After I had invloved quite some time on preparation, I am so glad to see this Makaton Workshop finally happened. As one of the training organisers, we funded all the catering and venue out of my program. I did most of shopping yesterday, then did lots of chopping up and washing, making mini muffins, doing a BBQ and preparing a big fruit platter.

Besides, I had to sway the skipping rope to entertain kids. They are cute, beautiful and so adorable, but they are a group of people who don’t know how to stop. Obviously I couldn’t catch up with their energy. They just constantly need to be engaged with all sorts of activities. They asked questions, told you stories about their siblings, running around, always speaking with the tone of excitement that I haven’t experienced since probably 20 years ago. To be honest, at the end of the day, I can’t help thinking “My God, am I already too old for this?”

However, I really enjoyed learning all the signs and gestures. Now I have memorised all the signs for fingerspelling letters. Also I have learned some basic signs for daily life. Remember there was a news program in BCTV with a lady doing sign language at the same time back to many years ago when I was in China. I had never thought it would have anything to do with me. Now I feel this so useful if I need to communicate with anyone who is non-verbal, has speech problem or hearing impairment.

By the way, there is an official website of Auslan. You can search in their Sign Bank to look up the words that you want to express. Very useful resource if you are interested in knowing more.

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The 11 days holiday is over. 2 days ago when I was still in the status of sleeping-in every morning until 9:30am, I had imagined how I would struggle to get myself up on this Monday morning and walk to my office in a dreaming mood. It turned out not as hard as I had thought. I noticed that I was still capable of shooting myself off the bed at 7:30am sharp like a parachute being ejected, and I certainly still can remember how to pull the strings at the work

To be honest, I had never been so slack with my holiday times. The whole 11 days, I only went out one day to Sydney and a couple of occasions for groceries shopping. I slept a lot but didn’t eat and cook much. I have never been so low productive and so thrifty in my whole holiday life , which means I didn’t spend a lot of money. But at the end of the holiday, I do feel refreshed and looking forward to seeing what things would happen in 2009.

People asked me if I did want to come back to work, I said “no”. But for most of us, do we have a better place to go to make living other than our workplace? I think we all know what answer would be slipped out from our mouths, no matter how long you would hesitate.

Well, I have new things to do at the work this year, something not exciting enough to compare to my hobbies, but interesting enough to make out my time, channel part of my passion and yeild some positive fruit to feed others. And you?

The only place that we visited in this holiday
Boathouse by The Lake.

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One of my colleagues rang in this morning saying that she just had a baby boy last night on her bathroom floor at home. The labour went on for about 2 hours while at the same time they got ambulance come in and finally took her from Captains Flat to the Queanbeyan hospital.

It doesn’t sound shocking at all, does it? Now, listen to the next part of the story. NO ONE in this office KNEW she was going to have a baby and as a matter of the fact, no one knew she was pregnant in the past 9 months, neither did she tell anybody about this. Some experienced people (definitely not me) had their suspicions once or twice as they noticed her belly was popping up differently (Mind you she is a tall big lady), but no one ever asked her about it.

Yesterday afternoon, I clearly remember that me and her were working on our Xmas decoration in the office. We put up some tinsels and lights for our windows. She was happy and just acted as she usually does. 3:30pm she said “it’s the time for me to go home”, and I said “see you tomorrow” and “have a good night”‘, now it seems she would never come back.

So, you think this is still normal for a woman to do this sort of thing? Okay, find a chair and sit right because you are about to listen to the next part: Believe it or not, this is the second time she did this!!!!! Last time was 3 years ago when I was not here. She started labour right in our office. The water broke and one of senior person, who is also a RN, drove her to the Queanbeyan Hospital. Nobody in the office knew she was pregnant (though they had their suspicions) like exactly what happened now. Her partner, the father of the baby was away in Northern Queensland gone fishing. She had nothing for this new born baby, no clothes, no nappies….nothing. Her partner didn’t know she was pregnant and when people asked her about it before that, she denied. She even told everybody that she didn’t know either and she was still having her periods.

