Ignorance is truly bliss

I'm intelligent and too highly principled. I'm not saying to that to show off or be self righteous. Because in some ways, it's a curse. Research shows intelligent people get depressed more easily. This video explains it quite well and perfectly applies to me :

https://youtu.be/lUeDTLBOiRk

How being intelligent and/or too principled negatively affects me:

1) I've had countless blowouts with my typical Asian mother who cannot accept that I have opinions different from her. And being opinionated, I have plenty thoughts that are different from hers. Any disagreement is seen as me trying to be rebellious who she wrongly raised. I now barely talk to my mother. Her side of the family (her siblings) also tend to get very loud and argumentative during every family get together, that such gatherings are simply more a pain than happy family moments, and some of them stopped talking to each other too. Obviously that doesn't do much for my depression

2) I over analyse every thing which causes me to make life decisions that lead my further isolation. Evidence of  overpopulation, global warming, and the fact that we are losing land which means less space for food production and living space, means one day soon very likely, humans will no longer be able to sustain ourselves. I'm guessing within the next 50 years or less, everything's gonna go to shit, poor and middle income people will be suffering from lack of resources to survive and the rich won't bother to help. Look at what's happening with the water situation in Cape Town. So I feel morally obligated to ensure I don't breed more kids that will add to the problem and put them in that shitty situation while I would probably be too old or dead. So I don't plan to have kids. So no one to take care of me when I'm older. I'll be old and alone.

3) I don't like being a burden to people and to some extent, me meeting up with friends and taking up their precious time makes me feel like I'm burdening them for wanting them to waste their time on me. So I hardly arrange to meet up with friends, though if friends ask me out then I usually happily agree. But on those rare occasions when I do try to arrange a meet up with friends, some are too busy, can't commit, don't want to come to my house cos of my pets (I have five dogs who might be one of the few reasons I'm still alive). So being rejected by their unwillingness to meet me after being invited just discourages me from making further effort to meet up with friends. And of course the less I ask people out, the more they think I don't care about them and the less they ask me out. Hence, further isolation.

4) I really want to be able to mentally connect with someone, but find it difficult to meet people who can accept my mostly depressing logic, like in no. 2. I post opinions on social media hoping just one of my few hundred friends can offer their own opinion, even challenge mine, so I can enjoy a mind stipulating discussion and even come out learning something new from them. But no one, not one of my friends, does that. Mostly my posts are ignored. No one wants a debate. I figure because everyone is too busy with their lives, or just see me as a noisy bitch trying to start arguments with people.

4) Due to no. 4, i figure I would be much happier if I could just find a life partner whom I could really mentally, emotionally and physically connect with, and at least with him around, it would make my isolation easier. But I'm also paranoid about being hurt or stuck with a husband I can't stand, coz my parents had a sucky marriage and I'm terrified of going though the same thing. Plus I get really annoyed with stupidity, and sorry to say, it's very easy for potential date to turn me off by doing something I consider dumb. So I've been single for years. Further isolation.

You might think it can't be that hard, too find one person, out of over 8 billion people, that I can mentally, emotionally and physically connect with. Not much to ask. But even that I can't get. There are ones I like and reject me. There are ones I like and like me too but are too busy or emotionally unable to commit. Of course there are ones who like me but I'm not interested. It been years of relationship disappointment and fear of being hurt that I've come to accept that my love life must be cursed.

Well, I actually did meet a guy recently that I  connected with perfectly. We enjoyed a couple nights together, great sex, great conversation. But guess what? Him being also highly logical and intelligent, he also suffers from severe depression that makes him withdraw frequently and for long periods. He has not spoken to me for over two weeks. I feel like my one shot at happiness has disappeared so soon. As you might imagine, that has sent me on the downward spiral that lead this post. Even if he didn't withdraw, he's of a different race. I've where in my country, if I were to him, I would be forced by some dumb law or by peer pressure to convert a fucking religion that that I don't believe in. A religion that even he doesn't believe by has no choice but to pretend to follow so he doesn't get ostracized by his peers. No wonder he's depressed. Can't be good for your mental health w when idiots force you to live a fucking lie your whole life. I want to date and potentially marry a person, not be forced into a fucking religion to be with someone I love. Amazing how so many idiots can't get that and think imposing their beliefs in others makes them better.

5) Because of this deep annoyance of over zealous religious people imposing their beliefs on others, which indirectly affects me as explained above, I regularly speak out against any form of religious control on my social media. I have no issue with people following a religion of it's done willingly and you don't impose on others. You can pray to the bonsai tree next to your house or believe that God is an invisible flying unicorn for all  I care. But I can't stand imposition of belief. Simple as that. But you know, in my country, speaking against such practices by people of another religion gets me into trouble. Especially when I'm now a relatively high ranking position in my company and have to be a good role model. I can't talk negatively about religious or political stuff in public coz that will affect my image and my company's image. Even though smart people should have the brains to know my opinions are not that of my company's, but hey, dumbasses won't. They'd happily complain about my ass and get me fired because their small grey matter can't accept an opinion or belief that challenges theirs. I mean I'm grateful for being in the position I am and having a good job, for sure. It wasn't even something I chased after but was offered to me. But I also find it stifling. Because I have to be a role model. I have to hold back my thoughts and opinions. I have to pretend to be someone I'm not. It would be bearable if I had that one person out of 8 billion people whom I could connect with and wouldn't judge me for who my unorthodox opinions. But nope, I can't even have that.

All the above and the thought that I will most likely die alone due to having no life partner, no kids and basically no one who really gives some shit what I really think has made me decide when I'm old and frail and becoming a burden to others, I would probably commit suicide. But even then I would have to find a way to have my body automatically disposed so not to burden others from cleaning the mess I leave behind, or I'd feel bad about that too. I'm thinking a quick painless death by inhaling high pressure nitrogen, while on a boat in the ocean with a rig that automatically dumps me overboard after I've passed. My body would be food for the fishes and no hassle for anyone. I guess I should start learning engineering to build that auto body dumping rig. Hahahahaha.

So yeah, being smart and highly principled is the bane of my life. At this point I wish I was born a dumbass, coz ignorance is indeed, much more blissful.

10 years

I met my first flame again after 10 years. After all that time, he looks the same, behaves the same, we still have the same arguments about differences of beliefs and still the same private affection for each other that goes unflourished which is partly due to distance but mainly due to avoidance to commitment. It was great to see him again and sucks to part ways after a few days, not knowing when we'll meet again. That is, if I ever see him again. It's times like these that my brain wanders into thoughts of what would have and can be, and then I have my brain to shut up and stop thinking so much.

Well, life goes on and another week of reminiscing with old friends awaits.

Pop goes the Carol

This month is going to be insane. I have to rush to prepare for two audits within less than 2 weeks, as in me being audited instead of me auditing other people (the latter being much more preferable) with little help coz' no one else knows or understands what needs to be done or how to do it. In addition to rushing to review many overdue reports from our sister office in a nearby country, which is always pushing me to do it fast, which is easily one full day per report at least coz' I almost always end up writing 5 pages of comments coz' that how the reports are (usually because of the poor English) and how annoyingly meticulous I am, and another bulk of my precious time is spent correcting that poor English. In addition to handling my department's admin, sales, and management tasks coz' technically I'm the only person in my department, though there is a new tech support girl but we've been so busy moving office that I have not had the time to even explain to her properly what I do and what she has to do to help me, and because she's helping prepare stuff for the move, she hasn't had much time to learn anything anyway. Now I'm going to be too busy even to sit down and teach her anything. In addition to flying around auditing clients myself and having to prepare audit reports.

And in addition to that, I have ot prepare for an upcoming two weeks trip to Australia and have not even booked my accomodation. I might just end up sleeping on a park bench in Brisbane and Gold Coast at this rate.

The stress was already bad enough a few weeks bad when the lovely HR girl in my office didn't bother to book baggage for 5 auditors flying AirAsia on a week long trip, because in the midst of painstakingly picking out flights for everyone and making sure dates and times were correct and providing their booking details, I forgot to tell her every other minute detail to make our lives on the plane a bit more comfy, you know, like booking check-in baggage and food. That time I had to take a time out in the washroom for 5 minutes coz' I was so mad and stressed, I was two seconds away from having my head explode all over the office.

If I wasn't so busy, I'd be learning some meditation techniques. Ok, gotta go.

Pharoah

It’s very rare for me for pray these days, but when I do it’s only when I’m really desperate and managed to muster up some small bit of hope that I will get a good answer. One of those rare times happened again recently, and again, I was disappointed. So if the Christian God is real, which I really doubt he is, did he single me out like he did to Pharoah to harden my heart?

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aiia/aiia-pharaoh.html

If so, he’s doing a pretty good job of killing off whatever bit of faith I have left, for whatever unknown reasons he has to ultimately glorify himself. No serious shit, God, I’m sure it really glorifies you to keep disappointing people who really would just like to know that you give a hoot about them.

Red Velvet Cheesecake Day 2014

My 31st birthday was on Saturday, and am happy to say I had a pretty good celebration this weekend with family ad some friends. I am now jokingly referring to my birthday as Red Velvet Cheesecake day, because ever since my sister-in-law gave us all small tubs of red velvet cheesecakes made by her friend for her daughter's birthday in February, I decided it was officially my favorite cake. Firstly because it tastes so darn good, and secondly because the cake is red and as we all know, red is AWESOME.

The nicest birthday surprise I got was an unexpected surprise box of goodies sent by my brother and other sis-in-law all the way in the USA, including a board game, t-shirt and many healthy snacks (and some dental floss for some reason, which I'm not complaining coz' I use it often enough). Unexpected nice surprises are just as, if not more awesome than red velvet cheesecake.

