Author: Wilfrid

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Reflection

How To Quiet The Prancing Horses Inside Your Head?!

This is a pretty heavy topic.  But I am sure some of you can handle.

Once in a while, some trusted friends of mine would confide in me the situations they faced – at work, in relationship, or life in general – and hope to hear my perspective.  I love listening to stories and answering questions.  In this particular situation, which for obvious reason I am unable to share the details, I could sense that at any point, anxiety would overwhelm my friend, eating up her sleep, and affecting her ability to make the right decisions.  So I offered, “None of these what-if are real.”  “What do you mean?” she asked.  “All these scenarios [you have imagined] are like the prancing horses inside your head, they make you feeling worried.  You have to quiet the noise down.  Take a deep breath!”  “But how do you quiet what goes on in your mind?” she asked.

Good question.  How to quiet the prancing horses inside your head?  How to rid your worries and attain tranquility in the face of an imminent and potentially desperate situation?  To be frank, it is an art that I am still trying to master.

While I am not a big fan of self-help books, there are a few that are life changing to me.  It is an open secret that “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey has changed the way I divide my time between work and life.  Begin with an end in mind is a concept that prompts us to reflect upon what we want to be remembered of, by our loved ones.  Since then, for one decade, while working hard during the working hours, I put in an equal amount of effort to live life as purposeful as I can outside these hours.  Once in a while, I have friends coming up to me and asked how do I find time to do this and that.  In this instance, I think the question of why is more important than how.  And now you know why.

The late Randy Pausch is an inspiration and his book “The Last Lecture” has touched my heart.  There are two concepts that stick to my mind like that one single habit from the above-mentioned book.  One is don’t complain and work harder.  I find that extremely useful especially at work.  It works equally well in relationships too.  Another one is to lead life the right way and do the right thing.  My day is full of decision points (and so do yours too I suppose).  It is so much easier to pick the right thing to do when in doubt.  The outcome may not be the most favorable, in the short run.  At least the process is robust.

Back to the topic of prancing horses inside our heads, I borrow the concept from “Happiness At Work” by Dr. Srikumar Rao.  This book has so many good stuffs but like the other two books, I can only internalize a few concepts that stick.  If you take a deeper look at the root of anxiety, it is not hard to realize that the thoughts that create anxiety are purely our imagination.  Not thinking about the what-if does not make the problem goes away, I agree.  But feeling worried does not help in crafting the next course of action, even if the best action is to wait.  Here are my stories to share.

When I was holidaying in France, the workers had initiated a strike.  What if no train will be working tomorrow and how are we going to get to the airport?  What if the airport shuts down?  What if the flight to Nice is canceled?  When my home server that houses my personal data crashed, what if I am unable to bring it back up?  What if the support line is not able to help?  What if more than one hard disks are crashed and all my data is lost?  When new team members are mysteriously added into the team or when there is another round of re-organization, what if my role becomes redundant?

How to quiet these thoughts down?

I agree with some readers that good concepts like the above are easy to understand but hard to execute.  That is why we need time to practice (the first concept has taken me 10 years to work on and I am still working on it).  I admit that while I am asking my friend to quiet her thoughts and stop worrying, I too am not immune to anxiety.  I guess the first step is to recognize and acknowledge that none of those prancing horses inside my head are real.  They are my creation.  And there is no point keep thinking about the what-if.  More often than not, once I will the horses away, immediately I return to my modus operandi of doing the right thing, don’t complain and work harder, and time travel to the end game.  Crisis in life often looks diminished viewing from a faraway time horizon – to me that is.

Categories
Diary

Freezing Time

The above picture was taken by Benny.  In the picture are Lora, Cynthia, my niece Bethany, and I.  We were in a restaurant of my choice, near Bird Park.  Quite possibly the most authentic Dim Sum restaurant that we can afford, that my sister and I have located so far.  I asked if I could take little Bethany to see the birds in the park next door.  Her parents looked at each other as though it was one of the rather bizarre requests they have encountered.  Our deadlock was saved by the pouring rain after our sumptuous lunch.  Thank you Lora for picking up the bill.  It was a lovely birthday celebration.  O happy day.

I love my insurance agent.  I would recommend her to anyone in need of a coverage.  On Friday, she called me, “Tomorrow is your birthday and I wish you a happy birthday in advance!”.  I hesitated and said out loud, “Tomorrow is my birthday?”  She went silence hiding in embarrassment.  I broke my silence and screamed, “Tomorrow is my birthday!”.

