Clearing out the 2012 bucket list

Yep, am busy clearing out my bucket list....such a great way to validate my absence on here for entire Q2.

At the beginning of the year, this was how the bucket list looked like in my head.

DO NOT FUCK UP.

...because invariably, I do. 80% of the time, I don't manage to keep up the action with the good intentions. 

This is the year Im going to just do it!!!


So now examining the finer points of my bucket list....because this is the most effective way to honestly evaluate myself, and push myself harder to check off pending items. Only 5 more months to go, no time to lose!


1. Exercise more - At least thrice per week. 
Merit: On average, the closest I have gotten is twice a week, and that probably happened maybe once every 3-4 weeks. Have found that it is mostly counter-productive to plan for exercise in the nighttime, because I get too tired/lazy/hungry to even go out of the house, let alone sustain a 30min jog. So recently I have switched to morning jogs / workouts. Now I just need to stop myself from wanting to stay up till 1am. Discipline is sadly wanting as usual. Will try harder for next month and update progress on here.

2. Buy health insurance and start investing for long term.
Gold: Bitten my teeth and forced myself to trawl through endless online debates about term life VS full life insurance, reading up about sly tricky timetraps of so called endowment plans, meeting insurance agent after work Thursday nights. FINALLY I can strike off one item on the bucket list. Now it has shifted to a different challenge - how to put aside more $$$ each month so I can pay off the premiums AND have some savings left over.

3. Project to avoid becoming "that single female desperado lusting over younger men while shut up after hours at home watching soppy romcoms....eventually to die old and single in the toilet."
Gold: I really deserve a pat on the back for this one. Never knew you have to work to get dates, but I guess same goes for all of us not in Angelina Jolie's calibre. Despite constant disapproving remarks from two close friends, I went ahead to get a membership on this dating site, because it's downright stupid to not be able to read / reply to everybody's messages for the lack of 1-2 measly dollars a day. Since Im doing this, Im going in full steam ahead. Sadly though, this site doesn't seem to offer as many potential matches as another (free) site Im trying out. Ah well, cant say I didn't try.

After 2 weeks, there has already been at least 3 matches with high potential, or at least seem interesting enough to warrant following up with a date. I'll have to step on my toes for this, knowing my tendency to procrastinate I have to set concrete dates to get the ball rolling.

Was supposed to do some work an hour ago, so the rest will have to follow in subsequent posts - which means, yay! resuming blogging.

Slow down Sunday

Listening to this mix as I type. Just perfect for now.

The Perfect Sunday Morning from laurenbernal3 on 8tracks.

It reminds me of some songs used for The Descendants' soundtrack. 

Watched it two weeks back, really liked it, but never got around to even reflect further.

Some would find it boring. What, it's just about some old guy who's dumb enough to not realise his wife's having an affair, and doesn't know how to handle his own two daughters any more.

It could have been a tragic, self obsessed drag. But instead it was quietly endearing, with funny little moments and a slow satisfactory build up to a revelation about love, family, and faith. Funny when your daughter's boyfriend gives you advice on how to handle your own daughters, and calls you boss. Heartbreaking when you realise you still love your wife, and try to get her lover to say one last goodbye before she gets plugged off her life support system. 

I like this moment here when he collapses on the ground after having to break the news to his wife's friends. All his pent up emotions expressed in a single moment...

When things have happened, people are going to pass on, the best you could do is to hold on tighter to what you still have. Looking at the wealth you already possess, maybe things are never as bad as they seem?

2012 Beginnings: Appraisals, Relationships, Minister Pay, Ageing (duh)

Only just publishing this post I started writing in uh, 1st week of Jan?

I tend to blog in 2 conditions:
- Either super slack, dont want to work mood
- Or super stressed, dont want to work mood

I think it's the latter today.

So 2012 came and went, along with the obligatory local countdown telecasts, Gurmit Singh plus all other familiar faces.
I was beginning to wonder whether the appraisal would even take place in Jan, when-bang-boss walks over to desk today and drops the bomb,"Ok, appraisal's happening tomorrow.."
Crapcrapcrapshit.
Looks like there's no time to do up that fanciful self promotion ppt.

Relationships wise, no luck so far :( Bloody hell where is this Mr.Right hiding?!
I tell myself,"Patience, and keep pushing yourself to meet new people."
That reminds me - need to set a deadline. Otherwise I'ld never get to it, lazy oaf that I am......

I wanted to blog about the recent hooha over minister pay adjustments, but since this post is way past the interest period, and it's kind of a pointless entry anyway, let's just say there should be more transparency and accountability. At the end of the day that is all your average person on the street wants.

On being a woman Pt 1

Another broad topic which could go on forever. This post was partly inspired by a random Facebook post, and the revisiting of someone's blog who I find thought and shock provoking all at once. First, to the Facebook post. It read:

多微笑，做一个开朗热忱的女人；多打扮，做一个美丽优雅的女人；多倾听，做一个温柔善意的女人，多看书，做一个淡定内涵的女人；多思考，做一个聪慧冷静的女人。记住为自己而进步，而不是为了满足谁，讨好谁。

Being a woman is so tiring, then and now, just that scope differs. The quote says that a woman should do this for herself, but underneath all that are societal expectations, familial pressures, personal egos. So many facets to polish, just taking care of the intellectual bit isn't enough, got to develop sartorial style, cultured manners (because we live in a shallow world after all. Yes people could fight and deny this all they want, but sadly this holds true in so many immediate aspects of life, right down to how your colleagues perceive you.) Perhaps being a woman is like being a diamond - painstaking polishing everyday, until all facets are hard, solid, razor sharp, and you shine from every angle. 

The quote hasn't even touched on the varied pressures you face, depending on what type of woman you are - married/single/rich/poor etc. Being an unmarried woman, I cannot say with any intelligence a married woman's woes or restrictions, but man do I have alot to say about being a single woman in an urban cage.

Bringing me nicely to that blog. It was kept by Daul, a Korean supermodel. I still revisit it every now and then even though it hasn't been updated since 2 years ago, when she committed suicide at 20. Investigations were carried out, but I doubt they ever got to the root cause of her suicide. 

I miss her, she was so unique and brave. Sometimes I identified with what she wrote, sometimes I was shocked. But she was always honest, writing of her dislike for the industry's cruel mercenary ways, but also its excitement, and above all her perpetual loneliness. In a way, her blog was a visceral probe into what it feels like to come from mixed backgrounds, immersing headlong into foreign places, while trying to make sense of who you are as a woman.

Another woman who I admire also committed suicide - Slyvia Plath. Seemingly there is no link between these two, but maybe they were both sacrifices of circumstances.


"Apparently, the most difficult feat for a Cambridge male is to accept a woman not merely as feeling, not merely as thinking, but as managing a complex, vital interweaving of both.''
 
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), U.S. poet. Isis (Oxford, May 6, 1956). Written while Plath was a student at Cambridge