I realized that I've kinda neglected my blog for some time.. haha. guess it's been more convenient to actually write things out in the physical format of a diary and living life in real life, rather than typing out my thoughts online :)
could also be cos i've been busy with work and had lesser time to actually update things online. i realized that i've actually come to treasure down-time (times when i don't have to think so much) cos of the fact that i have to continually think and type reports for a period of time. it's as if my brain has decided to burn itself out and is going through a rebellion and refuses to do anything interesting for the rest of the time. hahaa.
i really hope i don't become so dull that i'm not creative anymore.
wanna thank God for how He's been leading me in these few months. also wanna thank God for the people whom He's sent into my life as well :) really treasure these people and feel blessed by having them in my life. like sometimes you wonder, what exactly is it that I did that allowed me to actually have these people blessing my life? :\ like i'm not even a very good friend, yet I have these people in my life. i guess it does urge me to become a better friend. i feel thankful :)

suddenly, I don't quite understand what's going on anymore :|

I'm really tired of working for the sake of working/ for earning money.
I think earning money is important, but I've kinda lost track of the passion behind why I wanted to do what I'm doing in the first place. Gotten a little burnt out and a little jaded. Until it came to a point when my hours are evaluated with regards to the amount of salary I earn.
I feel like my passion had been eroded through the years, that I no longer study/learn because I really want to. I'm not working because I enjoy it (even with all the nonsense paperwork that has to be done). haha. I used to be like this. When I was volunteering/working as a research assistant, I was like 'I will do this cos I enjoy it'.
I worked as an admin assistant for 3 months (totally forgot abt this) typing lists of APA references for the language therapist masters programme in NUS. I don't remember doing it with the amount of dread that I face doing case recordings at the current moment.
passion and interest can buffer a lot of things.
Am re-evaluating what I can do through what God has placed in me that I'm excited about.
Re-evaluating what I should be doing and where I should go :)

polyphasic sleep doesn't work for me :) hahaha.
i crash the next day whenever i try it.
ah well. shall stick to faithful sleeping patterns till i have more time!

I've been wanting to try this out. haha.
am gonna start to reduce my sleeping hours, and converting to a polyphasic sleep. my aim is probably a core sleep of 3 and a half hours, with naps through the day (which is rather possible since i nap when i'm on the bus).
i'm just concerned that it'll affect my alertness and mental speed in solving questions. haha. and i'm slightly reluctant to go through a period of mental fuzziness (according to research, most people go through a period of 2 weeks of adjustment where they experience fatigue and the desire to go back to sleep. after the two weeks, the body adjusts and is able to be of the same state as how it was like before).
i'll be sleeping for quite a long time 7 and a half hours a day for around 3 days, before cutting down the hours to 6 and a half hours. haven't planned out the rest of the nights, but i guess i'll type out how the experience goes along the way :) yay!

today i went to Gotoh sensei's class instead of my normal sensei. it was my first time with this sensei and i didn't know what to expect. hahaa.
at first glance, she didn't look as well-dressed as how japanese senseis would be dressed. in fact, she looked a little out of sorts. hahaa. and her style was rather different from kakihara sensei's.. so it felt slightly off. hahaa.
but through the lesson, i started to understand why her students kept coming back to her class. haha. she's rather quirky! and to be honest, she reminds me of me! hahaa. i really like her energy and her sharing and her making fun of the students in the class and being blunt about things in her life. haha. i really liked her way of talking too (it was japanese! with all its super shortcuts and stuff, and she didn't bother to check if we really understood... though she would add on if she realized we didn't. haha) class was great fun today.. haha. i like kakihara sensei a lot too! but both of them have different styles :)
so fun. hahaha

I've decided to note down my sleeping patterns, in the hope that I can transit to a polyphasic sleeping pattern in the future :) I figured it would be easier for me since my work schedule is rather irregular. Haha. Another reason why I'm doing this is cos I realized that I tend to have a natural inclination towards doing my chores at night (like my body feels motivated to want to clear up my room before I sleep), and that's something that I totally am not motivated to do in the day at all.
Shall see how it goes :)

i think there might actually be more than 4 different forms of love in the world. hahaa.
i would guess that most of the forms of love I experience are under affection and friendship.
there are times when i mistake charity for affection/eros, but at the end of the day, the test of time shows it to be otherwise.
i've figured that even in affectionate love, there exists different forms and degree as well. and what do you call a combination between affection and friendship?

i think sometimes people don't understand that when i give, the friendship that I have with you as a person is already my gift in return. i think sometimes people don't understand the seriousness in which i treat the relationships around me either.

it's interested (and disturbing) to observe how people change in different situations...

