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read between the lines
eugh i can't believe i just got hit on by a malay taxi driver. the last time anyone's openly come on to me was like, back in 2000? i thought i was past that reign of attracting the wrong crowd already.he kept trying to solicit me for a date....eeeuuugggh. the most uncomfortable part of it was that he kept punctuating the end of every few sentences with the comment that i was very cantik (malay for 'beautiful'). i told him not to try to be funny but that only seemed to fuel his passion even more (in fact, he got so distracted he turned into the wrong street). for starters, this guy must be stark raving mad or visually and optically impaired. either that or he's gotten hypnotised like hal from shallow hal. maybe it's the new haircut, i don't know. his last words were an ominous "harap jumpa lagi?" (malay for hope we meet again?). i said nothing but i was thinking, i sure hope not! i am so not taking a cab from my housing estate ever again...or at least not for a few months. i figured it'd be cheaper to take the bus to my area and then get a cab back instead of taking the cab straight from town...and it just so happens this guy, in this taxi, happened to be the one i hailed. harrgh. cleanse i'm feeling tainted today and i think it's best not to say anything right now so i'll just let the hymn below speak for itself.
according to this, it took the songwriter a mere 5 minutes to write such a powerful and, in a way, needy prayer in the form of these lyrics (though the melody was not originally his). truly divine inspiration and not human. Search Me, O God by J. EDWIN ORR Search me, O God, And know my heart today; Try me, O Savior, Know my thoughts, I pray. See if there be Some wicked way in me; Cleanse me from every sin And set me free. I praise Thee, Lord, For cleansing me from sin; Fulfill Thy Word, And make me pure within. Fill me with fire Where once I burned with shame; Grant my desire To magnify Thy Name. Lord, take my life, And make it wholly Thine; Fill my poor heart With Thy great love divine. Take all my will, My passion, self and pride; I now surrender, Lord In me abide. O Holy Ghost, Revival comes from Thee; Send a revival, Start the work in me. Thy Word declares Thou wilt supply our need; For blessings now, O Lord, I humbly plead. lull help me. i'm glued to the computer again. good music lulls me into staying. i have it in my mind to get up and leave after the last song but yet another temptingly good song comes on and i find i can't get up. i'm apathetic yet reluctant to leave. sedated with sleepiness but yet there'll always be this little spark in me that forever wants to stay up the whole night.and i have work tomorrow. aagh. not that i hate work, i love it actually, but...oh man that means i can't stay up. but i can't get up. i don't wanna move. i just wanna blog about it and do nothing about it. there should be more hours in a night, i've often said. then that way i could stay up for ten hours and leave another ten hours more to sleep before the nagging pull of dawn. oh of dawn and of sunlight and of work....and task-oriented things, which becomes a bit of a put-off after awhile. today was a task-oriented evening..and it had nothing to do with work. part of me, just didn't wanna be there. i miss chatting for 5 hours straight on the phone. i miss watching late-night movies on my laptop till the wee hours of the morning. i miss closing my eyes and listening to track after track of nothing but good songs with good rhythms and good lyrics for endless hours as if time had just stopped. but most of all i miss the unassumingly lengthy amounts of time i had interceding for people. all that changed since the house got renovated and i lost my room...and my privacy. i don't know why but there was just something about praying for people that gave me so much in common to talk to god about at a time when i was...lost for words with Him. these days it's the other way round...communicating with Him comes naturally but i no longer have the convenience of an eveready quiet private place to be myself in prayer. but i'm not complaining. great. it's so early yet i know i have to tear myself away. i've been sleeping deep enough to dream during my lunch break, so that's how tired i've been. it's been getting pretty interesting, my dreams. sometimes i dream about stuff i didn't even know i was worried or bothered about. it's amazing what dreams reveal about how much the subconscious mind takes in. self-medicate switchfoot's latest album is good 'self-medication', as oprah would say.lesson i learnt today: never treat family out to dinner...BIG mistake. i don't know why but they just make it so hard for me to love them. that we are of the same flesh and blood is so...impossible to comprehend, preposterous even. but then again, i am the 'upgraded model' like my dad said, so it stands to reason that i am no longer with the old ways. things i really didn't like: 1. my brother's antics 2. ending up with a bloated and nearly empty stomach even though i tried so hard for it not to happen again (and it wouldn't have, had i been eating out alone) 3. having to just not say anything even though i was really upset and all i felt like doing was going home or disappearing i kind of scared myself when i threw the plastic paper holder by the telephone the minute i was home alone on a whim. i didn't expect it to break, but it did, and there was paper, pens and plastic all over the place. but in a way it was a good thing it broke beau i felt so stifled with anger i kind of scared myself when i saw the paper, pens and plastic went flying all over the place, because i haven't thrown things in anger like that for many years. when september ends i hate it when you push me away. when you lie straight to my face even though you know i'm not buying it. how you always choose to be damned to living a mortal life here on earth when you could be having an eternal one. and i hate how i always feel responsible for all this somehow. i can only pray you don't push god away one day too.
