Relationships

Relationships take patience and effort to maintain. Of course, this does not refer to only love relationships--family, friends, co-workers; maintaining a cordial, if not happy, relationship with them is important.

The level of priority in maintaining these relationships probably depends on how much time you spend with each group of people, and their ability to make your life a living hell. And topping the list is definitely the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with.

There are perks to being in a relationship. You get someone to confide in, someone who cares specially about you, someone you can unabashedly care about, someone you can look forward to meeting, etc. But a relationship is seldom all roses and flutters. Reality always intrudes into the happy picture--be it an stressful day at work, or a random incident that really pisses you off, all has the potential to turn your day into a nightmare. And just when you expect to be rid of all these annoyances, to go home to the arms of your loved one, you find yourself getting into another argument with your loved one.

The problem is this: when you are unhappy, and you bring your bad mood home, chances are that your mood will rub off on those who are closest to you. Some will take it personally, while some shun you for fear of conflict. And you being in a bad mood, inevitably the smallest things will get you riled up.

The solution? Well, there is probably no one solution for everyone, and there probably isn't one solution for each couple. Different circumstances call for different treatments. But the key word is patience. And make more allowances for the person who has a bad day. Sometimes when you are having a bad day, you get a bit irrational, you also want people to give in to you unconditionally. So when you are on the receiving end of it, try to remember that and give in, for the time being at least. You can thrash him when his mood blows over.

Depending on the person, you also need to cheer the person up in the way he/she prefers. For my girlfriend, she prefers to be left alone. Or I will allow her to rant a bit. For me, a hug with comforting words will be best. And the more hugs the better.

Maintaining a relationship that lasts isn't easy, but it will be easier if everyone keeps that goal in mind all the time.

camera

Sometimes, we see the world through camera lens. We hold up the cameras to beautiful images, fitting the world into a four sided frame, seeking to capture the best image possible within this space.

And sometimes, we forgot to look at the world without these camera frames.

PC Shows

PC shows, or IT fairs, however you call them, are not good places to buy good IT stuff.

Cheap stuff, maybe, if you are lucky, and if you manage to avoid being trampled to death by the huge throng of IT enthusiasts. But not good stuff. And certainly not good and cheap stuff.

I have my fair share of IT shows. I used to go just to catch a bargain, but almost never did buy anything. The first time I did buy though, was last year when I went there to buy a laptop for my sister. There was a promotion, for students only, for an immensely cheap HP laptop, with great stats at only 1.3k. I braved the crowd with my Mel on the tow, heroically and paranoiacally fending off the crowd from her, queuing up and enduring incompetent salespersons, finally to close the deal with a promise from the supplier that the laptop will arrive in 1 week.

It took 2 weeks to come, and slightly more than a year later, it crashed. Yap and jianzhong who bought the same laptop had worse luck: they are having problems with the "super bargain buy" laptop even earlier than i did.

Undeterred by that, I went to a PC show this year again. Supposedly the telcos will have "great bargains" up for grabs at the PC show, and since I am looking for a new phone with a new contract, what better place to apply for one than at a PC show?

So I dragged mel with me again to the PC show. There was a damn long queue at the starhub booth, but luckily one of the salespersons told me that I do not need to apply for my cable tv subscription there (which I am intending to as well), since all other starhub shops give the same package, just without the freebies. Since the freebies is just an anti virus which I don't need, I chose not to queue there and then, much to the relief of mel.

The phone queue was much shorter, but I had to endure incompetent salespersons again, and a mel who was alternating between dozing off on my shoulder and trying to bite the head off the incompetent salesgirl.

Mel bought a motorola phone for me as a birthday present, the latest model. Since it was pretty expensive, I was quite careful about buying it. I asked specifically what happens if there is something wrong with it when I go home. The salesgirl told me that they would do a 1 for 1 exchange for me. That settled me, so I went ahead and made the purchase.

Turned out that there IS something wrong with the phone when I brought it home. Instead of charging up, it discharges when I connect it to the power socket. So I tried to do the 1 for 1 exchange. Turns out that starhub won't do it. They say that motorola insists that we bring the faulty phones to them. I don't know if they are lying, but that sounds like a damn lame excuse from starhub. what is the difference between starhub bringing the phones to motorola and us bringing the phones instead?

So I had to go to motorola. There is just ONE motorola service shop in the whole of singapore. and it is located at The Cathay. Look, if it is not just next the MRT, then it is a ulu shopping center in my dictionary. And looking at the number of people that frequent the near empty building, apparently most singaporeans agree with me.

At the one and only motorola shop, there are seven counters, but only ONE service staff. And she is the cashier, service, collection all rolled into one. Even though I was the next in line, I have to wait 30 minutes before I can even speak to her.

And, surprise surprise, she refused to do a 1 for 1 exchange. Said she had to send it in for testing first, according to the company's regulations. So fine, I left it with her. Few hours later they called to tell me that the phone is fine, and i should just bring it back with me. I was flabbergasted, and no way am I going to take the phone back only to have it discharging on me again. Is it so hard to change a phone for me on the spot, when I have not even used the phone for one day? So I demanded that they change the phone.

They said they will get back to me. And they didn't. Further attempts to call them for 2 consecutive days are futile. Presumably the cashier cum service cum collection is also the phone operator. Mel managed to get them once though, and I have no idea what she told them (hopefully she didn't walk them through the image of her chewing on their entrails), but she managed to convince them to change a phone for me. They called me at the end of the second day to tell me to collect the new phone.

