Hello from London

So here I am at an Internet cafe on Cromwell Road, London, blogging. Am in London for work and it's really cold. Well, maybe not really cold because it is still autumn and not winter yet. I am not planning to stick around till then to find out. I'm glad there is a label for the way I feel though - Seasonal Affective Disorder - SAD, which is how the cold makes me feel... Give me sunshine, baby :)

Well, due to a spectacular mix-up I'm here one day before the actual meeting date so I had a free day's stay in London. I spent the early part of the morning sorting out the problem and then spent the rest of the day wandering around. Thanks to Maya's tip off I walked down to Holy Trinity Brompton, harbouring hopes of running into Nicky Gumbel, the ALPHA man himself, but no luck. The church too was closed because they had had an ALPHA meeting last night and they were re-arranging the chairs etc. So I wandered around the bookshop, then had an expensive lunch (£9 for a baguette and soup!!) before visiting the Natural History Museum. I must say it was interesting and I was awed by the dinosaur at the entrance as well as the huge Blue Whale. I must confess there were moments when I doubted how Job could have been swallowed by a fish and how he survived inside it till it spewed him out at Nineveh, but after seeing that Blue Whale, I doubt no more! :)

I can't wait to go home - not just to get out of this cold, but also because I just want some routine in my life again. I am such a routine kind of person. Things at home have been out of synch for a while now with my family visiting, my China trip, then my birthday bash and now my UK trip, so I'm just tired. I want the familiarity of waking, praying and yes, even going to work. I want to not have to think about what to wear. And update my blog. Well, Neen, you will have to wait longer for an update now.

I guess this is as good a time as any to learn to just live in the present, to take each day as it comes and to do just what I need to do today.... I truly believe God planted us just where we are meant to be. I am meant for the sunshine :)

It Was A Blast!

To all those who are keen to know what happened for my birthday, I am afraid you will have to wait. I had 2 parties - one thrown by my sisters on my actual birthday and the other bash organised by my niece, daughters and 3 ex-students on the 10th. Five of my sisters have gone back, the last 2 at 6.30am this morning; Jennani left 2 hours ago and I am in the middle of my frenzied packing before I leave in 8 hours; time for London for work. I hope I'll be able to catch my breath in London and hopefully update! For now let me just say, it was a blast, I had a great time, it was lovely to see so many of my friends and family and I am really grateful to all those who came to celebrate with me :)

Happy Birthday to me

So this it. I am 50. Strange how everything feels exactly the same it did yesterday. Hahahaha. I had a great day even though as I suspected a number of people forgot it was my birthday today. I'm sure I'm going to be getting the usual apologetic calls and sms-es tomorrow or even the day after. Then there will be the handful who will think forever more that my birthday is on 10th Nov :)

I had two surprises today - a huge bouquet of chocolates that Neena sent me - 50 of them with the express command that I am not to share them. Hahaha - Neen can you imagine what I would look like if I did? But it was a sweet thing to do though if I could have chosen, I would have preferred you at my party than the chocs:) And a lovely orchid plant from my student Anitha. Thanks a lot my dear. It was a lovely surprise & again, I wish you could come :)

Then in the evening, my sisters threw me a great party. It was a strange experience for me, being the reason why my sisters had gathered. To be honest, I had mixed feelings - I was really, really touched at the fact that they have all made the effort to come all the way to celebrate my 50th. But also saddened a little by the fact that a number of them struggled to remember something about me. The most anecdotes about me had to do with me being sick or being taken to hospital :) My sister Mena, however, wrote a really lovely 'poem' that showed me how she, among all my sisters, had been so much a part of my life. But this is an aspect of my family life that I have come to accept - that it was just the way things were, that my parents were so old when I was born and my sisters had all left home to pursue their studies / career or to start their own families while I was growing up and I was always on the periphery of things. And it was as my nephew Vijay said - that my nieces and nephews seemed more like my siblings than my sisters and although I was the youngest in my family, I was often in the role of being the 'eldest' among my nephews and nieces. And I must admit I did my fair share of bullying of my nieces and nephews :) Speaking of whom, I was really really really happy and touched that my niece Mala made a surprise trip all the way from New Zealand to be at my birthday. She flew in this morning and walked into my party. What a lovely, lovely surprise.

