Finally, some downtime...

My friends would know that the reason why this blog has been quiet a while was because of a major life-changing event. This was the birth of my first child, whom I have nicknamed #hamstercheeks for the Internet. 

Everything they have ever said about how much it changes your life has turned out to be true in some ways and not in others. It is true that I paid a lot more attention to what I did and ate just before and mostly after birth, because of breastfeeding. It is also true what they say about Mummy-brains. Maternal instincts kicked in strongly and I was Googling websites like Baby Center and What to Expect for all kinds of baby info, much to the consternation of my husband. (I have been dubbed Tigress Mum for that matter)

It is also true that there no such thing as a Super First Time New Mother. I learned this the hard way after the confinement nanny left and was giving myself all sorts of mental breakdowns thinking of the work that had to be done to keep Hamstercheeks alive, clean and healthy. I also learned the hard way that there is no shame in shamelessly asking for help whenever you need it. I do not need to compare yourself to others nor care about their opinions. 

So making decisions now boils down to answering 2 questions:
1. What is good for #hamstercheek?
2. What is good for me?

For example, take the hiring of a maid. I had all kinds of doubts and questions about hiring a maid at first but it turns out some very major ones had to do with what I thought of myself and what others would think of me. Am I a weaker, less capable person for hiring a maid to do things that I could do myself? Would others think I was a weaker, less capable person for doing so? 

In the end, I decided the mental breakdown and physical exhaustion was not worth it. One, yes, I am a weaker person because I am not SuperMom and nobody is. I cannot simultaneously hold multiple roles of Mother, Wife, Cleaner and Person all at the same time and it is not to mine or my child's benefit if I play a lesser part in each role. So chuck out the role of Household Cleaner and outsource it. 

And in a funny way, once I accepted that I was not SuperMom and that I (like every New Mother) needed help, the universe went out of its way to give it to me. A maid arrived in record timing and so far has turned out to be a good learner with a pleasant personality and also able to handle the baby much more patiently than me. The grandmothers adored their new grandson to bits and were quick to take on babysitting duties. So in fact that week after the nanny left was a relatively painless one since most of the work was done by Grammie and maid. 

Was the move good for #hamstercheeks? I think it did him no harm to be spoiled by Grammie for a week. Also, he can now count on always having clean laundry and bedding thanks to the maid. Was it good for me? I would think so, since now I can focus on his cries for food and attention without fretting that the house would fall apart. Also it's good to have some company in the house other than the baby. 

We do have our good times and our bad ones. On good ones, I find myself able to read, write and watch TV in relative peace and quiet, and even blog a lengthy entry. On bad ones, his cries drive me bonkers and the husband will return from work to find me almost in tears. And since this is a good time, I can say, well, that's life with a baby. Or rather, that's just life. :) 

Loving My Curves

Usually, I like to blog about creativity, craft or art but today, a different kind of article caught my attention in the January 2017 issue of Real Simple Magazine.

This is Rosaliz Jimenez, 42, photo director at a celebrity fashion magazine. You would notice that she’s not a supermodel, in fact, she’s considered plus-sized in the US.

Her story is the one that caught my eye. Like all fat people, she struggled with her weight and her self-esteem. Then one day, she noticed a strange lump on her neck. The diagnosis turned out to be cancer and it progressively got worse, till even after all the cancer treatment was over, she was hit with gallstones and her gall bladder had to be removed. 😱

Why did her story attract me? For one, having been fat nearly all my life, (with one brief respite during puberty) I can identify with her when she says “no one bullied me the way I bullied myself”. It sucks when you can hardly shop for clothes because none of the shops carry your size. Or when you are surrounded by visual reminders everywhere that people should look like supermodels. Even walking on the street reminds you that there are plenty other ordinary people who are not fat.

Worse still is your inner critic, convincing you that all this is your fault and that you are a failure for being this way, a lesser being than all the other size-0s out there. Even if you are already dieting and exercising, you are still a failure because you are still not a size-0 after all that effort. It seems to doom you to being a fat slob for the rest of your life.

I struggled with that inner critic like every fat and skinny woman on this planet but made peace with my body and self-image a long time ago. But, as life went on and I did more interesting stuff and met people who wanted to befriend me despite my size, I accepted that I had many other strengths to define me as a person other than my figure. ( Plus that I wasn’t willing to give up chips for the rest of my life in exchange for the perfect body 🍟) Her story though reminded me how important self-love for your body is.

Let us love ourselves, body and soul before such a medical calamity befalls us. Cancer (or other debilitating illnesses, for that matter) does not differentiate between S, M, L or XXL. Does it have to take such a diagnosis before one realizes that there are a lot more important stuff than whether you can fit into a bikini or not? Even if you are lucky never to get so ill, it is important to appreciate that there are other things your body can do regardless of fat or not.

