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

My Blogging Habits

Some friends think I blog everyday, considering that I have a new post published every single day since 2011 started.  Not true.

In any case, just for fun and laughter, peace and joy, I decided to share some of my blogging habits, which may or may not be known to some of you.

1. I usually write my posts a week ahead i.e. over the weekend, I write my posts for the whole of next week, ending at least on Friday.  If I have more than enough inspiration, I write for the whole week.
2. My daily posts always go live within 9 minutes past midnight i.e. between 0001 and 0009 hour.  Other posts, if I so feel compelled to blog about in addition to my daily posts, will go live the moment I complete writing them.
3. I try not to write a new post on a working weekday.  The only thing I do everyday is probably review the post planned to be published a little after midnight.
4. My pictures are all 500 pixels in length and are not clickable.  Pictures for the Weekly Photo Challenge are at 1000 pixels, and clickable to enlarge to that size.  I try to use original pictures i.e. those that I took.  I take pride in the pictures I post up, and they are almost always post-processed in Adobe Photoshop first.
5. I make use of collages for my food reviews, otherwise the post will run too long with only pictorials.  And I limit myself to a maximum of 5-6 pictures per post.  Sometimes I falter, but I try not to.
6. I write my blog in British English, not American English because that was what I was schooled in.  I refrain from writing in Singaporean English for 2 reasons, 1) my readers are a good mix of Singaporeans and bloggers from other parts of the world and 2) I don’t wish to forget how to write, or for that matter, speak in standard English.
7. My paragraphs are left aligned.  Quotations are centre aligned.
8. Not many of my friends in real life know about this blog and I am too shy to post it on my Facebook account for fear of being judged.
9. I have a problem with writing sentences that are too long.  And I didn’t realise that till my previous boss pointed it out to me.
10. I used to control comments that appear on the blog i.e. a comment must be approved by me before it appears.  I released that function over the weekend when I was away at a retreat and finally realised that I am not going to get hundreds of spam comments just by doing that.  That control freak in me finally caved in.  Now comments are no longer held for approval or moderation; they appear as they come.

What about you?  Do you have any unique blogging habits?

Project: Make Do with Space

I have never thrown a single book away in my entire life.  I find it a blasphemy to do so.  If I did, it was because I was forced to, by my mum, to de-clutter.  If I had things my way, I would have kept all my textbooks from primary school right up till college.  On hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t.  As it is, we are already having space issues without having the textbooks in the picture.

I hardly borrow from the library as well, although I now work in a building with a very well-equiped library.  The only books I borrow from the library are limited to travel guides.  Again, another habit cultivated when young.  I out-read all the books available at a community library near home and my parents had no choice but to start buying books in order to feed my ever-growing reading appetite.

In some way, I suspect my compulsion for buying and collecting books goes beyond what a normal bibliophile would do.  It resembles OCD behaviour more.

The study – where I keep my books on shelves – is messy and cluttered recently because I acquired several books recently through Books Kinokuniya and Book Depository and I don’t know where to place them.  Oh, you should check out Book Depository because they offer free worldwide shipping and I find their prices quite competitive.

In short, I am out of space.  But I am adamant about not throwing out any of my books.  Anything but my books.

The hubby noted my crabbiness recently and attributed it to the messy study.  Which is quite an astute observation, I must say.  I cannot function in a messy study and there are tasks I need to complete in that room including work.  So, he described what he thought was a good solution to my problem.  It requires some manoeuvring of the furniture we have in the study at present to accommodate one more two more book shelves from Ikea.  And it also involves completely removing his already meagre claim of the room in the form of a small study table.

‘We’re removing your study table?  But… but… I’ll feel bad,’ I exclaimed.

Silence.

‘You will feel bad one meh*?  I’m… speechless.  I don’t know what to say to that,’ he laughed.  ’In any case, I don’t need a study table.  I can get a mobile table instead, or I can work anywhere – on the sofa, the dining table or even your study table when you are not seated there.  You are the problematic child, not me.’

And I buried my face in the cushion on my lap in shame.

I am quite the bully at home.

