Two weeks into uni now and I still haven't gotten out of the holiday mood, especially now with even more cool tv shows to watch practically everyday like Tru Calling, Angel and Desperate Housewifes (not the kind of show I expected to watch, but it's quite hilarious!), in addition to the Buffy reruns (and the Simpsons after Buffy!), three CSI series, Lost, Fear Factor and other miscellaneous stuff I watch here and there for the heck of it....I think I might actually be turning into a couch potatoe! Aaaiiieeeee!!!! I always used to pride myself on the fact that I could probably survive without a tv for ages (I did so in Aussieland coz' my house didn't have tv for a whole semester!)....now I might have to revamp my tv addiction status...haha!
Anyways, updating on the taekwondo issue, my instructor decided a few weeks ago to pull me away from the class I was in charge of to assist him at another class...not because he no longer wants me to take over a class some day, but because he knows I'm still not ready and I need more guidance from him. Which in a way is a big relief for me coz' I was starting to get little nervous breakdowns thinking too much about my taekwondo issues. Me thinks I've been so used to getting praises most of my life for always doing things well that once I heard people actually critisizing my teaching like the parents did... even though I knew I shouldn't take it to heart, worrying about what the parents would say next just took away my fun in teaching the class. I mean, I like teaching the kids and fooling around with them sometimes, and I think quite a few of them like the way I teach coz' I'm not as much of a killjoy as some other assistants...but gosh, when their parents are standing around scrutinizing my every move like a hawk and reporting to Mr. Arul everything I do wrong...that just really takes the fun out of it. I've even been having dreams about parents complaining! And I hardly ever remember my dreams!!! I would just love to teach a class where the parents aren't around, or it's a completely new class where nobody knows how my instructor teachs so they don't expect me to be as good as him. And if that wasn't already stressful enough, then comes along these problems with some troublesome assistants. I think things are ok now between me and the female assistant, and even though while she was still mad at me she claimed that I was 'losing' my taekwondo friends, I don't quite see that happening coz' everyone is still talking to me and friendly to me, including that girl's brother! Ah vell...I'm just glad my instructor got all of us together a few weeks ago and told us all that we're supposed to a team and not get all upset with each other got of small problems...he didn't mention the problems or who was having a problem with whom, but he told us this because of my problem with the girl, and I guess most of them understood. Nevertheless, I still have a feelings that a lot more politics might crop up among us later on, what with the gossiping that I'm pretty sure is going on between some of the black belts, especially the girls (the downside of the female species, I always say...) and also with that other guy who wanted my class and talked crap about me behind my back. I suspect he's going to have a problem with anyone who is a threat to him getting what he wants... even our instructor if he doesn't let him take over a school. In fact, that guy is the one my instructor put in charge of the class I was teaching.... and not because my instructor thinks he's ready to take that class but coz' my instructor wants him to learn his lesson in wanting to take on something he's not ready for. The class is probably going to end up a bigger mess than before, which is a bit of a spaz to me coz' I know all the kids there and I don't want them to be doing rojak taekwondo. But I need to continue learning from my instructor and there's nothing I can do about that class now. Now I just hope I actually DO learn something from spending more time with my instructor. :P Anyhow, at least that guy seems to be the only one to really watch out for.... all the other assistants are really great people who work together pretty well. Yeehah for that! :P
Ya, anyway, I was supposed to talk about today, which was a busy but good day. I went to visit the child care centre with the usual Project Elijah gang, and we helped the kids make masks, which was pretty fun, but extremely messy (note to self: a bottle of glitter around 14 hyperactive children is NOT a good idea!). Then played the usual kiddy games before we had to ciow for a dinner at a church aunty and uncle's place. They had the dinner as a special treat for us church youth (apparently something God had been nagging the aunty, whose name is Mary, to do for a long time. I don't know why, but I ain't complaining! :D). That was pretty fun too. At one point, the bunch of us was sitting around chatting and I started playing one of those annoying mind-boggling games where you have to figure the pattern to what I say, and it got almost everyone's attention (except for some who probably didn't want to think too much and just ent off. Kakaka! :P). Well, most of them figured out my first game, so I moved on to a second one, and then my cell leader Kelvin started telling jokes, which of course got the rest of us telling dumb jokes. Haha, it was all just hilarious! Would love to tell one of Kelvin's jokes about an Indian airline (with apologies to the Indians.:P) but right now I need to hit the sack coz' it's another busy day tomorrow. Byeee!!!!
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Sunday, July 24, 2005
The doomsday mentality
I've had a whole week to cool off from last week's blowout with my mum, and even though the things she said are not anything I'm going to forget easily anytime soon, I think I have pretty much gotten past it and decided not to hold it against her. As I realised from something my cell group leader shared with us recently, Chinese parents have a tendancy to say the most stupidest things when they're angry...and he's had it a lot worst than I did with my mum. Plus, my mum had a pretty tough childhood , what with being the oldest child with four other siblings she's had to take care off and being made to do the housework all the time.... so I can blame her wacked out behaviour on that. But even with a tough childhood, I don't think it gives her all the excuse in the world to behave the way she does, coz' I know plenty of other people who've grown up in similarly tough situations and turned out to be quite reasonable and mature. *Sigh*
We didn't mention the incident at all after that night... and though I've thought about it talking it over with her in a calm manner, I have a pretty good idea of how the conversation will go and I doubt it will be positive. I hate to say it, but a 'civilized' conversation with my mum means she does all the talking and I do all the listening, and if I so much as has a hint of sourness on my face, she'll blow up at me again and accuse me of being all sorts of unreasonable things. I think I still have to hold to what I said last week, about not talking to her unless I have to.... not because I wouldn't like to be able to talk to her about stuff and my opinions and all... but because she has a fine ability to pick out something from things I or someone else in my family says, assume its a negative remark against her and proceed to get all uptight about it while the rest of us just sits around and shakes our heads.
Not only that, but just a few minutes ago, my brother was telling my parents about how he was planning to invest in some property in Canada through the internet, which costs like $40,000 and that's just the deposit. My dad was all for it, but my mum immediately went into worst-case scenario mode. "Anything on the internet is a scam! You can't trust it! I don't even want to look at the website! It's gotta be a scam!". It took forever for my brother to just convince her to look at the website where he's planning to invest through, explain the reasons why it's legitimate and the investing company of that website is legitate as well. He also explained that he has a few friends working at that company who introduced him to it. But mum is still not convinced. "What if the website is a fake? If it's not the Canadian government running this website, how can it be trusted? What if the company is made up to look legitimate, but in a few years they close up and disappear with your money? Who will you contact if anything goes wrong and your money disappears?". And she goes on and on with her "what-if-this's" and "what-if-that's" to the exasperation of my brother, and to myself as well... just listening to it. She even uses the example of Enron of how a big well-known company can dupe its customers of their money. It was frustrating and funny at the same time... simply because her worries are just so ridiculous. My brother had the evidence that the company was legitimate, he has friends working there, he didn't find any complaints about the company anywhere on the net, it's a well-established company with branches worldwide and the company is registered under the dunno-what board of investing companies in Canada, or whatever it is. And here's my doomsday mum, who doesn't even use the internet.... before even finding out more about it she straight away says it's gotta be a scam and implies my brother is a fool for wanting to invest through the internet coz' he can't see the property and all. If she wants to be skeptical then that's fine, but she could at least find out more information before pouring cold water all over my brother's fire. It just makes me think all the more that something is quite wrong in my mum's head. She always has this thinking that everyone out there is bad bad bad.... everybody is out to get you and they just want your money. She doesn't seem to trust a soul.... and according to what my dad just told me, she doesn't even trust him. Like wow. She's married to the guy, who's supported her for so many years and she doesn't even trust him? It's quite sad. I mean, I know my dad has done some thing's wrong to her in the past, and one thing in particular which even I thought was so bad it took me a long time to get over it. But even before that incident, my mum has never seemed to trust my dad. For so many years, I've had to listen to her complain about my dad doing all these things that drives her up the wall, and for a long time I was 'on her side'. But now I'm actually feeling sorry for my dad instead. The way she's behaved to him ever since they got married....it's more than most normal people would take and I think my dad's been very patient to put up with her constant nitpicking on every small thing he does wrong. I mean, even when he tries to do something to make her happy, or lighten her workload, or buys something he thinks she'll like, she finds some fault in it somehow and complains about it. If I were my dad I probably would've gone nuts by now.
