read between the lines

the tension

2011-09-27T02:57:00.005+08:00

and i live to blog another day. switchfoot's upcoming album 'vice verses' (out online tomorrow, can't wait till it physically reaches shores here…which should be in a few months) is supposed to be about living in the tension, and that is precisely what i've been struggling with this month especially -- trying to live in the balance between happiness and sadness, instead of reducing the other, which is what i always thought ought to happen ever since i dug my way out of depression.

there have been moments of the kind of joy that just bubbles to the surface, like the whole excitement about returning to my alma mater (new buildings and facilities have taken shape next to the old ones i used to frequent) and simple things like just looking out the train window, seeing people not at work and gladly that i now belong to their club too. not that working wasn't beneficial, but my last few months there in it were definitely emotionally and physically draining. and i guess the overall joy of waking up every day and knowing that i'm living one step closer to my dream (at least for now, 'cause where i'm currently at in life isn't a backtrack or a detour any more from where i really want to be).

that and stroking the cream-orange fur of my bear as he rests his chin on my palm, knowing that he loves me and i love him too, and being super thankful that he and his brother are still there for me through good times and bad, fourteen years on and counting (and they shall live to be at least twenty while still in great health, amen!).

but there are also haunting moments of sadness reminding me of my past that still grip me. the first day of school was a prime example of my past coming back to haunt me -- i was overwhelmed with all the feelings of shyness, loneliness, isolation and despair that i'd felt years ago as i was walking through a particular section of the area. it was at that point (after realising that the situation was still the same -- there wasn't going to be anyone giving me a leg up) that i had to get a grip on myself and be aware of the fact that the feelings might be a piece of my memory, but who i am right now is no longer the person i was before.

it's still taking a while for me to remember this fact especially in front of schoolmates and lecturers, but at least i get it right when on my own (no more feeling bored, useless and depressed if i'm left to myself on school grounds any more). the sadness also rises to the surface during sermons preaching acceptance and love, i find, and i seem to get particularly defensive whenever close friends try to throw a kind word in my direction (didn't take me long to figure out that i was rejecting all that because i knew that the minute i accepted those words, tears would fall out of my eyes, the way they very nearly do in sermons -- i ironically find myself asking god for the strength not to cry during sermons :p).

the fact that i'm a lost sheep in terms of belonging to a congregational home bothers me too, but i was greatly encouraged a fortnight ago when i visited a spirit-filled, strong woman of god (who'd undergone and was still going through many trials) who hadn't gotten the chance to go to church in one and a half years even though she really wanted to. i mean, she spoke as if she'd just attended sunday service the week before, not like someone who'd lost the passion god usually imparts to regular and serious-about-it churchgoers.

i mean, i've gained too much sleep (as opposed to lost sleep -- for many weekends it just felt like real life was a bad dream i needed to keep sleeping away from), had two nightmares (the last nightmare i've ever had was when i was still in high school) or lucid dreams, rather, since i was able to change the horrible ending (in one, i died during an earthquake but it turns out i had only fainted in the arms of friends, and in another, i was living with an ex-colleague in a haunted house and we were getting freaked out by the cold temperature and lights going on and off, but the one thing that woke me up from that dream was me declaring that whatever was bugging was going to leave us alone IN JESUS' NAME) and cried during private moments in the night but, nearly a month later, i'm becoming aware that it is only a matter of time before god irons things out and till then, i'm not going to lose my faith nor passion for Him -- thanks to taking back sunday for reminding me in their latest single, faith (when i let you down).

it should be a simple request: a church in which i feel like i finally belong (where i have genuine friends in similar stages of life who'll stand up for me and where i experience minimal hurt, judgement, intimidation or rejection), which doesn't incur high travelling costs (since i no longer have incoming income) or requirements that i don't agree with. but it isn't, and i don't know if it's because i'll never feel like i belong or feel close to anybody for long for the rest of my life on this earth or because god's taking his time to reveal such a church to me.

i mean i agree with the friend who reminded me that the church will never be perfect and that's a fact we'll have to accept, but…i'm just so sick and tired of being stepped upon like a cockroach by people in church who have the upper hand simply because they're more assertive, tactless and conservative. and i don't want to have to attend cell groups where almost everyone is so considerably older than me, has a spouse and is expecting or already has kids, no matter how nice they are, because that's just not where i am or hope to be at in life right now.

surely there is such a church for me in this part of the world? will find out eventually i guess.

re: space invader

2011-08-29T02:51:00.002+08:00

it's all finally coming to an end...the grandmonster is leaving tomorrow. after spending two weeks of her being in my face, it became clearer to me why i found her annoying:

1) almost all of her comments and tales start off pretty innocently about her relating some encounter with someone, but they always have bad endings -- the type that leaves her audience looking at each other in widened eyes that silently signal i can't believe you just said that. she'll end up launching into some foul-mouthed hokkien-malay-english tirade about whoever it is that she encountered, or she'll say something incredibly either sexist, ageist, heterosexist, racist, anti-religionist or just downright mean and untrue about the person in question, be it a television character, stranger she met along the way, friend, brother, and daughter even. and she keeps calling my fourteen-year-old cataract-ridden and hard-of-hearing dog (him and the bear's birthdays were just this saturday) senile even though she can bother to mention that she gets angry whenever her neighbours call her senile.

2) i almost forgot that she has always been like this, even when she was younger. the only reason why the claws haven't come out between us is because i've kept mine retracted. it took a few days for me to be aware of this, but my reaction this time (instead of giving her a piece of my mind) has been passive-agressive: i either roll my eyes at the wall or the empty space next to her, or pretend i didn't hear her comment (especially the rude comments that are thinly disguised as 'jokes') or look as far out the window (away from her face) as i can if we're contained in a car.

3) it is possible that i might not have forgiven her even though i don't feel any hatred towards her when she isn't around. in any case, she's finally leaving.

space invader

2011-08-22T03:48:00.003+08:00

sanctus real's the face of love happened to be the next album out of a set i pulled out of my collection to re-listen to and it's spot on for how i'm feeling at the moment, especially in the first four tracks.

not to sound selfish, but i haven't slept nor eaten well ever since my paternal grandmother came over to stay with us last week. the vessel above my eye even started hurting over a particularly stressful incident (internally, though on the outside it just looked like a minimal squabble that died down quickly when i stopped contributing to it) between trying to explain to my parents about a botched dinner order while grandma tried to vie for my attention by making some comment that was probably intended to sound sympathetic.

i now understand why sometimes old people and children are lumped together. it's not like i'm heartless about who she is now, it's just: her arrival felt like an ambush to me and i didn't have time to prepare for the lack of personal space i was supposed to suffer from, and the stress of having my personal space dismantled and rearranged (by my parents, in typical eleventh-hour fashion, in time for her visit).

at the risk of sounding conceited, personal space is very important to me and having it violated unexpectedly is like someone "destroying the peace" (couldn't resist, we're trying started playing when i was trying to think of something here =p). i was under the assumption that i would be able to spend the last fortnight of my break in the safety of my own little sanctuary of a corner (i'd already planned some personal goals to accomplish before the holidays ended), but up to two days before ambush i am told that my temporary corner will be permanently dismantled and that i'd have to sleep in a different place than i'd assumed i would be sleeping in when grandma arrived.

add that to the fact that 6 years later, this house's renovation is still half-done, thereby leaving me no personal space to get my own things done without grandma kaypohing (asking continuous questions about whatever it is i'm doing and then inserting irrelevant tales from times long gone or rehashing the same racist jokes she's been cracking ever since her arrival) -- you see what i mean by her acting like a child would?

and so i have to do a lot of child-minding to accommodate her and am only able to complete some of my personal goals when she's asleep (those that don't require eye-straining and don't make any audible sounds since she's sleeping within earshot), which obviously messes up my sleeping pattern and totally ruins my previous attempt to gradually sleep earlier and then wake up earlier in preparation for the end of holidays and return to (school)working life.

i should be thankful that there aren't any catfights this year (the last time she stayed with us, i was going through puberty and she took this as an opportunity to call my pimply complexion polka dotted), but there's something she did to me in the past that i might have forgiven but not forgotten, and as a result of that it just makes me feel awkward whenever she's in the room (even more awkward when she casually touches me, like when she physically moved my hips aside because i was inadvertently blocking her path...*shudder*).

speaking of the need for personal space, tonight i found a term that seems to best describe my marital status: quirkyalone. i don't know how i missed it all these years, but there you have it...a more accurate description than just being 'single'.

and one of the accidental joys this quirkyalone was just starting to discover was playing her new keyboard (of the musical kind) in the moonlight to the tune of whatever was in her earbuds before her personal space got invaded. it was only in that semi-darkness that i realised how useful the contrast of ebony against ivory keys was...maybe whoever created the piano played it till beyond dusk and was too lazy to light a candle =p

seeing eye to eye

2011-07-26T03:55:00.002+08:00

this was entirely unexpected: i'd gone over to my maternal grandparents' house to play with my aunt's dogs there (while my parents helped mah mah with an errand) and unwittingly took part in a delightful minute-long gaze with a very pretty dog there (and she is quite pretty, having naturally mascara-ed eyes, and folded, feminine ears compared to her brother's triangular, pointed ones plus four black nails with one dainty white dewclaw nail per paw).

now, i'd seen the trio before (suki and simon were the puppies we'd given to my aunt that came from one of our neighbourhood stray mother dogs while tammy was this frantic, anxious temple dog whom my aunt decided to adopt due to the dog's dangerous propensity to knock down elderly temple devotees by jumping on them in excitement) but this hadn't happened yet.

anyway, several months on and tammy was finally not as fretful as she used to be (her paws used to try to force my hands down whenever i tried to pat her) although she never sat still the entire hour i was there, while simon had learnt a new trick of putting his paw on your arm (as if to say i'm here, play with me) if you paid attention to the other dogs for too long. when i got around to suki, i squatted across from her and proceeded to pat her head -- and then it happened.

this dog, who was nearly at eye level with me as she sat down across from me, started gazing at me with her smiling eyes and grinning mouth for at least one full minute. gradually she started eyeballing me, shifting her gaze from my right eye, to my left, and i kind of stopped my patting for a while as we studied each other. she then broke the gaze and i gave her a back brush (with praises) before tammy started interrupting us.

the last time i'd witnessed such an intent, uninterrupted gaze was a few years ago when i had the pleasure of sitting next to a table which had a couple that did just that (staring without speaking) for the entire time they ate through their mcdonald's breakfast meals. it was like the couple were telepathically speaking to each other, not unlike how my aunt's attractive canine here was trying to convey her gladness at my arrival and happiness of just being with me. seriously, are dogs not the best friends in the world? =p

a good break

2011-07-22T03:44:00.004+08:00

"You will come back home and live in peace;
you will be secure,
and no one will make you afraid."
Jeremiah 30:10 (GNB)

i came across these words of promise during my final month of work (john mayer, oh you lie about wasting time in the afternoons of june) and i clung to them till they finally came true.

as of 2 july, i am home, i do live in peace, i am secure, and ain't no boss nor parents gonna scare me shitless no more...at least i won't let that happen during this blessed break of mine. =D it's been so long since i've felt this unbothered by people, just free to do my own thing and really have time to think about my personal growth, future, destiny, the like.

john mayer never fails to disappoint (my continuum cd has moved to gravity now), nor my old faithful philips discman with double bass boost (it's a pity i've never been able to find a machine or earpiece that can remotely match the bass quality of this bliss-producing gadget). no wait -- mayer disappointed me with battle studies. but i've yet to listen to it on double bass boost yet so that verdict will have to be upheld for now...

~~i was going to blog about what's been happening this year but due to work and procrastination, nothing's coming to mind, off the top of my head now.~~ (ecstasy -- favourite song of this album now on: vultures.) all i know is, i'm a bit lost as to how to best spend my remaining one month of a really long-awaited and un-pressured break (when have i ever got that from my parents? maybe agreeing to cough up your own upcoming school fees keeps them off your back and if so, thank god for finally being able to be in a position to afford them).

but i'd like to etch in memory a very recent peaceful day i had (i think it was this tuesday), which was significant in that it was unexpected, rare and relatively inexpensive: two uninterrupted and blissful hours finishing up an overdue issue of odj at a donut-coffee house.

my mom had announced her plan to go shopping at one of her favourite (one of my least favourite -- any mall sans an english-language book- or music store is considered useless to me because, what am i going to do with all that time to kill?) malls and i decided to tag along, 'cos it was getting decidedly hot again in the house, it being daytime and this being the equator.

i decided to bring the jun-jul-aug 2010 issue of our daily journey which i'd kept in my office (above my bible) but never found the time to complete (sadly, like my bible too -- it gets flipped through a lot but never read from cover to cover...yet) as it was the last copy i'd read up to and , having organised the incoming odj mail in my room recently, really needed to catch up reading on (seriously, i thought i was just 2 or 3 books behind, not 6 =O).

i wasn't really sure where i'd read, but i was pretty sure it had to have decent enough drinks and a relatively quiet (read: conducive) area for reading. i passed by a recently-opened local donut-coffee house chain and decided to test out the indoor climate (starbucks was the previous renter -- and i don't know what is it with them in this district but they tend to switch off the air-conditioning in their shops, which is cool for ice-blended drinkers but definitely, literally NOT COOL for hot-tea-or-coffee drinkers like me; another turn-off is that they always try their salesman tactics on me even after repeatedly declining to top-up or upgrade on their already overpriced coffee).

the lady at the counter for this particular branch on this particular day knew what to recommend when i asked her for their best hot drink (anyone who says hot chocolate here is clearly a noob because most of the hot chocolates here taste like hot malt or hot cocoa): hazelnut latte. i took one sip and never looked back. the cool thing about ordering a dine-in drink from them is that it comes with a free glazed donut, but that day must've been my golden ticket day because i got a freaking sugar-iced donut instead -- there was so much icing that it was impossible to avoid dropping some onto the tray that held my delectables.

more good things to come: i came in at a relatively off-peak hour (slightly after lunchtime), so i got the best pick -- window view with a comfy armchair. so i sat and read in peace, often looking to the clouds for rest of eyes and mind. the skies that day were pretty interesting to watch -- i saw four different shapes of clouds that day of the stratus and cumulus kind. the sky started out a bit dark like it was going to rain, but then the wind blew those clouds away and left thin wispy ones in their place, which soon became puffs of giant white popcorn.

but i mean, other than the really great conditions i was in, the reading itself prompted some fleeting but significant moments of clarity within my mind -- which was much welcomed and needed after going on autopilot and working like a stressed-out dog for so long (i really have god to thank for having lasted the longest i've ever lasted at a job so far).

these were moments of awakening where, as if someone pinched me out of my semi-sleep from one of those pods in the matrix's real world and i suddenly remembered life was so much bigger than me and my own little telescopic world. moments of contentment where, in the space of that few minutes (a few minutes per moment), i saw the actual (as opposed to the perceived) position of priority my worries were, in this limited mortal coil of mine (thanks duran duran and kevin max, for reminding me of that hamlet term). as in, those material things that i worried about because i (or society) perceived them to be important didn't matter so much, now that i'd been reminded that i already possessed eternal things that were of far greater value for this life and the life to come.

anyway, there were three readings that jumped out from the pages to me, the key quotes of which i will list below (for future reference):

"Nothing is greater than the power of love. Only the willingness to care and be cared for is what brings us true joy and life and the freedom to be who God made us to be for others."
ODJ, 15 Jul 2010

guess to really live is to love, then. even if time and time again i seem to be disappointed (my observation still holds true that i've known more christians who don't act like christians*
and more non-christians who act like christians than the other way round).

*christians here referring to the mannerisms and self-sacrificial love as described of new testament christians in the bible

"God wants to bring good things into our lives...The problem comes when:
• We think we deserve something.
• We make our happiness dependent on whether we get what we want."
ODJ, 17 Jul 2010

i think i deserve good things happening to me. at times, i've made my happiness dependent on whether i get what i want. obviously, when i am aware of this thought pattern, i move away from it. it's when i'm unaware that i've gone down this path because i'm caught up in my own pursuit of happiness that catches me off guard. it's easy to forget the Giver and just look at the gifts, until the gifts are withheld.

"We know intellectually that we are the children of God, adopted by grace into His family, and yet we emotionally relate to our Father as slaves who must earn His acceptance by our own effort. We mistakenly suppose that our integrity or servant’s heart attracted God’s attention, and so we try harder in a futile attempt to achieve what we can only receive...

...we need to continue to look at our true picture. Don’t be misled by what you have or have not done. Embrace your true identity. Own it. Then ask God for grace to become what you already are."
ODJ, 17 Aug 2010

it's been a long but fruitful journey of working away from seeing god as the a distant being from the top looking down on me and finally starting to accept that this god has adopted me as his beloved daughter and isn't affected by what other terrible things his other children have said about me.

some of those terrible things might have a hint of truth in them but it has been a process of accepting that despite my weaknesses (low tolerance for negative criticism is one of them), god loves me for who i am, and who i intrinsically am does not change. i will and have obviously developed in personal growth, but the soul that resides in me that the holy spirit has been proud to join itself to (not because of what i've done but what He's done), remains the same. and it is this truth that i must keep reminding myself of in my ongoing search for identity and purpose in these crucial (read: flexible to change) adolescent years.

also, a phrase that caught my attention (from a 12 aug 2010 ODJ reading) gave me an idea of a different meaning it could assume: "lying awake at night, listening to the call of the wild..." that sounds like it could be the lyrics to a song, or has basically what i've been doing lately, hahah (with the meaning of "wild" being different from what's been described in the reading). to me, the call of the wild is the call of my destiny, the things i dream of becoming someday, where i might live in the future (not necessarily in the geographic sense but in the self-evolutionary one).

sometimes, it's fun lying awake, listening to good music, and just 'nightdreaming' ('daydreaming' just doesn't cut it) of all the possibilities. i've always realised since i was young that, the younger you are, the more hopeful you're likely to be, 'cos there are so many possibilities as to who you could become or what your career would be in the future, but as you get older and see those dreams with hopes attached to them dashed, then you're forced to limit your dreaming. nonetheless, i've always resolved never to give up on that one particular dream of mine, to fight for it until it becomes a reality even if 'the adults' have said it's impossible (makes me want to get them proven wrong even more).

but sometimes it's not so fun 'cause, like any epic journey, there are self-doubts along the way. but i'm still trusting god that this is part of his plan that i'll see happening at the right time. i have to keep living that way. of course, i haven't had the luxury of daydreaming that much for the past few years that have been my life of running the rat race. but i'm starting again, to hope towards what i'm really hoping for.

respite

2011-07-10T03:41:00.000+08:00

i like my current haircut now that it's finally growing itself out (i had to have two hairdressers cut it 'cos they couldn't get it right, and unfortunately the last one hacked off a thick load of my hair even though i told him to only shape the fringe...ugh these clueless-on-emo-haircuts ah bengs). i get up, look at myself in the mirror and walk out of the house rocking a genuine just-woken-up look without appearing unruly).

dido's no angel album is playing in my ears right now...heaven. anyway, i wanted to recapitulate on the recent fortnight that's just passed, starting with why i still stand by the opinion that staying back beyond working hours in the office to finish up whatever i can is a good idea (despite my parents protesting, my mom constantly calling my cell and office phones in her usual fretful mode and my dad even threatening to get me kicked out on the final night, which i stupidly believed and is something that he might have succeeded in doing but failed in terms of gaining my respect).

like i was telling my brother over a cuppa teh tarik during a late-night supper on my car rental trip below, i wasn't doing it for the company boss so much as i was doing it for my eternal boss. also, i knew that going through with it would build my confidence for facing tougher situations ahead of life, which is something my parents never seem to understand (frustratingly, they still make considerable efforts to shield me from making mistakes in life because i'm "so immature and helpless" without realising that the only way i can really grow up is to be allowed to learn to make my own mistakes based on my own decisions, not theirs). anyway, on to the trip.

what started as an impromptu one-day car rental the day after my final day at work so that i could show my ex-colleague and his housemate around town turned into a six-day stateside personal trip (save for a one-day deviation to malacca state) simply because i couldn't bear to let the car or rather, driving, go (i did exchange the proton exora for a wira on the second day after accidentally scraping the mpv's side as i tried to turn my way out of the spiral ramp of a shopping mall's underground parking outlet). sure, my parents complained that the wira's seat cushioning was so sunken in that it touched the metal frame, and the wira couldn't go beyond a certain speed (it'd start to feel dangerously wobbly and off-balance) compared to other heavier cars i've driven, but it was a pretty homely car to me, and it enabled me to relive my high-school audio memories by only having a cassette (instead of CD) player in its deck.

the car rental assistant smiled knowingly when he pulled out kavana's instinct from the cassette player, still shocked that i still own working cassettes (what can i say, i just like collecting and keeping certain old things). we then proceeded to chat about anthony kavanagh -- how that was his last record and how he was pretty good in those boyband-crazy days [note: i found out later he's still a regular fixture in UK television audience's minds]. but the emotional music backbone of this trip would have to be jars of clay's if i left the zoo, which i hadn't listened to since i forgot about my cassette collection and turned to CDs. i happened to pop it in as i pulled out of a parking lot in self-toured batu pahat (my brother had come along to provide directions), which was fitting since strains of "goodbye-eye, hye-ee, eye-ee-eye" started coming out from the speakers (from the first track's goodbye, goodnight).

i'll also never forget driving along jonker lane's old shops tearing up at the refrain "we will come running, fall in His arms; the tears will fall down..." from jars of clay's love song for a savior (okay so it was from their eponymous first album, but the third zoo album was still the one i most played). again, the theme of safeness in the Father's arms and tears of relief from there being no more need to hide when we see Him again was evident through this refrain.

other places that car took me (and my bro or dad, depending on the location and not counting the evening i drove my family out to dinner) were desaru (beautiful arched senai-desaru toll bride, but disappointingly reduced number of resorts when my dad and i finally reached desaru itself), kluang (where my bro and i saw transformers: dark side of the moon, which was the first time i'd seen the franchise and liked it to my surprise), batu pahat (where bro and i discovered a pretty nifty town-famous coffee franchise called rengit coffee), muar (where a mall with tissue paper-equipped, free toilet stalls actually existed and where i got a good view of the town as i drove along the curved bridge over muar river itself) and the non-heritage sites of malacca (marina centre where i pulled the handbrake up in time before my front tyres almost fell into the small longkang in front of where i was parking due to nervousness of two observing police officers on motorcycles who then got a shock but subsequently started making small talk with me and sharing that they were from jb too, tanjong klebang and pantai kundor).

freedom, independence, allocation for deep thought, joy...these were reasons for why i'd keep postponing my return of the car to the next day and so on...until i reluctantly called it quits on the sixth day and went back to being a parent-policed, car-less kid =p

taking back peace of mind

2011-06-17T02:49:00.001+08:00

if you've been following my entries, work has...gotten more challenging over the past year or so. anyway, long story short, this is semi-reluctantly my final month with my longest-serving company. i say semi because the decision to terminate our partnership came from both sides. at first i couldn't fully understand why i was strangely calm and accepting of the whole thing, but then nick nilson's sermon last month on forgiveness explained it all...i was being the better man without knowing it.

i came across an interesting end to last month's ODB booklet -- george macdonald's answer to why we pray, paraphrased as the following: "to supply our greatest need – our need of Himself.” food for thought indeed...reminds me of a distant discussion a once-close friend of mine and i had on the point of prayer and its generic answer of petition ("if god already knows what we'll ask of him before we do, then what's the point?") as well as the point/power of corporate versus single-person prayer ("what's the deal with people placing so much importance on united prayer, if one-man praying isn't any less powerful?"). we never managed to settle on a satisfactory answer, but george macdonald's one could've been the clincher. his answer also helped to clear the cobwebs in my mind away as to wondering what it is that i need of Him the most daily (love? security? assurance?).

someone who exited my life last month inadvertently left me a parting gift: a welcome introduction to taking back sunday. i initially checked them out because said person was a huge fan of them, and they certainly didn't disappoint. after random album plays on grooveshark, i found that songs from a certain album were very easy on the ears for me, so i decided to put that album, new again, on a loop: thus, my love (and subsequent proclamation and sharing of its music) for this relatively-unknown-in-these-parts band was born.

catholic knees was a nice surprise for me, having never heard a rock song about catholics praying before (it has a catchy tune too). money where my mouth is and winter passing were natural favourites, while cut me up jenny won me over with its dissonant-chord based chorus -- i'm not sure what the importance of jenny signifies nor who she is in the last two tunes, but i'd sure like to know [note: i later found out online that jenny is a fictional character, more so a representation]. i took an immediate liking to new again (the song) and it's been my life's anthem for the moment ever since -- how can it not, with lyrics like "i am, i am; i'm ready to be new again; i'm ready to hear You say who i am is quite enough (quite enough)"? and carpathia's refrain was cathartic when sung: "when oh when will this sinking feeling feel like man, that was ages ago?"

that said, i loved the band's music as a whole, although i could actually hear the singing improve through the albums [note: i was rather surprised to discover later on that the band considers this their worst constructively-created album]. i also liked the various references they made to local surroundings (for example, i learnt who the tiberwolves are and that apartment complexes are the norm in new jersey). not to mention that adam has a distinctive growl in his singing, haha. they were my fuel for work for may and this month.

another thing that's unexpectedly piqued my interest lately is the (re)discovery of devon bostick! i mean, sure, i thought he was a little cute in the first diary of a wimpy kid, but since this second installment focused more on him (it isn't called rodrick rules for nothing), i had more shots of his character rodrick and had it highlighted (excuse the pun) to me that devon looks really good in eyeliner and mascara (even though there are hardly any photos of him online with eye makeup on). and everyone laughs at the part of the movie where rodrick gets sloppily out -- hips swinging -- of the van he's driving, flinging the seatbelt carelessly (before it has time to recoil) back into the vehicle. his parodied music video of katy perry's firework won me over, what with close-ups of those brown eyes and that clear skin (just saying!).

a sudden interest in karaoke has also been bring cheer into my life (ironically, i find that jb karaoke outlets are not only cheaper, but also provide better service i.e. don't have waiters that keep blatantly looking at you sing everytime they walk by or accidentally kick you out before your hour is up, and better english-language song selections compared to their counterparts across the causeway).

the simple things

2011-05-09T22:21:00.002+08:00

am listening to jason mraz's absolutely zero now and the rest of waiting for my rocket to come (how on earth did i miss this gem of an album? just goes to show that judging mraz by his kermit-the-frog's-banjo-ripoff-sounding-i'm yours cover was an inaccurate decision...cover, hah, pun intended), enjoying my little moment of sleepiness-induced peace in my parents' air-conditioned room away from the sweltering heat of tonight, before real life (read: work! lack of private space!) kicks in.

after fighting the pain that partly came from an unexpected anti-climax that last week's switchfoot asia swansong in kl left me with (they came, they rocked, they loved us like the proud-of-you-kids parents i never had), i find myself now at the stage where i am ultimately grateful for and more receptive to the simple pleasures derived from the little things in life.

speaking of pain, jon foreman's the cure for pain was anything but, and in fact it was very hard to remain composed listening to "i've had these doubts for 10 years, but the water keeps on falling from my eyes" while at my rather exposed desk at the office (it's just next to the aisle where bosses and colleagues alike walk past anytime), simply because this line has so accurately summarised the story of my life that there is a painful recognition that comes every time i hear jon sing it.

as expected, shortly after the above was typed, my peace was slightly shattered and i'm now sitting outside in the microwave oven of a living room and right now, i can't recall all the simple things i was able to take a moment to appreciate and thereby draw small but vital contentment from. i just remember that they were moments where time seemed to slow down just so i could capture whatever i was experiencing or sensing like a mental photograph, which would most probably pop up randomly at a later time like it usually does.

speaking about time freezing, i unexpectedly wandered into one of my old haunts this evening after dinner, and the feeling of walking around and looking at the place ten years on was...a shock to the senses. there was this ghost of a shopping mall (read: poorly frequented by shoppers) just down the church i grew up in where i used to retreat to whenever i just couldn't take being ostracised by my fellow churchmates, young and old alike (which was most of the time).

just catching sight of and walking towards the relatively untouched-from-the-past basement food court where i hung out was...definitely not a case of respectful remembrance but one of like, oh my gosh i think i just stepped back in time because everything looks and feels the same, even the cool air-conditioning (with the exception of the television which is now gone).

i sat down at one of the two regular spots in the still almost-empty food court as my eyes adjusted to the exact same sights i saw ten years ago, which is incredible in this fast-paced world of ours. the stationery shop was still in operation directly across me, and the blank counter walls faced me to the far left (the amusement centre next to it was gone but it was always far from where i sat anyway). to the distant right, the same closed food stalls with the same signs were lined up in a row. the hair salon had closed and a malay food stall had opened right next to it, but it wasn't that obvious a change.

