Perhaps I shouldn't have taken a fight that required me to lose 20lbs in a little over 2 weeks time. I cut 8lbs 24hrs before weigh in. 

Perhaps the weight loss was too much of a distraction, too rough on my body and too damaging to my condition.

Perhaps I cracked under pressure, with running my own business and wanting to be a strong role model for them. Perhaps I wanted too much to prove to them that I could do everything, beat the odds, and represent what it means to be an empowered, fierce female.

Perhaps I just lost because my opponent was simply the better fighter.

Perhaps I will never know but what I do know is that the fighter I stepped into the ring as wasn't the fighter I actually am and for this I am sorry to those who came to cheer me on. I don't remember the fight and I was shocked at how it ended.

But life goes on. 

The sun will still come up tomorrow, the birds will still sing, and when I go home, despite losing, my two little puppies will still greet me with smiles and licks to my face.

This is but a blip in time, a hard moment to accept and an even harder lesson to take but I know you have to grow through what you go through and what doesn't break you makes you stronger.

Thank you to all my friends, fans and new found fans that were there cheering me on. I am sorry I didn't showcase my talent and really show you the fighter I am.

When JAL was state-owned, it had picked up some bad habits. After privatisation, it lacked the instinct for survival. Inside the Storm looks at how a man with no aviation experience broke the mould.TOKYO: It was the world’s top-performing airline in both passenger and cargo transport for five straight years in the 1980s, culminating in the largest fleet of Boeing 747s the industry had ever seen.

Even before that, Japan Airlines (JAL) was to its nation what Singapore Airlines has been for the Republic: Flagship carrier and emblem of good service.

But then it became a textbook example of what could go wrong in an airline.

When JAL was state-owned and insulated from real-world pressures by its government overseers, it had picked up some bad habits. After privatisation, it lacked the instinct for survival in the open market and the experience required to handle sudden turbulence.

Lurching from one self-inflicted problem to another, and then rocked by a string of global events, it took a nosedive less than a decade ago with debts of ¥2.32 trillion (S$28 billion), more than 100 times its valuation.

Its bankruptcy in 2010 was the largest in Japan outside the financial industry. Its saviour was 77-year-old retiree and ordained Buddhist monk Kazuo Inamori, who became its chief executive officer and chairman with no previous experience in the aviation industry.

Divine intervention or otherwise, he performed a miracle in making JAL the world’s most profitable airline within two years.

The story of one of the biggest corporate turnarounds in Japan’s history is told in Inside the Storm, a series about how major companies are run in high-pressure situations and how they adapt in times of crisis to compete better.

FROM INVESTMENTS TO DEBTS

Mr Hiroshi Sugie, a former JAL pilot of almost 40 years, remembers when things began to go wrong – when the management’s ambitious expansion plans and investments outside aviation changed the course of the airline at the height of its success.

The board invested heavily in hotels, for example, and one in the mid-1980s came into his mind: The Essex House, a Manhattan hotel JAL acquired for US$190 million (S$260 million) before spending as much as US$100 million on renovations.

“They bought a famous hotel in New York. It was incredibly expensive. Even if it was fully booked for the next 30 years, it would’ve been unprofitable,” said Mr Sugie.

The carrier’s growing portfolio of properties came just before Japan’s economy was about to wobble and leave JAL overexposed.

In 1992, it made a loss of ¥53.8 billion, the first time the company was in the red since its full privatisation in 1987.

That was also the first of seven years of losses, a period when JAL had to slash its workforce and sell some assets, including the Essex House eventually – for an undisclosed sum – to undo the overspending of the 1980s.

But diversification into businesses beyond its core competency was only the first of its problems.

A series of global disasters soon made life for the airline more difficult: In 2001, the Sept 11 attacks; and in 2003, the Iraq war and the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars).

As passenger numbers kept collapsing, the tiny profit margins JAL was then operating on were wiped out.

Mr Hiroyuki Kobayashi, who was a JAL pilot for 42 years, said the Sars crisis in particular “posed a big challenge for the management, which subsequently led to various cost-cutting measures such as less marketing expenditure”.

The board’s other response was to take a ¥90 billion loan from the government-owned Development Bank of Japan, on top of a loan it received after the Sept 11 attacks, putting JAL’s debts at more than ¥240 billion.

