Jumping Jacks

Not the exercise routine but the wooden jointed toy thought to have originated from Germany in the early 1800s.  Call me ignorant: jumping jacks were toys I grew up with but never knew what they were called.  My parents are not English-educated and I did not have the luxury of growing up with my parents always with me because they were busy bringing the dough home.  At that point in time, putting food on the table was more important than ensuring that their daughter knew the proper names of the toys she was playing with.

And I am obsessive-compulsive.  I must have mentioned that numerous times on this blog.  When I was a young girl, I could never pass by mimosa without stepping on them.  Likewise, I could never resist tugging at the cords of jumping jacks I came across.  Apparently, this habit followed me well into my adult years (and is still plaguing me) because I found myself unable to stop tugging at the cords of every jumping jack I came across at every different Christmas market stall I came across.  And mind you, I came across many, many stalls at Christmas markets in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Nuremberg, Munich, Salzburg, Prague and Berlin.  We Chinese have coined a term to label such people (usually used on children) – chiu jian (this is in Teochew) or literally ‘itchy fingers’.  It’s not nice to be called that, by the way.

From a psychological point of view, this compulsion in adulthood could be a manifestation of how I wished to return to my happy and carefree childhood.  I wanted so much to buy every cute little jumping jack I came across while vacationing, but refrained from doing so because honestly, what am I going to do with them?  And they don’t come cheap either, going at about 10,00 Euro per jumping jack.

So one fine day while we were browsing the wares at a certain Christmas market, the hubby asked, ‘Would you like to get one of these toys?’

I was quite startled with his sudden question because I never told him I liked jumping jacks.  ’Why do you ask?’

‘Because I think you are obsessed with tugging at the cords of every one you come across.  So you must like it a lot,’ he answered as a matter-of-factly.

I was duly impressed.  For someone who is usually not very observant, he could tell my obsession with jumping jacks.  Either getting away from home (and thus away from the techno stuff we own) helped him to focus more attention on me, or my obsession is damn obvious.  I like to think it’s the former.

I shook my head because clearly, despite being obsessive about the jumping jacks, I have not taken leave of my senses.  Until we visited Oberammergau.  For some reason, the jumping jacks there were priced much more competitively; low enough for me to consider purchasing one.  Which I did eventually.  And following that, I bought another one (of Mozart) at Salzburg.

Now, I am a proud owner of 2 hand-crafted jumping jacks!  And of course, I tug at the cords several times a day.  I don’t know why, it just amuses me senseless.

17/250

Sisters

A couple of nights ago, I received a WhatsApp message from little sis (complete with a picture) demanding to know who the 3-year old me was carrying in my arms.  We both knew it couldn’t be her because she wasn’t even born yet.

Honestly?  I have no idea who I was carrying.  And before I could establish that it wasn’t even important, she started sending a few more pictures, amongst which, was one we took at our new house when I was six.

The quality’s bad because she just took a snapshot with her iPhone and didn’t even bother scanning it. So I can’t do very much about the quality of the shot.  I told her we should take out all our childhood pictures and scan them in before the colours fade further.  I suspect that is going to be the 2012 family project.

And I just realised, we looked very different even back then.  Not like siblings at all.

14/250

Cookied!

This was Cookie Monster’s response when he had to delete cookies from his PC.  I found this super cute and I wanted to share this with all of you.

I grew up with Sesame Street and Electric Company.  Cookie Monster’s one of my favourite characters from Sesame Street, after Oscar the Grouch.

Heh.  Childhood memories.

The Imp, I

And who is this cute little girl in her PJs?!

Some of you might have already guessed it, that it is I.  I thought some of you might be interested to know how I looked as a child, considering the numerous stories I’ve written of my childhood.  So there you go… not astoundingly pretty but cheeky.  Very cheeky and mischievous.

The hubby and I do not have any brood of our own yet but if I ever have a daughter who takes after my character, I will tell you then, that I believe in retribution in this life.  Because I was such a PAIN IN THE ASS.  During my growing years, I gave my parents and my late grandma so much heartache.  I required disciplining on a daily basis because I was always either doing something naughty or getting myself into all sorts of trouble (e.g. climbing into the big monsoon drains to catch fishes or getting chased around the neighbourhood by a german shepherd).  And I constantly needed my poor cousin to get me out of sticky messes.

