Callie’s Scattered Parts

If you amputate my leg, where is Callie? Is Callie in the severed leg or is she in the rest of the body?

In recent days, whenever I look at the mirror long enough, tears flow from my eyes. When I see my reflection, I see through and through the eyes that look back at me. The windows to my soul, baring its soul.

There has been so much heartache lately. Intense moments of disappointments and sadness. This happened because I placed so much emphasis on a particular someone to provide me with happiness. So I get upset when I am neglected, misunderstood and unloved by this person.

Human generally cannot be satisfied. When you have someone by your side who loves you, you start to want the rest of the world. You get bored with love, and then you crave for the fun and excitement that comes with frivolity, treading on the danger line and telling yourself you will never cross it. You start to change by being secretive and telling supposed white lies to cover your tracks, and all these no doubt adding on to the novelty of experiencing someone fresh. You tell yourself, all these is nothing, at most - perhaps just a little cheekiness to spice up your life, perhaps an innocent search for a true friend. In reality, you have indeed changed. In return, the essence of true love you once have in your hands, changed too.

What is reality? Reality is as you grow older, finding NEW sincere and true friends get as rare as finding a mermaid in the sea. You don’t want to believe that so you start your search ONLY among the opposite sex, trying to find that (new) one true friend, telling everyone else your actions are as innocent as a newborn child. Nothing can ever be so innocent in your actions yet you lied so much, even YOU believed in your own lies.

You once owned a true friend. Someone who stood by you through your mostly pits, for the past 8 years. Someone who is your friend, advisor and lover all rolled in one. Someone who cared with all her heart and love you in her own special way. But this someone is not enough for you, can never be enough for you - for you need the attention and superficial fun that comes with a truckload of friends to fill your boring days. When such friends flew in times of need, you start to think you need more true friends so you begin fishing for one. Oh! The thrill of finding and developing from scratch, a friendship with that someone who excites you! You have forgotten about your steadfast lover, standing in the corner of your existence, gathering dust and cobwebs. No wonder, when you do cast a glance at her, she no longer makes your heart flutter.

Your steadfast lover has transformed to a mere safety net. A net you know you can fall back on whenever life gets too tough out there. Be reminded, even a safety net can be torn.

You want the best of both worlds! When faced with making the choice between your net and newfound friend of the opposite sex, you chose your net. But you are not happy. You feel restricted, monitored and most importantly, you lost the happiness that was gained from finding your friend. Your heart is now closed and you grew old within the day. You can no longer glance at your lover without that tinge of resentment. You have indeed changed and so did the essence of true love you hold in your hands.

If Callie’s organ of the heart and brain are digged out, where is Callie then? If Callie’s both legs and arms are gone, where is she? Now, chop up her body and smash her head (to bits), WHERE will Callie be???

In the mirror, I look through the eyes that look at me and I see my own flesh rotting, my heart bleeding, my eyes tearing … for I have stood at that corner far too long.

Where is Callie?

Callie lives in an invisible well that stores her mind and emotions. This well overflows with streams of love, kindness and tenderness and it glows and glows with simplicity. This is my soul. All I need is someone who needs not any other but just this soul of mine. I will be his, forever.

Geminians are supposed to be a body of 2 distinct opposites and constantly in endless tortures of internal debates. Not surprising that many Geminians turned schizos. Being a true blue Gemini myself, and mentally living dangerously near the schizo/psycho zone, I realised I am more than 2 opposites. Perhaps, the reason lies in my moon signs (can’t remember, although my dear Jo who calculated my moon signs told me that I have a practical side) that is keeping me sane and safe but it also created more internal struggles and many many more Callies.

Now, there is a Giant in Callie. Her name is Lazybone. She dominates my mind and muscle when it comes to ironing clothes, washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, tidying up Callie’s stuff, and everything else you would associate with the word "chore".  This Lazybone has her own opposite as well. Her name is Ms Hardwork and she is a Hobbit. This two creatures are creating much problems in my daily life in all things mundane that all of us have to deal with on a daily basis.

