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.

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

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.

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....

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