Yes, this blog still exists and I intend on keeping up with it.
Why an update now?
- I've been sitting at my desk for the past hour and a half doing basically nothing. It's a great feeling considering I haven't been this at ease since the school year began. Times like these inspire me to think, and then express.
- It's September 25, a Saturday, and I'm working a full day today as a "make-up" day for one of the October holidays I'll be taking. I read somewhere that the Sept. 22 Mid-Autumn festival, being a 3 day national day, followed by National Day Week, from Oct. 1-7, has thrown one ginormous of monkey wrench into everyone's vacation plans. Holidays need to be made up - but my school, being the quirky private yet still very Chinese school, decided to go against the national flow by taking only Sept. 22 off. We came back to school the next day and the day after that. AND THEN THE DAY AFTER THAT! I'll have tomorrow, Sunday off, then school for four more days before going on a 7 day break. That break will then be followed by school on Friday, and then another Saturday. Could it get any more confusing? I'm sure it will...
- Speaking of which, being the supervisor of both the kindergarten and primary school English departments - I have to adhere to the longest day. It means that on this day, the primary school had a half day. Everyone there was dismissed at 12PM. Except for me, I still had classes to teach the whole day at the kindergarten. I know my wife is waiting at home, missing me.
- Oh, that's a major update: I'm married! This was the major reason why I hadn't updated this blog in over a quarter. All that free time was taken up by wedding planning.
Alright, with the "why now" reasons out of the way, the real update:
- My wedding in Hong Kong was perfect. And funny I don't mean perfect to mean that everything went according to our plans. In review and reflection of all that had happened since I proposed to my wife back in November '09, the day couldn't have gone better, nor could it have gone any worse. I have this strange sense of "as long as we're going with the flow, we'll remain cool as cucumbers". And really that's all we could do on our special day. Everything that we've planned for we've handed over to those responsible - and all we had to do was sit back, relax, and give it all up to God. In another sense, there wasn't anything we could do about anything that didn't turn out well. She and I were very aware about that. And by 3A.M., we finally exhaled.
- Believe us, we've had our share of family dramas. At first, something bad had happened in my family. Soon after my case was resolved, something bad had happened in her family. The stress of it all was a huge distraction at work (especially since we both work in the same school office), and presented opportunities for us to resolve interpersonal conflicts. After a couple of months of peace, the drama tide returned to me, stayed with me, and intensified by the day as the wedding drew near.
- All that has happened during those months taught us humility and developed a greater dependence on prayer. It was not fun, it was rather painful, but in the long run we felt it had purpose.
- We had our honeymoon in Tokyo and Hakone. Hakone was a welcomed change of scenery of foliage and a lake compared to the concrete jungle of Tokyo.
- We returned to Beijing and back to work in late August. With the new school year came five new teachers (and last year's teachers returned). Four of them work in my department. September kicked off with a busy fury, but a lot less stressful compared to last year's start.
- The Mondays: I've taken on a lighter role in this group - no longer being part of the planing team nor facilitator. The purpose here is to use the time to develop my newly wedded life with her. I'll still attend and participate in the discussions, and to befriend the other guys who come visit this group.
- The Wednesdays: has become "The Fridays". After much discussion, the team here decided to move this group to Fridays. This move will draw more kids since most of them don't do homework on Fridays. There's also the potential for more fathers to come home earlier from work to join in the adult's discussion group. Our youth section has split into two, and I took on the younger group. So far, I've only had six kids while the older group has reached 13. It's a great privilege to help this way, as it gives the adults a chance to discuss important life issues without the distraction of kids.
- The Sundays: After several months of "trying this" and "trying that", discussing our vision as a married couple gave us clearer direction on which service to attend. We decided to commit to the Cantonese language service as it fulfills three purposes 1) So my wife can get fed 2) So I can learn Cantonese 3) For potential equipping should we move down to Hong Kong.
Life in general has indeed changed, and of course for the better. Married life is such a blessing.
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