About Women, About me.

I remember browsing through a book called  

 "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment"    by Steve Harvey when I was walking through Times Bookstore during one of the days during my Annual Leaves in December 2010.

The title looked interesting and captured my attention, and still is at this point of time. Sometimes, I really wonder, how much do I really understand MEN. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Maybe it is only some species of men that I understand. Sometimes I thought I do, but I guessed I had assumed I did when I didn't. Maybe because humans are no longer simple. Some can no longer be explained using the Psychology that we once knew or studied.

I was browsing through the content page and I saw some interesting topics and I flipped to the page and I could almost relate to what was written. Absolutely. The book also includes the perspective of men with regards to love, relationship and intimacy. Maybe I might just purchase this book when I next visit the bookstore to see if they have any Fengshui Kit.

Anyway, this book was just a random thought that was triggered when I was chatting with Alvin regarding me wanting to get a compass and he suggested me getting a fengshui kit from Harris bookstore. I was thinking to myself what other bookstores there are in Tampines since I don't remember any Harris in Tampines. And Times bookstore in Tampines One came to my mind and thus that book.

And I started googling for the book, and I came across a quote in the book which I totally can relate to, and here it is:

"Nothing on this planet can compare with a woman’s love—it is kind and compassionate, patient and nurturing, generous and sweet and unconditional. Pure. If you are her man, she will walk on water and through a mountain for you, too, no matter how you’ve acted out, no matter what crazy thing you’ve done, no matter the time or demand. If you are her man, she will talk to you until there just aren’t any more words left to say, encourage you when you’re at rock bottom and think there just isn’t any way out, hold you in her arms when you’re sick, and laugh with you when you’re up. And if you’re her man and that woman loves you—I mean really loves you?—she will shine you up when you’re dusty, encourage you when you’re down, defend you even when she’s not so sure you were right, and hang on your every word, even when you’re not saying anything worth listening to. And no matter what you do, no matter how many times her friends say you’re no good, no matter how many times you slam the door on the relationship, she will give you her very best and then some, and keep right on trying to win over your heart, even when you act like everything she’s done to convince you she’s The One just isn’t good enough.
That’s a woman’s love—it stands the test of time, logic, and all circumstance. "

"Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment" is a book that is good to read whether you are in a relationship, looking for one or even when you are not.


Reference:
The above quote is extracted from http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/206062.Steve_Harvey 
Picture of the book from http://www.trulyfe.com/book-review/62439-act-like-lady-think-like-man-book-rate-2.html

Opening the door of your heart - Part 1

In Ajahn Brahm's Opening the door of your heart, there is 11 categories that revolve around the cause of happiness:

1. Perfection and guilt
2. Love and committment
3. Fear and Pain
4. Anger and forgiveness
5. Creating happiness
6. Critical problems and their compassionate solutions
7. Wisdom and inner silence
8. The mind and reality
9. Values and spiritual life
10. Freedom and humiity
11. Suffering and letting go

This Part 1 of opening the door of your heart, I'm going to share with you  on Perfection and guilt.

These are a summary of some of the short stories (do read the book if you are really interested):

Perfection and guilt

1.  Two bad bricks
   
   Many time in life, we concentrate so much on our weakness and mistakes. In the story of wall building, there were 2 "bad" bricks that spoils the wall. The monks were ashamed to show the visitors the wall because of these 2 bad bricks. One day, a visitor came across the wall and said it was a nice wall. The monk were surprised and wondered if the visitor was visually impaired that he didn't see the 2 bad bricks? The visitor replied that he did see the 2 bad bricks but he also see the 988 remaining good bricks. The story tries to relate that how often in people end a relationship because of these 2 "bad" bricks; and how people get depressed because all that we can see is all our 2 "bad" bricks. In reality, there are many many more good bricks that we just fail to see. Instead, every time we looked, we focus so much on our mistakes and these mistakes are all that we can see, and "they are all we think they are, so we want to destroy them". And sometimes, we destroy a "very nice wall". "We've got 2 bad bricks but the perfect bricks in each one of us are much, much more than the mistakes." Who knows, the "mistakes" that you started out initially, may become the "unique features" when we stop focusing on them exclusively.
   
   
2. What is done is finished and the idiot's guide to peace of mind
   This story tells us that if we try to look at the work that we have already done instead of focusing on the remaining work that needs to be done, we may understand what it's meant by what is done is finished. But when we focus exclusive on the faults, on the things that need to be fixed, we will never find peace. In this story of garden, when we understand how to find peace in our garden, we will know how to find peace anytime, anywhere, especially the ability to find peace in the garden of our heart, even though we may think how messy the garden of our hearts are, with so much things needed to be done or to be fixed.
   
