Teambuilding day

T'was a good day. 

Though I couldn't eat at least 3 or 4 dishes out of the entire Chinese 8-course lunch set, the company more than made up for it. I'm glad to have nice & fun colleagues. 

Teambuilding at Timezone Orchard was fun too. I didn't play many games but learnt some things along the way....no one said so but it's just in hindsight and after observing others....

"Heck, just try."

"Let loose once in awhile. Why should you care who is watching?"

"Grow some (invisible) balls"

Right arm might be slightly sore tomorrow from playing the basketball game...but I think K would be a little proud of me. I did put in some nice shots haha. ;p 

And I took the train home from Orchard to Paya Lebar, then switched to the feeder bus. Woot! Thought I'd be nervous out of my mind but I did it! Maybe having some colleagues around for the first 10-15mins helped to distract me from pulling myself down. 

Unstoppable - Sia

One of those "fight" songs that stirs me up. 

================

All smiles, I know what it takes to fool this town

I'll do it 'til the sun goes down
And all through the nighttime
Oh, yeah
Oh, yeah, I'll tell you what you wanna hear
Leave my sunglasses on while I shed a tear
It's never the right time
Yeah, yeah

I put my armor on, show you how strong I am
I put my armor on, I'll show you that I am

I'm unstoppable
I'm a Porsche with no brakes
I'm invincible
Yeah, I win every single game
I'm so powerful
I don't need batteries to play
I'm so confident
Yeah, I'm unstoppable today

Unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
I'm unstoppable today

Break down, only alone I will cry out loud
You'll never see what's hiding out
Hiding out deep down
Yeah, yeah
I know, I've heard that to let your feelings show
Is the only way to make friendships grow
But I'm too afraid now
Yeah, yeah

I put my armor on, show you how strong I am
I put my armor on, I'll show you that I am

I'm unstoppable
I'm a Porsche with no brakes
I'm invincible
Yeah, I win every single game
I'm so powerful
I don't need batteries to play
I'm so confident
Yeah, I'm unstoppable today

Unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
I'm unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
I'm unstoppable today

I put my armor on, show you how strong I am
I put my armor on, I'll show you that I am

I'm unstoppable
I'm a Porsche with no brakes
I'm invincible
Yeah, I win every single game
I'm so powerful
I don't need batteries to play
I'm so confident
Yeah, I'm unstoppable today

Unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
I'm unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
Unstoppable today
I'm unstoppable today

C-fied

Laoniang is morphing into the C-world. Slowly. 

Started with the Chinese reality dating shows. And now with some dramas. :) 

Jiayou

Irritable mood over the last 3 days. Very irritable.

Irked by work. 

Irked by folks who taiji alot. 

Irked by folks who seem to think they know about parenting when they don't even have kids. 

Mostly irked by work, which is not even in my job scope but was arrowed to do by TY who has since left the organisation. Stuck with this thing which was supposed to be a 3-month assignment. It's now been 9 months and counting. 

Abit 心理不平衡

Trying to control myself and come to terms with things as I have for the last few months. 

Getting increasingly difficult. 

Jiayou mama. You can do this. 

Reminder to Self

Don't be too enthusiastic with the squats and calf and knee physio exercises when you know you're going for a walk the next morning. 

Pantry conversation

Morning chat at the pantry sink. 

Kelly: Wah lau I feel like retiring but must still tahan cos my youngest only having A-levels this year 

Shella: Chey, my youngest only 13 lor...I have to tahan longer. 

Me: -_-  my youngest still in primary school lor....you say leh??!!! And I am more or less around the same age as you both lor!!

Incompetence? Nonchalance?

Losing patience with a colleague. 

She's joined us for a year but is clueless half the time. Does things in a haphazard manner, very careless, and tries to smoke her way. 

Because of her, I had to apologise to a partner of ours last night. Even though it wasn't my fault, and I had no idea she sent an email out, and I had no idea she didn't clear the email content with my boss. But cos that partner knows me the longest, he reached out to me and ranted a little. Service recovery had to be done. 

I don't know how many times I've discovered her mistakes. I don't know how many times I've highlighted to her to be careful. 

I hope today I can take deep breaths and weed her out of my mind and work. Taking up too much space & energy since last night. 

If this continues, I may blow up at her one day. 

Boss & I arranged to chat about this when he gets back from his overseas work trip. My guess is the earliest will only be early next week. 

Ok, breathe....let it go first. 

There is another major meeting this Thursday to focus on first.....

