catchup

My female owner managed to catch her aikido instructor online today. He had been largely missing due to his work. Although the conversation was short, it was oozing with warmth. Ever since she left, her aikido instructor started using the term “my dear” to address her. For many reasons, it warms my female owner’s heart to hear that. And he is the only male friend whom my female owner actually says directly that “I miss you”. Although my female owner has intimacy issues, she probably found it easier to be expressive with him since he’s old enough to be her father.

At her farewell party, my female owner took this photo, to capture his hands, the hands that guided her from a white-belt who struggled through her psychomotor and visual-spatial deficits to learn the basic techniques, to her current belt (and still slow in picking up new things!). Over the couple of years, he showed her such patience and love and created so many good memories for her. At times, they would also exchange tales about their pets (i.e. his dogs and us!).

On a related note, I know my female owner still misses her aikido friends very much. The feelings intensify on Monday evenings (if she goes for aikido training in Brisbane) and every Tuesday evenings till night (coz that's the time she would be at aikido class in Singapore). She chats with her aikido friends but nothing beats training, having suppers (totally unheard of Brisbane) and going out together (not to mention, those nights at St James).

saw again

Finally! After 2 months, I saw my female owner again. She had another video conference with her parents today and requested to see us. Of all the turtles in the Balcony, her dad picked me to be beamed through the internet. I'm not sure why he chose me (again) coz Dodo and Dona are also small enough to be held up by one hand. He didn't want to bring anymore to the computer as he said that we were sleeping already. Hmmm... I think he's just too lazy. That left the rest of my siblings really crossed.

The sad thing was, my female owner couldn't recognise me! She thought I was Dodo (maybe I slimmed down?). Sob.

first time

My female owner came across wedding photos of her first ex-boyfriend on FB today (put up by his wife's sister apparently). Her first reaction was "wah! he put on weight liao, not as cute as last time." So mean right (esp when she has also put on weight). But apparently, the moment my female owner first saw him, she knew that this was the kind of guy she would like (but at that point, she never thought that they would be together). We turtles never met him before, because this thing happened about 10 years ago, before we were born. The other person who probably remembers him (besides their classmates) is my female owner's Onli Fren, who kinda evolved to be his grandmother. Hmm..strange human relationships.

Anyway, despite the breakup, I know that the two of them managed to revert to friends after a while (I mean, he's on her FB whereas my male owner is not). The three of them even met once in the late night to play pool (when no one was attached to anyone). I think my female owner was amused to see how the two men tried to outwin each other, in a battle of not just pool, but ego.

At the end of the day, my female owner feels happy that he has found someone to share his life with (although the photos were put up recently, he actually got married a few years ago), is doing very well at his career and still looking quite boyish.

grace

My female owner received a huge dose of grace today. At the 11th hour, she asked her Intuitive Fren if he was willing to be her “troublesome” guinea pig for her to practice doing an assessment on (my female owner needed to practice administering the WAIS-III - an IQ assessment which lasts for anything between 2-3 hours for a real client - for a role-play assessment this Friday).

He agreed without knowing the full extent of what he was in for (maybe he would not have agreed otherwise!) and I bet all his intuition didn’t prepare him for what was to come. 11 tests spread over 4 hours (my owner actually said she needed 2 hours), being confronted with question after question at the most inopportune time of the day (ie end of the day), having to “dumb down” but think of ways to be difficult at the same time, having dinner delayed but yet overdosing on Starburst candies, listening to my female owner’s half-past six accent (wahaha! I don’t think I will be able to recognise her voice if she doesn’t come back soon.) and trying to respond accordingly.

At the end of the prolonged session (I think my female owner lost steam faster than him), he even had the energy to provide her with feedback on the way she spoke, delivered the tests and her general posture (not to mention, also helped her with her pronunciation!). The feedback was enlightening and would definitely enable her to polish up on her professionalism and presentation skills.

Proverbs 3:5-6

It’s easy to gloss over Proverbs 3:5-6 because it is well quoted but after pondering on it for a few weeks, my female owner finally caught a revelation.

Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path.

Proverbs 3:5-6

As a “professional psychologist in training” (my female owner likes to poke fun at herself), my female owner is familiar with the distinction and yet, connection between feelings, cognitions and behaviours. That the way you think, affects the way you feel and ultimately, how you behave.

