My life changed from the moment I took my wedding vow.

Last week, I brought my wife and my children to Alor Setar, it's a promise I made to my wife that we'll try to visit her parents at least once a year. For all the sacrifice she has made, to quit her bright career and become a "Home Minister", and to take care of our children night and day, that is the least I can do.

We fly from Kota Kinabalu to Kuala Lumpur, stay a night in Puchong then fly from Kuala Lumpur to Alor Setar the next morning. I have been flying quite often since 9 years ago while studying in Melaka, and my friends used to tease me that I fly more than they take bus. But this time, I have to bring a toddler (Joel) and an infant (Amanda), with big and small luggage, I've never felt so tired flying before.

I was in Alor Setar for 4 days, while my wife and children stays back in Alor Setar for another 2 weeks. On the day when I was going to fly back to KK, I tried to feed both of my children whenever I can, tug them in whenever they're tired and play with them whenever they're awake.

Joel was specially naughty, refusing everything he normally would have wanted, throwing his pacifier to places that are hard to reach. Amanda was exceptionally cute, laughing and smiling whenever I talked to her. I guess maybe Joel somehow notice I was going to leave him for 2 weeks and Amanda is too young to notice that.

My mother in law drive me to the air port, with my wife sitting at passenger side, Joel and I was sitting at backseat. When we starts our journey, Joel rest his head on my chest, tug his arms around my waist and wasn't making any noise, occasionally making eye contact with me.

When we reach the air port, I went to check myself in, then I return to the car to say good bye to Joel, my wife and my mother in law. After saying good bye to my mother in law, hug and kiss my wife, I told Joel that I need to get back to work. I kissed and hugged him, he waved to me said, ""Bye-bye". I closed the car door walk straight up to the entry door without looking back, although I did not look back, I was constantly looking at my wife and Joel through the reflection of the glass door. I can see that Joel was throwing his tantrum, I really wanted to turn back and hugged him again, but I knew that would make things worst.

Once again, I was flying by my own just like those days before I get married. I used to enjoy flying alone, but not this time, I don't know what to do during the flight, I'm not used to sitting in the plane, getting ready for take off, then wait for landing. I don't like flying alone anymore.

My father fetched me from the air port, got back at around 1am. I looked around and I see familiar place, but something is lacking. I don't hear Joel and Amanda laughing and crying, I don't hear my wife 'reporting' her daily cores. When we were planning our itinerary, I was thinking that I can finally have a good night sleep for 2 weeks. But I was wrong, I couldn't sleep tight for whole night.

I couldn't imagine how my life would be if I weren't married and didn't have 2 wonderful, cheerful kids. My life changed from the moment I took my wedding vow.

To help or to be cheated

I got cheated few weeks ago when all I wanted to do was to help.

They were standing by the road side just around the corner of the junction to my housing area, it was around a hot day and they were sweating while waving their hand try go get help. Few cars passed by them without even stopping to offer any kind of help. Although the couple are total strangers to me, I've decided to stop and see if I could offer any help. They claimed they were on business trip, and their friend was at oversea, they are stranded and didn't know what to do. They asked for some money to get by the night, I offered some money to them.

When I got back, I sat myself down, thinking at what happened, I suddenly felt that I was being cheated, I told my wife and we decided to call the police. About half an hour later, the police called back, saying that their patrol car was there to investigate, but the couple fled when they saw the police patrol car.

There you go, I was being cheated. How much??? Around 100 over ringgit.

100 over ringgit can feed myself for over a week, but that wasn't the main issue here. The notion that I was being cheated because I wanted to help, really make me sick.

It keeps me thinking, is it worthy to offer help when you are at risk of being cheated. While there are genuine cases that really need help, the risk of being cheated of personal possession and even lead to kidnap cases that might be life threatening, is too high.

If you asked me if I will offer help to people asking for help few weeks ago, I would say a definite no. But think over it, and I've realized that if there were a day when I needed help, I would really much loved a helping hand. Yes, I will still do what I would normally do, to offer help whenever I think I should and I could, but I'll be more aware of the situation.

Orange Life

Orange is one of the common fruits that we can get easily nowadays, and eating an orange is nothing new to everyone.

Looking at the orange, the skin layer doesn't look appealing. Normally, people will peel the skin layer, consume the fruit, then throw away the seed.

The orange to me sort of symbolizes our journey through life. At first life seems boring and unappealing. When we start to peel away the tasteless outer layer of our physical existence we suddenly realize there is a world of sweet, wonderful existence to consume.

