奇异恩典

You are amazing, God.

2006-04-09T17:32:00.000+01:00

Just got back from a week away at mostly sunny skegness, where I went for the Word Alive conference. 7000 people from all over UK, all gathering to learn together and grow in the knowledge of the grace of our Lord. One God. Truly amazing, truly humbling.

Well, that doesn't really explain my absence from here- what does is that my internet connection has been kind of shaky, and that I've been trying to stick to studying and running. :)

Ok, news also is that because due to power socket constraints I can't rearrange the furniture in my room, and I'm just itching to change the look of something, anything, decided to change blogspace to a new one HERE.

It's really bare for now, haven't got time to do anything to it, but it's a change! So shall be posting whatever snippets of my life there from now on.

Can I just say before I leave though, quoting the song "Indescribable"...
Awestruck I fall to my knees as I humbly proclaim: God is amazing.

I think in the midst of this mad rush to finish studying for exams, I just needed a shaking-up, to be reminded all over again, that I'm living this life for so much more than the insignificant pimple-stricken girl I stare at in the mirror each morning.

I live in the light of the person of Jesus Christ and what He came to fulfil, in the light of what little we know of eternity.

And that really makes all the difference you know.

--

You do all things well

Mountain maker, ocean tamer
Glimpses of You, burn in my eyes
The worship of heaven, fills up the skies

You made it all, said, "let there be"
And there was, all that we see
The sound of Your voice
The works of Your hands
You do all things well
You do all things well
You do all things well

Star creator, wind breather
The strokes of Your beauty
Brushed through the clouds
Light from the heavens
Touching the ground

Imagination runs wild
And breathes the breath of life
Across the fields, across the miles

hymn

2006-03-19T23:49:00.000Z

This hymn has a beautiful tune that I can only half remember, does anybody know?

Have been seeking God on something that is so small but seems so huge, much confusion and doubt, fear and pride to sort out, so hearing these words sung this morning? just so apt. :)

Light of the minds that know him-
may Christ be light to mine!
my sun in risen splendour,
my light of truth divine;
my guide in doubt and darkness
my true and living way,
my clear light ever shining,
my dawn of heaven's day.

Life of the souls that love him-
may Christ be ours indeed!
the living bread from heaven
on whom our spirits feed;
who died for love of sinners
to bear our guilty load,
and make of life's brief journey
a new Emmaus road.

Strength of the wills that serve him,
may Christ be strength to me,
who stilled the storm and tempest,
who calmed the tossing sea;
his spirit's power to move me,
his will to master mine,
his cross to carry daily
and conquer in his sign.

May it be ours to know him
that we may truly love:
and loving, fully serve him
as serve the saints above;
till in the home of glory
with fadeless splendour bright
we serve in perfect freedom
our strength, our life, our light.

some tv for the weekend

2006-03-19T23:24:00.000Z

Decided I needed some leisure, and so watched a fair bit of TV today. But it was what would have been considered educational TV by my parents when I was younger, so that’s ok. (:

Yep, like the Commonwealth Games! I think I enjoy watching sports much more than actually doing any. They were showing events I liked too, like synchronised swimming (jaw-dropped in amazement at their precision and the way they can keep their toes curled when their legs are dancing out of water- I tried and got a foot cramp immediately), like netball (which I actually know the rules for, and the way the girls move across court- just so much athleticism but combined with such grace, like squash (which triggered off memories of cheering for the rg and hc teams at Kallang), like the marathon (won by the 38 yr old Australian mother of two who doesn’t look like her stomach skin has ever been stretched!) The Melbourne crowd is truly quite amazing, the whole stadium was filled and buying tickets just to watch the start and end of a 2.5 hr long marathon.

What else: I also caught the interview they did with the dashing young men who are England's star swimmers. Oh and then of course, the BBC team checked out Melbourne cafes, including, no kidding, a dog-café. Yeah, to semi-quote the presenter, you sip cappuccino while doggy-dearest laps at pup-puccino! ahaha. And then the amazing café where the owner creates art in the foam of each cup of coffee with the tip of the spoon handle, and has pictures of women’s faces floating on coffee framed up around his café.

Then there was Planet Earth, which I shall make regular TV fare from this week on. (: Really miss watching these nature documentary sorts. Anyway today they featured freshwater, and traced the path it takes from mountaintop to lake or sea, plus all the living things along the way. (:

I have fallen in love with otters! Why didn’t anyone tell me how adorable (and cartoon) these cuties are before? They climb out of the water on to the banks to wriggle around in the sand on their backs, together, because back-rubbing is a social activity for them. And the way they stand up on their hind-feet and make squeaky noises! Ok but the best has to be all these little ottery things ganging up to harass grumpy Mr Alligator, strength in numbers they seemed to think, though watching them I really feared the alligator would just get mad and finish one off in a snap!

Ok. Now, TV's off and I'm online. sigh. There seems to be problem with my laptop too, keeps re-starting itself for no good reason. All my firefox bookmarks have disappeared! I hope nothing else does before I have a chance to back it all up!!

sesame street!!

2006-03-12T14:44:00.000Z

Because this clip has so many of my favouritest sesame street songs/cartoonthings/monsters. plus the manamana song at the end. ahaha. And because I'm sure my sisters who like me spent afternoons watching these things too will enjoy it if no one else does. :)

So many more favourites I can think of aren't in there tho -yes obviously they can't fit everything in, but still- like count-von-count, super-grover, zoe-elmo clips and ernie's 'I'd like to live on the moon' song and oh oh the cereal-girl song!! but this does have rubber duckie, and sing-a-song, and alistair cookIE and all the impt monsters do appear. ahaha. :)

"Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away, on my way to where the air is sweet..."

as songtime and springtime and summertime to be

2006-03-12T13:46:00.000Z

Just came back from church, came straight back because I was feeling so tired.
The choir sang, very excellently, a beautiful song in church today:

As water to the thirsty,
as beauty to the eyes,
as strength that follows weakness,
as truth instead of lies,
as songtime and springtime
and summertime to be
so is my Lord, my living Lord,
so is my Lord to me.

Like calm in place of clamour,
like peace that follows pain,
like meeting after parting,
like sunshine after rain,
like moonlight and starlight
and sunlight on the sea
so is my Lord, my living Lord
so is my Lord to me.

As sleep that follows fever,
as gold instead of grey,
as freedom after bondage,
as sunrise to the day,
as home to the traveler
and all we long to see
so is my Lord, my living Lord
so is my Lord to me.

- words by Timothy Dudley-Smith, music by Brian Coleman

Must say that when the words were flashed on the screen, I thought, oh one of those lots of pretty things songs. Which ya, guess it is, but in its simplicity it spoke to something in me.

I think my flu's gotten worse again. Which makes sense because I recovered too quickly, so that now I think about it, it's like I kind of got well enough to make it through the looong day yesterday (OCF's easter event), and then lapsed back into normal trend of recovery. So, thank God.

Wish the holidays were here! Or actually, no I take that back, I don't want to meet the future sooner than I must. Wish the clocks would stop a day, or maybe a week. So I can then get back on track work-wise, gym-wise, God-wise etcetc-wise. Too much to think about- giving me a headache!

Ok need food need sleep, got to go. :)

another chance!

2006-03-09T23:14:00.000Z

sick

2006-03-08T20:08:00.000Z

I could write about how horrible a day I've had, except that I would be half-lying. :P

It is extremely terrible and horrible to have to mope around with a dripping (now stuffy) nose, a perpetually throbbing head, sore throat, dry mouth and body ache all over. (I also realised today how clumsy I am, because every single bump I made was magnified 1000 times by my achey self.) But it was good to mope around legitimately, and sleep hours on end knowing I have to, sleep not being a reducible option anymore but a desperate necessity.

I still hate illness and hate not being able to eat chocolate (although I love bread soaked in milo maybe I shall continue eating that after I'm well). And it is really very 辛苦, especially the being woken up by my own coughing in the middle of the night part- which makes me long for Vicks and home. BUT, it must have been time to rest, my body knows best. So.

Can only keep praying for full recovery now- please please let me be well before Saturday's easter event?

I need to go do my essay now- His grace is ever sufficient for me. :)

____________

When I was weak, unable to speak, still I could call You by name
And I said Elbow Healer, Superhero, come if you can
You said, I Am

When I was weak, unable to speak, still I could call You by name
And I said Heartache Healer, Secret Keeper, be my best friend
You said, I Am

When I was weak, unable to speak, still I could call You by name
Oh, Shepherd Savior, Pasture Maker, hold on to my hand
You said, I Am

I will be weak, unable to speak, still I will call You by name
Creator, Maker, Life Sustainer
Comforter, Healer, My Redeemer
Lord and King, Beginning and the End
I Am, I Am

- excerpts from Nichole Nordeman's "I Am"

on my knees

2006-02-28T08:43:00.000Z

I woke up this morning to my alarm clock and sunshine streaming in through gaps in the curtains. And I thought to myself, I'm going to smile, today's going to be a wonderful day. I thought of all the things I need to do, in what order I'll do them, how I'll be extremely productive, how I shall not waste an irretrievable second etc...

So, after I brush my teeth (including two emerging wisdom teeth which hurt like crazy but only at certain crazy moments), wash my face and come back downstairs, I lift my laptop cover and open gmail. Suddenly, all that organisation and I'm-in-control and coolness promptly flies out the window and I'm reduced to a sobbing mess in my swirly chair for the next few minutes.

And why? Daddy just forwarded me an email from my cousin, to say that my 大姑 accepted Christ last night. 大姑, whom I've always loved for her goodness and kindness, admired so much for her strength and patience in face of illness, hardship and other things, who is still struggling valiantly against cancer.

It was at this line that I started crying uncontrollably: "She asks our Father to heal her completely so that she can go to church with me on Sunday." My tears are tears of such unspeakable joy, to know that someone I love, that my family loves, that God loves above all, has decided to accept His love.