To her,
Heart = feelings and emotions
Understanding = logic, reasoning, cognitions
Ways = behaviours, actions

My female owner, as some may know by now, is prone to feeling blue because of the way she looks at things. Through this verse, she realises that she should trust God in spite of how she feels (and not based on how she feels). Also, she should not be held bondage to her logical mind (her analysis of the probability of weird things happening to her is famously pessimistic) which tends to predict how the future will pan out for her using worst-case scenarios. It has been proven so many times that God works in ways that goes beyond human logic and defies earthly probabilistic calculations. Hence, the call is for her to surrender her emotions, thoughts and behaviours to God and allowing Him to lead her.

Hence, when a dear friend/ sister-in-Christ/ aikido senior asked her today: how's things?
My female owner’s reply was: Trusting God, that’s the only way to go.

parallel universes

Out of sight but not out of mind.

My female owner has been thinking and reminiscing about Singapore recently. Besides the Taiwanese drama which sparked off thoughts of her family, the recent hub of activities in her Facebook (of which she posted my photo as her profile. Yay!) where friends added her (seeing the smiling face of the aikido senior who used to comment that she rolls like a pancake was so nostalgic) and closer friends still, commenting on the photos she put up, lead to a pensive state of being.

Often, she would wonder what she would be doing if she were still in Singapore. It’s not just thinking about the usual social activities which she would engage in - like aikido, badminton, dinners, bridge and even playing with us. Being overseas has resulted in some people talking more to her than they would have, if she were still in Singapore. While she is warmed by their concern, it inevitably also deepens her sense of loss.

It’s also about what job would she be in. For one, she would have probably resigned (again) and joined another organisation where she would be interacting more with people with real needs and issues, rather than doing meaningless paperwork, conducting questionable training courses (she’s the questionable element in the equation) and developing collaterals which get thrown away anyway.

It’s like the Sliding Door concept – she’s trying to figure out how her life would be in two parallel universes. The thing is, she would never know.

BGR

Last night, my female owner attended a BGR seminar which was organized by her church. (Wahaha. She’s still into such things?! Why did she even bother going?) A few church leaders spoke on how to choose a suitable partner based on biblical principles. The content was nothing new to her; the questions asked during the Q&A, juvenile (having “been there done that”).

At the same time, the content reminded her of the several mistakes she made in the past in this area of her life, especially the “non-negotiables” she compromised on. Although there were many times during the relationship when my female owner had a nagging feeling that one day, she would look back and kick herself for staying so long in it, my female owner refused to give up on the relationship because she thought that love would cover all cracks. Now she’s kicking herself.

Anyway, my female owner felt over-aged in that lecture theatre, which was probably filled with an audience of largely undergraduates who may not have been in any BGR before. However, she was struck by the insights and wisdom of the speakers whom she reckoned to be about the same age as her. Ah, if only she had spent her time on more worthy causes in the past. Now she feels like an immature child in an adult body.

Time to start growing up!

potahto power

Potahto found my female owner online today and sounded her out on the latest happenings. My female owner became more and more pissed as she rattled on about her grouses (according to a personality test which she once took, my female owner is High on neuroticism, i.e. very EMO). But at the end of that mini counselling session, she felt more calm and settled, even though nothing about the situation changed. Must have been such a great release for my female owner - to be able to share what's on her mind/ heart with someone who, without having to say too much, identifies with her struggles and understands the context of things.

Potahto always claims that she's lousy at counselling and hates doing it, but somehow, my female owner never fails to benefit from her counselling.

Potahto power!

ruminate

Some days are up, some days are down, some days are just upside down. My female owner hasn't been chatting online much these days. She used to initiate conversations but not anymore. She has been bogged down with stuff, whether actual or perceived.

Right now, she's in a "I-miss-my-Singapore-life;-why-did-I-ever-choose-to-come here?" mode. It all started with an insidious Taiwan drama serial which she watched yesterday. All was well and good, until there was a scene whereby the female lead laid her head on the hospital bed, next to her comatose mother. The lead was crying because the mother was diagnosed with some serious/ terminal illness.

That sparked off a whole cycle of ruminations about why she gave up a cushy life, separated from her family, friends, food, turtles (we occupy a irreplaceable position in her heart!), to come here to experience so much uncertainty, lack of control over her situations, instability, challenges, withdrawals from all things pleasurable (aikido, travelling, carefree weekends, financial freedom) and missing out on her friends' important life events like weddings, house-warmings and babies.

