the station

I was reading Kathleen Flinn's The Sharper the Knife, the Less you cry, a journal of her offbeat adventure at the Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School in France. She was 36 when she was laid off from work in the States, depressed and unsure of the future, when she gathered the courage, packed up her bags and move to Paris to undertake a course in French Cooking at the esteemed Le Cordon Bleu.

Fresh at school, she attended and struggled through classes with her under polished French, learn the skills of knifing techniques, found love along the way, got married and learned a lesson of a lifetime. She reminded us all that life is a journey, not a destination, where she shares a short essay - The Station by Robert Hastings. At the end, it was a worth while time at Cordon Bleu, in which she now knows how to bone a chicken without removing the skin, which is nice.

Where is my next destination? (I better save up now if I do intend to attend the Culinary Institute Of America in Hyde Park, NY!)
______________________________________
By Robert J. Hastings

TUCKED AWAY in our subconscious minds is an idyllic vision in which we see ourselves on a long journey that spans an entire continent.
We're traveling by train and, from the windows, we drink in the passing scenes of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at crossings, of cattle grazing in distant pastures, of smoke pouring from power plants, of row upon row upon row of cotton and corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of city skylines and village halls.

But uppermost in our conscious minds is our final destination--for at a certain hour and on a given day, our train will finally pull into the Station with bells ringing, flags waving, and bands playing.
And once that day comes, so many wonderful dreams will come true.
So restlessly, we pace the aisles and count the miles, peering ahead, waiting, waiting, waiting for the Station.

"Yes, when we reach the Station, that will be it!" we promise ourselves.
"When we're eighteen. . .
win that promotion. . .
put the last kid through college. . .
buy that 450SL Mercedes-Benz. . .
have a nest egg for retirement!"
From that day on we will all live happily ever after.

Sooner or later, however, we must realize there is no Station in this life, no one earthly place to arrive at once and for all.
The journey is the joy.
The Station is an illusion--it constantly outdistances us.
Yesterday's a memory, tomorrow's a dream.
Yesterday belongs to a history, tomorrow belongs to God.
Yesterday's a fading sunset, tomorrow's a faint sunrise.
Only today is there light enough to love and live.

So, gently close the door on yesterday and throw the key away.
It isn't the burdens of today that drive men mad, but rather the regret over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow.
Regret and fear are twin thieves who would rob us of today.
"Relish the moment" is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118:24, "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."

So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles.
Instead, swim more rivers, climb more mountains, kiss more babies, count more stars. Laugh more and cry less. Go barefoot oftener. Eat more ice cream. Ride more merry-go-rounds. Watch more sunsets. Life must be lived as we go along.
The Station will come soon enough.

fml

My eyesight is failing on me miserably as I age. My last eye check was more than two years ago, in which I should probably get a new set of lens before I go completely blind- or something..Have been staring at the pc screen everyday for at least 8 hours for the last year and a half.

I wished I was still 18; fresh, eager and full of curiosity of the world. Seven years forward, I feel frail, nothing in life excites me, and life's just a whole lot of BS with hopes and dreams dash to the last fragment.

Never be too nice as people will just want more of you. They will leech on you and suck you dry. note to self: be a bitch, take a stand!

note to others: never mix business with pleasure. Unless you are ready to accept the consequences: obtaining a rational and objective thought with that someone. Jealousy will crop up, but you remind yourself, it's purely business and that's the tricky part. Am at tremendous pressure trying to remain sane at work.

I have plantar warts on my foot which I am anxiously waiting to get rid off.

my writing skills is a disappointment to boot.

i guess this is all there is to life, survival to just get by.

blogspot remains my last salvation for sanity - when all else fails.

list is not exhaustive.

editor's note: www.fmylife.com does offer some hilarious day-to-day f-ed up stories.Something to lighten the day, perhaps.

rant #2

Finally, a three-day weekend is here and I'd imagine it to be a good break. Away from work, away from troubles at work, away from responsibilities, just a weekend to focus on myself. Perhaps catch up with some baking skills and pamper my baby (AGS 8412) for a bit. Was suppose to polish the car on Sunday, when, this (note story below) happened to my baby on Saturday night, after a night out watching the KL Marching Band Competition in Cheras.

