About 6 years ago, I was traipsing along Brooklyn Bridge, New York.  It was a beautiful day.  The sun was shining, the skies were blue and the bridge looked magnificent.  I was one of the hundreds walking on the bridge.  And then I passed a girl sitting on a bench.

Now, the bridge was quite a long stretch to walk.  So there were a few benches strategically placed along the way.

The girl who caught my eye was sporting a pony tail, had green fingernails, chewed gum and wore a long T-shirt over black tights.  Her slim body was curled on the bench while she read a book.

The book title was ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’.

Quite a number of pedestrians who walked past her, raised their eyebrows and/or hid their smiles.  I was one of them.  ”Why would a girl who’s serious about being a highly effective person be doing loafing on this bridge instead of doing something, well, productive?”

She probably knew what we were thinking – she was smiling broadly as she read the book.  But she didn’t give two hoots about what we thought.

Fast forward to the present.  I was reading a book the whole of yesterday.  It was pretty riveting and potentially life changing.  Right after I read the book, I declared to my amused brother that I was too lazy to do anything more and took a nap – which stretched to over 4 hours.

The title of the book?

10 Habits Of Highly Successful People.

Heh.

So there we were at our favourite Indian restaurant Gem last Friday, when a waiter approached our table.  Well, made a beeline for Twinnie, more accurately.

"Excuse me, Ms. Taty.  There is a phone call for you from Annie," he said.

The four of us at the table were gobsmacked.  Twinnie blinked in disbelief before following the waiter to the phone.

"Now, isn’t that strange?" the rest of us marvelled.  Why would Annie call the restaurant instead of calling Twinnie directly on the phone?

"If Twinnie couldn’t hear her phone ringing, Annie could have at least called one of us," I said.

"Yeah, there is no need for her to call the restaurant number," Hath agreed.

Soon Twinnie returned from her surprise phone call and said, "Good news, Annie’s able to join us for dinner after all!"

Ecstatic as we were, we still had to satisfy our curiosity, "But why did Annie call the restaurant to get to you???"

"She did try to call me and you girls!" Twinnie replied.

Gobsmacked for the second time, Hath and I hurriedly checked our phones.  True enough, there was not one but two missed calls from poor Annie.

We sent a silent apology to what must have been a frustrated Annie.  Gosh, we really must change our ringtones to something more blaring to avoid such incidences in future.  Sorry, Annie!

Some of you readers may also be wondering – in the sea of people dining at the restaurant, how did the waiter know just who Ms. Taty is?  Mind you, there were 40 tourists from India dining at the same time with us as well as other patrons.  Long story short, Twinnie has visited Gems so often that she’s practically a main fixture there already.  Plus, she makes it a point to chat with the waiters – unlike reserved me.  Which may explain why the waiters don’t ever remember me.  Even on what must have been my hundredth visit.

No matter.  The food’s good.  The company’s even better and like it or not, we sistahs have carved a history for ourselves at Gem’s.  We ain’t going anywhere.

While my friends were chewing food during dinner recently, I decided to check on my Facebook updates on friends.  Lo and behold I saw a mushy update from a friend.  She declared her love and devotion to her beloved for all to see on his wall. 

To romantics who are sold into public expressions of love and affection, this is a grand and touching gesture indeed.

But to the rest of us (like my friends and I), it was errr… way too mushy for our tastes lar.  I couldn’t resist showing the update to Twinnie who was savouring her grilled fish with relish.

"What the heck??!" she swallowed her fish in a tizzy and scrunched her face in mock agony.  "I just lost my appetite!"

Then I showed FT who went, "Oh man.  Why would people do that??!"

Exactly.

Why would anyone want to subject hundreds upon hundreds of their friends with syrupy sickening sweet messages like these?

We are not alone.

A few weeks ago, Mix FM’s breakfast show had a segment on Facebook status and wall posts that people deem to be inappropriate.  One lady caller said that she nearly threw up when she read a guy friend posting this about his wife:

"I’m all alone on my bed missing my Queen."

Ewwwww…. right?  It’s definitely not something you want to read first thing in the morning while enjoying your cup of coffee.

These messages are private and in my opinion, should be treated as such.  No one (saved for your beloved) is interested to know about the minute romantic details of your life.  So, might as well keep it between just the two of you.

So get a private space or privatise your messages where no prying or disinterested parties can see. That way, both you and your sweetheart get to indulge in all the displays of lurve and affection you want without causing nausea to friends and foes alike.

This is a public service message by Coolcat and gang.

Made a new friend yesterday during McUser’s karaoke birthday outing.  This new friend, whom I shall call F, hails from the USA, looks like Salman Khan, is a kiasu Chinese at heart, and drinks like a German.  The man’s a walking poster child for multi-cultural diversity.

Why the kiasu bit?  Well, we arrived at Red Box few minutes after 9pm.  And the buffet table closes at 10pm.  That gave us less than an hour to heap our plates with the goodies.  After being directed to our karaoke cubicle, F and I rushed to the buffet tables to gather food like there’s no tomorrow.