The family dinner on Saturday was at Johnny Rockets at the Curve, where the food isn't really worth the price, but the fun thing about the place is the half hourly dance performances by the staff to all sorts of songs. Not all of them can dance well, of course, but there are those that really put their all into the dances, and are clearly enjoying themselves, which is what makes it fun. Also the restaurant theme is white and red, which is AWESOME.

Unfortunately it's not unusual during my family dinners for something to happen that will permanently or temporarily kill the good mood, usually something like a silly argument. That 'family tradition' happened again when I invited my dad for the dinner, and he decided to go to Genting Highlands in the day and return in the evening, so he had to make his own way there. I had sent him an sms stating the restaurant name and location and time, and he responded with 'ok', and nowhere in that sms conversation did he request me to call him around dinner time to confirm that we had already arrived. So when we were there at 8pm, we sms-ed me saying he'd be there at 8.30pm, which I saw and did not respond to coz' I thought, no prob, just wait for him. 8.40pm I got two missed calls and an sms from him saying 'No reply, I'm going home'. Bewildered, I called him to find out he had tried calling me to confirm we were there and decided to go home when I did not pick up as his friend was driving him and he didn't want to be stuck at Curve with no transport and have to take a cab back. Needless to say, I got pretty mad, since I had already confirmed everything before that and there were so many things he could have done way before 8.30pm to confirm that we were already there at the stated time of 8pm. It's kinda like saying that he minds taking a cab home a lot more than he minds missing his daughter's birthday celebration.

It's time like these that I don't mind not introducing potential suitors to my parents ever. Not that potential suitors exist, but you know, if they ever did.

But anyway, apart from that small gripe, everything else about the B-day 2014 for me was pretty good. No other untoward incidents happened at Johnny Rockets. My sis-in-law who's not in the US got me some mini red velvet cheese cakes, the same type which I fell in love with when she introduced it for her daughter's birthday in February. My buddy Selina, also got some church friends to take me out on her behalf, which is the first time anyone overseas has subcontrated someone else to celebrate my birthday with me. The sentiment is much appreciated, and I ended up having more church friends coming for the dinner than I thought there would be. Though they got me chocolate cake instead of red velvet cheesecake, it was still great. Had to cut them some slack since those red velvet cakes usually require pre-ordering for some reason. I guess because not many people have experience the awesomeness of red...velvet...cheese,,,cake!

To top off the weekend, I was taken out for a simple mamak hangout plus new boardgame session with a couple of good buddies, Sonia and Joanne. And I also got a call from another good buddy, Damien, promising to take me out end of April coz' he's super busy with lots of work now. I will hold him out to that promise, even though I'm super busy myself.

I am happy this year, that friends and (most) family took the time to take me out and send me presents from halfway around the world. Thanks to all who took the time, and those who will take the time. :)

Oh yay, this is (mostly) not a griping post!

How I Annoy People through the Amazing Powers of Logic (and talking too much)

Me: Why hello again, blog o' rants!
Blog: Back so soon? You were just here yesterday!
Me: Yeah I know. I'm in the moment
Blog: Sweet!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok that's me being a little bit high. Thankfully today's post is not a rant. I let off so much steam yesterday, I feel so much better today. Not counting the times today that I was super stressed halfway through the work day and somewhat emo after lunch coz' one of the puppies my mum is fostering died of Parvovirus during my lunch break in front of me and my mum, which resulted in my mum crying, but thankfully not getting overly emotional and guilty (at least not in front of me). Although it did result is a bit of paranoia among some of my relatives' Whatsapp chat who were all going on about possibility of getting Parvovirus from dogs, and worrying about mum and worrying about my nieces getting infected when they go to visit, and even though I told them repeatedly that the dog strain of Parvovirus can't infect humans so mum and kids are all perfectly safe, they all still continued being paranoid about it. And then I sent them webpage links from reputable sites (not crap like Yahoo Answers which any Tom, Dick and Harry can answer) that reinforced exactly what I was saying, plus a link showing all the possible fatal diseases human can get from swimming in a pool (which my nieces love to do), trying to make a point that humans are more likely to die from a disease contracted while swimming in a pool than getting parvovirus from a dog, and therefore they don't need to worry about getting the virus from the dogs. After which my aunt left the Whatsapp group and my uncle refused to talk to me and said I was being exactly like my mum (which they also complain about), which I assume to mean that I'm being very defensive, among other things my mum does.

All that for trying to tell them they don't need to worry. Which is the exact opposite of what my mum does. Hmm, ok. I guess next time it's better to just encourage unreasonable fear of anything they know absolutely nothing about instead of telling them actual facts with evidence. Coz' being afraid of everything you know nothing about is the best way to live. And this is why I scuba dive and hike in jungles by myself and tried jumping out an airplane for fun once while they're happy to live in a imaginery little plastic bubble of safety. Although tomorrow, the risk of any of us dying in a car crash is way more likely than me dying from a scuba dive, hike, or sky dive. And certainly way more than even the one year old niece getting Parvovirus from a dog. But oh well, scientific facts and statistics are just waaaaay to much for some people to handle.

Anyway, even that sideshow didn't ruin my mood, though it did result in me posting some cryptic posts on my FB account, which may earn me more backlash tomorrow from them (to which I will privately/publicly say in advance on this post, f****** it allll :D :D :D).

On a somewhat related and somewhat not related note, I know from personality questions of some sites I visit that most people get really annoyed with super logical people like myself. Which to me, really explains why a lot of people cannot handle being told they are potentially wrong even when presented with evidence. And such people then tend to react with personal attacks, which sometimes can be mild but annoying, like my uncle saying I'm behaving like my mum, which he knows will bug me. And sometimes, it can outright rude, like on some online forums where I've gotten into active debates with people I don't know, usually religious beliefs. Like now, I'm on this FB group called 'Malaysian Athests, Freethinkers, Agnostics and their friends', which I initially thought would be a great place for debates among reasonably open minded people, but actually it's more like an avenue for people who hate religions to post any piece of news about stupid things religious people do then make fun of them. And sometimes even the posts from hardcore atheists against religion are so stupidly illogical, I can't resist to throw in a differing opinion, and then I get flamed for it. Which has only proven to me that even though atheists claim to be smarter than religious people coz' they rely on science, facts, etc, most of them are just like some religious people who ramble off what they were told by other atheists without thinking if what they're saying makes any sense and then shoot down anyone who challenges their beliefs (in no God). Fortunately most of the ladies on that group and very amicable to talk and debate with, which I enjoy. It's some of the men I've met there who just enjoy throwing insults at me when they can't seem to think of anything worthwhile to say about any point I made. I've been much more thick skinned during such online discussions, thanks to my online encounter with Dennis Chow Chow brain. So far, no I've met online has beaten him in terms of sheer annoyance, though I'm in a way happy that he helped make me so thick skinned.

Ok, I should stop rambling now and overworking my brain at 2.30am with lots of things to do at work. Stop thinking so much, woman, for Pete's sake, you're annoying yourself. @_@

Doggone it!

Hi there, my ranting blog. I've been missing in action for quite a while as usual, and I'm back again with another lovely rant to help me blow off steam. The last time I wrote, I was toying with the idea of shutting down this blog and taking my grouses elsewhere. The idea is still tempting. I now have an idea to start an anonymous blog which I can rant about anything I want without the need to censor any expletives, since no one would know who I am and therefore it would not matter at all if I sounded like an an eternally ungrateful person with severe anger management issues and a cold black heart. I could therefore end every post with an "F***** it all!" and then chuckle to myself with amusement at the joy of getting away with such crass behaviour through the power of internet anonymity. Nevertheless, as fun as it sounds, it's probably also not very healthy for me and also not helping to make the internet a beneficial place to spend time. So I continue to rant here, to the people who care to know what grates me and able to forgive the fact that I now use this blog for nothing else but to vent. :P

Here's the rant of the year: Dogs dogs dogs. Why, do I hate dogs? No, actually I love them very much and I have two of my own whom I treat like my kids and one even helps himself to taking up half my bed on some nights. Unfortunately in the past slightly less than a year, I've become a bit sick of them too. All thanks to the one person in my life who I thought could no longer drive me crazy once I moved out of her house, but was proven very wrong: my mum.

In the past half a year to one year, she has gone absolutely bonkers in her desire to help stray dogs, particularly puppies. My family has been dog lovers all our lives, but that just meant we had dogs as pets. She, however, has in the past few months, picked up dozens of stray puppies from the shoplot area near her place which also happens to be where I work, an area where there have been many stray dogs since the time my family moved there about 3 or 4 years ago. But in those 3 or 4 years, she has never bothered too much about those dogs. Now she makes it a habit to go there every day and regularly feed the stray dogs, drives around to look for puppies to pick up, and even buy medication for injured strays who are too afraid to let her touch them, so she can only put the medicine on their food and let them eat.

This is of course not a bad thing in itself. Most people see her as being quite angelic for putting in the effort she is to help the poor defenseless strays. They don't really know what goes on behind the scenes and how her 'angelic' behaviour is putting a strain on people around me. Especially me. But also my dad, who has to live in a mini dog pound at his condo on a daily basis now.

Initially, when my mum started doing her doggy rescue work, I was ok to help out as I thought it was going to be a temporary affair. She found a litter of black puppies and wanted to help put them up for adoption, and I knew how to do it online coz' I'd done it before with some stray pups near my place. Then after those all got adopted, she found another litter of black pups. Then those got adopted, and she found ANOTHER litter of black pups. It got to the point where I thought she had a black puppy detector attached to her head. But she found other coloured puppies too, so it would have been a mostly black puppy detector.

