Watch This Space...

Hi there!

It's really been a while. After a hiatus of 2 years, I'm penning down my thoughts again.

Took the last 2 years off to concentrate on my career, but ... Well, I guess it's time to really reconsider what I really want in life. I guess I love to create, and I love to write, so here I'm back again.

Anyway, I'll be posting pictures of my recent Japan trip here soon, so watch this space! :)

An Important Lesson

The world had taught me one lesson: If you are nice, you'll get bullied by everyone else.

I had learnt this the hard way. I used to treat people nicely; I go out of the way to make people happy, and when people try to contend with me, I take a step back and try to appease the situation. And in the end, what did I get? Some people took advantage of my meekness and hurled abuses at me, bruised my ego and even tried to cheat me of my money.

So, these days, I retaliate. When people shout at me, I shout back, and I make sure I shout louder. When people stir up a fight against me, I fight back, and I fight to win.

And so, I've won... Or have I?

Despite "winning", I'm not happy. Instead, I've become empty, bitter, cynical, impatient, contentious and easily irritable. More than just that, I have noticed that lately I've been arguing just for the sake of arguing. Many of the "reasons" I bring up in my arguements I know are just plain excuses deep inside, but I don't care. I just want to win; I just want to be right.

So these are the consequences of winning?

No, in fact, I have lost. I have lost against the principalities of this world.

Jesus did *not* say "When your enemy slaps you wrongly, slap him back and make sure he hurts more! Muhahaha!" He said "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also." (Matt 5:38-39) I had done the exact opposite; I had given an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Jesus went on to say "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you." (Matt 5:43-44) How many of us can do this? Man, look at the words in italics!

The mark of a true Christian is love. It is our duty to love people and not condemn them. Vengeance is not ours, and we don't have the capacity or wisdom to judge people, and say they are wrong and we are right.

Everyone has a story to tell, and every coin has two faces. However right we think we are, in God's eyes, perhaps both parties are right is some ways, and wrong in others. We are usually biased against ourselves, as we are all born selfish. Just because people ill-treat us, should we turn nasty? Of course not! Why shortchange the rest of the world for a handful of people who mistreat you?

And thus, I am making a statement here: I reject this worldy principle that I have learnt, and henceforth, I want to be loving, not right.

Was it right for a Man who knew no sin to die for all who have? No, it was love.

For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matt 16:26, NKJV)

Meeting with My Former Boss

Met up with my former big boss J last Thursday and had a super long talk with him. He had wanted to see me, to exchange perspectives, and I saw this as a opportunity to clear things up, so I complied.

Basically, they were very upset because they felt the work I had left behind (based on what they thought I did) was just terrible, and from the way I denied their claims, they felt that I did not even want to take responsibility for the mistakes I've made. They found my tone offensive, for someone who "needed help from them" (was asking them for money). They felt that I took their good will to let me go for granted, and felt that I did not deserve to get paid the rest of my dues.

I told him I was upset because I felt that after agreeing on my departure terms, they had chosen to go back on their word and refused to pay me what they had agreed to pay me. I felt that they still did not take responsibility to get their accounts right, and on top of that, they did not think and evaluate why people left, and kept pinning the blame on the people who left. I found their tone offensive for someone who owed me money (for a couple of months already). I felt they took my good will to wait for them to sort out their accounts for granted, and were acting like big bullies.

I think you can notice the similarities in the emotions experienced by both sides. It's really quite interesting how both parties can feel the same thing about the same situation albeit from two jarringly different perspectives. The differences did not just stop there.

He told me that the management had protected us from a lot of nonsense from the clients. I told them that we, the workers had protected the management from a lot of rubbish from the customers and from a lot of rude people looking for them.

He told me that they had taken a risk and were doing me a favour by allowing me to do sales. I told him I was doing them the favour, and they had told me they needed someone to do sales.

He told me they had not grumbled when they let June and I go for our long leave during our wedding. I told him we did not grumble during the times when we did not go on leave just to finish up the projects that we were doing.

He told me they had not grumbled when we came late and left early. I told them we had not grumbled when we stayed late into the nights and even overnight to meet a deadline.

