Technology Bites...

Do you remember a time when you weren't clutching on tightly to your BlackBerry typing away like your life depended on it? Do you remember a time when you weren't with a laptop desperately seeking a wi-fi location so that you could log on to your email or website to update something?
I do.

Last week, my life was turned upside down and around simply because my new onyx Blackberry decided to crash. I have no idea what happened, I just tried to turn it on after it suddenly restarted itself, and it just wouldn't load. I was lucky I had my laptop with me, as I was on a trip to Paris for work, but I just suddenly felt so disconnected with the entire world.

How did we get this dependent on technology? How did our lives entirely function and revolve around technology? And when technology fails me, I end up feeling pretty much completely lost. It was like I had to remind myself every few seconds or so that the world would still be there, things were still running, even without a Blackberry.

Is this a sign I need to go to gadget rehab?

Just Do It !

So I haven't written a blog in like forever. What's my excuse this time? Busy. What else is new?

I'm desperately trying to finish the seemingly endless book #2 - now, I'm at 65K words, and I still can't figure out how I'm going to end this even though I had an outline in the begining; I'm not just feeling it, you know? It's not how I want the book to end anymore, so I'm changing course. My bad, I fell in love with the characters too much, so I have to have the best ending possible for them, otherwise, I just wouldn't be able to live with myself.

Aside from that, I'm also busy crazy at my day job. Guests from overseas are constantly visiting our shores, reports are piling up, new projects are being initiated almost daily now - it's suffice to say things are really GOING ON right now. It's like I can't even catch a breath. And the travelling... Oh, don't even get me started on that. I've been to Singapore, Hong Kong, back to Singapore and will still be going again and while I do appreciate that I'll be able to use the miles for a family vacation (hopefully in December), can I just say that I am getting sick of airplanes? I feel like getting sick every time I board one. (Although, I must admit, I still love airports. And like I said in my tweet recently, the Hong Kong Airport is TO DIE FOR).

To top that off, I have 2 kids who are taking turns getting sick. It's like the viruses just love being passed on from son to daughter, then back to son, and back to daugther. And occassionally, like now, it gets passed on to me. I've been in bed for like 4 days now.

One of my best Twitter buddies @TigressReow said to me the other day "It's not EZ being Mom, Wife, Careergal, Author, Daughter etc when sick or w/sick kids" - and she's totally right. It's not even easy to do when I'm healthy and completely up and running!

But here's my survival trick: just do it. No - this is not an ad for Nike - although I am a big fan (of their products, not of their business practice). Seriously, people ask me all the time, what is my secret? How do I juggle everything I do and not go crazy? Someone even asked me: how many hours do you have in a day? The rest of us only have 24!! And my answer is that I just do it.

See, the way I see it, if you keep on thinking and trying to figure out how you are going to do so many things in a day, you'll never find the answer. Instead, you'd waste time just sitting there, trying to sort things out - things that will never be sorted out perfectly anyway. So what's the point in doing that? Do things as they come, keep your cool and just sail along smoothly.

Of course, there are certain things that happen in life that cause the balance to shift, like me getting sick now, and having to be in bed for 4 days. This is not expected and thus when I get back to my routine, I'll have to work faster to get everything done a little faster so I can get back to the normal pace later on - but from what I've learned, just keep a positive attitude and focus forward. Don't take your eyes off the goal. Give yourself deadlines and mark them in your head so you get the adrenaline rush you need to get yourself moving and constantly pushing forward.

Sure, you'll say "easier said than done". In the beginning, it'll feel that way too, for sure. But my advice is, believe that it can be done. It can. I hope this doesn't come off cocky or anything but seriously, I've done it. It can be done. Maybe not perfectly - because let's face it, we're all human beings so we'll never be perfect - but it can.

Who's with me to try it out? :)

Drum Roll Please....

Introducing...
My first book!

Can I tell you how crazy this feels?
No, wait, I can't. Not because I don't want to, but literally, I can't! I can't describe how amazing and surreal this feels! I am over the hills, over the moon, over the universe excited, and getting me back to earth is proving to be a huge challenge. It's just... amazing. Sorry, for a writer, I can't even find the words to properly describe this. It's embarrasing, really.

When is it coming out, you ask? Soon.
Where will it be available? I'll tell you when I know.
All I know now is that my dreams are this close to coming true, and I'll remember these moments leading up to the release of the book for the rest of my life.

Don't worry, I'm still keeping my day job just in case... ;)

Bye bye bag...

