the mythical creature

two doctors. one clinic. a whole world of difference.

an idol in modern times is akin to a mythical creature, like the unicorn and elves. i've idolised actors and actresses when i was young, based on nothing more than their looks and the personality that they portrayed in the selected few movies and dramas. as i grew older, faced with the ugly facets of reality, nothing much impresses me. wealth, power, fame, looks, i've seen giants top giants. i have observed them boasting, yet trying to appear modest at the same time. i have seen arrogance and fake humility. can i honestly say i am not also guilty of a certain degree of haughtiness? conceit or impatience, sometimes the lines blur a little.

i met him perhaps twenty years ago. i forget. when i was an still an impressionable individual. i thought that he was the best doctor ever. him and another, who has since passed away. out of all the doctors, and for some strange reason i seem to be seeing quite a few, he stood high amongst them, and i am not referring to his stature.

yesterday i am reminded why i idolise this doctor. he is the very embodiment of what a doctor should be, at least in the perfect imaginary world. he arrives for work at 6 a.m., when most of us are burrowing our sleepy heads deeper into our pillows, denying the existence of the new day. he never hurries during the requisite q & a, listening patiently to your problems and questions and explaining every single thing in depth. his memory is comparable to an elephant. as i have not been back to his clinic for dinosaur years, they have completely vaporised my old records. i sat down with a clean empty file in front of him, expecting to go into detail about my past to refresh him. he took one look at me, a second look, and exclaim ,"haven't i seen you before?". he could go into detail about everything; that hubs is hongki, what problems she had, how hubs' mother was diagnosed with lung cancer, the position of the cancer, my grandmother's cancer even and all these took place a decade ago, at the very least. he will probably serve well as my bibliographer, if i had any story to remember and tell. the next visit, he was there and waiting for us, eventhough we were suppose to be the first early bird patient. he was enthusiastic, he was passionate, he was efficient yet careful about his diagnostic, he was thorough, he was full of energy and he was not young, he was personable. when he referred us to his partner for further consultation, he came in personally to brief him and hear his opinion on the case, eventhough he has an endless flow of patients lined up to see him. he was not only passionate about looking for abnormalities within his field of medicine but the patient's overall health. he was the one who identified mil's lung cancer eventhough his area of expertise was neither pulmonology nor oncology.

how many doctors have you met that are already jaded? too tired to explain because they have met too many ignorant and stubborn patients. too careless with their analysis because they are tired. one more, one less, no difference. too egoistic to think it is their prerogative to keep the patients waiting. too long immersed to be passionate about saving the world anymore. too specialised to even consider that the illness is most probably something else. i had a doctor diagnose my mother as possible parkinson's simply because she was referred from a routine body check for a perceived rigidity in her hand and put on medication to confirm it. the doctor did not for a second wonder if it could have been caused by trauma to the hand muscles. i had another told me my grandfather was fine following his admission into hospital, only to have him pass away in the middle of the night.

befitting this iniquitous world, it is the comparatively lacking one that is conferred with a title. then again, this lack of superficial conferment agrees with his noble image of a doctor. perhaps the other was more qualified, i wouldn't know, but he didn't note an earlier observation on the file in his very hand before providing an inconsistent preliminary diagnosis.

perhaps he is a horrible person in other aspects of his life, i wouldn't know as i do not not interact with him

to all good doctors out there i wish them a very long and healthy life. to all good doctors out there i want to thank you from the very bottom of my heart on behalf of humanity.

some days aren't so good

sometimes it hits me that i will never ever be able to see her again in this life time. i may be just watching tv, or just taking a shower. i suddenly remember that no matter how hard i wish or how badly i want, i will never be able to finish our last conversation. never ever hear her voice again. I will never ever be able to hear her theatrically bitchy replies, smell her perfume, touch her cold smooth skin. not even one more time for the rest of my days. and the tears can't help gather at the corner of my eyes. when will i stop crying, my heart stop choking in my throat, everytime i think about her? some days i am not quite alright yet.

with the passing days

i am alright now.

i am enjoying the quiet humming of the air-cond as the keyboard clicks under my fingers.

i am enjoying the introspective conversation inside my head.

i am enjoying the slow jazzy music in the hot humid tropical afternoon.

i am enjoying the slow ticking of the clock as i go about attacking my endless pile of work.

i am enjoying the little roller-coaster butterflies i get as i floor the pedal and drive the valley roads.

