That One Voice

Hi back, blog. I have been missing for quite sometimes. What's new. The procrastination bug hits me again. The last post, not counted, as it was a homework given to me and I have to churn out something in a limited time period. So now, I am back.

I am compelled to write about voices, being a very auditory creature, I am easily influenced by anything that produce sounds. No wonder I used to score perfectly in my ABRSM aural test for level 5. It's one of the category of the test for people who learn piano and to be specific, they are testing your listening skill. The examiner will play something and you are supposed to carbon copy of what he/she is playing. This was the easiest for me (a little boastful, but true). But other than that, I simply passed cause I didn't find any excitement in learning them. To put it bluntly, I sucked at the rest! HAHA! (Note: That doesn't mean I am very good at listening. Sometimes, friends need to repeat 2-3x of what they have just said and they called m deaf too ... sigh)

Back to the present, I realized we are exposed to so many voices in a day. Phone calls, parents nags, friends' gossips, colleagues bickers, TV shows, radios, news, etc. You can't deny words that were spoken to you directly may just influence you without you knowing.

"Why can't you do things the right way?"
"Gosh, you are dumb!"
"You always spoil every single things you touch!"
"Are you sure?"
"You never think!"
"You are just not good enough."
"Geez. Don't you know?"

I believe some of them may sound familiar to you as they are too to me. As I live longer and get younger inside (:p), I realize, there's only one voice that matters - your own internal voice. That One Voice, ultimately will make you feel the way you feel, do the things you do and respond to the things you are perceiving. The whole world may tell you that you are wasting your time doing arts, but if that one voice says "NO. I LOVE THIS." guess who will win?

No matter how loud the external voices are, ultimately the voice that is inside you has the most power. What is yours saying right now? Do you like hearing it? If not, why are you letting it control your life? Wouldn't it be silly for a smart human being like us to say - "Erm, I don't know, my head voice tell me to do so." It sounds like we are the puppet and the master is the ... voice. I believe we can do better than that. I believe we can choose and select the things we want that voice to say. Though it seems like the voice may have his/her own automatic mode, ultimately, we are the controller of this gadget. May be we just need to be aware of what it's saying before we can "TSST" the voice (Cesar Milan's way) and by using our calm and assertive energy, claim back our own enriching voice.

We'd better be the one and only master of our own voice. Don't lose that right.

Image source: A funny banner that promotes crime prevention in Singapore.

Those Plastics Cards

Do you remember how you felt when you first got your credit card? How did you choose your first credit card? Was it based on the perks, points, credibility of the banks? I remember clearly my very first credit card was HSBC. Why? Because at that point of time, they gave the best perks in terms of grocery shopping. HAHA! I am like a typical “aunty”. I am still not sure if I got the best deal for my grocery shopping, but I am still happy with my HSBC cards. Don’t know why. That time, we didn’t have the convenience of CreditCard Surplus where one can simply apply online and organize the cards by interest rates, best deals, gas rewards, etc. Now you can even transfer your balance to other cards simply by few clicks of the mouse. See what technology can do to our lives. The danger of such convenience though, people can simply put off their payments, let it roll over and accumulate it as one big chunk of debt. The banks love such customers, of course. The interests in late payments part of their bonus.

When it comes to credit card debts, I still strongly believe in the traditional way of dealing with it. Have none at all. Do you know the interest rate can be up to 24%? For every $10 you owe, you need to pay $2.40 in interest. That’s just madness. If you can’t afford the thing in the first place, don’t buy it. You don’t need to depend on the bank’s money to show the world you own something. Ultimately, it’s still not yours unless it’s fully paid. No matter what credit card you are using, ultimately you should be the ultimate master of your spending. Never ever let your financial well being to be controlled by those plastics. No wonder there’s a saying that “Cash is King” and we will never hear about credit card in the same way.

Staying at Home

Guest post written by Kevin Beach

Being a stay at home mom is tough work but one of the things I find hardest is that I feel like my husband gets to make all the big life decisions. For example, when his company offered him a transfer to Texas he took it even though it wasn’t the best for me and the kids at the moment but I guess that’s how it goes when you’re not the breadwinner. On the flip side, we really like Texas and the kids are having a great time getting to know all the new people so that’s an unexpected bonus. I went to http://TEXASELECTRICITYPROVIDERS.com when we first got here to find out more about deregulated energy which I knew nothing about and it’s been a big change getting used to all the tax laws here. The weather is hot and the people are loud but other than that I can see us in Texas for a really long time, that is, if my husband doesn’t up and move us again anytime soon!

Thank You for Letting be Your "Anyhow" Teacher

This post may come a little bit too late but I would like to wish Happy Teachers' Day to those who teach in the traditional manners and to those who don't. I dedicate this post instead to my ex-students who still bother to see me as a teacher!

