I may need some help.

“Dear….,

We’ve decided to change ISP, and therefore also need to change our main email address. We’ve also taken the plunge to use Office 365 online (and therefore Outlook as well) on the subscription basis in the UK.

So, please update your address books on PC, and online…

Please note, you may delete any others you have for me (backspace, easynet, orange, ntlworld, etc), although some may work for a little while yet, we just don’t know how long for.

Please also note, I do not use the same addresses for any social networks, so although you will find me on LinkedIn, Twitter and Flickr, don’t try to use this email address for them!!

Image by Matt.Clegg via Flickr

Oh, and also, this week I finally activated a Facebook account created for me in …. Don’t expect me to use the account though, that’s what Twitter & Flickr are for…. But I will try and look there if you tell me there’s something to view. Again, it’s not connected to this email address.

I’m on SKYPE and Facetime (for Mac) also, from time to time.

P.S.  We also changed our home phone number – we’re now on a ‘0161’ SKYPE number in the UK, not a ‘XXXXX’ number. Mobile numbers remain the same.”

I’m overwhelmed with work lately, so in this post, I just want to quickly share with you some brief moments in my life the week.

When a child grows up and flies away, you tidy up their bedroom and reminisce of the time lost. Since the fox killed our hens, we did the similar thing: cleaned up their house.

If you haven’t seen a modern chicken coop before (which looks like an old iMac), here are a few images after we’ve dismantled it.

I also told you I spent £500 on a new pair of ordinary glasses.

Two weeks after my eye test, my glasses finally arrived. It often amazed me how long it takes to get any work done in this country.

I wore my new lilac frame (previously black frame) home — remember, this new gadget cost me £500, and the colour and shape were completely different.

I stood in front of my husband, and asked “Look at my face. Anything different?”. Twenty seconds later, he struggled with this answer. “Your hair looks slightly different.”

I told my friend that I was worried about ‘girls’ thing, but she joked that I was becoming a grumpy old woman.

The event was held by World Vision. It’s a Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice.

The Girls’ Night Out event promised that we would be inspired by Carrie Grant (a celebrity), be entertained by Jo Enright (a comedian), and be treated with goodies and delicious sweets. As Jo Enright was ill, Carrie Grant’s husband, David Grant (also a celebrity), took her place and entertained the audience with an engaging sing a long choir session.

My goodies (For non native speakers, goodies are free gifts normally put in a bag called a ‘goodie’ bag’) are chocolate, B. Ready day cream, No.7 eye make-up remover, a mirror, a cucumber peel off mask, peppermint tea. On the night, there were also three prizes to be won.

During the break time, we had free drinks, and beautifully decorated cupcakes by the Little Cupcake company.

It’s all new and interesting to me. I’ve never been to any red-carpet event, and this event was the closest I was ever remotely linked with ‘celebrities’ — glamorous people you hear and see on the television. However, as I’m not a keen follower of the pop culture, I’d never heard of the names of these celebrities. It was a bit embarrassing for me.

The talk was interesting, honest, littered with jokes. Carrie was a talented speaker, and she also performed a few songs and played the keyboard and guitar.

Image by Glasgow Amateur via Flickr

The ultimate goal of the event was sponsorship. We were encouraged to sponsor children from the poorest countries in the world.

Everyone was given a unique, beautifully printed Child Sponsorship card. The card contains the basic biography of a named child with his photograph on the front cover. We were encouraged to sponsor a child — currently £22.80 a month. However, we all have a choice.

If you don’t want to sponsor a particular child, whose card is in your hands, you could swap the card with others. You could specify the sex, age, country of a child that you want to sponsor. On the table, tens of sponsorship cards were on display. Each card has a different child on the cover. You choose. It’s a bit like shopping.

Once you’ve sponsored a child, you get to receive regular updates of the child, and you could even fly to visit your sponsored child.

