Riding Through it All ...

My brain is still in an overdrive mode. It is crazy how my brain will not stop thinking about work. I used to be able to manage work-life balance really well. But these past few months ever since I got the new role, and with the sheer amount of responsibility and decision that is dumped on me, I feel like I am barely gasping for air. So yeah, that is probably why a few nights ago, I thought of blogging. I can write my thoughts into words any way I want and in any lengthy, dramatic manner I want. I mean, if you see my Facebook, you will know it is now a public page! Yup, you would not have seen it coming right? I post pictures and work-related content. There is barely any trace of my personal life left up there, except for the bits and crumbs of the parts I want to show people. So in other words, I cannot whine! And now that I am living in BMC, away from family and friends, with frenemies all around me, with people I can barely trust, I bottle a lot of things up. But well, I guess that ...

This is just a test to see if people these days still read blogs!!!!! Well, I have to admit I did not see it coming--I did not see myself crawling down this rabbit hole, and now here I am, reading those old posts and comments!!! Can you believe it has been 5 years since that "Dear You" post? My god! And kudos to that sentiment that was felt throughout the post, it was so raw and real. But now that I visited the post, it is amazing how time really healed everything. Reading that post is like walking down an art gallery with supercuts of my life framed nicely on the wall, but the thing is the feeling was gone. It almost felt like reading about someone else, not me. And the comments! My God, I remember how tight the blogger group was! I would always look forward to the juicy part of their posts, and would always come up with something witty to spam the comment section! It is crazy how you just moved long with life and you keep looking forward but the moment you look back, you re...

Dear you, We never started out the way we intended to. We were two strangers. In fact, we were two strange people. Because we were what people would call “weird”, we started talking and before we knew it, we couldn’t stop. We talked and we talked some more. We talked about things as tiny as why yellow lights over green or red to matters as complicated as the world’s politics. The more I talked to you, the more and the harder I fell. You never ceased to amaze me! I was moved by your depth. I fell in love with the deep dark beautiful soul lurking within you, and I kept thinking, “How could anyone think this is too much?” I loved watching your eyes sparkle when you passionately talked about How I Met Your Mother or Taylor Swift or that movie we had just seen. To you, it wasn’t just a tv series, a song or a movie. It always meant more to you the way it did to me. Something a lot of people would never understand. I found that shared understanding in you. The empathy you had for your fr...

I am placing my right hand on my chest, and I can feel my heart beating underneath the ribs. Heartbeats. Irregular heartbeats. It was an overwhelming week for me. Or weeks. I am being very observing of these parts of my body. The organs. The cells. I am observing how they are responding to this chemical substance that is responsible for the sadness I am feeling. It is strange how fleeting images of certain people--certain scenes from my life--flash right before my eyes. When I am clearly digesting that one single line from the book. When I am concentrating on that heart-wrenching murder scene. When I am distractedly gazing at my shaking hand. I keep feeling my heartbeat. I keep noticing my breathing. Is that how a heartache feels like? 

My two-day getaway trip just ended, and here I am, all by myself, doing the things I love. I love the fact that Phnom Penh has that laid-back, lazy, holiday-ish mood to it now that people have not returned from their respective destinations. Anyway, I just took great pleasure in reading PM's second post on her private blog, and I was sincerely happy seeing that she made the effort to be active on her second blog (3rd? 4th?). She wrote about friends not having the traits she desired. I got over that for quite some time now! And I have come to the realisation that these friends are like missing pieces of the jigsaw. You take one piece from this friend and another from that friend to fit everything together to form a complete jigsaw. The important thing is the knowledge of which friend plays his part best in which scenario. There is a saying that goes, "You can't expect a bird to hold and a hand to fly". It is true in every way! A bird can fly, and a hand can hold. ...

Everyday at work is a behavioural experiment to me. I try new persona and observe and see what work in what situations and what don't. I guess I have always been very observing from the start, and I have that empathy that draws me to people with troubling problems! While a lot of people communicate at ease, others find it hard to just lock eyes and strike a conversation. As a teacher, I did tap into that skill of mine, but not to the point where i myself have to try on new persona.  I know I have a pair of attentive ears! I am that friend who listens to your problems and makes you feel appreciated. But then that was it! At one point I thought that empathy that was built in me was more of a curse than a blessing because of the long history I had with friends. Not until quite recently did I learn that I could put it to use in the work environment as well--though with caution.  What I do is I prey upon those with vulnerabilities, those with pressing issues, and you kn...

