... all puppies have to grow up some time (I've been known to carry analogies too far and hang onto them too long). It's as though the blog grew up, grew ugly and was neglected for a great deal of time. But I'm back to pay some attention to it now. I kind of knew this would happen. I mean, to be honest, I was as surprised as anyone to have started off as strong as I did (what was it - two posts in 24 hours??) but I knew I couldn't keep up that kind of stamina for the long haul.
I actually was hoping to write sooner but have had computer problems basically for the past two and a half months. You will never find me without an excuse. And if by some odd chance you do, I'll have an excuse for that as well ... ... ... oh, that was really lame. I'm going to start writing something with meaning now:
I've been back in the States for about 5 or 6 weeks. My homecoming was preceded by a whirl-wind tour of Oceania and the South Pacific (that is to say, Australia, Papua New Guinea and Fiji). I don't have my pictures on this computer to add them to this blog right now, but I'm going to try something that is hopefully in my league and add a link to those I've posted on Facebook. I don't know if that works. I'll try it.
After leaving Hong Kong I stopped first in Australia a couple days to visit my aunt and uncle and two cousins who live just outside of Brisbane. This should theoretically take you to those pictures if we're Facebook friends: Australia.
Then I flew up to PNG to see my parents who have been there with New Tribes Mission for two years. I stayed with them for two and a half weeks. It was wonderful. See here: Papua New Guinea.
On my way back to the States I had a layover in Fiji and decided to schedule my connecting flight for the second day which gave me a night and two full days in Fiji. My reasoning behind that, "Well, it's Fiji." Yes, it was. And it was overrated. I don't mean to be a downer but I just didn't have as great a time as I was expecting. Of course, I went into it trying not to spend any money which means I didn't do any of those fun overpriced excursions and such. Instead I ended up hanging out with a bunch of locals who are addicted to weed. It just could have played out better, that's all.
And now I'm back in the States - in Arizona at the moment. I just applied for my Chinese work visa last week and got that mailed back a couple days ago so I'm all set to return to the country in mid-August. I'll be leaving from LA on the 19th.
I thought that maybe it would be more difficult leaving this time than it was last year. Well, it would make sense because last year it wasn't difficult to leave at all. I was extremely excited and maybe equally naive. It was a new adventure and that's all I takes to excite me (maybe I'm still just a boy). But this year going back to China certainly won't be as novel as it was the last. And hopefully I'm a little less naive this time around, too. Also, I'm seeing my family after being away from them for a year. I've imagined it will be harder saying goodbye for another year this time when I've only gotten to be with them for 8 weeks. And yet ... I'm still excited about going back. I've loved being able to see my brothers here in the States and to live with Steve and Hannah for the greater part of this summer but I think I'll be ready to go back.
And you know what I find really interesting? Some of my friends that I haven't seen in a year ... well, they've not seen some of our mutual friends more than once in the past 12 months even though they live in the same state. So am I really missing out on that much being 7,000 miles away??
(If you're like me and wondering why this is so long and disconnected, it's probably because I'm trying to make up for the past two months of neglect.)
I'll be talking at my church tomorrow. I'm able to share a 15 minute message in one of the services. It's something I'm looking forward to. God was working at teaching me many things over the past year and to have a chance to share some of that with friends at church is a real blessing.
Well, in case I don't get back to this before I leave for China I might add that I'm pretty sure I won't be able to make any contributions to this blog most of the coming year (as long as I'm in mainland anyway). The whole past year I found I wasn't able to open the Blogspot website while in China. It's unfortunate (unless you're one of my readers :), but it's just the way it is.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Guayava
I've now written three posts in two days, which even in my own estimation is a bit obsessive. I think this blog is going to be not all unlike getting a new puppy. They're pretty exciting at first and you give them lots of attention, but then after a while they're just not cute or novel enough to maintain your initial enthusiasm.
