Anticipated Serendipity

Good Karma

March8

It was the year we turned 18.

Steph, Jo and I decided to take a trip to Malacca by ourselves, by bus. And not one of those express buses that went directly to Malacca, mind you. We took the normal Cityliner bus from Kajang to Seremban and changed to another bus that took us to Malacca town.

From the bus stand, we walked a bit to look for a place to stay and we ended up at this rather dodgy-looking but clean motel (years later, someone told us that we stayed in the red light district?!).

We did the usual touristy stuff… visit the Stadthuys, eat and eat and eat, and all that. We even caught a midnight movie at one of those old-style cinemas (it was a Mr Bean movie) and we ended up almost getting locked out of our motel!

So anyway, the highlight of this trip, which gets relayed to everyone (even till now, almost 12 yrs later!), was how we found and gave up RM250.

So we were walking around, minding our own business, when we stumbled upon a stack of notes on the ground. Naturally, we picked it up and counted the stash of money. There was RM250! Holy shit! Being 18 and penniless (sort of), that was a huge ton of money! Jo and Steph had big plans on how to spend the cash but of course, I had to be the party pooper (according to them, heh).

I adamantly refused to take the money and suggested taking it to the police station. This was when I was young and foolish and didn’t know that the cops were such corrupted buggers. We learnt in Moral studies ma… if we find something that doesn’t belong to us, surrender it to the police. So anyway, thankfully the other 2 were much smarter than me in this respect and objected profusely to surendering it the cops. So then, we happened to pass by St. Paul’s Cathedral (or some other really old church) and we went in. Then one of us had the bright idea to put the money in the collection box.

This is the part where Jo and Steph would tell people, “You know, people usually put 1 or 2 bucks in the collection box to get the church bulletin, but we put in 250 bucks!!” Then Jo would add “Ya, and I was sooooooo sakit hati to push the stack of notes into the slot and all the while thinking, I could buy that Converse shoes, blah blah blah…”

So yes, perhaps I’m a goody-two-shoes… but hey, I gave all of us good karma for that good deed k! :P

This is like the “Ai Ling Initiation” story to people who first meet me, when I hang out with my school buddies. I think everyone I’ve met thru them thus far has been told this story. So much so that these days, I volunteer the story to be told! Get it over and done with, see :P

I wonder how long will its shelf life be…… hmmmm…..

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Calendar/biological age vs Mental age

March5

Although I’m hitting the big three-O soon, I’ve always felt like my mind is still stuck somewhere around my mid-twenties.

I feel like I’m ill-prepared to take on additional responsibilities.

Am I weird or is this normal? Or is this what they call “mid-life crisis”? :-O Hmm, but it can’t be mid-life crisis coz I didn’t wake up one morning and suddenly feel young again.

o_O

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Brain is zzzzzz

March5

My poor brains. So so tired after 9 straight days of technical training.

zzzzzzzzzzzz…

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On Personal Hygiene

March4

I am very anal about personal hygiene. Not only my own, but others’ as well because one’s personal hygiene tells a lot about oneself, especially at first meeting. First impression and all that, y’know. A person’s personal hygiene is a reflection of oneself personality, in a way. Heh.

Some aspects of personal hygiene that I observe discreetly about people :

1. Nails (is there any dirt under one’s nails)
2. Ears (is there bits of stuff – wax/flakes – visible on the outer part of the outer ear canal (this is easier to notice on guys since they have short hair)
3. Nose hair (for guys – I can’t stand stray nose hair sticking out of one’s nostrils. It’s so messy and unbecoming!)
4. Body odor (thankfully, I haven’t come across many people with really funky BO. But recently when I was on the train, I smelt this really gross smell from someone standing near me and it was awful! I was so thankful when the person got off the train!)
5. Bad breath
7. For men, a clean shave means just that. As in, clean. Not one strand of stray hair here, another stray hair there. Uh uh… very messy.
8. General condition of clothes (are there any food stains, excessively crumpled, etc.)

People with bad personal hygiene turn me off. To me, maintaining good personal hygiene is not only very simple but absolutely necessary because if you can’t even do a good job of taking care of your own body, how can you do a good job on, say, your job (i.e. what you do to earn a living) or taking care of someone else (your partner, child, pet, etc.) which requires so much more effort than maintaining one’s personal hygiene? (Ok la, a couple of the items can close one eye sometimes but not all the time!)

Of course, I wouldn’t tell someone off if I happen to notice something suspect unless I’m very close to the person.

So yes, I’m VERY anal about personal hygiene, which is why I take a significant amount of time getting ready every day.

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