health status

My female owner “stay healthy” campaign starts tomorrow! (yah, if tomorrow ever comes)

Before she went over the Brisbane, she was a healthy eater and she had a clean bill of health status (based on an objective medical check-up). Predominately white meat, lotsa greens, minimal dairy or confectionary products, minimal snacks. She avoided sugar like poison. Her indulgence would be the occasional fried food (chips, chicken wings) or empty calories (i.e. alcohol). But those were consumed in social settings. She had much better self-control then.

In Brisbane, her diet changed dramatically. Proportion of red meat increased, greens reduce, and need I mention? Overdose of sweet products like biscuits, cookies, chocolate, cakes and carbohydrates like rice, potato and pasta. She even started consuming dairy products like cream, yoghurt, cheese and milk. She hasnt really touched sweets or fried food yet.. so there's still hope.

One thing stayed the same - coffee. But dosage increased, to at least 2 cups a day.

In a spate of 4 months, the weight/ fat gain is astonishing and she can just imagine her health status deteriorating into the unacceptable fat range and possibly high cholesterol level. Not to mention her left knee which acts up once in a while when she’s walking, even though she is no longer playing badminton or practicing aikido.

Speaking of which, that’s another area of concern. She used to engage in physical activities about 3 times a week but now, she just engage in mental activities. Her physical body is wasting away, as her brain struggles to cope with her school assignments (not enough brain cells and synapses apparently).

Ah, a combination of high-fat/ sugar diet and no exercise is a recipe for poor health! Come back to Singapore, your health is more important! (I wonder if I would be able to recognise her when she comes back)

numb

My female owner cried today, finally. After numbing herself for the past few weeks (her self-protection defense mechanism), she managed to de-numb herself and allow herself to feel raw, human emotions for about ten minutes. Then, she snapped back to being her usual self.

This programme has been a test of her mental strength, abilities and resilience. If she knew that it would be this tough, she might have seriously considered taking up a sponsorship with her former organisation. As she put it, if she’s going to get tortured, she might as well be paid for going through it.

The more she does, the more lost she becomes. The more she reads, the more ignorant she finds herself to be. The more she reflects, the more incompetent she realises she is. Everyday she’s left wondering if she did the right thing but there are hardly any answers. Each supervision session, although power-packed, would leave her feeling stupid: “why didn’t I think of that?” “why did I do/say that?” “why didn’t I notice…?” “oh no, I did the wrong thing and I can’t change it anymore…”

She chose to go to UQ and she believed that God made it possible for her to go to UQ, despite the various barriers that stood in her way. My female owner is finding it difficult to meet the demands of this programme and the lack of control and certainty is driving her…. numb.

banana

Please take test to check how stress you are....


The Banana Test

There is a very, very tall coconut tree and there are 4 animals.
King Kong, an Ape, an Orangutan and a Monkey pass by.
They decide to compete to see who is the fastest to get a banana off the tree.

Who do you guess will win?
Your answer will reflect your personality.
Think carefully . . . Try and answer within 30 seconds


Got your answer?

Now scroll down to see the analysis.




















If your answer is: Orangutan = you're sick
Ape = you need a break
Monkey = worse, you are supposed to be in the hospital right now..
King Kong = I think you better take 1 year leave..
.......



Why?! ????












.......


A Coconut tree doesn't have bananas!

Obviously you're stressed and overworked. Take some time off and relax! â?º

________________________________

Did you get the correct answer? Guess what happened to my female owner? First, she thought the trick was in the number of animals (she somehow missed the "ape") and she guessed "monkey".

She sent the trick to two seniors. Despite being warned, one chose the orang utan and the other chose the ape. Wahaha. All psychologists and all fell for the trick! They are stressed indeed.

confirmed

My female owner believes in listening to social feedback (acting on it is another matter altogether). She received one today, or rather, she received one which she was expecting to get.

Being low on clients, she had time to pop into her host's office for a short chat. They haven't met each other for almost 2 months, since the time her host met her to pass her the car. My female owner wondered if her host will say anything about her putting on weight.

Sure enough, one of the first few things she said was "wah, you put on weight!" If that sounds familiar to you, that's because my female owner's auntie recently said the same thing to her too. That double confirms what my female owner has been noticing about her rounder than round face. I think this is the roundest my female owner ever became, coz her cheeks are so chubby, that it's affecting her speech. Too chubby to talk.

Oh well... no use whining about putting on weight. She probably needs to do something about it, something that does not involve snacking... Otherwise, when she comes back to Singapore, that's the greeting she's going to get from her friends and family!

homogenous

My female owner was truly horrified when she tried to wear her pants today. While it was still loose last week, it was now tight! Can you imagine that? One week is all it takes to reach the physical limits of her pants! While she can't be bothered about her weight anymore (lost battle), she has no choice but to deal with the consequences of her binge-eating.

While she was still shaken, an aikido fren initiated a random conversation with her. It's random coz she hasnt chatted with him for a really long time but somehow, it was the conversation which she needed.

After hearing her out, he encouraged her to go jogging but she said it was getting too cold. So he suggested skipping at home (very good idea). He also added in suggestions like stomach crunches and other unmentionables... And being lazy, she said that she would wait till 1 Jun to start, and he reminded her that many things can happen in 1 week (yah, like your pants becoming too tight!)

Like what her Librarian Fren who is in UK said "Hmm...the world is indeed getting homogenised! :P Coz like everyone else I am also getting fat (strange, thought one should get fat in winter, how come I am getting fatter in summer)."

And her potahto fren who just declared on MSN: "needs to lose weight"

Coincidentally, the three of them braved boss disapproval in 2006 by taking leave at the same time to go for a long holiday in Philippines. Now they are all gaining weight at the same time, despite being on three different continents.

A trivial: At the top of a mountainous area (Sagada), they found a western eatery which served big helpings of yummy stuff... that was also when the potahto friendship started. Just look at the size of the serving!

technical

My female owner is super pissed with British Airways Customer Service.

She called them last week to change her flight back to Singapore. Being indecisive, she asked if she could hold the booking for a while first. The guy said yes, he could hold the booking until 27 May and the cost to change her flight would be S$75, with no additional service charge.

She called back today and wanted to confirm her flight back. The guy (another one) said the booking has been cancelled and to get back the same flight, it would cost more, because the class of travel would change and the ticket needs to be reissued etc.

The fact that the booking was cancelled and that the second guy just went on about the booking being cancelled without explaining to her HOW that happened pissed my female owner off a great deal. To get back the same flight arrangement (through no fault of hers) would now cost her S$75 (change of flight) + S$50 (service charge) + S$9 (increase in tax) + S$50 (change of cost of flight). Not to mention the 40mins of her life wasted, ding-donging with the second guy who actually told her to listen to him (repeat himself so many times without really saying anything new)?!?! He actually said that the first guy did not give her a timeframe (e.g. 10am) to confirm the booking, although he did give her a dateframe (27 May), that’s why her booking was cancelled by the system?!?! Is he trying to get technical with her or what? So was she wrong to assume that she could call back anytime during office hours on 27 May to confirm her booking?

Super annoyed by now, my female owner then went online to BA website and changed the flight details herself – at a cost of S$125 (S$50 more than if she had confirmed last week). A reasonable priced lesson in being decisive I must say.

outwit

I heard that my female owner has given up trying not to put on weight. She decided that she has enough things on her plate (pun NOT intended) to manage, and trying to eat healthily is just going to zap up her limited time, brain cells and resources. Besides, winter is coming and she really needs to insulate herself from the cold.