Instead, she has to force herself to be extroverted, making small talk with her coursemates and being perky even when she doesn't feel bubbly (she likes her coursemates very much but it's different kind of interaction from real friends). Too energy-zapping. Time passes too fast for her to enjoy non-working life (she won't even call herself a student now). If 5 weekdays days pass too fast, what more the 2 complementary weekend days?

On the other hand, she knows that there's so much in store here for her, especially in the areas of her Christian walk and development of her professional skills... but now she's so spaced out that the only thing she has energy for is rumination...

gender

A Spanish teacher is explaining "House", for instance, is feminine: "la casa". "Pencil", however, is masculine: "el lapiz".

A student asked, "Which gender is 'computer'?" Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that "computer" should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computadora"), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ("el computador"), because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;

2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;

3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

rainbows

My female owner loves rainbows. They always remind her of the hope that she can find in God. It's really a rarity to be able to spot rainbows in Singapore, and even when you do, you may not be able to see the full spectrum of colours or a reasonable arch (when you spot one, it's pretty much like a half-eaten slice of cake). I hardly see any around the Balcony anyway.

Here are some rainbows which my female owner managed to capture on her trusty camera. Remember that the rainbows look much more magnificant than what you see in the photos!

Sighted along the Brisbane River while on a boat cruise

Also seen in the sky high up above the Brisbane River (a different one)

First rainbow seen in Brisbane, outside my female owner's host's house

This was taken in June 2005, at the 12 Apostles, Great Ocean Road, Melbourne. Look at the colours!

A distant shot, trying to capture as much of the rainbow as possible. Apparantly my female owner saw two rainbows together (like a "M")

That was how s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d the rainbow was

My female owner saw this in the morning, right outside her Bed&Breakfast room at the Grampians.

The other end of the same rainbow

dear

It's heartwarming whenever someone says he/she misses you or asks when you would be coming back. My female owner has been getting a number of such phrases these days from her Singaporean friends. One friend even thought that she had been gone for six months and was shocked that it has only been 2 months. A few were counting down the days, in expectation of her return, only to realise that she may not be going back after all (we turtles are also counting down!).

Despite these close friendships, my female owner, for as long as I can remember, has intimacy issues. While in a relationship, she finds it weird to use terms of endearment like "darling", "dear", "honey" and feels awkward with public displays of affection. Even for friendships, she seldom regards people as "close" - in fact, that was how the term "Onli Fren" came about. There was a period of time when my female owner felt that she really only had one friend to turn to in times of distress. I remembered the times when she would scroll down her entire handphone contacts and found no one she felt comfortable enough calling out of the blue, when she was feeling blue.

My owners used to quarrel a great deal over her aloofness and my female owner recognised that she has to learn to be more warm in her expression of speech. So ever since she broke up, she tried to be more affectionate, using terms like "dear" with her female friends. Even then, it's only through SMS or MSN, hardly verbal. Then while she was preparing to go over to study, she realised that there were people who had always regarded her as a close friend (just that on her part, she had been too distant).

After so many months, my female owner finds it natural within her to tell her female friends voluntarily that she misses them. For male friends who ask whether she misses them, she would say "yes, I miss you ALL" - as a collective group. She still freaks out though, if they tell her that they miss her (must be PTSD from her previous relationship).

Over in Brisbane, my female owner found herself dealing with physical intimacy issues in different settings. The most scary was in social settings where the locals embrace (pun intended) a culture of hugging/ kissing. While she is alright with goodbye hugs, goodbye kisses on the face and lips really distresses my female owner (especially if the person is a male).

The other scenario which she finds herself in, is in church where there is a culture of holding hands to pray. Although she doesn't mind this, it is something which my female owner is not used to. In some casual settings, some female church friends would link arms/ hold hands with her (as young girls normally do). For this, my female owner also finds that she has to switch mentality in order to assimilate into the culture.

I think these reactions are consistent with her love language, where physical touch is ranked lowest. Hey! I sound like a therapist now. Psycho-analysing my female owner.

anxiety

My female owner drives badly. I know, coz I've been a victim of her bad driving (I almost choked to death on water, when she drove me to the vet the other time).

Recently, my female owner's Brisbane host, lent her the car (coz the host was going for an extended business trip and didn't need the car). The only condition (besides not crashing the car) is that she has to pick up some people from the Gold Coast Airport in a few weeks' time (read: 1.5hrs, 105km away).

Having had the car for a few days already, my female owner, being indecisive, pondered about whether she should drive to her aikido class. The location is just a little behind the city, which is about 15mins drive (10 km) away. After struggling the whole day (between convenience - bus would take 1.5hrs to get home - and anxiety about driving/ not knowing her way around) and checking out the directions on whereis.com, she decided to go for it.

