Hello dearies who are still somewhat invested in reading about my life beyond travels. I’m back with my monthly updates – on the last day of the month – in my usual last-minute fashion.
It has been a chaotic March for me, possibly one of the messiest months in my life in a long while as far I can remember but, oh wells, I’m still glad that I made it through this month and that perhaps tomorrow would be a brand new quarter, brand new month and brand new excitement and opportunities that I can look forward to. *The least I can do is to push myself to think of positivities and yep that’s free99*
The month started or perhaps the previous month ended with me falling ill with a really bad coughing spell. I think my health has been pretty much in a bad shape for the past 6 to 9 months and somehow a couple of weeks after Chinese new year in mid Feb, I couldn’t stop coughing and it went from bad to worse. I became desperate and hopped over from western medicine to TCM and somehow things didn’t see any signs of improvements so despite not drinking cold drinks, restricting myself from spicy and fried food for many weeks, I was still coughing throughout my entire 6D5N trip to Jeju. Yep that’s the holiday I was talking about in my post last month. It was my first overseas (plane) travel in 4 months which is a really long time based on my ‘norms’ but yep I couldn’t really travel because there had been many uncertainties in my life throughout the whole of Q1. The trip to Jeju was a lovely one and we were pretty blessed with good weather. I hope to be sharing my travels via writing in time to come so do be patient with me as I need to find back the writing momentum which has somehow disappeared in recent years.
Although the trip to Jeju was a pleasant one, I came home to high fever which is a pretty rare thing in my life. I don’t usually fall sick that badly and it was to the extent that I couldn’t really get out of bed as I felt lethargic and tired the whole day. Thankfully, things got better after a few days and I think I utilised my first sick leave in 9 months as I wasn’t even well enough to ‘work from home’. Then again, on hindsight, it was a good opportunity to take a break and pause the mess that I am going through in mind, and just sleep all my worries away. I really can’t recall the last time where I slept that much..
Another thing that happened for me this month was that I kind of had my first dips into metaphysics – I paid for a zoom reading for my ‘bazi’ aka known as birth numbers – which is determined by the timing of your birth. The ‘ba’ eight digits is represented by your year, month, hour, and minute and based on the combination of the various elements of ‘yin’ and ‘yang’ with the 5 elements of – metal, wood, water, fire and water – each of us have unique personality traits or certain ‘charts’ that could somewhat determine your life and future. However, the thing about metaphysics is that nothing is cast in stone and that everything can be up to your interpretation given at that point in your life. The session was quite interesting as there were a lot of ‘confirmation bias’ affirmations on things that had been bothering me and when asked about the future prospects, there was kind of a ‘direction’ path out for me and it kind of helped me to be more ‘open’ to what lies ahead, putting out all the anxiety that I had in me because the ‘path’ could possibility already been charted and it is up to me to take it up or not. At the same time, I am also rather skeptical so I’m still taking things with a pinch of salt and how certain ‘advice’ the person has interpreted is based on the info that I fed him. There’s one thing that I’m trying to ‘act upon’ after his feedback was how my charts showed that I do not have much luck on ‘indirect wealth’ which means that I would not fare well when it comes to gambling and speculative investments – which of course can be said for the majority of the people – but as I look back in life, I don’t usually win when I gamble (even with friend) and most of my speculative stocks end up losing money. It could be a confirmation bias but I guess it is a good thing if I heed the advice in the long run.
On a side note, I also went for a yoga class during the Good Friday holiday and the teacher was also a tarot card reader. As part of extra services, she allows us to pick a card for a free reading at the end of the class and she will interpret it for us. I thought my ‘pick’ was rather interesting and oh wells, since it is pretty generic, let me share with you guys:
The Star Tarot card is all about hope and renewal. If you’ve been feeling lost or stuck, the Star card can indicate that better times are on the horizon. This card can also represent a moment of clarity, or a breakthrough in your creative endeavours. The Star is a reminder that we are all connected to the natural world, and the universe is always there to support us. It is a sign that it’s time to let go of the past and move forward into the future. It’s time to trust your intuition and follow your heart. The Star is a reminder that you are on the right path, and that your dreams are within reach.
I’ll look back again in a month’s time to see if this card will be of any meaning to the month ahead (April). I was specifically thinking of ‘next month’ when I drew the card. Anyway, i thought it was funny when I drew ‘Star’ because you know how my username has the word ‘star’ inside and I was like wow, how did I have the ‘power/ability’ to draw such a relevant card in my life. Cheap thrills but it’s still a good fallback when you’re feeling lost and confused.
