I didn't want to do this, but I couldn't refrain.

V and RapMon from BTS released a song they made

leading up to BTS festa (i.e. their anniversary celebrations),

and this song called 4 o'clock pulled so much at my heartstrings, 

I couldn't not post about it.

V's deep, soulful voice adds to the haunting quality of this piece
and seriously makes me want to cry.
And just like Spring Day, it is not an outright sad song,
but a melancholic yet hopeful one that speaks so much of what life is.

It's about finding quiet moments away from the cacophony of our lives
to find peace in the quiet of mornings
with special persons, with whom pain is forgotten.

And may each of us have at least one of those.

At a dusky park
A nameless bird that sings
Where are you?
Oh you...
Why are you crying?
You and I are the only ones here
Me and you
Oh you...

---

A fan commented that the song reminded her of the Darkling Thrush,
and my, isn't this poem another lovely piece.

It's obvious that I am drawn to melancholia; and I remember writing some time last year,
whilst I was whiling away the beautifully quiet and peaceful nights in the tiny town of Plockton,
how the colour of my soul would be blue-green -- a calm bordering on melancholy.

Isn't this interesting: Melancholy as an Aesthetic Emotion per se. Reading this article seems to connect and explain the various pieces that make up who I am, I feel: reflective, imaginative, narrative-loving, solitude-prone, and my love for the Scottish highlands.

Solitude facilitates the imaginative reflection involved in melancholy. Imagination's role in melancholy is twofold. First, imagination makes associations between a present and past experience, and in this sense it has a role in causing melancholy. It connects a quiet beach to an evening stroll with a lover, or a Scottish landscape with the sound of bagpipes. Secondly, imagination is used to embellish or fantasize around the memories of melancholy, perhaps imagining our return to some place. Through fancy, imagination extends memories in a way that deepens reflection, and in turn this deepens the feeling. In these cases it is imagination, drawing significantly on memory, which provides the narrative in which melancholy is anchored. 

Besides my other numerous circle of acquaintances 

I have one more intimate confidant -- my melancholy. 

In the midst of my joy, 

in the midst of my work, 

she waves to me, 

calls me to one side,

 even though physically I stay put. 

My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known, 

what wonder, then, that I love her in return.

Søren Kierkegaard

The Darkling Thrush

Related Poem Content Details

BY THOMAS HARDY

I leant upon a coppice gate 

      When Frost was spectre-grey, 

And Winter's dregs made desolate 

      The weakening eye of day. 

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky 

      Like strings of broken lyres, 

And all mankind that haunted nigh 

      Had sought their household fires. 

The land's sharp features seemed to be 

      The Century's corpse outleant, 

His crypt the cloudy canopy, 

      The wind his death-lament. 

The ancient pulse of germ and birth 

      Was shrunken hard and dry, 

And every spirit upon earth 

      Seemed fervourless as I. 

At once a voice arose among 

      The bleak twigs overhead 

In a full-hearted evensong 

      Of joy illimited; 

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, 

      In blast-beruffled plume, 

Had chosen thus to fling his soul 

      Upon the growing gloom. 

So little cause for carolings 

      Of such ecstatic sound 

Was written on terrestrial things 

      Afar or nigh around, 

That I could think there trembled through 

      His happy good-night air 

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew 

      And I was unaware.

After my post last night,

Subhanallah, this is a scary reminder 😱 .

come on, S, when will you get better at this!

It's almost halfway through Ramadhan, and as usual, time is going too fast and running out; and I have done barely anything good -- and my sis was telling me how I waste too much time, I knowwww, and my dad says: why you listen to stuff on your phone but don't read the Quran, I knowwww. I am an utter fail at staying away from my screens, especially now that a lot of my work involves journeying and lots of random wait time, that I fill with looking at my phone... noooooooo. I should look more at my Kindle but the pull of my screen is ridiculous. It is obviously a drug. I need some sort of Rehab.


Anyway, I just really wanted to record this before I forget: today, I realised how much I miss working with ASD kids. I arrived at one of the schools as per my normal schedule, and one of the girls not on my caseload -- because her needs were too high for the DSP mainstream programme (shall quibble about service delivery on another day maybe, in another post) -- was having a meltdown. At first, I kind of left the teachers to it cause this girl is with them every day what, right, so I was sure they had some set procedure to handle her. But after a good 10 minutes of this kid wailing away, some unconscious part of my system was triggered, and I couldn't hold back anymore.

I went into the fray with a few bottles of playdoh and just unconsciously did my thing, and the kid settled down within a minute. As soon as the kid settled down and got out of her tantrum mode, and I let the teachers have her back, I thought, a bit too confidently perhaps haha, ohmygosh, I'm a natural at this. Later in the afternoon, little girl S started off again because someone had forced her to do something, I think -- and you should know you can't force the rigid structures of an ASD world; she was stretched out on the floor resisting all pacifying efforts and screaming away. I came over again with my playdoh and I followed her lead for a while, and after a few minutes, I had her calmly fixing puzzles and brought her back to her classmates. At which one of the Chinese teachers asked me what exactly was my magic trick with her.

At this point, I felt gratified and thought, ohmygod, I'm a pro haha -- my years of Early clinic and my crazy hours of running after hyper kids around the gym has maybe really made me a pro at sensing what these kids need. This really does come naturally to me now, and I think I was itching to jump in when I saw what was happening with little girl S. Not going to lie, this makes me feel good -- cause the years of clinical experience has actually made a difference to who I am. Perhaps it's silly to still think like this, but I need moments like this to be able to tell myself, yes, S, you're actually a legit speechie.

