February, Lent and Other Gists

Hey everyone! I hope you are having a great week. It's February and not just that, it's the fifth day already! Time is really flying by. This year, February has 29 days so make the most of the extra one! I trust that you had a great time in the last month and are looking forward to the rest of the year. Even if January wasn't so great, well there is the rest of the year to look forward to.

Usually about this time, a lot of New Year resolutions have been forgotten or discarded. If you made any resolutions at the beginning of the year, are you still keeping them? Or have your resolutions been swept under the carpet, in the busyness of day-to-day life? Filed somewhere between "I'll come to that later" and "I don't have time"? Or perhaps you've just simply forgotten about it and gone back to business as usual. It is really hard to make changes in life and procrastinating is one of the main stumbling blocks to progress. Sometimes I've made resolutions with all seriousness and before I know it, I've found myself slipping back to my old ways. It takes time and concerted effort to change or break a familiar pattern or habits. So if you really want to change something, keep at it and if you fail once or twice, don't give up. Pick yourself up and start again.

Speaking of resolutions, the period of Lent is upon us again. It seems to have come earlier this year hasn't it? Anyway, this afternoon my friend and I were talking about what we could give up for 40 days. At first I thought my life is pretty boring - I don't watch much TV, don't drink, don't smoke, don't eat too much chocolate, etc - so what could I give up? Then I thought, well I do spend too much time on Facebook. So that's what I'll be doing, no Facebook for me for the next 40 days. I'm actually looking forward to it. I think I will find that not going on facebook for a while will free up my time to do more productive things! I'll let you all know how it goes.

Update on my last post: I'm back at work! Yeah I decided to take up my previous employer's offer and I started again yesterday. When I walked into the reception yesterday morning, everyone was like, "Hey, welcome back!" "Did you have a good time off?" "How come you're back?" etc etc. It feels funny and yet familiar to be back at my old job, seeing my old colleagues and getting familiar with the things I used to do a few months ago. It's only till August though, so I'm not planning to put down any firm roots. There's no way I would stay in the job permanently, knowing what I now know. I would never be fulfilled in my career being an accountant again so I have to keep up with my writing. Someone said to me "Now you are back and soon it will feel like you never left". I smiled when she said that, but in my mind I knew it will never be the same. I've tasted what it feels to be free of the "dead-end job" trap and I know that I never want to be stuck in it for the rest of my life. Life is too short to be wasting my time in an unfulfilling job! That's what will motivate me to continue pursuing my other career goals because my dreams, goals, passion and skills are not in this profession. I'm doing this because I need some liquidity! I had actually forgotten about the journey to work aspect, so it's been funny getting back into the rush hour commuting malarkey again. That's the one part I definitely won't miss when I leave in the summer.

As Lent begins tomorrow, it's Pancake Day today! I'm making some, and I plan to eat them with bananas and whipped cream, absolutely delicious. Have fun eating yours and enjoy the rest of the week. Stay blessed.

Another Start

So I begin another year on blogger now. It's almost unreal that time has flown by so quickly.(Thanks everyone for coming to the anniversary party, it was fun!). I hope we will all still be blogging for many years to come. Although I can imagine how much technology will change in the next few years. Perhaps, blogging will not be as popular as it is now. Perhaps some other Internet phenomenon will come around and take its place. Like we've seen with the social networking sites hitting the news almost everyday now. My parents' generation would never have imagined where the world is now, when they were in their 20s. I can't imagine too, where the world would be, by the time my children are in their 20s. Communication and technology will be so vastly different to what's the hype at the moment. My goal is to keep up to date with the technology, so that I won't end up like the 60-year olds of our time who don't know how to send an email or a text message!

Speaking of those social networking sites, has anyone noticed that hi5 is now copying Facebook lately? Before Facebook became so popular, hi5 didn't have a lot of features. Now I just checked my hi5 account after many months of neglect and I noticed that hi5 now has the photo-tagging facility, mutual friends, activity and news feeds, and some other features which were exclusive to Facebook before. I don't blame them sha, somebody only has to come up with a good idea and before long, other people copy it.
I spend so much time on Facebook right now, even I am getting worried. I only have to be away from my laptop for a few hours, and as soon as I log back in, I have to login to Facebook to see what's been happening since I left. Oh no I'm addicted! Somebody please tell me there's a cure for this. I may have to go cold turkey and not sign into Facebook for a few weeks, otherwise at this rate, my life would be more virtual than real. I suspect the interest will fizzle out after a while, fingers crossed.

Hubby and I were invited by a couple of our British friends to come on holiday with them to Prague. We agreed to go, but we told them not to book the flight tickets yet because we would need to apply for visas. They looked shocked! They could not imagine why we would need visas just for a short weekend trip. We had to start explaining to them that even though we are resident in the UK, we are not citizens, so we are still subject to passport and immigration control. They were just saying "So you mean you have to plan holidays in advance?" "So you mean you cannot fly to Prague as a last minute trip?" "You mean you need permission to go to Europe?" and so on. In the end, hubby and I just shook our heads. They just didn't get it. I now realise that they can never understand what it means to be a foreigner living in the UK. It has never happened to them. It got me thinking about so many situations that people try to explain to you, but until you have experienced the situation for yourself, you cannot understand where they are coming from. For example: If someone has just lost a parent, can you understand how they feel, if both your parents are still alive? If someone has just been told they have terminal cancer, can you really put yourself if their shoes? I doubt it. Even when I went with my mum to her physiotherapy session, the exercises they told her to do looked so easy to me, but she was finding them difficult. I had to remind myself that she is not as strong as me, so I shouldn't expect her to be able to do those exercises so easily.

I'm beginning to question my own fitness levels anyway. I went for an hour-long exercise class two days ago and I still feel uncomfortable! Now it's going to take me longer than I thought to get back to the level of fitness I'm dreaming of: where I can run for a bus or train and not get out of breath. Maybe I should keep dreaming... lol