Meng

Childhood Toy

2004-05-22T01:23:35Z

"What childhood toy from the 80s are you? " - Results:

You're an Etch-a-Sketch!! You're the creative, artsy type who doesn't need to actually utilize a single muscle group in order to have fun. Doesn't matter though, you're still cool.

I spoiled quite a few of these when I was a kid, it's so long ago now, another time, another age,another life.

temanbaik @ 2002-09-18T12:28:00

2002-09-18T04:43:49Z

It's time again to dust off the cobwebs here and put in my two cents worth of observations. I didn't realise that it's been two months since I last made an entry here. I used to think that work was a drag especially Mondays which is the work day I dread the most, but I've come to realise that the days just seem to pass by and in no time at all, the end of the week is at hand again. So time flies whether you're enjoying yourself or not.

I think the best day of the week is Friday(if not working the next day) and Sunday night has to be the worst period of the week. To make it worthwhile, it's best not to squander the weekend doing nothing at all, the passage of time will be much more pronounced if one is idle.

a question of time

2002-07-03T12:00:47Z

It's been quite awhile since I last placed an entry here.

Lately,I've been wondering about this thing called time, it's such a relative thing, for some a brief fleeting moment is a long pause to others. Every day and every second of our lives, our hearts beat away a rhythm to time, every moment we have is a moment lost forever. It seems like such a mundane thing.... the passage of each day, but in reality, our lives are moving on and to what purpose? We all eat,sleep,play and love, we all play out our roles in this grand play called Life.

What is life really? Do we each have a purpose in life that we were all ordained to complete before we pass on? Besides religion and the tenet that we are all born with the original sin of denying God, only to be redeemed by heavenly intervention, what role do we have here on this giant piece of planetary rock,which right now, hurtles through the cosmos at an unimaginable speed. We all carry on with our daily lives without seemingly realising the inexorable passing of time. Sometimes, it is scary to think how little we appreciate each moment that we have, how we let some events pass us by without getting involved, how we refrain from doing or saying something and ultimately never to do or say it.

Life goes on, time goes on.

temanbaik @ 2002-06-08T10:19:00

2002-06-08T02:25:51Z

I wonder if it's only prevalent in Singapore, this practice of reserving seats in a food court using packets of tissue paper. It's quite amazing to see these empty tables at food courts in Raffles place all decorated with tissue packets on each seat or table place. I've noticed that this territorial behaviour is only practised by females of the species. The males will just tag along and hope that there will be enough spare packets of tissue paper to ensure a seat for them too.

To a foreigner, it would seem that the tissue packets were meant for anyone to use and sometimes, I'm tempted to just use them myself. :-) It's such a commonplace practice that no one bats an eyelid when a gaggle of females descend on an empty table leaving their tissue paper droppings behind before they go find food for themselves.

temanbaik @ 2002-06-08T10:08:00

2002-06-08T02:17:40Z

I recently started going for yoga classes..it's only once a week and very strenous actually,notwithstanding the seemingly slow and effortless movements of the instructor. I don't think my spine has ever gone through such contortions before or will ever be capable of it! It's quite a revelation to know that breathing slowly and gradually along with a particular move can actually make you break out in a sweat!

Learnt about the Plough, Table, Camel, Fish postures the other day. The lessons are getting progressively harder now. I just couldn't adopt some of the positions and I didn't want to risk breaking my neck or spraining my back trying too hard. The younger guys seemed to have no trouble at all though even though it was their first time doing yoga. I've not been studiously doing the exercises at home, they are quite time consuming.

Another practice in yoga is that while doing all those exercise and postures, one is supposed to be doing slow measured breathing and keep one's sphincter muscles tight. This last one is very hard to achieve when there's so much else to concentrate on doing.

temanbaik @ 2002-06-08T10:05:00

2002-06-08T02:06:13Z

Long pause since my last entry. I think this journal pales in comparison to what I've seen of others. No pix,no national geographic reports,no deep thoughts. Just my simple minded entries. :-)

temanbaik @ 2002-05-29T20:00:00

2002-05-29T12:03:40Z

Yesterday, I learnt that it just isn't worth it saving money on cheap superglue. In a vain effort to salvage an old pair of sports shoes, I attempted to stick back some loose rubbery parts of the sole but ended up with the tube of glue stuck in my fingers instead. I will never trust this cheap $1 a packet superglue anymore! Only after some effort did I manage to separate the tube and even after that, I still had this layer of superglue on my fingers which just wouldn't come off. And after all that, I threw away the shoes anyway.

temanbaik @ 2002-05-23T23:31:00

2002-05-23T15:31:56Z

I went for my first yoga class today,something that I've always wanted to try out. Found it very interesting and physically demanding too. Just doing the introductory breathing exercises got me perspiring. Found myself with very stiff joints when I realised that there were some positions that I couldn't adopt...even the standard lotus pose was beyond me so I had to settle for the half lotus.