And oh man, I do miss my special, weirdo, lovable, ASD kids.

Update!: One of my junior speechies found my bag of books! Ohmygosh -- happiness and relief. Thank You. I thought those precious books were gone forever.



Stumbled upon this while reading "The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction" by Alan Jacobs:


You need not see what someone is doing
to know if it is his vocation,

you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon

making a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,

wear the same rapt expression, 
forgetting themselves in a function.

How beautiful it is,
that eye-on-the-object look.

W. H. Auden (Full Poem here)

Went back to KK for some necessary admin and a visit, and also intended to pick up my books that I'd left behind -- only to discover that they were not there. I have lost them. I don't know -- I might have taken them out and then left them somewhere else not in the department; my notoriously bad memory is so unreliable. I made a shout-out to my speechie team to see if anyone knew where they were, but no one does. A whole bag of wonderful picture books that I love, like Have You Seen My Hat? and The Big Ugly Monster and The Little Stone Rabbit. The more I think on it, the more aghast I feel.

I know they are things, material things, and most of the time, it doesn't take long for me to get over lost items. But a whole pile of books, bought precisely because they were beautiful picture books; ever since I had a Kindle, I have only allowed myself to buy picture books and the very occasional reference-type book. Basically most of my favourite picture books were in that bag! Oh gosh, I think I might cry. This is so sad. All of the content of that bag easily amounts to $200+ too.



guhhhh. I was telling M earlier as she helped me hunt around the department for them; this is one of those cases where you say, they were not yours to begin with... That's why you've lost them.

😭

Happy Ramadhan!

okay let's go!

I'd saved this for quite some time 

and meant to post it in occasion of my birthday.

So here it is although several weeks late --

I have to make a separate post to separate my content -- haha.



It's a great day to be a fan! because like I said last year, guys,
BTS wasn't done conquering the music scene.

They've done it now and 

broken (Asian and kPop) barriers at the Billboard Music Awards!

This KPop band just made history at the #BBMAs pic.twitter.com/om9mebSkgE

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) May 22, 2017

Ohhh, I feel so vindicated as a fan.

And so proud to have known them before they crept into mainstream like this.

These boys are awesome as I've harped on time and again.

I read an illustrated guide of Soren Kierkegaard -- it was both comforting and depressing, haha. Comforting because, thank goodness, these existential questions are so human, and the greatest minds are plagued by them. But also depressing, because how sad is his life, ohmygodddd. And the more I identified with him, the more depressed I felt. Apparently, he was nicknamed the Eeyore of Philosophy.

It wasn't that his life situation was sad -- it was more that he failed to reconcile his thoughts with the state of the world, and it brought such misery to him. (What do they say, unhappiness is when your expectations and your reality are out of sync?) And because he was trying to sort out and figure out the best way to live life, grappling with philosophical decisions, he appeared to the outside world to squander his chances at a "normal" life.

He was concerned with what it meant to be a true Christian, or essentially a true human being i.e. what does it mean to be one self? He kept railing at larger society for being Philistines or part of The Crowd, who have avoided all self-conscious reflections about the sort of life they lead, and so content to be absorbed into the everyday world of marriage, career and respectability.

"Such people may often become very successful citizens -- but for me, they aren't mature individuals." They are contented members of the "public" but lack any real personal freedom, because they have allowed others to decide how they should live.

And this, ohmygosh -- what does it mean to be an authentic woman -- resonated with me.

Being a Muslim, I like to think that Kierkegaard, as with Confucius,

would have found greater solace in Islamic philosophy, which does grapple with all this.

From what I understand, Islam recognizes these states in people -- we have our Kierkegaard-types who contemplate Islamic concepts to mind-boggling degrees, and we also have our old-wives-type, content with following Islamic rituals carefully and busy with the living of every day life in accordance to stated laws. Both of these groups, if I recall correctly, were approved by the Prophet s.a.w.. And maybe that's it, eh? It's not about one trumping the other, is it?

As I asked my dad once when I was much younger, why then don't we all live as ascetics because they are so well-praised and strivers for spirituality? He then had me understand that, there is not one ideal, there are many.

Still, Kierkegaard was right though: for you to be free, you still have to choose; you still have to find your specific ideal. And there lies the struggle, I feel. Oh, the wonder and pain of life. 💟

I had a super and happily productive day today -- 5 kids for therapy, 2 IEP parent meetings, and I fasted the whole day and practically had no break for about 9.5 hours straight, just working. Then I had a great dinner with L, catching up about work, life, kdramas (super fun to discuss dramas with her!). Finally left for home after dinner, feeling accomplished, and grateful (especially for knowing yet another amazing lady), only to be accosted by my mum about where I was and yet again, about my disappointing lack of a worthy social circle, apparently. Why are you not out with a boyfriend instead? Why do you not have a boyfriend?

I didn't have much energy to be upset at that point. But seriously: nevermind that I slogged the entire day or that I felt I had sat and talked with a person I genuinely admired. She is amazing. Partly for being an ISTJ-Yu-Jie-type person (haha) but also for telling me about her awesome plans for taking up fostering. And creating a centre for child fostering (especially for our hospital villagers as we call them! i.e. the abandoned kids in our hospital system). Nevermind all that. If I'm somehow not married or not about to, or I haven't gotten some guy smitten somewhere, there must be something wrong with me. I must be some sort of defective, weirdo woman apparently.

