Getting off the EY interstate

SM – who got off the table and wrote over every permanent-inked word on that whiteboard
DS – who said “learn, learn, learn” and “manage, manage, manage”
CO – who taught me to laugh at myself
DJS – who has an impact like no other, relating the theory of the four faces
GL – who closed the door and let me cry when I was not much but a girl hurt
RR – whose first response to bad news is often laughter
My teams and co-workers – with whom I cracked coconuts, jumped puddles, watched strung poultry, walked minefields, sang songs of high hopes and love after death, shopped, sunned, fished, wined and boozed, reheated and ate out with. Travelled and grew with.

There will never be another time like this.

Click and Snap

Sitting on your sister’s bed in a new red knit dress, eating refried fish with soy sauce on a rainy Sunday evening.

Click.

The streetlamp light through the tree outside the house where you’re having your first barbeque party.

Lying on your stomach on the roof a car, talking hopes and dreams with a buddy like only two 18 year olds can.

The amazing number of stars you can see from an oil palm plantation at night.

Being spun around in a shopping cart on New Year’s Eve by your best mates.

I have a thing about taking mental snapshots for moments significant in a way that you know but sometimes can’t describe. Absorb the scene, let it sink through your eyes, hold it in your breath for a moment…and snap.

I like to believe that at the end of things, the road, whatever, apart from that bit where you finally find out how it all works out, there will also be a re-run of these pictures. Should be a good show.

Btw, can you believe it's March already?

Happy Chinese New Year!

It's 2008 - it tastes of promise. And like every Chinese New Year in Malaysia it's sweltering as well, something to do with the soltices and equinoxes which I will go figure out at some point.

This year we get 4 restful days to eat, drink, be merry and try to lose weight after. And for those of you like me who get back to the grind tomorrow already, there was a nice Gibran passage on work which I meant to quote but no longer seems to make sense on a lazy Sunday afternoon like this.

Suffice to say good luck, good health and every happiness this Chinese New Year.

Gong Hei Fatt Choy!

Teabagger nights

It's 3am and I am hungry. Caffienated with a headache hinting at my right temple, but it's an all-good kind of night.

Annual dinner tomorrow! My third in five years. Let's hope they don't give out last year's door gifts as lucky draw prizes again.

Bangkok, Thailand.

Suvarnabumi Airport. Such an enchanting name. The smog – not so enchanting. The shopping – very enticing. The local charm – a little cloying.

Here’s the bit that’s priceless. The feeling you get, on a weekday morning, on your own at a train station, in a foreign land, headed towards nothing but possibilities of enjoying yourself for the day. When everyone around you is going to work. Makes me literally float around and laugh in annoying lilting tones.

Something else memorable – sitting in my first guesthouse room (Pranee Building, Soi Kasem San 1) bawling over pages of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In the middle of the night for fear of a) bad hair from going to bed with wet hair and b) things that go bump in guesthouse nights.

The Day I Got Really Clever

I recognized that I’d saw it coming.
I said the things I should have never stopped myself from saying.
I exposed you.
Despite not knowing what I would see.
I rolled with my gut. I reel from it still.
I was full of bravado, and I am spent from it still.
I hurt myself.
Maybe, I broke you too.
We were headed there anyway.
But no one deserves to be hurt in that way.
We both chose.
I’m learning still.
I saw what I needed.
But I’m reeling still.

"While your parents are alive, you should not go too far afield in your travels. If you do, your whereabouts should always be known"

Like I said, I’m reading Confucius. I did expect to, and found some antiquated sayings, but was also pleasantly surprised to see that the Master was….

a decent relationship advice-giver…

The Master said “In his errors a man is true to type. Observe the errors and you will know the man”.

pretty damn funny…

Chi Wen always thought three times before taking action. When the Master was told of this, he commented “Twice is quite enough”.

a romantic...

The Master commented, “He did not really think of her. If he did, there is no such thing as being far away”.

downright relevant…

The Master said “ It is rare for a man to miss the mark through holding on to essentials”.

“To attack a task from the wrong end can do nothing but harm”.

And for better or worse pivotal, to the core of the Chinese judgment and mentality:

The Master said, “It is rare, indeed, for a man with cunning words and an ingratiating face to be benevolent”.

Did your parents, or even you ever look at someone for the first time, and go "chan hai yong suei lor" or "that man's face is kan tou sei"?
Yea, that makes two of us.