Awesome July

July 31st, 2010 The author

I can’t believe how quickly July has gone!! Really, if there has been any month in my life where time flew by ever so rapidly, it would be July 2010! Nevertheless July has been a fantastic month for me. Having just returned from 2 weeks training in June and witness 2 weddings, I gotta say I was eager to start July with a bang, and a “bang” indeed it was for me.

July pretty much kept me busy with work. We had a number of training sessions to concerntrate on, so my first priority was to work on the training materials which required some serious revamping work. I also got a chance to meet up with my intern who will be with the proejct until August.  I really thank God for giving me such a good intern. The guy is just awesome!

Also I just learnt that there is a good positibility that I will be returning back to my former project. This is really great news for me as I really felt that we kind left the project in a lurch,  and just a couple of weeks back, I heard that the client actually wants the team back to help with the change management aspects of the project! Damn, it really feels good when you actually feel “wanted” by your clients, so yeah I am really happy with this news!

Speaking about hectic work, in the midst of all the busyness, it was really awesome to hear my current client affirm me on my positive outlook and cheerfulness this week. This is actually the first time someone from work has actually complimented me on having a cheerful outlook to life. She actually told my project manager that he should keep me in the current project and that she loves my positive spirit, saying that it’s good for the team and it helps the project! Wow, talk about scoring brownie points man! But as always, I really am grateful to God for giving me such a wonderful spirit, a positive spirit which helps others, and not just myself!!

Faith-wise also  has been quite an interesting month for me. I finally decided to use the 3Js format, which I learnt from the Padley brothers in Lifeline, and I gotta say, I am really happy I actually did this. I have heard alot of positive feedback from the group leaders who have implemented this into their cell groups. For me personally, I think my favourite point is actually hearing the members share their Jesus moment, and its really interesting to see how they actually need to take time to really think it through. I think this really helps in building the spirituality of the individual, it forces them to just ponder, reflect and articulate their sprirituality to others around them. One of my fellow leaders also pointed out, that it also helps affirm one another and it allows the members to grow spiritually together which I thought was really true as well!

All and all, I am really pleased with the month of July. And I just hope August will be just as aswesome as July!

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Learning from the ‘Elders’

July 18th, 2010 The author

I have to admit that unlike most people who have grandpas and grandmas who will tell them tells of yesterday and impart words of wisdom to their grandchildren, I grew up not having that sort of privellege. Although I had known my grandmother, I had not gotten the chance to really hear stories from her.  And did I ever say that I love hearing stories? Especially stories of experience and struggles, and the lessons learnt – yes especially the lessons learnt from their lives stories.

But I feel blessed to have siblings who do share their live stories with me. Earlier today evening I had a wonderful chance to spend some time with my brother and we had chatted alot along the course of the evening. Well it was more of him doing the talking and me doing the listening. And it was great! Even though the difference in years aren’t that significant between us, I still feel that everytime whenever we talk, or whenever he has something to say, there is always something for me to take away at the end of the conversation. Be it whether we are talking about our life’s challenges, or about faith or even about movies, there’s always something for me to take away. I don’t really know what it is, maybe it’s his insights, which I sometimes diasgree but have come to respect and to a certain degree, accept given his life circumstances and the experiences he has gone through in his own life. And listening to him helps me grow, it broadens my perspective of life, and helps me realise certain truths about life.  And I feel this is important for my own growth.

And I guess that’s how I learn about things, and I really am truly blessed for such wonderful ‘elders’ in my life.

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week-END update

July 11th, 2010 The author

I had a number of ideas I planned to blog this week, but as always, most of my ideas get shelved. Why? Cuz of work, plus on the fact that I had started recovering from a nasty flu earlier this week. The flu is still there, but I hope I am getting better. I guess what I really need to do is to focus on taking my medications regularly and keep at it till my flu goes off. What usually happens is once I find myself improving, I would just stop the meds, only to realise that a few days later, my flu is back.

On the brighter side of things, my brother will be staying with me over the next 6 months. Yay! At least there is someone else at home. While I do enjoy living on my own and all that, sometimes I feel it’s nice to have another person around.  At least your weekends do not feel that lonely! So I am definintely glad I have him around for this time.  And also it felt great returning back to Lifeline after nearly one month of absence. It was wonderful to see my core leaders after so long and to just enjoy the company of my own cell group members! I was pretty happy with the fact that we did something which I learned from the In Between Sundays podcast, and that is the 3Js – Junk – Joy and Jesus Moment. 

I noticed most of the members had no issues sharing their 2Js, but when it came to Jesus moment, alot of them thought hard about it – some couldn’t even really recall a Jesus Moment , which kinda made me think that perhaps the reason why they were struggling with it is because maybe they didn’t really stop to think about God working in their lives, and to a certain degree, I don’t fault them simply because sometimes it is difficult to see God in the midst of our daily affairs. It’s only when the weekend rolls by, when we take a “break” from work is when we then can keep time for God – But I guess this is not a healthy relationship at all. How can we say we long for God and want to draw close to Him when we can’t even see him working in our lives each day? – Oh well, I guess this is a topic for another blog entry sometime in the future! But whatever it is, it really felt good to be back in my youth group after nearly a month away!

The Week ahead….

There are a number of things which I need to see to this week. And one of the most important things on my list is to actually get to gym this week. I feel kinda bad that I couldn’t hit the gym this past week due to my cold, but hopefully the coming week I will be able to make up for it.

The next thing is of course my work. I have a bunch of things to settle and I hope to get the draft of one my deliverables completed by the end of this week! Also I need to submit my claims! I just realised a few days back that I still have not submitted my expense claims for the month of May and June! So hopefully that one can be done by tomorrow itself!

And probably my 3rd to-do item would be to draw closer to God! I realised that my faith meter over the past couple of weeks have been an all time low record. I guess it’s to do with my work (the stress) and my health (I had food poisoning 3 weeks back, and my recent flu sickness). Trying to juggle it all and keep your balance can be difficult and I realised that during this whole time I had been quite distant from God. Even though I did manage to attend daily mass on Friday, I still feel far away from Him. I do realise He is around, but sometimes I feel it’s more about me than Him – whether I WANT to want him,  as I wrote in my previous entry.  But I believe it all starts in the WANT, in the desire to want to draw close to God. I have always believed that God has been there with me, through both the good times and bad times, and usually I can only go so much without returning back to Him, just like the prodigal son.  So that’s my 3rd to-do item. Probably I would start by reading the daily gospels, praying the rosary (for each day) and attending mass sometime this week, and possibly going for confession as well!  If you’re reading this, please keep me in your prayers this week!

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