Recap of 2009


No.2 , Me , No.8 and No.8's , No.1 ....

2009 , where should I begin ..........

Beginning of 2009
My start of 2009 is colored in RED for a reason . It's definitely not the best time of my life . Could have been one of the worst ... and I'm not exaggerating.. I learned a lot though , and what I learned can never be learned through theory . In that sense , I appreciate what life taught me , and am sincerely grateful I actually got through ...

Actually , to be dead honest , without some really nice people along the way . I wouldn't have ... I'd still be stuck ...........




Obviously , they're much more people than that . Some I never got to take a picture with , and some of whom I can't post up . Thanks guys . I appreciate everything you guys did along the way . The gym sessions , the movies , the uhum uhum , and obviously the weird blind dates ....... I'll always remember the time at Phuture in March , I can't disclose who you are , but I'll put the dialogue here =) :

Guy friend : David !! You should meet her ! She's cute !

Me : Bro , no mood la , I think I'm going to leave soon ...

Guy friend : Watch me !

He went up to the girl , offered to take a picture for her and her friends using her hand phone ( with the reason that they were pretty , which they were ... ) , and bloody dropped the hand phone on the floor breaking it into pieces !! Her huge ass boy friend came over , and he ran back to me ...

Guy friend : Ok ...let's go...

You don't find friends that want to amuse you like that every day , and I'm really thankful that I have them .




APRIL to DECEMBER
This was what I called a roller coaster period of my life . Things were great and things were confusing at the same time . I met so many people , even my best friends got confused .

What happened ? I began to not give a bull and went back to my old ways during this period of time . It all started when I met up with one of the best ( if not the best ) pick up artist in the middle east ( who is a magician ...hint hint ) . He was doing a seminar there and he knew me from my post in a magic forum from before . We used to chat with each other online before he took the world by storm .... Being foreigners in a foreign land , we spoke a lot about life and practically hit it off as friends . Amazing guy , and truly lives up to his name . He did teach me something very important . I'll always remember this conversation we had :

T : You know , it's simple ... the person who cares less always wins . He or she doesn't get hurt , doesn't lose much in sense of effort , and always has options to choose from .

Me : So you're saying that I care too much ?....

T : It depends what you're looking for . Were both not mechanical beings . A relationship is not a game . If there's a winner in it , there's gonna be a loser . You want both parties to win in a healthy relationship . However , playing the game is a whole different ball game . You play to win . You're on the moderate end , that's a good thing .

So after spending a few days just talking about life with him , he went back to Australia and I hit back Malaysia in the next couple of weeks ...

With my confidence back up like how it used to be , I worked hard .......and partied harder . If you knew me a few years back , you'd know a different me , some kind of the `same ' me you know now . I've mellowed down A LOT , in 2007,2008 ..... It was a great thing though , I concentrated a lot on work and it payed off by heaps and bounds .... didn't really party as much in those days though ...







Along the haphazardness , I did find a little romance along the way ... Of all the people I've met , and I've met so many ... only one person could sustain my interest at that time ... and although it was a little complicated , I nevertheless had a time that I'll remember . It was a different change of phase ..... and different is always nice ...thank you..



How do I sum it off then ? .....

2009 was an exiting year . 2009 was the year I learned most about life , and although 2009 had it's ups and major downs , I think that it was an amazing year to say the least . As they say , concentrate on the good part of life , and learn from the bad .

I usually divide my life into 3 segments .......work , health and relationships . Since I think logically half of the time , let's put some numbers to grade my 2009 .

Work : 8/10
Health : 7.5/10
Relationships :

That being said , I guess I've got to surpass those values in 2010 . A lot has been planned out , and I'm expecting a blast of a year .

A Little Bit Of Memory

I'm always bad when it comes to taking shots of `meself'

I was recently out with Chi for a bit ....for those of you who know me , you'll know who Chi is to me .

I like people who push me out of my comfort zone . I love people who challenge me in positive ways . I also adore people who add that little bit of abnormality in my life . I don't fancy normal .

I'll tell you a simple story .......

If you thought that I travel a lot now , you do not know me in the past . Ask any of my university mates . If it wasn't for magic , some batch mates wouldn't even recognize me . I was never in university . I was either doing shows , or tucked down in Singapore . When the results came out , everybody thought that I cheated .... well , I did .... but that's a different story altogether .... You're not `cheating ' if you don't get caught right ?

I could have been a great student , studied hard , and excelled in all my subjects `righteously' . I'm not that dumb , neither am I that lazy ...... I wouldn't have had to ask my roommate ( who's the nicest roommate in the world ) to take my `probability and statistics ' exam for me , or had my batch mate to sign my attendance every time I was away . I still remember the time when I was overseas far far away , and the lecturer was almost going to bar me from my finals , and my batch mate went to tell her that I was in an accident ....... I had to come back to university with a walking stick and had pretend to limp for two weeks ....

