balancing act cny

annual chinese new years have always been great balancing acts for me since the passing of my dad in 2008. and it was even more so this year. had to do all these to manage my mum's mental health and family relationships in view of the different "factions" within the family and beyond. for this year...

managed to pay a visit to my critically ill uncle after lying to my mum that i would only be let off at 3pm on cny eve (for the record, i was let off at 12pm). i want to be able to see him before he leaves and to manage my relatives, i had to explain to them my considerations and challenges. my aunt seemed understanding (although i know she could possibly be a different person behind my back), but that is not for me to bother. as for my uncle, he remained in coma and had been placed on life support. i walked out of his icu room after about 2 minutes and once i emerged, the doctor, who was preparing to enter the room, asked me - erm, how come you did not wear a mask? hmmm... lol. accordingly, they suspected my uncle has tuberculosis and had been placed in an isolated room and that all persons entering the room was supposed to wear a n95 mask. let's hope i don't carry out any nasty stuff from that visit.

was able to head off to pay respects to my late-dad on cny eve after visiting my uncle. needed to do this for my mum and for my brother. my brother remained convinced that i did not take good care of my dad and contributed to his death and he also continued to be angry with my relatives (for all sorts of reasons). but like the above, that would be for him to manage. back to cny eve, i was rather tired by the afternoon frankly. but well, i managed to drive my way from the east to my brother's place, and then to the west-end of the island before heading back again to my brother's place for the reunion dinner. was dead beat by the time i reached home about 1030pm. i didn't bother to stay up late and headed to bed before midnight (traditionally, people believe that on cny eve, children should stay up as late as possible so that the parents will enjoy long life. i used to do that previously, but i was too tired this time round and... hey, my mum's 83yrs old! what more can i ask for right? lol!

managed to call my aunt to wish her well for the new year this morning. tried doing that yesterday but she wasn't home. and got through today while i locked myself in my room's toilet with the door closed. didn't want to make my mum suspect anything cos she (as influenced by my bro) has avoided interacting with any of my relatives. needed to do this basic respectful act as a member of the younger generation. it's the right thing to do.

have arranged for my second sis and my cousin to come early afternoon today. had earlier pondered how i could orchestrate their visits in view of the visits to my brother's place. so after some adjustments, my sis agreed to come on the second day instead of cny day one. made life so much more manageable.

so far so good. i have the weekend to go. hope to be able to find some me-time over the weekend. i would probably lie to my mum about visiting some bosses or something. excuses of visits to bosses has worked so far as she was of the impression that if i don't do so, i could face the possibility of offending my boss and getting the sack.

lol!

babi ponteh

finally cooked the babi ponteh today - pork (and chicken) stewed in fermented beans. this is a peranakan dish and i had been eating it since i was a kid, something that my mum would cook during the chinese new year. there are many variants to this dish and some may include potatoes, bamboo shoots, etc. and mostly, it involved only pork as the main meat in the dish. for my family, we do not add potatoes nor bamboo. but we include chicken in addition to the pork. i had experimented with the recipe some time back and have modified the recipe to suit my liking. after cooking it, my mum commented that it reminded her of her mum's (my mama) cooking. that's so flattering! here's my recipe.

ingredients

1kg pork (twee bak) - make sure you have a nice layer of fat and skin as it provides the texture, cut into large pieces

1 medium-sized chicken cut into large pieces, you can replaced it with chicken parts like wings or drumsticks if need be

10 dried shiitake mushrooms - soaked and cut into halves

15-20 shallots & 10 garlic - blended into a smooth paste

3-4 tablespoon of fermented bean paste (tau cheo)

3-4 tablespoons of gula melaka (you can also use white castor sugar or brown sugar, but gula melaka would be more fragrant)

20ml of vegetable oil

4-6 tablespoon of dark soya sauce

10ml of sesame oil (optional)
1 stick of cinnamon (optional - i don't add this)

2-3litre of water (estimated volume)

garnish

coriander leaves (wan swee)

method

place the cut pork cubes and marinate with 1-2 tablespoon of dark sauce and a sprinkle of sugar. heat oil (mix both oil if you choose to also include sesame oil) in wok, pour in blended shallots and garlic. stir fry over slow fire till it turns translucent (should be about 2-3min) and you can smell the fragrance. add the tau cheo paste and continue to fry for another minute or so (you can smell the fragrance). add the pork and continue to stir fry for another 2-3minutes until it is totally covered with the shallot/garlic/tau cheo paste. add the water (or the stock) until the pork is totally submerge in it. add the mushroom, add salt, sugar (to taste) and the remaining dark soya sauce and bring it to boil. lower the heat and simmer for about 2hrs. add chicken parts and simmer for another hour. add garnish, serve hot with white rice (cook extra rice cos nobody eats babi ponteh with just a normal serving of rice!)

other tips

to make it easier for you to cut the pork, you can boil it in water first. you can then filter the water and use the stock later instead of water. same goes for the mushroom. you can soak the mushroom and then use the stock to cook. when you first add the stock, leave some behind and you can top it up when you add the chicken. the dish is best eaten on the second day after cooking cos the extra time would have allowed all the seasoning, and the sweetness of the meat to emerge and mix!

enjoy!

happy chinese (lunar) new year

i simply love this video. very symbolic and very meaningful. really brought out the full meaning of why we celebrate chinese new year, folklore aside. it also reminded me how i, when i was dealing with corporate relations years ago, never hesitated to recommend chopsticks as corporate gifts. a pair of chopsticks, properly mounted, makes a very decent and meaningful gift. it symbolises the inseparable nature of the two entities (persons, units, companies, etc) in the relationship. after all, one cannot use only one chopstick if one wants to eat properly. one needs both to work in unison. such is the depth of the meaning of the humble chopsticks.

watching the video made me tear a bit, especially the bits where the lady told her lonely neighbour - it's only a pair of chopstick. this was what my mum used to say to my uncle when he visited many years back. and it also made me reflect on what it means to be chinese, sons of dragons - a race that had survived over 4000 years of history and is now found the globe over, yet bounded together culturally. wishing everyone,

"happy chinese (lunar) new year!"

