Honesty is the best policy

So October is here again, my birthday weekend is here again and it's wet rainy Saturday again! LOL Oh well, we are in lockdown anyway, still cannot go to restaurants to celebrate. I am grateful that I was actually pretty blessed on this birthday. I have not spent so much time with housemates in years and let alone celebrating birthdays together, and this year it makes a huge difference being in a lockdown. God's faithfulness displayed in many different ways. 

I actually dreaded the coming birthday so much, being haunted by bad memory from last year. I always thought celebrating my birthday with my partner would be the best way to spend the day but.. was I wrong.. Yes it started nice with birthday greetings and gifts, and the walk in the rain was nice, but by the end of the day I was left feeling dumb, insecure, and wondering what have I done wrong? I mean, he picked my birthday of all days to tell me he had doubt about our future together and decided to spend the evening with his friend instead, not even asking my opinion on it, really.. And the "talk" escalated very quickly to the end of our relationship, over a text, no further discussion.  

I thought God will spare me of this pain from a broken relationship.. But turned out this was a journey I needed to take. It really led me to so much self reflection and taught me patience (and urrrrgh it's getting harder each day to wait thinking it's been so long, are we there yet?). So many times I felt impulsive urge to try to mend the relationship, but after all, thanks to dearest Iris' wise counsel and prayer, I held on to wait and watch for the leading of God's intervention, not doing it my way. My counsellor asked me, so what are your choices now, stay delusional wishing he'll change his mind and call me, get stuck in the past and regrets, blaming yourself and continue mourning, confront the problems once and for all or go on living and trust God will guide your path? 

Through this all, I am grateful for a new life group and the wonderful people I met after.. Had I not broken up then, I would have gone with him to an LG of his choice, yes he's decided it without considering me, and I would likely feel lost there, but in this LG I feel so welcomed and I belong. We read the bible, share our thoughts and experience with life, worship together, pray for each other and we have seen many prayers answered, it's so encouraging. God has been so faithful and patient with me and my brokenness. In the first week of the break up, this song playing in my head "His promises never fail". What promise, God? I asked. It is that His ways are higher than my ways, and He is for me not against me, so I can trust in Him whatever path He is taking me on. Do not run away, but be honest when  I feel weak or helpless, submit my desire, fear and disappointment to Him because a wound that remains covered will rot, it needs to be exposed and treated. Some people say the most powerful thing in this world is the truth. I do want to have a partner and raise children together for the next generation, I want to do that with a man who share the same vision of a family and I know God is moulding my characters to be meek, considerate, more patient, and humble to be of a good steward and I am not alone in this journey. 

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will direct your path" [Proverbs 3:5-6]

Hello you!

Helloooooooow blogspot, years of absence and wow I can't recognise the interface anymore.

So I have closed a chapter of life of study study study- research research research - paper paper paper and comfortable in the working life now. One day I'll share my years on journey with y'all how I got to where I am now, in the world of data analysis. All praise to God for answering my prayer at the last moments when I started to feel the pressure and frustration of uncertainty of what I am gonna do for my career? Thank You Daddy for coming through on time <3<3

And today, well it's been for more than half of 2020 now, we found us in an unprecedented time of a global pandemic and the world and the culture in working and human interaction is changed and we are taking a turn to different dynamics for the rest of our lives. 

Working from home has become a norm, which was a privilege to some including my team (we have been equipped to do so for the past two years) and honey, it comes with some perks, advantages and disadvantages. An example, I woke up in the middle of the night (4AM ish) and realized i forgot to upload a file and refresh a report that should done by yesterday. So I woke up to the alarm at 7AM and first thing I did, turn off the alarm of course ^o^ then turn on my work laptop and did what I was suppose to do. So i didn't miss a deadline. Sweet. 

And If you know me you know I always go in and out last from office, and late most of the time... now that we are WFH, I am never again late to the office. 

Now question is, would these likes outweigh the likes for conservative office style? Let's see, up to this day, I have been sitting at a table that is too low and have a very cluttered working space... The poor set up for my monitor and table have caused me pain when sitting too long, and I do this 4 days a week at the moment due to company's policy to take leaves (can't imagine how i'll do with 5 days a week??). So, no I don't like WFH more than working from office because I can simply walk 20 minutes to the office and have a properly set working station to support my shoulder and plenty of space to move around. Of course it would be a different story if I live in Geelong or elsewhere that will require at least 1 hour commute to office, which I am hoping and praying will happen soon. That would be another chapter of life.

COVID-19, what have we all learnt from this ? To me, I learnt that human is relational being at the core, and no body can live alone, physical well being and emotional well being are equally important, if they are not I would tend to weigh the latter slightly more (maybe biased by the second X-chromosome but hey there is one saying in Proverbs "a cheerful heart is a good medicine"). So a lesson leant for me is to remember to prioritise my relationships over routine and life business even after pandemic is over. And talking about relationship, I have not mentioned much of it so far in my journal but I got a feeling I might write much more about it from now on, the good, bad, and the ugly.