Family.

I can tell that I've been a lot more attached to my family since coming back home. I go almost everywhere with mum and dad, even if it was just to go and pick Keith up from tuition down the block. I guess I really appreciate how close I am to them, and how I can just chat their ears off till the cows come home! haha...I don't know if they still enjoy my company, though. Maybe I'm starting to be a bit of a third wheel already. heh.

But since most of my friends are busy with work, chilling out with them is getting much less frequent unless I take the initiative to start calling everyone (which is a feat on its own), so after I've tried a couple of times, I've kinda given up. :p

I've been extremely slack with training for my legendary The Legend marathon. sei la. I think it's going to take me 5 hours. I just wake up at 5 every flippin' morning! And try as I might I can never get myself into be before 11 pm. I don't know why! Just got so much to do every night, and when I'm on my notebook I spend quite a bit of time getting my social networking fix. haha...so I end up using every free time I have taking naps here and there, or eating food to curb my ever growing hunger! I am turning into a glutton, ironically!

Like my brother says, I'll just have to wing it. But now I have bigger concerns than trying to safe my face from losing to a 57 year old grandma. I've just done something to my back, which *fingers crossed* isn't a sprain, or a hernia, or a slip disk. It has been hurting for 2 days now, if it still hurts tomorrow morning I think we can rule out DOMs and maybe consider an x ray scan.

3 weeks!

I've been working for 3 weeks now. I wouldn't say it's full time yet, but gosh I am so so so exhausted by the end of every week! I don't even work a full day every day, but the days I do, I come home with aching feet and without an ounce of energy left in me.

Right now I cannot wait till I get my first pay cheque. :D Kinda wish my pay comes every fortnight like in New Zealand, but it's ok. Big lump sum at the end of the month is definitely something worth looking forward to! To be honest I can't wait to give my parents money. Haha...it's just been one of those things I've been wanting to do since I finished my first degree, but was never able to. And when I was studying in Auckland, and my friends have been earning monthly salaries back home, I wanted to graduate more than ever!

On a different note, a lot has been happening in my circle of friends. People getting engaged and married and all that. It's all very surprising and exciting and I'm very happy to see that my friends are doing well in life. Love and happiness to me is one of the biggest success a person can achieve, and I am glad my friends have found them with amazing people. But to say I am not jealous would be a lie. I wish that for myself more than ever now that I am done studying, and embarking on my career.

I have so much happening for me right now. Things are working out better than I expected and it's been exhilarating being in charge of my own life, and watching it pan out the way I had hoped. But I'd really like to be able to share this excitement with someone. My family and friends are great, I've been entertaining them with stories of my mischievous kids at school and what not. And they're supportive and motivating. But yeah. Would be nice if I could share it with someone special. Haha...for once I don't want to be the one who's still studying, who has assignments and exams to go home to, who doesn't have enough money to foot the bill! haha...

Owells. Hope for the best? :)

Ectrodactyly

Ectrodactyly, sometimes referred to as the “Lobster-Claw Syndrome”involves the deficiency or absence of one or more central digits of the hand or foot and is also known as split hand/split foot malformation (SHFM).The hands and feet of people with ectrodactyly are often described as "claw-like" and may include only the thumb and one finger (usually either the little finger, ring finger, or a syndactyly of the two) with similar abnormalities of the feet.

Source: Wikipedia

If you had ectrodactyly, what would you do? If you met someone with ectrodactyly, how would you treat that person?

We all try to be socially correct when our paths cross that of special individuals who are a little different. We perk up, try to look past their differences, pretend we don't see anything, and act extra cheerful around them. Or if we don't do so well at that, we try to avoid them altogether. We all do that. It's probably human nature. It is extremely difficult to treat them normally without trying too hard.

A young girl in my class has Ectrodactyly syndrome. And I, as a Physical Education teacher, find it very challenging to be as fair as I can to everyone, without patronizing her, or pushing her too hard. But she makes it very easy for me. Simply because she sees herself as no different than everyone else. She asks for no modification to the exercises I give out, she attempts everything with full enthusiasm, and she's such a happy camper all the time, I will never forget she's a teenager, just like everyone else in her class, enjoying probably the awesomest period of school (I presume...hehe). Every time I see her, I am moved by her spirit.

Being a PE teacher in the past week has taught me patience, perseverance, creativity, and most of all, humility. Just chatting with these kids, being their friend, gaining their trust and friendship, you realise you are being schooled every day. In that class, there is no lesser individual, every one learns from every one. =)

Hello, work!

