Hospitalized again...

Sick Ruskie 01.JPG
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.

Things are not looking well... Vet confirmed that it's kidney failure. Ruskie also has hypertension due to the kidneys. Hence both pupils are now dilated and the poor thing cant really see anymore... most likely to be a permanent condition.

Long term wise, Ruskie will need continual home-based 'dialysis' (putting a bag of fluid under his skin through a needle twice a week).

I am not sure if i am coming to grips with it all yet... especially when looking through some of his old pictures. Don't know how so much could have happened to him while i was in China. Worse thing is, i can't really explain to him why he has to go through so much pain over the last few weeks and he has been quite 'distance' from me, the "chief-torturer".

It's all gone quite mad since 2006 came around.

?????????

�?????????????????�

???????????????????????????????????�????�????


�??????????????????�

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
?
?
?
?????????�???????� ? �???????�???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Sick Cat

Profile Portrait
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.

It has been a harrowing few days for poor ruskie when i was in Boracay. While i was away, he suddenly jumped out onto the balcony, refusing to come in despite pleas from wilk. By the time i got back, his left pupil had problems (cannot contract) and his vision was affected. Under such stress and staying out on the balcony, he became constipated and didn't eat for a while.

By the time i got home on sunday, he was one miserable and grouchy cat (understandably), and it took me a while to finally carried him back into the room. For the past 3 days, he still refused to eat and would growl/bite anyone who tried to carried him. The only exception was that he allowed me to pat him when he was in a 'relaxed' posture though he would give some warning growls whenever i tried to pick him up.

When the vet saw him last night (clinic was closed on tues and i kept him in to observe him on monday), she couldn't really say if his eye problem was due to a specific cause. He gave such a big struggle that eventually she had to sedate him to do the blood test and examination. Thankfully his liver is okie though his kidneys need some monitoring. Doc decided to hospitalize him for next 2 days to help tackle the constipation and dehydration problems. Hopefully that will reduce his pain and improve his mood. As for the eye, we can only see what could be the problem when the other things are cleared.

It is a stressful time for ruskie and a stressful time for me as well because i cant imagine if something were to happen to him. As it is, i am quite upset that he wont respond to me in his usual goofy way. Can't help but felt so guilty because i left him to go to Boracay and in some ways, felt that he is 'ignoring' me because he felt abandoned.

:(

Only hope now is that he can make it back home for xmas...

Sigh.

Mayday Concert - 10/12/05

The concert was FANTASTIC!!!!!

Basically had a rocking good time during the concert and it took some effort for me not to swoon whenever Ashin sang. Ya... becoming a band 'groupie' at a ripe old auntie age of 29 is sooooo... unbecoming. But what can i say? I am dead in love with mayday (with prior approval from the hubby already)!

So there we were, my colleague and I, waving our hands with lightsticks in the air and singing every song that evening on the top of our voices, as if we were still 18. Gosh.. an amazing experience and a most remarkable band!

Visiting Hakka Tulous

YONGDING, HAKKA TULOU 5
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.

The inner arrangements of the tulous are simple (same for both round and rectangular tulous). It works pretty much like a row of step-up apartments placed side by side where a whole family occupies each segment of the 4 storied building.

The groundfloor is always the kitchen and toilet. The middle plot of open land is where livestock such as ducks, geese, pigs and chickens are kept together with a common well. On the second floor would be the storage area where the families would keep their grains. These are not kept on the ground floor due to the humidity and it would be unwise to keep it too high up and away from the kitchen. Finally, on the third and fourth floors would be the living quarters. Each floors are linked by a common passage way but each family's unit might be divided differently within their space.

It was said that as each tulou is so self-contained (with food and water), that during war times, a whole community can closed up the tulou and be self-sufficient for up to a year without having to step outside till the trouble blew over. And it is difficult for any attacker to lay seige to a tulou as the other walls were high to scale and the front doors could be double barred with stones. Local history has it that during the "Taiping Revolution" at the Yong Ding area, many rebels occupied the tulous and survived that way from the Qing army before moving onwards.

Visiting Hakka Tulous

YONGDING, HAKKA TULOU 14
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.

