Wind In My Head: June 2005
Wind In My Head
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Buying Time
I should blog, but after grading 6 classes of rubbish, I need time to pick the remnants of my spattered brain off the floor before Molly gets to it. So, in lieu of a real post, I present myself as a Desperate Housewife, thanks to Threez the Desperate Housefly.I am apparently, Gabrielle. And you could say life is just about pretty dresses and expensive gifts to me but I'm apparently looking for something more. I'll find it someday as long as I stay out of trouble and stay away from the hot cute gardener. Well, I live in a flat and don't have a gardener so that's highly unlikely. There's the guy who delivers the paper at 5am but I think not.
Ok. Brain turning to goo. Must. Sleep. Now.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 22:20
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Love Matters
Yesterday, we were made to go through a course on how to teach kids NOT to have sex. All this is in response to a recent newspaper report on how some of our teens are addicted to sex. So, they subject us to mindless platitudinal teaching like "Abstinance is the best protection" in bright flashing bold red words.A colleague snarkily commented that for us to tell 18 year olds this was pretty much telling a child who had already developed a liking for sweets that it would make their teeth rot and they should stop eating it.
True.
And then, they show us this.
Yup. Of course the correct interpretation of this diagram is that once you hit "passionate kissing", there's no turning back. How we, the subversive crowd of teachers decided to read it was totally different- that passionate kissing was the zenith of all sexual passion and sex- over rated and it actually downright sucked!
One newly married teacher loudly announced that no one told him that before his wedding night! At that point, the trainer was wishing she was somewhere not here. Especially when one other quipped that oral sex was illegal if it didn't eventually lead to sex so whether or not sex sucked (no pun intended), it was our get out of jail card.
But it is a concern that we all share about the kids. The kids, straddling those neither here-nor-there- years between the teens and adulthood don't take kindly to being told what they can or cannot do. And when they realise that what was said to them actually made sense, it is often too late. There are tales of students getting hot and heavy round school and of students who live near enough to sneak out of school with their willing partners for a quickie before coming back totally dishevelled. To fight this, what can we do? We can't tell them not to do it, because they already are and you try telling a kid that age that you can go back to just holding hands. I don't even buy that. So we scare them, with vivid descriptions of the different types of abortions that even make me feel queasy and squirmy and pictures of various STDs.
What is ironic though is we scare them and we were scared so well in school that it intrinsically becomes part of what we believe. So many people my age think that getting pregnant is a breeze. Afterall, weren't we told in school that it just takes one time, one unfaltering swimmer to hit it home? And then you wonder what changed?
Ondine tossed this thought in at 08:34
Monday, June 27, 2005
The Month of June
In the spirit of This June I am into...posts as inspired by Tym who in turn was inspired by Fluffy Stuff , I shall continue the series. Somewhat anyway. As primary school composition titles go, Write a story beginning with This June holidays, I....This June holidays, I didn't do very much. I did not go on holiday unless you count 4 days in Bintan. I do however know many people who did.
My mother and my parents in law went on an Alaskan cruise followed by a drive holiday round Canada and some parts of the United States. As we speak, they are in Hong Kong preparing to fly back to Singapore.
My colleague went with her family to the West Coast of the US, did Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Disneyland, a Star Trek Convention and brought back peanut butter brittle.
Another went to Egypt with his family, claimed that it was so hot he couldn't eat and lost 7 kg!
KW went to Perth and drove 1200 km in 5 days.
D went to Hong Kong and bought 40 DVDs (original he claims).
P went to Prague and brought home alcoholic chocolate (to be exact, chocolate laced heavily with rum) for us who were left behind.
M played golf in many of the neighbouring countries.
I (not me) went to Tibet and bought 2 hours of oxygen for US$ 10.
S went to London on a school trip and left some papers she was grading there. The Bed and Breakfast they stayed at was nice enough to send it back to Singapore. I think she would have been happy if they'd thrown it into their fire place.
