The Battle Begins Tomorrow

AAAAGH!!!! I have put on 3 kgs!!!!! Aaaaaagh!!! This is the result of birthday dinners + trips to KL + Christmas + Ben & Jerry since R came home. I just caught sight of my paunch in a Christmas photo of me. The horror! The horror!

Hear ye! Hear ye! on 1 Jan 2009, the diet begins. The exercise begins! The 3 kgs will be conquered! I have made this public declaration to make myself get started and to warn - no, beg - all my friends not to tempt me with all manner of chocolates, ice creams, cakes and cookies. And anyone who wants to meet me will have to make an exercise date with me. No more coffee dates, no more dinner dates and no more dessert sessions until those 3 kgs are wiped out, vanquished! Neen - we have to walk around Botanic Garden when you come or climb Bt Timah ok :) Aaaaaaagh!!!!! :)

Talk

Wow much has happened since my last blog. Can't believe it's been 3 weeks! Got my first bout of the flu bug for this year sometime after I last blogged so I guess that's why I haven't been updating. I also went up to KL for a weekend after that as my niece M had come down from London. It was a real pleasure to be able to spend time with her again. It was an interesting weekend as we were also on a mad shopping spree in preparation for my niece V's wedding next year. I also spent a day with a very dear friend of mine and it was nice to just chill out and talk. I wish I could make a career out of this like Oprah - you know, sit with different people and ask them stuff and listen and tell your own stories and make memories...

Strange, I didn't use to be like this. I used to really dread meeting new people and I used to keep a lot of my thoughts and feelings close to myself. I don't really remember when I started telling people about me. Hmmm... come to think of it, even blogging is quite unlike me :) But I think I like this new me more. The old me was darker I think :) And last night I had a really great conversation at a wedding dinner I attended. One of my colleagues got married and I went because my old gang at the office were all leaving and I thought the dinner would be a good time for us all to meet and chat but the place turned out to be quite noisy and we were all seated at different tables, so what with one thing and another, I ended up making conversation with the couple seated next to me and wow, was it some conversation! I had never met such an interesting man before! He was a doctor who had moved to Singapore from Canada because his wife was a little homesick for Asia. And he had really great stories to tell of the times he had spent in Sabah, Hong Kong, Manila and Ottawa. It was honestly the first wedding dinner I had attended where I didn't realise how late it was! I do hope our paths cross again. I learnt so much!

Coming back to conversations - the long and short of it is - I love them. I like meeting friends and talking over coffee, I like walking with my daughters and talking, I like lying in bed with my daughters and my niece and talking, I like sitting in the youth room with my CYAN kids and talking, I like meeeting my ex-students for dinner and talking, I especially love sitting on the beach and talking. Oh, how much there is to hear! Everybody has a story. I just wish more people would tell them. Especially to me :)

Globe-trotting Plans

OK, I have decided to suspend my looking backwards and decided to look forwards. As of now, 2009 looks set to be a year of much travelling! I can't believe how much of travelling I'm going to be doing! Here are my travel plans for next year -

• Feb 2009 - I'm going to Melbourne to settle R in and then to Sydney to attend D's niece's wedding. Yay!
• May 2009 - D and I are going to the US to attend J's graduation. Another Yay! I am also planning to visit my niece in Florida and my brother in Wisconsin. Also hoping to see New York and Washington.
• June 2009 - weekend trip to Bangkok to use up my credit card rewards before they expire in Aug!
• July 2009 - 2 weeks in London to celebrate my sister Su's 60th birthday + my niece Vid is getting married! I get to see Maya and Rohan again too!
• Aug 2009 - a short trip to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat if J's friend is visiting :)
• Sept 2009 - Hong Kong during the Hari Raya weekend with my BOWALA gang to visit our dear Carol with the express purpose of crashing at her pad to drive her nuts :)
• Oct 2009 - to KL for Vid's Indian wedding ceremony.
• Nov 2009 - my long awaited, much hoped for tour of Israel. My friend Dot and I have put our names on the tour list and we are waiting for the pastor organising it to confirm the tour.

So there you go, my long list of to-dos in 2009. I'm so excited just thinking about these plans. The BIG question is, where oh where am I going to find the money???? Anyone interested in contributing to the kitty??? :)

A Mood Piece

Is it just me or do other people get melancholic towards the end of a year too? Well, melancholic, reflective, you know the kind of feeling that leaves you feeling a little sad, but not weepy or bawl-your-eyes out kind of sad. I have had my mid-life crisis so I know it's not that :) But the weather also turns wet and grey at this time of the year and then I begin to mentally tote up the year into my pluses and my minuses and me being me of course my minuses seem to outweigh my pluses... It's at times like this that I wish God would give me a peek into the next year :) But even as I write this I am reminded of someone who told me a few months ago that she did not think there was anything for her to look forward to. She only saw for herself an escalation of problems with little end in sight. I felt sad then and I feel sad now thinking of what she said. But melancholic though I am now I have a quiet peace inside me that my tomorrows are in God's hands. I may chafe now, I am restless, wanting I know not what. But I also know that despite all the ways I have messed up my life, despite all the wrong choices I have made and all the times I have failed to live up to His expecatations, God has forgiven me, God loves me and even if every friend I depend on leaves me, He will not let me go.

Older and Rounder...

Well, the birthday did seem a little tame at first after all the excitement of last year.... But I definitely ate more this birthday than last, thanks to all those who took me out for birthday meals. And it seemed like I was celebrating my birthday over a few days as the celebrations started on the Wed before my birthday and ended on the Tues after my birthday! Here is a pictorial journey through all the meals eaten and cake indulged in....

