Quick post on the mystery, "The Wedding at Cana"

Every time I meditate on this mystery, I always tell Mother Mary like this.

"You know, last time you helped the couple who was running out of wine, so I hope this time you told Jesus too that we're running out of wine. I believe He has a plan and I'm ready to "Do whatever Jesus told me", but please tell him, we're running out of wine, just like what you did before."

And somehow Mother Mary feels so close to me when I said this. :) As if the Wedding at Cana only happened yesterday :P

The value of life

Recently my friend had a miscarriage. She's already 30 plus so she told me, "It's kinda hard to get pregnant at this age, right?"
Another senior also just had their second miscarriage. I couldn't resist myself to ask, "Why?" (Obviously they also asked, "Why??")

One thing Paul mentioned to me is that their babies have the experience to be loved. It's a difficult trial. The parents feel that they've been "Pro-Life", but why they could not conceive yet (while other people have abortion). Nevertheless, yes, their babies are LOVED. That's the most important thing.

So one important message, when you have friends who experience this loss, you are really reminded about this value of life. All loss is difficult, a social work friend told me. Whether you experience loss of a baby in your womb, an old parent, or a spouse, it's still a "loss". So how can people claim that I can take the life of the baby? Or end a life of a person in comma state? These people who experience the loss can tell you that at that stage of life, there's still a LIFE, and they've experienced the loss of the life of these people that they love.

Please pray for these friends, so God strengthen their faith and hope and love. I believe God has a special mission for these friends.

Work and My Grandma

This week I went out to interview elderly for a research project. The more I listen to elderly, the more I remember my own parents and grandma. I imagine my mom is interviewed, will she be happy that I 'keep in touch' with her? I have this worry sometimes on "who will take care of my parents later on". (I mean..I'm sure my brother will. I hope I can go home quite frequently too). Singapore is not a friendly place for my parents. Even now, my mom complains that she needs to walk a lot in Singapore. I was jokingly asking them, "Do you want to live in Singapore?" They said, "No!". My dad said, "Look at Mr X. He's sooo rich, he has so many cars, such a big house, and I'm sure he can afford to live here or overseas, but he doesn't want." My dad also kept saying that one day when he grows old(er), he wants to live in my grandpa's hometown (Kuningan). His ideal life: have a fishing pond and some chickens behind the house =.=

Two days ago I called my grandma. The first thing she asked, "Wow. Where did you call me from?" (She thought I was in Indonesia). The second thing, "Have you fried the kerupuk??" I said, "No.. but these few days are very hot, I can fry the kerupuk if I want. Hahaha." So I shared with her how the elderly love to talk round and round and round during the survey. Sometimes their answers do not match the questions, then she said, "Pikun already lah" (Pikun = forgetful). Well, I don't blame them. It's the questionnaire's fault. The language is quite difficult.

Anyway, my mom reminded me that one day I'll be one of them. Yes, each of us will grow old. It's not a surprising fact right? So every time I talk to elderly now, I try to see them as my own grandparents.Oh one more thing, I'm already incredibly talkative now, so my mom said, just be prepared! I'll be one of the aunties who talk round and round and round. Hehehehe. (On this, Paul nodded and agreed).

It's a tiring week (again).
But yeah... interesting :)

The Ups and Downs of the week

Hello!

This week, I've been feeling mentally tired. I was awake physically, but my brain did not feel fresh.
Anyway, this week I did not run any interviews with the elderly, but I conducted experiment at the kindergartens and worked a lot with the excel files. This week, I had a discussion with my boss regarding the past year's performance.Glad to know which areas I need to improve :)

I (finally) watched Iron Man 3. The most amazing thing from Iron Man 3 was...the other Iron Men!! Hahahaha. The design differed each other. So cool!!
The ending was ugly, so I am trying to save the post-watching-mess-up now. Oh well, perhaps I shouldn't try to 'save' it. I sounded more and more disgusting every time I tried to save the situation.