Y went to London to see the Royal Ballet and then came back and watched all 3 nights of Swan Lake.
So, everyone around me travelled and had fun. Me? I had fun. It felt like an extended weekend more than anything else.
I look forward to a more productive holiday in December.
-- A composition that would most definitely fail for being totally irrelevant to the question-- This is in the spirit of the exam that is being run at this exact moment. Thank goodness I'm not grading essays and thank goodness I am not my student.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 14:53
Sunday, June 26, 2005
A Year Older
I am a year older now.I am not wiser.
I went to the Mango Sale.
I did not buy the whole store.
I had a surprise birthday party.
I did not win over gaming.
I went across the road for drinks.
I did not see any rats.
I had a cranberry margherita.
I did not get drunk.
I fell asleep at the table.
I could not get up for breakfast.
I had a furry pink crown.
I did not look like a birthday princess.
I had 2 high teas in 2 days.
I did not have dinner last night.
I like scones very much.
I do not like fresh cream and butter.
I watched the aerial display for National Day.
I did not wear a red T-shirt saying "Happy Birthday Singapore"
I know what a bomb blast is.
I do not know what fighter jets they were.
I jumped when the 21 gun salute started.
I did not cry.
I know light travels faster than sound.
I did not know it would take 2 seconds for the flash to be heard.
I saw the Royal Ballet perform Swan Lake.
I cannot do 32 fouette pirouettes.
I wanted photo book.
I did not $61 .
I had $59.
I have no book.
I want to dance again.
I have no ballet shoes.
I am now grumpy.
I have school tomorrow.
No.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 22:24
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Run and Walk
In primary school, the version of the NAPFA (Physical Fitness Test- I have no idea what NAPFA stands for) we had to do included this 1.6 km run and walk thing. It was the precursor to the cursed 2.4km run that everyone hates. I remember running up and down a field with lanes painted in and collecting rubber bands to measure the distance. I also remember that it was much easier for me to run it than to walk in.Perhaps it had to do with the flat feet I did not know I had and my husband still holds against me- he claims I never told him he was marrying someone with flat feet and it was an important piece of genetic information that I should not have left out!
So, I run and I can run 10km in under an hour. But to walk? What a pain!
And in about 5 minutes time, I am going to leave to attempt the Treetop walk which is estimated to be about 10km there and back. So, I'm not looking forward to it. I've run 10 km before, but to walk it? A whole different story.
Stay tuned for the potentially whiny post walk update about aching feet!
Ondine tossed this thought in at 14:27
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
See No Touch
A friend of mine has decided my birthday present this year will be bought online and chosen by me. The only things I have bought online are pyjamas and DVDs . Not difficult to screw up. But to buy clothes? I love buying clothes, at the store.I get to pick them off the rack, do a preliminary check to see if the colour doesn't clash too horribly with my skin tone (I am told some shades of yellow and me apparently cannot be in the same room, let alone share the same skin). So I've had fun. And I've been at the malls for a large part of the time the last three days. This is what is called packing 4 weeks into relaxation and shopping into just the last week.
So when L said that I was supposed to go online and look at some stuff from Gap, I wasn't sure how to do it. I guess eventually, I would have to learn, seeing that there are certain types of clothes and brands that are impossible to get in the shopping paradise that is Singapore. But no matter how nice the layout is, they're just pictures and nothing else. You can't touch the fabric, put it against yourself. It becomes more of a visceral experience than a physical one and you're really not sure what you're getting until it arrives in a box.
Not my style of shopping. Me, I like it traditional. The same thing occurred to me yesterday at Mango. The sale starts tomorrow and traditionally, I wake up at the crack of dawn and head down to the store, squeeze and push with the crowds. YM and I decided to do some reconnaisance first. Figure out what colours and sizes we wanted. So yesterday was the pre-sale mission. Even the salesgirls were aware of that and I overheard one of them telling some customers how they could just reserve everything they wanted now, pre-sale and then it will be pack and chraged at the discounted rate, to be picked up tomorrow.
