What Should I Do With My Life?

That's the title of the book I'm reading. It's a collection of stories of how people are in various stages of deciding what to do with their lives, finding meaning and purpose. Each story is a few pages, and the author tries to weave in themes that he sees coming out from all these people he meets.

I must say that the stories do unlock one's mind, and it gave me perspectives that I did not consider before. I always end up putting myself into the shoes of the person in question, and trying to identify with the situation. The last story I just read was about how a woman gave up a job offer which would have doubled her salary, to pursue her childhood dream of being a landscape gardener. The job offer forced her to relook what she was doing in life. She knew if she took the job, it'd just be for money and not anything else. It made her realise that she was not after money in life, and she just wanted to do something that made her happy. Oftentimes we see money as the means to that end - to be able to afford to pursue something that makes us happy be it to bum, open a business or study. But once we get caught up in the pursuit of money, often that overshadows whatever original goal we had.

I thought about my childhood ambitions. Did I have any? I know that I was never the sort who grew up with a conviction to be something (there are stories about that too in the book), but I do remember wanting to be a fashion designer at some point, fashion merchandiser and also make-up artist at another. In my late teens, I think I also wanted to be an interior designer and a chef. While these never really lasted or developed into strong ambition, the stories have made me dig up these memories and realise that there is a common thread among them - that they are all jobs in the creative field, vocational in nature requiring some sort of a skill. They are not money-spinning, highly intellectual jobs in the corporate world.

My fear though, is that my talent does not match up to my passion. That whilst I may wish to pursue these things, I will inevitably fall short. Fear of failure, in our success and qualification driven society. Maybe I belong to the category of people who are good at what they do not like, but like what they are not good at.

I tell myself that these questions and fears would be best answered and confronted if I actually act and take a step in that direction that I have always felt tugged in. No more sitting around and just agonising over what could be.

Now I just need someone to bankroll me.

Names Names Names

After a few days of brainstorming, though most of them were thought of at Klee earlier tonight with JW, I've shortlisted some names that could be used for a wedding planning & design service. Which one's better?? Pls take the poll!

Pretty Productive

So today I didn't work. The end of the year marks the start of all the leave-taking. I had intended to make some more macarons using the italian meringue method (since I rushed to buy a candy thermometer last Sat) but got a little sian. Been baking quite a bit in the past week so thought I need to venture into other things. Evidence of my recent baking adventures below - Chocolate Mint Cupcakes for baby Victoria's one-month & P's bday, and Salted Caramel & Peanut + Chocolate Halloween Macarons (no it's not yellow but supposed to be orange the picture is lying).


I settled my insurance, renewed my road tax and got my teeth cleaned. In between, I also plonked a whole bunch of money into my flower course. Yeah, I've decided to restart my flower classes and this time, I went the whole hog and decided to sign up for a Professional Certificate in Floristry Development. Yeah, pompous sounding name I know but it sounds more cheem than it really is. I do hope I can get some mileage out of it, more like an investment for the long term. Well, at least that's how I convinced and reasoned it to myself.

Spent the past few hours surfing online d-i-y craft/wedding/flowers stuff. There are quite a lot of craft studios coming up in Singapore. I know of the usual scrapbooking places, but didn't know there were places where you could go to sew, bead, paint, make pots and what-have-you. Think I'll check some of them out one of these days. If anyone's interested, do check out the links below.

Workshops/Studios

• Creative Escape
• Knottie Bicsie
• Canvass
• Pauseability

Other Resources

• Craftholic - really good online/print mag on all things crafty, which is where I got the above links from.
• Our Craft Place - online shop selling scrapbooking stuff

I should really sleep in case I've forgotten I still have to work tomorrow.

I Need Detox from Retail Therapy

I've done great damage to my wallet. I think I was a mad woman on the loose this week. I bought 10 dresses. Yes, ten. T.E.N. 10. In like 4 days. Plus a whole bunch of other things. I'm like SUPER BROKE. This is not good. Sigh. I can't keep just buying stuff, I probably already doubled my wardrobe in the last few months. Clothes are spilling out everywhere. I don't even dare to take stock of my stuff.

