CH came back drunk at midnight. I heard him coming in as I was washing my hair in the shower. He knocked once, then staggered into the bathroom and collapsed on the toilet bowl, and vomited.

He kept apologizing through his slurs. He could hardly stand, his head was lolling, eyes unfocused. For a few moments, I was afraid he might pass out and die. I then spent the next hour bathing him and then put him to bed. I was wet and still had shampoo in my hair and could not even put on clothes.

My first response was anger- at his boss for coercing?/ allowing him to drink to such a state. He did not even have the decency to check on CH to if he made it back home safe. It pained me to see him in his drunken state, vomiting and in obvious distress.

I cried a little bit, not too much, because there was work to be done and because I knew it would be difficult for me to fall asleep if the floodgates opened. In a sudden moment of clarity, I realized that my husband does not define me. He is him, and I am me.

I went through a few scenarios in my head on how best to broach the topic tomorrow. This is the third time he has drunk himself into a state of insobriety; the two times before he solemnly promised/ vowed/ swore that it would not happen again. We shall see how the discussion goes tomorrow.

I realize that there is no one I can turn to. Because this is our matter, our marriage and ours alone. And that it is alright, for I am stronger than I thought I was. And I will be even more so.

But I resurrected my dying blogs at half past two in the morning. So I guess I need an avenue after all. And if I'm honest, if I will pause to acknowledge what my heart feels, I hope he sees this and hears me as before like no one else.

26 September 2015                Singapore

Touched down into the hazy garden city of Singapore at ten minutes past seven in the evening yesterday. Saw mum and dad off back to Penang this morning.

So i woke up from my lazy afternoon nap to a very wet pillow and drool trailing down my chin.

I could hear myself saying half flirtatiously, 'I love the smell of your hair'. His reply took me aback. He felt the same way towards me as I did to him. 

It was the way he made me feel. So new, and full of wonder.

It was the thrill of a meeting someone new and discovering he was full of charm, wit and talent. 

In the dream, he was married with a very cute baby boy, and Muslim. I told him in all innocence that my flirty comment did not mean anything. I would not do anything to hurt his baby and family. But the chemistry was palpable and left me smiling and reminiscing the swirl of emotions for a good while after I woke. He looked a good deal like Jien (Malaysian talkshow host and celebrity I grew up with).  

I loved how he made me feel. I haven't felt like that in a long, long time. I thought of how good it would have felt to kiss him and regretted that it did not happen in the dream. 

I became afraid of my feelings and wanted to hear CH's voice so very badly. He called, and all was good again.

Goodbye, Jien. Are you really out there? Or just threads of a dream I weave when I go to sleep and my mind wanders. 

A day of imaginary patients and drugs

Much as i dislike to admit it i must say i was a teeny-weeny bit stressed out today. what with logbooks to complete, an article to finalise and a drug appraisal to write. On top of that i have dirty clothes to launder and a (very!) messy room. It has gotten to the point where simply removing my handbag from the shelf results in a bottle of Difflam gargle falling to the floor and narrowly missing my foot.

Mom and Dad were here for the weekend so I got fresh sheets on the bed and curtains. The kitchen cabinet shelves and fridge are stocked up with food to last a week ( in case of any untoward happenings). This has a somewhat comforting effect on my psychique which is unsurprising as I hoard food "just-in-case" i feel hungry.

So it's a day of imaginary patients and drugs for the sake of the logbooks.

So the countdown to the sixteenth of September tw0. thousand. eleven. begins.

Where will my path in life take me next?

My mind tries to distract itself with frivolity when under stress. I want a new phone, something cute, doesn't cost a bomb- an android most probably. I want a polaroid camera. And I also revived this blog after a long hiatus and injected some cheery prettiness in the form of a new blogskin :)

Twenty. Eleven.

Ever since starting work, I've lost touch with me. So penning my thoughts here in this virtual journal is a way of reconnecting with myself. Resolution #1: reconnect with self.

Life has been a whirlwind of work, fatigue, new friends, sleep. Days go by without me thinking about God at all. I used to be more spiritual, I hope God doesn't think i have forgotten about him.

i mustn't let work erode me. i am me i am me i am me.

i hope twenty eleven is the start of many new things. :)

I am decluttering- new verb I learned from apartmentherapy.com, minimalist.com and several other websites with names along the lines of "live-a-simple-life-and-be-happy" or more blatantly, "change-your-slothful-ways-NOW-you-slob!".

I found this collection of online sites from the sidebar on Cyn's blog. Cyn is a huge advocate of the minimalist concept and has astonished me on more than one occasion with enlightening realizations such as "wouldn't it be great if your ENTIRE -the capping is by me, not her- I repeat, ENTIRE life could be packed into a suitcase?" I hang my head in shame next to an enlightened being like her- I still have my first "English Composition" book stashed somewhere. This prized collection begins with a story about a monkey who was "a s t o n i s h e d" (I printed each letter with painstaking concentration). Unfortunately, treasures such as this cannot be uncovered unless I "declutter" my room, i.e. throw out my possessions.

