Finally, the mystery is solved. I’ve found the answer I’ve been looking for, for the past 2 years. What my sixth sense has been telling me all along has been right. Can’t deny the power of our intuition…

Now that I’ve known the answer, it is a reality that I have to face. Can’t deny that I’ve been living in denial for too long. When the truth presents itself right smack in your face, you have choices: accept it or deny it or heck care and remain status quo.

I’ve chosen to accept the reality… I have to. I just have to do something about it. something inside me just went ‘click’, just as if you could see a light bulb lighted up in your head. Probably some neuron connections broke and reconnected at another site… all in a fraction of a second…

After I’ve chosen to accept it, surprisingly, I felt no resentment, no discouragement, no envy. In fact, I felt relieved, even though the truth is rather hard to swallow. At least now, I know where exactly to focus on. Previously, without such feedback, it has been like a lost boat heading nowhere, drifting along with the stream…

Two choices: one to choose your destiny of heading upstream and do something about it. Another is to let the stream decide your fate of ending up downstream… and probably get washed into the vast ocean of even more uncertainties… by then, you would become just like the masses….

Which one would you choose?

Someone said this today: “You have to fight for what you want. No one will fight for you. Others would be happy if you didn’t make any noise, because if you make noises, they will have headache.”

How true. This is my life, who cares how you live your life, other than yourself. Nobody would take responsibility on how you live your life, other than yourself. It’s my life, no one decides how I live it. I have the power to decide how I want my life to be.

Enough of just living for others. Have to start thinking about myself… There’s so many dreams that I’ve yet to achieve. I wouldn’t want to look back when I’m 60 and realise that I’ve wasted my precious youth doing nothing… I know, I will definitely regret it terribly…

Another quotable quote today: “There are vast opportunities. Opportunities are abound.”

Yah, so true. Opportunities are everywhere, just waiting for us to hold out our hands and grab them. The first effort would have to come from us - in opening up our palms and arms to embrace them…

How many milestones can you get in a year? And how does it feels like having almost all of them happening on the same month or the same week to be exact? Is there a shift in the moon and the stars which caused this enormous change?

Well, firstly, it was on Mar 31, 2007. A special day, and the number is 5. Go figure.

Secondly, a few days ago, I had my first wisdom tooth extraction. And my cheek swelled to almost twice its size.

Thirdly, which also involves the number 5 - Apr 5, 2007 - when I put down over 100 signatures on four sets of paper to own a house….

I could go on with more milestones to come in this month alone, but since they are not executed yet, I shall just leave it like this.

Another major milestone is also in the pipeline, and would have to be executed in next few weeks. Meanwhile, another planned minor change didn’t seem to take off….

Has all these got to do with a sudden change in the universe which affects the feng shui of a person? Or have I grown too speculative and too superstitious? hahaha

Whatever it is, the third milestone is the biggest so far this year. Is hitting quarter life the ticket to many major changes and milestones in life?

On the front page of The Straits Times Singapore today (March 12), there’s a picture of people lining up dragging boxes, queuing up for payment I guess, with the headline screaming “Crowds snapped up S$48 million of tech toys”.

I chuckled. I thought to myself, I’m also going for a shopping spree but in Malaysia.

The headline should be yelling: “Malaysians snapped up RM 1.8 billion of government trust fund units in less than 6 hours”.

I have a plan for the ’shopping’.

I set the alarm at 6am, but didn’t hear the alarm go off. By the time I woke up with a shock, it was already 7.50am. My first reaction : I’m late!

I closed my eyes for a while to shake off the heavy head feeling and dragged myself out of bed to get ready. I thought to myself: this better be worth it. Ah, there’s a limit of RM 50,000 for each person, so there’s still hope for me. I jumped into the shower and was out of the house by 8.15am.

Along the journey, I could not shake off the nagging truth of how RM 1 billion of additional units of Amanah Saham Wawasan 2020 (ASW2020) priced at RM 1 each were snapped up within 27 minutes during the previous round of units sale in Sept 2006.