:-)

ps: i try as much as possible to avoid using the word "chinese" and instead use "lunar" cos it is a festival that is celebrated by all the different races in sgp. but in this post, i have used it as the setting of the video is chinese in nature. 

curse him...

my uncle completed his op early this morning and was placed in the icu after the procedure. he had had his large intestines removed and was still in critical condition the last time i heard. i also understood that his condition was not good and could go anytime. so i thought the right thing for me to do was to inform my siblings about his condition. and i texted my siblings one-by-one, starting with my second sis, then my brother and finally my brother-in-law. here's what i get from them...

• second sis was concerned and wanted to visit. but she would do so together with me.

• my brother send me a chain of smses, one after another. and his responses ranged from cursing my uncle, to warning me about visiting him or to contribute any monies should he die, to a whole lot of very negative comments. and he ended with "you must believe me...". really, i have no desire nor energies to share my thoughts, much less correct him. he is a bitter person and yes, as i type, i was reminded of my boss's communication style - aggressive,, and know it was founded on a very disturbed past that he couldn't reconcile with.

• i texted the details to my brother-in-law instead of my eldest sis as she didn't want to talk to me. and i told him to advise my eldest sis not to mention any of it to my brother so as avoid any anger on his part. my brother-in-law's response was even more straight forward, he simply said, ok, in short, i will not tell her (my eldest sis), thanks for the info nonetheless. guys are so much easier to deal with.

three different siblings (technically incorrect cos one was my brother-in-law), three different responses. but i had done my part. how they want to follow-up is their business. 

:-)

benign

went for the medical appointment this afternoon and yes, it was confirmed that the growth in my throat was benign. no further follow-ups were needed. i was also given a 2-year open date. this, i supposed, was the good positive news worth celebrating amidst all the negative energies i experienced today.

:-)

toxic boss

after that berating by my boss (that i can call "toxic"), i felt really shitty. people in office were looking at me sympathetically and shaking their heads and a few others texted me and telling me to just ignore him. but really, it was one thing to get shit and another thing to continue my work and walk around with a smiling face like as though nothing had happened. but i could hold my head up high. my conscience was clear and i thought i controlled myself reasonably ok and not let my emotions take over. 

after some time, i googled the net for such communications styles and came to realise that his style is typical of that called "aggressive". and reading that people with such styles generally tend to have their own bad histories/ experiences and that could be the cause of their deep-seated insecurities, etc, made me feel somewhat sorry for him. and from a very warp perspective, i told myself that the next he gave me such responses, i could look at him and pity him mentally, what a sad person you are... poor man, come sayang sayang... lol. 

but really, i also noted from reading the net that my response to aggressive communicators tend to be mostly passive, at times assertive and at times aggressive too especially when i let my emotions rule me. from that perspective, there is a lot of scope for me to take this as a learning experience and i need to read up and internalise more about how to be more assertive and preserve my space/ and my self-respect.

:-)

stupid, liar, claiming credits

today my boss send me an email asking for some training-related stuff. so, instead of trying to write long emails, i walked into his office to share the details he asked for.

he did not agree with some of the things i said, that i explained was shaped as a result of the business climate back then, and started criticizing the system. sensing the conversation heading in a wrong direction, i simply told him it would be a good opportunity to review the policies. but rather than giving constructive comments, he began saying things that were not really contributing to the issues he pointed out/ criticised about. the conversation ended up with him shouting at me, calling the system (that i created, and hence i?) stupid, and branding me a liar that consistently brag about how i had set up the training system and claiming all the credits falsely.

it was frustrating trying to explain things and background when he started off not wanting to listen and kept his verbal attacks at me. very personal and very uncalled for.

and all these with his office door open.

stressful period

work issues. mum issues. chinese new year. tomorrow will be getting my biopsy results for my gastroscopy.

and then i got a call from my cousin this evening. my third uncle (my late dad's younger brother) is in critical condition and may not pull through tonight. the doctors will be operating on his anytime now in an attempt to save him. hmmm, it just struck me that in my flustered condition, i forgot to clarify what the op was about. i knew he had some issues with his intestines and he had gone in and out of hospital to get it treated over the last 2 months. and last week he was warded again and since then, he had gone in and out of consciousness. his condition had worsen and doctors had asked the family to be mentally prepared if he fails to pull through tonight.

gonna be challenging managing all these at the same time.

if my uncle leaves us, his wake and funeral would hit right into the chinese new year. and this poses great challenges to me on many fronts. firstly, relationship. my brother is not on good terms with all my relatives and he would be very unhappy if i were to attend anything related to them. so, i would probably do so without telling them. but it would be hard to do so cos of cny. secondly, my mum. she's not mentally sound now given her stress over the coming cny. to tell her of this would be superbly stressful and she'll probably go bonkers big time. but if i don't tell her, it would be terribly difficult to excuse myself to attend the wake or the funeral, or even if my uncle survives, to visit him at the hospital. thirdly, religious reasons. the 8th day of the new lunar year is the celestial god's birthday and my family commemorate this day by offering prayers on that day. this is a very huge event and given the auspicious and religious nature of this event (referred to as "red-event"), it would be taboo for anyone commemorating this event to be involved or to attend any "white-event" (funerals, wakes, or any event that is inauspicious in nature etc).

hmmm... kinda trapped from all angles. my cousin will keep me posted if there's any updates. for me now, i think i'll sleep over it. let's address the issues one by one when it happens.

