Why I was filled with angst when we talked about "psychology and HRD"

My mom, my Church friend, my acquintance, here and there always repeat the same thing, "If you only study psychology as bachelor degree holder, most likely you will be employed at HRD" (Human Resource Department). Every time I heard this, I always felt angry, anxious, and sad. Firstly, we learn lots of things in psychology that can also be applied in other jobs. Secondly, people who have this thought usually still have the misconception that "psychology graduates can read mind". However, these people who said these things also have a common answer, "This is the fact of life in Indonesia. Either you become a teacher or an HRD." (Well, I don't mind being a teacher. I'd love to be a teacher).

After I left this thought to sleep last night, I woke up with an 'insight'. There's nothing wrong with working as HR. But the thing that made me feel sad and angry was the lack-of-options and the mentality of "end-up" working as xyz. Firstly, although a job as research assistant sounds cool, other people can also say that I "end up" as 'only' an RA. Although a job as housewife is difficult, many people now also like to say that "Xyz works hard to study architecture and "end up" as 'only' being a housewife. We can't judge other people. However, according to my high school friend, our other common friend chose to be HR because, "The offer comes first." We can't judge how much she has explored other opportunities that goes according to her passion. My high school friend said, "Da, it's very difficult to be a therapist or a teacher here. There are so few places where you can work and you might not get good supervision too."

If I like to be HR, then go for it! I'm used to this mentality that 'among-not-so-many-ideal-jobs-available', I'm sure we can find some vacancies of 'almost-ideal-job'. Sadly, this may not be the case, be it in Singapore or in Indonesia. I'm not sure whether I should have put the word "sadly" there. This is the fact of life right? But I really hate it when my dad said, "You want to have high ideals, you can live in Indo." Initially I thought, "Well, who am I to say whether I can or cannot live in Indo? The fact is I don't live in Indonesia." But now I contemplate it again in think, actually, wherever you are, there are always challenges and it's true that it's hard to have ideals, but still.. we must push to the max to live up this high ideal.

Yes, we need to manage our expectations. We need to balance between the ideals and be realistic. (e.g., you need a minimum salary to feed your family). But I would love to remind myself that I can push my boundaries! We can push our limit!! We MUST have ideals. Even if I only work as an RA, I see value in my job and I need to advance myself with whatever I have now. Even though only a little bit, a little bit, like the baby's steps. Even if my friend works as HR, she should see the value of the work as HR. Even if I work as housewife, I see the value of being a housewife.

Am I talking nonsense?
What can I do? Hhhhh..

Sorry, just need to throw these things out of my mind

How to spend quality time with my grandma

When my maternal grandma passed away, I regret that I didn't spend enough time with her. Since then I learn to appreciate my paternal grandma more. Sometimes I tried to call her from Singapore and I tried not to go out too often when I'm at home so I can spend time at home with her.

So..here are some stuff that may be useful for you if you're thinking how to spend quality time with your grandma:
1. Cook with her!
Today I tried to fry her kerupuk. Quite fun!

2. Be 'stupid' and ask her many things
I saw her drying pork with pepper outside our house. Then I asked her, "You use pepper because Dad likes pepper?" Apparently she used pepper to get rid of the flies because flies don't like pepper! Hahaha.

3. Follow her interest and don't complain if she repeats the same story
Somehow last year my grandma started talking about her love story. Her first love, her second love, my grandpa's love to her, and so on and so forth. Perhaps because she missed my late grandma.
Today she repeated the same story, but yeah.. just listen to her. And talk to her too about your love story. It's quite fun! Hahaha.

4. Sleep with her
We sleep on the same bed. Hehehe.

5. Play traditional game with her
I did this with my late maternal grandma. We used to play congklak together

6. Learn a language from her
I learned Mandarin a bit from my maternal grandma and asked some Hakka words to my paternal grandma

7. Additional point for grandpa: ask about "history in real life"
I used to ask my late paternal grandpa about how things were like during 1960s when the Communist Party was in power.

There was one photo on facebook that was shared by my friends. It was written somewhere along this line. "You've grown up. Don't forget that your parents are growing old too." This applies to our grandparents too. So yeah... be thankful that they're still with us and pray for them if they have passed on :) ps. you can ask their souls to pray for you too!

