Having fun under the summer sun

Innocent and pure fun under the summer sun

Looking back, I was surprised since I didn’t write anything during the month of July. I’m not sure why, but for sure many things happen in the 7th month of this meaningful 2011.

First of all, was the 9th of July street rally dubbed as “Bersih”, which is the word CLEAN in the Malay language – a rally done by peaceful Malaysians asking for fair and equal election. That rally happened in the streets of Kuala Lumpur, and I believe those who follow global news would know about it. That time, I heard a small rally would be held in Seoul too. So I brought along my camera with some excitement thinking I would be able to expect some crowd in Guang Hwa Mun, the place where some Malaysians in Seoul would gather. I think I was a tad too late, well 30 minutes late and I didn’t see anyone there at all. Instead, I had a great time shooting some interesting photos in one of the must-visit tourist attraction spot in S. Korea.

Above is one of the best that I got, at least for me. I love how I was able to capture the atmosphere, the innocent laughter of this little girl playing in the water fountain in front of the King Sejong statue right in the middle of Guang Hwa Mun. It reminds me of the time when we were young, when everything was so simple, and all we want was pure and naive fun.

In the midst of busy work schedule and less interesting day-to-day life, to my surprise I was invited to a dinner session with the King and Queen of Malaysia, who came to S. Korea for a short 3-day visiting trip! Actually, I had to put up my name to the embassy, and only 100 or so Malaysians, whom were mostly students were selected for that dinner. It was one heck of an experience for me; having the chance to enjoy French cuisine in a 5-star hotel in Gwang Hwa Mun (again), and meeting, and greeting His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen of Malaysia weren’t something simple words can describe.

Sunny summer days doesn’t last too long in the month of July. Heavy downpour for a whole week had made Seoul into a sea of nightmare. Landslides, people killed and missing, houses destroyed and sunken cars littered the city streets. It was horrible, and there’s yet reports of more rainfall beginning next week.

Well, one thing good for me is, my holiday officially starts today, and I will be going back to my dear hometown on this Sunday for a short one week vacation! How should I spend the next 7 days? I hope I can make them as meaningful as ever!

Life is full with so much ups and downs that to be honest, I do not know what to expect next.

I wish I can find back the way to enjoy “fun”, just like that kid…

A post in a month time…

A big window of opportunity

It’s been almost a month now since my last post. I wonder what took myself so long to post something new here.

Well, life has been pretty smooth apparently, except having to shift to a new factory as my company is currently in the step of up-sizing. A new environment, and also a new team structure. Some manager from the other team is coming into the R&D team. Everyone kinda hates him it seems…

An overhaul is needed the company said, for the R&D team. All I had in mind was if they really want to treat this team as a REAL R&D entity, they have to respect us as an R&D department, as in paying us the  adequate amount of salary, not requesting us to support the engineering team when they are overloaded with their own job, and stick to the rules of prototyping and development.

From time to time, I have been thinking whether is worth my time and effort to stay right here. Windows of opportunity open and close from time to time. I think I had missed quite a few now.

Maybe it’s time to close this door, and look for another opening window…

Something simple…

Early in the days, simplicity...

Living in a country where everything is fast pace, stopping once in a while is a good thing.

Stop, stand and look around… Sometimes everything is so blurry, like a photo taken in a slow shutter speed with blurry silhouette of people walking around in a busy city street.

In a society where everyone is trying to gain the most whenever they can, suddenly I thought, maybe simplicity could be the answer.

What are we really chasing for? Why complicate life with so much trouble, with so much stress?

Just live simple, and be content, isn’t that suffice to sustain a normal life?

This is what I am telling myself now. But looking ahead, this simple plan won’t work. There are more to come, and we should get prepared for the worst when things turn the other way.

Just hope the body can catch up with everything we throw at it.

Simplicity, is the only thing I yearn for the most.

What’s your purpose?