* just some colloquial English aka Singlish.  Not much meaning to it.

Optimist, or a Pessimist?

Another interesting topic for Day #32 which I am writing about late.

I am unequivocally a willing pessimist and I love to think the worst of things and situations.  But why, a shrink once asked me.

Why, to prepare myself for the worst, of course.  And if the situation turns out better than anticipated, it would be a bonus.  So, wouldn’t it be more prudent choice to be a pessimist rather than an optimist?

It turned into quite a counselling session, that.  I was advised to change my mindset and to think on the bright side because it would cause me less unnecessary heartaches considering how much time I would need to dwell over the idea to get used to it.  I promised to try, while crossing my fingers and toes on the sly.

Old habits die hard…

Like I’d mentioned earlier, I am a willing pessimist.

Spaces after a Period

I confess: I’m a pedantry, habitual double-spacer.  The type of people which irates the author of this article so.

I was taught to double space after a period, or more commonly known as a full-stop.  For the longest time, I thought that was the standard, and conscientiously followed it.  The only rare exception to the rule I allow applies to my tweets - I reluctantly become a single-spacer because of Twitter’s character constraints.

Until I came across the article.

Suddenly my whole world crashed down on me.  What!  You mean what I have been doing for years is non-standard? Behaving in an improper manner is not acceptable to me.  I was upset, troubled and even a little suicidal.  Alright, I was exaggerating.  But you get the drift.

I perused the article, analysing it for flawed arguments, but found no angle I could attack it from.  Resignedly I decided it was probably too late for me change my habit.  And in any case, it doesn’t matter.

Or does it?

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.

Quarter of My Life

After the post on where I spend approximately half of my life, I am now following up with where I spend one quarter of my life… the study room.

I spend a lot of time in this room, much more than the bedroom.  In this tiny ‘blue room’, I surf the internet, blog, process my photographs, plan our travels, read the bible, do my Japanese homework and practise on my violin.  Like my tiny cubicle at work, this room is my sanctuary at home, away from the hubby.  I love him, no doubt about that.  But spending time with him 24/7 is going to make me want to kill him.  I need a lot of private time and space to myself.

The dogs are always welcomed, but only in the permutation of Sugar-Paris, Sugar-Belle or Belle.  Never Paris-Belle because the two of them play-fighting in the room drives me mad sometimes.  They snort like pigs!

The study room in this state makes me most happy.  And functional.  Unfortunately, I am not that much a minimalist at home as compared to at work.  Nobody at work believed that my house could be messy, let alone my study table.  The truth is, a small work cubicle is so much more manageable than a house.  Not that I stay in a big one.  I wish.

It doesn’t appear to be so from the picture but my bookshelves are overflowing! The books are already double stacked as it is, and that has been making me very upset because I cannot tell what books I have hidden behind those in front when I want to pick a book to read.  And did I mention I still have books residing at my parents’ place?  Argh… I need a bigger study!

Time to hunt for a new house, perchance?

Names

Coincidental that the Pope should talk about names when I am just mulling over mine.  Divine providence, perchance?

During a baptism for 21 children on 9 Jan 2011, the Pope said:

Every baptism should ensure that the child is given a Christian name, an unmistakable sign that the Holy Spirit will allow the person to blossom in the bosom of the Church.  Do not give your children names that are not in the Christian calendar.

No worries there for me because 1) we are not parents as yet, and 2) I will never succumb to the trend of giving my children names that could possibly turn them into laughing stocks.  In fact, if not for the fact that one is Christian, I do not think Chinese should have English names.  Not for the wrongs reasons like English names being more stylish or easier.  I believe every individual should embrace their own heritage.

But that’s just my opinion.

I obsess over names.  Prior to this distraction of finding myself a confirmation name, I obsessed over names for my future children.  And I would be careful to keep the names to myself, sometimes consulting the hubby for his opinion and consensus.  He was at first, rather intrigued by this obsession of mine, and gamely gave his two cents’ worth.  After a couple of years, he realised there was to be no end to it – I mulled over and revised the names several times in a matter of days.  He eventually got tired.