Quoted:
"The way I see it with ENFJs, is we need a lot of alone time, but when we are with people, we have to be full force. When we're alone, we're still thinking of people 24/7, but all in the brains. But, I can only hang out with people for like 8 hours before I need a serious break, unlike other extraverts who can be with people 24/7."

yaaaaaaaa

it was interesting today. was choosing a nyonya top and a kebaya (haha. splurging for my drama showcase. and gathering ethnic costumes) at Chinatown OG, and it turned out that the lady manning the nyonya kebaya corner is a peranakan lady herself. so she taught me how to do the brooch for the top, and taught me that i don't have to buy the beaded shoes (according to her, cheapest pair is ard $99), but i can just wear shoes that have kitten heels. so nice :)
she asked what i was using it for, and wanting to come and watch my play (cos she lives at north bridge road, and i told her that the showcase is at textile centre). hahaa. later learned that it was cos she wanted to take a picture of me in the nyonya kebaya and then put up the picture at her corner (possibly to encourage young people to wear the kebaya too. haha). funny chatty middle-aged lady who kept asking me to think carefully when choosing between two kebayas. hahaa.
oh my goodness, but it's super expensive. the ones i got are probably considered relatively cheap... i got a set at $208.80 T_T i can buy 8-10 dresses from Toa Payoh/bugis/blogshops with that amount of money. hohoho.
and go for a trip to bintan twice. LOL
ah well. investments. haha
i told the lady i'll take the photo and pass it to her at her shop once again! hahaa.
what's said out is a promise to be kept :)

if you know that something will never come into fruition, would you still work towards it?

my profile. ha ha ha.
Xin Ying is a counsellor with Fei Yue Community Services, working with ex-prison youth inmates and their families with regards to the inmates' rehabilitation to society. She provides support and emotional counselling to inmates, specializing in anger management and depression. She also mediates between family members and the inmates to resolve deep-seated relational issues. Before this, Xin Ying was working under Ministry of Education as a full-time school counsellor for more than three and a half years, providing psychological and emotional support to the students in the school, as well as to run the responsible thinking programme in the school in which mediation and reconciliation between students and teachers are emphasized, instead of punishment per se.
Xin Ying has been a volunteer with the Hope counselling services under Hope Centre (Singapore) since 2009, with a keen interest in the areas of same gender relationships and depression. She employs mainly person-centred and psychodynamic theories in her therapeutic framework for individual counselling.

i wonder what will happen if my counsellee/former counsellee ends up being in the same lg as me after they transfer over. lol. under ethical terms, i would probably need to declare it and request that they be put in a different lg as me.
that would be interesting.
or maybe i request to be put in a different lg.
that would be interesting too.
tricky situation.

seems like i can't function well when there's any misunderstanding or conflict that occurs in my relating with others. i dislike whatsapp cos clear communication is hard, and the hardest thing is that there's no visual feedback to know how the person feels.
I guess it's still very important for me to know a person, and to make myself known. when either path is blocked, it affects me quite a bit.
sometimes i wonder if it's a good thing that relationships matter to me so much. relationships not just in the sense of like bgr, but really with regards to friendships that i want to build.
of course, i can't possibly build on every friendship that I have, but when I find a person whom I really want to know, that I find is someone whom can potentially be a friend whom i can discuss more interesting issues with, then that's when I really want to build up those friendships. but with desire comes expectations, with expectations come disappointments. at each timing, each person would be at a different stage of expectation towards a friendship, and i guess we can't always impose our expectations on the people around us.
ironically, i've always thought that i seldom impose my expectations on the people ard me. guess i'm in that season of trying to critically cut down on the commitments that i have and focus, and that would include the relationships i have ard me as well. but it's pretty hard to do so.
if i have a choice, i wish i can have free money! hahaa. and spend my days supporting others. that would be nice. 

I only realized what I've been robbed of when we had great praise and worship today. I realized that I've been robbed of my freedom to express who I am as a person due to the criticisms given by other people. And it's been happening over a long period of time.
If what I'm doing does not stumble, and seeks to glorify God, and is due to a difference in preference, then from today onwards, I pledge to defend that right to express and I will not be robbed of the joy in expressing God in the manner in accordance to who God has created me to be.

