Happy Lunar New Year

Happy Lunar New Year, everyone.

I love the Lunar New Year.

Used to hate it but not anymore.

Used to feel that those endless questions like... "when are you getting married?" etc were a nuisance, but now I know that people are just caring about me in their own ways. What else can they ask? It is not as if I'm good at socializing, I find myself asking about them about general stuff too. I have not finished "92 ways to talk about anything" nor have I practised it. Malcolm always asks me when he sees me, "so have you practised talking to the aunties like I've taught you?". You see, Malcolm told me he too was poor at socializing before. Then he started to break the mould by making small talks to the aunties at the hawkers like commenting on small stuff or cracking some jokes. He says it will get easier on a larger scale. Whatever it is, it is just to awkward for me to be an extrovert although I truly like people. Anyway, I've given up trying too hard cos I would rather be true to myself and my fine thoughts for them are worth more than some small talks that I could conjure. Oh ya, now that I'm gonna be a mother, I wonder if I should at least force myself to break the shy-mould. I've watched this wonderful BBC documentary "Child of our time" where they took 25 new borns and studied them from pre-natal to 5 years-old. The study is on-going and they will broadcast the next season after the children turns 10. It is to be a 25-year study! I watched this some 5 years ago and many of the topics interest me so much that I could still remember much of the programme. The children comes from varied social-economic backgrounds, single parenthood, step-parent, wealthy professional parents, middle-income ones and parent-on-the-run (from abusive partners). There was this couple who were painfully shy and they realised their son is also lacking in social skills. So they moved from their foresty haven to a house with more neighbours nearby. The mother joined more community activities and developed new hobbies for herself. After several months (a few short years), she has drastically become well-liked and gets invited to many activities and her son has also become much livelier and socially acceptable. I wonder if I will make the effort or will it come naturally later. There was also one very intersting study from that programme-- they put each baby in a room by himself/herself (when they were about 8 mth-old I think) and the scientist made some noise from behind the wall. The scientist would go :" Hello there! How are you?" or something like that. Being an unfamilar voice, some of the babies would burst into tears while some would be very inquisitive and perk up their heads to find the source of the voice. There are generally just these two reactions from the babies. The interesting thing is that these babies grow to become either shy or adventurous. The traits become more obvious as they grow and it is said that it is what makes some of us go sky-diving and why some of us will never take the plunge. It goes as far to say that this trait is inborn in us but could be moderated with conscious efforts. (eg: extra encouragement is needed for those timid kids to nurture them to be more exploring). Whatever the case, social skills are important and will let you go a long way, and so I think.

I am off tomorrow to the gynea and I'll be off on Friday to the HDB.
Will probably go buy some new tops for myself and send the can of New Moon abolone to Grandpa. Also probably need to do some further spring cleaning at home, not that we expect any visitors but just to get the mood going too. I am grateful for having this small flat as it has given us our own space and growth. I will miss it when I move and so I treasure it while I'm in the moment.

Ok, shall update you next week on all the new year happenings, meantime, Gong Xi Fa Cai!