When at home or at office, and when my thirst gets to an unbearable point, I will drag myself to the water source and if Lazybone is sleeping, Ms Hardwork will make me a nice drink like Hot Honey. However, when Lazybone is awake, I’ll quench my thirst by merely taking a handful of sips from the tap and walking away without any thought of filling up a cup. When dishes are piling up in the sink, Lazybone will say, "aiyah, no need to wash lah, what’s wrong with letting it wait another day, afterall it’s not as if you don’t have clean plates or cups at this moment" and right after this comment, there will be a meek tiny voice that goes " but..but..but.. somebody got to wash it sooner or later and Simon always end up the one doing it …" However, this Ms Hardwork has absolutely no effect on me. Another classic example is the bed. At the point of waking up every morning, Ms Hardwork will be the first to go "fold your quilt and make the bed…" and that wakes up Lazybone  with a rude  punch in the head and she’ll roar " WHY MAKE THE BED?????  WHO IS GOING TO SEE???? IN LESS THAN 16 HOURS, YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE A MESS OF IT ANYWAY!!!!!! DON’T BE STUPID LAH!!!!!"

So, at the face of every "chore", Lazybone and Ms Hardwork go into a discussion. Of course it is not much of a discussion in every sense of the word because it is pretty obvious who wins 99% of the time.

My friends, please forgive me if I ever inconvenienced you in a way that is displayed through leaving the used cup on your dining table, not putting your magazines to where it belonged after I read it, or in any moment that you want to label me "buay zi tong’. My partner, my travel-mates, please forgive me if I don’t do enough of my supposed share of housework or when I leave the toilet floor wet, or make a mess of the hotel room etc etc. I am used to listening to Lazybone that she is now my second nature so much so that most of the time Ms Hardwork fades into oblivion. Do not be mistaken that I am doing it in deliberation, I do not make it a point to go about my life to inconvenience or piss anyone off. I just do not "notice things" 90% of my awake time. When I am told of any specific incident which I should strongly improve, trust me, I try my very very best to engage Ms Hardwork into the picture but please please don’t strike me off your favourite friends’ list in times when I do slack.

I know it is hard, especially for those who have to put up with me, that you have to clean after me. I am LAZY. I CAN’T change. Still, pardon my audacity for asking this, I hope my friends can love me for who I am, and love even Giant Lazybone - she is a gentle giant and totally harmless, really.

On a side note, and for those who don’t know me that well, I hope I don’t give you the impression that I have bad personal hygiene. Even Giant Lazybone is vain and she takes great care to ensure every armpit hair is plucked, my legs are epilated, my body and hair are washed by a nice smelling shower foam and shampoo, and I am definitely pampered by Kenzo-Flower before I go out of the house everyday. Yes, personal vanity is an exception, always.

I cannot stand stupid people. Seriously, idiots within close proximity are extremely fatal. They can drive up your blood pressure, give you migraine and makes you want to pull out your already thinning hair. I am not referring to people who are slow in learning, it is actually those who are not bright, make no effort to learn and think the world of themselves and in the process, irritate not to mention disgust, everybody around them.

Sad but truely, I have a few of such stupid people around me and for some reason (which is not convenient to reveal here), I am unable to rid them from my life. So, I am constantly in contact with them, trying my best to get used to lesser hair and nagging migraine and it is with this group of people that I get to know that among them, having prostitutes as girlfriends seem to be the in thing these days. Why do I say that? Becasuse they have girlfriends who are prostitutes and boy! they are serious about the relationships. Of course, some of them did not work out but they always end up having another serious relationship with some other prostitutes.

When they encounter problems in their relationships, my suffering ear has to bear the trauma of listening to their pathetic stories and they are almost always the same. They have to live with jealousy and compromised male egos and neverending suspicion. My initial kindness of offering sound advice fell on deaf ears and I ended up feeling numb to the same questions over and over again. These people will never get it, they only want to hear what they want to hear. So up to a certain point of time, I just cannot be bothered to talk anymore. Strangely, whenever they have any more BGR problems, they always come to me.

