that facebook post

fashion conscious? eco conscious!

that is a pretty goodlooking jumpsuit right?

and i think i look quite fetching in it =P

i didn't buy it.

despite recommendation from someone with an eye for this kind of thing to "grab it!"..

despite going back to the shop a second time to try it

despite the willingness of hubby-to-be to splurge on it

i am definitely not one who is on the forefront of fashion but once in a long while i do like to dress up when the occasion calls for it. like most girls, i can have quite a lot of fun trying on clothes in a changing room but most times i leave those gorgeous garments back on the rack. one of the main deterrents to making them mine is the cost. although i am also starting to appreciate the fact that higher-end products also mean better quality. a point the hubby-to-be is trying to drill into me..

long before i heard of KonMari, i read about a hack for the wardrobe which made me realised just how many of my clothing are left hanging without being worn even once. moreover, as i become more and more environmentally conscious and learnt how devastating the fashion industry really is, i am more prudent than ever when it comes to fashion.

besides ending most of my fashion-related decisions with a "no", i also started exploring more sustainable options. ethical retailers, rental services, second-hand shopping and clothes swapping are some possibilities. through a facebook group on zero waste, i discovered The Fashion Pulpit. With 2 bags of clothes that no longer spark joy, i finally made my way to this "permanent swapping fashion space".

 

prior to the visit, my expectations were low as shopping isn't my favourite pastime and i had no idea  how much the clothes i brought along were worth. what a pleasant surprise i had! it turned out to be really enjoyable as not only was the space so tastefully decorated and charmingly serene, i received a lot more "points" than i thought and couldn't find enough clothes! even after three rounds of browsing, picking and trying dozens of tops, bottoms and dresses in the spacious fitting room, i came away with 7 pieces of clothing and a leather sling bag which only used up half the points i was allocated!

thankfully, they have a relatively flexible system with a one-time swap option which allows me to freeze the unused points for next time. i really had a lot more fun than i thought. in fact, a little too much fun - the idea was to reduce the amount of clothing i have, i thought i would only come away with one "new" top, not 7 + 1?!?! but i felt like i had money to spare with those extra points and really allowed myself to indulge in some retail therapy without the usual guilt... will certainly be back.. perhaps if and when i need work clothes?

how about you? shop less and swap more... make a difference today!

Haleeom

 
"haleeom!" not even sure if the spelling is correct but it was 
something i heard before the start of every class I attended 
with YICC students during my Advanced Yoga Retreat to 
SVYASA Bangalore. I don't even know the actual meaning of 
it but it probably means something along the line of "Here. 
I am present." as it was what students called out when 
attendance was taken. 

There is something about the sound of it that I really like. 
"ha-lee-om!" including "om" - the origin of universe. Perhaps 
it is the entire Sanskrit language but I just love how calming 
it makes me feel... sometimes I wonder if I was born in India 
in one of my past lives!

India... to be honest, I never thought I would ever visit the 
country. After the various horror stories I heard coming from 
this place, it pretty much became the only Asian country I had 
no desire to visit - and I have always preferred our part of the
world over any Western countries on my yearly wanderlust-fueled 
adventures.

So when I saw the opportunity which combined an advancement in 
my yoga journey and assurance of safety as we would be mostly 
in a protected campus, I practically jumped on it! It could well 
be one of the best decisions I made this year. I cannot imagine 
missing out on the wealth of knowledge I had gained during the 
trip..

I can't say that everything that I heard during the retreat had 
made sense to me. But much of the gems which had struck a chord 
with me or within me were quickly swyped onto my dependable S7 Edge 
and now here they will stay for future reference when necessary. 

Don't intend to expand beyond the short notes I have taken but 
my favourite guru certainly deserves a special mention! Mohan-ji 
is a jovial and approachable man who so kindly invited us to spend 
a few afternoons with him at his humble house. Those sessions were 
the best memories of the entire retreat when he shared his teaching 
selflessly and with a touch of humor too! 

A final note to self: be open to listening to something you think 
you have already heard before. Much of what I learnt during the 
trip was not exactly new to me but from a different teacher in a 
different scenario, I gained invaluable insights.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

*if entire philosophy condenses into one word - love
gross love - gone when not reciprocated
sacrificial love - 
divine love - total surrender

*world possession or pleasures
- mixed with dukha - acquire, preserve, loss - all involved pain
- unsatisfactory - due to always wanting
- makes us dependent - want becoming need

*heat light and colour
eternity knowledge bliss
inner peace

*we are all travellers - time,  space,  causation. aim to be 
travellers of yogic type of mind rather than non-yogic. despite 
wanting our journey to be comfortable but we all have 
attachments - partner, baggage, money. mind travelling faster than 
time. don't let mind be disturbed by external circumstances. just 
an expression leads to physical reactions creating ailments. 
disturbed mind creates disturbances in the surrounding.