Thinking of this made me think up this list:

Why I Love My Fat-Ass Body

1.   I’m fat but strong

I know this from the weight-lifting routines I’ve done at the gym. I also know this whenever I lift a backpack full of stuff or a load of students’ books. I’m strong enough to do all this when other slimmer women would have faltered.

2.   I have good shoulders

There are dozens of ways women have come up to beautify their bodies. Hair can be cut. Makeup can be put on. Facial features and even height and weight can be surgically changed. As of yet, though, I’ve yet to see a surgery that can give a woman a good, solid broad set of shoulders that makes all the difference when wearing sleeveless tops.

We pay so much attention to our waistlines we forget there are other parts of the body to be appreciative for. Our shoulders. Our legs which lift us up every time. Long fingers and nails. A wide smile and a hearty laughter and eyes that twinkle in sincere delight.

3.   I’ve recovered fairly well from past illnesses and traumas

I wonder if science will ever prove that fat can act as a padding against minor flus and colds. I’m very blessed that I don’t get sick that often and when I do, I know that it’s only a temporary phase with some medication before good health comes again. I'm also blessed that I've never had serious illnesses or injuries apart from a sprained ankle. 

4.   I’ve had a fairly good pregnancy

Before getting pregnant, I had heard plenty of horror stories about morning sickness, cravings, hormonal horror changes, bleeding… Then when I finally got pregnant, I had… none of them. Yes, I’ve had the usual aches and pains but I haven’t had anything so serious that I couldn’t function in normal everyday life or that made me fearful for the life of my baby. I can only thank my fat ass for that. My recovery after birth was also quite good and by the end of the confinement month I felt back to normal with no complications. I even regained my pre-pregnancy weight.

Are there things about my body I would want to change? I still would like to fit into an M at Zara and one day wear a bikini without people gacking, but then I look over this list I’ve written. I’m not sure I would want to give up all this just to look good in clothing. 

I do have days when I think of putting a bit more effort into my clothes and shoes and sometimes I do think about putting on a touch of makeup. Then I think of the time it would take to choose and put on the makeup, plus the time and money needed to shop for nice clothes and shoes. With the stuff I want to do, I would rather race out of the house earlier to live my life than spend it on makeup, regardless of how short a time it takes. Beauty truly is skin deep after all. When I die, I would want people to celebrate the things I’ve done, rather than just look at the nice makeup and clothes on my dead body. 

If you are inspired and curious about Rosaliz, you can read the article and watch a video on Rosaliz by clicking the handy link here.

Make Useful Stuff

Following up from the last post about how Creative Output must = Material Input, I managed to do a few more little projects with my junk, er, creative supplies. I happily cut and pasted to make some more art journal pages to my satisfaction. Then I wondered why did some of these make me feel so contented? Well, one reason of course is that I was starting to make some pages which I felt happy looking at. I liked the messages that I was writing and I liked the way it turned out so nicely.

This brought me to another thought, that when we make something creative, we should also

MAKE USEFUL STUFF

Now, some would interpret this as "It has to serve a practical purpose" but my definition is a bit wider than that. How would you know if something is useful? Ask yourself the following:

👍 Is what you made useful? Does it help you to do something or achieve a goal? 

One example of this would be the pen holders I made from old film cans. I needed something to hold small pens and the holders fit that purpose perfectly. It helped me to achieve the goals of organizing my desk, and being creative.

👍 Does it make you feel good, or 'spark joy' like what Marie Kondo describes in her book? Here as examples are 2 old art journal pages I did. They don't have any practical purpose. They don't act as storage, they're too big to use as bookmarks and too light as paperweights. I can't even write on them because they're no longer blank. Yet when I look at them, they remind me of important messages that I should carry through life. One is the obvious message that they carry and the other is that I am capable of making beautiful pieces if I just try. Certainly, when I look at them, they 'spark joy' in me. 

👍 Does it teach you something? Do you learn something out of it? This is one of my first attempts with watercolour painting:  

You can tell it's not good at all and you find any redeeming feature in it, you are a good, kind friend and I thank you. By all appearances, this particular painting does not serve any practical purpose. There's no inspirational message and in fact, it's kind of gloomy. Plus the technique really sucks.

But it did lead on to a later piece, which is this:

This is still not a fine piece of art but isn't it miles above the first in technique? That's the useful purpose of the first piece, not as a piece of art on its own, but as a stepping stone to a better piece. 

