Bedtime reflection last night.
The little boss said to us, her expression half amused and half serious:
“You know, this morning I was at Sentosa? Then I was thinking, why is it so noisy? It’s so loud that I can’t even hear myself!”
(Sentosa is the name of the dining area in her school.)
The hubs and I turned to look at each other, and laughed.
Did she come up with this expression herself?
I learn new things from her everyday.
Someone’s ready for school too.
A few mornings ago, she kept going to Jiejie’s drawers to take out the uniform. So her Yaya put it on for her and boy, was she mighty pleased.
Jiejie then helped her pack her bag.. basically with toys. 😆
“I solemnly swear I’m up to no good.”
Week 2 of “#soloparenting” 2 kids has been quite.. interesting, to put it loosely.
I spent Monday working late, and Tuesday to Thursday at Capella for a 3-day off-site training.
Day 1 of the training, Tuesday, started with a heavy downpour.
I managed to book a Grab (at $45 fml) but had to wait for 10 minutes for the driver to arrive. We went down to wait at the shelter 5 minutes ahead, but it took him much longer than that.
With just 1 minute left before arrival, the driver cancelled on me.
I booked another Grab at $52 fml and waited for another 15 minutes.
By then Clarissa had boredom oozing out of her ears.
“Mummy, I’m very bored. Are you very bored too?”
“Mummy, why is everybody gone already? Why are we still here?”
😂😂😂
I wanted to tell her I was boiling, not bored.
When she got into the Grab, she said to the driver, “Good morning Uncle! Uncle why are you so late? We waited so long for you!”
😳😳😳
Fortunately she didn’t sound rude and I quickly corrected her and told the driver my sob story of waiting for ages only to be cancelled on.
She knows the drill now once we get into a Grab. She’d be the one giving instructions to the Uncle.
“Uncle, can you please drive into the carpark? Level 2 ok? Then my mummy will drop me off in school and then come down again. You wait for my mummy ok?”
😅😅😅
The trainings by Mark Adams from Vice Media were by far the most thought-provoking and inspiring ones.
I’ve not seen a more earnest trainer who has so much passion he’s almost like a big kid sometimes.
The way he talks about insights, story telling, tribes and digital makes me rethink the things I’ve been doing as a consumer insights person.. I don’t think I’ve hit the nail yet.
He made many good points, such as:
- Just like how you wouldn’t let a child handle a gun, you shouldn’t let someone who doesn’t know digital handle digital, because the damage can so bad and so long-lasting you might never turn around
- You know you’ve got a real insight when the atmosphere in the room changes. True enough, he asked someone in the room what his passion was. “POPCORN!” Came the answer. Everyone laughed, possibly because it sounded trivial. He went on to ask, why? When do you eat popcorn?.. and ultimately he found out that popcorn was about watching movies with family so popcorn was about family. Everyone went, awww
- You can plot every movie and every story in the same way, whether it is Cinderella or Batman:
And of course it didn’t hurt that he looked like Bradley Cooper. 😆
My biggest realisations after the 3 days:
- Having capacity or even immense capacity is different from having mind space. I have capacity but no mind space
- Who are the 5 people who’d support me? I can’t find 5!!
- What are the “snakes” in my business that I need to get rid of? I wonder where to start
- It’s all a game. I know, I know. But why do I feel bad for some people?
- I’m a headless chicken who might leave no legacy whatsoever in this current role
I guess I’ve been just going on and on and on, working nonstop, doing nonstop. My mind is tired. My heart is tired. And heck, my body is way too tired.
I might still have some physical capacity to stay up late to finish my work.. but mentally I feel challenged.
There is this business problem and another business problem and then some idiot says something and I’m fire fighting and then I’m back to this business problem but what is the problem?
And then there are the groceries to buy, things to fix and Clarissa’s home work to do, and the house is so messy and dusty.
And then there is this business problem and another business problem and some other idiot says something else and we are back to square one and still not knowing what the problem is.
It is that noisy.
It is so loud that I can’t even hear myself think.
I do need time to reflect.
But more than time, I need space.
In my mind.
On to happier stuff.
Clarissa has been pestering me to pack her birthday party goodie bags for her friends lol.
So we did! On Thursday night because I managed to get home slightly earlier than usual.
I haven’t finished buying though, so we’d have to slot more things in.
She helped with the packing and I asked her to put the bags together. She ended up laying them across the sofa lol.
Meimei tried to chip in too; see grubby little fingers ☝️☝️ grabbing the biscuits. 😆
Friday morning.
Not sure what they were up to.
I asked her to say cheese so I could take a photo of her.
She turned, smiled and lifted a leg up.
Which reminded me of..
😍😍😍
Daddy came home and she wouldn’t let go of him. 😆
Lol it was indeed a little crowded around/on Mr Popular.
weeirdism 