*yoga is movement from restlessness to restfulness.

*expect the least without being negative. 

*calligraphy - keep mind and hand at same speed. instead of not 
dotting i or crossing t.. staying in the moment

*indocrine glands secrete chemicals or enzymes directly into 
specific body organ endocrine glands secrete chemicals or hormones 
into the blood stream which circulate through entire body. hormones 
are chemical messengers which are only received by their respective 
target organ receptors. only message is "work harder!" and alter the 
action of the body

*pituitary gland is called master gland because it can control 
other glands..

*yoga poses that simulate glands are gently encouraging them to work 
optimally like giving incentives and benefits to workers rather than 
scolding or beating them to work harder

*like darkness is due to absence of light, anger can only be 
diminished by presence of compassion. 

*principle of body: use me or lose me.

*yoga is hyper extending muscles you rarely use. this causes brain to 
send "new" signals to muscles to relax.  bringing about activation of 
relaxation in entire body. yoga enhances parasympathetic system which 
relaxes the body and improves digestive system. parasympathetic and 
sympathetic systems are functional compared to the nerves and glands 
which are structural. vegas nerve. 

*bee breathing with sound production has additional benefit as person 
pays attention to the sound produced bringing him to the present moment 
which again enhances parasympathetic system. thinking about past or 
future which are stress inducing uses sympathetic system. 

*yoga is the only way to activate parasympathetic system. 
modern medicine has nothing for it.

*one tea spoon of salt to half litre of warm water for kriya water

*laughing yoga: 
hand on throat - hehe
on chest - haha
on stomach - hoho 
cocktail yoga
laugh while looking at one another

*drsujatasinghr.com

*story of missing diamond necklace - importance of awareness that 
we are whole. 

*anything that can be objectified is not me. 

*entire person "zipped" into a seed at deep sleep. last thought 
before that will be first thought when wake up like a seed blooming. 
your last thought at death becomes the seed blooming in next life. 

*gurdjief. happy rich man with no attachments. 

*asana and practices are for people who cannot "see" the path. 
people who can.. just continue their lives "playing a role" but 
they are aware and conscious. significantly changed inside. 

*no lifestyle. only wife style. 🤣

*yoga is to see the de-conditioned the mind, see the world as it is. 

*path of science and religion is the same. to find the ultimate truth. 
science does experiments through external means. yogi's lab is within 
his mind through internal means. 

*Paul Brunton "a search in secret India". problems were not solved, 
they were resolved. all questions dropped. 

*bliss is silence. silence is bliss. yogic mindset is to look within 
yourself to identify what is happening when you are 'happy'. the 
instant when you taste your favourite food there is silence- no thoughts. 

*gross. subtle. causal. 

*urge to live/be immortal/going back to our true nature manifest in
 three ways - have children, have money, have recognition/ fame.  
 
*sleep with awareness so you may wake up with awareness. give 5 mins 
to stay in bed and notice. try not to wake up to an alarm. focus on 
time to wake up before sleeping and you will. 

*have awareness to play your role when in society but be detached 
within. like a lotus in the water. 

*navel region is centre of peace. a-kara chanting strengthens it. 
u-kara chanting makes you full of love for everyone and everything. 
m-kara chanting is for intuition/ sixth sense. 
om-kara for spirituality 

*slow down. not physically but in your mind. quiet down the 
inner dialogue. 

*if mind is fast, start by saying om fast too. it has innate quality 
to slow down. start noticing the gap between two om to get into silence. 

*be & make. be peaceful and you will unconsciously make others around 
you peaceful too.

*wrong things only happen when you are not aware. when you are aware, 
things only go right. 

*three tenets of all religions. charity, love, self-control

Sutras and Aphorisms

Although I have been practising yoga for many years, I only learn of Patanjali and his Yoga Sutras after I embarked on the YICC with Vyasa Singapore. I have always know that yoga is more than just contorting your body into different positions and that was the main reason why I decided to dive deep into the study of yoga but I would never imagine that yoga is that much more. In fact, it feels like it is all.

When the 80 hours theory sessions of YICC came to an end, Master Manoj strongly recommended Patanjali's Yoga Sutras among a few other books. Considering how much content was covered and compressed within those hours, I was inclined to learn more on my own but also because of that brief yet overwhelming introduction, I was unsure if it would really be beneficial knowledge..

So I conveniently let it slip out of my mind until I came across an English translation of it on sale at a book fair. I hesitated on buying it, especially since I know I will easily be able to find online versions of it for free, but I decided to share this serendipitous find with my fellow Vyasa coursemates via Whatsapp. I received 7 requests to purchase on behalf. Ha! It relieved me of the decision to buy one for myself as there were only 5 books left!