The round hakka tulous were built using mud bricks and wood, without nails according the a chinese 'ba gua' format (round on the outside, octagonal in the inside) which makes it a truly remarkable feat considering the durability and functionality of the architecture. The unusual structure helps it to retain heat in the winter and keep things cool and ventilated in the summer.

Each 'octagonal' side within the round tulous are reinforced with bricks, which serves as a natural firebreak, hence one section of the building can be burned down (accidents or during war time), the other parts can remain intact. The damage area can be easily rebuild to connect to the rest of the structure again.

It is really quite majestic when viewed from the top though most tulou cannot be more than 4 or 5 stories high due to the foundations. When looked from the side, the other walls of the round tulous actually curved slightly inwards which helped in creating a natural incline for the inside roofs to shelter each floor from the damange of sun and rain. The foundations are usually around 3m deep with the width at the bottom of the other walls around 1.8m while the top is around 1.2m. Due to the thickness of the walls, despite the years of sun & rain, the buildings remain sturdy though cracks and erosion occurs.

Visiting Hakka Tulous

YONGDING, HAKKA TULOU 2
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.

Spent 9 days (Dec 1 - Dec 9) in my annual trip to China this year. Half the time was visiting my folks and eating sinfully good food while other half was making a short trip to Xiamen & Yong Ding. Particularly memorable was the Hakka Tulous around the Yong Ding region (4 1/2 hr bus ride inland from Xiamen.

When talking about Hakka Tulous, most would probably think of the round community houses but in actual fact, most tulous are rectangular. The very first tulous built weren't round and it was only after a few years before round tulous appeared as it takes more effort and was more time consuming to build a round tulou. The sizes between the tulous also varies between having 3-4 families to 40-50 households within the same tulou, each a self-contained community. One village can make up of several rectangular and round tulous, usually situated around a river (the front door should face the water as the hakkas believe it will bring luck). Though everyone speak hakka, there may be slight differences even between different tulous in the area.

Most tulous has lasted for hundreds of years with minimum renovations (considering how poor the communities are, most probably couldn't afford to renovate), just strengthening some parts with bamboo strips or replacing wore out parts of the wood. Some have withstand natural disasters such as earthquake and man-made disasters such as wars.

Adjustments

Haven�t blog for a while because I needed sometime to �reconsolidate� my life especially at this juncture after I �transcended� from a Miss to a Mrs, into another plane of existence altogether. I don�t think I went into marriage with rose-tinted glasses but reality still takes a bit of getting used to and more often than not, I do have to �scale-down� my previously held expectations. In any case, there are just so much adjustment going on right now that I just needed sometime to get a hold of myself, perhaps even reconfigure who I am and what I want to be, taking stock of where I am at this moment, family-wise and work-wise.

It is hard to pen anything thoughts down coherently about being married after the wedding and the weeks that followed because I hardly had time to untangle all these new experiences before they were compounded by my overseas trip, work-related anxiety/stress and general load-of-crap. The only time I have for myself might be those snippets of hours when I vegged out infront of the TV before bedtime just so that I could be mentally distracted from reality. Other times, I am just busy tackling life on the whole and everyone that�s connected with it. It is at times frustrating and definitely physically and mentally draining. And that�s just at work�

I think I might have overloaded myself trying to do everything and be everything without first thinking through what is it I really want to achieve now. It�s knowing that I am the same but perhaps functioning at a different playing field. I want to do the things I used to do and though it is true, life shouldn�t change at the point of being married but yet, I can�t pretend that everything remains the same. I have new responsibilities and priorities that I cannot simply ignore or pretend not to exist just because I want to stick to �being myself� (well i guess the "myself" being pre-marital status). It�s like wanting to hang out with friends but somehow or the other, I couldn�t or shouldn�t, at least not like the way I have before. And when I attempt to accommodate my old schedules/habits with my new ones, I�m the one ending up tired and bushed.

It is not quite as dramatic or overt as it sounds but the subtle differences and pressures do add up. Frankly I am not sure how to structure my priorities yet.
Which comes first?
To be true to myself?
To be a good wife?
To be a good daughter?
To be a good daughter in law?

Would it be unreasonable to place them in the order which I�ve rather instinctive typed out? Perhaps I am more egocentric than most.