A neat idea, if you're sure of what you want and if you don't have the time. But seriously, where is the fun in that? I leave a lot of my buying up to chance. If I see it and I can find the size, it's meant to be mine. If I can't find it in size, then it doesn't matter. There's a sense of achievement to be felt and got when it's a prize find at the sale. Where's the fun in it if you've already picked out everything and are just standing around waiting for the sale price? So much in life is already boring and predictable, what's squeezing with crowds once in a while.
But having said all that about predictability, then I should embrace the unpredictability of online shopping. So why haven't I? Perhaps the reticence also stems from knowing that this is one Pandora's Box, that when open can cause much damage.
Then again, it is my birthday and my birthday present awaits. How shallow. :)
Ondine tossed this thought in at 00:21
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Molly's Big Day Out
We decided half way through this afternoon to take Molly to the beach with us. I was going to run and Dan was either going to walk with her or cycle. At that point, we weren't quite sure how we were going to pull off cycling or running with her. After all, Molly is still a baby and has short legs.
We had suspected sometime back that Molly was a people dog and today, at the beach, it was definite that she loved people around her. She was almost vibrating on the spot by the sheer sight of all around her. Of course, us humans around her stared with disdain at all the humdrum that was the beach. Far too many people for the humans, but Molly the dog was thrilled.
Dan's problem with what to do with Molly was solved when the bike rental place rented out bikes with a basket in front. Of course, it was meant for things like bags and bottles of drinks, but Molly was small enough to fit in fine. According to Dan, she alternated between sticking her head out of the basket and watching the world go by rapidly and burrowing deep into the basket as if confused by the fact that she was heading one direction and everything around her was going in the opposite one.
Her day didn't end there though. We were off to a barbeque where we suspected she would be overwhelmed by the little children. So we parked her at Plentyfish's home. Plentyfish used to have dogs and his mom loves dogs, so we knew she was in safe and good hands.
By the time we came back to get her, we were told that our shy, timid Molly who is fearful of plastic bags, wind, newspaper and sudden movements had decided that she had been sufficiently emboldened by the world to take on a rottweiler. Yes, according to Plentyfish, Molly growled at the rottweiler, not knowing that she was probably nothing more than a bite-sized snack in the eyes of the rotty. She had also taken to trying to stare down the cats in the house, fully unaware that these felines were larger than her and possessed the ability to swipe the carefully sharpened claws at her delicate nose.
But all in all, no harm was done to her and she seemed exhausted by the day's adventure, asleep on my lap all the way home. Of course, I fell asleep too. There's nothing more calming or soothing than a warm fuzzy ball of Molly breathing deeply on your lap. Well, maybe a cat but then hearing Dan's sneezing fits in my half dozed state doesn't quite add up to peaceful, lulled slumber.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 00:02
Thursday, June 16, 2005
The Food Cycle
Today someone proposed the theory that Man was created to be a fruitarian- which meant we were only supposed to eat fruit. His logic? That we didn't have teeth like tigers, lions and all other carnivores.My response was that it didn't prove anything more than the fact that we weren't meant to rip raw flesh of bone of prey struggling to get loose. On top of that, I believe in Christian lore that God created the heavens and the earth as well as animals and plants for us to live off.
Dan's response was more to the point. Then why does meat taste so good?
A student's response to that theory was that we needed protein.
Logical enough, except the retort to that was then How did cows get protein? It wasn't like they ate human steaks.
Of course, that made me immediately think of Madagascar where the Alex the Lion should have eaten all the lemurs that lived on the island. But the bigger question still lingered.
Just how do cows get protein? Do they accidentally inhale gormless earthworms when they graze? Milk shakes?
Just how do they do it?
Ondine tossed this thought in at 22:19
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Identity Crisis
Conversation with student.Student: You don't look like a teacher.
Me (thinking to myself): Cool
Student: You look like a tai-tai
Me (thinking to myself): Right, uh huh...
