I am a Drama Queen. (NOT!)

I recently was surprised when a friend of mine, whom I haven’t met since school, had called me (gasp!) a drama queen.

My reaction was Me? Drama queen? Nevaaairr!

And much to my amazement, he pointed out that even the use of the French accent ‘nevair’ screams of a drama queen. Hah! Nevaaaiiiir! Ooops!

So, what exactly is a drama queen, I ask you. And you’d say someone who thrives on making a mountain out of a molehill. Mmmm well, if you put it that way, maybe…just maybe…I AM a drama queen, and I am using this definition in the loosest of terms. So, let’s see what kind of behaviour that can be construed as an action of a drama queen.

Mmmm…drama queens love dramatic entrances! Arriving everywhere so late it’s not even considered fashionable, with an entourage of no less than 20, and demanding diva treatment, even if they are just having breakfast of roti telur and curry at the mamak stall. Well? Mmmm…sooo not like me! Like every normal person, it is nice when people look at you when you arrive, but far be it for me to turn it into an opportunity for a publicity stunt. In fact, I find it extremely creepy when people wouldn’t stop looking. Wouldn’t you too? It is uncomfortable, and makes me wonder if there’s something wrong with the way I look. Did I somehow leave home in different colour shoes? No. Have I got a bit of lunch stuck between my teeth? No. Is my panty line showing? Heck, no! I find women do this to me too, staring at me from across the table. So, please excuse me pretending to not see you staring at me while I’m trying to enjoy my dessert.

Drama queens love having a gazillion people in their social network – some even strangers they have never met in their life, and don’t know them from Adam. It doesn’t matter to drama queens who their audiences are, as long as they have an audience who would oooh and aaaah at the drama that unfolds in their lives. Now, I must admit, of late, I have been doing a bit of this myself, i.e. accepting friends’ requests from strangers, but only because they are my juniors at school, albeit juniors I have never met, but my juniors nonetheless. But those who know me also know that I am always trimming my friends’ list, much to the wrath of my many errr…victims. I mean, come on…it is so boring to have ‘friends’ who are ever so quiet and never have an opinion to share with others, and wouldn’t you find it creepy to know that these ever-so-quiet people, especially those you don’t know, trawl the walls of your social network? And I think my friends’ list editing is coming up in a couple of months. Call me a drama queen in this case. I’d gladly accept it.

What else do drama queens do? Splash their problems in their social network status. Granted, everyone is allowed to write whatever they want, it is after all ‘almost’ a free country, but there are things that should be kept out of these social network walls. For example, me being a person who has a love-hate relationship with food, I’d love to know what you have for breakfast/lunch/tea/dinner. If you could post pictures of these scrumptious foods, hey, I’d hate you for eating them, but I’d love drooling at the pics! I’d love you too if you post pictures of sexy shoes and gorgeous bags and your stylish new hairdo, heck, tag me in them so I wouldn’t miss a thing, but I reserve the right to not have to read about you breaking your nail while doing the dishes this morning, or your heart is broken for the umpteenth time in a span of a week, or your not-so-subtle clues that make us all wonder about what that excuse of a husband of yours has done to you. Me? I’d like to think my social posts are words of encouragement that inspire people, or funny ones that make people smile, at least, and yes, I try to keep the drama in my personal life only to myself. People might know my name, but they don’t know my story, and I’d like to keep it that way. Unless of course if you’re interested in what I have for breakfast or lunch, then I can talk allllllll day, my friend!

I once bought a t-shirt that says I hate Drama that has a big heart with crossbones on it, in a bright pink colour that screams look at me, look at me, I hate drama! And boy, I love that t-shirt. I thought I look cute in it! Hahaha! To be honest, I bought it as a joke because I have met too many people who thrive on drama. People close to me know that I have enough drama in my life – and most of which are NOT of my own doing, and I don’t need other people’s drama on top of what’s already on my plate. I don’t even watch drama on TV anymore - they are eerily similar to the drama I have to deal with on the personal front. I long for the days when all the drama is gone – kaput! Vanish into thin air! so that maybe I will have some kind of normalcy again. So, I think it’s the people around me who are giving me drama. I myself am no drama queen.

