Birthday Greetings from Mom and Dad.

At 12:01 AM, 17th January, I received a post on my wall on Facebook from Chan Siew Foon that went something like this:

Our dearest Kevin,

" Reflecting on the last 20 years of joy that you have brought into our lives,
Recounting all your achievements that you have made with pride,
Recalling all the magical moments that you have shared with us with delight,
We are always happy to have this loving son at our side ! "

We will always treasure :-

- Your hand made " Best Mum & Dad in the universe badges.
- Your compassionate, kind & loving nature shown from a very young age.
- Your daily reassuring words, hugs & kisses for the whole family.
- Your perseverance & hard work towards achieving your goals.

To us, you have already written many beautiful & memorable chapters in our
lives and we thank you for that.

We are truly blessed & proud to be your parents & we would like to wish you :

" HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY & MANY HAPPY RETURNS !"

We love you very much & meow- meow,

Mum & Dad.

My dad's current Facebook profile picture.

I really have the best family in the whole, wide universe. (: I love them so much!

Finally, a new year.

It's been so long since I last posted. It's not that my life was so uneventful, that I really had nothing to write about; it's not because I had nothing to say in response to your lengthy comments; but just that there was so much to say until I never had the time (or took the time) to put it all out in words.

So much has happened, a new year, and I'm turning twenty really, really soon. And despite not being perfect, come to think of it, I do like who I am at the moment. In retrospect, I feel that 2008 had been a really difficult year, with the weirdest things happening, but all that I've been through really made me grow up as a person, so much more than all the books in the world can ever do.

To maturity, wisdom and better decisions for the year,
Hamlet's Hero.

***

And I have a really interesting quote from a famous entrepreneur, Morten Lund, who has invested in more than 80 startups, most notably Skype, about our current, maybe dreary times.

"...remember out there that the chances out there are bigger now than ever; all the pricks went back to their safe jobs; the time for entrepreneurs is now!"

- Morten Lund, on the current financial situation.

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade, ya?

Merry Christmas from a certain someone...

To every single person in the world that considers me a friend:

I'm sorry that I haven't been updating or been spending enough time with you guys. Recently I've been busy, as well as spending a lot of my time thinking.

This Christmas, lying on my bed, I realized that one of the most important things to me is to treat my friends right, and I realized, better than ever before that all you guys out there, wherever you may be, be you in America, the UK, Singapore, Australia - anywhere in the world right now - you guys mean the world to me.

I may not do it right all the time - I often come off as self centered and arrogant - but I've realised that I really mean well, even though sometimes I come across as a cold callous bastard. If that was the case, frankly speaking, I just didn't know what to do.

Alone in my thoughts I just knew in that moment that I wanted you all to know - even though I may not be immediately near to you, or available to meet up - that all of you mean a great deal to me and that I sincerely wish that you have a merry, merry Christmas, from the very bottom of my heart.

So sorry that I may not be able to be with you at the moment, but remember that I am just human, just like you. But I miss you so.

Merry Christmas, and happy new year, from the deepest crevices of this boy's heart.

Your faithful friend,
Kevin Chan

Medical Expenses.

I finally have something to write about, but even though I slept the whole day, I'm still in no condition to write as I still am in a drug induced stupor due to the horrible, horrible flu that plagues me now.

Yes, I kid you not.

And I have like $40+ worth of medicinal pills and capsules all scattered over my desk. My head's in such a mess and the state of the room really mirrors how I feel inside. Messed up, apathetic and tired.

Let's see how things are back home.

Memento Mori

I woke up at about 1:45 today. 1:45am - right smack in the middle of the night.

Earlier today I was helping out at the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon as a volunteer part of my Impresario committee's effort to canvass some extra funds for our project.

The Drinks Station

I was posted at one of the drinks stations and this is how it all looks like after the runners were through with us. (:

We were there at City Hall right from 12:30am last night, all the way till about 12:30pm on December 7th, and as a result of that, my internal body clock is majorly messed up right now.

Waking up in the middle of the night is weirdly disorienting. I'm pretty used to sleeping and waking up in the day, but waking up when it's all dark, silent and cold around you is weirdly disquieting.

I was lying in bed, and I just felt this chilling emptiness inside me calling out to me, and I wondered - what is my great purpose in life?

Or does it make sense to have any at all?

It's just one of those moments that makes you just pause to ponder and reflect, and I realized that there are somethings that I really want to do before my lease on this mortal vessel I call my body is up.

Here's a few of the things I thought about:

1. Write a published Novel
I've been talking about this for some time right now and I'm kind of disappointed in myself for not putting in much effort at all into planning and writing my novel and so I did a Google search for "how to write a novel" earlier tonight and I did manage to get some good pointers on the step-by-step guide to the process of writing a novel.

One article that I found particularly useful was the "Snowflake Method" and I decided to do step 1 of the method which is to write an overarching one sentence summary of my novel.

Step 1) Take an hour and write a one-sentence summary of your novel. Something like this: "A rogue physicist travels back in time to kill the apostle Paul." (This is the summary for my first novel, Transgression.) The sentence will serve you forever as a ten-second selling tool. This is the big picture, the analog of that big starting triangle in the snowflake picture.

When you later write your book proposal, this sentence should appear very early in the proposal. It's the hook that will sell your book to your editor, to your committee, to the sales force, to bookstore owners, and ultimately to readers. So make the best one you can!

Some hints on what makes a good sentence:

• Shorter is better. Try for fewer than 15 words.
• No character names, please! Better to say "a handicapped trapeze artist" than "Jane Doe".
• Tie together the big picture and the personal picture. Which character has the most to lose in this story? Now tell me what he or she wants to win.
• Read the one-line blurbs on the New York Times Bestseller list to learn how to do this. Writing a one-sentence description is an art form.

(Read the rest of the "Snowflake Method" here.)

Yeah, so I decided that the one sentence summary for my novel would be - A coming of age story of a boy struggling with meaning, purpose and love in his life.


One of my favourite books is Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. Reading it somehow changed my life in ways that I would do no justice to describe in words. Who better to write a coming of age novel than one who is currently going through all that the dear protagonist would be going through in the novel? The only issue is that I'm still unsure of how this story will end, but we'll wait and see, won't we?

2. Run a full marathon
Watching the runners push themselves through the marathon today was inspiring. At the drinks stand, we saw people from all walks of life - from the fittest athletes of African origin to the grotesquely obese; from the very young, being pushed around in prams to old, wizened grandparents all pushing themselves to complete the marathon.

And I realized - I don't want to go through life without conquering a challenge like this one.

It's not going to be easy, but the more challenges you overcome in life, the stronger and more confident you become of overcoming the rest. I want to do this simply because it is not easy, and I really need to grow stronger, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually to overcome the challenges ahead. I just have to.

I don't know why, but I feel like I'm floating right now, but not one bit sleepy. Guess this is the time to take a break. Hope you guys out there are great.

Memento mori, least we waste another day.