5 days out of reality...

A sneak preview before I bombard you with my fabulous 5 days =) Part of the album here ...

My promised past week update

** Gosh, apparently I fell asleep while typing this for the first time and mistakes are all over. Here you go with the ammended one....

19th April 2009 - My first week of volunteering in East End Film Festival started with a very early train to Victoria. Although it had been tiring at work for the past few days, having the first breath of fresh air walking 30 mins to the town to catch the train was indeed a mind refreshing one. Train passed through a few calling stations before reaching London Victoria. The places around south england countryside had weird names such as Shoreham-by-sea, Durrington, Ford, Goring-by-sea, etc.

Some scenic view from the train....

As for the film festival, I had been helping them with flyering and some office work for the first week. Also had delicious Belgium food with Siew which I had blogged before.

27th April 2009 - It's raining hard while rushing time to catch the train to London in town today. Being in UK, although raining here is only drizzling, but it's rapid and dried away fast due to the dry 'air'. This was the first day in UK under the rain that I had to use a raincoat. Reaching the train station, exhausted, then only I found out that the train was delayed due to some technical problem in one of the stations. While waiting, I got a chance to had a long chat with someone on the train who's from Sri Lanka and had been working in UK since 2002. I asked him about the places of interest around South of England and he recommended me some which I will try to make my holiday there. Later on also he told me about how beautiful Sri Lanka is but he can't be able to live there due to the political situation over there. He mentioned that there's one hotel in Sri Lanka that has a pool with water source directly from the waterfall, and you could imagine how cooling and refreshing the water could be. Also there's a place with 7 wells, each with different temperature, some is hot, some are cold, some with different color etc, and best thing is they are not man-made. There's also a mountain that you could climb up to the top and sometimes you can see rain pouring from your feet down to the earth while it's dry up there at the summit. Sounds interesting and makes me want to visit there some day. I was surprised myself that I can actually talk to strangers. I remembered a few years back while I was in Singapore, a friend asked me whether do I talk to stranger when I'm on flight or on the bus. I remembered very clearly that my answer to her was 'NO' at that time. This time, my travelmate asked me again when I mentioned on my chat topic in the train to her. Thinking back, I'm shocked too. I actually did change. But I find it quite nice to chat with someone you do not know without having any commitment putting on each other. I guess I'm also like what rainstorm said, I put trust on someone until someone betrayed the trust, as long as no harm is done during at the point of conversation, why not?
Going into the Film Festival Office for the 2nd time, I got the chance to meet some real Britons and see how they work. I had been helping them in the office for 3 days consecutively with the designing of layout for their closing night brochures. Being in the office environment, see how they solve problems, it's indeed very different. Some of the 'colleagues' seems like knowing the whole festival in and out for the fact that they are also volunteers like me, and they only got into the office 3 weeks ago. It's amazing the speed that they pick up at work. And when problems arise, seldom blames are put on, but instead worked together to solve the problems. It's quite fulfilling also when I was stationed at different cinema around East London each day for different screening which enables me to see different part of the city where I hadn't been before, as those are not tourist attraction places. And isn't that what my main purpose is - to see the cultures and places that is not the main tourist attraction but instead the real Britain. One of the screening put up documentaries of the old London in Rio Cinema, Kingsland, London. The screening is free for all over 50s year old people and the whole cinema was having full house in that afternoon. Most of the 50s were accompanied by a carer/ several carer in groups. There's quite a lot of job opportunities of carer over here in UK in fact, taking care of the old, and some even on disabled people. Even guys in mid 30s become carer. One of the difference between London Cinema with Malaysia's is each cinema is equipped with a nice bar/ lounge for the customer to linger around before they go into the cinema for their movies. During the festival, I managed to catch some documentaries which some are quite good with mind boggling on the question/ issue/ message that was conveyed. I haven't got a chance to snap any pictures as I'm on shift and not able to bring such a big SLR around. Maybe I should start thinking of investing on a small digital camera...

There goes my 2 non-stop busy weeks; work, volunteer, work, volunteer.....tiring but fulfilling one. I'm glad I realized some improvement in me after all these years; I'm glad that I'm able to volunteer at my own expense, which means that I still have the ability to earn =)

Something true - C'est La Vie

转载 : 人生就是这样吗 ?‏

我们一出世，就被教导做个好孩子

拼命的读书，好了读完书了。大学也毕业 了。
拼命的做工，赚 多多的钱。。。
拼命的存钱 ，买房子，车子，保 险
不小心找到了老婆，好了，结婚了，钱也用完了

再拼命的做工，好了30岁了，开始瓶颈。。。
再拼命的读PARTTIME，好了，学位高了。。。
拼命的抚育孩子，好了，孩子读书了。。。
拼命的灌输孩子要努力读书 。。
自己拼命的做工。。。学位高了，压力也高了。。。

回到家，妻子照顾孩子，不得空理你。。
孩子忙着读书 ，不得空理你。。

月头，样样都是钱。
孩子和你拿钱 。
妻子和你拿钱
房子和你拿钱
保险和你拿钱
车子和你拿钱

过年了，更加多钱
除了以上，
母亲和你拿钱
红包和你拿钱
旅行和你拿钱
NIKE，LEVIS，PRADA ，GUCCI，REEBOK ，PADINI。。。和你拿钱
海外天也可能和你拿钱