Please believe me! I implore you! :D

Comments are welcome.

Thank you!

It is good to see one of my good friends has joined this blog.

Welcome, Selina Rogers! :D

Yes, Ma'am.

Dear all,

It has been a long time since my last post, and if you recall, it was an issue of children not doing the chores because they have a maid to do it all for them, resulting in children who will grow up having  very different values about life.

Today’s post is about maids, or rather, the treatment of maids that I have seen over the years.

Many of us have live-in maids today because our lives are such that we need a helping hand with the children and making sure that the house is running smoothly. We depend on live-in maids to keep our house clean, the children fed, the laundry washed, ironed and ready, the plants watered. Live-in maids are a necessity for many households as they help us with the chores so that we can go out to work knowing that the house will be taken care of, and generally, will be in a tip top condition by the time we get back from work. Many such families get along well with their maids and treat them like family, respect and trust them implicitly to do their job well. These maids are treated well – they are paid on time, get presents on special occasions and some more fortunate ones are even taken on holidays either locally or abroad. Yes, we have also heard of the horror stories of how these maids abuse our trust by running away, or mistreating our children etc, but does it justify us treating our maids badly? I have seen a lot over the years, and today, I would like to share with you some stories of how some people just mistreat their live-in maids as if slavery still rules the day.

First and foremost, the maids are there to help with the house chores so that we can focus on the things that matter – like spending more time with our children. However, there have been many cases when the maids become the children’s surrogate mother/parent. For example, I have seen a maid playing in the pool with two small children of the family she is working for, while the mother is sitting in the sun chair, reading magazines. Then, the mother shouts instructions to the maid who then disappears from the pool while the mother keeps an eye on her children from the comfort of her sun lounger. A while later, the maid is back, bearing a heavy tray of cold drinks and snacks. The mother then instructs her to go back to play with the children in the pool. The mother does not even go anywhere near the pool – she occasionally shouts at her children and the maid from where she is lounging. When the mother is tired, she asks the maid to round up the children. The maid towels them dry, and the mother walks away with the children, leaving the maid to collect and carry everything that is left behind – a big bag full of toys, magazines, the wet things as well as the tray of empty glasses and plates. I swear to god, the maid staggers under the weight of the number of things she has to carry upstairs. What is wrong with this picture?

Shopping outings are the same. I have seen many maids having to carry a bag of the child’s things on her shoulder, while is also laden with shopping bags in both her hands. What do the parents do? The father holds a child’s hand, while the mother carries only her handbag. The maid just trails behind this family with the most forlorn look on her face, tired from all the walking and carrying, possibly tired of the insensibility of it all. I have also seen a maid who always has to wait at the entrance of the mall while her employers go shopping. When I ask her, she says she is not allowed to look around the mall but has to wait there until they come back, for if she’s not there when they come, she’ll be in trouble. I watched her from afar as I was having my coffee, and the family she works for came back after a good two hours. The maid had to just wait there for two whole hours. I really just don’t see the point of that. Why wouldn’t they give her some money so she could get a coffee while waiting for them, rather than just standing there by the entrance for two solid hours? Once, when I was in the foodcourt having lunch, a family of three was seated at a table next to me, with their maid. The woman went to get food for everybody, and gave her maid a bowl of noodles, and they started eating. I thought ‘That’s nice.’ Then, as the maid was eating her noodles, the woman started picking out all the prawns, fishballs and vegetables from the maid’s bowl, leaving the maid only with the noodles and the soup. The maid caught my eyes, and looked away, obviously embarrassed that I had witnessed the cruelty of her employer. I just couldn’t believe my eyes, and felt so sad that people could be so mean.

When I was still attending classes at the university and returning home around 10pm, in the car park, I always saw a maid washing the cars. I asked her once why she’s still washing the cars so late at night and she said she was not allowed go to bed until she had done all her chores, including washing the two cars, and she could only wash the cars when her employers were finally home. If they came home late, then she would still have to wash the cars late. Once, I left something in the car and had to go back for it, and who did I see was still washing the cars at almost midnight? I said to her to go back and sleep, and she just gave me a sad smile.

