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read between the lines
more on The Clique i so did not feel, to put it mildly, pleased today. The Clique conveniently forgot to tell me they changed the venue of their practice tonight to someone's house (it was supposed to be church). so there i came, like this dumb fool, and i walked right into an about-to-start prayer meeting session. and then only was i told that the practice could not possibly be held there since prayer was about to start.by the time i called them up (i tried the person-in-charge, i had problems contacting him, had to try the others) and tried to get some kind of transport from them to send me to the correct venue, we were one hour behind time. and the best part is, the person-in-charge, aka. the worship coordinator, wasn't even the one who apologised. it was some other nicer guy from The Clique (the one whom, other than being popular, i can't really understand why he's in there because he definitely has a heart unlike the rest). he tried to justify it apologetically, even though it wasn't his fault, he said it was all last-minute and they kinda forgot, etc. etc. but that's the thing. mr. worship coordinator and his Clique remembered everybody else because they sure didn't turn up at church like me, and they were all already there when i finally got there, so that definitely speaks for something. and i would probably have been more forgiving had we (me and the Worship Coordinator) not kept in touch for a whole week. but we did, 'cause i kept asking him for the necessary stuff, like the songs, etc. in fact i even just messaged him the night before to confirm with him the time and place. and he even replied "ok..". jerk. and i just figured something out. The Clique, who likes hanging out in people's hotel rooms when it's past curfew, will probably be raiding my room because i'm staying with one of their members. and every other member of The Clique is staying with their parents, which means my room is the only free room. i thought i was going to try to find some time with god up there and try to get back on track a little...but now i'm not so sure. not only because of the room-raiding, but because we didn't finish our practice tonight, so they were thinking of holding a major practice session during the camp's free time. so where does that leave me and my quiet time? The Clique things build up. and i am not happy at what i was told last-minute regarding church camp. i mean i was told i was playing for church camp, but the arrangement was for me to play just for one session, with an adult worship leader.and then this sunday what i shall now commonly refer to as The Clique (whom i despise only when i have anything to do with them) ambushed me and said i have to play the keyboard for them for ALL sessions during church camp, because other than the one above, they would be taking over. [brief demographics/psychographics of The Clique: 16-17-year-olds whose guys and girls openly flirt with each other, monopolise the overall youth ministry by their exclusivity (and them leaving everyone else out), who are nuts over Hillsongs and Planet Shakers (and 'boo' everything else) and unfortunately, make it a point to sing songs only by those 2 artists ever since they took over the worship section until it comes out of your ears. side note: oh and one of the girls conveniently backstabbed me and encouraged slanderous talk among them during our last church camp.] now that, of course, raised suspicions, because ever since they found out that i found out what they were talking about me behind my back, they have tried to stay out of my way and i out of theirs. so of course, upon questioning, their reason for suddenly wanting me around them is because their resident pianist (aka. initiated member of The Clique) could not come along for the camp. and they conveniently, with mock overtones of "eh you forgot to tell her ah?" (while nudging each other) forgot to tell me that they have a practice this friday (usually they have a 'practice' aka. 'flirting session' every week) to prepare the songs before the camp commences. i'm not even sure if i can make it. and if i come i am sure it is going to be a waste of time mostly, as it used to be. i just got the list of songs yesterday and the songs are all..*choke *choke *gag *gag. no prizes for guessing which artists' songs they chose. and most of the songs are even from the same album...so how boring/unimaginative is that? i don't even know some of them so they gave me the mp3's to learn them up. and to make matters worse, i also found out on sunday that one very memorable member of The Clique would be bunking in with me -- the girl who defamed me at the last camp. which just makes my day worse and it makes me not look forward it at all. (the arrangement is such because they don't have single-room booking and the smallest room they have is a double, so i had been on the waiting list for another roommate and i'm sorry it had to be her.) well at least i'll be that much smarter about The Clique's intentions...and I will definitely not make the same mistake of hanging out with them in my free time. fortunately, this time we are going to genting so i will have PLENTY to do without them (roller coaster