Recurring contact lens dreams

There's this dream that I have been having fairly regularly for the last few years. It involves me trying to put on my contact lens, but somehow the lens itself is as big as my face. And since most dreams defy logic, in it, despite it being so crazy big, I'm still trying to shove the lens into my eye.

It's a weird dream, but it's a dream I have very regularly. It's not a nightmare per se, but one of immense frustration and fear as to whether my eye will be fine after shoving something as big as my face into it.

I have no idea what it means or signify. I'm not one to believe in the mystic meanings behind dreams, but I do believe that what we dream somehow reflect something in our lives.

Most dreams I have are nonsensical, ones to be laughed at, ones to make you feel warm and fuzzy, ones to frown at...the memorable ones you talk about, but eventually, you simply forget about it. This recurring dream however, sticks (pardon the pun).

For those who believe that dreams somehow reflect our state of mind, I have to say that whenever I have these crazy contact lens dreams, my state of mind is always different. There are times when I'm stressed, times when I'm happy, times when I'm just, well, me. And yet, I dream the same dream, that of trying to put a ginormous contact lens into my eye.

Strange, but true.

You're Chinese, so...

It truly fascinates me how people assume things simply based on one person's race. Being from Singapore with Chinese heritage and living in Australia, I have been asked/told several things, including:

"So you go to the Chinese church?" followed immediately by "Why not? But you're Chinese," when I say no.

"You should minister/evangelise to the Chinese community."

"You must like this. All Chinese do."

I recognise that people of the same heritage tend to congregate together. It's why we get places like Chinatown and Leichhardt, and have churches catering specifically to say, the Fijian or Samoan communities.

But do you have to tell me what I ought or ought not do, ought or ought not like, ought or ought not be, simply because of the colour of my skin?

Do all Australians hang out at the beach and love camping?

Judge me by my character and personality, not by how I look.

Pamper yourself, you deserve it

It's a phrase that I am hearing more and more of in recent times: "take time out for yourself", "spoil yourself" or something along those lines. While it is not a bad thought in itself, I sometimes wonder if we may have swung too far to the other extreme.

The whole history behind why that phrase came about is because (or so we've been told) people, especially women, spend far too much time looking after their family, putting others first, serving people, that they forget that they themselves need some pampering time too.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a bit of me-time and absolutely love my baths, my mani-pedi sessions (until I caught a nasty fungus from a less than sanitary manicurist), massages and the odd day spa sessions. So believe you me, I'm a huge believer of pampering myself.

But I wonder if that emphasis on looking after oneself may have caused some of us to become more self-absorbed than necessary. When we start looking to ourselves and putting ourselves first, we will eventually forget to think of others.

Has this trend of "spoiling ourselves" caused us to become more selfish and less considerate of others than before?

How Jeff Kennett Beats the Blues

Published in Signs of the Times, November 2010.

pdf available.

And if you're interested, my (almost) complete writing portfolio can be found here.

Pretty hair clips

Oh, so pretty!

 My initial plan to spend most of Sunday outdoors was foiled thanks to the searing heat that made me hastily seek shelter.

So after a short shopping trip to the craft market, I found myself at home with enough time to finally try out the hot glue gun that I had bought a while ago when it was on an unbelievable sale.

Gathering all the raw materials

It took a while for me to figure out the hot glue gun as it was refusing to dispense any glue, but after about 15 minutes and a big dollop of melted glue on a piece of newspaper, I finally figured out how it worked. And then there was no stopping me. I was sticking everything to anything. Well, not really, but it was such great fun!

So now, besides a couple of hair clips as gifts, and one for myself, I have a couple left over for the shop.

Buttons hair clip

Sunshine hair clip

They're $8 each including free postage to anywhere in Australia. Interested? You can own these hair clips.