Happy April Fool's Day

There are several explanations for the origin of April Fools' Day, but here is the most plausible one. April 1st was once New Year's Day in France. In 1582, Pope Gregory declared the adoption of his Gregorian calendar to replace the Julian calendar and New Year's Day was officially changed to January 1st. It took awhile for everyone in France to hear the news of this major change and others obstinately refused to accept the new calendar, so a lot of people continued to celebrate New Year's Day on the first of April – earning them the name April fools. The April fools were subjected to ridicule and practical jokes and the tradition was born. The butts of these pranks were first called poisson d'avril or April fish because a young naive fish is easily caught. A common practice was to hook a paper fish on the back of someone as a joke. This evolved over time and a custom of prank-playing continues on the first day of April.

ITP Ending

My internship is ending with the company. Soon i will be leaving the life of a carefree student and enter the world of military training. My partner is still sick after a day's rest at home. I guess he will be coming back soon. I have been covering up for him for so many days. I am almost out of breath. Boss ask me to do this. Boss Wife kept adding to my to-do pile. Furthermore, the CRM system we are using are having lag problems. When it lags, my working speed drops drastically. Starting to hate the system. Its okie... A few days more and i am out of this punishment. Anyway, Boss agreed to buy us lunch when we leave the office. Hope it is not a simple lunch at the nearby food centre.

Another quake, another few thousands lives have just passed on. Natural disasters are such massive WMDs. A huge quake and waves crushed an entire island of buildings and structures. Only one thing it proves... If we do not have warning systems or ways to communicate fast, we would always be victims of disasters. I always remember watching the movie, 'The Day After Tomorrow'. A very good movie to demostrate the power of nature. Nothing can help if nature decides to go crazy. The previous quake had almost 300,000 lives gone and millions affected. A total of two million volunteers went in to help and donation of almost 10 billion dollars. Would this quake have any volunteers and donations? I hope so... 10% of what is given from the last quake would definitely help the affected victims. But it would always be a dream for the victims...

Not another quake...

The Weekends

After a long break, i realise that i have rested too much and fallen ill. I still can walk and run, jump and bounce. It is this tiny little inflamation in my throat. Causing me quite a difficult time when i swallow things. I also broke record for the biggest item spent. Well, not the biggest in terms of money state. I swiped my card for a $400 new phone and accessories. Well... Sometimes you just can't say no to an old friend. He charge so much lower than what i can get from the service provider. If i get the phone from the provider, i guess i would not be bring home all these accessories.

Realise that having a camera phone is just something extra. It is like a perk that you get to use but you do not need it. I like taking photos. If i were given a choice to venture into a new hobby, i would most definitely try out photograhpy. I like taking photos, just that the hobby is too expensive to maintain. Cameras, developing and the ever so expensive accessories. I hope one day i can be like those photograhers in National Geograhic Channel. Taking photos of the streets of Cairo, the wilderness of the Savanna and the lush greenery of Crystal Islands. Really love these wonderful settings...

Next target: Camera...

Direction of Life

Do you know your direction of life? When i mean direction, i do not mean the goals in your life. Goals are too generic. A goal is like a soccer goal post. It is always that big. Just that where are you shooting the ball from. Targets are more specific. Try aiming for the bulls eye on the archery board or the dart board. Im sure it has heighten the odds quite. I shall now share with everyone a simple story i saw on the television one night.

There is this tradition in an asian country. When the elderly is about to pass on, the younger generation will have to carry him/her to the highest place in the village. There the elder one will pass on peacefully. My story is about this young man and his mother. He never saw his father as he abandoned mother and child when he was young. The mother fell sick and it got worse as day pass. One day, the mother tell the son that she is passing on. She knows she cannot make it to another few more days. The son did not like to hear those words but he had to. So the next day, he woke up before the break of dawn. He cooked his mother's favourite dish and also prepare food for the journey to the tip of the highest mountain. He bathed his mother and help her wore the nicest clothes she have. After that, he carried her on his back and the equipment of the journey on his front.