Anyway, her restless eyes spied this "fight your urge to eat" article and she decided that if she can't benefit from the information (she tried some of the strategies even before reading this article), someone else might.

10 Ways to Outwit Your Appetite
You don't have to be smarter than a quiz-show fifth-grader to learn how to control the urge to eat. Just follow these ingenious tips to keep your appetite under wraps:

• Feed it protein for breakfast.
You'll be less hungry later on and end up eating 267 fewer calories during the day. At least that's what happened on days when St. Louis University researchers gave overweight women two scrambled eggs and two slices of jelly-topped toast for breakfast rather than about half that protein.

• Make it climb a flight of stairs.
At home, store the most tempting foods way out of reach. For instance, Cornell University food psychologist Brian Wansink, PhD, keeps his favorite soda in a basement fridge. "Half the time I'm too lazy to run down there to get it, so I drink the water in the kitchen."

• Sleep on it.
People who don't get their 8 hours of ZZZs experience hormonal fluctuations that increase appetite, report researchers.

• Give it something else to think about.
When scientists scanned the brains of people eating different foods, they found that the brain reacts to fat in the mouth in much the same way that it responds to a pleasant aroma. So if you feel a craving coming on, apply your favorite scent.

• Never let it see a heaping plate.
The more food that's in front of you, the more you'll eat. So at a restaurant, ask your waiter to pack up half of your meal before serving it to you, then eat the extras for lunch the next day.

• Put it under the lights.
You consume fewer calories at a well-lit restaurant table than you do dining in a dark corner. "In the light, you're more self-conscious and worry that other patrons are watching what you eat," explains Wansink.

• Talk it down.
Entertaining friends with a great story doesn't give you much time to eat up, so you'll probably still have food on your plate when they're done. Once they're finished, call it quits, too.

• Offer it a seat.
If you sit down to snack -- and use utensils and a plate -- you'll eat fewer calories at subsequent meals.

• Satisfy it with soup.
Start lunch with about 130 calories worth of vegetable soup and you'll eat 20% fewer calories overall during lunch, say Penn State experts.

• Give it little choice.
Packages that contain assorted varieties of cookies, candy, dips, cheese, etc., make you want to try all the flavors. The effect is so powerful, says Wansink, that when people are given 10 colors of M&Ms to munch on, not 7, they eat 30% more!

professor

My female owner finally had a chat with one of her professors today. This professor is an interesting character. Everyone is scared of him. He’s an Asian who speaks in a non-Aussie slang (my female owner does not know which country he is from but his aura certainly reminds her of her flute teacher - better not step on his toes). For this reason or otherwise, most Aussies hate his teaching style while most Asians like his style. My female owner, of course, likes his style.

My female owner found out through the chat that most of the clinical psychologists in Singapore whom she knows or worked with before, were once his supervisees.

My female owner has been in a fix over what she wanna research on for her thesis (yes, on top of her current back-breaking workload, she has to think about her thesis topic). She wanted to do something with adolescent psychopathology but not many lecturers specialise in that area. The only person available proposed a super tedious research methodology that involved watching and coding video recordings of real clinical sessions. However, this project has the potential to make its impact internationally, due to the subject matter.

At the same time, she also wanted to do something more Asian (to make herself more marketable should she return to Singapore to work). That would mean working under this professor. My female owner has nothing against this professor but am just wondering if she should just follow the crowd and get him to be her supervisor.

Upon hearing her sharing, the professor told her in a cryptic yet direct way that “your goal is to complete the course in three years. The research topic doesn’t matter. It’s the process that matters”. Hmmm…

congruent

Research suggests that what you recall is congruent to your mood. So for example, if you are feeling sad, you would tend to recall sad things and vice versa. That’s probably why when couples quarrel, they only remember all the “bad” things that the other party did.

Since my female owner is in a dampened mood these days, she’s obviously recalling only sad times in her life. One big “sad time” was the day she left Singapore to go over to Brisbane. She started tearing the moment she sat in her father’s car, heading towards the airport. The struggle of trying not to cry and finding out that the more you try, the more you cry is an emotional memory that would remain etched in her mind for a long time to come. Being surrounded with her friends at the airport helped to distract her emotionally but again, she started crying in the aeroplane…and confirming the observation that the more you try to stop crying, the more you cry (it didn’t help that her mother was seated next to her).

She wishes with all her heart that she won’t go through such emotionally distressing episodes again. With that in mind, she’s starting to feel apprehensive about coming back in July. For after reunion, there would be separation again, except that this time, it would be for a longer period. I wonder how my siblings will respond too.

absence

My female owner freaked out her parents by going missing online since Wednesday. Her mother (an woman of great anxiety) resorted to sending her an email yesterday morning to ask if she was ok and set a time for MSN video-conference last night.

And so, I finally heard my female owner’s voice after an absence of 4-5 days. Don’t think she’s in a good mood, coz she didn’t ask about us. In fact, her mother took the initiative to tell her about us - that we have all been well...and greedy.

Not good.

wedding

Today is a special day. It’s my female owner’s closest couple-fren’s wedding! My female owner can’t help but try to imagine the happenings in Singapore, all the way from the morning, when the groom tries to break into the bride’s house, to the tea ceremony, and the banquet dinner.

Thinking of them brings a smile to my female owner (and me too!). Sweet memories of their friendship, love and support through all these years fill her heart. They don’t really spend a lot of time together, but they are certainly people who would rush to her side when she’s in crisis.

Seems like just yesterday when they announced that they were getting married on 24 May. In a way, their announcement in June 07 was a catalyst for my female owner to move on with her life, alone. For a long time, my male owner had been iffy about his career plans and their future. My female owner decided that it was time to stop giving him elastic deadlines to get his act together, and to move on with her study plans. If only she had been firmer and more decisive earlier on… maybe she would have completed her studies and be back with us already.

If my female owner were at the wedding, I believe she would have shed tears of joy for her closest couple-fren. Wishing them a lifetime of marriage bliss, joy and undying love.

home

My female owner’s housemate forgot to bring out her keys with her today. Hence, she asked my female owner to let her know when she reached home, so that my female owner could open the door with her.

Reaching home, my female owner smsed her to inform that she had reached home. That simple act once again brought about memories of the past, when my owners were together. Everyday/ night when my female owner reached home from her day’s activities, she had to sms my male owner to let him know that she was home. If she was already home, but decided to go out for a late-night supper, she would still have to sms him again when she reached home, regardless of the time.

My female owner initially protested at this requirement. She saw it as in infringement of her freedom. However, my male owner explained that he would only be at ease when he knew that she was safe at home. This was largely true, coz without fail, he would wait for her to reach home, before turning in for the night. The flip side of it was that, during disagreements, he would blame her for keeping him awake at night, waiting for her to reach home from her night of fun (thus causing him to be tired the next day).

My female owner felt indignant about being blamed as she would be perfectly happy if he went to sleep without waiting for her to reach home. Certainly, not having to sms anybody that she had reached home was one of the things she adjusted to quite easily after being single again.

stock-take

My female owner has been hiding recently. On MSN that is. After a harrowing week of client terminations (the other family had to stop due to financial constraints), trying to reach potential clients for more than a week (sounds like insurance agent) and learning that her parents-client separated (so drama!), she’s just so not in the mood to chat.

It’s the high stress/ anxiety period where everyone’s trying to complete their assignments, clock client hours and prepare for exams.

During bible study group just now, someone shared about studying for exams and for a short moment, maybe 10 seconds, my female owner heard herself asking herself (yah I know, sounds as if she has spilt-personality) why she put herself in such a situation (being stressed over exams) again. What was so bad about working that she gave up a relatively carefree life to pursue something so restrictive?

