Aussie Mangoes

My new found love :D

Yesterday I finally got an opportunity to taste the aussie mango that I have been targeting for a long time. Coincidentally I wanted to buy them a few days ago at the supermarket because it was on sale and I saw many aunties rushing for it. To be honest, I was tempted to join in the crowd but somehow I decided to go with my present fruit selection, dragon fruit. 

My wish came true when my school gave each teacher two aussie mangoes for our welfare during our staff meeting :D yahooooo! I can't recall the last time being so excited over a fruit. Talk about delayed gratification which is something sorely missing in our 'I want it now' society. 

As for me, I'm going to savour every single slice of my mangoes and probably feed the skins to the creepy crawlies. 

I'm getting more and more obsessed with supermarket deals @.@ 

Oh yes, Happy New Years! 

Passion Card and Nuffnang Cheque

Yesterday was my first time redeeming my passion card points! Well, I must admit I was too bored over the holidays when I decided to sign up for it as I often shop at Giant.

E complains that I tend to spend more with the reward point system or even at times force her to shop at the Giant near her place instead of her usual local grocery :D

Guess what also I received in my mailbox,

 Some random coffee bean voucher which I had no idea how I signed up for. Probably some link I registered some time back. Redeemed it at Vivo but the mango juice tasted like coffee @.@

My second Nuffnang cheque. Don't even know how I get paid so much for such an ineffective blog! Oh well, sashimi here I come :)

Should I post my skydiving pictures up? Haha, I look terrified FYI

Regrets anyone?

2013 is coming to a close and I asked my dad this question a few days back ago. Oh yes, I think from now onwards, most of my posts will be random conversations which I want to jot down for my own future reference. 

Back to the my convo with my dad,

Me: So dad, you're going to enter your retirement years, (in fact he has already slowed down a couple of years back ) have you ever regretted anything in your life? Family? Career? Friends?

To be frank, I always like to engage in deep and random conversations with my dad.

Dad : *paused for a moment* Honestly, I have no regrets. Family wise, definitely none son. Career wise, my friends are always stunned when I tell them I'm doing 'office boy' work for the past 5 years. I'm glad that I had my good days and also my more relaxed days.

Some food for thought, his reply has been buzzing in my head for a few days now.  

Hmm

Paradise

Welcome to paradise! :)

Quite a nice photo to review my blog again.

Some snippets of my recent trip to New Zealand.

 Lake Matheson, from reflection point

Taken with my S3, no edits. 

Rubberbands

"Have I told you about the tension of opposites?" [Morrie] says.
The tension of opposites?"Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.
"A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle."Sounds like a wrestling match, I say.
"A wrestling match." He laughs. "Yes, you could describe life that way.So which side wins, I ask?"Which side wins?"He smiles at me, the crinkled eye, the crooked teeth."Love wins. Love always wins."

Switch Box Incident

It was a tough week for me and yesterday's incident almost made it worst. Feeling so tired from work plus I was down with flu, I went to bed relatively early, wishing that I could just end the day but guess what, half way through my deep slumber, I felt that my room started to get stuffy and I woke up.

I found out that it was midnight and the electricity was totally cut off. I sprung out of my bed and did a quick check on my room lights, noticing that my air con was not working despite me fiddling with the switch. Feeling frustrated, I walk towards the kitchen to do a quick check on my neighbours if they had experience the same fate as I did.

I was too sleepy to think and went back to bed, leaving my windows opened and praying that there would be some sort of breeze throughout the night. Thoughts of not having a good sleep started to flood my mind, thinking that it will affect my whole day tomorrow.

But then again, I thought that this is Singapore and it is impossible to suffer a blackout. Maybe back home, I would have already lit some candles and sleep topless. Yes we do experience common blackout. I tried sleeping but it didn't work out and suddenly I thought about the switch box.

Quickly I walked towards the main circuit board and inspected the switches. Well it did look fine, but I was no electrician and I kept thinking that what if I turned it the other way round my whole place would catch fire, etc etc. I tried looking for the 'ON' and 'OFF' label but did not see any.

