Introvert?

Dear Yahoo!:
How long does an average dream last?
Elizabeth Reno, Nevada
Dear Elizabeth:
Although it may seem like we're dreaming from the instant we fall asleep until the moment we wake up, the average visit to Neverland is actually far shorter. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, people spend an average of two hours dreaming each night. Dreams "almost always" occur during REM sleep, when the body experiences "rapid eye movement, loss of reflexes, and increased pulse rate and brain activity." Your ability to remember your dreams depends a lot on your personality. Newsweek explains that introverts tend to remember their nocturnal adventures better than extroverts. In terms of the subject matter, males and females often dream about the same things. Again according to Newsweek, 73% of men and 74% of women have dreamed of falling. OK, but how long does an average dream last? Depending on who you ask (or which site you visit), a dream can last anywhere from a matter of seconds to 45 minutes. We were unable to find an official answer, but this post from AnswerBag claims dreams last "about 15 minutes on the average." Dream Moods states people dream one to two hours per night, fitting in about four to seven dreams. If, like us, you're wondering why you dream about showing up naked to piano recitals, these dream interpreters may help you find some answers.

*source: Yahoo!

**
Stumbled across this article when I was taking a break from work.

Introverts tend to remember their nocturnal adventures better than extroverts? haha. With such detailed recall of my own dream ... I'm officially an Introvert?? *grabs an "INTROVERT" sticker and sticks to forehead*

In fact, people dont always remember dreams probably because they got out of bed right away after waking up. Remember my military style wakeup procedures? With that, bet I couldnt remember a single bit.

Cab Horror

Hot sunny afternoon. Lunch time. Lady got out of a bank, hopped on a cabbie waiting outside the building. Usually people take empty cabbies. Surprisingly, this lady, couldnt be bothered to notice that there was another guy at the front seat next to the cabbie driver. She took it.

Well. As you might have guessed, it didnt end up well. She was driven to another bank, asked to withdraw money through her ATM card, which has a withdrawal limit of 3k per day. I guess they maxed out on that...And robbed her of her valuables.

She's lucky to have survive that without any physical injuries. Or perhaps they cash in alot on her, and therefore she was released unharmed? There are a thousand other possible things they could have do to her. I'll leave that to your imagination.

You might be thinking that going for lunch without your wallet sounds like a better solution? Well, not quite. Heartless people like these, wouldnt leave without cashing in on anything. And since you have nothing for them to cash in on, they could have harmed you, maybe a stab or two. A slash or two?

So people, with wallet or without?

Its not safe anywhere anymore. Watch your own backs.

...

I single-handedly sabotaged a vacuum cleaner.


-.-''

Sing me a Love Song

Fairy tale endings, living happily ever after, you and me forever.

Things like that weren't exactly made up. There must be some truth to it that that makes people spread them like ferns releasing spores, winding into the sky, along with the wind. Perhaps they were attainable. Perhaps its something that's within a mortal person's reach. Perhaps I'm too much of a realist. I used to tell people that I don't believe in happy endings. Not when you're in a situation where things doesnt favour you.

Prove me wrong.
This is something very individual. You can see it which ever way you like. Suit yourself.
It's just a point of view, nobody lives by it.

We know it when its worth every single heartbeat to make the relationship work. Everything just comes naturally, without us even trying. If you think that you tried too hard, perhaps you're not meant for each other?

It takes time to build the trust and understanding about each other in any given relationship. Many thinks that a typical relationship should consist of a dominant party and another, submissive, so that it balances out the differences. I cakap, you dengar. Traditionally, male dominant, women submissive. Sadly, most women still think that it is just right for them to behave that way, which sometimes translates as "womanly behavior". While other women are fighting for gender equality, don't you think that the womanly behaviour simply contradicts the claim itself?

So much for the fight for equality, imagine the right hand trying to sculpt a sand castle, while the left is busy destroying everything the right hand is trying to make. So at the end of the day, nothing gets done. Starting a story without a beginning and an end.