as i settled down in the chair and rested my hands on the faux-wood plastic table, i started to remember. this was the exact same place where i sat, in this exact same position, thinking about my loneliness and why the kids were so mean to 'weirdos' like me, how dry i was finding the sermons because they were just rehashes of the same sermon every few years, and how it was kind of unfair because it's not like i wanted to skip church but it just felt so terrible that if i stayed i would cry or have to put on a mask and leave with that horrible knotted feeling in my stomach, and how it just didn't make sense because the bible painted christians as a loving and forgiving group of people but most of my church people were anything but that, and even the old people hated us youngsters as much as we hated our peers..and how i would string out all these thoughts as a form of a conversation with god, almost every sunday.

for me, that food court, with that seat and that other circular one near the back where it used to face the muted television where i later got up and went round to (just to feel the wood on the table and half-sit before i had to leave) was my church, because i never felt closer to god more regularly than there when i had nothing but my thoughts, my bible and my conversation with jesus (for some reason i refused to bring any form of distraction over because i was deadly serious about spending sunday specifically with god).

we talked about my future, pain, the meaning of life, death and its inevitability, ethics, the holy spirit, god's characteristics -- basically we discussed serious topics, god and i. i learnt so much from those quiet moments with god in an empty shopping mall, more than i did from a packed church during those formative years (i mean the church was really great in establishing my foundations and accepting me back when i was a 'normal' child, but once adolescence kicked in, things weren't that simple and clear-cut anymore). and now here i was, from the future, remembering the place that started it all.

whoops look at the time. 5 more hours to another day of work. thank god for god.

switchfoot's final asian leg

2011-05-06T18:59:00.000+08:00

despite parental objections (or should i say my mother, who'll never understand a lot of things including why it isn't a "waste of money" to watch a band i'd just seen perform again), i flew up to kl to catch switchfoot at the close of their asian leg and was extremely thankful i'd done so. the local organisers didn't do a good job of controlling traffic flow as the event, on the 6th floor auditorium of a community mall, saw thousands of us squashed together like flies in a trap outside the auditoriom.

all i know is, i unsuspectingly rode the escalator up from the 5th to the 6th, only to almost have my footwear squashed at the top. i had to bang into a girl standing (which i now saw was not her position of choice but was because there was simply no place else to move) at the top, apologise to her, and try to squeeze myself into some other pocket of space before the unsuspecting tudung-clad fan a few steps behind me also ended up in the same predicament. the last time i had this panicked escalator near-accident was a few years ago on chinese new year at the top of level 5's entrance to city square jb's only cinema.

anyway after a lot of apologising over elbow-bumping, i made my way to the wall only to be stuck there for a good twenty minutes, as the doors were still closed despite it being past the scheduled time that the event was supposed to commence and despite people piling up at the escalator and lift entrances. none of us could feel any air-conditioning and eventually we all worked up a good sweat. unsafe and stinky, the crowd unanimously sang "wo-oh-oh, woh-oh-oh, oh-oh-ohh" (hello hurricane's intro) in an attempt to get the organisers to let us in.

five minutes later, the doors finally opened and the tide of the crowd eventually pulled me towards that direction. i nearly missed my cordoned-off entrance to the 'intimate zone' (a fancy name for the mosh pit, basically) because the tide of the crowd was so strong and i happened to be at the fringe of it -- thankfully the crowd was pretty respectful and didn't erupt into a stampede. security made me trash my waterbottle just so i would be forced to buy the organisers' waterbottles, selling at a costly rm4 per bottle (talk about blatant moneymaking).the majority of us were unable to get our admission slips exchanged for real concert tickets as keepsakes because in a terrible oversight, the organisers didn't have enough of those to give out (what were they thinking?).

thankfully these are about the only faults the organisers made. their tie-in with airasia red tix (contributing to better-than-sg event promotion), absence of chairs (which we were told to remain seated in at the singapore leg for the opening acts), workable sound and lighting systems, sufficiently air-conditioned auditorium, less time allocated to opening acts and longer duration of concert minutes contributed to an enjoyable concert experience for all present.

i believed it this time round when jon foreman said that all of us in the auditorium were a big family (not really the singapore audience's fault, considering that security shushed us whenever we tried to yell or clap too loudly and only allowed us to stand from our seats after the opening acts were over) because the majority of us (me included) sang along with all their songs and cheered/jumped/clapped/screamed at the appropriate moments. a 'safe' and 'united' moment for me was when the band sang this is home (from the second chronicles of narnia soundtrack) -- at that point it just felt like i was in a worship segment of a church service, except one that was made up of different races and religions.

i later described the 'safe' feeling to a friend as one of those rare times in life where you feel like you don't need to hide or look over your shoulder anymore, like you're finally safe and free to just be yourself without getting criticised or ostracised for it. [note: i actually went through a week-long anti-climax after the unexpectedly climactic feel of this event...something i hardly experience these days.]

the band was clearly feeling the vibe, because they came back for not just one, but two encores (compared to zero in sg), possibly from mass numbers of us calling them back by spontaneously singing hello huricane's intro and chanting "we want more" respectively. it made my (and a lot of people's, since the band said it was by popular request) ~~day~~ night when i got to hear the band sing the "old-school song (sic)" learning to breathe -- something i'd never previously had the chance to witness 'live' before but had always wanted to.

sadly, there was no autograph-signing or photo-taking session at this venue either, although a lot of us (like me) took photos with life-sized posters of the band and took whatever memorabilia they could get off the venue (posters, the mat topi cap that drew threw to the crowd at the show's end, what looked rubberbands that the tech crew threw to the post-concert audience as the crew dismantled equipment onstage). we definitely got our money's worth tonight.

mus(e)ic

2011-04-30T04:58:00.000+08:00

"There are some dreams God's put into you that will come to pass at the right time; and if it's not happening, maybe there are some things in your life that need to be sifted out and changed, or maybe there are some things on the other end that are not ready yet...don't let time talk you out of your dream."
Nick Nilson, 17 Apr 2011, Lakewood Nightlife

there was something about his sermon today that made me inclined to believe the above quote for the personal dream of mine, the only one that's lasted through the years. just thought i'd include it here as a personal reminder to fight for that dream until it comes to pass.

i've been listening to belle and sebastian's the boy with the arab strap album a lot this month, thanks to an online referal to a summer wasting recently (which is a really good track). its twee-ness and simple melodies seem to be conducive for working long and stressful hours -- unlike when i first tried listening to them the minute 500 days of summer name-dropped this album: i found it too light for liking and the only thing i could remember was an amusing comment someone made on youtube of one of the band members (and i paraphrase, 'cos i can't recall the exact words): "imagine when someone says, "you're in a band?" and you say "yeah", and so "what instrument do you play?" and you say, "i'm just the guy that claps his hands in the background."

anyway it seems to be mellowing me out because it was not long after that i was able to tolerate stuff from the drums, whom i heard of because they recently performed here. the first time i heard some of their singles, i thought they were rubbish because of the lazy way they sang and the basic chords they were using. but reading the reviews gave me a sense of why people think they're something (other than the fact that they're based in a coveted location) -- their simple lyrics are supposed to represent an escapist statement on enjoying life's simple pleasures, sans vices and adulthood struggles.

hurts' music was easier to warm up to, though. it sounds, in the words of my colleague, "like something i've heard before in the 80s". they were another band that hit sg's shores this month and went on local airplay (although i didn't think much of lonely sunday when i heard it on the cab's radio while cabbing back to jb one weekday after work, 'cos i thought the delicate vocals didn't fit with the pompous march of the synths). i decided to grooveshark their other songs and found jewels like wonderful life. that turned out to be the only 'clean' mtv of their making though, to my horror. the duo seem to have some fetish for bdsm because mild elements of them have appeared in all their other music videos...i think they actually ruin the music.

another cool thing has happened this month: the approval of my first credit card! although i had intended to use it for other purposes which didn't quick work out in the end, one thing i've commonly been using my friends' credit cards for (the opportunities of which have been rare) has been to rent out cars, so that's the one thing i did this month one spontaneous day. my parents had just driven me back from a short errands-related trip to kl and they were going down really hard on me (blaming me for how slow the trip was going because i had to wait an hour to queue up for my kfc lunch and had to answer nature's call for forty minutes as a result of feeling unwell), which was really pissing me off 'cos it's not i purposely slowed them down nor knew i'd take up so much time, so within minutes after getting back, i decided to call my usual car rental company to see if they had anything to rent (they did) and headed down to town to pick up my car and restart the road trip the right way.

the available car was a purple proton persona (just love the alliteration here) and i had fun testing it out through a traffic jam on one of the main long roads here (i know, weird notion of enjoyment). later that night, i drove my brother and i to see justin bieber's never say never in 3D and, despite him rolling his eyes before he first walked in (i was just a-okay with it but not expecting much, having found michael jackson's this is it utterly boring), we both found it to be not bad for an artiste-documentary-cum-movie. (and yes, he pointed out that bieber's favourite colour happened to be the same colour as the car i drove. hah.)

i found the movie inspiring, probably 'cos it resonated with me personally (despite the movie obviously being biased towards him, the way fahrenheit 911 is biased against george 'dubbya' bush). it definitely caused me to deliberately seek out my world 2.0 at work, the tunes of which i found to be encouraging instead of sickening (the first time i heard of him was through a sixteen-year-old i knew who had a massive crush on him -- i tried listening to him on my world back then at the hmv public-listening booths, but couldn't sit through to the end of any of that album's songs). even baby, baby, baby is listenable 'cos it's somewhat amusing to hear someone young enough to be called a baby attempting to woo ladies by calling them what he should be called (not in a bad way) =p

anyway the next day i was able to take the car out for a thought-provoking spin to a mall on the fringe of malacca, hop in for a short bubble tea drink, hop out and drive back in time to return the car before dinner. my mom thought i was crazy for spending fifteen minutes stopping at a place that takes two to three hours to arrive, but whatever, man. the afters' i wish we all could win and i were one, and we were driving and singing in sync to a common cause: fulfillment in life.

another music-related event that should have been cool was switchfoot's appearance at my friend's church hall (it wasn't during service though, so i had to pay for it) in sg. i was there with the same friend (he didn't come this time round) three years ago when switchfoot first sang in sg and was hoping their second time here would be much better (the last time wasn't their fault -- it was just next-to-nothing promotion from the organisers via 30-second mcdonald's-situated tv advertisements and underutilisation of stage speakers that led to a nearly empty auditorium that resulted in cheap ticketholders like my friend and i being allowed to beef up the thin crowd at the mosh pit).

the plus points were that it was in a smaller venue, thereby contributing to a full house (of 2500 people) and the good sound system (thanks to the megachurch's stellar amplifiers), but this meant that mid-late ticketholders like me couldn't get as good seats and whatever i filmed had bobbing heads and lit-up boxes of peoples' camera phone screens in the way). the other bummer was that we didn't get our money's worth, considering the short length of time the band actually played (forty five measly minutes with NO ENCORE), due to opening acts taking up some of their time and perhaps pressure from the building (that the church hall was in) to end things early so they could lock down the premises.

there were no autograph-signing sessions, unlike at the band's last appearance (i was unable to get a signature because my friend and his friends wanted to leave early so i tried to quickly pass a note to jon foreman but ended up being roughly shoved away by this beefy, typical asshole of a security guard even though i tried to explain) but i did manage to snap a picture of the singer of calling of levi (one of the two opening acts), whose haircut i found rather cute and intend to style my hair after =p

the fellowship of bystanders

2011-04-09T04:55:00.004+08:00

the flight back to sg wasn't as welcoming this year (compared to the last) -- i landed at the budget terminal instead of terminal 2 like last year, so there wasn't anything to shop for. the unwelcome feeling extended when i made it to cg. there was nothing wrong with the cell group meeting itself -- it was the usual, nothing eye-popping -- but it was how they reacted after lunch that really disappointed me.

we had just finished our lunch in two separate long tables when our group leader suggested my table move to the other table when a few of the members there left. he walked past the cleaner auntie who had just stacked our trays and bowls together and you guessed it -- she tripped. the thing is, she tripped in five slow steps when she could've easily stopped at two, from my vantage point.

let me explain: when someone falls, usually their first reaction would be to grab the floor to buffer their fall. this auntie must really love her bowls and plates because she made no such attempt and fell in slow motion from the table, to the chair (where she had time to elbow my bag, dump the bowls and food onto it and half of the trousers on me), to the floor (where the tray and remaining plates landed). in typical auntie fashion, she got up and began shouting her head off at my cg leader and blaming it all on him. she even claimed some scar on her forehead occured from the fall -- but anyone in their right mind could see that it was an old scar. everyone else seemed to be frozen in shock, until all eyes in the food court zoomed in on us and the commotion this bitch was making (i'm sorry, but the way she continued to react which i will write about below left me inwardly seething).

eventually my cg leader told her it's okay, apologised and agreed to help clean up. eventually her colleagues called her away (wisely so). everyone centred around him but me, even though he escaped without a single item of food on him nor his bag. "i didn't push her," he said and some people nodded. "i think she fell...on purpose," i said, and this girl next to me (who is famous for giving animated expressions) glared and asked me how i could say that. wait a minute -- the cg leader says something defensive and people support him, and i say something similar and people get upset?

i decided not to say anymore and start cleaning food off my bag with the four pieces of tissue paper i had left with me from my travels. nobody offered me any tissues nor opted to to buy them for me, even though we were standing in a food court that sells tissue packets. a total of ONE guy asked me if i was all right.

eventually i had to go to the sink area to clean off because my trouser leg was literally dripping with black mee sauce and my bag still had bits of mee stuck to it. that same guy said he'd get the rest to wait for me -- i said they didn't need to (but i at least expected them to say goodbye as i cleaned myself off, which i shouldn't have, 'cos nobody came for me). while i was cleaning myself off with sink water, hand sanitizer and self-purchased rolls of toilet paper (there was a slot machine for this there), the cleaner auntie was dramatising the entire incident next to me, in front of her fellow cleaner aunties and enjoying the fuss they were giving her by applying cream on her forehead and telling her not to worry about it.

i mean, i was quite a sight to behold, drenched in foodstuff and so visible that everyone at the sink area stared at me, but all this noodle-spiller cares about is the attention she's getting from milking the situation for all its worth. thankfully, i had a gigantic shopping bag with me (having purchased a skin for my macbook air which i ended up returning anyway because it didn't fit my model) and a smaller bag which wasn't affected in the spillout that had a spare change of clothing, so i went to the restroom to change into my shorts, dump my mee-covered bag and trousers into the apple store bag, and shift the contents from my dirty bag into the smaller bag (thankfully, other than a few bits of wipeable food items, the stuff in my bag didn't get drenched).

when i finally walked out of the sink area, i couldn't see anyone i knew. i checked my phone and found an sms from said concerned guy stating that everyone had left first. wow, thanks everyone for not saying goodbye. i mean, i'd just taken the fall by bearing the brunt of my cell group's foodstuff (not even the auntie who fell was food-splattered) so is it too much to ask, to expect the cg to at least show some form of concern? sheesh. i somehow made the rest of the trip back across to my own country in silent calm. the only thing that kept me sane was knowing that there was someone who'd care the minute i'd got back, and this person did (for that i am thankful; otherwise, that day would've turned out so much worse than i'd handled it). like i said, (true) friends make tough days like these more tolerable.

getting high (literally)

2011-04-09T02:39:00.003+08:00

just got some bad news at the start of this month. all i can say is, i don't think it was a fair verdict. but anyway, thankfully on the day after, i was able to get away from things for a while and escape to kl, having had an important meeting to attend to at the same time.

that important meeting had to do with attending a certain embassy for the second time (as in the second time i had to attend this country's embassy albeit in a different branch/outlet). although i failed yet again in my request (the first was a failed effort in sg), at least i can say i tried...i've never done anything like it before, or for anyone before so i'll just accept it as a premature attempt of an experience and move on. [note: months later, the local paper's opinion section highlighted similar failures females like me had experienced -- no wonder my male peer got in without any hassle! but to be fair, the service i received in kl was a million times better than the stinking reception i got in sg (being shouted at at the first counter and being cut off while asking questions at the last).]

my brother, who'd given me a lift earlier, was asleep, so i had to flag a cab and kill time. i was about to go to the city centre when i discovered that my cabbie drives all the way up to genting highlands for a reasonable enough sum! so in an impromptu effort to 'run away', i told him to drive me there. halfway up, he winded down the windows and i found the outside air much colder than the car's air-conditioning which we were previously breathing on. three quarters of the way up, the entire view around us fogged up so thickly that we literally couldn't see the road in front of us (nor a car, for that matter). at that point i was very thankful for the wider-than-cameron-highlands roads and slow-and-familiar-with-the-roads driver. finally, we reached the start of the cable skyway and i agreed to contact him later for my trip down.

the cable ride up was nostalgic -- memories of half-hour early-morning talks alone with god surfaced, although at the time it was close to lunchtime and there were two other strangers seated behind me in the cable car i was in. i felt elated the minute the three familiar landmark hotels came into view at the peak and when we all got off at the platform. it's so hard to believe that it's been half a fricking decade since i was last at genting. still, my feet were still able to find their way down to the theme park area.

the indoor theme park had a lot of considerable changes, and my favourite ride (a rollercoaster that swung so hard around corners it gave me bruises which i wore proudly) was under repair, so i tried waiting for the perennial favourite (bumper cars). we got up to seven people (a good enough number to start playing already...sigh) and half an hour before one of them gave up and his family of ~~ducklings~~ children followed suit. so i gave up too and went downstairs (i was on the balcony of a mezzanine floor) to an oddly-named kopitiam for lunch (not such a good idea in the end, because i ended up having to order up to four items due to the small servings per food item).

after that, it was time to take advantage of the lunch hour and conquer the outdoor theme park. my favourite rollercoasters were still around so they were natural first choices. i also decided to try the lake paddles even though it was drizzling (usually means less people which means less collisions and even lesser risk of capsizing, 'cos i can't swim nor float to save my life), and it was an amusing ride 'cos i ended up chat-messaging someone online a necessary update in the middle of a lake on a highland...hahah.

the chairswing was still falsely freaking newbies out (the girl next to me who looked around my age range asked me if the ride was scary) but for an adrenaline junkie like me, being flung in the air without feeling ground beneath your feet was nothing jittery. some rides were no longer in operation and there was a new coaster that was under construction, but i was in winter-without-ice wonderland and nothing was going to get me down, not even a high presence of smelly middle-eastern men in classic galabiyya garb (no offence, but i haven't yet walked past a fresh, non BO-smelling galabiyya wearer -- not in our climate).

nothing but the end of the day, that is. i took the cable ride and subsequently, the cab, back down to ground level. i directed him to a pseudo-sg mall and by chance, saw a banner advertising a free concert at klcc park with hoobastank as the headliner. long story short, i went down to the park the next evening to witness them and bunkface/azenders (the only other band worth listening to, mainly because sam sings in the style of billy joel armstrong) perform.

i'm not sure if hoobastank says this at every concert, but they said we were their favourite location and thankfully, they rewarded us by closing the entire concert with their one-hit wonder the reason (they must be so sick of playing it but i'm glad they played it again, 'cos it's the only song of theirs i'm familiar with). one really commendable thing about this event was the security guards: for not being the usual roughhandling, rude mistreaters to fans like me who sometimes climb to higher vantage points to get a better view of filming things. i encountered various guards in my attempts at various locations and all of them kindly asked me to climb down (no shoving, no scolding) so kudos to them and the organisers that hired them. i had a surreal late-night supper after that with a friend, while waiting for my brother to end his own gang's supper since he's the only one with the house keys.

anyway, to add to the jetsetting mood i was in, i flew direct from kl to sg in time for cell group on saturday, which i'll continue in the next entry.

march musings

2011-03-31T04:34:00.008+08:00

well...march has been mercifully abundant in avenues to cope with life's stressors. i thought post-julian, i'd be at a loss as to how to get on with life, on my own as it is in the real world. work's not getting any better (not since the work equilibrium changed last year) so the only thing to do right now is to figure out a way to keep afloat. and thank god for a buncha things that've been keeping me buoyant this month:

1) MCR
i mean, sure i've had 4 tracks from their black parade album, but the only times i've listened to my chemical romance at work (together with the rest of the selected-few-hit-songs-per-artiste i've amassed over the years in my 'shared' album), i've gotten ridiculed for listening to 'sell-outs' and 'teenage music' (which caused me to admit that it was from my brother's collection, as if it's a sin for 'older' people like me to love mcr).

anyway, one bleak day on the job after hearing the wheel of words from 'disenchanted' turn over in my head (it was on a loop for quite a few rounds), i decided to grooveshark the rest of the black parade out of curiosity and found, to my surprise, that i warmed up immediately to all the songs (unlike some albums where they require repeated listening to kind of 'get into'). i guess seeing gerard way's flaming red hair currently on magazine covers also contributed to the sudden interest in the band's music. listening to the first track was already cathartic (if you look in the mirror and don't like what you see, you can find out firsthand what it's like to be me) and so was pumping up the volume in my earbuds as i worked. the rest of the tracks just set off a rich imagery in my mind of a better way of looking at death and dying (which has always terrified me) and abstract romances in the vein of julian as a vague protagonist (i've lost track of the number of times the word 'kiss' has been mentioned throughout the album).

my favourite song (and current life anthem) has to be famous last words (i sing "i am not afraid to keep on living; i am not afraid to walk this world alone" with conviction), while mama has to be the most amusing (funny lyrics and creative insertion of a child's call for ma-ma into a rock song!). sleep is also another favourite of mine -- love the chords used for the chorus. and need i say that gerald's style of singing is...delish? (it's theatrical, not of the mainstream american twang and anyone who can scream-sing as well as they 'normal-sing' is a winner in my opinion.)

this obviously improved my mood (and therefore ability to cope with work) and by the end of the week, the songs had been ingrained into my memory. early the next week while i was killing time after dinner, i found myself buying three cheers for sweet revenge at a bookstore-with-cd-shop-as-an-aside because they didn't have the black parade.i obviously favoured the cover art (of a blood-stained couple about to give what looks like their final kiss) and fell in love with 'helena' and 'the ghost of you', both of which were on a loop for the first few days (before i started moving on to the rest of the album).

and with that, i was sold. [note: i'd go on to snap up the rest of the mcr albums, including the 2 'live'-performances-cum-video-diaries next month.] i'd never had much interest in gerard way before 'cos the only pictures i'd seen of him were ala the black parade (welcome to was also the only mtv i'd seen of them before this) era, and in my humble opinion, cropped hair, no matter what colour, doesn't go well on anyone. but with new interest in this band, a quick google seach revealed a baby-faced gerard who looks smashing in black mascara, whitened face and black hair (ala the revenge album), be it short or long. it kind of accentuated his bright hazel eyes, another interesting facial feature of his...hahah. i also delighted in the fairytale ending he ended up with when i read of the manner in which he proposed, and of his little family of his own.

but enough with the gushing -- the main thing is that the music gave me some form of strength to hold on to.

2) lakewood services
i first chanced upon a 'live' service of lakewood church's that was streamed online during work last december, and ever since then i've been occasionally 'attending' their wednesday services virtually (it's a thursday morning here at 9.30am), but for the whole of this month they've kind of been my lifesaver and somewhat of a necessary routine for coping (just to clarify, i actually do get my work done while listening to the service simultaneously). it's been my form of attending church when i've been unable to (haven't been waking up early enough to go for services at my local church) and it helps me regain the peak performance i usually experience on mondays (i know most mondays are the blue according to employees worldwide, but for me, it's wednesdays that get to me because they're when i've used up most of the energy and enthusiasm i've obtained over the weekend).

today's sermon, for example, encouraged me with its takeaway message from lisa comes (whom i didn't know was main pastor joel osteen's sister until i did some searching up on her): "when you don't know what to do, just keep doing what you know to do." (in short, keep persevering with the same things you've been doing every day until whatever you're hoping for happens, or until you receive revelation to move in a new direction.)

there was another sermon that brought up an interesting observation (it wasn't that encouraging to me, but it just caught my attention): nick nilson's "the bible keeps you and i from living facebook lives", which i had listened to on the 27th (it wasn't 'live', it was in the archives). by 'facebook' he meant self-centered, which is something i totally agree with and is a huge part of the reason why i decided to fall off the grid two years ago (best decision i've made yet): because i was sick of all the self-promotion going on and i didn't want to be a part of it any more. he showed an example of his son up on the projector slides on stage: of what he'd post on facebook (a beautiful, smiling toddler) and what he wouldn't dream of posting (a crying toddler who's about to puke). i guess what stood out to me was when he said it's a way of putting your best foot forward online -- i got the impression that he was implying that it's just good manners to present your best self online, as opposed to what i always thought was a display of pure yet inadvertent narcissism.

3) my younger self
no, i did not get into bill and ted's time machine in my earlier years and arrive in 2011 to visit myself now, but i did take a look back at the past and read through my old diaries about how things were back then, something i haven't done for quite a long while actually (how long has it been, months? years?). and to my surprise, instead of the usual feeling of clarity i get where records of previous events have provided clues and even explanations for questions about my current point in life, i felt a totally different emotion instead: i felt strangely and fiercely protective of my younger self.

in fact, not to seem egotistic, but i was rather shocked that i went through so much injustice and just beared with it quietly (at least in the public eye). i seem to have been taken advantage of, bullied into submission and scared into a shadow of who i am today. even though it has been a sharp but educational learning curve for me, i found myself wishing sadly that the current me could've stood up for the younger me in those times (it wasn't to say that i never had someone to reach out to in my time of need, but whoever god provided tended to be what i call 'seasonal' -- a really good friend who is there only for a short period of time -- which is a reality that i now live in and have come to accept as part of the norm).

it just made me realise how far i've come -- to think that exactly one year ago it felt like i had shot myself in the foot with "all these things that i've done" (couldn't help but quote the killers =p) and i'd take years to walk again -- and gave me hope for how much further i have the potential to go, and how much sooner change (for the better) can happen.

4) a few good ~~men~~ friends
i wasn't really expecting to find company but i'm thankful they've appeared in my life, 'cos it obviously makes tough days more bearable.

julian frenzy

2011-02-22T04:22:00.008+08:00

imagine feeling so ecstatic being around someone, that he's the first thing you think of when you wake up and the last one you see before you go to sleep. he's so addictive that you cut short your lunch every day just to see him, and because he's constantly on your brain, you find yourself smiling or smothering smiles throughout random moments of your day. in fact, the mere memory of him perks up your mood so much that despite whatever trials you face daily, you breeze through them unfazed and feel like you can take on the world as long as you have him in your life. now imagine that this guy only exists in your imagination, as dictated by the pages of the novel you're holding.

i know, it's so unbelievably hard to believe, much less even expect that a fictional character like julian(the link is the closest online rendition i could find of him online; if he existed in real life he might resemble this in the flesh) from l.j. smith's the game trilogy of books can have such an effect on me, and it has, this month (ending spoilers below, be forwarned). at this point i should clarify that i read l.j.'s books waaay before the vampire diaries got mangled into a pothole-ridden tv show plot (sorry, but casting a delicious guy as damon -- pun intended -- is not going to save the show any more than casting ryan gosling as the eponymous protagist in hercules did).

it was an unassuming monday at work like any other and i was killing time at the nearby bookstore when the game caught my eye. now the last time i read the game was when i was fresh out of tweenhood and just settling into my teens, back when friends like my schoolmates exchanged books to read. i remember being surprised when a classmate of mine who was so used to carrying intellectual adult fiction tomes around passed this to me to try, but after reading it, i doubted her taste in this book no longer. now, to expect someone who's just hit puberty to fall for teenage literature like this is acceptable, but for a working young adult to do so is...a tall order. so back to my lunch hour at the bookstore: i decided that re-reading a teenagehood favourite was a safe bet and requested for the book to be unwrapped.

