It took us three years to teach Banjo how to say ‘good morning’ in Japanese. He doesn’t like Jap, but picks up Cantonese, English and Mandarin real fast. Thus little did we expect him to come up with up so many variations of a combination of the English “good morning!” and the Japanese “ohayo!” within a couple of weeks:

He goes…

… Good morn-ning!
… O-ha-yo!
… Good morn-ning yo!
… O-morn-ning!
… O-morn-ning-yo!
… Good-hi-yo!

Montaigne:

A quarter of an ounce of endurance can provide for such discomforts. I find that the remedy which works for me is, from the outset, to purchase my freedom at the cheapest price I can get; I know that I have by this means escaped much travail and hardship. With very little effort I stop the first movement of my emotions, giving up whatever begins to weigh on me before it bears me off. If you do not stop the start, you will never stop the race. If you cannot slam the door against your emotions you will never chase them out once they have got in. If you cannot struggle through the beginning, you will never get through the end; nor will you withstand the building’s fall, if you cannot stand its being shaken. ‘Etenim ipsae se imlellunt ubi semel a ratione discessum est; ipsaque sibi imbecillitas indulget, in altumque provehitur imprudens, nec reperit locum consistendi.‘ [Once they have departed from reason the emotions drive themselves on; their very weakness indulges itself, venturing imprudently on to the deep and finding no place in which it can heave to.]

No wonder I love reading Montaigne so much, for I continually find myself being mirrored in his philosophies. Those who know me will have come to realise just exactly how much of Stoicism I subscribe to. But is this always really necessary? It has become so engrained in the way I lay out my thoughts in all matters, that the will is hardly ever needed to restrain [my emotions], or to be restrained.

It took me 40 minutes to place an order for home delivery from Pizza Hut. I called twice. Thrice, actually. The third time only because my sis insisted. By then I was already filling in a feedback form on their website, and was looking into alternatives for dinner.

The first time I called, I was placed in the queue. Waited for 15 minutes, despite the automated system saying I’d be served within six to ten minutes. That’s still alright. I gave the customer service staff my contact details. After a second she went, “Err, ma’am, I’m sorry to inform you that the outlet closest to your place is under renovation. So we cannot do any eat-ins, takeaways, or home deliveries” to which I replied that I wouldn’t mind a longer wait if they had to dispatch the order from a different outlet. I could count at least four Pizza Huts around Orchard Road, so I couldn’t see why they couldn’t deliver. But she said it just wasn’t possible. I retorted, “Isn’t the whole idea of having a home delivery system so that customers are not bounded by the location of the outlets, so that it is not necessary for us to come down?” She went quiet, then said that she would get her supervisor to call me back immediately. I said it wasn’t necessary. She said, “Don’t worry, I will get my supervisor.” which doesn’t in fact answer anything.

12 minutes later, I rang them up again, after having received no phone call. Again, I was placed in the queue, and after some waiting I decided it wasn’t worth it. Then my sis came in, and intent on getting Pizza Hut pizzas, she tried the phone again.

After a long wait… she was served. She passed the phone to me, and again I told the customer service staff my address. She started, “Ma’am, I regret to inform…” I interrupted her mid-way. Explained that I had previously attempted to order. She went, “But you see, our system cannot work in that way.” I asked why. She couldn’t answer, and so I went on, a hint of frustration finally slipping in. “Look, I can very easily just have given up and not wasted all my time and efforts in trying to order a simple pizza. But what you’re saying now… I can’t understand. I don’t know how you do business. Rejecting customers? Not that it’s your fault, but I had greater expectations of Pizza Hut. Can you get your supervisor on the line please?” And she mumbled a soft “Hold on, please.” Her voice was nervous, scared. The poor girl, she doesn’t deserve this. I was watching my watch. I waited. Silence. For more than a good ten seconds, which, on the phone, seems like quite a long time.

The line cracked. “Hello?” - it was the same girl still. I was all ready to give up, and forget about getting pizzas.

“Err, ma’am, I can now proceed to take your order.”

