And so we shall laugh a lot more from now.

I am sure many of us heard or seen personally too many a case about someone in our friends or family circle fighting the much dreaded cancer. If not, then you are very fortunate. Count your blessings.

The first time I saw someone very close to me battling for life was my 4th uncle who was very handsome, gentlemanly and loving to his family. Then again, I didn't see him much coz he wasn't staying at the same town as us.

Then, my closer aunt who spent many nights playing chor tai di with my 2-poh, my mom and I late into the nights when korkor was just a little toddler who would be sleeping soundly in the room, died of lung cancer after fighting for less than a year. I still remembered accompanying her when she discharged from the GH and the time when all of us gathered at her home.

These days, I have one close friend of mine whose husband is fighting for his life while another ex-coursemate is having the same fate.

While I wanted so much to show my concern, love and support to them, more often than not, I do not know how and what to say so they could feel better, albeit a little bit.

To show pity and sorrow would be the last thing they would ever wanted to hear, I believe.

To say that everything will be ok and God would take care of it, well, fark, how do I even know!?

To leave them alone, coz, you know, sometimes they might wanna be alone?

Whatever it is, it's so hard to find all the right things to say.

Today, my hubs told me a story.

You know Raymond Wong? The guy in HK who make funny movies that tug your heartstrings?

My hubs saw the other day, on TV, that Raymond had came up to talk about his wife who was diagnosed with cancer (probably cervical, if I'm not mistaken) circa 2000 or so. When she went into operation, the doctors found that the illness had spread too rapidly and couldn't be able to do anything for her and sent her home to wait.

The hubs, then bought a vacation house somewhere here in Mal, and would bring her often for relaxation. Meanwhile, he summoned his kids to bring cheer and laughter to her like every so often.

After about 9 months of laughing, they went back to the doctor and had a scan. Miraculously, they were told that the cancer cells had all shrunk and she was on the way to recovery. Much more later, she was given the all clear.

I think, the moral of this story is, probably the best thing to do or say to a patient is to make him/her laugh. That would be a little bit challenging, but at least I know now which direction to go when I want to meet or talk to my friends who are fighting this battle.

Laughter is truly the best medicine.

Goodies from ashore.

The recent business trip seen hub buying back a whole load of stuffs for us, which is very different from the past trips. He went to Sydney and I suppose, delighted with the change of scenery from the normal SEA countries he'd been to that spurred him on a shopping frenzy.

When he unload everything onto our big round dining table, he said "most of the stuffs are for you". I was excited like a little child, smiling with glee. And so I checked out each one of them. If you knew him by now, you would know how he exaggerates. Guess I wasn't surprised to find, like, 10% of the things there is for me. Chiu! He defended saying the bulk of the expenses were for the things he bought for me. yeah yeah yeah...

Knowing I use SKII masks, which we bought 10 pieces in CP flight the last time we flew to Taiwan, he bought another 20 pieces for me from Changi airport. Woot! I can totally savor every piece of it slowly. Another item is the cleanser and a lip gloss. My eyes opened up, as I really think it's the first time he got me a lip gloss. Elizabeth Arden, dunplayplay.

Apparently, there was this promotion where 40 bucks voucher would be given to every 400 bucks spent. So the story goes that he ajak the man beside him at the counter to combine receipts to grab that voucher and that man agreed. But after combining it was still 10 bucks short, so he quickly go and grab the cheapest item he sees and pay for it. The man was in a hurry and in the end, just go "wtf" in the head and gave him his receipt. My hub was of course a happy man, and ended up buying that cleanser with that voucher.

I opened the lip gloss and wtf, it was bright pink! I told him, he can asks the beautician to put that color on my lips when I became a corpse. Sigh! Dunno laugh or cry, really.

But glad he's home, somehow. It was a quiet and unusually uncomfortable weekend without him around indeed.

Some sharing.

My hub was out the whole day on Sunday, after we got back from Genting and the movie 2012 the day before. He was invited by his school friend to attend a preview seminar. The speaker conversed in Mandarin and focused on Chinese business entrepreneurs with numerous case studies.

He came home pretty late, as he had to travel to Putrajaya as well to handle some work matters. When he came home, the children were asleep and we chatted on how the seminar had been.