How to spend quality time with my brother

The unique thing about Nic, Pril, Nyz, and me is all of us have a younger brother and our younger brothers are only 1 year apart from each other. Well, it's kinda tough to relate with my brother. He only whatsapp or message me when he needs something and so do I! But this vacation, I have learned some stuff that may inspire us to spend quality time with our brothers:

1. Watch movie together
Apparently my brother likes to copy files of movie from his friends. I watched "You are the apple of my eye", a Taiwanese movie, with him two days ago.

2. Watch video clips that have pretty girls in the videos *duh* (e.g., Taylor Swift, SNSD, T-ara, etc.)
I've never known that my brother likes Korean stars. One day, he said, "Excuse me, can you move somewhere? I'm going to exercise (push-ups, pull-ups, etc.). Then, he played his collection of videos and did push-ups and watched those video clips at the same time.

3. Exercise together (arggghh..)
He'll force me to do 3 sets of fifteen leg-raise >.< arrrgggh!!

4. Buy gadget together
Just walk with him to the phone store and he'll act like my dad asking the salesman on the features of each phone.

5. Ask him to accompany you learn driving
Well, this one needs patience from both sides. Thank God he didn't complain anything during the lesson. However, after the lesson he will say things like "When I learned driving, after 2 sessions I could steer properly already!" or "You know, you don't feel it when you sit at the front, but when you sit behind like me, I want to vomit because you don't drive through the humps properly" >.< Nevermind...he's quite nice to accompany me to learn driving at 7am each morning! (it's vacation and I wake up earlier than Nic!! duhhh..)

6. Ask him to drive you everywhere
I would say that he's grown up already this year because he doesn't complain too much when I ask him to drive me to meet my friend, to go to Church, to do this, to do that. Hahaha.

7. Ask his opinion about new dress
His taste is not too bad. When boyfriend is not around, a brother is a good replacement to test your personal taste of fashion.

Hope you have a good time with your brother!! :)

Vacation diary :)

What have I done the past few days:

1. Learned driving
2. Played piano
3. Fried the bakwan jagung and prawn (I was not involved in the making of the dough :P)
4. Edited my CVs
5. Learned some new English vocabularies
6. Wrote diary
7. Opened bank account
8. Shopped!!
9. Browsed grad schools

What a productive vacation :D

Hehehehe..

St Stephen

Today is the feast day of St Stephen. The first martyr.
What is the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the word "martyr"? To die defending my faith?

The thing that struck me the most from the Gospel reflection today is the challenge to be martyr every day, to have courage to carry my cross every day. It's difficult! Especially the part to be 'courageous'.


It's difficult to have the courage to ask my brother's help to drive me for Mass (I have not been able to attend daily Mass here).
It's difficult to have the courage to stop watching movie in the middle to do my prayer (hahaha.. It's very hard to do your norms of piety at home in holiday mood!!)
It's difficult to have the courage to excuse myself for a while to say the Angelus (or to ask my friends to join me saying the Angelus)

I guess Joyce is right. The devil never takes holidays so we should keep presence of God even in our holidays and being away from our normal situation is a test how we can try our best to do our norms and to keep having our daily appointment with God. It takes courage to do this little things in a situation in which other people not do the same things.

St. Stephen, pray for us.
 

Autistic Kids vs. Kids with Autism

Hello! How often have you heard the terms 'autistic kids' or 'schizophrenic patients'? One thing I remember the most from my first abnormal psychology class was not to label other people by using the name of psychological disorder as an adjective. Since then, I have learned to say "kids with autism" or "individuals with schizophrenia". Surprisingly, when I took more advanced classes such as Child Abnormal Psychology, there were still people who mention 'schizophrenic patients' or 'autistic kids' in their presentation.

What's the big deal?

Well, we should separate the individuals with the disorder that they experience. It is important to see Anne or Tom as a kid, not an autistic kid. Yes he or she may have autism, but in the first place, we should look at him or her as a child, just like any other child. Then in terms of intervention or special education, of course we should take note of his or her condition, which is autism.

So yeah.. never call someone 'autistic kid' again, okay? :)

Sounds at home

When I was awake this morning, I felt so grateful that I could hear my dogs barking and my mom talking. I felt so grateful that I heard the "Sari Roti" (a brand of bread) seller going around my housing complex. This morning I came to understand why it's very hard for my friend to leave her bed in the morning. Home is really the best place where you can be. Nothing can replace your own bed at home!! Hahaha..