rides, here i come!). puppies i miss before i forget, 2 other important events i want to mark down as well:-finally got bite no. 6 in 1 ½ years yesterday afternoon. right after i opened the grill and prepared for a full day out, of walking. but thank god it wasn't serious enough to disable me from walking. actually i think he (my temperamental dog) originally wanted to sink his teeth in and puncture my left foot not far from the old puncture wound from his previous bite, but i managed to lift my leg out of his mouth in time (it couldn't quite get a grip since my leg wasn't a bite-size finger) and that was when he lunged up in anger and grabbed my third toe with his teeth. and since he held on and his weight pulled me down i couldn't exactly let go. bad dog. i always make the mistake of petting him. -during the week i fell ill, the neighbour's son, who was living alone for awhile, threw away the 6 puppies that his parents' dog gave birth to (actually it's not really their dog, it's a stray but it keeps coming into their house at night to sleep since there's a hole in the fence, and they only stopped chasing it out after there was a foiled robbery attempt at their house) on a friday night. well ok at least we can give the son credit for telling my dad where he threw them (which was in a deep longkang quite some distance from the house, thank god it didn't rain all night or they would've drowned to death, there being no way to climb out) but he is a real idiot for throwing them away just like that. one of the many idiots in our country who throw away dogs for fun thinking nothing of their well-being or what happens if they die horrible deaths. so my parents, being dog-lovers, rescued them and let 4 them stay in a barricaded area in our house for one night. i managed to play with them a little even though i was sick -- in fact, it was good therapy to play with them cos it made me forget how awful i felt (physically) for the moment. the next day it was a sad sunday because it was time for them to go. my parents arranged for them to be sent over to an animal shelter run by a church aunty's husband. i know all puppies can't be saved but i pray every day that god will give them good homes to go to (meaning owners who won't abuse them) and they won't have to be put down. pray for them too if you feel touched. meanwhile, the other 2 got adopted by mah mah (i've mentioned her before in my old posts) and my aunt who live together. pretty timely too since their current dog, jack, is getting old (poor jack, these days he's getting left out of the attention). actually, much earlier than this, the dog (which my mother unappealingly nicknamed "mangy") gave birth to 7 black puppies (it's a miracle how all of them survived, since even when my puppies were born, not all of them remained alive), and the 7th was just as healthy as the rest. but this stupid son of a gun didn't bother to like put up some kind of netting on his gate, and puppies being puppies, some of them crawled out when they saw their mom. their mom, being a stray, is out often during the day and when the puppies were around sometimes she would just linger outside the gates. and you can guess what happened when the 7th crawled out. no one knows how or exactly when it happened, but one morning my parents, after driving out for their early breakfast, came back and saw it half-crushed to death at the side of the road just in front of the neighbour's house. that day it was very hard for me to take that (most possibly; i can't be sure since most of them were all black) the same puppy who was (and thereafter always became) the first to come out of hiding and allow itself to be touched by me got run over by a car so young in its age (only a few weeks old). because we had some sort of short history together (and i'm glad even for those innocent, short-lived 'safe' moments we had when the puppies were shielded from danger). i used to come over and play with the puppies when my dad was caretaking the place for awhile (the neighbour parents were on vacation and their son was probably working outstation or something) and though the frequency of my visits were forcibly short (i only came 2 times cos my mother feared, and rightly so it turns out, that if we came too often the puppies would get bolder, be more likely to roam further, crawl out of the house and get run over by cars), it was enough to for me to form a personal attachment to them. especially the one who made an impression. i still remember when i first called them out and one of them was the first to boldly come out of their hiding place (under all those tools a house usually has outside) and come running to me, small little tail, wagging. i remember holding it up. such a poor, innocent, friendly little thing. my only comfort is that maybe god wanted to spare it from a horrible future life. and i just hope that it is somewhere safe and happy, if there is a heaven for dogs. it has gone to where my other dogs and puppies have gone and i hope god has a good holding place for his animals. up till now i'm still not sure where dogs go after they die. anybody wanna offer me the answer? what's next i don't know how but the internet always makes me stay online longer than i should. hence why i am writing