The first was dinner with my young adults cell group from church on Wednesday, 2 days before my birthday. We went to Crystal Jade in Holland Village to eat hand-made noodles and the first of many cakes. It was a lovely chocolate cake.

And then on Thurs I had a lovely surprise - these lovely roses J and R sent me.... thank you darlings. :) Did you know they are my favourite flowers?

Then on my birthday, WY sent me this indulgent picnic hamper and flowers. I especially liked getting a delivery at the office.... of course everyone just assumed it was D who sent it. Hahaha.

Dot, Flo and Angie took me out to lunch at Rocky Master, and drat I forgot to take a photo. Chocolate cake again :) In the evening, it was dinner with Durai at Amici in Holland Village. His sister and bro-in-law joined us for dinner - Italian food with yummy tiramisu for dessert.

The next day, Saturday, it was a Mexican lunch at Cha Cha Cha with Sham and Mini, with a sinful Kahlua chocolate mousse for dessert.... mmmm...



In the evening, we went over to D's sister's place for dinner and the in-laws had a cake for me too... more chocolate. Sadly, sadly, by this time I was really beginning to have enough of chocolate. I really MUST be getting old :)

Sunday was a quiet day and on Monday we had a birthday celebration at the office after all the PW people came back from their external work. Tiramisu!!!

In the evening, it was dinner at Swenson's with friends who have to remain mysteriously anonymous as it is crucial that their identity be protected :) No cake this time but ice-cream!!!

And then stuffed with all that food and cake, the festivities finally came to an end on Tuesday with Thai food with Johnson and Yvonne!



Looking at all these photos I swear I can just see myself growing fatter and fatter from the pic taken on my birthday to the pic at Thai Express!!! Yikes!!! Time to hit the gym and that 4-letter word!!!!

A Song

Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to meeeee
Happy birthday to me! :)

How is My Hand?

Attended a talk on 'Ecclesiastes' on Sunday and the speaker gave an illustration that made me think. He said we need to go through life with open palms and not clenched fists. We usually think of clenched fists as being stronger, because you think of boxing, the force of hitting something with a clenched fist. An open palm, on the other hand, is a sign of surrender and weakness. But, he went on to say, it is the open palm that is stronger - for you cannot carry anything with clenched fists. It is open palms that can carry, lift a heavy box, for example.

To me, a clenched fist also suggests closed-ness, a refusal to admit vulnerability, hoarding, a refusal to let go. Made me think - what hands do I have? Am I going through life with clenched fists? Refusing to let go, hoarding, refusing to be vulnerable? Or do I have open palms? Have I given, have I admitted my weaknesses, have I surrendered? I don't know.

My Birthday Treat

I gave myself an early birthday treat on Saturday - I went to watch 'Brideshead Revisited' in Gold Class :) The Vivocity outlet of Golden Village had a special English Tea menu for the sneak preview of the movie so they served finger sandwiches, scones and apple crumble with ice cream and a choice of coffee or tea. It was great fun! I would never have thought of it if Maya hadn't taken me there before. But having gone once, I was instantly attracted when I saw the ad for the sneak preview.

So there I was, reclined in a plush chair with a nice blanket to keep me warm and food and coffee served inside the theatre. Bliss!! If I had not been so full I might have been tempted to try other food from the menu - you can even have a full meal in there. Of course you pay a price for it. My English Tea + Movie experience cost me $48.00. Yup, extravagant of me - 5 people could have watched a movie for that price. I guess it was just one of those impulsive decisions. But I had fun. It felt so decadent - of course it came no where close to the decadence of Sebastian and Charles in the movie - but I really enjoyed snuggling up under the blanket and drinking my coffee :)

And I was amazed that I had been so naive at 20. When I read the novel, I had NO idea that the relationship between Charles and Sebastian had all those gay undertones!!! It all makes sense to me now. Finally I understand why there was all that anguish and drama. I can't believe I was that naive, honestly :) Boy was it a re-visiting for me!! Overall, though I think I loved the setting of the movie more than I was engaged by the characters. Emma Thompson was very good - a regal presence, but the other characters did not impress. The house, on the other hand, sigh.... oh to live in a house like that. I don't blame Charles for being willing to sell himself to be a part of that lifestyle :)

But for the Grace of God

The current financial crisis seems worse than the 1997 crisis and I can't help feeling somewhat uneasy even though I know that being in the civil service, my rice bowl is not in imminent danger. In fact I have been feeling immensely thankful that my financial planner made me take out my funds from a unit trust that I had been talked into investing in and putting the funds into an insurance policy that would mature next year. I was especially moved by the picture in The Straits Times that showed an old woman with tears streaming down her face because her life savings had been wiped out overnight. And I thought to myself, that but for the grace of God that would have been me.

If you have never been pressured by the bank salespeople you would not really appreciate the position these people are in. I remember how the bank salesperson took me aside from the queue I was in and talked me into buying the unit trust. I think the biggest sign of how I had been blindsided was when all I could tell my financial planner about the unit trust I had bought was that I got a free handphone from the deal :) He kept watch on the unit trust and told me when to pull out. I lost about 2k but looking back now it was a small price to pay to learn that lesson. I think many of these sales people were really unethical and I'm really glad that MAS has called on banks to "do the right thing". It is a great maxim - that perhaps more people and policy makers should take to heart.

