DECEMBER *MUACKS*

End of dreary November!

Jolly December glides in like a jester in performance.

The thought of getting extra money out of my pay churns all the sunny side outta me. I am determined to make good use of it.

Shop - Have not done so since September. Pity a woman who has no courage to use plastics because she doesn't have a cheque book (hence doesn't know how to write one) and never step into those uptown malls for 3 months, let alone generating sales for those countergals.

Save - That's the main highlight of da month. Gonna input a big chunk for a good summation. I need them for my future plans although it is still far (very distant, actually) from my proposed target. Sigh.

Surrender - Mom has heard about the possible bonus I would receive (sometimes I wish government can keep a hush-hush about it) so she gonna have a good month like me. If dad's around, it gonna be sucker for me.

Gifts - Apart from getting xmas gifts for friends, two of my sisters' birthday fall in December. As we grow, so does the monetary amount to spend on their birthday presents. Just hope one does not pin her hopes on Seiko watch whereas another asking for Gucci bag.
Oh gosh, Ernest's 1st birthday gonna hit soon.. 26th Dec!! Hum. Additional costs will have to be included.

Party - Yes yesh yeah!! I gonna sell my soul to loud music and drink my heart out in somewhere-not-decided-yet during xmas. Gals have agreed on Sentosa, but some of us lack bikinis and MOST of us lack confidence to show 1) boobs tat sag 2) boobs tat cant fulfil bikini cups 3) love-handles 4) flabby flesh around butts 5) two-toned skin
We are still planning, though we only discuss about it while gobbling down the burgers, trying on impossible pants or getting our motions done in toilets.

Travel - Marwan has invited me to Phuket, along with his wife and her colleagues. It's not a fair deal since I will be the only chinese but I need a vacation badly. Just when I said "Ok count me in" (with a cool tinge in my pitch - to disguise my excitement in front of that idiot) he couldn't find any good airfares. Moreover his leave might not be approved. Damn.
Anyway, I will know the outcome by end of this week.
I might head down to KL to celebrate New Year. As part of the annual event, fireworks will be generously displayed above the twin towers and its gonna be a sight not to be missed. However my mom gonna travel to Japan at exactly the same period, which leaves Lynn taking care of Ernest alone. Which also means she will not have time to feed Tiger, DEFINITELY. Argh!
Seems like travelling is an impossible mission in my December.

Oh yeah, I need to do something about my hair. It's as bad as the weather nowadays.

FROM THE PREVIOUS..

I received a comment from Anonymous barely an hour my entry was posted out.

GEEZ!

Thanks for the compliment, erh, if it wasn't mocking at my contradiction - which I only realized after reading your valuable comment.
People, strangers, read my blogs HERE, too.

You get the idea now? I couldn't bring myself to write my inner feelings and opinions in Multiply.com because I fear of being commented by people in there. And to recap, I dun like to be prejudged by people who dun really know me.

Yet there's an option for 'comments' for every entry I posted here. And I remember it was my very own decision to allow it!

Well I guess there won't be any 'safe haven' in webspace. I was wrong in my thinking.

Anonymous gave me some thoughts. Why am I entrusting blogspot to put my life's secrets than Multiply.com when they are 1) webspaces, 2) public space for peeps to write and read others' ?

Okie here's what I think:
Multiply.com is built for social cum professional networks. I believe their foundation relies on this and to make it work they add in features like Profiles (for people to get a basic idea of who you are), Photos (pictures speak a thousand words), Journals (like blogspot), Recipes (I like this, everyone can become Jamie Oliver at last), Events (just like eCircles, a mini event mgmt) and you can form Multiply groups when you have different kinds of contacts in your list.
Thus the name Multiply. You add a contact into your list, and you will be linked to his/her circle of friends in his/her list. Just like Friendster (but in my opinion it has become a dating site).