Ah, she stopped herself from ruminating further to prevent a downward spiral into depression. Just to procrastinate doing work, she decided to do a stock-take of what she has to complete before she can fly home.

Coursework:
29 May – Triple P role play assessment (30%)
30 May – One video-recording of a CBT session to be assessed by supervisor for a pass (unable to do for the moment since she has no adult client - need to get an extension)
30 May – Written critique of the above mentioned video (pass/fail)
2 Jun – Case formulation essay (60%)
5 Jun – Case study essay, based on an adult intake interview (40%)
16 Jun – Triple P exam (40%)
17 Jun – Psychopathology exam (60%)
30 Jun – Ethics essay (50%)

Clinical work:
6 Jun – Mid-internship review (pass/fail)
23 Jun – Multi-Station Assessment Test; 3 stations; formulation, assessment and therapeutic processes (although it’s pass/recycle, if you fail twice, you need to repeat the internship)
Weekly group supervision – no stress
Weekly individual supervision – high stress
Record keeping of weekly supervision
Record keeping of clinical practice (not done since day 1)
Core competencies to sign off (not done since day 1)
Internship folio – to be updated on-the-go (not much done so far)
Remaining supervision hours to clock: 21hrs (29hrs clocked so far)
Remaining client contact hours to clock (in 6 weeks – impossible!): 66hrs (34hrs clocked so far)
Not to mention, session preparation for each of the 66hrs
End-internship review (pass/fail)


Keep those chocolate chip cookies coming! She needs all the energy and comfort food she can lay her hands on to stay sane and alive!

termination

My female owner’s anxious client terminated on her today. He called up the clinic to leave a message for her.

I suppose it’s hard not to take it personal whenever a client terminates on you. It didn’t help that the clinic secretary gave her a stern look as she passed the message to her.

Was it something you said or did during the session? Or was it something you should have said or done which you didn’t? Or was it some client factor like motivation or some extenuating factor like lack of finances?

My female tried to remind herself not to take it personal, coz there could be a whole host of reasons for client termination. However, it would still be important to do some self-reflection to see what she can learn from this experience. I know that there are a lot of things she would have done differently if she had the chance to redo the two sessions she had with him.

As a matter of practice, she called the client (crossing her fingers that he would be willing to talk to her) to check on him. His reason was “I’m feeling much better” already. In his usual sweeping style, he said that he was “taking control of his destiny” and taking steps to get a job.

Then it dawned upon her that there was a similar instance in the past when he tried hypnotherapy once and he discontinued after 2 sessions (out of 4), because he “felt better”. A way of rationalising to help herself feel better?

cake

Besides trying to follow a cooking recipe today, my female owner also had plans to try baking a cake. Her maiden attempt! The recipe was courtesy of her Onli Fren who had painstakingly typed it out over MSN a few weeks ago.

As luck would have it, her bible study fren who came over to her house for a meeting (and the all important weighing scale) in the evening was early. Since there was still time, she readily agreed to guide my female owner through her maiden attempt.

Holding the mixer in her hand was really nostalgic for my female owner as she was cued to recall the times when she helped her mother mix the batter for all sorts of recipes – pineapple tarts, peanut cookies, fruit cake, pandan cake etc etc… Thinking back, those must have been precious moments, when mother and child worked together to make something good for everyone else. Maybe she would bake a cake for her dad’s birthday.

Anyway, the cake turned out respectable (meaning that it was okay enough to offer her friends who were at her house later, actually, they were all forced to try her cake. Wahaha). My female owner didn’t manage to take a photo of the whole cake… but here’s part of it.

Pear Chocolate Cake served with Chocolate Sauce. Old-time friends would be able to recognise what the doodle means. Second Onli Fren - this was written with you in mind. Onli Fren - now my female owner can call you Cuppie Pear Chocolate Cake!

macaroni

One of my female owner's goals is to cook something new every week. This week, she decided to do up a Stir-fried Macaroni (with chicken). She not only loves pasta, she has a thing for macaroni (particularly because of what it's called in Chinese - tong-xin fen). Here's what it's supposed to look like (the ones sold in Singapore, especially in Malay stalls also look something like that).

Here's how hers turned out. =(

For one, she couldn't find macaroni in the supermarket, so she bought large shells. At least it looks more similar than spirals or bow-ties! Then, she decided not to use chicken but crab-meat and scallops. The household meal criteria states that there needs to be a veggie dish as well. So she upped the proposed "2 tomatoes" of the original recipe to include other things like mushroom (are fungus veggie?), carrot and chye sim. She didn't have seasoning soy sauce so that probably accounted for the pale colour.

She was supposed to cook for 3 persons, but ended up with so much ingredients (she also used the entire packet of shells which apparently serves 5) that she didnt have a wok big enough to do her stir-fry. So she struggled to mix the ingredients into the pot of pasta and erm... ended up what you see above. She found her dish quite odd - the ingredients were highly flavoured (oyster sauce, soy sauce and sugar) while the shells were more bland (just ketchup). Would have been better if she could mix the two together properly.

Some lessons she learnt:

• When the packaging says "Serves 5", it really serves 5. So either estimate properly or get a bigger wok!
• Use more oil. She was so reluctant to use oil (think "fattening") while stir-frying the ingredients that she ended up having to add water to the ingredients and they started to look weird.. especially when the eggs went in as well.
• Get seasoning soy sauce.

questions

After practicing as an intern psychologist for a few weeks, my female owner mused that her clients pay her to ask questions that they have to answer themselves.

If there’s one thing which my female owner can wish for, it is the ability to ask the right questions. Questions that would help to clarify matters, questions that would create positive ambivalence in the receiver, questions that would bring the subconscious into awareness. Asking the right questions can help to zoom into the main issues and help the receiver to confront issues that he had been avoiding.

My female owner is not one to ask (many) questions. Growing up in an Asian culture, she has been well trained not to ask questions and to accept things as they are. Keeping questions to herself meant that she would somehow rationalise the answers by making naïve assumptions.

Feedback from her clinical supervisor constantly revolved around one issue – being able to get specific details on the client’s presenting problems. Again and again, my female owner was unable to grasp the full understanding of the problem because she didn’t ask the right questions or didn’t ask enough of the right questions.

The art of asking questions. A gift that my female owner urgently needs.

healing

Remember the 5-liner email my female owner’s brother sent her?

My female owner replied with a 500-word email (see the stark difference between siblings?!) on the same day.

8 days later (on Monday), he replied with a 7-liner email.

My female owner with another 500-word email (its purely coincidental, approximate lengths of both replies). She expected a reply few weeks down the road. Surprise, surprise, he replied late Monday night, with about 12-lines.

Wahaha. He’s really improving eh. My female owner’s mother used to compare their personalities and said that he’s the introvert whereas my female owner is the extrovert. But since my female owner is really an introvert (she doesn’t like big groups very much and would exhibit some social avoidance behaviour at random times), her brother must be really the introvert of introverts.

He never really paid much attention to us, when he was living at home. We turtles kinda shared our Balcony (how generous of us!) with his guinea pigs and single hamster. He had three pigs. For some reason, he bought two males and one female. You can imagine how traumatised the female pig was. She was proliferating like crazy! The baby pigs were cute, but we turtles were never allowed to go near them. Oh well. The mother pig eventually died at childbirth.. right in the middle of our Balcony!

Anyway, my female owner was really happy to be on “talking terms” with her brother. To begin with, two introverted siblings meant that they hardly talked. The huge age gap also made it difficult for them to find common grounds. But then again, there are mixed-sexes siblings who get along really well. I heard that her decision to enter into a relationship with my male owner created a great rift between them years ago, coz her brother was harsh towards my male owner and my female owner felt slighted.

