I’ve watched a few movies based on John Grisham’s novels—A Time to Kill, The Firm, The Pelican Brief. And I’ve thoroughly enjoyed them. However, I’ve never read any of his novels—until now. A local bookstore had bundled two of his novels for the price of one, so I bought The Associate and The Litigators. I’m currently reading the latter, and I can’t put the book down. Now I understand why his novels sell by the truckload. The story-writing is so easy to follow, and his characters have a life of their own—I can see why several of his books have been made into movies. I hope Hollywood does The Litigators in the future. A really compelling read!

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What a harrowing day. No, it wasn’t Mother Nature, an illness, or anything like that. Rather, it was this blog, LMAO. It started off with me updating a plug-in in the morning. Somehow or other it just screwed things up. I couldn’t log out or in, and a string of cryptic error messages appeared on my browser—I am not a programmer, so those messages made as much sense to me as Egyptian hieroglyphics. Well at least I could still access my blog by typing in its URL address. Anyways, off I went to have lunch with a friend. Ate like a piglet, as usual.

Came back in the afternoon, and decided to be a smarty pants. Edited the wp-config file, thinking I could make things right—hmm, that wasn’t so clever after all. Now I can’t even access my blog, let alone log in or out. Surprisingly I didn’t perspire, but I did have one big serious headache. UGH, how do I get my beloved blog back? Fortunately I went to the WordPress.org site and they walked me through creating a new wp-config.php file. When that was done I was invited to click on the Log In button. Uh oh. I was really trembling.

Success! Things are back to normal now—I hate it when a plug-in does that to me, grr.

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I wrote in a previous post that I was intrigued with Susan Cain’s new book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that can’t stop talking. Soon after that I decided to order a copy from Book Depository in England. These guys are fantastic—they will ship any book ordered from them by international air mail, regardless of quantity and where you live in the world. My copy of Quiet cost me about $22 (includes postage and air mail, remember) but I checked lately and the price has dropped to $19.84. Ah well…it takes about two weeks for books to reach Malaysia but I don’t mind.

I’m going to get started on this book as soon as I finish reading Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth for the umpteenth time. Browsing through the introduction of Quiet I find that many distinguished people have been introverts, including:

Gandhi, Vincent van Gogh, Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, W.B. Yeats, Frederic Chopin, Marcel Proust, J.M. Barrie, George Orwell, Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), Charles Schulz, Steven Spielberg, Larry Page (Google), Eleanor Roosevelt, Al Gore, Warren Buffett, Stephen Wozniak (Apple), and J.K. Rowling. Impressive, yes?

Now where can I get a Quiet tee-shirt, LOL.

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This hit me when I got out of bed this morning. I was just thinking of days when I don’t spend money at all—not even a cent or dime. And of course there are days when I splurge a little on maybe a nice lunch or dinner. I guess the trick is not to go to extremes—being a scrooge at one end or a spendthrift on the other. So please indulge me by filling in this poll. Have a good day now.

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Call it schmaltzy, bah humbug, or what you will, Valentine’s Day is and always has been a special day for lovebirds everywhere. Me? Umm, I’ll remain perfectly neutral on this one but I’ll tell you this—it’s always nice to see couples having fun and enjoying each other’s company, on this day or any other day. And if they’re prepared to splurge, so be it. The Valentine’s Day dinner at the 1885 fine dining (E & O Hotel) isn’t exactly what I’d call cheap, but for the price you get a lavish meal, some gifts including a Polaroid picture (yup, we still have those), and not to mention (ahem) soothing romantic tunes played on the piano by yours truly. With a great staff and Mr. Z as the captain, what else could you need? So onward and upward to the pictures, all taken with my Canon gear, of course. Nothing like flowers to set the mood and hearts fluttering.

(Below) Balloons galore; love the heart-shaped ones.

(Above) Gifts of chocolate for each couple, beautifully done with gold ribbons.

(Below) These pictures were taken by expert photographer Eugene when I finished for the evening. Great people and great staff!

(Above) It was nice to meet up with Ria and her husband Ben again, who are regular guests of the hotel.

(Below) Here I am with Siti…

and with Sally; oopsie I need to get a haircut…

(Below) Eugene and Siti having fun in front of the camera.

It was a great and fun evening, so here’s looking forward to Valentine’s in 2013!

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A lot has changed in my life these past two years. For a start I got out of a very unhealthy relationship—it took a lot of guts and courage but I did it. It was initially very very stressful mentally, emotionally, and physically—to the point where I had to take some meds. And don’t forget the pain. That’s something that I wouldn’t want to go through again, ever. Pain however, is inevitable when going through a major crisis such as this. Suffering, as they say, is optional. Nonetheless, I suffered deep inside for a long time. Going through all this pain and suffering has taught me some good lessons though.

