Moving, Moving!

Last 1^5th Dec 2010 I was driving in the middle of
the night, early morning of the 16^th, actually, to pick up my
husband and two teens from the airport, when this was what I encountered: A
house being moved by a prime mover along the small roads in New Lynn and unto
the North-Western Motorway! (Blurred photo taken by my right hand while driving with my
left. ) Whoa,... never seen such a
phenomenon since I was a kid in the Philippines when nipa huts (houses made of
bamboo and dried nipa fronds neatly tied up) were physically moved by a group
of able-bodied men - friends and family members of the owners of the house! There
would be a leader who shouts, “Lift!” when it’s time to lift and move the hut
and “Stop!” when it’s time to have a rest after some steps of moving. It takes
quite some time and lots of muscle and brawn doing this kind of community
effort but there’s a meal to share at the end when the job is done. It’s both
hard work and fun for the whole community. While the men sweat it out, the
women will be preparing the food and the children would be watching and
cheering the thrilling exercise of such a move – a whole house walking on many
feet! We used to call it “ligaw balay” in our local language and it’s known as
“bayanihan” in Tagalog, the Filipino national language. Now, with the advent of
modern technology, such community effort has been replaced by prime movers, at
least in New Zealand!
In the Philippines,
they have altogether given up the idea of moving a whole house. In fact, nipa
huts are fast disappearing, being replaced by the more sturdy and permanent concrete
and planks or concrete and GI (galvanized iron) sheets or tiles.

Our family has been moving house so often that we tend to
look at ourselves as nomads living off our bags. It’s quite unpleasant and
stressful and we do lose or break a few of our things in the process. However,
this last move has stripped us of our material possessions so much that it’s
quite humbling. I have watched a few movies on the Holocaust and I saw another
one, just last night, on board our flight from Auckland to LA via Qantas
airlines, and I am kind of able to imagine how devastating and humbling it must
have been for those unfortunate, yet precious people of God. I won’t dare to
elaborate, as the Holocaust – the literal, total giving over as in a burnt
offering - of the Jewish people, is for me, a solemn event in the history of
the Jewish people, too profoundly painful and private for anyone to casually
talk about. So, in a little way, this, our recent move has done something like
that to the persons of myself and the members of my family – some amount of devastation
and humbling, maybe much, in fact, depending on how we individually got
affected by the experience.

We do not understand why we are moving here to the US at the worse
of times in the financial annals of this country, as well as in terms of
weather – there’s an ongoing national recession in the past year or two and a
local blizzard within the past few days in the northeastern coast where we are
headed. We left Auckland in the middle of summer in the southern hemisphere and
we’re arriving in New Jersey, with a view to settling down in neighboring New
York city, in the middle of winter in the northern hemisphere. If we had our
way we would be enjoying tropical weather in Southeast
 Asia from now till March and we would move here only then, when
the winter is safely past. But immigration requires us to enter the US together with our eldest child who has to be
back to his studies in New Hampshire
by 3^rd of Jan 2011. Besides that, our second child has to be settled
in a new home in New York,
if she is to be ready to start her college education in a university there by the
end of the same month, January 2011. Just like most people, we would also want
to be in control of our circumstances but more often than not there are other
things that control our moves, and I believe God has got to be very much
involved in all these. He has plans that He is still working out for us and we
don’t understand at the moment, yet have to fully cooperate with Him.

I am not
excited about the prospects of living in a small apartment in New York, of waddling in deep snow,
fully-bundled up, not having a car, with my children in tow. I don’t look forward
to sharing laundry facilities at the basement of an apartment building, or
rushing to catch a bus or train. Being a person who grew up in a small town
near the equator, I don’t look forward to fashionable, cosmopolitan and grimly
cold New York.
But as a friend had voiced it, “You need to do what you have to do for your
children.” Probably, such is what we mothers are for: We have lost all rights
when we became parents, even the right to be sick or tired, or disheartened.
But one thought that encourages me is the fact that God is with us and among
us, and goes ahead of us, wherever we go. May we never lose sight of such a
bright thought. So, let’s keep looking up to Him and here’s to everyone of us,
for a cheerful and bright new year ahead! :-) 

Yeshua (Jesus)

I am going through my tons of diary books because I have to throw them away. I have copied excerpts which are important to me and that's about it. I have no hope of keeping those diaries... oh who cares, I hardly read them again anyway.

