Tuesday, September 26, 2006

break my mid-sem break

the past 3 months have been truly a challenge. there has never been another period in my life when i can be happy one day and then depressingly sad the next. sometimes i show it, but often i try to hide it. i do thank God for friends who can look from afar and sense something amiss in me.

but that's not the point. over the weekend, i was wondering. this is not the way life should be. i can't live from day to day, happy one day sad the next.. and be sad more often than joyful. i've been letting people and things affect me more than i want them to be. my mood has become dependent on things, when it should actually be resting on God.

and i guess i felt it a lot in the weekend. that week, it seemed that quite a few friends were going through problems and i felt extra burdened for them, didn't have the best of weeks with my parents, i was very tempted to throttle one of my tuition girls, i was a bit at wits end for the state of arts vcf, plus personal issues were resurfacing again. i slept a lot on saturday too..never felt so defeated before..

which struck me then. if i have Christ with me, why am i not living a victorious life. why is everything dependent on the circumstances, which change all the time. instead of the one God, who never changes?

so there, that's me in retrospection again.

the good thing about this week's term break is that i'm surprisingly quite free... other than wed, being the only day i'm packed from morn to night, the rest of the days, i have nothing planned!! which means, i can lunch with whoever's free, and meet friends on the spur of the moment. so cool can. i mean, it's cool to be free and not be bogged down by obligations and appointments.. makes everything sound so professional and business like. *shakes head* be happy for me.. hahaha

Friday, September 22, 2006

an ADEfying post

okie.. a quickie before i talk to adrian...

i'm in smc now(s'pore m'sia collection). was supposed to be doing readings for my assignment due in like one and a half weeks.. but after a while, i gave up. the brain was rebelling..

am using dan's mac, and decided to check out blogs, since i've not done so in like, a week. read matt talking about his weekend plans to emerald isle (sounds so scgs-ish...) and him going up to urbana for the ivcf conference in dec.. saw debs' blog.. and oohed over her city photos with winnie.. with adrian reading behind my back now.. and then went to gilbert's blog and the conversation went like this:

me: he can run through

HI ADE. =D [einniw and gniyiew are here to contribute to your blog]


it's now 7.44pm on a sat evening.. and i'm supposed to finish up my post. haha.

as i was trying to say:

me: he (gilbert) can run past a park to the beach!! eh, his daily runs are to the beach lah. mine's round hdb flats in woodlands.

winnie: at least you have legs to run.

winnie or einniw has a point. i can gripe about my seemingly boring life here in spore and really wish i was somewhere else...

or, i can truly be thankful for the things i have, like the fact that i can even run.

speaking of run, time for my destressifying sat evening jog now. i seem to need jogs more often to clear the head and system.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

dream dream dream whenever i'm with you...

Was reminded of Singapore Dreaming from damien's blog..

I'm very proud to say that in week 5 of school, I went to catch a movie on a monday night with two international students, Irene & Christian. It took much effort though, on Christian's part to drag me away from work.

What I really loved about the movie was how it was so real. Irene, turned to me a few times during the movie to ask whether the enstrangement of the family members was real or exaggerated. I had to whisper back that I do see such distant relationships in Singapore. From sibling rivalry to almost-there sex-scenes, the need for hard work to prove oneself to the lack of communication in a marriage...

There's no explicit moral at the end of the movie. But as adults, we should be able to draw the links for ourselves. Neither do i want to be a spoiler. Go watch. Forget Monster House. Forget Devil Wears Prada. Drop by a cinema in the heartlands and catch a local movie about Singaporeans, with your fellow Singaporeans.

The government should pay me for this.

Speaking of hard work, after the movie, Christian was lamenting on how Singaporean students are so serious with their schoolwork, that they can't seem to see life beyond their studies.I was half-chuckling to myself, because he had a hard time trying to pull me away from school. He had asked me when I was free. Thinking that he wanted a tourguide, I started to ask him where he wanted to go visit in Singapore, etc.. it took a full 5 minutes for me to realise he just wanted a friend to go chill out with. I felt rather ashamed for myself, and fellow Singaporeans, how we've "forgotten" to just be friends with people.

Be it in cg or arts comm or international students or old friends, the people i'm serving, have at times lost their "faces". I've seen them as chores and a list of people to meet, only to get ticked off when i've accomplished what I've done. Obviously I don't aspire to do that.. But along the way, unconsciously, this has been happening.

Which reminds me of the hols, where almost every other night, I'd be rushing off for some vcf event or meeting.. to which my friend would always chuckle and shake his head on hearing that it's vcf. Again.

Have I forgotten my first love. Have i forgotten how to enjoy this life that God has given me. Have i forgotten how to just be myself, a child of God, serving God. Yes. But not a servant of God. To "be" and not "do".

