据本： 《大人，我的小孩不笨啊！》

据本： 《大人，我的小孩不笨啊！》

升堂。威...武...！
包大人：罪人你知罪否？
小人：大人，小人何罪之有？
包大人：你知到您的儿子有七种病症，你为何还把他放在'正规学校'里？从实招来？
小人： 大人啊！小人把他放在'正规学校'里是因为万一有一天他开窍了呢？他不就可以和正常人一样了吗？那里会害他呢？何罪之有啊大人？
包大人： 那万一他不会好怎么办？
小人： 不好的话就把他放在'特别学校'也不迟啊？
包大人： 那他就要承受一班人以上所能承受的痛苦与折磨，你愿意他那样吗？
小人： 我想他行的，他可以的。
包大人： 混账！你要他一直承受跌倒或一直考试都不及格的痛苦吗？ 你有没有医生的评估或保证他会好起来吗？
小人：没有。但是学校有推荐DAS  和  AWWA 来帮助他呀？
包大人：你认为有帮助吗？
小人： 有一点点。
包大人： 一点点，这就是学校所能提供的。万一他的病症还是不会好呢？这不就是害了他啊！
小人：大人，我没错啊？
包大人：你一意孤行！ 来人啊！给他画压！送入牢房。
小人： 冤枉啊！大人！冤枉啊!

威...武...！

终据。

作者：沈坤泉 （自导，自编，自演）。

Uncontrolled Mind

Sitting in one corner of the classroom was a young teenage girl named Flor. This high school girl was a quiet and timid introvert. She was anti-social and disliked mingling with others in the school. She had very few friends as many would be pissed off by her temperamental behaviours. Sometimes she would just throw up her temper and scream or yell at anyone or with no body in the public; and when she had calm down she can be quite sociable at times.

Flor experienced some mood swings and found it difficult to cope her emotions. Her school counsellor understand her situation and suggested to her parents to seek medical attention. Her condition got worse but she didn’t want to care. Her schoolmates would sometimes poked fun with her, saying words like ‘weirdo’, ‘crazy’, ‘retard’, or even ‘psychopath’. She easily became annoyed and agitated by people who constantly disturbed and harassed her. Her mind started to imagine someone was about to attack her, she got aggressive and used a chair or anything she got hold off and throw it at anyone.  She was labelled as a mad person in his school.

She was diagnosed with ‘bi-polar anti-social personality disorder’ syndrome or kind of a bi-polar psychopath though these two syndromes don’t actually exist at the same time. This syndrome could be inherited genetically. She was put under observation and monitoring by her school. Flor need to take ‘tranquilizing’ medicine regularly to calm her down. Her school advisor wanted to transfer her out but no school was willing to take her in the city.  With some special provisions given to her, she was allowed to stay on to continue with her study at the same high school with some segregation from others.

Initially everything seemed so okay to her but due to some circumstances she became a little out of control. Sometimes she forgot to take her medicine she would just go crazy again. She behaved hysterically, she could scream, shouts, laugh, cry, and angry and even get aggressive, some of her classmates would just get hold of her and tied her down. It was very challenging for the high school to keep her. She was brought to the mental hospital and was hospitalized for couple of weeks before returning to study at her high school.

For next couple of weeks since her discharged from the hospital, her condition had improved a little. However, it didn’t last long again due to one incident. One day while she was returning home after classes, she was met with some hooligans in the street. These gangsters were the wayward guys with tattoo on their body. She tried to stay away from them but met with constant harassments by them. She shouted for help but nobody was there.  She couldn’t control herself and hold on to her temperament anymore, in a spur of moment, she opened up her bag and saw a ‘secret’ revolver gun. She took it out and pull the trigger – ‘bang’, one of the guys was shot on his head and was killed almost immediately. It was a bloody sight and everyone was shock and stunt.

Soon the police came and she was arrested. The police investigated on her case and found that she suffered from some mental illness. She was brought to the juvenile court for trial and was sentenced to jail for few years. She was locked in the prison and was given mental treatment to stabilize herself.  It was during her imprisonment that she had the time to reflect on herself. Sometimes she would cry and grief over those unhappy moments that she experienced in her life. A lady prison volunteer counsellor came to know about her case, visited her and wanted to help her. She was a holy person and she prayed for Flor recovery. Flor was a little calmer and she found faith with God. Under the God’s blessing her condition got better by the grace of God.

Until today, with Flor’s belief in God she found some tranquillity in her life and still continue to take her medicine daily. When her jail term was over, she stayed on as a volunteer in the prison to guide those prisoners having the same situation as her. She learnt how to live and cope with her ‘uncontrolled’ mind and found happiness helping others in need.

An Addiction to Gambling

By the first look at someone face you really couldn’t tell that one day a person would become a gambler.  May a fortune teller can predicts that. Here is a person named Zack who lead a normal life making a living as a busy businessman in the city. He is the owner of  a chain of retail provision shops. Like everyone one of us doing his business, contributing to the country’s economy and provides for his family every day. For the first part of his life he was quite a happy person, busy working and well-respected by his employees and a role model for everyone in the retail industry to emulate.

