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read between the lines
and.. but that aside, this gave me some kind of explanation for my recent actions:but other than that, i'm still confused. and i still feel somewhat stifled being cooped up in this house. being stuck at home is no good for me...leads us to fights i believe, cos we have to see each other 24/7 when what i really need is a break from here. still yearning for that break. it's still not coming. my parents still think i'm 10. i couldn't even go out for dinner alone today...makes me wonder sometimes why i bother to tell the truth. sucks.
oh brother mom's sick today. and my brother and i just got into a quarrel again. not that i want to make her headache and vomitting worse, it's just that i have very thin patience when provoked.yesterday over the malaysian idol results show, it's just my luck to have that stupid source of irritant doing what he does best again: irritating me. i ended up with two blue-black bumps above my left elbow which still haven't subsided yet. and he ended up with a smashed board and crumpled exam notes. some times i really hate this family. if it's not one, it's the other. and i just cannot understand how come my brother is already so old and yet still has the gall to irritate his mother and sister at his age. i really can't stand it everytime he tries out his vocabulary of foul language to me. he even tries the F word and C word at me just to look out for my reaction. really geram, i rasa. and the home pc, though returned, is still not fully restored again. it keeps restarting everytime i shut it down and it runs super slow...much slower before even though by right it should be faster, now that it's been reformatted and its contents are lesser than before. and the sad part is, the pc guy forgot to backup my picture files so i lost all pictures taken on my palm pilot. i had stupidly assumed they would still remain on my palm pilot, but when i switched it on two days ago, to my dismay the whole thing restarted as if it was a brand new palm again. so that's it...all those 50 over shots of my dogs, and of people and places that i will never ever be able to capture in that same mood again. especially the dogs...they move a lot and they recognise the palm when they see it these days, so they tend to elak it when they see it. but oh well, what to do, this isn't the first time in recent years i've had my personal items or whatnot erased forever from memory, so...guess it's just this ongoing lesson for me that the things on earth are meant to pass / fade away, unlike the things above which eternally remain.
pretty and the pretty girl gets all the friends.was browsing through a few blogs, a few friendster accounts, reading a few testimonials from there. not that i'm jealous or anything, but i guess it really gets to me when pretty girl chooses to snub me and gets her kakis to get everyone else to turn their backs towards me when i'm around. makes me feel there's no point in coming anymore. wonder what on earth am i doing up at this ungodly hour, of all things, reading blogs with so many sms-lingo abbreviations and colour variations my head aches, complete with double-faced attitudes that seem to oppose the very nature of what they seem like in person. but then again, maybe it's because i just can't seem to consistently get one on my side. that pychotic tendency in me to get into overdrive and push the car over the cliff...why? curse my deprived childhood. but i guess everyone has their weaknesses and i can't complain i've gotten closer to god through having become this way. needy i used to sing this song everytime i feel depressed. the beauty of this song was it expressed a simple yet earnest prayer from my heart calling out for a god whom i know hears me. my 4 previous albums, got reduced to one (skillet), cos the rest (the originals) have been returned to their rightful owners and my cd player, over the months, has stopped being able to read burned cds. usually if i'm that desperate i play burned cds on my laptop, but these days it's so troublesome just taking it out from the bag and putting it in again.so i've resorted to backdated music that's served me well over the years. and this song's one of them. it may be months, years later, but i still sing it with the same fervour that i used to sing it. Let That Be Enough by Switchfoot Wish I had what I needed To be on my own 'Cause I feel so defeated And I'm feeling alone And it all seems so helpless And I have no plans I'm a plane in the sunset With no where to land And all I see It could never make me happy And all my sand castles Spend their time collapsing Let me know that You hear me Let me know Your touch Let me know that You love me And let that be enough It's my birthday tomorrow No one here could know I was born this Thursday 22 years ago And I feel stuck Watching history repeating Yeah, who am I? Just a kid who know he's needy Let me know that You hear me Let me know Your touch Let me know that You love me And let that be enough -- god, you know i love you and desire to grow closer to you. then why does it hurt so bad to have to go through this time of discovering you, as if i don't like knowing you better? the self versus self. godly versus carnal. new versus old. i think the self just doesn't like dying. frankly speaking, there isn't much of a self in me cos my self-esteem is practically nil, according to my friend, but i still have desires. "selfish ambitions" as the bible calls it. no, jess, you can't have your cake