A Break

I was actually toying with the idea of putting off this mid-week journal and be satisfied with writing only one journal on this Saturday, partly because I reached home pretty late today. In fact, I am really very busy for this entire week. Allow me to give a quick rundown on my “busyness” that had happened or will happen this week.

The renovation for my house has finally started and I have yet gone to take a look. Almost everyday, I have meeting after meeting, and some breathing time slots in between for me to sit down at my desk to catch up on the countless numbers of emails that flood my office outlook every hour. There are also colleagues that I must spend time with to get their help to get things done and also colleagues that I have got to chase after to get my things done. When I finally have time to sit down and start putting on my “design” cap, I got to get into the “flow” of it again, to revisit the design to see where I last left off, this will normally take sometime, and perhaps by the time some idea seems to be forth coming, it is almost time either for lunch or time to rush off for another meeting or to go home.

That’s how life is, in an architect’s life (I think, but I hope I am not the only one.) And this is one of those weeks, besides being so busy with work, there are also several prearranged personal appointments after office hour that one could not stay overtime to finish off the work. Thus, I ended up packing lunch to eat and work during lunch hour for the past few days.

Perhaps to many of you out there who are unfamiliar with the line I am in, we sometimes call what we are doing, “putting out fire”, architects are like firemen. Every week, there seems to be new crisis that arises, either in terms of authority or client’s requirement, or some suppliers delivered wrong stuff to construction site, or contractor constructed some elements wrongly etc. I could only hope that every construction work can always be smooth sailing, that is, having no crisis, but I have yet to see one.

However, despite of all this, spending time writing this journal could actually be quite therapeutic at moments such as this. In fact, I have brought back a stack of materials to read to prepare for a presentation on Friday, yet I have decided to put them aside (Jesus will take care of it), and write this, as I began to visualize all you dear friends out there who would faithfully open and read this blog even when you too are tied up with your work, (I know some of you actually open this blog everyday to check), thanks friends for being here to read my thoughts, and this actually gives me great strength and encouragement to carry on, not to disappoint any of you.

There is always time for us to sit down and take a little break to do something we like if we really want to, and being able to do this is such a great blessing in our everyday life! I hope when you are reading this, you too are having a little break from the hectic schedule ahead of you today, and this gives you a little encouragement too! Take a break!