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This is a reply to Ms Lyn's reminder *winks*

So, what is the one spark in the midst of darkness? What is the one thing that made you smile today?

Sitting down and actually thinking about it felt so much harder than I originally assumed. I guess for myself I never really looked for "one spark" because I had always been looking for a wide-ranging choice of happiness. Yes, spark meant happiness to me. And darkness simply meant depression.

However, despite about 2 hours of pondering I could not come up with a satisfactory answer. I shifted through the important things in my life - My dance activities, my ex-colleagues, my old school friends, my current dance mates, and the list goes on. Mentally exhausted and feeling rather irritable, I promptly went to bed.

Waking up early in the morning and feeling kinda disappointed, I actually felt rather unhappy because I didn't like to say something and don't do it. So I dragged my half-exhausted body [credits to a full day's work and 4 hours of dance training later at night plus little dinner and little hours of sleep] to the kitchen and to my surprise I found my mum already preparing breakfast at 5:40am in the morning.

She had a little flu the night before and was still sniffling slightly when she was frying the bacon lightly on the pan.

"Mum, what are you doing up so early in the morning? You should be in bed. Go, I'll make my own breakfast."

"You're obviously exhausted from your training. You didnt bother to close the door and you were snoring. So I woke up early to make sandwiches for you to bring along the way. Oh, lift the lid and pour out the ginseng tea. It's ready now for drinking."

For that moment I couldn't decide to feel totally blessed or sheepish for [maybe] waking my mum up with my snoring.

But I was totally happy that she would bother to do these things, even though it seemed all so natural to her. Which led to me thinking over these years how many times had she done such similar actions and it slipped by my memories?

The sight of my mum preparing breakfast in the dead of the morning was the spark in the midst of darkness.

And it definitely made me smile today. The sandwiches are still sitting on my desk, 2 bites gone while I blog this down as a determined effort to remember this scene for the rest of my life.

Be blessed today my friends.

Failed Flirtations

These incidents actually happened about a week ago or slightly more, little snippets of life's humour so I'm sharing with you guys as well.

Incident No.1 - I posted an ad online recently to sell my old handphone, there were several enquiries but most offers were rather low until 2 nice gentlemen offered me much more respectable prices. Let's call them Mr V and Mr K.

Mr V was the earlier guy who offered me the best price so far and I was relatively keen so I contacted him. He seemed surprised to receive my reply so soon but reaffirmed his interest to purchase the handphone. However he asked for a discount which I turned him so the sms conversation was discontinued.

Few days later, Mr K emailed his interest as well. We exchanged smses and within 24 hours the deal was closed and the payment made.

Much to my surprise, Mr V messaged another few days to enquire if the handphone was still on sale so I replied it had been sold. His reply,"Wah, bey sui [Hokkien slang term for that was not very nice of you] never wait for me arh. Hehe."

I replied back that he did not confirm his interest so it was a first-come-first-served basis of course. Following which his reply was,"No choice lor. Hey, then u want to be fren fren with me?"

I do believe at this point of time most of you should realise where this conversation is heading.

My exact reply - "Dear V, just to let you know I'm a guy not a gal."

He never replied back again.

Is it my sensitivity? Or was he actually thinkin I'm a gal and tried to pick me up??


Incident No.2 - I was waiting at the bus stop near my house when a young fella whizzed by me on a bicycle. As he reached the bus stop for some reason he suddenly slowed down and circled behind the bus stop and stopped a little distance away. Following that, he whipped out his handphone and proceeded to make a call and started talking to his friend [I presume].

Perhaps like I said again, I might be rather sensitive but I seemed to think that he was faking his call. He was actually trying to get some "excuse" rather to look at this young lady [rather sweet girl if I may say so myself] and trying to smile though not directly at her.

Was he trying to appear charming to the young lady? He did look rather young though [by my guess secondary school?] and the young lady looked to be in her late teens [think 18 - 21].

The next moment confirmed all my suspicions.

His mobile rang, much to his shock.

He fumbled and almost dropped the handphone, regained his composure and answered the call and quickly cycled away.

I almost burst out laughing.


Sigh~ Come on people, share with me if you had beared witness to similar events of such nature. Loved to hear it.

Names

For some reason I remembered a post Beautifuk ranted some time ago about names, which got me thinking - What's really in a name? What are the hidden forces, meanings, symbolism and possible encrypted languages even?