I do, actually, have a very good reason for this new addition. Not more than a half an hour ago I ate a guayava. And ... ? Well, that's it. I ate a guayava. I think it was for the first time in more than 10 years. I remember eating them like candy when I was a kid in Colombia. Even so, those weren't quite the same as the one I had today. First off, the ones I picked when I was a kid ranged in size from golf balls to ... well, something a little bigger than a golf ball. But today's guayava--I kid you not-- was like a softball in size! I felt like an Israelite spying out Canaan for the first time. (The grapes I've seen thus far here, however, are nothing to get excited about ... in case you were wondering.)
The second difference between today's guayava and those of my childhood: No worms. Well, at least none you can see. I was half expecting at every bite to feel one squirming on my tongue as I so fondly recall being a norm in Colombia. I was a bit disappointed. I remember distinctly what they felt like. Small, they were, and white - their texture being that of industrial grade, 40-grit sandpaper. ("... 40-grit sandpaper" ... I sound like a carpenter, a real man's man. I actually had no idea how sandpaper was graded until I Googled it just a minute ago; don't let my writing fool you.)
Okay, I suppose that's enough for now. But if I see an anaconda or eat turtle eggs any time soon, you can expect I'll be writing some more.
I do, actually, have a very good reason for this new addition. Not more than a half an hour ago I ate a guayava. And ... ? Well, that's it. I ate a guayava. I think it was for the first time in more than 10 years. I remember eating them like candy when I was a kid in Colombia. Even so, those weren't quite the same as the one I had today. First off, the ones I picked when I was a kid ranged in size from golf balls to ... well, something a little bigger than a golf ball. But today's guayava--I kid you not-- was like a softball in size! I felt like an Israelite spying out Canaan for the first time. (The grapes I've seen thus far here, however, are nothing to get excited about ... in case you were wondering.)
The second difference between today's guayava and those of my childhood: No worms. Well, at least none you can see. I was half expecting at every bite to feel one squirming on my tongue as I so fondly recall being a norm in Colombia. I was a bit disappointed. I remember distinctly what they felt like. Small, they were, and white - their texture being that of industrial grade, 40-grit sandpaper. ("... 40-grit sandpaper" ... I sound like a carpenter, a real man's man. I actually had no idea how sandpaper was graded until I Googled it just a minute ago; don't let my writing fool you.)
Okay, I suppose that's enough for now. But if I see an anaconda or eat turtle eggs any time soon, you can expect I'll be writing some more.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Is this the end, or the start of something new?
I don't know if there is a law--written or otherwise--that would encourage the starting of something like a blog to coincide with the near onset of a new adventure, a new phase in life, etc. It just seems to me like you should take on such an endeavor (creating a blog ... obviously I see this as quite a big deal) not until the start of a new chapter in your life; you don't start a few paragraphs before the current chapter ends - it seems incomplete, unbalanced.
Maybe I just made up that rule myself. In any case, the point I wish to make is that I'm not going to observe it. Logically, it makes much more sense for me to start this blog in about a month from now. Now why is that? Well, I'm glad I asked ...
I write this sitting in "my" bedroom at a friend's home in Hong Kong after spending nearly a year in mainland China. In two days I'll be flying from here to Australia. By the end of the coming week I'll fly again to Papua New Guinea. A little over two weeks later I'll be back in the States, and then by July I'll have reached what I refer to (by default?) as home ... Arizona. Wouldn't I do well to start the blog once I've settled there? Or maybe I'm the only one who thinks that way.
What happens after that? Well, I plan to stay in the States through to the end of August, and then most likely go back to China (back to Binzhou, to be exact) to teach at the university there, at which point I'll make all of my friends call me "Professor." ("Mr. Patton is my father ... please, just call me Professor." That's how I expect it to play out.) But I've learned enough to know that things don't always go the way you plan ("The mind of man plans his way, the LORD directs his steps") which means there's not only a chance my friends won't call me Professor, but a chance I may actually not become one.
So if things don't pan out in Binzhou for next year (for clarification, I always think of the "year" as beginning in August and ending in May ... I'm not sure what to make of the other two months) I could potentially stay in Tucson for a year or maybe come back here to Hong Kong. In any case I don't think I'll know for sure until August rolls around. And that's okay. I know God wasn't any less in control a year ago than he is today, but I do acknowledge it more now than I did then. All that just to say, I don't have to worry about what I'll be doing.
