Let It Go

Stuck in a traffic jam, I am starting to think about life.
What are we looking for? We've been running around for something called happiness
Here I am, sitting here, getting the answer of life's most wondered question

The ultimate answer is:  LET IT GO

You can only be happy when you let go. Happiness will come once:
- You let go of your expectation
- You let go your angers, anxiety, and worries
- You let go your ego
etc etc etc
 All seems so abstract, so cliche... Isn't it?

But what I know most is, I would be truly happy when...
I am able to let go my fart, that I've been holding (in public)
I am able to let go my toilet urges when I am stuck in bloody traffic jam
Once you experienced this, you will realize that happiness and bliss is really about letting go  

When is Your Turn?

It is finally happening, a family gathering celebrating love of my cousin. It is where I can see faces of those related to me by blood, yet I hardly recognize their faces. It is also the time where I get to be questioned, “When is your turn?”

I am the eldest of the L’s 2^nd gen that is unmarried. I am not planning to. I am very very lucky that my parents do not do an act to frame me. Love my folks!!!  As I always said, they know me well, and they probably have given up the hope of seeing me in white dress. 

The cousin next in line, wasn’t so lucky, she had her mom (my aunt) to questioned her in public, “When is your turn?”, “When can mommy have this kind of event?” etc etc etc. It is so humiliating!

I met my elder cousin who (maybe) happily-married, who questioned about my ‘singleness’. I said, “I’ve had enough, I’ve seen enough, Marriage is not my cup of tea”

And she replied me, “You have to face the fact, that this is the path that we all must take. Do not go against the current.” I am truly surprised to get that answer from someone I used to look up to. I just can’t understand why she take the ‘common’ path. She could do much bigger things. 

Anyway, the wedding was a true parade of PDA – public display of affection: series of lovey-dovey act of 2 human beings who are keen to announce to the world that they are in love. A friend asked me if I wanted to be in bride’s shoes – to be the princess of the day. The answer is, “No… I cannot picture myself parading around. Not me.” 

Maybe my dear one is correct, The Path is against-the-current. I don’t know where I am now. I am standing here, not flowing with the current, yet not strong enough to fight it. I am stuck, for the moment.

Monsters Away

I somehow always keep the bad memories close to me. I marked those who have hurt me, I build fences around me. I do not plan on revenge, and will never will. I just hide, putting more and more brick in front of me, building a wall to protect me. To protect me from those who has stepped on me, spit on me, smearing my face, my dignity, and my sanity.

But meeting them is unavoidable, every now and then, as a human being, I need to and forced to face those monsters. Fear, that’s what I feel. The moment I know that I have to see those monsters, I trained, I prepared myself, I put on defense-mode. No, I don’t attack them, I just put on my shield.

On the fated day, they gathered around. I see those monsters; they come nearer to me, licking their lips, sniffing the blood stain on me. I have prepared, I stood up, put my head against the wind, see them in the eyes. I am here, I am much stronger now, I will succumb to your torture and humiliation no more. They tried to scratch, a lame one, maybe they realized I am no longer a weak victim. Though some still tried to stab me with swords, it becoming a cold fish lying dead, those bullies cheerleaders were too afraid to add more insult to the lame blabber. I realized, those regular monsters, they finally sense who I am. 

There is this one monster, the one I fear most. I used to freak out and cried every time I hear the hiss and rattles of the evil monster. It greeted me, walked towards me, squeaked "Hello". It was testing the water… I need to be composed in public, I nodded coldly. The whole day, I can see the monster kept its eyes on me, that bloody sneaky hungry eyes. It tried few times to drawn me again with no success, until the end of the night. I was sitting alone, and the monster crept close to me, hissed, and flicked its split tongue “Hello, how are you? Are you fine lately…?” I smirked “Good” and look away, I gave no chance for it to voice out more blinding bull-craps. In no time, the monster vanished. 

Maybe it finally realized, I will no longer feed it… I no longer acknowledge those monsters.

What is the purpose of life?

I once renounced the world for a few days... It was the best time of my life
But now that I am back in the "crazy" world, I am drawn back into the world of illusions and fantasies. I forgotten the pure pleasure I once had before. Just like drinking the seawater, the more I drank, the more thirsty I am... it becomes a additive toxic

Yesterday, a death happened. A death that has been predicted to arrive, sooner or later. I would say, it is sooner than others'. But yes, it is predicted, he finally gave up to the incurable disease. I am not here to mourn or to cry. I am trying to reflect...

During his life, what has he done?
Has he served the purpose of his life?
Has he fulfill all his dream and desires?

What is the purpose of life?
What are we here for?
Why are we running in never-ending circle finding something called happiness... and yet can never own it forever?
WHY?
-----------------

A minute ago, he is still alive... the next minute, he merely a piece of matter, left alone to be burned. No matter how much he was loved, he is no longer wanted.
For some, the world crumbled for a while. And yet, the sun still rises in the morning, the world still spinning as it always been.
And soon, he will be forgotten, as if he never exist in this world.
The world doesn't even notice our existence.
We are just as small as a fraction of dust in the universe, so insignificant.

