One word to describe last night - AMAZING.

God really works in marvellous and mysterious ways. Yesterday, I so nearly didn't go for Sonicfest because of so many reasons which are so silly, now that I think of them, but I'm so glad I did and I know it was no coincidence. I'm still pretty high on the experience so yeah, excuse the uber long sentences which seem to ramble on but please please please read all I've got to say about it. And Xue Ai's right, we don't really need something like this to get high on God but I guess I really needed last night. It's been eons since I went for something where I'd really felt God's presence and really worshipped Him. And He did speak to me last night. Somehow the feeling has always faded with time, the enthusiasm dimming after the challenges of life loom over you and everything just seems to screw up once you touch it. But this time I can just feel it's gonna be different and Wei Lynn feels the same way too so yeah, we're really gonna work on keeping the faith this time man. Hang in there Tongster!

And as you've probably seen from the last few entries, life has been totally overwhelming for me in recent times. Prelims in 2 weeks and I'm NOWHERE near completion. University application deadlines and the urgent need to decide on your future like right now. But you know what, I'm really just gonna trust God and I've laid it all down. Everything -- my grades, my future, my revision, my everything. And I'm just going to focus everything on Jesus because no matter how high the waves go, no matter what shit comes my way, I'm just going to try my hardest to keep my eyes on Jesus. Because that's all that matters. Haha. I'm leaving this here as a reminder and encouragement.

Well anyway, Sonicflood was awesome! They were really really good and I think they're doing a terrific job sharing God with their music. And I'm gonna save up and get their new CD (: Heh.

Well anyway, have a good week. God bless you (:
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tuesdays are so long ): i'm so tired now but i think i'll try to finish up the whole chunk of bio on dna control and inheritance and summarise the liver and kidney chapter. oh and i gotta read up on equilibrium and try some questions so that i'll have stuff to ask at tuition tomorrow. i think having camped at the library today for 5 periods has already made today quite a productive day (:

there's csi tonight, and if i had cable tv, there'd be cowboy bebop to catch! perfect slacktime entertainment (:

anyways, i think i have more or less gotten into the groove of studying. i don't foresee any panic attacks in the near future :/

i just wish that i didn't have this overwhelming need to prove myself.

and i think i've been failing miserably at being a little more kind to the people around me. i'm sorry if i've intentionally/unintentionally hurt you/brushed you off/told you to bugger off ):

ohwell, i wish it'd stop raining all the time. rain's really nice, but too much rain is giving me seasonal-affective disorder(haha, what an apt acronym).
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You have led me to the sadness/I have carried this pain/on a back bruised, nearly broken/I'm crying out to You//I will sing of Your mercy/that leads me through valleys of sorrow/to rivers of joy//when death, like a gypsy/comes to steal what I love/I will still look to the heavens/I will still seek your face/but I fear You aren't listening/because there are no words/just the stillness/and the hunger
for a faith that assures//alleluia, alleluia/alleluia, alleluia//while we wait for rescue/with our eyes tightly shut/face to the ground using our hands/to cover the fatal cut/though the pain is an ocean/tossing us around, around, around/You have calmed greater waters/higher mountains have come down

everytime i write in a panic-driven moment, i am so very thankful, that the next day i will find the assurance and grace to get through my difficulties. the problems are still all there but i'm glad for a higher strength to help me through them.

every single time.

and yet i still sink into moments of despair, despite knowing that i will find a way to carry on the next day. it seems that i've never learnt anything at all.

so i've decided that this is going to be the last time i'm going to let anything negative take over me. i don't want to doubt what my faith is based on anymore. if i can trust in the good times, i should learn to hang onto that trust in the bad times as well.
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in the last 48 hours, i have slept less than 8 hours.
and i won't be sleeping tonight till past 12.
someone get me some sleeping pills, please.

