It's a wrap!

JANUARY: Hanging with my MNMC posse in Japan. We pray for dinner in real-time webconferencing! The Delirious Mission Bell Concert with AXH & HT.

FEBUARY: Andy's "What-every-girl-wants-present" Valentine's Day goes horribly wrong! I don't want it! Start training at Ghetto Secondary School. Andy goes to Krabi. Alone. WTH. My parents buy a cleaning robot!

MARCH: Pre-honeymoon to Bintan, Indonesia. Bliss! Andy goes to Ministry School. We're engaged at the end of the month!

APRIL: We attend Kairos: World Missions Course. Start the planning. We pick a date.

MAY: It's official where I'll be teaching and serving my scholarship bond. Too many things to do...

JUNE: I embrace the teaching profession. I pick a gown. The housing system in Singapore baffles us while the property prises go against us.

JULY: I graduate with my Post-graduate Educational Diploma and start teaching!

AUGUST: Found an apartment!

SEPTEMBER: Teachers' Day. I'm in school uniform!

OCTOBER: I buy my Palm TX to manage life here. I'm getting married in SIX weeks! Plan. Plan. Plan. Mark exam papers. Plan somemore.

NOVEMBER: It's the year end vacation, finally. And, We're married!

DECEMBER: Our 1st honeymoon to Bali, Indonesia. Living it up in the lap of luxury! Plan our next getaway!

What a year... a lot of it was about the wedding and adjusting to work. I know I have let a lot of things slip by carelessly. Next year, will be about the marriage and adjusting to work again. I hope I'll be able to account for my time and energy better. I'd like to think I'll use my time here wisely to prep. There's less of a end-goal, but I suspect it will be filled with quite a bit to look back on again next time this year.

2006 + 2005 + 2004

Goals for 2008

In no particular order...

1. Run some, yet to be discussed distance in the 2008 The Singapore Marathon with Andy.
2. Spend time more productively away from work over the computer and internet.
3. Grow a relationship with 3 new persons/couples.
4. Setup home complete with furnishings!
5. Have people spend time in our home!
6. Serve with Andy on a small ministry that will help us grow together but not take too much solo time from us since we want time to build us-ness.
7. Survive at work.
8. Take formal Japanese language classes with Andy.
9. Read more.
10. Spend more time with God.

And I already think that is one too many things for us to do!

TAKING STOCK OF 2007

What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Engaged and married!

Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for 2007?
I think so, but what were they in the first place?

Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes. Now the parents want company for her.

Did anyone close to you die?
No.

What countries did you visit?
Vietnam and Indonesia. Gah. Too busy working!

What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
iPhone. No, I'd like a Kingdom Purpose - not that I lacked one, but 2007 had its own reasons.

What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
November 24th - our wedding date.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Technically, a wedding shouldn't count. Especially since I had a party planner.

What was your biggest failure?
Nothing felt like a big failure :-)

Did you suffer from illness or injury?
Not as much as last year! I slept lots and looked after my body well!

What was the best thing you bought?
My Palm TX, I need it to manage life here.

Whose behavior merited celebration?
Andy, still. He is a really great guy to have married. I don't know who else would put up... no, I mean love my nonsense.

Where did most of your money go?
We recouped the wedding and I suppose the honeymoon falls under his budget so most of it went to ministries.

What did you get really excited about?
Getting married. (This is a phase hazard, I'm not usually this smug about it.)

Which song will always remind you of 2006?
"If I Kissed You" by Corrinne May since it was one of our wedding songs. Although, the truth behind that song is that I kissed him first. ;-)

Compared to this time last year, are you:
Happier or sadder? Sadder
Thinner or fatter? Thinner!
Richer or poorer? Richer.

What do you wish you'd done more of?
Reading the bible, doing biblestudy, spending time with God. You get the drift.

What do you wish you'd done less of?
Procrastinate - but that is entirely not true. I don't wish to do less of it. I want to do more!

How did you spend Christmas?
Had a great kids' christmas service at our new church ARPC, lunched with my parents over Penang Fare, showed Andy around my run-route, presented ourselves as a unit at the Tan Family Christmas Dinner and then promptly fell sick with a ear & nose infection.

Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
Andy when he was working in HK.

Did you fall in love in 2007?
I guess so...

What was your favorite TV program?
I still do not watch TV.

What was your favourite movie?
I watched more movies at the cinema this year than the last 3. The few memorable ones were.... ...

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No....