As times goes by his business expanded to many parts of the country. His retain business thrive and even survived through many economic upheaval in the region and many of his peers would like to learn from his success story. Zack was always very humble and knew that one will always need to adapt to the changing environment particularly there were so many competitors in the region. He had entrusted his business to his managers and even took the advice of jumping on the bandwagon of the internet through e-commerce. With the use of technology his business was able to move up the level chain and be able to stay ahead of his competitors.

The retail business is a very dynamic industry, from marketing to logistics, customers’ relationship and prompt delivery everything need to be in a tip top conditions. However, nobody is perfect and Zack has one weakness – that is, he likes to gamble and gambling was like his past time hobby. Sometimes in the weekend he would go to the casino to gamble and his gambling hobby became a habit. He didn’t know the reason why he like to gamble maybe he liked the thrill of winning or it was just to de-stress himself. With the city’s opening up of integrated resorts he would always visit the casino sometimes after work.

When he was inside the casino, he would spend long hours playing jackpot, roulette, card games like black jack or poker, rolling dice big or small and many table games. As one of the integrated resort sales tactics, Zack applied for the premium membership and had accumulated many points for him to come back and gamble over and over again. He was awarded with free hotel stay, free car parking lot and sometimes free buffet in the hotel whenever he gamble a lot and wins many points. All these reward system motivated him to gamble even more.

His gambling habits went from bad to worse. An old adage that one wouldn’t get rice just by gambling didn’t hold true in him. He was adamant about changing his gambling habits. The thrill that he had in winning overshadowed everything that he treasured in his life. Soon his relationship with his family members turned soured and his business takes a toll. With the arrival of the giant retailer, he began to make unsound judgement and listened to wrong advice. Some of his trusted managers even warned him or opposed about the dangerous strategy of having a price war with the giant head on. Some many of his managers left his company, some were sacked by him. The giant retailer leverage on its economy of scale coupled with making use of the disruptive technology on smart phone mobile apps, Zack retail business was too slow to catch this wave. Many customers started to order from the giant retailer using this new technology to order their stuffs with the touch of their fingers things that you order would deliver to your doorstep. And the giant retailer even had plan to deliver thing using drones in the future. Many of these changes that took place he was unable to see as he was too engrossed and blinded by gambling. He became a habitual gambler and addicted to it. He would let his managers run his business entirely like an auto-pilot.

Soon his business was unable to compete with the giant competitor. His company runs into heavy debt and unable to pay his vendors on time. With mounting debts, and debtors coming after him and his company for repayment he went into hiding in the casino to gamble away his time and money. When he ran out of money he would borrow it from the loan shark. Many debtors and loan shark runners came after him he got no choice but to retrenched all of his staffs and folded his business. From then on he became a bankrupt. Some of the angry loan sharks came to his house to draw graffiti signs like O$P$ on the walls, out of panicky Zack escape to hiding in the park.

Zack was at his wits end. He was very sad, down casted and disheartened. He had never tasted such a bitter failure in his life. He took stock of himself, when he thought back he felt that this was all his fault and could not blame anyone in his life. He repented what he did and prayed that he would do some changes in his life, he yearned to be given another chance to atone his mistakes.  

One day while walking towards a bus stop, he noticed an advertisement of a voluntary charity organization with a written message ‘Don’t Be Afraid of Ah Long (meaning loan shark) We’ll Help You”. Upon reading this, he felt so touch and straight away copied down the contact number. He called up to a Mr Tan and he was happy to meet him on an appointed date for some counselling. On that day Zack met with Mr Tan who listened to his financial problems compassionately. Being an experienced person who had handled many of these cases before, Mr Tan tried all his best to settle his debts with his debtors and the loan shark on condition that Zack must quit his gambling habit. The loan shark’s scare tactics had no way to threaten Mr Tan as he has dealt with them before. Zack agreed to repay them with an instalment plan similar to the rest of his debtors. When all was settled, Zack thanked Mr Tan for all his help and wanted to stay on his organization to volunteer and help others with the same situation like him. Zack quitted his gambling and found his job as a delivery driver with Mr Tan’s help.

To this day Zack’s debt was almost settled, he recalled at time when he was struck with failures  it was too tormenting and devastating for him to shoulder these heavy debts , he was too ashamed to go home , the worst thing that came haunting in his mind was to commit suicides. Luckily that suicidal thought did not materialize otherwise he wouldn’t be here guiding and counselling others now. He was grateful that he made the right choice of giving himself another chance and was very thankful to his benefactor Mr Tan.

Get 'Sucked' Into the Game

Have you ever wonder how you are so engrossed into something that you are being ‘sucked’ into that virtual reality?  It’s not about the Jumanji movie show or dreams but it is like you are being ‘taken’ into some out of this world reality, a phenomenon of being transported into other realm or reality. Here is a guy called Joel who experienced this kind of a phenomenon.

