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read between the lines
what would jesus do? my written test is tomoro. got 6 movies i haven't seen that are coming out for the test. can i depend on reviews alone? we'll see. last week was a procrastination of sorts. i think complacency sets in when i least expect it. i try to be alert spiritually most of the day, but then at certain moments in time i'll sluggishly let the enemy slip in and when the day's almost over and i'm reviewing how it went, the conscience of the holy spirit will prick me and convict me of the areas in which i'm falling short of god's standard. i mean, i understand that everyone falls short of the glory of god and we are saved by grace alone instead of works. but that doesn't mean i should disregard all strivings to improve.can't remember where, but it's somewhere in the bible (i think one of them's in ephesians) where it mentions that god has set to each a standard for us to achieve. and if i scrutinise my life, i realise i am slowly losing grip of the intergrity and determined inner will that clung to me. i must stop slipping and hold firm but sometimes i just feel too sluggish to. but cunctation is just one thing. i also don't like how i've reacted this past "while", or frame of time, if you call it, towards a certain situation. i've always been able to relate to the plight of the unfairly-accused, the wrongly-judged, because i've been the target of those attacks before. then why oh why have i been stepping into the shoes of the very people i so hated because of their partial sagacity? it shames me to the core now i've gone against my own principles, or rather god's. i mean, i did have a gnawing feeling in my gut that something was clearly wrong, but instead i allowed myself to be led on, through the weeks, by another as the blind leads the blind. i still remember that old proverb among the list of proverbs i had to memorise in primary school: Fools walk where angels fear to tread.i think i might end up in the wrong path if i do not turn into the opposite direction. but i'm not exactly sure how to do it. there are many wires intertwined in this metal mess. besides, i have a test to memorise. and several film reviews to read up. p.s. i was never really keen on this song cos i found it too heavy on the bass (or there's just something that makes it sound heavy) and personally, whirlwind by skillet from the same cd sounds so much better on the ears...but the words here instead do mean something. What Would Jesus Do? by BIG TENT REVIVAL Some people just want to survive And I don't know about you But I am alive Lately it seems That I need a hand In a fallen world I just want to stand What would Jesus do, walkin' in my shoes, Workin' at my job and goin' to my school? And I hear people say, "Jesus is the way" I believe and that is why I'm asking you What would Jesus do? And as we all know Life can be tough And all that we need is love -- sweet love So where do we go? Well here's what I see To change my world I gotta change me What would Jesus do, walkin' in my shoes, Workin' at my job and goin' to my school? And I hear people say, "Jesus is the way" I believe and that is why I'm asking you What would Jesus do? Sometimes choices don't seem black and white And they can leave you black and blue What would Jesus do, walkin' in my shoes, Workin' at my job and goin' to my school? And I hear people say, "Jesus is the way" I believe and that is why I'm asking you What would Jesus do? What would Jesus do? He'd give His life for you And if you follow Him You'll give your life to Him What would Jesus do? He'd give His life for you And if you follow Him You'll give your life to Him Shine on, shine on your follower Shine on, shine on your follower commitment "When everything inside me looks like everything I hate,
You are the hope I have for change, You are the only chance I'll take.." -- On Fire by Switchfoot i've always had a soft spot for that song. and i don't know how it came to be but i'm playing that song right now. i'm still me and there's still demons in me i have to fight every day...i've realised that though they're not as huge as before, they're subtly creeping in and if i don't put a stop to it and make the decision to say no, i'll eventually give in and it'll be much harder to come out of that wreck when it snowballs. i admit i'm still weak in my desire to change the bits in me that need changing, but i still have hope that i eventually can, for i am more than a conqueror (romans) in christ....and besides, God is the only chance i'll take 'cause he's the only one i know that's constant....and because of that He is my hope. but who am i to complain? to live is christ and to die is gain. i die to self daily for the self can never be corrected just once and for all. i'm not self-sustaining but i depend on a grace from someone higher than me. on another note, the word commitment came to mind today. it was rather unexpected, but i've got a new commitment on my hands within the church and erm....maybe cos they haven't really made clear how i am supposed to fulfill that commitment, i'm beginning to fear a little i won't do a good job of it. because the commitment today doesn't just include me, but will include lives that are not my own. and so the pressure of shouldering this responsibility is added. and as i started to think about how the next few weeks would be with this new commitment in place, i realised that as of late i've been asked to take up responsibilities for certain designations at a higher amount than before. i used to be the girl with a heart eager to serve that nobody wants.....and i still am, to a certain extent. the difference is, i've been given more opportunities this time, and some of them i've seized despite the fact that they were not offered to me in the first place because i'm serious about committing to god, compared to last time when i was less willing to give up my comforts. the words that appeared in my head as i was going through the most recent time when i had to make a fairly big decision still rang into my ears today as i thought of these things: if god closes one door, he will open another.and he certainly did...there's doors open now that weren't before. and like i mentioned before, i'm finding myself saying yes to some things which i would never have willingly said yes to before....and it's been paying off for me because i find myelf not regretting my yes-ses once i'm into it. but i am aware that burnout is a possibility, so the need to be cautious and the need for the Holy Spirit to sustain me is something that i constantly keep in mind. deeper love 2 life lessons i learnt today. one my fren pointed out and the other one, popped in my head as i was thinking about the situation. both about how certain people work and function in their interactions with people...interesting. and helpful indeed, cos it's gives a new light and less space for unfair judgement when you look at it in a different way.anyway tonite guess this is relevant to me...or more like lately. well, a small percentage isn't me right now, but most of it is. can still remember the shock on my face when i heard this song playing at the end of the credits on national malaysian tv. a christian song! it was on the programme "no apologies: the truth about life, love and sex" from focus on the family, which is actually a christian movement....but yet this programme managed to be successfully implemented nationwide....with less emphasis on the religion la. Epidermis Girl by BLEACH Sweetness whispers nothings in my ear Nothing is exactly what I hear With a glaze she gazes into space Is there nothing more? There must be something more I can see that beauty is more than skin My infatuation leads me to sin Give me vision past the epidermis girl Is there nothing more? There must be something more I find a want, I want a need, I need a deeper love I find a want, I want a need, I need a deeper love Sweetness whispers nothings in my ear Nothing is exactly what I hear Give me vision past the epidermis girl Is there nothing more? There must be something more I find a want, I want a need, I need a deeper love I find a want, I want a need, I need a deeper love idiosyncrasies it says in the papers today under the feature section that "blogging is by itself a highly idiosyncratic activity" (the star). liar. everyone's doing it, so i don't see how a form of public diary-keeping can be