The Household COO

Between electrical storms, failing internet connections, a nursing toddler and falling asleep, I haven’t been able to get online much since Monday night which is making me feel positively murderous.  As I ponder over this thought, it makes me wonder how sad I must be when the bulk of my free time revolves around the internet.  Sad to say, without the internet, I would be lost.

I can just see it now… forty years down the track when I’m in one of those retirement homes, I’ll be the cranky old witch who screams at the nursing staff because my internet connection isn’t working.  Then again, maybe by that time there will be more reliable service providers and I won’t have to worry about dead or dying connections.  Then all I’ll have to scream about is for someone to change my diapers and to look for my misplaced teeth.

Hmmm… somehow that thought hasn’t really perked up my day. 

When I was a kid, I was deathly afraid of old age.  I could never understand that Chinese desire to live long because I would rather die young than live to a ripe old age decrepit and ailing.  Of course, back then, it was an ignorant assumption of a childish mind to associate old age with senility.  Twenty years and a health science education later, I now know that senility is a disease of the old rather than a natural occurrence that accompanies old age.

Now my fear isn’t of growing old but of growing old with disease.  Although I’m still not particularly anxious about dying young, I would hate to grow old plagued by illness.  My motivation to lead a healthier lifestyle stems not from a desire to live longer but from a desire to grow old gracefully. 

You might be wondering what has spurred such morbid thoughts.  It is the recent news of one of my parents’ friends who has been diagnosed with myeloma.  It wasn’t all that long ago when my aunt discovered she had colon cancer which she tried to fight with chemotherapy only to succumb to the disease after it had metastasised to her spinal column.  Being part of the same group of friends that used to go on holiday together, I am sure they are still recovering from the news of my aunt’s passing.

The irony was that my aunt’s cancer had been present a couple of years back when she first took a colonoscopy to check what was causing her vague but unpleasant gastrointestinal symptoms.  Back then, the doctors had missed the cancer due to the obstruction from some unusual anatomy.  By the time they detected the cancer, it was a year later.  My aunt went through surgery to remove the cancer followed by two rounds of chemo because the drugs they used in the first round weren’t working for my aunt.  After the chemo, they did a half body scan to check for presence of cancer cells and pronounced her to be in remission. 

Despite the cessation of chemo, my aunt still had pain in her chest which they said was due to the chemo.  When the pain persisted, they did more scans only to discover that the cancer had spread to her spinal column and it was in a location that was difficult to operate on.  If they operated, there was a 50-50 chance she could end up paralysed in the lower half of her body.  If they didn’t operate, there was still a strong likelihood that she would become paralysed in the lower half of her body.

By that time, my aunt’s hopes for remission had been dashed and she decided she would accept no more treatment except pallitive care to see her through to the end.  At the end, my aunt said that in retrospect she wished she hadn’t opted for the chemo hoping to live longer only to waste the last year of her life being sick from chemo. 

In my aunt’s case, she was very unlucky that the doctors missed the cancer during earlier scans and she was also unlucky because of the location of the cancer spread to her spine.  It’s hard to say that things might have gone differently under slightly different circumstances.  That she was my favourite aunt and a mother to me during the early years of my life has not made her passing any easier - only the usual regrets that I didn’t spend more time with her at the end or that I should have been more supportive.

Towards the end, she was suffering so much she kept asking to go.  To have hoped for her to live longer would have been to wish more suffering upon her.  It is still hard to believe she’s gone when my memories of her are so vivid and alive.  It is always difficult to accept death before we deem it a person’s time to go.  I guess that old adage is a good one to live by: “carpa diem!” because your last day might be sooner than you think.

“Embarassment is a matter of opinion.”
- Ian Sia

I heard this statement through a friend and I think it’s a great belief to hold on to.  When you’re too concerned about what other people think, it is easy to keep yourself from living your life the way to the fullest.

Another adage with a similar theme is one I heard from the movie “Strictly Ballroom”:

“A life lived in fear is a life half lived.”

Although I can’t say I have lived my life unaffected by what others thought or completely free from fear, I have realised that the moments when I did do so were the ones where I was truest to my own heart.

This is a very inspirational movie that also conveys the same message that I talked about in my previous post about not only surviving in the face of adversity but thriving.

http://www.finishstrongmovie.com/

What causes some people to rise above the enormous trials and challenges that are presented to them by life and others to fall so low that they never rise again?  It is their attitude, their decisions and their dreams.

This is a lesson I hope to impart to my son when he is old enough to understand so that he may not only face the challenges in his life with a positive attitude but that he can rise above whatever life throws at him.

Be like a phoenix, that we may rise magnificently from the ashes.

The hubby once commented that my cooking is very much like my temperament - unpredictable.  Some days we’re great, other days, we’re bad.

Well, I’ve discovered that the problem lies in the fact that I get these sudden bursts of inspiration that I have a habit of implementing on the spot without giving it too much due consideration.  When what seemed like a simple idea goes awfully wrong, instead of starting all over again, I try to fix the problem and somehow it never seems to resolve itself.

As my SIL says, “Zero multiplied by anything is still zero.”

It seems this problem of mine extends beyond the boundaries of the kitchen, too.

I had this great idea of revamping my business website and everything was going wonderfully until I had one of those brilliant flashes of inspiration that turned out not to be so brilliant after all.  To say that it was a little mistake would have been an understatement because two simple clicks of my mouse destroyed hours of work spent tweaking my website.

