Managing Relationship

Eleanor Roosevelt once said: Nobody can put you down without your permission.

Nancy has hardly failed my expectations - another wise advice on positively managing relationship.

Decorates Our Heart

Can anyone tell me what should be the most rational reaction when you bumped into an ex boyfriend, and he tried to treat you like a stranger when you were about to greet him?

Pancake's answer: Ignore him, further reassures that you have made the right choice 6 years ago.

Deception Point

In today's report, US President George Bush announed that: "These technologies" will help us become better stewards of the environment, and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change.

Response: further confirms Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is indeed a truth?

Cake

Can we have the cake and eat it at the same time?

Since last July, I have experienced betrayal, marginalisation, experienced loss of a friend and a pet, heartbroken and unnecessary office politics and feeling fat. I have looked out for miracles to reduce my unhappiness, but to no avail. I have sent numerous prayers but I am receiving new wave of disappointment after the old wave disappointment simmers down.

Sometimes I wish I am Peter Pan, never grow up and never want to understand the complexity of adult life. I wish sometimes I knew the answer to everything and therefore not wasting time to pursue things that won't fetch satisfactory outcome. Kenny once told me, if we knew everything then what's the point of living. We need surprises to spice up our lives.

Yesterday I watched and observed Heather Graham in Cake and I was upset for her role Pippa. After thinking through many problems, Pippa turned up at one of her love interests's house only to find that he has got a new girlfriend. Sorry Pippa, I have called but you never answered. She visited her best friend's house but she had no time for her. Sorry Pippa, no. Eventually She went to the ball alone and saw the other love interest was also at the same function with his ex-wife. Her father got the award, she wanted to receive the award on his behalf but it turned out her father has assigned another person to accept the honour for him. Reality, many times, bites.

Shallow Them

This is not giving myself an excuse to grow bigger.

However, I am so proud of myself these days with my replies when others commenting on me being "Too FAT".

Busybody: You are fat now. What do you eat?
Pancake: Do you find me prettier? Yeah, I have athletic built, so I prefer myself to look slightly chubbier. I look ugly when I am too thin.

Busybody: Wow you look so fat now (making hand gesture that my face has grown double in size, and my body has expanded three times)!
Pancake: Is it? I don't find it that way. You must have seen it wrongly. In fact, I have lost weight.

What Time Is The Right Time?

I saw the "romance version" of Uniquely Singapore advertisement few months ago on MTV. Guy met the lady while shopping for souvenir. He took the wooden cat first while she liked it too. He chased after her asking her for a drink. Ultimately, at the end of the day, he gave her the wooden cat. She was impressed. They are in love.

In my mind, only three types of grown up men would do things like that guy in the advertisement:
(1) He is a casanova;
(2) He is a gigolo;
(3) He is under pressure to get married under 24 hours time so he could inherit his grandfather's 5 billion assets.

I don't know how many have shared similar experiences. In real life, I have made initiative and the guy commented to our mutual friend that he wasn't ready for a relationship that soon. In real life, I have also decided to wait a while, and the guy said he has waited too long so he decided to move on.

Is it really boil down to the time factor, or right from start I am just the theory of second best.

Home

Most people who are familiar with the Taiwanese entertainment industry would usually associate Jacqueline Wu with acting than singing. In actual fact, she cut an album in the early 1990s and I particularly love this song of hers named "Home". I've tried to locate this song on YouTube, but to no avail. This particular chorus she sang has really caught my heart:

"Your heart is the home that I would love to return to at the end of the day".

Wedding & Marriage

My brother and my future (in 2 weeks time) Sis-In-Law are currently at the pre-nuptial depression phase. In one week, you could hear them arguing, quarrelling over minute matters umpteenth times.

Although I don't believe in marriage myself, I believe it is not easy to find THE ONE. Sometimes you see someone you like, but s/he doesn't reciprocate. Sometimes you don't like the person but s/he pesters you like a housefly. Sometimes both of you have feelings for each other, but you choose to ignore the feelings for fear of rejection. Sometimes THE ONE appears but at the wrong time. To sum up, it is not easy to find that someone, therefore you should treasure her/him when you have found that someone and not taking each other for granted.

So, I reminded my brother and his fiancee that "People plan eloborately for their wedding, but they often forget to plan for their marriage".

Incredulous

I totally understood the main function of a polygraph. Friends told me the polygraph could help to detect lies. Yes, I knew but I am a sceptic. I don't believe the polygraph can detect sincerity.

