Wind In My Head

Ultimate Post... for now

2011-05-10T06:15:00.009+08:00

This is the 1000th post for this blog. It's taken me a long time to get here, especially since I haven't written anything here in a while.

And this shall be my ultimate post. For now.

There are various reasons.

1. The most practical reason, I haven't the time. I have 3 kids and a job. And what spare blogging time I have, I much rather spend writing about them. Not so much because I am an obsessive mom but because my memory is so shot that I need to keep a record of their antics otherwise I won't have a clue what they were like growing up, 10 years from now. Also, the blog is for them. So that they can read it, when they are old enough to.

2. In the last few years, I have also found myself become less angsty, politically and socially. Perhaps it had to do with the great state of sleep deprivation but also because there were so many people talking so loudly on their blogs that I didn't feel the need to add in my two cents worth anymore.

3. I have so little time away from the kids. The last thing I want to do is spend in online. I rather spend it with real people out there. I could be spending it talking about the very things that I used to blog about. My most recent, most enjoyable moment was polling night 2011.

It reminded me of college days in Melbourne, where we would organise a huge cook out, leave everything on the dining table and we'd take our food buffet style and eat in front of the television. Instead of the movie, we watched the results of the elections.

And because the results took so long to come in, we made up our own entertainment. Miming a bad news presenter who had overexaggerated and affected gestures, laughing at election's officials and chuckling at the fact that our PM was now a loon.

And then, of course, my Littlest, wakes up for milk and wonders what the fuss is about and why there are so many people in the house at 2 in the morning.

All this making me very amused and for once light-hearted.

And because this is what I need more than anything, I am trading blogging for time in the real world that will make me feel more human and more connected to those around me.

So, the Wind in My Head which used to blow gales, has petered to a gentle breeze. And it'll stay that way until I get to claim my life back from the kids. And perhaps then, if blogs are not a thing of the past, I might revive this one. Because, this blog has been around with me for a long time and is a part of me, even if it is one that I hardly have time to visit anymore.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Elections 2011, blogging

Seeking lost love

2010-11-02T23:39:00.004+08:00

I received this in my email this evening.

HELLO,

How are you? i hope you are fine, My name is Miss sintia, my heart is seeking for a true lover that will bring joy and happiness back in my life,I am looking for a long term relationship in a man of your kind who understands the need to love and be loved(Remember the distance or colour does not matter but love matters a lot in life)i am waiting for your reply so that i will send you my picture for you to know who i am,Take care and have a nice time.
Miss sintia.

My response:

HELLO back,
My name is Ondine and I am flattered that you have sought me out to be the true lover that will bring you joy and happiness. I'm sure I could make someone happy but I'm not sure how happy you are going to be when you discover that I am really, in all senses of the word, not. a. man. It is good that you are non-discriminating; that distance (from what?) and colour doesn't count. So, it is okay that I like pink and wear nothing but pink? Let me tell you about myself. I have terrible teeth in my terrible jaws and a poisonous wart at the end of my nose. I also have purple prinkles all over my back. And oh! I'm pretty sure I have bad breath too. But it shouldn't bother you since I'm a distance away and it doesn't matter what colour I am.
I had a nice time talking to you.

Ondine.

Totally bizarre. I wish I could have written the response in Spanish which was what the first part of the email was written in.

THe stupidest thing I've heard

2010-08-05T05:49:00.002+08:00

Singapore radio isn't very good. Its music and DJs aren't very good. On occasion, we listen to Malaysian radio because it's got better songs although when the news comes round, it takes us a little while to realise why there's so much news on Klang and Kuala Lumpur.

I've been hearing this 'inspirational, positive' thinking tale on the radio which makes me very annoyed. One, the DJ telling it speaks badly. And two, it's just a bad tale.

It begins with the retelling of the tortoise and the hare. And how the tortoise won the race because the hare took a nap. And the question was posed, what if the hare didn't take a nap? Wouldn't the hare then win? Wouldn't it better if the hare could complete the race without stopping and at a faster pace?

The DJ goes on to say that slow and steady is good, but don't we always prefer someone who can work at a steady and fast rate? And shouldn't we all aim to do that?

Everyday, I've heard this tale and it makes me want to take a club and hit the DJ on the head just to make her stop.

I must say, I absolutely hate the fact that a fable like this has gotten mangled to teach Singaporeans how to be more productive.

I think it's very Singaporean to make everything an abject lesson no matter how contrived it is.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, radio

Behind Door Number 2

2010-07-16T08:26:00.002+08:00

My best friend from my 4th year in uni just finished her PhD. It's led me to wonder whether had I taken up the offer at the same time as she had, would I now have extra acronyms behind my name as well?

It really makes me wonder. Would I be married? Would I be back in Singapore? Would I have kids now? And more importantly, would I be a teacher?

9 years ago, I had foolishly and somewhat naively thought that teaching was going to give me a leg up when I eventually did my PhD. Teaching was something I did to gain experience, to be within the education industry so that when I went back to grad school, I would have the lay of the land.

9 years on, I am still teaching whereas my friend's done. She's also married. She's got a beautiful 3 story townhouse that faces the ocean and according to her husband's Facebook updates, was home to a pod of dolphins last week.

Granted she doesn't have kids and I do. The selfish part of me, the non-Mommy part that is exhausted, broke and slightly resentful of my chosen lot in life doesn't really care that she doesn't have kids.

I have an acute case of 'that could have been my life' right now. It's not fair to my children to feel this way, but I am human and this was a big dream of mine that slowly, surely and surreptitiously got chipped away by responsibilities, obligation and inertia. Some people tell me that I can still go back to it.

Can I really? Can I really find my way to Door Number 2 and drag my whole family and life through it and hope to come out happy and unscathed on the other side?

I don't think so.

Technorati Tags: Grad School, teaching, Melbourne

Sacrifice

2010-05-24T09:26:00.004+08:00

I haven't blogged here in ages. And when I looked at my old blog posts I felt remarkably sad. I don't have the time or the energy to form many coherent thoughts or opinions on matters. And what time I have to write, I write about my kids so that they have something to read next time.

Everyone talks about sacrifices mothers make for their children. It's true. We sacrifice a whole lot. Sleep. Our bodies. Sanity. Money.

But to me, those are not the greatest sacrifices. I'm fine (to some extent) without sleep, I could live with my baby belly, I usually have Packrat to help me regain some semblance of sanity and money, well, money is always a problem. With or without kids.

The biggest sacrifices I feel are things like having the energy to think about the world that exists beyond my family and my 3 children. So, I miss blogging about silly things and having time to formulate snarky opinions about things happening out there.

And then, Sher (a fellow mom) writes about this writing project- eatshopplaylove - that some female overseas Singaporean writers are doing where they write about their lives overseas. While I don't particularly want to be caught in a cross fire between the red shirts and the soldiers in Bangkok, the sheer idea of living overseas and seeing new things, living new experiences is one that I would love.

A friend of mine is preparing to take No Pay Leave for most of next year to follow her husband to Japan while he does his masters there. Another friend of mine was in Ho Chi Minh City for most of last year with her husband as well. Sher quipped that I had already done my stint in Melbourne. But Melbourne as a student was different. We never meant for it to be our last sojourn. Returning to Singapore was supposed to be the sojourn. But as my brother said all those years ago and somewhat ominously at that, "Things happen. Life gets in the way." Indeed, it did.

We would still like to move and still have some intention to but it has become harder logistically and financially to do so. And even if we did, our experiences will be markedly different because of the children we will have in tow.

To me, that is the ultimate sacrifice. Because that would be the one thing I would love to do with Packrat and have given up because of the children. I don't begrudge them that. But I do feel a twinge of wistfulness when I read of the adventures of others. Some would tell me that I have adventures of my own with my children. Yes, that is true. But being out there, being in the world, seeing new things, doing new things and exploring a different way of life, I miss that.

11 years

2010-04-04T00:34:00.009+08:00

When Packrat asked me to marry him, I told him that I wanted to get married on Easter Sunday on the 4th of April. I didn't specify the year. I just wanted it to be Easter and it had to be the 4th of April. Of course, that didn't happen. Primarily because my mother pointed out that no church would marry us on an Easter Sunday, whatever the date was, however important the date was to us. And also, when I realised that the next Easter that would be April 4th was going to be in 2010 (this was in 2002), I decided there was no way I was waiting 8 years before we got married!

And it's not just because I'm neurotic and crazy. There really is a reason to the craziness. Packrat asked me on the 4th of April 1999, which was incidentally Easter Sunday to be his girlfriend. And what led to it was a Ball on Good Friday where friends signed us up to be King and Queen of the Ball and we had to eat an apple off a string and kiss for a whole minute.

Packrat was really into the kissing because he liked me. I thought it was funny and spent much time laughing. Apparently, that confused the boy. I agreed to let him kiss me but I laughed so what was I actually saying to him? Anyway, the rest is history and it is history that I very much like and am extremely nostalgic about.

When I was looking for the photographs that immortalized the day, I found so many others of our time in Melbourne, with little notes faithfully recorded to remind me of our youth, our joy and the fun we had. The Melbourne album ended with the trip we made back for our engagement. And thinking back to those days when things were simpler and our faces weren't lined with worries and stresses about jobs, money and more recently our children, I sigh. Partially out of contentment but partially out of wistfulness that those were days we would never be able to revisit.

This is one of my favourite photographs from our engagement trip. And when I look at it, I yearn for such alone time with Packrat and such peace. But at the same time, my life, while frenzied, uber-stressful and exhausting does have a great amount of joy and love I never thought I could feel. You see, then, our lives were just us. We didn't think much about anyone else, we didn't understand a lot of what was ahead of us and we rolled our eyes at married couples and more so at those with children. We still do some of the time, but in the eleven years, we've become a married couple, with kids to boot and while I do at times hate my life and whinge and mourn for the old days of freedom, it's amazing how far Packrat and I have come in this time.

I think we had foresight too. Because on our wedding day programme, we had this verse.

Marriage hath in it less of beauty but more of safety, than the single life; it hath more care, but less danger, it is more merry, and more sad; it is fuller of sorrows, and fuller of joys; it lies under more burdens, but it is supported by all the strengths of love and charity, and those burdens are delightful.

Bishop Jeremy Taylor

And 'tis true. Every single word of it. But today, to commemorate the first Easter 4th in eleven years, hopefully, we get to just be us, be silly and just be together.

Technorati Tags: Easter, relationships, marriage

Too much TV

2010-03-11T09:33:00.003+08:00

I know when I've been watching far too much television when I start thinking in terms of TV world and characters. I spend all the time I am breastfeeding watching television, mostly watching re-runs of Gilmore Girls and Grey's Anatomy.

Then, this morning, I see a trailer on television for a new medical drama called Mercy. And it prompts me to text Packrat.

"There's a new hospital show called Mercy with Michelle Trachtenberg in it. No wonder Mercy had to merge with Seattle Grace".

and when the Private Practice trailers aired

"Private Practice sucks. LA doesn't suit Addison Montgomery. Maybe it'll shut down and Addison Montgomery and her beautiful stilettos will move back to Seattle".

Yes, they are now all real people in my life.

How sad is my life!

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Television shows, Grey's Anatomy

To the rescue

2010-01-19T07:45:00.002+08:00

I join most of the world in their horror and dismay at what is happening in Haiti. I cringe at photos of the mob lynching a looter and my heart breaks when I think of the children who have lost their parents or the parents who cannot find their children. I am also one of the Singaporeans who are not impressed with the Singapore government's donation of USD$50 000 to Haiti. A mere USD$950 000 less than what Sandra Bullock, Brad Pit and Angelina Jolie etc donated. Of course, Haiti is not in South East Asia and we don't trade very much with Haiti so it really doesn't matter. I think it's like my children digging into my coin compartment and putting whatever change I have in there into the offertory bag on Sundays. How lucky for the Singapore government that my 'soap box' is currently not available to me or there would be many classes of 18 year olds that would have their eyes opened to the 'oh-too-cool-since-they-are-on-FB' government that is trying desperately to court them.

Anyway, this does remind me a little bit of what happened in 2004 with the tsunami and how everyone was scrambling to go over and help. Once again, because it's so faraway, there are fewer people from here going over to render medical and rescue aid. When the tsunami and even the Sichuan earthquake occurred, teams couldn't get out of here fast enough. And even then, I remember a conversation we had about people volunteering to go to the front line. We knew of people who wanted to be part of the relief effort but were held back because their families worried about their safety even though it is a noble thing to do. It led to this conversation about superheroes.

Not only are superheroes not married, you never hear of their families. Their families were usually part of the plot and the impetus for them to take on the role of vigilante justice. In reality, even though sometimes tragedy befalls family triggering the need to do something, the role family plays is often a little bit of a hampering one.

My brother became a doctor because he wanted to go to the war front (where ever that may be) and help. In his 4th year, his dreams were rudely thwarted by my father who told him in no uncertain terms, as the bursar who was allowing him to be in med school, that he was to come home and work in Singapore and not go traipsing around the world. You could see his heart shatter in his eyes but he obeyed because that's what we were taught to do.

When the earthquakes in Indonesia hit a few years ago, post tsunami (he couldn't go for that one having already given my parents a heart attack by being out of touch and diving in East Malaysia when it hit), once again, he desperately wanted to be where he was needed. Once again, he was thwarted. This time, not by my dad but by his employer and in his words, he was sad. The opportunity has once again surfaced. This time in Haiti.

I hope he gets to go because that's why he trained so hard all those years. And I would be very proud of him if he went. But at the same time, I would be petrified if he went. And I never thought of it that way. From 2004 till now, I'd always thought of rescue efforts in terms of how they would benefit those who were suffering. I still do. But at the same time, I love my brother dearly and reading about the mobs and violence in Port-au-Prince scare the beejeezus out of me.

And then I thought about what if it weren't my brother but was Packrat. Would I be so quick to encourage him to go? Would I be even more hesitant than I am now with my brother? I think I would. After all, I depend on Packrat for a lot of things and he is the father to my children. But then again, should I be so selfish? If he wanted to go, to stop him? What sort of example would I be setting for my children if I stopped their father from helping humanity just so that he'd be safe and around for them? But at the same time, what would happen if anything did happen to him while he was there? It is boggling to the mind and the heart.

But I think, and I hope that I would have enough guts to follow through with this thought, that at the end of the day, at the end of all that struggle and probably with tears in my eyes and a heavy heart, I would wish him and my brother Godspeed and send them on the way. Of course, I probably wouldn't sleep and eat for the time they were away and I think I would be imploring God every second of the day to keep them safe and bring them home.

On a side note, one of the medical teams from Singapore that is in Haiti now got to meet Bill Clinton. Now, I know it's flighty, but how cool is that?

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Haiti earthquake, volunteers

Men cook in Mars

2010-01-08T06:16:00.003+08:00

A friend of ours got nervous because his 18 month old son was playing with our daughter's pink kitchen set. His only consolation was that most of the great cooks in the world were men so it wasn't a complete lost cause. And in truth, I know more guys my age who cook than girls do. And the girls who do cook, seem to be really be into baking and are remarkably meticulous and good at it.

It rings true for myself as well. Packrat cooks more than I do. He enjoys it. When I cook, it's mostly local stuff, out of necessity and I bake with the twins. Packrat cooks, for the lack of a better phrase, like a man. Lots of meat, hearty and without frills.

Last night, with our guests, he decided ribs and chicken was the way to go. Because he also had other errands to run, I ended up helping him with the slow-cooking ribs. He told me that I had to baste it and he'd bought this basting brush where you fill the marinade into the handle and you squeeze it as you brushed it. The result was a loud squelching sound as the sauce was forced onto the brush. I texted him and told him it was gross and it was a man's job. Ribs in itself, in my opinion, is man food. Messy and you eat it with your hands.

Then there was the chicken. I like chicken. Chicken is my white meat. But once again, his choice of preparation involved a can of beer stuffed up the butt of the chicken. And when our guests arrived, all the husbands took delight in seeing the chicken grilling away, being forced to stand and having a beer can shoved up its ass.

I didn't eat very much of the meats because I don't fancy ribs and the chicken smelt of beer which was weird to me. But I did concede that the beer made the chicken flesh extremely juicy and tender. I stuck to the pumpkin and pasta which I had to insist upon or I wouldn't have had anything to eat. Actually, come to think of it, even when he bakes, it is to make something that complements his meats. I once baked at the same time as he did. I baked muffins. He, on the other hand, baked cornbread to complement his ribs, as he did last night.

Our guests enjoyed Packrat's selection and we all agreed, Packrat's cooking was hearty, yummy but not pretty. And I think essentially, that is the difference between his cooking and theoretically mine.

Is it sexist to make such comparisons? Probably but I am more amused than anything and since I stand to gain from it, it's great.

Technorati Tags: cooking, couples

Supermodel Christmas

2009-12-16T01:09:00.000+08:00

We haven't had a Christmas tree since the birth of the twins. Come to think of it, we didn't have a tree before the twins were born. We had a wreath, some Christmas runners and a big candle (which was the candle from our wedding) put into the middle of the wreath. All that was divine but it was all very adult. The first two Christmases the twins had were at their grandparents' house. Their grandparents did a great job, decorating the house with a tree, wreaths, candles, presents and festive cheer. Now that we're on our own, we decided (or rather I decided) that we would make a big deal out of Christmas and everything to do with it.

We've taken to playing Christmas carols in the car, reading them the Christmas story as well as decorating the house. Obviously, it's nothing like decorations that adorn some houses in the US but we had fun setting up everything, right from the get go. First we had to decide on whether we wanted a live tree or a fake one. The great thing about a live one would have been the scent of pine. Even when we were at the nursery, its scent was alluring and we were tempted.

Just walking through there, down the rows of fir trees made me feel like I was in a different country. Maybe it was the smell or the wet and cool artificial climate that had been created to keep the trees looking pretty and green, but it made me feel Christmassy although a little bit of snow and cold would have been nice. I know Christmas trees are cruel and environmentally unfriendly but they sure are pretty. And if we were to believe Phoebe in Friends, they have souls and shouldn't be killed.

What kept us from buying, apart from our consciences, was the knowledge that it would die and before it did, it would shed its needles like a cat shedding fur. So a fake tree it was and a relatively small one at that. We could have bought the 7 feet one that looked almost as real as the pine ones sans the shedding and the dying. But we had to remember that we had two young children whose fingers were extremely twitchy and destructive. Same thing went for the decorations. No point with pretty delicate ones that might shatter once Destructo and Destructee start bouncing them around.

Anyway, the twins had a wonderful time decorating the tree although we needed to re-decorate it after they'd gone to bed. We were pleased with the fact that they knew how to hang the ornaments onto the branches even if their idea of hanging them up were to hang EVERY single ornament on the same branch. Packrat did the honours and put the lights on. The Barbie on top of the tree is mine; the Sugar Plum Fairy Barbie that I was given the year I was involved in the Nutcracker Ballet. Since it was no longer in pristine condition and was worth naught, I decided that it would sit pretty on the top of the tree and be my contribution to our Christmas decor stash. If you look very carefully, there are also reindeers at the base of the tree which I fell in love with and had to buy. Of course, the twins have tried to ride it, feed it and constantly talk to it as if they were alive and their pets.

We didn't managed to totally avoid the siren song of the fir trees and ended up with a tiny table top one. Packrat really liked it and even though it was extremely pricey for that little tip of a tree, we bought it and I adorned it with apples and cinnamon sticks. It looks slightly pagan but sits pretty on our dining table and every morning, we walk into the dining area to the smell of pine and cinnamon. Divine.

So we're ready, decor wise for Christmas. The children know their Christmas songs and know that it is Jesus's birthday. The only thing we haven't done is actually to do our Christmas shopping. It's a little bit of a bummer to do without a bonus this year and whatever paltry extra we were going to get in lieu of a bonus is pro-rated for me, owing to the time off I took. Like I say, bummer.

But at least, I have a pretty home to come home to and it is very therapeutic to sit and watch the lights twinkle, although when the twins fiddle with the switches and it flashes really quickly, I think I'm going to have a seizure, which is usually my reaction to a lot of things they do, anyway.

A friend commented looked at the photos of the decoration and commented that it was going to be a Supermodel Christmas. Lean, thin but very pretty. That indeed. And at least we have the pretty.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, twins, Christmas, Recession

Fast Food Nation

2009-12-15T10:17:00.000+08:00

Yet another sign of globalization, or rather Americanization in Singapore is the re-entry of Wendy's into Singapore. As a kid, I remember Wendy's being in town. There was also Hardee's and Denny's. They disappeared though. It just didn't work then. I suppose there wasn't enough wealth for Singaporeans at that point to support such a large fast food market. Anyway, Wendy's is back and apparently, there are 35 outlets in Singapore planned for the next 10 years.

Packrat loves anything that reminds him of the USA. It isn't so much that he is a sucker for anything American although he does seem to have a soft spot for all things American. So, when we saw a double-decker bus that had the Wendy's ad on it, he was determined to hunt it down.

Hunt it down we did. Last night.

And as I stated on my Facebook, I suffered much aggro trying to order my burger.

This is why. (I am going to compare it to Macs because Macs has the most consistent service around and generally they don't screw up your orders)

It only had 2 counters. Thus the queues took forever, although there were other reasons why the queues took forever too. Read on.
Unlike Macs, that takes your orders and it appears on a screen at the back for the staff to organise the order and the counter can get on with clearing the lines, at Wendy's, they take your order and it stays on the cashier's screen till it is serviced. This means, you and the counter staff spend some minutes staring blankly at one another trying to see who would flinch first.
As a result of 2), I spent half an hour waiting in line with 5 people in front of me and the service staff staring blankly at us from behind the counter.
I am so grateful to be the next up at the counter, I decide to try and help the counter staff. He asked the customer in front of me if he had 5 cents (all their meals end with 5 cents, so I suspect they were running out of 5 cent change). Since I had about 6 minutes on average to kill before it was my turn to order, I dug around in my wallet for a 5 cent coin. My order was $9.65. I gave the server $10.05. I was due to get 40 cents in change. Easy Peasy. But when I looked at my change, my brain could not compute. I got the right change. It was just a matter of the denominations the change came in. One 20 cent coin, One 10 cent coin and TWO 5 cent coins!
The servers obviously did not pay attention when they were in kindergarten and were taught to fit the right size containers with the covers. I ordered a large drink. That should then mean that the cup should be capped by a large cover. But no, Mr Vapid, Blank Look Server had to go through the 2 smaller sizes before finding the shoe that fit.
Repeating that I was taking away my order 3 times still led to my order being placed on a tray.
Repeating that I wanted a Large sized combo with a Fanta Grape still led to my being asked if I wanted a Medium Coke 3 times.
Each server, in a dark green shirt, was supervised by a guy in a light green shirt (assistant managers, I hear they are still hiring!), supervised by a guy in a black shirt who is supervised by ONE American dude who looks like he wants to fry up his whole staff because even though he announced loudly enough for me to hear, that there weren't any more baked spuds left, there were still orders being taken for them.
With so many staff milling behind the counter, there were only two people preparing the burgers.
Mr Vapid, Blank Look Counter Boy is told by Mr Black Shirt that he can take the next order while waiting for the previous order to be furnished. He proceeds to do so and puts all the food on the tray. Mr Black Shirt tells him he must collect payment before putting food on the tray. So he proceeds to take everything off the tray and put it back behind him on the warmers.

So, 10 reasons why I grew increasingly agitated and while I don't want to appear racist, my half an hour in the queue made me feel extremely Aryan and feeling that a Final Solution is sometimes justified (however politically incorrect and violating of human rights it is).

To make it worse, the large box of fries I ordered was only half filled, with fries that were over salted and smelt overwhelmingly of peanut oil. The burger, in all its square patty glory, was fair enough I guess and I can't quite comment on it because we ate it quite late.

All in, I'm not sure how it would ever make it here big if it is so inefficient. I felt like I was in a fast food joint in some back water Malaysian townlet rather than in the CBD in Singapore. Obviously, the staff needs to be trained more, the kitchen facilities need to be larger and better organised and at least have free wireless so people standing in the queue for extended periods of time can Facebook and Twitter as they wait. Or perhaps, that's why they don't or it would be splashed all over cyber space how wonderful the waiting game is.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Wendy's in Singapore

Role Reversal

2009-12-03T22:36:00.002+08:00

At some point, we all turn into our parents. I knew that would happen with regards to me having children. I had no idea that we would also turn into our parents and end up 'parenting' our parents and doing things for them that they did for us as children.

My mother turns 70 next Monday. In honour of that, my siblings and I are throwing her a big bash on Sunday. This has entailed us finding a suitable venue, looking up my mother's friends surreptitiously in her phone book, ringing them and organising them to show up. This has also entailed us sending out invitations, ordering cake, speaking to the banqueting staff a million times a day to ensure that everything is as planned.

We've also had to plan party entertainment. Videos, songs, all we're short of are party games.

Now that's where the difference lies. Party games for my mother's guests might entail some broken hips. We've also had to arrange for wheelchair access and permission for nurses to escort some of the guests. That's something our parents didn't really need to take into consideration when they were planning our parties. I spent a better part of last night in correspondence with the banquet manager and my cousin trying to map out the easiest way we could get my uncle, who is wheel chair bound from the car to the function room without having to encounter any stairs.

It was also meant to be a surprise party. But when the guests are somewhat geriatric, they tend to forget important facts that you tell them i.e. "DO NOT RING MY MOTHER AND ASK FOR DETAILS!", "PLEASE RING MY BROTHER OR MYSELF. DO NOT RING MY MOTHER!", "IT IS A SURPRISE PARTY, PLEASE DO NOT TELL MY MOTHER"

Even despite these repeated pleas, an uncle (not the same one) rings my mother and apologises profusely for not being able to attend her surprise birthday party! We put it down to his being 78 years old and regardless of how disappointed we are that the cat out of the bag, we've just had to plod along and plan the rest of it.

A friend of mine commented that she hates it now that she has to be a parent to her parents. Not because it's tiresome and a bother, which it can be, but because us needing to parent them reminds us of their fragility and the fact that they are indeed getting older. And anyone who is close to their parents, doesn't want to think about that because it leads to the inevitable which, in our minds is unthinkable.