I really don't have much doubt that my mum has some kind of psychological issue, and I guess it's no use getting angry at her about it. I am worried about her in a way. I don't know how she can spend her whole life trying to control everyone around her and thinking the whole world's out to get her or make use of her. Granted, some idiotic people have made use of her before.... but that was years ago and not everyone is such a low life. I just don't know what to do with her. I don't know how to talk to her about it.... and I don't think the rest of my family knows either. Oh well, I guess a heap of prayer is in order. Haha, I know that prayer is more useful than the non-Christian might think in this sort of situation, but I still feel a bit peeved to think that that's the 'best' I can do for my mum. I just really don't want her to have this doomsday mentality for the rest of her life....
We didn't mention the incident at all after that night... and though I've thought about it talking it over with her in a calm manner, I have a pretty good idea of how the conversation will go and I doubt it will be positive. I hate to say it, but a 'civilized' conversation with my mum means she does all the talking and I do all the listening, and if I so much as has a hint of sourness on my face, she'll blow up at me again and accuse me of being all sorts of unreasonable things. I think I still have to hold to what I said last week, about not talking to her unless I have to.... not because I wouldn't like to be able to talk to her about stuff and my opinions and all... but because she has a fine ability to pick out something from things I or someone else in my family says, assume its a negative remark against her and proceed to get all uptight about it while the rest of us just sits around and shakes our heads.
Not only that, but just a few minutes ago, my brother was telling my parents about how he was planning to invest in some property in Canada through the internet, which costs like $40,000 and that's just the deposit. My dad was all for it, but my mum immediately went into worst-case scenario mode. "Anything on the internet is a scam! You can't trust it! I don't even want to look at the website! It's gotta be a scam!". It took forever for my brother to just convince her to look at the website where he's planning to invest through, explain the reasons why it's legitimate and the investing company of that website is legitate as well. He also explained that he has a few friends working at that company who introduced him to it. But mum is still not convinced. "What if the website is a fake? If it's not the Canadian government running this website, how can it be trusted? What if the company is made up to look legitimate, but in a few years they close up and disappear with your money? Who will you contact if anything goes wrong and your money disappears?". And she goes on and on with her "what-if-this's" and "what-if-that's" to the exasperation of my brother, and to myself as well... just listening to it. She even uses the example of Enron of how a big well-known company can dupe its customers of their money. It was frustrating and funny at the same time... simply because her worries are just so ridiculous. My brother had the evidence that the company was legitimate, he has friends working there, he didn't find any complaints about the company anywhere on the net, it's a well-established company with branches worldwide and the company is registered under the dunno-what board of investing companies in Canada, or whatever it is. And here's my doomsday mum, who doesn't even use the internet.... before even finding out more about it she straight away says it's gotta be a scam and implies my brother is a fool for wanting to invest through the internet coz' he can't see the property and all. If she wants to be skeptical then that's fine, but she could at least find out more information before pouring cold water all over my brother's fire. It just makes me think all the more that something is quite wrong in my mum's head. She always has this thinking that everyone out there is bad bad bad.... everybody is out to get you and they just want your money. She doesn't seem to trust a soul.... and according to what my dad just told me, she doesn't even trust him. Like wow. She's married to the guy, who's supported her for so many years and she doesn't even trust him? It's quite sad. I mean, I know my dad has done some thing's wrong to her in the past, and one thing in particular which even I thought was so bad it took me a long time to get over it. But even before that incident, my mum has never seemed to trust my dad. For so many years, I've had to listen to her complain about my dad doing all these things that drives her up the wall, and for a long time I was 'on her side'. But now I'm actually feeling sorry for my dad instead. The way she's behaved to him ever since they got married....it's more than most normal people would take and I think my dad's been very patient to put up with her constant nitpicking on every small thing he does wrong. I mean, even when he tries to do something to make her happy, or lighten her workload, or buys something he thinks she'll like, she finds some fault in it somehow and complains about it. If I were my dad I probably would've gone nuts by now.
I really don't have much doubt that my mum has some kind of psychological issue, and I guess it's no use getting angry at her about it. I am worried about her in a way. I don't know how she can spend her whole life trying to control everyone around her and thinking the whole world's out to get her or make use of her. Granted, some idiotic people have made use of her before.... but that was years ago and not everyone is such a low life. I just don't know what to do with her. I don't know how to talk to her about it.... and I don't think the rest of my family knows either. Oh well, I guess a heap of prayer is in order. Haha, I know that prayer is more useful than the non-Christian might think in this sort of situation, but I still feel a bit peeved to think that that's the 'best' I can do for my mum. I just really don't want her to have this doomsday mentality for the rest of her life....
Thursday, July 21, 2005
I'm a slave for you... (ack, can't believe I just quoted Britney!!)
"We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."
Romans 7:14-25
Hear hear, brother Paul. I could not have put any better myself. :P
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."
Romans 7:14-25
Hear hear, brother Paul. I could not have put any better myself. :P
Monday, July 18, 2005
My busy weekend and my hypersensitive mum
Well, I went frolicking around at Tioman for a few days with a couple of friends, made myself a lot more bronzer than usual (but no major sunburns, thanks to my Banana Boat spf 50 sunblock!), went snorkelling and saw a couple of super huge fish (about a metre long), a moray eel, something that looked like a colourful manta ray as well as the usual curious tropical fish. No shark sightings this time though. Bummer. Also took a heap of pics, of course, which as usual I will put up here sometime in my life. My friends and I even brought an underwater camera and took some funky shots with that, so I can't wait to see how those turned out... especially my photo of the big fish! I just love snorkelling. Nothing quite like being out in the big blue ocean with nothing but a mask and fins and a heap of fish swarming around you hoping for some food. It's like being in a big aquarium! :P Too bad a lot of the corals there were dead and smashed up coz' of all the human activity there. The management there really should advise the tourists not to stand on the corals when they snorkel.
Anyway, I came back on Friday night and barely survived getting back home through the KL traffic jam when my dad came to pick me up at Pudu Raya. Then Saturday was another very eventful day as I was out again all day from 5.30am helping out at a taekwondo tournament at Banting. I actually joined the tournament myself, but my fight was number 85, which was the second last fight of the day for the girls, so I spent the rest of the time watching out for the girls from my team and coaching them during their bouts when my instructor wasn't around to coach them. All the other black belts were watching the boys fight over at another area, coz' the boys fights are more interesting. That female assistant of mine (or rather, ex-assistant now since she requested to be sent to another school to help out) was also there and I expected that she wouldn't talk to me all day. Which for the most part was true until it finally got round to my fight (which was after 5pm or something and I was already pooped from being awake since 5.30am with only 4 hours of sleep) and because my instructor was busy coaching the guys, he sent over that girl to coach for me. I'm guessing he did that on purpose so we would work together again, and it worked coz' she seemed friendly and acted like nothing was wrong between us. So I'm happy about that, even though I screwed up my fight again coz' my knee gave out 30 seconds into the fight. Now my knee hurts again when I bend it. Bleh, I guess this really means no more tournaments for me....But anyhow because there was only me and my opponent in our category, I still get a silver even though I lose. :P Kinda stupid way to get a medal, but at least I can say I actually won something in my very last tournament. Hahaha! They don't have to know HOW I won it. :D :D :D.
Anyway, we were done at the tournament, we headed home and reached Subang at around 8pm, after which I proceeded to go straight to a party one of my church friends, JJ, (also my ex-neighbour, but now moved to Kota Kemuning) was having to celebrate his new baby girl's full moon. My parents were there too, since my dad plays tennis with the new daddy. JJ also has this Pomeranian dog named Beaar whom I loved to play with last time before I went to Australia and they moved away while I was overseas. The little guy is still as hyper as ever, but seemed to have gotten more aggresive coz' when I tried to pick him up, he would get mad and tried to bite me. JJ says it's he's irritated from all the children poking him during the party, but I suspect it's also because he wanted to be able to roam around and maybe forgotten who I was since I hadn't seem him for months. Naughty little mutt! But my mum had brought our dog Sassy to the party too, and when she saw him barking at me, she seemed to have gotten pissed at him and started barking at him...perhaps scolding that naughty Beaar for trying to bite me. Yay, at least my dog knows how to take care of me!