Movies

D and I went to watch 'Mamma Mia' this evening. It was great fun! The ABBA tunes are very catchy - well, the lyrics are of course totally cheesy - and I can't help humming. If Jand R had been with me they would have been totally embarrassed because I had a mini 'quiet' karaoke session at the movie :) It so helped that the lyrics were flashed across the screen... hahahaha. Well, I guess on the moral barometer it doesn't rank high - 3 men and she doesn't know which one fathered her child (????) - but it was a sunny movie, the sort that made me want to dance. And boy, does Meryl Streep look good! I can't believe she is 62!!! There were obviously no creaking bones on THAT body! Coming as I am from a week of backache, the sheer energy she showed in the dance sequences and the jump on the bed - wow!

Well, it was definitely waaaaay better than the movie we watched last weekend - yes, I know, but hey, it's empty nest, remember? - where was I? Yes the movie we watched last week - 'My Magic'. Boy, if there was ever an overrated movie this must be it. I am aware I am no arty film critic but I am a film-goer and I've watched my fair share of movies and this one was CRAP!!! I have NO idea why the critics are falling over themselves praising this movie. And I find it totally incomprehensible that it should have been raved about at Cannes! It was a sentimental, melodramatic, pointless meandering story with banal dialogue. All my friends know how much I dislike Tamil movies, but I can honestly say that there are tons of Tamil movies that are better than My Magic. In fact, I think the director of the Tamil movie they showed on tv last night - Bheema - should send his film to Cannes with just taking out the song & dance scenes, because the storyline was tighter, the acting was better and the editing so much more consistent. My apologies for ranting, but I really can't stand it when people rave about a book or movie or play and then it becomes a case of the emperor's new clothes because people don't say it is lousy for fear of being thought, what? plebian? That's me, I guess :)

A Funny Cartoon

Pushpa sent me this cartoon :) All the readers of my blog have permission to name me when I exhibit the characteristics seen above. Right now, I am Bloated. Bordering on Psycho....

Last Hours

I read an article taken from The Guardian in The Sunday Times today and it disturbed me a great deal. It was a son's account of his mother's last days after she had set a date and time for her own assisted death as she had been diagnosed with cancer. In the Netherlands, it is legal to request for euthanasia if one is terminally ill and this lady had chosen to end her life on her own terms.

While the issue of euthanasia itself is debatable, I was most saddened not by so much by her decision to end her life but by the way she spent her last hours. To know when you are going to die, yet to spend the time worrying about your obituary, the coffin, the flowers and the cleanliness of your home.... I am filled with an inexplicable sadness. What filled this woman's life that she could not spend her last days meaningfully, making peace with her husband and sons, making peace with her Maker, and herself? To spend her last day on earth cleaning the house, clearing the garden, making her family wash the toilets? I feel so so sad for the people she has left behind.

All I can do is say a prayer for this family - for a time of healing, forgiveness and love. And a relationship with God who created us to live lives that are far more meaningful than a clean house.

Happy Teachers' Day!

I love Teachers' Day. Yes, I know that technically I am a Curriculum Specialist now, but after 5 years at MOE I know with a sense of certainty that nothing I have done in the past 5 years has given me the soul satisfaction I had in the 25 years before that. I will be the first to admit there were days when I hated getting up in the morning, days when I dreamed of jobs that seemed more glamorous, more rewarding, more exciting. But having now tried my hand at something else, I am praying for an opportunity to start teaching again.

And I think there must be something special about this job if it is the only one of two with a holiday declared to recognise it, right? We don't hear of a Lawyers' Day or a Doctors' Day or a Bankers' Day. Of all the professions, there we have it - Teachers' Day and Nurses' Day. That's it. Yay!!

So today I celebrated it as I have for many of the past years - with a time of reflection and a nice massage :) I'm also happy to have done some teaching - in the form of a mini-workshop I ran for the young teachers in my church on Saturday afternoon. The turnout was small - there were 6 people, but I have learnt over these years that all things happen to fulfil God's purposes. So though I would have liked 20, I know God met the needs of the 6 who came. It was nice that we had space to talk and though I had to rush a bit towards the end (as always, because I always over-prepare!), I think we talked about what mattered.

I also had a lovely surprise this morning. Dot (& Chit & Lily) sms-ed me to say I had a tribute in the Straits Times today!!! And Haslinda of 94A if you ever read this blog, know that you made my day today! The best Teachers' Day present you could have given me - is to bother to remember me 14 years after I taught you and to go the extra mile of writing to the papers. Thanks dearie! Wow! In this age of sms-es, your tribute touched me because it required an effort and I appreciate it. I wish I knew how to contact you so I could say thanks. And I am also humbled by the thought that so many children come to us day after day trusting us to teach them. It is an awesome responsibility and the impact we make on them lasts so long! I can only pray that I did more good than harm. I used to tell my kids that I was born to be their nightmare :) I think to some I was. But I do hope that to some I was a blessing.

My Burnished Locks

Today I got highlights in my hair :) But it was a conservative attempt and I can hardly see the highlights myself! My hairdresser Sam has been egging me on for a few months now to "do something different". I think I curb his creative spirit. I used to have the same effect on my previous hairdresser, Alison, who would try to do different things like blowing my curls out straight and once she persuaded me to try what she called "a relaxant treatment" but she never had much success with my stubborn curls :)

Sam never even tried the route of making my curly hair straight. But after a year of cutting my hair, early this year he started his gentle persuasion - first to try a different hair colour, then to cut my hair even shorter and recently after R got her hair done, to put highlights in. But he hasn't had any success with me because I was terrified I would look really strange. I mean there are only so many things you can do when you are 50, you know ....

