A Song

Finally I found the song I have been Looking for. I have been searching this particular song up and down….  It’s You and I Both by James Mraz… My girl friends hubby sang this song on their wedding day, kneeling down right in front of her door, “begging” her to let him in once she is satisfied with the song he sang. How Sweet. Enjoy… It’s like travelling back to the past (as this song is kinda old enough to be remembered, i think).

Love,

Leoda

Chapter 4: The “Single”

Late 20-er women are contemptuously accepting the fact they are still single and this, especially happened when they have nothing under their belt; neither money nor career. They are ones, who are wasting their whole ‘teenage to womenhood’-life- time to find true love and not career, just to find out in the end of the day they were dump for being cheated or… for being not-so-great. No matter how increasing level of commitment they have laid upon the relationships, they’ve got nothing in return. They took pride and as the matter of factly, they are extremely sensitive and have a an utmost respect  towards every single vocabulary in regards to relationships like ’single’, ‘attached’, ‘enganged’ or ‘married’,  “Widower”, “Divorcee”. They abhored “Single (but available)” & “Single (but unavailable)”. Why?

Living in a very high technology world, where we are connected to each other globally so well via the most popular “Facebook”, “Friendster” or whatever you called it, there is a thin line between “Single” and “Attached”. Women like the above will never like to find out their love one to declare “Single” (cause there is no other choice in that “Status” button to choose, if  they are still available or not). But the fact is, does it really matter?

Molley: “It’s the beginning of the happy ending when your man upgrade himself from being Single to Attached, once he is with you. It shows how much you mean the world to him. None other than committed men are willing to put their Singlehood at Stake…. So am I!”

Lola: “Are you kidding me? Of course it does matter! Being single when you have a girl friend? Oh, Come on, what kind of guy you have been hooking up with?”

Kit: “I stumbled upon my boy friend’s “Facebook”, where he claimed he is “Single”. He explained to me that his parents, also a “Facebook”-er disapproved of him being in relationship with me and hence he has to keep it an extreme “hush”. One day, When we walked along the  Orchard Rd, a woman walked over and said, “Hey, Handsome, I know you. You wanted to get my number through Facebook or Friendster, i don’t remember to hang out together. Did you get my reply? And ewh, who is she?”. So! Need to say more?”.

Greg: “When I have my ever-changing flings with at least a period of erm…. a day or maybe a little more? I’ll say ‘Single’. If I’m in relationship where I think it’s not going to work out anyway… I’ll say ‘Single’. More than a year r/s, I’ll say “attached”… Probably…. When I know for sure she is the one, regardless if we are enganged, married or not, I’ll definately put “Married”‘.

Thomas: “Women are like Men, they love status. Women love that kind of “Status” in their relationship to show the whole world, “This men is mine” or “He loves me…. ONLY”. Now, likewise…Men desires “Status” too and it’s especially true when you are in  ’corporate’ world. But when it comes to relationship…. whatever that falls under the category of  ”Single But UNavailable” or “Tying-Whatever-Love-Knot” you named it, is a killer to all man-kind… Especially when you are in your early 20’s to mid-30’s ,when you still have the great stamina to devour every single woman’s “meat” and whatever in-betweens. And FYI, so you know, the ratio between men and women is 3:7 or is it 4:6… Whatever it is, why let yourself down, when there are so many women to try on, to have fun and enjoy the companionship with? And to make yourself less guilty for being casanovas and heart-breakers, try to  say this to yourself, “You will never know how good a car is, ’til you test drive it.” 

Speaking about test-driving, I test-drove a Mini-Cooper S one day with my folks. I drove along a small street, near a shopping mall and while i was waiting for the traffic light to turned green (which took quite sometime, ’til it blinked), I saw a middle-aged man, who was supposedly quite attractive with his working suits,  trying to stop a high heated-up cat-fight between a pretty young lady with vuloptous body with another not-too-far- younger-than-the- man lady and he, himself being in the middle of the 2 women, barely survived from the whole ordeals.

The woman: “You Sluts. You Snatched my husband, you.you… Bitch!!!!!!!!!!!”

The Young woman: “You, withering lady Snatched my fiance instead, You Old Hag. He has a “Complicated’ Relationship with MAYBE YOU! and I rescued him.”

Erm…. In that case…. Does it means….  ”Complicated” ?

Hearing the “Testimonials” about every little single “Status” they might have posted in those Web-Gimmick, I called it, does it really matter to men and women, boys and girls in today’s world; to achieve their each own benefits? Or Will it bring more harmful to relationships and emotional well being?