[i really hate that the custom of wrapping books in plastic for the sake of 'preserving their condition' (read: so they don't have to dust off their books from the shelves) has spread from jb to sg...even the mega bookstore page one has taken up this trend, which now leaves borders as the only last safe haven for unwrapped book lovers in this area. a friend of mine argued that you can always request for a book to be unwrapped and still not buy it, but what if you wanna browse through seven different books, or maybe an entire section of books?]

the next thing i knew, i found myself having difficulty putting the book down and vowed to come back the next day. and the next, and the next, until i eventually bought the book on friday after work because i just had to have my 'julian fix' over the weekend as well. i devoured the trilogy by the end of the weekend and stayed up crazy hours just to read up on this guy, as if seeing page-fulls of text was the same as seeing him (well it was; i saw him in the corner of my mind).

after the whole episode of feeling 'high' ended (it ended when the novel ended, 'cos *SPOILER* he dies), i found myself undergoing withdrawal symptoms. like how am i going to cope in a world without julian...like, how on earth did i cope without him for so many years (in any case, i don't recall feeling this euphoric the first time i read about him)? more importantly, why did julian have such an effect on me this time round?

it was in writing a fan response to l.j. smith that i discovered why (as summarised in the points below -- and i wrote partly with follow-up story arc suggestions since she said she was coming up with a sequel) *SPOILERS below*:

1) julian has always allowed jenny free will even though he might have manipulated or lied about the circumstances (despite initially claiming to be evil, he turned out to be the good guy after all when push came to shove)

2) julian treats her with respect, and never once did this character assault, molest or hurt jenny (the bees don't really count because they weren't real and she wasn't harmed by them)

3) his sheer innocence -- he retains that purity and simplicity of childhood, even in romantic interactions with jenny

4) he only exists in the figment of our (readers') imaginations -- hence he can be as perfect as i want him to be, and i don't need to make any commitments at all, like how i'd have to in a real-life relationship

the futurist

2011-02-14T00:52:00.003+08:00

two weeks ago i decided to watch kiss kiss bang bang (the remake, not the first one) for the third time and i decided to wait this time until the credits ended...and whaddya know, the end credits song wasn't by some pop singer in the 80s, it was by robert downey jr. himself.

next thing i know, i'm checking both him and val kilmer out online (since they both acted in the above movie and have been among my favourite actors but when i was really into them, the internet hadn't become so interconnected and all there was at the time were outdated fan pages so i kind of gave up and settled for just watching them at the movies) and whaddya know, they both have music albums to their name.

i haven't started with val's music yet, but i picked up robert's the futurist and man, i'm wondering how i could've missed it until now! i mean i hadn't doubted that he could sing as well as he could act, since i heard him sing on ally mcbeal and first saw him on only you as a child, but for him to songwrite and play jazz pieces so well...my gosh. some of his songs had a feel of jamie cullum to them, and anything as good as jamie cullum is awesome in my book. haha. i felt like i was floating in the clouds while listening to his songs at work.

i also managed to catch the soloist this week in the quiet of a rented screening room with surround-sound system and felt strangely comforted by the deep baritone undertone (haha, stole this word from downey himself) of his voice. made me think of how i have a preference for turning up the bass boost in music players and why i would like the lower range of vocals.

i later came up with the answer this week: the deep boom of a man's voice are part of my longings for a father figure in my life. sorry to typecast you as a dad, downey. haha. ha.

the future

2011-01-22T00:03:00.004+08:00

first week of this new year, i went to see a friend i hadn't seen for five years. and, short as our conversation was, it blew me away. changed my set perspective on where i'd planned to be heading this year, what i had expected to come from it and why i was planning to head in the direction i was going to head in. suddenly, i wasn't so sure of my plans.

it fuelled further discussion on this topic with the friend i next met (also someone i hadn't seen for a while), who shared a very interesting experience on how god landed my friend a first job.

to sum it all up in one question: what's in my future for this year?

is what i want in line with what god wants?
what does God want? at first i thought He wants me to help others, but after subsequent ponderings i realised...He wants me to know Him more.
if i go the direction i plan to go in this year, will it really lead to what i want, which is a better life, which is to be happy, to be accepted?
should i look at other options as a fallback in case i fail to make headway in my intended direction?
is happiness/contentment possible now, just by looking at things from a grateful perspective?
is my definition of greatness/a life worth living even correct?
what exactly do i want right now in life?

anyway, my take-home exercise before we (first friend and i) parted was to...think of 5 things to be grateful for every day. not a static list where i pin up and look at ('cos that's as boring and as dry as the identity in christ booklets i used to look at, in my opinion), but a rolling list -- one that changes every day.

that and the words i ended up saying the week after during a follow-up call with said friend gave me the obvious answer to the last question: i want a father figure (and obviously a good model of one). and knowing God more will give me just that.

a year older

2010-12-31T22:51:00.003+08:00

i decided to wait until a month later when things died down to make sure it wasn't just euphoria i was riding on for my birthday. it...doesn't look like it, 'cos i'm still buoyant, so i must be getting better for sure. i turned an important milestone of a year older and for that, i decided to orchestrate things such that i'd be able to celebrate it with a handful of friends.

two friends and a pregnant spouse responded. how time has flown (had no idea about the pregnant bit till then). as recent as a year ago, i would've freaked out with this curious arrangement. but i'm totally fine with it now -- fine with the fact that my friends have moved on to the next stage of their lives (settling down with families) and fine with the fact that i haven't with mine.

i was going to write on my birthday reflections (an annual practice in which i round up the past year in my life), which ties in nicely with tonight since it's the last day of 2010. here are some of the things i've attempted for the first time:

1) Getting my hair cut professionally (instead of having my mom snip it off)
2) Getting my hair dyed permanently (just highlights)
3) Seeing a psychiatrist for help (sounds less crazy than saying seeking psychiatric help, and he didn't help me much anyway)
4) Buying a flight ticket entirely on my own (without parental help)
5) Watching an entire movie (in parts) on YouTube (Adventureland, if you don't count the documentary The Fury and The Filth *sid vicious looked as hot as ever* which i saw first)
6) LAN gaming continously for at least 3 hours a day for two consecutive weeks (L4D2)
7) Attending my church's youth camp
8) Attending and facilitiating my church's inaugural girls-only youth camp
9) Playing music to a crowd of thousands
10) Watching Jamie Cullum 'live' (the best rebellious performance ever at the stuffy concert hall...thank you for breaking all the rules and letting us have fun, Jamie!) and watching him write me an autograph
11) Discovering a name for what i've been going through all these years (co-dependency)
12) Taking part in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), even if i didn't manage to finish my 50, 000-word novel

of course there's also the fact that i've visited several new places and buildings in sg and that i've grown so much over the past year (spiritually, emotionally and mentally) -- so in summary, it's been an awesome year of growth, thanks to God.

an epiphany

2010-11-09T01:11:00.004+08:00

i was sitting in the dark watching people i either looked up to or who portrayed themselves as superior to me butcher one of my favourite john mayer songs into little pieces (it was so bad i couldn't even look the lead vocalist in the face, and i cringed every time i heard a guitar go out of sync) when it hit me, just like that:

the experts don't always know it all.

that their opinions (read: their criticisms) don't necessarily have to be more valuable or more valid than mine, just because they've got experience under their belt.

i cut the cord with my psychologist on thursday by the way.

i came to the conclusion that paying a substantial amount of money just for 10-15 minutes' worth of advice that any friend (armed with just common sense) could've given, over a frequency of once a month or once in two months, doesn't really count as accountability and if anything, only serves to pacify all those 'friends' who'd cut short the conversation by asking me to seek professional help every time i opened up about my struggles.

i've always felt, and still feel, that i needed to work these things out in my head on my own, not with the help of a shrink to sort of plot out the graphs for me, 'cause that would ruin my self-discovery process and make it a less personal, less creative (and less beautiful) one, so to speak.

and it was stupid of me not to listen to that inner voice, because it turned out to be right, no matter how well-meaning my friends meant (or maybe they really were just giving a cop-out excuse). i've learnt so much about myself these past four months -- mostly without the shrink's help or advice.

i'm not saying pills or advice don't work for others,

i'm not saying the shrink wasn't earnest and fatherly in his very short sessions with me,

and i'm certainly not saying i wasn't mentally exhausting to talk to during my low points of life...

i'm just saying that this method just isn't meant for me.

and i'm realising i really can survive in this world after all, even if i don't have anybody human to count on for anything. jesus might not be obvious enough for me to say that he is all i'm truly leaning on right now, but then again he is, in an indirect way -- through the songs i listen to, the movies i watch, the breaths i take; for in Him we live and move and exist.

elated

2010-10-22T02:36:00.003+08:00

i've finally just finished reading david levithan's boy meets boy, and all i can say about the ending is awwwwww.

like all good books (of my perception), i've been savouring every moment in the book slowly and putting off the end as long as i can, for about 5 months...but unfortunately and indeed, all good things must come to an end.

i finally decided i was ready to face it, head on, two evenings ago. and in a short span of 4 hours, i re-read everything up until where i last left off two months back when it was becoming quite evident that the story was about to finish -- when there's not many pages left to grip in my right hand.

i read the last page half an hour ago with a twinge of bittersweet resolution.

i wanna see what happens to noah and paul after that. i wanna continue living in their near-perfect world. i wanna live vicariously through paul...but oh well.

guess there's heaven to look forward to =p

had a good evening earlier today watching the breakfast club (thanks to above novel for reminding me -- i was quite an avid emilio estevez movie-watcher in my tweenage years), with a half hour to spare on a few pushing daisies season 1 interviews (two words: lee pace =p ).

i realise i always feel this high when i am aware that it's my last night for the week in sg (and i am not always aware, because half the time i can't even make up my mind until the last minute as to which day i should go home) -- it's like my brain suddenly unfreezes from 'numbness mode' and realises i better make my last night my best.

wishful thinking

2010-10-20T22:17:00.006+08:00

i was headbanging in time with the beat, slamming the black and whites on the korg while rpattz strummed enthusiastically with his les paul. skintz was subtlely sneaking in the bass lines from her fender, while dorian held it all together with intermittent strikes on the snare tempered with cymbal crashes where appropriate. the only thing missing was a singer.

we left the jamming studio still riding from a melodic high, the creation of which we were part of. the bus dropped us off in time for dinner at the local youth hangout, "a concrete treehouse of a building," as dorian would say. dinner was the usual -- cheap local food -- but dessert was fun as we sampled skintz' favourite slabs of home-made ice-cream before settling on the following flavours: rum, butter pecan, vanilla bean, coffee.

and then there we stood: the four of us in fading sunlight, observing the busy street, the tall skyscrapers, the screaming birds up in the trees, with rpattz cracking lame jokes again as usual. eventually skintz dragged us along to bowl where the bowling alley used to be, except that it wasn't there anymore.

so we exited the building and headed back to the treehouse for several rounds of taboo and pictionary in the youth lounge at the rooftop. it was really hilarious, especially to see the look on skintz's face everytime we guessed something so totally far from what she was trying to describe.

after that we went outside to the rooftop railings and rpattz tried blowing his keychain whistle to people on the street without being seen -- i laughed my ass off, watching the people below try to figure out the direction of the sound. after that it was just bumming around and catching up on each other's lives till we had to go our separate ways.

wanna know what's the killer?

none of the above really happened...

the way i described it.

the one big difference was that i did all these things alone. so it was really me berating myself for booking an entire jamming room to hear only my korg keys filling the room -- it kinda happened on impulse, because i stumbled across the studio during my lunch break today and i recalled how good it used to feel being able to make music with others. why is it that i always end up jamming with an invisible band nowadays when almost everyone i know is musically capable? (oh right, it's because they're not really my friends. i almost wish that statement was true so i wouldn't have to feel bad saying that.)

i was the one who ate the cheap local food only to blow my budget on slabs of rum and butter pecan (the rest of the flavours was sampled), standing at the sidewalk of an intersection, watching people, buildings, birds and shadows around me. i was the one who happily thought i was going to bowl only to find that the darned alley was no longer in existence and i couldn't find another in sight.

it was me who hit the rooftop (though the whistle thing really happened with my bro at his hostel room on another occasion, and it was really funny) and discovered that free lounge area with the plush cushions and board games but no darned people to play with (it's no fun playing charades when you know all the answers and you can't see yourself describing things).

after that i got sick of it all though and headed straight for the bookstore. found quite a few old gems there and almost bought them -- but held back when i remembered how loosely i've been spending my money in a failing effort to pacify my bored soul. after that i got back and here i am.

i had an epiphany yesterday about all this though -- i only feel this way when (a) someone points it out to me or (b) i'm comparing myself to somebody else. the more i thought about it, the more sense it made: whenever i'm not aware that i'm alone-without-friends-oh-my-gosh-ignorant-people-even-ask-me-why-i'm-out-alone-like-it's-a-sin-and-i-feel-like-dogshit-when-i-keep-hearing-or-seeing-your-fantastic-posse-of-friends-have-such-fun-times-together, those are the times i actually have a good time on my own and appreciate my uniquely-circumstanced life for what it is: a gift.

a few good tunes have also cheered me up this week (the first step to making it more acceptable for me to sleep):

-flagpole sitta by harvey danger

-the way by fastball

-the entire chet baker sings album, which i only heard today (prior to this, the only songs i knew were my funny valentine and time after time and they hooked me enough to finally spark curiosity)

and a rediscovery of old boyband songs and videos that have stood the test of time (i.e. i can still stomach re-listening to them now that i'm no longer in my early eager teenage years):

-all songs on ultra's eponymous album (the boyband with james hearn as the frontman, not the trance singer), most of which i finally found on youtube (i only ever bought the cassette for this back in the day and it sounded warbly after a few months of leaving it in the car due to heat exposure) and surprisingly still remember all the lyrics to, after all these years

fave song: blind to the groove because of the piano man and the piano, man!

-most songs by a1 (the boyband, not the school grade), especially the earlier tunes -- again, thanks to youtube although i wish they had it in my time as i've not seen some of the videos since i never had mtv on cable)

fave song: be the first to believe because of the augmented chords in the pre-chorus connectors, those funny dance moves and the evident camaraderie (read: having fun chillin' with friends) in the video

-keep on moving by 5ive (the boyband, not the children's show) because of the encouraging lyrics, although it's funny because i never paid attention to the lyrics back in the day probably because i wasn't really a 5ive fan (was more of a rich fan until he had that crew cut =p)

bb mak's back here and the moffatts' misery and bang bang boom remain perennial favourites though i can't say the same for the songs' videos.

however, it's worth noting that i can't stomach backstreet boys, gary barlow and westlife videos any more, even though i was a self-proclaimed nick carter fan in my early years. now, the music and videos just sound cheesy. the only exception would be backstreet's back because it's funny, haha!

burning questions

2010-10-19T00:30:00.004+08:00

i was sitting in service yesterday, closing my eyes to listen to the choir and i felt the subtle undercurrents of the holy spirit -- and then i remembered two months back during a very relevant altar call in which i stepped up (after seeing an opportunity when there was a lull in people coming up to be prayed for), merely said my name, and heard pastor kai (who knows nothing about me) prophesy over me, twice, as if for affirmation: "jessica, the lord says that he loves you; jessica, the lord says that he loves you."

so i take back the part about not adult service not being relevant at all this year -- guess it's boring for some sermons and not so boring for others.

questions that keep me up: am i a loser if i have an empty schedule almost every working night and spend a great deal of time renting videos to fill up my time, much like jim carrey's character before he became the yes man to everything?

do i have a valid reason to feel i am wasting my nights doing nothing when i could be saving the world by helping starving kids or volunteering for some non-profit organisation like a good christian's supposed to do?

is there a way to combat the feeling that i'm missing out on life because i don't have regular friends to hang out with (i mean i have hung out with people all this while, but it's usually by accident and not by routine, which makes me expect to hang out with people when nobody will and vice versa)?

i realise that these questions only trouble me on a working weekday night in sg and not so much in jb. i mean i have felt the same way before in jb but thank god there are my furry four-legged friends to play with or parents to sleep in the same room with, if only to feel close to human presence and draw some form of comfort from that unspoken connection (and also to sleep in air-conditioned comfort in this recent spell of sweltering heat).

feedback anyone?

restless mind

2010-10-14T00:50:00.004+08:00

"i'm so tired but i can't sleep; standing at the edge of something much too deep..."
--i will remember you, sarah mclachlan

"when you feel so tired but you can't sleep; stuck in reverse..."
--fix you, coldplay

it's been four weeks since the insomnia's started again. and if i do sleep, it's exactly like that book i picked up (but didn't buy) in the bookstore last week said: i have performance anxiety even over not sleeping not well or not long enough.

tonight is no different.

the only thing that gets me through each day at work -- like how the annoying pseudo-younger brother who sits behind me who drinks red bull to get him through each day -- is a sermon, mostly joel osteen's or joseph prince's. i tried listening to the two sermons i got from my church and...man, one of them was so boring (read: i've heard it all before so it comes across as dry) i felt no different than before i was listening.

that's the thing: not sure if it's just me, but i've found the sermons this year (ever since our senior pastor went on sabbatical) to be dry, boring and somewhat irrelevant in terms of only skimming the surface and not going deep enough beyond the rehashed sayings a christian knows by heart after attending church for years.

i seem to have lost that fire, that stirring in the heart in the main sermon nowadays -- i distinctly recall feeling it at times during some of the youth services though, and that keeps me going (aside from the sermons and other deliberate actions in trying to shake off this dissatisfaction stemming from ennui in the evening).

it's been real interesting, learning to be independent for the first time in a long while, not having anyone as a crutch other than jesus -- it feels like finding you can actually swim without an aid of a floatation device when you actually thought you were going to drown if you were left alone long enough (can't say the same literally though -- i still can't float or swim to save my life).

i sense jesus' leadings -- the little signs along the way, the new mercies that get me to work (because obviously the morning is the hardest part after having stayed up a good part of the night), traces of this (superhu)man i am trying to follow -- but ever so often, the old thoughts resurface and i have to, as melody beattie says, hear them out and then assess what i am going to do with those thoughts (to judge and act rationally instead of to not think and react irrationally).

lotsa good things, or at least things i wanted to happen but didn't expect to happen so soon, have happened these past few sleepless weeks, but there have been a lotta filling-the-space-while-waiting-for-the-next-event times where the old thoughts come in and try to unseat me from my restedness in christ, to paraphrase a sermon of pastor prince's.

this verse featured prominently in my bible-browsing this week and gives reason for hope:

"The Lord is our protector and glorious king, blessing us with kindness and honour. He does not refuse any good thing to those who do what is right."
-- Psalm 84:11

re: who i am

2010-08-11T23:10:00.008+08:00

Beautiful Day

by U2

The heart is a bloom
Shoots up through the stony ground
There's no room
No space to rent in this town

You're out of luck
And the reason that you had to care
The traffic is stuck
And you're not moving anywhere

You thought you'd found a friend
To take you out of this place
Someone you could lend a hand
In return for grace

It's a beautiful day
Sky falls, you feel like
It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away

You're on the road
But you've got no destination
You're in the mud
In the maze of her imagination

You love this town
Even if that doesn't ring true
You've been all over
And it's been all over you

It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away
It's a beautiful day

Touch me
Take me to that other place
Teach me
I know I'm not a hopeless case

See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the Bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light
And see the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colors came out

It was a beautiful day
Don't let it get away
Beautiful day

Touch me
Take me to that other place
Reach me
I know I'm not a hopeless case

What you don't have you don't need it now
What you don't know you can feel it somehow
What you don't have you don't need it now
Don't need it now
Was a beautiful day

whenever i feel like crap at work these days (including today -- days where the imagery of an exhausted me crawling to the side of a flat surface to "lay down and die" comes to mind), i listen to beautiful day and remind myself not to let such a beautiful day get away. it's been an informative past couple of weeks in terms of discovering myself, my inner workings from the perspective of the creator.

i was in kl again this weekend, on a plane (for the trip up) on my own again. the view of my land from the top was really something, though it wasn't as awesome as when i left from sg two weeks back. at the time, i was struck by a sense of irony that i was leaving to leave the pain behind, only to realise that sg is a really awesome place from the viewpoint in the skies. it was like sim city, only for real, and every building housed hundreds of tiny people -- i had kind of forgotten life wasn't all about me, myself and i until i saw that.

just before i left, i received 2 personal revelations:

1) when i'm stressed about the now (the anxiety of the present moment slipping away because i'm under the impression that i am not being productive with my time), i should think about the future (the big picture, what my goals are in life) -- and vice versa (e.g. when i'm freaking out because my future is uncertain, i should just focus on the next immediate step in life).

2) i shouldn't just give up (read: indefinitely postpone) on something simply because i know i'm going to face strong opposition by undertaking it (e.g. taking up intercessory prayer again), because if i keep putting it off i'll never do it and eventually i'll never get to do it (e.g. i'll be dead by then and though i might pray in heaven i wouldn't get to exercise my faith as much as i would've had the chance to while on earth).

i started reading two more chapters on codependent no more, the only book i could find here so far that was specifically geared towards codependency, and it gave me a somewhat clearer picture of why i am so possessive (as opposed to obsessive), as my psych last told me. the book had a full list identifying how a codependent might behave and 99% of it was so me (when i'm in possessive mode).

it was such a relief to read through the case studies and know that i wasn't the only one who was thinking i was going crazy because i seemed to be the only nutter around here (a fact i nullified when i picked up ethan hawke's debut novel the hottest state at the library one serendipitous day in may -- the protagonist acted and felt a whole lot like me). i was sold the minute i saw chapter 1's title, "jessica's story".

the author, melody beattie, began by explaining that codependency comes in many forms and is thus not a one-description-fits-all problem. but the common thread between the various types of codependents is that they've all had, at some point of their lives, to take care of someone who was out of control (e.g. alcoholic, mentally ill person, rebellious child, etc.) and through time, developed a mechanism of coping, which worked initially but ultimately became a mentally unhealthy way to cope with life.

the other common denominator was that codependents were all brought up in families that did not encourage honest or open expressions of feelings. i also noted the trait that codependents tended to attract other codependents to them and might possibly have been co-dependees themselves.

all this of course evoked some reflection and i came to the realisation that all this was true. i mean, i didn't have to take care of anyone in serious trouble, but i did 'take care' of a friend whose trust i betrayed once (due to peer pressure of all things), ultimately regretted and later vowed to make up for it by sticking as close to this friend as i could thereafter (i have blogged about said friend here before).

as i came to think of it, that was when this whole cycle of codependency really started, not when i came to sg but before it already. like the book said, it might have helped for me to 'check up' on this friend and keep this friend accountable in the initial stages, but as my friend got better i found i was unable to break this already-formed habit and found myself still distrusting this friend to make the right decision for this friend's self.

but of course the pre-cursor to this was that my parents themselves were overly codependent (basically jargon for being overprotective) on me, so i already learnt the basics there. it is actually difficult now to believe how bad things used to be, but they were (my childhood/teenage-hood friends can attest to that -- enough said).

i also agree with the fact that codependency attracts codependency. logically thinking, i should be happy that i have company in a fellow co-dependent, but so far i've just found them either to be a burden or just plain creepy. even before the codependent colleague and schoolmate found me, i gradually remembered this: all the mentally ill people seemed to flock to me at my old church.

at this point i have to explain: i might be a clingy, loserly weakling who looks nothing like a caretaker, but on the other hand it is this unhealthy obsession with the person i am clinging to that makes me want to be overly involved in their lives and want to 'take care' of their affairs. this is not to be confused with the normal concern for others that does not affect my life so much that it debilitates me by disrupting my daily routines in life.

the punchline of what i read so far is that us codependents have been trying to take care of everyone else but ourselves, that we know what the other person's problem is and how to solve it but we don't know what ours is or if we even have a problem, nor how to solve it if we do. so it's time we started taking care of ourselves (or, i would think, in the christian context: it's time i started trusting god to take care of me and the people around me). that was the one thing that opened my eyes to the truth.

who i am

2010-08-05T00:38:00.005+08:00

i think the reason why i am who i am is finally becoming clear to me.

last year, it dawned on me that of course i would feel lonely, since i spend most of my waking moments in an foreign land, killing time when i would rather be at home doing my own thing.

(yet it is this foreign land that offers me the spending capacity, independence and spiritual growth that i might never be able to find on home soil.)

this year, it's now dawning on me that i would feel lonely because i feel out of place. nowhere really is a stable 'home' for me. and it will always be this way, because of the choices i make. choices i make to follow paths that are just plain different from everyone else, hence the alienation. it's the price i pay for choosing to be unique/my own person. and i will continue to keep paying that price, because i will keep believing it is worth it to have been me, and to continue to be me.

to listen to the music that i do, to dress in the attire that i deck myself out in, to be interested in the area of service that i am in. to work in the country that i work in, to remain a citizen of the country i was born in, to be impulsive in going places like i always have been.

speaking of which, i purchased a plane ticket and boarded a flight for the first time on my own terms. (i would've done so sooner had i known there was another way to get tickets on the cheap without the use of a credit card, which i currently do not own.) it felt a bit like the first time i drove on my own...the sweet taste of independence. haha.

i also finally got myself a circular-shaped armchair because i could finally afford it (although i got one at the cheaper end of the scale so it's a little small for me to dangle my legs over its arms without having to crunch my stomach so much).

but back to my point, i find this contradiction between my feelings/mood and my cravings/appetite that frustrates and depresses me when i find myself unable to do anything about it.

for some reason, when i am hard at work, i get these cravings to engage in solitary activities or accomplish personal goals like cleaning up my room back home. i feel like there is not enough time to do the things i want to do.

then, when i enter into the timeslot of the day allocated to leisure, i lose my appetite for all of the above. i feel like there is too much time to do the things i want to do, such that it would feel like a chore to go through each activity. and the only thing i feel like doing at that time is talking to someone who gets me.

i don't think that this has only to do with my energy levels, the circadian rhythm, the greener appeal of the grass on the other side or the fight-for-independence stage of my life. all these explanations seem incomplete to me. and i am falling asleep now so i will stop here.

status update

2010-07-22T23:02:00.010+08:00

anyway, from then until now, life's been yet another bend and a curve. or should i say a curve and a bend, and now i'm trying to bend the curve before i nosedive...again.

my friend was right, i was right; it was a fad and i did get over the latest 'cling', much sooner than before.

i did recover from my choking cough and sore throat, though it took three long weeks and it felt like forever when i was going through it (i kept going "how long, god, how long?" in resignation 'cause my gastric pains started returning too). all i know is i woke up the wednesday after my last post and i could feel my strength returning -- a clear difference from all the other days. it was at that point that i knew i was going to get better from then onwards, and i did.

and as i got better, my confidence level increased. my sound mind returned, i was better able to get a handle on work (and on my overseas boss, more notably). my managers felt more assured that i wasn't going to bail on them. and by the time i saw the psychiatrist, which was last thursday, he couldn't even tell that there was anything wrong with me.

in fact, i seemed to have fooled him so well that he didn't think i'd had depression. this, coming from a man who has written a book on depression describing the very symptoms i've gone through. i found myself agreeing to see him for a second appointment when he asked if i wanted to because i felt god wasn't done with this yet, although objectively speaking, it really looks as if i paid someone nearly a hundred bucks just to give common sense advice to me.

apparently we had been in the same bookstore during lunchtime the day before, without knowing who we were. later on, in my hometown of all places, i found his book sitting in the religion section. i think i am paying him more for the accountability.

he said i had a dependent personality, and as my homework, he would like me to:

-listen to worship songs at least half an hour before going straight into prayer during quiet time each day

-exercise three times a week (we settled on cycling)

-focus more on relationships with females (still alien to me, hence the technical term for this species)

he also asked me to re-prioritise my desires in life, and to put god back at number one.

so far i've only done the third, because i was doing it already when i came in to see him. and again i am starting to see the same results i got from previously attempting this at the start of last year.

as we move past the pleasantries, she starts to bitch about other people and tries to get me to take sides. and this is always a thorny issue because for some reason or other, the people that these bitches -- okay, girls -- bitch about are usually the people i like more than hate (or at least have a neutral feeling about them).

as i was starting to grapple with that, a little intermission called the weekend just passed. i witnessed a friend (the first in my circle of close friends) get married. i spent quality bonding time with my mother during the wedding (and as we walked around the interesting venue).

out of nowhere, a friend from out-of-town drops by to meet up with me and another from childhood does the same -- a nice break from the boredom of spending time alone with myself.

i witnessed two intimate worship services of my church's pioneer (revamped) ministry, the second of which fell along this same weekend and the most intimate moment being when i was singing the chorus of "lord i give you my heart". i looked around at the young people worshipping god in the solemn dim lighting, felt my heart strangely stirred as it resonated with the words i sang and realised that this was where i really wanted to be -- i felt so safe in that moment.

and then at the start of this week as i innocently frequent a particular swedish furniture store to look for a reading chair, i also walk over to the mall across the road whose one shop had a rather disturbing view...and that caused the invisible gears into my mind to spin out of their grooves. next thing i knew, i was a wreck again.

so what happened?

"He never ever saw it coming at all

He never ever saw it coming at all

He never ever saw it coming at all...

Hey open wide, here comes original sin

Hey open wide, here comes original sin (aeroplane noise)

Hey open wide, here comes original sin...

Power to the people

We don't want it, we want pleasure

And the TVs try to rape us

and I guess that they're succeeding

And we're going to these meetings

but we're not doin' any meetin'

And we're trying to be faithful

but we're cheatin', cheatin', cheatin'..."

it's so strange but i never saw regina spektor's lyrics to hero in this way until tonight (it's friday night now and i'm re-editing this post) when i just happened to click 'play' on this song (it's been one of my favourites ever since it appeared in that dramatic scene in 500 days of summer).

and i finally understand what the aeroplane noise she makes is: it's like when a mother is trying to feed her toddler on a high chair and she pretends the spoon is an aeroplane whizzing into the kid's oral cavity.

so here i am, at the crossroads again. i have, serendipitously, a temporary gang of friends borrowed from mincaye (another out-of-town friend) for the weekend, a third service in which the pioneer cell groups for this revamped ministry hold their first meeting, and a clean break away from what led my mind astray in the first place.

what will i do? (sounds so wwjd.) guess i'll find out soon enough.

be excellent to each other

2010-07-22T21:59:00.003+08:00

"the most excellent way is love."

that's what the youth pastor said in his sermon the day after my last post. since the sad keanu meme's been going around lately, it made me think of what keanu's character's sidekick, bill said from bill and ted's excellent adventure:

"be excellent to each other."

if you combine the two, you get this (the christianised version according to matt the youth pastor).

