July 20th, 2006

I'll be away for a week and a half and so I won't be updating my blog till then. Anyway, this is a piece of written work (written by someone, gotten by my friend who e-mailed to me.)


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A Letter to DAD

--A father passing by his teenage daughter's bedroom was astonished to see the bed was nicely made and everything was neat and tidy. Then he saw an envelope propped up prominently on the center of the pillow. It was addressed "Dad". With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter with trembling hands:-

Dear Dad,

It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you, but I'm leaving home. I had to elope with my new boyfriend Randy because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you. I've been finding real passion with Randy and he is so nice to me. I know when you meet him you'll like him too - even with all his piercing, tattoos, and motorcycle clothes.

But it's not only the passion Dad, I'm pregnant and Randy said that he wants me to have the kid and that we can be very happy together. Even though Randy is much older than me (anyway, 42 isn't so old these days is it?), and has no money, reallythese things shouldn't stand in the way of our relationship, don't you agree?

Randy has a great CD collection; he already owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. It's true he has other girlfriends as well but I know he'll be faithful to me in his own way. He wants to have many more children with me and that's now one of my dreams too.

Randy taught me that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone and he'll be growing it for us and we'll trade it with our friends for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want. In the meantime, we'll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Randy can get better; he sure deserves it!!

Don't worry Dad, I'm 15 years old now and I know how to take care of myself. Someday I'm sure we'll be back to visit so you can get to know your grandchildren.

Your loving daughter,
Rosie.

At the bottom of the page were the letters "PTO".Hands still trembling,her father turned the sheet, and read:

PS:

Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at the neighbor's house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than my report card that's in my desk centre drawer. Please sign it and call when it is safe for me to come home.

I love you!

Truth and Life

I'm actually writing the second time in the same number of days. I haven't wrote that since I don't know when. I'm writing now because I'm waiting for the students to come in and so to kill some time, I'll blog. Right now, the class is 90% empty and my own policy is "I don't start a class till it is at least more than 50% full or we're half an hour late". So I'll wait for now.

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Little things to note:

1. Wei Yin and Joanne had a bouncing baby girl last Thursday.

2. Yesterday was Andrea's birthday (parents of Pei Shan and Ming Soon).

3. Today is Jane Tui's birthday.

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My body ache's a bit because of the badminton game I played last night. It's fun to play but I'm slightly out of shape and skill. I need to brush up some more if I want to be satisfied with how I play. The thing is, personally, I don't think that I'll ever be satisfied with what I do or how I play. I just have to get better and be better and that's the driving force that I have in me. Unfortunately, I am also a procrastinator and these two conflicting personalities are making it harder for me to move ahead.

My form of procrastination is that I try to be as lazy as possible. I know I can do it but I choose not to because of the sloth that I am. Some people procrastinate because they don't like or they find it difficult, etc. For me, it's just plain, simple laziness. Phooey! This bites! I think I'll start a mid-year resolution for myself. I think I'll try to be more proactive in my life. I'm not old yet but I'm not young anymore and so I'll have to move now or forever be still. I'm taking a break from work soon and hopefully I would take that time to do some personal reflection.

Sometimes, I strongly believe, that everyone needs those reflective moments. We just can't go on and on and on with our lives that we often take things (especially little ones) for granted. We tend to forget ourselves too. Chasing dreams/vision is required in life but sometimes you have to stop, smell the roses and see your life as life sees you.

The problem is, reality itself is sometimes a bitter pill to swallow. I know. Truth hurts. I know. Stopping and smelling the roses may just reveal your own imperfections in life. It may give a sense that you are not perfect. It may bring you back to realize your real self and your situation and feel vulnerable. So people often try to live their lives as though they live in a dream. Chasing after whatever they see fit/want. Pretenders often believe that they are the unblemished hero of the world. They pretend via internet, through Instant Messaging and the likes.

If truth be truth, it will hurt sometimes. Most people try to shy away from truth. I don't know if this is a norm because most people reject truth of themselves but they want truth in others. Life as we know it won't stop just because we had a nasty bump in the road of life that we walk on. So it just means that if we experience something bad when we see the actual truth in our lives, we can't do anything about it but to struggle this part of life and move on. We often hope that life would be a computer game where we could go back to the point that we needed to change some decision so that we can get extra points. Sadly, truth is also non-bias. If life were to reveal your truths, it would not hold back.

The people that you interact with you in your life have developed a certain perception of truth you. A mould if you like. This mould that they have contains how they see you and they have developed a certain "truth" about you. For example, "Him? Nah. I would never believe that he would abuse his wife".

Really?

Yes, people make that impression in their mind about you. Probably with that in mind, subconsciously or consciously, you may want to continue to live a life as though it is a drama for others to see you. You hope it will overlap all bad truths with perceived good truths in their minds.

So coming back to my point: having a short break from life and seeing things the way life sees me is what I needed sometimes. Sometimes I forget that I am a human and not a fantasy hero. Almost unblemished and almost perfect in my life. Not.

Oh me, oh my, I thought I'm gonna die

I was stabbed, poked, cut, sawed and drilled. What happened to me? The last bit of information gave it away. I had root canal. It's a process which nobody likes but has to do it. For me, it was a decision made because I wanted to save the tooth. I had the option of pulling the entire tooth out. It's a molar, upper teeth, number 8 on the right. I broke the tooth sometime back and so I have to go to the dentist and get it fixed.

I broke a quarter of it and so I could either have the whole tooth extracted or do a crowning. Since I am young, I'd opted to save my tooth. All for six hundred bucks. The dotor told me that I need to get my tooth prepared for crowning and so it would mean that I need to do a root canal first then when things are ready, crowning of the tooth.

One thing about root canal, it is a half an hour process (at least mine is). The thing about my process is that the doctor did not, I mean DID NOT, use any anesthesia at all on me. So I was there sitting in the chair and the dentist just poked, drilled and use whatever necessary (so I'd guess that giving me anesthesia is not necessary) means to get the job done. Several occassions I did a loud yelp. A normal method to let the dentist know that they've drilled deep enough. A painful process no doubt but my tooth (and myself) survived the ordeal. I now got to swallow four anti-biotic pills a day to curb any infection that may infect my tooth and gum.

One thing that I've learnt from this ordeal, take care of your teeth. Sigh.