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.

Happy Chinese New Year

It's the year of Ox... Every good things will happen this year... Our share market will charge like a bull, we will be as strong as an Ox, as wealthy (productive) as a cow ( I mean dairy cow)....

Anyway, I'll be away to Alor Setar (new name for Alor Star), from 23rd till 30th for CNY, this will be my 1st Chinese New Year spend in Alor Setar.

I remembered when I was in Melaka studying and in Penang working... during this period, when I wanna go home for Chinese New Year, I'll be very excited... Sometimes to the extend that I couldn't sleep well...

And now, it's SyinNi's turn. I'm not sure whether she'll have a nice sleep... but since 2 weeks ago, she keeps on telling me the same thing, that she's going home... She misses this food, that food, duck porrage, loh mee, cha kuew teow, hee mee, tom yam, petai, kangkong belacan, list go on and on....

But from what I experienced, SyinNi misses more than just food... She misses the family reunion... I will try to take care of our baby as much as possible and let her have more of her time... Happy Chinese New Year...

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.

Environmental problems - Palm oil plantation

There's a lot of environmental problems in Sabah, didn't notice that before I met Mr. Wong. Mr. Wong is an environmental activist based in Lahad Datu.

Before this, I thought that the palm oil plantation is a big plus to the environment, because we are actually planting trees. That's partly true, but the plantation in Sabah and Sarawak is large that it has become a hazard to environment.


First of all, the lands that palm oil plantation takes up can threaten the extinction of Orang Utan and other species of animals. Oil-palm plantations could be responsible for at least half of the observed reduction in orang-utan habitat in the decade between 1992 and 2003. Almost 90 per cent of orang-utan habitat has now disappeared. Some orang-utan populations have been halved in the past 15 years, and from a total remaining population of less than 60,000, an estimated 5,000 are lost each year. If this rate of decline continues the orang-utan will be extinct within 12 years.


Then, there's the problem of carbon dioxide emission due to land clearing for plantations. Biofuels from palm oil actually release less carbon dioxide than fossil fuels when burned. But the land clearinng of rainforest and drained swamps (peat soil) released a lot of carbon dioxide. Rainforest and drained swamps are known to trap carbon in their watery depths for millennia. As the peat has dried, and sometimes burned, it has released huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Drained peat swamps in Indonesia and Malaysia annually released 2 billion tonnes of carbon between 1997 and last year, an amount roughly equal to 8 per cent of annual global emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

When canals are dug to drain peat swamps, the peat dries and oxygen combines with the trapped carbon, releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Because dry peat is extremely flammable, fires frequently erupt on cleared land. In 1997 fires in Indonesia sent smoke billowing throughout South-East Asia and released massive amounts of carbon dioxide.

Do you all remembered few years ago, how the haze from Kalimantan affects us?

To solve the issues, I don't think that by boycotting the palm oil will have impact on it, because other industries will have similar impact.

Recommendations:

1. No forest conversion for oil palm
2. There must be no use of fire for land-clearing
3. Companies operating palm oil plantations must minimise their impact on the environment through good management practices.

• obeying all relevant Government regulations e.g. on emissions of waste-water
• use of integrated pest management
• significant reduction in the use of pesticides and transparency in the amount of pesticides used
• recycling of POME