Haven’t had the chance to write much recently because of everything that’s been going on. Work has been the same but there are tons of things going through my mind for the past few weeks. I think I’ve been feeling a little down lately because I’m almost giving up on my work. Somehow, the work just doesn’t do it for me anymore.
Maybe the problem with me is I’ve always judged my success by my own yardsticks, by the number of milestones that I’ve set for myself. I am not proud of that. It shows a great weakness for vanity and self-conscious. And I am sick of running from that. I work extremely hard, and it’s time I work for what I really want.
Thinking about the last couple of years it amazes me that I’ve pushed so hard for something I wasn’t even sure of. People who knows me tells me that I’ve always been someone who set goals and chase for it. I gave my best and but irony sets in when I thought I knew what I wanted for my work, it turns out that I’m just a lost traveler who lost passion, vision and balance through the journey.
Perhaps the biggest consolation is that through the last 3 years I’ve managed to figure out what I want for myself, and I finally feel like I have more guts than I thought. But before I’m going to say “I tried it, but I don’t like it, and that’s ok”, I’m going to give myself one more chance to make things right at my workplace. Maybe I should stand on the sidelines watching, get the right people in and maybe reconcile how my personality and strength will fit, where my career goals will really be, and how work is going to make my life more meaningful.
One of the most common questions I get from friends is: How did you know she is the one? I don’t have the answers to this question but after 1 year of marriage and 5 years of courtship, I am still utterly amazed by how we met and I’m still very, very much in love with this girl.
Today is our first anniversary of our new chapter. Thank you for doing so much laundry and breakfast for the past one year. Well, more laundry and breakfast in the years ahead! :p
I’m not too sure how my experience at Sipadan can be put in words. I had to battle with high fever, 30 loo visits and 4 meals on Milo in the last two days, which could be possibly the longest two days of my life. While I figured that it is absolutely necessary to block that episode from my memories of this beautiful island, I wonder if we will be back anytime soon.
For the true diving enthusiasts, the island needs no introduction. No photographs or videos can capture the extraordinary beauty of this place. The dive could have been perfect if the visibility was better. From the small nudibranches to the large school of humpheads, barracudas and jacks, I would describe the experience as “an underwater visual buffet” for a lack of better phrase. The breathtaking view of two barracuda schoolings merging into one, barracudas racing past us when we are all distracted by our rare guest, octopus, the playful humpheads being as curious as we were, the diving experience was totally awesome.
These years, I’m so glad that I have discovered ocean and its peace. While work becomes increasingly exciting and challenging, I’m glad that I have the luxury of escaping to a place where I’m just a visitor, listen to my own breathing and marvel at the wonders of nature. Beyond the hissing and burbling of my breathing, I discover silence and peace in this weightless world that comes with no stress and responsibilities. And before I take my next breath and plan for my next move, a small kick brings me to view the next wonder of nature.
It just adds a lot more meaning to diving when you have khakis who dive, sleep, eat and shit with you. And I’m so glad that my khakis are aspiring luxury divers. Because that means no more rigging, no more shabby rooms, no more lup sup dives and no more diarrhea!
The drizzle lasted for a long time and we decided to go up to the observation deck. The lady at the counter asked, “I’m sorry, tonight’s view not very good. You going up?”
We hesitated, or maybe it was just me. The next thing I knew, I looked out of the deck’s window and the Tokyo sky was all fogged up, as though the clouds ate up the Tokyo Tower. Ten minutes later, the fog cleared up and the tower stood there, shining hard and bright.
Interestingly, I noticed many of my older relatives (the baby boomers era) are on Facebook. There were times my dad complained that its becoming increasingly difficult for him to embrace IT because the online arena was moving too fast for him to pick up and we were too busy to guide him. So he’s not interested in Facebook at all and his last attempt was to file his income tax online and to watch videos from MetaCafe.
There’s a whole load of things that our parents can do online such as checking their CPF statement and doing groceries shopping online. Now, INFOCOMM123.sg is a good IT information resource site for people like us or our parents to get quick answers on any IT-related questions anytime, anywhere and it works very much like Yahoo Answers with a more local context. Through this portal, we hope to engage more people like the elder folks and web gurus to build a more vibrant infocomm community.
INFOCOMM123.sg is now giving away a year’s supply of GV Movie Tickets worth S$240. All you have to do, is to submit a blog entry (in YOUR own blog) of why you love the portal, add a link to INFOCOMM123.sg and you could stand to be the lucky winner. You can also stand to win a brand new Microsoft XBOX 360 by contributing answers and questions in iAsk.iAnswer.
You can play a part in our vision of creating a helpful and vibrant infocomm community by registering an account here. Be part of the community now.
One of the few things that really bothers me is that we do not have access to our family’s health information and insurance policies in one central place. My wife always gives a shrug when I ask about her insurance policies. I don’t remember the medication that my brother is allergic to. I don’t know what medication my dad is currently taking. Imagine this, the hospital called and informed that one of your family member is admitted to A&E due to cardiac arrest. You’re totally clueless of their health condition, medical allergies and eligibility for insurance claims because the family member is in the operation theater and you do not know where the godamn papers are kept. The family member may not even remember the details.
This is a very real situation that we will have to deal with. Now the heroes from Google has launched Google Health that allows us to build our health profiles, medical records and insurance policies all in one central place. I think this idea is damn brilliant and perhaps we can recommend this service to our family doctor/specialist so that the information can be integrated and shared both ways. It’s so good that I think everyone should be forced to use this.
The layout, location and price were close to our ideal requirements so that pretty much sums up our 6-months house search. We are expecting to get the keys in end Oct / early Nov and I’m sure we are going to be really busy with renovation after that.
1. Clean, light-weight, fast-booting platform
2. Back to basic
3. Free
4. Do not need to configure hardware or updates for hours
5. Built-in Google suite – Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa and so on
Nothing irks me more than Microsoft products. Now, I’m looking really forward to Google Chrome OS.
