2024 Has Been Crazy

Doing a 2024 recap before the year ends (without an entry)

Too many transitions happened this year which caused me to breakdown? snap? whatever you call it. It just affected me mentally and emotionally. 

Feb 2024

- Resigned from my very first official employment in Singapore

- Moved out of the first condo we ever lived in since coming to Singapore

March 2024

- Watched Taylor Swift in Concert (just worth mentioning)

- Moved in to next condo block which thankfully looks the same as our previous condo

April 2024

- Started work at my daughter's school handling events and spaces and parent group support

June 2024

- a new role got added to me due to a surprise resignation

- trip to US, including going on a Disney Cruise! (California, Florida, Bahamas)

Sept 2024

Major *public*  breakdown happens: uncontrollable crying for 30 mins. 

Oct 2024

Another incident happens but at home. I see a psychologist for the first time

Nov 2024

- Impromptu trip to Korea to try to prevent another incident

- No major incident but on a negative spiral

- First evet mammogram, it sucks. Someone please invent a better way!

Dec 2024

- I joined a bible study and it is helping.

- I will do grief work with my psychologist

Hopefully, only positive epiphanies until the new year!!

Unfair

 Grr this article annoyed me https://www.sciencealert.com/for-the-first-time-scientists-show-structural-brain-wide-changes-during-menstruation

No one ever knew until now? I am freaking 41 years old and the research is just starting - no one really cared to find out!

You know what my cycle does to me? It changes me completely and  it took so many years of hyperawarnesss and introspection to realize that it's not really "me" but my hormones causing the change of behavior. 

I become extra emotional, irrational, and believe that what I am thinking at that point in time is 100% true. A week passes by and I totally feel differently about what I firmly believed in just a few days ago. 

How do women survive? Because we conform and keep silent. All out lives has been to conform, behave, don't be out of line! 💢

It just makes me so mad. Even autism in girls was left undiagnosed because we are so good at masking. 

Grrrr. 

Do You Like You?

This song is for my teenage self... full of insecurities and always wanting to be accepted. 

Changed my image, changed my eating habits, changed how I acted to fit a mold. Sad.

 

Try

Colbie Caillat

Put your make up on

Get your nails done

Curl your hair

Run the extra mile

Keep it slim

So they like you, do they like you?

Get your sexy on

Don't be shy, girl

Take it off

This is what you want, to belong

So they like you, do you like you?

You don't have to try so hard

You don't have to give it all away

You just have to get up, get up, get up, get up

You don't have to change a single thing

You don't have to try, try, try, try

You don't have to try, try, try, try

You don't have to try, try, try, try

You don't have to try

Yooou don't have to try

Ohh

Get your shopping on, at the mall, max your credit cards

You don't have to choose, buy it all

Do they like you? Do they like you?

Wait a second,

Why should you care, what they think of you

When you're all alone, by yourself

Do you like you? Do you like you?

You don't have to try so hard

You don't have to give it all away

You just have to get up, get up, get up, get up

You don't have to change a single thing

You don't have to try so hard

You don't have to bend until you break

You just have to get up, get up, get up, get up

You don't have to change a single thing

You don't have to try, try, try, try

You don't have to try, try, try, try

You don't have to try, try, try, try

You don't have to try

You don't have to try, try, try, try

You don't have to try, try, try, try

You don't have to try, try, try, try

You don't have to try

Yooou don't have to try

Noooo

Oooh

You don't have to try so hard

You don't have to give it all away

You just have to get up, get up, get up, get up

You don't have to change a single thing

You don't have to try, try, try, try

You don't have to try, try, try, try

You don't have to try

You don't have to try

Take your make up off

Let your hair down

Take a breath

Look into the mirror, at yourself

Don't you like you?

Cause I like you

15th day of Lunar New Year

Because of a post of the SG Prime Minister on his upcoming "Chap Go Mei" address, I found out that these words of Hokkien origin means 15th night 十五暝 and it celebrates the end of the new year celebrations and is what I've known for a time as the day that we eat glutinous balls filled with peanut paste. The balls usually float on a clear soup with onions. I never knew why we would we it but just that we did on this day. What does it even mean?? Well Good thing there is internet these days and it can easily be Googled. I am learning so much more about Chinese culture here in Singapore, through a more intellectual approach with meanings and origins and not the "just follow the tradition" approach in the Philippines. Very interesting indeed.

Of Ancestry and Certificates

 After all these years, I have the standard answer down pat to the question -"Why is your surname like this if your father is Chinese?"

So I carry my mom's surname as my own because in citizenship papers, I am an illegitimate child (no father in birth certificate) even though I have a very present father who was legally married to my mom 4 years before I was born. 

My siblings who were born 12 and more years before me also have the same additional page in their birth certificate because my father was not yet a naturalized citizen when they were born. My parents were already married prior to them being born but not in a church which could legally register marriages in the country (how crazy is that?!).

This was all kind of abstract to me and simply matter-of-fact as I was growing up until last night, when, for some reason, I googled about the Citizenship in my country in Wikipedia. 