"crazy" mum

mum has gone all haywire again.

and i strongly believe it is due to the coming cny. i came home feeling all so frustrated with my boss but once i reached home, i was faced with a paranoid mum. first indicator was when she asked me why i had to go to the kitchen when i came home from work. i had walked to the kitchen to throw away some rubbish. she didn't totally buy my reason and gave me that suspicious look. i took cue and spend the evening sitting beside her instead of changing up. 

half hour later (at 6.30pm, which was our usual time to head out for dinner), i told her i would wash up and change first and that we would head out for dinner once i was done. she said ok. and usually when i do that, the maid would close all windows, the balcony glass door, and prepare mum's wheelchair for her. but today, when i walked out of my bedroom after washing up, i found mum telling off the maid for closing the balcony door and trying hard to open it again. i believed she wanted to open it and to make prayers. she always does this when she gets paranoid.

the maid was kinda pissed off but kept quiet and simply walked one side as she let me manage mum. i opened the door according to her wishes and asked her to sit on the sofa. and i asked if we could go for dinner, to which she said she was not hungry and just wanted to stay at home. i told her i was hungry and that we had earlier agreed to go for dinner. she stared at me and said she was not hungry and if i was hungry, i should just eat some biscuits. hmmm... kinda challenging at that point in time. but of cos, after some to-and-fro reasoning (with someone who cannot be reasoned), she agreed to head out. she kept quiet through the evening.

it was pretty obvious she was anxious. and her anxiety had triggered off lots of other reactions. this is very frustrating and has time and again, happened whenever there is a major festival coming. i can't wait for cny to pass quickly.

i made sure i gave her some sleeping pills before she retires.

unreasonable boss

he approved a training for my staff last month despite his reservations. at that time he said if we send the staff for a course so quickly after she joined us, she'll probably run away once she finished the course. this despite me briefing on all the reasons why the position needs to be trained. but he eventually approved it after i told him we can reconsider downstream.

today, and after all the registration etc, he again voiced his reservations about sending her for the course. his rationale has changed. she is not conducting training and thus should not attend the course, he wrote in his email. of course i responded with an explanation on the rationale all over again but once again, indicated that i would be most willing to withdraw her from the course if necessary.

in return, he replied me with a mail full rebuttals, point by point, all in red fonts. i was taken aback by this very hostile email. and i was very uneasy with the fact that his rebuttals were all either part of my explanations to him (which he obviously didn't read) or with lots of very inconsistent reasons. but he ended the email with "i will let her go this time round, but...". i didn't bother to respond further. i simply thank him for his inputs.

feeling very frustrated with such bosses who continues to be inconsistent. or perhaps consistent in his disagreement to let the staff go for courses amidst all the inconsistent reasons. hard to work with such people...

dressing up for cny

temporary look for the new year. 

chinese enough?

:-)

moodless cny

i say this every year and i am repeating it again this year. that i do not feel the mood of cny. perhaps it is because i am getting old, and i tend to avoid crowded places these years. but really, increasingly, i do not feel the festive moods these days. 

:-)

cny anxieties

i think mum is getting anxious about chinese new year (cny) again.

she had been behaving weird these days. added to that, i get quite pissed off with her insistence that i go to my brother's place to look after the kids while he and his wife do the shopping and preparations for cny. it did not matter that i had not done my own preparations, buy groceries, wash the car, clean the house, etc. when i told her that, she simply said you are not married, what kinda preparations do you need to do? yet on the other hand, she wanted me to prepare the ang pows for her, buy new clothes, etc. i was rather pissed off by yesterday that i told her to stop showing favouritism and instead recognise i myself need the space to do my own preparations. her mood changed on the spot she stopped talking to me. and this morning, she started throwing tantrums again.

anyway, by lunch time today, she regained some of her sanity and out of nowhere, as me if i had completed my cny grocery shopping to which i replied no. i think that kinda hit her for she suddenly asked to go home (although i suspect it was also becos she was bored being at my brother's place). 

:-)

$198

my sinseh wrote me a prescription when i went to see him last thursday. he said it was for mum, and that the prescription was to boost her overall well-being and energy. but he advised that i should purchase it from people i am familiar with as the herbs in the prescriptions are very expensive.

so that was what i did this morning. i brought mum to the chinese medical shop and showed the shop attendant the prescription. he took a look and immediately told me that it would cost me a lot. after some discussion and negotiation, we agreed on the price - $198.

yup, that was the price i paid for some ginseng (人参), cordyceps (冬虫草), and wolfberries (枸杞子). i was supposed to double-boil the content with a bowl of water and administer it to mum. and to ensure i get the most out of the herbs, i was supposed to use it repeatedly until it turns bland.

:-)

weird dream...

scenario: a military exercise involving troops moving stealthily into position below some hills. it was just before the h-hour, the time of the commencement of an assault. i was walking some distance away with an ex-military colleague (or so i thought, but he was someone more senior than me) and sharing my views about the hills where i had trained in decades ago. i shared about the reasons why i prefer one hill over the other.

the scene somehow morphed. the soldiers faraway were still moving. but their attire had turned to that of toy soldiers. my colleague walked with me and suggested walking to the hills i had spoken of. we walked along and somehow i found myself walking in a stream. there were lots of fishes swimming in front of us as we walked. and soon, we came to a well before the stream branches out. the fishes were caught in the well and couldn't swim further. i looked into the well and it looked like a bottomless pit. in it, i saw a soursop. a grey coloured soursop. now, the soursop is something my mum likes and wanted to buy lately. i found myself telling my mum (in my dream) that the soursop seemed spoilt and cannot be eaten. my mum responded with an ok.

my ex-colleague and i continued our walk along the forested trail. and we came to a fork. the left path looked narrow and long but it led to my "favourite" hill, whereas the other led to somewhere else. my ex-colleague took the path i suggested and i followed suit. 

at this point, the path changed. it became one that looked like 2-3 cement slabs stacked against one another and standing precariously on their sides. and as my colleague walked on them, the slabs would start to break apart. i hurriedly followed behind so that i won't be left behind. after some steps, my ex-colleague fell off and i found myself walking alone. it felt like my ex-colleague was following me behind. it was not an easy walk as i had to balance myself as i walked and as the slabs fell off, threatening to make me fall off too. but i didn't. 

