Love Truths No. 2: The List

Whether conscious or not, we reject or accept potential lovers based on a list that we've fashioned in our head growing up. And many things play a role in our list - the things we were told by our parents or our friends growing up, what we see in the movies, which phase of life we're in, what we've personally decided is important.

To be honest, I am not even sure if everyone keeps a list, but surely there must be something, no matter how unwritten or unvoiced, that attracts us to this particular other person.

The List
We roll out our list, and some of us are more specific than others:

1) She must be at least my height, has a mole on her right upper lip, dances like a goddess and answers to the name Cameron Diaz.

or

2) He must be a high profile lawyer who is charming (only to me and me alone), and spends time with the kids by using them as weights while he works out his fully muscular body. And he must respond to the name of Fabio.

In all seriousness - we all lay down a list, be it race, religion, height, musical ability, affinity to our parents, affinity to children, affinity to pets, singing ability, kindness, ambition, gentleness, drive, etc.
----------------
Out of boredom, we once played this game whilst travelling to a place. We would list out two desirable qualities in a partner and then ask the person to choose between them. Do you want your partner to be

'beautiful or talented?'

(Er, can't she be beautiful and talented?) (Sorry, you're disqualified. Good bye!)

'plays the piano or cooks well?'

'good with children or fun to be around?'

Of course, this game was purely out of fun and leaving the person having to choose between two values which could very well be present in one individual, but it highlights the question of what was a priority in our own individual list.

A few things about the list:
1) Sometimes we use the list as a way of running away from potential partners. I know some of you can identify with this, but those who can't probably never had a list to begin with.

We use the list as an excuse not to commit -"Oh, she's definitely my height and has a right upper lip mole and dances like a goddess, but doesn't respond to the name Cameron Diaz. I definitely can't see us working out in the long term!"

2) There are many factors contributing to the list, as mentioned above. I believe the underlying needs, rather than the ambiguous term of love, is actually happiness, security, comfort, belonging, fulfilling a purpose.

3) Happily, especially when you mature with time, one day you will come across someone who ticks off absolutely nothing in your list save the few important ones (ie. religion) and suddenly you're in love, and the list is crumpled, thrown away and forgotten.

Because suddenly you find someone whom you're comfortable with, someone you can spend effortless hours talking to, someone with whom the silences are never awkward, someone who you can see yourself arguing with and making up with for the rest of your life.

And suddenly the list seems like a waste of time. Fun, of course, but ultimately a waste of time.

For who can explain what tiny chemicals collide or which part of the brain lights up or which bit of the heart leaps when you find that someone else. I'm certain they're not reading from the script which is your list.

Love Truths: No.1

Today I will be starting a series on love - this object that teenagers waste all their energies pursuing, that young adults pretend to be cynical about, that older men affirm by saying - 'Of course I love you what. We're still married, aren't we?' - and then returning to the sports' page of their newspapers.

These are the few truths that I have learnt or borrowed from the words of others.

Love Truth No. 1:

We often fall in love with our image of someone rather than the person itself.

In one of the underrated songs in his Continuum album, John Mayer's I Don't Trust Myself (With Loving You), he asks this question hauntingly in the bridge:

Who.. oo do you love?
I see thro..ough your love
Who.. oo do you love?
Me, or the thought of me?
Me, or the thought of me?

We will set our hearts on a certain person - be it due to our inbuilt affinities for the way they look (to each their own, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder etc.), or due to them being the life of the party, or posessing talents that we wished we had.

And once we latch on to this idea - this initial phase of love, this infatuation, we are blinded to everything else and this person can suddenly do no wrong. We filter the things we hear about them and will only accentuate the positives (oh, she must be intelligent then, she is so good with children, she laughs in such a cute way, she must be a great cook).

They remain Prince Charming or Cinderella for as long as we are spellbound. Some of us who are more stubborn stay in this illusion for longer.