So far, the newer phone is working fine. But as far as I am concerned, motorola's service is absolutely terrible. Starhub's service is lousy too. Moral of the story is: never to buy bargain stuff at the IT show. And always check out the service shops before buying into a new brand of IT products.

My dog

I also have a dog. She doesn't live with me and my cat though; she lives with my girlfriend instead.

Sophie, the dog (or actually, the bitch), loves me. She makes this very clear from the way she hyperventilates while wagging her tail furiously every time I drop by. She also barks at me, jumps on me (and my nuts), bites my hand when I stroke her, and tries to rip my skin off with her nails when I am doing absolutely nothing to her. She also does the occasional lunging for my throat when I'm cutting her nails. But she loves me. I think.

She also loves my socks. If you can't find her around the house, then you can bet a leg that she's under the bed chewing on my socks. Many a times I had to go home wearing a saliva-soaked sock.

One of her favorite hobbies is eating poop. That's why it is giving me pause to note that another of her favorite past-time is licking our hands. The second-worst possible scenario is hearing Mel's parents shout from the living room, "Aiyoh, she just ate poop again!" when she is licking your hand. The worst scenario would be hearing that when she's licking your face. I think I should be thankful that I've only ever encountered the second-worst scenario before.

Sophie has a nice English name--rather befitting of a dog that belongs to two Philosophy majors. Mel gave it to her. She also has a Chinese name, which I gave her--Er Wei. I think it sounds very sophisticated, and gentle and everything nice. And since her surname is Goh, taking Mel's surname, we use her full name very frequently. Especially when she is trying to clamber onto us, or trying to burrow herself into our armpits.

Cats

I have two cats in my home, one black one white. The white one belongs to me, while the black one doesn't. The black one, called New New, belongs to my dad. And it is peeing in my cat's litter tray, instead of her own, as I am typing this.

The reason why New New belongs to my dad is because he was the one who picked her up from the streets, even after much protests from the family and Edward, which is my white cat. My dad insisted, and he insisted he wants a cat to himself, so now New new is here to stay. My way to deal with the problem is to make it absolutely clear that I would not clean up after his cat, and let him know that rearing a cat is not a simple walk in the park. New new peeing in my cat's litter tray threw a wrench in my perfect plan.

I have no idea why, but animals seem to like me--maybe because of some scent I have, or maybe I'm just very good at playing with them. The black cat spends almost all her time in my room when I'm home. This is not without its benefits. My white boy, the rebellious teenager, spends almost all his time keeping an eye on her. New new being in my room means that he is spending more time in his room (which is my room) too.

New new is still in the kitten phase--which means she is very playful, and she doesn't mind human contact. Edward is long past the stage, and he is unusually fastidious, even for a cat. He would endure you stroking him for all of 5 seconds, then he would grumble very loudly and stalk off. He wasn't like that when he was still a baby.

I think I am experiencing fatherhood way before I have kids.

Be happy

I still remember once when I went on a date with my girlfriend, Mel, to Orchard Road. It was a feel good date, brought on by an impromptu decision to go out and enjoy to release all the stress we have been feeling. It was supposed to be a go all out and enjoy night, and neither of us wanted anything to dampen our spirits.

We were just walking along, when suddenly some people in front of us stopped and made a fuss (over something I couldn't remember), effectively blocking our path. The usual us would have clucked our tongues at them, and bitched about it in private afterwards. But just before we started our private tirade about the idiots, I stopped myself and told Mel that it was supposed to be a feel good night--no point spoiling it by dwelling on that incident. Mel just laughed and agreed.

And it felt good. All along I thought that venting my frustrations out by bitching under my breath would make me feel better. But it never worked. Voicing out my frustrations only serves to reinforce them. This incident shows me that while the frustration is still in the process of building up, I should have just nipped it in the bud and think about other stuff.

In this case, my goal is to have a carefree night. So I focused on that. And it worked. I suppose I could have just bitched about it, working myself into an anger, and feel frustrated for like 10 minutes. But what is the point? The only thing I would have achieved is to make myself unhappy for an extended period of time.

Of course, if your frustrations were already welling up, and you feel like bursting already, I think it is best that you simply talk to someone about it. But unless you are clinically depressed, you wouldn't be focused on your frustrations all day long. These frustrations would take time to form; you can even feel them coming up, like a tide of brackish water rising up your throat. They are the unhappy thoughts that pop up from time to time amidst a sea of happy thoughts. And precisely when they are taking their time to form, we have to do our best to think of other happier thoughts.

Divert your attention with something nice. Distract yourself. Focus on making yourself happy.

There are unhappy times. These are the times when work has been thrust upon us without a choice, when life doesn't go our way. Life is imperfect as it is with these times. Why double, or triple the duration by dwelling on them when you could be enjoying yourself? If you have to work for eight hours a day, and you spend another eight hours dwelling on the stresses of work, aren't you spending sixteen hours a day in misery? Why torture yourself so?

Let the misery times be miserable, and the non-misery times be happy.

Actor-cat

"Yessir! If you are looking for the best actor-cat, you have come to the right person... cat!"



"I believe I can fly."



"I can star in vampire shows."



"I can sing too...'月亮代表我的心...'"



"Hmm... what's that smell?"