Giving up or more like resorting to suck it up and just sleep mentality, I headed back to my room and tried to sleep but somehow I had thoughts of just trying my luck and switch up the switch box and I'm glad I did. Mustering all my faith, more like desperation, I said to myself, YOLO and I dashed out back to the switch box again.

Trust me, I was closing my eyes and my heart was beating really fast when my fingers switch up the main switch and guess what? There was light and I had decent sleep :)

Ah, wordy post,

Maybe at times we just need to follow our instinct and switch up our lives! 

I'm Held by Your love

Woodcutter

Two of the finest woodcutters in a small village challenged each other to a competition. Their task was to chop as much wood as possible in a day.

The first men quickly gather his best axe and started chopping his wood. Determined to outclass his competitor, he vowed that he would continued chopping all the way within that day.

While he was furiously chopping his wood, his competitor often took breaks and was in a relaxed mood. After the day, the two men came together again and the first man was shocked that he had lost to his competitor by a huge amount.

The first man asked his competitor," How it is possible for you to chop more wood than me given that you have so much rest? I've worked my butt off and even used the finest axe that I have"

His competitor replied, " While you were furiously chopping away, I took breaks. What you did not notice that during my breaks, I sharpened my axe. "

Ask yourself, what have you been doing during your rest time? A good reminder to myself. 

Dragon Fruit Story

I feel like an uncle today at the supermarket, let me tell you why.

After having my dinner, I went to the supermarket to get some fruits. The thought of buying dragon fruit did not cross my mind until I saw one of the workers refilling the dragon fruit section. At that time I only wanted to buy apples or oranges. The dragon fruit was going about 2.90 for two pieces and I was quite reluctant to buy since nobody really wants to share it with me.

I walked one round around the shop and came back to the same section. This time I noticed that not only the price of the dragon fruit was lesser, 1.90 but it was for three pieces. :D

And that is the story of how I ended with 3 dragon fruits in my fridge now. hehee

Cheap thrills :P E said i'm acting more and more like an old uncle nowadays :( oh noooooo.

Getting ready to see some red colouring when I go to the loo, coupled with some black seeds. xD

Count your blessings today

Ever heard of the 3 Blessings exercise? It's a daily activity done, preferably at a certain time of the day, and it has proven to have great positive effects on the individual. Normally a person would be most reflective before he goes to bed. A reminder to myself, not only should i count my blessings but I should also make my blessings count :)

When was the last time you thanked someone or the Lord for something small?

A year later,

About more than a year ago I wrote this post on Fear.

And today, that fear still looms around once in a while but yet i'm thankful for supportive family and friends who are keeping me sane :)

Some thoughts came to me when I was on my way back home after work,

" Not only we work hard but yet most of us fail to acknowledge that we are overworked. Even more so, not everyone will have the guts to change their current predicament but instead just hold on tightly to what they have" 

And also I chanced upon this article in the papers today titled,

"In era of instant gratification, time not on Govt’s side , Singapore’s ‘super-efficient’ reputation is compounding the situation where people expect fast solutions: Analysts"

You can read the article here . My blog nowadays seems like a complain blog which truly lack the humour in the past. I used to laugh while writing my own blog posts. hohoo

Till then,

Human Superman 

Stranger Rants

Today was probably one of the days where I had a few strangers randomly talking to me.

The first was when I was dreading my bad luck when I missed my bus back home after a long day at work when two old Malay aunties reached the bus stop as well. They were bemoaning their luck as well because they literally watch our bus drove passed them despite the many attempts to flag it down.

One of the aunties started talking to me as they had knew me for a long time. She kicked off the conversation by saying to me ," Boy just finished work ah?"

Me being a little frustrate, checking the bus app and only to find out that the next bus would be 20 minutes, decided to force a little smile and said ," Yup, just finished work "

Aunty : " Wow so late! Nowadays I don't understand why youngsters like you works so late! My son also comes back so late. What do you work as?"

