Bad News, Good News

Haven't been feeling too well. Not too bad, either...but just a little bit weird. Autumn is coming for sure and flu bugs are everywhere. I asked hubby to coin my back just now and it feels GREAT!!!

Update on my parents' health: Mom seems to be OK now, though she has to be careful with what she eats. Dad went to the lab again for a second check-up and this time my bro took him to an internist instead of a GP. The lab results were all fine (no more protein leaking in the urine, glucose level is OK, blood pressure is OK), BUT the internist said that his left lung's capacity has down gone down to 31% only and his right lung is swollen, so he's on medication and he's told NOT to get too tired.

The good thing is that he's NOT stressed about it. He even said to my family, "Look, all the other results are good, though." However, my bro and wife are worried that my Mom might worry too much about Dad and that might cause her blood pressure to peak again...so I still need your prayers for my parents, THANK YOU!!!

Another piece of bad news is that my camera's flash isn't functioning. When we go to Rovaniemi sometime soon, we're going to try to find a place where I can get it fixed. I browsed online and someone said that we only need to replace something, but it's better if the pros do it. So we'll see about that!

Photo taken from here

Now on some good news...my poster has arrived and I think next time I'll know better, 'coz a little bit of two of the pics are cut off, but other than that I'm pretty pleased about it. However, I think next time I should use Photoshop or something like that to maximize the color contrast - 'coz it's not printed as a photo, so it seems to me that the better the color contrast is, the better the end result would be. We're going to take it soon to my in-laws' place, so we'll see how my MIL likes it. ;-D

Today I got a VERY nice surprise. You see, the other day I was thinking of buying a pot of flowers from my workplace, but I restrained myself from doing so due to my shopping budget. Today when I worked at the cashier, a customer said, "I've got a surprise for you." I was scanning the pot of flowers (the type that I had wanted to buy for myself: Celosia Caracas) and then he said that it was for me, "for my good service" - that's what he said.

I was SO touched (still am)!!! It was really thoughtful of him to do that and said that ON purpose. I TRULY appreciate it. He really makes me feel encouraged to know that at least in his eyes, my service is good enough.

glitter-graphics.com

Oddity + A Meme

I had a talk with an ex-school friend earlier today and it made me have some ideas on what to write here in my blog. We were talking about one particular ex-elementary school friend who was considered "odd". He used to be teased a lot back then.

So this friend and I talked about this "odd" friend and when we last saw him. Funny thing is that we couldn't really pinpoint what was truly "un-mainstream" about him that made him feel "different" than the rest. However, I have to note that now he's become more "mainstream", so he's no longer "odd".

This short conversation made me think of what we consider "normal" and what we consider "odd". Don't we all have our own oddities? Don't we want to be unique as a person? Yet in spite of wishing to be unique, we don't want to be "odd" enough that we'll be considered so "un-mainstream" that people will think we're losing some screws in our brains.

People are interesting beings, don't you think so??? Yeah, I know this topic has no real conclusion, because I've just started thinking about it...but if any of you has any real conclusion, bring it on! :-D

Now it's time for me to go read some Finnish. I'll blog-hop tomorrow, OK? I'm still in my "lazy" mode here he he he...

P.S. Bad news: I (and some other friends who aren't really students at the school) can't participate in the rest of the Finnish classes anymore 'coz the government body has run out of money to support us. If we want to continue going there, we have to pay for it ourselves, but 'coz it's rather expensive, I decided not to pay. Instead, I'll just wait for the evening course in autumn and in the meantime I'll do my best to continue studying Finnish on my own.

glitter-graphics.com

Dawn tagged me with this meme. Let's see what it's about...

1. What are your current obsessions? Collecting Finnish novels and trying to make myself pregnant WA HA HA HA HA...

2. Which items from your closet are you wearing most often? Underwear of course.

3. Last thing you bought? Grocery from the supermarket. I bought salmon, mince meat, milk, salad, and vitamin C.

4. What's for dinner? It was what I made yesterday: pork steak and potatoes.

5. Say something to the person who tagged you. She's a brave person who's fighting with some past issues in her life. She loves her family so much. :-))))

6. Favorite vacation spot? Definitely my hometown, Bandung, since I MISS my family and friends and ALL THE FOOD!!!!!! UUUGGGHHHH now I'm drooling...

7. When was the last time you told your Mom you love her? Errrr...it's not a custom for us to say "I love you" to each other...so unfortunately I've never said it, though I once wrote down a long thank you/appreciation email in which I wrote to her "I love you".

8. 3 things to do before you die. Hard to say, 'coz I don't know when it's going to happen...gee...I can't think of anything right now. It's like my brain's stuck to the present and it doesn't want to think too far ahead. So no answer for this one, sorry...except perhaps have my own kids hi hi...

9. Reading right now. Several Finnish books which I read randomly depending on my mood.

10. What's the last movie you saw and enjoyed, rate out of 5 stars. Bolt. It's 4.7 stars out of 5. WE LOVED IT! :-D

11. Guilty pleasure. Potato chips...ohhhh, I feel so wickeddddd whenever I eat potato chips hi hi hi...

12. Name the last blog you visited and left a comment on before this one? ( link and info please)
Hans and Shinta vid Neyst.

13. What season is your favorite? I try to enjoy every season as best as I can, so my fave season is whichever season is happening at the present. :-))))

14. What are you watching on TV right now? Lots of series, such as Heroes, Lost, Pushing Daisies, CSI, Fringe.

Reversed Role

Yesterday I pushed someone away. It certainly didn't make me feel good, but it also made me feel relieved. Remember the story when my closest friends felt overwhelmed by my long emails that I wrote so often when I first moved to Finland? I leaned on them for support too much, and in the end they got burnt out. One of them told me point blank that she couldn't spare more time for me due to her life schedule. Only then I fully realized that I had been having too high expectation of them.

Well, that was what I felt about that friend whom I pushed away (let's call her Uni). She isn't one of my closest friends, but she's also a close friend. Since I have less time for myself and to do anything else after my full-time course started, I have less tolerance for anything that ruins my mood.

I know that Uni has had problems lately, but when I come back from the course, I'm tired already and it just ruins my mood to read her complaints again and again and again. It's fine to hear a complaint once, but if you're tired and you just want to relax and you read it again and again and again in different ways...after a while you get burnt out. In the end I didn't even want to read her messages anymore, let alone replied them. However, I didn't resort to not reading and not replying. I resorted to explaining to her about my situation.

I knew it would hurt like hell, just like what happened to me when one of my closest friends told me point blank about the facts of life. I HOPE she'll understand me, though right now she must be SO disappointed at me. She replied briefly to my explanation, saying, "I know you're busy right now and that you have your own life. I'm sorry to have shared my complaints with you. I'm not going to bother you anymore."

Sigh...it's not that I don't want to hear her life story, but if I keep on hearing bad news, bad news, bad news, then in the end I don't know anymore what I have to say to support her. I know the situation she's facing now sucks BIG TIME, but then again when you've done EVERYTHING you can and still you can't change it, all you can do is either find another way out or just wait until the door is open. She keeps on wanting to change everything and make it faster...she keeps on asking me to analyze, too. It's draining me out whenever I read about her messages and all I see is problem, problem, problem...

Oh well...I asked Arttu if he thought I was cruel by doing this to her and he said no. Well, one thing for sure is that now I understand MUCH better what my close friend felt when she pushed me away. And I'm glad to say that now I no longer bombard them with emails he he he he...