Technorati Tags: Parents

Junkie

2009-11-14T21:36:00.005+08:00

Parts of me hate the fact that APEC is happening. I was stuck on a bus for the better part of an hour this morning, on a route that usually took 7 minutes. By the time I got off the bus (and this was after I'd decided to cut short the journey and switch modes of transport), I wanted to throw up and was dizzy.

But another part of me loves watching the traffic cops stop traffic. Normally reckless, inconsiderate, annoying drivers quietly and obediently come to a halt when the traffic cop on the BMW bike weaves through the traffic with sirens whirling, stopping in the middle of a busy four-direction traffic junction and raises his gloved hand. And then there's the motorcade that comes through, usually black BMWs with Volvos as security cars trailing. It goes all the way back to when I was a teen and a cousin I am very close to lived houses down from the President of Singapore. We used to get such a thrill just walking down the road to see the security detail milling outside the compound. Then in 1992, I saw my first real motorcade when George Bush (Sr) was in town and I happened to be in Orchard Road gawking at the motorcade that rocked down.

Maybe it was that or maybe it was the fact that I did international history and politics in college and uni that American politics and the presidency (save for 8 years in the recent past) fascinated me. Or perhaps it is because for a very long while, I spoke and thought in West-Wing verse and my dream job was either to be a staffer for the Bartlett Administration. Heck, Packrat and I contemplated naming our son after the fictitious president.

Whatever it is, Packrat and I seriously thought about going groupie slash junkie slash stalker and try and find an opportunity this weekend to see Obama who is in town for like a couple of hours. We plotted and planned but decided we didn't have enough information (that comes from not having anyone we know involved in APEC this time round as opposed to the World Bank-IMF stuff previously) to actually be effective stalkers. We are extremely envious of the 500 people who are allegedly on his entourage and would give anything to be one of them, even if it meant carrying someone's bags.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, APEC, Obama, The West Wing

We've been MPV-ed

2009-10-21T11:27:00.005+08:00

The cars we've had over the years have defined who we are. The first car we drove was a manual 2 door Mistubishi Lancer. It was white and it had flames stuck on the side panels. We were students and we just needed to get us from Point A to Point B. Point A being home and Point B being uni. We didn't really care that it was uncomfortable for the people that had to be piled into the back.

When we first moved back and got married, we couldn't afford a car but needed one because home to my first school was like well, home to uni in Melbourne and it took me 1 3/4 hours to get to work by public transport. Because we couldn't afford it, we took whatever was offered to us. It came in the shape of a 13 year old Mercedes that drove like a boat, flooded like one when it rained and guzzled fuel like one too. The great thing about it was no matter how many clowns or elephants you piled into it, there was still space. But that car seized on us when we hit the brakes too hard one day and it merrily careened into a taxi. That was when I decided it had to go. It was just too unsafe by my standards plus I really hated driving the boat.

The next car we chose was the opposite of a boat. It was a Ford Focus 5 door hatch that was zippy and was like a small dog that was aggressive despite its size. We loved it and we drove it everywhere from Sembawang to Kuala Lumpur. The only problem was that it wasn't really a family car. And for the years that two of us constituted a family unit, it was a great drive. When we found out that we had two little muffins baking in the oven, we wondered if the boot was going to be sufficient space for them because the back seat sure as heck wasn't. So, even though it broke our hearts, she had to go.

At that point, when we traded it in, we should have bought something big enough for a growing family. Unfortunately, we lacked foresight as well as the ability to see ourselves as 30 somethings who had no choice but to drive an MPV and we didn't see ourselves as MPV people. So we bought a Honda Civic. It wasn't a boat but it wasn't a dream either. It was just fully functional and came in a nice shade of blue. For the last 2 1/2 years, that's what we used to move our family around and the kids were comfortable in it. Whoever had to sit between them wasn't but our priority was the kids.

Unfortunately, as someone very rudely said to us recently, we forgot that when people have sex, there are consequences. And the consequence for us was that we now had NO choice but to buy a bigger car because with 3 children and a helper, unless we strapped someone to the roof, there was no way a 5 seater family car was going to do. Even though we could ill afford it, we had to buy something as I discussed in a previously resigned post.

So, we are now on to our 3rd car. An MPV.

Thankfully, it doesn't look like one and doesn't drive like one. And it comes in the most impractical colour. Black. Black equals hot in Singapore. Hot equals sweaty kids who are already proned to eczema. Hot equals to the need to solar film the car. Hot equals spending more money trying to reduce the baking temperature in the car.

But the good part of it, it's not a girl car. It is as testosteroney as a car can get, with its big turbo engine to boot. And I can't bring myself to name it anything girly. Anyway, just look at it.

In my opinion, it looks like the Batmobile or the Dark Knight and even though it's an MPV meant for 3 kids. It handles like a BIG car rather than a Mommy School bus and I'm happy about that because it preserves the last vestiges of us that have to do with us being who we are rather than just parents.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Subaru Exiga GT, Having children

Illogical math

2009-10-12T14:17:00.002+08:00

Over lunch, I grew increasingly panicky at the thought of sending my kids to school in Singapore. It's not a new fear but every now and again, I am reminded of how much I'll hate having to subject my kids to it and how I'll be stressed and inadvertently stress them out.

This afternoon's topic of conversation was the recent but yearly and to-be-expected uproar over the PSLE Math paper (do not scroll to the bottom if you want to try the question because the answer is there)

"Jim bought some chocolates and gave half of it to Ken. Ken bought some sweets and gave half of it to Jim. Jim ate 12 sweets and Ken ate 18 chocolates. The ratio of Jim’s sweets to chocolates became 1:7 and the ratio of Ken’s sweets to chocolates became 1:4. How many sweets did Ken buy?"

My brain shut down after Ken bought some sweets. Anyway, 12 year-olds are expected to solve this. How? I don't know.

Not bad enough, I was also duly informed that when what 6+8 is, 14 is incorrect.

6+8 has to first, = 10+4 and then subsequently= 14
11+11 has to first, = 10+1+10+1 = 20+ 2 before arriving at 22.

If the child had the audacity to skip from 6+8 to 14, he would be marked wrong. Which is terrible because it's a) the CORRECT answer and how can they tell a kid that an answer that is right is wrong? b) insisting that the child can ONLY do it ONE way and that's why we're so screwed and complain that the graduates we produce can only think ONE way.

What do they expect when their primary school math insists on teaching them there is only ONE way to derive the answer?

It's annoying, it's worrying and that's why we're screwed as a nation.

Technorati Tags: children, Singapore, primary school, education

The cynical generation

2009-09-29T11:01:00.004+08:00

When I was in College, I relished in the discovery that our government was screwed up and parallels could be drawn to the Nazi regime in the 1940's. Why? I relished in being able to see things at a different level than they were presented.

I still enjoy that now although I pepper it with reality and possibility a slightly more mature viewpoint of things. Maybe I am not the same hot-blooded anti-establishment, government spitting 17 year old anymore but much of how and what opened my eyes all those years ago has made me see the world the way I do today. And I know that they way I see the world today is somewhat different from a lot of the people around me, maybe not my friends because us like-minded people flock together... but compared to the general generation of peers, somewhat differing.

Which is why I was impressed I received this photo, first thing this morning, with the accompanying text... "Didn't think students understood analogies this well".

Well, yes. And the cynicism to provide such an observation, however colourfully expressed is something rare for a 17-18 year old who is caught up with the grade and rat race.

I hope he/ she continues to see the world without the rose-tinted glasses. Maybe some of them do actually hear us in class.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, students in Singapore, cynicism

What is a moron?

2009-09-16T16:51:00.001+08:00

What is a moron?

According to the dictionary of Me:

A moron is someone who has gone through 12 years of education and still does not know to write his name on his exam script before submitting it.

Once again, MORON.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, exams, students

Parlez vouz Francais

2009-09-12T16:06:00.002+08:00

We have a GPS in the car and it reset itself after we brought it back from Perth. So, instead of a maniacal Glados who occasionally did try to force me to drive down a one way street in the opposite direction, it was a boring female Brit voice.

Rather than have that, Packrat decided to programme it to speak French.

Me: But when the directions are in French, the GPS is of no help to me.
Packrat: But you know how to get to most places in Singapore.
Me: Then it's no use having a GPS reception
Packrat: I can relearn my French.
GPS: Tourner à gauche (Turn left)
Me: BUT THAT DOESN'T HELP ME! I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO GO!!!

GPS: Perdu satelite réception (Lost satelite reception)

Damn right, lost satelite reception.

Technorati Tags: GPS, learning a language

Can't help falling in love

2009-09-08T10:15:00.003+08:00

"Wise men say only fools rush in, but I can't help, falling in love with you"

This more or less encapsulates how we feel about Perth this time. It isn't our first time. Our first time was 3 years ago where we had lots of fun but came away thinking about how the pace was too slow and how Melbourne was better. Melbourne would always have a place in our hearts because that's where Packrat and I met, went to school, fell in love and decided we would spend our lives together.

When we talked about moving to Oz, it was always a given that we would move back to Melbourne. Moving back there would be easy, there was a certain routine that we would be able to fall into because we've lived there and we know the place and how things work.

But something changed this time. We noticed how much it was like Vancouver, green grass, blue skies, water everywhere. All that was lacking was ranges in the distance and the neutral North American accent. Because we were on the coast and had rented an apartment on a cliff that overlooked the Indian Ocean, we were floored by the sound of the surf, the vast expanse ahead of us and the peace that came from looking out at such an expanse with no one or nothing else around us.

All of a sudden, all we could think about was how we should move here, how our kids would benefit from the sun, sand, surf, green and the open space. All of a sudden, Melbourne became grotty, industrial and not as pretty. It's not an adventurous thing to do, as a Singaporean. Some suburbs in Perth are known as Singapore, Perth because of the large numbers of Singaporean migrants. But we're not setting out to do something different and setting a blazing trail here.

We're wondering if this is where we and our family will be happy and content. No doubt there are higher taxes. No doubt things are more expensive here. No doubt we would be uprooting and there would be the fear of how to make things work here. But are these large enough considerations to stop us from moving?

Something that was said to me resonates loudly though. This person told me he wasn't ready to quit Singapore and move overseas however tempting the prospects. Was I? I thought about the factors that would keep me from moving.

Singapore is easy. I've lived in Singapore most of my life, I know how most of the systems work although the government never ceases to befuddle me.
Our families and friends are here and by moving, we'd be apart from them.
We have a support system and a life here. We have people to count on and help us if necessary. We have a life here. What quality is that life? That's another question altogether. But whatever it is, however unhappy we are or discontent, we have a life, we're used to it and it works. Sort of.
Eating out is cheap. Public transport is cheap. Movies are cheap. Everything else might be costly but those aren't.

Those are factors within Singapore that keep me from moving. There are also factors about where ever we move to, i.e. Perth or Melbourne that keep me from moving as well.

Expensive healthcare. Singapore isn't all that cheap and I know we'd buy health insurance over there but the horrors of the public health system are enough to give anyone nightmares.
Where ever we move to, I worry about having to look for a job. I look upon, with a little bit of envy, those who are posted overseas to work and are given help to relocate. If that was our situation, I would move in a little bit more than a heartbeat.
I fear the loneliness which is linked to the idea that we have friends, family and a support system here. I am a people person. I would feel very lost without friends and people around me.
High taxes.

When I tell that to Packrat, he points out that most of what I see as flaws in the Australian system are not specific to the country but basically the fear and uncertainty of uprooting. And it doesn't make me feel that the kids would benefit from the experience any less so despite my reservations, I'm back where I started, right back at the beginning.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Perth, migration

My mother's daughter

2009-08-30T07:46:00.004+08:00

When I was little, my mother owned a little business at home. It was called Soft Expressions. All I remember of it were the blue business cards with baby's breadth on it, my mother always taking orders to do flowers and Christmas being a busy time for her where she and her sister would be making ornaments and little arrangements where there were two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree. I remember the house smelling wonderful and there were always people over to help with the sewing. I'm guessing it was their version of a cottage industry.

Needless to say, every bone in my mother's body is a creative one. My brothers and I are not like her. Well, I think we each got a little bone of it from her but we don't have oodles of it the way she does. She was livid when I failed my art exams in school and said I was an embarrassment.

In the recent years however, I've come to realise that I appreciate craft and the beauty in things because of her influences. I am thankful she didn't try and bang it over my head because more likely than not, I would not have learned then. I constantly amaze myself when I find myself dipping my fingers into things that I used to just ask Mom whether she could do for me.

Example 1.

A cousin I am very close to just had a baby. Her family, unlike mine are all creative and have a penchant for all things pretty. Because of that, I thought she and her mother (my mother's sister than I mentioned above) would get a very big kick out of receiving a diapercake rather than packets of chicken and fish essence and mee swa which was what I got a lot of.

To be honest, I did ask my mother for help. But rather than leave her to do it, I tried to build it with her around. It turned out to be a lot of fun and my mother admitted somewhat admiringly that it was something she'd never thought about and was impressed that I had and known how to imagine it. To hear that from her was a great compliment.
Anyway, we have a picture of a half finished product here. Half finished because I wanted to buy fabric to cover the rest of the diapercake up but Mom decided that buying baby blankets to cover it up would be a more useful idea and had sent me out to buy some. I can't wait to see the end product but I was quite proud of what it looked like, half built.

Example 2.

We recently got our house blessed. And I got myself in a frenzy about making it presentable. Packrat could not understand what all the fuss was about. After all, we have had friends over before. My retort was that we never had 'adults' here before. Our families in full strength plus a church leader and his wife. One of the things I got myself into a tizzy over was to buy flowers. Again, Packrat was like "since when do we have flowers in the house?". My response "I am my mother's daughter and the house MUST have flowers!" At that point, he must have wondered when it was that the aliens had abducted his regularly practical and nonchalant about all things pretty wife and replaced her with a Martha Stewart in the making wife.

The nursery near us that sold fresh flowers had a cold room problem and thus no fresh flowers in stock. The supermarket flowers were unexpensive and not very fresh. But not having a choice, I settled for what was the best.

This was the eventual outcome. All I could do in 10 minutes before the guest arrived and without a flower sponge and all the other paraphenalia that my mother has around the house for emergencies like that.

It isn't much. But for someone who has nary an artistic bone in her body, finding these little creative sparks are quite a big thrill to me and makes me proud that at least a miniscule bit of my mother's legacy will be left behind in me.

The truth hurts

2009-08-12T11:23:00.002+08:00

One of the fantasies a teacher has is the ability to tell the truth. When it comes to writing recommendations, we outrightly lie because we're too chicken- hearted to let the kid go to a lesser university even if he or she deserves it. Most of the time, it's an attitude thing rather than an academic thing and that sits much more uneasily on my conscience.

If only I could say "xxx is a pompous bastard who is too competitive for his/her own good, has no qualms about getting to the top by climbing over others and is absolutely unrepentant when told that his/her attitude stinks and it requires a full make over".

Instead, I'll probably have to say "xxx was a good student who was very focussed in his/her academic pursuits. Single-minded determination has been shown and xxx has never allowed anything to stand in the way of achieving it. Xxx is also a strongly independent learner and can be counted on to do his/her best. "

See, with the latter, the kid doesn't end up sounding so bad and the uni would probably look upon the recommendation quite favourably. Unfortunately, I am in the business of getting the students to university, I do after all work for a pre-university institution and the unwritten part of my job description includes plumping up recommendations that otherwise would cause the kid difficultt getting a job even at the local McDonald's.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, applications to university

The true Singaporean

2009-08-10T01:17:00.007+08:00

Shell Singapore had a one hour National Day offer today where between the hours of 4 and 5 pm, fuel was $0.44 less per litre. Which is alot.

Since our tank was veering on empty, we decided to brave the crowds. And as with any sort of good deal, everyone and their cat was there and that included some people who shouldn't be allowed to exist.

Obviously, a long queue had developed. Obviously, everyone was impatient. Some wanted to get home to the parade, some wanted to get on with their day, some just hated queuing. But for most, that impatience was reigned in by common courtesy where we obediently wanted our turn to get to the pumps. And it really wasn't that fuel was going to run out today.

Which must have been what this stiletto totting, Lexus driving tai tai was thinking. So despite the queue, despite all the angry and loud insults hurled at her, despite being told off by the station attendants that she should have waited her turn rather than cut ahead of twenty cars, she insisted on having her tank filled up, without a stitch of remorse, embarrassment or acknowledgement that she had just done something jaw-droppingly stupid.

Out whipped at least 100 mobile phone cameras, including Packrat's and still no sense of humility. It was a wonder the crowd did not get riotous and set her car on fire and turn it upside down. Perhaps they worried then, they wouldn't get fuel either way.

But whatever it is, I hope she gets some sort of come-uppance because even I wanted to throw rocks at her car and the 20 cars she had cut in front of us didn't include ours and we were still, that incensed.

What a nice true blue Singaporean she is.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, National Day, Ugly Singaporeans

College redux

2009-08-01T22:28:00.002+08:00

As with all bad situations, a silver lining is present if you look hard enough.

This isn't as much a silver lining as looking at the situation as the cup being half full rather than half empty.

I've moaned loud and miserably about missing my kids now that Packrat is ill and is suspected to have H1N1.

And it's true. I miss them terribly.

But I've realised something about the both of us, now that the kids are not in the house.

Our house is a mess. Not in a 'we've emptied our drawers onto the floor' kind of mess but a more chaotic 'leave things as they are' mess. There are many reasons for this.

Obviously, we are spoilt and now that we don't have our helper picking up after us, an empty box stays on the table for as long as we forget to throw it away.

We are also, obviously, messy by nature and have defaulted into our original non-parent states. Because Packrat can't go out and I haven't been feeling up to going out, we've done one of four things. We are either eating, watching television (or doing both at the same time), on our computers online or asleep.

After 3 days of doing this, it dawned on me that this was what we did all the time when we were in college/ uni, especially in our thesis years when we didn't have formal classes. The day began when we woke up, usually when the sun was high up in the sky and meals were had in front of the television on the coffee table. Crockery and cutlery would pile in the sink till the tape (then, it was video tapes) ran out and we had nothing else to watch apart from Aussie day time soaps. If our eyes were too goggled by all the television, a nap would follow and then sometime on the computer mostly chatting with friends on the then chat platform (ICQ) and possibly some work followed by preparing dinner and vegging out in front of the television for the rest of the evening till we fell asleep in front of the television. Occasionally, television was swapped out in favour for the Playstation and its games and the same vegetative state would ensue although there would be a little bit more talking in terms of yelling at one another for killing the other.

This has been what we've been more or less doing the last few days to while away the time while we waited for Packrat to stop coughing (he hasn't yet and mine has gotten worse). If not for the fact that I worry about the twins and miss them and actually do leave the house to go see them, these days would seem like a strange and surreal gift of time to be able to live the lives we led when we were carefree, young unmarried and unencumbered students.

Unfortunately, the reminders round the house of the twins act as the resounding foghorn at the back of my head that echoes louder than my conscience did all those years ago that reminded me to go back and do my work while I whiled away another afternoon/ night watching yet another 6 episodes of Friends/ Buffy/ The West Wing.

Technorati Tags: College Life, Life before kids

Mac Girl

2009-07-30T23:51:00.004+08:00

Although I'm married to a PC geek, I'm turning out to be a Mac Girl. Once I got tired of using Packrat's toss outs and decided to buy myself my own lap top, the one I got was the pretty, aluminium one with a half eaten apple on the top. Even though the learning curve was steep, I decided I liked it. Packrat tolerated the fact that I was using the the Mac even though it couldn't play DivX files on it and whatever other techno gargon rubbish he wanted to run on it. In a way, that was good. It meant he couldn't clutter my lap top the way his own desk top was cluttered. The one thing I did that appeased him was that I insisted on using a Razer mouse rather than a nanny-pussy Mac mouse that couldn't do very much. That gave me some street cred.

And then a few days ago, I receive a package from Amazon. The small little neat package was ubiquitous enough. The size and colour made wonder why Packrat bought me a Nintendo DS for me as a birthday present. Did he seriously think he was going to get away with buying me a DS so that he could play with it? Upon closer inspection, I discovered that he'd bought me an Ipod Touch. Not the Iphone because he knows how much I hate touch typing messages and how badly typo-ed my friends' SMSes to me are. He knows me well enough to know that much as I like the stuff the Ipod can do, I'd fling the Iphone against the nearest wall in a heartbeat if I couldn't get my SMSes out in 30 seconds.

So now I have an Ipod and a MacBook. I haven't had the frame of mind or inclination to load music onto the Ipod. He bought the Ipod so that about 6 months from now when I'm ensconed in hospital without much to do in between nursing a new born, I will have things to do and he's started making sure of that, loading e-books into the phone as well as addictive mindless games that I've spent hours playing. Add to that, the Ipod Touch does have wireless so I won't be that lost, if I could get a signal out.

So even though my husband is a PC geek, he loves me enough to know that I'm a girl, I like pretty and I don't appreciate super powered machines that have no aesthetic value. And he puts up with that and weathers through the tedium that is the Mac interface to load stuff onto the Ipod for me, just because he knows I'd like to have it.

Now, can any girl ask for anything more? I think not. :)

Technorati Tags: Mac, Ipod Touch, husbands

Orh-bee-good

2009-07-24T09:36:00.005+08:00

Thio Li- Ann Cancels Teaching Stint at NYU

So sayeth the Straits Times.

As with all in her family, she takes the high horse and claims to be "deeply offended" by the NYU faculty which has called her views on homosexuality "intolerant" and "reprehensible".

All I can say is that it is an embarrassment that she's had to travel half way across the world to get metaphorically egged for her views.

Of course, there is also the paradox of free speech to take into consideration. Free speech means having the space to stand for particular views. Unfortunately the extreme liberalists would then claim that any view against free speech or expression should shouted down. But by doing that, free speech and expression is trampled upon and it then begins to resemble Singapore more than the USA. Because of that, I feel a little bit sorry for her.

But that's all I feel. I can't be all that sympathetic because I cannot help but feel that at least someone's managed to force her into a corner and acknowledge that her come-uppance has come a collecting. That when I feel like a child and would like the stand, flapping my arms and yelling "orh-bee-good" (Serves you right!) .

What would however been amusingly ideal would have been if she had the guts enough to tough it out and appear to class on the first day of the semester. And this was just to realise that her poorly subscribed course with only 6 students comprised of 3 gay students and 3 lesbian students all ready to give her hell on earth and chase her out of class. Of course, being out of her depth, she would rely on old tricks to get her through.

Pulling rank: "Don't you know that I'm the Global Visiting Professor from the very famed National University of Singapore?"

Pulling connections:" You have got to listen to me and respect me. I am the daughter Thio Su-Mein, the Feminist Mentor of Singapore"

Pulling evidence: "If you don't believe me, you can take a look at pg 73!

And it would be at this point where the mob of 6 look downright threatening that she loudly orders "Shut Up or Sit down!".

That would be quite a sight.

Why I would stay at the Four Seasons

2009-07-16T14:53:00.004+08:00

The Four Seasons is known for its service. We vouch for that. The Sydney Four Seasons was really great to us when we were there on our honeymoon all those years ago. When our friends got married at the Four Seasons here, we had nothing to complain about either. All was good.

But yesterday, while walking past the back of it, I found another reason why I would like to stay at the Four Seasons if I could afford it. There was a big vegetable patch round the back where each department was growing something. Most of it were herbs or vegetables that could be used for cooking. And it reminded me a little bit about our school science gardens. It wasn't glammed up and spruced up by housekeeping or maintainence and that's what I liked about it. There was something real about it, right down to the marker pens they used to colour out the name of the plant they were growing.

I just wish more people did more. Two days ago, the papers talked about how an Australian town banned bottle water followed by how much bottled water Singaporeans consumed and how much oil and plastic that wasted. That was followed by analysts and the public declaring that despite Singapore having drinkable tap water, not many were keen with drastically reducing the consumption of bottled water.

How disappointing it is!

Technorati Tags: Singapore, The Four Seasons, environmental consciousness

20 year hindsight

2009-07-14T23:38:00.002+08:00

I picked up copy of Time magazine today. It was a June summer issue and it was doing the year 1989 and how that one year has shaped how the world has changed. My initial thought was "Seriously?" I lived through 1989 and all I remember about it was being concerned about running track meets and trying to win them despite being injured.

But being a self-absorbed teenager meant things happening to me were more important that what was going on in the world. Of course, I had vague impressions about some of the so called "life-altering" events. I stopped and thought about how my juvenile mind interpreted and coded those events.

1. Tiananmen Square
Then: I remember the picture of the guy standing in front of the tank. I remember calling it Tai-nan-men Square and incurring the wrath of Olie who saw it her place to correct me. I remember my mother telling me that the guys in the tanks were death row murderers and therefore had no qualms running over student protesters.

Now: I wonder where my mother got her facts from but she believed that of the Chinese, the invading Japanese force during the Occupation all those years ago and I suspect the Nazis. I also now know that it was a pro-democracy rally and it had started months earlier, culminating in the June crackdown and it lost China the opportunity to host the Olympics some eight years earlier. Actually I knew that last point about 10 years ago but putting two and two together took some time.

2. The Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Then: I was holidaying in Perth with my parents and my cousin. My boy crazy cousin and I were more interesting in picking up cute bell boys at the hotel than to pay attention to the fact that the Berlin Wall had come tumbling down. I recall a friend of my parents saying it was "a day for the history books" and I was like "yah yah, whatever. Let's go shopping please!"

Later on: Having studied the Cold War as part of my history syllabus in college, the significance of it became very clear to me and it wasn't the beginning but the very end of a long row of political dominoes that began when Gorbachev realised the Soviet Union was too broke to maintain a Soviet empire.

Now: My history tutor then remarked that I had an eye for the ridiculous and absurd and once again he was proved correct. Reading all these accounts of what were world shaping events, what stood out for me about the account of the fall of the Berlin Wall was that the writer got falling grit from the wall into his eye and it knocked out his contact lenses. My immediate thought was whether his cornea was scratched in the process. Not something to be deliberating when reading about the last bastion of communism turning into a pile of rock.

There were others but I would be lying if I said I knew any of the rest in any sort of detail 20 years ago. I think I'd heard about Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam but possibly the latter because my brothers watched Tour of Duty, the television show and I liked the intro credits played to The Rolling Stones. And I think I wondered if Cambodia and Kampuchea (you'd know it if you played RISK) were the same countries.