So you see, that relationship really cost my female owner a lot in terms of family ties, time, mental health, spiritual walk, friends maybe, wasted opportunities (but without the relationship, there won’t be us and you won’t be reading this!). For instance, she delayed going for her postgraduate studies for my male owner and even changed church to one which my male owner felt comfortable in.

Back to the siblings. My female owner used to think that the only time they would communicate would probably be when something bad happens to the family. She was sort-of right. Christmas 2006, her mother was rushed to the hospital and that was when they spoke more than 2 sentences to each other. After that, it was back to baseline.

Perhaps coming here, across two continents, this would be the beginning of the healing for both of them?

trip

My female owner had an abrupt end to her weekend when she woke up yesterday at about 1230hr to find that none of her electrical points were working. In case you are wondering what a sloth she is, to wake up so late, she slept at about 0600hr, when the sky started to light up. Apparently it was raining the whole night and the sound of rain was so comforting and nostalgic that she didn’t feel sleepy. So she kept going at her assignments and eventually decided that it was time to reward herself. She caught up with the female half of her closest couple-friend and chatted with her for more than a hour or so. She had been meaning to do that before the couple-friend gets married this week (yay!). After that, it became so cold that she couldn’t really move from her desk (wahaha. Hibernation mode)

She didn’t think too much about the power trip and left hurriedly for church. Coming back home from dinner after church, her housemates and her tried all ways and means to revive the power points but to no avail. Although everyone was calm, the thought of not being able to do their work (on the laptop) lingered at the back of their minds. When it became obvious that they were not able to troubleshoot the problem (thankfully non power points like the ceiling lights, hot water and stove were in order), the three of them changed their study plans.

One went to bed.
The other read a couple of articles and retired early so that she could wake up early on Monday.
My female owner did some non-laptop work, like preparing for her final group session and tidied her notes.

She also turned in before 12 midnight. It’s amazing how quickly she can tweak her body clock back to normal!

cheers!

My female owner initiated a video conference with her father today! It’s so rare to see her being proactive in making contact. Even her Second Onli Fren had highlighted a few times in the past that she was always asking my female owner out and hardly the other way round. After those few times of feedback, she gave up trying to get my female owner to be more proactive.

It was good to hear my female owner’s voice again. She sounded happier and more relaxed. The last time her mother spoke to her sometime along this week, my female owner was all snappy and prickly. Guess staying at home today did her good.

I know she’s more calm, also because she asked about us. Asking about us, I realised, is an indication of her mood. She sounded horrified to hear that her father had been happily feeding us, so much so that the food which is meant to last till June, is fast depleting.

Yeah, we are also growing fat and round… just like her. Some physical (and emotional) ties cannot be broken even if we are continents apart. Cheers!

imagine

After so many days of rushing, my female owner finally had a day where she could just stay home.... and do some work... (without rushing from place to place). So she stayed home happily all day to work on her assignments (i.e. non-clinical work). She was even reluctant to leave her house to post a letter, a 5-min walk away. Thankfully her house-mate was going out and helped her with the posting.

Anyway, the weather had been turning a little wet these days and about 5pm today, when the sun was setting, it started to pour. My female owner couldnt help but mavel at how the sky turned golden as a result of the rain and the setting sun. She tried to capture the sight on her trusty chio camera, but failed to replicate what she saw (just use your imagination to cast a golden hue over the photo..)

Then she went back to her work and for some reason, a few minutes later, she looked up and saw the the sky had turned red. Now, that was strange, coz the sky was supposed to turn dark since the sun was setting. She looked around, and to her amazement, saw a mega big rainbow behind her just outside her window. Again, she tried to capture the sight as it was, but failed to get the right setting.. The rainbow was too big to be captured anyway..

round face

People say that babies like round things and that people with round faces look more friendly. My female owner attests to that. She has noticed that babies take to her readily, even though she ignores them. For example:

• Baby was at a table 2m away from female owner at a coffeeshop in Singapore. Baby kept looking at her. Female owner had no choice but to smile back and make faces at Baby. Baby kept looking and started to smile and laugh. Baby got so amused and kept laughing. He didn’t want to eat….and got scolded by mother.
• Female owner was in the bus. Baby was sitting diagonally across from her, 1.5m away. Baby kept looking. Female owner had to do as above. Baby started to smile…and female owner missed her bus stop.

I’ve said this a few times, that my female owner feels like a fish out of water, working at the parenting and family clinic, as she has minimal experience with children and parents. She’s really more into animals. But that’s precisely why she chose to be there anyway. She wanted to try out new things (she gets a kick making things difficult for herself).

This week, she had her parent-clients bring in their children for observations. In total, she saw a 3-yr-old child with autism, a sibling pair (brother, 7; sister, 5), and a pre-teen girl (9-yr-old).

The mother of the pre-teen girl was highly anxious about leaving the girl alone with my female owner, coz she felt that her daughter was not going to say anything more than “good, thanks”. That was exactly what happened, when my female owner spoke to her daughter in the presence of her parents and the mother gave my female owner a knowing look. Then, the parents left the room to allow some individual time. Using the tips she read from a book on how to interview children, she started her very first child interview. Some tips include

• Start with the positives – ask about school and what the child likes about it.
• Praise the child constantly for sharing – “that’s very nice of you to tell me that”. The power of praise cannot be emphasised more. It works really well with children (and adults of course). Just remember that you need to be specific about what the child did well.
• Express interest in what the child is sharing – “that’s really interesting”
• Check if the child is comfortable sharing potentially sensitive things – “is it okay if I ask about….?”
• Thank the child if she agrees – “thank you so much for allowing me to….”
• Mirror the child’s body language – this girl was apparently spilling her arms over the arms of the sofa, so my female owner went down to her level and she noticed the girl relaxing even more
• Maintain eye contact

The little girl ended up talking so much that her father knocked on the door to check if things were ok. After the session, she drew some pictures for my female owner to see. The mother must have been quite impressed (esp when she found out that the girl asked her father whether she would be seeing my female owner again) coz she joked about having my female owner over as a baby-sitter.

It must have been the round face. See? Putting on weight is good after all. Now my female owner has a rounder than round face which makes it even easier for her to connect to children.

irony

In a small town, a person decided to open up a brothel, which was right opposite to a church. The church & its congregation started a campaign to block the brothel from opening with petitions and prayed daily against his business.

Work progressed. However, when it was almost complete and was about to open a few days later, a strong lightning struck the brothel and it was burnt to the ground.

The church folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, till the brothel owner sued the church authorities on the grounds that the church through its congregation & prayers was ultimately responsible for the destruction of his brothel, either through direct or indirect actions or means.

In its reply to the court, the church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection that their prayers were reasons for the act of God. As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork at the hearing and commented: "I don't know how I'm going to decide this case, but it appears from the paperwork, we have a brothel owner who believes in the power of prayer and we have an entire church that doesn't."

friends

My female owner is a chronic contemplator. She thinks about things (not necessarily deeply) all the time. Most of the time, it's because she can't make up her mind on issues. The flavour of the moment – drifting away from friends whom you were once close to. The topic was sparked off through an exchange with an ex-colleague.