peculiar. if you wanna look at idiosyncratic then you should look at me. ok, enough self-deprecation....just kidding, i just feel like playing around with words now.anyway today was a slightly better day for me, because i got enough sleep...yay. well, once again it's not as much as i would have liked to sleep, and believe me, when i woke up today and it was raining, i sure didn't feel like going to school that early (especially so since classes got cancelled today and the only reason i had to force myself out of bed early was because of a project meeting), but it was good enough to keep me from the long arms of physical and mental weariness. and yes, i've kept myself away from stand by me at least for today (though it did pop through once in my head again on the bus til i shut it out) and i've got travis taking over. got their singles album and i'm listening to what i've been listening to this week on the bus. adding to my gladness is also the fact that i managed to get some work and stuff to do done...and that i got to get to know a few people better. but....as i was reviewing the day on the way back, i still had that dissonance thing where god's telling me something in my actions is not right today. yes, i wasn't too pleased with that....i felt i shouldn't have been listening to some things, and i felt perhaps i should've said no. but how to go about declining it remains to be seen...cos the matter is not so easy to solve, not so easy to say the answer is "no" and that's it. nonetheless, today was much easier to handle / cope with, partly because i got enough sleep. grace feeling in a slightly better mood now. god really knows how to cheer me up with the little things in life. who's to know i'd meet this indian taximan who took me half of the journey to the checkpoint for free, who happens to be an ex audio engineer. for the uninformed, i'm hoping to work somewhere along those lines in future..not really engineering, but somewhere in audio / music. i really thank god for little pockets of comfort in times like these. Indian Taximan and i ended up talking about what an audio engineer does, where the production houses in singapore are, etc.and i got to watch the O.C. on 5 anyway, which hasn't been showing on 8TV for quite some time...which added to my gladness. and of course i got some sleep time down. a short addition on one of the things i wrote in my last post, the bit where i mentioned people saying lack of sleep makes them irritable. not that i totally start to lean to the other extreme of melancholiness; i do have some anger too, it's just that the sadness overwhelms the anger ultimately. and i've noticed that one of the things that really irritates me when i'm already in a irritably-prone mode -- certain people. certain people in my company of people that sometimes hang out with me, but who aren't really within my close circle of friends for reasons linked to the core fact that, i just can't relate to them at all when it comes to discussing matters of the heart. these are people that i just wanna avoid for the day because every question they ask irritates me and i just don't have the patience to explain it to them. okay. admittedly, that last sentence was reserved for someone who is just...w-o-l-s. i understand that everyone matures at different rates and i'm fine with that, but when i'm not feeling so okay, and a person like that keeps asking me what's wrong and they seem to have difficulties comprehending complicated matters (as if everything i'm speaking is just cryptic psychobabble to them, which is not), i just don't have the patience to explain sit there and explain every term / concept that's alien to them in the simplest forms of the english language. it just irritates me...and it irritates me even more when they try to stick around me even though i tell them i need them to leave me be. okay. that's about enough revealing for now. but ultimately like i've said, there is a reason why some people can click with so well together with one and why some people just can't. anyway, this is one of my many favourites, one which i've been listening to more often...and some bits i can relate to now. i also laughed when i first heard the pun / reference to oasis' "wonderwall" (see below). Writing to Reach You by TRAVIS Every day I wake up and it's Sunday Whatever's in my head won't go away The radio is playing all the usual And what's a wonderwall anyway? Because my inside is outside My right side's on the left side 'Cos I'm writing to reach you But I might never reach you I long to teach you about you But that's not you It's good to know that you are home for Christmas It's good to know that you are doing well It's good to know that you all know I'm hurting It's good to know I'm feeling not so well Because my inside is outside My right side's on the left side 'Cos I'm writing to reach you But I might never reach you I long to teach you about you But that's not you Do you know it's true And that won't do Maybe then tomorrow will be Monday And whatever's in my head should go away Still the radio keeps playing all the usual And what's a wonderwall anyway? Because my inside is outside My right side's on the left side 'Cos I'm writing to reach you But I might never reach you I long to teach you about you But that's not you Do you know it's true And that won't do? You know it's you I'm talking to gloom sigh. i don't know what's wrong with me today. it's one of those sets of days again which have become very familiar to me. a day where it already starts on the wrong foot, because i've got a lack of sleep. a day of feeling haggard, weary and in dire need of relief either in the form of sleep or encouragement, to which i get neither usually (it's come to the point where it happens so many times that i'm used to not expecting it anyway...but it doesn't mean i don't need it).i mean, i've come to draw this need (of relief) and my strength from the source of living water, jesus, but sometimes, in times like these, i do feel easily-broken in spirit and very prone to tears. tears of desperation, tears as a form of emotional release, tears as a sort of offering to god or a form of asking him the deepest questions of my heart. and often, tears of disappointment at myself for falling short of the mark god has given me. not that i've given up on myself, but i do feel bad when i do or feel something i know i'm not supposed to. and this music is killing me. i think the librarians must be familiar to the same girl with the pastel green bag that's borrowing the Limited Library Access (it basically means u can only borrow it for 2 hrs at a time) oasis cd every single day. and i've been playing that shit on my laptop almost everytime i do my work this past 2 wks. not that oasis is shit, but stand by me is a really shitty song to play when you're feeling tired and depressed, i just realised but it's become a sort of addiction that i'm too sluggish to let off. yes, it's blasting in my ears right now as i sit here and blog in this library like a pathetic loser who's got nothing better to do -- not that i don't. i'm like, stuck here again because i'm waiting for the jam time to pass. again. not of my choice. sigh how i wish i didn't have to pass through the customs every day, especially when it starts to jam up. i mean both human and traffic jams...and personally, human jams is the worst of the two cos you get all kinds of molesters and disgusting people touching you on the wrong places during that time. which is why i refuse to go back until the jam time has passed. but what i would really like now is to be home...i mean, not really my actual house, but a place that at least feels like peace, quiet and has a bed. if i had the quid, i would probably be checking into a hotel room right now to sleep. i don't care about having no scenery or swimming pool shit, cos i can't swim anyway. i just want to....rest. either literally rest on a proper bed or rest my mind at least in a proper quiet and solitary environment. but i try not to yearn too much these days for the impossible lest i start feeling like running away from reality again, something which i committed myself against a few months ago. so reality is grim, but at least it's easier to handle the fall when you're head's not in the clouds in the first place. and really...i don't know what's up, but i just can't stop myself from listening to oasis. their music is both miserable and consoling at the same