blue sky days

blue sky days

those words never really had meaning for me before moving to shanghai. i mean, literally, people here talk about blue sky days...because sadly....contrary to what the olympic people tried to tell you, the smog here is pretty horrendous. the air quality is pretty terrible and so most days...you only see a gray haze. so people really do comment on the blue sky and yes...even...take pictures.

even i couldn't resist pulling out the ole' iphone on my way to work yesterday to snap a quick one. it's not just the blue sky but the begining and ending of clouds.

and so living here in shanghai we all long for blue sky days. but isn't that always true? i mean no one wants to live life in an endless haze. we all want to see clear skies, sunshine at our backs, clear roads ahead...a feeling of possibility. that's what obama capitalized on in the recent u.s. elections. we all want to feel hopeful. we want to see something good in life's road ahead. but more than that...we know that even blue sky days come with clouds...but they are problems with an end. problems that don't just hang over us endlessly. we see a light at the end of our darkness. a way past the gloom.

so on my haziest, grumpiest days here, i pull out my pics and look with longing eyes on bluer skies a remembrance of brighter days. and it reminds me to not just long for blue sky days, but to live them, embrace them, take them in fully, and hold on to the memory solidly so that when the haze of life begins to take over i can look back at the memory of brighter times and know that the haze lifts, the cloud ends and blue skies do eventually emerge.

and what i really love is that as i keep going through my school studies in the gospel of mark i see these amazing parallels of jesus' life. he came to bring about god's kingdom. it sounds very religious perhaps even ominous. but as i study i find that what that means is...he came to destroy chaos. he came to restore what's broken, redeem what's been lost, and ultimately bring wholeness to all that are lacking. he banishes the gray haze of death, sickness, and despair and brings about the blue skies of an eternal kingdom meant for peace and wholeness of all people who seek him.

i love this. i long for this.

there's just nothing quite like a blue sky day.

i should be studying

so it's been a long while since i've blogged and here i am starting up a new one. but honestly the old wordpress blog has been so unused that prolly no one checks it anyone so not like anyone will notice if i'm not writing there!

i really liked wordpress but for some reason it was constantly blocked or running so slow as to make blogging such a huge headache that i just gave up entirely. so now we'll try this one...maybe it will work better.

so anyway....back to life here. i shouldn't write much cuz let's face it...i have a billion hours of homework to do before i leave for nywc in a couple weeks. ok...more like 40hours of homework. but still 40 hours in a week while also working...hmmmm....is this possible?

so here i sit procrastinating....playing with the colors of the font or the location of the header as if i have nothing better to do.

well so anyway...just wanted to get a quick post on here to kick this off. i'll post some pics from the kanye west show that i went to ummm last week? i think... anyway...was pretty fun. interesting to see the edited kanye west here in shanghai...cuz you know no cursing allowed. ha ha. yup...no cursing! i always forget and then as the music began and he got started i was like...hey this sounds just like the "clean" version of the album i bought off itunes! then i remembered oh yeah...govt. controlled morality. nothin' like it.

so...enjoy the pics...talk at ya soon.