Each year, I do a bout of spring-cleaning, usually during the year-end holidays or before chinese new year. However, what I do is just rearrange everything and put them in a more orderly manner- I don't throw things out.

My choir songbook from standard two? (attempts to sing) Keep.

My Maths notebooks from Forms One to Three? (flips through pages of squiggly writing, geometric shapes and endless formulae involving anons X and Y) Might be useful someday, keep.

The annual prefect magazines? (Flips through and laughs at geeky hairstyles) Keep.

The envelopes of little slips of love notes? (Alright, not love notes, friendship notes, more accurately) Charming. Keep.

Old diaries, old letters- some received, some unsent- a lot of innocence, hope, light-heartedness; a lot of heartache, helplessness, anguish and regret.

But the minimalist concept preaches... minimalism. So this time it will be slightly different. My stacks of Cleo and Female magazines will be going to the recycling centre (stares at Female's "naked dish of the month"-featured yummylicious male for the last time). And frugality shall be compromised too- out go the stack of single-side printed A4 paper. And the cupboard bursting with clothes but none presentable (the irony of it) shall be relieved of its contents.

I shall end with a resolution to not buy anything with the potential to become trash later on. As the minimalist preaches, "quality, not quantity is what matters". Off to bed.

Wednesday, August 4

I was apprehensive of entering M class (i dun want to name names here) again after my first encounter with them during which I had to let them stand for a good 10 minutes before they could quieten down. They wouldn't answer questions, and seemed to be overtaken by sudden, mysterious fits of hysteria.

But M class turned out to be fun (fortunately for me they were not disposed towards hysterics today). I wanted to be stern, yet often I would catch myself with this small smile playing on my lips, or worse, an outright laugh. I just found them highly amusing, and I like to think they like me too.

M class is the kind of class where u have to walk about pestering them to get their books out and start writing.

So this boy asked me, " Lao shi, wei shen me ni na me kai xin, yi zhi xiao ba le. ni mei you fan nao de mie?" (Teacher, why are you so happy and always smiling? Don't you have worries?)
To which I couldn't help smiling again. So I asked to know what worries he had.
"wo you hen duo fan nao... wo wei qing suo kun a..." (I have many worries.... I'm love-sick....)
I think I snorted and said very solemnly "zhong xue sheng bu shi he tan lian ai" (secondary school students shouldn't fall in love yet)
Both- his friend and him were immediately indignant.
"ni men mei ci jiang dao hao xiang wo men hui gao da ren jia de du zi zhe yang!" (you (adults) always speak as if we will get girls pregnant!"
Then they asked me,
"lao shi ni you mei you nan peng you? ni bu hui wei qing suo kun ma? gen nan peng you chao jia shi?" (Teacher, do you have a boyfriend? Were you never love-sick? Don't you ever quarrel with your boyfriend?)

I laughed, then mustered every serious fibre in my body and came up with a (hopefully) dignified "zhe shi wo si ren de shi qing." (These are my private affairs) to which they gave a collective sigh of dissatisfaction "yerrrr".

I get a bit awkward when kids bow to me (not the full chinaman bow la, just a slight inclination of the head) along the corridors. And I hope I don't fidget too much when they stand to greet/ thank me before/ after classes. It is humbling, this show of respect. I question my worthiness of it; me who had to have the students correct me when I pronounced "ji" as "xi" (i was supposed to teach English!!! but it became Chinese instead ><) Teachers complain that students are so much naughtier and more disrespectful "nowadays", I can't agree more with that. They loiter outside classrooms, run around in class (I was overcome by this extreme urge to GLUE them to their seats in one class) and don't do their work. But I'm just saying that whatever respect and regard offered so implicitly shouldn't be taken for granted. And it is heartwarming when girls come up to you and say shyly "lao shi ni hen mei", and you get all self-conscious to be recipient of their innocent affection.

So these are the nice bits i would like to remember. Not-so-nice bits include waking up, groaning "i don't want to go to school", and snoozing the alarm for the fifth consecutive time. Argh.

i read somewhere that growing up means spending less time on the internet, and more time in the real world. so i'm quite determined to stop puttering mindlessly online. i shall quit msn tomorrow.

Glasgow came and went; all i have left of it is a calendar of memories. last year's July, we visited Pollock House, stared at the highland cows, lay on the grass and picked daisies.

Returning home was frightening because it felt like i had never left. everything was exactly the same as it was a year ago, the key slid smoothly into the padlock and i stepped into the past. because i have the memory of a goldfish, glasgow seemed like a dream- unreal, intangible. But life has returned to a comfortable existence again now. i read the papers in the morning, do some housework, and take lazy afternoon naps.

Went to Pacific supermarket to buy milk powder for mom's friend who is sick (suspected liver infection). The salesgirl asked if i was looking for pregnancy formula. =_='' yea i've been eating and sleeping a lot, but DO I LOOK PREGNANT?

working on cross-stitch project atm. life's not too bad. taas