It was his first journey. He did not know the way. There were no tracks, no roads, no markings. His only direction was the highest peak on the mountain. So he eyed his target and continued. Once a while, he would feel a tug towards the back. At the start he felt that it was him getting tired, so the weight at the back would feel heavier. He continued his journey. The tug keep coming and the last few were stronger than the previous few. So when he felt a tug, he took a glance back. What he saw made the son very surprised. The mother was grabbed a couple of branches and dropped them on the floor. He was puzzled as why is she doing this but did not ask his mother. He just kept his sight on the top of the mountain.

As fatigue caught up with him, he stopped for a rest at a nearby tree and gave his mother some water. After the mother finished drinking, he took courage and asked the mother why did she pull off branches and drop them on the ground. His mother took a deep breath and answered. 'The branches are for you. I am not going back home. At the top, i will leave you and continue with my other life. But you need to go home. You need the directions of the place we passed. You will be lost without these directions.'

Hearing this, the son could not help but teared.

Training@Avantus: Day 4

End of my training. Went for half a day as i did not feel so good in the morning. Rested and later met up with my colleagues at the training area. Had lunch with them and went back to the classroom soon after. I did not know what am i doing there actually. It is like being there physically and yet gain nothing except 'experience'. Experience of seeing the making of the software into the final product. So most of the time i just continued to surf the net and check my mails. At the same time took the time to chat with my friend using the windows messenger. The main aim to go there was just to collect the certificate. Without that certificate, i think my boss would kill me with a D grade on my ITP. After that i went back home to rest and freshen up before leaving for home again. This time for a speech training. Learning something that i did not learn at all in schools i studied. The trainer is giving commercial version of such training. Each person he charges $600~$800. I just paid $55 for 1/3 of the entire training. Entertaining and definitely something that i think may benefit me in the future.

'When I got shot, two bullets went through my stomach, liver, spleen, esophagus, left lung and right lung. The doctors and everyone, including me, was sure I was going to die, so we all got ready, and then I didn't do it. But I always wished I had died, and I still wish that, because I could have gotten the whole thing over with. Dying is the most embarrasing thing that can ever happen to you, because someone's got to take care of all your details. You've died and someone's got to take care of the body, make funeral arrangements, pick out the casket and the service and the cemetary and the clothes for you to wear and get someone to style you and do makeup. You'd like to help them, and most of all you'd like to do the whole thing yourself, but you're dead so you can't. Here you've spent your whole life trying to make enough money to take care of yourself so you won't bother anybody else with your problems, and then you wind up dumping the biggest problem ever in somebody else's lap anyway. It's a shame. I never understood why when you died, you didn't just vanish, everything could just keep going on the way it was only you just wouldn't be there. I always thought I'd like my own tombstone to be
blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I'd like it to say "figment."'

Andy Warhol

My feelings exactly as this guy. Put his name of google and you can know him more if you want to.

Training@Avantus: Day Three

Arghz... Now is the programming part of the training. How i damn myself for not brushing up my VB.net skills before entering the course. How would i know it would be so VB intense... Now all i know is copy and paste the solution to the current project. Feel so useless and bored. Staring at all the codings on the screen does not help at all. Now is the self-declared break from all that code staring. It really tires me just to analyze codings. Suddenly felt very impressed at those programmers that code the programs. They are using extremely basic codes to code what we see as a programming language today. If i am to compare the pains i have now with the pains they are having at that time, i guess mine can't even be comparable to them. Now awaiting my colleague to finish up his part and explain to me everything from head to toe.

