It's when your entire perspective shifts
You can hurt or disappoint me
But you can never make me hate you.

shut up already

But dude, catholics are christian wad. It's legit!

But dude, who knows? Maybe she'll convert leh? There are so many instances. Why you so faithless?

eh dude dude.

eh, don't you see that the girl isn't the problem?
It's me!

dreadful days

These dreadful days.

You know those days where you find yourself eating your own words hard? The days when you looked back and think to yourself

wow those are some pretty remarkable, mature words. But I must be 10 years old when I said that just a few days ago.

i.e.
the days where you chance upon the full implication of the things you say.

I'm saying this and I cannot say this arrogantly, but I'm living by faith. Every moment, every right choice I make, I make before I even see the promise dear Lord.
Remember our covenant and satisfy me with the good things.
Show me that your love is greater than life.

Show me quickly. Rescue me.

Baby I will be your everything

Eh Shi Min if you read this, you MUST know that this is not personal lol.

So anyway, I was reading your blog and chanced (do you need to chance upon something that glaring?) upon an embedded youtube music video of "baby I will be your everything" by Boys like Girls.

Other than how it sounds so similar to "two is better than one" as well as hedley's "perfect".

I wonder who really thinks it's romantic to be someone's everything.

I for one, fear it. Been there, felt it, fearful forever.
But it's a good fear. It's not cowardice. I think it's like enlightenment.

Of course the secular world uses jargons like "giving space" and being "independent" to explain why we shouldn't be everything to our partners.
There is definitely truth in all of that, though it mostly feels like a scratching of the surface to me.

I see it all as just clever investment. To not put all your eggs in a basket which clearly... does not fit all the eggs. Why make one out to be everything when they are obviously nothing close? We even know that they aren't perfect from the start so... why even make them the world to you?

As christians, I think, this is a huge test. How do you:
1. become one flesh
2. surrender the ownership of your body to your partner.

while...
keeping christ as the only treasure?

At any rate, we just can't
1. Make our partner out to be the world to us
2. Try to make ourselves the world to our partner

Both seems equally wrong, the first forsaking God the second competing with God.
Sigh, need to think this through. No love until this is sorted out.

I'm not perfect but I keep trying.

Unexpected blessing.

This morning as I was reading:

But while Joseph was there in the prison, ²¹ the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. ²² So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 

I wonder what this means for me. Maybe God has granted me favor in the eyes of many.
That's awesome.

half-hearted

Over utown-cf today, I had the privilege of being present on a day when the attendance was anomalous. It was a lot easier to share the thing that was on my mind.

Few days have passed since the year began. Looking at my hands, I see them loaded with responsibilities. There's open house manpower, acting-head of neighbourhood, hip hop classes on tuesdays, floorball and frisbee inter-college games as well as this new committee I found myself walking into. I don't even know what its name is.

And as I shared I felt a tinge of guilt. I make myself sound overloaded... but trust me, I still have free time. Free time and spend rotting before the computer, lazing around and... sometimes a little too much sports. 

So... on one hand, I rationally receive the new responsibilities; I can see that I don't struggle with my academics and my gift in many areas is evident (perhaps too evident these days). On the other, I'm growing bitter. It's an insidious creeping poisoning that is beginning to make my attitudes toxic. I'm starting to be protective of my own time.. starting to like to make my life out to be hard. 

It's crazy. I can only thank God that I notice it... at the very least I know. It's slipping in from beneath my nose... but I catch a few whiffs every now and then. 

But I doubt this is the biggest source of woes. 

The sports. The emptiness I felt today as I left in stark contrast with the initial enthusiasm with which I ran down in my gear... I'm not playing for enjoyment. I was putting up a show.

I hope you don't read my blog. Actually I'm sure you don't. 

At any rate, I came face to face with the child in me again today... not the child in the good sense, but the one who is immature and trivial. 

Sometimes I try motivating myself with words like "those guys are cool with their violent faces, but I think you have good taste, taste good enough for the girl who goes after someone who is different"

It hardly comforts me. I know the problem isn't there. 

But the game goes on. So I have resolved to:

play sports 

train hard 

Be patient and look out for the weaker ones.

To be in the game but to reject being consumed. 

