Feng Shui 101

As we sit here and moan the passing of another year, we must not forget to have say, milo ais or a roti canai to wash down the sorrows. I know I have probably bored everyone to tears about how this has been an exciting year blah blah blah... and infected everyone with my insecurities and my fears. Well, I am going to say it again, this year has been tumultuous.

I am going to be very brave and make a little prediction on the year to come. We all know that anything I swear will happen will definitely go the opposite way. We also know that whatever I say I will never do, I end up doing *sigh*. History has proven thus, and I am going to be very sly and work it to my advantage hehehe... :)

First and foremost, I shall work very hard as usual. I shall have no time to ogle at the doctors in the hospital, neither shall I have time for a cup of tea and a cake during the day. We will not have any chocolate in the fridge for emergencies.

I shall also live in a tiny pigeonhole with no friends. There will be no one to clean the place and no other interesting people to talk to in the corridor. My place shall be dusty from the construction site in front and I will have to listen to the patriotic music that is broadcast to motivate the workers at 8am every morning.

I shall have no friends who speak English. My world will only have individuals who speak Cantonese and Cantonese alone. No one will be brave enough to chat me up and I shall eat my dinners alone in some dark alley somewhere. Fireworks will no longer be a pleasurable activity with brilliant company. In fact, they will stop having fireworks due to the economic slowdown.

All the shops in Cantoland will close down or will never have sales on their wonderful things. There will be no clothes that fit me and no bags that match my shoes. The restaurants will run out of mango and custard buns and dimsum will no longer be available.

My friends and family will be too far away to comfort me and there will be no one who understands me. I will not be able to voice my thoughts without repercussions and act impulsively and be forgiven for my transgressions. I shall lose my ability to smile and laugh, and the will to love...

For it is in our darkest hour, we find God and ourselves. Though I truly pray that my life will never come to this.

Thank you for your encouragement and concern. Thank you for your companionship and care. I would like to thank you all for taking the time to check on me, keep me grounded, let me free... I wish you all a happy and fulfilling 2009. May your predictions be more accurate than mine, as I hope mine don't come true! :)

Home for Christmas...

My mother was trying to contact me over the weekend but was unsuccessful due to a) I was sleeping; b) the connection was fuzzy; c) I didn't pick up the phone; d) I was ogling cute dermatologists. Finally she texted me to tell me that our friends from long ago are all coming back to KL for Christmas. If you can read between the lines as well as I can, it translates into:'' All my friends' kids are coming back, so you have to come back too." And so yours truly being the filial daughter, is going home for Christmas! It feels good to be able to go home and annoy the little sister. The last time I saw my family was some five months ago. My siblings have supposedly grown taller (and fatter). I need to go home to assert my authority and squash the siblings a little. I bemoan the fact that my mother did not feed me enough as a child, thus my stunted growth. I shall dread the day my sister is taller than me and gleefully rubs it in *growl*.

I made a gingerbread house today. While everyone else manged to assemble their houses with minimal mess, mine was covered in chocolate and icing to keep it together. It is still really pretty though! No matter, the heavy icing will ensure the house stays in one piece on the flight home on Thursday! :) I have realised I am not cut out to be an engineer or an architect. I guess I shall stick to feet huh? :)

I can't wait! It's four days till Christmas! And the clouds seem to have broken over. The world looks rosy from where I'm curled up under my duvet. It's hope it stays this way! :)

Manipulation

It is now six days till Christmas and I have not sent out a single Christmas card. I know I should have done so earlier, but I had all kinds of excuses such as 'the post office is only open office hours and my clinic hours are longer than office hours'. Or I should have dragged myself out early on a Saturday morning to queue up behind all the Filipino helpers who are sending their care packages to their families back home. Well, it is too late now and I am sure my friends would appreciate random cards at other times of the year! :) Besides, think of the trees I can save.

I have finished Christmas shopping and was contemplating doing away with wrapping paper and gift bags. My conscience was nagging me as I wrapped up the presents and tied them with shiny ribbon. People do not need a thing wrapped in fancy paper and ribbons and put in yet another pretty bag with tissue paper. I would appreciate a hefty book voucher just as much as the Ferraro Roche my patients give me. While one will sustain me for a day (or two if I pace myself); the other will ease my boredom throughout the year. However, there are certain expectations to be met in this society of excess, and I guess it's easier to wrap than to justify the lack of wrapping. It is easier to meet the expectations of the receiver than to make a stand for the sender, as it an unwrapped present is akin to social suicide *rolls eyes*. I guess I will just have to eat more meat to paccify the tree gods.

