Coolcat's Jottings

A friend of mine was nearly mugged yesterday. She was walking in a shopping mall, absorbed in the task of sms-ing a friend on her phone when the would-be thief made a grab on her phone. Thankfully, because she had both hands gripping the phone, the thief was unsuccessful and fled the scene.

In the space of a month, me and three of my friends encountered thieves, and two of my friends' close relatives were seriously injured by blade wounds in separate robbery attempts. That's like 6 people I know in a month. That's a heck of a high statistic, if you ask me.

And because robbery and muggery and the like is so rampant here these days, it pays to be extra vigilant when you are up and about.

This verse takes new and very relevant meaning to me nowadays:

But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into ~ Matt 24:43

In this verse, Jesus was cautioning His listeners to be vigilant, alert and constantly on the watch because a thief's most effective weapon is the element of surprise. And so it is with our local thieves. They target potential victims who are busy with something else and forget to grip their possessions tightly to themselves in a most paranoid manner.

Guys are not exempted from thieves. In fact, they get it even worse than the girls. I've heard of cases where the thief will chop the guy's hand or thumb off first so that the victim will not resist. And then only will the thief confisticate the victim's belongings.

So in the spirit of wanting my blog readers to survive the upcoming New Year with their limbs and lives intact, here are some tips on how to be vigilant:

1. Do not yak or sms on the phone when you are walking on the streets or even the shopping malls. If you must communicate, keep it brief and make sure that your eyes are constantly scanning your surroundings.


2. Always keep your belongings close to yourself and not within easy reach of random strangers i.e. on table tops in the coffee shop or on the sales counter when you are busy entertaining customers or being attended to by the sales assistants.


3. If a stranger asks you for direction, make sure you keep a respectful distance from them. It's sad but my friend's dad got slashed when he got close to a thief who pretended to ask him for directions. I hate it when people exploit human kindness. Hate it, hate it, hate it.


4. As much as possible, do not walk on quiet streets alone. Park as close as possible to your house or the place you are visiting, scan the area for any suspicious characters and walk briskly to your destination. Do not tarry any longer than necessary.


5. Travel light. This means leaving big bags, gold chains, etc at home whenever you don't absolutely require them. Do not be a temptation to thieves.


6. Keep belongings in your car out of sight. An acquaintance had his windshield smashed up when the thief saw a bag on the front passenger seat. The cheap bag was stolen but it was empty. So he basically lost nothing much but had to bear the costs of repairing his car.

Please add on to the tips if you have any to share. Have a good and safe holiday, people. Remember, be vigilant!

Everything was fine and dandy until my boss dropped the bomb that my 2-week leave to Australia might be cancelled. All due to some delays in the project I'm working on that was not caused by us.

Really, it's just a typical episode of the longest running series in this reality show - "Who Says Life's Fair?"

Other recent episodes include the unexpected flooding in Johor which claimed lives and caused massive damage. Not forgetting the earthquake in Taiwan which disrupted communications in epic porpotions. I was unable to access my own blog most of yesterday. I can live with that, although there were reports of bloggers who were emotionally affected by the inability to blog or leave comments.

I know my episode is not as catastrophic as the others. But it still sucks. Big time.

There's yet a sliver of hope left that the project will be further delayed in time for me to come back from my holidays. I frevently hope so. For this is more than just a holiday. This is my best friend's wedding.

Pre-Christmas

Celebrated Annie aka Bambi's 25th birthday at TGIF with the DASHYAT+Renee+Paul gang. It was also a pre-Christmas gathering with some of my favourite people. It's not often that all of DASHYAT+Renee+Paul are able to meet in one-go like this. I would think that it's the first time ever in history that we congregated under one roof. So it deserves special mention.

As usual, here are the 3 monkeys doing what they do best - TRYING not to do evil.

Write-ups on other DASHYAT members' blogs:

1. D
2. T
3. H
4. H's videos

Christmas Day itself

Ate lots. Slept a lot. Read an awful lot. Spent time with the people I love a lot. In other words, it was a perfect Christmas Also, am getting better - cough's abating. Yaay!

Decided to give Baby a Christmas break and thus only utilised my handphone's camera.

Only four working days till the New Year long weekend comes. I'm so in a holiday mood already. But don't let my boss hear that :P

This must be the year where I feel decidedly un-Christmassy. So many things are going on at work, socially and in my newfound photography hobby that I didn't realise that 'tis the season to be jolly.

"Yaay, next Monday is a public holiday!" a colleague said joyfully.

Took me a while before I realised why. "Oh, yeah. It's Christmas, isn't it?"

A couple of friends asked me what my plans for Christmas are and I just thought of how wonderful it would be to just do nothing for once. Well, not exactly nothing. Curling up in bed with a good book and recovering from my cough would be the main agenda for the day. That is, if nothing urgent crops up. Yes, I haven't fully recovered from my cough and now it rears its ugly head again. Bleh. Or shall I say, "Humbug?"

Anyway, turns out that Christmas would be a cosy day spent with my family members. We're going to church to worship as a family. Haven't done that in yonks - since my siblings and I are all attending different churches. And a nice Chinese Christmas lunch thereafter. I guess there'll be no turkey this year. But it's no big loss. Turkeys are overrated, if you ask me.

Turkey or not, it's going to be a nice warm day. I'm really looking forward to it. Merry Christmas, everybody.

What happens when...


Beauty meets...


The Beast?


At least that's what Pastor Chris called Jon when giving the wedding sermon.


"My children always called Jeanine 'Beauty'. So I guess you must be 'The Beast', eh Jon?"

It was a huge wedding. The attendance itself was akin to one of the church's celebrations.



Huge though it was, it was very moving and meaningful. Both the bride and the groom were visibly touched by the vows made to each other.


"Jeanine, I pledge my ears to you whenever you need someone to listen." Awwww....


"Jon, I'm so proud to be standing here with you now. We've come so far..." Double awwwwww....


From this day onwards, they are no longer two, but one...

And now, here are some fun shots taken at their neighbour's house. Plus some sappy lines from my overactive imagination


Wow... we are truly married now. Someone pinch us!

Ah, but reality soon sets in. For Jeanine, anyway


"Now that we're married, pour me a cuppa tea like a good wife!"


"How quickly you forget the first time we met?"


"Nay, I did not forget. For I fell down like a sap."


"A more beautiful sight I have yet to see..."


"I knew then that it was time to cast my singlehood away."


"For this is where I've found my home. My love. My joy."

My heartfelt congratulations, Jon & Jeanine!