Chapter 3 : Hard Truth at Hard Times

Things are getting harder and harder at this bad economic time. Probably, the worst ever experienced by me, personally. Retrenchments and salary cut that have been implemented by every companies I know and even some of the most prestigious and huge companies making millions turn over for the past years I got to know through my banking working experiences can’t hide the fact that they too, are not exempted from the budget slashing campaign; people are forced to work 4 days a week with lesser pay, some sales lines having $0 commission regardless they are hitting their target or otherwise and some are forced to work longer hours without extra income and not forgetting being laid if, in the case, they complained.
As for me, being jobless, ,jobless still.
As I sitting at my house void deck with a cup of coffee, writing, I once again looked back (and please, my dearest girl friends. I know you gals have been forbidding me to look back and look forward, but can’t help it), I realised I live my life, only full of regrets and the only question I have been asking myself is the poisonous and result-less (based on the past) is “Why?”. Yeah, I agree that it’s extremely unhealthy and it is a murderous act, on my part.But! That’s the thing about me; never satisfied. In the past, I hunger-ed to get rich by depending on my own capabilities. No one could have imagined, even I landed in the current position, where I just hungry for any job that comes along.
I heard recently that people around me are heading towards the most sought-after career in fashion line. People started asking me what should they do to get things started. As if I knew, else I’m landed in one already. Some already took the step ahead of me by taking courses in one of the most prestigious long-distance fashion designing course from Milan locally. It’s a great deal to me. Total cost for the course itself is $60k, highly recognized certification and of course, you will not have a hard time going anywhere with that sheet of paper. While speaking of that sheet of paper, me being 27 going on 28 in probably 3 months time, still can’t afford that damn sheet of paper (“it’s just a sheet of paper”). Thanks for reminding me how useless I am for the past 10 years, wanted to achieve what I have been wanting to achieve but comes to nought.

Loving Always,

Leo (World Peace)

Chapter 2: The Beginning of the New Beginning

22^nd Feb 2009, Beautiful Sunday Morning (at the start) turned gloomy in the afternoon with thunderstorms.

As if I was born again; I decided to re-activate my swimming regime (eversince, centuries ago) to make myself tired easily at night. Swimming is the only sports I ever adhered; I’ve got to spend time for myself, regain myself, regain my energy, confidence, calm, thoughts, spectacular moods, confidence and most importantly it helps me a lot in keeping my body “intact” (lean). Never will I want to give up that beloved sport.

I felt extremely different today after I got back from my swimming. I felt fresh and energetic, I cleaned up every corner of my bed room. Revamped the whole bed room like my own (my sister has gone to Adelaide, Australia for her studies). Nothing can be more fantastic than that, except I can’t change the colour of the room.

As I packed and cleaned my whole room today, I found many things, which brought me back to the past; Be it great memories or sad. Some of the stuffs I found, belong to me when I was still in High School, which was about 14-15 years ago. Things include all my past relationships, which non of them end up with happy ending.

I started to have pictures of all the bitterness I used to have and how people looked at me; defeated, lost, stupid, unstable in career and someone who is easily fooled or gave in to lies and sweet “I love you”, “I want to marry you” words. I allowed myself to be sucked-in into the “Blackhole” and I gave myself 15 minutes to be immersed back into that hell situations and right after that moment, I opened my eyes and I told myself with strong conviction, “Honey, you know what? From today onwards, no one will ever tell you what to do. You no longer have to tolerate others and try to please others or pretend to agree to make others happy and live for others or useless men, who only know how to break your heart. YOU will be You and You’ll live for yourself.”

I threw all the TRASH-es I found, which I found them completely useless and demoralising, if you can describe them in that manner. I “beautify” my jewellery wardrobe and made them as if I owned an accessories exhibition, privately in my room. Trust me, I am absolutely pleased with my new creation. I changed my study table to my “motivational” working table, where only motivational and inspirational books around me allowed. Books, which can give me imagination and added the power to my thought to make me go on. I put pictures of myself since baby ’til now and I started to put pictures of the next countries I wanted to go holidays for.

I am jobless right now. But, I still never give up and keep on believeing that something good will going to happen real soon. My life have been bad for long enough; 10 over years living in relationships, which eventually brought  me down to a career-less woman, who still doesn’t know what she should do with her life up, even up ’til today. However, from that minute on, after I refurnished my room and as I sit down here, writing… I know this is the beginning of my new beginning.

Life is like a ball… Like a circle. Or maybe… Wavelength, an oscillation. When life reaches to the bottom rock, it will not go down any further… It will only recover.

 

Love,

Leo

PS: FYI, I even cut my hair short once again (from waist to 2 inches below my shoulder length). I feel re-newed