Did some sourcing around on the Internet and the first website that I landed on was this website titled Kabalarian Philosophy that offers free Name Analysis. Wow. Curioisity of the cat got the better of me and their analysis of my name is as below:


Although the name Julian creates the urge to be both logical and technical, we emphasize that it limits your versatility and scope, tuning you to technical details exclusively. This name, when combined with the last name, can frustrate happiness, contentment, and success, as well as cause health weaknesses in the elimination system, which can lead to other complications.

The name of Julian indicates you are a patient, meticulous person who enjoys working in a very detailed, systematic way, in such fields as mathematics, science, mechanics, computers, or engineering. You do your best work when there is no disruption, as you do not easily adjust to interference and changes once you start a project; also you like to work step by step at your own speed. Your infinite patience would allow you to develop intricate, involved skills to perfection. However, it is not easy for others to work and live with you as you deliberate so long in arriving at conclusions and allow small details to restrict your point of view.

Now in coincidence I had just posted a very recent entry about my personality - And according to my Character Analysis there are certain similarities like.. I enjoy working in a systematic way and I like to work at my own speed. I'm not so sure about allowing small details to restrict my because well, experiences with past projects would be more describing me as a "big picture kind of guy."

All right enough about me lest I start becoming narcissistic.

According to The Kabalarian Philosophy, the mind and thought have their origin in an abstract plane of conscious intelligence, which comes into manifest form through the symbols of language.

The brain is not the source of the mind, but merely the physical instrument of the mind. When name is attached to an individual, certain specific forces of conscious intelligence are combined. They constitute the nucleus of the mind. The conscious forces combined by the name can be represented by a numerical formula in much the same way as the basic chemical elements combined in a chemical compound can be represented by a chemical formula.

The mental characteristics of an individual can be read from the numerical formula representing the person's name, just as the characteristics of a chemical compound can be read from its chemical formula.


Ooh.. is it possible that a single name being bestowed to a baby since birth might inevitably determine his or her future? Guess what, even Brayden has a Name Analysis.

I wondered if Zoe Tay has ever consulted people on similar grounds when she was deciding the name for her baby.

Flashback

A recent post by Jo which wondered about how we could experience the after-effects of our dreams initiated certain flashbacks of this recurring dream that I've had consistently throughout the years.

I was running through the walkways of my old HDB flat [think the really old 3-room flat kind] and I could definitely taste the fear that was stuck on the tip of my tongue. The pulsating heartbeat was so strong I could feel my temples ready to burst with the rapid vibrations, like a consistent beating of drums. Pounding. Pounding.

I just could not recollect what I was running from but whatever it was, it was striking fear deep into the very recesses of my soul. I was running, jumping from the stairs ala Yamakazi-style. Running for my dear life though I just can't understand why I didn't even look back. Think classical horror movies [Psycho or Friday 13th] where the victim is simply running and running without even daring to look back.

Was it because I was dead sure how the horror looked like? Who was it? Or what was it? Why was I even running in the first place? Why the walkway of my old HDB flat? Incidentally I remembered a scene from Batman which starred Val Kilmer [cant remember which part of the series it was] and he was confiding to this lady psychiatrist about the flashback of supposedly repressed memories. Is mine similar to his? Otherwise why would this dream replay itself continously over the years with intervals ranging from a several weeks to several months? It replayed itself so much till the extent I actually remembered certain details after I woke up.

I tried once to go back to my old HDB to try to understand why but that block had been upgraded so it didn't look the same anymore. I went to the exact same walkway but the feeling just wasn't the same.

However, it was the ending that spooked me till today. I would be running from.. whatever it was. Through different walkways into different stairways and I would always end up at the same wall of my old unit's walkway. A momentary pause, not sure whether to catch my breath or to have one last thought - And I would jump. Yes, I would simply climb up over the edge of the wall and literally just jump off. Like with absolute conviction that there is no other way left.

I could feel the wind roaring past my ears and my heart threatening to burst because of the sudden increase in gravity. It would pound like mad now and the vision below becomes blurred because of the strength of the wind coming against me and instantly dehydrating my pupils.

I never saw the ground. I would just wake up with cold sweat and a pounding headache and a slight heartache.

Thats how many times I had the dream till I could recount the details.

Tingly feeling of hair rising on its ends? =)

Personality

I was trying to re-update up my resume when I came across a Character Analysis Profile that I had done some time ago at a Corporate Retreat, so I'm providing a main summarised version so as not to bore you guys but provide a more detailed idea of how I'm like at the same time.

I'm basically an 'Exploring' kind of person who will not be content with ordinary routines and I like to get new ideas and projects organised. Once they are up and running, however, I will probably turn to a new idea rather than stay with tested projects on a day-to-day basis.