And many times, especially when we were younger, we would tend to write the fairytale ourselves in our heads -

We will be married
in a garden ceremony
on a beautiful sunny Saturday
and he will sing to me
and we will have two, no, three children
- two boys and a girl -
and he will be great with the kids
and he will do the dishes without complaining
and he will whip up incredible meals
and he will come home tired from work but still smiling
and he will support me in my work
and he will be funny and popular among my friends
and we will build our suburban heaven
and live happily ever after.

- and all this before even getting the courage to speak to the boy or girl in question.

Who do you love? Me, or your thought of me?

Gone Baby Gone

Today was a really good day filled with catching up with people whom I have not seen in awhile.

I met K for breakfast, and we decided to be a little adventurous and wander into High Street to see if we can chance upon a quaint cafe that we can recommend.

We got lucky, and for those in Melbourne reading this - if you can find your way into High Street - look out for cocoinc - it was a really quiet little cafe with nice ambience and the hot chocolate was quite exceptional! They also had an array of nice little chocolates including one shaped like a penguin which I will one day buy and eat it by first biting off the head.

[HK kill penguin. HK eat penguin. Arrmmmyamyamyamyam (ala cookie monster)]

But the highlight of the day was to come next - it was Monday so we made it to Nova where there was cheap movie tickets on Mondays. For those not familiar with Melbourne, Nova is one of the most accessible independent movie theatres in Melbourne and it screens everything from arthouse films to big time releases. We were tossing up between 'Be Kind Rewind' which looked really good with Jack Black in it, but I was really glad that we ended up choosing:

movieposter from apple.com

To be honest, when I first looked at this film, I didn't have much hope for it - it was directed by Ben Affleck, who had a good turn with Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting which I really loved, but after which he went on to become a Hollywood star with questionable role choices and dates (think Gigli and J. Lo).

However, this movie left a lot of the people sitting in the theatre long after the credits started rolling and after the lights went up. It was a disturbing movie, all at once smart but more importantly, it made you really question what is right and what is wrong. This is the hallmark of a great movie, and it was truly stunning.

Ben Affleck is officially forgiven for Gigli.

We spent a good time afterwards discussing the movie (which is another hallmark of a classic), and it was all in all a pretty fulfilling catching up session with K!

(P.S. Jak - must watch. This one's going straight into the Classics!)

I managed to catch up with M over dinner, and we went to Barbarino's and Wong's which is on St Kilda Road - this place has been there for ages - back in the days when it was only Barbarino's (and I think Wong got called in to give the place a little asian flavor!). This place is famous for the ribs, which, unfortunately we didn't end up trying, but the ambience was superb and the food was reasonably good.

It was good catching up with M and seeing how she continues to grow through the years - and for listening to all the experiences that have shaped her. I think that she has shouldered much in her older sister role, but has flourished despite adversity, and I know that there are great things in store for her.

So all in all, a really satisfying day indeed! The weather looks like it's turning colder, but I hope there will be more days like these with friends ahead to warm me up inside!

The 50th post

It's finally fifty! I know that it's been a long hard road, but I have set out to remember who I was as a child and how I got here, and hopefully, I have grown up a little more for it.

Thank you all for following me on my journey and for your continued support.

To my family who will be reading this post, I am sorry if this travels close to the heart, but I think this is a very important part of who we were growing up. It wasn't easy but by the grace of God we got through it.

Every family goes through something sometimes, and what you're about to read is a little personal, so thank you for treating it with the respect it deserves.

Dad
I remember coming home one day from school as a boy of about seven, and my brother was excitedly recounting to me about how Pa had ended up in the hospital today.

I wasn't sure what to make of it, because the hospital had become a place that Pa had frequented of late, so it lasted in my attention span for all of five seconds before I went around doing my own silly seven year old thing (like sticking forks into power sockets and getting thrown back from the consequent electric shock).

Due to the surgery to his back, Pa could only manage to walk around with the help of a walker now, and poor Mum had to shuttle him to and fro from the hospital so much that it seemed to be our new second home.

But the hospital visit this time would be different, and I think they only told me about it later when they thought I was old enough to handle it.

