青春。梦想

韩国来的朋友，在异乡住了十多年，终于还是要回到自己的祖国去。这一次，也不知道什么时候会再回来。

我们的相识，是在2016年。还记得我们是第一批CRM的team，日本和澳洲的团队要合并来马来西亚。我们支持的语言包括日韩，所以有韩国和日本来的同事，trainers也是日韩籍都有。她，因为一些我不知道还是忘记了的原因，比开工迟了几天才报到，所以我对她印象很深。

后来，大家开始熟略了之后，开始接触一些teammate的亲人，包括她女儿。当年，她女儿才四岁。

转眼间，大家都成长了，年纪也大了。看着当年的小女孩长大成了亭亭玉立的小姑娘，其实内心真的有点感触。

其实，当年以至于大家分开之后，我一直都不在她们的聚会邀请名单里面。其实我平日主动想约她出来都没几次成功过，后来慢慢地我就不再找她了。我不知道在她们的眼里，我算是一个什么样的存在，肯定是有点可有可无的。不是我不在乎，是在乎不了，反正除了唏嘘也没什么人生的重大损失，我也不想去计较什么。

好在我们之中，还有Jocelyn一直在找我。这一次，也是她找的我。

我对这位韩国朋友女儿的印象，还是停留在10多年前，一个可以熟悉三种语言而且跟妈妈出席朋友聚会从来不玩手机只会看书的小女孩。她妈妈把她教育得很好，她的韩语英语都讲得很溜，华语则是家里讲学校学，现在还在坤成念书，华语水平应该不差。

这么多年来，我没有真正跟这位小朋友聊过天。虽然当初她们的家庭发生变故的时候我很担心她的心理状况，但毕竟少联络，也没真正去了解过。今天在偶然的机会下，我跟她单独相处了好几分钟的时间，随意过去找她聊了聊，却聊出了人生。

她说：她想过自己想过的生活，想作出自己的选择。

她说：她觉得浪费了一年的时间，因为在整个高一，她和同学都只是埋头苦读，准备考试。回到韩国之后，她还得重新来过。韩国因为是9月开学，所以她明年2月才会入学，重读高一下半年。不过这样也好，她会尽一切努力，考进理科班。

她说：她不喜欢商科，可是学校强迫他们按成绩选科，结果因为数学成绩不理想，她进不了理科班。

她说：她在考试前几天才开始用功，科学都可以拿85分。但这样的成绩还是进不了理科班。

她说：她不喜欢马来西亚，也不喜欢韩国。但她会努力考到好成绩，拿到奖学金。然后去北京大学升学。

她说：她的理想是生物科技。其实如果可以，她希望去欧美升学。可是考虑到学费昂贵，母亲年纪又大，她不想她那么辛苦赚钱供她去那么远的学校。拿欧美的奖学金也不容易。

她说：她有很多违背自己意愿的选择。她不喜欢韩国是因为韩国那边有很多人会影响和左右她们的生活、她们的决定。她不想按照大人的想法作选择，但是她妈妈很在意别人的看法，所以她也被逼做了很多不愿意做的事。

她说：她离开没有告诉很多人。她特别交待老师不要告诉同学，因为她不想留下任何回忆。她不想舍不得他们、舍不得这里。这里的一切，她一点也不想留念。

我很讶异。

原本只是想闲聊，却没想到她会跟我吐露那么多内心的想法。

一个16岁的少女，原本就应该怀揣梦想，却又有点叛逆。因为生活的一些变化和经历，导致她必须成熟，同时又不得不妥协。她在跟自己的想法抗衡，在斗争。她不想让深爱她的母亲伤心，却同时觉得自己受了委屈。

16岁，青春期。本来就是一个个性和人生开始产生变化的过程。我的16岁，没有风浪，只有叛逆的思想。但即使是这样，我已经觉得我经历了成长。她要怎么去面对这一切思想上、生活上的变化，从而调适自己？

我没有给她太大的意见，也没有怎么“教育”她。说真的，我的人生也不成功到哪里，我的梦想早就不知道飘到哪里去，更不记得自己曾经有过梦想。16岁的我，除了掌握了自己选择理科和加入乐队的权利，基本上没什么特别独立自主的事情。很多事情，都是按部就班，跟着轨迹走。

说实在的，我真的衷心希望她能实现自己的梦想，做自己想做的事情。这世上太多人因为生活、因为父母、因为环境放弃了自己去随波逐流。虽说不一定是错的，但毕竟有遗憾。她还有机会去实现，只要她坚持。

是的，我只强调了两个字：坚持。

梦想，需要努力和坚持才能实现。

我希望，多年以后，再次听到他们的消息，会是她已经实现了自己的梦想，并且和妈妈快乐地生活在一起。

祝福她们。

Always in Our Heart

It's heartbroken to hear a sobbing voice from the phone and you can't help to soothe the pain.

