que pasa

Sorry I've been away for so long. I'm insanely busy these days and I have no energy to blog. It's not that I've been journalling much either, sigh.

Attended a training in chinese today for basics in corporate profitability. I never want to take another training class in chinese ever again. My chinese just isn't good enough. For some parts I was ok, but for the harder stuff I had to mentally translate everything the instructor was saying into english and that was just too tiring.

Anyway, I will write the moment I have found a new home in Shanghai. What new home? Shanghai? Yeah, I've been going through some changes and that's why I'm rather unsettled right now. If you pray, please pray that I will find a new home to live in by end of this month. I'm getting worried. Thanks

Today I went out and bought a book to journal in. I haven't kept a journal for almost 4 years I think, so there is no record of what I've really been thinking. There is no real record of my life. I have nothing to use to reflect on the past three and a half years. And I certainly don't remember everything, or even most things. While it means that there is no stirred up guilt from bad things done or things done badly, there is no remembering of joy or thanksgiving from good things that have happened and lessons learnt.

I remember blogging before (probably 3 or 4 years ago) that I decided to stop journaling because I had feared the consequences of it being read by somebody else. I don't think I'd get hauled to jail or anything like that but that invasion of my privacy would completely expose me and leave me vulnerable.

Having said that, why am I starting again? Because I realize it is important for me to remember. My memory is selective and insufficient, I need to keep a journal so that I have something to look back on, a stimulus for reflection. For both good times and bad. Being able to actually read how I go through dark and difficult periods in the past would give me hope for current crises. Writing down thoughts and feelings give time to analyze and review, I think it would cultivate a more thankful spirit and therefore a happier heart.

I don't just want to live, I want to try to live meaningfully. I wake up every morning to go through the day and then night comes and the next day begins. I think that journaling will encourage more thinking and feeling about what I'm doing in my life, people and things that matter to me.

Above all, I want to be able to remember how Papa is always with me. I often forget that in the midst of work, when things get bad. I want to have something to remind me that he has delivered me before, and he will do so again. I want to be reminded how he is moving in my life.

So I have started again. My journal writing isn't as fluent as before, I have become used to keeping my thoughts filed away. But I can feel already that it will get easier. I feel like as a result of some decisions I have made and am trying to execute, Papa has starting to make some bigger gestures. And I look forward to being able to record that journey ahead.