There were more. I just highlighted these few to show the similarities, and how things were more or less balanced from God's point of view (since He knows all things).

It was a fruitful meeting I suppose. Although I felt it was a petty squabble from pent up frustration (very much like lovers who had just broken off and went blaming one another for the split), we both had the opportunity to lay out all our cards on the table. Being able to voice everything out was a release for the both of us.

After the meeting, I can appreciate why they are acting like this. However, it still did not change my perspective on who's right or wrong. I guess we all are biased towards ourselves in some way or another. We all have a fallen nature, and being self-centered and selfish comes to us naturally I suppose.

Finally! A Chance to Blog!

It's my off day today! Finally had a chance to blog! :P

Many thanks to all of you who have expressed your concerns and empathy over my situation. Really appreciate them. :)

I have long since forgiven them already, so please do not be too alarmed. :)

The situation has not been resolved yet, but it's close to. I've learnt a very important lesson from the whole issue, and due to the lengthy nature of it, I've split it into 2 posts (following this post).

The first article (Meeting with My Former Boss) is a preface to the main article (An Important Lesson), and may be skipped if you can't stand my longwindedness. :P

(Was 5th Nov when I wrote this, but I couldn't complete the whole post until 15th Nov)

Bad-bye!

Received a couple of ugly emails from my former bosses yesterday, and they've got me very infuriated. Never been so angry for a very very very long time. (I can't remember when I was last this angry.)

I had been very careful not to say anything against them because:
1 - They were an authority set over me.
2 - My colleagues do read my blog.
But now they are my former bosses, and after this post, I would have severed all ties with the company (not my former colleagues), so forgive my bluntness.

Basically June sent an email to our former bosses asking when our last payslips would be ready, and my former boss B sent me a mail saying they're still working out my pay for August due to major issues with my code in the last few months. He then stated a few problems in my projects, questioned my professionalism, and said I imposed problems on the team due to piling resource issues at that time.

(This is my August pay mind you, and they haven't even paid me my pay adjustment for June yet. I don't remember anywhere in my contract that says my salary was negotiable, based on performance.)

Well, it turned out that most of problems were either not caused by me, or were inherent in the old systems. So, I wrote back and addressed the issues, and reminded them that I had announced my intention to leave in early June (or maybe May), so they should have had two months to look for a replacement for me. Furthermore, he himself said I could go, and I could work while I was clearing my leave.

So I told my former bosses that we have been very patient with them. They had caused June enough emotional trauma during her resignation, and I've had enough of their nonsense.

I told them under Ministry of Manpower's law, salaries need to be paid out on the last day of employment if required notice has been served, or seven days of the last day of employment if notice period has not been served. Either way, they have exceeded this period by a couple of weeks/months for both of us at least.

And I told them under the same act, they are not authorised to deduct my pay apart from a few special conditions, which I'm sure I had not violated.

I said we've many opportunities to ask the MoM to act on our behalf but we did not want to, and asked them not to push it.

So my former big boss J wrote back saying a couple of things, amongst which was this:
"Please do not threaten us. We have restrained ourselves from taking legal action against you, because we do not want to affect you or your future career."

Wow, that's great isn't it?! I got their agreement to let me go work while clearing my leave BEFORE I had even signed anything or gave a verbal agreement to my present company that I would start working. If this is not called underhandedness, I don't know a better term for it.

(It's a good thing I've kept all my mails.)

I just wanted to tell them that we are not ignorant and neither do we like being bullied. If we had wanted to threaten or get MoM to execute, we could have done so long long time ago, and would have saved us a lot of time, trouble and heartache. This is how they show their gratitude. Well done.

My boss B then came back to me with another mail accusing me of several more things that I had failed to do, and it turned out that even more of those were not my fault. So all the projects that were handed to me because other people left becomes my fault?

He even said my report works only for 3 months while the reports done previously worked for 2 years. Right! Before I left I spent several days overtime fixing the discrepancies in just those reports that "worked for 2 years"! They themselves know about it!

Hey, I completed everything they asked me to do for my handover, and I even did a few more things for them because I thought it would be helpful to them. I even helped one of my colleagues recently to set up one of the mac mini machines that was down. So much for appreciation!

