At first I thought it was a spam mail, but he who wrote the email also thought it might be treated as spam, so he wrote in a simple but straight forward way.

Dear Ken, First of all, this is not a spam. I know it is common you get spam mail from your own name or account. Anyway, I am Ken Loo and I come across your blog and flickr when I did a google on my own name. This is because recently I watch a movie about how the lead character did a google search on his own name and well, I just wonder does my name pop up in google. And wow I am surprised, you are all over the web. And the most strangest thing of all, I am now staying in Japan too, Tokyo to be exact.

So, we are going to meet. The virtual Ken Loo meets the real Ken Loo. This is exciting, and thrilling as well.

It's been an eternity since the last time I fell in love with another guy. I am not sure what was wrong, or perhaps I need to fall in love with more guys mathematically to know about love and guys. What's wrong with me? I wanted to have more time on my own, that's why I quit my last job. I worked for a big name corporate for almost 6 years, went home after 10pm or 11pm everyday. And I wasn't any executives nor managers. What the hell was wrong with Japan? It never gave me time to go out for dates. Or there wasn't time at all for me to fall in love. I wanted to be in loved. That's why when someone I knew told me that I could have my own time, the fear to go to some small company from the big corporate was still there, but being able to have my own time was something I wanted more, so I quit and joined the new company. Somehow, this new company that I joined 4 years ago, it didn't seem to give me more private time at all. Instead I am still working late, and I haven't fell in love, since ages. What's wrong with love? Or me? At work, I am responsible to teach the new employees. Not really a job that I enjoyed much, but sometimes when they showed me the good response or reward, it's something that I thought I wanted to continue to teach them, so that they will do they way I teach them. It's the satisfactory that I gained. There was this guy who joined for almost a year, couldn't do the job right as I wanted him to do, always made the same mistakes, though I supposed to be his assistant, but I just couldn't forgive him for not being able to follow all the procedures that he supposed to follow. Last week, he was so absent at work that I got so furious and called him off for a meeting. Surprisingly, he said he is going to quit the job. I asked him the reason, he said it's due to his ways of doing things didn't fit into this job. The job that required more attentions and delicacies, he preferred to go back to what he does good, being himself. Being in the industry for 10 years, I know better than him. He is just not capable to continue the job. So, there will be another shift of consultants and assistants combination again. Who will be the right person that I can work well with, I wonder. Love, if I don't get to you, why don't you come to me?

One of my colleagues Y is going to leave us. He joined before me, and worked for exactly a year. His reason of leaving is, kind of sad, due to his assistant, a bitchy one, who has been long in the dispatching (temporary staff) industry, and is also the one who responsible to teach -- not train -- all the new staff in the office and as well working as a coordinator. I was working with her, under her training, but was lucky that we didn't have to work together after that as a team. For example, she who supposed to assist me while I was outside the office, couldn't be more helpful; I have to face her grilling. For each of the particular thing, she expected me to come up with an explanation to her before she could really help me. She told me that she was shocked of Y's leaving; that Y didn't appreciate for all the goodness she wanted to teach him. Having worked in the industry for 10 years, she added, she knows well. Another new citizen I found on the lonely planet.

First of all to Dave, it was yesterday, 2nd June, huh? Happy belated birthday! And to Miho, yours is today, right? Sorry for not having time to even to go over for a while. I am busy, as usual. Surviving. Life goes on.

Dear friend, I have been having doubts in your life since the moment I learned about you, or your homepage. Though we have not met before, nor even know whether both of us really exist in reality, from our existence of expression on the website, I guess it doesn't seem a big matter for concern anymore. I recall clearly how you caught my attention. It’s not the things you have done that brought me to the attention, rather your so-called life problem which I couldn’t understand well rather amazed me. Perhaps I am still young comparatively. Or my life up to this moment doesn’t have such that I need to face it with critical decisions like yours. I don’t know, I may be naive. Sometimes I do think twice, or more, of what I wanted to be, and what I have achieved, not in a particular look-back-on-ones-life sort of sentiments. I guess we just can't put both the past and present on a scale to compare as we all know well. With such comparison, the result is only one; we need to go on with our lives. If that's the answer for lives, it can be too boring, boring even than life! To make the story short, I perhaps am not comfortable with my past. And to gain the most out of life, I guess I need to go on. It's not the achievement that counts, as it says, rather the process of achieving it makes ones life more meaningful, I would think so. As cliché as it can be, finding "it's great to be alive" is the first thing we all want to feel only when we are going to live on golden pond. Before that, we just need to keep moving on.