Anyway, it was a great evening. My brother-in-law cooked, we played games, we reminiscenced, we had cake - it was a delicious banana-choc fudge from Awfully Chocolate - and it was lots of fun. My sisters bought me the sari I am wearing in the pics as well as a very pretty bracelet. Here are the pics of the cake, the gift and of me and my sisters in all our glory :)

Back to Routine (for a while)

It’s been 4 days now since I came back from China but my bags are still sitting in the hall, unpacked. If I had a choice I would have scheduled a day after my return to just chill and catch up with the many small but time-consuming tasks such as stocking up the fridge, answering emails and sms-es and paying the numerous bills that were sitting in the letter box. Unfortunately I had a full day seminar to attend on the day after I returned as well as important official duties the next 2 days and I have gone home quite tired the past 3 days. The first night when I came back was fitful because I completely forgot my no-caffeine-after-2.00 pm rule on the flight back from Shanghai and ended up not being able to sleep till around 11.30pm and waking up at 4.30am. Sigh…

Anyway, it’s Friday today and I want to attend the last Prayer Meeting for the year at church tonight so it looks like the bags are not going to be unpacked tonight either! But I have scheduled a much needed massage session this evening and I am looking forward to that. The bags will have to wait till tomorrow!

I have also decided to set up a different blog to chronicle my China trip as I wanted to continue writing about other stuff here and doing a day by day description of my China trip would have meant not writing about other stuff until I had finished with my 12-day journey. Also this way, I can upload photos and write at my own leisure and it spares those of you who couldn’t care less about what I did in China. So if you are interested, I have updated Day 1 in China here (and no, that is not a typo in my blog title… hahaha).

I'M BAAAAACK!!!!

I'm back!!! Yay! Nuff said. I'm baaaaack!!!

Proverbs 16:1

“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans today.” I chanced across this quote today and it spoke deeply to me. How much we take for granted and how often we assume that we will actually do all the things we blithely plan to do. The tyranny of ‘the to-do list’.

But sometimes you are blind-sided by events that turn over the predictability of your daily life. An event is cancelled, it rains, words are spoken, you miss a bus, a sales person is brusque – and the day seems to be ruined. And then you learn that a sister in Christ has been diagnosed with breast cancer and you stop. And I am back at the question I thought I had stopped asking – why, God?

So what are you going to do today? What are your plans for the weekend? I don’t know. And does God speak? Yes. I found this blog. And I am reminded "To man belongs the plans of the heart, but from the Lord comes the reply of the tongue." (Prov 16:1)

Quiz: What Kind of a Friend are You?

Haha.. found this quiz and feel so affirmed by it that I thought I should let you all know that this quiz thinks I am a good friend... :) I am a quiz junkie. In addition to being a spa junkie. And a chocolate junkie. I am doomed...

You Are A Good Friend

You're always willing to listen Or lend a shoulder to cry on You're there through thick and thin Many people consider you their "best friend"!

What Kind of Friend Are You?

2nd Anniversary of My Blog

I began this blog on 5 Oct 2005. Exactly 2 years later I was writing about how I have come to care less and less about what others think. It's Happy 2nd Anniversary to my blog!! Yay!! And to all my faithful readers (errr... how many of you are there? 3? 4?) thank you for stopping to read my rantings. It came as a bit of a surprise to me really that it has really been 2 years since I started to blog - and of course it is, because this blog was almost the first thing I started to do after Jen went to the US.

I think this blog has been a blessing to me. I have wanted to write for a long time but a novel or a short story seems a daunting project to embark on and I didn't feel senior enough to start on an autobiography. So this blog has been ideal - for random thoughts, for sharing bits of daily happenings, for reflection - without there being a need for "a beginning, a middle and an end". I wish more of you would leave comments though, as I see on the many blogs I surf. Some of these blogs have a real conversation going and I find that really interesting. Some times, the comments are emailed to me or said when we meet and in a way that is not the same. But it doesn't really matter. I wonder if this thought is just the longing of a writer for feedback from her readers? I know I have read stories of writers skulking around in libraries, cafes and bookshops trying to hear what people are saying about their books - so maybe this is just part of the same need to feel I am connecting with someone? :)

Blogging has opened a new world for me. I surf other blogs and find really interesting stuff out there - blogs on anything from proud mummies blogging about their newborns (honestly, I don't know how they find the time to photograph the baby, post the photo and write about what the baby did EVERYDAY!! This is a breed of supermums! When I had my babies all I wante d to do was sleep!) to blogs on travel, food (omg have you seen the photos of food people post? Droolsome!) to religious blogs to..... The mind boggles. While I enjoy surfing and reading other people's blogs, I don't like anonymous comments being left on my blog. I know I can easily block that but I do have friends who aren't very IT-savvy and I don't want to intimidate them if they should want to leave a comment. I must say though that so far I have been quite lucky that I didn't get strange ones asking me to go to some shady place or other - just one who recommended a spa in Batam and another who told me about a website with packing lists.. hahaha. [Oh drat. Now that I have mentioned Batam and spa I am going to attract all the weirdos in the world who google for this back at my blog again. Yuuuk!]

