"All the Wrinkled Ladies"!

I LOVE this song!!!! Hahahaha...

Back from Melbourne

Sooo... I am back! I left on 31 March for a conference in Melbourne and came back on 12 Apr so that accounts for my long silence.

It was a good trip. I actually managed to spend 12 days in Melbourne with just 2 days of vacation leave because I could take conference leave for the days of the actual conference and the Easter weekend gave me a few extra days as well. I love it!

I stayed with my nephew's family and spent time catching up with my grand nephew and grand niece. R was on Easter hols so I got to spend time with her as well. Also met up with old friends Neena and Bee. Drank many cappucinos. Met old friends Pushpa and Ganesh, sadly didn't spend as much time with their children as I would have liked. Ate many chocolates. Visited a church that met in the sports hall of a school and had the strange experience of seeing a basketball hoop every time I raised my eyes to worship. Went on a hyped up, overpriced Hangman's Tour of the Old Melbourne Gaol - do not, do not waste your money on this if you are ever in Melbourne. Also did a day trip to Mornington Peninsula with my nephew's family and wandered around a maze which made me err.... a little claustrophobic... just a little :)

The Conference was a little bit of a disappointment. The quality of presentations was uneven and it appears as if the schools were all at different levels of competency where the infusion of ITC is concerned. But it was still a learning experience and I particularly enjoyed the school visits we made as it is not easy to get to visit schools.

All things considered, I had a good time. The past month has been a trying one for me on the home front and the trip to Melbourne gave me a chance to get away and rest. The time I spent with family and friends also left me feeling loved and supported. In the end, this is what matters - the people I love and who love me back.

A Taxi Conversation

I went to visit my sister in Sembawang this evening. That essentially means 2 long taxi rides that cost me $30.00 in total. These visits to my sister are almost always the only times I wish I could drive... The MRT ride from where I live to Sembawang takes a little more than an hour and after that I would still need to get a cab or ask my nephew for a ride, so all in, it takes close to 2 hours just to get there! So, yes, call me a spoilt Singaporean if you will, but when I decide to go visit my sister, I take a cab. Both ways. Sometimes, money isn't every thing :)

So, today, I had 2 interesting conversations with the taxi drivers who took me there and back. The first one who drove me to Sembawang regaled me with stories centred around the theme "People are ungrateful and don't remember the good you have done for them". This involved various cousins and their families who had availed themselves of his services as a 'caster out of black magic spells' yet now did not want to have anything to do with him. While the tales of different cousins and the troubles they had gotten into and that he had rescued them from were entertaining, after the 4th story, I kind of got the picture. He was not just a taxi driver, he was a misunderstood saint. I was also suitably impressed by his insistence that he found Indians the best of all and unlike many other taxi drivers, he was NOT a racist :)

The driver who drove me back from Sembabwang to home, was a different personality altogether. I arrived at Dover with immense respect for the man. He spoke very well and it turned out that he had retired and was sharing the taxi with 3 other retired men who were all no longer dependent on the income from their driving. This gentleman said at 17 years of age he set himslef goals; he had worked as a crane operator in the Middle East drawing $7000.00 a month, volunteered to be retrenched during the 1987 economic crisis and returned to Singapore with a golden handshake worth $250,000.00. He has 2 children who are both aircraft technicians living in Australia, he has 2 grandchildren there and every 6 months he hangs up his car keys and travels to spend time with his children. He owns 3 houses in Johore Bahru, his flat in Singapore is fully paid up, he has no debts, his children give his wife $4000.00 a month which she saves for herself. The picture seemed similar for the other 2 men he shared the cab with - one had 2 houses in KL, the other had a bungalow in Malacca and they had all fully paid up mortgages on their HDB flats! I am truly full of respect for this man.

This taxi driver said when he was 17 he decided he would live by one main value - Discipline. As a result he said there were 5 Principles he lived by:

1. Not to be a 'coffee shop cabbie' (meaning he would put in the hours on the road and not idle at coffee shops during his shift)
2. No drinking
3. No smoking
4. No gambling
5. No womanising

He said by living in this way, he had a happy home, his children respected him, his wife was contented, he wasted neither time nor money and he had peace of mind. It seemed like a simple and maybe even a trite formula, but what I was hearing was a man who had lived his life well and was enjoying the fruits of his labour. It is a life to be emulated.

Where I Am

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

- Soren Kierkegaard

For all that has been, Lord, thanks. For all that is to come, Lord, yes.

Back from Travels

Soooo.... who missed me??? :) I'm back from a 10 day work trip to San Francisco and Vancouver. Like my gmail status proclaimed, I didn't want to go. I hated giving up my schedule (I had a CYAN retreat planned, there was the ICTLT Conference that I had registered for), I hated rushing around getting stuff for the trip (winter wear, boots, office wear....), I hated the thought of travelling with strangers, I wished I had more time to settle my household (pay the bills, stock the fridge... ). And most of all, I dreaded the winter. You see, I get really sad in winter. The day is grey, it gets dark by 4pm, it is so very cold and just to pop out and get a sandwich I have to put on layers of clothes and I feel miserable. I was also wary of the planned itinerary - it was a young person's itinerary, 3 cities in 8 days. I felt tired just reading it.

