Asian Tsunami

I guess everybody in town would be talking about the great tsunami that killed 120000 people so far in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand Malaysia and other countries that are near the epi centre of the powerful earthquake(which measures abt 8.9 on the Richter scale) . For those who have not listen to the news on TV or read the newspapers, A tsunami is bascially a VERY hugh wave. "Tsunami" is a japanese word which means "harbour wave" and for that particular killer wave that killed so many people and destroyed so many villages and cities along the coast of the affected countries, it is said that the wave measured up to 10m high in some areas. 10m...wow is roughly 3 stories high...Feel so sad for those who died and for those who have lost their family members in this disaster, really pathetic...Entire villages were destroyed and widespread destruction everywhere. Now it sets me thinking what would I do if I was there...
For me if I met with such disaster, and most likely I would be with my present gf. If ever she was swept away by the tsunami I think the instantneous reaction from me would be to swim out with the wave too and try to save her...Even if I can't save her perharps we could die together. Now I am not trying to be heroic or what. I have never seen a tsunami before but I can say that my love for my gf is so strong now that if she were to be swept away, I will try my best to save her or die trying to do just that...

5 Long years already ...How time files

Ah Nov 4 2004, this is the date of the DD aniversary..sounds bewildered? wat date is that? Well once past this date means that my gf and I have been together for 5 years already liao lor..haha 5 years just past like that..Rem the time I knew in Poly days sure brings back some nostalgic feelings.. Alas everyone have to grow up...Both of us have changed since then... I think it's due to the fact that both of us have gained some life experience since then... Thus for a couple(nowadays) to remain together for 5 years, I considered that as a form of acomplishment already... It takes alot of understanding and tolerance from a couple to keep a relationship going... I am very grateful to my gf for having done that, to tolerate my tempers now and then and not giving up on my during my NS and Uni as alot of gals have done...sometimes I just can't find time to spend with her cos i am not exactly a super bright student thus I do need to spend some time on revision but I'm glad she's quite understanding in this matter...
We do have our fair share of quarrels now and then but somehow they seem to get solved .To me our roles seems to be reversed, her character in relationship is like a guy's while I'm more sentimental and more like a gal haha... cos I will always think about things like marriage, children housing... (most of the time quarrels are due to this also). The other thing is Trust, To me personally, i've always trusted her, thus even when she goes out wif other guys, I trust that she'll still be true to me(even when she attended her fren's OCS passing out ball)..Afterall if 2 person dun even have trust for each other how are they going to live together in the future? After all I look upon her as a wife one that I will have to eat,live and sleep together , One whom I can share secrets, One that i can cuddle in a crouch and watch TV together, one who will always be there for me when i need support and one who will be by my side even when the whole world have given up on me. I mean isn't that suppose to be? Isn't the relationship between man and wife suppose to be such?
Both of us have our flaws I will talk about mine 1st:
...I am too hardfeeling, I am very sentimental to relationships means I take relationships seriously, however even when I lost something of sentimental value to me I will not feel sad, this may sound contraditory but I dunno this is just me , tak e for example, my house's hamsters, one of them died recently, when they were alive I like them very much and I take good care of them however when one died, seriously I tell u I dun feel really sad for the lost of it. I mean when I saw them I've already prepared myself that one day they would die. Mabbe this is the reason I dun feel sad cos I've already prepared myself. I think for my gf's case would be very different. she would cry her heart out if one of her pets died haha I dunno what would be her reaction if something happened to me.Touch Wood
...For me Planning is everything, and when I plan I tend to look at the big picture like wat will happen to this if I do this ... I want to be systematic in everything I do and now wander aimlessly then get something on impulsive. However sometimes I tend to look just at the big picture to the sense that I neglect the nitty gritty details and hurt others just to accomplish bigger goals.
3)Too realistic, I never dare to dream for what seems impossible to me now, u can say that I am a very practical person. Thus to her, I will seem to be a worthless person, not ambitious enough, For me all I wanted wif my life is to be normal, have a happy family and just be happy. I've never ever wanted to be rich(if I could then that would be great), own a few ferraris, porsche live in a big house...etc To be the most important thing is to be happy and to achieve that you will need to enjoy what you have now rather then worrying about wat you want and how to get in the future. To be contented is bliss(chinese saying). Thus I never ever set my tots on things that seems to be far far away from me prefering to take things 1 step at a time and being realistic..
Now what my gf is to me:
1)Hot tempered lah, stubborn lah when u get into a quarrel with her haha she will insist on her ideas no matter wat u said cos nothing goes in when she's angry when she's in this state of mind. Wat she says is the ABSOLUTE correct thing. No other thing is more correct then hers...must give her some time to think then she'll be ok.
2)Guillible, haha good news for sales promoters. Dunno why she rather believes things that her colleagues/friends said rather than my words sad sad..
3)her "multi-tasking" ability is bad..super bad. Haha she have always been like that no improvement after 5 years haha. When someone comes, she tends to neglect the other 1 and focus most her attention on the other. Thus u can say that I'm often the 1 who feel neglected when someone else come to visit her when I'm around...sad sad also.


