I have a giant cupcake next to me. a very talkative and hat-wearing pillow-hugging na-na-saying milk-drinking cupcake.

Besides that, who wrote the previous post?

"I feel so blessed to be part of this family!" what?????

Not me lor!

BOAST ALERT!

ALERT ALERT ALERT!



If you don't want to read a boast, then don't read beyond this. But if you don't mind taking the pain of having someone brag about how cool his family is then read on by all means.

I went to visit my relatives for CNY, and I was struck, for the first time in 21 years, how cool my family actually is. Now I'm not saying that your family is not cool, or anything, I'm just saying mine is and that doesn't exclude yours. And this disclaimer is for ppl who go - "OH! so you think what i have is lousy, is it?" Just because I'm pretty darn satisfied with something of mine. ANYWAY! back to it.

While visting 28B, Siglap road - which is a lovely old bungalow, I just realized that my grandfather and granduncle started a carpentry business which has now turned into a mini-MNC, with a good turn over! And my uncles run the business. And I have an uncle who was a Lt. Colonel in the SAF! and another Uncle who's the President of Singapore Lawn Tennis association, and decides the fate of Singaporean Tennis. I have a cousin who's the number one or two or three seed in Tennis for junior guys in Singapore. I have a young uncle who got a DSTA scholarship or sth, going to the States, his female twin doing a double degree in SMU - I have another cousin who's tall and broad and dark and is the Vice-captain of RJ swim team, and his holder brother, the Ex-captain, who's now doing medicine. I have an uncle who's a teacher, another with a thai wife and a hawaiin ex-wife, and an aunty with belgian husband.

How cool is that! and that's just my dad's dad's side.

And then we went to visit a lovely house in telok kurau that used to be a beach front property. Jack Neo wanted to use it to film I not stupid. But didn't. Anyhow, on my mom's side, my uncle is a doctor, his wife is a doctor, my aunty is a dentist and my mom is a lawyer and dad is a doctor and my sis is going to be a lawyer and i'm going to be a doctor. My grand uncle was a doctor too, and my late grand-dad was a chemist for F&N. My little 8 year old cousin's a god of origami, and can play both the cello AND the piano and can sing and draw and invented a working burglar alarm! And his older sister is a violin virtuoso, and is studying in RGS.

How cool is that!

Then going to my dad's mom's side, I met the Ch5 News anchor (MAIN anchor), a Miss Singapore Finalist, also a budding singer and actress and celeb, and her sister, the fashion buyer. And an NUS literature Lecturer. Then there's a 95.0 Deejay, and my granduncle chooses not only PSC scholars and President scholars, he BLOODY chooses the PRESIDENT! how cool is that? One uncle is also a pastor of a huge church.

Damn cool right.
I feel blessed and honoured to be part of this family. I love you all very much!

i never knew i could feel stressed.

glad to know that i'm still human.

the world will soon be one made of cut-outs and glue, and a vital piece will be missing.

-talking-rubbish-tim

i've got so many things to do and so little time - and that's the general consensus.

on the other hand, i'm thankful for all the things in my life right now, from cupcakes to polar bears, from penguins to Narnia, honey bears and the letter M. If you don't know what that meant, well, you're not supposed to. But I - I understand - and I won't forget them.

well, then.

on another note, let's all pray for Junren - so far it's not been good news and Prof Chan has been inscrutable. Tried twice to visit him but i've been rebuffed by the strict staff of NUH - "no visitors, no friends, no team mates, only relatives and la famila." righto. anyway, i'm keeping you in prayer, brother. take care and keep on fighting!

Junren's an excellent front row player - had the great honour of playing with him when I was J2, and he was J1 - fair, quick and explosive and strong, physical and determined, and always wanting to improve (keep working at your handling!). What happened was that exactly one week ago, he was playing in a friendly match and well, he hurt his spine. Badly. It's the sort of injury no one playing rugby wants to dish out or receive, and despite the rules and regulations that have bogged down the game, it's still not without risk, as seen from this. Bad things happen to good people, although they shouldn't. Junren didn't deserve it, no one does.

Everyone, keep him in prayer.

If all goes well, it's only slightly more than a month before I go.

I'm in a reflective mood, which means I'm feeling nostalgic and longing for last year. But it's too late, and time rolls on like that boulder in Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark. Just like Indy, we're running down the dark tunnel of life, never too sure if there's going to be a pit of snakes in front of us or another spear trap, or whether we'll manage to leap clear in time; slow down a second and prepare to get pulverized. I read in today's paper a column in which the writer advised us to slow down to smell the roses - I once did that, and after suffering several pricks from the thorny plant, almost inhaled a bee which then stung me on the nose.

I say: Screw the roses. Not literally, but just enjoy the view as you whizz past, and maybe, keep one eye on the road ahead of you and another on the rear-view mirror. Life's a marathon, and the rabbit lost the race because he stopped to take a break. You may say that life's not a competition; I say it is - one between mediocrity, settling for less, and a life which we could have lived if only we had made some better decisions.

So taking my own advice I'm going to snap out of it and look forward to the year ahead, trying my best to peer down that dark tunnel as far as I can, peeling my eyes for the glint of a spearhead and my feet feeling for the false floor of a snake trap - and like Indy, I'm going yelp a lame war cry and dive into the darkness, another foolish adventurer.

The roses can wait.

it's the mostest clichedest thing to do, but i guess i'll do it anyway and get it out of the way.

happy new year everyone!

for 2006,

i resolve to work harder and play less.






yeah right.