I used to be a teacher for a super duper short time ... so short that even with one hand, you can count the number of months I really taught. And if you scrutinize further the hours I did teach ... it was so measly that I wonder did I really deserve to be called a teacher?

Nevertheless, until today, I keep in touch with 2 precious students of mine. Both, cutely, used to be childhood best friends. One (Ms. Ding Dong) wished me over FB - an award winning media student, the other one (Aunty Cheng) sent me a Whatsapp message and currently is pursuing her career as a teacher, she's quite a sought-after tuition teacher herself.

Though honestly, academically I taught them NOTHING as I myself didn't know what I was teaching about. Don't ask me anything about Chemistry and Mathematics. There's a reason why I scored only A in the subject called - Tao of Action Learning. I am grateful enough to have their friendships. One helps me update all kind of perks, deals and latest gossips in town. One helps me to hunt down things from Paris then wrote me a postcard and said "Paris nice meh?". Geez ... tell me who's the lucky one here? I am.

Thank you, for letting me be your "teacher". Even 7 years have passed, you both are no longer in that yellow/blue uniforms, it's a miracle we still maintain our friendships. Here's to more years to come and by then I believe I will still look as young as you both! HUMF!

Love you all!

17th October 2005 - Celebrating Lonceng Ding Dong's birthday

8th December 2008 - Catching Up with Aunty Cheng @ Ya Kun

First Completed Fiction Homework

Finally, after weeks of taking a course in fiction writing, I am able to complete and show something!!!!!!! Fiction is so not my cup of tea, but thanks to this course, I have stepped out of my comfort zone and just whipped something up.

This particular exercise was to write in the "you" form. Meaning, the reader must become one of the character of the story. Not as first person, not as the observer either. The reader, you, will need to participate in it, sort of.

I hope you will enjoy my first and more worthy attempt into the world of fiction writing. Not sure if there will be more to come or not, we will see. No title has been given as I don't know what go name it. Any suggestion? Hmmm.....

........

Hello. You are new around here, aren't you? So, I heard. I will be your guide until you are ready to be on your own. Let's start your journey.

You see, we lead a very interesting life. Not too long but not too short either. Make use of what you can, okay?

First we need to look for food. That's quite easy nowadays. Especially at Mrs. Deneuve. Turn to your right! There! The house in green with picket fences. She always holds great parties. At least twice a week. Sometimes i wonder who she's trying to impress. Her husband has a mistress, at the other side of the city, who's so much younger and hotter than her. How do I know? Mr. Deneuve does bring her home when the madame is not around.

Yes, she knows. She knows it all. But she still lives with him, feeds him, clothes him, takes care of his children, knowing his heart is no longer there. I will never understand such relationship, will you? Thank God we are much simpler creatures with less dramas and demands. Maybe that's also why The One Up There didn't give us much to live for too. Hmm ...

Oh! Sorry. My thought was drifting away.

Thanks for the reminder. You can find food every Thursday and Sunday. Normally, it's in the morning. The helper will come out with a few trash bags of really good treasures. Lots of meat and eggs. Our favourites! They always waste lots of food. Good for us.

Next, you choose. Which one do you want to know?

The grey house? Bad choice! Haha. It's okay. You are still new. You will learn in few hours. Not much time to waste.

A single lady lives by herself in that house. As far as I know, she doesnt hold any party like Mrs. Deneuve. She lives a very quiet and disciplined life. I wonder what she does for a living. She wakes up really early, 5AM sometimes. Then she drives off at 6 to who knows where. She comes back around 9-10PM and she will have her dinner with almost zero waste. Hence, it's no fun to go to her house unless you want to meditate. Feel free to hover but I think you will be noticed pretty quickly and life will not be fun.

Let's take a break!

Here, under the shade. Nobody will notice us, I hope. We blend quite well with the colour of the wall, don't we? How are you feeling so far? Are you ready to be on your own? Don't worry. You will survive. All of us do too, eventually. We need to live and to survive at every moment. Be alert. You wouldn't know what hits you. I mean it. I have escaped a few whacks here and there. Look at me. I'm still here with you. My wings may not be pretty as before but they serve me well.

I wish I could show you more, my new friend. But I think my time has come. May be yours too in few weeks time. We will never know. Just keep flying and remain alert at all times. Be observant and enjoy all the human dramas that we won't see much in our world. We are too busy searching for waste those humans leave behind. I bet they secretly envy what we can do too. We are not just pests but observers of lives.

Image courtesy of my own album taken in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 08 April 2011

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Most Memorable Corporate Gift

Long gone the time when you want to a personalize gifts, you have to crack your head, look through yellow pages and meet up with the sales person to choose what you want. With internet now, everything has become so easy and efficient. It's amazing.