I love home. I love my mom's scolding when I held her arms with my wet hands :P I love my mom's nagging to make me drink all types of vitamin, milk, and aloe vera. I love my dad's "huh huh" reply while he's in
his own world hahaha. I love the fact that my brother acted like my dad when he asked various phone features at the phone store.

I love the fact that I miss home when I'm in Singapore. Missing home is a good sign :) A good sign of how homey your home is. My family is not perfect and I thank God for this imperfection.

I love my home. So much!!

Hair in the bathroom

My mom has always taught me to spray the fallen hair after I take shower to the hole (what hole is it? I don't know the proper English name). I always forgot to do it and only now I realize that my housemate also asks me to do the same.

When you stay with other people, you start recognizing how important these small details are. There is more urgency to improve yourself because how you act affects other people! In my previous house, my roommate is a light-sleeper. She wakes up when I open my wardrobe, she wakes up because of my alarm (even though I change it to my tut-tut-tut-tut IKEA clock), and she's also awake when I reach home late! So since then, I always keep my cupboard throughout the night and prepare my working cloth the night before.

I forgot who told me this story, I think someone from Opus Dei centre. She said she knows a couple; the wife always 'clean' the soap bar after she uses it and the husband doesn't have this habit, so the wife often complains about this. So yah.. my friend said the husband learn to 'clean' the soap. My other friend told me that she didn't like when her fiancee chose what to eat and what he doesn't want to eat from the plate, so she is used to complain to him during dinner. Apparently her fiancee really hated the dinner-plus-complain situation, so they negotiate, you can complain, but not during dinner.

So yah.. hair in the bathroom may be a small stuff for some people, but it's always good to make someone's life more pleasing each day :)

Body Clock + to work with consistency

Hwahhh... as much as I wanted to wake up late, my body clock has been switched. I was already awake at 6am but I forced myself to sleep again. Okay let me write about something in this beautiful Sunday morning :)

In general, my old house in Serangoon was cleaner and tidier compared to my current house (or it may be not that tidy, but because it is only 3 of us, the mess was not so visible). When three people or five people live together, the effect is different. For example, in my old house, we put our shoes not on the racks, but they look okay. In my current house, when we put our shoes not on the racks, the effect is horrible. Another factor why old house is generally cleaner, my roommate is allergic to dust and my housemate sweeps and mops the house so often. His working hours is not constrained by 9-to-5 (unlike my current housemates and me), so he can mop the floor at 11pm! The effect of this change is, me, a messy person suddenly has higher threshold of cleanliness and my hands are quite itchy to at least sweep the floor or wash the rags.

However, to be honest, it is very hard to work consistently. Ideally we have a schedule to clean the house. Look at your mom, she doesn't clean the house only when the house looks dirty right? My first few weeks staying here, I mopped the kitchen once a week, but now, I just sweep the floor. It's quite hard to practice this consistency because on some weekdays you might meet up with your friends, you go home late, and tradaaa.. you don't feel like you want to do any house chores.

So yeah.. It's a challenge :) I was quite struck by the reflection on the feast day of Our Lady of Loreto. Can you imagine how Our Lady maintain the good home environment for Our Lord and St. Joseph? I was so happy when I finally bought a wooden image of Our Lady and put it on the wall of our kitchen. It is a good reminder every time I pass the kitchen, to learn from Our Lady to take care of little things, including my home. 

Our Lady of Loreto, pray for us.

Living in Singapore

Below are the most common questions/ statements that were said by neighbours/ relatives before I came to Singapore:
1. Do you want to come back to Indonesia after your graduation?
2. Wahh, so good to go to Singapore. Then you can get PR and live happily ever after in Singapore.
3. Where are you going to study? Nanyang?

