Think With Your Heart

Finally have a little bit of free time 4 my much neglected blog.

Back in my school days, I used to love Debbie Gibson coz I thought she was very talented... She writes songs, plays the piano and sings. I loved her songs too as they were all about idealistic love, the kind of love that I believe in. I particularly liked the album "Think With Your Heart".

Coz I believe in thinking with your heart... well, at least as far as love is concerned. And I used to love the first song "For Better Or Worse", dreaming of singing it & playing the piano to my future husband one day.

My sister and I used to play the album really often... it was a cassette! (yeah, I'm that old...hehehe) But now, with the extinction of the cassette player, I couldn't listen to it anymore. And I was hunting around for the CD but since that album didnt quite do too well, and it is really old... it was nowhere to be found. :( Then I sorta forgot about it after a while.

This birthday, when I unwrapped the pressie hubby gave me... guess what I saw???


Now I really have someone to sing and play "For Better or Worse" to. :) :) :)

This is my confession

Note: In my newfound addiction for Glee, please note that the title of this post is SUNG out not read. ;)

Anyway, lately there are a couple of incidences that has really got to me head and my heart. It really does bother me that most people take mistakes for granted. Rather than confessing, apologize, repent and redeem themselves for mistakes... the more popular options seem to be:

- justifying that it was right. NOT a mistake at all.
- shrug it off... "just a mistake, I didnt do it intentionally."

Do they ever think of the implications or outcome of those mistakes on others close to them? Does it have emotional impact on the young innocent mind of your child? Does it put your family in danger to crime? Do they even THINK beyond themselves when a mistake happens?

In order for us to grow into better people, we cannot think that we are already perfect. We need to be humble, admit our mistakes and work on not repeating it, consciously. Just like in Christianity, being a Christian does not mean that we are oh so holy and perfectly sinless. But being a Christian means we need to genuinely confess our sins and admit our shortcomings to God. Then can consciously take effort keep on working on being a better person because we love Him.

If we are not aware that we are wrong in the first place, how are we going to become better? How are we going to ever improve?

Unless of course, these people don't love anyone else but themselves... then by all means, justify or shrug off the mistake. Even if it affects those close to you, it doesn't matter to you, right?

A soaring kite!!

Read about the kite metaphor for the first time on Shannon's blog. I felt that it is a very good metaphor.

"I like to think that the relationship between wisdom and romance is like the one between a string and a kite. Romantic love is like the kite that catches the wind and tenaciously heads for the sky; wisdom is the string that tugs downward, holding it back. The tension is real, but healthy.

I suppose there are times when a kite feels tied down by the string. 'If this bothersome string would just let go of me, I could fly really high,' the kite might think. But that isn't true, is it? Without the string holding it in the face of the wind, the kite would quickly come crashing to the ground.

In the same way, romance without wisdom will soon take a nose-dive. It becomes selfish, indulgent, and even idolatrous. Have you been a relationship like this ? Have u witness such a relationship in the life of a friend ? what was missing ? The answer is wisdom."

I think that it is not just limited to a romantic relationship. It can be extended to other parts of our lives.

Wind = passion
String = wisdom
Kite = us

Although sometimes in the stress of my work, I feel like giving up... go full force into theatre: sing and dance for life!!! Sounds wonderful doesn't it? After all people say that if you find a work that you love and is passionate about, you don't have to work a single day of your life!! But is "not working" really healthy for you? Will you still enjoy it when your very survival depends on it?

Take me for example, if I were to pursue my hobby fulltime... would I be bored of it? Would I still always have a goal to work towards? What happens to my parents? They are retired and depend on me & my sister. What about my marriage? Would it be fair if I am completely dependent on hubby? Would he be ok about the additional burden? There are so many concerns that will affect me and the people I care the most about... would I still be happy then?

If I only do my dayjob, I may get burnt out, stressed out and demotivated. Financially I'll be ok but will I enjoy my life??? Will I look forward to another day of work? Would my work give me any meaning then? Unless there comes a day when singing and dancing is able to give me the same income and the same challenges for me to work towards, I will need a day-job to keep the "tension" in my string.

So, my hypothesis is... no matter how hard it feels to juggle and balance both right now, I need to do it. I need both. As the kite, I need both the passion and the string to fly high. And I DO wanna fly high!!


Whether in both my career AND my love-life... I shall SOAR!!! Let's all SOAR!!! The sky is the limit!! :)

Mamak Mee anyone?

After our super memorable musical wedding last year that has got the relatives talking up to today, [chewah! ;)] both hubby & myself has ventured into something a little bit more professional and a little less SS. Hehehe.

Hubby's is something a little more serious called Adam: The Musical, highlighting awareness on HIV.

I got involve in something a little less serious and a lot more laughs... God knows we need higher doses of that in this stess-laden era. The Actor's Studio present:

Mamak Mee-Ah: The Musical Spoof!

Practices has been going on for over a month now. And we've even had our photoshoot. Some preview to wet your appetite...


Mr Director

Mrs Director / costume coordinator


Make up please!


