planning

Charity work is a luxury. We often see how rich upper-crust folks involve themselves in charity and nothing much else. It takes time off from living-earning. But yet it is my passion to be involved in causes of those in severe need.

I need to learn how to divide and plan my time to be able to accommodate my personal life, my charity work and my teaching-for-a-living. I haven't had much structure in my life for a while now so this will be re-learning for me.

I have always thought myself as somewhat super-human, able to do challenging things variously, and successfully. In recent years I realise that I cannot take on tasks with that mind-set because I will break down if I don't ask for help.

Hence, slow and steady, with planning.

I need to find a way to make more money. The problem is that I have very little energy as I am yet fully recovered. The only thing I can think of is a home-based business. I am already teaching from home two days a week, at my students' place another two days a week. There needs to be more I can do with whatever little energy I have left.

If my friend who owns the pet shop in my neighbourhood can firm up his new investor, I might get a chance to work there part-time. Apart from helping him with his shop's online presence, I can help out on the retail front as well as implement a proper marketing strategy. But that is a very contingent plan.

The only thing I can think of else-wise is to set up a freelance online business. In this current economic climate the only products people will buy is anything that saves them money.

Speaking of money, I am thinking of reviving gift-giving at Christmas. I haven't done so in years because I find it to be a tedious and somewhat trite affair. But it is meaningful and I want to bless the people who have blessed me. But that means money. Back to the problem mentioned above.

Hrngghh.

birthday trip to bugis junction

Today's loot-table:
Clinique All About Eyes
Clinique Turnaround Concentrate
Clinique Superdefense Moisturiser
Free Gift: Clinique Colour Surge Eye-shadow Palette
Ettusais cleansing soap
Ettusais cleansing oil
Ettusais Pore-Smooth Concealer
Free Gifts: $10 off, tote bag and pouch
The Body Shop Merry Cranberry Fragrance Oil
The Body Shop Tea Tree Oil Scrub
Topshop tees in orange and teal
Treats and canned food for my cats

The innocent.

I just watched an episode of Bones and I wept. In words, I cannot put it in any other way: I wept, like it says in the shortest verse of the Bible.

It was triggered by the episode in the show where a murderer used his dog to kill a man. The dog was a big dog called Ripley, and in the story, Ripley was originally sent to a vet to be put to sleep because his owners 'didn't realise that he would grow so big'. The vet couldn't bear to euthanise the dog so he re-homed him. Unbeknown to him the dog was instead used as a fighting dog in an illegal dog-fighting activity. The vet found out, took videos and pictures of the dog-fight as evidence; the owner saw him, and then ordered Ripley to attack the vet, resulting in the man's death. Eventually, Dr Brennan decided to adopt Ripley after the case was solved - she even made him a dog tag with the name 'Ripley Brennan' on it, but then Agent Booth tells her that Ripley had to be put to sleep because he had killed a man.

But the dog was innocent. He only obeyed his master's command.

On behalf of humankind, universe, I'd like to apologize for what happened to Ripley. He was born a cute little puppy. And then the people who adopted him wanted to kill him because they were too stupid to realize that ... he would grow into a big dog. Ripley was a good dog. He didn't want to fight. But he did it to please his master. He didn't want to attack a human being, but he did it to please his master. You know, it wasn't Ripley's fault that his ... master was cruel and selfish. Like all dogs, Ripley only saw the good in people.

When I saw this episode, I cried. Because it is true. Ripley was innocent. Just like other animals. Just like children forced into becoming soldiers. Just like how natural disaster victims lose their lives and homes without any pre-warning. How can any of these victims be blamed, let alone be punished for misdeeds of which they are innocent?

birthday gifts

I have been quietly busy putting away a mental list of things I want to buy for my own upcoming thirtieth.

So far I have bought Victoria's Secret, and will be buying Clinique and Ettusais, and a new Ikea chair for my room. I also need to restock my essential oils collection, and I would like to buy something for my cats too.

I think that for the past years I have never used any birthday ang pows for anything gift-like; it was always spent on necessities and bills. I like spending on myself, I actually remember it better. I remember I spent my twenty-fourth birthday having a turkey cranberry sandwich at O'Brien's after work that night. I remember it because I was alone and that was what I bought myself for my own birthday.