They are tears of realisation that my world has once again shrunken back into that small walnut shell filled with me and little else. They are also of immense disappointment: realising that I did not believe firmly enough that it was possible for God to take away fear of my grandmother and whatever other fears and disbelief there was in her heart and replace it with peace and assurance in Him. Knowing that I had not prayed with as much faith as I could have had, that sometimes I ceased to pray on this matter altogether.

But God works in mysterious ways. I cannot presume to know them all, but now for example, I do believe He sent my cousin to Canada to study despite all the financial constraints, so that he might find Him there. To find Him and then return to Malaysia to be that shining light to his family, an encouragement to his mother in troubled times, and in turn to be such an encouragement to my family.

You might not understand this, you might scoff it, but it's impossible for me to ignore the intricate weaving of divine plans between the canvas of my life and that of my cousin's and aunt's all the way back home. My cousin'll probably never knew how timely his email was, to him it was the natural thing to send an email the next morning. But it was perfect timing, for me to receive it when I did just now, for me to be gently rebuked, for me to fall on my knees again.

I pray for God's healing hand to be upon 大姑 now, I pray for His joy, love, peace, peace that the world cannot give, to be with their family. I echo her own prayer, that she might be well enough to attend church with her son this Sunday. And if you would, please pray with me.

!!

2006-02-23T23:36:00.000Z

Anyway, having just watched the very exhilarating ladies figure skating championships, I soooo wish I were young enough (like 5) to be an aspiring figure skater!! They were just amazing. I actually shed REAL tears when 荒川静香 shizuka arawaka WON! Half-wished I were Japanese so I could jump up and down and cheer and scream and cry properly but oh well. I really really admire her grace and elegance, such a beautifully exquisitely perfect performance. Everytime she did some triple this or double that I had to wince because I was literally too scared to watch her fall. Of course she didn't! Sasha Cohen did fall, which was such a pity because I really did love her short programme, though even on Tuesday I already liked Arawaka for being so serene and demure. Do you know, even when she realised she'd won, she was just a picture of joyful composure, just smiling and smiling so sweetly, while all the people around her were shaking her, her hand, the chair, tears etc. Haha. I should stop ranting right. And I actually felt pain for Irina Slutskaya because she does deserve to win it, it's her last chance! Not being on form when it matters must be disappointing and horrible to the max. Ok, just getting the euphoria (over what I don't really know) out of my system. :)

2006-02-23T23:27:00.000Z

You scored as Journalism. You are an aspiring journalist, and you should major in journalism! Like me, you are passionate about writing and expressing yourself, and you want the world to understand your beliefs through writing.

English

100%

Journalism

100%

Dance

92%

Biology

83%

Linguistics

83%

Theater

75%

Art

75%

Sociology

67%

Philosophy

58%

Psychology

58%

Mathematics

50%

Engineering

50%

Anthropology

42%

Chemistry

25%

What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3)
created with QuizFarm.com

why do I see english at the top? admittedly biased by my emphatic "disagree" with everything to do with analytical/rational/social-science like things in the questions. so. one foot in the right door?

2006-02-22T01:03:00.000Z

Today was a good day. And I have so many good songs on my laptop that I've forgotten all about. But this is a new good song.

Friend and King

My eyes are ever on You Lord
You guide me with Your hand
This road I take is led by You
I will walk Your ways

In my days of trouble Lord
I can depend on You
I'm hidden in Your presence now
Established in Your grace

I am Yours
Forever I will sing
Faithful is my Friend and King

Karlee Abbott and Claire O'Neil/Riverview Media

"dreamsweetnightgoodybovreeair"

initiative

2006-02-20T21:31:00.000Z

This will be LONG. Chunks from the past four days in my daily devotional (Oswald Chambers) which I should have read on those dates at the top of those pages but didn't till today:

---

The Initiative against Depression

"Arise and eat" - 1 Kings 19:5

The angel did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable; he told Elijah to do the most ordinary thing, to get up and eat.

If we were never depressed we should not be alive; it is the nature of a crystal to be depressed. A human being is capable of depression, otherwise there would be no capacity for exaltation. There are things that are calculated to depress, things that are of the nature of death; and in taking an estimate of yourself, always take into account the capacity for depression.

When the Spirit of God comes He does not give us visions, He tells us to do the most ordinary things conceivable. Depression is apt to turn us away from the ordinary commonplace things of God's creation, but whenever God comes, the inspiration is to do the most natural simple things - the things we would never have imagined God was in, and as we do them we find He is there.

The inspiration that comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression; we have to do the next thing and do it in the inspiration of God. If we do a thing in order to overcome depression, we deepen the depression; but if the Spirit of God makes us feel intuitively that we must do the thing, and we do it, the depression is gone. Immediately we arise and obey, we enter on a higher plane of life.

The Initiative against Despair

"Rise, let us be going" - Matthew 26:46

The disciples went to sleep when they should have kept awake, and when they realised what they had done it produced despair. The sense of the irreparable is apt to make us despair, and we say - "It is all up now, it is no use trying any more." If we imagine that this kind of despair is exceptional, we are mistaken, it is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realise that we have not done that which we had a magnificent opportunity of doing, then we are apt to sink into despair; and Jesus Christ comes and says - "Sleep on now, that opportunity is lost forever, you cannot alter it but arise and go on to the next thing." Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ, and go out into the irresistible future with Him.

There are experiences like this in each one of our lives. We are in despair, the despair that comes from actualities, and we cannot lift ourselves out of it. The disciples in this instance had done a downright unforgivable thing; they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus, but He came with a spiritual initiative against their despair and said "Arise and do the next thing." If we are inspired of God, what is the next thing? To trust Him absolutely and to pray on the ground of His Redemption.

Never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action.

The Initiative against Drudgery

"Arise, shine." - Isaiah 60:1

We have to take the first step as though there were no God. It is no use to wait for God to help us, He will not; but immediately we arise we find He is there. Whenever God inspires, the initiative is a moral one. We must do the thing and not lie like a log. If we will arise and shine, drudgery becomes divinely transfigured.

Drudgery is one of the finest touchstones of character there is. Drudgery is work that is very far removed from anything to do with the ideal - the utterly mean grubby things; and when we come in contact with them we know instantly whether or not we are spiritually real. Read John 13. We see there the Incarnate God doing the most desperate piece of drudgery, washing fishermen's feet, and He says - "If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet."

It requires the inspiration of God to go through the drudgery with the light of God upon it. Some people do a certain thing and the way in which they do it hallows that thing forever afterwards. It may be the most commonplace thing, but after we have seen them do it, it becomes different. When the Lord does a thing through us, He always transfigures it. Our Lord took on Him our human flesh and transfigured it, and it has become for every saint the temple of the Holy Ghost.

The Initiative against Dreaming

"Arise, let us go hence." - John 14:31

Dreaming about a thing in order to do it properly is right; but dreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. After Our Lord had said those wonderful things to His disciples, we might have expected that He would tell them to go away and meditate over them all; but Our Lord never allowed "mooning". When we are getting into contact with God in order to find out what He wants, dreaming is right; but when we are inclined to spend our time in dreaming over what we have been told to do, it is a bad thing and God's blessing is never on it. God's initiative is always in the nature of a stab against this kind of dreaming, the stab that bids us "neither sit nor stand but go".

If we are quietly waiting before God and He has said- "Come ye yourselves apart," then that is meditation before God in order to get at the line He wants; but always beware of giving over to mere dreaming once God has spoken. Leave Him to be the source of all your dreams and joys and delights, and go out and obey what He has said. If you are in love, you do not sit down and dream about the one you love all the time, you go and do something for him; and that is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Dreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.

---

Think that's it, some of what's been weighing me down articulated in those words, there's probably a lot more, but hey enough to stare in the mirror at for the moment: depression, despair, drudgery, dreaming... Yes way too much dreaming, and too little doing...

exam

2006-02-19T15:28:00.000Z

The most crucial exam of all, and one I neglect most, is the examination of self. "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves." 2 Corinthians 13:5

A moden heresy, a common half-truth, said Rico Tice this morning, is: "Lord my life's so empty, fill me." as opposed to the real gospel, the full truth of "Lord I'm full of sin, my life's an offence to you, rescue me." The first being a wanting-more-and-more and the second being a get-down-on-knees-and-plead cry of brokeness and humility. And sometimes it's indeed too easy to lose sight of that, the fact that we're rebels more often than victims in this fallen world, and that we actually NEED forgiveness, NEED salvation.

--

Randomness:
1. Heinz's beef broth in a can is good with toast.
2. I clicked on Minesweeper just now. Minesweeper, that silent lonely game that I played to while away many nights last winter. So lousy at it now, can't get anywhere near those high scores I registered long ago.
3. It is so cold in my room. Radiator and fan heater are on and I've just pulled on my sweater.
4. What I'm not meant to know, I'm better off not knowing, really. Why do I never learn my lesson?
5. Nothing moves me the way a sanctuary echoing with magnificent orchestral music and the beautiful voices of people in all colours, shapes and sizes, just worshipping, can.

--

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong, a perfect plea:
a great High Priest, whose name is Love,
who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is written on His hands,
my name is hidden in His heart;
I know that while in heaven He stands
no power can force me to depart,
no power can force me to depart.

wonderful

2006-02-18T14:17:00.000Z

It strikes me that I should be panicking and hyperventilating right about now:

B34: Seminar II prep; Essay on bank management; 5 chapters of reading, 6 sets of photocopied *things*.
B203: Coursework 4; Practical 2; 7 chapters of reading
B202: Coursework 3; Demo Lecture Prep; Group Essay and presentation (6th March)
B201: Coursework 4
(endless reading to catch up on for the last two)

PLUS, I still have piles from last term to clear!!