soon enough, i came faced with a wall of metal scaffolding. the type that one see at construction sites... for some reasons, we had to climb the metal scaffolding to get to the top (of the hill, which by that time, the concept of hill did not exist anymore, it was just the whole idea of climbing to the top). and we started climbing. i climbed the scaffolds easily. i didn't see my ex-colleague anymore but felt that he was behind me. seeing how easy it was for me to climb, he commented that for buddhists, we tend to know how to manoeuvre ourselves amongst the scaffolds easily and thus was able climb faster. but i noted how the scaffolds got more and more unstable as i climbed. but i continued.

i came to the last scaffold very quickly and swung myself (like a chinese pugilist), onto the wooden board right on top. now, this board was very narrow and i had to prone onto it as i crawled forward. after a while, i reached the edge of the board. it was then that i realised how high up i had climbed. the troops in toy soldier uniform were still moving into position. they looked like little ants from the height i was at. i was at the edge, i couldn't go further. the only direction available to me was down. and even then, if i were to head down, it would be a certain death for me. but there was no more scaffolds for me. i had to decide what to do...

while my physical self was on the board up in the skies, i found my "other" self at the base. the scene had morphed into that of a check-out counter of a shop. i was talking to the cashier and she told me that if i could jump off the board, and walk out of this check-out counter, she would award me with a bonus prize of $300 (yes, it was $300). but given the "rules" of the game, the award would be equally shared - i.e. $1500/ $1500 (for some reasons, the award had increased tenfold to $3000). at that moment, my physical self persona up on the board and the checking out self person at the base seemed to come together and i was caught pondering if i should jump...

it was then that i woke up.

i think i know what this dream is about, but it was really weird and it shook me out of my sleep...

mum almost died

i was in bee's car heading to town when i took a look at my phone. there were 3 missed calls from mum's number on my iphone. and one missed call from mum's number on my hi-card phone (the one that i got just to call her). i sensed something wrong and i called back.

the maid answered immediately and she was frantically trying to tell me something. i had to calm her down before she could make any sense to me. in the quick few seconds, i learnt that mum had rushed to the toilet, walked out, took a rest by the chair at the corridor, and made her way back to the sofa. and once she sat down at the sofa, she started to lose her consciousness. her body had stiffened, her lips, fingers and toes had turned blue, and her eye balls turned such that only her eye-white could be seen. seeing her in this state, the maid panicked. she quickly put mum onto the oxygen concentrator machine but mum remained unresponsive. she kept calling out to mum but mum didn't respond and that was when she called me. 

i checked my missed call register - 2-3 minutes passed before i called back. and by the time i called back, mum was still unconscious. the maid was in a state of panic and kept asking me to go home. there was no time, my first reflex told me. quickly, i instructed the maid to increase the oxygen machine to 5litres - the maximum level of the oxygen concentrator. from the maid's description, it was clear mum's body had suffered a lack of oxygen. i had to act fast. brain-damage could easily happen if oxygen-deprivation occurs for more that 2-3 minutes and i was worried i might have called back too late. i needed data and i asked her to head to my room to get the oximeter to measure mum's spo2-level. i told her that i would call back a while later. in the meantime, i asked bee to make a turn back and to drive home. about a minute later, i called back again. 

the maid told me mum's spo2-level had climbed up to 99%. i asked her to wait. i was worried if mum had suffered any serious implications from the oxygen deprivation. moments later, mum began to stir.  she was able to say some words despite the words being slurred and incomprehensible. her blackened lips had lightened to a purplish tint. things sounded a little more positive but i still need more affirmative signs. i spoke with the maid. she was still in a flustered state. calm down, check ah ma's lips. what's the colour? i asked (i myself feeling rather panicky admittedly). soon enough, her lips slowly turned pink again. that was a huge relieve to me. 

hearing that, i decided to proceed for my course. but this was only after giving strict instructions to the maid to monitor mum and to make sure she was not given any chance to move about herself. all movements had to be supervised and that she should be moved about in her wheelchair. check her overall well-being. if she feels tired, let her rest at home and not go to the rehab centre, i told the maid. during the next couple of minutes, i called back a few times to check on mum. her condition improved very quickly and she could hold a quick conversation with me within 15-minutes, despite twice vomiting out some of her breakfast.

i contacted the rehab centre to help me observe her and to avoid giving her any strenuous activities today. i felt a lot safer for her to be there as there were professional health care persons around to help out if there should be any attacks/ blanking off. she was lucid and ok by lunch time.

i brought her to see the doctor this evening to ensure she is ok. the doctor said the maid and i did right. things would have been very different if she had not been placed on oxygen machine early enough. and luckily she had started her on a course of prednisolone just about half hour before she blanked off.

such a narrow escape...

on course

i went for a course again today. and this is the final of the series of four that i needed to take to qualify for a professional certificate.

:-)

toys again

well, i bought an additional item to add to my collection today. and of cos, i could do so as i was on course again today.

heh...

:-)

roast pork bento set

yesterday, i went to a local supermarket to get some groceries and since it was lunch time, i decided to get a quick takeaway lunch box. i saw this "roast pork bento set" decided to get it (since i enjoy roast pork). quite an interesting name since roast pork was so chinese and someone had quite innovatively marketed it as a bento set (and that, was very japanese).

an auntie came forward and served me and naturally, i ordered a "roast pork bento set" in english as that was what the plate stated. but auntie gave me a blank look on her and next thing i knew, auntie called out to her colleague - 我不知道他要什么 (i do not know what he wants in mandarin). the colleague came forward and i repeated my order. 

next thing i knew, the colleague shouted out to the kitchen staff and said - seo bak png jik pao (roast pork rice - in hokkien).

lol!

lunch with my ex-boss

my lady ex-boss asked me out for a lunch this afternoon. she wanted to return the s$20 she owed me as i had paid for 2 bouquets of flowers for 2 staff who left the company sometime back. it was not good to owe a person money over the chinese new year, she said. and it was a really good lunch. there was a lot of sharing and she shared her views about me and counselled me about my career moving ahead. very interesting conversation as she shared her views about me, and my strengths and weaknesses. very energising. 

she asked me about my thoughts with regards my next career move and i shared about my desire to want to remain in my specialist role. instead, she suggested that i consider broadening my choices to cover a more generalist role. she expressed her confidence that i would be able to do it. and she made this interesting remark that i had all these while been under-rating my strengths and choosing to allow others to shine while i take on a (leadership) supporting role silently behind the scene.

i had always been surprised by how sharp she had been in observing me and people in general. 