Child Sponsorship is positive and honourable. I had an interesting evening. I had 2 cupcakes. However, I found it mentally difficult pondering about child suffering and world poverty in a glamorous setting — a modern church with excellent facility, while being pampered with goodies, cupcakes and drinks, and was entertained by celebrities with songs. I was touched by some of the stories that I heard on the night. However, I’m trying to work out why I felt somewhat uncomfortable. Perhaps the dichotomy of indulgence (goodies and cupcakes) and poverty was too great. Perhaps I found the fact that you could select a specific child to sponsor too ‘commercialised’. I was also trying to study the psychology of people who sponsored.

I had an interesting night out. It was fun, but I also had some questions. My friend asked why I couldn’t simply relax and have fun?

This morning I’m officially a woman without her chickens. Two remaining chickens were killed, possibly last night.

I saw feathers scattering around in their chicken run this morning. One dead chicken was under a bush. One was gone. The fox must have taken her for her babies. The fox would come back again for this one, so we decided to leave the dead chicken in the garden for the fox’s collection.

Once I realised I’ve now lost all our chickens — 5 in total, since last summer, I felt a sense of loss. Suddenly the complete silence commanded the house.

I hate to say that my second response to their killing was to blame someone. The first person I blamed was my long suffering husband. Why didn’t he lock up the chicken last night? Why? After a split second, I knew that it was illogical, unfair and uncaring as I should learn to stop blaming him for all the suffering in the world.

Then I blamed myself for not locking up the hens. Last week, our neighbour knocked on the door to inform us that he saw some foxes around. We had been warned. Our security should have been tightened up. We did check the chickens more carefully, for a few nights, locked them up dutifully at night.

However, the past few nights had been cold. I didn’t feel like going to the garden at night. My husband might have felt the same. We played the mind game. We lost our guard. And, the fox came, leaving a note saying, “thank you very much.” Now, I blame the English weather for the death of my chickens.

Keeping chickens carries a lot of responsibilities. Many interesting blog posts by one of my favourite bloggers, zeudytigre, carry some great advice. I’ve been thinking for the whole day today, “What if?” “What if I had checked on the chickens last night?”

My husband, being a mathematician, is more logical in his approach to death. He explained that nothing is fox proof, not even fashionable and strengthened chicken coops. He calmly explained that even if we had locked up the chickens, the fox could still have burrowed underground and grabbed them. The fox could have attacked them at any time of the day, when the chickens are out and about in the morning.

This is the end of my chicken saga.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Postcard from Singapore: one DEAD chicken

“Hens down! More hens down!”

Neighbour from hell

Madness

The total cost to my optician yesterday was £457 before a discount. I also bought 3 items recommended by my optometrist. These are an Eyebag called MGD RX (£20), eye drop and an eyelid hygiene liquid called Blephasol. These items cost £39. The total cost for my eye care yesterday before a discount was about £500.

(My non-designer plain titanium frame cost £192 (the cheapest I could find; I needed a titanium frame because of my skin allergy to alloy) and the lenses cost £215. The examination and photograph fees were £50 in total.)

A few days later, I did a quick search online, and found that if I had chosen to buy the 3 items online, I could have saved myself at least £12.

Image by jjjohn via Flickr

I listened to every single word from my eye specialist yesterday. She was very attentive to me and used many tools and machines. I felt valued. She even took me to a private room to take a few photographs of my eyes. She later showed me the image of the biology of my eye on her computer — my eye looks like a galaxy. It’s pretty impressive.

Are my eyes worth £500? Of course they are. But could I have saved myself a bit of money if I had been a bit calmer?

I wasn’t very calm after the thorough examination for about an hour. I was exhausted. My head was spinning. I needed to get away to pick up my child from school. The words from my specialist kept ringing in my ears: “You’re prone to ….disease; if you don’t use …. to lubricate your eyelids, your eyelids might fall out, and you don’t really want that to happen, do you? (a gentle smile)……” Psychologically, perhaps I was already beaten. I had an illogical fear that if I didn’t get everything instantly I would be blind, or — my eyelids would fall out. I didn’t even have the mental capacity to think of an alternative.