I used to play golf with a man years younger than I am. Once, I gave him a ride home, and when we were about five minutes away from his condo, he called his maid and asked her to meet him outside the condo so that she could carry his golf bag upstairs (their condo is a walk-up). I was shocked that a strong man of 25 had asked his diminutive maid to carry his heavy golf bag for him. Yes, I judged him that day, and I’m not proud of it, but I hope that he has changed his ways now that he’s much older.

It is disheartening to realize that in this time and age, people are still being treated like slaves. We have heard of other stories of how the maids never get a day off, never allowed to leave the house, not allowed to make phone calls home, and the indignity of having to wear maid uniforms as well. I am appalled that we treat other human beings with so little respect and in such an inhumane manner, just because we pay them money (which is a pittance, by any standards). These brave souls leave their families and friends behind, and cross the oceans to go to foreign countries to find a better life for themselves and their families. It is a choice that nobody would make, not unless dire circumstances call for it. They are somebody's wife, mother, daughter, sister. It could be us. Would we not find it in our hearts to be more compassionate to these brave souls, and treat them better? After all, they are the ones cooking our food, looking after our children and keeping our house in a good running order, and generally making things easy for us, so isn’t it just appropriate that we reciprocate these acts of devotion by showing them a little more respect, a little more kindness? 

Comments are welcome.

Among Other Things

Love, among other things,

Is also fragile -

Like a little bird

Whose delicate feathers

Come apart in your crushing hand.

Among other things,

Heart too is delicate -

All it takes is

One wrong step

And it shatters into pieces.

Promises, among other things

Are as breakable

As that red Tesco mug

You drink your coffee from

Every single morning.

Among other things,

Trust, thrice betrayed

Will limp away bearing crutches

With deep cuts that only time will heal

If that is at all possible.

So in the meantime

What am I supposed to do

With love crushed in your hands

Heart shattered beyond repairs

Broken promises laced with lies

And trust that will not return to me easy?

Children and Chores

A few days ago, a friend of mine lamented that she was stopping her new year’s resolution, i.e. to cook more often for her family. When asked, she said that it is because the last time she made the effort, she didn’t get any help at all from her family members – they just ate the meal she had made the painstaking efforts to prepare, and then they left the washing up to her as well. She said she felt like a ‘coolie’.

In the world today where mostly both parents go out to work, we have become dependent on the assistance of the hired help to look after the children and the house. Whereby our parents had clear cut roles while they were bringing us up (mostly without the help of a maid), we on the other hand can’t help it because our lives today are such that having a maid has become a necessity, not a luxury. Even I who don’t have a 9 to 5 job have a part time cleaner who comes in and does the cleaning and ironing for me as I tackle other more pressing matters.

I remember the times when I was growing up, with a bunch of other kids in the house. As we didn’t have a maid, our grandma did everything for us. But as we grew older, house chores were delegated to us – mostly the girls – my cousin, who was the oldest, took charge of the cooking. My older sister was responsible for the laundry, and me…being the youngest, was responsible for making sure that there was enough firewood for the stove. Keeping the house clean (sweeping the floors, tidying up etc) was shared by everybody, though I must say my sister was fond of cleaning the house twice a day. As the older two girls moved out of the house, I was the only girl left. By then I was proficient in the art of cooking ehem…I meant cooking simple meals for us (me and my grandparents), and keeping the house tidy also became a responsibility that I did with pride. Grandma laundered her own things (on hindsight, maybe she didn’t trust me with her fine fabrics!), and I did grandpa’s laundry as well as my own. I didn’t complain, and I did them with a great sense of duty. When I went to the boarding school at the age of 12, I had even more practice at doing everything myself. As and when I went home for the weekend, or the school holidays, I resumed my duties at tackling the household chores with pride, and the sense that I was helping my grandparents. I also felt like I was giving grandma a break, and I knew she loved it that I spoiled her by taking charge of the house again. And I never had a helper for a looong time, until I had the baby. My younger sister came and lived with me for over a year to look after the baby. Since then, I have had no live-in maid, just part time cleaners.

