Having "Me" Time

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! Even if you don’t celebrate it, I think it’s a great day to just go out, reunite with family friends and have an awesome day. Today what comes to mind is how we humans are indeed funny creatures (or maybe it’s just me). Have you ever been in a situation where you had to make a decision, yet a zillion different choices come up? Which choice do you choose? What happens to me is that at first instinct, I say “This is what I like.I choose “A”. However, to be sure that THIS is the choice that I really like, I end up going through all the alternatives in meticulous detail. I go through the pros and cons, check details on websites, read reviews and think about the choices day-in day-out. The result? After painstakingly looking at all the details and having a pile of information, I go back to “A.”The first option I decided on. It makes me wonder, why do I go through all these motions of checking, going through details, only to revert back to the...

For some things in life you only discover a love, a passion for it later on in life. I suppose it's better late than never as the old saying goes.   With this blog, I rediscovered my love of writing and with teaching I discovered my love of teaching. Nothing gives more satisfaction than the sight of someone's eyes sparkle in delight and understanding when something previously unknown is finally understood.   I had been teaching younger kids and have recently moved onto teaching older students getting ready for college entrance exams.  You may wonder what is so good about teaching?  You keep saying what you know to students again and again?  For me it's more than that. It's fun and exhilirating.  Teaching for me is not just about going to a classroom and lecturing so that students can jot down notes and memorize.  Teaching is understanding and realizing the potential in each student.  Teaching involves understan...

It's Thanksgiving weekend and with it comes turkey, stuffing, cranberry and pumpkin pie.  Yes, I miss Thanksgiving in the US.  Here in Thailand, it's just not the same.  We don't get the "feeling" of Thanksgiving and families reuniting, or the felling that the weekend kickstarts the festive season and Christmas mad shopping with Black Friday.  This week of Thanksgiving is also a week when two good friends of mine were born many years ago and so I want to also take the opportunity to say "Thank you" to you my friends.  Tonight, in particular I want to write about a lovely friend who was born on the 21st.  You know who you are WD :)  Yes, we've known each other since primary school days in Bangkok when we still had to dress in uniforms with white shirts and a turquoise blue skirts.  That's how I remember you dear friend.  In uniform.  We were all in uniform and together we'd be there walking a...

Let's forget floods tonight and talk about cooking.  If you are a cook, and cook meat, then you are bound to have heard this, "Seal in the juices by searing meats before you cook."  For the non-cook, what does this mean?  It means basically to fry or expose the outer layer of meat to high temperatures before baking, or continuing to cook it.  My family does it, and so do my aunts.  I thought it made sense.  You cook the outer layer first, so that the raw juice would not be able to come out.  It's like one of those know-hows that gets passed down from generation to generation.  Lifehacker says this is not so.  Here's why. The article says that this was first proposed in the 19th century by a German chemist called Justus von Liebig who said that applying very high temperatures to meat would create a "sealed" layer of cooked meat through which liquid the inside meat would not be able to escape. (Wow, I didn't realize this would go back so long...

In life, in dealing with problems and losses we go through five stages of emotions:   denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance .  Most commonly we experience this from heartbreak, losing a loved one, going through a crisis, business problems, etc..  The list is endless.. We humans have a lot of problems and we deal with them through our emotions. Sometimes we do not acknowledge that these are our emotions.  Yes, we feel hurt, feel sad, feel angry, feel serious, feel resentment.  We try to act "civilized" and push these emotions aside.  We ignore them. After all, we are all grown ups and grown ups do not succumb to their emotions.  It's dangerous.  Psychologists mention that it is not good to ignore these emotions for it can cause "emotional indigestion." It can cause us to be tense, stressed and ready for a fight. Our heart beats faster and our natural instinct sets in.  We want to survive. We are ready fo...

I'm ready to go home.  I miss my home.  I miss my life and yes, I have to admit, I do miss going to work as well.  I miss the certainty of it all.  I like adventures, but this flooding is not an adventure I like nor enjoy.   I suppose this is what people feel like in wars where they are forced to evacuate their homes and seek refuge elsewhere.  Almost four hundred people have already died. Some die from tripping and drowning, others from electrocution, or some from health problems.  I suspect too that all this stress from watching flood related news in order to find out if our house will be flooded or not is causing significant psychological distress.   Now all I want is to get flooded and get it over with. Dear water, just flood and begone. This flood has also reinforced something I've thought about before and that is to just live your life before it's too late.  You never know when you are going to...

An eerie silence has befallen Bangkok once again.  It's as if the whole city is holding it's breath.  Breathe too loudly and you just might trip over.  Last time this happened was last year during the political unrest.  Only this time,  the eerie silence is spread much further out.  Not only inner Bangkok but now the suburbs too are subject to this eerie silence. Cars are not wanted now.  They are all parked on bridges, expressways, parking lots and anywhere that is above ground level.  It's too expensive to just let them drown in water.  With car taxes over two hundred percent, most cannot afford to lose the only car they have.  I cannot.  I'm still paying the monthly installments.  Even the taxi companies are saving their cars and few now roam the streets.  It's difficult to go anywhere.  Walking becomes the mode of transport. While walking, I sometimes wonder if I am living in a deserted town lik...

For over a week, Bangkok has been in a state of panic.  Everyone is packing up their houses, sealing doors and windows with silicone, buying sand from other provinces, finding ways to block their pipes and other points of weakness where water may enter.  Plastic bags large enough to seal entire cars are in hot demand and sold out in a matter of hours.  Plastic gallons for filling up both tap water and drinking water are snatched up like this season's "must haves."  In supermarkets, many shelves are empty.  Only imported mineral water remains and bread are out of stock.  Eggs vanish the minute they are restocked.  Now in order to ensure fairness, supplies have to be limited. Two packs per household. We stock up on water and drinking water, yet I wonder if we will really stay once the water arrives. The biggest problem seems to be getting elders to evacuate.  We love our homes, but we must also cherish our lives.  Being isolated in an island ...

It's been two days since my good friend's birthday and believe me the words have just been flowing in and out of my mind in an endless stream that ebbs and flows.  There are so many things I want to say, so many things I want to write, yet having only 24 hours in a day, I could not quite fit everything in without fear of making myself collapse from exhaustion.  So here I am to write a birthday ode to a lovely friend who just celebrated her birthday two days ago.  You know who you are. You are always in my mind.  This is for you. I hope you like it. Good friends who are always there are few in number.  Good friends who've you known for over 20 years are even rarer.  Yes, can you believe it, I've known you for over 20 years. I've known you since my primary school days.  Time though isn't everything.  What's more important, is that throughout the roughly two decades we've known each other, you have remained the same sweet and gentle ...