But I just MUST put down in words, no matter how inadequate, how immensely blessed I am, and how incredibly blind I usually am to it all. I love God, I love Jesus, and not because of how much He loves me (ALOT), but simply because He is who He is. I'm ever so grateful for His faithfulness, I'm ever so grateful for OCF, and beautiful hearts of these people there whom I've really come to love, ever so grateful for their constancy, support and love. Ever so grateful for timely emails from my parents and sisters, helping to fill the gaps in my life here in London. Ever so grateful for friendship. Ever so grateful for All Souls and inspiring worship amazing teaching, thankful for this chance to be with the children at the Chinese School, and for all the gladness they inspire.

[Anyway today we had a little bible quiz for the kids on the stories they've been learning, so Zara asked something like, "Where did God promise the Israelites they were going to after Moses led them out of Egypt?" And Jason (who's been waving his hand excitedly in the air anyway) blurts out, "From Egypt to London!"]

Learning: I want to learn Cantonese. And Teochew (so I can talk to ah-ma). And to write Chinese in 繁体. And to play the piano properly. And to sing!

But first I'd better go learn my Economics. Big Sigh.

--

And I stand here before You in wide opened wonder
Amazed at the Glory of You
The power of heaven, revealing Your purpose in me
As I'm reaching for You
***
And everyday, I'll walk Your way. I'll live my life for You to see- You're wonderful to me.
You are so wonderful, You're my delight, my sweet devotion
***
In the midst of the storm through the wind and the waves,
You'll still be faithful.. You'll still be faithful
When the stars refuse to shine and time is no more,
You'll still be faithful.. You'll still be faithful O Lord.

busy busy, hail and sunshine

2006-02-16T14:27:00.000Z

For all those who think that Londoners are just whiny and grumpy with all their complaints about the erratic weather (ie me before I lived here): It was breezy and sunny one moment and then started hailing all of a sudden! yes loud noisy hail=huge pieces of ice falling out of the sky for all of I think half a minute, and there's now glorious sunshine overheating my room now. I think London's weather's crazier than my moods.

I've been busy busy busy and can't find enough time as usual. Sigh. It's mostly been very good, like birthday dinners and hwachong night and warm Tuesday cells, but quite quite tiring. Under the "not very good" category then, lies everything to do with B201/202/203/34/25.

The cd I ordered finally came in the post, snugly tucked into a bubble wrap envelope! I tell you, popping bubble wrap bubbles must rank as one of the most inane but effective stress-relief activities ever. Which is what I'm going back to doing now. haha.

And in the spirit of Valentine's Day (long past I know, but ocf is celebrating tomorrow, so.), read about this man's sacrificial love.

And a quote:

When falling in love, we seem to float on air. The whole world seems wonderful, and we take in stride people who normally irritate us and things that normally frustrate us. … A particular person's idiosyncrasies, which normally rub us the wrong way, no longer affect us adversely. For a while, we simply seem to be able to love anyone — to love our neighbor — without any effort at all. These momentary occasions can … give us a glimpse of what it would be like to love our neighbor all the time.
- Diogenes Allen

And back to work. :)

am I willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine?
song birds are taught to sing in the dark...

s l o w to s p e a k

2006-02-03T00:31:00.000Z

Argh. Absolutely cannot stand the way I blurt things out too quick and then have to spend the next few hours-days-weeks brooding over how it might have been interpreted, what the other person thinks, etcetcetc.

".... be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry." (James1:19)

i don't know about tomorrow

2006-02-01T22:24:00.000Z

This girl, is a walking bundle of contradictions right now. Wants to be a good student- can't really be bothered; worrying- knowing it's needless/useless; good things and blessings overflowing- lacking in joy; rootedrootedrooted- feelingshaky.

Don't know what the problem is, am frustrated at not knowing, helpless at the knowledge that that's all I can do, disgusted that I can't even do the only thing I can do properly. And irritated/amused that the last sentence applies to about three or four wildly madly different situations all at once! sigh. whywhywhy?

I don't know about tomorrow; I just live from day to day.
I don't borrow from its sunshine, For its skies may turn to grey.
I don't worry o'er the future, For I know what Jesus said.
And today I'll walk beside Him, For He knows what is ahead.

Many things about tomorrow
I don't seem to understand
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand.

Every step is getting brighter, As the golden stairs I climb;
Every burden's getting lighter, Every cloud is silver-lined.
There the sun is always shining, There no tear will dim the eye;
At the ending of the rainbow, Where the mountains touch the sky.

I don't know about tomorrow; It may bring me poverty.
But the one who feeds the sparrow, Is the one who stands by me.
And the path that is my portion, May be through the flame or flood;
But His presence goes before me, And I'm covered with His blood.

有一位神

2006-01-31T13:21:00.000Z

有一位神，有权能创造宇宙万物，也有温柔双手安慰受伤灵魂

有一位神，有权柄审判一切罪恶，也有慈悲体贴人的软弱

有一位神，我们的神，唯一的神，名叫耶和华

有权威荣光，有恩典慈爱，是昔在今在永在的神

有一位神，有权能创造宇宙万物，也有温柔双手安慰受伤灵魂

有一位神，高坐在荣耀的宝座，却死在十字架挽救人堕落

有一位神，我们的神，唯一的神，名叫耶和华

有权威荣光，有恩典慈爱，是昔在今在永在的神

2006-01-26T09:28:00.000Z

I DO NOT LIKE ECONOMETRICS. sigh.

Thankful so thankful for the option of escaping the trauma of internship applications interviews etc. Although, some of these interview questions are quite interesting:

How many golf balls are flying above ground in the U.S. right now?
Why is a man-hole cover round?
How many ping pong balls can a Boeing 747 carry?

Am I living my life well?

2006-01-24T08:36:00.000Z

At the counter in the Bloomsbury shop I discovered that:
1. I got a free divine chocolate bar with my copy of The Independent
2. They not only have a 25p offer on student newspapers (inflation that- used to be 20p), but the Economist was £1 off too!

Happiness.

Anyway, interesting bits from the letters section:

From the "press secretary to minister mentor, singapore": a letter about unfounded statements Devan Nair made about Mr Lee, published in Economist's obituary on DN. That was headed "Devan Nair" and followed by their apology. I never knew about the alcoholism or the lawsuit against DN, not that I knew anything much about him anyway, shall look for a copy of that obituary....

From some guy in California: a letter under the header "Evolving Faith".
Excerpt: "I am amazed at your faith in evolution... My faith requires only one mechanism: God's love. Yours requires three: that something can come of nothing, that rocks can spontaneously spawn living things (life from inorganic elements) and that genetic mutations can turn flatworm into an Einstein. You win; there's no doubt that your faith far outweighs mine."

From some guy in Hong Kong: a short one under "Happy union".
Excerpt: "...I believe that we should all be in favour of same-sex nuptials. After all, why should gays be exempt from misery?" Oh dear.

tv

2006-01-24T00:30:00.000Z

The other day, yesterday I think, I watched this 'child of our time' episode on BBC, on sibling relationships. Most poignant actually, especially the pair of twins with number one always putting number two first, and number two always looking elsewhere for a best friend but turning to number one in the playground on the first day of school. And that other pair of brothers who fought and competed over everything, but when separated couldn't hide that they loved each other. "Don't tell William this, but I miss him."

Wondered then about my sisters and I. How might our childhood have looked like from behind a camera lens? Mostly I wondered about the one closest in age to me, three years, which would probably have been the largest age gap among the kids on the programme.

One thing I know for sure, that segment where they gave one kid a huge chocolate cookie and the other a tiny pretzel, to test if they would share? I think almost 100% we would have exactly half a cookie and half a pretzel each!

Probably not from pure sisterly affection though, there's always been a perpetual calculativeness that led to everything from number of M&Ms, fishballs, fried batter prawns or whatever being fairly counted out... which always got my mother so agitated. But, I always thought 孔融让利, and/or 大的让小的 was somewhat pointless because you couldn't have both at once right, either one of us had to be "bad" and willingly receive. So how? So we're just smart problem solvers! heh.

I really should be a better sister.

--
Monday 8pm seems to be C4's religious controversies slot, last week "Root of Evil, this week "Gay Muslims", next week "Gay Vicars". And, "Balderdash and Piffle" is quite fun (they research the root of words, the word "set" has a dictionary entry as long as a full-length novel!!).

Argh I know, I watch too much TV for my own good.

2006-01-22T21:53:00.000Z

There is a NEW SONG in my mouth,
there is a DEEP CRY in my heart,
a hymn of praise to Almighty God, hallelujah!
And now I STAND FIRM on this ROCK
my life is hidden now with CHRIST in God.
The old has gone and the new has come,
Hallelujah! - Your love has lifted me
- Kate and Miles Simmonds, Thankyou Music

ba da da-da dum..... yep sang this in church today, and that's the trumpet filler bit after the chorus. (the capitalisation of words all mine, cos I always feel like shouting those parts out haha)

Learn contentment shining, contentment contentment. - On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.

weeping for the whale

2006-01-21T21:14:00.000Z

Ok I exaggerate, and I never was the animal-lover sort, but I do feel a real twist of sadness and grief, for London's loss of its baby water guest. So soon after I got acquainted with him too (well, 'it' actually since no one has told me if it's a he or she), and mostly through the news unfortunately, since I didn't dare visit the Thames. But if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can acquaint yourself with the little, bottle-nosed, whale-sized (5m long) whale, here:

whale arrives in Thames
whale's sad demise in Thames
whale in pictures

In case you still think it's a joke or hoax or something, it isn't! It made front page news on the Guardian too. haha. boohoo.

2006-01-18T16:03:00.000Z

hilarious!

Text from angela: "Housemate alert- extremely dangerous looking completely blackened banana spotted on kitchen counter. Danger of fleainvasion 2.. Permission to dispose?"

Well I hadn't read the text then, but the minute I got home I heard feet flying down the stairs and a very horrified, "is that banana yours??"

As a matter of fact it was! I'd stupidly put a whole banana in the freezer, skin and all, and when I took it out this morning it was like stone and un-peelable and very black, so I had to leave it out to defrost. It was yummy when thawed though. And, no, thankfully, no fruitflies came.

haha.