i am enjoying my own company, doing what i want to, when i want to.

time has made it alright.

but i am not alright that we have grown distant.

unnecessary angst

some call me picky. some call me critical. some say i complain a lot. some say i am being difficult. some don't understand.

it is easy to just close my eyes and move away. to not patronise a shop with poor service or to ignore something that is not right. everybody does it all the time. isn't it easier to ignore the whining child then to spend a little time to talk to him, understand why he is acting that way? isn't it safer to ignore the cries and shouts in the middle of the night then to face up to the potential wife-killer? isn't it less complicated to avoid the source of the problem?

but where will we be? where will we end up? comfortable in our mediocrity, excelling in elusion. in the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king. perhaps that is the very core to the problems in our country, in our society; people are indifferent, people are apathetic.

i want an improvement in the way things work. i want the society to move forward. i want mankind to always strive to be better, not give excuses to stay in the present. facing the problem head on involves a lot of aggression, a lot of time wasted, a lot of effort, and at the end of the day one questions if it is even worth it. but how many people can you find that actually cares? that will actually spend a part of their valuable and very limited time to care enough to do something about improving, be it an organisation, a person, a family, a system or an idea.

everywhere i go i have ideas and suggestions on ways to improve their services, their merchandise, their system. so much so that i jokingly said i should print my own comment cards and just leave it wherever i go, since some organisations do not provide it. i want to highlight to them what they are lacking, what they cannot see with their own eyes, what they are not aware of, perhaps because they are too involved in the matter or merely too busy. or maybe they have just lost touched with the grass root.

burger king did not serve pepsi light until i drew their attention to the fact that they have forgotten diabetes is one of the number one killers for our nation and that a big proportion of their customers are actually diabetic. i like to think that it was my comment card that made them opened their eyes as the diet version of soft drinks was available soon after, or perhaps it was just a sign of the times. :p yoshinoya took note of my complaint and hopefully patrons whose family members are already waiting in queue to buy food don't have to give up their hard earned table in favour of those with food in hand. i wouldn't know of course, as i am still offended and refused to return to patronise their outlet. i am no holy mother teresa, i can be altruistic and petty at the same time. it is something i juggle best.

i don't complain out of spite. i don't throw tantrums and trash around on the floor like the citizens of china. i don't shout and scream when i let them know something is not right. but i do have a very high level of expectation. they are called the service industry for a reason.

am i wrong? am i being troublesome? am i helping the society? or am i justifying my actions with a benevolent excuse. perhaps it is just a matter of perspective. i am who i am. it is not a life that is easy to live, or a road that is easy to walk. i don't know why i make things so difficult for myself sometimes, i can just walk away with a smile and never return. but where will we be? where will we end up?

the signs of times

last year excel's standard font size was set at 10. this year i have to increase to 11 so as to not strain my eyes. sigh. will it be 72 one day?

caresses by the wind

she grumbles when there is no one to pay a little kind attention to her. she grumbles when someone does enquire after her. she is a tough lady to please. that's what people will say. usually the easy version, the one that judges a person in an instant is the one that people can't wait to leap at.

growing up, people seldom pay attention to me. being the youngest and the girl in the family, which was not the most desired sexual preference for a child in that era,  i was left to my own devices a lot. too busy. no time. i hear that a lot, but i know that they were just not really interested. then again, there is no hard and fast rule that family members must hold a genuine interest in each other's lives. perhaps they don't need that from me and thus, will never understand the need to bestow that. and so i learnt to amuse myself and talk to myself a lot in my head. i'm not crazy, just introvertish. i still do that all the time, talk to myself in my head, as i am doing now and typing down that wonderful monologue. with the invention of blogging, suddenly i don't sound so crazy. i'm just preparing mentally for my blogging material. :p

anyway, the same has pretty much applied to the rest of my life. nobody has been really interested to hear, to listen to my story. perhaps that is why i never had someone i called a best friend. close perhaps, but not a best friend. someone who knows everything about me. someone who knows what i am going to say before i even finish my sentence. someone who knows how i will think, say or do because they have heard all those stories about me, because they know me. maybe that is why i appear standoffish. because i realise very long ago that people are not genuinely interested to listen. people like to talk, usually about themselves. few really listen. and so i started to build walls, one brick a day.

