Journal of Ruth

Man, there's no beating the experience trying to explain to your pastor that you're depressed because you have your period. I know I'm depressed because of that because I just have absolutely no reason to be depressed at all. I just AM, and this usually is a sign that I'm having my monthly hormonal fluctuations.

I also feel like clobbering someone. Usually they're males. That's also another sign.
Then there's this "I don't feel like socialising with ANYONE" streak. I just want to go home and curl up on my couch, stuff my face with ice-cream and do nothing but stare at the TV. And maybe sleep at 10pm. I always feel vaguely psychotic when I have my monthly mood swings. It's like there's another person in me which I can't control, and I better hide away for a while.
I KNOW I will regret missing the Maundy Thursday gathering at my church because I had such a blast last year. But this year … aiyah, I really don't feel like socialising or going there.

It was hard to tell my pastor I'm not coming because the people-pleasing side of me wants to say yes so that he'll feel better that I'm coming. But I have decided not to say "yes" when I mean "No" anymore.

I hate this conflict I have between doing what I think is socially right and what I want to do for myself. It's a fight that I find really hard to be balanced about.

And about the whole not going to church thing … ai! I'm tired of my inconsistency. I can't seem to make myself go. Maybe I should just sit back and relax and be a once and twice a year to church kind of Christian. Sigh. don't know what to dolah…
 What I will do is leave work at 5pm today, drive to IKEA, buy some dog food for me dog, get some food for myself – most probably tonnes of sinful ice-cream – and then drive home.

I feel better already. 

Yesterday, I wrote did a difficult thing … I interviewed a couple who had lost their baby. And I had to be objective and not take sides. But it's hard not to sympathise or not even to cry along with them as they told me about their son's personality, how healthy he was … how he loved to bounce in his cot after a good meal. It was difficult to listen to the mother sorrowfully say, "It was too late …" "If only I …" They had left their child with the wrong people … and now their child is dead. They want closure, but the authorities are batting them around while these people are unpunished.

They have a book of photos they took of their son. I saw a very healthy baby. But the last few pages, there was no warning, I saw the once healthy baby in the casket, his skin pale, his lips black. It was inconceivable that something so precious, innocent and alive could be reduced to inanimate flesh just like that … and I nearly cried when I saw photos of the grandparents picking out bones to be placed in the urn.

I left their apartment feeling really down … didn't want to be alone in my apartment that night, but I was. I kept thinking about them losing their child and how there's really very little justice in this world.

I know they expect my article to do something important for them, perhaps push the authorities to do something. I wish I can promise them that. I hope they don't think that my article will do all this.

"I don't want my son's death to be for nothing," the couple said.

But I told them that by them publicising their case, with them putting themselves in the limelight, they are helping other families to make wiser decisions. That's the only thing I can do with my article, to help families make wiser decisions so that their children will be safe.

At times like this I wish I can do something. I wish our government does not sit on their butts, I wish our social services isn't so damn lousy. But this is the world we live in.

Sigh.

Have shifted my anime posts to another blog. That way, those who are more interested in my life (heh) will not be bothered (and perplexed) by all these anime posts.  

I described this blog to a friend as a blog where I'd have entries that "I don't want want my colleagues or family to read". Not that I'd bitch about them here all the time (I can't promise I won't do it knowing me) but I'd probably discuss issues that may "affect or involve" them here. After several "mishaps" with my posts on the other blog, I decided, to keep my sanity, to do this.

How often will I update this blog? To be honest, I don't think very often. Right now I'm more interested in blogging anime than on discussing my life. ;P

Which is why the best way to follow this blog is via its RSS. If you're new to RSS, it's basically a way to keep track of blogs or pages without visiting the site itself.

One simple way to have an RSS reader is to just sign up for a bloglines account. Another way is via Firefox (btw, dump IE for this!). If a blog has an RSS feed, look for this symbol either at the bottom right hand corner of the screen or at your toolbar:

Click on it, you'd be asked to bookmark it as a Live Bookmark. It functions as a normal bookmark on your browser, but it indicates the the latest posts on the blog when you click on it.