Those who believed that they were born to this world to please men, sod them.
Those who believed that their very existence is to grow up, stay beautiful, grab a man, get married and get all settled down, and spend the rest of their lives clinging to their man, and hope that not a thing changes, and live happily ever after; minus a career, minus a decent education. You get the picture?

If only life was that easy.

Perhaps I was wrong about what I claimed, statistically; but I'm sure there are some truth in it. By the way, I don't need statistics to back me up, I just need some thoughts, some observations and some conversations.

Hundredth + 1

I live in a dorm, with 9 other people. We were not segregated, gender wise. Not that it matters, I cant even remember the faces nor the names of the people I'm sharing the dorm with. It doesnt bother them either.

The dorm I live in, is just one of the many dorms at the Dorm Park. People from all walks of life. The dorms are mobile cells that can be easily moved from place to place. Think Trailer Park. Dorms were seperated from other dorms by just metal grills. It's basically a huge CELL that fits 10 people easily without any signs of looking as a cramped living quarter. The Idea? Prison cells. Difference: More Spacious and comfy, and its not black and white. It's colourful. No privacy (hence the grills). Don't ask me why anyone would choose to live in such a place.

Nothing specifically high tech is present at the Dorm Park. I'm talking about security. The dorm is accessible through sliding doors, yes, metal, and locking it means using one small pathetic padlock. Just ONE. Security: NONE. Ziltch.

When there are many groups of people living together in a small park, there are sure to be conflicts amongst the tenants. People stick to their dorm-mates, their groups, and fiercely defend themselves, watching each other's back.

I'm not that keen on internal political issues such as that, so I remained the observer and the person of a few words. Keeping mum about everything doesnt mean that I'm left out of the constantly boiling conflicts. That happens when you're in a group. I'm indirectly responsible for the things that my dormmates did, even though I had no hands on anything, but just because I am part of the group, it got me tangled in the mess.

Our belongings are simply left in our backpacks, we have no shelf units nor any storage units to keep our belongings. Oh, did I forget to mention that the people there are mostly backpackers looking for a cheap place to crash. New faces can be spotted almost everyday, perhaps that explains why I have problems remembering names and faces of even my dormmates. There is a silent unspoken rule that everyone understands, "We shall not take what does not belong".
It doesnt only apply here, in fact, it should be a universal rule that everyone know by heart.

Each morning all cells will be emptied, we are not allowed to stay in the dorm during the day, as part of a drive to make the people go out and explore the place. Or make themselves useful, earn a buck or two. Most people here travel on a shoestring, therefore they need to earn that extra cash to move along.

Emptied cells simply means that what seperates a thief from our belongings is that ONE padlock. Of course, its the rule of thumb that NO ONE should EVER leave anything valuable in a place like that. However, it sometimes slips our mind ...

We've been living here for the past 3 weeks, and everything feels safe. We formed a close knit relationship among dormmates, and everything just felt in place. Everyone fits in like pieces of puzzles. Theft rate, ZERO. However, things change when we start to take things easy, when we let our guard down, and make yourself vulnerable to threats. When you felt comfortably safe, that's when everything crumbles.

We came back one day, only to find the padlock lying in a awkward position. I knew something bad happened. Bad. GOsh. My things. MY things. NO. This cant be happening. We left the earlier the day, leaving behind all our belongings, since we decided carry nothing but IDs cos we were doing some volunteering work for the community. We don't need that extra 10 pounds on our backs for such work. Huge mistake.

I lost my entire backpack. Everything. My Oakleys, my cellphone, my PDA, my iPod, cash, and worse, my digital camera; along with hundred MBs worth of pictures that I wont be able to recover nor get a second shot of, clothes, my backpacking essentials. Everything. I broke down upon finding that. The rest of my dormmates suffered just about the same fate. Lost everything. The thought of losing so many things all at once is simply too painful. The material loss aint that bad, it was the intrusion into people's lives through their belongings that hurts. Felt "raped" of my things, and it felt dirty.

Bastards. Those who did the things they do. Taking things that does not belong. I'm disgusted. It hurts. The thought of it kills me almost instantly. Chicken shit losers who finds the easy way to get things that are seemingly out of their reach. I believe in Karma, just as how my sister use to tell me about it. It doesnt make me feel any better. Devastated, I decided to get out of that place. My trust was betrayed. I had myself to blame.