There is a saying, not so sure of its origin, that you can marry a prostitute to be your wife but you cannot allow your wife to be a prostitute. There is some sense in it and I believe that prostitutes, because they are humans too, are fully entitled to true love. In reality, for their whatever reasons, these sex service providers will commonly continue their money-making trade even though they may be involve in a proper relationship. Herein lies the cause of many breakups. I have known guys of tailing their girlfriends, counting the number of men they slept with, checking up on the girl’s mobile phone and even to the extend of curtly asking their girl "How’s your work today?". Such toxic insensitivity from the men, stemming from their inability to cope with their internal imbalance, will inevitably destroy all possible existence of true love between a couple. Breakup, patch back, break up, patch back - it’s a vicious cycle.

What’s the draw of having a prostitute as a girlfriend? Is it their sex skills? Is it their sweetly fine-tuned man-handling tactics? Or is it the damsel-in-distress calling? I really have no idea and honestly I don’t really care. All I want is to hide from stupid people, may them never find me and they can do whatever they want with THEIR LIFE. 

Being a Chinese, it is inevitable that certain traditions, whether influenced by religion or superstition, has crept into the Chinese way of life. From the belief that the colour red is auspicious to black means death, from giving mandarin oranges during Chinese New Year to wearing little square coloured cloths pinned to the sleeve of the deceased’s surviving relatives - we see the many do’s and don’t’s that govern our way of life, that are given as instructions which are not supposed to be questioned.

I come from a typical Teochew family (my dad is Hainanese but since his side of family are all in Malaysia, I have been closer to my maternal grandma) which is moderately enshrouded by such Chinese traditions. Even from a young age, I have no inclination to make a mental note of what is the right thing to do and I often attracted the frown and (sometimes murderous) glare from my mum. However, one thing that delighted me was Buddhism and its many varied interesting believes.

Some pure Buddhists may slam me for the inability to differentiate Taoism and Buddhism but I am relating the way I was brought up, my encounters and experiences, exactly as they are. I remember my mum befriending this lady from the wet market. We all called her "popiah mmm" - popiah aunty because her family makes one of the best popiah skins in Singapore. She is a devotee of Pureland Buddhism - a branch of Buddhism based on a certain sutra and aims to be reborn in Amitabha’s Western Paradise. This Popiah aunty had the roundest cheeks and the kindest eyes and she often came to my house to teach my mum the various sutras and mantras. Months before the Hungry Ghost Festival (which is the whole lunar 7th month), I would be watching alongside my mum and Popiah aunty as they folded prayer papers into the shape of ingots and they would have this huge stacks of yellow paper with little round trimmings and red words printed all over it.  After all the folding was done, they would each hold one piece of this yellow paper and a burning incense stick and with every one complete chant of the "Chao Du" mantra, the red end of the incense would burn a tiny whole on the yellow paper (somewhere in between the red words) until the whole paper was decorated with little holes!!! Hearing the mantra hundreds of thousands of times, I could memorize it in no time. I learned my first mantra - "Chao Du" mantra when I was barely 6  years old.  For the sake of record, it goes like this :

Namo Ah Me  Duo Po Ye, Dor  Ta Jia Tuo Ye, Dor Di Ye Ta, Ah Me Li Dor Po Be, Ah Me Li Dor Sit Dai Po Be, Ah Me Li Dor Be Jia Lan Di, Ah Me Li Dor Be Jia Lan Dor, Jie Me Li Jie Jie Na, Zi Duo Jia Li Suoha.   

This mantra has the ability to reduce bad karma and help the receiver of this mantra to have a better reincarnation. Of course, I didn’t care so much then and was just happy to be able to help them chant and burn little pretty holes on the paper. All this preparation would eventually lead to a display of ritualised offering to the ghosts and at the end, wrapped up in a fasinating bonfire…

When I do a search on google or any other search engine, I came across sites, including forums that speak negatively of True Buddha School (TBS), targeting mainly at its founder Lu Sheng Yen. The most common complaints are that it is a cult, its name "True Buddha" denotes that other Buddhist schools of thought is fake, the sex scandal and the infamous killing speech. Honestly, I am appalled by the extend of ignorance of some people and am genuinely concerned about the intentions of such sites.