We may not be the most beautiful looking person in the world, but if you make an effort to search deep inside yourself, you will be able to find the goodness and the juiciness of life. Many cold hearted people do not want to take the time and effort to 'peel' the orange and look within themselves to find the greatness in life.

After you have 'peel' the outer layer of orange revealing the juicy fruit, you then consume and enjoy the greatness of the orange. All you have now is the seed and to many people the experience just end there. Many people just think that this tiny seed is a waste and just throw it away.

Just like our life, even if you have a great life and able to enjoy your life to the fullest, everyone will face the death one day. Some people view death as a sad and hard ending to their story. But inside each and everyone of us laid a seed, a seed to continue, a seed of life.

If only you can plant the seed, you will find out that life doesn't end there, in fact it is the beginning of another great life that will make us more glorious. We may blossom as a tree, giving life ans sustenance to many more generations.

It is true that it is not easy to know the purpose of life, and everyone will go through a period of soul searching. But the 'secret' of life is not hidden, it is everywhere in the nature of us to see. All we need is to take time for ourselves, peel the outer layer, enjoy the fruit and plant the seed.

A husband's thought on his wife

I wake up every morning,
thinking that I must be dreaming.
To wake up besides you,
knowing that you feel the same as I do.

Thank you for being with me always,
with the look in your eyes and smile on your face.
Thank you for the things you’ve done,
bearing the pain to give birth to our son.

It’s been 7 years, 3 months, 17 days, 18 hours since we met then,
like the song I sang, "Now and forever, I'll be your man".
Whatever I’ve done, you’re there to forgive,
with a gentle kiss right on my lips.

It’s been 1 years, 11 months, 28 days, 5 hours since you marry me,
you’ve been a great wife, sweeter than honey.
Although I've never say it out,
that I love you and you make me proud.

Love always,
Leonard
13 June, 2009
2.18pm
Starbuck (KKIA)

28 years old chap

I was born in 6^th May 1981, so that makes me 28 years old now.

How I celebrated my birthday? My parents together with my wife, my son and I went for “Seremban Baked Crab” branch in KK last weekend. It was a great get together dinner because it was meant to celebrate something, my birthday. All the dishes was so sweet, the crab and beer combination was superb. Although we often eat out as a family, every dish was at the right taste, even the rice taste nicer, perhaps that is how things taste like when someone is in happy mood.

My wife and I then went for a movie in GSC, 1 Borneo using the birthday treat that they offer for GSC members. I have to admit that this is the first movie in a year for my wife and I, we watch “Fast and Furious 4”, although it is an action movie, it felt like a romance movie to me, I felt we are still dating each other.

On Monday night, my friends in KK celebrated my birthday with me in Brass Monkey. We had a nice dinner and again, the steak and beer combination was superb. I guess beer goes well with everything for me… hehehe… We had a great gathering, we can talked about almost everything, joke about almost everything. Although the

topic was a lot different from those 10 years back, the fun wasn’t much different. I guess the change in time doesn’t change anything in our friendship.

On my birthday, my wife was having tuition at night from 7.30pm to 9.30pm, but she shifted the time from 7pm to 9pm and we’re to have supper together. After dinner, my wife took out a cake, it’s my birthday cake…Wow, I have to admit that I was surprise, I never thought that I can still have my birthday cake. After that I leant that my wife asked around which cake shop is nicer besides Secret Recipe, and she booked a cake for my birthday a day before. Of course, the cake taste nice, and the sweetness lingers in me until now. Exaggerating? Well, the sweet taste in my mouth may have passed, but I still feel sweet until now.

Then I went to take my bath to prepare myself for our supper. Like what I always do, I switch on the laptop just wanting to check e-mails and news. And there is a surprise waiting me, my ever passionate and loving wife has prepared a birthday card for me.

Finally, we're ready to go for my birthday supper. We went to McDonald and bought McValue meal. Then I brought my wife to Tg Aru beach, we sat on the beach, we enjoyed the sea breeze, we enjoyed the moon, we enjoyed the sound of the wave, we enjoyed the food, we just enjoyed everything that night.

There's a big difference celebrating my 25th birthday and my 28th birthday. The most important thing for me now is my family, I can easily be satisfied now only by having simple meal together. And that is my idea of normal and happy life, anything we do, even it is something very simple, as long as we do it together as a family, I'll be happy.

I'm not a saint, my birthday wish is not to have world peace. My only aim, is to be able to guide my family into being together always.

My most viewed link

The main reason I started this blog is to share my ideas on daily life, or just write down what I feel on certain event and serve as a reminder for myself in future. But ironically, my most viewed link is "How to strike Toto Mega Jackpot".