This year is the first time I actually itemised what I am going to get myself for my birthday.

The money came from my parents. They also paid off my credit card debt for me and they will be paying off my mortgage arrears this month. I will soon be debt-free. And that is another great gift.

God's gift

The most amazing thing happened yesterday.

Our friend Jag, an old gaming friend whose kids I was teaching once, called and said he had something for me. We haven't spoken in awhile. He said he had a gift for me and he was bringing it over, last night.

He arrived with a surprise, and a story. Jag and his wife do this together, buying a gift for someone every month. But to know who and what, the both of them pray together for God to show them an item and a person, and then they will go on that instinct.

Jag brought a computer to my house.

I asked him if he knew what had happened to our old computer and our current computer travails, from any one. He said no he hadn't spoken to anyone about me recently regarding computers.

All he knew was that two days ago, God showed them a computer. And this morning, He showed them it was me. They just went ahead and bought one.

After I told him what happened to my old computer, he understood why God told him to do what he did.

J fixed up the computer last night.

And I am back on my own computer at last.

transient

Life sucks. I have been living the past four days without the joie de vivre that is supposed to energise me. I dread doing the housework. I dread having to do things. I dread going out. I wake with itchy eyes and nose, and water retention. I look in the mirror and see a tall fat girl. I am wearing yesterday's clothing. I feel tense.

Yesterday I tried to join my doctor in doing positive associations through my EMDR therapy. Kind of like how one associates watching movies and eating popcorn, I was supposed to associate my work with positive imagery. It didn't sink very deep. My positive imagery was one of me feeding the stray dogs in Ubi. I am supposed to now associate that image - of me being useful - to my work. That my students need me.

I actually like being with teenagers. I like talking to them. I like spending time with them, seeing their childlike yet grown up demeanour. Enjoying their chatter and the things they ask. I am not only good at this but I also actually like it. I don't like younger children as much, that I know. With younger children I need to act adult. With teenagers I can just be myself, my personality is good enough, and I don't need to alter it to fit in with them.

But this doesn't erase my feeling of dread when I wake up, dust in my eyes and nose feeling dry and inflamed.I don't know why I still feel tense; today is the fourth day of feeling this. Do I really need another 'holiday' from life? I don't think so. Am I not resting enough? I don't know.

Maybe this ties in with me not having my computer. I feel most at home when I have a computer to write and read from. I guess that is when I am at rest. Which means I haven't been resting much since my computer died. I just simply don't feel at home using J-Lap, on Google Chrome instead of Firefox (not that it is not good to use), without my usual bookmarks, shortcuts and folders. My life feels transient without my own computer, like I cannot create anything because I don't have my own hard drive to store my own data. I guess in the way we need a brick and mortar presence to call our home, we now also need a cybernetic home we call our personal computer, to give us the sense of security, a very base need of humans.

To me, sitting at a screen is like the male-Martian act of going into his cave. In that way, I am a caveman. I need to recuperate after every hunt, and each book I dive into, each time I sit at my own computer, it is as if I put the blinders on the life around me and enter into my own. And rest.

That is a lot of conjecture. And it doesn't erase this tight feeling I have in my fingers and my chest. I think I simply need to medicate to think straight for now, and then deal with the rest of my day a step at a time. It's gonna be a long day.

suddenly

For some reason the impending storm that was coming in real life did not positively-ionise my feelings, instead, I have plunged into an incoming panic attack, subverted by the last two X*anaxes in my medicine drawer.

I don't know what brought it about. I was suddenly on edge and then I felt it coming. Like the storm was.

Then it happened. Before I could lose my ability to speak as I often do when I get a panic attack, I medicated. And try to relax, as if! Like wishing a brain tumour away I suppose.

Then the dilemma came. I had to go teach. I couldn't. Not today. Not this afternoon. Not in the rain. Not when my chest was hurting and I felt miserable. And on the verge of losing my voice and consciousness.

I am not sure if it is because I forgot to take my antidepressants for the past I-don't-know-how-many days. I felt fine actually. Though I did tear up when I was watching the scene in Gossip Girl last night when Lily and Rufus re-united with their son in Chinatown after two decades of not knowing where he was.

