The Joy of writing
I have to admit that the last couple of days have been rather edifying for me. What started as a desire to return to my writing last week turned out to be more complicated as I found out that my username and password for my blog had somewhat "changed". To be honest, I was quite surprised. I mean who the heck would want to even "hack" my account??
Anyhow, I managed to solve the problem sometime mid-last week but I gotta say that the "additional delay" in my writing splurge got me even more hungry to pen my thoughts down. I guess that's what happens when you have to wait for something you really want a little longer isn't it? In anycase it's great to be writing again.
And this time, I have begun to just develop a more-free flow writing style. In the past I was quite adamant that my writing style be of the highest quality as my goal was to use my blog to improve on my writing eloquence. Well, when you have that sorta pressure breathing down your neck, it's quite obvious the mood to just generally write also diminishes with it, as you start thinking that "nothing I ever write will be of worthy publishing and for people to read".
But the truth of the matter is, when you write from the heart, as the heart is not bounded by rules, so it will also reflect in the craft that is being produced, in this case your writing. And when you write with such joy and passion, those feelings are echoed and shared in the words. And that's what I call "the joy of writing".
The ability to just freely express yourself through words and later share those stories with those around you is something I have found to be quite valuable and its something that I do treasure deeply. It also helps clear the mind as once the thoughts are hard-coded into something tangible, the mind is able to freely "let it go" without much difficulty and begin to process newer thoughts and ideas.
Ahh, to have finally rekindled that joy of writing once again...
What’s in a name?
I am halfway reading through Jefferey Archer's "Kane and Abel" and I just finished reading the part where George Novak proudly tells Wladek that when he goes to America, he is planning to change his name to make it sound more "english sounding" versus his current polish name (Jerzy Novak). It just got me thinking how easily people can just change their names. I have had friends (chinese ones) who could easily change their names and could pick their own english name to suit their whims.
Ever since I was young, I could never understand why my name (my real one) was so long. It's not that it bothered me anyway, but I often would wonder how could I make my name shorter so that people could remember me better? My attempts to make my name shorter didn't happen anyway. In school, I would introduce myself normally, without trying to "style-up" my name or tell people "my name is so-and-so, but just call me <a-much-shorter-name or a nickname> would be fine!"
It never did occur to me that I should even bother to make my name shorter or more easier for others to remember. To me, I always felt, if a friend wants to remember me, he or she would make an effort to remember my name. If he/she can't remember my name, or at least try to make an effort to learn how to say my name properly, then I don't think he/she is serious in being a friend to me. If people found it difficult to pronounce my name, I would obligingly teach them, as to me I was always taken up by people who always took the effort to learn how to say my name. As for the rest, well I just didn't bother!
This cardinal rule of mine worked well in university (which explains the number of "close buddies" I had anyway), but when I reached workinghood, it sorta changed. I didn't still feel the need to shorten my name so that people would remember me better, however this time around I DID feel the need for people to remember me. Not so much because I wanted them, but simply because I know that it would help in building better relationships with them. If a name is too much to remember, people (especially career folks) would have a higher tendency to forget you. And when they have a tendency to forget you, well that's not really good anymore.
Of course, if you rationally think about it who cares what your name is as long as
- Your name is not a bad-sounding word
- You are friendly and are nice to people
- You are good at what you do
However sometimes I feel it doesn't hurt to have a cool sounding name 
But oh well, I guess at the end of the day, a name is just a name, but how you live up to that name (or your name) is far more challenging and more in your control versus changing your name.
Keeping the thoughts alive
May was quite a busy month for me. I realize that I didn't blog at all for the whole of last month. As I look back and reflect over the month of May, and attempt to justify my absence, I find that I could only come up with a few "lame" excuses , namely I was just quite tied up with my own life issues and at the same time, I was just too lazy to write anything down. However that is not to say that May was a quite or boring month, in fact, May was quite an eventful period for me. I shall try to sum up the events that happened in the month of May
Work
Work was starting to pick up the pace. The workload was growing and I spent a good portion of my time at work scheduling meetings and discussing process workflows with the clients. I have to admit, even though I have worked for the client organization for almost 3 years now, working with the upstream folks was a welcoming change for me. I found them to be somewhat proactive and their willingness to help was a plus point in my interactions with them. We culminated our work with a workshop to validate our processes and it was going great until the end we got screwed by the project sponsor. Well not so much "we" but more so "me" given that my process flows are actually new (unlike the others who were more involved in mapping the established processes into the new department) I had to approache the senior management team to obtain their conscent as well as they were also involved in the processes. And you know how it's like when you engage SMTs ; the process is dramatically slowed down, and there's really nothing much you can do about it.
In terms of the actual work though, I don't know...I'm finding work to be slightly boring these days, less challenging. I've requested for an overseas assignment and I just hope I get it.
Relationship
The love life is going great. Kate and I are growing stronger in our relationship and as the days pass by, I realize that we're learning more and more about each other. However I find the biggest difference in THIS relationship is that we both are making the effort to build up this relationship, and that our differences are more accepted by each other, rather than becoming an obstacle course for us to manouver.
Still I do believe that much more needs to be done, but I am confident that we are getting there, slowly, day-by-day. We've started to close our daily chat sessions with a short prayer, with me often leading us both into prayer and she coming in to offer up her intentions. I think the relationship is moving in the right direction!
Ministry
May started off with us having our annual LifeCamp. Sherman was awesome as always and I really felt this camp stirred the hearts of our young adults this time around. It was less rar-rar and more spiritual and reflective in nature. I have to admit we didn't plan as "hard" as we did for the previous one, but yet, somehow this camp turned out to be very meaningful for the participants. Sometimes I believe God has His way of turning hearts to him.
Well I guess that's all for now. I have been thinking of some stuff lately to write and reflect about, and perhaps when time permits, I will write down some of these things down. Until then, that's all from me....for now
