My ex-boyfriend's wedding

Gee... sounds like My best friend's wedding.

Anyway,....


He was exactly as I left him.. ok I did not leave him. We mutually agreed to leave each other. But he looked like he did when we parted. It's as though we never said goodbye properly but the fact that he was getting married was goodbye enough.

One of my friends asked me if I ever regretted not carrying on the relationship with him. I think that the answer depends on a few things - if I was still single.. I may feel a little bit of regret.. ok a lot of regret... he was/is a good man.. someone whom I would recommend to anyone (however given the state of events it would not be nice if your ex-boyfriend dates your friend whom you have recommended).

However since I am already 'safely' knotted............ And in the safety of current life... my thoughts drifted to the myriad reasons why it did not work out with us. So many reasons.. some of which are revealed to me as the years went by. Simple, small reasons...(the bigs ones were obvious then)... that only creep up on me. Sigh! Relationships are so tough. You thought you found the right one only to discover that when you dig deeper through the surface things are not what it seems. I am glad that we were honest enough to discuss 'real issues'. Issues that I am thankful I did not sweep under the carpet.

His bride was a sweet, fair faced, bright eyed and petite lass. Everything I am not.. except for the petite bit -- but but she is smaller than I. I wondered if I would have liked her. (Someone told me once that you will hate the person who has your personality) I did not say anything much to her.. wonder if she even knows who I am... of course she would... so perasan I.

I was surprised when he invited me. I made up my mind to go even without Marido (Marido was away- again!). To my glee, half the PERKEBians were there. And the church members turned up in full force. As you can imagine, I had a ball flitting from table to table. One of the church members commented "Eh.. did he hire you to do PR??". Hmmm.. I think that if I DID NOT move around, these shy people from his church will not come over to talk to me.

It really has been such a long time since these old friends saw me. To them, I had changed a lot (physically). I had comments like "Oh dear... cannot pinch u anymore!", "what happened to you.. stress is it?", "Wow,.,. what is the secret?" and the strangest "Do you want a compliment or should I tell you the truth?"

At the end of the dinner..all I thought of was that it was gracious of him to invite me to enjoy myself with people whom I had spent 3-4 years of my life with during my younger days... And I remembered to whisper a prayer "Let him be happy... content and loved!"

JenQ

I was at Services Marketing class when a young man walked into my class. I felt my jaw dropped and heard my own mouth form an awed whisper "It's Harry Potter!". All at once, the rest of my class looked up and stared at the new comer. "Harry" was quite embarrassed at being scrutinized and shrugged his shoulders as if to say "Can't Harry Potter be interested in muggle studies too?"

I found out to my utmost disappointment that it's not Harry Potter after all.. as if Daniel Radcliffe suddenly aged 10 years and be in Malayisia. The young man who eventually joined my team for the assignment was a bashful, intelligent young executive working in an oil and gas company. His name- Jenq. While he was talking about himself (we were to get to know each other in the team), I was just gawking at his face with the bushy dark eyebrow, the fair almost white skin with glasses that accentuate his 'Harryness". To top it all, he even smiled with the crinkly way that I can imagine Mr Radcliffe would when he reaches his 20s.

When the conversation ended.. he turned aside to me and said "You can call me Harry if you wish".. what a laugh... he is so sweet. Let's hope that he is better in his teamworking and his assignment ability.

Cynthia's dad

Another death this month. It was Cynthia's dad and he passed away on Thursday 9th March. He was 70.. he was already having some difficulty with diabetes and also needed to do a bypass. It was during the bypass procedure that his heart started to fail and 3 days later, he passed away due to heart failure. Cyn was already planning all the medication and treatment for her dad but it seems that he did not want to linger. In fact, just over Christmas, he pulled aside one of Cyn's old friend and told him that he was contented to go... after all, he had everything, 4 beautiful and financially successful children.. more grandchildren than he can keep up with and a wife that still called him a husband... He knew that his end was near.

I think about losing my own father and shudder to think how I would cope being an orphan in the world. True.. I am no longer a little child but losing someone who has been such a rock will surely cause my own boat to feel more of the storms of life. Here is to appreciating our fathers - (for those who have had wonderful fathers or mothers who has passed away.. I hope that you remember the beautiful memories)... and to remember that we are only mortal.

A picture on my table

There is a picture of on my hi-fi top which has a photograph of me in a hat and a shaggy white dog that I just picked up from the side of the road. It was taken by a friend Laurence who waltzed into my life right after uni days. He was a sweet fella. He took me out a few times and the photograph was done one day when he dragged me for one of these multi-level marketing talks where they heaped make-up on my face and made me look better. Laurence insisted on taking a few shots of me. Of all the shots, the one with the dog was the one I loved best.

Just few nights ago, I was with some friends (they never knew that I knew Laurence) who mentioned that he passed away in a diving trip. They did not know the details but they took out the obituary of him and showed it to me.

Laurence smiled and stared back at me. I oftened wondered about him when he waltzed out of my life... did he find a girl to marry or pursued his dreams... I never knew and would never know. Laurence, 38, an avid photographer, an architect, a kind man who left a little mark in my life... may you rest in peace.

Disneyland Hong Kong

I was so excited about visiting Hong Kong Disneyland. Growing up on Mickey, Donald and Goofy certainly contributed to the huge expectation that kept on growing through the years of feeding on them. Cinderella, Snow White....to the latest princesses Jasmine, Belle... etc.

The train ride to Disneyland was great... the train has miniature statues of the characters, the window were mickey shaped and other disney character on the train. The walk to Disneyland was quite spectacular.. kinda reminded me of the summer palace of Louis XIV in Paris. Once we purchased the HKD 295 tickets, we were off for a day of adventure. It was a Monday and we *Charlotte and I* were shocked to see the huge throng of people. Sigh! Surely, this means long queues at the rides.

We only took a short while to finish walking round Disneyland. It really was very small. Thank goodness they have more land to built more rides. Lottie and I really only went on 2 rides.. Space mountain and the Tarzan Tree house. We queued up for 45 mins on Space Mountain. The ride actually stopped halfway for 5 mins as there was a failure of some sort and it ruined the excitement of the ride for us.

Tarzan Tree House was cool. It was high on a fake tree with rather real looking leaves and branches and elephants. I could peep at Jane and Tarzan, spot the gorilla that took care of Tarzan and peer through the windows to see how they (the humans) lived.

We really did not have much time left after waiting for those 2 rides. We proceeded to just walk around, view the parade and spent another hour plus waiting for the fabulous The Lion King show. I was so impressed with that show, they had beautiful music, dancing, people (foreigners and locals) and fire!

The night ended with the wonderful fireworks display over Sleeping Beauty Castle. Lottie and I were camping for 1 hour in the front of the line and seated on the cold winter ground... but it was worth the wait. I was spellbound for 10 mins... so was everyone else with me. But it seems quite a waste to have 10 mins of beautiful lights that polluted the place... 5 mins will do.

All in all, the Gold Coast Australia Movieworld is still loads better but Asia's Disneyland is still affordable and easier to get to from Malaysia.