Brother-sense

Have you ever felt jealous but happy at the same time? A good kind of envy? As weird as it sounds, that is what exactly I felt today when I knew that my younger sister has a boyfriend now. Hurray! I am still single, or I choose to still remain as a bachelor for now, but I am not jealous because of that. The first thing that worried me was if this guy is more good-looking than me. Lol.. Haha.. Yes, that is how narcissistic I am. After I see how the guy looks like, I feel a sense of relief. Phew... The jealousy disappears and only the happiness remains. I even told some my friends that my sister is attached now. Don't ask me why I am so happy about it.

It is said that brothers get protective over their sisters when their sisters find boyfriends or going to get married. Honestly, under normal circumstances, I will not use the word "love" about my feelings towards my sisters. But after hearing this news, I guess deep inside, I am a loving brother. I just hope that this guy is not an asshole, will take care, protect, and make sure that my sister is happy. Woot.. I am saying as if it is her wedding day tomorrow.

I chuckled when she told me how worried my parents were when she was still dating past 8pm or when she went dating over the weekends. If I am already feeling like that as a brother, I can imagine how much more my parents will feel, especially fathers. Haha.. I can imagine their "jealousy": last time my sister devote the whole time just for them but now she has a divided attention.

Perhaps she will not ask me to travel with her anymore.. Perhaps we will not be to do our stupid role play with our toys anymore. Kinda sad but that is just a circle of life.

Now I am more interested in how it all began but I am too shy too ask. Haha.. Darn! I better thicken my skin a bit. I am quite surprised that my parents already know about it and my sister even said "If you come home, don't be shy when I introduce my boyfriend ok!". Hmm... no wonder my mum and my sister have been nagging at me recently asking when I will be home again. Am I supposed to do some QC? Lol..

Weekend getaway to Bintan

Over the last weekend, I went to Bintan with 3 friends. We were all studying at the same junior high school in Jakarta before fate separated all of us to different countries during our higher studies before being united again in Singapore for work now. Funny how life works eh?

All of us had seen beautiful pictures of resort in Bintan although none of us had been there. Thus, we just anyhow chose the location to give it a try. We chose the cheapest package we found at groupon. The resort cost $99 and after all the +++, each of us paid $184. The +++ is not that bad because the return ferry trip would easily cost $44 and the fee for car rental at Bintan was $15 per hour or $80 per day. I guess $85 for the ferry tickets, the lunch, the tour guide, and the car was not too bad.

Our ferry departed at 0840 from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal. Because it was considered an international journey, it works similarly to international flights in airport that we had to check in at least 90 minutes before. It only meant that we had to be there really really early! The previous time I took ferry was when I was very very small. Although I did not have any seasickness back then, I was quite worried for this journey. Phew... thank goodness I did not experience any, I was expecting that the ferry journey would be uncomfortable but our ferry, operated by Sindo Ferry, was surprisingly very comfortable. In fact, the aircon was super duper cold.

I thought Singapore-Bintan journey would only take 1 hour so it was kinda worrying that our journey took close to 2 hours. After arrival, we went for chartered City Tour and the guide informed us that there are 2 ferry terminals in Bintan. The one at the north, where those great resort pictures come from, is the one nearer to Singapore and the journey will be about an hour. We arrived at Tanjung Pinang Terminal at the south and the journey around the island to reach the south was what made us took 2 hours.

Tanjung Pinang is the capital of Bintan but it still feels very under-developed. I am actually very glad that I am born and live in Jakarta, despite all the shit things about it. Tanjung Pinang is even less developed than Pontianak, where my dad comes from, which I already find very boring. The first stop of our tour was Bintan Indah Mall. Before alighting, the guide told us that we could find branded goods here. Hearing branded goods + mall, you know what sort of things you would imagine. But what we saw really shocked us.

Bintan Indah Mall

It is just 2 rows of shophouses with a roof above it. There middle road, as you see above, is also a parking lot. There is no aircon. The 4 of us was not impressed and the thing that we could be bothered about was only the small minimarket there. Lol. We had our breakfast (Mie Pangsit or dumpling noodle) at the roadside near there and we were ecstatic. Haha.. Finally something very good for our tongue. The serving is considered generous, plenty of meat and 4 dumpling, for Rp 17000 or less than $2 only. Haha... Can't get any shit with that price in Jakarta. I also bought a char siew bao for Rp 8000 but it was not as what I expected.

