A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil, without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, "Tell me, what do you see?"

"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied. Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma. The daughter then asked, "What does it mean, mother?"

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her daughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond?"

Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level?

When I was young (cue: still in primary school), time had passed so slowly for me, especially during the June and Dec school holidays. I think that I didn't really fancy holidays in the past cause I'd liked to go to school where I could play with all my friends and learn new things. I liked going to school early before the flag-raising ceremony so that I could play hop-scotch or chasing
with my friends. I liked PE lessons when I could play ball games (I think I didn't really enjoying running). I liked Art & Craft lessons when I could draw and paint. I liked Music lessons when we could play the recorders, or sometimes the triangles. I liked my ECA hours (nowadays, hell, no kid will understand what ECA is. It's all CCAs now. bah.). I loved the excursions, the Science experiments at the labs.

And when it was the holidays, there was none of this and I thought time passed too slowly. The holidays seemed to last forever. I was always like, hell, let time pass faster and let me grow up faster so that I could do more things than I was allowed now.

And then the devil must have heard me cause time never slows down since then. Don't you think that time seems to pass faster as we grow older? Scientifically, of course it never does. Time is still the same, 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year (only for normal case anyway). But I think when we get older, there's more and more
things that we need to do and want to do. It ends up that time never seems enough for some of us these days.

Time is fortunately still enough for me because I think it's always a matter of choice and I like to have time for myself and my family. But time is passing too quickly. 11 years ago, I just passed my PSLE exams with flying colors. 7 years ago, I just finished "O" levels. 5 years ago I just proudly graduated from NJC. 4 months ago I just ended my schooling life. Suddenly I'm 23 and bloody hell, next year is the bloody Year of Pig again. Bloody hell. And I'm going to be bloody 24. And then I now look at my life and wonder what I've done with it.

Or what I've not done. Seems to be a lot worse when I look at it this way. Suddenly 23 years have passed with a blink of the eye and I seem to be still at the exact spot where I've started out 23 years ago. Square One? Damn depressing cause if there's one thing that man can never change, there will be the hand of Time - like some bloody spoilt clockwork that no one can never
push back once it started moving its ass. Bloody Time.

And as much as I would like to deny, I still look back to some events in my life, some friends that I used to have, and ask myself if I've done the right thing, would things turn out differently if I've done it this way instead of that. As if it is seriously of any use because regretting is one useless piece of shit. Even if I was given a second chance, I might still have done things the same way. I would have liked to be the kinda person when asked if he or she has done anything that he or she has regretted, to be able to say proudly in that person'a face N-O, NO!

But then I grow up to realise that I'm just as vulnerable as anyone out there, as fallible and as insignificant. Not sure if this is a good thing afterall because I thought man grows up to be wiser. Am I any not wiser? Or am I wiser because there's this quote from Gandhi that goes like : "It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." So I guess it's perfectly normal to self-doubt and no, I'm not going to suffer from depression. Because depressed people don't gain weight.

That day, she suddenly had this idea that 有人 sounds like a nice name. I was like, yucks you must be kidding me. That's a funny name. Your kid will curse you for life if you give him that name cause his friends are going to make fun of him in school. And she was all like, what child? I'm not going to have any children in the future. You are going to bear me a nephew and I'm going to name my nephew 有人 in the future.

I was like, siao. Nephew?! What nephew?! I'm like so left on the shelf. And even if I do have children, I must be equally siao to name him 有人 just for you. And she was like oblivious to what I was saying at all and went off mumbling how I must find someone with a surename like 梅 to marry so that my child can have a name like 梅有人 (没有人). Then continued to laugh wildly at her own joke.

I don't know about you but I love the 《无间道》 trilogy. In times when the Hong Kong movie industry was declining, and all the glory and glamour that once belonged to the Hong Kong movie-makers had almost faltered, 《无间道》 came along. Armed with the confidence to reboost the Hong Kong movie industry, it did do so. When the Hong Kong films were beginning to suck terribly in terms of storylines and plots, till the extent that even the superb acting skills of veterans like Tony Leung couldn't even make up for it, 《无间道》 saved their world. Not just with the excellent performances of the cream of the crop of the Hong Kong actors, but also with an intriguing and exciting never-been-seen-before plot and breath-taking directing. And of course, it helped that 《无间道》 is about what the Hong Kongers do best: the world of the Chinese secret society.

It wasn't just the cast (Andy Lau!!!!) that attracted me. Wasn't the secret society factor too. I like the Buddhism in the movies. I'm not a religious person but I do draw many of my principles and thinking from Buddhism. And I agree with the idea of 无间地狱 where evil-doers don't even get the luxury of dying and ending everything once and for all. Instead they have to kinda like be burnt eternally in hell. Makes anyone (probably if you do have a soul in the first place) to do a double take about doing evil.