By 9.15am, I’ve crossed the Causeway and walked to the Amanah Saham Nasional Berhad (ASNB) office in Johor Bahru, taking queue number from the guard. My number: 040. Uhuh.. how long is this going to take? I thought.

By then, the ASNB office was already full to the brim. (actually the office is quite small). The transaction will only start at 9.30am. But the officers had already started calling numbers for people who want to open new accounts by preparing the documents such as thumb prints and filling of forms, to facilitate processing later on.

As the time ticked nearer to 9.30am, the people inside the suffocating room got more restless. When the first two numbers were called, the buzz grew even louder and you could just feel the excitement in the air. Alas, after a few minutes past 9.30am, the computer system hanged.

You could almost feel as if the excitement had been snuffed out suddenly. The people waited and waited. After some time, people started walking away, to grab something to eat or to try their luck at other branches.

For me, I shuttled between the ASNB office and the Maybank next door. I walked pass the information counter so many times that even the maybank officer could recognise me and smiled everytime I passed by. At once, he even asked me how’s the situation. I said, “Still checking both sides, not moving yet.”

After that bout of exercise climbing stairs and pushing heavy set of glass doors, the buzz is back at 11.30am. The numbers finally started moving. I got even more excited, because the pile of passbooks at the Maybank branch is also getting lower as the minutes ticked by, while my queue number is creeping nearer at the ASNB office.

By forming a ‘partnership’ with another girl who was also shuttling between two branches (hers was even better exercise - she shuttled between two Maybank branches which are a few blocks away from each other; at least mine was just next door) we both managed to get Amanah Saham Malaysia (ASM) units after the Maybank officer suggested we apply for ASM instead of ASW2020 as it was easier for ASM transactions to go through.

Only children below 17 years old can open new accounts for ASW2020 while existing account holders could top up the units. It gives out slightly better returns compared to ASM.

At about 12.40pm, the system for ASW 2020 was finally back. And I managed to get mine too! Yippee! What a relief!

That was the best ever shopping spree I’ve been on. It had all the ingredients of a great super sale - the adrenaline rush, the exhilaration, the strategy planning, the waiting, the jostling and the relief of finally owning it.

And the best thing is, the money spent still belongs to you, cool isn’t it?

Where to find such a ‘financially healthy’ sport?

No doubt, this will be the main item in my ’shopping list’ and my ’shopping calendar’. Exercise for the mind, the heart and the pocket.

I’ll be waiting to reap the fruits of my labour, effort and sacrifices for many years to come.

In the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, the author John Gray said that women loves to talk when they face problems while men, prefer to hide in their caves.

And yeah, how true. Chatting with my mum for hours has indeed been therapeutic. Worries just dissipated into thin air and things doesn’t seem so bad anymore. How wonderful. It is really amazing, what talking does to women. Even though there are no concrete solutions, (actually we didn’t even talked about what made me unhappy) but then, everything just seems alright again. Life is beautiful again.

So… to the guys out there. Be a good listener and a good person to talk to, to your girl friends, mum, sisters.. etc. You might feel it is boring listening to someone, but it does wonders to the other party. By just being there… and respond properly to the other person.. it is actually something liberating to the other person. Even though guys prefer to offer solutions, they could do it in the concerned way.

I felt so much better now.. after I’ve thrashed what I’ve been keeping inside and which I’ve attempted to forget earlier by going shopping but didn’t work.

I was having quite a bad day, after someone spoilt it… uhmm okay, should stop blaming others right… haiz… but when you have to swallow something bitter and you have to control yourself from fighting or arguing back.. it is indeed not something nice.. and sometimes the situation doesn’t permit, or.. it just doesn’t benefit anyone even if I argued back.. so I just swallowed it.. .despite I felt so wrongfully accused… Indeed, what have I done wrong? It is the other party being prejudiced, calculative and petty…

Well anyway, let’s not talk about that anymore, it shall be thrashed and forgotten. I shall have a trash bin soon, to thrash and throw away energy-zapping negative emotions which is so unproductive. Waste my memory space and make my heart cells suffer.

