Orion

That is the name of my first and only puppy. When I first saw him, immediately he attracted my attention. It was like love at first sight. I brought him home. Bought some toys, food and a crate for him. He was a happy and naughty pup. When he was unleashed or out of his crate, he ran happily until he always skidded.

Taking care of a pup is never been easy. First, need to make sure he has all the necessary injections. Next, is daily hygiene, food and activities as well as training. When he barks non-stop, need to find out what is wrong. When a pup falls sick, veterinary is the place to visit.

Training for Orion supposed to be easy because he was a lab. I woke up as early as 5:30am and went to bed as late as midnight just to let him poo. Sometimes, he didn’t poo so the trick was to turn him round in circle a few times. Naturally, his business will be done in few minutes.

Next training was to teach him simple commands such as sit, down, up and come. Training ground was at a garden. He was bewildered when he was on the grass. With simple bait and weeks of effort, he finally managed to follow some of the commands.

Day after day, I noticed that he was growing well until I did not manage to carry him in my arms. Sadly, the time we spent together was short. I guess fate has decided for Orion to go to a better place. I miss him so much...

http://www.perfectpaws.com/pupstuff.html
http://www.netpets.com/dogs/reference/training/pupobed.html
http://www.dogchannel.com/puppies/default.aspx

Papaya with white fungus

I suddenly craved for papaya with white fungus desert. So, I went to NTUC to buy some of the ingredients.

Ingredients: Papaya and white fungus, red dates, wolfberry & honey rock sugar.

My first papaya with white fungus desert. Bro and sis said "Delicious!" :)

Ross & Christina Fegley

I was reading DogFancy and found below article very interesting. I guess Ross is the first dog that received honorary alumnus.

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Ross, a 5-year-old yellow labrador retriever, stayed by Christina Fegley's side while she attended college classes, lived in dorm rooms, and stood in dinner lines.

So when Fegley, who has muscular dystrophy, graduated earlier this year from Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa., the school's administrators wanted to do something special for her faithful service dog.

At the annual luncheon for graduates, Ross was named an honorary alumnus of the Class of 2008, with all the rights and privileges such as permanent library card, a bone-shaped life-time pass to athetics events and a collar with a tag that reads, Ross '08, SU Alum.

Kulim - Home sweet home

This is my first time I write about my hometown. Kulim located in southern Kedah with population about 200k. I remember when I was small, I used to follow brothers to a small waterfall near my house. There we used to catch prawns and fishes. We can even see prawns in the drains! But all those has became memories to all of us. The rubber estate that we used to find rubber seeds to challenge each other has turned into bigger residential area. The woods across the road used to be our playground with wild berries also gone. The roads that I used to cycle to school are no longer safe for cyclists.

Nasi lemak, char koay tiaw, cendol, koay tiaw soup, curry mee, koay chap are all the foods that still the best in Kulim. I hardly find any compatible in Singapore.

A simple google returns many results about Kulim:
http://www.kulimkia.com/background.htm
http://kulimtown.blogspot.com/2008/02/brief-history-of-kulim-town.html

Forgiveness

I remember about two years ago, out of the blue, my ex-manager stood in front of my desk and raised his voice to me. Though it was less than 10seconds, it affected my mood whole day. The next day, he realized he was at fault and apologized. I couldn't accept his apology and reasoning why. Then he just said one simple phrase and meaningful "To forgive and forget."

Today, I came across this article about forgiveness and would like to share it out. Afterall, it is about choice. I have made my choice. How about you?

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Four Steps Toward Forgiveness from Healing Currents Magazine -- Sept/Oct 1996

The process of forgiveness can be a liberating experience. One that if practiced proactively can lead to a wonderful experience of life. Interestingly, forgiveness can only occur because we have been given the gift of the ability to make choices. We have the choice to forgive or not to forgive and no one can force us to do either. Conversely, if we want to forgive someone no one can stop us no matter how poorly they may act. This ability to forgive is a manifestation of the personal control we have over our lives. It is nice to reflect upon and feel the respect that we have been given to be able to make such profound choices.

Compellingly, the option to forgive also implies that we had discretion as to whether or not we took offense in the first place. While forgiving may be a difficult enough choice for many of us, imagine how our lives would be if we rarely or never used our power of choice to take offense. Since we have choice, wouldn’t it make sense to limit the amount of times we are hurt or offended so that the need to forgive rarely if ever arises? The ability to live life without taking offense, without giving blame, and by offering forgiveness are choices that offer a life of great peace.

The ability to offer proactive forgiveness proceeds along four steps. At step one you are filled with self justified anger. At some point in your life you have been hurt and you are mad at the person you feel wronged you. You blame the person committing the wrong for how you are feeling. It is their action and not your choice of response that you feel is at the cause of your anger. You have forgotten that you have a choice as to how you will react, or are so angry that you are convinced that it would not be right to forgive the offense. At this stage there is usually both active and submerged anger.

The second step towards forgiveness emerges when after feeling angry with someone for a while you realize that the anger does not feel good to you. It may be hurting your emotional balance or your physical health. Or you wish to repair the damage to the relationship. So you take steps to forgive. You may begin to see the problem from the other person’s point of view or you may simply decide to let the problem go. In either case after an extended period of time you are no longer angry and you have forgiven the person with whom you were angry. This process can be applied to anger at oneself, another person or to life in general.

