I am not awesome. Really.

2011 is drawing to a close. Many good things have happened and I'm sure there are really good things for all of you. For some, it is the signalling of transitioning to a new phase in life, others are just simply enjoying what life has thrown as us. 

It is a time to celebrate with family and/or friends for the good things this year. I know a lot of people are.

So, what are you doing New Year's eve?

Hope is something that is essential in our daily lives whether we realize it or not. Hope gives us the strength to face the future even when the present (or sometimes the past) is rubbish. Whether it is looking forward to the weekend or pay day, it focuses our attention on other things than the rubbish day we are having and to forget about the past once we have arrived at the place of hope.

We constantly hope for better things because it's the things that we wish to possess, be it material goods or a lifestyle. We want more money, we want happiness, we want contentment, we want a partner, we want to try new things, visit new places, experience different cultures. I would dare say that no one of a sound mind has never hoped for something because we all want whether it is a saviour or an extra zero on your annual salary.

For some people, they hope not just because they want it but also because to see that some good things has to happen even when they have failed to retain those good things. In other words, some form of sanity check, that some form of the understanding of the world is right again. We fail many times over the course of our history, some more severe than others. When we fail badly and see others on the brink of success, we wish that they would succeed not just because it is the right/nice thing to do but also for us to hope against all hope, that we too may find that success someday. Even this is a pretty hard thing to do. Hope is usually never an easy thing to do because we are surrendering ourselves to (presumably) uncertain future in which we have little control of. Hope that others find success when you have not requires some level of humility. But perhaps the hardest thing about this kind of hope is that you may not get that success ever. It may be that you will have your successes elsewhere, just not this particular one. While we might have to resign to this fact at some point, to hope against all hope does make us feel better for the time being. Perhaps that's all we really need to get up and keep going. Perhaps that is what matters.

I saw this drummer at a really nice restaurant and on his bass drum had these words printed on it "Hold to the now where the future plunges into the past". If this was true, there would be no use for hope. We wouldn't want to wish for better things in the future because now is about as good as it gets. Depressing isn't it? While it is probably written as a means to forget our troubles but reality is that this would be just plain ignorance. Nothing truly good can come out of being in a state where we live for the now.

It's actually a good thing to hope even if you think it is for the weak, a crutch. I think hope is one of those things where emotion and intellect meld into one. It expresses human-ness probably more than anything. So keep hoping but on one condition. Hope for the right things.

What makes things awkward?

It's a question that I have been thinking about for the past couple of months. The motivation for this was because I might soon be living in a situation that breeds awkwardness, more than the usual. I have long skimmed awkwardness aside because I thought it was just a phase and it shall pass. But lately I have been thinking that it is not as simple as it being a "phase".

Let's start with a classic example, a couple. Regardless of who you are, there is always at least one, that one couple you know where virtually everything they do generates awkwardness around them but they are completely oblivious because they are lost in their own world. The awkwardness sometimes even spills over to the individuals that make up the couple. At this point, this scenario still falls under the category of it being a feeling as a by-product of some action. In the case of couples, this action can come from a long list of actions; PDAs, speech, conversation topics, conversation replies and so on. I would call this direct awkwardness, where the source of the awkwardness comes from person(s) generating it. What makes it awkward is the skewed ideology/feeling of what a couple should do around others.

But it also seems that awkwardness can be generated by other people and places it squarely at the couple, even if there was no action that would provoke awkwardness. In other words, making things more awkward than they actually are. Again, I would dare to say, we know of at least one person who can make any situation (even more so around couples) feel awkward. A bit like Joey from the TV sitcom Friends where he can make anything sound dirty. Side note: a friend tried to make "aioli" a dirty word because apparently the orange aioli I made for steak sandwiches is so good that it should illicit some sort of innuendo. I have crazy friends. Anyway, this would then be indirect awkwardness. Things become awkward because of a person's personality, that weird friend of yours who eats awkwardness for breakfast.

Both direct and indirect forms are on the macro scale ie. it affects everyone in the same conversation circle (possibly those who are eavesdropping too). There is a micro level description as well where it is a lot more selective. This happens where when interacting one-on-one with the individuals that make up a couple, nothing happens. But when interacting with both of them, some form of awkwardness emerges. Even if you were to ask the same questions, you'd still feel awkward with the couple than with the individuals. This form does not make any sense at all as to what makes this awkward, at least on the conscious level.

That is my problem. 

It has come to my attention that there is a growing number of people in my circle of friends that I show this micro level behaviour. Some of whom I have known for a very long time and has never had a shred of awkwardness in all those years but yet it appears when I'm talking to a unit that consist of two people. It is something I don't understand and when I don't understand something I don't know how to fix it and so the problem just sits there causing a ruckus. On some occasions I do know what might be the cause of it but am never really sure that it is the root cause. I remember when I was at a friend's wedding recently where the pastor was sharing a few words before the solemnisation that people will see the newly wed couple in a different light, that we can never really go back to looking at them the same way we did when they weren't a couple. I think to a certain extent this is true for couples in general, whether the relationship was 2 days old or married with kids. Perhaps this new perspective is causing me this awkwardness though I'm not exactly sure what this perspective is.

Maybe the idea of awkwardness is the cause. I've told many people that I was particularly scarred after a week long trip to Tasmania a couple of years back. I cannot think of a more awkward stretch of time than this. And since then I have been very compulsive about the number of people and who is going when there's an event. Like anyone who has a genuine phobia, even just the thought of it scares them. I think it may be the case with me and awkwardness.

I want to fix this. With a record breaking 19 engagements this year alone, if I continue to have nothing to do with awkwardness, I will run out of people. And that's not good for this ageing man. I will try and start tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

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Had a great conversation about family with some friends. It's amazing what kinds of stories you get from friends talking about their own family. I guess I should have realised it earlier but when hearing things from other families, you know that your strange family tree is not so strange after all.

Also a friend talked about being stuck at a particular age as you grow older. And I wonder, am I still stuck? Or am I maturing?

Growing up in environments where I was pretty much by myself has its advantages and disadvantages. That meant that I had to find ways to entertain myself and so get accustomed to boredom, learn how to do things myself, figure how to do those things in the first place and so on. But like some things in life, they are double edge swords. For example, being accustomed to boredom means that it is very hard to take the initiative to go out and do/see/explore new places which means not very cultured. Always sticking to the same few things and neither loving it nor hating it. Melbourne is one of those places where there is always something new to explore, some new place that serves great food and drinks and many more. Unfortunately, being schooled in the art of comfortable and excuse making, I do not take some of these opportunities. Most of the time I rely on friends who are way more interesting to be immersed into some niche subculture. A couple of posts ago on shopping is one such incident.

