Shhh! Secret Life of a Princess

Random, provoking thoughts from a self-confessed princess :: with focus on motivational learnings from the media. I hope to inspire everyone to be the best they can be

Monday, March 28, 2005

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

You know one of those days that everything seemed to go well and fall into place? Well, today is defnitely NOT one of those days. Today, things went wrong when it can and since I dod not read anything profound today, I will have to torture you with a day in my life.

I started the day with lemon jiuce. Bad decision! I always knew that taking lemon juice at the start of the day would increase my hunger pangs all throughout the day, yet I took it all the same. True enough, minutes later, my hunger struck resulted in me chomping down 2 large breads and some cookies for breakfast. Having those food at 1pm could have been considered brunch but due to my over-demanding tummy, I had to take lunch, dinner and even supper. There goes my balanced regime.

I was supposed to buy a hanpphone with my mom and decided to go to MidValley. Thinking that it will be hard to find a parking, we took the commuter in the heaviest of rains since god knows when. To make matters worse, upon arriving there, the doors to the shop was all down and to my amazement I saw the signboard informing customers of their closure. On a Saturday?!!!!

Having limited transportation, we had to go to a place reachable by commuter, knowing how cheapskate we are in paying an exorbitant taxi fare. So we decided to go Subang Parade accompanied by the cats and dogs pouring onto the ground. Matters became worse when at the interchange, the commuter was delayed due to some technical difficulties at the time when I am afraid the shop might be closed. Fortunately I called the shop just to make sure that it was opened before embarking on a long journey there.

Arriving at Subang Parade, we could not find the shop even though there are so many handphone shops greeting us at the entrance of the parade, deeming me to conslude that the signboards in Subang Parade were not the most reliable in the world or even Malaysia. Finally I found the shop but I'm glad I did as if I bought the phone in the shop in MidValley, I might not have gotten it at such a good deal. You see, because of the lesson learnt in MidValley, I called my bf to find out the number to the place and managed to talk to the owner of the shop. When the dealer found out that I know the owner, he was impressed and gave me such a huge price reduction and was extremely helpful. Of course working in Maxis under some well-known names helped. I'm also glad we ended up in Subang Parade or else I would not be able to buy my ring and shoes at such low prices, both cost me about RM10 only. Yipee! And I'm glad the train got delayed or my boyfriend would not have been able to pick me up form the shopping centre after his work and I would have to make the dreaded journey back by commuter.

When we arrived at Pantai Seafood Center for dinner, a lot of tables were fully booked and throngs of hungry tummies were waiting. I was in a hurry to get home and got a bit crancky. Late I'm glad I waited or else I would not have been able to taste one the tastiest crab, chicken and evcen vegetables in that famous restaurant. No wonder people flock to this reataurant like bees to flowers. I'm also glad I drank the lemon juice this morning or else I would have the increased appetite to savour the richness of the food.

The day was not great, and in one of the blogs I read, this is called a bood day (bad+good=bood) but the great things I gained out of the day far outweighs the bad encounters. So, every cloud INDEED has a silver lining. You just have to look at the bright side of things. :)

Saturday, March 26, 2005


Tibeta Posted by Hello

Whispering Posted by Hello

Cambodia Posted by Hello

Art Unites, Politics DisUnites

Does art unite people in ways politics can't? I was propelled to question this after reading an article in The Edge about Datuk Ibrahim Hussien, the artist who is now a cultural ambassador of Malaysia having a cultural musem to promote artwork from all over the world in Langkawi. His artwork above are prove of his expression in political unity.

Quoting an incident in his life on May 13, when he was promoting his painting to the ministers of Malaysia, the then Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak asked him gravely "What does May 13 mean to you?"

He responded "May 13 happened in the year Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. If man uses his brain, he can land on the moon. But if man regresses, he ends up killing each other. May 13 is not a national tragedy, it is a human tragedy that could happen anywhere."

Art has once again transcended politics. For him, art is used to record events of the era for his fellowmen. For bloggers, blog is used for the same purpose. :)

Friday, March 25, 2005

Something to Ponder

If you can do everything a human can do in this world, would you talk to others? Imagine that you can fix your house, plant your flowers, paint your own pictures, produce your own machines, plant your own source of food, fulfill your own emotional needs, produce your own babies, would you bother talking to others? One school of thought says that people only talk to people as they need something from the act of talking.

Blogger vs. Friendster

Read the blog of The Visitor and found that I shared the same sentiments regarding Friendster. It took me some time before I joined Friendster after months of being persuaded by my friend and even then I did not check it ever so often. In Friendster, you keep adding friends to your list of friends of friends even to the point that you might be adding a pyscho-maniac to be your friend. I find it funny to see people posting their most beautiful photo taken from the oh-so-beautiful background and blurred lightings of studios to ensure that they increase their chances of being selected as friends of friends of friends, la la la based on their mechanically enhanced looks.

Blogger however is something I can get addicted as it gives me an avenue to express myself and for more meaningful conversations with like-minded people. It gives me a platform to debate on issues important or not and am glad some people have made it their platform for voicing grouses and to get innumerable feedback. A good example will be Jeff Ooi's blog and Malaysiakini.com and Petaling Street. Of course I also know of some who loves going into their blogs just to see their comments growing as a symbol of their popularity.

