THE BEST THING TO DO WHILE YOU WAIT IS...

It would seem that time brings changes quite quickly of late... although I feel the buzz of anticipation, it hasn't exactly been adrenalin-pumping.

A lots been on my mind, how I am coping and how I will cope with the flux in the future. Of course, like I've said to others, I'm of the belief that there will never be solutions to our problems in this world. Short of JC and the Big Daddy, nothing will ever really be solved, the world is imperfect and sin always seem to get the upper hand this side of eternity. Our life will always been in a state of imbalance and there's no point really imagining we can find an answer or provide a real solution and we'll never find one. There's only pointing to one. Bleak, yah?

Tomorrow I start work teaching. Crack of dawn at 7:10am and we have already been duly warned that we shouldn't expect to finish the first day of work till 6:30pm. I suspect there will be challenging conditions for training grounds.

I really shouldn't be surprised at limbo, but I get terribly impatient and frustrated at being unable to complete things at my speed or have things go my way. That's why I like to work alone and also because I think I am God and all that... so I figure while I wait, I better amuse myself and the best thing to do is to go out and find some fun.

Now, where?

A RANDOM ENTRY

Sometime last year, I had a falling out with an old friend. It was one of those that eventually had to happen on the basis of our friendship.

About 10 years ago, I met G through a strange series of events; random friendships that led to more random friends. Random friendship are precious, you don't take them for granted as much as those friendships borne out of circumstances, like work. Random friendships are like little jewels you do not plan to find, and when you find them you realize that they weren't neccessarily meant to happen unless there was something really special about them. And you also remember that unlike circumstantial-born relationships, these random friendships really take conscious effort to grow and deepen. Some of my best friends are randoms.

Back to G. What started as a good friendship based on a love of movies and skipping classes slowly became something of an unrequited love. Because we were such good friends, it was incredibly difficult for me to move the friendship into the 'danger zone' even though we thought it was what we wanted. And in the haste and folly of an evening, somehow we agreed to get married if we were still single at 30. We'd try and then it would not work so we'd go back to being friends. He told me later that 30 was the age indication for him, not me, because I was 3 years younger. Then a few years later, we'd try again and it would not work so we'd go back to being friends. There was always something, him being away for study, then me, then him being away for work, then me. This went on till last year.

So at 25, he thought we should try again. Not unlike previous attempts, we could not get this off to a start because I felt it would not be in the best interest of the work I do in Japan for the church to have half my heart somewhere else in the world. It was hard enough to go back, even harder if I had to leave someone behind. So, we left it at that and back I went to Japan...

Of course, through the course of that very summer I met someone who didn't at that time require my heart in the same place. And, in the course of the year that followed, we did end up in a relationship that continues to this day. Of course it wasn't with G. And when G found out he was quite upset at me. He was under the impression that we were on 'hold' till we were both in the same country especially since that year would be when he turned 30.

I can understand why he is upset. I'm sorry I lost a good friend like that. I don't know whose fault it was, but I do know there are are many reasons why, like my need to find someone who has the world as a mission field on his heart. In my head, its still very unlikely that I'll live in one place for the rest of my life.

But a few days ago, I had a dream in which G turned up. I was at a friend's house, H. and in this dream, G was H's brother which I found out in the dream (this isn't true in reality). I remember being aghast at myself, "oh what will happen if she finds out that I may not have been so loving to her brother?" and so throughout the dream, I hid myself from G.

But she had another brother... I don't know his name but gosh, I definitely wanted to meet him. Of course, trying to maintain a conversation with one person, hiding from another and getting to know yet another is not an easy thing to do. I don't remember what I did for the rest of the dream but I remember feeling pretty bummed about how things turned out with G and really sorry it ended badly.

I woke up in the morning thinking about it and realized I turned 27 last year and in what relation it would have been had things turned out differently...

PHYSICAL

I went in for a physical this morning... I don't have much in health to show for what I've put in but I've lost quite a bit like 10cm across my chest AND thighs (is that really possible?), dropping 1.5" off my waist and 3" of my hips (ie.1-2 sizes down!). The news that doesn't excite me is that my biceps have shrunk. :-( I'm not sure if its because I've dropped fats or mass. I decided to work on my upper body strength earlier anyway so I can get better at my tennis strokes.

