The first one

I am beside myself with excitement, at the most surprising occurence.

I've just posted my first blog entry in my workplace professional team's shared blog. I would've put a hyperlink right there, but I've afraid I work for the civil service and that the blog exists actually on the ministry's intranet. Ah.

But, I was actually my own voice. And, I am glad to owe the ministry an apology already. So I typed the entry out and, ready to publish, clicked submit. Then I shouted out to all my team mates to go check out my first blog entry (our first blog entry)... but lo, there was nothing. It was still a blank slate. My theory? That the entry had to go through some vetting process by up there before it could be fit for the public eye. Or that entries can only be posted during working hours, and that since it was past working hours, the up there is not there to vet my post. Hm..
Well, actually I found out not long after that the post hadn't been published because I had actually submitted it as a draft...

You must excuse me, as the civil service thing had been getting to me lately just a little... my boss had this to say of my little blurb write-up that was meant to be blog publicity: "Needs more oomph to serve as publicity material. The register sounds more like typical civil service language." I thought to myself then, Ah, I can finally say that I have been initiated.

But that was all before we actually started blogging anyway, and so the real test hadn't quite come. But now it sort of has, and in any case, it is a good thing. Like I said, I had surprised myself by writing off the cuff, for work, in my own voice, and pleasing my boss all at the same time.

On the cloud

One of the members of the management here at work caught me holding onto the parapet outside the washroom, staring up into the sky. It's been a warm (most living in this country say hot) day, its blue skies and white clouds-- mostly cumulus growing into cumulonimbus at this time of the day as it typically does. And immediately I guessed her thoughts: this one's far gone, she doesn't just 'have her head up in the clouds', she literally does!

I wasn't looking at anything specifically, just the clouds, the blue of the sky. And I wasn't even staring. I don't think I stood there for anything more than five seconds before she came along.
I was at that moment thinking to myself, "I will never again underestimate the act of watching clouds." Yesterday, driving home on the expressway at 90kmph, you see, the sun too journeying home behind clouds in the horizon before me, I witnessed a meteorological phenomenon known as 'cloud iridiscence', where cirrus clouds take on luminiscent hues of a rainbow-like quality, almost like what you see in a patch of oil, or on the underside of an oyster shell, or upon fish scales sometimes. There were just a few patches (is this the right word?) of cirrus clouds- and most of them were hidden behind the growing cumulonimbus cloud lower on the horizon. But one rainbow luminiscent cirrus wing could clearly be seen, slightly higher than the grumpy cumulonimbus-- and it was compelling. I was compelled to break out into worship of the Creator of the cloud, who 'rides on the heavens to help (me)' [ref] I remember thinking earlier on in the drive, that the silver linings on the clouds before me were rather glorious. I started recalling the many times I've watched glorious sunsets in the horizon while driving home along that same stretch. Just passing thoughts, but who would have thought what I'd witness shortly?

And so I walked away just now, without saying hello. To say I felt misunderstood would not have been totally accurate. I felt un-understood, is how I felt. It was in response to the look on her face I pictured that I chose not to look-- that condescending look 'Oh, you child... '

Guilty then, I am. For didn't He who make the cloud make her?