Someone save me. I need to detox from shopping. NO MORE SHOPPING FOR THE NEXT MONTH. Well, at least until Christmas shopping starts.

Oh, and yay, detox is finally over! Good job to all my fellow detoxers, we did well. I errrr feel more energetic and healthier, I think? Oh definitely am not so dependent on caffeine anymore.

Random Thoughts and Wants

I should drive more often with the top down, except that it's raining all the time these days. The stupid insurance is also getting so expensive that I'm thinking of selling the car. Bah.

Went shopping for a digital kitchen weighing scale yesterday after I was overcome by a sudden urge to replace my current lousy one that I blame for the weird mooncake proportions. I wonder when I'm actually even going to use it. I picked up a baking tray, frying slice along the way and decided that I need to get (someday) in no particular order:

- metal measuring spoons
- Le Creuset pots
- handheld torch for scorching sugar
- oven thermometer
- candy thermometer
- food processor & spice grinder, preferably together
- coffee machine
- ramekins and other nice flatware

I blame these retail impulses on the detox. Since I can't eat, I shop. Free smells at home right now, parents bought duck noodle soup. They bought prata 2 days ago (since when did they start buying food home??). You only start noticing all these food surrounding you when you can't have it. The crackers that are lying on the table you pass by everyday in front of a colleague, the donuts someone bought that you wouldn't have eaten normally cos they're too sweet, every vegetable and fruit screaming your name as you walk into a supermarket.

Actually today was much better than yesterday. I was only tempted by the muruku that my colleagues kept offering to me to tempt me, even proceeding to shower my feet with them (ok I exaggerate but a mountain of muruku did end up on my feet).

The UBS Verbier Chamber Orchestra was not bad, better than I expected since 1) the people I was supposed to host didn't turn up so I didn't have to talk to anyone, 2) I didn't fall asleep despite being super hungry and low energy! Similar to after watching ballet last week, I once again felt sad that I did not have an artistic talent, or just a talent that I can build upon to become one of the best in class. It was amazing to see people who dance or make music as their career. Following their passion, being the best that they could be for the world. And making the world a better and more beautiful place through music and dance.

My thoughts drifted to whether I could develop something I enjoy doing into a talent and make a living out of it. Flowers? Cupcakes? Cooking? Somehow they just don't seem to be substantial enough, both in terms of my interest and ability in it, as well as impact to people.

Oh well. Let's just finish this detox first.

Loveliness

I forgot why I loved weddings and beautiful things. I had stopped visiting those lovely blogs over on the right in the past few months as my mood got worse and work got crazier. But tonight I took some time out and was looking through some of the wedding blogs on my google reader and realised how much I missed beautiful pictures, lovely things and all that emotion and happiness that are captured at a wedding.

I hear of people planning weddings (their own), and venturing into wedding planning (others) and I still ask myself the same question as I did before - will I ever? Guess I still don't have the answers to either but maybe if I start surrounding myself with love and pretty things and inspiration, maybe one day I will.

Zhong Qiu

It's been a while. Happy Mid Autumn everyone. Did some fun activities over the weekends. Been in a mooncake making frenzy. The first attempt didn't turn out too good, but the subsequent ones were much better.

Went prawning last night as well, caught zero prawns, bah. But it's addictive - cos I can't get any. So I feel like I need to buy more time in order to get something. Definitely a gambling addict in the making.

Today had a cookout at JW's place, together with another friend. I must say I'm quite impressed with ourselves. We made a starter of pumpkin soup, an entree of miso-glazed cod on a bed of sugar snap peas and honmeiji mushrooms and grilled garlic butter prawns and an apple pie with vanilla ice cream! After our yummy dinner, we acted like kids and went to carry lanterns around her estate, we even had sparklers.

Pics are over at Flickr since I've been actively taking pics with my new G7. Paris, Valencia pics are there too.