What was the best book you read?
The Irresistable Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane claiborne

What was your greatest musical discovery?
Third Day's Chronology. I could listen to it over and over again. It is MY cd in the car.

What did you want and get?
Someone to share my dreams and visions with and play with me in the meantime.

What did you want and not get?
I got my way most of the time. Or maybe for once I figured out what God wanted me to do. :-)

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Planned for the wedding, yumz japanese dinner, turned 28.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Could I possibly ask for more?!

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Whatever worked.

What kept you sane?
.... hrrrrmm. oh dear.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Whoddat?

Who did you miss?
The Monday Night Mini-church Crew.

Who was the best new person you met?
I reconnected with a lot of old friends and got to meet ones from out of state so I think that counts for more.

A valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
It is a struggle to keep perspective.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
...

On Christmas, Marriage, Work and life Beyond.

Perhaps because this is the year-end that one gets sort of reminiscent and reflective. And even though I think its good practice, I didn't think I was going to succumb to it earlier than Christmas.

Well, this is my second Christmas since I've been back in Singapore and it doesn't look like its going to be happy and hearty as the last. This, despite that I am a 1-month newly-wed and in our 'honeymoon phase'. That must mean something right?

That festive joy seems to take an awful long time to creep in. It's Christmas eve and I'm waiting to be hit with that warm happy fuzzy feeling. Which leaves me to think that its less something that hits you and more something that starts with you.

Here is one thing that I know is keeping me from my expectant joy: I know two close and dear families who are having trouble with their marriage. These people are the folks we grow up looking toward for authority and example. I know both are struggling to keep things together, to work at loving each other still despite failures in responsibilities, loyalties and hopes. This means so much more now that I am married. I have never understood how marriages could work without God. While I love Andy very much at this point of time, what's to say that in 10 or 20 or even 5 years that we won't be struggling really hard, when the only thing that is keeping our relationship together is God? I cannot imagine any other reason for perservering if God is not my reason. And yet, even when God is the reason for working to keep marriages and families together as I am seeing in those two marriages and families, I can see, in one of them, that some may have little staying power. Hard lessons to keep in your heart so early in a marriage.

Another thing that walls the festive spirit is the fear of sickness and health. I am not sick and neither are my closest and dearest, yet. But there is the fear that time will prove me wrong. No, I do not think that anyone is ill, I just am really afraid that one day those I love will battle the fate our flesh. What brings this? Some older friends of mine have not been doing well. They are only 3-5 years older than me. One just went under the knife to remove a cancerous kidney, another's father passed away this weekend. I imagine in due time, these will be the things I'll struggle with.

Then of course there is work. I tire even of this subject since we all struggle with this thing called work. This is one area I try stay positive and not complain about because everyone already complains about it and secondly because I believe I have a lot to be thankful for. I suppose if I spent my time being thankful I would complain less; I do have a good paying job and one that I will not lose for awhile. This allows me to stay in a safe country of generally low (relative and yet rising) living costs where water is clean, medical facilities are readily available and be able to spend time and place with those I love.

But it comes at a cost that slowly drains and saps me from my dreams and hopes. One of the most hopeful things I heard at our wedding was Andy telling me that our mission would be mission. A year and a half since coming back, it is like a reality that slowly slips away, a life so far away from where I am right now. Can it be that one and a half years is all it takes to change me to fit the mold here? That instead of my life's hope to live my life to the fullest for God, that I am living my life to help other, individuals and organizationally, reach their worldly goals? Yes, this is something I find to be true even in the christian environment of our school - and only because this is the country and government under which we live.

I've said for the longest time since moving back that the transition has been smoother than expected. That doesn't mean easy or smooth but that i expected it worse. What is worse? A quick rip of the band-aid or a slow aching pain that creeps over time?

Now, looking back a lot of that pain was eased largely because I had two good reasons to be here, to school and Andy. Now that I am done with Teacher's College and Andy and I are a unit, my spirit starts to become restless and question what it is I am supposed to be doing with myself, ourselves now or till we are to move again.

Let me be honest; there are immense difficulties in me being here. The intuitions of society slowly but surely put pressure on me to conform. It's sick. If I put family and life first, I am pressured to be more committed to work. And somehow, in the rhetoric, I am told that that is what a good teacher should be. That is to make me feel I ought to put in more time and energy into all the other responsibilities above and beyond the classroom, like spending this vacation actually doing work like writing proposals. This is why Singaporeans are all overachievers, you are supposed to do more than you signed up for. And if you don't follow suit then well, you will get the the short end of the stick. Of course, I don't think I am lazy, I just think I have a very different priority in life.