   
3. Guilt and double guilt
   
   
   
   
   
   
   In this story, it shares that a lady was feeling guilty over the death and accident of 2 persons, which she didn't planned for. She knew that she has to 'let go'. And of course there were many times where people will tell her 'Don't feel guilty'. To her, she felt guilty about feeling guilty; she felt guilty that people are telling her not to feel guilty. So, there was double guilt - guilty over the accident and guilty over guilty. "Our complicated minds work like that."
   Guilt is different from remorse. Guilty is usually a term used in court. Thus, if no one punishes us, we will try to punish ourselves, some way or another. Guilt means "punishment deep in our psyche". The solution for her would not be asking her to forget it and get on with life. Instead, asking her to volunteer in a rehab unit helped her as she was able to help.
   
   
   
4. You are what you were told, treated, believed and became
   In the story, there were 2 class of students - A and B. All the students have same abilities. All of them thought that "A" were the clever ones, and they were treated differently from "B". They were told that they were "Class A" and "Class B" students. At the end, "Class A" performed better than "Class B" where they were supposed to be the same. Thus, because of what they were told, treated and believed, they became.
   
   In another story of the 2 children in the supermarket, the 2 children dropped something in the supermarket. The parent of child A responded "You stupid child!" while the other responded with "That was a stupid thing that you did!" The "stupid child" probably become stupid, while the child that did the stupid thing, probably stopped doing stupid things.
   
   
5. We deserved to be forgiven
   If we focus on the "Class B" for too long, we might become a "Class B" person and that is the reasons why we keep making the same mistakes and creating more guilt. But when we look at the other part of our lives; the other bricks of our wall, we gained another perspective, we deserved to be forgiven.
   
   "The most difficult stage of the journey  out of guilt is convincing ourselves that we deserved to be forgiven" The stories being shared are there to assist us but the final step out of the "prison" can only be made alone by ourselves.
   

Look out for Part 2 of Opening the door of your heart by Ajahn Brahm.

Men go to cave and women talk - Part 1

In this chapter of "Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus", the author shared that men and women cope with stress differently - Men go to cave and Women talk. Men become "increasingly focused" and "withdrawn" while women become "increasingly overwhelmed" and "emotionally involved".

According to the author, it is important to understand and accept these differences - Men feel better by solving problems while women feel better by talking about their problems. Not doing so, friction is bound to occur in the relationships.

How men cope with stress/ problems
It was mentioned that when a man get upset, he will never talks about what is bothering him and would not burden another person to solve his problem unless his friend's assistance is necessary to solve the problem. Instead, he will become very quiet and goes into his private cave and think about his problem, mulling it over to find a solution. When he has found the solution, he feels much better and comes out of his cave.

But what if he still can't find a solution?
Then he will do something else to forget about the problems, like reading the news or playing a game. By doing so, he can disengage his mind and relax. If his stress is great, then he might engage in more challenging activity like racing his cars, competing in contest or climb a moutain.


How women cope with stress/ problems
When a woman gets upset, or stress, to find relief, she will seek out someone she trusts and then talks in great detail about the problems. When women share their feelings of being overwhelmed, they suddenly feel better.

The author mentioned that when women share their problems with another, it is actually a sign of love and trust and not burden. A woman feels good when she has loving friends who she can share her feelings and problems.


To be continued on how men find relief in the cave, how women react to the cave, how women find relief through talking and how men react to the talking.

Stay tune!

Annual Leave Day 2

Yesterday I went for my Dental check-up. Took a cab down as I was alittle late and they called to see if I can go alittle earlier. It has been few years since I last went for a check up. I know sooner or later I needed to go. Thus, decided to go and do some polishing. The dentist was asking if I am afraid of going to dentist. I laughed and agreed. He also did 2 x-rays for me for 2 sides of my teeth. I think I need to do some extraction for some of my top hind teeth, including some of my wisdom teeth. But I think I want to do some work on my front teeth first. =D
At least this visit wasn't a bad experience after all. Just that it burnt a hole in my pocket - $116. Luckily I can claim up to $100 for dental/year.

After the dental visit, I was walking around novena square, decided to drop by MPH. As someone who is always interested in astrology, horoscope, fengshui and self-help books, I decided to get myself John Gray's Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. I would say..... finally! Always hang around book stores to read such books....er... without purchase. LOLx. I will do a review and share some of the interesting stuff that I read. I can't help but smiling/laughing to myself when I read them. This is the book.