time. i can't describe it. or maybe, in a crude way, like this: depressive lyrics but damn good drum beats and emotion-evoking melodies. what's on my oasis songlist? champagne supernova, don't look back in anger, d'ya know what i mean, don't go away, stand by me....among some of the tracks. tried to wean myself off them by listening to other cd's but right now it's not really working for me. and anyway the music's not the problem. the heart attitude is. if there's one lesson to be learnt this past two weeks about myself, it's this: lack of sleep makes me prone to meltdown. it's weird...usually i hear of people saying lack of sleep makes them irritable, but for me it's the other end of the stick...probably cos i've always leaned to the other extreme by nature anyway. and i've realised that just around about an hour of sleep in the library in between actually makes a whole lotta difference on how my mood is for the rest of the day. just that 60 minutes of sleep can have such a noticeable difference -- before: headache, gastric rumblings, tired, weary, emotionally drained; after: headache and gastric juices cleared, happy, energetic, peacefulness. but sometimes i don't get access to that sleep. and then that's when it all starts to take a toll on me emotionally. it's like the physical is affecting the emotional. but somehow in the midst of all this, i do feel a sense of...closeness to god in some weird way. this crying (paragraph 2), it seems almost like a self-correcting mechanism of the Spirit's, the more i think about it. cos sometimes in a semi-conscious way i can feel like all this brokenness is keeping me in check with my position in god every day. by "position in god" i mean my position as a small fry in relation to the almighty god. it's kinda keeping the self / ego at bay. humility coming into place. if i were to base that on freud's theory of the id, superego and ego, it would be me having to keep the id satisfied in god, to keep the ego down, and the superego (being in this case, god) up in these daily struggles. and i think i find what freud calls repression in god; that is, i satisfy my needs or id in the superego or god. but of course sometimes they do cry out to be heard, these needs. and one of them was in something this kid said to me on monday, words of which left quite a lasting impression on my mind of late. he told me blatantly and honestly how much he missed my presence in the kids' centre (yeah, i went back to where i did my mission trip on monday). i agree with what my friend said about caring for certain types of kids. "i never felt so loved," she said, a few months back. right on, sister. the word love has been much misused, frequently abused and its true meaning often repressed or kept hidden from the people in the times that they need it the most. some search for it in the temporal, some in the eternal. but logically, though the eternal would be better because it lasts forever, sometimes the self just wants a quick fix and turns to temporal means to get it. it's like a drug in that sense. and a battle starts to materialise between the conflict of the id (self) wanting (selfishly, of course) to satisfy its need via these quick fixes and the superego (conscience) knowing darn well that in the long run, the wait for the long-term reward is better. and i've been wearied out from fighting against the current for what i know in my heart (through the holy spirit's prompting) is right. a final note on this before i end off and begin the long journey back home, by my search for love in this sense i mean acceptance...or the feeling that someone cares / gives a shit about me or what i do, not in the egotistical sense but rather in the acknowledgement-of-existence sense. yeah, i'm having none of that lovey-dovey eros shit. i'd take phileo love any day. or should i say agape, though sometimes it's hard to feel it. if we turn i feel a bit like this today. and by the word "turn", if i were to apply it to me, i'd think to look beyond the self, and to even think beyond the self, and start looking less at my self and my struggles, but to look more at the needs and people around me. but of course if the focus is not on jesus then every step would be in vain.Turn by TRAVIS i want to see what people saw i want to feel like i felt before i want to see Thy kingdom come i want to feel forever young i want to sing to sing my song i want to live in a world where i belong i want to live i will survive and i believe that it won't be very long if we turn, turn, turn, turn, turn then we might learn so where's the stars up in the sky? and what's the moon, a big balloon? we'll never know unless we grow there's so much world outside the door i want to sing to sing my song i want to live in a world where i'll be strong i want to live i will survive and i believe that it won't be very long if we turn, turn, turn, turn, turn and if we turn, turn turn, turn then we might learn turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn and if we turn, turn, turn, turn then we might learn learn to turn self i have no wish to comment on other days (the ones that passed since my last entry) other than the fact that, yes, i finally got some of the work n things i wanted to do done, and that made me feel at least satisfied or contented for the time being. there's still more work to be done, but at least it feels good knowing that i've been able to get some of it done.and yes, it felt sooo good to get enough sleep and not wake up with paralysed face muscles that can only show the expression of anger (as falsely perceived by some), which is in truth actually just a tired look. not that i slept as many hours as i would like to, but it was enough to keep me from looking and feeling exhausted. but lately (and even today) i have to say, i've had bouts of...what shall i call it, breaking down to god?...where i've had to make the deliberate and painful decision to cut my (old) self away, when i see it manifesting itself again. it's like this: i'll be doing or feeling something the whole day, and then at one point when i'm left to myself (usually when the day's over) my conscience, directed by god, will tell me that this is just not right and i have to stop in my tracks and confess to god. i want my life to be directed by the holy spirit, and not by self every single day (from part of paul's writing in the new testament..too tired to look it up). it's true what c.s. lewis said in mere christianity that the self will fight tooth and nail to stay, as we try to chase it out and replace it with the holy spirit. he also mentioned that god will not stop his work in us until it sees completion (hmm reminds me of a verse [can't remember where] that says he will finish the good work he has begun in us), and, painful as the process of moulding might be, he will not stop carving us out and making us more christ-like bit by bit until he's succeeded. and if you look at those two statements you'll see there are two forces opposing each other. it's the self vs. god. and lately i've felt the battle betweeen self and god begin again, though not as brutally as the predicament i just got out of. both fight for their own best interests, and both want a place in me. but of course ultimately i make the decision (with god's help) to give myself up to god. die to self. not that it'll ever be easy..but if there's one thing i'm thankful for, it's the fact that i'm at least aware of where i'm wrong, which must mean i'm in tune with the holy spirit, and not walking around blindly thinking i'm not doing so bad after all. also, as i was filing up my notes and doing some restacking and stuff the other day, i came across a few tangible reminders of my recent dark days yet again...a few meaningful scraps of paper, an item, etc. and i must admit, i wept as the memory of it (as in that time of darkness) came flooding back. remembered the pain, remembered how god helped me through a combination of events (which, looking at it now, i realised that all these seemingly unrelated events seemed to be part of one big plan to get me to where i am today), remembered things during that time that were long forgotten, things both painful and pleasant.... yawn. must be getting tired cos i seem to be zoning out...suddenly find it hard to focus when i think complicated thoughts. got things to do. going off. --note: i edited this post again the next night. so nope, the points are not as 'blurry' as before.