Here I am. 4.5 years after those conversations. Before I left Indonesia, I always said that I will graduate, fulfill my 3-year bond, do Master's in Clinical Psychology, and tradaaa.. go back home and serve the country (read: Indonesia). As time goes by, I have seen the complication part, firstly, it's very hard to get into Master's of Clinical Psychology program. It's hard to get in and it's hard to get sponsored. Secondly, as much as you want to go back home and serve the country, you might not be able to serve your country with a Bachelor's degree 'only' (especially for psychology), you might not be satisfied with how things are at home (it's quite frustrating that I don't know my way about at my hometown, or 1-week-'internship' experience at home made me see how some stuff were not standardized in Indonesia and things were run not like in what your lecturers taught you). Well, there is no guarantee that in Singapore things are also done according to textbook, but it's better to work in an environment that has good supervision and standard before you intend to serve or contribute to your country. Thirdly, you might have served your country more when you are at other people's country!! (surpriseeee!!!). Let me elaborate more on this point. My supervisor in my third year did a collaboration study with a researcher in Jakarta on spelling error in Bahasa Melayu vs. Bahasa Indonesia. This also gives insight on what intervention you can do back at home! I also learned more things about my country during my undergraduate study here: the untold story of Timor Leste, how to play Gamelan (and how to explain about Gamelan to foreigner), what's the difference between Javanese dance from Solo vs. Yogyakarta, and so on and so forth. I am not joking if I say that by being in other country, IF you know your country, you can be a good ambassador, more than what the posters do ;). Last but not least, sometimes you never know what happens in this foreign country and whom you will meet in this 'foreign' country >.<

Anyway, home is still the best place! And even when I read about the silly stuff that happened at home, e.g., Rhoma Irama wants to step up as president, Indonesian MOE wants to eliminate science and English subject for primary school, I still L.O.V.E my country. I'm proud to be Indonesian. I still want to do something for my country. I may not make my government proud like how my friend became international science competition winners, but when my friends listened to me recommending them good places in Indonesia, when my friends have good impression of their Indonesian friend, when telling them about the good and bad things about Indonesia and what can be learned from us, I feel happy. I've done my small parts and I'll need to continue to do other parts.

On the second point, *cough cough*, FYI, it's very hard to get PR now. It's not a happily-ever-after life when you are overseas, away from home, must move from one house to another house (or you might even only rent a room and that's your territory). It's even hard to get an Employment Pass. It's also hard to find a job if you are not a PR. And if you don't have a 'good' job, how can you be PR?

For third question, yeah...in Indo, NTU is more famous than NUS. I must keep explaining my neighbours, "Tante, I study in NUS". Anyway, it doesn't matter. I tried to apply to NUS not because of NUS rank, but because of the adventure. Indeed, I've had many many adventures :) Thank God :)

On the other hand, to Singaporeans here, I must explain that 3-year-bond doesn't mean that you're guaranteed a job :) it's really a complicated situation. Anyway, I'm trying to embrace it. The moral of this post is... wherever you are, you have to struggle :)

Cooking Diary 1 - supposed-to-be Chicken & Lemon Risotto

disclaimer: I'm in the stage of observing someone's cooking, so it doesn't mean that I can cook this dish already.

Today's recipe was supposed to be Stir-fried baby french bean with minced chicken AND Chicken & Lemon Risotto. In this post I'd like to share about my silly mistakes.
First of all, I've put the chicken breast and minced chicken in the freezer for 3 days and I didn't put them in the bottom fridge last night. Sooo... 50 minutes passed by and they're still freezing! Please don't try this at home.

Secondly, please read your recipe carefully. I bought 500ml chicken stock instead of 900ml chicken stock, 1 chicken breast instead of 2. Thankfully there was a shop near my house where we could buy another chicken stock and luckily I bought minced chicken (that's why at the end, no stir-fried baby french bean with chicken)

Apparently, grating lemon rind is DIFFICULT! (well, I didn't do it, Paul did it and it's difficult). According to Joanne, my housemate, perhaps whether the lemon is ripe, or almost ripe, or not yet ripe will make a difference. We didn't google about it.

Instead of using risotto rice, we used Japanese rice. We put so much rice!!! (I think it can serve 5 people. I'm eating 1 portion now, and this afternoon 3 of us ate BIG portion, and there was still risotto left!!).

Parmesan is expensive! Next time, please check out the price of the ingredients before choosing the recipe.

