No Gain No Pain

For the past two weeks, our breakfast has been accompanied by the live broadcast of the Winter Olympics 2010 now happening in Vancouver. As I chewed my peanut butter and nutella sandwich, my eyes feasted on the beautiful snow capped landscape of Whistler mountain and the races and events going on that morning.

All the athletes there were amazing. There were the daredevil snowboarders doing sommersaults as they glide left and right on a gigantic snowy halfpipe. And the flying ski jumpers who compete to see who could fly furthest after coming off a slope. The freestyle aerial jumpers performed turns and sommersaults mid-air before landing on their two skis again. Then there were the speed demon skiers who dashed down the mountain slopes and negotiate tight curves at speeds of up to 140km/hr. And the graceful as a swan figure skaters who could dance on ice like a fairy.

It was lots of action as the world's best athletes in winter sports compete for the glory of being an Olympics medalist. And it is more than once that I imagine how it'll be if my sons made it to the Olympics. He doesn't have to win, I'll be proud enough to see him to be that good in a sport. But almost immediately, I'm reminded of the other side of the success story.

Each time I watch these people perform actions that I can only imagine myself doing in my dreams, I'II feel myself holding my breath and hoping they won't crash. But crash they do. So many times. I see world class atheletes falling hard onto the hard ice, sliding uncontrollably downhill, crashing into snow walls, being hit by their own skis and lying there grimacing painfully on the ground. Some of these sports can be so dangerous that serious injuries, permanent disabilities and even deaths can happen.

Australia has two gold medalist this year. Torah Bright in snowboarding halfpipe and Lydia Lasilla in Freestyle (Aerials). All of them had had falls and injuries during their training and previous competitions. An ex-Olympian champion Alisa Campbell said, the first time she aerial skied, she broke her rib. The second time, she crashed into a tree. The difference is, these people never gave up. One of Australia's youngest snowboarder at the games this year, 15-year old Scotts James, broke his wrist just the day before the competition during training but he competed anyway. Such are the winning attributes of perserverance and endurance.

If I'm the mother of these atheletes, I'll be torn between the pride of seeing them succeed and the pain of seeing them injure their bodies. There's a price that these atheletes and their loved ones pay for the victories and glories, many of which we do not see and some much more than others. Which would you rather have? An Olympic champion son with a body that's broken and healed so many times you wonder if he'll have problems at an older age or an average but healthy and normal Joe in the street?

Public Property

All this time we were renting out our HDB flat, I always thought that we were the "landlords" and our tenants were the "leasees".

When I applied online for HDB's approval to rent out my flat, I had a big realisation. In legally correct terminologies, we, the people who "purchased" the flat for several hundred thousand dollars, are referred to as the "leasees". We don't even qualify to be called "owners" or "landlords". We are in fact the "tenants" in the property and our tenants "sub-tenants" in what is called, in technical terms, "sub-letting" our flat.

All this while I was under the illusion that I owned a property in Singapore and who can blame me, with terms like "home ownerships schemes" being used frequently by the media and ministers. I felt misled, even slightly cheated, but really I mustn't forget that all HDB flats are built on land on a 99 year lease from the Singapore government. The land will always belong to the state and instead of owning it permanently, what we are really buying and paying for is the permission to reside in the dwelling for a maximum of 99 years.

Well, 99 years is a long time and you can always sell the flat to someone else along the way, hopefully at a little profit. Still, this doesn't make me feel any better. The knowledge that many people worked so hard to finance something that they cannot call their own and at the end of the day is still "public property" is unsettling. Something as fundamental as the roof over your head. So what happens when the 99 years is up? If your future generation inherits this flat from you, what will they get at the end? Compensation? Resettlement?

Before that, the only thing you really OWN is the mortgage you took to purchase this leasehold property.

Forces of Nature

Thursday Febuary 11, Melbourne was hit by wild weather. The thunderstorm was the worst we had seen since we moved here one and a half year ago. There were lots of lighting and thunder before the rain arrived and when it came, it was torrential. As if a water tank had toppled in heaven and tons of water were just pouring from the sky.