2006-01-17T22:36:00.000Z

mostly I like the simplicity and quietness of the piano in the background, and her wonderful voice, and the simple words...

you and me, me and you
there's so much that we've been through
through it all we've come to understand God's love
and if tomorrow never comes
know this twice, just know this once
knowing you has made me able to go on

you and me, me and you
there couldn't be a better two
to be blessed to know the meaning of true love
and if you leave me, i'll feel scared
fall apart, so unprepared
but i'll dare to make it through all on my own
yes i'll dare to make it through on my own

you and me, rosie thomas

shining likes

2006-01-17T13:25:00.000Z

at the moment, and in no order of preference

- perfumes and scents and scent strips in books (but to not to wear and not aromatherapy candles either)
- innocent smoothies
- frozen grapes and blueberries and strawberries (and will try the banana sitting in her freezer soon)
- looking at pretty skirts (but not wearing them)
- twinings lady grey tea
- music newly discovered thanks to yuheng: rosie thomas
- leaning pillows against the wall to read in bed

and she is determined to learn to like:
- going to the gym
- doing tutorials before the day before they are due
- econometrics

rest

2006-01-16T01:10:00.000Z

Got the gulps of fresh air I needed, going for the evening service tonight.

The all souls orchestra was playing for worship, and the sanctuary was packed, with more people in the overflow downstairs, and I sat in the upper gallery as I usually do, but high up on the sides because the lower rows facing the front were already filled....

So there I sit and stand and sing and pray between two people, complete strangers yet binded to me as brothers, and somehow, suddenly, find myself tearing slightly. Was it the grandeur of the music, was it the sharp sermon on hypocrisy, on forgiveness, was it that final hymn that I love and haven't heard in awhile? It could have been a mixture of all that of course, but I think above all I was moved to tears by the presence of God.

I'm grateful that daddy let me bring his guitar over, (he now has to strum my lousy blue one instead) especially on nights like these. To hold the guitar and brush the strings and hum and sometimes sing to. Learnt a new song jingkai led on Friday. Didn't learn the tune properly but I've hummed it so many times now I can't remember which parts I made up to fill in missing bits.. haha. It's really lovely though.

There is a peace, there is a rest.
That settles here in Your presence.
When Your face is very near,
Your love erases every fear.

It's the power, of Your presence.
It's the strength, of Your hand in mine.
It's the glory, of Your greatness,
that has the power to change my life.

saturday energy boost

2006-01-14T22:44:00.000Z

Something about kids and that combination of innocence and irreverence fills me energy, and is really entirely worth the slight sorethroat after (which is easily remedied with honey-water anyway.) Some examples:

So I ask the children what they think love is and there're alot of hands raised and waving about in the air, but before I can choose one to answer, this boy chirps up, "If, if God is so big and created the whole earth, then if God farts will the whole earth will stink?" ?!? How that relates to love I have no idea.

Today, I got them to kind of act out the story of baby Moses floating down the Nile in the basket, using a balloon as the baby and a box as the basket. When told to copy a verse down and draw what they remembered of the story afterwards, one of them says, "I don't know how to draw a baby, can I draw a balloon instead?"

Really starting to love the children. And really miss my baby sister, though I think she's probably "grown up" considerably again in the few months I've been away. After all, sister number three is now taller than me! (and about ten kg lighter I think) haha.

2006-01-12T16:52:00.000Z

"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ" (Colossians 2:8)

Verse shared with me by my cell leader on Tuesday- timely, apt. Came across it again today browsing trueU's sidewalk chalk. Shall have to elaborate another time but there's an article here on christianity and philosophy if anyone's interested.

2006-01-12T16:45:00.000Z

"People throw away what they could have by insisting on perfection, which they cannot have, and looking for it where they will never find it." - Edith Schaeffer

2006-01-08T12:35:00.000Z

Eight days into the new year already, what have I done?

I have...
- resolved to get healthy
- seen, touched, tasted and fell into soft white snow
- caught on my glove a properly unsmashed intricately formed snowflake
- yet to figure myself out
- just tidied up my room for the start of school (tomorrow)
- been singing singing singing praise to my King!

Line from my daily devotional's dec 31st entry:
"Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him."

rain, rain....

2005-12-31T00:08:00.000Z

I wake up, early morning
To the alarm clock's groaning
Buzz (silence) buzz (silence)
Lulls me back to sleep

I wake again, much later
To happy pitter-patter of water
Lazily draw back the curtains
And I'm wide-eyed awake

Like the sun that rises everyday
You are so faithful, Lord, You are faithful
Like the rain that you bring and every breath that I take,
You are so faithful, O Lord.

It continued raining the whole of today! But the rain filled my heart with joy when I got up this morning, so I was glad for it to keep falling. Rain pelting against the window-panes as I sit on my cushiony,duvet-covered bed and watch and strum guitar strings; rain plonking into puddles in the uneven sidewalk, plinking on my umbrella, splashing droplets that soak my sneakers; rain trickling down the windows of the bus, blurring the light from the streetlamps, windows, headlights of cars, into bows, dandelions and other funny shapes; rain dripping from the Sainsbury's plastic-bags onto the wooden flooring of our doorway.

I think it's stopped raining, maybe it'll snow tonight!

Spent all of this morning thinking it was Thursday the 29th of December, until kahmei kindly enlightened me sometime after noon. That feeling when I realised it REALLY was Friday the 30th was terrible! As terrible as, well having a day disappear in a snap. But it is now properly Saturday the 31st by 9 mins and tomorrow is 2006 AD. I feel like I should be making a few GOOD resolutions to KEEP, maybe I will tomorrow morning.

Emails from my family always warm my heart. I always knew daddy knew how to make the babies and children laugh, but I never realised he had such a quirky sense of humour till I came here, his emails make me laugh out loud. (I'll bet mummy loved him for making her laugh. :) )

Off to hang out the laundry now. (part of my grand scheme to get into routines of doing these essential household things instead of leaving them till the very last.)

new year resolutions?

2005-12-31T00:05:00.000Z

Your New Year's Resolutions

1) Get a pet monkey

2) Eat less tofu

3) Travel to Argentina

4) Study artificial intelligence

5) Get in shape with ballet

What Should Your New Year's Resoluton Be?

it's christmas!

2005-12-25T11:49:00.000Z

Merry Christmas everybody!

My room is so warm I had to turn off the heating altogether. Because the rays of warm warm sunshine are streaming in like it's summer! Yes, so no white christmas, but I'm not complaining.
Blesssings everywhere this Christmas, like wonderful dinner, laughs round the restaurant table on the other end of a phonecall, friend's mum coming to know Christ (!!), and love.

This Christmas actually felt quite festive. When I went to Sainsbury's yesterday, you could almost feel the excitement in the air amongst all the last minute grocery shoppers preparing for dinner, and trolleys all piled so high too. Maybe also because I'm now staying in an estate, and could smell wafts of other home's Christmas dinners, could hear the talking, laughter, music, could see the lights. :)

Anyway, I would like to share a Christmas carol we don't sing very much back home, (possibly because the idea of midwinter is foreign), but it's hardly winterish here now, and it's still beautiful. (And all the carol services I've been to or watched on TV had their choirs/congregations sing it!)

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, Whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, Whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

confirmed un-phlegmatic

2005-12-21T22:39:00.000Z

There are days when this city is positively unlikeable, like today. These sort of days make me long for home and ask myself what is wrong with people? Or is there something wrong with me, you know, hormonal imbalances and the rest of it? I think it's both.

1. Bus drivers

I think I should dedicate a single entry to talking about bus stuff, seeing how often I take the bus nowadays and how confident I am that the randomness of events encountered on these bright red things will never cease to schock me.

BUT, today I had the horrid experience AGAIN of having the bus driver stop and refuse to drive the bus because of passengers. UGH. As far as I could make out:
someone was drinking alcohol aboard, refused to get off when asked to, started shouting at driver, driver says no get off, lady passenger no. 2 says he's stopped drinking just drive, driver refuses, passenger no.2 turns out to be not such a lady, and starts hurling the F and other words liberally at driver, who decides to voice his frustration over the PA system, "ladies and gentlemen now there are not one but two passengers on this bus arguing with me and I cannot drive till the station captain arrives""This bus will not move and I can and shall call the police".

I could not believe my ears!

Let me say first, this has happened before! And the last time it did, the stubborn driver, as a matter of principle, turned off the lights and shut the doors, and the busload of innocent bystanders to a ridiculous situation had to demand to be let out of the bus to catch another. The police actually DID arrive to talk to the offending passenger who, as a matter of principle, would not get off the bus to buy a ticket because he deemed his oyster card valid when it was not.

Both incidents happened at rush-hour, and what I do not understand is why both times, neither party felt the tiniest bit ashamed at having caused such inconvenience to all the other people squashed in that bus with all their stubborn shouting.

Thoroughly sickened by the whole thing, I could not possibly have waited for the bus and watch the police arrive and all the rest of the pointless commotion, and so decided walk the rest of the three or four bus stops home in the cold with my bags of groceries feeling quite miserable.

2. Bad customer service

It wouldn't have been as annoying if not for the fact that I had been snubbed earlier in the afternoon by the most unpleasant woman at hsbc. Entirely unhelpful, totally disinterested, downright rude, zero professionalism, shockingly slovenly...I could go on! It can't be that she had a bad day or something either because she's been consistently unpleasant each time I've been to the bank this year, and hey isn't it her JOB to be nice? Plus, not as if I wasn't more pleasant than I needed to be!

But I shall stop ranting because of the very friendly, efficient, willing-to-help lady at the russell square branch shujun accompanied me to after the horrid first woman. I feel like writing in to commend her simply because I'd rather commend than complain, and because I don't know the name of the unpleasant woman and have no wish to risk further irritation just to find out her name.