The third stage of forgiveness comes after you have seen the beneficial results of forgiveness and you choose to let go of your anger fairly quickly. In this stage the choice is to feel the hurt for a short period of time, and then work to either repair the relationship or let go of seeing the situation as a problem. In either case you decide to forgive because you have had some practice with it and see the benefit in your life. This could emerge in as simple a situation as being cut off by another car on the expressway or in a complex situation like an affair in a marriage. At this stage you are aware that the length of time you experience the situation as a grievance is primarily up to you.

The fourth stage of forgiveness involves the proactive choice to rarely if ever get angry. This means often to forgive in advance of a specific trigger. This stage often emerges at the same time as some or all of the following thoughts:
I don't want to waste my precious life in the discomfort caused by anger so I will choose to feel differently. I am able to forgive myself, forgive others, forgive life, and forgive God.
I know how it hurts when people don’t forgive me. I do not want to hurt other people by my anger so I will let it go. Life is filled with incredible beauty and I am missing some if I am experiencing unresolved anger. I forgive myself for getting sidetracked.
People do the best they can and if they err I can best help them by offering understanding. The first step in this process is to forgive the specific offense.

Everyone, including myself operates primarily out of self-interest. I must expect that some times I, in my self-interest, will be annoyed by some one else's expression of their self-interest. If I can understand that this is an ordinary part of life, what is there to be upset about? If I understand that self interest is the way that I behave, how can I but offer forgiveness to everyone, including myself for behaving that way?

These four stages of forgiveness will not be followed in the same way by all people and in all relationships. There are some people for whom we feel such love that we are almost always at stage four: open hearted and ready to forgive. There are other people for whom we feel so egregiously hurt and our well of good will for them is so dry that we can spend years at stage one. What is critical to remember is the power of personal choice and the importance of exercising that choice to forgive so that we can bring peace and healing into our relationships and ourselves.

Marked 3years of My Life in SG

Oct 31st 2005 was the first day at work in Singapore. It is like a blink of eyes, 3 years has past. In these 3 years, I met many friends. There are friends that I still keep in touch and also friends that come and go. One of the great things throughout the 3 years in Singapore is I met few of my hometown friends that we had not been in contact since secondary school. After 15 years, it is amazing that we managed to meet up. Besides, I also met my course mates which we lost contact since graduation. Life in SG is busier with more activities other than work, work and work. Though, we try to meet each other once a while to catch up, to see who has gained weight, moved house, married, still single, more kids, studying, recent movies, weathers, who is hot, etc. All the things we can talk about..hahaha..

After staying a year alone in a rented room, I moved in to stay with bro and sis in-law. Life is much better where I can have my own big bed, big wardrobe, big tv..hahaha. Honestly, the only thing that counts is staying with family. Now with little niece around, life is merrier!
I remember I used to go back to my hometown once a quarter, then once every two months. Later became once a month. Then due to work, I did not go back for almost 3months and parents started to complain..hahaha.. Parents scared their daughter goes missing!

Career..Hmm..nothing to proud of. I moved from programmer to Business Analyst and now ended as System Engineer. I always like my job. Maybe I am lucky to have good bosses and great colleagues. I still remember the last day I was in my previous company back in Penang, me and my lady boss hugging each other crying! When I left the first company that landed me in SG, to avoid sobbing situation, I decided not to have farewell. I told the secretary to donate the money for my farewell. Out of goodwill, she donated by using my name. That was the first time I made official donation in SG. Now in current company for almost two years, I am glad that I am surrounded by nice colleagues and good bosses AGAIN. Being the only female in my team, they all treat me like their sister.

Health, I have nothing to complain so far. I think I am fit but not fit enough to complete 42.2km without walking.. hahaha..

What else did I miss out here… Must be the one that I did not write so far ;)

Shifting Office

Due to re-org early last month, we are moving to the other side. Same building, same floor, different pillars. Everyone was busying packing their stuffs be it files, documents, papers, food, pets, monitor, desk phone etc. Things were thrown away too. I worried about my tank. But lucky I have one master that will help on that!.Not only the tank, there is one CO2 tank below my table!

I have been working for years and this is my first experience shifting office. My colleagues told me that this is common. It happens almost every two years. Maybe it is good that we all can do "spring cleaning” once every two years. If not, our cubicles sure packed with rubbish! Lol...

Xuan's Videos

Xuan laughed non-stop when bro playing with her.

Xuan eating orange

Burmese Food

Bro and I went to Funan Center and supposed to have lunch there. Then he suggested to go to Peninsular Plaza. There are few shops at the basement and one with the longest queue. Longest queue in SG means the food is at least good and as bonus point it may be cheap.

While queueing, the rice and dishes ordered by others looked tempting. After queued for 10minutes, our turn to choose the dishes we want. It's actually economy rice and looking at the dishes at the counter, we hesistated. Somehow, we followed the popular choices. It costed $8.50 for both plates. We only managed to finish HALF of it.. Then we realized that we were the only two chinese there. Others were Burmese!

It was an experience to eat burmese food..lol..