The lost of the loved one in all a sudden is very shocking and unexpected. Even I can't really believe how things could happen in just a few weeks, a person who was still smiling and talking to you a few months ago has disappeared from your life just like that.

I didn't see him much actually. I just met him a few times and we talked for not longer than 1 hour in total. Usually it was during weddings, his daughter's and son's. Nothing much. I still remember he was such a humble and gentle person. He always speak softly, slow pace, low tone. I never heard he raised up his voice, I never saw him getting irritated with somebody or something. He was such a nice man that I thought he could at least be with them for at least 20 years.

My friend was really shocked when the first message that she got was he was diagnosed with a possibly fatal illness. She was ready to come back, but just before she could get everything planned and ready, he collapsed. The situation didn't give her any chance to have longer preparation, without any delay, she came back with 2 young ones. Everything just went too fast, until she lost him forever.

She could hardly accept the fact, it was so fast, his heartbeat just stopped like that. I felt bad when I was still on my way to her house.

I don't know what could I do to help her. All I can do is just to be by her side, talk to her. I know she has her belief to support herself, but still it's not easy to get through all the pain, and it takes a very long time.

There are many things they have missed when he was here, but nothing can bring him back again. I believe that time can heal the pain, and I hope their memories together can keep her strong.

Stay strong, my friend. And we will all be with you.

After Years.....

Photo is edited as per request for privacy purpose :P

It is almost 20 years since we graduated. The good part is, we all seems still look the same as before. I think I changed the most, especially the "shape". I really need to work out to keep myself back on shape again.

There are 2 mommies in here, with > 2 kids each. And the other 2 are aunties for our nephew & niece. So one of the topics on table is "parenting" experience. It's not surprised that we actually do share a lot of happy moments of kiddies.

Actually it was 6 of us from the same class of 高三理 (S3Science). 2 of them are living in our neighbour country now. I wish some day, all 6 of us can be together again. How long will it be?

Christmas gift exchange 2012

Our team has gift exchange for Christmas this year as well. After having a great lunch, we had a lucky draw sessions for our gifts. Coincidently, HL got my gifts again. This is the third year she received my gifts consequtively. Is this a fate? or what we call: 缘份. hahahah! But I'm glad that she's the one who received it, actually.... I think the gift that I bought more suitable to her also.... :P

Guess what I've got? hmhm... it's the LED light + coin bank from Alia. My dad said it could be useful to him. hahahaha!

Merry Christmas everybody!

Dinner @ Zakuro

This is the last valid day for the voucher, and luckily I got my friend, San to go with me.
We were late for more than 1/2 hour, I thought we'll lose our booking, and then when I rushed and reached there.......... this was what we saw......... and I knew that we worried too much.... :P

The price, definitely not cheap actually, I came here because of the discount voucher from Groupon. Anyhow, the food is quite nice.

We were there as the one and only customer for more than 1/2 hour after we entered. And the staffs were watching 2 crazy girls busy taking pictures instead of eating. Don't blame us, it's the 'trend' nowadays.... hahaha! I felt quite weird also....

Thanks Little Panda (Sanさん) for coming here with me. Although it was quite a long journey but I really enjoyed our dinner today.

Zakuro 2 Japanese Cuisine
The Scott Garden, 1-36, 1st floor,
Kompleks Rimbun Scott,
289, Jalan Klang Lama,
58000, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Tel : 03 7987 8148
Fax : 03 7987 8348
Email : pp.ting85@gmail.com

IBM Team Building @ PD

After 6 years in RCC, this is the first time I'm invited to the team building from IBM. I had a chance to be together with those managers, and regular employees, joined in a team, played the same activity.

I would say it's a lifetime experience for me. When it was my first time going to 200M away to the ocean, and it's my first time being a 'guide' leading and guiding the blind-folded manager (Dear Ms. Halida~~), and also doing water rafting, not only row the raft, but also involved in making the raft together with my teammates.

It was quite a fun when we made up the team, designed a team name, drew the flag, and also created a battle cry:

1 plus 9, 10!
5 plus 5, 10!
Who are we?
Re~~~~d Jumbo!