Try to search in Google with Toto Mega, this entry makes up Top 5. And everyday, there are at least 5 person that visit this link through Google search. I bet they must have been very disappointed.


There are too many people out there that wanted to get rich quick, in fact I think everyone do. Money is very important to sustain a living, there's nothing wrong being rich, the key is to strike a balance according to your priority.

Some people are raised to think that money is everything. Some people are raised to see money as root of all evil. I don't see any right or wrong in these two statements, it's just how you balance things out.

Wealthy vs Happy

People likes to compare, we often hear this people talk about how much this guy earns, what he has bought, how much he has spend, etc. And will usually follow by belittling themselves saying how poor they are... Of course, I do that too, jokingly... But in my heart, although I'm not a millionaire, I think I'm rich (in my own definition). At least, I am richer than at least 50% of the world population.

I've heard a friend of mine told me that he loves to travel, he feels happy when he travels, but he needs financial backing to back up his love for traveling, that's why he has to work very hard, earn money to live happy. I disagree.

I remembered when I was studying in university, I envy those that have their own car. When I graduated and employed, I bought a car, I was very happy and excited. I can finally afford my own car. I have been driving my car for 4 years now, and the happy and excited feelings fade away.

I believe many people have this experience. My point is, if you wanna earn money just to be happy, there's a high chance you'll either feel empty when you've achieved what you aim for, or you'll crave for more.

Happiness is not an aim, it's a choice. There's no need to wait until you're wealthy to be happy, you can be happy now. It's a state of mind.

It's not that my life is smooth sail, I had my ups and downs. But I choose to be happy, and looking back from now, I can't see anything. What I can see though, is who I am now, which is the cause of what I've been through.

You don't need to be wealthy to be happy, but if you're happy, you're always wealthy.

Marriage

It's been some times since I update my blog. When I update my blog, it usually means there's something that I want to express, something that I disagree or have my own thoughts.

I have a colleague from China, whom is getting married this year. He talked to me about why he wanted to get married and how he wanted to held the wedding reception.

He made it sounds like getting married is something very easy, all he needs to do is to get back to China, arrange a date with registration department, then put down his signature. Then he'll continue to live a life of a bachelor, basically a married bachelor. If everything turns bad, just engage a lawyer, set a date, sign some documents then he's divorced.

I have to agree that to register a marriage should be as simple as possible, moreover, it's just for record purposes. To me, the notion of why you want to get married is most important.

Marriage is more than just a signature, more than the wedding dinner, more than an "I do"...

You need a lot of passion, patient, and hard work to keep a good marriage. By keeping a good marriage, only you'll be able to keep your family happy. By keeping your family happy, only you'll be able to focus on your career and excel.

No point putting up an extravaganza wedding reception without ever understand the meaning of marriage.

Wedding only last a day, marriage last for a life time.

Undivided love

When I was young, my younger brother used to tell my mum how unfair she treated him, that he thinks my parents love me more, that he had to go for tuition and I don't have, that I can have normal milk when he can't (because he had lactose intolerance), the list of complain just keeps going longer.... And my mum will be very annoyed with that... The thing I learn was, not to compare what your siblings have or your parents will get angry... I never understand the logic behind...

Well, I'm a father to a 9 months plus boy now and will have another child soon this year... I put myself in my parents' shoes that when my children compare and complain among themselves. Then I realize that I will be very upset too...

The reason I found out is that there's no 50-50 divided love. Love is not "calculate-able" (hehe, sorry for the rojak english)... I will love my son whole heartedly, I will love my 2nd child whole heartedly, and I will love my wife whole heartedly. I will do whatever I can to love them whole heartedly. Just that each person has different need, SyinNi needs me to be more attentive to her needs, baby Joel needs more playing time, and our future baby will most probably needs more milk. To say I love anyone in 33-33-33 percent will mean that I only have limited love for them.

I think to tell your parents that they sided or care for other siblings more is just wrong, terribly wrong... You'll know the logic if you think deeper, or when you are a parent yourself.

What love really is

I've again read through my previous post in friendster. Just wanna keep it posted here to remind myself of this post.

Recently SyinNi and I went to Pre-marriage course, the facilitator throw us a question, what is Love. Then I start thinking, what is LOVE, is it the heart bumping feeling? Is it the ‘butterfly in stomach’ feeling? Then I ask myself, how do I love SyinNi?

I’m patient to her, I share everything with her, I do not envy what she has achieve or what she has, I take care of her, I am supportive to everything that is good for SyinNi, I want her to be happy. So what do these all mean?