Dream, dream, dream
Whenever I'm with you.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

endorphins and euphoria

today (wed), was one of the worst days of my school life.. i never had so much trouble concentrating during class and feeling extremely tired to boot. first, there's was morning prayer at 9am, which i was obviously late. not proud of it, but i seriously had to drag myself out of bed. i felt like a piece of stone. was hoping to speak to flo after that, but turns out she had to go home to do stuff. meisi went off to the labs, william went off somewhere...so, for the first wednesday eversince school started, i had a free break. spent the time writing a letter, then finished up my readings.. but i struggled through them. in the library, i was so tired i had to nap before continuing.

what's worse, at peter tan's interactional discourse class, my head was up in the clouds. no, i wasn't on cloud 9. my brain had never felt so flighty for ages.. i was day-dreaming.. about nothing. normally when i day-dream, it would be about something. but today, i day-dreamed about nothing. it was so weird. i couldn't eat chocs to lubricate the brain cells.. so during break, i had a mix of milo and black coffee (sans milk).. felt slightly better after that, caffeine does wonders. i'm thankful that today's class was interesting.. can't imagine if it were boring.. i would've probably turned into stone..

after zapping semantics readings, i kinda rushed home.. had to rush, because emily wanted to have dinner. but, my day was so bad, and i was seriously so down and out, i knew i had to run. and i did. the first 10min was torture, because, the brain kept telling the muscles, "you can't do it. STOP!". which i did. i would stop, walk a few steps, then push myself more.

the running was good. as wei always says, " running produces endorphins. endorphins make you happy". so there, after half an hour, the mind was a whole lot clearer,my spirit was somewhat lifted.. the body was real hot though. i took a hot shower and rushed down to 834 for dinner. thankfully eunice, farand & ps jabez were there, to keep emily company;)

had a steaming bowl of bittergourd soup for dinner.. trust me, a 30min run+hot shower +hot soupy dinner= a very hot ade. i felt like i was a self-contained sauna. i think that all the perpsiration made me sweat my stress and guts out. i never felt so good in a long while.

emily and i had quite a good conversation over dinner.. we were talking about how everyone needs healing & deliverance.. for the past 4(out of 6) sessions of H&D that i've gone, i must say, i've been working through some issues.. especially issues which i never knew were issues. come to think of it, if i've been moody recently, it's quite possibly that some stuff are being getting rid of, in my life. so have patience with me.

as we run in this race of life, there will oft be times and things that will try to stop us from running. but we can't give up. different things can motivate us to continue, but the one thing that should be our main motivation is Christ. to press on and finish the race. to hear God saying, "well done, my good and faithful servant". i'm definite that when i hear those words, endorphins could never compare to the euphoria of being with the Father.

Monday, September 04, 2006

boosters

if you were wondering, i got rid of the tagboard because i got spammed too many times. patience got the better of me at their 4th atrocity-.-

and i changed my layout, but it appears on internet explorer that there's a huge gap in between my links. i tried to read the html to find out what went wrong. but i can't tell. so, it's just going to stay that way, until a kind soul finds out for me, or, i get bored and change it myself. both options, i think will prob only be realised at the end of the year..

let's talk about school: i'm starting to realise that this year's classes are kinda mixed. i still feel i'm at the wrong side of the bell curve. especially when 2 out of 4 of the elang classes i'm taking, i'm one of the few year 3 students. doesn't help that it's a struggle to do readings, because those that i've read so far, are honestly, beyond me. they make me:
1. frown ;(
2. scratch my head *scratches*
3. wince (as if in pain)
and, my classic emoticon:
4. -.- annoyed.

nope, i'm not annoyed at my lecturers.. just a bit annoyed at myself for not being able to get something.. ok, this now sounds like i have a major inferiority complex. like i'm dumb or something. everything's relative. that i know.

just need encouragement here and there.. which came in today's elang argument class when i found a good claim to an argument. and also, the return of my media writing assignments..

thank God. perhaps i need to work harder.. which i did, over the weekend.

the end of the year seems to come real soon..

Sunday, September 03, 2006

betting is fun?!

While researching for my E-lang Argumentation Discourse class debate on gambling, I chanced upon the Singapore Pools' website, which had a line that read:

"Betting should be fun. It should be under your control. Do not let it control you or your life instead.

Be A Winner ! Play Responsibly !"

My eyes almost popped out of their sockets. Although it was already 12.20am, trust me, I was wide awake instantly.

Seriously, who are they trying to kid?! And since when was betting "fun". And, may I add, not only is it "fun", it "should be fun". If it isn't, something's wrong! *alarm bells ring*

I shall not attempt to launch into the vices of gambling, much less, the legalization of gambling.

It is a sad mis-fact of life that one should resort to gambling for a dose of "fun".

What's more appalling is that one is encouraged by a government-backed company, to bet.

The governement is in place to protect it's people (see Romans 13). Do pray that it will continue to do so.