There's a verse I've thought of quite often over the past couple of months. It's quite popular; if you've been to church you've probably heard it before: "'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope'" (Jeremiah 29:11). Usually when we look at that verse we focus on the second half, the kinds of plans God has for us. It makes sense, they sound pretty good. But that's not what has meant most to me. Instead, it's the words, "I know the plans I have for you ..." or even just "I know ...." God has a plan for my life and I do not as yet know what it is; I would say none of us really do, except in a more general sense. I don't know what he has planned for me. I don't know where I will be next year or what I'll be doing. But God knows. He said it. "I know the plans I have for you ...." It's enough that he knows. I don't have to.
Maybe I just made up that rule myself. In any case, the point I wish to make is that I'm not going to observe it. Logically, it makes much more sense for me to start this blog in about a month from now. Now why is that? Well, I'm glad I asked ...
I write this sitting in "my" bedroom at a friend's home in Hong Kong after spending nearly a year in mainland China. In two days I'll be flying from here to Australia. By the end of the coming week I'll fly again to Papua New Guinea. A little over two weeks later I'll be back in the States, and then by July I'll have reached what I refer to (by default?) as home ... Arizona. Wouldn't I do well to start the blog once I've settled there? Or maybe I'm the only one who thinks that way.
What happens after that? Well, I plan to stay in the States through to the end of August, and then most likely go back to China (back to Binzhou, to be exact) to teach at the university there, at which point I'll make all of my friends call me "Professor." ("Mr. Patton is my father ... please, just call me Professor." That's how I expect it to play out.) But I've learned enough to know that things don't always go the way you plan ("The mind of man plans his way, the LORD directs his steps") which means there's not only a chance my friends won't call me Professor, but a chance I may actually not become one.
So if things don't pan out in Binzhou for next year (for clarification, I always think of the "year" as beginning in August and ending in May ... I'm not sure what to make of the other two months) I could potentially stay in Tucson for a year or maybe come back here to Hong Kong. In any case I don't think I'll know for sure until August rolls around. And that's okay. I know God wasn't any less in control a year ago than he is today, but I do acknowledge it more now than I did then. All that just to say, I don't have to worry about what I'll be doing.
There's a verse I've thought of quite often over the past couple of months. It's quite popular; if you've been to church you've probably heard it before: "'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope'" (Jeremiah 29:11). Usually when we look at that verse we focus on the second half, the kinds of plans God has for us. It makes sense, they sound pretty good. But that's not what has meant most to me. Instead, it's the words, "I know the plans I have for you ..." or even just "I know ...." God has a plan for my life and I do not as yet know what it is; I would say none of us really do, except in a more general sense. I don't know what he has planned for me. I don't know where I will be next year or what I'll be doing. But God knows. He said it. "I know the plans I have for you ...." It's enough that he knows. I don't have to.
Description, Take 2
I've thought about creating a blog for quite some time. I can think of two things that had hitherto stopped me from doing this. First, I don't like the word "blog," so from the start I was set against actually making my own. Secondly, I felt that the very moment I sign up for this, I'm voluntarily committing myself to more work than I may be happy to afford. If I have a blog, I must regularly maintain it, right? Well, I've decided I needn't necessarily.
This will be a random sampling of my life. If I wish to write, I will write. I may write six times one day or once in six months. (Granted, I do hope to find some happy medium between the two.)
Some of what I write will be boring. Some interesting. Some melodramatic. Some dry. Some eloquent. Some not. Some funny. Some profound. Some shallow. But all real. (That, of course, was a touch of "melodramatic" and "eloquent" ... I forgot to tell you I may from time to time mix the mediums.)
This will be a random sampling of my life. If I wish to write, I will write. I may write six times one day or once in six months. (Granted, I do hope to find some happy medium between the two.)
Some of what I write will be boring. Some interesting. Some melodramatic. Some dry. Some eloquent. Some not. Some funny. Some profound. Some shallow. But all real. (That, of course, was a touch of "melodramatic" and "eloquent" ... I forgot to tell you I may from time to time mix the mediums.)
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