Kelvin's Musings

Tag: Family

• The reality of aging in the new world order of Covid19

  Posted at 8:30 pm by Kelbungy, on June 3, 2020

  My 86 year old mom fell this morning at my sister’s place.

  She’d been staying there since 2 Apr, even before our country’s COVID-19 circuit breaker pandemic measures kicked in on 7 Apr. As mentioned in a previous blog post, she had been staying with me since October last year when her dementia was official, but she occasionally ‘camps’ over at my sister’s place.

  It’s been challenging for my sister (who’s retired and in her mid-60s) to be caring for her these past two months since movements nationwide were restricted. So in a sense, given my mom’s age, condition, and diminished motor competence, it’s probably already a blessing that she’s been well so far.

  My sister said that she had for whatever reason slept badly the night before so she likely missed a step on her groggy walk to the kitchen early this morning.

  The good news is that according to the examining doctor, nothing on her was injured or fractured. Still, she’s been warded today at the nearby hospital for overnight observations to ensure there’s no internal bleeding.

  The bad news is that this is happening during COVID so it’s really tough in terms of visitations by family members. The visiting hours are extremely limited but strictly enforced. And to top it all off, each time only one person can see her.

  Though I’m confident my still-feisty mother will be back home safe and sound by tomorrow, if not a little bruised on her hip, still the concerns remain: Will she recover fully from this fall? Will she fall again?

  And it makes me reflect on what aging is like in this new world order thanks to this irreversible global coronavirus pandemic.

  The elderly are the most vulnerable and fragile during this period, but eventually, that’s all of us. And a fall is probably particularly frightening, especially if it leads to serious fractures and we end up bedridden and hospitalized.

  And we all know how far more stressful it is these days to be in a hospital!

  I have been having chronic back pains for a number of years now so I understand all too well this whole fragility matter, compounded by unknown viruses that are coming in waves. With each passing year, I have to be more and more careful to act my true age, because everything needs to be done slower and with greater care than ever before. Taking the stairs, going for walks, even just the simple act of getting out of bed in the morning. One careless or false move and the rest of the day could be spent in agonizing pain.

  And lest anyone think lightly of the reality of body and joint pains, and the body’s degradation with each turn, move, or even sneeze….well you might wanna check out this article, or at least take a look at the diagram below to see what goes ‘wrong’ as we grow old!

  

  Best of course if you are or have an elderly person in your circle or network. If not, well it’s not that hard to find and befriend someone nearing the twilight of his/her life in your community. Keeping of course your social distancing, please!

  Stay healthy by all means, but be realistic. The fountain of youth isn’t a real option! Better to have caring people around to support you when you’re old and gray.

  For me right now, I’m just looking forward to bringing my mom back home again once she’s discharged and this pandemic eases.

  Then, at least my youngest can stop asking me: “When can Ah Mah come home?”

   

  Posted in Covid-19 Pandemic, Reflections, Society, Stay Home Dad | 1 Comment | Tagged Aging, dementia, Family, Society

• “Fortitude for Fuel” – musing over First anniversary of my Full-time joblessness

  Posted at 8:32 pm by Kelbungy, on May 27, 2020

  Exactly a year ago today, I said goodbye to my last full-time work, and hello to my second jobless status in 17 years.

  That morning, I completed the requisite paperwork for my departure, said goodbye to the one and only person in the company who was there to “send me off” (the admin manager), and made my solitary way to my favourite Tuesday haunt – an empty sports stadium near my son’s school.

  There, I found myself staring blankly at a running track under an overcast sky. Those tracks seemed almost to mock me that day, reminding me that I’ve been “here” before. The same way a marathoner in training must feel after completing his umpteenth time around that track, with the gray sky above casting a dark and dreary shadow over the track’s red polyurethane surface.

  Back “here” again – the starting point of another 400 meters (a quarter of a mile) of track. Or in my case, “400 meters” of an uncertain future.

  Some 17 years ago today, I was without work and looking at an uncertain future too. But that was a different time. Back then I was still in my early 30s, and feeling unafraid about the prospects of finding work. After all, when you’re in your 30s, you feel like you own the world. You feel like there’s nothing that can stop you.

  Like James Cameron (director of acclaimed movies like Titanic and Avatar) once famously said as he picked up his Best Director Oscar: “I’m the King of the World!”

  Yea, that kind of feeling.

  Fast forward almost two decades and a global COVID pandemic which we’re all still reeling from, and it’s a whole different feeling altogether. Instead of King, I think the more appropriate term is Kid. I felt like that a year ago, a new kid on the block, stepping into an unknown freedom. An unknown future.

  I still feel that way today as I recall that morning at the stadium one year ago.

  Except now I’m busy typing out cover letters, resumes, and filling up multiple fields in online job application portals. Which can take anything from half to over an hour to complete! Hunting high and low for this certificate or that testimonial to bolster my chances, and plowing through endless job websites in search of opportunities.