:-)

10 cents

took half a day's leave to collect mum's medication from the hospital... needed to call in to get an emergency weeks'  supply of prednisolone to manage her wheezing. and after all the government subsidies, the medication costed me 10 cents. yes, 10 singapore-cents.

i felt bad to have to give a s$2 note to the cashier as i didn't have a 10-cent coin!

:-)

good night sleep

i have hardly ever had a good nights' sleep since my dad, and later my mum, moved in to live with me. it had been almost 8-9 years ago. i am a very light sleeper and would stir whenever there is any slight movement or noise coming from outside my room. but i have gotten used to it. lately, my sleep was further interrupted by my mum's non-stop coughing through the night. it irked me big time and it got so bad 2 nights ago that i almost didn't sleep at all...

last night, i decided to use cotton wool to plug my ears. added to that, i took 2 tablets of puriton as my nose was terribly runny and blocked. and guess what... 

i overslept this morning.

lol!

toys

bought some toys recently...

;-P

reflecting 2015 thus far...

over the past 2 weeks, i had some rather interesting inputs from people around me. firstly, at work, i had 2 colleagues who gave me almost the same feedback over different days. for one of them, she came up to me without any warning and asked me if i was ok. she said i seemed so withdrawn and quiet, so unlike my usual self, so abnormal that she got concerned. and mind you, this is a person who seldom interact with me... well, i simply thanked her and told her i was ok. and then there was another friend. someone who had been texting me on and off and checking on me. he commented that i seemed happier these days, and that was good. two conflicting feedback. but seriously, have i been ok?

reflecting, i must say this - i am ok.

with bee, things are kinda stabilised again. admittedly, i am still traumatised by his bkk trips and am not able to forget the pains. it continues to haunt me rather frequently and i am not sure whether this contributed to my frequent sleepless nights and uncomfortable dreams. and sometimes,when i see my mum's paranoid behavior, suspicions of people around her and often illogical thoughts, i am reminded of myself. will i ever become like mum when i grow old? i donno, but i can certainly imagine myself being so. but well, that's the future and i am sure if i have positive thoughts now, i will be ok.

with regards work, there is this constant conflict - how far should i bend backwards when it comes to my boss's behaviour? on the surface, he seemed an ok person, whatever he said is logical and very correct and there is nothing much to fault him. but it is the way he says things. he can be very curt, confrontational and, at times, unreasonable. and he always jumps to very unfair conclusions about people. makes me and many people around me uneasy. for now, i am keeping my distance and simply being cordial. i have also increased my checks in the job portals. i am also reminded that in a small company, development and progression is non-existent. as for my colleagues, one of them had started going for interviews. let's see how things pan out.

with regards my mum, she is as good as she can possibly be - very stable mentally. otherwise as per this time of the year, her wheezing has started and she is starting to show signs of water retention. and if this is not managed well, she'll probably deteriorate into something nasty (such as pneunomia). i certainly do not wish to see history repeat itself again where she gets hospitalised on the first day of chinese new year.

as for sapphie, her tick problem seemed unstoppable. i continue to manually pick ticks off her body daily. and it had become quite a routine for me to do so. 

and lastly, for my health, things seemed to be turning for the better. my plantar fasciitis has recovered. my sprained ankle has almost healed following 2 weeks of acupuncture. the chinese sinseh continues to call me and check on my health. and next week, he said he will look into my cough, cold and insomnia issues. i guess i am in good hands.

:-)

not blogging

i organised a workshop for my company recently to train some selected persons to be counsellors. and naturally, i sat through almost the whole workshop. one of the topic covered is about people who are depressed, who are suicidal... and the trainer cover symptoms such as being not interested in doing things that one usually does, being withdrawn, being unsociable... etc. and i thought. oooh, she's talking about me! heh, for a start, i haven't been blogging much. right? and i have been feeling very much under the weather, feeling stressed over my boss, etc. 

but otherwise, i really think i am ok. 

:-)

acupuncture

acupuncture again...

:-)

scary back

i guessed it was the stress of having to co-ordinate a workshop over the last couple of weeks that made my whole shoulder and neck to stiffen up. this was made worst by a boss that didn't support this training and had been making a lot of rather uncalled for hostile remarks. i decided to pay a visit to the chinese sinseh after the workshop to get my back sorted out. i opted for a body massage followed by gua sha. and yes, it was one helluva painful. but it did relieve me of some of the pains. 

hopefully, my tensed up shoulders and neck will loosen up soon.