When the children were growing up, I think in the Christmas of 2006, I made a Christmas Cantata for our Cell Group in K. Lumpur. It was performed by the children in our cell group at our Christmas party at the home of our host family. There was no time to practice so I prepared my two older children to read the narration parts, we practiced the songs before hand and played the tape for everyone to follow at the performance, and the rest was participated by the other children and all the adults, too. I just made many copies so anyone who can read can participate. The songs were in a tape which is still here but we have no tape player anymore. But the script of that Cantata is pasted in one of my diaries:

____________________________________________________________________________

Yeshua (Jesus)

Two thousand years ago, in the small town of Bethlehem, a baby boy was born to a poor traveling couple.  Many babies are born every day but this one was special. For thousands of years long before His birth, the prophets spoke of Him. The prophecies were recorded and compiled by scribes. Later, His life and teachings were also written by His apostles. All those writings have now been put together into a book. Today we call that book the Bible. This book has changed the lives of millions. Who was this Baby?

A star out of Jacob   A scepter out of Israel   The consolation of Israel God's Holy Child  The Holy One and the Just   The Holy One of Israel    The Holy one of God   THE SON OF GOD    The Son of the Highest   The Son of Righteousness   His name is: Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace    The Son of David    The root and Offspring of David  The bright morning star    The LION OF THE TRIBE of JUDAH     The Son of Man    The Fear of Isaac    The seed of a woman, born of a virgin    The last Adam    Conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost The Word of God that Became Flesh  There were angels and shepherds at His birth    Wise men from the East came to worship Him and brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh   Born in a stable, laid in a manger    Lord of Glory     Immanuel - God with Us

His birth brought joy to the world but sorrow as well. His birth caused the death of other babies. He had to flee for His life. This child was set for the fall and rising again of many; a sign which would be spoken against.

A light for the Gentiles     The glory of Israel    The arm of the Lord      The Horn of Salvation   The lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world  The Way, the Truth and the Life    Salvation is found in no other name but His name    The Lord our Righteousness A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief    The only Mediator between God and men   Rejected by His own people    God's beloved Son    Despised and rejected of men  The desire of all nations  Rejected of men   He carried our griefs and sorrows    The faithful Son     The faithful Witness  He was wounded for our transgressions     He was bruised for our iniquities     The chastisement of our peace was upon Him    By His stripes we are healed     The Lord our Healer     The author of Eternal Salvation    The author and finisher of our Faith    The Redeemer    The Saviour     The Messiah    The Christ of God   The Rock    The Almighty      The Creator    The Alpha and Omega    The Glory of the Lord     The Light of the World     The Bread of Life    The Image of God     He is called Faithful and True    King of the Jews   King of the Ages    Mighty One    Mighty God   Ruler of kings of the earth    KING OF KINGS     Lord of Lords    

"Mean As Wattie's Peas!"

Dated 28th Nov 2010

My children, especially the two older ones, loved frozen
Wattie’s Peas when we were still in Malaysia. They would snack on it at any
time and although it was a bit pricey I thought it’s a really healthy snack,
so, I was certainly thankful for Wattie’s Peas!

When we came here I realized it’s a Kiwi brand and, just
like most of the things here in NZ, it’s more expensive to buy here than abroad,
although Malaysia only imports this product from here! Hmmm, the intricacies of
economics! And soon, I stopped buying it because my children totally lost
interest in it. When my older boy comes for holiday here I would load the freezer with
bags of it and they hardly get touched by the time he leaves again. Then we
realized, actually, it’s the hot weather in Malaysia which makes Wattie’s Peas
so sweet and delicious over there!! They eat it like eating ice cream or ice
block, to cool down from the Malaysian heat. Because it’s cold almost all the
time here, my children didn’t find it a “comfort food” anymore. Now they are
more into the “warming” foods which comes in the form of fries. I was shopping
at Pak n Save last week when I realized it took us 2 years to make up our minds
on which brand is the best for every “fry product” they eat. I was jogging
through the list in my brain while I was shopping and realized we take four
different brands: Pam’s Chicken Tenders, Watties Thick Cut Fries, Ingham’s
Chicken Tempura Nuggets and McCain’s Potato Wedges. And my daughter voiced out
the very thought that was in my mind: We will have to go through the same
process again in the US to find out which brand of each product we eat would be
the most acceptable to their palate. Two years. Yes, you take at least two
years to do that. And it won’t be just for food items, but also for shampoos,
soaps, cleaning liquids, toilet paper, cleaning accessories like sponges and
vacuum bags, even leggings, lotions, etc, etc. – practically every product we
use. Grrrr… am definitely not looking forward to that!