I have only been married for 2 months (exactly, come 9th Nov) and I think I asked more than once, how is being married now work out better than when I was dating the hubby? Other than perhaps having more money in the bank account now that two people are contributing to expenses. We spent just as much time together (and in fact, have much less time for ourselves) and continue to do things that we do together while dating (come to think of it, we seem to do them less now because we have to work in other things such as dinner back at the in-laws).

Yet�
I do feel something good about being married that is quite difficult to articulate. A certain sense of security and that added �stress� when worrying about this recently-crowned most important person in my life is surprisingly quite� sweet (in a little wifey sort of way).

I am trying to get a handle on it and I won�t be surprised if I still get those �I can�t believe I�m married!� moments and get a chuckle out of it but certainly, it shouldn�t inspire any more sense of blind panic and wild anxiety.

That�s the theory anyway.

Mr Tabs

adopt your own virtual pet!

First Birthday Wishes...

from a wifey to a hubby... Hee hee

Many many happy returns darling...
Hope to celebrate your birthday with you every year for the rest of our lives...
*muaks*

Home and Such...

The last 2 weeks or so has not been great, with bad news from home and of people passing on. Melancholia seems to seep into everything we do. As if what we were going through in NC was any much better. Heard from friends that while we were gone, colleague's parents met with a bad accident and her mom passed away and her father is seriously injuried. Soon to follow were news of a fellow trainee's uncle who had passed away and then her own dad coming down with a mild stroke. In some unfortunate coincident, i also received a call from my cousin who informed me that my uncle in msia has also passed away and needed to get in touch with my parents urgently. It was surreal being a bearer of bad news across the globe at 3am in the morning trying to reach my parents in china.

School has been turned upside down, literally because of the carnival and apparently some of my kids are NOT doing well, hence need urgent attention. Reports are overdue, no thanks to my fried motherboard on the old laptop, and tons of meetings have to be scheduled now that we are back. And oh, case conference is starting in 2 weeks.

On the brighter side of things, my mobile phone is working fine again and i am just glad to be home safe.

Sunset at Raffles Marina

Sunset at Raffles Marina
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.

Finally all the actual day wedding photos are up in flickr. Wilk has uploaded them for me to see while i am in North Carolina & that was so nice because i am missing him terribly but the pictures helped put a smile on my face when i go through it. Wonderful memories and again, i can't thank all the friends and family who helped enough... because without them & everyone who took time to attend that day, wilk & I wouldn't have had such a memorable wedding.

Away and Life's Shit

Touched down in USA since sunday and life's a bitch.

In short:
1) Laptop's motherboard fried itself on my first day away
2) HP soon followed suit
3) Same with my Sony MP3 earphones

Seems everything electronic is slowly disintegrating once i got here.
I have nothing to work on... can't talk to love ones on the phone... and can only listen to my music on one side of my head.

Life sucks at this point.
Cant help but speculate that 1) i used up all my good luck for my wedding or 2) someone up there is punishing me for not having a decent honeymoon but spending my time working instead.

sigh.



help.

Wedding blooms

my love is like a
Originally uploaded by varf.

Love the flowers...

0 9 0 9 2 0 0 5

Well people.. we had a fantastic wedding and thanks to all the guests for indulging us by coming out all the way to �the end of Singapore � aka Tuas� and celebrating 090905 with us. I don�t think Wilk and I could have had such a memorable day if not for everyone�s well wishes and blessings (esp the weatherman, for granting us clear skies with no rain).

Viewed through the video footage and realized that i seemed to tear alot, esp where my brothers were concerned, once during the tea ceremony when both of them asked if Wilk would take care of me forever & make my burden his as well. Second time when the videographer asked me why did i get so emotional during tea ceremony in our bridal london taxi on our way to Wilk's place, third was during our wedding vows and last time was when both my brothers gave a speech each. The whole day i felt really touched, from the time my jie meis' helped me the previous night to finish doing my angbao postbox to my parents sending me off after the tea ceremony till the actual solemnization ceremony.

