Surprise.

This is my last day of work.
For year 2007.

Was supposed to go on leave 2 days from now.
But since I have annual leave left, might as well FINISH 'EM OFF!

So, WOOHOO PHEWEETT!
I'm free!
Holiday starts the moment I step out of the office.

Now, let me drain out my remaining '2007 brain juice'.
Need to finish everything on my desk.

Gulp. Late night tonight.

What's the meaning...

On the way to work this morning...

Bf: Let's go get breakfast.
Me: Ok.

Bf: This shop's 'siew mai' (steamed shrimp + pork dumpling) is not nice.
What do you wanna eat?
Me: Anything.

Bf: So, you want 'char siew pao' (pork bun)?
Me: No.

Bf: I thought you said "Anything?"
Me: (Silent)

Bf: What do you wanna eat?
Me: 'Siew mai'.

Car door opens.
I heard Bf mumbled in bewilderment,
"Argh... What's the meaning of 'Anything'?"

Haha. In this case, I also don't know.

Counting the days...

It's been months since I last saw my family.

My mum and I are those super 'emo' type of people.
Sometimes, we miss each other so much, that
over the phone,
I can hear her sobbing.
Of course, upon hearing that, I'll cry too.
Wanted so much to give her a hug. But can't.

Sigh.
But I sure can now!
In a few days, they'll be in KL.
It's like the best Christmas gift. Ever.

And yes.
I'll be taking leave to spend some quality time with them.
Now, I just have to pull through 4 more working days!

Four.
Less than a handful of days.
And I'll be reunited with my family.

When was the last time you see your loved ones?
I can't wait to see mine.
Can't wait.

Why I love Christmas - Part IV

He couldn't tie his shoelaces.
Nor could he feed himself.
But Alonzo Clemons can mold clay
into amazingly detailed animal figures -
they are correct in every detail.

Every fibre, every muscle is accurate.

Alonzo is an artistic savant.
"He was always trying to sculpt things as a child.
But I didn't realise what he was doing", says Alonzo's mother, Evelyn Clemons.

Suffering brain damage after a fall,
3-year-old Alonzo became severely disabled.
But even as a child, he can see a fast-moving image of an animal on tv,
and in less than 20 minutes, sculpt a perfect replica of that animal in 3D.
Only with his hand. 100% accurately.

According to experts, Alonzo, like other savants,
can't help but do what they do (e.g. some could resist counting).
In Alonzo's case, sculpting is a compulsion from his brain.
It's not a choice. He can't help but sculpt all the time.

Take a look at Alonzo here:




Pam Driscol, owner of Driscol gallery has been helping Alonzo manage his career
as an artist by getting his work featured in the World Premier.
This has increased Alonzo's self esteem tremendously.

The most famous piece from Alonzo is the
life-size bronze sculpture - Three Frolicking Foals.



Alonzo's artistic ability has sort of 'reclaimed' himself.
Now, he is an established artist.
His vocabulary has expanded,
he supports himself well by selling his sculptures.
and he is more and more comfortable socially.
Not only that, he now lives independently.

"God takes, but God gives so much in return, "says Mrs. Clemons.

Argh! I'm going crazy.
(Gasp! Maybe then I'll turn into a genius!)
These people are so amazing right?
I never knew they ever existed.

We live in such a breathtaking world.
Everyday, there are new opportunities to prove that.
There're such much that we don't know,
Things about our world. About this whole universe. About others. And ourselves.

Why I love Christmas - Part III

My friend finally gave birth to a healthy baby girl on Sat!
So happy for her.

Now, let's continue.
If you want to know the context of why I'm writing what I'm writing,
scroll down to read Part I & II before you read on.









In this post, I'd like to blog about
the most famous savant on earth - Kim Peek.

If you've watched the movie, Rain Man,
well, Kim Peek was the inspiration of that 1988 Oscar-winning movie.
I highly recommend that you watch it.

"I may be the star, but you are the heavens"
That's what Dustin Hoffman, the main actor of Rain Man said to Kim.
Dustin subsequently gave his Oscar statue as a gift to Kim.
That was also the movie which has changed Kim Peek's life.

Prior to the movie, Kim can never look at people's eyes when communicating with others.
After the movie, he's found the self esteem to look at people's eyes.

He was born on November 11, 1951.
He had an enlarged head,
an encephalocele (brain defect)
and an absent corpus callosum (the connector between the left and right brain)

Fran Peek, Kim's dad was advised to dump him in an institution,
and forget about him.
Because he's described as 'severely mentally retarded',
and will never ever be able to learn.

But Fran was determined to raise him up with his wife, nonetheless.
Kim did not walk until he was 4 years old.
But Fran said, at the age of 16 - 20 months,
Kim was already able to memorise every book that was read to him.

When he's slightly older, he was also obsessed with numbers and arithmetic.
He read the telephone directories, ZIP codes, calendars,
and enjoys totalling up the numbers on car no. plates.

His parents would move Kim's finger along each sentence being read.
Kim would then memorise a book after a single reading.
Then, he'll put it aside, upside down. So no one would read it to him again.
He still does that up to today.

The local library is Kim's favourite place in the world.
He reads up to 8 books in a day. And he reads at a phenomenal speed.
One page which takes you or I three minutes to finish,
Kim take 10 seconds.

