Reflections of 2018

2018 has been the most interesting year of my life.

1. Started the year with my first non-family housemate - Annabelle
2. Farewells: hubby left for Melb in Feb
3. Packed up my apartment, for the most part, by myself.
4. Rented out our apartment.
5. Moved home with my family.
6. Completed first draft of my children's book.
7. Final block of play therapy class.
8. Farewells
9. Packing & Prep
10. Melbourne!!!
11. Submitted final portfolio for play therapy cert.
12. Started work at Guardian Early Learning.
13. Moved to DiPalmas' place for 12 days.
14. Moved to Preston with housemates!
15. Joined book clubs.
16. Started work at Explorers.
17. Back to Malaysia for weddings!
18. In-laws visited. Stayed in South Yarra for 3 weeks.

Recently, there has been a wave of #10yearchallenge.

10 years ago, I started my diploma in early childhood education and worked at an early childhood centre.

10 years later, I am also doing a diploma in early childhood education (in order to work in Australia) and am working at an early childhood centre.

I have been in the early childhood industry for 10 years.

In between, I have worked in 10 centres.

(Not that I worked in each centre for one year. I've always worked multiple jobs.)

In between, I:

1. Taught Mandarin
2. Taught English to students up to 19 years old
3. Taught babies as young as 3 months old
4. Had the job title "playologist" (Best job title ever)
5. Became a curriculum specialist
6. Was offered the position of curriculum mentor
7. Ran a preschool from designing the curriculum to handling the finances
8. Trained to be a play therapist
9. Completed 128 hours of clinical play therapy work
10. Worked in Australian childcare centres

Right now, I am back to where I started. I love my job. I love being with kids. I love what I do. Sometimes it's stressful. Sometimes the management is terrible. There's never going to be a perfect centre. But I honestly genuinely truly madly deeply love what I do.

After taking a year break from play therapy work, I am going to resume clinical work here.

It's going to be an interesting 2019.

2017

My 2017:

1. Set up play therapy placement

2. Extracted my wisdom tooth

3. Paid off PTPTN loan with my EPF

4. Began homeschooling Little A

5. Threw a surprise birthday party for R

6. Resumed regular yoga

7. Completed play therapy cert classes
8. Decided to move to Aussie next year
9. Getaway to Bukit Tinggi
10. Commenced play therapy diploma classes
11. Budgeted + lots of home cooked meals
12. Getaway to Tadom Hills with the girls
13. Set up 2nd play therapy placement
14. Completed 100 hours of clinical work
15. Did lots of art & calligraphy
16. Ama passed away :-( 

17. Getaway to Bali

A year of balance between time for self-care, work and play.

A year of unanswered questions and self-discovery. 

A year of planning and hoping and anticipating and uncertainty. 

A struggle between being productive and having time for myself. 

Here's to an adventurous 2018! 

Mindfulness

Mindfulness seems to be the opposite of productivity. I like to multitask. I like to be productive. Maybe that's why the idea never resonated much with me. When I read How to Train a Wild Elephant & Other Adventures in Mindfulness by Jan Chozen Bays and tried to start some of of the exercises, I couldn't even get through the first week. I have not even finished the book yet. (So unlike me.) 

When I started my clinical work as a trainee play therapist, I realised that I am not in control of my mind. I look but I do not see. My mind wanders away. Far far away. I started meditating more frequently. I even did it daily at a point in time. Why did I stop doing it so frequently? Hmm, I guess I was actually kinda demotivated when despite my daily practice, my mind still wandered. Anyways, I do it weekly. Sometimes.

I can't recall where I read it, but Gretchen Rubin says, "it is better to do something every day, than to do it some days. For a few weeks, I have started incorporating 3 daily habits: exercise, brain training games and read. I thought 3 would be a nice place to start. I realised that once I started this, I am way more energetic. More disciplined. 

So, I decided to try out the mindfulness exercise: leave no trace. Basically, when you use a room, you tidy up when you leave, as though you were not there to begin with. I had a bad habit of dumping dirty dishes into the sink and letting them pile up, so I wanted to start here. It was tough, especially when I wanted to go right to bed after dinner and a movie. I made myself wash up. And guess what? I felt a sense of accomplishment and it felt good! I felt satisfied the next day, too, when I walked into the kitchen to see it all clean. It's tough when I'm pressed for time, but I think that this is definitely a habit I would like to maintain! 

