Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Living a dream

The sheep had dinner today. It's been 2 years since I left the Higher Education Division (HED) at MOE, and today we met up for a farewell dinner to send one of us off to Paris. She's off to Cordon Bleu in a week's time to study to become a pastry chef. Isn't that just exciting? She actually quit the service and will soon be on a journey I could only dream of. Not that I dream of becoming a pastry chef, but it did get me thinking on my way home. Do I have a dream? And would I dare to drop all and chase that dream? The youngest of us all remarked at dinner that it would be nice to be able to live such a life, doing as one desired (another of us had also quit the service and was living life, travelling the world). She was told she could do so, as long as she remained single. Otherwise, convince her husband-to-be to travel too and hold off having children for a while. But were these the absolute conditions for living a dream? Perhaps, I'm already living my dream. Or maybe, I'm just not curious enough to have a dream. I'm not sure. It might not even matter, although, I will live this life only once. What do I want out of it?

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Morning baby

Lauren's a morning baby. It's 5am now, and she's up, rolling around and talking to herself, smiling at me. She was up since 4.30am, and shows no signs of wanting to go back to sleep. Come to think of it, she was probably up since 4am, but I ignored her and tried to sleep through her gurgling and kicks. I gave up soon enough though, and decided perhaps it would do us both better if I just turned on the lights and surfed a bit while she (hopefully) talks herself back to sleep. The last time this happened, she rolled around until dawn. Thank goodness it's the school hols now, otherwise I'd be in a foul mood.

Friday, May 23, 2008

It's the last day of term! Yippee!

Finally, we get to rest. Sorta. Of course there's work to be done still. Whoever said holidays were for resting? I reckon it's just meant for us to catch up on admin work. Teachers have a pretty bad deal actually. We get no leave days and get called back to work during the school holidays. The only way to not get called back is to go away, i.e. leave the country. But they really don't pay us enough for us to be able to do that for 4 weeks. Nevertheless, the holidays are upon us, and I do get to sleep in. We're also off on a family holiday end of next week - can't wait!

Meanwhile, here's a recent shot of my little princess. There was a campfire at school yesterday so she spent the day at work with me. My colleague took this shot of her. Check out the drool. Heh heh heh. The paed says it's more an indication of her being ready for solids and wanting to eat than it is her starting to teeth though. So since the doc's given the green light, I started her on a wee bit of rice cereal on Wednesday. Hoping to get her ready to eat mush by the time we leave for our family holiday. I'm actually rather having fun feeding her from a spoon. Have been getting ready for this next phase of her life over the past couple of weeks, buying her spoons, bowls, a booster seat... Ah... so broke, but so happy. :)

Monday, May 05, 2008

It has finally come.

The request for longer skirts, that is.

I find it terribly funny. Perhaps I shouldn't. But I've been getting funny responses from friends I've told. "Plunging necklines from tomorrow then?" suggested one. I told him that was worth considering, since I now have boobs thanks to breastfeeding. Another said, "That coming from a place where people prance around in tights?" Hahahaha... I never quite thought of it that way. And yet another responded with, "the things they bother with..." Ah well.

My response? I'm flattered. I must have terribly nice legs to draw such attention. And skin thicker than an elephant's hide. Oh! Such heightened self-awareness too! And skin thicker than an elephant's hide. *snigger* Truly though, I don't mind being told to wear longer skirts. At least this skirt's lasted 2 months at work. Dad sums it up best. "Too bad you've chosen a profession where you can't flaunt your legs." We had a good laugh and agreed that skirt's just got to be "reassigned". I accede. They'll just have to move into my weekend-wear-wardrobe now. Dad's great. For someone who retired from the same profession, he doesn't hold any of those anal, archaic norms many still cling on to. No I-told-you-sos.

Well then, another excuse to go shopping!

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Term 2 Week 8

That's tomorrow. The start of it anyway.

Goodness. I have been back at work for 2 months already. Time's going a bit faster that I thought it would. Would like it to. Would not like it to. Depending.

When you're in school, time inevitably rushes by. It's this whole scheduled time thingy we have called a time-table. You just end up moving quickly 'cos the days are predictable, the weeks are predictable. Wake up at 6; leave work at 6. Odd week; even week. Class now; break later. Tests today; mark this week. And so on and so forth. I'm glad for it, 'cos work doesn't seem torturous (like it did once upon a recent office time), and I'm truly loving it. The way time whizzes by also means soon the school holidays will descend upon us! Yippee! I think yippee anyway. Cos in the same manner, that'll whiz by too, and sadly, we've already got meetings lined up during that time. So much for wanting to catch up on my scrapbooking then.

Then there are times it moves too quickly. Lauren was 5 months old last Sunday and got baptised. Pretty baby. Lovely sweetheart. Growing too quickly. She's getting very fun to be with, 'cos she's starting to respond to our voices, toys, books, sound (she likes the jingling of our house keys). It's all very nice, and I love every moment of it. Every moment that lasts just that second. And every moment that's spent in school is a moment lost to me. I felt so sad when I wasn't the first to see her make her first flip from back to front at 4 months. Sometimes, I don't want to sleep, just so I can watch her every move for as long as possible. But that's not possible. She'll soon be 1 and I wouldn't have known where the time went.

*sigh*

Term 2 week 8.

5 months and 1 week.

Tick tock tick tock...