Gym!!!

My fear and my hope finally conquered me.
I gave up... I joined a local gym club, I hired a personal trainer and this is day 4
My body aches...so bad. Need to melt these fat away!!!

To avoid my previous mistake, I do not take my PT's personal phone number, I do not get his full name, I do not get any mean of contact from him. Cause I know, I will make excuses and skip the class. Hehehe

Look what happened today, my old gym shoes gave up on me. Before I started my gym membership, I checked on my old faithful running shoes, which was hardly used before. But, she's been around for ages. So, she was OK 4 days ago, I checked on it... everything still intact. I have no clue why she just fall apart today. So embarrassing. Hahahhaa....

Injured Hawkbill Hatchling

Mike's first days... mark the open wound on his head and arms

On the night of 4th July, my dive instructor was patrolling around his island to check on a turtle nest that he secured 2 months ago. It was predicted that it will hatch on that very night. No sign... so we started digging, anxious if there were any survived.  After a bit of digging, we found 4 baby turtles, alive... 1 quite healthy, 2 injured, and 1 terribly weak.
We released the healthy one straight to the sea. The weak one died soon after. and the 2 injured one was kept in a container of shallow water. But one of them died the day after.

Only 1 left, we named him... 小强 -Xiao Qiang (The Tough/Strong One) or Michael.
I didn't name him, it was the guests and my instructor naming him. We don't actually know his gender.

When I brought him home to the town, we carried a full container of sea water, so we can change it everyday. Mike was terribly weak, when we found him, his left arm was injured, he cannot move it at all. He got some cuts on his neck and left arm. We didn't even sure if he will survive the next day.

But, he really was a tough one. I force-fed him with turtle food from petshop. I need to make sure he eat something. And it works. He get stronger, and starting to nibble on some seaweed/sponge that I brought. At least he has an appetite for the sponge.

Mike's weight (gr) on 4th July vs. 10th July 2015

Be strong, Little Mike. Hope to swim together with you :)
---------------

20th July 2015
Couldn't manage to get this writing posted before I left for Festive escape...
Before I left, I passed Mike to my instructor care. He took care until this morning... he released Mike free into the wild. We didn't want Mike to be human-dependent for too long, he need to learn about the sea.
Mike was much healthier, both arms in well condition, and he swam fast...
I wasn't there to witness, and there was no video taken
I am kinda broken-hearted, not able to bid farewell to the little one
I just hope one day we will cross path again

Baby Hawksbill Sea Turtles Hatching

I haven't been diving for months, been so busy...
Last week, I did again. Gosh, how much I miss touching the water
This time, I didn't puke. Hehehe...

That day, I was supposed to leave, but I am really grateful that we decided to stay for 1 more night.
Thanks to my instructor to allow it too...
That night, we found out baby green turtles were hatching...

So, what happened is that... in the islands, every now and then, there will be turtles' making nests there. None ever succeed to hatching stage. The island was inhabited by monitor lizards, who happened to favor turtle eggs too (apart from human, I guess)

2 months ago, my instructor - Mr.B, found a few nests on the island, and he removed the nest site to somewhere nearer to resort's security's hut. Monitor lizards and humans won't come close to the area. Making it safe for the eggs. Certain measures were taken to ensure successful incubation.
So on that night, 15 babies walked out of the nest. we waited for more to come out, then we realized... none were coming out, we started to dig the nest to find more babies are struggling to come out of the nest. Rain made the sands a bit packed, making hard to penetrate.
We had extra 65 healthy babies, and 2 still born.
We release them to the sea in the middle of the night. We took a night dive to capture their first journey. It was so beautiful and serene.
I don't know how many of them survived that night, I hope some of them will reach adulthood. Life in nature can be really harsh. Some baby sharks were already waiting by the shores.

What we can do now is to protect more nest, more eggs, and hoping more and more babies will be released to the sea. And may I see them again on my next dive.

Here are some of the video... we weren't prepared, thus the poor quality. But it's the moment that counts!

13th June in Paris

In the past few month, I have been traveling a lot... a lot
My last trip was a basic shopping trip: Paris & Milan. Mostly Paris.
There is a place there that is a must-visit: Gallery Lafayette

I didn't say that it's a must visit because it is the greatest, the biggest and the most fancy department store in the whole Paris.
I say that because it seems like... all tourists are drawn to this place only. I was there on a fine afternoon and the dept store was flooded with human

People are queuing for a fancy bag, having a big-built 'bouncer' to let people in and out (when they already made purchase). People are queuing for a tax refund paper works, and more people queuing for getting the tax refund on the premise

It is very interesting to examine the behavior...
It is so easy to see which country prosper this year. Most of the people there are Mainland Chinese.
A lot of them. Unlike HK-nese or TW-nese, I am NOT against anything about Mainland Chinese shopping spree. They have the right to spend whatever theirs. Won't judge, I am glad for them.

But seriously, that place was super crowded, the department store should have done something about it. It's just not comfy anymore.

Retreated from the hustle and bustle of the busy and chic Paris, I end up sitting at the corner Gallery Lafayette's Gourmet department - enjoying my quiet Bday soba, with Mom.
There goes another year... Happy Bday myself :)

Verbal War

I just started my own project last month, my personal project in addition to my folk's established biz.