Anyway, today's cooking lessons:
1. cut vegetable before cutting or chopping the meat. Make sure you scrub the chopping board carefully after you use it for meat because if you use it for veggie afterwards and it's not clean, you can get food poisoned. (I don't understand why... :( )

2. I must 'feel the knife'. Today I tried to cut onion nicely and feel in which part of the knife I should put my strength

3. Hold your sponge at the upper part of the blade avoid accidental-cut

(why does it sound like washing lesson?)

4. Today I learned the meaning of the term "simmer", when you keep the flame minimal while you're still cooking the stuff.

5. Be prepared for plan B. (We boiled the french bean and put the french bean and minced chicken into the risotto.)

6. Move your meat from the freezer to the normal fridge one night before!!!!!

Okay that's all for today!! :D
btw, our risotto didn't look as nice as the picture on the website, but it tastes nice!! I think I'm going to have second serving now. still hungry. Hahaha

Cinderella and prince charming

One last post before I go to bed...
This is a very random thought. Hahaha. I think prince charming is very lucky because Cinderella has been doing house work for her whole life!

It's quite funny that when you were young(er) *cough, I'm still young* , you envied people who can dance better, who have higher grades, who can sing better, and so on and so forth. Now that you are growing up, you actually envy....YOUR MOM! for the 'simple things' that she can do but you can't, like ironing (oops, this one I envy my dad), cooking, baking, mopping 'properly', and so on and so forth.

quote of the day from Wanyu: "Don't worry, I couldn't cook before but I learned from youtube. I started from zero!"
quote from my mom: "There are only 2 possibilities when you just start learning how to cook: not salty enough or too salty, can't be worse than that." Hahaha

Oh no..just remember, still need to hang my clothes first :S
nitez!!

Welcome December!

I've noticed that I have more things to write when I have spent enough time to be alone. It can be as simple as going from Clementi to Boon Keng MRT alone :P This kind of silent moment gives me chance to contemplate things. It's kinda hard for me because I'm sooo talkative. Last time I tried to not say a single words for 10 minutes in MRT and I was failed!! At the moment when I walked out of MRT I was sooo happy because I've been holding things that I wanted to comment on MRT. Hahaha.

It's December. Time really flies.
Looking back at my resolution and my post last month, it was still a struggle to fulfill my resolutions. (Slowly...:) )
Among all my November resolutions, I managed to fulfill one of those: to review my Thai book! Just a short review though for 2 or 3 consecutive weeks, but it's okay :)

So talking about resolutions, how to make a good resolution?
1. It must be concrete and realistic
example: One of my resolutions is "catch up with some friends whom I have not met for quite a long time". When I read this resolution just now, I could not think whether I have fulfilled this resolution. Perhaps next time I should take note of the names of the friends or see whether my own situation allows me to do so. For example, in December, it's harder to do this because I only have 3 weekends in Singapore and 2 of the weekends are full!!!

2. Write it DOWN and tell someone about your resolution
Yes, I do believe that writing our resolutions is really helpful. I've been doing that since secondary school. Even if it seems that we do not fulfill our resolutions, you'll realize that you somehow fulfill parts of it and there are other moments in the year, e.g., birthday, anniversary, Chinese New Year, Easter, retreat, when you can read them again, revise them or just feel inspired to concretize it more.

Telling someone about your resolution will provide you with a good social support, especially when you're down or when things go wrong. It also helps you to re-think whether it is a good resolution or not.

3. Take one step at a time
In "7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens", Sean Covey called this the "baby steps". Don't be afraid to just make small and simple resolutions to help you reach the "Big" dream :)

So yeah...end of the year. Time to think of our yearly resolution. But first of all, remember that you have every day even every hour to make the urgent resolution :)

to do our work well

Yesterday I spent my time doing literature review, looking for new research ideas, writing up methods of our current research. To be honest, these were not the favorite part of my job. My favorite task is to go to kindergarten to run experiment.

I recalled a meditation by Fr Mario about "doing our work well". It's not about doing task that I like, but doing task that I need to do. It's not only about finishing my work, but also on knowing how to do my work more efficiently, in a way that is helping other colleagues, and in doing it well and with intensity. It's so tough!!

Remember my advent resolution? I tried to shade the circle every 15 minutes of intensive work. I was failed! Hahaha. So difficult! I was still easily distracted.

So...Advent is coming!! Let me try again on Monday :) Hopefully my work can be a small offering for Our Lord :)