Training@Avantus: Day One

Today went to OUB Centre, Avatus for a four-day training on MS SharePoint Services. It is a new kind of technology desgined by Microsoft and there are not much experts in this field yet. It was pretty fun. No stress at all. Lessons was boring, it is like practical lessons in school. Lecturer just kept babling on while students just absorb as much as possible. Good thing was this had breaks. Every two hours we had breaks or lunch. Furthermore, coffee was just a few steps away from the classroom. The coffee machine was like a object of pure gold when u just step out of the room for the break. A sip of the heavenly liquid puts you back on track. Arghz... Exxagerate too much again. One thing i realise at the CBD area... Food is damn expensive. A small bowl of noodles cost me $3 and i had to buy bread to suffice my hunger! I really wonder how those ITP students, with the size of my appetite of course, survive there? Or maybe there isn't any other ITP students with my kind of appetite...

I still remember a sentence from the movie Shrek 2. I watched it at least four times, guess i lost count of it. One sentence that the Fairy Godmother said, Happiness is but just a teardrop away. So i questioned the sentence, do you need teardrops to get happiness? Or does it mean that only after having tears than happiness comes? I did not get a good answer from my thoughts. That is because i am a creature with no tears. Not exactly dry like the desert, but i cannot drop tears easily. Tears is my weak link so it is logical that i cannot drop them. But i just do not get it. Do we really need to suffer to have happiness? Happiness always come after tears? For me, i have never experienced tears followed by happiness. Like i said earlier... I can't seem to cry. I think is the lack of the ability to cry has not given me true happiness. If crying or droping tears would give me happiness, i would pay any amount, not only in terms of monetary means, to have the ability. Sometimes it is just so miserable... So miserable...

Tears and Happiness...

Alter Ego

Would you wish to be someone you want to be in this current life? A simple example would be wanting to be a doctor when you are actually a fireman. Something like that... How i wish i had an alter ego. A person leading two lives. Sometimes it is one in day, one in night. Usually people that leads two very different lives are superheroes. But in reality, where are these superheroes? Never to be seen, never to be heard. There are also people that lead different lives and yet are called super villians. So in the end, they are the same kind of people, yet they are categorized differently. So within ourselves, do we lead different lives? I do... I did not realise this until a couple of months ago. When i regretted saying those words. My lifestyle changed, my habbits changed. Using the superheroes as an example, i have a normal life. One that everyone sees and hear about. I have another one that only a few knows about. One that i do not want many to know. This second life serves the purpose of making my normal life more stable. I geuss without this second life, i would explode. So do i categorzied as a superhero or a super villian?

Quote of the Day

Today i chanced upon this quote while reading my favourite series of fantasy story books. This sentence was spoken by one of the important male characters in the story to another female. He was shy and do not dare to open his heart to her. But the female knew his feelings, she just wanted to wait for him. So the day before the male goes to war, he told her this sentence...

What lies behind us and
what lies before us are tiny matters
compared to what lies within us.


I hope anyone who reads this is able to understand the underlying meaning of the quote.

Fitness Test

Today is such a nice day for the fitness test. The wind is blowing... All i need is just a gold award for the fitness test and it would be the icing on the cake!

Project: Tantalus

You can never find this word in the dictionary. This word is the name of the most powerful Greek God's son. He is Zeus's son, King Tantalus. His story is a simple yet easy to understand. Unlike his elder son, Hercules, King Tantalus was wicked and evil in the heart. He was given mortal powers. Powers to lead and control a large kingdom. He led armies and fought wars. He never lost a single battle when he led. When the enemy hear the commander of the force they are facing, they dread the name Tantalus. All people were able to see his crimes but they could do nothing. Men were killed, womena and children were not spared either. Zeus saw it. He was angry but he could not meddle with mortal matters. He so wanted to punish him and prevent such vermin from harming the land anymore. But he just could not touch him. So he sent another god to do the job for him. Someone that could walk the lands of the mortal. He dealt out punishment that no human can ever imagine at that time. No one knows how he looks for if they see him, they never got the chance to tell others. A dark, shadowy figure that is so different from the gods at Mount Olympus. Unlike the rest of the Gods who bathe in the sun, ride on the clouds of Olympus. This god prefer darkness and loneliness. Something that the other gods could never understand. The name of the god, Hades.

