I’m hoping I’ll settle in quickly and get a good routine going.

I’m also hoping that the great fire wall  of China won’t prevent me in anyway from posting here, but if you don’t hear from me for a year, at least you know why!

Love always

I really did think that after finishing uni and just doing bits of extra study and part time work now I would be rolling in the free time and hence do heaps of blogging and by 100% on top of all my emails and all those sort of good organised type things. But it seems that all those disorganised, bad habits (pertaining to anything non-uni related) that I picked up during my degree have stuck with me and I am still trying so hard to break free from them… It has been over 3 months since my last blog post and I can tell you that it has been literally years since my inbox unread count was zero.

I sometimes wish things happened faster in life, that we could get to those goals more rapidly, that skills and habits didn’t take long hours of practice to perfect. But sadly they do, and I guess you can insert some of that cliche stuff about the journey being important here. Which it is, but it’s really not what you want to hear at times like this, is it? I want an easy fix, some fool proof method, that if I follow 5 easy steps that I will definitely get to where I want to go. And it annoys me to no end knowing that the fix, method or steps don’t exist.

Well I really hope that I can improve myself, but as I’ve said previously (on this other blog) “imperfection’s overrated”, so if these flaws stay with me hopefully my friends will still love me ;] . But I really will be trying to improve on these habits because in a couple of weeks I am moving to China to teach English for a year and I really need to learn how to stay on top of my emails to keep in touch with everyone, and I also imagine that there will be plenty of things that will get me thinking and questioning which I will aim to record in words on this blog :] So give me another month or two to finish packing here and then settle in over there and I’ll hopefully be gracing your internet pages with more words, thoughts and questions!

Much love

Postsecret has some great Mother’s Day themed post cards today, so I thought I would share one that stands out to me:

Mothers really play such a big part in all of our lives – whether for good or bad. I am extremely thankful that my mum has played a great part in my life. I really am blessed to have her in my life. I hope that today will be a day of celbration of all those good things that mothers stand for.

Love always

I should be back in the full swing of things in 5 weeks though, so hold tight until then!

Love always

Seeing as I just finished my undergraduate degree last month and the end of the year is upon us, I thought that these last few days of 2010 would be a good chance to think about where I am in life, where I would like my life to go, and of course, where I have been. This has been really good opportunity because often we don’t get a chance to process things that go on in our lives since we are living in such a fast paced world that doesn’t have time to stop and be still.

While I was looking back on where I have been I decided to read through previous posts on this blog. All my posts were relevant to something that was going on in my life, so I thought it would be a good place to start.

To be honest, as I was rereading previous posts, I was somewhat embarrassed by a few of them; a couple were incredibly cheesy and cliché, others were overly gloomy and emotional. However, in spite of this, I have decided to leave all of these posts in place because although they may not be “cool”, they are honest and real. At the times when I wrote those posts, for some, I was thinking through some really cliché ideas, for others, I was feeling really down and gloomy. So when I think about it, in someway I am actually proud of those posts because I had enough courage to be honest with those thoughts and feelings that I was processing. I think this is great, because I created this blog as a place where I could be truthful and encourage others to encounter truth in their lives too.

However, the courage that I showed in this blog wasn’t made evident in all other areas of my life this year; I have not been very courageous at all, and in fact I feel that I let fear influence many of my decisions. As you know from my posts in my Friendship Series, I have struggled a lot with the relationships I had with my friends this year, and I think that this issue was made far worse because I was too scared to just talk to my friends and be honest about how I was feeling.

I have never really been the person who makes new year’s resolutions, but I have decided that this new year may be the one to change the tradition. For 2011, I choose to be more courageous, I want to learn to not listen to that fear that whispers in my ear. I was watching The Princess Diaries the other week, and there was an amazing quote in the movie that I found so challenging: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all.”

So as midnight strikes tonight, I hope that we will all learn to be brave and be able to see all the things that are far more important than fear.

Happy New Year!

There is a poem by the literary critic C.S. Lewis that is more or less a confession. …  In the poem C.S. Lewis faces himself.  He addresses his own depravity with a soulful sort of bravery:

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.

I never had a selfless thought since I was born.

I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through;

I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,

I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;

I talk of love-a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek-

But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

I sat there above the city wondering if I was like the parrot in Lewis’s poem, swinging in my cage, reciting Homer, all the while having no idea what I was saying.  I talk about love, forgiveness, social justice; I rage against American materialism in the name of altruism, but have I even controlled my own heart?  The overwhelming majority of time I spend thinking about myself, pleasing myself, reassuring myself, and when I am done there is nothing to spare for the needy.  Six billion people live in this world, and I can only muster thoughts for one.  Me.

…

For a moment, sitting there above the city, I imagined life outside narcissism. I wondered how beautiful it might be to think of others as more important than myself. I wondered at how peaceful it might be not to be pestered by that childish voice that wants for pleasures and attention. I wondered what it would be like not to live in a house of mirrors, evereywhere I go being reminded of myself.

…

I didn’t like being reminded about how self-absorbed I was. I wanted to be over with this. I didn’t want to live in a broken world or a broken me.

…

I know now, from experience, that the path to joy winds through this dark valley. I think every well-adjusted human being has dealt squarely with his or her own depravity.

- William Fitzsimmons

- Tim Jackson

Yesterday I received a txt (or sms as you may call it) from a friend, just asking how I was and how exams were going. It really brightened my day!

However, it also made me aware that I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had really asked me “How are you?” That is to say, not just the casual “How are you” that only expects a generic one or two word answer in return, but an honest and inquiring “How are YOU?”

It seems that more and more friendship is being reduced to networking, where your friends are only contacted if you want or need something from them. It almost seems that people don’t realise that the point of friendship is to be selfless not selfish.

I know I am by no means anywhere close to perfect in this area, but I know that I really try to care for my friends and to not just remember our friendship when I want some of their skills or contacts. I know that this can be difficult; for instance this year I have been insanely busy with my university work, so I have been really bad at keeping in touch with probably every single one of my friends. So I do realise that it is hard to keep in touch with your friends regularly, but it would be nice if, at the very least, people could even make an effort to catch up while asking for whatever it is that they want.

Maybe I expect too much from friendships. Maybe not. I don’t know.