Um, oops.

So I had to get back into blogger for a course that I'm doing right now, and I was somewhat surprised to see that it's been almost a year since I posted anything up here. I'm not sure if this is on purpose or not, but...

here.

How good it is to be where God wants you to be...

I've been thinking about this a lot this weekend -- I got back from Thailand on Saturday, and jet-lag always does funny things to my head. I miss it there, but I know that I need to be here right now.
It's hard, because sometimes, this country seems like it does things backwards: we seem to care more about work and production than we do about people and relationships. We're anal about not wasting time, yet we never seem to have enough of it.

It seems strange to me that my two worlds can co-exist, or that they exist simultaneously. And I slip out of one world into the other.

Maybe that's what it's like to go from Narnia to England and back again.

But I know that this is where I need to be, and it feels good to be where God wants me.

feels like home to me

There's a Norah Jones song that came out several years ago called "the prettiest thing"
the lyrics follow, because they've been in my head for an entire week...

the prettiest thing
I ever did see
Was lightning from the top of a cloud
Moving through the dark a million miles an hour
With somewhere to be

So why does it seem
Like a picture
Hanging up on someone else's wall
Lately I just haven't been myself at all
It's heavy on my mind

I'm dreamin' again
Like I've always been
And way down low
I still know

The prettiest thing
I ever did see
Was dusty as the handle on the door
Rusty as a nail stuck in the old pine floor
Looks like home to me

Now I'm dreamin' again
Like I've always been
And way down low
I'm thinkin' of the prettiest thing

It's funny to me -- how this strange place in the middle of Nonthaburi, Thailand, called GES in English, and Satit Christian Wittaya in thai, with its funny quirks, its disorganization, its horrible smells, and its backwards culture, feels like home.

De and I got home late last night, and the taxi driver was very confused when we asked him to drop us off at the side of the dark road, until we pointed to the Thai sign on the fence. And it's one of those things: it feels like home to me. In all honesty, I don't know why I love this place so much, but I do.
I love the way it makes me uncomfortably hot. I love eating from vendors on the street, and smelling the delicious food. I love the stories of students, and the craziness that goes along with the administrators here -- inexplicably building new buildings, and taking on more than they can feasibly handle...

And yet, none of that explains why I love this place so much. It's filled with great memories, and hard memories at the same time. I was down at the Post Cafe this afternoon, with my journal, and as I sat down with my milkshake (which was more like icecream with a straw), all those memories came flooding back to me: the feelings of wishing I was home, the frustration of being left out of family events, the stress of being a teacher -- it all came back.
And still, I love this place.

As the plane touched down on the tarmac, I could help but feel like I was back at home. Maybe now I have two homes, and the pull to Canada is greater.

Strange how it happens, and there's no explaination, but it feels like home to me...

The end of a time

I'm feeling particularly introspective today, which has inspired my sudden urge to blog again. It's either that, or the fact that shortly, I will be heading off to Thailand for a "vacation" in Nonthaburi. What a fantastic place for a vacation: concrete, pollution, nasty soi-dogs, deafeningly loud motorbikes....
And I'm SO excited!

Spring has sprung here at the U, and with it comes all the wonderfulness of the end of classes... All the bright green flyers advertising beer gardens, the chalk letters on the sidewalks, the glazed, frantic looks of students as they shuffle to classes in their sweats and Ugg boots. (Those are still WRONG, by the way. I still don't like them).

In my boredom (as I wait for someone to email me back), I've been struck by the irreversible changes in my life lately. The changes in relationships (for better or for worse) that are taking place, and are about to take place.

My sister is getting married. My cousins and friends are all pregnant. (Ok, not all of them, but there are no less than 6 who are, or who have just given birth...). I've had some interesting and hard conversations with friends. I've watched 5 sets of friends begin marriages this year.

Sometimes in life, I think we tend to ignore the permanence of our decisions until we realize we can't go back. Yet, other times, we avoid certain decisions because we're afraid of the future.

As school wraps up for another semester, and I begin a brand new summer, complete with its own challenges, I want to trust God, making decisions based on what HE knows is best for my life, rather than on my hesitance to try new things, or exuberance/impatience for the future.

May you also do the same.

Spring!

I was at home this weekend, and there were tiny buds on my mom's apple trees. It reminded me that spring WILL come, and God will not let it be winter forever.

I'm so glad!