MCO Police Block #2

I was caught in a police block today, for the second time since the start of MCO.

The first one was when I went to the airport to pick up my son returning home, and that was exactly a month ago. That time, the police officer was very nice and friendly about it. 

But not so this time.

I wasn't worried because I wasn't flouting any regulations. I was within 10km of my home, I was alone in my car, I had a mask on, I went to the doctor's office, got some groceries and was on my way to pick up food I have ordered via the telephone. All essential purposes. 

The moment I stopped my car at the blockade, I showed them my identity card with my address on it and told them why I was out. 

The police asked me if I have a letter of authorization.

A letter? To go buy food?

I do have a letter for work since I am working in essential services, but I was not out for work. Just to visit the doctor and to get some food since I was already out. 

The first police officer directed me to the other side of the road and the next police officer questioned me again and I repeated the same thing. He looked into my car, which was full of groceries, but he was so reluctant to let me go. 

He finally did but he was so unwilling to do so.

I did wonder why and I figured out he must have thought I was trying to lie my way of out of it. 

I do have my doctor's report, which I would fish out if he would still not let me go. 

But wouldn't you think he would render it fishy since I seem to have too many valid reasons?

I understand they are doing their job and it is right that they should call out those who lie to break the MCO.

And good for them. And thankfully, he finally believed me. 

My lesson though is that - avoid that stretch of road! I wasn't thinking and took the wrong route. If I had stuck to my usual route, I wouldn't have been caught. 

But it's an interesting experience nonetheless.

pearlie

Giving Up

pearlie

Carless for 5 days

I just sent my car to the workshop this morning and I will be without one for 5 or 6 days. 

I got into an accident a few days ago. 

The thing is whenever I keep seeing car accidents on the road, I will eventually get into one. 

I know it's a form of confirmation bias that I'm experiencing but I have seen many car accidents recently happening right before my eyes. 

And before I know it, this car bumped into my mine. 

It will be a very inconvenient 5 days ahead. It already took me one whole hour to get to work this morning using the train. And I will not be as mobile as I would like to be. 

Not complaining. I am also taking the opportunity to have my whole car touched up and I'm going to enjoy the train rides. 

pearlie

I had a bad day...

...and I needed come comfort food, and had fried chicken and a llao llao frozen yoghurt. 

As much as the comfort was short lived, it was nevertheless a much needed one. 

pearlie

Selfish road users

I went to Ikea Cheras for lunch today and this is a rare thing as I usually don't drive out for lunch but have it at my place of work. 

I wish I hadn't. 

While entering the carpark, I took the parking ticket and before I could enter, a motorbike went ahead of me and with that the bar or the boom barrier hit my car twice while I was trying to drive in, denting it. 

I spent the whole afternoon and evening meeting more than 8 people from the carpark management and from Ikea as well as the police to get it all reported and documented. 

I wish I stayed in for lunch, like always. 

pearlie 

The seven deadly sins of speaking

I have blogged about this TedTalk before but this time I was reminded of it again. Julian Treasure spoke about the seven deadly sins of speaking: gossiping, being judgement all, negativity, complaining, making excuses, exaggeration and dogmatism. 

I experienced it yesterday--someone spoke to me in a very judgmental tone--it's not a big issue but I didn't like it. I did want to let it go and get on with the day, with life but it kept bugging me, and it suddenly reminded me of this TedTalk. 

He said,

"What would the world be like if we were speaking powerfully to people who are listening consciously in environments which are actually fit for purpose."

"Or to make that a bit larger, what would the world be like if we were creating sound consciously and consuming sound consciously and designing all our environments consciously for sound. That would be a world that does sound beautiful and one where understanding would be the norm. And that is an idea worth spreading."

pearlie

A Thousand Words #196

 

pearlie

Feeling nostalgic to the core

Nostalgia is okay

To get lost in yesterday
Not wallowing in regret
But swimming in 
The remembering 
Those people and things
We loved
Even when they are lost to us

pearlie 

Source: Hello Poetry

So sick but so busy

I usually get a bad bout of flu once every year but this time it fell on a bad time being the busiest week ever both at work and for Christmas. 

I hope to replenish my strength and energy real soon. 

pearlie

My eyes are getting old

I came back from church after having a good time chatting with some people. The subject of creationism and evolution came up in our conversation, which reminded me that I have yet to continue in the book that I have started to read more than a month ago.