My point is (yes I'm coming to this, be patient!), there's a culture in Multiply.com. I can't give a good directive but from what I observe, anyone who writes an entry will receive comments from their friends...aquaintances and strangers. 90% effective. And from personal experience (after posting only 2 entries todate), those who read my journal will click on my profile to check me out. Some even tried to add me as their contact - without even a message sent to me, to acknowledge their existence. Multiply.com also allows us to snoop; I can find out who has been reading my entries and who has been checking me out.
So a certain pressure has been formed. If I write anything that delves deep into my personal life, a lot of people would read, and without even knowing me in reality. Worse, they are linked by my distant friend/aquaintance's friend's friend's gf or friend's son's colleague, etc. Its a mass network you're looking at here. I wouldn't want to be recognized on the streets based on my 'deeper-than-personal' entries in Multiply.com.

Now for this particular space.
So far, only my close friends and Cliff know about it. I can't stop strangers from reading them but I have nothing to lose. I dunno you, vice versa. What you read is for your personal indulgence, leave the contents back to where you have read them and that's it. We have no links and no closure.

I had deliberated in opting out 'comments' in my future entries. My initial motive in placing it was to give my friends and Cliff some rights to speak back on things I had spitted out, which they may have different opinions. And, it's usually when they are involved in the issues that will make them speak out. It's another communication bridge between us.
I didn't expect other people will make use of it, seriously. But that doesn't mean I dun welcome any. Unless I receive negative ones. Peeps, you have freedom of speech but do not be abusive and no intrusion of privacy. Like this particular one, getting it from Anonymous sparked off another entry from me. He/She had came uninvited with no 'weapons' armed and helped to realize my mistake. I like that. Besides, responding to the comment by writing it out helps to convince my thoughts.
Thank you.

Peace out :)

BLOG U BLOG ME

I'm getting a little retarded in posting new entries. Yes, LAZY is the word and I managed to spell it out. Bleah.

I'm currently deep inside Multiply.com, reading blogs from people I barely know. Hey which makes it interesting. You get to know there are so many heartbroken people who still write their sad poems in Multiply DAILY. Hmm, they seem to vent all their emotions into it and find it pleasurable for strangers to read. Is this called sharing? Or flaunting? Thin fine line in this issue. Trust me, most of the idyllic, sad, bittersweet poems on love/life/personal destructions come from males. I rather call them SNAG. Gives me the shudder. And their photos... artistically taken/edited, depicting their quiet, smileless, serious, artyfarty faces.
Idiotic, I would say. So much for making yourself seen artistically and yet howl about your torn heart in the blogs. It creates a pathetic atmosphere, eh? Too perfect for a human to be sad physically. GET REAL!

I am re-reading Paulo Coelho's Veronika Decides To Die. Few pages left before I leave her maddening world. I will be left with nothing on my hand to hold and eyes to read during my treacherous journeys to and from work. Am having skintight budget this month, dun even know if I can afford to rent a novel from Sunny Rent-a-Book store. Damn.. I need to immense myself into surreal world, life's a little mundane in reality!

Cliff mentioned about a surprise visit soon. Hum hum hum. Do I like surprises? Answer was a definite 'yes' and 'of coz!' when prompted last time. I'm not too sure now. A little, I guess. Too much will send me into convulsion. My mind won't work properly and I will become gibberish for at least half an hour. Well that occurs only when the surprise is really a "~SURPRISE!!!~". If I wasn't surprised by the surprise attack, I would have to act like I was.
Phoney bitch.

Somehow I can't seem to write anything personal in Multiply than here. Perhaps too much scrutinization over there. People read your entries, post comments and it's courtesy for you to reply them. Courtesy?... Madness. Why should I? It's my blog!
But then, this space is where I dump my emotions because it's a safe haven. I dun like to be READ. I dun have the 'courtesy' to let strangers tapping into my mind/soul, watever. They dun need to, honestly. If they want to, they should seek proper channel, other than reading my blogs.

If you frown after reading the above, read the quotes on the left frame. It helps.

ALT+F4

Somehow I couldn't get the movie out of my mind:
Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind.

I start to envision myself, signing up at Lacuna Inc, going through the difficult procedure of erasing some parts of my memories.

Yes, I want to terminate some mental blocks that exist in me for a long time.