If she was taking care of them joyfully and without complaint, it probably would not be so hard on my dad. But my mum being my mum who loves to complain about everything, just couldn't...not complain. Even before that she always went on about how tired she was everyday from school work and house chores, etc etc. And after she was taking care of puppies, she started complaing about how tired she was taking care of them and even bugging my dad to help her, scolding him when he didn't. Which of course isn't fair to him considering she's the one who wanted to take care of them.

And then she started wanting to keep some puppies, one of which was a very friendly mongrel female who loved licking people to death. I could already tell when she was small that she would grow to be too big and active to stay in a condo, and wondered why on earth my mum would want to give herself more work taking care of her. And I was right, coz' today after 6 months, she's a too-tall-for-a-condo, lanky and mischieous mutt who loves to try stealing food off the table, launches herself at people's faces to lick them, climbs all over the living room table and couch and pisses everywhere everytime anyone comes home coz' she's so excited and for some reason has yet to learn to control her bladder.

But that wasn't enough.

One day she found one single stray, very young male puppy with a bad case of mange near my office. She gave him a foster name, Pooch, nursed him back to health, all the time pushing me to help look to adopters. We spent several weekends taking him to this pet shop named Ohana at Kota Damansara where they hold pet adoption drives for indepedant rescuers, and we'd just sit there for hours hoping someone would want him. Eventually the shop owner found an interested adopter, who was a nice family of three, staying in a house with a nice big garden. It was the perfect environment for a growing active mongrel dog.

Except that once they took him and kept him a few days, my mum started missing him terribly and going on about how special he was to her. So much that she even cried and forced my dad to go take the dog back from the adopters who also liked the dog very much.

I was absolutely livid that she did that. She removed the dog from a big house with a nice garden and good family to a condo with limited space. She wanted to keep a third dog, in addition to one crazy old Shih Tzu and another relatively young mongrel female. Both she and Pooch would grow too big and active for a condo. Plus they would live for another estimated 10-15 years, while my mum is already in her 60's and losig energy everyday. In a few more years, she will probably not be able to handle them due to age, or touch wood, passes on before the dogs. And then I'd be left with the headache of having to get adopted two old mongrels who are not used to living outdoors, which very few people would be interested in. And because of that, I would most likely have to send them to PAWS or SPCA where they have maybe 2 weeks to get adopted, if not, they would likely be euthanized. That's the 'good life' she was condemning the two mongrels she loves sooo much to. But even when I told her the facts, which she knows herself, she still wanted to keep them. In a few years, guaranteed, they will become my problem. And I can't keep them myself as I already have my own dogs. In addition to that, it made the adopters as well as the shop owner of Ohana very upset. So upset that the next time I went back to the shop by myself to put up for adoption another stray pup which my mum had found, the shop owner didn't nothing to help me push for the dog to be adopted, like post on her shop's FB page like she did before. My wonderful mum effectively shut off a good avenue for gettting a precious pups adopted, because of her own inability to detach from one dog.

The only good thing about her taking back Pooch was that I used it as leverage to make her stop complaining to my dad about being tired or forcing him to clean up, because I told her if the dogs were making her stressful and tired, then I would gladly take them away and get them adopted by other people without ever telling them who took them. From then on, she stopped complaining about the dogs.

The bad thing is that she continues to display a lack of ability to emotionally detach herself from the dogs she rescues or helps. Like when some puppies died under her care because they had a deadly virus, she became very guilty and thought it was her fault, even though there was no way she would have known or prevented it. But she still gets emotional, which means I have to deal with her emotions, which of course affects me as well. Another example, she recently gave for adoption a black female dog she named Sheba which she was keeping for abut 2 months. She was a well behaved quiet dog, and of course, my mum got attached to her and just one day after she was adopted, my mum started showing signs of wanting her back. When I said she can't have another dog, I thought she'd understand given she apparently 'felt terrible' for taking back Pooch and upsetting a lot of people. Instead her response was "Why? Because I'm too old?". At which point I couldn't do anything but shut up before a blood vessel broke in my head, so I called my brother in the US, yes, that brother halfway around the world, to talk to my mum who absolutely refuses to listen to reason from me, the daughter who is right here with her.

Previously there was also a friendly female dog who I and my animal loving German boss like to feed outside my office. Eventually my mum found her and got attached to her too, then one day before Chinese New Year, the dog went missing and she became anxious and thought some Vietnamese workers had caught and eaten the dog. When I told her to relax and said maybe someone adopted her, she wouldn't believe it. Coz' that's what she tends to do, assume the worst instead of the best. And while assuming the worse, she lays blame on herself, or others. And so the 'best' part of that was when she asked me why I didn't choose to adopt that friendly dog instead of my current 2nd dog, Angel, since there were people who were interested in adopting Angel. In a way saying it's my fault that something potentially bad happened to this friendly stray because I chose to keep another dog instead of her. How the heck is that in any way fair to me? The friendly stray was eventually found perfectly alive, well and happily being kept by the shop owner of the shop just behind my office, just as I said.

In addition to the emotional stress, there's of course also the time burden added onto me by all her dog saving activities. I'm currently already super busy with work, so much that there is months old work due which I have not been able to catch up with. And because of super puppy rescuing mum, I have to spend time posting up new puppies for adoption, dealing with potential adopters, answering all the stupid questions they have which I usually have already explained on my posts, such as what what breed they are when, you know, calling them 'Mixed breed' strays is clearly not descriptive enough, and dogs only deserve to be loved if they are of a certain breed. I like to call that a special form of stupid prejudice called 'breedism'. Take note of that, Oxford Dictionary.

If that's not time consuming enough, I also had to take care of some dogs she found, not because she can't take care of them herself, but because I'm so damn afraid that she'll get attached to another dog and decide to keep it or get too emotional about letting it go to an adopter. Taking care of dogs of course adds more stress to me, ot just in terms of the massive time taken for clean-up, but also because they destroy things, and make noise which disturbs the neighbours when I'm not around. It's extremely tiring, especially with my current workload and having to take care of my own dogs. It got so much to handle that I eventually complained to my mum that I simply cannot take care of any more dogs, and she said ok, she'll just take care of them herself. Those kind of arguments also aren't good for our relationship, hence more stress.

Even that promise is something she couldn't live up to, coz' right now as I type this, she has a total of 12 dogs under her care, and had sent one white female puppy at the vet for a few days to recover from a fractured leg. And to reduce costs of boarding, she asked me to take care of the white puppy until it recovers. And I can't make her keep it because 3 pups at her place came down with Parvovirus, which is potentially fatal to young, non-vaccinated pups. I spent one and freakin' half hours at the vet waiting just to pick up the puppy, because the doctor is always super busy. And every time I go to the vet because of one of puppy rescuing mum's charges, that's the normal amount of time it takes. That white pup is now sleeping on my dog's mattress as I type this because earlier she was whining all night wanting to be let out of my back room. Which she will probably start doing again once I go to bed and the whole day tomorrow while I'm at work and the rest of the days I keep her, disturbing all my neighbours and causing me more stress.

My mum's insanity has made her the running joke among some of my family members, including her own brothers and sister. And while I initially thought they understood how stressed it was making me, it got round that some of them even said that I started her crazy dog saving behaviour because I was the one who started 'rescuing dogs'. Which, sorry to say about my own relatives, only showed another level of stupid which I don't have a word for yet, for making me their convenient scapegoat. The dogs I supposedly 'rescued' were not ones I found through active searching like my mum does, but pups that were at the area where I frequently walked my dog (when I used to have only one dog) and pups which were born right outside my house coz' the silly mama dog liked my dog so much, she gave birth right there. Under those circumstances, I thought it was only the right thing to foster the mama dog and pups and get them adopted, and I considered it a temporary inconvenience which I can live with. I had no idea it would give my mother crazy dog rescuing ambitions, and not once did I encourage her to try it herself, and certainly I did not want to become permanently inconvenienced by her activities. And yet because of that, I somehow became the one responsible for my mother going off the deep end by becoming the puppy saviour of the world. Well, I told those relatives exactly how I felt about that, and thankfully they got the point.

Another annoying side effect is now whenever I post anything on my Facebook page related to animals, I have a fear that some smarty pants will make a wise crack about me being the next animal rescuing Steve irwin or something along those lines. Which already happened once when I posted a photo of a Papua New Guinean cat begging for food and my uncle joked about me wanting to rescue cats. Needless to say, I did not find it funny, and he thought I was being too serious. Well, when you're not the one whose life is being turned upside down by your crazy dog rescuing mother, you would probably find a bit more humour in it, but I was unfortunately having a bit more trouble in that department.

All this is especially maddening considering before I moved out, I actually brought home my current dog, Friendster, and wanted to keep him in the condo. I said I'd take care of him, but at the time, she was like, keep a mongrel in the condo? How proposterous! Plus I can't even remember to feed the Shih Tzu or take care of my own laundry, no freakin' way in hell I could take care of my own dog (paraphrased quote). Yeah, fast forward couple of years later and I'm doing a pretty good job taking care of TWO dogs (who far as I can tell, have not starved to death yet) and doing my laundry, and taking care of my own house. And she has two mongrels in the house in addition to the Shih Tzu. Dogs which give her much more work in addition to all the work she used to complain about me not helping out much with even though I did do, just at my own time and pace which never good enough or fast enough for her. Sweet.