Since young Joel would like to play with computer games. He would spend long hours playing those games like counter strike shooting game, street fighters, snake or brick games, some mobile apps games like angry birds, candy crush, play station games like soccer and so on. His parents were all working and wouldn’t have the time to accompany him. He was pretty bored staying alone at home as he did not have any siblings to play with him and he was also anti-social, seldom mixed with his friends. He was and average achiever at school, his study was sub-par and dislike going to school. Sometimes he would just play truant and absent himself from school. His parents were very worried about his academic results and did not like him to spend more times playing with computer games as this could affect his future career. Joel was fed up with his mother for constantly nagging at him to study. It was a big headache to motivate Joel to study and this had caused frustrations on Joel.

Joel knew that he won’t make it in his study and his morale was down all the time. Initially, playing computer games was a way to vent his frustrations but as time passed by, he became addicted and so engrossed into the game that he would return home late to be scolded by his parents. A curfew was imposed onto Joel by his parents but he ignored it. Visiting the arcades in the mall and nearby cyber café was his favourite daily past times leisure activity. He hate outdoor games and sports as he didn’t like to sweat it all out with all the physical activity.

In school, he didn’t pay much attention in class lessons and would just daydream, when queried by his teacher about homework he would just done some of them. Punishments on Joel didn’t work either, he just got worse. The school councillor came to investigate into Joel’s lack of learning in school. That didn’t work out at all too as Joel rejected any help to coach him in his study. The school principle wanted to transfer him out to some special school for students with behavioural problems. However, his parents especially his mother broke into tears and begged the school principle to let Joel another chance to improve on his study. Joel was a bit moved by his mother’s appeal to the school principle, he agreed to improve on his study quite reluctantly.

For the next few week, Joel did study well and did well in his semester assessment. However, old habit die hard, after a couple of month it became back to square one again. This time round he would go to the arcades when his homework was completed with some coaching by his peers. At least he didn’t want to break his mother’s heart of not study at all. It took some times for Joel to learn how to balance his times in coping well in his study and spending his spare time playing computer games.  

Once in a while you would go to cyber café to play some on-line computer games. The computer shooting game was what he liked best, using machine guns to shoot at the enemies was so thrilling to him and it requires quick reflexes,  fast reactions of pushing those buttons to fire and kill all the enemies. One day while he was playing the shooting game, he was so engrossed into this game called The Commandos Battle. All of a sudden his mind sub-consciously got into that shooting game’s reality virtually. It was like you were suddenly being ‘transported’ into some form of a virtual reality or some other realm. Kar ..boomed you are into this shooting game, Joel touched his body and he was wearing some army combat uniform and carrying a machine gun with some firing rounds and hand bombs with him. He heard someone shouting:” enemies in front, attack! Fire, Fire, fire, take cover”, everyone started to take cover, Boom.. Joel couldn’t believe that he has entered into this shooting game, a warfare led by some evil empire Dark Forces to capture the territory of the Friendly Empire Forces. It was like a world war, a battle between enemies identified as the red-band camouflaged uniform armies and the friendly armies forces are in green-band. They were shooting at anther other everywhere, it was like a real war, he had never went into any war before only heard or read about it in history books! There wasn’t any time to lose or think, what Joel did was to take cover, shoot and run for his live or he be killed. He could see battalions of enemies’ troops coming, fighter planes above dropping bombs, the scene was bloody and it was like hell! On the other end of battlefield, he could see some of the friendly armies’ forces were killed in front of his him, there were many casualties and a terrible scene for a young guy to see.

Soon the friendly armies’ forces were able to gather some reinforcements and support artillery bombardment to shield off the enemies relentless attacks. He managed to shoot and killed some of the enemies, he got some bruises on his legs and body while running away to hide in the bunker during enemies attacks. He couldn’t believe that he felt like he became an Arnold Schwarzenegger or Rambo in this war shooting game. However, being in a battlefield wasn’t kind of a fun, Joel knew that one had to deal with life and death every now and then. He got to run, stay away and take cover from bombs and be alert to shoot at the enemies. He got to fight as a team with his army comrades. When on an attack or retaliation mission, strategizing the plan and executing it in unison were all critical to destroy enemies’ deceptive tactics and attacks. It was a do or die, fight or flight situation living no room for any miss steps or mistakes. Being bravado or gung-ho could even lose your live. Soon the enemy’s fire power got weaker and the friendly forces were able to recoup. Joel heard some noises coming from a mountain’s cave. He could see some glow, he walked towards it and saw path of light shining onto his face so glaringly. He travelled deep into this cave and saw a tunnel and went inside it. Out he went and all of a sudden he came back to the real world that he once live again.

He narrated what he been through and seen on the battlefield. He vowed not to create any war with anyone and discovered the importance of living with peace and harmony with people in this world. The lesson that he learnt was worthwhile the experiences gained much outweigh what he played in the shooting game.

The Vanishing Art of Dolls Making

At one time the small kids used to like dolls and dolls making was flourishing trade. Jessie recalled during the peak season she used to receive many orders from her clients. She would custom made these dolls and showcase it for sale. Some dolls were designed by her using her own creativity and imagination. It was a sunrise industry but now it has faded away due to the infiltrations of many electronics gadgets, internet games and mobile apps that are readily available to the youngsters nowadays.

