Happily Abused.

Today was pretty eventful.
In the morning session, the 3 year old boy PEED.
second pee accident of the week.
yes, it's only day 2.
Not a very good track record for me.. hahaha..
but otherwise, we had a really good session :)
In the afternoon, I got pinched, punched, headbutted, and kicked by a 5 year old.
But I got off easy.
My supervisor got pinched and scratched on her face...
you can actually see the scratch marks!
I'm going to have to deal with him on my own in the future!! :S
but he did become more compliant later on in the session and actually cooperate really well :)
Hopefully he'll be like this more often!

Only two days and I already feel awesome despite all the 'abuse' I've had..
The joy felt when you see the child visibly enjoying his session with you somehow overwrites the scratch marks and all completely :)
Tomorrow will be my FIRST day flying solo.
Absolutely nervous but looking forward to it! :)

Crossing the milestone...

Today marks the start of my REAL job...
I am about to have my first actual therapy week...
And God's wonderful grace continues to prove faithful!
My first ever session was suppose to be all the way in Pasir ris :(
that is quite unattractive because that means at least an hour and a half long journey...
BUT BUT BUT, late last night my boss's wife called to tell me to go to Choa chu kang instead because some therapist is sick so they had to do a shuffle.
that cuts my traveling time by a whole hour at the very least!!!
and I have a second session with the Pasir ris boy on friday morning...
BUT GUESS WHAT!
THIS FRIDAY IS GOOD FRIDAY...
HOW AWESOME!!!
I get to rest from excessive traveling for another week.
still totally amazed at how wonderful God has been to me :)

Off for my first session!
Have a great Holy Week, people!

LONG but wonderful day.

Today has got to be the LONGEST day ever.
Went for observation this morning..
overestimated the time needed to travel so I got there more than half an hour early...
Waited for Rachel to come and then I got to meet this girl I'm going to be working with..
SHE IS SO CUTE.
She grinned SUPER WIDELY at me when I smiled at her..
which is NOT AT ALL common with autistic children.
LOVE her to bits already..

after the session, I had to rush straight to the office for my practical test..
Didn't have time for lunch :(
but I didn't feel hungry because of all the nerves from the test anyway..
the test went well :)
No major errors and only a few comments..
Whee!! God is SUPER good to me..
He gave me an easy 'child' to work with during my test..
by the time the test ended, it was WAY past the time we were suppose to end...
The bus took SO long to arrive :(

BUT I'm home..
And I've had dinner :)
and a nice warm shower..
and I'm off to see the greatest guy in the world..
so this long day isn't that bad after all :)

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY ANDREA!

We had a little gathering at Newton Foodcentre today to celebrate Andrea's very belated birthday...


SO SAD THAT AISYAH DIDN'T COME :(
WHY do we always have missing people?
Hopefully we'll be more successful when Shir's birthday comes around...

Better than a thousand Balenciagas

It's been an amazing one month since my life entered a seriously new chapter: The new job and The Boy.
I wouldn't trade the past month for ANYTHING.
not even a thousand Balenciagas :)

The Boy:
is awesome x infinity :)

The new job:
is staring to become stressful.
Things are starting to get a little rocky at work.
The apparent lack of organization in the administration is starting to get on my nerves.
A lot of other issues are arising like the clashes with church commitments and actually having to choose between work and ministry.
It's a struggle but I've got that sorted out for now..
May the Lord help me to keep my feet firmly grounded in Him.
but the good news is that it is kind of confirmed that this is my last week of training and I'll be starting officially with clients next week :)

It's going to be an exciting year ahead..
and I'm looking forward to looking back at the end of the year to see how much I have grown, spiritually and otherwise...
though hopefully not physically.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AYEEBA!

To the one who braved the insanity of Shir and Drea with me,
my JC class buddy,
study buddy,
recess buddy,
kum kum,
and friend for EIGHT wonderful years and counting....
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
JHEEP JHEEP! ;)

A night to myself

It was such a cool, wet rainy day today.
I absolutely love rain.
I love the smell of it, the sound of it...
and how it increases my satisfaction in the tiniest pleasures in life..
like a hot shower, my comforter, warm cookies fresh from the oven...
though warm cookies are good no matter when.
I just made a batch of warm brownie cookies..
and I consumed half of it..
I'm on my way to ballooning.
but they were so good warm.
and no one else is going to be able to appreciate them at their best..
so I should eat and appreciate these cookies on behalf of everyone else right? right.