this post at 3plus in the night (eh no more 5am stunts ok...after my 5 days of awful sickness, no way, or at least not for some time).figured i should make a note of it here before the "historic" date passes. yesterday i had another X crossed out of my "where god wants me to go after poly" list. i did not make it into the uni i wanted to go to. even though my classmate with similar credits (and also a dip in merit) got in and they told her way way earlier than they told me. but my other classmate was the worst. fuyoh...she got into both unis while i got into none. and we both applied for the unis together at the same time (she also gave some questionable advice which i took and up to now, still leaves me wondering if that factored into what sealed my fate). and out of all my friends, i had to be the last to know and i wonder why they made me wait so long (and fill me with a sense of, would you call it, false hope?)to tell me the bad news. these were yesterday's thoughts on the night of reckoning. i thank god that i was less disappointed and felt less let down than the day i got the false alarm (which in the end, turned out to be true) before this. but this morning i woke up and a thought from the heavens came to mind which put things into perspective and helped make it easier to move on, i guess. it dawned on me that all these things, the dip of merit, the deal with my friends all getting the news first, and that regrettable action that resulted from following a piece of (assumedly) detrimental advice were just on-the-surface things and what really affected my outcome was in fact, god's decision on this matter. so i guess he doesn't intend for me to go to uni. which leaves me with the other option of work. but what as, i don't know. there are of course, dream jobs, but there is of course, reality. it's amazing how one year on, from having prayed about my future, i still have absolutely no clue where He wants me to go. nada. some people seem to take just a few months before graduation to figure out where they wanna go next while i, on the other hand, haven't the faintest idea. no revelation, no nothing. not this time anyway. i just know that i don't wanna end up doing a mundane, boring, nine-to-five job (or most likely eight-to-seven) in which i have not even the least bit of interest doing or passion for doing, in an office cubicle so cold it feels like the morgue (helps remind you about how doing the job feels like you're dying) and the only days you look forward to are holidays. jobs like that are enough to get anyone down. but down is one thing. suicidal is another. why do so many people jump down buildings in singapore every year? the reason for some of the cases is because they find their jobs so pointless, meaningless and just plain rat-race perdition. the job is ruling their lives. the job is what eats into most of their time and leaves them little room for more. the job is making life meaningless, pointless and a daily living nightmare for them because they really hate the type of passionless work that they do and they have lost their purpose in life. i don't want to add to that number. i don't even want to potentially add to that number. there must be a way where i can do a job i actually like doing. what is my purpose in life, god? what is it in terms of my job, my occupation? that reminds me of another thing i noticed a few months ago. i believe there must be some uncanny reason why a job is called an "occupation" (because it keeps one occupied) and why the work is called "business" (because it keeps one busy). i mean who knows maybe the person who coined these words up really did see it that way in olden times. it's true about the common saying that everyone here is built for a purpose and without that purpose, we cease to exist. without a purpose, life has no meaning (man this is starting to sound like rick warren's 40 days of purpose even though i didn't intend for it to). and without meaning life is just not worth living. doing nothing, i.e. being without a purpose is probably about the worst thing you can do ever for your mind. it is self-destruction if continued for long-term. but then again doing something boring for three-quarters of your life, i.e. feeling like you have no purpose is just as damaging. therefore purpose is life, in that sense. and, going on another tangent, if you read the bible and you learn: jesus is life and purpose is life, jesus = purpose and that's pretty true in itself. hmm. geram betul my mom and i go together like 5-inch nails and a white chalkboard. the screech of nails is apparently like sweet-smelling jasmine to my mom's nose.yes, we are at it again. one day after i got better from my 5 terrible days of illness. actually, she (and my dad) did engage in the usual blame game and bickering tactics when i fell ill but i thank god that it was at a much lower level than it tends to be (whether i'm sick or not is not a factor). i mean, of course there was the usual use of every old-school parents' favourite words during my course of illness, namely: "i told you so" "it's your fault for getting yourself into this" (when hello this time my sickness happened to be spurred on partly because of their carelessness too) "make us waste money going to the