CNY

Ah...Lunar New Year.

And it's raining. So unlike past years. More indications of climate change.

Notwithstanding the protests in Egypt (and eventual removal of President Hosni Mubarak), this Lunar New Year @ Rabbit year had been fun. In the last 11 days, we've had two big family meals. This year, the meals were extended to the "in-laws". Days and hours of preparation work but those efforts were paid off when everyone enjoyed the meals. However, even more important was the bonding and interactions between the older and younger generation. That's why we call it family reunion. Re-connecting those from near and far. We played a game of charade with hilarious results. Team Becca won.

Another good thing about the holidays --- an uncongested city. Majority had left to return to their hometowns. My pastor said it was such a good feeling to be able to drive from one end to another end of the city within 10 minutes. Ah.....those four days were blissful.

Gong Xi Fatt Cai.

May this new year brings prosperity and harmony to all.

Circle of Life

My parents have watched me grow from a tot to an adult, care for me, worry over me, guide me, paid for my education, clothed me and through all those times, love me unconditionally.

Now, in their elder years, the wheel has turned. Now, I watched over them, worry over them, try my best to care for them and through all these my love for them grows. As a child and young adult, I never really appreciated my parents. Never acknowledged their sacrifices. Never apologized for the heartaches I caused. Never realized many things. Now I know better.

I can only hope my children will learn the same.

Eye on Malaysia (Ferris Wheel)

No, my nieces did not release me even though I had took them up the Taming Sari Tower. They dragged me to the Eye on Malaysia on a Saturday late afternoon.

Not much crowd there. The place could do with some landscaping. It could also display a sign or two explaining the details of the Eye on Malaysia like it's height, etc. I think that would be interesting to visitors. There's 42 gondolas. I saw one gondola with a big "VIP" word silk screened on it. That gondola was tinted black. As I have vertigo, I was ever thankful the gondola did not swayed much. In fact, my sister enjoyed this ride more than the Taming Sari Tower. For me, it presented a limited view. The Taming Sari provided a panoramic view.

Again, ticket price is similar to the Taming Sari Tower. Half price for Malaysians. That's RM10 for adult and Rm5 for children. Need to show MyKad. Guess they expect only adults to purchase tickets. Originally located in Lake Titiwangsa, it was relocated to the mouth of River Melaka and opened in November 2008. Based on Eye on Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. website, there's supposed to be a 4-acre outdoor leisure park in planning. And according to the website, the gondola goes up to a height of 60 meter. That's 20 meter lower than the Taming Sari Tower. Each ride is 12-minute. Each turn is 3-minute.

Taming Sari Tower (Menara Taming Sari)

I am scared of heights. I rarely volunteer for any activity, be it fun or not, that requires me to be elevated or scale to great height for any amount of time. My sister share this same fear with me. We share the greatest dislike of looking down from a third storey balcony.

However, my nieces do not share our fears nor do they care for them. When they made a recent rare trip down to Melaka for a visit, they specifically requested for a ride on the Eye on Malaysia. So at around eight thirty in the evening of a weekday, I drove them by the Eye on Malaysia, pointed it out to them and explained, with great relief, that the wheel was not turning and thus there would not be any crowd there and it may not be safe for just us ( 2 ladies and kids) to be there. I then made a tactical error by driving them pass the Taming Sari Tower (Menara Taming Sari). There was a crowd there all right, in fact it was so crowded I had difficulty finding a space to park my car.

For the uninitiated, the Taming Sari Tower is the first gyro tower in Malaysia. It was officially opened in April 2008 and is the latest landmark in Bandar Hilir. At 110 meter tall, its motorised section @ observation deck will elevate visitors to a height of 80 meter height whilst revolving 360 degree.

Despite my fears (poor sis dared not move throughout the ride), I was impressed by the panoramic night view. We had an excellent view of the Melaka Swimming Pool which is located adjacent to the tower. The swimmers provided a brief distraction to me : ) I then took time to concentrate on pointing out landmarks to my nieces - Dataran Pahlawan, Holiday Inn, Eye on Malaysia, Kota Laksamana, etc and the general direction of home.

