Engaged Fatherhood?

I recently ran into this website, Rice Daddies(http://ricedaddies.blogspot.com/), which is a blog about Asian-American(well, it looks like mostly East Asian) fathers who live as engaged fathers. It seems like the definition would be that engaged fathers means that they’re more than just fathers who exhibit emotions of hunger and anger.

While I wouldn’t say that my own father fits the exact description of a non-engaged father, I would susptect that many people in the AAPI community(and even in the Asian communities!) experience the non-engaged father. At least, the people that I’ve talked to and have gotten to know in my life and experience. I suppose I only notice the idea of engaged fatherhood so much more because of the response I had to my own father’s amount of non-engagement in my life.

I guess it boils down to what I’ve shared as one of my fears in life: That I would be a bad father. The origination of the fear seems to be fairly trivial…in some ways it doesn’t exactly line up into what the world says a “father” should be(well, I guess it would depend on what circles of influence you’re a part of ). However, I do think that the fear itself is telling of what was missing from my own life, and what I hope not to do to someone that I’d love to call my own child.

Rice Daddies seemingly provides some comfort for me…that there are AAPI men out there that are forerunners for the engaged father. That it’s not just a isolated community of men who are doing it. I really actually think that I’m secretly hoping that they’ll make Rice Daddies as interesting as the magazine Real Simple, and tailored more for men(really, those ads are really geared towards women, it’s kind of embarrassing to be caught enjoying the magazine!).

I’ve been traveling for quite some time now(the past week and a half), and to be honest, it’s not too bad. Other than being away from the people that I care and love, I think I do enjoy traveling. I wonder if there comes a time when I’d just wish I could stay back at home and not travel around.

From Wednesday to Sunday I was a participate of Global Debriefing, a retreat designed for InterVarsity staff and volunteers who directed international mission projects over the summer. While I was there, there were times when I just heard some older staff(6+ years on staff) talk about how they’ve gotten to a point where going to conferences and traveling so much just isn’t really their thing anymore.

I wonder if one day I’ll end up saying the same things as well. I hope that I won’t have to, I’d love to continue my love for travel and meeting new people with InterVarsity. However, it might just be a particular season of life that I’m in right now that makes me a bit, “starry-eyed”, so to speak.

The Lenten experiment

So I confess, I’ve always had issues with getting off the computer at a resonable amount of time at night. It wasn’t until last week(yes, about 2 weeks into Lent), that I decided to make a commitment to getting off the comupter(and electronics) at 10pm each night.
That’s turned into a major task and challenge so far. While most nights I don’t get off the computer until 11pm, it’s proved to be giving me the time to get to reading a chapter. In a book each night before I go to sleep. While getting off earlier sure is painful, I’m pondedring if I should try my best to keep to that goal, for the sake of reading more. I sure am enjoying the ability to read more, so it might turn out to be just pretty dandy…

Ridiculous blogging

For a period of time, I had grand ideas for blogging using WordPress.  I thought that I’d update with awesome, thoughful, and linked posts, with a cool tagging and category scheme.  Since then, I’ve discovered that I’m not really that good at the whole “semi-pro” style of blogging.  I think I’ll try lowering my expectations and we’ll see how that goes

Hopefully this means we can look forward to some more “micro-blogging” style.

Starting anew

I’ve been a part of the Xanga blogging community for a long time now, since 8/23/2003, to be exact.  I’ve posted to that blog with a variety of frequencies, but no other season of my life have I blogged more than when I first got my Xanga blog.  I have to admit, I was really obsessed with getting the most amount of “hits” on my website.  I still have the counter below.  And I sort of like to tinker with the themes that were on there.  To be honest, I have not changed my theme at all since I’ve gotten my Xanga.  I found the simplicity something I really enjoyed.  But alas, Xanga is old.  I haven’t totally come away from Xanga beacuse of the fact that it’s “old” and I’ve used it for so long.  Nor did I choose to migrate away from it because the community on Xanga seems so different.  I suppose the actual reason for why I decided to move away from Xanga was because WordPress was just much more…flexible, and powerful.  I guess it meets the my blogging needs for this next season of my life.

I really don’t think that the content of what I’ve blogged about will totally change from my Xanga to this blog.  I do have years of memories on my Xanga though, and I’m sure to try to keep those as long as I can!  I’m not sure how long Xanga will let me keep it online, but I’ll see how to actually download an archive one day to remember my past.  I can admit that since I’ve now entered into a different season of my life, I’ll definitely be blogging with a different perspective.  Even if I didn’t say that, it wouldn’t totally matter anyway .

For now, I’m still working on the design of this blog.  I’ve sort of gotten into Grid Design, so I’ll be experimenting with how to change up this theme to make it suitable.  So far, I’m stuck with this theme, for it’s the only one that’s I could easily find based on Grid Design.  I’m also stuck with three-columns.  I’m not totally sure if I love it at this point, but we’ll see how I can spice it up to make it suitable.  Let’s just say that three columns are growing on me so far!