(I don't know who started the rumour that I was supposed to do MIRS documentation before I left. I was not supposed to. The project was still pending customer changes when I left. How to do documentation?)

I wrote back once more to address the issues and left 2 thoughts with them, which I hope they will take seriously:
1 - Reflect and see why people have been leaving one after another.
2 - Appreciate people by remembering the good they've done.

Saying that you appreciate people and then start digging at their faults seems very hypocritical to me. (I didn't put this in the email.)

They have since deleted my company mail with them. Good. Good riddance. That'll be the end of our relationship.

It's no more goodbye, it's bad-bye!

Birthday Wishes :)

Hee... Birthday's here, so time to make new resolutions. :)

I like to make resolutions during my birthday, since it's really the day of beginning for me, and it's a good time to start over again what I had failed to achieve in my new year resolutions.

For the past week or so, I've asked God what my direction should be for this year, and He told me that the past year has been one of change and maturing for me, and since things have stabilised, it's time to dig deep. So this year for me, I have three birthday wishes:
1 - To grow deeper in knowledge and love for God
2 - To develop the creative nature God has planted in my heart in the area of songs and graphics
3 - To grow deeper in love with June and learn how to communicate better with her

This year's birthday was a pretty good one. It's my first one as a married man, and it was really great to have June with me for all 24 hours of the day. Really glad to spend quiet and quality time with her. :)

Had quite a fair bit of birthday presents this time round, and I even got presents from my in-laws (quite a bit of clothing actually). :)

Looking forward to the new year with hope. Will show you all my report card next year. It'll be a good one. :)

(With this post, I've cleared all my back log of blog posts already. Yay! A new year awaits! :))

Cry Me A River

Service today was simply awesome! God really moved in a very powerful way!

Pastor Derek preached today, and after the sermon, he gave an altar call for members who were weary, and wanted a touch from God; members who needed God's anointing, love, peace and joy, and needed an expansion in capacity. I really felt this was the call for me, all 100% of it, and so I went down.

I had been rather stressed up for a while I guess. There's so many responsibilities that I have to shoulder, especially so after marriage, that the burden has been bearing down on me. I had not noticed increased weight as they accumulated little by little over time. There were so many things that I had to attend to and so many trivial matters had taken up my time and attention that I had no time left to do what I wanted to do, to do what I know God had called me to.

As I stood in the front, pouring my heart out to Him, God came and spoke 5 very simple words to me: "Go on; I love you."

At those words I just broke down and wept. Tears flowed so freely; it was as if I wanted to dehydrate my body of every ounce of water. Even as I went back to my seat, those words kept ringing in my mind, and I wept again.

It felt so good. The burden was gone, and joy just came. It's a very complex feeling - crying and smiling at the same time.

The Lord of all loves me, and He told me that personally. What more could I ask for, what more would I need? :)

Thank you Lord, for Your love.

Our Bangkok Trip!

June and I just returned from our trip to Bangkok (02-Sept-07 to 06-Sept-07), and we have some photos to share with you all. :)

We decided to go for a short trip to unwind a little. (Work related stress was piling on us for a while.) This trip was more of a shopping trip rather than a sight-seeing trip, so there isn't much photos this time round. :P

Thank God for His blessings on our trip. For some strange reasons, it only rains at night, and in the day it was slightly cloudy and pretty nice to walk. Bangkok's temperatures were supposedly hotter than Singapore, but to me, it was definately cooler there than it was here. :P

Also, we didn't get conned by any taxi drivers while we were there. I had a map on my hands, but so many little streets were not documented and street names were mostly in curly fonts, so it was a little hard to know if the driver is taking you on a visual tour of the city. Our cab fare from and to places were almost the same, and the routes taken were similar. :)

We also managed to get the better deals each time we were undecided to buy stuff too. Haha, too many examples to quote. :P

OKies, enough of talking. Here's the pictures! Enjoy! :)



Before take off from Changi Airport, Budget Terminal! First time riding on a Tiger... :P


Arrived at Bangkok. Picture taken inside the airport, and just outside of it. It's quite a contrast to see such backward residences just outside the modern airport building.


