jasmint green tea

freshly brewed There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind. – C.S. Lewis

[jasmint-greentea]

yeye

its been so long since my last ramble, as life rumbles on it sometimes doesn't give me time to reflect.

but i really cannot let my grandpa go.

when he saw he today, he cried. the same hot tears a year ago when he was first hospitalised.

now the admissions are so frequent that i know he's scared. but i don't want him to know how fearful i am. even though i can feel the lump rising in my throat and my vision blurring, i still force a smile and tell him he's doing fine.

because i think thats what he wants to hear and believe.

or maybe what i want to hear and believe.

when i scroll through my phone i am reminded that just 1 year ago he was still walking around the campus with me, we were smiling and joking about monkeys.

and now he can't get out of bed by himself, and i can smell the scent of aging that's clings to the walls in the wards.

but i don't hate this smell, in fact i wish i could bottle it up and keep it forever. because time flies too fast for me to remember and capture every pore, every flicker, every breath.

his breathing is more laboured now, its almost like i can hear his body stretching and tearing at itself to stay alive. and i wonder if it's selfish of me to bear witness to his pain yet pray he can still be here.

just a little longer.

every night i fight the urge to pray for God to exchange my life for his. but i know that is also selfish of me.

so please, stay. please.

even if it's just for me.

[jasmint-greentea]

Fostering relationships at work is terribly hard. Perhaps it's the superficial nature of it; or the dread of becoming tea time gossip; or the "well intended" threats and feedback sessions - time passes so slowly. Under a microscope we are dissected nerve from vessels, torn apart like hairs from follicles, grind down to be bare mitochondria gnawing away at ourselves.

Wondering when will be my next mistake - glad to be dragged to the pedestal sire, and on that same note, yes I would love to be shot in the head (or the heart would it so matter to you?). Smiles permanently plastered on our faces as if we got reverse botox. Why? Because you hid the gun with its aiming beam.

But isn't it always my problem.

It really is. I despise how I'm swept under the currents of your feet, the false sense of importance you've sold me. If anything you have shown me how much I need to work on me. I've allowed God to not be the only person I want to please.

[queerdandelion]

Every year my mom vandalizes a reflection calendar with pictures of Keanu to make a “with Keanu” calendar for her friend. These are some highlights:

[pajamasecrets]

This is Art™️.

[jasmint-greentea]

BAWM

In case I never told you:

You will always be beautiful to those who love you And never beautiful enough for those who don't.

On days you struggle to believe in the truth Find support in those who love you to remind you.

----

Psalms 139:13-14 for it was You who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I will praise You because I have been fearfully and wonderfully made

[jasmint-greentea]

I shall aspire every fellowship to be edifying, to end feeling like we finished a therapy session. Edging each other towards You.

[jasmint-greentea]

Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place. ― Paul Coelho

[jasmint-greentea]

Not as I want You to be

How fruitless it is to put into writing This droning tinnitus that won't stop ringing "My woes, oh how dreadful, my woes", Eyes that seem uncaring, at best begrudging.

Whispers spread like infections, Smeared with fucithalmic ointment Can't mask the fungating necrosis of gangrene Enveloping these rock hard hearts.

Words tear people and nations apart, Like sparks to wildfires, licking desperately For water - to quench their endless thirst. Only to spontaneously combust.

I claim conviction to my beliefs about The slander disguised as trifling gossip, Masking our hidden desires to be seen With the smearing of another's will with shit.

Yet find myself standing at the center Of a witch-hunt chanting their own names Spell bound by this cultish desire To bind ourselves to an endless pit-less grave.

The answer did not lie in not seeing, Or not hearing. But silence - A dear friend I've forgotten his name, To bear witness to His name.

---

2 Corinthians 12: 20 For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.

[jasmint-greentea]

Still there.

Am waiting for the great redemption and reunion with my past. There are pieces that I miss, memories that I want to forgive, Reasons that she existed for me.

[supernatural-jackles]

Something no one tells you when you’re going through a tough time, is that even the smallest people will remember you. They’ll wonder why you haven’t bought food for your dog, where the pictures of your boyfriend went, or why their favourite cashier hasn’t been there for awhile. People notice you. People love you. Even if it’s for your jokes, even if it’s for your patience, even if it’s just seeing you around. People miss you. People love you. People care. 

I’m grateful for everyone who is still here today, no matter how hard it is. 

