Making choices

“I’ve been having trouble sleeping the past week or so. I’ve been sleeping in 2 hour bursts for the last 5 days. I’ve got a headache so bad that my head feels like it’s about to explode. And until today, I still don’t know how to solve my sleeping problems.

Quite often over the last few days, whenever I do sleep, I have this recurring dream. Maybe not so much of a recurring dream, but a recurring theme in the dream. In these dreams, there’s always a crime scene. It could be a homicide, a robbery or any other type of crime. And in these dreams, there are two of me. What makes this dream quite intriguing is that both of these two “Me’s” look similar but at the same time look quite different.

Both of the two “Me’s” are well dressed, well groomed, both with their hair combed slickly to the back, clean shaven and both look meticulous. The outward appearance of the two “Me’s” are quite similar but you can tell both of them apart. Somehow like I said, they look different from each other.

What makes the two “Me’s” stand out is that although they look similar, they both have different personalities. More often than not, their personalities clash with each other. They are constantly disagreeing with one another about the crimes that have been committed in the dream and also the methods used to investigate these crimes. Each will have his own theory about the crime and they are constantly bickering with each other.

So far, in these dreams, both the two “Me’s” have yet been able to solve any of these crimes. They spend so much time arguing with each other that by the time I wake up from the dream, they haven’t even been able to agree on anything.

I’ve never really believed that the dreams you have while you’re asleep have influence over your life. Instead, I’ve started thinking that maybe dreams are a way for your subconscious to manifest the things that you are going through in your life. In a way, you can say that I am at a fork in my life. There are two different paths before me now and I have to choose one or the other. And until I make that choice, I will keep having these dreams.”

I wrote this a few weeks ago. I’m not sure why I didn’t post this when I wrote it. I guess I wanted to see what the outcome was, which choice I would make and where I would end up. Well, I’ve made my choice and I can say that I’m a lot more happier now that I’ve made my choice. I don’t know if this feeling of euphoria is because of the choice I’ve made or because I’ve made a choice.

As for the outcome of my choice, it’s still too early to tell. It’ll be years before I know the outcome of my choice. Sometimes, there is no immediate effect to our lives from the choices that we make. Our lives just continue as it has before, but unconsciously, we plan towards an outcome that we want as a result of our choice. The eventual outcome is still uncertain, but the planning and the effort we expend to ensure the outcome we want puts us in the right direction.

All I have is ideas and visions of how I want the outcome to be. I’m still not sure if the outcome of this choice will be the one that I wanted when I made this choice. Right now, I’m not that concerned with the outcome, I’m much happier and that’s the important thing.

So sad…

I’m a huge football fan. I support Liverpool and have been supporting them since 1982 when they played Flamengo in the World Club Championship. But that’s not the reason why I feel so sad.

The 2010 World Cup just started a couple of days ago. During this time, i usually suffer from lack of sleep. I try to watch all the games and hence I tend to stay up until the wee hours of the morning watching these games. The only World Cup I didn’t have to stay up late to watch the games was when the World Cup was held in Korea and Japan.

Anyway, this year I’ve decided to watch the World Cup games on RTM, the government owned broadcasting service. I wanted to watch it on Astro, but then the commentary is in Bahasa Malaysia, done by local commentator. So here I am watching the Germany vs Australia game on RTM when half time comes around. By the way, Germany was leading Australia by 2 goals to nil. I usually change the channel but tonight there isn’t really anything interesting on any of the other channels.

Since I was stuck to this channel, I thought I’d listen to their comments on the first half. They just went on and on about the action in the first half. Then they started to comment about the German’s second goal which was scored by Miroslav Klose. When he celebrated his goal, he raised 3 fingers and the commentators were talking about this gesture. They came up with ridiculous theories about this gesture. One said that maybe Klose was suggesting that the Germans would win the game by 3 goals and various other comments.

I guess doing research or actually listening to the more knowledgeable game commentators are beyond them because if they had paid attention, they would have realized that what Klose actually meant was that he was only 3 goals away from equalli Gerd Mueller’s record of goals scored in World Cup matches for the German national team.

I guess because these commentators are employed by the government, they figure that their job is safe and that doing research into the game and the players is not that important. So sad…

Winding Down From A Long Day

One of the things that I like about the Netherlands, and most European countries, is that their bathroom comes equipped with a bath tub. It’s one of the things that I enjoyed doing while I was studying in England, taking afternoon baths. It didn’t really matter what season it was, I just enjoyed my late afternoon baths, after I get back from class (or more likely the pub as I missed most of my classes).