One night, Hades walk up to King Tantalus castle. No guards could stop him, for they fell to the ground with just a glance of his face. He strolled his way to Tantalus's room. When he opened the door, King Tantalus was sound asleep like a baby. He was not disturbed by the sound of the door opening. Neither was he aware of another being in the room. So Hades thought of a better way to wake him up. Hades entered his dream and changed the happy dreams he had into a nightmare. One nightmare that shook King Tantalus so hard, he screamed and awaken with the face of Hades infront of him. Hades told him about the punishment he will be dealt with. A torment so painful, that did not dealt any pain to his physical body. That night, made King Tantalus a totally changed man.

King Tantalus was condemned to join Hades in Hell. He was given a beautiful prison. Where budding trees were, rivers flow and birds flew everywhere. Green grass grew as far as the eye can see. The sun was shining brightly and the air was cool. King Tantalus thought Hell was not so bad after all. He got such beautiful place to spend the rest of his life in. He walked towards a tree with apples hanging within arm's reach. As he reach for the apple, the branches receded. He tried again and reach higher for it, the branch went up higher. Frustrated, he chose another apple. That one too receded. He was mad. Very frustrated and mad. Since apples were not able to be eaten, a simple drink would be good. He moved from the apple tree to the calm, flowing river by the side. He was doubtful that the water might recede when he stepped in. As his feet touch the water, nothing happened. He felt the cool water flowing along the skin of his feet. As he reach down to drink the water, the water receded. He could not drink a single mouth of water. Now he is beginning to feel the punishment of Hades. Hades punishment was not that light. The punishment was not just allowing King Tantalus to starve. King Tantalus never starved. The need to eat was not needed as his soul was trapped in Hell. But he could not taste the sweet apples or fruits surrounding him nor the cooling water gushing pass the green pastures. This was the torment that Hades has set for him. This was the punishment deemed for Zeus's wicked son.

OT!! Again?!?!

Haizz... OT again... Why my partner so good... Kept taking leave and leaving me alone in the office clearing up all the odd jobs the company have. Now i know how it feels to handle two persons job as one. Throwing everything at me, expecting me to perform like i can take it easily. I think the boss must understand that i do have much time with the company so he take the chance to flood me with jobs. Damn... Kept doing things that stop me from completing my current tasks. It is like a cup with a dripping hole at the bottom. No matter how fast the drip is, it is always kept filled to the brim. Well... I am coping well currently. Maybe show a few signs that i am stressed out and overwhelmed. Maybe then he will think twice about assigning more tasks to me. Now i believe i have a new meaning to the word Office.

Office/School - A place where you escape from the stressful life you lead at the place you call home.

Powerful eh??

Movie Quote: Hitch

This is a sentence that is taken from the script of Albert Brennaman(i think it is spelt like this...) from the movie Hitch. Like all good movies, i will always pick the best line i think that gave me the biggest impact. But it is not 100% accurate... I try to be as accurate as possible.


Do you know the feeling of hopelessness when you wake up every morning?

Do you know the feeling of seeing and hoping the woman of your dreams being happy and finding happiness when you wake up every morning?

And what hurts most is that I am not the one providing the happiness for her...

Do you know the feeling...

Albert Brennaman, Hitch

It's Okie!!

Yes! Blogger is up and running!!