The other interesting thing about blogging is the way you get to meet people from the other side of the world. That's how I met Jon who chatted on my tag board and more recently someone from the US who has a blog on midlife crisis and chanced upon my blog and asked to link it to hers as well. Now those were the ok bits of blogging.

And of course, blogging is a wonderful way to just get things off your chest. Well not ALL things because I also keep a journal and that is where my really private thoughts go, but this blog has been a way for me to tell my family and friends what I've been doing. It's also a bit like a monologue and I get to talk uninterrupted... hahaha.

Anyway, happy 2nd anniversary my dear blog. You have helped me grow.

Sharing My List

I love lists - checklists, to do lists, travel packing list - I love them. And of course you could have guessed that from the lists on my blog :) So when the big 5-oh loomed on the horizon, I just needed a checklist - of things I should do, things I have dreamt of doing, things I wish I could do... the possibilities were vast.

I asked Jen to buy a book that sounded really promising, which I couldn't find in the stores here. It's called 'Fifty Things To Do When You Turn Fifty' [Ronnie Sellers (ed)] - trouble is I was 49 when Jen bought it for me & I still haven't finished reading it... haha.. Then I began surfing for more of those kind of lists and was amused to find that I am not the only one who makes lists. There were quite a number like this one and this..

Well I picked this list to check my own wishlist against and this is my report card so far:

Things To Do When / Before You are Fifty

1. Be Adventurous: Embark on a new experience. Travel to new destinations. YES! This is the reason I am going to China. It was one of the countries I had declared I will never go to but here I am going to China in 11 days' time. And it will be new experience because I will be travelling with my sisters on a tour that I planned from scratch!
   
2. Adopt Something - Hmmm...Still thinking about this one. I was going to adopt a child in Laos through World Vision but I haven't gotten far with the plan beyond making inquiries.
   
3. Reconnect with a Friend - Hey Siong! This is you! And She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named :) And Andrew Chua Seng Lay :)
   
4. Scare Yourself: Almost anything qualifies, but it doesn't mean you have to be a daredevil. Errr... does watching 'Ghost Whisperer' count?? I hate horror movies and that programme is as close as I am going to get to anything scary. Maybe one day I will bungee jump....
   
5. Realize a Dream: It's never too late to realize a dream. Visit a place that's called to you or start a new career. This is a tough one. The places that call to me are the Holy Land and Europe, but I don't see this happening in the near future. New career? Hmmm... I guess I did try a new career by going to MOE but I can hardly call it my dream job... Hahaha..
   
6. Learn Something New: YES! I have learnt to blog! I got onto Facebook! I bought a PDA! The world of technology is waiting to be discovered....
   
7. Change your Hair: Wait a minute. Let's not get carried away here.I called my friend at 11pm and cried when I first cut my hair short the way it is now, in 1995. Change my hair???
   
8. Keep Your Medical Tests Current: Boring but necessary, I admit. Mammo done, PAP done, maybe the cholesterol needs checking....
   
9. Discover Yourself: Get to know your family as people, not relatives, write a letter to your kids (or other family members) telling them the most important things you've learned. And then ask them to write one to you. This is my favourite. I have been trying really hard to have authentic conversations. But I have also learnt that it is easier said than done and that not every one is ready. So this blog is my way of telling my children, my family and my friends who Vara is. And if you would tell me who you are, I promise to listen.
   
10. Do A Good Deed: Perform a random act of kindness. Treat someone anonymously. Yes. Enough said.

I Don't Care Much

I read an article recently that resonated with me. Like the author, as I near fifty, I too find that I don’t care about many things. I feel a sense of recklessness, a sense of liberation and telling my inner voice to shut up is curiously satisfying. And this comes from this sense I have that I increasingly care very little about what people think of me!!!

And I realise that this feeling has kept many women paralysed for very long. From the time we are young girls, we are told to behave ourselves because “what would people think of you if they saw / heard….” Who are these people I now wonder? Who are these nameless faces who have been standing at the edges of my life condemning my moments of silliness, my social gaffes, my failures? And how is it that I never did hear their approval despite me having followed the rules? How is it that these “people” have not stopped other women from living dangerous lives?

The time has come I think, when I am going to reclaim myself from these “people”. The time has come for me to know myself fully and wholly. And to do the things I want to do, go to places I want to see, speak when I want to, be silent when I want to, attend functions that I wish to go to, be with the people I appreciate and who make me happy, eat food that I crave and to say, no thank you.

If at all I have learnt anything, I have learnt by now, what is important and what isn’t, what I should listen to and when I should laugh at myself and at others. Because, hey, those “people” who were supposed to be watching me and judging me and looking at what I wear and where I go and what I do? They truly don’t care!!!! :)

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." - Emerson