The Science Behind Pirates... (the ones behind the CPU... not the water bound ones...)

Dignity.

Rational behavior seems to be something we're short off in this current day and age. The ability to think in a systematic and logical manner coupled with the willingness to behave in a dignified classy manner seems to have died out... for some members of... the human race. God didn't link the mouth, or more specifically the ability to talk, to the peripheral nervous system for no good reason. Shooting your mouth off isn't a reflex action people... so try and use that 3 pound (for some, it might be lighter or could be composed of an entire different material altogether... think... by products...) before deciding to make (for example...) the lobby of a hospital OR a library your personal Karaoke lounge/ Getai stage (whatever floats your boat...)... Because as the old saying goes... you reap what you sow... and you'll never know what might come flying back at you (figuratively speaking... no pun intended)

Peace out!

The Things Money Can't Buy

List as follows:

1. Class
2. Discipline
3. Upbringing
4. Humility
5. EQ
6. A Rational Mind
7. Happiness
8. Personality (Well money could probably help fake one... if you know where to shop)

Purely factual and merely an observation. A 23 year observation that is :). For everything else... there's VISA, MasterCard and the whole schbang :)

Forkroads

I never expected the night to end the way it did. It frightens me how life can be so cruel at times... throwing you curveballs when one least expects it. One moment I was sitting around with my team mates enjoying supper after an awesome gathering... the next second I am huddled with my family awaiting the prognosis of my grand-dad's medical condition. This Chinese New Year has been a rather eventful one... perhaps a tinge too eventful for my liking. What's said has been said and what's done cannot be undone. I wished things had turned out differently but I realized that the events leading up to the status quo has its roots embedded in some not too distant past... far beyond my sphere of influence. There isn't much I can do or say that can change what has been done and there sure as hell isn't anything I can do to alter the course of this flow of events. What I can change and control however is how my life moves on from here on... seeing my grand-dad lying there reminded me just how much I have been taking my own good health, life and my loved ones for granted. Marcus Aurelius once said, "Live not one's life as though one had a thousand years, but live each day as the last." Its time to start living and to stop sitting by watching it idly slip by.

Tomorrow's the op and I am praying hard that all will go well and fine. Goodnight World :)

Regrets: Part 2

Continuing from the last post.

After posting the last entry and jumping back into bed to sleep the pangs of regret away, Mum came by and had a little chat with me. She wanted to find out which camera I wanted to use in school, you know, to catch snippets of my life in NUS. I told her I wouldn't be needing either one.

Mum: "But you wouldn't have photos to remember your NUS life by? What are we going to do if we do a montage of your life in time to come? Are we going to skip the entirety of your University life... its going to be incomplete"

Me: "There's nothing I want to remember about my University life... perhaps only Biathlon and races and events I participate in... nothing else."

Mum: "When did you start feeling like that? ... "

Me: "Since I matriculated. I kinda despise what I am doing and I can't wait for it to end. I feel left behind... I wished I'd worked harder... argh... Mum... Its a dark chapter in my life I hope I never ever have to go through again..."

Mum: "Sigh... Goodnight."

Me: "Goodnight."

Its good to get stuff of your chest and out of your mind. :)

Regrets

Life isn't about second chances. Its about getting things right the first time around. I have been screwing things up pretty badly for the last 4 years... and I sadly do not see an end in sight... Discipline is something I am clearly lacking. Its hard to do put your soul into something when your heart isn't there...

There are those who with nothing, work hard and achieve everything that is humanly possible before their time is up. And on the other end there are those, not very much unlike me, who squander everything little thing they do have and eventually die an unhappy dissatisfied man only to be forgotten before even the body gets laid to rest.

It could be the durians... it could be the happy posts I see on my FB wall of my peers doing lovely things in lovely places... Beneath this happy-go-lucky exterior, lies the heart of a broken man drowning in an endless cesspool of regret and bitterness, with no one to blame but himself.

Friendships

I had a rather interesting exchange with a good friend a couple nights back. The long and short of that conversation (Alas a MSN one...) was that he felt I wasn't investing as much effort as he was in keeping the friendship going... that I was just way too engrossed in my own life to bother about anything else. I appreciate the subtle picture (and message...) he left me on Facebook and the quick yet meaningful conversation which soon ensued.

I did some reflecting and I do have my own take on this "friendship" discussion. I believe that any relationship, be it blood ties, colleagues at work, church mates or good friends need some form of foundation to be built upon. The strongest of these foundations is obviously those built/ forged during one's formative years or under the pressures of some form of hardship. (Childhood friends/Army Mates) Next comes those who share a common passion, a common interest... those perhaps who are in the same chapter of their lives as you... individuals you can confide in and relate to. Thats followed by the category "Friends With Benefits" (Not coined by me rest assured...) which I think is rather self explanatory. Everything else comes soon after. Obviously, in my case, family ties are something that I wouldn't even throw into a ranking category... Family ties (Especially immediate family...) in my case take precedence over ... more or less everything else.

Now when the foundation that friendship is built upon gets removed, take for example clubbing buddies, it becomes extremely challenging to keep that friendship alive. The friendship has to evolve, it has to be re-categorized elsewhere or run the risk of becoming stagnant. Once that stage of stagnancy is reached, it becomes increasingly easier to let that friendship dwindle into nothingness.

There's a lot more that needs to be said but I'll just leave it as this for now :)

Dreams do come true!