today, the principal shared devotion and she said that we just needed to keep believing and hoping in the hard work we're putting in. but it's hard. so damned hard to keep believing, when the world tells you to wake up your ideas, to open your eyes and see how impossible dreaming is. i don't even know whether i can hold onto my dreams, and wholeheartedly(foolishly) believe in them and my ability to attain them. some days, it's just too hard. too damned hard.

everything's still overwhelming. everything's still crashing down. actually, no, it seems more like everything's in suspended animation and i'm standing right here in the shadow of an impending disaster and i can't do nothing about it. i can't run, and i'm certainly not able enough to deflect or handle the huge load that's going to crush me anytime now. oh God, i need help. like seriously, please send someone to tell me what's wrong with my life and get it sorted it out, please.

it's days like these i really wish i had someone who was doing the same things i'm doing, going to do the exact same thing i want, who wants to go to the same schools, the same career. then at least we'd both know what to do, when to do it and how to do it. because right now, i'm awfully lost. time has become such a blurred concept. i've even stopped making lists of the things i've got to do, the things i've got to cover and the deadlines which i've got to watch out for. because i don't even know where to start anymore.

and i don't even want to hear people encouraging me anymore. it's all so futile. and at the end of the day, you're all not me, and you're all not going in the same direction i am, so it doesn't really count for anything -- all the promises to be there for me, to help me out, simply because you can't. none of you can offer anything but intangible, unreal, moral support. that's not going to get me anywhere, or get anything done. i appreciate it, i really do. but the world's not so forgiving, so ideal.
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manda and line being taitais! germ the sad clown and xue ai trying to be a little girl heh.


maggot trying to pick her nose adjust her hair haha.


the chair gang at marche!
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i just watched remember the titans again haha. i love that movie! reminds me a lot about mg (:

i want so much to have a great story to tell. which is why i really respect good authors, movie-makers -- all the people who can inspire and ignite something in the hearts and souls of all who hear, see, experience their story.

i'd write more but i've got dishes to wash and some reading to do. have a good week.
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i haven't really got much to say. i just want to push the last entry down because i realised that from this week, my classmates have now been very nice and really cut down on the dota talk. so good on them (:

i miss my chair gang so much ): when i get the photos i'll post them up and feel sad that we're so separated all over again. they'll be the best pals forever and ever, even when there're little myras and hanxians around heh.

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i don't know what to say anymore. everything that's happened in the past week has been pretty overwhelming and i don't even know whether i feel happy or sad or angry or lonely or whatever, anymore. it's almost like everything's just melting into a mess. there was some good stuff in the mix but then there's stuff that makes me feel bummed as well. everything's all just so very unclear now. and i don't really want to think about anything. all i want to do is watch lots and lots of tv haha. just vegetate in front of a screen and watch other people's lives and stories and hope that when i finally switch off the tv, my life might have sorted itself out.
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this entry serves no purpose except to deliver catharsis. if personal offense is taken, well then, i don't quite care how you'd handle it. but that little x link at the bottom of this entry is there for a reason so maybe you'd want to use it.

i'm getting very annoyed with the way my classmates talk about dota ALL DAY. i don't know whether they are just dense or plain inconsiderate. it's such a divisive and exclusive topic that cuts off the rest of the class from their little fantasy warcraft world and it doesn't help that these people are the ones i'd prefer to interact with because well, they ARE fun and interesting people. but they talk about one thing, all day, and it gets to me because i cannot contribute a single thing to the conversation. and because it seems like there cannot pass a single day where they do not discuss dota, i feel pressured to participate instead of just spectating. that sucks because that's negative peer pressure. there's quite a lot to say about dota, fair enough. but seriously, i come to school not just to get my A level cert but to interact with friends and classmates. i don't pay my school fees just so that i can learn how to pwn asses at dota. so yes, i am rather annoyed that i have nothing to say to my classmates, who are really nice people but just a tad inconsiderate.

BUT at the end of the day, i am still too gutless to say all this in their faces -____- maybe i should just get new friends.
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I was going to change a few things in the last post but I decided not to because I don't really like changing what I've written because it'll lose all the significance of capturing the moment. But anyway, on with what I've got to say...