It was hard to grasp that some of the uglier stuff I did early on could serve any useful purpose at all. At times, it seemed impossible with the skills I had then that I could produce anything marginally useful. The key for me was not to dismiss my early attempts as proof that I totally sucked, but to see them as small steps to a bigger thing. Then it was easier to continue, because I saw myself en route to bigger things. 

This can be hard. Especially when you are faced with the shrapnel of all your failed attempts and a trash bin full of paper, the inspirational quotations about learning 99 ways how not to build a light bulb seem pretty shallow. Be kind to yourself and accept your own shortfalls and failures. Even if you don't churn out anything remotely useful or beautiful at the end of your life, you still would have learnt something you didn't before. That also makes it useful. 😉

Personal Thoughts

I realize it’s been a while since I last blogged and maybe some of you are thinking of calling the blog police to make a Missing Bloggers Report (Ha, I only hope!) so I thought of doing a Personal Thoughts entry as an update.

It’s the end of February 2017 and I’ve been on leave the past 2 weeks at home, waiting for the birth of my first baby! After all the walking around at work, it was a relief to finally stay at home and relax before baby comes out and creates a new round of havoc.

I enjoyed the first 3 days of leave just slacking around, doing some art journaling, reading, watching TV… and then I got bored.

You see, it is relaxing having no obligations or deadlines to meet, but after a while, life becomes very aimless. I felt like I was just floating around without a purpose, other than waiting around for baby to be born. I also felt like this was a waste of my precious leave.

So I took out the To-Do lists again and started giving myself some aims. I didn’t want to make my whole life full of deadlines again but I could commit to doing some ‘work’ in the morning and then keep myself busy in the afternoon with art or photography projects. In that way, I could also write enough articles to keep the blog alive even after baby came out.

Now I realize I made myself into something like a freelance writer. -_-!! I can’t complain that it’s a bad life, seeing that I wake up at any time I feel like and I’m actively doing something I’m good at, but most of all, I appreciate the sense of purpose it gives me. That now, instead of my identity revolving solely around being a mummy, I also have other things in life to work and develop towards. Treat it as a kind of school holiday, I guess.

And what happens when baby comes? Well, then I switch to taking care of him then. Just like during the school holidays, I also have to understand that this period of freelance writing is temporary. I’m not in it to make money or build a career (though it would be a bonus if I did!) but rather to create a sense of purpose and identity. To help me see myself as a more rounded person, more than just being a teacher or a mother.

Whether this continues or not still remains to be seen. But after all, this blog has seen a few years’ hiatus and has weathered it through to be better in the end. I may take it up again after I have kids or I may end up neglecting it until the kids get married and I have Empty Nest Syndrome -_-!! More importantly, for now, I feel I’m working towards something and even if I leave it aside, I have something else waiting for me to take up again later in life.

Starting Afresh...

First off, Happy New Year 2017, with all its bright hopes! 

I'm proud that I managed to revive this blog as much as I did in 2016. (Every blog post is an hour I didn't spend watching more TV!) 

I know that traditionally, this is the time to be setting NY resolutions, ie, to blog more, to write more, to do more. Usually that is what I would have done as well, but considering that next year is full of flux with the baby coming, I thought I would do something a bit different.

The journal on the left is one that I kept from 2015-early 2016. I'm opening it again for 2017 because I still have some pages left in it that I would like to fill up, maybe with simple reflections about each day. 

The pages on the right are another story. They are a mix of pages that I did in 2015. Some, like the one on top, are project ideas that I had. Some were weekly diary entries for 2015 and I decided to make a fresh start by discarding them.

Other pages in the pile carry heavier meaning. See, 2015 was a pretty bad year for me, work-wise. I had a lot of frustrations and setbacks at work and at times when it all got too bad for me, I journalled them down. So in that pile are also pages with a lot of negativity. 

2016 became a little better because some of the things dragging me down were taken off and also, I became a bit more mindful and organized so I could be a little more chill about work. When I opened the journal and looked at those pages though, the unhappiness in those words became fresh in my mind again. 

As I read through them, I thought, Do I want to carry these around with me? 

I decided not. I ripped out the pages and tossed them. 

In life, there are lessons that we learn that we can carry through life. Those lessons we can carry with us as we live. Bad memories and emotions, however, are a different thing. They drag us down with their negativity and make us relive them over and over again. They keep us in the past instead of carrying us on to the future. 

In this way, I suppose, I'm carrying out the opposite of a resolution. Instead of making plans to step into a bold new future, I'm tossing and burning the past behind so that it doesn't follow me anymore. I'm still not sure enough about the future to make plans or resolutions but I am certain enough about my power over my past, to make sure it doesn't haunt me any longer. And I guess that's as good a start as any. 