"be loving to each other."

ahahaha.

okay that was lame. on a more serious note, i kinda disagree with the phrase this week's pastor borrowed from john piper, that "god is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him". it's such a likeable phrase that initially when my cell group members had a round-the-table sharing, i said i felt i needed to realise the above (i was thinking of contentment vs. performance trap).

but almost after i said that, i had my doubts. because i mean, with the superlatives it just sounds inaccurate. now, i think god is most glorified when we obey his commandments, not when we find ourselves happy in him. and by now i mean after a chasing-the-wind, all-too-familiar pursuit of pleasure here on earth.

i think christian hedonism, or whatever way you choose to label it, is incorrect because it isn't the whole truth. i picked up and read harold j. sala's making your emotions work for you in the bookstore yesterday and i think i agree with what he said about pain -- that it is necessary, either to bring us to a closer union with god or to help us identify with our target audience of service.

that god favours moulding of character more than our happiness (that's another borrowed phrase but i don't know where it originated from).

heavy in your arms

2010-07-03T01:55:00.004+08:00

i just saw twilight: eclipse and heard the most amazing song at the middle of the credits: heavy in your arms by florence and the machine. why they didn't play this during the movie baffles me -- it's as good as thom yorke's hearing damage effect on the second movie. speaking of which, it was disappointing not to hear thom's voice anywhere in this movie; i thought it was becoming a radiohead-muse trend for twilight movies.

it feels really weird (in that incongruent yet interconnected way) listening to heavy in your arms while reading psalm 139, this week's anchoring scripture in preparation for sunday worship (i know, i know, i haven't really been heaven-focused this week).

"LORD, You have searched me and known me..."

"I was a heavy heart to carry,

My beloved was weighed down..."

"You understand my thoughts from far away..."

"My arms around his neck,

My fingers laced to crown..."

"You observe my travels and my rest..."

"I was a heavy heart to carry,

My feet dragged across ground..."

"You are aware of all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue,

You know all about it, LORD..."

"My love has concrete feet,

My love's an iron ball,

Wrapped around your ankles,

Over the waterfall..."

You have encircled me;

You have placed Your hand on me..."

"I'm so heavy, heavy

Heavy in your arms

I'm so heavy, heavy

Heavy in your arms..."

"[This] extraordinary knowledge is beyond me.

It is lofty; I am unable to [reach] it..."

"And is it worth the wait,

All this killing time?

Are you strong enough to stand,

Protecting both your heart and mine?..."

"Where can I go to escape Your Spirit?

Where can I flee from Your presence?

If I go up to heaven, You are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there..."

"Who is the betrayer?

Who's the killer in the crowd?

The one who creeps in corridors

And doesn't make a sound..."

"Your eyes saw me when I was formless;

all [my] days were written

in Your book and planned

before a single one of them began.

"My love has concrete feet,

My love's an iron ball,

Wrapped around your ankles,

Over the waterfall..."

"My bones were not hidden from You

when I was made in secret..."

"I'm so heavy, heavy

Heavy in your arms;

"I'm so heavy, heavy

Heavy in your arms..."

"f I live at the eastern horizon

[or] settle at the western limits,

even there Your hand will lead me;

Your right hand will hold on to me..."

"I was a heavy heart to carry

But he never let me down

When he had me in his arms

My feet never touched the ground..."

"Search me, God, and know my heart;

test me and know my concerns..."

"This will be my last confession

'I love you' never felt like any blessing..."

"See if there is any offensive way in me;

lead me in the everlasting way."

"Whispering like it's a secret

Only to condemn the one who hears it

With a heavy heart..."

there came a moment of clarity when i was watching the movie...suddenly it was all so simple what i needed to do. however, it's only a matter of time before my emotions fog up my clear-headedness...but i'll take whatever clarity i can get.

really freaked out

2010-07-02T00:32:00.003+08:00

i had a sharp gastric pain at my side in the morning (plus the overseas boss was indirectly giving me hell even from home) so i decided to see the doctor. other than gastric pills, i asked if he could give me something now while i wait impatiently for my psych appointment.

he prescribed me an anti-depressant and an anti-anxiety set of pills which i retrieved from the pharmacy that i was told (by both him and the pharmacists) was safe and that unfortunately, the anti-depressant would take 2 weeks to work. i felt physically tired from all the mental combat so i went to take a rest, but when i got up i started getting really stressed thinking about work.

i was about to take the anti-anxiety pill (note: i have never been on drugs for mental health issues before) when i decided to do some checking on the internet...and i promptly flipped out after reading up.

apparently, my anti-anxiety pill lexapro is actually an anti-depressant and reading from the many responses on this site, people either can't sleep or end up sleeping too much, they get flatulent (how's that for my already gastritis-prone stomach) and -- here's the worst bit -- they become zombified!

apparently, quitting the pills cold turkey causes these or worse symptoms, so that means i'd be forcibly hooked on the drugs as i lessen my dosage gradually (and still have these symptoms around). i mean, i know i've been talking a great deal on this blog about how i feel i'm living a dead life, just subsisting to get through each day instead of really living, but to imagine being emotionally numb like a zombie with an even greater lack of desire to get out of bed each day sounds like a sure road to hell and suicide. that's not even counting the teeth-grinding and 'electric shock' spasms that some people have.

i nearly fainted when i searched for my prescribed anti-depressant seroxat: even wikipedia (the vox populi of online searches) and the official manual itself says a ton of stuff about high discontinuation (withdrawal) symptoms and actually encouraging suicidal thoughts especially in young people! there's even been a recent court inquest about a prominent suicide case caused by this drug.

because of that, seroxat (or paxil in the US) is apparently the most addictive of this classification of drugs (SSRIs). according to this site, it's the most addictive because it doesn't work as well as before if you skip on the medication and try to get back to the routine, while at the same time having to deal with the horrible side-effects.

so what are the withdrawal symptoms (other than wanting to kill yourself, which is the main reason why you started taking these pills in the first place)? nausea and the same thing as lexapro -- somnolence aka. zombification.

erm...i think after reading all this i'll just stick to my mild (in comparison) depression and anxiety and figure out non-drug ways of working this out (like life coaching, which seems to work). hopefully the psychiatrist i see will agree with me to do this.

god, give me wisdom to know the right way out.

my suffering has a name

2010-07-01T00:22:00.004+08:00

shortly after this post, i confessed to my cell group (during sharing time) that i was in a struggle of finding my identity. i didn't know who i was, because i felt like a nobody when i felt i wasn't needed or of use. two weeks later, my cg leader reminded my of my "identity crisis" during a serendipitous (okay providential, if that's more religiously correct) meeting in which i spilled the beans on the ex-friend situation.

during the week that followed, on a particularly discouraging evening, i "stumbled upon" this booklet. and just like that, my (and my cg's) prayers were answered. i made the startling discovery of who i am now and why i have been feeling this way for years: i have codependency issues.

i couldn't tear my eyes off that booklet even though it was getting late and i had work the next day because its description of codependent tendencies and coping mechanisms was chillingly familiar. and that night i was forced to admit the ugliness of myself and see my faults for what they really were: a genuine and realistic assessment of who i was in words i had previously been unable to put together. i am referring to this bit especially:

The Helpless Victim.
Everyone has weaknesses, but those who play the role of the helpless victim choose to be weak unnecessarily. They don’t just want to be helped, they want to be taken care of. Unlike the caretaker, they need others to take care of them. They send the subtle yet loud message, “I’m too weak to handle life. I need your involvement and cooperation if I’m going to make it.” They manipulate others to feel sorry for them. They pressure family and friends to understand and excuse their inability to handle life. Wanting others to be around them all the time, they absorb attention like a dry sponge. They control others through weakness.

so basically i have been a lying manipulator as much as i hate to admit it, i've just been in denial all these years. i've fooled myself (and probably some people) so well i didn't even realise this is what i really am. it's not what i am in the future, but it's what i am now, and now that i know this i need to stop it. i just need to remember it though (it's not like i'm conscious that i'm manipulating someone when i'm in the act of manipulating them).

i started searching up on codependency yesterday after i codepended on that someone and saw this that made sense too (not all criteria fit my bill, but a good number of them do). i mean the term codependency has resonated with me before but i didn't know it was a complex disorder, i thought it was just some adjective you use to describe someone clingy.

i mean it all makes sense, and i feel depressed/experience a stunted recovery of depression because i fail to break the cycle of codependency. finally my suffering/depression has a name and a reason.

only question now is: how do i recover?

i've got a little guide here but i'm not entirely sure how to get there. i think i'm at step 5 of the 12-step recovery programme (i know, i thought that was only for alcoholics too). celebrate recovery seems like the perfect thing except it doesn't exist in this part of the world -- the main book was even sold out at one of the bookstores i checked out today.

my support person today had this bit of wisdom to share: that it's a change of my heart (from god) that's going to break the cycle and not so much how much self-control i can apply (to resist the urge to cling). and that the void of emptiness in my heart can only be filled by god through learning to enjoy being alone (but not really alone because He's there), so i should keep on keeping at it (that's the hard part -- i almost always feel like i can't survive on my own).

maybe it's a good thing i've to wait for my clinical appointment, so at least it gives me time to figure out what's wrong in me that needs fixing, otherwise i'd be wasting my time (and money) over several sessions trying to identify which issue is more pressing than the rest that needs to be resolved.

weak in crisis indeed

2010-06-30T22:39:00.008+08:00

i'm back to hating myself again. it's hard to love yourself when you see yourself making the same mistake again, and watching not just yourself but others suffer the consequences of your mistakes.

i got up saturday for worship practice angry that i was still as sick as a dog and not being able to recall when was the last time i ever had a sore throat last this long (usually a 1-2 day affair, this one was so bad it lasted a whole fricking 6 days and i still have leftover phlegm and dryness of throat even after that) that came with a choking cough i only ever recall being so bad that was back in 2004 when it lasted 3 weeks. the dull stomach ache was also present.

speaking made my throat worse, so i went through practice like a mute kid whose strength is half-gone. got a little irritated when my fellow keyboardist kept asking me why i was so emo. halfway through i realised i should probably at least try to enjoy worship (after all, i still got to play even though i was sick probably 'cause i didn't tell anyone), although i didn't really get to. in fact after that the emo comment became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

by the time worship ended i was insecure. i ended up doing what i've done all these years when i'm insecure -- i clung to the nearest person that gives me a sense of security. and i felt really bad for doing that, and it looked so obvious to others (plus the fact that i did the exact same thing last week) that it made it even worse, yet i couldn't seem to stop.

i half-felt like leaving before i could cling but the other half eventually won because i couldn't bear the pain of doing the right thing -- which is to just walk away. i still don't get it -- shouldn't the right thing make you feel good because your consience is clear? yet i always suffer a pain that lingers for days whenever i do what's right.

anyway later that night when i was still sick and choking away i came across this:

"Whatever happens, keep thanking God because of Jesus Christ. This is what God wants you to do."
-- 1 Thessalonians 5:18, CEV

i mean i'd seen thessalonians before earlier that day (or was it the night before), but it wasn't the CEV version (it was the "give thanks in all circumstances" version, which is a tougher call). that gave me some hope, so it was what i started doing. i had a violent choke around one hour after i fell asleep and i went why are you doing this to me, God? in my half-asleep state but that was all.

right after that i felt like my throat was less sore. day (or should i say pre-dawn) came and the less-sore feeling lingered. and my dull stomach ache was gone! i felt strength returning to my bones and did a little dance in front of the mirror.

arrived at church early because my family had driven us there. i wanted them (well at least my parents) to come and see what i was doing, the type of life i was having here.

the excitement built up as we rehearsed and culminated in a climax when service actually started. after that i was in my safe zone what with good company and good feeding of the Word...and it was a really nice surprise having the lead pastor pop by our table after lunch and engage my family and i in conversation (he's never said hi to me before).

i also got to introduce my mother to my cell group and the youth pastor responsible for me ending up in this 'second home' church, and that was nice too...but after that things just started souring up. my brother started grumbling about being hungry so we had to leave (he didn't want to eat there but wanted mall food instead).

after leaving church, we braved horns from typically inconsiderate s'porean male drivers in bigger cars than us to eventually find a parking spot at the nearby mall and are unbuckling our seats when my brother went all prodigal son on us and asked mom to hand him his passport because he wanted to go back. of course we were all expressing our disbelief, and he kept denying he even wanted the mall and when i argued he yelled "shut up" and i lost it and yelled at him to shut up too.

it pisses me off how he still manages to push my buttons when i least expect it even though we're already past the kiddy age. anyway i felt guilty for that and when my driving mom lost her direction and started panicking while asking me for help i lost my temper with her too because i was already feeling condemned (if that makes any sense).

i got home to sleep it off while my brother went off to meet whoever it is who was worth more than quality bonding time with the family...but when i woke up and reviewed the fact that a really good morning (and early afternoon) just passed me by, of course i cried. because it was over and the immediate future (dread of work) didn't look too exciting. it was almost like a rerun of the night i returned from church camp and post-camp vacationing.

i couldn't find it in me to go to work the next day and face my giant (basically this really panicky, fretful, hyperventilative overseas boss (who comes from a country with a high suicide rates and insane pace of life, not that that's an excuse for her) who can't wait to harass me when i return) but i was forced to, eventually, yesterday. and boy was i in for it.

i've no idea why i keep coming across these characters in my life so often -- the panicky, fretful, hyperventilative kind. and i always get pissed when i do, because i either become influenced by their behaviour or i feel extremely stressed trying to stem the tide and prevent myself from becoming like them. this time it was the latter.

i was so broken down yesterday and today trying to deal with this woman that i bailed. the final straw was when my immediate boss refused to speak to her on my behalf to get her to lay off:

boss: you're just going to have to deal with it because it's your responsibility. but please let me know whatever i can do to help.
me (internally): like hello i just told you how you could help!
me (externally): *tongue-tied, opens mouth to speak but no words fall out*

i mean, it's really really hard for me not to unload to someone when i'm going through what feels like a crisis. most times i just have to tell someone, which is not exactly beneficial given the fact that i am prone to clinging. (this version of proverbs 24:10 always comes to mind and it never makes me feel any better.)

so yesterday i told the one i'd been clinging to as of late (more like blurted it out). i'd tried to restrain but when i saw him online i was like -- i can't take it anymore. i have to unload. and i unloaded a lot more than my problems. i like, went all creepy on him when i admitted that i have been clinging lately and it does make me feel bad but i can't stop (sorry, if you eventually ever read this).

today i tried to seek support group help. i even tried calling dr scott up (yes, that was me though you never got to hear my voice). and someone eventually did pick up the phone, although she might not be able to help me along further than today due to family commitments. she did refer me to a support group, which i might join if the pyschiatrist thing isn't strong enough to help me break free.

what am i breaking free from? i'll continue in the next post.

here i am (to worship)

2010-06-24T01:38:00.008+08:00

god is really full of surprises. later that same night of my last post (technically the night after, since it was midnight), i got an sms stating that i was up for worship two and three sundays from now (which is basically this coming sunday and the next). after that i knew the rest of my week was going to be just fine...it was the strength i needed to pull through. the joy of the lord is my strength.

the bible passage that the song choices were based on was also very relevant -- isaiah 55 -- from the opening verses rhetorically asking me why i should waste my salary on what doesn't satisfy (read: comfort food, comfort taxis -- pun intended -- and comfort movies).

it is with great pleasure that i can once again blog about the upcoming songs our band will be playing:

Pre-service

1) Here I Am To Worship

Main set

2) One Day

3) Happy Day

4) Amazed

5) I Stand In Awe

6) Made Me Glad

7) I Stand In Awe (chorus)

Post-service

8) 'Til I See You

9) Heart of Worship

finally i can start to feel like i am of some use on this earth again. or at least feel like i'm doing what i was really meant to do. the kind of feeling where you lose yourself totally in the music and you get self-awareness amnesia the moment you snap out of it. spiff used to blog about feeling that way too -- when he danced. (too bad we're not friends anymore. but i digress.)

i mean, no one else but god has any idea what this opportunity means to me: to get to worship god the way i best know how, to be a part of this church's history by playing for this programme, to be able to play for main service again, to be able to play for thousands (previously hundreds), and the bonus of getting to play alongside significant people in my life...i couldn't help but feel grateful.

there was a change in the 9th and 10th song but that's okay. i was listening to the original 10 songs at work and on tuesday the words from desperation band's amazed (the one song i wasn't familiar with) started to really jump out at me in the space between my eyes and ears:

"You dance over me
While I am unaware
You sing all around
But I never hear the sound

Lord I’m amazed by You
Lord I’m amazed by You
Lord I’m amazed by You
How You love me..."

the lyrics sounded odd at best. you just mentioned never being able to hear god singing and dancing, yet you suddenly get amazed by the inaudible god? after a while i realised that this exactly what most of us christians do, after all. the majority of us don't hear god audibly singing or visibly dancing around us, but his Word says we do and because we see the evidence of this god that we hope for (his blessings, mercy and grace), we are amazed that he loves us enough to show it.

"How wide
How deep
How great
Is Your love for me..."

i hadn't been pondering on how wide, deep and great god's love for me was for quite some time so this part obviously got me started. i guess sometimes the simplest lyrics speak the clearest.

so even though i've been feeling like crap this week, what with physical ailments like a dull stomach ache and a worsening sore throat (not to mention the dread of work due to it not going as well as it used to be), i can still be reminded that god is "my very present help in time of need" (from made me glad).

after all, he called all of us specifically to play in this specific set, during these specific dates even before such a youth-oriented sunday programme was ever created. and those he calls he equips, strengthens, justifies, sanctifies -- so i (and anyone else who's involved and sick) am going to recover, and i am going to be present for this event.

p.s. after months of unsuccessful attempts, the practice room was miraculously free for me to use (the person who booked it didn't show up) the same tuesday and what else did i do but go through the song list eagerly...felt like i was getting special treatment from god.

the answer is wait

2010-06-16T20:37:00.002+08:00

i have no words that can describe how dejected and disappointed in myself i feel today. i am so pissed i bought a diary yesterday and ended up throwing it away because the whole noble attempt to rewrite and transcribe history (without the empty pages in between) backfired and made me feel worse (i ended up re-discovering the reason why someone stopped speaking to me last year, which i somehow managed to forget).

i am so pissed i failed to wake up on time today and by the time i did, it was too late to go to work. i am so pissed that i felt like crap and so not like getting out of bed during my second attempt to get to work today. it was cold, raining and the prospect of a ton of work (my own and someone else's) awaiting me was a killer combination to my subconscious, half-asleep mind.

coming back after a week's break was such an anti-climax. if this was a controlled setting, or a happy-ending movie, i would've come back from the break rejuvenated and refreshed, with a spring in my step and a greater resolve to be the best damn worker i could ever be, and this would thus play itself out and i would get promoted and everyone would be so proud of me.

but unfortunately, this is the real life, in which i come back from work tired at being made to go early to work due to transportation problems, and not only do i have my own work to catch up on but i also have to cover for my colleague who went on a week-long holiday the day i went back to work. and no, i do not get promoted for my work, nor do my efforts get acknowledged (and i am not just talking about this week, i am talking about the entire two months i spent covering people at the end of last year and having my own work suffer as a result of it).

as an added bonus, i now work amongst people i'd rather not see anymore because of unpleasant experiences with them. i feel so insecure and alone in my fight for personal freedom from being led along by feelings.

i made an appointment to finally see a proper psychiatrist today, and found out i'd have to wait for a whole month till he was free. the same thing happened when i finally sent my 2-year-old roll of professional film for developing (as in i still had to wait, but the wait would last a week). waiting, waiting, waiting. waiting to get things done, waiting for me to get better, waiting for the world to change.

i waited for an answer on my last day of my break in kl, waited till i fell asleep. when i woke up, i still didn't have an answer to my problems. all i've been doing is firefighting the immediate needs, while having the long-term needs build up in the background. that's what's been happening so far and i see now that i can't keep firefighting as long as the root problem isn't solved, if i really want this problem to go away once and for all.

"Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end."
--Ecclesiastes 3:11

that's the verse a friend's just sent me. sigh. help me out god, i really hate waiting.

future love song

2010-06-05T02:25:00.004+08:00

sometimes i can just close my eyes to the music and just imagine myself hurtling down some road...man, i still love driving (probably as long as it's a luxury, haha). kevin max's crashing gates and passing keepers is in my ears now...he sounds a bit like bono when he gets falsetto some parts:

'cause it's a future love song that we cannot describe
it's such a future love song that we cannot describe
you'll dine on a future love song that we can't never subscribe
it's just a future love song that we can never abide
we're stuck in a future love song and there's no ending in sight

i'm not sure of the second word in the third stanza but i love the lyrics anyway -- this would have to be my favourite song in this eponymous album. jesus is our future love song and i'm glad the day will finally come that i'll finally fully feel like the object of his affection.

4 random cues that make me feel good:

1) when a good friend smiles by accident

2) feeling the cuddly bear that is my dog against my skin

3) observing long dog in deep thought

4) the morning atmosphere outside at 7am

bad day, good night

2010-06-05T01:31:00.005+08:00

i got up today feeling like crap. i was physically unwell, yet i was still forced to come to work because of some stupid handover meeting whereby i go through what work i'll be delegating when i go on leave next week. my ass hurt from crapping so much, after my stomach stopped hurting. and that just magnified every little irk.

my boss waited with me on the lift up, and she made me confess i had stayed at a friend's the night before, because i can't lie to save my life and my facial expression betrayed me when she grilled me on where i was last night (we were both late to work by the way). crap.

and then i get to work, and after spending an hour and a half in the loo, i come out and get my drinks and walk towards my desk...only to see the ex-friend friend walking in the opposite direction, heading towards me (incidentally, he used to sit where i was sitting). since i'm still working out the ex-friend friend definition, i don't know what to do so i look up, down but finally up again to see his reaction as he gets nearer and nearer.

he gave a reluctant smile that looked like a smirk. he then proceeded to chatter with the girl sitting opposite me to my right, while i took out my papers and started up my computer nervously. he was bouncing around all over the place out of the corner of my eye when i was conducting the handover session.

it was like he was saying "i dare you to cling to me, i dare you, na na na na na..." it was like torture, dude; you really tortured me. still, i couldn't help but feel tickled that your mood really perked up after i established that you want no part in my life. (but again, i don't get what the definition of an ex-friend friend is so that's one big mystery that'll have to be unravelled with time.)

i end up in the loo for another round after the handover session, so i try asking my boss online if i can take leave for the remaining half of the day and she gets all amnesiac and asks me to insert a reason in my online leave application. like duh, that's what i did the last time i applied for leave when i wasn't feeling well and didn't want to see the doctor because i just wanted to get home and sleep it off!

i get back to my rented crib, find that one of my clothes has been hung for me even though i am positive i left it crumpled the entire week to remind myself that it should be washed and have maid deny doing anything and have the landlady say in a rather threatening way that "if the maid says she didn't touch it, nobody touched it, we don't touch your things." i'm irritated like anything but not dumb enough to argue about it. i shut the door and K.O. on my stomach (a sleeping position i only assume if (a) i feel insecure or (b) i need to block out the sunlight streaming through my window).

only when i wake up does my ass finally stop hurting, but groan, another mandatory session is at stake -- the last-minute worship practice session i was only informed of yesterday that i could not wiggle my way out of even though i tried asking. so i take a cab all the way to wdl only to have the guard remind me that practice is at bpj because no one's here...so i cab again to bpj. more money wasted.

i get another sympathetic dad-ish cabbie this time, similar to last week's when i was really depressed after being forced to turn back at customs because i forgot my fricking passport. he had the same observation ("you look tired") and the same farewell wish ("don't be sad"). and then i square my shoulders, get dinner and get to practising.

god is merciful and he knows that music heals my soul and makes the body forget it's sick so i get into the music, into god maybe and out of sickness for the whole time i'm practising. after that my peak dips and then it's time to kill time while the next group practises. just before i leave, a fellow cell groupie indirectly chastises me for not wanting to go to his house tomorrow for cell group and a group run. like hello, i said i was taking the weekend to go back home (and anyway i don't want to mention i'm unwell unless i'm forced to!).

it is only after i've settled down at home and watched a whole buncha ian is bored and smosh that i finally start to feel better -- physically and mentally. and both parts of me are doing just fine now though i should be sleeping.

seriously, thank god for anthony padilla and ian hecox...i've been discovering and rediscovering their videos this past two weeks and it's been really helping me get through the nights (and subsequent days). you guys are so hilarious i keep repeating bits of your rap songs in the spare moments of my life (in the shower, in the loo, in the lift, in the taxi) and having a good laugh right after each repeat.

and an indirect thanks to my real life bro whose computer and phone kept shouting "SHUT UP" whenever i walked past, back when both of us were still living with our parents.

re: reaching for the other side

2010-05-16T23:54:00.003+08:00

for the first two of the past three weeks i have been waking up everyday with only one repetitive thought: "my life sucks". it is a horrible feeling and i can think of wanting nothing more than that which is currently unattainable -- mutual company. everyday felt like i was bored out of my wits, just waiting to die.

and then the second day of last week changed somewhat. i actually started to feel better. and then the following weekdays started to get better with the injection of comic relief thanks to ace's hilarious dance routine.

and then yesterday it was all back to normal and i felt like shit again. eventually i started asking god why life was starting to feel like a drag, why it was being sucked out of all pleasure like a dry well, why just about the only things that felt worth doing were hanging out with people (or dogs) i like and having them like me back, which was something i obviously couldn't create or force.

the answer i stumbled upon was unlikely: i am afraid of dying, i think that my time on earth here is limited and in response, i seem to be trying to milk my life for all its worth by spending time (or trying to) with the things that matter most to me: people(or my dogs, which i shall include as 'people' from this paragraph onwards).

and therefore i think everything else in life doesn't matter or is not as significant, and that i am just killing time in between the moments of being in the company of someone i like. so how do i find significance and therefore joy and contentment in these in-between moments?

how do i not equate watching dvds to rotting away for hours and with the dawning realisation that the conversations i was made a part of and connection i felt from those conversations are all fictional?

how do i not see gaming as a liability for me in which i lose my time, sleep and efforts building or fighting something that ceases to exist the minute i snap out of it or accomplish the purpose of the game?

how do i not regard sleeping as a complete waste of time in which i lose the precious commodity of consciousness which is all but present the minute i die (assuming that we all 'fall asleep' till jesus' coming)?

i can't even throw myself into work and start staying in long hours to receive the satisfaction of real fruit being borne in the real world, because my desk-bound job has actually become a hazard for me due to overly bright lighting and bad posture, thereby creating backaches (which i recently fixed by buying and assembling my own ergonomically-better chair) and eyeaches (which i am still in the process of alleviating by lowering the monitor's brightness and not using the computer for so long -- which basically means not working since most of my work is computer-based).

i can't pound my soul out on the piano or make lilting tunes from the heart emanate from it because i don't have one in a conducive (read: private) environment. the only close thing i have is a rented piano at the esplanade, which is not always available, and even then there's a notice on the wall saying i can't play too loud or it'll disturb the readers in the inconviently-situated reading room adjacent to the piano room (i noted that this notice only appeared after a particularly noisy evening of me cranking out fast planetshakers tunes and coming out to find the whole reading room empty).

and i certainly can't make people reciprocate feelings of mutuality for me -- heck i can't even get my dog out from under the car when he wants to be left alone. my friends are so fed up with me that they're either not free to meet me or refer me to other avenues (why don't you get psychiatric help? or why don't you hang out with the others? are the most common), which i obviously would've tried on my own if i wanted to or if they actually worked.

my mind also worked on the following tangents:

assuming we do not fall asleep until jesus comes again and we go straight to heaven and see our dead relatives and jesus himself instead, if that life is so much more marvellous than this one then does it really matter whatever we do here?

what does god view as significant? if he views helping others and loving him as significant, why did he create opportunities for such a lot of downtime when i can't do the former or when it feels sucky doing it? if the downtimes are there as opportunities to love him and know him more, how do i do so and how is he known more by me filling up my time with personal pastimes?

it cannot possibly be that i should keep occupying my time with things to do that i find no joy doing, because that would contradict his intention for me to live an abundant life, i.e. to really 'live' and not merely subsist in resignation to a shell i am condemned to until the bodily death i fear of claims me eventually, right?

so how do i resolve this? i got stuck at this point and haven't been able to get past it since. but then again it's only been a day. and weirdly enough, i feel less repelled by having my time filled up by these 'insignificant' activities. maybe god's been changing my heart if he didn't at least change my head.

reaching for the other side

2010-05-12T20:29:00.009+08:00

Red Eyes
by SWITCHFOOT

What are you waiting for, the day is gone?
I said I'm waiting for dawn
What are you aiming for out here alone?
I said I'm aiming for home

Holding on
Holding on

With red eyes
What are you looking for?
With red eyes
Red eyes

All of my days are spent within this skin
Within this cage that I'm in
Nowhere feels safe to me, nowhere feels home
Even in crowds I'm alone

Holding on
Holding on

With red eyes
What are you looking for?
With red eyes
Red eyes

With red eyes
What are you looking for?
With red eyes
Red eyes

Every now and then I see you dreaming
Every now and then I see you cry
Every now and then I see you reaching
Reaching for the other side

(What are you waiting for?)
(What are you waiting for?)
What are you waiting for?

