Day 102 - 2014.

Day 102 – 311213

On the bus from Prague back to Karlsruhe

2014.

At the end of every year, most people start to reflect about the past year: things accomplished, friendships – new or old, high points, low points. We mark a year with a beginning and an end, charting out points along the way where something significant had happened.

This time, counting down the new year no longer feels like a huge transit. Formerly, it marked the new school year. New teachers, new classmates, new possibilities. It marks the start of another cycle, the beginning of the academic droll. Maybe this is why this new year feels so unremarkable. The new year begins with a short week of holidays still, and when that is over, the semester resumes. It doesn't begin anew, it does not start afresh. It resumes.

I think it is in these moments of reflection, when one mulls upon the fact that some significant event is spent away from home, that home is brought to mind. I've probably missed only 2 watchnight services – the first time during the Sangkhim painting project and the second while enroute to Australia for AGC. On that note, the last two birthdays were spent overseas as well, and my coming birthday will also be likewise. In 2012 I was powdered and sprayed with deodorant in my own room in OCS 1 week before commissioning. In 2012 I spent my birthday worrying about my next sortie the coming week while our instructor and my AGC coursemates surprised me with a cheesecake (from The Cheesecake Factory) and a massive card. While they made my birthdays quite memorable, it didn't change the fact that I was away from home and away from old friends.

This year, I will be counting down to the new year with a new bunch of friends and will probably celebrate my birthday by treating myself to something nice just before school starts on my birthday. This is probably part and parcel of living overseas. The loneliness that comes from knowing that the friends I grew up with are now moving on with life, leaving me behind, as I also leave them in pursuit of a different life. Much as it hurts, it is a sacrifice I chose to make when I resolved to study overseas.

My first 3 months have shown me that I can take care of myself. They have shown me many more things about myself and about my beliefs that I had not known before. They have taught me to be more open, to be more sensitive, to be less judging. They have taught me humility and shame, courage and firmness. I am therefore so thankful for everything that has happened to allow me to study here in Germany.

I am thankful to God for showing me that the life of a fighter pilot was not for me. I thank God for providing parents who invested so much more than just money to bring me up. I thank God for a family that cares and thinks of me, even from miles and miles. I thank God letting me pass TestDaF and eventually being enrolled in KIT. I thank God for the friends that I found in KIT, with whom I attend every lecture with. I thank God for the resources he provided me with, so that I can live comfortably and without much worry. I thank God because He is good and deserves all the glory.

To the new year, I will press on. Maybe I should stop believing in resolutions, since they are so quickly forgotten. Maybe I should be making commitments and plans instead of a list of things I never saw through. If there is one thing I wanna keep to in this coming year, it would be reading my Bible regularly again. This is something I've been failing to do for a long time running now. So for 2014, keep it simple. Think of one thing and stick to it.