Some stories he shared with me from the seminar:

1. Chinese are so competitive that in a talent search program whereby the organisers invited people to send in their business proposals, it came in as thick as 3-4 inches each and the number of proposals received was a whopping 250,000!! The judges had no choice but to randomly choose 3000 out and the participants were given 3 mins to present their proposal in person.

100 came out as winners, the first one were given a big lump sum of money to realize their business, with the rest being given significantly reduced but still considered big sum of money for them to kick start their business.

And to think what kind of lapsup talents' shows we have...

2. A smart person, also a Chinese, in a city unknown, bought a big piece of land, like the size of Brickfields probably, built 30 buildings and an exhibition center right smack in the middle and invited 100 business owners to operate their business from there, with rental FOC for 20 years!! So how would he make money?

Smart thinking he is that he would only ask for 1 condition from these business that is to make a deposit of RMB100k with a certain bank only, and the bank would also provide OD facilities for 3times the value, making this business deal look like a win-win-win solution for all. Imagine with the "accumulated power" he has in his hands, banks would also treat him like king!

Furthermore, he just need to control the logistics of all the businesses in the vicinity, and perhaps build a few hotels around the area, there's a whole lots of revenue which can be earned from. As simply put it, build a platform like Google, provide everything free, and earn revenue from the things around it. Pretty ingenious.

Smallsized business success depends on the leadership and ability of the boss. Medium sized depends on the management team, and big ones depends on the business culture. Something to ponder about.

With the culture and competitive edge, hardwork and creativity from that country, I suppose we can all learn more than a thing or two from them and buckle up ourselves to keep that edge.

You have all the quotients?

My banker shared with me this today. He read somewhere that to be successfully rich, other than IQ and EQ, there's also FQ and SQ. (no, it's not f**k Q and Sex Q, hoh)

We all know IQ is Intelligence Quotient, which is born natural needless to say, like me, high IQ!

Then we all know about EQ, which is Emotional Quotient, which is the ability to handle our emotions in different situations to make the right decisions (roughly, ok, don't start lecturing me if I'm wrong, I admit right here I am no expert in this)

Now, for all who does not know, FQ is Financial Quotient, which is our knowledge and ability to handle and manage our finances. If one does not have high FQ, even if he strikes the lottery, he won't be able to grow the money or manage the fund appropriately to stay rich. I think that's quite true, no?

As for SQ, that's for Social Quotient. It was said that a study in a small town in US says that generally those people who drinks and smokes, actually live longer than those who stayed alone, and who watched their diet strictly. That's because humans need to socialize, mingle with people, talk to people, have fun, be happy. And of course we do know good social skills is one important factor to bring in sales.

So, for these 4 Q's, we might not be able to do much on IQ (we are born with it, I said so just now lok), but we can definitely work out something on the other 3. For me, I definitely have low FQ, but SQ, I think I can score better in that (but that also depends if we are same wavelength or not). As for banker, he thinks he's better in FQ and not quite so in SQ. So, do we make a good partnershop, you betcha.

And that's one of the things he shared with me on one of those let's-talk moments. What do you think? Objections? Or more Quotients to add to the list? *sweats*

On a side note, recently we were invited to attend a financial learning program for children, aimed at 9yo and above. The course outlines basic financial terms and its meanings and applications and more activities to let them learn how money works in the real world. I think it's pretty good and we registered both parent and eldest son to try the preview out.

The dad came back and told me they had auctions, Q&A's, socializing and networking for those 2 hours, even letting the children "earn" some money. He said the instructor told the parents that there would be a "test" at the end of the whole course. Some parents ask what if the children fail the test and things like that. They were pretty shocked when it was told that the test is nothing like the schools' education tests or exams. It's an open book, and they are allowed to ask around, negotiate or bargain, even buy the answers if they can afford to.

Now some parents would think this isn't quite the proper thing to teach young minds, but come to think of it, isn't it what the real world is? If we are street smart enough, we pay for consultants to get things or answers we have no knowledge of. Will this be something beneficial for the children? I don't know, but I would surely like to give it a try and ensure they have better FQ than I do.

Sharing a story with you.

This is a story from the Star paper a long time ago.

A woman was in transit for a few hours at KLIA, hence she went to a book store and bought a bestseller and a pack of Ritz to kill time. She then went to look for a nice, more secluded seat to settle in temporarily. Finally finding the most ideal spot, she put her things down, relaxed herself, and took the book out to start on her reading.