I know that most students of TBS has chosen to remain silent in the wake of such verbal attacks, knowing that there are people out there who distort facts or take information out of context to serve their own selfish and even perhaps evil intentions. Who are these people? I have no idea. One thing I am sure is that their inaccurate views are misleading others to develop a veiled opinion of what TBS is. Really, it is a case of the blind leading the blind. How sad!

Despite the explanation of why TBS is named as such, many people still insist on ignoring it and going on about their senseless interpretation on its name. So, let me clarify to the best of my understanding : TRUE Buddha School (TBS) using the word TRUE does not mean that only TBS is TRUE and others are all FAKE. I seriously doubt a peanut can pass through the size of the mental passageway of these people (who actually said such a thing). The Founder, Lu Sheng Yen has mentioned before that all Buddha dharma are equally precious and can lead sentient beings to salvation and hence all dharma that orginates from the Buddha (including all Enlightened Ones) is True - furthermore, in Buddhism, it is understood that all sentient beings has the Buddha nature and thus possess true-ness. The usage of the word True in TBS connotes a deeper universal meaning of dharma, compassion and salvation.

Now, before you Christians, Muslims and believers of other faiths shoot me by mistaking me to say that your religion is fake, hear me out first. In the real spirit of the what the word "true" means in TBS :- Your religion is TRUE as long as your religious teaching encompasses compassion and can genuinely lead you to your desired spiritual liberation/salvation.

On a more serious note, there has been massive discussion on a quote taken from Lu Sheng Yen’s speech. In this quote, it seems as if Lu Sheng Yen is saying that it is alright to kill so as to save someone who is beyond redemption. What bullshit is that? Lu Sheng Yen did not condone killing of lives! He was merely explaining a portion of Padmasambhava’s life, the part where Padmasambhava with the use of magical means killed an entire village of black magic practitioners and then with the use of his deep compassionate powers, cleansed and liberate the souls of these evildoers. Lu Sheng Yen was narrating this very famous story and commenting on the intentions of Padmasambhava. But someone took a particular sentence from Lu Sheng Yen’s speech and made it seem like Lu Sheng Yen is encouraging the act of killing. Worse is there are actually people who believed in such rumours, such distortions of truth. Where has common sense gone to???

So is TBS a cult? What is the definition of cult? If a self proclaimed enlightened man goes about his work of spreading what he believes as the way to the light at the end of tunnel, and in the process encourages his believers to be hardworking in practicing the dharma, be kind to others and shows by example by devoting his life to help others and not demanding any sort of monetary repayment can be defined as a cult leader, then perhaps TBS is a cult and definitely in the same sense, many other so called orthodox religions are also cults.

I have been thinking about writing on this topic for the longest time and yet because I have so much to say, I didn’t know where to begin and hence I procrastinate. Before I start, I have to have my own disclaimer : This is MY blog and what I am going to write about under the category of Religion is my views, my life and my understanding of True Buddha School. Be warn that it will be totally subjective and perhaps not entirely orthodox according to general belief. However, it is not in my intention to propagate my religion. Heck, I don’t even have the slightest wish to convert anyone and so if I may seem offensive in any way, be reminded that you, as the reader, has the choice to stop reading.

The True Buddha School is founded by this guy called Lu Sheng Yen, a taiwanese. He used to be a Christian who upon "forced" by his mum to be a companion while she visited a local Taiwan temple during a festival, encountered some bizzare incidents which eventually led to his conversion to a Buddhist. From that time, he embarked on a spiritual journey of understanding the paranormal, our co-existence with the unseen, the various cults and religions and most importantly, a journey that led to Self Realization, in the Buddhist’s term, Enlightenment. He was already a proficient writer and documented his extraordinary journey in the form of novel - not unlike what most of us are doing, blogging our life.

It was through his books that my mum got to know about him in the late 70’s and early 80’s. When the fame of Lu Sheng Yen spread far and wide beyond the Taiwanese shores due to his ability in solving all sorts of problems for others, many people went to him to request taking refuge in him so that they might learn from him. Not too long after he started to accept disciples, my mum took refuge in him.

