Another page in the chapters of my life (oh for crying out loud, how cliche is that start)….
I shall begin again.
The Games are finally over. I started losing count of dates and days 6-8 weeks before the start of the Games. Weekdays and weekends melded into just merely “days”, I forgot that I actually see the sun when I get into work. The Games started with nary a thing going right, I started by stressing in the command centre. I think I got sucked into the microscopic view of things, but if I didn’t do it, who else would. Then again, I had quite good company in the form of interns, in the 2 weeks of pre-Games suffering.
I checked into my new home, a hotel room, and left the room after 1.5 hours of sleep for more work. 2 days later, checked into another hotel room and managed to actually sleep, eat and function slightly better.
It’s been a tremendous 6 months. I learnt a lot: about how work can crawl when people refuse to talk to each other simply because they don’t like each other, how it sucks to be both the messenger and the middle person (my favourite phrase at that point was ” don’t burn the messenger”), how building relationships with people beyond talking about work can really help in every way possible, I suck at planning, I get a headache when the realisation hit me that I suck at planning, just cos someone’s at the top doesn’t mean they are actually capable (it baffles me as to how they got up there in the first place).
I got back to work this week and wondered about what I was supposed to be doing, spent a good part of the 1st 2 days collecting stuff from people and talking and talking and basically not doing work. So now that it’s officially over, I’ve grown older (i think more wrinkles, and my face has aged, hello facials), realised my physical limitations, wondering what’s next, thinking about my holiday destination (s), took many photos of my niece (she’s uber cute!). It feels like I’m back to square 1, wondering what I’m going to be doing. Although I learnt a lot, also felt that I didn’t learn either (nothing exceptionally new), I really dislike how work overwhelmed and took over and how far I drew away from God. So now that I have time to breathe, and think, I need to reorder my priorities and most importantly read and PRAY.
To end off, baby Taby!
I think I scared her….. hehe….
Yay! Baby Taby is growing and so is her every expanding repertoire of faces…..
I glare at you arrr.
I hate being woken in in a noisy restaurant….
hehehehe….
Work is very self-indulging. I work my butt off, do nothing else, given up reading, given up strumming on the guitar, given up thinking about anything else. My mind, a blank a lot of the time, I’ve redefined what it means to stone. I get on the bus, stare into space and voila, I’m at my destination. So what just happened in the last 15 minutes…..
It’s harder than I’ve ever worked, even in school. A colleague who was working when I was on a Sunday afternoon asked ” is it worth it”. I’m not certain, it wouldn’t be worth it if it were for anyone. So why, what makes me get out of bed in the morning. Routine. Knowing there’s more stuff to do. “What are you doing after all this”. I don’t know. Am I going to feel a big void after this. Yes, for sure.
I’m not certain I’m stretching any mental capacity but I’m certainly stretching the physical and emotional capacity. How much more can I do, how much more responsibilites will be shifted to me. I get to the self-indulging part now. I enjoy the stress but I’m really looking forward to a long holiday.
Am I incoherent. Yes. Am I tired. Yes. Am I sick of the work. No. Do I enjoy the work. I don’t know. This is probably the first time in my life that I’ve not overthought out my life, the first time that I’ve not considered scenarios A to Z in my head. Then why am I doing this. I’m thankful for the job, a blessing after squatting at home for a long long time. I’m glad for the friends/fellow sufferers. It’s a great distraction. The learning curve is immense, it’s more like a 90 deg angle. I do this because I want to.
I’m off to do some more of this….. I need to, as Mel reminded me, “be still”…. I will, at some point….. I need to….
I’ve been asked about where I’m going to go after the Games end. I’ve been asked what I’m planning to do.
I have no idea. Nolly mentioned that I go through life making not enough plans. That’s true. If I were a gambler, I’m the sort who would stake everything on my first bet. I always tend to lose though I realise. Fine, gambling is not a great analogy. Let me put it in tennis terms. I’ll take the high risk shots for an outright winner. I never was one to potter around the court. I have had my difficulties coming to terms with the possibility that what I’ve dreamed of being, of doing will not translate to reality but I’ve also seen how blessed I really am. I think I was expected to take this rejection with more devastation but before the results came to light, I prayed about being able to accept whatever it is God decided. I think I took this well, better than I’d ever imagine, with God’s grace of course.Very thankful for a job where I’m pushed to my limit and with loads of responsibility piled on me, I like the challenge.