Prior to the computer and internet era, kids used to play with their own self-made gadgets, toys and dolls. Many were physical stuffs that you could play with and it was quite fun for the kids. As one plays with it, one’s emotions can get attached to those toys and dolls after playing it for some time. It was these emotions and desires of making dolls more enjoyable that motivates Jessie wanted to take up this challenge of doll making.

In those days there were not many doll makers, it was a unique art catering to a niche market of young kids. Jessie picked up those skills by herself out of passion. She would spend long hours making those dolls and when it was done she found it quite satisfying to see kids playing with her dolls.  This would be enough to keep her going as a key motivator for her job.

Jessie remembered those days that she had difficulty making dolls, some of those designs require embroidery with special patterns on its fashionable dress. For instance, at the customer’s request the doll could be designed into a cheongsam or kebaya or nonya fashion dresses, some demands laced and colourful dresses or eyelid with lashes and many other special features for its dolls. From design, materials acquisitions, cutting, sewing to finished dolls all were done by her. It was very taxing and time consuming for her when the orders increased.

Her business expanded and she even rented a small shop in town and had some helpers. Many of her regular customers still come to visit her shop. Jessie had designed many characters and gave it names such as Dolly, Molly, Justin, Barbara etc. The kids liked her designer dolls and adored it as it was attractive and look trendy with those fashionable clothes and make ups. For Jessie it was an arduous task to continue to be innovative and designing those dolls that the market wants. She had to know the market and be creative to keep her business going.

This trade was also very seasonal, during the peak festive seasons she found that many parents would buy dolls for their kids to play. When there was an economic downturn, few people will buy. Sometimes it was an unpredictable business Nevertheless Jessie still pressed on with her business and craved out a decent living.

At a time when her business boomed, there come the arrival of computers. Her business gradually started to decline as many kids chose to play with their electronic gadgets or play station. It became a double blow to her business with the invention of the Internet, mobile phones with apps features and SMART phones technology. All these new technology soon became too disruptive to her business and there was no way she could competes with them. Eventually, her shop closed down as it couldn’t survive on the rising rental costs and falling sales.

Life takes a toll for Jessie but she was adamant that she wasn’t going to give up her doll making trade. She didn’t succumbed to her situation but decided to give a second chance to her doll making. She became more flexible and founded her own home for doll making. By the word of mouth, her business was still able to strive a little in this niche market. Some of her regular customers returned while some kids were already grown up knew about her talent and bought some dolls for their kids.

Her nephew Nick came along to help her to alleviate her business further by sharing those dolls made by Jessie on the Internet through social media, videos and e-commerce platforms. Many internet users were very impressed by her delicate hands and intricate designer’s dolls. Nick would gather some audiences to show case the art of doll making in an organized workshops or classes. Jessie, an elderly now, was sometimes confused how his nephew brought in so many people to watch her doll making. The audience was amazed by her sharp eye for detail and her dexterous hands in embroidery. She would share her experiences with her audiences and like-minded people in the art of doll making.

Looking back on her trade, Jessie never regret it and she was glad that she did not give up on this vanishing art. She would carry on with her passion of doll making art for as long as she lives.

The Ninja Sumo

When Inaka was young he like to watch the Ninja fighting and Sumo wrestling show.  He particularly liked and enjoyed watching these two sports in action as it involved the quick, swift and stealthy movements of fighting while the other dealt with wrestling. Being a fat and medium size person wouldn’t defer him to be in fighting sport one day. However, his parents were opposed to his sports dream as they wanted him to excel in his academic study while wanting him to lose weight and stay healthy. It seemed like his parents and he couldn’t reconcile the idea of letting him to be in the fighting sports.

As a fat person he knew that he was disadvantaged and how would he convince the Ninja and Sumo Schools to let him learn the fighting sports. The desire for him to learn about fighting was so great that he would sometimes challenge anyone to a fight with his peers whom had insulted him. He was once caught by the school disciplined master when some bad ass guys tried to bully him. He was reprimanded and warned by discipline master to watch over his behaviours Inaka was warned by the discipline master never to pick a fight with anyone in the street though Inaka tried to explained that he was the victim. Inaka didn’t argue with the disciplined master and accepted his warning and punishment.

When the school lesson was over, he would quickly sneaked out of the class to go to the nearby garden near a village. Here, he would see some people practising some form of a martial arts, its moves looked like a mixture of karate, Tae Kwon Do, Judo wrestling styles. These people were the retirees, some were ex-military soldiers while some were avid fighting sports lovers. These people was puzzled why a fat young kid was so engrossed in watching them doing those fighting stunts and moves. Inaka was exuberated and wanted to learn the fighting skills with them.