INEFFICIENCIES TO THE FORE

Amid the external shocks, the airline got into another set of challenges as it tried to generate more revenue in the domestic market, where All Nippon Airways had long been the dominant carrier.

In a merger deal in 2002, JAL bought the country’s third major carrier, Japan Air System, which flew mainly local short-haul routes.

But the board did not realise they were bringing in further inefficiencies and costs because of the different types of planes the acquired airline was flying, such as McDonnell Douglas and Airbus.

“All of a sudden you have multiple plane makers. That means you have to have multiple spare parts (and) multiple crews,” said Singapore Management University (SMU) marketing professor Philip Zerrillo, who has used JAL as a case study for his students.

“In Japan, you weren't allowed to have your crews be multiple-aircraft rated ... So the ability to convert to smaller planes or shift crews between planes – all of that stuff was off the table.”

Japan’s aviation rules, however, were not the only reason the airline was not coming up with solutions to its rising cost structure. Its big planes, namely its 747s, also did not fit the routes, he added.

The start-up airlines were able to fly at full capacity with smaller planes and crews, less fuel and lower overheads, while JAL was flying with many empty seats.

What the company tried to do, however, was borrow its way out of trouble.

“It always thought the government would have its back,” said aviation enthusiast Keishi Nukina, who has followed JAL over the years. “And it would spend money left and right.”

But then came the global financial crisis. And in 2009, JAL had to ask for another emergency loan, totalling 100 billion yen. This fourth bailout shook the confidence of customers and its own workforce. “People were unhappy,” said Mr Kobayashi.

There was a sense of insecurity, and failure seemed inevitable.

This time, everyone could see “how inefficient the airline really was”, said Professor Jochen Wirtz, the Vice Dean (Graduate Studies) of the National University of Singapore Business School.

“There was a lot of bureaucracy (and) complacency, very slow decision-making and not really the guts and the energy to make deep-seated changes to the airline.”

‘A DIFFERENT KIND OF LEADER’

The mindset with which the management approached costs and profitability was so shocking that the man chosen to save the company declared: “If they didn’t change their way of thinking, JAL’s managers wouldn’t even be able to manage a grocery store.”

Mr Inamori, the founder of ceramics and electronics giant Kyocera, took charge after the airline had filed for bankruptcy protection under a restructuring put in place by a government-appointed committee.

JAL was to slash 15,700 jobs – nearly a third of its payroll – cut salaries by up to 30 per cent, get one last bailout of ¥900 billion and have some of its debts forgiven.

Throwing good money after bad, however, was never going to be enough without someone to change the culture for the company to grow again.

And the reorganisation trustee, the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation of Japan (Etic), found its man in Mr Inamori.

Former Etic committee chairman Hideo Seto explained why: “The airline had been running on a semi-government style of management, despite minor changes made. So the leader had to come up with something to break that mould.

“We required a different kind of leader … who could instil a new set of values – someone who had the power and would augur well for the people on the ground.”

Mr Inamori, ordained a monk in 1997, may not have been a conventional choice, but he had a reputation for challenging common business practices and putting people before profit, a philosophy the billionaire demonstrated by taking no salary at JAL.

"The fact that I worked for no salary influenced the staff," he told South China Morning Post some years later. "They could see that I was desperate to rebuild the company, even though I had no links to JAL previously."

His “first and foremost” priority, according to Mr Seto, was the employees’ welfare, and “this is Mr Inamori's management philosophy – the idea is the employees do their best, and as a result they contribute to society”.

“He also had confidence, and the most important thing was that he was very thorough with figures. That's one of the reasons that the company could change so fast. So it was a matter of brains and commitment,” he added.

THE AMOEBA EFFECT

To overcome JAL’s problems, Mr Inamori used the Amoeba management system he had devised in Kyocera.

Instead of top-down decisions always being taken, the airline’s workforce was divided into small units, each with a leader given a degree of freedom that flew in the face of Japanese tradition.

SMU assistant professor of strategic management Terence Fan, who has traced the JAL board’s attempts to save the company, noted the level of trust in the rank and file the Amoeba system entailed.

“It tasks each employee group or each individual employee with thinking about how his or her actions relate to the company's bottom line,” he said.

People had taken for granted lifelong employment and a little bit of the fact that they were just serving their bosses. And there was a lot of inertia.

"If the company isn’t making profits, the employees can't be too happy – I think that's one of the bottom lines he was able to instil," he added.