Anyway, after that little doggy episode, eating our dinner and having a looksee at the baby (who was sleeping the whole time), we were ready to go home. I wanted Sassy to come in my car, so my mum came with me to watch out for her, while my dad went in his car. And that short half an hour drive home messed up my day more a heckuva lot more than losing my taekwondo fight or getting bitten by Beaar. I know I said before that I didn't want to complain about my parents here anymore out of respect for them.... but what she said that night was simply too much. We were just talking about the different ways of getting back home coz' I took a wrong turn and ended up having to drive a different way from what I intended. She just told me to follow the signs that say Puchong in order to get back to Subang, and I did so and we managed to find my way back, so she was all like "See, I'm right!" and then said if I had turned back we would've ended up dunno where. But I was saying that I came to JJ's house from the other direction so I knew that going back there I would've still ended back in Subang. Then she got all annoyed and told me not to argue with her...which I wasn't coz' I was just telling her that the other direction is correct as well. But from there she went on to accuse me of always talking back to her and sounding annoyed whenever I talk to her and my dad. She accused me of having no respect for them and went on to say how she's done soooo much for me and I never appreciate what she's done. She accused me of thinking I'm so much smarter than her because I've been doing so well at Monash, and I think it gives me the right to talk 'smart' at her. And the 'best' part of all was when she accused me of thinking nothing but bad things about her and my dad, about not caring about them and calling me a brat.
I didn't even know what to say after that... and I didn't want to say anything to her coz' I know she'd just think I'm trying to talk back to her again. I seriously don't know why she blew up at me so badly just because I was trying to give my own point of view about some insignificant thing. Every time I or my brothers try to tell her something that's contrary to her opinion, she takes it like we're arguing with her when we're just trying to have a normal discussion. This is not the first time she's gotten angry at us for that. But some of the accusations she threw at me this time is just so unbelievably outrageous... I was left speechless with anger. I can't even believe she can say that I don't care about her and my dad. What, does she expect me to tell her every day that I love them, when she herself doesn't say the same to me? Neither she or my dad has been very expressive about their affections to us...I know it doesn't mean they don't love us. How can she accuse me of not caring about them because I don't express it either? Of all the unreasonable things she said that night, that one really blew my top. The other thing she said that comes a close second when she said I think nothing but bad things about her and my dad, and I don't appreciate them. Does she know that I was planning to give her more money than I would my dad once I started working coz' I know she does so much around the house and she doesn't get a lot from my dad? Does she know that I wished I had a bit more of her strong character when it came to dealing with those annoying direct sales people? Does she know that on her birthday, I paid tribute to her in my blog? She doesn't know the half of what I think and the she makes all these unfair assumptions.
Of course I can't say I've never been annoyed with my parents, especially with my dad coz' he does do a lot of things that annoy me. But to add to that, ever since I was young, my mum would constantly complain to me about all the things my dad does to piss her off. And I grew up seeing my mum constantly picking on my dad on all the smallest things he does wrong to her. Then when I started talking to my dad in a similar manner, she started telling me I should talk more respectfully to my dad coz' he's my dad and not on the same 'level' as her. Which is true, and I know I should talk to him more respectfully which I have been trying to do. But good grief, after years of listening to her pick on him and complain about him, does she expect my behaviour towards him to not be affected by her? And for that matter, does she expect me to talk to her so nicely all the time when she herself is always so irritable? I know I shouldn't be so irritable with my parents, so now I'm trying to unlearn all that bad behaviour I got from her and be more patient.....but she expects me to just put up with all that crap from her and come out a perfectly well-behaved and non-irritable kid. Give me a break. That night she said that she had always talked to me nicely whereas I don't do the same to her.... I just felt like laughing coz' there were so many times when she talked to me like I was wasting her time. She makes herself out like she's such a great mother.... and I'm not saying that she hasn't done a lot for me coz' I know she has. But she has her own shortcomings that she refuses to see. And then she makes me out to be such a terrible daughter and calling me a brat, because I behave the very same way she's behaving towards her own husband and sometimes to her children. I know I'm not the perfect daughter and of course my attitude needs to improve towards my parents... but I also know that there are plenty of other kids out there who behave a lot more brattier than I do...who absolutely refuse to listen to their parents, who go out all night without saying where they go, who run away from their homes for the heck of it, who do drugs and smoke and do other stupid things just to be rebellious.... am I just as bratty as them? Apparently to her, I am.
She said so many times that when she was younger, she never dared talk back to her father. From what I gather from her previous stories about him, her father was very strict and not someone to be messed around with. And she and none of her siblings were very attached to her father because of that. If she wants me to treat her like she did her father, then I will. I won't give her my opinions, I won't talk back to her, I won't say anything that she might take as being disrespectful. Which means, the less I talk to her, the less chance I have to unknowingly saying something that she's going to take as being disrespectful. So I just won't talk to her anymore unless I have to lah. What other choice do I have? Of course, she can't expect me to treat her like a friend then, if she wants so much respect from me. She told me before that she wants me to open up to her and talk to her about my problems... but how can I talk to her when she's going to take everything I say the wrong way? And I'm not the only person in my family who thinks she's so hypersensitive about what we say.... my dad tells me she does the same thing to him, and I've seen her react that way to some things my brother has said before too. I don't know what's wrong with my mum that made her that way... I would love to sit down and talk with her about it but I know it won't go anywhere with her. She's so hypersensitive, she needs to go for therapy. But I wouldn't be surprised if she ended up fighting with the therapist! I don't know how to behave around her anymore if she thinks of me as such a terrible daughter. She can't blame me for wanting to move away from this house and away from her as soon as I can. Maybe then she'll be happy when her bratty daughter isn't around to annoy her anymore.
Anyway, I came back on Friday night and barely survived getting back home through the KL traffic jam when my dad came to pick me up at Pudu Raya. Then Saturday was another very eventful day as I was out again all day from 5.30am helping out at a taekwondo tournament at Banting. I actually joined the tournament myself, but my fight was number 85, which was the second last fight of the day for the girls, so I spent the rest of the time watching out for the girls from my team and coaching them during their bouts when my instructor wasn't around to coach them. All the other black belts were watching the boys fight over at another area, coz' the boys fights are more interesting. That female assistant of mine (or rather, ex-assistant now since she requested to be sent to another school to help out) was also there and I expected that she wouldn't talk to me all day. Which for the most part was true until it finally got round to my fight (which was after 5pm or something and I was already pooped from being awake since 5.30am with only 4 hours of sleep) and because my instructor was busy coaching the guys, he sent over that girl to coach for me. I'm guessing he did that on purpose so we would work together again, and it worked coz' she seemed friendly and acted like nothing was wrong between us. So I'm happy about that, even though I screwed up my fight again coz' my knee gave out 30 seconds into the fight. Now my knee hurts again when I bend it. Bleh, I guess this really means no more tournaments for me....But anyhow because there was only me and my opponent in our category, I still get a silver even though I lose. :P Kinda stupid way to get a medal, but at least I can say I actually won something in my very last tournament. Hahaha! They don't have to know HOW I won it. :D :D :D.
Anyway, we were done at the tournament, we headed home and reached Subang at around 8pm, after which I proceeded to go straight to a party one of my church friends, JJ, (also my ex-neighbour, but now moved to Kota Kemuning) was having to celebrate his new baby girl's full moon. My parents were there too, since my dad plays tennis with the new daddy. JJ also has this Pomeranian dog named Beaar whom I loved to play with last time before I went to Australia and they moved away while I was overseas. The little guy is still as hyper as ever, but seemed to have gotten more aggresive coz' when I tried to pick him up, he would get mad and tried to bite me. JJ says it's he's irritated from all the children poking him during the party, but I suspect it's also because he wanted to be able to roam around and maybe forgotten who I was since I hadn't seem him for months. Naughty little mutt! But my mum had brought our dog Sassy to the party too, and when she saw him barking at me, she seemed to have gotten pissed at him and started barking at him...perhaps scolding that naughty Beaar for trying to bite me. Yay, at least my dog knows how to take care of me!