Thus, here are some of my observations and comparisons:

Blogger vs. Friendster

Self-indulgent vs. Self-insecure

Deep vs. Surface

Opinions vs. Teases

Telling stories vs Networking

Whatever you use blog or friendster for, as long as you are doing something useful rather than running around naked or chopping people up, then I am fine with both. And both helps you to make the world a smaller place by connecting to more people all over the world. Just a crude comparison :)

Thursday, March 24, 2005

The Manhattan Study

Ohana means hello :)

Had a fruitful discussion with some friends today. Learnt more than I expected. Would like to quote something from the speaker of the day about "The Manhattan Study". This study selects 100 Americans from various places and trained them to be beggars, providing them with the right clothes and bowl to collect money. The purpose of the research is to find out how many of them will be able to earn a lot from being beggars. Out of 100 of them only 5 of them managed to collect a lot of money despite the condition they are in. From the result, we can conclude that only 5% of the people on Earth is able to succeed in life no matter where they are or in what situation. Wherever you put them or whatever challenges is bestowed on them, they will still emerge rich. The rest either just barely make it or will give up even before they start.

So, wouldn't you like to be in this 5%? No wonder my company has this bell-curve to indicate that if you are in the top 5%, only then you will be outstanding. Let's work towards that 5%. Kan ba te!

Quote of the Dawn

Could not sleep yesterday night and created this quote in my mind:
"Life is a relentless pursuit of nothingness. So why not enjoy while you are at it."
- Princess Emily...ahem...luckily this morning could wake up feeling fresh

Wednesday, March 23, 2005


These bones are amazingly wonderful to read Posted by Hello

Roald Dahl, one of my fav author Posted by Hello

Chicken Soup for Malaysian Soul

Read an article in the newspaper yesterday which gave me my chicken soup for the soul story before I doze to sleep. Am glad that despite all the selfishness in this world, there are some out there who show benign act of kindness even though they would have benefitted a whole lot if they had succumbed to their temptations.

One is of a taxi driver, Gunabalan who returned a wallet containing RM1,000 belonging to a passenger who took his cab to KLCC. After realising that his wallet has slipped on the cab, he called the taxi driver immediately and Gunabalan took the wallet and rushed to KLCC to return the wallet to him. This is what he said in response, "I was brought up with the belief that we should earn our own money instead of taking that of other people.

Another soup story that touched me is the incident one month back about a couple losing their baby after their maid kidnapped their baby. The maid found that she could not get take the risk of collecting the ransom demanded and dislodged of the baby. The couple were so glad to find their baby in the hands of a poor family who was willing to take good care of the baby even without sufficient money to take care of their own kids. They took the baby in not realising that the baby is the one reported misisng in the newspapers. Of course both the parties I mentioned got rewarded accordingly. The couple was so grateful they agreed to bear part of the cost of bringing up the kids of the poor family. Guess God has a peculiar way and timing of bringing riches to those deserving.

In this world where the rich gets richer, one questions whether they get richer in terms of material values or human values. I am glad to know of millionaires who give a lot to the society but I despise those who cheat on the money of normal citizens just for their own pleasure. You know some examples of who I am talking about if you have read the newspapers.

I am glad that within stories of war, torment and grief dominating the pages of our newspaper, there are some like those above that give me my drop of nutritious soup every once ina while.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Not So Secret Anymore :)

Guess I had to jump onto the bandwagon...blogger is ubiquitious and infectious even...so here I am with my first post. Had a different blog yearsssss back but guess was terminated since have not updated anything since yearssss back also.

Am so proud that our own-made Malaysian movie "Sepet" has won the Grand Jury Prize at the 27th Cretell Women Director's Festival as reported in The Star today. I would have the same sentiments as Yasmin of thinking a Malaysian-made movie might not be deep or artistic enough to be winning an award. To be nominated itself is quite an achievement. But boy am I glad she won as this shows that Malaysia is able to produce top-notch movies with profound meaning within its simple topic of inter-racial relationship.

However, I disagree with the reviewer of Hitch in The Star to compare Sepet with Hitch as I consider the two as of different genres. One is a commercial romatic comedy with predictable meaning. One is a romantic comedy with an artistic, literary meaning. In terms of inter-racial relationship, I would have preferred to compare it with the movie "Sideways" even though I have not watch it before. Those who have, please tell me what you think about the movie. Am thinking of reading the book too, but there are just too many books to read.

Went browsing around MPH yesterday and have been so tempted to buy this book by Roald Dahl entitled Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl but the price of the book turned me off. Was a fan of Roald Dahl since young with his incredible and almost incredulous stories of Chocolate Factory and BFG. Can't wait for his movie starring Johnny Depp(yummy yummy!) to start showing in the cinemas.

Also loved this quote from a reviewer of Roald Dahl's book "Dahl has an uncanny talent for writing about the worst in us, he still seems to love the bizarre individuals who people his books. The care with which he crafts each gem of a story in this collection shows that he can forgive his characters their multitudinous faults and see the unique charm and worth of each individual. In today's climate of judgementalism and prejudice, it does one good to find an author who seems to say that it is what is wrong with us that makes us interesting and worthwhile subjects. We are not all good, and sometimes it is better that way. At least we are entertaining, Dahl seems to say." Makes you see life in a different more light-hearted way ain't it.

And I just have to tell you about this fantastic book I am reading now entitled "The Lovely Bones". Such a page-turner and the concept is the story is simple fantastic: About a girl who got raped and murdered conveying her stories from heaven watching how her loved ones go through the grief of losing her and of finding the killer. For those who wants to exchange books with me, feel free to contact me. Just lurrveeee reading.

Well, now that my life is public....would love to hear comments from my beloved country folks and please say hello through my royal guest book :D