We greatly welcomed the water but we knew that storms of such nature would also come with a price. First on our list of concern was the outage of electrical power. Australia has their electrical cables on poles and it is common for the poles to fall or get strike by lighting during storms, causing chaos to the traffic and businesses. The previous day, we were dining in Bacchus Marsh when a similar rain caused the whole shopping center to blackout. Luckily the chef still managed to get our food cooked. All the shops closed early that day. Our lights did flash for one second but luckily it came back and managed to stay on throughout. What caught us off guard was when water starting seeping in through the door and the entry area soon began to flood. I opened the door to the garage to sweep the water out and I discovered that the garage was starting to flood as well. This has never happened before.

Taking things that cannot be wet off the floor was our immediate task, for example, our vaccum cleaner left there overnight, as was sweeping the water back towards the drainage. KK enjoyed this episode the most as he put on his wellington boots and makeshift plastic bag rain coat and proceeded to play with the umbrella in the rain. It was no big deal, just some wet bedsheets, a little mopping and sweeping (in time for CNY). But if the rain had continued longer, I'm not so sure.





Apparantly, many other houses all had their garages flooded as well. The rain brought damages to some buildings, causing floods, leakages and even evacuation in a shopping center. We thought the worst was over when the rain stopped by nightfall but the storm and flash flood has left its impact around us.




Short cut turned wrong. The open land which Hubby drove into and got stuck. The mud tracks were left behind when his car got towed out.


The next day, when sending KK to school, Hubby promptly drove into and got stuck in a mud pool. He couldn't get the left front wheel out of the 1 foot deep mud no matter how. Finally he approached our neighbour cum landlord for help and the car was towed out with their 4-wheel drive. He came back caked with mud, both himself and the car. Took us $9 worth of high pressure spray at the car wash to clear off most of the mud.

Mud spa anyone?

The second aftermath of the storm came when we sent XX to his childcare center and realised it was closed due to the damage by the storm. The floors were flooded and parts of the ceiling leaked, causing electrical failure and roof damage. Thus XX stayed with us today, which is not a big deal since I don't work anyway. Except Hubby had planned an advance Valentine's Day lunch today. We thought it'll be just the two of us but in the end, XX was the unexpected "light bulb"....hai.





There are some lessons that we can learn from Nature, first of which is never to underestimate its force. I bet Hubby will never ever go into unpaved mud paths again after a heavy rain. Sealing our door against water seepage and putting important electrical items on raised platforms are also some areas we'll take note of if we were to leave home for an extended period of time. Sometimes, such small scale disasters are not such a bad thing. It puts our system and infrastructure to the test and exposes the weakest links for us to rectify.

Welcoming The Tiger

The Blessed Four (from bottom, clockwise)- Almond Cookie, Peanut Cookie, Pineapple Tart and Chocolate Cornflake Cookie

One and a half weeks ago when I returned from Singapore, Chinese New Year was the last thing on my mind. Catching up on my sleep and getting the household back into the normal routine was. We had also quickly restarted our search for a better school for KK.

Now, as all of us began to settle back and we've more or less made a decision about KK's school, Chinese New Year, the most important festival for us Chinese, comes into focus. I'm not a very traditional person typically and down here, it's easy to just pass over the season without any hype or fuss. Already, only my second CNY in Australia, I feel I'm getting lazy. But I still hold on to that last bit of stubbornness that this festival must not be lost to my next generation. Afterall, Chinese New Year is part of what it means to be Chinese. There are some traditions that we must still uphold and creating memories are the greatest ways to make sure these traditions are passed on.

I remembered when I was a child, I loved wearing the new pyjamas after we bathed on New Year's Eve night. Even when we became older, my mom would make sure that every year, she'll sew some new nighties for us. She would also change new bed sheets. And of course, the next day, we'll wear brand new clothes. On New Year's Eve, she'll make a vegetarian dish late at night, so the next day, we'll have vegetarian for lunch. Up till now, I'm not sure of the significance of the vegetarian dish but it's just yummy, that's for sure. I would like my children to think back when they are grown up and have fond memories of how they spent their Chinese New Year when they were young.

