To all who may be celebrating the occasion, have a prosperous and fulfilling Year of the Ox!

P.S.: The Chinese characters in the picture is not quite appropriate for the occasion, but this is the only background I could find on Meez that’s related to Lunar New Year.

Tags: Announcements, life, musings, Personal

OK.. I’ve been tagged by a handful of friends on Facebook to write this, so here goes..

1. I *LURVE* cats! My friends will tell you that I’m crazy over them. I’ll go ga-ga over anything and everything that resembles a cat, or has a picture of a cat on it.
2. Despite my fondness for felines, I’ve never had a pet cat. Nor a pet dog. Nor a pet hamster. In short, I’ve never had a furry pet. However, I did have 2 pet terrapins when I was about 10, but things did not end well. One of my terrapins fell into the toilet bowl and got flushed away. My mom made me give the other one away.
3. I’m Singaporean by nationality, Chinese by ethnicity, and Hakka (or Khek) by dialect. Chinese (Mandarin) is my mother tongue, though I was taught English as a first language. I never got to learning the Khek dialect because we do not speak it at home. However, I’m fluent in the Cantonese dialect, thanks to years of watching Hong Kong dramas. So I’m often mistaken as a Cantonese.
4. Even though I majored in Computer Science back in my polytechnic days, and have been working in the IT line ever since, I’ve never owned a computer until 2 years ago, when I finally bought my first laptop.
5. I studied Japanese for 3 semesters in polytechnic as an elective. I can converse in simple, beginner level Japanese, though my vocabulary is still somewhat limited. I can read hiragana and katakana with relative ease. Since kanji characters are essentially Chinese characters, I can roughly guess the meaning of the word even though I may not know how to pronounce them.
6. I’m currently a BIG fan of Korean dramas, and have a huge collection of DVDs of the genre at home. Korean dramas have also piqued my interest in Korean culture, particular Korean food and the Korean language.
7. I *hate* bell peppers (a.k.a capsicum), particularly green ones.
8. I also dislike mustard greens, unless they’re pickled.
9. I *love* potatoes! Fried, baked, mashed, or boiled. Anyway you cook it, I’ll eat it! Other tubers (sweet potatoes, yam, tapioca, etc) are welcomed too!
10. I can’t swim. I joined a swimming class once, but I gave up when our instructor wanted to teach us how to jump off the diving board.
11. I have acrophobia, that means I’m afraid of heights. I don’t necessarily get into a panic attack, but I do get a little nervous and uneasy when I’m standing in a high place. It was worse when I was younger, when I’d rather walk further down the street to cross at the traffic lights just to avoid crossing the overhead bridge. Nowadays, I can cross the bridge without too much trouble, as long as I keep away from the edges and don’t see the cars passing underneath me. I was even able to ride the cable car and take the Skyride (a type of chairlift) when I was at Sentosa with the bf a couple of years ago. The chief principle is to avoid looking at the things that are moving around beneath you.
12. I have an innate fear of falling down. This has hampered my attempts of learning to cycle, skate, roller-blade, etc. This probably also explains my fear of heights too. I used to have nightmares of falling off high buildings or from a long flight of stairs.
13. I used to have a fear of the dark when I was younger, which probably evolved from a fear of the unknown. I remember singing “Amazing Grace” to calm my nerves, when visiting the washroom in the middle of the night.
14. I’m a sensitive person, literally. I have a sensitive nose as well as sensitive skin. Dust, mold and huge temperature changes will send my nose running for hours on end.
15. I love cheese, but I don’t like cheesecake.
16. I like coffee with milk, lots of it! But I will *not* touch a cup of tea that has even a drop of milk in it.
17. I have a palate that leans more towards the savory rather than sweet. So I’m more likely to fall prey to potato chips than to ice cream.
18. Generally speaking, chocolates do not tempt me. But I do have a soft spot for brownies. I like my chocs dark and bitter, preferably infused with rum.
19. I cannot tolerate animals with more than 4 legs, i.e. insects and spiders. They give me the creeps.
20. I have a habit of talking to myself. Verbalizing my thoughts makes it easier to straighten them out. This probably stemmed from growing up as the only child. As I grew older, I learned to be more discreet to avoid queer looks from passers-by.
21. I used to be a fan of Madonna, Rick Astley, Debbie Gibson and Banarama.
22. Nowadays, I prefer oldies like Carpenters, Abba and Bee Gees.
23. I think guys wearing hairbands are just plain *WRONG*.
24. My maxillary canine are still my baby teeth. I think this is hereditary as my dad lost his last baby tooth at the age of 55. I’m aiming to break my dad’s record.
25. My Chinese name is 绍慧 (pronounced as shao hui), which literally mean “introducing wisdom“.