“You Want Soup?”

For all his multi-cultural diversity, to F, one Chinese girl looks about the same as another.  As he was ladling soup into bowls on his tray, he asked the Chinese girl next to him, “You want soup?” He thought the girl was me.

The girl just froze, gave him a hard stare and walked away.

F was taken aback for a while and then chuckled good-naturedly.

Moral of the story:

1. Verify the identity of the person you are speaking to before opening your mouth.
2. Don’t ever say, “You want soup?” to strange women. They may think it’s the lousiest pick-up line ever.

Knowing the Languages of Love has helped a great deal in understanding others and myself better. There are 5 languages of love in general:

1. Words of Affirmation
2. Acts of Service
3. Quality Time
4. Receiving Gifts
5. Physical Touch

So, how does it help me in relating with others?

I learned that while my dad is not the type to exhibit affection by words or hugs, he has been showing love all along by doing things for the household. He takes care of my car like his own and offers to run errands for us. To make him happy, I learned to offer help and do my share of the housework.

My mom, on the other hand, loves to hear and give words of affirmation. She will tuck little notes of love under my door from time to time and always lets me know that she loves me. She treasures the poems and blog entries that I wrote about her. Incidentally, that was how dad got her to fall in love with him – he wrote pages of pages of love lorn letters to her when they were in a long-distance relationship.

Understanding how our loved ones perceive love will go a long way in enriching your relationships.  Find out what yours is by completing this quiz.

As a bonus, here’s a list of songs that you can play or sing to your loved ones depending on their language of love. Have fun and may it bring a zing to your relationship! A special thanks to Mr. McUser for helping me come up with most of them.


Songs That Would Make Their Hearts Go Zing:

Words of Affirmation – When You Tell Me That You Love Me (Diana Ross)
I Love You Always Forever (Donna Lewis), Say It Right (Nelly Furtado),
Tell Her About It (Billy Joel),

Acts of Service – Every Little Thing You Do (Westlife) I Go To
Extremes (Billy Joel), I’ll Be There (The Jackson 5), I’ll Stand By
You (The Pretenders), Take Good Care Of My Baby (Bobby Vee), What Can
I Do (The Corrs)


Quality Time – Spending My Time (Roxette) Come Fly With Me (Michael Buble)

Gifts – Diamonds Are Forever (Shirley Bassey)

Physical Touch – Touch My Body (Mariah Carey), When You Kiss Me (Shania
Twain), Besame Mucho (Andrea Bocelli) I Wanna Hold Your Hand (The
Beatles), Intimacy (The Corrs), Sealed With A Kiss (Agnetha Faltskog)

Songs You Should NOT Sing:

Words of Affirmation - When You Say Nothing At All (Ronan Keating) Hard To Say I’m Sorry (Peter Cetera), On And On And On (Abba)

Acts of Service - I Would Do Anything For Love But I Won’t Do That (Meatloaf)

Quality Time - Time To Say Goodbye (Andrea Bocelli & Sarah Brightman)

Gifts - Gimme Gimme Gimme (Abba), The Winner Takes It All (Abba),

Physical Touch - Stay Away (Nirvana) Kissing A Fool (Michael Buble)

So there I was, chatting with my boss’ 7-year old kid who’s as cute as a button and intelligent to boot.  He has this way of saying things in a matter-of-fact way and is not out to impress anybody.  He had me wrapped up his thumb in no time at all.

We got to talking about the online world and he confessed that he lost his password to Gmail.

Me: Have you tried resetting it?

Him: Yeah, but it didn’t work.

Me: How long has it been since you had a Gmail account?

Him: Since I was 4.

Then he talked about how nice it was to be able to chat with his best friend over Skype every day.  His best friend is 6 years old.

Suddenly I felt really old.  And surreal.  I had my first e-mail account only in university days.  And for the life of me, I couldn’t recall what I did when I was 4.  Are kids growing up too fast these days?  Is this the dawning of a new age that I must get used to when I have kids of my own?

Shaking my head in both disbelief and amusement, I smiled at him. 

"Come, let’s take a photo together since you are so cute and all." He came willingly, a tolerant smile on his adorable pink-cheeked face.  "Has anyone told you that you are cute?" I asked as we posed for photos.

"No, not many actually," he said. 

I was aghast.  Didn’t the che-ches and aunties at church notice such a sweetie? 

Maybe their eyes need checking or something.

Ok, I’m posting this here because it got too long for Facebook and especially 140-char Twitter.

Imagine your name appearing in Twitter’s trending topics.  Based on
your reaction, you would know just what type of personality you are:

A sanguine – Wow!!!! People are talking about me! They love me!!!  And hey, I appeared way above Megan Fox, too!  Wooo hoooo!!!

A phlegmatic – Hmmm. So what?

A melancholy – Why can’t people just leave me alone?  They make me sound like such an attention whore.  It’s so depressing.