:-)

bad ankle

i climbed up onto the table to fix a ceiling board that had dropped off and when i jumped off the table, i felt a sharp pain on my left foot. that was last week. the pain stayed for a couple of days but returned again over the weekend when i was helping to set-up the training venue. 

so, i visited the sinseh and he did what he thought i needed - acupuncture. a total of 6-7 needles were inserted into various points from my knees to my foot. and i felt one helluva achy. almost had to beg the sinseh to stop! but today, it felt rather ok. there was no relapse of the pain. but i had been warned to refrain from walking too much. let it rest for a couple of days first, the sinseh said.

heh heh...

from frustrated to amused

well... i have written much about my new boss and the negative energies all we managers have about him. and interestingly, other department people are also starting to give us funny looks. not because they thought our behaviours are weird. but rather, they have either heard of or experienced his confrontational behaviour and i suspect, kinda wondered how we have been getting along with him. and we hear people asking us things like "oh, how is you new boss?", "you ok?". and during our less formal interactions with our peers from other departments, feedback can range from diplomatic, such as "he is different", and something less that positive (but factual), like "how can he even use terms like "stupid" on people!?", "why is he so confrontational?"

and seriously, for us reporting to him, we get at least one to two nasty emails from him daily up to the point that we now are rather desensitised to it. our behaviour now is like this - when we meet each other, we would give each other the kinda "you-know-right?" grin. but one trend i can clearly see that i think reflect the uneasiness about every single one of us with him given the way he confronted us whenever we make any decisions. and that is - all of us are beginning to direct issues to him for instructions, myself included, and refusing to make decisions.

heh... 

energy not right

increasingly, i am feeling this negative energy when working with my new boss. how he can criticise the system and policies and in doing so, make it sound so personal and targeted at us. it gets to me sometimes. even if he didn't mean it, the momentary negativity that came out of his responses to our inputs didn't go well with us. and worst still, at times, he can put us down and make us sound stupid when we try to share some background as to why things are the way they are today. and i can also sense this tensions amongst all my 3 other peers/ fellow managers in the department. 

interestingly, amongst the 4 of us, apart from the one that i had a tiff with last month, all the other 3 have been sms-ing/ calling/ sharing amongst ourselves to simply vent, or to just air our tensions during moments when we feel the need to release the negative energies that arise after interacting with him. and i can see all of us being professional enough to move on and get back and focus our energies back to our team after venting and airing our thoughts. but judging by the increased frequency of this sharing lately but i am seriously not sure how long some of us can last.

for me frankly, i am feeling the urge to up my tempo in my job search all over again. and for a quick moment today, i even thought about just throwing my letter even if i do not have a job. but objectively, i know i shouldn't do this. but well... that such a thought crossed my mind kinda reflect how much negativity there are in our dynamics.

neoplasm

bp: 117/79, spo2: 99%, ok, now relax and hold out your left hand. i'll be inserting a plug. won't be painful but you need to relax ya. all done. soon, another nurse came and asked a few more questions. you are allergic to fluvoxamine right? why did you take fluvoxamine? what's your reaction when you take fluvoxamine? when was your last meal? did you drink anything this morning? such were the preparations before i was wheeled into the endoscopy centre for my procedure yesterday.

i was not required to change into the hospital gown but i was shivering when i waited for my turn. the room temperature must have been set to 20 or lower. anyway, there i was, waiting for the doctor to do the scope for me. after about 15min, he walked in. repeated some of the question again and gave the nurses the signal to proceed with the final preparations. everything happened very quickly after that.

mr sim, please confirmed this is your signature. and this too. my consent to go through the procedure was flashed in front of me. i nodded my head. mr sim, please turn to your left. mr sim, please open your mouth. i'll be squeezing a numbing liquid in and i need you to swallow. squeeze squeeze (it tasted bitter). ok, mr sim, open your mouth again. a plastic apparatus was placed in my mouth to prevent me from closing my mouth. all done. the doctor came forward, ok mr sim, i'm gonna inject some medicine into you. i saw him injecting 2 syringes of medicine into the plug (on my left hand). once done, the lights in the room were switched off and a warm yellowish glow created by the bulbs of the machines lit the room and...

                                                                                                  

i woke up to some noise. i was back in the ward and in my drowsy state, the nurse came and asked if i wanted something to eat. yes, i said and i was quickly served with a cup of beverage and a simple butter sandwich.

ok, mr sim, let me run through with you the scope finding k? well, there was no major tumor found. but we have removed some tissue for biopsy. you can go back after you've recovered but we need you to come back in two weeks time for the results.

hmmm... no tumor but biopsy? i wondered but was too tired to ask. i looked at the discharge summary later and it read: benign neoplasm on oropharyngeal wall.

i supposed all's well.

exhausting training sessions

been almost two months since i conducted this particular training and i had to do two runs over the last two days!

and this time round it was without my time-tested seasoned staff. she had left me since last month and i now had a new staff who was still learning the ropes. and despite having done this training more than 25 times over the past year and a half, i still find it rather challenging as every session brings forth new challenges due to the different participant profile (but of cos, this makes every training session very mentally engaging and fun).

anyway, monday's training came and went and all was good. not too difficult given that the participants were all new to the company and young by age. but it was exhausting nonetheless to have to stand whole day. i was, however, a little more apprehensive and worried for tuesday's (yesterday) training. and this was becos it involved existing staff and i had, on numerous previous occasions, senior staff who made use of the training session to vent and to download their frustrations with their bosses/ the company. when this happens, the training environment could get very hostile and uneasy. and yesterday, i had a rather senior person attending. this person could be rather curt at times and i was worried he could negatively affect the training. but it turned out my worries were unfounded. he was rather nice and sporting, and participated in all the activities throughout the day.

the worry about having to manage difficult characters and the energies needed to manage and conduct the training took its toll on me nonetheless. i was totally exhausted by the end of tuesday. and of cos, i didn't have the energy to make dinner and instead took mum out for dinner. i felt so bloody happy and relieved to have survived these two days! 

:-)

hectic week ahead

i hope my flu will go away by tomorrow. gonna be a superbly hectic week ahead. here's the schedule.