The first thing that came to my mind when I thought of what I wanted for my birthday was to freeze time.  “What age you want to be at then?” asked Cynthia in the car.  Without thinking, I answered, “26”.  She asked why.  I had no idea except subconsciously, being 26 was the happiest time of my life (so far).  She asked again, “Why?”.  I did a mental scan on the major events that happened when I was 26.  That year, I fell in love.

30 minutes before the clock struck midnight, I have initiated an assault to my storeroom.  Something I have been wanting to do for more than a decade of inhabiting in this cosy apartment of ours.  Systematically, I torn out the pieces of junk covered in decade old dust and moved them by batches to the disposable area at my ground lobby.  The process took a lot lesser time than I thought, which makes me wonder why I have been putting this off for so long.  The next morning, my mother called.  “You remember my birthday!” I exclaimed.  In retrospect, what a dumb thing to say.  Of course she does.  It must have been a memorable day of pain and relief for her.  When I told her what I did last evening, she said, “Things that you haven’t used for two years you should throw them away.”  I love my mother and her easy-to-follow guidance.

Cynthia was speechless looking at her dream came true in the most unexpected day of the calendar.  The next morning, on my birthday, I made another assault to my common bedroom – the extended storeroom.  This should make my mother and mother-in-law happy too, as they do stay with us in that room occasionally.  If you could see the before and after images of my storeroom and common bedroom, you too would be shocked by the amount of space reclaimed.

What should I do with my 40 feet tall music CD tower if I am to stake them on top of one another now that I have digitalized them (to the best of my measurement)?  It is a tough decision, tougher than throwing away magazines in plastic wrap, sentimental items that serve no purpose, and items that are in at best partially working condition.  For now, I tug them alphabetically in cardboard boxes.  Since there is no point to display a subset of my CD collection in my living room, I have re-purposed my CD rack into a DVD rack, which involved a re-positioning of 21 beams across 140 holes in total on both sides of the stand.  24 hours into my impromptu spring cleaning, on my birthday, I was thoroughly exhausted, feeling the body ache here and there.  But it was a satisfying exercise, a precursor to our long overdue renovation.

Categories
Fantasy & Sci-fi Movie Reviews

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – So Far So Good

OK.  I promise I am not going to poke fun at the Twilight Saga like before.  Looking at the record breaking ticket sales, I think the fanatic fans have gone beyond caring about what the critics say and have dived straight into yet another episode of this bizarre love triangle of a vampire, a werewolf, and a human girl.  I for one have convinced myself that what I see is not bad acting.  You can’t expect a several centuries old vampire with no beating heart and cold to touch to be more animated than Robert Pattinson, can you?  Perfect casting.  And I suppose the over-reacting, hot blooded Taylor Lautner is merely acting to the role of an animalistic werewolf.  Or did he take it out on the break-up-make-up experience with Taylor Swift?  Cynthia asked if I am a Team Edward or Team Jacob.  My reply?  I am Team Bella.  I think in this entire saga so far, only Kristen Stewart can act well (while the other two are improving, so it seems).  Without Kristen, there will be no Twilight Saga.

In fact, I think I am Team Alice.  She is by far the hottest vampire I have seen.  Please bite me, Alice!  Come to think of it, I begin to be able to relate to Bella’s strong desire to be bitten by a – I presume in the eyes of the girls – hot vampire.

As though the filmmakers have read my lament earlier on, they have done something positive to the new soundtrack.  “Twilight” soundtrack is great.  There are good tracks by Muse, Paramore, and Linkin Park.  “New Moon” soundtrack is forgettable.  As for “Eclipse”, while there are quite a few album fillers, Muse has returned.  Howard Shore’s composition on “Jacob’s Theme” is beautiful.  He is the composer for “The Lords of the Ring” and “The Avatar”.  And another strong track is “Heavy In Your Arms” by Florence + The Machine.  The Australian jazz-pop singer Sia’s “My Love” is soothing to listen to and not to be missed.

This third instalment has the advantage of diving straight into the drama without the need to go through how vampire (episode one) and werewolf (episode two) in this bizarre Twilight Universe works.  In addition, since the romance between a vampire and a human and the friendship between the same human and a werewolf have already been established, there are more rooms for drama beyond Bella and Edward or Bella and Jacob.  For example, we now have Bella and Edward and Jacob locked in a PG version of a threesome.  And there is story development for other characters too, which I enjoy watching.  Less CGI, more dramas.

