Floating In A Sea Of Love

WOW. Remember my post on my tendency for obsessive compulsive behaviours? This time, it is seriously distracting. My mummy friends had been recommending highly addictive Korean dramas that seemed to have struck a deep chord with legions of people. In the beginning, I viewed this obsession amongst friends with a mixture of amusement, curiosity and bewilderment. Not just my mummy friends. But also my close friends, my yoga instructor, my collegues, my aunts, my cousins...Even my mum was not spared the obsession when I witnessed the usually nonchalant her chasing a Korean drama series at 11.30pm every night, sacrificing her sleep and her reading.

So, after much temptation from my mummy friends, I decided to take a plunge just to test if I could be immuned to such compulsion.

OH. BOY. I had so little sleep, trying to finish huge chunks of the drama series that I was literally walking around zombified in the day, yet with mystical powers to help me stay awake at night to watch every episode with bated breath, my fingers irresistibly clicking "next episode" uncontrollably, despite an average of 3 hours of sleep per night.

This. Is. Vile. Yet hauntingly alluring. I just could not stop. And ended up rewatching the same series. Now I finally understand why my mother, aunts and friends kept harping on the exquisite romances, rich plot, fast-paced storylines, captivating soundtracks etc.

For now, I am indulging in the sea of love. And I wonder when I will be out of this raptness. At the same time, I am trying very hard to ensure that my life regain normality as soon as possible, especially with work that is piling up (productivity in the office is way low when I am obsessed with things other than work!), Big Bee's exams, hundreds of back-dated blog entries to write about...

This. Has. To. Stop.

My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

There is a very valid reason for disappearing for more than 10 days from my blog － for the first time in years! Here's the reason below, sigh.

I was never one who watched lengthy drama series, as I know I would get addicted easily, and with my impatient nature, I would probably sit right through dozens of episodes all at once. Hence, I had practised good self-restraint all these while.

Until I heard so many of my friends watching (and getting crazy over) 步步惊心。Furthermore, I have a deep fondness for the Forbidden City and had spent manifold moments with Hubby (and occasionally, by myself) in this historical landmark, falling in love time and again, intrigued by China's complex history over and over again.

So, for the past fortnight, I fell into this deep dark abyss of addiction - hook, line and sinker - immersing myself in the beautiful love story and mellifluous Chinese language of this series.

And after completing the last episode last Saturday, I felt the clouds clearing from my muddled head. Whilst having a foot and half a mind still doused in the fantasy of Qing dynasty.

So - no social life, no late night work emails (good!), no dating life with Hubby and sadly, no homelearning with the Bees!

But I will move on soon...

This silly, ridiculous obsessive compulsive disorder will appear once in a while in my life. For example, the latter half of last year saw me utterly captivated in America's civil war with Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind, with Edward Rochester and his wild passion for Jane Eyre, and with restrained Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.

I relished the novels, TV series, movies (I even went to watch Jane Eyre the movie twice!), forum discussons, etc. Obsessive behaviour, really. Until the compulsion slowly died down.

Meanwhile, I need to reach for 桐华的小说，步步惊心。想跟大家分享纤美兰章的其中一句：

“从爱生忧患，从爱生怖畏；离爱无忧患，何处有怖畏？是故莫爱着，爱别离为苦。若无爱与憎，彼即无羁缚。”

太凄美了。

Lipstick Jungle

I just spent the last 2 nights watching the entire first season of Lipstick Jungle, after the Bees slept. Though it was not as thrilling nor as exhilarating as Sex And The City when it first launched, it was as entertaining and engaged me all the same.

The show highlights the perennial problems of 3 powerful women juggling between work, family and personal lives in the harsh, still-sexist domain of the capitalist society which we women are all too familiar with. That we tried to live up and be better than our male counterparts at work, trying so hard to dispel the age-old myth that men are more superior in intelligence than women, that we try even harder at home to provide the very best for our children to make up for that lost time at work, and yet, that we still try (sometimes unsuccessfully!) to still retain some private, me-time in our social lives.

It is amazing at how the so-called "weaker sex" had made strides to being the "stronger gender's" equals. From women who are uneducated and hundred-percent dependent on their spouses just a few decades ago to equals sitting aside and even leading men in the corporate world. Yet, we are blessed with deep-seated instincts to care wholly for our children. Cheers to us indeed.

Sadly, in some parts of society, women remained incarcerated in the deep recesses of history's cruel sexist fists, unable to escape the clutches of the gender power game.