To play it for itself... to aspire to improve and not impress. 

Oh God, you didn't give me a brain which moves even as I play for nothing. 

Please let me have my cake and eat it too. Please put me to good use. 

Won't you be with me even as I play the games? 

let it be so. 

honesty

A while ago I was having lunch with this friend. She was recounting her moment of brief, but intense friendship with an exchange student.

I'm sure I was frowning to a certain extent throughout the whole conversation. It's some Asian grievance, I would say. It's the sort of ego that leaps up and shouts aha! You whites aren't that great after all! How does it feel to come to terms with that? How does it feel to be both minority and not distinguished?

Suspicion wells up in my heart whenever they speak about our culture and how it's all-so-interesting. It jolts back memories of lessons learnt during South East Asian studies of how the colonial "masters" documented our culture and history and made museums and everything. It was a soft tool of power...

And when they descend, visiting our culture, I wonder what goes on in their heads. Is there some condescension when our culture fascinates? Do they liken it to the tribal people... in the way that their backwardness is the very substance of fascination?
In the way that makes ridiculous or amusing a better word?

And then she mentioned about the dude's opinion of why the locals here do not interest themselves in making friends with the exchange students.

They probably don't see any value in investing in such a short term friendship.
Very thoughtful.

A thought surfaces in my head...
He didn't say that exchange students do not interest themselves in making friends with the locals because they know that as soon as they leave, these friendships lose their instrumentalism.. right?

If only we were all a lot more aware. It isn't one sided. It is really 2 sided isn't it?

And I shudder. It's not like me to forsake idealism. I would have thought...
that even if this is happening, it shouldn't be the case.

but in parting, I simply said
"I guess the only solution is to accept this as reality. The sooner we know, the better."
and felt wise about saying it.

walk, blameless

Just a random thought really.

I was recounting my conversation with this really queer friend of mine. Such a lazy afternoon. Failed to fulfil idealistic expectations of my academic efficiency. Again.

But not bad. I'm still reading. This module's all foreign to me. For now.

Anyway, the conversation. I can't quite remember now.

But well, we were talking about her involvement in campus crusades. Knowing her character, I was guessing she wasn't quite involved... that she haven't been crusading around.. much.
Suddenly the mood changed, not that it was genuinely sudden because I saw it coming.

What's wrong with that? She asks.
Are you like judging me or something?

And what's wrong with that? I retorted.
First, to say that we cannot make judgments in the sense of drawing conclusions... is simply ridiculous. Next, as Christians we ought to be ready... ready to be judged and yet confident that we will not found to be guilty of a negative conclusion.

She nods silently.
Phew, I knew our friendship can withstand something like that.

I wonder now if I have lived blamelessly... hahaha save it, I haven't.

I'm working on it! This sort of... faith testing thing.
Sometimes you move to do before you even desire
and it's faith which sustains you...
faith that as God sees fit, He will grant you the desire.

I know He is watching.

With what words may I comfort someone who did not do well in the first semester?

I'm thinking of you dot K, because you're not as shallow as many girls of our time.
I can hardly believe that this is your final semester.
I cannot imagine who robbed you of your shot at honours.

This lesson I learnt and re-learn- not everyone has the potential to succeed academically.
I used to think that there was always a behavioural reason... like laziness or being accustomed to superficiality... behind every poorly performing student. That theory's falling apart.

Back in JC you can't quite feel it.. you know, the curve.. the people you have to step on to get your results. In university, it's different.
You see their faces, they aren't from another school. The competition is so localised.
And when I say
"Cheer up, it's okay. Let's all try our best next sem."

What am I really saying?
I think of you guys every now and then
nel, hans, tang etc. wishing there's something I can say.

the good things

Jeremiah 32:38-41

They shall be my people and I will be their God... I will not turn away from doing good to them... I will rejoice in doing good to them... with all my heart and with all my soul. 

What does we being God's people and Him being our God mean?

Well the verse seems to say that it does mean that God will not stop doing good to us, and He will enjoy it as He does it. 

So what does this mean? It means that so many as surrender themselves under God's sovereignty i.e, become His people, enjoy the marvellous truth that He will ceaselessly do good to them. In other words, it's always good with God's people. Indeed, Romans 8:28 says the same thing "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who^[a] have been called according to his purpose."

