Breath.... It's okay..... Breath

Autumn leaves

Words can become habit, and habit can become you.- Shiau Lee

There are some things in life that despite how eloquently we spill ink onto paper, the depth of our loneliness and anguish is never fully encompassed. Words fall short when you begin to dive into experiences that have crippled you, that have broken your spirit, that have changed you for the worst before the better.

Massive transition from Saudi Arabia to UK in 3 months. From the day i touched down KLIA, going around KL, spent time with my grandma, find doctor for her, rehabilitate her because she was bed bound for 1 month before i come back, i cannot imagine why everybody in the family thought she is getting old and need to be on bed bound when she is actually rather strong for her age. And spend time with my family members and Kiki as well. After so many years of leaving abroad, home is where family and Kiki be. Therefore, no matter where i go, my family and Kiki are always my home...

 Now, in Nottingham, i was having difficult time to adjust to everything here. The weather, social support and study environment. And my negative mind keeps introduce negative thoughts. I was afraid financial issue because i am not working, and i am worry about the weather, lack of serotonin because lack of sunshine around, and also the cold in a country that is famous for its rain and wet weather, lack of exercises despite i walk most of the time. And at the end, will i pass my Master?

Chinese New Year Eve

Today is Chinese New Year eve, but for some reason, I am still in Saudi Arabia. It is indeed a sad atmosphere for me here. I keep looking at the CCTV, my family is busy, spring cleaning the house at last minute. This is tradition for us. My dad's business only close on Chinese New Year Eve, thus, we usually would not take any leave at all till the day before Chinese New Year Eve because there will be many orders from customers. It seemed braised duck is one of a must dish for Teo Chew family gathering.

Cold and foggy day in Al Hada

I feel the spam of sadness for past one week. I feel sad because I know I will be celebrating CNY in Saudi Arabia alone and also two of my friends are leaving my current hospital for another hospital in the same town. Although they are still around, I think it makes a lot of different because most of my times I spent are with them and also with Little E. And Little E is in Malaysia already.

So, this Chinese New Year is also a new beginning with me with slight different atmosphere. I guess is also a good training for me to learn how to really live on my own. After all, the reason I left Malaysia from beginning is to stay far away from people I know and learn to live on my own and deal with my own sadness. And also to learn to release attachment with my family.

Happy Chinese New Year....

Xiao....

Sister, Happy New Year. I hope you gain the strength to stand up all over again.

Happy New Year 2016.

Unfortunately, this new year of 2016 is not a good beginning for my sister. Once again my sister had another manic attack from her bipolar disorder. I can imagine how disappoint she feels towards herself because she took so much effort and time to recover from her previous depressive attack one year ago. When she recovers fully, she stand on her feet again, and start to find her life all over again. She lost her jobs. Her close friends left her. Some of the relatives gives her discriminate looks during gathering. And her inconsiderate younger sister left her with her family members. And she even has difficult time to find her other half. But, i am proud of her because she did not give up despite how much troubles and despairs she felt along the way with her illness, she falls and she climbs up all over again.

However, things turn the wrong way when she overestimated herself and not only her fault but also us, because we takes things for granted. We thought she understands her illness well after so many episodes of falls, and she will takes responsible to take care of herself. But, little did we know, she stopped taking her medications and also her appointments with psychiatrist.

Lately, my sister told me good news that she found a wonderful guy that accepts as who is she, i guess their relationship just begins. And few months ago, she found a good job too. It seemed her boss treats her well too.

Now, my sister is in hospital, recuperating from her manic attack. Although, in surface, she is another person but deep down i know she is sad because she cannot control herself anymore.

Dear sister, let's not give up together. Let's us gather our strength to stand up all over again. Xiao...

Hello King kong!!

Dear King Kong,

Is already 4 years since you are not around. Is also 2 years plus since i left home. You remembered this picture? You are not well and you hardly can stand and smile because you were not well, but i still force you to take picture with me. This is definitely one of my most precious picture of you even though is blurry and you look ugly in it...

I miss you, boy....

And i miss your little sister too....

Is almost a year since i see her...

But don't worry, i am coming home soon.

Boy, do you know there are so many things happen this 2 years in Saudi? Not only i recovered from depression, but i also see, learn and gain many things. I just went to Europe trip for almost 6 weeks, on my own. I joined a volleyball group and recently we won the championship. I still remember how you hate ball so much. Every time i drill the ball on the floor, you will sure run and hide. You are really one silly boy. And i also learnt how to distance myself from negative people too.

