Halfway down March

Work hasn't required me to go on location yet, I only did work at in the office. This week was drawing a large LED ball on top of a box structure, and drawing LED plans for Chanel. It's a bit worrying that the Chanel event is happening over ChingMing break. If I'm required to attend to the event, I will miss out on outdoor activity and camping...

I got to meet up with my CG leader today, I arrived a little early and he arrived late, so I decided to have craft beer before meeting him. I only had 15mins to spare, but there's not much else to do while waiting. The beer tasted way better than the one I had at burger night one week ago.

We had burger... This is the 3rd time already since last week, I better watch myself.

This week I learned that I need to find a goal, a purpose, something to work/strive towards to. Else my life here in Shanghai be unchanging, meaningless and boring.

The year officially begins..

With January and Chinese new year behind me, the most uneventful rest of the year is all that's left until the next new year (or golden week). This is the time I fear the most as being the most unmemorable, unproductive, or uneventful. I can feel the warmth of spring approaching, a sign for the coming unbearable summer. I'm gonna miss winter.

It's been more than a week since I've returned, I expected work will get busy, but not for me I guess. There wasn't too much for me to do, but it wasn't painfully boring either. I worked up some courage to ask people out for dinner on an open weekday evening, but looks like the plan changed to today's dinner at a burger restaurant, that's fine, I'll get to catch up with some people I haven't seen in a while.

Friday's cellgroup was good, but I can somewhat feel like it's going to be a repeat of last year if I don't do anything about it. I want to go beyond being a cellgroup member with everyone. Instead of just meeting them once or twice a week, I seek for real, legit friendship. Can I really be friends with people with widely different interest and lifestyle to me? I'm going to try, but if that doesn't change, I seriously need to consider relocating, having good friends to journey with trumps over almost everything else in my life. It seriously sucks that I cannot make funny reference without anyone understanding. It's just one example, but I need a connection...

Even though I want to make this year different, it doesn't change the fact that my job is still unpredictable. This stops me from being able to book a vacation in advance, as job events might show up anytime. The most time I'll get is a month notice. By then, flights and accommodations are either fully booked or really expensive, but should I let this stop me from doing so though? I should seek some consultation...

Oh, I've been watching Laid Back Camp, camping looks really fun, it's been awhile since I last did it, I'm consider buying some camping gear...
I should go camping...

Through Chinese New Year,

I spent 11 days back home. Felt long, and also a lot of my friends have their own lives to live. Holidays for Malaysia is shorter as well compared to China, so by the 3rd/4th day of cny, most people have gone back to their lives. I'm considering only spending a few days home for the next cny and should probably travel elsewhere for the long break.

At least during this break I got to cook, exercise some, learn some drawing, and had some fun with the Nintendo Switch.

Here's hoping my life in China will be much different this year.

The weeks before C.N.Y.

In the first 2 weeks of February, is it the snow festival in Sapporo which I regretfully was unable to go.

It was slow week in the office as many people left early. Nothing much went on, I went home during lunch just because it was too boring. Read some manga to pass the time too.

Flight back was smooth, but I had one of the most awkward situation ever in the airport when I try to meet up with someone who happened to be flying that night. She had a traveling buddy, so I felt like I was mostly just in the way.

The end of January

I feel some life has returned to be after being able to attend cell group after a long while. Life can be hard without good social interaction.
For this week, I was assigned a very tedious task of making a slideshow for my office. In the end, it was almost for nothing as the songs I picked wasn't used at all, and I pretty much had my colleagues go through the photos again, because the ones I had picked was no good, and we finished it before the annual dinner.
Currently, there's no work or event for me in the foreseeable future, perhaps I will have a chance to catch up on my own self improvement and take it easy in the office.

February is fast approaching and it is still wonderfully and painfully cold. It won't be long before Chinese New Year begins.

3 Weeks of January

Rung in the new year at home. Work immediately got busy. I had to prepare floor plans and backdrop designs for a certain bank and their conference, it ran in 5 different cities within a single week.
Following that, my colleague assigned me to keep photo and video records of some makeup brand conference.
After that, my job involved working at a French jewelry dinner conference, and I had the chance to work with some French guys. They were really cool to work with.
Nothing happened out of the ordinary, I still had adequate amount of sleep and everything just went well. Work kept me away from cell group and church for a bit, so my need for some human social interaction is high. I miss yamcha.

2018 Now, 2017 Gone

As 2018 begins, before I know it, it's already near the end of January. I thought I'd like to start blogging again to keep record of the events that happened around me.

As 2017 passed, I find myself unable to recall how the year went. What happened that year? It felt like a blur, as though time just fast forwarded from the last time I celebrate the previous New Year. I suppose the things that happened in 2017 weren't exciting nor worth remembering. #adultlife? Most of it were probably work related.. And I spent a huge amount of my free time wasting away on the internet, looking at memes, watched YouTube, played a couple of games here and there and watched anime. I also don't have a good social life despite being here, in Shanghai, for almost 3 years now.
In my Christian walk, I struggle the same struggle today yesterday, wondering when am I going to grow, hopefully this year will be different.

Trying to recap last year, my best friend got married and I went to his wedding. I came back home for about a week during Golden Week. That was sept/oct, November just went by and December came. Didn't really do much for Christmas either. I can't recall much of anything else, I thought it quite troubling..

Side note: I'm re-using this old blog because it's easier than making a new one. Will be updating some obsolete information since the last blog post was in 2013. This also means past post is made by younger Jeremy and may be cringeworthy to read. And it is certainly is much easier to blog now with the smartphone app.