Home

What's your ideal home like?
Home = The flat or apartment itself or how those ? square-metres of space + the inhabitants may mean to you at the beginning of the day, during the day and at the end of the day, and much of your lifetime while you reside within?

Ff & I have set ourselves the following criteria in our search for THE flat:
- The "hardware" = situated at a high level, centre of the island, corner unit, not facing the sun directly, windy, brightly-lit, situated near the MRT station / town centre
- The "software" = Makes one feel good; clutter-free; the seller needs to be free from complaints from the neighbour(s)...etc etc

We've seen about 12 flats thus far - oh my...seemed like such an unbelieveable feat after all?!?? Let me have a little recapt...
Exhibit 1: Eeeeerieeee.....the flat's already vacant (save for the altar and a big bed) - well,the owner's passed on..
Exhibit 2: Great view and okay renovation, located on the 17th floor!...but not near any MRT stations + very expensive
Exhibit 3:Big and breezy, unblocked but no-no from the "oldies" 'cos of the *potential* of being blocked + it's too expensive and not very accessible
Exhibit 4: Mediocre location, mediocre renovation and pricing...
Exhibit 5: Dodgy dodgy! It seemed so "dark" the moment i stepped in! Only gals would feel that way?
Exhibit 6: Corner unit, on a high level, brightly-lit, BUT the living room's shaped like a hexagon = funny wall edges here and there - soooo "un-smooth"!?
Exhibit 7: Big kitchen, big bathrooms, okay renovation BUT blocked view from the living room - by 40-storeys high flats!
Exhibit 8: Located on a high floor, windy, brightly-lit, unblocked, seller = simple old folks BUT it's a corridor unit!
Exhibit 9: Situated on a high floor, near the town centre, unblocked, view of macritchie reservoir from afar, okay renovation BUT well....that big figurine against the bright-red wall? The high price wasn't the main push factor after all!
Exhibit 10: Great 30th-floor flat in a great location, unblocked, but feels like an oven - all the rooms get their dose of the sun and it cost a bomb!
Exhibit 11: Okay location, one of the best in renovation, feel and pricing BUT located on the 5th floor with just ONE push factor - a blocked view from the living room = yeah, i'll be able to see my little blue car at almost eye level if i choose to park there!
Exhibit 12: Okay location and renovation BUT i may end up sleeping in a sun-baked room and having prying eyes from passers-by!

Sigh.......when will we ever find THE flat?? We're getting kinda weary and blurry-eyed after these past few months of house-hunting...I can't even recall the many other private apartments and showflats we had seen before these 12 exhibits. It's become almost 2nd nature for me to comment "oh, this is unblocked" whenever i step into someone's flat - be it my own relative's or friend's!?!?? I'm going bonkers man!

Thank God for coming to our rescue - we're reminded of this - HOME - yessss....HOME is not equivalent to the flat / apartment itself. It's more of trusting and coming back to Him, and keeping in mind the times and days ahead FF & I will share with each other that should really matter, not just to suffice the this-and-that of our criteria for our "dream" flat.

Well, as long as the flat's in one piece and not some make-shift or ageing flat...we can make it as HOMEly as we want it to be and we can live happily ever after - knowing He is with us. Be it a car park at the front, prying eyes at the back, HE is with us.

Milestones Continued...

..I've been to that land of the rising sun = Tokyo finally! Yeah, i've always wanted to go there - for the ramen, sushi and the experience of being a pseudo japanese :)
..Zacky little hunky baby who's now 14 months old actually says "GOD!" with much joy when he sees me via the webcam, haha! Yeah, it's exclusive to me 'cos he says "Baobao" or "Ah Ma" when he sees my folks.Wonder if this exclusive term for addressing me is more for "Good grief!?" or maybe i'm that important to a baby - whose view of everything may seem so much bigger and awesome?!??Very coooool a nephew i've got - look at his first words - very unlike his peers. Who would go around saying "God" at such an age?
..I'm engaged!..since 15 May :) Yeah, that once-in-a-lifetime question which only one someone would ever ask has been asked, with knees bowed :)
..I'm now like many others in the midst of house-hunting, wedding preps - yeah, this is like a pre-empt to that next phase in life
..Topics at family mealtimes these days revolve around the following - HDB flats, wedding preps,freehold apartments,bridal gowns,etc etc. It's almost like another world at times...