Me : " I teach "

Aunty : " Oh boy, mak cik pity you! Teachers work so hard nowadays, plus kids are so rude too. Must be hard. Let me tell you something boy, I know a lot of teachers in IMH.

Me : " O.O "

Our conversation lasted for about 20 minutes plus and I did enjoy listening to her rants about Singapore, work, China and Hong King people and public buses.

Fishing Encounter

Today I had the privilege to witness an interesting fishing encounter at Bedok Jetty. As I was cycling back home, I heard some jingles on a fishing rod nearby indicating that the rod may have a bite. Very quickly a little boy rushed to his rod and shouted in excitement to alert his dad that his rod had a bite. Everyone around the jetty turned their attention to the little boy to see what he may have potentially caught. I just stood nearby to join in.

An uncle, who was jogging, also joined in the excitement and went very close to the kid. The little boy was so excited that he started shouting to his siblings that he has a gut feeling it would be a big catch looking at how taut his line was.

The uncle however, was just mocking the little kid. " Boy reel in faster la, uncle want to see what fish you catch". A while later he continued his 'taunts', " Eh boy, tak makan nasi a? Need uncle to help you?"

What surprised me was that his father was right beside the kid when the uncle said all these things but the father just smiled and told his son ," Patient ok? Take your time"

The uncle impatiently said, " Boy, you must reel in faster or else your fish will run away"  But the little kid ignored the uncle or probably from what I observed, he was more engrossed in landing his catch.

I just stood beside, exchanging smiles to the father when that uncle was babbling away.

Some random thoughts ran through my head when I was standing and observing the whole incident.
Uncle :
Represents society or more so skeptics. Often they come to you when there is a pot of gold, probably hoping for a slice of it.

Kid : 
Represents us as individuals. Remember the first time when we got our first pay cheque or when we first saw snow

Dad :
Represents all cool fathers :D

Do drop comments on your own interpretation. Man I feel like a retiree : D

Fish Story

Today I found out that fishes are choosy animals when it comes to their diet. From my experience, I normally just feed my fishes fish food or bread, basically scraps. Even if you did not feed them that, they will be able to some how survive by eating their own poop.

My loyal customer was complaining to me today his expensive fishes have been refusing to eat market prawns and according to him, they now only eat worms. O.O That made him invest in a bigger composting bin which in enables him to increase his fish feed.

Honestly I was quite shocked at the incident and came up with some thoughts from this fish story.

1) Life gets mundane at times. At some juncture we will need something different to spice it up a little.
I consider the market prawns to a simple plate of cai fan (mixed vegetables). The prawns to the fish are like 'boring/common' food. The owner feeds them because it's probably cheap and easily available. Similar to us, if we continue eating cai fan everyday we probably get bored and the uncle at the stall will remember our eating patterns. Maybe that's why people go crazy when they go for buffets :P

2) If we pamper ourselves too often, it will be hard to take a step back. 
Just life the fish, the owner probably pampered them with abundance of yummy and luxurious things, creating a 'vessel' aka hunger strike when their supply of worms was depleted. Oh yes, trust me I know how that feels. I've been eating too good food for the past week that often I crave them even more. Give you an example, for today's dinner I was craving fast food and the thought of eating burger king flashed passed me a thousand times when I was trying to distract myself in the library. Guess what, I ended up eating.... cai fan!:D and trust me, of that plate of cai fan never tasted so bad in my life @.@

My tasty  Cai Fan, came with lot of bones too @.@ 

3) Find more owners who pampers their fishes just like this one!

Ps: Back to eating healthily again, hopefully : D 

Human Superman

Today I woke up from a dream. A dream which I always wanted to be, superman.

In that dream I was superman. Things are always done on time, saving people and yet have time to be at work as Clark Kent and date Louis Lane.


I always thought I'm superman

But this dream was different.