[spellbookbitch]

I still remember when I quit my old job at a McDonald’s, I was talking about how it was my last day, and had accidentally left the drive thru window open. The lady in the window overheard me and said “oh no, you’re quitting? I’ll miss you, you were always so nice!” And I almost sobbed. This random lady came through my drive thru enough to recognize me, enough to care that I was leaving, despite having barely had a single conversation other than what I had to say to do my job. People really do remember you, especially if you’re nice.

[sunshine-tattoo]

don’t let capitalism convince you that people are selfish loners. We are social creatures who have survived only because we are capable of great love.

[prokopetz]

You wouldn’t think that flamingoes are extremophiles just from looking at them. It’s like somebody tried to build the vertebrate equivalent of that fungus that lives inside nuclear reactors, and ended up with a gangly pink dinosaur with a spoon for a face.

[calloutnevvegas]

For everyone in the comments asking how flamingos are extremophiles:

Flamingos can survive in low oxygen, high altitude, high temperatures, low temperatures, high alkaline, they can and will drink boiling water and they can be completely frozen at night and still get up the next morning

Don’t fuck with flamingos

[revretch]

….. Didn’t know most of that

[iamthekaijuking]

Huh… so that’s why zoos don’t put them somewhere warm during winter.

[revretch]

Oh yeah, this leaves out what I *did* know about them–they can also survive hypersalinity. That is, water so salty it kills practically everything else–water so salty it burns your skin.

American flamingos just drink that shit

[bogleech]

(animal death) this is a real undoctored photograph (*though the body was stood up for the shot) of a dead flamingo on the surface of lake natron, a lake so salty and so alkaline that it’s naturally carbonated like soda and would eat through your stomach lining if you drank from it.

When this photo went viral years ago, most people assumed this poor flamingo must have been killed by the lake.

It is actually the lake where 75% of its global population are hatched. This is a photo from the same lake:

[assuming-dinosaur]

Some species of flamingo actually subsist almost entirely on a diet of bacteria! In other words, there is a species of dinosaur that eats only bacteria and lives in lakes so toxic they would kill almost anything else—and it is best known to the average person as a kitschy lawn decoration.

[virtuallyinsane-autumn]

Blake Cheek

[princessmo]

blogging away again in tumblritaville

[archiveofidentityconstellations]

“And remember: the sky is the limit! You can be anything you want to be!”

“Thank you. I want to be a secretary.”

That stopped them short. “What?”

“A secretary,” she repeated.

“But…” they trailed off, dumbfounded. “Why? You could be a CEO, a scientist, a law–”

“I don’t want to be a CEO,” she said. “I want to be a secretary.”

[archiveofidentityconstellations]

They scoffed. “You want to answer phones all day?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

“Schedule appointments?”

“I like organizing.”

“Be a second banana?”

An affirmative nod. “I’m skilled at helping.”

“I just don’t understand,” they said. “HOW could you be okay with all of this?!”

“I enjoy the work.”

“BUT YOU CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BE!”

“I know.”

“Then WHY?!”

She shrugged.

“Because I want to be a secretary.”

[dangerously-human]

Honestly though, this is very similar to my mom’s experience. She’s always been super bright, but has realized as she’s gotten older that intellectual pursuits just aren’t her jam. She dropped out of her PhD program to have kids, and although she has her master’s and was a pretty good school psychologist, she hated having to make huge decisions. She’s a church secretary now and loves it, and she’s GOOD at it; she’s letting her school psych certification permanently expire this year with zero regrets. If you can be anything you want, that includes the things we don’t tend to value as highly as a society. Not everybody is built for or wants the “respectable” careers.

[clearlyweepingrebelel-deactivat]

My grandma did this to me, saying that i didn’t want to get stuck on the outside, making coffee and filing papers. The thing is, that’s exactly what I’ve always enjoyed the most, making and organizing things. That would be enough for me.

[mothnem]

Nobody seems to realize that if you tell people they can be anything they want to be they will. And not everyone WANTS to be doctors or lawyers or CEOs or scientists. Sometimes, they just want to be a secretary.

[jumpingjacktrash]

it took me a LOT of therapy before i was able to shrug off the effects of the Gifted Child Upbringing enough to realize that what i really wanted to be was a house husband and Local Queerdad who writes novels sometimes. god, i’m so much happier now.

ain’t nothing wrong with an ordinary life. don’t let anybody tell you you have to be the top dog to be worth anything.

[persephonesstrap]

As a secretary for a therapy center—outside of like shitty people in and out of the office, the jobs lit af and you get to look as cute or as Un-cute as you want everyday and it’s totes fine ALSO FREE STATIONARY!!?!?!

Truly the dream.

[lostalive]

I agree with all of this and I also feel like the extreme competition for most “respectable” jobs is manufactured by having such a two-tier economy that people are desperate for the financial freedom only a few jobs truly allow.