Anyway, I now agree wholeheartedly with my flatmate on how bad customer service (yes with the agents, with the phone companies etcetc) acts like a negative multiplier on the horrid feeling of being in a foreign city.

Ok, I know I still like this city and there're still a million and one reasons why.. it just doesn't feel much like "lovely" now. Walking along both crowded streets and deserted ones, it struck me that it doesn't feel much like christmas either.

phlegmatic?!

2005-12-21T10:27:00.000Z

This is too funny for me not to keep.

You Have a Phlegmatic Temperament

Mild mannered and laid back, you take life at a slow pace. You are very consistent - both in motions and actions. You tend to absorb set backs easily. You are cool and collected.
It is difficult to offend you. You can remain composed and unemotional. You are a great friend and lover. You don't demand much of others. While you are quiet, you have a subtle wit that your friends know well.
At your worst, you are lazy and unwilling to work at anything.You often get stuck in a rut, without aspirations or dreams. You can get too dependent on others, setting yourself up for abandonment.

What Temperment Are You

Now let's look at dictionary.com definitions for

phlegm (flm) n.

Thick, sticky, stringy mucus secreted by the mucous membrane of the respiratory tract, as during a cold or other respiratory infection.
One of the four humors of ancient and medieval physiology, thought to cause sluggishness, apathy, and evenness of temper.
Sluggishness of temperament.
Calm self-possession; equanimity.

phleg·mat·ic (flg-mtk) or phleg·mat·i·cal (--kl) adj.

Of or relating to phlegm.
Having or suggesting a calm, sluggish temperament; unemotional.

And this whole thing is funny because one, I never knew what phlegmatic really meant after all these years! If I ever read a sentence describing "a phlegmatic man" I most certainly would have assumed him to be phlegmatic in the coughy phlegmy way. Ignorance!

Two, as far as I know I'm not and have never been a girl with a phlegmatic disposition. If anything I would say I'm rather the opposite, and the only way phlegm can be applied to me right now is in definition no.1's "thick, sticky, stringy mucus". Yuuuuck.

I still think phlegm is one of the grossest words ever. Sorry everyone for the horribly repetitive use of the word here.
p.s. temperament was spelt wrongly in the quiz results. ha! don't know how that makes my ignorance of 'phlegmatic' any less terrible, but it does ok.

ice-cream

2005-12-19T15:00:00.000Z

I can see my holidays zooming past already, and am "counting up the calories" while "counting down to christmas" as the ad at the bus stop shouts. No thanks to sainsbury's and tesco's luring me with the offer of saving £3.85 each time I buy two tubs of ice-cream, when I could actually save £4 by not buying them at all. Consumer irrationality prevails.

It's nice that these winter days are so sunny and bright though it feels almost like some illusion, some trick being played on my eyes because the rays bring with them no heat or warmth.

Ice-cream, frozen grapes, frozen blueberries keep the winter blues at bay. Kind of like 以毒攻毒! And wonderful people provide the magical warmth, like Mr Tumnus and the Beavers did for the children in the midst of Jadis's winter. :)

at last

2005-12-19T14:23:00.000Z

"Why, Mr Stevens, why, why, why do you always have to pretend?"
- Miss Kenton

"But what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened had such and such a moment turned out differently? One could presumably drive oneself to distraction in this way. In any case, while it is all very well to talk of "turning points", one can surely only recognise such moments in retrospect. Naturally when one looks back to such instances today, they may indeed take the appearance of being crucial, precious moments in one's life; but of course, at the time, this was not the impression one had. Rather it was as though one had available a never-ending number of days, months, years in which to sort out the vagaries of one's relationship with Miss Kenton; an infinite number of further opportunities in which to remedy the effect of this or that misunderstanding. There was surely nothing to indicate at that time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable."

"Moreover, as you might appreciate, their implications were such as to provoke a certain degree of sorrow within me. Indeed - why should I not admit it? - at that moment, my heart was breaking."

"Perhaps it is indeed time I began to look at this whole matter of bantering more enthusiastically. After all, when one thinks about it, it is not such a foolish thing to indulge in - particularly if it is the case that in bantering lies the key to human warmth."

-Stevens the butler

The Remains of the Day. Kazuo Ishiguro

***

Now, I want to watch the film based on this work of excellence. It stars Anthony Hopkins and Emily Thompson and is supposedly very acclaimed. I want to watch it!

chinese

2005-12-14T01:56:00.000Z

也许就是要等一百个世纪
我们才能够发现真爱的美丽

龙舌兰的花朵不代表绚丽
选择燃烧了自己将真爱延续
就像刺鸟的宿命悲剧却勇敢
用生命交换结局的灿烂

-刺鸟, FIR

I think my sudden spurts of love for the chinese language are partly weird romantic fancy, and partly due to the unfamiliarity with the chinese characters weaving some kind of beauty around them, yes, the way they can be strung together so.. beautifully. Not good with words, not with familiar english nor unfamiliar chinese, I'm again unable to express why and the lyrics of this song captivate me so.

Or actually, maybe, it's just part of the sudden irrational liking I've taken to FIR. sigh. :)

Happy to play host to visiting friends, because London is a wonderful city. Happy that if feels like holidays already. Happy to be listening to music. Wishing I could start disciplining myself to sleep earlier though....

pimplefied

2005-12-11T02:45:00.000Z

It's already 0245 on Sunday morning, and I don't feel the least bit sleepy. Which means my body clock has adjusted unwisely to the terrible late nights I've been keeping over the past week. AND, I think those bad sleeping and eating habits are also a primary reason why a pimple has appeared on my left cheek! I haven't seen a pimple since summer in Singapore.

This was actually quite an irritating discovery, even the word pimple looked irritating, because it's like 'dimple' and created a horrid picture in my mind of some petulant cartoon animated pimple laughing half-innocently at me.

Anyway so I had to search high and low for the tube of "quick clear treatment gel" which I've not seen in a long long while, and use it. Am now considerably happy though, having read the little plastic box it comes in, and found out that it contains a "combination of effective natural ingredients" including "cedarwood, cinnamon oil and moss rose" all of which sound very nice. :)

Going to TRY to sleep now.

stuffy saturday

2005-12-10T22:49:00.000Z

Not feeling well meant staying home the whole day, which I thought might be good. You know, to catch up on chores, tidy things up, read a bit. But I spent way too much of it online! There are endless things to do once you’re sucked into and stuck to the sticky threads of the world wide web. Let’s see, reading ST online (because it’s my homepage) reading all the various newspapers and magazines, reading and replying to emails (something I’m so bad at though I really mean to keep in touch better with all these people I love)….What else? Downloading sound clips to learn the various tones of Cantonese, and Teochew phrases, searching for lyrics, ebay-ing, amazon-ing, msn-ing.

I’ve just come from a minutes of such tension and unbelievable excitement frozen to sofa staring at the television screen waiting to know that… Zoe & Ian are through to the finals of Strictly Come Dancing (!!).. The Saturday’s really flown past. And now I’m back in front of my laptop screen again.

Being at home also meant, a lot of silence to think about recent events and other things. After all, it’s the end of term already, good to reflect a bit.

I still think that feeling of being ignored or rejected or just being treated with indifference as someone of little consequence is one of the worst – possibly worse than loneliness. Not really a very enlightening comparison since I think I quite enjoy being alone. Anyway.

I think the number of broken relationships littered around makes the world a tough place to live in. I wish to love and pour out my heart into the lives of as many as I possibly can. But I can’t do that with him because I still struggle with the concept/idea of who he is to me now, and I think he does too though he’d never admit it. Why should a concept/idea matter so much anyway when what we’re talking about here is the very concrete problem of two lives that need to be set apart, but are too intertwined to be disentangled neatly? Or is that just the way I fancy it to be? I don’t know I don’t know.

And actually it’s not just him, how do you find the balance between opening your heart to others, and knowing what to guard and not keep secret? Secrets are such annoying things. Ok, sometimes I must confess they can be secretly delightful, but mostly they’re just whirring generators of distrust and more questions and hurt and disbelief etc etc etc.

A year ago, I might have simply decided that the winter gloom is too much and I deserve to cry. (I learnt last night that this is medically known as seasonal something disorder, I forgot!) So I would let myself cry to the tunes of impossibly sad music under my duvet. This year, I’m not so prone to tears. (yes, apart from when lectures are cancelled ;P)

Rather strange and foreign actually, this girl who sits at my messy desk with so much going on in her mind and heart that she’s unable and unwilling to express properly in words and who insists on playing FIR on repeat ad nauseum only she doesn’t ever get sick of it and is in fact on her way to memorising all the lyrics!

Maybe it's, and in fact I think it really is, because I now have a special group of people more nearby than ever, who constantly drill into me the fact that it’s nothing about how I do, how I handle things, but what the state of my heart is, do I look to God, does my soul cling to Him? (see, why being alone isn’t necessarily best much as I think I like it)

Yes, realising that that it’s all about grace, which doesn’t exclude the presence of despair, or dryness, or niggling insecurities, but grace, which sweeps in onto the shore of my everyday life like a tide of love that fills all holes, the deep and the shallow. And yes the sandcastles I built for me, they may crumble under the wave and loss hurts, but then the rocks are so much more obvious for being the only ones left standing. I struggle to put it in words, but there is peace, and it’s only because of grace amazing, unconditional love.

So if I need to cry today, I know better than to cry to some stranger’s voice, no matter how good it is, I’ll cry to my one Best Friend, because I know He hears.

Wow, that was one long entry.

argh

2005-12-08T10:57:00.000Z

what am I doing?? one hour to the usual thursday noon deadline, a whole question left on my b201 undone, and i'll need half of that hour to get to school, probably another ten of the remaining half to get dressed very very quickly. sigh. my FIR smart playlist is playing non-stop. i've no idea why i suddenly like them so much.

You are the Christmas Angel.