i thought that it would be different when i find my soul mate, maybe i hoped that it would be different, like some kind of fairy tale happily ever after, but then i realise that it isn't necessarily so. is it because we have been together for too long? is it because we are not in the courtship phase anymore? actually, i don't think that he ever listened. i think nobody listens. people who read blogs want to be entertained. they do not want to listen. it doesn't mean that they do not love you, so don't go jumping off the highest building in the neighbourhood. does it equate to them not being interested? or that they find other things more interesting and of a higher priority? for now, i don't know the answer to that. i will like to think that it is not so, that their listening is not equitable to their interest or priorities, but i will leave that topic for my next session of introspection and deliberation.

well, after this extremely long monologue, i should probably provide some data to relate to. today, she asked if i had booked a doctor to look into my gastrointestinal problems. she had heard it from the grapevines. i am actually quite shocked about the number of grapevines around me; i am beginning to think that i am actually a grape, but that is a grievance for another day. it caught me by surprise, in a nice sort of way, because we do not chat on a regular basis and she has never shown any interest in my personal well-being. and it touched me enough that i wanted to write about it. once again i will proclaim my geeky and all-assuming quote; we are the lives that we touch. a sentence, a memory, a moment, a warm feeling; that is who we are when dust returns to dust. i remember when she was lying comatose in the hospital, he texted me several times and enquired how i was coping. not my family. not the close friends that i met with weekly. not those who knew me best. not those who knew me the longest. not those who professed they love me. not those who professed they love her. not those that i wish will want to know a little bit more about me. but someone who is a little more distant. almost 10 years down the road, and i still remember.

life is a very lonely road. thank you for your gentle caresses.

driven bonkers

i am crazy busy like hell. no time to breathe. hands shaking from trying to do as much as possible in the shortest time, with the crazy silky terrier demanding attention every few minutes and constantly jumping onto the couch and lazing there so innocently, just because he knows he is not supposed to. haizzzzzz. still, i have time to blog? for sanity sake. to vent out the craziness and the frustration. these people are going to cause my early demise by sudden heart attack any second now.


me: please look at january '16.
her: ya, february '16.
me: no. no. january '16.
her: ya ya. february '16.
me: you told me you don't february's data, that's why we are looking at jaaaaaaanuary '16 now. *rolls eyes*


issued cheque for $200 and $100. received receipts for $170 and $130. however am i going to explain that to the auditors ????? *rolls eyes*


dog happily chewing on my wooden door stopper as i type. whatever. he probably needs the fiber. *rolls eyes*


me: is the difference due to the rpgt 2% rentention sum?
her: yes
me: i thought it has been changed to 3% now?
after some time...........
her: yes, i remember that. i will deduct the difference from the next payment.

she sure didn't remember before i told her! *rolls eyes*


her: so she has the option to go back to clark by air asia or by malaysia airlines to manila.
me: how about air asia to manila?
her: errrr..........i forgot about that.
*rolls eyes*


from the very very very start, since dinosaur era, i told her specifically i wanted the foldable type of tables. since then they had to sell me products that they have absolutely no stock, no idea when stock will ever come and plain ignore my humble existence and the existence of my paid purchase order. i had to write to higher management to get their attention, at which point they offered me a smaller size of foldable, height adjustable table. desperate for anything to just close the darn case, i confirmed and they prepared for delivery. then they offered me another type, a new stock, which looked like it is not height adjustable. i enquired if the only difference is non height adjustable and if it is so, i will rather choose the new one which makes it more stable. in the end, they sent the tables: non height adjustable but also not foldable. *eyes making roller coaster circles but also note to self: people do not read long paragraphs in emails. put your email in short point forms!!!!! despite the fact that your second last sentence in the email was "please kindly advise if that is the only difference between the two*

i wanted to physically view the different types first before making the final decision and asked her which outlet will carry the product. she shouted away from the phone, "where will have that brand of table ah?". at which point i was ready to throttle her. holding that thought in mind, i calmly told her, "you should be calling up your branches and enquiring exactly which one will have stock of the foldable AND height adjusting one. not just any size, any specification. that particular one." sigh. now i am giving sentence construction classes too, apparently.


me: i couldn't tally the figures. looking at the difference, there should be some discount for this particular entry.
him: no.
me: please check
after checking........
him: they said no.
me: please send me the statement
and after checking, what do you know....... obviously the point to my story will be that there is discount for that particular entry. *rolls eyes*


i am not asking for stephen hawking or albert einstein. i just want people to stop wasting my time so that i can get more done. sigh.