and i hate this evil that has befallen me. why old habits must die hard. and why i got deceived in the first place. and i hate it how i buckle under pressure. wake me up when september ends. i feel like sleeping for a long time. "I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?" -- Jeremiah 32:27 planet shaker-ed  i am just so stoked i got to take a photo of one of them that i have to write now.planet shakers (new south wales division) performed at a school hall near my house earlier tonight. unbelievable on all counts. i'm not really a fan of theirs (if you call counting a fan as someone who knows all their songs and would die to meet them), but i never dreamed any band that big would come and perform near my place, since i don't live in town or anywhere that's a popular hangout spot. the concert, which was titled nights of fire, should have been more aptly called "mini-night of fire" or "up close and personal (read: small gathering) with planet shakers" or something like that. because turnout was...the worst i have seen in all their concerts i've been to. i think mainly it had to do with poor publicity (flyers were scarce and given out late), bad timing (saturday would've been better) and wrong venue (schools being schools here, the condition at the toilets was putrifyingly lacking in cleanliness). i was actually planning to ponteng (malay for 'play truant') halfway through since i ended up having to go alone. not that going alone isn't cool, in fact in the past it's been almost a normal custom for me to attend concerts alone, since well...if i'm going to get emotional i might as well do it in 'private' (as in, in a string of unfamiliar faces). but this time i was just put off...because as usually happens, everytime i try to bring people along that really need to hear the call, something genuinely crops up at the last minute and they have to cancel plans. i believe spiritual warfare would be another term for this strange (or not so strange) happening. furthermore what with the disappointing turnout and your juniors' mothers coming up to greet you everywhere you turn, erm, it just wasn't my cup of tea. the wisest thing to do was stay since the hall was fairly empty and open-spaced, meaning it would be very easy to spot someone sneaking off from the back, which is where the mothers sit. so i stayed.  and gradually i just forgot the small audience, the unbrought friend, the hawk-like aunties at the back and the fact that this band was not made up of the usual older members i was more accustomed to seeing at their concerts. as songs will be songs and experienced bands will be experienced at performing or 'delivering the goods', some songs did reach out to me. and i did have those moments in time where god was saying something only meant for my ears to hear during the songs. one of the songs that really spoke out was pick it up, though i don't think most of the kids (yes, the turnout consisted mostly of their desired  target audience: secondary schoolgoers) were serious about it. or maybe it's just me, but personally i couldn't see myself jumping up and down while making a commitment to 'take up my cross every day' or 'stand for my generation' if i really meant it.it was also a joy to meet up with some of my juniors whom i had lost touch with that needed to hear the call and that did come to the concert and were blessed by it. and praise god that many responded to the altar call for new christians and backsliders, including my brother. and i finally got the chance to get their autographs, though i can't tell whose is whose. it's not like there weren't earlier chances, but previous times there was always something that stopped me. i also got a shot of one very hot guy called nathan who played the electric guitar really well (when ps did their usual band intro thing his riffs were really "up there"). since i was using a palm for a camera, lighting and focus was out of my control and what you see below a slightly darker and blurrier version of what he looks like. but if you saw him in person you'd think he's very good-looking too. hehe. 