The thing that I love about taking baths is that it soothes away all your aches and pains. And I’m not just taking about the physical aches and pains. Many people I know take long hot baths whenever they feel tired and also when they have something on their mind. As for me, I don’t need an excuse to have a nice long hot bath.

What I usually do whenever I take a bath is sit in the tub while the water rises around me. I start off with slightly warm water and let the water temperature build up as the water rises, adding more and more hot water to the mix. In some cases, by the time the water covers my entire body (It does take a while as I mentioned before, it takes time for the water to cover my tummy), I would be sweating.

Once the water covers my body, I just sit back, relax and enjoy the afternoon bath. Of course there are other indescribable acts that I also enjoy while taking a bath, but let’s just keep this post decent. I won’t mention what they are. Anyway, coming back to my point, everyone has their own method to wind down from a long hard day. Some people watch television, some people read, some people cook, some people eat. As for me, I like to take long hot baths.

A song I like which has a nice bath tub. Nothing to do what I wrote though.

The New Look

The New Look

I took a nap after breakfast yesterday morning. It wasn’t a very long nap, about an hour or so. And during this nap, I had a dream. I can’t really recall what this dream was about but what I do remember was that in this dream, I heard this song playing. It wasn’t long after I heard this song that I woke up (That’s what I think anyway, I was asleep so I’m not so sure myself). The dream itself was inconsequential, but the song, has been stuck in my head since yesterday. I can hear it in my head, and sometimes I end up singing the lyrics to the song.

So now I have this theory. A friend of mine, Ida always complains that sometimes she has a particular song in her head. My theory is that if I hear a song in your dream, then the song will get stuck in my head for a while. It’ll just stay there and keep playing and playing until something else replaces it in my head. I’m hoping that by writing about it, posting a video about it here, and listening to it, will finally get it out of my head.

Anyway, a few days ago, or maybe it was over a week ago, I promised to put up pics of the new me. Well, here I am.

In Remembrance – Ahmad Irfan Abdillah

This morning when I woke up, I received news that an old friend of mine, Ahmad Irfan Abdillah, had passes away yesterday. Although I haven’t seen him since we left secondary school, it was still a sad moment. Irfan wasn’t just a friend from secondary school. We grew up together. We both came from the same primary school, made him one of my oldest friends. The moment I got the news, all the memories of us from primary school just came flooding into my mind.

We both attended Sekolah Rendah Sultan Sulaiman II. His mother was my music teacher there. We didn’t really know each other that much as we were always in different classes. But in Standard 6, our friendship started to flourish. We ended up in the same class together and I joined the Music Club which was overseen by his mother. I used to spend afternoons practicing for a school performance and he used to hang around waiting for his mother.

I also started to get actively involved in playing sports that year, especially football and he played for the school team. The Standard 6 class that year was in the afternoon session, and the boys used to spend about an hour before class started playing football in the field just behind the school premises. All of us used to go to class drenched in sweat.

It was a surprise to see him join me and a few other friends in secondary school at Sekolah Menengah Sains Dungun. Not only he became my roommate, he was also my bunk mate. He had the bunk underneath me. We did a lot of things together with our other roommates. We studied together, played together and also got into trouble together.

One night when we were in Form 4, we got caught together with another 24 other students leaving the school premises at 2.00 in the morning to go out and get a bite to eat. I remember his panic when we got caught. His was worried about what his mother would think as his mother was quite a very popular teacher in the state. We were up the night before we were to receive our punishment, 3 strokes of the cane in front of the entire school. I also remember how happy he was after the punishment was over. It didn’t really hurt that much.

Even though he was happy that the punishment was over, he wasn’t happy with the letter the school wanted to send to our parents. Apparently, the letter sent to our parents stated our offences, besides the offence of leaving the school premises without permission; he also had smoking listed as an offence. He didn’t smoke, whereas those who did never had smoking listed as one of the offences committed.

The incident I remember most involving him happened in Form 5. He was caught with another student beating up a fellow student who was caught stealing. The sad part about this incident, he was hardly involved in it. I was the one who started the incident together with a few other students, as that fellow student had stolen from me. I was the one who should have been caught and I was the one who should have been suspended.  He was suspended for 2 weeks. Similar to the incident in Form 4, he was worried about his mother’s reaction and from what he told me, he was justified. He received further punishment from his mother and during the 2 weeks of suspension, he wasn’t even allowed to leave the house.