It's easy to remember unhappiness, the pain and hurt we have gone through and if there's Lacuna Inc, I'm sure I won't be their sole customer. In fact, many pain-dwellers will start to freshen up and head towards the clinic for a psychological makeover.

Yes, I want to forget, erase, remove, delete and refresh my life.

But life's not about walking back the path and sweeping off the traces of our footsteps along the way. Life and time work together to push us through experiences, encounters, pain, laughter, surprises, nightmares, goals, mundanity, challenges and much more.
The stones that we stumbled upon can only serve as lessons to be learned, as well as an induction to fantasize the wonders of eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.

I will stubbornly wait for technology to create Lucana Inc. Meanwhile, I will continue to swim along the banks of my memories.

SECRETS OF SUCCESS

Read this article from Reader Digest, and it's really useful to some people I know. Take a moment to absorb what it says below...

6 Ways To Control Your Financial Life
These smart money habits will put you in charge - and take the stress out of managing your finances.
By Jean Chatzky

Do you have to be rich to be happy? If you're poor, a little extra money absolutely can buy happiness. In a developing country it can mean a warm place to sleep or an electric fan to drive off the heat. But once you've achieved life's basic comforts and necessities, more money doesn't necessarily buy more happiness. Maybe you can purchase a new pair of shoes that will put a short-lived smile on your face. But will money buy you lasting happiness? Not a chance.

The irony is that, while money is responsible for only a small piece of your overall happiness, it can rob you of happiness completely. Fighting about money can drain the joy out of your marriage or other personal relationships, while chasing after money in the belief that it will make you happy can cost you the opportunity to focus on the truly important things in life.

The reality about money is that the more control you have over your finances, the fewer money stresses you have. And less stress translates into more happiness.

Of course, many things about money are beyond our control, from the gyrations of the stock market to changes in the world geopolitical picture. But a lot is within our control. For instance, while you can't control the markets, you can control how much you invest. You can't control your corporation, but you can choose to save a cushion of cash so that if your industry is hit by layoffs, you can still pay your mortgage and get a good night's sleep.

Here are six simples ways to take charge of your financial destiny:

1. Get "Pretty Well" Organised
You don't have to hire a professional organiser or spend a mint at the office supply store. You just need to come up with some sort of system that you understand, so if you have to put your finger on an important piece of paper, you can do it quickly and without a great deal of trouble.
I used to face piles of clutter that drained my time and energy, until I cleaned up my act with a sort of fengshui approach to finance. In order to live peacefully and happily, you have to keep the various areas of your life in balance. Imagine your living space as a tic-tac-toe diagram. If you're standing at the front door, your wealth area is in the back left corner. This is the area where you should focus on making money. It should be organised and clutter-free - a place that makes you feel you are already rich.
First, pare down your paper. Get rid of old receipts and brochures. Set up a simple filing system: one folder for your investments, one for insurance policies, another for credit cards. Then everyday spend 15 minutes going through your mail. Toss out the junk. Open whatever is necessary and deal with it. The goal is to touch each piece of paper only once.
Pay your bills as they come in, rather than stockpiling them until the end of the month. This will lower your stress levels and make you feel more in control. Why? Sitting down to pay a dozen or so bills all at once is drudgery, and it eats up a chunk of time that you'd rather spend doing just about anything else. Moreover, watching all that money fly out the door can be an emotional drain. Do it in bits and pieces, and it's far less overwhelming.

2. Spend Sensibly
That double decaf latte may make your stomach sing as it goes down, but if you can't afford it, it'll give you a headache later. If you have trouble living within your means, you need to understand the specific items sabotaging your wallet. Once you've identified them - whether they're car payments, restaurant bills, mobile phone charges or too many birthday gifts - you can make changes.
I used to spend an exorbitant amount of money on (gulp!) my hair. Twice a week I'd have it washed and blown straight. The trips seemed relatively inexpensive when I looked at them one-by-one. But when I added them all up, it was $3120 a year. I was horrified. So I brought my own top-of-the-line straightening iron - and since then I've saved over $6000!
There are many ways to make deals with yourself to live within your means. You can brew your own cafe latte at home. Buy that car used. Cut back on your clothing allowance. Spending no more than you can afford is absolutely essential to financial control.

