Boring Bukit Panjang Plaza

Saturday (21/4) We went to Penisula Plaza and Raffles City Shopping Center. (Yes, yet another trip to a shopping center in this nothing else to do boring country). Shila bought for Tim his 2nd pair of Adidas shoes which cost aroung S$59. Its beautiful black colour look very nice than any any other shoe I'd own. My baby boy is so lucky to have all these luxury from my wife. Yes, he looks very 'big boy' wearing it because the shoe is slighlty big for his feet now. He looks so handsome in it
Sunday (22/4) In the evening, the three of us went to Yew Tee. Shila wanted to give a present to her elder sister for her birthday. She bought for her sister a set of mugs from Causeway Point.
After we got there, I went away from them a while to distract myself of the boredom of being at Yew Tee. I went to Bukit Panjang Plaza, hopefully to locate a small bicycle shop located next to the escalator at level one. When I got there, I was disappointed it was no longer there. But that's not the issue.

I found out out that it took about half an hour for someone to get from Yew Tee to Bukit Panjang Plaza, but in those days when I had my own car or motorbike, it would take only less than ten minutes. Even if there was a direct bus service to that place from Yew Tee, I believe that it would take only about 15 minutes at the most. LRT for all its modern hype is still useless in terms of travel timing. It's ok to take a ride unless you're in a hurry.
The boringness of this place has led me to write this next BLOG ...

So far so good

On Wednesday(19/4), mainly two things happened. One is, Tim went for his usual checkup at Clinic J, KKH. He was checked as normal and healthy. He is now measured as 67 cm, and 8.6 kg in weight.
Then, we head up to Pasir Ris to check into into the Aranda Country Club, my company's chalet. it was rather my mistake to book this chalet as the timing was really bad. But anyway, Tim was seen here happy rollinbg around in their spacious king sized bed.

On Thursday(20/4), we had to visit Shila's mum, Tim's grandma whom loved him very much., She was hospitalized in NUH so that the doctors there could do a thorough check-up on her. Tim was very happy to see everybody in the hopspital and smiled to everyone.

On Friday(21/4), we got the good news that Tim's grandma was ok after the check-ups. We went over to Yew Tee at around 9.30 pm, and I was too damn tired and sleepy when I got there, This was probably due to mmy lack of sleep the last few days and nights. When we left there, I selpt from 11 pm till 7.30 am.

Good Friday & Bad Saturday

It’s been quite a while since I had the mood to blog. Many things had happened since the last blog, which was my birthday. On last Friday, a public holiday, “Good Friday”, I went out with my wife, and son. We went to Parkway Parade first. We met my mother there at 6 pm. We window shopped there for awhile, and had a drink at the nearby Marine Parade food centre.
We then took bus no. 135 to my mother’s place and took a short rest there. In about an hour or less, my bother and sister in law with her family, on coincidence, fetch us from my mother’s place in Pipit Road and brought us for supper at Al-Amin. Had 2 pieces of ‘cheese egg’ pratas that I could not finished eating, and they sent us home.
The next day was not a good day, and should be called a “Bad Saturday” (after Good Friday). My wife finally let out her feelings about someone (I do not want be so detailed). What she did not like and why to me. I had to tell my brother, reluctantly, and though it had its purpose, it scarred my relationship with him in a way. I do not want to go further on discussing this issue again, because all this issue can be avoided actually if everyone just accept who the other person for who they are, and just try to get a long.

The problem is actually shows this is what happens when a sensitive person meets a sarcastic person. Both parties cannot take criticism well, and me and my brother got caught in between. I do not hate, or dislike my brother. In fact I love him very much as he is the only male blood I know other than my late father who had passed away. I wished good for all his happiness, in life, in marriage, in carrier and everything else he does. I do not want or like to hurt his feelings, or see him suffered like me. I hope he understands all that. Last thing I really want is to NOT interfere in his life.

At the same time, my wife is the dearest one to me. The one who took the vow to spend the rest of my life with me, love and take care of me. I do not want to see her get hurt in any way even though I might get killed in then process. There are many, many times that I had to sacrifice the things I activities I like to do, the friends I like to keep, just to keep her happy in her comfort zone. I hope she realizes that I’m doing all these are to earn her love and respect.

No one is perfect, not her nor my wife. The other party also has flaws, My wife is rough with her words, because that’s who she is, and its her roughness, and sarcasm she throws at me has thought me to be a different , and courageous person that I am today as compared to the last 10 years before I had known her. I know how to stand up for myself and never to fear others. The words of others can’t hurt me, they’re just words. Behind that roughness, is still a woman weak at heart and also sentimental at times just like the feelings any other woman. What she grew up with, the loneliness, being a step daughter, being independent all the time living alone when I first knew, has made her a stronger and not easy to be pushed around person.

The moral is: Sarcasm is sometimes a way people say things to make you realize something that you probably don’t so that you can look into it and make that change. It’s just a criticism that you can take it as positive, or negative. It’s your choice. That doesn’t mean the person saying it does not like or hate you. If you said so, then that would be call an assumption. SO that would be the root cause of most misunderstandings.