Anyway, after that little doggy episode, eating our dinner and having a looksee at the baby (who was sleeping the whole time), we were ready to go home. I wanted Sassy to come in my car, so my mum came with me to watch out for her, while my dad went in his car. And that short half an hour drive home messed up my day more a heckuva lot more than losing my taekwondo fight or getting bitten by Beaar. I know I said before that I didn't want to complain about my parents here anymore out of respect for them.... but what she said that night was simply too much. We were just talking about the different ways of getting back home coz' I took a wrong turn and ended up having to drive a different way from what I intended. She just told me to follow the signs that say Puchong in order to get back to Subang, and I did so and we managed to find my way back, so she was all like "See, I'm right!" and then said if I had turned back we would've ended up dunno where. But I was saying that I came to JJ's house from the other direction so I knew that going back there I would've still ended back in Subang. Then she got all annoyed and told me not to argue with her...which I wasn't coz' I was just telling her that the other direction is correct as well. But from there she went on to accuse me of always talking back to her and sounding annoyed whenever I talk to her and my dad. She accused me of having no respect for them and went on to say how she's done soooo much for me and I never appreciate what she's done. She accused me of thinking I'm so much smarter than her because I've been doing so well at Monash, and I think it gives me the right to talk 'smart' at her. And the 'best' part of all was when she accused me of thinking nothing but bad things about her and my dad, about not caring about them and calling me a brat.
I didn't even know what to say after that... and I didn't want to say anything to her coz' I know she'd just think I'm trying to talk back to her again. I seriously don't know why she blew up at me so badly just because I was trying to give my own point of view about some insignificant thing. Every time I or my brothers try to tell her something that's contrary to her opinion, she takes it like we're arguing with her when we're just trying to have a normal discussion. This is not the first time she's gotten angry at us for that. But some of the accusations she threw at me this time is just so unbelievably outrageous... I was left speechless with anger. I can't even believe she can say that I don't care about her and my dad. What, does she expect me to tell her every day that I love them, when she herself doesn't say the same to me? Neither she or my dad has been very expressive about their affections to us...I know it doesn't mean they don't love us. How can she accuse me of not caring about them because I don't express it either? Of all the unreasonable things she said that night, that one really blew my top. The other thing she said that comes a close second when she said I think nothing but bad things about her and my dad, and I don't appreciate them. Does she know that I was planning to give her more money than I would my dad once I started working coz' I know she does so much around the house and she doesn't get a lot from my dad? Does she know that I wished I had a bit more of her strong character when it came to dealing with those annoying direct sales people? Does she know that on her birthday, I paid tribute to her in my blog? She doesn't know the half of what I think and the she makes all these unfair assumptions.
Of course I can't say I've never been annoyed with my parents, especially with my dad coz' he does do a lot of things that annoy me. But to add to that, ever since I was young, my mum would constantly complain to me about all the things my dad does to piss her off. And I grew up seeing my mum constantly picking on my dad on all the smallest things he does wrong to her. Then when I started talking to my dad in a similar manner, she started telling me I should talk more respectfully to my dad coz' he's my dad and not on the same 'level' as her. Which is true, and I know I should talk to him more respectfully which I have been trying to do. But good grief, after years of listening to her pick on him and complain about him, does she expect my behaviour towards him to not be affected by her? And for that matter, does she expect me to talk to her so nicely all the time when she herself is always so irritable? I know I shouldn't be so irritable with my parents, so now I'm trying to unlearn all that bad behaviour I got from her and be more patient.....but she expects me to just put up with all that crap from her and come out a perfectly well-behaved and non-irritable kid. Give me a break. That night she said that she had always talked to me nicely whereas I don't do the same to her.... I just felt like laughing coz' there were so many times when she talked to me like I was wasting her time. She makes herself out like she's such a great mother.... and I'm not saying that she hasn't done a lot for me coz' I know she has. But she has her own shortcomings that she refuses to see. And then she makes me out to be such a terrible daughter and calling me a brat, because I behave the very same way she's behaving towards her own husband and sometimes to her children. I know I'm not the perfect daughter and of course my attitude needs to improve towards my parents... but I also know that there are plenty of other kids out there who behave a lot more brattier than I do...who absolutely refuse to listen to their parents, who go out all night without saying where they go, who run away from their homes for the heck of it, who do drugs and smoke and do other stupid things just to be rebellious.... am I just as bratty as them? Apparently to her, I am.
She said so many times that when she was younger, she never dared talk back to her father. From what I gather from her previous stories about him, her father was very strict and not someone to be messed around with. And she and none of her siblings were very attached to her father because of that. If she wants me to treat her like she did her father, then I will. I won't give her my opinions, I won't talk back to her, I won't say anything that she might take as being disrespectful. Which means, the less I talk to her, the less chance I have to unknowingly saying something that she's going to take as being disrespectful. So I just won't talk to her anymore unless I have to lah. What other choice do I have? Of course, she can't expect me to treat her like a friend then, if she wants so much respect from me. She told me before that she wants me to open up to her and talk to her about my problems... but how can I talk to her when she's going to take everything I say the wrong way? And I'm not the only person in my family who thinks she's so hypersensitive about what we say.... my dad tells me she does the same thing to him, and I've seen her react that way to some things my brother has said before too. I don't know what's wrong with my mum that made her that way... I would love to sit down and talk with her about it but I know it won't go anywhere with her. She's so hypersensitive, she needs to go for therapy. But I wouldn't be surprised if she ended up fighting with the therapist! I don't know how to behave around her anymore if she thinks of me as such a terrible daughter. She can't blame me for wanting to move away from this house and away from her as soon as I can. Maybe then she'll be happy when her bratty daughter isn't around to annoy her anymore.
Monday, July 11, 2005
Holidaaaaaaay!!!
I'm going to Pulau Tioman tomorrow for holiday until Friday with some uni friends. Can't wait to hit the beach and make friends with the fishies again. Weee! Wish me safe journey and lotsa fun! Sayonara! Will bring back lotsa pics too, don't worry... :D
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Useless achievements
I just finished changing the pics on my blog, I got my status bar scroller to work, and the number on my hit counter has reached the super lucky number 888! Very good number for the Chinese, yes. Of course, the past 20 hits or so were probably because I was refreshing my blog so many times to see if the changes I made came out right. But that's beside the point. I drew the pics myself too! Aren't they cute? Haven't been doing some good drawing for a long time....
Anyway, those are my useless achievements for today.
Anyway, those are my useless achievements for today.
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Another crappy day at taekwondo class today
I don't know why but whenever I do things ok in the class, my instructor never shows up, but whenever I'm doing something crappy he has to show up and then gives me an earful after that....like he did today. Well, anyway, half the time it seems I'm doing something crappy anyway. I don't know why I always think I got something nice and good planned out for the kids to do and then it turns out to be a complete and utter mess. *Sigh* I'm getting quite sick of this. Maybe I'm not really cut out to take over his class after all. It's already been half a year and my class is still a complete and utter mess. And I know better than anyone that I'm having trouble leading an entire class well. As an assistant, I do a fantastic job, taking my own little bunch of students to teach them the taegeuk (patterns) and their syllabus, coz' I can handle a small group. But put me in charge of a big group of a whole bunch of students at all the different belt levels and I think my brain just overloads with trying to figure out what the heck to do with them. I think my instructor made a mistake as well, putting me in charge of this school right after I came back from Australia, when I could hardly remember a single thing about the taekwondo syllabus. I wish he'd taken me under his wing to refresh my memory for a while and made sure I really knew what I was doing before sending me to take charge of this school. But that's in the past and it can't be changed. *sigh* And if worrying about the students isn't enough brain overload, I have to worry about my assistants too. At the moment I have only two permanent assistants, who are not very strict or loud, and I suspect their teaching isn't too great coz' they are fresh black belts. The ones who were kind-of-good left because they had some stupid problems with me for God knows what reason. In short, my team is crap. And the other black belts who can actually teach well only come and help out every now and then. I have no really good permanent team that works well together. And my instructor always compares my school to another school which is run so much better by another assistant who's going to take over that class. That guy's team of assistants all teach so well and work great together... of course it would be a great class. I'm not jealous or anything... it's just sooooo frustrating!!!! How the heck can you compare his school to mine??? And if THAT's not frustrating enough, even my instructor has been driving me up the wall a bit by telling me he's going to do a lot of things and then never does them, leaving me in the lurch. Like a few months ago, he said he would come back to teach my school now so I could learn how he teaches as well as to improve the students.... and then he only came like a couple of times...leaving me in the class wondering what the heck to do with the kids because I didn't plan what to do with them since I expected him to show up. How not to teach like rojak like that? And then at the beginning of this year, he ran through with me the whole taekwondo syllabus, telling me what to teach the kids, and I had it all written down. Then a few weeks ago he 'taruhs' me for teaching something to the yellow belts that's not in their syllabus, even though he's the one who told me to teach that. And when I tell him he DID tell me to teach him, he's all like "Since when?". Arrrrgghhhh!!!! I am putting up with it coz' I understand he has like a gazillion other classes to run and too many things to think about and I have the utmost respect for him as my instructor... but it's just getting soooo very annoying. At least I don't have any parents coming and complaining to my face anymore. They do all their complaining to my instructor. :P
But anyway, I don't want to blame anyone else, coz' I know the main problem is myself and my crappy teaching. I wanted to stick to teaching this class because I didn't want to be so easily discouraged by the criticism and the problems that I would give up so quickly....but if after so long, I still don't see my students improving and I'm still teaching like crap, maybe I really have to face the fact that I'm not really cut out for this job just yet. But then that leaves my instructor with the problem of finding someone else to take over this class.... and I know he chose me coz' he thinks I'm the most capable and the most available. Other more capable people are busy with their jobs or just aren't interested. And the people who want to take over are more inexperienced black belts who aren't quite as capable, and are probably more in it for the money. So my sense of responsibility (one of the reasons why he chose me, I'm sure) dictates that I stay. But I wonder how long I will last teaching this class. I can't quite see myself still teaching this class a few years from now. The headache it's giving me now is a big enough turnoff. What to doooooo????? Waaaahhhh!!!! Streeeesssssssss!!!!!