The Eyebag I bought was actually an eye pad filled with 130g of flax/linseed. The design of the Eyebag looks similar to those you get for free on the plane. The Eyebag needs to be heated up in a microwave for 30 seconds before use. After using it once, I told my husband that I could have warmed my eyelids with a warm cotton flannel, and still achieve the same effect. Or I could fill a small bag with some rice and warm the bag in the microwave.

Image by Chrismar via Flickr

I’m not trying to say that my eye care specialists mis-sold me products. They sold me excellent products which would help improve my eyelids so that they don’t have a chance to fall out. Or perhaps the imagination of the slight possibility of losing my eyelids was too scary. The Eyebag aims to relax my eyes and reduce mild inflammation.

However, I wonder if I really NEED them so desperately? Like so many things in life, could I have lived without them? Or alternatively, should I have visited another local optician and sought a second opinion?

Facing a situation like this makes me feel the most vulnerable as a foreigner. Because of a lack of social network and local information (such as gossips and family wisdom/tradition), it’s hard to make the most accurate decision sometimes.

p/s: After a ‘discount’, I paid £340 yesterday (down from £500).

I had to take out a 18 month Vision Plan (£8.50 per month) to enjoy the ‘discount’. This plan will cost me £153.

I’m sharing my eye care scenario with you — I’m not even worried that some of you may think that I’ve been stupid. However, I’m more interested in examining why I had made these decisions. £500 is a lot of money. Did my decisions show that I crumbled easily when facing up with someone who’s more knowledgeable? Perhaps it showed that I lack wisdom in finance? Perhaps I had made a brilliant decision in time saving?

Do I have a choice? No. Because I needed the service and my new glasses.

The alternative was to pay into an 18 month plan (at £8.50 per month). This covered free eye care, and the cost of my glasses and lenses will be cut by 25%.

Image by Will Montague via Flickr

I took out this plan. After doing some basic arithmetic at home, however, I worked out that the plan didn’t actually save money, but it made me feel that it was a better option. The plan did come with an accidental damage cover. However, I have worn glasses all my life and they were never accidentally damaged. I never needed this protection before. Now somehow I bought this protection with this insurance plan.

From this example, I feel that we often like to think that we have choices, but sometimes perhaps what we get is not a choice, but an illusion of choice. Ultimately I would still pay the same amount of money for my eye care.

My glasses are the most essential items in my life. Wherever I go, I always have a mini screwdriver in my wallet, to be used to secure my frame.

Some people may think that of course I have other options, like changing opticians and buying new glasses from another company. I tried these many years before, but in the end, I still returned to my local optician and received my more personal eye care.

I told my husband that the smell of the dog’s presence was overpowering. If my husband had had a woman in the house, I would also have been able to detect the scent of a woman too. Scent is subtle. I can smell it. I don’t like bacon, for example, as its smell is too overpowering. A dog’s smell in a house is overwhelmingly strong if you’re not used to it.

Then we had a row. Actually I chose to have a row with my husband. I told him that he had known that I disliked a dirty dog in the house, but why didn’t he say no to the neighbours when they turned up with their beloved dog? I felt totally betrayed. I even warned him that if he ever let the dog in again, there would be serious consequences.

I dropped my swimming bag and started cleaning the house, thoroughly. When mopping the floor, I couldn’t stop commenting on the smell, mud and hair left by the dog and I somehow turned into an unreasonably angry woman after a relaxing swim.

I’m not the best housewife in the world and my house is never squeaky clean. We have a huge lizard, some locusts in the lounge, and occasionally the chickens would come in from the garden too. I’m used to pets and their smells and stains. Sometimes, our neighbours’ cat would find her ways to enter our house too. However, there’s nothing you could do with cats if they love coming round. We would just play with the cat and she would normally go back to her home later. Then she would appear in our house again.