So what’s the answer to where I’m going to go, what I’m going to do. I have no clue. I only know it will involve a lot of prayer, a lot of being silent and listening to what God will tell me, but first, I need to be disciplined enough to rest and keep awake enough to listen….
The past few weeks at church and at bible study have been timely reminders of how the only thing that is a constant in life is God. So I will, be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let my requests be made known to God. 
Me thinks my posts from now on will be a lot about baby Taby… she’s a cutie….
So I’m now officially an aunt.
Here’s a picture of the day-old precious
I haven’t blogged for a long time…. So far, I’ve managed to become a porcupine from all the arrows at work, found out what it’s like to be the one to switch off the lights at the office, discovered afresh what it means to have no life… I’ve also given pet names to tons of people at work. so the last 4 lines have been about the very consuming thing in my life now, called work.
work stress has also made me do crazy things like go jogging. At night. After work. At 10.30pm. Did I mention I am going bonkers.
Yay, am looking forward to my niece being born, so fun. Will have a cute baby to play with, I’m already thinking up all the fun games I can play with a baby/toddler.
this post is boring me as I write it…..sigh….
I need a holiday, no not really. I just need a day when someone’s not asking me to do something or asking me to get others to do something. I need a day to think.
Grrr. my laptop battery has a lifespan of about 1 hour and a little more left and ipod is on its way to the bin. Everything is breaking down, which is extremely frustrating.
Played tennis today, the sun was scorching, ah bian my cousin turned from brown to brown black, I just turned a darker shade of pale, David got the sunburn strip across his face. When the sun hid for a little while, the tennis was great. I’m glad we played today.
I need to get back into worship and having a close-knit bible study group. I’m worrying me with my apathy.
A baby smiled at me when I was at the clinic on Saturday. She’s so pretty. I’m getting excited about my new niece. So fun to think about it: she’s in the midst of becoming a person. How interesting is that.
I got nice presents and some cooked pasta (student memories flooding back), homebaked desserts and many birthday wishes on FB. Also got dinner treats and a song request and a really sweet card. I remember spending birthdays studying and wishing that it would snow so that I could just stare at the snowflakes instead of the cold cold winter nights.
The cemetery is devoid of life. Hardly. I went yesterday after not having been for a long while. There was life, the birds flying around, the flowers swaying in the wind, the people who came to reminisce about their departed loved ones. The cemetery has always been a sort of magnifying glass, a solitary person standing over a gravestone seems like the loneliest person in the world, the quietness of the cemetery seems like the loudest sound you could ever hear. It’s a place of irony. The place conveys fear, sadness but yet there’s more there. I saw a child giggle as she tried to skip over a mud puddle. I also realised yesterday that I had encountered a life which had endured life twice over. I wondered if some decisions made were due to an inability to cope with loneliness, I wondered about how difficult it was to cope, twice over. I wondered if the pain was worth the “better to have loved and lost”.
I looked over at the neat rows of headstones and felt thankful that I never had to see death like those who saw death in war, like those who had to stand over graves piled one atop the other….
Droplets of rain fell from the sky, and mum remarked that it always rained whenever we came. It started pouring, like one of those movies with people standing at a grave dressed in their darkest suits. Then after a little while, the sunlight broke through the dense grey, a reminder perhaps, of hope.
I remember why I don’t like big organisations.
I remember why getting annoyed at people doesn’t make them do things any faster.
I remember once having a great imagination.
I remember only one line in the song…. “Ponyo, Ponyo, Ponyo, ooonanoko…..
I remember weighing less than I do now….
I remember myself being less annoying….
I remember the snow atop the Tatra mountains…
I remember the scorching heat in the boat towards the Cambodian border..
I remember the 10cts sugared coloured water drinks in Primary school…
I remember loving the fawning attention when I was ill…
I remember my terry cloth rabbit (wahhhhh)….
I remember being taller than my friends, only now my body seems to have forgotten =_=
I still get fascinated by the beautiful sunsets and sunrises even though I hated having to wake up before the sun got up and leaving class after sun had disappeared….
