AHIMSA

I have not written anything in so long that it feels strangely like a homecoming! I am sitting in bed nursing an awful cold (and praying that it is not H1N1). Life has been speeding by at 100km/hr and I have been trying to keep up .......... ya, I am running around like a head-less chicken again. It is so easy to fall back into bad habits. Sigh. Well, I guess being ill is almost like a nice break: except that I can't breathe, have a massive headache and it kills to swallow! I had to cancel 2 yoga classes, 1 massage session and 1 SUPER meeting (that would have lasted hours). Pre-H1N1 days, I would have gone about life per normal; feeling like a complete martyr whilst I work myself into a zombie state. It was fear of being publicly chastised for putting other life's at risk that made me stay in.

Funny enough, I picked up an old copy of yoga journal whilst lying in bed feeling sorry for myself and chanced upon an article upon violence. Ahimsa (or non-violence) is a fundamental yogic philosophy and one generally applies this to non-violence to other beings and we seldom think of it as non-violence to oneself. There is the physical violence we put our bodies through and here I am thinking of my current ego-manic craze to complete a triathlon. I am not a natural runner, swimmer or cyclist and it takes a lot for me to be able to swim 20 laps in a pool or run 10km or cycle 60km.... (An easy feat for many, but not me!) To make matters worse, I fell off my bike about a month ago (I basically rode into a car!) and hurt my right knee. At first the pain was only in the knee, but now I have pulling in my achilles tendon and hamstrings on the right and ankle strain in my left leg. It even hurts when I do yoga. If I am well enough to do the tri this weekend, I promise to take a break and let my poor battered body heal!

There is also the mental torture which is even more subtle and much more dangerous : the self-doubt, questioning and beating oneself up over what had been or could be... I don't do much fretting in the area because I basically believe that what is meant to happen will happen so there is no need to agonise over the past or the future. There are no wrong choices after-all, there only IS.

Well, that is my bit of reflection for the day. Maybe if I don't get better by tomorrow, I will upload some photos of what has been happening these past few months!!!

The roller-coaster of everyday life

It has been many months since I have written anything. So much has happened but everything is still the same....

"I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the Stern Face, the Sad Self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from."

Same-same but not the same! :)

My last entry was Bali with the Teongs. It was wonderful as it was our 1st visit back since we spent 1 month there in 2005 for my yoga teachers training. We loved it so much in our little house in the middle of the rice padi field, we were actually going to stay on. Alas, reality set-in and we came back to Spore.


Lahu village friend, Kerod, came to visit after Bali. It was great catching up with him and eye-opening for the children. Kerod is an advocate of the simple life and is very different from most of our Spore friends; he doesn't own a mobile phone, a computer, a TV or a car! The boys were astonished that people could actually live without what at their tender age they consider necessities in life already. I wish I had more time to spend with Kerod but I was busy"sorting out my life" and only had a few short hours to spend with him each day. We did however manage to squeeze in a couple of great highlights though.


Amma, the hugging saint from Kerala, was in town so we spent the weekend queuing up for Dharshan. I can't decide how I feel about Amma; There is definitely a positive energy around her and she does a lot for the poor and needy all around the world; hospitals, orphanages, schools..... I just can't get over the hundreds of followers and minders that follow her around (90% of whom are westerners!). Are they exploiting this simple Indian woman? There is a whole industry around Amma with the sale of Amma dolls, Amma mala beads, oils, teas etc... The money all goes to a good cause but it still feels quite strange.





Another great highlight was Pulau Ubin. We took Kerod on an off-road cycling trip on a little island off the little island of Spore. The cycling was quite limited as we had Stephan with us on his tiny bike and he found the slopes abit of a challenge. That being said, he did terribly well and we managed to show Kerod something of Spore that even Sporeans don't get to see very often (Bum boats, kampong houses.....) We didn't have much time to cycle as we had to rush back to sing Bhajans with Amma. The kids were a little sceptical but they enjoyed themselves.

Well, the Ubin trip sparked off some sort of interest in mountain biking and I have actually been back twice. I love the kampong feel, exploring the trails and the yummy coconut juice. Can't decide if I should invest in a mountain bike though. Afterall, I hardly use my road bike!!!