Pa had tried to kill himself.

"There's a growth in your spine. We need to take it out."

This once proud King Scout, school volleyball player; this son of poor hospital attendants from Penang who had worked his way up into a better future for himself and his children, had been brought to his knees by something that was beyond his control.

"One of the complications of this spinal surgery is that we will actually have to get through some nerves to get to the growth, and you might get some weakness in your legs after, or lose your ability to walk altogether."

In the prime of his life, at the age of 37, Pa was reliant on a walker to help him walk around the house, and he would continue to get worse until he ended up in a wheelchair.

"But if we leave it alone and it continues to grow you will continue to have this back pain and lose your ability to walk ultimately."

He didn't know how to deal with it. He had lost his job because of this disability, the one thing that defined most men, and the future seemed all together too bleak.

In this moment of weakness, he drank some of the antiseptic lotion that was given by the hospital to try and take his own life.

My neighbour (whom we owe our lives to) was there when Dad was in the back room of the house, where he had locked himself in that morning. She heard a cry from the room and heard a thud , she jumped over her own fence, and called out my Dad's name

-'Cheok sang? Lei tim ah?'-

When he didn't respond, she started to panic, and rang my Mum to come home. My neighbour then knocked down the door to the room and found Pa on the floor, and tried to get him back up on the bed. Mum arrived home and was beside herself, and she rang the ambulance.

They got Pa to the hospital in time and managed to save him, but he was in there for a few days.

As a boy of seven, I had very little understanding about what was going on. When Pa returned a few days later, I didn't know how to worry, I was just happy to see him, thinking that it was just another routine visit to the hospital.
----------------------------------------
I remember another night when I had stumbled into the kitchen, when the rest of the family was downstairs, and, in the harsh fluorescent glare, I saw Pa standing at his walker by the sink, his face looking up to heaven, his eyes scrunched, the kitchen knife in his right hand poised at his heart.

I rushed down and alerted my Mum who ran up the stairs into the kitchen. I stayed downstairs with my young siblings as we heard the commotion in the kitchen, as Mum screamed in panic, and wrestled the knife from Pa.

And they sat there in a heap, collapsed on the kitchen floor, crying, Mum trying to understand what Pa was doing, scolding him in her frustration. And Pa, not wanting to live.

Epilogue

It was only at his funeral fifteen years later that we understood another aspect of this part of our father's lives. One of our church elders was giving the eulogy at Pa's funeral, and didn't gloss over Pa's attempt on his own life.

"Yes, he did struggle with the disability and coming to terms with it at first," said the elder. "He had tried to take his own life" he continued, "but God had decided that it was not his time yet."

"Around the same time, one of our other church members was going through a difficult time and had tried to take her own life as well. I thought that there would be no one better than our brother Cheok to go and speak to her."

"And so he went to see her, and there he was - he started off with a joke, as was his nature, and got her comfortable. Soon they were talking like old friends, and after that meeting, I knew that both she and brother Cheok would be okay."

She was there that night at his funeral.

It was at that point that I realised that we belonged so much to this church - they had helped him through this difficult time where he was battling with his grief, and that they held pieces of his memory with them as well.

Pa was okay, because he stayed with us for another fifteen years after the incident, and came to terms with his disability. He was there to see my brother graduate and to see me get through the first bit of medical school.

'And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

-Revelation 21:3-4, New International Version-

This post is dedicated to the memory of my father, and to my family who shared this amazing journey, especially to Mum who had to be so strong for us.

I love you, Pa, and I miss you dearly.

Blogkwardness

blogkwardness (blŏgkwedn'ĕss, adj.):

The distinct feeling of awkwardness associated with a blog when:

1. The blogger meets up with a friend and tells a story about his/her life, and then the friend reacts in a 'Wait, haven't I heard this somewhere before? Oh, it was actually on his/her blog.' and tries to cover it up with weird laughter,

i) making the blogger look boring because he is repeating a story
ii) making the friend awkward because: -

a) the friend has to laugh like he/she has not heard the story before, or worse -
b) the blogger doesn't actually know the friend reads his/her blog and the friend is afraid the blogger will suspect something

2. You say nasty things on your blog about someone you don't like, who stumbles upon your blog while googling your name to see if they could buy an online voodoo of you and stick needles into it.