I am sick and tired of pandering myself and my sense of self-worth to this double-standard, unjust system, born of a man's world. I am done being made to feel inadequate and unhappy about who I am. Dear God, I am not trying to be ungrateful; I am working hard trying and fighting myself, to be a better person every day. But please don't take me to account for something I have no control over; I am not this typical, ideal woman that one is supposed to be, and it's been feeling increasingly like folly, to think that I ever will be.

Your heart knows the way.
Run in that direction.
-- Rumi

what a great way to start my morning.

Ohayo!

attempting to take the counsel of my years

When I've been silent for a while here, it usually relates to a simmering -- I have bubbling thoughts that need to be let out; but then I need the time to sit and ruminate and actually type it out. I clearly have difficulty finding the time to relate them here. Despite today being a public holiday, I still fail to spare the time. And here I am past 1 am.

It is infinitely easier to fangirl, hahahhh. My head hurts less. Literally, sometimes.



God, why is life so hard? Why is every day a struggle? Oh wait, I just had a heated discussion about this with my book club peeps over whatsapp the other day -- and it's cause we are meant to struggle. If you think about it, we actually don't think very well about anyone who doesn't struggle in one way or another in life (I'm sorry, but for me, an easy and immediate example would be American reality television personalities and how apparently vacuous their lives seem). And when I say struggle, I mean striving (not necessarily that one has to be suffering a scary affliction, although if one does, then actually, that immediately confers a very clear necessary striving on that person). If you are a human being and you're not working hard for something, one way or another -- forget other people -- you will soon despise yourself. There is something so intrinsically human about aiming and reaching for something.

And yet! Knowing this. Knowing that life is about fighting and striving (i.e. jihad, people, that's a literal translation). Why am I lamenting about how life is hard. What is wrong with you, S. Life is meant to be hard; embrace it. It is a striving to learn to be content; contentment is a higher status than patience.



Oh! I should mention that earlier in the week, a card via snail mail arrived from S in Melbourne -- and the birthday message was so lovely and beautiful, it made me tear; it's not too remote from what I've been rambling on above, I think I want to share and preserve some of it here in digital format:

Dear S,

Happy Birthday! I have no doubt that this will reach you slightly after the fact but nonetheless, I wanted to send you a birthday card to mark the occasion of your 30th.

Sure the number feels scary and also sad that we no longer are to be carefree twenty-somethings but I have no doubt that we will be the same crazy children we were when we first met a long time ago in a school near Orchard Road.

I hope that we will take the counsel of the years and become wiser and kinder people, but I also hope that we will learn to be kind to ourselves and forgive ourselves. I hope that we will continue to learn that the best thing in this world are those that money cannot buy -- good family, loyal friends, and the company of good people. I hope that we will continue to nurture our passion for life and our hobbies -- reading, music, and when we do indulge ourselves in more luxurious interests, experiences, or possessions, I hope that it will be with the knowledge that we are blessed to be able to do so.

Then she finishes it with:

Stay truthful, wise, courageous, and loving. Be happy, my dear friend.

-- S


I am so happy to have such amazing ladies as my friends.

Before I finally say goodnight on a decidedly happier note,

let me end it with one fangirl-ing piece:

this is my current earworm.
💚💜💛💙💗

Happy Labour Day!

And I'm back from a short getaway -- a roadtrip to Malaysia to escape the realities of everyday Singapore life, if only briefly. Celebrated my birthday with my family at TGIFridays, where an unexpected ice-cream-with-a-candle made its appearance after our dinner and I was serenaded the birthday song by the waiters. Embarrassing and hilarious.

And as I embark into the next decade of life, the 30th year milestone, I am quite randomly remembering an old friend, N; who has drifted from me but who I remember now, cause when we were 17, she often told me of how it was foretold by a soothsayer of sorts, that she wouldn't live past 30. I realise this is a morbid story -- but I'm quite sure she is fine and alive and happy somewhere in this world. I miss you, N! We turn 30 this year; our lives together in school seem a lifetime ago.

I'm also thinking that the longer one lives, the more courage one needs; that it seems true that life either makes you into a saint or a cynic, and it takes a whole lot of courage to be more of the former than the latter; to stay optimistic and idealistic and dream big; to believe in the goodness of people, the goodness in the world, and the goodness in one's self.

snapshots of wonderful things the past few days:

This was from E

and I shall never forget this endorsement, haha;

I shall wear the title of llamacorn with pride,

especially on sad days when I'm wont to think that

all my weird amounts to freak instead of special.

Indulgence while in KL, and I couldn't resist getting a hardcopy book

while at the best Kino bookstore in the world haha.

Three hundred years ago, one of the most famous and brilliant scientists of all time, British physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton, the man who gave us gravity from Cambridge University, England, actually thought in such terms about time: for him, there was the time of humans, felt by us all and measured by our clocks, and there was the time of God, which is instantaneous, which doesn't flow. From the point of view of Newton's God, the infinite line of human time, stretching backward and forward into infinity, is but an instant. He sees it all in one blink.

-- The Universe in Your Hand, A Journey Through Space, Time, and Beyond, 

by Christophe Galfard

unmei ka...

this is making me feel all kinds of notstalgia and old-school fangirling -- 

it's Kame's and Yamapi's drama together, guys! since the legendary Nobuta.

and I'm thinking Yamapi should just stick to weirdo, quirky roles; it works for him.

(I'm sorry, Pi, as much as I was infatuated with you, 

nothing since Akira has worked that well with you.)