Today, I know a little bit more about Vietnam, primarily because I'm a fan of pho and summer rolls as well as because one of my best friends is shacking up in Saigon at the moment. Cambodia? I know that I shared a history class with Sihanouk's grand daughter in university, it is home to Ang Kor Watt and Tomb Raider was shot there. And before some starts making seriously disapproving noises, I do know about Pol Pot and the Killing Fields. But all this was recent knowledge acquisition and not something I'd learnt in school from a text book.

So it leads me to question, how did I get from being what Packrat terms a "jockette" whose only focus in life was to break track records to someone who realised putting two and two together isn't that big a challenge when I decide to put all the absurdity out of focus? Someone once said I was smart. Erm, nope. I don't think so. Mix with some of the dudes I hang with and you'll feel dumb as a door post.

Maybe it's just hindsight. That makes things fall into place. They say hindsight's 20/20. Well, 20 years does make some difference.

Technorati Tags: 1989, Time Magazine

More than meets the eye

2009-07-02T10:19:00.002+08:00

We went to see Transformers 2 a few days ago. Someone gave us Gold Class tickets a few months back and we needed to use it up. So on the last day of its validity, we decided to use it on the only movie in Gold Class- Transformers 2. Of course, I didn't have high hopes for the movie. On top of that, Packrat didn't have high hopes. At least we got plush arm chairs and relax in for 148 minutes, we consoled ourselves.

But as with situations where there are zero or half star expectations, it shines through. Although it was not as good as the first, according to Packrat, I think I had a lot more fun with it. It probably had to do with 2 different factors. First, it had way more military stuff and growing up with 2 brothers and doing the Soviet-US arms race as part of my college history syllabus has made me a girl full of contradictions. Second, related to the first, is that I didn't have to bother about canon and about the fact that Optimus Prime was ruthless in the movie in a way he never was in the cartoon. When I just shrugged my shoulders at this comment, I received a loud 'tsk' from Packrat as well as a "why were you not paying attention as a child?" What really did me in was when I referred to the Constructicons as Constructobots.

My defence to the dagger stares was that I did not watch Transformers growing up as I was busy with Barbie Dolls and all things girl. Neither did I watch Mask Crusaders and Robotech or whatever else. I know of them and to me, that's enough. When I ask Packrat to name Barbie Dolls from our time, he can't, so I guess I'm still one up on him.

And all that allows me to be not so particular about movies because I have no frame of reference. Does it make me a ditz? Well, maybe. But a ditz who appreciates a movie because of the amount of military hardware is well, better than a ditz who swoons over Shia LeBeouf anytime. Well, in my book anyway.

Technorati Tags: Transformers 2, childhood

Coming of age

2009-06-24T21:59:00.002+08:00

My birthday and the twins' birthday are a day apart. I've been very focussed on what we're going to do for them and not so much myself. This morning, I get a text message from my brother asking what I want for my birthday and I really had no clue. I told him to either buy me a holiday or skin care products and between the two, skin care products were boring. My other brother is apparently getting me household appliances for my birthday. I really don't mind because I don't particularly care.

Packrat asked why I was wistful today. Try as I may, I just couldn't really get into planning my birthday. Gone are the days when I wanted jackets, phones, PDAs, wallets, bags and goodness knows what else for my birthday. Gone are the days where I want parties. I'm more than happy to have a party for the twins. Like our anniversary, what was funnier was how the twins celebrated it with us. Does that mean, I've sold out and have turned into one of those women who are nothing more than a mom?

I don't think so. I think it's more that I don't really feel the need to yell on top of my lungs from roof tops that I am a year older. I am well aware of that. Watching women jog down Holland Road this morning, I distinctly felt that my thighs had grown to the size of elephants. I might be exaggerating here but I am no longer as fit as I used to be and ten years ago, I think I could do a 1000 sit ups without very much problems. I haven't done a sit up since I got pregnant with the twins so that's how far down the trenches I've sunk to.

Packrat promised to make it a big deal. But I told him it wasn't necessary. He thinks I'm unenthusiastic because I'm feeling under the weather. But I think it's got to do with ageing more than malaise although the malaise is a big pain in the ass. And now, he's fallen ill so not only are the thin dreams of tomorrow being special tossed by the way side, I'm in for serious baby sitting, the kids and the husband and have to pray very hard that he hasn't fallen prey to the dreaded flu bug that threatens to very dramatically throw a spanner into the works.

So, what would I really want for my birthday? For my husband to be right as rain tomorrow. Everything else, really doesn't matter two pence.

Technorati Tags: birthday, presents

Seasons of a woman's life

2009-06-15T00:37:00.002+08:00

The first time I visited to Phuket, Phuket smelt of freedom. It was my first vacation without my parents. It was my first vacation with just friends. It was just after my 'A' Levels. Needless to say, the thought of the Phuket I went to then gives me a heady feeling. This is my third time in Phuket in the last 14 years. And each time, it has come to mean something entirely different. I am amazed how much my life has changed in the span of time it takes for an infant to become a rebellious teenager. And I think, in some ways, my life mirrors that analogy.

The first time, like I said, was a birth of new experiences. We went to Club Med where we ate and drank like there was no tomorrow or no weighing machine. I had no curfew (except for some strange warning from my mom to stay away from gypsies). I think I had enough alcohol for the first time to feel high and have a headache the next morning. We stayed up and lounged around because we could. We spent all day at the beach because we could although that meant lobster red shoulders and cheeks. I bought a white shift dress that I wouldn't be caught dead in today because it was short, tight, white and well, short. But for an 18 year old with a tiny waist, legs that had just won her prom night's best legs and a tan that glowed from a mile away, it seemed like the best choice.

The second time I went to Phuket, I was a fair bit older and somewhat older. I was married. I had my kids six months prior to the trip and it was my first vacation away from them. We chose luxury that time. Indulged as if on our honeymoon. The chauffeured driven Mercedes with reclining seats that took us from the airport to the resort. The villa that opened up to a pool where a chef would cook dinner for us and we dined by candlelight. It was a different type of freedom. For the first time in 6 months, Packrat and I were alone on our own, we had time for conversation, we had time to sleep and we had time to be like children carvoting in the waves, teenage surfer bums drinking mugs of cold beer (him) and coconuts (me) at the straw huts that peppered the beachline and adults dining with champagne. A divine break from reality.

This is my third time and this time, I am back in Phuket not just with Packrat but with the twins, the grandparents and a grandaunt to boot. This time, I am the twins' shadow. I'm up when they're up, I'm asleep when they're asleep (except for now). I'm in the pool when they are and any spare time I have, I'm trying to cater for their meals or wash/prepare their bottles. It defines my existence now. It could be worse I know. At least there are other people around who are able to take the twins' off my hands when I need to use the bathroom or prepare their meals. But this is the first vacation I've spent more time in the hotel room than out (except for the time when we went to Bintan and it rained 3 days straight). I'm struggling to break out, to break free, to have a moment just by myself or to talk a walk with Packrat by the water at night. I feel like a frustrated teen that is dying to break out and just break curfew for once except all I'm hankering for is some time to do my nails. And I watch these kids outside our window as they fling, flip and swing their way in space during their Trapeze School lessons and I'm wishing I could be there, soaring through the air without a care in the world.

The reality is that unlike a teenager, I am well aware of my responsibilities. And I have to carry them out. It is what propels me out of bed at the crack of dawn when the kids wake up because I cannot bring myself to fob them off or to leave others to tend to their morning needs. It is why I haven't chucked a fit about not seeing more of the resort than the children's pool and playground. I'm here for the twins and that's fine. Except, there's a little part of me, which has not sold out into Mommy mode who cries out for some air and space. That little part's not likely to get any air time soon. But I guess that's what it means to be all growed up. More than most 14 year olds would but I guess the difference is while 14 years have passed, I do not have the luxury of having the sensitivities of a 14 year old.

Technorati Tags: Phuket, vacation, growing up, Seasons of a girl's life

Travelling with the family

2009-06-12T07:54:00.002+08:00

I'm travelling for the first time with twins, the in-laws and the extended family. This will mark one of the first school vacations where Packrat and I aren't going off anywhere on our own. That thought in itself makes me NOT A HAPPY CAMPER

What else doesn't make for a happy camper? Other people telling me what I NEED to pack for the twins and what I should do to try and make them comfortable. I think I generally hate that because it questions my authority as a Mom. So, it's not really about the travelling. It's just that this upcoming holiday seems to have everyone trampling on my delicate toes.

Of course, Packrat will say I'm being uber-sensitive as I have a penchant to be these days. I pouted and sulked for half an hour because he allegedly snapped at me while we were trying to get the twins to sleep. I say allegedly because he claims he was just trying to make himself heard. Anyway, yes. There is much Mommy angst because I hate packing and I'm all over the place. Right now, I need to remember to go to the supermarket to buy the twins a loaf of bread, some floor cleaner for our helpers here, a small bottle of liquid detergent for the twins paraphenalia and I'm sure other things. As much as I am stressed, I loathe writing things down because inadvertently the scraps that I note things down on gets lost in the wind or by grubby little fingers deploying creative marker streaks all over it.

Ok, this is just a ranting post. I don't really have time for this because I need to get ready and start my day that will end with us being in Phuket. Hopefully by then, my aggro levels would have plateaued and all the voices barking at me in my head would have quieted down or tired by then. Goodness, I sound like I should be swatting imaginary flies next and need to be committed. Or the Man will just have to swoop in and take me on another holiday sans family, twins and just good food, good shopping and a good hotel room.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, travelling

Hurdle

2009-06-05T08:13:00.002+08:00

A hurdle is something that needs to be overcome before you get to the end point. Hurdles, metaphorically and literally come in all heights.When I started hurdling (late in my track career), the hurdles were high, even for my relatively long legs. That and my inexperience meant many bruises on my knees and a lot of stumbles and scraps.

Just when things had begun to ease up and I was beginning to get used to the demands of my race, I moved up one division and had no choice but to choose another event to compete in and what was open was the one with tall and what seemed like insurmountable hurdles. Why couldn't I go back to cruising and doing what I was doing? I didn't understand.

Did I wish this on myself? Possibly. Did I know what I was getting myself into? Probably not? Was I ready to get used to more pain, more exhaustion and less time? I don't really know if I have a choice.

Sufficed to say, tears brimmed, blood was shed occasionally, joints bruised, muscles pulled, strained and stretched all in the name of clearing those hurdles.

I find myself in the same position now with hurdles. More metaphorical ones. But with the same demands, sacrifices and consequences. Am I ready for this new event? No. Do I have what it takes? I don't know till I try. Is it going to be hard? You bet it is. Is it going to be rewarding? Probably if the toll doesn't kill me first. Am I looking forward to it? Honestly? No. Do I have a choice? No.

One word describes it all. And it rhymes pretty much with duck.

6 years post SARS

2009-06-01T22:34:00.002+08:00

May 31st 2003 was the day Singapore was declared SARS free. 6 years down, Singapore's got a couple of cases of H1N1 that authorities fear would develop into another social catastrophe the way SARS did. 6 years ago, amidst celebration of being germ free, Packrat and I got married. 6 years after, amidst another uncertain time, we celebrated our 6th year.

Has it changed? The way we celebrated it? Yes. This year has been a lean year for us because we've bought a flat, renovated it and are in the midst of furnishing it all the while, surviving on one salary. So yes, it is lean. Usually, we spend our anniversaries overseas. Melbourne, Perth, Vancouver...or we make a big deal out of it with gifts, by going some place nice for dinner and checking into our favourite hotel, the Ritz-Carlton. But this year, we stayed in town, checked ourselves into a cheaper hotel and had breakfast at the coffee shop across the road from the hotel.

Is it true that after a couple of years, things get staid? After all, we are approaching the 7 year itch. Will it really itch? I hope not. But yes, it is different. There were no flowers, no big gifts or gestures of love. Did that mean that we were in the slammer and would have to sleep on the couch? Not really. I think after 6 years, there are more important things that overt gestures of gifts. Yes, the both of us still love gifts and still love being surprised. But I've never been big on sparkling gifts that come in pretty blue boxes with a white bow around it. They are nice, I'd be thrilled but it's not important to me.What is important to me is that Packrat is around, spends time talking to me and we can hold hands, snuggle and do silly couple things like walk about town late at night drinking bubble tea and people watching. And this weekend, was just about that.

But even with that, reality crept in. Albeit in a nice way. We took advantage of the fact that for 2 days, we had no parental responsibilities and went and got our flat furnished. As we are trying to do it on a budget, we found ourselves at our first auction. We managed to snag a dining table we wanted but lost a coffee table to a mistake and lost a storage table and a bar table/ stool set because we weren't just being too tight-fisted.

Next time, we know to be more discerning and a little bit more bold. But for a marriage that was built on a common thirst for new experiences, it was apt that on our anniversary, we ventured into buying second hand furniture. Call it making the best of a bad situation or whatever, we had fun.

Check out Diaperbag to find out how the twins celebrated our anniversary with us.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, wedding anniversary auctions, furnishing new home,

Twin cities of Singapore

2009-05-26T22:48:00.005+08:00

I found this map on Google Analytics and it tickled me funny. The map shows the number of hits that come from Singapore. In this case, 38. And when the Singapore hyperlink is clicked on, it breaks it down into 37 PLUS 1.

The big orange dot in the middle is where the 37 hits are centred. Then if you look carefully up north, there's a tiny dot there. That's the one. Run the cursor over it and it tells you it's a different city and that city is Woodlands.

So, Google Analytics reads Singapore and Woodlands as different cities. Sengkang and Punggol are ok. So's Jurong West. It's just Woodlands.

I have friends who live in Woodlands and they affectionately call themselves residents of Northern Siberia. Olie quips that they are self sufficient and they actually have a Starbucks and a post office.

I couldn't live there. It's too far from anything. And even though it's a self-contained bubble, it feels like a long commute to head into the other city of Singapore where everyone else lives. I wonder if they have their own area code. :)

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Woodlands

SPUR- Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience

2009-05-25T07:15:00.002+08:00

I've been quiet lately because my head has been filling with an entirely new library of information. Perhaps it's my way of subconsciously obeying the government and upgrading myself as they have been nagging Singaporeans to do, especially in this time and age. Perhaps, but unlikely. When have I ever listened to what anyone has told me to do?

Anyway, in the last week, I've learnt terms like web hosting, domains, name servers, HTML coding, the importance of , pathways and locations, FTPs and SSLs. I've also learnt that people who know this with their eyes closed should be paid whatever money they charge because at times, I thought I would go blind and or crazy and chuck a hissy fit. Especially after the nth time a messages pops up and tells me that I've failed in whatever I was attempting to do.

So why am I subjecting myself to this? Something I was obviously not born to do. I hate anything logical, math/ science and non-human based. I hate things that are not pretty. So why? Because I've got it into my head that I, of all people, would like to set up a website from scratch. Well, not really from scratch but close enough. It wasn't like I could just use a template from Blogger like I did with this and my other blog. There was a template but it required much input on my part and that was the part that has kept me busy and annoyed for the better part of the week.

But at the same time, it promises to be fun, exciting and a new adventure. Stay tuned and I'll let you know once it's up and running!

Technorati Tags: Singapore, retraining, building websites

Dreaming of sandwiches?

2009-05-24T08:55:00.001+08:00

When I climbed back into the bed about 4.30 am this morning, Packrat rolled over in his sleep and wrapped his arms round me. How nice, I thought, as I slowly drifted back to sleep. Only to have him whisper urgently into my ear. I strained, thinking perhaps he was trying to be frisky despite all other signs of being extremely unawake pointing away from it.

Packrat: It's very important. We have work to do.
Me (puzzled and wondering what weird ass dream he was having): What work?
Packrat: We have homework.
Me (Man! Is this a school dream? All ideas of frisk definitely jumping ship): Homework?
Packrat: Yes, sandwich homework.
Me (Obviously, the husband's subconscious is of the bizarro but determined to make full use of it): Sandwich homework? Peanut butter and jelly? Kaya? Or Nutella?
Packrat: All.
Me: We better start cracking them.
Packrat: Eggs.

Right. Obviously not a conversation worth pursuing. But it sure made me hungry and awake enough to chuckle at 5 in the morning.

Technorati Tags: life, sleep, marriage

Money minds

2009-05-19T18:11:00.002+08:00

My six months of sabbatical are almost up. That means I have to decide whether to go back to work soon. The issues are typical. Money (Tangible, materialistic) vs quality time and quality of life (intangible, soul-enriching). I'm quite a control person. I like things within my control. When I saw our bank statements and the realisation of how this dream of being a Stay-At-Home-Mom was seriously hemorrhaging our savings, Little Miss Control Freak panicked.

Did I need to go back to teaching? Packrat pointed out that I was a much nicer person and a much better mom while I have lived the life of a non-teacher. But can we afford for me to be a non-teacher for much longer? Then there is the whole larger picture of perhaps I should find something I really want to do with my life and start working towards that. Problem? I don't particularly know what I want to do with my life. A simpler proposal was just to be a good mom for these couple of years and be there for the kids while they are at their most sponge-like times (i.e. now) and make the best out of it, for them and for myself. I like the third option best but I'm realistic enough to know I can't make it work if I'm not earning an income. And I'm realistic enough to know that with play school fees, car and house payments as well as helper salary and levy, we can't live on one civil servant's salary unless that was a Superscale salary and Packrat laugh hysterically at that thought.

So what am I left to do? Sell my soul and return to something that makes in inherently unhappy but allows me to provide financially for my family? The very pragmatic in society will tell me with a sigh that young people nowadays want everything. Good paying salaries for jobs they enjoy and that is a pipe dream. I should suck it up, just like our parents did for us.

But I also know enough to question what is the point of being able to make enough if that is going towards sending the kids to full day play school because Mom isn't home when they wake from their naps in the afternoon? And what is the point of buying them a whole ton of toys and books if Mom isn't there to play it with them and read it to them? Even now, sometimes, I leave them to their own devices or their other caregivers while I sneak in some chill time or some work time and those times, I feel guilty as hell because I haven't really reconciled the fact that a good mother doesn't need to spend every breathing moment doing something with her kids.

Packrat's final words on the subject however were reassuring. We have enough savings for a while yet. And I'm not squandering it on the new season Kate Spades and at the spa. I'm using it so that I can be with the kids. And that to him is the definition of good and responsible stewardship of money. Now, I can't argue with that logic and the rest of it, in his opinion will sort itself out.

Technorati Tags: parenthood, SAHM

Egging the eye

2009-05-13T08:25:00.010+08:00

Updated as of 2137 hrs 13 May 2009

I hate eye make-up and eye make-up hates me. It doesn't matter that my mother says I have nice Peranakan eyes (whatever those are!) that are great canvases for eye make-up. Every time I put on eye make-up something bad happens.

On Friday I had to because I had a photo shoot and it required mascara and eye shadow. Eye shadow is the lesser of the two evils so I use that a tad bit more often. But mascara. I think it's got something to do with sensitive tear ducts and whatever other lubricant producing pores I have in my eye.

Anyway, on Sunday night through the night, I began to increasingly feel like either something had bitten me on the eye or someone imaginary had hit me hard in the eye. There was the tell tale bruised feeling as well as a red-rimmed lid. The doctor subsequently confirmed that one of my tear ducts had gotten blocked and was therefore infected. The cure was simple. Compress and antibiotic ointment.

The problem was after the antibiotic ointment, the swelling looked worse. I now looked like Rocky Balboa after he'd fought the Russian Dolph Lundgren and it itched! Turns out, my penchant for antibiotic allergies applies to ointment too and my eye really didn't like the ointment much. All that was left to do was to try and alleviate the swelling with compress.

Anyone who has kids or has had sport injuries knows that compress in the form of a wet towel whether cold or hot is ineffective. It loses its heat or coolness too quickly. When I was breastfeeding and had mastisis, the best heat compress came in the form of a milk bottle filled with hot water because it was cylindrical and I could roll it. I needed the same thing for the eye and was advised to try a hard boiled egg. Not because it will seep the toxins from the eye as some believe but because it is soft, can be rolled around and traps heat well.

Of course, Olie was plenty grossed out especially because I said that it was nice to be able to eat my remedy after I was done with it. But hey, at least, I hadn't put a raw steak on my eye which was supposed to have even better healing properties.

I have however, admitted that the egg can only take it that far and am going back to the doctor to possibly get a jab to reduce the swelling and the itchiness. It's not a nice prospect but it sure beats feeling self conscious, unglamourous and paranoid that everyone thinks I am full of infectious germs.

----

I sent the above picture of my eye to my doctor brother and his immediate message was "Go to the GP, get a shot". This coming from my brother, who was trained by the "take Panadol" school of medicine, was enough to send me running straight to the clinic.

What ensued was the most painful procedure of my life. This coming from someone who has had 4 wisdom teeth extracted in one sitting, corrective eye surgery (Not LASIK), a laparoscopy, several surgeries in the name of having the kids including the C-section and NONE of them came close to the pain I felt today. It turned out that infected duct was in infected in two different places and it was in dire need of draining. This was done with a hypodermic needle and antiseptic eyedrops. Apparently, it was like trying to drain a pimple except the skin surface on the underneath of the eyelid is a lot more sensitive than the skin on the surface of our skin. So, the pain was unparalleled to anything I have ever felt before and tears were just involuntarily streaming down my face. The doctor, however credits me with an extremely high pain threshold because I didn't even move through the whole thing. Of course by that point, I was like "I'll tell you the nuclear weapon codes, just make it stop!" No need waterboarding or whatever else the CIA could think of to elicit false information.

It's over now but the pain required some Nurofen as well as an antihistamine to knock me out cold. Now, I'm just going to be either mistaken for thinking pink eyeliner is in for the next week or Packrat's going to get hauled up on 'suspected wife-beater' charges.
----

Technorati Tags: blocked tear duct, home remedies

School before self

2009-05-02T13:43:00.002+08:00

As I write, I'm sure the riot police are donning their full riot gear and headed down to Suntec City. These riot police are probably muttering under their breath about women and their petty whatevers and making them burn their weekend.

Why am I not at Suntec? Why am I not making my vote count to get rid of the Bible-bashing women activists? Well, if I were a member of AWARE before this clown show started, I would but for me to join up now would be just replicating what this new bunch did and endorsing their way of making themselves heard. And much as I want them to go back to church, I don't want to use their weapon of choice.

In the last week, the impact of Josie and her pussycats have hit home. It's made me think about where I stand as a parent and where I stand as a teacher and a larger member of society. As a parent, of course I worry that my kids get taught things in school that are not in accordance to the values that I hold true and wish to raise my children with. Of course, as a parent, I fear that my children will be sexually groomed in some way (either homosexually or heterosexually) and we don't find out about it till it is too late. But are these fears sufficient enough to warrant a dial back to the days of yore where children got stoned at the city gates for disobeying their parents?

If I gave in to these fears and concerns and allow this new bunch of people to use a secular organization as their scare-mongering, bully pulpit, I would also be allowing them to restrict what we can teach in school. As is, schools have been targeted for teaching gender issues in an impartial manner, which is to say that we teach students that alternative sexuality exists and that these are people who face struggles, some of which are similar to what heterosexuals face and others which are harder to fight because they are born out of discrimination and prejudices. We do not teach them that it is right to be gay but we teach them not to judge those who decide to be gay. Why do we do this?

Because our responsibility is to teach them to see things in an impartial manner whatever the issue. We teach them that they can take a passionate stand but they must also be able to see where the other side is coming from. And only in that way can they make a coherent argument. The students that excel in my subject are the ones that are able to articulate a mature argument about any given subject, sexuality and gender issues included. This means they need to be aware of all the arguments. Be aware of all the controversies and be able to make sense out of it. How are they to do that if the day comes when we are not allowed to teach them some arguments because it offends the sensitivities of a powerful some who have generalised their views as the right view to take?

It has begun in schools. Emails have been circulated. Aghast emails about what is taught in the classroom, outrage that we dare to expose kids who are about old enough to serve the nation and die for the nation to alternative lifestyles and the likes. This slippery slope is an extremely steep one and the end will come fast and quick. And when it comes, these yokos better not blame us for sending their darlings into the exam with nothing in the pretty heads because that's what's going to happen. Censor gender issues, next will be abortion, euthanasia, gambling, stem-cell research, terrorism and it goes on and on till there's nothing left.

By then, we'll be out of a job although by then, all the money in the world wouldn't be able to keep us from staying on. It really wouldn't be what we signed up for when we decided that teaching was our vocation. And that's where it will head with Josie and her pussycats. And that's why, even though I am a parent first and a teacher second, I'm putting my foot down.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, AWARE

Caretaker of the islands of the Great Barrier Reef

2009-04-29T09:32:00.003+08:00

Apparently 34 000 people applied to be the caretaker of the Great Barrier Reef, well the islands of the Great Barrier Reef. Apparently, it is the Best Job in the World. Hence, 34 000 people want it. Apparently, of the 16 that are shortlisted, one is from Singapore. But as with anything great that has to do with Singapore, the person involved is a foreign import. An American School Phys-Ed teacher. Teaching in Singapore. So, we take the opportunity to boast that someone from our sunny shores got shortlisted.

I wondered about it for a while. If anyone would take it. I wondered if I could do it. Scanning the list of requirements,

- Excellent interpersonal communication skills ( Who am I going to communicate with? The birds of the sky and creatures of the seas? Anyway, check, interpersonal communication skills)

- Good written and verbal English skills (Check. I blog, I teach English, I speak English)

- An adventurous attitude (Not sure about that. I was adventurous enough to risk having twins and had twins! Does that count?)

- Willingness to try new things (Hmmm.... so so I guess. Depends on what new things)

- A passion for the outdoors (Depends, do I have a clean bathroom, a nice bed and air- conditioning to come back to?)

- Good swimming skills and enthusiasm for snorkelling and/or diving (Swimming yes, snorkelling and diving... right family, wrong Ng)

- Ability to engage with others (I used to make a pretty good living out of teaching and engaging people. So, I guess... Check)

- At least one year’s relevant experience in terms of

a) feeding the 15 000 species of fish (I'm not sure if I can count up to 15 000. Does it involve feeding them wriggly worms?)

b) cleaning the pool- I'm not sure if they mean this figuratively or literally. Whether it is really a swimming pool or they are referring to the ocean is a swimming pool.

c) collect the mail (I'm guessing, that doesn't just mean, walking up to the mail box and opening it)

So, I'm not entirely sure if I'm qualified. Although it is appealing for various reasons.