If someone actually enjoys retail (my mother) and you need retail people why does a retail worker have to be punished with starvation wages?

Also when a minimum wage job goes up to a living wage and someone I work with goes “haha that’s how much I make now I should go work for Dominos” I always just say if that’s what you want to do then you should! You must be so excited that you can! But they just shake their head or admit they’d hate that job. Because when they say that they don’t mean “I should work there and would if I could afford to!” They mean “that job and those people are below me and shouldn’t make my wage.”

In conclusion the entire idea of respectable jobs is bullshit. Do exactly what you want and fight to get what you deserve from it and don’t let anyone tell you you should do anything else.

[prairiedawn]

Normalize doing common, necessary things well. Normalize respecting people who do good work. Appreciate indoor plumbing and functioning electricity and a really good pizza. Appreciate phlebotomists who are good at getting a good sample on the first try.

[jasmint-greentea]

so i caught covid. and it was a hell of a virus.

but also i felt bad for having caught covid. the responsibilities at work, the extra exam that i will now have to take, the missing out in action... it was too much.

really got me doubting again if i should be doing this. feeling a bit overwhelmed and my brain is going into dark spaces.

don't want to go back into anxiety and depressive spirals - i feel like i just need to get away - need to clear my mind and give it some space to be me.

lately i've been finding myself way too overwhelmed by trying to become a stereotype of what others expect me to be. and it's exhausting, it's unnecessary.

trying to find my way back to christ. to fear him and him only. and not work for men. no more.

[jasmint-greentea]

Navigating difficult patients and healthcare abuse

"You are nothing more than a dog" he screamed, "get me the senior doctor and stop barking your lies at me."

I've learnt through trials of fire that at the most difficult of patients, when situations are escalating out of control - that a gentle voice, a meek spirit oftentimes is just fuel to the fire of their wrath. It is these group of patients that get their way just because their voice is raised, they want to speak to our "manager", and because somehow in healthcare we carry both the moral obligation of care and the unfortunate mandate that customer satisfaction is number one.

But each time it happens - when verbal, physical or sexual abuse occurs in healthcare - it doesn't hurt any less.

Perhaps all the more so because we were only doing our best to try to help you. Perhaps it's because I expected that my kindness should be reciprocated by the minimum level of respect a fellow human deserves. Perhaps all that is too much to ask for as the fabric of society slowly corrodes when we believe healthcare services is a right, not a privilege.

To be fair I've had it way better than many of my allied health colleagues - I've seen more than my fair share of abuse hurled against innocent nurses, front counter staff and even... cleaners.

Many studies has shown rising levels of abuse in medical care in the recent years (https://www.ttsh.com.sg/About-TTSH/TTSH-News/Pages/More-healthcare-workers-facing-abuse.aspx). Besides increased working hours and other work related burnouts, the reality of working in the healthcare sector could be nothing more than dim.

Yet I desperately try to believe that... perhaps I was wrong? Maybe if I was more assertive, less feminine, more big sized... perhaps they wouldn't dare pick a fight? Maybe if I spoke up, and told him equally to shut up, that he might back down?

Maybe the least I can do is to report him so this abuse doesn't continue. Or maybe thats the worst I could do as fighting begets more fighting. And rage is like a rouge fire.

So I turned to my trusty friend google for answers. Here are some interesting articles I've found on navigating this difficult patients: 1. https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/forty-years-taking-care-hateful-patient/2017-04 2. https://www.gotquestions.org/dealing-difficult-people.html

But I found it difficult to find an article that expounds on the way we as Christian's should dealing with workplace abuse, whilst acknowledging the harsh realities of our everyday lives. I see many seniors who just sweep it under the rug as a "character building experience" or that "words can never hurt us".

I hope I have allowed you to find solace that you are not alone. But beyond that, is the knowledge that through it all - God is with us.

Although it still doesn't answer the question of: so what should I do when faced in these situations? To be honest... I'm not sure and haven't arrived at my own answer yet. But while I do, may I leave myself a final thought from today's devotion: prayer is more powerful than protests. My own emotions and self-seeking spirit will not be able to find the right answer to this problem. For He is all powerful, all knowing, and all just. Jesus may Your will be done.

[jasmint-greentea]

[awed-frog]

Somehow never thought about the photographer and -

- my God.

[fred-erick-frankenstein]

An excerpt from the linked article:

This handsome fellow is American photographer, Charles C. Ebbets, the very same Charles C. Ebbets who captured one of the most iconic images of all time, “Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper” in 1932…