Let's rewind 12 years! guhhhhh, look at these two then.
ohmygod, I loved Nobuta so much
and this scene is seriously ridiculously bizarre and funny.

💜  Shuji to Akira and chibi-Yuuto 

(omg this tiny cute boy is super-grown now; I've seen him in HeySayJump stuff) 

the Kame-Yamapi dynamic is so reminiscent of Shuji to Akira, 

I am struggling not to squeal sometimes.

In this drama, Yamapi, just as Akira did with Shuji,
descends into Kame's life, like a whirlwind.

He declares that he is Kami-sama (i.e. God) and turns it upside down,
telling Kame that he should get together with his destined girl already!
or the Earth will end in 30 years.
The shenanigans that ensue, you can just imagine.
It is psycho and hilarious,
and oh my, I have missed the feel of Japanese dramas.

Kdramas have a sheen and a glitz and some are really, really good;
but Jdramas, there's something home-y about them.
Tacky, yet comfortable, and familiar,
real and heart-squeezing;
and oh man, they make me laugh.

I am keeping terribly weird hours i.e. sleeping in the wee hours of the morning,
not that that is anything particularly new;
but I am keeping weird hours and I can amazingly sort of afford to now,
because I am now seeing my clients at my own time and my own target,
which means that I can leave home late(-r than I used to, and what a luxury that is) --
and I'd be lying if I said this isn't pretty much awesome.

The family dining table is now my work table,
where I calculate my kids' assessment scores,
plan sessions, arrange my schedule;
and I only leave the house to visit my kids in their schools.
And other than that -- a few team meetings here and there.

It is awesome. Although it really depends on overall workload at any one time too, I expect, but seriously; this, compared to my life in the hospital? -- is there even a contest here to which is more conducive to my sanity? Just this evening, one of my friends at the hospital was lamenting that she'd only just come down from inpatient training in the wards at 6pm, and still not yet done with documentation, and not left work to pick up her boy, and there I was back at home at 6pm, lounging in my bedroom.

I felt bad for her, and guilty -- which is a strange thing to feel on retrospect, because it's not like it's wrong of me to have taken up this stint. Or that I'm doing lesser work compared to the crazy crap that happens in our hospitals. In fact, I actually think so much effort is going to each individual child, it might, or if I'm truthful it probably will, result in better outcomes for them. But just, you know, the overall impression  or assumption in SG, that if you're not ultra busy and working yourself to the bone, you're not working well enough. It's a trap I'm trying not to let my mind fall into.


And now, after a night of prepping through my cases, I visited youtube to indulge myself, and found this cute and hilarious piece of fanwork --

*claws cheeks from the cuteness of it all*

(here's a link to the actual live footage this was referring to: Let's Speakeu Englishu!)

Been having a nice one week,
meeting with friends,
and enjoying my birthday month.

I have been feeling grateful,
thank You, God.

Thank You for the wonderful people I have around me.
Thank You for the faculties of my mind and body
that enable me to appreciate this world.
Thank You for opportunities and stories
that open my mind and push me to grow.


I thought I had lots more to jot down,
but I think my brain is shutting down earlier than I wish,
so here is some brainless photo-posting
to document these happy times.

with birdieocracy;

when I got a very pretty card

we look the same, mostly, y/n? :P

I wanted to montage this with a photo of the four of us

from almost 15 years ago, but that's too much work at the moment.

and I also received these really cute post-its

that can fold up as private messages

and when I signed off as Vult, in what seems like eons:

A night out with J

-- when I was treated to numerous things

including my guilty pleasure below.

J and I -- for good or bad -- go back a long way.

A day out with E, JW, and MM 

(haha hey I actually like the letter combos here),

when we forgot to take photos despite having dressed up (typical of us!)

-- so I took a photo of my present instead.

Funnily, what's coming to my mind right now,

are the few Quranic verses that I just read tonight;

that I suppose serve as reminder, that despite the

wonders and goods of this life

better still is what awaits after

if you strive.

Fair in the eyes of men is the love of things they covet:

women and sons, heaped up hoards of gold and silver, 

horses branded, and cattle, and well-tilled land.

Such are the possessions of this world's life;

but in nearness to Allah is the best of goals.

Say: Shall I give you glad tidings of things far better than those?

For the righteous are gardens, in nearness to their Lord, 

with rivers flowing beneath; therein is their eternal home;

with companions pure; and the good pleasure of Allah.

For in Allah's sight are His servants --

Those who say: "Our Lord! we have indeed believed.

Forgive us, then, our sins, and save us

from the agony of the Fire."

Those who show patience, firmness, and self-control;

who are true;

who worship devoutly;

who spend;

and who pray for forgiveness

in the early hours of the morning.

-- Surah Aal-i-Imraan, Verses 14 - 17

oh man, this made me laugh!

a fan describes the crazy descent into this fandom.

on other things:

not sure if I'm in a weird phase or state or what,
or if it's because it's April and my birthday is approaching --
but I've been in a generally calm state.
I'm usually a passionate, emotional person.
I respond strongly to a lot of things,
though it may not always appear that way on the outside.
but recently though, whatever life throws at me,
I've been feeling like I can handle it,
I don't feel like a roiling of emotions within anymore.
Alhamdulillah.

Maybe it's my prefrontal cerebral cortex maturing to a 30-year-old me! (:
And if this is what I get as I pass the years on Earth,
Alhamdulillah.

I'm looking forward to more equanimity and peace.