When I heard that Brad Pitt bought the rights to the Hong Kong trilogy and was planning to do his own Hollywood version, part of me was very interested to see how the American is going to portray it in Hollywood style, and the other part of me was going to see how the stupid ang mohs are going to screw up because they can never match up to the Hong Kong version when Hong Kongers are so good at the gangster style.

So imagine my surprise when I read everywhere that Martin Scorsese (also director of "Gangs of New York" and "The Aviator") did the most fabulous job of "The Departed" (Hollywood's version of "Infernal Affairs")! The movie is not only topping movie charts everywhere in USA, people even agree that it's THE movie for the year, worthy of Oscars.

And Asians agree too. Asians who have seen and understood 《无间道》 agree too. They say that the cast's equally good (I've read that Jack Nicholson's Frank Costello was even more vicious and fun to watch than the character's equivalent, 曾志伟's Sheng-ge) and the plot is even better than the original though it has kept very closely to it. *gasp* The ang mohs have utterly surprised me this time round.

I'm definitely catching the movie. In fact, it's officially released today! Might have a feedback entry after watching the moive so watch out for this space =).

I've just finished Neil Gaiman's "Anansi Boys". A brilliant book if you ask me. And a brilliant writer too. I first saw recommendations of his works on magazines, but hadn't really made an effort to find and read any of his books. Finally made up my mind and bought that book from Borders last Tuesday.

A really wise choice, now to think about it. I'ts truly hard to classify his novels (he's actually more famous for his comics, being the creator/writer of monthly cult DC Comics horror-weird series, Sandman, which has won him many awards). "Anansi Boys" has been a mixture of myth, some romance, a bit of dark humor and even a little of horror. Hard to classify properly but nevertheless an exciting read. The contents have little logic because there's the mythical aspect but yet everything can somehow make sense to you in the end.

Sounds fun right hahah. Get the book. It's fab. I'm going to lay my hands on "American Gods" soon after having placed a reservation at the National Library. It's supposed to be Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, and I think it won him some kinda award too. Hope that it'll turn out to be exhilarating too. =)

I'm so glad that i'm picking up my reading habit once again. I used to read sooo much but it has kinda dwindled after I went to JC. Reading is one of the most useful hobbies I think. I read this quote before that goes something like: There's no difference between a man who doesn't read and a man who can't. How true isn't it?

Okok I know that I haven't been blogging in a zillion years. Or almost 3 months to be exact.

Well at least now you know that I'm still alive.

Or you rather me be dead??!

Oh my heart's crushed.

haha I've not been blogging for a simple reason. Blogger has been going bonkers on me a few months back. Everything lagged seriously and sometimes my computer would just shut down itself automatically in the middle of a blog entry. That was definitely enough to drive me utterly nuts ok?! Imagine typing a long and carefully-thought-through entry halfway, and then *zaaappp* the bloody computer just shut down. Without saving the entry. Almost enough to make me take a hammer and han-dum the bloody machine ok.

So I just stopped blogging altogether. LOL.

And another reason is of course because I haven't been too well recently. Not sick as in physically. Physically I'm fine. Even the doc said so today. =) Hell, I even gained like 2 kilograms over the last 4 months after my commencement! You've seen sick people gain weight before?! But mentally, spiritually, yes, I have been a bit tired, a bit lost, a bit of everything negative. I guess graduation from school (for the rest of my life) and entering a totally different phase of my life has that kinda powerful effect on me. And I don't like to blog about negative things all the time. Is that some kinda illness actually? Because I think sometimes I tend to bottle up all the negative stuff. But I also feel that negative stuff and feelings are a bit like all the haze that we've these days, though today it's much better - you might feel better if you release it but it can make other people around you sick and uncomfortable. That's why I don't talk sometimes, I think.

I think it's more or less over now. It had been so bad that I had actually wanted to turn to religion. No offense but you know that it's bad for me when I even thought of something like that. But of course, I didn't. Because if there's something that's similar to a virtue in me, it's probably my determination. Or you can call it stubbornness too. Even in my worse times, I still think that I can do it eventually and if other people can do it, I can do. So stubborn that I can't stand myself sometimes too.

But the gloom's more or less going away now, and I'm glad. I should be happy, so I can't understand when I'm not. However, there's still this empty space, this little bit more, that I need to either fill up soon (but how? I've no idea haha cos sometimes it's not like one hand can clap) or just forget about it like how I've done so all this while. It won't completely cure the problem because one day will come when I remember it again. But that's better than having in gnaw at me all the time.

I need something interesting/exciting to happen to me soon, or else my own life is going to bore me to death. Reminds me of that commercial. I think it was the Navy. Something like "How would it be if your life was to be made into a movie". I can picture all the movie-goers slipping off into Dreamland or cursing the movie, my movie, for wasting their precious money and time.

Will my new job be the one solution? I hope so.