DON'T MAKE ME...

My love for writing fiction has died. Or at least, I have let my technical side take over the creative side. I'm second-guessing myself every time I write a sentence. At least now it isn't so bad but that was only because I wasn't attempting to try to write anything.

Hence, a note to writers out there who aspire to be fiction writers, do not indulge yourself into other forms of writing work, don't work for publishers who have a specific agenda that is not fiction-related. It will kill your creativity, and if your supervisor is bad enough, it will kill your love for writing.

NEW SCHEDULE

Took about a week plus to readjust from time-chimed working life to no-time-limit whatsoever life. I won't say it was all hunky-dory but hey... just needs some getting used to. Mornings have disappeared from my life because I now sleep at 2 am (on a good night) and usually it is after other people have started snoring. What do I do with the time? Nothing useful, you can bet that. 

But I what wanted to write about was the new phenomena (at least to me) of going from a 9-to-5-I-don't-have-time-for-anything mode to a I-can-do-whatever-the-hell-I-want mode. The latter is scary, seriously. 

You don't keep track of your meals, when to get your morning coffee (usually it is already what, 1pm by the time I remember that I needed it), brushing your teeth is not the first thing you do in the morning, your daily objectives is to think of what meals to prepare for lunch and dinner (whenever that happens), bathing is an option (but still necessary if you want to go out and meet someone and keep that person alive at the end of the meeting), you hog the TV because now you need not schedule TV into your.. er.. schedule, you can actually go to a sale anytime you want (which makes it no fun or half as alluring no more) etc.

I seriously had a hard time adjusting to all that. It might all sound peachy but to go from "there is a time for every thing" during school, university and work to "there's time for anything and everything"... well, if you don't have goals, you will go nuts.

That's what happened to me. I felt blurry in the first week. I don't know what day it is, what time it is when I wake up (but the sun was shining down on me with vengeance), I don't care about the news no more unless it is funny or it has to do with me forking out more money, speaking of which, yes I am still doing freelance work stuff for peanuts but hey, I'm having fun spoiling my kid.. speaking of which, is a real pain-in-the-ass while she tries to recuperate from her soggy mood from being sick for more than a week now (checks her watch) eh yup, it's been 8 days now but she is doing better thanks to the antibiotics the doc gave her. I really need to put in more effort to raise her immune system up to standard. This cannot go on! 

That's it! That's my new goal! woo hoo... now to actually organise it into something that is workable. I feel so productive suddenly. Yeah, maybe that's what I was craving for, to feel productive. Sigh... Is it too early to go back to work?

I AM FREE

My last day was last Thursday. The farewell was brief and almost non-existent. Best thing about it is, I don't really care. Sigh, that's how low it has sunk, and how bad it stunk. But anyhow, I can now spend more time with my daughter, with my already dying blog, with my husband, my family (my sis) and going back to school. I have missed the closing date for this January's intake but it's not a huge loss, because now I have no qualms of applying for the June intake. And while we're on this topic, the websites for local universities really really suck. Even though they aren't directly paid to maintain the websites, but they will do better if their universities are ranked better, and how can you get local universities to be ranked better if you can't get more foreign students to apply to study in your university? 

It's frustrating that you lose out on an application due to a technicality, and for god's sakes, this is the Internet age, all the latest updates should be on the website! How can you ask a student from penang to drive all the way to your doorstep to get info, just because you want them to be independent, proactive and have initiative? You don't have any of those things to begin with. 

*breathe, breathe*... enough with the ranting. What if people find out that you are b*tching about them before you apply for the course? gasp, I have half a mind to delete this post now... but I won't until I apply for the January intake, and get it, and graduate from it. Besides, what I just wrote is true what.

I hope I won't miss January's intake. Sigh...

GOALS BEFORE 30

Excuse my fascination with goals, but apart from the fact that I was brought up with goals, it really ensures that things get going and more importantly, get done.