Muttering

Besides the daily motivational self-talk that I try to have to prep myself for the day ahead, I find myself talking alot more to myself these days. 

I mutter to myself under my breath. I nag, complain, remind myself of things to do, or talk through the process/steps of what I'm about to do or need to do. Sometimes I talk to guide my thoughts, whether on work stuff or personal things.

Maybe talking verbalises my thoughts and clears my mind better. Allows me to vent off some steam as well sometimes. 

I dunno. 

Externalising my inner monologue?

Do people do this when they get older? 

老了. Cham.

Bleah

Rougher time at work over the last 2-3 weeks. Plus CNY preparations. Plus Nadya's camp preparations.

There was a whole week where I didn't notice that I'd neglected the plants and....

The Orange Jasmine murrata mini bonsai went kaput. Totally dried up. Though I'm not sure how it happened as Alyssa did help to mist & water the plants. Quite sad about it....but in her words "Just buy another one lah Mama!"....we'll see how, it was a nice one, tall, thin & straight with the top like a mini mushroomy ball. 

The Venus flytrap also suffered. about 7 to 8 traps started turning black and dying off.....I hope the remaining few survives enough for the plant to grow new traps. 

On a valiant attempt to rescue it now since the murrata is a gone-case situation. 

Chinese

Been catching Chinese variety shows on and off over the last few years and more in the past year or so. Wonder if it improved my spoken Mandarin or not...hmm. 

It's a lovely language.
Don't know how to describe it. How different words can be combined together to provide a certain feel. 

===========================

Anyway, N's been "invited" to attend Chinese curriculum support. It's only week 3 of the new school term. In the teacher's words "It's to encourage the child to improve". In most kids' mind, it means "I'm not good enough in this subject and that's why I need curriculum support." 

K spoke to the teacher and came away not feeling too happy about things. She couldn't fully articulate why N was shortlisted and whether N's standard was really that lacking. Felt very arbitrary to us. We are perplexed. The teacher mentioned her score for the year-end exams last year. She scored 81 leh?! Above 80 & still selected for curriculum support? 

We don't get it. 6 in her class have to attend these curriculum support lessons for Chinese. Means what? only these 6 scored below a certain mark? Means what? 80% of her class scored 85 or 90 & above meh? 

The teacher also told K "If you think she has many other committments and cannot attend the support lessons, it's also ok. She can skip." Err....then why have the support lessons in the first place? Messaging seems disjointed. 

Anyway, water under the bridge also. Don't think it's something we can opt out of. She'll just have to bite the bullet and go through with it. Luckily the lessons seem to average out only once a month and it's just for 45mins. (Which begs the question.....once a month at 45mins each lesson....enough to provide additional support to a child?)

病了

Felt off on Tuesday night while sleeping...nose stuck, woke twice, once feeling cold and once feeling warm. 

Was ok when I woke. Went to office. 

Got home in the late afternoon and felt feverish. 

By dinner time I was 38C and achey. 

The show must go on...things still need to be settled....system go-live date is something we cannot change

Laoniang 累了

Sibei Zuay Ming Gia Zoh.....

I can only suck it up and try to keep moving forward. 

My team is down by 2 pax and we're dealing with 2 folks from other teams who are draining our patience and energy. 

Ganbatte to Val & I...!!!

Piangzz

is when

you only realise at the end of the day when you get home from work....

that in the morning, you forgot to

blend in that blob of concealer you slapped on a zit on your forehead

and you threw powder foundation over it...

which made it cake up a little.

and so you were walking around the entire day with that small cakey patch on your forehead

maybe no one noticed

I hope no one noticed haha

But the girls did

When I got home and sat down at the dining table with them...

That was the first thing they pointed out to me. 

note to self: be more awake in the morning

Reminder to Self

Growth Mindset

Growth Mindset

Growth Mindset

View challenges as opportunities and learning experiences

I can't do it...yet. But I will learn how to and eventually I will be able to.

Keep going. 

大姨妈

Confirm Big Auntie coming. Just don't know when. 

Bloating, soreness, tummy ache and....I'm tearing while sitting at my office desk. Emo like shit lol. 

18 Jan

We had a video call with her as usual around 7plus SG time (10-plus Sydney time). She was abit more emotional compared to past evenings and seemed a little down. I guess tiredness and homesickness were kicking in. 

She teared up abit in the midst of our call but perked up slightly when we distracted her with questions about her day, what street food she had when they went exploring a "night market" area, etc.