Mr Inamori scrutinised each department’s figures and the movement of the figures each month, said Mr Seto, adding: “If there were no improvements, he’d ask why.”

There was to be no more passing the buck or hiding poor performance within a rigid hierarchy, with customer service and safety remaining the airline’s top priorities while costs were cut.

For the fiscal year 2011/12, JAL was recognised as the world’s most profitable airline. Its profit of ¥186.6 billion seemed “a miracle”, said Mr Seto, given that “we aimed for and expected a profit of ¥60 billion”.

The final proof that Mr Inamori had turned things around came when JAL’s initial public offering in September 2012 raised ¥663 billion as it relisted on the Tokyo Stock Exchange – the second-largest IPO worldwide that year after Facebook’s.

The company has since acquired new aircraft – namely the more fuel-efficient Boeing 787 series – and has offered its customers more routes, including to North America, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.

It will not be clear skies for JAL anytime soon, however, as it faces the challenge from low-cost carriers, which are now opening up medium- and long-distance flights.

“We can’t afford to be an airline just for the Japanese people; everyone should use it … We can’t let the seats be empty,” said Mr Seto.

“This doesn’t concern only airlines; it’s a general tourism issue. In that sense, the future will be tough.”

The Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics will give JAL an opportunity to boost revenues. And ahead of a global audience flying in to support their athletes, the company is set to launch a new international budget airline.

With its workforce reorganised and its finances settled, Mr Inamori stepped down from the JAL board in 2013 and became an honorary adviser in 2015.

And with an operating profit of ¥167 billion forecast for this year, Mr Seto believes the airline is now “stable”, even if the future is uncertain.

“If the executives don’t forget (the financial crisis of) 2009, and stay vigilant, I think they’re able to overcome any challenges,” he said.

An Indonesian domestic helper stuffed a chilli padi into the mouth of the seven-year-old girl she had been tasked to look after, before caning and hitting the girl on the head with a scratching board for cats - all because the girl had wet herself and refused to do her homework.

Hamida, 33, was sentenced to six months' jail on Monday (Dec 10) after pleading guilty to one charge of ill-treating the girl under the Children and Young Persons Act.

The incident happened on Jul 27 this year when Hamida - who had worked for the family for seven years - was home with the victim and her older sister, 9.

The court head that the victim had wet herself that afternoon. When Hamida asked the girl why her pants were wet, she kept quiet.

The court also heard that the victim had refused to do her spelling homework. At this, Hamida went to the refrigerator and took a piece of chilli padi, measuring 1cm to 2cm in length, and stuffed it into the girl's mouth.

She then caned the victim on her shoulder and used the 1.3kg wooden scratch board to hit the side of the girl's head.

When the girls' mother returned home, her older daughter told her what had happened.

The mother found an injury on the left side of the victim's head and called the police.

The prosecutor asked for at least six months' jail, pointing out Hamida's "intentional use of the chilli padi" and the element of cruelty involved, as Hamida knew the girl was afraid of spicy food.

Hamida, who was unrepresented, said she had nothing to say in mitigation.

She could have been jailed for up to four years, fined up to S$4,000, or both.

 The nearest pedestrian crossing was located about 300m away, but a woman decided not to use it to cross the three-lane Jalan Boon Lay - with fatal consequences.

An off-service double decker bus ploughed into one woman, 46, at around 6.30am on Nov 8 last year, killing her. The driver had failed to keep a proper lookout.

Deputy Public Prosecutor told the court that the woman was not jaywalking.

He also said there was no pedestrian crossing or overhead bridge within 50m of the scene.

He was driving the bus on the extreme left lane towards Boon Lay Way when it hit Ms Tan.

An ambulance rushed her to Hospital and she died of multiple injuries about two hours later.

The driver was driving the bus within the speed limit as he made his way from a depot in Jurong to Boon Lay bus interchange to begin his shift.

He had a clean driving record prior to the tragedy and had worked for more than 40 years.

The patient, aged 65, was found unconscious in his bed in a local Hospital, a staff nurse managed to expel three pieces of watermelon, about 3cm long and 1.5cm thick, from his throat on Jan 26, 2018.

An autopsy later showed there were also lumps of rice almost blocking his main bronchi, the passageway into the lungs.

A doctor later found more watermelon and grains of rice between his vocal cords. Three more pieces were removed with a pair of forceps.