With red eyes
What are you looking for?
With red eyes
Red eyes

With red eyes
What are you looking for?
With red eyes
Red eyes

(fade back to soundbites from first track)
--
march to april has been the craziest month of impulse-driven events that i can recall...so much has happened that my physical diary reads like a page-turning novel. a friendship bloomed and shrivelled in a month. my desire to serve again in the worship ministry got fulfilled. i heard more rumours about me in two of those weeks than i ever heard in my one year of work thus far. things happened in my life that i never thought possible.

and at the end of it all, i felt so alone in the crowds i was with. friends by virtue of affiliation. i was vocalising this thought two saturdays ago in resignation...and then i chanced upon this song with an unusually hopeful melody for lyrics on what is generally considered a sad act.

thank you switchfoot for going back to your nothing is sound roots. hello hurricane is turning out to be my next remedy.

cullum in the flesh

2010-04-14T00:57:00.000+08:00

went for jamie cullum's concert in sg's concert hall tonight. he was so worth it! he was definitely a gifted entertainer, what with his energetic on-stage persona as well as his looseness with concert hall rules (he brought in alcohol and gave the us the green light to take out any of our smuggled drinks too, and halfway through he took off his shirt and tie to reveal a t-shirt).

the concert ended at 10.15pm instead of 9.30pm 'cos he kept coming back for more encores. he even went to the opposite end of my row (second last row of the arena area) to sing cry me a river (both the julie london and justin timberlake versions)! at that point i was definitely kicking myself for not bringing my camera on the day itself (i was unable to rush home to get it, having gone to the concert just after work).

i mentally kicked myself even more when jamie went back up to the front and made it a mosh pit (he told us to rush as a big crowd to the front so that concert staff wouldn't be able to stop us -- thankfully they took no action). at least i got to record his final song all at sea (my favourite) on my phone =D although i can't transfer it anywhere else since my phone's so ancient it uses infrared and i don't have the cable for it.

i made the queue for his autograph too before it got cut off =) . he drew a piano next to his signature on one of the back pages of the pursuit's liner notes...i've no idea if he did that for the rest, but to me it just made my day ^_^. i also managed to snap a picture of him signing autographs with my ancient phone (i love it all the same 'cos i was quite taken with the fashionable ad that promoted it -- happens to be the same phone bella uses in twilight).

thanks jamie for giving us our money's worth and bringing cheer to what has been an otherwise challenging week for me =D

march madness

2010-03-28T03:28:00.000+08:00

this month has been so full of promise which i otherwise quashed by messing up on these potentially life-enriching situations. not only that, but i now have to face daily, for the entire year, the consequences of my mistakes that i used to be able to avoid.

oh, and i've temporarily moved ~~house~~ room this month. (i really shouldn't have made such a big deal out of it because it contributed majorly to my downfall. sigh.)

strangely, ashamed as i feel, there is a strange calm amidst all the inadvertent craziness i've created. now's my time to grow up and face the music i guess.

relek lah, brudda

2010-02-07T01:33:00.004+08:00

the weeks since the last post have been something like a slight spiral downward at worst. frustration set in because it just seems like i was doing much better when i was in my own little world, without the risk of anyone hurting me (deeply). then i go back to civilisation and it's like...ouch.

thank god for the last friend standing. i might've looked through life with polarised glasses (the transitions kind) these recent years and felt -- often -- that nobody cares, but if there's one thing i've realised, it's that god has always supplied a friend in need. so i've abused that privilege, but hey, nobody ever learnt without making mistakes.

work's been adding to the stress, but thank god the worst week i've had (on financial records) has already passed. if anything, i've come out humbled...and worried for the future. but i will try to relax, as what said friend has just exhorted me to do (the only other person i heard say 'i think you really need to relax' was my favourite, but alas short-lived, colleague).

relax when i set aside time with god and i end up spacing out...
relax when i plan to keep ahead at work and i end up firefighting instead...
relax when i don't get what i want, or it seems like it'll end up that way...

but things seem to be panning out so far, starting yesterday when i walked out into the night with renewed resolve. i didn't panic and i got what i wanted in the little things. so tentatively i might be able to progress to the major things in life...and get the hang of this whole 'relax' concept.

out of the ashes

2010-01-24T01:40:00.010+08:00

"hold up
an old friend
and use him
to mend these trends..."
-- Mend These Trends, South

this week was kind of a bumpy road for me, no thanks to a stressful start to the week, both at home and at work. the rest of the week was spent getting over the hangover of an emo mood. i went a bit wonky and did some irrational actions, but not on a large scale, mercifully.

and i found two unlikely friends as well as some unlikely opportunities to derive sideline support from a few old friends -- hence the stanza quotation above. and i made major headway (i dare say) in working out some personal issues of mine that were the cause of my stress this week.

mostly, i'm so glad i was present at the youth service i was at tonight, because the speaker told me just what i needed to hear right now. that everything is going to be okay, no matter what i do.

the last time i heard that was seven years ago (via a strong personal inkling), despite the circumstances indicating otherwise. and indeed, it did turn out okay -- in fact, better than okay. i ended up undertaking the most exhilarating course of study ever.

ain't God awesome?

2010-01-16T02:16:00.001+08:00

i spent the last few minutes of 2009 on my knees as a symbol of my intended posture to god for the coming year. the next day, i was on my knees -- literally. food poisoning for a week: and all i had was a burger and a vanilla soufflé. dang that soufflé.

good thing i wasn't sick on the eve; did the usual reflections on the past year and all. am happy to say that i really surprised myself last year in terms of personal progress and chalked up a substantial number of firsts -- always a booster for me ('cos who likes a boring mundane life anyway?).

the summation of my reflection was this: i got a better job, and that gradually paved the way for a better life, resulting in better circumstances and a subsequently better disposition. and i know for sure i didn't get the job, or its benefits, from my own efforts.

i mean sure it wasn't all hunky dory and stars in my eyes and dancing in the streets everyday (clearly i seem to be influenced by too many musicals), but to me, there was a marked difference in where i was at last year compared to the year before.

so kudos and amen to God for helping me break through some of my personal barriers. truly, truly, it was my year (of the ox).

sweet sunday

2009-12-06T15:31:00.003+08:00

i am feeling very satisfied and a bit high right now.

am currently sitting in a cozy lounge-like, chocolate-coloured dinery surrounded by pillows and trees (a christmas tree and a plastic one next to it), having just polished off a caramel-filled white chocolate, a strawberry puree-filled white chocolate, belgian chocolate mocha, spaghetti bolognani (almost identical to bolognese), a a coffee-essence chocolate and hot white chocolate. and yes, i am using their free wi-fi service.

heavenly (which is apt, considering this joint is called theobroma, which means 'food of the gods', according to the writing on the wall). and it's sunday, too. hahaha.

just came from a cozy service too at DUMC, and who's to know, the place was filled with visitors from the island where i work. the sermon was on suffering, which is not at all associated with coziness, but i was sitting amongst people from a familiar place, looking at the familiar scene of a packed auditorium, listening to the familiar sound of reassurance resonating from a wise old pastor's speech, so that made it cozy.

this mall i'm in also feels very familiar, since the majority of its tenants seem to have been transplanted from back in sg (something which i haven't encountered here before), so i'm feeling strangely at home in this new place. but in this case familiarity does not breed contempt because the most crucial difference here is, all my stress triggers are left behind. nice.

food for thought (pun intended) to chew on from the sermon (another point of familiarity: the pastor bears the same name as dan the man, haha =p) included:

-praise is a reflection of our attitude towards God in life

-90% of the time, the outcome of a situation depends on our response (no idea about the validity of the percentage, but i agree that this is true the majority of the time)

in the unoriginal words of tom hansen from 500 days of summer, "i'm famished." =D

when age catches up

2009-11-15T02:25:00.002+08:00

my birthday's coming up and it's a wry reminder that i'm getting older yet have not yet attained some of the goals i set out to do in my life. tut tut tut...

thank god for music as an anodyne.

call me idealistic, but when i listen to the songs i listen to and the shows i watch, i envision a future in which i live in a high-rise loft, in some big metropolis, with damn good acoustics for the stereo system. and a car.

nope, not there yet, though the car became a semi-reality this year, what with the world of car rentals opening up slightly for me.

1825 days of winter

2009-10-24T01:47:00.002+08:00

wow, regina spektor really knows how to emote sadness through piano ballads, that's all i can say, haha. hero is so...powerful and tragic. especially when paired with that scene of paul rushing down the stairs when he finds out that (spoiler alert) summer has a ring on her finger.

but then again, it's been an emo week for me. and i just did something so inadvisable this evening, that when i look back it's as if i was drunk when i did it. he was so friendly today (and i was so weary today) that it was easy to ignore the fact that he was married. i didn't do anything wrong...yet. god, what's wrong with me?

what i've been up to

2009-09-21T01:49:00.012+08:00

i've been doing a lot of returning to my roots from the pre-depression era lately...and this is one song that came floating back into my mind. kinda relevant considering the last sermon i heard was one on surrendering (the most catchy but unoriginal quote: an abundant life is an abandoned life).

I Turn Everything Over
by SWITCHFOOT

Monday found me on my knees again
Breathing You in
To blur the lines that mark where I begin
And where You end

No use in trying to pretend
Come take me again
'Cause rumor has it I'm not who I've been
Come define me

What can we do
If the rumors are true?

I turn everything over
I turn myself in
I turn everything over
I turn myself in
There's nothing left of me to defend
I turn everything over
I turn myself in, yeah

The evidence convicts the hollow men
After looking inside
To my dismay I find I'm just one of them

'Cause I'm an already but not yet resurrected fallen man
Come break this limbo
And I know You know just who I've been
Come define me

What can we do
If the rumors are true?

I turn everything over
I turn myself in
I turn everything over
I turn myself in
There's nothing left of me to defend
I turn everything over
I turn myself in, yeah

Rumor has it You love me
Rumor has it the world spins upside down
Rumor has it my only hope is You
And the rumors are true
I turn everything over

What can we do
If the rumors are true?

I turn everything over
I turn myself in
I turn everything over
I turn myself in
There's nothing left of me to defend
I turn everything over
I turn myself in

I turn everything over
I turn myself in
I turn everything over
I turn myself in
There's nothing left of me to defend
I turn everything over
I turn myself in, yeah

--
i like that it's an upbeat song because surrendering is easier when it's done gladly. not that it's been easy, or i've succeeded fully. but i'm getting there, i'm getting there all right.

what have i been up to lately? simple pleasures, like:
-good music. third eye blind, travis, jamie cullum, and for the past week, switchfoot's first two albums =)

-reading. yeah i can't believe it either. i recently tried reading children's books (not the picture books, the compendium ones with lots of text) at the library during lunch. i probably look retarded doing it but who cares? haha. they're the only books (aside from magazines) that i can finish within the lunch hour. i read back home too but rarely on weekdays as my eyes need to rest from working their way through work.

-exploring new places on foot. one bad thing though is it's given me the worst outbreak of zits i've ever had, due to this hot weather. the zit army has taken a break on my face and has now returned to invading the shoulder blades, arms, chest, back and entering new territory like the stomach and calfs! unbelievable. but the feeling i get from fulfilling my wanderlust is...good, haha.

-retro-gaming. currently hooked on perfecting my 100-storey sim tower. it's amazing the double high i've gotten from combining my favourite tunes with games, back in the day. i wonder if anyone else does the same. for example, the killers goes well with well, killing, in tomb raider 3, while switchfoot's redemption turbo-charges my playing speed in harry potter 3. i play john mayer while working on roller coaster tycoon 3 and nothing builds momentum like duran duran's greatest hits collection while erecting buildings and feeding the townfolk in zeus.

and pretty soon, i hope to start bowling, journalling and fooling around with the piano again once my wrist totally heals from the accident. i was actually starting to write a few entries again (hadn't written in what, a year?) till the accident kind of put things on hold. it took me a week to move my wrist around again, a month and a half before i could write without wincing in pain, and two months before i could put moderate weight on it (i.e. carry a mug full of water or holding a plate with one hand while washing it).

unfortunately, i, fool that i was, thought i could carry two grocery bags full of a week's supplies of lunch with the injured hand while the other hand squashed the change back into my wallet. i was suffering the consequences of a pain right in the centre of my palm (like a nail-pierced hand?) for days after, so no, i guess it's too soon to start bowling again. but at least my parents' and my other injuries have more or less healed (just scars remain).

thankfully, my keyboard-typing skills were not affected, although it was a week before i could type without whatever minimal pain i had in my metacarpals (wrist pain not included, although i only felt it every half-hour or so since i wasn't moving it much). which means i had to get my ass back to work on the third day, 'cos my injury was too minor to warrant more than a day of MC.

ah, the accident. all i will say is that it dug up some major fears and evoked a lot of questioning and further soul-searching.

jazzed by jamie

2009-09-06T15:46:00.007+08:00

i think this is like the 2nd time i've been online, wireless, on my new (read: one-year-old, rarely-used) hp tablet. it's a lazy sunday and i made it for service today before the sermon started...yay.

-great, my internet connection just got lost, and my tabbed browsing history just got wiped out. hmm, guess the public wireless service here is really unreliable. a pity since i was listening to jamie cullum on youtube.-

yes, i recently discovered jamie cullum, through the most unlikely source (in my opinion): a colleague whom i'm not even close to. she just shoved me her external hard drive and went, here, take whatever music you want. and so i took whatever caught my eye, and that happened to be jamie's twentysomething [UK special edition] -- the one with the extra set of songs.

it was so good i actually went and bought the CD, as well as jamie's later album catching tales shortly after. yes, unlike most people i still own (proudly) a discman.

jamie's music has been so soothing, like a healing balm for my tired, troubled soul. when i listened to his songs, my first reaction was, i can't believe i could've missed such good music all this while (for it has been, after all, 6 years since twentysomething came out).

i mean, of course i'd heard about the jazz hobbit and saw his promotional trailer when he was interviewed locally a few years back on a business network's morning show. and sure i'd heard bits and pieces of his music whether on the radio or in a film. but i'd never actually heard any of his songs in their entirety and i found that, when i finally did hear them out, i really liked them.

it is a big plus for me as well that he plays the piano in a jazz crossover-to-pop kind of way, because it is exactly the kind of stuff i aspire and try to play whenever i'm jamming on the piano (an exceedingly rare pastime i get to carry out in recent years due to inescapable constraints). and i must say, his songs are just a joy to play on the piano. especially the re-interpretations of covers he does by the bands i dig, like radiohead.

i dare say his music has helped my productivity at work to a certain extent, which was unexpected because as a general rule, i find that playing jazz or slow songs when i work slows down whatever i'm doing and relaxes me too much. but that wasn't the case here. it kept me at a moderate, yet comfortable pace...and i realised that is something i really need right now: to calm down.

and i obviously connect with the lyrics in his songs, be they covers or originals. it helps too that they model a bright outlook on life.

one small bone of contention though, is that his music videos don't quite capture the spirit of his music. some even look cheesy, like the animated shadow figurines in photograph, which is actually a beautiful song to sing, especially the chorus.

on another note (pun intended), i also tried sampling michael bublé from my colleague's music collection, but found i had an adverse reaction to the music. what's more, i am more familiar with bublé's music! haha.

the only song i ever really liked of his was crazy love, probably because it was the only original. i really hate covers when they're done in the almost exact same way as the original, because more often than not, the original sounds better.

i think that's enough of me waxing lyrical about my comfort ~~food~~ music.

see you on the flipside

2009-08-02T00:53:00.005+08:00

Flipside
by THE CLICK FIVE

It's been a long, long time
since everything was cool
I should've seen it coming
but I guess I'm not the only fool

There's something
growin' on the outside
Too much
missin' on the inside

Should I waste my time
and let you lead me on
and on and on and on?

Waiting for the day when I'm complete
Without you
I'm doing what I can to let you be
Making sure

There's nothing showing on the outside
Something's dying on the inside
I'm still broken but I'm free
I'll see you on the flipside

I've got a bruised-up heart
But I'm still hangin' out
I should take it easy
but I'm still gonna get around

There's something
growing on the outside
Too much
missing on the inside

Should I waste more time
when everything is done
and done and overdone?

Waiting for the day when I'm complete
Without you
I'm doing what I can to let you be
Making sure

There's nothing showing on the outside
Something's dying on the inside
I'm still broken but I'm free
I'll see you on the flipside
I'll see you on the flipside

Nothin' showing on the outside
Something's dying on the inside

Waiting for the day when I'm complete
Doing what I can to let you be

Nothing showing on the outside
Something's dying on the inside
I'm still broken but I'm free
I'll see you on the flipside

--
out of nowhere, i just started listening to one of my brother's album collections...and i found that i actually kinda liked modern minds and pastimes after a while. perhaps it's the situation i'm now in that made me more receptive. i really like how the above song was the opening track because it's so relevant in light of recent events.

i used to think they were just another boyband and their only listenable hit was jenny, but i've found that their new singer has quite a unique attribute of 'spitting' words out on occasion like he did with the word 'time' in the first line (and 'coming' in the third) of flipside. haha.

and for some reason a lot of their songs on this album are about with coping with loss. it's good therapy.

the accident, narratively

2009-07-18T02:44:00.006+08:00

it happened exactly like in the movies, which was not what i expected...reminiscent of the car crash from crash.

we were driving along a narrow road and suddenly from the back seat i see headlights getting nearer, then our car swerves to the right, tilts a bit to the left, and glass is flying. and all the time while this plays out there is this deafening silence...eerily just like the movies.

i feel my right cheek and wrist getting bruised before we stop in the middle of the road, with our car parked sideways. for some reason i panic, rub my cheeks and get a bit hysterical...not hysterical enough to lose my mind, but enough to cry without tears. my first thought was to get out of the car since we are in the middle of the road and are liable to get banged up again.

i panic even more when i realise that i can't open the car door, and neither can my parents. gradually people from the squatter houses nearby come out and walk towards us. one of them gestures towards my car door lock..and then i realise it was just the auto-lock working.

i push up the lock from my car door and my dad's (in front of me), and i get out. but my mom's car door is jammed and people have to pry it open for her. my dad can't get up, his leg right leg hurts badly and his face is in both emotional and physical pain. i've only ever seen that look before when someone he loved died...can't remember who.

my mom gets out, and we help dad out to the side of the road. his face is still carrying that look and he keeps saying "but that guy banged us..." that look sort of wakes me up from my hysteria somehow and i keep rubbing the painful part above his right knee -- thank god no blood.

i have minor glass splinter cuts on both legs below the knees but they don't hurt as much as my right wrist...but only if i move it in a certain way. my mom is asking my dad repeatedly "who do i call?" eventually he says to call her sister, while i suggest calling the police, which my dad does. she goes off to call my aunt, while going to the car to get her bag. my bag is already slung over my left shoulder.

eventually my dad snaps out of it and after several long minutes of me rubbing his leg, he is able to walk. meanwhile people are beginning to gather around us..another car who had just come in the opposing lane, passers-by and squatter home owners. the cops come in a jiffy and so does the photographer. pretty soon a tow truck comes by too.

all the while, our car is straddling two lanes sideways, but more so on the left lane we were on, but the car that banged into us is facing us, opposing the line of traffic, on the right side of the road with its right tyre and fender completely severed. the car behind us that slammed into my mother's car door (she couldn't brake in time) is behind our car. the female driver of that car speaks to my parents and leaves the scene quickly before the police arrive.

the guy who banged us is pulled out of the car by passers-by, and that's when my mom and the people realise that he is drunk. he is quick to pretend like he doesn't know what has happened. my mom mentions much later that he actually smelled of beer.

my parents go over to talk to the cops and my dad picks up the drunkard's car bumper to look at the licence plate and slips over the car oil spilling onto the road from that car. my mother screams and that's when i get a bit hysterical until i rush over and see that the liquid covering his pants is not blood, after dabbing a bit of it with my fingers.

my spinster aunt comes after a while...together with one of my aunties from kl and her husband. she has the same mini-hysteria i had and asks how we are -- until she realises we are all all right and then she calms down. after some discussion my parents decide to go to the police station, while my aunties take me to the doctor.

my usual clinic is closed by the time we arrive, a few minutes past midnight, so we go to my spinster aunty's ex-workplace. i message my brother in the car and speak to him further in the lavatory while we wait at the doctor's, because my aunties weren't keen that i tell him what happened.

the doctor cleans my wounds but only gives painkillers and antibiotics for my bruises, saying that the pain on my wrist and (less so) my cheek are just abrasions. then we all head back to the police station. the drunk guy is sitting uncomfortably next to my dad when i ask my dad where he is. my parents later tell me that he was my dad's ex-colleague when i was a kid. really like, eerie.

we soon all go to my matriarchal grandmother's house, where she is waiting anxiously yet silently for us. she puts chinese medicine lovingly on my wrist and provides some also for my dad, who is stubbornly pretending his leg is not as painful as it really is. my cousin, son of my aunt and her husband asks me what happened.

we talk while my mom talks with her sisters about how the drunkard was telling the police we driving into his lane instead of vice versa, and how this would play out. she also washes the blood off her knee that was hiding under her skirt and realises her ankle bruise is slightly swollen.

after a while we take my spinster aunt's car to drive back home. my mom only has to start the engine when the photographer calls. he gives us the good news that the drunkard confessed to driving into our lane (but only on the grounds of reckless driving which carries a lesser charge), which means no more legal wrangling needed. we take a different way home and arrive back safely.

T.G.I.F.

2009-06-21T02:31:00.004+08:00

i literally thanked god that it happened on a friday, so that i had the weekend to get away from it all.

yesterday i was supposed to have a good lunch i thought, treat her out and make us both happy. instead she took the one-on-one to literally one-on-one confront me when the rest weren't around, strangely enough on the very things others were thinking about her, except that she thought those things about me.

my conscience is now clear. i did nothing wrong, people of different neutralities that i consulted seemed to think so too, and thank god i walked away with my integrity intact and the ability to speak up for myself where i usually would be too useless to do so (mind freezes during attack mode), without losing my cool. thank god she didn't shout too, though she very nearly did.

more importantly, i know god knows that the things i was accused of were untrue. although i was so unsure yesterday and it took me a whole day to extricate myself from the wreckage and see the truth: that there was nothing to be afraid of.

it's funny, but when we all started out things were fine. then there was some friction in the group, and two of them had a catfight. i thought i was covering my ass by not getting involved, by talking to both of them yet avoiding them at the same time in some areas. but gradually i realised there is no such thing as sitting on the fence for long. when you're cornered, you have to take sides. and you even get sucked in even if you thought you weren't 'involved'.

initially i tired of this group when i saw what was happening before my very eyes: bitchiness (gossip, backstabbing,betrayal, lies, the like) among girls. this was the very reason i hate hanging out with all-girl groups, i said to god. and yet i am supposed to?

but yesterday night i realised this. bitchiness is eventually going to crop up when you hang out with girls. not with everyone, but in...probably a lot of circles. the thing is how to react when it infects the group. i can just drop this whole idea and run, or i can stay and see things through, and garner experience on how to better handle with bitchiness in future.

perhaps it is finally time where i feel ready to stop running, yet be able to maintain my boundaries and not be a pushover, nor get bitten by the bitchiness bug either.

and thank god i actually don't hate her after everything that's happened; that's never happened before.

sing blue silver

2009-03-22T23:17:00.011+08:00

towards the close of this week, i discovered that i have been inadvertently complaining even though life right now is sweeter than it's ever been for a long time. i discovered that i don't have to be influenced by the fellow complainers around me, or feed off each other's rants in this twisted form of miserable pleasure -- i can choose to buck the trend, and i must, in order to move forward.

so here's something positive: yesterday, i got to watch the coveted duran duran dvd i recently got. it's called sing blue silver (their 1984 tour documentary) and featured footage of screaming girls in 80s outfits and a friskier-than-now simon le bon and andy taylor when he looked less haggard. haha.

i didn't get to see much of my favourite, the keyboardist nick rhodes, because the sound bites section seemed to be mostly focused on simon and andy, but the music -- oh, the familiar music and simon's unmistakable yodel-howl voice -- was prevalent throughout.

it was a steal to get this dvd at the price i got it, and i'm glad i was at the right place at the right time. i got stood up, so i happened to browse a music store, which happened to have a 3-day sale whereby everything was going for half-price, and they happened to stock just one copy of this dvd. talk about a bad deal going good.

time in life and death

2009-03-08T01:49:00.016+08:00

Save It For Later
by SPLENDER

So you're thinking about tomorrow
and all those simple things you think you might like
but you've been tripping in the daylight, you see
well I've been trying to keep things light

So you're looking for approval
to do those stupid things your father might like
well you might kill youself to get it, you see
but it might never make things right
it just might leave you more uptight

And all the things within the world
and all the boys and all the girls
who never seem to get enough
they save it for later, you see

All the saints and all the freaks
and all the strange philosophies
the novelties and memories
they save it for later, you see
they save it for later, you see

So now you're looking for some revelation
but you're still lying there, still in your bed
well I've been spilling with emotions
but have you heard a word I've said?

So you're thinking 'bout tomorrow
by reliving every minute of your past
well I'm just living for the moment, you see
'cause I'm just trying to make it last
'cause I've just seen it go too fast

And all the things within the world
and all the boys and all the girls
who never seem to get enough
they save it for later, you see

All the saints and all the freaks
and all the strange philosophies
the novelties and memories
they save it for later, you see
save it for later, you see

And the best part of my life
is the worst part of your day
And the best part of my song
is the last part you ever play

And all the things within the world
and all the boys and all the girls
who never seem to get enough
they save it for later, you see

All the saints and all the freaks
and all the strange philosophies
and everyone who never speaks
they save it for later, you see

Then all the things within the world
and every boy and every girl
who never seems to get enough
they save it for later, you see

Every time you build it up
and put it in your paper cup
it never seems to be enough
you save it for later, you see
you save it for later, you see

don't save it for later, you see
your life would be greater, you see

--
this weekend, i have learned a lot.

i felt old, i felt time was catching up with me, i felt like i was dying on the inside and making terrible use of whatever time i have left here on this earth in terms of my spiritual pilgrimage.

and then i was made to realise that while i was busy worrying about making a waste of my future, my present was wasting away by this very (in)action of worry.

road trip

2009-03-01T02:52:00.005+08:00

finally, after years of imagining and even dreaming of driving, my dream (literally) came true. thanks to jesus christ, my colleague's credit card and equal appetite for wonderlust, we took a road trip to malacca on V(ictory) day and back with our rented waja.

we stopped by a&w before visiting the a'formosa fort and checking out the stadhuys complex, which turned out to be a three-storey L-shaped museum that was more than worth the 2 ringgit we paid. sure i learned about the stadhuys in history books, but i never actually got to visit the place...and it was pretty cool. they even had a well outside and a bunch of benches and steps from some four centuries before us.

they had sections on the malay and baba culture, and the top floors had even model house stages of malacca through each occupation period. strangely enough, only two rooms had air-conditioned in the whole area and they were located where the british occupation showcase was. i learned about stuff i had either forgotten about (but recalled once my memory was refreshed) or was new.

probably one of my favourite standalone models was the one of parameswara and his dog being kicked by a mousedeer into the stream. it brought memories of me feeling sad as kid that the dog died. haha yet poor thing.

after that we had our dinner at jonker walk and stopped for an impromptu drink at the antique bar (that's the name of the place), a popular ang moh hangout there, and listened to cool 'live' guitar singers while my colleague sipped her skol and i, my shirley temple (both our firsts). someone actually accidentally stepped on my still-healing toe near the area and i had sat down on one of the chairs there, and we ended up ordering drinks and chilling out. there were a few points where we just sat in silence and soaked in the moment -- it was that good.

then we checked out a few shops selling curios to look for my colleague's lamp before the drive home. there were no stars out on that night so it wasn't quite like i anticipated but the road (lit up by our car lights) itself was cool. and music was our third companion -- i had brought my CDs along for the ride. thankfully my colleague and i shared similar tastes. then my colleague left for home.

the next day was incredible because the car rental company allowed me to return it 6 hours later than i was supposed to, for free. it was freedom but i decided to take my family to that faraway new megamall that just opened this year, which kind of sucked (the ride i mean), because my mom kept trying to play driving instructor and dictating which lane i should be in or criticising me if i made mistakes i've seen her make so many times in her driving encounters.

the ride back was pretty much the same, with my father thrown into the mix and me losing my temper (i never once lost the wheel the way my dad used to when i was young, but i did raise my voice). however, the trip there was...worth it i guess. and it gave me a chance to improve my driving skills.

then i dropped them back home while my bro stayed for the ride and i took us on a spin to the bay near town before returning the car. the road to the bay was a straight one, which meant i could afford to rev up a bit. my most blissful moment was cruising along the scenic sea route while switchfoot's learning to breathe emanated through the speakers. (for my colleague it was placebo's sucker love and a bunch of other songs i forgot about.)

we gave the car back and i returned to my ordinary life feeling exuberant for the day.

i read the whole bible, sorta

2009-02-08T02:47:00.006+08:00

i finished reading the (modern) bible aka. rob lacey's word on the street. whoopee. yippee. yay. except that i really began to understand what mouse, who loaned me this book, meant about the bible being difficult to read because it was difficult to follow.

especially today. imagine reading 1 john 2:9-11 (familiar to anyone who has ever heard tait say it 'live' on dc talk's welcome to the freak show) while your brother is being a real pain in the ass. and he wasn't the only family member driving me up the wall.

the past few days have been difficult in that sense. staying home due to a toenail injury (inadvertently caused by my father, which i did not blame him for) with nowhere to really sit up and rest except the living room really turned up the friction level between my family and i.

the only new thing (not something i'd never heard of before but something new enough for me not to tune out) i heard from god this week was that i need to get over my victim mentality in order to be the victor in circumstances like these. but i don't know how yet, though like always, i will leave my trust with god for the resolution to this.

back to finishing the book, which is quite a feat in itself, considering my deteriorating track record in recent years. mouse went out on a ledge by loaning me this book on his own accord, last november. (yes, this pace is considered miraculous -- haha that's how low i've sunken, from my average of three books a day back in high school.)

he decided to lend it to me after hearing my miserable tale of several failed attempts through the years to read the (actual) bible from cover to cover and never being able to get past Genesis. and now i will finally be able to say i have...with the concise, updated version of the bible anyway.

speaking of which, another challenge to finishing this book was the struggle between finishing it for the sake of accomplishment and finishing it for the sake of gaining knowledge in order to apply it. somehow or other i managed to get myself on the latter side of thinking for the most part.

i can honestly say though, that i most looked forward to reading Revelation. it was always a fuzzy book to read because the imagery used brought up a lot of unanswered questions i could never quite resolve or let go of, so in that sense it was the only book in the bible that felt relatively new (i.e. an anticipated read) to me in the sense that i had not read nor understood it as often. rob lacey's translation definitely cleared up a bit of the fog in my head.

as for word on the street sparking further and greater interest in the actual bible -- which was one of mouse's reasons for lending -- er...not to a great extent. but it really helped provide a lot of background to the actual bible, such as where some countries used to be (e.g. babylon in rome), when each book (or scroll, as rob more appropriately uses) was written and the chronology of events in each scroll.

the latter was particularly useful because one of the things that tripped me up often in my bible reading was why i found myself reading something in a paragraph that i thought already happened a few paragraphs back.

and reading poetic stuff like rob's is timely after reading an article on polarbear who was recently in the region to perform poetry slams (a rare occurrence here), including a more famous one of his titled jessica. uncanny, haha.

hmmph

2009-02-01T01:39:00.008+08:00

it occurred to me that i just paid for someone to assure and comfort me.

my father accidentally banged into my big toe and it went all purple, and when i rubbed it from top to bottom, it started bleeding and the nail got all flimsy and i freaked out. called my mom, and for the second time this week, she let me down again.