Today

Today....

I saw a rainbow *twice* after the rain while driving to work
I recall that look of hopelessness on the man (in his 40s) who was told that it wasn't safe for him to take anything orally for the rest of his life
I saw that bright smile on an uncle who could now eat / drink without any tubes in and out of him
I saw a man all paralysed - unable to breathe on his own, can only mouth his wants and thoughts, needs to rely on that tube to get his stomach filled
I recall with much joy how Zacky little hunkie baby has said "O God" with much gusto when he's not even 1 year old
I attended to an uncle who couldn't articulate his name properly or tell anyone what he wanted and he's painfully aware of his difficulty
I climbed up 13 levels to get home
I heard of many patients who couldn't even get out of their beds

Time

Isn't it so often that we tell ourselves or the others the following?

"I won't be able to make it on time today"
"We'll have to meet another time"
"I don't have time for this, that, etc etc"

When time comes pressing - face to face with you - in the form of someone's demise, you finally have the time - albeit to grief over how much you could have done or told someone and to grapple with the "if only-s"?

Such is the brevity / fragility of life - that i have heard of 2 funerals (of my close friends' relatives) over the past month. I had attended one of them actually - the first in my circle of friends. The other - i just heard of only an hour ago - my dear ff's grandpa, whom i have met a number of times during the past year.His grandparents reside in Malaysia - about 2-3 hours' drive from here so i may not be able to pay him my last respects.

Time brings along happier gifts as well - i have also just heard of 2 baby gals turning a month's old recently. They bring to mind hope for the future, and hope for unfulfilled dreams of this generation perhaps.

I'm thankful that i haven't had any major confrontations with time, but i know that i'll have to one day - as i grow older, so do my folks and loved ones. Each demise i know of only reminds me of the urgency - to spend enough time with this and that friend and my family - not just in quantity but in quality as well. It's hard to split ourselves into pieces to be there for every possible someone (sometimes across the globe from us) at every possible time, but it may just take a simple sms or email - which i know i haven't done enough of.

I can only hope that i'll never have to face someone's demise with regret. In the meantime, i'll have to work harder and race against time...

Unresolved?

Hello again to me, myself and i..haha...

Well, i bumped into my very first boyfriend (let's call him K) when i was having dinner with my current dearie & his family. Yeah, of all people and of all timing, it had to be then and there.

Just a little briefie on K - he's the guy i had fancied 12 years ago and cared alot for. We sorta parted ways not because things had gone very bad but more because i had to leave for overseas studies. Guess our lives just didn't manage to intertwine thereafter and we didn't really keep in touch regularly except for the occasional smses during our birthdays.

Somehow, he was always in my thoughts - not in a romantic way anymore but just an unresolved part of my life i guess. We first bumped into each other at Bedok Jetty 6 years ago - a most unusual meeting ground. I was there cycling. He was there for work and appeared at the moment when i was wondering if i would bump into him.That sorta shook me alittle - he's like a skeleton in my closet for reasons unknown to myself.

Hmmmmmm and now i had to bump into K again - which had set me thinking....just what it is that i need to resolve / talk about with him so that i don't have to even think of him again?

Give me some time to come up with my next blog.......maybe by then the ambiguity will be alittle more resolved and then i can share?

Family

I'm starting this new year's blogging with a more reflective one...Let me talk a little bit about my family today as i am missing some of them...

