Constructive Deconstruction

My latest craze…

Michelle Trachtenberg

What are the chances I’ll bump into her? 0.01%
And if i do, what are the chances are she’d have coffee with me? 0.1%
geez…the odds are against me.

Warning.

I don’t know you. But it seems you know quite a bit about me, and my family. And it seems you’re making serious threats to my family.

Now, i’ll be honest with you. I don’t who you are. I don’t know how exactly much you know. But if you get here, and you’re reading this. Then yes, this is for you.

I am warning you to stay away from my entire family. Settle. If you want, we meet, we settle it one time…If you harm anyone, i’ll tell you what’s going to happen. I’ll drop all my plans - school & work - and I will find you. And I will find everyone who’s working for you. And I will find your family. And I will taste their blood.

From what I know, you sound like an educated person. But if you cannot understand me, i’ll make it simple for you.

You don’t disturb my family, I don’t disturb yours. If you do, i’ll kill your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your wife, your girlfriends, your children.
…I can find you.

Amber Rose Tamblyn

Was watching Joan of Arcadia just now(Actually i’ve been watching it every night..yes 2am every night)
Beautiful person. Visit her site at www.amtam.com

I realised it was pretty cool how she wrote about how she advised people to not make conquering Hollywood their first choice and instead have some other first choice option and have acting as second. And only if the opportunity presented itself do you make acting a first.

She’s also a poet who’s published her own collection of poetry.

Heh, hope to get to meet her some day…Haha

Reflections

Pre-Entry Note:
Isn’t she hot? Oh man…saw her NBX.com Why is it that girls that like don’t cross my path? Haha…Dreaming la…

…Entry Proper…
I’m doing a lot of thinking these days…I guess i used to do that a lot and one day I stopped. And when I realised that malcolm does tons of that(some of which is really unnecessary worrying) i realised that that’s the part of me that got lost. I used to think a hell lot. I’d spend time on my own just strategising how I wanted to achieve things in my life. I’d scenario play in my head to prepare myself for the next day or the next challenge. And I loved playing chess. I’m not good at it but i loved the challenge of sitting down and trying to see how many steps ahead I could think of.

I’m facing a lot of challenges right now. In fact, I’m pretty sure i’m being challenged in almost every aspect of my life. And that’s what i’ll reflect upon tonight.

Nothing beats drinking a can of cold mocha nescafe while reflecting on my bed…Here goes…

I’ve lived a good 22 years. In some countries, i’d already be married with kids. Perhaps, in a parallel world, i am! But right now, i’m a struggling youth - no longer a child, not yet an adult. While i’m trying to find my place and accept new responsibilities, my parents too are learning to do just that - to let me go. It must be as tough a time for them as it is for me. I had a taste of that when I watched my good friend struggle through a failed relationship. At that time, I had gone through the downhill phase and I knew what it took to survive. I also knew what it took to make things worse. And when I saw him making the same mistakes that I was, I was angry and frustrated at the situation. But soon I realised that the solution was simple…to let him walk his path and find his way. In a way, it was like a rite of passage for us. For him to become a wiser person in a relationship and for me to be a better friend - to know when to be a pillar and when to be an observer. It must be the same for my parents…to have to watch me make mistakes that they made and to just let me make them anyway. I have no doubt that they love me. And that being determined, it must be difficult for them.

Family Responsibilities
As a son, I find myself asking what my responsibilities are. For a huge part of my first 18-years, it was very simple - to study hard, be a good student and move on to the next phase of education. Everything else, they’d handle. National Service changed it all. It introduced responsibilities beyond that of the family. My country now had a grip on me. As much as I complain about National Service and how it was a waste of my time, in some perverse way, it was where I grew up. True to it’s reputation, it was where a boy became a man. At the end of that stint, I became more aware of my responsiblities as a citizen and as a son. I began to understand how difficult it must be to be a parent. I began to understand that the $540 I was getting every month was the hardest $540 I ever had to make. And so it must be far worse for my father who had so much more responsibilities on his shoulder. Maybe it’s my leadership nature to want to help out in things and solve problems. Maybe it’s simply because I was the eldest child and felt a certain sense of duty to do so but in any case, I wanted in on that supporting the family duty. And hence my current efforts to make something out of myself. There are of course other problems that I will not talk about here…

Dreams, Business & Friends
What am I doing? I’m a 2nd Year Computer Engineering student in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. I am also now an owner of a company. I am also running a tight ship. So what am I, really? A student? A working adult? A part-time student? A part-time businessman? Wow. I have no idea man. But i know this. I’m chasing a dream. A dream that someday I will be able to give my family and my friends a comfortable life. A life where we’re not struggling everyday to make ends meet. And I am so lucky to have good friends. But it’s getting lonely and the ride is getting tough. My work is taking time away from my friends and slowly I find myself having only so few people that I can click with. Honestly, I can count them with 2 hands. Max. What makes things worse is in the work that i’m doing right now, the projects haven’t matured so you work so much but nothing really goes into my pockets. So i’m working long hours and i’m still broke. But Malcolm said something very true several times before, "We’re chasing ghosts. We’re running after something that doesn’t exist. We’re trying so hard to bring ourselves back to our peaks that we end up being second best." I can no longer do what i’m doing to prove a point.

He hit it right on the nail when he asked me, "When was it that you really really wanted to prove yourself?"

It hit me only then, "When I broke up." I’ve been doing that. I’ve been wanting to make myself something. I wanted to be in her eyes that person that was worth  something. It didn’t matter if she would love me again. There was a sudden need for me to make sure that when she looked back one day she’d go, "Ah, he’s quite something isn’t he?" instead of, "thankfully i broke up with him. Look at him now. So pathetic." But yeah, after that realisation a few nights ago, you’re right man…I have to do this with a greater motivation and not just to prove something. We will fly.

Moving on from that thought, I begin to ask myself…business. What is my worth in this whole thing? I have no background. No family background. No real plans to talk of. Nothing. Zilch. I won’t go so much into my business stuff because I think it’s inappropriate to write them in a public domain but I will say this -  As a start-up, I find myself wanting to make sure that i’m the right man to my partners. I need to show leadership, intellect, discipline and guts. Do I have these? I’m not sure. But I will try my best.

Final Thoughts
Realised at this point that I haven’t really talked about much…but as I was walking back from 7-11 with 2 cans of nescafe and listening to Taylor Hicks’s "Do I Make You Proud" I told myself I need to be that leader that I once was. I need to do more thinking. More practical thinking. I need to be able to negotiate things. To debate about things and really stare at you and know i’ll win. I need to play chess again. Someone told me something along these lines before, "You know what’s our weakness when it comes to chess? We have great attack plans and we advance knowing how we want to crush our opponent. But we still lose. Do you know why? Because while go out and grab what we don’t have, we forget to defend what we already have…"

It’s 2.10am. Checkmate.

Grace Park

You can call me slow…but man…

Grace Park is hot.

Now, that’s a cute girl that can kick ass!