Grieving is very important and super healthy. At least, that's how it works for me. That is how I deal with losses, not necessarily only of loved ones, but also of opportunities that I have high hopes for. There is a saying that goes: "Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst". The truth is you can never prepare for the worst! And you can never lower your expectations to the point where you don't get disappointed with the results if they turn out to be different from what you want. However, instead of cutting yourself off from the world to grieve--it could be a day or two or a little longer, some manage to put on a smile and try to convince themselves they are okay because they are prepared EMOTIONALLY even though clearly nobody can prepare feelings for anything. Feelings are not items you can put on the shelf for public display once you are happy or pack them back in the box once  your mood swings to the darker thoughts. Admit you feel sad! Admit you feel disapp...

Let me get this straight: I am not the self-help-book person! I do not go to a bookstore, hurry to the "Self-Help" Section, glimpse through the covers of the new arrivals on the shelf, and buy one home! At least … not before I read "Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success".  It was one of those days when I was off the hook from work, and as part of my routine, before watching a movie, I would walk into The Monument Bookstore, just one floor below the cinema. I had no particular book in mind then, but even if I did, I would not be willing to spend money on any when I could get access to plenty of free pirated ebooks (thanks for not judging me). The widely-beaming bald man with super white teeth and in a suit-and-tie fashion was staring straight at me from the cover of a book as I took a few steps closer to the shelf. I had known Steve Harvey ever since I started watching those talk shows, and who wouldn't have when his name was always associated with The ...

I am turning 28 in three weeks, and I am still single. I am sure you can probably imagine the growing frustration at every dinner table during my catch-up reunion dinners. When a lot of your friends are either married or--at the very least, dating, and you are neither, they probe you like you are some sort of an interesting subject of a life science experiment. They start putting you on the spot and scrutinising you as if there was something quite dangerously wrong about you. At first, I attempt to open up and walk them through the reasons why I am not dating, not that I do not have a chance. But the funny thing is no matter how truthful you are willing to be with them, they still refuse to digest the reasons, and prefer to stick to their own skepticisms. After a while, I just give up on the explanations. I am dedicating this post to those friends and acquaintances of mine who genuinely want to find out why I am still single. Should this discussion pop up at any dinner tables in t...

I am here today because i just finished reading Gaara's latest post, and as ALWAYS, the sadness and nostalgia are splashed all over. But if there is one thing I can take away from the entry, it has to be the fact that he has always been around here, on the other side of the fence of the writing world. The lengthy, more detailed, but less popular side. Without his dedication and commitment for blogging, I might have given up on blogging too. Yup! You heard me right--though I hate to give him credits for that! Anyways, every time before I blog, I always read his posts. Now imagine having nothing to read EVER from him--no matter how lame he can sometimes get! So yeah, I owe a great deal to him for being that source of blogging inspiration he has always been since Day 1. Because of this, I would like to WASTE this particular entry on him: The Gaara Sand! Flashing back to 2004, I met this guy! He was a nerd from head to toe. Everything about him screamed "NERD". His gla...

People say life is a miracle, and yes, this little young man is a living miracle. His name is KONG Youta. "Youta" is a Japanese word meaning "great sunlight/sun", and I can proudly say I am the uncle who came up with this name for him. Uncle, yes. I am officially an uncle. Anyway, he was born on the 13th of September, 2015 at Bumrungrad Hospital when the clock struck 10:28AM. He has brought so much joy to both families though we might handle his birth differently. Never a day has passed without my parents constantly demanding to see their grandchild. Even though they don't sometimes get to see him in person, they still constantly ask for his pictures from my brother, the father of the child, through LINE since we have a LINE family group. For the time-being, every decision made in the family concerns Youta since we all want to make sure he gets the best upbringing. Watching how my parents have been handling the whole we-are-the-grandparents-now situation ...

Yup, I am going down with flu again for the hundredth time--or more, all thanks to biking in the rain for two days in a row. I don't regret one bit, though. I enjoyed every minute of the ride! Anyways, because I am sick, a close friend of mine called me up to steam it all off and probably get some massage, but I turned him down. Okay, this is the thing about me: I am an ambivert! I have come across quite a number of articles about ambiverts and have even taken some online personality quizzes to see if I really fit into that category. And yes, I do! You see, there aren't just two ends of a continuum: black and white, good and bad, happy and sad, introvert and extrovert. Life would be so much easier with just two categories. So I fall into the third category: the ambivert. I am an introvert and an extrovert on different occasions. I am super sociable when I know I need to build up networks with people in the same career field, but I also enjoy the luxury that doing things sol...

Well, in case you haven't noticed, I am actually a government official. Yes, a government official who dreams of owning a pub! Forget about the pub for the time being, though, since this post revolves around my life as a civil servant! I guess this is probably the first time I open up about that part of my life here. As much as I love the creative side of me that running a pub will feed on, I am deeply rooted in the government background, having the bloodlines working as important people in the government. At one point in my life, I thought being a university lecturer with easy money and less pressure would be able to compensate for the career path down the government-ish lane. It took me about five years of dragging myself to classes every morning and sleeping past midnight because of the papers i had to grade before i was struck with the realisation that I couldn't take the easy way out. I just wasn't meant for that. I was born to be more. I guess people just at one po...