  Some days I feel like I’m taking control, choosing where to send my stuff to. Some days I feel like I’m out of control, choosing just about anyplace to send my stuff to. Or not.

  Especially when rejections boomerang my applications back. Or worse – silence.

  But even though age is against me now as I turn 50 in five weeks, and the job market is drying up, I trudge on.

  I have to.

  There are still dependents at home who need me to help keep the family afloat. It’s for them that I soldier on, leaving the outcome to God but trying each time to channel more fortitude after each painstaking application I make is met with silence.

  Speaking of “fourth-titude”, our country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister just announced the fourth in a series of “pandemic rescue packages” yesterday. He called it (wait for it) the nation’s……Fortitude Budget. Following the patriotic, nationalistic-sounding Unity, Resilience and Solidarity budgets previously announced.

  It’s nice that I still live in a country where the government has enough in its coffers to barricade us against economic storms like the one this COVID pandemic has stirred, launching one wave of financial rescue package after another.

  For me, it’s restored some confidence that if I’m unemployed, I’m at least unemployed in a country that’s working hard to help every worker find jobs and survive this historical moment.

  But then, at the end of the day, it’s still on me to forge a future for myself and my family.

  So on I trudge, with fortitude as my fuel, towards an uncertain future.

   

  Posted in Covid-19 Pandemic, Reflections, Society, Stay Home Dad | 0 Comments | Tagged Family, Future, Joblessness, Work, Work-life Balance

• How 5 Whys led to 1 Truth: Why my kid prefers to stay home during COVID

  Posted at 8:36 pm by Kelbungy, on May 23, 2020

  At least thrice a week, we take the kids out for a walk. That’s the very least we can legally do during this COVID lockdown period, with masks on of course. Other than the obvious health benefits, it’s something we parents desperately need.

  Who can stay indoors 24/7 with kids without going berserk!

  And let me just say here that, at the very least, it beats the heck out of attending yet another one of those boring 45 to 60-minute sit-in webinars that seriously teach you nothing. Nothing that is, that a one-page CliffsNotes can’t do in under three minutes.

  But out of every three times that we get ready to step out of the house for our family walk, two of those would be spent trying to get Caleb to cooperate and come along.

  For someone who used to enjoy going out, our dear friend has turned into an overnight recluse since the COVID situation began. He would throw the hissiest of fits just so he can avoid leaving home.

  He was at it again this morning, running all over the house to escape our grasps as we try to get him to put on his walking shoes. He would cook up some excuse about needing to find this or that toy first. He would then proceed to insist he must take the toy along for the walk. He would carp that it’s too hot to go out. Too long to complete the walk. Too tiring for his legs.

  In short, he simply refused to leave. Not without one of his now-signature tantrums.

  Finally we had to bring out the big guns, threatening to take away his Osmo Awbie playtime afterward, or his favorite TV cartoon show. I call these big guns the “screentime threats”. The very reasons why kids need to go outdoors regularly in the first place.

  So after yet another one of these dreaded parent-accelerated-aging episodes, I decided to get to the bottom of his objections. I decided to try the famous five whys interrogation technique, with the requisite fatherly hems and haws thrown in for good measure.

  First why. “Ummmm…Caleb, why don’t you want to go out anymore?”

  Answer: I don’t want to sweat.

  Second why: Oh….hmmm…but why don’t you want to sweat?

  Answer: Because then you will make me bathe when we return home.

  Third why: Ahhh…now why don’t you want to bathe?

  Answer: I don’t like to get wet.

  Fourth why: But how can you be clean otherwise? Why don’t you like getting wet?

  Answer: Cos it takes too much time to dry up.

  Fifth why: Oh! Why are you afraid it takes too much time?

  Answer: Because then I have less time at home to play! (complete with a look of exasperation at my incessant tirade of questions!)

  At this point I had to slap my forehead. Of course! With or without Covid-19, there are already far too many fun things to do at home than there are outdoors. This is an imbalanced environment we exhausted 21st-century parents have been complicit in creating in modern times. Thanks in no small part to the big and small screens that’s come along to fill up our lives and keep us busy busy busy!

  So why should we expect any kid to want to step out of the house at all?

  In fact, as studies have shown, few do these days, compared to when I was a kid. Even before COVID, it’s already a common sight to see kids at outdoor playgrounds, but looking transfixed at screens on phones or tablets instead of climbing, jumping, and sliding! (Another forehead-slapping moment)

  If this is the truth in today’s world, then all the more we had better brute-force our kids outta the house every good weather we get, sweat or no sweat!

  So sorry Caleb, but we’ll be going out again.

  Soon.

   

  Posted in Caleb, Covid-19 Pandemic, Stay Home Dad | 0 Comments | Tagged Covid, Covid-19, Family, Outdoors, Parenting, Playtime, Screentime

• Give me Liberty now; Life can wait – Sweden’s Light-touch strategy for COVID

  Posted at 9:41 pm by Kelbungy, on May 10, 2020

  Though brief, it was a little hard to ignore.