When I was a kid, okay, a toddler, I saw spirits. I wasn’t afraid of them and I particularly remember this very tall man (from a child’s perspective of course), wearing all white who would stand beside me and smiled and talked to me while I made "gaga" baby sounds and played with my toys. My mum could leave me alone for hours while she went on with her household chores, often wondering how in the world I was so well entertained with a couple of plastics. She thought I was just an introverted little girl and attempted to fill my world in subsequent years, with more toys. When I was able to talk coherrently, I told her about this man in white but she didn’t take any notice because she assumed it was mere child’s imagination.

In the process of growing up, I was very much engrossed in reading, especially stories of fairies, elves, goblins etc and Enid Blyton made up the bulk. My ability of seeing the spirits became less frequent as I grew older and as I came to understand more of what a ghost actually means to most people. When I was almost 7 years old, exactly one year after my mum took refuge in Lu Sheng Yen, I was sitting at the doorway with my mum beside me. We had a conversation and it went something like this :

Mum - Do you want to be a Buddhist?
Me - I don’t know, what’s good about being a Buddhist?
Mum - It is a good thing to be able to prostrate yourself before a Buddha, being a Buddhist will allow you to understand the mystery of life and death and the path to happiness.
Me - Ok, I want to be a Buddhist ( I was thinking, yes I want to be happy)
Mum - Do you want to take refuge in Lu Sheng Yen just like mummy?
Me - What is take refuge?
Mum - It means acknowledging somebody as your teacher in Buddhism. We call this teacher Guru.
Me - Who is Lu Sheng Yen?
Mum - He is someone who can be a very good Guru to you.
Me - Ok, I want Lu Sheng yen to be my Guru.

Being young, I was not very good at questioning the details and I was very trusting towards my mum, naturally! So that was how I took refuge in Lu Sheng Yen at the age of 7 years old. My mum took care of the rest, like entrusting a fellow Buddhist who was about to go Taiwan to meet Lu Sheng Yen, with my particulars for the processing of my refuge.

The introduction to my own journey with True Buddha School begins here and in later blogs, I shall write about my experiences in greater detail…

The time is 2.45 AM right now, on a friday morning and I am back in my shop wearing pyjamas and having my face just cleansed. No, it’s not because of some domestic quarrel that I have packed up my endless essentials. My electricity supply at my rented terrace house got cut and I found out only when I got home earlier. I had a taste of what it feels like being blind, feeling my way around the house in total darkness, and somehow managed to feed my pets and gather my stuff before making my way back to my second home.

I remember the time I was staying in Beach Road, for some of you who had the privilege of actually seeing that apartment, you’ll know it was tiny (although no less cosy). I had my first brush with the irrationality of our only national electricity supplier then. My bill was averaging $250 a month! I was hardly at home most times and even so, the only luxury I would consider was a single unit of aircon running while I sleep. The rest? Well, the supposed low electric consumption stuff like … hmm… my fridge and a fish pump, the florescent white lights and the occasional TV. That was ALL. $250/mth???? I was paying like an idiot and complaining like mad to PUB about the puzzling high bills. The offer of a solution was then to open up the meter to check if it was in working order and I HAD TO PAY $75 for their service of checking THEIR meter. Being the often choiceless Singaporean, I paid up the fee and a man came with a gadget and in less than 5 seconds (I paid $75 for 5 seconds of work mind you!), announced nonchalantly that the meter was in good working order becuase it was running. I argued that of course it was running or I would not have to pay $250 every month - and that the problem was that it was running like a man chased by wild boar. How was it possible for a place that was hardly 400 sq ft to chalk up an amount equivalent to my prarents’ 5-room flat???? The answer? A standard : I don’t know. We charge according to the reading. The verdict was set. I had to pay whatever my meter reflected. No logical answer was given, no attempt to find out further why my bill was 3 times higher than any of my neighbour. I fought and clawed against titanium and in return, only red reminder letters and 2 stoppages of my electric supply. Since I cannot live like a caveman, I “lan lan” gave in to the payments.