• monday - conduct full day stand-up training for new staff
• tuesday - conduct full day stand-up training for existing staff, gonna be challenging as many are very senior (vocal and very cynical) staff
• wednesday - 3 medical appointments in the morning following by a long meeting after lunch with my new boss
• thursday - gastroscopy, full day down
• friday - full day at work

but on the bright side, busy schedule means the days would pass very fast. so, yeah. it's weekend soon! now, let's hope my throat manage to hold up by end-monday...

lol!

lingering flu

it has been a week since i felt unwell. and i still feel so. the throat and nasal cavity remain clogged. i visited the doctor again and was given a new set of medications. stronger and more potent, said the doctor. and... i slept early on friday night, and as though it was insufficient, i slept through the whole of saturday too. and i also surprised myself by sleeping through last night too!

lol!

i have a bad feeling...

i was in taipei when i got a text from one of my colleague, someone who seldom shares her feelings. in the message, she said "i have a bad feeling about our new boss...." and she related how she often felt caught between him and other heads of departments because of his confrontational approach to things.

and i can totally understand her. cos i felt the same.

insomnia

mum said she couldn't sleep the night before my return. and when i asked her why, she said, i was so happy that you are returning that i couldn't sleep. 

that's so sweet right?

turbulence

we were forewarned about turbulence during out journey to taipei but just before we landed, the plane dropped a couple of meters momentarily. almost everyone in the plane let off a little scream and then it was all silent. i could almost hear everyone's heartbeat pounding furiously during that split second. in my mind, scenes of air crashes appeared, quite a natural reaction given the recent spate of incidents involving airplanes.

we were all so relieved when the plane finally touched down.

whew!

taipei

i have not been to taipei for many years and my impressions of the place after all these while was - it has not changed much. then again, my purpose of heading to taipei was not because i wanted to see the changes. i simply wanted a break.

and for me, an important factor before i consider it a break was - a different environment, weather and culture-wise. taipei was a natural choice given the proximity and that it is one of the destinations my company flies to. i didn't consider bangkok as i am a little anti-bkk now. i didn't want to associate myself with it as it was the cause of so much pains over the past 2 years.

anyway, taipei had not changed much. it is still as lively, and as chaotic as i last remembered it to be. we didn't venture too far away from the hotel (which was located in ximending) and kept to the areas within the reach of the city metro. but it was a good few days of visiting and soaking in the atmosphere. the places we went to include ximending (of cos) (西门町), danshui (淡水), longsanshi (龙山寺), taipei 101, shilin night market (士林夜市), etc. these were all the places we visited the last time we visited taipei.

and we just ate and ate and ate... but of cos, i couldn't really taste what i ate because my throat and nasal cavity were totally clogged up. and through the 3 days, i had to down lots of pills in my attempts to manage my cold. thankfully, i managed to keep myself free from fever.

and all too soon, 3 days came and went. 

its back to work now.

mc but not out

i am on mc today. but i refused to be defeated by my flu.

i went back to clear some work, conducted half a day's lesson, and then i went to the pool for a tan. well, not really a tan. rather, i got myself comfortable on the sundeck chairs (under the shade of course) and i fell asleep. what better way to relax after taking my medications right? it was a good hour-plus nap. and then i got about buying sapphie's food, the maid's bread, etc. before heading home.

mum, in her usual haywire self, got suspicious when i arrived home early. my boss allowed all of us heading taiwan overseas to head home early to pack, i lied. she didn't question further although i knew she was not convinced, judging by her refusal to shower until after the taiwanese drama serial. managed to cheer her up a little when i brought her out for dinner. it was rather obvious she was anxious about my impending departure. and at bedtime, she wanted to sleep on the living room sofa, saying that she wants to be awake when i leave tomorrow. managed to get her to the bedroom only after i promised i will wake her up before i leave. 

am feeling a lot better compared to last night. then again, i hope it doesn't turn bad when i arrived at taiwan. fingers crossed.

:-)

confusion

here's an example of mum's confusion between reality and tv.

today is my maid's birthday and we had gotten a cake for her. it was to be cut after dinner but as my brother was working, we had to wait for his return before doing so. the waiting, however, did not go well with my niece and nephew as they kept pestering non-stop and i ended up playing games with them - the no-brainer kinda game where i carried the cake and they chased me around the house. as for mum, she simply sat on the sofa and watched the taiwanese serial. in the serial, the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law were having a fight. it was a prolonged fight (like all taiwanese shows). it was then that my brother returned and we decided to take a pause from the tv serial to cut the cake.

we gathered around the dining table and sang the birthday song. and as we sang, the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law in the tv serial continued their fights. and mum commented "the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law are cutting cake as a way to smoothen their relationship". her remark out of no where took us by surprise. and it was clear to us all that she had gotten the tv serial and reality both mixed up.

lol...

:-)

paranoia

here's an example of mum's paranoia. and it happened out of no where.

we were watching tv this evening when the maid came out of the kitchen with a bowl of cut apples. she offered the apples to mum and i. mum refused whereas i took a piece. and as i took it, i commented that the apples were from my cousin, who visited us this morning. mum, out of no where and for no reasons, stared at me and commented in a quite hostile manner (in hokkien): "so what if it was from your cousin, i have never plotted to kill or harm anyone, so why should i be afraid (of eating the apples)".

funny right? really, the hostility was just that spontaneous. if i had not gotten used to her paranoia, i would have taken her remark quite badly. i simply ignored her. as i capture this incident here in english, i was reminded of the story of snow white and the seven dwarves and how snow white went into a deep sleep after taking a bite of the evil stepmother's poisoned apple. anyway, mum can never be snow white. she's too told and too fat to be one. 

lol!

phone calls from mum

i got myself another line couple of days back. this line would be used primarily for mum. i needed to avoid the possibility of making her upset after what happened this week. here's the story.

on wednesday, i headed out for lunch and as per normal, i called mum at 12.30pm. we spoke for a while before hanging up. it was a little more than half an hour later when i checked my phone and i saw 17 missed calls from mum. i got worried and immediately called back. mum said she didn't call and simply said i was "bluffing" her.  that afternoon, at about 5pm, i got 7 missed calls from her. once again, i called back but she denied calling me.

i went home, and she insisted i was pulling fast one and accusing her of calling me so many times. it didn't help when i showed her the call register in my phone. she simply denied ever calling me. and then as a clear sign of her paranoia, she said she knew who called me, and said she couldn't find her phone and that it must be someone trying to do things behind her back. as she said so, she looked at the maid.

i simply told her that if she had not called, then it could be a simple case of her sitting on her phone/ pressing the button by mistake and where the phone called the last dialled number. she refused to accept this reasoning and insisted that she knew who had tampered with her phone...

so i got myself a new line and i will use this to call her. she doesn't know this new number and if i get calls from this number, i'd know she had pressed it by mistake. 