Cheesy dialogues still exist.  Jacob still takes his shirt off – twice (if you miss it the first time he shows off his torso, you will have a second chance).  Dakota Fanning’s involvement with the movie is still disappointingly minimal.  The scale of the movie has grown and it begins to look more like a blockbuster, which is good.  I feel that Edward the vampire does not seem to demonstrate his power as much as before, Jacob the werewolf does not seem to be as uncontrollably dangerous in wolf form as before, which is strange.  What is missing, currently, in this Twilight Saga is for Bella to fall in love with a human boy.  That would make a wonderful foursome.

Categories
Diary

The Cloud Watcher

I am not a sociologist.  But I suspect that when you temporary move someone from one environment to another, that causes a temporary change in behavior that may linger for a little bit when you move that someone back to the original environment.  For the last two weeks, in France, I constantly kept an eye on the sky.  The quality of light on my subjects and finding the spot to have the most beautiful blue sky as a background is something I would look for when taking pictures.  I observe that the portion of the sky that is nearest the giant light bulb – the sun – is often less blue than the portion that is furthest away from it.  Of course, how deep the blue is depends on the absence of cloud, the air humidity, and the time of the day.  At least that is how I would form my theory literally from thin air as I explained to Cynthia in the car this morning.  In any given normal day in Singapore, I would not pay that much attention to how the sky looks like.  But because I was so used to watching the sky while we were holidaying in France, I have this temporary habit to pause and scan our atmosphere.  What a beautiful day this morning!  I could see patches of light blue in the sky hiding behind countless of fluffy cotton-like cloud.  I read somewhere that there is a terminology for cloud of that form.  But I forgot what it is called.

“How come the blue sky in Singapore is not as blue as the one in France?” asked Cynthia.  And that was when I pulled out that theory of mine from thin air.  She bought it, like she is buying all my bizarre theories.  The same way as I am taking everything that she attempts to cook.  That is what couples do, yes?

This morning, the blue sky dotted with fluffy clouds was exceptionally adorable.  At one spot, we caught two patches of blue sky, in two different taints.  A lighter blue on top and a darker blue at the bottom, separated by a rather thick thread of cloud in the form of a white scarf.  As we looked ahead, we have seen something unusual.  A skyline that was not there before we left town two weeks ago.  We can see the faraway commercial buildings, a view that was blocked by the long rows of trees along the highway.  What happens to the trees?  The tall ones are now replaced by the shorter ones, younger looking ones, different looking ones, with different types of colors, in the form of an inverted mop.  Part of the highway expansion project, perhaps?

I think drivers in Singapore should at least try to rent and drive a small car during one of the overseas trips.  Like a 1.4 litre diesel car that we drove in France.  I have become more aware of the slower moving vehicles on the road.  I have become – temporarily – a more gentle driver, which surprisingly good I am feeling.

Last evening, we drove pass Cineleisure at Orchard after watching a movie at the very building.  Cynthia exclaimed, “Look, there is a new McDonald’s!”  We visit Orchard often and where does the McDonald’s come from?  We were away for merely two weeks!  More shockingly, we noticed a brand new building facing Cinelesiure, linked by the new McDonald’s.  I searched deep into my memory.  A long time ago it was a road.  And the road became a green patch of state land, a park perhaps.  I thought hard till I hit a mental void.  Then suddenly I thought of the Japanese animation Evangelion:1.0 whereby mechanical buildings spawn from the ground at night changing the landscape of the entire city.

I am serious.  Where does that building come from?!

This morning, after I parked my car at my office area, in the far east of the city, I greeted the lady who handles my season car park payment.  She was not her usual self.  What’s wrong, I asked.  A lizard (gecko), she screamed.  Geckos are friendly animals.  They eat up the small insects.  I tried to explain.  She jumped out of her counter, called out in Malay, and soon a male cleaner came by with a broom.  A type of broom with short, hard bristles.  Leave it alone, I pleaded for mercy on behalf of a harmless animal.  I have not seen someone murders a gecko in real life and I was speechless as I saw the cleaner in one swift motion pinned down the animal with the broom and stepped onto it.  And I saw a lifeless gecko.  A sizable one.

Outside, the sky was as beautiful as an hour ago, when Cynthia and I stepped out of our home.  I wonder when I will stop admiring the sky and return to my usual routines.  There are things that are out of our control (poor gecko); there are things that we can influence (more gentle driving on the road); there are natural gifts that are free (the sun, the beautiful blue sky, and the shape-shifting clouds); and there are ever changing man made landscapes that remind us that today is not the same as yesterday is not the same as the day before.