I'd be able to sleep as much as I want and need.
Get a tan.
Read all the books I'd want to.
Blog to my heart's content even though I'm not sure what I'd blog about.
Take a break from everything and earn quite a pocketful of small change.

But Packrat scoffs at me and says I won't be able to do it for various reasons.

I need social interaction.
I'd miss my kids. Packrat, I'd pack him along.
There are no spas at the Hamilton Islands where I can get my brows and nails and whatnot done.
There are no shops.
There will be no McDs on the island and hence, no iced tea. How would I survive?

I think the most important reason is that I am a social person and find it a regular necessity to do things with other people. Packrat, on the other hand, has got no problems going it alone. Of course, had he applied and got it, I'd still insist he takes me and perhaps I'd make regular jaunts to the nearest city.

Technorati Tags: Great Barrier Reef, jobs

The goat has been got.

2009-04-24T10:11:00.002+08:00

I've stayed away from blogging about the whole AWARE fiasco that has gripped Singapore the same way TT Durai and his gold taps did. I generally feel like there is enough sentiment and bloggers out there who would have given the issue enough air time. But early this morning, something in me snapped and I was roused out of my usual morning sleep-deprived stupor, as was Packrat as he was the receiving end of my overdue tirade.

Lawyer Thio Su Mien was in this morning's papers stating that she felt that she needed to lead the coup that toppled incumbent AWARE leadership because of the AWARE Sexuality Education programme that introduces homosexuality as a 'neutral' word rather than a 'bad' word.

'I started thinking, 'Hey, parents, you better know what's happening,'' she said. 'I talked to parents. I said: You better do something about this, otherwise your daughter will come back and say, 'Mum, I want to marry my girlfriend. Or your son will say: 'Dad, I want to marry my boyfriend.''

These parents were flabbergasted, she said, adding that such sexuality education was taking place in the United States and Europe and was not new.
'What is happening in society is that we are redefining marriage, we are redefining families,' she said.
'So I'm a concerned citizen and if people are so ignorant, I think I want to teach them.'

At that point, the only thing that stopped me from swearing and spitting at the newspaper was the presence of my 22 month old baby girl who was picking up words faster than the filters in my brain could work.

Homosexuality is not a neutral word. But she is not against homosexuality. But she has counselled and ministered to them. But they are in pain and are the product of abuse. But she fears that one day there will be a society full of lesbians. And the contradictions go on and on.

I know some who read this will disagree with me. Who feel that homosexuality is something that is bad and that these new women in charge of the only women's advocacy group is doing a wonderful thing for family values.

So let's see if I can deconstruct why this pisses me off. First off, I am Christian and I know that homosexuality is a sin against God. But as are a whole host of other things that aren't open to social and civil persecution. I know that I would raise my children heterosexual imbue upon them that homosexuality is not a lifestyle choice we would encourage or condone. But that said and I know this makes the angry radicals out there brand me as hypocritical, I have no issues with people who chosen to be so. But that's because I separate my own beliefs and values from what I expect of society. My views of how I would like to raise my children are based on my Christian values. Our society chooses and is proud to be a secular one. So, in a secular society, why the judgement?

Why the roll back to the closed conservative values of the 80's? Because we have come some distance in acknowledging alternative lifestyles? Of course, one can take comfort in the fact that these fundamental extremists are social activists and social activists only exist in a society that has progressed to the point where civil action is acknowledged as an effective instrument of expression. But we are not the US or a European nation where the citizenry is large enough to be divisive but every group, including minorities get to be represented. In Singapore, we have ONE women's advocacy group, that champions the rights of women, regardless of sexuality. And if this group decides lesbians are not women worthy to be championed, then what use are they if they are marginalising the very people they are supposed to be protecting?

And that's where this woman pissed me off. She claims that the Sexuality Education will encourage an entire generation to grow up gay and want to marry their gay spouses. She worries about lesbians, basically taking over the world. And therefore this coup was necessary to prevent it from becoming a disaster.

I constantly rail at students in class for giving me such stupid, narrow minded and obviously flawed arguments when we speak of gender issues in class. Acknowledging homosexuality does not make an entire generation gay. It's the same stupidity that gives credence to the 'giving out condoms will encourage people to have sex' argument. And it pisses me off that the educated are such bigots.

Perhaps, I am a bigot too, because I have gay friends but would do what I can to prevent my children from being gay. But by that logic, I am then guilty on various fronts. I have Muslim friends and Hindu friends and Buddhist friends. I like them and am close to them. I would not encourage my children to convert but I have them as friends. So am I hypocritical and a bigot? Am I not a true friend to them? But perhaps, I am different because I am not out to crucify them and to deprive them of rights.

Packrat thinks I should join AWARE just so that I can cast my vote of no confidence. I will give it serious thought. I think the both of us truly grew up when we were both living in a society much more liberal than Singapore is. And we have no qualms bringing our children back there to raise them. We do not fear that they will be made gay just because there is Mardi Gras celebrated once a year and that the uni lounges have Gay and Lesbian movements. In fact, we quite like the idea that our children be taught not to judge, that they see that different people live in different ways.

In my mind, it's simple. There is an order to this. Before a woman is gay, she is a woman. Before she is a woman, she is a person. And I believe, respect and rights should be accorded in that order. What so difficult about that?

Technorati Tags: Singapore, AWARE, women's issues

Membership

2009-04-18T10:04:00.002+08:00

Exclusivity.

That's usually the reason why people join clubs. The more expensive, the harder to access, the better. It gives the member a feeling of belonging and superiority. It is very hankered after, people do what they can within their power and sometimes beyond their power to get in. What do they do when part of a club? The really hard core ones would pretend that the only world that exists is within the walls of the club and anything outside of that is inconsequential.

And those from the outside who look in, whether it is because of jealousy of not belonging or whether it is pure disapproval cannot wrap their heads how a collective group of people can be self-absorbed or imagine the world is that small.

Bring it down a notch and group dynamics are the same.

Those in a group think nothing about it. Those who watch from without, either yearn to be within or bitch about why it is a big deal. Those who yearn will then either bitch or find ways to worm their way in. Often this happens by preying on the most harmless, nicest person within the group. Be friends with that person and hope that pays off in group dividends. It doesn't matter if a new persona has to be adopted, after a while, it fits like second skin. After a while, the chameleon becomes so comfortable in the persona she adopts, she forgets who she is.

Enter the world of Gossip Girl and Queen B and Queen S. Where they knowingly or unknowingly exclude the lesser-bees and do not bother how their excluding others hurts them. TV mimicking the real world group dynamics. One wonders if it's a sense of cluelessness, entitlement or just maliciousness.

It's not hard to observe, in any social setting. And even within the group, there is an inner core and the hangers-on. The inner core are secure in the knowledge of their membership. The hangers-on try and work hard to make sure that they are at the right places, do the right thing, wear the right clothes, eat the right food and look the right way.

I keep seeing it around me. I see it in school, with the kids. How there are the groups that are loud to attract attention. How there are people who always glare at them but if you looked close enough into their eyes, you saw that it was not just annoyance but envy at being able to belong and being able to be known. I see the ones that have been turned away because they are too independent, too individualistic, too non-conformist; being too secure in their self-identity to be 'made-over'. And even those feel a sense of hurt and rejection because they are after all human.

Social psychology is interesting that way. It teaches you to read crowds and people in the crowd. It teaches you to distinguish the ring leaders and to actually look beneath and examine the motivations. It teaches you also to understand why the ones that don't belong, behave in a certain way and how it inadvertently affects who they are. Social psychology also teaches how as an individual, each person within a group has the potential to be nice and to be cruel and usually on their own, they are on good behaviour and they could be your best of friends. Put them into a group of like-minded individuals and strangely, 2 and 2 does not equal 4 but possibly 22. The safety of the group's unwritten regulations allow them to then get away with behaviour which could be cruel, appalling and juvenile. And worst of all, they do it because they know they can get away with it. They know that no one can point a finger at any one of them because, after all, on their own, they're all nice, decent people.

Guys and girls, men and women are affected in the same way. I hear of wives telling of how their husbands being bullied in school created in them a wall that has taken that long to penetrate. Men, themselves who hate being in group situations and prefer the company of their spouses and families because they rather not be put into a situation where they are made to feel like they are back in high school. Girls who are mothers and successful and accomplished in their own fields reduced to an insecure puddle of tears because they are brought back to the days where they were awkward, tongue-tied and excluded just because they weren't involved in the same ditzy pursuits as the in crowd.

It's difficult to comfort those who have this particular skeleton in their closet. It's not something that can be chucked out or overcome, come spring-cleaning. The only thing they can do is pretend it doesn't bother them and hope that it is years before they have to go through another ordeal of rejection again because that's how long it would take them to recover depending on how small they were made to feel.

Ice Cream nights

2009-04-09T16:47:00.002+08:00

Since the kids came, we've eaten a lot of ice cream. It's been our way of bleeding off the stress, taking some time out and indulging in something sinful. Sneaking out for ice-cream was the ideal way to do that because there're quite a few ice cream places near us, an ice-cream duck out doesn't take that long (usually the length it takes to finish up the ice-cream) and they are open late.

So because of that, we've become veritable connoisseurs of ice cream. We have favourites. There are more than the 3 places we like but we like these 3 for various reasons. It's not really in order of preference. It's more in order of the frequency of us going there which has less to do with quality but more to do with the hours it stays open. That said, they are all yummy.

1. Haato at Ridgewood
Our oft visited joint. Mainly because it's the nearest ( a two-minute drive and Mr and Mrs Plentyfish live there), has got wifi, board games, yummy waffles and to die for sorbets. The gelato is ho-hum, nothing fantastic but the sorbets are super yum. I rediscovered my love for lychee because of their lychee sorbets which is divine and most yummilicious when mixed with Sprite. They also have yuzu sorbet and the most recent scrumptilicious one was pear sorbet. It's nice to just sit and chill there because it's by a pool (of the condo) and Packrat and I sometimes just sit and conversation flows very easily there.

2. The Daily Scoop.
Set up by a friend's friend and run by Packrat's ex-classmate, this place has the best ice-cream. Not low-fat gelato stuff but real ice cream and they mix it in a pan in front of you. It was one of the first places that started moving away from traditional ice cream flavours and experimenting with things like Honey Fig Butterscotch, Cempadak and Xtra Stout. The only problem is that it closes early and has become extremely crowded since a provision store sized Cold Storage opened in the same building. But when we get the opportunity to, we like going there. Yummy chocolate dipped waffle cones and a walk round Sunset Way estate is always great. We like fantasising about being able to afford a place there.

3. Ice Cream Chefs
Our least visited by virtue of the fact that we live on the other side of the island and we're hardly on that side of the island without the twins. Perhaps when the twins are older, it shall be somewhere to go to with them. When we were in Perth a few years ago, we were brought to this place called Cold Rock where they mix ice cream with what ever you want on a well, cold rock. It was awesome. Cold Rock made it to Singapore but the ice cream they used sucked. At round about the same time, Ice Cream Chefs opened, with the same concept but with home made ice cream and mix ins. So, it was a combination of Cold Rock and The Daily Scoop for us. Packrat had peanut butterscotch with peanut butter and nutella mixed in the first time we went there. That pretty much cancelled out conversation for us because his mouth was glued shut. They also did an awesome Granny Smith Apple pie ice cream and a Kaya roti ice cream with real bits of kaya toast in it. But it's a tiny hole in a wall and the only time we have been able to go there is Sunday evening which means we can't get a seat. But we've had the privilege of being at a birthday party where they were making ice cream shots for the kids. The adults had fun too.
Sigh, I need to go back there.

So all in, these are our favourite dessert stops. It's a wonder we're not larger than we are what with the number of times we go for ice cream just so that we can get some air. And right now, I'm dreaming of pear sorbet blended with apple juice and kiwi fruit. Hmm, a project for the Easter weekend.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, ice cream, Haato, The Daily Scoop, Ice Cream Chefs

Creatures of the night

2009-04-07T08:11:00.006+08:00

Packrat bought a PS 3 recently, much to my dismay. I recall nights of going to bed alone, getting monosyllabic replies, basically more of what I've had to endure with the various computer games he plays. And he wonders why I've been annoyed enough in my sleep to fling pillows at him and the dastardly game machine.

Anyway, the only way he could possibly redeem himself was to find something I could play on it, because then, I couldn't be all that mad with him if I could play on it too. The trick was to find something I did play on it because in all our ten years of together, there'd been only one game that I had played on the Playstation. Super Puzzle Fighter.

But since his ability to play in peace depended on it, the boy managed to unearth it, buy it over the PS 3 network and load it up. And last night, after the twins went to bed and all our grown up chores were done, we sat on the bed, eye-balled one another and set out to decimate each other by unloading the destruction of huge gems onto one another.

Obviously, he is better at it than I am. All his years of gaming have taught his fingers to work on the controller at speeds that my fingers could not fathom. It was like a sprinter with fast-twitch muscles thundering down the track with a marathoner beside him, depserately trying to keep up but not knowing what muscles to make his legs go faster.

We stopped round about midnight only because I was tired to begin with after the day that I had and was basically committing puzzle suicide. But for half an hour, we weren't parents, we weren't adults with jobs, we weren't living with my husband's parents. We were in Melbourne, we were on our living room floor, we were telling each other to 'eat dirt'. Basically, we were being kids.

And that was great.

Tonight, there will be a rematch.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, PS 3, Puzzle Fighter

A decade of Ondine and Packrat

2009-04-04T01:35:00.003+08:00

10 years ago today, it was Good Friday.

10 years ago today, a girl got ready to go to a ball.

10 years ago today, a boy bought a girl a corsage and hoped that the night would be everything he dreamed.

That night, the boy kissed the girl. The girl chuckled and blushed into his jacket.

That night, they walked the city streets huddled in warm jackets talking about everything and absolutely nothing.

Unbeknownst to them both, that night, the both of them fell in love.

That was 10 years ago.

Today, that boy and girl are still pretty much in love.

Today, they miss those long walks and nights full of warm cuddles.

Today, they've grown up a little bit and have had some kids.

But their hearts are as full as they were, ten years ago.

Happy tenth year, my love. And here's to a many more years of being my lobster.

Surreal much

2009-03-31T10:49:00.004+08:00

I spent last night in hospital. Not for the kids. For me.

Late yesterday afternoon, I had tummy cramps. I'd had them before. Gastric cramps. 3 weeks ago. I didn't think i was going to see a reoccurence so quickly. Anyway, we had a course to get to in the evening and half way there, I said to Packrat that I didn't think I could make my way through the entire 3 hour course. So we went home.

The cramps came in waves of 3. A little one. Sort of like an "aura" cramp. A mid-level pain one. And once that ebbs, the full on motherload one that left me climbing walls, biting pillows, banging headboards just to keep myself from screeching in agony.

Of course, Packrat decided that a GP wasn't going to be good enough, plus parking at night at Holland Village borders on the ridiculous so why waste time? It was straight to Emergency where thankfully, the staff saw that I was dire enough to whisk me right in. Apparently, it would have been bad PR to leave me waiting with the rest of the patients in the waiting room.

Once they got the pain under control, which incidentally took them a good 3 hours because what they started me on didn't work... I took a look around and then wondered if I was lucid or if it was one of those dreams that seemed that like reality but was actually a doppel-world.

There were people of all sorts. In my brother's (who did a couple of ER rotations) words, "lots of weirdos in the ER at night".

1. There was a drunk guy who was yelling at the staff for not allowing him to go to the bathroom. He was wearing an "I'm cool, what's it to you?" t-shirt that in my moments of clarity seemed stangely out of place but apt on him, at the same time.

2. There was a guy who kept yelling for drugs.

3. The one who snored like a fog horn beside me despite all the noise and lights in the ER.

4. The one who had bags and bags of vomit and was still going at it across the room.

5. An entire group of sombre people trooping in and then trooping out, leading me to think someone must have died.

6. The malingerer who kept saying that he had a brain tumour in his head because he had bump on his head and wanted to stay in hospital for a week.

7. Another one who was having chest compressions done to him.

8. Hearing all these terms like 'craniotomy' and 'lipoma' and actually hearing them use the term "push some tramadol".

9. Being able to watch Grey's Anatomy (without sound) while in the Emergency room.

10. Watching my blood spray onto the blanket and floor when they removed the drip and then wonder what sort of blood spatter pattern it was making in CSI terms.

Someone should make a tv episode through the eyes of the patient. It would be plenty bizarre.

Incidentally, to answer the oft asked question, I don't know what I ate. I thought very hard about it and the strange coincidence I could find between the two episodes was that I had raisin bread both times and nothing else for lunch.

Added: For some of the medical readers out there who wanted to know more details than I put in, I had 3 bags of saline pumped into me, 2 shots of tramadol which DID NOT work, 30 ml of VERY vile tasting antacids and finally some Buscophan which stopped the cramping and led me to wonder why that wasn't the first course of action. Apparently, it was because I had said that I had taken some and thrown it up so they thought they'd let the residual Buscophan in me take effect. Only 3 hours later when I was still climbing the rails of the gurney in agony did they figure they had better give me another shot. After which, I was lucid and wanted to go home but they decided to keep me in for observation.

And my observation of the whole thing? Childbirth must feel like that with the waves of what is actually uterine cramping also known as labour. And it led me to think that I could not do natural delivery without pain relief although I was swiftly told that I could and pain was all in the mind. We shall see... if the opportunity ever presented itself.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, hospitals

Bad English Part Deux

2009-03-25T14:38:00.006+08:00

Many years ago, I got into trouble for writing this post. It was seen as my being an educator and mocking students who didn't speak/write well. Actually, I was just channeling kids and not copying verbatim what they had wrote, listed their names, ages and addresses on it to identify them. But we all know how a local tabloid loves to spin stories and get people into trouble. Of course, she got her come-uppance when she requested to interview me a few years later, had plain forgotten who I was but I hadn't and was absolutely uncooperative in granting her an interview.

And recently, there's been all this talk about leaving English teachers to teach English while parents concentrate on speaking Mandarin to their kids at home. The latter apparently is so important that dialects and everything culturally valuable is cast by the wayside. All in the name of progress. Packrat and I bemoan such a move. We struggle so much in school with substandard English as well as a general mentality that everything that comes out of a particular Old Man's mouth is right and is gold. It annoys us to no end because we and the rest of the English language teachers in Singapore are left to pick up the pieces, pieces that will increase exponentially because of Old Man and His Big Mouth. Of course, Packrat faces it more than I do now because I'm on leave. But I still have to resist the urge to correct my children's teachers when they write in the present tense in the children's communication books. "Evan finishes his lunch today" and "Jordan cries only for a while after you left."

So, we don't suffer Bad English lightly. And imagine my horror and amusement when I buy Baby J a toy pram to play and the words on the box make absolutely no sense. I suspect it was put through Babblefish or something because it looks like English, sounds like English but makes no sense whatsoever.

Caption 1
"It is the best gift for the children! Amazing visual convulsion."
- Visual Convulsions!??? Sounds like my kid will get seizures just playing with the pram! Or something that happens when you watch too much tv!

Caption 2
"Toys series with strong sense for playing!"
"Great arrangement, grand show!" Show? What show?

Even the name of the toy- "Doll Carrier" is misleading.
But then again, it costs $6 so I guess you get what you pay for.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, bad English

Stupid is as stupid gets

2009-03-24T12:12:00.002+08:00

I'm fantasizing about going on vacation. I get like that every couple of months. And then Packrat shows me this. People will complain about everything. Some of them are downright daft. Like

The beach is too sandy- it must be in the same place where the water is too wet.
There were fish in the ocean- next people will complain about the birds of the sky.
The hotel gave us a double bed instead of a twin bed, it's their fault I'm pregnant- powerful bed, this double bed.
There were too many people speaking Spanish in Spain. - how dare they?

So how come stupid people get to go on holiday and I can only dream of it?

*Grumble*

Technorati Tags: vacation

Dances with the daffodils

2009-03-22T22:30:00.008+08:00

In my family, I am the least creative one. I failed art in school, I cannot visualise how our house will look after the renovation, I have very little concept of colour except on clothes, I find it difficult to think up creative activities for my children. My brothers could draw, paint, do photography, make elaborate bows and wrapping for Christmas (oh that's the other thing. I cannot wrap). In a nutshell, I am least like my mother.

My mother once drew up plans for a doll house and got a carpenter to build it for me. She also decorated my birthday parties on a dime, when I was a kid. And most of all, she did all the flowers for my wedding, from the pews, to the car to my impossible bouquet, where I demanded cascading orchids that would trail half way down my gown. When my brothers were dating, she would do their flowers for Valentine's Day and for us for Teachers' Day. She was a whiz when it came to art and flowers were her forte.

My mother is in London for the next 2 weeks. She's been there a week already. And I miss her. It creeps up on me in the strangest of ways. It was the godparents' wedding anniversary. 5 years ago, when it was their 30th anniversary, we bought them 100 roses and Mom magicked up 2 bouquets, one to be presented to each godparent. Yesterday was their 35th anniversary and I needed, once again to get flowers. But Mom wasn't around. So, reaching into the deep recesses of my brain, I had to call upon lessons that I had blatantly ignored but somehow fortunately osmosised into my brain and figure out how to do what she usually does.

I knew I had to go to the nursery. Mom poo-poohed at buying flowers from the florist because it was daylight robbery. So, off to the nursery we went. Unfortunately with 2 children in tow, we couldn't go to the one that she would have gone to. We went to the one at Rid-out Garden, thankfully in the morning and not the afternoon where trees were crashing down because of the lightning storm. But it was far inferior to its main sister branch. Far inferior because in their sub-arctic cold room was only 4 bunches of roses, 2 bunches of lilies, 3 bunches of gerbers and daisies and some bunches of what Mom called 'filler' flowers like babies' breath. In my head, there was Mom giving instructions. "Roses have bloomed! Even in the cold. That means, they'll die very fast in the heat!" "Daisies are not anniversary flowers!" So what was left were the lilies. Lilies it was. With purplish 'filler' flowers to go along with it. Then came, how in the world do I assemble it? The most I would do was just go with Mom to the nursery to pick out the flowers. I never hung around long enough to see what she did with them and how they became beautiful bouquets without too many leaves and thorns.

But like I said, Mom wasn't here so I had to figure out stuff.

1. I needed a vase.
2. Or I needed some wrapper.
...both of which were not sold at the nursery. Improvise.
3. Buy tallish flower pot.
4. Buy flower sponge so that it isn't a case of water sloshing around.
5. Strip the leaves of the lilies.
6. Cut them to length (realising that I needed to PLAN what I was going to do with them first and thankfully, lilies were VERY long-stemmed so there was much length to play around with.)
7. Soak the flower sponge. (Here, I got the twins involved. They poked holes in the sponge so that the sponge soaked water faster. And they watched the bubbles form and escape from said sponge).
8. Stick the lilies in, take a step back and look if I've created a jungle with wild lilies thanks to the 'filler' flowers. (I think Mom said something about perspective)
9. Fret and worry that it's not good enough.
10. Almost throw a fit because I no longer live in a house where ribbons are in abundance.
11. Rifle through what little belongings I have to find ribbon.
12. Discover wedding bells and decoration used at our wedding with ribbons still attached.
13. Bunch them together, tie them up, use some more nylon ribbon, tie it round the vase as a final touch.
14. Decide it has got to do and wish Mom was here to save the day.

According to Packrat, it didn't look too bad. Plus it was quite large. The godparents were impressed so that was good.

This is what Mom did for me.

This is what I did for the godparents. A far cry.

A side note, I can't be a florist. I was wheezing and itchy from all the pollen. I also recall Mom saying florists always cut those off, but I was running out of time. And so, well, I suffered.

Trick question

2009-03-22T14:10:00.001+08:00

If you were given $1000 and told that you had to spend it i.e. not put it in the bank and told that you had to buy things with it, i.e. not a spa package or any other sort of services, what would you buy?

Inspired

2009-03-14T11:15:00.005+08:00

In a moment of weakness, while buying a present for my nephew, I decided to give in to a momentary whim and succumb to my current Gossip Girl craze and buy a Swiss knife. A Swiss knife in itself is not very Gossip Girl. The girls on the Upper East Side have dry wit, bitchy stares and a limitless bank account to protect themselves. A $26 Swiss knife isn't going to fend off anything they haven't already figured out how to.

But it was pretty, it was pink and what totally blew me away and made me NEED to get it was the little inscription. XOXO.

Not the greatest of pictures because unlike the camera phones that take surreptitious photos on Gossip Girl, mine is the suck. But well, like I said, I don't live on the Upper East Side.

Technorati Tags: Gossip Girl, Swiss Army Knife

Guilty Pleasure

2009-03-10T11:26:00.004+08:00

Packrat and I haven't been going out the last few nights. We've been sleeping late. We haven't been doing whatever work we've needed to get done. We're blurry eyed in the morning and we stumble, trip and walk into things when traipsing across the landing to give our offspring milk in the wee hours of the morning; mostly because at that point, the both of us had just fallen asleep.

So what have we been up to? It's something we're doing together. It's something that's been keeping us talking. It gets us both riled up, hot and bothered, thumping at the sheets and occasionally caused the pillows to fly.

But nope. It isn't X rated.

For the last couple of nights, we've been living it up with the salacious and scintillating scandals of Manhattan's Upper East Siders. We've been watching Gossip Girl. I'd heard about it, as had Packrat but since we've generally had limited time and are already to watching so many tv shows, Grey's Anatomy (Me), Sarah Connor Chronicles (Packrat), Desperate Housewives (Me), Dollhouse (Packrat), CSI (Us) and have put some on hold, Heroes (Packrat), Brothers and Sisters (Me), BSG (Packrat)... we were reluctant to commit. But a friend lent it to us, enticing us by revealing that Kirsten Bell from Veronica Mars ( a series we are still mourning) plays the same role Brenda Strong plays in Desperate Housewives- the omniscient, never to be seen, always heard protagonist. On top of that, it's basically the lives of these spoilt teen heirs and heiresses who think $10 000 is a couple of "Manolo Blahniks and a Chanel Bag" but it is a blog. And Packrat and I, well more in the past than now, live on blogs.