We left school in December of 1987. We never saw each other again after that, but he will always be a good friend. It’s sad to hear the news about him. We never had the chance to catch up.

The Big Change

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything (Sorry, I just remembered that a lot of my blog posts start like this. I’ll try not too next time). Been busy with a few things and have been packing for the big move. My life will change after this big move. The burning question is, will it be for the better? Well too late for second thoughts. There’s no turning back now.

Finally, the big change has arrived. At 6.30 am this morning, the plane I was on safely landed at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands. It was a beautiful morning. 5⁰C. Not too cold. That was very fortunate since my winter jacket was packed in a bag that I had wrapped in cling film before I left the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

I have decided to take things easy today. Not going to do much unpacking. Just enough to can find a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that I can wear and get my winter jacket out of that bag I had wrapped. I’m not really planning on doing much today. First things first, I have to shake off the after effects of the bottle of cough medicine I had gulped before I boarded the plan. So I had a nap first after breakfast.

Now that I had shaken off most of the drowsiness of the cough meds, it’s time to get a bit serious. A bath while I contemplate the future. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered soon before things get a bit busy. What’s next? Where do I go from here? What’s in store for me in the future? Why hasn’t the water covered my tummy yet? Maybe I need to lose a few inches around my waist.

One step at a time. I know I’m going to write this book, so for now, I’ll focus on that. I’ve got other things to do but in the grand scale of things, I guess this is the most important. There are so many reasons why I want to write this book but I guess the most important is because it’s the only avenue that I think will be able to tell people what I go through and what other people have to go through when they have to start their lives all over again.

For some people, the transition is smooth, easy and painless. But for many of us, who have had to go through the pain and suffering of starting their lives all over again, they would understand and I think they too would like people to know their story.

As for me, I’ve already got a plan on where to start. A new look. I’ve decided on a new hairstyle and pics of me will be up soon.

Starting a new life

I’ve finally started writing the book. I haven’t actually written much, just a couple of pages. I started out by outlining what I want to write in a chapter and went from there. The problem I have now is to decide which chapter it’s going to be. I first thought about making it as an introduction, but when I think of I again, it might become my first chapter.

Anyway, I was once told that the way to write anything is to prepare a structure and to work from there. Even though I know that this would be the easiest way to write the book, I’m not following this advice. I don’t have a structure for the book. I don’t even know the entire content of the book. All I have at the moment is a general topic.

I’ve been talking about making changes to my life a lot recently. The actual change in my life isn’t going to start for another 2 more weeks. It’s going to start with some major changes in my life. I’m not entirely sure yet where this new life of mine is going to take me. But one thing I’m certain is that it’s going to make a difference in my life.

But like I said before, there will be things that I will carry over from my old life to my new life. I won’t be able to start with a clean slate. I don’t think anyone can. I have issues, relationships, problems, experiences and also hopes and dreams that I’m going to carry over into my new life. Some good; some bad. The most important thing is that I hope all of these will help me in making my new life a better life and a more happy life.

I guess at this point I should say what the change involves. But I don’t think I’ll say anything just yet. For now, I’m going to keep it to myself and announce it when the time is right. At this moment, I can say that only a few people know of the decision that I’ve made and how I plan to change my life. I’d like to keep it that way for a while longer.

Undergoing Changes

The weather’s been a bit unbearable lately. Rather than being searing hot like it normally is, it’s been cloudy but the air is heavy with humidity. The humidity, in my mind, is worse then hot temperatures. If I stay indoors when it’s hot, I won’t feel the heat that much. But when it’s humid, my body will feel all sticky 15 minutes after I take a shower. It’s just so uncomfortable.

Talking about being uncomfortable, I’ve been through a lot of uncomfortable situations before in my life. My life has never been perfect and my experiences range from being pleasant to uncomfortable to blinding pain. I’ve never been very good at dealing with uncomfortable situations. Sometimes, I’d prefer to be in blinding pain than being uncomfortable. I can deal with pain.

Anyway, that’s not the point of this post. I’ve always thought that a person undergoes change in his life because of 2 reasons (This is just an opinion. Can’t support this with any facts). It’s rare, but it does happen that a person decides to change out of revelation. The person realizes that he is heading to a place he doesn’t want to go. He’s been walking down the wrong path and half way along the journey he realizes that he’s not happy on that journey. So, he decides a change is necessary. By making those changes, he can affect the outcome of his journey.