Today, he tried a more subtle psychological tack. He talked about how nice R's hair was, then he talked about how we had the same type of hair, then he praised me for being such a kind mother to encourage my girls to do their hair and then casually suggested maybe I should try it too and how he would only do a little bit, only at 10 places on my head and lo and behold, I was soon making agreeing noises... Sam is gooood :) Luckily, none of the other men in my life know how to do this.

So, the end of the story is, yes I got highlights, yes, I like it and no, I don't think anyone would notice. Hahahaha... Sam's parting words were -"So nice... Next time we will increase a leeeeetle bit, ok?"

A Passage that Spoke to me

"Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness.

It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power - it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. When you have realized that our position is nearly desperate you will begin to understand what the Christians are talking about. They offer an explanation of how we got into our present state of both hating goodness and loving it. They offer an explanation of how God can be this impersonal mind at the back of the Moral Law and yet also a Person. They tell you how the demands of this law, which you and I cannot meet, have been met on our behalf, how God Himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God....

I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair."

~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1943)

Family Time

Well, it is significant that my blog hit a hiatus on 27 Jun - the reason is both my girls were back, one on the 27th and the other on the 29th. Then began 2 weeks of activities with R trying to squeeze as much as she could into the 2 weeks she had here before going back to Melbourne.

We went for a family holiday to Port Dickson and KL the first week and as expected R had a packed social calendar the next week, trying to meet up with as many friends as she could. It was a nice relaxing time but I don't think I will go back to PD again. It really was a dead town! I had booked us into The Legend Water Chalets and all I can say is - it was an Experience! First we had a really hard time finding the place because their signage was so bad. In fact we even began to doubt whether the hotel still existed and I actually called the travel agent in Singapore to ask!

The room was another Experience for us... You opened the door and walked into the bath area! Yup, that's right! It was some kind of an open concept bath area which meant that when someone was bathing the rest of us had to stay on the bed or on the balcony :) It was weird. I thought perhaps we had been given a honeymoon room by mistake but J pointed out to me that the chalet slept 4, so.....???!!! The first thing we did was to call the reception and ask for another room which had a closed bathroom :) Turned out there was one available but only on the next day so we had an awkward one day in that room before transporting all our things to the room next door the next day!

It was a nice design concept, it had a glass pane on the floor so you could see the sea at your feet but beyond that the hotel was nothing to shout about.

There was no beach and the only entertainment was a Scrabble board we hired, the pool and the children's playground where we spent most of the time. Hahaha...

Our next stop was Mines Resort near KL which was better in terms of entertainment options, had nice rooms too but was really far from KL city. We got lost a couple of times this trip, but generally had a good time.

Back in Singapore R had a packed social calendar and a trail of meetings with friends that stretched till the departure lounge at Terminal 3. I actually sent J to hover around R and her friends to make sure she came back and did not miss her flight :) Didn't make me a popular mum I'm afraid. Didn't do much good for J's image either.

Well, it was really good to have both J & R at home. The last time we had all been together was in Nov last year during my birthday. Now with R away these times will be harder to arrange. Soon J will be going back too. Sigh.

One thing I am glad about is that we went to have a family photo taken at a studio. I'm really happy we managed to do that. If I get digital copies I will post them on my blog :)

A New Kind of Holiday

I went to Ho Chi Minh City with 2 of my office colleagues at the end of May. We left by an early morning Jetstar flight on Thurs 29th and came back on Sunday. It was fun. A new experience for me - travelling with friends instead of family. Ever since the children were born, we have always had family holidays, not counting the couple of times when D and I drove up to KL to attend a wedding or something. So this trip seemed like a milestone marking a new state of independence for me :)

It was especially unique for me not having to plan anything! I did the online booking of the tickets but Chit and Dot did the rest. Like a true civil servant Chit looked for hotels and presented us with 3 quotes to choose :) We stayed at Metropole Hotel on someone's recommendation. It was a nice enough hotel - they even surprised Chit with a birthday song, card and a voucher for coffee, and the staff was really nice - but it was not near the shopping areas and we had to take a cab to get to eating places and to the shopping belt. And boy did the girls shop! Me - I had very few things I really wanted to buy and was content to walk around with them. Dot had planned the itinerary (see, I really had nothing to do) and we went on 2 day trips out of Ho Chi Minh City. The day trip I enjoyed was the trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels and the Holy See of the Cao Dai sect. I'm writing up a separate blog on my trip to Ho Chi Minh so details and photos will be there soon!

I'm glad I went. It was nice to hang out with friends from the office. And we came back still speaking to each other! Hahaha. I wish my whole BOWALA gang could have gone. That would have been really something but this was a good start. I felt as if another phase of my life was starting - when I didn't have to keep thinking of others but travel as equals, each doing what they liked. I especially liked how cool it was that the other 2 went off shopping on Sunday while I went off to the spa. I liked that - because usually I have had to think about what the others would do while I was at the spa :) So yeah, it was nice.

Would I do it again? Yes. Maybe not go back to Ho Chi Minh, but I would like to travel somewhere else with friends. God willing, Dot and I are planning to go to the Holy Land end 2009, to make use of our leave before we go back to the schools. But I'm hoping I don't have to wait as long as that.