Next stop was Ramayana Mall. After the first mall, we did not get our hopes up and we were glad that we did not. Haha.. The prices at the department store are not exactly very cheap so we spent the whole time doing grocery shopping. My friends even bought feminine pads and detergents for stock back in Singapore.

We had Ayam Penyet for lunch which I did not really enjoy as I hate eating things with bones. Then we went to a temple which was only 5 minutes drive away from the restaurant. The temple is big and amazing. With so much available land, it is not surprising that they could build something this grand. I wonder who are actually coming here as I did not see many residential areas nearby. At the side of the halls, there are giant statues of the deities. I don't know them but I think it is awesome if you know them. One thing that struck me was the similarities with Catholicism. In the Church, we can also find statues of the Saints.

Avalokitesvara Temple

Most of us fell asleep on our journey to the resort. Haha.. The van was too warm.. Sadly, the few months long of eager anticipation just evaporated when we saw the resort. It was nothing like those pictures we saw. Huhuhu... That's the result of not doing proper research and just bought the cheapest thing we could see. Those great resorts (Nirwana, Lagoon, Banyan Tree, Club Med) are all located at northern part of Bintan while our resort is in the east! Bleah...

Bintan Spavilla Beach Resort

There was welcome drink and the room was hotel standard. Outdoor slippers were provided too! I had to mention that there was a pretty large gap at the door. I was worried about mosquitos and insects coming in but that did not materialise. 2 of my friends went for massage while another friend and I decided to walk around to take photos. The 2 of us just did not like the idea of strangers touching our body. Haha..

We were not too pleased with our discovery. It took us only half an hour to walk to the other end of the resort, taking photos, and then back to our room. The beach is very narrow and not the clean white sand type we expected so say bye bye to swimming. One great thing about the beach is that it is not very wavy. So it was kinda relaxing to just look at the sea.

View from the balcony of my room

Can you see the volley net and the soccer goal posts?

Random trees

Not a beach we were looking for

When we go to a resort, of course we want to do the activity. However, it is a problem when the check in time is 3pm! Let's say we want to do snorkelling, it will take a minimum of 2 hours and it would be sunset and dark by then! I did not know where the other people were as we saw nobody and no activity around. If we saw some people do this or do that, we might be able to see what interesting and what not. But nothing was going on. Bleah..

After the massage was done, the girls went for jacuzzi but I was too shy to be shirtless and show off my flab. After that, we spent the rest of the afternoon playing billiard, table soccer, and dart. It was ironic that the table soccer was the most enjoyable part of the trip. We played, shouted, and screamed like mad. It was hilarious as we did not really know how to play. When we put the ball at the center, it was a position not kick-able by both teams. We were so eager to play and broke into laughter when it was so lame that none could kick the ball.

For dinner, we went to a local restaurant just next to the resort. We were told about the existence of this by our tour guide. It was a short walk away but it was very terrifying to walk at dark. It was really a village area that there was no street lamps. When we reached the restaurant, it was also rather dubious as we did not see people eating. It was Saturday evening.. weekend... how could it be so quiet? I was actually more worried about the freshness and hygiene of the food. In the end we just ordered the fully cooked meal. The fried squid was awesome and in total we only spent Rp 152000! That was about $16 for 4 people. In the resort, a BBQ of 6 pieces cost $29 per person. Holy crap! One memorable thing that happened during dinner was a giant lizard which dropped from the roof. I am not scared of house lizard but this lizard was gross: not only it was big, it was also black! Hiii!!!

We retired to our beds early as we were hoping to wake up early to see the sunrise. I woke up early but sadly it was cloudy and I did not see the sun rising from the horizon. Although I did not witness the sunrise, I still felt glad that I woke up early as I realised something great about this resort. When it was low tide, the beach was dry up to the far island that we saw from the beach!! No wonder one of the attraction listed in the resort was "Walking in the Sea". I was alone so I could not have any picture in this amazing landscape T_T Sea is really scary as within 15 minutes, the water rose again to the normal levels. Wew...

The boat is on the sand. Compare it with the picture above where the boat is on the water.