That and the fact that the show despite its extremely ditzy premise draws elements of the other shows we've loved and lost. A show that draws us in, in the long term needs to have story, needs to be clever (The West Wing), needs to have clever dialogue (Friends, V Mars), preferably change lexicon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and even to a certain extent Grey's), needs to have characters that are not uni-dimensional; that one might start out hating but then realise half way through he's really not that bad (Spike from Buffy, Logan from V Mars) and preferably eye candy. And it wasn't always just about the clothes, the bags, the limousines and the private jets although that did make us wonder how the show was going to be received in a time of severe cutbacks and environmental degradation (carbon footprint much!), it was also about the relationships and the people. And it got us talking.

Even at 2 in the morning and having to be up at any time for the kids' feeds, Packrat and I would lay dissecting what we liked and didn't like, who we agreed with, why she shouldn't have done what she did to who she did it to and why he was justified in reacting the way he did about the thing she didn't do and so on till I had to surrender and admit that it was impossible for me to form another coherent sentence let alone thought.

But we're done with the first season, after the very intense 3 or 4 weeks of it. And we're feeling a little bit lost because we're going to miss our nightly iridescent companions. Just like how

" In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer. "

is etched in our pop culture memory, as will

"Gossip Girl here. Your one and only source into the scandalous lives of Manhattan's elite. You know you want all the latest gossip. That's why I'm here.
You know you love me. XO XO"

There's no hiding good tv and there really ought to be more.

Technorati Tags: television, Gossip Girl

Sai Kang

2009-03-03T13:38:00.002+08:00

I haven’t been able to blog for the past week or so. For various reasons.

1. I’ve had nothing to say.
2. I haven’t done anything or seen anything worth blogging about.
3. My brain’s been working on a ‘safe’ mode to keep it from exploding.
4. I’ve been averaging 3 hours of sleep a night.

It sure sounds like when I was teaching. When it was grading season and the amount of work was an avalanche and rather copious. And when at the same same time, the kids are ill and the sky is falling over head. At that point, all systems shut down and only the emergency back ups with the really dim lights were on.

And that pretty much was what last week was like. No, I did not go back to work.
I was doing some sort of work though. A friend needed some help to do something akin to brainless data entry. Lend her a few days, bail her out of a rut and get some spare cash from it. Sounded easy enough. But it came in the thousands and the deadline was within a few days. That meant, a huge chunk of time even though it was the most intelligent and stimulating of work, it was work that sucked time,energy and my soul.

I’m glad I’m done with it. When I was done with it, after a last burst of adrenaline to do damage control on some of it, I felt freed. Freed the same way I felt after major exams. Mine, not my students. Or after I’d written my dissertation at the end of my fourth year. But that wasn’t right. It wasn’t something that important or life impacting. It was just menial work on a dime. It didn’t pay. It sounded a lot on paper and it sounded easy on paper but it wasn’t.

At the end of it, the thought that kept resounding in my head was “geez, I actually found something I hate more than teaching”. No, I’m not about to wax lyrical about teaching and it’s going to take a lot more to convince me to go back to it, but this was bad. And I learnt a new phrase from the entire experience. “Sai Kang”. In dialect. Which literally means ‘shit work’; work that no one wanted to do, work that was a shitty deal (pun both intended and unintended. )Which it was. And I also learnt that when you got out of it in one piece and intact, you were a Sai Kang warrior.

That I was.

A reason to teach

2009-02-25T23:25:00.003+08:00

Deep inside me, I think there's a little glimmer of idealism. And that little bit of it still hopes that teachers can make a difference. And if anything, that would be why I would go back to teaching. Especially when on the rare occasion, a gem like this is found. Then I want to go back into the classroom, show them the video, incite them to react, to do something, to make a difference and to smack them on the back of their heads and tell them to get comfy asses, suck it up and get going.

This, is what I miss about teaching.

What I don't miss about teaching... now, that would be enough to fill a book.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Teaching, The Lost Generation, Change

Chope!

2009-02-18T00:35:00.002+08:00

Damn! Ondine is going to be made into a movie. Now, everyone is going to think I stole the name off the movie. Can I just say, I was here first? Ondine was a water sprite who was quite merciless with men who were bastards and could kiss a mean kiss. And if that wasn't heroine material, I don't know what would be? But now, that's not going to matter.

Just like Bonds, Crumpler and Kate Spade . When I first discovered them, they were just brands with something great but were in Singapore for mass consumption. Then they were, then I just became one of the masses.

My only consolation? It sounds like an art film so it probably won't get noticed in the Hollywood driven box office in Singapore.

Technorati Tags: Ondine, movies

Grand ol' Dame

2009-02-17T07:09:00.003+08:00

Barbie celebrated her 50th birthday at the New York Fashion Week over the weekend. There were beautiful clothes as designers paid tribute to her and put their models in what would be beautiful Barbie wear. One problem with all that. The outfits, while being very very beautiful and humanly unwearable, were not what a fifty year old would wear, however coiffed and sophisticated she was. But I'm guessing stylish middle aged women aren't all that fun for couture designers. I'm also guessing if a 50 year old still had the vital statistics of Barbie, she would be wear impossible haute couture too and not modest knee length skirts and closed toed heels.

Having said that, my favourite Barbie shoes were her closed toed stilettos. And that was when I was 9. I'm keeping some of my Barbies so that Jordan can have them. I will need to remember to remind her though, that Barbie's impossibly small waist and legs that go on forever are unnatural and if a real person looked like that, she would fall down a lot.

Technorati Tags: Barbie, New York Fashion Week,birthday

Stupid is as stupid gets

2009-02-16T13:48:00.003+08:00

Ok, ranty post ahead that might sound somewhat elitist. But to say I'm annoyed is an understatement.

I shop at all supermarkets. I generally berate Packrat for only wanting to shop at Cold Storage because things are more expensive there. He understands that it's cheaper elsewhere and he's all for cheap but he doesn't suffer fools gladly and he is of the opinion that there are fewer of them fools at Cold Storage. Of course, fools and stupidity reign. And with a high population density in Singapore, it's quite difficult to avoid stupidity completely.

But today, he made his point. I went to the supermarket. Not Cold Storage. I went to a large supermarket in the heartlands, because I had bought something for Baby J there and the size was wrong. So I went back, with my item, my receipt and went to Customer Service. They told me to go ahead and do my shopping and come back when I was done. Even with my trolley full of stuff? I asked. Yes, even with, was the reply.

Happily I went round and when I was done and making my way back to Customer Service, a dour employee comes up to me and points out I have more than 10 items in my trolley and will be unable to use the express counter she thought I was headed up to. I told her where I was going and in a loud scolding voice she gesticulated wildly and told me I had to go to the cashier to pay first. When I explained what I'd been told, she got another person at the Customer Service to corroborate her stand and sent me packing. Fine. I huffed my way to the shortest queue, all the while looking at my watch because I was due to pick up the kids from school.

Apparently, time was only of the essence for me. Watching paint dry would be quicker than watching the cashier who only spoke Chinese scan the items of the customer ahead of me. When it got to me, she saw that I hadn't placed an item onto the counter and had left it in my trolley. When I told her it was because I wasn't buying the item but exchanging it, she snarkily told me I had to exchange it before queuing at check out. Nope, that was not I was told, I replied equally snarkily and in Chinese. She proceeded to tell me that if I didn't pay for the item and wheeled it out of the store, I would be shoplifting.

This was where it got ridiculous. I was trapped in this bizarro world where to exchange my item, I had to go through check out first. But to go through check out, I had to pay for everything, including the item I wasn't going to pay for because I was going to exchange it. What was a girl to do? My solution, pay for whatever I needed to, back up the trolley, back into the store, traipse down to Customer Service within the store and exchange my item. One would think that would appease all parties involved. But no. I wasn't allowed to. Because backing up would disturb the queue that, by this time, had formed behind me.

At that point, I found the straw that broke that camel's back. Shot a look of sheer fury at the cashier and asked her, what in HER opinion was the best thing to do? Her response, leave my trolley where it was and come back for it once I'd exchange what I needed to. Now, that wasn't going to cause a queue.

I did it my way. I told her, I was going to push the trolley out of the check out lane and I would walk toward the Customer Service. She could watch me. And if I ran away, she could call the police on me. That was when she finally "tiam tiam"- kept quiet and turned away beetroot to the next customer who asked her why she had to make things so difficult. And that was when I decided, shopping in the heartlands can only be done with I have a lot of time, am not in a hurry to pick up my kids and have the patience of a saint.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, supermarkets

The key to my heart

2009-02-14T09:34:00.002+08:00

The best way to spend Valentine's Day is not to indulge in the fluff that it is and spend ridiculous amounts of money of flowers that are half dead and food that is half the price on any other given day. Packrat and I generally don't do Valentine's Day. I like doing something but we generally do something anti-valentine's. Like go out for nasi lemak or go for a movie or something where we can remain untouched by the crass commercialism that engulfs the day.

This year is the same. We didn't buy cards for one another although I did get my little cottage industry to churn out some cards for Packrat and the grandparents.

The plan for today is as follows. Go to HDB. Go for lunch. Go to church and then come home to the kids. Possibly go for a late dinner with my bro. But it's a great way to do today because, going to HDB means we are FINALLY on our way to moving out of my in-laws house. And that means better marital relations between the both of us (read: less fighting). Going to church, is also about us because we're signed up for a marriage enrichment course. Going home to the kids, well, that's pretty self-explanatory and having dinner with my bro, well, that's what families do and who said Valentine's Day just had to be about ONE type of love?

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Valentine's Day, HDB

Sex and the City

2009-02-11T08:07:00.000+08:00

I know this is a couple of months late, but I finally saw Sex and the City. It took me this long because Packrat had been resisting all this time and I hadn't made it to the cinema with a girl friend in time to catch it. I finally watched it last night on video while watching Packrat roll his eyes just by looking at the back of his head.

It's a girl thing. He hates it as much as I hated the guy flicks he got me to watch. I could see why he did as well, once I got over the pretty clothes and gorgeous wedding gowns. But I must back track a little bit. Packrat hates Sex and the City because of what it stands for. Women, looking for love, being materialistic, whining and being destructive when they are disappointed and don't have their fantasies of being loved on their terms fulfilled. He also hates it because it embodies everything his favourite 'love to hate' columnist in the Straits Times projects and writes about. Her columns which appear on Sunday often involve her whining about being mid-40, unmarried, unloved and therefore unfulfilled. It never fails to make him want to throw something at the paper.

What I can objectively see as a bad thing about the movie and the entire ideal that Sex and the City embodies is the materialism. It seems worse than the Devil Wears Prada, possibly because that makes no qualms to be a movie/book about fashioin. This is about lifestyle and how the Manolos and the Louis Vuitton that is so important that it has to be rented. I have to admit that I'd love to be able to afford the lifestyle and I'm a bit of a sucker for it, as in I will "ooh and ahhh" at it and think it would be great to have some of that but I'm not about to sell my house and home or even my kidney to support such a lifestyle.

But one thing stuck and struck me as appealing. The four girlfriends. Of course Packrat couldn't some of them and I particularly hated one of them, but I loved the idea of it. The idea of girlfriends who were there for one another, come hell or high water was something that I'd always dreamt about. I think it comes from having a diverse group of friends. I have good friends from all over the place but they don't even know one another. That makes it tough to do any sort of girl group thing with them. And I love the idea of dropping everything and going on vacation with my girl friends where we could do spas and nails up the wazoo.

So, while I spent some of the time being irritated at what was going on in the movie, I stuck to it, did not fall asleep, saw how it panned out and gushed and waxed lyrical about female bonding. Of course, by then, Packrat must have felt that he needed to go out, get a few beers and burp very loudly just to ensure that the planets become in alignment again.

Technorati Tags: Sex and the City

Growing old

2009-02-02T23:18:00.003+08:00

I remember being 9 and listening to the radio on Saturday mornings to the Victor Khoo and Charlie show ( I tried to google this to link it but I couldn't find anything substantial). I used to wish that I'd get picked for the call in part of the show. I don't really know why but it sounded cool to a 9 year old. So, I'd listen wistfully at the children who did get the chance to talk to Victor and more importantly Charlie.

Then when I was 12, I used to listen to the radio because my friends and I were sure that the radio station got our dreamy song requests for the soppy songs of that time like "Because I love you" by Shakin Stevens and Bananarama's Love in the First Degree and many others. Once again, we were sorely disappointed. I wondered why some guy in Serangoon North got his song played for some girl he saw at the bus stop but why I didn't get mine played to wish the track team luck. Now I'm guessing because a) it was rigged or b) mine was just less exciting.

When I was in college, radio got better. It played things I wanted to listen, it stopped disappointing me, perhaps because I didn't expect much from it except for it to be playing 24 hours and by then, it did. There were also more radio stations, like "Class 95" that played better music than Perfect 10 which was cool to a secondary school kid but too noisy to study to when I was pretending to be an adult.

Radio became integral to me. Not because of anything else but the fact that I needed white noise. I couldn't work in an environment where you could hear a pin drop. I couldn't work in libraries, especially those old dome like ones. I'd fall asleep in 10 minutes. I couldn't drive without the music because the car sounded too still. Even when I was in hospital delivering the twins, I made sure that I had loaded my Ipod with enough music to get me through the couple of days. At work, I tried Net radio, I tried the I-tunes radio as well but that frustrated me everytime the connection buffered or streamed or reset itself. Once again, I gave it up.

The only thing left was having the radio on in the car for company or to keep me awake. It didn't really bother me what was playing as long as the DJ's weren't too inane and the music was passable. But the problem was indeed that the DJ's were either too inane or spoke extremely bad English and the music being played was obviously tracks played on a rather limited loop, even when the radio station prided itself in playing hits from the 80's and 90's. This was a station that was supposed to have been voted most popular and most listened to but it was rapidly failing to provide for my very basic needs. So, Packrat and I started station surfing on our rather limited bandwidth and amazingly, we found one that played music that we actually listened to, sang to and actually enjoyed.

Unfortunately, it branded us. It branded us as old because it was the oldies station that we were being drawn to. For a second, we wondered if we had become really old and frumpy. Then we decided, whatever. If we enjoyed the music, if we recognised the music and if it wasn't just noise that was on for the sake of needing noise, why not? We discovered that there was some white noise that was more enjoyable than other types of white noise.

We came back from Vegas spoilt for good white noise. Even though we were in the gambling and possibly sin city of the US, we had Air One, a Christian Rock station that played wonderful Christmas music. That was when this current phase of disappointment began. Coming back and realising that the radio stations weren't playing any Christmas music and still played what we began calling suck rock made us grumpy with our current choices. But beggars can't really be choosers. Even though we can get Air One on I tunes radio, we don't have it where we need it the most, in the car. So till we find something better, which is unlikely, we're going to be a bunch of fogeys listening to a goldies station.

Because at least, the music is tolerable, enjoyable and mostly singable too if we needed it to be and that just staves off the disappointment that we are likely to feel at some point.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, radio stations, music

How to seem like you are having an affair, with your husband.

2009-01-29T08:03:00.004+08:00

Check in to a mid-price hotel.
Check in, in the middle of the night.
State very loudly that the room will be covered by cash.
Put the Do Not Disturb signal out and not leave the room.
Check out in the same clothes you checked in with.
Walk in separate directions from your partner. If you can, work a kiss in.

And without a doubt, the concierge will come up to you and ask "Madam, do you need me to call you a cab?"

*wink*

Technorati Tags: Singapore, hotels

Bah Humbug

2009-01-26T08:54:00.002+08:00

There are many reasons why I couldn't and wouldn't live in China. Chief would be I don't speak the language. Another would be too many bad things happen in China. And one the I came up with the minute I woke up this first day of the Earth Ox year... Chinese New Year or the Spring Festival as they call it is 15 days there.

Every year (well it seems like every year) round about this time, I blog about how much I hate it. So why spoil the tradition?

It wasn't like this all the time. Once upon a time, I did lurve the season because it meant moolah for me. The more homes I visited with my parents, the more moolah I got. When we had to start giving out the moolah, it got more bothersome. I think it was round about that time that I started to hate it as well. Not because I had to give out red packets but because there were expectations of what we had to do and often these expectations were not what we wanted to do on our own volition.

If I had my way, I'd be on a beach right now. My unmarried brother's got it right. He's in Bali, cycling round volcanos. Catch me on New Year morning and I'd be happy to be in the volcano, rather than here. But with the twins, we have to be around. On top of that, my usually westernised, liberal husband insists that this is a tradition he enjoys keeping to and is something our children should learn is expected of them. I guess with that, they are also going to learn that crossing Mommy on the first day of the new year leads to dire dire consequences.

I don't mean to be a party pooper but in my mind, I'd be quite happy to do without the stresses of the season. But that's just me.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Lunar New Year,CNY, parents

Of gloves, jackets and other inconsequential things.

2009-01-21T00:28:00.007+08:00

While waiting for Obama to deliver his inaugural address, everyone we know is watching CNN the way people watch the red carpet of the Oscars. It's the political Oscars, every 4 years and this year is I guess akin to a Titanic year.

And like wannabe fashionistas feast their eyes on the gowns of the celebrities and criticize and comment on everything, we do the same thing with the politicians. This is the somewhat brainless random conversation between Tym and I on IM.

Pseudo Serious
Me: Apparently the crew of the Hudson flight was invited that is they're not busy suffering from
post traumatic stress
Tym: I was wondering if they might get a nod, esp the captain I can imagine Obama making a
phone call to commend him.
Me: Ala Jed Bartlett?

On Michelle Obama
Tym: Michelle Obama has GREEN GLOVES
I'm ... dismayed
Me: I KNOW
Tym: WTF?!
Me: And her dress is a bit...
Tym: GREEN?! Maize- coloured?
Me: Scaly much?

On Dick Cheny
Tym: Why is the poor girl in white pushing the wheelchair?
No hunkier man available meh?
Eeyur...
Me: Stupid man threw his back out moving boxes.
Oh well, gives new meaning to the term "lame duck"!

On Obama's fashion
Tym: Obama's tie is nice
Very hip
Me: Ummm... I approve.
Tym: I wonder if Obama is wearing long underwear and/or kevlar...

On the Bush Clan
Me: Bush's outer jacket is much thicker than Obama's.
Tym: Not young and vigourous like him mah.

Tym: The senior Bushes' purple scarves are quite something!
Me: So matching! Too matching.
His gloves are sticking out too 'fatly' from his pocket.

On the Presidential limousine
Me: The limos are damn ugly
Packrat (not Tym): They have to stop bullets.
Me: Kevlar is ugly.

On Invited Celebrities
Tym: John Cusack!
Me: Arnie!
Tym:Is Spielberg gay?
He likes those berets, which are kinda gay...

On some blonde kids walking out to their seats
Tym: I wonder who those little kids were
Me: Not Obama's kids
Tym: Too white. More like lost Kennedys.

On the Clintons
Me: The Clintons! He's got no gloves!
Tym: Maybe he's trying to be young and vigorous
Me: I think he looks a bit stoned.
Tym: Hee hee.. maybe he is!

Tym: Her coat makes her look fat!
Although the colour is lovely
Me: Ee yur, it's so high waisted!

Me: Don't you tell me what to do, Woman!
I've been here before.
(referring to Bill Clinton being briefed by the protocol officer)

Tym: Bill Clinton's white hair is quite nice
At least it's, uh, evenly white
Me: Yes, Snow white.
Hmmm... No Chelsea?

Tym: Ee yur, Hilary just gave Dubya a peck on the cheek!
I hope she has something to clean her lips with.
Me: SANITISER!

On the Marines on duty
Me: The poor Marines look frozen
Tym: It's ok. It proves the manhood.
Let me quote First Lady Santos who was like, "I have to stand there in the cold in
pantyhose"

On the White House Movers
Me: Oooh! Shalom Movers!
Tym: Where?
Me: They only have 2 hours. I saw it on the West Wing.
Tym: Where Shalom movers?
Me: No lah! Bluff you.
Tym: Cheh! I thought Shalom was so famous!

On the Obama girls
Me and Tym synonymously: Oooh! Kidlets!
Me: Sasha's jacket is the same colour as Hilary's.
Tym: So cute
The orange is nice
Me: Sasha's very pretty
Me: She's taking photos?!
Tym: Maybe she'll upload it on FB!

Me: The girls look bored.
(During the Yoyo-Ma (Yoyoma! Channelling Donna from the West Wing) performance)
Tym: I think they are playing tiddlywinks or something.
Maybe they have Snap in their pockets.
Me: Happy Families!

On CNN's coverage
Me: Oh, stop with the cutting to the African Americans!
We know he's black!
Tym: You KNOW that's the brief the cameraman got.
Me: "Pan in on the blacks!"

I think we watch way too much West Wing.

Ok, the inaugural speech is happening and I need to listen to this. The ditz has left the building. Oh wait.

HUZZAH!

Ok, now she's left.

Re: speech- Can we all say GRAVITAS?

Technorati Tags: Presidential inauguration 2008, Ditzy dialogue

Twas the Night before Christmas

2009-01-20T23:36:00.003+08:00

There's something in the air tonight. Much akin to November 4th. Facebook's a buzz with most status updates to do with the Inauguration and staying up to catch the swearing in. Mine reads "Ondine is is hoping that Evan will let her watch the Inauguration". The boy has been going through a separation anxiety phase where he wakes in his cot and screeches and is hysterical until we go in and clings onto us for dear life. That means we have to lie with him till he is dead asleep before we move him back to his cot and if we do it prematurely, it will be to our own peril because we have to go back to the drawing board and start all over. So, I'm hoping he'll sleep right through and not need me to lie by him in a darkened room which will lull me to sleep and more importantly, does not have a television set with cable.

Anyway, we're all waiting and biding time in different ways and in our own ways commemorating this bit of history in the making. Packrat wanted me to take a nap so that I'd be up for the actual swearing-in. I refused because I had better things to do. Though it seemed extremely ditzy and unrelated to the inauguration, I needed to watch the last episode of Gilmore Girls. It's been 8 years in the waiting for me and the forty minutes would be just right to bide time before Obama left the White House in the motorcade.

Well, the stars were really in alignment tonight. Even though it's a ditzy mother-daughter tv series and I had absolutely no idea, six degrees of separation was in play here too. Rory in Gilmore leaves at the end of this episode/ series to be a news correspondent and where does her first assignment take her? To cover the Obama campaign. Too cool and too spooky. So she disappears off Gilmore Girls at the end of that episode and is she going to be present on our TV screens as she covers his swearing in? My head swirls in bizarro.

This was like us watching The West Wing Season 7 right up to election day and having some difficulty separating fact from fiction. Incidentally, the Inauguration episode was Tym's choice of pre-inauguration tv. It would have been our choice too but we don't have our copy with us. Anyway, I like my ditzy choice. It reflects me. Seems ditzy, seems too random and unrelated but the tenuous links do exist. Shoot me that I'm not deeper but at least I make no pretence about it and I'm proud of it.

I'm going to prove it later with my next post too. But for now, I think the swearing in's gonna start and well, Break's Over.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Inauguration,television

Hex

2009-01-18T22:58:00.002+08:00

Apparently, even the Chinese believe in voodoo and hexes. I was told today that someone I was very close to wasn't married because a curse had been put on him by a former girlfriend of his. It was along the lines of 'since she couldn't have him, no one could'. I wanted to laugh out loud but out of respect for this person who was suggesting it, I just nodded.

Obviously, I had to sit through and listen out for how to break it. The obvious way was to go to church and pray a counter pray for the curse to be broken. The second and more entertaining way was to buy a bunch of roses (must not be white) and run a bath and break in all the rose petals. Then get the cursed one to bathe in it. Once he has done that, to take the bath water and the rose petals and throw it out, far away.

I have images of driving a sloshing bucket of water to the ends of Singapore to dump it into the ocean. But then I also figured, I could drain it into jerry cans and seal it but there would be less authenticity. Anyway, whatever it is, it gives new meaning to throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Technorati Tags: ex-girlfriends

A stitch in time

2009-01-18T22:24:00.004+08:00

The first time I ever did any stitching was in Primary 2. My illustrious art teacher gave each of us a small piece of cloth with pattern on it and taught us to stitch according to the colour and pattern on the piece of cloth in tiny crosses. I looked forward to every art lesson because that's when we could stitch to our heart's content. My mother was impressed at the art teacher's foresightedness. Apparently cross-stitching is a good tool to use to develop both sides of the brain and this teacher did it without any flashcards or videos or expensive paraphernalia and resource.

Anyway, since I enjoyed it so much and it was good for me, my mom decided that it was going to be a great end-of-year project to keep her daughter busy and calm her down, teaching her to sit still and put her undivided attention onto one thing even if it were just for twenty minutes a day. Some days I hated it, some days I enjoyed it but I knew I had to finish it because much as I hated sitting down for a set amount of time each day and that interrupted my day of play, the thought of an unfinished piece bugged the heck out of me even more.

So I did it, every day for 6 weeks, getting it ready just in time for Mom to lay it out as one of her Christmas runners. It looks very juvenile and simple but I got a lot of needle pokes and skin shorn off from doing it. But when I got it done, the sense of achievement was remarkable though not remarkable enough for me to attempt another one till way after I graduated college.

My mother being the sentimentalist and hoarder kept my piece of embroidery and gave it to me today. Just looking at it brings back memories, although it made me wonder what I was going to do with it. Packrat suggested I stitch "Home Sweet Home" or something equally tacky in the middle but just the thought of stitching and now, with relatively newly minted eyes made me baulk and consider other things I could do with it, like perhaps frame it and put it in my children's room. But here it is, till i figure what i want to do with it, recorded for posterity.

Technorati Tags: cross stitch, childhood

I don't wanna grow up...

2009-01-15T18:03:00.005+08:00

I have a confession to make. I went to see Twilight. Before I get flayed by the mob, I need to also add, I hated it. I hated it and I felt like I had wasted two very precious hours of my life and two very precious hours of Me time. Packrat who repentantly suggested he start making up for the Boy Movies he's made me watch by watching this, also cringed. Both of us also felt that as educators (he more than I, at this point) of teens, we needed to know see what the fuss was about so that we had the credibility to mock it mercilessly and in Packrat's case, use as a yardstick to turn away students from his course. Last year, anyone who wrote his/her favourite author was Jodi Picoult was rumoured to have made only the "Maybe" pile. This year, his hit list allegedly includes Twilight author- Stephanie Meyer.