review ugh i really hate this flatulence thing. but i can't say i didn't bring it on myself because i did...even though it was unintentional. at least it doesn't come with unbearable pain tonight.the past two weeks has been really..different for me, hopefully in a good way. events have been so erratic, i've been so erratic...i've tried more new things and done things more differently in this short amount of time than i usually do, but it's not been a bad thing for me so far. i've had a lot to think about. some revelations, rearranging of priorities, a 'call to action' (even though i'm so damn reluctant)...guess it's all part and parcel of the 'renewing of the mind' as mentioned in romans 12:2. been reviewing my life during this time and...i realised how far i've come (i'm trying not to think about the daunting task of how far i have yet to go) from the person i was three years ago. and the person i was three years ago was also a far cry from the person i was four years before that, and so on. that's the wonderful thing about journals, especially the good old pen-and-paper ones (cos you can read those anytime, anywhere without having to connect to a computer). you get to go back in time and see where you were (as in what position you stood on) a few years ago. you relive a few memories, remember those you forgot and compare your past standing to what your current standing is and see what needs to be done, or what has been done between that point and time till now. reliving a few forgotten memories can be good, because i guess it evokes more gratitude for the One who's always been looking out for me and overseeing me no matter how bad i screw up. but of course there's always the bad ones, those that you never forget...but surprisingly for this round of reviews, i found the bad experiences to be quite a useful tool intead of a detrimental one. i guess revisiting those dark moments in time made me realise the providence of god and how His hand has led me from then until now, a moment in time which is thankfully starting to light up, though it's not fully bright yet. (but i believe one day it will, and i don't think i'll have to wait until after i die for it to be so.) and i guess it's funny how god chooses to answer some of my prayers..actually 'funny' is not the right word for it, but i can't quite think of a more accurate word right now. but i guess a simple explanation for what i'm trying to say is, He answers my prayers in a different way than i would've expected them to be answered. and in my recent past i would say that His way is the long, hard way instead of the shortcut i was initially hoping for. but i guess patience is something He wants to (and is still trying to) teach me. overall, i'm thankful that He's got a grip on me or on my life because i obviously haven't (that's something i've only realised in recent years). m-r's four (not ocean's 11) oklah. will post up this long-delayed list that "It's from uh.. somebody lah" tagged me to do. but unlike m-r, i will reveal who tagged me. wait, i just did. hehe.(m-r, this one's a bit boring leh...). feel at a lost as to what to put in for some of the stuff....so my answers are a bit unimaginative. 1) Four things not many know about me -I have bunyians (what? i hear you say) -I can't run for nuts -I haven't stepped into a swimming pool for ten years -When i'm too excited or tensed up about something or very hungry, my hands start shaking 2) Four movies I could watch over and over -the matrix -lotr the two towers -er, i've run out of ideas 3) Four places I have lived since i've actually lived in jb all my life (and still do), i'll change it to 4 places I have stayed at least a few months in. -jb -sg -nz -oz 4)Four TV shows I love to watch -Scrubs -Little Britain -Child of Our Time -the O.C. 5) Four places I have been on vacation -genting highlands (stop calling it 'jenting' already, you westernised s'poreans :[) -lake taupo, nz -teluk cempedak, pahang -rantau abang, terengganu (turtle egg-laying!) 6) Four websites I visit daily - gmail -kennysia.com! -jobstreet -jobsdb 7) Four of my favourite foods -vanilla ice-cream -tuna -chocolate -mash potatoes 8) Four places I would rather be -anywhere away from home that's quiet 9 )Four Favourite Songs (Currently) -sleeping satellite - tasmin archer (lyrics: i blame you for the moonlit sky..) -mourning love - the straw theory -and everything else from the straw theory. that's my current fodder, no other for the moment. 10) Four people I tag aiyah. anybody who wants to do this. i hereby give you the permission. haha. crikey steve's up there now i can't believe steve irwin died. i used to watch croc files religiously (and crocodile hunter semi-religiously) because there was this fairly good-looking, enthusiastic guy with a funny accent jumping around showing me animals. i also thought he had really good chemistry with his wife terri too (i don't know about their kids cos at that time they weren't on tv yet as they weren't born). and now he's gone.crikey, you left us too soon. (as is obvious from the news reports and thousands of kids and adults crying) i pray terri and her kids make it through this okay. terri, as a single mom and new widow, bindi and bob as fatherless. one big question: why? seriously the circumstances in which steve died were just so...remotely unlikely. freak accident and it just had to happen to him. of all people. of all times. well, we rest in god's reasons, though some of which are unbeknownst to us.
