The Field Marshal

The Haven The posting by Batman on Chinese New Year and pesky relatives coupled with Luna Esa's comment will be the subject of my post today. Having graduated from the 'when are you getting married' class to 'when is your first baby coming' class, I can emphatise with both Batty and Luna. Guess I was lucky in the sense that my parents aren't the visiting sort, so I was protected from the barrage of questions from my relatives during CNY. To be fair, I think our relatives are genuinely concerned, in most cases, with our welfare. Thus, the incessant chanting of 'when are you getting married har", "you not getting younger you know", and "must invite me to your wedding when you are finally married hor". Things like that. Nonetheless, they are all irritating comments to all singles out there. So what can the single do about it? Here's Fieldmarshal's 10 Ways to Avoid the Venerable "When are you getting married" comment 1) Skip the country. Even crime-ridden Johore is better than a relative infested house! 2) Feign sickness and skip the visits. Do you know one can have a bad tummyache from too many softdrinks, or beer? Try it. 3) Offer the answer before relatives pop the question. Something like this, "No, not getting married this year. Don't think it will happen next year or even the year after". That'd set them off balance. 4) Shoot the question back to them and ask them when their sons or daughters are getting married. 5) Answer the question by saying that you will get married after your aunty (who's in her 50s) gets married. So there no need to ask again till old aunt Mary is married! 6) Bring a good book during the visit and park yourself in the host's toilet till the visit is over. But make sure the toilet is of ISO9000 cleanliness standard before doing this. 7) Play with younger cousins, somewhere away from all the chatter 8) Act dao. Ignore all questions related to marriage 9) Stuff your mouth with food and give an inaudible answer 10) Get married and stop thinking about this :P Haha... The last one ain't exactly a solution. Just ran out of ideas. Anyway, I was mulling over this during lunch and I thought, 'why don't I invite my single friends to my place over during CNY?' Make my place into a singles' haven, for those who are trying to avoid that dreaded question. Sounds like a great idea to me. Perhaps I will do just that next year. Well, only after I have visited my parents and in-laws. :)

Day 2 - Settling In My second day in the new office has been a breeze. Still nothing much to do. No fires to fight. No inane issues to work on. Taking advantage of the lull, I spent most of the time preparing myself for the real work. Come to think of it, I have not been so involved in work since I started working in 1999. Has it been that long since my blood stirred for work? Tucked away in the corner is my office. A nice little room which I am starting to infuse my character into it. Hopefully, it doesn't turn into the pigsty that was my old office. Having one's own room is really great! If it is possible, I would wish that everyone out there can have their own room. But that ain't gonna happen. Guess I will enjoy this state of affairs as long as I can before I am dropped back into the world of office cubicles. Although this is only my second day at work, I have this one observation to make. Unlike the first time I stepped into the working world, my move to the new department doesn't feel like a move. Yes, the people around me are strange faces, and the physical surroundings have all change. However, the impact of all these changes are hardly felt. It was more like a change of environment and work functions. Other than that, I don't feel anything at all. Wonder if it has something to do with my age or my past work experience. Am not complaining or anything. A smooth transition is always better than a rough one. Will update again if anything interesting happens to me. Till then, I will just lower the blinds, turn on the radio, dim the lights and invite sandman for tea.