Everyone says, enjoy student life! You'll never get it back when you start working. They all say, once you start work, you don't get so much freedom, you don't get to play that much.

What everyone didn't believe me was when I said, work was going to be so much fun. I was right.

I started work this week, and it has been amazing! I do admit being committed to work for such long hours does kinda drain my energy, but apart from that work is so much fun! I'm still a little conscious about myself, being a new kid on the block in the whole PT thing, but I think I'm slowly gaining confidence. I am, after all, a Sport and Exercise Science degree holder. I am possibly more qualified than half the trainers in this country, if not more. =) *Just psyching myself up, don't mean to sound pompous*

On another note, I've been pretty moody lately, and I don't know whether it's just my hormones at work, or it's just being back here again, and facing all the memories once more. I function fine when I'm kept busy, but like always, the night gets to me. Also, I've been having dreams lately, and they leave me a little...disturbed...when I wake up. It's a bit unsettling. But it doesn't stay long, because once the day's activities pick up, I'm a happy camper again, which is good. But yeah, gotta do something about the nights and the dreams. heh. And the fear that I'm going to die alone. HAHA. No really...

Sara Bareilles sings for me, I swear.

Car is parked, bags are packed, but what kind of heart doesn't look back
At the comfortable glow from the porch, the one I will still call yours?
All those words came undone and now I'm not the only one
Facing the ghosts that decide if the fire inside still burns

All I have, all I need, he's the air I would kill to breathe
Holds my love in his hands, still I'm searching for something
Out of breath, I am left hoping someday I'll breathe again
I'll breathe again

Open up next to you and my secrets become your truth
And the distance between that was sheltering me comes in full view
Hang my head, break my heart built from all I have torn apart
And my burden to bear is a love I can't carry anymore

All I have, all I need, he's the air I would kill to breathe
Holds my love in his hands, still I'm searching for something
Out of breath, I am left hoping someday I'll breathe again

It hurts to be here
I only wanted love from you
It hurts to be here
What am I gonna do?

All I have, all I need, he's the air I would kill to breathe
Holds my love in his hands, still I'm searching
All I have, all I need, he's the air I would kill to breathe
Holds my love in his hands, still I'm searching for something
Out of breath, I am left hoping someday I'll breathe again
I'll breathe again

Fear.

We all have fears. Big stuff, small stuff, critical phobias and not so critical phobias. It is what makes us human, the whole not being perfect thing.

I fear lizards. Yes, the common house lizard which roams around my house in the dark and scurries away when I tun the lights on. *urgh*. Scares the living daylight out of me.

I also fear fish. HA! Betcha didn't see that one coming, huh? Yes. If I can scale rock faces, bungy jump, sky dive, run marathons, but ever wondered why I have not taken a diving certificate? I can't stand being in the water with fish surrounding me. That whole fish spa thing that's good for hard skin on your feet? Hate it. Couldn't last 10 seconds in it. I think it stems from my very amateur swimming ability. Because if something horribly wrong were to happen, I am not a strong enough swimmer to swim away from it - yes even little anchovies might turn out to be carnivorous creatures ok? In fact, they probably are.

Apart from that, I also fear not being good enough. I know I take on a chillax attitude most of the time, but when it comes to being judged by somebody very important to me, I almost always fear that I am not good enough for him. I think it's a rather crippling bad point of me which I have come to discover of myself in my previous relationships. Be with someone long enough, and I start to change to suit his wants, his preference, his idea of a cool, amazing person. It's not very healthy, I know. And I'm hoping to attribute some of it to the fact that my past relationships were kinda dysfunctional anyway. But yeah. I KNOW that this is a big flaw in me and I am going to try to prevent this from happening in my future relationship.

On a different note. Don't you just hate ex girlfriends/boyfriends? As in, not yours, but, well, the ex of your current partner/interest. I think no mater how grown up you are, all's fair in love and war. Only in extremely rare (and weird) situations would you end up being buddies with their ex. Most of the time, the sight of their name just kinda makes your skin crawl doesn't it? And everything they say or do just seems like they're out to get to you. *GROWL*.

To one such person in my life right now, I'd just like to say, even though you probably will never read this, (Actually then again, it wouldn't be completely impossible if you did), it's not a competition. I am no longer in the game. So you can drop the whole outsmarting me act and go get him if you want. Just on geographical proximity alone, you win. You probably already won all along.