Me (outloud): I can't even stay at home one whole day with my dog.
Student: But you don't look like the enlightened tai-tai type that does charity. You look like the self-involved, shop a lot type.
Me (thinking to myself): Want to fail exams, is it?
So, thank goodness I don't look like a teacher. At Bintan, there was this sour faced woman yelling at her kids in the swimming pool and Dan, my bro and I turned to look at one another and uttered in unison "Teacher". So, to say someone looks like a teacher, not a compliment.
Not an enlightened tai-tai, I can still deal with that. After all, I did walk away from people soliciting for Camp Rainbow the other day although I don't mind giving my money to animal shelter groups, I'm a little suspect of the larger charity groups like the National Kidney Foundation. I would volunteer my services with the animal shelter groups were it not for the fact that it makes me cry and be very miserable. Anyway.
I just got an email from a friend doing his PhD at Cornell and is still desperately trying to get me to go to the US to do my postgrad. It sounds so exciting compared to Oz but since I just blew my entire savings on Oz, I'll just settle for what I get. In the mean time, I will live vicariously through my students who are US bound or who are thinking of heading to the US, with the option of staying on to work. I guess that's one good thing about being a teacher. You get to live your dreams vicariously through your students. Not for too long though. I think, when one stays in the teaching profession for too long, one will end up looking sour and shrew like and yelling at everyone in sight. That's when the bitterness has set in, that life has passed you by and your students have gone on to greater things and you're still stuck at the same cubicle.
So, being a tai tai isn't so bad. Even if it means being self-involved and having one's days revolve around spas and tea. For me, throw in ballet, pilates and wedding planning or something of that sort and take away the mahjong and the inch thick make-up with such a hair do that birds could nest in it.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 16:17
Monday, June 13, 2005
The Dog Made Me Do It
This is Molly. We're fostering her for a while. She's about 6 months old and she's managed to make Dan and I become grown ups in the 4 hours she's been here.
Since we started going out in Melbourne, all meals, apart from when parentals are in attendance, have been in front of the television. But since our coffee table is low enough for Molly to put her paws on, we figured it was time to clear the dining table and eat there.
And we did. Like adults. But of course, baby steps- we still had the television on and were contorted into weird positions to eat and watch telly at the same time. Molly, on the other hand, couldn't care less. She was asleep under the table.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 00:08
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Daddy's Little Girl
My dad's kinda lonely seeing that my mom's traipsing all over the Pacific Northwest with my in laws. So, in the spirit of being good children, my bro and I took my dad out to lunch today. Indian fish head curry to be exact. Sometime back, I had fish head curry with a side serving of cabbage in tumeric (it's a lot yummier than it sounds) and I've been wanting it since. Unfortunately, every other fish head curry place, even though it disguises itself as some Banana Leaf place or other, doesn't have the same dish. Today, we ventured out of Little India and still, no cabbage in tumeric. Only spinach and bittergourd. *Makes face at bittergourd*There were the four of us and my dad insisted on ordering the large fish head and I assure you, it was huge. Of course, this was done without the knowledge that my eccentricity actually had some sort of precedence. My bro was all keen about the curry, just not so much about the fish itself. Apparently because fish have smell and bones and you only eat it because it tastes good with the curry, so you might as well just eat the curry, minus the smelly, bone-filled fish. That left Dan, my dad and I to finish the fish head the size of a slightly deflated soccer ball.
Most of the fish, from the far reaching corners of the fish's skull ended up on my banana leaf. My dad figured Dan could take care of himself and indulged in watching me struggle through all he plonked on my plate. I made a comment about it afterwards to Dan about it as I staggered back to the car totally OD'ed on fish and briyani and Dan's response was that it was a dad's job to spoil his daughter and since I am a daughter, I deserve being spoilt.
