Corners

I was having lunch with my usual bunch of colleagues when the conversation shifted to some usual rites that chinese usually have prior to moving into a new house. It is common for chinese, on the first visit to a new house, to sprinkle a mixture of uncooked rice, salt and green beans around the house. Especially the corners of the house. My colleagues were having a little argument on the purpose of doing so. Some said that it's to bring good luck to the house (by throwing away rice?). Others insisted that it would chase away spirits hiding in the corners. I belong to neither schools of thought.

I was vacuuming my humble abode this morning when I recalled the conversation yesterday. More than hoping for better luck or chasing spirits, I was looking for dust whose favourite hideout is definitely corners of the house. Equipped with a heavy duty vacuum cleaner, no dust could escape. Easily eradicated. Mission accomplished.

As I put away the vacuum thankfully with all corners cleared, it came upon me that, more important than clearing dust collecting in corners of our physical house, is the clearing of dust collecting in our inner house .. our heart.

So what are the types of dust that will usually collect in these corners of our hearts or even spring alive as demons to haunt us that maybe no amount of rice+salt+green bean mixture will chase away?

Past bad experiences like breakups in relationships, divorces, failures in life of whatever form, misfortunes .. etc. All these are dusts that are hard to clear. Burdening us as we walk the Journey of Life. Filling one with fear that one might not even be aware of. Preventing one from enjoying many new experience that comes our way.

As I urge the importance of keeping the corners of your house clean, I sincerely hope that all corners of your hearts are kept dust-free. I offer you the magic vacuum cleaner to clear them away...

FORGIVING & LETTING GO

Forgiving others and more importantly, to forgive ourselves. Letting go of any past pains and failures is a very important way of closing that wound deep in our hearts which would bring fresh air into our lives once again. I am still a clumsy shallow beginner in this School of Forgiving and Letting Go. A clean house brings happiness and ease to anyone. But a clean inner being would bring joy and peace much more immeasurable. So, game to enrol in this school with me? Vacancies aplenty!

Take It Easy

... It's Weekend!

Laughter for the Mid Week

I received an email from a colleague this morning. Read on. I hope they bring a smile to you as they have brought to mine:

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TEACHER: Maria, go to the map and find North America .

MARIA: Here it is.

TEACHER: Correct. Now class, who discovered America ?

CLASS: Maria

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TEACHER: John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor?

JOHN: You told me to do it without using tables.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TEACHER: Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn't have ten years ago.

WINNIE: Me!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(my favourite one ...)

TEACHER: George Washington not only chopped down his

father's cherry tree, but also admitted it. Now, Louie, do you know why his father didn't punish him?

LOUIS: Because George still had the axe in his hand.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So how's your week so far?

Whether it's raining or sunshine. An easy or heavy week. ...

Let's decide that today is going to be one great day!

Lazy Day

I took a day off yesterday. Not so much to rest after the run but rather to have a day off from work. It has been chaotic and hectic for the past few months for me at work.

I spent the morning baking. Trying out a recipe from Allrecipes.com. I added raisins, cranberries, almonds and oatmeal to the mixture. This banana cake bread tastes yummy! Hubs said it's the best I have baked so far.

Hubby thinks that it was ridiculous I did not even know my own timing when I finished the run on Sunday. I only knew my own timing when the organisers put up the timings of all competitors on their site. "Since you are serious about running, let's get serious about timing.", was what he said. So he bought me a nice sporty Nike Sports watch today. As a celebration for my first 10km run and a little encouragement for many more runs to come. I simply love it!

Humble Achievement 10km in 1hr 12min

I spoke of my disappointment last year when I failed to run the Quarter Marathon last year. I bravely signed up for two 10km runs which some of my blogger friends might be aware.

Yesterday I fulfilled my first 10km dream. A run of such a short distance might not mean much to many seasoned runners like Ting. But it means a lot to me. Something I put on my New Year's Resolutions at the beginning of this year. Can you believe it? I was so excited about the run that I did not sleep very well the night before. ** Chuckles **

Ting and I had wanted to meet up after the race, but the crowd was so big I was forced to quickly leave the place after I finish the 10km . No worries, I will train hard to run side by side with her for the 10km Shape Run next month. **Swallow hard** . Honestly I don't think I would be able to keep up the pace of a seasoned runner like her.

I am very thankful that my dear hubby and two good friends YW and Jadine actually turned up to cheer me on. YW even came in his running gear to run the 10km with me. I was so touched and happy.