In spite of all this I feel very happy when I'm with her I think this is the part that keep the relationsip(my side) going. in terms of shortcomings, I think we complement each other and this is wat keeps the "boredom" out of the relationship cos our differences brings new life and sparks everyday to the relationship thus everyday will be a new and interesting day for us....
I do hope that we will live happily ever after and be happy always and of cos less conflicts lah haha
Some of our pics are avail here:see any changes?
http://sg.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/sunboi80/album?.dir=/7244&.src=ph&.tok=phdjTRCBWqLRMhYC

P/S:My Blog mostly abt her but her's is almost entirely abt herself sad sad..

Communication Skills

Well I have just finished a short course on "Effective Interpersonal Skills". Basically it's a cause that teaches you how to improve your interpersonal skills and I find it quite useful(Most people will need to improve their interpersonal skills somehow) although I feel that the theory are a bit crap lah haha..Anyway as part of the course, I have to read up on a book titled "Reaching Out Interpersonal Effectiveness and Self Acutalisation". Some of the extracts that I want to share from the book:

What is Communications? Communications, simply put it is the exchange of message to satisfy some personal needs. To live is to communicate, all living things communicate by their own means unique to them. Thus the importance of communications cannot be over emphasized?
Communications between 2 person can be viewed as consisting of 7 basic elements:

1)Intentions of the sender
2)Encoding of the message, How the sender want encode their feelings, ideas into the
message
3)Sending the message, How the sender want to deliver the message
4)Channel
5)Decoding of the message by the reciever, how the reciever percieve the sender's
message
6)Internal Response of the reciever
7)Noise, surroundtings or other sources disrupting the message

Not all the time, the communication process is effective i.e the reciever understands all that the sender wants to send. Misunderstandings can arises from a number of factors:
1)Lack of trust, suspicious of the sender
2)Evaluative and Judgemental, keep telling what the reciever ought to do.
3)Emotional/Social sources of noise, not listening
4)Underlying meaning of the message is not recognised
5)Intentions of the sender is not always clear


Tips to effective Communications:

1)Take ownership, use "I" in messages don't speak for others
2)Be descriptive not evualutative, dun judge the sender
3)Understand other people's perspective, what you say may mean another thing to them
4)Use relationship statements (statements that has ideals to improve relationship)
5)Ensure 2 way communications