So why did we hate it? The Cliff Notes version?
1. We are not teens. And hopefully, even if we were teens, we'd have better sense than that.
2. It wasn't Buffy.

For us, Buffy had cornered the Human in love with vampire- vampire has a soul and is tortured and full of angst- Relationship is doomed from the beginning market. And Angel, Buffy's vampire squeeze was in my opinion, way cooler than Edward-peroxide-glow in the sun-I'm Vegetarian because I only drink animal blood-Cullen. But that bit is just personal opinion. There was so much wrong with Twilight that seemed to also reflect the angst of the current generation of teens. Although, the series seems to have been lauded for being relatively chaste; there is to be no sex till marriage though not for the usual reasons, it is not a great role model for teens who are not part of the A-list in school. In Buffy, Buffy was weird because she kept beating up people and she had a secret life that she couldn't tell many people about. But she had a bunch of friends, all B/C listers who got her back and she was fiercely loyal to them.

In Twilight, the protaganist, like Buffy was the new girl in town, is a little bit the awkward, clumsy n00b who arrives in the middle of term but is pretty well liked for a n00b. She has herself a Scooby gang fast enough but she drops them like a hot brick the minute Perioxide Boy gives her time of day. Not cool. How can dumping your friends to move up the social ladder with your A-list boyfriend ever be a cool thing to do? Where's the loyalty? Where's the heart?

And mothers who condone their daughters reading the book because there's no real sex and drugs, shouldn't they be concerned with the fact that this was a protaganist who didn't mind being bit and dying? And once again, with vampires and those who yearn to be vampires, there was always a reason for it, there was always some sort of discontentment with life, some sort of malaise that they felt being a vampire would cure. But where was that here? The girl had a suicide wish for no reason. The only reason was possibly because it was glam. So, shouldn't moms be concerned about that? Shouldn't moms be concerned with any sort of death wish however it is to be carried out and for whatever reason?

On top of that, this is a girl in an obviously abusive relationship. Guy treats her like crap, drives her away, hurts her in the process and she comes crawling back to him, telling anyone who listens that it was she who drove him to insanity and it was his love that drove him to that point. Yes, that is healthy, to think that relationships are supposed to be that way and making it a selfless thing. In an era where so much has been done and achieved in the name of empowering women and teaching girls that it is not cool and they don't have to take shit from guys, here comes a movie and an entire fad that reverses all that has been done. And I hear, that in later books, she wants to be bit. She wants to live forever so that she can be with Glow Boy forever and ever, beyond the usual death do us part. If my daughter thought that way, it would time to take out my Dad's patented brand of punishment- hanging one upside down and walloping sense into the person.

Salon's mocking take on it made my day as much as reading I don't know where about how rabid fans had swarmed the local high school of Forks and stalked their Sheriff annoyed the heck out of me. And all in all, it made me compare it to the movie that has been known the mother of time suckage - Titanic and has made Titanic come out looking like Oscar material (although I think it was in its day but we rolled our eyes then at it).

It made me go out and borrow Titanic, not so that I could waste another 3 hours of my life but so that I could revel in what was the Queen of chick flicks of my generation and come up with reasons why it still trumped Twilight. And after 3 hours, even though I walked away at certain bits because cheese is still cheese 12 years on, I was vindicated. My generation had comparatively better taste. It's not saying much but it's still saying a lot. At least Titanic was epic. It had James Cameron at its helm and there was great tragedy- always a good setting for a romance. There was little tragedy in Twilight unless you count a storm and a baseball game. The protagnist, played by the very British Kate Winslet, was really a strong independent woman who took no kind of crap, didn't give up for love, stood by her beliefs and didn't let her lover's death (or his dead state) be a reason to be dead herself.

And for those who didn't want to bother about the romance, Titanic also made one think, however superficially about class and rank, about social injustice and about well, in my case, post traumatic stress disorder. What food for thought did Twilight even pretend to give its fans? The possible class war was never explored, the possible misunderstood plight of the vampires was murky and hidden under the glamour of it all, the angst of the teen years giving reason for self-mutilation and suicide was also given a cool factor. So, really, just a pretty movie that led Packrat to remark, " All those broody goth boys are going to get lucky this year".

Score.

Technorati Tags: Twilight, Titanic, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

One Eyed Dragon's Change of Heart

2009-01-12T18:29:00.002+08:00

Convicted murderer on death row donates his organs to ailing patient in need of an organ.

News headline or plot for pseudo pop intellectual book?

Or both.

Very bizarre. That life imitates art. Or rather literature. Or rather, bad literature passing off as book with food for thought.

Maybe it is required reading for all death row prisoners. Maybe it's in the New Releases section of the Prison Library.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Organ Donation, Tang Wee Sung, Jodi Picoult

Hairspray

2009-01-08T22:39:00.004+08:00

For the first time in more than 15 years, I have bangs. I never grew them out in school because of the rule where our fringe was not supposed to touch our eyebrow. Then I started dancing and bunning it all back was the way to go- try pirouetting with hair getting into your eyes. So my fringe has for as long as I can remember, been as long as the rest of my hair. It dragged my hair down and my hair was as limp as a dead french fry. And today, I decided it was enough.

But now, I'm not sure. Maybe I shouldn't have listened to my hairdresser when he suggested the fringe which was apparently all the rage in Japan (he was there over Christmas), though I can't blame the guy who's had banal, unoriginal instructions like "don't cut too much of my hair because I need to bun it" during my ballet days and more recently impossible ones like "make my hair look fuller" despite the post natal hormones causing me to do a Yul Brynner. Anyway, I let him have his way and give me a fringe and Packrat keeps calling me cute. I am not pleased. I was ok with something different but I really wasn't going for cute.

And now I worry, will I get breakouts on my forehead? What will happen when it grows over my eyes? Do I pin it, flop it, wax it or cut it? Will my kids freak out? I'm still freaking out a little bit but Packrat reminds me that it'll grow back. I guess so, but till then, I'll look like a 16 year old mushroom head.

Technorati Tags: hair

Russian Supermarkets

2009-01-08T09:10:00.002+08:00

One thing we never worried about when we lived in Melbourne was when to do grocery shopping. The Safeway 2 minutes up the street from us was open 24 hours a day and only closed on Good Friday and Christmas. This was great for us students because we had weird shopping habits that usually revolved around when we finished our term papers. Before that, we usually subsisted on a constant supply of instant noodles, potato chips and for Packrat, Jolt Cola (the choice Cola for hackers and twice the amount of sugar and caffeine as regular colas). It was also therapeutic to shop in the middle of the night because we could roam the aisles while the men in black (the packers wore black all the time) re-stacked the shelves and the aisles feel even wider than they are.

Now, fast forward to now, in Singapore. There are a few 24 hour supermarkets now. One in Holland Village, a Cold Storage, where we used to live and now another one near us, an NTUC which is the locals' supermarket. We usually like the Cold Storage one but it's much more expensive than NTUC so NTUC ends up being where we reluctantly shop but shop out of necessity. So last night, after the kids got to bed, we went grocery shopping and since it was late, we went to the 24 hour NTUC.

But seriously, it shouldn't call itself a 24 hour supermarket. We needed to get vegetable and fruit for the kids, primarily. But when we got there, it was like a scene out of one of those news reels about markets in the former communist Russia where the shelves were empty but the market was full of people. Seriously. No fresh food. No more veg, barely any fruit, just rows and rows of empty shelves and baskets. Packrat and I stood and stared slack-jawed in amazement and not good amazement. How can they call themselves a 24 hour supermarket if all the food's sold out in the first 12 hours of the day? Well, yes, there were still dried goods and all but darn it, I wanted my fruit and vegetables.

So all we managed to pick up was half a pumpkin, the least sad ears of corn and 2 pears. I think we even bought like we were Russian peasants and like I'm sure the Russian peasants were, we were extremely disgruntled. If we had pitch forks, we'd revolt. And the irony is NTUC is a Union owned supermarket and is supposed to be for the people and by the people.

So much for that.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, supermarkets

The Ring

2009-01-04T12:12:00.003+08:00

I think my television is possessed. Or spooked. Or haunted. Well, something unnatural. Thankfully, I'm discovering it in broad daylight. Had I discovered it last night when everyone else was asleep, I would have had a major wig out.

It comes on, on its own volition. And there's nothing on. It's just a snowy sandy screen. And it scrolls through all the channels on its own. The remote has no power over it. Pressing all the buttons, in all sorts of combinations made nothing happen except the channels to scroll even quicker. Switching it off at the television itself was no good either because it'd just hop back on and start off where it left off.

At that point, I decided to cut it off at the source. The main power. I'd decided if it could resurrect itself from there, I was going to take the kids and skedaddle outta there because that would just be messing with my mind a little bit too much. Thankfully it didn't manage to switch itself back on.

So, what was it?

Was it possessed? And if so, possessed by what?
Was the electromagnetic wave from my phone triggering it? (Coincidentally, the first and second time it came back on, there was a text message on my phone and I realised the tv just as I opened the messages)
Was there a secret remote somewhere and one of the kids was activating it from their cot or downstairs or where ever it was?
Was Packrat trying to make me think I was going crazy so that he could get me committed?
Was it psychically connected to someone and every time that person blinked, the television came on? Like Phoebe in Friends could do?

[Cut to Chandler and Joey’s, Joey and Phoebe are watching TV. The TV is turning off and on, and each time Phoebe is blinking her eyes like the Genie did. The switch obviously controls the outlet which the TV is plugged into.]

Phoebe: See? I’m doing it. I am totally doing it. (Suddenly it stops working.) I lost it.

The One with the Rugby Game
Were there aliens trying to send messages through the black and white snow that I wasn't seeing and needed Jeff Goldblum's character in ID4 to decipher it?
And if they were, were they trying to send messages to us or to each other to coordinate Armageddon on earth?

Thankfully, it was much simpler. I still don't know the cause of it but when we jiggled the power cable round a little bit, all normality was restored. And more importantly, I wasn't being haunted by Casper who wanted me out of the house and I wasn't going crazy.

Technorati Tags: television, spooky

Clean white shoes

2009-01-02T14:48:00.003+08:00

Last night would have been a crazy night. There would have been last minute dashes to the book stores and shoe stores, rooms were probably tossed upside down looking for stuff that probably has a thin sheen of dust over it from not having been used for the last couple of weeks. Barbers and hair dressers would have also had last minute crowds. Maps were consulted. Driving routes plotted to avoid traffic build ups. Bed times shifted to unearthily early. All in a bid to get everyone ready for the new year. But not the new year as in the New Year, but the new year as in the New School Year.

And I would have been part of it and I would have been extremely grouchy and grumpy yesterday if not for two reasons. One short term, that the new JC calendar causes colleges to start a bit later. And one longer term; for those who haven't picked up the hints that have been dropped on this and the other blog, I'm taking something of a sabbatical for a couple of months because it's just been too hard to juggle kids, working at the frenetic pace that is demanded and that I expect of myself (being a high achiever and a mother are two goals that are hard to gel).

So, the bad mood was dodged temporarily for Packrat and slightly longer for me but not for other people. All over, there's quiet today in the malls and this afternoon, the influx of kids into the malls were kids in uniforms, clean, pressed, white and crisp. Shoes too, were in mint condition though I was a little bit surprised that white shoes weren't from Bata but Adidas and Converse. But the true madness isn't usually with the kids anyway. It is usually the parents, who are over anxious or had spent the entire vacation not anxious enough and spent yesterday and this morning making up for it.

Parents take leave on the first day of school because no one knows what could happen. There's good sense and then there's over-protective sense. There were reports of parents who absolutely had to make sure that their precious darlings were dropped right at the school gates because the audacity to think that they should walk even those few marshalled steps from designated drop offs to the gates! Add to that, parents who don't have enough foresight to get their kids to sleep early enough so that they are awake early enough to get to school before the crowds do. So, the result? Long queues and clogged up bus lanes outside the school. And all easy prey for the Traffic Police who were just laying in wait for these perpertrators who knowingly flout traffic rules.

But of course, it's not the parents' fault. It's the fault of the jagged yellow lines and the fault of the Traffic Police and the fault of the school. Just like everything that happens in school to their kids from tardiness, to messiness to absent-mindedness. I find it telling that so much effort is taken to get the kids to the school and that's where it ends. It doesn't matter what happens within the compound, it's not their responsibility as long as the kids appear home at the stipulated time. Never mind where they've been, whether they've been at Mcdonalds or the snooker parlour. Ok, I'm generalising here but it just seems like a lot of parents get stressed getting their kids into the right schools, fuss about getting them to school with the best materials, shoes included and leave the rest up to the school and the teachers. And I think, that, is the larger reason why I'm relieved and thankful and not in a foul mood today, because I don't have to deal with what my job means to others and what other parents expect of me in my capacity as a teacher.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, school, education

#456 why I should have joined the foreign service...

2008-12-30T23:14:00.001+08:00

Apparently, diplomats don't need to pay sales tax.

Darn, I wish I didn't listen to my parents.

I must really miss outlet shopping.

That, I do.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, jobs

Boy movies

2008-12-29T07:40:00.003+08:00

I don't know why I keep allowing it to happen but I keep going to see movies that I don't really want to see and I come out of them feeling extremely unsatisfied, grumpy and sleepy. Why do I subject myself to them? Most of the time, it's in the name of couple time and date night. I do it because I want to spend time with Packrat, who wants to see these movies. I do it because if I didn't, we'd be at home in front of our computers not talking to one another. One might ask how much talking gets done at the movies, but well, at least there's closer proximity, snuggling, the occasional jibe and giggle and the drive back and forth.

I'm sure there were others before it, but first there was James Bond. I think there was Dark Knight before that and that other one, the one that made me indignant and angry at Afghan men as a race... Iron Man, that's right and well, last night there was Zack and Miri make a Porno. While it didn't make me want to kill myself like Bond did, it did make me keep giving Packrat evil glances that he could feel even though it was dark and he couldn't quite see me. I think it coincided with every bad/ sex- related/ physical-American Pie/ poop type jokes. I had a bad feeling about the movie the minute I stepped into the cinema because of the primarily male audience.

By the end of the movie, I had taken a nap, counted about 5 chick flick movies that I could force Packrat to go to in exchange for the 2 hours +++ (+++ for all the other boy movies that I've watched in the last year), thought about going shopping and having had time to feel guilty about it as well and bemoan the dearth of chick movies once again.

I think increasingly, with my lack of energy and time, I'm less tolerant of movies that don't do anything for me and I'm sorry to say and shallow as it sounds, these movies don't do anything for me. I notice with mild but increasing panic that the repertoire of movies that I have tolerance for is becoming smaller and smaller. This is not to say that only chick flicks do it for me but something of it really has to appeal to me on some level and boy movies really just don't have anything that appeals to me.

I am not a boy. I am a girl. And I WANT TO WATCH GIRL MOVIES!

Technorati Tags: Singapore, movies

Happy Holidays.

2008-12-25T07:41:00.002+08:00

We're finally back in Singapore after a somewhat harrowing journey from Las Vegas to LA to Tokyo where we missed our connection back to Singapore and then eventually onto Singapore. I stand by what I said going into the US, in a much better mood, that something has got to be done about LAX and how it looked like it's been hit by Somalian pirates. Anyway, we were concerned we were going to miss our kids' Christmas but thankfully not.

And Christmas morning it is.

The strange thing is even though 86% of Americans celebrate Christmas, I did not ONCE, in my entire stay there hear anyone wish anyone else a Merry/ Blessed (for the secular and the religious) Christmas.

Apparently, it is politically incorrect to and it is exclusionist. So for those who celebrate Hannukah, Diwali, Hari Raya and every other religious holiday, wishing someone a Blessed or Merry Christmas is prejudicial. It's akin to laughing at them for not being Christian or pagan enough to enjoy Christmas turkey and presents. That, in my opinion is a load of crap. The holiday is called Christmas. It's a religious holiday. We wish our non-Christian friends a Happy ______ (insert name of religious day here) and are perfectly fine about it. But maybe it's because we live in Singapore where we grew up with the idea that Muslim students during the month of Ramadan could go home earlier in preparation for breaking fast and that Hindu students got Thaipusam off even though it was an official school day.

So it was mildly ridiculous that everyone wished me a Happy Holiday all the way in till we were on a Singapore Air flight that had pulled out all the stops with decor on the flight and crew wishing us a MERRY CHRISTMAS. Trust us, politically incorrect Singaporeans to fully emerge ourselves in the secular celebration of a religious holiday. I think there should be a berth given to those of other religions and there should be acknowledgement of the religious festivals they celebrate too. What annoys me about some and I think adds to the irk factor behind this "Happy Holiday" campaign is the the the implied endoresement it gives to others not knowing the true meaning behind the festival. As is, in sunny Singapore, it has never failed to make my jaw drop that many people don't understand or know why the Muslims celebrate Hari Raya Puasa (Ramadan) and Hari Raya Haji or that there is something known as a festival of lights (Diwali) for the Hindus. All they know is that they get a public holiday and all that needs to bother their pretty little heads about is how to stretch it out into a long weekend so that they can go somewhere.

I must sound totally Bah Humbug writing this. But I'm not. I just like my freedom to wish someone else a Blessed Christmas, even if that person is not Christian. And what person, regardless of religious, colour or creed doesn't like being blessed?

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Christmas, political correctness

On the trail of Grissom, Day 8.

2008-12-22T00:03:00.003+08:00

We're down to our last day in Vegas. We've done a lot and at the same time, done nothing. It's been a great vacation to just hang out with one another and chill, actually talk but also shop like there was no tomorrow. 2 words. Outlet. Shopping. And you'll never want to buy retail again. Ever.

The only thing we hadn't done in the lead up to our leaving is to catch a show. We've done everything else.

Shop
Eat at the casino buffets with all you can eat crab legs (Alaskan) and prime rib.
Gambled a little bit.
Seen the Bellagio fountains and wonder which alcove the Ocean's 11 cast stood while watching it.
Saw snow in Vegas.
Walked the streets of Paris, saw the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Élysées, the waterways in Venice and the Colosseum.
We got married. Everyone asks why we didn't get married by Elvis. Well, primarily because we'd rather spend the money it costs to hire Elvis (it costs at least $400 to be wed by the King not inclusive of Minister's (that would be Elvis in this case) gratuity) on nice rings.
We shopped at Tiffany like it was the Gap.

So what hadn't we done?

Caught a show. I wanted to see Bette Midler but she's not performing till after Christmas. Packrat wanted to see Zumanity, Cirque Du Soleil's adult's only show but tickets were ridiculously priced, even at Half- tix.
Go to Grand Canyon or Lake Mead. We had full intention to but with the weather being unpredictable, we weren't going to risk it. Packrat had never driven in snowy conditions and we hear Black Ice is a big problem in Vegas.
See the Siegfried and Roy tigers. Even though the show's not on anymore and from the looks of it, it was an amazing show, we wanted to see the Tigers.

So, yesterday, we managed to check off two of the 3 things we had on the list. We saw the Tigers at the Secret Habitat of the Mirage as well as dolphins up close with a baby dolphin as well. All very cool. I cannot get over the fact that I can't play with Tigers the way I played with my cats because watching the tiger cubs (there were four of them) rough and tumble reminded me of watching my cats pounce on one another. Packrat reminds me of Roy's attack as well as the guy in the Singapore zoo, all at the hands (well, paws) of white tigers. Amazingly, the enclosure had White Tigers and White Lions. We left when Packrat couldn't feel his fingers anymore and I had happily purchased a snow white tiger plush toy for myself. (Jordan can play with it, but it's Mommy's!)

That was item one.

Item two was to see a show. We got free tickets to see a Burlesque show. It's a long story how we got the tickets and I'm not going into it. Sufficed to say, we got tickets to a show that is usually sold out and very expensive. In Packrat's words, it's as close to strip show as I'm going to get unless I really want to risk heading to one of the strip joints near the tattoo parlours near the wedding chapels. Sounded good in theory. Dinner and then a (Burlesque/ Cabaret) show, the true Vegas experience. The thing is, for me, I saw it from a very performance point of view. So, I marvelled at the way they moved, the high kicks and the fluidity while at the same time amused that they were taking off various pieces of clothing as the show went on. The thing about Cabaret shows is that there isn't total nudity, just the suggestion of it. Possibly to retain some semblance of propriety or because tantalising is always better than in your face nudity. The problem was, after a while, there is such a thing, well, for me anyway, as too much boob and while varying in sizes, a boob is well, just a boob. So, I fell asleep, even with girls dancing on a pole in front of me. But at least I was there and I had fun while I was conscious. I'm sure Packrat had fun so I'm not asking him to comment.

My biggest bugbear about the whole trip and it came to a head last night during the show was how in Vegas, it's ok to smoke. And it's ok to smoke EVERYWHERE. So, the old cliche about smoke filled gambling saloons? Very true. And the less classy the casino is, the more smoke there is. And the Burlesque show took place in a mid-class hotel where it wasn't just smoke in the casino, it was smoke in the entire hotel. That led me to remark that it was no wonder that all the hotel drugstores sold Visine, eye drops that make one's eyes freakishly white. It also led to Packrat and I having scratchy throats and glazed eyes. Well, it's a once in a lifetime thing. I don't think I would go to another cabaret show, not like this though, I still want to go to the Bette Midler one and I don't think I'd set foot into another casino that was so smoke filled again.

So now, we're done. The only thing left is to endure the horrendously long flights and connections back to Singapore. I maintain, if the USA wants to be a global power, it really should make itself more accessible to the rest of the world.

Technorati Tags: Las Vegas, X Burlesque show, Siegfried and Roy White tigers

On the trail of Grissom, Day 7.

2008-12-20T13:49:00.004+08:00

How to get married, Vegas style.

Get some rings. (We did it big by way of Tiffany)
Decide when to do it. (We chose today)
Go to the Regional Justice Centre of Clark County (You have to go through the seedy part of Vegas where the adult movie shops are next to the tattoo parlour which are next to the wedding chapels, all in one stop.)
Fend off the chapel touts. (They're usually immigrants who don't speak very well, trying to push brochures into your hand and give you "big" discount of the packages)
Duck into the Marriage Bureau to get away from the touts.
Fill in separate forms, pay USD$55 to get a license and say thank you to the nice lady speaking to you through the microphone and plexi-glass.
Leave the marriage bureau under the barrage of touts who try to hawk their packages to you while trying to duck the Marshall who will fine them $1000.
Decide which cheesy wedding chapel you want to go to and what kind of wedding. a) Drive through, b) at the window, c) at the fountain (some chapels have fountains), d) at a sweeping staircase, e) By someone famous, f) with Dvds, g) with photos (and then how many?), h) with gown and tux, i) with music, j) with plastic flowers or fresh flowers
Go to said marriage bureau and declare your intention and tell them your choice. We chose a ceremony, with photos, with music, with plastic flowers and a minister who would say a prayer for us.
While waiting your turn, have cheesy wedding photos taken in the true style of the Taiwanese photographers where looking at the corner of the bench for the downcast eye look and taking photographs of the subject in question through a mirror constitutes artistic.
Walk down the aisle, alone to Wagner's Bridal march and have groom meet you at the half way point.
Say "I do" at the appropriate places and repeat the vow of sincerity, faithfulness and helpfulness (No obedience or honouring...) all the while looking at spouse-to-be or spouse already and trying not to laugh.
Place rings on fingers, groom will kiss bride, Minister will declare couple married and couple walk out to Wedding March by Mendelsohn.
Be congratulated by everyone else in the chapel, put back tacky plastic flowers, receive momento marriage cert (we need to send out for the real one).
Tip the photographer and the Minister.
Thank everyone and leave.
Go have a nice meal after that. (We chose Maggiano's and were quite pleased with our choice)

So, that's what we did today. It took us the better part of the afternoon. And we had the Something Old (our clothes, I wanted to do this in a pink wig and something exciting like alien costumes or Buffy outfits or something but it was hard to find and everything in Vegas is crazy expensive) and Something New (our Tiffany rings), Something Borrowed (the tacky plastic floral bouquet) and Something Blue (my hands, even though it's stopped snowing, it's still really cold).

Well, that's the highlight of the day. So how does it feel getting married the second time round to the same guy? Still feels pretty darn good. :)

Technorati Tags: Las Vegas, Weddings

On the trail of Grissom, Day 6.

2008-12-19T01:28:00.001+08:00

When we decided to come to Vegas for the winter, we thought it would be just cold. It has been cold. Quite. Cold. It has also been dry which means my skin itches, my nose bleeds and my hair stands up. Yup, dry weather equals to a lot of static and I'm a very charged person, as in I store a lot of static. Brushing my hair is impossible, taking off my sweater means pulling it over my head and my hair then looks like I got electrocuted and I try hard not to touch metal surfaces, lifts, car doors etc. It is always a danger to try and kiss Packrat because you can actually hear the sparks between us and these are not the type of sparks that relationships are supposed to be made of. It makes for unhappy and literally smarting people.

So that was the weather we sort of knew we were getting ourselves into. There was talk of some rain and possibly some snow Monday morning. I woke up at 7 am to watch because that was when it was supposed to be snowing. But it was just rain. The thing about the Strip is that it is so lit up and that it's hard for snow to have a chance to remain snow amidst all the lights. Wednesday, Packrat and I decide to walk the Strip again. Well, actually take the monorail down the Strip because it looked wet. By the time we got to the Venetian, it was coming down hard and looked like a mixture between rain and slush. I felt sorry for the gondolas outside the Venetian because they looked very very frozen and I also wondered if the water froze over, would they still have to stand tall in the gondolas?

Through the walkways of 'Venice', we heard whispers about snow though all we saw when we stepped back out was a lot of rain and even that is a bit strange for the desert. By the time we got to our next stop, which was Tiffany (yes, I have a gleam in my eye), we knew for a fact that it was closing. Tiffany was shutting down its store because it had been deemed dangerous for their staff to drive back after dark and they wanted their staff home asap. We felt bad because we were the only people in the store and they were basically waiting for us to leave. I must add at this juncture, that the Tiffany staff in Singapore have NOTHING on the staff here. Anyway, everyone was in a flurry. Apparently, it hadn't snowed like that in about 30 years and the city was not very prepared to deal with it. The freeways shut down, schools were declared shut the next day, the States only 2 snow ploughs or whatever had to be deployed, driving to LA was a No-no, as was driving to Salt Lake City, flights in were cancelled, flights out were grounded, just one big panic, one big mess.