Oh, on that note, I did a 70km ride 2 weeks ago. I have not been on the bike since, but felt pretty chuffed that I survived it. I am really quite awful on a bike. I hate slopes, have bad saddle burns, sciatica pain post rides and complain non-stop..... I wonder how my friends put up with me!!! I try to ride with a group that ride Saturday mornings 6.45am from Longhouse and they are a really nice bunch of people and soooooo very patient with me. They are now training for the 320km ride for Mersing though so I don't think I will be able to keep up. Chin and the girls ride on Sundays at 8am and do the Coastal Road and I have been meaning to go, but there has always been some excuse of other. It is just so difficult to sort out a schedule; I have to take the boys to rugby, teach yoga, go to church.....


Well, the really really big thing about the past month is that I started work (and quit within the week!) I joined Outdoor Vetnure with very good intentions. I was supposed to do marketing and they gave me the flexibility to work 8.30am - 2.30pm at the office and do catch-up time at home after. Well, it all sounded very nice on paper, but it did not work out! I felt like I was working all the time (and the office was in bloody Kaki Bukit!). It would have been great as they had many fun brands to work with (Sugoi, zoot, Running Lab, North face etc....), but getting paid peanuts and working my butt off just didn't make any sense. Anyway, I was getting massive headaches everyday. Furthermore, I wasn't spending enough time on the boys and I had this awful cancer scare the same week. We had more tests done, and I am fine , but I asked myself what kind of life would I want to live if I only had a couple of months left, and that really helped me decide what to do. I am still working for Outdoor Venture now but on a project basis and just to organise The North Face 100 race. It is quite a challenge to do since I am not used to working without a whole marketing team of people to delegate to... haha



The ID Band business is pretty much on auto-pilot. Quantities are increasing steadily. I have been studying a new method of engraving. We found that the CO2 laser burning process was not as long-lasting as we had hoped and the fonts were fading after usage especially with the use of chemicals. We now have a new etched design which I find quite sexy!!! I now have to make a big decision to invest another couple of thousand dollars in creating new molds.......... sigh. Hope it will be worth it!

On the yoga front, I have a steady stream of regular students that I practise with. I generally do an early morning class and an evening class totallying about 15hrs a week. I find this work the most rewarding and am grateful for it. It doesn't leave me much time for self-practise but I try to practise even when I am giving a class and there is a special energy which comes from giving that actually has great healing effects for the giver! On the other hand, the massage work really has not progressed much. Tim bought me this super-duper massage table (extra wide with wooden legs!) I have only taken the table out a couple of times. I guess I am still trying to define my practise.....

Well, that's all for now. I am trying to slow down and stop running around like a head-less chicken all the time. SINGLE MOMENT SINGLE ACTIVITY!!!! I definitely do not want God to give me another wake-up call a la "Tsunami - God cut off my right foot" incident!

Bali with the Teongs

This post is more than 1 month over-due. Have been so busy with work............. Will write about that on a seperate post!
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BL & I brought our boys to Bali for the March holidays. It was a bit difficult to decide on what we were going to do; Having not worked for more than a year, I was on my "austerity" drive and my very dear friend, BL, is more of a 5-star type of girl.... There was no way I was going to pay for villas at US$900 a night and I knew I wasn't going to be able to convince her to stay at the huts at Amed beach for US$3 / night!! After much debate, we finally settled on a small villa in Seminyak for under USD200/night. Things looked good on paper, but when we arrived, the place was completely "un-preped"! Cob-webs everywhere, no toilet paper, musky smelling rooms.... Sitting at Bali Deli, we decided to leave the villa and find alternative accomodation. It was really quite difficult to get anything since it was Galangan (Balinese Christmas / New Year) and many places were closed as the staff return home to their villages.

We finally ended up going to Mt Batukara and staying at a gorgeous place called the Mountain Resort Retreat which is run by a lovely Australian, Dutch couple. Rebeccae, Richard and their daughter Imogen were excellent hosts. The resort is literally in the middle of nowhere and was supremely peaceful. Days were spent reading, playing games and going on lovely walks..... With temple visits and cermonies every other day! We were treated like part of the village and participated in all the woderful festivities and were even invited to the home of a local Balinese family for some local delights.

Eng Guan came to join us at the end of the trip and the boys just had a truely wonderful time together whilst BL and I sat out on the porch indulging in loadsa port and girlie-chat!!!

The boys spent hours on end playing RISK!

Bali is a special place and being there for Galangan made it even more special. Next time, we are going to stay for Neypi (the day of silence so the bad spirits can't find their way back, after Galangan, where we made tons of noise to chase the spirits away. Everthing shuts down even the airport and people aren't allowed out of their houses and there is supposed to be no cooking or fires!)