I came in 111th place out of 693 ladies in this category.
I am happy with my timings in this first attempt.

Happy Weekend to All!

Eavesdropping

The weather was very good and I was free last Sunday afternoon. I left earlier than usual for Punggol Park for a jog. It was not so crowded since it was not even five in the afternoon when I started jogging. I jogged at a leisurely pace enjoying the quiet and peaceful environment bathed in sunny skies.

 

The run was good and I was doing some stretching to cool down by the side of the big pond in the middle of the park. A couple in their mid-forties walked by and sat down on a bench behind me.

 

The lady was pouring out her woes to the man (obviously her husband). The conversation sounded like she had met with much unhappiness and injustice at work.

 

Man: "Dear, it's obvious you can't take it anymore."

 

Lady: "Who says so? I earned this promotion the hard way. They were all trained by me. How can things turn out this way? ..."

 

Man: "My dear. How things are turning out on the outside is not as important as how things are turning out in your inside."

 

Lady: " ..."

 

Man: "You look at yourself. Losing sleep. So full of unhappiness. No appetite. You think this is worth it? Life is full of choices. How we react to each and every situation is our choice. You can choose to stay in this state that you have tried ways and means to change but failed. Or you can choose to just let go. Walk away."

 

Lady: "Why must I walk away when I have done no wrong?"

 

Man: "Because you deserve happiness in life. If you can't change and also can't adapt. Then the best way could be to just walk away."