Hui Hui and I were supposed to meet for a late night movie at Cineleisure at either 11pm or 11.50pm. And it was only like 5.30pm when I reached city hall. Didn't want to stay at novena as there is nothing much for me to see. Decided to sit down at TCC and order something for myself. I had always wanted to go to a cafe, order a drink and cake and have a book/lap top and have time all by myself. The last time I ever did was 1 year back! And I always did that to pass time. This time, I had the above book with me. Wow.... nice book to read. And of course learnt something from it.

Initially wanted to meet someone for dinner but decided to call it off after reading some of the pages in the book. I learnt to understand and respect it. Thus, I decided to have my own "Alone time" and doing something that I enjoyed. Having "time-out" can be good too... for me to reflect on things that I had been doing. Will share more on the book soon. Interesting.

Anyway, guess what I had?

Mint Chocolate Frappe

TCC Tiramisu

Drink taken slightly further away

The combo

I was sitting around TCC till around 7pm. Then had to rush to the ladies as I am having "high tide". If not, I would have sit longer. LOLx. Then decided to walk around Suntec for a while. Till I remembered that we might not have gotten seats if we didn't book the tickets. Hui Hui is having church and my phone couldn't check. Decided to try my luck to see if Alvin was online to help me check if there is still seats available. Luckily and thank GOD (and of course thank him too) he was online and he replied saying that for the 2 shows left the front seats. (I think he meant all the back seats are taken up. If I remembered correctly, he seems to like back seats. =X ) After receiving his reply, I hurried down to Cineleisure hoping to at least get the more behind seats. Managed to get the side seats@ last 3rd rows one.

Well, it was only like 9.30pm. Thus, I rooted myself to the seats outside the cinema till the arrival of our Ms Ong. I had bought myself 3+1 donuts and ate one since I didn't had dinner. While waiting, I continue reading my book. =) Soon, it was close to 11pm and Ms Ong called. We got ourselves some drinks at the 7-11 and went upstairs to take some photos:

Ah... abit too low.. the camera

Here it is!

Portrait photo of us

One more!

In front of the Transformers Ad

Sigh. It didn't turn out too well. Quite blur. Anyway, the movie was nice and managed to understand even though I didn't catch the Transformer 1 but it will be great if I had watch it before hand. BUT I don't mind watching it again!

Although this suppose to be an action film, there were some comedy elements in it. I will do a review on the movie soon. Haha... I am so glad that I finally knows what is autobot and decepicons - My ASD client has always been telling me about these 2 and sometimes I just "hhmm....", "ah... huh..", "orh....". In actual fact, I don;t know what he is talking about. =X

All and all, I quite like 3 characters in the movie - 1 autobot and 2 decepticons. The autobot is the bumblebee and the 2 decepticons are (what I call) "the old man decepticon"- Jetfire and "Cute and small decepticon" - Wheelie. I shall tell you why I like them in my movie review. =)

It was already 2+am when we finished watching and we had supper at Gloria Jean. I think I really had a very sinful day:

Chocolate Mud Cake

Carrot Cake

Ms Ong with Carrot Cake

Me with Mud Cake

When the White meets the Black

Hui Hui with the cakes and donuts

My turn....

Muddy Muddy Muddy

From where I was sitting

While we were at the cafe, Green Day's 21 Guns was kept playing in the background. And I also realised that it was used in the movie too! Such a coincidence. Just remembered I wanted to send this song to Alvin via email but the file was too big - 12.5mb to be attached.

We left the place around 3.30am. I reached home close to 4am. Check mail, do some surfing and of course rinse and brush my teeth. I must make my cleaning and polishing of teeth worth it right? lolx....

Look out for my book and movie review.

Inspirational Talk

This morning, I went back to work @ Tiong Bahru for in-service. This first in-service for the year 2009 is not related to rehabilitation, rather it is something that most people should know or have to know - Financial Planning.

But this is not just Financial Planning, there is also inspirational talk by the speaker-Apelles Poh. The speaker is a Financial Advisor who has achieved the coveted Million Dollar Round Table qualification every year for the past 14 years, and for the past four, he has made it to the Court Of The Table, which boasts the world’s top 1 per cent of financial practitioners.

I like his talk as it is inspirational, allowing me to reflect on myself. Other than "Daddy Sanath", he is another guy that can make talk so interesting. Did I say Apelles is also a writer of the book Live Well, Love Much, Laugh Often?


The introduction of the book can be found here.

He started the talk by singing 3 songs:

朋友 - 周华健


童话 - 光良


Always On My Mind -Elvis Presley


I managed to jot down some of the things that he shared with us about financial planning and most importantly, about life.

This story of 2 monks:
There was this lady that needed to cross the river. Thus, the old monk agreed to carry the lady over. The young monk was angry and puzzled. Thus he asked, "I though we were not supposed to be close to lady and carry her?" The old monk replied, "I have already left her at the other side. You still carry her in your mind." The young monk has not let go.

