AKI con

We did AKI con today...we bought the wood, and found the supplier sent us wood of the wrong thickness...so we couldn't really start today, except on the portion where the thickness was right. We complained a bit, but gave it up as a lost cause...and we started making a cardboard model of the bookcase to see how the mechanisms worked. Plenty of problems popped up, we found that some of the things we drew out had to be modified or it wouldn't quite do what we wanted it to do...
And there was the question of connections, and the question of whether it met our intentions, which is the hardest part. There are a hundred million ways of doing something, and no, we're not allowed to do it the simplest way, we have to have some meaning behind it, some aesthetic value.
The big workshop is closed on Saturdays, so on Monday we will have to brave the queue of people waiting to use the workshop. Our team, which has been dubbed the "Malaysian Team" cos we are all Malaysians, are feeling rather down. Suddenly we wish we had parents, aunts and uncles to fall back on...to borrow tools like electric drills, saws, hammers, or even workshops...
Chu Hwai got nostalgic and started playing Siti Nurhaliza and Jaclyn Victor loudly on my laptop...and we huddled around listening to a Cantonese drama series while arguing how we can slide wood against wood smoothly. And whether we should blow our budget and order metal sliding rails. Sigh.
Got to really thank God for my group mates for deciding to work in studio instead of at PGP. They missed the last bus today so that we could continue working, even though I offered to do the last bits myself. So they have to endure a long walk back.
Anyway, it's fun working in a group. We draw on everyone's strengths, make up for each other's weaknesses. We all learn from one another. And then there are arguments, especially when it is late, everyone is hungry, everyone is tired and feel just awful. And we start blaming each other. And pointing fingers. But in the end we all wish the best for the group, so we all sacrifice a bit here and there, make up, be friends again. It blows over.
Saw some funny things today! Hilarious! The things people do! LOL...I am happy today. Days can't ever be perfect, and I have to admit there were times when I felt really miserable. Certain things...kind of hurt me. (Not referring to AKI con groupmates, you guys rock!!)
Anyway, there are things that I do that I am not proud of as well. So I should pull out the plank in my own eye, before I try to help anyone else clean the speck in theirs!

I've Been Tagged!!!

I like this: THIS

Dniz tagged me!!!

Instructions: Remove ONE question from below, and add in your personal question, make it a total of 20 questions, then tag 8 people in your list, list them out at the end of this post. Notify them in their chat box that he/she has been tagged. Whoever does the tag will have blessings from all.

1. Who is your all-time inspiration?
My parents gua...

2. Have you given your first kiss away?
Of course lah...to my Mummy!!! (Or daddy, depending on who kissed me first)

3. If you were to be stranded on a deserted island, who are the 3 blog buddies you would take with you? Why?
1.) The ones from YA 2.) The ones from CAMPnus 3.) The ones from NUS

(Ooo, I think that's all of them dy! But I don't want just 3 blog buddies...I want more (Don't like being lonely) and I want people who aren't blog buddies too...)

4. Where is the place that you want to go the most?
Er...heaven!! But that's when I die gua...Here on earth...The lochs of Scotland!

6. Do you believe in seeing a rainbow after the rain?
Yes!!!!! Yeah!!! yeaha!!

7. Favourite animal?
HORSE!!!

8. If you win $1 million, what would you do?
Invest half, give the rest away!! Oooh I also want to go Scotland.

9. If you meet someone that you love, would you confess to him/her?
If it's the right time!!! Seemingly right person, wrong time=wrong person! So I won't mess things up by confessing, it is probably just a crush!

10. List out 3 good points of the person who tagged you.
Deniece!! Has a good heart, always makes me laugh, friendly!!!

11. What are the requirements that you wish from your other half?
A Christian (1st criteria haha), must love me to bits (and whom I will love to bits too), humble, kind, funny, sweet, responsible...I can list out more but then it would take too long....

12. Which type of person do you hate the most?
People who...look down on others!!!

13. What is your ambition?
To grow more and more Christlike in character!

14. If you have faults, would you rather the people around you point out to you or would you rather they keep quiet?
Point it out!!! I want to know...but it usually takes a long time for me to change so please don't get too impatient...just constantly remind me...haha!

15. What do you think is the most important thing in your life?
I'm not sure...I want to say it's God, but I don't think it is...I think it's myself!!! Oh dear...

16. Describe yourself. 3pros and 3 cons:
Pros: Uh...creative (sometimes), can be kind, can be friendly...

Cons: Er...quite emo, usually insensitive, tooo shy!!!