Now, whenever I go to him with new ideas for the Chinese or Christian names, he would give me nary a reaction.  Not even a bate of the eye or a twitch.  He is that bored.

Sharing, or Not

Do not store up treasure for yourself here on earth, where moth and rust destroy it, and where thieves can steal it.  Store up treasure for yourself with God, where no moth or rust can destroy it, nor thief come and steal it.  For where your treasure is, there also your heart will be.

-  Matthew 6:19-21

I never liked to talk much about my inability to share because I know that is something I ought to work on.  Don’t judge me too prematurely by that declaration, though.

I was brought up to treasure my possessions because we used to own little, and it would be too expensive to replace them if we treated them carelessly.  It could be anything from textbooks, exercise books, toys and even stationery we brought to school.  My sister and I did not covet after what our more affluent classmates had, but neither did we actively seek to share with them.  You could say that we saw a very serious responsibility for our possessions.

My parents started buying books for me when I had exhausted the collection available at the public library.  That was when I noticed an unhealthy trait in me, about the time when I started sharing my books with my cousins.  Don’t be mistaken, I love my cousins a lot but we were obviously brought up differently with views on possessions that were at odds (although I have a suspicion that they were brought up with more sound values).

All my books were plastic wrapped and looked as good as new.  They still are.  God forbid should there even be a hint of a dog-ear.  My cousins didn’t bother themselves with any of that, and it pained me when my books were returned a little tattered with some dog-ears.  As years go by, so did my collection of books.  Friends and the same cousins continued to borrow my books, and because I could never say ‘No’, the ordeal for me continued on.  I would get rather upset when my books returned in less-than-acceptable conditions but I never told my borrowers what I felt.  Call me a martyr of sorts, if you will.

And then they started forgetting to return my books.  But I remember.  I could even remember that my copy of ‘Schindler’s List’ and ‘Wild Swans’ never did return to my bookshelves although they had been loaned out more than a decade ago.  I am still very much in contact with that cousin and friend who borrowed them, but chose not to approach them for my books.  They’d probably forgotten and misplaced the books anyway.

I don’t bear a grudge against them, thereby not explaining why I simply cannot forget.  I just… remember.  And a small part of me also learnt never to loan them anything lest the heartache again.

Imagine my horror when I discovered that I married a man who is the exact antithesis of my OCD behaviour.  He masked that well enough before marriage, always taking good care of my books when they were passed on to him for reading.  After marriage, he probably couldn’t keep up with the pretence any longer and started revealing that he is as normal as my cousins and most of my other friends.

The first year of living together was hell for the both of us.  He couldn’t understand my fixation with all my possessions, and I couldn’t understand how he could so careless with his, and mine.  As if my depressive disorder wasn’t bad enough to deal with.  Over time, we wordlessly made a truce – he simply stopped borrowing my stuff and he would be extremely careful if and when he did.  I would also be adequately forewarned if he predicted I would be upset, for example the merits and demerits of buying a white hard-shell checked-in luggage while in Florence.

We found our unique way of co-existing without feeling the need to go for each others’ throats much.  Once in a while, I would still feel the urge… like today.

It is not my fault that I have a memory of an elephant’s and you, that like a sieve’s.  But for heaven’s sake, if you can’t remember, ASK.  I wouldn’t be half as annoyed if I had muttered something like ‘Take whatever you want’ in my sleep, because I am sure as hell I had said nothing like that.

Yes, I am extremely annoyed with him over something because I promised someone and his actions just rendered me as reliable as… a werewolf during the full moon.  And I loathe to break my promises.

Evidently I am not the balanced, mature person I am portrayed to be in my previous posts thus far.  Sometimes when I feel the rush of wrath, I morph into this acid-tongued… monster who is bent on lashing out at the perpetrator to make him feel as guilty as mortally possible.  I am that monster now.

On the positive side of things, ‘anger posts’ like this one makes the blog a more interesting read.  Admit it.  Just… don’t judge me too harshly okay?

I don’t know which I should work on first – my proneness to OCD behaviour or my issue with sharing.  Perhaps these two traits are more related than I had thought.