On the way to work this morning, I realised how I'm starting to forget how it is like to be alone...
it's not a bad thing, but it scares me just a little.
I have always considered myself to be an independent individual.
I take pride in handling pretty much everything on my own,
spending time on my own,
doing things on my own...
but I haven't really had to do things on my own much lately..
my schedule has kept me occupied for the past three and a half weeks...
but today, I'm home alone.
This morning, the thought of being home alone was a little scary.
Of course it turned out okay and I'm enjoying it..
but the fact is that I was actually scared of having time to myself :S
I need to do this more often to prevent my backbone from going soft.

Celebrate we will, for life is short but sweet for certain.

Firstly,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAREST SHING!

Enjoy your 21st because YOU ARE WORTH EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD AND MORE :)
(p.s. we need to take more photos together. all the photos I have of us are from 4958302 years ago and don't look good now.)

I just spent the past 15 minutes scrubbing the pan from the oven because my dear little sister didn't do it after baking her pizza :(
it kinda wouldn't be this bad if it happened TODAY.
but I asked her when she made the pizza and she COULDN'T REMEMBER.
which means it is definitely NOT today, or yesterday...
*Faint*
then again, it IS leah we are talking about and she can forget stuff that happened an hour ago....
I'm hoping for the best here!
I think I'm just a little annoyed because I've had a really long day today..
I'll be fine after a hot shower and a little me time :)


and then of course I would love a little time with You.

Much, Muchier, Muchest

I was just telling Quen how I seem to have lost my muchness :(
I opened my blogger account to blog and couldn't think of a single thing to blog about..
My life has been engulfed by work.
I don't do anything particularly exciting now.
I've become a pretty much predictable person.
Work in the mornings, and dinner meetings at night.
Not that the dinner meetings are not interesting..
just that they are mostly uneventful,
No cat fights or gunmen entering the restaurant as we order dessert.
and other things are just too private to blog about ;)
But all that you just spent the past minute or so reading is pretty much nonsense now because I DID blog in the end.

I just downloaded an updated version of Firefox and am very amused by the new ability to 'customize' my browser window border :)

I chose this 'theme' this morning just before I rushed off to work.
Came home and looked through countless others
but it seems in the short 5 minutes I had with this 'theme' this morning, I have grown quite attached to it.

Because I have been busy with work and have been having dinners out a lot lately
I haven't seen my parents much other than to have an hour of family dinner once a week.
So today when I came home, the two of them lined up and took turns to unload their requests on me.
Dad just got a Macbook PRO and is trying to figure it out..
I taught him some of the keyboard short cuts like 'command + q' for quit and he was very very impressed.
He just downloaded Skype and is in the process of adding EVERYONE,
Even my mom, whom he will NEVER skype with...
He had a bit of trouble finding a username because his usual HangTW was taken.
So was TeeWee.
I didn't believe it but it turned out that he really isn't the first TeeWee to use Skype.
I wanted to choose a random username for him..
like machodad1954 (he was born in 1954), mrincrediblyhandsome54, or iownamacpro
but he didn't let me :(
ended up with plain ol' hangteewee
pfft.

How's *this* for muchiness? - Alice Kingsley, Alice in Wonderland

I am currently shadowing therapists for work..
TODAY I MET THE CUTEST KID EVER.
He is 5 years old and SO cute...
I want to kidnap him.
hahaha..
I can't wait till I have clients of my own..
I already have a 3 year old boy waiting to meet me :)
SO EXCITED.

Now I'm enjoying my night off...
Trying to catch up on shows I have been missing because every night instead of watching one show before I sleep,
I fall asleep the minute my head touches my pillow.

Tomorrow is going to be a mad crazy rush day.
But it is a nice kind of mad crazy rush.

9am-12pm: Workshops
2.30pm-3.45pm: ARN therapists meeting
4.30pm-6.30pm: 11am Service Rehearsal
7.30pm-8.30pm: Multichromatic's Birthday Dinner
9.30pm-10.30pm: Christian McBride and Inside Straight :)

Work in the morning is ok because I enjoy it!
Rehearsal always leaves me happy somehow.
How can a birthday dinner ever be bad.
And I know I'll enjoy the concert because of the awesome company I'll be having :)
I feel I MIGHT fall asleep during Christian McBride though because of the long day.............
BUT I promise to try my best not to :)

Girl's night out.