I personally believe that going for counselling is a healthy practise. (Well, until one becomes a wee bit too obsessive about it that is.) So, today I saw a counsellor on how to deal with a difficult friend of mine. Basically I want to drop her like a red hot potato and feel guilty about it. I am confused whether I should keep her friendship or just belah.

This friend of mine – called X – has given me no end of grief … she has a long list of people she's offended/insulted/angered and I've been added to the list.

Actually, she is quite childish in a sense … some people who have experience with her say that if she doesn't like you she can actually physically push you aside if she walks past you. And I went like, 8-O. I mean, can-ah? You 3 or 30?

Anyway, the counsellor said that I actually already kinda figured out what to do. She was more interested in dealing with why I feel so bad when these people misbehave.

She asked the question many times, "So, why do you feel so sad/bad when these people behave this way? You already know that you can't change who they are. You already know that what they say about you isn't true. But why are you still sad?"

Towards the end, I realise that the core problem is that I can't accept them for who they are. I think that people should be like me. (So perasan) ;P And I have this Messiah complex – that I can somehow save people … from themselves.

And because I'm a perfectionist at heart, I tend to be very hard on myself when I don't do things perfectly. And because I have a strong sense of right and wrong (her words, not mine) I get upset when I fall short of these ideals. To be short, I want to be an angel, believe I should be an angel but just can't do it.

So, my sense of right and wrong believes that I should stay friends with X and maintain a cordial polite distance. My "devil" side wants to tell her to just go fuck off.

So these two sides are at war with each other. So sien.

But the counsellor thinks I've made a lot of progress the past few years (after talking about my relationship with my family – funny, they always insist we talk about mummy and daddy), that I do a lot of soul searching, and have analyzed myself and did research to improve myself. She thinks I don't need to come to see her anymore … and that I probably just needed my feelings validated, which is true. I also needed someone to tell me that what I'm going to do with X is okay.

Yeah, I do make effort to read up books especially about relationships etc. A lot of people say that self-help books are bum and useless, but I disagree. Some of these books actually changed my life a lot! (you got to read the right books mah … I usually avoid self-help books with pix of the author because I find that they're generally popular because of the personalities who pen them.) When I discovered the term "boundaries" thanks to one author whose name I can't remember (so bad hoh?) my life really changed.I realise that I have the right to insist that I be treated better. All my life my family stomped on my boundaries because they think it's their god given right to do so because they're my elders, and as a result I don't know how to have healthy boundaries.

Now I know, but it's not easy when you stand up and say that, "Hey, I don't like what you're doing. if you don't stop, I will leave." One friendship actually died because of that because I just couldn't tolerate the person's abusive behaviour anymore. When she said she didn't want to have anything to do with me anymore, I said politely, "Ok, I respect your decision. I think it's better for both of us."

And you know what happened? She got angry, wor! Biasalah … she insulted me some more, in the end I just said, enough is enoughlah. Let her winlah. Belah. Till this day I do not talk to her. She behaves as if she's been greatly wronged (I guess I had some fault in that) but her behaviour, saying nasty things to me for hours – no kidding – was inexcuseable. Cannot behave properly, I'll show you the door, okay? Danke.

Anyway … my relationship with my family. I do feel like a black sheep of the family – at one point the counsellor asked me that. And i realise … yalor. I always feel that I fall short of my family – not just my immediate family but the entire CLAN.

I'm simply not like a lot of them. I'm not looking down on them. It's just that while they're very reserved, I'm very outspoken and emotional. I like to talk and think about things they don't even know about. (Not that I'm so terror merror clever.) So it can get really lonely. And because I'm different they can't understand me and they, whether they know it or not, try to change me so they can relate to me better.

Cehwah … I should be a psychologist.

I used to angst a lot about this. But I've come to a point, after much pondering and tears and sessions with the punching bag in the gym that I can't change who they are or how they behave. The only person I can change is ME.

SO I decided to change how I react to them. Instead of crying and shouting, I just state what I feel calmly and shortly and politely. I will not take what they say about me – I'm this and that lah – to heart unless it's justified and constructive. Not easy lah … but after years of practise living with people whom I consider difficult I've grown very tolerant of nonsense people do to me. However, sometimes I don't even realise that they're trying to be funny because I'm so used to it.

