Soap Opera Episode 3

Why, would you suddenly wanna leave from a scene when you've come across from another part of town where you paid $6.80 in a cab for?

I dunno.

What the hell possessed me that I wanted to leave a place where all of my friends were at and were all waiting to get into, save for a girl that doesn't speak much English who wanted to go to the toilet.....

Looks like all the meditation training that I've gone through in the last 3 weeks hasn't helped much.

Why did I have to apologise to my cousin and close friend David for my actions....after all I was doing what Sharon would have done.....be herself.

I didn't want to be there.

But how on earth did I manage to get myself into that location in the first place?

Was I seduced by beauty? Or was it the fact that people stayed half an hour later for us at Velvet, so I had to return the favour?

Why am I making this outing more complicated that what it should really be?

Isn't this outing meant to be a happy gathering of friends who wanted to go out and have a good time?

What happened?

Have I drifted back to my silly old days in Sydney when I was offended by everything the group said? That I was too fat and shouldn't really be eating that Big Mac I was holding in
my hands?

So now what?

Do I call and apologise the next morning?

I meant what I said in my SMS to my cousin.

"U and David and Christian are most impt to me, fuck the rest"

I hope Letitia enjoyed herself. I did. For most of it.

The Curious Case of Grand Master Wong

I have absolutely nothing to write about, so I shall post pictures of me loving myself....

This is funnnn!!!!

Meditation Medication

I've recently signed up for 3 sessions on basic meditation. For those of you who are fortunate enough to be acquainted with my inner most thoughts, you would know that I practice Buddhism (not very polished yet, but I try) not as a religion, but more as a lifestyle.

I've read books on the subject and try to lead as much of a peaceful life as possible, but its not always easy in this fast paced world of material needs. As a famous philosopher once said, "Because we're living, in a material world, and I'mmm a mer mer mer terial g........", its good once in a while to detach yourself from this cynical world and retreat into your own mind.

I must admit that I struggled (and am still struggling) to calm my mind down during the first lesson. You'd never know how busy your mind is until you deliberately slow it down to reflect on your life. During the meditation guidance, the nun guides you through the paces to relax your body and empty your mind. She forewarned that there will be distractions abound but the aim is to stay focused on thinking about nothing and concentrating on the breathing. Sounds easy on paper, but this was the list of distractions I had during the 20 minute session.

Concentrated on my breathing for the 1st 30 secs

31st sec : "hmmm...what should I have for dinner later, I feel like having char kway....HEY, CONCENTRATE!"

43rd sec : concentrate on my breathing.....

1 min 3rd sec : "did I bring my work that I was gonna do this weekend? Shit, I think I must have left it on my work desk, damn, have to go back and get it tomorro...MARTYN WONG! YOU ARE AT A MEDIATION CLASS, STOP THINKING ABOUT WORK!"

4th min : "The aircon is really loud, and its blowing cold air on my left cheek, its feeling a bit numb now....HEY! ARE YOU SERIOUS ABOUT THIS OR WHAT!"

7th min : "SHIT! DID I JUST FALL ASLEEP? I HOPE I DIDN'T SNORE!"

10th min : "pleaseeee...ease don't leave me....FREAK! WHY CAN'T I GET THIS PINK SONG OUT OF MY HEAD!"

11th to 20th min : 300 more different thoughts went in and out of my mind.....

As you can tell, I was getting a mild case of schizophrenia, but it made me realise one thing, our minds must be working a million miles an hour! For something thats been working hard for the last 33 years, its difficult to tell it to slow down to concentrate on just one thing.

I'm hoping it gets better next week.

One thing which did leave a deep impact on me was when the nun explained about stress. Stress affects different people in different ways. Given that two people react differently to the same situation, she postulated that stress is something an individual's mind creates for oneself. Stress occurs when the mind goes out of control, inflicting thoughts of fear and panic which can cause one to make bad decisions. Through meditation, we can possibly control how our mind reacts to different situations and if we can keep it in control, we can deal with extreme situations better.

I believe that.

