I'm not blue anymore!

I feel great. I have had a good week. What made this week good? For one thing, it was a short working week! Ha ha! That explains it all! Oh that every week would consist of 3 days of work and 4 days of hang-loose-and-live-life! We had a glorious long weekend from Saturday to Tuesday for Chinese New Year and I really enjoyed myself.

On Saturday met my kakis from JI - Rita, Shamala & Mini for lunch. We went to the buffet lunch at Raffles Plaza and it was actually this extended lunch-cum-high tea thing so we started at 12.30pm and sat there till 3.30pm when I had to reluctantly leave as I was going to attend the Saturday Evening Service at 4 (Oh Joshua's sermon was worth rushing back for!). We had a great time. It is so comfortable when you talk to old friends and now that we are all split up (with only Sham left at MI) we had different stories to tell. But more than the stories is the ease with which we can talk about our struggles and the laughter that comes from the "remember that time when..." stories. Gosh, we have come a long way - from when I was having my babies to now when Mini has toddlers! It was good.

I decided not to go to the service on Sunday largely because I felt quite bad that I hadn't been cooking Sunday lunch for the past few weeks. I have committed to translating the Baptism class lessons into Tamil for a lady called Shanti who has just accepted Christ and that means that I have to be in church by 9.30am. The class finishes just in time for me to attend service at 11.00 so by the time I get back it's past 1 and we end up going out to eat. I know D prefers to eat at home so since there was no baptism class this Sunday I decided that I would just attend service on Sat and cook Sunday lunch. Not too bad - made nasi lemak and chicken sambal. It was a lazy day for us - of course we couldn't go anywhere but we had rented a whole bunch of VCDs and dear Ratna gave me 2 bottles of the best pineapple jam tarts I have ever eaten and it was bliss!And oh, Neen, if you are reading this - I watched 'Dor'. Thank you thank you for recording that movie for me. It was so so beautiful. I can't wait to see the other Hindi movies you gave me.

Highlight of Monday was meeting up with Saro in the afternoon for our secret rendezvous at the Pan Pacific - our massage!! Ooh I had a really good therapist this time. She really worked out the kinks in my back and I have booked her for my next session too. I am such a massage junkie. I wish I could afford to go every week! But it was bliss. And of course it gave us a chance to catch up with each other as well - her woes in school and my woes in office. Just a huge dump-all-the-angst-and-live-life session.

On Tues met Siva for lunch & since it was the last birthday he was celebrating as a bachelor, I decided to buy him lunch :) Went to The Vilage at Heeren and had a nice long lunch and lots of airtime about getting married and managing expectations and coping with worklife... At one point I just sat there and thought how blessed I was that I had all these kids who still wanted me to be part of their lives.That they had sat in my class and I had not messed up.That they were now adults - studying abroad, working, even teachers themselves, getting married - and we were moving on in our relationships. No longer my students for me to bully but people I really love and with whom I could talk about larger things that mattered in life beyond school.

Yah - well, that was my CNY weekend. Then went back to office for a day before we had 2 days of workplan seminar on Thu and Fri and here we are on a Saturday morning again. Just came back from a climb up Bukit Timah Hill followed by our customary breakfast with Carol, Dot, Chit and Saro and you know what? Life is good.