Tickets for Taming Sari Tower are at half price for Malaysians. That is RM10 for adult and RM5 for children. Free for infants. Malaysian adult need to show MyKad to purchase ticket at half price. So if you wish to purchase 3 adult tickets at half price, make sure you have 3 MyKad to show. The observation deck is narrow and visitors are seated and remain seated throughout the experience. Yes, seated for the whole time. It's fully air-conditioned. Strangely, the outlet for the chilled air is located at seat level. My niece declared that her rear end got nicely chilled while on the deck. And visitors got a nice blast of air-freshener while queueing to exit the deck. The deck is clean and well maintained. You could also rent a binocular for RM3.

All in all, it was good but my sister and I decided that would be our first and last trip. Now, my nieces can proudly tell their friends that they had been on the Taming Sari Tower. Hmm...as I looked back, I do believe my nieces were too quiet for the first three minutes on the tower. Maybe they too were scared to be at that height?

Die Young

Early this morning, my office inbox showed I got four mails from ex-college mates of mine. The news from them were shocking. A mate of ours had gone home to be with our Lord yesterday evening. He died of lung cancer.

Truth be told, I could not place him when I read those mails. In my defense, I must state that there were at least 150 of us mates and it had been 15 years since we last saw each other. However misplaced my memory of him may be, fact remains that he died young, only 39. He leaves behind his wife, a daughter and son.

It brings home the fact that life is fragile. As we go about our daily chores, groaning and fuming over work, cursing while stucked in traffic or long queue, gossiping with friends, watching TV and surfing the net, most of us forgot that tomorrow may never come for some of us.

If we knew today is our last day, would we live the day as we did today? I think most of us would not. Push aside the initial urge to get on a plane and go to Hawaii or Paris and live wild for the last 24 hours, I think we would change how we interact with people around us and be more selective on the activities we chose to spent time on. Perhaps instead of shouting at colleagues, we would take time to understand from where they come from, respect their views and yet be firm on ours. We would take more time to be supportive instead of back-stabbing. We would take time to show our appreciation to our staffs instead of demanding more productiveness. Lets not forget the family. We would spend more time talking and laughing with loved ones rather than washing the dishes, mopping the floors, doing laundry and more because tomorrow those stuffs would still be there but our chance to show our love to our family may be gone. We may miss that last laugh, that last hug or that lass kiss.

I believe each of us is special to someone or two or more but at least one. Don't miss the opportunity to say some kind words. Don't miss the opportunity to give that special smile to that special someone. Because tomorrow may never come.

In memory of the people who had entered our lives and enriched us ...

Brides

Ah...I was shocked when I heard my cousin has a Vietnamese bride. I'm not shocked over the origin of the bride, I could not care less where the bride comes from. I am shocked because neither he nor his family ever mentioned it to me or my family members. Hello, we're supposed to be f-a-m-i-l-y.

Turns out he met the girl through an agent. Ok, now I may guess the reason for his secrecy. I have to admit he is the quiet type and for the more than three decades I've known him, I've never heard him having any gf. I thought he and I have resigned to lives without spouses. Well, looks like I'm the only one in the club. Saw a pic of the bride. Not bad looking. My Sis said hurrah, now we can enjoy Vietnamese cookings. She's always one to look at positive side of things. I think all the positivity of the family flowed straight to her leaving me all the negatives. Yeah, I'm admiting I'm a pessimist. When someone invites me for a trip somewhere, I'll look first at all the possible things that could go wrong ... plane crashes, missed coaches, food poisoning, etc.. Ooopps, I'm straying from the topic.

Soon, when my cousin T gets married, which will be sometime this year, I'll be the only one left in my generation not married. Oh no...I can just imagine the questions and looks from aunts and uncles when next we meet. Aw....(grimace).

Duh! What was I thinking

That's my right hand with an impressive bruise on it. It's red now but a day ago it was blue and black.
Was it the result of an abusive spouse? A fight? A snake bite? I'm rather ashamed to admit the cause of that bruise.

See, the door in my room has a gap at the bottom. To prevent bugs and such from entering my room, I used a piece of wood to close that gap. Two days ago my young energetic niece accidentally knocked that wood piece off from its slot. I tried to fit that wood back to its original position. It was an extremely tight fit. After a few attempts to push it in, I used my palm to sort of "hammer" it to place. That wood still refused to slot back into its place after my first few knocks. I gave a few harder tries. By then my hand hurt but I didn't give it much thought. Finally frustrated, I went to take a hammer. A few hard knocks from that hammer and the wood was back in place. Success, at last. It was only a few hours later that I realized my hand was swollen and bruised.

