Thursday, April 21, 2005

Jottings from My Diary

I’m giving myself a pat on the back!  I’ve actually kept a diary going since 1984!  That was when I found myself cooped up in a factory south of Jakarta, Indonesia.  I bought the little diary and recorded my thoughts just to keep from going off the edge.  I also bought a ‘Kapok’ guitar from a friend and kept singing the same old song about country roads because without my songbook, I could only remember that one by heart.  (My tribute to John Denver)   The despair was sometimes intolerable, being separated from my wife and 2-year old daughter, the drudgery of a dead-end job, the hot, itchy fiber-glass and chemical-filled factory atmosphere and the frequent scolding from the boss.  It was enough to drive a sane man to his knees.  After I came home I found myself starting my career from the bottom.  Often, I had to tell myself, since I’m at the bottom I had no place to go but up.  I proceeded to do just that.


 


In spite of the daily struggle to make ends meet, I managed to write something in the book.  At the same time my financial condition started to pick up again.  I had our family owned old ‘Olivetti’ type-writer but I couldn’t do much with it.  Every time I made a mistake it was a tedious job correcting it.  I often thought how nice it would be if someone invented a writing device we could write and make corrections just by moving the text around or erasing it and filling up with the corrected text.  I hadn’t realized it then, I was actually thinking about a personal computer, which came into existence several years later.  So, in 1992 I bought my first PC and started my own education in its usage.  In 1994 I continued my diary in Microsoft Word.  So I like to dream. I often think most of my dreams actually come true. 


 

I’m still counting my blessings.

8 comments:

  1. WOW! Jevon gives a standing ovation...
    You are really an interesting uncle... a lot of things to share and cherish... and I'm sure you are having a good life now...
    Have almost the same life as my dad in terms of work pressure... just that he has nothing to tell...

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  2. Thanks Jevon. I'm sure your dad has lots to tell. Maybe he keeps a diary like me, since he doesn't talk much about it. Ask him. We both went through the Malaysian 'industrial revolution' and weathered the tough years. In fact we stayed together in a rented house in SP for some years. Your mum, brother and granny later moved over to join us. They moved back to Penang when you were born.

    Just as my dad used to tell us about his life before, during and after the Japanese occupation, and when we were growing up, that being the best history lessons we ever had, I'm now trying to do the same. We had learnt a lot about life and how to deal with problems as they came along.

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  3. You were probably 2 or 3 then. I still remember (this is embarrasing...) we once fought over TV. You wanted one channel, I wanted another channel.... of course I won. But feeling remorseful next day, after work I took you to the Taman Intan playground so you could run around instead of being cooped up in the house all day. Your dad was overseas then, probably on one of his trips to Jordan.

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  4. I used to take diary since secondary school until I went to Taiwan for study. Before I left for Taiwan, I left all my diaries at home, tied with a rope, wrote a note said: "private property, please do not open!" in Chinese. When I return to Penang after one year, for semester break, I found the rope was untied, the diary was opened. I asked my mother, she said:" I was so curious because you wrote "private property, please do not open", so I opened to see what's so private!" ... and after I found that my diary was read by not only by mother but some more other people, I decided to burn all my diaries before I return to Taiwan....

    The next time I wrote my diary, I wrote something which can be read by public...not somethig secret....

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  5. Exactly... Before I started keeping a diary, I thought of that. And I asked myself, what are the things I want to record in my diary? My thoughts and feelings in response to certain situations. No secrets. Those things should be buried (or cremated) with me. Some secrets are not only harmful to yourself, they may destroy others when discovered.

    And writing "private - and do not open" is another open invitation for someone to do so.....esp mothers...hahaha.

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  6. exactly, which is why I am keeping my thoughts and views on matters in this journal. No point in writing down in paper secrets, esp when you are not ard to "look after". Found out the hard way when I kept my "rebel, hate my parents, hate the world" in Singapore while I was away in au, came back and found out that it was pretty much read by my family. Boy did i have much explaining to do. Some of them wun even let me off ... *hmph* ain't families supposed to be forgiving ? hahahah..

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  7. exactly, which is why I am keeping my thoughts and views on matters in this journal. No point in writing down in paper secrets, esp when you are not ard to "look after". Found out the hard way when I kept my "rebel, hate my parents, hate the world" in Singapore while I was away in au, came back and found out that it was pretty much read by my family. Boy did i have much explaining to do. Some of them wun even let me off ... *hmph* ain't families supposed to be forgiving ? hahahah..

    ReplyDelete