But for us, tourists who were staying put and not going anyway, it was quite exciting. There was snow on the roads, snow on the cars, snow on the pyramid, the sphinx, the pirate shi p, the Eiffel Tower, all over. The good thing about the snow was that the air was wet (I have a thing for snow air), I got to bundle up in my winter jacket and cuddle up to Packrat who was freezing because SOMEONE was too macho to bring a thicker jacket. Ok, wait, to his credit, he had a thicker jacket but in his excitement to see the snow, he ran, slipped on a patch of slush and got soaked through. Hence, the thick jacket got wet and he was freezing in a fit for Singapore offices type of jacket.

The sad thing was looking down on the Strip now, we wouldn't know that two days ago, there was chaos, panic and child like glee. It's gone back to charged, dry, cold weather. I'm praying it'll stay this way though because we leave first thing Monday morning and we cannot afford for the flights to get cancelled. I want to get home in time for Christmas with my kidlets.

Technorati Tags: Las Vegas, snow

On the trail of Grissom, Day 5.

2008-12-18T01:19:00.004+08:00

What have we done since we've got here apart from freeze in the desert?

We've shopped. We've hit the outlet malls and it's convinced us that we are not buying retail again, not if we can help it.

We've eaten. There's some food porn on my blog and some on Packrat's.

And we've walked. A lot. The Strip's good for walking when there isn't a sandstorm and the shops are decadent. On the streets though, there are these people called Clickers. They give out girly cards, enticing you to call for a prostitute who will be guaranteed to show up at your doorstep in 20 minute. I've christened them the 20 minute Girls. The Clickers aren't very discerning about who they give the cards too. Kids, women, everyone. The-Schooled in Women's Rights- Me wonders how it is that WOMEN could give these cards out and to other women at that. But I know they're doing it at probably below minimum wage and because they need to put food on the table.

Being here also removes us from reality. Everything is Over the Top here so I thought I should at least take a peak at what was going on back in the Very Real Singapore. Breaking News told me that the world was still out there and trying to kill itself today. My eyes then swept over the 10 most popular stories. I usually look at this when I read the NY Times because it gives me a sense of what has caused righteous outrage or what has caught people's attention.

The problem with looking at the Top 10 stories Singaporeans or ST Interactive readers have read, it leaves me with some not too flattering conclusions.

They don't read about anything that matters.
They aren't very interested in what happens in the world unless it's got to do with sex.
They LOVE reading about sex scandals ( 5 out of ten of articles have to do with sordid sex)
They like reading about other people in trouble.

I think it's fine that people read about these things among the other things that they read about but when these articles come out as top hits, it is no surprise that the Paper really doesn't try to be more intellectual and publishes sensation on its front page.

Sigh.

Technorati Tags: Las Vegas, Singapore

On the trail of Grissom, Day 4.

2008-12-16T14:10:00.005+08:00

Every time we go to a western country, we're always floored by the choices provided to us. And we always lament how we are unable to get that sort of choice at home. Today, we were reminded that food wise, the US beats Singapore hands down. Of course, they beat us hands down in almost everything, but today, we were reminded about food. The size of their supermarkets are legendary, so are the sizes of their jars of peanut butter. But that much, we knew from previous trips. This time, we discovered a healthier alternative.

There's such a big move to eat more healthily, be more environmentally conscious, be socially conscious and to boycott GM food, hormones, chickens kept in inhumane conditions and all. It's hard to do back home. Organic food costs an arm and a leg. I buy organic stuff only for our kids. But here, we discovered, not only is there organic food, there's an entire organic supermarket. And they have everything from fruit, to meats to cooked food. We decided, after having eaten enough junk food to feed an entire high school class, to eat healthy this evening.

From top left to right: Oyako-don with brown rice (chicken, egg with brown rice and teriyaki sauce), Broccoli with garlic and olive oil, vegetable medley (squash, zuchinni, cauliflower and broccoli), Cajun fried chicken thighs, Seafood Gumbo and Alaskan king crab leg.

All organic. All yum. It cost a lot though. About USD$50 for everything but then again, the crab leg cost the bulk of it and Packrat assures me that it costs more in Singapore. But half way through the meal, I was full so I have half my rice and vegetables for dinner tomorrow which I am happy to have. All that was then topped off with organically grown Californian navel oranges and apples.

This should help with countering the effects of the six layered Chocolate Motherload from Claim Jumpers as well as the Porterhouse steak Packrat had. We didn't finished the chocolate cake so it's sitting in the fridge and infusing chocolate scent into everything residing in the fridge. If I ever lived in the US, I would order that cake for someone's birthday, just for the heck of it.

There's also the effects of the breakfast at IHOP that we need to neutralise. IHOP was cheap but I think they bought salt with an expiry date so they were liberally dousing it into their food. Thankfully their pancakes were good and their butterscotch pecan maple syrup was to die for.

That is indeed a ham steak, with the bone, with hashbrown, scrambled eggs, 3 pancakes and onion rings that all belong to Packrat. So, Wholefoods is a great alternative and hopefully, tomorrow won't be so excessive. Otherwise we're going to be working out all the way to Chinese New Year. And then, there's more eating.

I feel sick.

Technorati Tags: Las Vegas, food

On the trail of Grissom, Day 3.

2008-12-15T11:40:00.000+08:00

Walking about on the Strip, you're aware that every other tourist has a half-yard cockatil. That's a really tall drink, sometimes in the shape of the Eiffel Tower, sometimes it's in the shape of something you might use to smoke a bong out of. We thought those were tacky but Packrat saw this, a 100oz Monster Mug from Fat Tuesday, a daiquiri store and wanted it. He is after all, given to excesses. It was stunned for words...3 litres of Margerita? Or any other cocktail I wanted? I know I haven't drunk in a long time but that's a lot of making up. I had to admit, the Monster Mug was cool though.

After much back and forthing, primarily because I did not want to stagger back to our hotel and thank God I didn't because it was the day of the sandstorm, we compromised on the smaller one which still had a fun factor to it.

This one was about 1 litre. Still excessive but not as.

So he went to order while I sat back and rested from all the window shopping. I started thinking about how nice it would be to drink again after so many many months of staying dry for the sake of the kids. But he returns, looking forlorn and empty-handed. Why? I ask.

Apparently, they needed ID and apparently the Singapore driver's license is not ID enough for them. And why did they need ID? Because we needed to be over 21. I was a little bit indignant. Also because I had worked myself up into wanting the margarita. What do you mean we can't buy the drink? What do you mean the driver's license was not recognised? What do you mean we're not allowed to buy the drink? Then it dawned on me. We didn't look 21. It didn't matter that we were married and had 2 children. People here could be under 21 with 2 children and married so that didn't count.

So, even though I'm more than 10 years over the age limit, because I didn't have my passport, I couldn't buy a drink from a daiquiri store where all the cocktails were in bright slushy colours. That sucks, in a way.

Of course, I could say that, well, at least we look young enough to get carded. But damn, I wanted that drink.
Technorati Tags: Las Vegas, legal drinking age, Fat Tuesday

On the trail of Grissom, Day 2.

2008-12-14T08:58:00.005+08:00

How to dress in Las Vegas.

It's 13 degrees in Vegas. That doesn't sound so bad but see the print under the 13 degree weather forecast. BLOWING DUST.

Yes, Las Vegas is in the desert. Which means there's a lot of sand out there. But there's also a lot of wind out there because there are no trees to act as breakers. So, how to dress when the wind is blowing a lot of the sand from the desert into the Strip?

Tie up hair in scrunchy because no matter how much my hair loves the dry air here, it's no point having beautiful hair get matted. And because the air is dry here, I can't really brush my hair without charging myself almost to the point that there are sparks crackling out of me.
Wear flat boots. The lower your CG to the ground the better. There were times when I was clinging onto Packrat because I was about to do a Dorothy and get blown to Oz. I overheard a dad tell his daughter that he needed to tie her to a string and fly her like a kite. Sounds like a plan,
Wear glasses even if not short-sighted. It keeps the grit out of your eyes even when it's turned dark and it turns dark about 5pm.
Layer because it's cold when the sun isn't out but when the sun is out, it's scorching desert sun. And the casinos are all heated so de-layering is also necessary indoors. But thin Target socks aren't enough to keep my toes from getting numb at night. So maybe tights under my jeans. I'll try that tomorrow.
Do not wear hats. I saw 3 hats go a flying in the wind. I also saw a pair of pants but I think it would be quite detrimental to me if I went out there without pants, with my hair tied up, 3 tops on, with flat boots and a pair of glasses on.

If only the weather looked as calm as this.

Problem is this is fake sky, indoors, in Caesars' Palace. It weirded me out for a bit, that I was indoors but the sky was so clear. I felt like I was at Hogwarts with the enchanted ceiling which depicted the sky outside.

We're headed back out again now, in more comfy shoes and a thicker jacket.

Technorati Tags: Las Vegas, winter

On the trail of Grissom, Day 1.

2008-12-13T11:40:00.004+08:00

We've arrived in Las Vegas. Finally. After 2 stopovers. If the USA wants to be superpower, it should really be closer to the rest of the world and not be 24 hours by plane away. We left the house at 5.30 am Friday morning and we checked into the hotel about 5 pm Friday afternoon local time.

This was after a harrowing Singapore to Narita connection where we were packed in like sardines with no leg room to spare and no food to munch on. Because there was no leg room, regardless of how exhausted I was, I couldn't fall asleep. So, instead, I got hungry but there wasn't anything to eat. When Packrat kindly went in search of food for me, he was told rather gruffly that cup noodles were only for business class and got sent back with his tail between his legs and a packet of crackers.

The 45 minute transit we had in Narita made us feel vaguely human again and able to face the upcoming flight. Our spirits don't take much to lift and in this case, a bowl of ramen and some yummy onigiri, Japanese rice balls, did the trick. Thankfully, the longest leg had the most empty seats which meant I could stretch out and really sleep. My bug bear with that leg was the fact that the main course was seafood curry and being one to not eat seafood, I asked for something else and I was given the option of that or grilled salmon. So, apparently, I've been categorising them wrong all my life. Grilled salmon, meat.

The worst part of the trip was the last bit. Perhaps becuase we knew it was coming to an end, we wanted it over faster. Or perhaps because of the paranoia that has become America; holding passengers up and being down right rude to them is the order of the day. Whatever it was, we thought a more than 2 hour lay over would be sufficed to actually get our bags, check it in again, get through security with a good half hour to laze around.

The reality was we streaked to the gate, boots in hand (one should travel to the US in slippers regardless of weather because of this particular law), trying to slip through before the door shut and the plane took off. And in my sis-in-law's words, LAX looked like it got trashed by Somalian pirates.

Thankfully no more flying for the next ten days. Packrat and I are just back from dinner. We haven't seen much of the strip yet because both of us are dead on our feet. Him more than I am. More tomorrow, when we actually see the real Las Vegas.

Technorati Tags: Travelling, Las Vegas

No Tango for Mango

2008-12-11T19:14:00.003+08:00

Even though I'm no longer the Mango fashionista I once was, I still like to go to the Mango sale and there's always a thrill about going on opening day. But it's not possible anymore. I used to queue first thing in the morning. I used to go with a fellow fashionista who would take leave from work and we'd work our way through ALL the stores in the city. But my friend has moved on to other brands and while I haven't really, I'm not really all that keen to carve out time to do it anymore. It could be due to various reasons.

I no longer draw a full salary and come next year, the only salary I'm going to be drawing will be what Packrat sees fit to give me. Sigh. I am going to be a kept woman.
Because I'm going to NOT need work clothes for a while and I'm going to be living in jeans, shorts and capris (Hmmm, varying lengths of pants...) I don't think it's really necessary.
The quality of the clothes have deteoriated somewhat.
I don't have very much wardrobe space although that might change come mid next year.
I don't have time. My time goes to other more important things that don't allow me to stand in line, not doing much just so that I can spend money I don't really have for clothes I don't really need.
Or maybe it's because my daughter saw it fit to take both my shoes and my money and traipse off with it.

Technorati Tags: shopping, Mango Sale, Having children

Someone's gonna get hurt real bad

2008-12-02T00:24:00.000+08:00

'Tis the wedding season so I've been to a wedding a week the last couple of weeks and there's something that has struck me as bizarre. In two of the weddings, the newly married couple gave thank you speeches. No surprise there. They thanked everyone from God to the little boy who probably only opened their car down with a big grin and oranges in order to get some moolah. No surprise there too. What was surprising was the reason why they thanked particular people.

Parents fall into the "Must thank" category. If they are not thanked, that would be akin to slapping them in the face and spitting on their grave. So they get thanked. And in true Singapore fashion, these couples' thank you speeches seem to follow the composition answering template that was taught to them in primary school.

i.e.
Q: What fruit do you like?
A: I like apples.
Q: Why do you like apples?
A: I like apples because they are sweet and juicy.

Similarly, there were a lot of "I am thankful to my parents because..." and the reasons bordered on mundane and made me wonder if my kids would say the same thing about me years from now. There was thanking mom for making breakfast and thanking dad for sending/picking them to school/work. But there was one that did make me sit up. Thanking Dad (mostly) for disciplining them and being strict with them and caning them or making them do tons of assessment books.

It really sounded like a case of taking the whole Confucian thing a bit too far. I think our education has imbued into us that anything that disciplines us is good for us. And anything that builds character is good for us. So since discipline builds character, discipline must be good for us. But that's where it gets me. I'd be plenty ashamed if at Baby J (she won't be a baby by then...) or Evan's wedding that they stood and thanked us for disciplining them so that they grew up to become upstanding useful citizens. Discipline is very important, I agree with that. And it is part of loving our kids. I agree with that. But for it to be such a key feature of the relationship with my child such that it becomes the illustration that defines it, that's a bit too much of discipline and too little of everything else in the relationship. I don't know how the fathers felt, to be in the audience when this was announced to their 500 guests but I'd be quite ostrich like if it happened to me.

When I think back about what I'm thankful for with my Mom and Dad, I think about how my Mom would make it a point to book a holiday bungalow or chalet with us every year end vacation and we'd stay there for a week at a stretch. Our days revolved around being in the water or playing on the sand, occasionally coming up to eat. I even remember how one year, Mom booked it for the last week of the term because everything else was booked out and the thrill of going to school from the chalet was immense. It was like I had a secret and to be able to go "home" to the chalet after the school was way better than anything anyone must have had at that point. This was coupled by the fact that going to school meant playing games in school since it was after the exams. Now, that memory was something I am immensely thankful for and I look forward to being able to do the same thing for the twins.

With my Dad, he wasn't the most involved or enthused Dad around but he tried. And I remember how much he believed in my leadership abilities and how he took great offence at my not being selected to be a prefect. I'd come home crying because I found out that I hadn't been made prefect (I have no idea why it was such a big deal), not because I wasn't good enough but because my class had decided that Little Miss Good at Everything wasn't going to get away at being good at yet another thing. (The combined bitchiness of teenage girls and their elephant memories made for life in a girls school being extremely miserable for me) My Dad huffed and puffed about it and was about to march into the principal's office demanding how a girl's future (seriously?) could be determined by her impartial, immature peers and how it was obviously a flawed system. Thankfully, he heard me when I begged him not to make my life more miserable. I found out later on that he did the same thing for my brother. Dad had something about making sure that we were given the leadership opportunities we deserved and even though there wasn't direct discipline involved, it taught us another virtue, as important as discipline and that was justice and objectivity.

Oh! It just struck me that being a prefect was a big deal because my brothers had been prefects and had served on the prefectorial boards and I got a kick out of them wearing school blazers. I think that and the idea of head girls put into my head by Enid Blyton and all her school stories! But that's beside the point. My point was that those are the things I remember my parents doing for me and while they didn't directly build character like the cane would have, they made me feel loved and protected.

And in my book, growing up with a childhood memories that do not involve school work or tuition and knowing that my parents had my back are as important as being taught right from wrong. But at the same time, don't get me wrong. My parents were big on discipline. Especially Dad. His oft bellowed threat was something about turning us upside down and walloping us. So much so that I recorded it verbatim in a composition I wrote for the school news letter and the principal called me in for questioning, on whether I was really subject to such cruel and ununsual punishment that bordered on abuse.

But I don't remember the overt acts of discipline even though I know they were there and they make me part of who I am now. And I don't want my kids to remember the times that I smack/ ground/ rail at them, especially not at their weddings!

Technorati Tags: Singapore, weddings, discipline, parenthood

I like my men...

2008-11-20T22:45:00.005+08:00

According to the marriage counsellor who facilitated our group when Packrat and I were doing our Marriage Prepartory Course (it was and is mandatory for those wanting to get married in church), Packrat is Mars and I am Venus. We are poles apart and as I am the quintessential girl, wanting attention, affection, always wanting to talk, quick tempered and passionate, he is the quintessential boy, stoic, prefers action to words, occasionally broody and loves his tech toys. It makes for interesting dynamics. These things that define him as a guy are what annoy the heck out of me, and I'm sure similarly the sentiments are returned 100%.

Unfortunately, the general distate for all the stoicism of the world and its related qualities has transcended into movies. There is much hype about the Quantum of Solace and Packrat had enjoyed it when he went to see it without me. Obviously, I kicked a big fuss over that and that guaranteed that he would watch it a second time when he went to see it with me. I had generally been neutral about the new Bond before, during and after Casino Royale. It was Packrat who seemed to have objection to how Daniel Craig made Bond boorish and almost unrefined.

My objections manifested only when we went to see the Quantum. And it manifested by my sleeping through most of the movie and waking up feeling very dissatisfied and disgruntled. I had fallen asleep because

I'm always tired and cinemas often have an effect on me.
I realised I didn't care for the movie. There was nothing in it to hold my attention. I knew that when I first had to fight the urge to fall asleep just after the title song and that, even for me, is early in the movie.
I did not like Bond. Not so much that I did not like the movie. I wasn't given a chance to like the movie because I fell asleep but I did not like Bond.
Bond hardly utters 10 words in the movie.

In fact, I was downright grumpy about him and I let it be known to Packrat. And I also declared that I hadn't disliked Bond like that before. In fact, I had enjoyed the previous Bond movies and the previous Bond. That was when revelation struck the both of us. The reason I didn't like the current Bond was part of the same reason I had liked the previous one.

I don't like the current Bond because of all the things I stated above

He was broody
He didn't mutter more than 10 words
There was no charm. Just a lot of killing people.
There was much stoicism. Yes, we know he loved the girl who betrayed him but how did he deal with that? Kill kill kill. Not what I look for in a man.
He is a guy's Bond.

And I liked the Pierce Brosnan Bond because

At least he had funny one-liners and wry humour
He oozed charm and was suave. Daniel Craig looks good in a tux the way a model would look good in a tux. It's just a tux on a nice body. Pierce Brosnan looked at home in the tux.
He looked like he was capable of woo-ing a woman instead of just wanting to have sex with her.
I liked him when he was Remington Steele.
He didn't alienate the women in the audienc

Not the most intellectual of reasons but I'm part of the audience and they probably lost my 6 or 8 bucks for the next movie and so on till another Bond comes along and then we'll see if I go back. But for now, I'm leaving Bond to Packrat and I think what makes it all the harder for me is that this year has seen the dearth of chick flicks and I'm shallow enough to say, that's where some of the more desirable men are, by chicky standards anyway.

Technorati Tags: James Bond, Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan

Dictated by Nature

2008-11-13T20:09:00.003+08:00

Packrat and I are quite the travel buffs and we've inherited our parents' wanderlust. So, every chance we get, we travel, be it near or far, we leave. I think it also has to do with the fact that we revel in being able to leave the country, especially for cooler climates.

This year, we're off to Vegas. It'll probably be our last big trip because our children are older and it is increasingly difficult to leave them behind. Subsequent holidays will probably be in the region and will feature them more and more. Which is fine but it does change the dynamics of the vacation.

But it's becoming clear that there are two places that I want to visit and I should do it sooner rather than later. Not for any other reason but that they may no longer exist as places to visit in the near future. For a while now, we've been wanting to do the Alaskan cruise and see the glaciers and we know we should do it soon because well, the way the polar ice caps are going, there won't be much of a glacier left to see. We wanted to go last June but there was the slight matter of the birth of the twins that sort of caused our plans to change a little bit. Slightly digressing, I strongly suspect the phrase 'moving at a glacial pace' is going to take on new meaning soon.

And then, I read in today's paper that the Maldives might move. Yup, the entire country might move because on average, any given Maldivian island is about 1 m above sea level and you know, those blasted sea levels aren't doing much else than rising rapidly thanks to the aforementioned melting polar ice caps. There is the possibility that the Maldives might end up in Australia and I've been to Australia and lived there and have no desire to visit the Maldives in Australia, so we should go there. Soonish. Our friends are off to the Maldives come February. But I don't think I could do their idea of a Maldives trip. 10 days on a fishing boat is not my kind of vacation. Mine should preferably have the words Banyan Tree in it somewhere but that's just me with no ability to rough things up.

But behind all these ditzy desires is a sad sad truth that I don't want to think about and when I do, my perfect world, so delicately built on a deck of cards comes crumbling down. That the world is going to the dogs because we're selfish, greedy, self-centred (are they the same thing?) and painfully myopic. The "Save the Earth" messages played over national radio here inadvertently let on that it's not really saving the earth but "save money" by using less electricity because electricity is expensive and electricity is expensive because oil is expensive and oil is expensive (well, for various reasons but one of it is because of its scarcity) and what is really important is that we save money and cut costs and oh, by the way, by doing that, we might help save the earth as well. And that pisses me off. That, together with all the other injustices of the world that I have no power to do anything about. So, better I remain ditzy lest I manically swing to the other extreme and wallow in the doldrums of helpless, fatalistic depression.

So, more things to add to my ever growing to-do list with the limited funds especially now that I'm not going to be commanding much of an income. And that too, will probably make me depressed but at least, that, I have control over.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Global Warming, vacation destinations

Food glorious food

2008-11-09T22:35:00.002+08:00

Because it's been ages since I did one.

Because I was very upset a while ago when my Father in law asked me to list down a list of food I actually eat because I am particular about what I eat. I know he meant well but my mind decided to take great offence.

Because a few weeks ago, I came closest to developing a temporary eating disorder because of the stress I was under.

Because I need to not fear putting on weight.

From Tym... (which originates at Very Good Taste)

Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
Bold all the items you've eaten.
Cross out any items that you would never consider eating

1. ~~Venison~~ - I could never eat Bambi.
2. Nettle tea - I drank it while I was pregnant. Anything to stop nausea.
3. Huevos rancheros- Looks interesting. Must try. Perhaps when we are in Vegas this winter.
4. ~~Steak tartare~~ - No raw-ish meat for me.
5. Crocodile - Tasted like smelly tuna.
6. ~~Black pudding~~ - No blood products thank you very much.
7. Cheese fondue- I won't rule it out but my stomach just churned.
8. Carp- Did not leave much of an impression except I think I tasted grass in the fish. It is fresh water.
9. Borscht -Not averse to it. It is beef although the colour's a little bit off putting.
10. ~~Baba ghanoush~~ - NO eggplant. Yuck.
11. ~~Calamari~~ - I used to tell people I was 7 Day Adventist Muslim because I didn't eat seafood and pork. I eat pork now but generally I stay away from seafood with the exception of fish, abalone and clams.
12. Pho- If I could super bold this, I would. It was how I survived Calgary and Melbourne on student pocket money.
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart- To do in Vegas or when we finally go to NYC
16. ~~Epoisses~~ - No Cheese!
17. ~~Black truffle~~ - chi chi food
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - think apple
19. Steamed pork buns - LURVE
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras - the post is self explanatory
24. Rice and beans
25. ~~Brawn, or head cheese~~ - no cheese!
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper- Wikipedia says it's a chilli like the habernero so MUST try and then proceed to blow my brains out.
27. Dulce de leche - when I think milk candy, I think of the White Rabbit one and we all know what happened to that one.
28. ~~Oysters~~ - seafood
29. ~~Baklava~~ - nope
30. ~~Bagna cauda~~- It's got anchovies. So, no.
31. Wasabi peas- I like most wasabi stuff... mayo, chips, peas, fries...
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl- more the bowl, less the chowder.
33. Salted lassi- don't like.
34. Sauerkraut- taste like kiam chye
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. ~~Clotted cream tea~~- clotted cream????
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O- Loved it. Had a lot of fun watching friends knock back a whole lot at a time only to be dancing on tables and giggling at the ceiling.
39. Gumbo- LURVE gumbo. Just take out the king prawns.
40. Oxtail-
41. ~~Curried goat~~- CURRIED GOAT???
42. ~~Whole insects~~
43. Phaal- Apparently, a curry even hotter than vindaloo. Where do I find it????
44. ~~Goat's milk~~- Absolutely not. I don't even like cow's milk.
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth US$120 or more
46. ~~Fugu~~- Pufferfish? NOPE. Don't intend to die.
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel- smelly.
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut- Many a time.
50. ~~Sea urchin~~
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi - not on it's own but possibly as an ingredient
53. Abalone- YUM
54. Paneer
55. McDonald's Big Mac Meal- I'd like to try a Super Size Meal, just for the heck of it.
56. Spaetzle - I like. Chewy German noodles.
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S'mores
62. ~~Sweetbreads~~- It's not bread and it's not sweet.
63. ~~Kaolin~~- sounds like it originates from China and well, I'm not eating anything from there if I can help it.
64. Currywurst
65. Durian- SUPER YUM, in almost all forms.
66. ~~Frogs' legs~~- As a matter of principle, NO.
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. ~~Haggis~~ - I do not like the Scot's obsession for innards.
69. Fried plantain
70. ~~Chitterlings, or andouillette~~ - a fancy name does not disguise that it is actually just pork intestines. No.
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe - don't know about "louche" though
74. Gjetost, or brunost- not sure how I feel about Norwegian Brown Cheese
75. ~~Roadkill~~
76. ~~Baijiu~~- once again, from China.
77. Hostess Fruit Pie- if it's like any other thing from Hostess... I'd be happy to go through life without trying it.
78. ~~Snail~~- as an 8 year old, first time in Paris. Never again.
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum- Only one of my favourite soups in the world.
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. ~~Hare~~- No Thumpers for me.
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. ~~Horse~~- I couldn't even forgive Napoleon for turning Boxer into glue.
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. ~~Soft shell crab~~ - Lives in the sea.
93. Rose harissa - maybe
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox- lox?
97. ~~Lobster Thermidor~~- Probably not.
98. Polenta - maybe
99. ~~Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee~~- as a rule. no coffee.
100. ~~Snake~~

Technorati Tags: Singapore, food

Tis a good day

2008-11-05T19:11:00.005+08:00

Today was a Melbourne-esque days and those days are extremely far and few between these days. It started with sleeping at 7am. Although this time, it wasn't because I had a paper due. More like I had 2 munchkins who were sick and whiny through the night and since I was the one who gave them the cold, I felt that I should be the one to stay up with them.