For one thing, I reconnected with something I had loved to do in the past—reading. I bought a whole ton of books and became a self-help junkie. I’ve read everyone from Eckhart Tolle to Regina Brett to Rhonda Byrne and many others. Believe me, they have all helped in their own extraordinary ways. I’ve simplified my life and jettisoned the excess baggage of the past. It’s only water under the bridge after all. There’s also no need to ponder about what the future will bring (I believe it will bring good things) because the only time we have is now.

Gratitude has become a way of life for me. Instead of moaning and complaining about what I don’t have I constantly remind myself to be thankful for what I do. Every day when I wake up and go to sleep at night I say a thank you to God and the universe. Try it, it works. Just finding even one thing to be thankful for every day will change the way you see life (and how life sees you!)

I’ve decided to run my own race, to pursue my own dreams…regardless of how others see it. I’m always grateful for the unflinching support I get from my small circle of close friends. As for those people who want to pass judgment about the way I run my life, well it’s really none of their business, is it.

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Gawd, this is scary…in a nice way. You see, I’ve been debating about purchasing Robin Sharma’s The Monk who sold his Ferrari. I’ve heard good things about this book but never took the trouble to look for it until recently (this is where the scary part begins). Two days ago I was at the bookstore and thumbing through it. I was so close to buying when a tiny voice inside me said “Hold on. Don’t buy it yet.” OK, so I didn’t. Then yesterday I was at the bookstore again, looking for another book when I stumbled across this same book. The tiny voice reappeared and repeated the same message. So again I held off making a purchase.

Today my student Sabrina came for her piano lesson and she asked me, “Have you got your Ferrari?” I was a little shocked and said “Umm, no. Why?” She pulled this book out of her bag and said, “Well you can borrow mine then.” I was like…!!! Not that I resented paying for my own copy (it’s only about $10 USD after all) but now I’ve saved some money. Not too bad, savvy?

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Just spotted this book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a world that can’t stop talking by Susan Cain in Amazon. It looks very intriguing and interesting (watch the video below) so I daresay this could be my next book order.

You can even take a simple online 12-question quiz at Susan’s website here. I took it and I wasn’t surprised to find that I’m a complete introvert (and I love it!)

And check out Ward Sutton’s excellent graphic review of Susan’s book. Click here or the picture below.

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A few years ago, I was engaged in a conversation with my ex-boss when he remarked about my job position in the hotel. He said very casually, “You’re the electrician.” I was caught by surprise. Umm, I’m a pianist, or at the very least a musician. Not an electrician. My ex-boss didn’t elaborate. I didn’t quiz him about it. So we left it at that. Now I know what he meant.

Everybody takes electricity for granted, especially in an establishment like a hotel. Everybody takes it for granted, that is, until something happens and the juice runs out. No problem, the staff say. “Let’s call the electrician.” The guy comes along, ascertains the problem to be one of the circuits in the main electricity panel boxes, fixes it, and…we have power, folks. If the guy isn’t there or available for some reason, then we have a problem. But until such a situation happens the electrician pretty much isn’t in anybody’s thoughts.

I guess what can be gleaned from this is that we’re all important, in one way or another. We all have a role to play on this Earth, no matter how small we think it might be. For a long time I thought of myself as just a pianist. Another guy may think of himself as only a janitor. A clerk. A paper boy. A ______ (fill in the blank) We’re all interconnected, in one way or another. I might just be a pianist, but I like to think that I have given pleasure and comfort to people who listen to my music—I can recall numerous occasions when friends and even strangers have come up to me and said they appreciated my music.

There’s this guy who looks after the restrooms in the hotel. He’s quiet, looks foreign and probably doesn’t know much English, but each time we meet we exchange a smile and a hello. And with that, two people connect albeit for a brief moment. I guess no matter how bad his day has been he still acts in a cordial manner towards me. And you know what—I respond likewise. I feel good, and I’m sure he does too.

If we can treat people nicely in a simple way such as this, we can treat our lives in the same manner. Of course we have our up days and our down days, but believe me, you attract what you feel and say. If you wake up and tell yourself, “This is going to be a shitty day,” guess what—it’s probably going to be exactly that. If you think that this is just spiritual, new age rubbish, think again. This is fact. It’s actually the law of attraction. You attract what you think.

Norman Vincent Peale has one of the best quotes about this: “Change your thoughts and you change your world.” Of course it might not change immediately; time has no hold on the universe and whatever is going to happen in our lives will happen in its own course. However, we have to set the stage for it. So the question is—how do you see your world? How do you paint it? Choose your colors wisely. Paint the world in dull tones of gray and black, and that’s what you’ll receive. Paint it in brighter colors and that’s what you’ll get too. The choice is yours, and yours alone. Choose wisely.

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One of my Christmas presents was an MPH book voucher from a student, so today I decided to head for the bookstore at Gurney Plaza. I remember that the last time I bought a Chicken Soup for the Soul book was way back in 1997. And gosh, the range has expanded tremendously…there were so many titles to choose from. However, two caught my eye, as you can see from the picture—Find Your Happiness and Think Positive. And look at those cute critters on the covers—I’m beginning to miss a certain rabbit now.

What can I say, I’m a self-help junkie.

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