when mr lim walked past..

when mr lim walked past, HC, mich & me were having peanut pancakes at pearlyn's table. the moment i heard and saw him, HC and me ducked behind the cubicle partition wall and kept the pancake in its box. this immediate action left mich wondering what was happening and our secretary just could not stop laughing.

boy, just imagine the impact it had, when mr lim walked past..

china-szechuan earthquake 2008

who would have thought that something this terrible will happen.. i mean, china had her fair share of misfortune since the start of the year, with sandstorms to cold drifts to riots in tibets, to unsuccessful pre-olympics activities.. and right after myanmar got hit by a cyclone, szechuan got hit by an earthquake and i was totally clueless of it, till i got home late on monday evening..

at that instant, i was just lost for words.. i mean, it was a place, which i have visited twice in a period of 6 months and now, the whole place is in ruins.. it's just pretty shocking and unbelievable.. i was just lost for words..


this is perhaps the one and only shot i've got of wenchuan county during my trip in november, whereby everything was still in place.. with its buildings and even a well and safe dam.. but now some of the buildings are gone and there are hayline cracks in the dam wall..

i finally understood what sean meant, when he said that it wrenched your heart to see the buildings, that you were once familiar with, go down in ruins.. and to see the lives of the ppl living in the affected areas seriously changed..

even as the rescuers race against time to search for survivors and occassionally, with stories of hope and love surfacing up in the news, the question that remains after everything is.. what's next? what about those left behind?

it really wrenches me to see the photos on the newspapers and on online news pages.. but somehow i don't exactly feel the same way towards myanmar, though it needs equal, if not more help and attention.. maybe it's because i've never been to myanmar?? maybe it's because i do not know anyone there?? maybe it's just not a place where my heart is directed to??

with each natural disaster striking many countries, the number of closet dreams i have grow as well.. but like pearlyn said, i will most probably give all those ard me a heart attack, if i do truly embark on anyone of them.. but if i really do embark on one, there will be so much planning required and so much to prepare for..

the only thing that we can do now, is to pray for both nations.. there are so much uncertainty and so much pain, that perhaps, time can't even heal any of it.. but we can only pray that the Lord works in this time and He is the only one that can give hope and peace to all affected.. perhaps it's easy for me to say this now, coz it's not affecting me directly.. but when all else fails, God is still the one constant and He is the only one that can save..

the bucket list..

not been watching much movies, although i watched horton hears a who and the leap years, but it was the bucket list, which i really wanted to watch.. what's more? throw in 2 top-notch actors playing counterparts to each other, although they are 100% straight.. but it's just so nice.. and man, it makes you realised that with money, you can do all things too.. and man, seeing all those places they went to, in order to fulfill the 'bucket list', it made me wanna go travel even more..

anyway, the bucket list actually talks about the last years of a person.. and this statement narrated by morgan freeman stayed with me.. quoting almost correctly.. of all the ppl in the world, 95% of them do not wish to know when they will leave this earth, while 5% wish to know.. i belonged to the 5%, however after knowing how much time i've got left in this world, i finally understood why ppl do not want to know.. it just caught me right there..


and then, this will lead on to the rest of my post.. and i never meant for the picture to be this happy, coz when i was thinking about how to phrase this post.. it was never exactly meant to be happy..

when i saw morgan freeman writing on the yellow notepad paper, it reminded me at once, of those papers that we used to pass ard in class in our senior year, whereby you write one good sentence about the person, who's name is on the paper..

honestly, how will each of our lives match up at the end of the day.. do we look back and mark more ticks on our bucket list as we proceed on in life? or to realise that there are minimal or no ticks on the list.. and what do we invest in as well?? trying to earn more out of the financial market or to invest in tangible things, without any monetary tag placed on them?

lately been hearing and seeing things, which i honestly wished that i can be oblivious to and pretend that they do not exist.. if everything is cyclical, is this time really my turn.. it has come to a point, whereby escapism is honestly no longer the way out, coz what is really happening is that i want to cheat time..

if you are thinking that i've gone sick, in every aspect of the word, i haven't.. see, you all can't get rid of me yet!! hahahaha!! but rather just thinking of the 'what-ifs'.. so what do i want my 'bucket list' to be? a list full of long-term investments.. tiring and i may not even live to see their returns.. a long list with many places to travel to.. a long list of food to eat and try!!

at the end of the day, i want my 'bucket list' to be filled with many ticks and zero undone items.. at the end of the day, i want to be as happy as the picture above, whereby i can look in to the bucket and see it completely empty, coz i have completed all that i wanted to do.. and it will be a list worth living it out for..

what makes up a food critique..