3. You finally own up to someone that you read their blog secretly, all at once making them reach for the phone to ring the police, yet curiously flattering them at the same time.

To all bloggers and readers of my blog, thank you for reading my blog and sharing in my blogkwardness sometimes.

It's almost 50 posts now.

Awake Is The New Sleep

I have had an average of six hours sleep in the past 48 hours but I feel just fine, you know... I'm not the slightest bit sleeeupash;dfN;Fyh8f['/f/ ynqffyhqayfh.

(Sorry, that was my head hitting the keyboard.)

Finally the bout of long nights is over and I can return to being a normal human once again.
Which explains why I am up at two in the morning typing this.

I've just realised I haven't written a flashback piece since this one last year!

Thing No. 6: The Boy Goes To School (Darjah Dua)

As primary school children growing up, what's really important wasn't so much what we learnt in class or how we cheated in our tests, but the games that we played long before the assembly bell would ring and immediately after the dismissal bell has gone.

I am going to dedicate this section to the card games we used to play growing up:

Donkey/Old Maid

Every player is dealt a hand of cards with pictures of animals/people on the cards, each with a twin in the deck. All similar picture cards were then paired and then placed face down. Each player then takes a turn in taking a remaining card from the person to his left and tries to form a pair. Of all the cards, two would contain the dreaded Old Maid or Donkey card.

All cards would be face down at the end of the game except the Donkey or the Old Maid cards and then the unlucky person who remains with both cards is called the Donkey or Old Maid.

No big deal, one would think. Not to a seven year old. Man, being called a donkey is bad enough, but surely Old Maid in a boys' school would be really inappropriate (and gender confusing).

The whole fun in the game is waiting for your opponent to blindly move his hand across your deck and then pick the Old Maid or Donkey card.

Veteran players of the card game would feign disappointment as if the other player picked a non-Donkey/Old Maid card and then burst out in evil laughter looking at the face of the other person as they turn the card around to reveal the dreaded card.

If you were actually an old maid playing this card game, maybe it wouldn't be so bad? Pic from timewarptoys.com

Snap!

This sado-masochistic game of reflex is played with the cards above and the aim is to collect as many cards as you can.

Each player is dealt an amount of cards as evenly as possible, and with the cards face down in a pile, they would take turns to open the top card into a pile in the middle. When two similar cards appear, the quickest player to react and put his hand on top of the pile of cards first wins the pile.

The card game is named as such because Snap! is the sound of the tiny bones in your hand breaking as all the other players who were a second slower to react than you pile their collective hands on yours. Like the fists of vengeful gods they would bear down upon your hand.

I was going to be a gifted piano player before I started playing this game.

Happy Family

Happy Family was a game where there were about thirteen sets of 'families' - each with a father, a mother, a brother and a sister.

They were differentiated by professions, although I can't even remember one complete set. Let's say, for example, there would be

Mr. Ribald Romancecovermodel

Mrs. Risque Romancecovermodel

Randy Romancecovermodel (son)

Raunchy Romancecovermodel (daughter)

and that would make one happy family.

The cards were shuffled and distributed to all players, and the aim would be to get a complete Happy Family set by taking turns to ask any player, for example

"Do you have... Raunchy Romancecovermodel, please?"

And if the answer was 'yes', then you would get the card and then say 'Thank you!' in your most smug voice. It was all guesswork, and you would get a second chance to ask any other player for any member of any family.

Once you collect the complete set, you get to put them together in a pile and then proudly declare "One happy family at home!".

There were a few rules with the game:

1) I can't believe this, but you actually had to be polite when you asked your question.

If you forget to say 'Please' or 'Thank You' then the person would yell 'Hoh, you never said please! Or you never said Thank You!' and then take the card back from you and you miss your turn.