That's because he reads the left page with his left eye.
And the right page with his right eye.
After reading, they tested his memory.
His brain retained 98% of the book.
He even remembers the page numbers correctly!

He's really good at calendar calculations.
If you tell him your birth date & year,
He can tell you this:
1. Significant events that happened on the day of your birth
2. The day which you were born on
3. The day on which your birthday will fall on that present year
4. The day which you will turn 65, so you can think about retiring

Today, he is called, "Kim-puter".
Or described as the "Walking Google".

He's now 56 years old.
And he's a genius in about 15 different subjects.
(To name a few, history, literature, geography, numbers,
sports, music and dates).
But he's still severely limited in other ways,
e.g. not being able to dress himself.

Here's a video about Kim:






After reading and posting about all these people,
I realised that many of them are highly at risk
of being aborted, dumped, given away or institutionalised (some of them did).

But because their parents (or either one of the parent)
refused to give up caring for them, God rewarded them by
giving amazing gifts to these children.
It must have taken a lot of courage to take these kids in.

Sometimes, I wonder,
"What would I do,
if God has given me a defected child?"

I have to admit,
I shuddered at the thought.
Christian or not, at this moment,
I still struggle to come up with an answer.

Why I love Christmas - Part II

Scroll down to read Part I if you haven't done that already.

Just so you know, my next few posts will still be about people.

Less than ordinary people.
People who makes me feel thankful for what God has given me.
People who helps me stop complaining.
People who humbles me.

Today, I'll talk about Ben Underwood.
His eyes are removed because of cancer 2 weeks before his 3rd birthday.
He has no guide-dogs.
He doesn't use a cane.
But he can see. With his ears.

Ben makes a short click sound that bounces back from objects.
Amazingly, his ears pick up the echo, letting him know where the objects are.
This ability is called echolocation,
the same skill that bats or dolphins have.

God is gracious.

For Ben, his eyes were taken away from him. But what was given back to him was another form of 'sight'.

Why I love Christmas - Part I

Met with a dear friend last night.
Merely few hours of meeting.
But I've brought home bucket loads of blessings.

My pregnant friend is going to pop anytime soon (most probably within the next few days).
Time flies amazingly fast.
I last saw her during her wedding end of last year.
And within the next few days, she'll be a mummy!

All of us, girls, fascinated by her bulging tummy,
gathered around to 'attempt' interaction with the 'soon-to-be-born' baby girl inside.

It was a great experience, feeling the movement inside a layer of skin.
Ahh... the human anatomy...
The genius of it... I can never comprehend.

Which brings me here to this 'partially-forsaken' blog.
Since Christmas is near,
I want to 'pen' (ahem, ok, type) down some thoughts about it.

I figured, what better way to start than to document on how I feel about my amazing God,
the creator of all things, the One who sent Jesus to die for us.

Yes, very religious I know.
But I can't help it. Shoot me.
My heart is just overwhelmed with thankfulness.

What inspired this post is my soon-to-be-mother friend,
But what pushed me to the point of no return to write this is - Leslie Lemke

Leslie was born prematurely in America, and was diagnosed with
glaucoma (optic nerve disease),
cerebral palsy (a disease that affects human development),
and brain damage.

His eyes had to be surgically removed in the first months of life.
And his birth mother subsequently gave him up for adoption.

A nurse named May Lemke adopted him when he was 6 months old.
She forced food down his throat because he doesn't know how to swallow,
and taught him how to make sounds so he could communicate.

When he was able, May literally strapped his fragile body to hers,
teaching him how, one step at a time, to walk.

She put his hands over hers as she played simple tunes on a piano she got for him.
And she sang to him.

7 years passed by, Lemke showed very little progress.
He made no sounds, shows no emotions, and little movements.

He first learnt to stand on his own two feet when he was 12 years old.
First step was taken when he was 15.

But, one day, when he was 14,
May Lemke woke up early in the morning,
when she heard someone playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 on the piano.

It was Leslie.
Someone who is blind, severely retarded, and can barely walk,
playing the musical piece from start to finish without any mistake.
He had only heard the piece once on television.

God's miracle, May said, came into full bloom that day.
From then on, Leslie was playing all styles of music.
He never had any piano lesson.
And all the music he played, he only heard them ONCE.

Today, he not only plays, but also improvises and composes.
He is identified as an autistic savant, though severely retarded, he'd shown that he too can create. If you've been watching the tv series, 'Heroes', I think Leslie is a hero with an amazing ability too.

May has passed away in 1993. But her daughter Mary continues to take care and cared for Leslie. Because May has vowed that Leslie will never be institutionalised, and he never was.

This is the most recent video that I can find of Leslie.
Accompanied by Mary in his performance.



Before she passed away, Morley Safer interviewed May and asked her how can Leslie do what he does. She said, "Well, I think, because the brain was damaged, a part of the brain — but the musical part — God left it perfectly healthy and beautiful so that Leslie could have a talent. And he got it!"

* A savant is a handicapped person who has skill(s) that would be remarkable even if they were to occur in a normal person. There are probably less than 100 savants described in this last century. Leslie is one in a billion.


I give praise to God for Leslie,
and I thank Him that you and I are born perfectly normal.