Next, I decided to tackle my next bad habit, glancing at my phone at every red light! Why did I feel a need to do that? Am I so impatient? The exercise: focus on breathing when waiting. Waiting for the lift. Waiting for the traffic light. Focusing on the breath can help me feel more centred. 

This is the beginning of my journey towards being more mindful. 

"Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing." - Jon Kabat-Zinn

Currently

I am currently

READING all about Play Therapy! Melanie Klein, Carl Jung, Laban. I love learning new things.
WATCHING Life in Pieces! Super funny sitcom.
LISTENING to the soundtrack of La La Land. Can't get enough of it.
FEELING a little under the weather today. Just had wisdom tooth removed.
LOVING life

A quarter of a century

2016 was...interesting. I turned 25, which was a milestone? In some ways. Hence I shall list 25 things that happened in 2016!

1. Left Odyssey. When I leave, I leave a piece of my heart with the kids.
2. Stayed at Fraser's Hill for Valentines Day - and ran away from the CNY hot weather.
3. Went back to Tweedlewink Playhouse where we worked crazy hard and put in crazy hours and practically ran the whole place.
4. Hm things didn't quite work out in Playhouse so we left Playhouse. (Long and complicated story) Left another piece of my heart there.
5. At crossroads again...what am I to do next? Options options...
6. Decided to continue my studies! Pursuing Play Therapy.
7. Went to Melbourne. Experienced snow for the first time. Fell in love with Melbourne. Left a piece of my heart in Melbourne.
8. Took a break from work.
9. Wrote articles for The Sun.
10. Binged on TV series - Parks & Rec and Downton Abbey
11. Asked to go back to Odyssey. Bittersweet experience.
12. Started Play Therapy course. Learned so much!! So excited to embark on this new journey.
13. Spent a lot buying toys for my practice.
14. Turned 25!
15. Roller coaster journey in Odyssey.
16. Celebrated our 2-year anniversary back in Mines.
17. Ended the odyssey in Odyssey. Leaving another piece of my heart.
18. Year end holiday in Kuching. Loved loved loved the beautiful suite we stayed in.
19. Year end holiday in Singapore! Had a great time with great friends.
20. Spent too much on holidays.
21. Decided to try to apply to migrate to Aussie.
22. Decided to focus on studies in 2017 while working part time.
23. Happy to end a crazy year.
24. Looking forward to beginning a new year.
25. Counted down in a cafe with the whole place just staring at us.

May 2017 be a better year!!

Reflections of 2015

This yearly reflection thing is becoming a tradition. And sort of the sole purpose of my blog! I only posted like, twice this year? Oh well, I guess I'd been busy with other things.

In a nutshell, I would say that 2015 was a honeymoon year for me. Not just in terms of my marriage, but in other aspects of life, too.

My first year of marriage was blissful. It is everything I hoped for and more. My only wish is that it will continue to be this way and only get better with every passing year. I am blessed with an incredibly kind and understanding life partner who understands me better than myself.

I started going for yoga classes and I have pushed myself to do more than I've ever done before. It has helped me feel healthier both physically and mentally. I think I have also grown taller by doing yoga! Either that, or my sister measured wrongly. I prefer the former. I credit my weight gain to yoga, too. You know, exercise means you gain muscles, and muscles are heavier than fats. Or maybe I'm living in denial and I have gained weight because my husband constantly buys me suppers......

My work had its ups and downs, but I am trying my best to focus on the ups. I have learned a lot from this current school and have been blessed with amazing children to love and to be loved by. Also, because of the abundant school holidays, I had plenty of time to rest and recharge.

Upcoming in 2016, I have been incredibly blessed with the challenge of running my own center. I am so excited to embark on this journey and I do believe the timing is right. I am ready!

Fulfilling Holidays

One of my resolutions for 2015 is to work on my work-life balance, as I was clearly overworked at my previous workplace. I'm glad to say that I have achieved it - I am at a point where I am satisfied: neither overworking nor under-working. I finish work at 3.30 and I have school holidays. Ah, life is good!