That would be proceeded by a 'You stupid dum dum!' and a cackle from the other player, which, of course, was in all politeness.

2) Once you had a happy family you have to quickly say "One Happy Family at home!". If another player points out you didn't say it, then you have to return your last card to its owner and wait another turn to ask him the same stupid question again.

3) Different people had different levels of anal-retentiveness with the game -

Some players would settle for 'Could I please have the father of Romancecovermodel' or ' the daughter of Romancecovermodel'. Others wanted full names and titles and the worst ones would want date of birth, horoscope, shoe size and favorite color. (I'm kidding, there's no such details).

The player at the end of the game with the most Happy Families won. And then they would enjoy school for the rest of the day before returning to their own dysfunctional little families.

The Modern Happy Family from labourhome.org. Click for a bigger look.

A Model Doctor

So, I was looking at pictures to supplement my previous post of being a model of a medical romance cover, and, I expected it to look something like this:

Dr. Fabio Lovesyringe - now, if you could just remove the sword and arrows, and put a stethoscope around his neck


Instead, the only medical romance novels they have look something like this:

What?! Yeah, that's sexy allright, Dr. Lancelot Sideburns.

Seriously, is that the best they could do? I mean, really, if I were a girl, would I want to buy that novel for this guy? I don't think so.

I guess I'll just have to settle for unconventional sexy, then:

Dr. Fabio Lovesyringe is in the House.

Medicine Or Something Like It Part 2

What is my motivation?

I do like being at work and interacting with patients and their families and the nurses as well, and I have had too many days at home with little to do and wishing to go back to work.

But the thing that drives me most is coming back to Malaysia, sitting with my friends who are doctors, hearing their stories of working 36 hour shifts every three days, listening to the makeshift, guns-blazing medicine they are practising right from the start, working with difficult bosses - that is what motivates me. Knowing that eight hours away in my tanahair, people I care about are working harder at their jobs than I ever will in my years here.

Was I meant to do this?

The problem with this question is that I have no doubt in my mind that although I have ended up in medicine partly due to the Asian parent's choice thing -

(Mum promised me if I did medicine, there will be a line of girls outside my door, screaming for me, and fame and glory and riches beyond my wildest imagination. I think she thought doctor was spelt r-o-c-k-s-t-a-r. Or s-o-c-c-e-r-p-l-a-y-e-r. Or m-o-d-e-l- o-n- t-h-e- f-r-o-n-t- c-o-v-e-r- o-f- a- r-o-m-a-n-c-e- n-o-v-e-l.)

- I really cannot see myself in any other profession at this point.

I would make for a bad accountant (2+3+4+6+7+8+4+3 = the phone number of the girl I met partying at the club yesterday) and a worse enginneer (The building collapsed? But that didn't happen to our Lego model!) and the worst lawyer ever (Objection, Your Honor! The witness has bad teeth!).

The problem is also all the choices we have in medicine - you can specialise in so many fields (surgery, all kinds of medicine, anaesthetics, radiology) that you always worry about making the wrong choice, which ties in with the last question -

Can I see myself doing this for a lifetime?

At this point, I am happy. But who knows what the future holds. Maybe you will see me in my new profession one day.

On the cover of a romance novel. Midnight Medicine Magic. As Dr. Fabio Lovesyringe.

Medicine Or Something Like It

Tonight I was out to dinner with two friends who came over with me to Melbourne, and we had (I don't know why I keep doing this to myself) Korean food.

If anyone can tell me what the appeal of Korean food is, I am all ears. It is not exactly the most tasty food in the world, lacks the refinement of Japanese food, and does not scream of affordability. It's like going to watch "Dude, Where's My Car?". In Gold Class.

Please remember, though, that you are speaking to a hater of all things green tea - the drink, the ice cream and the human poison they probably make from it.

Anyways, food aside, it was good company, and we are three people who have taken slightly different paths in our lives despite beginning in medicine.

