The Story of the Pencil

It has 5 qualities which, if you manage to hang on to them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.

1: You are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call that hand God, and He always guides us according to his will.
2: Now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharperner. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he is much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.
3: The pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing, it helps keep us on the road to justice.
4: What really matters in a pencil is not the wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.
5: It always leaves a mark. In just the same way, you should know that everything that you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action.

-Paulo Coelho

Life works in intriguing ways sometimes. In Dharma class last week, when shifu asked us to name a noun that best describes ourself, I used 'pencil'. It got people curious and my reasoning was -- I am an indecisive person (pencil writes things but gets erased all the time). It probably wasn't the first thing that came to my mine but somehow that became my reply.

It is a mere chance that I should come across this excerpt again, one that I copied down from a Coelho book years ago, on a notebook that I have brought here.

At that time, I had thought that the pencil answer was a tad familiar -- and now I understand :)

After a nice hearty (and a lil oily) lunch cooked by myself

I am reminded of the times when pa would come home around lunch time, armed with food and snacks and (on mondays) a copy of 8days for sy and me (a fight as to who gets to read the mag first would thus ensue, sometimes ending up ugly -- but heck i missed those bickering).

As I peered into the time machine, I realized that it is finally time for me to grow up. I will force the damned tears down and try to my very best not to let the longing engulf me. Afterall its only four more days.

And in paofu's words: Only a 50 metre stretch left! YADA!

考试前综合征

怎么办，备考受阻了。就因我的心早已飞回小小岛国，不再在课业上了。羡慕室友老是有家人来访，能解相思之苦。我想化泪水为力量，你能帮我吗？

相思（王维）

红豆生南国，
春来法几支？
愿君多采撷，
此物最相思。

First Day of 2009!

I conquered this by the way!! *pats on the back* and yes, THANK YOU MARI for your craziness pushed us all to our limits.

I figured since its a new year with a spanking new start, a post is but obligatory. Well well. There was no countdown as I was and still am a boring old fart (quite literally since I was suffering from a bout of stomach upset yesterday), and as pathetic as it may sound, I was reeling from the excitement sparked off by an innocent change of status on facebook. It really did buoyed my spirits by a huge bit. I am happy to say that my classmates crack me up sometimes. SO FARNIE CAN!

This morning I trooped down to carrefour for grocery shopping. It seemed the entire neighbourhood also decided to come along. The supermarket was Filled To The Brim with the nationals. They really like the barge/push (whats the diff anyway?) lor so irri. The food had better last me four days man. I am running low on the cash boohoo. and 没人理我 :(.

Ok I better go back to the books/little nyonya. OH YAWN/YEAH.

Till then!

Chinese Commune post in the works. Don't like the photo-loading process though.

The Eight Happy Days Meme #7 & #8

For eight days, you have to write about something that made you happy that day.

This gets increasingly difficult as sometimes things are not as rosy and happy as they should be.

#7 (271208)
1) Enjoying the Christmas performance by xq's group. The fabulous dance aside, what tickled me the most was that the cues for the backstage crew were very audible to the audience. "好了灯光可以下了。" I mean seriously!
2) Getting to talk to paofu (and bbb) online.

#8 (281208)
1) Finally a run after so long. Didn't push myself cause I was overall very down in spirits. And you wonder why. But glad I went anyhow.
2) A hearty brekkie of apples and oats. A surprise match there. Tarty apples and yummy oats, with orange jam to boot!

The Eight Happy Days Meme #4, #5 & #6

For eight days you have to write about something that made you happy that day.

#4 (241208) -- Christmas Eve.
1) Having some quiet me time at home.
2) Talking to family :) :) :)
3) Buying stuff for family (beats spending money on myself hands down!)

#5 (251208) -- Christmas!
1) Shopping at the mini-zoo with mel. Its funny how all the shopping places are called XX园. Weird.
2) Eating McNuggets (was a tad guilty cos its out-of-budget, but hey its Christmas!)

#6 (261208) -- Boxing Day
1) Passable 辩证分析 during internship, although it was for a very generic 鼓胀, but i am happy nonetheless.
2) Received a nice little mandarin orange from laoshi.
3) Cooked a nice little meal. Yums.