Retrospective

Tuesday, December 31, 2013 at 12:08 AM | Posted by Juwen
TL;DR
Everything looks clearer on hindsight, that includes my life for this year.

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As the year draws to a close, as cliche as it is, there's bound to be some sort of reflection of the year that is about to pass. I shall carry on that cliche in 4 parts.

 Self
This is the year that I have finally read the whole Bible from cover to cover. I have to ask myself why haven't I done this earlier because it has been really good. Got to find out a lot of things that I have never really known, including some particularly funny and strange passages in the Old Testament. And in many ways, I have grown a lot even from just briefly reading through the passages in my commute. I've even been challenged right there and then when reading the passage and it has been an uncomfortable feeling but that is a good thing. To know that you have to change in light of reading the Bible for its truths.

 I've also taken the time to say less and to think more as it is evident in the amount of posts I've written this year. Ever since I've started blogging, I've said a lot of things which, now looking at it in hindsight, is just a lot of noise. To the usual readers would note that a lot of the things that I write these days are things that just stirring in the heart about something ,either emotionally or rationally, or something that requires saying something about. I think that this is something that is going to continue on for the next few years. I am slowly sinking in the feeling in what I write, that sometimes less is more. 

 I've also tried to change things up a bit by learning a new keyboard layout. Probably one of the most difficult thing I have ever tried. It screws around with everything, your productivity drops by like 80% and you get utterly frustrated. It also makes you doubt whether it is a good thing or not despite some of the major pros over the current keyboard layout. You just got to persevere. That quality in itself is probably worth it since it is transferable to other areas of life.

 I would like to think that I have grown lots personally, or at least in a biased view of myself. It's a bit like a self help book, you feel really good after reading it and apply some of the things to your own self but whether or not you actually as a person in relation to others is another question (see Relationships)

 Work
This year at work has been an amazing time, lots of crazy good projects and our team is totally kicking butt. We've created some very novel ideas about apps and services that is shaping how we use the smartphone and having the opportunity to use some of these crazy new things.

 I've also written my first tool that helps a lot of what we do a lot simpler. It is nothing fancy but it does help lots. And now I'm thinking on how to grow what I have created to make things even more helpful. To think that 4 years ago, I wouldn't have thought of myself as a person who makes tools. I would have written equations and equations that only a handful of people would only know.

 I also feel that this is a particularly strange year for the company. We've hyper inflated in the past two years that I think that it is only this year that we are experiencing the growing pains of the company. Lots of new people are coming in and very quickly they are subjected to some major stresses that brand spanking new people shouldn't be having. Though we are improving our processes and trying to prevent these sorts of things from happening, I don't know whether the damage has been dealt to some of us. I feel that to those who will stay on in the next year or so will see a big improvement.

 Also there is a lot of old code that is in real need of a revamp (or even culled out completely). I think that there are better ways to do the things that some of these old code lying around are currently doing. 2 years of unchanged, or rather unaudited code, is a bad smell in my opinion. We just need the time to be able to do all of this, which we currently do not have.

 Overall, it has been an exciting time to work at where I am now. And the people there are just about as crazy as me, if not more crazy. I like crazy.

 Relationships
This year has been a strange one for that. In some respects, it is a repeat of 2010. In 2010, there was a small core group that I have rather frequent hangouts with and it was a great joy having that around. But by the end of the year, people started leaving the country and having other commitments, the group suddenly does not feel like the group anymore. This year has been pretty much like that although we didn't hangout as frequently as the group before that. The other difference is that I knew that the end result is going to be exactly just like in 2010. It was pretty much a ticking alarm clock. And so I've decided to make the most of it. The outcome of that has been great, got to know some people very well and some surprising things about people that I didn't expect.

 Also lots of old wounds are healing well. Scars are still there to remind me of my foolishness for years to come.

 It is also a year where my sphere of church friends have been moving from one church to another. And it is a weird thing to have that. Because there is a rather high turnover at the other church, this is the point where the old guard begins to fade away. While in my current church, I am only beginning to get to know people. The net effect is that I am like an acquaintance to both. I would put this as the hardest thing to handle this year, followed by learning a new keyboard layout as a close second (see Work).

