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I want to heal
I want to feel
What I thought was never real
I want to let go of the pain I felt so long
(Erase all the pain 'till it's gone)

I want to heal
I want to feel
Like I'm close to something real
I want to find something I wanted all along
Somewhere I belong

(Chorus of "Somewhere I Belong", by Linkin Park)

I just roared at Angela today, insisting on the decision I had made. I blew my chance with her. I am not fit to be with her.... I am so disappointed with myself....

For the umpteenth time, someone passes the remark that I am immature. Okay, to be fair, she said something more along the line of "I feel like I talking to a younger brother."

This immature thing has been, and almost always be, the killer blow that bars me entry into a relationship. I don't think I am that immature; I think I'm more lively and chirpy. I don't usually behave during casual conversations; and I sometimes drop a few jokes during unnecessarily tensed meetings (of course, I'm on good terms with those present!). But I have no idea why someone would perceived this as immature.

If I'm immature, I wouldn't have started financial planning years ago. If I'm immature, I wouldn't have constantly upgrade myself. If I'm immature, I wouldn't have endured all the long working hours (and miss the learning process).

Argh.. this blog entry makes me feel... immature....

Under the weather again... The second time for this year... I am down with fever again... Normally, I will only fall sick twice a year (other than lovesick), but I guess the main reasons could be I am getting old, and I'm too stressed....

Despite that I have always wanted to learn the art of speed reading, I decide to first read Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, written by David Allen. And I am not disappointed with my decision in doing so.

I have always been a "professionally" procrastinator for all my life. No doubt I still complete my tasks, I, more often than not, tackle the tasks when, in Allen's words, "they blow up." :p

Well, my tertiary education may have shaped my character that way; I was taught "by hook or by crook, as long as you get things done." And I have no idea how the hell I managed to mangle that principle, and bring my procrastination to the next level. Oh well, no point crying over spilled milk now.

The blessed thing is: I know I am a big-time procrastinator, and I actually want to change for the better. However, the sad truth is: I procrastinated getting rid of my procrastination! What an irony!

Anyway, I can't say I have turned over a new leaf for good (for now, at least). But with Allen's coaching, I think I have finally found the key to say goodbye to procrastination forever... Er... I think I will find out that in three months' time when I reflect on this again... I'm hoping that I won't procrastinate reflecting then.... :p

I attended Karine's father's wake today with Sharon. Despite having attended so many wakes, I still don't know what to say. Therefore, I chose to be myself - I tried to crack jokes (subtle ones) and hoped I could cheer Karine up.

When a person is dead, he belongs no longer to this world; the irony is that the living are the ones left mourning for the dead. Christians mourn too, but we believe death is only a temporal separation; eventually, we will reunite in His kingdom.

However, I wasn't thinking so much about the dead; I was more interested in the living. After all, it is the living who need to carry on with life, here on this world. I remember one very meaningful phrase, which goes something like:

Although it is the shortest in length on the tombstone, the dash between the birth and death years represents the most important part of that person's life.

I cannot help but wonder: how meaningful will my life be? How meaningful will yours be?

After an excruciating one week, I finally managed to migrate my OS to Windows Vista. I did not expect the migration to take this long, but as I was preparing for the migration - with activities like backing up email account settings - I realized my hard disk's cluster size was setup wrongly. I had to spend a few days moving all the data from one drive to another, delete the partitions, re-create the partitions, and move everything back again, before I could start the proper upgrade. However, even after installing Windows Vista, I had to source for compatible drivers, and anti-virus software. And in the process of troubleshooting my sound card failure, I damaged my RAM, and I spent 200 bucks to replace and upgrade my RAM to 2GB.

Is it worth the effort migrating to Windows Vista? So far, I think it is, especially after experiencing the Aero interface!

Well, I think I am love-sick today...

I was emitting excessive heat throughout the entire day, and even though today wasn't especially cold, I was shivering. Some of my muscles were aching and some of my joints weak. I felt very tired and could hardly concentrate.

Sigh.... Angela is on leave today, and that may be the reason why I'm love-sick today.... :p

I was utterly disappointed with myself yesterday.... I couldn't believe I felt and behaved the way I loathed: I was jealous with Shing Fuu over Angela....

Well, they are best of friends, and no matter whether they are in a relationship or not, I ought not feel jealous. After all, I reasoned that when I felt jealous, I was in possessive mode. But Sharon told me I was simply in love with Angela. Sigh, just when I thought I was getting out of the Elena saga......