My Young Adults Group

I really like having my CYAN group over. We celebrated Michelle's birthday, ate far too much pizza, ice cream and cake, talked about interesting stuff - what happens when you get filled by the Holy Spirit? - and ate some more when the late comers arrived. VERY bad for my diet!!! :)

Family Stuff

This year seems to be extended family time. After Maya and Mala, another niece of mine, Veena, is in town with her daughter Vishaka. They have come from India to visit for 2 weeks. Veena felt her daughter did not know the relatives on her maternal side and decided to put that right :)

On thing that struck me was the ease with which my grand-niece Vishaka (11) talked to me. This was the case with Ananya (10) and Avinash (5) from New Zealand as well. It was the first time they had met me yet all three got over their initial shyness quickly and chatted about their lives. There was none of the monosyllabic answers I get from the children I meet here. This was the case with 2 delightful girls aged 7 and 9 from Auckland whom I met in church last week as well. It's got me thinking (again!) as to whether we really had got something wrong in our education of the young. It's not just that I was their grand-aunt - the grand-niece and nephew I have here don't even greet me though they have seen me since they were born. So why is there this reticence, this inability to have a conversation among the local children I meet? Hmmm....

On another note, I spent 5 days in Melbourne two weeks ago. D and I took a budget flight on 6th May and returned on the 11th. Very short trip but the price was too good to resist - we got 2 return tickets for $1040 - and I wanted to see how R had settled in. It was a very pleasant trip. The weather behaved and remained a manageable 18 degrees, I had a chance to see Neen, spent time with my other grand nephew and niece and celebrated Mother's Day with my niece (in-law)Ling Kuei.

I saw a sight to behold - my darling daughter who HATED supermarket shopping here and moaned every time we had to do the weekly shopping, actually buying groceries herself. Hahahaha :) So this pic deserves special mention...

But my best memory was the morning of Mothers' Day itself. We stayed in a little hotel beside R's hostel the night before our departure so that we could have some family time and as it would save an early morning commute to the airport. Rubhi disappeared early in the morning saying she had to pass something to her friend. Then she came back while we were having breakfast with a plate of scrambled eggs! Since the hotel only served continental breakfast she decided to make scrambled eggs (my favourite breakfast) for me for Mothers' Day. So she had asked the hotel staff for permission, then gone back to her hostel kitchen and scrambled the eggs and brought it over with a card. It was a really sweet sweet gesture. And I love the way my children still hand-make cards for me.

Now I'm looking forward to the end of June when both my girls will be back for holidays. We are planning a road trip to Malaysia - now that D has achieved his long dream of owning a car (what is it with men and cars??) - going to Port Dickson then KL. I kind of suspect that if we didn't take this trip, I won't see my daughters. Their list of things to do and people to see is long and the parents are number 2675 or something close :)

The Singapore Flyer

My niece, Mala, is visiting from Auckland, New Zealand, with her two children – Ananya and Avinash. Though the children have visited before, now they are both older and not so shy of me.

We celebrated Ananya’s 10th birthday last Monday and as a treat we (together with my sister Vasantha who was visiting from India and her husband) went for a ride on the Singapore Flyer last Tuesday.

It was an interesting experience and I think we chose the best flight time – 7.00pm – as it was daylight as we went up and it had darkened by the time we began the descent so we got to experience both the day skyline and the night one.

It would have been a really pleasant evening except that the ride was spoilt for me by a group of Indian tourists who were in the same capsule as us. One man in the group spent not even 10 minutes looking at the sights. He was focussed solely on taking photographs and kept marshalling his brood of 5 adults and 3 children into different vantage points. He wasn’t interested in the view and oblivious to the fact that that was why the rest of us were on that observation wheel! He directed his photo shoot in a loud voice, kept getting in people’s way and was just such a pain. To top it off he was an indulgent father and the children were allowed to run around the capsule shouting and then twice his daughter had a screaming tantrum. I just wished I could shake that man. He had just no idea that the capsule was a confined space and while his children running around and his family posing at different places would have been fine if we were at the Botanic Gardens, this was a capsule in the sky, for goodness sake! Aargh!

What Empty Nest???

To all those who ask me how I am coping without both my daughters I have to answer – very well, actually. Lest my darling daughters get upset, I have to clarify that I do miss you both dearly and I do miss Maya and Ro as well, but I am not in a deep funk about it. Yes, the ‘empty nest’ feels strange at times (and a big realisation that hit me was how much of the silences between my husband and me had been filled up by my children’s voices) and yes, I am looking forward to when my girls are home for the holidays, but I don’t spend my weekends twiddling my thumbs and crying. I attribute it to 3 reasons –being prepared, technology and God.

I think one reason really is that I had by chance hit on a useful strategy in parenting – I read ahead of the stages my children were in, instead of reading about the stages my children were in. This was by accident really, because I read so much while I was pregnant about the first trimester, second trimester etc that I got bored and started reading ahead. So by the time Jennani was born I was reading about toddler-hood and then early childhood etc. So by chance I had hit upon a way that kept me prepared for what was to come and when the challenges happened I wasn’t caught by surprise and I had time to mentally prepare myself for colic, temper tantrums, reading needs, adolescent needs etc.

So I saw this empty nest coming quite some time ago – round about the time the girls were in their teens and didn't come home straight after school :) Being emotionally and psychologically prepared for this season of parenting has helped me a great deal because I managed to do the one most painful thing about motherhood, letting go, a little bit more easily than I would have otherwise I think. So I started getting involved in other activities like exercise, serving with the youth in church, renewing friendships and most important of all, learning to enjoy the solitude of my own company.

