Tag Archives: tagged

5 big if’s of life

Got me tagged for another, err, tag; by Moomykin

Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. List 5 things that could make your life very different should it come true.
3. Tag 5 other people.

1. If I didn’t play dead, I would have drowned that day at the rapids, at Kuala Kubu Baru.
See, since I was young free and single I joined various activities to get to know people. One of them was the outdoor adventure group that rock-climbs (they (used to?) run the indoor climbing gym at The Summit) and also white water rafting. On one of the trips to the river, the water was quite high and fast due to rain the previous few days. Story short: My raft tipped over. My buddy managed to get to the shore, I was caught in a “washing machine” tumble of water behind a big boulder (water physics: this is the resulting turbulence when the water meets back together after going around and above the boulder). I couldn’t get out of it. I couldn’t get up for air easily. Because of the life vest, I couldn’t get down low enough. For a while, I was doing how I used to play in the pool when I was a young’un: Sink, kick / jump up, gasp, sink, repeat. I did that for a while while trying to escape the turbulence, buying time, thinking what to do next. And then I couldn’t anymore. I didn’t know where was up and down anymore. I can swim, but I couldn’t swim out of this one. Kicked, and still no air.

I don’t recall thinking I was gonna die. I don’t recall having the proverbial life flash before my eyes. I also don’t recall panicking. Only Hey, I can’t seem to get out of this shit, man.

After a while, I thought Since I am not getting anywhere struggling, why not not struggle. I played dead.

Turns out that was almost the right thing to do. Then I “came back to life” and tried kicking again, and found myself standing in water only knee high (river bed not always the same depth, okay! It was deep at the boulder!)

One of the guys there is a keen kayaker, from Sydney. Brought his own single-seater too. He was saying that with all this turbulence going on, there is a layer of water that’s passing through underneath all this quite happily. If this happened to anyone, to remember to make like a ball and try to get deeper into the water to let this “layer” take you out.

I was apparently involuntarily dragged out by this layer of water.

The guys afterwards said I may have been under for over 5 minutes. I wouldn’t know. They seemed more scared than I, what with my limp body! I was just busy burping all the water I swallowed.

2. If I didn’t go to this club that I didn’t usually go (likewise with Hot Mummee) we wouldn’t have met!
I went with some work mates. Since I was their boss / supervisor, I thought I should also join in some after work partying. Just that I don’t like the crowd there nor the music (it was Viva- now you know what I mean!). I spotted my cousin, went to say hi. Turns out he and friends were celebrating his wife’s birthday. I went over to meet them, and there she was……

3. If I didn’t leave Australia when we separated, we might still be together and I might be living there now
But… I wouldn’t have (re)connected as well as I have with my family here. I wouldn’t have had the break in my career. I wouldn’t have met Hot Mummee, and wouldn’t have these two adorable kids.

4. If I wasn’t lured by advertising money, I wouldn’t have started this blog!
But it’s all good, if I wasn’t passionate about parenting, I wouldn’t have started it anyway!

5. If I had more time for myself, I would actually be making money with this blog!
I would be spending more time researching and tweaking this blog to go further than what it is now, and probably more mental energy to write better stuff and better writing than the current useless fluff…

Hope this doesn’t drive readers away!

PS: Oops, this is just like me to not follow rules, or not reading instructions (take your pick!)- Anyone reading this is free to pick up this tag; ‘cos I don’t even have as many as 5 friends!

Random fun bits of me…

I was tagged with this one, by Hissychick.

Here are the rules …
1. Link to the person who “tagged” you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know your entry is up.

1. My Chinese name actually means “healthy” and “wisdom”, in the respective 2 calligraphy characters following my surname. My mum gave us all our names, including her grand kids (my kids included). Mum’s Chinese, great command of she has.

2. I have Osgood Schlatters disease on my left knee. Had it around puberty, I reckon, when I fell on that knee. It was a great and legit excuse to get out of playing rugby in Australian high school. Yeah? Who you calling a wimp?? Had it fixed since though, mine was a little abnormal in that there was a floatie bit of bone left behind. Cut, took it out, stitched when I was about 17. My older sister also had it when she was doing high jump in high school. Her’s healed by itself (which is usually the case). We now have a small bump at the front of our tibia bones.

3. At this point in time / in my home-related life, I leech off someone else’s unsecured wifi within the condo building. I shouldn’t complain, but bloody hell the connection is slow.

4. Whenever I get the chance (when Hot Mummee isn’t hogging the tv with her anime and when the kids are asleep) I surf these channels, roughly in this order: Discovery channel, Nat Geo, that other Discovery channel (“DSCI”), Animal Planet, Criminal Investigation, HBO, Cinemax, Star Movies, AXN, Star World, CNN. I put down the remote when I find (but not exhaustively): CSI, CSI NY, good movies, movies with babes, those blooper shows of sports disasters, etc. I would definitely skip CSI Miami- there aren’t that many shows where majority of the main characters annoy me this much.

5. At this point in my life, I have been to Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Gold Coast, Brunei, Bangkok, Paris, Nice, Monaco, London, Mumbai, Istanbul. In that order.

6. I attract mosquitoes. Between Hot Mummee and I, the mozzies would head straight for me. ‘Cos I smell better, that animal magnetism in me. ‘Cos I taste better, that chicken soup essence of me that runs through my veins. What can I say?

Now over to these fellow bloggers:

Derek
Lia
Ninuk
BusyDad
Lynn
Midnite Lily