firestarter i checked out this website my fren and his fren created...it's an open discussion blog, where they talk about one book, and the issues that revolve around it. it's interesting to see different opinions on christian thinking (as well as bits of their personal life) come up in the process. the book that they're currently reviewing is, "the wisdom of each other", a book by Peterson (the guy who wrote the Message, which is a paraphrased version of the Bible) which dwells on the Wisdom books in the Bible (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs).and here's the link. they're currently one month into the thing, n they call it the TM Squared project (phase 2). phase 1 was based on the book the Message last june. dead energizer battery that's my nickname on msn today. dead energizer battery: going, going, (almost) gone. seriously that's exactly how i feel today. been feeling tired and wearied since thursday began, and all those last-min meetings and schedules popped up. "i'm too shattered to do anything", anyway (it's from duran duran's one of those days).but today was more exhaustive than yesterday for me. cos i had even less sleep than the nite before, and slightly more things to do today than yesterday....and if there's one thing i've noticed, lack of sleep tends to make me more prone to bouts of depression and moodiness, besides being physically depleted of energy. and yeah, i had much more of that today....lost count of the times i had to pull myself aside n pray until i felt better / stronger. and in really bad cases of extreme sleep deprivation, it affects the expression on my face too....i just can't, literally cannot smile, cannot look happy, no matter how hard i try to twist n contort my face. my face muscles just....feel too tired to smile too...and i end up having this look which, from feedback from the past, makes me look angry, which i'm totally not. i'm just tired. so i had a lot of explaining to do, eheh. but my face muscles did manage to relax though, and finally be able to smile, when my friends who were my friends (if u get what i mean) made me laugh. yeah, but the minute i was left alone, the face started to drag and pull itself down....and that look of, in actual truth, tiredness, would come up again. honestly i don't know how else i had the physical strength to do all i had to do these 2 days, than through the empowerment of the holy spirit. i really think i would have died from exhaustion if the holy spirit didn't sustain me with energy and zest that came (seemingly) from out of nowhere. and it is in tired moments like these when i just close my eyes and turn up the volume to the music i'm listening to..which is, not so loud cos if it is, it'll aggravate my near-headache, woozy, i-need-peace-and-quiet feeling. and today it just happened to be oasis for me. was closing my eyes, resting my head against the wall with the headphones blasting peace through my ears in the library for quite some time, while at the same time talking to god or letting my thoughts pass through slowly. DON'T LOOK BACK IN ANGER by Oasis Slip inside the eye of your mind Don’t you know you might find A better place to play You said that you’ve never been (sounds like ’bean’ in order to rhyme w/’seen’) But all the things that you’ve seen They slowly fade away So I’ll start a revolution from my bed ’cuz you said the brains I had went to my head Step outside, summertime’s in bloom Stand up beside the fireplace Take that look from off your face You ain’t ever gonna burn my heart out And so, sally can wait She knows it’s too late as we’re walking on by Her soul slides away But don’t look back in anger I heard you say Take me to the place where you go Where nobody knows If it’s not our day Please don’t put your life in the hands Of a rock and roll band You'll throw it all away I’m gonna start a revolution from my bed ’cuz you said the brains I had went to my head Step outside, ’cuz summertime’s in bloom Stand up beside the fireplace Take that look from off your face ’cuz you ain’t ever gonna burn my heart out And so, sally can wait She knows it’s too late as she’s walking on by My soul slides away But don’t look back in anger I heard you say So, sally can wait She knows it’s too late as we’re walking on by Her soul slides away But don’t look back in anger I heard you say So, sally can wait She knows it’s too late as she’s walking on by My soul slides away But don’t look back in anger Don’t look back in anger I heard you say At least not today. kmax returns cool....there's finally talk of kevin max's next album coming out in a nifty little article...and a little (not-so-good quality) sound clip of kmax on radio talking about his plans. he sounds weird speaking instead of singing, though. the album -- it's called the Imposter and it's due September in the US.also, switchfoot is coming out with their new album, nothing is sound, in august. really glad to see new life in my old favourites. returning to dark what a loopy evening. i'm listening to "to the dearly departed" by kevin max, one of my old favourites, which is this slow, nostalgic kinda song...and that's merely providing the vocal wallpaper for what i'm reading: old content from my blogs, notably the peak of the recent dark days i just got over. by just going back and reading...i can almost feel the pain and loneliness and sheer wretchedness of me in those times.as i read, the memories, both recorded and unrecorded, return to mind. how much of a struggle it was, just to juggle both work (oh, how i detested it!) and my personal problems at the same time, and having to hold it all together and brave it all, which admittedly, i didn't initially. i kept running away....a lot of disappearing and going to places of refuge and solace where no one i knew could find me in. i remember walking home almost every evening from work feeling like i wanted to cry or just die. but in hindsight, i learnt and grew in wisdom from above. god was much more real, more closer to me then, through all the pain...He is the evidence of which can be found in my journals and blogs from that time. and, all the suffering, shitty though it was, it gave me a lot of knowledge...of god, the things he taught......and it reignited a closeness in my relationship with god that i had previously lost temporarily due to too many distractions during happy moments. i wish not to lose that fire and awareness of god, lest i need another bout of suffering to bring me to my knees.....but, knowing that man is fallen, and that the christian's life of growth is through times of hardship, i know it's bound to happen again. but it's better to be aware of it than to be blindly hoping for idealistic versions of heaven here on earth when we already know this ground is cursed (genesis somewhere). frienemy? i've just come across this term in the papers today. a whole article devoted to a term coined by carrie from sex and the city. according to it, a frienemy is the person you love to hate, the one who secretly makes you feel better when you compare their failures in life to yours. she (usually a she) is one whom you know goes around bitching behind your back, but yet something keeps you coming back for more of her company. the article went on to mention that usually one gossips about her too and that befriending her is one's own human selfish way of getting back at her while at the same time feeling better about oneself 'cos one isn't as bad as her.i agree that i have seen (and detected) quite a few frienemies around me, and yes, they happen to be female, but i disagree on the second fact that one takes delight in telling others as well about one's frienemy's latest scandal and feels good about it. i mean, if you wanna bitch about someone as well just to get back at them bitching at you, then you're already considered enemies already with that person and no longer friends, right? however i think this last statement (or question rather) holds true only to some people, depending on the type of standards they uphold or live up to....cos sadly, everyone has seen cases of true enmity where some people sweet talk each other when they're around each other and then go gossiping around behind each other's backs like some personal competitive game of "i'm one-up more than you" or something. but to call them even a part of the word 'friends' and still "love their company", as the article mentions, would be somewhat a lie really. or maybe they are friends, but they're just not true friends. which is a really sad thing indeed, 'cos i'd rather not be friends at all than to go on pretending to be friends, just to make myself feel better. but it is a sad truth that most of the female race seem to love carrying out this sort of catty, bitchy business. and yes, it does make me loathe my own race at certain points in time because i see just too many of these frienemies around and i can't stand them....and i don't just mean people outside the faith, but of course anyone knows that backstabbing and gossiping know no boundaries. the majority of females is just...like that. i also find this bit in the article particularly true as well: "men show more direct aggression in the form of violence, but women show far more indirect aggression such as gossip and exclusion. it's subtle and requires more mind-reading skills" (simon baron-cohen, pyschologist). true indeed. often i find, the people that fuel both of these activities more are the females. they are the ones that go around convincing the general (naturally) voyeuristic public that so-and-so is like this and so on. and the mind-reading bit...yeah i get what they mean. a lot of indirect sarcasm and retorts from female lips. truth be told, i actually haven't taken so bad a hit from these dangerous women these days (by the grace of god), but one of the reasons i get so worked up about it is...because it still happens. the