While I understand the economic/social dependency on live-in maids, I believe that this point has not been explained to our children fully. Yes, having a maid means the children can focus on their school, but does that justify raising children who will not lift a finger to help out with house chores at all? I also believe that it is only in Asia that those who can afford to have maids will have one. In Europe and America, for example, part time help, let alone live-in maids, are expensive, so most families do all the house chores themselves. Some families I have come across with in Asia have a maid just for the sake of having a maid – not out of necessity. So, my question is...what is this doing to our children? Can they survive on their own once they leave home? Or will they be coming home with a bagful of dirty laundry for the maid to do? And who is going to clean their room/house? Do they know what to use to mop the floor with? Heck, do they even know what a mop looks like? I’m not even going to even mention the art of cooking.

When I was living in Singapore, I became friends with a nice German family with two children. I remember the wife/mother told me a story of how shocked she was to discover that for three weeks when they were on holiday back in Germany, her children were incapable of looking after themselves. Their rooms were strewn with dirty clothes, the beds were never made, and the bathrooms were filthy. Why? It’s all because in Singapore, they had a live-in maid who did all the cleaning up for them. They got used to having a maid around that they did not bother to do anything. My German friend assessed the situation and when they got back to Singapore, the parents promptly made a regulation that the children were responsible for the cleanliness of their own bedrooms and bathrooms. They had to get up 30 minutes earlier every morning to make their own beds, and clean up their rooms and make sure their bathrooms were clean before they went to school. And it worked.

Teenage Son turned 16 this month…I must say he’s turning out…not bad at all. When he is with me, he’s always the one doing the dishes after lunch or dinner. And he’s responsible for keeping his room clean, or Mommy dearest will blow her top. He’s even asked me to teach him how to cook fried rice, and whenever I’m cooking, he’d sometimes come and stir the gravy (and said he’s cooked it! Hahaha), or at mealtimes, he’d set up the table, get the drinks for everybody and after the meal, ALWAYS thanks me for cooking the meal. And when he feels like getting something from the kitchen, he’d always ask if I wanted a cup of tea, or if he could get me some cheese, or…well, you get the idea. He used to be quite a spoiled child (mom’s guilt trip!), but over the years, my ‘training’ of him has shown fruitful results. To my future daughter-in-law, you’re welcome!

Another friend of mine also has two children, and they too have a live-in maid. However, she has drawn up a ‘house duty’ schedule that the children have to do everyday. When the task is achieved, the child gets a star, and after collecting a number of stars, the child can redeem them for a treat. This is a very good motivation for the children, and I do hope, as the children grow older and more mature, they will understand the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and how they should always strive for the intrinsic, though the extrinsic is not necessarily bad.

My point is…think of every household chore as an opportunity to build character. Enlist your children’s help with house chores…not to unload these chores on them, but to make them realize that these in fact are not ‘chores’, but tasks that, once accomplished, show our children that they matter, and their contribution to the family matters too, however small, however mundane it might be. And as a token of appreciation, they can stay up one hour later on one school night to watch their favorite programme. How about that?

Comments are welcome.

Waiting to Exhale

Hello all!

The weeks following my last post had been frantic with work. It was stressful, and with enough drama that, had I been faint-hearted, would have done me in. Now that it was over, at least till I get the reviews back from my examiners, I could exhale freely.

The simple act of ‘exhaling’ is not as easy as it sounds. Exhaling that I am talking about here is waiting for things to happen, waiting for your life to take off in the way you want it to be, i.e. only under conditions you think are ‘perfect’. I have been guilty of this. I used to think that I will only do Y, when I am done with doing X. If only I had this, then I could do that etc etc. There’s always something that held me back from living a fulfilling life. I was always holding my breath until the perceived ideal conditions arrived. But they never arrived. And so, I waited and held my breath some more, until I’m blue in the face.