You can literally walk to that far island

Breakfast was not very exciting although I sat throughout the full breakfast period. Haha.. My friend and I were waiting for the other 2 who were still sleeping. We wanted to get the waffle but did not think that we could finish them so we waited for the other 2 to share. After that long wait, the waffle was quite disappointing. Haha..

I borrowed a volleyball for a bit of exercise. We walked to the volley net but after 2 serves, we decided to call it a day. Lol.. We were too full to chase after the ball and after 1 of my serve went a bit off, we were so worried that the ball would go to the sea. Haha..

On our way back to the ferry terminal, we were awake and we realised how secluded our resort is and how under-developed the area is. It is kinda sad to see how people are actually flocking to the resorts and paying big bucks while many parts of the island are so poor.

And that was the end of my trip. I did not sleep at all on the journey back and as a result, I was so exhausted until yesterday. That was why I could only finish writing this today. Haha.. Yeah I am old and it took me 3 days to recover. Lol.. I have not even uploaded the photos on facebook because I am still lazy and tired. And I don't know if I should publish the photos as I look damn fat in singlet. Huhuhu... 

$50

Sian.. Today is a bad day. The first thing I noticed in the morning was a missing $50 note from my wallet. I withdrew $800 on Saturday and I paid $700 for my rental. I did not buy anything else on Saturday, The only thing I bought on Sunday was breakfast and I paid it the exact amount.

I did not check the amount dispensed by the ATM so it is a possibility that the machine dispensed less. It is too late to do anything with the bank today. Haiz.. The other possibility is I gave my landlady $750 instead of $700. Again this is very unlikely because I remembered having checked the cash properly before handing it to her. In addition, previously there was a time that I gave her an extra $50 and she returned it to me immediately. I doubt she would be dishonest this time.

Another possibility is I dropped $50 instead of $10 for mass offering. I did not really see the note I took out from my wallet but I am very confident that it was $10. I remembered clearly that I used my finger to feel the plastic texture and there is no $50 note in plastic. $50 note is also too big to hide within my grasp.

So seriously, where did my $50 go?? :(

Swarovski Disney's Peter Pan and Title Plaque "Peter Pan"

Save the best for the last or rather save the most expensive for the last. Haha.. So this will be the last of my Peter Pan loots I bought a few months ago. They are 2 separate items and not a set. Truthfully, I know Swarovski has released Disney-related figurines from many years ago and I am never interested in buying because of the pointy edges. I guess it is difficult to cut crystals to a round or roundish shape. Or perhaps crystals have to be cut with pointy edges to give sparkles because otherwise they will just look like a glass figurine.

Resemblance to the original characters is another issue although the newer figurines (eg. Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Winnie the Pooh) are much much better than the figures of these same characters released many years before. Peter Pan is a human whose features are obviously different from animal-based characters that Swarovski figurines are mostly about. Although this makes him unique, I am not too keen because of his facial features which are not very visible (the sculpt of the facial features are there but they are difficult to see because of light reflections) and that makes him feel less a figurine to me. 

Traditionally, Swarovski items are always colourless crystals but Peter Pan has green crystals (his clothes) and red crystal (the feather on his cap, belt, hilt of knife). This definitely caught my attention because I am used to colourless crystals. My mum actually collects some Swarovski figurines and her whole display detolf is all colourless/glass which I find very boring. Lol.

Anyway, let's start with the big guy first. He sits 10cm tall and his box measures 15cm (L) x 15cm (W) x 9.7cm (H). He also comes with the certificate. Below are the pictures. Honestly, I don't know what to say because there is nothing much to see. Furthermore, Swarovski is Swarovski so the quality is up-there. Lol.

The box, the figurine, and the certificate

Peter Pan

The title plaque is approximately 3.7cm (I don't know to describe this as height, or length, or what because the way the plaque stands) and it comes in a cylinder box (is there such a word? haha) measuring 8.4cm in diameter and 6.5cm in height.

No certificate :(

 I don't know how to display it nicely to show everything about it

360-degree view of both:

My room is quite dark and it is obviously not the best lighting condition to view gorgeous crystals. In fact, they look like glass figurines in the pictures above. My apologies.  

