Blogging on Trivials 2

Dear Diary,

Feeling quite happy that my family enjoyed those doughnuts I bought for them. I was peeping into the newly-open “Munchin’ Donuts” store each time when I went for my meal breaks today. It was always so crowded with a snaking queue. However, I really wanted to buy some for my family to taste. So after work, I made a detour yet again and lo behold… a short queue! =) I went into the shop and queued… bought quite a number of doughnuts because the more I bought, the more discount I got, haha… Then I lugged home that huge box full of uniquely flavoured and coated doughnuts.

I wanted Mum to taste and hopefully that would give her some insights into whipping up a good doughnut-making idea, haha… she has been experimenting how to make doughnuts in recent weeks. I also wanted to treat my second sister. I haven’t really spent much time talking to her or giving her a treat. I hardly see her around because of her working hours which seem to be opposite of mine. As for my dad and my youngest sister… glad they loved the doughnuts too! Haha…

It was nice to see their faces lighted up with this treat. Sometimes, it is not so much the monetary value but the fact that I thought of them when I bought those doughnuts, haha… After all…. With all the never-ending work, I am taking the foot off the gas pedal and savouring a little more of life outside of work. In fact, kinda looking forward to next year 2008. I am quite sure that I have quite a lot of concrete plans installed for myself and my life.

My pharmacy assistant and I were genuinely puzzled when a man came along and asked for Zantac (ranitidine). Even before I asked him if he was having irregular meals… he pounced on my assistant and announced to him with that trembling “nervous breakdown” kind of tone that he quitted his job at OCBC bank and will soon be working at HSBC bank. He repeated it again to me enthusiastically although I was just an earshot away from them. He looked super relieved and all out to “ventilate” his feelings. We barely knew him. Hmmm…

It seems that work in many other industries or sectors is just as stressful and lack of satisfaction. Maybe it is all about how one perceives one’s job. Love your job and you never work a single day. Oh well… I love my job on Saturdays, haha… usually nothing to do (except helping customers and patients) and it is even better when my buddy locum is working in another outlet. I would chat with her whenever there is no customer. I never really talk to her face-to-face… but she is really nice to chat… at least with a communicative medium, haha… Maybe that is why some people feel good confessing sins to a priest in a confessional box…. Talking about confessions… I completed reading the book “Father Joe, The Man Who Saved My Soul” by Tony Hendra. I thought it was an excellent memoir of this Benedictine monk. Surprisingly, I learnt that the current Archbishop of Canterbury Most Rev Dr Rowan Williams of the Anglican Communion also spoke about this monk being his most inspirational spiritual guide and friend.

I was also reading about the “Incorruptibles” who are pious people who died without their bodies being decayed even without any mummifications or preservations. They usually emit that sweet smell known as the odour of sanctity. “Incorruptibles” are primarily seen in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox cultures which make it even more surprising. It is sometimes just so hard to grasp and understand it mentally. It is miraculous! The famous incorruptible is Saint Benardette who was the nun who saw the Virgin Mary at Lourdes, France. Her uncorrupted corpse exhumed, reburied and exhumed again after many years now lies exhibited in a glass case in the convent of Nevers which she once lived in.

Sometimes, just sitting in my room in front of my computer, in Singapore which belongs to the planet Earth, a part of the solar system which is part of the galaxy and of the universe…. I feel so insignificant, so un-knowledgeable, so much in awe of the expanse of nature. It is really quite hard to be an atheist living in the splendour of this world and its nature… you need to have a really big and strong faith to be one, hahaha… I have a smaller faith (maybe not even a mustard seed), that is why I am a Christian. =P

God Bless,

Andrew