Yesterday, today and forever
Jesus the same

And everlasting, in the palm of Your hand

There's a fire that burns in our hearts
To see the lost return to the Father

saying the words 'gone', 'no longer with us', 'passed on' seem insufficient
and too pompous at the same time

Hearing of two deaths today, I do not know either of them personally, but one of my friends was very moved when she heard it was her good friend. How do we process it?

Bigger than what we know, larger than what we experience, more important than what we are worried about - the exams, the appearances, the money
Thinking if there is something we could have done better in the past for that someone
But that would be too late
Then do it now, while they are here
Star of the morning, You are stronger than death

Fresh blueberries

floating in a bowl of rich creamy milk...

Blue stars in a white sky

Similes (not smiles or smileys)

Writing an 8000 word essay on Shakespeare and Pandora is like making and fitting together a jigsaw puzzle: you have to paint the whole picture, cut it up into little size bits and mix them up, and then fit them back again.

Life is like a box of chocolate...(ok you know this one)

looking into mirrors

Do I have regrets over the past three years or so?
It's best to close that chapter without looking back: say "no",
A tug, that things might have been different in the past
If it were other places, peoples, routes from last.

Going through the photos of others is like a crush;
Conjuring the best of what might just be a brush.
At 23, is this what they call quarter-life crisis?
Agonising over the various hits-and-misses

Then I think of those who have stuck with me through
The thick and thin and up and down and pink and blue
My housemates, my friends, my dearest confidantes
Who shared the joys and, when I strayed, were kindly blunt

So "no" it will be, firm and good and true;
I could not have been more blessed, more loved, by You.

football and food go together

It's 4.41am, and I've only done 1300 words. So slow am I!

Some pics coming up...

The bar at the students' union, filled with Liverpool and AC Milan fans, and the in-betweens who were just there to soak in the atmosphere.
Was a fun experience!

Met some Singaporeans, old friends and new (including a secondary school mate!), so I sat with them and cheered along...mostly when Zenden went off and later when Crouch came on!









After that headed to Tesco, the english NTUC, and bought some, er , comfort-ing food...heehee

on the news

Ever heard of an eco-friendly sandwich van that goes round the campus and delivers food to your doorstep?
Neither have I...and I think its a cool idea!
Have to catch this van and check it out someday...like today, when the food sup is nearly nil.

Another word I've 'learnt' today to describe the progress of my essay due in 5 days time: dismal.
argh

10 mins to choir practice: I hope I get inspired then...something about Shakespeare please?
and then an hour to Champions League Finals! will be at the bar...I'm told we have to 'chope' a seat an hour before the match kicks off!

You Are Elmo

Sweet and innocent, you expect everyone to adore you. And they usually do! You are usually feeling: Talkative. You've got tons of stories to tell. And when you aren't talking, you're laughing. You are famous for: Being popular, though no one knows why. Middle aged women especially like you. How you live your life: With an open heart. "Elmo loves you!"

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

Ah well, no one's perfect...middle-aged women?!

so kute!

A meerkat looks after its nine-week-old baby at Drusillas Park, East Sussex.

Courtesy of BBC

After attempting a series of quizzes (you know those mundane things you do when you want to escape work), I've found out that I have a violet aura, can pass 8th grade math, am only good at punctuation in English, and should be a political activist.

Ok, as long as I finish this next essay, I will build a time machine and go back to Sec 3 (CHIJ TP, of course), since that's the only age I'll excel, apparently!

=p

oh! also, I'm apparently 70% weird, which confirms my premonition in the 12th May entry! The quiz results say I'm weirder than weird because I think I'm normal...but if I think I'm weird, does that make me more normal now?

I'm eating warm googy chocolate pud!!
*toothy choco-smeared grin*

a stitch in time

time for some Yo-yo ma (influence credited to ff, who's on her way to nippon now!)
and Shakespeare (influence credited to my grandpa)

five-stones

It's 3.15am. Bible study on Philippians this evening helped me to concentrate on work, so I did more in the last 2 hours than I've done the past few days. Still a long road to walk. Talking to the other 12 who were sharing I realise I'm not alone...so many are trudging the difficult road of essays alone. But not lonely =)

I owe....so many people. Well, not owe so much, but I would like to speak to them: a birthday message to hil and krys and cheez (long overdue!), a hallo to min and yanyan and hele, notes to ff and dre and shell.