But life doesn’t work that way.

End of 2009, I was so sick I almost died. Since then, I had taken stock of my life, and made life-changing decisions because my old life was not working for me, was not good for me in any way. I might seem like the person who had everything, but deep down I was miserable, and people just couldn’t see past my handbags and shoes – people couldn’t see me for me…people just see what they want to see. Decisions I made were not easy, but I have faith that God wants only great things for me, and if I was stuck, He helped me to get unstuck. So now, I don’t take my life for granted. I try to seize the day. Mundane as my life might be, in the words of John Lennon... Life is what happens to you everyday…be it doing the dishes, grocery-shopping, having lunch, and because of that, I always try to make my everyday means something. I try to make small achievements that count. I now make plans as to what I want to do with my life, knowing that I will now do things to make them happen. I try to be a good person/wife/mom/daughter/sister/friend every day, try to be kind everyday, and above everything else, I try to be happy every day and to love passionately every day. Why? Because life is short; and tomorrow is not promised to anyone. We only have this here and now. No more, no less.

So, if you think you’re waiting for something to happen, remember that you are the one who could make it happen. Don’t hold your breath any more. Exhale. You might just find that it is easier that way.

Happy Chinese New Year, and let’s hope the Year of the Dragon will bring us all prosperity, good health and love, all in great abundance.

It's 2012!

Hello all!

It's 2012! Well, I know this is late, and it's already the 6th day of 2012, but I hope your new year celebrations have been grand. Mine was ushered in on a beach somewhere up north of Malaysia, and it was good because it had a meaning, and changed the way things characterized all of my 2011.

Talking about new year, we have to talk about our resolution for 2012. What is yours? Is it to be a better person/mom/father/husband/wife/sister/daughter/son/teacher/student/
neighbour/worker/boss? Is it to lose those 5,10, 15 kgs? Is it to find the love of your life? Pass your exam? To pray more, and party less? To save more, and spend less? To be healthy? To enjoy life more? To not take yourself too seriously? To take yourself seriously? To make amends? To forgive? To forget? To let go? To heal? To be punctual? To be kinder to the dog? To be more patient? To not be a maniac on the road? To resist that cupcake? To....well, there are too many things that we tell ourselves to do when the new year comes along that it can be overwhelming.

The main thing is...we can do all that- one step at a time. Let's start small. With baby steps. Until we are confident enough to do more, each time at a pace that is comfortable to us. Sudden changes could be a shock to our system/family/co-workers/dog anyway. Keeping the resolution is demanding, it needs discipline (discipline I still find so elusive, especially when it involves a piece of cake!) So, instead of going for a full on sprint, start by going for a short walk. Instead of saying 'No' to a slice of cake, have a couple of forkfuls. Want to be more charitable? Start by smiling at somebody. Don't feel like the sunshine today? Try not to 'rain' on someone else's good morning either. That driver cut you off? Don't honk at him till kingdom come...just curse at him silently, and sing to that song on the radio while you're doing it.

While we do have good intentions to do all these things right, 'bad' things do happen to put a damper on our resolution. Insecure spouses might sabotage our dieting resolution by bringing home our favourite cakes. Or it starts raining cats and dogs complete with thunder and lightning as soon as we want to head out for a jog. Or the dog has taken ill and needs to be taken to the vet. Or the boss has been shouting at you all day you feel like you need to shout at somebody...maybe your wife/husband/children when you get home. Or you're suffering from PMS, and cake seems to be the only solution...So what do we do?

We have to remember that we are human, after all, and the best thing about being human is that, we don't have to be perfect...because we know we humans are flawed...and for a good reason, and that reason is...it is OK if we fell by the wayside from time to time, as long as we know we have to get back on the bandwagon, and that it is no great tragedy if we did have that cake, or lost the plot from time to time. We are not robots. We are people with feelings and we are fallible - we just need a little more practice to perfect the art of being imperfect. 

So, this 2012...good luck with your resolution, if you have one. Now I will end this piece. There's a carrot cake with my name on it. :D