2 Samuel 6:20-23
²⁰ When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”
²¹ David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. ²² I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”
²³ And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.

The first comment that David returned from dancing wildly before God was that he received a critical comment from Saul. And that comment was due to a perception from Saul. I know not the intention of Saul, and I would think to the others, it would really have seen rather ridiculous at that moment, but I know that God honours David's celebration before Him, and it was not vile, but rather, honoured in God's eyes.

I am surrounded by people vastly different from me, of whom will have different forms of expresssions from me. I don't go around commenting and criticizing other people's ways of worship or praise as I understand that everyone has a different manner. 

But I guess it arises as I would have the tendency to evaluate my own actions before responding to the criticism. so when the timing has passed, it's slightly weird to mention it once again. BUT, I find that it affects me beyond that day, and slowly robs me of the joy in being with God's people, or robs me from enjoying just being myself in the presence of God's people. I get distracted with my actions, and instead, am unable to minister well to others. So I guess, it has to be an area I need to watch out for too.

7 people i regularly contact individually. 8 regular whatsapp groups. 10 clients, 9 with their families. 4 tuition kids. 3 ministries. 3 regular hobbies. 1 Japanese class.
this seems like the pace i'm most comfortable with. haha. crowded enough to keep me occupied, but not too stressed.

i think i have too many introverted friends who are comfortable with not meeting up. after 10 days of being alone, i'm kinda dying. hahaa. i need extroverted friends who can go crazy with me. hahahahaha.

yay. i feel fruitful tonight having settled conference writing and replying Eri on what i'm doing in kyoto.
haha.
just gotta do my reports now. sigh.
becoming the bane of my life.
giving tuition is so much easier than doing reports.

some things are not nonsensical they're just not worth talking abt -_-

hahahaa. this is quite funny to me.

Actual ENFJ - ENFJ conversation (male to female)

*phone rings*

ENFJ-f: Hello?

ENFJ-m: Hey!

ENFJ-f: Oh geez. Taco, what are you doing?

ENFJ-m: Nothing! Just driving through the middle of nowhere!

ENFJ-f: Why?

ENFJ-m: Because I live in Mad Maxville, New Mexico!

ENFJ-f: Yes, but where are you?

ENFJ-m: Between two little map dot towns. And I'm running out of gas!

ENFJ-f: Taco! You fool!

ENFJ-m: (sarcastically laughing) Hey, baby, I do this for kicks! What else ya gonna do out here?!

ENFJ-f: Why didn't you gas up before you left?

ENFJ-m: I was at an oil well for week and half! [high dramatic] The world does not exist!

ENFJ-f: [exasperated] Why are you calling me then? I'm by the Atlantic Ocean, remember!?

ENFJ-m: [more sarcasm] Because you're the closest human being!

ENFJ-f: Call the highway patrol!

ENFJ-m: Nah, man! I've got 10 miles to the next city! (laughing wildly) And I have 8 miles worth of gasoline left! I'm living on the edge!

ENFJ-f: What are you going to do?

ENFJ-m: Pray! ahahahaha!!

ENFJ-f: Get up some speed, dude. You'll need the velocity.

ENFJ-m: A 2 mile walk is do-able!.... Kinda.... (more laughing) My truck weighs like, 11 million pounds. I'll coast no more than 300 ft. Trust me.

ENFJ-m: 300 feet? You've done this before.

ENFJ-m: Twice! (bursts out with more raucous laughter)

ENFJ-f: Do you have a flashlight?

ENFJ-m: Heh heh, NO! I have a lighter though. I could set something on fire.

ENFJ-f: A long dark walk down a lonely deserted New Mexican highway!?

ENFJ-m: [more heavy sarcasm] C'mon! That's awesome! AHAHAH, my gas gauge is beeping at me! I'm gonna die! Do you see what happens to me when I'm shut up for a week with nothing but Robotech and Bruce Campbell DVDs?! I'm hysterical!

ENFJ-f: Taco. Hang up. Call 911.

ENFJ-m: Why!?

ENFJ-f: Because you're going to be eaten by coyotes.

*gas gauge beeping angrily*

ENFJ-m: I'm panicking now!... Oh thank GOD... a gas station... [with renewed bravado] What do you think? I can drive five more miles!! I can pass this station!

ENFJ-f: Would you shut up, you turkey!