She also said something that made a lot of sense. Our minds are incessantly filled with useless thoughts. Take for example, you are at work, getting totally stressed out and you think how nice would it be to have a holiday right now. Now, that is a useless thought. Because you are physically still at work, and there is no way (of course unless you suddenly announce to your boss you need to take a holiday right now. Not many work places would still keep the job for you after your one month unannounced Europe holiday) you could transform that thought to reality now. Thats why it is termed a useless thought. The reverse is the same. You are on holidays, and your mind drifts off to work. Whether that project has been closed off properly, whether your emails are piling up, whether the office has collapsed because they are lacking your efficient presence....but you are physically still stuck on a remote island with pristine white sandy beaches and sparkling waterfalls....another useless thought. When you let useless thoughts occupy your mind, you are unable to concentrate on whats important and happening right now. Its not easy to not think about these thoughts, but the important thing is not to cling on to them.

If you do, you will lose both ways.

Whoa, typed so much already...hope its not too preachy...

Just wanted to share some of my thoughts....

Express update

Yes, apologies again for disappearing once again off the face of the earth and reappearing again to unleash a barrage of verbal diarrhoea. So much has happened since the last time I blogged, which I embarrassingly mislabelled the year Michael Jackson was born.

So in a nutshell, this is a summary of what happened the last time since I blogged from Tokyo.

After Tokyo, I came back on a Saturday afternoon only to fly off on the very next Sunday to Bangkok for a workshop. I would love to go into the technical details of the Workshop on the Applications of Nanotechnology in Foods organised by the Asian Productivity Organisation but I wouldn’t think that would be a topic of great interest to you guys. All you need to know was that firstly I was representing Singapore at the workshop and secondly, I had a great time although the ultra busy schedule was taking its toll on my health.

From Bangkok I then flew off to Manila, Philippines for my dear friend’s wedding. And I got to meet up with my dear mate, Matthew Lyons there.....so that was great fun too. Manila surprised me. I never really thought much of it, wasn’t really a place I had in mind to visit. But I tell ya, the people we met there were fabulous, friendly and beautiful. Shopping is a somewhat different experience there, especially when you have to go through a bag search, metal detectors and a smiling armed guard to get into the mall. And I finally understood the true meaning of good service there. Fridge out of beer after a drinking session with your mates at 3 am? Finished your last cigarette at 4am? No worries, a phone call will resolve all that. Anything you need, all home delivered within the hour. Anytime of the day.

I went into Manila at 6am Saturday morning and flew out 10am Sunday. That, I tell you, is exhausting! Plus the chaos that is the Manila airport didn’t help. It looked like there was a riot there, but it was just people saying bye to their families or friends as non ticket holders are not allowed into the airport.

Then Matt and myself had only a few more hours to spend together on Sunday because he was leaving Monday and I had to work. We tried to spend as much precious quality time as we could together but regularly lapsed into periods of frustration and depression that we couldn’t have more time together. Anyways, until the next trip.....

I went back to work on Monday, had zero concentration, was making mistakes at work, was snapping at people and was generally wallowing in self pity when I received a phone call at 4pm. It was from one of the senior staff members who is our HR rep. He was also one of those people who have been working in the school for centuries too long, has no tact and should have really retired instead of sapping off tax payers’ money.

He said to me, in a real stern voice : “Martyn Wong, I am serving you with a leave of absence due to the fact you came back from two H1N1 affected countries. You must leave the premises immediately and stay at home for a week.”

Me :” ok, so the leave of absence is given by the school yeah, not from my annual leave because I was on official duties?”

Asshole :”No, because you went to Philippines on a personal trip, it will be taken off your annual leave.”

Me :”No, the announcement for staff who make personal trips to affected countries needing to take annual leave to cover their leave of absence when they return was only made today. Had I known that my annual leave was to be deducted, I would not have gone to the Philippines. So its not very fair to deduct my annual leave without prior notification”

Asshole : (This popped my cork) “Its too bad. So can you please pack up now and leav.....”

I slammed the phone down and went straight to my boss’s office.

After 15 minutes of ranting and raving, I came to an agreement with my boss that she will talk to Asshole on my behalf. However, I was pretty confident he wouldn’t have the power to take my annual leave, but if he did, I would have taken it further, first to the top of the chain and if that doesn’t work, I would have gone to the press. I was prepared to lose my job over it, but was he prepared to lose his reputation? If I’m going down, I wanted to drag rude and irresponsible people down with me, or at least get my 15 minutes of fame.

Two days later, while I was “resting” at home, asshole called me and sheepishly said “ They’ve decided not to deduct your annual leave, the Poly will take care of that.”
“Consider yourself lucky, take it as a holiday from the Poly, remember to take your temp....”

I slammed the phone down again.

Some people just shouldn’t be born with any mouth if they don’t have a brain to match.