Now would be a nice time for a big black hole in the ground to open up and swallow me....
But anyway, I don't want to blame anyone else, coz' I know the main problem is myself and my crappy teaching. I wanted to stick to teaching this class because I didn't want to be so easily discouraged by the criticism and the problems that I would give up so quickly....but if after so long, I still don't see my students improving and I'm still teaching like crap, maybe I really have to face the fact that I'm not really cut out for this job just yet. But then that leaves my instructor with the problem of finding someone else to take over this class.... and I know he chose me coz' he thinks I'm the most capable and the most available. Other more capable people are busy with their jobs or just aren't interested. And the people who want to take over are more inexperienced black belts who aren't quite as capable, and are probably more in it for the money. So my sense of responsibility (one of the reasons why he chose me, I'm sure) dictates that I stay. But I wonder how long I will last teaching this class. I can't quite see myself still teaching this class a few years from now. The headache it's giving me now is a big enough turnoff. What to doooooo????? Waaaahhhh!!!! Streeeesssssssss!!!!!
Now would be a nice time for a big black hole in the ground to open up and swallow me....
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Too much free time I have, yes...
Ack, I can't stand it. I deleted my last blog entry coz' I finally decided I didn't want him to read it and do what I said. :Þ Aren't I such a wimp? Oh well, I had my chance to release some steam and now life goes on....
Anyway, my holidays have been eventfully uneventful, which means to say I've been keeping myself busy without really doing anything important. Been editing some video recordings I took over the past half year, like my church's Easter Play at KDU and footage of my puppy. I'm pretty much done with the Easter play, complete with credits at the end accompanied by a cool rendition of Because He Lives by Michael Tait and George Beverly Shea. Now I just need to burn it, which is the problem now coz' for some reason, my movie editing program can't seem to detect my burner even though it's all plugged in, so it can't burn. *Sigh* lousy computer stuff. Anyhow, while I figure out the problem with that, anyone involved in the play that's interested in a copy of the video can just pass me an empty CD-R and it shall be burnt for thou....Heck, anyone who wasn't involved but wants a copy can pass me a CD-R too. Would be nice if you could write your name on it so I know which belongs to who. The sound is pretty crap though, so don't expect THX quality stuff.
I've also been wanting to revamp my blog layout...change the pics and maybe the background too. Not too sure what to with the background, but I'm already working on the pics. Yup, I'm gonna draw them myself, and they're gonna be really cute! I might even get it all done by today, if I set my mind to it...which probably isn't going to happen, knowing what a lazy bum I am :P
Also been having this idea of making a fantasy blog.... in which the blogger is a fictional character telling about her adventures. I always had this idea for a fantasy novel in my head, but one of those things I never got round to doing. This might be a pretty interesting idea, coz' I can make it up as I go along...though it might be tough writing from just the main character's perspective. :P
Anyway, that's just to fill my blogging quota for today. :P
Anyway, my holidays have been eventfully uneventful, which means to say I've been keeping myself busy without really doing anything important. Been editing some video recordings I took over the past half year, like my church's Easter Play at KDU and footage of my puppy. I'm pretty much done with the Easter play, complete with credits at the end accompanied by a cool rendition of Because He Lives by Michael Tait and George Beverly Shea. Now I just need to burn it, which is the problem now coz' for some reason, my movie editing program can't seem to detect my burner even though it's all plugged in, so it can't burn. *Sigh* lousy computer stuff. Anyhow, while I figure out the problem with that, anyone involved in the play that's interested in a copy of the video can just pass me an empty CD-R and it shall be burnt for thou....Heck, anyone who wasn't involved but wants a copy can pass me a CD-R too. Would be nice if you could write your name on it so I know which belongs to who. The sound is pretty crap though, so don't expect THX quality stuff.
I've also been wanting to revamp my blog layout...change the pics and maybe the background too. Not too sure what to with the background, but I'm already working on the pics. Yup, I'm gonna draw them myself, and they're gonna be really cute! I might even get it all done by today, if I set my mind to it...which probably isn't going to happen, knowing what a lazy bum I am :P
Also been having this idea of making a fantasy blog.... in which the blogger is a fictional character telling about her adventures. I always had this idea for a fantasy novel in my head, but one of those things I never got round to doing. This might be a pretty interesting idea, coz' I can make it up as I go along...though it might be tough writing from just the main character's perspective. :P
Anyway, that's just to fill my blogging quota for today. :P
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
My supposed personality type(s). Is it true ah?
Your #1 Match: ISFP |
| The Artist You are a gifted artist or musician (though your talents may be dormant right now).You enjoy spending your free time in nature, and you are good with animals and children.Simply put, you enjoy bueaty in all its forms and live for the simple pleasures in life.Gentle, sensitive, and compassionate - you are good at recognizing people's unspoken needs. You would make a good veterinarian, pediatrician, or composer. |
Your #2 Match: ISFJ |
| The Nurturer You have a strong need to belong, and you very loyal.A good listener, you excell at helping others in practical ways.In your spare time, you enjoy engaging your senses through art, cooking, and music.You find it easy to be devoted to one person, who you do special things for. You would make a good interior designer, chef, or child psychologist. |
Your #3 Match: ISTP |
| The Mechanic You are calm and collected, even in the most difficult of situations.A person of action and self-direction, you love being independent.To outsiders you seem impulsive, surprising, and unpredictable.You are good at understanding how all things work, except for people. You would make an excellent pilot, forensic pathologist, or athlete. |
First match is kinda accurate, second match is almost accurate. But the third one is a bit iffy to me. Does anyone find me impulsive, surprising and unpredictable. I would think I'm pretty close to predictable. :P
Oh well, these personality profile thingies are probably all crap anyway....
Monday, July 04, 2005
Yay, it's a good day! - Part 2
Ok, continuing from where I left off about yesterday, which was my good day.... In the afternoon, after my taekwondo class, I zipped back home, hosed myself down in the bathroom and was on my way out again for yet another one of my visits to the WAO child care centre in PJ with my church buddies. I don't think I've blogged much about these little visits of ours, so I guess I'll go with a little background first. What started out as well-meaning visits at the beginning of this year by a bunch of blur youths from my church to a child care centre (caring for children of abused women, usually abused by their husbands) has slowly been turning into a big project in which we've been trying to get our whole church involved. We've even named our team Project Elijah, which of course, has some reference to some Bible scripture... won't go into the details of that lest this entry gets too boringly draggy. Anyway, our team has been having some big dreams for Project Elijah, thinking of ways of getting the church to help us out by asking for volunteers to go visit, or asking them to 'adopt' a kid, which is not literal adoption but just praying for a kid and occasionally buying them gifts....and of course, offerings in the form of money money money to fund our activities with the kids. We've even been brainstorming ways to increase our funds as well as awareness of Project Elijah by making bookmarks, cards, whatever that will have the name Project Elijah all over it..... which feels a bit weird-ish to me coz' it's almost like we're starting a business...hehe. But it's for a good cause, and we're hoping in the future we'll be able to rope in enough people to start another group that can visit other places like orphanages or whatever. I never thought it would end up this big, but I think it's great coz' at least we church people are getting off our lazy bums and doing something to help and love others instead of just talking about it all the time on Sundays. Putting our faith into action...that's what Christians should be doing but more of than not, we don't. I'm glad we're doing something to change that. Woo hoo!