Fieldmarshal, Mondo Magic and AXN Asia Hey, my post on Mondo Magic was quoted in AXN Asia! The webmaster of AXN knows my blog better than I do myself! Didn't know that my post on Mondo Magic was the inaugual post of the year. Anyway, why didn't AXN offer to let me meet the highly talented magicians? I would have volunteered to take part in one of their tricks. Pick me! Pick me! Ok, here's what AXN wrote about me, and of course, Korn and Benn (excerpts from my post in green): Sightings: Skeptics Beware. The Mondo magicians are in town! Think David Blaine with a much lighter sense of humour and you'll get Mondo Magic. Starring not just one, but two magicians, TV's latest sensation brings to screen street magic with a twist. Not only does the madcap team widen your eyes with disbelief, you bend over with laughter. The astonishing US hit series following Chris Korn and JB Benn's cross country trip had the honour of making Teddy's (Singapore) - me! me! me! - inaugural post of the year: I have to say that I am impressed with their sleight of hand tricks. The movement of their hands is so fast that it is impossible to catch the optical illusion behind their 'magic'. And with Mondo Magic, expect no passive TV: There was an interactive performance before the show breaked for commercials. Basically, Korn asked the audience, me and Mydaemon, to focus on a pack of cards which he flicked quickly on the screen. What the audience needed to do was to concentrate and remember one of the cards. Afterwards, the audience was suppose to raise their palms and think 'now' when their card is flashed, amongst other cards, on the TV screen. Curious, they both complied and raised their hands. On screen, Korn asked if the card in their mind was the 4 of Diamonds: The freaky thing is, that's the card I had in mind...If you don't believe in the skills of these guys, I propose that you guys catch an episode of Mondo Magic and judge for yourself. Now believe this - Mondo Magic will be coming to our very own streets in Singapore! In fact, the dynamic duo is in Singapore now, filming. Beat that! Read the rest of the article here By the way, the episode on their magical exploits in Singapore premieres on 21 Feb. Mondo Magic is show every Tues 10 pm on AXN. How's that for free advertising? So, can I appear on an AXN programme now?

A Tribute to My Cubicle My desk in front of me is totally clear of stuff. A first since the turn of the year. Gone are the AIA calendar, the caculator, hole-puncher, my favourite blue extra-strength stapler, post-it pads, CDs and dictionary. Gone too is the african violet which adorns the desk behind me. A pang of sadness touches me as I survey my once messy, but always cosy, work area. Packed and shipped to my new office someplace in Chinatown, they await my hand to unpack them and bring them into light again. Yes, the time has come to say goodbye. Just like the closing line for the classic Mickey Mouse programme which I watched in my younger days, I am saying goodbye to a place where I spent at least 8 hours everyday since 2001. I will need the familiar sounds of people chatting around me as I worked. Even the annoying vacuuming sound emited from the shredder machine doesn't sound that bad now. Going to a place with windows facing another office block, I will miss the green vista which greets me everyday. The only greenery there will be my little pot of plant. Better that than all the concrete. Tomorrow is my last day at the current office. You can say that I am a sentimental fool to be so attached to the surrounding. A fool that I am. If there's one memory which I want want to take with me, then its the memory of me meeting my wife. Although we met earlier in another place, it was at my current office where our relationship blossomed. Come tomorrow, I will be adieu to a wonderful workspace which has given me so much professionally and personally over the 5 years. Thanks for everything!