He was admitted on Nov 28, 2016, for a head injury from a fall and placed on an "easy chew" diet as he had no teeth.

His daughter told that her father had a habit of eating very quickly and would swallow his food with minimal chewing.

On Jan 26 last year, he was served a normal meal with watermelon for dinner. He was found unresponsive at around 6pm. Despite the efforts to save him, he died about 1½ hours later.

He died due to an acute airway obstruction by a foreign body.

Keep your good heart. 
Become a person who lets himself be guided primarily by warmth and humanity. 
Learn to think and judge for yourself, responsibly. 

Don't accept everything without criticism and as absolutely true... 

The biggest mistake of my life was that I believed everything faithfully which came from the top, and I didn't dare to have the least bit of doubt about the truth of that which was presented to me. 

... In all your undertakings, 

don't just let your mind speak, but listen above all to the voice in your heart.

a moment of anger

Almost three years from that fateful night, a bespectacled man,clad in a purple prison jumpsuit with his head shaved, visibly emotional, he said: 

“I have completely failed her, and never will I forgive myself for all that had happened. 

It was a toxic relationship, but this will not take away my love for her. 

I miss her dearly, and I will always love her with all my heart each and every day.”

Neo apologised to her's family, 

“I am truly very, very sorry for causing you such tremendous grief, sorrow and suffering… I can only hope that someday, you may find it in your heart to forgive me,”

Nails In The Fence

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. 

His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence. 


The first day the boy had driven plenty of nails into the fence that he forgot to count. 
Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. 

He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. 

Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. 

He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. 

The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. 

The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. 

He said, "You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is still there." 

The little boy then understood how powerful his words were. He looked up at his father and said "I hope you can forgive me father for the holes I put in you." 

"Of course I can," said the father. 

angry is dangerous

Feeling aggrieved at his company for not helping to ease his workload, a baggage handler decide to swop the baggage tags of 286 bags 

The bags later arrived at places other than their intended destinations.

As a result, the two carriers had to make compensation payouts totalling more than $42,000 to 221 affected passengers 

being angry with oneself is alright but one placed one anger on something will result in drastic and different circumstances.

one must think of others instead of oneself.

we have been thinking of you: my dear father

we are blind but we can see

we are blind

toyota wish: a big thank you

we are the most fortunate that we have bumped into the yellow top tax which is toyota wish, large enough to transport 60 inch LED TV.
a big thank you to the cab driver and also the seller of the LED TV.

the power of women

we have been trying to call the medical supplier to exchange the items that they have delivered and we failed miserly.
it had been a month since 5th September 2018 and we decided to call the hospital staff who we have placed orders with her. in just a few minutes, the supplier called us to inform that they will deliver tomorrow.
the same person promised to send by the end of this week and that was last week's weekend.
alas.

we must saluate to the power of women, indeed.

BEST SONG▼ Mother is the best in your world - sung by little kid (Chines...

I Was Cheated' - Tales From the Collapse of a Commodity Giant

The former Singapore civil servant says he’s lost almost S$50,000 ($36,600) in the implosion of Noble Group Ltd., the commodity trading giant. He also says shareholders like him have been let down by regulators whose job it is to protect them from the sort of crisis that’s brought the company to the brink.

Yet, the 71-year-old says he still plans to vote in favor of a debt-for-equity restructuring at a shareholder meeting in Singapore on Monday that will hand control to senior creditors, diluting existing stockholders. He sees no other option.

“I was cheated of my hard-earned savings,” said Tay, who still owns a small amount of shares. “How can a giant company collapse?” he said in an interview earlier this month in the run-up to the shareholder vote, adding: “What message does that send to the world about Singapore’s reputation?”

“The SGX is a policeman without a gun,” said Tay. “Layman investors like us only have access to on-the-surface information, such as company releases or news reports.”

The SGX defended itself by setting out a summary of the actions it’s taken over the past three years as Noble suffered blow after blow. The tally includes frequent contact with the company, queries for more detail on its results and its demand that Noble appoint an independent financial adviser to assess the debt-for-equity plan that Tay and others are about to vote on.

“Questions ought to be asked about whether the SGX board has adequately prioritized investor protection,” said Mak Yuen Teen, an associate professor of accounting who specializes in corporate governance at the National University of Singapore Business School. There are also questions on whether the board has given sufficient resources to SGX RegCo, he says, referring to the arm of the SGX that discharges its regulatory functions.