Chiangmai

Yes, Chiangmai here we come! In less than 24 hours, LP and myself will be eating lunch there with our friend Elisha. Not really excited, but kinda looking forward to it. I would prefer a more relaxed break, but LP wants to do everything and anything within our 8-day trip. Oh well...

Things in the itinerary - trekking, temples, tribal visits, kayaking (?), eating, lepak-ing. At some point I would like to join the Wycliffe people and suss out their work too. We shall see. Elisha picks us up from the airport and the lepak-ing will start immediately.

O' Little Child

Moon Len got safely married yesterday. It was a casual dinner at Mum's Place in Damansara Perdana. Nice and cozy. The only people I know there - besides the bride's family - were my high school buddy Mee Yee and her husband. Food, drinks and lotsa chatting going on. And of course, we behaved just like we would when we were 15 years old. Given, we have all grown very different in our professional and domestic lives, each going through our own paths for the past 22 years, but when we got together, it was Form 3 all over again. Bunch of bratty yakking schoolgirls! (I feel sorry for the husbands... for what they had to endure).

School friends represent a part of us that never really dies, no matter how deep the years try to bury those memories. It was a time where the concerns of money, career, and family were seen through the other side of worry. How innocent those days were, and how much more we should treasure them - not as a bygone era of naiveity, but as a time where we were at our truest uninhibited selves, brandishing our dreams and waiting to soar.

And how much more we need to remember, that in each of our mature and old(er) selves that little child never dies.



Threesome



Minus the bride...

One Trip Too Many...?

I finally did it.

Told Sook Ching I am willing to be part of the November Myanmar mission trip should anyone drops out. Should that come to pass, this will be my 2nd short-term mission trip, and fourth trip abroad this year! Shikes... no wonder I am broke! Anyway, no one has dropped out yet, so I am kinda "safe" for the moment.

Been re-reading Tozer's "Born After Midnight". Great stuff. Tells you how you are the sum of all your voluntary thoughts, ie, thoughts that come to mind when you are free to think of whatever you want. How astute.

I've been thinking a lot about life. The brevity of it. And lately, I just can't seem to focus my thoughts on God, especially after the "drugging session" of two weeks staying in bed due to the flu. I was so zonked that I could not really orientate my mind to the stuff at hand, even a week after stopping the antibiotics. This is terrible. They should ban those stuff, or shoot people who propagate them!

So here I am back to the grind... Bible study classes every weekend, a wedding coming up, stories to finish, people to catch up with and... housechores! Dreaming of settling down in Toronto, walking down Younge St and generally vegging out.

I miss my friends in Toronto, Vancouver, Virginia. England. Nepal. I miss those heady missions days. I miss backpacking. Miss throwing caution to the wind and packing up at a moment's notice. Miss the first flush of wonder at the discovery of a new place. Night busses. Hostel lockers. Friendly strangers.

God! Is this what happens at mid-life????

Back to Life

Alright. I came back with vengeance today. Woke up really early, drove myself to Taman Tun Park for some mean morning exercise, went wet marketing, returned home to cook for my niece before she left for school, washed my car, sneakers, did the laundry and some housechores - all before noon! Good, good! At least I am putting that injured / pained / weak hand to use again, and of course I wanna see how far I can stretch it.

Now that the chores are outta the way, it's back to work again... gotta conjure up this story on Vietnamese Coffee Culture for Flavours. Shikes! And I haven't started! AND there's this other piece to spice up for Weekender... Sigh, how many ways can you jazz up a dry, flat, boring story? Sometimes I wonder if I could really stop writing (no, I don't think so... it's just too much a part of me, and I s-t-i-l-l enjoy it.)

So I am probably not going to be that famous and dedicated writer in glasses sitting in front of a typewriter with a cigarette butt sticking outta her mouth and stained coffee mug nearby (this was the strange notion I had of myself while growing up); but minus the cigarette, typewriter and famous parts, I think I've come pretty close.

There. Life is not perfect and CTS still sucks, but it is still darned good compared to what comes in second.

Brewing some Vietnamese.

Two Months

August and September were months of extremes, if you ask me. Firstly there was the sense of a post-mission low after 3 glorious weeks in Port Dickson and Hanoi leading the OM team. It was a great, although unevnetful trip where 'grand action' was concerned. We were instructed to play tourists whilst we had prepared to dig trenches. Oh well...

Then there was of course, there was my adopted father's visit from Virginia Beach for almost a week. A totally shameless 'makansutra' outing. The binge continued with my birthday bash(es). This yeah was tremendous! I was eating non-stop with friends, family and more friends! (The last meal is lunch tomorrow with my buddy... almost one month after my actual birthdate!). I am truly blessed.

Then came the lowpoints. I had fallen ill. Was in bed for 12 days, drugged and drugged again. Not fun. Anymore sleeping and bedsores will peek outta my skinpores! Sigh. A-n-d then, my left arm started acting up... nerve pain! Yikes. This time round it had all the classic symptoms of CTS and freaked me out big time. I was walking around with a bent elbow and clawed hand, probably resembled the person who inspired Frankenstein had it not been already written. Great.

So today I am taking it easy (again!). Sigh... hasn't worked much since August and September's gonna be over soon. Next week I will be in Chiangmai and won't be back till Oct for a shoot.

Life continues...

Back!

Yay, I can blog again!!!!!!

I cannot believe I survived so long without.

My blogger ran into an error snag since erm... July in Hanoi when I tried to post, and since then the flurry of unending activities (travel, guests, sickness, etc) kept me busy - really busy - until now. So, thanks to Allan (who fixed the error in my blogger) I am now back in action!!!!

(Allan, in the meantime has gone to LaLa Land... methinks the all the hard work fixing up blogger has gotten the best of him...)

So now, there are lots to catch up on...

... in the next posts.