LOVE is not just a feeling, it’s a decision, to be thoughtful of your partner, to be forgiving, to make your partner happy, to take care of your partner. Yeah, everyone knows that, but what keeps us from doing that? Or what keeps us from doing better than what we’ve done? I, me, ego, self-center ….

I always ask SyinNi, how much do you think I love you, she would say, "Very very very much." And I would say, "But I’ve not done enough." I want to love her more, in saying so, what I really mean was I want to change myself, to have a smaller me and bigger SyinNi.

I’ve seen many cases where loving couple break up, and they turn up being enemies. I’ve also seen cases where after break up, 1 party keeps on bugging the other, ‘just’ to become ‘friends’ or should I say to ‘beg’ for love.

I am not saying that they are wrong in keeping the one that they think is the right person. I’m saying that you should let your partner decide what is best for himself or herself. If his or her decision hurts, unfair to you and you think that he or she is self centered, selfish and never think of you, forgive them. Shouldn’t that love is? Give everything that is best for your love one, forget his or her wrong-doings. Even if it hurts you so much.

If you tell me that you can’t even do the very simple thing of love. Then it means you do not have love for him or her at all.

But why??? Why there are so many people out there still ‘cling’ on the partner to ‘beg’ for ‘love’ when they don’t really love them? Ego and selfish is the word.

Too often, we are blinded by our ego, we hypnotize ourselves in believing something that is not true. In this case, some people actually hypnotize themselves in believing that they’re so much in love with the other person, just because of ego. They do not like being dumped, they think they have given up a lot, but they do not get appreciated. Hey, stop there, again, we all know that you don’t look for return in love.

Too often, I look around, I see friends suddenly smoke and drink, make their own life miserable. I tell you my friend, deep down inside, you know you should not do that. But why doing that?

It is because of the TV, the show that ‘teach’ us to do that, and that is the thing you should do when you break-up. I’m not saying that you cannot feel sad, every ‘down’ you experience will be rewarded with an ‘up’. If you are drunk, how can you climb ‘up’?

It’s ok to feel sad, but learn something from it, reflect on yourself, there must be something that you’ve not been doing right or have been doing something wrong. Reflect and change, that is the only way to make your time, effort, and sadness worthy.

I’ve always hear this in movie, "Forget him/her." But I always tell people, how to forget someone that has bring you a lot of sweet memories, that has been part of your life? So don’t forget anyone in your life, just remember him/her in a different way, not as boy-friend or girl-friend. But as someone that has been part of your happy life.

Be strong my friend, send your best wishes to the one that you love so much but yet hurt you so much, don’t forget him or her, do not have any trace of hatred, not even a micro-gram(if it’s measurable). It’s not easy to achieve that, love was never meant to be easy. My last advice, prepare the worst, welcome the best.

Big Bro

Big bro means eldest brother. Well, I have 1 younger brother, I guess that makes me a big bro.

I didn't choose to be a big bro, it just happened that God gave this role to me. For me, it's a privilege and a responsibility.

First of all, I think that a big bro should be a 'bridge' between parents and younger siblings. He is a center of peace in a family, he is a role model for his younger siblings.

I personally don't think that I'm qualified as a role model for my younger brother. But I think I should be proud of the level of communication between parents and younger brother.

At least, when there's a problem, parents will talk to me to seek for my opinion, younger brother will share almost everything that he dare not review to our parents. Whenever there's a conflict between parents and younger brother, I act as a peace keeper.

I strongly disagree being too controlling, big bro shouldn't control his younger siblings that much, you may have more experience and do not wish your younger siblings to experience the same bad experience like you did. But that's the only chance they can grow, just be an adviser and tell them what the pros and cons of this situation. Moreover, no one knows how the situation will turn out, bad experience for you might turn out to be a good experience for others.

Oh, 1 more thing, please don't be so calculative to your younger siblings, especially on what they said and in financial wise.

Words are sharper than swords

Words are sharper than swords, in fact swords is made up of SharpWORDS. "S" from sharp and "WORDS".

I've read this story somewhere which I like to share with you.

There was a boy, he was very rude to everyone around him. Everyone in that village didn't like him. One day, his father want him to realize how his words have hurt everyone.

His father proposed to him that everyone he said something that hurts a person, he must nail a nail on the wooden fence outside of his house, once the wooden fence is full of nails he has to return to his father for further instruction..

The boy followed exactly what his father told him to, after 1 year, he found out that the wooden fence is full of nails. Only then, he realized he has hurt many people over the course of 1 year. His father then asked him to plug a nail every time he managed to uphold the word that he knew was going to hurt someone. Again, the boy followed exactly what his father told him.