Seriously, all I wanted was a nice normal, peaceful life, you know, the typical female dream of getting a nice guy, getting married, having some cute kids and having a happy family, with a proud mum and dad. You know, the kind of mum that people gush about on Mother's Day, the one that patiently teaches you, listens to your troubles without judging, takes interest in the things you love doing, most importantly, encourages you to do the best in whatever you do. Not the one that's regularly impatient, take offense if you refuse to apply her advice, has no interest or even ridicules anything you enjoy doing and critisizes freely. And now doing crazy dog saving activities in what is possible some misguided attempt to redeem herself in her mind that she can still be a good parent after 'failing' with me, which is doing nothing to help our relationship and just making me more exasperated with her. And in her mind, I've become so much my own person that I'm nothing like her, which unfortunately isn't true coz' if I were nothing like her, I'd be more optismistic and hopeful and much less paranoid about getting into a marriage that would crash and burn, which has resulted in me being super picky with guys and being still single and increasingly jaded every day.

At the risk of sounding like an ungrateful kid, while I know without doubt that she does love and has loved me all my life, I do feel that most of my life has been badly screwed up by my mother and I don't really have any clue how to change that other than haul myself out of the country. Which I actually still don't really want to do. Coz' I'll miss Malaysian food and weather too darn much, and rebuilding a new social life elsewhere is a more daunting task than I'd like to try. And even if I did migrate, I'm pretty sure she'll find another way to drive me insane. Lol.

For today I shall implement the idea of my imaginary anonymous blog and say "F******* it all".

Another year survived!

It's new year's day (slightly after new year's day now in Malaysia, since I'm writing this after midnight) and that means time for reflection on the past year, wondering where all the time went, feeling sorry at how little was accomplished, making goals for the new year and failing to do them all over again. Hey, at least I'm honest about it. :)

I considered shutting down this blog several times in the past few months, as I am a bit sad that most of my posts here which are now focused on my more personal life have been more of rants than more positive updates. And now I am trying to reduce my ranting so I don't seem like an seem like a bratty incessant complainer, hence I wonder if this blog is still relevant for me since I post about travel, food, fun experiences and other less emotional revealing and personal things on my other blog). As much as I would like to post more positive stuff, most of the good things that happen to me are mostly work related, which of course is not something I would blabber too much about on the net.

So I haven't quite decided what to do with this blog yet, so I'm keeping it around for good measure and self embarassment whenever I read back the nonsense I've been writing here for the past 10 years. Yeah, this blog is a decade old. Damn, I feel old.

So in the spirit of the new year, here's the summary of the events and my reflections on year 2013. Usually people start with the positive, then the negative, but I'm going to do it the other way round, so at least my readers don't feel so meh at the end. :)

THE BAD

1) A doggone year
One of the major changes this year is the amount of activities I've been doing with my mum, which has been mainly been dog/puppy rescuing activities. By rescuing, we mean getting puppies adopted and getting older stray dog spayed before relocating them back to where we found them, which is usually near my workplace where there are many strays.

It's good of course that we are doing this to help the animals and reduce the stray population, and it's also good that at least I'm going some form of activity with my mum, who for reasons I've ranted about on previous posts, I'd usually just not do anything with. The bad thing is that my mum is going overboard with this dog rescuing thing and it's making me exhausted and annoyed. Exhausted because all this takes up time which is getting more difficult for me due to my work. Annoyed because if she's the one doing the fostering of the dogs, it leads to other problems, such as her getting more tired and then complaining to my father on why he doesn't help out (which he shouldn't be bugged to do since he wasn't the one who picked up the dogs in the first place, so naturally he doesn't like it). And another problem which is even worse is that she tends to get attached to the older puppies too darn easily. Young pups in a group are fine as long as they are still too young and blur to show her appreciation and love. But when they are older, loving, friendly, and playful, she gets easily attached. The worst case was Pooch the ugly pup which she found at my office area trapped in some metal cylinder thing with a bad case of mange. She took care of him for a couple of months til he was healthy and his mange disappeared and became very good looking. We also kept looking for an adopter for him, even going to Ohana Pet shop in Kota Damansara which organizes weekly pet adoption drives for independant rescuers like us who do not come from an animal NGO. This involved us sitting at the pet shop for hours waiting for visitors to see the dogs for adoption and hope ours get taken, and I did this for several weeks with Pooch. Through Ohana, we found a fantastic family with a nice house and garden who adopted Pooch. It was the perfect home for him. And yet my mum started become depressed and crying because she missed him, and eventually my dad went to take Pooch back from the adopter, who already liked the dog. It made them upset, it made the owner of Ohana upset, and it made me super mad. In addition to my time wasted, far as I was concerned, she was not thinking about what was best for the dog, considering she's old, had already adopted another mongrel which I already thought is not a good dog to keep in a condo, in addition to her Shih Tzu, plus she's over 60 years old and always complaining of being tired. And as terrible as I may sound, the reality is that she is quite likely to pass away before these two newly adopted young dogs, and they will be much more harder to get adopted into good homes when they are adults, especially considering they will not be used to staying in a garden. But she didn't care, she wanted the dog so much, it hardly mattered that she gave up Pooch's chance at staying at a nice home with a big garden for him to play with and a family that can take care of him for the rest of his life. Far as I see it, eventually Pooch and the other mongrel will eventually become my problem. I know my mum wants to be loved, so I offered a more feasible idea such adopting an older toy dog, instead of a younger active dog that will grow too big and tire her out even more, but she refused. And now Ohana's owner does not even bother to help me when I have a new dog for adoption, just because of what my mum did.

Due to that, I no longer allow my mum to foster dogs, but she still goes all crazy wanting to rescue and rehome them anyway. So whenever she gets into that mood, I now have to do the fostering. And it's tiring, since I have my full time job and my own two dogs to take care of.

Considering that my mum was never this crazy about dog rescuing until after I moved out AND after she knew I had helped foster a nursing mother and her pups and helped to get the pups adopted, I suspect this is her form of empty nest syndrome. And perhaps some severely misguided attempt at trying to spend more time with me, which far as I'm concerned is not really improving our relationship much, considering the frustration she is putting me through even though I'm out of the house (which is the main reason why I moved out in the first place). It's especially annoying because she tires herself out doing this, and yet before I moved out, she constantly complained about always being so busy and being tired. I thought my moving out would somewhat reduce some of the workload she got from me, like washing my clothes, cleaning my room (all of which I always say I will do but she always does it first then complain that I'm too slow, when the fact is I'm busy working and I have a higher tolerance for uncleanliness than her), so it irks me that after trying to help to reduce her workload but not being patient enough to allow me time to do the work at my own pace, she ends up giving herself more work to do with these dogs.

See, I'm ranting again already. Enough of that.

2) The trouble with guys
Ah yes, failed attempted relationships with members of the opposite gender were another favorite ranting topic of mine this year. And every year before that for as far as I can remember. April and May this year were tough as someone I'd known and cared about for a few years turned out to be completely not what I thought he was, and I never met him again since April due to that. And then I met another guy who I got along incredibly well with to the point where I was thinking it could potentially be a great relationship, until he abruptly ditched me for the stupid reason of not being able to get over his ex-relationships. Well, it was more complicated than that, but the fact that I tried to be understanding towards him but he simply completely shut me off, really disappointed me. A lot. Thankfully, I have gotten over that by now and removed all traces of contact with him from my phone with no remorse. But those couple of months, I was so annoyed with life, you could probably cook an egg with all the steam emanating from my head.

3) The Chow Chow brain

Undoubtedly one of the most memorable parts of 2013 was my online encounter with one of the most annoying human being on the planets, who after I wrote an article for FMT which went kinda viral, decided to take it upon himself to make a point about how pathetic my viral article was compared to his grand efforts to make Malaysia a better place (berating strangers online apparently being one of his modus operandi in improving the country. Still not sure how that works). That complete story was in my post here, so I won't go into it again. However, as terrible as he made me feel, in the end, that encounter, in addition my sad experiences with guys, kinda helped me towards becoming more of what I wanted to be. Although some people might think that how I've change isn't actually good at all, but to me I prefer to think of it as good. And hence I move on to the good parts of 2013.

THE GOOD

1) A good year at the office
As I said earlier, I prefer not to talk too much about work. So I can only say that I've been quite fortunate that even though I'm not the ambitious type in terms of climbing the corporate ladder, promotions and whatnot, for some reason, my bosses like what I'm doing and they reward me for it. I got several increments this year and a promotion. And I'm also lucky to have very open superiors and colleagues whom I get along with very well. Even though work has been super busy at some points, I know that I will be appreciated for it. For that I am thankful.


2) Emotional robotism
Yeah, that subheading doesn't sound that good, and as I mentioned, some people probably wouldn't think it's good, but I do. Last year I had wanted to become more in control of my emotions, almost emotionless in a sense, so I wouldn't become so easily emo or depressed in case of future sad experiences, whether it be with guys, family or whatever. Which in my understanding meant I also had to not feel so happy when good things happen, coz' logically when something makes me happy, and that something eventually is removed from my life, then I will be sad again. So if I don't allow myself to be too happy, then I won't get too sad when it's gone. And I also could not allow myself to hope for too much, as that would lead to disappointment if not met. And I really don't like being disappointed.

Needless to say, that was not an easy state of mind to develop, but well, my encounter with the Chow Chow brain in addition to my two relationships that turned sour pushed me so far over the limits of my tolerance that I quite suddenly found that I had pretty much achieved that emotionless state. Pretty much, but not completely, as I still feel easily annoyed and mad when stupid people tick me off, but not emo or sad about stuff that used to make me that way. I have never mentioned it here, even though I've been that way for several months, as I wasn't quite sure if it was going to be a temporary thing and that I would soon be bawling internally again after some time for some reason or another. But it's been almost half a year and I still feel that way. Well yeah, I still get sad about stuff sometimes, but the impact is a lot less. I'm actually not quite sure how to explain it. I'm not emotionless in the sense that I lost my ability to care about people's problems or feel a sense of injustice when something is not right. Just when it comes to my own personal problems, I don't feel as sucky as I used to. And to me, that's great!