On 17th January 2007, I read about a report on a retired Chinese couple, Tian Zhendong and Ding Shuhui (former construction expert and a university professor from central Wuhan China), have advertised for a daughter to look after them in place of their son who has emigrated to Canada. AND, more than 100 candidates have signed up to try their luck. The couple used to visit their son in Canada but they could not get used to life there and their son didn't want to go back to China. But does the availability of a "rented" daughter help to solve their family problem? Are these candidates see it as a societal responsibility or a mean of employment? I have too many questions on this news report when I read it. I couldn't help analysing on this issue.

I wish a polygraph could help to solve my problem ie. I am doubting on candidates' sincerity.

Actually, I have been sceptical on "sincerity" since young.
Friend: Oh I totally understand your loss of your grandmother?
Pancake: How could you understand my loss when you aren't me?

I am also sceptical of love and relationship. That's why my love always ends up like an envelope with no return address. I never make it clear who is the sender because I don't know how sincere is the other party. Concerning of rejection, I let my love unclaimed, eventually it ends up in a pool with no proper acknowledgement and no appropriate accreditation.

iCon

Dogopoly

Wonder how do the deck of Chances & Community Chest cards (from the original London version of Monopoly) look like in this version?

Wedding Speech

I was checking the list of "Things Must Do 3 Weeks Before Wedding" yesterday and it occured to me that I might need to prepare a "Elder Sister of the Groom" speech.

I read a poem for my sister during her wedding 4 years ago. In fact, it meant to be a song that I wanted to sing. I always like to visualise myself on the stage singing aloud companied by my talented piano skills. Fact is I can sing but I play piano + organ +keyboard like a toddler! Anyway, we were all very stressed with time 4 years ago (everyone was not in Brunei, and not easy to organise things in under 2 weeks), so finally I read out the poem in bilingual way. To me, I sounded crap but I must emphasise those words were really meant from the bottom of my heart. Well, the saving grace part was - my father's friend called early the next morning praising on my wise choice of words.

In order not to show up on stage worrying I sound crap again, I have decided to prepare a speech 3 weeks in advance this time.

The first version of my speech begins this way: "Ladies and Gentleman, Thanks for joining my family .....". Nah, too formal to my taste.

The second version begins like this: "The first time I saw Susie, I knew right that very time that she'll be the One for my brother ...". Nah, sounds too cheesy.

Then ........ The fifth version reads: "Germaine Greer said a successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person ......". Sounds like I am delivering a lecture.

Finally, words read better in the seventh version. Hopefully, I get a 10 minute slot to say it out loud during my brother's wedding. Want to find out what I wrote. Check out my blog on 14th February!

Well Groomed?

Last Tuesday, I was at a salon during lunchtime to get a scalp massage and relax.

I was chatting with the shampoo girl when two of us were shocked to hear a girl crying! When both of us turned our heads, we saw a girl sobbing and pulling at her own hair in the other seat. We heard she cried: I don't want this hair. It's awful. It's awful. I am so ugly.

The hairstylist was blowing the girl's hair when she was pulling her hair at the same time. At that moment, I was wondering what's the point to blow her hair nice when all she wanted at that time was to get up and leave the salon ASAP.

The mother walked closed to the daughter and said to her: You look fine. You look OK. (In fact, her mother was telling the truth).

Girl shouted at her mother: NO, I look awful. My hair looks like maggi-mee (read: instant noodles). It's not supposed to look like THIS. It should look like soft curls that this Japanese girl is having. Not THIS, I want is THAT. I don't want THIS. I want THAT hairstyle. I look awful. AWFUL.AWFUL.AWFUL.

The mother patiently stood next to her daughter and the hairstylist: You look ok, trust me.

The girl continued to cry and continued to pull at her hair. Twenty minutes later, both mother and daughter left the salon, with the teenage daughter still sobbing as if the hairstylist had just murdered her favourite pet!

The hairstylist turned to me and said: Mrs X has only one daughter, she really pampers her. Despite her busy schedule, she attends to all her daughter's needs.

I sat in my chair and let those words sank in my head, and I began to work on the following correlations:
Schools teach us words and numbers.
Parents teach us values.
If Mrs X treated pampering as part of her loving, then where do good values and inner beauties (such as patience, sharing, understanding, respect elders) stand in her view?
Exterior beauties are good to admire from a distance, but they will change with time and age.
If that teenage girl believed her permed hair has made her ugly, her lack of respect to her mother and the hairstylist have made her uglier.


She should learn more from Nancy.

