The past few days have been sleepless, friendless, breakless, me-time-less and some more. At the end of such a week, one needs a break - the right kind of way, especially when one knows that the coming weeks will be busier. So I cut a huge slice of cheesecake, threw that and some grapes in a bowl, changed into the most comfortable clothes I could find, snuggled up in my blanket with She's the Man. Its one of those things that remind you of old times. I remember when I watched it first - my sis and I went to S apu's house for a sleepover. I was very excited because she recently moved to Newcastle, and had a tiny studio apartment all to herself. We stayed up and watched this movie and had expensive ice cream out of its container. I was about fifteen years old, was trying to get over a difficult situation (or so I felt at that time) that most teens go through, and the 'break' really helped. So, I began to associate this movie with 'breaks' - when you need to kick those heels off and just be crazy by yourself - laugh, smile, aww at fictitious characters.

Feeling high

Wiggle's 'Hot Potato' has been stuck in my head the entire day today. I was youtube-ing some Wiggles songs (don't judge - I have my reasons!) this morning and learnt two - Big Red Car and Hot Potato. They're rather catchy. I have a long way to go though - I need to be up to date with all the latest songs and made up characters in children's minds. I never watched too much TV as a child and don't plan to expose mine to a whole lot. I recently started working with a little boy who has autism. He had behaviour therapy for two years, and he improved from being completely non-verbal to using full sentences. I only began working with him, but I need to keep with the program and make sure he is always saying something, or I am always saying something, or singing, or dancing, or tickling, or pretending, or playing with toys. This is sort of new to me, because I usually just talk to kids like adults, and I can't do that with him. I need to turn into those Playschool people. I had my first independent session with him today, and it was much better than I expected. He whined a little, but mostly listened to me. Internally I was jumping in joy even though I had to keep a straight face expect for when I was praising him. I really, really hope he stays nice! He's such a cute little boy that I feel really mean being mean to him when he doesn't listen - but I guess its a life skill that I must learn! :(

Alhamdulillah, right now, my life is comfortably busy. Yes, there are times when I feel like I have a thousand things that I need to get done and all I can think of is sleep. But there are a few things that keeps me going now:
- Visualising what's waiting for me in the Hereafter.
- Thinking about people in worse situations.
- Thinking about times in my life that wasn't like this and how unhappy I was.
- Making lists of WHY I do certain things and reading over them from time to time.

I bumped into Mrs. CP today. She is a very nice lady that lived in our old neighbour for many years, left for the USA and only returned in the middle of last year. She is a Christian missionary that has immense patience and a whole lot of smiles. Her level of ethics are very high and to my knowledge, she never imposes. She reminded me of the fact that you can learn a little (or a lot) from every person that you know, even if you don't take 'everything' from that person. What you have to learn to do is make educated decisions about which parts to internalise and which parts to leave out.

I discovered very cheap coffee a few days ago - $2 for a cup. The coffee is not disgusting, even though its usually slightly hotter than I'd like it to be - but that can be forgiven. Uni cappaccinos have gone up from $2.80 to $3 this year, mochas cost even more! Therefore, $2 a for a cup of mocha/cappa is awesome. I have to cut a lot of costs now that my payments have been reduced (ABA therapy pays two fifth what I used to get for tutoring per hour) and coffee is the first luxury to go. In this time of need, $2 a cup is an amazing discovery!

I realise this post was long overdue (if anyone stills reads me that is...). But when you are living a 'sort of a dream', would you rather close your eyes and live the lesser form of dreams?

...

My mum was asking me if I write poems any more. So, I took out my notebook of poetry/lyrics and flipped through to see if any of them are worthy of mentioning to her. Then I realised that the reason that I haven't been showing her any of my work is because they are mostly dark/depressing/confusing. Like this one (undated):

Neither here or there,

I'm half-way through the stairs;

Not on the ground -

Yet I can't touch the sky. 

I just want to be found;

Either laugh, or cry.

But all I feel right now is

Fear, confusion.

Alhamdulillah.. life is so much better now!! :)