3. Minimise Credit Card Debt
Having a very low level of total debt (including mortages, car loans, home equity loans) does not necessarily make us better off. In today's economy affording a house, or undertaking an extensive home renovation, means taking on some debt. Credit card debt, however, is a different animal. You can't take ownership of the rest of your financial life unless you bring your relationship with your creditors under control and reap the psychological rewards that come with the bargain.
If you've borrowed so much that you have trouble making the payments on your monthly cards, stop spending and stop borrowing. It's as simple as that. Do whatever is necessary to make that happen - lock your credit cards in a drawer if you have to. If you're in a hole, you've got to stop digging.
Beyond that, you can lower your payments by shopping around for a credit card with lower interest rates. Check the Internet for better deals; look for other types of loans that have tax advantages. Also, be careful to avoid the penalties and fees that banks are charging more often these days. So pay those bills on time - another reason to open and pay your bills as they come in.

4. Save at Least Five Per Cent of Your Income
When you're saving money, your control over financial matters gets stronger and stronger. The easiest way to save is to get that five per cent out of your hands before you have a chance to spend it. Arrange to have money taken out of your pay packet and funnelled directly into your savings. Or set up an automatic transfer that takes five per cent from your cheque account each month and deposits it into savings - look into using a tax-advantaged investment account.
But the fact is: you can save only if you're living inside the margins of your income - if you're living within your means. Many people don't. But once you become a good manager of your own money, you will get better at saving. Habits make a substantial difference as well. Budgeting, tracking your expenses, balancing your chequebook and paying your bills as they come in all translate into better saving.
Once you find you can save five per cent of your income, the accumulation in your accounts will provide encouragement to do more. Up your contribution to six per cent, then seven or eight, until you really know you are putting away enough to fund your future.

5. Work Towards Your Goals
Says economist and American TV personality Ben Stein, "The first step to getting what you want out of life is this: Decide what you want."
A colleague of mine, a divorced woman in her thirties, lives in New York. She once had the habit of shopping in order to chase the blues away. She looked for sales, thinking how much she was saving, but never about the fact that she was actually spending. Eventually her creditors began to call, and that made her take a look at her life. She had a four-year-old son she wanted to send to private school; she wanted to pursue a post-graduate degree for herself; and looking at the price of New York real estate she realised how far away she was from being able to buy a place of her own.
My colleague decided her goals were important enough to quit spending. She went cold turkey - "Is there any other way?" she asks - and it was far from easy. She would look in the store window and say, "I want that." But then she'd realise she didn't need it - what she needed was an education for her son and herself.
Visualising what you want is the first step in setting goals. Think big, but be as specific as possible. Setting goal of "buying my first house soon," is too vague. Deciding you want to buy a three-bedroom home within 30 minutes of your office before the next school year begins is better.
Write down your financial goals, then figure out what steps you need to take to achieve them. Break them down into manageable parts. If your goal is to save $5000 next year, seeing all those zeros may seem daunting. But saving $100 a week is not so overwhelming. And if you know you can come up with that much money by quitting the health club you never use and dining out one less time per week, your course is clear.
Don't make the mistake of looking at goals as points in time some distance away. You're better off looking at goals as a series of lifelong changes you make to achieve those desires.

6. Don't Be Consumed With a Desire for More
Enjoy the life you've been able to achieve. Remind yourself that wanting more doesn't breed contentment, it breeds more wanting.
Think about that once-a-year raise you typically receive in the working world. It's only a matter of weeks before you're spending to match the new level of income. And a few months later you can no longer imagine how you lived on less. Which brings you right back to where you started.
I think buying and owning a lot of "stuff" is fine, as long as you can truly afford it. But people who overwant believe that money buys happiness, as well as independence, security and control. The irony is that these people have given money the power to control them.
The way to achieve control and independence is to adopt the good money management habits of planning, organising and saving. Control doesn't hinge on how much money you make. It hinges on how you handle the money you have.

www.rdasia.com : For more tips on managing your finances, visit the website.