Thanks Mum

Okay, so exams have finally ended. Overall, knew some things, guessed a lot and just plain made crap up for a big part of the 9 or so hours spend sitting on hard seats puzzling over obscure questions (lecturers just don't understand, if you want me to answer, you have to ask the question up front... I'm not a mindreader;P ).

It's really funny how, after five years of university my mother has finally changed her tune. She used to by the typical chinese mother.... 'you must gets As, you must do law, you must make money.... you get the drift". Times have changed and I think she has given up on me, which became apparent in our little conversation a couple of nights ago:

Me: Hey mum, how's it?
Mum: Hi dear. How was your exam? You must be very tired? Have you had dinner? What did you have? You should have dinner (one thing I learnt from mum was to have 3 different conversations in one sentence).
Me: Good good (ignoring dinner add-ons). So tired Finished my law degree oh and by the way probably failed first year stats.
Mum: oh well, it must be very hard.
Me: yeah, I hear STATS 108 is one of the most difficult papers at uni .
Mum: can you take it again or will they kick you out?
Me: Of course I can take it again.
Mum: oh good then, I'm so proud of you girls. What are you having for dinner?.... (and the cycle continues)

AND that was that! There was no "didn't you study hard enough? Well you'll just have to try harder next time!". This would have happened a couple of years ago. So either she has given up, or she realises that we don't need to be pushed anymore. So THANKS MUM! Sometimes all you need in life is that support from your mum and everything seems a hundred times better!



The reason I thought about that was because I decided to indulge and read a book . So I picked up "Beyond Indigo" by Preethi Nair, which is a book poking fun at arranged marriages. It really highlights the difference in mindset between Indian culture and how it fits in with a typically western mindset. Really interesting! There's a part in the book where Nina is philosophising about Matisse and art so she asks her father about he thinks of creativity and art as a living:

Nina: "An artist who is worth a lot of money said that there are always flowers for those who want to see them. What do you think about that?"


Father: "Yes, that is why he is the rich. Wastes no money buying the expensive flowers from the petrol shops and saves the money that the flowers are taking. Not giving the peoples the flowers every time he is seeing them".

So basically, it's all about the money, and I used to have the same view probably because we were brought up that way. But five years on I've been lucky enough to gain a very different insight. It's not about the money at all, it's about being happy and doing something you love. If you don't feel passionate about something, it's probably not worth doing at all as there is no reward in the end. So thanks mum for understanding and thanks to everybody else for being my inspiration!