Another double edged sword is the ability to do things yourself. While this is not a bad thing but the aspect that makes it bad is the lack of discernment on when you have to say "I need help". It is not necessarily an ego thing (perhaps it is in my case. If so tell me) but it is just that you are so used to doing things yourself that you still think that you can do this even if it is going to cause you a great deal of pain in the process. I tend to rationalize situations where I think it is still OK to do things myself and to cause myself a great amount of trouble but other friends think that it is clearly not OK to do it yourself. Added to the mix is that I would prefer that I cause myself trouble than to cause others trouble. That means by default I continue to do it myself until when I can safely say that I need help. Usually by that time it is too late and cause immense trouble for, not only me, but to the person that I have enlisted to help out. And that makes me feel even worse, which reinforces my stance that I shouldn't ask people for help. Vicious cycle, ain't it?

Like many old things of habit are, they are hard to change course the longer the habit has been put into place. So it is no surprise that I am still making the same mistakes I did a decade ago, sometimes even longer. I believe that these flawed habits have shaped me to be the person I am now, all my successes and (outnumbered) failures. I hope that I am changing slowly to correct for my misconceptions and of course I hope that it is not too late for that.

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I sometimes revisit past emotions and feelings as a means of understand who I was back then. They are not always positive ones because one shouldn't reflect on just the good things. Recently was one such trip back to the past after accidentally stumbling across some cards lying around. It was a great time where best friends fight it out through thick and thin, share everything, to have the first instinct of telling the friend the moment something comes up. But alas, that no longer happens and it would be great if I could have that environment again. But it was also a time of great criticism, a division of friends. Heck I got "scolded" by a friend on this because he seriously questioned my approach. And he definitely has the credentials to back it up, as of earlier this year. Can you blame me for hiding after that, realizing I should have known better than to dive into something that I haven't really got my head screwed on tight?

Listening to Explosions In The Sky is not really helping right now.

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Got like the funniest Kris Kringle present ever yesterday. A pack of 6 bottles of glittery nail polish. I shall paint my wall with it.

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Now in the new place, I'm having trouble to try and fill the space in the room. I've been living in various shoebox sizes in the past and so don't really accumulate a lot of things. Now that I'm in the biggest room ever since I step foot in Melbourne, I don't know what to do with all this space. It's actually starting to drive me nuts. Plenty of ideas but need the time to actually sort it out. Not to mention implement it, which is pretty hard for a procrastinator. 

I'l try not to think twice.

Came back from one of the best wedding I've attended. Weather forecast said it was going to rain, thunderstorm even, but given what had happened I'd say that God had his way.

aka. The Best Bucks Night. EVER!

Many things have come and gone lately, all while being pretty busy at work and also the weekends have been pretty full as well. But none, I repeat, none can beat last week's event which I will forever remember. No amount of monkeys with typewriters could ever come up with a script like this ever (Okay, I lied. But it still takes a very long time).

Surfing and horse riding during the day was pretty good but nothing could ever prepare us for what was to come when the sun goes down. I have to say that I now swear by the effectiveness of a wetsuit in very cold temperature waters. I was even thinking of wearing one when winter comes round because as you know, I hate the cold.

The fun began when we went for dinner after horse riding. The groom was then notified that things are starting to get very interesting and so revealed that he will be wearing a Superman costume for the rest of the night, inspired by a photo that was taken together with his fiance. The task for the night was to approach random women on the street, gathering intel and try to land a kiss from them. Seems pretty normal for a buck's night to me, all the while the groom publicly professes that he hated us, defriending us and what not's. But you can tell that he was secretly having a lot of fun too. The aim was to gather 100 points for this to be over. After quite awhile, he needed one more random woman on the street to complete the task. 

Crossing the road into Flinders Street station in search of the last woman, this one particular woman stood out like a sore thumb. It was no surprise because that woman was dressed like this...

I kid you not. The very last person he needed happened to be Wonder Woman. I shouted to him "GO!! NAO!!!1!" while pointing furiously towards her. He went and she played along! The rest of us guys were giggling like little schoolgirls and whispering in a very dude manner " THIS IS TOO AWESOME!". Many photos later, and he was done with the task. Because this ended on such an epic character and earning the respect from the rest of us guys, we sang the Superman theme song at every intersection on the way back to the car.

Just when we think the day was over, drama! A noise was heard by Superman and immediately darted off towards a gathering of people. A man was hit by a car that ran a red light and was down and in dire need of assistance. 

Oh, I forgot to tell you that Superman was also an emergency department doctor. So darting off towards the scene, his cape fluttered behind him. You can see where this is going. He had a hard time convincing the people there that he was really an emergency department doctor but managed to break through. Handled the victim until the ambulance arrived but the victim was going to make it thanks to the swift action of Superman. Of course the rest of us guys were busy taking photos of the event, again giggling like schoolgirls and saying to each other "What are the chances that all of this were to happen?" Once the victim was carried off in the ambulance and the police were done taking his details, he came back to us and we were just in shock that this happened. So we sang the Superman theme song even louder on the way back to the car.

Secretly we came to the conclusion that the public must know about this eventful bucks night for it is too awesome to keep it to ourselves. So we contacted newspaper agencies around telling them this story with the photos we took. And guess what? Page 9 of the Herald Sun, last Thursday ran the story. My brain is about to explode from all of this. And apparently last I heard was that there might even be a short segment on Channel 7's morning program Sunrise. Mind = blown.

Considering that this was my first bucks, the bar has been set pretty damn high. Heck, even if I were to get married, my buck's wouldn't even be in the same galaxy on the scale of awesomeness as this epic night. Dayum.

And so this brave young man is going to get married later today which I think is going to be one epic wedding as well. One final mind blowing thought to leave you, the person he is marrying runs an online magazine. Like a reporter. Get it?

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It's been awhile since I had a very long talk with a friend on relationships. It has been interesting but it also brought up a lot of things that I've learned in the past. Considering the number of people getting together, getting engaged ( ! ) and married are spiking lately, it is no surprise that I ponder about these things and how they will affect me and my friends who are attached. So far I have to say that I act like an ass to most people, which of course is not good. But some seems to impart a little more thinking and less jackassery on me. One particular instance was how strikingly similiar another friend's situation was to mine 3 years back. I'm sure this has some implications attached to it, I'm just not sure what is the appropriate choice of action I should take.