  There nestled today among the cesspool of news articles on (what else?) COVID-19 that dominated most pages of our daily newspapers, I saw this sobering piece of news, with a rather eye-popping statistic.

  As of 8 May, Sweden (with a population of around 10.3 million) had over 3,000 deaths because of COVID, compared to its neighbors like Denmark (514 out of 5.8 million) and Norway (217 out of 5.4 million)! So even if you discount for possible variations among countries in the way they compute their numbers, the difference is – to put it mildly -alarming!

  And all because this nordic nation chose a completely different path to tackle this virus, compared to most Western economies. It didn’t impose any kind of lockdown, and the country was pretty much all business as usual, albeit slightly slower than before.

  I decided to find out more.

  I went to several news sites like Al-Jazeera, Bloomberg and CNBC. True enough. Sweden had chosen to take a more relaxed approach towards the pandemic, and its death toll per capita was certainly comparable to the USA, the country that’s the worst-hit right now.

  I investigated just how relaxed Sweden was, and found out that while it:

  1. recommended its citizens to exercise voluntary and responsible social distancing, this wasn’t policed nor enforced. And gatherings of below 50 were still considered fine.
  2. got tertiary institutions to go online for classes, this wasn’t applied to the lower levels. In short, schools for kids below 16 still stayed open as per normal.
  3. cautioned citizens to stay home to work as much as possible (avoiding non-essential travel), it allowed cafes, bars, restaurants and businesses to stay open.

  Given that Sweden continues to remain in the top 10 list of countries worst-hit in terms of deaths per million population, I just had to understand why such a seemingly laissez-faire attitude was adopted and even accepted by its citizens.

  And when you throw in the fact that many of the Swedish victims who succumbed to COVID were the elderly, well surely this must feel like a travesty of the worst kind no? All those deaths might have been prevented, or at the very least kept to numbers more in keeping with its neighbors’.

  To be fair, no country has the upper hand in terms of how their handling of the virus is the best among the rest. For all we know, the Swede’s method to keep it relaxed in order to reach some kind of herd immunity might prove to be the better horse to bet on in the long run.

  Only time will tell.

  So it might still be early days yet to fault Sweden, even though their death toll is predicted to continue on with its current dangerous ascent.

  But still, I couldn’t get over the feeling that Sweden was behaving like a fireman standing in front of a burning house with arms lightly folded, doing nothing to save the people trapped inside.

  And so I decided to research a bit more about its culture, by way of understanding how its societal values might have played a part in this light-touch approach. After all, such issues almost invariably touch on social mores and norms.

  What I found out about the Swedes’ culture (from Vox, an independent research organization based in the UK) were the following:

  • Trust was typically high between the public and the government, both vertically and horizontally.
  • They have no shortage of hospital beds, suggesting a robust healthcare system.
  • Its history and heritage were of the liberal-individualist persuasion; in short, to each his own.
  • The economy was of preeminence, as the country relied heavily on external trade.
  • Keeping things normal was a priority. Quoting a recent statement from the nation’s chief epidemiologist Tegnell who leads the nation’s COVID battle, “people should be able to keep a reasonably normal life.”

  And there, in those last three characteristics, I found my answer.

  Between choosing to save as many lives as possible today, and keeping the economy and people’s daily lifestyles humming tomorrow, Sweden has made it clear to the world which it prefers.

  Certainly, there were many in Sweden who opposed the decision and had spoken up about it. And perhaps, in the long run, the country might come to regret choosing this ‘wiser’ path to “give me Liberty” now (Life can take a number).

  But for now, at least, Sweden seems to be standing firm on its strategy.

  I just can’t help wondering though how its leaders can explain its decision to its grandchildren and future generations.

  That when faced today with a choice to save someone in a house that’s burning now, Sweden chose instead to stand still, with arms lightly folded.

  Waiting for the house to burn down.

  Posted in Advocacy, Reflections, Society, The Good The Bad & The Ugly | 0 Comments | Tagged Coronavirus, Covid, Covid-19, Family, Government, Life & Liberty, Social Experiment, Society, Sweden

• Why I began this – a celebration (and reminder) on my blog’s 1st anniversary

  Posted at 11:43 pm by Kelbungy, on April 25, 2020

  Gosh, I almost missed my blog’s first anniversary!

  Can’t blame me though; it’s been a month filled with anniversaries. My wife and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary on the 1st (nope it’s no April Fool’s joke), and our eldest boy turned 11 on the 8th, inching closer to the potentially tremulous teenage years. 

  In the proverbial blink of an eye, a year has indeed come and gone. And since I started this blog in April 2019, what a year it has been. As I add yet another post now, I look back over the past 12 months and 5 days since my first, and realized that while I started this blog to chronicle my journey as a dad to an autistic kid, it’s morphed into so much more!

  In the past year, my blog has covered topics that included parenting, education, employment, advocacy, and even book and film reviews. I’ve also been writing about my take on what’s been going on in these recent months with Covid-19.