My husband didn’t understand why the neighbours’ dog being in the house briefly deserved an argument. He is a gentle soul and he hardly raise his voice at home and he’s the more favourite parent in this household. He apologised for upsetting me and he promised to bar the dog from the house in the future. He said, “Ok, Ok! Next time I’ll tell them: sorry, Janet doesn’t like dogs. Are you happy now?” This statement is of course incorrect, but I explained I didn’t actually care being labelled incorrectly as such as long as the dog doesn’t come into the house, my territory.

It makes me feel the same about parenting. If my son cannot behave in a friend’s house, he will not be allowed to go again. I would not protect him.   He can only go to people’s houses when he’s invited and when he can demonstrate an acceptable level of behaviour. Last time, my son misbehaved in a friend’s house, so I punished him and he never got an invitation again from the same family. If I exercised my rights as a parent to discipline my child, why would people not exercise the same level of discipline to their dog? Or is it because dogs have more rights than human? I must say that I have often seen how dogs are badly spoilt in this country and the indulgence utterly repels me.

Love me love my dog?

Walking in the wood – Part 2

Walking in the wood – Part 1

“Hens down! More hens down!”

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Madness

I visited my friends the other day. Their dog barked at me, non-stop. I was smiling, speaking to the dog softly, praising him. His master also asked him to be good. “Darling, it’s ok, good boy!” They tried to calm the dog down.

The dog jumped on me, barking even louder. My friend said, “Janet, CC (dog’s name) is actually waiting for you to give him a stroke. Give him a stroke and he’ll be fine.”

I obediently gave CC a lovely stroke, stroking his back up and down, and kept praising him, even kindly telling his master that his dog got soft, lovely fur and the dog was affectionate.

The dog continued to bark. My friend asked me to stroke the dog again, and stroke in a specific way. He demonstrated how the dog would have liked to be stroked, with a certain strength, from the neck down. I was a keen learner, and I was a guest, so I obediently stroked the dog the way I was instructed to.

I sat down to try to have a chat with my friends, but their dog was constantly interrupting. I wasn’t comfortable.

I have seen less of my friends since they kept this dog. I accepted that I needed to follow their rules as I was a visitor. However, I’m feeling the rules are getting more demanding on me.

It makes me wonder what makes a good guest.

There’s a Chinese saying that if you love someone, you have to love even the crows on the roof of his house － 爱屋及乌 (ài wū jí wū). You can read about the story of this idiom here. However, this idiom is normally translated into English as Love me love my dog. It would have been totally incomprehensible to translate the idiom literally.

To be honest, I found this rule – Love me love my dog — more difficult to follow than Jesus’s command in the Bible: ”Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”

I’m not sure if Jesus included loving ‘your neighbours’ pets’ in his order. I’ve never heard a minister interpreting the message as “Loving thy neighbours’ big barking dog who likes to jump all over you and nearly knock you over.”

My husband told me that he knows CC doesn’t like me. I’m fine with that. I didn’t even complain much when CC jumped on me one morning while I was on my way to work. CC enjoyed his morning walk with his master. When CC jumped on me, I didn’t even get an apology.

However I’m annoyed with the feeling that I’m made to please the dog, and there is an expectation of me to bond with the dog. With this reasoning, the dog’s barking is caused by me not calming/stroking/entertaining him enough, instead of the misbehaviour of the dog or its lack of training.

I’ve almost stopped visiting my friend or going out for a walk with them. My husband explained that I’m an outsider and I don’t fit in with the lifestyle of the dog. However, I do feel liberating not having to succumb to the dog’s demand. On the other hand, I do feel sad that human relationship is ever so fragile, and my relationship with my friends has to be adjusted because of the tension between the dog and me. I’m a foreigner living in a foreign countryside, but I seem to be losing friends faster than before these days.

Walking in the wood – Part 2

Walking in the wood – Part 1

FREE

This packet includes 2 greeting cards with envelopes (free), 1 bookmark (free), and the most amazing of all, a pen (free). Of course, it also comes with a letter asking for donation.