in reply to the last nice cosy friday this is (i know it's saturday but i never count after 12s as the day before).i've been wanting to follow-up with a reply to my previous post all week but haven't had the time to do so (or rather i put this on a lower priority). regarding the part about how nobody knows me in full. almost immediately when i was 'sober' (or at least in a more sane state of mind) i realised the same can be said for everybody. because, unless anyone's been with someone 24/7 right from the time of their birth right to their death, i don't think they would honestly know that person or understand where he/she was coming from all the time (exceptions would be conjoined twins haha). family doesn't count cos they're not with the person 24/7. i believe what i was trying to say in that semi-conscious state of mine (not that i was trying to make much of a point at the time of posting, since the post itself was meant more to be like a writing exercise or form of distraction) was that some people are more predictable than others and therefore easier to 'read'. they do the same routines and react the same way for quite some time and their pattern of change does not vary much. sure, people will change as my friend pointed out to me moons ago that "change is inevitable", but some don't change much. i am not such a person, i think that much is obvious. what makes me a rather difficult subject to 'read' is the fact that i am admittedly unpredictable. i guess my unwritten life motto is that i am always open to change, so that it'll be easier for god to mould me whichever way he wants. i never ever want to be like those conservative, blinded, narrow-minded, old-school people from the older generation, because i have seen how much they've suffered and missed opportunities and blessings as a result of refusing to change and i certainly want the best for me (but then again who doesn't deep inside?). i won't give the long and short of it all, but one of the ways the unpredictability element shows itself in my life is in planning i guess. i know some people plan things down to a T and they get real frustrated when things don't meet their expectations, so in response to that i have an overall plan, but i don't go into specifics...and even then, my final plans are never always finalised. they are there in place to establish some form of order in my life, but should something crop up, i am prepared to accommodate. i hope. or, if other events come into play that, when put together could form a new plan, seem more beneficial to implement, then i'll jump ship too. also, i guess another reason why most of the time people don't get me (read: misunderstand) is probably because they don't know my background: the experiences that have shaped me to become who i am today. experiences just don't colour the way a person views things, they also provide clues as to why a person reacts a certain way. and that's something i only recently am beginning to realise. and...that's about all my mind can handle for now. any more words and i'll lose what little sense of guarded reasoning i have left. ramblings fantastic. i have got the cannot-sleep-even-though-i-know-i'm-gonna-suffer-at-work-tomorrow syndrome. sleepy but yet not sleepy. i realised this yesterday as i was sitting in front of this screen, trying to wrap up a lengthy email (not uncommon for me) for fifteen minutes. the only part of my brain that's taking a break is the one that usually guards reasoning and careful thought, which is making me feel more relaxed. hence the superfluous babbling...it's like i'm high without having to resort to drugs. a mini delirium of some kind.lately i've come to realise even more that people always seem to have this false perception of me. they think i'm someone i'm not, and everything i say or do gets seen in that fixed stereotype of me that sometimes it gets really taken out of proportion. i am not going to delve too deep into this topic, or else i will find myself in deep shit since there seems to be no end