Being a long time resident in the Balcony (about 5-6 years), I have seen many of my female owner’s friends. (We live very near her first church, so her church friends used to pop over all the time. Her house was even used as a bible study venue. Highly popular, due to the prime location and yummy suppers prepared by her mother.) Some of her friends kept appearing for a period of time, never to be seen again. Some of them came once or twice (during a special occasion) and I never saw them again. Others, like Onli Fren, Second Onli Fren come a few times/ year, over the years I’ve stayed here. Some, I’ve never seen before, but I know they exist – like Potahto and Functional Fren (they dragged her home before).

Among all these friends, there were some whom she used to be really close to, but alas, over time and distance, they drifted apart. It’s sad, doesn’t it? People who used to mean so much to you, cease to matter in your daily life.

My female owner does not know how long she will be in Brisbane but reckons that it won’t be for more than 5 years. In other words, this stage of her life is transitory. So she has to make the most out of it while she’s “living her dream”. She then wonders about the friendships she would have made by then.

While she hopes not to lose any, she wonders how many she will be able to maintain… and which ones would cease to exist (sadly) when she leaves?

left behind

Nanook, my sister, has been having issues of abandonment and separation anxiety. First, our male owner left us without saying goodbye (he didn't even try to claim us! the only thing he wanted back was his black jacket. can you beat that?? he valued his jacket more than us!)

Then our female owner left us. Although she did say a protracted goodbye, she left us with bleeding nails the day she left.

Now, my female owner's mother is away on holiday.

We are left behind... with my female owner's father. Nanook doesn't do well with such changes. She thinks that no one is going to feed her..

peek

My female owner has her own version of weekly therapy sessions. She meets with her clinical supervisor at 1400hr every Wed (yes, right in the middle of the week!) to discuss her cases and get clinical guidance. The supervisor plays many roles - therapist, teacher, mentor, role model, critique. And after each session, my female owner writes up a supervision record, detailing what was discussed (parallels her client session notes).

I managed to get a peek into the latest one (today's). It's pretty boring.. unless you are a parent.. Here's a portion of what she wrote (hope she doesn't use what she learns on us):

Intake interviews

• It is very important to get specific examples of problem behaviours. This includes what happened before, during and after the event: sequence of behaviour, what did the parents do/ respond? Is this a typical occurrence, how often does it happen, how long does it last etc?
• Check for level of severity: e.g. no of times/ day. For compliance, ask “out of 10 instructions, how many will she obey?” Need to ascertain baseline/ percentage. Also, note whether instructions tend to be repeated.
• From the information gathered, we will know more about parenting styles, perpetuating factors (e.g. accidental rewards through screaming, being yelled at by parents as a form of getting attention, modelling parents’ behaviours), precipitating factors etc. Only then can we do an accurate formulation. We cannot base our formulation on speculation.
• When giving feedback/ discussing about problem behaviours, use behavioural descriptors such as “yell”, “scream” and not labels like “temper tantrums”, “emotional outburst”, “rude”. Make sure that you state things as they are. Be objective.
• Do a reality-check on parents’ perceptions. Sometimes they may exaggerate, sometimes they under-estimate. Never take anything at face-value. Use the information given to identify the underlying mechanisms that perpetuates the problem behaviours (e.g. inconsistent discipline resulting in accidental rewards? Escalation traps?).
• When parents use labels, clarify: e.g. “what does being ‘rude’ look like?” What was said? How was it said (tone/ volume of voice)? What happened after that?
• Get parents to talk through how they use rewards and punishments with the child. The strategies have been shown to work. If they don’t, it usually means that something has not been done correctly. So need to identify those areas with the parents.

School observations

• Need to be done before seeing the child in the clinic
• Consider what information you need and whether you can obtain it from other means (e.g. parents or teachers – usually a very good and reliable source of information).
• Sometimes you may not get to observe what you intend to observe (e.g. interaction with peers)

Parent-child observations

• Main consideration: setting up a social interaction that is able to answer the questions that you want.
• Younger children: play and clean up. Check for things like no of instructions given, no of instructions repeated, praise, delay in responding to misbehaviour
• Older children: problem solving/ discussion. Get parents to come up with a list of problems to discuss while you interview the child to get his perspective on things. At the end of the time with the child, help him to generate 2-3 problems that he would like to discuss with his parents. Put the family together in the room and observe them from the point where they decide what to discuss (one from child and one from parents). Max 15mins of observation.
• Use the questionnaires to decide what you want to focus/ keep track on.

Interviewing children

• For children less than 7, the process of interviewing is more important than the content of what they say (because they may not be able to articulate their responses in a manner that you will want them to). They may provide trivial answers to your question (e.g. if you have a magic wand and can change anything about your family, what would it be?).
• For younger children, you may be able to get the answers you want from their care-givers. So you may not need to interview them. Interviews will be about 10mins. For older children, it would be about 20mins.
• Observe the way they interact with you: eye contact, posture, ability to follow instructions etc. Especially if you are looking out for symptoms of autism or ADHD.
• Can get the child to draw his family: observe the way he holds the pen, how he starts on the drawing.
• Externalising children would not see their behaviours as a problem, because they get what they want. Their parents would see their behaviours as problematic.
• Internalising children may have more insight, as they do not get what they want. Hence, their answers may provide more information to what they are feeling.

Sharing of assessment findings

• Use information from: Intake interview with the parents, interview with the child, questionnaires, parent-child observations, school reports, information/ reports from other mental health professionals.
• Look out for consistencies in data (e.g. laxness vis-à-vis intake interview) and discrepancies.

Report writing

• Need to be comprehensive in the report by including the background of the child’s problem behaviour. Otherwise, it may create confusion when other people try to interpret the report later on. Numbers, without any context, don’t mean anything.

Case formulation

• Check if problem behaviour occurs across different contexts (school, family, outdoors) or only in the home à what is the underlying issue?
• Consistency of problem behaviours across different contexts suggest a disorder (e.g. biological causes)
• If it’s happening only in the home, then environmental factors may be more important (medication may lose its effectiveness over time)
• Need specific examples in order to formulate

let go

My female owner has reached a stage where she has learnt to let go of:

• Perfectionism – in times like this, doing good enough will get her further and keep her going longer than doing her best
• Planning ahead – she’s fighting fire with her workload, that it’s often just before the appointment/ class that she is able to prepare or complete the needful “good enough”
• Dysthymia – amazingly, given that she has more compelling reasons now to let the blues get to her. The busyness drives her to do as much as she can, given her limited time and brain cells. No time to waste brooding over possibilities.
• Unrealistic expectations – Prioritising and focusing on a few things will develop her skills much better and faster than trying to “stretch herself thinly” (as what her ex-boss used to say, but that was in the context of her multiple interests in aikido and flute…)
• Anxiety – It’s tiring to be anxious. Just take things as they come... as best as possible.

Her coursemates have been complaining bitterly about how the programme has been structured. Not only do they have to juggle a full coursework load (assessments, essays, role-play assessments, exams, readings, class presentations) with clinical work (that comes along with assessments, write-ups, case presentations, video reviews, readings, paperwork, research), they also need to keep records of almost everything they are doing. Everything adds up to more than no social life. When they compare the programme with other universities, they realised how other universities arrange their programme in a more optimal fashion (such as covering all the coursework first or requiring less direct client hours in accordance to the state’s registration board).

During class presentations, they openly talk about being just like their clients – low mood, stressed, anxious, not having enough sleep, binge-eating, improvements in symptoms when they do therapy on themselves.

My female owner reckons in a dark humour way, that the school is trying to get their students to experience the symptoms that their clients are having. On the serious side, it’s really scary for my female owner and she’s trying not to think about it. She found out today that someone in the cohort before hers could not pass the end-of-internship assessment despite retaking it and left the course. The person (whoever she is) is a Singaporean.

tough tongue

My female owner's mother has a tough tongue but a very soft heart. She examplifies "her bark is worse than her bite". Having worked all her life in a psychiatric hospital, taking care of patients with schizophrenia and the like, it's easy to understand why she needs to have a tough tongue.

