Last day on earth

We had a morbid, but light-hearted conversation about death over dinner the other day. Since my somewhat depressive state last year (has it really been a year, wow) I've been fixated on the idea of dying young.

And even when I think about it now, I can't see the flaw in that plan.

Anyway, this conversation started again because he did some fortune telling thing with a colleague at work. And according to this colleague, his fate said that he would have a wife who died early.

I tried asking him for more details which he either knew and didn't want to reveal, or honestly didn't know because he didn't want to dwell on it.

So naturally, being the curious eager beaver I am, I wouldn't let it go. Till he looked up from his food and gave me the saddest little look before saying, "it makes me sad to talk about it. can we not, please.". And then I zipped it.

His response caught me a little by surprise.

Even now, whenever I see glimpses of genuine love in his words, actions, tone and manner, it never fails to warm my heart, and touch a little place so deep within I didn't even know it existed.

So as much as I sometimes think I'd like to die young, I feel sad at the prospect of leaving him behind. I don't want to make him sad, because he's not a sad boy. He's cynical, yes, and sometimes evil, but for the most part, he's a genuinely simple happy boy. There's a certain childlike naivety about him that I see and I'd hate to be the reason for him not to be.

And to sum this post up, I just watched Nickelback's Far Away music video. Something about the song makes me feel like it would be a nice way to end my life. It's kinda like the song you play when the credits roll, and you see flashbacks.

What I did over the long weekend

It was Singapore's 45th birthday yesterday, but more importantly a long weekend!

I feel so unpatriotic saying this out loud, but it's true! The past few weeks at work have been really grueling, so this break was more than welcome.

Friday night I watched Airbender. It was crappity poo, probably just enough mental complexity and texture for a 5 year olds.

Saturday I had lunch at Old Airport Road food centre. Was a little grumpy because I spent the morning on the potty emptying out my tummy, which translated into a very hungry and light headed Kim. But all was well as soon as I laid my hands on a cheese pancake from Aunty Oats.

Spent the rest of Saturday playing mahjong.

Sunday woke up early to watch The Sorcerer's Apprentice - now that was a good show. Loved the soundtrack, in particular this one track by One Republic. The title eludes me now and I don't feel like opening up my iTunes to check.

Went home after the show for a nap - afternoon naps are always required on weekends when I wake at any hour earlier than noon.

Woke up and went for a run. Not really. Well, kinda. We set out from home towards ECP at a comfortable pace (for me anyway). The plan was that I'd leave him at the exercise station to carry on with his manly sets (he gets down and dirty with the other boys there, literally! It's a grubby outdoor exercise station and I hate it when he tries to make me lie down on the floor to do sit-ups), and I would continue on towards Maccas. I got about as far as big splash with my left hip joint started hurting. I tried to hobble on for a bit but the pain, combined with the smoke and the masses of people melted my resolve so I turned around and headed back.

Reached the exercise station, whined a little about the pain to elicit some sympathy and head off any intentions he might have had about me getting down on that grubby floor to do some sit-ups.

Plan worked!

Waited for him to be done, and then we headed home to shower.

Went out again to Old Airport Road for dinner. Decided to stop at NTUC after dinner to pick up some groceries. Hit on a brain wave to bake some cookies (Orange Chocolate Chippers), so picked up ingredients for that purpose. Discovered the existence of shortening, and that it was sometimes used in lieu of butter. Felt quite kitchen-savvy and contemplated starting a blog to write about my awesome cooking adventures. The thought lasted for all of 2minutes before I decided it was too much hard work what with the pictures and the writing. The writing I can do, but pictures exhaust me.

Went home. Made the cookies. Made him take pictures of me making the cookies. He took about two, before he got bored and insisted on wanting to 'stir' something. I gave him the mixing bowl and handed him the ladle. He mushed it around in the bowl for a bit and started whining about how hard work baking was.

Yes, he who often goes on about how if he wasn't working in advertising he would be a chef.

He who makes up stories of his (hypothetical - a point he often conveniently omits) awesome cooking adventures. I kid you not. Here's a guy who randomly pulls stories out of his ass about "this one time, when he made this really delightful salmon steak" with "tips from his really famous chef friend". Both are works of fiction.