Third day into mum's first chemotherapy cycle and things aren't looking that good. She is feeling tired easily today and suffers from nauseas. Well, since these are the common side-effects of chemotherapy, I am not too worried; what I'm worried about is that these side-effects have affected her moods. I'm hoping that these side-effects will subside soon (I think it should happen on the fifth to seventh day of chemotherapy).

On a separate note, I received my CFA results this evening, and, well as expected, I failed. I think I will take the examinations again, cos I don't believe I am that stupid. What I lack is the discipline to study, and I am hoping that I will pull up my socks, study and pass the damn exam. Nope, I'm doing it not because I want to prove that I am not dumb; I'm doing it 'cos I want to cultivate the discipline to complete the things I'm set to do.

I am thankful to all my friends for encouraging me these days. My moods are picking up, and I am almost back to the jovial self. I guess a happier and less worried me will help in mum's attitude towards her upcoming treatment.

Although it is already quite late, I still want to list my resolutions for 2007. I think making resolutions do help me keep a check on what I want to do for the year. But before that, I would like to review my 2006 resolution list.

Out of the ten resolutions I've made, I think I have only managed to stick to doing the following three resolutions:

• Reading through the Bible once.
• Exercising more often.
• Bringing more joy and blessings to people around me.

Actually, the last item ("bringing joy...") is arguably questionable, 'cos I have no idea whether I've brought blessings to people around me (after all, I don't around asking them whether I've blessed them). However, I am very happy that I have read through the Bible once (completed that in September), and that I've made more effort in joining my company's jogging gang.

Okay, now let's go on to my resolutions for this year:

1. Spend more time with God (I don't think I've spent enough with Him last year; besides, is there such a thing as spending enough time with Him?)
2. Develop more patience and love for the people around me. (Again another recycled resolution, but with a twist: I must learn how to listen better before uttering a word.)
3. Spend more quality time with my parents (especially mum).
4. Inject more passion to everything that I do. (That way, I would enjoy the activities more.)
5. Read the Bible through once again. (How else to know God better?)
6. Internalize at least 3, of the 7, habits of effective people. (Another recycled resolution, but I think it is a good goal to work towards to.)
7. Leave behind the past, and be more active in getting dates. (More on this later.)
8. Read more financial related books. (Though I love reading IT-related books, I think I should develop a deeper and active interest in gaining financial knowledge.)
9. Take a Masters in Finance course. (To improve myself, and my market value.)
10. Master speed reading. (Again, a recycled resolution.)
11. Blog more often (and sort out my thoughts as I blog, and have a good laugh when I read the past entries).
12. Be more disciplined in the projects I embark on (regardless of personal or official projects).
    

Again, this is quite a list to work with, but then again, sticking to any one will bring me 8.33% closer to sticking to the entire list. From last year's list, I was at the 25% (or 30%) mark.

And now, to address the controversial resolution #7. I have been too stubborn with my affections for Elena. Inasmuch as I would like to continue carrying a torch for her, I think I am barring God from pointing me to the actual Miss Right. Well, Elena might still be the one; but if I give up the whole garden for this flower, how then am I able to know that she truly is the one? A person can only be deemed as "the one" when he/she is compared to/selected from a group of people, which the phrase "one in a million" describes adequately. Other than my depleting youth, I also wish to fulfill my mum's wish in seeing me settling down. That sounds kind of cliche (and highly controversial), but then again, I realize people don't (usually) live just for themselves. From my mum's incident, I see that making people around me happy (i.e. living for them) shouldn't just be a "I do it 'cos I feel like doing it" thing. Yes, I know, and must be clear, that my desire to settle down should not be purely an act to make my mum happy (I have to be fair to the other party after all). In any case, I must be active in expanding my social circle, not only for the purpose of trying to get hitched.

It will be a busy year ahead, and with my mum's conditions, I might be emotionally stretched. I hope I will be able to pull through, with Him as my companion as I kick off this year's journey.

what better day than today to blog?

A lot has happened in since my last entry. A lot of terrible things.

I was hellishly busy with work, so much so that I had to make cameo appearances every now and then when I was on leave. But on the whole, I usually felt the sense of accomplishment whenever I met a milestone.

However, things haven't been rosy at home. I felt lost when the doctor diagnosed my mum was suffering with colorectal cancer, even after they performed an urgent surgery on her. I felt a sigh of relieved when the chemotherapist told us that the surgeons had removed everything they suspected and there should no cancerous cells left in mum. However, as the pathology report showed that mum's cancer was in last stage (but thank God, it wasn't terminal), mum needed to undergo chemotherapy to destroy all remaining, invisible-to-the-naked-eye cancerous cells.