We were on the way home when, a female driver on the middle lane (in a three lane highway) wanted to make a last minute exit to the Kerinchi Toll (at Jln Damansara heading back to PJ) and collided with my car which was on the left lane. I couldn't take how irresponsible (or naive) she was when handling the situation as she wanted to just escape from it and hope everything will be okay. Hey little girl, it's NOT okay because it's my brand new MYVI which hadn't had a dent or deep scratch until your Hyundai what-ever-model-it-is hit my car. You can't run away as I have evidence because your green paint transferred to my car. Sorry but your side mirror probably needs some fixing.

Thank you. Without haste, I immediately made a police report at the Jln Tun H.S. Lee Police Station, which specially handles traffic cases. Those thugs lurking around the police station looking for some "businesses" from poor accident victims like myself were horribly annoying. It was 11pm for goodness sake. So, after filling up forms and writing our version of the report, the Sarjan took down details of the accident and hopefully, am able to come to a truce with the freaking Hyundai lady. Gosh, I am sooo going to make a third party claim from her insurance company so that my NCB would still be in effect for my next year's policy renewal.

It has only been a day since the accident; but I want my poor baby to be fixed. =(

office-rants

Found this off the net, how bizarrely true that this happens anywhere, in any corporate workplace. Keep your friends close, and enemies closer.
_________________________________________________________________
The Betrayer

Its sad but the truth that there is no organisation where people are not in involved in playing politics against each other. Its a fact that whether you like it or hate it , you have to live with it. In today's world the key to success is not hard work and intelligence but how smartly you can manipulate and outsmart your peers.

Sadly, I am also a victim of office politics.There is this female in my office, she is also my competitor.But i never believed in the theory that your competitors can't be your friends and fell in her trap. We became good friends and soon started sharing and discussing every thing....i was always very honest in sharing my thoughts with her as i trusted her completely. Never ever did i think that she will vomit everything infront of the boss and spoil my reputation.

The gist of the story is - Do not trust anybody in corporate life and think before you speak.

<3

-Perhentian, Oct 2009.

many faces of agnes

this Picasa version 3.5 is one of the coolest photo organisers in town. The best part is, it's free! so bundled with this new version is a tool called face recognition, where you'll be able to tag photos of people in your photos without having to do it picture by picture. Just tag a photo of your friend once, and it will be able to search to your plethora of photos in search of your friend. It's pretty darn cool, especially if you upload your photos to your picasa webalbums, your friends will automatically be tagged. Nevertheless, the match isn't 100% correct, give or take a 90% confidence level, it kinda resulted in some rather odd matches. Give a picture of me for example! =)

aloha! it has been a whileeee since I've been home over the weekends. omg. it feeels great! Today is Hari Raya Haji/Korban while our muslim mates will be out doing the festivities, the rest of us get to chill at home and swarm the local malls! Just past weekend, the Bank celebrated it's 50th anniversary dinner at kuala lumpur convention centre, thereafter went to the club with the workmates. Prior to that weekend, the Bank also had a motorised treasure hunt competition from KL to Awana Kijal, Terengganu. Good times.

Now back to grinding at work.

(500) days of Summer

One thing about Malaysian theater is that they censor everything and anything that almost seemingly portray inappropriate activity between a man and a woman, such as cuddling on bed or an innocent kiss on the mouth. I was at TGV cinema at KLCC yesterday to catch (500) days of Summer starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (of 3rd Rock of the Sun fame) and Zooey Deschanel as the main casts. TGV is the only cinema to screen this film due to its limited release, but am astounded by the “strict” censorship by the Board. Come on, rate it PG 13 yet imposing the snipping game? We’re missing the gist here dammit!