One of my friends is dabbling in the world of Obstretics and Gynaecology - that's baby births and women's health in layman terms - and I thought that was a really interesting choice... it's a good mix of surgery and medicine, and the euphoria of being around newborn babies and their cooing parents. She says that she really enjoys her work, and going to work doesn't feel like going to work for her.

My other friend has taken the bold step of taking the year off medicine to explore her other options. She has found it really difficult to like the work in medicine, despite working with good people. Some might think opting out is the easier option, but for her, I know that this was a difficult decision because of the expectations of her parents who has paid for her medical education.

She actually returned to Malaysia recently and had to confront her parents who, of course, were initially furious, but ultimately supportive. Now, she is looking at working in other aspects of medical related care - pharmaceuticals and the like.

It is in watching the difference in both my friends that I began to look at myself and where I am in my profession in medicine.

Despite being doctors, we struggle with the same insecurities as everyone else in other professions - Am I happy? Is this what I was meant to do? Can I see myself doing this for a lifetime?

If You Cut Me, Will I Not Bleed Red?

Two official Liverpool players among the thousands of unofficial ones.
Picture from Soccernet.com

I watched the Liverpool-Arsenal match today, and once again, that has taken a few months off of my life.

I remember as a teenager staying up all those late nights to watch a soccer team halfway around the world that didn't even know I existed. My Mum would stumble down in the middle of the night, awoken by the lights or the noise, and she would ask, bewildered, "Why are you getting so upset about a football match that has nothing to do with you?"

I remember not being able to sit still - the agitated shaking of the legs, the jumps of frustration, even the anginal chest pains (I'm too young to have a heart attack!) of riding that roller-coaster which was called watching a Liverpool match.

And it was the same today. Three matches against Arsenal over the course of a week, and we were meeting them again in Anfield tonight to determine our Champions' League fortunes. There was heaps of leg-shaking and chest-paining to be done tonight!

And what a magical night it was! 1-1 at half time after the champagne football of Arsenal had opened up the Liverpool defence. And then Fernando Torres, El Nino (The Kid) popping up with that marvellous goal to make it 2-1 in the 69th minute. Liverpool had to hang on for a victory in the last 21 minutes, as another Arsenal goal would see them progress through on the away goals rule.

And it was a dazzling Owen-esque run from their own half by Arsenal's own Kid Theo Walcott, the New Hope of England, who squared off to Emmanuel Adebayor to slot in the goal that would break Liverpudlian hearts.

I was sitting there in silence again. The all too familiar feeling of disappointment associated with supporting this marvellous club stirred in me, and left me and my friend deflated. All the hopes for this season dashed once again. Another wait for next year.

But it was not over yet, and a burst of pace from Ryan Babel in the Arsenal box saw Liverpool earn a penalty and Steven Gerrard was Captain Fantastic again, keeping his cool to drive in the perfect penalty to the left hand corner of the goal.

And then, when Arsenal had thrown everybody forward in search for the goal that would take them through to the next round, a loose ball up the field found Ryan Babel again, who outpaced Cesc Fabregas to slot the ball past Manuel Almunia. His celebrations were muted, in respect to a club that he had supported as a boy, but a job had to be done tonight, and he had been professional about it.

A rapturous noise in Anfield and the familiar swell of "You'll Never Walk Alone" shook the Kop again on one of those magical European nights where the bitter taste of defeat had been converted to the sweet bliss of victory.

I have no intentions of extending commiserations to my friends who are Arsenal supporters. There was nothing to be ashamed about in their performance not just from tonight but for the whole season. Unfortunately, tonight, the game was decided by the man in black once again, and they have every right to feel hard done.

In all honesty, I have only words of praise for the Arsenal football club and their fans. Arsenal are only one of the other English clubs in the top four with no airs about them or their supporters, and Wenger has done amazing things with very little money and a team of brilliant youngsters that no one had given a second thought to at the beginning of the season. They are the shining light for soccer and are the word 'Beautiful' in the term 'The Beautiful Game'.