I feel like it'd be a pity if I lose the passions that I have --
and it's not that! I hope not.
I still do feel passionate about a lot of things.
And it's one of those things that is both a gift and a curse,
to be so passionate and emotional, right.
(-- just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon --
hehe, this quote always pops into my head when I ponder about this subject)
I hope I don't lose my ability to feel strongly,
but that I gain the ability to manage it better,
insya Allah!

Ron said, "One person can't feel all that at once, they'd explode." 

"Just because you've got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have," said Hermione nastily, picking up her quill again.

Kimi No Na Wa (Your Name)

This movie is so cute and lovely!

All I want to do is give it a million hearts

💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Something lovely just gets you in the chest, you know.

I wish more love stories could be this innocent and pure.

So I'd ended up watching Wentworth Miller in an Oxford Union interview, because obviously waiting one episode a week for the crazy-suspenseful show that is Prison Break, is pretty much tv-agony.

When he was asked how he came to be so confident and open talking about himself, his past, and his sexuality, what he said struck me:

It's a constant kind of balance between openness and guardedness, confidence and vulnerability. It's not easy, but it reaffirms my sense of what balance is. I used to hear that word and I would think of this kind of like zen-like surrendered state, "Oh I'm balanced now." But what balance is, is more like a tight-rope walker, where you're constantly having to make little adjustments so you don't topple one way or the other. That, to me, is my new working definition of balance, and that allows me to be okay with... "I am speaking, this is my truth; there is beauty in being self-expressed, and it's also terrifying..."



This man is fascinating inside and out.

I struggle with this idea of zen-like balance too -- like sometimes I think, uggggh, why can't I stay in my zen-like surrender (i.e. syukr, gratitude, Islam, submission to God) all the time. It's exhausting trying to stay balanced. But this is the way it is, maybe; that peace and balance is an ideal that you struggle to stay on, as on a tight-rope. That's what life is about; it's not about reaching a zen place and thinking you've succeeded. That zen place doesn't exist. Not in this life, at least.

the colourful internal life of an introvert, y/n?

several things on a Friday night competing for my attention even as I sit by my lonesome at home:

* the Prison Break new season is out! 😄  excitements!!! I have literally been waiting for this for a year. I rewatched the whole of the past 4 seasons early last year and finally, yes, we will know how the genius Michael Scofield survived and whether his son is equally genius/adorable/both.

* a book club meeting tomorrow and not yet finished with the book! and here I am so distracted and not being able to decide whether to continue blogging, watch Prison Break, or finish my book. (S, your priorities have always been whack...)

*

a music video just cause! 💜  I heart them so much.

can more older adults out there please come out of the closet as BTS fans 

-- cause seriously, while all these boys (okaylah, can consider men already) are younger than me,

their music and their concepts are so universally appealing, 

how is this only meant for people in their 10s.

I once read a lengthy Quora post analysing BTS's MVs, and was so floored by the complexity and the interwoven philosophical or political messages. How can only 13 year olds be appreciating this.

* fairly recent friendship drama -- I didn't know we could have this all the way to adulthood, but apparently it is so -- has had me thinking how complex human relationships are, and how rare a true and open connection is, and I treasure the few that I have that are open and true.

having said that, every other person that I have the privilege of meeting or knowing or touching in this life, I treasure as well, but in their own flavour and colour. because not every relationship you have is destined the way you wish -- but you can love it for what it is, and still be the best kind of person for that particular relationship. that way, you live life peacefully, with no resentment toward anyone, insya Allah.

Excellent questions,

and even more excellent reminders from Shaykh Hamza.

💜

😌

happy sigh.

Not a recent video but worth re-watching again and again! (:

A seed is alive while it waits

"A seed is alive while it waits. Every acorn on the ground is just as alive as the three-hundred-year-old oak tree that towers over it. Neither the seed nor the old oak is growing; they are both just waiting. Their waiting differs, however, in that the seed is waiting to flourish while the tree is only waiting to die. When you go into a forest you probably tend to look up at the plants that have grown so much taller than you ever could. You probably don't look down, where just beneath your single footprint sit hundreds of seeds, each one alive and waiting. They hope against hope for an opportunity that will probably never come. More than half of these seeds will die before they feel the trigger that they are waiting for, and during awful years every single one of them will die. All this death hardly matters, because the single birch tree towering over you produces at least a quarter of a million new seeds every single year. When you are in the forest, for every tree that you see, there are at least a hundred more trees waiting in the soil, alive and fervently wishing to be.

A coconut is a seed that's as big as your head. It can float from the coast of Africa across the entire Atlantic Ocean and then take root and grow on a Caribbean island. In contrast, orchid seeds are tiny: one million of them put together add up to the weight of a single paper clip. Big or small, most of every seed is actually just food to sustain a waiting embryo. The embryo is a collection of only a few hundred cells, but it is a working blueprint for a real plant with root and shoot already formed.

When the embryo within a seed starts to grow, it basically just stretches out of its doubled-over waiting posture, elongating into official ownership of the form that it assumed years ago. The hard coat that surrounds a peach pit, a sesame or mustard seed, or a walnut's shell mostly exists to prevent this expansion. In the laboratory, we simply scratch the hard coat and add a little water and it's enough to make almost any seed grow. I must have cracked thousands of seeds over the years, and yet the next day's green never fails to amaze me.

Something so hard can be so easy if you just have a little help. In the right place, under the right conditions, you can finally stretch out into what you're supposed to be."

-- Lab Girl, Hope Jahren

This seems like a wonderful parable, doesn't it?


