Happy 38th BIRTHDAY to ME

CAUTIOUS: The journal you are reading containing 'SYIOK SENDIRI' elements. DO NOT PROCEED IF YOU FIND IT OFFENSIVE. HaHa.

This journal also served as a reminder to you that I came to this world today 38 years ago. I'm turning 38 TODAY. Just saying that sentence out loud feels unreal, like I'm talking about someone else. 38, WHO? ME! Unbelievable! I don't feel it at all.
I remember my sister, Jessica once had said this on one fine day.
'When I look in the mirror, I always think, What's happened to me? I just can't understand why I have all these wrinkles, all this gray hair? She was grinning, as was her way. 'Because I feel exactly the same as I did when I was 18.' She was probably 35 then.
I spent my 20's finding the bliss at cocktail parties and clubs, while bouncing from job to job, vaguely zigzagging up a ladder of sorts, only to make a difficult though rewarding shift in my middle 30s to a job often undertaken by people much younger.
GONE are the days of living to please other peoples and making judgments about what others should be doing to please me. Well, I can't seem to shake this nagging feeling that I've wasted too much time getting here and that I'll soon be too OLD to get anywhere else. TIRING, huh?
There is nothing wrong inherently with 38, but I haven't taken to it very well. It is one of those transitional ages with little identity of its own: a pit stop you make as you barrel along the interstate toward 40. For most of us, at least, it's too late for college or building a business empire. Anyhow, 38, hopefully this number which phonologically mean a blessing of 'growth and prosperity' in Cantonese, may bring a wide grin to ME.
As one friend put it, 40 is when you realize that your life is your life and that you probably won't be making anything radically different out of it. The anxiety that creates is new to me. For the first time, I recognize that the possibilities for reinvention are narrowing. Though my sister once said, I feel like a teenager, full of ambition and dreams about the future, but lately that has tempered by the creeping suspicion that these could only be fantasies I will never make real.
I begin to tell myself just to get over it. I am LUCKY to be healthy and loved and to have figured out the little I have. And besides, after decades of self-struggle, yearning, learning of living with a stroke episode; had given me a certain wisdom. I finally felt that maybe, I had something valuable to say.

NOW is the BEST time in our life. The years before were definitely harder.

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CHEER UP and enjoy today because it will get worse.
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Everyday?is a NEW day.
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WRINGKLES is a collective noun for beauty of cumulative wisdom.
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It is too soon to get OLD, too OLD to get WISE.
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P/S: Life used to be a rat race. Everything was about being better than everyone else, and I was never contented with what I had. Then came lately, a friend of mine, who are just a tiny bit older report an enviable sense of self-knowledge, confidence, calm and inner peace. I can only hope to get there, TOO. PLEASE HELP IF YOU KNOW THE WAY.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SEAN

The Ring Searching Route

GONE...but not forgotten

I'd lost a friend a year ago, the first and hopefully he'll be the last in my life, to a disease till now still unable to find cure to it's victims. The name of the disease is AIDS. He had developed into full-blown AIDS since October in 2002 and lived on for another 8 months. We were at his ward that day, bringing his twin brother, Ming with us to pay him a visit, knowing him might not survive long as we'd seen it a day before. And funny enough, we were discussing about celebrating his 36th birthday a little earlier as it's fall on 25th July the same day when the doctors reluctantly told us there was nothing more to be done.. He has gone that night, 09Jun2003 at 2115 hour with no one by his side, completely alone.
At the funeral, I have never thought of that I would cry. His coffin was sealed off as requested by law. And there are relatives, friends, his parents and sibling. This is my first time to have met his mother. She sat there and looked sad. I must agreed that every individual people deal with grief in their own ways and within their own time, but guidance and support from others can help ease the journey. I went over to talk to her and she was sobbing with grief and she'd said "I'd lost my son." For the next few minutes, shaking with tension and overwhelming grief, I tried to hold back the tears and walked away as I can't face his mother any longer, who'd uttered these heartbroken words, and in a voice hoarse from weeping, tears began to fell from my eyes.
At the cremation the next day, the ceremony is simple and solemn. And there she is, his mother standing by the side of where he is lying, trying to lift the coffin's cover up, perhaps trying to have a last glimpse of her beloved son who has left her without saying a word but unsuccessful. As the coffin slowly subsided, she looked helplessly eyeing the coffin vanished into the flame. I wrote down this story to share my own experiences of learning how to cope, to reach out and to move on. And hopefully this will provide solace, insight and connection with others who have walked this powerful yet transformational path. Words of encouragement and companionship are needed when time arises and they go straight to the heart. I hoped that it wouldn't happen again. I won't let this incident be forgotten.

"Lets us take a journey to the heart. Even if you are not presently dealing with grief, hopefully, this little story of mine will move you and remind you of what really matters in our life. Most important, to be more deeply appreciate life through the grieving process, in times like these that open our hearts and lead us back into loving arms."

Valentine

She is from the north,

He is from the south.

They'd met each other and fall in LOVE in the campus of Tokyo University.

They broke off after a while because she is an artist and he is an economist and they were both younger then.

She would thought that she'll be better off with another artist and another artist and another...

and

she remain single.

He would thought that he'll be settle down with another partner who would take life seriously than an artist and he'd made it.

But,

he remain single again after a while.

They'd met each other again.

She is still an artist and he is still an economist.

She would still brush her teeth at the kitchen basin that he would dissallowed.

He would asked her to rinse off the excess water of the cloths before putting it under the sun which she find it a bit troublesome.

Their eyes never met in life and yet still,

they remain together.

She call him SAMURAI and the name she got from him is Sakai.

Perhaps,

it's LOVE actually...

They LOVE each other more than they can imagine.

As I SEE it。。。

我擁有一架Canon EOS 888, 一架LOMO Action Sampler, 一架SAMSUNG FINO 60S傻瓜相机, 一架Canon DIGITAL IXUS 60, 一架使用ADVANCE PHOTO SYSTEM 的FUJIFILM FOTONEX 15 及FUJIFILM INSTAX。因为我喜欢摄影。最近我总是把数码相机带在身边。拍了一大堆本来用底片相机是不会拍的照。有时候只是为了用而用, 亦正因如此, 那相机记录了许多我本来会忽略的生活片段。在正常的情况下, 人的记忆是会记起一些印象深刻的事。于是乎, 咱们的日子在正常的情况下都是稍过即忘, 仿佛虚度了许多日子。然而, 实际上我们的日子没有白过, 只是没去看或记那周围流过的事物。本来以为没什么特别的一天，咔嚓一声，有了拍照的记录，却又显得鲜活起来。