And of course I ponder about myself too.

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Lately I've been feeling more cluckish than usual. But I'd probably fail in that too. Not that I'll get there anyway.

Very eventful weekend with so many things to do and leaving me very very tired by the end of the day. A big plus was a couple of friends popping by over the weekend for a visit, having a ball. Despite the seriously rubbish weather on Saturday, it was still great to hangout the whole day indoors. Moved most of my stuff out to the new place and took about an hour to complete everything.

Went to see Eddie Izzard live and he is just genius. I think the thing that I like about him the most is that there is always an overarching line of thought that he wants to present but every now and then goes off in a tangent. Most comedians that I've seen have blocks of content and there isn't really much continuity between the blocks. He just has one huge block he needs to go through. If you have seen any clips of his comedy and notices his posture, expression in words and in action, he is still all that and probably more on stage. The other thing that I like about him is that he does quite a fair bit of word play in his jokes. It's one of those that are borderline smart and lame, not too lame that just make you go "ARGHHHH!" but it's actually very witty. Love it! The first 20 minutes or so was quite a bit irreverant as he professes to be an atheist and gave some evidence for his belief (or lack thereof) so it is a bit hard to laugh at jokes no matter how funny it was. But soon after it became funnier and funnier till the end of the first half we have been sufficiently warmed up. When the second half came in, he totally killed us. Well timed recurring jokes, very clever word play, a little randomness, had us all in stitches. It's so scattered that by the end of the show when we are trying to remember the really funny bits, we struggle to remember them. And of course we don't quite have the same delivery as he does. But it was so good. So very good.

Another thing that we did was a lot of shopping. I, of course, did not buy anything. But watching friends shop, look at things they like, criticise other things and the likes is very interesting. Coming from a person who knows next to nothing about shopping I can only stand back and observe. Perhaps I'm too analytical in trying to discern what makes one thing nice compared to something else even though they seem to be almost similiar. Enough exposure and I will usually be in the same direction with my own choices then I've come to learn that there is a lot of things that I have to unlearn in order to look good. My friends are generally very excited about anything style related (which I again know nothing of) and even got to the point where they got even more interested to know what I would look like had a had surrendered myself over to them and had a pile of cash stuffed inside the pockets of my baggy jeans. I'm sure if I did that they would do the best job and I'm sure I would like it because they are that good with this knowledge. This geek behind the keyboard is very interested and impressed with their kind of knowledge. Perhaps it is the environment that have been immersed in before coming to Australia that gave them this wealth in knowledge that I do not possess.

I've always had clothes that are rather big or have the appearance of big, maybe it is because of the Asian mentality. Buy shirts two sizes bigger so can last longer when you are growing up. But what it fails to teach us (or at least what I fail to learn) was that there is a point where you stop growing and you cannot follow the same mantra as before. You'll get carded by the fashion police. It is further exaggerated by the fact that I'm a geek, a nerd and a dweeb. And so at 27 years old, I finally understood it. Very typical.

This was all to make one look good and perhaps radiate some self confidence. I've never really understood where the line was between aiming to look good and being vain, or between self-confidence and arrogance. So in another typical move, I aim to play it safe, don't bother to try and look nice and lower yourself. Because really, I don't want to give any of that impression to other people. So having this paradigm shift is a scary thought, thinking twice before trying, say a new pair of jeans. Almost crippling.

I sometimes wonder how on Earth do these awesome friends of mine are still friends with me. It amazes me that a person with zero style with too much faux science in my head, with no culture and no class is able to mingle with people that have a refined sense of style for longer than a week. Details, the marketing and advertising ethos, the vocabulary and all that jazz boggles my mind. In the words of Eddie Izzard, "Oh...my brain is getting hot.". Highly interesting, even exciting but something I cannot fully grasp or comprehend. Perhaps I never will. But that's OK. I've been fine up to now and I'm sure I'll be fine despite the T-shirt, baggy jeans, seriously worn out shoes and a brain that is chock full of internet memes especially cats.

That $575 jacket is starting to taunt me.

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"Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn" - Gore Vidal

Perhaps it is because I don't know/do any of these.

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Perhaps, I am seriously doing it wrong. Who am I kidding?

The past couple of days I've been spending time clearing my stuff around the house to be packed neatly and to start living off a suitcase soon. I'm usually very lazy when it comes to regularly cleaning my stuff so it is no surprise that I find very ancient documents. Some of them are pleasantly surprising, bringing back some kind of memories of years gone by. Others though are like skeletons in a closet you forgot ever existed. Finding them reminds you of a time where you'd prefer not to remember anything.

Apparently I still kept my conditional offer letter to Cambridge and whatever thick booklets they have sent to me. That was probably my most proudest moment, that I finally got accepted into the university that I'd wanted to go for years, to be amongst giants in the mathematical society. Although I didn't go eventually (and after much hindsight, kinda regretted that move) it was definitely one of the best things to come out at that time. I think since I've been mixing around with more Singaporeans than my fellow countrymen, I came across a pamphlet for international students that are about to commence a postgraduate study in the United Kingdom to obtain an Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS) certificate prior to entering the country. Reading that document was pretty funny in Singlish. Hehe.

Coming from the same year, I found some other things that greatly contributed to my insecurities and to some extent, my cynicism. After reading a letter from the past, it reminded me of the poor choices that I have made and have paid quite a price for it. There were some positives, as any of these will have, but deep down I somewhat knew it wasn't the best choice. This makes me sound a bit of an ass but I was right. But it doesn't matter any more. Because of many occasions like this, I constantly beat myself up for not doing the right thing from the very start. Actually I just beat myself up.

It's funny for me to think that these two events happened in the same year. One terrifying high and low. For a person who isn't too fond of taking the emotional roller coaster, it's not a surprise that that year was probably the least favourite of them all. What's even more interesting is that even though these two events seem completely independent of each other, I cannot remember one without the other. It's like a mental monument erected as some kind of a milestone for me to remember this year even though I'm not terribly fond of it.

So where does all of this lead me to? Your guess is as good as mine. 

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Three songs on loop

Another year gone.

So many things to be thankful for but as usual I still think I'm just the same 17 year-old boy in high school except with two degrees, many litres of alcohol later and a decaying body. Will things change? Probably not but I'm sure you'd say otherwise. I've learned to be a little more selective in a slightly reclusive way over the years. Perhaps it's my age showing or maybe that's really how I roll. With little, I enjoy much more.

