i know i'm anal by nature, but i didn't realise just how much so until i decided to google the proper way of using a paper clip. huh? did i lose you there? how many ways can there be to use a paper clip, right? well, hundreds, it will seem, or so google tells me. lest you forget there was the trade paper clip for a house story but that's not the point of mine. i'm talking about really using the paper clip as it should be; to hold papers together.

you arrange the papers and then you just shove the thing in. what gets under my skin is that some people use it with the small curve facing up, whilst i usually use it with the big curve facing up. you can really get the gist of how anal i am now, right? well, the thing with sticking the small curve up is that the curved tip goes inwards towards the paper, making it impossible to add a new piece of paper to the stack, unless you take out the clip again and re-clip it. it probably doesn't happen to other people much but i seem to wasting many minutes of my life taking out paper clips and re-clipping them just because some other people are not using the paper clip right. however, as i am not the authority on the proper way to use a paper clip, i decided to consult my best friend in the whole wide world; mr google.

it took me a little bit of searching because who else will also be so weird as to post something on the proper way to use a paper clip, but nevertheless, hard work pays off. however, i don't think i was quite prepared for what i found.

that one continuous piece of metal has 10 parts!!!! (just in case you can't hear it, this is the part where you visualise my jaw hitting the floor)

i will bet that you were yawning at this boring post a few seconds ago, but what do you know, you learn something new every single day. as long as there are weird obsessive people like me around you. lol. so, coming back to the proper way to use a paper clip, it will seem that the moon loop, which is the longer curve, is meant to "ensure the rear-side of the paper does not slide backwards", which means that the long curve should face the back!

i have been getting it wrong all these years and being pissed off at others when they are right. still, i wasn't convinced. how can someone design something so that you can't add more papers in without removing the clip and re-clipping it again? aha!! (that's where the light bulb above my head lights up in 1500kw) that's when i discovered that this little paper clip is really a nifty design. the person who designed it really is ingenious.....or are we really dumb for not knowing how to use it. paper clips should come with an instruction manual as thick as a phone book :-p

if you hold the paper clip with the short curve facing you, then proceed to attach it to the paper, you will have the curved point facing out, which means you will have absolutely no problem in adding more papers to the pile. however, if you are holding the paper clip with the long curve facing you, and attempt to attach the paper clip so that the short curve faces the front, then the pointed tip of the short curve will face inwards to the paper, making it almost impossible to add another paper to the front page. if you don't get my dribble, just play around with your paper clip and you will get it!!

so, now, not only do i know how to properly use the paper clip, i also know the names of the different parts of the paper clip. who am i kidding? besides the moon loop which i paid attention to, i didn't really bother about the other parts. still, that's one part more than almost everybody else. :-p see? you really learn something new when you read my blog!! :-D believe me, it's not something that you will be able to google for anywhere else in the world wide web! (insert reader's feeling of privilege here) :-p

by the way, i think the above is only relevant for triangular paper clips, which i think was invented just to annoy the hell out of me :-p

however, what really blows me away, is not the design of the paper clip, nor the proper or inproper use of it, but really how totally anal i am!

i do not know, i am at a lost. there is no manual to living your life, you learn as you go and do the best that you can do. but why is there no manual to life? billions of people have lived their lives, billions more have documented them. why is there none that teach us the best way forward? why is there none that can teach me what to do?

i had a dream when i was pregnant, i had a hope. it was exciting being able to create something, someone, whose character, looks and behaviour are waiting to be molded by your very hands. daunting definitely, but finally i can put out there something that is right, something that is good. i can teach my child to be the best that she / he can be, to be a good person.

two kids, two very different characters. the same person teaching. why are they turning out to be two very contrasting person with opposing values and principles? i've taught the little one, not one time, not two times, but so many that i have lost count, copious that i am repeating myself like a broken record, endless that i am beginning to grow tiresome, values that i know to be correct. don't lie. don't be lazy. don't leave things until the last minute. don't take things that belong to others. don't be unwilling to work for what you want. don't take things and people for granted. don't waste things. values that form the very core of who you are and what you become. principles that are the skeleton of your character. but it's not sticking.

what am i doing wrong? if he was a piece of blank white paper to begin with, what he turns out to be should be what i have imprinted on it. yet he is turning out to be totally different from what i have written. if monkey does what monkey sees, we have tried our very best to talk the talk and walk the walk. we are nothing like what lies before my eyes. what can i do? where have i gone wrong? it is most frustrating that there is nothing in life that can answer my questions. the one thing that means the most to me, the one thing that is of any importance, and i am not doing it right. there is no going back, there is no second chance. i need to bring up my child into an adult with the correct principles. but not everything that you want to do so very badly means that you can do. i do not know how to do. no books in the world can tell me. no brochure, no class, no website in the world so big. each person is so different. please tell me what will work for him. everyday is one day wasted.

i have never brought up a son. for all i know, they reach a certain age and then they understand. the light bulb lights up over their head, their brain matures and all of a sudden, they know. what is right and what is not. what is important and what is smoke. but can i afford to leave that to chance? can i look back and just say that i have done my best and sigh resignedly? this child of mine, my very flesh and blood. how will i ever be able to look him in the eyes if so?

such is the anchor that weighs in a mother's heart.

some think that i do not have a story to tell, that life is peaches and that the world is my orchard. Looking through from the other side of the glass, my life is short of nothing but perfect.