But in his defense, it could very well be true.

That brought us to a story he once told me in our early days when we were talking about food. He went on for about five minutes about a really yummy garlic herb butter fried rice he's supposedly great at making.

I turned to him and said "that was a lie wasn't it!".

And all this time I thought he made really yummy garlic herb butter fried rice.

Back to our Orange Chocolate Chippers. I gave him a little demo and he soon got the hang of it. Our cookies were a little soft coz we couldn't figure out the settings on the oven, but I have to say, they tasted pretty damn good!

After the cookies, I still wasn't ready for bed and since we were trying hard to save up for our Japan trip, I decided to write another piece for CLEO. It was a confession on my blog-shopaholic ways - how ironic because that's where all my money goes every month.

Finally, we went to bed.

The next day, we woke again for lunch and were back in bed for a nap by 2pm. Told you afternoon naps were a requisite whenever we wake earlier than 12.

Had to do a bit of work in between, but we spent most of the day doing not much at all.

And that's how the weekend blew by.

How much is too much personal information?

The Internet is a strange place. One in which people seemingly say or do things freely, with no regard for its consequence on the real world.

And I guess ten years ago, it was probably true.

Cyberspace and the real world, were as far apart as cheese blocks and me (it's far because I'm craving one now, and don't have one. Maybe that metaphor doesn't make sense, but whatever. You get my point.)

But that's no longer the case. And hasn't been for awhile now.

It all started with blogs. The voyeuristic nature in people get stirred up when they stumble across blogs whose owners offer more than just a cursory glimpse into his/her lives. Don't you think the most intriguing reads are the ones where they write like no one's reading? The ones where you can imagine the sort of person he/she would be in real life.

Reading someone's blog can be a very personal affair.

I remember more than one occasion, stumbling across someone's blog, spending days reading it, and then actually bumping into the person in real life. Once, I was in a lift at my place in Melbourne. The lift doors opened, and in stepped this guy whose blog I'd been reading. I knew he lived in Melbourne through his blog entries, but had no idea he lived in the very same building that as I!

Anyway, he stepped in and I felt like I knew him forever. I knew what he had for dinner the night before, I knew where he went the weekend before. I knew his friends by name and face through the pictures on his blog, and that he had just celebrated his 26th birthday.

But yet I didn't know him.

The him I saw in person, didn't look anything like the friendly guy he came across as in his blog.

Then the lift doors opened, and he walked out.

It was a strange encounter. For me anyway.

But it's occasions like this that make me think that it's probably true I can sometimes be too quick to judge people on face value.

Just today I had another such moment.

There's a lady I know through work. Now we haven't been working together all that long, and to be honest, I think she's a bit of a strange cookie. In fact, I always stifle a laugh when she talks because I find her weird and a little off her rocker.

Today, on my way to dinner, I decided to surf FB on my phone. By some connection or another, I found myself ending up on her blog, and to be honest, I liked the person who wrote those entries.

She was neither weird nor strange. She was a mother with two loving children. Children who made her loving gifts for mother's day. She liked going for morning runs, and I could go on, but frankly, is just an all round smarter, sweeter person than I gave her credit for.

I felt ashamed for judging her.

And told myself I would make more of an effort to get to know people before judging in future.

But my point is this. It's scary how easy it is to access information about someone on the Internet. It's true we probably give away more than we should. But how much is too much?

And anyway, I'm not sure we can stop this digital revolution anywhere.

It's a decade too late.

Being grateful.

As I walked down the corridor of a HDB block yesterday evening, I couldn't help but look into the windows. I could see kids playing in the living room, teenagers surfing on the internet and parents watching tv.

I saw one particular apartment that only had an old CRT TV and an overturned carton - which acted as a makeshift table of sorts - in the living room.

I turned to boo to ask, "why is their place so sparsely furnished?". In my mind a scene of people carting home tables, chairs, boxes and plants from Ikea suddenly appeared.

"Because some people don't have a lot of money baby", he responded.

