A year of Fatherhood and turning 34

Not too long ago, I was still posting about entering fatherhood. And now it's already been more than a year.

Little Amber is now capable of running around and getting herself hurt, not to mention the start of endless ramblings and tantrums. 

Both Yanli and myself are feeling the fatigue of parenthood. There much lesser us times and me times. Every night it's just tiring and rest is never enough when we wake up. Such is the norm of living in Singapore. 

It still feels awesome to be able to be home with Yanli and Amber every evening. Amber's just TOO CUTE!! 

Babies are such bullies, she knows exactly when to annoy you, and push ur limits. And when u think that all hope is lost, she gives you the cutest smile ever

In all this chaos, I'm fortunate to have a superwoman wife who does so much on her own. She wakes early, works super hard, sleeps late, and does so much in between. Life would be tough without her around us. 

Recently I just turned 34. Birthdays after being a father is not the same anymore.  It's no longer just about me.

It's now about the kid. Hahaha. My wonderful wife planned a surprise staycation for me. I got another cake. But Amber will not be forgotten, we stayed at an ultra-kids-friendly hotel and there's so much to do for her. 

So much that we were so drained after the weekend. Lesson learnt is that we need a recovery day after such programs. We are so not young anymore.

New Experiences @ TCM

It's been years since my last visit to A Chinese physician. In my opinion, TCM is best used for muscular injuries. Basically issues that done require an x-Ray. 

This time my visit was due to pain in my left ankle. Started yesterday morning for no rhyme or reason. This morning it's just worst. Couldn't exert any weight on it without pain.

So I tried this TCM at City Sq, since Yanli is going there to meet her friends. Firstly, the place is staffed entirely by Chinese nationals, which is expected. There's only one physician on duty and there's only one patient ahead of me. My wait was brief and I got to see the physician in a jiffy.

She looked at my feet and asked a few questions and diagnosed that the pain was due to poor blood circulation causing a blockage pressing on the nerves. Which sounded about right, when I compared the symptoms to the pain area.

So treatment started immediately, it's acupuncture. The last time I had acupuncture I had a few needles in my right ankle, the time before that was a few needles in my right shoulder. This time was a few near my right knee, a few on the calf, a few at the ankle, a few on top of the feet and few on my right knee too. Pricks here and there but one at the left ankle particularly hurt more. Doc said I have a high tolerance of pain hence she can hit a few more on me. 

The needles were in place for some to means a weak current was actually passed through my left knee to my feet. That caused my entire leg to twitch uncontrollably. It was ticklish and painful at the same time, it's basically torturous!!!

At the same time there's also infrared lap used at my tummy area to help with the blood circulation around the body. What is etched into my mind is her deductions of my body conditions. She said I may look strong, but internally I'm quite weak. My digestive systems will work up quite often and my 气 is insufficient. In summary, it's 外强中干. I think she's about right too....

After in ridiculous amount of twitching in my left feet (I counted over 300 times). The treatment was over and she applied Chinese plasters on my feet. Chinese plasters are always covered in a heap of herb concoction. I have to keep it ok for the next day and a half. This version felt cooling, maybe it's just the AirCon.

Finally was the medication for the next few days. It's now in tablets form, I was expecting to gulp a bottle a day or something, but it's still 8 pills at one go and 3 times a day.

Reflections III

November n December are meant to be lull periods. Indeed feedback numbers have dropped. But why is there a sudden surge of things to be done and things to look out for? 

It is not easy trying to get things done during this period. People are clearing leave and the organisation is at doe what half strength, and yet productivity is expected to be up there. Expectations are growing and time is getting limited.

Bottom line is how much is enough? Are we expected to work 44hrs a week or do 44hrs worth of work a week. The two options are a huge world of difference. 

Making people work 44hrs can lead to 2 scenarios, 

1. The employee slacks during the 44hrs and gives a low output but still bring home same pay.

2. The organisation maximises the use of the employee and forces them to churn out work worth more than 44hrs in 44hrs. Organisation profits in terms of productivity, but socially it's kills the people. It kills me. The stress adds to frustrations and it becomes easy to snap and all sorts of things. A whole myriad of negative consequences are possible because of this sort of work culture.

In name, many organisations are moving towards promoting work life balance, flexible work timings, etc. I see many of these cases are just that, only in name. Because in actual fact, the organisations are still shoving like 60hrs worth of work into 44hrs.

The first step to real work life balance, work time flexibility is to be able to identify in your work scope, what constitutes work that can be completed in 44hrs in a normal pace with the regular breaks in between. Only when that baseline is established can employees empower themselves. Employees will then be able to judge more effectively what is over time, how to make the time spent flexible. 

But big question here is, who is so free to go and set out the base line work rate for each job? HR will not do it, because it takes away the grey area which allows the organisation to overwork you, and blame you for inefficiency. As an individual stuck in the vicious cycle of clearing work day after day, I don't see much opportunity or time gap available to do this.

~We are riding a sinking ship and we are bailing water by removing and using the very planks that form the ship.~

社会的脚步日渐加快。

我是否该迎头赶上，还是该豁达地坚持自己的脚步？

到最后是追赶的努力赞许，还因为追不上被遗忘？

在盲目追赶的同时，是否也忽略了人生其他的美好？

我想选择昂首阔步，自行自乐，享受每一个小确幸。

社会能否容许我散漫的步伐？

~ no one is good at juggling many things at a time. You start off with one and get good at it before slowly adding the rest. It takes time n hard work. ~ Cat Grant, Supergirl