to the amount of false perceptions people get of me, but i will mention one of them below. i didn't realise this till late, but...for some crazy reason or other, people who don't know me (aka. the general public) seem to think i have it all together. they think i have a nice home, a nice life, that i can take insults without flinching, etc. hello, which part of me doesn't scream "insecure" i wonder? (though okay lately god brought to mind that the key to solving that is a constant affirmation of my position in christ. constant, not just a one-time encounter with the truth, which was what i originally thought was so.) but then again maybe it's just the christlikeness in me they see, the security all true christians find in being able to leave our burdens with him and to trust him for the future. but even so that's not really me, that's christ. stripped away of Him i am a mere amoeba. i'm probably the small, scrawny kid hiding behind some great big rock who comes out most often under the protective shades of time alone with myself. people seriously have no clue what my life is like. really. and they don't know until they ask. but even then i feel like nobody really knows me, as in really knows the whole story. they know me only in parts. and sometimes that's a very dangerous thing cos they think they've seen it all if they just see one side of me, or see one type of reaction to a situation. and then they start to jump to conclusions and i'll never know they were holding me in such low regard until they voice out their thoughts. why do i find myself always clarifying with people what i mean by what i do? am i that hard to understand? is it just the culture here or am i just too western for asian tastes? sometimes i feel like if i was an ang moh, living in a (generally) more accepting ang moh area like say, san francisco, i wouldn't be singled out and shot at, because everyone would be different like me. but then again maybe that's just rubbish and i'm in too relaxed a mode that any situation is plausible to me. back to the topic. or maybe that's just the way it's meant to be, to bring me closer to god. to make myself unknown (in my full form) to anyone except god, so he's the only one i have to turn to. speaking of which. one of the things these 40 days has taught me is that, i have problems that honestly no one can solve except god and god alone. in fact there were times when i got frustrated when i was confronted with this reality since the old me would have probably sought solutions in people's advice. me, frustrated that i couldn't talk to anyone since i knew they were virtually useless in this area. it might sound negative, the word frustrated, but i'm actually quite pleased (if you can call it that) and relieved to see i've been feeling this way. it's about time i realised the answers don't lie in people, though they can provide intercession or maybe even a word from god. but they don't hold the solution to the problem per se. and it's amazing how deep i found out my roots go back, that my problems were usually not just the ones i saw on the surface. rather they seemed to be either the manifestations or the reactions from the root cause, and unless i got the root pulled out and killed, i would never solve the problems on top. roots. hmm. i'll probably mention them another day. golly it's 4 a.m. and i've got a ton of proofreading work to do tomorrow. don't know how i am going to stay awake. i've heard it often said that people usually feel their sleepiest at 12 noon because of the way the body clock works, but for me 9-10am is the most dangerous time. and it doesn't help that i am in an air-cond room (though i thank god this is nothing like the morgue i went to during my attachment). i usually wake up by 12, and am pretty much awake and rejuvenated after lunch break. i think the food gives me energy. yet i eat breakfast everyday and it seems like nothing to my stomach within two hours. i'm babbling again. to bed i go. this post was a good distraction from today's events.