With the new year fast approaching - technically speaking, this is the last day of my vacation - I dread 2008. It is such a strange thing to say since I have always lived hopefully expectant. There is some anxiousness with the new year; I know I will get more responsibilities at work that I am not keen at all to take up but there is little choice in that. I wonder how I will manage that and work on cementing our new marriage and setting up home. At the same time, we are thinking about juggling serving God and working toward missions. I think they are all possible, if work didn't seem to creep in, demanding more and more of our time and energy. I sometimes envy the lower paid industries - I could earn my keep and what I need and spend the rest of my heart tending to Kingdom business.

And that is the thing, Kingdom Business. I think that is what I was created for because that is when I really really feel most alive and living. Even being in its midst is not good enough for me, I want to be part of it. There is the talk that comes with marriages and weddings that 'now you can have a kid' or that it should be the next thing to work toward. I have not yet said to most that while it is something that we want, it isn't something that we want now. It can if it happens I suppose, but what our hearts really want is Kingdom Business. We would like to go to YWAM DTS in a few years and we should probably work toward paying off our living and tuition fees for that. It's a good thing by then, the apartment would be paid off because if I have my way, I would love to open and share the house to missionaries in Singapore, when we are away. This makes terrible planning for the financial advisor who would like to tell us that we should build our wealth for the future of our children since we would have no income. But it would be so exciting for me to live it out and see how God would provide for us then. Otherwise, life can get boring if you could plan for what is to happen. It's completely anti-intuitive, but having enough to do what I want is simply not enough to let God do what he is really good at.

Anyway, this Christmas, while it may not hold as much revelry and mayhem as I'd like, is by no means an unimportant one. I feel I am standing on a precipice and when I look back at this particular Christmas in the future, it will probably be weighted with deep meaning of lessons learnt from this point forward. In the meanwhile, I shall take comfort in this:

"Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering... Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you." Romans 12:1-2

CRITICAL

I think dinner turned out to be an utter flop. Sigh.

As festive dinners go, it didn't live up to the anticipation I had to having a great dinner with the family. It was supposed to be quaint but it turned out to be too quiet. The food was acceptable but left me little desire to return. You'd hardly think there was any revelry going on. Would it be too strange to wonder if Russian's celebrated Christmas? Some part of our table conversation proved a dampener too.

This is coming from someone who got reprimanded from someone very dear about how I was too critical and how I ought to be more magnanimous. A parallel was given of a very critical lady at work who was detested by most and how dreadful it would be if I turned out that way. I'm sure it was done with the best of intention but I feel somewhat misunderstood.

Yet, I can't reason out of it other than that I considered myself (and almost took pride in thinking that I was) less critical than most. Money came into the discussion briefly that I should not make an issue over an incident when I was over charged $1 or if I should seek compensation for a late service. Of course, it is my benefit to justify myself in those cases but I really don't really want to do that.

What I really want to know is if I am critical - and by that, I am not interested in couching that in positive terms on how that makes me a great thinker or anything. Do me a favour and let me know if I am and when I was. I make a biased judgement of myself and this is great sort of self-reflection.

The Smug Married

I better write this while its still fresh and counts for something. But before I get started ranting I better say something about writing about Husbandry 101. I actually thought I might either rewrite the site or set up a new one and call it that - to journal this life-course of course.

But then, I have issues with writing about acquiring a husband and being married. I have little words to describe how I feel when I read another blog on a gal's husband or her fair skin bub. They are like a glazy, distant world to me, something I have found hard to relate to and perhaps so will the single reader. What makes these people write about their newly married life and why I would want to read it? After two or three blogs, they all have the same subliminal message: life is good.

The bad bits I suppose are the ones that can categorized under 'Private' and the rest of the world, has one less useful lesson we can learn from someone elses' mistake. These issues are sensitive ones, they're private pains (or joys) and hence not for public consumption. So, who can fault them?

Since a blog is generally about on-goings of one's life and not much else, there is not much else but to write about being a newly married person. I cringe when I think that is what I will write about. Maybe because I don't like the idea that it has now become all of my life. And yet, it has to be my life. Like God's presence in my life, it cannot just be 1/3 of my life pie chart, it has to be the centre from which all else stems from.

My second issue about writing Husbandry101 is that I'll end up sounding like life is good. I know married life is not all good, we've all been told that but we hardly see it. We always end up seeing the glamourous bits of it. And psychology has taught us that we are visual learners first.