I think I'm weird...but that's because I'm comparing. Everyone else looks so smooth (talker) and lucky (in the right place at the right time with right people) and alright (as opposed to not alright, i guess!) and happier (need I explain more?) and off the cover of fashion mags (thanks von for the affirmation 9 years ago, i remember!). I think I've been looking at friendster too long, and frankly I know this is one of the most juvenile statements I'm making out loud (oops, I said it?) =)

So if you feel weird and out of place too, you're not alone, which means you're not weird nor out of place! You're exactly where you're meant to be - forging ahead as you dare to be different (go ask someone for a hug NOW, and don't be shy because they probably need it as much as you do)

okie, time to sleep now!

pick up sticks

I've got part of a song stuck in my head, ever since choir practice yesterday. It's a new song to me, and our practice was much livened up this upbeat piece:

He is the king of kings
and new life he brings
Sing it in the valleys
Shout it from the mountain tops
~ Sing It in the Valleys

It's a really simple piece, with not much 'deep' meaning to the words on first appearance...yet after the umpteenth time it had been playing in my head, it began to dawn on me what this 'it' is, what I'm supposed to shout from high and low. It's something to be joyfully proclaimed when we are on the mountain or in the valley, whether we experience happiness or depression. Because he is faithful, the praises meant for him will always be valid, whether or not we 'feel' his presence. Shouting it on the mountain is easy, because we are filled with his Spirit and have that push of courage: to offer spiritual advice to others, to give to the poor in love, to forgive.

Singing it in the valley is a lot more difficult, but that's perhaps why we are asked to sing it: a hymn sung is a prayer said twice. These times when we are low are the most crucial times for prayer and praise. I believe this praise is not the licking of the boot before we submit an application (of supplication); God doesn't need that. Praising allows us to realise what a good god we have, reminding us that he can turn our mourning into dancing.

So, what kind of praises should we sing?

I was watching a movie trailer on Apple.com, for the show Starter for Ten. One of the characters in the trailer says, 'People who really care about you don't mind if you make mistakes, it's what you do next that matters'. This is one thing I know I can sing about him: that he's someone who really cares about me, and that perfect love is simply amazing. Three other people like that are mum, dad and matt; these keep me going, walking, trying my best, even in the valleys.

paddle paddle paddle *breathe*
tiring work to heave and heave
ongoing without leave
or is it just a brief?

perhaps I have imagined it so
that it truly is not so low
yet still searching for the flow
so that I can start, run, go!

like a blu-tac pulled to the thin
I need to find myself within
"no one can walk you through that door"
or so Neo was told before the score

wishing cannot conjure success
only willing (not mine) will see it blessed
a plea: will you pray for me?
I need strength and peace to see

please?
=)
I feel trapped in my room, and though I have anywhere I could go right now, outside to the garden, a bus to town, a plane to Germany or China, I force myself to sit at my desk and read the notes I have compiled. No great ideas, no new and groundbreaking thoughts, so no words. Funny, one would think that with the lack of (apparent) responsibility except for studies the freedom would be exhilarating, but I think if this was taken away from me, my essay-writing, I would fall even more gravely ill and limp. There are things I can do still, yet I have this feeling that I'm learning the un-static characteristic of happiness. What is man without a goal? Man with God, whether he knows it or not. For goals come and go, they are achieved or elude you, and then what?

on love

Perhaps it was by chance that I strolled in the Warwick Arts Centre just in time to hear the announcement over the PA system that the matinee performance of Three Sisters was about to resume after the interval. Compelled by the novelty to watch this famous play by Chekhov, coupled with an impetus of curiosity and sheer want of entertainment, I enquired about the show. It turned out that that evening's performance was to be its last. Rushing over to the box office I immediately bought a ticket and walked out of the theatre satisfied.

That evening, I ambled out of the the theatre once more, altered by the single fact of having been a voyeur at Chekhov's masterpiece. It had been an evening of scrambling for subtitles on the overhead screen and an attempt to catch most of what occured on stage, for it had been performed in its original language, Russian. For a long time I could not get Masha's line out of my head:

"When you read a novel, any novel, then it seems that everything is so old hat and everything is easily understood, but when you fall in love yourself then it becomes obvious to you that nobody knows anything and each person must make their own decisions"

Act 3

And so it is that nothing can prepare you for the assail of decisions when you commit yourself to someone. Commit not with mere words, but as the Australian natives would translate in English, with all one's 'insides'. Personally, due to the influence of such and such great men, I feel no affiliation with the term 'fall' when it comes to the love Masha speaks of. For the clumsiness of failing arms and legs in the movement of falling has no association with the act of true love. This temporary gust that trips us might be more properly termed 'infatuation', not at all a bad thing but an impure form that prepares us for the perfection of what is to come; falling is falling short.

True love, on the other hand, is defined by sacrifice. Yes, together with the connotations sacrifice alludes to: difficulty, pain, sorrow. Love is all these, just as ice is water, and vapour is water. No pure substance is begotten without a process, and this process by any other name would be as bitter. And yet not bitter: the taste of love turns sweet, for in that process of sacrifice the bitterness of giving up (when is not thinking about oneself first sweet) is refined into a thing pure and beautiful. The pain given in the betterment of another is transformed in substance by love and produces love.

And then, the heart of matter: water is not merely ice, water is not only vapour. Love is not only difficulty, pain or sorrow. It carries such properties of refinement within itself and more. Water quenches the slaking thirst of a dying man, it cools the heat of the desert soul, and washes away the stains of past hurts. Love is not a static goal of finality; it is the entire movement from start to finish. It is a journey that encompasses the test of the Venom symbiote for Spidey, the One ring of corruption for Galadriel, the Turkish Delight for Edmund.