Of Resolutions

It's Chinese New Year and I realize I haven't really done any resolution making. I was kinda busy over the New Year and I never bothered to think properly about some really important stuff.

Well, I suppose this CNY hols I better be honest and write down some important stuff.

So this will be my resolution list:

1) Sign up for that PPE exam. I've had everything ready since last year but I've been putting it off because I've been being an idiot. It's not a difficult thing to do. Just drop the thing at the BCA and start meeting with my supervisors every 3 months. Argh, so hard to do meh? But me, and my fickle-minded indecisiveness will kill me one day.

2) Be more decisive. Sometimes, I believe I am very decisive. And then I realize that I'm not really. I really don't know what to be. Should I be decisive? Arghh.

3) Join a marathon. Even 10km one will do. Just go and run okay!

4) Go on a holiday. All my leave doesn't have to be spent on going home!! I need a real break sometimes. I love home, and I love my family, but this Singapore Working Environment requires a Real Break where I can hang around somewhere noone knows me and I get to put a hat over my head and collapse on a beach. Ok, I can't do that on a mission trip...but God knows it'll be better than the Singapore Working Environment. I bet they have R&R too.

5) Mission Trip. (May be Combined with Resolution No.4) I have no idea where. The Philippines was once an option. Actually it still is, but I want to try a new place. Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia? Shanghai? I'm not sure yet. The missions team at church has yet to come up with their list. I await it with an open mind. If not, I'm considering going to India with my friend's church team. Always wanted to do India, anyway.

6) Figure out this relationship thing. It's very confusing and I'm not sure half the time what is going on. Why are boys so confusing? What on earth do they want? What are they thinking? What did they think they were doing? What is the point? Why don't they tell us what they are thinking? Why just do and not say! Argggh. Anyway, I do believe that I'm not going to be single. I think I want to adopt alot of kids. Anyway, it certainly takes alot of providence to find someone to fall in love with, and who falls in love with you too. So I suppose I'm going to tack on some trust on that. And God, of course, our greatest matchmaker.

7) Pick up guitar. Dad wants me to. He wants one of his kids to play guitar, and since I'm the manliest of his girls he spent CNY trying to teach me guitar. I think I'm hopeless, but one should be nice to one's dads. My little bro is a pianist and the other bro prefers to knock computers about and swipe his ipad. So I think I'll spend sat mornings learning guitar then. I think there are classes held in church.

8) Volunteer. Alright. I've been thinking of doing this for ages. Ever since I gave up tuition on Saturday mornings I am seeking to do something about it. I can't learn guitar and volunteer at the same time. So which one comes first? And can I handle so many things? I also need to keep house and do laundry and  sweep and mop the floor and bake. I always like to fill up my time with so many things I hardly have time to breathe. Then I drop everything and realize I have too much time to breathe and then I get sick. So stupid. So volunteer or guitar? I dunno. Anyway, I want to do something with Autistic kids or Down Syndrome etc. Maybe just troubled kids. I can't really handle old people...but then that's just how I feel. I am going to pray God open some door nearby so I can helps some group of people.

*side note: I realize alot of people pray about something they have already thought about. I tend to pray things like: Hello God I don't know what to do please open the door and I'll walk through it. I suppose this is a side effect of my indecisiveness.
*Ok I have sent out a ton of volunteer forms. I'm not even sure where I have applied now.

9) This is the I Think I Can't Do It But I Must Resolve To kind of resolution. I have realized one thing about myself: I am a horrible person when people are horrible to me. Heh. It takes character to be a nice person when people are horrible to me. So, I need to develop a character that is sweet and kind and honorable even when treated in a most disgraceful manner (Or So I Think).

There really should be a 10 but I'm poofed and need to prepare dinner.

Tata. I've done my duty for this year. Pray I'll be able to keep it.

10) I have suddenly learned about this thing called discipling. I need to find one person to disciple this year. It has suddenly become an Important Thing. I shall look among the younger girls at church and learn to share my life with her. I have some idea who already but I shall pray about it so that I will know if it is God's will or not, or just some silly notion I have in my head.

Fear of Death

2 Corinthians 4

Therefore, since God in His mercy has given us this new way, we never give up. We reject all shameful deeds and underhanded methods. We don't try to trick anyone or distort the word of God. We tell the truth before God, and all who are honest know this. If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing.

Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. You see, we don't go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.

For God, who said, "Let there be light in the darkness,"has made this light shine in our hearts so that we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.

We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.

Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies. 

Yes, we live in constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you. But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, "I believed in God, so I spoke." We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you.

All of this is for your benefit. And as God's grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory. That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!

So we don't look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

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?