Then there was the waking up 2 hours later to traffic. Well, it used to be the trams rumbling by or the restaurant in front's bins of tin cans and bottles being emptied. Today it was the sound of the bus stopping at the bus stop outside our window. That came with the cursory moment of "Oh crap, am I supposed to be at work/school/somewhere?" before sinking back into the covers and savouring the fact that it was light out and I was still in bed.

When my brain started to chug along, I remembered there was television to be watched. It was indeed election day in the US and we've been nauseous, paranoid and totally distrusting the Americans to get their heads out of their bums and do the right thing. To say it was exhilarating was an understatement. it was electrifying and I knew as I was watching it, that history was unfolding before my eyes. Packrat and I were like mini-pundits, refreshing charts online to see the numbers inch up from McCain up by 8 votes to Obama overtaking him and leaving him in the dust. I hated CNN though. Their projected wins made me feel like I was going to get my hopes up based on what were basically guesses. So even when they projected a win with a big fat tick by Obama's name, I was scant to believe it until NY Times confirmed the number of electoral votes had surpassed the magical 270. That's when the dance of joy occurred and the day began to look extremely bright and cheery. All this happened without us leaving the confines of our bedroom and for those glorious hours, I plain ignored the fact that I had two kids whom I should probably have looked in on. But for those hours, we were just us, enjoying something non-kid related, relishing in something had impacted more than just us and caring about something bigger than we were.

Both Packrat and I shared the same sentiment as we slowly got dressed to re-enter our own reality. That this was exciting. That this was like Melbourne. Where we had time to be citizens of the world and to be our own people. We realise that as our children grow older, it's going to be harder for us to do this because these things that we enjoy doing, these somewhat intellectual idealistic pursuits are for us, for our own growth as people and it disregards reality and the roles we play in that reality. I think perhaps, that's why also, that much as we hate some aspects of our profession and every year, I swear blind that I need to leave it, I end up going back to it the following year. Because in our profession, it is somewhat expected of us to still pursue these aspirations and to be in the know about all these things. And like I used to say, it gives us the soapbox to actually imperiously demand that others be like that and care in the same way.

I often categorically claim that my successes in teaching are not the number of distinctions my students get for the subject but that they realise that it is part of their responsibility as people to actually care about things that go beyond them and their very limited blindered worlds. It's a hard battle and I often get angry when I have to fight uphill against the pragmatics of society to get the message across. This part, is un-Melbourne-esque, though I think the roots of my professional ethos come from there. So when I felt the intense need to talk to people or students about it and I couldn't because they're all in the throes of exams, I felt a bit lost. Similarly, when I discovered this, I felt I needed to show it to someone, again, I couldn't because much as I want my 18 year olds to care about the world and ideals, I do need to balance that with the fact that exams ARE important.

I think we're still reveling in it, that not all Americans are the stereotypical dumb American although I did hear of an American in Singapore who forlornly declared that now America had elected a man who was unGodly and would lead them straight to hell. I'm sure he thinks Obama's the Devil Incarnate and is Muslim as well, as one of my opinionated students readily declares to anyone who might listen. Thankfully, my soapbox is larger than his.

Added on 6 Nov
Now that the American press has had a bit more time to digest what has happened, it is indeed heartening to see in the Op-Eds and editorials messages of hope and support for POTUS elect. It really does feel like the Americans see themselves slowly waking from the dark, dismal stupor that has been the last 8 years.

Technorati Tags: American Presidential Elections 2008, Singapore, teaching

Why bother?

2008-11-05T00:51:00.003+08:00

My in laws are a little bit puzzled why we've been talking about the US elections so much recently, why we changed the channel from their beloved Channel U to CNN and MSNBC this evening at dinner. Most people don't really bother. It is after all, just another election in another country. But we do care. So much so that NY Times is left open on the browser so that we get the results as they come in and if the kid wasn't in the room with us, we'd have the tv on the whole night to watch them as they come in.

But why bother? It really doesn't affect us. Our bonuses aren't going to grow with a new adminstration. Our IRs aren't going to go away. The state of our economy isn't going to get better, why bother. Perhaps it's got something to do with the audactity of hope.

Or perhaps it's got to do with the fact that I've been teaching it for the better part of this year, explaining the concepts of the electoral vote against the popular vote. Explaining the concept of democracy and Federal government. A throwback to the days where I ate and breathed American politics and history. Perhaps it would be a nice round off to my year of academic nostalgia.

Or it could be the fact that we only in the last few months finished The West Wing series which ended with a resounding bang worthy of the pilot season where a new President was sworn in and this character had been fortuitously based on Barack Obama himself. Life imitating art or art imitating life or is it art at all?

I don't really know. It could just be that it's the end of the academic year and I'm so burnt out fumes left me about six months ago that I need a distraction to wind down and this comes at the right time. However, that would mean that it's just a conveninent distraction and that's not worthy of the significance of it so I shall dismiss it although I must admit it has no small part to play in all this excitement.

If I think hard about it, I think it's because I love being in the throes of anything that's driven by passion and cause. It ignites me. And even though this is a couple of continents away and a gazilliion time zones, we calculated and I think the results of the elections will only hit our papers Thursday morning, it's contagious. It means change and it means possibility and most of all, it could possibly bring an end to the mockery that has become the USA.

But with all this hope also comes a great amount of worry. Worry that the Americans will live up to their stereotype of being dumb. That they will repeat the colossal mistake of 2004. That because of all the hype, the Republicans will work harder to get the Grumpy old man into the White House. That all our hope will go to naught. And academically, there's the Bradley effect to worry about. Incidentally, Tom Bradley was African American too.

What they need is a nuclear meltdown in Arizona to seal it for Obama but that would really be life imitating art and in a very very cruel way. Only in the fake world where a fake president is elected will that be oh as successful as it was with minimal damage and fall out. I dread that in the real world, if the party in red wins and the Grumpy Old Man dies and the hockey mom, caribou killing VP gets to run the world's superpower, the country will just have all the library books burnt in the square and baby seals will no longer stand the chance of survival among other very bad things.

And that's a nightmare scenario of nuclear proportions.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, US Elections

Back to the ol' drawing board

2008-10-22T23:36:00.003+08:00

For the last year or so, we've been living with my in-laws out of necessity. And it's not been the easiest thing to do since living with parents has always been a source of conflict and when you're in your 30s and have your own family, the source of conflict is even more obvious. To make matters worse, we sold our first home some months ago. Moving out of it was heartbreaking enough. To sell it ... well, there's a reason why I haven't actually blogged about us selling it. There have been no words. Especially when we found out about 2 weeks ago that our home's new owners have ripped out the entire house so every semblance of us no longer exists there.

Anyway, both Packrat and I found it easier not to say goodbye to the house before the final handing over of the keys. We didn't want to go back. We wanted our memories to be what they were and I think we wouldn't have been able to handle seeing our beloved flat beyond recognition. So we didn't. And we decided to move on. We decided we had to find a new house. Not to replace the old for nothing could replace our first house but so that we could go on and start a new chapter.

We came close a few times but there was always something not right. Until the last weekend when we found a flat, actually 2, that were knocked into one, in our old neighbourhood. Packrat and I knew immediately but we decided to be a bit muted with our response and sit on it, bring the twins in for the baby vibe-meter reading. That passed with flying colours, so the next thing to do was to make an offer, to give a number.

That's when it got stressful because it is a hot neighbourhood and we weren't the only one that the house spoke to (I'm going to have to have a good talk with the house before we move it). For some hours, the numbers just kept escalating as there was bidding worthy of an auction with those little cards with numbers. With every escalation, our blood pressure and pulse rose accordingly. It got to the point where it was a race to the end- who gives the cheque gets the flat. Amazing Race like.

Thankfully, the little bit of athletic prowess and the great deal of mental and psychological endurance to see it through won the day and finally, we once again have a house to call our own. No doubt that comes with its own set of problems, mortgage, renovation, child care arrangements, keeping house, cutting corners to make this really work... but I cannot emphasise enough, we now have our own home. We're no longer vagrants, squatting and at someone else's mercy.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, buying property

The biology of terror

2008-10-03T19:00:00.002+08:00

I have been angsting about how my job puts me in contact with youths who seem to be racist and some what narrow-minded. I'm sure my teachers thought the same thing about me and my preconceived notions of the world and how then, communism was evil and everything bad was communist and every communist was bad. Then it was the era of communism. Now it's the era of another -ism- terrorism.

Different students, same ignorance.

Today, I was looking at a script that noted that "Muslim extremist groups were terrorist organisms".

Right. I had to share this with a friend who is involved in our version of homeland security. His reply which had me in stitches was "Ask him if it was a single-celled organism".

Hysterical and clever. On so many levels.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Education in Singapore, terrorism

Presenting Eve

2008-09-28T01:12:00.003+08:00

Presenting my new toy- Eve

I haven't had all that much time to tinker around with it but I like knowing that it's there.

Things I like about it.
1. It's pretty.
2. My chat platform is a little duck that flaps its wings when messages comes in and has its eyes closed when I am offline.
3. It lets me do groovy things with my photographs.
4. I like the interface although when I go to work and use my PC laptop at work, I am momentarily confused.

Things I don't like about it.
1. Sometimes I lose things I minimise because I have no idea where they get minimised to.
2. When I tried to stick a weather thing on my Dashboard, it would tell me the weather for Key Largo and immediately the Kokomo song comes to my mind and I'm still stuck for the weather in Singapore although it's never anything of interest. Give me a day when the weather goes below 20 and I'll be pleased as punch.
3. I can't isync it to my Nokia 6220.
4. I haven't figured out how to bring work to and fro because it shows up here but not at work. Although that makes the leaving work at work situation much more realistic to do.
5. I am 3 grand and a bit poorer.

But, isn't it so pretty? :)

Technorati Tags: Apple, Macbook Pro

Pepsi or Coke

2008-09-21T20:55:00.003+08:00

The world is pretty neatly divided into two. People who like Coke and People who like Pepsi. People who like Obama and people who like McCain. People who like Survivor and people who like Amazing Race. People who like Original and people who like Crispy.

In Singapore, there is yet another clear division that cuts right through race, age and income. It's people who like Botak Jones and those who like Aston's. They sell pretty much the same thing. They run on the same concept. Cheap American styled diner food in the heartlands and in coffee shops. We discovered Botak Jones when I was pregnant and in dire need of French Fries. Strangely, it was the only thing that I could stomach and the Botak Jones fries did it for me because they were fat and seasoned with chicken salt which sounds terribly unhealthy and most definitely is but when nothing can be kept down, whatever works is good.

So, Botak's got good associations. Packrat loves it because at round the same time, the manager of the outlet we went to came up and told him about their Christmas menu which included Deep Fried Southern Turkey, Gammon ham cooked in whiskey and goodness knows what else. Packrat couldn't stop thinking about it and even though we didn't have it that year (the upchucking took precedence) we had it a year later and there was much joy all around.

Anyway, recently, we discovered Aston's, just down the road from where we live. We thought perhaps it would be a worthwhile alternative to Botak, just for variety's sake and it was indeed closer than our nearest Botak. On top of that, there was a burger that our friend B wanted to take out for a test drive. While waiting for him, we decided to do a test run of our own.

Problem is that's where our hopes and dreams died. Here is how Aston's failed.

We waited 45 minutes for a take out order. At Botak, sometimes that happens too but we get apologies and once a food voucher to compensate for the wait.
They got our order wrong. How difficult is it to NOT butter the corn?
Their fries, while seasoned like Botak, were shoestring fries and hard. Even though I'm not pregnant and therefore less fussy, it still did not make it for me.
Their grilled fish, there's no comparison at Botak because the fish there is all fried in batter, tasted rubbery and raw even though Packrat swears blind that it was cooked and I believe him. It just tasted that bad.
The service sucked. Botak has got peppy, generally well spoken wait staff. Aston's had sullen servers who could hardly speak English.

So, I think it's clear to us which we prefer and where we're going when we want diner food next.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Botak Jones, Aston's

Trust, a many splendored thing

2008-09-17T09:55:00.005+08:00

When people talk about trust, it's usually to do with relationships that they are in or with people that they are close to. I've never really had a problem with trust though at heart, I'm a pretty insecure person especially when it comes to people that mean something to me. I've always been afraid of losing those who are close to me and there have been times when it's happened through some sort of betrayal. That's when my heart breaks and I've been fucked with. And even though at that point in time, it feels like a big deal, things have always gotten better from that point and in all the cases, a silver lining always materialised.

What I've been through the last few days has however, caused all these previous experiences to feel like child's play. All my previous experiences had to do with my feelings being screwed around with, and the fall out I had to deal with was up to me to temper. But this time, the fall out affects those who are dear to me and this makes it an even more intense betrayal. And it's difficult to be rational.

It sounds overly dramatic but it really feels like it's along the lines of having lost faith in humanity. Up till this point, I had never understood why some people who employed house help were paranoid about them. When I needed to hire help, I followed my mother's example. Treat them well, treat them as equals. Provide for them and always be reasonable. In fact, be kind to them. So, I was. It wasn't so much the case of giving her more autonomy than she deserved, but according her respect and trusting her because she was after all, a matured, grown person with kids of her own.

Who knew that maturity was such a relative concept? (Please don't be snarky here) Who knew that according basic respect and trust could lead to so much betrayal and problems? Who knew that those we thought were cruel were actually the ones who might have gotten it right? Who knew that trying to be as close to not violating human rights as possible was going to be our downfall?

So, because we tried to be good people, we allowed for a feud to brew in our backyard, literally, to epic proportions with tinges of Fatal Attraction meets Godfather in it and the scariest part was to have my pre-verbal twins caught in the middle of it all. Even in our response, we were punished.

An employer has every right to buy a plane ticket to repatriate the help and only inform her hours before. The rationale behind it, inform the help any earlier and it gives her the opportunity to escape or retaliate. Any decent human being would feel wracked with guilt for giving such short notice. In fact, such treatment seems unfair and harsh. But it was the way we were instructed to do it.

Much of this guilt came from the fact that repatriation was involuntary and these girls were out here to etch out a living for themselves and their families. And for us to think that we might be depriving people of enough currency to pay for electricity and water just did not sit well for us. In fact it caused us to lose quite a bit of sleep and for me, some weight as well.

But the problem was that our frames of references were different as night and day. Where we felt guilt, nonchalance was dujour. Where we felt that we were at wits end and this was the only way we could end the hissing and call off the attack dogs, they just saw it as a minor hiccup they would overcome. Where we thought we were condemning them by cancelling their work passes, they saw it as an opportunity to go to places more exotic. And where we thought we were being merciful by giving them a second chance, there was no remorse and there was no sense of being contrite.

At the end of the day, the worst has blown over but there's a terrible after taste in my mouth that I don't really know how to get rid off. It's made worse by the realisation that it really is not much of a point being a bleeding heart No doubt we've promised a clean slate and a second chance, but there's something painfully missing from the entire equation on my part. Trust. The thing lost that is never to be found.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Foreign Domestic workers, trust

Three blind mice

2008-09-09T16:27:00.004+08:00

There is something rotting in the state of Denmark...

Well, not actually but it sure is happening in my office. It has been discovered that we have a rat. Not the political backstabbing type that goes and tells your boss that you're sleeping or IMing and Facebooking instead of working but the real kind that was responsible for more deaths than World War One itself, is ugly, giant salmon mutant sized and has a sonic squeal pitch that makes me want to drag fingernails over chalk board so that I can cringe over something else.

And this rat, apparently, is purported to be as intelligent as the students that populate the school. It has evaded all attempts to capture it and it eats our food. That's not surprisingly until it is discovered that the rat has opposable thumbs and can unscrew an airtight container and eaten through half a family size block of chocolate. So, loaded up on caffeine, the rat can go on and on and on.

Then this buzzing on chocolate, rat, we discover, is myopic because the 2nd thing he sinks his teeth into a bottle of contact lens solution and drains the bottle. All the better to see the chocolates with.

To add more colour to the rat, we also found that not only did it topple sealed jars to steal chocs, nibble through plastic bottles, it bit through the plastic wrapping of mooncakes. Obviously it was a rat brought up on Chinese legends and observed the lunar calendar. And somewhat unsurprising considering the rat's geographical location.

It's been difficult trying to track it down. No one's seen it. It's elusive except for the occasional rat dropping and incriminating evidence of half eaten kilo sized chocolate blocks it leaves behind. My suspicion is that even that is done on purpose, to show us that he can get away with almost bloody murder and no one knows whether or not he's got whiskers, is grey or for all we knew multi coloured and is a rat dressed in cat's clothing.

But, what do we know? It likes chocs, is myopic, is Asian in descent and we suspect it came off the Ark because he was first spotted at Noah's desk.

Of course, there are clueless enough people around to suggest that someone takes it home and rear it as a pet. I felt pretty much like saying to this person, "A rat is NOT a hamster. A rat is NOT a plaything!" But I didn't just in case the rat heard me and took it out on my desk tonight.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, rodents, pestilence

National Security Coordinating Council

2008-09-07T17:27:00.005+08:00

Dear DPM Jaya,
For some years now, I have belonged to the revered professional whose sole responsibility is to inspire and to be a teacher, according to the new MOE recruitment campaign. The students I teach supposed to be among the brightest of the land and in some ways are. These are the students who have believed that the aim of education is to groom and produce the next generation of leaders for the nation and each of them believe that they will be a future leader. However flawed on however many levels this is, it is how they see themselves and each 18 year old has the right to have great ambitions and ideals.

What has disturbed me over the years and is increasingly irking me is their schizophrenic and skewed perception of the societal reality they live and will live in. There are many aspects that are flawed but let me concentrate on one particular one that will be of interest to you and the National Security Coordinating Council.

I have found it part of my responsibility to ensure that the students I send out into the world are critically aware of the world they live in. Sometimes that means teaching them to be cynical and to question their unquestioned loyalty and ability to rattle off, on command, the five pillars of defence in Singapore, the five pillars of good governance in Singapore and the five reasons why Singapore is a safe and peaceful society amidst all the turmoil. Credit must be given to the National Education programme in Singapore because at every juncture, in every way possible, when questioned, the students have utmost belief that we are a racially harmonious society and that we are a united people that will stand the test of trials because we are Singaporeans before we are Chinese, Malay, Indian or Others. It has always managed to floor me, how unfailingly able they are to parrot all this and with utmost confidence declare that there is not one racist or prejudicial bone in their bodies because they are Singaporeans and they are racially tolerant of the other races.

And this is where the fissure turns into a great fault line that if not addressed, will cause a tremendous eruption at some point. While worldly wise and knowledgeable in some areas and academically ahead in quantifiable areas, these same students who are destined for greatness are dangerously myopic and racist. No doubt they have grown up in a time where terrorism is a great threat just like the generation before them grew up thinking that all communists were evil. The problem however, lies in the stereotypical prejudices. This is a generation that considers terrorism a new threat and a threat that has been brought about by one religion and that religion is Islam. This is the generation that on one hand is able to declare that they live in a racially harmonious society and declare that each individual has the freedom to practice their religion but on the other hand bitterly and blithely classifies all Muslims as terrorists and all terrorists as Muslims. They, who live in a region whose dominant and primary religion is Islam, consider themselves superior to those who worship Allah because they consider everyone who worships Allah and fasts during the month of Ramadan a potential terrorist out to carry out jihad and blow up the world.

So, despite all their brave declarations of civil harmony, the elite of this generation will grow up with such a warped mentality and when I think about how they are going to be ones who will possibly be shaping the foreign policy direction of the country, I quake in my boots and feel that I would be doing society an injustice by allowing them to graduate into society. Better to keep them cloistered within the walls of the school till we are able to re-educate them. The problem however is that it takes more than just their one teacher to undo all the inherent discrimination that they have developed. It is indeed true that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and this mentality that our young possess is indeed a dangerous thing, in that they are blind and unaware of these prejudices that are deeply entrenched within the psyche.

It is an issue I feel that the NSCC must address from a young age and it is obvious that whatever messages that the NSCC has been crafting and sending into society have been gravely misinterpreted or are in dire need of a drastic rethink.

Thank you.

Yours,
A peon working to mould the future of our nation, on minimal wage.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, young people, racism, terrorism

Bye bye Clover

2008-08-31T09:02:00.003+08:00

I haven't had a new computer in years. Actually since my old desk top from when we got married and got our own place 5 years ago. Up till the point when we moved in with my in laws, the Old Boxer was still chugging a long fine. I liked my ergonomic key board and relatively large screen. But now that we're in closer and tighter quarters, I no longer have the luxury of space for that ol' Boxer. So, Packrat generously let me have Clover, his laptop while he went on to greater things, by greater I mean a super powered game machine with a screen larger than most tvs I know.

The problem is Packrat used the laptop more than I used Ol' Boxer so it's on it's last legs, flashing angry uncooperative messages at me. The last straw was when it stubbornly refused to fire up Firefox for me. No amount of cajoling, coaxing or threatening would convince it to start up.

This led us to start discussing replacement options. Perhaps when Ol' Clover overheard us talking earnestly about replacing her would she realise we were being serious. The choice was between a super-duper Clover redux, outfitted for more than I would ever using it for; I was afterall going to buy that from a boy who also gamed like Packrat did or a pretty Eve like Mac.

So, I haven't figured it out. Of course, one big issue is the money. I don't have any. And another is space. I don't have any either. But I am suffering web withdrawls, so till then, there'll be radio silence.

6 valve bypass

2008-08-27T06:05:00.002+08:00

I'd never heard of a 6 valve by pass till last night and when I did, a friend at the table asked "how fat was the guy?"

Then I came home and saw this. Krispy Kremes are a little bit passe now. Everyone and their dog has tried them. But I don't think anyone has tried the Krispy Kreme burger though I'm sure if this existed in that time of yore where I was surround by kids who talked nothing about KKs, it would have been what they'd have subsisted on all those years ago in cold cold Calgary.

But from where I'm sitting, it's just a quicker where to die. Don't bother with all the lard and trans fat, just eat a couple of these and you're well on your way.

Technorati Tags: Krispy Kreme, burgers

12 steps programme

2008-08-21T06:45:00.005+08:00

A colleague and I were commiserating about how we haven't shopped in a long while. It led me to think about how long it has been since I've actually shopped. And to my own consternation, it's been years. By shopping, I'm not talking about picking up the odd top but real crazy, full on shopping where the thrill is in the buying whether or not there really was a need for it. I used to SHOP. I queued at the Mango sales and I would shop every weekend, tops, skirts, dresses, bags and shoes. Every weekend. Credit card companies loved me but I hated the bills that arrived every month. I think the Isetan credit card loved me the most because I used it to ring up purchases of half the Mango store during the sales. My penchant for Mango clothes gave rise to Packrat referring to it as my house of worship and to students giving me gifts that mocked my pseudo obsession.

Upon talking to this colleague, I realised with some amount of horror and possibly relief that I no longer went mad at Mango sales if at all I went. And a look at previous blog posts showed that over the years, I had slowly gotten over the obsession. - A lot of it was by being forcibly kept away.

I guess, I'm cured. Somewhat anyway. Like any addiction, it's easy to fall off the wagon, or is it to get on the wagon. Anyway, I'm sure the 12 steps would keep me from straying too far.

1. I have to admit that I am powerless of the urge to shop, whether it be Mango or Gap or else where—that my life will become unmanageable if I start.
2. I have to realise and be convinced that a Power greater than myself has to restore me to sanity- the fear of the fat credit card bill at the end of the month.
3. Make a decision to turn my will to shop or not to shop and my life to the care of Packrat or any other rational person who will understands my need to shop and the danger it poses to me.
4. Make a searching and fearless inventory of all the clothes that I have bought that I don't use and had bought out on a whim and prove to myself that I don't need more.
5. Admit to Packrat that spending $400 on a three quarter length cream winter jacket was compulsive and stupid especially since it is still hanging in its virgin state in my increasingly cluttered wardrobe.
6. Be accepting of how life can go on even if excessive shopping be removed from my list of hobbies.
7. Humbly admit that it would be better for all and sundry that I didn't buy 4 of the same tops in different colours.
8. Make a list of things I could have used the money for, including traveling or more recently diapers for my children.
9. Make direct amends to my children for taking up their precious wardrobe space because mine has spilt over and promise to allocate them more space when I clear out all the stuff I no longer wear.
10. Continue to keep clearing out clothes that I don't wear or fit into especially with how the post baby me has a different body from the pre-baby me.
11. Sought through support of others, including my exasperated helper who has to find creative means of fitting all my clothes into the limited cupboard space, not to use retail as a means of therapy however alluring it is, especially when life goes awry.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps and get to this point where I no longer can find the changing rooms blindfolded and shopping becomes a once in a while treat where I allow myself to buy one thing and only if I threw out 2 things to make space for that one thing.

So, remarkably I've pretty much gone through the 12 steps unknowingly and without all that much pain and angst. I guess it has helped that, like Packrat says, my priorities have changed and whether or not I want to admit it, I am less frivolous than I used to be although some days I hanker for some of that frivolity. It's hard to though, when the voice of reason is so loud and there are so many obstacles preventing me from spending the entire day trawling the stores.

I'm not complaining. I'm just marvelling wryly how my life and by extension, I, AM different. But now, I do want to shop. Now to find my "sponsor" to stop me from returning to ways of bad.

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