How could she not know? She is a RN as well and a mother of two at that time. There is no logic way not noticing such a change in your own body. But it really made me feel extremely confused about why people would do such things? Why she didn’t want to let her own family, her partner, her parents or her kids know, to share the joy, or to get involved with such a big coming event? Why didn’t she want us to know? We could have been so supportive and looked after her well in the workplace. There are plenty of people in this office love babies, old enough to be grandmothers or enjoy helping her. Why? Why? Why? The youngest person in this office is 31 years old. She was as shocked as I was, and she told me that she probably needs a bit of counselling to comprehend this, I think so do I. Seriously, I really don’t understand any bit of it.

Anyway, we went to the hospital to see her this morning. The baby is beautiful, got blond hair, blue eyes and fair skin. The mother looked okay and healthy. But she told one of my colleagues that her husband was crossing anger with what had happened as he didn’t know. To be honest, I don’t think her kids knew this either. Her 13 yo daughter sat there looking shocked as well and I am not sure she would feel okay about all that had happened with her mother in the past 12 hours. She slipped the words out “I am not going to have babies” in the conversation.

After I got out of the hospital, I started to turn those shocking to some sadness. Yes, I felt very sad for her. Certainly at the end of the day, that’s her choice to be like this. People normally celebrate a new life and appreciate it, but in what way my colleague would have any of these feelings if she kept it to herself and made it totally a secret from people who knows her, loves her and lives right in her life? I don’t know. Maybe I made it a too big deal. But I don’t see having a baby is supposed to like this….like a dream, a click, then it’s all done….

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If I didn’t or couldn’t bother thinking about her little “fantasy” too much, I have to say that I really started to get the point when we were driving through the town, seeing all those gorgeous old buildings and finally stopped in front of one of the girl’s orphanages.

My God! I was speechless. A gorgeous building with broken windows, grass growing wildly everywhere in the front yard and a big white whatever lady sculptur attached on the outside of the front wall of the building, neglected, abandoned and lonely. I can’t help imagining when it was the time when there were orphans living in this place, how the garden would have looked like, and the sounds that were made by girls and harsh teachers and how children were running around in this place…..pretty much a scene for Charlotte Bronte’s book Jane Eyre.

It actually made me feel quite sick when thinking of these. I mean the possible history of an old building which had been closed down 30 or 40 years ago makes you sometimes feel quite frightened. A building like this can be very scary and full of bitter stories. We all know there is an obvious history of orphans in institution cares being abused and mistreated in many countries, even in those church funded facilities. Who wants to reflect that? To those orphans who had gone through those miserable things, here would be certainly a heart-breaking place to remember and would be very hard to be removed from their lifetime memories. The place they used to call it a home….but not so much a good home, who wants to be there again?

Re-use? Maybe…lots of potentials, if you look at everything in this world from an economic perspective of view, there are. But history? It might fade but you can never make it disappear.

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We have done our Christmas photo for the Christmas newsletter for our clients and service providers this afternoon. We took one at the back of the building with all green leafy background. Another one was taken in front of one of the historic Council’s cottages, where our HR is located. When we were crossing the road to do the second photo scene, we came across the most embarrassing moment that we could every imagine. It’s Friday afternoon, and we get the peak hour traffic on Crawford Street.

To be honest, I have never seen so many cars passing by on this street within such a short time. 10 of us were waiting on the one side of the road, wearing our STANDING-OUT red and white Santa hats. People passing by in the cars yelled at us “Merry Christmas” or waved their hands, and at least two bus drivers horned loudly trying to greet….

You know what, 5 minutes later, the photos were sent through to our manager’s computer. We all heard her firstly screaming in her office, and then a big “oh my god!” We all got in with the expectation to see the end of the world, and started to look on her computer. Some people was looking down, some people was blinking; some one looked cranky, some one was trying to catch the fly (was me…he he). We agreed to do a secret vote to pick the “perfect” one where everybody is happy, smiling and pretty….

So, 7th November is today. It’s already getting scary as it’s getting close to the end of this year. How much good have you done so far?

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