Looking at life through new windows...

Today's the day... the decision was rather rash I would say... but it's decided and today's the day...

I hope everything will go fine and I'm so looking forward to this. My throat's irritating me a little but Rob's gonna help me ask if it's ok. If it's not today, it'll still be soon... =)

Wish me luck all! =)

Time...

"Today is Friday, Oct. 19, the 292nd day of 2007. There are 73 days left in the year." - Saw this statement while reading the news on Yahoo News, an article by AP today.

Goes to show how time flies... This time last year, I was in NZ... this time last year, we just finished a really fulfilling national project and most of us were feeling lost and empty after the exciting and busy stint...

Looking at where I am this year, I still feel lost and empty... But sometimes I think that it's all about the mind... About feeling positive (even when things are not that positive)... About looking ahead and beyond and be on the look out for opportunities...

IN anycase, like many times before... I need to tell myself to make the most out of the remaining 73 days of this year I suppose... =)

Pain...

It hurts so much... so much...

Expectations...

Why do people have expectations? Why do we need expectations? Why do we use expectations as a form of yardstick for one's performance in a certain aspect? Why is it important? Is it really important?

What would life be without expectations?

Soaking in books....

Soaked up "Fashion Babylon" by Imogen Edwards-Jones that Marky loaned me... and I finished up "The Glass Castle" by Jeanette Walls.

"Fashion Babylon" was rather light reading. It provided an insight to the fashion industry from a young and budding designer's point of view. In a way, it gave the readers a good feel of the complexity of the industry behind the scenes. And it was interesting... 'nuff said.

"The Glass Castle" on the other hand, had a more serious note to it. It was nonetheless, very delightful reading. Jeanette Walls' writing was simple, yet powerful. The book depicts a factual narration of her life, with her siblings and parents and I just couldn't bring myself to put the book down. All that I felt after reading her story, was admiration.

A must read!

Moving on to my next book, "The Touch" by Liu Hong.

A most meaningful weekend...

I had a most meaningful weekend in a long time. Under an initiative of the Yayasan foundation by Pak Kris Wiluan, my boss and I helped coordinated a charity project where a group of Singaporean doctors and nurses volunteered to provide free health check-ups for the under priviledged children in Batam. It was a project jointly done with Red-Cross Indonesia (PMI).

We arrived Batam on Friday afternoon, to have a final meeting and to ensure that logistics and arrangements are made. The 4 doctors and 3 nurses from Singapore (who requested to remain anonymous), together with a number of Indonedsian doctors and nurses, had a mission to provide healthy check-ups for a good 1760 kids from ONE kampong in Batam.

It was definitely not a small deal. I was personally involved in the works for Sat and parents & kids came and went. It was no joke that the doctors saw kids one after another non-stop. It turned out that the doctors couldn't even take the planned 1 hour lunch break, and they had to take turns to have lunch, or to run quickly to the toilets and back. The passion and drive that I saw in the volunteer doctors and nurses from Singapore for this project, touched me no end this weekend.

The role I played, was to run around outside, directing Ibus (mothers) and their anaks (kids) in my very broken Malay (which I picked up from my peranakan nanny 'Aunty Jane' long long time back) to proceed to the next available doctor's room to tengok doktor (see the doctor), or to the Apotek (Pharmacy) to collect their Obat (Medication).

Some of the kids were really so adorable but most of them have a problem of being malnutrition. The Singaporean doctors and nurses tried their best to source for packets of children milk and cereal from various vendors and suppliers but there was only so much that they could bring. And moreover, we budgeted for 1000 kids to come to this health screening, but little did we know that the numbers escalated to 1760 on the day before we were to start.