It feels weird because it's been a long time since he's indulged me this way. He's given me sour prunes (because both my other bro and I share his affinity for preserved sour plum/prune like things- writing this is making my jaw tingle), large oranges (because he knows Dan and I can't stand those small Valencia ones masquerading as oranges), mangoes (because he knows I love the clothes but cannot for the life of me figure out my size? ..haha, no.). But he's never fussed over me during a meal like that before. It's a first.
I kinda miss that feeling, of being indulged in. Dan does his fair share, I must admit. And I'm a pretty high maintanence girl (his words, not mine). But it's different when Dad does it. It takes you back to the time when you stared in wide eyed wonder at your dad and he could do no wrong. When he was all knowing, all protecting, all perfect and not at all unreasonable. It takes you back to a time before you became a teenager and before the rose-tinted glasses came off.
Now that they have, they can't go back on, but for a little while today, it felt like they did and it was a nice feeling. It was nice to feel safe, sitting beside my Dad, forgetting I'm an adult and actually old enough to have my own family. It felt warm and fuzzy being Daddy's little girl once again.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 23:18
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Failed Experiment
Every Friday night, Dan, Terz, Wahj and some other guys get together to be boys and game the night away. Tym and I usually have pilates, have dinner, either hang out together or with other friends till the guys are ready to go home to their wives.Last night was no different. But instead of having dinner in town, we'd decided that since we finished off early, we'd go somewhere nearer the guys' game den for dinner and take a walk sometime after. Between Parkway Parade, where we had dinner and the den is Joo Chiat- an emblazoned and much publicised red light district.
So, two girls,walking through Joo Chiat- one clothed in pants and a t-shirt and the other, a pair of shorts and a tank top. Perfect ingredients for a real life experiment. Would we actually get mistaken for the famed sex workers and get propositioned? We walked past neon lit , reeking of smoke, liquor and bad karaoke , badly punned pubs like A Gun Pub (A Gun Pop perhaps?) through the Blue Angel and Blue Lagoon...all you needed was the Blue Oyster right out of Police Academy to complete the seedy trinity all the way to the den, rather unscathed. The most surreal thing, a darkened row of shophouses with an errie glow from one of the windows- upon closer inspection, a fish tank with freakishly huge bright orange fish that could bring ships safely into port all by themselves.
Findings- rather quiet for a Friday night. Perhaps it was still early yet, being only half ten close to eleven. There were the two dialect speaking, absolutely hideous looking, smoking men who gave the once over and an over lit coffee shop where bored looking men, mentally undressed you with their eyes and made you feel like you desperately needed a bath to wash off all the grime.
The conclusion. Joo Chiat's been cleaned up because residents complained that prices of their properties have nose dived and their children will grow up with evil thoughts having been brought up in a red light district. It's that or that both Tym and I looked like dogs and failed to garner even the vaguest of interest in a seedy bit of town.
So go figure.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 14:54
Friday, June 10, 2005
Hazards of the Profession
Let me state from the outset, I'm not setting foot on another ferry/vessel for a long while. We're just back from Bintan after our fishing expedition last weekend and the ferry back this time round could rival the tossing and roiling that we experienced on the fishing trip. Sufficed to say, there were many churny tummies and inevitably, throw up from Beth(the god-daughter aka the niece) who couldn't keep her ice cream down, try as she may.It was an eventful four days in Bintan, plagued with illness. Dan woke up Monday morning with gastric flu. So he spent most of the ferry ride, bus ride and the rest of Monday comatosed. Tuesday, he's up and about, breathing in Bintan air and with that, Bintan dust. We were in one of those nice bungalows with beautiful drapes and curtains that probably hadn't been cleaned since the resort opened. So, his asthma strikes and strikes so hard we call in the on call physician at 4 am. She comes complete with a nurse and an oxygen tank that reminds me of geriatrics in retirement homes who wheel it around. By Wednesday morning, he's fine but you know that saying, I can't quite remember it but it goes along the lines of one getting better because whatever's bad been passed on? Well, yup. He's good because I have the cramping, not so nauseous version of his gastric flu. And Thursday, we go home and Beth gets sea sick on the boat.