Thus the baking of new year goodies began. Chocolate Cornflake Cookies, Almond Cookies and Peanut Cookies. Together with a jar of homemade pineapple tarts that my sister had given me and half a kueh lapis bought from Bengawan Solo, I think I'm pretty set up for visitors who might wish to visit me on 14 Feb. Just need to get some soft drinks and chill lots of ice!

Spring cleaning wise, I'm not very particular. (Where we are, at the southern hemisphere, it should be "Autumn" cleaning, technically.) The house will be kept, as per our usual schedule and standard. This is something that I'll not stress myself over though I'm aware of the significance and loved the idea of welcoming a new year with sparkling windows and speck less light bulbs. But if it's just a one person effort and everything has to be spic and span just before the big day, I'm practical enough to admit I'm not up to it. I'm not even sure if I'll change my bedsheets, considering it's just been done less than 2 weeks ago when we returned. As for packing up my closet and organising the clothes, I've been wanting to do that since last year. I guess I'll eventually do it when we have to move out. Well, we did vacuum the car today and I gave my laptop a good wipe yesterday, so that should count.

New clothes. The junior department is pretty easy to handle. For my boys, I just have to dig into my "stock". I've built up a decent collection of new clothes, mostly birthday and christmas gifts, just waiting for the right occasion and for them to fit into. This year, I realised that KK does not have a set of new pyjamas while XX has got 2 sets. We went shopping today and that has been settled. As for us adults, I'm at a dilemma. The children can justify getting new pyjamas every year as they do outgrow their old ones. But for us adults, it just adds on to our overcrowded wardrobe if we were to follow this tradition. Worse, with the 4 seasons in Australia, Hubby and I've accumulated sleepwears of different lengths and thickness, that I really feel I shouldn't be adding on unnecessarily. In the end, I bought myself a pair of sleep shorts. Cheap, small, cute and most importantly NEW...;-p

Looking forward, I think the year of the Tiger will be an exciting one for our family. It will be a year of new beginnings and I pray it'll be another peaceful, happy, healthy and prosperous year. Not just for us, but also for our family, friends and all of you readers out there, wherever you are.

恭贺新喜, 万事如意, 身体建康!

Period of Adjustment

From experience, it'll take about 2 weeks, before all the laundry is washed, all the luggage cleared away and before bedtimes become normal again. Adjusting back to the timezone in Australia (3 hours ahead) is always harder than adjusting to Singapore's. Somehow, sleeping later has always been easier for us than sleeping earlier. This past week, everyone including the kids had shown signs of jet lag. Despite shooing them to bed early, they couldn't fall asleep until many hours later. The warmer temperatures over the last few days also didn't help to make sleep come any easier.

KK had started school already and so had XX. After a break of more than 1 month, we resumed XX to his childcare center on Monday. As expected, he started crying the moment he knew he was going to school. I tried to prep talk him, even putting up a puppet show, to persuade him that it's gonna be alright but he still says "no" and finally he admitted, "I'm scared". We brought him into the room and after about 5 minutes of staying with him, we said goodbye. Surprisingly, through his tears, he waved back.

When I went to collect him at about 12noon, he'd just finished lunch and went to the toilet. He doesn't look very happy still but he's walking around on his own and not sobbing in the teacher's arms like the last time. The teachers told me that he only cried for about 5 minutes after we left and he's been a really good boy, playing and eating like the others. I was so glad to hear that and of course, to encourage XX, I praised him. He proudly told me that what he did at school on the way home, like a big boy. I thought he had conquered his fears and the worst is over. But I should have guessed otherwise when I asked him if he'll like to go back to school again and he said no. He became a baby again the days after whenever we mentioned to him about going to school again. Tears will start to well in his eyes and he'll plead he doesn't want to go to school. The word "school" is now a taboo word at home, sure to bring tears and fears to the face of our otherwise happy boy.

This morning we had to send him to school again and we didn't tell him anything as we changed him and fed him milk. But when he finally asked me where we're going, I didn't want to lie to him, so I told him "school". This started his negative reaction. Last I heard from the school, he wasn't doing so well in school today.