Running headlong into 40

Here it is... it's official. Today, Sept 28, 2008, I turn 40. I've been wondering what to make of this milestone in life.... the mid-life.... will there be a crisis coming? I've been thinking about it this past week or so.

Crazy week
Am I trying to prove that coming to 40, I'm still able to go all out with a crazy schedule? This past week is as crazy as they get. List of things I did
1. 4 day recording session for the song Thousand Faces from Sunday to Thursday morning, including one overnight session.
2. Spent 30+ plus hours in one go, even sleeping in the office
3. Playing piano for Worship for work on Tuesday morning, including rehearsal on Monday afternoon.
4. Helping to colour correct and master the sound for a couple of short films
5. Authoring a DVD for a customer
6. Helping colleague design DVD menus for our own DVD
7. Rehearsal on Monday night and Saturday afternoon for church choir performance on Sunday morning
8. Rehearsal on Saturday morning for church worship service on Sunday
9. Rehearsal on Saturday night for Soul2Soul band performance on Sunday afternoon.
10. Doing sound for choir and worship for 2 services on Sunday morning
11. Doing sound for Soul2Soul band on Sunday afternoon
12. Shoot staff video interview on Thursday afternoon
13. Recce venue on Friday for Soul2Soul performance on Sunday
14. Lead vision dinner team meeting on Wed afternoon

I'm getting tired just looking at the list.... hopefully next week will be much better.


Weddings and funerals
It seems that I've been attending a disproportionate number of weddings and funerals these past few months. It's great attending weddings, and they are usually well planned ahead.... but the funerals get to me. Thank God there weren't any who were directly related or personal friends. Mostly close relatives of colleagues, church mates, business contacts. There's a period in life were we tend to have a bunch of weddings of friends of our own age. That period is mostly over for me. However, now that I work with younger people, I am going through another round of weddings. However, my peers are now at that age where their parents or even older siblings are passing on. It's really an emotional roller coaster sometimes, and makes me think about my own life journey.

So what lies ahead after 40? I don't know. I don't even know what I'm going to do next year after my time with SCCC is done. That's life.

A haunting memory of 9/11

7 years ago, I arrived in New York city on September 10th 2001, ready for a series of meetings in NY and Boston. After that, my dad and I planned to travel to Vancouver to visit my sister there. Little did we know how our plans would be radically changed.

The next morning, we went out early for breakfast at one of the numerous New York eating places. We were close to the southern end of Central Park, on the Avenue of the Americas, or 6th Avenue. When we got out of the restaurant, I got a call from my mom on my phone saying "The World Trade Centre is on fire". I immediately thought it was the world trade centre in Singapore. Little did we know that the first plane had struck while we were in the restaurant. We quickly found a TV and watched with unbelief as the pictures unfolded onscreen about the NY and Washington strikes. We walked back to 6th Ave were we could look straight down about 4 miles or so to where the WTC was actually burning. As we were watching from quite a distance, our friend saw a big fireball. Little did we know that it was when the second plane hit. We were quite traumatised and went back to our hotel to just watch the TV. We tried to call home, but all the phone lines were not working. Finally I managed to connect to a local dial up internet number and sent messages that we were fine through that. Thank God for the resilience of the internet...

This year, in February, I went back to the 9/11 memorial when I was in New York for a conference. It was the first time I've been back since 2001. It was quite a moving experience as I watched, read and learned about what happened that day as we watched from 4 miles away.

This event has affected everyone in different ways. For me, being there on that day, made a special connection for me with the people of NYC as we have a strong shared experience.