I appreciate those who have bothered to ask me the deep questions in the past, something that I tried avoiding or have little appreciation for. Perhaps it is because of the many occasions of self-reflection (cleaning church contributed to most of those occasions) that made me realize that these questions are subtle checks to make sure that your head is screwed on tight. Keep those questions coming. And you don't have to wait for that day to ask. Just don't expect me to give you an answer straightaway. You just have to ask.

The next one is going to be different. So very different.

Been hearing a lot about relatives of friends of mine, about the things that they do and the things they say to them, I find quite fascinating. But the thing that fascinates me the most is that most of my friends still have this developed sense of closeness with their relatives, be it cousins, uncles and aunts despite some of their occasional peculiar behaviour. It kinda saddens me a bit because that is something that I used to have with my relatives. As I ponder on the what and the why, I think about how would I look like had I still had that same closeness with my relatives as I did when I was growing up.

I used to love the pilgrimage back to Penang over the school holidays (or even Chinese New Year) because I really look forward to playing with my cousins and talk to my uncles and aunts and some of the elders who are able to speak English. I was (and still am) a horrible Hokkien descendant so whatever little I knew about Hokkien is not enough to sustain anything, not even a cry for help. I see them once, maybe twice a year, but every time it is always a happy time for me to go there and spend the week. Oh and the food. Oh the food.

The pilgrimage to Penang was to see my father's side of the family. My mother's side on the other hand was a bit more complicated. Unlike my dad's side where almost all of his side of the family are in Penang, my mum's side are spread between 3 countries. The closest was JB/Singapore. When I'm not going to Penang over the school holidays, I would travel to JB/Singapore to play with my other cousins. I used to be very close with them because for most of the time we literally had the whole house to ourselves to play (and this was a BIG house). We could do anything like we had a care in the world. Needless to say, I also enjoyed that time where I was there spending the week. The rest of the mum's side I would not see for years, sometimes a decade, but that never bothered me. Not yet.

Slowly but surely, things changed. The pilgrimage felt different during my teenage years, mainly because most of my cousins (most of them are considerably older than me) started bringing in their plus ones or that they decided to start a new family tradition by going on overseas holidays during Chinese New Year. My grandmother losing her memory and not to mention my inability to speak to her aggravates the growing distance. Suddenly I felt lonely at a time where it is supposed to bring family back under one house. My cousins from JB/Singapore then migrated overseas and it would years before I see them again. Not to mention that I started seeing cracks within my own family as well. This realization of course never really came to me until much later and it really saddens me, not only for the situations that led to this distance between myself and my extended family but for me as a person.

My teenage years could be described as rather reclusive. I was only really known for 3 things back then; science, math and chess. It took me a long time before I came out of my shell and even then I questioned myself on whether it was a stupid thing to do. It doesn't surprise me that the time when the distance between myself and my used-to-be close relatives coincided with my rather reclusive nature in high school. I was a lot more social in my childhood days partly because of the nature of play. Perhaps it was the hormonal engine kicking in that started the decline.

Whatever the reasons are for causing the distance, it is clear that that shaped me as a person to a rather large degree. Looking at my other friends and how they are like only adds to my theory. So, I wonder how would I be had I had the same closeness as I did back then. Perhaps more bold, confident. Perhaps more sociable, greater approachability. Maybe no change at all. Trying to rebuild a bridge with this kind of distance now is an extremely hard task, my previous post is a testament to that albeit not doing a very good job, if any. 

Right now, I've had friends that shaped me to who I am now, largely. We had some crazy fun times together (and still do). But I think it cannot completely take over what close relationships with the extended family bring. Of course things like personality are significant variables to take into account but generally this is how it is. Which, very badly of me, I am trying to do that very same thing.

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More than a decade since I have watched this movie and nearly two decades of hearing this, but I understand and feel it more now than ever. Perhaps I should go through some of the old romance movies again.


 

I've recently met up with a relative of mine after numerous attempts of having a meet up. Partly because I have been avoiding it. But I have to say that it was rather odd that my relative sounded pretty hyped up about having a meet up. Previously, this was not the normal behaviour. In fact any mentioning of a meet up is very rare and rarer still is the actual meet up. Experience tells me that this sudden change in behaviour often comes as a result of an agenda. But like most of the time when experience tells me one thing, I'd do the complete opposite just to see if I'm wrong. True enough, experience was right again.

Within less than 5 minutes of sitting down in a restaurant, one-on-one, the agenda got out. Starting with the usual "how are things with you" talk, he announced that he had quit smoking. Great! Then I noticed a slight shift in tone, to a tone where I can almost hear a sales pitch coming from a mile away. The reason for this new found smoke-killer was an "investment" that promises butt loads of cash for seemingly little work. And sure enough pretty much the whole dinner was just talk about the sales pitch. Nothing more, nothing less. Here I was sitting at the restaurant feeling pretty stupid listening to a sales pitch that I have heard a thousand times from "friends" and acquaintances. The numbers may have changed a bit here and there but overall it's the same principle. The same dodgy principle.

The sales pitch itself was actually the thing I was least annoyed at, surprisingly enough. It was the attitude that my relative had taken on from this semi-religious, pseudo-philanthropic pyramidal scheme company. Claiming that most of the successes of the company were Christian, that they train their members to be a better person and all while they pursue money like dogs chasing a thrown stick is just not right. For more than half the time, the sales pitch included the scenario of wouldn't it be great if you can earn a 6 figure sum of money while doing virtually nothing, sugar-coated with Christian jargon and values sounds almost repulsive. I'd actually would feel better if the sales pitch had zero mention of Christians. Considering the drive and enthusiasm from my relative (he was pretty on about this company's beliefs and principles) and all in the name of making huge amounts of money while being a better person, this is almost hypocritical. Sounds too good to be true. Giving the illusion of hope that I can be one of those people in the company that literally earn millions, this sounds pretty toxic to me.

I really want to believe that my relative has changed for the better, I really do. He has had quite a rough life and lately he has been doing good. But with his latest immersion into this company, reminds me that the pursuit of money will grip anyone and will channel one's time and effort away from God. The whole idea that we should be doing as little work as possible while reaping as much benefits as possible, I don't think, is even biblical. Remember that work was given before the fall of man, that work is supposed to be a good thing given by God. It was the frustration of work that came with the fall. Work in itself is not a bad thing, actually it's the contrary. So thanks for the pitch on the prospect of no work but earn money but no thanks. I'd rather keep my programming job, earn whatever little that I earn and be content.