exaggerations hamba untuk yesus, bertekad untuk meninggikan Namanya, tak kesahlah apa pengorbannnya...i've had a rough day and a rough night (the day before). the only thing keeping me doing what i did, what i had to do today was truly Him. his strength n providence, n the will to do what he wants me to do, whatever the cost. otherwise i would've just walked out on my life, out on these people, out on this place...because i find nothing worth hanging around for seriously other than god. ok and maybe the dogs. the mind is a powerful thing. twist it and you can go insane, nurture it and you can control at least most of it, protect it and you'll be the best model/likeness of christ you can be to yourself and to the people around you. people around me. bah. sometimes i am just so sick and tired of everything i just want to take the first flight out of here. and grab my dogs before i go. if i can close my eyes and not wake up for 3 straight days i'd do it. i was struggling today. the reluctant hero. hero of what? my own life, of which affects many others in more invisible ways than visible. oh well. just another day in the storms of life. actually why should i complain, i've had worse things done to me before. this is just a storm in a teacup. not a real hurricane. yet. freaky thing i noticed today and yesterday though. the minute i said the protection from spiritual attacks prayer, i calmed down. nothing else worked. so it must mean these have supernatural influences right? i dunno. maybe everything that's bad is not from god. some people like to say it's the self. what is the self, i ask? i don't think the self was born evil, neither is it the root of whatever evil that the self does or thinks. okay, so the self does have the potential to do negative things in its natural state. but if not provoked the self will not actually do it. right? is it evil or is it self? i don't recall there ever being a good, evil and self. it's either good or it's evil. there is no third. correct me if i'm wrong, but i believe that the self is a mix of the two, neither fully evil nor neither fully good. FLAGPOLE SITTA by Harvey Danger I had visions, I was in them, I was looking into the mirror To see a little bit clearer The rottenness and evil in me Fingertips have memories, I can't forget the curves of your body And when I feel a bit naughty I run it up the flagpole and see who salutes (But no one ever does) I'm not sick, but I'm not well and I'm so hot 'cause I'm in hell Been around the world and found That only stupid people are breeding The cretins cloning and feeding And I don't even own a TV Put me in the hospital for nerves And then they had to commit me You told them all I was crazy They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, Goddamn you I'm not sick, but I'm not well And I'm so hot cause I'm in hell I'm not sick, but I'm not well And it's a sin, to live so well I wanna publish 'zines And rage against machines I wanna pierce my tongue It doesn't hurt, it feels fine The trivial sublime I'd like to turn off time And kill my mind You kill my mind Mind... Paranoia, paranoia Everybody's comin' to get me Just say you never met me I'm runnin' underground with the moles Diggin' in holes Hear the voices in my head I swear to God it sounds like they're snoring But if you're bored then you're boring The agony and the irony, they're killing me, whoa! I'm not sick, but I'm not well And I'm so hot cause I'm in hell I'm not sick, but I'm not well And it's a sin to live this well (One, two, three, four!) clocking in okay so this is me clocking in. the fast was...great. in the words of nacho libre, "it's been gewwwd...real good." i've learnt and experienced so much in the past 40 days that my heart is filled with nothing but gratefulness for the One who continues to draw us closer to Him.blimey. the modem's been blinking on and off for the past few minutes so i think it best to save my breath, i mean words, for another day. but yeah the fast has been beneficial spiritually...i knew it would be. though erm...40 days later, sleeping for about 3-4 hours a day (except on sundays and alternate saturdays) has taken a toll on me physically: i end up with more zits on my face and a sleepier composure at work especially around the 9am-10am duration and an overall sallow face. ah the zits. people who know about my skin can always tell when i'm not having enough sleep long-term, because they start to appear more pronounced on the surface. i currently have 4 bumps around the chin/ lip area. yup, i'm still online daily making a whore out of myself to any employer who would care. hah. but i still stand firm on the grounds that god will find me a job when He's ready. okay now i really fear for the modem. so goodbye blogger and hello bed. speaking of which, i tried a very unorthodox method of finding and spending quiet time with god today. a cheap hotel room (don't worry, i made sure i didn't stay in one of those seedy hotels, the ones people like to call 'transit hotels', if you know what i mean). the idea has been in my mind for some months already and yes, i have been making enquiries, but i hadn't quite gotten the timing right or the money saved up yet...until now that is. pay day came 3 days ago so i took the opportunity to rent out a hotel room for day use only (yes, it is possible to pay half the price for a room if you're only going to use it until 6pm only). more on that tomorrow. |
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