Saturday, February 4, 2006
I wanted to update my blog, and once I checked the updates of others, I forgot totally about mine, and it's time to go to bed.
Anyway the title above was meant for something else but, at here, Kurt brought up something interesting, titled The arbitrary difficulty of language. It's about raising kids with bilingual. Keep a note for future sake.
Is there any point I blog this post when I supposed to write something else? Absolutely no.
Foodvenue.com
Friday, February 10, 2006
Foodvenue.com, a site by a Malaysian company. That's something very Malaysian where, there is an option to choose, [halal only]. No wonder there are so many Arabian tourists in Malaysia recent years.
Mid 30s
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Mid 30s. What a jinx-y term! I guess lots of us—mid 30-er—are facing some sort of life-crisis thing at this stage: about life, about family, about children, about career, etc. "Things aren't that perfect" kind of stages. We all wonder how much more effort needed to make things change for the better, life needs to go on.
So am I. But.
Jinx is there to smash or break. Yeah.
Long Absense
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Got an international prepaid calling card for free, so I called a few of my friends in Malaysia. In terms of communications, there are time where voices always give greater impact than texts. Those were the moment.
Not surprisingly, everyone was surprised that I called. Thrilled could be another adjective to express most of their responses. Yeah, I have never called them all the while from Japan. Relying on emails and internet, I took for granted that most of them would use it to keep in touch because it has become so common and economical. The fact that, somehow, it proved that I was wrong. Most of them don't switch on their pc at home. Some don't even bother to check their private emails.
Talking to them over the phone made me felt that I have really gone too far. I have so much things I don't know about them. I write blog, so some of them, though not often but once in a while, who check it got to know what's going on with me, and I write email to let them know what's going on with me as well. But, I have never get updates from everyone, not so much that I could get within half an hour talk over the last international calls with them.
Where was I all the while, sometimes I wonder myself.
Friends, Life, and Education
Sunday, February 26, 2006
It really sounds like ages when the figure 92 appeared. I really felt like one 92 year-old grandy.
1992 was the year I graduated from my Japanese language school. Since then, most of the classmates—from China, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, France, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Peru—joined universities or colleges in Japan. A few of us who were very closed still keep in touch while in colleges, we seldom met after we finished colleges though. Well, it's hard.
Last October, I took a bus from Shibuya heading for a meeting at Roppongi, I met my Sri Lanka friend N in the specific bus at that specific time. Goodness! From there, I knew that he was planning to go back to his home country due to his mother's health condition. So I said we should meet again before he left for Sri Lanka.
I told the coincidence to our classmates Y who is back to Taiwan helping her father's business. She then said she would like to come over to Tokyo in February, which is this month, before N leaves for Sri Lanka for a farewell party.
So, another Sri Lankan friend S who married to a Zimbabwean decided to host the gathering. She has three kids, me 3 too, and with N's two kids, we were having 7 adults and 8 kids. It's a big party, at least in Japan.
The gathering was great, it reminded me lots of things which I totally had forgotten but perhaps I should have had remembered. Anyway, we updated each other with our present stages. Kids had fun, adults had a good time as well.
Yesterday, S called me because one of her Indian nationality friend who she knew from her church, in fact runs an IT firm, is looking for someone who know about IT (who doesn't know it, may be you would think, huh?) also can speak English and as well good Japanese to help with his expanding business. S and her husband were worried about me as to survive with 3 kids, I need to really earn big money. Or may be not about money, but quit a job and doing freelancing sounded worry to anyone. They are my good friends.
It was tempting, IT industry at least gives more opportunity to be rich. The friend who I am helping with is in an industry which has become very competitive now. The pay isn't great to be honest, but he needs me. So, I said to my Sri Lankan friend S that I have a promise with my another friend, that's why I can't leave now.
OK, so you know, I am half-hearted.
If to consider about the expenses which is going to increase from now on when my second girl starts kindergarden education this April and my little boy who will follow soon, I really should make my move fast, to make more money. But, the thing is, I just can't, and I don't know why.
I know nowadays education is costly. But, the fact is, my parents never spent much on my education, and what I gained in life wasn't about money either, lots of time. Knowledge improves life, but education doesn't. Yes, sending the kids to better universities is one thing. But, that makes things easy for them, but not better for their lives.
Yet still, I just can't say for sure if I am satisfy with my present situation. Oh, what the hell with life!
Opportunity is there to grab, but not to grab it and be able to let it go, is another alternative too. Oh bloody hell. Shoot!
Because Mum Likes It
Sunday, February 26, 2006
At tinctoris.com, Jeffrey Radcliffe recently has an article reminded me of MacGyver.
We've been watching old episodes of MacGyver on DVD. I really remember them being a lot better as a kid, but they're still charming in their own way.
As I haven't seen it on DVD, I would imagine that they're as great as they were.
Ever I got an American colleague who was about the same age with me, I asked him if he had watched MacGyver before. Out of my surprise, he didn't see it.
What? You mean you didn't watch MacGyver when you were a kid?? What the hell did you do when you were a kid???
"Because my mum likes it a lot, and that made me hate it."
My mum had passed away when MacGyver came into my childhood. Even if she were alive, she lived in a totally non English speaking world, which there was less room for us to share things in common. The only thing we "shared" together was probably the route to hospital, in taxi, and the staircase I walked her up at home. Always, she could not reached upstairs and half way she would stopped and rested. Looked at her, from the bottom of my heart, I recalled that I used to tell her what I wanted to be in future. I wanted to be a doctor, so that I can cure your sickness.
Biology and chemistry were not the subject I could ever understand, rather physics is the one I like most among the science subjects. Though I didn't do well in science overall. I found linguistic much more sympathetic. There were theories that make the world, and I am more interested in finding out the magic behind it through words. Could it be called the truth, then I think I have always wanted to know the unknown.
MacGyver and doctor, have always come to me as a set; a set of memory in my long buried far away childhood.