 I think that I haven't been a good friend, at least in the past couple of years, due to a lot of internal struggle and subconsciously shunning people because of it. Even now I am trying to find out how can I deal with the many people around me who are getting attached or getting married. It almost seems as though that there is no space for the single soon-to-be 30 year old in their lives, you know, because birds of a feather flock together. Though I think that I have improved as a person (see Self), I'd still get a D for being a friend.

 But I thank God for the Bible study group that I am currently in. I've gotten to know a lot of them in the past year and a place that I can be myself again. If anything, this is an incubator for me to be a better friend. I can only hope that I can raise my friend score card to at least a B from this.

 Future

  • Starting to serve in a new music team and I am super excited about these bunch of crazy good musos. It is only in serving along side a group of great musicians can one improve in a band.
  • Starting to help out in another church with their music team to help train them to be better band members. 
  • Major opportunities in the horizon for work, terribly excited about it and terribly scared as well
  • Be a better friend
  • 4 more years until I shut the door

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It's Beginning To Look Like Christmas

Thursday, December 26, 2013 at 12:08 AM | Posted by Juwen
I am apparently not alone to say that this year's Christmas feels the least Christmas-y ever. There are less people than usual on the streets, it feels less festive and certainly not something to look forward to. And yet I can see that there lots more people out there who feel that it's the most joyous Christmas. This is probably the first Christmas that I've been in where I didn't celebrate with family nor belong to a family-like presence. 

 As a kid, I had my ideals about Christmas, ideals that still stuck with me many years later. I absorbed American culture so much as a kid that I often wonder what would I give in order to experience that, including Christmas time. The beautifully decorated Christmas tree (that is not made by plastic), fireplace going, thick blanket of snow outside, large family gathering under one roof and so on. At that time the only thing that was close enough to that description was actually Chinese New Year. The only differences were that the tree was a kumquat tree, the fireplace replaced with a dinner table and snow for thick humid air.

 Nowadays, Christmas seems just like any other day, whether it is Independence Day or September 13th. What joy has already left in my heart, what spring is there in my step. Everything feels so sterile now.

 Of course that I haven't forgotten what Christmas is meant to signify and I am very thankful for that. In fact there is a great deal of things that I am very thankful for this year, perhaps even the most thankful that I have been in years. But the thing that I seem to be losing my memory is what does it feel like to be part of a family again. I am largely to be blamed for this and I wish I can do things differently, but I guess the damage has been done. And now I am in a time where my peers are having their own families now (or soon to have), it has further highlighted the feeling of not being in a family even more. My actual family are miles away and its been harder and harder to stay as a family.

 And you know, I think that that is the main reason that my personal emotional well being has taken a toll on. 

 For the few of you who are reading this, may your Christmas be one that is full of the sense of belonging, be it with others or your own. May you are able to share that joy with others even to that weird little guy down the corner. Also may you know that this is when a man came into the world and he is called...

 God With Us.

And in these last hours of Christmas left, have yourself a merry little Christmas.

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Thank Providence

Saturday, December 21, 2013 at 1:27 AM | Posted by Juwen
As you can probably tell, I've read it. And I have to say that I finally get why you loved that darn book and her so much. Even more so through the lens of hindsight. I'd say that apart from physical characteristics and a few details, I'm even inclined to say that it is really a story about you except in an alternate universe.

 I can even see myself in a few of the characters, and I'm sure that you would already know who they are. Everything including my flaws are in scattered throughout all the characters, like I am really seeing myself through the looking glass.

 Lots of emotions were brought forth. Emotions that I am glad to be reminded of. But there are also plenty of them that I would like not to be reminded of. As a whole, she provided a lot of empathy to me, at least up to a certain point in her life.

 For the time being, she has given me something for the road ahead of me though gloomy, lifeless and void of any comforting presence as it is already. There is scope for imagination. And perhaps that is what I need to be able to entertain the idea of it being thrusted upon me, or maybe achieved, as Mrs. Lavendar would have put it. What happened to her in the end is not for me as yet and is subject for a distant time and place, if Providence were to allow the course of history to flow through it.

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Gathering Thoughts

Tuesday, December 10, 2013 at 1:02 AM | Posted by Juwen
And just like that, the year is almost come to an end. It has been an interesting year, full of ups and downs but most important of all is that there were a lot of things that I have learned as well. Lots of opportunities came and went, all in God's providence to teach me along the way, to continue to trust in Him. Church has been the main source of the lessons, being challenged from God's word, has changed a lot especially when it comes to prayer. I think I'll write about it more as I continue to reflect on the rest of the year. More importantly, after another crazy week at work this week.