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She left on a Monday.

Some good advice there.

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A wise man once said that being a bachelor for too long is sometimes a bad thing, makes you set in your ways. *squint eye*  

It has been some crazy week where there has been some rapid fire beta releases to fix bugs that crop up. Some of them were due to my stupidity, others were bugs that were always there only that they had just been found and some just appear because we are moving to different OS versions. But work has been good and as a result made me enjoy other things that I otherwise would have taken it for granted.

For one, getting rest at the end of the day (unless of course there is a looming deadline) is that much sweeter. During uni days, "work" and rest are so interleaved that we barely take the time to enjoy it. Sure this puts constraints on what we can do or cannot do but I think it is better to be in a situation where you fully appreciate something, whether it is the work you do or the rest at the end of the day/week, than to have absolute free reign of your time to dictate what you should be doing with your time. Perhaps it is just me who likes it this way. I used to work in a bookshop and it can get pretty hectic right up to closing time but when I come back home, I feel satisfied. Another reason why I am probably well suited for low to mid level type jobs. Or perhaps it is my age showing.

Another, also related to rest, are the weekends. I have done quite a lot of stuff during the weekends (but mostly pre-planned and then start firing up the spontaneity engine). Feels so much better than just lazing around at home. And yes, I finally get what you working people think about the weekends. The past couple of weekends has just been filled with many things outside the house especially this weekend with the lovely sunny warm weather. Also manage to smash a friend with alcohol.

And of course the issue of work itself. Work has always had a word-of-mouth marketing scheme of promoting itself as a soul-sucking thing that voids you of all things good in the world. But it is not so with me, maybe not yet. Perhaps it is something about being a low/mid level worker who have a "just follow instructions" mentality or have the patience to sit down and plow through the work that helps us in the resistance of the soul-sucking side of work. And when it is done, there is a genuine form of happiness/satisfaction from it and not the negatively slanted "Oh thank God this thing is over!" response.

I don't know, perhaps I might change my tune several months down the track. That I might fall into the category of millions of other people mumbling and grumbling about their work, stressed about the amount of things that they have to do, feeling numb as the months go by. I hope I don't go down that path. But I do hope that I do not complain, continue to give it my all in my work and most importantly, work is a God given thing. Work without God in mind is meaningless. 

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Closing time. Moving time. A new time.

Just a short blurb to introduce to the foodies stalking this site to a little known site called OZKitchenware. They stock some of the most popular brands when it comes to anything cooking/baking related such as Cuisinart, Global, Scanpan and many others. Check them out! It is mighty tempting not to click the "Add To Cart" button buttons because you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere cheaper. Only Chuck Norris can do that. I suspect you are not. Oh, and free shipping over $100.

So go grab that Cuisinart stick blender that I've you've always wanted! Like now. Go crazy for those Global knives (just don't crazy with them on other people. That's wrong.)! And while you are at it, make gazpacho for me. Summer is coming. Just saying.

kthxbai.

I bumped into a friend recently that I haven't seen in quite awhile. Obligatory catch-up conversations started and one thing led to another before we came to the question about my friend thinking about what to do in the future, in particular what to study. This seems very ordinary but it turns out to be far more interesting than I had previously anticipated.

You see, my friend here is deciding between two lines of study that are fundamentally very different from each other and of course this friend of mine is interested in taking the plunge on both of these. The obvious question was which one to choose. Again this sounds very ordinary but the kicker was that my friend wanted to choose which would give her the most skills to eventually serve God in the mission field or something else with a mission-centred area. At first glance, one of the lines of study immediately became the first choice for obvious reasons and that was what my friend thought as well. Then I realized something is not quite right.

Basically, my friend is putting God in a box. That service in the mission field is almost entirely dependent on what sort of skills you have.

We cannot act as though that what we study or the skills that we acquire are the things that will be most beneficial and most likely to be considered when out in the mission field, though there is some merit in that. But it is not the be all and end all for entering a mission field or even serving for that matter. God has used many people in the past who didn't exactly have the necessary abilities but they carried out God's plan regardless. For example, Moses or David or most recently studying in church, Amos. So coming back to my friend, God will use people no matter what sort of skill you have as long as you are willing to occasionally step out of your skill set to serve God. So my advice was to not to worry about which skills you are going to get out of either of the courses but just be ready to serve with whatever you have. Who knows, you may be serving using a completely different skill set than you first started out with and yet God uses that for His purposes.
 
But wait, there's more. 

Now think about the countless Asian Christian parents whose kids are going to university. Urging them to do something that will grant stability like engineering, accounting, medicine etc. that these are the skills that will be highly useful in the mission field. Not the arts, oh no. Because what good is it that you can analyze pre-war Cambodian society or perform textural analysis of 1940's film to the poor, remote and sometimes broken societies which most Christians commonly associate as the mission field? Doing this "kills" in two ways, one that doing what you love means nothing if you can't bring in the bacon and two, indirectly teaching them that God cannot use you if you don't have the right skills for the mission field. And as an added bonus, teaching them that the mission field is in some far away God-forsaken land with no clean running water and electricity. The first is just harsh from a parent to a child, the second is borderline wrong and the bonus is just a misconception.

God can easily use an arts major to do mighty things in the mission field as to the "choice skills" person. Make no mistake about that, He has always been doing so and will continue to do so in the future. The more important question to consider (rather than what skills should I have) is will I serve regardless of what I am trained in? So don't worry about petty things like this, all you have to do is to be prepared to be mobilized.

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This is the only right way to do this song. Still stuck in my head.

Some people are made of win. Others are made of fail. I am most definitely made of fail. This weekend was full of fail.

Friday started with a less than thrilling dinner with uncle, aunty and cousins with their plus ones. Maintaining some form of family ties with the relatives who usually look down on our life's and work's choices at the expense to having awesome drinks at a bar that I have failed to go for the 4 attempts. I was hoping to exit early and join what was the remainder of drinks there but was held back by chatter and a dying phone. When I finally did exit and managed one call from the friends, the phone died while taking the train there. Took me about 40 minutes to get there and it turns out that they were done with drinks and wanted to grab some food. At a place very near where I finished having dinner 40 minutes ago. Friday felt so underwhelming that it was quite a downer. But thankfully 4 hours of yakking helped.