Haha~~ it sounds childish and funny, but it really brought us back to our school time, when we were in the school camp or what. It's been quite long since my last remembered moment of this.

I didn't take any picture for the water rafting, because I was one of the participants I couldn't hold my own camera. But there were other cameras shotting us, hopefully I didn't look very bad in the photos... :P

Despite the happiness and enjoyable moment that I had from the journey, I think it was my first time going trip without having enough 'supplies'... what a shame about that! Although I could 'survive' at last, but it was just so inconvenient at the beginning, and I didn't even imagine it could happen to me at the first place until I realized it at the very last minute! OMG~~~!

Nevertheless, I really wish that I could have chance to attend such a wonderful team building event again in the future~~

Dinner @ Bistro Cascata

This is my second visit here, an Italian restaurant in Cyberview Lodge Resort.

It actually happened when one of us wanted to have meal in Cyberjaya, preferably steak. Then we chose this place, but at the end, nobody ordered any steak. And ended up half of us were not really satisfied with the food (not me, coz I like my Aglio Olio so much, :P).

One of the most "unique" thing about this restaurant is the price. Not cheap for sure, and usually people will only come once in a long while or during any celebrating event. For us.... nothing really had anything to celebrate, so... just as a welcome dinner for Shiho-san? or just a nice treat after pay day (still less than 1 week~~)?

Anyhow, I did have a great time with them.

A day with old friends

An old friend of mine came back to Malaysia for 1 week, she found me in FB and invited me and another friend to come out for dinner.

It's been long time since we last met, I can't even remember when. While 3 of us had worked in the same area before (different time and different companies) there were loads of memories for us to flash back.

This time, we had another member joining our gathering too. And because of their status changed, we have another topic to chat -- childcare. haha! Even though both A Ling & I are still single, but we really learn a lot from our nephews.

We have been friends for 20 years, it never be easy, so I really cherish the moment we have and treasure our friendship. I wish that we could be like this, meeting each other from time to time in the coming 30, 40 even 50 years.

Due to privacy concern, the photo is edited, but do you still can tell who is who? :P

Gathering + Housewarming

It's been quite long time since our last gathering, some of them I even didn't see for years. For some of us, it's our 6th year since we knew each other, pretty long isn't it? And I really treasure the friendship that we have, and also appreciate that we can still keep contact with each other, still able to sit together in a table and chit-chatting.

Some of the topics that we chatted were quite 'wild', it actually reminded us of our last housewarming at Susan's house years ago. The 'truth and dare' that we were playing, and it was wild, also. Things that we shared were big, but of course, it didn't go deep enough to reveal too much 'truth'. Some started 'deep' after a few glasses of wine, and the rest just tried to put on their shield. You know, you can't be too confident about yourself to believe that you have the power to get other people to tell you everything, for what we define as "secret".

Still, I enjoyed the moment we had at the night. But unbelievable that I didn't take a single photo with my camera, it's rarely happened to me before, as you know, I like to shot, shot, shot whatever I see, especially after I played with blogs and fbs. I respect their privacy, so all the memories are just in our minds. I really wish that everybody had a great time.

Thanks Joce for your invitation and your great arrangement. And Mrs. Goh, really enjoyed talking to you that night, and you are more than just 'the wife of my ex-colleague', hopefully we can meet each other again soon. Ian & Isabelle, good to play with you, I really believe that I'm good with kids... :P And for the rest, thanks for your time and sharing, wishing you a great future and happy life.

Farewell + Birthday Lunch @ Kitchen Village

We had a farewell + birthday lunch at Kitchen Village this afternoon. One of our colleague, Gomathi is going to have a long leave (LOA) for 6 months.... wow... it's quite long ya?

The QA team, from 3 guys + 1 lady boss until now we have all ladies (or... girls? :P) in the team. I can say we work well together, we share not only workload, but also our friendship. We are more than just a colleague or team mate. Especially my boss to me, she's more like my friend, my mentor and also my sister (sometimes counselor too... :P), we share almost everything in our work and personal lives. How would I ever expect to be so close with my boss before I joined the team?

And my team now, is going "international": 3 Malaysians with 2 different races, 1 Thai, 1 Indonesian and 1 Japanese. Cool huh? And what we call this? 1 Malaysia? haha! But since all of them have been staying in Malaysia for so long, they are becoming Malaysian now.

Now one of our team member will have a long leave next year, I can't imagine how much workload we could have after that. But I believe that we are going to work well together.

