Good Friends

I sometimes (ok very often!) blame God for the fact I am still single now but one thing He has made up for this loophole with are good friends. I was chatting with Ryan during our trip and I realised we have been friends for a good 11 years! It's really scary when the time line you use start to go into decades rather than years.

Frankly he has been a great pal. He has been there practically all the time for me. Despite the fact that he's married, we have been able to meet up consistently. For this I am really grateful. Still remember the time we went kk together. During the climb he was looking out for me many a times. His friendship is that of a practical one. No fancy mushy words. Just friendship in action. Thanks Ryan, it has been a great 11 years. More good decades to come I hope. ;)

D I S C

My brother-in-law was talking about high 'I' people a couple of days ago and he was saying that having a high 'I' personality he finds that he has to meditate on the bible more compared to me (a high 'C') since I would take it more literal. I was thinking about it and I realised one thing. He's right about it but from my perspective I find that I am under much more guilt and condemnation (from myself) since I am not able to live up fully to everything I believe to be true about the bible.

It seems to me that there's always a flipside to eveything. Having felt guiltly and condemned for many things I see others seem to get away with no qualms whatsoever, I sometimes wonder to myself why do I have such a personality. I have come to the conclusion that in every situation, there'll be those who are advantaged and those who are disadvantaged. So, if I am in the advantage, I will use it to the full and enjoy it. If I am on the opposite side, I will use it to the best that I can. Am I making sense? Not too sure if I am but I guess it does not really matter......

So what relevance does the song below have to my post for today? After contemplating for a while, I realised there is none. But that will not stop me from sharing it with everyone, or at least with those who are Britney fans. Enjoy...... 

********** Goals 2011

Let's see. Time to streamline some stuff. As much as I would like to be a 'jack of all trades', I don't think I can afford the luxury....... Okie, let's get rid of 1) Sax 2) Dizi off my list.

Work: I will enjoy work to the best of my ability. "Work" is not a vulgar word. It is an expression of my gifts, talents and dominion on this earth.

Do my best to implement the step down care into the eye clinic system. I will be going to London in March for this purpose.
Pick up orthoptics.
Read up and refresh myself in ocular pathology.
Learn to make use of the free time to do constructive stuff.
I will confine work related stuff to working hours and never bring work home.
Have a better attitude towards my patients no matter what their attitudes are toward me.
Answer the patients' relatives when they ask me questions.
Offer seats to the patients' relatives.
Do my best for JCI.
Set up a template for a presentation in myopia control so that I can do talks about it. I will start with the club first. I will start by reading up on myopia and astigmatism. Also I will read up on the various attempts on myopia control on the market now.

Physical:

Aim towards a body like the one below.

Okay I realise I still have a long way to go but everyone's gotta start somewhere.

Learn and master swimming freestyle.

Relational:

Spend more time with the people who really matter. No point trying to build new relationships while forsaking the old ones, the ones who have been around all the time.

Spiritual:

Get into a spiritual discipline of spending time with God in worship and word everyday, regardless of how I feel and whether it is a Sunday or not.
Worship songs- To take a worship song and really break it down to learn it in keyboard, guitar and singing. To note the various rhythms to play them in and how to build the dynamics. To note how to sing them and where to emphasize on.
Slowly but steadily creep back into guitar and keyboard worship for service. Think I'll start with guitar first. Seems more hopeful. ;)

Music: I will commit at least 4 evenings per week to the practice of my music.

Piano:
I can't believe how much material I have gathered through these years that are siting on the shelf!
Sight Reading
Jazz improvisation
Hand coordination
BM. To familiarize and drill the rhythms into my mind, training with a metronome.


Guitar:
Learn and master guitar. To go through the course and finish it by 6 months.
BM. To familiarize and drill the rhythms into my mind, training with a metronome.

Singing:
finish the entire course of singing success within the year. That will lay a strong foundation in my vocal ability as well as equip me with the workings of SLS.
KIV take up speech level singing certification.