I am beginning to miss home. And also i do not enjoy working in this hospital anymore. That is why i am leaving once i finish this contract or i will probably resign early if i got a place in Chinese University of HK.

You must have thinking i am creating more troubles for myself, right? I know how much i hate studying, but you always know i need a master to get a better job in future, right? Although i love the money from Saudi Arabia but i really don't like the work ethic and also the kinds of patients i received here. I feel i cannot apply my skills completely in Saudi Arabia, not only i have language barrier but also the people here are not as open minded and also hard working as the patients i had in Malaysia.

So, do you think i am good girl? I went into depression when you left, suffered humiliation from my so called 'good friends', went into deeper depression because of that, came to Saudi Arabia to earn money, left papa, mama, jie jie, Joe and Kiki, left many good friends at home, met many different people, learnt new language and culture, met a bunch of good friends here, joined a volleyball team, won a volleyball championship and even went to Europe for 6 weeks on my own...and now i am completely recovered from depression.. And now i am looking forward to come home...

Don't forget to come to my dream and visit me today. Let's meet again and tell each other stories.

Ok?

Missing you, brother!!!

Love you!!!

Xiao....

We won!!!!!!!!!

One of the reasons that makes me feel at home in Saudi Arabia or keeps my time occupy in Saudi Arabia since i have no opportunity to go out as often as i was back in Malaysia is definitely this volleyball team. 

This is SCU aka Special Care Unit Volleyball team. Our team consists of 14 girls from different profession. We have Mely, Jerlie, Malou, Nikki and Janelle from ER,  Lorrie, Rhisa, Czarina, Chik and Pria from ICU, Cora from Endoscopy, Joy from Radiography, Indira from American school and me from Physical Therapy.

Picture courtesy of our beloved cheerleaders!!!

The number of girls we have from this team can even form 2 volleyball teams, but for some reasons, the girls decided to stay together in one big family. Although majority of the girls are from Philippines, and only me from Malaysia and Indira from US, but somehow we can click with each other and understand each other. These mutual understanding stems from a common reason is all of us love to play volleyball and the sportsmanship in each of us. In fact, all of us have different level of skills. Some of us are beginners, some of us are varsity level, some of us just join for the sake of exercises, some of us just want to play and some of us want to win over this championship!!!!

Picture courtesy of our beloved cheerleaders!!!

For the past two months, we had a volleyball championship in our hospital. There were 8 teams competing for the title. During the championship, many things happened, along the way our team stand together, pray to God even though we have different faith and religion together and play together. Each of us have different role because of the greediness we have to win this championship, we have main 6 members who play actively in the team, 2 team members who substitute actively, and 6 others who support the team outside the court. And of course not to forget, the wonderful cheerleaders from different departments cheers together for us to win. And throughout this championship we also met different opponents, some opponents are new to the game, some opponents are known as the best among us and some opponents have ex-varsity players in their team. And each opponent teaches us different things at different levels. We learnt to respect them, we discover new things in ourselves, we found common aims among us and most important, we learnt to be strong and not to give up and play like a team an winner too.

Therefore, in here i am proudly announce on 25th November 2015, my team, the SCU won the championship and we are the officially the best team in year 2015 in Al Hada Volleyball Championship!!!!

Picture courtesy of our beloved cheerleaders!!

August 22, 2015 10.00am

Day 2

Is amazing to begin my six-week Europe Solo trip with a lost luggage on the first day of the trip. My luggage never follows to Berlin Tegel Airport. I was wondering whether the poor little luggage stuck somewhere in Jeddah or Istanbul or maybe the luggage is happy to travel around the world without me.

Yesterday, i was indeed too tired to think what should i do today because it took me three hours to settle the property irregularity report in the lost luggage section because half of the passengers in my plane also experienced the same incident as mine. In fact, another half of the passengers from other plane will also experience their lost luggage because there was more than 20 pieces of luggages were not collected from the conveyer belt yesterday. But property irregularity report for lost or delayed luggage is so important to do immediately once you discover your luggage did not arrive with you because you need to make an official report so that Berlin Tegel Airport will locate my luggage and send to whenever am i. In fact, it is important to update them your latest address too and of course, your phone needs to be online all the time. 

However, i am superb lucky despite this unfortunate incident, i met new friend, K, is an mutual friend i know from my patient in Saudi Arabia, waited for me in my hostel despite i left a message for him in my hostel that i will be late and i will contact him once i settle my stuffs. However, K chose to wait till i arrived Wombats and even brought me out for dinner. And my first meal in Berlin was a pork Shnizelt and  pork meatball......

