“When “love” comes with preconditions, it’s called a business agreement.”

My personal view?

1. I agree, looking from a different angle. But not necessarily in a bad way. Realistically, love comes with expectations. Relationships come with expectations. Whether one realizes it or not, expectations are there. I liken preconditions to expectations. And with expectations, there will be agreements, if you wish, where the expectations do not meet.

I don’t agree with the term ‘business’ agreement. Agreement, yes. When a couple gets married, they sign a contract, an agreement. Some sign prenups. The conditions are written in black and white, hence agreements. Yes, they are all signed willingly (most of the time), but there you have it. Agreements. They are there in every facet of our lives. Written, formal, unofficial, verbal. Major agreements, minor ones.

One can either take this negatively or take it in stride and work with it to make a relationship successful.

2. Further to this, I’ve come to fully realize why we strive so hard to find a partner who shares our values and goals in life. When you are with someone who shares your values and goals, agreements can be reached and/or decisions can be made more easily because you are already on common ground to start with. Preconditions are minimized, the changes that are required of you are also minimized because of your shared values and goals.

If you don’t have similar values and/or goals, then you’d better be prepared to work doubly hard to make the relationship work because there will be many disagreements and arguments.

Having expectations in a relationship doesn’t mean that you love your partner less if s/he doesn’t meet up to some of your expectations. Rather, I believe it makes you evaluate more carefully and thoroughly if you wish to spend the rest of your life with this person and more importantly, if you CAN live the rest of your life with this person. But this can also mean that people who love each other may not necessarily be able to be together.

I know of someone who broke up with the love of her life because she just couldn’t live together with him because he had a habit of picking on her on every little thing when they were cohabiting.

I know of another person who broke if off with her partner (not sure how long they’d been going out) and married another in quite a short time because she felt that she had found her soulmate (similar values? expectations? goals?). No, it wasn’t a shotgun wedding either. I bumped into her recently and they seem quite happily married.

Call it whatever you may, I think it is rare to find unconditional love, excluding those of parents and their offspring. And pets with their guardians.

… to tell me yet again that life is short.

Just heard that one of my former colleagues was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer.

She is only 30.

Thank God she is recovering from treatment and latest news I’ve heard is that she is doing fine.

At times like these, I feel like I’m being too complacent. Taking too much time to achieve my goals in life. At times like these, I feel like I should keep moving forward with my plans… if Plan A doesn’t work, move on to Plan B. If Plan B fails, move on to Plan C and so forth.

Why does it take a tragic event to kick myself in the butt to get moving? Even then, sometimes I refuse to budge.

I pray that JC will recover fully and that I will somehow find something within myself to get moving. Like, NOW.

Full article here.

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Excerpt from the article :

“… another pet owner lodged a report with SPCA, alleging that Majlis Bandaraya Shah Alam (MBSA) dog-catchers had trespassed into her home and caught her dog, dragging it out from underneath the main gate. Attempts were made to locate the dog which was not taken to the PAWS Animal Shelter, but held by the MBSA and put to sleep three days later. The owner and an SPCA Inspector arrived during the destruction process, and were literally minutes too late to save the dog. The distraught owner made a police report immediately after leaving the pound.”

Oh.my.gawd.

Not only did they STEAL someone’s dog, they actually KILLED the dog!!!
WTF??!!!

Too incensed to write sanely.

Please pass this article to your dog-owning friends and inform them to be vigilant about their dogs. Apparently, these thieves are paid up to RM45 for each dog they steal.

Original story here.

Not the first time nor will it be the last. Bastards.

From Mkini:

“Terengganu government is planning to log two forest reserves which is home to the critically endangered Sumatran rhinoceros and endangered Malayan tiger.

…

According to the DEIA (Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment), the site of the catchment area has already experienced changes of between 25 and 30 percent and new logging tracks have already been constructed,” said WWF-Malaysia.

…the logging will also affect the elephant population in the forests, where about one-third will be forced into nearby plantations, creating more human-elephant conflict.”

They don’t seem to understand the concept of forest reserves.

Let me help them a bit. From dictionary.com :

forest reserve : (noun) – an area of forest set aside and preserved by the government as a wilderness, national park, or the like.

I thought they did good when they granted Chagar Hutang to UMT to continue their turtle research and rehabilitation work.

But conservation takes much more than just a one-time effort. Only in Malaysia, it seems to me, that gazetted forest reserves can be logged for whatever purposes.

What a joke!

Note to visitors (intentional or unintentional) :

From time to time, I will receive information from TheAnimalNetwork of animals up for adoption.

I will normally post the information here, together with the contact details of the person to contact for each animal who needs a home.

Thus, please contact the person listed directly for further information on the particular animal, if you are interested. I would not have any other information except for what I have posted. As such, I will not entertain any requests to call or sms you, for security purposes, unless I am personally handling the particular animal.

Thank you for your kind understanding.

The other day, we were driving towards Mont Kiara when this car made an illegal right turn and charged into our lane. There were 2 cops on bikes in front of us and we were wondering if they were going to stop the car and book it for making an illegal turn.

Naturally, the cops didn’t look bothered and neither did they stop the driver of the car who had, right in front of their eyes, blatantly broke traffic rules.

Then you read something like this. Where the men in uniform are the ones who cause such tragedies.

Now how do you expect normal people like us to obey our laws and regulations when our men in uniform are the ones who are blatantly breaking them? No wonder nothing ever gets enforced here.

Talk about leading by example… NOT!

Oh, and the brilliant “I know nothing about this and that” Home Minister has this to say :

If you have done something against law and order, the police will take action.

He should address the cops first, before talking about other lawful citizens.

The maturity of these people never fails to astound me.

From Mkini :

“We haven’t even achieved 20 percent, how can we abolish the 30 percent target? The Malays only own a 19 percent of equity and the non-Malays own more than 50 percent of the nation’s wealth. Whoever asked for it to be abolished is rude and arrogant.”

Even with all their privileges, they still can’t get ahead, doesn’t that mean there’s something wrong with the system?

Everyone’s gotta work to earn their living. Fair’s fair, right? But I guess some people choose to live in their own fantasy world where everything is handed to them on a silver platter forever.

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In an unrelated incident, PF shared with us that someone she knows was beaten up and robbed by a gang of Mat Rempits just because he was an Indian. That was what those hooligans told the victim when he asked them why they continued to beat him up when he’d surrendered all his valuables to them.

So much for racial unity.

As predicted and expected, after all that, things have fallen back into its original state.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; that seems to be the pattern of it each time.

At least I can confidently say that I was proactive in trying to get it moving.

If all else fails, there’s only one solution. At the end of the day, it’s how much and for how long I’m willing to put up with after all that I’ve done.