Massage:

Maintain my skills in massage therapy and refresh myself in the area of Aromatherapy. To go through the common essential oils and their uses and properties. 
I will start with the following: 1) Basil 2) Bergamot 3) Black Pepper 4) Cypress 5) Eucalyptus 6) Frankincense 7) Citronella 8) Lemon 9) Orange Bitter 10) Pine Needle 11) Spearmint 12) Peppermint 13) Lime 14) Grapefruit 15) Ginger 16) Black Pepper 17) Rosewood 18) Sweet Marjoram 19) Lavender 20) Rosemary. Okay that's a mouthful!
I will recall and remember the Aromatherapy massage sequence.

General:

To be proactive and do things without putting them off if it is possible to accomplish them quickly.  
To match myself against myself and not to others. We all have different roads to walk so it is no longer comparing apples to apples. 

Goal For 2011

I felt really inspired by a man by the name of Vince Delmonte (for some reason, I keep thinking of bananas mentioning his name, wonder why). He is a fitness coach and he started off very much like my present state: scrawny. Despite all his efforts to gain bulk, he failed miserably. That was until he met someone who trained him into this super cool guy.

Being the impulsive person I am, I bought an ebook published by him. Cost me 77USD! But just going through the first few pages already made it worth it. The philosophies and principles he wrote about in his book were very practical and we have yet to go to the training yet!

So, for once in the longest time, I am going to set goals for 2011!

obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal

Saw this quote just a moment ago. Food for thought!

Lesson Today

Had a stretching but enjoyable vocal lesson today. It was fun and Alice has always been very encouraging. Towards the end of the lesson we were chatting about her student prior to me. She was from City Harvest and she had a really beautiful voice. Then I commented that life is unfair implying that some people seem to just have great voices while people like me have to work so hard to attain some success in it.

What she replied to my comment was kind of interesting. She said something to the effect that your life is in your own hands. That spoke volumes to me. Loads of thoughts went past my mind in that moment. In one sense I agreed with her but yet in another I begged to defer.

In the context of what we were talking about, it is a fact that some people just have a good voice to start with. Yes they may need a little polishing and smoothening but the foundation is pretty much there. While there are others, who may have had years of training and yet not really get even close to the former. See my point?

Then we came to another point, which was accepting oneself. That's another biggie to me. Accepting myself just as I am, and not being judgmental with myself. Hmmm, seems like I learn much more than singing whenever I go for my vocal class. Thanks Alice......

Being Judgemental

I have no idea how many times I have been taught this lesson, yet I still stumble in it. I was seeing a patient a couple of days ago for fitting of a pair of glasses. The boy was about 4 or something. He was really cranky that day and I had a hard time trying to help him select a frame suitable for him. His dad spent a lot of time trying to coax him into trying the frame, but to no avail. So in the end we had to wait till he was asleep and I had to estimate the fitting instead of trying it proper on him. Frustrating to say the least. After the saga, my colleague was commenting that the patient seemed spoilt. I told her he was definitely a spoilt brat.

Next came the collection. They patient had high power so the glasses would take longer time to make. Worse of all they came on the last week prior to school opening so that made things a little more tight. The father then decided to bring him down after school one of these days. He then called on Monday and asked whether the glasses were ready to be collected on the same day. I replied that he could come down on Tuesday after I confirmed with the manufacturer. By then I was quite irritated because I had already informed him that the glasses would take some time to be ready and I would definitely call him when they arrive. After that he passed me over to his wife who had a ton of questions to ask because she was not around during the prior appointment. After I hung up, I was telling another colleague that they were a nuisance, which was really mean cos their surname was 'Nguyen' and I conveniently insulted that.

It was only after that when I found out that the reason the father called up to inquire about the glasses was because he was planning for a business trip around collecting the glasses. Oops! Then when they turned up, the boy was pretty much well behaved and followed all his dad's instructions like greeting me, allowing me to fit the glasses on him, thanking me, etc. The reason he was so cranky during the last visit was because of some eyedrops we had placed on him which caused him to be drowsy. After that, they gave me some cookies which they bought from Starbucks. Ouch! That was painful. All my judgements were totally off. I was really taken aback. Okay, another lesson learnt. Hopefully, I would learn not to shoot off too fast from now on......