I sat at the sidewalks, mourning at my loss. It's still painful. A middle-aged couple stop by their tracks, and asked me if I'm alright. They're from Germany, residing in the hotel on whose pavement I was sitting on. Shuomo, a grand 6star hotel in the luxury strip of the city. I have no idea how far I've wandered penniless from Dorm Park, and ended up there exhausted and hungry. They offered to buy me dinner at a posh al fresco restaurant just across the street from Shuomo. God bless them. I shed tears of gratefulness and be reminded that there are still good people left in this world. Their generousity did not end there. The couple spoke in thickly accented English, we exchanged experiences over the dinner table, and there was a connection which established itself at the very moment we spoke. I spoke about giving up travelling, but the couple encouraged me to carry on. They offered to get me things that I might need for my journey, and offered some cash. They are way too nice, to a stranger like me. I didn't know how to thank them.

It's hard to trust people from a new place, because it has been broken once, and it could happen a lot more times in the future. It is not easy to build trust and it takes time. It's even harder when we had to build it from scratch, which is often the case in real life. But I guess that it is just part of life, it is something that we had to learn to deal with, so that we can train ourselves to be instinctive through experience.

...

Thank God it was only a dream. I guess that with this, I'd never ever leave anything behind, out of my sight. This is one of the dreams I had that I remembered with such detail. One of the meaningful things in life that we should never take lightly of.

*Based on a true Dream =)

100th!

Pop a cork and CELEBRATE!!!
.
..
...
Ok. It's my hundredth. Chill, won't be asking anyone to celebrate this with me, but heck, what an achievement. *thinks* hey.. I think I've reached the 100th mark before, through Friendster blog, until M blocked the site. Sheesh. Nevermind. The world is never short of blogging sites. Heh.

Speaking about TechnoStress (NO, I'm not talking about TECHNO, I was referring to TECHNOlogy), I just had to agree that it has taken over the traditional ways of communication, in fact, taken over by storm. *Yawns* I don't even want to go there.

**
For the past few weeks...

It was such an excitement to meet up with long lost friends again. Those you got to know during badminton crazy teenage years, who you've lost touch with eons ago. It's simply amazing how small the circle appears to be when you start to gather your old friends back. Still sharing the same enthusiasm for the same sport that brought us together. Cheers.

**

Dough chase. Everyone's got a hot feet when it comes to this. Heh. So hot are their feet that it burned the head. So F. Tak civil langsung.
This is what happens when the brain isnt coordinating the motor movements properly.
I thought someone was killed last night, dismembered, and packed into a rubbish bag. Notice the brown coloured juice flowing out? Might be blood.. Hot are their feet that they don't have time to clear up the mess the make.

Cutest things on earth are Innocent looking.
The looks, I was referring to.

And this is just for you, Thamby :
Why was I not invited to your grand opening?!

Pictures paints a thousand words. (I'm lazy to write..that's what it Meant)

Listen listen listen to Meeee..

I don't have the attention span of a flea. In fact, I pay 110% attention when I listen to people. And I remember things. As it is.

However, its a challenge to listen to this ONE person. While I normally start my day high on energy, all prepared to battle the jam and traffic police out on the roads. No problems.
Talking to this Particular person, it changes things. It's a challenge to pay attention to that person when your focused mind decides against you, and your mind start wandering off.
Not only does the mind wanders far far away from where you should be, them came the sleep-triggering talk. The kind that will make you fall asleep Immediately. It's hard to hold your head up straight and look into that person's eye when when your eyes are not cooperating with your brain. The effects are almost immediate.

I'm still trying to figure out what caused this. The face? The words? I wonder.

The most surprising part was that, it not only happened to me. Same goes for the other 2. Something is wrong. I wonder what would happen if that person gives a Demo presentation to the board of directors? The after effects can be disastrous...

Getaway

I've never participate in any Treasure Hunt of any sort.

This was my first, and definitely won't be my last.

