Is it worth it?

This thing has been on my mind for months now. I firstly developed the idea that mankind is actually cancerous to other beings on Earth. We are clearly very successful survivors compared to other non-evolutionising species (like the whales for example - if they don't evolve by shrinking their size they'll definitely see the true colours of size does matter).

But at what cost? We survive only to meet our own end. We are probably on the top of the food chain. And it will be no surprise that when that final day comes, we'll be on the top of the bodies too!

I said that we are like cancer cells. Yes we are. We multiply and spread like cancerous cells. We are malignant to all other livings. Clearly, we have gone too far in playing the survivor games. We come, we see, we kill everything that comes in our way.

I think the most distinctive difference between human and the rest of the world is the ability to prolong lives. Look at how life expectacies have changed. I thought that it was a good thing. But lately I opted a totally different view on this. Imagine say a 60-year-old live saved from a fatal disease using expensive technology. I don't really know how much contribution can the live further make for the circle of life but to return as fertiliser. Why do we put a priceless tag on ourselves? Because everything else isn't?

So the 60yo continues to live, in a coma. It's not hard to put a price tag on his/her wrist. Just the electricity, water, food needed to sustain a should-not-be-alive life. And the pollution and chemical by products and everything? Keeping such a person alive may actually increase the hardship to survive for others.

I'm not saying that people are not allowed to fight for survival. However, how much resource has to be wasted in order for a person to be saved? Nature has it natural ways of maintaining its balance. But we human change the game rules altogether. We refuse to let nature take its course by refusing to return to the earth. How can our population not quadruple over the last 100 years? Perhaps not everyone is meant to live. Living longer and more resilient lives are the reasons that the earth isn't sustainable and also causing it to retaliate.

Yes we are surviving well and all. But look around us - other organisms are sent to the front line earlier than they are supposed to. The things that we do - the ways we change the nature - all are digging our own graves. I don't think a beaver cutting a tree would cause the temperature to rise. I don't think a volcano erupting hot lava would cause that either. But everything that human do, does just that.

Yea we want to give our children a nicer home, a warmer dinner, a better school, a more luxurious car (with a DVD player), a room full of toys, 1 million pairs of shoes or a $500k trust fund. But are we securing them a future to enjoy all that, by doing what we do now?

And what did a panda do to us, that caused the loss of its heritance, its signature into the future? And it didn't even have the power to voice.

Have you ever thought that

money is actually countable instead of incountable, as we all have learned when we were young?

Every dollar is countable, up to every quarter/dime/cent/pence. And they told us money was not countable? I don't get it now. If money isn't countable, then how do we even use it? I can't pay you 5 dollars as I won't know how much is $5 exactly.

I mean, right?

I'm in LOVE

with the Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters, HEROES & Ugly Betty!!! While still chasing Friends, Will and Grace and Charmed, I didn't think I could love another TV series.

But now I have moved on! I guess watching all these series does represent different characteristics that I am. As much as I don't gossip (people who know me please SHUT UP), watching the housewives does allow me to think that it's OK to squeeze juice of pleasure out of others' misery. Luckily I don't believe in heaven and hell. To be honest, I didn't really watch it when it first came out a couple of years ago. Instead my ex-housemate, JK, was more interested in it than I was. I dunno wot got to me...while chasing Season 3 on TV, I'm catching myself up with Season 1 DVD.

B&S has been showing in the US for quite sometime already. I only saw it discussed on blogs and youtube. But now thanks to Channel 7 (has it become the new Channel 9 - Eddie you should watch the programmes that you are buying!) I am watching it here in Melbourne! I love family stories, like Six Feet Under. With B&S, I think I feel more intimate with the story lines. There are normally at least 5 people of us having dinna at home. Expectedly there'll be people talking, and more talking. And when someone says that something, everyone else just goes mute. And then the topic changes. Does it feel familiar to you? It does to me. I mean, B&S feels just personal to me.






And the latest hit worldwide, Heroes! It's not about the superpower that captivated me. We've got all other marvel heroes for that. It's the story telling that is gripping my every nerve of attention. Watching the story unfolds everyweek just makes me begging for me. I think the directors and script writers are doing a very good job.

And Betty is just a constant reminder, telling and encouraging us to believe our inner beauty will outshine the outer one. It really keeps me asking myself - how could shopping and dressing up give me something real? When that real happiness should come from within, as it's the only real thing that would last.

It's already midnight and I am having this urge to desperately finish the DH DVDs... I think I'm gonna lose my sleeping-beauty reign.

丁亥吉庆大肥年

CNY 2007

It's one of my favourite festivities - the Chinese New Year. Something that is looked forward to as relatives from far and near meet and catch up. And it's always associated with food and, more food.

However, my automatic reaction when CNY arrived this year was that I became full. I wasn't really not having appetite but I knew I wasn't gonna pig my way in the dining room. Eating too much is really a sin for me - the process of getting rid of the blotiness really kills the fun of eating.