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 If I am reading the signs right, it may be the right time for me to slowly start looking for a new place to stay. It is about time.

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Post Mortem

Monday, November 18, 2013 at 8:39 AM | Posted by Juwen
I've had coffee with two friends after a seriously hard week, both of them getting ready to go into the next phases of their lives. Watching them talk about their respective journeys was interesting but also made me think about my own. Where am I going and what am I getting myself into, I have no idea. Hearing their conversation, it is pretty evident what those questions look like and I'm sure that they too have their fare share of uncertainty as well. But there is a natural progression to these things and it is good to have them. 

It was then that I started to become really emotional. I don't think I showed it, but I definitely felt it. You know, the usual the grass is greener on the other side kind of deal. But I think it is more than that. I want to experience what they are going through. I know that it is tough, there is no doubt about that, but I still want in. It may be that God will grant me the experience later or that it shall be my cross to carry and to give my life to mentorship. But right now the feeling I get is that is to take a good look at them because that kind of life is not for me. And this saddens me greatly. For now.

I still share with them in their joy for being granted to go through their new phases in their lives. And there is a place for being happy/content with where you are now yet at the same time longing to be something or someone. Those are the two states that I am in now in this phase of my life. And it is a very hard to hold these two things in tension without slipping into something worse.

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I think general morale in the company is low and I say it is the result of the growing pains that we are having. I think that to those who persevere through these times will see good sweet light at the end of the tunnel. How many of those who persevere on is another question.

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גם זה יעבור

Tuesday, November 5, 2013 at 11:33 PM | Posted by Juwen
The long weekend was a lot of fun and it was also a chance that for me to think a lot. For the past weekend as well as Monday and Tuesday, I have been spending a lot of time with a small group of friends, heading for road trips and just generally hanging out. It was also a time for me to prepare myself that all of this is momentary. That soon, very soon I'd wager, that all of this shall cease. I am merely trying to milk it for as much enjoyment and to learn as much as possible.

It won't be long before they will continue on with the next stage in life and that they will find new friends or rather be closer friends with people of similiar status and I will fade away from their memory. This has already happened before and have been severely affected by that. So to minimise the damage this time round, I will treat it like the fact that all of this, the fun times and doing life together, is something that will end soon. To get as much out of the experience as possible, ready to pack my bags and find another group of friends that I can share my past experiences with them and to gather new ones.

I guess you can say that the wandering spirit has started to settle in me and the desire to move becomes ever more stronger. The desire to move to different areas from all aspects of life, starting from the place of receiving spiritual nourishment all the way to the physical location. Wherever the Lord leads I will follow.

 Interestingly enough, last Sunday's sermon spoke of almost exactly the thing that I needed assurance of. That was the start of a new series my church is starting which is on promises, specifically the promises that God has made for his people. It started with the promise that God will provide. It as though God was reassuring me that He will provide my needs despite the many "why"s that I have. One of the key points of the sermon was to be thankful for the things that I have received and I am thankful for these friendships. And when the road splits and I continue down the path that I am now while friends go on with their lives down another path, I am thankful for them.

 I will just need to be prepared for when that day comes, not to be too tied down and to learn to let go.

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Sovereignty

Sunday, October 6, 2013 at 10:15 PM | Posted by Juwen
A friend posted a tweet this morning with a link to Shane and Shane's song Though You Slay Me. Little did I know that the content of this song fits in very well with today's sermon. It also fits in with my own struggles, it's a song that preaches to me that every suffering is meaningful. All of this was I guess God letting me know that he is in control of all things, sovereign. Which happens to be the topic of the sermon or rather part thereof.

Shane and Shane have written, I think, some of the most honest Christian songs I can think of. Sure the songs that we sing week in week out are full of Scripture that remind us of the love of Christ and how great a cost that he died for us and so on and so forth. But few songs have come to describe our humanly struggles in a way that connects with us in this day and age or even our hypocrisy as part of God's church as well as Shane and Shane do (Casting Crowns comes close though). Songs like the one above, below or even the one below that are not meant to be sung in church but to be listened like how one listens to a sermon.



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