"Besides the noble art of getting things done, I was reminded of the noble art of leaving things undone"

In that dream, superman wasn't super, but some it felt great leaving some unaccomplished chores.

Maybe the wisdom of life consists of the elimination of non-essentials. 

Signing off,

Human Superman

Expectation vs Reality

Yesterday I went to the saloon to get a haircut. E told me to try something different as I will not be going back to school for the next few weeks. Well i tried to be adventurous and google some hairstyles before it was my turn.

I finally decided on this new hairstyle which I wanted.

Wanted to look like david beckham, wait who doesn't want right? It was more of a way to honour his retirement from soccer *cough*

Okay back to the story, so I showed the hairstylist this picture and he sniggered at me asking if I really wanted to pull off this look. 

If you noticed most of my post were on haircuts and im sure you know what's the outcome even before I told you so. 

Yup, it turned out quite bad. It did not resemble any sense of david beckham's hairstyle. @.@ 

Expectations vs Reality really sometimes do suck  :D 

Edamame - healthy snack

I have developed a new liking for japanese peas recently. There are called Edamame. Before this I used to tell e that someone would be stupid enough to order a plate of edamame from our favourite jap stall. Turns out that after ordering a plate of edamame, I got quite hooked to it myself. 

If you are wondering how it looks like, 

It is a very healthy snack to eat at night. In case you are wondering where I got these from, I bought them from Giant. Go over to the japanese section and look for the freezers. They should be in there. Plus they are cheaper, only $2.80 bucks for 400g.

Yum, I'm going to spend my nights snacking on them. Remember to add some salt to the water when you boil them!

Now or never

Today I woke up and checked my phone and this came up.

We do need reminders to be thankful for the little things in life.

Today i had opportunity to spend a little more time by my sweet escape. The sparrows around me makes me wonder why they can be so persistent to loiter around my bench. I did try to dig the ground thinking if there were any food to be found but yet i could not find anything. More and more of them start to congregate around that particular zone. For once i wished i could communicate with them to ask them why they can be such simple creatures and get excited over a grain of rice.

But they remind me again of God's promise that even they will not grow hungry and starve. Im am thankful for a sparrow that He has given me from the moon too :)

Signing off,
Sparrow watcher

East Coast Park

East Coast Park aka ECP is really a beautiful place. Every week I would make myself visit ECP at least once. That's because I do stay quite nearby and it is a happy place. It is a place where you see people coming together to enjoy and spend the evening together. Some go for runs, some bbq or some even camp by the beach.

I always see couples pitching tents and enjoying the night together. Avid fisherman also do occupy the jetties. Parents take this opportunity to teach their kids a little bit on the environment or to instil in them some values through cycling or fishing.

I often notice father and son bonding sessions over short jogs and fishing trips where most of the time they would go home empty handed by their hearts united. I will be penning down more things about ECP. In the mean time, if some people are lacking of ideas where to go, ECP is a better alternative than sentosa. There is definitely a more local feel in the air over here :)

I know who holds tomorrow

I don't know about tomorrow;
I just live from day to day.
I don't borrow from its sunshine
For its skies may turn to grey.
I don't worry o'er the future,
For I know what Jesus said.
And today I'll walk beside Him,
For He knows what lies ahead.

Many things about tomorrow
I don't seem to understand
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand.

Every step is getting brighter
As the golden stairs I climb;
Every burden's getting lighter,
Every cloud is silver-lined.
There the sun is always shining,
There no tear will dim the eye;
At the ending of the rainbow
Where the mountains touch the sky.

I don't know about tomorrow;
It may bring me poverty.
But the one who feeds the sparrow,
Is the one who stands by me.
And the path that is my portion
May be through the flame or flood;
But His presence goes before me
And I'm covered with His blood.

Just want to share this song which was sung during our morning devotion today.

