thisguy

slow day at work which kind of picked up towards the end - doing a job where your productivity and value add relies on the cooperation, coordination and camaderie of other people is really challenging, but when things work, its also extremely cool - gratifying even.

had the urge to sit in a cinema since i've been sulking because i'm missing out on the release of 300, in pursuit of happyness and mukshin back in kl. so right after work i delayed dinner even though i was hungry and checked out the local cinemas here. a ticket costs RM25, crazy right? i'll have to wait 2 weeks for 300 to open here, but apocalypto was showing, so i caught that instead. pretty well crafted movie, but didnt really see the point of it all, perhaps because i was expecting more of an epic storyline.

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i think one of the main reasons why i like travelling and displacing myself so much is so that i can find my centre again. (random aside : did you know "centre of gravity" is a now buzzword in the management consulting lexicon?) i've been doing quite a bit of thinking - about my life thus far, choices ahead, parents and loved ones. it's quite nice how this quiet space away from home has opened up pockets of time for me to spend entirely on myself yet i still find myself thinking of all the other people i could be spending time with.

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so i made my trip out into the desert, took a detour to the south tip of the country where a mega development project is underway - to build luxury property on reclaimed land in the shape of a cluster of islands in the sea. nothing much was built yet, so the nicest thing there was just a model of what the project would look like.

made my way back up and on a whim, i went out to touch the Persian Gulf. the seaside here stretches on for miles and shallow water seems to go on for a few hundred meters. didnt get to see any fishermen tho.

when i finally got to the place i was looking for - the tree of life, it was almost perfect for picture taking. i was disappointed that there aren't any sand dunes around in the desert here. but the tree itself is picturesque, set on a little hill amidst an otherwise barren landscape, its leaves were tiny and some of its branches scooped down into the sand then back up again, like bamboo shoots.

after seeing it for myself, i think i understand why this tree has become a tourist attraction. its beauty lies not in its symmetry or shape or colour, but there's a sense of strength you get from it. no wonder people say it has the qualities of eternal life. it gets beaten by wind and sand and sun on a daily basis, but for 400 years, somehow it has survived and found sustainence for itself to remain on that hill.

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i was just having some random thoughts while eating my dinner alone at the food court. over the past couple of years, i've surprised myself at how much i've been able to take on - how i've managed to get past the crises within and around me. i don't think i could have done it quite as well if not for my roots, sustainence and faith. if you're reading this and you're going through your own crisis, i hope you too find your ground and hold on till its over.

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on a totally unrelated note - who the heck is mika? they've been playing this grace kelly song on radio here and its stuck on my playlist now.