What Christmas Ornament are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

---

穿越千年的伤痛　只为求一个结果
你留下的轮廓指引我　黑夜中不寂寞

穿越千年的哀愁　是你在尽头等我
最美丽的感动　会值得　用一生守候

--

if You want me to

2005-12-06T15:49:00.000Z

The pathway is broken
And the signs are unclear
And I dont know the reason why you brought me here
But just because You love me the way that You do
I will go through the valley
If You want me to

Now I'm not who I was
When I took my first step
And I'm clinging to the promise
You're not through with me yet
So if all of these trials bring me closer to You
I will go through the fire
If You want me to

It may not be the way I would have chosen
When you lead me through a world that's not my own
But You never said it would be easy
You only said I'll never go alone

So when the whole world turns against me
And I'm all by myself
And I can't hear You answer my cries for help
I'll remember the suffering Your love put You through
And I will go through the valley
If You want me to

If You want me to, Ginny Owens

***

The highs: ocf christmas on saturday, all the singing and eating and listening.
sunday morning in all souls
The lows: sore throat, bad voice, gross phlegm (which has to be one of the ugliest looking words in the world itself), throbbing head, and other things too hard to talk about.

Reading: The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro; What's so Amazing about Grace, Philip Yancey; The True Vine, Andrew Murray; The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova; ------ Labor Economics (yes spelt labor instead of labour so irritating), GJ Borjas; Wendy Carlin's yet to be published book; Microeconomic Theory, Nicholson; etcetcetc.

Listening: 十一月的蕭邦，周杰倫；Stefanie Sun various; 張學友 various; David Tao, F.I.R. , Vienna Teng, Ginny Owens, Katie Melua, Corrine May, Stacey Kent, Nichole Nordeman etcetcetc oh christmas carols! - from the squalor of a borrowed stable (Immanuel), i cannot tell

Thinking and Feeling: like I want to go home (home- singapore home) , sleep and talk to no one and do absolutely nothing for a long long long long time. I think that tendency for self-centredness and self-reproach everything to come crashing down over everything looms right round the corner. keep at bay!! otherwise, nothing much else to say except that God is ever so faithful, so good.

Christmas is coming: check this out: Oxfam Unwrapped Brilliant stuff.

Also, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is coming! there's something to smile about. :)

advent

2005-11-30T22:11:00.000Z

Anyway, last Sunday was also Advent Sunday. And I have to admit that I never knew actually knew what Advent was till last Sunday. Advent observance just sounded like alot of rituals in observance of an old boring liturgical season I know next to nothing about.

But if, as I found out during Sunday's service, Advent is about looking towards the glorious second coming of Christ as much as it is a season of preparation to remember Jesus' birthday.. then how can that not be relevant? If you like, read more about Advent here.

And so November, my month (how dare I lay claim to such a month but I can't help it!), has passed by again. Tomorrow I shall open the first little door on the advent calendar I bought in that supermarket in Vienna. It's time to start carolling.

O come, O come, Emmanuel
and ransom captive Israel
who mourns in lonely exile here
until the son of God draws near.

Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.

O come bright Daybreak, come and cheer
our spirits by your advent here;
dispel the long night's lingering gloom
and pierce the shadows of the tomb.

Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.

____

(It is no coincidence that so many of my entries here are on Wednesdays i.e. day before all economics coursework is due week after week. :P)

birthday

2005-11-28T00:00:00.000Z

I'm twenty. :)
It's 00:00 as I start typing this, so my birthday's officially come and gone. I can't say that I feel any older or wiser, but I do feel that with new realisations and resolutions made in the weeks leading up to today, this girl is now starting a new chapter of her life. (a new decade in fact! horrors...)

I'm inexpressibly grateful for all the phone calls from home, cards and immensely thoughtful gifts (all of which will keep me very warm through cold winter nights ahead :P) and the most lovingly planned surprise ever. This whole week, I've been feeling like the luckiest little girl, yes little girl, in the whole wide world. (Despite the cold, which bothers me no longer because of my happy presents!) Extremely spoilt as well, and so undeservingly loved. I would go into details but shall spare you and anyway it's all firmly printed in memory so there's no need to go on about it. Except to say again how thankful I am for my special and deeply adored friends and family. :)

Some say, what's the big deal about a birthday? But it meant alot, each and every single birthday greeting I've received. (So yes I really must start remembering other people's birthdays too!)

***

Twenty is significant, more significant than twenty one I think. My Japanese friend tells me that back home, a huge party is thrown regionally for all twenty-year-olds, kind of like prom, only it's a huge birthday celebration for everyone, and a huge reunion of sorts with all the people in your year at school. All the girls put on their best kimonos and the guys their suits for a night of celebration, leaving their teenage years behind.

So, calls for some quieter introspection?

I think what I heard in church this morning was very apt- about the danger of "ministry without room for vulnerability, spirituality without room for weakness". And it just hit home, what the rector said about how the world's success culture seeps into spirituality so that we feel like we must always put up an 'i-can-handle-everything' front to the world, when we can't. The staggering amounts of passion and agonising in the example of Paul while he "boasted" not of triumphs but of persecution and suffering, made clear to me what had already struck me during retreat. Pride keeps me wanting to put up a facade of "humble" superiority in all sorts of ways, when all I will ever be is another broken vessel slowly being pieced back together by a loving Father, needing grace, needing Christ.

"I present what I have before the messenger, the angel of the covenant, the Lord Jesus; and through him my prayers find acceptance wrapped up in his prayers; my praises become sweet as they are bound up with bundles of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia from Christ’s own garden. If I can bring him nothing but my tears, he will put them with his own tears in his own bottle for he once wept; if I can bring him nothing but my groans and sighs, he will accept these as an acceptable sacrifice, for he once was broken in heart, and sighed heavily in spirit. I myself, standing in him, am accepted in the Beloved; and all my polluted works, though in themselves only objects of divine abhorrence, are so received, that God smelleth a sweet savour. He is content and I am blessed." - Spurgeon (morning devotion 27th November)

I cannot but be amazed at God's faithfulness. He never gave up on me these twenty years, so as the lyrics of that song go, "I'll simply live, I simply live for You".

ill

2005-11-26T13:02:00.000Z

I'm ill, and I haven't been ill in a long time. So much for a weekend of happy rest and relaxation.

What do I do when I'm ill? I sleep till noon, eat and read and wash clothes and blow my nose and sleep and then come online. haha. I haven't been ill in a long time, and there's sort of a secret glee in being ill and knowing you have the excuse to not do anything purposeful/work-related.

Reminds me vaguely of that Plath poem we did back in jc, on bright red tulips and her lying in a hospital bed surrounded by white walls and hating the tulips because they seemed to her to be forcing her back into healthy life and away from the peacefulness of just lying in the hospital bed being a body. Well, something like that at least, I hope I'm not misrepresenting her horrendously.

I don't hate my red duvet covet, and I do hate being sick, but at the same time in a unwilling way I appreciate the rest it forces on me. Like my mummy always says, see your body is telling you something! So I'm going back to sleep in awhile.

fight between two wolves

2005-11-23T08:23:00.000Z

An elder Cherokee American was teaching his grandchildren about life.
He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

"One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, selfpity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego."

"The other wolf stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

"This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."

They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather: "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

walking walking walking

2005-11-21T22:52:00.000Z

Walking back from christmas choir practice, I decided to do the "add a little more exercise to your daily schedule" thing and walk to the further bus stop outside British Library instead of the one at Euston. And it was so cold! 1degreeC in November is way too cold for me ): But cold aside, it was a pretty pleasant walk, the cold prompts you to think. Here are some things I thought:

I need a hat (to keep my head warm without making it look like an egg.)
I need warmer socks, leggings, thermal underwear too by the look of things.
I need footwear that is more insulating than my trainers (and waterproof).
I need a fan heater (joy of having huge windows dampened by the chill).
I need a carpet or rug for my wooden floor.
I need warm (and hopefully soft and fluffy) bedroom slippers.
I need a scarf, gloves, and a wooly sweater.
Don't I already have a scarf, gloves and a sweater?

All that made me warm enough to think less-shallow thoughts like these:

The cold's making me miserable, but joy burns in my soul still - and such gratitude.

My heart is too fickle and too deceitful, as are the feelings and emotions that send me soaring and falling, and I shall VOW never to trust my heart and co fully.

Humming sad songs can sometimes make me feel incredibly high (example of emotions being crazy unreliable things, which I love as part of me but shall not trust.)

Even though I might have lost my sense of home physically, geographically,earthly, I'll remain secure in the knowledge that I'm walking walking walking towards the warmth that awaits in that eternal home where my King sits upon the throne above all thrones.

***

I love you Lord
And I lift my voice
To worship You
All my soul rejoice
Take joy my King
In what You hear
May it be a sweet sweet sound
In Your ear

***

forever i'll pursue

2005-11-18T15:05:00.000Z

We sang this hymn in church last Sunday (also Remembrance Sunday). It captures a lot of what I'd like to "shout to the north and the south, the east and the west!" Beautiful hymn. To listen to the one it was adapted from, an English patriotic hymn, - here.

I vow to you, my Saviour, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love:
The love that asks no questions, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon his altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that knows the price,
The love that stands indebted before your sacrifice.

And there’s a royal country, I’ve heard of long ago,
It speaks of grace and heaven, a place that all may know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her emblem on a hilltop – the Cross of suffering,
And soul by soul and silently, her citizens increase,
Her ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace.

O tell me of the Kingdom, that stands the test of time,
O lead me to its gateway, and speak the word sublime
That tells me I’m forgiven, my name is in the Book,
The Cross of Jesus holds me, as heavenward I look;
Baptised into a living hope, I’ll walk the path that’s new;
The prize of God in Jesus, for ever I’ll pursue

So light the fire within me, and let me fan the flame.
And fill me with the Spirit, that I may bear your Name;
In season and in hardship, to run my given race
O keep me ever-burning until I see your face.
I vow to you, my Saviour, that where your feet have trod,
I’ll serve and always follow my Master and my God.