From the day you are born until you come out to work -- which could be between 18 to 23 (or 30 for some people who prefer to study longer) -- almost all your goals are set by somebody that is not you. How many A's to get, distinctions to obtain, ambitions to follow... it's all dictated by your parents, teachers, guardians, even your peers. Until you come out to work, everyone is pretty much following a scale that is set by society. The rest just follows.

So what happens when you come out to work? Many lose their way in the first few years of their working life. It's not to say that they cannot find their way around -- not that kind of loss although it does happen in no-GPS occasions -- but they lose sight of what really matters in their life. For instance, some work and take out the 'play' in life. They stay in the office for 12 to 15 hours, are rarely seen out under the sun and attend office parties that they can't really say no to. 

But I digressed.

Back to the point of this post, yes, what are the goals that one would hope to achieve by 30? Frankly, I wouldn't know because everyone has their own list of things to do before they die: travel, have property and assets, marry, start a family, have their own business, start their own centre, have a gallery named after themselves, get a PhD, fly a plane, find the Loch Ness Monsters etc. 

It doesn't really matter which is it, there is not right or wrong, but at the very least, you have to achieve some goals before a certain time. Else, you will feel it in the next class reunion. It's not shameful to bow to peer pressure, in fact, there seems to be a biological need to feel the pressure or to stand up to it by competing against the rest. How else can you explain how much you hate Carrie's new handbag or killer pumps?

My goals were really set by the time I was 16. Achieving them is in a whole new category but still, I am lucky that I have pretty much most of them covered: Get married and have lovely family and children (1 down, 1 more to go), have a car, get a nice house, a stable career (which I am putting on hold for the time being), a Master's (going for it, hence the pit stop for the career; may consider a PhD if the bill fits but it's not a goal set in stone) and being free from financial despair (after paying for a wedding, an album, a house and everything in it, a kid, a Master's) with plenty of save-save-savings and a walking, talking ATM machine to fall back on (I got two, tee hee hee).

Problem now is, figuring out a new set of goals to achieve before I'm 40. O_o"

WORK LIFE BALANCE, YA RIGHT?

It is doable. You just have to be tough enough to rough it out. Work-life balance is for most the 'holy grail' but it isn't that hard to get. Really.

There are only 24 hours in a day; 8 hours are devoted to work, at least 2 hours to get to work and back, 3 hours for 3 meals (unless you skip breakfast), 2 hours (okay, maybe 2.5 hours) wasting time online, answering emails, on facebook, youtube, twitter etc, 7 hours of sleep and 2 hours in between for your toilet/washroom escapades, being sick, housechores, bill-paying, tv, cooking, washing, freaking out over your sick kid etc. 

How do you do it?

There is such a thing as work-life balance, it just means different things to different people. 

But there are a few rules that could actually help you get your act together.

No.1, Have a cut off point for everything. Give yourself enough time for work, and after you have used up all the alloted time, drop everything and continue on with your life. This means that if 8 hours is not enough, give yourself up to 10 or 12 hours, but beyond that, you have to stop thinking about work and focus on the other aspects of life.

No. 2, you don't have to be supermom all the time. This means that it is okay for you to skip some not so urgent matters so you can tend to the more urgent matters first. Not everything needs to be done right now. 

No. 3, know when you need a break, rest up and then get going again. Taking a break every week or so is a much better option than falling sick which will take you out for half a week; how will you ever catch up under such conditions? You don't. So, take a lot of fluids, vitamins if you need to, catch up on sleep after you've lost enough to keep you dizzy and start you on 24/7 IV fluids. Back down before you break down.

No. 4, be brutally honest when you find yourself trapped. 'Lizzie, before you go back for the night, do you think you can prepare the Johnsons' report for me by tomorrow? I have a meeting with them at 9am and I got a match to watch tonight so I'm too busy to do it even if the match ends at 11 and you had been camping at the office for the last two days.' 

You know when is a good time to just say NO.