aftereffects, or at least what happens in front of me, (currently) isn't as high-scale, but it is still saddening to note. especially the betrayal of one's trust part. it just sickens me when i hear some people spilling the beans on others, even if it's not about me. makes me...not wanna be present with them. as noticed, trust is very important to me in a friendship. and looking back, i've realised all my differences and eccentricities come handy in this sense because they've made it even easier for me to single out who my true friends are from the fake ones. which is why i said (see previous post), thanks once again to all who've stood by me through thick and thin, good times and bad. friends "A friend is he who always knows When the cold wind of trouble blows Who comes in dark and stormy night With friendship's glowing lamp alight." -- Mason yup, i think the long-delayed time has come for me to put up a post on friends. the reason why i don't touch this area is, because....it can get pretty complicated, that's all i can say. but, having a look back on my friends past and present, i really gotta give a pat on the back to those who've remained. i mean, what better way to find out who your real friends are than the good old 'litmus test', which basically answers the question: can they accept you for who you are? now that my head's out of the fog (at least for now) and i'm not having one of those episodes where i can't see clearly, i do acknowledge the importance of friends. even though Jesus is truly the best friend of all, i still am grateful that He has provided the chosen few for me in times of need. and he still (amazingly) keeps adding to that number every time. thanks to all my beloved buddies whose friendships with me have stood the test of time. only by god's grace has he brought us this far. if i said i've never felt encouraged or had my spirits lifted at the times when i'm having a dark day and out of the blue a friend unkowingly sends / says something assuring to me, i would be lying. and if i said i have never felt like, hey, at least there's one person on earth who gives a shit about me or what i do when a friend shows concern about me, i would be lying through my teeth even more. it's also an undeniable feeling that the burden is always lighter when the suffering is shared, and the joy is always multiplied when the news of good tidings is shared. and of course there's the spiritual perspective of looking at it...that it's harder for the devil to strike us down when we're together than when we're apart. "If one falls down, his friend can help him up." (Ecclesiastes 4: 10). it says somewhere in Proverbs that rope is harder to break if it's in a cord than if it's just pieces of unbonded string. also, there are times when i see the Holy Spirit working in my friends and speaking to me through them too...and it's not just through advice: i've seen the Helper use them to get to me even in the most unexpected ways. oops. gotta go. it's late. p.s. this post has been edited. think i've said before, guess it's an incentive to be here in time to read the whole story before some of it gets taken down. hehe.
nick rhodes & wisdom nick rhodes sent a video message on his birthday, which was june 8! whoopee....43 years old and still no less appealing....saw the duran duran MTV of "what happens tomorrow"...man, his fingers are really high on the staccatos on the keyboard! but sad to say, really, both dd MTVs (this one and 'reach up for the sunrise') have really bad...'scriptwriters'? as in, i've seen better ones from dd than this....don't get me wrong, the music is great, but the MTVs are so...boring. and a bit corny too, esp some bits in 'sunrise'. this is part of a post taken from my other public blog...thought it was worth mentioning...too tired to elaborate much though: -physical age is in no way linked to godly wisdom. experiencing pain and trials do play a huge part in inculcating that wisdom, though. cos whatcha read, can never have as great an impact on your life as what you're going through. and the lessons that i've learnt are...tremendous. on one hand, i feel both humbled and loved by God that He's chosen to reveal so much to me, especially when i start to notice that not everyone comes to that point at my age, but on the other, it is painful when it's painful. know what i mean? a comment on that. yeah. i thank the Holy Spirit for continually making known to me the secrets of God's heart, wisdom from above....i'm definitely grateful, cos now that i know, i think i'm better off knowing than to still not have known. but i know there's always a whole lot to learn from God, since we'll never attain the standard of wisdom God has anyway...not that i want to, but it does remind me that there is never a point where i can say, "i already know all there is to know." whoa. sounds like something keanu reeves would say outta the matrix. hahah.
lyrics gone wrong this bit here actually cheered up the latter part of my day (aka. the nite)....grin. small joke but good enough to make me laugh.taken from Misheard Lyrics
one of those days actually, this is how the latter part of today felt like (ignore the song title credits n get to the lyrics):ONE OF THOSE DAYS by Duran Duran Suddenly it all looks so familiar Gone and wrecked it like I always do Don't you know it? Life is out to kill 'ya But you still go getting on with it Seen better times than right now But I'm not running away No, nothing's gonna bring me down It's just been one of those days I'm not the only one They can drag me to the gates of hell now There's nothing left but I'm still hanging in Not for me, ain't no final showdown I'm too shattered to do anything Seen better times than right now But I'm not running away 'Cause nothing's going to bring me down It's just been one of those days I'm not the only one feeling this way And I'm not sorry I'm not the only one feeling this way And I'm not sorry Not running away -- the lyrics seem to fit my life very much, at certain times and points. especially that part about not running away....i recall an old post a few months ago that mentioned the challenge someone posed to me about not running away....and since then i haven't budged an inch.....as in, i've stopped running when trouble finds me. well, running far enough anyway. i've decided to face the cold hard facts of reality. though sometimes i admit i put it off for awhile....but i haven't actually gone awol. speaking of trouble, today was supposed to be good. or at least okay. well it was...until it soured up in the end because of certain avoidable circumstances. let me recapitulate briefly. had very little sleep last nite, cos i was up doing...stuff. work stuff. i'll skip the classes part and come to the part where it starts to suck. picture this: i'm tired, slightly fatigued, and i've been literally to one end (as in one place) and back (to the original place) in time for this thing, and i come and find that at the end i feel even worse off than before? i mean, true, god's work is not supposed to be self-gratifying, but i don't think it's supposed to make one feel morose either. the question i am asking is this......was today what one would call fellowship-ping, or just an act of it all, a strained effort fraught with tension? nevermind the fact that in the end our "group" ended up being a one-on-one with someone who is not exactly the person i had in mind, but i mean....i really hated the way the atmosphere was all stiff and hard and cold....and it's left me wondering, should i even go on doing something like this in this particular setting if it's even worth it? to put it this way, she and i tried to talk. tried. okay, i tried too. really. but, you know sometimes you can just tell by the way people ask you questions that they really don't think you've got your head screwed right, y'know what i mean? it's like they judge you even before you have a chance to explain. actually not just the questions they ask...how they've previously reacted to you in the past, what they've said to you, the incredulous look in their eyes when they ask you in that funny way.... and then there's the other issue to contend with. she asks me questions that hint, that probe at an underlying issue she's trying to get out of me....questions that, are not to be taken at face value. and of course, naturally, since we are supposed to be siblings-in-christ, she expects mutual honesty. so okay, i'm game for that. but when i try to ask her what exactly is the underlying issue, she tries to cover it up as if it was nothing. and with her side of the fence closed up she expects me to open mine? and after the whole affair ended, i leave pretty late, get home pretty late, feel pretty fatigued, tired, morose....and just thinking, why am i doing this again? i could've gone home when i went to one end and back....i could've just, gone to one end, and continued on my way home instead of returning back, but no, instead i came back and battled the tiredness.....just for ice-cold "fellowship"? i'm seriously wondering what to do about this situation here. i really am. anyway, to cut the long story short, it all got to me, both the mental and emotional drainage.....and i cracked when i got home. took a long bath, thought it out, was about to pray.....when i saw my mom popping watching "hitchiker's guide to the galaxy". man, that is such a funny movie....a brilliant parody of sorts...especially the one about worship service. i can see why the book was a classic sci-fi bestseller, though i think nothing beats reading the actual book. and even though i now suffer from a phlegm-filled throat due to loud fits of constant laughter, i feel so much better already. not as terrible as earlier. but i must admit....since this morning til now the gas in my stomach has been causing discomfort by refusing to exit my system. sigh, the perils of having a weak stomach.
