Here's another come back with some inspiration from Reverie (chinavase.blogspot.com). Its often a tough job trying to equate your pace with fellow bloggers when you are denied access to some 'sensitive' sites like this very site. However, with determination and deliberation, here I am, trying to re-connect with the online world. Life itself is a learning process, we learn how to live each day, so I'm still on a learning curve of how to make this blog colorful and convey my thoughts.
Yesterday was an exceptionally stress-free day, no deadlines, no meetings, no visitors, no impending task. Living and working in a cross-cultural place has often bore challenges. However, looking back I really started to appreciate those challenges as I feel that they had such a significant impact on one's journey of growth. The formation of diamonds often reminds me of how one's life is shaped and moulded to produce the desired outcome. Naturally I find it strenuous and daunting to face challenges, but we do need them in order to overcome and learn from these trials. To reconnect with my previous blog, I just add below some of my former posts with slight changes.
Friday, October 27, 2006
It's 3 o'clock in the morning, a time when the world falls asleep. The neighbours are off to the never land, snoring and resting in peace. But you are here on the bed, lying awake, your mind wandering to every nook and corner of your world. Suddenly you wanted to scribble something in your notebook, although writing was never your cup of tea. You looked for the misplaced notebook, and got a pen which could not write. You opened the closet and rummaged inside your bag. Slightly upset you looked for another one, fortunately you got one but then as you closed the closet the squeaking hinge woke up your better half and you apologised sheepishly then you started scribbling this trivial yet humiliating incidence:
You recalled the day when you made a fool of yourself in the bus on the way to the nothern part of the city where you work. And there you were on the bus, without a companion for the first time since you landed on this country, surrounded by total strangers, everyone speaking a language you could not understand. As the bus started to move, the driver shouted something in that foreign tongue and you had no idea of what was going on. Then people started to stare at you, you panicked and looked around and through the driver's gesture you got the cue that something was not quite right. But no one came to your rescue and explain what was going on. Somehow, as you stood there among all those strangers, you came to realise that you dropped a 10 Renminbi note in the slot when the actual fare was only 1 Renminbi. (There is no conductor in this kind of public bus). So this was what the driver had been trying to tell you. He gestured to you that you should wait for new passengers to get on the bus and collect the change from them. Embarassed as you were, you stood by the door, collecting the fare until you get the rest of the amount. You thought the whole thing was a joke, and you wanted to laugh at yourself for your stupid mistake but no one was around to laugh with you so you restrained yourself. The flickering sense of humour was soon replaced with shame. Your face turned scarlet red. You never dreamed of becoming a bus conductor in your whole life, but there you were, collecting money from the baffled strangers who seemed to be restraining themselves not to laugh at you probably because they don't want to make you lose face. And there was a smile of bemusement on your face as you fall asleep in the wee hours of the morning. And you realised that anything can happen to you in this mysterious land. TIC!
Posted by dewdrop at 6:55 AM 1 comments
