Who's line is it anyway?

I used to love watching "Who's Line is it Anyway?". It was the show that could perk me up no matter what--I always ended up rolling on the floor laughing. For those of you who may not be familiar, it's a comedy "game"show that has one basic premise: improv. Four actors and comedians would get up on stage and spend half an hour making fools of themselves by thinking skits up on the spot. I'm not going to lie, I always envied their ability to make it up as they went along.

Thinking on my feet has never really been a strong point for me. I am a PLANNER. There needs to be a thought out plan, as far as I'm concerned. Not surprisingly, I was never the student who could write a speech last minute for class and then get up and make it sound like I had spent days on it. Though I do pride myself in being able to participate in spurts of witty banter, I've never really been able to seriously improvise.

That is, until I became a behavioral therapist.

My job requires me to pull things out of a hat constantly. I need to be able to turn on a dime and change what I do based on Monkey's moods and responses. As a creature of routine and habit, Monkey often gets stuck in a rut if we do too many similar things in the same order too often. It's my job to prevent that from happening.

It was really hard at first to keep a good flow in a therapy session. I would be so focused on the individual activities, that once we finished one, I wouldn't be ready for the next and would be left sputtering "I...um...uh...let's...uh...do.........THIS!". And somewhere around the second "uh", I would have lost Monkey's attention completely.

I guess with time and practice, I've learned how to be improvisational. Because sometimes, no matter how much I plan, the session never turns out the way I expect it to. And those are the sessions that tend to be the best.

Second goodbyes and hellos.

Saying goodbye for the second time is not as hard as saying goodbye the first time. Because the first time you say it, you don't know how it's going to turn out...

I said goodbye for the first time in July. Goodbye to friends and family as I stepped into the next season of my life. I was leaving those who had held me up and lived life with me for the previous four years or more. I was saying goodbye for an undetermined amount of time. Ripping myself away was one of the hardest things I've done.

And then I had the joyous opportunity to go home, to say hello again. Three blissful weeks were spent hugging and kissing and talking and reacquainting myself with the loved ones I had left. There were lots of smiles, lots of laughs, and lots of stories. Old traditions relived and new ones started. I was welcomed back, and it was wonderful.

But then I had to say goodbye again. The second one, as painful as it was, was easier than the first. Having already left once, and knowing that I would, in fact, survive, it wasn't as bad to do it again. Because I know that the next time I come back, there will be hugging and kissing and talking and reacquainting and smiles and stories. And until then, there will be emails and letters and video chats.

First hellos aren't bad, but they aren't always the most comforting things. Second hellos are awesome.

Most won't be surprised to hear that it isn't too hard for me to make friends. Everywhere I go, I end up finding people to talk to, do things with, and just be around. But it does take a little effort. So when I got here the first time, I had exactly four friends (I live in their house and two of them are under the age of seven). There were a lot of lonely walks and adventures to explore the city. It took some time, as it always does, to meet new friends.

Coming back, I got to say hello again. I was welcomed back with familiar and friendly faces, inquiries about my life, and expressions of joy at my return. And now, whenever I go from here to there, I get to say many hello agains.

With every goodbye, there's bound to be a hello around the corner.

Reflections of a long flight.

An airplane ride is a fascinating and truly unique social situation. Hundreds of strangers shut themselves up in tiny seats for hours on end, eating bad food and watching less than desired movies. There's no where to go and nothing to do but pass the time with books, music, and crossword puzzles.

Sometimes you are able to make a friend with your seat mate for the few hours you have together. You go through the motions of small talk and share the leftover dessert you don't want to eat. This comes in handy when you are forced to displace them to relieve your bowels and the stiffess in your legs again. You may even be lucky enough to hear a little of their story.

As you glance around, you see the zombie effect take over your fellow passengers as they shift around trying to get comfortable enough to fall into another dozing stupor. This is one thing you share in common.

As the characters flit in and out of the movie screen, you look at your watch and realize that the eternity it took to get you this far from solid ground is barely half over. So you close your eyes or pull out a book--something, anything, to continue passing the time in limbo from here to there. Which happens to be the only other commonality you share with the hundreds in your midst: where you are going and where you have been.

A Photo-a-Day 2011

ANNOUNCING: A Photo-a-Day 2011

I have decided to give myself a challenge this year. I am going to attempt to take and post one picture every day this year. This is very exciting for me, and I hope that you will be excited too. As I was walking around today, considering this challenge, I realized there are going to be two main difficulties for me:

1. Remembering to take a picture every day. I'm sure there will be some days that I completely forget and you'll be seeing pictures of my neighborhood at 11 p.m. I promise not to cheat and use pictures from days other than the one it's supposed to be.
2. Choosing a picture, out of the hundreds that I will inevitably take on some days.

But a challenge is a challenge for a reason.