After Sir Cecil Spring-Rice. Revised and adapted by RT Bewes

off to OCF retreat in a few hours now... :)

the girl in the cafe

2005-11-18T00:37:00.000Z

I've just watched what's possibly the most moving film I've seen in a long while. Lovely, almost bittersweet comedy, but with such a strong message.

I'm still not sure how the writer Richard Curtis (Love Actually) and director David Yates (Harry Potter (I think)) managed to do it, how they managed to just blend the two, love and politics, together so naturally it didn't seem the least bit contrived or false.

And the pacing, the script, the acting, the acting! Bill Nighy and Kelly Macdonald, really amazing. So, if you haven't already, please go watch The Girl in The Cafe.

Admittedly, a huge part of why I found it charming was the Britishness of it all. The reticence (taken to a new level haha), awkward humour. A great show, really. Read more about it, and BBC's Africa Lives programmes this year here.

Though plenty controversial, loads here of what may be accused of being an oversimplification of things in the sphere of global politics and economics. But really, when it comes to this: poverty, life, death, perhaps alot needs to be simplified simplified simplified and put in the light of human reality, the sort where love and compassion for fellow human being supercedes "bigger picture" concerns.

Easily said huh? When I'm sitting in front of my laptop, in relative warmth and comfort, plain chocolate digestives to soothe nothing nearing hunger, more an irritating craving, with access to the internet and too many creature comforts of life.

"Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation" - Nelson Mandela

london london

2005-11-16T22:22:00.000Z

Ok, I know I'm really going abit overboard with this whole blogging when I've got tons of work to do thing, but was tired, frustrated and bored, and because it's too cold to go for a walk outside, I had to appease self with wandering around online, AND then when I got this result... really made me smile!! :)

You Belong in London

A little old fashioned, and a little modern.
A little traditional, and a little bit punk rock.
A unique woman like you needs a city that offers everything.
No wonder you and London will get along so well.

What City Do You Belong In?

Ok all ready to dive back into work now!

boredom and brilliance

2005-11-16T12:33:00.000Z

Why do I always find myself unable to keep myself from blogging just when I have three pieces of coursework due noon the next day?? Argh. I think if I collected sufficient data (not too hard at all) and ran a regression of blogging (B) on the explanatory variables that come to mind right now, including work-left-undone (W), time-at-home (T), thoughts-to-pen (P), interesting happenings (I), the resulting coefficients would demonstrate terribly high correlations of W and T to B, instead of stronger correlations with P and I. Sigh.

Well, actually time-at-home is not directly correlated to blogging frequency because when I am free and unburdened by the need to work, I spend time doing other things like watching TV and strumming the guitar, washing clothes/dishes and tidying up my room (which perpetually needs tidying), or reading (aha- see, profitable use of time). SO, it's only when I need to do work that I compulsively turn to blogging! Terrible terrible.

Though it could be explained simply and intuitively by the fact that after I have spent a considerable amount of time typing, I become extremely aware that I have wasted this amount of time, and then morph into super-focused mode and become alot more productive without feeling drained at the end of it from spending too much time in un-focused mode. So, because I have subconsciously processed this knowledge, everytime I have to work, my body tells me to blog blog blog so I'll be more efficient later! Ha. WHO am I kidding. :P

***

Two shows I watched recently: one a play the other a film. Well not really recently, more like many weeks back. And I loved both!

Death of a Salesman

I haven't really watched many plays, but even from our slightly restricted-viewing circle seats, it was a brilliant show. Really emotionally and mentally and physically draining though. The acting was so intense I think I kind of forgot I was watching a play in the middle of it. It's like a drama of lives unfolding in a very real very believable space before your eyes, and the humanness of it was so piercing. Human fragility, frailty showing through the self-delusions of grandeur and success and endless secrets. Will remember this performance for quite awhile to come I think.. but, they talk about it better than I do.

"He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine"

Pride and Prejudice

One of those books I've read and reread (mostly cos it's fun and easy reading I think) And I haven't watched the BBC production with Colin Firth, but I thought the movie was pretty good!
Maybe it was just loving a story you're so familiar with being played out, and being glad that Keira Knightley was so similar to the Elizabeth of my imagination. :)

Read in the Independent yesterday the whole controversy over in the U.S. about the prolonged Liz-Darcy kiss at the end, which I thought was quite hilarious! BUT, if I had to choose a version to watch, I think I'll stick to the British release I saw, simply because I thought the most beautiful scene was of them, standing together at last in the sunset in perfect bliss and even then, lips don't touch! Haha, it's like deliberately not letting the audience fully in on the private intimacy of their love. Which I like. :)

***
Ok that's it, back to work. And I shall take JOY in doing work too!

sunset

2005-11-16T10:19:00.000Z

sunset as seen atop citadella, budapest

Let the sun set, why hold on to the passing of old? Come back home now, it's getting cold. And the sun will rise again... And His mercies are new every morning.

fruit fly invasion

2005-11-11T15:29:00.000Z

Our beautiful Maiden Lane house has been invaded by tiny icky super fast fruit flies! So in case anyone's in this similar horrid predicament of having fruit flies flying in their face wherever they walk in their own home, here are some diy fruitfly traps I got off the net.

1. Put apple cider vinegar in a jar, cover in cling film, poke a few holes and hope the fruitflies fly in and drown.

2. Put a piece of banana in a jar, cover in cling flim, poke a few holes, and hope the fruitflies that fly in will stay in. (the person who wrote this claims they won't find their way back out through the holes)

3. Use hairspray (to kill rather than to trap)

4. Use sticky fly tape

5. Rub some Vicks vaporub on a lid and leave it out (more to chase them away then to trap)

There must be more, but for now, I shall make fruitfly trap number 1. heh.

i wanna go home

2005-11-11T14:14:00.000Z

[mrt train speeds off into the sunset and towards my stop boon lay:
one evening after work, standing underneath the tracks at Lakeside mrt station]

reading week trip

2005-11-11T02:27:00.000Z

Just got back from what was possibly the most amazing trip I've been on yet. Vienna and Budapest- beautiful places, buildings, sights; wonderful company whom I really love, Angela, Shujun, Alex, Bryan, Chin Siong- were really the best travelling companions anyone could ask for. Plus I don't think I'm just saying this out of post-trip euphoria, (there were definitely the low points like diarrhoea yucks) but I'm really truly sad that it had to end so soon. There was so much laughter and self-entertainment, plenty of interesting conversations of the 为什么 trivia variety... and "highly curious" debates about religion- which sometimes left me feeling quite drained, simply because it required so much energy and sustained concentration, so when I came back and found this on peiyong's blog, I thought I'd put it up. Pictures and stories and quotable quotes from this reading week trip shall come later, after I've actually done some reading. :)

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not shouting, "I've been saved!"
I'm whispering, "I get lost! That's why I chose this way"

When I say, "I am a Christian," I don't speak with human pride
I'm confessing that I stumble- needing God to be my guide

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not trying to be strong
I'm professing that I'm weak and pray for strength to carry on

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not bragging of success
I'm admitting that I've failed and cannot ever pay the debt

When I say, "I am a Christian," I don't think I know it all
I submit to my confusion asking humbly to be taught

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not claiming to be perfect
My flaws are far too visible but God believes I'm worth it

When I say, "I am a Christian," I still feel the sting of pain
I have my share of heartache which is why I seek His name

When I say, "I am a Christian," I do not wish to judge
I have no authority--I only know I'm loved

Copyright 1988 Carol Wimmer

For some inexplicable reason though, I've arrived back to a home (which really feels like a home away from home) missing my family and Singapore quite a bit more. Wish I could be with them, or that they could be here with me now.

they can only end well.

2005-11-05T22:42:00.000Z

So the most dramatic traumatic relational episode I've ever witnessed has come to a sudden and fitting end. I feel like shouting a warning to every single girl out there, in relation to what I've recently watched her go through, but don't know how to, don't know what to say! So useless. At least I know better too now. Live and learn don't we....

I've been feeling busy and started to wonder why? It's only too easy to live life for the moment, you know, by the dates, events marked out on your calendar, planner, organiser; by the next class on your timetable; by the next birthday... far harder to live each moment for eternity. It's enjoyable, being busy... though I've been longing for ages now to just wrap myself up in bed one afternoon with a storybook (I've at least five crisp new novels on my bookshelf waiting to be read).

It's probably inevitable, that every person will wake up some mornings and no matter how fulfilling, exciting, happening their lives are at that point, let out a huge sigh at the utter vanity of it all. yes? no? I don't know. Well usually then I can only gain assurance from heart knowledge that yes 'all is vanity under the sun' but there are things beyond the sun. :)

Where am I going with this rambling? I'm getting on a plane in a few hours, but any excitement is dulled by the knowledge that I really should be spending reading week READING and getting work done. But there'll be great company, and beautiful scenery (I hope), so I'm off to pack! :)

when things get so bad...

2005-11-04T01:31:00.000Z

The tumultuous journeys taken by those near and dear to me in the name of that thing called love are leaving me so exhausted! There's been too much weeping, too much agnonising, too much irrationality, yet I cannot bear to just mind my own business walk away, (how to turn in contempt?) because her pain is obvious, and I see how she aches, how she's torn apart within by all the "ifs", by love and loathing in turn, because unlike what I told her, I do empathise, even if only in fragile plys of tissues.

