We were having a minor discussion in office today about 金庸的小说. The topic started out with 额娘 saying I got white hair and somehow it got evolved into 杨过 and 小龙女. It's actually a crappy conversation to pass time on a rainy and lazy Friday afternoon.

Come to think of it, the main characters in 金庸的小说 always got themselves into relationships that are not commonly accepted by the common 江湖 people.

For instance:

1) 杨过 and 小龙女: 徒弟 and 师父 relationship, not to mention 小龙女 is supposed to be much older than 杨过

2) 张无忌 and 赵敏 : 汉人 and 蒙古郡主, cuz Mongolia is always at war with China at the time, so cannot fall in love. If not, is considered traitors.

3) 张五侠 and 殷素素 (张无忌's parents) : 名门正派 vs 邪魔歪道, maciam like Christians cannot fall in love with Satanists like that lor

The majority of the so called 武林人士 cannot accept such relationships because they are considered to be against the social norm and thus deemed to be immoral and a strict no-no. In the most extreme case the star crossed lovers even have to die for their love.

This brings me to a question: Who are these people to judge what type of love is acceptable or not? In each of these cases, the lovers are either heroes or heroines, contributing to the 江湖 and not doing anyone any harm, but the 江湖 is not appreciative and even treated them as public enemies, condemning and prosecuting them, just because they happen to fall in love.

Simply because they are the majority, so they must be right? So if something is not in line with the social norm, it must be wrong, must be bad? So does that mean these main characters must be with someone that the rest of the 江湖 acknowledge and approve, so that the 'harmony' and the 'peace' of the 江湖 will not be disrupted?

How many of us can be as 潇洒 as 东邪, who dun give a shit about the 世俗礼节 which, according to him, is meant for the simpletons? Only the so called 凡夫俗子 follow rules and customs and traditions blindly without questioning the basis of these social constructs.

Although these social constructs are primarily set up to serve as a guideline for the majority, who can really say that under these social constructs, everyone will be truly happy？

I realised that I seldom express my gratitude to people in this space of mine, so this post shall be dedicated to people who has one way or another, made an impact in the life of the Denster.

1. TSO - For showing me what love is

2. Big sista - For standing by us whenever the going seems tuff

3. My Lau Bu (though she wun be reading this) - For your constant nagging cuz well, it does help mould me into who I am today, hahah

4. My Lau Bei - For passing me his patience

5. My Bros and those who call me bros - Cheers to brotherhood, need I say more?

6a. Friends who remain as friends - Thanks for being there. Though at times, I may be too busy and may have neglected you peeps, but you are not forgotten =)

6b. Friends who are just a passing phrase - Well, we had fun

7. Ah Geok - Yes, despite her tyranny (is there such a word?), she did make an impact on my working life/ attitude, so cheers

8. Those whom I detest - Yupz, you are not forgotten as well and have my gratitude, cuz I wanna thank you peeps for reminding me not to be the jackass that you are =)

Well, there could be others that I may have missed out but these should all come under the general category of 6a or 6b or 8

There has been a lack of posts recently cus my office just blocked access to blogspot, xanga and wordpress. Even friendster and facebook is out too, cuz these are all grouped under the 'personal and social networking' category. Sigh, mayb there has been too many people accessing these sites and to the senior mgt, this is unproductive and hence needs to be frowned upon.

Can't really say I blame them cuz if I'm the boss, most probably I wun want my staff to spend working hours blogging away too, but TMD, that is the most productive time of the day for me to blog lorz! Sigh

1) On organ trading
Will this ever come to fruition? While people are still debating over whether it is ethical to organ trade and who should be employed to regulate the trade, if it ever gets legalised, there are people dying while waiting to have a new organ.

Elsewhere in the world, there are people who are dying from hunger and are willing to part with their organ/s in order to survive.

Still elsewhere in an another dimension called the black market, people are getting what they want, ie, those who can pay gets a new lease of life and those who can sell need no longer starve.

The basis of regulating organ trade is so that people do not upset the equilibrium, so assuming that profit is not part of the equation, the less well to do stand a higher chance of getting an organ which they so desperately need. But then again, how many can actually afford the cost of operation and life long medication to ensure that the new organ does not get rejected by the body? If the rich can indeed afford to buy an organ to prolong their life, isn't it a safe assumption that they can continue to contribute to society which could in term/ in time reap more benefits to all in general?

So, you tell me, who is doing who more harm than good?

2) On another charity scam
A highly reputed monk who constantly puts his safety on the line to raise funds during telecast charity shows for the underpriviledged shocked the whole nation when he turned out to be a mere mortal when he too succumbed to mortal sin such as greed.

For a mere mortal man to succumb to such worldly temptations is one thing, but someone who is following The Way to fall into the same trap? And not just any monk but an abott? Someone entrusted with the lives of many under his charge? It is just disheartening if you ask me.

On a lazy Saturday late morning, as I was on my way out to get lunch, I passed by this cute sight.
2 cuties gazing lovingly at their owner washing his car at the carpark.
Wanna snap this pix without disturbing the pooches but one of them noticed me.

Oops

Some people just have the weirdest 口头禅

1. Some dey queen in office (TSO dun like me to blog abt her so I'll make this quick) likes to 'touch base' when she calls her clients.

2. My lecturer for Management Accounting (sadly, this is the module I have no exemptions for, so lan lan muz attend lesson) likes to ask 'Are you there yet?' whenever she made a point. She said it so many damn times during her 3 hr lecture that I lost count.

Her voice is super loud n got this irritating pitch that's a torture to my ear drums. 18 more weeks to go, I'll try not to pick her for my subsequent modules.

3. Most ppl go 'huh' or 'wat' or the more sophisticated ones will go 'beg your pardon' when they miss something others say. But this group of ppl like to 'cum again'

So is it me or is it that there's some sexual undertones?

Somethings will just keep on haunting when you least expect it.
Worst is you are not really directly involved to put the ghost away permanently.

Over lunch today, 大姐 mentioned that the ERP gantries are gonna cause 家变 cuz now, her 男人 will not bring her to her favorite Boon Keng Lor Mee that often anymore cuz it now costs $12 for 2 bowls, a whopping 100% increase, after factoring the 'beep beep' at the gantries.

Hmmm it's just a passing remark but somehow, it struck some cords within which I can't quite figure out, oh well....

Yesterday marks the day where several more ERP gantries are in operation in an ever increasing effort to 'regulate' traffic by making us poorer.
At the rate that the gantries are being set up, it's slowly spreading from the CBD and central area outwards towards the heartland.

Soon, there wun be any more ERP-less area left

There will be so many gantries that there will be hardly any vehicles left on the road

Cuz everyone will be taking public transport and then of cuz this creates another problem. I have already kb numerous times how tedious it can be trying to transfer train during peak hours, so if the gahmen successful deter ppl from driving, the logical result will be a surging demand in public transport.

Then of cuz, the train operators will kb rising operating costs mah rite? More train frequencies, must lower the aircon temp cuz more commuters blah blah. And what better way to regulate that than by installing more gantries? Afterall, this seems to always be the 'best' solution mah

Eventually, ppl will stop going out cuz it will cost toooo much. So mayb ppl will foster the 'kampong spirit' by visiting friends and relatives or by making new friends in the neighbourhood and do more house visits instead.

Then hor, given the current capacity of our HDB lifts, maybe ppl will be frustrated that they always cannot get into the lift. I mean I'm experiencing that now in my school, so its not that hard to imagine that the same situation could occur in HDB lifts rite?

And so it's not hard to imagine that this cld eventually be a reality:

p.s. I'm touching wood as I'm bloggin this.

p.p.s. Those who know me know that my IT skills are pte ltd de, so I cldn't possibly come up with such photos. These were fwd to me so I just try to decipher the 'vision' that the creator of these photos had when he/she was creating this photos

When Red meets Green

After nua-ing for soooo long, it's back to school and back to the books yesterday. As you can see, me ish super guai, sat like 3rd or 4th row from the front. TSO worried that I bio gals in class but hor she sat in her own class like 2nd row from the back lor, sigh....

So this is all I need for the next 6mths for one of my modules. This is actually an exempted module but I thought might as well go attend classes to recap what I have learnt in my younger days but hor, this is really just a management module (but they gave it some nice sounding name like 'Accountant in Business'), not really accounting so I guess I can skip this. Hahahah hope the bosses are not reading this.

What is LOVE?

Den and 'The Significant Other's' definition (hereby known as TSO) is as follows:

1) Love is when you will french-kiss the other person even though he/she just had chicken rice for lunch

2) Love is when you will grant her shopping sprees and trusting her not to bleed your wallet dry

3) Love is when you find him/ her cute even when he/she is doing tak glam stuff like digging his/ her nose

The point is, it's easy to say you love someone when all is good and nice, prim and proper.
And most of us will be willing to be there for each other as the relationship hits the rough patches but well, all these are normal.

It's when you can accept (note: the word here is accept, not endure) the nitty gritty bad habits and the tak glam stuff about your partner, only then will true love manifests itself.

On another note, I was asked how I know if the other person is 'The One'? I suppose it's just that special feeling bah, sometimes you just know. For me, it's when I start doing things that I dun usually do, that even I'm surprised that I'm capable of doing for 'The One'.

So what's your definition of love?