Then there is the whole wonderful world of technology. I am in danger of becoming an addict, I think. And yes, I think the label that Praveen gave me (techno cavewoman) still lurks in the background somewhere but increasingly I'm exploring new stuff online that keeps me occupied for hours - even distracting me from this blog some days :) Then I have taken to watching movies by myself - a wonderful, liberating experience. I get to watch movies that I want to, without considering whether my husband would like it or whether it was suitable for my children (though now this is no longer a consideration as they are both above 18). So 2 Saturdays ago I watched 'Grace is Gone' and last Saturday I watched 'The Bucket List'. Both great movies that made me cry and very glad that I watched them as well. Then of course there is Skype! LAst week Jen, Rubhi and I managed a 3-party video conferencing thanks to a free website that Rubhi found and that was great! Yeah so between Blogspot, Gmail, Facebook, Skype and Web 2.0, I must say my evenings and weekends are full.... :)

Above all, what gives me the greatest peace is the time I spend with God. I am a born worrier and have always found something to worry about. But the choice to send Rubhi to Melbourne is undergirded by a strong sense of peace despite others' questions as to whether she is too young and whether I could afford it because I have a sure sense that this is God's plan for her and that He would provide. As I look back I can say with certainty that in each season of my life, God's guiding hand has been there even when I did not recognise it. And in this season, I feel drawn to spend more time studying the Bible and to spend time with the young people in the cell group I mentor. In fact, far from having lots of time and not knowing what to do, I still find there isn't enough time as there is so much to learn and so little time to do it in. Of course by divine design my home isn't technically empty as I have Johnson staying with me now and I must say that it is a unique experience having a young man staying with us.

So, yes, here I am on Saturday night, blogging. Just came back from a 3 hour workshop at church (hmmm... that too must have been part of God's plan - to have got us this flat which is a stone's throw from church because He knew I would need to get to it without driving :), watched 'Om Shanti Om' on tv and all is well on the western front! Yes!

My Digital Shadow

So, I learnt a new term today - "digital shadow". Like our "carbon footprint" this is a new term coined to describe the traces we leave in cyberspace. Apparently we leave enough data on cyberspace from all our activities on the Internet for others to collect a great deal of information about us - like what we like to wear, what brands we favour, where we would like to go for a holiday and of course in perverse cases, what our sexual oreintations are :) Every website we have ever visited, every online transaction made, every email sent, every blog updated and commented on, every item googled gives away information about ourselves that can range from the innocuous (so you know I like chocolate, so what?) to the potentially scary (you know the names of my children, where they are and what they are doing) to the damaging (my credit card number is somewhere in cyberspace?)

When I first read the article, I admit I was rather perturbed and it made me pause to think about my online activities. In light of my recent narcissistic activities involving googling myself, I realised with a start that I had willingly put out a great deal of information about myself and my family. So technology has made it possible for me to contact long lost relatives, friends and students, but it has also made it possible for strangers to know me. This is especially true in Facebook where your friends' friends whom you have never met could possibly know about you depending on the kind of privacy levels set on your page and your friend's.

So what does one do then? Retreat into an Amish village and erase all signs of my existence? That's a depressing option. I'm still thinking about it. But meanwhile, for those of you haven't discovered Facebook yet, here is the link to my 50th Birthday party photos on my Facebook...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=36127&l=a1222&id=607050798

Since I am already casting a digital shadow now, might as well make it a HUGE one while I am still at it :)

Alone

I spent yesterday evening alone. And I enjoyed it. I had relished the prospect of a quiet evening and had looked forward to it really as I was travelling home on the bus. I liked the quietness of the house, the stillness. I made dinner for myself, read the newspapers, uploaded photos on Facebook, read a little and felt sorry when my husband came back.

Was that unusual, I wonder, liking this solitude and being quiet? Would I like it if this was the situation every day? Or did I like it only because I had had a lot of social interaction during the day?

I Googled Me!

I was browsing round my old entries today and chanced upon a comment left on one of my entries by my friend Mini who had randomly googled my name to see if I had “made my presence felt on www” and found my blog! I was both pleasantly surprised (to see that she had found my blog and to discover she too had a blog) and intrigued that I could be found by being googled!

So, I went and googled myself (when did that name of a search engine become a verb, I wonder) and lo and behold, there were all these comments left on my blog up there at the top of the google search list! So then I suddenly understood what Jennani meant when she said she didn’t want her blog to be discovered and read and why she subsequently first locked and then abandoned her blog altogether (sad, sad, sad).

I was at first startled to see my name listed as a google entry. I mean, I am so used to googling for authors, sources and readings that it didn’t strike me that a non-descript individual could be googled. But yes, I do have a presence on the world wide web… Woo hoo! Then I was amused – that the drivel I write and the trivia I blog about is floating around somewhere in cyber space to be retrieved by my anonymous readers. Of course I had always known that what I blog about would not remain private which is why I have a journal and a blog – uncensored and censored versions of my thought life! But somehow, seeing the entries pop up in response to a google search seems to give my words an importance and significance I had not considered. There was also the interesting side to it - I discovered that my dear Angel had enjoyed herself at my 50th birthday party and blogged about it – in a a secret blog I had not known about…. Aha! Caught you! :)

Well, all in, it was an interesting experience. And then I was quite intrigued and went on to google various combinations of my name… hahaha… talk about narcissicism. And I have since discovered a new destination that I now desperately want to go to one day… A beachfront hangout called Vara’s!!! It’s on Cook Islands and it looks really idyllic and I think if I ever have enough money to just have a get-away-from-it-all holiday, I will go just there! Imagine staying on a beach in a place named after me! How cool is that! You must go and take a look at it – and if by my 60th birthday I have not gone to holiday at Vara's, you must all pool money to send me there, ok!!! :)

Self Reflection

My church has recently started a thrust towards encouraging discipleship among its members. This vision has struck at answering chord within my heart as I have been longing for a discipling relationship with someone who could guide me spiritually.