Saturday I cooked something for dinner to bring to a friend's place which had sauce. But a rather sudden motion caused me to spill some of the sauce on my jeans. And now my jeans smells of shitake and dried shrimp. Changed and handled dinner with the utmost caution. Then later I went to church to clean and train the new cleaner. Handed over the keys to the new cleaner but realized I left my dead phone in church. And I had to get up by 9:45 the next day. So I was at home with no church keys to go back and get the phone, no alarm clock to wake me up (the wonders of technology, eh?) and even if I did manage to retrieve the phone the next day when the church is open, I cannot contact my friend when I have arrived. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I made a calendar event on iCal to trigger super loud music when I have to wake up and left my computer on. It kinda worked. Kinda because it was actually my sister who indirectly woke me up when she left the house. And then the alarm went. One more thing to add in the Macgyver life skill's toolbox.

Left the house and brought my charger to try and have a brief moment for charging in church if I found it with time to spare. But no such luxury there. Found my phone but no time to charge so I had to leave. Arrived at friend's place and knocked on the door several times but no one answered. Got really desperate because it was late already, I ran to the small shopping centre nearby with my charger, found a power point and quickly defibrillate my phone to send a message. Whoever was watching the security cameras was probably this close to calling security to check me out. I looked super dodgy. Ran back because it was threatening to rain and after my friend came out, all was good. Except for a dead phone for the rest of the day.

So fail man.

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Come tomorrow, the first thing I am going to ask is "Open the pod bay doors.". Yay.

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So many times I feel so useless. Someone please shoot me. Sigh.

I recently had a conversation with a friend who went on a trip to the other end of the earth. So as these things normally go, you ask how is it. One thing led to another before long we were talking about things that have nothing to do with the trip. In fact, there was very little talk about the actual trip at all. Things like self-discovery, aging, the troubles and inconveniences of life started popping in. I know it sounds pretty depressing but that got me thinking about me.

Friends like the one I talked to and many others have done something that until this day I haven't done at all, traveled alone (or with one other friend) to a fairly far away place. And all of them have done so at a relatively early age. As with people who have done extensive traveling (even just once) will tell you all the wonderful stories and superlative-laced descriptions of places they have been and experiences. Normally I'd just be happy listening in, absorbing all the tales that needs to be told and just be in wonder on what it is like to be in their shoes when they were there. But something turned when my friend implored me to do the same and that I can still do it. I am "still young" apparently.

Coming from a person who is about my sister age, my first response was you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about or what it means to be "still young". Heck, for a split second, I don't know whether to feel insulted by that statement. But of course my secondary higher-level cognition kicked in and realized that my problem is not with me getting older but the lack of throwing myself out there and see what happens. Perhaps it is shaped by the circumstances I've been placed in (and possibly reinforce whatever insecurities about it) that I don't dream about wandering off to exotic places. That I don't want to decide to travel. Sure I've been to some pretty cool places but not one of them was a result of my desire. After further examination, it pretty much boils down to a couple of factors.

One, money. Coming to Australia from Malaysia, money is pretty big deal for me (and of course my family). Traveling requires it, I don't have it. We have a problem. So it is in my first response to keep whatever money I have, whether earned or received from the FaMa (Father-Mother) Scholarship. So of course whatever desires of traveling to far away lands are inhibited and suppressed down to wandering through the interwebs for cats and other weird things. Two, personal priorities. You'd think money would be a priority but actually it isn't, at least for me. Money was never really a big priority. Stability, however, is. Once everything is settled only then will I have the surplus to travel. Needless to say, I've never really felt it, even now. Many of my plans towards stability have been redrawn as time goes by and when that happens something's gotta give. More suppression ensues.

Looking deeper into this complex personality, I don't just do this on the issue of travel. As I have stated countless times, I overthink things. As a result, I plan a lot especially when it is towards some base level of comfort. Only when I've hit that base level will I move on to other things. Because so much of my time has been "devoted" to planning, desires get suppressed and failure to act spontaneously is eminent. I don't want things, routine is a friend. A robot. There are times where I envy friends like I've mentioned, most of them have in one way or another would throw themselves out of the fish bowl every now and then to see what it's like out there. I, on the other hand, have probably spent years telling myself to stay put because you just might not know what will happen next (read: glass half-empty). Because of that, staying in my shell is preventing me from doing a lot of things that some of my friends have suggested/urged me to do. And not just about traveling. 

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I sometimes hate sitcoms especially when the main actress is sooo pretty. And of course she gets together with the super charming actor. Like Outsourced. Still funny as heck though. Meh.

So 5 days on the job has passed and so far I'm liking it. Although I was thrown into the deep end by letting me work on one of their large projects to make some minor improvements, I've learned so much plus it is good that I'm back into the programming flow. But what I did not expect is that most of us should be moderate users of Photoshop as well. Very strange but I guess it is probably a good thing in the long run. 

I am indeed very thankful that I've got it easy compared to most people who are job searching or even those who had jobs but received less than what they bargained for in some respects. Even though that I've never really been in the job search area prior to this but I kinda know how frustrating it can be from other somewhat related experiences. Just today some people merged into the current conversation circle to congratulate me on my new job. They were very excited about it and of course really wanted to know the details (sound familiar?). But what I was more worried for was that one of the other people in the conversation were in the process of job searching and have been doing so for awhile now with little success. Normally I would be very excited talking about my job etc. but not so because with all this talk about my success, it also means slightly more frustration and disappointment for this person. Kinda like rubbing salt on wound. 

I think we are all guilty of not acting appropriately towards other people in a decent sized conversation group. While on average our responses may be well mannered but some will be a little bit more affected compared to others. Sometimes it is good to exchange excitement with sympathy. Though it may seem like a bit boring but it's good to maintain some sanity among other people. Granted that we can only do this if we know the people in the conversation group well enough and that tends to be a little subjective. But it is better to start low and crank it up than to start high and crank it down. 

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It has been a very very long time since I've had decent seafood in Melbourne and finally I've found a place that I would be more than happy to throw money at them. And not only that, while we were waiting for a table, we were entertained by this early New Orleans jazz trio that is crazy good. This raspy pianist, a very very chilled drummer and one kick-ass clarinetist with probably an average age of my dad. Perfectly cooked crab and mussels and one seriously gigantic fish with flavours that really shouldn't work together but magically they do. I don't think I've ever seen a group wiped 3 plates clean that fast. Heck even I ate rather fast which is rather hard to believe. I want to go there again!

