the downside of marriage life -- part seven

Not me, but a friend's.

The husband said, "Family is where you can be yourself, laugh at yourself and still feel happy." On a different ocassion however, the wife said: "My husband's family set three requirements for wives: wives should be able to do make-up, wives should be able to cook, and wives should be able to have children."

She continued, saying how the husband always taught her to never say no. She should learn to cook, she was not allowed to say 'I cannot cook'. She also had to produce offspring for the sake of her husband.

For the beauty, she said she's thankful to be talented enough in the field of make-up. Btw I think she's being humble here. She definitely has great talent in doing make-up -- her face is so different without it.

She concluded that she had become who she was because the moulding of her done by the husband. Remind me again what the husband said? Oh right, "Family is where you can be yourself."

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it wants the d

Liberty is being free from the things we don't like in order to be slaves of the things we do like.
-- Toaster's handbook; jokes, stories, and quotations --

In a kind of ironic turn of events, right after I blog about how the 'M' key on my laptop wasn't working properly, my bookcase's top row collapsed, and books came down raining onto the laptop.

Not collapsed actually, just had some loose screws... And tilted. I cannot find the exact phrase, English is not my first language.


Still at its place.

Somehow the experience was surreal. I was using the laptop at that time. My brain remembers it in slow-motion. Like a scene from apocalypse or disaster movie when the ocean creates a massive wave and it reaches its tallest then starts pouring water towards the camera. Only it's books, not water in my case.


The aftermath.

I was unhurt. Not a single book touched me. Strange I know, but then I saw my laptop. The biggest, heaviest book in my possession had fallen right unto it, among other smaller books. It was a Chinese-Indonesian dictionary, all the 1233 pages of it.


No banana, peanut for scale.

With heart still pounding, I came closer (I had somehow pushed my chair backwards). The lid was in an extremely reclined position, about 150 degrees, but there's life on the screen. I removed the books and loo', the keyboard's not whole! The 'D' key was missing!

Only after cleaning the mess some more did I find the D. But the plastic thingy behind it was broken, the key cannot be reattached. Outside of that, the laptop's working fine.

So, what do I feel? Do I feel angry and betrayed and that life is pointless etc? Or do I secretly feel grateful this happened before I had the chance to bring the laptop to the service guy? You guess. ;)

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of laptops and fruit juices

So really even when they say something they're essentially saying nothing at all, its a technique politicians have mastered for centuries.
-- HMM888 --

I spilled fruit juice on my laptop a while back. It cost me a few tens of bucks to have it repaired, because they needed to replace the keyboard.

However, it still doesn't work properly. The 'm' key must be pressed harder than other keys in order to produce the assigned letter.

That, and some problems in other aspects of life, made me think. How easy it is to feel angry and failing in life when you handle one problem but the result is less than satisfactory. We human wants perfection. Like when I brought my laptop to the service center, I hoped that the technicians would be able to bring it to its original glory, and when they couldn't, I got disappointed.

What should one do?

Well, fixing it seem to be an obvious choice. Or get a new laptop completely. The laptop's already aged a few years old anyway.

However! One must do it with the correct mindset. Remember what I said about what's easy? Yes it is easy to be disappointed. Yes, it is easy to feel angry. Yes indeed it is easy to feel like you're failing in life (for those who like to exaggerate things like I do).

But take a look at people who are successful in life and you'll understand they seldom (if ever) choose easy. They are not super humans. Ask them if they're tempted to choose the easy way.

So be it. As soon as I find the time I'll buy a new keyboard for the laptop or some other alternatives. With an un-angry attitude, without a heart full of disappointment, without feeling like I'm failing in life.

I choose to be successful. How about you? ;)

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when the job gets the most of you...

"... this is one of the things that distinguishes us from animals and permits us to do great things, that we are not just pre-occupied with staying alive.
-- Robert Walker's answer to Why is the Dalai Lama seen as evil in China? --

I dreamt I was in an unknown place with some people I didn't know. There was a commotion on the far end, coming to my direction.

"Hurry gave it to her!" 'There she is!' "Bring it, bring it!"

Someone tried to shove a mobile phone into my hand. "This mobile phone is possessed by an evil spirit!"


"Excuse me?"

I refused to receive it. Instead I asked her: "Have you tried turning it off and on again?

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