I can choose how I want to respond to it. And I choose to be happy, rather than get all upset and pissed off. Probably that’s the person’s intention, who knows. Rather than let the person achieve his/her aim and make him/her happy, might as well I love myself more, and make myself happy.

Yeah, I just bought a new pair of shoes. Like it very much! And I even travelled to another branch to get one, cos the branch that I went to, didn’t have my size. Hopefully this doesn’t give me blisters. If it doesn’t, I would wear it everyday to work! Finally I have shoes to go along with my skirts. Yippie!

One of my favourite discovery today is how to make free long distance calls, without incurring a single cent, with superb quality, as though you are making a normal call using your phone. The whole experience is just like making a normal phone call, mind you!

Oh what’s the big deal, you might say, since you are able to make video calls using msn messenger, skype and yahoo messenger. Oh well, the difference is that you do not have to be confined to the laptop or pc if you uses an earphone with microphone, or have the whole world listening to your conversation if you uses the speaker.

The trick? Get a Wi-Fi enabled phone!

The catch? You need to have wireless internet connection.

The benefit? Talk for hours, limitless, “cook porridge” (oh just the cantonese expression for hanging on the phone) on the phone with just anyone in the world with internet connection, microphone and messengers such as skype.

But, some things to note is that the phone tends to get hot if you are on it for a long time (long as in, at least 1 hour or more)

Also better be prepared with extra batteries if you are away from electricity sources or be prepared to charge your phone more often, because it would use up battery life pretty fast!

For a conversation which lasted between 1.5 hours to 2 hours, about 40 per cent to 50 per cent of battery life was used up, judging by O2 Xda Stealth standards.

Good news for people who needs and wants to be connected with people or loved ones who are miles away and who, at the same time, wants to save on telephone bills, eh? Certainly! *wink*

Things been pretty happening lately, especially right after I joined the quarter life club. Some too privileged, that I do not have the privilege to post here.

From feeling like a celebrity with all the smses during my special day, to a mysterious story I’m working on, to a colleague who committed a very serious offence and was punished, a relative who passed away, to a brave girl who dared to take the challenge to wander off to a foreign land in search of her dreams… All in just a short one or two weeks’ time.

Adding to the list, my secondary school classmate is getting married next month! oh so exciting. looking at her wedding pix, I realised, how we have entered a new phase in life, where more and more people around us would be getting hitched too. can’t wait to attend her wedding lunch, gonna be a reunion of sorts. Ahh…

There are both ups and downs, both good and bad news, and my life has finally awaken from its deep slumber since about a year and a half ago. And I take that, as a good start to my journey through the next quarter. Cheers!

On this beautiful day, I felt like listing down the numerous things I want.

1. New handphone, Nokia N73 or Nokia 7390 or Dopod 808 perhaps. Poor 6-months-old O2 Xphone IIm went diving and drowned some time ago, sob sob.

2. New laptop, with DVD writer, generous space and memory. Light enough to bring to anywhere I want. Oh no, I’m so greedy, I want performance and mobility at the same time. Where to find.. hmm.. Dell Inspiron 9400 perhaps.. hehe. Poor old fragile laptop, has been so faithful for more than five years. Now a bit sot sot d.

3. New pair of spectacles. Those cool frameless ones haha. The present one is excellent when I want to pass off as a student.

4. Comfortable shoes. Where to find comfortable and yet stylish shoes that you do not mind wearing to walk one whole day? Ahh.. pretty hard to find I discovered. It is either style or comfort (such as those attention-grabbing croc shoes)

5. Ipod, haha! Can’t run away from that. 80GB video and photo Ipod, should be able to keep those precious photos taken with my trigger-happy fingers. And for watching of those Hong Kong, Korean and Taiwanese serials while on the move or on long bus rides. Hmm.. a must-have the next time I go for my overseas holiday or trip.

Shall not be too greedy. Hehe, actually having the first 3 items would make me feel on top of the world already. Three out of five are tech stuffs. ooh, quite becoming a tech geek. NAh, can’t help it, especially for this generation which literally grew up with technology.

Procrastinate… procrastinate… Actually, the present laptop can still use lah. (oh so Singlish). Just tolerate a bit lor when it becomes sot sot.