But whatever it is holidays are always good. It would be better if we had holidays when the kids were at school. Seeing that we are the main instruments of their formal education, that is physically impossible. This is usually just inconvenient because it means that air fares are more expensive and where ever we go, there are kids.
Bintan was no different. Except this time, it was a kid I knew and had taught before. And she wasn't with her parents, but with a boy obviously not of college age. At first, I thought maybe she was with her brother and her mom because a lady walked in about the same time she did. But the look of horror she gave me spoke volumes. Perhaps because she was supposed to be at a chalet IN Singapore or a camp in school. So she went to all extremes to avoid me only to have me, Dan and my brother's entire family in a small minibus with them to the ferry terminal and back to Singapore. At some point, I was in a dilemma. Should I acknowledge her and let her know that I know that whatever lie she told her parents, I now knew and had some wicked hold over her? Or should I acknowledge her and let her imagine what I was going to do and whether I was going to rat her out? Or, or should I actually give her the benefit of the doubt and allow myself to think that her parents had okay-ed the trip? Especially since my parents let me go away to Club Med with my college boyfriend? But then again, that was with other friends and having the poor boyfriend subject to a stern talking to by my parents about how we should be in separate rooms and how the wrath of God would be brought upon him if anything untoward, in any and every sense, happened to me. And that, coming from my dad is enough to make the most brazen of teenage boyfriends quake in their Nike high tops.
But then again, having been there and done that, I couldn't believe that any parent would let their near 18 daughter go away alone with her boyfriend. So, my eventual conclusion was that the parents could not have known.
This is after I was told by some other students about kids very openly having sex on school grounds. Can anyone say EEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWW??? So not only do I have to deal with grading sub standard work, I have to contend with such images in my head. Seriously, the hazards of my profession. My dentist says I grind my teeth because of stress. Can anyone blame me? :)
Ondine tossed this thought in at 12:17
Sunday, June 05, 2005
School of Rock
We're just back from 36 hours in Indonesian waters fishing. The world hasn't stopped rocking even though we've been on hard solid land for the last 5 hours. When you're out on the water and being rocked violently, you really wish you were on land. But then again, when you're on land, the momentum and effects of having been rocked is somewhat assimilated more than you want in your body, and you still rock, even when everything around you is still.So, I pulled myself out of fishing retirement, rather reluctantly, kicking and screaming. It was as I remembered. Full of grime, you're never not sticky- it's either from the salt air, perspiration or even worse, gross essence of fish, squid or any other sliver of seafood that we use to tempt the larger predators that prowl the bottom of the ocean. Even the sides of the boat are sticky. No amount of washing your hands in running water, wiping them in wet wipes, or when you really can't stand it anymore, smearing them on the seat of your pants will remove said stickiness. You just have to live with it till you get back on land, away from the salt air.
One thing that was worse, that I don't remember, perhaps having blocked it out from the last fishing trips almost 10 years ago, was the intense roiling that occurs in your tummy as the fishing boat gets thrown about in the open waters. Dan spent much of the time passed out in the bunk below deck because it was his only means of combatting the desperate desire to spew and provide berley for fish. I tried to do the same except I got a worse case of the roiling from actually being below in the bunk. *gurgle* You end up feeling helpless in times like that. You can't sleep, the deck smells of the gutt of a thousand dead and rotting fish, the air is thick with diesel, there's no where to run, no where to hide. All reasons why I gave up fishing in the fast place. Also, not being able to bathe and get out of stinky clothes didn't make it any more fun.
But then having said that, it was fun. Nothing beats flinging the rod violently back and poking Plentyfish in the eye when you imagine a huge sea monster attacking what you had on the other end of the line and reeling it up as fast as you can to discover yet another species of fish that has no English name. But all those well versed in Fisher-speak seem immensely pleased to see flopping around on the deck. So it must be good.