Formal education most definitely tamed me down – how not to when I was so bogged down with homework?  And it perhaps also stifled my creativity and doused my spiritedness in the process.  Growing up in the 80s, conforming to the social norms was the only way to go.  And back then, outliers were not viewed upon as kindly as they are today.  It is fortunate that I performed rather well in school, thus bringing comfort to my parents as both of them did not complete their education back then due to their family circumstances.

But really, is formal education so important in the overall scheme of things?  I find myself questioning that rationale often recently as I see more and more well-educated countrymen of mine behaving badly.  Or perhaps I should rephrase… that I personally value morality and social graciousness more than knowledge acquired through formal education.

Oh gosh, I seemed to have gone off tangent again…

Wasting Water

Another anecdotal evidence from childhood to suggest that I have a brain the size of a pea.  Or maybe not.

The little sis is 4 years younger, and we were in the same school for 2 years when she was 7 and 8.  My mum took a few years off from work to take care of us and care she did.  She fussed over every single little thing including our dirty shoes, handkerchiefs not used and water not drunk.  Oh yes, she placed a lot of emphasis on us finishing the boiled plain water in our water bottles.

I was 11, and still loved to do everything else except eat during recess.  Water drinking was also a waste of time, like eating.  Hence I usually got off the school bus and realised that I hadn’t drunk even a quarter of the amount in my bottle (or totally untouched on some days), when I was just steps away from home.  I must have killed hundreds of brain cells trying to conjure a solution to get me out of the fix because for sure, my mum was going to scold.  What could I say?  A stroke of genius hit me once again.  I unscrewed the bottle cap and started watering the plants and trees along the way home.  But I was careful to have some water left in the water bottle; mum would get extremely suspicious if the whole bottle were empty.

It became a daily ritual and I was never caught.  In fact I’d clean forgotten about it till the little sis mentioned it the other day over lunch.  It must have left such a deep impression on her because I helped her pour away some water from her bottle as well.  Oh, what a bad example I was!

Perhaps it isn’t that bad after all.  Although I didn’t drink the water, it definitely wasn’t wasted: I watered the thirsty plants!  ”Ya, and probably drowned the plants,” my sis added dryly.

I was obviously too smart for my own good but I must say I always found creative solutions to my perceived problems when I was younger.  Wonder where that creativity had gone to?

Haemophobia: It Runs in the Family

I have an inexplicable and irrational fear of blood.  It is not so much the pain that is usually associated with blood, but I just cannot see blood drawn out of my body.  And I have an issue with tubes sticking out of my body too, even if it’s a short catheter stuck at the top of my hand to facilitate IV drip.

The fact that I only started developing haemophobia into my teenage years is the inexplicable part.  I could watch the whole blood-typing process when I was 12 and queuing up with my classmates – the nurses were blood-typing us so that our blood types could be inserted into our identity cards.  And I had laughed at a classmate who fainted before my eyes.  Yet a couple of years later, I accidentally cut my thumb while trying to open a broken glass bottle of chilli sauce, saw the bright red liquid ooze out, heard ringing in my ears, and almost fainted in the kitchen right before my mum’s eyes.

Since then, I became a full-fledged haemophobe.  I always have to request to lie down on bed whenever blood has to be drawn out of me for health checks.  Sitting is not good enough.  Apparently little sis has the same issue.

Someone else in our family suffers from the same ‘affliction’.  Let me recount a childhood memory; it’s more fun this way.

I was almost ten or eleven, and my family was, as usual, at my Ah Gu’s* place spending our weekends with our cousins.  We were a bunch of high-energy kids (12, 11, 8, 7 and 4 years of age) ever ready to get into some mischief.  That night, it was the youngest of us all who got into a teeny-weeny bit of trouble.

J, the youngest of the lot of us had, for some reason, access to an opened can of pepsi.  He got curious and stuck his thumb into the opening.  Right before our eyes, he inserted his thumb into the opening to trace the perimeter of the sharp edge.  And earned himself a very deep cut.

He screamed in pain, and the rest of us  kids panicked and screamed along in the kitchen, while watching him in horror.  The adults in the living room were alerted, and they came running in, pushing the rest of us kids aside.

Then above the bedlam, I heard my dad’s voice, ‘Let me handle this.’  You see, my dad works in the pharmaceutical line and professes to know quite a bit about rendering first aid.