Here is the dilemma: a FREE pen from the Red Cross, sent to me by post. Should I use the pen to sign a cheque or give out my direct debit details? Or, does it make me a very bad person if I use this pen to doodle? Or even worse still, what if I chuck the pen — since the pen is not my kind of pen. I prefer Japanese gel ink pen such as Uniball Signo, or Staedtler Triplus fineliner from Germany.

I tried to discuss my dilemma with my 12-year-old son. “Ben, do you think the British Red Cross should spend/waste their money and send everyone FREE pens and FREE cards? Do you think FREE pens will attract more donations for the Red Cross?” My son replied, “Mum, you asked the same questions last time. Why are you repeating yourself?”

Sometimes I just cannot get over things like that. Over a FREE pen.

The free cards I received added to my trauma. “The design featured on the front of this card has been taken from one of the panels from the Changi Quilt, made by women imprisoned in Singapore during the Second World War.” Perhaps I should send this card to my Singaporean friend Vera from To Dad With Love? Would she like that idea?

Because I don’t send enough cards, whenever I do send a card, I tend to send a reasonably nice one. I would make my own cards, or I would buy cards with an improved texture, a bit of layering and bling, a butterfly here and there, enhanced by a ribbon. However, the British Red Cross gave me these free plain cards to send to the people I love. I simply cannot do that to people. The quality of these cards is equivalent to those you get from a cheap card factory and I dare not send a card of this quality to my mother in law.

Free bag

What should I do? I feel ungrateful for not liking my freebies today.

If I give a small donation, I can also get a Free Humanity Rose shopping bag from the British Red Cross. Another Free item!

Now, regarding my dilemma, I would like to ask what you would do if you’re showered with freebies by the Red Cross. Please kindly choose an answer and leave your comment to explain your choice.

Perhaps you can help me solve my dilemma.

“Good afternoon,

Here are the top stories on thetimes.co.uk this lunchtime:

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old student suspected of planting a bomb at the Boston Marathon, is said to have begun responding to investigators via handwritten notes despite remaining in a “serious condition” having survived a suicide attempt http://thetim.es/boston-questions

Jeremy Hunt has defended his plan to make aspiring nurses spend up to a year working as hands-on carers after it was criticised as “stupid” and unworkable by nursing chiefshttp://thetim.es/nursing-plan

Liverpool have said that they will not sell Luis Suárez despite confirming they have fined the controversial footballer and put him on a behavioural programme after he bit a Chelsea defender during their game yesterday http://thetim.es/hungry-dippo

Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, has admitted privacy concerns over the search giant’s Google Glasses and called for a “new social etiquette” to govern their use http://thetim.es/i-eye

The prospect of Formula One cutting its ties with Bahrain appears increasingly unlikely after Bernie Ecclestone indicated that a new five-year contract could be awarded to organisers of the country’s controversial grand prix http://thetim.es/bahrain-F1

And finally, a French sailor had a lucky escape after he was attacked by a crocodile while swimming off the north coast of Australia, leaving him with a “few holes on the head” and a remarkable tale of survival http://thetim.es/lucky-bite

Thanks for reading,…”

After skimming the text, I asked myself, has it improved my understanding of the world, or my empathy, at all? Do I, does everyone, still need to be fed current trivia of the 19 year-old loser?

When I wrote my last post, I was initially tempted to use a term, island mentality. However, I felt that it was unwise to generalise the majority of the people with this judgemental term. I’ve met many wonderful, open-minded people. They’re are not insular.

Talking about trivial matters, last weekend I was pleasantly surprised on my train journey back from Reading after a morning’s teaching. On the Great Western train, the conductor kindly handed out bottles of mineral water to the passengers. I asked him why we all had free drinks. He answered that it was because the particular carriage was too hot. In about 20 minutes, he gave out free water twice for everyone in the carriage.

A little bottle of mineral water was trivial, but this little gesture made me happy.