Initially, they were reluctant to take Inaka as their student because they need his parent consent and he was also fat. Nevertheless, they had allowed Inaka to watch them practising those fighting skills. He was amazed by those kicks especially jumping kick, side and turning kick, bare hand sparing, Sumo wrestling, fist punching, pole fighting, dodging, defensive and deceptive attacks, grapping and throwing an opponent, leap jumping to tree and attacking opponent with surprises. There was another move when a practitioner would loosen himself from a rope that was tied around his body and many techniques to escape when you were a captive. These fighting skills were rarely seen by the outside world and he want to acquire these skills eagerly.

After school, he would visit the place almost every day and those people were happy to see him and would sometimes allow him to learn and practise those fighting skills after some persuasion. Inaka finally was permitted to learn on condition that he never tell anyone about it and observed the fighting discipline, rules and decorum. In the beginning, it was very hard for him as he lacks the fundamental skills and techniques for fighting. After some countless attempts and perseverance, he was able to practise those fighting stunts. Time flies and he became a young guy now. He was called upon to spar with some retires. Inaka was able to counter his opponent with some pretty good fighting moves and this has caught some retires by surprise. They were amazed how much this young fat chap had advanced his fighting skills after a span of about six years. Inaka soon graduated from this informal school of that place and left quite reluctantly.

One day while he was walking in the city he chanced upon an advertisement about some fighting tournament with some rewards for the winners. He wasn’t interested on the reward but want to take this opportunity to proof his fighting skills that he learn to a real fight. He signed up and took the challenge. On that day of the competition, he saw many competitors of diverse backgrounds and fighting skills. He went through the initial, quarter-final and semi-final rounds of the competition. He was tired and exhausted when he reached to the final. Fighters were allowed to rest for a certain period after that the final sparring round continued. The final he was met with a stronger opponent with powerful kicks and punches. The opponent was very aggressive, blow upon blow coming after Inaka, he tried to dodge those punches and kicks but were being knocked down on the floor. It was a very bitter fight. Inaka was on the verge of giving up as his mouth was bleeding and his eyes suffered bruises by the opponent’s heavy punches. Just when he was about to lay down flat, he saw one of his instructor retiree coming to cheer for him. He got up and carry on to fight. He recovered and he found the opponent’s weakness. He made use of his Sumo-like weight and adopt the Judo-like stunt coupled with a punched at the opponent’s head to knock the opponent out of balance. This moves made the opponent KO and Inaka emerged as the winner of the fighting competition.  Later, his parents found out about it and had forgiven what he has done. Inaka went on in his life to be a Fighting Master and opened up his form of Fighting Techniques and was well received by many of his students.

A Crocodile Attack

James is a sporty person who likes hiking, cycling, travelling, mountain climbing, sky diving, running and many other sports. During his free time, he would go out with his friends with similar interests on these sporting activities. In fact, he was pretty active in sports and has written many journals and magazine highlighting on his sporting interests. Occasionally, he would go for a holiday trip and never missing catching those wonderful moments on his camera.  He had been to many places such as Maldives, Indonesia, China, South Korea, Americas and so on. Beside his hectic life style as an office executive he find some time for his vacation.

Those places that he visited some are exotic location and some with nice scenic nature with a good and temperate climates. He enjoyed visiting these places and would often think of coming back for another visit or new sites once his vacation was approved by his boss. He had no ideas why he like to go for a sporting holiday trip, probably he thought that could de-stress himself from the daily busy workloads. Taking selfies or wefies and uploaded it in the social media were all his usual tasks, to him, it was fun, sociably communicative and he could find many like-minded persons sharing the same interest together

However, some of his friends were worried that his personal safety may even be jeopardized partly because when he went silos to those faraway remote places for an adventurous trip. Being alone he felt that he had no qualm coming into consensus with anyone on a vacation trip. He would go anywhere he like in this world without the hassle of consulting each other decisions. The communications break down or conflict of interests were minimized when he go alone on his way.

Planning for an adventurous vacation trip from budgeting to journey route was no problem to him with the advent of technology. He had never go to Africa before and he intended to go there for a jungle safari trip. He did some research and was confident that he would go there alone. His friends all advised him to bring along a buddy or a guide for his personal safety and furthermore it was his first time going to another vast continent, he did took their advices reluctantly.

So all was set, he prepared the trip, booked an air ticket and fly all the way to Africa (somewhere near the Congo region). When he arrived, he checked into a hotel and began asking the hotel staffs about the nearest jungle safari from the hotel traveller’s brochure. He had a good meal and went to sleep in the hotel. He did not sleep well probably due to jet lag. The next morning, he managed to gather some information about the jungle safari trip and booked one experienced driver to bring there. After some bargaining with the driver, he headed to the jungle safari with his back pack and some packaged meal. The driver brought him to a beautiful place in the jungle, there were birds, butterfly, deer, giraffe , all living in their own natural habitat, he never seen this before, it was simply amazing. Quickly and quietly, he brought out his camera and took some video and pictures without scaring the animals. He felt fairly satisfied with those shots.