defamation alert an interesting thing of note today was at the lecture theatre before lectures began, our faculty's head brought to mind, for the first time since our three years here, the dangers of blogging.....as in defaming someone, namely lecturers, with foul-mouthing blogs....and it was really duh.....i mean, some people (read: students) just don't use their brains when they blog. i mean, don't they know that once you type in a lecturer's name, all he/she has to do is google it and they get to read all the expletives you included about them in your blog? and that defamation suits can happen as a result of that? i mean, seriously. enough said.on another note, the ultimate road trip by forerunner, which is the music ministry of my cca, took off on sunday, but they have a blog update today. woohoo! mood change. i'll continue in a new post. music "x & y", coldplay's latest album, is officially out today, worldwide. which means the track listing's out as well....can't wait to get it (the album i mean). on another note, saw duran duran in the papers again. there was a brief mention about them among about 60 singers n bands signing up to perform for free to raise awareness on african poverty, in line with the upcoming G8 summit. organised by bob geldof (a singer himself, from my parents' time), the shows will be streamed live on the web and happens to be the sequel to Live Aid's sellout shows (under the same intentions and conditions), which was 20 years ago. 1985. no prizes for guessing whether i even existed then. haha.the article also mentioned that the old lineup of stars from Live Aid included Queen....cool. i would've liked to see them perform. but now, we've got duran duran performing in rome and sting performing in london. wonder if i'll get to watch it -- 2 july. that's one day before i'm doing something special. hehe. and if i hadn't had enough glimpses of indecency on friday, one of my email accounts now has to advertise a dating agency by enlarging a woman's photoshop-enhanced boobs. eugh...but at least it's not as sick as...enough said. i do not want to dwell on these things. back to duran duran, there's one song that i'm kinda stuck on (nope, it's not my fave, which is track 12, but it comes close), because not only does the melody sound catchy, the lyrics are pretty encouraging, too. okay, so it is more on dependence on man, than on God, but when i apply it to God i find it very uplifting indeed. and i find some bits to be especially true. enjoy (the lyrics)... WHAT HAPPENS TOMORROW by Duran Duran Child, don't you worry It's enough you'e growing up in such a hurry Brings you down, the news they sell ya To put in your mind that all mankind is a failure But nobody knows What's gonna happen tomorrow We try not to show How frightened we are If you love me, I'll protect you However I can You've got to believe It'll be alright in the end Fighting because we're so close There are times we punish those who we need the most Though we can't wait for a saviour Only got ourselves to blame for this behaviour And nobody knows What's gonna happen tomorrow We try not to show How frightened we are Would it seem lonely If you were the only star in the night? You've got to believe It'll be alright in the end You've got to believe It'll be alright again Time is a ribbon, a silent icy river (froze us all) Running deep, deep and fast Enough to get lost down in the flow Crashing around These tiny lives mean everything And nobody knows What's gonna happen tomorrow So don't let go Now we've come this far Hold my hand please Understand -- We're never alone We've got to believe It'll be alright in the end (Nobody knows) You've got to believe It'll be alright, my friend And yes we believe It'll be alright again (Nobody knows) discovery week back to serious business....i'll post a "brief" update on life this past week....well, it's been "discovery week" for me in a sense...like i said, i find myself more accepting of certain things / events to attend and i've been getting more than the usual amount of "friendly intrusions" this week...(man, now i feel like Dr. Evil from Austin Powers when his hands hook the air with his apostrophes, haha.)by that phrase i mean, i've managed to have had the honour of enjoying the private company of some people i already know but didn't know so well previously, as well as the joy of getting to know new friends who seem to be pretty okay to get along with. and oh yeah....i got to mix around with three different furry friends -- dogs (other than my own) at various times yesterday....which i really loved, cos they were all owners' pets and they were really lovable and, naturally, excited by the scent of my dogs on me. my dogs didn't take too kindly to alien scents of the same species on me when i returned, though. they rarely wag their tails in approval or sniff excitedly when i bring them new scents. think they hate me being around other dogs...hahaha. but one thing i know....they certainly are man's best friend. and they have a lot of human qualities and human-like portrayals of emotion too....maybe cos they've been humanised. haha. i digress again. as usual. other than the above, God has been revealing to me areas in which i can serve Him, and by that i don't just mean positions or roles to take up. also, i can feel myself adapting to a change in my self that God has caused inwardly, and is helping to successfully integrate within me. i sure hope it lasts and it's not just some spell after the mission trip about wanting to do/be good. but somehow it doesn't exactly feel like the common, mere post-camp short-term revival....