Beautiful hikes in the paddi fields. Kids were a little grossed out by the leeches but we managed to convince em of the medicinal cleansing benefits!

Temple festivities

Balinese home visits after the temple!

Cycling trip : This was so much fun! It was down-hill on mountain bikes until we reached the main road and here, we had a little mis-communication with the driver and instead of depositing out bikes, decided to attack the last 10km to reach the beach. 10km is no problem normally, but little did we suspect that it was bloody 10km uphill in the middle of the day along a major express way! I had to get off and push my bike twice!

Playing @ the beach near Tanah Lot

Stephan's 5th birthday. He finally gave up his bottle in BALI! yeah!!!

Stephan is 5!

Stephen celebrated his 5th bday a few weeks ago and had his 1st proper bday party with school friends and all.....

Steph wanted to have an army cake!!! eeks! I have no idea where that fascination came from.........

We organised a pool party @ Sunset Way and it was all great except there was a party there just before ours and all our dear guests had to melt outside by the pool under the sun until we could set-up in the hall.

It was a pool party after all, but there were tons of children that came without their swim stuff and I had absolutely no idea what to do with them!

I don't know what I would have done without mum's help. She brought food, organised for game organisers and helped control the crowd!

The yo-yo competition was a little too difficult for Stephan and his K1 friends but the older boys sure had fun!

We were in Bali for Stephan's real birthday on the 19th March. He asked Rebecca (our host at the mountain resort) for a spiderman cake and amazing, she whipped up a most amazing cake... spider-man and all!!!!

SICC Kick-board competition

Stephan (and his cousin, Mark) both won a gold medal at the SICC kick-board competition. Unfortunately, the Steph only did one event before it got rained-out, but he was feeling quite chuffed! The last time Steph won a swim medal, there were only 2 boys swimming in his age group so he came in last and won a silver. This time, there were 6 boys swimming, so he really did do very well!

Kids Milo Tryathlon Nightmare

This inaugrual event was really not very well thought out.

1. traffic jams getting into Sentosa

2. Bikes laid out all over the place with no security.

No racks; I was petrified that the bikes were gonna get trampled on....... or worse yet, someone was gonna just walk off with em!

3. No signage along the course & in the transition areas

The kids were running around the transition area asking where the run out was.......

Mat was 1st coming back into the transition area but took absolutely ages coming back from the run leg. We found out later that because there were no signs, he actually did 2km instead of the 1km for his age group!
4. No race briefing .................

After waiting for what seemed like ages, someone announced that the race was gonna be delayed for 1/2 hr but 2 seconds later, the kids were running into the water and someone decided that since the kids started, the 1st wave would just go ahead.......... how strange!

But, the kids had fun with their friends and I guess that's what counts!

Tim carrying Nic..........

This photo is for Peng since she didn't think Tim could carry Nic.......... haha!!!

ACS (Primary) Class 4F 1st in class

Yes, that's my baby Mathieu, Top student in class........ I am so proud!!!

I do believe that the Singapore school system may be slowly changing for the better; there is a move away from the "stick" to the "carrot". The boys now receive awards and commendations not only for academic achievements but for sports and other extra-curricular activities too. It's great for their morale and motivates them to do better. When Mat & Nic 1st returned to Singapore, they wanted to go back to international school. I debated it for a while as they both really enjoyed going to GIS in KL (they showed an enjoyment and eagerness to learn that was very much lacking in Spore). Unfortunately, I could not afford to put all 3 kids in international school so they returned to ACS. After the initial hurdles though, they both fit in fine and are coping in school. (With the exception of chinese from which they are now exempted!)

ACS is actually a great school; it offers our children a holistic education. The boys are given a good christian education based on "Wisdom and goodness" so that they can become real gentlemen and future leaders. What more can we ask for?

Tim in Singapore

Tim spent 3 weeks in Spore (1st time back since leaving for America 1yr ago.)



When Tim's in town, no one needs to walk............. :)

Crazy acrobatics in the pool!

Hanging out at all the cool parks in Spore ..................
(Yes, that's Tim teaching the boys how to climb trees and look at Nicolas' muscles!!!)

Tim with his favourite lil Emma!

Tim doing a science experiment for Mat's school project; Mentos and Coke bottle explosion............. In the YouTube videos, the coke fountain went 2m high, ours bearly bubbled! Kids were so disappointed. sigh.