3 months ago, I was slapped with a bill of more than $2000! How in the world did I consume $2000 worth of electricity in 1 month? I called up, dreading the process of argument and the answer given to me was such : They, namely PUB, reflected on my past 1 and a half years’ bill and came to a conclusion that they have been undercharging me all this time. Now doesn’t that sound ridiculous? Their explanation was that since my meter was situated within my garden compound and that most times when their men came round to take reading and wasn’t able to do so (because no one was at home), they had charged me on estimation which was based on previous consumption patterns. They claimed that upon reflection, their past estimations were too low because, this gets better - even if my meter reading shows otherwise, they have to charge me according to the average consumption based on my house type! and in the exact words of the officer I spoke to, they “have the right to charge me whatever amount they feel is correct since I live in a terrace house”!!!!???? So very cleverly, they did their maths and lump the so-called shortage for the past 1 and a half years and put it in one bill. I was outraged!!! I consume less electricity because I am hardly at home but I end up having to pay the national average consumption of a terrace house! Again, I fought and clawed to no avail. I tried and tried to make my stand but my questions and grievances fell on deaf ears because the standard reply is, I have to pay what my bill says or else they cut my electricity supply. I stood my ground and so here I am, in my pyjamas, back in office in the middle of night…

I will have to bow down again tomorrow …

The dynamics between human is a complex one. How often have we found ourselves being affected by the people around us? Almost all the time! Whether we like it or not, and unless we live like a hermit which is near impossible in Singapore, we are surrounded by people all the time! Colleagues, friends, husband, boyfriend, family, strangers the list goes on.

Yesterday, my friend was telling me how the incessant high pitch giggle of her house maid irritates her to breaking point. Today, I woke up in a happy mood at the thought of going to see my ex-students, was interrupted by my boyfriend’s loud frustrated cheebyes and incoherrent growls over spilled sardines. My cheeriness was instantly halted.

I love rain and it helps to have a nice cooling drizzle as I get out of the house. Really, it is all in the little things. Like the smiles on my ex-students’ faces, their endearing calls of "Ms WONG", their self-made cards, my sms-conversation with Jo on a coming Chicken Rice Party, the polite taxi uncle which has soothing music in the background, the meandering of raindrops on the taxi window … which has so far lifted my mood and kept me happy. This is the Callie who looks on the bright side. More importantly, it is the ability to recognise the small positive things and having an appreciation of them that makes life so much happier and then it will not matter anymore even if the traffic is bad, your only pen runs out of ink or the colleague beside you is pulling a long face and slamming everything.

I am deeply perturbed by a recent comment made by one of my gal friends. She said she fantasized about handsome guys, mostly hollywood celebrities when she is having sex with erm (must protect her identity) … her permanent boyfriend. Firstly I have no idea why she told me that and I have forgotten the circumstances that led to it. Now, in case some of you are wondering if I’m merely talking about myself but just too shy to admit, NO! It’s not me. It’s really one of my gal friends.

I am shocked at such sexual hypocritical behaviour. Ok, her boyfriend may not be looking quite appetizing I must say but if you cannot look at a person and think about the person while doing it, I think it is SAD. Perhaps, I can hardly fathom her dilemma because I never did have any ugly boyfriends, ok, maybe 1 ugly lover over a 2 months affair before but even then I do not recall having to fantasize about other men while bedding him and that was because he was such a great sex partner that carnal emotions just overtook reality. Maybe then, given my life experiences of having sex partners that were either normal to above average looking OR partners that were very good at inducing female orgasms OR both, I can never really understand what my gal friend is going through. I would assume that he (her partner) is terrible in sex given that it is already a proven fact he looks awful. So, what would most girls do in her position? I guess that’s why the word “sexual fantasy” is created to make up for the lacking in reality. Oh, come to think of it, I feel sorry for her.

Oh wait wait, this gal friend of mine isn’t a good-looker herself. I am not being biased and I’m not making this up out of spite. Her looks, an agent that can induce de-errection, is a culmination of genuine comments made by all my male friends who know her. I know this may sounds mean (but being mean is not my intention here), a guy friend once said he’ll rather fuck doggie style with JU-ON than this gal friend of mine!! So, the point of mentioning all this is because I am wondering what her boyfriend is thinking of while having sex with her - probably not JU-ON I hope.