I had a relax Saturday yesterday. After Mass, I slept again until 12.30 pm!! Not healthy, but my eyes were a bit swollen so I think sleeping is the best thing to do :) In the evening, I had a good time ironing my clothes and spending quality time with my roommate.
I guess the best gift of this week is my roommate :) I should open up a bit with my roommate so she was not shocked when she found me crying on my bed. (so...that's the tricky thing about having double-room. Hahahaha)

Anyway, this week was orientation week in my campus (my working campus :P). I couldn't believe that I was one of those screaming and cheering like silly people. Hahaha. I felt old :P

I miss taking photos. Maybe I should post a photo once in a while on my blog?
Ahh..I'm quite sad that this weekend is wasted.

Happy Mothers' Day!
Oh btw, Indonesian Mothers' Day is on 22nd Dec, so I don't really congratulate my mom on this day.

...and they lived happily ever after..

Last week was a Disney week. Me and my housemates watched Peterpan (1953) and Return to Neverland (2000s) on Labour Day. Then on Sunday we watched Cinderella (1951), Cinderella 2 (1953), and Enchanted! We were "ugh" and "ahh.." to see the sweet things and 'unrealistic' things that happened in the cartoon (e.g., how Cinderella had first kiss on first date >.<). Anyway, we all love Disney movies and we hope that the guys out there watch Enchanted so they know how to do sweet things. Hahaha.

We all love a "happy ending", a "...they lived happily ever after." Nevertheless, we know that the reality is not like that. The reality is the marriage is a beginning to an 'ups and downs'.

So let me share another twist of a "lived happily ever after". I think this 'happy ever after' is achievable..in heaven! I would love to say that our life on earth and the relationship we have is a 'prolonged fairytale'. While in Beauty and the Beast or Cinderella the story was ended with prince charming and princess' marriage, our whole life is the struggle when Belle needed to sacrifice her comfort at home to move to the Beast's house, the struggle when Cinderella needed to find a way to the castle, the struggle when the prince needed to find Sleeping Beauty, and so on and so forth.

The key to this 'happy ending' is the perseverance and faith (which was repeated over and over again in Peterpan, and even Cinderella!).

Once me and Paul passed a jewellery shop and I saw a nicely designed castle as a display with rings in the 'castle'. It was written, "Love is a fairytale". I laughed at the writing and pointed to the writing and told Paul, "Love is NOT a fairytale." It's not that I don't believe in fairytale, I do believe that it's very heartwarming to listen to fairy tale, but when it comes to love, the sadness and suffering can't be separated from the story. It's part of the real love :)

Devil Horns on Our Heads

This morning, I recalled something that a nun told us in a vocation retreat in 2005:

"The  priests and nuns are not suddenly holy. As I entered convent, the horns on our head fell off one by one. We all came with lots of horns on our heads."

The first time I heard that everyone was called to be holy was in that vocation retreat. It's very interesting. The thing is last time, when I heard the word "vocation" or "calling", it was used in this context, "I was called to be a priest or a nun". I've never heard things like "my vocation is to marriage".

Of course, the tricky part is naturally people want to get married! So how do you know that you are "called" to marriage or 'something-else'?

I guess this is where the spiritual direction and prayer come in. :) One thing that a friend of mine told me when I started praying about my vocation was to pray of the blind's prayer, "Lord, that I may see". Until now, this is my favorite aspiration. It's because seeing your path or vocation is not an end. Be it a priest, a lay person who lives celibacy, or a married person, these are means for sanctification. Along the way, we need to make lots and lots of important decisions. I used this prayer too when I prayed about whether I want to stay on in my job or not. Sometimes, I added another line, "Lord, that I may see, even though it's painful." Some other times I change the "I" to another person that I'm praying to, e.g., "Lord, that my best friend may see."

One thing my spiritual director told me was to keep serenity and to pray in the presence of God (e.g., in front of Tabernacle).