The outdoor setting was more than what we asked for and it was quite amazing that there wasn't any major hiccups. I don't know how others felt but it's certainly one of the most amazing experiences i ever have and i had all the people i love all around me. My only regret was perhaps not having a chance to taste much of the food though friends gave pretty good reviews (only hope they wont just being polite *heh heh*). We really love the flowers decor though we had to top up extra, but i think some things in life are worth it you know? Guess flowers are more important to me than say... a champagne fountain.

In the end, both wilk & i looked back at 090905 with great memories and we were just so blessed that we DID end up with the wedding the way we wanted it. Such as having a beautiful sunset buffet outdoors in tuas (yes abit far, but we can make noise!!). Or having our friends and my bros to give a speech than doing the cake cutting or champagne pouring (which felt more personal and meaningful for us). And even engaging a rock band to play and we got to sing live and ham it up for everyone. The songs we sang was orginally meant to be a surprise for each other and the band tried so hard to keep us from finding it out (both of us only found out there and then!). It was so cool and wilk can REALLY sing. I really eating my words now because i always tell people he cant really sing for nuts (I am sorry dear, now i know better & will only let you sing the English songs than Chinese ones).

Yes, guess we are quite the closet exhibitionists and despite our initial worries, our parents didn't looked too fazed by the whole 'unconventionality' of it all. But could tell, it took them a while to warm up... well my parents certainly did, judging by their impromptu 'upstaging' singing performance in the front of the stage with their whole CHURCH CHOIR! I wondered what went through my in-laws mind in that moment since they were not christians at all and was possibly shell-shock about the brazeness of my family (at least in terms of our apparent lack of stage fright).

Anyway everyone in my family went up on stage that night and that's the coolest thing ever to me. I am really proud of being part of them and 'inherited' such 'fine' genes. At least it explained the 'exhibitionistic' side of me.. Heh though i wonder what's wilk's excuse.. :D At the end of the day, no one forced fed us any alcohol so we are still bouncing and jumping around. Wished more people danced but guess everyone's shy. Hahaha. Well, they weren't so shy when a couple of our friends (15 or so!) crowded into our bridal suite and make us do such M18 things that we would be SURE to repay some of it back the next time they get married.

It was a fun-filled night, full of joyous laughter and we took that with us as we go to bed. No.. the reality of counting the angbaos did not even entered our head till the next morning so we ended the evening doing what newly-weds do... eating leftover crayfish and sipping wine in bed. :)

Oh incidentally... despite wilk's initial misgivings about expenses and all that (perhaps its because of all that 'non-standard' items like the live band), we did really well with our budget (at least for the actual day and i am very proud of myself - told wilk he shd trust me but it wasnt until the final moment after we paid the bills before he realized that his new wife IS quite good with budgetting). No we didnt 'earn' anything but we certainly didn't incur any debt cos the gift money from relatives and friends helped covered for the dinner, flowers, alcohol and band! So thanks to everyone again!!

Keeping track

I am not sure i felt nervous now. Nor quite as jittery as that day at the sushi bar. Perhaps the immensity of what is going to happen next friday has not fully settled in yet but i am hopeful that blind panic and fear would not be kicking in anymore after that day. Guess i am as ready as i'll ever be... mentally at least. Preparation-wise, i am still trying to tie up the loose ends. Wilk has been fantastic with his preps but seems to have his bouts of insecurity and panic as well. Just the other day, he woke up and told me that he dreamt our wedding was over, and the great relief he felt when he thought it was. I think i understand how he felt.

Neither of us is at the point where we felt we shouldn't go through with the wedding but taking it as something we have to do, get out of the way of, so that we can go on with our normal life. I don't think there will be a very significant change in things just because we are now 'married' as opposed to being 'attached. Maybe i am wrong but then, our lives for the last two years has been so stable that it seems we are practically married, judging by the time we spent with each other. So i am hoping that the 'change' after signing the marriage cert would be minimal, well at least emotionally.

Practical issues such as where to stay etc would be additional things to worry about but i think we got a good compromise on that so looking forward to see what will happen after friday the 9th of sept.