doctor" (like as though every patient who falls ill purposely wants to get sick) but things were, from experience, at a minimal this time (and thankfully so too, since this time when i fell ill i truly felt the worst i've felt since i was eleven). and then today the ongoing ever-present rift (it's just always there, like some nervous energy) between my mom and i just gradually got worse. i merely pointed out to my mom that i had a great dinner eating my favourite roti tampal (egg literally pasted onto roti canai, hence the malay word tampal for "paste") alone at the mamak stall across the road from their usual kopitiam hangout and even that got us into some stupid tiff about how i can always make my own fried egg at home if i wanted (then what about the dough? and so on). she just can't lose. even if she's wrong. i really hate that she refuses to give in because of her pride sometimes. and sometimes i realise i have pride issues too by refusing to play the punching bag let her "be right" even if she really isn't. it's like she can't get through the day without trying to insist on a quarrel with someone, like as though she enjoys a good fight (or at least the victory and sense of power or control that comes with it). i am commenting on the tiff we just had when we came home after dinner, all over a stupid pair of loose pants of mine which needed amendments. i got angry because for 3 weeks (i remember because i count the sundays i couldn't wear it) i had to hang my newly-bought pair of pants outside by her jewelry box because she gave her word that she would rectify it--and tonight, when finally confronted she "changed her mind" (wth?). [side issue: it sounds like some stupid curse or something but the reason why i rarely go shopping for clothes, shoes or slippers is because it is so extremely hard to find those that fit me perfectly. which is why when my last old pair of jeans tore and i had to go hunting for a new pair, i kept finding stupid trousers these days that were either too tight at the knees--the male-pleasing fashion of skin-tight clothes these days which i shall always be against--or too loose at the hips--another fashion "trend" i despise particularly when i am forced to stare at ugly buttcracks or revolting thongs all over shopping walkways.] so here i am, blowing off steam by trying to write it off in an attempt of engaging in something therapeutic as opposed to detrimental. reflecting on my actions, while i admit i could have let it go sooner, i am glad i eventually did anyway by choosing to walk away and stop pursuing the matter (even though i was mad lah, of course). while there were times where i felt things had the potential to blow up (this was one of them), i am glad god is giving me at least the control to diffuse it (for now) and think clearly. so thank you lord and i pray you will continue to work at giving me a 'longer' fuse (as opposed to a short fuse) in future. parents. you either love them or hate them. there are no in-betweens. random babble random babble from the mundane world of yours truly:-never ever sit in a cramped area playing need for speed hot pursuit 2 all day with your laptop controls set to the default setting. because you'll end up with a right shoulder blade that still hurts days after, since by default, the arrow buttons (aka. the buttons to move your sports car) are naturally set to the extreme right. -when singapore is small, singapore is really that small. never expect to find an online friend from singapore that is not connected to or affiliated with you via your current network of friends. imagine how far my jaw dropped when she said she knew so-and-so. a background check on friendster proved her right. i feel half-naked already, haha. -nearly got bite number 6 in a year from the same short-tempered dog i own. the last time there was a near hit was on the day my one-and-only exam (and my final day of school) and i remember thinking, what a way to end the school term, had i gotten bitten. this time i also thank god He was watching out for me. because if the dog bit me, it would have been bye-bye driving lessons and hello days-of-immobile-hand (which includes the tricky process of bathing without getting wounded area wet among others). -i hate harry potter 4 the game. out of all series, this 4th one is the worst for the PC. so what if the graphics are good (in fact the best so far)? the player mobility sucks. for the first time, the entire game is set in aerial view mode (i.e. where you're looking at everything from above), which is perfectly fitting if you're using the playstation, but when you're on the PC and all you got are keyboard keys and a mouse, it is very hard to control the character from the top. thus your spells are thrust at all crazy directions and when you want to move your character south, for instance, it moves southwest (and all the in-betweens that the usual keyboard arrows for north, south, east and west don't have). -watching good-looking guys blush is about as good as eating your favourite ice-cream. i am referring to tom cruise on oprah a few weeks back. i was never really a fan of his, even more so after he ran after another woman while he was still married, but on the show, you get a good close-up of his face and all