My eyes were suddenly opened to the reality that my parents and my siblings faced during their time. When they were all born, the laws on citizenship were not yet amended with what I am familiar with at present.

So the law states that because our father was a foreigner (even though he was born in the same country as my mother), my mother's citizenship can only be passed to my siblings if they eventually choose to by that time they are 18. I am not sure what their citizenship would have been prior to adulthood if my parents did follow that path. The only results I found were "inchoate" citizenship, whatever that means. 

Everything makes so much sense now. So my parents chose, I'm sure with the advice of the elders and community, to register all of my 4 siblings as fatherless so that they will be automatically granted natural-born citizenship which is similar to my mother's citizenship. Also, since my parents' marriage was not officially registered in government records, then technically, my siblings were illegitimate in the eyes of the law, but not in the eyes of  God. 

This is all just so risky and crazy to me right now but I think it's only because I have the privilege of amended laws, unlike my siblings and parents. I'm an almost post-revolution baby living in the spoils of the victors of war. 

Anyhow, all of my cousins have a similar dilemma, too. The only difference is that by the time my uncles were naturalized citizens, they granted legitimacy to their succeeding children. I did not receive that and my rationale is so that I would have the same surnames as my siblings. Otherwise, I'll be like my cousins who have a different surname than their older siblings. 

When I search for my father's name in the internet, it shows up under the list of naturalized citizens of the country. As a naturalized citizen, he can enjoy the same benefits as a natural-born citizen such as passing of citizenship to children, legally doing business in the country, and legally owning property which I know are all very very important to my dad in his lifetime.

I just wanted to write it a down now for posterity. Xx 

Boy Crazy, Boy Bands

 After all these years, I'm still a sucker for boy bands - you know, the giddy feeling of hearing them sing and perform- but my tastes have slightly changed possibly due to their hairstyle changes as well.

1. BackStreet Boys - still Nick Carter

2. Jonas Brothers - formerly Joe but when they got back together, it's Nick this time

3. One Direction - I like Harry. He looks like a young Winter Soldier 😂 (Sebastian Stan), though I can say that Niall also knows how to ham up the camera. 

Okay, disclaimer that all these opinions have been formed after watching the bands with James Corden in his Carpool Karaoke (except BSB)

4. the asian group that I shall not name but is explosively popular - so the guy who learned English through Friends knew how to act cool and so did the guy sitting behind him who taught the dance moves. 

It's actually my first time to listen to #4 group's songs - interesting genre, like a mix of the 80s and modern. They are very good dancers, though. 

I like 1D's songs the most, the songwriters really know how to captivate a young girl's heart 💖

Sleepless Night

It's 4:49 am and I still can't sleep. Looks like sleep passed me by coz I was too engrossed with reading the PTF handbook!! Yep, I'm preparing for my stint as next school year's president!! So crazy coz I've just been in the school for a year, but based on my past work records, I don't seem to be one to reject an opportunity when it is right in front of me!

I'm going to where life leads me, I believe that's where the adventure is!

C'est la vie! 

Book Review: Becoming by Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama’s memoir reads like a good friend telling you her life story and experiences. Some stories resonate more than others depending on who you are or where you’re from.

The book is divided into three parts, Becoming Me, Becoming Us, and Becoming More. Becoming Me covers the author’s childhood and early career days. Becoming Us is about Michelle and Barack, while Becoming More focuses on her advocacies as FLOTUS.

I highlighted a number of passages in the book that spoke to me and they were mostly concentrated on the latter part of Becoming Me and scattered across Becoming Us. For me, her struggles with balancing a career and the demands of motherhood hit home.

One of the things I like about this book is that it doesn’t really give answers on how to make the struggle easier because this is not a prescriptive book, but more of a thought-provoking and encouraging one. It does not hold answers to questions, rather it inspires you to find your strength and use that to fight your personal battles.

“And I wanted everything. Because, as Suzanne would say, why not? I wanted to live with the hat-tossing, independent-career-woman zest of Mary Tyler Moore, and at the same time I gravitated toward the stabilizing, self-sacrificing, seemingly bland normalcy of being a wife and mother. wanted to have a work life and a home life, but with some promise that

one would never fully squelch the other. I hoped to be exactly like my own mother and at the same time nothing like her at all. It was an odd and confounding thing to ponder. Could I have everything? Would I have everything? I had no idea.”

“Valerie never hesitated to step out of a big meeting when a call came in from her daughter's school. Susan, likewise, dashed out in the middle of the day if one of her sons spiked a fever or was performing in a preschool music show. They were unapologetic about prioritizing the needs of their children, even if it meant occasionally disrupting the flow at work, and didn't try to compartmentalize work and home.”

“Our afternoons together taught me that there was no formula for motherhood. No single approach could be deemed right or wrong. This was useful to see.”

“But no matter how it panned out, I knew I'd at least done something good for myself in speaking up about my needs. There was power, I felt, in just saying it out loud.”

