It's been awhile since I last blogged, and that's mostly because I feel like I'm in a rut. Things keep happening but nothing really changes, so to speak, and I won't repeat myself yet again.

When I was praying with two other women at the end of a church home group meeting a couple of weeks ago, we got into a long discussion about my struggles with work and calling. It was my second time at the home group but it didn't stop the two women from asking questions and offering their thoughts! I liked it, actually. Some people might have felt they were too intrusive or interfering but given my pseudo super powers of invisibility, I appreciated the fact that they didn't "let me be." Anyway, they're both from the corporate world and one of them said, "Hey, in our work, we don't talk about whether or not someone's 'good enough.' We usually look for someone who is a 'good fit.'" In other words, my struggles with work might be a struggle of suitability.

A part of me think that's a euphemism. But another part of me wonders if they are right, and if they are . . . . well, what will that mean for the future????????

So, you see, things have happened but nothing has changed.

After the post below, I read this prophetic article.

seeing friends

After leaving _thaca, I've been getting back in touch with a lot of old friends! In the two months I've been here, I've had THREE visitors go through the country. Two stayed with me and I walked around with the third friend for the past two days. Even though I'm still trying to find my feet socially, I haven't really felt lonely--thanks also to an old college friend who is local here.

But Friend R who was in town the past few days observed that this city is a hard one on me. The income disparity here is very striking, more so than LA because well, everything's so densely packed here, you can hardly avoid it! And I think I feel it more here because I'm actually meeting wealthy ppl who are about my age (friends of friends). I know that there is immense wealth in LA too but well, those folks seemed to be a different species altogether. But now, it's different. The folks I'm meeting here are . . . . kind of like me. But they're rich. Most of them were also born into wealthy families to begin with but they are also making their own way now. R's friend made $140,000 in 3 months just from buying and selling an apt (that's outside his regular job as one of the top honchos at a financial consulting firm). That's about 2-3 times the annual salary of a young academic!

R knew before I did how much this knowledge is now a shock to my system. I make more now and I've been spending more too, but I also feel poorer as well. Isn't that ironic?

Gone are the days of cheap gym memberships and badminton clubs. :) Now I have to pay more for less. Of course, it's still great that I've finally found a couple of places where I can play even though the level of play is not very high. One group plays on sat nights and the other on Sun nights. Not ideal, but do-able. I've had to go to a chiropractor twice here but it's not covered by health insurance, boo. Sitting in my office chair makes my back sore even though my work station is already ergonomic. The pollution and weather here in HK is playing havoc with my skin so I just signed up for facial sessions. They aren't expensive by US standards but well, I could get by without facials when I was there. Food is a bit cheaper here but then again, I cooked simple, nutritious food when I was in the US and that was affordable. I've been too lazy to cook here so I've been eating out more. Need to get back to cooking for myself!! Clothes and shoes are more expensive here and it's been taking me a long time to figure out where to shop. I'm still looking. I may try to wait for my next trip home to shop for clothes.

Life isn't bad but R figured out that being in crowds makes both of us tired (bingo!). Still struggling to wake up in the morning to get work done. It's worrying me a bit.

boring

Still not much to report! Sleep, TV, and then furious prep work for lectures. I need to incorporate caffeine into my diet. Seriously. Might go to Shenzhen next weekend for a massage (not the sketchy kind) and a visit to a tailor. Someone offered to take me along when she goes there with her friends and I kinda do want to take up the offer. Except they are all a bit older than I am. Probably in their 40s if not 50s. :):) N's an award-winning documentary maker and she's going with her friend who runs one of the biggest family foundations in HK.

Yipes.

worry wart

Well, I'm back to worrying again. :) I'm still as sleepy as ever but I'm promising myself to kick my own butt soon . . . starting tomorrow? Next week?? Tomorrow, preferably, but no later than next week.

As I was falling asleep last night, I thought about how my focus on wanting to work out my faith in my work (?) might be misplaced. That is, most Christians want to be Christians in their workplace. Fundamentally, there must be a difference between a Christian teacher and a non-Christian teacher. Almost everyone agrees that Christian teachers should demonstrate the fruits of the Spirit in their workplace: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I can think of many non-Christians who exhibit similar qualities but there's no reason why those of us who are Christians should continue to uphold these ideals in our own lives!

Many of us in secular professions--myself included--wonder how our beliefs will then shape the nature or subject of our work. For my part, perhaps I've been too literal in my interpretations of what that would mean. My thoughts on what my work might look like in a nonliteral sense are still too inchoate to share at this point.

But last night, I did wonder if the relation between work and faith might even take a turn on a much different tack. Rather than working out our faith in our workplace, might it be more fruitful to think of our work as uncovering our faith, as a part of God's designs? The former is good but I'm wondering now if the latter is equally as important. In other words, rather than worrying about writing on a subject matter that is explicitly Christian, my duty now is to do my job as best as I can and trust that in the process of doing so, it would continue to be a spiritual act of sorts. My thoughts are too rudimentary for me to pretend that this might be relevant to others in other vocations but it might be worth thinking through in my own circumstances.

I'm tired of being tired and that's all I'm going to say about it because I'm always complaining about the same things over and over again.

My lower back has been sore off and on for the last couple of weeks so I just made an appointment at the university's health center. I'm hoping to get a referral for a chiropractor in town who practices a similar method to the chiropractors I saw in Ith__ and L_. If not, I'd be happy with a physiotherapist. I haven't been exercising much and I blame the soreness on that. It's always hard to focus on work and this doesn't help.

On another note, I haven't been very good with my spiritual disciplines and I need to get back on track with that too.