Without further delay, he asked the driver to proceed farther into the jungle safari before dusk fell. They came across a river bank and became attracted to the tranquillity of the river stream, at the end of this river there was a waterfall. He alighted from the jeep and asked the driver to standby at his location. Out of curiosity, he went near the river side to watch the blue stream of water flowing. It was a good view not to be missed and he wanted to take a selfie near the river bank just for his social media postings to update his friends. Just as he was about to snap a picture, a crocodile sprang out from the river. His hearing reflexes was quick, in a nick of time James ran as fast as he could to stay away from that crocodile. He shouted for help and the driver quickly drove the jeep to rescue James out of danger. It was so close, with just a few inches away James would be a dinner meal for that crocodile (which was estimated to be about 7-9 feet long). What a close shave.

He went back to the hotel safely and report the incident to the authority. James completed the remaining part of vacation by shopping in the city market. Once return home, he was grateful that he is still alive and all his family members and friends were happy to see him back again. After this ordeal, James had some reflections of this trip. He was lucky to survive a crocodile attack and he was glad to have listened to his friends’ advice. He vowed not to go alone on any adventurous vacation trip again.

Warped Thinking

Since young Thomas had some trouble in his mind. His thoughts and thinking process was different from an average kid. He wasn’t that kind of a negative thinking sort or having rebellious thoughts that create havoc to the people round him. He was not so normal, an unusual person, he didn’t know he was different because on the outside he look as if a normal person. Not that he could not think, or could not reason with logical thinking, his cognitive skills is like everyone else nothing wrong at all.

So what is it that his thinking or mind is so different from others? Well, he has what you called a kind of ‘warped thinking’ mind, a type of thinking that when he look at something or an object he can visualise that thing to become twisted, distorted or even bend clearly. This is nothing unusual as many people have this kind of a 3 D spatial skills just like the architects or engineers do. So what is so different of having to receive thoughts and interpret it in another way?

For Thomas’s case, his mind and thoughts that he received he can visualize it to be totally distorted or warped, twisted or even bent all at his will inside his brain. This has resulted him to speak in an unusual manner sometimes as nobody could even understand or interpret the meanings out of it. You could imagine that his mind works like that prism which allows a ray of light to be refracted or bend once it passes through. Some people view it as a kind of gift while others think that it is crazy. He is perfectly okay with walking in a straight line. He has no problem doing his mental sums or mental calculations. He sees a spade and called it a spade, everything seems normal with his eye sight, perfectly okay and proven by his doctor that his eye sight are all perfect.

It is his thinking that made him different from others. He would ‘warped’ the thing that he sees or perceive inside his mind. Imagine when you have a ruler, he would visualize the ruler in a distorted, twisted or in a bend form. He could see building and visualize it in a ‘warped’ or distorted twisted form. He would then draw what he visualized on a piece of paper for everybody to look at it. It was pretty amazing. A special kind of artist that visualize and see things in a different perspectives.

Somebody asked him whether this kind of talent or skill that he has can be trained or not. His reply is yes and no, it all depends on individual some can and others can’t. You may even need a computer to create the graphics for you and use a simulation software or program to create that 3D warped or distorted/bent graphics objects. As for Thomas there is no need for that as everything can be generated from his mind and presents his thoughts naturally or spontaneously on a drawing board.

Thomas went on in his life to pursue his artistic dream in the field of contemporary and abstract arts with his specialty in ‘warped art’ and become a special effects movie director to impress many viewers. His weird thinking finally got recognized. He was glad that he is able to harness his so-called ‘defective’ thoughts and make it into a reality for everyone to see it – it’s an amazing mind after all!

kacy_sim : A Silly Old Boy & His Company

kacy_sim : A Silly Old Boy & His Company: Once there was this old boy who has everything that he has in this world. He was not so talented but inherited wealth from his parents. He...

kacy_sim : A Person Who Disbelief Himself

kacy_sim : A Person Who Disbelief Himself: Can anyone ask yourself do you believe in yourself? Many of us would probably believe in themselves, at least in their own abilities. Ho...

kacy_sim : Borrow Time

kacy_sim : Borrow Time: Ever heard of borrow time? Most of us would have heard of borrow money or buying time or on loan of something. You would have to return ...

Borrow Time

Ever heard of borrow time? Most of us would have heard of borrow money or buying time or on loan of something. You would have to return the ‘borrowed amount’ or something back to the rightful owner. In our daily lives and activity, sometimes you may request to the other party or partner to give you the time you needed to do something, just like giving you the time and space to do something. Or you could have fail something before and wonder why you could have done better when you are given enough time, space and resources that you may need to complete your task or wish.

Here is a little story about a guy named Rick who wants to borrow time to keep him stay alive to fulfil his childhood dream. Rick is a middle-aged guy, who is diagnosed with a terminal illness a final stage cancer about to die and wish to be given a second chance to realize his dream. Lying in the hospital bed every day and being tormented by the daily treatment of chemotherapy, drugs and medicine was too unbearable for him. Looking back on his lives he seemed to have regretted that he did not take his life seriously when he was younger, always going to pub and entertainment to keep his clients satisfied just to clinched some business deal to keep his business going, sometimes even eat lavishly through the wee hours of the night. Soon his health takes a toll, got worse and ended up in the final stage of cancer, all that he blamed it on himself.