And for my final bit of positive summary for the year....

3) WTH, another guy?
Oh yes, I've  actually met another new guy I like, and I've actually been getting along well with him since around July til now. I decided not to mention him til now, since after my previous experiences left me sour and I didn't know how long this one would last. Nor do I know if it is going to last, as for the moment, we are doing not moving any further than occasionally enjoying each other's company and chats, but he's not really sure if he wants to make it any more serious than that. It's a possibility, but far as I'm concerned and in line my policy of not having hope to avoid disappointment, I have to consider it a bigger possibility that he will eventually leave. Right now, he's one of the sweetest guys I've met, and he does not annoy me at all (which is really almost impossible these days), and he's the type of guy who should already be married with two kids, but for some reason he isn't. Or at least, that's what he tells me, but for all I know he could have a secret family somewhere I don't know about coz' that the kinda of weird stuff that happens to me.

For the moment, I enjoy what we have now and glad that I have someone to talk to ever so often, although I keep in mind not to get too expectant of any further developments in the relationship as it could go bust at any time, and I don't want my heart to go bust with it. I keep my options open at all times, with the mindset that if I meet someone else who's interested, and this guy still doesn't want to commit, I will not be hesistant to end it without feeling sucky. Yes, I understand that sounds sad and kind of cold, but after all I've experienced, that's the way the cookie has to crumble.


So that's my year, with it's bad and somewhat good. This year, my goal is to make the most of my single life and do more crazy fun stuff, like join some flash mobs or go bungee jumping or travel to some weird places like the African Safari or Galapagos Island. Don't think all of that will happen, and I'll probably ends up being swamped with work and having too much annual leave leftover again, but it's good to dream and all.

Happy New Year people! I will spare you all a depressing Cyanide vs. Happiness comic strip this year. No guarantees for 2015 though.

Therapy session with a pighead

I know I shouldn't have, but I couldn't resist continuing my online conversation with that twerp who fouled up my FB inbox with his presumptious, arrogant behaviour making fun of my one little article. True it was made me very upset, as evident from my last post. Fortunately, I have a bit more maturity and self esteem than a regular teenager, else I might have ended up like one of those unfortunate cyber bullied suicide cases. However, I have to admit that I'm not really that mature. After getting it into my head that he was just an annoying nobody trying to prove himself better than me, I've spent all my life being mostly nice and trying to refrain from being insulting or berating even to obviously obnoxious people online, and here was the one person whom I could unleashed all the frustrations I have on and not worry about him feeling bad about it, since he wasn't capable about feeling bad about anything. Again, won't go into the details, but it was quite therapeutic in a way. But I've had my fun and not angry anymore, so decided to block his royal pompousness.

I know I kinda made it out like I feel like there are only pigheads in my life, which is of course not true, and it would be a very lame reason to want to leave the country. I have many good friends, those who actually read this ranting blog included, whom would certainly be missed if I really actually get round to moving over to another country. I don't actually know if such a move would really make me happy... maybe it would make it worse. But on the logical side of things, I have the future of 3 nieces to think about and looking at the way things are going here, I can't help but think that the only way to ensure a good future for them is to make sure they can get an easy ticket out of the country through me. Oh well, still depends on my own luck on getting a PR. Perhaps I should try looking for an Aussie guy online to help along the process.

Huuuhuhu, I'm kidding.

A ugly face of a 'true Malaysian'

So my other blog got quite a bit of attention recently due to a certain article I wrote that went pretty viral, and this blog might be feeling a tad bit lonely these days. I'd been doing much better in the past couple of months after a couple of years of brooding and making this piece of online space my little place to brood. I started caring about things a little bigger than myself, being more aware of the news and especially taking to the FMT website and enjoying little debates with commenters there. As things were getting rather kooky in this country over the past weeks and seeing a lot of angry tirades online about certain issues, I felt motivated to write that article, wanting to do a local language version as it was meant for a certain target audience, but decided to do an English version first so gauge if my opinion really reflected that of others. It got a lot more nods than I expected, even making it onto the blog of a local respected politician. Of course, that made me little proud of myself, like my first little achievement since coming out of my emotional slump, but the intention wasn't to inflate my ego, it was to try and bridge a gap. So I wrote the local version, not really knowing if it would really make any difference to make things better but helping at least it would to a few people. But feeling a bit frustrated too coz' I know it's not much, and I even considered a few times just quitting my job and becoming one of the things I'd never thought I'd want to be... a damn politician. I even had the funny idea of taking a few weeks off to travel to Sabah and Sarawak and educate the poor people there so they know a little better next election, but it was a crazy idea of one person and I know I can't make much difference without a team at least.

Couple of days ago, along comes this message on my FB from some Chinese guy I don't know who pretty much starts berating me for that article and making all sorts of assumptions about my intentions. That I just want attention to stoke my ego. That I'm just a 'keyboard warrior' with no idea what I'm writing coz' I'm a typical Chinese who have little friends of that race which makes me 'less Malaysian', and urbanites don't need that message anymore (which I personally feel is mostly but not completely true, based on my observation and even my own colleagues). The best part was him calling me a college kid, which I shall take as a compliment that I look younger than I am. But all in all, it was infuriating that some stranger pretty much came up and flung all sorts of assumptions about what kind of person I am and how little I actually know based on one article I wrote. His argument? That the real work needed to be done on the ground with the rural folks, not urban ones, which is what he and a group of multiracial friends are doing. Which is great work, of course, which I respect. What I didn't respect was him proclaiming that made him so much more of a true Malaysian than me, in addition to his continued beration of me and accusations that I didn't know what really needs to be done to make the country a better place. The fact that I had aging parents and the future educational costs of 3 nieces to think about is just an excuse. And my explanation that I don't have many friends of 'that' race is mainly because I'm generally untrusting and introverted in the first place, with people of any race, was just me trying to get 'sympathy'. Even when I did admit that I did feel little proud of that article because it was the first big thing I did since my depression and having lived a life where I felt like my opinons don't matter even to my own mum, this insensitive turd had only one word for me. Pathetic. All this coming from someone who is supporting the same side as me, and claims himself to be a 'true Malaysian', but only made himself out to be the most arrogant and judgemental person I've met in my life. 

I don't intend to go into the details of my conversation of him. I do think I was an idiot trying to justify myself to another idiot who knew nothing about me but pretended like he knows everything. If he had talked with a little politeness and explained his work, I would have been so much more supportive of his work. But instead his behaviour was just like the infuriating leaders of this country. Not making any effort to understand the problems of people different from them and then misjudging their intentions, and provoking people to become angry and inflamed to the point of petty arguments about stupid things that don't matter in the big picture. The only difference is that anyone misjudged by the leaders gets charged and thrown in jail, while this turd was just being an annoying little prick. So much that he got the honour of being on the receiving end of my own little tirade of foul language that no one else in my life has ever heard me speak.

Actually, it wasn't so much me being mad at him. After all, he's just a stranger trying to stoke his own ego by belittling some miniscule efforts of an ordinary person while he runs back to his gang and makes fun of me like an immature high school jock (yeah, his royal pompousness told me that's exactly what he would do). What I am really mad at is why this had to happen, after so long of trying to work through my internal issues and trying to open up with people. And especially, after almost decided to go back to church again, which I did last week when I visited CBC. Why, just when I'm starting to turn my life around and have a bit more faith in the goodness of humanity does one stupid annoying little imbecile have to come along and unravel everything? If it's true that God works through people, I can only wonder what great and awesome plan he has for sending the biggest pighead in the country into my life to undermine my self-worth, in addition to all the other pigheads I've known although their pigheadedness was nothing compared to this. Really, God? I don't think I think I ask for much, just one person among 7 billion people whom I can really connect with so I don't have to deal with a messed up world by myself. Even in my latest attempt to join some social events to get to know more people, the curse of meeting weird guys strikes me again. Which is another story in itself which I decided was not worth ranting about anymore, and just consider another amusing addition to the collection of weird guys I meet. At least this time, I know I'm not the only one who sees him as weird, coz' it turned out he and I have mutual friends whom when I asked them about el weirdo, spent an entire night telling me the many ways in which he pissed them off.

I guess it's still for the best to assume there really is no God, so the most logical explanation is that I must have done something really terrible in a past life that karma is coming back to bite me in the ass. Whatever it is, whatever motivation I had to make something little better of myself and try and make some small difference is kinda down the tube right now. I had recently starting asking some friends in Australia about life there and prospects of getting a PR, just considering a move as an option. But after meeting the face of a true Malaysian and finding out a true Malaysian has the ugliest character among everyone I've ever met, I guess my decision is pretty much made up. No need to stay in a country where one is not appreciated, not by leaders and not even by people supposed to be on the same camp. I guess that makes me selfish and immature, but hey, if life's a bitch, after a while, you just need to be a bitch right back.

Renewed

The past month has been pretty good. Good in that every negative feeling just dissolved into nothing and I feel almost like a third person looking at myself and my situation and analyzing things from a calmer and more positive perspective. I've been quiet about it coz' I wasn't quite sure if was just a temporary after effect of what was possibly my most emotionally challenging period. But it seems like the effect of that experience may have effectively short circuited the part of my brain connected to the ability to feel pissed. Or maybe I was so pissed, I completely exhausted my internal supply of pissiness. Whatever the reason, I'm no longer pissed, or sad, or lonely. I've just been thinking and digesting my newfound state of mind and now I think I'm actually happy.