  It’s certainly been an eventful period for a newbie blogger’s humble foray, with no lack of materials and content to palpate and blog. The only thing stopping me when there were long gaps between entries was, well, just me and my inertia.

  As the Gen Z kids would say, “my bad”!

  Fortunately, biting the bullet by paying good money to take on some online writing courses at the end of 2019 has forced me to be more disciplined and diligent. These courses also made me want to pursue writing and blogging more seriously.

  As such, since 2020 started, I’ve managed to upload at least one blog post every week. And I’m also continuing with my target to complete the first vomit draft of my book-length memoir on being a stay home dad by end of June 2020!

  I hope to keep both these writing projects going, and by extension, my writing life flourishing.

  Unfortunately, as I reflect on what I’ve written since taking on this personal blogging project, I’ve come to one conclusion: I’ve forgotten what drove me to create this blog in the first place: my son Caleb.

  Viewing a local play online today was the proverbial kick in the hiney I needed to bring me back to him. You see, in recent weeks, internationally-renowned musicals like “The Phantom of the Opera” have been streamed online for free weekend viewing since no theatres have been allowed to open thanks to Mr Covid.

  Here in Singapore, an established theatre company followed suit this weekend with a ‘re-showing’ of a play they adapted from the States and presented to local audiences four years ago. Called “Falling“, it depicts the struggles of a family living with an 18-year-old son with severe autism. Pangdemonium Productions has always staged high-quality plays and musicals here in Singapore, and this had been one we missed watching back in 2016. So I for one was glad to have the chance to watch it online today for free (Do catch it before the link expires at 1159 hrs on 26 April 2020, Singapore time).

  The play reminded me that there’s still so much I needed to understand about the whole autism spectrum disorder, and how it affects the lives of those living with it. And more importantly and urgently, it reminded me how I must continue daily to intentionally intervene to help further Caleb’s growth and development.

  While we have been so blessed that Caleb’s autism is far milder than Josh’s (the character in the play), how adaptable and independent Caleb can be when he turns 18 in less than 10 years from now, will likely rest on how his parents raise him.

  There is no time to dawdle. There remains the need for me to ‘blog on’ with this unfinished journey I’m taking with him. And in doing so capture important learnings, make this one for the family archives, and share them with anyone out there like us.

  So here’s to more future posts where I share and distill my life with Caleb, and chronicle his life and what he’s continuing to teach me daily.

  Happy 1st anniversary!

  It’s all because of you, Caleb.

  And this is all for you, and your brother too.

   

  Posted in Autism, Caleb, Reflections, Society, Stay Home Dad | 0 Comments | Tagged Anniversaries, Autism, Blogging, Children, Coronavirus, Covid-19, Family, fathers, Life, Love, Parenting, Purpose, Reflections, Relationships, Singapore, Society, Wedding Anniversary, Writing

• Covid-19 – May humanity not be BAU when it’s over

  Posted at 5:19 pm by Kelbungy, on April 5, 2020

  I woke up this morning to a brilliantly-written news article by the editor and managing director of The Statesman, Mr Ravindra Kumar, that was reproduced in our local papers today. He makes a strong case for people all over the world to learn from our current collective experience of Covid-19, and to do things differently henceforth.

  To be clear, this pandemic really isn’t a new thing, though for the generation now living through it, no one would dare say this aloud without receiving derisive looks from many faces, now literally and figuratively masked by fear and anxiety. This, even as people all over the world grapple clumsily with the increased isolation & stress from having to remain home as much as possible.

  Any cursory search online would show that there were far worst experiences of a similar nature in the history of mankind. Each took the lives of at least 1 million people.

  And that’s just the reported cases!

  There was the Great Irish Famine (1845-49) that took away 1 million lives in Ireland; the Asian Flu Pandemic (1956-58) that killed 2 million; and the Black Death in Europe, Africa and Asia (1346-53) that took the lives of at least 75 million (though the numbers might have been 3 times more).

  Just to name a few.

  In each of these (and several others), the crisis easily lasted for more than a year! So there’s every reason now for each of us on this increasingly-fragile planet to be mentally prepared to hunker down and live with this coronovirus for a long time still, maybe even accepting it as part of our daily lives.

  A new norm as it were.

  But Mr Kumar in his excellent piece spoke viscerally that if things revert to “business as usual” (BAU) when the dust settles, then we would have missed a golden opportunity to look within and examine ourselves, and to learn from this experience to change for the better.

  For me, I strongly believe that the first place to start is to have a heart-to-heart conversation with ourselves.

  For that, we need to use these enforced alone times to examine our lives and to see if there are areas that need some ‘housekeeping’. Perhaps a broken relationship in our families that needs mending? A relook or rediscovery of how we see ourselves, others and the world at large, or just our immediate neighbourhood, that maybe we’ve never considered before? The chance to nourish our minds with readings that we’ve wanted to catch up with yet never had the time?

  That is, until now.

  However my concern is that more people will just end up spending even more time than before staring at screens throughout the day and night, on the pretext of work-related matters during official hours, and recreation to de-compress thereafter. And the next day, rinse and repeat.