Chapter 1 : The Gathering

18th of February 2009, Wednesday. After a long absence from the gals since September 2008 (Shirley’s Wedding), finally I am IN for my first gathering of the year with the gals (no, women) in 2009. At 6.45 pm ; Takashimaya Cartier, I called one of the gals and just as I have expected earlier, I am the earliest. Well I’m ain’t complaining; any one of us (at least) is accustomed to the trend. There are approximately 10 of us in total, however 7 are expected to be present in this gathering. I met Shirley and Ross 17 minutes later just outside the irresistable high end boutique, Chanel and we were fast to summarize each others updated career. Cindy reached not long after. “Hi”, greeted Cindy with her usual hostile with less smile look and not forgetting her folded arms….. as usual. Annoyed, Shirley replied her greeting by, “Wow, you’ve known us for 100 years.” Ross joined Shirleys annoyed club with, “As Usual. Her styles that never change.” I laughed. It was as if I was back to how we used to be, except that me being jobless. We were discussing where we should have our dinner; “Not so high-class restaurant…” Shirley claimed, “… as I am broke. Time is hard now and I am tightening my belt”. Everyone of us agreed and Ross suggested “MOS BURGER” and this annoyed Cindy more, however, being such a dear friend, she followed suit. We stepped into Mos Burger quickly and realised we were pretty uncomfortable with the whole thing. 5 minutes later, we settled ourselves almost immediately at the reasonably-prized pasta restaurant with a reasonably comfortable corner seats to fit in 7 of us, across the MOS Burger, PASTA. Angeline joined in 10 minutes later after we ordered our food. Shela called, informing us that she wasn’t be able to attend the gathering as she was too exhausted from running a whole day of errands and our Lady Ying (I named her) would be absolutely late as usual, doing her tautological routines (it’s neccessary for her); to go straight home after work just to shower herself with her beloved shower gel and moisturizer, changed to a new set of appropriate clothings (regardless we are clubbing or not), then meet us wherever we’ll be. FYI, another nickname I gave her is “Dancing Queen” as she was and is, still a hardcore clubber. We had a little walk in Taka’s cosmetic department, where GOSH! … the place , where I’ll never fail to become immediately aware about how I look over the years. I admit, I always appear non-chalant about my face, alas, I spotted a few wrinkles around my mouth, my eyes, my forehead and my nose (or even my face). I turned to my 5 gal friends, showing my contempteous look and said, “Hey, you know what? My Face… How i hated my face, I mean is there actually a face gel that can helped me to get rid of the baby fats on my jaws and cheeks area? ‘Cause I feel irritated that no matter how skinny I am, I still look chubby and what can be worst than that of when I put on weight? Think about when I got pregnant! I can never be as pretty, sexy, jaw-lined maintained pregnant women like most of your long and sharp faced gals have. Even when I am smiling, cellulites appear everywhere around my face. LOOK!” I smiled in front of them and the 5 gathered around me, right in front one of Biotherm cosmetic counter and started to scrutinize me. 5 secs later, one by one left and said, “Let’s go, girls. We hate her.” with another replying, “Yeah… She doesn’t know what she is talking about”, “Precisely. She is crazy and too obsessed with skinny face.” “For your info, that’s what I called dimple. Not baby fats… Not even closer.” So…whatever. We proceeded to our aforementioned cafe across the street; 24 hours ‘Coffee Club Express’, near Cathay Cinema. We each had our own fav drinks and as usual I still sticked to my Ice Mocha Vanilla faithfully, whenever I patronizing their cafe. Our conversations were all about updating more deeply into our very own personal life (except mine); marriage, houses, relationships, etc. Then, we started to plan about upcoming events we want to hold; Angelina’s birthday coming up soon and we thought of holding a birthday party for her over some budget hotel and came up with costumes theme (We used to have a lingerie party at the old Crown Prince Hotel across Paragon to celebrate Cindy’s birthday). Other events including, Cycling at East Coast Park, Short Trip Holiday to Batam, Bintan or maybe Taiwan, Thailand or once again, Hong Kong together (though I never joined them before) AND CLUBBING. Yes… Clubbing. That was where our Lady Ying widened up her eyes with excitement and said, “Wow, that sounds good!” All of us turned our head to look at her with our “it’s-expected” smile and Shirley said, “I know you will be excited over it. You are the only hard core clubber among us where we, except you already dissappeared from the clubbing scene for the longest time we know.” Defending herself, she said, “Hey, I have not been clubbing for a very long time, mind you! The last time I clubbed was…..” . Trying to figure out when… “….was last year December”, she replied confidentaly. Angelina, being one her closest, “Really? I thought you went recently, not quite long ago. You’ve told me about it.” “REALLY?”, Claimed the Lady… Still thinking…”I think January”. Cindy, also one of the closest, probably who always know her moves said, “I thought it was February, you told me about it. Yeah, it’s on the MID-FEBRUARY, THAT WAS IT!”. Tired and Gave up from thinking hard, “15th Feb, Aiyah! Whatever. what’s the diff anyway. Ok… It’s Feb…” . And We too…. gave up. And so… We headed to our own home before 1/2 to midnight to catch public transport and for some, to avoid mid night charges, with an excellently happy mood. I am absolutely glad to have a meet up with them. Though I never really enganged much in womens conversation, I feel like, I’m entering into our very own version of “The Sex and the City”, except that none of us are so driven to have sex with every men in the city, but a happily married ones, have babies, stable relationships and Way Much BIGGER number of us in a Group than Just 4! With Love, Leo (PS: Gals, you are the best… You made my day)