Back to right now, I still feel sick; my chest is constricted, my hands are tingling. I am finding it hard to speak. I took a Remeron, which in Plum Sykes' book Debutante Divorcees one of the characters raves on about as the world's strongest antidepressant - one lick and it sends you to twelve-hours of sleep. It doesn't work that way for me. But I am running out of pills.

Which came back to my dilemma. I needed to go teach because I had to collect my fees today. Because I have to go for my medical appointment on Wednesday, and I needed the money to pay for it. I sent J to go get it for me instead, as this student lives near his workplace. I think he didn't want to. But I couldn't postpone anything - my upcoming medical appointment because I need the meds, my lessons today to tomorrow, because tomorrow I am already fully booked with other students.

Maybe all this busy teaching is finally taking its toll on me again. I don't know.

I don't know what brought this on. All I know is that right now I don't feel like talking and I feel extremely weak. I feel terrible. I just want to fall asleep again, peacefully this time, and try to make this all go away. I feel helpless otherwise.

computer graveyard

I decided to concede and use J's computer today. I was going mad with being computer-less, what with now not one but two internet connections running through my house.

We recently acquired ourselves an M1 broadband subscription, getting the free laptop and printer-scanner in the deal. Our Starhub connection is ending next week. Hence the current two-internet-connections scenario.

Meanwhile, the new laptop is taking ages to arrive.

My computer table is now like a graveyard, with wires strewn all over, hardware and accessories without a proper home.

J's laptop is fine for simple things like emailing and text based surfing, but is really slow when it comes to photos and flash related programmes. I seriously wondered how he used to play WoW on this laptop. He probably lagged like crazy.

And the keyboard is really grimy looking. I feel itchy using it. I think it is a male thing, to have dirty keyboards.

That and the fact that there are all sorts of error pop-up messages everytime the computer starts. And that there is no Firefox on it. I don't know how to use the internet without Firefox.

Hence this blog post has no hyperlinks et cetera. It is too much work to do this on J-Lap.

As for what really happened to my old computer: the PSU fried, possibly due to my youngest cat going behind the CPU. That and the fact that it has been working very hard, for long days and nights. The PSU's breaking down also destroyed part of the motherboard and the processor, which unfortunately for me was AMD from when it was still better than Pentium. Not anymore. Hence, we had to decommission the computer. The only workable parts were everything else, which are also quite obsolete. A cooling-fan, anyone?

My data is hopefully saved - my photos, music and documents. The guy at the IT shop in my neighbourhood saved our hard-disks for us, but J dropped them along the way home as the plastic bag broke. I am not sure if the data is still intact. Either way the IT guy said he would use the old hard-disks as a partition on our new computer when we finally get enough money to fund the building of it. In the meantime, it is a no-go financially so we are going to have to try and get by on the current situation. The computer lasted about four years and was a gift from H from the days when we had our home-office in my place. It has had a good life.

While I am going mad waiting for my new laptop and hopefully resurrecting my old data to use alongside it, I relented today as I was going crazy without being able to use a computer to blog or email for the past few days. I did fine initially, turning to reading in bed instead of being perched at my computer desk. But today something snapped as I had too many words in my brain that I needed to get out.

I will not however be using J's laptop to update my cat blog as that blog is picture heavy, something that J-Lap will not be able to sustain. Sending one jpeg file using this computer already takes ages. J-Lap somewhat reminds me of my first Windows 98 laptop. One that I used from 2000 to 2004.

I am not sure how fast the new laptop will be. But it is a mini one, the kind that costs very little and is meant for basic functions. I will have to resurrect my old portable hard-disks to use alongside it to store my entire cache of documents. But the great thing is that I will be able to use it in bed. What other bliss is there apart from typing and surfing the net lying down?

The good thing out of the dying of my computer is that J-Lap now has a new monitor. J hates using his laptop without an external flat-screen monitor. His died a while back. Now, since my desktop has been decommissioned, he took over the monitor upon my advice. Not that it makes any difference, the graphics loading on J-lap is slow enough to make light of the wonders of wide-screen LCD.

Another good thing out of my computer dying is that I could try to detox myself of blogging. I started Twittering instead (is that the word?) as I could do that easily on my handphone and there are no major lag-causing graphics on my Twitter pages that will test my patience. Find me on Twitter @avalon and @ubikuching.

Okay, now with some words out of the way I shall resume my computer-fast. After I wash my hands because my fingers feel a little itchy...