D lawyer & his hot assistants


Our pretty choreographer



d crazy cast


d entire cast!

It's a story of... well, just come watch it when it opens on April 8th at the brand spanking new Actor's Studio, Lot 10. Come bung cheong my theatre debut! Hope to see you there!!

Dare to Dream

Every year most companies will have their annual dinner. It is the chance for people to get dressed to the nines and have a good time together outside of the office. Some have fancy themes: Bollywood night, Arabian nights, Latin Salsa, Beach Luau... etc. Others are just glamourous red-carpet-esque events.

We do that too...


Da Malaysian Dream Team


My ex-monkey :p


Every man's fantasy... hot nurses! ;-)


Me & my renal gals!!






Da man we will all miss, sobs


Charlie's angels?


Vivian & moi


da man who signs our paycheques... our finance mgr flanked by 2 pretty gals

But... instead of having dress themes, we have inpiration themes. Every year, our director shares stories about inspirational people that motivates him to be the best and in turn cascade down that inspirational feeling down to all of us at the country level as well. Last year's theme was Reaching New Heights. This year's is Dare to Dream.

Rather than setting a ridiculously high target and commanding us to do it... the leaders have put it in such a lovely way... inspiring us to achieve the company's objectives. It's not "we need to make more money to keep shareholders happy" but "we can build outstanding careers, make a meaningful difference to patients' lives & to society by creating more jobs as our business grows." Clever, very clever! Who wouldn't want to be a part of that?

We even had an inspirational guest:


Mark Inglis


Mark flanked by my boss & me

He lost both his legs from the knee down from frostbite, being stranded up an icy cold mountain for 14 days!! Did he wallow in his own self pity party? No! Did he give up his mountaineering dreams??? Absolutely NO!!

Mark conquered Mount Everest without legs!! It was not an easy task at all even for normal able bodied people like us. On the way down... his knee stumps were bleeding buckets due to the pressure of his weight on his prostetic leg sockets! He still climbed up to the summit and made it back down to share his story with his family, with the world! He even used his super inspirational story to help other people who are unfortunate and started Limbs 4 All.

What is our daily struggles compared to that???

I don't think anyone in the room felt stressed by the new sky high targets for the company. Everyone came out inspired to outdo that target set. Myself included. Eventhough I've been in the company for 5 years, I am still impressed. Here's to a great 2010 where dreams become reality!

Useless Maxis vouchers

Just received this from Maxis in the mail several days ago...


pretty wrapping


pretty booklet, printed on expensive-looking paper


quite a lot of pages too

Let's see what are the vouchers inside??? Does it really matter if they were vouchers from shops that you would go to when....


one expires 31st Jan 2010


another one expiring 31st Jan 2010

as I looked on... it gets even better...


31st Dec 2009!!


Another 31st Dec 2009

Then what is the point!!! What a big fat waste of perfectly good trees and more of the earth's resources!!! Don't these people at least think first then do? Having customer retention programs for the sake of having isn't going to help you retain customers. In fact, it makes it worse when they do moronic things like this. So, Maxis flers... if you are reading this, take this as a big fat customer complaint!!!

Judging a book by its cover

"Don't judge a book by its cover"... a common advice people give. But how many are actually practitioners of this phrase? Saying and practising are 2 completely different things. In corporate lingo: a plan is only as good as the implementation. They tell us not to take things at face value, must always uncover the whole situation, must analyse... blah blah blah.

But when it comes to their image in the corporate world, they still judge people very much by the packaging.

What sparked this topic? Well, recently there has been a terrible crisis at my workplace that has gotten my entire team pretty emotional, myself included. While my team & I were doing our job, extremely well I would say, given the situation... I still expressed how I felt to the top management of the region on behalf of the team.

What I got wasn't a pat on the back for being so passionate about my job, or being so involved and committed. The only speck they saw was that I was putting emotions into the job, I was not "controlled" and that is interpreted as immature & that if I ever wanted to move any higher up the organisation I must need to learn to act more mature.

Definition of mature: "Of, relating to, or characteristic of full development, either mental or physical"
If you have developed fully, mentally in this case and have very sound and wise judgment... does it ever mention in the definition that;
- you need to be purged of all emotions??
- Or that you need to be less human??
- Or that you must conform to the norm??

My stand on this is that having emotions about your work means that you are not doing it out of routine or force. It means that you genuinely have passion for it. Passion drives excellence in my vocab.

If this line of career means that I have to be less human, less passionate and less me... then I think it will not be the path that I would want go along for long. Item #12 on my wishlist is juz itching moved up a few notches. Luckily, for now I have a very human boss. So, I can still be me for now. Maybe I don't want to go up any further anyway, coz I want to keep my humanity. I want to keep my emotions. I want to keep my passion.

So, lantak la these people!! They're miles away anyway. I'm still going to do my job with passion for now and be darn good at it! I'm still going to carry my pink organiser, bling bling kitty hanging on my phone and dress like a diva to work. I'm still got be transparent with my emotions. I'm still gonna live a public life on FB. I'm still gonna be the one and only ME!!