ENFJ-m: [facetiously] Oh all right! I'll stop. But just because you said so! I was living too much on the edge for you! Salvation! -- thanks to... Uncle Willis' Country Store or whatever the hell it is!

[goes into station, comes back out]

ENFJ-m: Hey! They're giving away obnoxiously huge free dill pickles with gas up! Awesome! The dude looked kinda offended when I was like "no, no, pickle for me, thanks!"....

ENFJ-f: Why do you sound so deflated?

ENFJ-m: Because I'm going to live tonight! I'm kinda disappointed...

ENFJ-f: I'm hanging up now.

I feel very privileged to be able to help out in conference:) though my role is small, and i seriously think any other people can do it as well. hahaa. but i'm grateful for the chance to be able to experience the creative process with a team of people whom i enjoy working with! haha. it's really rather comforting to be working with Dennis and Jiali again, probably cos i'm so used to them. haha. and cos they're people whom i like. hahaa.
just that everytime i start doing something, i need to pray over it. haha. praying that God will write the words instead of me, that He'll give me inspiration to give good structure and interesting climaxes such that it'll capture the attention of people. haha. i'm quite glad the first draft was ok though. and i'm amazed at the talents of the different people in Hope. haha. like wahhh... wouldn't have thought that we can do this in the church. hahaha.

haven't updated my progress in book reading. haha.
I've finished Agatha's
The ABC murders
The Big Four
The body in the library
The Clocks
The Hollow
The man in the brown suit
The mirror crack'd from side to side.

Am supposed to be reading The Moving Finger, but has recently been distracted by the Game of Thrones series. have also been reading some other murakami and other random books ard.

lol.. i never know how to respond to requests to meet up from people whom i'm totally not close to. hahaa. it gets even more awkward when the person requesting to meet up is a guy o_O

suddenly have that insane desire to uproot myself and travel around the world instead of settling in Singapore. hahaha. or else to uproot myself and move to a country with really nice scenery and more things to do, than just exploring cafes and using the laptop all day.
oh my goodness. why're we giving up on the finer, healthier, more fulfilling things in life and trading them for the mundane? D:

I rather fancy that my life would make for a good drama show. hahaa.

I'm so glad that I feel better! :D haha. my nose is still slightly blocked, but I don't feel as lethargic and weak, or as sick. hahaa. Being healthy makes a difference because being healthy allows me to have the energy to tackle issues and to work (ie. meet clients, arrange for meetings, do reports, give tuition). haha.
yay! thanks God for healthy!

"ENFJs online are kind of like INFPs in real life. Not really but sorta. Here we feel comfortable. In the world INFPs don't feel comfortable. ENFJs feel relatively comfortable in the world.... but not so much online. There isn't enough stimuli for them.... at least the stimuli that sticks out to them. They have no facial expressions to work off of. Hardly any perceptions to make judgments on.... mostly just judgments on forums etc.

Plus they don't really need to express anything online when they can do it just fine in real life.

I made up a metaphor once.....

think of a baked potato. INFPs are your run of the mill baked potato. ENFJs are a baked potato inside out.

That means that INFPs have a guard up in real life..... and feelings (potato) are inside.

ENFJs show their feelings ..... but their guard is actually pretty strong... it's just hard to see since the feelings cover them up."

quoted from online.

lol. of course, there're also people who think they know us really well just because they know how we feel. 

i think it's really frustrating to me when I can't connect to a person, could be an occupational hazard, or could just be who I am as a person. it's especially frustrating to me since you can sense the difference between yourself and a person, but you have no idea how to bridge the gap. hahaa.
gotta continue to pray to God for wisdom in this :)

rather frustrating at times as well when people think that i'm all fun and laughter. i don't know if it's a good thing that that's the image they get, or not. i rather like to think that i'm a very serious person, and because my thoughts are very serious, and rather private at times, i would tend to temper things down so that the seriousness doesn't leak through. so in a sense, my tempering of what leaks out is done well? hahaa. but people don't believe me when I say i'm a serious person.
gotta learn to not care so much about it i guess. i have no desire to open up my thoughts to each and everyone i meet as well.
i guess people think that we're already open people cos we're very freely open with our feelings and emotions. and we share readily on what happens in our lives if asked. but check on us on more private matters, and things change.
there are quite a few aspects in my life that i reserve for the people whom i'm really close to. aspects not just with regards to thoughts, but with regards to regularity, or even some privileges. hahaa.