----Dinner break-----
Finally ate with real cutlery and with minimal swaying. All swaying seems to originate now from within. We had batfish that Dan caught. His first fish! Every man will remember the first fish he catches, especially when it is a fish that needs no further cleaning before you throw it on the barbie to grill. For some reason, the fish in its final rebellion to being caught used its dying breaths to throw out all its inards, successfully traumatising Dan and giving us much fodder to mercilessly tease him with. His second fish illicited almost as much amusement. Plentyfish's dad was insistent that it was a HUGE fish and that he had to keep fighting at. All this time, Dan is pumping and reeling furiously with a look of pain that I'd imagine only a woman in labour could rival. For ten minutes, this goes on till one of the deck hands, tugs knowingly at the taut line and announces with all certainty "Batu". Rock. Yuppers. Dan's second fish was indeed a coral on the ocean floor. Thereafter, Dan retires, drenched in sweat and desperately seasick.
The only way to get rid of being sea sick, apart from actually hopping onto dry non-moving land is to sleep and CY, Dan and I amazed all the fishing enthusiasts by spending more time sleeping than actually fishing. Can you blame us, when we're queasy, there's no fish and when the air's totally humid and pungent with diesel?
So we're sated, well rested and ready to go back to bed again. By all accounts, it was a good trip but I would like a hot shower and to climb into a bed that doesn't rock while I dream of hauling rocks off the ocean floor.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 18:09
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Puberty Revisited
I'm breaking out like never before. Not even at the height of the chocolate and chip eating days of teenage yore. It's tragic. And on top of that, I dreamt that I was back in school and I was in Chinese class. Barely understanding what the teacher was saying. It didn't help that the teacher spoke like the teacher in Peanuts that in actual fact wasn't a real voice, but actually a trumpet. So even in my dreams, I'm bad at Chinese. Not good. And only at the end of the dream did I realise that I had in fact passed my AO Chinese a long time ago and didn't really need to sit through the whole thing. Talk about a waste of dream time.So, the past is back to haunt me, in dreamscape as well as reality.
As long as I don't turn out like the plague erupted on my face, I'm none too concerned although I am toying with the idea of seeing a dermatologist.
All these things I can consider now because I'm on holiday! Finally. Not holiday like my mother is on holiday. She is on a cruise headed up to Alaska as we speak, without, in my opinion, sufficient thermal protection but then again who says we have to mother our mothers?
But the joy of being able to wake up when it's light and lounge around in my sleep clothes, have breakfast, read about Miss Canada winning Miss Universe- mentally make a note that I should keep my hiao like fishball niece away from that beauty pageant, for that matter- any beauty pageant for as long as possible- priceless. I do have to pepper it with the reality of getting through my final bit of marking for Friday but the end is near and I'm pleased.
Next week will be a sojourn into the neighbouring islands of Indonesia. We're heading out on a fishing boat this weekend. Something I haven't done since I was 21 and a whole different person. At that age, I hadn't developed the sense of being a girl yet. Physiologically and biologically, sure. But in all senses of the word, not so much. I didn't mind being dirty, having the feeling of diesel all over my face, not bathing for 48 hours, all fine with me. Now? I bathe twice a day and that's in civilisation, I go for facials - which I need to go for again to keep this breakout under check-, I shop and even my slippers have heels. Yup. A girl, much to the disapproval of Plentyfish who is organising this fishing trip.
That's this weekend and it's followed by a few days with the family on yet another island in Indonesia that is -fingers crossed- not in direct line of sight of fault lines or JI terrorists. It's as far as we're getting this holiday because of a) the very expensive flight of fancy (oooh, must write cheque before credit card charges exorbitant amounts of interest) b)mother being in the North American continent c) we're headed down under for a wedding year end. SO we're staying put.
It's better than my kids having to stay put because they have exams to study for. So, puberty revisited, not so bad. I guess when you've gone through the real thing once, you can selectively avoid the really really bad bits. Well, here's hoping that anyway.
Oh yes, tonight we might be visiting what may turn out to be our surrogate, adopted first born. Stay tuned.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 09:56