What I should have done was reinstall the whole platform from scratch, but no, I had to try to salvage the situation with a quick fix that was nearly the death of me.  And as Streamyx would have it, the connection had to go all flaky on me just when I needed it to work at its optimum.  That little annoyance added to my frustration to no end when none of the websites I needed to load were loading properly.  Funny how the connection’s back to normal now that I’ve managed to fix everything…

I’m glad to say, however, that everything worked out in the end.  All the time I spent trying to figure out how to fix it did eventually produce an even better idea than the one I started with.  Since it worked out even better in the end, I guess it wasn’t such a bad thing that happened after all.  All I lost was several extra hours of sleep and a few strands of hair.

Although I think in future I’ll think twice before implementing one of my “brilliant” ideas.

Recently when I was chatting with my SIL, I made a comment that was highly suggestive of someone with a distinct lack of mental capacity.  It prompted my SIL to respond with, “Are you blond?” 

I was mightily offended by her comment - although I might have dyed my hair red, I’m sure the dying process didn’t destroy that many of my brain cells.  My brain capacity has always been my pride and joy and the possibility that it might be declining from lack of use or advancing age has prompted me to pick up activities to stimulate mental activity.  One activity I have resumed is playing Sudoku.

When a large part of my day involves being in the company of a person grunts and babbles by way of conversation, I guess it’s not hard to see how my brain might be rusting from disuse…

It would also be interesting to note that some aging Chinese maintain their clarity of thought by engaging in the passtime of playing Mah Jong.  Although I’ve never been particularly fond of the gambling aspect of Mah Jong, I find the game thoroughly entertaining.  So much so that I took immediately to the computer game version of Mah Jong Solitaire.

Although I don’t really enjoy gambling, even around Chinese New Year, I do look forward to playing Mah Jong.  I’ve always thought it would be nice if they had a computer game version of Mah Jong that lets you play the 3 or 4 player game without having to gamble.  As they say, “ask and you shall receive”, so I did locate one version that lets you play online against other human players for free.  And if you think you’re a Mah Jong player to contend with, like the character from Kung Fu Mah Jong, you can enter tournaments and compete for cash prizes for a nominal entry fee of $1. 

Now gambling I don’t like, but competitions?  Aye, I can do that.

The other thing I’ve noticed, even despite the fact that I blog, is that my vocabulary is diminishing.  Sometimes when I’m talking or writing something, there will be a word on the tip of my tongue that can’t quite find its way out.  The most alarming thing is that this is happening more and more frequently.  One way to overcome this is to start writing again - not just blogging but really writing.  Well, at least that will have another benefit - A Writer’s Papyrus has been rather quiet of late so perhaps this will help bring it back to life.  Who knows, maybe I’ll finally get around to writing that novel I keep talking to much about…

With all these activities, I’m sure I’ll get the brain back into gear again.  That said, looking after a little caveman hasn’t been completely without development for me.  I do believe I have picked up a few more Hokkien words that I never would have learned otherwise.  Maybe, just maybe, it might be possible for me to pick up enough Hokkien in the course of raising my son that I might actually be able to hold a conversation in Hokkien. Well, we’ll see…

When I was in my twenties, I remember reading an article about women in their thirties and why they made better dates than the younger women.  The main reason was because women in their thirties knew their value and they were confident about their own self-worth.  Now that I’m thirty-one, I can’t help but find myself in agreement.  If only I had felt this confident about myself when I was a teenager I might have suffered less from feeling like I was the outcast. 

When I was in highschool, I spent hours fixing my hair before leaving the house for school.  These days, I’m lucky if I remember to run a hair brush through my hair before walking out of the house.  Okay, maybe that’s bad.  One might even think that I’m “letting myself go” - as they say of women who were far too content about being married and having a children.  Then I wonder to myself - am I letting myself go or am I finally really comfortable with who I am?

Well, if you consider how I used to dress when I was a climber, I suppose not much has changed there.  I always did feel a lot more comfortable in grunge rather than high heels and a skirt.  Whenever I wore jeans or my climbing clothes, I never looked in the mirror thinking I looked fat.  Yet, when I dressed up in a gown for a formal dinner, I always felt like I’d suddenly put on 10kgs!  I wonder why that is?

Perhaps there is something to be said about dressing for confidence - except in my case, it means having a pair of sturdy shoes and pants rather than that LBD and a set of high heels…

Here we go… the answer to an earlier post:

How true… We often say a lot of inappropriate things when we are motivated by emotions.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sometimes I feel like I don’t know who I am any more. I move through life like a log flowing down a river. I avoid running against the grain of life whenever possible just so I can maintain the harmony in my life. Yet it is a life I am not happy to be living.

So which is better? To placidly go about life morose and sullen or to go about kicking and screaming yet remaining true to myself? Perhaps I have already answered my own question.

I was complaining to a friend the other day that the hubby has banned me from watching any gory, horror, violent movies/tv programs and that includes Grey’s Anatomy and Alias. This because of the baby and some silly superstition about pregnant mothers not being allowed to get upset.

A friend suggested that I tune into “Desperate Housewives“. I’ve seen two episodes of this series and I still can’t figure out what the fascination for this series is. I know plenty of people who are hooked on it but to me, all I see is a bunch of neurotic individuals running around and making a mess of their lives. EV reckons people are hooked on it because it’s about reality. I reckon it’s more like an alternate reality. I can’t imagine anyone living life the way these people do.

Maybe that’s what makes it so appealing? Because by comparison our lives are boring and we look for some excitement to spice it up. Rather than ruining our own lives with such scandalous activities, we can enjoy watching someone else ruin their own (even if the characters are totally fictitious).

Then again, perhaps it’s just my life that is totally sedate and boring now that I’m married and pregnant? Well, boring or not, I’m quite happy with it remaining this way. If excitement means some of the things I’ve seen other people go through, then I’m quite happy to take sedate and boring any day.