A choleric – I can’t believe my office workers are wasting their time in talking about me.  I really should give them more work to do.

So which one are ya?

Got this on my e-mail today sent by a Chinese friend.  It really had me laughing as I can identify myself or some other Chinese person in the statements below.  Read them all, you’ll have a blast.  If you are not Chinese but can identify with the list, you are officially yellow on the inside.  Give yourself a pat on the back!

Please check the list to see how Chinese you or your friends
really are:

There are at least 29 ways to know if you’re Chinese. You will laugh at
yourself when you read all of them.

1. You unwrap gifts very carefully, so you can save and reuse the wrapping (and especially those ribbons).  Guilty as charged.

2. When there is a sale on toilet paper, you buy
100 rolls and store them in your closet or in the bedroom of an adult
child who has moved out. Yeah, my folks have a room at home that stashes loads of toilet rolls.

3. You keep a Thermos of hot water available at all
times. My folks are guilty of that.

4. You save grocery bags, tin foil, and tin
containers. You use the grocery bags to hold garbage. Just being a Greenie mar…

5. You hate to waste food:

(a) Even if you’re totally
full, if someone says they’re going to throw away the leftovers on
the table, you’ll finish them. (Your mom will give you a lecture about starving
kids in Africa ). I can still that lecture ringing in my ear…

(b) You have Tupperware in
your fridge with three bites of rice or one leftover chicken wing.  Ok, there were some leftovers in the fridge…

6. You don’t own
any real Tupperware- only a cupboard full of used but carefully rinsed
margarine tubs, take out containers, and jam jars.  Hahahahaha!  Did these people actually have a spy cam in my home??

7. You have a collection of miniature shampoo bottles
that you take every  time you stay in a hotel.  Oh boy, oh boy…

8. You wipe your plate and utensils or wash them
in a small basin of hot water before you eat every time you go to a restaurant.  Isn’t that like hygienic?

9. You own a rice cooker and a slow cooker. I don’t own either but I’ve been contemplating on getting them :P

10. You wash your rice at least 2-3 times before
cooking it. Again, isn’t that hygienic?

11. You fight (literally) over who pays the dinner bill. Eh?

12. You have a teacup with a cover on it. Aiyor, these ppl really got spycam lar

13. If you’re under age 20, you own a really
expensive Walkman; if you’re over 20, you own a really
expensive camera.  Man, how did they know that??  I had a walkman and portable CD player in college (big thing back then) and a baby dSLR now.

14. You’re a wok user.  Nope, but my folks are.

15. You only make long distance calls after 7pm. Bingo.

16. You prefer
your shrimp with the heads and legs still attached – it means they’re fresh. But of course.

17. You never call your parents just to say, ‘ Hi.
‘ LOL! When I was overseas, my dad will scold me for wasting money if I called home :P

18. If you don’t live at home, when your parents
call, they’ll ask if you’ve eaten, even if it’s midnight. Correct, correct, correct!  Then again, it’s a common Chinese greeting to all, not just between family members.

19. Your parents tell you to boil herbs and stay
indoors when you get sick. They also tell you not to eat fried foods or baked
foods because such food is ‘ heaty’  Nope, my parents are not traditional in this area.

20. You e-mail your Chinese friends at work, even
though you only sit 10 feet apart. Errr, doesn’t everyone do that these days?

21. You always cook too much. My folks used to do that.

22. You eat every last grain of rice in your bowl, but
don’t eat the last piece of food on the table.  Nope, more like the opposite :P

23. You starve yourself before going to an ‘ All
You Can Eat ‘ buffet.  More bang for your buck.

24. You know someone who can get you a good deal on
jewellery, electronics, or computers. Ok, I know someone who knows someone who can give discounts on some gadgets.

25. You own your own meat cleaver and sharpen it
yourself. Ah, hafta say no to that.

26. Your toothpaste tubes are all squeezed
paper-thin.  Wastage is sin!

27. You call a sausage a hotdog. Isn’t it though?

28. You wrap with napkins all the knives, spoons
and forks of the airline that you fly on and put in your travel-bag as
souvenirs. It gets burdensome if you travel a lot so you stop doing that after a while :P

29. You never forget to take with you all the
unused bath and facial tissues when you check out from the hotel because
you believe that you have paid for it all. Ok, that sounds familiar. But Ross ain’t a Chinese.

 Now that you have read the lot, are they mostly true?

1. Aiyor, so smelly wan this durian!
2. Yucks, I hate the taste of belacan!
3. Please keep the change
4. Here’s your tip
5. I miss the public transportation back home!
6. Wah, the food here is so much better than Klang/Penang/Ipoh/Melaka…!
7. Their motorcycling skills so terror, man.  Kalah our Mat Rempits!
8. Errr… less curry, please.
9. More salt for my egg, please. What?! You only have soy sauce here? Ewwww…!

And finally…

10. Cable internet sucks.  I love Streamyx!  It’s so fast, so efficient, so WAH!!

Now this is just darn hilarious.