  In truth, I think all that would be more a case of people avoiding to do the hard work of self-reflection and examination. And believe me, it’s hard work! I’m still uprooting a lot of stuff about myself these last two years (while being a stay home dad) that I have trouble facing up to! I guess that’s primarily why I’ve started writing and blogging again.

  And the best part, or more correctly the worse part, of this whole excessive screen time phenomenon, is that there’s now even more stuff online to hold our attention, including blogs like mine (my sincere apologies if it has actually succeeded in holding your attention up to this point when you might be, oh I don’t know, cleaning out your closet!).

  Without self-discipline, willpower, or even the belief that one needs to ration one’s screen time, it’s basically a no-holds bar situation. Many streaming services are already capitalising on this, including porn sites! Offering heavily discounted and even free access to their content, there’s really very little now that stands in the way of folks and a virtual “good time“. Oh and puhleese, just to be clear (in case you’re wondering), no I don’t check out those sites. I read OF their opportunistic offerings on mainstream media, like everyone else does.

  Anyway, I can only hope that people everywhere will prove my concern about excessive screen times, and Mr Kumar’s less-than-veiled cynicism about BAU, misplaced.

  Meanwhile, I’m going to waste no time in continuing to palpate the unexpected gifts of these precious isolation moments with myself, and my wife and kids. Heck, haven’t these past two years been my “on-the-job-training” for just such a time as this?!

  And of course, through my writing here, I hope to keep figuring out what the signs of these times mean, so as to share my gleanings whenever I can, especially if they have universal appeal and application to help us all get through this (often) less than perfect life.

  So until my next blog, sanitise your hands regularly; wear a surgical mask whenever you can; and stay at least one metre apart physically (but please not mentally, emotionally nor spiritually) alright?

  And stay fit and healthy both indoors, and if legally possible, out!

  Posted in Advocacy, Reflections, Society, Stay Home Dad, The Good The Bad & The Ugly | 0 Comments | Tagged Choices, Coronavirus, Covid-19, Family, Life, Pandemic, Reading, Relationships, Significance, True Worth, What is Normal?, Work-life Balance

• Living with Daily Defiance

  Posted at 6:36 pm by Kelbungy, on March 12, 2020

  Want to know how mind-slammingly hard it can be living everyday with kids? How about with a kid that ‘gets it’ but also doesn’t ‘get it’?

   Let me explain.

  You see, it’s kind of hard working with children who have special needs like my Caleb. With him, it’s always a fight to transition to doing something different. It’s not that your neuro-typical kids aren’t also a handful. Of course parents all over the world have had to fight constantly when it comes to asserting their ideas and opinions and plans.

  But this post really isn’t about that as much as it’s about the actual struggle.

  With Caleb I often find that it’s both predictable and unpredictable. But when it happens, it will happen over a longer-than-I-would-like period of time! And it just shreds my patience to bits and pieces.

  Like his eating.

  He just doesn’t understand that simply staring at the clock will not stop time. So, even though he’s still many many mouthfuls away from finishing his dinner at 7.30 pm as agreed, in order to be granted his TV cartoon time, he won’t make it if he doesn’t consistently put spoon to food to mouth, but stares blankly or chats incessantly!

  Like his morning routines.

  He doesn’t realise that if he doesn’t decide in the next minute what toy he wants to bring out for his daily car ride to school, we will be late. And despite several warnings and attempts to have him decide earlier, even the night before, if the little man decides to change his mind right there and then as we’re about to put our shoes on and step out, then the tussle begins.

  Like his insistence I drive only along a particular route to school.

  Just so he can see his favourite coach park site located along the highway, or have Google Map announce out loud his favourite “bear right (then turn right)”. One day is fine. Two, cute. But everyday?

  Like his bathing routine.

  His insistence on standing naked in the shower waiting for instructions on how to bathe. And all the while humming/singing his favourite cartoon tune, or reciting what he recalls Google Map uttered that morning. At nine years of age, he still needs someone to be in the shower with him to help because he just can’t rub the soap on hard enough or reach places like the back of his shoulders. And if no one is there to supervise and bark out instructions, he will just stand still. Or he will just rub and rub the same few spots on his body over and over again.

  And even when he gets out, he needs constant reminder on thoroughly towelling himself dry, otherwise he will just stand still stark naked, dripping wet, like he was waiting to catch his death of cold.

  I could probably go on and on to list down all the areas that he clearly frustrates the heck out of me, his stay home dadd. I really don’t want to stay home every day of my life if this is what I have to deal with every single time. From homework to road safety awareness to social norms, he is just not responding to our various attempts to help him learn what he must to survive in this world.

  And so there are days when I feel like I just want to wrap my fingers around his neck to shake and throttle him, as though by doing so I can really knock some sense into him and we can finally see some progress.