I turned 32 years old today

Today is my 32nd birthday. It means I start to feel I'm getting old. If you just turned 30 and you thought you're old, wait till you get to this age. Being 32 for me means I have quite seen a lot of what life has challenged me for the last 30 years I'd lived. The best thing today is that I now have a son. My son, Fikri Hakim, he means the world to me. I'd like to say a very heartfelt thanks to my wife, Shila, for giving me the best present as her husband, her best friend, and the love of my life, for this most wonderful and precious gift.
If I live long, just imagine this, 8 years down the road, I'll turn 40. Wow, that number seems to get nearer, and nearer each year. Should I worry about death, or just life? It's a choice one has to make, an inevitable one. I choose life, and living. I guess by this age ,you just have to come to accept whoever, and whatever you are now and just keep on moving. In each stage of my life, many events I had went thru' had taught me many, many valuable lessons about life that would be too long to write in this blog.
The most important thing is, and had always been is about love, and sharing it with the ones that loves me, and who means so much to me. In that happiness, is always the goal in my life ...

Little Tim-Tim turned 7 month

Its been quite a while since my last BLOG entry. I just felt kind of lazy to blog for a while. Any way, its Friday, my off day. Only thing worth nothin g about is that my son Fikri Hakim, (Tim, I call him for short), had just turned 7 months old yesterday. He now has grown 2 little teeth at the bottom jaw. It's very difficult to see, but if I'm lucky, I could see it when I give him some food in thru' his small mouth. He will bite, and then I will feel the sharp and hard teeth. He likes to mumble 'da-da-da-di-da' and likes to jump around a lot whenever anyone tries to hold him while he's "standing".
I'm liking the song, "Like a Stone" by Audioslave. I first listened to it from their 'Live in Cuba' DVD. It's a very great, emotional song. Full of feelings, and Criss Cornell is an awsome singer.
I'm also liking magic and illusion now. I try to learn more tricks whenever I can. Conjuring is a great art, and I hope it may turn into a great passion just like how much I love playing the guitar. Magicians like Criss Angel inspired me.
I have also explored the game NFS - Most Wanted, Black Edition. It's a great game that I had played since I last stopped playing PS2 after Tim's birth. The previous PS2 game I had played was "Burnout - Revenge", which was also a great driving game.

Mental Fracture ...

0700 am The last blog was written on Thursday. That was quite a tiring day. I had not had quite a good long, and proper sleep until just now (Sunday, 2nd Apr). After I returned home from work this morning, and after I carried some heavy things from SS to my home, under the damn hot sun of 10 am, I slept uninterrupted from 11:30 am to : 6:50 am. This was quite an achievement for me for quite a long time, because my “normal” sleep is only 3-4 hours between 12-6 am, and in the afternoon, 10-3 pm. It’s sort of divided sleep, ever since I continued working in the night shift permanently in the year 2004.

Unless I get a normal DAY job, it’s gonna be like this for quite a long time. Sometimes its hard to explain to Shila about my sleeping habits. And to make things worse, the ionamine pills are definitely not helping me to go to sleep easy.

Just to have a quick recall, last Friday, finally we went to Suntec City. Shila, as usual, can’t wait to buy for little Tim-Tim something. She initially wanted to buy for him a stroller toy. She showed me this cute green toy which had a cute steering wheel, and had its own signal lights, horns, and special sounds when a baby presses the buttons on it. I actually liked it, and would not mind her to want me to buy it for my son, but it cost $25+, and does nothing but sits there. It’s not that my son didn’t totally have any stroller toys, or other toys, (he have quite a lot for a 6-7 month baby), nor do I not want my son to have the best of everything money can buy, it’s just that I am more worried that I might need to use that money for other more important things for little Tim-Tim in the future, like milk, diapers, going to the doctors, transportation to school. What if we need to have enough cash to pull us through the month. At least until Shila’s payday, and we don’t want to have to pull out on Tim’s savings. That is always such a bad idea. Think this is the problem (and usually is): See this flowchart below to understand Shila better : ...

Shila, I hope you are reading this, do you realize the physcological threat you put me into?

At work, 2 nights have passed. Saturday was alright, but Sunday was a bit heavy, but I’ve seen worse days. There’s nothing much to blog about work, except that after seven years, there’s not much to say. Things got so routine, especially the all the crap around here. Anyway, what was fun was yesterday (Saturday) when I showed them this new card trick. I pulled it off in front of them (my colleagues). You should see the look on their faces, priceless, (for a cheap trick).

On early Sunday morning, Shila left for an activity at Yew Tee. She had to be involved with the children’s colouring competition. She brought little Tim Tim to his Grandma, and Mama’s place.

After that, they both met Nana and went to visit their friend, Mas who just gave birth recently to their 2nd child, a baby boy. Let’s hope she’ll have a speedy recovery & would like to wish both Wan and her congrats on their newborn.