As the year is drawing to a close, people start searching for that elusive something that is missing in their lives and seek solance and companionship be it with God, family, friends or strangers. No one wants to be alone whether they admit it or not. I get pensive as Christmas draws near and start thinking back to all the little things I have gone through over the past year. I am extremely thankful for what I have. This Christmas will be the second Christmas I am spending away from home. I am seriously considering flying back home just because; Just because it's been a long time since I saw my family; just because I have not seen the new home; just because I want to see if I can still use my sister as an arm rest;just because I want to laze in the pool; just because I have no oven to roast my leg of lamb.

In the meantime, I am going to make a gingerbread house this weekend! :) It is the winter solstice festival this Sunday. The Chinese believe this longest night to also be the coldest ,and the most important family celebration in the year. The pseudo-lawyer and myself are looking forward to the glutinous rice balls filled with peanut paste in sweet ginger soup. *yum*

One more day to the weekend! *double yay*

Alien Speak

We had a new addition to our team last week. It is pretty surreal to have another person in our little crusade. Suddenly, we can do so much more than before. We don't have to juggle our lives with work with little leeway for sudden changes that will ripple on to our clinics for weeks on end. It has given us a little more breathing space; a second more to use the inhaler before plunging back into the chaos.

This has also brought home the fact that it is bloody hard work. I tell people to come to Cantoland to live and work with me. And I don't realise how difficult it is to adapt to this life. The new addition has broken down a few times in the past week due to a variety of factors including the language and culture barrier. The intensity and the speed of life here is also a hundred times faster than what most people are used to. I am glad I am able to adapt to this place in a relatively short span of time. I remember feeling lost and disorientated when I first got here. We do not realise how difficult it is to uproot ourselves and plonk ourselves smack bang in the middle of another country, exceptionally so if we are working at grassroots level.

I will never laugh at my friends' Cantonese ever again. Neither should they at mine. And if anyone decides to move here just to entertain me, I shall be eternally grateful and promise to be nice to them for the rest of my life!

A.I.

December comes up from behind you in no time at all. I have graduated from 'one year in Hong Kong' to ' just over a year in Hong Kong'. Soon I will be 'graduated two years ago' as we hit 2009. Somehow, the knowledge that you are out in the big wide world for such a length of time is pretty humbling. I mean, I have this misconception that I am old *shut up all those who disagree* and that I am supposed to have some basic knowledge of the fickleness of human nature. Well, yours truly would like to report that the world is not a pretty place, but then you all know that already. We can try our best to make it nice but there is always someone set on sabotaging it by throwing a spanner in the works. And I have learnt that we can either let it go; or wallow in disappointment, self-pity, frustration and anger at the insolence of others.

At this time of year when Stellas go into hibernation, I start thinking of resolutions for the new year. I like to be kiasu I know. I look around at the people around me and see what the Jones have that I don't. So far, the list looks like this:

What the Jones' have that I need to keep up with:

1. Marriage. 2008 seems like an auspicious year for people getting hitched. Either that, or I am hitting a certain age where there are expectations of such.

2. Babies. Everywhere you look, people are poppin' them out like nobody's business. I believe no one thought the world would be in such economic turbulence nine months ago, if they knew they

a) wouldn't have so much time to make babies;

b) would have spent more time on the stock market instead.

Being pregnant also keeps you safe from retrenchment as it is supposedly cruel to fire a pregnant woman. They are however, only now starting to address the issue of racial discrimination in this country.

3. A mortgage/credit card debt the GDP of a third world country. I am thankful that I am financially self-sufficient and can pay for all my frivolous purchases without my mother knowing what I have bought.

4. A hobby. Preferably something like flower arranging or bonsai-trimming. I would like to try sky-diving but I am slightly concerned about fracturing my calcaneums. Maybe learning a language is more practical.

5. Christmas break planned. I have not decided what I am going to do over Christmas. I want to go to Harbin for the Ice Festival (because they have fireworks and I love fireworks) but I don't want to go alone, and it's going to be -20 degrees Celsius.

This weekend I hope to go to China with the Oxford kid so that I can corrupt enlighten Chinese medical students about the wonders of shopping and spontaneous shoe purchasing. Then we can go to Queens Spa for rest and relaxation while the masseuse works on the knots in my shoulders. Bliss!

Oh weekend cometh!

Footnote: This post was supposed to be about artificial insemination but I guess I went OTT.