Good Luck, Gomathi! And your seat is always reserved for you.
and also, Happy Birthday, Leau~~ (I bet if u can see it though... ahhaa)

p/s: about the restaurant... actually the food is nice but quite expensive, so we just came here when there's a special occasion, or guess visit... maybe?
Reference: http://www.cyberjayadirectory.com/food-drinks-restaurants-lin/kitchen-village-s82.html

Wedding. Birthday.

I was late to the church wedding. Sat at the back, watched the VCR that they played, listened to the songs they sang. Somehow, I was touched by their spirits and their words. Especially the VCR, I never thought that it's so touching.

After the ceremony ended, I went to see my friend and my 'keilui', Xuan Xuan. The little one is still very small, but really cute, like what we say in Chinese: 娇小玲珑. My friend has been suffering a lot taking care of her, but still I believe that she really grateful as Xuan Xuan is a gift from God.

The bride and groom had a small surprise for my friend at the dinner, they made a video to celebrate her birthday -- exactly the same day on their wedding. And after that she was invited to the stage, and everybody sang Happy Birthday song to her. As I saw from her expression, she's more shocked than surprised... hahaha!

Ian and May have been through a lot before they came together. It's definitely not easy. Despite what I knew about them, I wish that they will live happily ever after. And same to my best friend, I wish for her health, happiness and everything the BEST ever.

wedding@church

Actually I like their pre-wedding photos

dinner

Surprise Birthday celebration for my friend, the groom's sister.

Souvenir from German

My friend visited to German last month and brought us these -- chocolates.

I like to eat chocolates but never really study on them. I don't know the history about chocolates, never recognize the flavour of chocolates and don't know which chocolate from which country is better. All I know is Belgium is famous with their chocolates and there are dark chocolates and milk chocolates, they can also be added with many other different ingredients and flavours... other than that..... anything else I need to know?

Although I'm not really picky about chocolates, there are still certain flavours that I would prefer. I like dark chocolates, but not 'too dark'. Actually I have sensitive teeth, so some local chocolates which are too sweet I can't really take them, that's why I choose dark choc.

Besides Godiva, I don't really know any other famous brand for chocolates. I googled this brand, actually it's famous in Belgium: http://www.dolfin.be/?lang=Fr&page=produits. You can check if you want to know more about it. Of course I don't have it all, just took a few, and actually they are quite nice.

缘

人与人之间的缘分有时就是这么奥妙。
曾经，他/她是那么不受欢迎的一号人物。
曾经，他/她是众人谈论的一个对象，说的大部分都是坏话。
曾经，他/她受大家排斥，无论他/她说什么、做什么都会是一个话题。
但，我和他/她竟然成了在FB上一直会互相聊天和留言的对象。

现在，因为面子书的普遍，让分开已久的大家重新再聚在一起。
而分开再相聚之后的我们，却像重新洗牌的扑克牌，彼此之间的关系重新有一个新的定位。
曾经很好的朋友，不再亲近。
曾经同校、同班甚至同桌却不曾相熟的两人，却可以在面子书上相“谈”甚欢——虽然那种沟通方式也许不能被称作为“谈天”。
一群人，可以在面子书上尽情的聊，却依然不会见面。
这种关系，叫什么？
“FB友”？FB-pal?

Sekinchan & Kuala Selangor

It's just spontaneously, somebody suggested to go Sekinchan. Then, we were there.
We started our journey around 11am, just 4 of us in one car, traveling all the way through dont-know-name highway, after approximately 2 hours, we reached our destination.

The first place we went after reaching the place is to find the way for our lunch because it's already over 2pm. So we went to a restaurant called "Jiann Chyi".

The fishing village

Fried Tiger Shark Fish （Spicy)
炒老虎鲨 (辣)

Hot & Spicy prawn (Prawn that a bit mince)
辣椒虾 (虾已剁碎)

Shark soup (Sour & Spicy)
鲨鱼汤 (酸辣)

Vegetable

This is what we call "LaLa" here.

The aunty selling corns, fresh from the farm directly.

banana trees

banana trees

don't mix up this with the Redang Island, they are totally 2 different places.

Small market

Sotong (squid)

Mantis prawn

The Redang Beach

The harvested farm, they burnt it after they harvested

The only part we can still see paddy here.

Watering system

We finally reached the place to see fireflies, but it only open at 7:45pm.

The place where we had our dinner.

Creamy butter crab

Kongbou Mantis Prawn

Claypot tauhu

Mantou

Seaweed soup