I could have been a good student ......... but.... NO .
If there's one thing I put in high regards of everything else , it's the promises that I've made to myself . My goals . I live by them . That's my drive .

When Chi left , you wouldn't believe how stupid & useless I felt . I knew that with my capabilities at that time , I couldn't even afford to make weekly trips down to Singapore .... I'd go bankrupt after the 4th month ( yes, I calculated ) . With that in mind , I was feeling like a complete useless fool . .... My mind was always on `hotels , bus fares/flights , taxi fares ...etc ' .... The sad part of it was that initially , I could only afford the BEST room is the worst hotel .... Geylang , some YMCA building .... Oh man ..... Staying at those places gave me unforgettable experiences as a young teenager .

and that was when I made the decision that I had to F*CKING go the extra mile or lose something very important to me . I had to be better , no matter what it took ... I learned how to pitch to random companies by sending out weird proposals on what could I do for their events , I even pitched to Singaporeans and got gigs in Singapore that paid really well . I took up every single job that was offered . I think I even took up kid's parties and did comedy shows . I saved up like mad when I was in Malaysia and did strange things for money.... I guess being able to go down to Singapore often really meant a lot to me .

I learned a lot during those time , and grew in many ways . I would like to say that I became a wiser person . I had fun though . The trips back from SG were always the gloomy part .

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That period of my life made me who I am today . I'm glad to say that I'm trully blessed to be doing really well these days . I have more challenging goals , a much more complicated life , and a great exiting adventure ahead .

Sometimes though , I wish that the ME now , would have been the ME back then ....

A little pressure is good




4 years ago on the stage with Vince , performing for the Prime Minister .

With Vince and Ash at a recent clubbing night .


I've been taking a hiatus for a little while . I know I'm not supposed to , but I needed a short break . Sorry for not picking up the calls during that time , phone was unconscious .

Obviously there's the horror story when I switched my phone back on .... Uuuuh . 127 text messages . I never thought it was possible ....

On another note , work has been absolutely great so far . I've so many new things to work on , and I'm actually typing this to take a break from writing a proposal . Need my creative juices to flow back in . Have been on the phone with calls from overseas since 2 am . It's 9am now !


Anyway , somebody said this to me recently ....

` David , a little pressure is good '




-D

Weird Updates



I was a guest speaker at an integrated learning center .... I know , what did I speak on right ?


I'm about to crash my bed right now , however will update a little due to the fact that my little blog has been neglected due work . Since , I'm sleepy , I shall write my post in points .

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*PETRONAS , believe you believe me , instead of asking me to work for them as an engineer , albeit a lousy one , have employed me for two of their events .

1)To speak at a Human Resource Management Stake holder's day , next year at KLCC . I'll be speaking for two hours on Human Resource to General Managers , CEOs and MDs . Once again , believe you , believe me , I have no idea why they employed me ( Yes , they are paying me to speak !! ) . It seems that I was recommended by a former Professor at university . When I got the details of what I was supposed to do , I was flabbergasted . WHAT ??? I replied back the e-mail they sent with the title ` Are YOU sure ? ' .

2)Petronas is flying me to a resort in Langkawi to perform for 800 Petrol Kiosk owners . In attendance will once again be Tun Dr.Mahathir . Due to the fact that Tun has seen my act a couple of times in the past , I will have to set out something new .... and Tun is a tough person to please , I was actually heckled by him on the stage in the past .........

The awkwardness of this , is that I was a former Petronas Scholar , and they sponsored my whole education to get an engineering degree ... and now , Petronas is using me for a purpose that does not relate to a single fragment of my academic qualification . Somebody explain to me why did I suffer so much throughout university again ??

If someone mentioned university , the only think I remember was the time I din't sleep for two days trying to finish an assignment for Reinforced Concrete ..... The only think I remember now is how to differentiate a one way and two way slab ....

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*I agreed to a 52 episode show on national television . The first local `English' magic segment on national television ( which you might not catch since rarely do people watch TV these days ) . Shooting starts the point I get back home . You're gonna see my smiley face weekly on Friday TV starting Jan 2010 ( which I doubt you'll tune in too ) However ......... I neglected the fact that it's 52 episodes when I agreed . I'm now having a headache listing down the materials I should be doing . What have I gotten myself into ....

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*I will not be in Malaysia much in 2010 ... that means I won't even get to see my own shows .

