Hello there! It’s been 2 months since my last post, and I am ashamed. But why waste time feeling guilty? It is, after all, a new year. And January is a time for forgiving yourself and making new resolutions.

I’m not one of those who say new resolutions are a waste of time because they’ll be broken by February, or that the new year is an arbitrary date and is therefore meaningless. I like the idea of a reset button, of evaluating your life and deciding what it is about yourself you want to improve, and where you want to be by this time next year.

Part of the process is telling yourself that the previous year is done, your mistakes are in the past, and you’ve got a blank page to write a new and improved story. It’s also a good time to count your blessings. Here are a few of mine:

The Blessings

1. Getting accepted into a masters program
2. The means to pursue my interests: writing, cooking, and most recently, photography
3. Great friends and family back home
4. A loving husband

Shout-out: A recent trip back home gave me a greater appreciation for friends who took the time to catch up with me. Childhood friends like Sasee (macha!) and Jun Wei, who so reliably say yes! whenever I propose a meet-up, and the (almost) countless Monash Christian Fellowship friends who still feel like family despite having been scattered across different jobs, states and countries in my 4 years since graduation. MCF-ers: I love how we attend each other’s weddings, keep tabs on each other, rejoice over the birth of each other’s kids (welcome to the world, Kieran!), and take the time for the occasional makan sessions. I wish I could name all of you, but our family is so big that I’d be sure to leave somebody out.

The Mistakes

1. Way, way too little time spent reading the Bible & praying
2. Way, way too much Netflix
3. Poor discipline when it comes to writing, coursework and blogging

To give you a picture of how little Bible I’ve read this year: according to my YouVersion Bible app, I’m currently at day 88 of a 365-day plan, which I started in July 2015. That means I’ve missed 6 months of Bible-reading. 6 months. And my frequency of prayer is even worse.

Here’s an actual picture of how much Netflix I watched in 2016:

Yep. And we’re talking every season of each show. That’s an average of 5 seasons per show and a total of 20 shows, with maybe an average of 15 episodes per season = 1500 episodes. Holy molé!

As for writing, I basically did the bare minimum for my first semester, and it’s been 2 months since my last blog post. Ouch. Which finally brings us to…

My New Year Resolutions

I’ve tried to make these as specific and sustainable as possible.

1. To read the Bible for 10 minutes every day
2. To publish a blog post of at least 300 words, 3 times a week
3. To spend at least 10 minutes writing fiction every day
4. To take 1 great photo a week
5. To update Project Life once a week

No. 4 has to do with my latest hobby: photography! Hubby and I bought a DSLR on Cyber Monday, and I’ve been having fun learning about exposure and composition. I’ll write more about this new interest and Project Life in the next post.

Happy New Year! And no matter how busy your lives get, remember:

There’s ARFI!

Love,
Jenna