Anyway, back to my low and negative energy that I had back in Jan, Feb and throughout March, it was actually due to the uncertainty of my career prospects. Similar to many companies right now, the company that I am in is facing a reorganization where retrenchment and layoffs are expected. Somehow, there wasn’t any ‘timeline’ or ‘deadline’ shared so the whole team is left with anxiousness and anxiety for the past months. The workplace morale is badly affected and I just hope that things can really get better moving forward although it is gonna be hard. The only certain thing I know is that I still have a job next quarter but that’s about it. Now that I look back, I find it horrible that I allowed ‘work’ to affect my emotions so badly but I guess given my age and current life stage, it is inevitable. To be honest, I’m still trying to figure a way to really have that work-life separation and maintain two separate emotions entirely but is that even possible?
Another random going-to-be-shortlived interest that I’m having right now is that I’m reading about the ideas of after life and whether it exists or not. The current book that I am on speaks about ‘Near Death Experiments’ where a professor documents such experiences shared by people who have experienced such NDEs to put together an argumentative on whether an afterlife do exist. As of today, I still remain neutral toward religion beliefs so it’s interesting to read about people experiencing ‘moments’ that I’ve usually watched on TV – about the flowery fields and meeting people who have already passed on, waiting to ‘welcome’ you to the afterlife or telling you that ‘it is not your time yet’, which is why these people came back to life eventually. The world is really a pretty scary place and death is more common than you can imagine. It could be man-made disasters (e.g. war), or natural disasters (earthquakes and acts of nature) or even unexplainable mishaps (like the recent bridge collapse). I still try my best to live life to the fullest by trying to do whatever I want to do and not ‘wait’ and ‘sit on things’, because you really never know when would be your last breath on heart. Very very very morbid but, I can’t help it.
Another side not is.. I’m hooked on the drama ‘Queen of Tears’! I don’t know why but Kim Soohyun’s acting can always get me feeling right through the emotions of the character he is playing. After watching episode 7 last night, I couldn’t move on to my next activity (which was to sleep) immediately and I just paused there trying to process all the emotions of the scene that it ended with. I don’t usually have that much emotions while watching dramas but this drama really got me. I think and hope it would be a happy ending but let’s see the emotions roller coaster we have to go on before we get to that ending.
I do sound slightly ‘liverlier’ and ‘positive’ compared to my previous post right? Let’s keep the positive vibes in checks and hopefully by the next time I post, all that negativity within me is flushed out somehow.
What about you, how are you doing these days?
^^
Dear Honey,
I have never considered the discussion of death or afterlife as morbid. No one gets out of this life alive…death comes to us all. Meditating on the meaning of life and existence always must include the exit, and is one of the most fascinating realities one can explore.
Hi Diane, thanks for leaving a comment =) Glad to know that you agree with me that discussion of death is a valid concern. It’s just the way of life and no one can escape it so somehow it is good to be prepared and know what to expect (or at least the various options that could happen). I haven’t actually tried meditation proper but I guess I should give it a try some day!
Hi, I’m one of those subscribers that came for the kdrama shooting locations (i think) and stayed for the rest :-). I am already in my late 40s with 2 teenagers. I worked in Sg for 15yrs after uni, moved to JB, became SAHM for 9yrs and now back to work 2yrs. Life is a journey and the future is uncertain and unknown. We can only strive to do what we can on daily basis and our path will open up for us in due time. For your cough, perhaps you can try homemade onion syrup. It works like a charm for my family and friends. You can look it up. Apparently it is quite popular but I dunno why no one told us about it earlier (until a kind ex colleague). I do enjoy your content! Keep it up la… Don’t worry so much about stuff beyond your control ya…
Thanks for being an active commenter on my blog. I feel really happy whenever there is a comment because I know someone is actually reading what I write! It’s amazing how you return back to work after being a SAHM for so may years~ In fact, it is also a brave decision to become a SAHM in the first place. I see many of my friends struggle with the decision as it is not an easy one. Indeed, life is a complex journey with a million and one options and decisions that we have to make and everything we do will somehow determine the next step in our life. Thanks for your cough remedy – I’m in fact finally feeling better after an extended period of time. Hope you’re doing fine across the causeway as well~~ Take care!