My female owner often joked that her mother brought her up, treating her like one of her patients. Oh, the rod was never spared. In fact, there were more than one lying around the house. Hmm.. somehow that translate into how my female owner tries to discipline us turtles. Whenever we do something wrong (yes, we make mistakes as pets too... usually it's about pooing or peeing indiscriminately around the house), my female owner would rap our shells to let us know we did something wrong. Sometimes, she may hit us on our heads too, causing us to retract our heads in shock. But we never change our behaviour. Wahaha. It's turtles' rights to poo and pee anywhere.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that, although my female owner's mother had been telling her not to come back in July, the moment my female owner confirmed that she would be coming back, her mother immediately swung into action to check out airfares for her. Apparently she did not want to pressurise my female owner to come back, in case my female owner could not complete her work over in Brisbane. That's why she told my female owner not to come back (but secretly hoped otherwise?)

routines

My female owner doesn’t stick to routines very well. Save for responsibilities (like work commitments) and obligations (like promises), she operates in a free-spirited and spontaneous fashion. Ask her out late at night, she would probably say “Onz! What time and where?” Bored on a Saturday afternoon? She would come out for coffee if she’s available.

When it came to church and bible study in Singapore, she operated in a somewhat similar (but opposite) fashion – she attended whenever she felt like it, to a point when she stopped attending bible study altogether. So coming to Brisbane, I must say that she has been pretty consistent in attending church and bible study these past 3 months. *applause*

Anyway, her bad habit of missing church came back again as she was struggling to write an IQ assessment report early Sunday morning (0100ish). The heaps of things she need to complete by the end of Sunday kept weighing on her mind. Look at the state of her room now and you can more or less figure out her state of mind.

Her study area. A far cry from the big work area she's used to.

Struggling through her IQ report, wtih reference materials spilling all over. Literally left, right, centre (and front even).

She started to tell God, “God, sorry if I don’t go church today, I really cannot make it already. I’m so far behind my work. I haven’t decided yet, but if I don’t go, I’m sorry.”

And she gave up trying to figure out how to interpret the scores and went to bed, determined to wake up at 0900hr to continue her quest. Just minutes after she woke up, one of her church friends messaged her. The friend wanted my female owner to try her cooking (in preparation for a surprise party next week) and asked her if she could meet earlier for lunch (church service starts at 1530hr). My female owner knew, deep in her heart that it was God’s gentle way of nudging her back to Him.

She definitely did not regret spending those hours in church today. I know, coz she looked calm when she was talking to her family just now.

brother

My female owner had been meaning to send her brother an email but, yes you guessed it, she sat on her “meaning” for so long that her brother finally sent her an email today. It’s so embarrassing.

So anyway, her brother, being the introverted man, wrote a grand total of 5 sentences in the email. In three of the sentences, it was about her coming back for their father’s 60th birthday in July and he offered to subsidise her airfare.

Wow! First he got her a laptop to bring over to Brisbane and then now, he offered to subsidise her airfare. He had never been so proactive in reaching out to her before. The siblings are generally “quiet lovers”. That sounds a bit wrong, but what I mean is that, they don’t demonstrate their love for each other in overt ways.

My female owner felt really touched by his offer. She was also shocked, coz she had just started praying to God to provide the finances to fly home. (She never really expected a positive answer apparently). Anyway, she rejected her brother's offer of assistance (then pray for what right? she's so strange!).

The email, though short,… cemented her decision go home in July! YEAH!!! My female owner is coming home! Bring out the champagne! Chicken wings! And fries!

clothes

It’s amazing how quickly my female owner forgets what she used to wear for work. She spent about an hour on video-conference with her mother. You see, her neighbour would be coming to Brisbane shortly and my female owner wanted her mother to pack some clothes for her neighbour to bring over. So Mother started prancing in front of the camera (very patiently I must say), holding up her clothes one at a time, asking “what about this black top?”, “what about this beige dress?”

And my female owner went “what beige dress?”,

When the beige dress came to sight, “oh! That one.” (and it was one of the dresses which she used to enjoy wearing..)

At times, she even went “oh! I didn’t know I have that”

At other times, when she can’t make out the clothes, “I don’t remember what that is, I got this meh?”

Tsk tsk, her memory is really failing her. Really out of sight, out of mind. And it has only been three months.

clinical work

My female owner finally saw all her clients for at least one session. This week has been a “full-on” (Aussie slang) week, with 4 new clients, 1 returning client and a parenting group.

My female owner says that she’s in a strange situation, because she is primarily working with parents to manage their problematic child(ren). She had lotsa cognitive dissonance about doing her internship at her present clinic because i) she has no plans to be a parent ii) she does not like children. Tripled with her inexperience, it doesn’t make her very credible, does it?

Anyway, despite the hectic week, she came out of it, loving clinical work (not because she sees other people in misery!). In the midst of the parents’ misery/ desperation, my female owner sees hope and love in their eyes. Hope that they are not too late in seeking help and love so great, that they are willing to invest time, effort and money to do something about their children. Even the anxious adult client who has been suffering from anxiety for the last 12 years said that he wants to “start living, and not just exist”. Such powerful and hopeful words, from someone who has had to cope with long-term unemployment, physical conditions and psychological distress.

She also realised the power of words spoken in due season. My female owner has always felt that talk is cheap (you know, the “action speaks louder than words” concept). She had been disappointed many times by you-know-who who promised that he would do certain things for her (even simple things like checking out the price of something) only to realise later that the promised deed was not done. So, she rather just do things, without saying anything. Of course, that led to other complications like being labeled as a cold fish or not contributing at work (“need to manage your boss”).

Anyway, as I was saying, yah, my female owner would pray for her clients, asking God to equip her with the right skills and words to speak to their situations. She started to speak words of encouragement to her clients (especially the mothers) to help them see the good that they have been doing. A lot of them blame themselves for their children's behaviours.

It’s amazing to see how simple statements that affirm the hard work they are doing and that reflect their sentiments can enable two strangers to connect and allow the clients to confront their parenting issues more openly with their partners.

reasons

Just after my female owner started work at her former workplace, she had an impromptu Macdonald’s breakfast with her immediate boss. Being Christians, they went a little beyond professional discussion to talk about why they were in the helping profession. At the end of the sharing, her immediate boss told her to write down the reasons so that in trying times, these reasons would spur her on. He also told her to find a psychologist whom she could emulate.

At the end of her 3-year career stint, my female owner failed to write down her reasons. Neither was she able to identify anyone who truly inspired her.

Going over to Brisbane, I wonder if she managed to write down her reasons for pursuing her current field (which her clinical supervisor at the mental hospital in Singapore once shared with her that it was a “toxic environment”) and/or find some inspiring clinicians to model after.

I wonder why she wants to listen to people air their problems and darkest secrets. Isn’t it very depressing, especially if you can't help them? Last time, she used to come to the Balcony in the middle of the night when she felt troubled and we had to gather round to hear her bear her heart to us (yah, Dodo made us do it... and the topic usually revolved around our male owner…). We turtles found those times traumatising.

stoned

My female owner reports having problems sleeping. Oh no. She had been mentally exhausted by today (it’s only Thursday!) and wanted to turn in early to get some mental rest. The week has been another mad rush where she hurried from class to class and client to client. With so many varied assessments and assignments, she found herself carrying heaps of books, reference materials and manuals from home to school and back to home. Her client session notes were flying in all directions and her locker was (or is?) filled to the brim with the above mentioned things.

