It has been awhile that I have not been doing this free writing, rambling on anything except the serious proposal paper for directors’ approval. That alone has been quite some time and were escaped with mere project reporting. Having been away for the past few days in Singapore gave me an opportunity to break from the usual routine. It was quite a challenge to certain extent ignoring my blackberry for a few days. I did carry it along but been refraining myself from getting the mobile data crept in. Yup, it did sound like a BS stuffs but then again I gave myself a fair chance too. It can wait. Nothing urgent...to me. With such a hyper energetic bosses, with emails flying around on weekends and midnights or early morning, one has to cope with it somehow. When asking myself; can I live with it..the answer is still yes. It depends on how you take it and after been years working as an employee this will always be same. Come to think of it, what happened to those 7 Habit of Highly Effective People training that I have attended a few months back. Hmm....I wonder..but life is interesting. One of the thing about the program is making a routine to plan for 45 days. I remember the time the seniors during my secondary school put us into routine of performing our daily 5 times prayers for 45 days. In the end the duty became a second nature. Positive habitual developments. Enough said, lets move on to other things.
Mentioning the Singapore trip, I was fascinated the manner the country has developed over time. My mum said the last time she came to Singapore was back in 1961. No passport required. Along the way, she was telling us how did she landed herself in Singapore. To her it was like a dream; not because it was some unexpected trip nor exciting but because it was too short. She was there to send my eldest sister to a boarding school in JB and stopped over at her aunty’s place in Woodland or...some elderlies if not all said Oderlan. Having admired the real estate developments in Singapore, I asked the kids if they are interested in that sort of real estate industry, as a planner, architect, engineer, land economist etc, my wife quickly intercepted the conversation by asking whether that professions give lots of money. I said no but let the real estate works for you and not you work for real estate. What a spontaneous thoughts. Make sense!
We drove to Singapore but stayed in JB for 3 days. We pushed off to Singapore after breakfast through Woodlands and on the last day via Tuas. Driving in Singapore allowed us to discover several exciting places which we would have been there if we were on MRT. We got ourselves lost to encounter nice neighbourhood near Fort Canning which remind me of Swansea’s Uplands..as well as the Garden by the Bay East Gate. We drove to Bukit Chandu when my son talked about the battle fought by Lt Adnan. It was already dark when we reached there but alas I could sense the gory battle recalling the history of the war and also the geographical formation of the site. My GPS went crazy most of the time especially in the CBD due to change of road alignment or lost satellite reception due to high towering buildings along the way. However, it was a nice experience though when everybody had a chance to discover Singapore by road rather than on foot. Being on foot was my usual way of discovering places be it in London or Sydney and even once in Singapore. Since my mum was with us and to be wheel chaired most of the time, we have to avoid MRT as mode of transport. The kids were relief this time around when my MPV took charge to ferry us around.
Does Singapore has its own history? Of course. Everything is history. For Singapore, most of the history portrayed started from Raffles time landed on the island. I feel sad when it was once part of the Nusantara; Malay archipelago became just another country and glory is no longer associated with Malays nor Islam. Lesson learned in a bitter way. Malay origin was loosely defined and became universal as long as any mixed or associations with Malay exist. Is this the way it should be and in even Malaysia, there were occasions when the existence of Malay is also a question of debate. Let the debate goes on if they want to but life has to go on. One has to focus the energy to improve himself first, in every aspect of their life. Islamic teachings has mentioned that, nothing new and what’s left is to practice it. Let the new movement is about self improvement. Though it was a short trip, not far from the homeland but the lesson to be learned is abundance! Enough said too. QED
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