After 2 years, he finally managed to plug all the nails on the wooden fence. He then go to his father telling his fahter how proud he was. His father then turn to him and say, "Although you managed to plug all the nails from the wooden fence, you still leave a hole on the fence."

Moral of this story: Think before you speak, and be careful with your words, the wound that you caused with your words may always stay.

Now I know why I blog

Well, I review my precious entries in friendster the other day, it brought back some of my memories of how I feel to certain event. I guess that's why blogging is so widely practise nowadays, it served as a channel to express yourself, to 'document' some events, to share point of view and some like kennysia managed to make a living out of it...

The 1st entry I made in friendster blog was, "About a 24 yr old charming guy" and the 1st entry I made here was, "My goodness, I'm 27 years old". It's been 3 years, sounds short term of time, but a lot has been going on. I got married, have a son, now no.2 is on the way...

Of course, sometimes things don't go well for me, just bear with it with an open mind and optimistic heart. What else we can do? Life's short, and my life is perfectly normal. I can't afford to spend time on the 'bumps' on my life. I love my life, I love the high and low, and I think everyone should. Even things don't go well, like what I always said, "Prepare for the worst, welcome the best".

Emotion

Emotion is a mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes. Unlike moods they have objects: one grieves over some particular thing, or is angry at something.

Why is emotion worth studying? To a lesser context, it leads to argument, break up, and unpleasant feelings. To a larger context, it leads to bad health and death.

Too often, the spark of an argument is because of unpleasant word from a particular person. Have you ever wonder, how do you hear something, pleasant or unpleasant. It's the vibration of air particle, with a string of organize 'voice' it becomes word.

Let's see how emotion started, 1st you see or hear something, then that the brain process that message, if it's something you do not like, you get angry, if it's something you like, you feel happy.

Since we can't control what we see or hear, to control our emotions, we have to control how our brain process these messages.

As said, words are just a string of organize voice. And too often, same words from different person have different emotion outcome. With the one closest to you bring most vulnerable to your 'emotion outbreak'.

Let's try to listen to what your love one tries to tell you and not by hearing what the words are. What sounds unpleasant is just your own perceptions. When your love one complain on something, don't just hear the complains, listen to them. Know what they need, what is the reason behind the complain.

Well, it's easier to said than done. And it's not a 1-hour process. Just try to love the one that love you, and when you've done done, extend this logic be loving someone that hates you.

X'mas gift

It was 25th December 2008. SyinNi bought me a present, I didn't think that she got the time to buy a present for me... Somehow she managed to crawl out of her 'tight' baby feeding, housewife schedule, and go for present shopping for me...

In the other hand, me too wanted to buy something for her. But my only free time is after work, everytime I finished work, I just wanna go back and rest... Until 2 days before X'mas... I go to City Mall after my dinner... And go for present shopping, finally...

I managed to get something for SyinNi finally...

On X'mas day, I received SyinNi's present, it's a shirt, I didn't have this kinda shirt, and I was complaining that everytime I go to wedding dinner, I couldn't get something decent to put on... And she kept that in mind, and bought me something I really like...

I give SyinNi the present I bought, she seems happy and liked it. But I think man like me tends to get something we think it's useful, and practical... I don't think I got her what she needs, but what I think she needs...

I should be more mindful of SyinNi's need... Not just on material wise, maybe I should be more sensitive to everything she needs.

My goodness, I’m 27 years old

Well, I’m not exactly 27 years old ( my birthday’s on May). Time flies, and I just realised it today that it flies in supersonic speed.

I remembered that I was one of those guys that stand in front of our classroom and play “secu”(Security)… It’s basically grabbing a random classmate, then take off his pants… Yeah, I know, it’s stupid, but it was fun and no one really got mad.

Then, puff… I remembered going to Cherating with my uni-mates, without even a proper planning, didn’t even know how to go there even when we reach Kuantan, didn’t know where to stay… We just talked about it, everyone agreed, next day in the morning, we’re off to Cherating…

Again, puff… I’m like what I saw in the movie 10 years ago, after a tiring day in work. Come back, had dinner, play with little Joel, then rock him to sleep…

And while rocking him, I looked at him, and I looked at my father… And I was thinking, I was like Joel, so innocent…. And I will be like my father, losing hair, helping Joel to take care of his baby, and grumbling this and that…

I’m a normal man, in a normal life… I always hoped that my life will be full of adventure, just like the main cast in most of the movie, when I was young… But to be a normal man, in a normal life is the greatest gift to me… I believe that to live a normal life and to be able to appreciate every thing around you is the key to a happy life, just don’t ignore the people around you and take them for granted.

It’s ok to live a normal life, just don’t live life normally…