Making my own home furniture line. Still in progress, seriously I dunno if it will be successful or not.

But I really wanna give it a try.

One day, on an unavoidable occasion, my competitor came up to me...

         Comp: I heard you are starting your own line?

             Me: Yeah, just trying

         Comp: Who do you hire?

             Me: People from Java ---> this's a very mainstream answer!

         Comp: It will not work, trust me, you better stop it

                    You cannot beat the pro-s. Just stop it. You will lose money

             Me: Ugh, yeah, you are right. I just wanna finished what I started.

         Comp: Just don't start your own line. You won't survive. [he kept on repeating few times]

              Me: Thank you for your advice

I don't believe that my line will be completed flunk. It will work, I just dunno how smooth it is gonna be.
I need to stay low, no point picking a cat-fight with the dude. Even if I win this argument, the only thing that changed would be our sour biz relation. Don't wanna waste my breath.

As I said before, I just wanna test the water. If I can do it, why not.

The competitor, was trying to sink me every now and then, VERBALLY.

Here is what I wonder, I can see how upset he is when he asked me about the new line, he even complained why we rebuilt our shop (It was destroyed during earthquake, rebuilding is a common sense)

And I can see how satisfied he is when I said, “Yeah... maybe it won't work.”

The things is, everything is said verbally...

When he said things won't work, my product doesn't immediately gone to trash can

When I said, maybe it won't work.... It doesn't mean that the production immediately ceased

We had tonnes of similar conversations, where he asked me to just stop trying, step back and even... stop selling at all. He had bad business last year, he put the blame on me.

I was stuck for days with this dude. On each conversation, he deliberately, without shame, wanted me to suffer.

Again, all words coming from his mouth. Just random voices coming from his mouth.

Looking from another angle, I do realized how silly it is.

___

But then, I also realized, I might be in the same boat as him... in the case of jealousy and sensitivity.

I find it very annoying when I see b*tches showing themselves off on FB. Of course, I am not stupid enough to be bitter on FB. For example: When I see the B writing, "Look at my post-pregnancy body, oh so fat!" tagged in a super tight dress pic. It doesn't immediately changed me into a fat whale. Those writings won't change anyone's body. Why do I feel jealous and annoyed? WHY???!!!

I am totally aware of my feeling, I just can't help it.

When Cinderella failed to Charm

Haven't been writing for ages now.
Many things had happened, but I was trying to embrace it by just 'seeing' ... to see the emotion, the rising and falling of it.
Sometimes it is successful, sometimes it didn't
Sometimes I just go blank and vent out my negative emotion --> bad bad me!
Need a lot of practice... and a lot of support from my dear one

Maybe this writing won't help much in my practice. but I just wanna write down my opinion
Dear one won't be glad about this, I bet. Haha

In the past few days, I was totally annoyed by the fact, I am the only one annoyed of this particular situation.

CINDERELLA
Every girl grew up with a version of Cinderella, from the young age we were planted with this Cinderella software. Life is hard and cruel, and you wish for a luck - a fairy Godmother who arranges everything for you, to land a Prince Charming in front of you. And Price Charming happened to be a Prince owning a Kingdom, rich, nice, handsome etc... happened to be deeply in love with you. And you live happily ever after.

We all know that it is a fairytale. As much as I or the rest of the world wanted to have this exact story line, I choose to live on my own feet.
Well, at least I choose to "work it out" rather than waiting for a Prince.

So, I was in a situation where I am stuck. A scenario where I was supposed to be (one of) the fairy godmother - pathing a way for Ella to her Prince Charming.
Since Ella is so desperate, she managed to have troops of fairy godmothers doing the job. I refused to be part of this conspiracy.
Ella put her life into a bet:  her dignity,  family, career, and bank account on the gambling table. She landed herself into the Prince's Kingdom and waiting for Prince Charming to turn her into Princess
She was eye-ing on not just one Prince Charming, but 2 or maybe more. Well, all are Princes... so whichever she able to grabbed. Good enough.
She failed.
And became a miserable Cinderella... the story didn't end in "... and they lived happily ever after"

I am very much annoyed that, she openly announce her mission - looking for a (?) rich Prince Charming.
Openly. Meaning everybody knew it. Including the Princes. And the rest of the world.

Yet, people supported her.
Almost everybody supports her, all based on the ultimate excuse:
           "She just wanted a better life" 
           "What is wrong with pursuing her dream? Everyone have the right to have a better life"
           "Why is the Prince so cruel, Can't he see that Ella was desperate?"

We all want a sudden struck of luck. Even Kim Kardashian need to do something to be that famous and rich!
Let's be realistic!

Ok. Maybe I am not so annoyed. I pity her too.
I am just questioning the sanity of my surrounding.
No one actually see "selling soul for money" as a bad thing... it is acceptable. Selling oneself for wealth is totally acceptable & considered common practice now? WTF??!!!
Am I the only one swimming against the current?

OK... now back to my rising and falling.
May this fall and never rise again