17. Are you a pessimist?
Yes T.T sometimes haha!

18. If you have a chance. Which part of your character you would like to change?
To be less shy, and less dependent on my emotions.

19. Is there anything that u have done which u regret?
Well, yes of course! But I am trying not to haha! What's done is done, how to regret? Just move on and learn from past mistakes!

20. What do I like to eat?
Depends on emotions lol...So if I am less dependent on my emotions, I will eat less, and when I eat less...I will disappear...wait...I will eat less 'bad' food, and eat more good food (such as vegetables, and milk, and...er, the not so nice to eat things)...and cheaper food lor...(Sg so expensive, haih...)

I tag:

Anyone who wants to do this lar haha!

Elections and Two Handed Faith

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it."

- Mark Twain, humorist and author (1835 - 1910)

My family called me last night (Yes, really. They all yell into the phone.) And it seems they are pretty happy about the election results! My dad opened the conversation saying: "Hello Tirza. Malaysia is a changed country!" (It's usually "Hello Tirza, how are you?") Then there was excited chattering in the background which I couldn't really decipher...and my brother Isaac (5 years old) got hold of the phone and yelled "Hello Tirza!!!" into it, whereupon my dad asked "Do you hear Isaac? He said hello!!! We're having dinner now. You mean you haven't heard about the election results?"

My family is pretty crazy.
Anyway, the gist of what they were excited about was basically the fact that the Rakyat voted across the racial divide: Malays voted for DAP, non-Malays voted for PKR and even PAS! Which is a big turning point for Malaysia. The Rakyat have matured while the BN is still stuck in the dark ages. Malaysia is ready for new things. WE want leaders who represent Malaysia, and not a particular race. And even the Malays with their hak keistimewaan Melayu (special rights) have voted for parties led by other races because they are disgusted with BN's racial propaganda and lies, nepotism, lack of transparency...immaturity. It shows...something. And many Chinese and Indians were against Lim Kit Siang's move to boycott the MB swearing-in ceremony. There are of course some who think he shouldn't compromise, but under the circumstances, I think it was right for him to apologize.
Barisan Rakyat has a long way to go. As can be seen from the mindsets of Malaysians nowadays, if they don't perform, if they don't try to work together for the good of all Malaysians, if they play dirty politics, if they play racial cards...they are not going to stay in power.
Lets thank God for the change in Malaysia. Thank God that we are on the right track, that voters are smarter and are no longer brainwashed by the mass media. And let us pray for our leaders to make wise decisions. They are our leaders for the next 5 years. Pray for wisdom, and pray that they will stay true to the people, and not get corrupted by the sudden power that has been given to them. The winds of change are blowing, lets pray they blow in the right direction.

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"Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot."

- Oscar Wilde, poet and author (1854 - 1900).

Yeah, about the issue of faith again. I'm reading Yancey's "Reaching For the Invisible God" now. Read it on the mrt back and forth from Kampong Glam, an hour away from NUS (Sigh) by bus and train (including waiting time). In chapter 5 now. I think I mentioned in my previous post that I was so desirous to please God that I justify everything. I praise God when good things happen, and when bad things happen, God is in control. So Yancey brings up this point: The more personal our relationship with God, the more painful it becomes when God doesn't seem to be coming to our aid. And he brings up another point: When we do this, skeptics laugh...they think we're nuts.
I think Yancey's points have nothing to do with what I said earlier...but I'll get there, eventually haha! Anyway, another of Yancey's points was that faith is the opposite of paranoia. It reassembles the events of life around trust in a loving God. So, as skeptics would say, we create a premise (there is a good and loving God) and everything else revolves around the fact that the premise is an absolute truth. Anything that contradicts that promise must have another explanation!
Then let us consider a spy operating behind enemy lines. If suddenly the spy loses contact with friendly forces from his home country, will he feel that they have abandoned him? Or does he trust that perhaps the communication line has been compromised, or contacts have ended for his own protection? C.S. Lewis wrote about trusting strangers. In getting a dog out of a trap, or extracting a thorn from a child's finger, or guiding a beginner up a difficult part of a mountain...we are asking them to believe that what is painful will relieve the pain, or what looks dangerous is their only safety.

Oh, and did you know that in Daniel 10, the bible describes a scene where Daniel can't understand why his prayers have not been answered. An angel then shows up in in a dream to explain that for three weeks the spirit of the kingdom of Persia blocked his way ...and he only recently got reinforcements from Michael. This is a side note, hehe...but it brings up a rather strange and abstract idea of spiritual battle actually being real and occurring right now in the unseen world.
Anyway, back to two handed faith. "Two Handed Faith" basically means welcoming pleasures with one hand and afflictions with the left, convinced that both will serve God's design for us. The skeptic may say that this is letting God off the hook, but maybe this is what faith is, trusting in God's goodness despite evidence against it.
My dad brought up Jacob's wrestling with God once when i asked a question related to this topic (I think). I can't connect as yet. Anyway, written a lot of random thoughts again. Now I am interested in what the fear of God means. Will write after I've thought a bit more...Oh, and wondering about the concept of attitudes in life too....