Categories
Diary

Summer Blog Episode 11 – Headphones and Lipsticks, Testicles and Handbags (Final Episode III)

On the Friday before our two weeks summer holiday to Europe, what a beautiful morning it was.  Life had been hectic, up until that morning.  I felt so lifted that morning.  And as I walked towards our car, I stopped, and realized that I have forgotten to bring something important to work.

“Oops. Where are my headphones?” asked I.  Cynthia reached into her handbag and asked, “Do you want to borrow mine?”  I shook my head and answered, “Don’t worry.  I have another set in the car.”  “Another pair?!  How many headphones do you have?!”

Well, we are men.  We have backup accessories and devices everywhere we go.

“Like me having a lipstick on every handbag then?” Cynthia pondered.  “You have a lipstick in each of your handbag?!” exclaimed I.  And she nodded.  Maybe it is a girl thing.

You see.  Even after living with that someone for more than a decade, there are still much to be learned.

On the way to work, we were in an exceptional chatty mood.  Cynthia has recently moved into a new role, dominated by men.  Out of nowhere she asked, “Is it normal for men to shift the testicles during meeting?”

Good question.  I am pretty sure I have seen it before from time to time, when we have meetings with only men.  I mean, it is like scratching your head or digging your ears, yes?

“Hmm.  Do girls shift the boobs in an all-girl-meeting, when no men are watching?” I innocently inquired.  “Of course not!  We are civilized.  Not like men,” replied Cynthia.  “What do you girls do then?”

“Hmm.  We talk about makeup and handbags?”

Just when you think you know what the world of the opposite sex is like.

By the time you read this episode, I shall be on my way back to Singapore.  Right now as I am doing my final round of edit for this entire series, I feel as though I have time traveled forward, picture how you would react reading this series, and back.  And by the time I read this again, I wonder if I would think that this series is indeed a silly idea.  Don’t blame me.  Blame Bob the Botâ„¢.

Categories
I See I Write

Summer Blog Episode 10 – A Piece Of Work (Final Episode II)

What is a piece of work?

My friend Barbara from Philippine did some research and noted to me that it either means “someone who, although often interesting, is difficult to get along with on an every day basis” or “a remarkable person, achievement or product”.

For some strange reasons, in my mind, when I asked that question, I was looking at “a piece of work” literally as a piece of work.  As in one unit of work.  An innocent question that stemmed from a conversation overheard, outside my office that looks more like a farm.  Maybe I shall compose an article of frequently used and abused terms in my department.

My colleague from India and I often chat.  One morning, like any other morning, she indicated to me her unhappiness towards the many work issues she has.  But these are just work items, I said.  If we have a process to take care of work items, it is a matter of having an issue dropping into this black box called “my daily job” and coming out as a handled issue, which could still be an issue, but it is handled as per the process agreed.

It is like if my daily job is a toilet cleaner, I see dirty toilets coming in and cleaned toilets going out.  Whether a cleaned toilet is indeed a 5-star clean toilet depends on many factors (some public toilets are just impossible to clean, don’t you think?).  The bottom line is, it is a cleaned toilet.  I am neither sad about the dirty toilet nor happy about the cleaned toilet.  But I am delighted about the money I take home that day.

PS. It is quite a miracle that I can write another ‘final’ episode.  I thought I would stop at 9.

Categories
Whacky Thoughts

Summer Blog Episode 9 – Shortsightedness Versus Spelling Handicap (Final Episode)

I too am shortsighted.  So I am not here to poke fun at you, if you are or know someone who is shortsighted too.

Looking at the number of people around me who require optical aid or surgical treatment to see properly, I cannot help but to wonder from time to time what would happen if we were today magically sent back to the Stone Age where there is no such optical device or surgical technique to correct our flawed vision?

Most of us would be eaten by lions and tigers, wolves and wild boars.  If we were not eaten by the animals, we would have fallen to our death by stepping onto the wrong stone while fleeing.  Most of us would be mating without having a clear idea of what our partners looked like.  Until it was too late.  And prayed that our partners were not from the same sex.

Most of us would not be able to survive for long, set aside passing the genes to the next generation.  Evolution would place us – the shortsighted people – out of this Earth, which could be a good thing.  Because in time, in this game of survival, our population would once again be populated with human beings with good eye sights, who would be able to see the lions and tigers, wolves and wild boars, as well as those whom we would sleep and procreate with.

These days, I too cannot live without a spellchecker.  So I am not here to poke fun at you, if spellchecker is as important to you as it is to me.  I am unsure if the growing inability to see properly as a species is of the same magnitude of us being more reliance on spellcheckers.  I think in time to come, most of us would not be able to spell properly.