So I got down to it the moment I got home. And I was in a good frame of mind to read it and managed to read more than half the book.

But the problem was that after reading for about five hours straight, my eyes got so tired I could only focus if I squinted. I should stop reading I know for the sake of my eyes but when you are on a roll, it's difficult to stop. 

I can't read small print in books anymore and so I'm on the iPad with an enlarged font size. But I'm not sure if the backlight is affecting my eyes, so maybe it would be better if I got myself a Kindle reader. Would it help?

I've been trying to convince myself that I don't need it. It's not cheap. 

pearlie

When others look at you in disdain

 

What do you do when someone gives you a disdain look? I experienced it this morning when I smiled at someone but she looked at me with disdain, probably at the way I walk, which is different from normal, or the way I look, I don't know. 

I was trying to find an understanding to it when I found this article where I agree with the writer on his points on disdain and contempt. Yes, my self defense is one of intellectualisation. I hope to manage myself through a better understanding of the matter. 

What is disdain and why do people have it?

Here are some excerpts from the article. The writer says,

"I want to argue that disdain, contempt, and scorn have no moral place in our emotional lives. In short, my claim is that these emotions are immoral because they target persons and not actions, and they violate the principle of equality of persons. One can feel shame, anger, hatred, or envy in ways that are either correct or incorrect, but disdain is always wrong because it always makes and sustains false judgments...

Disdain seems to be an emotion that carries the judgment that its object is of low status. Disdain plays a much more important role in human social interactions, but one we acknowledge infrequently. Though I don’t think Kant would want me to put it this way, disdain is the opposite of respect. The admixture of respect and disdain seems to be always at issue when we’re apportioning deference and privilege, recognition and understanding. Disdain is the refusal to recognize another as an equal, just as respect is the consciousness of a status deficit on our own part, combined with a gratitude that the respected one does not disdain us as we believe we know she has a right to do. To those we respect, we offer a thoughtful ear, we make an effort to listen carefully, we evaluate situations from their perspective and give them ‘the benefit of the doubt.’ To those we disdain, we react more quickly and vengefully, withhold forgiveness, and perhaps in some situations we even experience ourselves as worthy of greater respect by virtue of our comparative value to the disdained one...

Meanwhile, this disdain is all-too-frequently internalized by its victims, such that they, too, come to hold themselves in contempt...

Disdain, however, seems to meet with nothing to correct it, because it is not actually ‘about’ something that meets minimum standards of moral verification. Ultimately, disdain and honor both make the same fundamental category mistake: they assume that status is a moral question. I maintain that status is a social fact, not a moral fact. Though human social interactions are themselves shot through with status evaluations, a person acting morally ought not to act in a status conscious way. The fact that our emotions constantly tempt us with status judgments does not render those judgments moral. Where anger and bitterness target actions, and hatred reflects a judgment about a person’s character or a refusal to forgive a harm, contempt targets a persons’ status and not an actions’ morality. From the perspective of morality, all persons deserve equal respect. Our evaluations of a person’s actions may truly reflect the justice or injustice of those actions, but the only truth-tracking moral judgment is one that reports that persons are of equal moral status. Therefore contempt is immoral."

I am sad that we have contempt in our hearts. It is indeed immoral to look down on others because of their status or condition that do not meet up to yours. 

So what do I do with the person who looked at me in disdain this morning? Well, I do not need to put myself up to her standard or level of acceptance. I do not stand before her. I stand before my God. I am who I am and I am a child of God who is covered by the blood of Christ. I live and exist by God's standard and he made me who I am. 

What do I do with her and anyone who had or will look at me in disdain, I will obey Ephesians 4:32, to be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave me. 

I am also reminded of Romans 2:1-29 where I myself is also being warned: Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. 

And there is good encouragement in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10: So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

pearlie

My addiction

 

I don't drink much coffee anymore. But I have picked up another addiction - Coca Cola. And if I drink any in the night, like I just did, I would be wide awake the whole night, like I am right now. 

I must stop this. 

pearlie

When will I get to afford one of this?

Segway x2 SE Personal Transporter

I've been wanting one since they first launched it. I don't think I can ever afford one though. 

pearlie

Photo source: Segway

There is just too much mail

What do you do with your inbox when you do your email housekeeping? Or do you even do it at all?