Dinner Last Night

Had dinner last night with a church friend whom I got to know recently. It was a really good one. I was thinking at first that it would be one which I would be doing most of the talking and ministering to him. But it turned out otherwise. He did most of the talking, and though he was not intending to minister to me, he actually did it most of the time.

He had been born again for about a year and attending church since. But his values and beliefs showed otherwise. He seemed to have been a Christian for a long time. I found myself listening in to whatever he said cos they really spoke to me. His simple approach to life, his faith in God, together with other virtues really impressed me. It's like God is reminding me all over again that "Hey Christian life doesn't have to be so difficult and complicated."

Even though his interests and hobbies differ greatly from mine, I felt for the first time they seemed to give me a different view to life and things. All these coming from a twenty one year old! I quickly had to change my attitude of 'come, let me teach or impart to you a thing or two' to 'wow, I am really learning a lot from you'. Well, I guess it's more of being reminded than learning new stuff. It's refreshing (and at the same time convicting) to hear someone speak his beliefs and faith about things I once very much believed it. Think I would wanna spend more time with him in the future. :)

Starting Over

I think one of the hardest thing in life is to start all over. Sometimes things have been the way they are for so long and having something there seems better than not having anything at all. If only the human mind can be formatted as easily as the computer harddisk. Select what you do not want, right click and click on the 'delete' option. Voila! You got it done. Want some nice stuff? Just install it in. Cut and paste. Simple! Unfortunately life does not seem to be as simple. It really takes effort, time and discipline to get rid of the old stuff and to add new ones. All of which I am not willing to put in at the moment, having become so lazy of late. Then there are the excuses that I am no longer that young. 'It just takes too much out of me,' and so on.

Despite the fact that the trip to Kk was really tough on me, I learnt that the human capability is almost limitless. So many times I wanted to give up during the climb to the peak. I dragged myself about ten to twenty steps and I had to take a five minute break. This went on for most part of the climb of the peak. All the verses about 'I can do all things through Christ' and 'God has given ne a spirit of power, love and sound mind' were my incantations during the arduous climb. Guess what? I did make it, despite my ever so great desire to give up and take a rest. So, at the end of the day, I suppose a lot of things depend more of where we want to or not, rather we can do or not. Trust me. That brings no comfort at all. It just emphasizes the fact that my well-being depends very much on ME.

Melancholy

I always knew I was somewhat a melancholic of sorts but I never really looked into the details of it till lately. My boss was talking about the four personality types and he mentioned that I was a melancholic, which I already knew. One thing he mentioned that I did not think about was that melancholics were idealistic. That set me thinking. I went back and started looking up at the characteristics of melancholics. Then I realised that one of them was perfectionism. That made me ponder more into the details of my life.

Whenever I attend my vocal class, I often hear a lot of compliments and praises in regards to my voice and singing. But somehow, I never liked my voice nor my singing for that matter. So, I usually doubt my coach's praises thinking that she's just being kind and nice since I am her student. I questioned her a couple of times but she still insists that I do sound good. After looking in depth into this, I realised that it could really just be me and my idealistic view of things that caused me to think I am just not good enough. Same for other stuff as well. I really do not dare to step out to do a lot of stuff unless I am really confident I am REALLY ready to which of course never happens. So I guess from now on I need to really view things realistically and practically as well......

Something My Colleague Said

Was chatting with my colleague in the late afternoon today. Something she said stuck with me and I wanna make sure I got it down. I was telling her about how cool my idol is. He looks good, sings well and can play a variety of instruments. She heard his flute playing and was super impressed. Then I let her listen to his singing as well as his piano playing.

Then I commented on how some people seem to have it all while people like me have to spend so much time and money yet not even come close to them. Then my colleague said that I am unique in my own self or something to that effect. Then she asked if my idol could do something I could do well which he obviously can't. I sort of snickered her comment away but I knew very well what she said was true.

I always claim that every single person has unique and individual gifts from God. Think I need to start believing it rather than just claim it. Guess my self-esteem has tumbled so low since I keep comparing myself to others. Again, I need to constantly remind myself that I AM UNIQUE and should not be comparing myself to others......

So Many Things To Do, So Little Time And No Motivation At All