Categories
Whacky Thoughts

Summer Blog Episode 8 – I Am Your New Minister For Transport

I had a dream.  I had become the new Minister for Transport.

*     *     *     *     *

Dear citizens, I have great news to announce.  As a small child, when I see that an average citizen has to pay up to $100,000 to buy an average Japanese car, I see something is not right.  For a wealthy country like ours whose citizens pay $100 to watch World Cup at home, we deserve better.  Therefore, I hereby propose to abolish the car tax system as well as the certificate of entitlement (better known as COE) that unfairly inflates the price of a car.  I am also proposing to ban the import of the cheap cars.  To retain the existing Cat A (car engine below 1,600cc) and Cat B (car engine above) COE concept, we shall have two types of cars on the road – Porsche 911 for the average citizens and Ferrari for the elite citizens.  Trust me, I have seen the numbers.  It works out more or less the same as what our citizens are paying today.

Some of you may challenge that without a quota or COE biding system – like we have today – it is hard to control the number of cars in our country.  Let’s look at it this way.  Even with such a COE biding system, for reasons beyond me, we still have problem in controlling the number of cars in our country.  So what gives?

Some of you may express concern that our government will miss out a lot of revenue from the inflated car price.  Oh please.  We make more with Electric Road Pricing (ERP) than you can imagine.  There are also some jokers who get miserably lost in around Singapore River during the ERP hours and get charged extra.  Jokers like me.

Look at it the bright side.  It is good for our image.  Imagine rows and rows of nothing but Porsche 911 and Ferrari (OK, I may consider bringing in Porsche Cayenne for those who insist on a large family car).  In the spirit of promoting Formula One, I would also propose to disable all the speed cameras when we are hosting the event.

*     *     *     *     *

Categories
Diary

Summer Blog Episode 7 – Organic Vegetable Noodle With Soup

Recently I have been experimenting in becoming a quasi-vegetarian.  There had been in the past heated debate between my friends and I on how healthy, or rather not healthy some vegetarian dishes are.  Granted.  San meat does not mean that it is good for health.  To take one level up, recently I have been experimenting with organic vegetarian food.  And there is one that I frequently visit, with Cynthia, because the restaurant is near to our Spanish school.  To be frank, Cynthia is not too keen on the dishes.  For me, when it comes to new experiences, my mind is pretty open.  And I think the “Vegetable Noodle with Soup” dish has put my open mind to the test.

Having tried almost all their menu times, I was curious on what “Vegetable Noodle with Soup” tastes like.  The amazing is, after spending close to half an hour consuming it, I have managed to deciphered how to cook it.  Here is the recipe.

Step 1 – Boil the water, cook the noodle, drain the water from the noodle, and put the noodle aside.

Step 2 – Boil the water, put in one piece of organic sweet corn, a few slides of dried seaweed (there is no organic seaweed, is there?), a few slides of organic tomatoes, a few slides of organic cabbage, a few slides of organic carrots, and two pieces of organic tofu.  I presume you know the order of which one to cook first (for example, sweet corns and carrots take the longest to cook).

Step 3 – Resist the temptation to add salt or any seasoning or flavoring.

Step 4 – Put the cooked noodle inside the organic vegetable soup.  Bring to boil and serve hot.

When Benny – my brother-in-law – heard my experience, he asked, “Is it appetizing at all?”.  I suppose that was why I took half an hour to consume the dish.  And when I looked around, there were dinners who took longer than I to finish their food.  I think that answers Benny’s question.

PS. Believe it or not, I am considering to add this into my regular home cooked diet because it is so easy to make.

Categories
I See I Write

Summer Blog Episode 6 – Who Created Zipper At The Back Of A Dress?

These cannot be coincidences, the more I think about it.

If you are a man, imagine wearing or taking off a shirt with a long zipper all the way up from your waist to the back of your neck.  Or from the low side of your hip all the up to your armpit.  Whoever designed this concept and applied to the day-to-day fashion for the ladies, I wonder if practicality was something he or she had in mind.  But if that makes me, as the man of the house, feel more useful morning after morning, night after night, I am not complaining.

Opening of jars, changing of light bulbs, hooking and unhooking of bras – perhaps there is a conspiracy out there to make us men more useful.  One scene, in Gossip Girl, when Blair said the word ‘zip’ and Serena immediately sprung into action and helped out with the dressing in such fluidity, I could immediately relate.