and eat it too. distractions, distractions. all a ploy to divert my attention from the goal, to shift my focus away from who i need to be focusing on. it's very distracting, these distractions. pek cek this post will mark an addition to the several thousands of other posts i find on the net that have the word "pek cek" aka. "heart pain" in crude english. can anyone die from pek cek, i wonder. tia kau ai si..and that's about all the teochew i can spew out to describe my condition. but it's not all like that, i'll admit. and this (quote below),"Be careful not to turn to evil; your suffering was sent to keep you from it."this is actually kinda true. according to a random blog online, most of the patients who end up in mental hospitals are scorpios. i think it's possible. on another note, my home pc finally got fixed up today, after being returned back and forth for 4 more times today. i have this "uncle" whom i like to call the pc guy, and he lives a few houses away. he's reformatted the home pc umpteen times already. the thing is, erm, he doesn't seem to do a complete job of getting the computer rebooted. it refused to start up 4 times today. said the damage done by the 17 trojan horses was real shit. i'll bet. he said our com was near crashing when we sent it to him. it's been a week plus since we sent it over. hopefully we'll take better care of it this time, heh. forgot to mention my dog (the temperamental one) bit me again on sunday, the very day i was supposed to play for main church. how the puncture wound did not turn out to be so deep that it disabled my finger from playing, i do not know. i still don't know if it was a figment of imagination, but i could've sworn i saw his whole body lifted up when i was trying to detach my thumb from his teeth. all i know is, i got two bite areas on my right thumb, one area deeper than the other (the first time i managed to snatch my hand away faster, see). he had a huge lob of eyeshit on his left eye and me being disgusted at having to use my finger, tried to use a twig to wipe it off. he thought i wanted to poke his eye. and so he bit. but ah well. as usual, he wears the same remorseful look after the damage has been done and i show him the bloodied wound angrily to his face. so i can't stay mad at him for long. but i can't just allow myself to get bitten always, though. i haven't really thought of a solution, so i don't know. but out of all the scars on my right hand, three are there thanks to him, and these three have been accumulated over a period of the last two years. looks like "once bitten, twice shy" fails to apply here, heh. anyway, it has more mobility today, the thumb, which i'm glad of, but i still have to do most things with one hand (or if i can manage, i use all the fingers on the other hand except the thumb), especially if they require me to wash my hands after doing them. so i take extra long to bathe (and i'm already taking long enough as it is) and other things. the thing about my thumb is, i am able to stretch it, or rest it on its side, but i can't bend it. that's the miracle. so i was able to play the piano for sunday service, type on this keyboard, sleep in peace, but not able to wash dishes properly, or touch the dog or use the latrine with both hands. oh, and another reason why i'm so perked up today is, i have an excuse for getting out of the house tomorrow. but i have to come back at an insanely early time, a time that's one hour earlier than my already insanely early curfew. so much for freedom. it's not even like i'm going out to do drugs or something...all i ask is for solitude. my mom still can't tell the difference between a ten-year-old and a...a young adult. but i really can't stand it being cooped up in here, so, pathetic as her offer is, i'll take it. meanwhile i'll try to concoct more ideas to get me out of the house... thoughts i subconsciously tried to distract myself during the day. but unfortunately there's not much i can do at my house...there's always something about the heat and the humidity in it that just makes me wanna sleep or sloth, hence not getting anything done, really.but as always, the thief comes in the night. well not the thief of death...but er, rather the ghost of christmas past, coming to haunt me...he brings with him a huge bag of memories that evoke mixed reactions. and no matter what i've done in the day to forget about it, he reminds me of it at night. sigh. "Take away from me this monstrosity 'Cause my futile thinking's not gonna solve nothing tonight..." -- Life and Love and Why, Switchfoot
i loathe being stuck where i am. it seems like everytime i feel this way i just wanna take the car and drive to genting. even singapore with its ubiquitous couples will do...cos there are places there still hidden from sight. can't think (straight) here. finding it really hard to do quiet time whenever i'm at home...it's stifling. why genting? besides its amusements and tourist attractions, i have the whole highlands to hide in, to find my own personal space to think, whenever i'm there. la vita รจ bella  got this diagram among some stuff in the mail about how to relieve stress from exams or something...i snorted. seems like practically everyone around me's having exams except me. last time i had attachment, everyone was on hols. weird timing, you don't say. next time i come out to work, probably everyone's going to fly to england for studies or something.feeling so confused these days. things and people i thought i knew, i now don't know. issues i held firm on, i'm