Of Marriage, Family and Responsibility Actually I have crafted a post this morning about my impending move to a new department this morning. But some server hidden somewhere on this globe just gobbled it up. Decided not to follow up with a similar post since I always found it irritating trying to recapture what was written earlier. For friend who are concerned with my professional life, I will be moving on 23 Jan. If there's a lack of updates here during that period, it means that I am working hard over at my new place. Well, that's that. Now for this post. Well, Naniecheng, I and a colleague were having lunch earlier. During our, almost, daily gossip session, the topic of interest fell on boy-girl relatioships, or BGR. It all started with my ever nosey genuine interest in the welfare of my fellow colleagues in office. Started off asking how's his pursuit of a particular girl in the office. Being his old evasive self, he brushed off all attempts to probe into his deep and dark fantasy world of romance personal life. Anyway, we ended up discussing the problems faced by one of his female friends. That's still technically fodder for gossip right? Evil me. Basically, his friend is married and has a young child. The problem is that this friend of his yearns to taste life overseas for an extended period of time. However, she feels trapped by her family. All this makes for one unhappy mummy with a stressed out hubby and kid. Being a person who symphatise more than emphatise, here's what I think about all this. Married Life Underneath the cloak of modernity that I adorn is the spirit of an old fogey. Old fogey as in that I hold on to certain values and ethics which have been considered outmoded by today's generation Y. Gen Yiner's (read whiners) think that the postmodern world they live in is a free for all. Institutions such as marriage is an outdated concept relevant only to the baby boomers of the 60s and 70s. This thinking is the very disease which plagues the youths of the world today. That, will be another post for the future. So, what about marriage life? For me, marriage, is about being a loving and responsible spouse. One can argue that a person can be both loving and responsible out of wedlock, and that marriage is but an institution that gives a societal status to the couple. Such a view can only come from singles who think they know everything about life and marriage. While I agree that being loving and acting responsibly is not exclusive to only those couples who are married, I disagree that they are the same in both married and non-married relationships. Being the straight laced person that I am, marriage here precludes gay unions. Yes, I am a stick in the mud. A stick that's stuck really deep. So, what's with married life? Well, I for one believe that in a marriage, people do not just simply walk out on their partners. They stay together through thick and thin, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health. That sounds like the marriage vows in church. Get the drift? Couple just don't up and leave a relationship in times of trouble. Such bond is not apparent in stay-in couples. Somehow the process of marriage transforms couples into more than mere journey partner on this planet. Marriage creates a stronger bond between 2 people that just a simple profession of love. You can perhaps say that we grow into the very concept of marriage, instead of it grows into us. Kids Some couples just pines for them, others just shudder at the thought of having them. Kids are sometimes seen as the final jigsaw to the picture perfect family life. How do these little devils angels factor in marriage and responsibility? Firstly, we must agree that without the parent's 'consent' no kids will be born into a family. So, if I hear one word from any parent saying that the kid was an accident, I would give that fella an earful. If parents do not want kids, they either spend some money on rubber or they jolly well abstain. Telling me that the feeling is not shiok ain't an excuse. You want to have that feeling, be jolly well prepared to have that baby coming out of your wife after 9 months. That's life. Frankly, I cannot understand why my colleague's friend can actually think of skipping the country to live in a foreign land for a year. Doesn't her maternal instincts tugs at her heartstrings to stay behind for her kid? I confess that I am not one to emphatise. Tending to symphatise more, my answers to people's plight is to provide answers. Guess that's why I am an ENTJ type of person. Since the lady under discussion here is not my friend, I cannot criticise her since I do not know that problems or stresses she face. However, I just find it hard to understand how can a mother choose to abandon her family just to experience life overseas. Somehow the priority is just not right. Personally, I'd rather do everything that I would like to before planning for a baby. It is financially impossible to do everything that I want to, thus I'd rather shelve some of the plans until later in my life. If need be they can always be done after my retirement. There's always a right time and place and to the right thing. The right thing for me to do now is to plan for the perfect church wedding followed by a perfect wedding luncheon. Stressed, but still happy. Ciao.

New DVD - Star Wars Clone Wars Vol. 2 This is the latest title in my DVD collection. I have to say that the guys at Cartoon Network did a fantastic job in linking Episode II and III. I highly recommend this to all Star Wars fans out there.

