This is the current window display at Joyce. I love it so much because it sort of encapsulates my goal for this year. At the start of 2009, I want to do everything and I want to pack as much as possible in a day's time. Four months down the road, I am wondering if I had taken too big of a bite in terms of keeping myself busy. I was thinking a few nights ago on the way back to Discovery Bay - have I committed myself too much over the next few months?

Here are the list of things I have to do from now till June

1.) DragonBoating - Last Sunday after practice, my back was as sore as fuck. I have been rowing for five weeks on my right side and for the first time I rowed on the left side. Whilst I was at it, it wasn't too bad but that night but it totally killed me on Monday morning. Rudi had said to me, I don't think team sports is your thing because you don't like to do things in groups. I am discovering a side of myself that I haven't seen before. In a way he is right. In a way, I want to give it a go. I puked last week on the boat and seriously I felt bad for days because I felt that I let my team mates down. Team sports is a very unfamiliar concept to me because it's 18 people working towards a goal and plus what they always say - a chain is only as strong as the weakest link and sometimes I do feel like the weakest link - my stride isn't the longest, my speed isn't the fastest and I am fucking incoherent at times but I want to try as hard as I can. I really hope that on race day - this 28th of May. I can look back with on this and say, it's all worth it. Pray!!!

2.) Furniture hunting -one month into the renovation. I really really love buying furniture. I finally feel like a fucking adult to be not buying crap from Ikea. I am investing in actual quality furniture that I hope to someday pass to my children as heirlooms. Haha! Right now with bad times, it's really a buyers' market and I am tough negotiator. I got this freaking awesome lights at 60%. I love it but again time consuming.

3.) Moving back in. After the hassle of shoving everything in the boxes, it's time to unpack them again - Timeline - Mid May. Moving is back breaking and slimming! For those who want to shed off some extra pounds, I won't mind a volunteer or two. I will give you a complimentary stretch session after the big move :)

4.) Beijing - I need to go to Beijing for work. I love Beijing so I am definitely looking forward to it. Can't wait to catch up with my friends there as well. And I so want to visit the Forbidden City again because the last time I went last year, a lot of areas were still being restored.

5.) I have been taking medication to treat hyperthyrodism for about two years now, I don't like to talk about it because I don't like to be treated differently. A few months ago, my doctor said the medication hasn't been working very well on me and my condition is a bit too evasive for regular treatment. I have to remove 80% of my thyroid glands. Fuck, fuck, fuck... I am absolutely paranoid about cutting, slicing, blood inducing procedures but what to, you just have to deal with it. Timeline - early June.

On the flipside - after my surgery, I have to take about 3 weeks to a month off depending on my recovery speed. I can really do up the house.

In my line of work, more often than not, I am required to talk to people I don't know.And I am pretty good at it because I bullshit loads. I am a serious A Grade Bullshitter. I called my mum yesterday because, I was feeling kind of guilty as I have not spoken to her in a month.

The conversation lasted 1 min 37 seconds. Have you ever wondered why it's so difficult to talk to people who mean the most to you? I asked her, " Is everything okie?" three fucking times and after the second time, I felt like a broken record. After the conversation, I was feeling absolutely gutted because a realisation tanked on me. My mum is 59 years old this year and I just realised that I was hardly around during the most of my adult life.

I have to try harder to incorporate her in my life but I don't know where to start. The thing is, I know she loves me loads and I have acknowledged that she might not have the best ways of doing so. In a way, I am sick of complaining and since I have an action plan for most things, I am more than ready to adopt a new method of communication.

Instead of leaving it to her to tell me things. I am going to start by telling her things about myself. I am going to tell her stories about the people in my life, the situations I encounter, shit that bother me. I am not going to edit anything and I will leave it to her to judge whether she could digest some things that are not easy for parents to know about their childhood. I don't know sometimes I feel that I need to shelter my inner feelings from my mother because I don't want her to worry about me. I don't know but something tells me my mother is stronger than I give her credit for. Well, we have to start from somewhere don't we. I hate having to think; what if she dies, I do not want to wait till it is too late to regret.

For starters, I am going to chat with her once a week and if things ever get too difficult, I'd pass the phone to Rudi.

Lately, I have been feeling down. I can't seem to find the root-cause to my numerous dissatisfactions so I am going to change the way I feel by changing the way I think. I want to constantly remind myself that, I have things to be grateful for and it starts with

1.) Rudi. It's true we can't choose our family; the ones that related to us by blood but finding our other halves give us the chance to start a family with the people we actually like. I am not going to start with the in-laws.

2.) The relationships I have with my brothers. When I was younger, I used to fight loads with my brothers especially William. We even fist fight until he started towering over me at 5'11. Now if I fist fight with him, I am gravely inviting death. We chat so much on MSN these days and it gives me a wonderful insight to how he really is and we even share things about the family, like secrets that only family members should know. That really keeps my sanity intact because trust me, we have a lot of family politics. Looking back at our childhood, I am really glad that all of us turned out ok. We do have a fair amount of fuck-ups in the family. Kinda nice knowing we didn't contribute to that statistic.