Anyway, back in the present, yesterday the bunch of us hauled our bums over to the CCC. Sadly, quite recently a few of the kids we had become so fond of had to leave the home, and we didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to them. But yesterday, there were a couple of new kids...the only two Chinese there and they'd been there for definitely less than a week coz' we visited the place the week before and they were not there yet. Anyway, these two new kids are siblings - a 3 year old girl and a 2 year old boy, whose names I shall not reveal because the details of this place and the children are supposed to be hush-hush, just so to protect the kids from their nutty fathers. But anyway, these two super cute kids were also super shy at first, and wouldn't say a peep to us. Didn't really help that they could only speak Mandarin, and most of us there couldn't speak Mandarin except for a couple of the guys, who had to serve as translators for the rest of us. I thought they'd be that quiet throughout our whole stay, but boy, was I ever wrong! The two warmed up to us really quick, and after a while they were both going nuts, joining in our games and running around. The girl especially took a liking to me, even though half the time I couldn't understand what we was saying to me, and she would bug me to carry her and swing her around. And when I was too tired to do so, and started running away from her, she would chase after me on and on like the energiser bunny! Very good exercise, that was....
Later on, our fun took on a more serious note, when the girl finally stopped running arond long enough to open up to us and tell us her story. She was talking in Mandarin, of course, but one of the guys, William, was there to tell the rest of us what she was saying. She said that she hadn't opened up to anyone since she came to the child care centre. She told us that once she saw her father beating her mother so bad until she was lying on the floor and the girl thought her mum was dead (but fortunately, she wasn't). And she also that she wished her father would love her mother, her mother would love her father, her father to love her, her father to love her brother, and so on and so forth. And she also said a lot of other incoherent stuff in between that William couldn't get. The amazing thing was to see such a young girl express herself so well at that age, and knowing the things she's had to witness within her own family. She wasn't crying or showing any sadness at the time she told us her story, but I couldn't help myself. It brought a tear to my eye. But at the same time, I'm happy that she opened up to us. I mean, here we are, a bunch of perfect strangers she'd known for only a couple of hours, and she was pouring out her heart to us. To our whole team, one of the things we'd been hoping for is that we would be able to give these kids some happy memories and let them slowly trust us enough to open up to us and tell us their problems. I mean, we can't erase their bad memories, or give them a drastically better life, or protect them from their fathers.... but we also know that holding onto their pain will affect them for the rest of their lives, and we've been really praying that we can have that chance to help them heal from their pain and maybe even forgive their fathers. And to have this girl to exactly that on the very first day we met her, well, it's a joy to me. In fact, this little girl has even motivated me to start picking up more Mandarin, just so I can communicate with her better next time and understand her feelings. Hehe, I always thought the only thing that would ever make me pick up Mandarin would be if I needed to be able to speak it for my work. I left the child care centre yesterday feeling happy that the new kids took to us superbly well, and we got to understand their problems a little better.
To add to the joy of yesterday's experience, today at church I was playing guitar on the worship team, and the worship went smashingly well too (I'll attribute the use of the word 'smashingly' this time to fatigue due to taekwondo training just now. :P). Just one of many times when the practices doesn't seem quite right, but once we get to the actual thing, the musicians all played perfectly and everything just flowed like clockwork. Just love it when that happens! And after that, our good ol' Pastor Mal was asking if anyone wanted to give testimonies, and I felt a little something in me bugging me to go and share about yesterday's experience with that little girl and hopefully it would interest more people to pray for these kids. Of course, I was kinda shy shy lah, so I only went after a couple of people did their testimonies. And considering I think it was the first time I'd ever stood up there in front of church sharing something like that with the church, I think I did a pretty good job tugging at the heartstrings. Haha! :P I told them about that little girl's story, how she'd opened up to us, and how I hoped everyone would take it upon themselves to keep on praying for the kids for healing in their lives. A tad bit corny, but I shared from the heart. And I'm proud of myself too, coz' usually I want to share stuff like this on front of church people but I'm usually to nervous to just open my freakin' yapper and just say it.
So yeah, it's been a good couple of days. :)
Anyway, back in the present, yesterday the bunch of us hauled our bums over to the CCC. Sadly, quite recently a few of the kids we had become so fond of had to leave the home, and we didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to them. But yesterday, there were a couple of new kids...the only two Chinese there and they'd been there for definitely less than a week coz' we visited the place the week before and they were not there yet. Anyway, these two new kids are siblings - a 3 year old girl and a 2 year old boy, whose names I shall not reveal because the details of this place and the children are supposed to be hush-hush, just so to protect the kids from their nutty fathers. But anyway, these two super cute kids were also super shy at first, and wouldn't say a peep to us. Didn't really help that they could only speak Mandarin, and most of us there couldn't speak Mandarin except for a couple of the guys, who had to serve as translators for the rest of us. I thought they'd be that quiet throughout our whole stay, but boy, was I ever wrong! The two warmed up to us really quick, and after a while they were both going nuts, joining in our games and running around. The girl especially took a liking to me, even though half the time I couldn't understand what we was saying to me, and she would bug me to carry her and swing her around. And when I was too tired to do so, and started running away from her, she would chase after me on and on like the energiser bunny! Very good exercise, that was....
Later on, our fun took on a more serious note, when the girl finally stopped running arond long enough to open up to us and tell us her story. She was talking in Mandarin, of course, but one of the guys, William, was there to tell the rest of us what she was saying. She said that she hadn't opened up to anyone since she came to the child care centre. She told us that once she saw her father beating her mother so bad until she was lying on the floor and the girl thought her mum was dead (but fortunately, she wasn't). And she also that she wished her father would love her mother, her mother would love her father, her father to love her, her father to love her brother, and so on and so forth. And she also said a lot of other incoherent stuff in between that William couldn't get. The amazing thing was to see such a young girl express herself so well at that age, and knowing the things she's had to witness within her own family. She wasn't crying or showing any sadness at the time she told us her story, but I couldn't help myself. It brought a tear to my eye. But at the same time, I'm happy that she opened up to us. I mean, here we are, a bunch of perfect strangers she'd known for only a couple of hours, and she was pouring out her heart to us. To our whole team, one of the things we'd been hoping for is that we would be able to give these kids some happy memories and let them slowly trust us enough to open up to us and tell us their problems. I mean, we can't erase their bad memories, or give them a drastically better life, or protect them from their fathers.... but we also know that holding onto their pain will affect them for the rest of their lives, and we've been really praying that we can have that chance to help them heal from their pain and maybe even forgive their fathers. And to have this girl to exactly that on the very first day we met her, well, it's a joy to me. In fact, this little girl has even motivated me to start picking up more Mandarin, just so I can communicate with her better next time and understand her feelings. Hehe, I always thought the only thing that would ever make me pick up Mandarin would be if I needed to be able to speak it for my work. I left the child care centre yesterday feeling happy that the new kids took to us superbly well, and we got to understand their problems a little better.
To add to the joy of yesterday's experience, today at church I was playing guitar on the worship team, and the worship went smashingly well too (I'll attribute the use of the word 'smashingly' this time to fatigue due to taekwondo training just now. :P). Just one of many times when the practices doesn't seem quite right, but once we get to the actual thing, the musicians all played perfectly and everything just flowed like clockwork. Just love it when that happens! And after that, our good ol' Pastor Mal was asking if anyone wanted to give testimonies, and I felt a little something in me bugging me to go and share about yesterday's experience with that little girl and hopefully it would interest more people to pray for these kids. Of course, I was kinda shy shy lah, so I only went after a couple of people did their testimonies. And considering I think it was the first time I'd ever stood up there in front of church sharing something like that with the church, I think I did a pretty good job tugging at the heartstrings. Haha! :P I told them about that little girl's story, how she'd opened up to us, and how I hoped everyone would take it upon themselves to keep on praying for the kids for healing in their lives. A tad bit corny, but I shared from the heart. And I'm proud of myself too, coz' usually I want to share stuff like this on front of church people but I'm usually to nervous to just open my freakin' yapper and just say it.