I do not deny that i wake up every day thanking the powers that be that i have my most prized possessions in the whole wide world; my loved ones close and safe and that is my only pre-requisite for a perfect world. however, everyone has stories to tell, be it dramatic or mundane. how can one go through life never touching others, never being touched.

i have stories to tell but i have none i can tell.

if you are my friend, won't you tell me what is it that is so wrong with me? if i know what is wrong, i can at least try to change. but if i don't even know what is wrong, where do i even begin?

i wonder

sometimes i wonder, is there some inherent fault within me? am i someone that leaves a poor taste in the mouth of others? maybe at times insincerity leaks through and others are painfully aware of the high walls that i put up. not insincere, i don't think, but cold most certainly; guarded and perhaps protected. i do not reveal my innermost feelings, or opinions, to say the least. why should i? most people are not interested in what i really think or do, they are only interested in the reflection of their mind and action. i am no longer twelve or twenty-one, i cannot afford to speak my mind and act like a rash teenager. life has consequences. but surely, being amiable and pleasant is not displeasing?

i promised an elderly woman two weeks ago to accompany her for an errand. i told her from the very start that i could only make it 2 weeks later, when there is a comfortable lapse in my schedule. 2 weeks down the line, i texted her early in the morning to fix the date for tomorrow. she called me in the afternoon, to say that she was already on the way to run the errand. it left me with a very funny feeling. did i do something wrong? or am i thinking too much? if 2 weeks was too long a time to wait, she wouldn't have waited until that very day to go. if she didn't want my company, she wouldn't have responded so warmly to my suggestion that i accompany her. yet, she chose not to reply to my message until she is finally on her way.

another friend was moving back to her hometown, after staying in the city for more than 15 years. i asked her to give me a call before she moves back, thinking that we can have a last farewell dinner before she leaves. one day i suggested having dinner, in anticipation of her upcoming birthday. she texted back to say that she was leaving the next day. again i was left crestfallen. she's leaving without informing me at all, and not giving me any time to say my last goodbyes. did she not want to see me one last time? has our friendship turned unpleasant without my realising? exactly what am i doing wrong again and again that people are turning away from me? someone please tell me!!

i just don't understand it. at times like this, i miss having a best friend, a sister, someone to open up my heart and analyse the situation for me. someone to tell me what i did wrong and to see it all from a bystander's viewpoint. perhaps it is because i never had such a person in my life that over time, i find i cannot open up to any single soul and can only voice out my true feelings in black and white. someplace hidden, so that others can not see. it has been a lonely journey, but life such as it is, goes on.

my world is a quieter place recently. the days go on and the nights rush forward but it is less one warm friendly voice. one familiar friendship made comfortable by decades of interaction. one closeness that cannot easily be replaced.

a friend has moved away. i feel like it is the beginning of the end. we do not share the kind of friendship that sees girls bowing their heads close together in laughters over a secret shared, or chattering non-stop on gossips of others, because neither of us is like that. we do not talk to each other for weeks on end, sometimes months. yet the knowledge that the other is around, a phone call away, is more than comforting; it's assuring, for want of a better word. it's knowing that a friend will always be around. someone who has your back, someone you can trust. sadly, in this time and world, we cannot say that as often as we will like. how many 20-year friendships can you cultivate in a lifetime?

so many times we have spent counting down the hours to the end of the year and the minutes riding up to the new one; what started out as impromptu has turned into a ritual of sort. waiting for the clock to tick to midnight, trying hard to keep awake, initially just the few of us in the dark quiet night has evolved into a small party to say goodbye to an old year and welcome in the new one. spending the last few hours with someone you care about, it brings a glow to the heart and a meaning to the new year. it is saying, 'it's alright that the year has passed so fast, it's ok that i didn't do all the things i said i wanted to, i had a friend with me'.

this year it won't be the same. this year it will be a lot quieter. i don't want to see the same waiting up for midnight, the same counting down, the same street party and not have that friend beside me. i don't want to start the year with sad memories. i will need to be making plans to spend the new year in a new place and a new environment.

do you believe in a miracle?

apparently i've asked that same question five years ago, for the same person, in the same situation.

the answer remains the same. i never did. very long ago, i've given up on supernatural events happening, once-in-a-lifetime marvels, just because you want it to so badly. bad things happen to good people, so deal with it. that's life and my black-tinted glasses view on it.