Faith (A Very Random Post)

I am struggling with a concept called faith. I doubt all the time. God is dim, far away. I can't see Him. So I don't care. I do things like God isn't there to watch me. I am struggling with it, and I will never stop struggling. There has never been a time where I truly had faith, come to think of it. Not a drop. Not a cubic nanometre. There is always doubt at the corner of my mind.
I want to please God. I am so desirous of this I even tend to try and justify God. If things go wrong, I tell myself that God is in control. And I believe he is. I do I do. Do I?
What is faith? What is belief. Faith is belief in the invisible, the intangible. And isn't it just an oxymoron? Who can truly believe? Truly have faith. There may be some, but I am not one of them. I am so full of doubt. And do you? Honestly? I don't know. Perhaps you do...I can't say I do, and it troubles.
When I worry I turn to Matthew 6. God's eyes is on the sparrow. He clothes the lilies of the valley. How much more will he not take care of us? And yet when God wills it the sparrow dies. When there is drought the lilies wilt. Suffering is so rampant. Affluent people pray: Lord, take these trials away. Persecuted people pray: Lord, give me strength to face this trial.
When I pray, it is not always answered. I suffer setback. God, didn't you promise me that all things works together for the good of those who love God? (Romans 8:28). Why isn't it working right? Why do I suffer setback after setback? I think there are people who may be suffering even more. How can they go on having faith when they are suffering great persecution? When they have cancer, or like Joni Earickson, suffer paralysis? Perhaps we can say that God does it so that good can come of it. We know that ultimately it will be so. And meanwhile unfairness, injustice occurs. All of God's people suffered.
What is a relationship with God? How can you have a relationship with someone you can't see? And who sometimes never answers. Who sometimes is so distant you wonder if God is there at all.
I read The Great Divorce by C.S.Lewis, a long time favorite writer of mine. It is an allegory, not true in any sense, more...I really don't understand, I just find more and more meaning in it...I have to read it again, and again. And once more. In it, there is another journey after you die. An intermediate place (not like purgatory) more like a place where you continue to move toward God. There, you start off in a place where there is no fire, not like hell, but rather where you create a banal existence without meaning or purpose. And then there is the bus that takes you to another place. This place is uncomfortable. You cannot move in it because it hurts. Every step is agony. And then there are the bright people, who guide you. They say the more you step the less it will hurt. And there are things you have to get rid of. Lust. There was a man with a little demon of lust on his shoulder, and it was agony to let go of it. But when it was destroyed he changed. Then the woman who thought she loved her son. But it wasn't love. It was mother love gone wrong, a crippling thing. And she never saw the light. The man who lived on other's emotions. Who played it like an instrument. Make others feel bad and get your way. All the little evilness in a human's character. And they are all the same. In a human's eyes there may be gray spots, wickedness more wicked than another. But they are all the same here.
Doubt and faith go together? Without doubt, can it be called faith...
I have to go now, and haha, I've written a ton. These are just random things that pop into my head. Still, as Philip Yancey writes in his book "Reaching for the Invisible God": The only thing more difficult than having a relationship with an invisible God is having no such relationship.