I can become quite easily bored and like work with wide variety and I'm also likely to sociable and outgoing so something that involves lots of project meetings or meeting with people on a regular basis will be of interest to me.

I may from time to time, be a little impatient and want to push things at a fast pace. This means I will be seeking lots of new ideas and opportunities. I may deliberately set a number of projects running at the same time to fulfil my wide-ranging interests and energy. However, this will be balanced with a concern to make sure that things are finished, even if it means putting myself and others under a lot of pressure.

My ability to talk easily with others, combined with my ideas and concern for organisation, makes me often identified with group identities. I enjoy making major contributions to the team and prefers to chase an opportunity rather than focus on regular standardised tasks. As a result, I will often use my skills to persuade people to be as enthusiastic as myself about achieving those goals. I often get my best ideas evolved talking to people about it rather than sitting alone and thinking by myself.

Being more outgoing and creative means that I am usually seen by others as lively and outgoing and always coming forth with new ideas. Indeed there are occasions when people feel that I am putting forward too many new ideas and not allowing them to settle down the earlier ideas first. Therefore it is important for me to establish priorities otherwise one idea will overtake another without being developed properly.

I do place a lot of emphasis on logic and reason, and believe that other people should think things through in a similar way. It sometimes annoys me that others are not as communicative as me and I would thus find it diffcult to understand how they make their decisions. I would take a lot of trouble to justify my viewpoint, even when at times it might not really be required.

At times, I move so quickly, I might be seen as critical or demanding. My concern with the completion of the task might cause me to take short cuts. Due to my clear goal vision and personal conviction, I can get annoyed with others who do not share or even oppose my vision. I can be inlfuential in putting forward propositions but would need to work on my follow-up and follow-throughs.


*Whew*

I hope that had been pretty enriching. Till then, my peeps!

Multi-tasking

There had been a special report on the Straits Times last Saturday about multi-tasking teens and how they could have possibly derived their influence from us - the adults.

However there has been no mention of which category poses the greatest influence. On one hand, the parents had formed the main core of complaints about teens performing impossible tasks of multi-tasking while on the other hand there were mentions about the filter of multi-tasking from the adult office area down to the homestead.

Consider this - the common practise in Singapore would be to wolf down mouthfuls of your lunch while remaining glued to your office PC. I cannot make a fair statement for my previous work experience was based on frontline Customer Service but I believe some of earlier work experiences as an admin clerk had similar experiences because we had to finish our data entry within a certain period or we would have to perform overtime - with no additional pay.

So I'm led to believing if you had to finish some marketing or business analysis report by 3pm [presuming there's a meeting later] it's not surprising you would be stuffing short mouthfuls of.. whatever you bought or even asked your colleagues to buy on your behalf while you continue rushing the report first.

As I did some reflection, it did cause mild cognitive dissonance within myself for a while because.. at work I have developed an attitude of "full concentration" on a particular matter simply because I'm communicating with another person and to fully understand the situation that the person in front of me is explaining requires full attention so that I do not miss details lest I make a bad decision due to uncertainty. On the other hand, it would appear rude to be doing something else in front of that person because if the client does not feel that you're giving him/her the desired level of attention then the consequences would be disastrous.

The contrary belief became evident when I stepped into my room - I turn on my hi-fi radio, log on to the internet, start my mp3 playlist of lounge music, flip the papers on my table [I usually wake up just in time to get prepared and go for work straight so I'd only read the papers after I'm home], start to download new mp3s, chat with friends, play online games, check and reply emails, download lecture slides and study them and it goes on till about 2am where I'm finally tired enough to log off and go to bed which is just right beside me.

Sounds similar to the featured teens? I guess this trend had been going on even much earlier with my generation which would mean most late 20s young working adults are in a pretty similar habitual situation.

However, the only difference I observed was this trend became evident mostly with friends of mine who had been exposed to higher levels of education say.. Polytechnic and above? Perhaps some causes are due to higher levels of expectations at accomplishing multiple priorities. As a featured teen explained her situation, she is a member of the student council, sings in her church choir, takes german classes and many other things. So when exposed to tertiary education you're expected to accomplish projects, accumulate extra-curricular activities' points, perform voluntary work and handle your school assignments and tutorials. These multiple priorities become very evident when you're staying in the University Hostel.

Am I instigating that the higher level of education you receive the more prone you are to multi-task? Certainly not, I'm only comparing myself to those featured teens and.. we're actually not that different despite being a full zoadiac cycle apart.

Guess the main barrier lies with the demographic sector of above 40s.