Ah, Paris... City of Lights? Maybe. City of Crime? Heck, yes!
I was minding my own business, talking with some colleagues in the cab ride from the Charles de Gaulle airport to the hotel when all of a sudden, the window was smashed and some dude (now, nearly 12 hours later I call him "dude" but earlier he was "jerk") grabbed my bag. My beautiful black leather Chanel bag, with some of my lifelines inside: iPhone, Blackberry, iPod, wallet (with cash + cards), limited edition Emilio Pucci pen, Chanel necklace, lipstick, business cards, passport, ID card, frequent flyer cards, and the list continues (unfortunately).

I was stunned, shocked and literally speechless. It wasn't until my friend kept shouting to the cab driver to call the police did I actually realize what had happened. I swear, when the window was smashed, I actually thought I was being shot at, and I didn't even realize my bag was gone.

After the shock came anger. It was like I was on an anger high or something, I couldn't stop being so upset at the stupid dude who took my stuff. I hadn't felt anger like that in a very long time.

Then, came sadness. I was so overwhelmed by sadness that I had lost some of the things I really (really) loved and depended on (i.e. Blackberry for tweeting and iPhone for all my games) that I kept crying and crying until my eyes felt like they were burning. Of course, while I was at the police station, I kept my cool, but as soon as I checked into the hotel, I cried buckets.

Now, after all that, what's left of me is wonder. I can't stop to wonder and ask so many questions: why did he need money so much that he would go to the lengths of committing a crime to get it? Why did it happen to me? Why didn't I keep my bag under my leg or something? Why didn't I see him coming? Why didn't the cab driver see him coming? Why can't the police catch him? What am I going to do with no money? How can I get back all the numbers and info I had in my phones? What happens after this?

Honestly, even though it's a long shot, but I have been telling myself that the guy needed an operation or needed to pay for college or something that cost a lot of money that he didn't have so he resorted to stealing. Somehow, this way of thinking helps me "forgive" - even though it's still nowhere close to being easy to do.

So they say that everything happens for a reason. I really, really, wonder what the reason is for this one. Seriously.

The Price to Pay

These days, nothing in the world is for free. Let's not even talk about products, there's even a price to pay for hearing. So yeah, naturally, these days, I am all about paying the price. Everything has a tag on it.

It all started with the news that my son needed surgery. I walked into the doctor's office with concerns that his speech wasn't as developed compared to other kids his age, and I came out with a "glue ear" diagnose and a piece of white paper that said he was scheduled for surgery on Thursday that same week.

I came out of the doctor's office with a blank stare, completely bewildered. How did it get to this? - I asked myself at the time.

Sure - it was only "minor" surgery. But every mother would concur that nothing is minor when it comes to our kids. The thought of my boy being unconscious and operated on with an IV stuck into his little hand in a scary operating room was just too much for me to bear. And of course, being the overdramatic person that I was, I couldn't hold the tears back at all.

Just before the operation, the nurses rolled his bed into the operating room and my son held on to my hand for dear life. He was so scared that I couldn't see color in his face at all. I'm sure we traumatized the crap out of that poor little kid. But it had to be done, what choice did we have? He woke up from surgery kicking, screaming, demanding that we take out the IV, and he ended up taking it out himself with blood splattered all over the place. (I know, eww right?)

This is what we had to bear: trauma, cost, 2 weeks of being away from home, the expenses of being in a foreign country, exhaustion, and additional costs of changing our tickets (which were promo tickets!).

But when weighed with what we got in return: my son's hearing back and precious time with both my kids while we were stuck in Singapore waiting for my son to recover post surgery. Fourteen priceless days with both my son and daughter, uninterrupted by work or people or television or anything!

Now if that's not well worth it, I don't know what is...

It Takes Shock Therapy to Open Your Eyes...

When my husband came home from work the other day, I dropped everything I was doing to run to the door and greet him with a long lingering hug as soon as he stepped foot out of the car. Call me a drama queen if you’d like, but I actually had tears welling up my eyes and I felt lucky he was alive.

No, he wasn't recently in any car accident nor did he go through any near death experiences of any kind. He just went to work, went to meetings with clients, replied a few dozen emails or so and at the end of the day, drove home – all the normal routine (and perhaps rather mundane) things.

What wasn't normal was the fact that someone called our house telling our poor housekeeper that he had been in a terrible car accident and was in critical condition at the nearest hospital. In tears and completely terrified, our housekeeper called my mother-in-law, who then called and told me.

Sure, I had heard of similar scams happening around our circle of friends. They call, they say our loved one is dying then they make a second call asking for money. So logically I was convinced it was a scam almost immediately. Somehow though, in the back of my head, I kept thinking "What if it's true?" Matters became worse when I kept getting my husband's voicemail at every attempt of calling his cell phone.

