Around the World

That was the 2008 Dinner & Dance theme.

Although I could join my colleagues only at 10pm - I had no regrets running over from Hyatt to Marriot.

After my ROM dinner, I decided that I will leave my newly crowned hubby to go home to pack his suitcase for his Frankfurt trip. I didn't want to miss this year's D&D as I had a lot of fun @ last year's. It was a time to mingle with the colleagues you see daily, without having to think a single thread about workload stress or politics. Agree?

So I survived a pretty decent week without Irwin around. I took vacation on Friday; but ended up helping my dad at his office. Although it was stressful, it cannot beat the tension stress that my family and relatives are facing. My sis asked "Why do we seem to have more problems/ issues than other families?" I replied "Because we care." - Sis: "Thats a nice way to put it." Whatever it is, we are tired out - from the loan issue, to the hospitalization, to the death, to the funeral, settling S's new housing...

Saturday night - I couldnt quite get to sleep and I finished the Delog book. I can't say if I fully comprehend the book 100%, anyway here's a final paragraph from the last chapter - and writing it here just serves as a good reminder for myself.

Delog, Delog Dawa Drolma

The king of destiny made the following commands:

All of you in the world of the living, high or low:
All that is born dies, and all that comes together falls apart.
The final outcome of gathering is dispersal, and the final outcome of rising is falling.
Since nothing in cyclic existence is permanent or stable, do not cling to the seeming permanence of things or fixate on them as true.
Whatever appears to you is like the experiences in a dream; do not be attached to illusory apperances of happiness.
If you want happiness, abandon distraction and laziness.

If you do not wish to suffer, purity the effects of former harmful deeds, and firmly resolve not to commit them again.
The karmic results of positive and negative actions are infallible; do not deny them with empty words.
You will be reborn in a land of darkness that lasts a great aeon.
Those with great desire and avarice will suffer from hunger and thirst in the preta realms for one million eight hundred thousand years.
Those with evil motivation and an obsession with killing will experience the hot and cold hells for many aeons.

Those who are envious and competitive, or who delight in quarreling and strife, will suffer for a long time in the realms of demigods.
Those whose minds are swollen with arrogance and whose good karma is subject to exhaustion will be reborn among gods and will eventually fall from their state.

..Maybe not a good choice for bedtime reading after all..