No matter what has happened to a person, that individual still has within vast undamaged areas. Nature always tries to repair, so don't be discouraged when you suffer a blow - Norman Vincent Peale

Inspirational quotes.
It is in your moment of decision that your destiny is shaped - Anthony Robbins

You'll always rise in life to the level of responsibility that you're willing to accept - Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing has any power over me than that which I give it through my conscious thoughts - Anthony Robbins

What lies behind us and what lies beyond us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes of it - John Ruskin

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference - St Francis of Assisi

Anyone can be angry, that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, at the right time, for the right reason, to the right degree, in the right way, this is not easy - Aristotle


ramblings.


archives.
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
November 2007
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
August 2009

mates.
Bro
Apis
Bei Xuan
Cindy
Kristin
Maureen
Terence
Wei Hong
Zhi Liang

credit.
designer: x
resources: x x x
August 18, 2009

I dunno what's right what's wrong anymore. It could be a matter of concidence, a matter of careful planning by a scheming person or it could just happen to be a coincidence by the other person, but it places me in shakey position of trust.

That I happpened not to be working at this point in time, that I happened to be at home for the past week, that I was sick and happened to be having a headache and replying a email when you approached me. All this coincidences and all evidence points to me as I'm the culprit when I really did no wrong. This is something I will not do, something which I vowed not to, ever since I started working 3 years ago. I was a victim few years back and I even told you about it, but I chose to let it go and became cautious about it ever since. And now because of my graciousness, it has came back to haunt me again.

Why do I need to do that anyways? Even though I don't exactly like you and am not particularly close to you, but these are 2 different matters. I don't mix family matters with the things I do. This is simply saddening.

Why are parents always unable to see the truth? I never knew sucking up by another person could blind your vision so much till it impaired your judgement.

Why am I always such a nice person? I should have barged in at the time and clarified that I never did it upon hearing your conversation. Could it be I wanna hear what you have to say of me at that time? that I messed things up?

I only hope for the truth to be revealed one day..

May 17, 2009

I'm greatly tickled each time I am reminded of how you happily "hop" into my arms, pretending to be my bunny, when I said that I wished bunny was here so I could hug it.. ^^ And the way you decided to look at me upside down over me simply had me breaking out with laughter and amusement at your "adorableness" that I couldn't stop myself from laughing and "salivating" at the same time as you held me so tight I couldn't come up... hahaha so funny XP

May 6, 2009

Why do I always end up with feelings of regret when I go back to work while I'm on MC? And each time before I leave my house, I am always feeling fine. But just when I am about to board the train to get to the office, it always get worse and the bad feelings and headache just builds up when i stepped into office, and when I start to do my work. Maybe it's completely mental.. it's my brain telling me not to work so hard because I ought to be at home resting.. I can never seem to successfully psycho myself to feel completely fine about it. Or maybe it's because of you that I don't mind going back to the office for 4 hours (to be loaded with work), just so that I can see you for 10~15 mins.. Yes I can be silly like that >.<

April 22, 2009

Damn I'm sleepy, and aching while lying in bed blogging. I fell off my bike over the weekend while going down a steep slope in Pulau Ubin and now I'm aching like nobody business. I also have a bloody big bruise on my left pelvis that hurts like hell (It hurts even when I cough). And the stupidest thing was that I fell while trying to prevent my cap from flying off, by taking one hand away from the handle. How stupid is that? He chided me for that "Cap can always buy another one, but you only have one pelvis". That's true. I know you are worried for me and my ever so frequent clumsiness. I promise I'll take better care of myself in future ya :) Come to think of it, my actions were really silly and caused me so much pain :( .. I dunno what made me do what I did. -__-

April 11, 2009

Bintan Trip (28-29 March 09)


Being 21 is probably the best thing that has happened to me. It gave me all the freedom I've always wanted and allows me to travel out of the country. It was a last minute decision. He only made the booking on the week itself . But I like spontaneity :) All my life, I have dreamt of visiting beaches. Hence, we decided upon Bintan.

I woke up like super doper early on sat morning in order to meet him at 7.15am at Bedok bus interchange, where we had arranaged to meet and then take a ferry to the Tanah Marah Ferry Terminal. I practically swallowed two eggs in my rush to get out of the house to avoid being late (See how I can't wait to see you XP). My moods were immediately lifted the moment I stepped out of the house in the cool morning breeze. I met him there, then we took a bus to the Ferry Terminal, and we got worried that we would be late and missed the 1.5 hr departure check-in time. We were slightly late but timing was exaggerated to avoid any "mishaps". We still had about 30-40 mins to spare so we went to Kiliney to have our breakfast of french toast and kaya toast. Simple but sweet :) It was there we filled in our arrival card and then queued for the extremely long queue to get into the ferry and off we were!!!!

My dear commented that my wings were out and I could fly now :) An hour later and after adjusting our clocks to one hour behind, we arrived at Bintan Indonesia!!! We then took the shuttle bus provided from the arrival place to Nirwana Beach Club, where we would be staying for the night.

As we arrived earlier than our check-in time of 3pm, we couldn't check in unless people checked out by 12pm. So meanwhile we enquired and researched upon our iternaries and decided upon the mangrove swamp visit for the afternoon (which we got the reception to make arrangements for us). We also considered shooting or ktv if we have time in the evening and the Heritage Tour the next day, which will take up the entire day and lead us out of the the resort.