I cannot fall asleep again! Well, in fact, there is no need for me to complain here since i pretty much sleep only after 3AM! Anyways, I am not here to go on and on about my sleep patterns. I am here to talk about my pub! I remember mentioning my interest in running a pub here, and well so far, though nothing has materialised yet, we pretty much are on the right track. We have managed to sort of decide on the favourable location. It's true that no leasing contract has been signed yet, but I've already talked to the potential owner of the small villa we wanted to rent and she seemed pretty understanding. Also, we finally reached the consensus about the concept of the pub. However, it is not wise to disclose the information about the concept of the pub here. The meetings we have had so far undoubtedly bear fruitful results. We are getting more confident each day now. The only big concern we are having now is the operation management of the pub since it's daunting. We have...

Life has been good to me. At least, that's how I choose to see it! Every challenge that presents itself to me is seen as another milestone towards my goals. They say we all should step out of our comfort zone because nothing ever grows there. How about we keep on EXPANDING our comfort zone instead? Well, I think that's what I have been doing lately. As far as I'm concerned, nobody is thrown into this world with his comfort zone being the size of the combined continents. In fact, we probably trust very few people at first--our parents, but as we grow up, we trust more people: siblings, lovers, friends and the like. My point is the comfort zone isn't unchanging! It changes over time! The only difference is probably the rate of the change itself, which apparently varies among individuals. So, I think it is not so much about stepping IN and OUT of the comfort zone because this implies that the comfort zone stays the same, but about EXPANDING the zone instead. We eat things...

It is almost 4 AM in the morning, yet I am wide awake and … naked. Well, i guess the "naked" part is not so relevant (or is it?). My sleep pattern has been screwed! I sleep at 5 AM almost every day now, and that sucks because when I wake up, I always feel like a zombie. And to keep myself awake, i drink loads and loads of coffee, and as a result, when the hustle and bustle of life dies down after 12 AM every night, my brain is just as hyperactive as it is during the daytime.  Every time I shut my eyes, forcing myself to sleep, random images pop into my head. The damaged ruins of the TransAsia plane. The mummified monk in an awkward, supposedly "meditating" siting position. The Japanese man in the yellow prisoner outfit kneeling next to the terrorist dressed as the black ninja assassin.   Nope, it has nothing to do with some sort of worries weighing heavily on me. I have been happy and hopeful with my life recently. I am filled with positivity to the brims,...

There is no doubt that I have been spending a lot of time on my own these days. Yes, I used to be all sad and rush into the whole I-hate-my-life self-pity. But as I aged, and as positivity stepped into my life, I realised that being alone deserves being credited for as much as being surrounded by good companies. It is just a matter of the angle from which you are seeing the situation, you see! Anyway, one of the good things is definitely the rare opportunity that you get to explore yourself even more. Usually, people we hang out with--whether you are aware of it or not, or whether you like it or not--influence you in many ways. The way you think is, therefore, affected, and a lot of good new fresh ideas that pop up in your head are usually compromised to serve the best interests of the entire clique. However, after some time of being literally detached yourself from the people you used to hold dear and near, you are able to sit down and spend a lot of time to get to know yourself even...

Being in your 20s, especially your late 20s, after you have graduated from your college for 5 or 6 years, career-wise, you are still in the middle of nowhere. Even if you are unfortunate enough to land with the kind of job that you love at your dream workplace, it is likely that 5 or 6 years is enough to put you in a position where you feel that you have outgrown what you have been doing for the past 5 or 6 years. Likewise, in my case, I am at a point in life where I feel I have passion for business. I know it might come across as "wildly random" for some people who have never got to know me well, but deep down I think I have the brain for business! The prospect of the high level of creativity it allows excites me! And i am the kind of person who loves to be one step ahead of others in terms of creativity, who thinks outside the box.  And yes, because I have started my work as a government official for some time now, i start to realise how little room there is for creat...

Suddenly it feels like i'm being back at one again! I'm talking about the whole pieces of business and career ideas that are randomly floating around in my head. Well, it is not that i am not sure about what i'm doing, but the problem with me is if i keep doing something, i am a workaholic! That is to say, I am crazy into it! But … the moment something happens that interrupts the flow, it sends me back into the whole dreamy lazy state. Yes, it has been 10 days since the wedding, yet things haven't fallen back into place on my part yet--the mental part! I don't know … I just can't focus and drag myself back to work. Apparently I have been on leave for 10 days now (how ridiculous!), and yes, i do need the transition for my part too. I know it sounds absurd since I am not the one getting married and having to start a new chapter of married life! But still, I need some time to clear my head. Anyways, I'd like to share this lovely photo. Love it so much!