to add insult to my mood, the dog just farted in his sleep right next to me. ewwwwwwwwwwww

still acclimatising

motherhood is hard. when they were young, it was physically hard. the uncomfortable 9 months, the pain endured during child birth, bruised nipples, sore wound, sleepless nights. bringing half of the house out with baby, the carrying to sleep. everything centred around the baby. you lose your identity, you lose your self, you forget who or what you are.

when they get older, it becomes emotionally hard. one minute they need you, your guidance, your support, as they gingerly step out into the big, cold, scary world. they want you there, beside them every step of the way, encountering all new things together. you share new experiences, new moments. you understand, you bond, you love.

the next moment, your very presence itself spoil your best friend's moment. are you kidding?! no one brings their mothers to such events and places. you never did. peer pressure or spreading wings? it doesn't even really matter which. i feel like the little teddy bear who couldn't go on the overnight trip because no one does that anymore at that age. if only i have cotton stuffings inside too, instead of a heart that can hurt.

it is the same everywhere, of that i am sure, with other families, with other teenagers. they love you still, there is no doubt. the loosening of apron strings is not a new topic to be discussed. you want that for them too, to be independent, to be confident, to be able to live their lives. however, when you were that close, the shift from such extreme poles in a matter of weeks is not the easiest thing to adapt to. you fall back into the shadows once more, to be there only in that small crack of time that they remember you.

i thought i had acclimatised. but it still hurts to actually hear it from their mouth.

what will i be?

everything is a matter of getting used to. new environment, new places, new people, new situation. thrown into the deep blue sea of unfamiliarity and of the unknown, my soul grasp at the remnants of the past, claw at the memories dissipating into the air. stepping gingerly each day into the circumstance that is now, i look around for comfort, for any sign of the familiar past, for a warm face turning back to have a last look. i find none. i have no choice but to move on, one day at a time. maybe not now, maybe not right this moment but one day. one day i will get used to the strangeness that is facing me. one pair of feet stepping on two new alienating worlds. too soon, too quick, too much. both i can do nothing about but to adapt to.

but what will i do if i do get used to not missing you? what will i be if i get used to not thinking about you? who will i be if i get used to not remembering your face, your smile, your gestures, the little things that was once you. i will be lost. when someone dies, a part of you dies with them.

we are all a sum of our memories. we cannot bring any of the material things that we have amassed. we cannot leave with the richness, the fame, the possessions. in the end, we are what others remember of us. a part of my memory is locked in her, and a part of her memory is locked in mine. i will never be able to find another person in this pale blue dot who shared the memories of the times we had in high school, of the jerks we fell in love with, of the snobbish classmates and the late nights, of our fears and our tears. that part of me is lost forever with her, but that part of her will remain with me, until it evaporates into non existence.

self dialogue

i walked and walked until the new boots cut into my feet, leaving a line that was to become a scar. i didn't say a word.

looking out the window of the bus, i suddenly realised that i could look up without seeing double images. i was excited, but i didn't know who to tell.

with who do i share my elation and my gripe? with people who will be nonchalant, who will grumble about the wisdom of wearing new shoes on holiday and forget about it in the next hour? or with others who are distracted by their own elation and gripes? perhaps that is what life is all about, each busy with their own, and perhaps i am also guilty about being like that, but i can find no compulsion to let anyone in on my thoughts and feelings. people who does not really care, or are too busy to care. perhaps i have always been like that and perhaps that is why i have no friends as close as shadow, or family who understands. 30 years later, i guess nothing has changed.

perhaps that is why i am better at writing to express myself, because the paper and pen always listen.

ps: mum saw the scars when i put my feet up and could immediately spot the difference. i guess, no matter how old you are, mothers are the only people who will love you the most in the whole world. and pps, i am not able to see up without seeing double apparently. only images at a distant. perhaps i have to continue with my eye exercise diligently.

loosening the strings

when she said she wouldn't bring her favourite pink teddy to camp, not even in her bag, i knew that i have lost the last piece of the little girl in her forever. she has grown. she is ready to spread her wings. she is no more that small girl that has to hold your hand to sleep, the one that had to make sure you do not sleep before her because she is afraid of being the only one awake. the little one that is always by your side. the one who made up the song 'lonely, mummy is so lonely, but not exactly, because she has me'* (version edited to protect privacy). the sweetness that was once her, the adoration that once embraced me. it is a memory now. a distant warm memory.