The class opened with an introduction to the origins of yoga, the different forms and the aim of the yogic exercises. Much better like this than to just launch into the exercises without knowing what they were all about. It helped that the instructor was a qualified yoga expert. Well next Thursday, it will be lesson 2. I wonder what's instore for us then.

what's in a name

2002-05-22T12:10:30Z

TEMANBAIK actually means "good friend" ..used more commonly in Indonesian than in Malay language. I wonder how many ppl know that it means. Been using this nick for a long time already, just couldn't think of anything witty enough or thought-provoking or angst-ridden for a nickname.

temanbaik @ 2002-05-22T19:26:00

2002-05-22T11:50:17Z

This is going to sound terrible... just thought that if Andrea D'Cruz ever decided to sign up for this kind of journal.. hers would be LiverJournal. :-P
Well it's the midweek again, halfway thru before the long weekend. Almost at the end of the workday for me, as usual, doing this entry from my office. Still more than an hour before I can head home. Maybe tonight I'll go play Diablo2 on the home LAN, been quite a while since last played and it's a bit of a strain on the neck to play this game on a huge screen actually. Time to kick some monster butts again.

temanbaik @ 2002-05-22T19:26:00

2002-05-22T11:29:19Z

Bruiserball

2002-05-20T11:51:32Z

After trying out a game of volleyball yesterday with a bunch of friends, I now have a bunch of bruises on my arms and hands. I really can't figure out how my friends can serve so painlessly whilst I'm grimacing with each serve I have to make ( at least if it was a good serve it wouldn't have been so bad... but it was mostly BAD serves) Bruises have a wonderful way of appearing suddenly, one wrong hit and voila! one nice bluish lump coming up! I've now got 4 on my right hand alone. It looks like I've fractured my hand... talk about a broken wrist!

temanbaik @ 2002-05-20T19:37:00

2002-05-20T11:43:36Z

Just wanted to put in my two cents worth regarding the SW2 Attack of the Clones hoohah : even though I greatly enjoyed the first set of 3 movies, this latest installment was a story too long in the telling. That budding love story between Anakin and Amidala could have just been over and done with in a couple of minutes saving us the agony of watching them cavorting around on some fantastical,and therefore fake,landscape. The final third of the movie was pretty good though,enough action to keep the eyes glued to the screen and noisy enough to keep ppl from falling asleep.

temanbaik @ 2002-05-20T16:17:00

2002-05-20T11:31:57Z

Was just chatting on ICQ with a good friend who mentioned about having finally doing a homepage for himself and I realised that it's been absolutely ages since I last touched the pages I had put up some years ago. I went to check my homepage and it was back in 1997 that I last updated it! Another website for travels hasn't been updated since 1999. A lot of things have happened in the interim, too much to even start on here. I'm not really interested in doing anything about those websites.. not even sure if I still have the userIDs and passwords for accessing them!

Monday blues

2002-05-20T08:49:05Z

Well Monday is almost over at last, the one day of the week I hate the most cos its approach marks the end of the weekend and the start of another 5.5 days of drudgery. At least this coming weekend, there will be a slightly longer break and there won't be a horrible Monday to deal with.... just a horrible Tuesday instead!

temanbaik @ 2002-05-20T16:17:00

2002-05-20T08:19:28Z

temanbaik @ 2002-05-19T22:44:00

2002-05-19T14:44:32Z

i've been reminded that there haven't been any new entries in my journal.. well this is a new one then! today i tried playing volleyball for the first time with a bunch of friends over at NUS, it's a very painful game ..at least for a beginner like me! i ended up with several bruises on my right hand from all the serving i had to do! i really don't know how the others can hit the ball so effortlesly and more importantly, so painlessly!

unlike yesterday's windsurfing, i didn'tt use any sunblock for today's game so i think i will certainly peel in a couple of days. the surfing yesterday was really tough...strong gusty winds with very choppy seas. it was a thrill ride going out and surfing over the waves and leaning way back to balance.

Oops I did It again

2002-05-13T06:24:31Z

....well not actually again as far as this journal is concerned, but yes, again I've postponed doing something I could have done earlier .. in this case, entering something in this journal. Guess it's easier to have some kind of decoder attached to my brain so that I can just upload entries as I think them up instead of doing it this way.
It's been almost a week since the last entry, another week of life has passed by, nothing momentous happened,nothing worth mentioning here. Star wars starts this week, downloaded an illegal copy off the net over the weekend but was very disappointed with the video and sound quality of the movie file, so I think I will not bother with the remaining files. In any case, I'm planning to watch the movie in the cinema hall.

The first time

2002-05-08T04:51:14Z

I got my own Live journal account a couple of days ago..courtesy of Willie who's been an avid user of this service for sometime now. I guess I've now joined the virtual diary club as of this moment, finally putting words to thoughts. I'm doing this from my office now, but am leaving for my lunch now. :-)