Annoying as it might be, this is actually just a peripheral
issue. (Annoying as, mean as, bad as, etc as… that’s another thing - learning
local English! It’s only lately that I found out it’s actually “mean as,” not
“mean ass,” or “bad as,” not “bad ass,” etc. :-D Yeah, I actually thought Kiwis
speak mean. :-D
Oh well, two years – took me two years to figure that out!! And to think in my
first year here I could understand only 50% of what they say – mean Kiwi
English!!) Well, yup, peripheral issues!!

The other day, my son was so grumpy going to school on a
Friday morning that I asked him if he had enough sleep the night before. He
said he was just grumpy because he didn’t want to go to America. This was
around the fifth or sixth time he had expressed this, and the most recent time
before this one was his status line in his FB. I knew this was serious and he
needed help.

On the way home from school that day he was quite upbeat
because his class gave him a “good-bye” card signed by almost all his
classmates. I believe it would be his most precious possession, next to his
computer, in the next months, or even years. So, I said, “So Jed, now you
really have to leave because your class already said ‘good-bye’ to you!” And he
said, “Mommy, that’s really dry! Just dry!!” Oooops! He had always said my
jokes are dry but they still laugh about them because “Mommy is just being Mommy”,
but this time, I knew I had struck the wrong chord. So, I said, “Ok (son), we
need to talk.”

That was when I found out how pissed off he was over this
whole thing of moving (again!) especially when he has already found friends,
real friends! He meets up with them or visits them in their homes to play
computer games, eat fish and chips and most recently, play some sport!! After
he has preferred to remain cooped in his room just playing online computer
games for the past two years, this has been a welcome change for me, a breath
of fresh air!! Yes, it took two years for him to find his own circle of
friends, and now, we’re leaving. There was nothing I could do - to persuade or explain about our move - that could
pacify him.  We explored all
possibilities, even that of leaving him with a family friend who has a son who goes
to the same school as his, to be on “home stay” with them. He wasn’t happy with
that because he knows he can’t bear being away from his own family and I would
be thinking of him night and day, him being still so young. But I had made it
clear to him that I, as principal applicant, will have to go to get this
immigration visa for the whole family, and he knows he has to come along with
me. But I was able to come up with a solution to our dilemma: I told him we
give ourselves one year to explore this move. IF after one year, for any reason
at all, he thinks life over there just sucks and isn’t working out for him, I
promised to bring him back here and stay with him until he finishes high
school, which would mean my younger daughter will have to come along with us. Of course, in
the event that happens, the three of us will lose our immigration visas and my
husband will have to petition us three and we’ll repeat the whole process
(again!) , if we three later decide to join them there. I know this sounds
really silly but I had to make this promise just to pacify him and feel good
about moving, or even for him to feel good about taking the Malaysian holiday
together with his older sister, while he misses out on the prize-giving for his class. I
could only praise God when we reached that amicable solution, and I was so
relieved! That pacified him because he knows I always keep my promise. So
there, from the trivial to the critical, the peripheral to the central issues, adjustments
at all levels are going to be made, and I just pray we will survive this move.
For the moment, that is the level of faith I have on this move.

In Honour of the 29 at Pike River Mine

Dated 24th Nov 2010

Our family mourns, with the rest of the nation of New Zealand, over the loss of the lives of the 29 miners, after the second blast happened yesterday. May our Lord bless their souls for eternal peace. Our prayers and thoughts are with them, their families, loved ones and friends. They were fathers, husbands, uncles, sons, grandsons, brothers, and friends to many, especially to the people of West Coast. Our thoughts are with you all. Today is indeed, a dark, sad day for all of us.

~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~

The 29 killed in the Pike River Coal mine disasterhttp://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/8383356/the-29-killed-in-the-pike-river-coal-mine-disaster/

~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~

In honour of the 29 miners, the national flag is at half-mast in my daughter's school today.