*Hope readers benefited from this post hehe

3rd Oct 2004

4 years ago on this day, I was enlisted into the army, still remember how my gf held my hand and cried cos we shall be apart for a few months. I was really touched by her gesture then and I've made up my mind that She's the one for me. My OC in BMT mentioned that if a gal is willing to wait for u throughout army then most likely she's the 1 for u. My gf is still the same gal as then. and I've never once questioned myself that I've made the wrong choice. I've always been grateful to her for the years she wasted waiting for me to finish NS and studies b4 we can walk up the aisle. For her, I've been trying to shorten her wait time by scimping every cent that I possibly can. I am happy when I'm wif her, everything that we did together I still remember clearly, every milestone we cleared together even though we have our fair share of quarrels and disagreements, I've never once doubted her... I'm always looking forward to the day where holding her hands and walking up the aisle.
Since young I've been asking myself wat is it that I want from life? All I ask for is a simple happy family, nothing more nothing less. Is that too much to ask? Recently she said I made her look like an idiot, she suggested that I am calculative, arrogant and mean. To me she's the one that I feel whom understand me most(besides my mum), the one who loved me most, to heard those words coming from her mouth, I was totally devasted, the whole world came crashing down on me. Despite my efforts and almost 5 years of relationship, so this is her impression of me, to her I am only trash. All along I knew that I was not in the no1 spot in her heart, her mum and ah ma etc...all come in front of me. but i dun mind, I just want that little spot then I am happy already. For me I've always been clear in the things I want. THe disagreement arises due to our conflict of interest, she want to buy a car while I discourage her bcos I am for the idea of buying a flat 1st. knowing that the car instalments would set us back by at least 2 years. Perharps the way I conveyed this idea is wrong, and she got angry...I am very clear abt wat I want, and I am a very systematic person. to me a hse is defintely much more impt asset than a car, and like most things, we should have a solid base then slowly build up from there...I dunno how she see things, I am not against her buying her dream car but sometimes I feel that that can wait as it's not that impt. I've been working hard to please every1 especially her, so this is wat I get in the end? I'm utterly disappointed and tired of all this, lost all my fighting spirit and motivation.
Tell me am I wrong??? Yes I am angry but sometimes all A man wants is to hear a simple apology and all is forgiven...

Men Vs Animals

Have you ever wondered what sets us(men) apart from animals? is it the fact that we can walk on 2 and they have to be on fours?No what really sets us apart from animals is our more advanced ability to think and analyse...However the sad thing is that in reality this is harder to do than said...People always want to hear and see what they want to hear and see.Good advice often fell on deaf ears or get misinterpreted into something bad just because it's not the words that we want to hear...

My Girlfriend and I

My Girlfrend and I have been together for almost 5 years already..Not too long not too short right?
I do admit that we have a lot of differences between us. Threat carefully we can complement each other, uncareful we can have many heated rows. Haha how boring if 2 people were entirely the same right?

She is more emotional, and makes uses her heart more than her head that's why she cries easier although she appears fierce. I am more logical, uses head more than heart and somethings quite unfeeling. mabbe it's true that men are frm Mars and Women from Venus(Or is it vice versa?) haha

She always take things quite hard, while I am always easy
She is more open to new and trendy things while although I dun resist new things I am more conservative.

I always think n plan way ahead, while she prefers not to think so far. call me a perfectionist

Not to mention our other differences in preferences..haha it's really a wonder that we can still be together...

Judgement

I've been asking myself this question "Who are we to judge others?" so far have not been able to find a good answer to this question. When we say others are bad, we are looking at them from our own eyes our own perspective, wat makes we think we are almighty? wat makes we think that the things that we saw is the truth, wat makes we think that the views we pass on others is unbiased? Wat makes we think that the things tat we feel wrong is really wrong?
Nothing in this world is perfect and that includes us. We always heard people mentioned "you don't understand cos you are not in my shoe". Of cos this statement is not entirely wrong but ask yourself this "Do u think that you have to be blasted by a atomic bomb to know that a atomic bomb blast is powerful and destructive"? this is wat my primary sch chinese teacher told me, and I think it's very true. there are some things that are not that complicated and some that are. We can't always assume that other people don't understand our plight just because they have a different opinion from us or the sided with the other side. Now then I am not saying that this is very subjective I am not saying that I am right, I may be wrong also but this is wat I feel. Sometimes people are really so heated up that they can't see things from other viewpoint, they only look at it in their own small angle, in this case they can't see the whole truth.