However, while the books were in my possession, my curiosity got the better of me and I began to read and copy the sutras and aphorisms word for word, almost. I have never enjoy reading off a screen (thus I never had a Kindle despite my love for reading) and we all know information is better retained (and understood) when written rather than just read. Moreover, I want to practise my handwriting! =P

Over a period of about a week, I wrote down what I read into a blank notebook, marking each sutra and aphorism accordingly, sequentially. I expected not to be able to understand it fully but the choice of terms and excessive mode of writing in this particular book made the content all the more difficult to digest. I thought aphorisms are supposed to be straightforward!?! In addition to the fact that I wanted all of them to fit into the rather slim notebook, I started to summarize and drop phrases where I felt I would not be altering the original meanings.

Thankfully I succeeded in squeezing all 195 aphorisms in. But *horror*, because I was so meticulous about it, I discovered that one aphorism is missing from the book. Somehow, the 18th aphorism of the sutra II is not in the book. [15, 16, 17, 19... where is 18??] And I vaguely remembered that it was mentioned during our course that there are a total of 196 aphorisms??

In some ways, it was as incredulous as reading the Bible. The logical part of me rejects it. Which comes back to the idea of faith. On this point, Master Manoj explicitly pointed out that our education impedes our understanding and acceptance of it... a lot to unlearn for me then. However, it also reminded me of the Chinese period dramas I grew up watching. All the shifus and yaojings doing the exact incredible things as described in the sutras written some 1600 years ago. So this is where all that stemmed from...?

Today, I decided to search for that missing aphorism and found a oh-so-much-better translation of  the Yoga Sutras from the website of The Arlington Center.  Just the very first line read simply:

Now, the teachings of yoga.

vs

Assuredly, the exposition of Yoga, or Concentration, is now to be made.

Now, the former is what I would called an aphorism. Initially, I got a little frustrated that I had copied a version that I did not particularly enjoyed. Many of the terms translated in the second version appealed to me a lot more. Pure awareness, latent impressions, unsurpassed joy are but some examples. 

But as I skimmed through the second version, I slowly realised that rather than one version being better or closer to the truth, knowledge of the two versions has greatly enhanced my understanding of the original sutras. I can only imagine that further reading of other versions of the same text will similarly deepen my appreciation and interpretation of this ancient text. This is a revelation as I rarely reread a book a second time.

As with many of the rest of the aphorisms, I do not find the 18th of sutra II to be particularly outstanding or groundbreaking. I understood each individual term without gaining any insight to the "truth" within it or the necessity of it. However, comparing the two versions, I discovered that my copied version is missing another aphorism in sutra IV! Due to the difference in terms and style of writing, it took me some time before I could determined that the first version had completely skipped the 16th aphorism and only had 33 instead of 34 aphorisms. There are a total of 196 aphorisms in the 4 sutras!

But the object is not dependent on (diversity of thoughts); 

if it were, what would happen to it when nobody was looking?

The phrase within the parenthesis is from the first version as this aphorism is a continuation from the previous one so I combined the two versions for my own better understanding. And this particular aphorism speaks to me. It is a concept I debated within myself before and this somewhat clarifies. But that would be for another blog post.. =)

Really quite enjoying my yoga journey all in all. Just this reading of 2 different interpretations of Yoga Sutras has shown me that rather than looking for and only reading the one "perfect" interpretation, keep looking and keep reading to reach the "perfect" understanding. My neat and clean little notebook will have to be "improved" by ever more annotations.. 

The Proposal

So this happened today.

Honestly, if someone asked me if I will ever get married 5 years ago, the answer would have been a resounding "no". I was such a happy swinging single then, comfortable with my own company and ready for adventure wherever and whenever. Sure, I wanted companionship and even yearned for a special someone to spend my life with.. but marriage to me was non-essential. I was even a little anti-marriage - why do I need a piece of certificate to cement my relationship with the right one?

Thus, the fact that Axel was not keen on marriage was in fact one of the reasons I was attracted to him. Finally, I don't have to date someone who already had the objective of getting married in mind. I don't want to be a duty-fulfilling, child-bearing solution for someone. You want to date me then put that focus on me and us. That probably was the main reason why my dates with men were mostly doomed from the beginning.

Besides our opinion on marriage, Axel and I shared quite some common views and interests. We were pretty happy and contented the way we were but I guess life happens. Unfortunately, life consists of more than just us in our happy bubble, it encompasses interaction with family, friends, society and law and all that stuff which I prefer to distance myself from. But bit by bit, my resistance to the idea of marriage got chipped away that one morning while on holiday last year, as if inspired by a dream, I woke up and decided that 090918 was a beautiful date to get married on.