Old Friends, Like Old Wine - Are the Best I have been so tied up with the drudgery and routiness of life in the last 3 to 4 years that I have lost contact with some of my good friends. Gone are the days when we would swap latest entertainment gossip and lifestyle issues via the phone. Yeah, I actually bitched about stuff with my friends. Those were the days when handphones were a rarity. With SMS, I would have thought that contacting my friends would be a breeze. However, the spirit is willing, but the body, always weak. With time, some of my friends dropped out of my vision. In their place were countless hours of gaming, TV programmes and housework. Life past me by like a blur. However, life was not all meaningless as I found an anchor in Mydaemon admist life's countless distractions. Now, as I prepare for my wedding, my friends are once again back in my vision. Back because I would like to share one of my life's milestone with them. Their absence would take away so much from the church service and wedding luncheon. For the first time in many years, I looked up my friends email addresses in my PDA and shared with them the good news of my upcoming wedding. I wasn't sure what replies I would get. In my mind were these questions: Would they reply my emails? Would they remember me? Here's how it went with 2 of my good friends - Chincilla and Rafflesia. I think the nicks should be clear to these 2 friends if they should drop by here. Well, Chincilla was my first friend in NUS. She's one of the nicest girl around. Although she has a 'you gonna die now' look quite frequently, I can vouch that she's really a nice and good natured person. Was just exchanging emails with her earlier. During our exchanges, she told me that we last met at her wedding dinner in 2002. I was like, are you sure? I was quite sure that we met up sometime in 2003. But then again, my memory ain't as good as before. As we chatted via email, I just come to know that she's going to be a mummy. Well, another one of my friends are joining the motherhood gang in the neighbourhood. The first was Sweet Lullaby. Apart from this good news, she also informed me that she has already finished her masters. Man, the last time we spoke, she just left her job for her studies. Anway, Chincilla, I would like to congratulate you again on being a mother in the near future. I also look forward to keeping our friendship alive and well. Coming to Rafflesia. She's this nice girl whom I met in university when, in a moment of madness, I joined an ECA. Yup, I was crazy enough to sign up for an ECA. Anyway, Rafflesia is one person whom I have kept in contact on and off for the last 6 years since her graduation in 1998. Being a fun-loving person that she is, she's the life of any conversation. She's also one of the rare few who dares to speak her mind. Wish more people could be like her. Anyway, I am happy to see that she has gotten herself a great job. Now what she needs is a better half. For your sake, I hope you find Mr Right soon. One thing that I noticed while writing to Chincilla and Rafflesia was the continuity of our friendship despite the silence over months or years. Picking up from where we left off is something which touched me deeply. Sad to say, I have not been able to find friends in the workplace despite seeing my colleagues everyday. Maybe it's me, but I have not really made a friend, perhaps with the exception of Luna Esa, Summerbreeze and Shitake, since I started working. Friends are really like wine. They get better with age. It is a gift from God that I can take a sip from the bottles of friendship once a while. Sips which brings back memories of laughter, joy, and happiness. Here's a toast to everlasting friendships around the world.

How a Magician on the TV Read My Mind My first post of the year. What should I write about? Nothing has caught my eye. Well, that's until I caught this really interesting, and a tad freaky, magic-show programme - Mondo Magic on AXN this evening. Starring magicians JB Benn and Chris Korn, Mondo Magic follows these two guys as they go around showcasing their skills to the public. I have to say that I am impressed with their sleight of hand tricks. The movement of their hands are so fast that it is impossible to catch the optical illusion behind their 'magic'. However, there was this spooky trick which the guys performed. Cupping both their hands together, they formed a dark shadow between their palms. For a spilt second, a tiny grotesque gargoyle-like face rears it head in the shadows. It was really spooky. Makes me wonder if there's some spiritual beings involved in their tricks. Apart from this rather spooky trick, there was an interactive performance before the show breaked for commercials. Basically, Korn asked the audience, me and Mydaemon, to focus on a pack of cards which he flicked quickly on the screen. What the audience needed to do was to concentrate and remember one of the cards. Afterwards, the audience was suppose to raise their palms and think 'now' when their card is flashed, amongst other cards, on the TV screen. Both Mydaemon and I raised our hands as we had a card in mind. After all the mambo jumbo, he asked us (the audience) if the card was the 4 of Diamonds. The freaky thing is, that's the card I had in mind. However, Korn was way off the mark with Mydaemon's choice as her card was 9 of diamonds. I have to admit that if I was to watch this programme alone at home, I would have freaked out. The fact that Korn did not got Mydaemon's choice served to show that the diamond shape and the number 4 have some unique features that are somehow etched onto the human conciousness when we look at shapes and number. Well. at least that's what I choose to believe. If you don't believe in the skills of these guys, I propose that you guys catch an episode of Mondo Magic and judge for yourself. If I am right, the show should be on from 8pm to 8.30pm.