The adults parted and allowed him access to J.  He assessed the situation and then stood up to walk to the sink, presumably to wash his hands before he proceeded on.

The next thing we knew, he was lying on the floor.  He fainted lah*.  But only briefly.

I vividly remember the strong urge I had then to laugh out loud, inappropriate as it may have been.  Maybe I did, because for sure, I remember the image of my mum laughing while assisting him to stand up again.

My Ah Gu wanted to take over but daddy insisted it was his job.  I have to admit he was rather innovative – he used the tobacco from a new cigarette to curb the bleeding.  I have no idea where he learnt that, but it sure worked.  And for the first and only time, I found these life-and-money-sucking, vile… things useful.

I cannot recall what happened following that.  Was my little cousin sent to the clinic?  I have no recollections.

Since then, we occasionally tease daddy about that little fainting incident.  And he would always claim that he was hungry that night, and that he felt a little faint standing up too quickly after squatting to assess the extent of J’s injury.  Refused to admit that it was the sight of the copious amount of blood which got to him.

It runs in the family, haemophobia – with the exception of my mum.  That I am certain.

* Ah Gu is what I address my mum’s elder brother.  It’s in Teochew.
* lah really has no meaning in itself.   It’s just a filler word we Singaporeans like to use to emphasize something.

Will I Get Poisoned?

I had an appalling habit when I was young – I bit nails, and it was not just limited to finger-nails.  So go figure.

My parents were exasperated with me mainly because I sometimes bit too far in till it bled.  And it was of course not a pleasant habit to have.  I didn’t think they associated my nail biting for nervousness.  Instead they attributed it to a theory that I was probably ‘gam jek‘.

Just don’t ask me what that means.  I can’t even tell if it’s in Cantonese or Teochew.

The nail-biting habit carried on well into my primary school days.  My teachers never caught me doing it in school, and I was perpetually remembered as the girl who kept her nails short and clean.  Oh, only if they knew how I achieved that!

Then one fine day when I was about 9 or so, my dad came up with what he thought was a brilliant idea – he bought some nail polish that was purported to prevent nail biting.  On hindsight, I think someone recommended this product to him.  Nah, he wouldn’t have thought it all out on his own.

In between trying to apply the nail polish on my nails and wrestling with me to keep me still, my dad explained that I was not supposed to bite my nails anymore because the polish tasted bitter and would give me a tummy ache.  Then we left home for some place.  The Botanic Gardens I think.

I was appalled and consumed with fear!  What were they doing to me?  Were they trying to poison me?!

All these random thoughts raced through my head during the car ride.  I was exceptionally quiet and without my usual chattiness.  I was probably lifting up my hands to look at my fingers more often as well.  The desire to bite my nails was never stronger.

Finally we reached our destination.  Dad carried little sis and walked ahead while I intentionally lagged behind with my mum.  Then, right beside the car, I asked my mum in a small voice, ‘Will I get poisoned and die if I bite my nails now?’

I think mum wanted to laugh, but suppressed it with a chuckle.  Then she look at me and realised I was all serious in my question.  She held my hands and bent down to say, ‘No, I will never allow daddy to poison my daughter.  If it bothers you so much, we remove it when we reach home later okay?’

My face lit up with relief and I shook my head several times.  Then I turned around and skipped to join dad and little sis across the car park and was promptly chastised for 1) not waiting for mum and 2) for not watching traffic.

The nails were all forgotten after I established that my dad wasn’t trying to poison the daughter I thought he love less.

For the record, I stopped this habit a couple of years later.  Naturally, may I add, when schoolwork and homework piled up.  Me thinks I nail-bit in the past out of boredom more than anything else.

The First Day of School

Do you remember your first day of school?  I do.  It shouldn’t surprise you.  According to the hubby, I have an elephant’s memory for such things.  Not to his advantage, I tell you.  I get extremely annoyed when he doesn’t remember the name of the first movie we watched together and the likes.  If I go on, it’s going to take up one whole post just to cover his transgressions.

So.  My first day of school.  I started attending school at the age of 4, in part because my cousin cum closest friend who is a year older started school at 5 and I was bored without her company.  My other suspicion was that I was probably driving my granny up the wall with my excess unreleased energy – energy which would have found release if I were running around the neighbourhood with my cousin.