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All that being said . Things couldn't be better now . If you see past my dark humor , life for me now is going exceptionally well . I have a lot of things to look forward too , and am slowly crossing my `GOALs ' checklist as time goes by . That's a ` good' sign by the way .


In my life , I've miraculously written TWO books . 100 over pages , bad English , and very stupid substance . I completed the 1st one just after high school , and the 2nd one , a year back .
I kept both soft copies in an old e-mail account . I was reading them a few days ago just for the fun of it , and thought to myself

` Ok , both are really dumb , but at least the 2nd book is better than the 1st ... '

You gotta always move forward in life . Always improve on what you already have .

-D

So what do I DO ?



Doing an interview under the hot sweltering sun ...


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In my experience , after a conversation takes place with a stranger , it'll usually move towards this particular question :

So .....what do you do ?

For the benefit of people who don't know me personally , I never say that I'm a magician , NEVER . It's also extremely rare that if I met a stranger , I'll tell him/her that I'm a mentalist . No , it isn't because I'm not proud of my profession , it is however due to the fact that 9/10 times , when I state that I deal with magic , it always , somehow or another in mysterious ways... the conversation will end up to this ` oh so familiar question ' ...........

Show me a trick ?

and sometimes , it doesn't come out as a question , but as a statement ...


SHOW ME A TRICK !


When I was younger , I'd definitely show a trick . Hoohah , you got to remember that when I was 16 , I started off by carrying a deck of cards in my jeans pocket when I went to the mall ..... Now , before you think that I've morphed into some `sombong ' son a gun who doesn't want to entertain the general crowd these days ...You got me wrong here .............

To be a 100% honest , I'm tired la wei ...... after all these years of hearing that same question over and over again ... and over and over again .. it just took it's took somewhere along the line .

Step in my shoes.... every Chinese New Year ...what do you think relatives ask me to do ? Heck , everytime people visit my home , what do you think they'd ask ? ....Talking about that , this just happened recently :

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I went to a friend's party . This isn't your cocktail gala party , rather something like a college fraternity party ( something I rarely experienced in my college hey days ) . I saw a girl sitting on the couch with her friends . My friend saw me seeing the girl sitting on the couch . He ,went up to her , and told her that I was a `magician ' .... and she responded kinda positive , with

` I love magic , ask him to show me something ! '

Now , you got to understand my predicament . I've been performing for a long time here . I KNOW how this is going to end up if I start showing her tricks ....



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I got a dollar for every time someone asks me ` Can you show me something ? ' , I'd be a very rich man by now .

These days , it's always `can you bend me this ' and ` can you bend me that ' . Oh man , I can DO A LOT of other things than just bending this and that . To my close friends , sorry I don't show you anything new these days . I do have loads of new stuff . I'm just trying to stop the process of me performing every time I go out ... and somehow it's slowly working . When I start to do the same thing over , people say ` I've seen that ' .... and I can finally continue ` normal chit chat ' . Common , if you have a comedian friend , you don't ask him to tell you a joke every time he goes out with you right ?? ( I hope you don't )


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So what do I say I do ? I mean , at the spur of the moment , I usually hammer my engineering degree to good use .

I'm an engineer ... ( with a straight face )

Which I might add , is `half' true by the way .

and this is where THAT answer got me into some trouble ....

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I'm in a nice 5 star hotel , the best hotel in town actually . Thank you , organizers , I love you guys . I was sitting down at the huge lobby having a nice cup of green tea . Somehow , 5 star hotels here don't have kettles in the room to avoid `fire ' trouble . Gotta go to the lobby , which has a nice counter to make hot drinks 24/7 .

Then out of the lift came a bunch of Caucasian guys who were wearing `offshore oil platform ' suits . Imagine a bunch of astronauts ..just without the head gear . They sat next to my sofa , and being the nice guys they were , greeted me with a `Good Morning ' !

Obviously , I replied ` Good Morning ! out for work , it's kinda early ain't it ? '

It was btw very early , about 4am plus . Yes , my biological clock is screwed up a little . I have no fixed time of sleeping anymore and drink green tea at 4am in the cold morning . Anyway , I discovered that all of them were British Petroleum engineers . Came in for an assignment .

Being the only Chinese guy in the whole hotel ( I asked the reception for the fun of it , they were like 3 Malaysians though ) , we all had a good chat , and then the conversation lead to :

So , what do you do ?

Out of the spur of the moment I said :

I'm an engineer too !

and then one of the group asked :
What field ?

I replied my specialization and he responded with :

Great ! we need an opinion on this problem . Fancy finding you here in the early morning !

and he started taking out a drawing pad and pen ..........


THAT was when I KNEW I was going to get screwed in my ass ....................


-D



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