Au Revoir 2011! Bonjour 2012!

Hello readers

2011 is finally saying farewell to us. 2012 will enter in few hours time.

How has 2011 been to you?

What have you learned?
What will you leave behind?
And what will you bring with you to 2012?

I have learned that not until you love yourself, the world won't love you the way you think. I have learned that those that really matters tend to be the simple intangible things in life such as relationships. I have learned that what you feed your mind affects how you view the world.

I will leave behind the thought that the elements outside me need to change before I can be happy and contented. I will leave behind that I have no control and not responsible for all aspects of my life. I will leave behind the naive concept that there are somethings can be forever.

I will bring with me into 2012 the "me" that is slowly evolving and revealing to its truest expression of self. I will bring with me my intuition, my gut feel, to listen to them more after listening to kind advices from others. I will bring with me my blessings and feeling of constant gratitude to things / experiences I have already had and those that will come my way at their own time.

I am saying goodbye to 2011 with a great smile on my face knowing I have lived an awesome and colorful life and I am looking forward to 2012 for more awesome experiences that I believe will come. Good and bad are really relative. I wish everyone a life well lived, a lesson well learned and laughters well shared.

Happy New Year, Everyone!

11 Dec 2011 - With Models of Abercrombie & Fitch.
See! Told you my 2011 was awesome and "colorful"! *wink*

The 3 Letters that Live After Death

De-clutter: to simplify or get rid of mess, disorder, complications, etc
(Taken from www.dictionary.com).

Thanks to my "big forehead" bff, this time I welcome X'mas and New Year by de-cluttering my living space. I threw quite a bit of stuff and organized the others that I would like to keep. Though I am not a hoarder (Thank God), I can be a keeper of stuffs! It's a bad habit that I am slowly unlearning.

While embarking the journey of de-cluttering, as I squatted on my floor, opening boxes after boxes, I discovered 3 envelopes that I received from Tante Gunawan. Tante in Bahasa Indonesia means aunt - just like in French too.


Tante, that's how I love to call her, was my childhood friend's mom. My age gap with my friend is big. She was already in secondary school when I was still learning to read her magazines - Bobo. Some of her magazines were dated even before I was born. Tante and Om (her husband) doted on me. They were like another set of parents who stayed in a big classic house and spoke Dutch occasionally. In the early 90s, or so I think, we were separated. Tante and her entire family moved to Jakarta. I hardly met them since then. Almost never, even until Om passed away.

In 2006, I met Tante in Jakarta when I went back for Chinese New Year reunion with my entire big family. I insisted to meet her and I was so glad that I couldn't hold my tears and hugged her. I didn't know why. She teared too. I also didn't know why. There was just this raw emotion in us that we couldn't contain. We really didn't know why.

Then, as the busy-ness of life caught me again, I didn't keep in touch much until I received a packet of cards from MFPA (Mouth and Food Painting Artists), an organization that my parents and I have been supporting on regular basis. So I have bunch of cards but didn't know who to write them too. I thought of Tante. I wrote to her again in 2008.

I received my first reply on the 6th of August 2008. She expressed how delighted and surprised she was to receive a letter from me. I was equally delighted to receive a reply from her. Until the day she passed away in 2010, there were only 3 letters being exchanged. But these 3 precious letters, never fail to bring me to tears every time I re-read them.

What started out as a tradition of sending cards during festive seasons, turned out to be an avenue to reconnect with people from my past. What started out as cleaning out my space, turned out to to be a way to enrich my soul.

De-clutter, my new definition is to get rid of things that don't matter and to be connected to those that really do.

Wishing all of you an enriching festive season ahead. Try going back to a time in your life when someone or something has brought you joy and love. You will be surprised, they were there in our memories, just buried beneath all the recent noises of our lives. They are very much still alive.

The World of Scrubs

When someone gave me this link - http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/categories/Scrubs/Scrubs-for-Women/ I thought there exists a special type of low shrubs for women. Dang! I really need to improve my vocabularies. Once I clicked on the link, I realized it refers to a type of uniforms.

The word "scrub" always reminds me to the once popular song by TLC - No Scrubs, that up until this day I still don't know what it's all about; like most songs that passed through my ears. But the melody still lingers.

Then I heard this term very often in Grey's Anatomy when those surgeons yelled,"Scrub in!" and the next thing you will see all of them rushing to save a life on the operating table. Who knows from all these medical themed TV shows, the once just a uniform, can be a fashion item to the mass. That will make quite a handsome costume and you may call yourself McDreamy, McSteamy, Doctor Yang, etc. I feel like having one too but I guess it will just become my pajama.

Jakarta - Penang - Yogyakarta - Bali - Kuala Lumpur

WOW!

DD is mad! Or, was mad.
Listing those cities out as the title of this post made me realize I might have been out of my mind.

For those of you who don't know what I have been doing recently, well, those are the cities I visited in October and November! I flew so much in those 2 months than I have ever done in past 2 years!

Most of them were on impulse. I didn't use much of my brain when I decided them (hmm, I don't think I use it a lot anyway :p). Let's just say, I have been living at the safe and boring side of life that suddenly I needed to wiggle myself and do some mad travel stunts like that.