New Business Plan

What a day... Working at such a small company strength means everyone got to multi-task. So if i did my job a little sloppy, you cannot blame me. I have to pick up calls, read and reply emails(this require brain power), do the work you gave me constantly and also keep track with the consultants on their unfinished business. What do you think i am?? I am paid just $400 and you expect me to do so much. Hire some A level student to do these. I am a trained professional, give me something more worth to do. When Boss said he was signing up classes for us, i was thinking at least i was taking something out of this ITP. But at the end of the day, the Boss gave us a sad news. He wanted to enroll three of his staff in. What happens is that the maximum a company can send in is two. Meaning if the permanent staff cannot get a seat, one of us is going to sacrifice our seat and give it to him. After hearing this, both my partner and i were rather confused. One point you sign us up for classes. Next, you are opting one of us out. What is the meaning of this... But since he is the boss, i dare not show any negativeness out. As i grabbed my coffee, i realise that we are just mere temp staff to tide over the lack of staff. The next batch of poly students are coming for their internship. NP students are coming for two months and will meet the next batch of SP students. Man... The NP students minimum pay is $450. My school is the oldest school, so less pay?

Today as i was eating lunch, something jolt into my mind. I always wanted to start my own business. It is my dream to start out something small, venture into the unknown and learn something from it. I have been sucessful once. But it brought me alot of worries as i may need more help. My last business rolled in a couple of bucks and i sold it when it was in the high period. I really cannot imagine holding a cheque for a simple startup. I do not know how is that man doing, but i do hope he had a great time like me. One thing i have learnt in a business is that you must be ready to make sacrifices. To reap in the big bills, you must let go the small ones. When you have learnt to let go, it is time to learn how to use it. It is exactly the same as gambling. You got to see where the risk is. No point investing all your money if you do not see the risks. But be warned. The bigger the returns, the higher the risks. When you think you have enough, bail out soon so that it won't bog you down. If the person manage to get more money than you, be happy for him. If he loses money and is jealous of you. Well, stare at his sorry face and laugh the hell off. Opps, that was not intentional.

Finding business partners...

Authors of Life

Just could not go to sleep... Thought writing my ghost story would sent me to dreamland. Now i am still finding that ticket to dreamland. As i write my story, characters in it gain more and more exposure. Readers will get to know how they are like, their personality and how they look. By the descriptive power of words, one is able to imagine the character out. How i wish i could be one character in a story. I do not need to be the main character, but just a simple character would be fine. As a story character, you do not need to find yourself. The author gives you what he wants. He choose what you need to know, how you look like and why you are created. You do not need to bother what happens next as it is already chosen. Good or bad, you have to accept it. Be it a tall, charming prince on a white horse or a young, beautiful lady with long locks of hair and silky smooth skin. All these characters are given what they need to survive in the story. Given what they need to do, need to know, need to say and more. All are given to them. Mere puppets to tell the tale of the author. In the story world, the author is God. He determines who lives, who dies. Who is rich, who is poor. Who will be happy, who will be sad. Thinking like this... Do you think we are authors of our own lives? We determine who we look like, how we look at other people. We determine whether we are to be rich or poor. We determine ourselves to be happy or sad. We are actually writing a story. Our personal story. Friends, family, teachers, anyone that you meet is a character in your story. You are the main character. You are the author. You have the highest power and the most attention paid to in a story. Make it short, make it long. Make it happy or sad. Have it be a mystery or a comedy to people who read it. It is up to you. You make the choice. Be the author of your life.

Start writing today...

Truth Hurts

Yes. Truth hurts... In life, all of us can accept the truth. But it is always that truth is packaged together with pain. Why is this so? Till date i can never find an explanation to this. No matter how you see it, the truth always hurts. Lies are what we like. So we kept telling lies to others and ourselves, training everyday to perfect the art of lying. In the end, we are perfect at the art of lying. We are masters of the skill. Yet, this skill is only superficial. It only lasts that period of time. We do not realise that lies not only makes us happy for that period of time, it also heightens the pain that comes with truth. The bigger the lie we say, the bigger the package of pain it comes with truth. So i ask a question... Why are we perfecting this skill? Why are we doing this that has such a big effect in our lives? Why do we want to cheat ourselves and at the end cause so much pain to ourselves? All these questions can be answered by a single answer. An answer i took so long just to understant the true meaning. Each and every lie we have said and heard is all beacuse of this answer. It is because we are afraid. We are timid, weak and feeble. It is because the pain that, comes with truth, is so overwhelming that we do not want to experience it. So we just took the easy way and lied. By lying, we see ourselves as overcoming this fear. We all know deep inside that this 'overcoming' is temporary. But to keep it aside for the momment and not experience it now, makes us human.