But tonight, at least, belongs to Liverpool, and to the stopped hearts and the collective lives of all Liverpool fans who have been shortened once more by the dramatic Comeback Kids of soccer.

You Will Never Walk Alone.

A Kindred Spirit

I have happily stumbled across this on Youtube... It is a clip from OCF London's Valentine's Day Open Mike... I have not been able to take my eyes off this clip - it reminds me so much of my OCF days.

She has an amazing voice, plays the guitar well and has a great sense of humour to boot!

I would have tried to pull off some time like this in my time as well, and it is nice to see the same heart for God and laughter in somebody else!

Although she has absolutely owned this performance in a way I could never have!

The Bucket List

picture from Warner Bros.
I've just finished watching The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman - recommended watching if only for the concepts and the stars who carry this simply written movie.

The premise of the movie is an easy one - if you knew that you only had so long to live, what would you do with your life? And so these two terminally ill men go around making a list to things to do, literally - before they die, and then fulfilling every one of it.

I must say that my list would look a lot more different than theirs, but I actually haven't given it too much thought. I have gone skydiving (under The Perfect Day, check!) but that's pretty much it. I don't fancy the thought of travelling the world, although a trip to Anfield for a match would be a neccessary religious pilgrimage, I suspect!

I can list probably ten things, not 50:

The Top Ten Things To Do Before I Die

10. Write a book, or something of consequence. Even an e-mail would be nice, at the rate I'm going!

9. Write a love song for someone. I've only ever written one song for no one in particular, and let's just say that it's not going to top the charts, even in Taiping, Perak. I have only known how to sing other people's love songs, it would be nice to write one of my own.

8. Join Facebook. What a lame thing to be on this list. But for anyone who knows me, I am technologically resistant - I have a phone so old that it was the last remaining model in a series which was wiped out when the asteroid that killed all the dinosaurs hit the earth. Seriously, my phone doesn't even have colour.

I don't MSN, I don't Facebook, and I don't blog often because I have to wait for someone to come home and turn on the computer for me. Hahaha!

7. One match in Anfield. Just among the deafening roar of the Kop. Hopefully in a Man United match. With a fully loaded sniper rifle aimed at a certain Portuguese player.

6. Go on a hot air balloon ride! I think that would be a really nice thing to do - to watch the world stir awake beneath you in the soft glow of sunrise - that would be nice!

5. Replace imaginary girlfriend with real one.

A really funny thing happened at the supermarket the other day - I was shopping with my housemate's girlfriend when I bumped into another friend. So I explained that I was in a supermarket with my housemate's girlfriend when this other friend burst into this wonderful smile and said "Why? Cannot get your own is it? Must go and borrow other people's girlfriend so that you don't look like such a loser is it?".

We laughed. I was hurting with every laugh. Hahaha! (Ouch!)

(No lah, for crying out loud, you know that it would take way more than that to ever get to me!)

4. Learn another language. It would be nice to be able to speak at least one other language apart from my very bad Malay and my Cantonese-that-has-other-Cantonese-people-laughing-so-hard-they have-Cantonese-tears-rolling-out-from-their-Cantonese-eyes-onto-their-Cantonese-cheeks.

Maybe I should just focus on improving the above two languages. Siu Je... lei ho mah? Lei jo meh siu to lei low ngan lui? (Hello, miss, how are you? Why are you laughing until you've got Cantonese tears rolling from your Cantonese eyes onto your Cantonese cheeks?)

3. Witness something truly majestic. Okay, this one I borrowed from the movie.

When I say majestic, I mean breathtakingly so. And this could be man-made (the view of Hong Kong island at night from Kowloon comes to mind - sure it's artificial neon lights, but it is beautiful!)

But I would love to see the NorthernLights or the Aurora just once in my lifetime. Although that means I would need to travel. And risk the wrath of the penguins and their machine guns.

2. Learn to scuba dive. Stupid scuba diving requires you to take a course so that you don't die while doing it. I didn't have to take a course to skydive, and I could have died from that, couldn't I? (although it did feel like dying!)