There is nothing that Rick could do now, sometimes he would lament how nice it would be if he was given another chance to live again, a reboot in his live that he craved it for. All that unhealthy signs and symptoms that his body encountered that the doctors once reminded him was fell on deaf ears. Rick did not believe on his health conditions and was self-denial all the times. He wanted to turn back the clock but it was all too late and impossible now. What can he do? He had no answers, he cried and he was too sorrowful, deep down in his heart he felt that he still had this burning desire to fulfil his childhood dream. He still thought that it is now or never but what he can do now lying in the hospital bed waiting for his days were numbered.

When Rick was a child he loved music and he like to sing, he liked to listen to the Beatles’ songs and sang. He could sing pretty well and had a nice soothing voice, most of his friends and peers liked to hear him singing. He didn’t know about his singing talent until he took part in his primary school singing competition. He came in top prize and won his primary school singing competition at a tender age of eight years old. But his parents were not so happy. They wanted him to concentrate on his study and his dream of becoming a singer was dashed.

When Rick grown up, graduated from the university he went on in his life to become a businessman. Throughout his business career, there were ups and downs on the company business that he was working with, sometimes in his business he would go out with his clients for some karaoke singing sessions, many of his clients were impressed of his singing skills. But now all of his hopes and dream to be a singer is all gone because of his cancer. How he wish that he could ‘borrow some time’ to realize his dream once more. Deep down in his heart he quietly prayed to His Almighty Supreme Being to grant him that very last wish, just that one last wish is all he wants and nothing else. And he prayed and prayed in his hospital bed every night  ..

One night, while he was sound asleep he dreamt of compassionate fairy appeared in his dream giving him a ‘kind of a unique mysterious antique special clock’. This special clock had a unique feature of setting a specific time frame in your live to length your lifespan by a specified range. It actually allowed you to ‘borrow time’, after that, when the time is used up it will revert to the normal time once again. The fairy gave Rick the mysterious special clock and miraculously ‘implanted’ in his brain inside his dream and said to him “ ..  With this clock inside your brain, you can go to fulfil your dream. When the time is up, everything will be back to normal and don’t forget to do good deeds..  There you go!”

When Rick woke up, he could not believe what he had dream. Everything seemed to be so real and he remembered what the fairy had told him. He asked himself was it for real, are you kidding me? How could it be? In the next morning he had his body examined by the doctor, went through the body scanning, MRI, blood tests, whatever types of clinical tests by the hospital, to his surprised his health become normal, the doctor was surprised and amazed. It’s a miracle. Very few people had survived through the final stage of cancer in this world. What had Rick done to his body the doctor was curious. Rick replied nothing but have faith and praying helps.

What happens next is everybody guess. You bet it. Rick went on in his life to pursue his dream as a Singer. He took part in the city’s renowned TV Talent show and came in first in the singing competition. A large music company signed him up and he came a famous Singer. Rick’s life was somehow extended with a ‘borrowed time’, he never failed to do good deeds and even participated the city’s charity show to help the weak and the poor. Rick became a famous Singer and led a happy life, he lived till the age of 75 years ago, he could have lived up to the age of 40, that dream change his destiny.  Be grateful of what you have now and remember to do good deeds for your own karma.

A Person Who Disbelief Himself

Can anyone ask yourself do you believe in yourself? Many of us would probably believe in themselves, at least in their own abilities. However there is still a small number of people who don’t even believe in themselves, I mean don’t believe in their own abilities. So are you saying that this group of people is going to be a failure for life forever? Condemn? Really? Well, not that I know of.. there is one exception..

There was once a person called Michael that he won’t believe in himself since young. No matter how his peers, parents or teachers encouraged him he still doubted his own ability. He is a person that gives up easily and feel discouraged and sad after that. His parents brought him to see a psychologist but that didn’t help him at all. In fact he became more paranoid with anxiety that lead to depression. He had become a depressed person. Was it something wrong with his brain or mind? Or was it something else not fully understood in modern medicine?

The symptom got worse and his parents again brought him to see the Brain Doctor or a Psychiatrist. The doctor examined him and even did some brain scanning but nothing unusual was found. Someone then suggested his parents to go and consult a priest in the temple. So one day his parents brought him to see a priest in one of the city renowned temple. The priest looked at him, read his palm and asked some questions from his parents and Michael. Is Michael being possessed by some kind of an unknown ‘spirit’? A ghost? Is he possessed? Is it that demonic? Or is there any problem with him?

At first the priest could not tell what happened to him. His parents gave an account of Michael’s childhood as he tend to have nightmares and sometimes it was so bad that he would scream in the night and became scared all day. His parents also asked the priest whether did he offended any gods or spirits in the past? The priest could not tell but asked them to come at a later date. When they left, the priest went to see the abbot and told him about Michael’s condition. The abbot was a busy man but for the sake for sentient beings sufferings he would like to meet up with Michael and his parents at convenient time for all parties.