Truth Really Hurts...

The Power of One

I had a tiring day. Woke up early to attend an event. Business Objects event. It was quite a grand event. An estimated attendence of almost 300. The event was held at a grand hotel so the service and food were of a certain standard. My colleagues and i had a good cuppa before going into the convention hall for the talk. It was boring. Real boring. I almost fell asleep. The entire event lasted only two hours and in-between had a coffee break. Thanks to the coffee break, i did not fell asleep in the room. When the event ended, we went over to Sim Lim square to collect a computer part that my Boss had bought. The building was located about two blocks away from the train station. We alighted at the train station to find ourselves trapped. It was raining heavily. In the end, we took on the rain and took shelter whenever we can. Although the entire journey was short, it was a memorable one. Wearing formal and getting wet, my first in my life. After we paid for the part, we went to have our lunch. With filled stomachs, we reluctantly went back to the office to continue our day. When i arrived at the office, the in-tray for tasks to do were piled up really high. Just imagine, i took 30mins just to read emails and another 45mins to think of a reply and reply those that require my attention. That is how tasked heavy we are. At the end of the day, i was exhausted. But thanks to the good coffee in the morning, the morning part was still pretty good.

What is exactly the power of one? When i mean the power of one, i do not mean that one is a weak number. In quantity, one maybe a good thing. One can be a bad thing too. Of course, in any competition, the lesser the number the more disadvantage you have. But when i mean one, i meant what one person can do. The power of just one. A pessimist will see one as the last digit of the number scale. An optimist will see one as the starting point of everything. Everyone knows the classic story of Journey to the West. The monk in the story said this sentence, 'A journey of a thousand steps, starts out with the first.' One is something that you can never escape. An impact like the fall of the WTC in NYC. One simple act, it made the world more aware of a new kind of global enemy. You do not need a force of millions to conquer the entire world. All you need is just one weapon. If a person is able to make the entire out of power for one day. Think, how many people would he have killed by just making that one choice. It is just one sentence that made me regret deeply. One sentence that was typed out. One sentence that made such a deep regret that i still cannot get overit. That is the power i am talking about. The power of just one.

Mighty Number One...

Spying for company

I told my boss that my dad's company is using one of the products that we are selling. A rival company is taking up the project. He just called me over to his desk and sent me out of the company and back to my dad's place. So i hailed a cab and went to my dad's place. I met up with the consultants and the business manager soon after. My boss told me to take as much information as possible so they can know more about their strategy. I posed lots of questions to them. Hope they do not find me a nuisance. They were patient enough to go through an example for my mum and her workers to let them have a taste of what is yet to come. They will be coming for the next three days. I doubt my boss can allow me to leave the office for the next three days. But i have left my informant, my mum, to collect all the data and documents. She do not mind sharing it with my boss. Well... Maybe one day they can work together.

I could not sleep last night. I do not know why but my mind was wide awake. It really bothers me alot when i cannot go to sleep when i am suppose to. Not having enough sleep is optional but not sleeping when i am suppose really annoys me. So i just close my eyes and hope i can drift off to sleep. Tossed and turn, but to no avail. In the end, i took the time to think of writing a story. It came to mind that horror movies are always about one creepy 'person'. So i decided on writing one where the creepies are more than one. I shall not reveal too much but i think this story may put a chill down your spine. Thinking of the plot and how the victims die gave me a scare. Lastly, i hope this would be a miricle. One day somebody will take my story and make it into a movie. I would be a famous screenplay writer. HAHAHA... But i guess that will only happen in my dreams. If i can drift off to sleep fast enough.

Cure my amnesia...