I used to place myself in the victim role until I realise that only makes things worse. Thinking of yourself as the victim only makes you feel even more helpless about yourself.

Well, enough Freud. I want to go watch anime.

I am better today. Though I'm still worried that my condition is more serious … like am I bleeding from somewhere? Do I have leaukaemia? Stupid things like that. The doctor reassured me it's nothing serious. I should believe her, right? 

I still feel a little light headed especially when I exert myself. When I get up from bed, things will spin for a few seconds (and the same if I lie down). I keep dragging my lower eyelid down to see if there's an improvement. Just now I showed it to a colleague and she said, "So scary!"

Maybe not, heh.

I took a boatload of spinach just now. I have never eaten so much spinach in my life! Spinach as you know is rich in iron. I'm probably going to take beef tonight.

I hope I get better this week so that I'll be back to normal next week. I hate feeling so tired and lethargic and dizzy all the time. Well, this'll teach me to not eat properly.

I hate having anaemia. I hate, hate, hate. I've been making myself eat more iron stuff. You know, meatlah … spinachlah … spirulinalah … but still dizzy when I lie down. I still feel like if I go running a little bit, I will faint. The funny thing is I'm not your usual pale-looking ah lien. Sigh. Don't dare to take iron supplements myself because the doc didn't confirm the diagnosis yet. Hopefully by Monday I will know.

 You know what. I need to take a week off from work! Thinking of going back to work makes me feel tired.

Ah, finally … for weeks my family was at a loss why we suddenly can’t download stuff. I mean we can, but it’s slooooow. Now the speeds have gone back to normal. Somewhat. It’s very unstable, however. One moment it can be 40kpbs, and the next moment it’s 0Kpbs. Now I’m in Starbucks, and I’m trying this new bittorrent client called uTorrent. The folks at Lowyat recommended it, so I got curious. It is working like a charm … the download speeds are like 50kpbs at one point. I suppose for those who downloads at speeks like 100kpbs above (a friend of mine downloads at 600. WTF??I can’t even reach 80!) this is like – what’s the big deal? Well, back at my parents’ home, we never reach such exalted speeds.

I’m wondering whether I should tweak my speeds in my kelana jaya home. I’ll probably try utorrent over there and see whether there’s any marked diff in the speeds or not. I mean … what a dream to download one anime episode in 1.5hours. Ahhhh. (The best I could aim for is 3 to 4 hours).

Not really. But yes,it’s a pseudonym. It’s probably going to get some getting used to, however. Someone may write to me and say, “Hey Ruth!” and I’m probably going to go: “Huh, who’s Ruth?”

This blog was created because I needed a safe place to talk about my walk … as a Christian … as a woman … as a Malaysian.

I have another blog – with it’s own domain etc. However, lately, some of my colleagues have been reading it. My family too! -_-”

I get really uncomfortable when my sister or father comments on my blog. It makes me realise that I’m being watched! And recently, some of my colleagues have used some of my posts, trackbacked to it, and when I read the post, they’ve written nasty things about other people (or me!!) because of it!!

Nothing can be more saddening to me than having one of my posts used like that. And that said blogger wrote about her sister, calling her pathetic, a fool, an idiot … it grieves my heart that a post about forgiveness can be used to bash a family member like this. (cries)

(Actually, I thought it was about me because the post had a lot of details and quotes that sounded a lot like what I said to this person before. But she insisted it wasn’t. I still have a hard time believing her and am staying away from her now!)

Some of my posts have resulted in some colleagues being offended with me. As a result, this colleague is giving me the cold shoulder, and worse, I suspect she’s talking about me behind my back because her boyfriend, who is also working at the office, is giving me the cold shoulder.

As a result … I just don’t have much joy blogging in my other blog anymore. I can’t say what I want without watching my back. It’s a sad state of affairs. I wish I had stayed anonymous. ;| Oh well, what’s done is done!

So hello everyone! My name is Ruth.