But yet again, God has taught me a lesson and I realise I need to go with the flow and stop resisting change. Schedules make me comfortable, predictability is safe. But maybe that attitude is shutting me off from exciting new opportunities. Maybe it is time to take some risks. Not foolhardy risks but risk trusting God to care enough about me, risk trusting that God means it when He says He is holding my right hand.

The verse He gave me was Isaiah 40: 29 - 31, a verse that Brandon shared on at CYAN. And it was assurance from God that He knows where I was, what I was feeling, what I was scared of. That He will give me the strength for the journey, that He was in charge. And that is what came to pass. The itinerary was changed a week before we left to just 2 cities, the weather was so mild that I used the bulky parka I bought only twice, the people I travelled with were extremely kind, the interview panel I sat on clicked and we were amazingly in synch in selecting candidates,the SIA flights were so well timed that I am hardly jetlagged. It was a good trip.

And what was the best bit of the trip for me? This - my hotel room...

I had an amazingly beautiful room to myself in San Francisco and Vancouver! And I loved having a king sized bed all to myself with soft sheets, warm quilt, comfortable pillows... It was the best 4 nights I had ever spent in a hotel. And in Vancouver I had the view of a lake from my window... Very shallow, I know, but I loved the sheer creature comfort of it all.

And the saddest? That it was too cold for me to eat the ice cream.....

So, now, I am back in Singapore. It will be work again on Monday. The predictability I had longed for will be back, I will be in synch with my diary again. But I am already looking forward to my next trip - Melbourne, 1 - 12 April....

Wisdom

"We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is within it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more."

~ Mark Twain

Not-So-Simple-Rule #7: Ghosts of the Past Don't Stay in the Past

Remember that song by The Backstreet Boys which went

" I don't care who you are

Where you're from

What you did

As long as you love me.."

This song exasperated me soooo much! But whenever I opened my mouth to comment R used to roll her eyes. (Well she still rolls her eyes at me now, but that is another story....)

You see, my daughters, what this song suggests is that the only time that matters is NOW. Only the present matters, only how you feel about me now matters. And that as long as there is love, then nothing else matters either. This works out fine in movies and songs, but in real life, you will find, my daughters, that who he was, where he came from and what he did matters a great deal!

Every life experience we have marks us in some way. Life experiences can change a person for the better or worse, entrench attitudes and values in a person, influence the decisions he makes, create situations that would have consequences later and generally form a pattern that informs the person's present life. And it would be foolish of you to ignore the past of the man you date.

Asking questions about your date's past can be a very difficult thing to do. It makes you sound like you are prying and being judgemental. Your date might ask you if you can't accept him the way he is. All of this will make it really awkward and you might be tempted to say you would just let sleeping dogs lie and to look to the future rather than the past. Difficult as it may be, this is one conversation you need to have.

If your date had serious relationships in the past - if he was married before (God forbid!), if he had a long-term relationship of any sort - you need to know and you need to ask how and why it ended. Past relationships will tell you a great deal about the man you are thinking of dating. You need to know why and how the other relationship ended; you need to know what his ex said when the relationship ended; and you need to know what he thinks of this past relationship. You see, my daughters, real life is not a 'Friends' episode. Men and women who have married or been in a long term relationship cannot wipe out the emotional entanglements and effects of the relationship and continue to be friends as if nothing had happended. While the desire to say 'let the past be past and let's start anew' would be very strong, it is important for you to know that the same things that went wrong in the past relationships could go wrong with you.

And, my daughters, if the man you date ever tells you he thinks he isn't good enough for you, stop and listen. Don't rush to console him or brush it aside or try to be magnanimous but stop and ask him why. Sometimes, when men tell you they aren't as "good" as you think they are, there is something there. No one knows his past like he himself does, obviously, and sometimes such statements are a 'test' to see how much you will accept. Sometimes it is a feeble attempt to 'come clean'. So before you brush it off as something that happened long ago or something that will not have an impact on your future, think. Because what he is telling you about his past may not be as paltry as he makes it out to be; and because 'small' transgressions have a way of becoming more exaggerated versions of themselves.

Just as you must not tolerate even the hint of violence in your dating relationship, you must not accept past peccadillos without asking yourself if it hints at a character flaw that could manifest itself again, this time in a way that could be painful for you. Because, my daughters, ghosts of the past don't conveniently stay in the past and I don't want the ones to be haunted to be you!

Where Did the Time Go?

I think it is significant that my last blog entry was on 24 Dec 2009, because since then life has been a whirlwind and I am only now beginning to feel I can catch my breath. I heard a phrase on 'Bones' last night that seems to describe it well - "time has gotten away from me..."

