I Blog Because...Part III

CATHARSIS!!!

Confronting the Monsters

There is a monster in us all. Sometimes, there is more than ONE.

"Wha.aa...t?", "Nonsense!", "Aiyoh you talk rubbish again!", "Are you all right?", "Maybe you should stop thinking so much", "Let me feel your forehead", "Do you know you're already 32?", "Stop being stupid.", "Ridiculous!", "Don't waste my time please. There are more important things in life than your imaginary friends.", "Go talk to somebody else.", "Not clever don't act like clever ok!"

See. That's them again. Some of them remain blur blobs and distant splots while some have emerged triumphant.

Yeh! Another Human Trophy!

Not so fast you creeps! Hiyahhhhhhh! [karate chops in head]

Wah! This one coming fast and furious man! Wahhhpiiiaah!

I block! I duck! I block again! I attack! SSssssss.....!

Ei this one kungfu not bad leh... ON GUARD!

Hahah! Watch this! Catch that! Here's another one! YAchahhhhhh!

Hah! We also block, we also duck... and CHARrrrrrrrrrrrrrGE!


..........And this continued for two thousand five hundred and eighty-five minutes and 59 seconds..........

Fighting, we got scarred. We also got to know one other very well and came to an understanding.

My monsters have become my friends. Let me introduce my new friends to you:...

What?! What do you mean "confidential"? WHAT do you mean "you are shy"? After all the DAMAGE YOU HAVE DONE? AFTER ALL YOU PUT ME THROUGH?!?!? STOP ASKING ME TO CALM DOWN!........... OKAY! BREATHE! In and out and in and out. Oxygen in through the nostrils deep into the diaphram and carbon dioxide out from the mouth. Out rubbish out, out garbage out, out negativity out... Okay.

Looks like my new friends are not ready to meet anyone yet.

One day I promise, one day...

Random thoughts...

1) Working too hard. Slow down slow down.
2) Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. YAWwwwnnnnn. It always helps.
3) A big hug for the baby and smell. Helps too.
4) Get moving.
5) Fort Canning Centre - Wellness Fair to nurture the body, mind and soul.
6) Run about in the park.
7) Hit the gym!
8) 2nd Dec - Chiang Mai Here We come!
9) 17th Dec - The Husband Returns! :D
10) Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.
11)

Mom and Dad... pre-my brother and I!:)

The Triplets of Belleville! What a Delight!

It happened again! My palate, laden with the cloying after-taste of predictable Hollywood flicks and simplistic home-grown sitcoms (the two most obvious examples of many mind-numbing mass popular entertainment), has yet again been cleansed by Sylvain Chomet's layered, fabulously told and sensitively illustrated 2003 animated feature film: The Triplets of Belleville.




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Okay that was me trying for the past 10 minutes to begin discussing the film in a way that does it justice. This is a sign of my brain stopping to function beyond a certain time in my old age.

Now stop laughing!
I must assert that I am not making any excuses for my temporal inability to wax lyrical about the beautiful work of Art I watched twice! Those who know me well will know that 10 pm is the witching hour for me and it's already 1.17 am!

I will definitely be back with more about the Triplets! Look out for it!

Thank you Mrs Goh for the recommendation! Do keep them coming! :)

In the mean time, you can check the film out at http://www.sonyclassics.com/triplets/#

What's in a Name?... Everything! Part II

As much as I appreciate the multiple meanings of my name and various parts of my identity it points to, it confuses me.

Do I introduce myself as "Wahling", "Mdm Tan", "Nasyitah" or "Mrs Kamal"?

The first makes me feel Chinese.
The second, married.
The third, a Muslim.
The fourth, a wife.

So who am I really? All of the above surely! But how can I convey all of these identities when introducing myself?

"Hi. I'm Tan Wah Ling@Nasyitah Thara Tan Abdullah"

Not only it is a mouthful (I might just turn purple doing that once too often and frighten people off!) it is also more confusing than clarifying. So I continued to ponder about the name I introduce myself with and what it implies about the way I see myself. I continued to debate with myself over the implications of my self-introductions. Until now.