So, (500) days is a tale of a modern love story -- well, an atypical love story, the parallels of a modern courtship in which million’s of twenty-somethings today might have chanced upon. In the mainstream of love stories, we typically find the boy-meets-girl, falls in love, breaks up and makes up in the end, where one could envision My Sassy Girl or You’ve Got Mail. However, this movie is not love story; in which the narrator prompts within the first five minutes of the starting scene. It’s a non-parallel tale of a love story, vacillating between days {23} to {480} to {1} to {358} from their make-up, break-up, and initial encounters.

The story goes like this; Tom is a greeting card writer, falling asleep at one of their regular brainstorming meetings sees newly employed assistant, Summer (from Michigan) when she interrupts her boss for a phone call. He immediately sets his eyes upon her and begins his journey to unravel the mystery behind her pretty and likeable face. They began having brief encounters at the office which makes him even more certain that he wasn’t the one for her. He begins the “She’s not just that into me” routine, basking in advises from friends and sibling to subtly stalking her in the office. Then on one beautiful chance, they meet at the elevator and she strikes up a chat ending with a common ground. It starts from there. And ends from there. We really never know what makes or breaks a relationship that we find ourselves rewinding over and over the moments we had with the past. That’s the beauty of a relationship...and this movie.

However, both of them view relationship in a great vast of difference. He’s the Lover with a capital L. She’s the cynic and a non-believer. They begin to seemingly have an exclusive relationship, taking shopping strolls together, have shower s*x, share a favorite spot in the offbeat of Los Angeles and shares her accounts that “she-has-never-told-anyone-before”. Thing is, she has been around the dating block to know she doesn’t believe in love. And she’s honest about it with Tom. She and Tom hate the term boyfriend and girlfriend because frankly, they don’t know what it means. They enjoy time spent together but it is one those moments when it hits you; an epiphany or a realization. At day three-hundred something, Summer began to cry at a movie date watching The Graduate. We don’t know why she cried. Tom doesn’t know too. Perhaps it's Summer's epiphany. The camera pans to the scene where Dustin Hoffman elopes with Katherine Ross in her wedding gown at the back of a bus, smiling blissfully to himself, knowing that this was what he wanted in life.

It’s all downhill from there. She has talks like "let’s just be friends" and "I'm waiting to be friends with you again" over pancake at a diner. Like a mouse hunting for cheese snapped on a mousetrap, Tom is frazzled, and really pissed. He loses it at his job and embarks on an anti-greeting card manifesto. He self-proclaims the useless means of cards for expressing real human feelings and subsequently quits his job to pursue his primary ambition of doing architecture.

At day {488}, Tom and Summer come about with emotional honesty, and at the fruition, reconciliation between the two main characters. All hope’s not lost, when day {500} dawns a new journey for Tom, a promise of happiness after a tough bleak trough. (500) days provides many unexpected twist, yet it’s a either love it or hate it feeling. The movie is whimsical, where there is a moment of a musical sequence coupled with animation, expectation-reality parallel scenes, with very ambient grunge-rock soundtrack. It garnered 87% approval on Rotten Tomatoes and 8.2/10 on IMDB.

The Office S06E04

I will always remember Episode 4 of Season 6 of the hit t.v. series, the Office. I've always loved the Office since like I could remember and for this particular episode, we''ll be witnessing one of Office's best episode ever in this one hour special of Jim and Pam's wedding! Like Finally! Jim and Pam are the office couple of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company and have evolved from being colleagues, then friends, a couple and finally, husband and wife. They made their way from Scranton to Niagara Falls (woohooo!) to hold their wedding ceremony and reception, not leaving behind their Office entourage. I totally cried when they got married - perhaps I shouldn't divulge in too much spoiler..but you gotta watch the end to really feel the heartfelt moment. I'm so happy for them! (yep, the tv couple!)

Jim is the man when expressing his tender feelings for his wife, Pam. His toast,

"A lot of people told me I was crazy to wait this long for a date with a girl who I worked with. But I think even then, I knew that I was waiting for my wife"

Awww....