One week

Another week more to go... Lunar seventh month is over and today, first day of the lunar eighth month, we had our 'Guo Da Li'. Very simple thing that involve wilk and his male cousin bring over the cakes and 'Pin Jin' to my parents and doing some sort of exchange. Have not seen anything like it in my life but i know some people throw buffets and have relatives over during the ceremony. We kept it quite simple and the guys were in and out of here in less than 1/2 hour though initially it was quite awkward as we are quite wonderfully inept with traditional customs (wilk even had to call home once to check on the procedures). But was quite nice though, with all the laughing and hearing wilk calling my parents mom and dad. Not much things for me to do except take over the videocamera and help record down our 'ji shou ya jiao' attempt at Guo Da Li.

After the morning ceremony was completed, my parents left to bring the cakes to church for their friends and i was left cleaning out my room. Gosh... another five days...

Two weeks

2 fridays before the "Actual Day"... the girls took me out for my hen party down at clarke quay. Tremendous fun cos we managed to polish of 1 bottle of red, 1 bottle of white, 1 bottle of champagne and other cocktails between the 5 of us. Think they were trying to get me drunk (though i must say i did ask for a hen nite to get drunk in) by making me empty out whole glasses of wine at one go. And then the secretive 'disappearances' here and there certainly got my guard up as i began to suspect it wasn't just gonna be drinking that i was in for. True to their word, they got the live band at the bar (incidentally ran by Angie's friend) to got me up on the stage and sang "Cant take my eyes off you" with them. By then, I was happy and high and not sure if i was walking really straight but i did remember that the lead singer was rather cute (but others more sober told me otherwise). Anyway, it was a terrific evening and though the girls didnt get me a stripper, i had great company, wine, singing/dancing and just before we left, a big hug and a peck on the cheek by the lead singer. What a great party!

Getting there...

51double26xF
Originally uploaded by aurorin.

Yesterday, while eating sushi alone after gym (erm quite healthy la..), i suddenly realised that the wedding will be in 3 weeks time. Immediately my stomach felt like it's been hit by a cold stone mallet and i wanted to throw up. It was the exact same sort of feeling i had just before entering the exam hall of a maths paper. But that feeling gradually subside and by the time i talk to him on the phone, i was pretty ok again. Guess the pre-marriage jitters story is true then... though i didnt imagine that the 'pain' can be quite that acute and scary.

All the while i figured that there cant possibly be that much changes to our lives once we get married officially. At least not in the outward sense.. but since yesterday, the potential internal changes seems too tangible and too overwhelming all of a sudden. Though i was calmer by the end of the night, there is this nagging feeling which is hard to put a word to that continues to linger at the back of my mind.

Today at work, i flip open my online wedding album and viewed our photos again. Somehow... it helped tremendously in brushing away the lingering feelings from last night. I dont know why. Perhaps its how the photos managed to capture our happy moments and everything was so familiar that it did not seems foreign to me. It was a comforting, secure feeling that felt, not so much like i'm falling in love again, but reminding me of the times i am IN love and BEING loved by this special person.

This feeling is not the heady passionate kind but it is a very powerful feeling that seems to rock your own sense of being yet nothing quite moved inside. I cant really describe it well but i know that at least wilk would understand it. Sort of like how nothing in our wedding album would make sense to others but those photos are probably the most frank and private images that means so much to the two of us.

Fireworks

Was going to walk to city hall to catch the fireworks last night but somehow wasn't feeling quite up to it with the crowd that would be around fullerton area. In the end made up our minds to drive home from our studio. Must be fate. The usual turning towards home happened to just get blocked by the police, probably because of the mobile column going that way and we had to turn towards town instead.

Decided to try our luck going up shears bridge to see if we could go towards marina south and park somewhere to view the fireworks. It was around 7.35pm then. Turned out to be a great decision because we were stuck in a traffic jam going up shears bridge and by the time we got to the top, it was around 8pm and we found tons of cars stopping by the side of the bridge, right ontop of the river mouth at the marina bay area. Traffic policemen were around of course but they weren't really shooing people away.

So when the fireworks started, I was sitting out on my car window, having fireworks to the left and right of me at both ends of the bay, cheering with the rest of the drivers who had all stepped out of their cars. Having fireworks exploding just above you. Very cool, that. Right timing, right place, right moment. Once the fireworks were over, the traffic police just waved us off and it was a nice smooth ride home as i turned out of prince edward road and drove back to the east via kallang before the rest of the crowd around the Padang dispersed.

What a great way to end the evening.