I must say, much of what the observations has been Andy's while I have just been thinking them. He's noticed the difference in how we are treated now that we are married. Let's start with the married folk. I can't tolerate smug marrieds. The whole notion that life's solution lay in getting married just bugged me to the bones. I'm sure it was great for them but you don't have to get into everyone's face and tell them how good life is now that they are married. Or for that matter say to A, "How's married life? Good, eh??" Like, life was not good before for him? As Andy recalls, life was pretty good before marriage; a girl, a job, a hobby... what else could life want for more? If anything, marriage brings on more....

Married life isn't bad, but it isn't all that great either - its just a different phase of life and while we're new at it, its exciting but all things adventurous and exciting always have had that aspect of adrenalin and fear, just like rock-climbing for example. And you don't get the good high till you're actually done climbing.

So, A's been noticing how we are being 'initiated' into the flock. Oh shudder, when they find out I'll be dragged in kicking and screaming. Smug marrieds are smiling and nice to everyone - who is married.

Mrs Bright Smile, "You guys have a great week, okay? See ya next weekend!"
Poor Tired & Sweaty Single, "Seeya next week. Hmpf."

Somehow Poor Tired & Sweaty Single seems to have a better grasp of reality - what good week? We have to go back to work monday and its the festive season!

Oh yea, and the sick joke from the married men, "You look tired. Wife been keeping you up?" You didn't notice that he was tired before and worse still you didn't notice till he was married.

Also interesting is the household stereotype which this festive season give opportunity to. Last year, it was "why don't you bring drinks?". This year "You and Andy can bring some roast meats. I have a knife carver and I'm good with it". How do I even begin to deconstruct the implied?

I am incapable of cooking until married... which is utter bullocks. I actually like to cook, I think I do quite well and cook for a home party every week in Japan.

Now that you're married, you can bring the main dishes that count. "Wow, your roast lamb was great! It must have been such hard work." Ever heard someone say, "Wow, the coke you brought was a killer! How did you do it?!" Why do the singles always get delegated the drinks? I think this year, I will bring drinks.

Only married men are practiced in carving meat because now they have a 'family' to hunt and gather for. Who cared about the poor single men who didn't have to work and just sat around all day. They didn't have to hunt and gather, what would they know about hacking ham?

I don't know why it is, but it is. I had great fun last year taking the piss out of the Smug Marrieds at Christmas. They didn't know quite what to do with me, "yes, I haven't had a 'real' job' so far... mostly fun things...little do they know...", "I'm still in school - i don't work", "This years bonus? Oh, I gave that away - I don't have the pleasure the excuse to save for my kids or anything".

One of the things that riled me last year was a get-together that a newly married organized for all the peeps that helped at the wedding. Everyone was married except me and another gal. Everyone was busy admiring the house, but we didn't know what to do about it. Maybe cause my dad's in the profession so I don't give a hoot or perhaps more likely, i just don't give a hoot where they bought their white Grohe sanitary finishings. Sorry, I can't help you there, I only know where to buy awesome-designed-white-macs.

My single friend and I laughed so hard when we shared that our christmas wish list last year wasn't the latest swanky electrolux washing machine and she was only interested in buying heels not a home. Well, despite having to set up a new home next year, this years wish list is for an iPhone (which I know I can't get for Christmas, but I will accept belated gifts when they do arrive in 2008). I will give up a dishwasher for that anytime. Our house will get done, and I'm sure it'll be the kind of place I wanna hang out in, but don't expect me to rattle off things about my new home when it comes. I'm only interested how much I'll get to share it with others - not lock it up so it doesn't get dirty.

Honeymoon = Andy's honey over the moon?

I shall admit, this is an attempt to procrastinate from work that I should be doing at home.

Well, we're back from the honeymoon. And it was really good. A bit like R&R chill-outs at some beach resort that A & I love to spend our holidays but this time, spread out between the beaches and our villas. We only really spent 1 day sightseeing and another checking out the art and handicraft galleries. After that, I decided that wasn't the way I was interested in spending my vacation, let alone our honeymoon.

We had a total of three villas with privy pools, breakfast cooks, butlers, flower petal strewn baths, tropical outdoor showers, candlelight dinners, 4 Balinese spa treatments and buggy to boot.

It is quite easy to laze away the time so you see how difficult it is for me to get any work done at home now that I am back. Poor him who has to be at work.

I don't want to give a tiresome run down of what ensued - it was a chilled-out honeymoon after all. But, its been awhile since I've put up images so here are some random pictures from the 200+ we harvested...























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