3.) My health - I am so happy to say that physical challenges no longer scare me. Less than 2 years ago, I was in a state whereby I was really embarrassed because even if I walk up a short flight of stairs, I'd go huffing and puffing. But now, I can run an hour without stopping for a brisk walk. It feels nice to be comfortable in my own skin.

4.) I have a job. Where I was in Mongkok the other day, I was walking along Nathan Road and I saw at least four people picking leftovers from thrash cans. Growing older might make me feel less sensitive towards a lot of things but one thing I still hate seeing are homeless people. I thought of the time when I was three, I went to the temple with my Popo and I saw a beggar and I asked Popo to lend me a dollar so that I can give it to him. That part of me never changed. It is just really sad to see that as this recession prolongs, many people especially those who do manual labor are going to find themselves more susceptible to losing their livelihood. Working is not just about the money, working is dignity and dignity is the fundamental human right.

5.) I have great friends. I can't think of a reason of living better than sharing it with the people who love me unconditionally. Can you imagine, you love your family because you have no choice but to. But when it comes to your friends. It takes a lot to love someone who is entirely unrelated to you.

6.) My self-awareness. The nicest complement anyone has ever given me was that," I am blessed. I asked him why and he said, You are blessed because not only you are intelligent but you have a high degree of self awareness. Thank you Taffy. That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me.

7.) Sophie. I know it's a dog but she is family. It's nice to have someone/ something you love so much because we all question what we live for on some days.

8.) I have nothing else to prove. When I was younger, I felt a pressing need to prove something. I need to prove to the world my abilities, demonstrate my strengths and a lot of it were just ego talk. Right now, I am just living at my own pace and I stopped caring about how many people I am pleasing.

9.) In the last 30 years, I have never known hunger, I have never known desperation and destitution, I have never been harmed; physically or emotionally. I have never been robbed, the innocence of childhood, never been deprived from privileges and never been abused nor used. If those are not good reasons to be happy - I would be one fucking ungrateful bitch.

You know what I can't stand, people who complain about stuff and never seemed to do anything about it. Shit like, I am so fat, I only eat so little but I am still fat. When you tell them to exercise, they make a face and tell you, exercising is so san foo ( so difficult) I cannot work out this calculation, everything comes with a price right? You abuse and use your body the wrong way, it is definitely going to show.

Recently, I sent an e-mail to this friend of mine who is still living in Malaysia. I told him very politely to please stop sending me forwards about political injustices that are happening in Malaysia because you know what, I don't give a flying fuck about who is shitting who. To be very honest, other than the fact that I was born in Malaysia, I speak like one and it is where all my family and oldest friends are, there is nothing quite Malaysian about me. And guess what, today when I opened my mail box, again there were three e-mails about Anwar Ibrahim, Najib bombing his mistress. I am exasperated. I guess this leaves me with no choice but to block all of his e-mails.

Malaysians especially the minorities like the Chinese and the Indians are the biggest whiners I know. Seriously guys, if you can't live with the system, make your peace and get on with it. There are places in the world you can go to; where the color of your skin will not matter and you are judged solely on your merits.

I have perpetuated with theme of childhood recently. Been reading the book The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson and last Saturday Rudi and I went to watch Slumdog Millionaire.

At the start of The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Bryson said " Growing up was easy. It required no thought or effort on my part. It was going to happen anyway". I had the best childhood. I think I grew up at the time when kids were still wholesome and we played a whole lot without thinking much ambitions or succeeding. Whilst we were packing up to leave our apartment, we found Michael Jackson's History in our stack of dust filled CDs.

I love Michael. He made me fall in love with music and he made me experimented with dangerous dance moves - such as moonwalking on slippery floors, crotch grabbing actions that made my parents sick with worry. It's a fact that Thriller was and is the best selling album of all time. Why is that? I think between Rudi and I - we owned at least 6 copies between ourselves. We listened to Beat It, Billie Jean endlessly; again and again till the tape broke.

Last week, Michael made an announcement that he will be staging his last concert tour - The Final Curtain. It is hard to believe that my childhood idol is now 50 years old. I really hope that he will come to HK. I'd pay any amount of money just to be able to watch him again. No matter how ridiculous!

I know that Michael is probably most famous for songs like Thriller, Beat It, Billie Jean and Smooth Criminal but personally for myself, my all time favorite song from Michael is Man in the Mirror taken from the album Bad. The album came out in 1987 and it was a year after my parents separated. Looking back it was probably one of the saddest times of my life and the lyrics had such profound meaning to me...


I'm Starting With The Man InThe Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways
And No Message Could HaveBeen Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make
The WorldA Better Place
(If You Wanna Make TheWorld A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself, AndThen Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself, AndThen Make A Change
I've Been A Victim Of A SelfishKind Of Love
It's Time That I Realize
That There Are Some With NoHome,
Not A Nickel To LoanCould It Be Really Me,
Pretending That They're Not Alone?


Man in the mirror is simply timeless and if only we have more classic songs like these. Michael you may have fucked up to a certain extend but thanks for being there for me. I love you.

Anyways people if you want to take a trip down memory lane and laugh about some serious shit you used to do while you were a kid, I'd recommend you to read The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.