Not a good couple of months

If i have somehow misled you, dear reader into thinking that life as a single mom trying to make it in a new city and crafting out a new career is a bed of roses, I sincerely apologise. It's not. I try to keep it together as best as I know how but sometimes, life has other plans.

And when it rains? It pours. I have been seeing several people in the profession that I have chosen to focus on and they all have the same verdict : It's fine as a hobby, but don't count on making money from it. As you can tell, it's hardly encouraging hearing that from industry pioneers. Well, looks like I need to diversify and find other more profitable things to go into and soon. It is a real bummer, let me tell you. The lack of a successful career chips away at your self esteem, bit by bit. You may think that going into work day after day is mundane and boring, but try having days stretch out endlessly in front of you and knowing there's nothing in there. That's worse.

I just had a talk with boy's teacher after picking up his report card. His grades are great, but there is mention of the fact that he's naughty at school. He apparently picks on other kids and the teachers focus on him because of his grades are good (teacher's words, not mine). No doubt there's a lot that can be interpreted from there, but let's look at it this way. My son misbehaves in school. I need to stop it.

I swear, that's where the coaching comes in. Instead of telling him what I thought, I basically just asked him lots of questions and tried to understand what was going through his head. Ajahn Brahm had a talk on bringing up children and in it, he said, make your children know that they can tell you anything and not get punished. They can open up to you about everything they've done wrong and you just acknowledge that it's a mistake and you go on from there thinking of ways to fix it and prevent it the next time. I wonder how many parents can do that. Still, buddhism teachings are always there for you to aspire to, so any little bit towards that direction helps.

I am trying not to flip but to work through these issues methodically and sensibly. I will do it even if it's the last thing I do!!! (Gargamel inspired)

Winding the holidays down...

Holidays. The light of every child's life and the bane of their parents. The boy is finishing up a 3 week school break and to be honest with you, I can't wait for school to start!! It's been more challenging than other days. It's like if they have no structure that school and other activities provide, they go haywire. Default setting becomes argumentative, fault finding and generally, a pain in the butt.

Ahhh.... that's where grandparents come in. Since they love each other's company and the older ones are more prone to spoiling the younger ones, we shall just go with the flow. I brought boy back to Ipoh at the start of his holidays and he's had a ball. Ipoh.. the land where he runs around, cycles around the garden, goes out for food expeditions with the grandmother (they went to Tualang for prawns - I got shown the picture when they returned) and the odd catch up with his old Ipoh friends and cousins.

I did what I could to ferry him to daily swimming lessons and arranged for some Mandarin tuition for him.. but i think the days passed by in a blur of TV, storybooks and running around. Now that we are finally back home in KL.. it's the final countdown to school back on Monday. I'm just allowing ourselves to adapt back to routine next week. TV is still constantly on and the whining is still around sometimes, but we shall just take it easy and regain control of normal life by next week...

fingers crossed.

The frog

There is a Malay saying "katak dibawah tempurung" and also a Cantonese saying "cheang tei chi wa - frog at the bottom of the well". Both mean someone who has not been exposed to the world. The poor frog that only knows what is around it because that is the only thing it is familiar with. 

A : You know, I’ve changed my imported car into a local car. Since then, it’s sooo good! I can drive up and down and still remain low profile! No one recognizes me at all!! I can do whatever I want!! No one knows!

B : What is it that you are doing that you need to be so low profile???

The above conversation I had with a certain professional acquaintance I have from Ipoh prompted this post.

As I have mentioned before, I am born and bred in Ipoh. I have been living in Ipoh for a large part of my life, discounting stints in Australia and KL.

Ipoh is a great place to live in and bring children up. There is none of the hustle and bustle of the big city traits, the air and water is of much better quality in here and we’ve got such excellent local food at great prices in here. However, it does tend to breed a certain type of individual that are peculiar to small towns.

Anyway, back to Mr A. It blows me away to interact with someone like that. I am not able to get through to them with the huge ego getting in the way. After some sharing with a particular girlfriend, it seems like this kind of behaviour is normal for small towns. 

These people tend to think that their particular town is the center of the world. I am guessing that that’s normal since they have obviously chosen to reside in there. It is still odd behaviour they display. They work at the same job for years on end and probably end up very good at what they do. With the amount of free time on their hands, they become intensely political, backbiting and making life difficult for other people.

The good news? This behaviour is easily cured. Travel. Go out of your comfortable town or city and visit other places. See how other people live, realize that there are other bigger, more accomplished people out there. If nothing, at least it reduces your ego to the point other people can get through to you.

The more successful in life you are, the more modest you become. 

Homeward bound

Now that the boy's on a 3 week school break we are back in Ipoh for a while. Boy seems to enjoy just hanging around his grandparents and running around in their garden, immersing himself in the slowness that is Ipoh. Haha.. being the evil mom that I am I have arranged for daily swimming and Mandarin lessons for him. So much for a lazy vacation!

I had it all planned out with food we were going to pig out on, ranging from the hawker fare to spicy crabs and banana leaf rice (the best I've had so far). But life has other plans. As soon as we came back I ran around like a headless chicken stocking up on things, visiting the tailor, getting what I call housekeeping done. At the end of the second packed day, my body decided to protest.

I ended up alternating between shivering and feeling really warm. Smart little me decided to take a really hot bath while shivering. Boy... I lived to regret that. I got super hot below the neck. Yes.. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I was radiating heat from my palms and the soles of my feet but my head didn't feel feverish at all.

Oh well, slept and slept after panadol and proceeded to just detox today with lots of water and lemon, honey and lemon and oats. Oats! That disgusting horse food! Well, when you're sick you're sick... I've also found this little gem to aid in the subsequent cooling down of the body.

This thing is foul. But I remember my grandmother steeping it in hot water and making me drink it when she deemed I was too heaty, so in the spirit of tradition since we are in Ipoh, I went out and got some. Have steeped it in hot water and downed it like a good girl. We shall report if it cures me!

Let's hope I recover fast enough to do the eating spree I was going to document here.