Goals

Woke up today to have this tot on the need for goals...
Suddenly tot of jogging and situps, well if we don't have a goal point like how far we want to run today, very often we would only run a short distance or do a few situps only, if we tell ourself that we will stop when we are tired...but it would be different if we set goals, like how far we want to run today or how many situps we want to do today..very often we will do more than if we leave it to be.
Goals are wat gives us going what gives us the motivation, even if we don't meet our target, we will still feel good cos we know that at least we tried, at least we dare to dream. Very ofen we will end up very near to the targets we set...of cos these goals must be realistic goals, not stuffs like wanting to be king, CEO etc... which are all very superficial...

Educating Children

Ah the recent spate of events and policies by the government to promote more births set me thinking about the most important aspect of children, that is their education not just their cirriculum but also their all-round development. I don't think any parent would desire children like those mentioned in my earlier post.
Educating children is like flying a kite, if u pull on the string too soon or too hard the kite would be grounded and not fly or the string may snap and the kite would fly away. Don't tug on the string, the kite can never fly high. Thus one must know when to pull the string and when to release it so that the kite can fly high even in the absence of strong winds.
I do believe in the "Spare the rod and spoil the child" policy, children must be punished to let them know that they have done wrong. Of cos I don't support indiscriminate spanking, but controlled and appropriate punishment should be administrated.They should know wat is wrong Rewards should also be given for things done right. Writing is easy but the actual implementation is going to be much more difficult.

Of 3 little Kids

I remember not too long ago while I was in the bus queue at Boon Lay interchange, I notice 3 kids well not exactly kids they are about 15-16 years old about 5-6 person in front of me. They were drinking Slurpees and talking away. They don't look like those typical "Ah Bengs" but but they are going to do next is damn disgusting... Well back to the story, Not a while too soon they started SPITTING on the ground at the floor of the bus queue. Not once, not twice but numerous times, they sure have lotsa saliva. In the end they polluted the whole floor area with their saliva the people behind them must be feeling disgusted when they walk pass the pool of saliva left by them as they are advancing to board the bus. My 1st reaction was "Wat if these kids were the cleaners?" Singapore should consider passing extend the CWO to people who spit on the public floor. The ugly Singaporean is back again after the SARS paranoid where during that time everyone became very hygiene conscious. Now sigh...these people should be made to clean up their own mess then that will teach them not to do such things. Actually i have a quite nasty thought, that is since the saliva comes out from their mouth, should make the saliva go back to where they come from haha but that's too evil.
Wat's education coming to? Educating such kids? i don't remember seeing such things when I was young, only remember Ah Cheks spitting and even if they spit they would spit on the grass patch or into the rubbish bins never onto the floor. Singapore is progressing in many ways but moving backward in the moral education sense.
I once reprimanded my younger brother for usage of vulgarities and he told me that it's not unlawful to speak vulgarities thus he can speak. Then I told him that this is a question of morals and how you conduct yourself, then he told me that he don't have to be a hypocrite and suppress his feelings and wat he want to do. God wat's the world coming to..if it's right then everyone in the world would be doing crime and bad things. Man are guided by morals, it's these beliefs that make them differentiate the rights and the wrongs and their conduct not just to show to the people around them but more importantly is to be true to themselves so that they can stand proud among others....

My Blog

Well I guess everyone has some thoughts bottled up inside him/her which he/she wanted to share with everyone in the vast cyberspace. Some use writings to vent their frustrations, some just want to share their happiness and some just want to share their inner thoughts with others. It's always good to share your opinions of things with other people and many many different views in this sense one would be able to see things in a more rounded perspective and from all angles and maybe this will change their mindset and they will see "ah...so this is a more correct way"