Hmm.. as for the phone, a kind friend lend me his old phone, which another nice and lovable soul traded his with mine until I get a new one. So, still can use lah.

And for the spectacles, what’s wrong looking like a student? It is a respectable title, you know!

As for the shoes, hmm.. just tolerate a bit lah, put some plaster. Maybe walk less. Or just wear long pants to cover it up haha!

Ipod?? Nah.. just a want, not a need. Wait till I really need one. Not at the moment. So that can wait.

In the end, hoho, I don’t need them at the moment. Maybe in the future, but not now. So that can wait. Ahh.. but I won’t mind having it as a present!

I promised to write more about the whole experience of buying a home, so I’ve finally set up a home online for the journey of buying my first home.

It is no simple task for a beginner with html codes, websites, hosting, domain names and wordpress. But with grit and determination, I’ve finally see some light in cracking the technicalities.

Upgrading from this user-friendly blogspot to wordpress, is something out of my comfort zone too. There’s more technical stuff to learn, especially the computing jargons and more dealing with html codes too.

But if all these earned me a decent website and a vast knowledge, why not?

I just lose some sleep over this but it has been fun so far, especially when you finally see your efforts up, live!

Blogspot is good for novices; once you have familiarised yourself with altering the html codes, you could upgrade to wordpress if you prefer more challenging stuff and having a blog with your own domain name.

Well, for the really novices, wordpress is a free blogging software that you can download for free. Then take the lessons to install it yourself.

As for domain names, it is like your house address. And hosting is the space you rent monthly to put your house on.

So in other words, I’ve created a virtual home, to tell stories about the real, physical home!

So in future, I would write all things related to the house and maybe more houses to come here, at this website www.myhomemalaysia.com

I’m going to miss the user-friendly features of blogspot, however, I believe, change is always for the better. It might be painful now, but then, there are more space to grow after the change.

I would still keep this blog, to write about other stuff which is not related to the house. Maybe on some insights and thoughts I have.

So for those who are keen to find out more, do head down to www.myhomemalaysia.com. I’ve posted more photos there. And hopefully more to come.

After many sleepless nights, tossing and turning in bed, with hundred and one things flying through my mind, finally the decision is made. I finally bought my first house!

A double-storey semi-detached house in Juru, Butterworth, Penang. A good location I would say, if you look at the map.

Here’s the pictures from the show house for you to oogle at:

The overall view - the living room, the dining hall and the kitchen.

A very nice kitchen, love to be sitting there eating steam boat or even having drinks with that bar-like top.

A cosy corner, the upstairs hall.

Master bedroom

Kiddy room

The other room

That’s the appetizer. More information should be following up after I’m kind of done shopping around for the best home loan in the country! heehehe.. my head is still throbbing from lack of sleep and the excitement but then it’s worth all the effort. anyway, shall blog more some other time. Now need to zoom out to settle whatever stuff that I need to do. Enjoy!

What better place than the place you called home. Where is a home? Home is where the heart is.

You could be living in a beautiful house, but if you are alone and lonely, there’s no meaning to it. There’s no one to share it with. No loved ones to share the beautiful house with. No matter how abundant is the house, you would still feel empty inside.

On the contrary, you could be living in an old house, with cracks everywhere. But inside, it is filled with love and warmth. You have all your loved ones to share the warmth with you. You have one another to hang on to, to care, to love, to support.

If we could marry both together, having a beautiful house to share with our loved ones, wouldn’t that be better?

My dream is to have a beautiful house to share with my loved ones, where everyone is close to each other, a happy family, a happy home, in a beautiful house, with no financial worries. We can spend meaningful, quality time with each other, doing things we like. I also want to have the time to spend with them and not get bogged down by a job.

Ah.. the feeling of spending time with my family, my loved ones, is so precious. Love the camaraderie. Love the noise we make when we chat with each other, the laughter, the teasings, the chatter. So heart-warming. The addition of each other’s other half also added to the diversity, the variety. Miss those times. Miss the time when we can watch movies together as a family. REally miss those days…

How and when can we have those moments everyday in our life again?