She knew that she could not get any work done tonight, when 1) her vision starting swimming and she couldn’t focus her eyes to read her book in straight lines 2) her fingers couldn’t type out the words she had in mind. She tried sleeping early but was unable to. In other words, she was too stoned to do anything properly but unable to sleep. Her eyes were heavy and her body in screensaver mode. Ah, I think she needs to go and find something brainless to do.

Like binge-eating?

Nah, she’s probably too zonked out to find food.

high stake client

For every client session (which typically lasts 60-75mins) that my female owner has, she puts in at least twice as much time preparing for it. After seeing a few clients, she’s getting into the hang of conducting intake interviews for her parent clients. She now has to move on to the next stage of therapy – case formulation based on the information provided by her clients. That takes more brainwork apparently, coz it’s like trying to solve a mystery.

Right now, she’s preparing to do an intake interview for an adult male client she’s going to see tomorrow. It’s a “high-stake” client as it’s the only non-parent adult she would be allocated with (coz she’s actually attached to the parenting clinic but needs to work with a non-parenting adult client). Using this client, she needs to video-tape the first session and complete intake interview within one session (most newbies can’t do that because clients tend to talk too much). Then, she needs to submit the video recording to her clinical supervisor who would assess her clinical competencies. She also needs to do a case formulation of the client and present it to her supervisor for discussion in order to get a pass. Following this, she has to write up a detailed case formulation report to submit to her lecturer for marking.

Based on the same client (hopefully), she needs to video-tape a session where she is teaching him some CBT techniques and write a critique of the session before submitting it to another lecturer for marking. All these, within a very limited time frame.

High stakes indeed. I wonder how her male client would react, if he knows how much she depends on him to complete assignments across two modules (this is not even counting the internship). She should just get a friend to pretend to be a client…

Erobin

My female owner loves the beach. No holiday trip is complete, until she locates the beach and spends some time there "nuaing". Better still if she can catch the sunset. She can probably spend hours lazing on the sand, just listening to the roar of the waves and watching random things unfold around her. In fact, I heard that she used to bring her turtles to the beach (not us, the previous ones). She would build tunnels with the sand for the turtles to walk through. She stopped doing that when one of them died shortly after one such excursion. Thankfully she never brought us to the beach! I won't know where to hide from the sun.

Some of the guys in her bible study group decided to mark Labour Day (5th May) by having a BBQ at Erobin (she never heard of this place before this). Erobin is located next to the ocean. Woo hoo! My female owner had a field day. For a while, I believe she missed her Potahto Fren. I won't blame her. They had been to so many beaches together.

Map to Erobin. These guys are so organised! They had a map, driving directions, organised transport, prepared the food and went early (before 0900hr) to book a BBQ pit.

One of the first sights that greeted my female owner when she reached at 1000hr. Look at how the ocean glittered in the morning sun. The same location at about 1200hr. The guys were so sweet. Not only did they sweat it out at the BBQ pit, they even cut up the meat into smaller portions for the rest! There's something about Brisbane that makes Asian guys more gentlemanly.One of my female owner's favourite food - the trusty chicken wing. Potahto, where are you?!Because the water was so shallow, it was possible to wade out to sea, towards a distant island (not captured in the photo below). My female owner did that with two friends.Here they are, posing where the water has receded. No prizes for identifying which is my female owner.An impromptu lesson in biology. Her Intuitive Fren spotted this snail camouflaged in the sand bed while walking back to shore (the water is that clear, and his eye-sight is that good. But if you ask him how he managed to spot the sandy looking snail.. he probably says "intuition"). After lunch, my female owner wondered off to explore the area and found this location which reminded her so much of Singapore. Middle-aged men fishing at a jetty... She also recalled the times when she went for night-dives at the jetty... Those nights chit-chatting with her Second Onli Fren at various beaches..
A cloud that caught her attention. Looks like a lion, sprinting forward..

New Farm Park

Despite all the struggles of being a pseudo-student, my female owner likes living in Brisbane. She appreciates the easy access to nature. Here's one such place - New Farm Park - where roses are aplenty (unfortunately they were not really in bloom when she was there recently). She had a picnic with a small group of gals from her bible study group. Mercifully, they managed to locate the place with her at the wheel. And, they made it back home without any incidents! (the place is also easily accessible from her house by the ferry).

the customary signboard the roses were not in bloom, so use your imagination.. one of my female owner's favourite trees - Bottle Tree
although my female owner doesn't like flowers the way girls usually like them, she likes to take photos of roses in their natural environment
the roses here are so big, they remind my female owner of body scrubs

training

My female owner has been fighting fire these few weeks. She finds that she is desperately trying to complete preparing for her clients’ (e.g. reading up on their conditions, scoring test results, writing up case notes) on the eve of their appointments. No thanks to her distractibility and inability to prioritise and maybe some other unknown reason(s). Despite having a public holiday yesterday, she left for school today, totally ill-prepared for i) the class presentation ii) the parenting training she had to do today.

My female owner used to do a lot of training/presentations in Singapore. She has done training in all sorts of settings from small groups to over 200 people, from training people clueless about psychology to experts in the field. Even with such varied experiences, she finds it a big challenge to deliver good class presentations and group trainings in Brisbane. For some reason (maybe it’s a “slang” reason), she is unable to feel at ease or confident and even wonders if she is developing a phobic reaction to public speaking.

Last week, she conducted her first parenting training session and felt so lousy about it. In fact, it became quite anxiety-provoking for her, as she thinks about the future sessions she would be doing. So today, she did the next best thing (besides her usual last minute preparation in-between breaks). She prayed, committing her concerns to God.

My female owner still felt nervous and anxious while waiting for the parents to arrive. The first parent arrived, looking happy and friendly – a far cry from the grumpy man he was last week. That set her at ease somewhat and she was able to strike up a decent conversation with him.

The second parent arrived. Out of the blue, she asked my female owner “how long have you been staying in Singapore?” Now, my female owner never told her that she is a Singaporean, so that was a good conversation starter.

With such a good beginning (the clients were so much friendlier this week), my female owner started to feel more comfortable with herself and managed to pull off the second session in a more satisfying manner than the first. The joy of training is slowly returning to her. It’s amazing how a prayer can change things.

how

How do you reach out to someone who is a professional counselor by training and who is a better counselor than you are (and way smarter)? Someone who has, in several points of your life, counseled and supported you through your professional helping issues. Someone who listened as you aired your self-doubts and feelings of inadequacies. Someone who saw you through your tears (and not panic) and who could laugh with you through trying times.

Those are the questions which are swimming around my female owner’s mind as she thinks about her friend who’s struggling through his personal issues. He has taught and given her so much but she has not been able to reciprocate his actions. She wants to ask him about it, but she doesn’t know how to broach the topic. She knows he will clam up. (I’m also sad coz I owe part of my life to him.)

fix

My female owner is in a fix… sort of. Before she went over to Brisbane, she booked a return flight to Singapore for 23 June.

Now, it’s evident that she can’t go back on 23 June because she has a make-or-break assessment on that day. If she breaks, she has to redo her entire internship before she can move on to the next internship. That means being out of sync (by one semester) with the pace of the programme. She also has an assignment due on 30 Jun (but she can always submit it in earlier).

As for her internship, she has to clock 100 hours, of which she has about 10 hours. Given that end of June is about 8 weeks away, that means 90 hours in 8 weeks. That’s 11 hours of client contact hours a week. She has just started seeing clients, which means that she is unable to hit 11 hours/ week for the time being. If you get lost in the maths, that just means that she won’t be able to get 100 hours until early July.