 

~~~~~~~~

 

I have to apologise for eavesdropping. But I was really just innocently cooling down while this spiritual lesson came to me for free! I find the advice of that man so very true. At times, when one is in a situation where one is uncomfortable and can't change the situation and even after some time, can't adapt to it, then the very best possible option could be to walk away. Let go.

 

I have heard of so many instances of people being stuck in an unsuitable job nature or environment, a marriage that did not work out well etc. It takes courage to retreat and change one's course in life. But so very often, many wonderful opportunities opens to one who dares to take the leap.

 

"It's not the strongest species that survives,

Nor the most intelligent;

But the one most responsive to Change."

~ Charles Darwin ~

Be Still

Month End is the typical time of the month that any work place would be converted to a very 'live' spiritual lab for anyone interested in Spirituality. At such time of the month where the management would very often be chasing the sales to close and bill as much as possible. Sales would in turn breathe down the necks of Logistics and Purchasing to bring in enough for them to sell and to ship out enough to customers and bill.

Under such a circumstance, it is not uncommon to see real sparks occurring in very usual conversations between coworkers. I guess it needs no scientific investigation to prove that stress levels among working people are the highest around this time of the month.

If you would like to test how deep your inner waters are in the spiritual sense, then get very involved with coworkers of all areas during this time of the month. It's easy to be cool, calm and composed when the external environment is calm or at less not in a state of chaos or irritation. But it takes one who is in absolute control of his inner rudder to sail in life smoothly even in unrestful waters.

What do you think? Enjoying the Month End?

Be Still. Let no external chaos find its way into your inner realm.

Punggol Park

Since I moved to my new place, I have been complaining that there were no nice places for me to jog. I was even hoping that the big empty plot of land right in front of the MRT would have a nice park or even a stadium for jogging would be good.

My wishes were answered yesterday when I walked to Hougang central with hubby last evening. On our stroll back, I found many joggers coming out of Punggol Park. I quickly crossed the road to check out this park. It has a nice pond with a running track of a distance of 1.3km. Let's just say that running in a park is really far more interesting a way to train than on a boring threadmill.

:-) Now you know where to find me on weekend mornings.

Beautiful Picture of Sunrise @ Punggol Park by Mansoor Khan

Virtual Refuge

Sometimes I am not sure if I am an introvert or an extrovert. A colleague once commented on me that if I were quiet, I could radiate a scary solemn deafening silence around me. But if I get crazy, I could really be quite mad. I can't say that she was wrong. I am still quite confused which category I belong to, honestly.

The blogosphere is a strange place where I can give my views and not really fear how people judge me. Surprisingly people has always been kind in their comments in my humble blog.

This virtual universe can fill one with wonder as one hops from blog to blog. I remember the earliest commentors in my shallow blog was Surjit of Gurushabad and Janice of This is a Miracle. I remember how delighted and surprised I was to see people actually leaving comments in my posts of idle wanderings.

It's hard to believe that one can actually find refuge in this virtual world! But I remember vividly once I was rather upset and affected by some matters at work. I went over to Genie Princess' Wishing on a Falling Star and left a shout in her shout box. To my surprise, fellow bloggers like Jean, the Nafa Team and our very charming Bobby came to my site and chatted with me for quite some time. Of course Marzie came over immediately after seeing my SOS message.

As I got quite addicted to blogging and blog-hopping, I came to know many great and kind souls with very interesting everyday life stories to read. I got inspired to fulfill my marathon dream as I read Blur Ting's The Day Flew by so Fast it was a Blur. I enjoy the honesty in the good blogs of Soul Survivor & Mother Hen. I regret not meeting our Lady Valentina, Trinity who has really become quite a pro in blogging, when she came to Singapore some time ago. Maybe I did not try to work a schedule to meet her. Or I was just being my usual shy and a little anti-social self.

There are also a few fellow Singaporean bloggers like Bobo, Jen and Jojo. Their blogs are fun to read. With great recommendations on where to eat and know what's happening in this small sunshine island of Singapore.

There's also a very interesting Coffee Family in this land of the rising sun, Japan. To this day, I still don't understand why she calls herself Jyankee, but her little Coffee is really one sweet endearing little girl.

If you want me to nominate kind souls in the blogosphere that you wish to get to know, I would recommend Amel and Jacqueline. Their kind words always serve as encouragement to me and they have great life stories that is good to read and learn from. Another very kind and creative blogger that I was so fortunate to be acquainted to was our very talented Emila. Check out her Illustrated Blog for many of her creative works. By the way, my blog header was very graciously done by her for me free of charge!!

There are two great blogs that I frequent regularly whose owners seem to be MIA. Sam of Acquired Wisdom and Live with Passion is one great blog filled with light. Sam has been "missing" for more than two months. I am really looking forward to his new post. Next is Mr Fong of Eat Your Maths. I never knew that mathematics could be eaten?! But this maths guru strived to show us how. Winston has also been missing for about two months.

The above are places I find refuge in this sometimes senseless and chaotic and others peaceful and meaningful world. Life is like a mirror, all images we see in this mirror serve to point to us who we really are if we know how to make use of them.

As I walk through life at times clapping my hands with laughter and joy and others with my head hanging down in near depression, I give thanks to these great Virtual Refuges that alway give me light and show me the way in their very own unique ways.

My blog buddies, I might be getting a little tardy in updating my blog and getting less frequent in visiting your good blogs. But rest assured your great sites stand permanent on the button called Favourites in my web browser.

Meeting Einstein

I never liked Relativity when I was in the university. Some supposedly very beautiful and (to me) very difficult to understand theory of Einstein. Don't worry. I am not trying to act smart and talk about Physics here.

Einstein said that time is relativistic. What does he mean? That my minutes and seconds can somewhat be longer than that of anyone else's? He must be kidding! What brand of watch was he wearing?

But for the past six days, I witnessed this theory of Relativity being proven.

This genius said that if one is in the company of his lover, every day that passes appears to the person as if time flies like seconds. If, however, a person were to be in company of one that he detests. Then every second drags like years.

The past six days had gone like years for my husband and my in-laws. My mom-in-law tried calling a neighbour staying very near to my husband's granny every half hour even though every attempt failed. But she could not help it. My husband kept checking updates on the internet on casualty rates and my father-in-law kept calling his friend in Yangon who is staying a kilometre away from my husband's granny. Einstein was right. Every second of uncertainty and fear of misfortune simply dragged like hours. For six days, I did not see them smile. They lost their appetites and were super attentive during the news hours.

Six days passed. Just yesterday a friend of my parents-in-law called us to inform that everyone in our family in Yangon was fine. The house was quite badly damaged and the roof was blown away, but at least everyone is safe. It's good to see my parents in law eating well again and my husband laughing out loud as he watched a pretty senseless Tom & Jerry cartoon over dinner.

It's been quite an experience meeting Einstein. Relativity Verified.

Nargis

Everyone is talking about it.
22,000 Dead
41,000 Missing
A million homeless

My husband's paternal grandmother, uncles and aunties are in Myanmar.
Yangon to be exact.
Can't contact them at all.

Father-in-law managed to contact a friend staying one kilometer
away from his mom's house.
This friend's house is made of concrete with zinc roof.
His house survived Nargis.
The roof was blown away.

Impossible for him to go that one kilometer to check on
Hub's granny.
His granny's house was made from wood.
His granny is 94 years old.
Quite a few kids and little ones in the family there.

worry