Cultivate some hobbies and life is a zest and jest

If you married a practical person, then your life is PRACTICAL all along. This is a practical present yours sincerely was given by his better half on his retirement. It is a China made electric grass trimmer which I had expected to last two or perhaps three usages, that if you were lucky. Jolly good, it is still working. The secret is to wipe it clean after using and to spray its moving parts with a dash of every handyman's magic fluid : "WD 40."

Anyway, the cutter came at right time when our regular gardener demanded a hefty hike overnight all because of "harga minyak naik!!!" No "kam cheng." (relationship) I have always championed the underdog and would have given him a raise appropriately without demand. And when almost 30% of the garden was cemented we did not reduce his payment. The better half had always ensured that he had his icy drink and "goreng pisang," "cakes'" etc. with each service. So, to cut a long story short, yours sincerely takes up a new hobby. It is fulfilling, when your garden looks like this after a few hours of labour of love. You feel good when you come home after a long drive to see the neatness. HOME SWEET HOME.

Not bad, eh! At least, better than a few of the neighbours' as I always believe that the small plot of land around your house reflects its occupants.
See, what a good job has been done? The lawn is almost manicured, or rather crew cut. If you do it in the morning, the grassy aroma is refreshing. I enjoy the smell. Then once in a while you have to put up with a nosey but well-intentioned friend who walks by or jogs by or drives by. He stops and says: " Ai ya... doing everything by yourself ! Let's others make a living also lar........ Get a gardener." It is hard , you know, to live this life.

Yours sincerely has never wasted a minute of his life since April, 20th 2008. The day he was retired because he had reached 56 and should be retired when he still had pimples. If you read, then there is so much to richly fill your time with. How can educated people say that they are bored? Yours sincerely has been buying a book with each pay day since he got his first pay years ago.
And of late, the Israel-Gaza Issue boggles my mind. Pissed off by all the cheap, idiotic and senseless propagandas on TV3, TV I, 2 and what-nots, yours sincerely took on these two publications to go deeply and fairly into the issue.
There are many books waiting, not only to be read, but studied and discussed. How I wish this city of Alor Star has a Reading Club where people can gather to review, discuss and share the latest publications. Fat hope! When my colleagues saw me reading in school, the comment was : " Baca apa lagi sudah jadi cikgu!" In all my life as a teacher, there is only one teacher by the name of Mr Looi Tuck, an ardent reader himself, who on and off, discussed and shared with me the latest publications. How I miss such colleague who made time for you. Others are too selfishly busy until they could not spare you a wee bit of time for a farewell dinner after 30 over years of working together! Pathetic world.

There was another teacher who asked me for the cost of a publication I was holding, a paperback entitled "Sons of the Yellow Emperor." She nealy fainted when she heard it was RM58.00. "Waaaaaaa, so expensive one...!!!" Well, always tell yourself that you are not merely buying papers and ink but years and years of thoughts and thinking and composing and editing. It is a labour of LOVE, writing books. Then, the teachers asked, "Can you lend me after reading?"

Well, I cannot thank the PIBG enough when I was given a RM300 book vouchers for my forced retirement.

" The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but
newspapers." - Thomas Jefferson.

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them"
- Mark Twain