I now consider it possible that all the shit in my life happened for a reason. Possibly to make me less judgemental of people who make mistakes when they are frustrated with life, which probably puts me in a better position to counsel people who are going through difficulties. It's easy to see someone doing something harmful to themselves like smoking, doing drugs, spending unnecesssary money til they go bankrupt and assume they are just idiots. It's easy because when you have not done something similar or equally stupid out of desperation, you have no understanding of what drives a person to do such things. Like I used to wonder why educated, intelligent people who are perfectly aware of the health risks of smoking would start anyway. I've talked to friends who are smokers. They know dang well that smoking is going to kill them faster, but they do it anyway because it's difficult to stop and they started doing it because something drove them to do it. And I kinda get that. I've also talked to people who have not made such mistakes in life, not because they don't have difficulties, but it's easier to not want to jump into doing stupid things when you have a support system like supporting family or friends. And well, they just don't get it, why I did what I did. Evidently I've come to the point where I think talking to happy people about my problems isn't going to help coz' they wouldn't understand and I wouldn't wanna make happy people depressed anyway. Talking to jaded people also might not be good coz' I'd make them even more jaded.

The best people to talk to are those who've gone through similar shit and come out of it with still a positive mindset. At this point in time, I only know one such person. And that person once told me that he's been working on trying to widen his social circle, try new activities and also considering volunteering for Befrienders to counsel people. And I think that's a path I should go along as well. I've been trying out Play By Ear guitar lessons, so see if I can do something more impressive on a guitar other than basic strumming. I heard about this new dance/fitness fad called Bokwa and sounds interesting, so I contacted an instructor and hopefully will join some workshops in the near future...maybe train to be a part-time instructor, depending on my time and interest. Maybe not jumping into the Befrienders things, coz' I don't think I'm quite ready for counselling to that extent. I'd be one of those counsellors that if some annoying teenager started whining over the phone to me about stories like she's in love with A, but A is infatuated with B, and B is a jerk, I might start to hurl. But I'm just doing easier stuff, like if I see a friend on FB in a dejected mood, then I just try to give some advice or lighten them up.


Another possibility is that going through many disappointments is a way of making sure I don't take for granted something good if I get it. My blog these past few years has been nothing more but me getting hung up on my problems. But not everything sucks. In fact, I have a lot of good things going for me now. I like the place I'm staying at now, even though it's rented but I have good neighbours and I have gotten to know some good people around my neighbourhood. I have an adorable and loving dog who always makes me smile even though he likes to high five me on the face when I'm on the couch or bed. I have some reliable and good friends, especially a couple of female friends who've been making a lot of effort to keep in touch with me since they knew about my recent meltdown. And most unexpectedly is that I've gotten very good pay raises in the past one year, and I've just been promoted to assistant manager of my department, though I'm on probation for 3 months, after which I get another raise. So finances are not an issue, I have no commitments, no husband to appease, no kids to take care of, and with my new position, I will probably have more opportunities to travel to places other than boring old Indonesia. And since I've had plenty of experience taking care of myself and being independant, I'm in the best position right now to get out there and experience the world and try to make a difference doing the sustainability related work I do. 

And to think, all this time I've been moping around about not being able to find love and feeling lonely. Good grief, how much time I wasted harping on that when I could have used my time better to unleash my full potential instead of hoping someone else would make me happy. Sure, I may never know what it's like to have someone I can trust enough to talk to about anything and everything. Or if I have problems, I have to fix it myself. Or if I want something or lose something, I have to buy it myself. Or if I want to watch a concert of a relatively unknown band or movie, no one's going to take the time to watch it with me just because. But since life has turned out so perfectly well that I can easily take care of myself and enjoy my independant life doing whatever the heck I want... well, I can't really complain now, can I?

Of course, I may end up living my life so much that I grow old with no close family or friends.... but well, my friend who's experienced shit and now feels positive about life also has an interesting idea on how he plans to deal with that. I won't go into the details, coz' it not something most people would think is a good idea. But basically. his plan is to be productive for as long as possible, and once he reaches the point where he no longer able to contribute to the world and no one is there to take care of him, then well, he'll simply take care of himself. 

Hmm, will cross that bridge when I come to it. It's going to be another weeks of travelling and soon I'm going to have to fly.

Footsteps

Well this explanation makes sense too.

He called me to say that two drowning people cannot keep each other afloat

And made it clear we can't contact again for a long time so we could both find ourselves again.

Today I visited City Discipleship Presbyterian Church and asked to visit a cell group.

I really feel like Switchfoot wrote the soundtrack to my life.

More irony

Well, it's been a emotional roller coaster month. I started off being really excited and really happy to get to know someone awesome, to being realy confused, dejected and angry to the point of suicidal thoughts (to be honest, it wouldn't be the first time I've thought of it, it's just that it would the first time I've actually said it out loud coz' it's the kind of comment that makes everyone uncomfortable) and now after the air is cleared and the anger subsided, I'm back to square one where another awesome person will mostly disappear out of my life again. He says otherwise, but I've learned from experience that guys can say whatever they want and most of the time they don't mean it.

The first thing I really don't like about this whole experience is it felt like I became like the most negative and immature person I know whom I never wanted to become. Negative, unreasonably angry and proclaiming intent of suicide which is nothing more than a depressing way to grab people's attention and make certain people feel guilty. I think it's rather ironic that I think said person became that way also due to multiple disappointments by men in her life, among other crappy life experiences, but most recently, that. Even more ironic is that the most of the guys I liked who have disappeared out of my life have the same thing in common. Highly intelligent and interesting to talk to, but have been severely disappointed by women they cared about resulting in them having issues that in turn make them disappear. Given how I'm seeing a pattern of how good people can get really messed up by such relationships, and honestly, I myself have little qualms about leaving a guy in the lurch if he's not to my liking, I'm not making any more effort to meet guys for a while coz' I don't feel it's right to spread the mess to more people. Maybe a long time. Maybe forever. I had considered some sort of revenge on the entire single male species by manipulating them for while then dropping them like a rock. Too bad I still have too much of a conscience to do such a deplorable thing. Perhaps that evil fantasy will take up a few pages in my book. Lol.

Another thing I really don't like about what happened is that I clearly was not able to control my emotions as well as I thought I had learned to. Primarily I guess because I allowed myself to hope again that this guy would be different from the rest. Well, he was certainly different...but the end nett result is essentially the same. And this time the emotional backlash was much worse than before coz' it was completely sudden and unexpected. It's again ironic that his issue was not being able to connect or feel anything emotionally with me, even though we had a great time together, while I, who have been trying to train myself to avoid getting too emotionally connected and even asked God to have some form of mercy on me by turning me into an emotional robot, have clearly failed miserably. This whole emotional suppression thing obviously isn't turning out like I wanted it to. Which makes things pretty tough. I'm always hoping the next time will be different. That little bitch inside of me continues to whisper little dreams and encouragement into my head, and whenever I listen to it, this kind of shit happens. On the other hand, if not for that hope, I probably would have made good on my suicidal tendancies a long time. Can't live with it, can't live without it.

So anyway, I decided it's best to channel my energies into other more creative things. The book idea is one fun way to kill time. Am also hoping to write more music, although I can't imagine how badly it would suck considering I only play guitar and I'm not even really good at that. Crazy things can happen on the wonderful world of Youtube, however. And unleashing my creative potential has been something I've been wanting to do for a long time, just never got round to it once I started working.

I've been listening to Switchfoot recently. They are one of the few Christian bands I still listen to regularly now, coz' they actually have the balls to write about the struggles a Christian goes through and their lyrics are poignant and thought-provoking while their music is just awesome. I would love to be able to write like them. I wonder when I'll stop wishing for silly things.

Psycho dog hater

Tonight I took my dog Friendster out to the field near my place as I do every day when I'm not travelling. I usually let him off the leash to run around and eventually he comes back to me. Previously he was well behaved. Lately he's been getting more naughty in going off the field onto the road, chasing the occasional cat, and barking at people. It's a bit exasperating and I try to punish him but he doesn't get it, but I don't want to restrict his freedom since I'm out all day and that's the only time he gets to run around.

Today at the field, he chased and barked at a Malay man and a young boy about 10 years old, probably his son, on a motorcycle for all of two seconds. My dog does this for fun and doesn't intend to bite. Most bikers also seem used to it and just go faster, some even laughing it off. However, this guy came back a few minutes later and started calling my dog. I was wondering what the heck he was up to and got a rude shock when he came over to Friendster and started swinging a spanner at him!

Immediately I was between the crazy guy and my dog, and I swear I have never screamed so loud in my life while the idiot kept trying to swing the spanner at my dog. At some point he could have swung it at me instead, but I didn't really give a crap. I had only my dog chain as a weapon and was ready to whip it hard enough to leave 10 stitches on his head if he so much as touched my dog. I was yelling at him to put it away, and I said my dog was like my son and if he hurt my dog, I'd hurt him back. At one point I threatened to report him to the police, which in hindsight was a useless threat coz' police here are useless and they'd side with the retard in a skullcap whether or not he was threatening bodily violence.

Fortunately he did not injure Friendster and my screams were loud enough that it drew the attention of car shop workers nearby that came to break it up and the idiot in a skullcap got on his bike and went off. Amazing thing is that he would do all that in front of his young son, who would no doubt learn that threatening to injure a pet of a woman is a very righteous and godly thing to do, or whatever it is these retards in skullcaps believe. Does nothing to enhance my respect for religious turds!

Now I'm worried the psycho will come hunt down my dog when I'm not at home and try to poison him or something. I have no choice but to tie him up at the grill now so he does not pick up foreign food.