“I'm not sure anyone around me would have said I wasn't doing enough, but I was always aware of everything I could have followed through on and didn't. There were certain small scale projects I chose not to take on. There were young employees whom I could have mentored better than I did. You hear all the time about the trade-ffs of being a working mother. These were mine. If I'd once been someone who threw herself completely into every task, I was not more cautious, protective of my time, knowing I had to maintain enough energy for life at home.”

These passages still stir up some dying embers left in my heart about this topic. Ultimately, I tried to make it work as a mother and career woman but the universe had other plans. I dove into the idea of being a working mother head-on with the confidence of previous experiences of people I know - they were able to make it work so I’ll just follow their framework to success. Somehow it didn’t work out for me and my family. I am not unhappy now, actually I am very happy but at the back of my mind, a nagging thought remains, asking why I had to be so different than most people I know?

It’s just so much easier to follow other people’s well-travelled path than carve one for myself. Yet my personal resolve to not let history repeat itself by being more present, more available for my child calls for a different road. I’m sure there are women who were able to do both but I have discovered the hard way that I am not one of them. My strength and effectiveness manifests itself when I dig deep into something than spread myself far and wide. This is one realization that I have slowly come to accept. xxx

Hello, from the Lion City

Hello Blog World!

I actually have a new joint blog with friends but this blog remains my personal one. How can I let it go if it has posts from way back when I was in college?! (Read: almost 20 years ago) Anyhow, that joint blog is focused on motherhood and I seem to write article type of entries instead of journal type entries. I guess it takes time to be comfortable.

So, I am in Singapore now while I am writing this and I just successfully transferred my LiveJournal entries to Blogger! Way to clear out my 2012 To Do List!

Jumping back from my last post prior to the book review, we have safely arrived in Singapore last Feb 27, 2020 and due to COVID-19, we are mostly staying inside the condo! This means I was able to read books again and do things I really enjoy, like baking! This seems to be a culmination year of all the things that I kept wishing that I could do way back when I was working the corporate grind. Now here I am, with lots of time and lots of happiness.

We have a bathtub in the unit and a great view outside the balcony. There are trees and open spaces and buildings, too, literally like a well-planned urban jungle.

There are 3 swimming pools in the complex, 2 playgrounds, 2 tennis courts, beach volleball, zipline, treehouse, etc. It is also my child's dream playground come true.

This place feels like a super lifestyle upgrade and I am just over the moon! My plans of assimilating into Singapore culture have been put on hold for the meantime because of the virus, but I'm taking it one step at a time.

One major thing I want to overcome is the language barrier. The few conversations I had with the locals were not major wins.

1. Alternation Auntie - Tried to talk to me in Mandarin because she said I looked like I knew how but I could not respond properly.  I could only manage preschool level mumblings!
2. Aircon Repairman talking to Landlord - I totally could not understand what they were talking about, was it English, even? Maybe it was Malay
3. Aircon Repairman - I had a hard time understanding his English
4. Clinic Lady (wearing a mask) - I could not understand what she was asking me - apparently, it was postal code - and it make me feel like such a foreigner and tourist.

My goal is to eventually not be thought of as a tourist or foreigner. I wonder how soon I can achieve that!

Book Review: The Help

The Help

By Kathryn Stockett

An insightful read that opens curious minds to the world of segregation in 1940s America when small battles had begun questioning the norm of what more can life become for "colored" people in the south. Though simply a shadow of the rich stories in the book, it reminds me of my personal struggle to live with and keep helpers in my own home. There is no written rulebook and so my guidelines are sinply based on the experience of my elders, peers, and what I would think I would like to enjoy if I were in their shoes. I try to emphatize as much as I can yet it is not within my grasp as their world is so much different than my own. 

2020!

Two years have passed without a blog entry. It is telling of what happened to my life at that point. I had trouble balancing work and life again.

I have since realized this, though painstakingly, and have made steps to try to put things back to order.

March 2017 - I became a Manager to 14 people
2018 - Some things have left a mark:

• Feb -  I got a pre-selling condo 
•            Employee survey results
• May - Couple trip to Japan
• June - Resignation of person I groomed
• July - Canceled work trip to the US
• Dec - I went to the US with my family for a personal trip

2019

• Feb - I take a personal out of town trip to attend a friend's wedding and regain ties with my former colleagues and boss. My work still follows as I had to make decisions while on leave
•           I have finally shared thoughts of stopping work with family members due to teacher feedback of how my child has been behaving in school
• Mar - I tendered my resignation from work. 
•            My 3.8 year old daughter was assessed to only be 1.5 years old developmentally
• Apr - I left work for good
• June - My 3.11 year old daughter was reassessed to be 3.1 years old developmentally
• July - Weekly speech and occupational therapy ensues and her improvement is phenomenal
• Dec - We find out that we are relocating to Singapore in February 2020

It's 2020 now and finally the initial anxiety has worn off and I have started decluttering and preparing for our move!

I also learned that one of my friends was diagnosed with clinical depression last year and have kept the monster at bay. Her sharing helped me to be more mindful and it was also a silent affirmation of what could have happened to me if my life continued on as before