Writing this, I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that I am all these names and it is alright to feel more Chinese at one point and more Muslim at another. I am learning to accept that one name is used more instinctively than another at times and that I have to stop feeling guilty about that.

So there you have it. Call me "Wah Ling", "Mdm Tan", "Mdm Nasyitah", "Nasyitah", "Cik(aunty) Nasyitah", "Aunty Thara", "Mrs Kamal", "Tammy"(Ah! Dear husband and old friends of mine, I understand old habits die hard).

It really does not matter any more.

Perhaps there is wisdom in the youthful utterance of love-lorn Juliet after all!

I am still who I am regardless of what you call me.

Okay, with the exception of "Kamal". Stop calling me "Kamal" because it is not my name!

What's in a Name?... Everything!

"What's in a name?" asks Juliet.
"That which we call a rose
by any other word would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title."
- Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

Ah but a name is not just a name dear Juliet.
It defines who one is.
It gives one history, a sense of roots.

Consider this example:

Tan Wah Ling (Chen Hualing):
Age 0.
"Tan" is the surname shared by millions of Chinese all over the world, mostly Hokkiens or Hainanese. This "Tan" happens to be Hainanese with relatives still residing on Hainan Island.
"Wah" is the middle character allocated to this generation of this particular "Tan" clan to ensure prosperity and good fortune.
"Ling" calls to mind brightness and femininity.

Sandy:
Age 13 (or 12).
Doesn't mean anything.
Chosen purely for the that fact that it opposed "Tan Wah Ling", an extremely CHEENA and difficult to remember name.
Sub-conscious disassociation with Mandarin-speaking mother who just passed on?

Tammy:
Age 17.
Meaning?
Wanting to be cool, to fit in.
Mindless youthful rebellion against birth identity?

Tan Wah Ling@Nasyitah Thara Tan Abdullah:
Age 26.
Chinese Muslim.
"Nasyitah" means "energetic; full of life"
"Thara" means "wealth"
"Abdullah" refers to a convert.

Mrs Kamal:
Age 26.
Wife of Kamal.

So dear Juliet, how can a name be just a name?

To Lead Is To Listen

"When a leader hears by chance, his views are easily swayed. He may hold conflicting opinions, but is unable to come up with clear thoughts because he lacks focus and direction.

A leader who listens by choice develops clear thought because he is not judgmental. He pauses to think. He questions what is being said. He seperates facts from opinion. He has an open mind on divergent views and is ready to adjust his position.

He is assertive without being commanding. He stands by his beliefs and values, and provides sufficient facts to support his arguments. He allows others to share their views, but he eventually influences them with clear talk.", writes I. Warton Ong in the Today Newspaper, 5th November, 2007.

Oh how I agree with Warton Ong!
Oh how I long for leaders who inspire all to reach for greatness,
who do not put personal agendas before the welfare of us workers,
who receive feedback objectively,
who welcome dialogue and embrace diversity.

Oh how I long for the day my leaders,
confident and fair,
listen without discrimination.


Nasyitah
12th November 2007

What If....

I was having a conversation with a colleague who mentioned she was going to have lunch with her mom. That made me wonder about the nature of my relationship with my mother should she be alive today. I often wondered too, how differently I would have turned out should she had been around during my teenage hood. Would I have studied as hard as I did for my PSLE and secured a place in her dream school for me? Would I have gorged myself with the forbidden delights that she was so careful to keep me from eating for fear of me blooming into a little Michellin kid? (Well Mother is more often than not always right for I did bloomed, more like ballooned, in the way she was trying to prevent.) Would I have rebelled by taking TSD (Theatre Studies and Drama) in JC, develop overtly anti-establishment ideas and behaviour and kept the numerous late nights I did? Would she have opposed vehemently to my relationship with a Muslim boy? Would I have defied her and converted to Islam and married this boy? The answers to these questions I will never know and are not the point of this reflection.