Nice. So recently I read on Facebook, a touching story of how God healed this friend's uncle who was about to die. Magically, it was close to Christmas. It says, thank you for healing him but please to not let it happen again, our hearts can only take that much. 

What do you think? I don't like the sound of it. 

The post seems to mean to say that if the uncle somehow died, that God has somehow ceased doing good. 

It's odd. Our experience is the bible, and the bible is the experience- the roles have swapped.

I think many Christians fail to put these in their proper places. When the bible says that God will not turn away from doing good to us, it necessarily means that good is being done towards us every passing second. 

For the bible to be the bible, we must insist, no matter the extent of discomfort the incident brings, that God is still doing good. 

But instead, our experience becomes our bible. We think: Oh, wait, this isn't good. God? Where's the good you promised? Please resume doing good to me! 

And if the good we expect never comes, it does not occur to us that in our expectation of it we have begun to say that the good God is still doing is not so good after all. 

Can we really say that? 

I think the bible has 1 thing to say 

Job 2:10 as job rebukes his wife

Thou hast; spoken like one of the foolish women: if we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil?

Putting it all together, since God does not turn away from doing good to those whom he is God to:

Shall we receive only the things which we perceive as good but reject the ones we perceive to be bad?

Shall we live on with little faith and at times reject the good things God ceaselessly does as bad? 

Hold on to your faith! Hold on to the character of God. 

He will be God to you and will tirelessly, gladly do you good always. 

What do we do with our experience? We make out what seems good to God and hence come to greater understanding of His will...

which is His will. 

I said I will give you the best of my time.
Let me give you the best of my time.
Help me give you the best of my time.
Let it be that I give you the best of my time.

May I walk a little and see that it's true, That I have always given the best to you.

self pity is a popular pastime

“Why do I, and everyone I love, pick people who treat us like we’re nothing?” - Sam, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

This is something I cannot agree with. Okay look. Maybe there are really such "selfless" people out there, people who do really pick people who treat them like they're nothing...
but that's a lie isn't it? At least I can never say this statement if I were being honest.

Why do I pick people who treat me like nothing? You simply don't. 
Loaded behind that question appears to be an insidious play of self-pity. It says, why do I make much of people who make little (or nothing) of me. Why am I so awesome that I treasure people who don't even treasure me. 

But before that, I wonder if we ever really pick people who treat us like we're nothing. Or are we over generalizing the moments when they did treat us like nothing and let it mislead us into forming this picture that they as a whole indeed consistently treat us like nothing? 
Who really treats you like nothing? I think the random passerby on the street or the ignorant person (ignorant of your existence)  in a foreign land is perhaps the only persons fitting of that criteria. 

so really. what's left? "Nothing" is figurative since it really means "little" or worse, "I feel that it is little". 
Drop the act, no one is so lacking of self-love that they will ever pick people who treat them like nothing. 

No one can really say that and mean it. Seriously, we can all stop acting noble. 

a cycle?

I don't know how many will get angry if I were to describe every year end sharing as somewhat.. cyclical.
I mean, after a few years you kind of get the drift. The same things always happen to the same people...
and their weaknesses often remain the same.

Some sharings did catch me off guard. Some comforted me... in the sense that
"phew, at least they knew it all along"
But I can't shake of the naggy feeling that if we're back year after year sharing the same things... that it means we've gone and forgotten the things we shared the year before.

Most frustrating, I find it in myself. Every year has a theme of arrogance. It also centers on thanksgiving regarding putting blunt people around me who dare correct me.
But every year the mistakes repeat. And often I learn to late... worse, the holidays seem to put a hard reset on all the good work. The forgiving results seem to say "go on, be proud."

But it's okay, there's still a difference.
At least this year I figured out a thing or two about desiring things.

And I must admit, my desires are many, but few are deep (well maybe none are!)
Which is where the problem lies anyway. I don't want something enough to go get it. In the event where I rationally compel myself to pursue it I either get upset easily or get into all sorts of disasters.
2012 has been better because I was able to float at the fringe of those rash behaviours.

I'm learning. I'm keeping track of the things I like. I'm more wary now, at least.