I was all two left legs at yesterday's game and bad foot work meant I crashed into floor not once but twice and now have bad bruises to show for it. I got a new training program too from the assessment, now I'm supposed to work on mainly upper body strength training and lower body conditioning. Totally freaked me out when I saw it. Maybe I'll turn into a Williams.

Anyway, after being fairly productive in a variety of things the last three days of my week 'off' (ie. working at home), I hit a brickwall. I've been cleaning my place, cleaning laundry and manchesters, scrubbing the floors, polishing shiny things till I can see my teeth in it, folding Chinese New Year origami to put up in the spirit of the season, going to the gym, playing some tennis and even prepping some for papers I have to write for work. Oh yeah, of course I finished this week's work agenda on monday before i attempted any of the above. So, I guess I have quite a bit to show for my time at home. Still, I'd like to be more productive. But, rest is good.

I will work some but drop it down a notch or two, and then spend the rest of the day chilling with my home-grrls...

Oh bugger it. Maybe I won't work at all.

Peace out.

Life Career Planning Exercise

My Childhood dreams
At 5, I saw a documentary on Channel 12 about cancer and aids that made me want to be a scientist. I wanted to wear white lab coats, fish-eye goggles and stare into microscopes. Ever the idealist, I thought I had it in me to find a cure for one of the plagues of the world. For some bizarre reason, I thought it would be quite glamourous. How wrong I was.

List of Childhood dreams
- Research scientist.
- Research scientist.
- Research scientist. I am secretly a geek.

My Jobs so far
- Lab Research assistant
- Outdoor Adventure Instructor
- Sales person (bookstore)
- NGO/NPO Donorship/Funding Officer
- EFL Teacher
- Church-worker/planter, missionary
- Teacher

Similarities
None. Okay, I guess all of those vocations habour hopes of making a difference in peoples lives.

Differences
- not wearing lab coat, fish-eye goggles and staring into microscopes.
- not being cooped up in a lab all day
- having interaction with people as opposed to only the company of microbes
- being able to impact peoples lives at the grass-root level.

I'm not so sure I'd be an 'effective' Career Guidance Counsellor...

Neither a subdued loner nor a jovial chatterbox

You are neither a subdued loner nor a jovial chatterbox. You enjoy time with others but also time alone. You are generally calm and composed, reacting moderately well to situations that most people would describe as stressful. A desire for tradition does not prevent you from trying new things. Your thinking is neither simple nor complex. To others you appear to be a well-educated person but not an intellectual. People see you as tough, critical, and uncompromising and you have less concern with others' needs than with your own. You are reasonably reliable, organized, and self-controlled.

So I asked A-low what he thought of the matter below and I explained to him that it goes back to smug-marrieds phenomenon. The smug-marrieds' lifestyle, world-view and all bug me to no end; don't have that kind of affluence nor the preference to live such extravagant lifestyles. Yet, here I was having fallen straight into that pot and feeling very uncomfortable not actually being one or the other.

"It's like this... like airlines, there's cattle class, business class and first class. We're SIA , so there's Economy, Executive Economy, Raffles Class and then first class.

You're Executive Economy."

So, now there's a category for that... just like the executive condomiums.

OF HUMILITY AND GRACE

While at dinner with a bunch of friends after church yesterday, we were on the topic of one of the bloke's bride-to-be. He was talking about types of people and the things they wanted that set them apart in certain demographics. (Yes, we are on that topic again.)

86% of Singapore's population live in apartments built by the Ministry of National Development. Then there's the proportion of those outside that percentage that live in private apartments. That puts me (and my family) somewhere in the smaller percentage of that 14% who live in private housing who own their own houses.

While I do not really think I can be considered to belong in the upper middle class strata, the statistics prove me wrong. And when I think about the relativism of it, it makes some sense to me. I may not live in a house as big as other landed properties, or earn as much as others yet, when asked yesterday, "how many of your relatives live in public apartments?" I really could think of only one. ONE.

Now most Singaporeans (the 86%) - including those I dined with yesterday - would have answered in reverse, "Only one of my relatives live and own their own house (and the rest live in public apartments)."