Others plead temporary insanity, I plead temporary stupidity duh ; )

What I've Learned

With 3 decades under my belt, I felt obliged to share my experiences with whomsoever interested:

• I've learned that love is unpredictable; we can and sometimes do fall in love with someone we never dreamed we'd ever fall for. Proximity breeds ...proximity.


• I've learned to treasure those moments with my parents when they reminisce of their younger days.


• I've learned to appreciate a hug. A hug can comfort a broken heart. A hug can bring a smile to a sad face. A hug can revive a tired soul. And the best thing is -- when you give a hug, you get one in return. Another good thing -- both are free.


• I've learned that sometimes it's better to let go of that someone you love when you know he/she can never be yours.


• I've learned that everyone can sing. The only difference is in the quality. And the best time to sing is when in a car, alone : )

(Added 25.3.11)

• These will past. No matter how bad a situation, it will soon past.
• There's a season for everything. A time for laughs and a time for tears.
• Forgiving is hard but good for the soul.

Feel free to add on what you've learned and your age, if you're so inclined.

Loving It

I had not seen my nieces for quite a while. Longer yet was a time when I had them in my car. Today, I had the opportunity to correct it. I drove us out for lunch.

As I drove off my sister's house with my parents and three nieces, one of my niece requested me to turn on the radio which I gladly complied. As I drove along, I suddenly realized that I had to raise my voice in order to be heard. On top of the radio, my nieces had been talking non-stop. Occasionally, when a song they like came on air, they'd sing along. Not in harmony.

Frankly, it sent shock waves through my system. I had just spent two hours driving with my parents up North to my sister's and we had had small conversations with music on the background. But this, this was like in a crowded room with everyone talking.

Thinking my nieces were too engrossed in their conversations, which had turned into a debate about songs and they were humming some Korean songs, I turned the radio off. Their conversations continued unabated and petered out after a minute or two. "Hey, there's no music", then the youngest chirped . "I didn't think you need music as you were singing your own songs," I said. "Aunt, don't you know - we can't live without music", said the eldest.

I commented on this to my parents, for which they responded that during my generation, we would all sit quietly in the car throughout the trip even though there were six of us in the small beetle car. And some of our trips could last up to six hours for those journeys back to my dad's hometown.

All this got me thinking. Growing up, we did not have the luxury of radio in the car, MP3 and MTV. The one radio I remembered was about 1'x8"x3" on which we used to played cassettes. Our favourite was the soundtracks from movie Grease. Ah, John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. My sisters and I, I don't recall my brother ever participating in these sessions, would sit out in the verandah with the radio and shout out the lyrics. "Reproduction...na na na nah...". Looking back, and realizing now what those lyrics meant, I think my parents must had been horrified. God bless them, they never stopped our fun. We were aspiring singers then, each believing in the goodness of our voice and talent. I tell you, my parents and neighbours must had been saints. In those weekly singing sessions, we had sang loudly, each of us trying to drown the voices of others. And I'm tone deaf!

Those were the good old days. I wondered what my brother did during those times. Must ask him one of these days. Perhaps I'll email him. And I would still drive my nieces around because although the noise level increases when they are in the vicinity, I still adore them.

Introduction

Don't you just love daisies?
They look like many suns has been laid on the ground to delight us. The open face welcoming and greeting in delight.

Hello,
Needless to say, I am a fan of daisies. I adore them more than roses. These feelings must had stemmed from my childhood. My mother used to have daisies in rows surrounding our front garden. I don't recall they needed much attention from my mother except the occasional watering. I used to sit by them and played with my dolls.

The picture I selected for the header of my blog is specially chosen because I think it evokes a certain kind of tenderness. The way those flowers are held up to her lips shows tenderness, a wanting to connect and an appreciation of beauty. Similar to the way a mother would held her newborn and if I have a child, I would have posted that picture here, too.

Yes, I am unmarried and never been married. If you asked me whether I am happy with my single status (I am frequently asked this), I would say 'yes' and 'no'. At times when I had seen mothers with their newborns, I wondered what I may be missing in my life. But, at times when I've seen mothers harassed beyond limits by their children (especially in shopping malls), I am thankful I escaped similar fate. These don't mean that I like children but not the efforts required to care for them. I have seen and do understand the sacrifices required. After all, I have many nieces and nephews, whom I adore but whom I gladly return to their parents whenever they throw tantrums. My mother would have loved me to add another one or two to that bunch and I would have gladly obliged her too had I met the right someone. So, for mothers out there, congratulations. And for those without child, congratulations too.