So what was I doing there? In summary (and more to come next time) I was:
- visiting my bestie and hunting for my favourite childhood food @ Jakarta
- accompanying my parents and learning about my ancestor who was an awesome man @ Penang
- learning about Buddha's teaching through artifacts and stories + made aware that my country is super awesome @ Yogyakarta
- spending my birthday with besties and finally visiting the island of non-smelling dead bodies (yup, you read it right) @ Bali
- reminding myself that I have great friends and forever grateful for such wonderful souls in my life @ Kuala Lumpur

I am not a travelling sort, normally. Very comfortable where I am. I do occasionally getaway by myself to reset my mind, thought my Bali trip is going to be that way.

But what I learn preciously on all my trips is that people (and not places and things) make travelling more meaningful. You may have seen the most beautiful thing and eaten the most delicious thing on earth, that is wonderful, but to have another living being witnesses or shares that experience with you, make it more exquisite.

I am really grateful that in all my trips, I have never once lacked of the people element. From great friends, to great tour guide. From the daughter of friend's friend to the mother of a friend. They all have made me feel enriched in a way that money can't buy.

Now I really understand fully when Suze Orman says,"People first, them money, then things." Without people, money and things will simply resemble a body without mind and soul.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Even though I don't normally celebrate it but this year, 2 besties of mine are and we have a list of items we are thankful for.

Here are my list of things that I am thankful for:
1. Having a healthy body, mind and soul
2. Having a wonderful roof over my head
3. Having awesome parents who are knowledgeable and have great sense of humour
4. Having great friends that I can turn to and there are more than 10 for sure
5. Having the chance to learn and discover a lot of my country this year
6. Being able to use the French language and strike basic conversation with strangers
7. Having a job and great bosses to work with
8. Having many blog tasks to support my charities
9. Having the ability to give tips to people who provide awesome service
10. Having the access to information online and offline
11. Living in a country that is safe, well organised and resourceful
12. Friends who love me even though I'm so selfish (One of them is still nagging about how selfish I am as I am keying this in into my Blackberry)

I believe there are more things that I am really grateful for. I would love to list them all but alas, I need to pack for my KL trip. Can't wait to meet my super wise friend who just got her own "castle" in KL. See her in few hours time.

Once again I would like to wish everyone (in French) - Bonne Action de grâce.

Never stop counting your blessings no matter how small they may appear. Sometimes, those small things have the biggest impact in life. Don't take anything for granted, start with the roof on top of your head.

If I Can Only

If I can only speak two words
Let them be "Thank You"
To all the souls who have taught me how to live

If I can only move one part of my face
Let them be my lips
To smile upon the blessings which have chanced upon me

If I can only give one thing
Let them be my question
To realize that answers are there all along

If I can only feel one emotion
Let them be love
To let me know that all is supreme

Risk and Traveling

Recently I have been traveling quite a lot, mostly is to discover my own country. It's so big, I guess it may take a lifetime to discover into details. With my short-term memory, it doesn't really help much either. I guess I need to make multiple trips to one place. Hah! I will write more on the experiences and realizations in the few more posts to come.

To prepare for the trip, I have purchased travel insurance quite a few times. I used to see it as a taboo product but since it has helped me last time, I will never take it for granted anymore. I will not go anywhere without my travel insurance. The amount may be quite insignificant compared to the risks one may be exposed to when one's overseas.

To me, the most crucial point when one can decide an insurance policy is useful is when one finally makes a claim on it. So far I have been very happy with the company I have been using all these while. I just learned recently that one can claim if one's flight is delayed by 6 hours. My flight back to Singapore from Yogyakarta was delayed 4 hours -_-" .... 2 more hours to be able to disturb my agent :p ... but it is not a laughing matter. I believe as long as one has arrived at the destination healthily and safely, you can't really put a price on those things.

The holiday season will soon be here, wish my dearest readers a safe and jolly holiday if you do travel somewhere. If not, still be safe and happy always! See you at the next post!

Tim Ferriss

Have you heard of Tim Ferriss?

I believe some of you do. I first heard of him from my friend, Stuart Tan, who was reading Tim's best selling book - The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich. I went to buy the book, unfortunately, I didn't finish it. :p

Then, I didn't recall who he is until my friend shared an awesome post from his blog that's titled 8 Steps to Getting What You Want Without Formal Credentials. I believe everyone should read that post at least once. You may or may not agree with what he said, but I would say 80% of what he said makes sense.

Basically, in this blog post, he shared about an alternative way to combat our own laziness into thinking just because we do not have a degree in certain subject, doesn't mean we can't be a master of some sorts. He also shared about how people tend to find jobs through informal job market than formal job market and in order to do that you need to start build your credential from somewhere.

His 8 steps, which he covered really in details basically comprises of - choose something you want to learn, document/share your journey of learning, start applying what you have learned through networking and offering to work for free, find mentors, learn sales and ultimately you will be independent enough to sell and deliver your knowledge/skill to the people that you have come to know along the way.

No more excuse for saying, "but I can't do this or I can't do that" because everything is indeed learn-able. Unfortunately, even after reading this article, I still can't help but have so much angst towards Excel and Vlookup from 8 different charts. -__-"

Guess the next skill I should be learning is to meditate and calm my mind or how to be peaceful with too many excel charts. We'll see.

Oh ya, before I forget, do check out his bio page. What he has tried and what he is doing now is simply amazing. Truly, your mind and how you choose to spend your time are your only limits.