:-)

coming taiwan trip

will be heading to taiwan this coming tuesday.

looking forward to it although i am not sure what my plans would be once i reached there. think i'll just take things easy and let bee do the planning. have told my mum i'd be away for work and she seemed ok about it. let's hope she stays this way. she's been coughing quite a bit these few days and my worry is that if she were to fall sick, it would be rather challenging for the maid to take care of her alone when i leave for taiwan. let's see how things go.

for now, fingers crossed.

ticks again

yesterday, the maid told me that she noticed ticks after sweeping the floor. that was not a good sign to me cos for ticks to be present on the floor, it mean sapphie would have been infested quite badly with them.

how could this be? i thought cos i had applied the medication on sapphie about 2 weeks back. nonetheless, i combed over sapphie's body and to my horrors, i found many (as in really really many) ticks. i noted that this species is a different one from what i had seen before. my only suspicion is that this species is either resistant to the medication or that i needed to apply on a more regular interval. 

i did another combing of her body today and found no less than 50-plus of them. and to make things worst, i also noted many ticks on the corners of my room ceiling. oh dear... need to buck up over the next couple of days to get rid of them.

sighs...

insomnia & flu

i had been experiencing very bad nights last two weeks or so. would wake up at 2am, 3am, etc nightly and end up heading to work tired. really not sure why this is so. but i suspect my mind was all stressed out given that i have a new (and perceived to be hostile) boss. this was worsened by the fact that mum had been going in and out of her moods again.

two nights ago, i was so physically overwhelmed by about 9.45pm i simply knocked out. couldn't walk properly nor stay awake. i fell into a deep sleep almost immediately but woke up at 12am, and stared at the ceiling for a long while before falling asleep again. to make things worst, my nasal cavity felt so parched and dry and i woke up unable to talk.

today, my body gave in. i started coughing, i had blocked nose, and the mucus that i spitted out was dark brown in colour. i had full blown flu. went to the clinic to get some medication and was given an injection too. the doctor was nice enough to also give me a day's mc for tomorrow.

:-)

first half month 2015

things seemed to be going relatively smoothly for me this first fortnight of 2015. nonetheless, there is this very uneasy feel about how things will develop in the months ahead. let's see how things go, especially for work. as i had reflected before, i needed to learn to let go and relax.

:-)

challenging times

i think my work life will be kinda interesting and challenging moving ahead. and i say so because of my new boss. here's some things that made me think so...

• he asked me to brief him about the system i had so conscientiously set up since i joined the company. and he spend no time to consider the difficult people-related factors that shaped the system as it is today, but simply criticised it and i was made to feel worthless (although i was not sure if that was his intent).
• he asked for background about things, and when i shared the details, he got flustered and simply said i don't care about who and what happened in the past, all i know is that i am answerable for this and i want it to be done this way. period.
• he was always quick to criticise and seldom spend time to reflect on the details. and this got worst when he went around asking department heads about their view about my department. and worst of it all, he simply accept their views without verifying details and wanted to change things.
• he kept telling us that he had reached his pinnacle and that his time with the company is because he was asked to join by my top boss and thus, he has nothing to prove, but to do what he is supposed to do. and he framed it very very narrowly. shan't go into details, but i really don't feel good about people who brag about having reached pinnacle.

objectively, in my two years with my current company, i had a lady leader who cared about us, and who gave us full trust in all we do. i also had a guy who refused to make decisions and for everything that you surface or suggest to him, he will give 10,000-and-1 excuse why it should not be done, and now, i have a boss who gives us no trust and who wanted to poke his finger into every little things we do.

gonna be an interesting and challenging time for me in the coming year...

seventh son

one thing i cannot understand was why the hell did jeff bridges speak like as though he has a huge (whatever) stuck in his mouth. it was difficult enough to follow the dialogue, and then he has to swallow his words throughout the show. doh! this is a show that i can best describe as predictable, no high and no low, in another words, flat. but well, if you were to go in without expectations, you will be able to enjoy it. 

i did.

:-)

good start 2015

2015 got off a reasonably good start.

bee has gotten a lot more sensitive to me. this was despite initial days of discomfort and mutual frictions over openness. and in the process, quite a few unarticulated past tensions surfaced. i supposed it allowed some clarifications. he has deleted his facebook account following that early morning's dumping by me. it was interesting but it felt like we were both trying to talk more. and we met up for high tea, for an afternoon show (i took leave as he was not working), etc...

but well, is this an initial heat of the moment to make up for the pains created? will this effort die of after the initial couple of days? will he continue to be sensitive to me and make the efforts to talk to me? will he go back to being self-centred and insensitive to me? i don't know. but let's just use this moment to try to strengthen the weakened bonds that was created over time. as i said, i wanted to do my part as a partner, let's hope he does his too moving ahead.

:-)

goals for 2015

here's the distilled list of "i wills" for 2015, framed from my end-of-year 2014 post. call it resolutions or guiding principles if you may, this list of "i wills" will guide me in my life for 2015. 

personal life

• build personal emotional resilience
• give myself the space/ the me-time
• respect myself and to love myself more

mum

• do my utmost to balance between her needs and my space

bee

• play my part as a partner

sapphie

• care for her 
• give her the attention she needs

siblings

• play my role as a brother/ uncle
• have no expectations of my siblings

health

• exercise and learn to relax
• ensure a good balance between eat what's good vs what's nice

work

• review my professional progression

friends

• keep the relationships going
• make more efforts to meet up

online friends (such as bloggers)/ blogging

• capture my life and experiences