And as I read yet another autobiography, this time (yay!) of an intelligent lady, I'm realising that what I'm actually seeking are role models I can't seem to find or encounter in real life. Maybe because I don't meet enough people; or even when I do encounter fairly admirable persons, they are rarely opportunities to cultivate a mentoring relationship. And my being an introvert and all makes all of that extra hard, if not impossible.

I feel a painful dearth of people, especially women, to look up to and on whom I could place hope and seek advice. I know they must be out there, but they're not around me. It feels exhausting that yet again I feel I'm here alone, carving out a route for myself, hoping against hope, and praying hard, that this route will lead somewhere bright and beautiful some day.

It's so late,

but I just needed to say that

I finally watched PK,

Aamir Khan's movie from a couple of years ago --

and I love it so much!

Guys, please watch this --
it's so entertaining, and thought-provoking, and sweet!
I cried like a baby at the end.

And here's a nice song from the movie:

Aamir Khan is a gift to Bollywood cinema, seriously.
I'm increasingly impressed by his works.
Like his more recent movie, Dangal, was so, so good as well.

Dangal was about female empowerment, gender stereotypes,
and father-daughter love.

PK was about religion, humanity, and God, and done tastefully
so it does not overtly offend! Excellent, Mr Khan.

I'm proud to say he was my first bollywood crush/love.
I totally had an Aamir Khan phase in my late teens to early twenties
when I devoured his entire filmography
from his first hit Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak
to his award-winning Lagaan, and everything in between.
And now in his 50s, he's proving his calibre in bigger ways --
this is how a great career develops and matures, I say.

Just for the heck of it,

here's a young Aamir Khan in a song I am proud I still know the lyrics to, hehe!

ohmygosh, look at his face then; so cute.

Neuroscientists have now shown that if we simply practice good habits, our brains will grow and change in response, with the result that these good habits become easier and easier. When we do anything repeatedly, with focused attention, our nerve cells will physically grow new connections between say, nerve center A (go to the gym) and nerve center B (stay at the gym until your workout is done). Nerves A and B develop a stronger connection with more transmitting and receiving points, and going to do our workout becomes a habit with a physical embodiment in the brain. Neurons that fire together, wire together.

-- Rewire, Richard O'Connor

finding your tribe

In The Element, Ken Robinson talks a lot on the necessity of finding people of your same ilk, of your tribe, that then energizes you to achieve your dreams. Without this, it can get really difficult.

Finding your tribe can have transformative effects on your sense of identity and purpose. This is because of three powerful tribal dynamics: validation, inspiration, and what we’ll call here the "alchemy of synergy". 

The combination of creative energies and the need to perform at the highest level to keep up with peers leads to an otherwise unattainable commitment to excellence. This is the alchemy of synergy. 

When I was reading, I couldn't help but think of my favourite boy bands (i.e. Arashi, BTS), because more than any other apparent example I have access to, they showcase that importance of having a tribe. I remember Sho saying, literally, how he felt that he needed to do better because he saw how everyone else in Arashi was working so hard. They kept pushing each other to greater limits, that together, they were an unbelievable force.

I'm sure some real-life sports teams are like this too -- but because I have practically zero knowledge of sports, I don't have a reference point from there.

With respect to my own life, the closest I've come to that feeling of a tribe (and insya Allah, my future tribe can perhaps grow from there still) -- is my NUS SLP class. The dynamics were so wonderful; everybody in that class, I felt, had such personal yet meaningful paths that led to the same point. There was an overall sense of purpose, and passion, and kindness, that I deeply miss. It's hard to put into words. It's an intangible chemistry, really -- or what Ken Robinson termed above the alchemy of synergy. And when you have chemistry, nothing beats it. It's energizing, thrilling, electrifying.

It's amazing enough to find it in one other person: what people like to term your soulmate, or your BFF. But to find kindred souls in a tribe? Wow.

Guys. 

Arashi is 18 years old this year, 

ohmygoddddd.

Fans love to dub BTS OT7 

-- because instead of a One True Pairing (OTP), 

you have 7 kindred souls, ahah.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

So.

Shaykh Hamza is currently in Singapore (or possibly has left by now)
and I didn't get to see him speak.
I think they only had closed door events.

Excuse me while I take a moment:

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

a light to walk by

I often lament how I wish I could be shown the way

as clear as day...

and then we discussed this a few nights ago.

Oh you who believe, 

have taqwa of Allah and believe in the Messenger;

He will give you two portions from His Mercy

and make for you a Light to walk with and forgive you;

and Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.

This slapped me awake at one point.
I need to stay awake.

And it's interesting, isn't it? This is already addressed to believers.
The emphasis is this extra you're supposed to do
to get a second portion of mercy
and be given a light to walk by.
I need this light. Very badly on some days.

---

On some days,

I'd love to have this kind of self-esteem, hahaaaa.

We're 1/6th into 2017 -- it's already March y'all --  and I'm finally embarking on my new adventure starting tomorrow! I say adventure because I'm a drama-mama, but really, I'm just exploring a new setting as a speechie and hopefully discovering new facets of myself as a person and a clinician and insya Allah as an expert.

I'm in a good mood,
which means my thoughts are running happily in my head
and need to be put down list-like:


*I was sitting having ice-blended coffee (by my lonesome -- something I find myself increasingly doing as I grow older) and a father-daughter pair sat down next to me. They were Caucasian (seriously, angmohs in Tampines are no longer a rarity). I couldn't help but generally be kaypoh, discreetly, of course. What struck me was not so much what was said, but how things were said. Father talked to Daughter like he would an adult, sharing thoughts and discussing points -- which means Daughter did not hold back in asking questions and bringing up topics; the one I remember her asking: "If you could be any animal, what animal would you be?" Father gave it serious thought and said, "Dog." apparently cause dogs are well-loved. (Oh, Father, you are a soft-hearted man.)