Pork Meatball and Pork Schnitzel

Once we are done with dinner, K brought me around Berlin for a night view walk till 10pm. I meant it was a good walk because walking with a local, listened to his story and his experience with Berlin Wall. I definitely do not feel like a tourist at all. However, I was so tired because I did not sleep for more than 24 hours since I left Taif. Thus, I went straight to my bed in the dorm, with one and only clean clothings. 

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment" - Buddha

Take a leap and hope the net is strong enough to support me....

August 21, 2015 4.13am

Day 1

Finally arrived King Abdul Aziz international airport after 3 hours ride from Taif. Thanks to A, i managed to catch my car ride on time as I felt asleep after feel so stressed over my P day and also uneasiness with my packing and important documents. I kept checking the bags over and over again, it feels something is not right. And keep replying emails and messages left by renters and tours, of course with lousy internet speed, things just got more frustrated, and not to mention, easily irritated on days like this. 

However, I know this trip is a good trip because I begin my trip with a detour to Holy city, a place I thought I will never able to go due to certain reason. The city is another city, it is so much more organize than I thought. Road signboards are well-written, I guess is to accommodate foreigners that drive around this city to perform their pilgrimage. For some reason, my driver thinks I am Muslim and he thinks is fine to use this route to Jeddah, with me as passenger. I knew right away when most of the signboards keep leading to the Holy mosque.

I am waiting for my flight counter to open so that I can check in. And now to think back, I left home for many reasons, and this trip is one of the reasons. I want to see how much do I know about myself by being solo in a trip to foreign countries, and also doing activities I thought I never want to do, such as tandem paragliding, bike tour, food tours and also meeting strangers, not to forget, sleep in strangers' home.

Another reason I think I have good trip is because out of nowhere, my patient's physiotherapist from Berlin, offers to meet up on my first day, and he makes my life easy by meeting me in my hostel. At least, I have a native that's going to bring me around or at least, meet someone new on the first day. 

Take a leap and the net will appear. I just hope I am not too heavy for the net... 

Pray tell, why the great hatred?

There is an article written in The Star Malaysia called 'Pray tell, why the great hatred?' By Dorairaj Nadason on 9 January 2015 that intrigued me because it was definitely closely related to my psychological barrier today. This post definitely not meant to pin-point to others or create another conflict with these people that involves in my life. For one thing i am sure, i love all these people as my family members and friends. This post is meant to create another point of view from my shoes, which i hope it will create a moment of understanding between me and them and also my answer to 'why i stray away from them'.

Dad is praying at Kusu Island, Singapore

I completely understand how the writer's felt when he experienced the scene where the missionary-minded ones stepped things up and accused them for worshipping devil. When I was ten years old, I experienced the same situation, when one day my aunt brought her friends to my house and her friends finger-pointed my family's prayer altar and commented 'the whole house looks wonderful except this area is dirty and yellowish'. Well, after many years of incense burning, obviously the wall has turned yellowish. Prior to this experience, there was once time, I was told by my older cousin brother, who I looked up to, that I was praying to stone whenever we performed our prayers. And I always remember he said 'all this cups, plates and papers are useless', he referred to the tea and fruits we served in the prayer altar and the paper we burned. My teenage era was completely shattered, I was out casted by my own sibling and cousins because of different faith especially during family gatherings. And few months ago, a close family member of mine wished for our whole family sees Jesus as savior as her lifetime wish list. How I wish she wishes for everyone in the family is happy and peace despite different faiths in religion.

 For some people these tiny matters are just trivial and easily brush off. But for me, these matters are not tiny weeny trivial that can easily brush off. If I'd trivial for me, I would not remember these words spoken by them for more than 20 years. These tiny weeny matters have a psychological impact on me that caused me having anxiety attack. Whenever I went to my aunt's Christmas party, I had internal conflict. In front of them, I was smiling and wishing them Merry Christmas. I ate their delicious meals prepared by them. Whenever they said prayer, I kept my head down and closed my eyes to join them. But, little do they know, every time I attended their Christmas celebrations, my heart beats like F1 car race and I breath faster than usual. During the first few years, I even threw up in the toilet quietly after the meal. During prayer, I was so scared and in fear that they will condemn me because I am not the same as them, they will probably scold me that I should not join their prayers and I have no right. I always prepare my mind that they will throw me out of the house because I am different. Little did they know, during that short 30 seconds of prayer, there are millions of things come to my mind at the same time, that I hardly can stop it.