"aiyah, don't waste money calling all the way here. stop bothering me about it. your toenail is not going to drop off." (repeat loop)

in moments like these, i am start to remember why i go to my friends every time something bad happens. i mean firstly, for me to call you from out of town means you matter enough for me to do that, and secondly, i didn't call just to hear your matter-of-fact tone of annoyance.

so in the end i went to the doctor and he gave me the assurance and comfort i needed. the word 'hypochondriac' comes to mind.

so you see, this is not just about the toe. this is about expectations.

put the past away

2009-02-01T01:39:00.007+08:00

this song came drifting into my head tonight. a budding teen rocker belted it out on american idol this week (surprisingly the judges gave him a "no"), and jim carrey sang it that popular dwarf actor's character who was about to jump, so that helped refresh my memory too. gosh, that was one of the memorable moments on yes man, especially the part where everyone below started joining in.

Jumper
by THIRD EYE BLIND

I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend
You could cut ties with all the lies that you've been living in
And if you do not want to see me again
I would understand, I would understand

The angry boy, a bit too insane
Icing over a secret pain
You know you don't belong

You're the first to fight, you're way too loud
You're the flash of light on a burial shroud
I know something's wrong

Well everyone I know has got a reason
To say, "Put the past away"

I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend
You could cut ties with all the lies that you've been living in
And if you do not want to see me again
I would understand, I would understand

We'll he's on the table and he's gone to code
And I do not think anyone knows
What they are doing here

And your friends have left too, you've been dismissed
I never thought it would come to this
And I, I want you to know

Everyone's got to face down the demons
Maybe today, you can put the past away

I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend
You could cut ties with all the lies that you've been living in
And if you do not want to see me again
I would understand, I would understand

I would understand
I would understand
I would understand

Can you put the past away?
(I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend)
I would understand
(I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend)
I would understand

(I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend)
And I would understand
(I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend)
I would understand

(I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend)
And I would understand

oh...no

2009-01-08T02:02:00.005+08:00

enough with the well wishes, i feel like i'm going to my grave. it's bittersweet, i got what i wanted, sort of, but not really. i thought i'd have my freedom and my personal space till february, but no...i have to deal with the grime of life next week onwards. funny how things seem to work out just at the wrong time.

welcome early mornings, late nights, travel fatigue, politics, depression to a higher degree bordering on insanity, inescapable circumstances and the deafening sound of silence all over again.

sigh, i wish i had a car. i wish i had a loft. i wish i had the choice not to work, or at least the choice to do what i really want to do in life. wait, i can. but then i'd go broke, face the wrath of my parents and probably be found high on weed and dead in some dumpster in the back alley of nowhere.

what is your deal, god? for some reason you obviously think i can handle this bomb earlier, that i don't need the mental preparation or last suppers before i march to my war. and not only that, you pile more on my plate than i think i can handle.

you say you will equip, then why do i feel the opposite? so us weaklings will know who's G-O-D around here, yadda yadda yadda. sorry but i have the opposite reaction. i still feel like a fool flipping aimlessly through your book, and that's after making myself pick it up. what's this joy that paul has that i don't have, and why do i still feel like it's more a lifelong journey of pain and the suppression of pain than one of privilege and gratefulness?

why can't it feel natural to read your letter? you say you will give us hearts with the single purpose of worshipping you. yet i feel anything but single-purposed. i feel dual-minded, with one mind knowing i should be doing all the right things, and the other fighting against it.

why did you make me like this, with this complex? okay so i shouldn't compare but if i don't, then what kind of model christian am i on my own, the one at stage zero?

why do i behave like a child yet not have the faith of a child?

yeah, yeah, life is not always fair, but god is always faithful. and my questions are not always answered, but the Answer is always there.

feelings

2009-01-06T03:54:00.005+08:00

i love watching gregory house every friday night...probably cos he gets me. it takes one to know one. and i always root for him.

i am sad that the O.C. rerun of season 4 ended last friday.

i am glad for papadum; her last sentence said it all: hope and spirituality. hopefully her hope will anchor us through.

i am concerned because i see the same storms coming. and i felt it tonight as i caught a whiff of the kind of moments i will be in pretty soon, in the air.

i think john mayer's heavier things makes a great anodyne for this week.

Something's Missing
by JOHN MAYER

I'm not alone
I wish I was
'Cause then I'd know
I was down because

I couldn't find a friend around
To love me like
they do right now
they do right now

I'm dizzy from
the shopping mall
I searched for joy
but I bought it all

It doesn't help
the hunger pangs
And a thirst I'd have
to drown first to ever satiate

Something's missing
And I don't know how to fix it
Something's missing
And I don't know what it is
No I don't know what it is
At all

When autumn comes
it doesn't ask
It just walks in
where it left you last

You never know
when it starts
Until there's fog inside the glass
around your summer heart

Something's missing
And I don't know how to fix it
Something's missing
And I don't know what it is
No I don't know what it is
At all

I can't be sure that this state of mind
Is not of my own design
I wish there was an over-the-counter test for loneliness
For loneliness like this

Something's missing
And I don't know how to fix it
Something's missing
And I don't know what it is
No I don't know what it is

Something's different
And I don't know what it is
No I don't know what it is

Friends - check
Money - check
Well-slept - check
Opposite sex - check
Guitar - check
Microphone - check
Messages waiting on me when I come home - check

How come everything I think I need
Always comes with batteries?
What do you think it means?
How come everything I think I need

the insomniac

2009-01-05T02:32:00.002+08:00

i just came back from a really long journey and am very tired. yet i cannot go to sleep again. i just cannot. i feel dissatisfied and that is what keeps me up. so i traverse through the online landscape, looking for some semblance of pleasure, the hedonist that i am.

but i find nothing really lasting; if anything, i find a lot of things stinging. there are a lot of things i don't want to think about, things i want to avoid, but one way or another these things always find me.

i know i'm supposed to run to god, to spend time with Him and hide in His Word. but i don't want to, even though i know the answer lies there. it's the same old story.

Driftwood
by TRAVIS

Everything is open
Nothing is set in stone
Rivers turn to ocean
Oceans tide you home

Home is where your heart is
But your heart had to roam
Drifting over bridges
Never to return
Watching bridges burn

You’re driftwood, floating underwater
Breaking into pieces, pieces, pieces
Just driftwood, hollow and of no use
Waterfalls will find you, bind you, grind you

Nobody is an island
Everyone has to go
Pillars turn to butter
Butterflying low

Low is where your heart is
But your heart has to grow
Drifting under bridges
Never with the flow

And you really didn’t think it would happen
But it really is the end of the line
So I’m sorry that you turned to driftwood
But you’ve been drifting for a long, long time

Everywhere there’s trouble
Nowhere’s safe to go
Pushes turn to shovels
Shovelling the snow

Frozen, you have chosen
The path you wish to go
Drifting now forever
And forever more
Until you reach your shore

You’re driftwood, floating underwater
Breaking into pieces, pieces, pieces
Just driftwood hollow, and of no use
Waterfalls will find you, bind you, grind you

And you really didn’t think it would happen
But it really is the end of the line
So I’m sorry that you turned to driftwood
But you’ve been drifting for a long, long time

You’ve been drifting for a long, long time
You’ve been drifting for a long, long
Drifting for a long, long time

new year, new year

2009-01-01T03:49:00.010+08:00

i've tweaked frank sinatra's famous song title for this entry's title. i can think of one new year's resolution already: update one year's worth of missing posts! haha.

for the first time in my adolescent life i actually feel pretty contented counting down at home with the telly on and my family in the next room (sorry but we differ on which country's televised countdown we choose to watch). okay, so part of the reason is because i'm not feeling so well but i sure don't feel like i'm missing out on anything, the way i used to feel countdowns past.

if it is true that how the eve is spent is a symbol of the year to come, then what better way to spend it than in my homeland, with my human and canine (and additional feline) family (minus my brother who's at camp), with the much-needed time and space to retreat and reflect in quiet?

had an unexpected family dinner tonight combined with my aunt's family and a few of their colleagues, which was nice...except for the part where they served white rice. unfortunately, the chinese-course restaurant we were at did not serve noodles by the bowl but rather by the table, and since i was the only one protesting i had to return home and stock up on apam baliks (malay version of waffles) to appease my ravenous appetite.

my uncle and aunt eventually revealed the reason for the surprise occasion: the day of their wedding anniversary! their marriage is as old as me, get a load of that. i hadn't even known these facts until tonight, because we rarely get to see them as they reside elsewhere. their enduring union of two people from two (initially) different religions is something worth admiring.

reflections of the year that would soon end (and now already has) were pretty similar to the ones i had on my birthday. i am relieved to have made it through the twin ordeals of post-terrorist security-tightening checkpoint jams and the two worst cases of sexual harassment i have received in my few short years on one of planet earth's safer regions.

it became clear to me tonight that my parents have no idea what anxiety, anger and feelings of helplessness a sexually-harassed person goes through as they pitied the older woman who was currently harassing one of my uncle's colleagues, a guy around my age. the colleagues were discussing how to dissuade her from hunting down this poor guy and threw in a few innocent jokes at her, and this was what my parents were against and were pitying her for.

it nearly turned into a verbal argument in the car as they stuck to their opinions (mostly my mother) while i spoke up in defence of the guy. of course my cause was personal, i said, having the exact same situation happen to me (let's not even talk about the factory-working stalker from the checkpoint) and of course i discussed courses of action and made the same jokes, if not worse ones because i was so initially bitter and angry that this was happening to me.

plus this was merely the worst of the worst cases i had been dealt with, not to mention the other sickos i had encountered in the past from work and even church. but in the end my mother stuck to her guns and came to a truce of respecting each others' opinions. well, at least i'm learning early in life what the world is like, in the streetwise sense.

with that said, i marvel at how i made it through the longest term (yet) at work despite these trials and others, because i know myself to be weak-willed. for that i thank god for his two verses of the year to cling on to, the patient friends he has put in place and everything else that he has provided -- that whole package made up of providence, grace, mercy, strength, intervention and the like.

in terms of personal-spiritual growth, i have definitely moved forward, albeit slowly and minimally. it does not matter that a few who haven't seen me for some time think i have not changed for the better, as long as god and i know (together with the confirmation of a few fellow believers) that's fine. and that attitude in itself is a change.

i am similarly thankful, relieved and glad that, two days shy of the new year, god has literally confirmed in writing his financial providence towards me. not only is the timing perfect, but also the amount and the place, seemingly so. and this is indeed good news, considering the current financial climate as well as my previous struggles in this area.

i don't know what this year ahead holds, but it looks promising.

and even if it doesn't turn out to be a better change of circumstance, i have hope that my ability to endure will grow, even if growth is slow.

'lofty' ideas

2008-12-09T03:22:00.004+08:00

i've always wanted to live in a loft. my own little personal hiding place. the minimalist furniture (simple yet sleek), the slightly dim yet reader-friendly glow of warm lights (comforting), a flat, non-sagging bed (and a bath instead of a shower) for once and john mayer's room for squares playing in the background.

of course a view from some high vantage point of the city would be great, but...i can do with teak-panelled walls and simple portraits of abstract art. the daybed would be in this corner.

a baby grand piano would be the centrepiece. and i would be playing all night instead of sitting here trying to find the next best substitute of an anodyne. the neighbours would just have to put up with it.

i don't know what i'd be working as...a fiction writer or blank verse poet with time flexible enough to take walks with my dog through parks or late-night jaunts down city blocks? i can't imagine wearing glasses though. maybe i'd be a freelance song composer.

the other temporary bearable mindtrip destination would be in some caucasian countryside where the only house around for miles is mine with my five animal farm (consisting of horses, sheep and five border collies) and grassy knolls all around, the kind you lie your back on amongst daisies to look at puffy white clouds all day.

i say temporarily bearable because my grandma does live in such a nowhere place, but the grass is prickly and ant-prone, and believe me it totally sucks having nothing to entertain yourself with after awhile.

another ideal is to be cruising down the highway, but i've envisaged that in this blog so many times it'd be pointless to recall.

a better me

2008-11-16T04:06:00.007+08:00

it's yet another sleepless night again.

i just finished reading through about a year's worth of old private entries from the pre-depression era. i was quite surprised to find such chirpy-sounding writings after being so used to the sad crap i write nowadays. i seemed so much better before. i mean, i had problems back then that did trouble me -- similar problems in some areas, even, but i was able to trust god and surrender easier than i can now.

sigh. so have i gotten better or have i gotten worse? there are times i wish i never fell into depression, because it's so hard to recover the "quiet joy" (my words from way back) that was lost, even after the chronic depression phase has lifted. and this is one of those rare times.

stuck

2008-11-14T04:01:00.005+08:00

there's one part towards the end of quantum of solace (spoiler alert...duh) where olga's character says to james bond, "i wish i could free you...but your prison is in here (points to his head)".

that is so me right now. bond i mean. except he eventually got out of his prison and i haven't. yet.

comfort food

2008-11-04T02:02:00.014+08:00

last week, i met up with these friends:

chocolate fudge
chocolate indulgence
chocolate mud cake
mocha cappucino flavor twist
cookies 'n' cream
english breakfast tea

i also met a surprisingly tasty broccoli salad (in a mix of raisins and bits of toasted bread) as well as an average-standard ham and chicken spaghetti meal.

thanks to god-blessed good genes and a non-optional lifestyle which involves a lot of walking (shuttling back and forth between two countries is more calorie-burning than it sounds), i can pig out without a conscience. except when i open my wallet at the end of the week and realise i just burned a small hole in it out of my currently stagnant income.

speaking of which, i hate having to start sourcing for income again. the holiday is over and i have nothing to show for it. i blew whatever free time i had and i am probably the same idiot as i was before with minimal change.

shit...all these visuals are making me hungry again. :p

no way

2008-10-27T02:56:00.006+08:00

i was watching dc talk's MTV of my friend (so long) and as i was listening, the second verse onwards sounded like someone (i.e. myself looking at me from the outside) was talking about me, as in describing my current state.

And I remember when you used to say
"Jesus is the way"
I never thought I'd see your light begin to fade

The situation's awfully dim
Should we up and go with him?
No way (no way...one, two, three, four)

We know exactly where you are, and you're gone (my friend)
Don't know exactly where you're coming from
You've gone away my friend
We know exactly where you are, and you're gone (my friend)
Don't know exactly where you're coming from
Have you gone astray? (gone)

Don't think we don't miss you
(We think about you every day)
We still love you anyway
('Cos love don't go away)
There's still this burning question
(I got to know) Why?

honestly, i'm not absolutely sure why either. but i'm finding out new pieces to the puzzle as i trudge along. but there is yet hope...when the song ends each "dead" dc talk member resurrects and gets off from the operating table.

yes, that is me. dying on the inside instead of living the (eternal) life. it's not a confirmative statement but merely one in current descriptive form.

p.s. of course i know the song wasn't written in this context. but such is the reach of the holy spirit.

the same questions

2008-10-16T03:55:00.005+08:00

this is the meaty part of a long email i've just sent out, 'cos i'm too lazy to type about the whole thing.

"i realise that every time i meet up with a close friend it's just a quick fix until the next friend comes along to cheer me up, and somehow i can't seem to find a permanent fix in god. he said maybe i should try spending time with god not to get my fix but to hear him out as a person. i said i realised that but was unable to get past the "isn't god supposed to provide for my needs" part...

...further thinking leads me back to a question i've asked before countless times. so what do i do now, as in am i not supposed to confide in anybody cos it's just me looking for a quick fix to this loneliness and joylessness, but if i am then what about the argument that every human needs to socialise and fellowship? and supposing i don't confide in people any longer, just theoretically speaking, how do i go about being relieved of my loneliness and joylessness by confiding in god? why is it that spending time with god has never been as good as spending time with a close friend? what am i missing that is not allowing me to feel that way, that joyful, not-lonely way?"

okay, so that was more than one question. but i am interested to know the answers. except that the answers i'm receiving are still somewhat vague, abstract and hazy to me. or they seem incomplete somehow.

that familiar feeling

2008-10-08T01:46:00.009+08:00

bad jessica. baaaad baaad person for staying up late. but i can't help it, the music's too good to leave.

i feel...well i feel what i feel, and that's that. i think i'll let J.D. and one of his wise capitulations sum it up.

"I think one of the most universal human experiences is feeling alone. You'd never know it, but there's most likely tons of people feeling the exact same way. Maybe because you're feeling abandoned. Maybe because you realize that you aren't as self-sufficient as you thought. Maybe because you know you should've handled something differently. Or maybe because you aren't as good as you thought you were. Either way, when you hit that low point, you have a choice. You can either wallow in self-pity...Or you can suck it up. It's your call."
-- J.D., Scrubs

i've wallowed for too many years so, suck it up it is for me. oh, and throw in the fact that my 'new' cg of 6 months is still a mystery to me. not that i wasn't partly to blame. but...it's a long story.

i don't feel terrible, i just feel...like something's missing, no matter how many friends i get to know (especially when the Divine Hand tends to sweep you friends away to faraway countries for His own perfect purposes). and i just wish god would give it to me sooner -- except that He won't because i have to discover it for myself in Him through waiting, waiting, waiting on the world to change...oh wait, that's john mayer.

waiting
obedience
trust
faith

oh i've heard these all year but i've been digging in my heels because the cold hard truth always sucks to follow through with.

but then again i've let caesar IV and the internet steal my sleep and most of my quiet time for the past few days, so maybe that's it.

there's just something obsessive in me that must win that game before being able to release myself from its grasp -- and only two weeks ago i was complaining that i had no games good enough to keep me hooked. haha.

post-work reflections

2008-10-07T03:23:00.008+08:00

am i the only coldplay slave around here or is x&y (the album) really good? i haven't sat through viva la vida yet even though i've bought it, but from what i've skimmed through it sounds like it'll take some getting used to 'cos it's so different. coldplay and dido are part of a stack of CDs i've splurged on since i ended work (my version of retail therapy). before i even realised it, i ended up getting a total of 15 CDs in a few days...crazy. not that i've never heard the songs from each album either; it's just that i never heard all the tracks.

i finally succumbed to opening the only chocolate bar in the fridge while watching grey's anatomy tonight -- this episode was about addiction, ironically. speaking of ironic, the person i got paired up with during a discussion of loving people you find hard to love was -- you guessed it -- hard to love. what made it even harder was when she brought up (irony alert coming up again) a subject of which, was the very reason i found her hard to love.

anyway back to the main subject of this entry -- my mini-celebratory post on having recently ended work. firstly, (and this is something my colleague brought up as a form of encouragement while i was still working) i cannot believe i made it through ten months, which happens to be the longest i've stayed at any place of work yet, despite the circumstances around me.

don't get me wrong, i was blessed with the best, most understanding boss i've ever worked for and i really liked the job scope itself, but two things stood in the way. one was the extremely early mornings and strain of travelling long hours under exhaustion. there is a huge difference in travelling when you've had enough sleep and travelling when you haven't. and who knew mas selamat's escape was going to happen and cause the border to be consistently clogged with more pushy, nasty commuters than usual during rush hour?

another thing was -- and this has put the most mental strain on me more than anything else -- the unfortunate sexual harrassment of a colleague at work as well as a factory worker at the checkpoint -- both middle-aged males. unlike previous similar situations, i could not avoid these two as the first one worked in the same room as me, while the other had this uncanny tendency of ending up in either the same walking route, same bus or same queue at the checkpoint as me, on either side of the border.

all i can say is, i am heaving a huuuuge sigh of relief that i no longer have to see these two ever again (hopefully for the rest of my life) -- my thanks to the prayers of friends and my accountability elder during this ordeal. but mostly, thank god for providing supernatural sustenance to see me through to the end of my stint, on top of His daily protection, guidance and help with accuracy and speed on every working day i've spent there.

and i really do thank god He provided me just the perfect colleague to get paired with. okay so it wasn't perfect and we had to iron out a few rough edges midway through (as with anyone who's had to spend several hours together every day with another stranger), but she's as perfect as she can possibly get as a working colleague.

i was grateful for the fact that she was malay (which effectively meant we could both communicate in the same languages, thereby eliminating any frustrations i would usually have with a pro-mandarin person) and was only a year older than i (easier to relate for obvious reasons). not only that, we shared the same taste in music and even similar taste in clothes -- i really, really thank god for that 'cause i didn't want to have to deal with yet another cloned bimbo asking me stupid questions like why i listen to weird music or why i don't wear tighter clothes.

that aside, now that i finally have time to sit back and reflect on how fast this year's whizzed (and how i've barely noticed because i was too caught up with the routine of work), it's been a productive learning experience, i'd say. i learnt how to appreciate the value of time, learnt how to exert greater self-control, learnt to be more patient with people and most importantly, learnt to cope with blue nights. i haven't got the latter down pat yet but every experience takes me closer to the end.

it was tough and of course i do frown upon the times i gave in, was nasty, pestered friends, vented my anger or let my tiredness lead me into an exhaustion-induced depression, but...well i'm just glad i made it through (with a few lessons learnt) and now i get this break to relax, rejuvenate, recover and prepare.

love

2008-10-03T04:53:00.007+08:00

i can't sleep again.
blame dido's no angel album for seducing me to stay.

i was thinking about the meaning of life again last night, and what was a few minutes of actual initial boredom out of mental roadblocks opened up into a one-hour dialogue with god about what was really important in this life (and if i didn't have to bathe the talk would've continued until eternity). wow.

so what is life for anyway, and is there any wrong in eating, drinking and being merry like king solomon in ecclesiastes said? there isn't, because after all He is the One who created pleasures anyway (i'm borrowing from screwtape letters now). so what are the highest pleasures of life, the ones that give you that high feeling that carries you through the thunderstorms and whatnot?

i concluded that essentially the greatest joy is in loving, and being loved back. and god pointed out to me that he belongs in primary equation of this, too. at this point i can think of a ton of christian sceptics who want to point out too quickly that the term "love" as defined by that passage in corinthians is summed up as commitment and sacrifice, and is not a feeling.

i used to think that way, that true love held no love...but then it occured to me at yesterday's point in time that if there's not even a hint of joy, pleasure and that indescribable high you get from loving someone human or canine and the knowledge that the feeling is mutual, then there is absolutely no way that one is going to go far in commitment and sacrifice. and it totally fits in with what paul said about there being no point to faith that can move mountains if he has not love in him.

so with that in mind, i think love does have to have the above feeling, or else it'd be called hate. some might be quick to ask if i am mixing up infatuation with love. i don't know, because one would have to be infatuated with someone to some degree in order to commit and sacrifice for them, even more so god, looking at all the martyrs who sacrificed even their lives for his cause.

and perhaps it has been this wrong perception of what agape is that has been maintaining this gulf between god and i. or maybe it's just me arriving at the wrong conclusion.

blog housekeeping

2008-09-24T02:22:00.005+08:00

tut, tut. looks like i have a lot of cleaning up and updating to do on my blog. i don't know what's with me these past few months. it's not that i have nothing to write, nor that i don't still churn out yarns of paragraphs; it's just, after i write the whole thing i find it too private or not meaningful or too whiny to post it here. so yeah, i have a lot of filtering to do before i put everything up and stop living in a temporary shell.

sigh. speaking of which, over dinner my mom brought up the talk again about our projek terbengkalai (botched project) for renovating the house. of course she felt stressed out talking about it to my dad, which in turn made me feel a little stressed as well. it's been coming close to 4 years since a corrupt contractor, a "friend" of my father's, took up the job to renovate our house (it's in my blog entries around this time four years ago).

long story short, he cheated us by using cheap materials, borrowing construction tools, engaging in shoddy workmanship and cutting corners (claiming this and that cannot be done any other way except in the most crude and basic way). he overshot our budget, his workers smoked and pissed in our now nonexistent garden, so my dad fired the contractor, the house has been left half-done and things remain the same to this day. thank god for protecting us from break-ins, considering one of our neighbours recently successfully got broken into (allegedly by the same unsuccessful previous attempter).

over time, i learnt to forgive and forget (or more like deliberately not think of it), but whenever my mom chances upon the topic (today she suddenly remembered who "borrowed" our metal cutter when my dad wondered aloud where it was), you can feel the frustration and regret in her voice and not being able to complete this project and get this whole house done up for goodness' sake.

there is one circumstance of inconvenience that reoccurs in my mind and frustrates me whenever i have to face it, though. i have been living in a makeshift bedroom for nearly four years, and so has my brother. he has no privacy cos his room is actually an open area, while for me, i haven't had a proper bed nor a likeable place to curl up and read a book in comfort...in four years. which sucks, because i end up wasting my time like today doing nothing at home outside my room as i am very particular about how my 'hiding place' should be like (besides, how do i hide in an open area?).

upon reflection, i guess she feels the pinch more because she is past career-making age and can no longer hope to save up such money since whatever pension the government pays us here is pittance, whereas for me, in the back of my mind i have a rough dream of somehow accumulating enough money to pay for construction fees and fulfilling this unfinished business.

i digress, but i think i'll leave this up, since after mulling over it, i realise i have to start somewhere. hopefully i will update soon, and i bear good news, which is what this blog needs i suppose, after hiding in the shadows of decay, depression and emotional death for...most of this year. gosh i can't believe we've three months left to the end of 2008 already, and i haven't even updated (in concrete posts) since the year began.