The famous Chatuchak weekend market. Only had 1 photo cos was busy buying stuff. :P We thought we had missed it already, as it was supposed to close at 6pm (it only opens on weekends.) It was already 430pm after we had checked in to our hotel on Sunday. A couple of taxi drivers had refused to take us there, saying that it'll close at 5. And guess what? The place was still booming with people when we got there, and when we left at nearly 730pm, there were still shops opened! We managed to get quite a fair bit of clothing here and went back to our hotel happy. June bought a really cute piggy bag here too. Ask her to show you. :P


Here's a view of our Baiyoke Suite hotel room. It was actually made up of two rooms. The first photo shows the hall/dining area you see when you open the hotel room. From there, you open a door to the bedroom itself, which you see in the second photo. (I didn't take a photo of the attached bathroom.)




Breakfast at Baiyoke Suite is served on the 43rd (top) floor! It provides us with a magnificent view of the Bangkok city. (Baiyoke Suite used to be the tallest hotel in Bangkok, until it's brother Baiyoke Sky took over.) Breakfast was pretty tasty, better than what I had expected. :P



Our second day out! We went to Chinatown (Yaowarat) in the morning. Pretty interesting sight and sounds there, with all the chinese banners and the honking traffic. :P They've got pagoda shaped telephone booths along the streets (pict 19). :P There's also this speciality shop that sells tons of Hello Kitty bags (pict 22).

We went to the wholesale market (Baiyoke Market) around our hotel in the afternoon. There were a lot of people here, and it we had our hands full with our purchases, so no photos. :P We really bought quite a lot of clothing from here.


Here's a shot of our hotel. It's pretty easy to recognise given it's height and it's rainbow colours. The other photosare views from our hotel room. There are a lot of half completed buildings in Bangkok city overgrown with weeds, lichen and vine. Looking at the building in the first photo, you can guess that the decripit building's been left there for years, if not, decades.


McDonalds! With Ronald McDonald in the standard Thai greeting pose. :) McDonalds in Thailand is under the McThai company (printed on our receipts). The meals there are definately cheaper and bigger than local versions, but the fries there are pretty soggy; compared to local food pricing, it's pretty expensive. We ate here once cos we couldn't find proper food to eat around our hotel. The food court in the same shopping centre had little variety and a strong pork smell. Food courts in Bangkok have very strong pork smell for that matter, and you can most certainly smell a food court before you can see it. The Thais eat a lot of pork, in many different ways! :P One of the 7-11 stores we visited had cup noodles in two flavours - Tom Yam and Mince Pork. :P



Next stop, Mahboonkrong or otherwise known as MBK Centre. MBK is located at one of the ends of the shopping belt. We ate at a Japanese restaurant there. The taste isn't as good as the ones we have here, but the portions are HUGE. I couldn't find my set meal, and this was the first one I couldn't finish. I conquered the huge sets at Ichiban Boshi, but this was waaaay bigger.


Some random shots at Siam Centre and Siam Discovery Centre. There were a lot of high end shops here, so we didn't buy anything in the end. Sorry about the absense of photos of them from the outside. They were linked at certain storeys so we didn't really get to see what they looked like on the outside. :P


Some shots of the Siam Train Station outside Siam Paragon. Paragon here looks much more expensive than the one in Singapore. Super expensive looking deco, and super high ceilings (really very high). Needless to say, the stuff here's much more high end, and we went home only with photos. :P


(Made a short trip back to MBK cos we forgot something. :P)


Last of the shopping malls that we visited, the CentralWorld mall. This is supposedly the largest shopping mall in South-East Asia. I didn't manage to get a photo of it from the pedestrian walkway. It's pretty interesting how they linked all the shopping areas with sheltered linkways. Some of the linkways are really VERY long, very much like a pedestrian expressway. There were many soldiers in ceremonial attire walking around the place. We didn't stay to find out what was going to happen there. CentralWorld was really huge, and we got tired, so we didn't explore the whole place.




Our last day at Bangkok.Some final shots of the view from our hotel's restaurant. My camera batt went dead after that, so no pictures of the wholesale market we revisited (again).

It's home sweet home after that. We really missed the comfort of our own home by then. :P

You can also view these photos here