There! I hope you find all these interesting

Tags: life, musings, Personal

Today was my first working day of 2009 and I was greeted with a couple of pleasant surprises throughout the day. First, when I was on my way to lunch, I chanced on the local television station doing some drama filming at the mall where I was at.

Then when I got back to the office, I found a 50 cent coin underneath my chair. Since it didn’t belong to anyone (or so they claimed), they told me to keep it as a New Year’s gift.

While chatting with some current and ex-colleagues on MSN, one of them revealed that he’ll be expecting a baby girl (his 2nd child) soon. Highly “productive” guy, this one.

After work, while I was walking to the nearby hawker centre to get some dinner, I bumped the “baby sister” of our development team and her boyfriend. Hmm.. not bad.. They really look good together!

And as I was wandering around the hawker centre, thinking of what to get, I (quite literally) bumped into an ex-classmate of mine. Seems that she works nearby too. Cool!

Although today has its fair share of downs, I am truly thankful to God for providing me with so many pleasant little surprises to keep my spirits up through the day. It sure feels like the after the rain. Deo gratias!

Tags: life, musings, Personal

I was browsing through some of my old email and I found this rather meaningful little piece. Some of you may have read this before already, but there’s no harm in reading it another time  

Tech Support: Yes … how can I help you?

Customer: Well, after much consideration, I’ve decided to install LOVE. Can you guide me through the process?

Tech Support: Yes. I can help you. Are you ready to proceed?

Customer: Well, I’m not very technical, but I think I’m ready. What do I do first?

Tech Support: The first step is to open your HEART. Have you located your HEART?

Customer: Yes, but there are several other programs running now. Is it okay to install LOVE while they are running?

Tech Support: What programs are running?

Customer: Let’s see, I have PAST HURT, LOW SELF-ESTEEM, GRUDGE and RESENTMENT running right now.

Tech Support: No problem, LOVE will gradually erase PAST HURT from your current operating system. It may remain in your permanent memory but it will no longer disrupt other programs. LOVE will eventually override LOW SELF-ESTEEM with a module of its own called HIGH SELF-ESTEEM.  However, you have to completely turn off GRUDGE and RESENTMENT. Those programs prevent LOVE from being properly installed. Can you turn those off ?

Customer: I don’t know how to turn them off. Can you tell me how?

Tech Support: With pleasure. Go to your start menu and invoke FORGIVENESS. Do this as many times as necessary until GRUDGE and RESENTMENT have been completely erased.

Customer: Okay, done! LOVE has started installing itself. Is that normal?

Tech Support: Yes, but remember that you have only the base program. You need to begin connecting to other HEARTS in order to get the upgrades.

Customer: Oops! I have an error message already.  It says, “Error – Program not run on external components.”  What should I do?

Tech Support: Don’t worry. It means that the LOVE program is set up to run on INTERNAL HEARTS, but has not yet been run on your HEART. In non-technical terms, it simply means you have to LOVE yourself before you can LOVE others.

Customer: So, what should I do?

Tech Support: Pull down SELF-ACCEPTANCE; then click on the following files: FORGIVE-SELF;  REALIZE YOUR WORTH; and ACKNOWLEDGE your LIMITATIONS.

Customer: Okay, done.

Tech Support: Now, copy them to the “MY HEART” directory. The system will overwrite any conflicting files and begin patching faulty programming. Also, you need to delete VERBOSE SELF-CRITICISM from all directories and empty your Recycle Bin to make sure it is completely gone
and never comes back.

Customer: Got it. Hey! My HEART is filling up with new files. SMILE is playing on my monitor and PEACE and CONTENTMENT are copying themselves all over My HEART. Is this normal?

Tech Support: Sometimes. For others it takes awhile, but eventually everything gets it at the proper time. So LOVE is installed and running. One more thing before we hang up. LOVE is freeware.  Be sure to give it and its various modules to everyone you meet. They will in turn share it with others and return some cool modules back to you.

Customer: Thank you, God. ÜÜÜ

Tags: musings, Personal

In case you didn’t know, today (Sept 19) is International Talk Like A Pirate Day! (Arrrrrrrr!)

And since I don’t know how to blog or write a podcast review in pirate talk, that means you may have to wait until at least tomorrow before you hear from me on this blog.

Meanwhile, TGIF and enjoy! Arrrrrrr…!

Tags: Announcements, life, musings