What is more fun that participating in a TreasureHunt, with a team made up of your own family members? It was a cross-border event, which also promotes Visit Malaysia 2007 (Hence the stickers on the participating cars)

It was a wet morning. It's been pouring since the wee hours that day. But it didn't dampen any of the participants enthusiasm a single bit. Everyone was in high spirit, and couldnt wait to get it started. As for me, I was not psyched, mainly cos I didnt get a good sleep the night before, thanks to the mat rempits burning the needle-straight 4-lane newly paved road behind my house; the other was because I spent long hours travelling.

LCCT was such a sight, the first impression it gave me was that it resembles the Melbourne International Airport. It was however a little troublesome to get there, an hour and fifteen minutes ride from KL Sentral to LCCT is rather illogical, cos the flight itself only took less than 55 minutes. Perhaps they should do something about the hour long journey to get there, and make use of the million dollar ERL.

Back to the mat rempits, I should have got up and grab a bag of gravels and start throwing at them. Or make a huge oilspill so that they'll go down together. Sakit hati, sakit telinga.

The Hunt starts from Alor Setar Mall and the last checkpoint would be in a rest area in Changloon, before we head to Hatyai.
The estimated distance that will be covered is 71KM. We were given a 5KM margin, and if you clocked more than that, faham faham la..you took another route to reach the final checkpoint. Clock in more than the given margin, you're disqualified.
We were given 4 hours to finish the Hunt, from the time we were clocked off.
But before we got it going, we had an hour long briefing (in 3 languages), explaining the rules and how to read the manuals, and also how to read the question sheet and fill out the answer sheet. While he was explaining, we havent seen the manuals yet, so we were just listening and tried to remember whatever he was saying.

We were flagged off at 10am, manuals were given out.

Everything I've been trying to absorb just minutes earlier almost faded entirely. Whats all those numbers and what am I suppose to do with it? Haha. As we left the starting point, we started out trying to understand how the sheets and the manual is suppose to work as a pair~

It was until the fourth question, that it finally made sense to add up the numbers on the sheets, that marks the location of the object in question. -.- Lucky us we had a future number crunching auditor on board. Haha. It's all fun from there onwards.

The questions and clues, brought us from AlorSetar, to Kuala Kedah (where you can hop on a ferry to Langkawi), right across the border to Kangar, Perlis, and all the way to Changloon before we head to our final destination at Lee Gardens, Hatyai.

Don't you just love this?

The wet weather was perfect for a set up for a perfect view of paddy fields, as far as the eye can see. I was simply enjoying the greenery around me, and it feels so good to be in the greens again. The concrete jungle back in KL is simply adding on the stress.

It's a test of navigational skills and mathematical skills, the skills to interpret printed words into visual feeds. One lesson learnt, Tresure Hunt means going down and look for it, not sitting in the car and see whatever you can. It was raining, so we didnt get off. =P At least we learnt something, eh?

We reached Changloon, its time for lunch. Had something light at the rest area, and we head to Hatyai. Had to catch some snooze time, I'm just drop dead tired. Occasionally I opened my eyes and see signages bearing words that curve and twist that looks familiar but incomprehensible to me. Welcome to Thailand. Zzzz..

We checked in to the hotel, had a quick shower and we're out again. Food food and more food!

Later that night, we had dinner at the hotel, where the winners and loser were announced. Trophies and prize money were given away. Lots of beer and lots of fun. Love the spirit of the Hash members. Lost of booze. I remember downing alot, thats it. Sitting at the same table with dad and his friends, one of which is also my friend, we downed one glass after another. There was also a lucky draw. They gave away everything, from T-shirts, to RC cars, to fishing rods, to a car battery ( -.-'') and all sorts of things which I cant make out from afar, though I'm sitting at the first table. -.-' Thought it was all over, when its down to 2 remaining prizes to be given away. 0105! Mum's!! A set of tyres -.-'
And the last prize, a set of 17' Rims and tyres to come with it, 0104!!! MINE!!!!!!
Woohoo~

Not forgetting the food, its all hot and spicy. Had my first taste of Thai green curry, and its good! The 2 days spent there, my stomich is all filled with Thai fest of hot stuff. -.-' Good food~