I need to because there isn't much memory in my inbox though it is way more than when I was working in KPMG, way way more. But I still need to do my email housekeeping in order to keep my inbox lean and efficient as well as to make sure I have read and responded to all my emails. 

But there are just so many of them. 

I used to keep them in specific folders before but not anymore. I now follow the gmail way - I just put the emails I have attended to in just one personal folder, one or two for each year's worth, all received and sent emails. I never delete any emails. 

I try to do that every week but sometimes I don't. There is just too much!

pearlie

Happy I finally found a good book

No, not this one.


The Magicians
by Lev Grossman

My brother was telling me about this new TV series that I must watch, especially since I liked the Harry Potter series and movies.

So I had high hopes and looked out for the premier pilot episode. I was sorely disappointed. I felt that they were trying to fill in too many things in one episode and what they had wasn't very interesting or profound. It's was just boring.

I then found out that the series was based on a bestseller book, and I got a copy to read. It was interesting but too bad it was only for the first half of the book. Soon I was getting bored and my mind kept drifting away as I was reading. I find that there isn't much of a plot and development of characters was very thin. I found myself having to track back several times, pages to re-read, when I got drifted off. It was frustrating. The narrative often go on a tangent to something else.

I seldom ditch a book once I've started reading it, but at the thought of forcefully trudging through it, I decided I'm not going to torture myself, and stopped with much relief.

And off I went looking for another book and found this.


The Mysterious Benedict Society
by Trenton Lee Stewart

I have just started and it is really good...so far, after reading 32% of it. (Weird right? It's no longer the number of pages I've read, but percentage.) I know it's a kid's book but it's really amusing and it even made me actually laugh out loud. It's clever and it holds my attention with no problem at all.

I'm happy now.

pearlie

Another new old

I was talking about the brand new Atria Complex a few days ago and how much it has changed from the old. Today, I experienced the same nostalgia with the Port Dickson Methodist Center.

Grace Notes was invited to sing in the Trinity Annual Conference's (TRAC) 40th annual conference. I was told that the center was renovated but I hadn't realised that it has been given such a complete makeover that I could not recognise it. Worse, I could not remember how it was before.

Anyway, I feel we did just fairly in our singing this round because the acoustics in the hall was really so bad our voice sounded dead.

Anyway, it's a good thing I found these pictures of the old center:

Entrance to the center


The Main Hall


Inside the Main Hall


Dormitories

pearlie
Photos: disciples

Dazed

I was feeling absolutely dazed today. And in reading this article, I have what which is called the Fuzzy Brain!

Well, this was what I felt exactly:

...there are days when it just feels like your brain isn’t all the way there. You stare blankly at the computer screen, your eyes glaze over, and no matter what you do, you can’t quite pull your head out of the fog. Ah, yes—the dreaded “fuzzy brain.” Its cause is unknown, but if left untreated, it can be quite detrimental to your productivity.

For more, check out the article here.

pearlie

I'm no traveler

I'm not a proper traveler. I don't like to be challenged or have too much change and prefer a week just to relax.
~ Karl Pilkington

My mom was proposing that we go for a trip end of the year - somewhere in Asia, not near but not too far.

I spent these two evenings checking out places, flight fares, hotels and interesting places to do and visit. The thing is with just two evenings of research, I got so tired I don't feel like going anymore.

I think I will just stay right here at home.

pearlie

Worrying Times

I read this in CNN today: How is this not World War III?

With the recent attacks in Paris, and then with Turkey shooting down a Russian plane, CNN reported that "If this had occurred during the Cold War, we would be bracing for the possibility of a nuclear war. Thankfully, that conflict is over...Don't misinterpret the moves as evidence of calm; a furious Russia has called Turkey 'accomplices of terror' and Putin warned of 'significant consequences.' And these are just some of the latest developments in the world's most complicated conflict."

It is indeed worrying times.

pearlie

Confidence vs. Arrogance

When you really believe in something with all your heart and would do anything to stand your ground, you can come off as arrogant, even though that is the last thing your want to be.

There is indeed a fine line between confidence and arrogance.

This is what I have observed:

One will listen to you and ask you questions to let you have your own opinion. The other will just insist he is right.

One will genuinely appreciate your accomplishments even though you both know you are not in his league. The other will put down or dismiss what you have done.

One respects those he does not agree with. The other bad mouths them especially behind their back.

One is humble. The other is proud.

What other behaviors have you seen?

pearlie