Although the rest of my family could finally breathe a sigh of relief, I still couldn't help but worry for mum. I have a lot of what-ifs in me, and I haven't really been able to pick up my moods these days.

I am thankful for all my church friends who are praying for my mum... And I really appreciate all my friends for forgiving my lousy moods these days...

For now, I could only hope and pray that mum will pull through the chemotherapy and enjoy family life again...

I want to fall in love.... :(

Before I start another long post.....

I don't know why but it seems that I've became an easy target for people hurling insults at me. Well, most likely they think that I am stupid (why can't I tell whether an option is in-the-money or out-of-the-money? Why can't I differentiate join-points from point-cuts?), dumb (why am I still holding a torch for Elena?), a loser (why haven't I ever been in a relationship for my entire life?), poor (why do I have so little assets under my name?) and ugly (why am I keeping long hair, especially when my hair is curly, and have a vomit-inducing face?)

Yes, maybe to these people, I am just a lowly life-form, leeching on Earth's precious resources, and should simply vanish, making the world a better place for these "superior beings". And yes, I gladly accept that I am a lowly life-form, simply because I am made out of nothing but dust (how high a life-form can dust be anyway?). Yes, I also gladly admit that I am as much a loser as I can possibly be in the eyes of the world. However, I know that I am but an alien of this world. I admit that I often fall into the traps of looking at myself and, at times, others through the eyes of the world - to be successful in life, one must be intelligent, rich, have high EQ, have a beautiful wife/handsome husband, etc). A lot of people think that I am wrong to have dreams (for example, what's wrong with dreaming having a blissful marriage with Elena?) and I should wake up and continue to play my role as a lowly life-form.

I believe everyone is precious to God, even for lowly life-forms like me. Yes, none of us are equal according to the world's standards, but in God's eyes, everyone is equally precious. God does not favor one over the other; He does not despise one more than the other too. There is nothing we can do to earn more favor from Him, nor is there anything that we do can anger Him more. Yes, I fall short of the glory of God, but so does everyone else. Am I comforting myself with these beliefs? Perhaps to the eyes of those who find satisfaction by gaining recognition from his/her peers, I am simply deceiving myself. But do I give a damn? No.

Take my affections for Elena as an example. Some of my peers think that I am being idealistic/dumb/hopeless for having so much feelings for a person I barely know. After some reflections, I found that these friends were simply telling me that they were smarter and they knew better 'cos of their richer "life experiences". Yes, thank you very much, my friends, but I give thanks to God for giving me a heart to pour out my feelings to the one I like. If prayer warriors can pray earnestly for the victims of natural disasters/wars whom they barely know, why am I wrong to display affections for a lady I barely know? Fine, I may be comparing apples with oranges here, but the main point is: I can love someone with no reserves. How many people can do this? As far as I know, not many. Most people expect their boyfriends/girlfriends to love them more than they do, and commonly, the "amount" of love they give depends on the "amount" their boyfriends/girlfriends give.

Am I trying to imply, in this blog entry, that I wiser/morally superior than most people? No, I don't, 'cos in God's eyes, all of man's wisdom are foolishness. What I am implying is that God has given us different gifts, so it is very important to respect those differences. I think it is acceptable to give advice, but if the other party find it unsuitable/inappropriate for his/her situation, respect his/her decision (and don't pass judgment or hurl insults at him/her). Should one day the friend you are giving advice to finds that he/she is indeed folly in rejecting your kind words, give him/her words of comfort and remind him/her to reflect and learn from his/her mistakes.

Let's make this stay more bearable by "loving your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27).

PS: I think this entry might start a flame war with some of my friends, and for that, I apologize in advance. This entry is not targeted at anyone; it is simply me "thinking out loud."

I want one too...

I bought a ticket and watched "The Departed" on Monday, thinking that I needed a much-needed break.

Anyway, without giving too much away, the movie deserves a merit of its own, despite that it is based on the original Hong Kong version - Infernal Affairs. When I first heard about this film, I rolled my eyes when the movie critics described Leonardo's character as "an angry undercover", as opposed to Tony Leung's dispirited character.

Anyway, despite a flaws here and there (for example, Vera's fall for Leonardo is too unbelievable), this movie is still worth your money if you can forgive Martin for dropping the use of Morse code (which is so cool!), the missing traumatic scene (you know what I mean if you've watched the original), and the oh- so-head-scratching ending (I prefer the original's ending).

Do I feel my three hours wasted? Not really - the three hours spent on the movie simply means I have to work OT to catch up with my work.....

Interesting advertisements!!! (From the posts I've made these days, what do they tell?)

An interesting look at what people envision the next generation of internet to be...