Too bad if you don't like the cover of this book... coz it's all good stuff on the inside!! :p

Tong Sampah, where art thou?

Went to Chee Cheong Kai wt hubby for d infamously spicy grilled fish & seafood the other day. As always, this place brings back a very nostalgic feel of KL in the past. Still remember the very same shop my family used to go and buy Chinese New Year decorations without fail every year. The shop is still around, I just wonder what they sell the rest of the year????

Anyway, after having a nice cool cup of soy bean milk... I was looking for a place to throw away the empty cup. Mana tong sampah???

As the government tells people to take care of the city's cleanliness and not litter, they forgot that in order for people to comply to that, they would first need to provide more trash cans around the city.

As we looked through every corner and every street... all we saw was:



DIY tong sampah a.k.a. lantai??


Bukit sampah?


Trolley sampah?

Oi!!! Tong Sampah!! Where art thou?

Alas, upon walking out of the Kiew Brothers yoke gon shop... we saw it, standing mightily at the corner. You can almost hear the heavenly hosts sing and an aura of light surrounding it.


The one and only Tong Sampah in Petaling Street!!!

p.s.: DBKL flers, if you are reading this, please please, invest on some tong sampahs around the city ok?

Workout fueled by fantasies

Hubby always blogs about fitness and gym stuff. Here's my turn... from a regular gym member's point of view.

Why do I only go for 3 types of classes and treadmill?
- Bodyjam (is da BEST!!!)
- Bodycombat
- RPM

People say "reality bites". Which is rather true as nothing in this world is every perfect. Reality means you need to accept the good along with the bad in everything. But in fantasies, you control what happens. You determine what's in it. You can be doing anything you want, anywhere you want, with anyone you want.


In the dance inspired Bodyjam, you can imagine that you are performing on a big fancy stage ala the Grammy's or in Broadway. Or your shakin' ur bootie to a hot raggaeton beat in Miami's hottest club. Or you are the back up dancer to Gwen Stefani in her Japan tour concert! It doesnt matter how you dance in reality, all that matters is that you eat, drink and breathe dance in your fantasy. You can be THE best in your fantasy. It's your fantasy, you can even BE Gwen Stefani if you want. ;)


In the more aggressive Bodycombat, you can be fighting side-by-side with Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan or d hot Jet Lee! Or you could be in the boxing ring muay thaying someone in the beautiful Thailand. Even something a little closer to home, you can be punching the guts out of your boss or your most annoying customer. Wouldn't that be fun? :p


In RPM, you can ride in the wind across the Himalayas... or if you are more imaginative like me, you could be riding out at sea or even in outer space!! You can close your eyes and just go by the sound of the instructor's voice. There is never any traffic, there is never any risk of hitting anyone or anything if you close your eyes. If you're a romantic, like me, you can be cycling in the rain in black and white!! lol!



Finally, there's the treadmill. I can close my eyes and be running along the canal in front of d place I was staying in Glasgow. Beautiful!!!

Isn't that more fun than the reality of just going to them gym, working out on a yoga mat/step-board and exercising those calories away????

Selfish selflessness

You know how some people do good things hypocritically for selfish reasons? ...to obtain a good reputation, to market themselves to the opposite sex, to mask their evil intentions, or even to satisfy their conscience after doing something bad.

Judgmental and self-righteous people will most definitely criticise these people for being such fakes.

However, have you ever thought of what these insincere good deeds do for the recipients??? If an orphanage was the one who receives a self-motivated contribution, would they feel any different from receiving a contribution from a sincere person? Unlikely. A good deed, no matter what the motivation ... is still a good deed. If a insincere millionaire gives money to build a home, homeless people get a roof over their head. If a socialite wants to raise her public profile by publicy "volunteering" her time to help sick cancer patients... these cancer patients still feel good that someone is there to help them, and even receive more publicity that can spur more others who would want to help after being aware of their plight.

To the recipient, a good thing still happens and there is a positive impact on their lives. A good deed does something good no matter what the motivation behind it.

As for me, I too am human... more often than not motivated by self-interest and self-centred-ness.


Why do I brave d sun, get my hands dirty to plant trees and sort & recycle my waste?
To ease my conscience that I contribute to the consumption and pollution on this earth.


Why do I help refugee kids develop artistic talents despite d fact that I absolutely dislike being around kids?
To feel that sense of achievement that I had progress further than the music ministry in church to other ministries. I want to progress and get promoted everywhere, not just at work... but in church, in theatre, in academic.

Why do I do nice things for the people I love: hubby, sister, parents, best friends?
Because I get a nice warm fuzzy happy feeling when I see them happy as they matter to me.

The journey can be a good deed, motivated by the destination of self-interest. In my opinion, it doesn't matter what the endpoint is... if something good is done, there is a positive impact on someone somewhere.

Go on... be selfish. Don't judge others' motives. In this festive season, think of the less fortunate and do a good deed. It is not as selfless as you think. You will be surprise what YOU can get out of it. =)


Blessed Christmas and a Joyful New Year to all!!!