One Day in the Life of Famous Me!

Dated 22nd Nov 2010

Two years ago around this time I woke up from a nap just
like I did this evening but I was soooo homesick I wondered why. We had just come
to NZ that time and settling down to our routine here. My husband had gone away
for business and wouldn’t be back for another 8 weeks and I was on my own. It
was a Saturday evening as well and by that following Monday I got the
information from my elder sister that my Mom had fallen very ill that day (Saturday)
and had to be hospitalized the following day, Sunday. Then I understood why I
had suddenly felt so homesick. My Mom was longing for her children. Later that
week she was diagnosed to have colon cancer and ten months later, she passed
away. :(

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like even just one
year down the road and sometimes I wonder what I was doing a year ago. I never
thought that my life would make its twists and turns like it did, all these
years. When I was a newly-married bride in 1988-89 I was studying Japanese with
other foreign students and/or their spouses (I was among the spouses category)
at my husband’s university, Tokyo University. A teacher of ours, who was
Japanese of course, was so proud and happy for her daughter to have the opportunity to be an exchange student in a
city called Auckland. She showed us in the map where Auckland was and she was
so excited about it. I knew mentally where Auckland was but I never thought
that 20 years down the road I would be
living here as well. It’s funny because I feel NZ is very much just like Japan.
The latter is isolated, to a certain extent, culturally from the rest of the
world while NZ, also to a certain extent, is isolated geographically from the
rest of humankind. About a year after that, when we were living in Tsukuba, a city
just outside Tokyo, where my husband was a post-doctoral fellow at the Japanese
Public Works Research Institute, we got acquainted with another post-doctoral
fellow named Greg, and he was from Christchurch. It was from Greg that we
learned that the Kiwi fruit and the Kiwi bird were named after the Kiwis, the
New Zealanders, not the other way around. Before that we have never heard of a
people called Kiwis, only Kiwi fruit and Kiwi bird. :-)

Someday, I’ll be wondering what I was doing around this time
in 2010! So, I thought, maybe I should write a detailed account of what a
typical day is for me, at this point in my life.

Well, yesterday, Friday, I was awakened by my daughter, as
usual. She always wakes up at the first glimmer of daylight, no matter what
time she slept the night before, and that also means she wakes up ahead of me,
all the time. She got up, pulled down my blanket and said, “Mommy, it’s time
for you to wake up!” “Oh, you wake up too early, Joche,” I moaned, pulling up
my blanket again. She insisted that I wake up and tries to pull down my blanket
again. So I said, “Give me five minutes, Joche,” That usually keeps her quiet
for a while but 10-15 minutes later she would pester me again and her chatter
for the day begins: “Today I have what?” “School,” I moaned. “Yaaay!! I go to
school where?” Silence. “I go to Bruce McLa____?” “Bruce McLaren.” “Today I
have what? “School.” “Yaaay!!” etc. And the autistic “conversation” goes
on,  punctuated by my, “(Daughte), stop!”
“Say?” “Just stop it.” “Say?”  Silence.
“Say?” Silence. (louder now) “Say?” … “Do you want a smack?”  “Nooo, don’t!” “Silence, at least for a few
minutes, and then it starts all over again until we get to school.

After I sent her to school I came back and realized on my
way home that I forgot to go to her school’s office to check for myself if
somebody had turned in her school jacket which she lost on Wednesday. So I
resolved to do that when I pick her up after school. I thought losing her
school uniform jacket means that would be one item less for me to think about –
to sell or to give away. But the day before, Thursday, her teacher gave me a
“replacement” jacket for her and it was one size smaller and quite stained. I
washed it that night and it wasn’t quite dry yesterday morning and so I made
her wear her own jumper. Her teacher wasn’t happy with that and daughter herself immediately took it off and kept it in her bag
when she got to school. Oooops. :(

