I shall attempt to segment my reflection into four parts (i) Pull (ii) Push (iii) Factors that triggered the struggle (iv) Afterthoughts 

What drew me to the Service? I've been retracing my steps, to the day where I had made that online application.  What made me apply?  After I got through the screening stage, it was one stage and another, until acceptance.  I was accepted before graduation.  The sense of relieve was incredible.  I could now go travel, and not worry about searching.  The 5 months in between knowing and starting, I had managed to provide reasons for myself; justify why this was a good thing. But these were my reasons.  I was sucked in.  Perhaps I never knew why I had applied at the first place.  

Entering, the learning curve was steep.  Not only were there the ropes of bureaucracy to untangle in a harsh but extremely bright environment, it was adjusting to working life as a whole that blurred emotions.  The transition year. That said, I was starting to learn, now, what I liked, and what I didn't like, in people, in myself, in the work I wanted to do. A process of elimination - is this what this stint is suppose to be, a strikeout?  It started to feel like it was going to be so.

I am glad that when I left on 7 Oct 2009, it was on a good note.  I wasn't running away, from anyone.  The boss gave me a hug, and said that she would take me back in an instant if I ever wanted to return.  The big boss said even funnier stuff, I will keep this to myself.  The long parting conversations, the emails and notes that were coming in, the affirmations from leaders that I was a good officer and that it was a pity -- gave me butterflies in my stomach cause it made me doubt my choice to depart for split seconds at each time.  The colleagues and their tears, that I could not reciprocate because I just could not cry along with them, made me not regret my decision to be their trade unionist.  The lunches, the dinners, the drinks.  The struggle was two-fold.  One, the knowledge that I was doing well and had the potential to continue to do well; two, the people.

You do not have to convince me, that everything happens for a reason,  I am sold.  I would list down all the good things that came out from being here (of course, the number of not so nice things could match up on the list) but I will save it for a rainy day, tea at hand.  The conclusion of the matter here is that I trust Romans 8:28 with all my heart.  The immediate follow-up for me now, is to internalize the lesson, and be a better person.  This was surely a deep valley in the pilgrim progress but on the way out, so many flowers lined, I put some in my hair.

Except for this declaration that I was blessed in these 14 months and everything I had experienced came from my Lord, I'm not making any sense.  I tried.

After reading every possible review there has been about the movie and a 24 hour break in between, it only just struck me that the Abbie Cornish in Bright Star, is the Abbie Cornish in Somersault, the Aussie movie we watched and tore apart in class, that i raved about in Nov 2006 here.

I am really looking forward to watching this.  Watch the trailer and check out the production scrapbook.