Anyway, rant aside... the ocean fascinates me no end - the eerie silence of the sea with swarms of living things submerged beyond the reach of the light of the sun - I would love to be able to swim next to a whale and be dwarfed by its majestic size in the absolute pitch blackness and solitude of the sea. Or swim next to a turtle older than time itself, or be passed by a school of fishes so exotic and beautiful you have to stop and stare as they stream past you.


picture from oceanphotos.com

1. Look at the stars again in a place unpolluted by light.

I have had only one chance to do that - I was seventeen and I followed two friends up Cameron Highlands - as chaperone if you will. They were two of my good friends, and they were starting out on a relationship and they wanted me there as chaperone - so that they wouldn't do Un-Christian things, you know (like share an ice-cream).

Anyway, so here I was the brightest lamp post of all times, the squeakiest third wheel of all times, the (hmm, I don't know any other analogies for someone who's not supposed to be at present when a couple is dating). It was quite fun, although it left me to be alone for long measures at a time, but I had the pleasure one night on my solitary walks of seeing the sky filled with stars.

Filled. In a way that you can only cock your head backwards and stare until your neck hurts. In a way that you can only watch mouth wide open and think about how each star is a planet, and how small and insignificant you are and how mind-blowing it is that God would take notice of you.

We only see 1/1 000 000th of the stars that are present at night in the city due to light pollution. The night sky is actually saturated with stars, with only bits of darkness in between. Millions of bright dots overwhelming a midnight sky, specks scattered by God's paintbrush across the silky black canvas of night.

I hope one day to see a night sky again filled with stars, to be inspired from the very core of my being and to know that I am loved.


awe inspiring pictures property of Space. com

Not An Obituary

You can stop checking the papers for my obituary... I am still alive and kicking, but work unfortunately has taken up the past seven days. It was quite fun and fulfilling at work, but I am just about ready for a nice break, thank you very much.

On that subject, I've just been reading a book by Andrey Kurkov called Death and a Penguin, a black comedy revolving around a writer of obituaries, the Russian Mafia and, you guessed it, a penguin. Quite an interesting premise, and not a bad read.

Which brings me to the subject of obituaries... Which of you haven't thought about your own death in your lifetime? Which of you haven't thought about your funeral and the (hopefully) nice things that people will say about you when you're gone? Or the many broken hearts realising how different this life is now without you? Don't you want to know that your being here mattered?

I think that anyone who hasn't watched Amelie needs to watch it - the movie itself is flawlessly and beautifully crafted, but there is this really poignant scene where Amelie is watching the television and dabbing tears off as she sees an imaginary eulogy on TV for her.

There is a stream of people thronging to attend her imagined state funeral and the voiceover is singing her praises, saying what a loss it was for the nation - the death of this beautiful kindhearted young girl, adored by millions.

I sat watching that scene in awe. It's like someone went to the deepest recesses of my mind and then brought these things out onto the movie screen.

How you are remembered in death will be how you have loved and lived in your life.


The Flipside of Death

It has taken a real miracle to be where we are - we were a 1 in 300 million chance, we were born into relative prosperity and into privileged lives, we were selected into our families, we were schooled in such and such a school, we found God (or He found us), we have met and made many friends in our lives.

Coincidence after coincidence, event after event leading us to where we are now. It might not be where you want to be, but it is where you are now. In a world of 6 billion people with stastically varying amounts of predestination and chance, where people are dying both from disease and poverty to those dying from freak accidents or old age, you are exactly where you're meant to be. Here. Now. Alive.

Working in the medical profession, you come to a realisation how fragile that is. Seventeen year olds die beyond any help we can give. Others live to be a hundred and seven.

Live life to the full.

Jesus said in John 10:10 that He came to give us life but not just any life - but life to the full. I have no idea what a full life looks like, although some other people have tried to define it for me. I remain faithfully searching and discovering what that means for me. And I guess that's what this blog is about.