The other night (Thursday night) I actually prayed that we would
find her jacket again. I have retrieved lost items before when I prayed and I
thought, this should be no exception. But I know that in terms of probability,
chances are, it won’t get returned. I remember younger son’s jumper which he lost also
around this time last year when it was getting warmer. He took it off and
dumped it on top of his bag because he was feeling too warm in it while he
played in school. After they finished playing his jumper was gone. Although it
was properly labelled with his name, and I had inquired at their school’s
office, that jumper was never found again. And then there’s the case of my older
daughter’s bag which she checked in at her school’s library. The CCTV
actually recorded the group of girls who took it and although they were
eventually pressured to return all its contents, the cash, her cell phone’s sim
card and the bag itself were never returned. That case was reported to the
police. And then there’s the case of my cap which I threw into the trolley with
my shopping in Pak n Save. By the time I checked out my shopping, it was gone,
though it had a name on it. I left my contact details with their Information
service just in case somebody "picked it up" and returned it but that hat was
never heard of again. So, as far as our NZ experience on lost items was concerned,
the odds of finding younger daughter’s jacket again were just against it.

Anyway, I went back home and had my breakfast while I
checked and answered emails, mostly related to our moving activities. I did our
laundry and then it was time to pick up my older daughter. She was having exams yesterday
and she finished early – 12:30pm. By the time we got back I had a few minutes
to start cooking lunch and had a few minutes for a quick nap, or I will fall
asleep while driving. When I looked at the clock I figured I would have twenty
minutes of snoozing time. But ten minutes into my catnap I was awakened by my
daughter’s cries of, “Oh my God, … Oh no… Mommy!!... the nurse!!...” She
sounded so distressed I couldn’t help but wake up and then she really started
sobbing. “Mommy, that nurse, the nice one, named Jane…” (we had talked about
her being so nice before and we remember her so well because she’s my
daughter’s namesake and she had a very British accent), “the one at City Med
who gave the jabs to Daddy and Jed and to me as well, she died!!! She was
cycling on the road and a lorry hit her!!” (You may like to check 19^th
Nov., Friday’s headline story about the British nurse working at City Med on
Albert St.) “But she was so nice!!!” Then slowly, recovering from my slumber, I
remembered her sweet smiling face. I thought she was too nice for a nurse, too
pleasant, like transported from another planet. She was the one who took my
blood pressure, weight, etc. but the nurse who gave me my jab was different one. I do remember my husband and son saying how good that “Jane” nurse
was because one of the two jabs she gave them was supposed to really hurt but
when they had it, they thought, “Was that it? It didn’t hurt at all!” She’s
really good at her job. I remember mine was administered by another nurse and
that really hurt. :( She was the very first medical person who “handled”
us in our series of tests related to our Medical Exam that day, and she made
the experience, unexpectedly, a pleasant one. My daughter  was so
distraught over the news… and I thought, what if I’m the mother of this young
woman (she was 27). I would be thinking, “My daughter went so far away on a
working holiday and suddenly I get the news that she’s gone – an accident!" How
tragic. :( O.o
She must be inconsolable. To be honest, I think there are too many of this type of road accidents here in NZ - accidents related to people doing sports on very busy roads. I think people should avoid public roads, especially busy ones, when doing sports. Public roads and sports just don't mix. But then again, I am just a "transplant" in this country. I really don't understand how people here think. But what a great loss of such a beautiful and talented person. Nurses / people like Jane are difficult to come by in this planet. Our family mourn the loss of her. When my older daughter told my older son about "nurse Jane" he said, "She won't be able to do my Med Exam then." :( It was time for us to go to pick my younger daughter up, so, I told
older daughter I had to leave and she better come with me or she will feel worse without
anyone to talk with if she stayed home. So, that’s what she did.

-------------------------------------------0------------------------------------------------0------------

Friends grieve for 'wonderful' nurse

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10688578

White roses for our wonderful Nurse Jane. God bless her soul.

-----------------------------------------0-------------------------------------------------0---------------

When we picked younger daughter up from school her teacher said the jacket still
has not been found. I told her that I had washed the replacement jacket and it didn’t
dry up in time in the morning but I will make sure she wears it on Monday. But
this time I remembered to pass by the school office and they allowed us to go
through all the “found” items they stored in a bin. There were so many of those
jumpers, some quite old, like they’ve been there for ages without anyone
claiming them, and a few didn’t even have names. Finally, we got to the bottom
of the pile and I told older daughter, “I don’t think we’d find it. This last one looks
really old.” But alas, to our amazement, the last jacket at the bottom of the
pile turned out to be hers!! I couldn’t quite believe it but older daughter said,
“Mommy, it says “(younger daughter's name)” – she meant the tag which I myself had written on the
brand label. Then I thought, “Wow, God answered my prayers… though I’m really
bad. He hasn’t forgotten me.” :-) It was indeed the coolest thing ever, in ages. God
touched my heart again. I know I don’t deserve it. :-) God is sooo good. :-)