I guess I am buying this out of impulse "Since I am buying other Peter Pan items, I might as well get this and have a Peter Pan collection". You may also wonder why on earth I bought the title plaque. Although these are 2 separate figurines, I bought it as a set. Including the shipping, I paid only about USD 300 which I consider a very good bargain considering the retail price. I remember seeing this in local Swarovski showrooms for $500+.

Retail price USD 325

Retail price USD 60

There is another piece of Tinker Bell which I am still considering to buy or not to buy. Tinker Bell comes in 2 versions: regular (wearing green dress) and Christmas limited edition (wearing Santa's dress and hat). I want the Santa's version as I think the red colour will contrast well and look very nice with Peter Pan's green. However, the limited edition is at least 100 bucks more than the regular. Haiz.. I don't really like Tinker Bell because she is very irritating lol so I don't want to buy the regular one just for the sake of completion.

Student's appreciation

As promised yesterday, today will be a happy post :) For the past 1 year+, I have become a preceptor for 9 attachment students. Although being a teacher is my desire and dream, most of my experience as a preceptor has been on the downside. And thus, I am very happy to share that I finally get a student who really appreciated me.

So what do I mean by appreciation? When I was a student in the past, I showed my appreciation to the teachers that I like/love by taking a picture as a memento and giving them small gift and personalised thank you cards. This particular student asked me to take a picture at the last day of her attachment T_T Yes, just that I was simply touched because it was my first time. Haha.. Unfortunately, I did not see that coming and I had not had my haircut. Yes, I looked terribly fugly in the photo.

Yesterday one colleague told me that the student dedicated a message to me on her Instagram. My very first thought was "Is it for the teachers' day dedication thingy which was sent by the company?". Of course, I pretended not to be too disturbed or excited about it. I don't have Instagram (and am not planning to have one) so I just tried my luck googling her name + Instagram. And oh my God, I could find her account! Lol.. Well, I take this a personalised Thank You card for me and for that, I am very happy.

This post shall be dedicated for my preceptor at --------- for the past 3weeks. i thank you for your guidance 😊 You are definitely someone who's WAP is at its highest; teaching us all the important skills which we could not learn it in school; taking the extra mile to make sure we understand what have been gone through by the PTs to us, and explaining what we have missed out; giving us extra homeworks which you think it is related for our dispensing skills; and many many more. Im lucky to have you as my preceptor, as i definitely did learn alot from you. For now, the weird aura and the stress you always give me unknowingly shall be missed, till we meet again. 😊

Note that I removed the place of attachment with ------- to prevent myself from being identified. Haha...

Students come in many sizes, shapes, personalities, and levels of intelligence. I treat them all the same and my aim is always to make them friends for life, instead of just preceptor-student for the xxx weeks of their attachment. Sadly, no matter how much I try, ultimately it depends on the kind of student that I get.

Anyway this year's polytechnic students have been much better than last year's. The first pair in April was very good too but I am not their preceptor. I only brought them around for orientation of the place on the first day but because they are so lovely, at the end of their attachment, they also took pictures with everyone. 2 weeks ago, they even came back and gave us something from their school trip to US. Wow!

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Assumption of Our Lady which is a holy day of obligation. Despite falling asleep on the bus, it was indeed a miracle that I was not even feeling sleepy throughout the mass. Yay! And when we are talking about Mother Mary, we can never escape from the following wonderful song:

I am sooo relieved that the dengue suspicion is over now. I guess I was just too exhausted last week. Physically I am back to normal while mentally I am still as emo and gloomy as ever. A lot of things that upset me is beyond my control and sometimes I wonder why I even bother thinking about these things. I guess I enjoy drowning myself in sorrow and self-pity.

You can't choose your family but no matter how "dysfunctional" your family is, you will still love them. Seeing my aunt's family who came here last week, I felt quite sad looking at my own family. I don't think we are that loving. Don't even think about hugging or kissing on birthdays, even our birthday wishes feel so cold and distant. It is no wonder why I grow up to be a cold-blooded unfeeling bastard. It is difficult to express yourself when your parents are not showing it first. I usually go home twice a year and ironically, I still feel very awkward to hug my parents when I see them or I see them off in airport.