Just bought the highly anticipated album from Hugh Laurie on various blues covers. I'm telling you. It. Does. Not. Disappoint. Crazy crazy album. For a person who has not lived and breathed blues in the South to replicate the soul of genre, he has done a tremendous job at doing just that. His vocals are very distinct (picture House singing the blues) but still oh so soulful. So worth my $20 and more.

As promised, I'll talk about the results of the Johari and Nohari windows I posted up two weeks ago. Not surprisingly, numbers have not changed at all since the last time I mentioned it. You guys (mostly) are stalkers, aren't you? Let's see what the 6 people have said about my positives. The most dominant trait as voted by the people is intelligent. Funny, I'd thought I'd be more silly than anything. So far all of them have managed to pick up the traits that I think describes me so I guess that is a good thing. To the person who thought that I was organised, I'm pretty sure you haven't seen my room on normal days. So. Far. From. It. The rest of the attributes are ones that I'm pretty sure that I have exposed it one way or another. Moving on to the Nohari window where only 4 people said something about my negatives. The other two must have found it hard to limit their choices to 6. The most dominant negative trait is that I am insecure which is not a big surprise there. Anyone who reads this blog long enough can sense it straight away. The rest of them are also fine except one that said I was intolerant. I did not see this coming. I'm trying to think of the things that I am intolerant about but come up with nothing. Interesting. Enlighten me. Perhaps I'm intolerant about not being intolerant?

I will be starting a new area of life that has so far been left untouched. Excited but also not really knowing what it is going to be like, how stressful it can be or how great it is. I hope this will break down a lot of the apparent barriers that I have been experiencing over the past 3 years. And certainly I didn't expect it to come this fast (less than 2 weeks!). I certainly thank God for providing and being gracious to me after all the rubbish that I tend to do. Need to trust Him more.

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Recently, some of my friends decided to cause a riot with me which is starting to worry me a bit. And it all started from a small but apparently significant domino effect set-up. It's amazing how one casual conversation gave the motive and just ONE unrelated tweet to start the domino tiles falling. And now suddenly I have a "marketing team/think tank", a "fan base" and now a QR code for a crowd-source based effort to make me more awesome than I actually am. Fact: Refer to the title of this site.

You know what the funniest thing is? This really started from an ex-housemate of mine and graduated with a photography diploma who has said, and I quote him, "...spends too much time making him [me] look good." when he used me as a subject for some of his assignments. This time, he's got some solid support to give it another shot. Not sure if this will ever succeed.

Friends. You gotta love 'em for being a little...rowdy.

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int size = group.getSize();
if (size % 2 == 0 || (size % 2 == 1 && size > 10)) ju.setComfort(true);
else ju.setComfort(false);
return;

I really need to fix this.

I've recently watched a film called Divided which makes a pretty bold statement about the church and the youth. At the core, it asks the question what is the reason that causes up to 80% of youth from churches to walk away from the faith once they leave for college. Their proposed answer was a little surprising, youth service or Sunday school. The premise is that how majority of churches in the United States conduct Sunday school or their youth programs are flawed. There is an awful lot of fun and games programs conducted within Sunday school with very little substance in the end that by the time the kids hit the real world by going to college, there is no solid grounding in the teachings of the Bible. Not only that but parents almost treat Sunday school as a glorified day care centre where they provide a service to educate their children in spiritual matters. When the sermon ends, they come and pick up their children and go home. Hit repeat every week until college. It goes even further to say that how Sunday school that has age-separated classes fundamentally contributes to this problem. In fact, the primary mission of Sunday school when it first started wasn't for the Christians but for those kids on the streets wasting their lives away in crime. So they argue that Sunday school was a means of outreach rather than edifying the Christians and so shouldn't be there in regular Sunday service. The idea of a youth service or even Sunday school for that matter was not a model illustrated in the Bible (ie. not a God ordained model, in their words) and so does not guarantee it works.

Whoa.

I recommend watching the film (it's free anyway after e-mail registration) as there are quite a number of things presented that I think are quite relevant and certainly the take-home lessons of the film. Some of the things may sound like a bit of a stretch, for example, how Sunday school children are getting more and more attached to their teachers than their own parents and because of all the fun activities they do, the children will get whatever spiritual teaching they can get from their teachers, if any at all. I can honestly say, after much thinking, that this is somewhat true from my own experience though not in the same "extreme" behaviour portrayed in the film.

In my old church, the one that I went to for the first 18 years of my life, Sunday school was a big deal for pretty much all the kids. Plenty of fun activities, sing songs etc. Most of us love our teachers because of it. This is not even including the Royal Rangers (think Scouts but with a heavy Christian slant) program my church had which most of the kids did join. So, if you were a regular church kid and joined Sunday school, your whole weekend and sometimes most of the holidays are filled up with fun church activities. By the time puberty kicks in, Sunday school classes for the teens start getting smaller and more awkward, even though there were plenty of kids my age. Activities became less fun, most of us started getting bored but the one saving grace was if you had been in the Royal Rangers program. You start to see more lukewarm Christian behaviour among friends and eventually most of us went to the main service and some eventually disappeared. I was quite fortunate during my teen years that my high school Christian Fellowship helped me a lot and much of my faith was built up here. The point is that while the Sunday school ministry in most churches meant to educate children in the faith but the reality is that with the overemphasis of the fun factor means that we are trading the gospel for something else. Which was what I started to see though not very conscious about it. It became even more apparent just before I finished high school that our church decided to revamp the youth program in order to get more of the youth back into church. Their approach? More fun factor. We had a games room (complete with a pool table, table tennis table etc) all of the sudden, food was catered to us, organizing highly publicized youth events and the lot. It wasn't long before I realized something is still not right.

It seems, based on the film, that one of the major contributors to the kids leaving the faith was the failure of fathers to educate them in spiritual matters. Because they treat Sunday school as a spiritual day care centre, it frees the hands of the fathers to educate, one less thing to worry about. Which again, is not a model ordained by God. I can remember clearly several months before I was to come to Melbourne that my dad said to me to be careful of teachings behind the pulpit for they are not always right. He then went on to explain the fallacies of sermons coming from the senior pastor of the church. Since then I was very careful, listening more intently to the sermons than I had before in my entire life. That one short session with my dad did more to my spiritual life than possibly all the Sunday school lessons combined. Because that was the beginning of handling the word of God properly which is far more important than fun Sunday school activities. It was said in the film that even the best Sunday school educators cannot replace the father which I find to be true. 