Went out with the MG girls today :D

Really upset that Andrea couldn't make it :(
but we'll have another one again soon!
Went for dinner at Dome (AWESOME Caesar's)
And then went for dessert at Canele's (AWESOME EVERYTHING)


Teresa and Shir got into this boring conversation about blackberries and iPhones while Ayeeba and I sat there rolling our gorgeous eyes and staring at them...

We tried the Jupiter which is a dark chocolate flourless cake...

If you love Chocolate, THIS IS MADE FOR YOU.

The Nutella something was REALLY GOOD (the brown one below).
I ATE SO MUCH OF IT.
If this keeps up, I'm so going to BALLOON.
But anyway, the desserts were so magnificent that everyone HAD to snap a picture...


Teresa drove us home in her kick ass car... CONVERTIBLE!
I don't know what model or what not though..
All I know is that it is a very nice car.
Friends for umpteen years and many more to come!! :)

Family dinner

Friday marked the start of a new family tradition (so called)..
FAMILY NIGHT :)
not really though since leah scooted off to find her friends right after dinner...
but at least we (FINALLY) got to have dinner together as a family once again :)
We went to Dome to break the 'tradition' of dining in Japanese restaurants every time we eat together.

AWESOME because the Caesar's salad there is one of my favourites :)
Daddy went to some conference and got a goodie bag just before dinner..
So he started SHOWING OFF his goodie bag.
Please look at the ridiculous amount of USELESS things he got.

I love that eating salad for dinner is not abnormal in my family...
Notice that my dad eats salad TOO.

There is now a greater reason to love friday nights :)

Bless the Lord, O my soul

Last night my boss called to remind me to get the contract signed..
I TOTALLY forgot about it :P
Upon re-reading the contract, I realized how unhappy I was with my contract...
My main concern was the lack of transport allowance given that traveling is a significant part of my job.
Up till this morning, I have been very unhappy and discontent.
On the way to work, the song Bless the Lord by Laura Story blasted through my earphones..

You give and take away for my good
For who am I to say what I need?
For You alone see the hidden parts of me
that need to be stripped away.

And as You begin to refine
I’m learning to let go and rely
on One who walks with me
As hard as it may be,
You’re teaching me all the while to say:

Bless the Lord, O my soul
All that’s in me bless Your name
Forget not Your power un- told
not Your glory or Your fame
For You came to heal the broken
to redeem and make me whole
Bless the Lord, O my soul

At that moment I felt SOOOOO ashamed of my discontent.
Ashamed that I doubted and questioned the Lord.
I believe that where I am now is where God has placed me
He has been so faithful to me.
So how can I doubt God's power and His promise to provide just because of ONE stupid clause in my contract?

As my boss is currently in Hong Kong, I talked to his wife regarding the clause
And the Lord provided BEYOND what I expected.

This incident just HIGHLIGHTED how human I still am.
I struggled so greatly to praise God in the midst of this so called 'pitfall'.
It wasn't even something big!
All it took was the lack of transport allowance to bring out discontent.
SUCH a humbling moment for me.

I need to find lighter things to blog about...
like this season's nail colours.

The grey makes the white seem whiter.

Oh how upsetting today has been..
First, the sudden disappearance of one of my fellow trainees.
I know that people will be told to leave if we are not able to keep up with the program..
but I never thought it would ACTUALLY happen.
Second, having to miss an interview I kinda want to go for..
MINDS called and asked me to go for an interview on thursday for the position of the psychologist.
I turned it down because I have training that day and wont be able to go for it..
And I technically already have a job (unless I somehow end up being kicked out too)
Third, upset people.
I don't really know why I am so affected by the knowledge that someone is hurting.
Maybe because I'm kinda the cause for their hurt.

Yesterday was amazing.
It was the best Sunday I've had in a long time..
And I guess today was just less amazing..
But this just made me more thankful for all the blessings I have had :)
We kinda need not so good days to allow greater appreciation for good days don't we?