It was a simple and truthful answer.

Hearing the sounds of the television and of kids playing, it all felt very surreal.

I stepped into the lift and looked around again. It was tiny, slightly claustrophic and had a black-and-white printed A4 sheet selling something or another for $1,000.

I kept away from the walls of the lift which was kind of grotty.

And then I felt afraid, and inched closer to him for comfort.

He looked at me, patted my arm and smiled.

The only thing I could think about on the way home was "how, how do they live with people looking in their windows all the time?".

I read online that over 80% of Singaporeans live in HDB flats.

And all of a sudden I felt very sheltered.

I thought of the dinner we had a few weeks back at Ichiban Boshi. I was just in a mood, and went crazy with the food, ordering every other thing on the menu; while he ordered just a soba and tempura set.

15minutes in, it was obvious I wasn't going to be able to finish the food so I started eating just the toppings of the sushi, leaving behind the rice.

He hates wasting food. So he told the waitress to pack up his uneaten soba, and started eating my leftover sushi rice with his tempura.

It made my heart ache to see him eating my leftovers, and I tried more than once to take it away. But he wouldn't let me.

And so I sat there, watching him finish his meal. Never once reprimanding me.

But strangely, in doing what he did, I felt more ashamed of myself than I would have if he had taken to giving me a lecture on how the children in Africa are starving.

Being with him makes me want to be a better person.

Hiccups, bumps and listening.

*poof*

*pop*

*wham*

That's the sound of blueberries and chocolate chips popping out all over the place, and not getting replaced quite as quickly.

I only have so many band aids, and I'm trying to put them to good use. But it doesn't seem to be working. They're falling out quicker than I can patch up the wonky holes.

"He's being unreasonable", she said.

"No she's being unreasonable", he said.

So what happens from here?

I went to a workshop a couple of weeks back. It was about Negotiation Skills. And I was told that the key to this (which can be applied in everything you do) is learning the lost art of listening.

Listening is a tricky thing. It's not the same as hearing, internalising and actioning. And it takes more effort than you think because it means putting aside your thoughts for the moment, and taking on those of someone else's. Finding the meaning in the words, and the motivations behind them.

It's something I'm learning.

And trying to do better.

But it's an uphill battle all the way.

And when I encounter those hiccups and bumps in my journey, I can't help but wonder if the listening is all that important. Does it really matter that every spoken word is addressed?

In fact, does it even really matter if I make my point? Because when you think about it, all that matters is the end game.

So should it matter if what I'm saying is right or wrong?

What's the point of the 'right', when all I really want at the end of the day, is sunshine and chunk-a-lot of happiness.

But again of course, a lot easier said than done.

Is anybody out there?

Hello world. It's been awhile since I wrote. Mostly because work takes up so much of my time and energy.

Tonight I'm going for Marketing's Agency of the Year awards night.

I feel like the past 3years+ of my working life has been a strange journey. It's neither long nor short, but one thing's for sure, I can't claim to be a fresh grad anymore.

I have a love-hate relationship with advertising. It's larger than life, with ego's a-plenty, and lots of people I just want to stomp into the 7th level of hell but yet, I don't know anything else outside of it.

There was a time not too long ago when I tried to take myself out of it. To try something new.

But it wasn't to be, and I found myself right back here.

I've decided now that the only way to survive this is if work made up just 50% of my life. Right now it's closer to 99%, which is why I surmise, when anything goes belly-up at work, it literally sucks the life-force out of me and makes me want to curl up into a ball and die.

So 50% it's going to be.

And we'll take baby steps, starting with muay thai and marathons. Which is ironic because I've gone from killing myself emotionally, to killing myself physically.

Oh well.

At least it's something else.

Twilight: Eclipse

I haven't updated this space in awhile, and I really need to go shower now but I just saw news that Twilight: Eclipse is going to be release in June!

Which means we have only two short months to watch, and re-watch the first and the second ones (ironic I can't remember their titles right this minute, even though I'm one of those swoony girls in the cinema. it's probably coz I only watch it for Edward.) before the third one comes out.

Hang tight baby!