The book was a good choice, she was soon deeply mesmerized with the plot and happily in her own world, oblivious to the surrounding. Out of a sudden, she realized there was this young chap seated a space next to her who was also reading a book and she wasn't aware when he came over. Well, not that he was any threat, but she made a point to herself to be more on alert.

Taking a deep breath and on ease again, she took the pack of Ritz on the chair next to her and opened it up, started munching and back continuing on the plot. Before she knew it, she realized that this chap was taking the cheese crackers to munch as well. Very soon, she noticed that as she took one, the other chap will take one right after and it went on.

Feeling uneasy and giving agitated glances to this chap, he was still annoying the hell out of her as he showed no signs of stopping, without any words of mannerism from him too. How rude, she thought.

Now then, the pack of crackers came to the last piece and both of them looked at it and looked at each other. She wondered what he will do and waited for his move. Shockingly and in disbelief, he took the last piece of cracker up, cracked it into 2 halves and he offered one halved to her! She gave a disgusted "hmmph!", took it from his hand, popped it into her mouth, threw her book into her hand luggage and hurriedly scurried off to her boarding gate.

She boarded her flight, found her seat, made herself comfortable yet again, but heart still thumping mad for the rudeness and arrogance of some people, she opened up her luggage and took her book out again to continue her reading. There it was, staring right back at her, was a pack of Ritz cheese crackers, untouched.

This story was just a summary, she had written with just the right jest of humour and I can't help laughing when I think about the look on her face and the thoughts that went in the young chap's mind while the above was taking place. It was so funny that I would still laugh silly when I think about it anytime anyplace.

Heard this before?

Saw this in my mailbox and made me laughed.

------->

Three women: one engaged, one married and one a mistress, are chatting over lunch and conversation turns to their relationships. They decided that night to surprise their men. All three would wear a black leather bra and thong, stiletto heels and a mask over their eyes.

A few days later they meet up for lunch.

The engaged woman: The other night when my boyfriend came over he found me with a black leather bodice, tall stilettos and a mask. He saw me and said, 'You are the woman of my dreams. I love you.' Then we made love all night long.

The mistress: Me too! The other night I met my lover at his office and I was wearing the leather outfit, heels, mask over my eyes and a raincoat. When I opened the raincoat he didn't say a word, but we had wild sex for hours.

The married woman: I sent the kids to stay at my mother's house for the night. When my husband came home I was wearing the leather bra, black stockings, stilettos and a mask over my eyes. He walked in the door, looked at me and said, 'What's for dinner, Batman?'

MUAHAHAHA.

Joke which made me laughed today.

Man comes home, finds his wife with his friend in bed.

He shoots his friend to death.

Wife says "If you behave like this, you will lose ALL your friends".

The scholar's dream

Once upon a time, in ancient China, there was a scholar who studied very hard and was confident he would pass the all important examination of China. The big day came eventually, and he set out to the city to sit for the exam.

He reached the city a few days' ahead and he found an inn to stay for the nights. That night, he had a most peculiar dream, and the next day, he asked the dream-expert to explain what his dream meant.

He told the scenario of the 1st dream. He said he dreamt he was planting a radish plant on top of a wall.

The "dream expert" told him that this meant he would not have much luck in his exams, as his efforts to plant something on top of a wall is nearly impossible, meaning his attempts to score in the coming examination would be futile too.

Demotivated, he continued to tell his 2nd scenario of his dream. He was wearing a raincoat while carrying an umbrella in the rain.

He was told this only supported the earlier explanation, that what he was doing was redundant. There wasn't a need to carry an umbrella if you have raincoat on, or vice versa. All these were not good signs.

For his 3rd dream in a row, he dreamt he was in the bed in this position with his loved one.

The dream-teller told him that was even worst. It only meant he was in bed with his loved one but he couldn't have her. So near yet so far. Bad, bad, bad omens for his exams.

Feeling very disappointed and dejected, the next day, he intended to return to his village instead of pursuing for his dream.

While checking out, the owner of the inn was surprised and asked why he's going home while the exams were to start soon. So, he told him the 3 dreams he had that night and the interpretation that he was told.

