Tell Me Your Life

I only realised that i had only been to Karaoke twice in my life when my friend ask me to go Karaoke with him few days ago. he just couldn't believe this when i told him, i guess singing is just not my cup of tea. however, one thing leads to another, it reminds me of the first song ever that i had created when i was a child --- puk*ma (yeah, you are right, is that foul word)

i spent my childhood in a small village in Selangor. we kampung boys like to run all over the village and playing games all day long. so, literally we know everyone in the kampung who is in our age. one day, somehow i overheard my friend's elder brother using this word 'puk*ma' in the conversation. although i dun understand what it means, but i really think that is a very 'cool' word (may be the 'macho' way that he used the word.....  i must clarify that i was 10 or 11 that time...).

in fact, i liked this word so much that i created a song for the word. it goes like this:

puKImalu, puKImalu, puk*malu, puk*MAK!!
repeat till you get tired...

you need to stress those in capital letter with higher tone. especially the "MAK!!" at the end.

i have 2 younger brothers, who always go where i go and do wat i do. naturally, i teach them this song too. later that afternoon (or the day after, cant remember exactly liao). we went out for dinner with our parents, we are so happy because its not usual for us to have dinner outside at that time. so, in car, we are so excited that we started to sing that song... in front of our parents. at the first time, apparently my mother won't believe what she heard (we never say foul words before). only after we repeat the song a few times, she was sure that she wasn't mistaken of what she heard, she started to flame us, of course i'm the main victim.

we tend to tell things that we think is cool to others, even though we heard it from someone else, we may not truely understand it or we dun even know how far its true.

its ok if we do this if we are 10, or 11, because we lack of wisdom to examine the truth. as an adult, although we may not have the wisdom to understand everything yet, at least, we should try to search for the truth, before we say it out and tell the others. and the most important and fundametal thing is... ask.

do you feel that we ask less when we grow up more? because we tend to label asking as symbol of inferior to the others, which is the biggest mistake in the world. so, learn to ask. 

i guess the best is to start with: "how you doing today?" 

:) 

My father just retired last month, after travel to few places, he finally 'settle down' at house in the last two weeks. Since i'm writing my thesis at my home, so i have much time to be with him everyday. I try to find something for him to do, so that he wont be feeling lost in life. i suggest him to learn computer and internet. To 'seduce' him, i bought a webcam and install skype so that he can see and chat with my brother in US. This really works, and he started to ask me to teach him more.

I start my computer lesson with him from email. I apply an email account for him and explain how internet and email works. It was a really tough job to make him to remember and understand the concepts.... and move the mouse pointer to the correct icon on the screen!! At the first time, he spend about half an hour to write a 2 line mail to my brother (with my help to click the 'compose' and 'send' button). Then he ask me to install chinese star so that he can learn to type chinese on my computer. He started to have so many question to ask about almost everything about computer and internet. His 'over enthusiasm' annoys me. Sometimes i even tried to avoid to mention anything about computer in front of him. 

I still remember that few days ago he called me when i was not at home to ask how to shut down my computer that i forgot to turn off. Then there was one day, when i wake up, suprisingly i found him sitting in front of my computer and laughing. He was checking some forward email jokes that my brother sent to him. At that moment, i realized how selfish i was that i'm not willing to spend one or two hours a week to make his life happier. Only God knows how much he had gave to me in the past 26 years. Now i'm complaining that he occupied like one or two hours a week in my life.... what kind of jerk am i??

I promised to myself that i'll spare more time for him and with him. This is not some kind of reimbursement, because what can i give to him, couldn't match even a small portion to what i had received from him. I'll teach him whatever that he wants to know, just like he taught me when i was  a child. I'll accompany him as much as i could, just like what he did for me when i was a child.

May be this is what God really means it to be, to make human grows old. So that someday we can treat our parents like our children. So that the love that they gave, will return to them someday.

Oh, my father, my son.

this blog isnt going to be about me, i'll post anyone's life here as long as they agree for me to do so. just wish that i could gather enough stories to keep this blog running. there are too many blogs about oneself, i wish this wont be a place for you to listen or read my stories again. i think the world will be better if there are more people willing to listen to others.

i was reading this book, what should i do with my life  by Po Bronson. i was so touched by some of the stories inside, there are no fancy stories about saving the world or protecting the earth from the aliens. there are just the stories of some ordinary people, like you and me. one similarity that was shared by the characthers in the books is that they all had seriouly thought of their life, life's destiny, or as indicated by the book title, what should i do with my life?

if you had thought of this question before, you are welcome to write to me at tellmeyourlife@gmail.com. or you simply found this blog in a boring night, you are welcome to write to me as well. anything you want to tell, i'll listen. just anything you would like to share with me, and if you agree, i'll post your stories here to share with others.