So Happy New Year everyone, may you start the year afresh and leave it all behind. 

Reflections on December and 2016

It being the second last day of 2016, it's now or never that I finally get to writing my reflections, I guess. Like any other year, there has been ups and downs and sometimes, things start to look better in retrospect.

Family Life

After a couple of years of trying, I'm finally going to have a baby! I was pretty down in the first half of the year when the first try didn't work out but later on, it did and now I'm expecting to pop in March! I would admit that I have had slightly mixed feelings, loss of personal freedoms vs family life after hearing from so many people about how "it changes your whole life". 

But then I realized a couple of things from some mothers I follow on social media:

1. There are a lot of mothers who have continued doing what they love while having children. I follow a couple of bloggers and Instagrammers who do great writing and art and I used to think they could only do all these because they were childless. I was slightly surprised when I read that some of them had kids, 2 or more in some cases! And they could still update their blog or Instagram account or run their businesses on a regular basis! This taught me that passion helps you find a way. I may have to cut back on some personal goals (no more recitals!) or become a scheduling wizard as long as I can find some small way to do what I love. Which leads me to the next...

2. Be kind to yourself. It's ok if I screw up. It's ok if I don't reach my goals. It's ok if I don't write a new e-book every month, play the violin at Carnegie Hall, become an award-winning artist, become a famous blogger, speak fluently in French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese, raise a successful kid who can do all the above and more, and maintain a full-time job. Even if I make small steps towards just one of my goals, it's ok. No one is judging me except myself and mistakes are acceptable for anyone who is not perfect. (Preferably my mistakes should not involve death or injury though...)

3. For all the complaints I read from new mothers, no one has ever wished they never had their child. And you do hear plenty of complaints, from leaky diapers to full out explosions, screaming tantrums, nights in the hospital. Despite all this, I've not read about a single mother who would give up her child to take back her single life. This gives me hope, that while there will be plenty of crap to clean up, in the end, it's not a rose-coloured vision that everything really does work out in the end. 

So I'm going to follow no.2 when it comes to my kid and take it easy on myself and my future child. He may not become the next President's Scholar but as long as he turns out to be a kind, wise human being, (not a serial killer) that would be all I would ask for.

Blogging Life

Looking back at the posts from January till now, I'm pretty proud that I managed to revive my old blog and I did a lot more writing than I thought I was capable of. This is something new I've learned about myself. Funny thing is that I always thought I had a flair for art more than writing because I was such a visually-oriented person, but in the process of writing, I learned that actually I had more of a flair for writing. Given the right prompts, the ideas flowed more easily on the keyboard than on the drawing pad. 

I'm a bit hesitant to make plans for 2017 because of the kid coming but if there's one thing, I would like to continue blogging as much as I can. The focus may change and I may write a lot more about life with a baby, but I would still want to keep this blog alive to remind me of the writing I completed in 2016 and to spur me on to other creative projects in the future. 

Creative Life

I'm also pretty proud that I dabbled a lot more creatively this year. I did a lot more journalling and in December, I even managed to organize some material into my own e-book. I also managed to do some watercolour painting and make some journals. I also take pride in performing on stage in my first violin recital! Although I played terribly off-key, (-_-!) I take pride in actually mustering the guts to go up and do it, something I'm not sure many 5-month pregnant ladies can claim to do! In some months, I also managed to up my French by learning some grammar. I probably can't order a cup of water in France, but it's still a bit of progress from knowing nothing to knowing something.

When you read the paragraph above, it all seems pretty random but I've come to accept that that's the kind of person I am. I like a certain degree of novelty and variety so I tried several different things each month. What worked for me was listing down all the activities I wanted to try and then making some goals each month, plus making myself accountable by blogging as much as I could about the steps I made. Being a Jack of all trades seems to work better for me than being a Master of one. 

(These techniques I learned from 7 habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey and Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin.)

I also read, read and read. I had a personal goal at the start of the year to read at least one non-fiction book each month, which according to my Goodreads account, I've achieved, so yay! I didn't hit the upgraded goal I set for myself, which was 48 books, but on average, I've completed 3 books each month. I think with the baby, this could be the easier goal for me to reach next year......

With all I've done this year, I think in 2017, I would take a creative break and concentrate on how to take care of my kid. I might still do some light reading and a little bit of doodling here and there but I also think it's prudent that I don't set major goals for myself until I've settled the domestic arrangements with my in-laws and my kid. I also suspect that I may have to resume my fitness goals next year to lose all the postnatal weight! So in 2017, the focus here might be to take it easy and do it for fun till family life becomes more stable. 