rattling on how fitting that around the time i start listening to duran duran again, there comes up an article about one of its members, lead singer Simon le Bon, in the papers today. its angle was mostly on him signing up for a yacht race 20 years after he nearly drowned while competing in the same race, but it had several snippets here and there about life with duran duran. goes to show that i'm still a true blue duranie (slang for duran duran fan) after all this while ;). simon's not my fave though (nick is!), but he's my second fave.and i even came across an article which included my old fave, elijah wood. it turns out he was one of the VIPs present at Four Seasons Hotels & Resort's opening ceremony dinner at Langkawi. in fact, the only male white guy there. the piece came up with a picture of him and jimmy choo's daughter posing. (jimmy choo is one of malaysia's most well-known citizens, due to his branded shoes of the same name, if you didn't already know.) speaking of reading the papers, what an odd time to read them. i don't usually read them at night...but tonite i had to wait for my dad to get off the working com, cos it's situated rite next to this com, so i jus picked up the papers and read....and once i read i couldn't stop reading....which is, surprisingly, strange among my coursemates, cos it seems that very few of them actually enjoy reading newspapers. and i don't know if it's just them, or the generic youth of today. i had double joy of the papers today cos my parents bought both NST (new straits times) and the Star...so i was poring through them. usually i prefer to read the feature sections more than anything, because i find travel and fashion not to my interest and because the nation section is usually filled with gruesome killings or acts of a carnal or horrific nature. so usually i just scan through them for the sake of keeping up-to-date, but sometimes an outrageous headline catches my attention and i get pulled in hook, line and sinker before hurriedly turning the page away, disgusted. it's really sick what people do to other people these days....and i'm not just talking about assaults on women. today i just aimlessly looked through, but a "special report" on hangmen compelled me to read. and....ugh, it's really sick. up till today i still feel that hanging, execution, whatever forced death by the law is an absolute wrong. and yes, it's linked to the God-has-the-right-to-decide-who-lives-and-who-doesn't stand. anyway, the summary of the 3-piece backgrounder was about how hangman live with the fact that, well, they kill people about once a year, as well as what they've seen and how prisoners react....plus an infographic explaining the procedures of how hanging is carried out...really sick. i hope i don't dream of hooded victims hanging from nooses in my sleep....but at least this wasn't as visually disturbing as the video i watched of the korean beheading last yr...now that was really really painful to watch.... and while i'm on the topic of what's sick, looks like i have to be particularly cautious when carrying out my new group project: of all topics to write papers on they had to choose anime. the one thing which i have deliberately avoided because of all the turns-you-on pictures of female cartoon characters dressed in indecent clothing with contradictingly big, innocent and rather docile eyes. ok, so not all anime is about sex. but a lot of it is....like eri izawa, a lecturer from MIT in the US n writer says, it's ubiquitous. but that's not the thing...the thing was, on friday our group was supposed to meet in the library to read up on books on anime that we might want to include in our paper....and we came across this deceptively innocent book called "learning to draw anime". anime my ass! more like learning to draw figures of stereotypical big-busted females in two forms: nude and semi-nude, in the sickest...positions. and the purpose of it all, the writer (obviously some porn-crazed male) mentioned, was to help the caricaturist understand how the form and inner-wear of these female characters affect the way they look like in proper clothes. but stil, i think he's really sick! the moment i saw some of these explicit pictures, i immediately shut the book, but my horny friend kept opening up several pages and nudging me to look up and see. i just looked with my eyes half-closed and tahan-ed, up to the point where i saw a female character in this particularly sick...position...which made me feel...sick, and then i said that's it....i am not gonna look anymore because (thank god) our paper's not focusing on pornography in anime. instead, it's focused on gender discrimination, which is...not so bad. anyway as an added fact, my friend noted that there were absolutely no drawings on males whatsoever. not that i want to know. ugh... and if you're wondering, why in the world am i stuck doing a topic which has links to an issue i very much detest and hate (read: porn), it's because well...the majority wanted it. if i had it my way, though, i'd write on how the government is restricting freedom of press....a very interesting (and controversial) topic indeed, one that i could find a thousand and one book sources from, compared to anime. (and i'm not saying this out of mere guesswork, but i've done my homework and searched through various campus / institution databases.) just wolfed down some imitation danish cookies due to a growling stomach...must have had too light a meal for dinner earlier. i'll continue with more personal stuff in a new post. eyes hurt ow....it's one of those rare times again where my eyes actually hurt when i'm less than 15 mins into the net. think the air is making my eyes too dry. am listening to duran duran's astronaut album. fantastic classic dd stuff....the strains of their music from my room, plus my sleepiness, plus my eyes hurting, is affecting my train of thoughts. think i'll turn off the retro tunes for now.ok. feel...slightly more awake. yawn. wonder if i can make this blog short....mind's too tired rite now to phrase proper paragraphs so i'll jus number my points, or what's come to mind over these last few days: 1)bus concession pass. has been showing discrimination against me by banning me from the 160 n 170 buses i take every day that i need to go home. since tuesday the card simply refuses to be read when i enter these 2 buses....but for every other bus in singapore it works. went to offices at a few mrt places on wed n thurs, but they were either closed or not very helpful, as in they didn't provide me with satisfactory info. so i went to the card replacement office on friday, the Day of all Days (i call it that cos i had a lot of big things happen on that day...wait, it was just only yesterday!) at jurong east, n i got held up there for an hour n a half becos they didn't believe me initially. up til now i'm stil pretty amazed at my level of...patience with these ppl. the person behind the glass whom i spoke to, she kept saying my card status says ok, n she kept harping on the fact that i left my previous top-up value at a negative value (i used to use the pass as an alternate ez-link card, which is this card thingy they use for buses n mrts in singapore, until i found out that more often than not, the stupid card readers kept confusing my pass with my ez-link n deducting money when i didnt intend to). i practically had to repeat myself 4 or 5 times over the course of that 1-and-a-half hours like i was talking to deaf ears and she kept calling her super on the phone for every reply i gave her, cos i made it quite clear that i wasn't going to go off until i at least got this thing fixed...cos 52 bucks for a bus pass that doesn't work on the bus u need to take every day isn't a small matter. and of course the usual please hold on, wait while my super calls me back with more news as well as having to wait, stand there with my laptop (of all days it was when i had to bring The Brick to school!) and perspirate as if i was back in high-sch (which is a lotta sweat btw!). and then finally she tells me that there's been a system failure in the 160 n 170s regarding this bus pass card-swiping system. n thank god i can make a claim (read: refund) on the money i spend boarding these buses until they solve the problem. phew. i'm thinking of my parents, see. cos if it was me, i wudn't be so bent on trying to get my money back. whoops.....looks like a brief post is almost never a brief post for me. and i haven't even begun yet. that's it...i gotta stop. or else no QT for me. but what i'll definitely say is this: god has been opening to me new facets of life that i normally keep shut. and he's definitely been changing my heart becos i find myself saying yes and doing things i would usually choose not to do / attend. pressed for time was supposed to blog tonite. in fact, was supposed to come home early, watch the O.C., slp well, blog a bit, n then pray more tonite about that final decision i have to make. but, as (not luck but) things wud have it, i have to stay stuck online for a grp discussion, of which i find totally defeats its purpose becos out of the grp