The owner took his hand and shook it, congratulating him that why, all these were indeed signs that he would succeed in his exams. He explained,

The plant at the top of the wall means he would make possible the impossible. Planting high (ko joong) in cantonese means he would succeed in his endeavour.

The raincoat and the umbrella means he had all the precautions and ever ready to embrace the challenges. Nothing would get on his way. He would surely be unbeatable.

Having his lover on the bed means he can anytime rollover and have her in his possession, and he was at the power to do what he wanted to do.

All these were good signs in fact.

*End of story* *abruptly*

Well, morale of the story, everything can be seen in many ways. Just like the case of half empty or half full cup of water.

(My loukong told me this story, one of the many he enlightened me on. I thought of sharing it here with you or just leaving it somewhere for my children or others to remember so they would feel motivated again when things don't seem to be working out fine)

Rare moments like this one.

My honey would usually inspire me with some stories on and off, or out of the blue. Sometimes it would act as a bedtime story, sometimes it could rather be inspiring or touching.

Once, he came home from an overseas business trip. On the bed before going to sleep, he gave me a warm tight hug and a peck on the forehead, topped up with the "icing"; those 3 special words, "I love you".

Well, well, that was indeed too sweet to be true. It's not everyday that he does that, mind you. I asked him if he had been doing something naughty behind my back while on the trip. Wait till I get proof.. he'll certainly be chased out from MY HOUSE!!

BUT...

He said, of course no la (of course every honey would say that to their wives, who would dare to admit? Even got proof also must die-die deny it one!)

Then, he told me of a movie he saw on the flight home. Very rare he was so touched until he cried! *WHAT??!! HE CRIED WATCHING A MOVIE??!!* That was exactly the response I gave him.

It was a HK movie, starring Andy Lau and Ah-Sa (one of the TWINS). Ah Sa played Andy's wife whereby Andy was a doctor and he was always too busy to even come home to eat dinner with her. She didn't complain all the while and the dinner she waited for never came because she perished in an accident and died in his hands, in his hospital.

Storyline too simple, right? (Really, don't know why that would make him shed tears)

Anyway, learning the morale of the story, he continued, that he would now take time to appreciate and show his love for me more before something bad happens to me and it would be too late.. arh.... so sweet... I was almost in tears already....

Well, then, I should have known better, he very soon back to his normal again. And so, that was one rare moment of sweetness he shown to me, a tiny deed which though sets strongly in my mind forever.

It pays to buy good goggles

As a wise consumer, I do what normal people do, compare prices and features, examine the level of different functionality of the item I need, and evaluate my budget constraint.

When we moved into this place with a swimming pool, I was excited with the prospects of doing daily swimming exercises without the fuss and hassle of travelling far and beyond.

So, later, I equipped myself with a nice looking swimsuit (sexy? I hear you ask... ) and of course, a pair of goggles to go with it, else it would be tough to swim laps with burning eyes from the chlorine-rich water.

Off I went looking for a pair of nice looking and sexy goggles to go with my swimsuit. A wide range of the item was in display, I was really spoilt for choice. If I had too much money with nowhere to spend, I didn't have to spend some good 30 mins looking carefully into the details of the different brands available. How nice if I can just grab the most expensive one and get on with the swimming exercise immediately.

Of course, I am not that fortunate. I decided I would at least need anti-fog feature, and selected the cheapest one available with the anti-fog, and the least I can expect my money was worth spending was to choose a cool color of the goggles to, undoubtedly, look cool.

So, there I go, happy with my purchase, and even happier when the first time I used it was a no letdown of the anti-fog. It was clear vision throughout my few hundreds laps.

Slowly, I realised, the anti-fog was not functioning properly. I can't throw it away just like that, can I? As it still looks good. So, I had to make do with the "weakness".

One fine day...

I went swimming with hubby. Some other people were around enjoying the pleasure of the pool, just like us. My hubby was right in front of me, and a few more laps, I could see from the other end that he was sitting on the edge of the pool resting. I swam to his side, and said "Never realised you have big boobs before", and turned over to swim back for another lap. I realised later he wasn't my hubby, who was that? I never swim back to find out. Now, how's that for a pick up line?

So, as the story goes, it certainly pays to get good goggles with reliable anti-fogging feature. Unless you don't mind being perceived as one ham-sap pervert though.