I'm in Love with Kangaroos

Welcome to another new year! It's that time when most of us reflect back on the year that passed and make resolutions for the new year knowing very well that they may eventually be forgotten or fail to take effect. Despite the failure rate, reflection is a good practice to cultivate. And the concept of a new beginning seems to give a little extra motivation to try a bit harder to change those hard-wired habits.

After finishing my station duty at the zoo last weekend, I took a stroll to explore a part of the zoo which I had not visited in a long while: the Australian Outback. The Singapore Zoo worked closely with late Steve Irwin to design and open this exhibit featuring native species from Australia and nearby islands such as Kangaroos, Wallabies, Tree Kangaroos, Bearded Dragons, Emus and Cassowaries.

Before that though, I took a detour to catch the 'Elephants of Asia' show, featuring four Asian elephants from Sri Lanka. There is something so powerful, graceful and intelligent about these endangered herbivores that demands our respect. Of course, suppliers, consumers and everyone who stands to gain from the illegal ivory trade would disagree with me. 

Hoppity Hop - An Eastern Grey Kangaroo

When I made my way to say hello to the Kangaroos and Wallabies, the Wallabies were having naps but fortunately for me, it was the Kangaroo feeding time. After having a chat with the keepers, I was given a small bowl of kangaroo feed (it looked like ordinary guinea pig food pellets) and a chance to feed one. He or she was a friendly five year old Eastern Grey and my, wasn't he/she so adorable! Pretty big eyes with eyelashes and soft fur like a cuddly soft toy - I have been on Cloud 9 since that encounter *slaps self* 

Whats wrong with you, Shu?
Please can I take him or her home for a short time and look after it? 
Are you mad? You are being overly emotional, plus it's a wild animal meant to live in the wild, not a pet. 
Or can I come live and work at the zoo? *slaps self again*
You already have a job, dumbass.

Book stores are terrible, terrible places. I went to accomplish a simple task of picking up one book from the reserved books counter and going home with the purchase. But I got carried away in the sea of massive bookshelves promising thousands of interesting worlds in the form of books to anyone who picked them up. I ended up going home with two books. 

Ta - daaa!

I was very excited to finally get my hands on Quiet by Susan Cain. My enthusiasm for it started many months ago during my unemployed phase. Once I even located the one book store that had a copy at the time and kicked such a fuss when the staff could not find where they placed the book. That had nearly all the store staff sieving through shelves to find it. At last, one of them found it and I had to shamefully leave it behind (I have not stepped back in that store again) when I saw the hefty price tag on the hard cover copy. So I vowed to get it later and I did.

The book has been very engaging so far and I use every opportunity to savour it. Like today, I selfishly ditched my only friend at work/extrovert, to catch an early bus home, just so I can read in solitude. She's a good soul (unlike those toxic types that my gut instincts say "Run Away" from) who's the type to reach out and include even the quietest ones like me, but on some days, 40 minutes of a good quiet read in the bus is far more rewarding and energizing than 40 minutes of actively listening to another who naturally can't stop talking about themselves for even 10 seconds. Funny enough, this closely follows the theme that this book discusses at length.

I'm probably more excited about this book than an average reader because it strikes so many chords on a personal level. Not only that, it's a brilliantly researched and analytical book, that uses ample solid scientific evidence (as opposed to abstract philosophies without logical basis) to build a case. Often, I find myself falling into potholes of deep thought after reading a stimulating idea put across in the book, only to crawl out and fall into another one a short distance later.

The biggest accomplishment that accidentally came out of my blogging exercise (coupled with a few other factors) in the past three years was that I gained a better understanding of myself, why I am the way I am and most importantly, being more accepting of these and being comfortable in my own skin - though it is still a work in progress and I'm guessing it will remain so for the rest of my time. So as much I treasure coming to express my thoughts freely on my blog space, reading this book has been like a pleasant rendez-vous with a stranger who I got along extremely well with. At times when I read it, I feel like it was written just for me. 

Reading this book will aptly conclude my mini-research project on the Introversion/ Extroversion theory.

.