I Am So Proud Of You

I have been reading other blogs these 2 days and found out that there are too many written on: My New Resolutions, What Have I Done Right in 2006, What Made Me Laugh in the past 365 Days etc. etc. Guess what I want to say here is: I am running out of title for me to recap on 2006 - the year that very well could be called a turning-point in my life. Why?

I am so proud of myself for a long list of things that I have done without regrets, and the top 5 in the list are:
1. I have learnt that "to not let others take you for granted is to not give that liberty in the first place";
2. I have cut down on unnecessary spending and started to adopt "less is more" attitude when come to cosmetics and toiletries shopping;
3. I have decided not to compromise on my choices to avoid unhappy consequences that I knew right from start;
4. I have picked up the courage to ask a guy out on a date and didn't regret my decision even when he didn't show up; and
5. I have started to appreciate the beauty of "solitude" (not loneliness, not seclusion, not isolation, just simply implies more space for my own privacy).

Adam's Dilemma With Alive

Yesterday I watched the Alive's "Popumentary", albeit it was not professionally documented, I salute their passion in music and the courage to set up an "old man boyband" at their age. For some who are not familiar with this HK boyband who used scheming plot last year to publicise their first song "Adam's Dilemma", this band is made up of actors and freelance models ie. Daniel Wu, Terence Yin, Andrew Lin and Conroy Chen.

Some commented on this boyband being no talent and unable to differentiate themselves from other boybands. I found this argument rather unjustified. Although they did not exhibit good singing talent (except Andrew Yin who cut a mandarin abum few years back) + always forgot lyrics and mixed up dance steps on stage, I believe this is the uniqueness of their team. I personally feel that these boys shouldn't given up such easily. To start with, singing is an entertainment. Why bother about fancy costume design, artificial dance steps and not able to meet the entertainment quotient of HK entertainment industry. To me, they sang with their heart and passion, and that's the beauty of music.

Personally, I believe with the right coaching, Daniel could be groomed as a good director one day. Andrew should have the confidence to run his own art gallery. Terence can set up his own music company instead of letting people telling him what to do all the time. Conroy could be an entrepreneur in eatery business in HK & Macau. However, IF Jackie Chan sings and Andy Lau sings. Why no one gives these boys a second chance in singing? Is it because they are too humble? Are their existence too easily taken for granted? Are they too easily manipulated into thinking that they are useless?

If I were their parent, I would tell them: Never let others dictate your dream. Work harder, work smarter and show the world - You Can!

Double Happiness

My entire family is currently very busy with the wedding preparation for my youngest brother, Dato K. I am glad that in less than 4 weeks, we have finalised on guest list, venue, costumes, photography, wedding favour, bouquet, ballroom decor, dowry & traditional gifts for the bride's family ..... I believe those who have had prepared for wedding previously would understand the list could go on forever. Well, I must clarify at this point, albeit busy, it is fun to be part of the wedding preparation crew. Now, day in day out I am well known with this question as if I have it printed on my forehead: So, how much discount could you give my brother?

It's another 1 month before my brother's wedding. In the past 4 weeks, I have learnt the skills of sure-win bargaining, better photography, flower decor, how to accessorise, good make-up tricks, and Chinese & Peranakan wedding customs. For the first time in my life, my mother entrusted me with the duty as ASSISTANT to my brother's "Mei Poh" (direct translation from HanYiPinYin: "MatchMaker"). I must emphasise, this is an extremely important and heavy task. Why? In my teenage years, I had to beg my mother for 5 consecutives years before she allowed me to pour beaten eggs into her sharkfin soup for our CNY's eve dinner. So, now you can understand how heavy are my shoulders - but I do very much enjoying the pressure, though. Well, to begin with, I know more of these customs than most "Mei Pohs" because I was well trained by both my grandmothers since the age of 13. I won first prize in my Secondary 5 English essay competition with my essay written on Ethnic Chinese Wedding Customs where my mentor of the essay was my paternal grandmother.

I know it is still far too, too, too early to discuss on baby names because I don't think younger couples like my brother and his wife would like to start family this soon.

Anyway, I told my brother few months ago that both me and Woofhams would be Godmothers to his children. My brother believes in "Stop at Two" policies. So, I told him, if they were two boys, they would be "Keegan and Kieren". If they were a boy and a girl, then they would be "Keegan and Ariella". If there were two girls, they would be "Ariella and Ailsa".

If I have left out important details (read: wedding preparation), don't forget to drop me a line or two to remind me in the comment box.

Happy New Year 2007 and a fruitful year ahead. Cheers!

Speak Of Resolution

My resolution for 2007:

I love this psalm with cool picture in my sister's blog, don't you agree?