We had lunch when we got home and younger daughter had a long nap. She
slept so long and so deep that we couldn’t wake her up for our Friday night
outing. So, we left her behind with her brother. Older daughter had to do some
shopping for small presents to take back to her friends in Malaysia for their
holiday end of this month. I ended up sitting somewhere in the Mall alone,
until she finished, and the shops had almost closed. She had a quick McDonald’s
dinner (I already had mine at home) and we had a long talk – just a mother and
daughter bonding time together. It’s funny because we had watched Pocahontas 2
the night before and she realized that she liked the love story of Pocahontas
and John Rolfe. (I knew she was identifying herself there because her first
love didn’t turn out well. Another answered prayer!  :-) ) She said she knows why many girls like John Smith
more than John Rolfe… that sequel story was a shocker for young girls like her.
Well, she was much younger when she first saw that movie. She said because the
original movie developed the Pocahontas–John Smith love story so well, it was
disappointing that she ended up marrying somebody else – John Rolfe. But then,
that is actually accurate, historically. It’s just a reality of life! She said,
“John Smith turned out to be a jerk!” :( We talked more about
love stories and marriage and I asked her if she wants to read the blog I wrote
on advice for a lasting marriage (“Soul-Mate or Soul-Grate, 1^st Oct
2010), and she blurted out: “But I don’t want YOUR kind of marriage, Mommy!
It’s baaadddd! It’s one of my biggest fears…!!” :-D >.< bwahahaaa and bwahahaaa some
more. I know, I know, I should be the last person to give advice on that, so,
oh well, we had the best laughs that night, in ages! At least this time the
Friday night ended in laughter. The two Fridays previous to this were crying
sessions!!! :(

Disney's Pocahontas and John Rolfe in Pocahontas 2.

So, yes, that’s the typical day of my life nowadays, and you
ask what’s “famous” about me then? Nothing. I’m just pretending to be one!
Bwahahaa!!!:-D :-D

-----------------

Note: This new MySpace is really bad. I can't even put links in this blog anymore... : ( : ( How primitive it has become.

And the fonts! I can see the my fonts are varied as I set them while editing, but once the blog gets published all the text are in the same font!! Bugger.

(Gripe, ...and gripe some more.) ~.~ O.o

It's Been a Year

 Dated 4th Dec 2010

This bush - in bloom again!

It's been a year. I have been reading my diary and my daughter and I first visited her present school on 18th Nov last year. That time the bush above was in bloom, and now it's in bloom again! I usually park in front of this bush when I drop or pick her up. It can't be seen in the photo but there were birds and bees drinking nectar from the flowers when I took this photo. It's truly a beauty to behold! And it's Spring again. 

(Was able to take a close-up of this bush. There are two birds in this photo; can you see them? Alas, these photos were taken behind my car windscreen.)

On the 24th Nov 2009 when I enrolled her at Arohanui Special School there were many of the above flower blooming on the road in front of that school. I picked one as a memento of that momentous day for us. After all, we worked so hard and waited so long to get the funding to get her enrolled in that special school, not to mention me having to "serve" detention days in a mainstream school, attending it with her every school day for one year and one term. : ( So that was a kind of "day of liberty" for me!?

Incidentally, on the night of that same day I got the email from my sister informing us that we have become eligible to submit our application for immigration to the US. I actually didn't want to read the whole email with all the attachments with it because I was just not ready to think about moving again. Not when we have just settled younger daughter in a school just right for her!!? O.o It's not a matter of liking this place or not, it's a matter of me just tired of moving.

Well, it's been really fast and not only one year is over, it's been two years that we have been here in West Auckland and we have actually only started to learn to get to know this place. Because of the one year and one term "detention" I had in daughter's first school I had so little time to get to know people nor see this place. Besides, it's been lately only that my older daughter decided to change her Friday church routine (Youth Church) to attending church with us on Sundays. That makes her available on Friday nights and gives us the chance to go out as a family on Friday nights, a tradition we used to have in Malaysia.