Best part is just yesterday I told my dog that when he dies, I will most likely kill myself too. I'm not sure how serious I am or whether I would actually do it, but that mutt is one of the few things I really love right now that and keeps me company without driving me insane. Losing him would be very detrimental to my health. It's hard to believe it's a mere coincidence that this incident happened one day after I said that. Someone up there is really testing my limits.

Perhaps in a slightly more positive note, I had a chat today with the latest guy who broke me to the point where I publicly announced suicidal tendancies on FB. As immature as it may be, I was so pissed with him that I've been trolling him with angry texts and FB posts to the point where I wondered why the idiot didn't just block or unfriend me, after which I would proceed to stalk him in other ways. The fact that he was quiet the whole time just fuelled the insanity. Until today I berated him for having no remorse and still calling himself a Christian. Then he replied, very apologetic and explained his issues. He had two girlfriends before who had cheated on him, and although he wanted to, he could no longer connect with people although he tried with me. He'd told me before about his cheating exes, but his sudden disappearance on me made me think he was just out to hurt girls the same way he'd been hurt, and that's what sent me off the deep end. After he explained himself, I was no longer angry. And even offered to still be friends, which he accepted.

I can only imagine if I hadn't gotten his explanation today, I would have still been brooding mad and probably cracked the head of that guy in the skullcap anyway.

I seriously have to write a book about my crazy life one of these days. I'd make millions, quit my job and travel around with my dog doing the backpacker thing and working as a dive guide so I can dive everyday and get paid for it.

Cursed

Today I decided that I am convinced there is a God. I am convinced because I cannot believe I can be disappointed time and time again in my life and that this is purely due to some unfortunate luck. It has happened so many times and today it happened for a reason that is too ridiculous for me to understand that the only way I can make sense of why this is happening is that there is a God and he has cursed me.

I'm going to hide in my zen room now.

Peace

Most of my life growing up in the church, I learned that peace comes from Jesus, or God, the Holy spirit, perhaps one taking turns while the other is busy supposedly helping the world in some way or another. I'd always hear testimonies of people who didn't feel at ease with themselves until they accepted Jesus into their lives, and learned the joy of his forgiveness. Perhaps I could never quite grasp the concept of 'letting go and letting God'. I do think I tried. Perhaps I didn't try hard enough. But I could never really find the peace that Christians say come automatically once they join the fold.

In the past few months since I decided I no longer count myself as one, I posted before about how I wanted to essentially train myself to stop feeling. To be honest, I thought even I couldn't do it. I thought eventually once I'd gotten over past events, I would be back to my old self, hoping for things I've never been able to get and getting disappointed again. And there were a few times when I lapsed and the emotions would hit me like a tonne of bricks.

Well, nothing we want comes without a bit of effort, and after some recent events, I think that I've come pretty close, if not completely achieved what I set out to do. I do not want to go into the details what the events were, but essentially one involved several family members creating a mountain out of a molehill during what was supposed to be happy occasion, which led to me getting personally attacked for making what I meant as a benign comment. The other was finding out a person I care about and respect a lot turned out to be a lot different from what I thought, and keeping a lot more secrets from me than I was led on to believe.

Previously in such situations, I would have broken down, gotten upset, and a lot of other things which makes me really unproductive and probably not much fun to be around. This time, I had completely no such reaction. No sadness. No anger. Just some slight amazement at how things turned out the way they did. That's it.

And I am quite pleased with myself. I have learned that a lot of things in life, particularly the behaviour of people, is out of my control and getting emotional about it brings no benefit to me whatsoever. I cannot hope for people to change and so many of my expectations of people, heck, of life in general, have not been met. Nevertheless, rather than choose to let it affect me like before, I'd now rather let it slide as part and parcel of life. I can only change myself, and even that also, is a challenge in which I must in some aspects learn to accept the way I am, of course always trying to improve, but not feeling like shit if I fail.

I guess I can say I got the peace I've been looking for all along, and the best part was that it came from no one and nothing else but myself.

Lessons from my mum

People say a mother's love is the truest form of love there is in human form. I don't doubt the truth of this, even with my own mum whom I'm not proud to say I prefer to spend as little time around as possible. I believe a lot of things she has done or said to me was her way of loving me, but the way it was done was far from conducive in creating a bond between us. It would have been easy to write this post in spite, but knowing that my mum had good intentions, my purpose here is not to rant, but to make this sort of as a form of advice. Not just advice to other mothers, but fathers and even people in general... but most importantly to mothers because as long as you take on the job of raising a kid, like it or not, you are the biggest influence on that child's life.

One might think that love is all that matters and the only thing you need to make your kid turn out right. I can personally tell you, it's not the case. You can really really love someone and still really really hurt them unintentionally. I think that applies to a relationship with anyone you love, but I'm going to stick to the parent-child topic... subjects are in no particular order.

Protecting your children can be detrimental to their well being
I guess it's pretty much a given that all parents don't want any harm to come to their child, except for the loony parents. And when your kid wants to get involved in an actvity which you perceive as dangerous, such as some form of extreme sport, the natural reaction is to forbid them from doing it. The thing is, what you see as hazardous to their health is what they probably see as something to add more adventure and wonder to their lives, and in that sense, helping them to appreciate their life. So to me, I would say the best way is either advise them to make sure they take all necessary precautions, and if you can, try to join them too so you can help watch out for them. Forbiding them altogether can do more harm than you think. Let me elaborate with my experience.

I am quite a nature loving person, although not a total extreme nature freak. I just enjoy the occasional hike in the jungle and some scuba diving every now and then, and even once tried sky diving. I like these things because observing nature and life was and still is one of the few things that really amaze me, and pretty much the only thing that could still make me believe there is a God that created all this cool stuff. Bugs amaze me coz' they all look like aliens in tiny form. Looking up at super clear night sky at a beach or village area amazes me coz' all the twinkling stars that blanket the sky remind me big the universe is and there are so many things are there that are yet to be discovered. Being underwater also amazes me for the same reason... and I almost feel like a mermaid flipping around in the water, albelt a rather clumsy one with a big chunk of metal strapped to my back and making Darth Vader noises.

I would have loved to be able to share all these experiences with my family. It's sad enough none of them share my love for nature, but it's even worse that since I was young, my mum forbade me from joining such nature activities, even simple hikes, is disheartening. She worries about me falling down a cliff, getting lost in the jungle, getting attacked by a tiger or a shark, drowing in the water, etc, etc, etc. Even after trying to explain to her that such accidents happen usually when people take unnecessary risks, which I don't, and it's far more likely that I'll die in a road accident that a hiking or diving accident, she still forbids me. Or at least she tries to. I simply plan such nature trips without telling her about it until it's time for me to go, and even then I try not to tell her what I plan to do. And the biggest risk I take is doing such things on my own because I have no one to go do it with... I've gone on a dive trip by myself, and I've gone hiking by myself, almost got lost once and almost had trouble getting out on my own another time coz' my knee injury started acting up badly at one point. It would have been safer if I had family members that appreciated this stuff and could join me, but under such circumstances, it's either obey and live out my life all the time 'protected' in the mundane polluted concrete jungle staring at computers and the idiot box everyday (where I could get into a nasty car accident and die anyway) OR do what I enjoy and  get to appreciate the beauty and adventure this world has for us to see. I'm not too happy about keeping secrets from my mum, but I'm not much into the idea of spending the rest of my days as a zombified city person either.

Nevertheless, it's understandable that my mum forbade from nature activities to protect me. But in her attempt to protect me, she also forbade me from doing other things which I thought were good and right thing to do. There was once when I was teenager when I was visiting this old Indian lady living in the apartment across the street from ours. She lived alone and I forgot how I met her, but I know she just wanted to have someone to occasionally keep her company, and I thought she was nice and interesting to talk to, so I did go visit her a few times. Until I told my mother one day who I was going to visit. Her reaction was to forbid from seeing this woman ever again. She was afraid this woman would try to cheat me of my money, or maybe get someone to kidnap me, or God knows what other scenarios she envisioned an old lady could do to harm me. Of course I argued, and in return I was accused of being rebellious. I was so mad I shut myself in my room the whole day crying and wondering why I was made to feel terrible for trying to do something good. As a kid, I wanted to be a person that could do some good in the world, be a humanitarian or something of the like. My desire to do so was pretty much killed after that incident. No doubt my mum did it because she wanted to protect me from bad people But that incident and similar ones like it just taught me to avoid getting close to people, which has carried on til today. She didn't have to react that way. She could have taken some time to go with me to visit her so she'd know that I'm not going to visit a potential axe murdurer. But she chose to assume that I was simply incapable of discerning good in people and decided restricting me from seeing her was the best way to protect me.

So sure, you can restrict your kids from doing anything you think is 'dangerous', but indirectly you may be killing a part of them that is very important... such as their zest for adventure and desire to help others. You are also indirectly sending the message that you just do not trust your children to be capable of taking care of themselves out of staying out of trouble, which is also very demoralizing for the kid. And leads me to my next topic.


Trust your children and believe in their capabilities
Children or teenagers may sometimes do stupid things that may end up in them being hurt. But just because you hear of such cases a lot does not give you can automatically assume your own child will definitely end up the same way.  All my life, she and dad made it a point to teach me about all the bad people out there and what people may do to hurt me. They taught me not to simply trust strangers, they told me stories of how children are tricked and then kidnapped, how girls get drugged at night clubs, how women get conned by casanovas or being attacked while driving, etc, etc. I appreciated such lessons and I think it's good for parents to teach their kids about such things. But after that, you need to able to trust that your kid is smart enough to avoid such situations and protect themselves, unless your child has a history of reckless endangerment, in which case you'd definitely need to do something about it. But assuming the worst in your child before they have displayed such behaviour is just really frustrating for the child. In my case, I think I did pretty much everything right as a kid. Didn't get involved in gangs. Didn't touch drugs or cigarettes. Wasn't very interested in clubbing. Never been completely drunk. Never been cheated by a guy. And yet my mum still could not trust that I was smart enough to judge people correctly and not get into trouble when I'm out. Which is quite ludicrous considering at one point in time when she was incredibly depressed with life, she would get drunk in our house and be smoking cigarettes, thinking I wouldn't know about it. I suppose if the parent has trouble controlling themselves, it's only understandable that they'd assume their kid is no better. The only really stupid thing I ever did, I did it because I just wanted to find one person, just one person in a world of 7 freakin' billion people, who I could completely be myself with, without being constantly demoralized, because I wasn't really getting that at home. But of course, that's another story.