Dad and Tiong Hoe are greatly missed this year. They are in 福建晋江省东石镇as we speak. It's been one of Dad's must-do for quite some time already. After the three of us, Tiong Hoe was the last one to have not visited Dad's place of birth. After they reached there, sms-es were pouring in. They read: I'm dying here, please save me. That and other variations conveying the meaning that my youngest bro wasn't surviving the life there. It's quite understandable, Tiong Hoe didn't get to speak much in Hokkien (闽南) after he was borned, at least not as much as I. He wouldn't be able to understand much, if not at all, the words that are coming out from the locals' mouths. Furthermore their accent should be original hence a little heavier. Most importantly, he had no other choice but to go with my Dad. Coincidentally it's also a chance for him to learn of Dad's birthplace and the people who have contributed in Dad's life.

I'll be going back to Melb on Sat. I'm sure I'll cry when I hug Dad and Mom goodbye. I know how much I'll be missing home. As much as it's enough to make me cry when I think about home.

桃花依旧

Flew back to Bukit Tinggi with Mom on Monday. Grandma was actually thought to be dying so we rushed back to see her for one last time. I had actually not seen her for more than a couple of years, as far as I could recall.

As uncle's car approached the still very familiar and yet strange, because of time, village a lot of childhood memories came rushing back into my mind. I still remember how exciting it was to come back to Bukit Tinggi when I was still a toddler. It was like an annual thing to go back to grandma's place. It's a hilly hence chilly place, just a few kilometers away from Genting Highland.

I remembered the paths where I had run on together with my cousins, who I had not seen for ages too. I remembered the houses that were around grandma's house. They have changed a little - reconstructed, strengthened, repainted... Somehow everything seemed, smaller than what I used to remember.

Grandma looked so weak and petite lying in her bed, losing (or gaining, as we later learned) her consciousness. My cousins, who I had remembered to be bigger and taller than I was, also didn't seem to live up to my out-of-date expectation. I had become equal, if not bigger than they were.
I was telling my Mom about this. She didn't quite get it. I myself didn't understand what I was feeling myself. The houses in the village which I had once thought to be tall and big, all seemed to have shrunk.

It's time that I accepted the inevitable. Something that I realised from another angle - that I have to accept that I am no longer the skinny young boy everyone remembered.

If I had eyes at the back of my head (in addition to the front view)

(I haven't actually finished this post since the new year! But I'll just post it up first. Watch out for the ending.)

It's the 6th day of the new year. I have procrastinated on this post for some 5++ days now so I am gonna go back to the moment before the calendar year aged. Taking a deep breathe I open the door and step into the 2006-memories vault.

Going back to Melbourne in February wasn't something I had looked forward to. It was a total change of environment where I was going to Monash University. It was all new and I didn't know a single soul there. I was so used to doing uni with people that I was close with. I was used to people saving seats for me (or vice versa). I was used to going out with people that I knew. Familiarity was then a luxury I no longer had.

Also I was living with my sister again, after, what, 4 years? I appreciate that because we don't share surname for nothing do we? Cooking is easy because both of us can cook and we take turns. But, I am not gonna say who, someone could have taken more of a role in cleaning the carpet and toilet. Remember, I didn't name names...

Uni was a total mess as I didn't enjoy anything that I was studying in the first semester. Business Law, Managerial Accounting, Accounting Systems and Funds Management (worst subject ever) - which were all so darn boring. Going to Uni was dreadful and it made me miss all my ex-Uni mates. Consequently my grades sufferred too but...

Luckily a part-time job at OSHCworldcare came to rescue in April. It was the first time I was working in Aus and earning AUD. I still remember the euphoric moment when I first paid tax. The most memorable event was attending training at a 5-star hotel and we got room service! It was a good evening indeed.

KL with EEMAA (pronounced EMMA)

KL with EEMAA

Sabbatical comes true!

Lappy is now hospitalised therefore the blog's time-out might have to be extended to at least 2 more weeks. Posting is now done via bro's comp.

The condition of the monitor had gotten worse...more lines had appeared than ever. Since the other bro was going back to KL so I asked him to bring the laptop for repair. If everything goes well (read: a new monitor? Ohlala...no more angpow money lor...) I'd be getting it back around 19-21 Jan. Fingers crossed.

And Moon (I suspect she han't read my blog for many many moons already), happy birthday.

Good day mate!

Melbourne Dec 2006

Sabbatical?

Blogging has come to a stop in the past two weeks, ever since I left Melbourne on 21 Dec 2006. So treat this as a late sabbatical announcement? Posting will be feather light until I return to Melb at the end of Feb 2007. There are only two definite posts that I now have on my mind. Maybe three after I go to KL mid-Jan. Who knows...