As the film goes on, the suggested solution is to train fathers to be the primary spiritual educators instead of pouring into youth pastors or develop youth programs that are "fun and engaging". I hope that if the time comes that I were to have my own family that I would be just that. That I will not neglect my responsibilities of being a father and provide the spiritual education and grounding to my children and not sign them away to a day care service.


But I'm not there yet. Not even sure that I'm meant to get there. But it doesn't matter.

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Why is it that I find two different reactions when it was announced that the ISA will be repealed? One is that people see it as a victory of recent events while still not being overly naive and celebrate and the other being completely cynical that nothing will change at all. And the two reactions were also mostly divided into two regions, people staying in Malaysia and those who are not. A step in the right direction does not demand cynicism but caution regardless of the proposed implementation of the step. I also guess it is because few care about a country outside the one they are in even if it is your home country.

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Monday's a big day. Scared.

Occasionally you get one of those days, much like the recent Canberra trip except on a smaller scale.

Yesterday I was supposed to have a drive test to convert to a Victorian drivers license. So I rented a car for the day just to do the test and maybe travel outside the city for once. Everything seems to be peachy until I showed up for my test. It turns out that I brought everything for the test except my passport which was the primary document that one should bring. Felt so stupid. I quickly went back home to get it but because they were full for the day, I had the option of waiting for someone to cancel the drive test or to reschedule. I, of course, chose to wait. About two hours went by and it seemed like I was not going to get lucky and was going to reschedule.

But I did get lucky at the very last minute and manage to get a tester. All the administration stuff was handled and I headed to the car waiting for the tester to come. Now the confusing part: the tester came to my car and asked me to roll down the window and started heading back into the building as if he had forgotten something. Half way there, he turned back and walked towards me and notified me that I cannot do the test because the car's registration had been suspended. How on earth did he suddenly know about this when there was nothing to indicate that someone had just told him en route back to the building? The bigger question mark was why did the car rental company give me a suspended car? 

So of course I was questioned and they thought it was pretty strange and I thought I was going to be in serious trouble. I called the car rental company and told them about my situation and they said it was fine on their side. I gave them my contact number to let me know what had happened and what they were going to do about it. Apparently phones on their side were ringing all the way up to the head office. Eventually I spoke to the manager about it and said that there might have been a discrepancy somewhere, just that one of the parties involved may not have updated the records correctly. Or something like that. The tester told me that I was not to drive the car at all because it is now illegal and had to urge the car company to get the car and possibly get me a new car. So stressed.

By that time, I cannot do the test for sure and so I had to reschedule to the next available time which is in 6 weeks time. Man, and I waited 6 weeks to get to this point already. So because there is no point in getting them to bring in a new car, I told the manager of the company to just take the car and I'll just get back myself. Everything was refunded (hopefully) and I've just wasted half the day. Even if I did bring my passport the first time round, I'd still wouldn't have done the test because of the whole registration issue. Wow. The tester who was with me when all of this happened was very helpful and overall great guy even though he had this slightly intimidating presence. Looked a lot like my Java lecturer mixed with Craig from Masterchef.

Meh.

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I never did like the term "stock market" or any similiar metaphor/analogue of potential...erm, pairings. Though it is "nice" way of putting it, I find that it's a lot of bull and think it has no real value. Much like me in one of them "stock markets". Not that I care about it.

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I wish I had read this before I went to try and do my PhD. If I did, I probably would have recognized the signs that this is not what I should be doing. At least not right then. And might have ended up in a completely different future.

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I think I'm even more scared now after an in-passing conversation because I'm pretty sure that I don't have it. And I'm nowhere brave enough to gamble. And will probably be shot down if I did.

Petrificus Totalus.

Another weekend gone, another two days where I should be doing other things but end up not getting them done. Super lazy and procrastinating a lot in addition to the new Worms game that I have been playing. Did I mention that I also haven't been getting much sleep too?

This was one of the few rare occasions that I had a meal with some of the *much* younger OCFers. A nicely sized group of 6 people all with an age gap of at least 4 years. And I think I am quite happy about it. None of those 20+ people gatherings where all you pretty much get is silliness, rarely anything of substance. Oh and the noise too. Discussions were made about various things that you'd probably will never get in big group settings. Makes you know more about a person and perhaps in an efficient matter too.

In fact, I can't remember when was the last time I had a decently sized conversation where no one was attached or had some "weird" dynamics between a few people (myself including). This might not seem to be like a big deal to most but given the circumstances in the past couple of years and how terribly lost I felt, this small simple meal together was something very refreshing. Also, given a person of my age, you start to "lose" a lot of your friends who you used to have these same types of conversations years ago by virtue of being attached, getting married or raising a family. You can still have fairly decent conversations with them but it is not the same anymore. How and why is it not the same, I lack the vocabulary to describe it. But being able to relive that moment for a short while, has been worth while.

For a person in my position, "losing" friends extend beyond the realm of relationships. Things of stereotypical status value like a job and a decent income, years of work experience, cars, property ownership and many others are also grounds for this phenomenon. I once describe this to a friend that it is like being into an exclusive club where membership starts by ticking the right boxes as described above. As though you were treated like a proper adult and no longer a student which seems to have a level of immaturity stigma attached to it. Once you've made it into this club, a whole range of events and activities are right at your doorstep for you to choose from. Or maybe it's because I'm just boring.

But like most of the time, I have to put up a front that say everything is peachy and I don't care about such things (but actually do, a bit) while deep down there are many things that need fixing. I've also mentioned to some close friends of mine that events in the past 3 years have shaken me pretty badly. Even closer friends tell me that they can see through me and one has gone to the extent of saying that the change of my blog background theme and how I write on my blog were reflective of my changes in response (never really thought of it that way. I thought it was just cool to use this theme). These friends are the ones who keep me sane whether they know it or not. They make me feel that none of these meaningless things that I have been thinking or worrying about matter and it soothes the soul of this aging man. The best part? They are a very small group of people, around 6 of them.

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Even more generic poking! This time by the "kids". Deploy deflector shields and evasive maneuver beta. Engage!

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To the 6 people who have filled in my Johari window, thanks for your input. Most of them I am not surprised by except for one or two. To the two of you have haven't filled in my Nohari window yet, it must have been difficult to narrow down my negatives to 6 choices but please do try. I think I know all of you.

To the rest of you, refer to the previous entry and please complete your analysis of me and let me know. I think it's about high time that you criticize me in 6 words or less online. Links are here again if you need it: Johari and Nohari.