"We're not interested in the most popular people, the one's who are the center of attention tend not to get ours, we like the quiet person we can have deep conversations with, the one's who allow us to open up and be ourselves, and the intellectuals are particularily attractive to us."

hahaha

It's been some time since i've written :)
i've cleaned up my room! yay! well, not totally. I still have boxes and boxes of things which are un-categorized at the moment :)
not getting any salary this month (my salary for feiyue would only come in in March) does kind of make people really aware of how one spends the money (especially when I have large purchases coming up). hahaa. I really just spend on now, with a few frills here and there. which I think is good! hahaa. though it gets rather uncomfortable at times cos I don't really have much savings either. hahaa. guess I really gotta build this area up well this year and next year. and considering the way things are, I don't think I can get married anytime soon. hahaa.

ENFJs can be just as introverted as INFJs or INTJs. Because we maintain such a large network of friends and social friendships [most of which are based on us being the service providers] we have to retreat into ourselves for long periods in order to engage Ti [which is traditionally our weakest function]. At times it takes us 1-2 days or even weeks to analyze a logical situation and come up with an appropriate response to a social dilemma. And in that time, we retreat from the world. Because of this need to mull over social situations, ENFJs are considered to be one of the most introverted of the extroverted types.

today I realized that I'm loved more than I thought I was.

I was just thinking about how people in the world are pretty different, and thought back to my secondary school days. haha. i think i'm used to people doing word plays and what nots because my secondary school friends are precisely like that. I spent 4 years of my life interacting with people in this manner, and singing songs after school, and being creative about the things we do, that it seems odd that normal people don't do that.
of course that probably also mean that to others, my way of interaction is odd. hahaha.

as i continually read up on the mbti personality testing types, i start to understand my needs a bit more as well. according to mbti, it is proposed that enfjs have Ni and Fe. meaning that they have internal intuition, and external feeling. which means that I subconsciously employ pattern recognition, while focusing externally on my environment (which probably explains why I become conscious of the dynamics in social relationships). haha.
and why some people irk me quite fast. it's like u can see weird motives very quickly.

i'm starting to feel that it's a waste of time to spend this extra month in school -_- I've not finished my reports and am trying to do them out of school hours, which i realize is kinda hard because i have other activities occupying my time. lol.
i hope i'm not shortchanging my inmates :\

I've been re-evaluating my own way of doing life ever since I started taking up the job at Feiyue.
Just looking at my own perspectives towards hardship. or money. or life in general.
there're many times i'm put to shame because i would go on a home visit, see the lesser income that they have, yet they're doing their best to support the inmate, as well as support their own children, and parents who need medical treatment. and here i am, having my own income, and spending it away.
i see the consequences of insufficient guidance, or the inmates not having a significant adult figure in their secondary school days, or them being labelled as naughty and nobody to address disappointments that they go through with them, and i wonder if i'm actually doing enough for my students, and sorry that i'm leaving them to the cruelty of the system.
i look at my inmates, and i see not a bunch of people who have committed wrongs, but a group of people who have not had their needs met, and went on to get their needs met in wrong ways.

strikingly similar situation to what I experienced a few years back. hahaa.
not sure if it's a good or bad thing. haha. maybe this is my second test? to see if things fare well after a few years of growth? interesting.

sometimes...
i forget to handpick the things to be concerned about, and become concerned about a lot of things. haha.
how others feel, what others' thoughts are, how to help others grow, how my relationship with others are, whether i've replied to others.
sometimes... i guess i really need to continue to submit things to God's Hands, and to be more concerned about the things i still need to do. haha.
leave the vexing to others, and the pondering to another day!

too much changes going on in my life. lol.
change in lg. and people. and dynamics T_T
change in workplace. which i welcome, but a stressor nevertheless.
change in japanese class teacher, and class itself. nearly forgot about this.
continual change in status of friends, my friends are getting attached, or getting married.

hahaha.
i think it's the first time I've ever dreamed of being on the receiving end of who I am as a person. hahaa. quite interesting. rather therapeutic, but have to guard heart! haha

i tend to think/read/pray/reflect/write down things at night. haha.
but my work forces me to sleep earlier so that i won't die through the day.
can't wait for February when the timing can be more flexible, and I can actually be more productive in my work (i hope).
haha.
there's too little time to think :) i have tons of things to reflect through and make sense of, which i'm unable to do so at this moment cos things like report-writing are occupying my mind :\