From my pre-believing days right through the past 17 years it has been Wai Yin who has been my guide-post in all matters spiritual (and otherwise) but much as I would wish to, we have not been able to see each other on a regular basis. So it has been that we meet up when there is a crisis (always mine of course).

Since last month, I have been meeting one of my church elders, Laura, once a fortnight. This started as a follow up to the cell leaders training that I attended last year. I guess it is a way for the church to make sure they are not letting loose a wolf among the sheep :) Yeah so we have been meeting for a couple of hours on Sat afternoons and it has been quite cathartic for me :) I haven't been able to be as open as I am with Wai Yin but of course there is a lot of history there that I'm sure can't be repeated. Nevertheless, I have since realised how important it is to have a spiritual guide, someone who has walked the path ahead of you, who has been matured by her struggle and who can in turn help you cope with your own.

As part of this plan to get the congregation into discipling relationships, the leadership also distributed a table of sorts for us to gauge where the members of our cell were in their walk with God - new Christians, growing or mature. Looking at this table, it occurred to me that it really isn't easy to say. I suppose by the fact that I am training to be a Asst Cell Leader, one would say I have been classified as a 'mature' Christian - ready to help others walk with God. But in reality, I would say I was still 'growing'.

Just 1 incident this past week has made me very aware of how I fall short. Last week, the usual round of annual promotions came round and I subsequently sent an email message congratulating those on the list whom I usually talked to. But I omitted one name. Because I just could not bring myself to say to this person that I was happy for her promotion. So I thought I must be honest to myself, and not be a hypocrite, saying something that I did not mean.

But immediately after, 2 colleagues came up to me to say they had noticed that I had not included this person's name in the email. Al 3 of us had had bad times with this person and the 2 who came to speak to me were not condemning me but commiserating with me because they saw in my email, a reflection of their own feelings for her.

And in that moment, I stood condemned. I saw at once how I had failed God. I had in my human-ness, passed up a chance to forgive her, to see her through Christ's eyes, to treat her differently than as the world would have treated her. I had been petty and I had not had the grace to rejoice with her and God saw that. And in sending those 2 colleagues to me, He showed me where I had failed - because it was not a case of "being human" as one of my colleagues said. It was a case of passing up the chance to have made a better choice.

Easter Weekend

I have had an eventful Easter weekend. Started with Maundy Thursday service in church - it was surely by grace alone that I did not fall asleep during the service because I was really tired and the speaker was ummmm... erudite. But Maunday Thursday service is always a poignant one and always makes me sad and I can't wait for the celebratory Easter service. Then there was Good Friday service on Friday morning and a major personal achievement this year was that I made it to the 7am Easter service this year! Applause applause! Been wanting to do that for so many years and I'm really glad I managed it this year much as the bed beckoned. And I must say it was wonderful to experience the promise of a new beginning right at the beginning of a new day rather than in the middle of the morning as I usually do. By grace of God, I will make it to dawn Easter service next year too!

And on Saturday, I went to the perfect wedding. I kid you not. You know how I have this thing about weddings. And as weddings go, I really must say this one was beautiful. Rachel, if you are reading this, may I just say to you, I pray that your marriage will be in every way as beautiful as your wedding was. The venue was the Barker Road Methodist Church and it was just the right size and the wedding decor was tasteful, the number of guests was just right for us all to take photos with the couple, the wdding invites and programmes were handmade, the photos were beautiful and captured the mood of the couple lovingly, the reception was lavish (great desserts and even ice-cream!), the music was appropriate... and when the couple finished their vows and walked out the door, the church bells pealed! Wow! I've never heard that before! But I'll tell you the best part for me - was the look on the groom's face as the bride walked in. In all the weddings I have attended, I have never seen a man look like that. He looked as if he was going to cry with happiness! As if this was the woman he had been waiting for all his life. Wow. I swear. I have never seen a man look like that except in the movies. And I knew for sure that my friend has got herself a gem when he started to sing for her and couldn't continue and broke down. Then the composure and dignity with which he collected himself... Rachel, my dear, for all your waiting and all your past hurts, God has surely blessed you with one waiting for.

So, here I am, on Sunday night, the long-awaited weekend over. I have bible study class for the next 2 nights and I haven't finished my homework so I should go and finish that now. As a good example to my children.

But I have been reading Ephesians (with the famous "Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord" passage and my favourite "Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right" passage) and I have a sense that there has been a message for me this weekend from all the experiences and readings and sermons but I haven't been able to find a pattern. There is a vague sense of disquiet as if there is a Maths problem that I need to figure out, as if I have missed a clue that will reveal a direction or way to solve something. But I don't know what it is - I can't identify the problem and I don't know what it is that I need to solve. I think I just need to wait and let the pieces fall into place.

Hey, Where Is Your Update?

I have updated this blog at least 10 times. In my mind :) The hard part has been finding the time to sit down and write all the things I want to talk about!

This new year, many things have happened. Many changes, developments, some sadness, some worry. But I have missed the chance to write about developments as they happened largely because when you are in the middle ofthings you can't really sit in a corner and write about it (except if you were a CNN reporter I guess).