  I know all too well how ridiculous I sound, but you wouldn’t think so if you were me, living everyday with someone who only wants to move to the beat of his own drum. It’s almost like he’s managed to completely tune me out at times. The things coming out of my mouth are just falling into empty space, making me wonder sometimes if I did actually say anything at all, so clearly unresponsive he is. And I know my son has good listening. He can hear thunder in the distant skies long before any of us, and he can even hear what we’re saying about him even when we’re in the next room from him, and speaking in quiet soft tones.

  But I realise too that this is my lot as Caleb’s parent. Often times I’m so focused on changing his behaviour that, in truth, I’m not really sure if I’m doing it for his own good or for my own preference and convenience. I often suspect it’s the latter. Because this is how we shower, this is how we eat, this is how we choose how long we need to pick our favourite toy. But when you’re dealing with someone like Caleb, you must be ready for a fight every time if he is every kind of stubborn that we experience him to be every day.

  And that’s just who he is. He has his logic, his reason. And the sooner I come to accept that, the sooner I can start to work with him, get his buy-in eventually and let peace be restored in the household.

  But first, I must change. I must recalibrate my expectations and I must give him more time and space to adjust, because he just takes longer than most people. And most people was probably not what God had in mind when He made Caleb.

  Yep, that mind-slammingly hard!

  Posted in Autism, Caleb, Reflections, Stay Home Dad, The Good The Bad & The Ugly, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged Acceptance, Autism, Caregiving, Disappointments, Family, Fatherhood, Parenting, Society, Spirituality Family Parenting, Stay Home Dad

• Three Strikes and You’re In!

  Posted at 9:16 am by Kelbungy, on January 14, 2020

  Call it a social experiment but here’s what I plan to do in 2020. Or rather what I’m NOT going to do in 2020.

  I’m NOT going to initiate any meetings or get-togethers with anyone, except maybe BK, BL or KL.

  Why those? Well one’s an old friend of 31 years, single and based in Hong Kong, visiting Singapore only once or twice a year; another’s a recent widower; and the other’s a fellow stay home dad with depression. In short, they are people in genuine need of companionship but are unlikely to initiate get-togethers on their own because…well just because.

  Everyone else. Well, here’s where it gets interesting.

  I’m going to flip the conventional “three strikes and you’re out”, and instead, make it “three strikes and you’re in”.

  So how this works is if any friend reaches out to me the first time, I’m going to ignore and not reply. Most don’t call anymore these days; texting’s the dominant mode of communication. So just have to pretend to miss the first text. Easy enough really, since I can always say I didn’t see it or I had been busy with other more pressing messages to respond to, and overlooked it. And even if they actually call, I will not pick up. Again, not unusual to do so. Missed calls happen all the time.

  Strike 1.

  The second time they contact me, I’ll hold off replying immediately. Instead, I’ll wait a day or more before replying to ask what’s up. Then, when they reply to that, I’ll again wait a bit to reply, this time maybe a week. Likely I’ll not be bothered again for a while.

  Strike 2.

  But if this same friend after all that still reaches out to contact me one more time, then this time, I’ll reply almost immediately or within the same day, apologise profusely and offer to set up a time to meet-up. Assuming this friendship hasn’t been ripped yet! Crossing fingers it’ll not be, since he/she bothered to try again a 3rd time.

  Strike 3. You’re in.

  Why all this dramatic subterfuge you ask? Well I want to know once and for all who my true friends are. I think I’m justified to do this, given that I turn half-centurion this year. And given that up until last year, I’ve always been the one initiating contact with people I thought were my friends. So surely that entitles me to know now once and for all who my true compadres are at this advanced stage of my life, right?

  And I also want to move away from relationships where people don’t need or value me, or that I’m really not all that important, since they barely bother to get in touch anyway. Instead, I can then focus my limited energy on people who need me, people who value me, and who believe I am someone they want to stay in close regular contact with because they really care for me.

  Cos quite frankly, I find people who make empty promises of wanting to meet but never actually making the appointment, shallow. They really aren’t worth my time at all. And since clearly the feeling is mutual, then let it be that. It’s like that friend we bumped into during the National Day holiday weekend in August last year. We remarked about getting together at his place end November or early December so his teenager son can coach my preteen boy on drawing skills and techniques.

  It’s now mid January of the brand new year. Nothing, nada. And mind you, it was his idea to get together, not mine.

  Some friend eh?

  For me, words mean very little these days. People will patronise you with inane stuff like “oh let’s catch up soon”, or “ya we really need to get together”, or “let’s meet up for coffee some time”. But since I never hear from them again, you wonder if they even meant it in the first place.

  You might argue, but that doesn’t mean friends don’t care, they just forgot in the midst of their busyness. Really? Being busy means we have the licence to make light of what we say in an effort to sound friendly and hospitable? Like those hi byes you hear all the time in busy office corridors?

  Sorry but I’m not buying that. And I’m not gonna let it happen in my world anymore.

  Words count people. Words matter.