40岁，男人危机。。。
拼命的工作，保住职位。。。
成了大家眼中的势利同事。。。
开始害怕失去工作，开始留意年 轻同事。。。
想读书，钱，没有了，想换工，薪金高，岁数大，难讨新工
想尽办法，还是不能爬上经理职位，还被一个年轻人上了位。。

孩子开始读中学了，和你拿更多的钱。
父亲节，拿你给的钱，买了你没有用的东西。。。。
房子! 还是和你要钱
车子旧了，开始不听话了。。。还是要给钱! 妻子也是一样和你拿钱，旦绝对没有收条给你看。夫妻要信任

好不容易熬过50了，要退休了，无风无浪。。。虽然压力大，新上司意见多多，不要紧。我顶！

就要拿公积金咯！但是孩子要出国读书-- <>

好了，公积精拿完出来了，一大半给了孩子，剩下的给了妻子

还是回到零。。。退休了，不用做？？？不能
几十年没有呆在家，忽然和妻子相处。。。
妻子看不顺眼丈夫无所事事，命令丈夫开始学做家事，！

扫地，抹地，剪草，洗车，样样都要做。。。

好了，房子供完了。。。车子也没有什么架了。。。

开始觉得人生很无奈，自己从一个提款机，最后变成了一个佣人。

孩子出国回来了，拍了一些照片。。。开始找工了。。。

毕业=失业 ， 工难找! ，最后找到一份只可以养活自己的工作。还是要住在家里。。。吃，交通。去的薪金的一大半。。所以只是意思意思的给 RM100给父母做伙食费。。

3年过 去了，孩子好不容易累计的工作经验，薪金高了。。。但是却开始要买辆汽车代步。。。母亲帮助 + 自己储蓄，给了头期。。。有了汽车，费用也多了。。还是意思意思给 RM200作伙食费

好不容易的工作开始稳定了，但是却认识了一个女朋友。。。开始了人生计划。。。要 买房子了。。。

由于车子+ 女朋友费用太大，还是不能给伙食费太多，而且女朋友说 3? ?计划，全部钱要储蓄。。。

2 年后，终于买了房子，买了房子，开始要结婚了。。。

我终于有用途了，被叫去提亲。。什么都不可以多说，全部老婆讲。自己讲些客套话就行了。。。

摆酒，婚礼，旅行。。。用了一大笔+ 母亲储蓄+我剩下的公积金

我还是回归零，。。。继续的剪草，扫地，做家务。。。

结婚了后，孩子很少会来了，忙着自己的家庭。。。偶尔假日才回来看看父母。。。每个月意思意思的给 RM200 。孩子自己也困难了。要维持自己的家庭

好了，30 年前的计划希望能够开始，旅行！！

大事不妙，媳妇怀孕了，生了个孩子。。。母亲代抚养，因 为媳妇孩子都做工

本来平静的退休生活又再次起了涟漪。。。每天就要照顾孙子，晚上他哭我就跟着醒，开始学习新的技术，喂奶，包尿片，唱歌，拍手掌。。。

孩子每个月意思意思的给多RM300 ，当着是孙子的伙食费 。。。

照顾了5 年后，孙子大了，孩子抱回去了，一切回归平静。忽然想起 30 年前的约定，决定和妻子去旅行。。。。

还是去不成了，妻子年级大了，病痛也多了。。。自己的腰骨也常闹别扭。。。医生说要多休息。。。

惟有呆在家里看电视。。。。一天早上，妻子看见为什么老头没有起来扫地。。。想去房里骂我，但我已经回到天国去了。。。

孩子为我做了后事。。。
最后我成了一张照片。
人生就是如此讽刺。。。呵呵


=========================================================

所以我说，朋友啊，
趁年轻还没什么家庭负担的时候
就要把握机会出国旅游
不要每次那句：＂以后再说吧＂
以后也不懂还有没有机会了

人生看起来似乎很无奈
但我并不觉得如此
心态很重要
一个很富有的人买了一栋大洋房
但他生活得很不开心
因为他一直想要买更大间的洋房
一个小康之家的人买了一间单层排屋
但他一直生活得很开心
觉得自己很幸福
一家大小有个栖身之处
大家都相处得和蔼乐融融的

人生短暂
知足常乐才算不枉此生啊
朋友
珍惜身边的人事物
感恩
愿你健康平安喜乐 :-)

Feeling down...

Yesterday was my best friend wedding and I'm not able to be there to share her happiness. Was still alright while chatting with her online while she show me her wedding videos and photos. Not until the last video that I had seen and it made me cried. Timing is always wrong for me and her on her wedding, and even her registration day 3 years back. I never got the opportunity to be there.

I feel bad.

Let me mourn for a day before I update my blog about what I had been busied on these 2 weeks....

Dearest Mei, congratulations on your big day and hopefully the present that's flying in the air now will find you both love to last an eternity...