My female owner wants to go back to Singapore in July, because it’s her father’s 60th birthday (plus she wants to meet all her friends, esp this particular friend who would be flying off to US soon). It may be possible for her to squeeze out 10-14 days to return home (it really depends on how her internship progresses) but her mother thinks that’s it’s not worth it. The air-ticket costs about $1600 now. My female owner needs to decide soon (in the midst of all the ambiguity) because she needs to book an air-ticket and of course, change the initial booking.

What do you think? Should she make plans to return? We turtles hope that she would, coz we miss her, and she stocked up enough food to last us only till June.

sleep

My female owner “sleeps like a koala, eats like a cow” – a description that was given to her by her travelling buddies during the Melbourne Escapade. Actually, she really has the “gift” of sleeping anywhere, anytime, any position, much to the envy of many around her.

However lately, she has been having problems getting good sleep. She enters into what she calls “shallow sleep”, where she wakes up every now and then from whatever dreams she was having. One reason is that the weather has turned cold and she can’t fall asleep properly. So she meanders around before entering into deep sleep. The same problem extends into the mornings, when she wakes up too early, because of the cold. She would go back to sleep but face problems later getting out of bed (not waking up) because of the cold. So although she spends more time in bed now, it’s not quality rest. In fact, there were a few times when she woke up with leg cramps (possibly because of the cold). Ah.. she sounds cold-blooded! All the fats she put on are still not enough to insulate her. Dysfunctional fats.

Oh, and the dreams she’s been having are quite scary too. Last night, she dreamt that she was back at her former workplace and she was activated to attend to a suicide case. Apparently the senior police officer (someone whom she knows, but only in the dream) had jumped off a building and eye-witnesses had seen the officer leaping into the air before being pulled down by gravity (like an inverted “U”).

binge-eating

My female owner received a revelation about her newly acquired binge-eating behaviour yesterday. God showed her that it was not the over-eating that was the problem per se, or that she’s getting weight and her clothes are getting tighter. It’s more about the function of the binge-eating that’s the problem.

You see, my female owner is one of those who will eat more when stressed. Going over to a foreign land, she has to cope with more than just stress – reversal of roles, new culture, new demands, unfamiliar surroundings, working within limited resources/ restrictions, mistakes to learn from etc etc.

Each time she feels agitated/ distressed/ disoriented, she would turn to food for comfort (probably the only constant in uncertainty – sure taste nice, and always there for her). She has been thinking of the different psychological techniques she knows and wondering which may help her overcome her binge-eating.

God then showed her that the way to stop her binge-eating is not to control her food intake through whatever techniques she knows, but to turn to Him when she feels agitated/ distressed/ distressed. For a few months, she had been turning to food as her first source of comfort. It’s time that she turns to Him first.

three years on

Has it really been three years? Three years since my female owner first got bitten by the travelling bug and on impulse, went on a backpacking trip with two friends to, of all places, Melbourne, Australia. Yes, it has been three years. Three years ago, it was also her first time visiting Australia, a country which is now her temporary home.

There’s something about travelling with male friends that makes backpacking so enjoyable. At that time, Mr K was her long-time friend (also the male half of her Closest Couple Fren) while Mr L was her short-time acquaintance. Mr K was the “middleman” in the threesome.


Despite unfamiliarity and disorganization (they didn’t plan their trip, they just adopted Mr K’s sister’s travel itinerary as she went to Melbourne one week before them), they managed to pull off the last minute holiday with great fun, laughter and memories.

Three years on, they still recount the Melbourne experience with fondness, and are forever trying to organize another trip to Australia.

Three years on, she's back to being a student, like how they were when they first got to know one another.

Three years on, they have bought houses and are getting married.

Three years on, my female owner wishes them and their partners, blissful marriages and life-time of happiness even as their respective wedding days approach.

What triggered this recollection was that my female owner just visited the Mr and Mrs L's wedding blog, and this brought her back to the Melbourne trip where she first got to know Mr L better. Being her, she spent some time looking through the photos, smiling at those memories.

She’s sorry that she can’t be with them during the most significant period of their lives. She would always treasure the good times they shared, playing badminton, dinners and suppers, durians at Seletar Dam, last minute movies. She remembers their graciousness towards her and knows that even as they are enter a different stage of their lives, their friendship will still remain an important part of her life.

round

We had some visitors today! My female owner’s paternal aunties and her niece (ie, grand daughter of one of the aunties). They haven’t seen her for three months and yes one of the first questions asked was “eh, you put on weight?”

With such a common reaction from people, my female owner has no choice but to accept reality. So her reply was “Of course lah! There are so many nice things to eat here.”

And the auntie added “your face is so round!” Oh well… round is also a shape. Perfect shape in fact. Wahaha. They say that owners will tend to look their pets after a while. I think my female owner is taking after me, with my overflowing cheeks and all.

My female owner has regressed to her undergraduate days where she was at her heaviest at more than 60kg. That was also the time when she was in the church’s dance ministry and one poor guy had to carry all 60+kg of her on his shoulders! In fact, they also had to spin together.

Perhaps it’s correlational: female owner in school ~ put on weight

The cold comfort is that some kind (and probably sympathetic) souls have been telling her that she would look better with more weight coz she had been too skinny. Actually, my female owner’s main concern is not that she has gained weight. It’s more that her clothes are getting tighter and that she may run out of clothes to wear if she continues her bingeing.

Ever heard of the saying “God, if you can’t make me thin, make all my friends fat.” My female owner is probably praying “God, if you can’t make me thin, make my clothes expand”.

bored

What do you do when you are bored? For me, today, I've decided to show you some photos of my siblings and I.

This is me on top of Nanook. That's Dona behind us. Yah, I know, I have overflowing cheeks.

Dodo, protesting at his photo being taken.

Me, under my favourite spot ("the Trolley") See how the wheels are elevated? That's because Nanook and I grew too big to crawl underneath. So my dear female owner's mother found those plastic legs to elevate the Trolley.

This is "the Shoe Rack". A favourite chillout spot for my siblings (that's why I'm not here. I prefer to be by myself under "the Trolley")

card

We received something from our female owner today! Well, not really us turtles, but my female owner’s mother. It was a Mother’s Day card! For some reason, Australian Post was really fast with the delivery. It apparently found its way here within the week. The same can’t be said for mails sent from Singapore to Australia. My female owner had to wait ages for her documents to be sent over.

I was also about to say that my female owner hardly writes any cards for her parents. In fact, the last time she did, she was probably still a child. Her parents, on the other hand, would give her birthday cards with some short personal messages on them.

My female owner used to receive them with apprehension. Coz you see, her parents didn’t approve of our owners’ relationship. So many years ago when they first started dating, her parents used to write long letters to her, expressing their disappointment and disapproval. She would come home to find letters on her bed or table. At night, one parent would knock at her door and spend the next hour talking AT her. Even the birthday cards used to have cryptic messages like “choose wisely”.

My female owner definitely caused her parents a lot of sleepless nights and grief during that turbulent period. It’s hard to really understand why my female owner chose to be with my male owner despite the opposition (if she didn’t do what she did, we won’t be here anyway). I don’t think my female owner can fully explain her decision even now.

It’s a pity that something so intimate like letter writing left her with such unpleasant memories. My female owner kept all the letters from her parents but never read the last few coz she was too tired to. The letters also stopped coming after a period of time. My female owner finally threw away the letters last year, when she was sure there was no turning back in the relationship. Oh well, that also meant she threw away all the letters and cards which my male owner gave her.