  And yes, you probably think that I’m being too harsh, even nit-picky. But ask yourself this: have you ever been stood up before, or hear about a close friend or family member’s experience of being stood up, and felt even a twinge of frustration or irritation for yourself and for them? Well, that’s what I’m rallying against here. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that people weigh what they say or promise before they say or promise it to someone. It’s just plain, simple courtesy. And don’t tell me it’s just something that everyone else says all the time. Why, don’t you have a mind of your own? Are you not able to be in control of your own words that issue from your own mouth?

  So here’s to 2020 and my little social experiment. Hopefully by the end of this year, my findings from this will make for a scintillating blog post.

  Can’t wait!

  Posted in Reflections | 0 Comments | Tagged Family, Friendship, New Year Resolutions, Promises Kept, Social Experiment, Society, True Worth, Words Matter

• 2020: Stitching. Shrinking. Slowing. Sleeping. Silencing. Singling. Searching. Seeking. Surrendering. Saving. Surging. Surpassing.

  Posted at 1:34 pm by Kelbungy, on January 1, 2020

  On this the first day of 2020, I’ve decided to break down here what I plan to do with it.

  For starters, I will prioritise writing on a daily basis, five days a week (Tue – Sat), 750 words each day. No exceptions. I know I’ve said this on numerous occasions, but it’s gotten to a point now where I’ve a better picture of what I want to write, and a useful structure (a memoir) to place it in. So no more excuses. 

  I will write. And by end of May, I hope to have a 300 page first (vomit) draft manuscript! Fingers crossed!!

  Secondly, I will have to spend more time reading since it begets writing. The stuff I plan to read will most likely first be research on my memoir argument, then other recommended memoirs, then the rest. I do also hope to read two classics: Mere Christianity and The Pilgrim’s Progress, but I’m less hopeful I’ll achieve that cos their language is so….old!

  Thirdly, I need to seriously begin this year with its end in mind, ie Christmas 2020. By then, I hope to be more outreach-ready for the season. I am so sick and tired of dreading December because of my inaction all these years. But I’m of course very much mindful that it’s His plan in the end. Still I don’t want to rest on my laurels. Just because of the setback with X last year, it doesn’t mean that I should quit. It just means I have to be more careful, intentional and plan for it, always of course covering such life-and-death matters in God’s hands. I still dread family, but logic dictates that they’re the lowest hanging fruit, so…still it’s never just about logic. And in actual fact, mine aren’t that low-hanging!

  But bottomline remains – I must plan for Christmas now, and not wait til December. 

  Fourthly, I must have a game plan executed for paid work in 2020/1 that doesn’t just rely solely on my current teaching engagement. So over the next six to ten months, I best explore and send out resumes. I would very much like to teach somewhere in something I enjoy, but I’m also more practical now and see teaching as just a means to a pay check. So as long as there’s pay, and the schedule fits, I will take on whatever comes my way, and not nitpick. Can’t afford to as I’m aging and aren’t so employable anymore. Since I have my memoir writing as my passion pet project for the next 3-5 years, I can fall back on that as my go-to “happy place” so to speak, and thicken my skin to see teaching as just a job, something to help put food on the family table and keep us financially afloat.

  Next, I have to accelerate my role as intervener to help Caleb scale up in his social, emotional and life skills. Still planning to be predominantly a stay-at-home dad this year, I must really give more attention to helping him. As for Jaedon, it’s his penultimate year of primary school, and likely his busiest as he and his classmates will undergo a lot of major preparations study-wise for THE major national exam end 2021 (yes, here in stressful Singapore, preps for it always starts two years ahead!). So I gotta be around for him too. Which may also mean that I have to start reading up and learning all about (*gulp*) his curriculum!

  I also would like to commit at least 15 mins daily to tinkling the little ivories on my electronic keyboard. It’s been 5 years now since I bought it, but just look at how little I’ve progressed! I can’t fulfil my dream of playing for my family if I continue to procrastinate. So while I can’t afford formal lessons anymore (unless I return to full-time work), I should at least go check out free tutorials on Youtube. I owe it to myself to fulfil the dream of being more musical. Just singing well isn’t good enough. It never has been, and I’ve always felt the gap keenly.

  Finally, I really hope to sleep better this new year. My sleep was so horrid last year. Need to do better. Waking up at 4 nearly every morning really isn’t helpful. And no, I still have no idea why I do that. Could be stress and worry I suppose, since I’m a worrywart. Of course it’s quiet enough for me to write at that early hour of the morning, but it means that for the rest of my waking hours, I will feel more like a zombie!

  Oh, and one more thing. This blog’s title is in keeping with my theme for 2020, or rather how I intend to shape my blog titles every last day (and first day) of every year hereon. For this one, the adjectives are progressively hopeful as you read from start to end. It’s a continuation of my 35th and last blog entry title of 2019 (posted yesterday of course). Yes, 2019 was a lousy year for me overall, with more brickbats than bouquets. Thanks to it, I’ve decided to ‘shrink’ myself this year and fade off into the woodworks so to speak, in hopes of avoiding any blows like those I were dealt with last year.  Cutting time on social media would certainly be one thing I must do this year to aid in this endeavour. In fact, after my last post this morning, I hope not to post anything on Facebook til 31 Dec 2020!