All my mum and dad care about is just success.. money.. success.. money.. The time is ripe for me to start my own family but I am not even interested in finding a girlfriend. I am still very selfish and too pre-occupied with my own needs and happiness. So yeah.. I guess everything is in the genes and nurture.. Anyhow, I still prefer having my parents with me and nag with me everyday than living away from them and hear stories how my sisters always quarrel with them over petty things. Seriously what is fucking wrong with females who are close to 30 years old to fight with parents and even cry just over doing laundry!! Seriously, my parents should just buy a house here and move in with me T_T and that will make everyone happy. Ironically, the naughtier and more rebellious my sisters are, it seems that my parents care them more than me which drives me angry and crazy although there is nothing I can do about it. If I am making noise, being naughty, and trying to get their "attention", I will be making them worry which I don't like. If I just keep quiet and suck it up, they think everything is going well with my life and they don't give a damn. Haiz!

I stopped using my acne creams and I am currently having a breakout again! Sigh.. I really don't know what's wrong as before last November, I never had such a severe acne problem. My problem is: when I don't use the acne creams, I have a breakout but when I use the creams, my skin will peel so perhaps the only way for me to go is for plastic surgery. Of course the next question is whether the breakout is due to the stopping of the acne creams or due to my diet.

When I am feeling down, I will just keep on going downhill because stress makes me eat uncontrollably which will make me fat and broke and in turn, I will feel emo further. Not to mention that since I stopped the ab challenge last week, I have yet to restart it again. Haiz.. My body is just not suited to any physical activity except for sleeping..

Huaahh... Okay I am very sleepy now so I shall sleep. I promise to write something positive tomorrow. I do have some good things happening in my life (although they are not as many as the bad ones to rant on) after all.

Guardians of the Galaxy at Gold Class

I used my last free Gold Class ticket and it will be my last time watching at Gold Class, except if I were to win some more free tickets in the future. On Friday, the original price of Gold Class ticket is $39 which is $10 more than other weekdays o_0 I seriously think the price difference is not justifiable. I was very disappointed with the food as well. Before 2pm, the menu is still breakfast menu which is not really worth the prices charged. I chose Fish & Chips with the expectation of a typical meal at a western restaurant. Unexpectedly, it was more like 3 pieces of fish nuggets instead. Bleah... For drink, I asked for plain water and I was charged $5 for bottled water. When I watched Spider-Man, I was served with plain water! I felt cheated and scammed.

Let's move on to the movie itself. I think the movie is awesome. I came to the movie unprepared (my only knowledge about the movie is the 5 members of the team) and I came up satisfied. The story-telling is great as I understood the plot. 

The story is quite simple: Peter Quill (Star Lord) steals an orb without knowing what it is and intends on selling it at Xandar. The merchant knows that the orb contains something that can destroy the whole country and refuses buying it. Gamora attempts to steal the orb from Quill and at the same time Rocket Raccoon and Groot attempt to capture Quill who is wanted by his "adoptive father" and has a bounty on him. After wreaking havoc in the city, all 4 of them are captured and imprisoned. In the prison, they meet Drax the Destroyer who wants a revenge on Ronan the Accuser who sends Gamora to steal the orb. Gamora is betraying Ronan and she knows someone who is willing to buy the orb. So the 5 of them team up to escape from the prison, sell the orb, and live rich ever after.

Plans change after they meet the Collector who reveals that the orb contains Infinity Stone which has the power to decimate an entire planet and Ronan wants this to destroy Xandar. Before able to send the stone to Xandar, Ronan intercepts and takes control of the stone and from then on, the story becomes an all out war between Ronan's army vs Xandarian's Nova Corps.

Press pays a lot of attention to the comedy of the film but it is not only the comedy which is able to propel the movie to the top of box office. The cinematography for all the fights is a given wow factor so let's just skip over that. I think the human-side and the character development and interaction are the other things which make this movie believable to watch. The movie plays with emotions on how these 5 criminals open up to form a team to realise a mission more important than money. The setup of Xandar's invasion also successfully brings up the desperation and near-apocalyptic feel and it brings a significance to the final battle. This is one point where Guardians is better than the Avengers.