[post-entry note: i did update my blog after all...by publishing all the drafts i'd saved. figured it would be better to leave the raw emotions out than to rewrite everything now.]

coming soon: joy

2008-09-22T04:52:00.005+08:00

it's about time this blog had some joy injected in it. and the time is coming...soon. once my joy ride stops tomorrow.

wooohooo!

contented

2008-09-07T04:01:00.009+08:00

i feel extremely contented right now, i don't know why. perhaps it's because i had a very long weekend (evaded that thing called work on friday thanks to my sickness), or that (for a few months) saturdays have always been my favourite slots for watching the telly, or simply because i had a relaxing day today, taking out my (proudly) self-purchased hp touchscreen pc and using up most of the free game sessions that came along with it.

so maybe it is a good thing after all, falling sick.

okay so i felt bad having to miss a wedding, and okay so i feel guilty having to miss church tomorrow (i wouldn't if there wasn't any peer pressure, because i think god understands), and of course i felt uneasy taking a day off work and not being able to squeeze in eight more hours of much-needed finishing up the project, but today i just put it all behind me and gave myself the break i needed, for once.

and it feels like it's paying off now. of all the 100 free trial games i played, diner dash and fate were the closest to what i would find engaging; i'll have to leave out insaniquarium and nitro drive 'cos my brother used up their free sessions. it felt pretty good to hold, touch and doodle around (with the stylus) on the very first laptop (or tablet pc, to be politically correct) i bought with my own money -- it's that independent consumer thing; nothing beats using something you like that you were financially able to afford.

side note: it also helped that i got it at a good deal, with an optical mouse, headset, upgrade to 4GB RAM and laptop bag (all hp products) thrown in, thanks to the second-last day of s'pore's recent pc fair -- probably the first and last time i will be going, no thanks to the crowd, the two-hour wait for the taxi back to jb due to terrible traffic congestion and this commanding biatch (see post script) i met while doing my rounds as i checked out what each booth had to offer.

kind of like my baskin robbins ice-creams, the hmv on-sale CDs and the my chocolate indulgence cakes. the wrong impression would be that i splurge and i get these things often, but that isn't the case. it's just, lately comfort food has been...a source of comfort to me. an affordable comfort that i am able to get on my own, anytime i want, to ease me into something close to bliss. thank god for good genes providing high metabolism and (a blessing in disguise) daily exercise in the form of speedwalking through the customs crowd every day.

back to after the tablet pc. (oh and i slept well, i woke up late but not extremely late.) grey's anatomy was supposed to come on, but instead they had this mooncake festival concert in this alien language called mandarin, so it gave me more time to match egyptian runes in some pyramid bejewelled-style game.

cashmere mafia was up next, which, though no match for its tv slot predecessor, private practice, was better than nothing. then came beverly hills 90210 (not the new one, the very first season). at first when they announced they were showing the rerun i was rolling my eyes like the rest of the family, but watching it again is different this time around, 'cos i was a kid when that show first took off.

the only thing i remembered as a kid was that jason priestley was hot and it was this show about students. ahahaha. well my memory did serve me well, but of course this time i am able to understand the dialogue and i now see why they compared my favourite O.C. to this show -- the similarities are obvious. (note: i can understand why the final season of the O.C. tanked...the storyline became just too illogical for suspension of disbelief to continue to take place.)

yawn. i'm tired so instead of tying up this loose end i am going to stop abruptly and retire contentedly -- basically soak in this passing moment before i wake up and go back to the grind.

p.s. "commanding biatch" -- she is the icon of why i hate the average girl. she recommended a laptop but someone else was perusing it, so while waiting i wanted to ask related questions but she cut me off and said in a really rude tone of voice, "let me explain the specifications to you first" like some madame hitler. and after rattling off whatever was on the brochure (as if i am blind or like a child in dictation class), i asked if the laptop in question could support games. "yes, but research shows that playing for hours on the laptop can spoil your eyesight." like, what kind of promoter are you to talk bad about your product and who are you to wrongly prejudge that i am an avid gamer?

tv and movies rave/gripe

2008-08-23T01:21:00.002+08:00

i've been feeding off the x-files: i want to believe and 21 in place of the usual. i would've liked to see the x-files more than three times since it's the series i grew up with and i practically looked up to scully as a role model, but i had no idea they'd have such a short run in cinemas (plus i was unfit for a week). and today marks the 4th time i've watched 21 and the end of five days of food poisoning effects. blame our local pizza hut branch and its rotten cheese. i basically paid through my nose for a single meal just to fall ill!

but enough of that. right now i'm listening to the quick-paced whistling song that is peter bjorn and john's young folks -- which not only appears in 21 but also in grey's anatomy and gossip girl (i'd know cos i watch these shows)...and last week i was hooked on mgmt's time to pretend: also in 21 and gossip girl. i know, someone who loathes gossipers watching gossip girl? well i have to admit, i hated the whole hierarchy of biatches thing that's evident wherever girls or women cluster (annoying or what?), but right now as there's no O.C. i'd say this is the next best thing.

speaking of which, the O.C.'s final season does suck. i can see why the series tanked: it's really beyond believable how ryan would hook up with someone who was previously portrayed as this anal, seth-crazed geek immediately after the death of his on-off girlfriend marissa.

why did you let her die?

2008-07-20T05:42:00.001+08:00

it's exactly one week since my girl dog left this earth and the grief i've been suppressing is bubbling over.

wouldn't it be nice

2008-07-13T02:26:00.011+08:00

wouldn't it be nice if ~~the world was cadbury~~ god took the form of man, spoke to me face-to-face and went out for drinks with me, was available anytime, was able to carry conversations well because we were on the same wavelength, knew what i was thinking and therefore how to respond, reciprocated in kind, enjoyed my company as much as i enjoyed his (or more), made me laugh and laughed at my jokes, advised me on every tough situation, encouraged me when i was down, shared secrets, spurred me to do things for a greater cause, stood up for me when i was getting shot down, served justice to those who done me injustice, did the things i liked to do together and introduced me to things he liked to do?

oh wait, he already did become a human being. but that was way before my time or yours. so how do we relate to god now in the current age? do praying, reading the bible and devotional materials or christian literature, spending time in silent reflection and observation, listening to sermons and gospel or religious tracks, attending christian events, serving in church or community, sharing and praying with fellow believers, following and obeying really help us become close friends with god?

apparently not, for it is not the doing that helps but rather the intentions and desires behind doing these things that matter to god. in short, god looks at the heart (1 samuel 16:7). he calls us his friends if we do what he commands (john 15:14) because that is how we show our love for him (i forgot the verse). but my heart isn't doing too good these days. i don't always obey, but when i do obey, most times i don't feel good obeying. in fact oftentimes i get frustrated doing the right thing because sometimes that entails having to suffer.

so what is strong enough to motivate us to obey, or to do all of the above? because we love him? but what happens when our love fluctuates, doomed as it is to because of our state of imperfection? a set of sermons i was listening to this week brought this up, and the preacher's answer was that we do obey not because we love him, but because he loves us (paraphrase of 1 john 4:19). in short, knowing we are his beloved causes us to respond in love by obeying.

so, how do i know i am his beloved...as in really feel that way?

when past affects present

2008-07-06T03:35:00.009+08:00

i saw a blast from the past on friday. it has been seven years and you haven't aged one bit, as if to imply that you are still the same. i saw a more recent relic from the old days two weeks ago, also on friday. it has been one year and you are still as cold as ever. got me thinking, what is god's point in causing me to bump into people from my past again if all they do is add salt to wounds that have yet to be healed?

i bailed today. i did what i wanted last night. i slept at 6a.m. without meaning to and today i ran away from everyone. while it felt good initially, both these things, it sucked when they ended.

it's been a long time coming, this feeling that nothing satisfies these days. i don't get what i want, and although i try to put substitutes in place they can't compare to the real thing. and i get frustrated, or swing the other way into depression.

i know god causes this to happen because he wants to wean me off wanting anything more than him, but on the other hand the journey back to him seems arduous and dry.

last sunday i went to hide out...in my own church. and something in the sermon made me experience a personal transaction with god, as in it was two-way and not just one...i haven't felt that way in a long while*. i walked in hopeless and i walked out with hope.

(*i hate just feeling like i'm talking to the wall whomever i speak to, including god. makes me feel useless and unwanted if i don't get a response from the other side. if the other party wants to ignore me they might as well kill me.)

the speaker, incidentally, was instrumental in introducing me to the church i am now in. the things he said that stood out:
-our past characterises who we are
-we are consumed by the events happening in the present
-sin is when we displace god in our lives

but then again everything did stand out 'cause it was a youth-oriented special service and there was an ongoing skit illustration on the side...plus he's a natural comedian, to boot.

the punchline has got to be the end where he said god wants you (or us, but 'you' sounds more direct) to live not in your past, present or future but in the eternity. it figures since the ministry he leads has that word as part of its name, haha.

but seriously, it was so hard-hitting and really what i needed to hear at this crucial time and point in my life, especially after the previous night's sleepless night of sifting through my old blog entries for some semblance of hope to cling on to.

as i sat down and listened to the sermon, i also got an incoming message from on high lending me greater clarity to this present haze of life: i am currently in a state of learned helplessness. so i have to unlearn everything i've learned for the past few years...which is difficult because everything has become a habit. the source of this condition was also revealed.

so that was last week. and today? today i actually read 10 chapters of a book. i haven't picked up a book (that doesn't belong to the bookstore or library) and read that much of it, much less finish it, in close to two years. i feel so inspired.

i felt a lot better after reading it, and i knew i would...but i couldn't find the will in me to just do it all this while, the same of which can be said for me needing to get out of my current condition.

but i know this all too well -- i read, i get taken in by the book's story or main plot and start to enjoy the ride, i reach near the end, but i don't want it to end so i keep putting off reading until i forget what i've read when i want to return to reading, so i start from scratch again. and the cycle repeats itself.

sounds reflective of my life, with a few amendments here and there. it's easy to start well but to end well is hard...strangely enough my non-christian colleague was the one who reminded me of this when i was griping about work.

anyway i have to exit.

comparisons of me

2008-06-29T02:51:00.004+08:00

is this even the same me i live with nowadays?

"so, the best thing is to enjoy the wait while you're at it. the way i see it, if i have ten years of waiting, i have the option of feeling and acting like those are the worst ten years of my life, or i can choose to make the most of it and, while i'm at it, maintain a positive outlook so that at least when those ten years are over i won't have to look back and think what a stinking waste those ten years were simply because i didn't feel like doing anything but mope."
--rumination, 20/3/06

sometimes thinking less is better cos worrying or harping on about something that's out of your control is just a waste of the precious time you've been given to enjoy yourself until that worry comes.
--tonite, 31/10/04

it's like the longer i live, the more faith, hope and optimism get sucked out of me. i feel kinda sad for me...if that makes any sense. but then again as i read through my writings, i feel encouraged...by my own words. it's as if i'm sandra bullock's character receiving writings from a guy from another time in the movie the lake house. haha.

i also found this, which is weird 'cause this could have very well been written this year:

i hear the word TRUST and FAITH calling out their names. especially faith....what is faith? to hope in something that is already available? to be assured of the things one sees at the present moment? it's hard to swallow initially...especially when the fear of things turning out for the worst looms ahead, but i believe what god's trying to tell me is, with practice, i can eventually learn to trust Him about my future.
--tough day, 9/4/05

in the struggle

2008-06-22T01:44:00.009+08:00

I Will Remember You
by SARAH MCLACHLAN

I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don’t let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

Remember the good times that we had?
I let them slip away from us when things got bad
How clearly I first saw you smilin’ in the sun
Wanna feel your warmth upon me, I wanna be the one

I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don’t let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

I’m so tired but I can’t sleep
Standin’ on the edge of something much too deep
It’s funny how we feel so much but we cannot say a word
We are screaming inside, but we can’t be heard

But I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don’t let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

I’m so afraid to love you, but more afraid to lose
Clinging to a past that doesn’t let me choose
Once there was a darkness, deep and endless night
You gave me everything you had, oh you gave me light

And I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don’t let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

And I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don’t let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories
Weep not for the memories
--

anyone who knows me knows i don't play sarah mclachlan or corrinne may 'sad ballads' unless something is very wrong with me. and it is. i am tired. and i have lost the will to do the things i must do. i have no direction, i have almost no hope, i have no confidence in myself to pull through.

every day is a drag. where i once didn't feel the pinch of low sleep levels, i now do. it's amazing what the loss of a vision, a passion or a reason (or incentive) to carry on can do. suddenly everything just feels that much harder or more impossible to do...and just that one bit more makes all the difference.

when i look back, my life is full of regrets. even if i just look at the duration of this year alone, i see myself having failed as a good daughter, failed as a faithful friend, failed as a reliable christian soldier in this war we're stuck in.

but after plowing through all that, i realise the problem is not because i keep failing; it's because i keep giving up too easily. i get easily discouraged and don't feel i have the mettle it takes to overcome all things even though the Word says this is true.

so okay the Book of Life did add a clause: everything must be overcome through Christ who strengthens us (phil 4:13, 1 john 5:4). but what happens when you feel so far away from god, let alone people? i feel this increasingly so: not that god doesn't speak, but when he does the words fail to sink right in.

someone told me He's shouting in my ear, judging from the pointers i've described having received. so what is my problem -- how do i remove this invisible barrier that's preventing His words from penetrating into my heart and healing me?

i flip open the psalms on the advice of a friend and 'chance across' this:

"The Lord is near to those who are discouraged; he saves those who have lost all hope."
-- Psalm 34:18

so i was right, He hears. then why do i still feel so ill-assured and incapable of rising to greatness amidst these tragedies?

stop and stare

2008-05-19T02:14:00.002+08:00

thank god tomorrow is a holiday in these parts.

"Stop and stare
I think I'm moving but I go nowhere
Yeah I know that everyone gets scared
But I've become what I can't be, oh

Stop and stare
You start to wonder why you're here not there
And you'd give anything to get what's fair
But fair ain't what you really need
Oh, can you see what I see..."
-- Stop and Stare, OneRepublic

i don't tend to blog diary-style (following chronological events for the day) here, 'cos there's more to summarise than a day's findings and i don't feel like writing down every detail of what i did for the day, but i will resort to this method tonight (an abridged version) because this single day's actions seem to best sum up what i want to write on.

late morning
i wake up. late. so already the day starts in a not-too-happy-with-myself mood because i've slept through an important meeting...and am about to sleep through church too unless i force myself up. my phone is dead (i should've smelled a rat when it died during three attempts to charge it yesterday), so instead of hearing three alarms (and a miscall from kay, who agreed to it since i've been oversleeping through the past three weekend occasions) i only hear one.

i blame myself a bit for sleeping on the spare mattress in my parents' room (the only air-conditioned one). usually i can't stand dry air because i either get woken up intermittently by a dry throat and blocked nose, or sleep right through until kingdom come because i'm too sluggish to get up. but on rare occasions such as last night, the night's stifling heat gets to me and i have to move in.

early afternoon
i reach church late, but thankfully just in time to hear the sermon part of the final service. at first i listen with keen ears but as it wears on, the sermon ends up taking a mental toll on me instead. it just so happens that today's topic has to do suffering...even though the title itself mentions no hint of it (about finishing well).

a lot of what the speaker says is painful to hear even though the verses he gives are meant to encourage. he says stuff like god never gives up on you though people will, there's no other way to spiritually mature than to undergo the crucible of fire, genesis 50:20 (what was meant for bad god intends for good), how god wants to change us to be more perfect, 2 corinthians 4:17
(temporary troubles for eternal glory) and so on. ouch.

i say ouch because it's like a refresher course on what god personally revealed to me during the first few weeks since that terrorist escaped and made life hell for me every working weekday morning at the checkpoint...meaning every word he says carries weight -- memories of tough times, the emotional and physical crap i had to go through, etc.

but the killer had to be when he asked us all who we found hardest to forgive -- i knew who it was the split second he asked -- myself. it really made me feel like shit to be reminded of my lifelong struggle against self-condemnation due to the perfectionist in me.

so by the time he's done i feel quite exhausted, mentally -- which was obvious to at least one of my groupmates, who asked if i was okay 'cause i looked tired. i said i was just feeling insecure. during the short walk with them to lunch where those who came happened to be engaged in conversations with each other, i felt like a loser already. i think part of the tired look was a sign of the inward tension i was facing as i was trying to remind myself i was useful in god's sight and god was with me as i walked.

i knew it wasn't their fault because i didn't really know them long enough to forge one of those time-tested bonds where a conversation bounces back and forth with little effort, and i knew it was because i wasn't my usual boisterous self (not exactly an admirable quality either). thankfully over lunch, partly due to initiative on my part, i ended up

week 11 milestone

2008-05-18T02:58:00.002+08:00

thank god i made it past week 11 of checkpoint woes safely.

checkpoint woes part 3

2008-05-04T03:28:00.008+08:00

"The most difficult phase of life is not when no one understands you; it is when you don't understand yourself."
--pravs j

how true. i suspect it is true of everyone else, but for me i just know that i almost always find myself in this position -- so lost, so unsure of myself, so...'extra' on this earth. like i just don't belong nor fit in anywhere, even though it looks like i do at times. perhaps the only place i fit is in the uncategorisable pile. haha. ha.

in a weird way i guess the pastor (of the church i recently attached myself to) was right when he said oftentimes we subconsciously associate our work with our identity, so much so that when our work disappears, so does our identity...or at least it feels that way. i call it weird because he was referring to careers and jobs as work, but it recently occurred to me that work could be taken to mean the things i do (in this life) as well.

it's always been the same thing -- if no one seems to need me or acknowledges my presence, i feel useless and i leave whenever i can. there is no "hey, i'm useful on my own (as in when i'm not being tended to) 'cause i'm a vital tool in god's giant toolbox".

i don't know everything about my psyche and how it developed as a result of what i've been through, but this much i do know: i'm always needing the same things in almost every situation. and i'm never satisfying my needs on a permanent basis because i haven't learnt to be contented in Him yet.

and because of this i have 'problems' that wouldn't really be problems if i saw things a different way. (i'm not talking about genuine problems that life throws at us from time to time.) either that, or i cannot find a way to solve unsolvable problems, which frustrates me.

the daily morning rush hour at the checkpoint is an example. next week will officially be week 10 since that terrorist escaped and things are not getting any better -- in fact, they've worsened over the weeks. the past two mondays (mondays are always the worst) i have been so traumatised by my unpleasant experiences there that i could not even come into work until after lunch. (i don't believe in going to work if i know i am not going to be able to focus on work and will probably spend the day being a terrible employee.)

and there were other days in these past two weeks where i have really had to sit down for a few minutes and wrestle with god over going to work because of this -- times where i nearly never made it to work. the people at the checkpoint are beyond rude...they are just pure evil. they just wanna get to work on time and will do so by any means possible -- even if it means injuring others along the way.

i have never been pushed, molested, stabbed, kicked, punched, sworn at and challenged to fights to such a concentrated degree before (so many incidents in such a short span of time). and i get no rest, because i find myself waking up earlier and earlier every week only to find that this mob from the bowels of hell is always there before me and will remain there to beat the shit out of me until i arrive on the other side, unintentionally late for work and in a state of shock yet again.

the situation has been so bad that even one of the officers in charge of stamping passports lost his temper as he tried in vain to get the mob to line up. his colleague couldn't do much, regardless of her "semua nak kena lokap 'ni" (all of you are asking to get thrown into lockup) threat. i did kinda wish she would take it up though, then at least there'd be justice for frustrated law-abiders like me.

a side note on that: is it just me or do i seem to have an invisible Cut My Queue sign on my forehead? 'cause i look around and i don't see any of the potential weak links being exploited. not the old lady, not the short guy, not the primary school student -- just the seemingly unassuming, post-depressive (read: happier-looking) me.

one of the worst things was having to witness my mother being sworn at by two motorcyclists as she dropped me off at the jb border. "c****" erupted from the left and a resounding "f***" followed on the left as these two hooligans zoomed past our car just so they could go the front and cheat their way into the car lane in front. honestly, if they didn't fly away so fast i would've shouted the same at them regardless of whether they returned to beat us up or not. it's one thing to piss me off, but when i see someone i care about getting pissed off, the anger is doubled and usually the other party isn't the one who gets so riled up.

okay, my time is up and this post is already long enough so i'll leave it at this.

checkpoint misery summarised

2008-04-28T00:35:00.005+08:00

five things i have to accept:

1. people at the checkpoint (be it jb or s'pore) on rush hour in the mornings are made out of pure evil -- everyone fights to get their way at the cost of others.

2. mondays are the absolute worst in this regard. you wake up earlier than usual and can still expect to arrive late to work (thus a pay cut) and have people jostle you like you're in some poverty-stricken third world country.

3. i seem to have this "cut my queue" face because i don't see anyone else being targeted -- not the old lady, nor the short kid, no, just me and my unassuming, post-depressive (read: happier) look.

4. i also seem to keep waking up earlier and earlier every week (hoping to avoid the mob from hell) only to find that, so does the stupid crowd that joins me in crossing the border. urgh.

5. deciding to keep longer hair and a slightly more feminine appearance does not pay off in rough places. time to toughen up.

week 7 milestone

2008-04-20T01:54:00.005+08:00

week 7 has just passed. before it started, i prayed that this week, with this number of perfection, would be markedly different from the other six. and it was...in a bad way. so basically i got what i asked for, but not what i wanted. seems to have been the theme for this week...hah.

u2's line from original of the species comes to mind:

"I’ll give you everything you want
Except the thing that you want..."

note: just found out it was written for The Edge's daughter about her growing up into an adult. how apt, cos i feel it's like my Heavenly Father trying to do the same. my prayer requests and surface-level desires were met, but the deep yearnings of the heart were not.

but then again, looking back, this week could have either been an opportunity to enter a deeper level of faith or a stumbling block, depending on my reaction. unfortunately, i let the latter happen. i did everything (or at least a lot of things) i was told not to do. and then self-condemnation took the opportunity to creep in the minute i stopped guarding the door to my heart. i only noticed this intruder very late into the week...which could only lead to more self-condemnation or the resolve to get a move on.

i was telling god on tuesday that i would rather forfeit all the requests he fulfilled throughout the day if he could just fulfill the one request i really wanted to see answered. but later on i realised i just wanted to have my cake and eat it too...which was possible, if only i would believe and wait long enough for Him to act.

so what was the purpose of giving me seats in jam-packed buses to sleep in, people i wanted to see and so on, but not giving me the satisfaction of reassurance? it now looks like it was because god was trying to tell me He could be trusted. who is He, the Creator of everything, that He should tell me such and who am i to doubt this Being whom i say is so great?

i guess that's how i know He really cares, because like any normal Christian, i struggle at times to believe His promises. what's not normal about me is that i tend to

[post-entry note: i will never know what i intended to write beyond this point because i have long forgotten...i originally left this post unfinished as a draft.]

checkpoint woes part 2

2008-04-07T00:02:00.005+08:00

warning: (words of) anger will follow before resolution because i know if i don't let this out i am going to explode in the next few days.

"Unfortunately, the cost of forgiveness is too high for many people. Consequently, they invent and turn to cheaper versions of forgiveness, ones that will enable them to "feel" or "think" better about themselves -- or simply to "cope" with their situation -- without having to engage in struggles to change or transform the patterns of their relationships.

But Christian forgiveness requires our death, understood in the specific form and shape of Jesus Christ's dying and rising. For as we participate in Christ's dying and rising, we die to our old selves and find a future not bound by the past."
--L. Gregory Jones

if that's the case, i've been dying to self a lot (or at least trying to) this past week. i guess with the previous week's opportunity to rest, i'd blindly assumed nothing bad would happen to me, that somehow by some supernatural force no one would step on my toes at the checkpoint...or if they did i'd have the inhuman ability to just forgive them and move on.

clearly, i was wrong.

bad things did happen. and i got so pissed and broken down again. monday night was bad enough...further developments on the home front. and then tuesday was the bomb....i really had it with all these people trampling me down at the checkpoint. at one point it got so bad that i had to yell "stop pushing!" because a few idiots at the side were pushing everyone so strongly that i almost got swept away from my queue. that was when three people cut my queue, after i finally managed to get into one at that crevasse full of overflowing people at the thumbprint access area.

so i, feeling unfairly wronged again, decided to try the tactic i tried last week on the smiling cheat. i refused to let the last person through and tailgated the second last person the way my mom does it when a car tries to cut into her lane. unfortunately, unlike last week, the person didn't back off. this feisty young twenty-something finally spoke up in mandarin, an alien language to me, at some point when it looked clear i wasn't going to budge.

so i responded in english. i said it wasn't fair that i lined up all the way from behind. i said i had already let the front two people go...and now i had to let her through too? she actually gave me a pissed look, muttered further stuff in mandarin, and actually started shoulder-shoving me out of the queue. of course on instinct i did the same...add shouting from both parties and you get everyone staring at you.

thank god the guy in front of her finally said "nevermind, you stand in front of me okay?" and i just gave her a pissed look while she kept scolding me in mandarin, and i moved in front. the next few minutes this b**** behind started swearing and cursing at me in mandarin. i really thank god i don't understand the language otherwise i would've felt way more hurt. the only english word she knew was the F word and even then she used the wrong tense for it, so i wasn't angry by then.

in fact i was more scared that she would retaliate...like that crazy lady in january who whacked me with her jacket when we reached jb town all because i apparently injured her wrist, without me even knowing. so i decided to hide in a slow bus line...which made me super late for work. to make things worse, that happened to be the first day my company decided to enforce the logbook sign-in rule (thanks to one of the temps marking his attendance for the one week he wasn't around), which means my lateness gets reflected in my hourly pay.

and when i exited the mrt, another woman who was rushing for the train banged her stupid bag into my right pelvic bone even though i tried to avoid her. that pissed me off so much because her bag, just like an average ladies' bag, weighed a ton of bricks and hit me with such strong force that i was in pain right until friday every time my bag got slung around that area.

i was so upset i couldn't focus on work for an hour because i just could not compose myself. i was crying out of anger and out of hurt. i felt so wronged and that i wasn't vindicated, and that god wasn't punishing these people and they were getting off scot free. i felt so tired of having to wake up earlier and earlier for work and having to go through all this shit every day and not knowing when it was going to end, because the news says the checkpoint authorities will remain vigilant until that terrorist guy gets found which is like, never...or at least a year until the money to keep this going runs out. come to think of it, i felt the exact same way two weeks ago.

just when i thought it couldn't get any worse, another guy cuts my queue the very next day, this time on the jb side while i was lining up for the bus. i know i was told to just give in, but i wasn't thinking again (and i still wasn't really keen on the idea of allowing myself to become someone's doormat) and asked, "can you line up?" in an annoyed tone of voice. thankfully he stepped aside and lined up behind me before leaving the queue after a while, because if he had gone against me i really don't know what would've happened...it's very likely i could've ended up in the hospital.

and then today, this cleaning lady in jb just had to wipe someone else's koay teow onto my bag...and when i told her to wipe it, she smudged it all over the bag and then walked away quickly when i asked her if she had a wiping cloth. i got really pissed at her attitude, ignoring me like that. it took so much in me to just walk past her and not do something to her cos i was really at that point of wanting to retaliate.

i had the bible in my hands and the only mental bookmark i could remember to flip to was ephesians...but somehow it just didn't seem to cool my anger. okay, so maybe it did because i didn't walk up to her and give her an eye for an eye, but i still didn't feel settled. i prayed and prayed...with the end result being a numbness to feelings, but there needed to be a resolution.

i went to the christian bookshop one level below and sourced all the books (within my sight) on anger or forgiveness...and it seems the central theme they have is that the way to overcome anger is to forgive, and that to forgive is to cancel a debt someone owes but will never pay you back. the books also reiterated something from scripture i keep being reminded of by friends but still fail to comprehend: just as jesus forgave the underserving me, i am to forgive the undeserving others.

i still find it hard to swallow, but one of the books offered some form of restitution for me when it offered the suggestion that i must look at it from the viewpoint of having already gone through this phase "with the eyes of faith". it also reminded me that "this small and temporary trouble we suffer will bring us a tremendous and eternal glory, much greater than the trouble." (2 corinthians 4:17) how i keep forgetting that i do not know.

so from that, i can glean that i should keep looking to the future to make going through this tolerable. and i should probably come to the checkpoint with the mindset that i am going to be wronged again...and pray real hard in preparation for it.

and earlier on as i broke down before god, i found there was more in my heart than i knew of this issue. i started with the "i'm not being vindicated" complaint which led way to "god, you're not protecting me...you're supposed to, it's your role" and "god, you don't care" and me wincing in emotional pain as i recalled feeling this very way about my biological dad...yet i felt this strong dissonance when i said these things about god, because deep down i knew He had and always has been protecting me and will always care about me and love me for as long as i live.

let's see what happens in the 6th week of the checkpoint's human pileup since the authorities decided to tighten security.

one month milestone

2008-03-31T01:01:00.006+08:00

i can't believe it's already been one month to the day i made the pledge to re-learn what it was like to depend wholly on god. what started out as a tentative one-week trial has managed, only by god's grace and the result of people's prayers including my own, to spill over into four weeks. i cannot imagine how else i would've made it this far (and still hope to make it further). going cold turkey the first week was one of the hardest things to do in my life, but persistence in enforcing discipline gave way to making the routine easier and easier to get into.

in a weird way, the checkpoint jam has been a form of answered prayer because now, i truly have less time to kill in s'pore, which makes it (time) a precious commodity and therefore causes me to spend it wisely with god =).

and the terrible bout of flu (which i still haven't fully recovered from) i had since good friday which caused me to put off travelling to church or work until thursday was also a blessing in disguise, because i secretly relished the opportunity to get sufficient sleep each day and rest my injured feet. haha. unfortunately, my split heel which had healed returned to being cracked by friday due to the unusually dry climate in my workplace...and so did the cuts underneath my toes and whatnot, but at least i've now got ellgy with me.

there's nothing like a good night's sleep (several nights, rather) to recharge the body and uplift one's mood, hence my positive outlook this week in start contrast to last week's. looking back on this past month, i am pleased to see signs of providence as a result of choosing to solely trust in god. people i want to talk to (or wasn't thinking about but lost contact with) bump into me out of nowhere (read: without me having to do anything to "make things right") and the kindness of strangers have seen to my needs for those moments.

the lady letting me finish her wantan mee before making a trip to the ATM to pay her, the guy offering me a seat when we were all stuck in a bus that crawled only a few inches an hour, the guy at the checkpoint's thumbprint access area letting me through so i could get 'unharmed' into one of the queuing lines at the other end...all unknowingly acting as god's extended hands and feet.

another blessing this week is having gotten one more piece of the puzzle in my fractured relationship with my dad, last night. we had another one of those tiffs in the car again after dinner and his last retort was "your motor mouth always has to have to have the last word" to which i honestly objected and said "it's not about the last word, i just want to know." i was referring to knowing what the situation we were arguing about was actually like, for a miscommunication had happened earlier and it obviously cost me something so i was trying to backtrack and figure out what went wrong where.

almost immediately, it just hit me that i really wanted to know something else more. suddenly i just understood what was going on -- he was throwing barbs at me when what i really wanted was reassurance. reassurance that things would be okay and as i reflected on that revelation in the bath later, i realised that this could be applied to all our major quarrels. after a lull in discord of a few months, lately we've gradually returned to butting heads more often.

all my life i have been expecting him to act like a father and more often than not he fails me. so what could i do next, now knowing what i was really looking for and knowing that he would never be able to meet that need because that's just how he is as a person? the obvious conclusion is that i would have to, firstly, recognise when i'm needing that need in the midst of each quarrel and secondly, to find that need in god, my only possible perfect Father in heaven.

it so happened that a friend was talking about a u2 song earlier in the day, which i think is the reason i next started thinking of another song by them (below) i recently heard again last week on tv. mincay3, who 'happened' to be online (again, another example of divine providence cos i wanted to ask him about the song anyway), told me bono wrote it for his dad who passed away in 2001. further research online informed me that bono's relationship with his dad was strained in a typically irish father-son way and that his dad had succumbed to lung cancer.

and i had no idea the song was about a father! so the lyrics really ministered to me at such an apt time.

Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
by U2

Tough, you think you've got the stuff
You're telling me and anyone
You're hard enough

You don't have to put up a fight
You don't have to always be right
Let me take some of the punches
For you tonight

Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don’t have to go it alone

And it's you when I look in the mirror
And it's you when I don't pick up the phone
Sometimes you can't make it on your own

We fight all the time
You and I
That’s alright, we’re the same soul
I don’t need, I don’t need to hear you say
That if we weren’t so alike
You’d like me a whole lot more

Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don't have to go it alone

And it's you when I look in the mirror
And it's you when I don't pick up the phone
Sometimes you can't make it on your own

I know that we don’t talk
I’m sick of it all
Can you hear me when I sing?
You're the reason I sing
You're the reason why the opera is in me

Where are we now?
Still gotta let you know
A house doesn't make a home
Don’t leave me here alone

And it's you when I look in the mirror
And it's you that makes it hard to let go
Sometimes you can't make it on your own
Sometimes you can't make it
Best you can do is to fake it
Sometimes you can't make it on your own

checkpoint woes

2008-03-23T23:17:00.011+08:00

god has really been testing my limits these past few weeks. the human jam at the checkpoint -- the thing i've feared and dreaded the most -- is something i've had to contend with every day since that terrorist guy escaped.

it used to be that people who owned thumbprint cards could escape the crowd 'cause the lanes were usually nearly empty and it didn't take long to get people through. but ever since 'prison break', whenever i arrive from the hour-long vehicle jam on the causeway i am greeted by the frightening sight of people overflowing out of the thumbprint access area. people who push and shove like nobody's business just to get into the queues (the metal railings that prevent the entire crowd from becoming a free-for-all the way the stampede for the 170 bus at jb customs is like).

just after i made it through that phase and thought the worst was over, some anonymous imbecile trips me just at the bottom of the escalators and i nearly fall. obviously angry, i yell in annoyance only to find that the culprit has escaped in the other direction. here i am, already taking pains to go down the escalator quickly with my split and cracked heel, and here this idiot is doing a 'trip-and-run' on me. at that point i seriously thought twice about going to work.

thank god i somehow went eventually -- thanks to my mom's co-praying. seriously, if anyone wants to be tested on the virtue of patience they should go through the daily hell that is the customs-checkpoint at peak hour that i go through. it really takes an even-tempered person or a person to eventually buckle to the virtues of patience and love to endure this kind of lifestyle on a long-term basis.

thankfully, from tuesday onwards the crowd and the jam was noticeably lighter. i took two hours to come home daily -- still a lot, considering i normally take an hour and a quarter, but it's an improvement i suppose. unfortunately the crowd at thumbprint area never seems to clear, but i am grateful that there have been moments where i arrive when the crowd is just only starting to overflow and am therefore able to get into a queue before all hell breaks loose.

one perturbation which i found amusing only on hindsight was the case of the smiling cheat on tuesday. a diminutive, middle-aged lady who targeted me twice -- once at the thumbprint access queue and the other, at the bus queue -- would amble up to the space next to me, flash a smile and cut my queue. the first time i refused to budge and she started to wobble sideways as if she wanted to pass, so i let her through to join some other queue on my left.

the second time she just flashed the same smile, as if to say "hehe, i'm going to cut your queue okay? hehe," and just deftly slipped in front of me before i could budge. not to be outdone, i promptly stepped in front of her and lined up like before. she might be short and old, but after spending some hard-earned minutes just to line my way through the queue to get this near to the bus, it boggles my mind how she justifies a winning smile as a valid ticket for playing unfair. heck, if that was the case i'd be smiling my way through the customs!

thursday was the only other incident that pissed me off. i was finally at the front of the line, waiting for the next person to scan his thumb and get through, when this korrenga pokes his index finger insistently on my shoulder and asks me to slot in my card. in general, i despise being touched by strangers -- for all i know he could have scratched his butt or picked his nose with that finger.

i try to explain that if i do that, my card will get jammed in the slot because it's happened before several times...and this recalcitrant tries to argue. i ended up defending my point right until i was in there scanning my thumb. thank god i didn't have more time to stand around and chit-chat, 'cause if i did i would've just blown my top and done something really uncharacteristic of a christian.

with regards to my health, the cut in my heel finally closed up on wednesday and the cracks around it healed considerably when i rested at home on friday and saturday but unfortunately, i came down with the flu friday morning and have been gradually getting worse with the exception of the past few hours since i've taken stronger medication.

amidst all this, it is good to have good friday and easter sunday remind me that all i am going through now is temporal and eternal life in a perfect heavenly body and a perfect world is in store for me, as shown by christ risen on the cross.

as this week approached, i couldn't help but be reminded of what happened last easter. but almost immediately i was reminded that easter is about hope, not hurt and about promise, not pain. and hope that i will one day realise in my heart that the strong sense of injustice i feel whenever someone has wronged me, be it at the checkpoint, at home or at work, will be vindicated by my god at the right time as he sees fit.

and so the fourth week of checkpoint woes continues.

god uses tired people too

2008-03-16T02:54:00.008+08:00

it's been the most exhausting and tiring week in terms of returning home, all because of one man and one really effective country (only in terms of damage control). i also experienced my longest commute home ever on tuesday: three and a half hours -- i even took a taxi back halfway and walked for an hour with a split (not just cracked) heel so it could've been four and a half. and i thought last week's two hours and three quarters was bad.

to top that, the daily trip in has gotten worse in terms of people overflowing out of the entry point (the thumbprint access area at the checkpoint) on the other side. my toes literally got stepped on, someone used rockson tan's vocabulary and i got pushed and shoved roughly a number of times -- my biggest fear related to having to travel in and out.

i was late for work the first two days, and although i was on time for the remaining three that i woke up earlier for, it was still not early enough to curb the uncouth men pushing me real hard just so they could get deeper in. on top of that i was sleeping an average of four to five hours a night yet managing to stay awake during work (except for lunch breaks).

i really thank god i was blessed with an extra amount of grace this week because otherwise, i would've just given up and stopped coming for work, in between intermittent breakouts of swearing (which has happened before). the inner peace that calmed my heart, even when all the above calamities happened around me, was incredible, rare and something i hope will increase in future.

a lot of grace and power was bestowed upon me as well as i learnt to deal, second week on, with one of my fears -- although i confess that consuming chocolate ice-cream pies and hot tea daily is now a must, haha.

i was also given an opportunity to minister to someone and bump into two familiar faces this week, without even having to lift a finger...how cool is that? today also marks one of the rare days in my calendar that i didn't actually have to wake up early and go down (past the checkpoint), so i'm really glad for that too.

here's to being faithful in continuing this journey of knowing God more and seeing Him at work, next week.

sun after the rain

2008-03-08T01:44:00.018+08:00

i'm so relieved i made it through this week. tomorrow still beckons though, but like i (have to) keep telling myself, it's just one more day...on the other hand, i don't just wanna live life as a series of hurdles that must be overcome, 'cause if that's the case then life's not worth living for at all. but perhaps this is just the teething stage when everything hurts because things haven't had time to settle yet.

this week has probably been the first time in quite a while since i've gone out and confronted one of my fears. bad memories can do a lot of damage if one allows their negative connotations with previously neutral experiences to fester unawares which, turns out, is what i've been doing. but i'm certain the statement that god makes all things beautiful in His time wasn't just said for the sake of creating another cliche.

if there's anything i've realised this past week it's that things are finally starting to work out in my life, but i've been so caught up in the past that i haven't noticed, or rather i just didn't want to believe it...that life could possibly hold more promise for me than shattered dreams and unattainable desires.

i would've love to say i conquered the week and every mountain felt like a molehill, but that wasn't the case...and were it not for grace i often felt i never deserved to experience, i would've just given up and reverted to my old self. many times i nearly caved in...but it is precisely during times like those that god (not my emotions or other things) is truly god of my life, showing Himself to be most powerful in my weakness (2 corinthians 12:9) by reigning over and taking control of my life, when i let Him.

i can only pray i learn to trust and allow Him to rule my heart more often.

disconnected

2008-02-05T00:47:00.004+08:00

i just suddenly felt insecure tonight...it's not difficult to try. i am told to cheer up and be bright, yet i cannot help but feel that i would be untrue to myself not to say the things i really feel for the moment, negative as they are.

i felt...lost. so disconnected from the human race.

there is a lie that constantly permeates my mind...and it is against this lie that i must work to affirm myself in god's truth and where i stand in His eyes. why i am not fully convinced of the truth i still do not know.

Head Over Heels (In This Life)
by SWITCHFOOT

Head over here and take me
Head over heels and aching
When I told you I was Yours
I was Yours

In this life, You’re the one place I call home
In this life, You’re the feeling I belong
In this life, You’re the flower and the thorn
You’re everything that’s fair in love and war

I’m coming down like a gunshot
In all these battles I’ve fought
You’re the mark I’m aiming for
I was Yours

In this life, You’re the one place I call home
In this life, You’re the feeling I belong
In this life, You’re the flower and the thorn
You’re everything that’s fair in love and war

In love and war, in love and war
Head over heels, head over heels

In this life I’m stubborn to the core
In this life I’ve been burning after more
We both know what these open arms are for
You’re everything that’s fair
In this life, You’re my only one

In this life, You’re my only one
In this life, You’re my only one
In this life, You’re my only one

In this life, You’re the one place I call home
In this life, You’re the feeling I belong
In this life, You’re the flower and the thorn
You’re everything that’s fair in love and war

to update or not update

2008-01-28T01:00:00.001+08:00

after vacillating, for some time, between whether i should update my entries starting from where i last stopped, or from the date of posting itself, i have decided on the latter for good. yes, ultimately it might take me very long to catch up on the backlog of events i have yet to mention, but someday -- hopefully someday soon -- i will be able to sit down, have a few free hours to use the 'net and type everything out.

reason being, i am now finding it very hard to see the big picture if i write sporadically only in bits and pieces here and there. and without the big picture it is very difficult to accurately reason with and conclude the issues that have been happening in my life. i find myself coming up with half-baked derivations rather than whole descriptions of what god is teaching me.

this much is what i know thus far, so no further updates from me until i next have (lots of) time.

later note: that 'someday' of updating things came one year later. haha.

re: what i learnt this week

2008-01-21T00:58:00.000+08:00

as i sat eating dinner alone, there was this overwhelming sense that god needed to let me know something through showing me past events that illustrated how despondent i used to be, not too long ago, contrasted against recent past events that illustrated otherwise. i gradually felt He was telling me that yesterday's assertion about me giving the wrong impression of Him was more of a loose allegory originally intended by the other party to remind me to 'walk the talk', instead of to imply i had not been doing my job well as a reflector of His character.

i sensed Him telling me He was pleased with how i was living my life and that He loved me, and that it wasn't about whether or not i was reflecting Him in the best light possible, but it was more about my heart posture that really mattered to Him -- so i did not need to feel like i had disappointed Him (read: felt guilty) in any way by not painting a good picture of Him.

i also felt Him saying that victory (of retaining full joy and overcoming a negative spirit) was indeed sure and eventual, and was definitely working its way into my life, and that i should not be discouraged but be encouraged by the remembrance that who i am today is a far cry from who i was before -- proof that His work of restoration is taking place within me and will continue to completion.

what a grateful thing to have a god who speaks to me and alerts me to any deceptions or misinterpretations to keep me on track.

what i learnt this week

2008-01-20T00:35:00.003+08:00

something from my past -- the fifth to date, since the new year -- returned to plague me again today. of course i was affected initially. of course it did perturb me and it got me thinking, as i did for the other four, will history keep repeating itself? and is there no new future for me, no start of 'the new has come and the old has gone'?

but then the words from a friend (or at least what i interpreted from them) on thursday drifted into my mind: maybe the inward change that i've been seeking and hoping for this new year is supposed to rise out of the same set of circumstances i've been encountering, not new ones.

i am decidedly more hopeful and prone to thoughts of joy nowadays; my issue is that i fail to let them register in my mind and choose instead to dwell longer on the negative than on the positive, having been so used to the routine of the former and not the latter yet.

by doing so, i gave the impression i was serving a god who didn't love me, who was more focused on whipping me into perfection instead of really caring about me, i was told today. which, of course, when put that way, is absurd because it just makes the truth more glaringly obvious than ever. i had forgotten that whatever i do reflects, either accurately or inaccurately, the character of the god i serve.

the second thing that god made me realise this week, in my own time with Him, was the root cause of why i was feeling so disturbed, unsettled and troubled for most of this past week: underlying guilt -- an issue i fought with and won, but failed to hold victory ground on, two years ago.

and the thing was, i felt guilty for the stupidest of reasons, once god pointed them out to me. they weren't feelings of guilt born out of the holy spirit's conviction that i needed to set things right; they were born out of imagined fears and insecurities, more so. mostly i just felt guilty whenever i screwed up after getting frustrated for screwing up.

i guess it's easier to accord blame onto myself than onto anyone else because i'm the only one who can't run away from me and i suppose growing up being constantly blamed for everything as a result of my responsibilities, as the oldest child, to take the heat only helped to encourage that kind of thinking.

but old habits die hard and more importantly, if i am not secure (in christ) i cannot be immune to innocuously-disguised guilt attacks and joy robbers. and how to rest secure in Him consistently is something i'm still learning to do and need to do, if i am to ever take hold of this life and live it victoriously, instead of merely surviving enough to make it through each day.

gone in <60 seconds

2008-01-12T02:49:00.001+08:00

the day right after my last post, bam! my resolve was put to the test again.

on monday itself my bulky old nokia 3310 got stolen within seconds at the jb customs due to my carelessness in leaving the front zipper of my bag open during the time i got out of the car, went through the passport-stamping area and proceeded to board the bus. that's when i fumbled for my ez-link card and realised my phone, which i was fiddling with in the car, was gone.

my worst fears were confirmed when i got to the s'pore side (jb customs is really bad in the sense that it doesn't have a public phone in any of its premises) and used one of the public phones to call my number, which was disengaged halfway the first attempt and then out of service the following attempts (meaning the phone was deliberately switched off).

so there you go, my phone of six years, gone within a matter of seconds due to simple folly and the logical assumption that no one would be desperate enough to steal a phone with a trade-in value of rm50. but apparently i was wrong. then began the headache of calling my mom to come and fetch me, calling my agent to ask her to tell my boss (i couldn't remember her number) i wouldn't be able to come into work for the day and making the necessary police reports and barring of lines.

i was able to retain my local line's number and remaining credit (not counting the rm10 or so that the thief had been frantically using up), but was unfortunately unable to say the same for my foreign line (the operator had a different policy), which was sad because it was such an easy-to-remember number code consisting of four repeated numbers. what's even sadder is the new foreign number i got (again, different policy so i had a limited choice of less than 10 equally befuddling number codes) is hard to remember and has less repetition of its numbers.

and of course i had to get a new phone, which was another headache. it had been my eventual ambition to own a nokia 7360 if i ever was to get a new phone (i gave up totally after my first attempt at purchasing a brand new motorola c650 ended with the phone screwing up every few days and having my data wiped out by the warranty repairmen), which was why i decided to purchase it in jb, after hunting high and low for this rare phone.

not only was the warranty card from a different phone and wasn't even free (i had to fork out rm99 for it, i mean who pays for warranty cards unless you're in a corrupt society?), but i found out days later to my chagrin that this 'brand new' phone had its previous owner's information stored on it with burn marks at the charger cable socket and was non-refundable when my family and i went down to complain.

the boss-in-charge mumbled something about having to go somewhere before making himself scarce and left us with his employees to deal with us (he only re-emerged as we walked away). like i said, a corrupt society. his employees, meanwhile, maintained that the phone was still "brand new" as it was a "display set" and that the information stored inside was a result of people testing out their SIM cards on the phone. what kind of brand new phone is that?

unfortunately after arguing for over an hour, they stuck to their guns and the only option left was to keep the phone or choose one of similar value. of course there was no phone that cost exactly what i paid for so we had to settle for a slightly more expensive nokia 6300 meaning we had to fork out two hundred bucks more.

and just when i thought the nightmare was over, i realised they got away with murder by giving me a faulty battery that dies within half a day and a charger whose 3-pin prongs couldn't fit into the socket holes you find in this part of the world. this charger even had an rm55.90 price tag attached to it and when we finally went to the original nokia shop, they told us this pin prong only exists in european countries. once again, corrupt society :S.

so i then incurred more costs by having to buy the original battery and charger since, judging from the experience we had there, no amount of arguing was going to make them return anything.

sigh.

first week of 2008

2008-01-07T02:15:00.002+08:00

i'm moaning in mock horror because now i've really got a huge pile of stuff to update from here. i just haven't had the time to. whatever time i get is either not at the computer or used to catch up on sleep (yes, imagine that. me, the person who thinks sleep is a waste of time is using her free time to sleep.) but that's because i had an epiphany one day and realised one key factor that really affects my disposition for the day is how much sleep i've had the night before.

but some quick notes on the new year would be that so far, it's starting out surprisingly well. if the first week was to be a representation of how this whole year would be like, then the forecast would be that this year is a promising one, full of the positive change i've been waiting and praying for.

circumstances remained the same yet i did not. and it was really unbelievable, the small victories that god allowed me to win this past week, upon reflection today.

victories like these:
-something bad happened and it was on the tip of my tongue to swear at the perpetrator, yet i couldn't bring myself to do so, even whilst in the heat of the moment when my usual tendency is to react otherwise.

-i didn't even remember the grudge i held (or rather the intense feeling of how unfair it felt to have someone do me an injustice and get away with it) against said person after two days.

-i got stood up again by someone who is well, well-known for doing that, and i was surprisingly okay with it for the rest of the night. i was even able to spend time with god while waiting for the friend that never came, and not even realise the time.

it's a miracle, considering that (a) praying in public has been so difficult for me to do as of late because for some reason, i either cannot focus or get interrupted, and (b) my mood usually tends to go downhill after someone stands me up, because of the disappointment after the anticipation of meeting said friend and of having to travel to the meeting place and hang around aimlessly for quite some time before finding out i did all that for nothing.

(having significance, purpose and meaning to everything has always been essential to me and whenever i feel time is wasted in any way, or i am made to feel invisible and yet not allowed to leave and do something more useful instead, i really feel like shit because it implies that i am useless and insignificant, and that i am just wasting a section my limited time here on earth when i could be doing something better with it.)

okay i think that's all i can manage for now. next on the list was supposed to be an update of a certain ladies' conference i attended, but the story is sooooo long (and the accompanying pictures are a lot to choose from) that it keeps putting me off. but soon, i will stop procrastinating. soon.

like how i will finish clearing up my months-long task of cleaning my room soon.

or like how i will finish reading at least one borrowed book soon. (no idea why, but i find it easier to devour titles on the shelves at bookshops then when they're sitting on the armchair in my room. perhaps it has to do with the perceived notion of having more time to read them.)

okay! i must sleep.

later note: eventually the mammoth task of updating got done, including the ladies' conference post.

how i spent the new year

2008-01-02T01:22:00.001+08:00

the things that happened on new year's eve and the day after were just surreal.

i was on half-day on the eve (which came with a nice staff lunch) so after that i delivered a present to my dear agent who was responsible for helping me through the employment process as well as some food to a birthday friend, who also passed me a small goodie bag.

i didn't want to be spending the eve pathetically at home so after going home to bathe, i went out and joined a friend's church watch-night service. after that, one of the members had to drive me to another friend's house which was near the church i am currently attached to (they don't do countdowns but they do do dawn prayer service the day after, hence the reason i had to spend the night at my friend's).

i have to confess that i lost my temper in the car as my friend wasn't giving me clear directions to his place and the decision to bunk in at his place instead of sleep where i was was pretty last-minute. but we found the place anyway and i got up in time the next day.

my friend who drove, fetched another two friends up and we went, in the pre-dawn hours (see where the surreal part makes sense especially here?) to church. after that, i went for an impromptu walk around some stadium and a row of shops i had always wanted to visit (but never got around to visiting) with a friend of mine who was due to leave overseas soon as well as his friend.

i had wanted to spend time with said friend before he left but had no idea we would be walking, nor that he would be with his friend. so since i was decked out in the wrong attire (jacket, t-shirt and long thick trousers) i decided to sit at the sidelines while they jogged around the stadium.

so there i was, early morning (again surreal, since i am usually in bed around that time), sitting at the edge of a soccer goalpost, overlooking a row of third-storey houses (don't ask me why they have houses in front of the stadium so near you can throw balls into their windows if you wanted to), opening my birthday friend's goodie bag, then sucking on a mini candy cane and reading the enclosed mass-addressed letter that came with it.

as i read through the letter, it felt like i was reading about a stranger's life, not a friend i thought i knew. there was a lot of honest outpouring in that letter in the sense that it revealed a side of said friend that i had never got to see before. i suppose that's what the year(s) ahead is for, to know my friend better.

all i can say is, i am glad that i got to spend the new year with friends, who are my version of family, because when i got back, my brother, in a fit of anger, stepped on my third toe until it bled after fighting over something petty and the day went downhill from there.

post-morph

2007-12-30T02:53:00.006+08:00

i just came back from an annual camp i've been attending ever since i first found out i could qualify, which was back in 2003. and what a camp it's been, even though it is so different from camps past.

for starters, i think they were low on funds because this was the first time it ended up being a day camp, which is bad for me 'cause i don't even live there. which is where the women's camp i just attended a few weeks ago came in handy -- my dear roommate from that camp became my answered prayer to my lodging needs for this camp as she let me bunk in with her at her campus dormitory.

secondly, i had originally signed up for this camp with a friend and had specifically requested in my form to be placed in the same group, but i ended up being matched to a different group instead, one that had a few faces that i was pretty sure weren't pleased to see me as much as i wasn't pleased to see them.

but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise because they had new people in the group and the leader turned out to be quite a doll. he was so understanding he let me switch groups if i wanted, but i ended up staying...and i'm glad i did, because he saw to all the pathetic needs i had as a scaredy cat, haha.

he teman-ed (in this context teman means 'accompany' in malay) me every evening that i arrived after work when i was too embarrassed to walk to the front row when sessions had already begun, or to walk around looking for our group in the makeshift dining area during dinnertime. it also helped that he was mature beyond his years 'cause he was younger than me.

and i still got to hang out with my friend and the group i originally signed up for when we went out for supper after each session. these pools of new people are part of the reason i return each year for camp, as i was explaining during group-sharing time. it's funny how we tend to take liberties (that come with school) like friends for granted until their moments actually pass us.

the sessions themselves were...well i felt they were rather rushed. this was probably 'cos the speaker had come before for a previous camp, when it was held for a longer duration which allowed him the time to speak more thoroughly and orderly on his topics. this time it was more like a quick brush-through with some skimming over of the same topics.

and it wasn't exactly accurate to the camp's theme for this year, unlike the year where he had the liberty of time to expound on what he wanted to say. speaking of which, i felt the organisers didn't really refer much to the theme during the camp, unlike previous years.

and i found it ironic that when the camp coordinator made her opening speech to open this 'real christian, real world' themed camp, she wasn't being 'real' at all. people at the back probably wouldn't have noticed but because my group was seated near the front, i could definitely see flashes of frustration over her face being quickly covered by exaggerated plastic smiles when the crowd wasn't all ears at the beginning.

but i guess that's just her style of doing things.

two songs that were new to me that really struck a chord (or many, haha) within me were hosanna by hillsong united and this one below, which resonated so deeply within my heart that i actually remembered the lyrics long after camp ended.

To Live Is Christ
by YOUTH ALIVE

I make a vow
My life will always honour You
Whether I live or die

I belong to Him
He bore my sin
I owe this life to my saving King

I make a vow
My life will always honour You
Whether I live or die

I belong to Him
He bore my sin
I owe this life to my saving King

Hallelujah, I am not my own
You are in control
Hallelujah

For me to live is Christ
And to die is gain
No matter what price I pay
I choose to give this life away

I make a vow
My life will always honour you
Whether I live or die

I belong to Him
He bore my sin
I owe this life to my saving King

I make a vow
My life will always honour You
Whether I live or die

I belong to Him
He bore my sin
I owe this life to my saving King

Hallelujah, I am not my own
You are in control
Hallelujah

For me to live is Christ
And to die is gain
No matter what price I pay
I choose to give this life away

Only by the cross I am saved
Only by the cross I am saved

Hallelujah, I am not my own
You are in control
Hallelujah

For me to live is Christ
And to die is gain
No matter what price I pay
I choose to give this life away

For me to live is Christ
And to die is gain
No matter what price I pay
I choose to give this life away

Only by the cross I am saved
Only by the cross I am saved

--
p.s. my christmas wasn't a blue one after all, thank god.

'twas the day before christmas

2007-12-24T23:57:00.003+08:00

they gave us half a day off at work today...yay. a surprising thing happened. i didn't expect to be touched when i crashed a friend's fellowship potluck but i was, when the host of the house popped in a dvd entitled life without limbs which was a motivational-talk-cum-sermon by nick vujicic, an australian guy born without limbs.

the dvd also showed a few shots of how nick gets by with daily routines like combing his hair and pouring himself a cup of water (yes, with no hands nor legs, merely his shoulder blades and a stump that works as a left 'foot'.)

i was particularly touched and encouraged by nick's answer in response to why he has to go through all this suffering, being limbless and all. he said it was so God can "strengthen us, to draw us closer to him and grow with him." he also brought up the passage where the blind guy got healed by jesus so that the works of god might be seen in him.

at first it didn't really hit me that hard, because i mean those are the typical christian answers you get. but to see someone like him believe those words and say them with conviction was something else. i mean here i was, on christmas eve, feeling low and useless and pathetic and alone yet able-bodied, and there nick was, on fire, encouraged, joyful and full of life despite the difficulties he has to face due to having no arms nor legs.

it made me think, if someone who seems so much worse off than me can overcome suicide and depression and end up motivating people for a living instead of wallowing in his state of things...then why can't i? nick's testimony gave me some hope and more of a reason (or zest) to go through life.

he also said a whole lot of other stuff that i could relate to and am struggling with right now, which was why at certain points of the dvd i was swallowing my own tears when no one was looking.

one of the things he said that also greatly encouraged me to hold on was when he said if something we pray for doesn't happen (in God's time), God's got something better planned for us. i can think of at least one dashed dream i can apply this to; reader, if you've followed my entries you know exactly what it is.