No. 5, be brutally strict with your kid as well. Here is when a lot of parents screw up. They only exact discipline when they are in a bad mood, they had a rough day, they have a deadline to catch or when someone else is watching. Don't believe me? Have you ever seen parents who act like they are paralysed whenever they see their kid climb precariously onto an adult's chair? Then, they start scolding their kid when the kid does the same thing whenever someone comes to visit. 

Please, you're confusing the kid. How is the kid supposed to know whether or not they can or cannot climb dangerously onto chairs? They'd be more likely to think that they CAN do that when no one in particular is watching. That's when they start coming to you with bruises, injuries and wounds that 'come from nowhere'. 

Explain to the child that it is dangerous for them to do so, but allow them to climb onto the chair (or do any other it's only dangerous if you fall actions) with you around to act as the safety net. If the child falls, be there to comfort him or her, but do not react strongly (like shout when they fall or raise the tone of your voice) in the event this happens. What you can do is to nurse the pain for a bit, tell them that you told them to not climb because you knew this was going to happen. 

Explain to them also that if they do that again, they should use special precautions, be more careful or only do it when you are around in case they may fall again. You can't be there all the time but your child should understand that you will be there for them no matter what idiotic situations they get themselves in. You have to let your child grow before they can.

Best of luck, working parents out there!

NANNY 911

I don't know why I never heard of the show but Nanny 911 (on NTV7, Fridays, 830 to 930pm) is an awesome show where you can learn how to bring up kids - yours included - that you thought were unmanageable. 

There are four nannies; my favourite is stella who has her own page here. On each episode one of the nannies will be assigned to a problematic household, most of which have problems that will really really make you cringe, be suspended in a state of disbelief for an hour or just question whether or not the whole thing is scripted.

For instance, one family has a pig who has its own room inside the house. The mother was portrayed as a parent who loves the pet more than her own kids although I find that hard to believe, but stranger things have happened. Her younger daughter plays with poo (takes it right out of the diaper and flings it around) and both daughters eat their food off the floor and drinks out of a pet dish. Err... yeah, it was one of the worst cases I've seen so far. 

Worst still, the mother doesn't think that there is a problem with it. Although she was worried when the assigned nanny told her that she was running her home like a zoo, she was quite reluctant to change her ways and how she raises her kids. Fair enough, she has been doing it ever since the first child was born but somehow or rather (and this happens for ALL the episodes), within a week of the nanny being with the household, the parents will totally change for the better, the kids will be well mannered and their lifestyle will be more structured. THAT part, I find hard to believe but is willing to readily accept because like all Disney-raised kids, I love happy endings.

Still, there was one particular advice that really stuck to me, which was given by nanny Stella (hence, the reason she was my favourite). She mentioned three things that kids thrive on, structure, rewards and consequences(?) which meant that they must have a structured life, nap at 2pm, play at 4pm, set hours for food, baths, play etc. They also should be allowed the chance to make their own decisions, with all the options and consequences laid out before they should give their final verdict: 'If you jump from that couch one more time, you will be getting a ten-minute timeout at the corner of the room.' And they expect for the rule to be enforced, and strictly, I might add. 

I think it works for western kids I guess, being sent to bed without supper, being sent to their rooms or getting timeouts at the corner. I don't really see my daughter feeling punished over it but then we're on the other side of the world where we drive on the 'wrong side' of the road anyways. =)

I'm not sure what punishment I would allay on her hair but one thing is for sure, she has a fan in her dad, a fan who doubles as her superman, meaning... I am the bad cop, he will always be the good cop and I might add - the good cop who tops/veto/overrules the bad cop. Initially, I wasn't very happy with the idea, but after awhile, even he realises that there has to be a limit to everything and when he turns into the bad cop, and my daughter has nowhere to turn to, that is when she sheds her manipulative outlook and becomes the angel who we love and look forward to seeing and having. 

She stays in that mode for 48 hours tops. 

Anyways, Nanny 911 is very informative but Mama Sing would like to add that you don't have to follow every advice you see on the show down to the very last detail. Follow your intuition and know when to stop, when to hold your ground and when to act as the parents that they 'need' you to be.