  Hopefully this year I may also be able to find meaningful times with true friends who need me. And whom I need. And whom we’re mutually invested in each other’s lives and well-being, starting with my catch-up time with BK mid Jan. Well, at the very least there is always Jesus. Oops, that sounds kinda disrespectful haha…Jesus, of course You are always my number 1 “go-to” guy. Always.

  So here’s to 2020! May it reveal a perfect 20/20 view for me to wax lyrical about a year from now!!

  Posted in Reflections | 0 Comments | Tagged Family, Fatherhood, Friendship, Manhood, Meaning, New Year Resolutions, Reading, Sleep, Society, Spiritual, Writing

• 2019: Slighted. Shaken. Stirred. Slapped. Smacked. Stricken. Sidelined. Sleepless. Sunk. Stung. Stunt.

  Posted at 9:26 pm by Kelbungy, on December 30, 2019

  Yes, as I look back on this soon-to-be-old year, these words just seem to naturally float to the top of my mind. Goes without saying that this hasn’t exactly been a great year for yours truly. If given a choice, I would certainly wish to erase it and start all over.

  I honestly hate to get into the details of why I say these adjectives describe my year in review. After all, to get into the details would require of me to revisit many parts of this year I would much rather forget. For instance, it would require me to return to the day I tendered my resignation back in May, confirming to myself, my bosses/colleagues and the world (if it cared to notice), that I’ve failed miserably to transition into the private sector from academia. Many would probably have wisely warned me of the futility of such an attempt in the first place, if they thought for a second stubborn old me would listen.

  It would have required of me to talk about why I failed, how the job was a poor fit for me (or rather I was a poor fit for it), and how crushed I felt to have to throw in the towel after less than 15 months on the job. It would have required of me to expose my fault lines and missteps, my numerous incompetent attempts at mastering the tasks I undertook, and of the humiliation and frustration I carried with me almost daily. Sounds bad right?

  And what other details would I also wish to forget in 2019 you ask? Well how about offending someone religiously? Didn’t think I would make that faux pas, but I think in my defence, it was a ‘trap’ of sorts that I walked right into. X set it up for me and I fell right in. I mean, while I shouldn’t blame myself if indeed it was an intentional trap, I can’t help but wished that it didn’t happen to me. After all, I’ve always been against proselytising, and to my credit, I wasn’t really doing that with X. After all, he was the one who voluntarily asked that I accompany him to visit a church right? He was also the one who wanted to know what all the fuss a small group of Christians were kicking up about when a Norwegian (?) black metal band came to town, a band known in that part of the world for lots of dark, satanic lyrics in their songs. So I was just helping to clarify in what little way I could right? At no point did X let on that he was actually inclined towards Buddhism, not until I realised that my offer to invite him to my church (after accompanying him to the one he asked me to) was to him ‘proselytising’ and offensive. 

  To be honest, I felt so betrayed by that experience. So much so that I clammed up and ceased contact. Will continue to avoid contact at all cost since I do not wish to be wrongly accused again. Once bitten twice shy isn’t just a cliche.

  Then there was this last month of the year. Coughing almost all the way through sucked. Caleb needing surgery for biting hard on his tongue (again) also sucked. Most of all, feeling empty and meaningless over the Christmas period sucked big time. Christmas was supposed to be one of my most favourite times of the year, and yet I somehow felt that it has increasingly become soul-less and purposeless for me over the years. I guess I just did not plan for it well in advance. So once again, it became just another time of getting together with family and friends to feast and celebrate a public holiday during a month that most are typically off work and clearing leave. It just lacked any kind of meaning as to why we observe this season to begin with. Where is the outreach effort? Yes, I was told my wife’s church cell group did invite a few pre-believing relatives and friends for that Christmas eve party we attended, but really where were the conversations taking place? Apart from the eating, drinking and carolling, I didn’t see any significant discussions happening, and I was keeping a lookout mind you.

  And don’t even get me started on the annual Christmas Day party my wife throws for her family at our place. It’s just lots of eating, drinking, talking about material possessions and toys, etc. Yes the son performed his violin. Yes the wife shared a little about what the season means for us. But so what? Nothing much else happened that really made me feel like there was meaning in this season. And the worst thing was finding out that my memory was in error about an old friend of mine who accepted Christ in his early 20s. I had thought it was I who led him to Christ. I was wrong. Yep, what a feather to cap off this Christmas!

  So, no I don’t really want to go into the details of why 2019 sucked for me, and why all these adjectives are all I can think of when asked to describe the year in review. 

  I just want 2019 to go away and let the new year come, and new hope reign in 2020. So that by this time next year, my blog entry to end the year will look vastly different from this one.

  Good riddance 2019! Blahhh….

  Posted in Reflections | 0 Comments | Tagged Career, Christmas, Disappointments, Evangelism, Family, Friendship, Health, Reflections, Society, Year in Review

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