Wednesday, March 18, 2009

pathethic

pathetic

adj.
1. Arousing or capable of arousing sympathetic sadness and compassion
2. distressingly inadequate


Work is but a part of life. It‘s not and it shouldn’t be something that takes the life away from you. Some people take work so seriously that they give up big parts of their everyday life in the works, so much so that at the end of the day, they don’t even stop to question themselves if they are happy with the way things are. There are even people who are so much into their works that all it alters their behavior in front of people, at work, and after work. Just why so, well, the way I look at it, it’s yet another irony of the way things have been running since civilization. Is this part of life? Well, yes and no. Yes for as long as we are still in the system, the system and everything in and around the system will inevitably steer things towards the way of the system as the way of life. No, for its just a small part of life, not life in its all encompassing sense. There’s more things to it than those screwy stuff that’s part and parcels of working life. There should be more hours spent off work than at work, there should be things at work that are connected to our life, not disconnect us from it, there should be friends at work, not foes, colleagues should be our friends even after work, not someone that you dread to even say ‘Good Morning’ to, there shouldn’t be a barrier between people working together, rather there should be bonds that makes us clicks, and the list goes on and on, we all should know what else and we fill in the blanks…..afterall, they do what they do, all we can do is observe and learn and smiles at everything that comes our way.

Live, life.
ahtiow

Friday, March 13, 2009

A dedication to you


Here's another sunday morning call
You hear your head-a-banging on the door
Slip your shoes on and then out you crawl
Into a day that couldn't give you more
But what for?

And in your head do you feel
What you're not supposed to feel
You take what you want
But you don't get it for free
You need more time
Cos your thoughts and words won't last forever more
But i'm not sure if it ever works out right
But it's ok. It's alright

When you're lonely and you start to hear
The little voices in your head at night
You will only sniff away the tears
So you can dance until the morning light
At what price ?

And in your head do you feel
What you're not supposed to feel
You take what you want
But you won't get it for free
You need more time
Cos your thoughts and words won't last forever more
But i'm not sure if it ever works out right
But it's ok. It's alright

And in your head do you feel
What you're not supposed to feel
You take what you want
But you won't get it for free
You need more time
Cos your thoughts and words won't last forever more
And i'm not sure if it'll ever, ever, ever work out right
Will it ever, ever, ever work out right?
Cos it never, never, never works out right


No, it will never turn out right, it's only you who makes it right. Be strong, and it will be just fine

Cheers
ahtiow

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

girl.friend

*Note: This post has been put up especially for Lynn, cos you are the only one whos not in facebook. Another Starbucks from you ya Lynn?

girl.friend

n.
1. A favored female companion or sweetheart
2. Any female friend

Always has been amazed by just how easy and tender girls can bond with girls. They can hold hands while walking, share a piece of cake, shop for hours, giggle so happily while gossiping, talk on the phone for hours, know each other's shoe and dress sizes.....men are not like that. There's always a barrier between men called 'ego' that prevents men to be close to each other like girls do.....well, we are just so different, men and women.

Pictures posted below are pretty much my thoughts towards this admiration of mine towards the bonding between girls. You girls rocks!!!


Girlfriend:
n. 1. A female friend
....whom you can
talk to while holding hands,
giggle with when gossiping about the guy who's after you
pick a dress that suits her that you yourself will never wear,
share a piece of cake together and.....and share the guilt afterward,
and so on and so forth........



'Smile! Smile!'.........
'Child, all of life's secrets are in a smile.
You're so young, don't always pull a straight face,
you must smile, and even better sometimes be playful!'
Saying this, Master waved at me. I bowed deeply.
-Wei Hui, Marrying Buddha



'.....when good girlfriends get together, time seems to stand still.
We start to giggle, our postures growing more relaxed and our bodies soften like warm
toffee......'



