Today I crossed over to the other side of 25.


What's been running through my brain today: aren't you afraid of being mediocre! (a line I keep recalling, thanks to Lin, who I met up with yesterday after ~one million years)

Onwards and forwards to a better self! God, keep me calm, and patient, and brave.

randomness, but some day -- I hope I'll enjoy something like this.

how I feel at the end of a work week sometimes.

7 kids tomorrow -- breathe.

I want more language cases instead of the preverbal kids I see most of the time. Then I can work on more interesting and complex stuff like high-order text comprehension or phonological awareness skills. The moments I enjoy in my work = after I see a complex language case and miraculously I have time to pore through the assessment results and figure out what to do with the kid.

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The confession that implicates its audience is - as we say in cricket - a devilishly difficult ball to play. Reject it and you slight the confessor; accept it and you admit your own guilt.

-- The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mohsin Hamid

Not sure where it's coming from, but I'm feeling general unspecified anger right now; angst -- it should totally be a thing of the past for me, right. what the heck.

>:\

I think it's likely I'm directing my feelings towards myself.



God, at the moments I forget to ask forgiveness of you, forgive me.

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this was a great watch! Simple plot (seven sons going to save Daddy from evil, revenge-seeking nutcase), simple theme (i.e. filial piety -- nothing like the asian version), and entertaining action (each son had a cool weapon of choice -- loved the bow and arrow!)

Therapy can be filled with hilarious moments, as well as horrifying ones. And sometimes, those two can overlap -- once, I felt like gasping in shock and laughing at the same time.

I was testing a child on blending of phonemes i.e. asking him to join sounds such as "fff", "aaa" and "mmm" and to tell me what word they formed together. He clearly had trouble with this, and hence his atrocious reading skills -- so I kept modeling it, and he unsurprisingly got bored and distracted. So I asked his Mum sitting next to him to help me model for him as well, and asked her to blend 3 phonemes. Except Mummy looked at me blankly when I asked her to do it -- and I'm like ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

OMG, Mummy! You also got reading issues ah! And what do I do at that point, but kinda like go, Hahaha, it's all right, Mummy, this is quite tough. We'll practice more of this with him next time okay...

@.@

Alamak, how you expect the kid to know this when the parent doesn't.

Then again, I'm forgetting -- non-phonetic languages like Chinese might not be based on phonological awareness skills, which means it's okay for purely Chinese-speaking adults to be poor in this? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Interesting.

And this entry is becoming some sort of professional-reflection-journal or something. Not my intention.

Goodnight!

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Rich Man, Poor Woman SP!

Hilarious scene, seriously.

I'm almost done with Quiet by Susan Cain -- and it has been a good read; very relatable and lots of practical advice on how to live happily and successfully as an introvert in today's world. For example, it has a chapter titled, When Should You Act More Extroverted? Introverts can somehow find energy to do extroverted stuff like giving public talks, sharing with big groups of people or networking when it's to do with one's passions or what are called core personal projects. But after doing so, introverts should allow themselves to retreat to their personal spaces to recuperate and return to their natural selves. Apparently, it's not an uncommon thing for big and famous introverts to step off from the podium and then go to a toilet cubicle to get some alone time -- and that this is okay. Personally, I have never resorted to this. :O Then again, I've never given public speeches.

It is important that introverts sacrifice their comfort zones for true passions i.e. core personal projects. Otherwise, if one insists on being pseudo-extroverts for whatever random gain, one risks burnout and in worse cases, depression.

... there are three key steps to identifying your core personal projects.

First, think back to what you loved to do when you were a child. How did you answer the question of what you wanted to be when you grew up? The specific answer you gave may have been off the mark, but the underlying impulse was not. If you wanted to be a fireman, what did a fireman mean to you? A good man who rescued people from distress? A daredevil? Or the simple pleasure of operating a truck? If you wanted to be dancer, was it because you got to wear a costume, or because you craved applause, or was it the pure joy of twirling around at lightning speed? You may have known more about who you were then than you do now.

Second, pay attention to the work you gravitate to. At my law firm I never once volunteered to take on extra corporate legal assignment, but I did spend a lot of time doing pro bono work for a nonprofit women's leadership organization. I also sat on several law firm committees dedicated to mentoring, training, and personal development for young lawyers in the firm. Now, as you can probably tell from this book, I am not the committee type. But the goals of those committees lit me up, so that's what I did.

Finally, pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire. I met my own envy after some of my former law school classmates got together and compared notes on alumni career tracks. They spoke with admiration and, yes, jealousy, of a classmate who argued regularly before the Supreme Court. At first I felt critical. More power to that classmate! I thought, congratulating myself on my magnanimity. Then I realised my largesse came cheap, because I didn't aspire to argue a case before the Supreme Court, or to any of the other accolades of lawyering. When I asked myself whom I did envy, the answer came back instantly. My college classmates who'd grown up to be writers or psychologists. Today, I'm pursuing my own version of both those roles.

- Quiet, When Should You Act More  Extroverted?

Currently reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain -- 

my sentiments: dear book, why couldn't you have come sooner in my life! it could have saved me a lot of pain while growing up.

It basically vindicates quiet people or introverts and shows how awesome and necessary quiet, solitude, and people who love those two are.

It quotes Kafka, who had to explain to his fiancee why he needed time alone to do his genius:

You once said that you would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen, in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing oneself to excess; that utmost of self-revelation and surrender, in which a human being, when involved with others, would feel he was losing himself, and from which, therefore, he will always shrink as long as he is in his right mind... That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough.

At this late hour -- the brain is actually asleep, and whatever is left takes over.

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How will we paint tomorrow?

even in the brand new future

sadness spills over

staining the heart