Like I said, it rarely happens, but it does happen sometimes. Most of the time people change out of desperation. They’ve walked down the path they choose, and the end result was not what they wanted. In fact, in most cases, the end result could have been tragedy. A destroyed relationship, financial ruin or even emotional trauma.

Faced with these kinds of challenges in life, people make the decision to change. Me, I’ve decided to make changes in my life due to a combination of both these reasons. I’ve come to a realization that my life is not where I want to be and it definitely isn’t where I wanted to be. I’ve always thought that I’d be destined for something different. I wouldn’t exactly say that I felt that I was destined for greatness, but I always felt that I could do a lot more.

Besides feeling that I’m destined for something else, the last 10 years of my life, could be considered a disaster. I’ve been through it all, destroyed relationships, financial turmoil and emotional trauma. Finally, I’ve decided enough is enough. I have to do something to get my life back on track. So the change that I’m about to make is a combination of realization and desperation.

It doesn’t matter what the reason is, change is necessary. We can’t grow as human beings with out change. Every experience we go through will change us in a way. Sometimes, the change is minor and we hardly realized that we’ve changed at all. But sometimes, the change is so profound that we come out with different values and attitudes.

Making Changes

I can’t remember what day this post is supposed to be. I haven’t really been keeping track. As for the book, I’ve start making some notes but I haven’t gotten down to doing any actual writing. But at least I’ve started working on it. Looks like I’m going to have to be more disciplined to get this book done.

I just realized that I’ve never really undertaken a change in my life. All my entire life, I  just walk along this path that I have chosen, and made adjustments to that path with the hope that this path will some day bring me to where I want to be.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been walking down this path which has been laid out before me with the hope that this path will lead to all the things that I want in my life. While strolling down this path (and I do mean strolling, my life has been pretty much a stroll), I’ve made some adjustments here and there. It took me a while to realize that these adjustments haven’t really affected the outcome of my life. The path is still the same. The adjustments I’ve been making throughout my life have only been reactions towards different circumstances. It has never really changed the eventual outcome.

After taking this path for a while, I realized that this path is not leading me to where I want to be. But since I’ve never really known any other path, I stick with it with the hope that something will change and that with a little bit of luck and faith, I end up where I want to be. But now, looking back at the path that I have already walked, I realized that I’ve been walking down the wrong path all this while.

So there comes a time in your life when you need to make changes. It’s not easy because you’ve grown comfortable with the life you have now. You realize that this wasn’t the life that you wanted but because you’re comfortable with it, you don’t want to make those changes. Most people are like that. They don’t want to give up the things they have now.

As for me, I don’t really have much. So giving up the things that I have now isn’t really that difficult. But the change I am about to embark on is a major change. It means leaving behind a lot of things from my past and start anew. I’m not going to start with a new slate as I don’t think anyone can. Everyone carries around some baggage and I carry quite a lot around. So it’s going to be a new start, but from the ashes of the old.

Day One

Day one of writing my book has come and gone and I haven’t made any progress at all in writing my book. After giving it much thought, I’ve finally realized two things.

First, is that I can’t expect myself to be able to write everyday. When I first set out to write this book, I thought that I’d dedicate 2 hours a day in writing this book. I was very sure that I’d be able to do that. But that didn’t materialize. At the end of the day, I hadn’t written a single word. I’m not going to be able to spend the 2 hours a day to write the book. But as long as I keep my mind on the book, give it a lot of thought, try to come up with ideas, I think I’m making progress.

My second realization was that I also wouldn’t be able to write in this blog on a daily basis. I would probably spend more time on this blog than the book as I can write whatever I want to in this blog, but it still wouldn’t be on a daily basis. So I’ve made a promise to myself that I would try to update this blog as much as possible but I’m not going to promise that it would be on a daily basis.

Coming back to this book that I’m going to write, I had a talk with someone I hold in high regard and respect her opinion. Initially, I was thinking about making this book about me (My friends can all testify to the fact that I am a vain person). But after discussing about the contents with her last night, she suggested that I make the book a bit more general and write about the people around me also who share similar experiences.

I’m not the only one in my circle of friends who have had to start their lives all over again. I know quite a number of people who have to start their lives all over again in order to move forward. In fact, my friend, the person that I trusted her judgement also recently had to start her life all over again. She suggested that maybe I could interview some of my friends who have had to go through the challenge of starting all over again (Looks like she unintentionally volunteered to be one of my interview subjects).

Even though I haven’t started writing the book yet, but now I know the direction the book is going. Thanks.