Grandma

Got a call from Mum in the morning (technically, its yesterday's morning) that Grandma passed away. ...didn't know how to react... went to work as usual....cos the wake will start tomorrow and there's nothing much I can help, for now.

I think the sadness hasn't kick in yet...

...and it's juz one day before Jackson's 1st anniversary...

She led a pretty hard life... though in the early days, our family was considered rather wealthy. Mostly b'cos she's the second of the 2 wives my grandfather has. ..but our generation never considered her inferior in any ways.. in fact, we tend to prefer her to the 1st :P...

She had contributed most part of her life to the family...getting married at a young age... and before she can relax and enjoy life after all her children and grandchildren get a hang of themselves in life...illness struck and never really got better, from wheelchair-bounded to bed ridden...all in all about 10years of struggle... She's a great fighter...

Picture shows me and her back in our family's semi-d @ Changi....memories, memories.. Rest in peace, Grandma.

Dip show flashback...

Edmund handed me this picture the other day... one of pic from the photo stack which Jackson had kept and left in the office. Brings back memories... That was during our dip show back in 1997. I didn't even remember taking this photo with him... then again, I do remember back then ah bui was the one always snapping away with his aunt's camera...so not so surprised that he had those photos, which he didn't share AGAIN!

Anyway, those of you who wants your copy/copies of photos taken with or by jackson, go collect them from Edmund.

10% luck, 90% hardwork

2 lucky bastard became millionaires at 7pm today.... to be exact S$1,479,104 each.

And its not me...

Not surprised...cos I'm never the lucky type... most of my life is hard work, hard work and more hard work... so I always get the sense of satisfaction when I get things done or receive my fair share of reward - that's how I always console myself.

Getting more and more busy nowadays... had to worked on weekends and been leaving office only at the midnight hour... only on the excuse that i din drive and had to catch the last train. Even at this hour (it reads 2am on my clock), i'm waiting to collect samples from Khim... thus a bit of time to blog. I'm keeping a positive mind that all these suffering will reward me someday, dunno when, but that day will come.... got to hang on... it's a path I chose, and I believe I can do it. That's my religion...hahaha...

Looking forward to Monday's TOTO... how much am I betting on it? My 10% luck, of cos....

BBQ @ Jason's in-laws place

This was last week... Yup, yet another successful gathering organised by Jason & Merissa. This time was a BBQ Merissa's parents' place... They were house-sitting and conveniently use the place for the event. I reckon it's Jason's idea - not his place and still have a maid to do the prep and clean ups... typical of him...haha..

I was there late cos I was at SGH visiting my godma - who's doing fine. Anyway, I was still able to catch everyone when I reached. The response for this round was good... mostly managed to turn up. Too bad for Jianyuan & Elisa who had to attend a wedding dinner, and Leo & Grace who went over to Beijing. Anyway, Leonard & Grace were never really committed to join the group... not a big lost... haa.... Was suprised to see one unusual member - Eugene Seah... Haven't seen him since, hmmm... the days in Singapore Poly...?? I think so... That's like 15 years ago?! Though I'd heard some news about him over the past few years - he's doing well with his family biz, staying the same EC as Leo & Grace at The Eden, and have biz dealings with Christopher and Kwan Wei. There was a bit of awkwardness when we acknowledged each other... and I didn't really have much to chat with him... That typical 'lost-of-words' manner of mine surfaced once again... plus my DEFAULT unfriendly look wasn't helping the situation. Maybe we haven't really warmed up after all those years... Well, don't get me wrong - he's a nice person, I must say, just that we're weren't really THAT close since the beginning, though we were classmates, band-mates, poly-mates and he's staying so close to Leonard. Anyway, he got to leave early, so I guess we'll have to leave the catching up till god knows when again.

Thanks to Chris that we get some pictures to keep on this gathering... I guess as we grow older, we tend to appreciate the time spent with our good old friends even more. .. and it will always put a smile in all of us whenever we look back at these moments. A BIG THANK YOU to the organisers, J&M, and Chris as the camera-man.

Pickerton Syndrome

Adapted from From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "The Pinkerton Syndrome is a derogatory Singaporean term describing the tendency of some local Asians who tend to consider Caucasians superior, usually having a bias towards favouring Caucasians over locals."

How true... an official term for that explains the legendary hokkien phrase 'Ang-Moh-Dua-Kee"... and Singaporeans own it! Its specifically labelled as a 'Singaporean term'.

Now you know why:-
- Your ang moh boss is doing so little at work, knows NOTHING, but getting EVERYTHING paid for, not to mention his/her huge pay cheque.
- ang moh gets always gets to be part of the management.
- ang moh wearing singlet and berms can get better service than u in shirt and pants when shopping in boutique or restaurants
- when ang moh speaks, they always gets to finish their sentences and always gets to interrupt anyone they likes.
- (some) locals will instantaneously switch to an 'out-to-impress-accent' when speaking to ang moh,
- no matter how fat/ugly/disgusting/short/hairless/smelly/etc. an ang moh guy is, some SPGs will still want to be with him.

Why?... it's just how we're brought up to be in this little island.

Life is already tough just trying to please your own country men...

Support your local heroes!

New Year, New Year...

I've been too lazy to fill in my blog since the new year started. Well, part of it is pure laziness and part of it was also due to work. I know haven't reflected back on the past year, but the fact is, I hated the year 2007. All I want to say is - I'm glad 2007 is over.

2008 has so far been good to me.. and I'm looking forward to a even better start after this long CNY break... which I'll be back to work tomorrow. Ha... we shifted our seats in office on CNY eve...which according to reliable 'fengshui' sources... I'm supposedly facing the god of happiness while Naa faces the god of fortune. Let see how things goes from here!

29 Dec

It's Jackson's Birthday.

Only difference is that he's not physically here to celebrate with us this year...and the years to come. It has been 8 months now since he left us for the pearly gates, but we've definitely not forgotten about his big day.

The day started early, with us gathering at Balestier for Bak Kut Teh. Quite a handful turned up, or should I say the usual bunch - Josh, Jason, Edmund, Raymond, Lim CK, Jenn, and of course, Joyce and myself. After breakfast, we visited him at his 'penthouse unit' at St. Michael's Church, where Chris Lim was already waiting when we reached.

Deep inside, I can really feel that everyone misses him a lot.. though we were mostly still joking and laughing away on the outside. I was joking about how Ah Buee dislikes pork, and our pungent smell from our pre-visit breakfast will capture his notice on our arrival... Well, one thing for sure, we all know he'll want us to stay as what we were before - fun and some what notorious...

The visit was brief... we went on separate ways after that while a few of us went to get the stuff for steamboat at my place in the evening. This steamboat thingy is our tradition that happens annually around X'mas period, usually at Josh's place. It started because the bunch of us just simply refuse to give in to expensive and commercialized X'mas meals...haha.

The crowd was just nice for the steamboat session... It was nice to have Bernardine (Ah Buee's girlfriend) to join us... I'm thinking.. maybe it's ah buee's will, cos Chris coincidentally bump into her when he visited him at the church in late afternoon, and invited her over. But we weren't so lucky in the 4D we bought that day(ah buee's 'unit no.'), obivously he didn't supported the idea.

Josh bought a cake to celebrate his birthday, with the word 'Happy 32 Jack'...We all cut the cake together, since he's not here. Ah Buee always buys us cakes for our birthdays before... its only right for us to get it for him now. Just hope that he didn't mind its not from Prego.

Happy Birthday, my friend!