A dish of random thoughts

RSPCA Open Day

It looks so silly!

A late afternoon at St Kilda

The sea was sparkling blue.

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Is it cool to claim oneself less of what they are? Or is it a better way to belittle others by belittling oneself?

There are more and more extroverts or sociable people announcing to me that they’re actually sorta loners and quiet and not being able to handle social situations and people very well. And, did I mention that they say it to me?

It’s like a size 0 telling a size 8 that she’s too fat for that pair of skinny jeans, that her thighs look huge, and that she no doubt has to be on diet despite the fact that she pecks on her food.

Does it make people feel more superior to be the most sociable among those social handicaps? It’s the category of personality I find shelter in and now those extroverts and the sociable retreat themselves there and drive me to the peripheral of that shelter. So what am I now?

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I’ve long passed the phase of life in which new social ties blossom and entered a socially dormant phase in which the rate of coming across familiar faces surpasses the rate of meeting new people. To put it simply, I’m now recycling people in my life. And the interesting thing is, those who somehow pop into my life again are always those who sorta pursue me. It happens so often that I'm convinced it's hardly coincidence. I’m not being cynical but just a bit curious: did they not see me when we first met? Or we’re now the remaining singletons in the ever-shrinking dating game and so I’m more visible?

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The more I’m in a hospital setting, the more I feel blessed for being physically, mentally and intellectually normal. There’re just so many things that can go wrong.

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I experienced the first earthquake here in Melbourne just a week ago. It measured 4.6 on the Richter scale though there’re no reports of damage or causalities. The house wobbled for seconds while my mind was still comprehending the situation. Never did I expect an earthquake in Australia. My post-hoc shock has shown me how unprepared I, a city dweller who has been living a blessed life in the middle of the Eurasian plate, am to this sort of natural disaster. Luckily, it came no more than a rocking sensation.

oh...just when I'm blogging on this, another aftershock struck. The house rocked for a couple of seconds. A 4.5 this time...

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I've never imagined that my limited Mandarin has come in handy to me in my placement. With quite a number of Mandarin-speaking clients who speak limited English, I've sorta become a language aid (not really an interpreter as there's interpreter service at the hospital but then I can still help here and there) when it comes to assessment, diagnostic interviews and feedback to caregivers. My supervisor came to believe that I'm a fluent Mandarin speaker but deep down I just know how crappy my Mandarin is. Now I'll try to work on my Mandarin when I know a Mandarin-speaking client is coming in.