So yeah... at the end of the day, when difficult times came, I tried to remember this "Lord, I know you are trying to pull off the horns on my head. It hurts!!!" Sigh!

But I thank God that He wanted to 'prune me' :)

To love your "not-a-dream" job

When I was searching about job interview tips, they mentioned that we shouldn't say that "This is my dream job." The fact is we never know if our 'dream job' turns out like our dream :P

Most of us now may work in a position that is not our 100% dream-job. Nevertheless, to be able to work well, it is important to love our job. How can we love a job that is not our dream job?

Honestly speaking, the first few weeks of working as a research assistant (RA), I felt a bit discouraged because my job was printing questionnaires, photocopying questionnaires, calling kindergarten one-by-one, and keying-in data "only". After one year, I realized that this is not a 'brain-less' job. After my colleague spotted some crucial mistakes in our data file, I realized how important it is to key in data, check the data over and over again. These mistakes opened my eyes to the understanding that even a 'simple' job, such as data entry has a crucial impact. It's really not a simple job.

In difficult times at work, it's important to see the big picture of our project. As a new working adult, I often expect an immediate result. In the university, every midterm we have midterm test or midterm essay and we have our grade after one semester, be it A, or B, or C+. In work, sometimes I don't see immediate result. Some projects can drag for very long. Apparently, this is a normal thing in research. Of course we should have deadlines, but unexpected obstacles do occur here and there.

So how do you love your not-a-dream job?
1. Think of positive things that you can't get if you're not doing this job
For me, even though I always think that I love meeting people and doing field work, after one year working as RA, I realize that meeting people and doing field work requires lots of stamina. So things that I love in this job is to have a balance of sitting-in-the-office and going-out! There are some days that I spend in kindergarten, there are some days that I spend in elderly care centre, and there are some days that I spend in my office cubicle. In fact, tomorrow I will spend my morning in a Senior Activity Centre (a centre that provides various activities for elderly in 1-room-HDB-flat), then a few hours at a Day Care Centre (an elderly care centre for those with dementia or with stroke history, they must be referred by their doctors to go to the Day Care Centre), and an afternoon to run experiment in kindergarten!

2. Think of how current job experience will help you to get your dream job later on
I think this job really train me to relate with various types of people, from principals, teachers, to elderly centre managers!! I think this skill will be useful later on because as a psychologist, you also need to work with people from various disciplines (e.g., a Social Worker and family of the client). The pattern of "meeting-participants-then-enter-their-data" is also a practice before you "meet-client-then-write-a-report"

3. Always think of the big picture of your project!
It's easy to feel stuck in the thought "Ahhh.. I only write proposal" or "Ahhh... I only make videos for experiment" or "Ahhhh.. I only do data entry". From various meetings with my boss, my colleague, principals, and managers, I do think that research has a great value in the understanding of the society. We are facing real issues (e.g., what's the 'best' bilingualism policy? what's the 'best' for elderly?) and if we're not doing what we're doing now, there's a missing piece in this effort to understand the society.

4. Never stop learning
Last week, the topic of my circle is "Study". They said, "Study is an 'always-norm' ". We mustn't stop studying. In my first few months of working, when I did not have SPSS for statistics analysis, I tried to learn using R, a freeware for the same purpose. Now that I'm much busier, I didn't really have chance to learn R, but I still need to learn and continue learning. For example, how to interpret some advanced statistical analysis? I may not understand them fully now, but I do think this effort has helped me to understand the discussion between my colleague and my boss.

5. Think of other areas that you can pursue later on with this current job experience
I always think that perhaps if I don't end up as psychologist, I may choose to be a kindergarten teacher :D
Or...homeschool-'expert'. Hahahaha. This thought came to my mind because of my encounter with some kindergartens. I always joke with my colleague, "Well, after observing various types of kindergartens, don't you think your standard of what kind of kindergarten you want for your kids will be higher?"

Ya... Love your job!! :D