yesterday, someone fed me a little piece of hope. something i will never dare to conceive on my own. i could feel the wings of expectation flutter a little in my stomach. not enough to break through my thick walls of cynicism. could it be more wishful thinking on the part of the bearer of news? but yet i saw with my very own eyes the smile that greeted me, the eyes that turned slowly in my direction. was that for real or conjured up by more wishful thinking on my part.

i remembered tears falling a very long time ago, which i had to ultimately resign to involuntary body functions. too much time has passed. i had given up and accepted the fact. now someone is telling me that it's alright to hope for it again. the smile of a friend. the warmth of her sound. do i dare to even imagine? the echoes in my brain answer 'only in your dreams' ..........but i want to hope. i want to believe. i want to wait.

give me the strength to believe once again.

not knowing when to quit

the frustrating thing about life is not knowing the ending. not the final goodbye, which is inevitable, but the endings of certain stories. like whatever happened to certain friends in your distant past. or what happened to certain things that you have misplaced. it's not like a fiction story which has a proper beginning, and a proper ending to tie up loose ends. whether the good guy wins in the end, or the bad guy triumphs, such is the satisfaction of losing oneself in novel. there is an ending.

i was most frustrated for months when things started to disappear. besides being shovelled with all the blame which i had no way to prove one way or the other, it was most frustrating (there is no other word in thesaurus that can substitute frustrating because frustrating is ........well, so frustrating. be prepared to hear this word over and over and over again :-p) to not know what happened. where did the car key go? what happened to the document? where is our wedding tapes? yes. i am someone who can lose my wedding video tapes. so sue me :-p it's frustrating enough without that shocked look on your face, so let's swiftly proceed.

it's not like i'm leaving things in the most inappropriate of places. no phones in the shower cubicle, no wallet in the rice bins and no car keys in the freezer. i don't have alzheimer....yet. i leave them where they should be.....usually. but they disappear. that's the frustration that i am talking about. when you just want to hit your head against the wall because you will never know what ever happened to it. not for your entire lifetime. doesn't that just gnaw at you somewhere?

well, life is usually fair. even for us hardcore cynic. over time, after months of knocking your head on the wall, baring impossible circumstances, things that disappear will turn up .....one day. maybe's it's just me, maybe life likes to play with me like that, but my stories do sometimes have endings. like the document that was slipped between other documents. and like last night, the car key that was found between the gaps of the car seat. and with that my long-lost innocence is uncovered. justice pao would have glowed with pride. i can hear all the ooooooo and ahhhhhhhhh from his court. i can finally discard my scapegoat skin. and yes, i am broadcasting with glee. the satisfaction of having an ending AND having my innocence restored. so that i can rub it in for decades to come. :-p :-p life is sometimes good.

now, i just need to know where the damn video tapes went.

just when you think you know it all, just when you believe you can scatter a few seeds of wisdom to others, you have to go right back to the very first rung of the ladder and begin again. such is life.

i forgot how to eat. i forgot how to drink.

i'm re-learning how to live my life again, from the very basic steps of eating and drinking. something that i've taken for granted that i know from the very moment i took my first breath outside the womb, but over time i've done it all wrong. a basic instinct for survival yet i don't know how to do it, and i'm paying the price now. i know if i don't reject all i know now and learn from scratch all over again, the price will be much dearer years from now.

it's a lifestyle that i've picked up from nobody knows when. i don't know when my clock started to tick faster than others, and time is that much limited for me. i don't know when i started to pour food into my mouth, not stopping to chew, nor waiting for it to cool. it feels like i'm always on a race against time. i don't know when i stopped having time to take a break for a sip of water. i've dispensed with all that i thought were time-consuming.

with a new page everyday, i have to remind and re-remind myself. to be aware of each mouthful i put in. to be aware of every hour that i'm not drinking any water. perhaps the knocking in my heart serves as a reminder. who would have known that the heart is not related to my heart skipping a beat, but my digestive system. i'm abusing my body and i know it. i know it but i suck at it. each meal is a test, each test is a failure. it's harder than i thought to unlearn 40 years of habit.

one day at a time.

one bite at a time.

a lull of silence. the sound of absence. a sign not of inertia, nor of turbulence, but of convenience. sometimes when you switch your brain off, and live each day as it comes, one motion after the next, one chore after another, and you collapse in exhaustion at the end of the day on the sofa, with nary a thought that passes your mind, it's the simplest way to live. the days pass so fast, and so easily. life is uncomplicated.

is it the way to live though? to not think, to not stop for a moment and deliberate about life? at even any point in time? to just let life pass you by? it cannot be right, to let apathy grip you within its claws. as the words pour out, i can feel the warmth coursing through my veins once more. i am slowly relaxed by the therapy that is my writing. i never stopped to think that words could have such appeasing effects on my soul.

but for now, this is enough.