When $800-1000 mattered most

Let me tell you a story today, 

I overheard a conversation between two boys, with one of them telling his friend about how he plans to skip school on particular days just to work to find an extra income. He then bragged to his friend that by doing so and burning off his weekends on his new job as well, he will be able to rake in 800-1000 dollar per month which would actually make him a 'rich' man. Well what the kid didn't know was probably the hard truth and I did not really want to burst his bubble.

Reminded my of the story which I wrote about here last year.

I do know how it feels like to work and study at the same time as I myself had experienced during my secondary school and university days. The difference was my part-time job helped spurred me to work harder, to manage my time better so that I can squeeze every minute to study but instead these boys were doing it the other way. I did not have time to talk to the boys and looking back at it, I wish I had decided to share some of my experiences with them to capture these teachable moments.

Getting lost, really do help you find yourself.

'Foresight'

If there was one ability that I could request for, I would request for foresight. Okay maybe I'm starting to sound old when I say that, maybe I should ask for speed, just like my favourite hero, Flash.

Anyways back to the topic on foresight. No I don't have the ability of foresight. Even if I did have it, it would be from my observation or experiences mingling with people around me. Today I'll be writing on a fictional person, based on my own personal observations for the past few weeks. Let's name this person, person A.

Well you see, person A is an old man now. He is probably into his sixties or seventies, yet he is actually living all alone in a rented room. His daily routine consists of waking up, making his own breakfast. After which he loiters around his rented house and finally decides to go out for a walk. He probably just go with the flow and walks to where he wants to, only with the aim to kill time before he heads home to complete his daily routine.

He sits at the local kopitiam and drinks his favourite cup of coffee, trying to make friends with the kopitiam aunties and uncles, yet they only exchanged a few words with him. Deep down, he longs for company, someone to listen to him talk or even just to deliver him out of his lonely world.

Everyday on his way back, he reflects on his past, thinking of what he has done wrong. When he was younger, he worked, in fact worked so hard until he got promoted even faster than his peers. Outwardly he looked untouchable and everyone adored him yet inside he was a lonely man.

The only thing he could do now is to regret, hoping that he could turn back time and probably focused more time on his family and loved ones. He ends his day by cooking a simple meal for himself , just to kill off 1-2 hours in the day, and sits all alone in the living room to watch his faithful Cantonese drama. Finally he goes to bed by 9.30 pm only to repeat the same routine again tomorrow.

Moral of the story?
You decide it yourself :)

Are you looking for that rainbow in your life? Maybe you just have to look up more.

Ps: “You'll never find a rainbow if you're looking down”

Icelandic Rock

Was digging through my passport holder today when I found this in it. It's an Icelandic rock which i picked up from the streets. The rocks over at Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, seems very different than those over here. They all seem to have pores or come in weird shapes and size. Guess I was too fascinated about it and I kept one in my pocket :D 

Amazing how one little rock and bring back lots of memories

Ironically, my brother said," What a dumb rock!" :D haha. oh well

Coconut Trees

Maxed out simplicity. Witnessed a group of Myanmar men tying a string across two coconut trees as their net for their volleyball game. Reminds me of days when we used our slippers as goal posts in the padang but maximum satisfaction.

3 times

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.

 ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Many of times, we are only familiar with verse 9 onwards, but often we forget the reason why Paul said it earlier. 

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.

Thorns are there to hurt you temporarily and not kill you. 

March-ing On

Time really flies and we are already in the third month of 2013. Just wanted to list down some things that I am grateful for so far in my life.

According to my dad, I'm the chief complainer at home and I must say it is some what true. haha.

1) I've been complaining about how my work place is far and it take me a while to get to school, which means i have to sacrifice my precious sleep.
What I forgot was, throughout the week, not once I had to stand up on the bus. I always had a seat and even some luxury to sleep on the bus :D Apparently the route I take daily is less travelled by students from my school and I can get some extra sleep without bothering to be caught off guard by them.