I would be at my most humble moment considering "alright... I concede I shall not ask for too much so yes, its perfectly fine to live in a 3-room public apartment" (as oppose to wanting to live in a 5-room private condominium) but then realizing that it would not be what I had in mind but in fact an apartment with 2-bedrooms and a living/dining room and are you SURE thats what you want being asked for me. Point being I was naively innocent and plainly ignorant of what the lingo meant because of the social demographics I fall into.

I'm not quite sure how to react when faced with such statistics that almost seem to ostracize me for belonging to the perceived 'elite middle-upper class'. It would not be appropriate (would it?) to apologize for belonging in a demographics I have no control over, a group I fall into because of my parents and my upbringing which they were responsible for.

It is a hard social impression to change even though based on my income, I would fall quite comfortably into the lower-middle class at highest and that many others living in public housing easily earn 2-3x more than me. Once again, is that because I need less because what has been provided to me by my parents and that others source for more because responsibility falls on them to provide that need?

My only defence was that, who really was to blame? I told this husband-to-be that as a future spouse from the middle class you might scratch your head and wonder (with some power-to-the-people-pride and disdain for how on earth this person who had private schooling, could not know what all the street-lingo really meant and what it would be like to live in public housing since a huge majority of the population do. But as a father to be, would you not want your kid to get the best that was possible, space and privacy in the family house as could be afforded, the best education that could be bought, the most comfortable that money could buy and all that? To that argument, my personal case would be that I only got a social conscience at about 18 and then shortly after made sense of that overseas. What is more is that I have lived away from this place so long, so what street-lingo I know, I've only learnt in the last 7 months.

I recall the shock my mother barely hid when she came to visit my choice-of-living in Sydney. I was quite proud I had manage to find something that safe and cosy for that little amount of money I had but the joint parental opinion was that Dad would not approve at all of my living conditions, no child of his was going to be living that squalid. I hardly thought of it that way. So, there it was, and she arranged that I should live in a private loft in the city that was an extension of a hotel. What can I say? The reception entrance, the security screening, the city location, the indoor pool and gym, the roof-top garden was all very extravagant but of course I enjoyed it! So whose fault is it? Their's for not letting me live in the location I afforded or mine for enjoying what they wanted to provide? See, if I told them right now that social conscience deemed I should move out of the house they provide, rent a room far away from the city that I could actually afford, I think they would be quite upset at turning away what they worked hard to provide for. So, here I am stuck in a rock and a hard place.

I guess that's what true humility and grace is about. Knowing that I have something that I could never afford and yet enjoying it because that is what the provider wanted me to have.

UNIDENTIFIED CLEANING OBJECT

My family is full of surprises.

Went out for breakfast with my folks this morning and spent the later bit of it doing some 'errands'. In the course of the last few hours, I've learnt that CurlySu who's in Brissy, started getting food delivered to her place (instead of cooking herself) from some establishment that helps keep count of the calorie-intake. My guess is that she's too busy working and now has enough money to afford having others cook for her. A few years ago, she considered having others clean her small student apartment for her. I almost balked when I remembered that as a student I offered my time/services to clean houses for a small fee myself. To think I would be one of those she would hire...

After breakfast, mom wanted to go 'look-see' a shop in Upper Cross Street. We came home with mean cleaning robot. A robot does cleans the house for us, one of those circular unidentified cleaning objects that whirrs around inconspicuously sweeping and vacuuming the floor so you can do other more worthwhile things like running around the playground with (your) kids, spending time with lonely folks, serving at church, helping the disabled and feeding the poor.



I can't change the family I was born in, the 'elite' upper middle class demographics that I fall into no matter how long and how far I've lived away from it.

Yesterday a group of us held a discussion on inequalities and the talk generated on income inequalities, about how the horrible elite spend have so much money to have one-to-one nannies and household help to clean their houses, send kids to private schools, afford private tutors and then sent their kids to be educated overseas, spending tens of thousands on these luxury. Yes. Horrible. How could they! I wanted to dig a hole right then and there.

Of course all this just made me want to give away all money and go live in a pondok, like those who 'needed help' and spend time tending to their souls. But I'm not sure how I would put this into action. There are days when I wake up and wonder if I'm the only one of my family who is sane and how it is I got to thinking this way which is so odd, and strange like from a planet far away. On that same thread, if I'm the only one who thinks like I do, then am I the one who isn't on the same planet as the people that make up my family?

Still, that robot thingy that cleans the house is one heck of an awesome invention. I definitely want one for my house!