So here in a nutshell are the things that have happened since my last update on 1 Jan 08 (well, at least what I remember):

• We have sent my second daughter Rubhinni to Trinity College, Melbourne to do a Foundation Studies course. I went with her on 7 Feb to help her settle in and was really blessed by the friendship, kindness and thoughtfulness of my friends and relatives there - Neena, Bee Leng and Ling Kuei. Thanks for the innumerable lifts, for all the walking around and for taking us places, and for opening your homes to us! Not to forget the sheer kindness of strangers - the Thai lady on a tram, the Indian student who walked with us to show us a place we were looking for, the Lebanese (?) guy on the plane who gave up his window seat so we could sit more comfortably. It was a blessed trip and more of it later.
• My niece Maya has upped and left :( so there is no more trips for coffee and cake, no more ice cream in my fridge, no more Rohan playing baby cheeta. Also no more home cooked food as Yati has gone with her :) But I guess I just miss having Maya around.
• I have let out Rubhi's room to Johnson from my church. He is a full time church worker with Campus Crusade and he moved in 2 days ago.
• In terms of work, I have had some good experiences - like doing teacher recruitment at The Fashion Bar in Clarke Quay (great fun!) and some bad experiences (like the ill-conceived workshops that I'm in the middle of now).
• I have met with old long lost friends - TWICE with the same group of friends within a week after decades of not seeing each other! Hahaha. Sadly I could n't spend long enough time with them but it was nice to slip into a conversation with the same ease we had 20 years ago. Well, except with one who shall remain unnamed - go figure!
• I have also entered a new phase in my walk with God. Started bible study classes (which I am not enjoying much at the moment because the method being used is quite tedious, but I will stick it out and see if I change my mind). Also have started a personal discipling relationship with one of the cell pastors in my church and that has been really good as the sessions have helped me to identify areas in my life where I need to grow spiritually.
• Most of all, I am having to cope with living with my husband alone again :) I miss my 2 girls a great deal. I worry about Rubhinni more, because she is not in a student community like Jen is in and I wish she too would be led to a church community which will give her the support she needs and encourages her to grow. But generally, there is a sense of emptiness - and yes, the empty nest syndrome is real! But it is a real blessing that God has shown me so many things I can get involved in now.
• I am also learning to adjust to a new area of parenting - being more of a friend and less of the parent to Jen as she starts on a new phase of her life as well. Messed up a bit I think at the beginning, but I think I won't mess up too much :)

Well, that's it for a quick update. I am really amused, touched and encouraged that so many of you actually read my blog and have asked me what has happened to it!!! I feel like a celebrity :) But most of all, I am just touched that you care what happens to me.

Happy New Year!

The first day of 2008 is here! And it doesn't feel any different from yesterday :) And from today for the next few weeks (maybe even months) I will have to remember to write 08 when I date stuff!

I learnt yesterday from Devan Janadas' article in The Straits Times why we celebrate the new year on 1 January. When the Roman calendar was devised the first month was named after the Roman god, Janus, who was the god of doors and beginnings and who had 2 faces - one looking forwards and one looking backwards. And the first day of this month was chosen by Julius Caesar sometime in 46 BC as the first day of the new year. When the early church chose Dec 25 as the birth day of Jesus Christ, Jan 1 was a convenient beginning of the new year for the early church as it was 8 days after Christmas, the day in which a Jewish baby would have been circumcised. Thus the Roman New Year became a Christian one too. There was, however, quite a lot of disagreement between the early churches and when the Roman empire fell, Christians celebrated New Year on March 25 instead - calculated as being the Day of Annunciation (when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would bear the Christ child), nine months before Christmas Day! Although the Catholic church subsequently adopted Jan 1 as New Year's Day in 1582, the Protestant churches held out from adopting this calendar till the 18th century!

So what is time then? Just a series of arbitrary decisions by some powerful and influential men? What does it mean when we buy a new diary and write in appointments for March or October? The only thing we can set store by when it comes down to it is by the rising and setting of the sun - "And it was morning and it was evening and it was another day". We rush to meet deadlines, keep appointments, make plans, celebrate events etc etc, but real time is in God's hands. Despite all my planning and scheduling, not even one moment of time is in my hands. I can do nothing to change or recapture the moment that has passed and I have no control whatsoever over the moment to come. Yet in my arrogance or complacency I do not pause to accept how little really is within my control.

This new year I feel challenged by God to trust Him in new ways like I have never trusted Him before. When I consider the 'coincidences' of history, I am amazed that the whole world today marks time by the birth and death of Christ - the New Year defined by Christmas, the centuries defined by His death. To me, God is the Author of time. He is the Beginning and He will be the End. And my mind is too small to comprehend time as He sees it. But this year He has challenged me to abandon my calendar, my to-do list, my worry-list and to trust Him one day at a time. This is very difficult for me especially because a big challenge for me is sending Rubhi to Melbourne. I am at peace with this decision. But there are moments when there is niggling fear - can I afford it? Will she be disadvantaged in anyway? Will she cope with the work and with living on her own? What will she do during the holidays? Should I ask her to come back in June? So it is not a comfort for me when I sense God asking me to trust Him one day at a time. That is not in my nature - I am a planner and a scheduler. Security is high on my priority list! Certainty! - how I love that :)

Yet this is what I sense my growth area this year is going to be - to trust God with my tomorrows. And last night's service affirmed this for me. In his sermon Joshua said the key questions is not - 'Were there more ups than downs in my life this year?', but 'Was God at work in my ups and downs this year?' And from that realisation, to come to the point where I will be able to say - If God was, is, and will be at work in my life, then it was, is, and will be a very good year.