You are so spoilt for choices that you can choose what kind of categories you are interested in. To name a few:
- Apparels
- Bags and Totes
- Calendars
- Drinkware
- Pen and Writing
- Tradeshows and Events
- Keychains
- Sports
- Etc

Now, there are even companies who dare to claim that they are the lowest price with satisfaction guaranteed. They do all kind of custom notepads, I don't even know there's such term as top note pads. Geez. Then again, you can always use a very "green" type of notepad on your mobile phone or iPad.

Speaking of corporate gift. What was one of your best or most creative experience you have ever received from an event or a company? I am scratching my head now to think. And looking around me, I realize, not many of the corporate gifts are being utilized by me. Not even a mug!

But recently I went to an event called - Hubalicious Food Adventures with Dan Segall. It's a live cooking and eating event with celebrity chef Dan Segall, organized by Starhub Cable TV / Food Network Asia and Beringer Wine. You can view some of the photos from this event here. At the end of the night, each of us has a goodie bag. That was a nice surprised. We get a set of black and white kitchen wares such as salt and pepper, oil and vinegar set in black and transparent colour. That was awesome. By far it's one of the nicely presented gift ever. Though I have no use of them now, but I will sure remember them :)

Wonder what kind of corporate gift do leave an impact with all of you? Hmm ...

(Sorry for the bad quality photo. It's taken with my Blackberry. One of the lousiest phone camera ever.)

I Think I Can Die Now

HA!

You think it's going to be a morbid post? It's not. Don't worry. I'm not depressive or anything.

Just that at this moment of my life, I feel like a ball of happiness. So happy. So contented. So fulfilled that I can just die now.

Sometimes I really wonder why am I not dead yet? Why can't I just go happy like this? What's there for me to do ah ....? I wonder and I wonder ...

Let's see how long the wondering will go.

Guess there's something really not finished for me yet here ... Hmm ... I hope I will find it and finish it and still leave this world as one chunky ball of pure happiness.

On verra. (We'll see)

I hope you will have a chunky ball of happiness inside you too.

I greet each day with optimism and joy. I am a bundle of joy, and people love to see me. It is such an exciting time to be alive! - Louise L. Hay

Have You Seen Blue Rice Before?

Look at it.
It's so beautiful, isn't it?
Well to some, it may be a scary sight.
Blue/purplish rice?
Hell yeah!
It smells of lemon grass too.
Heavenly!

Don't ask me what it's made of but I know for sure it's all natural :)


It was supposed to be a business meeting but it turned out to be one of the best, authentic and non-MSG-ish peranakan food I have ever tasted. Plus a few life lessons shared. The whole experience was simply awesome.

The owner, Mr. Philip Khoo, is one of the rare passionate man I've ever seen. Passionate about his food, his culture, his heritage, his history, his recipes, his customers and his life. He lives with total and utmost passion. I have never really seen someone who is like him, except on TV or movies. He really breathes, lives and speaks Peranakan.

I love his sharing of each and every dish where each and every ingredients seem to play a very important part. I love his story on the very rich Peranakan culture, being and living as one, his mission in life is really to make sure the Peranakan food will not be forgotten and will be accessible to everyone. He said, Peranakan is not as subtle as French food, may be because their taste buds are numb (jokingly). Hence, Peranakan food is so rich and full of flavour that when you eat it, you simply can't miss the richness in its culture.

One of the most memorable story he shared is about 2 types of wealthy customers:
1. The one who are comfortable being who they are
2. The one who are not and whose egos demand for every attention they can get

Type 1, surprisingly he said, can be one of the best customer ever. Even if they have constructive criticism, they will try to let you know in a sensitive manner that will not hurt your feeling. Then when they reveal who they are, you will be shocked to death that they either hold a very high position in a company. Or the owner of some super famous establishments.

Type 2, however, to prove that they have all the power, to shout for attention, validation and acknowledgment; will make the biggest noise when something is not right. They are trying to match how they act with what they drive sometimes. "See, I am the boss. I drive a BMW. Treat me like a boss."

Being comfortable with who we are and not attached to any titles, material possessions, status, are not something that is easy to do especially in this ego-driven world. His sharing really reminded me of a phrase in Bahasa Indonesia:

"Seperti buah padi, makin berisi, makin berunduk."
Just like grains of rice, the more full they are, the lower they will bow.
Be humble.

Being a 1/4 Peranakan myself (I think! My grandma told me. So, I will take it that I have a little bittttttt of the Peranakan blood), I feel honoured to be in the presence of Mr. Khoo. Really hope his mission in life can be realized.

If you have the chance, and you love the robust and vibrant flavours in each and every ingredient, try the Peranakan food at address below. I swear I will be there again. :)

Baba King Nonya Deli
@ Changi Business Park
1 Changi Business Park Crescent
#01-22 Plaza 8
Singapore 486025

Tel. (65) 6587 3128
Website. www.BabaKing.com.sg