not so sure of anymore. maybe my friend was right: maybe having too much free time is a bad thing because if you were busy you'd have no time to think about things. i don't know...i've always used to prefer holidays and free time over school and work cos then i'd be free to do the things i wanted to do. but these days i just don't have the mood to. just don't feel like it. but then again home's not exactly where i get much done anyway. and i can't go out much cos my mom's not too happy about me going out to sing since we lost so much during that stupid ez-link card tie-up and we already forked out quite a sum for some camp over there, so i decided to obey. i don't wanna upset my parents these days cos i want to maintain that fine balance of peace we have now. but...i kinda hate it that for the sake of peace and absence of quarrels or anything, i have to keep conversations with my mom at surface level. guess having a mom i can really talk to was just an ideal that can never happen. yesterday was probably the most irresponsible i've been in ages. didn't care about anything, just took to the streets and spent all my money. felt half-drunk with tiredness, slept a lot in the buses i was in due to lack of sleep. my one and only exam ended yesterday, and i was supposed to go out and celebrate, which i did, but...this dear couple ruined it for me. went to watch a movie and it's just my luck that i have this couple next to me engaging in some thigh-stroking. and then i come out and there's a couple in the lift doing their flirting. and then the doors open and they're everywhere. yeah, rub it in for me. rub in the fact that i'm gonna die a spinster in some old broken down house in the dark where some neighbour will find my rotting corpse days later with my hand clutching the bible or something. it's like singapore is so small that there's nowhere else for all the couples to go to when watching a movie. i don't think i'll be going to that area anytime soon. i even bumped into 6 mass commers at different times while i was there. subject change. i'm finding myself looking at a lot of old memories lately. sometimes i wish selfishly that i could've somehow remained frozen in those moments of innocence and goodness instead of having to face obstacles and shattered dreams that have provided me a bitter taste of life. true, i admit the god i know's closer to me this way, but sometimes i'm finding it hard to come to terms with a jealous god. i know it's because i don't understand, but i want to. blogtrap yawn. it is one hour since i've been updating myself reading random local blogs from here and across the border on the net and...it didn't take me long to find out the latest in the sing blogging arena: two bloggers have actually been arrested and charged over rascist remarks!the article's here (before it expires). so it's all finally come to an actual lawsuit. a real one, at that. in the past, the worst that's happened of these unfortunate bloggers who spew stuff out of their mouth without thinking the government is gonna track them down on technorati or better stuff than that is that they've been asked to apologise and shut down their blogs. fellow bloggers who are not yet aware of this (this being the actual possibility of being sent to jail over a remark you just made, or even a comment one of your readers just made), beware. it's times like these i really thank god that (1) i'm in the line that i'm studying in, therefore leaving me no choice but to keep abreast with events like these (2) i have at least enough common sense to know that practically anyone (especially the authorities) can find what you write online and come after you with legal force for it. it doesn't just happen across the border, mind you. i've read reports of these things happening in the US as well. cycle fantastique. great. my home pc is officially taken over by an alien hacker (or more) after failing to get ride of 17 trojan horses (which even attacked my anti-virus software). there goes all my work. most of the files and applications in my computer are now "out of access" because apparently i "do not have permission" to access my own files. nice.this will be the fifth time (or more) that the home pc has to get reformatted and cleaned out. so am now stuck with sharing my brother's com for the timebeing...exam notes and all through here. till don't know when. sigh.... tea, anyone? meanwhile, i think this pretty much sums up my life for the past one(? two?) years. aptly placed as the last track on the album, it's almost like a mirror to my life. oh, and i think this (this life as of late) could be the beginning of the end of me. Cycle Down by SKILLET Crashing, covered with debris Dwelling in my own pity Cry like I have not Dig like I had not I start to claw Gotta get outta here I've got to, gotta get out I am, I am, I am on a higher ground You are, You are my cure from the cycle down I am, I am, I am on a higher ground You are, You are my cure from the cycle down Sinking in a sea of self Deception never sold so well Regret like I have not Pain like I don't want I start to claw Gotta get outta here I've got to, gotta get out I am, I am, I am on a higher ground You are, You are my cure from the cycle down I am, I am, I am on a higher ground You are, You are my cure from the cycle down Down [3x] I'm so cold and I wonder How'd I make it this long without You Pull me out, out from under On the cycle back to You I am, I am, I am on a higher ground You are, You are my cure from the cycle down I am, I am, I am