Yeah, a nuclear family of 5 that has grown to 6, 7, 8 and now 10, inclusive of my 2 sisters-in-law, my baby nephew, my dear ff and Auntie Monica (mom of sis-in-law 1)....and it's not going to stop there i guess....with ff''s folks being chummy with "all the other parents", haha....and not forgetting all the other significant siblings, etc etc

Looking back at 2005, i thought it's darn cool that ALL of us had lunched together on Christmas Day. Yeah, it was a luncheon for 15 of us in all, woah! As the crowd gets bigger each year, so does the number of pressies, haha!

Well, i'm now all alone in my flat + babysitting bro kb's flat as well - bro kb, jo and baby zac have left for the states with my folks in tow to help them out for a couple of months. It has sorta hit me that despite the beauty / convenience of all the furnishings and gadgets in a flat, it's but an empty shell without its inhabitants, or rather, the warmth and love that permeates when the people are around.

Bro kb's place is just not the same without zac's chuckling, drooling, playpen, toys and cries. I could still catch a slight whiff of that lingering baby / milky smell when i first went there the other day. It's gone now. The baby chair's bare. It's just not the same without bro and jo as well. No one offering us ice-cream and chocolates. No one patting me on my head or trying to strangle me.

It had been such joy for our family - especially with baby zac added - i will miss the outings we had to the esplanade, east coast, etc etc. It was simply cool - picture this: grandparents, parents and baby and the rest of us sharing a chocolate fondue! That was heaps fun but wouldn't be repeated for the next 18 months until bro's done with his postgrad.

Hmmmmm,i am beginning to miss my folks' nagging now that they aren't around as well.This chinese new year's the first in all my living years that i'll hafta spend without my immediate family. How lonesome...well, actually not exactly since i'll be travelling with ff's family....but, it's just not the same without my own family.

Oh well, i'm not making much sense out of this empty shell, am i? I guess i'm just kinda sad, especially so since i have been to the airport's departure hall twice within 9 days to send off people close to my heart. Yeah, i finally got to hug bro after yearsss of not having done so somehow (maybe 'cos he was always trying to strangle me?) and no words could describe how i felt when jo patted me on my head before she left last night - considering how i had been to her when she first got introduced to our family yearsss ago. I thank God for each of them, for blessing me with this family. I can always find another flat if i dislike it, but i'll never find another family that's truly family.

Honesty - a virtue?

Am in the wondering-aloud (albeit to the pc screen and the walls) mode...

Is honesty a virtue - that everyone holds dear? desires? avoids? falls short of?
Someone close to me always laments about being picked on for being too honest to me!?
Yeah, the outcome of being honest to yourself or others = good? bad? Maybe that's why there's something called a white lie?...or maybe that's why some people choose to be in a state of nonchalance or even oblivion, refusing to let others' hurls of so-called honesty get to them?

I still don't know if it had been a good move to be honest to a friend -recently-about how i felt. It was a genuine no-malice-intended sharing about the friend. Nothing judgemental or personal or confrontational. Merely sharing.Maybe to me, it was part of ventilation and opening up, but to the friend, it was an unwelcome sharing / gentle reminder or reproach he/she didn't want to hear? I really don't know. What i do know is, ties are now somehow strained without any quarrels or dramatic arguments or exchanges.

It's strange how things can be so irreversible. You know how you had tried so hard to keep a secret and finally blurt it out unwittingly, feel that "oops!" and that's it = no way to turn back the clock at all. Or you had rehearsed umpteen times in your mind how you wanted to tell someone something, then a wrong choice of word or tone not intended - thanks to the lacklustre wiring between one's brain and mouth in that split second - and that's it = irreversible and then you feel that tinge of regret. On the other hand, restraining from being honest may also lead to all the "what-ifs".

Oh man, should i be honest or not? Yeah, tell me about being honest in a win-win manner = tactful and diplomatic, and in contrast = blunt and lacking thoughtful planning of one's words or indecisive and too hesitant when it's neither!??Either way it's still gonna rain regrets all over - over yourself or the others.

Now, have i answered my own questions? Yes or No i would say. Am i being honest then?