Figuring the only way to find out was to see for myself, I left the office, rushed to take a cab to the hospital, and was there in less than ten minutes. I soon found out that my initial instinct was correct - it was just a scam. And no, the con artist did not ask for money - which made the scam seem rather odd and pointless. But anyway...

On my way out of the hospital -where the nurses there told me this sort of thing happened all the time - I finally managed to get through to my husband. Although I knew it was a scam, I still felt unbelievably relieved that he was unharmed, unscathed, and even smirking at me in response to my so-called overreaction. I couldn't stop the inner drama queen in me, I bawled my eyes out as soon as I heard him say "hello".

People generally say that everything happens for a reason. So perhaps this odd incident happened to wake me up and tell me that I haven't been appreciating my husband enough? Was it a cosmic attempt to remind me not to take him for granted? And perhaps for me to subsequently tell others about it so they could learn the same lesson I did?

Whatever the reason, I find myself now strangely thanking the person who tried to scam us. Not deeply thanking him of course, because well, who am I kidding, at the end of the day he still gave me an anxiety attack and I'm not a saint so it’s not that easy for me to entirely forgive and forget. But beyond that, I did learn something out of the whole fiasco.

Sometimes it takes a bit of drama in life to wake you up, and while I used to be more of a "the glass is half empty" kind of person, I can now tell myself that even though it's half empty, but at least it's not entirely empty. There is still half a glass worth drinking.

Waiting... and waiting... and waiting...

So, I was standing in line at the Bank (after pay day, obviously) and I noticed that the line was basically shaped like an 'M'. I stood there patiently waiting for my turn for at least 45 minutes, and finally when it was my turn, the teller put up a 'closed' sign and just before she left, she asked me to move to the next line. To cut the long story short, I finally made my transaction after being at the (stupid) bank for around 1 hour and 20 minutes. Time wasted here: 1 hour and 5 minutes.

When I got back to my car, I had to wait for the gate to exit the parking lot to open, which took forever because for some reason, the gate was stuck. Time wasted here: 10 minutes.

As I got out of the lot, I entered a traffic jam that prolonged by journey to the office by about half an hour, causing me to be a total of 3 hours late to get to the office, while I had only asked permission to leave the office for an hour to get all the bank stuff settled. Time wasted here: 30 minutes.

This - all the agonizing waiting - is not the end of my story, my friends. At around 3pm, I was supposed to have a meeting with this agency, and while I managed (for once) to not be late and arrive at the venue at exactly 3pm, the agency was late because they had a flat tire on the way to meet me, so I had to wait for around 40 minutes until they finally showed up. Then, as they were going to present their concept to me, they had a problem with their laptop, so again, I had to wait. Time wasted here: 50 minutes.

On the way back to the office, traffic was fantastic and I was so happy to be able to arrive back before 6. I rushed to clear a few emails and left by just before 7, and... was greeted by none other than an evening rush of traffic. Home, which is essentially 20 minutes from the office, became 45 minutes away. Time wasted here: 25 minutes.

Dinner was OK, but then after dinner and after playtime with the kids, I wanted to log on to my computer to check Twitter and reply some personal emails and all of a sudden the wi-fi was off. I called the internet provider and got the automatic answering machine, and was told to... wait for it... WAIT! Imagine that... I waited for what seemed like ages, and finally a man answered and said I would have to wait while the technician checked. Internet was back on at around 11pm - which was about half an hour after I called. Time wasted here: 20 minutes.

Look, I know that patience is supposedly a virtue. But see, I wasted a total of 3 hours and 15 minutes that day, just waiting around aimlessly, when I could have been doing so many other things more useful in my life.

In 3 hours and 15 minutes, I could have read a book with my kids and played with them, I could have written another 1,000 to 2,000 words for my novel, I could have replied 100 emails at the office, I could have proof read at least 10 articles for the magazine I work for, I could have watched an entire movie, and I could have even watched 9 episodes of my favorite sitcom! Oh, my fave sitcom these days is How I Met Your Mother, by the way.

I just don't get it. On a daily basis, we waste so much precious time that we never get back, and at the end of the day, what do we get out of it? Nothing more than what we initially needed anyway. And I think about all the times I wished there were more than 24 hours in a day... I mean, if we saved all the time wasting, we'd have those extra hours we need, don't you think?

Maybe it's just me, because I'm pissed at all these people who have made me wait. But tell me, is it so wrong to want things to run smoothly, glitch-less and hiccup-less so we can all move along faster in life?