As we were still waiting to check-in, we went for the walk by the pristine beach in the blazing hot sun. I've never felt so relaxed in my whole life. I never knew I could feel this way, away in a foreign land with my loved one, away from all of my troubles. Then, we chanced upon a nice nesting spot by one of the insects-themed cabins and I laid on the hammock there to get a little tan.
















I got really tanned and slightly red after the less then 30 mins tan. Then we made our way back to the reception where we thought we could check-in already. But the room still wasn't ready and our driver, Edy, has arrived. So we decided to go out first, then come back to check-in later. Edy dropped us at Pasar Oleh Oleh for lunch, where we had their local delights such as their traditional chicken rice and their oxtail stew (according to dear). I didn't find the food particularly appealing. The Indonesia chicken rice dish was too dry and the side vegetables were too raw(apparently they weren't cooked, which I only realised much later). And while we were about to finish our lunch, it started raining, which ruined our plans for the visit to the mangrove swamp. We almost thought of not going or maybe postphoning it a little later, from 3pm to 5pm.





























But since our driver already arrived, we went ahead with the mangrove swamp thingy. The mangrove guide spoke english, which is a good thing. I'm actually quite doubtful we would be able to see anything after the rain. We are supposed to see the following:





We took a boat to the mangrove and I learnt from the guide that large snakes such as cobras and pythons and the like sleep in the morning (they are almost blind) and are only active (and thus dangerous) at night, hence allowing us to be able to view them up close without being in danger. The guide said that large snakes are in fact very common in the swamps and you can sometimes see them coiling just around the branch in front of you. However, we didn't manage to see any large snakes right in front of us. We didn't even managed to see any snakes in the main river, as the rain must have drove them down into the waters. It was only after searching the second river, that we managed to see these:















They were coiled far up upon the branches of tall trees and they were just medium size (not huge as expected), which was kinda disappointing. We also didn't managed to see any monkeys. If we had came before lunch (before the rain started), there were apparently lots of large snakes and monkeys around, instead of what we were staring blankly at now. Oh well what luck!

But he did mentioned something about the snakes which I found meaningful. The strength of the snakes lies in their tails, instead of their heads. If you snap off their tails, you will render them harmless. If this doesn't make sense, liken it to our fist. When we try to form a grip using our little finger, excluding the thumb, you will realise how firm your grip is. Try to grip it the other way with your big thumb, excluding your little finger, you will realise how weak your grip actually is. Simple but meaningful :)

And we saw the 'pong pong' sea apple tree, which was supposedly the tree Eve took the poison apple from in the Garden of Eden. It looks like this:












And the charcoal kiln whereby old seaboat people used to transport charcoal over trechaerous oceans in order to sell them to other countires to buy valuable raw materials (Was it rice?). My guide happens to be one of the seaboat people and he apparently has some connections with some foreign athletics or something, which i forgot -_-














The trip was kinda disappointing because of the lack of sights. He was very disappointed. I could tell from the look on his face. The guide felt bad too but then again we questioned the sincerity because being in this line for so long, they should be able to tell when the animals would go into hiding (that is after the rain) and warn us about it, giving us the option to back out of it. But probably both the driver the guide wanted to earn some money out of it (I don't blame them). But the visit felt like a rip-off, $38 per head for seeing 2 snakes? And we tipped the guide $10 afterwards -_-

Anyways, Edy drove us back to Nirwana Beach Club after that, where we could finally check-in and have some rest.




We skipped our shooting plans since it's already late. After which we showered and caught part of an episode of the "MARS" show (can't remember its chinese title), and then went out for supper by the club's bar, where we chilled and listened to their live band and their "gay" Indonesian male dancers danced. We even dedicated the song "The Reason" by Hoobastank and the guy who sang it was not bad.

Next day, we woke up late for breakfast because lazy piggy was still lazing about in bed. We had breakfast American style:













I love eggs so I ordered a omelette with ham and mushrooms fillings and a sunny side up for him. It came as a smiley face.. how cute :) He drew that smile though.. After that we took some pictures along the beach for remembrance, checked-out and left the Bintan resorts.

We then headed for Tanjung Pinang where we visited temples (one of which was hundred of years old), mosque (I didn't go in cos I was wearing shorts), graves, cultural centre and an exhilarating detour about a broken bridge. I pretty much didn't understand much for the rest of the day as the guide didn't speak English. He communicated with dear through Malay. I can only rely on him to translate it for me and even then it was limited, which made me realised the importance of learning the local language of the country you are travelling to, else you will be lost like me.




























After which, we went to shop for some snacks and then went for a late seafood lunch cum tea. Tanjung Pinang is said to have the best seafood, so we tried and the verdict is: it is good! We had the crab steamed and it was yummylicious.. Though I had a minor accident; I got sliced by the crab pincer across my right thumb due to my clumsiness. I have no idea why I decided to pry the pincer open with my bare hands when they have the tool provided (silly me). Oh and did i mentioned that while we were having our meal, half the time we were busy swatting big fat houseflies. Even though the waitress had helped to light up the lights (I didn't know houseflies are afraid of heat) by the side of the tables, it helped, but not for long. The houseflies were very persistent and so were we in swatting them ;)






When we are finally done with our super duper long lunch (we had Edy waiting outside for a very long time), we went to the hypermart and got some goceries. There wasn't really much to shop at there. At the end of roughly an hour, we head back to the car for a long ride back to the Ferry Terminal.



That's the end of this wonderful trip. I will definitely remember these 2 days of my life (the best days of my life). Thanks baby for making this happen and granting me one of my very first life wishes. You bring me such joy I simply can't quantify it. Spending 24 hrs a day with you is simply amazing. Everything else at this point in my life pales in comparison.