'....we stood there for a while, the two of us, laughing and and hugging, touching,
sizing each other up and trading compliments like "You just seem to get more and more beautiful"



.....and yes,
a girlfriend is someone whom you can buy a pair of identical glasses and wear them and take a picture, that's what girlfriends are,
.....I think........
- ahtiow 11/03/2009

Sunday, March 8, 2009

smile

smile
n.
1. a facial expression characterized by turning up the corners of the mouth; usually shows pleasure or amusement

When I got up to leave, Master struck his staff forcefully on the ground and said in a voice as if reading the sutras: 'Smile! Smile!'
I held back my tears at leaving and up floated a smile, 'Child, all of life's secrets are in a smile. You're so young; don't always keep a straight face. You must smile, and even better sometimes be playful!' Saying this, Master waved at me. I bowed deeply.
- Wei Hui, Marrying Buddha

Was reading this on the train, was more to staring at those words rather than actually reading them, I know just how true those words are, somehow, maybe there's too many things that are running around me that my mind blocked me from absorbing these words. So here goes, for all of you who reads this and who can grasp the meaning, as well as a reminder for me when the time comes for me to be able to grasp the true meaning of it. Wonder how long more I can last in this place.......



a gentle reminder

Friday, March 6, 2009

drained

drained

adj
1. emptied or exhausted

I am so so drained of energy and enthusiasm just being here in this place.....I need to get away from this place soon!

Monday, February 23, 2009

simple

simple

adj.
1. Having little or no ornamentation; not embellished or adorned:
2. Not involved or complicated; easy


conducted another underwater proposal dive today at work. was a simple proposal, the guy went in to the aquarium to dive first, when the girlfriend come in 10 mins later she will be surprised to see the ugly weird looking guy in scuba mask, regulator, loud colorful wetsuit with the word BARE all over the suit and not forgetting a big tank at the back that happened to be her boyfriend diving in the tank with me, another ugly weird looking guy in scuba mask, regulator, loud colorful wetsuit with the word BARE all over the suit and not forgetting a big tank at the back that happened to be me. 2 more mins passed with the guy posing for pictures for his group of hengdais and jimuis outside. Then he signalled to me to pass the proposal letter to him, laminated and safely tucked in my bcd. and that was it, the girl said yes immediately and everybody present was happy for them too. simple and yet full of thoughts, different and memorable, pure and brave, romantic and yet not so...all in all, all these only matters at where and how you look at it. it could probably be not the ideal way one may dreamed her proposal would come, yet it could be the sweetest thing that's ever happened to the girl, the guy may not be able to propose to her future wife with a wedding ring (he told me that he didnt buy a wedding ring caused by the current economic situation), but he may compensate for this by showering her with all the love and care he could ever provide.....

.......ah....love, its such a simple and complicated thing, sweet and endearing as it could be, yet it could rip you apart and leave you miserable, it could be the thing in life that you anticipate with great expectations and dreads at the same time, all in all, love is all encompassing, we go around it and gets surrounded by it, going round and round, again and again....love and be loved.

love
ahtiow


the kaleidoscopy of life: pick your point of view, color your own picture, be happy and take good care of yourself at all time.....

Saturday, February 21, 2009

passion vs work

passion

n.
a. Boundless enthusiasm

work

n.
normally rhymes with 'duh......'

went to a photo exhibition this afternoon and attended 2 dialogue sessions during the exhibition. One of the speaker brought up an interesting point of how things have changed for him since he have become a commercial photographer. He is so successful with his business that he now concentrate his time and effort into sharing rather than actual shooting (he is very involved in the Singapore Photographer's group on facebook that he updates his page every few hrs). That got me thinking of how things have been for me for my other passion: scuba diving. I started off my diving when I was in uni as part of the co-curricular course and it was something that I have been eagerly anticipating since the first day of our orientation week when our course coordinator told us that we will be getting our subsidised scuba course in 2nd year. After that, I have never been diving till end of second year when I went to Lankayan island for my thesis project. Done about a hundred dives there and a few dives sporadically helping out my course mates with their field works. Then got offered a job in SWV initially as Management Trainee but end up being a Divemaster. So, thinking back of it all, it seems like I kinda screwed up my passion for diving by starting my diving career before I have really enjoyed diving. Not that I dont like diving anymore, it's just that I would have preferred to pay for diving for sometimes first before I get paid to dive.

And now, since I started photography, the same question occurs again. There have been talks with some frens who are interested to venture in the shutter business with me, but I know that I am not ready for that yet, (I have only started photography for less than a year for goodness' sake!) or at least, I dont want to yet. I still want to learn all I can about photography, see which direction I wanna go into and which genre of photography that I would be comfortable with and hoping that along the way, I would have found my own style. And as for now, I am looking to earn some money to 'feed' my dry box with gears that I would need to take the genres of pictures that I am currently interested in. So till, then, along the way, will keep shooting and posting and learning and thinking and babbling......

Cheers
ahtiow


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