I can't help but to compare this with the Avengers. The Avengers loses out in terms of the emotion. The final battle in the Avengers is just superheroes vs alien with normal people as mere collateral damage. The battle does not invoke any emotion that make me wanna root for the superheroes. Battle-wise, I have to give my nod to the Avengers. In the Guardians, most of the the battle are ships vs ships. I prefer human vs human headbutting one another in front of a green screen as opposed to people sitting on a platform and acting out the battle in a ship. Lol.. 

Characterisation-wise, the comedy in Guardians is too strong that all the characters feel bland and devoid of characteristics. They are mostly there for the comic relief. Power-wise, they are also too similar as they all fight with bare hands or guns. So Avengers is still better. And the last reason for Avengers being better is Scarlet Jo. Lol.. I don't know why they want to make a big deal of Vin Diesel who voices Groot when his lines are only "I am Groot"s and another variant "We are Groot" at the end. Rocket Raccoon who I thought would be damn funny also pales in comparison with equally funny Quill and Drax if you ask me.

So yeah, I enjoyed the movie but it does not have enough "oomph" to make me excited for the sequel or to make me want to re-watch the movie.

Among tonnes of the funny things in the movie, I can't help but highlight my favourite which is Quill's dick message to warn Nova Corps about the upcoming attack from Ronan. Not the message itself but how the Nova Corps leader informed Nova Prime about it. He uncomfortably quoted the message: "I'm an asshole but what I am not is 100% dick. We need your help". Nova Prime asked if he believed the message to which he replied "Well, I don't think anyone is 100% dick". That was hilarious. ROFL. Obviously the question is about the attack part instead of the dick. Hahaha.. Anyway I am curious on how this dick and asshole thingy will be translated in my native language sia...

Unwell

It seems that I am never meant to be sporty or to have six-pack. Last week, my second attempt to complete the 30 day ab challenge failed again. The rest day seems to be the biggest challenge as I always feel so lazy to continue the day after. This time I fared much better than the first attempt as I managed to complete 1 week. I wanted to time the second rest day (or day 8) on the blood donation day as I need to rest my arm after the blood donation. Alas, the queue on Sunday was pretty long and decided to go on Monday.

Usually I encounter problem with my borderline low blood pressure. It was really shocking when this time my Hb was borderline low at 12.5. For the past many donations, not even once I encountered borderline Hb. Sigh.. A lot of questions start to pop up in my mind. Is it due to my diet? I try to avoid eating nowadays because I am getting fatter. Is it because my lack of sleep for the past week? The nurse who did the test told me that that could be a reason. Or perhaps I should go for blood donation less frequently?

From then on, my health is going downhill. I continuously feel tired throughout the week and I don't know whether I am anemic or I am really falling sick. I had multiple diarrhea on Wednesday morning but I forced myself to work as this week is the last week of my students' attachment and there was something that had to be done on that day. At work, I felt very cold although I was not sure if that was because of the air-con. By the end of the day, my head was throbbing and I had to take Anarex. I slept at 9pm and the following morning I did not feel better.

Again, I could not take MC because in the afternoon I had a site visit to the National Stadium which I could not afford to miss. You may be wondering why I had to visit National Stadium but I shall not say why. It is work-related though. I was looking forward to the day as the dismiss time was 5pm and I could still squeeze sometime to watch Guardian of the Galaxy after work. I had to call off that plan as I could not hold my bowel anymore. I went home, went to bed at 8pm, and still no improvement this morning! Bleah..

I still had to go to work to finish up students' appraisal and after that I decided to get MC. The doctor told me that if by Monday I am still not better, I have to do a blood test to rule out possibility of dengue! O.M.G! Sian.. Despite me feeling cold and warm alternatingly, my temperature does not show any fever (and usually I know if I am down with fever as internally I will also feel hot instead of only on the skin surface). I check my skin for rashes and I don't know if I am seeing things or really there is no rash on me.

Surprisingly I still managed to go out for birthday dinner celebration of my aunt who came here for a short holiday. We had dinner at Ku De Ta on the top of Marina Bay Sands. The breeze did not bother me at all. Haha.. Before reaching, I tried to google about the place and generally the reviews are unfavourable. I am usually a picky eater so that really brought my expectations rather low. But perhaps, those people doing the reviews have 'atas' tongue while my tongue is poor people's tongue. I thought the food is pretty good although the appetizers were better than the main course. My favourite was foie gras. Woohoo.. That was my first time tasting it. When we ordered a second serving (only 4 pieces per serving), I acted shy and decided not to have a second one.. Aaah... Honestly, I don't see anything unusual as it tasted just like any other animals' liver. Perhaps the texture is softer and more chewy but other than that I don't see anything that justifies the cost or justifies the torture to the animals.