“So all of a sudden, everything is alright now? Am I going to get my pizza?” By then my voice had incorporated in that one single tone a minor scoff, a bit of scepticism, a chuckle and relieved sigh.

“Yes, ma’am, it is ok now. What would you like to order?”

Heh.

While at Borders the bookshop -

Elderly Caucasian woman: Excuse me, sorry, could you tell me how much this book costs?

And she hands a book over to a young man, who takes it, looks it over, amused, and points to the price label. Politeness getting the better of him, he reads it out.

Man: It’s twenty five fifty, ma’am.

Woman: Ah, thank you very much. I’m from South Africa, you see, so it’s different here.

And she wobbles away.

Man to his lady companion: She’s weird.

Socials, meet ups, talks, and the outdoors. What a fulfilling week… that has now cumulated in quite a number of tasks on my plate.

* * * * *
A couple of days ago, I attended a talk by CSR Asia on the findings of their recent survey on business and stakeholder perceptions of CSR, based on studies done in Singapore and Hong Kong. A few surprising results there, but generally most of the trends can be explained with some analysis. The people who attended where mostly corporate executives, and I had also pulled my dad along. In conversations after the talk, most had expressed the needlessness and lack of practical applicability of such survey results - it is all good and dandy to know, but how are businesses to put the knowledge into action? Thus the frustration expressed at the inability of academia (most of the researchers were academics) to contribute in practical terms to the corporate world. Academics love comparing sets of stats, and discovering where they significantly differ, but "so what?"

* * * * *
As a result of one of the chains of coincidences as mentioned in the one of the previous posts, I had gone down to meet up with Ivy Singh-Lim, owner of Bollywood Veggies and president of the Kranji Countryside Association. Some urgent action is needed to tackle the issue of granite stockpiling on the agricultural land in Kranji, with potential environmental effects and impacts on the surrounding farmlands - she is running a petition (have you signed?) to the government, and I am to play a major supporting role, one that I am struggling to deliver but I will try as best as I can.

The land has already been bulldozed…

Dropped by Sungei Buloh whilst I was at that side of the island. Ahh, the feeling of being back where my adventures all began. After milling about the office a bit, helping a little and chatting up with the staff, I headed out for a while and was greeted by Storky.

* * * * *
Was down at Buloh again this morning for the launch of the new interactive wireless feature for the boardwalk, and the wireless network coverage at the reserve. Bumped into Siva there, who was happily surfing on his Mac and has already posted on Habitatnews.

Launch of the new wireless learning trail

Learning on the move with the Ultra Mobile PC units

The migratory waders - some early arrivals (Common Sandpiper aka Ricky Martin)

A handsome mantis, posing as if he were in my studio

And a first for me (us?) in Buloh - a mantis shrimp in the mangroves!

* * * * *
My relatives from Hong Kong are now in town, so I’ll be expecting to play the host these few days.

Recently I had the chance to do one of these tests. I thought I recalled doing them (or something similar) when I was younger, but since I was still young and innocent then, I hadn’t a clue if I was what the type description said I was. I did a search online to find out more about my type, and sure enough, I feel me being described quite aptly… very aptly, in fact.

INTJ (Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging) as detailed by Wiki, TypeLogic, and a random page which, despite its randomness, has done quite a good job.

Edit: Just found out… I used to be an ISTJ…

Things are happening so quickly, I can’t keep up with ‘em on my blog!

Sometimes you really wonder if there is a God, or a higher being, who is setting things in motion, or are the forces of fate and such that strong, if you believe they exist. How everything seems to come together, one coincidence after another, when timings, happenings, and people and events are fitting together almost like clockwork. At first, they may appear to be an inconvenience or a burden. At times, these coincidences might not even be directly applicable to self. It might be things that happened to others, which in turn affect yourself. The pieces can take years to fall into place… when at first you wouldn’t even have known they belonged to the same puzzle set. And it’s not just one set of puzzle. It’s a few, working in parallel. This phenomenon… now with I in my secular state of mind… I don’t really know what to call it. Some say call it the ‘law of attraction’?