Life is a journey and not a destination

This week we received lots of shocking news at work. That brought me to reflect on a PowerPoint slide that I received sometime back and found rather meaningful. I couldn't find that file now but I do remember that it goes something like this:

Life is like a journey on a train. And along this journey we will meet people who will come and go in our lives. Some of these people may board this train and accompany us on our journey along the way. Some may just alight half way through to board another train. Sometimes, we ourselves have to leave this train and board a different one to get on with life. That's life and it has to go on, no matter what.

Many people will come and go in our lives. There'll be those that we may be reluctant to part with and there may be those that we feel relieve to never see again. There may be those who taught us something new and there may those who changed our lives forever. Nevertheless, all these people usually leave us a memory of them and shape our lives. Likewise, we ourselves may do the same for the other people who is travelling along the same route too. Time is irreversible. We should make the most of what we have and what we got before its gone. As Tommy Page once sang, all the bits and pieces of images that we have are like paintings in our minds, faded memories of another place in time. It's something worth reflecting upon…

Happy National Day!!!

Hey there, I'm now watching the NDP2009 on television and surfing the net at the same time. So far the show has been spectacular.

Wow!! They're playing really cool music right now.


HAPPY NATIONAL DAY FOLKS!

Cheers.

The day the Liverpool FC players came to Novena Square.

It was shortly after 2pm when I noticed that the office seemed somewhat deserted. Lots of people were not at their desks and it was already 30mins past lunch hour. Ah, I suspected it was because the Liverpool FC players were in town and they were right here at The Velocity, which was just below our tower. Then I heard a couple of girls giggling excitedly as they headed toward the lift. I knew where they were heading. Without thinking, I followed them into the lift. As they say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

In the lift, we met somebody from the HR department. "Hem-em, where are you going?" she asked cheekily.
"Where are YOU going ? " Chirped my colleague in a playful way.
"To the ATM machine."
"Yeah, right. And we're crossing over to Tower A. Haha."
The lift stopped on the 15th floor and in walked in another staff armed with a camera. More joined us as the lift headed down. Ok, so we know that half the company could be out there looking for their football idols right now.

The crowd at Velocity was huge. So many Liverpool fans were out there wearing their jerseys and caps. Students, mostly from the nearby St Michael's School, were distributing foolscap papers among their classmates as they prepared to get autographs. It was all pretty exciting. I've never been a football fan and I know nothing about the game except that we see many guys chasing a small ball around a field. Heh heh!

"Torres!" yelled a fan who was sitting on his friend's shoulder to get a view. Lucky him. He was probably getting the best view up there. I could see nothing from where I was except for the many heads and bodies surrounding us and none of them belonged to the Liverpool players at all. I tried standing on tip toe and peering from behind shoulders but it was no use. Me and my colleague tried to worm our way through the crowd but it was difficult. There were so many fans out there and the stage was completely blocked by the throngs of people surrounding the area . The angle of the building and the limited standing space made it difficult to see anything at all. Sigh. I was never going to get a glimpse of them.

I glanced at my watch and decided to give up. Oh well, there was work to do. However, I did learn a name of one of the Liverpool players though.. My colleagues have been raving over how handsome Fernando Torres is. He's the guy with the blond hair and I've yet to take a good look at him. I'd probably have to pay more attention to the news tonight and look up his picture on the net. Haha! Well, the upcoming football match between Singapore and Liverpool will be a most watched event. Will Singaporeans support Liverpool or our home team? Now that's a tough one. Hahaha! As for me, nah…I don't understand football. I'd rather be catching up with my 'zzz's. (snore….)

Sorry folks. I have no photos to share of this event.

Swear words and their actions - How sillier can they get?

This is a decent blog about obscenities, profanities, vulgarities and whatever you call them. It was another weekend after church. I was walking down the street when I saw a group of Indian teenagers giggling while hurling vulgarities at each other. They were in their early teens for they looked really young and mischievous. The group appeared to be having a friendly but vulgar shouting matching.

One flashed the middle finger at the other while the other made a fist and slammed it against her other palm. Wrapped up in their own amusement, they squealed with laughter so loudly that they drew scornful stares from passersby. Then to my amazement, one of them stopped in her tracks, lifted one leg up and clapped her hands below that folded leg. It looked so funny as she was doing that action. Was that the latest hip hop dance move? Her friend guffawed and responded with the same hip hop dance move. And she almost toppled over after clapping her hands. Okay. I figured it was another sign for a swear word but it was the silliest one I've ever seen. A passerby gave them a good tsk-tsking. I later asked a friend what that action meant and she told me it has the same meaning as flashing the middle finger. Really. What a lot of trouble to go through just to use a swear word. When this generation takes over the workplace in the future, be prepared for some creative dance moves when they get stressed up. We'll be too old to hip hop and spin in the air by then.

I think swear words can be really silly sometimes. I mean people swear when they are angry and it usually happens at the spur of the moment. For some people, they simply use it as a form of punctuation to sound cool or silly. Whichever. Oh whatever.

When a guy says "F* you" to another, he's insulting the other guy's manhood. But suppose if the other guy is gay, he'll probably smile and say thank you. When a guy uses the "F" word on a woman, he's outraging her modesty. She'll probably respond by slapping him. But if a woman uses that word on a man or another woman, oh my....

So who invented the "F" word anyway and why? In our part of the world, the Hokkien community swears by scolding another person a genital organ. So how is a genital organ offensive to another? I have no idea either. They might as well yell "Gall bladder!", "Kidneys!" or "Liver!" to the other person.

Oh well. Swear words are meant to be silly I guess. Only the Gall blokes will know better.