Everything was good, heading from school to the city...until she missed a turn (for being in the wrong lane). Then it was downhill all the way... coz she didn't know her way around the vicinity. What made it difficult for her to navigate around was the fact that many roads were uni-directional or lanes were suddenly reserved for buses only. Hence, she had to make turns and detours in order to get back. She managed to get back into the city, but had to leave it, because she ended up on a lane which brought her AWAY from the city, across the the Brisbane River, into another suburb.

After the oh-shit moment, she tried to turn back, but there was no U-turn in sight. So she had to drive on and on.... You can just imagine the anxiety within her, driving around in an unknown area, with a manual car and trying to find the city map in the street directory. Things in her car started tumbling down as she tried to juggle with a number of things. In the backdrop was the colours of the setting sun and believe it or not, a rainbow!

Somehow, in the confusion, she managed to find the right map and get herself sorted out (heavy traffic helped in this case - she had time to flip through the street directory) and managed to reach her class in the nick of time... after 50mins of driving (might as well take bus).

My female owner concluded that she still has high anxiety about driving and such experiences ain't helping her overcome them. Actually, at this rate she's going, I wonder if she will make it to Gold Coast...

rendezvous

My female owner is traumatised (again). Her second holiday rendezvous at a local club ended in disaster again. The first time in Shanghai, she and her friends (potahto included) met up with a male acquaintance (Singaporean) at a club, did some crazy stuff, overdosed on alcohol and woke up swearing never to drink again. My female owner went back to Singapore, thinking that was the last she would ever hear of that guy again. The next time she knew, she found out that he's the brother of one of her ex-colleagues at her first workplace. Such a small world.

This time at Gold Coast, potahto and her also visited a local club. Mr Host's elder son kindly brough them to a club to party. History repeated itself somewhat, and they partied the night away. While partying, some random locals also took photos with my female owner. A staff member from the club also went around taking photos of their customers (i.e. a photo of three of them was taken too). Happily, they made it home without any fainting episodes and my female owner thought that that was that.

Until today... she found out from potahto that two of the photos were uploaded on the club's website. Looks like there's no running away from that night.

grump

A blurry photo of me trying to get out of the Balcony. I look grumpy because I just found out that my female owner may not be able to come back to Singapore in June. She has school commitments all the way till July and may (after attempting some schedule gymnastics) be able to sneak back for a week. A week?! That's really short. And knowing her, she would go crazy trying to meet up with different categories of friends... and leaving us turtles at home, pining for her return every night (that's also assuming she doesn't stay out all night) just to have a little quality time with her.

4401

My female owner has been feeling edgy today/yesterday... I can feel it - my shell is rattling.

Anyway, today is/was a significant day. It's her favourite soft-toy's birthday! DOB: 4th April 2001. My owners used to celebrate this day together - no matter how busy each was, they would make it a point to meet. (I know, it's one of those silly things that couples do... I can never understand why. But in all fairness, my owners would celebrate our birthdays too. My female owner used to force my male owner to remember our birthdays and would test him periodically so that he would commit the dates to memory).

While it's tad strange that the yearly routine is broken, my female owner is beginning to realise that she is no longer as attached to Nanook. At times, she would even fall asleep without hugging him. This was unthinkable in the past. In fact, there was once when my male owner asked her if in the event that they broke up, would she give Nanook the husky to him? The answer was a flat NO.

Of course not right?! Nanook was a present to her.

quotes for thought

In the aftermath of having her romantised idea that her choice of career would “help her to help people” torn apart by the reality of what it entails to get there, my female owner picked up three insightful quotes.

i) The best thing you can do for anyone is to listen to him
My female owner likes this phrase coz it reminds her of the human-to-human connection that everyone needs and that at the end of the day, it’s really not about how much she knows about treating disorders that matters, but how much she is able to show care and empathy to her clients (before treating them).

ii) You are not a student, you are a professional psychologist in training
This helped to put things into perspective, as my female owner is currently in her lamentive (is there such a word?) stage where she whines about how tough her course is and how little time she has to enjoy overseas student life. That’s it. She’s not a student waiting to graduate. She’s a professional, training to enhance her current skills.

iii) Your time is worth money
She finally realised why professionals in her field can command up to $200/hr for just merely “listening and talking”. The amount of training and resources put in to churn out psychologists is intensive (so many people are needed to train one person). And psychologists do lots of behind-the-therapy preparation in order to formulate cases and treat clients. (Actually, this quote was spoken in the context of her class having to charge their clients for the therapy sessions even though they are just interns. So the teacher was trying to highlight the amount of preparation/supervision that would go into each case and hence, the class should not feel bad about charging fees.)

hug

A hug can do wonders.