In the past few months we found out that the Mall doesn't close at 5 pm everyday, but rather only on most days. On Thursdays and Fridays it closes at 9 pm. That's one of the major discoveries we had on our Friday night outings. :-) We find that really odd because in Asia where we come from, malls usually have extended hours on weekends rather than on weekdays. We find it so frustrating that by the time we have finished the chores we need to do at home on weekends, we only have an hour left before the malls close!

When we first came here we went to a mall near our house one late night and we found out that the only shops that remain open until late are the liquor and video shops. So we figured, this is how they chillax on late nights here - they buy booze and borrow a video and then go home and drink while watching the movie?? Hmmm, no wonder there are so many problems related to alcohol here. We also find it very difficult to find a good bookstore.  Also, in Asia, young people hang out at the mall on wekends. Here, they have nowhere to go because the malls close so early. No wonder the youth here are so bored.

But having been set free from "doing time", I discovered a few other things on my own. The Pacifica shops actually sell food that are similar to our Filipino food! Yummm! The best stick bread (baguette) is not found in Pak n Save or Countdown but from a small bakery in front of my daughter's school! You can find lots of cheap and really useful stuff from the "$2 Shop." You can find "small fish" - the kind we eat - from a Filipino shop somehwere away from the malls. Fish and Chips and Meat Pies are not so bad as quick lunches, especially when you're really hungry! >.<

Finally, I also had the chance to take the train from the city! But I guess that would be the first and last, no more chances left. : ( I have also learned to take the bus from my daughter's school to Henderson and to our house, and back!! Whoa! I felt so proud of myself doing that when I dropped my car at the mechanic for repair. But alas, all these we learned only after two years, just when we are about to leave again. : (

So you probably wonder if I'm sentimental about leaving this place? Actually, places are very similar to one another. They all have malls, libraries, parks, resorts, schools, etc. I don't usually get attached to a place. Instead it's the seasons of my life that baffle me, and the loneliness that haunts me anywhere I go. You might meet people and make friends along the way but having the gift of a true friend who can be there when desperately needed is so hard to find. That kind of gift only God Himself can give. That is why, no matter what, no matter where, I am thankful that I have God in my life. So there. Lonely Planet? Rather, I think any place can be the loneliest one on Planet Earth, unless you have God on your side. :-)

_____________________

BTW, that was some awesome fireworks we saw tonight (not much noise though). We watched it for 45 min. on top of the hill up our road - happy Guy Fawkes! :-)

58 Days

 Dated 31st Oct 2010

58 days is all I have left. That’s all I have left for West Auckland, for New Zealand, for the Southern Hemisphere. Most likely, I will never pass this way again. Although I have this pattern of visiting / living in a place twice, there had been a few places, too, where I never went back again, so far. I have no family in this city. I have a cousin in Wellington but he’s here on a work permit which can expire anytime and he’s single. We never even got to seeing each other in the two years my family and I have been here. Although the government of New Zealand has granted my family indefinite returning visas (unconditional permanent residency), which means we can always come back and live here anytime, we really have no practical reasons to come
back. We had gone as far south as Wellington and we had planned to visit the South Island this past school holidays but because of the recent, huge Canterbury earthquake we decided to let it pass. So, if ever we come back it would probably just to see the South Island, which is really a remote thing, because it would cost us a lot of money to travel back here and there are
always other similar places we haven’t seen and would like to visit, if all we want is just a holiday. Probably, the only reason we would ever come back here is if we find that life in the Big Apple is not the kind of life we want and we would like to go back to the Wilderness. But then again, we can always go back to our own Jungles in Southeast Asia.

Seagulls at our neighbourhood park, "here today and gone tomorrow."

58 days. I never thought that when my elder son booked his ticket for the 28^th of Dec. to go back to school, all our future plans would be pegged to that date. I am just so thankful that the Consulate here agreed to reschedule our interview to an earlier date, so my husband can be with us and we all do the interview together, except of course for my older son, because that actually bought us 18 more days to prepare for that exodus on the 28^th ofDec. That gives us 18 more precious days to plan, pack
and say good-bye to our dear friends here in Auckland.

Birthday party decors, "here today and gone tomorrow."