there are only 2 of us talking. but ah, for some reason i keep giving in this wk to things i don't usually, don't normally do, n this is one of them.so, as i'm already short on time, now that it's all over (ok i noe the nite's early and ppl who noe me well noe i usually sleep much later than this, but i really really need to god a lot tonite cos it's a relatively big decision to make), so i'll jus do it the lazy man's way. what's been in my head lately? well here's a small slice of what was....actually gastronomically speaking, it's a side dish and not the main course, but it'll do for now, cos the main course is....BIG and i'm too tired to start carving it out and serving it. below are bits and pieces of a chat with one of the ppl who's in my inner circle of frens: ah.....shit. msn got disconnected, so the whole window shut down. guess this is god's way of telling me what needs to be said and what doesn't. not used to msn's inability to have a history of messages log, or at least i can't find it....it is in one of these ways that icq's so much better.....man i miss it. anyway i was talking about: girls. and stereotypes of girls. and how stereotypical girls react towards girls who break the mould -- like me. strange People say i'm strange, does it make me a stranger that my best friend was born in a manger? -Jesus Freak, dc Talk seriously. i've just been told (again) that i'm different. but this time i get the feeling, the impression, that being different is an offence, a threat to the society in general...which is a very unsettling thought indeed. i mean, being different, or standing apart from society's norms and trends is one thing, but for that to be a bad thing? that's quite another thing altogether. ok, so why let it get to me when it hasn't so far, you say. probably because when your own circle of confidants, the people whom you extend a greater amount of trust to, (aka. your "reference group", in media studies terms) are the ones who are telling it to you that you tend to believe it or be affected by it even more...and then you start to question yourself. (eesh. hate blogging in school, especially in the labs. you always get these weird ppl who are deliberately sneaking glances at you to see what you're writing. think that's why i'm being vague in sentences today...well not that vague, but not that specific either.) it's like this: people doubt your capabilities. people who don't know you well. big deal. but when reliable sources, some of them, doubt your capabilities, then it creates this...dissonance inside of you and you yourself start to doubt your own capabilities. the question is, who is right? if i am right, i should just go on being myself, right? but the fact that your own close circle of friends agree with the notion says suggests the possibility that they might be right, right? are they not, after all, the ones who know you better? and say if they're right, what do i possibly do about it? what does god want me to do about it? what is the path, the direction, god wants me to take? how am i supposed to deal with it? i don't know if i'm disillusioned, misled or simply blind to the truth. and the fact that people keep using vague words to tell me what's wrong with me makes it so much harder to clear the fog and find out exactly what is going on. okay, so society has its own set of rules, etiquettes and social decorum. but there's no freaking manual or guideline on exactly how one should behave or relate towards another human being, other than the usual obvious things like greeting everyone warmly and stuff like that. but the grey areas, the countless types of situations in which one is thrown into every day...i just cannot determine, i just cannot get. for instance, society says to be courteous. courteous itself is vague..what action does it incur? and when you try to pin it down to specific actions, then how do you deal with people who think these actions are a form of rudeness, people whose ideals of courtesy are much higher? even polite is vague. so is being nice. i only know so much, know what has been told to me, know what i have read or seen. but honestly half the time i don't even know i'm doing wrong until someone tells me, and usually that someone tells me when it's much too late, when the problem has snowballed and hard feelings have been harboured against me without my naive knowledge all the time. maybe my parents were right last time in the sense that they said i'm not street smart. but how does one learn that? and who is to blame for my "differentness" (i know uniqueness is more gramatically suitable, but i'm just so sick and tired of hearing that label thrown at me lately that i prefer to use other words)? i did some reflection as to how i could possibly end up this way and i came to two conclusions which, well, i've borrowed from scientists, or newspaper clippings about studies on people, or whatever. what i am is a result of my genes (looking at my parents, i do notice that my father is somewhat of an outsider and a loner at times, especially among...the people he despises) and my environment (ok, so i was brought up a certain way, i saw / read / heard of certain things in the media, and the media from which i derived it from was mostly western so maybe indeed i exhibit western media in an asian society) and of course, because God made me this way. before i continue, in terms of environment i did have it kinda tough when i was stepping into early adolescence. it's not that i don't forgive my parents, but i certainly wouldn't wish to repeat what they did / said to me in those times...i can remember a time of trials early on, and having to grow up much sooner than my peers in some ways (not all). and looking back, i did find true meaning, true purpose in god, true maturity in christ....not to completion, but i admit i did grow spiritually and i did think of things that most of my peers weren't even thinking of at that time. back to what was it my parents did? well, simply speaking they let me down when i needed them the most. i can remember my father using extremely cutting, extremely sarcastic remarks to me when i was suffering those times of trials in my early years (grades fell, got pushed to the C class, which my parents scorned as if i was in the Z class instead, friends who were friends because of my grades left me, my best friend moved to KL, etc.). and my mother, well she's always been the type to go "serves you right" and rub it in. but it was my father's words that stung the most, and some of the actions he did, like drawing a big cross on my "see you at the top" book by zig ziglar (my current self-help book at the time, which strangely, had a lot of references to the Bible and godly stuff in it) and writing "see you at the bottom". and i remember struggling with it and trying to be good or christ-like and encouraged by God(like my book said) for about one year or so, before finally coming to the page in the book where it says you should confront the people who are bringing you down and at least make sure they know you feel that way and confronting my mother (my father refused to talk to me) about it. i even prayed about it for a week. and it was pretty disappointing, though i should have expected it. i still remember asking her to come into my room, and she was pretty grumpy about me bothering her, even though it was fricking nite and it wasn't like she was working on something. i spoke to her, showed her the chapter in the book about that, and i tried to tell her how painful it was that she and my father were telling me these kinds of negative words....i even remember saying it with tears welling up in my eyes, though thankfully i managed to control them. and for all my tears, for all my humiliation and embarassment shed, she continuously said it was my fault and i deserved it. i am nearly two decades old and i still disagree firmly with what she said: no child should ever have to be put-down and ridiculed by his/her parents over anything. and where was i...oh yeah. god made me this way. so the next logical question to ask would be, why did god make me this way? one thing i do know for sure is, i am pretty sure that if he has plans to prosper me and not to harm me and to give me hope (somewhere in Jeremiah), and that He always works for the good of those who love Him (new testament...is it Corinthians? i forget), then surely i am not like this for a bad purpose? then why is it i get the feeling this time that there's something wrong with me? true, everybody is flawed, but why is it that i am always having to deal with the same confrontations about this issue many times throughout my life? i remember asking this to another of my close friends before that friend left for australia. and that person's answer to it was very definite: it's not that i am the one having this problem that no one else seems to have (i've heard this fact resurface again recently), but rather that everyone has problems in different ways, different areas, and for me it just so happens that the area i have problems with has to be this.
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