"There are 3Ps that you have to let go: Past, Pain, People that caused the Pain."

"There are 3Ps why people work: Passion, Purpose, Profit."

"The bank lends you an umbrella when it is sunny and takes it away when it rains.

- Mark Twain."

"Buy what you need (80%), not what you want(20%)."

"There's no bad things in life, only lessons."

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

"Money is what you can buy and money is reduced by inflation."

"People can change. Things can change. Be financially independent."

"People are always rushing. I call them Rush-ian. I once saw a friend and ask him where he is rushing to. And he said, 'Relaxation Centre'."

"Hatred is like taking poison and hoping that they will just die. But when we do that, it is WE who suffer."

In the talk, he also mentioned about Lifestyle Inflation Rate.

Heard of it? It is about how a cup of coffee cost much more in Starbucks or Coffee Bean than in Kopitiam.

And while waiting for someone just now, I read almost half of that book in 2.5 hours and some of the interesting quotes:

"You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your despair. - Douglas MacArthur"

"When we can truly live and not just merely exist, then we break the hold of the past and take hold of he future."

"Faith is one of the foundations of life, giving meaning to the past, power in the present and hope for the future."

"No one can go back to the past and start a brand new beginning, but we can all start now and have a brand new ending."

"By shutting the door to people, you may also be closing your soul to the healing balm of another soul. Relationships hurt but relationships also heal."

"Complementing each other focuses on similarities and also on differences, and seeing these differences as a blessing, not a curse; an advantage, not a disadvantage."

"For relationships to last, we must aspire to give and take. Not take and take."

This is indeed a good book to read. Anyone wants to borrow from me can approach me when I've finished reading it.

An inspiring book.

Live well, Love much, Laugh often.

Live well, Love much, Laugh often

Life is a journey, a journey with its ups and downs, peaks and valleys, and often weeks and months of uneventful passing plains. Most of us would admit that we are not really as successful in life as we would like to think. For some of us, however hard we try, we have this vague feeling that we are always one step short of our destination. Others who do reach their destination find, to their disappointment, that the journey has taken its toll on their relationships, health, mental and spiritual well-being. There are yet others who arrive somewhere, but find that they have just drifted there without meaning or purpose. Admittedly, success is anything but easy (there are hardly any overnight successes) and becoming successful is made harder by our common knowledge, or in some cases, late realization, that it is not to be measured only in material terms.

If you are starting out on a journey - be it as an eager-eyed young person, someone contemplating changing life or career midstream, or someone facing retirement, this book is for you. Perhaps you have resigned yourself to just living with whatever and wherever you are at, accepting it as your lot in life.

Well, Live Well, Love Much, Laugh Often will enlarge and change your perspective on life. This book is about your journey - your inward journey, your onward journey and your outward journey. Inward, as we discover spirituality, inner beliefs, values and motivations to enjoy a more balanced and fulfilling life. Onward, as we deploy skills, principles and good habits, to achieve success in our family, work and finances. Outward, as we display love, care and endearment to enhance our relationships with people.

As you read the pages of this book, you will glean nuggets and gems of truths, insights and inspiration to bring a little more zest to your work, a little more warmth to your relationships, a greater empowerment to your life - and a bigger smile to your face. May you find success, not just in the destination but also in the journey!

This book can be found in major bookstores and part of the proceed will go to Children Cancer Foundation.

Drew Barrymore

I like Drew Barrymore's 50 1st dates... ... It was awesome.

I was searching for some stuff and I saw her new movie production next year :

He's just not that into you.

It will most likely be out Feb 2009... ....

The story is based on Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo's He just not that into you.

For more info, click here.

Books on relationships

I was walking around aimlessly.... nothing to do after I got my race stuff..... so I popped into MPH, as usual......

Flipped afew some pages of the following 2 books......

Hmm.... what I can say is that... both are interesting. One talks about how different persepective that males and females has..... and how gals always talk about emotions.... and how guys always talked about solutions...... it all has got to do with our physiology makeup.... we aren't called guys or gals for nothing. =) And that is from Why Mars and Venus Collides.






The other one..... I didn't really go and flip alot....this I just flip a few pages... really.... anyway.... this is just a book to motivates ladies who are still single... and the reason is not because of the gal.... but it is HIM. The first chapter was about there was totally nothing wrong with the gal.... she was lovable.... but it was the guy who aren't ready. =) Didn't carry on reading the rest.....



Anyway, if you guys ( and I mean gals and guys) are interested, you can grab a copy or borrow from the library.