Although the project was to be over 2 days, Sat & Sun, I had to leave on late Sat as my boss had to come back to take a flight to Qatar. I regretted not being brave enough to say that I would like to stay there on my own (without my boss) as I had to tear myself away from what I was doing. I was really enjoying myself to a certain extent and as exhausting as it was, I could see the good cause in it. Finished up 3/4 of a day and I was physically exhausted. I couldn't imagine that the doctors and nurses have to go through these 2 full days of this exercise. I felt all admiration when I recall the zest when the doctors prompted me to bring in the next kid for them to examine once they were done with the one that they were seeing. It was thoroughly heartwarming in and out.

Perk: Pak Kris hosted us over at his Batam Turi Resort and old as it may be, it was a pretty nice place and I could see how nice and pretty it literally is when it was in its more glorious days.

Check out the photos below.....

Planning out the administrative flow of the registration, pre-screening (taking of height and weight) as well as triaging of the 1760 kids, before seeing the doctors...

The entrance of the medical centre which we used for this project...

The tentage that was built to carry out the phase 1 activities...

On the actual day, under the tentage where phase 1 is carried out...
Notice the huge tentage at the back? Many Many Many Ibus and Anaks were being entertained by people hired by Pak Kris, while waiting to be registered...

Rooms where the doctors were settling in to see the kids...

Our nice bedrooms in Turi Resort Batam...

Our nice beds with MOSQUITO NETTING hanging over it...

Bleah...

Been reading and reading and reading... Ain't too sure if reading is one of the ways which I try to fill up the emptiness within me or what... But... reading sure makes me feel more anti-social. Hardly make plans for lunch or dinners these days unless it's pretty impromptu. I think I need something new, something more, something enriching... =/

Anyway, finished "The Glass Palace". It's a historically and culturally enriching book and very very detailed. I would say that Amitav Ghosh is a little too detailed for my liking but that doesn't make him any lesser of a good author. There are some parts I really liked and some parts which I found draggy...

Anyway, I've since moved on to my next book (since it's been a week since I blogged). Am reading Haruki Murakami's "Sputnik Sweetheart".

To be frank, I wasn't too impressed with the writing when I first started. But 3/4 of the way into the book, I got really impressed with the versatile styles of writing that Murakami has. Sumire's (the main female character) diary entry was really 'rich'...

"In the world we live in, what we know and what we don't know are like Siamese twins, inseparable, existing in a state of confusion.

Confusion, confusion.

Who can really distinguish between the sea and what's reflected in it? Or tell the difference between the falling rain and loneliness?

Without any fuss, then, I gave up worrying about the difference between knowing and not knowing. That became my point of departures. A terrible place to start, perhaps - but people need a makeshift springboard, right? All of which goes to explain how I started seeing dualisms such as theme and style, object and subject, cause and effect, the joints of my hands and the rest of me, not as black-and-white pairs, but as indistinguishable one from the other. Everything had spilled on the kitchen floor - the salt, pepper, flour, starch. All mixed into one fine blob."- Sumire

Another part of the novel that I liked - in the capacity of the main male character, K:

"She was far, far away. And most likely that was the future in a nutshell, Sumire growing ever more distant. It made me sad. I felt like I was some meaningless bug clinging for no special reason to a high stone wall on a windy night, with no plans, no beliefs." - K

Gonna finish this up real soon and alternate my next read with something light hearted? Trashy? - Like... 'FASHION BABYLON'... Hahaha.. thanks to Mark who bought it as one of the 3 for the price of 2 books at Borderrrrrrs.... lol... ________________________________________________________
P.S. Read this other part of the book during lunch, on my train ride... It's again part of Sumire's diary entry... I like...

"A question.

So what are people supposd to do if they want to avoid a collision (thud!) but still lie in the field, enjoying the clouds drifting by, listening to the grass grow - not thinking, in other words? Sounds hard? Not at all. Logically, it's easy. C'est simple. The answer is dreams. Dreaming on and on. Entering the world of dreams, and never coming out. Living in dreams for the rest of the time.

In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites.

Reality, reality." - Sumire ________________________________________________________

P.P.S. King & I was quite disappointing... Borne Ultimatum was good and Ratatouille was cute.. =)