The whole exchange just brought to my mind a theme that's been running for months now in my work-life and extra-curricular life. That more than anything else, one's language environment, and specifically the parent-talk one receives as a child, determine's one's future success. The way parents and adults talk to children is so crucial, so important in the growth of a child, I don't think we can ever over-estimate its impact. To expound on how important would require several lectures or a book, to which I direct you to my current non-fiction read: Thirty Million Words by Dana Suskind.

This Father-Daughter exchange was perfect. We need more Fathers like this so that we hopefully will have more awesome women in the future. And I wondered, why don't Asian fathers do more of this with their children? I know I'm stereotyping and I'm sure there are Singaporean dads who talk with their sons and daughters in this manner -- but the general sentiment and impression I feel about parenting here is: DO DO DO, DON'T DON'T DON'T. Directive, instructive, prohibitive, if they even talk at all. It takes a very strong-willed child to bypass this and learn to be strong, independent, opinionated, and confident about leading their own lives as they grow up.

My own dad was more a jokester; a fun, benign figure we loved, teasing us as we grew up, who left it to my tiger mum to make sure we were in line with academic demands. Which means that I largely didn't grow up with thoughtful and fruitful conversations. My mum is an SJ and (I am biased but yes) one does not generally get thoughtful conversations from them. Life was structured and orderly. We were fed well, slept well, sheltered, and protected. Only in my later teens when somehow I'd miraculously grown an independent mind (I'm thinking now it might be my voracious reading and my RG background that did this) that I'd started to argue or bring topics up with my dad. Daddy, you should have talked to me more as a child.

*But failing a good language environment, READING is the perfect substitute once literacy is achieved. I will vouch for the power of reading till the day I die. Sometimes, the quality of a person who reads versus one who doesn't is almost tangible on the first meeting -- it's about nuance, it's about perspective, it's about depth of thought. Please everyone, read for your own good. It's very, very hard to develop these qualities otherwise.

*Honesty is always the best policy.

I keep returning to this. Because the longer I live, the more I see that presenting someone with your truth is according them the highest respect. When you're truthful with someone, you're telling them, I trust you, I believe you will understand my perspective, I believe you and I are both mature and intelligent enough to come to a compromise if not an agreement. True enemies are truthful and open with each other, it borders on a strange friendship -- classic fictional example: Professor X and Magneto.

We all gravitate to persons who are real, genuine, and sincere.

*But to be sincere and truthful requires courage. The prerequisite quality for many other qualities.



Pray for courage, S. Today, and every day.

(source)

there is a bts + hogwarts!au tag that is healthy and alive --

omg there is no end to the wonders of this fandom. 💜

Some of the best bits that I've come across on tumblr:

* Jin has a wand made of rosewood and it's almost as pretty as Jin is. It's a surprisingly sassy wand and it will backfire if Jin doesn't wax it at least once a week; yes, the other boys make fun of him for this.
* Taehyung and Jimin are the biggest f-ing pranksters at the school, and are currently in possession of the marauder's map -- omg you guys, 95-liner shenanigans with magic.
* Taehyung's patronus is a dolphin; it's really cute and sometimes he will cast a patronus charm just so he can have a study buddy.
* Taehyung and Hoseok are the Hufflepuff beaters and are a deadly duo in spite of their bubbly personalities
* All the boys are still really tight after graduation and meet up at Hogwarts at least twice a year to catch up.
* Yoongi travels all around the world for his auror work. Sometimes he will run into Taehyung training dragons in Norway, or watch Jungkook's pro-quidditch game in Egypt, or find Namjoon studying shaman meditation in Tibet, or see Hoseok researching the properties of mystical plants in the Amazon.

---

On real-life:
one last day at Rehab clinic and am off to the preschools!

My work team is giving a going-away lunch tomorrow and some of my friends have taken to pretend-sob when they see me in between therapy sessions. At which I go, "Please ah, don't make me sad about this!" And it's not as though I'll never set foot in KK again. It's just I'm on a very long project. I'm sure someone will sabo with a "speech! speech!" tomorrow -- but unconsciously, I've already carved out one in my head.

I have realised I love everyone on this team. Therapists are generally awesome people, I guarantee you. Even if you have a random mean, evil outlier, this person is completely and utterly weighed out by everyone else's sunshine that his evil vibe usually doesn't stretch out very far. Or maybe it's me with rose-tinted glasses again.

Oh well, S, I hope you always have those rose-tinted glasses to turn to, especially for those days that are not so pretty.

Alhamdulillah. 😎

At night, in banter with my sister,
I whine sometimes, both in jest and masking as jest,
that my heart hurts.

It is one thing, that as I look closely at it,
splits into many things -- then I think:
what is this multi-faceted pain.


this:

The feelings that hurt most,
the emotions that sting most,
are those that are absurd;
the longing for impossible things,
precisely because they are impossible;
nostalgia for what never was;
the desire for what could have been;
regret over not being someone else;
dissatisfaction with the world's existence.
All these half-tones of the soul's consciousness
create in us a painful landscape,
an eternal sunset of what we are.