Money, the path of life

Here’s something interesting that got me thinking suddenly while having Eminem’s “Space bound” playing at the background…

Today during work, my supervisor suddenly out of no where, asked me a question in English, which went something like this : What is the purpose of your life? Wow, that was a pretty deep question to answer while you are busy dealing with work at hand…

Well, at that moment, I couldn’t really give a satisfying answer at all. But from time to time, I have been reminding myself that my current purpose right now is to make people around me, especially my family happy no matter what. I don’t think I had achieved much, since my choice of working over here is one of the things opposed by my parents in the first place…

But come to think of it, when you embark into the working stage of life, everything is about money. This world couldn’t go around without money. Yes it’s true that money cannot buy you love or happiness, but without money, you won’t gain love and happiness either. I found out that it is just as mind boggling as the saying of “The way to have joy is to share it with others”; how can anyone share any joy when he or she doesn’t even have any joy in the first place?

So it seems that money has become the main motivation of my life, and soon it will become the purpose of my life. You can’t start a family without money; you can’t sustain a living in society without money; hell you can do nothing if you don’t have the money. Everyone judges people by how much they earn, by how big their houses are,  by how big the cars they drive. That’s the least worrying stuff for me. Sometimes I do envy the rich, but I would be satisfied with a moderate salary that can keep me going on comfortably.

*Sigh* What am I planning to do for the coming future? To tell you the truth, I have no idea what the future holds. Until now, my life turns out to be a series of unplanned events; seems to be a chain of events happening one at a time without me making any big plans ahead. Things come and go, and I just grab onto them by chance I suppose.

Well, now all I know is, I don’t want to return to the so called “normal life” everyone’s having. I want to at least lead a life which is slightly special then others. I guess that’s why I chose to stay instead of going back. Who knows where this will lead me to in the future…

Anyways, looking back at the photo on top, it’s something pretty amusing to me actually. I don’t know the actual name of the plant, but it’s known as life plant in some places. The tiny cute thingies on the leaf are actually the young of the plant, and in some coincidence, look like the sycees or better known as “元宝” in Chinese, the shape of gold ingot in the early days in China. Those tiny plants form a path at the edge of the leaf, and it seems to me that it is trying to say, “money is the path to life”. Is it me over-thinking, or is this plant trying to teach me about life?

All in all, the purpose of life is clear. I am not the kind of person who is going to do something to change the world, I am just some insignificant nobody who’s trying to work his ass off to achieve something abysmal in life.

I hope my life soon brings me another good turning.

Spring is here, but coldness stays.

Blooming in the cold cold weather

Spring is here, but my mood has yet never changed, just like the cold wind blowing right now. It should be warmer by now, but it is still  as cold as winter, what is wrong with this world?

My working life started pretty well I would say, but now everything is going down hill. Even though I am still in probation period, I felt that I had enough of work. Everything seems like rushing towards me at once, making me breathless and driving me nuts. Sometimes even when I wasn’t that busy, I would feel tired and frustrated. I wonder how long I can last in this kind of situation? When will I get used to this kind of life?

Everything sucks right now. Today I went to take some pictures of the cherry blossoms after work, and it was cold as hell. I though I would at least get myself relaxed, but instead, I dropped my flash on the rocky ground and that really worsen my whole day. Even though it didn’t caused any harm beside some scratches to my beloved flash, it hurts so much that I couldn’t forgive myself for going a photo-shoot today.

Recently, I found out that I have become weaker as time goes by, relying on people more than I did when I was studying. I have people who love me here, people I can depend on. But being too close to someone can cause trouble too.

I have to admit, hard working life had made me weaker, and made me wanting to find some place where I can forget about work, share my sorrow and loneliness. I found a family who can provide me all I need, which is love. They have become one of those whom I cared about most. Sometimes, I will think about them, worrying about them so much that I get stressed out and depressed when they didn’t reply my messages. Sometimes, I do feel guilty, because I never cared about my parents as much as I cared about these people. This makes me realized, I shouldn’t forget about my roots either, about those who REALLY cared for me from the beginning of my lifetime.

I wouldn’t stay in Korea forever, and when the time comes, I will go back for sure. I don’t know when, it could be 2 years, it could be 5, or even 10. I do not think much about this, but my parents do. Anyhow, I do not know, by then, how I would leave this place, the place where I spend almost half of my life time, how I would say goodbye to those whom I love and appreciate so much.

Maybe I should pray to God, to give me strength to get through all these. Hope everything goes well in the future.

Maybe, I should be something like the cherry blossoms, blooming every spring, never getting tired of doing the same thing every year, even in this cold cold weather.