We always thought it would be forever. When our family finally moved into our own property 5 years ago in Kuala Lumpur, we thought that would be home for us till we pass on from this earth. But only one year later we realized we needed to move because of the political upheaval in that country, our younger children’s education, especially the two youngest ones,and for me, that somehow the way of life in a Western country would give me the chance to work outside the home again, if and when our youngest is settled in a happy, secure place when I am out at work. That was when we started the works on coming here.

When we came here we had such great hopes, that this too would be home forever for us. But just some months into our stay here, I for one, realized this may not really be home forever for us after all. My husband had considered wrapping up his business in KL and audaciously plunging in here, finding a job and making it work, so we can all be together as a family. But I had always had my reservations. I thought we better keep our other foot outside of this country because if and when we decide we want to move out in the future, it would be very difficult for us to get out again with no longer that other foot outside New Zealand. Months into our move here, our children started thinking that New Zealand is a place for old people, and they plan to move out and work in some other place when they finish their education here. So I thought, why would I want to settle down here “till kingdom come,” if my children and grandchildren are not going to be here? That’s how I knew, this was still not going to be home forever for us. And just one year after we came here the way to go to the US suddenly opened for us. Actually, with my eldest son turning 21 just 5 months from now, anyone can see that this was all God’s plan and gracious way for us. If that visa opportunity came any later than it did, my eldest child would have missed out (he can’t come along with me, being the main beneficiary of this immigrant visa petition, if he’s already over 21). And we badly need this immigrant visa for him to stay in the US after his graduation next year, if we are to succeed in keeping him out of Malaysia (which is another story altogether). This and all the other details related to this move, too many to enumerate, only show that we are recipients of God’s mercy and grace, none
short of a miracle.

A beautiful sunset image in front of our house, "here today and gone tomorrow."

But 58 days is all I have left; 58 of the 819 days I was granted by God to live here. It’s not even a thousand days! It feels really short but we have lived shorter in another city before – in Tsukuba, Japan. So this shouldn’t feel that strange either. But definitely, it’s the shortest we have lived in a country. And we thought it would be forever.

It was never my ambition to travel far and wide. I never planned my life this way. It was more of just being driven by the tides of life to wherever it would take me. I’m not the kind of person who loves to travel. I just want a simple, settled and quiet life. My husband is a different kind of person though, but probably that’s just how God meant it. Thus, due to this constant moving element in our lives, I have learned to stop thinking this
would be forever, because now I know it won’t be. Instead, I have learned to travel light.

View of the sunset from our window, "here today and gone tomorrow."

I wish I can do the same thing with relationships though. This part about meeting and parting with people every time we move is probably the hardest part of our nomadic family life. I wish I can just “travel light” too, when it comes to people. This is the part where I still have to learn a lot. I have made friends in Thailand and Japan with people who hardly speak English. Maintaining such friendships through letters has been impossible, despite the high tech communication systems that have come about in the last 10-20 years. I do have many friends who don’t even have email to this day. Sometimes, a face-to-face conversation is just irreplaceable. Probably, this has been the hardest part of our nomadic lives, especially the parting part. It’s easy to make friends, and enemies, but parting is another thing. But I am thankful more than ever that I have God in my life to take care of that part, too, more than any other part of my life, in this my earthly journey. He has always proved faithful and true in everything, and that includes the parting and leaving part. It really is just a matter of letting go and leaving it in His hands, all the time. It’s really just a matter of faith. STILL, it’s never easy; definitely not as easy as just packing up stuff or giving them away. Maybe because unlike personal belongings, which may be irreplaceable, people and feelings are way more precious and fragile.

So there, 58 precious, fragile and ephemeral days to say good-bye.

Not even King Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like this: "Here today and gone tomorrow."

The lamp post to Narnia Land? ;-) (Yeah, I wish I can just go through the "wardrobe" in the "spare room" to get to West Auckland, New Zealand, whenever I feel like it, when we have left this place. )









Oh, and yeah, Happy Halloween. I still remember our first Halloween here, and we were only one month here in Auckland. It was a novelty having children dressed in costumes coming to our house for trick or treat. We don't have that in SE Asia. We were so unprepared we ran out of candy! Oh well, that's another story...

And oh, yeah, it's not only good-bye friends but good-bye Waitakere as well, today. Viva Waitakere  was a great event at Henderson Park! They had lots of exhibits, things for sale and people in costumes. We bought environment-friendly shopping bags for souvenirs. We're gonna miss these Westie bogans.