Fernando Pessoa,
Book of Disquiet

In line with my personal efforts to revolutionize my space

via the KonMari way and a philosophy of stewardship and gratitude to possessions:

The Story of Stuff

Need constant reminders about this.

We don't need to eat so much,

we don't need to have so much.

We must tread lightly and kindly on the Earth.

It's less than 2 weeks to my career move out of the hospital to the community -- and my god, the backlog work. Not to mention the typical Muprhy's-law type situation that results in the convergence of this event with other events in my life that leaves me seriously, with miniscule hours of rest.

I am so exhausted, it's ridiculous.

And of course my N-type personality (i.e. the opposite of S; a topic which deserves a separate post on a separate day) does not help me at all because though I plan to do things, I don't end up completing them in the time it was stipulated. What N-people do is delve into a thing for hours on end and don't get out, and when they finally do, they realise, oops, did I over-run? This repeatedly happens to me with all my major projects, so essentially I really cannot have more than one thing (okay, maybe a few things) happening at any one time. And then I get upset with myself because I cannot do all the things I wanted to do well enough.



I will make a long happy post about my thoughts on work/future/plans,
when I am finally out and settled and ready for a new adventure.

Excuse me, but I will continue to be a relentless ARMY (i.e. a BTS fan) for the next few weeks because I'm still so high on their latest song release and they still have an upcoming music video next week, and we're all waiting in anticipation. 

And then today, I decided to finally look up the lyrics of one of my favourite BTS side tracks called Whalien 52, and I realise it's literally about a whale!  (okay, it's a metaphor for loneliness etc as well -- Rap Monster, you genius boy, you continue to astound me.)

There's a great mammal in the ocean known as the 52 hertz whale. All year he practices his love song for the female. Travels thousands of miles to find her. But when he finally gets the chance to serenade her, she doesn't give him a call back.

Why? His love ballad is sung at 52 hertz. A sonic signature, one note higher than the lowest sound of the tuba. The average female hears at 10 to 15 hertz. So she never hears his song. They call him the lonely whale. And year after year, for a hundred years, he works out a new love song but he never ever gets a call back. Eventually he dies off, forever alone. Heartbreaking.

-- Gil Grissom, CSI


Apparently, this is a real whale that has been boggling scientists, and BTS sings about it! For a long time now, I've loved this song and didn't really think when they said "whey" these adorable Korean boys literally meant "whale" (darlings, your English diction, save for RapMon's, needs to improve) and god -- they have a song about a whale! It's the cutest thing! The song is bouncy with a tinge of gravity/melancholia and very thoughtful (if such a combination can exist, and I think in general this is a standard feel of BTS songs.)

The message of the song:
like the whale, I'm feeling lonely and feel like no one will hear me,
but hey, I'll keep singing my song cause I believe one day, someone will!

lonely lonely lonely whale

I sing to myself...
This song that receives no reply
I sing till it reaches someone tomorrow

💜

love this.

so beautiful!

before I even knew the meaning of the lyrics,

this song and video did things to my heart.

edit:

I decided to get "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" -- the short story by Ursula K. Le Guin which part/most/all of the music video was apparently based on (Omelas is the name of the motel that features in the video) -- because I really was not satisfied with my analysis and understanding of the music video without having a full picture of the story. I mean, I had read a synopsis of it, but I felt like it wasn't enough. So then while on the bus to work I quickly looked it up on Kindle and omgggggg, Kindle has felt the effects of BTS too because do you see them suggesting Demian as well (the book the previous music video was based on, which I read too of course), ahahahhhhhh. 😆 Not to mention that the actual short story was part of a compilation of short stories but suddenly Kindle is selling this Omelas story solo, which will only be available tomorrow, a day after the release of the Spring Day video???

It appears to be a pattern now that every music video will have a book/story behind it -- so we don't just have music enthusiasts now but book nerds like me obsessing about them. This is really pushing the idea of entertainment to a whole new level, that's what they're doing. You don't just get a new song, you get a story, a video, most of the time a dance as well, and a political statement. I am digging this so much too, because it's what I've started to do with our book club for the books we read or select: we read, we listen to related lectures, we watch movie adaptations or related documentaries, and we discuss. It is awesome. And isn't that happening here too with this amazing boyband. Multimodal consumption.

After watching Spring Day now don't-know-how-many-times, and reading tweets and reviews, I'm suddenly realising now the full breadth of meaning in this video and it is staggering me. And the fact that genius and philosophical Rap Monster wrote the lyrics is not surprising but I don't know, still leaves me in awe -- gasp gasp gasp, people are saying it might be in reference to the Korean Sewol Ferry Incident or in opposition to child labour in general because of the laundry metaphors in the video (ahahah seriously the mountain of laundry) or in a nutshell, what BTS is saying is -- yes, we are enjoying our lives but hey, we have moments, some of us more than others, when we realise that the ease and luxury we feel here is perhaps at the expense of others who are suffering in the world, and hey, we want to be on the side of those people. You Never Walk Alone (i.e. the name of their new album remix). 💜

Their production company must be filled with geniuses who then selected off the streets genius talented boys and produced this genius talented group with heart and brain and brawn and cool moves and gorgeous looks -- where is the catch, people! How can this group be so perfect.

---

the obsession continues with us fans.

the theories are endless and leaves my head in a spin.

Also, the short story "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" is a disconcerting piece
-- I don't know, I feel stressed after reading it! 😔  Here's an excerpt:

They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skills of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child's abominable misery.



I love love love how all the pieces and threads of meaning are weaved together in this beautiful music video.