And so I went to school too.  Pre-school.  Nursery.  Or whatever you would call it.

My first day of school was a DISASTER.  Sitting at the drain curb, I was adamant about not entering the class, and my granny was just as adamant about embarrassing me with her loud scoldings.  And then a well-meaning (read: busybody) neighbour thought my mum should be informed that her daughter was being difficult.  She went as far as to walk back to our house (my granny and parents were neighbours before the new flat was completed) to pass on that piece of information.  I half-suspected that she enjoyed every bit of it, from my discomfort, to my granny’s exasperation and my mum’s disbelief.

And when I saw my mum, I knew it was game over.  Better to brave the classroom full of strangers than to incur her wrath.  True enough, she started ranting about how a young girl like myself should not be so stubborn and that I was causing her to be late for work.  My to-be teachers then also joined in to coax me into entering the class because the drama was dragging way too long.

I finally relented.  The many adults crowding over me was too much for me to bear.  And so I entered the classroom so full of apprehension  that till today, I still can remember the sickening feeling.  I must have even turned green then.

To clarify, I wasn’t being difficult.  Gosh, how do I even begin to explain to them that it was their fault that I found it difficult to enter the classroom.  Granny was running a little late that day and I was late for school.  Late.

Does that make any sense?

Probably not, if you’re not an introvert who is also socially inept.  You see, a classroom of 30 over strange faces, albeit all of my age, was highly intimidating and too much for my senses to bear.  They were boisterous, and seemed to all know each other.  I didn’t know how to react.  And all sorts of thoughts ran through my head – what if they ostracised me and what if no one wanted to be my friend?  The panic button was pressed and all I could do was to react to that – DON’T ENTER THE CLASSROOM.

I doubt my granny and mum would have understood all that.  And even if they could have, I wouldn’t be as eloquent in expressing my thoughts as a 4 year-old.  So all in all, it was a lost cause.

School wasn’t that bad after I sat down at my seat right in the middle of the classroom.  The classmates around me were also shy and quiet.  So we got along fine as we turned to concentrate on our colouring activity.

By the end of the day, I made a lot of friends.  And the teachers all loved me, until they realised that I was not quite the sweet, quiet girl I appeared to be.  Oh, I did become quite the monster after I warmed up to them all.  Granny smiled when she picked me up from school at the end of class.  She was relieved that her favourite grandchild was back to her usual social self.

That first day of school taught me a lot of things, although I wasn’t able to quite understand everything back then – that I am different from most other people, and that an unfamiliar environment unsettles me.  That knowledge has saved me quite a bit of agony.  I always endeavour to be early whenever it’s the first day of anything, be it classes, work, courses etc.  This is my way of coping.

I was a Twerp

And maybe I still am.

I came from a humble background when I was much younger.  Although no excesses to boast of, I never went hungry.  But, I was never allowed to touch cold drinks or the likes till I became unmanageable.  You see, I was rather sickly as a toddler and suffered from asthmatic bronchitis.

When I started Primary One, my dad was consumed with the fear that the firstborn he carefully nurtured to health would put all his efforts to waste by indulging in cold drinks and ice-cream during her recess time.  He was an anxious parent.  And so he resorted to spying on me sporadically during my recess time whenever he could steal time away from work.

Obviously I didn’t know that.

Fortunately, I took his warning very seriously and never once dared to purchase cold drinks or ice-cream with my pocket money.  Thus, he was never able to catch me doing what he feared most.  But in the process, he caught me doing something else quite unforgivable.

I was a very playful kid, and I valued recess time because I could play to my heart’s content.  But I was also instructed that I must buy some food to eat.  As if predicting that I would not eat if I could, my granny checked my purse every day after school and grilled me for the details of the things I ate.  I couldn’t hide the coins from granny but I also didn’t want to waste time eating.

And so I conjured up what I thought was the most brilliant idea: I threw away money – into the sand pit, the toilet bowls, the drains and wherever I could think of.  That was what my dad caught me doing.

He was furious.  And I was horrified beyond description when I saw him.

I cannot remember what sort of punishment I received because my brain is very effective at repressing the unpleasant memories, but I never dared repeat the same mistake again.  Unfortunately I complied more out of fear rather than understanding the value of money.  7 year-olds during my time didn’t care much about money because we needed, and wanted little.