on a higher ground You are, You are my cure from the cycle down Down [3x] i've learned "let us not see the face of man today till we have seen Jesus." -- Spurgeon this is my quote today. it's interesting how many distractions there are in life just to keep us from doing the most obvious: that is to seek Him first. found the forwarded message below that a friend sent me rather true as well: I've learned....That life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes. music heals truly, music does heal the soul. for the past few weeks, i've had new infusions of really good music drained into me and i've welcomed them with open arms. cos it really has been quite awhile since i've heard new entries to my current collection of music that are worth listening to. guess it's partly been budget, partly been deterioration of the music scene, and a few other things that have put off the arrival of new tunes to my ears, but it's been well worth the wait.the four albums i've been listening to lately that have helped for the better: 1) room for squares -- john mayer 2) exchange -- parousia 3) collide -- skillet 4) the beauty of simplicity -- telecast okay, so the odd one out's john mayer but what gets to me is his penchant for feel-good music. i don't relate to his lyrics for the most part (well i do in bits here and there, but in some abstract way) but his ability to handle the bass and accoustic in creating relaxing tunes has provided me good audiovisual imagery. in general, i hook onto one for a week and find the next on the following. seriously, when i think of it, these albums have been part of god's many indirect (or direct, depending on how you look at it) ways of ministering to me during my recent times of need. one can never underestimate the power of music. i'm not sure if i would have felt different and have been able to sustain it had my ears not heard the songs i needed to hear. for example, it was pretty hard to feel ungrateful or even the least bit wretched while listening to parousia's "exchange" and the song took on a whole new meaning when my grandad left for greener pastures. "it's an unfair exchangei guess to each his own, but i am a person who is very much affected by music. but er...it has to suit my tastes for it to have much of an effect. i've never really understood the local craze about certain overseas ccm bands playing what i would call "safe rock" because i've never felt a real kick out of listening to them, pardon me. but that's not to say i've totally recovered. the paradigm shift is still taking place as i (with god's enabling) evict my former self and put on the new self that is in Christ.
fishy the fighting fish passed away as i was here figuring out the answers for my exam (yes, i actually get them in advance, but it's not as easy as people think). dad found its nose and head sunken into the artificial leaves where it's so used to hiding. 5 months of staying with us and it's gone.was finding it rather hard to come to a closure with the fish's death cos the thing was my brother and i actually saw a sign of it not looking too well just one and a half hours earlier, at 8.30pm or so....we saw it almost bend double and suspend itself in mid-water for awhile before going back into position. and well...i started taking that guilt trip again of me being too blind to actually have sensed something was wrong then. i mean, not that i could've saved the fish, but maybe i could've....been there or something....for moral support. i dunno. at first it was a bit hard to come to terms and just...not feel bad....but thankfully i'm not feeling so unsettled anymore. i guess that's me, always feeling bad if i don't have proper goodbyes. but let's not get into that. i don't wanna open up old wounds. and no, i'm not talking about my grandad's passing. OB markers was awake enough today to think about pain. how about that. i think perception plays a big role in how i react. a lot to learn, a lot to learn. stuck, in the library again. but not by choice. i have to have that meeting by tonight, no matter how late, or else i have a feeling i never might.--finished and polished up the rest of the entry later at night when i returned. yes, surprise, surprise, i feel awake enough to write...-- was lying on my back yesterday thinking about how fallen mankind is. and how i can't figure people out. i refer to an analogy taken from among my notes for the (one and only) exam that can be applied to my situation, while exercising precaution in area of naming names so as not to be liable for one of their increasingly popular defamation-by-blogging suits. the government in that island across the border has a set of vague terms such as 'national interest' that serve as O.B. or out-of-bounds markers on what the media can report on (without suffering dire consequences such as getting exiled or going bankrupt due to billion-dollar lawsuits). it is up to the tact of the media and the subtle warnings by the government in order for the media to figure out what exactly can be reported and what cannot. the problem is of course there are no clear-cut rules, no black and white, so many greys. and that, i find, is the case with me. i think all my life i have been trying to figure out what exactly are those vague O.B. markers that mark social decorum and the complex nature of relations between people and sad to say, i haven't quite figured it out. some i guess over time, some i learn the hard way, but most of it's still a mystery to me. i'm like this socially retarded glitch in the system. truly