So here it is folks, Photo #1 out of 365

Find the rest of the photos here: www.keepingthewordsaway.blogspot.com

January 1, 2011. Taken in Little India. Hello monsoons.

Tourists enter here --->

Singapore is an efficient society. There is not much doubt about that, I mean, it's an international center of business, what else would you expect?

 But one area that I would never expect to find such efficiency is the area of tourism. Enter the island of Sentosa. Sentosa is off the southern coast of Singapore, connected by bridges and cable cars. It is a one-stop shop of the tourism world.

Seriously, it couldn't be more convenient.

You get to to Sentosa by car, bus, train, or cable car and once you cross over, it's a whole different Singapore. Home to nice hotels, water parks, the aquarium, Universal Studios, and Singapore's only "real" beaches. There's shopping and restaurants, and all sorts of cutesy places to go. The best part is that it's all wrapped up in a nice, neat little package.

The only other thing on the island is a neighborhood of ritzy mansions and condos. And, as fate would have it, I have a friend who is lucky enough to live there. One Saturday, some other friends and I, made the trek to Sentosa to hang out at the beach and spend time at my friend's condo. The weather was gorgeous, and I was very excited for my first trip to Sentosa.

I got there late, and found my friends sitting at a beach side restaurant. Singapore is completely surrounded by other islands, which not only offers it protection from tsunamis and tropical storms, but also means that there isn't an endless view of the ocean. Nevertheless, it was a clear day and the view was great. We started walking along the beach, winding our way between tables, lounge chairs, and children playing in the sand. It wasn't long before we saw a familiar face:

Tucker! And a whole bunch of other people we know, who work at the International Community School. Our groups converged and we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming, kayaking, and enjoying other sand-filled shenanigans.

Then we packed up and drove the winding roads over to my friend's condo. One thing that I love about the tropics are the insanely large thunderstorms (except when I'm with Caleb, who hates them). While we were sitting on this beautiful balcony, outside of this amazing condo, we got to watch a fantastic lightning storm. It was far enough away that there was no thunder and not much rain, but some awesome lightning.

All I can say is that it was really fun to just be a tourist for the day.

Highlights and Lowlights.

On Sunday, Mama Bear and Papa Bear left for a second honeymoon/vacation/celebration of their anniversary type of a trip. To Bali. I'm only a little jealous. This meant that I got to spend three days and two nights with their wonderful offspring. Even though there is still about 6 hours left before the king and queen return to the castle, I wanted to offer a summary of my experience as a single parent: The highlights and lowlights.

Highlight: Monkey teaches Mouse how to play his favorite board game.

Highlight: Monkey and Mouse play together a lot and have a lot of fun.

Lowlight: Monkey and Mouse play the same matching/memory game over and over and over and over and insist that I sit there to flip the cards over.

Highlight: My friends come over and Monkey gives them a tour of the house.

Highlight: My friends come over and Mouse has new people to play with.

Highlight: Mouse licks my finger (randomly) and says "Mmmmm yummy!"

Lowlight: Mouse wakes me up at 5 in the morning and then cries for an hour when he realizes that it's me and not his mom...



Lowlight: Mouse head butting Monkey to wake him up in the morning.

Highlight: Mouse sleeps for two hours after school and still goes to bed on time.

Highlight: What I did while Mouse sleeps for two hours: Drive home from preschool, transfer him from car seat to couch, took a power nap, transferred him to stroller, walked to grocery store, went shopping, and started walking home. Then he woke up.

Highlight: My friend Kerri Jo comes over.

Highlight: Swimming with Monkey.

Lowlight: Missing Young Life.

Highlight:  Bringing Mouse downstairs to let Monkey get to sleep and him saying "Look, it's dark! It's dark! Let's go chicken rice!". To which I say, "It's dark because it's night time and you already ate dinner." and he looks at me with this "so what?" kind of a look and says "Let's go blue car...chicken rice!"

Highlight: Going to the book fair at SAS and picking out books with Monkey.

Lowlight: Mouse saying his new favorite thing: "It's broken! Why it's broken?" and having Monkey freak out because he thinks something really is broken.

Highlight: Sleeping in til 6, and being woken up to Mouse talking to me instead of crying.


Obviously the highlights outweigh the lowlights, even so, we'll all be happy to see Mama and Papa Bear tonight!

My, how things have changed...

I am dedicating this blog post to how things have changed in high school since I was there. Which, for the record, was NOT long ago.

1. No cell phones--none of this texting friends in between classes thing
2. No laptops--we used old-fashioned pencils and papers to take notes
3. No such thing as Facebook--if we wanted to have friends over, we called them on our *ahem* landline phones, no events on Facebook
4. No online homework--once again, old-fashioned assignment notebooks and homework on paper.
5. Chalkboards--my teachers spent their lives writing on white boards and chalkboards. No powerpoints or promethean boards.

I'm no where near a generation ahead of high schoolers these days, and yet they are getting a completely different educational experience than I did.