Also, I have the toilet in the morning all to myself, nobody to rush with me! :D

2) The food courts are far from my place
What I forgot was that I have the luxury to cycle everyday to grab dinner. I could kill two birds in one stone by exercising as well :) 

Thankful for days that I can stare and listen to the sound of the waves, wishing for more days like this.

Find time

Note to self :

Less is more

E always says i'm the easiest person to please as I get contented with things easily. For example today when I told her that all i wanted to eat for lunch was from canteen 11 mixed rice and I did tapau it to her hall to eat. As I was gobbling my lunch down, I keep telling her how amazing the food is. I even said if i had all the money in the world, I would hire the two uncles to cook for me everyday. 

Of course that made her laugh and said that i'm so easy to be pleased. 

What she said didn't really strike me until i read this article here. All I wanted for my lunch was just a meal full of greens and non-obsessively oily food. 

Friends ask me what I learnt when I was in Finland, I said , "I learnt to exist there :) "

Less is more

Rich

I remember clearly that some time back when I first got together with E, she grumbled to me that she wished that she had more money to shop and travel. Well I told her that money isn't really everything and we must always remember that we are rich in blessings. That's the very least that we should be always thankful for, rich in blessings.

Ironically, I was just talking to legend over fb and we had our usual small chat and I'm glad that as we spoke,  it reminded me of what i told E.

Count your blessings today :)
3 Blessings ftw!

Chilli Plant Update

Yahoo! Made my day when I saw my chilli plant flowering today :) I'm going to track its progress. This little things really keep me sane :D I even put 4 worms inside my pot, guess they must be some what helping the plants growing better as i could see some improvements on the leaves. 

so beautiful!!

Can't wait to harvest them. I think i'm going to grow egg plants after this.

Be a farmer i shall! :) 

Guard

This randomly came to me today when I was talking to a bunch of friends,

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

And I was reminded of Proverbs 4:23,

"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."

This is probably something most of us forget most of the time. 

Durian Runtuh

Durian runtuh or the literal translation means falling durians. It's a malay proverb that means you obtain unexpected income aka free money out of the blues.

Well, sadly it didn't happen to me but I did learn a great lesson from my short jog on the first day of 2013. While I was jogging, I noticed an old rusty bicycle parked just outside an empty grass patch in one of the halls. It struck me that no joker would actually lock his old bicycle in the middle of no where, and so I took a quick look around me and I climbed up the little slope.

Upon climbing up the slope, I saw two old man looking up in the sky, as if they were doing some serious star gazing at 5pm in the evening. I looked up and I got a shock when I saw tonnes of durian on the tree @.@ I wish i brought my camera there.

Being a keh-poh, I walked towards the old uncle and started talking to him. (Conversation taken in Hokkien + Mandarin)

Me : Uncle, 你在做什么？

Uncle : 小弟, I'm waiting for durians to drop. That tree is not good, this tree is better.

Me: oh, how do you know uncle?

Uncle: Look up in the sky, the birds know it. they tend to flock to this tree on the right here.

Me: Wow, so do you do this everyday?

Uncle : 如果有时间我来啊.

I waited about 15 minutes with the uncle and suddenly a small durian dropped on the floor and another Malay uncle was actually deeper inside to collect his loot. He then screamed out to me to join him in this feast

Malay Uncle: Eh boy, come eat, durian fallen down fresh from the tree must be eaten immediately. This is something that money can't buy. haha!

Me: *smiles* grabs the tiny durian and starts eating.

Malay Uncle: You know, uncle actually suppose to work now but I'm here collecting durian. Boy, this is some simple joys in life you must remember. Your generation probably won't appreciate it.

Me: Thanks uncle for that small reminder. I'm going to take the rest of it back for my gf. Bye! Have a good day. Btw, what breed is this durian? D24? *I did try to act smart :P*

Malay Uncle : This is durian hutan (forest/wild durian). You can't put a grade to it you know. Satisfaction beats the D24, Musang king etc. haha

Me: ok! thanks!! byee!

I'm going to go collect more now! :D