I guess the excitement in the first couple of days was wearing off already lol. 

Firsts

13 Jan night. K, Peanut & I were at the airport at night to send Nadya off on her dance training trip. It's her first trip abroad without us. I was excited but also apprehensive/worried.

I only found out at the airport that there were only 6 girls going and all were her peers i.e. all of them are in P5 this year. 

Sunday was a day of excitement and nerves as all parents waited for updates from the girls. We were all in a group chat and updates started trickling in in the late morning. That they arrived safe & sound, that they were on the way to the serviced apartment, that they were going to head out for a meal and to the supermarket, etc.

We didn't hear a peep from N though lol. I was a little disappointed and thought she forgot to update us. Lo & behold at 5pm SG time, 8pm Sydney time (i.e. 7 hours after they arrived), a whole bunch of texts  and photos suddenly flooded our family WA chat group. Things like "Landed!" and "On the way to apartment!" came in...so she did update us! Just that the texts were somehow delayed for a loooong time. 

We've managed to have video calls with her each night so far. Said she was homesick yesterday morning and felt like crying. Hugsss little girl...you can do it!!

Spent close to an hour last evening on a video call with her. Her luggage's built-in combination lock couldn't be opened. It was somehow jammed up. K guided her teacher to no avail. Finally, the both of them decided to cut through the lock. He gave tips & pointers virtually, and the teacher used her Swiss Army knife to cut through some of the lock's mechanism. Kudos to her for managing to do so!! Really thankful.

It was an old old luggage but one that K treasured. No choice....

So now she's got no luggage to bring back. The teacher will try to get a duffel bag for her with a manual padlock. We'll see how it goes. 

Peanut

The peanut is sick. Fever and she vomited on 2 occasions yesterday. 

She's sad that she couldn't go to school today. Apparently their Science teacher was going to bring them to the Science laboratory today and she really wanted to see how the lab looks like. 

Told her last night that she'll have many other opportunities to go to the lab in the future, and not to FOMO about it too much haha. 

Nadya had fever on Monday last week and had some nausea. K had fever earlier this week. I hope I'll be ok. Tummy's not doing too good these few days too...but laoniang will hang on!!!

Hwaiting Lim family!!

Update

Just heard from Parwin that she had a recent fall. Her knees are in bad shape partly due to old injuries and the recent fall. We were supposed to catch up for a 2nd round on the 26th cos our previous meet-up in December ended up being slightly rushed. 

The 26th has been shelved, and might be for awhile since she's slated to go for surgeries on both knees, likely one after another with a few months gap in between. Wishing her all the best...

A little depressing to keep hearing of not-so-good health-related news from friends & family. The Rabbit year seems a little less kind to various folks. I hope for a better Dragon year ahead. 

Dai-lou

Just found out that Ryan's going for a triple-bypass tomorrow. Glad I reached out to him today to check on him and he informed me about it. 

A triple-bypass is darn major and I sincerely pray that it'll be a smooth and successful operation for him. May his recovery be smooth and fast too. 

He's 49 and seems quite young to me to be undergoing such a major heart procedure. 

Take care Ah-Tan! You'll always be the dai-lou we can rely on for rubbish jokes and sound business/technical processes. 

Nadya & many firsts

Nadya’s going on a trip to Sydney this coming Sunday with her ballet friends and some teachers from their ballet school. It’ll be an intensive 5-day training at The McDonald College. 

I was hesitant to let her go but we decided to go ahead anyway. It’ll be her first time taking the plane without us, and her first time taking care of herself for a whole week (and overseas somemore!).

I pray for a safe, smooth and fruitful week for her.

I hope I didn’t nag too much or remind too much and I hope she remembers what we’ve told her so far:

• Stay with the group, don’t wander off on your own.
• Drink water regularly.
• Keep warm. Cover up well at night in the aircon room.
• Handle your belongings well and don’t lose things. 
• Sleep on the flight there! (2am red-eye flight.)
• Make sure you get enough rest!

We just gave her a phone on Sunday evening and K gave her a crash course on how to use Whatsapp, how to connect to WIFI, how to check her email, how to call using various methods, etc. 

I know this is an invaluable experience for her and I am excited for her….

At the same time, I am also worried and apprehensive.

I hope she doesn’t have to catch up too much on homework and studies when she gets back from Sydney after a whole week there.

Fingers crossed.

Laundry & ironing will probably be madness too when she gets back (including having to handwash 3 sets of ballet leotards & tights) lol…