V Day: P.S. I Love You

Valentine's Day. A day to celebrate and remember Saint Valentine. There is a lot of version about his story but it all leads to him being proclaimed a saint owing to his declaration of love. He would send love poems, flowers and confessions of love until his death on 14 Feb.

Yes, his tradition lived on and it became what we know as expressions of love to our special someone, showering them with flowers, gifts, and other romantic goodies. A romantic dinner, followed by a number of romantic surprises normally follows before it ends with the couple ends up with a great night topped off with kisses all around. Alright...maybe I'm being a little melodramatic.

What we now know in this modern age, where convenience is the keyword with internet and commercialization of this special occasion, lends its hand to a big $$ making industry. Abundance of choices and thousands of new innovation to pacify the special someone to make them feel super special for this 1 particular day. Most guys felt obligated to pamper their ladies with lavish gifts and willingly spend the extremely pricey flowers, jeweleries, and dinner packages.

To me, the tradition is lost with hungry businessmen trying to make money out of this lovey-dovey period. Where is the distinct originality where guys frustratingly piece together a love poem to wow our ladies? Flowers sent personally instead of those deliveries and couriers making the trip. And even guys messing up the kitchen to concoct the romantic, heart-filled effort into making the meal for our special ladies. Where all these go? That's why I hated V-Day for it has lost its charm as a day where love is earned, and not given easily by exchange of cash. Okay...the real reason is that I also feel jealous, well maybe I should put it in another softer word - envious. Envious that the guy and the girl have each other to celebrate; envious that guys (or me) would go all the way to please the lady. And envious that guys will be able to get the lady to reciprocate the love and confirm the commitment to each other.

Anyway, I watched this movie - P.S: I Love You. It's got to be the V-Day movie of the year. It tells the story of a married couple who was having a crisis -sort of- in going ahead with their relationship. Talks of having kids, bigger apartment, better living, doing their own things. These are common to the early years of marriage. Then tragedy stuck and the guy died of brain tumour and began the story of how he planned to have his wife carry on with her life. So imagine getting letters and instructions on what to do after the guy died? It almost feel like the ghost of the husband is telling the wife what to do. It unfolds into romantic flashback of how they got to know each other and all the good things they cherish together. It then shows how the wife gets through the pain and the loss of someone who is the love of their life. It feels suffocating knowing that the husband is gone and will never come back. Thing is, life goes on and if you are stuck in that moment, you will not only lose yourself to insanity, you will lose your family and friends who cares for you. This taught me to not only treasure your family and friends, but also treasure your life partner as you will never know when she will be leaving you. Bickering is normal and happens to any couples, but I hope that after the bickering they know that they still have to rely on each other and it's better to kiss and make up quickly.

Sigh...now I'm a romantic fool. There'll never be a happy ending. There can only be a compromised ending. Otherwise, it will not be a real life, it's a fairy-tale. We don't live in fantasy, but a world filled with egotistical people who will always think of themselves first. It just depends on how much they focus on themselves and what they think of others.

So to all my family and friends - P.S.: I LOVE YOU ALL LOTS AND LOTS!! I know it's hard to say in person, but I hope with this you will feel it and embrace it.

Last note: I feel my blog is getting some newfound interests and readers. So I hope if you do stop by to have a look, please leave some comments so that I know you popped by. It's the pooch house and it's always welcome any visitors with warm, open hands.

CNY! Rats and celebrations...

Woah...almost 2 whole weeks past since my last update. The last one I threw up. This time, I feel like throwing up! Hahaha...well, it's just because I can't resist all those cookies, candies, bak gua (dried beef), drinks, sweets, etc. I know I'm gonna gain back those weight that I incidentally lost when I was sick during Christmas! Aarrghh....

Before the company shuts down for the Chinese New Year, the usual makan group had a lunch at Cafe Cartel. We wanted something more special to celebrate the coming Chinese New Year! So, it was cozy and we had a filling lunch and even topped off with ice cream. Hmmm...I feel quilty as I was still coughing slightly. :p Nevertheless, we enjoyed the lunch and even had the chance to take a good picture courtesy of the waitress who took a great shot.


During reunion dinner, we had a steamboat/grill meal which was almost what we always had for this day anyway. But, somehow, this year it feels like there's not much appetite for everyone. We wanted to experience the spirit of "lao hei" which is mixing of fish salad for good fortunes. As the chinese saying go, every year has to have fish and that the higher you go, the more successful you are. But my mom did get too big of a package that I think it fits more to 12 people's share! Hahaha...anyway, it was good and we enjoyed the dinner. It feels a bit more special coz I usually eat dinner on my own at most working days nites.


My brother with the kids at my house. My mom was fishing for the prawns. :)

So, first day of Chinese New Year come! Gong Xi Fa Cai! Wan Shi Ru Yi! Huang Jin Man Man! Hahaha...all those greetings come and go. We all welcomed the rat year with mixed feelings. Rat year was not as glorified as the Dragon or Pig year. So, this year we felt that there's something missing...something that makes it less festive and great. The year already started off with economic downturn and bleak prospect of a good and healthy year. We just hope that the Rat Year can have something positive to look forward to. I woke up in the morning to go the temple with mom and dad and pray hard that there'll be lots of good fortune, pay raise, promotion, good results for my brothers in their studies and of course the health of all my family members.

Second day was Mahjong day! It was at Margaret's house and there was Shengni and Daphne, as well as Eileen and Eve. The itinerary was supposed to be Mahjong and dinner. We started at about 4 or 5 in the evening and I can't believe that we actually played until 7 in the morning the next day! It was only stopped by the dinner (another steamboat) and the occasional pee break and rats catching session! Yeah, you heard it right...not only it's the rat year, I get to see rats running around...well, they're so tiny anyway that it looks more fun to see them running around rather than being petrified of their presence. At the last few rounds of the last wind, we were speeding it up so much that it really wasn't that enjoyable and I manage to win some money in the end. I had my luck in the earlier round but lost quite a bit after the dinner.


To make things worse, I was supposed to go visit my boss's house at 2 PM. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the rest of the guest list had a last minute change of plans and we scrapped the plan. I was so exhausted and tired but I couldn't sleep much. In the end, I only got about 5 hours of sleep before another round of late nite outing. This time, I went to St. James along with a friend who is visiting from US. He's been working there for 2 years now but we were secondary school buddies. So, along with another friend, the 3 of us were hunting and gleefully looking at the hot babes as they danced and get wild to the beat of great tunes being played by the awesome DJs. Live music also entertained us in the Boiler Room and the DragonFly. We finished at about 4 in the morning and I told myself I'm gonna shut down for Sunday before heading back to work on Monday. Shutdown I did and I spent my Sunday in the border of lazying around and falling asleep on the sofa every now and then.

What a way to celebrate the Chinese New Year! I hope the next one will be even better!