so what makes up a food critique?? some established name of a food critic.. some nice restaurant/ cafe.. and a list of criteria for the place to be rated against.. and the criteria which i am listing below is actually taken from hungrygowhere.com..

honestly, if i could and i can, i am really interested in being a free-lancing part-time food critic.. even if i have to do it for free, coz let's put it this way, just like all my friends said, i live to eat and not eat to live..

so the one and most necessary thing that has to be critiqued upon is the quality and quantity of the food.. having read minimal serious food reviews, i would like to write it my own style.. if possible, i would mention about the possible ingredients that were used.. the smells that were brought out.. the tastes that were left after consumption.. and in times like these, i really do wish that i know how to cook and the smells of each additive..

the next criteria is ambience.. and look who's kidding who!! without the perfect ambience, it can make or break a situation.. be it a business gathering or a romantic first date.. alfresco/ waterfront dining will definitely help to create the perfect setting required for a first date.. people-watching or noisy/vibrant atmospheres can be given a miss.. but if there is ever a need to rate a starbucks cafe, people-watching will definitely be a must for me..

value.. a huge factor esp when trying to decide if you will want to return to the eating place again.. is the food/ ambience worth the money you have invested in?? there will be moments whereby one's experience is totally not worth the price paid, either due to the variety of food served or perhaps, the environment and surroundings which the whole outing was done under..

lastly, it's all about service.. and this is the only criteria, whereby human-touch is all important.. terrible service will leave patrons a bad impression and there goes another unhappy customer.. excellent service brings about a good impression and may even be the saving grace for a restaurant as well!! and nowadays, when everything speaks about personal touch, this is the only aspect of the whole eating experience, whereby personal touch can be injected into.. this is esp. so for sunny singapore, for the govt is promoting the 'Going the Extra Mile' campaign..

i sound like a professional but am actually far from it.. ppl who do food critiques, have their woes of this lifestyle as well.. but then again, the grass is perpetually greener on the other side.. when you can't have it, that's when something is most desirable.. but when you actually have it, it may beg to differ.. similarly, the same principle is applied to food.. =)

yet another year..

and it's yet another year.. when it seemed not too long ago that the year 2007 had just started.. so a quick recall of the year gone past..

sometime back, i was prancing around in lab trying to finish up my fyp in january, taking care of my fish tank.. then it suddenly zoomed to march, towards the poster presentation/ marketing project/ HR pull-hair sessions.. exams suddenly came in april, in the midst of planning for my graduation trip to china.. and lo and behold, i was standing on the great wall of china in may.. followed by a hat-throwing session in july.. attended the 1st wedding of folks from my jc bunch of friends.. returned to china in nov, just to lose stuff on the trip =(.. and finally, hitting the end of 2007..

hmm.. feeling a little weird on how to conclude 2007, coz to me, life just goes on.. year after year, day after day.. i didn't cross into 2008 the way i wanted it to be, but it was just quiet and boring.. which may be needed for the upcoming busy weekend, which concluded yesterday evening.. but anyway, i still need my conclusion for 2007..

i learnt that i'm hyperactive and required to be on a continual move at all times.. at least during my waking hours and this may or may not be a good thing.. i learnt that i'm really bad with my technical knowledge and i don't bother questioning 'why', unless i'm really stuck.. i learnt that perhaps i value my friends more than the things that truly mattered to me.. and one sentence that perhaps sums me up, i am more of the world than storing up treasures that last..

2007 was definitely not a contented year.. for both a worldly scale, as well as a godly scale.. i saw many things that i wanted to have, wanted to achieve but the year ended with little achievements and with many things still sitting in the pits.. and most of the time, i just spent it eating and making merry..

so how will this affect me in the new year? will i just continue on with my present lifestyle and let myself just move along with the flow of events? or will i take courage and jump out of the box and do something about the whole situation? but before i can even jump out, there is something that i need to right, which is something that i told myself year after year that i'll right.. but i never did..

and after reading all that i've written, it seemed like i'm quite a goner with no future.. but this little thing that lurking in the background called 'HOPE', really gave me a mini-boost for the new year.. that no matter how bad situations can get, no matter how badly murphy tries to get one down.. there is still hope and that things will pick up.. it's a test of how much FAITH one has as well.. to last it through or to throw in the towel.. GRACE is there to give continual chances and i should just stop exploiting this grace but do something.. and start doing something.. and not to let what i've learnt over the weekend to be put to waste as well..

so life goes on.. it definitely looks like an endless tunnel to me now.. but i'm gonna put this down into words here and say, i will and gonna try to make things work.. and investing in the right things.. easy to say, difficult to achieve but i must make something out of year 2008..

so no fixed resolutions but i just want to accomplish as much as possible in this year.. period.. =)