it is by the grace of god that i've gotten to know more about new people this semester. either that or i know how to start the ball rolling but i don't know how to keep its momentum. and there it goes back again, to the inescapable fact that i can't quite figure out the complex processes of human networking and human behaviour within a social circle. every time i think i get it, something will totally blow my presupposition out of proportion and i'll be left without a clue again. i wonder how human relations would be like had adam and eve not sinned. the absence of disharmony, (absence) of perpetual guessing games of trying to decipher the many masks that humans put on, (absence) of unacceptance of deviance.....and a whole lot of other things only possible in paradise. sometimes there are points in my life where i just tire of it all, tire of having to play this stupid ball game.... guess it all boils down to being reminded of the fact that there is no other human in whom i can enjoy perfect relations with but jesus himself, the only perfect ideal, fully man and fully god. fatigue yawn. i don't know what's come over me these days but lately i just feel so tired so much more often. at first i thought it was because of the flu but as of last week i was officially free from it (proved by being able to get away with eating sinful stuff like salted peanuts and tapioca chips dipped in chilli) and yet i still feel de-energised at a much faster rate than i usually do.true, i am back to walking around singapore again as i usually do, but i tend to tire very easily and my head just feels like resting itself on the table of some restaurant for a few hours after not much walking. weird. and today i felt sleepy all day and even fell asleep for a short spell in the evening even though i practically did nothing but read papers and the readings for my only exam for this semester. but then again i always feel drowsy when i'm at home cos somehow the house is much more humid in the daytime. my productivity was probably like a zero today just because i could not shake myself out of that perpetually sleepy feeling all day. even so, that doesn't answer my question of tiredness when i'm out...beginning to wonder if it's just the weather that's affecting me or my own health. it's not like me to like sleep. i usually find it a waste of time. in fact part of the reason why i haven't blogged for a few days is i keep feeling too sleepy to go online. and when i do hit the sack, i literally pass out. it's an extremely unusual habit for me. various yesterday was weird. one of the filming projects we viewed by one of the groups in our class had a story about two people being destined to fall in love, regardless of the two parallel worlds they live in. and then since i was stuck in school, i went and watched eternal sunshine of the spotless mind in the library without really knowing what the movie was all about...and it was exactly that message. haha.i just watched it almost as a lark cos the nightmare before christmas was still on loan and i couldn't seem to find any titles that caught my eye through random shelf-searching. and then almost immediately eternal sunshine popped into my mind...and i went and typed it in the searcher and found it was available. by the way, praise god i got my photojourn pictures approved on wednesday (all 5 of them) and i sent them off for mounting yesterday. i called up the guy who's doing it and he says they're ready to collect tomorrow (which is when they're due). hoooray! that's like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. i was a little unsure whether they could get the thing done in time. but i'm not outta the safe zone yet. gotta make sure they don't get even the slightest bit of damage on the way from the shop to the lecturer's hands. eureka after two failed purchases, i have finally found the pot of gold.the christian equivalent to Coldplay, melody-wise. answers revealed later.
post-fast was too tired after all n i'm not exactly free right now, so this is what i reposted from my friendster blog (the modified version): it's hari merdeka...and i am literally merdeka from fasting! i've surprisingly made it through 40 days without copping out. am so unusually ecstatic in my current state because besides making it through the fast, the bulk of my worries for my assignments have been cleared up tonight...and it's the last week of school! so the fast was...i would say meaningful. a time of having my (spiritual) eyes opened to new things. thanks to those who've prayed for me...initially it was tough to pull away, but over the days i lost the temptation to break fast..hehe. one good thing about this fast is that i suddenly found i had a lot of free time on my hands...time that could be better spent with god away from these distractions. i'm indeed glad to have been able to see things from a different perspective (one from above) throughout this duration of time. am slowly beginning to understand the purpose of the furnace from the viewpoint of the fire-tender. have learnt that "pursuing righteousness" (2 tim 2:22) aka. focusing on god can be a hard task, but in those moments when one is able to achieve it, the inner peace and the "things" that are added onto those who seek Him first (matt 6:33) that accompany it is...quite something, something that's so hard to find in this world but when you find it, even if you lose it again, it's worth holding on to (or trying to catch ahold of again). |
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