So yeah, it's been a good couple of days. :)
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Yay, it's a good day! - Part 1
It's Saturday and it's been a very busy day with me being out all day since 8am until about 10.30pm.....I'm about to collapse from fatigue, but I've had such a great day today, I just really wanted to blog about it. I dunno, I felt of lot of things just went well today, and not just today but also last night when I went for my new cell group. For anyone not of CBC youth origin, the cell group members have all been kinda messed up and mixed around so our cell groups now all have different cell members. There are only three people from my old cell in my new cell now, including me and my ex cell leader, Theng Terk, who now just is a member (with some leadership roles, of course), and Kelvin, who was a member is my old cell group but is now the new leader of my new cell group. Yesterday was our first meeting, and I think it went off smashingly well...and considering I would never normally use the word 'smashingly' in my daily speech, it just goes to show how much I'm dying of fatigue right now. But anyway, I had the dubious honour of being the one to do the first praise and worship session at our first cell meeting, and I even surprised myself at how well it went. Most of the time when I play, I feel it doesn't really turns out right and is kinda draggy or something, but yesterday everyone was really into it, and everything just flowed great....it was an awesome worship time. I'm betting it was a little Holy Spirit giving me a hand....maybe it's one of those signs this cell is going to really work well together with anointing and all that good stuff. Forgive me,my non-Christians friends who my use of perplexing Christian jargon. :P Anyway, yeah, I have a good feeling about this cell group.
But anyway, that was yesterday, and today is today. Today, as I always do on Saturdays, I had my good ol' Taekwondo class. And since my class started at a later time than most classes (11am), I decided to hop around some of my instructor's other schools and help out a bit, and ended up at a class teaching some yellow belt kids. They were kinda fun to teach, even though they were a bit undisciplined, talking all the time and saying stuff to each other while I was teaching. I would joke around with them a bit too, and they took to me well too even though most of them weren't familiar with me. But when the time came round to it and I told them to be serious, yell loud, do their taegeuk (pattern) well, they all did well and yelled so loud I swear anyone at the other side of the school would have heard them. And these were just 8 kids! That was pretty fun.
As it happens, that assistant of mine who still gave me the cold shoulder today even after my explanations and my apologies, happened to be at that school I was helping out at the time. As expected, she didn't want to look at me, and I had to pointedly go up to her and ask her if she was going to my school to help out later or not. She said no, and had already told our instructor about it. And I said fine and went off to do other stuff. She can wallow in her little "She-did-me-wrong-so-I-don't-wanna-forgive-her" attitude if she wants. I have a class to teach, and even though she is a good assistant, if she's gonna have an attitude like that and not cooperate with me, I'm more than happy to let her go. As it was, even without her, I managed to teach a good class today with only my two remaining permanent assistants, plus another one who came over to help out. In fact, I was quite surprised today, when I had a class of well over 70 students today and all the kids were so superbly well behaved today. They were very quiet during the stretching exercises, when usually they're all be talking about making noise like it was a 'pasar malam'. And when I was teaching some kids and told the others to sit down, they were pretty well behaved too....well, except for some of the younger ones who still acted a bit like noisy monkeys. But wow, I really to say this has gotta be something to do with the fact that I'd been asking a bunch of people to pray for me and my taekwondo class this past week. Thanks to everyone who did! :D Especially to Poh Lin, who prayed that the kids would respect me, even though I didn't specifically ask for that....that must've been one power-prayer! :P And to top it all off, when I had a talk with one of my other assistants today, even though he'd heard all the crap talking about me from the girl assistant, I asked him if it really seemed to him like I was ever scolding them, and he said I was ok. Which is good, coz' he doesn't agree with why that female assistant got pissed with me, and he still supports me. I talked a bit more with him, and he even told me that while I was in Australia, he was around to hear some of the other assistants talking crap about me, saying that they hated me for some strange reason. I don't wanna drop names, but I know the two black belts he was talking about. One was the black belt who was assisting me before he got sent to another school a few months back. The one who had always acted so nice in front of me, and then slowly I find out he's been saying all this nonsense, not just this year but even LAST year when I wasn't around. *roll my eyes* The other black belt is possibly the most crudest guy I've ever met, with 90% of his vocabulary consisting of vulgarities and not a very likable personality. I didn't like him much before, but I can safely say I've never been rude to him or anything.... I pretty much just tolerated his presense whenever we taekwondo people hung out. And ever since I found out that this guy did something to one of my best friends which was nothing less than detestable (not at liberty to talk about that either, but let's just say, if YOU found out this guy did this to someone you cared about, you'd wanna beat the crap out of him too), I've been thinking even much less of him. So to find out today that these two particular fellas have been talking a lot of crap about me...well, it's interesting. But it hasn't brought me down one bit. For one thing, my assistant's willingness to tell me these things shows me that he has a good attitude and isn't one to believe the crap that other people say, which makes for a good assistant. For another thing, his support tells me I'm not the annoying person the other girl seems to take me for. For another-nother thing, knowing that those two pathetic crap-talkers think so lowly of me makes me even more determined to work hard in teaching my class well, with the few assistants I have, so that the students will do so much better than when they were in charge, AND I will have the respect of my students, AND I will build a rep as a great taekwondo instructor like the one who taught me. Of course, I might be getting too far ahead of myself, and there's always a chance of failure...but hey, a little bit of motivation in the form of a desire to prove my critics wrong will probably help in a big way. :D
Anyway, that was just the morning of today. I haven't even gotten round to the afternoon, when I went to visit that WAO child care centre in PJ. But anyway, considering, I've blabbered on a lot about taekwondo stuff again, and I need to wake up early for church tomorrow. So I shall continue blabbering on about my good day, tomorrow! Heck, maybe tomorrow will be good too, and I'll have even more to blabber about. Ciowz!
But anyway, that was yesterday, and today is today. Today, as I always do on Saturdays, I had my good ol' Taekwondo class. And since my class started at a later time than most classes (11am), I decided to hop around some of my instructor's other schools and help out a bit, and ended up at a class teaching some yellow belt kids. They were kinda fun to teach, even though they were a bit undisciplined, talking all the time and saying stuff to each other while I was teaching. I would joke around with them a bit too, and they took to me well too even though most of them weren't familiar with me. But when the time came round to it and I told them to be serious, yell loud, do their taegeuk (pattern) well, they all did well and yelled so loud I swear anyone at the other side of the school would have heard them. And these were just 8 kids! That was pretty fun.
As it happens, that assistant of mine who still gave me the cold shoulder today even after my explanations and my apologies, happened to be at that school I was helping out at the time. As expected, she didn't want to look at me, and I had to pointedly go up to her and ask her if she was going to my school to help out later or not. She said no, and had already told our instructor about it. And I said fine and went off to do other stuff. She can wallow in her little "She-did-me-wrong-so-I-don't-wanna-forgive-her" attitude if she wants. I have a class to teach, and even though she is a good assistant, if she's gonna have an attitude like that and not cooperate with me, I'm more than happy to let her go. As it was, even without her, I managed to teach a good class today with only my two remaining permanent assistants, plus another one who came over to help out. In fact, I was quite surprised today, when I had a class of well over 70 students today and all the kids were so superbly well behaved today. They were very quiet during the stretching exercises, when usually they're all be talking about making noise like it was a 'pasar malam'. And when I was teaching some kids and told the others to sit down, they were pretty well behaved too....well, except for some of the younger ones who still acted a bit like noisy monkeys. But wow, I really to say this has gotta be something to do with the fact that I'd been asking a bunch of people to pray for me and my taekwondo class this past week. Thanks to everyone who did! :D Especially to Poh Lin, who prayed that the kids would respect me, even though I didn't specifically ask for that....that must've been one power-prayer! :P And to top it all off, when I had a talk with one of my other assistants today, even though he'd heard all the crap talking about me from the girl assistant, I asked him if it really seemed to him like I was ever scolding them, and he said I was ok. Which is good, coz' he doesn't agree with why that female assistant got pissed with me, and he still supports me. I talked a bit more with him, and he even told me that while I was in Australia, he was around to hear some of the other assistants talking crap about me, saying that they hated me for some strange reason. I don't wanna drop names, but I know the two black belts he was talking about. One was the black belt who was assisting me before he got sent to another school a few months back. The one who had always acted so nice in front of me, and then slowly I find out he's been saying all this nonsense, not just this year but even LAST year when I wasn't around. *roll my eyes* The other black belt is possibly the most crudest guy I've ever met, with 90% of his vocabulary consisting of vulgarities and not a very likable personality. I didn't like him much before, but I can safely say I've never been rude to him or anything.... I pretty much just tolerated his presense whenever we taekwondo people hung out. And ever since I found out that this guy did something to one of my best friends which was nothing less than detestable (not at liberty to talk about that either, but let's just say, if YOU found out this guy did this to someone you cared about, you'd wanna beat the crap out of him too), I've been thinking even much less of him. So to find out today that these two particular fellas have been talking a lot of crap about me...well, it's interesting. But it hasn't brought me down one bit. For one thing, my assistant's willingness to tell me these things shows me that he has a good attitude and isn't one to believe the crap that other people say, which makes for a good assistant. For another thing, his support tells me I'm not the annoying person the other girl seems to take me for. For another-nother thing, knowing that those two pathetic crap-talkers think so lowly of me makes me even more determined to work hard in teaching my class well, with the few assistants I have, so that the students will do so much better than when they were in charge, AND I will have the respect of my students, AND I will build a rep as a great taekwondo instructor like the one who taught me. Of course, I might be getting too far ahead of myself, and there's always a chance of failure...but hey, a little bit of motivation in the form of a desire to prove my critics wrong will probably help in a big way. :D
Anyway, that was just the morning of today. I haven't even gotten round to the afternoon, when I went to visit that WAO child care centre in PJ. But anyway, considering, I've blabbered on a lot about taekwondo stuff again, and I need to wake up early for church tomorrow. So I shall continue blabbering on about my good day, tomorrow! Heck, maybe tomorrow will be good too, and I'll have even more to blabber about. Ciowz!