On that appointment day, the abbot just have a quick glance on what was going on in Michael’s body, observed his reactions. It seems like Michael was normal nothing unusual. The abbot talked to Michael and the conversations went as per normal – there was nothing wrong with it! No ghost or spirit possession, no psychological problems, no ill-fate, then what’s the problem? Michael looked depressed. Everyone was puzzled. The abbot just asked Michael and his parents to do some prayers to the Medicine Buddha and left the temple.

On that very night, while Michael was asleep he dreamt that long time ago he was a devotee of a certain sect telling others to forsake their own faith and belief system but to join and follow his belief. This could have caused some karmic effect on him now doubting his own ability, was it a sin? He was not sure. The next day his parents and Michael went to consult the abbot. The abbot smiled and told Michael that probably this could be his past lives karma, just need to repent and recite the Medicine Buddha’s mantra to atone his past sins or misdeeds. Michael accepted the abbot’s advice and from then onwards his self-doubt and easily gave up attitude day by day was reduced. Till this day, Michael still practicing chanting his mantra and living as a happy person.

A Silly Old Boy & His Company

Once there was this old boy who has everything that he has in this world. He was not so talented but inherited wealth from his parents. He was bored living on his own life. In terms of material wealth, most of the things he already had it. One day he thought to himself that he would like to set up a company so that many people will benefit from its innovative solutions. He did some of his research and discovered that helping others to automate its processes will bring about improving productivity to their company and business. Hence, he founded the company called ‘Automate Globe Inc.’ This Company that he founded its main mission and objective is to help firms to automate their processes and functions in as cost effective way as possible. However, he had no idea how to run a business no matter how big a dream that he could dream of. His childhood ideology of Dare to Dare that he learn it from school was just miles away and to him sounds like a distance slogan now. Nevertheless, he never give up and intend to give it a shot so as to proof to himself at least he tried it out. He tried to hire globally skilled and talented people to his company but none made the cut according to his job description and responsibilities, probably he could have too high an expectations. Then he went to some head hunters company to request their help to source for the right people for his company. The head hunter recommended some of the people that acquired many years of experience in the market to him. Soon he found the human resource director, engineering and design director, production director, quality director, logistic director and sales/marketing director etc all ready to get the company moving.  With a new team established, he became the company managing director all set to provide automation solutions to the world out there.

As an amateur in this business world, he would consult his team on the daily business running and operations. In the beginning, it was an arduous task to take, the daily meetings with his clients was pretty taxing and not many want to do business with him as the company was still new and had no proven track record to convince any client to let them do it. Being a participative leader, he consulted with his team and as a start-up company they would take some small projects first and as time goes by as you build your credentials the company business will then take off from there. The team has all agreed and some staffs even made cold calls to company that intend to automate their processes. The success rate of getting the business was very low but they were not disheartened – as the going gets tough the tough gets going. The sales and marketing team door by door company by company they went to knock on their doors. This perseverance had rewarded the company some deal with small projects to keep them going but that was just enough though they were making some loses in the beginning.

As time goes by the company quality service and reputation gradually became known to the outside world and businesses started to bring in many major projects through its long-time regular customers as well as some new ones. However, in the business world not everything is ideal or go as plan. There were staffs turnover, some customers were dissatisfied with the service and quality, arguments and grievances amongst different staffs, safety and human related issues, design/engineering and manpower issues, project delay, costs pressures, rental increases and so on. No matter how he and his team bite their tongue and tackled and overcome these problems and issues head on. There was nothing that could stopped them with a cohesive team. But nothing in this world is perfect, there were some casualties or fall out, some of the team members resigned or being head hunted by competitors. There was some re-organization or company restructure so as to stay competitive but nobody was retrenched which the company had tried very hard to keep to its promise of not letting anyone to be left behind. Sometimes the market gets a bit tougher due to unforeseen circumstances, sometimes the company went through a roller coaster ride due to world economy down, the company business strategy cannot stay as rigid and sometimes it is inevitable to venture out to overseas market or other emerging market for survival and intense competition. Capturing into other market poses great challenges due to its regional geo-political stability, banking and finance, logistics, legal and languages diversity. With some help from advisors and government stats boards, the company was able to tackle some of these issues with some branches and manufacturing facilities being set up overseas.

With some key personnel stationed overseas to keep the company running, its businesses expands into other market. The team was able to make some prediction of the growing trend of the SMART phone, renewable energy, the digitalization of products, pharmaceuticals, medical markets and ride on these waves.  During good times the company never failed to reward its employees and when times were bad staffs were sent for skills upgrading and retraining. Overall the staff turnover was low and morale was high, and there were many long service staffs as the company do take care of their staffs.

Throughout the years the company business increase by leaps and bounces, that same silly old boy must have aged and he never regret setting up his company. Now, looking at his fruit of labour he felt some satisfaction and he liked to share the experiences gained with the next generation – Never Fail to Pursue Your Dream, It’s better to die trying out your dream than regret it later!