After spending close to $600, I felt much better now. Mwahaha.. We also had the chance to visit the Ku De Ta club lounge for 'sight-seeing'. I still can't enjoy the so-called night life and don't understand people who enjoy loud music, dancing, lights, and booze. I prefer my bed. Thank goodness I still managed to catch the second last bus home and now I am typing this before going to bed.

I hope tomorrow everything will be fine and I am not having dengue. Period!

Let it Go(d)

Nah.. I am not talking about a song from Frozen. It is more about what I brought home from today's homily. I still felt dazed today after yesterday's stock take ended at nearly 10pm! That was the longest stock take I ever experienced in the past 3 years. I was soo tempted to just skip mass today. Even after I overcome my laziness, I still felt lazy because I would be late. Thank goodness I decided to still attend although it was already the first reading when I arrived.

Today's reading was about the 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. The priest opened the homily a story of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She had nothing but she surrendered and trusted God with everything that she had. God multiplied her gifts and now her Missionaries of Charity is everywhere all over the world serving hundreds of thousands of people. It is really a real life evidence of how something "little" can be multiplied greatly in the hands of God.

I honestly have not overcome my anger and irritation over my appraisal two weeks ago. The homily today really struck me. Perhaps I have been blinded with pride. How I think my contribution is a lot or perhaps greater than others or perhaps I need to get recognition etc. It is time to let it go and let God take over again. Whatever happens in my life, everything should be according to God's plan. I should just have the mindset to do my best in whatever comes to life. Whatever the results and outcome are, I should just entrust them to God. On the flip side, it is very tiring to plan for my own life or to achieve my dreams. It is much easier to just leave everything to God and take everything that comes along as a blessing rather than my personal achievement.

Another thing that struck me quite hard is how the priest put people going to Mass as coming to God's house. When we go to our friend's house, we put our attention to the host. Ironically, when we go to house of God, we can't keep our attention to Him. We get distracted with our phones, we read the Catholic News or the bulletin, or worse, we fall asleep. The other example given is how we can keep our attention and not distracted for HOURS in movies or in theatres but we are unable to do the same just for an hour in Church. These things really make me think hard about my attitude when coming for Mass... Jeez...

By the way, for the past 1 month, I have been going to a new church: Church of Our Lady of Lourdes. There is a 1 PM mass which I think is a very good time to attend because I can eat my lunch/dinner after that and then go home. Since it is during lunch time, the mass is usually not full house so I don't need to squeeze with others. Haha.. Another plus point is that I see other solo mass go-ers too so I don't really feel weird to attend mass alone. Oooh inside is very cooling too and so far, I have yet to fall asleep for any of the mass I attended there.. Well, anything goes for a good mass.

I still have not run out of unusual things on Sundays. Today at Plaza Singapura, when I was looking at the usual toyshops, I actually saw one of the Cisco guy who usually does money collection from my office. I wanted to ask if it was really him but I decided not to since it would be so awkward if it was not him. Haha.. Let's see if I see him again at work this coming week, I will ask him if he was in Plaza Singapura today.

That video is what made me looking for toys again today. Since young I always like Digimon better than Pokemon. I still remembered how I went around to look for the last 2 VCD (yes, it was still VCD era) of the first series because the last few episodes were very touching T_T I am so happy if they decide to continue Digimon. This news excites me more than a remake of Sailor Moon. Lol.. With this, there is also news that Megahouse will be releasing G.E.M figures of Takeru and Hikari! Damn it! I decided to skip Taichi and Yamato, despite both, Agumon, and Gabumon looking absolutely adorable, because of the small 1/10 size and there was no news that they will include more characters. Now that there are more characters, Taichi and Yamato are sold out!! Grrraaaah!! I hope they will do a re-release.. And I can't wait for my favourite digimon: Gomamon (not a fan of Joe or Gomamon's evolved states)

If there is a plushie of you, I will definitely have you as my bedmate, Gomamon! Lol