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Oh, feel like writing again. I just got back from studio because there is nothing I can do there as yet. Sigh. Anyway, Studio, studio..this is going to be my random-est post yet, and probably the most shocking. Who am I? I don't know. I just drank coffee because I think I may have to stay up today to do master plan mapping, as Jeffrey Ho of Surbana Urban Planning group puts it. Coffee makes me act funny. Really. And say lots of random, unrelated, incomprehensible things.
I was walking back from studio (I do it a lot, back and forth, forth and back.) and decided to take the long way rather than my usual shortcut through engin, which I can do in my sleep (I usually do it in my sleep, at least, in that semi-comatose state you get into when slicing white cardboard at 4am). The long cut is the one passing Central Forum. Yeah, and I took the lift up to the 3rd floor because it was my usual route and then went down to the 2nd floor (which is the 1st floor on the other side) using the staircase (down is easier). And wandered along the curvy pathway past CELC.
Wish I could romanticize it. Big moon in the sky. Stars. Constellations (astronomy freak at your service). Crisp cold air. Silence. Connection with the universe.
Frankly, the air stunk. Haha, it was cold, but not crisp...(on a separate note the RH windbreaker is very nice when you first set out into the cold, but after some brisk walking it gets kind of warm...)...think there was dump-site nearby. And it was lonely. Rather scary...(Another separate note, Techno Edge is quite eerie at 1am in the morning.)...
Hehe, and guess what I saw? A lone Rafflesian jogging along the road...I won't say who, but whoever it is is from Road Race. There's dedication for you.
Oh, we had Pheonix Fest today. Hmm, Rafflesians are rather...kayu. It was held in comm hall rather than the takraw court because it was raining. And then it stopped when the tech team did their stuff in comm hall, so we had it in comm hall anyway! The first performance was Jack with "Qinqinqin" (money in canto) and the song that won Talento, "Piao Liang Nv Hai" complete with the three "piao liang nv hai's" from Talento! His performances are always a blast, but I felt there was some lack of enthu among the Rafflesians! I wonder why. I left then to change (I spent the WHOLE day out...Went to check site out, lecture, lunch, tutorial, AKI con, lecture...Argh) and (Oh, forgot to mention I had to dash from a lecture at Science fac to CL to studio in about 20 minutes flat, in the meantime find a book called "cube" which was borrowed *swt* in CL and find a person to pass my mapping to, which is now the cause of half my problems T.T) then when I came back I found I missed Gail's performance T.T and a few other performances...then came the individual singers, the dancers (hilarious! Practically the most entertaining of the lot haha!) and then the cme (Alex is good with the flute, and Leanne was funny!!! Haha, I mean the last part of the first song, not her flute playing later hhee) (Oh, I love stringed instruments! I love the sound of the er hu. And the yang qin (not gu zheng hhaa!!!)...and I think saxophone players are, uh...sexy, REALLY!!! (Coffee, coffee...)) (And I didn't know Clara played the flute) (Oh, and Jia Shen plays the drums??) (And...haha!) Anyway, there are just so many musically talented people in hall (why didn't Wei Ting play the violin!!! But the dance was great) And Yuko and Eileen and Jing Fen, Thomas, the other guys (dunno names sigh) great voices! I wish I was talented too haha! In my dreams I play the cello, I like the cello. There was this really handsome cellist in an mpo performance I went with a bunch of F6 friends after STPM...liked the cello ever since haha!) I play the piano, the guitar, the violin...in my dreams. Will remain there. Hhee. Anyway, Pehonix Fest ended with the final year performance, which personally I thought was very good. However, Rafflesians very kayu and however much TK was trying to work the crowd they just didn't get worked up. Hope next year's intake more 'on'. Not that I have any right to say that. I am not 'on' myself. Haha. OOoo, and I love that Shrek song, and that The Calling (Wherever You Will Go) song...haha...Anyway, got very hungry after the performances and went to cheers...but they were OUT OF RUFFLES. And I was craving Ruffles. yeargh.
Windows. Brings to mind the term defenestrate. I learned it from a David Edding's book (I think I mentioned I read a lot). It means to throw someone/something out the window. Then this soldier said he defenestrated the enemy soldier...and the Lady was like "What!!! That's horrible!" You see, taken another way, the soldier could have made windows in the...er...I don't think you want to know...(I told you coffee does strange things to me.)
I think this is enough. Haha. Coffee is making me feel sleepy, for some reason. Goodnite. (9am lecture tomorrow. Looking forward to it. (Really!!! I saw a cute guy somewhere in lecture hall today! See whether I can find him again?? Lol) (Coffeee!!! Yarghs!!!) (And I did not say during which lecture, and I wander into the wrong lecture halls occasionally. He may or may not be in my course.) (And he IS cute. So there.) (He's chivalrous...hehehe... :P)

(8) I Walk By Faith

I Walk By Faith
(Chris Falson)

I walk by faith
Each step by faith
To live by faith
I put my trust in You
I wallk by faith
Each step by faith
To live by faith
I put my trust in You

Every step I take
Is a step of faith
No weapon formed against me shall prosper
And every prayer I make
Is a prayer of faith
And if my God is for me
Tell me who can be against me

© 1990 Maranatha! Music

YOUTUBE!!


Kampung Glam at 3am in the morning! :D Notice the two Char Siew Paos on top of the Sultan's Mosque.

I was playing this song in my head as I walked back from studio this morning ;D
An old Sunday School song, there were actions to go with it! (And no, I did not walk
like an Egyptian all the way back from studio, though I did do funny dance steps along
the way lol) Anyway, no one to watch haha!