Can you imagine, TWO ugly people going at it and most likely fantasizing of better partners??? NOW, that is doubly SAD isn’t it? So thank God for giving humans the power of fantasizing and of mental substitutions or people like them will not be having any sex life at all.

There is also the moral issue that has been bugging me. Is it right to commit mental adultery, especially at the moment of showing your love to your partner? I guess there are many others and not just my gal friend who are equally guilty of it. I am not here to point fingers and take the high moral ground, but because I personally would rather take on an actual lover and commit REAL adultery than secretly wishing I am making love to someone else. It is just too torturous. I mean, if I don’t enjoy it with the person I am bedding with then what is so difficult about simply finding someone else I can do it with and be at the moment - both body and mind? Also, doesn’t the meaning of true love includes accepting the person you love as who he/she is and won’t that mean enjoying his/her body and having thoughts of only him/her when you are having sex? The equation goes - if you are thinking of someone else while having sex, it will mean you don’t love the person in front of you truly - and if that is so, it will be just sex without love - and if it is just sex without love, then the sex better be bloody good!!! So, if there is no love and you are having bad sex, so much so that you have to fantasize about the face of some Hollywood star, you are a Loser man!

Well, I guess it is a fact there are many losers among us, people who are trapped in such a tragic sex life because they cannot find someone else better even if they did try. Let us wish them the blessing of having a most creative and imaginative mind then.

My birthday has seen passed …. I remember so many friends asking me the inevitable question : what it feels like reaching the big 3 O. Honestly, it didn’t quite sink in til a couple of days ago. Guess my close friends have all along known my reaction has always been rather retarded.

Being 30, it’s difficult, it’s fun. It is a time I reflect and reminisce the great friendships that had come and go, the joys and tears of life floating and moving like snowy clouds - so real and yet unretainable. Memory is a strange and wonderful thing, like the body’s immunity system, it has the ability to fade the unwanted stains and keep the useful ones, especially those that warm your heart and bring joyful tears to your eyes. The biggest lessons I have learnt is to let go and to appreciate. Many times when we encounter the hardships and obstacles that come so naturally with being labelled “adult”, we are adviced to ‘take it easy’. Yeah right! So easy to say than done! But with age and a continually mounting pile of life problems (at least in my case) I am often left with only 2 choices - take it easy and be happy or dwell in mental mud and be depressed. It is a constant struggle still but I make a note to remind myself that I do have a choice. It is such a fine line that sometimes I can lose my view of what happiness is. It is a tendency, I believe especially of Geminis like me, to often argue and fight within myself. No doubt I despair over the many unfairness but I always push forward with greater tenacity that can shock even myself… Of course, I couldn’t have gotten this far without the countless help received along the way. The biggest contributor is no other than my mum, so completely selfless and always ready to lend a financial hand. Makes me regret all those stubborn arguments and hurt I have probably given her during my rebellious years and Definitely makes me feel so small …So, Mummy, I Love U!!!!

My friends, how can life have any meaning without the existence of friends? I am not of those who enjoy a massive quantity of companions. For me, it is always the quality that counts. Yes, some whom I had regarded as friends had misunderstood me, betrayed me and hurt me. But hey! looking on the bright side I do have good friends, friends that I know I can count on in times of sadness and need and to share all those fun and crazy moments. These are the people who see the goodness in me and give me a comforting smile even when I disappoint and a pat on my shoulder to cheer me on. These are the people who fuel me and keep me real. Who are these people? In no particular order : Tommy, Jo, Bavani, Serene Chew, Kwanghe, Simon, Shooling, Xueping, Manling, Marc, Mark Png, Peizhen, and perhaps, given my not so good memory, may have missed out some …. I am extremely honoured to have all of you as my friends and I promise that I will be there and do whatever I can to be worthy of your friendships. I LOVE U ALL!!!

To conclude, I shall quote what one of my best friends said to me on 20th September 2004 : Tough times make great men!

May I get only wiser and my path forward, smoother. Cheers!