que pasa

Well not officially anyway.  Bet you the pirated DVDs were out on the streets long ago though.

I read this today and found it gives voice to something I have been struggling with a long time.  I'm not there yet at the position of rest, but the desire to just give it all up and let Papa handle things without my interference has become increasingly strong, especially over these past few months.

"My God, I wish to give you the gift you so much desire; I wish to commit myself to you once and for all, so there shall be no taking back.  I cannot commit myself into your hands, O God, I cannot do it; but yet I can commit myself into your hands; for though I cannot keep myself there, your fingers can hold me there, your strong, gentle fingers always giving way and never letting go; your wise subtle fingers, wrestling so gently against my puny rebellions, that I tire myself trying to climb out of your hands, and come to rest at last in those wounded palms."
- Austin Farrer, quoted in Philip Yancey's Prayer

Incidentally, I am finding Prayer to be an excellent book.  It's about whether prayer makes any difference.  I'm making my way through it very slowly and it has provided good food for thought.  Grab a copy if you can.

Santa came in surprising forms this year:

He came in the form of my friend who was leaving Shanghai for good.  She gave me all her extra stuff that I could actually use (pillows, mattress, food stuff, toiletries, detergent, miscellaneous things).  I will have lots of unpacking to do to get my apartment into a decent state again.

He came in the form of my cell group friends who hosted a fantastic home-cooked dinner.  Turkey, mashed potatoes, apple pie, bread.  Yummy.

He came in the form of very good sleep last night, that unfortunately ended up in me waking up late this morning (because I forgot to set my alarm). 

He came in the form of a tilt of the head from one of my bosses (who has pretty high expectations) of one of the deals I've been processing, so we can now move to make an initial offer to the target company and start negotiating. 

He came in the form of me laughing out loud a lot more finding a lot opportunities recently to laugh hard and out loud with my colleague.  We're going through some pretty heavy-duty stuff right now.

He came in the form of me getting clearance to take 2 weeks to come back home for Chinese New Year.

Thank you Papa!

Supposed to be writing report now.  But I've been distracted by thinking about eyebrows. 

Someone told me about how nicely shaped eyebrows (esp on women) can make all the difference.  Noticed that Jordin Sparks (on her music videos) has nice eyebrows.  Have also been looking the eyebrows of people around me lately. 

It's kinda fascinating, I don't know why.  Nice eyebrows can be really nice!

... distant relatives are not as good as close neighbours.

Or in my case, landlady.

I had some problems recently with the apartment.  A few weeks ago, one of the faucets was leaking and I informed the landlady.  She came the next evening immediately to get somebody to fix it.  When that young guy couldn't do the job, she called up an older man (who happens to be her elementary school friend and lives in the same apartment building as me) to help.  I think she ended up staying for a couple of hours to see the thing done and she was most apologetic for hanging around the apartment at night.  But I was more than happy that she did get it fixed in the end.

Last weekend, the power in my apartment stopped.  It wasn't the circuit breaker (or whatever you call that thing that trips) in my apartment.  So I called the landlady again after I had called the local property management.  She called up the same elementary school classmate to take a look.  And she reassured me that he would help me and that I should not be frightened or worried.  He did manage to fix the problem after an hour (he told me to go buy a part to replace something at the mains outside leading to my apartment) and power came back on.  (Incidentally, this apartment building does not have its own property management, we are serviced by a local district property management company.  By the time the property management guy came, I didn't need his help anymore)

On Saturday morning, I found a pair of bright blue warm slippers and a down quilt in my apartment.  The landlady had them brought over by the cleaner (she recommended her cleaner to me, her cleaner has a set of my door key) so that I would be warm when the temperature drops.  I thought that was really sweet of her.

My landlady is really quite nice and I feel that she treats me like her daughter (because her daughter studied in Singapore before and we're about the same age).  I think the cleaner has also said some nice things about me, about how I keep her apartment clean, don't mess up the place, no wild parties and stuff like that.

I am very grateful that my landlady is nice enough to see that I am not having problems living in her apartment.  Not everyone gets that.  

It's rare to see miracles attributed to Papa and publicly announced too.  How marvelous!

I used to get quite frustrated at lousy or slow drivers back home. I figured since I don't drive in China I shouldn't get mad at drivers anymore, but I do.  

Drivers here have no respect for pedestrian rights.  I was honked at the other day by this driver who was turning even though I was crossing at the traffic light when the green man was on.  Drivers, motorcyclists, electric scooterists have run red red lights without caring for pedestrians.  I have been thisclose to a moving bus, more than once.

You know that saying, "Look right, look left, and right again," (depending on which side of the road you drive) when before crossing the road?  Over here, it's look right, left, right, left, right, left... until you finish crossing the road.  Else you might find a vehicle sharing the same space on the road as you one day by no fault of yours.  

I don't like that my first reaction is to curse the irritating driver who pisses me of on my way to work.  The first words out of my mouth each day really shouldn't be so awful.  I'm going to have to work on that, but really, did these people really bribe their driving test instructor??!?!  Argh.  

The only drivers who don't behave badly on the road are those driving expensive cars, because their cars are probably valuable enough that the damage/expenses incurred from knocking someone down...