Appearances

There is nothing ugly; I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may, -- light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.

John Constable

I think John Constable may be right.

My sister and I were just talking the other day of how appearances can be deceiving. My sister told me of her experience the other day when she went to a posh beauty counter to buy her cosmetics. She had been a regular user of that particular brand ever since it was launched. When she arrived at the counter, she was ignored by the sales consultant. The reason? She was local and she wore her old tee and jeans. The sales consultant thought she was just browsing and instead focusing on another customer who had had her hair done , wore too much makeup and generally trying very hard to tell people, "Look at me." The funny thing is, my sister wanted to buy her cosmetic and the other person only wanted samples of the cosmetic. After the other customer left, she really gave that person a piece of her mind.

How many times have we done that? Focusing on appearances instead of what really matters? I was just asking my kids the other day, "How can we really tell if a person really has no money? Can you tell by the way they dress? For all you know, the person sitting in a bus wearing his oldest tee and jeans has a lot more money than the person driving the fancy car." One can never tell these days.

We all have heard the old saying, don't judge a book by its covers. Yet this has seldom been practised. We place too much emphasis on appearances rather than look at what is underneath. Funny, how appearances can be deceiving.

My World

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

Eden Phillpotts

I was watching the movie “You’ve Got Mail” starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan the other day, and something that Meg Ryan’s character wrote in one of her e-mails got me thinking. She wrote, “I live a small life.”
What struck me was, how do you measure how big someone’s life is? Do you measure it by how many people you meet? Or how many lives you’ve touched along the way? Or how well you live your life? Or how full your life is? Or how far you’ve traveled?
Truthfully, I have no idea. What I think is, no matter how many people you’ve met, how far you’ve traveled, you still think your life is not big enough.
When I was small, I used to dream of leading a big life. Now that I’m older, I think my life is getting smaller. I have traveled to many places, met many people, and as far as touching their lives goes, I’d like to think that knowing me add a little spice to their lives. But, I still think I lead a small life. I go to work, come back, spend my evenings staring at the telly, go out sometimes, visit my parents’ home, visit my brothers and sisters and their families, met a few new people and that’s it. I always think of expanding my life, but that thought stays as just that. A thought. Maybe starting a blog is an unconscious way of expanding my life? Perhaps?

P/S

Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year!

A Happy Eid Al-Adha and A Happy New Year!

Flood

Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative.

Maurice Chevalier

I received news yesterday that there was a huge flood in my hometown. I have no idea what state my parent’s house is in. My brother called and told me that the town is completely flooded; my cousin’s house is completely submerged, although my aunt’s house is relatively untouched. I hope my house is ok. I cannot imagine the state of my house if the water got into the house.

The old people in the town told me that a big flood occurs at least once every 100 years. It’s about that time, I guess. The town is completely blocked off, all roads leading to town is flooded and had to be shut down.
I remember vaguely of a flood that happened when I was about 5 years old. We were living somewhere else then, and the water got as high as our knees. My mum and dad were busy moving our stuff higher, and we were told to stay on this huge wooden table while waiting for the water to subside. Then my aunt came with some rescue people in a small motorboat and we were taken to my grandma’s house. The incident that stayed with me till this very day was when we were back to our house and the water has just subsided. I was outside playing with my sister and I had a pair of very pretty pink slippers with sunflowers on top. The water washed it away and I was so shocked that all I could do was just stand there and cry. I just stood there, watching my pretty pink slippers floated away from me. Sad, ain’t it?

Rambles On

One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.

James Earl Jones

Hi all. Thanks for taking the time to visit. I was looking at my Thesaurus this morning and it struck me, what does rambling means, anyway? Is there any other word for it? Then I thought, well, heck, I know the meaning already, so why look? Of course, curiosity got the better of me and I look.. HELLO! Was I shocked! Here’s some of what I found.
Rambling (adj) = deviating, digressing, off-centre, out of orbit, errant, wandering, roving footloose, traveling, undirected, unguided, random, erratic – there are more (this is from two words in one number, mind you).
I would like to think that my ramblings are the result of an idle mind. When the mind is idle, it tends to wander. Randomly, aimlessly. Worse still during sleepless nights, then it goes into overdrive. Good thoughts, bad thoughts, half-baked ideas, things to do, things I’ve done, past mistakes, hopes, dreams for the future, everything crashing in.
But a wandering mind is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be good sometimes. I managed to come up with a solution to some of my problems during one of these periods. Although one tends to be cranky the next morning for lack of sleep. My mind wanders at the oddest of times. In a middle of a sentence, which causes me to lose my train of thought. Mostly during meetings, when I'm driving or when my boss yells at me. But sometimes it wanders during sojourn with friends. They would be speaking and I would be looking at them and thinking of something elase entirely. Strange how our minds work, isn't it?

Intro

Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold, the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul.

Democritus, (460?-370? BC)

Is it true? Hi all, first posting, first blog, ever. I've read about it, got some advice on it, never had the will nor courage until now. Then I realised, what the heck, why not? Put my ramblings on to screen, instead of staying as ramblings in my brain. It's crowded enough as it is. Everything that I write here is purely my opinion. Maybe some comes from my friends, but it's all me. You guys may have a different opinion and I accept yours; I also think I'm entitled to have an opinion.

Today's ramblings is about being happy. What constitutes happiness? Some people equate happiness with peace and serenity, material wealth, that warm fuzzy feeling, whatever. I don't know. I'm happy just being happy. I think being happy is a precious gift. How many people can say they are truly happy? Not me, that's for sure. I feel happy some of the time. When I am happy, I feel light, as if all my problems are gone. I sometimes pretend to be happy when I'm not, hey why not? Fake it till you make it. When swamped by work, we usually grumbled, but look at it this way, aren't you glad to be able to do something, instead of twiddling our thumbs all day? When we finally finished, aren't we glad to be able to achieve something? Let's face it, I'm happy when I'm busiest at work, although the workload tends to bog me down sometimes. One of the happiest times of my life was when I was at my busiest at work, because although I was swamped, I knew I was learning, I knew I had achieved something. It all adds to the spice of my life. Did it add to yours as well?