In a nutshell...

I guess 2016 wasn't too bad and in retrospect, some of the things that seemed really bad at the time now look very far away. I suppose with distance and reflection, life on the whole really has a lot that we can be grateful for if we choose to see it that way. If there's anything to hope for in 2017, I can only hope that by December 2017, I can look back and see all the good stuff and be filled with the same hope for 2018! Happy new year, everyone and here's to a great 2017! 

Reflections on September/October

I had to put these 2 months together for this reflective post, because I realized October just whizzed away under my nose just like that. 

What caused it, I suppose, was exam season, and the vague feeling that there were a lot of stuff I should be doing to be more responsible. So I buried myself in my work for those 2 months. 

What resulted was that I totally forgot that I had to be responsible to myself. I brought work home at night, over the weekend, and generally neglected my own plans and self-development over that period. I managed to read but journalling and everything else pretty much took a back seat.

Some would say that was necessary, in order to well, get the work done, that one has to put one's nose to the grinder. 

I would say it became a soul-killer and I really questioned myself many times about whether this pile and pile of paper was really what I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life. 

From reflecting on the past, I would say this year I was lucky. I caught myself in October and started journalling a bit more, which helped. I made a couple more journals for the fun of it and I also wrote more inside my existing ones. That made me realize that while responsibility was necessary, it also didn't mean that it had to take over the whole of my life. That even if a few minutes to do one journal page was all I had, then even those few minutes were enough to restore my humanity once again.

One good thing was that I love to read, so I read. I managed to stick to my habit of reading a couple of pages of any book before I slept so there were stuff I still managed to learn. This proves that this habit is a real keeper.

I guess this point about self-reflection is becoming a bit more poignant, because with the baby coming next March, I'm not sure just how much time I will have for myself anymore. I have more than enough reading material for whatever free time I can snatch during my maternity but beyond that, when I go back to work and it's back to the grind...? 

That's why self-love is necessary on a regular basis, I suppose. To remind ourselves that other than the various roles we play through life of spouse, partner, employee, mother, daughter, there's one role that underpins them all, which is that of Me. That our character and personality are the foundations of all that we do and if the role of Me is flourished with love, then that love can only spread to all the other roles we play.

Always Be Kind to Yourself

(Sorry, I know the colour is a bit crappy)

I almost forgot what it meant to be kind to oneself. 

The past month, I had thrown myself into completing my work so fully that a whole month went by before I realized what I had done to myself. 

It's funny, the lesson we learnt in school and in our younger lives was to work hard, hard and harder. By doing so, we were taught, we would reap the rewards later on. 

We then carry that lesson onto our adult working lives, but technological advances and Whatsapp mean that we don't just work, but we have to work harder, harder and hardest out of them all. And that somehow our reward would come. 

So under a sense of responsibility and impending fulfilment, I worked. I worked hard and I brought home the work telling myself that it would all be better later on, that I was making my future life easier this way if I just worked hard, now. I would postpone my enjoyment of life and my leisure activities and somehow it would all pay off.

Well, a month went by and guess what? I got nothing but a sheer sense of relief that it was all over. Nothing like the sense of divine fulfilment I was supposed to feel. 

Yet, one day, I was about to carry on the work at work, when I just looked at everything on my desk and I had a sudden sense of nausea. Nothing to do with morning sickness, just a sickness of all... this. 

I calculated that I had enough time to carry on the next day, and I ditched the work and went for a good lunch at Plaza Sing.

I continued the next afternoon at Taka. And today I went back to Taka again.

If work was supposed to be so fulfilling and satisfying, then why is it I only felt refreshed and human when I was out of it? 

I made a small but costly mistake. I mistook work for life. I mistakenly thought that this was what life was about, to be a responsible working adult and do the work to pay the bills and this was how normal people were supposed to live.

I forgot about all the other things about life. Like walking in the sun. Or having a good lunch. Or the pleasure of a quiet cafe with a good book. 

I'm lucky I realized this in time because some in my line weren't so lucky, judging by the 5000 of us who leave the profession each year, with a top reason being the workload. It just overwhelmed them and swarmed, they left for better pastures and better lives. They learnt the hard way that the work wasn't worth the life they sacrificed.

Who knows, what if they had known how to be nice to themselves and forgive themselves for the work they did not or could not do to the satisfaction of others?

So be kind to yourself. It's not always a bad thing to be lazy and it's not always selfish to leave everything and just do something for yourself. Don't let it get so bad that your whole life becomes overswarmed but take it back while you can. 

And enjoy all those afternoon teas. :)