I was listening to the Happiness Project (I got the audiobook) Inspired to start my own mini happiness project, I started my two week break coming up with a super long list of things I want to do over the holidays. I didn't plan any trips because well, no one else was on holiday together with me.

There were days where I gave in to my guilty pleasures - waking up without alarm, lazing in bed, browsing the internet, reading and going back to sleep. I stayed in my cave all day. I had plenty of Me Time. But I like to be productive. That's why I like to keep track of what I have accomplished.

1. Nurturing my Creative Side

I'd just finished listening to "A Whole New Mind" by Daniel Pink (also an audiobook) One of the right brain sense is creative design. My sister was learning watercolour and she taught me some basics and I watched some tutorials on youtube. I got the gist of it and just tried - after all there's no right or wrong. Creating something beautiful is so addictive. I just kept painting, losing track of time.

 I like doodling, too. So, I wanted to try honing my skills and googled "how to draw caricatures" This was just a mini project and I still need lots of practice!

As I was also designing the Sunday School banner, I decided to do some research on graphic designing. I'm just an amateur, but mainly I want to give it a clean and simple look, staying away from anything tacky.

2. Reading

I finished two books which have been by my bed for a long time - Chicken Soup for the Soul Love Stories and Say You're One of Them. I've been a fan of chicken soups since a young girl and I always find the stories heartwarming. Say You're One of Them is a series of short stories set in different African countries by Uwem Akpan. Some of the stories were good, whereas some made me fall asleep.

I started reading Parent-Babble - How Parents Can Recover from Fifty Years of Bad Expert Advice. I couldn't stop complaining about the book and decided to just stop reading it. This book review reflects how I feel about the book.

He is saying that parents should "parent" the way they were parented in the 60s because back in those days, his own schoolmates didn't commit suicide, abuse alcohol or drugs or have emotional problems. Um, based on what research - his own memories??

In the book, he says that in those days, if a kid breaks a neighbour's window, he'd have to pay for it and be punished. Then, he'd never do it again. But these days, they will be wondering does the child have emotional conflict? Is it because the neighbour looks like the father who abandoned him? Send him for therapy. The child does not have to face any consequence.
\
I believe that in order to solve the problem, it is important to understand the cause of the misbehaviour. Treat the disease, not the symptom. Having said that, it doesn't mean that the child doesn't have to face any consequences! Can't the child be sent to therapy (If necessary) AND do extra chores to earn money to pay the neighbour?

No doubt that some parents take "I want to give my child self esteem" too far and end up having arrogant children who think that they've accomplished much even though they haven't. I recommend a better book: Parents Who Love Too Much by Jane Nelsen and Cheryl Erwin.

But I digress. Back to books I'm reading - John C. Maxwell's Winning with People. I'm studying how to improve my people skills to become a better leader.

I also finished The Orchid House. Ah, the feeling of getting lost in a good book, hours passing by unnoticed, such guilty pleasure.

3. Household

Spring cleaning is my archenemy. It took me forever to clean up the house and I haven't even finished. I cleaned every room except one - the STOR-DY (store+study). I dumped everything that couldn't be de-cluttered into the stordy and I am ignoring the stacks of paper and documents in there. I think I'll deal with those the next break! At least my living space is clutter free-ish.

I made beef stew. My shopping experience: I'm at the supermarket, looking for bay leaves. Hmm, the labels are all in Malay, which one is bay leaves...Google translate bay leaves to Bahasa. Oh, it's daun salam. Same thing for the part of beef I wanted.

Yummylicious beef stew

I became super housewife and made chicken stock and froze a HUGE batch of it for future use. Then, I cooked a huge batch of my favourite spinach spaghetti sauce for dinner and also to freeze for the future when I'm super busy. I also cooked ratatouille for dinner. Like, a lot of it 

I paid and organized and filed up ALL the bills, which I had been putting off for ages.  

4. Friends

We hosted some guests and I met up with Tracy after yoga and Boon Chin to sort of help with her wedding. Then we had dinner together. Choir practice also took up some time and I kinda enjoy it. It's fun to sing. 

7 more days till I go back to school! I want to live to the fullest and make the most of my days.