Some mums sometimes also fail to trust their kids to responsible at home, even to do routine simple things like housework or taking care of pets. I think it's also important to entrust children with some routine responsibilities at home from as young as possible and then not taking over for them if you feel their way is not the best way or you can do it better. Of course, as the mum, you probably would have established your perfect system of doing things and it may irk you if your kid (or spouse, for that matter) doesn't wash their clothes with enough soap, or mop the floor thoroughly enough, etc, etc... but the best thing you can do is tell them how to do it until they do it right. If they forget to do something they're supposed to do, just remind them of it instead of taking over for them. And even if things are not done exactly the way you'd like, it's just housework. It's not the end of the world and no one is going to die. Unless it involves taking care of a baby or a child. Even then, as a grandmother or a grandmother-in-law, the mother of the child is the one who is spending most of her time caring for the baby, and if you brilliantly come in and try to take over the job completely just because you've already had the experience, how inadequate is that going to make the mother feel? In any case, you don't need to get frustrated, complain and nag about it and take over the job, which will just make them feel like they are incompetent at anything you ask them to do. In the end, they'll just decide the best way is to let you do everything your way, in which case you'll be very tired and get even more naggy and complaining. I've heard similar gripes from some friends about their mothers, and some men about their wives, so I know this is a sadly common occurence.

When I wanted to move out and get a dog, my mum scoffed at me, thinking I would be incapable to running the house, my dog would probably starve to death coz' I'd forget to feed it and I would constantly run out of drinking water coz' I'd forget to refill the dispenser. In reality, I clean my house regularly without complaints (in fact, I find it quite calming sometimes), especially my floor which gets icky annoyingly fast because it's unpolished marble coupled with the incredible amount of fur my dog sheds on a daily basis. Sure, it's not perfectly clean, but why do I need it to be? I'd rather be spending time doing other things, not housework that never ends. I never run out of water. My dog is well cared for and certainly a lot more loving to me than the psychotic shih tzu that my mum has taken care of. Which only goes to show that I am perfectly capable of all the things she thinks I'm not capable of. All she needed to do was trust my ability to do things and not give up on me just coz' I didn't follow her way of doing things exactly or I didn't do things when she thought it needed to be done.

As a positive example, I know a family from my church with 3 young kids below 9 years old. All of them, including the youngest boy, since the time he could walk, but taught by the parents to do housework on their own. They would even help to vacuum the church floor after service or wash the dishes, and they wouldn't complain about it. And this family has a maid who could have done all the work for them. I'm sure they don't clean up perfectly all the time, but the parents are ok with it, and I think it's great to teach their kids such responsibilities from a young age instead of trying to do everything for them and then stressing themselves out. And when you are so busy doing everything for your children, you have less time spent actually getting to know your kids and seeing them as people and not just a living being that you feel responsible to keep alive and take care of. Again, leading me to my nex topic.

Be involved, and don't be a Martha
My mother, as the eldest of five children in a poor family, was stuck with doing most of the chores and taking care of her siblings. With that in mind, I can sort of understand why she's overbearing when it comes to housework and in her mind no one can do it like her. I also guess that it's because of her background that she did not make me help around the house at all when I was a kid... because she didn't want me to be unhappy about it (which I don't think was right, as I already explained above).

One bad effect is that she became a bit too much like Martha of the bible...always busy with things until she forgot the most important thing was spending time with people who mattered. When I was younger she'd spend a lot of time cooking, and then lot of time cleaning up, but in between she didn't take the time to sit down with the family and eat with us. It may not sound like a big deal, but today my dad acknowledges that her being M.I.A. during meal times has had its negative effects, and so do I. As a kid, most of the day is spend at school, doing homework, playing games, etc, while dad is at work and mum is doing stuff around the house (or working too, these days). Meal time is one of the few times a family sits down together and has opportunity to talk. If you can't be bothered to do so, you miss out on getting to know your family better. Eventually it became such that during meal times, we'd all just eat whenever we want to, whether or not anyone else was there with us. So I learned to be ok with eating alone, and doing pretty much anything on my own, and now instead of wanting to live with family, I'd just rather live alone. Which is of course not only a result of mum not being there at meal times, but due to a combination of other things like losing the ability to be open with people, and the regular warzone going on at that place I'm supposed to call a home.  The ability to be completely independant is good, but living alone in a world of 7 freakin' billion people? You don't need to do the math to know that's probably not how life is supposed to be. People don't live alone coz' they really want to. It's because they feel that circumstances made it such that it is their only or best option.

Another thing is my mum never bothered with is getting to know my friends. I would have liked to invite friends over more often, but she wouldn't like it. The ridiculous reason being she hated cleaning up afterward. Rather than seeing it as an opportunity to know the people your children hang out with and being involved in their lives, she focused on the petty issue of getting the house messy which I could have easily helped out with. Which is also probably the reason why she is unable to trust my ability to judge people's character. After all, if you can't be bothered to find out what your children's friends are really like, you can only guess that she's probably hanging out with some druggie losers or conjobs out for money.

 Actions speak louder than words
One of the funny things about my mum is that she somehows believes that the way she behaves will not impact me whatsoever. My mum is always picking on my dad and getting mad at him for something. My dad is a pretty cool-mannered guy but he annoys me sometimes too for the same reasons that annoy my mum. So when I was young, I would get impatient with him easily. Even today, I still do but I try to control it. But because my mum feels children must respect their parents, she would get mad at me whenever I got impatient with my dad. In other words, in her mind, it's ok for her to degrade him in front of me, but I, under no circumstances am I allowed to behave the same way towards him. Even the suggestion that I picked up my behaviour from her sends her into a fit. My own father even said to me that the only reason I behave that way is because it's the only thing I've observed all my life from my mum.

In other words, it's ok to be a hypocrite just coz' you're the mum. Not. Seriously, children learn from observation, and if you think it'll be easy for them to ignore it just because you tell them to, expect to be disappointed.

Be supportive and respect their opinions
This should be a necessity in any relationship, but for some parents, such a concept totally flies over their head. In the not-so-good old days when times were tougher, and my grandparents were struggling to make ends meet, I can sort of understand if the priority was to focus on getting enough money to survive instead of spending quality time with your children. I did not know my mother's father at all as he died before I was born, but what I'm told, he was a strict disciplinarian who felt it was most important to ensure his 5 children, including my mum who was the eldest, always towed the line. As such, he was never close to his children and their opinions did not matter. All that mattered was that they obeyed him.

One would think that growing up having her voice suppressed by her father would make her want to it differently for her children as well. Unfortunately it didn't quite turn out that way. Anytime I had a difference of opinion with her, she would take it as an argument and me being rebellious. As the child, I had to respect my mum and dad and just do what they said. When I went to Sunday School as a kid, her hope was not that I would become a good Christian. She only wanted me to become a good daughter, i.e. one who would obey my mother and father just like in the 10 commandments. She didn't quite count on me actually wanting to get more involved in church activities and camps (which she also restricted me from joining, again for my 'protection'). So as kid, I tried to explain to her about why I wanted to join all these so-called 'dangerous' extracurricular activities, i.e. my nature trips, my church camps, me wanting to visit old ladies, and she'd always take it as I'm the rebellious little upstart who refuses to obey her mum.

Even in discussion with other family members, whenever there was a topic that came up where I agreed with someone else instead of her, she also wouldn't like it, and she took it as a form of betrayal.

If that was not bad enough, the few times I did try to be open to her about something, she'd have something negative to say about it. Like in my previous job when I was having problems with my boss and wantedto quit. When I told her about my problem, her first reaction was that maybe my boss was being difficult because I was the one with the attitude problem. This, by the way, was the same boss who refused to allow me to attend my own brother's wedding in the US even though I told him months before that my plane ticket was booked and I was one of the bridesmaids. And I had TWO jobs prior to that where I had no problems with my bosses. Why did my mum have to immediately assume the worst about me when I was trying to tell her my problem?

It should come as no surprise that these days I no longer talk to my mum. I refuse to tell her anything personal about my life and I would rather not spend time around her even if I'm not talking, coz' usually she's be complaining about something. I know she wishes I would spend more time with her. She even recently told me that I can talk to her about anything. Which in my head was really funny considering in all my experience, anytime I do try to talk to her about anything, it just goes downhill from there. If I tell her all my problems, I'd have to tell her that most of my problems are a result of her behaviour. And I'm not interested in experiencing the backlash that will come out of that revelation.

Perhaps the root of the problem can be summed up in my last point:

Be positive in life
Obviously my mother is not a ray of sunshine. Her negative outlook on everything not only affects her but her whole family and her constant complaining and refusal to listen to any opinion other than her own does nothing but demoralizes the people she cares about. I can't change my mum, I can only learn from it and hope other people can learn from it. As such, I personally make it a point that no matter how sucky my life is, I will try my best not to bring down the people around me.

And if I ever have kids, my only hope is that I don't screw them over too much.