you can see him in is this crazy state of ecstasy that is so unlike how he usually portrays himself to be. and the final piece of nugacious revelations for the night: -3 months down the road and my future is still unknown. not undecided, unknown. this week in church i think church got a little more exciting this week than the rest. don't get me wrong, i enjoy attending my church regardless of its semi-solemn atmosphere during most sermons, but this week...fuyoh...the topic, I AM SURE, had every adult, teenager and anyone who has hormones (babies excluded) sitting up in their seats.our dear pastor (not the new one; the one that's always been with us, the one who's most respected by most people, the one whom i've never heard anything even suggestively unclean come out of his lips in public before) decided to speak on the 1st chapter of song of songs, also known as song of solomon! i think never in so long have i known the congregation to be more attentive than this sunday. when he (pastor) read the verses, i couldn't help remembering that funny scene in keeping mum where rowan atkinson, who plays the pastor, is advised to read that very book in the bible to rejuvenate his dry relationship with his wife. go see the movie to know what i mean. but innuendoes (or should i say, direct words) aside, it was informative and refreshing for a change to have the speaker speak on something that hasn't been touched on like a thousand times already. don't get me wrong, i understand the importance of being reminded of familiar verses so that we continue to walk in the Way, but i'm just saying it was refreshing. and anyway i think a lot of us in the congregation wanted to hear a sermon on that book because most of us find it difficult to understand. i know i did. everytime i came across the book i always found it hard to comprehend that these seemingly explicit (and some non-believers say even pornographic) verses were actually speaking about the love christ has for his bride, the church. i hope they have a part two, because we only got as far as the end of chapter 1. [trinity:] "i'm in.." "First of all...don't take the symbolism and the parable too far. It goes pretty DARN far, but every parable has its limits. Here's my take:dug this out of my old archives of stuff on the matrix (yes i have a whole data-full, especially on the 1st movie). found it to be relevant to where i am at this point in time in my life (as in her talk about the faith thing, etc.)...though i kinda disagree with the christian allegories alluded to the main characters (it gets more and more unlikely especially when you watch the 2nd and 3rd movie). speaking of which, it's amazing that after all these years people are still talking about the concepts brought forth in the matrix on the forums. and i, after watching it the other night, had the same opinion too. [notice: let me first clarify that this whole post refers to the 1st matrix movie. let's leave out the 2nd and 3rd movies, cos they seem to be from a totally different angle, like not even related to the 1st movie...and anyway they keep killing off the main characters..and i was disappointed to find out that even morpheus suffered the same fate in path of neo, which is a game whose storyline picks off from where the movie ended.] the matrix was truly the defining movie in my life. in my younger days i have watched the thing like a million, gazillion times. more times in my life than i have watched any other movie, not even lotr (so many times in fact, until there was a point in time i could practically memorise the storyboard sequence as if i was the one who directed the thing). it was the movie that gave me my first taste of philosophy and it really challenged people to think out of the box. i have never seen any other movie that made people seriously question the meaning of life and the existence of it (thus leading to questions about god and whether god is real) after getting out from the cinemas. and returning back to the forums, i'm almost not surprised to find people still actually posting their thoughts on the matter. even when i watched the movie the other night, it still retained its freshness in my mind. which is really quite for a feat for a movie to accomplish, the fact that a movie can leave so much more of an impact than just entertain one for a few hours. i guess it's probably because the topic itself never goes stale throughout the centuries. from augustine's time until now people have been asking the "what is the meaning of life?" question until now. and this movie highlighted that pursuit and executed it in such a non-cheesy way that it caused people to really use their grey matter. i also realised one thing. aside from the online forums, there is only 1 person i can carry a conversation-cum-debate about the conspiracies and theories in the matrix. just one, sadly. it's like the others lack the stimulation to engage in lengthy discussion on these in-depth topics. we need more "thinking" people in this world lah. i'm not saying we need more rocket scientists, but i do think the mind was meant to engage in more than just on-the-surface talks and what-you-see-is-what-you-get mentality. but that's just my opinion. |
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