The Tiger Roars Back!...meekly

If you happened to watch ESPN last night, you would have seen a live telecast of Tiger emerging from his solitude.

A lot of things have already been said about Tiger but can he recover from this seemingly deep pile of 'tahi' that he is in? I believe he can, and here's why I think so.

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1) Bill and Hillary Clinton

Bill Clinton is an exceptional man. He oozes so much charm and confidence that he makes Obama looks like an immensely shy and introverted teenager who still wets his bed. Unfortunately his scandal with Monica Lewinsky became his undoing as it brought a lot of controversy and eventually kickstarted impeachment proceedings.

Hillary about to administer a karate chop when Bill was eyeing some 'candy'

Aftermath - Bill and Hillary are still married. You can argue that there is of course no other way as a divorce will jeopardize Hillary's political career. Besides, these two have a synergistic combination that will be worthless if they went their own ways. Bill remained hugely popular after he left office, even more so after the voters suffered 8 years under the idiot that succeeded him.

2) John Terry and Toni Poole

John Terry was publicly disgraced after failing to secure a super injunction that prevented the press from publishing stories of his affair with underwear model Veronica Perroncel. So when the whole thing blew open and details were explosively released, JT lost his England captaincy and Toni took the kids to Dubai.
Aftermath - What part of Toni's face says 'I'm still damn pissed with you for cheating behind my back?' John may have lost the England captaincy but at Chelsea, he's still the top dog. However, its still early to say what long term implications this may have on his career but if he plays his cards well, it will fall to his favour.

3) David Letterman and Regina Lasko

In October last year, David announced on his show that he was being blackmailed regarding his alleged affairs with the subordinates on his show. He also confirmed that the allegations were true.
Aftermath - David publicly apologized to his wife and stated that he has his work cut out for him. His ratings did not seem to be negatively affected by the scandal but on the contrary boosted it slightly.

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I'm not saying its alright to cheat on your spouse, let's be clear on that. However, I think Tiger can draw some lessons from some of these men. All these men may have erred, but they are good in what they do. Despite all the mess in their personal lives, when they are doing their jobs they are among the best in the world.

Tiger needs to be seen saying the right words and doing the right things from now. And once he comes back to the golf course and does what he does best (on the golf course I mean) all will be forgiven. Everybody loves a winner despite all the imperfections. This is the year of the Tiger after all.

CNY 2010

When people ask me where I am from, I will often hesitate before I reply. Should I say I'm from Rawang, my place of birth? I've never spent much time there though...Or Brunei, where I spent most of my early life? Then people will answer, 'Oh so you're Bruneian then?' which I am not. Or Penang, where a huge number of my relatives are? ...but I'm not familiar with Penang. More often than not, I will say I am from Petaling Jaya and although that's not technically true, it does save me a lot of unnecessary hassle.

Despite all the geographical confusion, there is one place that is always a constant - and that is I've spent all my Chinese New Years (those in my living memory) in Penang. And this year is no exception.

Double Prosperity 'Special'..Heheh. Top one's chicken, bottom beef

Air con rationing at Tune Hotel...you want more? Pay lor

Up Penang Hill

Bloody hot weather this year! No clouds in sight

The bronze Kuan Yin at Kek Lok Si temple, which unfortunately was closed on that day

Elaborate wall carvings at Kek Lok Si

Pumpkins! Lots of pruning work required to make it look like this

A flower at the Kek Lok Si

Misai Kucing, at a different temple though

The famous Air Itam laksa stall

It looks messy but it tastes good

Heheh... A cousin who supports Man U didn't finish his nasi lemak when he found out it was called Nasi Lemak Liverpool

Chestnuts from the Chowrasta Market

Nothing welcomes you into 'Uncle-hood' better than saying 'Here's your ang pow' as opposed to 'Where's my ang pow?'

Balik!

Balik kampung today! Happy Chinese New Year to all of you and to all those who are driving back, travel safe!~

Empathy

Now, I'm not saying I look forward to being sick but falling ill is sometimes a golden opportunity for us healthcare professionals to be guinea pigs for the medicines that we dispense every single day. It started 2 weeks ago with a sore throat, fever and the sniffles before it morphed itself into a very irritating cough. The cough started to improve last week and could have been completely gone - if only I had resisted the temptation to indulge in some ice cream ('some' being the key word here).

With only less than a week to CNY festivities, I needed to get well ASAP. Desperate times calls for desperate measures as they say.

Being in a trance-like disoriented state for the past few days was a small price to pay in this instance as I have yet to cough today.

There is another plus side to being sick and it is that we can genuinely feel what our customers are feeling when they complain of having coughed their lungs out for 2 weeks. There is something very therapeutic there when the patient sees that we understand and respond empathically to their symptoms and quite a number have expressed their gratefulness.

All in all, its a relief to get the cough over with. I do hope I will never have to empathize with any of my Viagra customers.

Aiming higher?

January has gone by so fast and uneventfully that I hardly noticed it. An evaluation on progress made to my new year resolutions were in order.

1) Get six packs

2) Blog at least 50times this year

Hmm...seems that I may have set the bar for 2010 a little bit too low. It just occurred to me that I can hit my targets tomorrow by using some marker pens (or going to buy some beer) and posting 50 nonsense blog posts (that's the problem/beauty of setting vague goals for yourselves - you have loopholes should you need to utilize them*grins*). Come December 31st 2010, will I be able to look back at this year and say with certainty that I've worked hard and achieved all that I've set out to do?

With that in mind, I think its not too late to add some new resolutions. Some considerations are...

1) Be a better man/nicer person.

One of the hardest things about setting goals about character improvement is that success is hard to measure. So let's just ditch this one... I'll work on it continuously and without a time frame.

2) Learn to swim.

Something that I've been thinking of since primary school. Unlike the previous one, results for this goal can be accurately measured - swim or sink. However the thought of going to a pool with little fabric over my loins and spending the afternoon with other 6 year olds kicking in the pool is such a put off.

3) Learn to read Chinese.

Being a Chinese and not able to read my own language is a handicap that I've endured for quite a long time. Previous efforts to rectify this problem have always ended in failure.

A book my wife bought me a few years back

Reading this two pages will take me longer than watching a footbal match

Trying to pick up a new language is never easy. It will take a lot of time and effort. Maybe I'll just stick to two new year resolutions for this year and be the guy with the great torso that has a lot of opinions. Come 2011, I'll consider working on my procrastination...