transposable element

if not for my birthday, i still would probably be ignoring facebook. my account dates back to 2006, iif i remember right, as part of the community building chuva in one of the blogging networks i wrote for. i never really paid any attention to it though, and wouldn’t log in for months on end, despite pending friends request. fb, twitter, plurk– i managed to skip the bandwagon.

but it’s difficult to stay immune when everyone on my friends list (which somehow grew over the last 3 years with little nurturing) seems to be posting on some virtual wall which sends alerts to my inbox. arrrgh. mas makulit pa kay mia!

so here i am, three years after i first signed up, still a novice at navigating fb. so what’s the difference between commenting on something someone wrote on my wall, and writing something on someone’s wall?!? ack, i think this is going to be a steep learning curve.

we’ve been married for nine years.
working together, building a family together, working towards goals together.

it’s already been nine years? sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday.
it’s only been nine years? sometimes it feels like it’s been forever.

for the last couple of years, my husband and i have stopped celebrating our birthdays with the usual party pomp. we’ve been opting for short travels when the schedule fits, or simple celebrations with the family. my birthday this year wasn’t any different. and frankly, i couldn’t ask for anything more.

woke up (extra early) to a birthday cake baked by hubby and several presents, one of which was a personal pick from jan. took a nap with mia and woke up to a flood of phone and email messages from friends and family. had a great dinner at a german bistro near our place. and as i drifted off to sleep, i realize that at 37, i have every reason for having a happy birthday.

…a loving, dedicated and obliging husband.
…two smart, confident and assertive children any mother would be proud of.
…family whose support i could always count on.
…in laws who love me like their own.
…friends i could run to in times of need.

because truly, at the end of the day, it is our relationships with those around us that puts the ‘happy’ in happy birthday.

yowza, this blog has been unupdated for more than a week! obviously, it’s not due to lack of blog fodder. to the contrary, there has been so much happening the last couple of weeks, so many things to blog about, events to document, so many thoughts to be put into words… in an attempt to make sense of the fast swirl of events taking place. unfortunately, and this is the paradox that most bloggers probably experience, is that just when things to blog about mounts, that’s when you can’t find the time to blog.

there’s a parallel universe out there, and when i’m not here, i’m there.

have you ever wondered why it’s called martial arts? apparently it is derived from Mars, the god of war, hence martial arts = art of warfare. and just like in any war, there are always casualties.

the report of the teen who died after receiving a kick on the neck in a taekwondo competition jarred my nerves. it is one thing when someone who has lived a full life passes away (my dad would have been 74 today), but quite another when someone so young does. and in such an abrupt manner.

but it’s not just that. see, jan is already sporting a green belt. aside from his weekly lessons, he also attends a number of compulsory sparring sessions. they don protective gears on breast, shin, groin and arm areas, and are taught to put into action all the kicks and blocks they have learned previously. on saturday will be another round of grading, this time with sparring included.

what’s the probability that such a fatal accident will recur? probably very low. probably as low as one dying from an air crash. or a bad fall. or a lightning strike. but the thing is, one never knows, eh? after all those are the stats behind term life insurance quotes.

but what to do? pull him out of training? sounds absurd. cross fingers? sounds useless. arrgh.

during jan’s toddler years, we were very strict his with tv exposure. he virtually never watched tv before he was two and even at nearly three, his consumption was kept to about half an hour before bedtime.

with mia, though, it’s more challenging to keep her unexposed. having an older sibling who watches makes it close to impossible for her not to. if we had a large house, it would probably be possible to whisk her away to some other room while jan watches his programs, but as it is, it’s just not possible. even more now that we’ve decided to finally to get a bigger screen plasma tv (there goes my Sony Vaio budget!). she watches in passing, especially when she hears a catchy tune, but unlike some of her friends of the same age, she hasn’t displayed any real interest in tv so far.

oh well, let’s see how long it takes before she catches the bug and get addicted to the purple dinosaur.

before i forget it or get entangled in some other task, here are some photos for posterity:

1. the beach, 2. our bungalow, 3. view from bungalow, 4. the pool, 5. foot wash, 6. jan, 7. mia, 8. abandoned huts, 9. pause, 10. family, 11. rocks, 12. mia naps, 13. mia and mama, 14. cooler, 15. elephant, 16. bedrock, 17. waterfall, 18. raincloud, 19. bringing home the bacon, 20. khao lak sunset

stories later…maybe.

finally, we’re back on track… sort of.

the month-long school holidays are over, with a bonus week because both hubby and jan were put on quarantine after our return from thailand, plus a long weekend because of youth day. so finally, yesterday, tuesday, jan was back in school, and life returns to normal, hehe.

no more sleeping-ins for me (hubby’s no longer there to look after mia in the mornings!), back to homework, forget unrestricted tv-time, online games and PS3. this term, jan’s schedule is a logistical challenge. every wednesday afternoon, he has a supplementary conversational chinese class. this means two things. one, he will have to eat lunch in school; problem is, he’s not very enthusiastic at the food offerings in the canteen. two, the next schoolbus he could take home is 45 minutes after the end of his class, so i (and mia) will have to pick him up.

in a few months, mia will also go to a nursery of some sort. and i can already foresee how my days will be spent, shuttling the kids to schools and back, doing the grocery runs and house chores in between. this is it– the stuff i see on tv shows featuring stay at home moms. fab!

or not.

so she’s refused treatment. and there’s fluid build-up in her stomach area.

pessimistic and callous as it may sound, i can’t bring myself to believe she still has a chance. i’m too pragmatic, and my own father’s last days are still too vivid. i know what ascites mean. and what will happen next. let’s not fool ourselves.

rather than recovery, i’m praying for a pain-free, swift and dignified transit. she deserves it.

a few days before we were set to fly to thailand for a week’s holiday, i was so close to canceling the trip. not only is thailand included in the list of countries with community spread of swine flu, it was also jan’s last week of school holidays, so if he does fall sick, he would have to miss the first few days of classes, which i consider very important in setting students off to a good start. i was chastising myself for not having considered these before i made the bookings, but then, at the time, there wasn’t a single case of swine flu in southeast asia. how was i supposed to know it will spread like fire, and from zero, the number of cases here in singapore has ballooned to about 700 in a span of just a month!

and although we were armed with hand sanitizers and N95 face masks, i felt so heavy about the decision to push thru with the trip, knowingly putting my children at risk, for a reason as frivolous as having a vacation. it was an unnecessary travel we could have easily skipped.

it’s been a week since we’re back, and i think i can now safely say that we have made it unscathed. both hubby and jan have been ordered to stay away from their office and school though, as a form of quarantine. jan has been receiving lessons and worksheets from school which we work on at home sans the classroom desks. it helps to at least keep him busy, instead of just whiling away the week.

we are scheduled to fly to the philippines in september. but if the swine flu alert does not ease up until then, we might just have to skip it altogether. good thing we got those flight tickets dirt cheap, so it’s not a lot of money thrown away!