Today, my female owner attended a clinical placement orientation where the clinic manager briefed the class on the requirements of the placement - hours to fulfill, write-ups to hand in, presentations to prepare for, assessments which are not graded but if you dont pass, you fail the internship (i.e. you fail the entire programme), administrative procedures to adhere to, etc etc. Each presentation slide added more doom and gloom, not only to her, but the rest of the class. Suddenly the programme seems like a boot camp, where the weak would be weeded out, and the strong would remain, albeit wounded and half-dead.

By lunch time, my female owner was wallowing in self-doubt and hyper-flustered (is there such a word?). She then rushed into the computer room to check out something for the placement. Lo and behold, she met an acquaintance from Singapore. This person used to intern at my female owner's alternative office. Because my female owner was hardly at the alternate office, she didnt know that this person was also going to be at the same university doing a parallel programme. My female owner only found out when they happened to meet at the school's photo-copying room (in her usual blur fashion, she didnt even recognise the intern).

Anyway, so this acquaintance saw my female owner rushing in to use the computer and asked her what was going on. As my female owner was rattling on about the bad day, the acquaintance just opened her arms wide and gave my female owner a tight, warm hug to calm her down.

hmmm... such a sweet gesture.

Gold Coast and photos

My female owner, P and JW stayed in JW's former teachers' apartment at Surfer's Paradise. The stylishly-designed apartment was just 140 steps from the beach (which delighted my female owner a great deal. She loves beaches.) This is the view from one of the balconies. See how blue the sea is?

As usual, the customary bed shot. With beds like this, I wonder why my female owner bothers getting up so early in the mornings.

Despite the rainy/ cloudy weather, Surfer's Paradise was still a sight to behold. The vastness of the ocean, again leaves my female owner in awe of creation... and tickled the scuba-diving bug in her.

What lies beneath?

Perspective with back facing the sea.

Again, the faceless shot of her travelling buddies. My female owner actually said "smile!" Their hosts have two lovely cats who were really affectionate and curious (this was taken at their house, not the apartment). My female owner tried to take still shots of them but apparently they were camera-shy and would move away. I'm jealous of them coz they were in close proximity with my female owner. I also want!

Ah, and the home-made cuppacino/latte which Mr Host never failed to offer to brew for my female owner everytime they popped into his house. Real coffee beans with steamed milk. Such thoughtful gesture. My female owner just had to capture it on camera.

smoking tortoise

Really bored without my female owner around. So I decided to let my thoughts run wild and somehow, I started to wonder how my female owner would react... if I pick up smoking. Given her disdain for nicotine (she used to work for the government in the national control smoking programme. Her work must have been effectve coz the prevalence rate of smokers dropped even lower during her stint there. Such irony, since my male owner is an avid smoker. Opposites really attract yah?)

I think she will hang me by my tail and disown me with immediate effect. She might even put up my empty shell in the Balcony as a warning to the rest of my siblings to stay off nicotine. Even the birds which fly past the Balcony will not be spared.

Anyway, nothing is impossible and here's an article on a smoking tortoise.


BEIJING (AFP) - - A tortoise that smokes and appears to be addicted to nicotine has been discovered in China's northeastern province of Jilin, state media reported on Thursday.

The animal is the pet of a man, identified by his surname Yun, who is himself a smoker, Xinhua news agency said, quoting a local newspaper.

One day, Yun teased the tortoise by putting a cigarette butt into its mouth, and to his surprise it started to smoke it, according to the news agency.

From then on, he shared his cigarettes with his pet, Xinhua said.

"It seems to have become addicted," Yun was quoted as saying.

"Whenever I smoke in front of it, it will stick its head out of the water and fidget about until I give it the stub."

Yun proved his claim by putting a cigarette in the tortoise's mouth in front the paper's reporter and his neighbours, Xinhua quoted the newspaper as saying.

To everyone's surprise, the tortoise finished it in less than four minutes, the news agency said.

Monkeys have been know to smoke in imitation of human beings, the deputy secretary-general of Jilin's Wildlife Conservation Society told Xinhua.

But he said he had never heard of a tortoise lighting up.