In any case, I found myself at a police station this evening, and if I do not type that down, I shall remain incredulous. As it is it feels fairly surreal still! The stories I heard there were sad but so real. I was not in trouble, don't worry. No I was there to provide a strange useless kind of support while she made a missing persons report. A missing persons report can you believe that? I cannot. It sounds like something from the movies, from the 7 o'clock, 9 o'clock shows on channel 8, and not something from college life in London.

googlism

2005-11-02T01:00:00.000Z

Googlism is so ridiculous! Anyway, here are some of the results for: shining.
Unsurprisingly, alot of references to that horror movie.. so I took most of them out.

shining is academician of the chinese academy
shining is scary
shining is directly tied to duality
shining is influential in a great many ways
shining is more than fast talking and sharp one
shining is an unforgettable
shining is truly a masterpiece
shining is about jesus
shining is also certainly not deficient in other areas either
shining is ace
shining is very deliberate and slow
shining is great
shining is a work of genius
shining is a good example of this
shining is the one
shining is also known as the shining
shining is active
shining is like a fine book

well well. :)

sunday morning sky

2005-10-24T00:46:00.000+01:00

This is the beautiful, magnificent sky I woke up to this Sunday morning- the joy of having huge windows!

It's been such a busy week, and too many silly things have happened to name them all but an underlying principle was: get some lose some. This week I got my chair and wardrobe so that my room's now completely furnished, BUT our washing machine broke down yesterday, and we still can't turn the heating on.

All in all though, a challenging week, great promises- I really don't deserve the much that I have. (And, Death of a Salesman deserves every bit of praise it's ever been awarded, but it was thoroughly exhausting emotionally to take all that hopelessness in, and that's the depth of feeling that went into the players' performances.)

it's a beautiful autumn

2005-10-19T01:42:00.000+01:00

My heart is full of adoration

for you my Lord, my God and King;
your excellence, my inspiration,
your words of grace
have made my spirit sing.

All the glory, honour and power
belong to you, belong to you;
Jesus, Saviour, anointed One,
I worship you, I worship you

:)

2005-10-19T01:23:00.000+01:00

[jiaozi making when back home in singapore]

"We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand." Isaiah 64:8

It's hard, with work and things piling up and trying to tackle it all by myself, to remember that I can't be both potter and clay (or dough kneader and dough). Fact is, I'm not the potter of my life! And that's especially worth being thankful for at the moment.

everything's gonna be alright

2005-10-14T00:40:00.000+01:00

Internet connection is back up miraculously! After spending hours (literally) on the phone (mostly not talking and listening to silly music) with the various parties involved in our very complicated internet setup package, yayyaygirls (haha!) is finally up again, and for reasons unknown to all mankind- unhelpful experts included. In the meantime, of course, I've learnt once again what a time-sucker the WWW can be. But I'm glad it's back.

I'm even glad-er that our agent has finally managed to get the whole wardrobe thing sorted out (albeit very slimily) I really hope the landlady doesn't think we're nasty, because he certainly made us out to be.

I've had to make too many too many phonecalls to helplines, hotlines over the past few days- I really hate having to force myself to be rude (admittedly sometimes I really just wanted to be but..) in order to get customer service personnel to be helpful. One thing, yes it seems to be the only way to solve the problem short-term, but it could just make them less willing to please (rude, demanding, not unreasonable but still bothersome) customers right?

Ahhhh, don't know what to do, what to do? Must learn full dependency on my Lord.

Things

2005-10-13T00:13:00.000+01:00

Happy things

1. My amazing macroecons lecturer, whom I adore! Because he’s so brilliant, eloquent, hardworking, sincere, has got a wonderful British accent, terribly charming, not at all arrogant, not preachy or uptight, well-dressed, knows how to grab and hold the attention of all of us (irritating rowdy paper-plane throwing ones included)…. My admiration is really not baseless or foolish ok. I really am very very grateful to have such a fantastic lecturer! (And I hope my daddy is as great a lecturer back home.) J

2. Frisbee, which I adore as well! Ok, I cannot play, do not know the rules of Ultimate, and have never even watched a proper game played out. What I do know, is that I have no flair for it, as is the case with me and most other sporting activities, but still really enjoy it, so there must be something worth hanging in there for! When I say enjoy ‘it’ of course, that really just refers to picking up the frisbee, tossing it only to watch it wobble through the air, and then staring open-mouthed at how others manage to make their Frisbees slice the air, before realising too late that there’s a frisbee headed right for my stomach or the ground near me, thus failing to stretch my hands out in time for any catch either. But yes, though it’s autumn, Hyde Park was beautiful, the weather glorious, and I just might go back to play again. We’ll see.

3. Work: I think I’m actually enjoying economics this year, even though it looks like it’s going to be much harder this year. Readings are interesting, textbooks are interesting, lecturers are alright (and one of them amazing!). And I’m really glad I chose not to take the math module in the end, not least because I don’t have as many 9am lectures!

4. Precocious, talkative, funny little boys and girls at C-zone explorers. That’s like Sunday school for the 7-11 year olds at All Souls, which I hope to go help out with regularly from now on. They really made my Sunday.

5. The great 20p student deal on newspapers, and the freebies that come with Guardian or Independent, like chocolates, dvds and even books! And, the little sudoku grid on the back to keep myself awake between taking notes in lectures.

6. The huge amount of chocolate in our house. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, chocolate truffles, chocolate digestives, chocolate Nutella spread, chocolate covered jaffa cakes, the list goes on…Actually, the jury’s still out as to whether this is a good or bad thing. The £3.99 Argos weighing scale in my bedroom tells me I’ve gained weight. Already! Hm.

7. Strawberries!!

Crazy things (or rather thing)

1. Last night, I dropped an envelope into one of those classic big red post-boxes. No that’s not the crazy part, the crazy part is that it was the sign up form for the London Marathon 2006. Yes, that’s right, I’m going to start running and hopefully someday run 42km!!! The thing is, I might not actually get in, 80% of applicants get rejected! Plus my having never applied before probably puts me near the bottom of the pile right away. And running for charity, which means looking for sponsorship, would be too insurmountable a task. Ha. Like running a marathon is not?!?! But I figure, after much persuasion from angela, that hey I have six months to train, it gives me a goal to run towards, something else to put into my schedule and force out some discipline…If anything, I will at least have a healthier lifestyle, and a fitter heart right? So, yes I know, horrible things have happened, people have died running the marathon. But, I’m going to start running and running and running and hopefully keep running and running and running so that I won’t. Remember that this is coming from me, who hated running the 2.4 for PE: Crazy crazy crazy.

Irritating nagging things

1. Internet has been down for over a week in our house now: It wasn’t AOL’s fault (this time) so the BT guy just came today, but couldn’t fix it, apparently they’ll have to pass it over to BT exchange, whatever that really means, so more waiting waiting and sitting around and wishing and hoping. Sigh.

2. AOL’s refusal to honour their promises! Promised a really good broadband deal, now have gone back on their word and are asking us to pay more. Grr.

3. Wardrobe still hasn’t arrived, thanks to most incompetent agent, who caused all this trouble (we think deliberately) in the first place, telling the landlady one thing and us another.

4. My labour economics textbook: which because of it being American spells labour l-a-b-o-r so that all these ‘labOr’s keep leaping out at me from the page, thus distracting me from actually reading and understanding it. The labOr thing was also the reason why I spent so long searching the UCLid catalogue for another book. (ok, that IS really trivial, but irritating all the same)

5. My application for a Student Oyster photocard got rejected! Their reason: my form wasn’t signed and stamped, BUT IT WAS! I am absolutely flummoxed (sorry I just like the sound of it) by the ridiculousness of this.

6. HSBC is still sending things back home to Singapore when I’ve personally gone down to the branch to make sure all the settings are right twice! And if I add to this the irritation over how rude I had to force myself to be to get the staff to explain why (they just didn’t know) I could not apply for a credit card, I might just swell up, puffer fish style.

So: patience, understanding, self-control, 忍. I wonder if my parents have to face as many instances of bureaucratic inefficiency, incompetence and plain untrustworthiness in settling such matters back home. Anyway, looks like there are more points under happy things than irritating things, and the happy ones are all not as trivial. (: Ok, back to readings and more readings.

To love

2005-10-02T19:29:00.000+01:00

Today was just one of those 倒霉 days when all natural clumsiness in me conspires to break out and turn my day upside down. I tripped over myself and fell in a most undignified manner on the sidewalk of Oxford Street on my way to church, and that was just one among a whole series of embarassing little accidents.

Thankfully, there were many bright spots! Such as church, both worship and the sermon, the overwhelming kindness of total strangers, tanny's lullaby dance exhibition and playing with chairs.

(I'll put up the link to the sermon "strength in weakness" when it gets uploaded, but just wanted to note this bit that struck me.)

Paul Williams reminded me this morning of something C.S. Lewis once wrote:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to be sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one - not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safely in the casket or the coffin of your selfishness. But, in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, unredeemable. The only place outside heaven where you can be safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love, is hell. ~ The Four Loves

In 2 Corinthians 6:13, Paul exhorted the Corinthians to "open wide your hearts also." I have decided, to open wide my heart then, to as many people as possible! Even if that means looking vulnerability in the face.

And with an open heart, I endeavour also to live out a life of endurance, purity, and contentment as well. Lectures finally start tomorrow (at 9am!). Remind me dear Lord.

a promise

2005-10-02T09:34:00.000+01:00

rainbow
Originally uploaded by incandescere.

A new chapter has started without me again! Always feel like I'm playing catchup.. been back here in London for about two weeks now, and lectures start tomorrow.

So busy! And too many things to think about. Why are some people so shamelessly incompetent and rude? Argh. And why does love so often mess sensibilities up? Because humans love so imperfectly?

So I return again to the day I touched down. On my way to ucl on the big red 390, I saw the most beautiful rainbow.

I haven't seen one in a long while, the last one must have been back home in Singapore before I ever stepped foot in London years ago. It was not a half rainbow like in the picture above, it was a perfect arch, almost tracing a semicircle midair.

I saw that rainbow with my heart and mind in tatters. To me, those few seconds as the bus droe past, that glimpse of those colours said "Welcome back to London, my child, I'm here with you still"

Yep, I'll take that rainbow as a covenant, a promise. This year, as every year should have been, will be for my Lord.

And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth." - Genesis 9:12-13

"Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember"