say

i have a lost evening.

i had plans this evening, but the plans were cancelled, thus, what could have been, was lost.

so how do i spend this lost evening?

i want to catch a sunset...

a beautiful sunset.

so i will run today, run in the evening...

and rejoice in my health, in my youth, in the pleasure of pushing my body once again.

it's a long time since i've had the chance to run!

my body is tingling with the pleasure of the idea.

oh how i've missed my runs!! oh how glad i am for the alone time!!

how glad for duties forgotten, and happiness derived!!

God, thank God for You!!! For all You have blessed me with!!

For a backache gone, for a headache gone!! Thank God for health!! Oh thank God for youth!!

Haha :)

Thank God for His wisdom, and guidance, in all I do.

Father, You are mighty, and worthy of all praise!

2013

This year, I want to learn one thing: To praise and serve God no matter what the circumstances.

Because He is good, and His plans are good, and I must trust in Him!

This world is imperfect, and everyone in it is imperfect.

I'm not certain what will happen this year, but He is constant and never changing. Thank God for that.

I begin this year on uncertain footing. Still, there is something special about it.

I am glad, glad for the goodness He has placed in my life. He has blessed me so, and will continue to bless me, with everything I need, no more and no less, exactly enough.

So this year begins with praise, no matter what the circumstances.

wishes, hopes and dreams

hello again old blog!!

it's deepavali today!

so i'm off work!

it feels so lovely to be off work :)

SO LOVELY!!

I got up at 655am for some reason...

and I've just finished cleaning the whole house.

I considered baking a cheesecake but I realize I don't have enough eggs.

so perhaps I shall paint.

:)

it's lovely, lovely, lovely!!

There's only one thing...

I want to see someone.

but there isn't any excuse to see that person...

is there?

so near, yet so far.

Of The Past Few Months

So much time has passed since my last post here. Sometimes I come back here because I want to write the posts I used to write, the posts that are more pensive, less secretive, more descriptive, more talkative, more relevant...to my life.

The last few days have been really nice, and although I am strangely tired tonight, I feel like writing like I used to write again.

Not that I really remember how I used to write. I do remember being rather long winded and rambling, so that must be it.

This morning, I woke up rather later than usual (845am, to be exact) because the night before was spent with my open studio mates whom I have hardly met since I started work.

Anyway, so this morning I woke up at 845am and sort of mooned until i heard the Sunday Church bells ringing from my current church. Yup, I live that close. That allows me to wake up at 845am and still be at church vaguely on time. I kind of like those bells actually. Rather friendly.

I grabbed something from the fridge for breakfast, dressed quickly and dashed downstairs. Walked in just after the opening hymn...living nearby doesn't really make one early haha.

This church is rather different from the two churches I attended before. My church in KL was charismatic, and there was drums in church, and the youths got all jumpy during youth service. We sung Hillsong and Planet Shakers. GLCC was a very quiet church for me, when I first came.

Now Galilee is even quieter...

And they only play hymns. The band is kinda nice though. There is a grand piano and an organ, and violinists and the trumpet and the flute and the saxophone. No cello though. Lol.

I quite like hymns these days. Sometimes though, I find some hymns kinda weird...while people all say hymns are really biblical and modern Christian songs are all really bad, sometimes I find that some hymns are a little...strange.

but maybe I'm strange. Or I need to understand the lyrics better. Haha.

There are times when I don't quite agree with the sermons. GLCC sermons were slightly more aligned to my thinking. Not totally, but perhaps a little closer. However, I am glad for Sunday morning sermons because occasionally they guide my personal devotions (if devotions in a squashed train count).

still, it's ambiguous. I keep finding out more and more how wrong i am in my personal ideas of God, so I can't say I'm the best person to ask if a sermon is sound or not. I think most of the sermons are sound, and they aren't preaching nonsense or prosperity gospels or anything. God is God and He died for our sins. We are here on earth to glorify Him.

I guess we can't go far wrong there. Can we...if God is the centre one can't go wrong. Right.

I wonder often why I still attend Galilee...I dropped in after a disastrous trip to Grand Corpthorne which I have never told anyone about but I do think it was rather disastrous, which sort of encouraged my about turn into Galilee church the following week. Which was alright...which I find rather amazing because Galilee turned out to be precisely the church my mummy attended back when she was in Singapore. The senior pastor saw me one day and asked me: DO I KNOW YOU...then I said: Hmm, my mom used to attend this church...her name was dotdotdot...and then he said: OH YOU MEAN...??? then yeah...well I guess I resemble my mom alot.

Talk about fate.

Anyway, speaking about fate, I bumped into stacey on friday evening. I was going back from work, and for some strange reason I decided to go to artfriend to pick something up (I never get off at this station. I always take the green line and go back to jurong east). and walked into stacey who was talking on the phone down the staircase.

now if i hadn't gotten off at that time and stacey wasn't on the phone we could have just slipped past each other somehow. it was absolutely the strangest thing that ever happened.

and there was one seat left in simon's car (which he loaned to justin, apparently) which felt like the exact place i ought to be when i hopped up the car.

so. fate for you.

i don't know if there is such thing as fate, but i do think everything happens for a reason.

maybe when i'm 80 i will look back and know why God made all these things happen.

In the meantime, I think it's about time I stopped crapping (wah i haven't crapped like this on a blog in a while)

I was going to write about Luke something something today which the pastor spoke on but I sort of forget what to write.

oh ya I was also going to say that it's rather nice to be able to do craft work in church again! I never got the chance in GLCC because GLCC was so big and there were so many talented people that I wasn't needed and anyway there was no place to do any craft work because there was no building...

so i'm sorta glad to be in galilee cos I feel useful.

I don't know. GLCC, Galilee...all the body of Christ. Who cares which church you're from?

I used to think church hopping wasn't the best of things...now I think I was a bit legalistic.

Oh the video we watched at stacey's place was really good!

Ah. I better end here or I won't get to sleep early like I planned to.

Goodnight! :D

Invisible Rooms

The Architect was a frustrated person.

Balding, tired, and not particularly rich.

His name was Ralph, and he was 50 years old. He had been rather a brilliant student back in university. Somehow the world didn't take to him once he graduated. It was just darn bad luck, it seemed.

He had chosen the wrong paths, missed opportunities, been far too pleasant to be noticed, and generally didn't make too much of an impact in the design world.

He had a small family, a pretty, plump wife who worked part time at the furniture shop downtown. A slumping teenager who was all set not to become an architect like his father.  A younger son more obsessed with electronics than art. 

On Ralph's 50th birthday, he was in the office drawing out some plans by hand to be drafted out on the computer later by one of the young interns. He was rather afraid of interns, sometimes, just as he was a little afraid of his son. They were all so young and all of them spoke different lingo, and then they expected him to know everything because well, he was the Architect.

Well, Ralph was thinking to himself. Once he had been an intern. Once he had believed that the Architects knew everything. Once, he remembered, he had had ideals. 

But then, he decided, as he handed the plans over to the intern, a smartly dressed young man with a rather strange set of glasses that filled most of his face, that was all over. Now he was designing pretty buildings, working buildings. But under all these buildings were that underlying economic factor and the underlying boredom of their creators, artists stinted by conventions and styles.

He picked up his suitcase, smiled at the receptionist and left the building. Senior Architect, he could leave whenever he liked, and his wife had specifically said that he should be home early that day.

Well, thought he. Life was certainly all that he could ask. But it was still somewhat frustrating, having lived till 50 and still not having achieved anything of note. 

His wife and children were there with a birthday cake, and the sullen teenager had a sullen smile and the younger boy had a robot smile. Gift for his daddy. His wife had a little box for him, only to be opened in his study later, honey. 

Darling Bridget, he thought fondly. So many years she put up with him, his troubles, the time he was laid off when the economy crashed. She stuck with him. 

They had a lovely evening together, and the sullen teenager actually had a gift for him, a small moleskine notebook with blank pages, how thoughtful. Perhaps he hadn't seen as much of the boy as he should have, Ralph thought. One thing he did know was that the boy refused to become an architect, in fact, he refused to study, more or less. 

That was okay with Ralph. See all the billionaires, he figured, none of them went to college. Bridget had other ideas, though. She was convinced her son was a no-good and was constantly worrying about him.  The trouble with Ralph, she said, was that Ralph was too darn pleasant.

That night, he was really rather tired and slept early. Before he slept, however, he wrote neatly in his new moleskine book: "Spend more time with Timmy, before it gets too late. Get Darren a telescope."

That night, he had a rather unusual dream. He woke up feeling rather ratty, had his breakfast and was off to work again.

At work, he discovered he had picked up the wrong briefcase, and excused himself to go home to retrieve it. Well, there were certain perks to having a Director's title. 

His study was immaculate, as usual. Walnut shelves. His study table with the black box on it.

He picked up the box fondly and opened the cover. Inside it was a rather unusual combination of papers. Sketches, he realized. Possibly his own. He frowned. He never remembered drawing these. The handwriting was his, however. And the sketches were his style. 

Ralph was intrigued. Strange that his wife would give him such a gift. 

As he shuffled between the papers, a small envelop emerged. 

"Dear 50-year-old Ralph," it begun.

Ralph sat down rather hard on his armchair. He had never remembered writing this. 

He read it again.

"Dear 50-year-old self," it started.

It was about two sheets long. And it was signed Your 25-year-old self.

50-year-old Ralph sighed unhappily. It was all very well if he had written the letter when he was 25 years old and left the box to be opened by himself when he was 50 years old, however he remembered doing nothing of the sort. 

"Bridget!" He hollered. Bridget wasn't at home, he remembered. She was working at the furniture store downtown.

Well, Ralph decided. Even if it wasn't written by his 25 year old self, perhaps it might be worth reading, prank or otherwise.

He put on his reading glasses and settled down comfortably on his study chair. Work, it seemed to him, wasn't particularly important today. Which was a strange thought for Ralph. 

"Dear 50-year-old Ralph,

I am sure you are surprised to receive this. As I would be if I were you, which I am. And if I were you, most likely you would have looked down and checked who wrote this letter, so you already know who is writing this. 

I am writing this in the little room you shared with 6 other boys when you just graduated. Do you remember the double bunk beds and Richard who slept on the floor because he was jobless and couldn't pay the rent? 

Today I am alone, and it is a terrible evening. You wil imagine you have never remembered this, but it is true. I am sorry for the changes that would happen in your life.  I am sorry that mediocrity will be all you remember.

But it is a decision that I have to make, that you had to make. 

It is difficult to write this, because tomorrow I will remember nothing of this. And as you will see later, this is not a letter I am allowed to write.

25 years ago and 8 months, when you were in your final year of university, you joined an international design competition and won it. You were also involved in it for the first year of construction. you do not remember anything of this, but bear with me.

It was a design for the supreme court. You were working on it every evening for weeks, after your night shift at Kolmann's bar. I wonder if you will remember Kolmann's bar. You played the bass there some nights. Other nights you mixed drinks. I think that was the best time of your university life.

I shall bring you back to the competition. You had much fun with it. You did not expect to win. 

I write this because you did win. But there are no records that you did. In fact, if you check at all, there are no records of this competition.

But the building was built, and it is your design, as you can see from the plans you will likely find with this letter. And I would like to bring forward to you the presence of the passageway you included between the walls of the court, because it was built."

Robert looked up at the sheets of folded paper. Something stirred in his mind. He remembered his schoolday penchant for sometimes including strange spaces within his plans, glorifying in the fact that his tutors at school never paid enough attention to notice them, if he failed to mention them during his final critiques. 

A smile played at the corners of his mouth.

"Just a few hours ago, you signed your life away. Or rather, you gave your life up. It was imposed upon you, this memory swipe. But it ensured a future for you. It ensured that one day, you would pick up this letter and read it, and your 25 year old self will know he cheated the system.

I will not write anymore, but if you are me, and the memory swipe didn't kick your personality out of whack, I imagine giving my 50 year old self another go at life.

Sincerely,

Your 25 year old self

50 year old Ralph glanced at the clock. He picked up the phone and called his secretary, announcing he was going to take 15 days leave in one go.

AARGHHHH how is this gonna end?

Oh Joys

I'm not a very smart person, but I'm graduating! :DDDD YAYS!

I feel like you know, the girl from Legally Blonde who was only checking her results to see if she passed...hahaha.

that's basically all i cared about, the little words at the bottom of the grades: passed.

well my grades sucked as usual, but who cares? I passed! I'm a masters girl!

WAH NO MORE SCHOOL @@ I can't believe I'm so happy I'm no longer in school...

A Profundity

Once in a while, I go on a blog binge, meaning that I check up all the old blogs I used to follow regularly, just to see what those blog people have been up to and whatnot.

I shan't tell you which blogs I visit, some of them are really girly blogs about makeup and stuff (seriously I am not that sort of girl, but sometimes they really are so pretty, you know) and some of them are of these pretty girls who write really well and attend Oxford or something. Sometimes the blogs are mother blogs, some of them are cooking blogs. I even occasionally visit sewing blogs. I realize very few men blog, or if they do, they rarely update or I am not interested anyway. Oh except for David Lebovitz, but he's gay.

On a side note, I kept bumping into the most beautiful guy last semester and the last time I saw him he smiled and said hi, and so of course I got kinda interested, so i stalked him using the usual stalk tactics and turns out he's gay. I suppose nice, handsome gorgeous young men tend to be gay. So sad :( But I digress.

I wonder what sort of blogger I am, and if anyone chanced upon this blog would anyone care to stay?

I suppose, being myself, I would be rather flattered if anyone wanted to even read my blog, if they didn't know who I was and were interested in it for it's own sake. Rather than the interest of a friend or the interest of a kaypoh. But then inside I also feel rather worried, should many people read this blog, will I remain writing what I write or thinking about who reads it, and tailoring my writing to meet the needs of these phantom readers?

There, I attempt profundity and realize I cannot continue. I really must be myself or none at all.

Anyway, I write here two days before my results are going to be out, and I must say I have inside me a rather nagging fear that I love to brush off with my usual "Oh don't think about it, it's going to be fine." but then when it does occasionally occur to me I feel this uncomfortable feeling rearing up like a bushel of dragonflies in the pit of my stomach wondering "what if it weren't fine?"

I wrote in an earlier post on this blog (I tend to mix up what I've written here and what I've written in my tumblr sometimes) about grabbing the bull by it's horns and facing the world and that the world owes me nothing and all that. Well, I wrote that before I sent out my cvs and portfolios and prayed very hard that somehow one of these 6 firms I applied to would grant me an interview. So that was basically what grabbing the bull by it's horns meant. You know, self promotion gets kinda scary when you look at yourself and don't feel exactly promotable. So I had to (grab the bull (myself) by the horns) look hard at myself, figure out which projects expressed myself best, and put it all into a booklet to make myself look better than I actually was.

Turns out I am rather impressed with my own work at points, and I wonder why my grades didn't quite show it. haha. Oh well, maybe my standards are low.

Still, right now my stomach turns at the thought of going to work and having my employers realize they really got a noob of noobs as an employee, after my shameless self promotion during the interview, during which i forgot to mention my weaknesses and remembered only my strengths. Argh. Is this dishonest? I should have mentioned that I am not exactly a top student, but I kept saying I liked this project and I liked the other project I did and why and all that and I suppose there was an impression that the projects were actually good (Actually I really think they looked rather cool, just that for some reason my grades didn't reflect that, but I didn't mention that...)

Oh dear I feel like my desperation to get a job has made me shameless in the interview room.

But who on earth tells the interviewer that I am really bad at what I do and please don't hire me?

In architecture, it's the portfolio that matters, not the grades. That's why they didn't ask me for my grades, they told me to bring my portfolio. My portfolio looks ok.

But my grades don't! D:

I am feeling very guilty now.

My main problem in this course is guilt. I never take credit for luck...which is basically what I have to rely upon alot when designing, because you know, in creative work, you 'suddenly' chance upon a really good idea and you have no idea how it happened, and you better not mention that you didn't know how it happened.

so I happily always mention that I didn't know how it happened. so I die there.

I should have taken a course where I know what happens. Like provable stuff. Not a course that's half the person and half the work.

But oh well, I'm a Master graduate...in two days...if i pass...arggghhh...of a subject I don't really know much about (honest, I still think I don't know what I'm doing) and I wonder if everyone thinks that? I have a PhD friend and he seems to think he knows more than everyone else about his PhD topic, which I suppose is true because he's the only one who ever did research on it. He's working for NASA on top secret stuff now. So I suppose it's true. Masters is really nothing lor, wait till you get a PhD.

Okay, here I am belittling my Masters again. I better quote myself just after I finished submissions: "Seriously, I think I learned more in my masters year than in my four years getting my bachelors."

But I still think I don't know enough...there is so much more I need to learn...

But no way I'm going to get a PhD. Too much work. Haha. (Secretly I don't think I can do it @@) And no point...you are very highly educated but you only get to teach. No point. I prefer to go into business.

Which brings me to wonder what I really want to do in life. I realize one thing: I Do Not Want to be An Architect For a Long Time.

But I also know that: "I Don't Know What I Want to Do, Really."

I was thinking I wanted to be a developer instead, but one needs alot of money to be a developer, not something I can be at once. I also want to do some sort of business, not very sure what sort of business, but I do.

Then I think...But I'm a girl. Okay, I know, equality of the sexes and all that. However, if I ever did have kid, I will give up certain dreams I have to look after those kids. I think it's important.

Nohow. Life is never what you plan it to be. At any rate, at least I know God is in control.

What a long post about nothing, and not very profound either, whatever the aims of these post.