Moving on

The snow stopped yesterday afternoon but the rain continued to pour. Very overcast skies even today, and very cold. Everyone's staying warm inside their rooms - even the library was quite empty of students and professors. It was so quiet in the house.

Yesterday I wrote 12 pages for an assignment but at 4pm I throw the whole thing out because I wasn't satisfied with it. I started with a wrong approach and when I got to the middle, I felt it was getting nowhere. So restarted the entire paper from scratch, but from a different angle. My brain was all blocked up so for a little refreshing moment, I went out to the terrace for a walk. After opening the door to the terrace I changed my mind immediately - too cold and wet! So went to Matthew's room to disturb him. Laughed alot - as usual we bantered about who completed more work that day. Then went to Fr Niccacci's room to say "hi" - something I do once in a while in the late afternoons when I'm just too tired to work. As usual he tries to irritate me with silly questions but yesterday I got the better of him. He actually stopped working on his computer (wow - that is rare!) and came to the door to chat. That sort of took away the tension of my throwing out 12 pages and losing an entire day's effort. But on the bright side, it made me clearer about what I actually wanted to say in my paper. So today it's full steam ahead.

Yesterday at vespers I forgot to bless everyone. Eyebrows were raised, noises were sounded but it was too late. I had already given the dismissal. Smirks and giggles everywhere. Aiya .... growing old. But that's not as bad as last week when Fr Piccirillo presided at Mass and consumed the Body and Blood before realising he didn't say "This is the Lamb of God..." We all make mistakes - and mistakes are unintentional. When it is intentional, it becomes a sin. I would have let this play on my mind the whole night, replaying like a broken record, wishing "if only I had ..." but I've reached the stage where I realise nobody actually remembers what happened. It happened, it's over and everyone moves on with their lives. If there's anyone who would remember and dwelt on it, it's only I. And no amount of worrying and fretting can change the past - so why dig it up? Move on! I remember someone once said that if we dwell constantly on past mistakes and regretting, it's a form of egoism - the "I" is always in the center of attention; the pride is hurt. And it also presumes that others are unforgiving and unsympathetic. Well life is too short for all that (just heard that Lydia Shum died - yes, even the best parties must end), so move on!

Today's gospel reading was awesome - Jesus asked John and Jame's mother "What do you want?" Well, how do you respond to that? What is it that's driving you to work hard, to move ahead everyday, to improve your state of life? What is it that we really really want from Jesus - that need that we ourselves cannot attain so we turn to God for help?