Friday, July 01, 2005
Another award. Yay!
Oh joy! A little good news to brighten up my day! I just received a package from Monash Gippsland, the campus I was at in Australia, and I received an award for academic excellence in Second Year Environmental Science. I don't know why they put it as second year even though I was in my third year there...perhaps coz' I was taking second year subjects. Anyhow, small technicality. The main thing is not only the nice little piece of paper saying its an award for academic excellence of yours truly, but also the nice little cheque that came with it! Was supposed to be a book voucher for the Monash bookstore over there. Thank God it came as a cheque to me, coz' quite frankly I'd much rather use the money on something more useful and enjoyable than something from the pathetic Monash Gippsland bookstore, which is even smaller than the bookstore at the Malaysian campus! Good grief! Anyway, yeah, I was dancing around with my puppy a bit after that. :P
5 easy steps to destressing Naeem
You know, with all the stuff that's been going on lately, it becomes more apparent to me how difficult it is to get older and be laden with more responsibilities. When I was younger, I really had nothing else to worry about except studying hard and acing my exams. Now it's half a year before I graduate and probably start working and having to worry about saving up enough money to buy a house and car, paying for the bills, being in charge of whatever I'm in charge of once I start working, etc etc....and a few more years down the line, I might be married and having to think about starting a family, how to raise kids, how to deal with a husband who doesn't pick up his clothes or something, and probably have more work responsibilities as I get promoted in my job. Already, just being in charge of a taekwondo class is giving me plenty of headaches...I wonder how on earth I will manage to deal with the even harder stuff later on in life. And I always try to be the level-headed person....not losing my cool, trying to learn from mistakes, being patient with difficult people, trying to live up to what I think is ethical and all that stuff. But sometimes, when I just really don't feel like being the level-headed person, but I don't wanna blow my rep....this is an example of how I relieve my stress (according to exactly what I did just about a half hour ago...):
Step 1: Put my pet dog Sassy in my room
Step 2: Roll Sassy over on her back
Step 3: Proceed to rub her tummy at a rate of at least 10 rubs per second with both hands
Step 4: Start screaming and rambling on about my problems while continuing to rub her tummy at a rate of at least 10 rubs per second. For example: "Aaaahhhh, Sassy!!!! Why does life have to be so difficult? Why do people have to make life soooo complicated? Why can't people just be more like dogs? All you dogs have to do is look for food, and then after you eat enough, you go sleep and play and shit and pee, and that's your life. Of course, some dogs have it worse than you coz' they're strays and if they can't find their food they die of starvation or disease. But you have it sooooo easy. All you have to do all day is sit around and look cute with us and we feed you so you can be so fat and pudgy like you are now, you fat, little, pudgy, piggy dog. And you can just play and eat and sleep and shit all day. But people have to do this and that and worry about a heap of stuff and make life so complicated for us with our businesses and economies and responsibilities and emotions and yadda yadda yadda. Don't you just have a great life? You don't have to worry about any of that stuff. I would just love to have a life like that, except that I can't go out unless my owners decide to take me out....and I'm stuck eating gross dog food all the time. But nevermind...you know, this is why I've always wanted to work with animals so much....coz' they're so much more easier to work with than people. With animals, it's plain and simple. Either they like you and they show you their affection, or they don't like you and they run away to protect themselves or try to eat you. But with humans, noooooOOOooo, it's soooo much more difficult. People can pretend to be nice to you and all, but just turn around and they stab you in the back. Or they only know how to complain and complain and complain about other people without ever giving support or encouragement. And everyone's just so caught up in their own problems that they don't care about anybody else. And the worst part is, I'm probably just like everyone else when it comes right down to it. Aaaarrrggghh!!! I just feel like killing myself sometimes.... No wonder so many people just take the easy way out and kill themselves. That's so sad. Isn't life so sad, Sassy? Ha? Ha? HAAAA? Do you understand what I'm saying? Can you possibly understand how I'm feeling and show me a little loyal dog-like affection instead of just staring at me, u blur little Shih Tzu???"
Step 5: Look at Sassy for a while, who just gives me one of her usual innocent looks, and say "*sigh* Go eat your food, you fat puppy" as she waddles out of the room and I wish I had a Golden Retriever instead.
P.S.: Don't worry, I'm not suicidal. Just one of those silly things I say when I need to destress. :P
Step 1: Put my pet dog Sassy in my room
Step 2: Roll Sassy over on her back
Step 3: Proceed to rub her tummy at a rate of at least 10 rubs per second with both hands
Step 4: Start screaming and rambling on about my problems while continuing to rub her tummy at a rate of at least 10 rubs per second. For example: "Aaaahhhh, Sassy!!!! Why does life have to be so difficult? Why do people have to make life soooo complicated? Why can't people just be more like dogs? All you dogs have to do is look for food, and then after you eat enough, you go sleep and play and shit and pee, and that's your life. Of course, some dogs have it worse than you coz' they're strays and if they can't find their food they die of starvation or disease. But you have it sooooo easy. All you have to do all day is sit around and look cute with us and we feed you so you can be so fat and pudgy like you are now, you fat, little, pudgy, piggy dog. And you can just play and eat and sleep and shit all day. But people have to do this and that and worry about a heap of stuff and make life so complicated for us with our businesses and economies and responsibilities and emotions and yadda yadda yadda. Don't you just have a great life? You don't have to worry about any of that stuff. I would just love to have a life like that, except that I can't go out unless my owners decide to take me out....and I'm stuck eating gross dog food all the time. But nevermind...you know, this is why I've always wanted to work with animals so much....coz' they're so much more easier to work with than people. With animals, it's plain and simple. Either they like you and they show you their affection, or they don't like you and they run away to protect themselves or try to eat you. But with humans, noooooOOOooo, it's soooo much more difficult. People can pretend to be nice to you and all, but just turn around and they stab you in the back. Or they only know how to complain and complain and complain about other people without ever giving support or encouragement. And everyone's just so caught up in their own problems that they don't care about anybody else. And the worst part is, I'm probably just like everyone else when it comes right down to it. Aaaarrrggghh!!! I just feel like killing myself sometimes.... No wonder so many people just take the easy way out and kill themselves. That's so sad. Isn't life so sad, Sassy? Ha? Ha? HAAAA? Do you understand what I'm saying? Can you possibly understand how I'm feeling and show me a little loyal dog-like affection instead of just staring at me, u blur little Shih Tzu???"
Step 5: Look at Sassy for a while, who just gives me one of her usual innocent looks, and say "*sigh* Go eat your food, you fat puppy" as she waddles out of the room and I wish I had a Golden Retriever instead.
P.S.: Don't worry, I'm not suicidal. Just one of those silly things I say when I need to destress. :P
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