Anyway what has been one of the big developments in my life is that The Big M has come to stay. I chanced upon a website the other day that listed 35 symptoms of menopause! And I counted - I have 16 of them. The one that speaks to me most is Number 9: "Crashing Fatigue".... So it has been a tough few months and my daily moods have ranged from sadness to madness and all things in between. But I feel better able to cope after knowing why I feel all these random aches, pains and general misery. And I am glad you have been so understanding my daughters, because I can't imagine me being all that easy to live with these days :)

The last few weeks after Christmas have been crowded largely because we have had an assortment of guests staying with us - all friends of J + one grand-nephew. In all, we have had 5 guests on top of my 2 daughters and daily life for me has been a series of linen changes, towel changes, stocking the larder with milk and toilet paper, and eating. So I ended 2009 5kgs heavier. ("O this too too solid flesh would melt / Thaw and resolve itself into dew" to misquote Hamlet ... hahahaha). In between our days were marked by 1 emergency visit to hospital at 3am, 1 biking accident with a fractured collar bone, 2 surgeries, the tragedy of 1 terrapin's death, 1 bizarre experience of someone being hugged by a tipsy stranger, 1 ardent admirer who came a-courting to my door with a chocolate and a rose and 3 neighbours' greatly mystified by the random ang-mohs flitting in and out of my home.... Yeah, that about captures the randomness of the past weeks :) And now, all of J's friends have left except for K who will be staying with us as she is volunteering with Teen Challenge for a year.

I hardly know where Dec went and now the weeks have gone by so quickly and it is February already. I meant to do a recap of 2009 but .... sigh.... I hope I get around to it. I'm just going to post this now so that my blog doesn't languish. I hope I find time to blog again soon. I do miss it when I don't.

The Reason for the Season

Mild He lays His glory by

Born that man no more may die

Born to raise the sons of earth

Born to give them second birth!

Hark! The herald angels sing

"Glory to the newborn King!"

Blessed Christmas everyone!!! Let us keep the Christ in Christ-mas!!! God became flesh to reconcile us to Him! What love!!!!!

Not-So-Simple Rule #6: You Can't Make Bad Batter Better by Adding Good Batter to It!

I have neglected my Not-So-Simple Rules for too long! So here we go again!

First let me be upfront and say Rule #6 is especially for R! Yes I can hear you screaming :) But trust me, this one you really really need to know.

Rule #6 - You can't make bad batter better by adding good batter to it.

A good cook will tell you, if you made a batch of batter for pancakes or waffles or fried chicken and it didn't turn out right, just throw it away and start afresh. That would be the best option. But many amateur cooks and cost conscious mums try to make the bad batter better by adding stuff to it - like more butter or more flour or more cream or even add it to a batch of good batter and hope that the good batter will mask the mistake and somehow 'rescue' the bad batter :)

But the end result, my daughters, is always that the bad batter ends up costing you more - more money, more wasted time, more heartache, more frustration. It would have really been better to throw out the bad batter and start afresh. You really can't make bad batter better by adding good batter to it.

So what does all this have to do with dating? You can't date a 'bad boy' and think that you ("the good batter") will be the one to change him. (I can hear you screaming again.)

You see, my daughters, many women are drawn to 'bad boys' - especially the ones who seem to be waiting to be rescued; from themselves. There is a little bit of "the saviour" mentality in many women; maybe it is the maternal, nurturing instinct in us, maybe it is the innate desire to fix things and make it better.... The fact remains that many women are drawn to 'bad boys' and we begin to think that we will be the ones who will make the difference - that all that this guy needs is a friend who believes in him, a friend who accepts him and is willing to stand by him while he works through his problems etc etc etc....... But trust me, my daughters, there is wisdom in Jeremiah's words "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil." (Jer 13:23) Bad boys can't be made good. Instead it will be the good girls who will get drawn into an unrewarding, demeaning and destructive relationship in the end.

I don't think I need to describe these 'bad boys' to you. They walk around with a devil-may-care attitude, they admit to having a huge problem that they want to break but can't (smoking, drinking, drugs, anger, gangs etc etc ) and then suggest in some ways that maybe they can't change on their own - their family doesn't believe in them (their mother / father / abusive siblings / step parents - the variety I have heard is endless), they don't have true friends, noone cares... Then they will talk of themselves as misunderstood beings, guys who could be someone different if only.....

That "if only" my daughters, must not be YOU! :) No, you cannot help him quit smoking, no you cannot be his friend while he is in a gang, no your friendship isn't going to save him, no you must not spend hours on the phone counselling him, no you cannot go with him to talk to these people who are making his life miserable.

And if, my daughters, you have already started a friendship trying to fix one of these "bad boys", you must have the strength to end it because the "bad boy" date is also emotionally manipulative. You will get calls and sms messages that portray him in different dire situations, his friends will call on his behalkf to talk to you, he will moon around in your presence, you will get messages that he is crying or drunk or suicidal. So you see, it is better not to get into one of these friendships at all because you will be sucked into a relationship that will drain you and get you in deep waters because the fact is, the saviour he needs is not YOU.

Dating a "bad boy" will mean moving from one calamity to another, from one situation to another because even when there are no problems, he will invent one as it is your sympathy that is keeping you hooked. And as long as he can keep you sympathetic, as long as he keeps you believing that he needs you, you will stay. And that will be a disastrous decision. So, my daughters, if the batter is bad, chuck it down the kitchen sink no matter how tempted you are to try and save it. Because you can't make bad batter better by adding good batter to it.