So apparently, although I was most definitely NOT the one to bring up marriage between the two of us, I was the one who had proposed marriage to my fiance. [He very smugly reminded me today.] Some of my well-meaning friends had previously suggested hello kitty themed proposals to him and personally I would have preferred a flash mob proposal with the man joining in in the dancing before popping the question but... after months of reacting adversely whenever he brought the m-word up, I just decided that if we are to do it, it should at least be done on a unique date.

I can never forget how a friend-and-ex-suitor once related to me that he was getting married. It was a shotgun and there was no proposal and they "decided on this course of action". I remember that moment quite precisely that I shuddered at the thought of a seemingly loveless union. It certainly reinforced my belief that marriage was not for me. How very ironic that my own marriage now is also somewhat the outcome of rational consideration for the pros of marriage.

But wouldn't you agree? that 090918 is a beautiful date?? 9 has always been my favourite number.. in Mandarin it also sounds like "久" which means lasting and who wouldn't want that for their relationship?! I was just that little bit sorry when I didn't had anyone to form a union with on 090909 but hey! 09 + 09 = 18... how perfect right! but alas that date can't be mine. Oh well, our final choice of date is even more special =)

Although marriage is certainly on the cards now, we both still preferred a simple affair without the usual and traditional and often extravagant rituals so I was genuinely surprised when Axel told me he wanted me to have an engagement ring. Venus Tears was actually my suggestion and although I don't really care for diamonds but this bling-bling - I can stare at it all day - especially after finding out how much thought he put into it. Who cares that he didn't get down on one knee....

I AM ENGAGED!

A Bucket Full of Science [2016]

Decided to link some of my old blog posts for one of my Masters module here. I quite like those articles of mine =P was a little worried that they might not be online anymore but it appears that the blog is still alive for the current students so hooray!! so should I "transport" those posts to my own blog instead??

Some of the latest articles look pretty interesting too (want to clarify if Frozen's Elsa is related to Rapunzel? Analyze their eye colours!) looks like I will be spending some time reading them...

Anyway here are the 5 science-related posts I wrote in 2016. I was the very first student of the class to get the ball rolling on the blog. Lecturer praised me on my "courage" but I really just had inspiration to write so I wrote! Really wishing I have as much inspiration and motivation to write this article on cars that had been on the back-burner since March.............

Lucky Stars and Teary Eyes

The first school term of the year is done. And I am so done with it. I really deserve a pat on the back for surviving it. The term has such a negative connotation to it that I hesitate to use it but it is also so apt. Or maybe the first term of the year will always be this way and I just got to get used to it? But anyway this post focuses on the culmination of this 10 weeks.

The last day of school term began with an odd request for all students to report to the hall instead of parade square for our usual assembly. I knew it had something to do with prize presentation for Good Deed Awards which included awardees who found and returned a 20 cents coin. (raised eyebrow) It was a long (and tedious) list and line of students to receive badges from the principal.

Our new principal...I can rave about her all day =) I am her woman through and through (like Harry is Dumbledore's man through and through, get it?) the moment she announced that she will tackle the discipline issue of our school. Every teacher deserves to feel safe! And during our recent FGD session, she revealed (without giving away too many details) that she had something up her sleeves to not just focus on the bad but the good as well..

It was announced that the one and only class which managed to achieve zero latecoming for the entire term was going to be rewarded. What better reward for secondary one kids than........ drum roll please........... Free MacDonalds breakfast! The entire hall went crazy! The atmosphere then was electric and in a good way that one does not often feel in that particular hall...

I really have to give it to her for coming up with the ingenious idea of "Lucky StaRs" - I will never again think of them as just those strips of papers you fold endlessly in my own secondary school days.. She announced that to recognize the other good students who have zero latecoming and no conduct issue, all of their names were collated into a list and out of this list, 3 lucky StaRs were randomly picked to receive Swensen vouchers. *jaw drop*

try and imagine expectant senior citizens standing around a radio as the 4D numbers for the week is announced.... that was exactly the kind of situation we had in the hall as names of deserving students and their respective class flashed across the big screen against a background picture of you-guessed-it folded lucky stars.. held breathes, loud cheers, thunderous claps, big smiles.. it was wonderful to witness it all... and as a fellow colleague had put it.. I had never been prouder to be part of this school.

But that was not what led to the teary eyes.. hmmm...teary eyes were due to the Parent Engagement Session that followed in the afternoon till evening. Mainly. But come to think of it, there had been many more occasions in the past 10 weeks when teary eyes had similarly threatened... which really made me question myself if I am in the right job... how can one says you are a professional when you have trouble keeping emotions in check when you feel it so deeply in the heart.. I want to be there for them so much but am I the right person?

okay... teary eyes threatening again.. signing out.