What a silly twerp I was!

Strange how my dad seems to be featured in all my quirky childhood memories.  I reckon it was because mum was preoccupied with little sis when I started formal education and incredulously, the dad rose to the occasion.  One thing for sure, he did become a better babysitter after some practice.  In the very least he stopped telling me to eat instant noodles out of the packet.  To be fair, he did it only once, when he was too engrossed with watching his soccer games and didn’t want to leave the game to cook for me.  In retaliation, I did what I was best at, at that age – telltale to my mum.

Sometimes I think my dad behaved like a kid when I was younger, and that we grew up together.

Life Lessons from Daddy

I have a rather cool dad who was quite ahead of his times even back then.  He went through the hippies age in the late 60s/early 70s and even spotted long hair typical of young men mesmerised by the movement.  Then, he would be strumming his guitar every evening at the five foot walkway with his other hippie friends till the wee hours, smoking and drinking.

Yes… smoking and drinking.  What I would consider minor vices, but still vices, nonetheless.

Despite all his coolness, my dad was not a very good babysitter.  Before I started formal schooling, I would spend my weekdays with my granny attending a nearby Christian kindergarten.  My weekends were spent at my parent’s place.  Unfortunately my mum worked weekends as well (albeit shorter hours), hence much of my time was spent with dad.

He usually left me to my own devices while he went about with his own stuff, and I was contented to be left alone doing whatever I chuse to.  I am an introvert, remember?  I would only go to him for my basic needs including hunger and thirst.

One evening, I got thirsty while he was enjoying himself playing on the keyboard.  So I walked over and sat next to him, hoping to talk to him once he was finished with the piece he was playing.  Then I saw the can of cold beer and the cigarette by the ash-tray.  Curiousity got the better of me, and I reached out for the can of beer.

In my own defence, I was thirsty, okay?

I took a big gulp before he could react.  He gave a shout and snatched the can of beer out of my hand.  He probably was going to give me a lecture but stopped short when he saw my face.  Eeks!  Beer is bitter!  Why do the adults like to drink it that much?‘

My cool dad was vastly amused.  He forgot all about chiding me.

Seeing that I had his full attention (and the fact that I got away with drinking his beer), I became bolder.  I asked if I could try smoking.

He merely shrugged his shoulders.  I took that as a ‘yes’.

And so I reached for the cigarette, put the tip between my mouth and blew.  Hard.  Nothing happened.  Then I blew again.  Still nothing happened.  Isn’t that how daddy smokes?  How come it’s not working?  How come no smoke?

Then he took the cigarette from me and showed me how he smoked.  I smiled in enlightenment, and tried again.  Ah… must suck in first.

And like most first-time smokers, I inhaled too deeply and choked.  It was a horrible feeling.

My dad laughed and gave up.  He stood up and walked to the kitchen to get me a glass of water, but not without removing his beer and cigarette from my reach first.

Later that evening when we left the house to fetch my mum home, I innocently described my adult-ish experiences to her during the car ride.  And quite nearly gave her heart palpitations.  She glared daggers at the culprit who introduced me to the vices while repeatedly asking me concernedly if I were alright.  I was, of course, more than fine.  I survived the ordeal none the worse, except for a very healthy distaste for both beer and cigarettes.

Suffice it to say I never touched cigarettes since.  I’m also not much of a drinker, allowing the indulgence only once in a blue moon.

For the longest time, we have been trying to get my dad to quit smoking.  No other family I know of displays their detest for smoking quite as openly or vehemently as mine.  He even had a health scare a couple of years ago, and the ENT specialist explicitly advised him to quit for good.  But did he?  Yea, when hell freezes over.

We have quite given up.  Now that I’m married and out of the house, it is up to my younger sister to force it down his throat.  For some strange reason, he is rather afraid of this mild-tempered sister of mine.

Let’s just say I’m really glad I have a very open-minded father who allowed me to try out smoking and drinking at a tender age of 6, thus allowing me to establish the fact that I hated both.  I did tell you he was cool way ahead of his times.

But what happens if I had tried and liked beer and smoking, at the age of 6?  That would have been a rather sticky situation, wouldn’t it?  I should ask him the next time I see him.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he might have some interesting and out-of-the-world theory to share.