I spent some time observing the fish in Yuan Kheng's house, when I went to train the girls last Friday. She has a huge luohan and extrememly interesting goldfish. Two of the goldfish were face down in one of the corners. The rest of them kept gurgling air at one corner, then presumably they got bored of the scenery so they swam to another corner to continue gurgling air. This process was then repeated several times, and I was just standing there watching them swim back and forth in fascination.

My parrot fish are crazy. Despite the size of the tank, they are still growing. And for some strange reason, they keep arranging and rearranging the stones in the tank, although there I couldn't tell any significant difference from before. Maybe they're just doing maintenence or something.

My mother was hospitalised today. I'm not sure of the exact details yet, but I hope it'll be useful.

I read an article on Sunday Life today, regarding women at the top. Apparently, women bosses tend to be more nitpicky, temperamental and domineering. This has given me several insightful thoughts on this subject, the first and most important being:

AHH! I am every one of these things! Well, maybe not temperamental, but certainly domineering and nitpicky. This is terrible. If This Goes On, I will be carrying the label of the Dragon Lady.

I have thus decided on a course of action. Because I cannot change my natural urge to be domineering and nitpicky, I will attempt it to disguise these traits in the following manner:

1) Act more like a Man

That is, instead of being Domineering and Autocratic, I will be Decisive and Firm. I must change my innate feminine bossiness to a more masculine way of being bossy. I am not quite sure of the specific differences as yet, but they will no doubt all come to me later.

My tendency to nitpick will be substituted with my eye for detail and a continuous pursuit towards excellence. I shall emulate my male counterparts in this regard, without seeming too gay.

Rather than being naggy, I will be, er, persistent. Though actually, on further thought, what the hell. Who am I fooling? Naggy means naggy. At least I'll make a good mother in future.

2) Display my softer, more feminine side

Phase one of Fooling Other People is already in action. I have pierced ears, rebonded hair, and I dress better when I go out--except for the occasional brightly coloured, cartooned T-shirt. What I need to do is to carry it to the extreme. Not only will I purchase more frilly stuff, I must cultivate a sweet, soft spoken and pleasant feminine charm that will knock everyone off their feet. Even when being bossy, I shall be bossy in a nice, sweet manner.

Well, I haven't figured out how to do that yet, but I will eventually.

Now as I sit back and admire my foolproof plan, I realise that Damn(!), they contradict! This requires deeper thought.

So for more ideas, I refer to the article again, which mentioned several stereotypes with regard to women bosses. They are: Micro-Manager, Mother Hen, Blinkered Boss, High-Flyer, Drama Mama, and PMS Tigress. So all I have to do is examine the faults of all these types and not follow the trend, right? Right.

Essentially, I can't be too demanding and fastidious, but I also can't be too caring and maternal. I should not be too temperamental, or be too much of a yes woman, though I shouldn't be too contrary either. I mustn't be too "blinkered" and just use tried and tested methods, yet a risk taking style could be dangerous too, from what they say of Carly Fiorina.

Darn it. I still have a long way to go.

My mother went home immediately after going to my grandma's house, instead of going house visiting as usual. I had always taken for granted that my parents would both live till their seventies, at least, but nowadays when I look at her I wonder how long more she has to live. Pain wears a person down day by day, night by night. We had a discussion about children today, and as usual, she said she would like us to have children and she would be happy to take care of them for us. And I thought then, can you really? The sensation of my heart being squeezed is becoming all too familiar.

I hate the feeling of helplessness. Other than doing housework and massaging her head for an hour at a time every night, there's nothing much my sister and I can do. I get impatient with people whining about their lives sometimes, because we all have our own problems and yours seem quite mundane. But I suppose that makes me a hypocrite, because I hate it too when others belittle my experiences as nothing comparable to the great disasters that besiege families day to day.

Anyway, to happier matters. I ate and ate and ate today, which I believe would come as no great surprise to many people. Fortunately or unfortunately, my skirt was just the right size for me, so it started to get rather tight and uncomfortable after some time. It prevented me from consuming more than I did just now, which was quite a significant amount. I also drank a lot of "chicken wine", which was very thick and very nice. I realised that I'll probably be a quiet drunk if I ever have the occasion to be one. Instead of getting high and laughing a lot like some of my friends, I suspect that I will just go happily to sleep. Not a bad thing, really.

As usual, we're doing steamboat for CNY eve. It seems to be the in thing nowadays. To tell the truth, however, between a nice traditional chinese dinner and a menu of boiled food, I rather have the nice chinese dinner. But I suppose steamboat does come with its advantages. It lessens preparation and clearing up time, lengthens the time spend at the table, and sets the stage for interesting bits of small talk like, "Hey, where has my fishball gone?". All in all, the benefits outweigh how boring it is. But I'm still going to fry the prawns nicely in sauce and whatnot.

I discovered today that my sister is deep at heart, an obsessive compulsive. She usually cooks up a storm in the kitchen and leave it looking rather ravaged. Today, however, she has been wrapping everything carefully in gladwrap, even the onions and ginger. I think she has found joy in pulling the clingflim over food.

Hannah bought me a Happy House keypad cushion today! My subtle hinting has finally got to her. It's yellow with three big colourful hearts on it. It's so nice I might not use it for typing on a permanent basis, but like, keep it somewhere safe and hug it occasionally. Which I realise defeats the purpose.

I quit the teaching job! Apparently I wasn't doing what a proper teacher should be doing i.e. have the kids sit in their proper places, etc. I decided that I just I as already trying my best and that I just wasn't suited to this job. At least, not one with the expectations of a full-time teacher.

I was feeling a little depressed for the remainder of Friday (when I quit) and Saturday, but it sank in, truly sank in today. I woke up at twelve, feeling stress-free, decided to go out with my sister to watch a movie, return some library books and borrow some when I haven't for the last three weeks (shit, just as I type this, I realise they are overdue). I also feel an urge now to continue my writing and catch up on current affairs, which I have been sadly neglecting. Plus improve my Chinese.

Now I'm also thinking of what to cook for CNY reunion dinner, since my Tuesday will be free.

Well, so I thought, quitting isn't such a bad thing after all, it seems. I didn't realise exactly how stressed I was until I stopped it altogether. I have enough for my China trip, anyway, so just doing coaching shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Anyway, later, I might go shopping with my sister. Our shopping styles have not changed over the years. We will go to west mall, walk one round in Bossini and look at the shelves. If we buy something, we will sit down somewhere for a drink and a chat, happy with our purchase. If we don't buy anything, we will sit down somewhere for a drink and a chat, having decided that there is nothing much to buy.

There are so many mosquitoes in my house now that I think we're all going to die of insecticide inhalation. Unfortunately, I'm not even sure if all that is working. Despite spraying all around and aiming Baygon at the flying insects, there has been no dead bodies of mosquitoes lying around. Argh, why can't they be as easy to kill as ants?

My sister told me that one night, she couldn't sleep and went out to the balcony, to stand in front of the fish tank. The fish got a big shock when they saw the big, hulking figure, banging the glass and splashing the water. So...human. Or we are so fish. Whatever.