My mother has always been the centre of my life, and later, my brother's life. She is the one who put the crayon in my hand and tirelessly troop me to one Art competition after another, convinced that I had artistic talents. She was also the one who inspired my love for the Mandarin language and performance. I remember performing cross-talk as a kindergarten kid and parading as Zhu Ba Jie, the pig in Journey To The West . I also remember the weekly story-telling sessions we attended at Queenstown Library before hopping over to Blk 81 Commonwealth Close where my Grandma lived. There was no where we went and nothing we did without my mother. My father, by the time I was twelve, was a blurry memory. Whatever I know about him I found out from old photographs and stories my aunt told. Except for the time when we ate at Pizza Hut and watched Back To The Future. But that is another story which I might tell later.

My mother had always been a pillar of strength, never saying no in the face of adversity. There had been many a nights when she sewed late into the night to add to the household income. With the pedaling of the Singer machine as my lullabye and colourful fabric of various textures and hues adorning the room my brother and I shared, I fell in love with the art of tailoring and dreamed of being a fashion designer a long time ago. Her dedication to every single piece of garment she was sewing was and still is unparalleled. Her tailoring was precise and meticulous, standards that I applied when looking for a seamstress to sew my wedding garments. How I wished the that my mother was still around to make me the beautiful dresses she used to make.

Maybe Mother worked too hard. Maybe fate had something else in store for all of us. She was diagnosed with Lukemia when I was in Primary 6 and nose-dived into the depths of the illness. No longer did the pedals of the Singer sewing machine sound late till the night for Mother spent more time in the hosital than at home. For a long time after her death, I cannot for the life of me remember how I felt than. I can only rememeber doing everything that I couldn't do when she was around at home, looking down from the kitchen window, waiting for me to come back from school. Perhaps for the longest time I was guilt-ridden about feeling liberation from Mother's watchful eye. So free that I felt that I hadn't the slightest idea how much she was suffering until both my brother and I were called to the Principal's office during recess one day. Someone had come to fetch us to the hospital.

There were lots of people along the corridor leading to my mother's room. My father's siblings, my mother's siblings and many people I do not know. When I eventually got into her room, the sight of her bloated body made me burst into tears. I cried for a long time in the room then I stopped crying altogether. In my 12-year old mind, I somehow had rationalised that eveything happens for a reason and the reason why my mother died was because she would have suffered even more. I was convinced that she had gone to a better place and that she was still watching over me, protecting and guiding me.

Now as an adult, I continue to believe that her passing on happened for a reason but as a Muslim, I have stopped thinking that she is my guardian angel. I now remember her in my prayers and thank her for everything she had done for me for they made me who I am today.

But I still can't help wondering, "What if....?"

Nasyitah
11th Nov 2007

I blog because... Part II

Some of my favourite Hari Raya photos.







This is the practical, on-an-economy-drive-me "speaking".

I blog because it's a really effective and no-cost way to share photos with my beloved husband who is currently so far away!

ENJOY THE PHOTOS! :)

I blog because....

I began blogging about a year ago because of the need to communicate information to a group of students. Somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain, I must have thought that having the blog put me in the category of "Hip Teachers". I must say I had been grossly delusional. Looking at it for the last time before I hit the "DELETE" button, I realised that my blog was anything but "hip and cool". It is, in actual fact, an embarrasment. No regrets about laying that one to rest.

So why am I blogging again? Well let's just say that the husband's current fervent blogging is inspiring the wife to establish her voice in cyberspace. Maybe in cyberspace I will finally be left alone to rant and rave as much as I want without people telling me to observe proper chanels when giving "feedback" for fear of rousing unwanted emotions and creating unnecessarily tensed situations.

As if I have that kind of power. This is even funnier than Khairi's "Your Mama" jokes!

Oh I am going to have so much fun with this!