Series of Unfortunate Events

Has it ever occured to you, at one time, so many wretched incidents just seemed to pour in your way? It lasted for a few weeks, some dark, jinxed moment:

When I graduated, the book 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' was topping the best seller's list. So many people trying to get rich quick, 'leveraging' or so. Being 'entreprising', and under peer influence, 3 of the guys put some money together and bought a condo for investment. 2 years later the guy who done the most job wanted out, there's when the nighmare began.

He actually did a good job securing a tenant for us, the nightmare happened a year later when the tenant moved out. It was unimaginably difficult to get a tenant, and especially the condo was near the other side of the city from where I lived. The agony of going there evry few days to stick ads, showing potentials around, and pressure of installment was no child's play. Felt so sorry for those wasted ads, we were killing trees!

When it finally worked out, we found that the washing machine was glitched... To get a repair man to door would cost a bomb, so I stuffed the semi- auto into my back seat. Having took it apart and studied it, the fault was remedied at the cost of less than RM20.00. Time and effort cost was unknown, satisfaction guaranteed and priceless.

OK, so there was a silver lining here. But a ghost from my past came haunting me. A summon issued from east coast 3 years ago forbided my license renewal. Much miseries and tormenting dealings with government red tapes, it was cleared.


No relieve yet, here came 2 minor car accidents and the damage somewhere around RM300, the other was beyong salvation. OK, I didn't bother to mend that scratch. Need a scar to remind me to stay focus!

Leaky roof was not the priviledge of government buildings, once such has cost us 'proud-home -owner' RM2000 for water prrofing work. If only I knew how it was done, there'll be a nother silver lining here too.

All these happened in just 4-5 weeks time... Explains my rather low EQ then. Now that I thought bout it, most couldn't have been avoided, I just needed to cool my mind when facing off with these 'challenges'.

Like the old chinese saying, when you loose something, you were bound to gain some... I'm still waiting...

Serendipity

It all started with a girl. That girl. The girl I met in KLIM, my first run. There were too many people I recalled. She vanished into the crowd, leaving a mere 2 seconds impression in my mind. Shallow as it might be, the image would only surface when I ran. That's why I couldn't stop. And I went to as many running events there were, hoping to see her again.

But never did I see her again. Was I chasing dejaa- vu? How could I not see her in my dreams, but at terminal velocity? I could give up, drop this illusion, just like that. Or could I?

By now, running has a new meaning, a zen- like experience, a state of meditation- in- motion. I don't know how, but it just happened.

First I was thinking, why am I suffering this? Is it worth it? Can I stop now? How far to go? When this is over, I'm so quiting. When I finished running, I told myself: look, it's not that hard, I didn't die! If this couldn't kill me, it'll make me stronger. And some minor vanity came with it. So let's do it again!

After some time, I kind of relate running to life. Everyone starts from the same point at birth, on the starting line. And everyone ends at the same ending line, which is death. One could choose to run effortlessly, and stand no chance of winning. Or one could try his best, though not winning, is worth the try.

If one won, he must had trained hard, and there's no luck in here. Physical attributes play trivial role, mind is the only deciding element. There is no short cut, no free lunch. All effort put in will not be in vain, thought it may look futile at first, but it grows gradually until a point of saturation. There is a limitation, which one set for himself, but it could be reset after time.

Winning aside, it's good to have a bunch of friends who share the same interest in these activities. That makes the road to the end an enriching journey, joyous and interesting.

There's always another run to look forward to, like Penang Bridge run later this month, Adidas King of the Road in August, Awana Trail Blazer in September, Singapore Marathon in December. Would I ever see her again? Meet someone else, I hope too.

Priceless

Always had a thing for Audrey Tautou since ‘Da vinci Code’, though I still can’t pronounce her name. Should watch her latest film, translated ‘Priceless’ from French ‘Hors De Prix’. She has never disappointed me. The whole production crew deserves a word of praise too.

From the intellectual investigator to the vain seductress, Audrey had proven herself an actress and more. Movies aside, she had to be really bright in real life to display that level of facial expressions. And also gone through a lot in life as well.

In the end, just want to say brainy chicks turn me on. How conceited. If only she would put on a few pounds, anorexic is not in the league of beauty.

All I want

Heroes had aired the season finale, happy ending I guess. Couldn’t wait for the second season to commence! It had been an inspiring experience, if not entertaining and full of twists.

If you had power, some miraculous ability to do something you knew what others couldn’t do, what would you choose? Would you like to be just a normal person, or else use your power and be a hero?

Maybe that depends on how brave you are. Each of us have the potential, some just too afraid to use it or had always doubted it, like Claire and maybe Peter. But when they found the strength and believe in it, they can make a huge difference.

Personally I like Sylar, and I can relate to him. The ability to see how things work and what makes them tick, is absolutely what this world needs. People need the truth and answers, he can give them that. If he could repair watches or rather, time pieces, he could repair the rotten part of this world! I’ll elect him president if he did this.

Well no point sitting on my butt, better do something so I can be a hero. How? Well I had looked at books on brain’s anatomy and ‘Brain Surgeries for Dummies’, they didn’t help. Instead I bought ‘A Brief History of Time’ by prof. Hawkins, to learn how to bend time onto space. Space is 3- dimensional and time 4^th- dimensional, so if only I could get to the fifth dimension like Hiro…

This one is more practical: ‘How minds work’ by Tony Buzan. It’s long established what prof. Suresh emphasized: If men could tap into the full potential of the brain, men could actually be worthy of God. Sylar is analyzing how different brains of heroes worked. It seems all that matter is the grey matter.

Ok, wish me luck on this. All I want is to become a Hero.