I woke up today feeling jaded and in dire need of assurance which I got in the most amazing way in church today (:

The sermon today was on how our priorities would, and should change when we consider that our final destination, our ultimate goal, is paradise. And that God would give us the strength and help to do what He made us to do. And the pastor mentioned a personal example about how she felt a "rising sense of panic" when it hit her how huge her new responsibilities (she's taking over the duties of this other pastor who's leaving our church ): i quite liked his sermons..i think i'll miss him ):) were. And she shared how God reassured her but the amazing thing was, she said the 4 words I so desperately needed to hear -- "you can make it". When I heard that I was really shocked and genuinely in awe that God would speak to me that very morning, with the exact words I needed to hear. I was already feling very comforted by the rest of what the pastor said about God providing and having a good plan for us, but the fact that God was so real to me today, I cannot deny and I cannot keep quiet about.

So there, I've realised a lot this morning and I hope that maybe what I've just shared will help someone else along to finding God (:

[picturecredit:jonk(thanks mate!)]
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I finally realised how right Wei Liang was when he said that thinking about the future was too scary to do. Because right now, all I want to do is just quit school and take over my mom's business ):

I am feeling very stressed and overwhelmed by my studies and I'm sure it's damn obvious from the way I've been in school lately. I seriously am not taking very kindly to school because it's starting to bring out the worst in me -- obsessive-compulsive preoccupation with studies, frustration with mediocrity and all my worst insecurities. I'm sorry if I haven't been able to have a smile for you if you needed one, or if I've shown my annoyance at you, if I've said something stupid or nasty, if I've been a wet blanket, if my behaviour has been worrying. Every day, I go home and feel like a failure for not having been able to use the day to glorify my God. I feel terrible at the end of every day that I've been a lousy friend and classmate, but somehow I just can't help it, I'm too stressed to bother about the people around me already. And that sucks because these people matter more to me than my grades but I can't seem to balance both. Shit, I'm such a failure.

I wish I could just be a animation artist. Then I'd make awesome anime/cartoons and make 90% of the population of Japan as well as kids all around the world happy. When I go to my class reunions after missing like half of them because I'm too busy, I'd have one of the coolest jobs even if by then, they're all too grown-up and snooty to appreciate the uber-coolness of my job. Heh. Now that's what I'd call a perfect daydream. Unfortunately, I have no choice but to agree with Russell that such freedom to pursue what we all really want, can come only with a certain degree of security in this pragmatic world. BOO. ):

All of a sudden, my dreams -- the proper ones where I help people, and earn enough to give my family a comfortable life, and my kids never have to go through this shit situation I'm in, where I can't depend on my parents to see me through achieving these dreams -- seem so much harder to reach and I need so badly to know that I can make it. But I know I can't, definitely not in my present state. And the worst part is, there's an easier way out which means that if I just convinced myself enough, all this would be so unnecessary. But I hope my stupid pride will not let me live it down. That's pretty much all that's keeping me so darned persistent at my studies now. I could have an easy life now but I'll always feel like shit inside for copping out on my dreams, or I could stick it out and have a way better easy life later.

FIVE weeks. It's all possible.
"Thus says the LORD of hosts:
"If you will walk in My ways,
And if you will keep My command,
Then you shall also judge My house,
And likewise have charge of My courts;
I will give you places to walk
Among these who stand here. --zech 3:7"

"Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,'
Says the LORD of hosts. --zech 4:6"

My Lord will provide. 'Nuff said.
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I should've gone for Passion AC yesterday :/ I think I'm sorely in need of a time of spiritual renewal. But no matter, I will continue to strive to walk closer to my Lord (:

I think my classmates are going to give me strange looks when they see this but I'm really loving GP man. Haha. I feel so inspired to learn more about the world around me now. I'm currently reading Bertrand Russell's Political Ideals which I borrowed from my teacher. Which really is making me think more about how the world we live in is being governed. Plus, he's an awfully good writer! And then since we happened to be discussing this question -- "To what extent can international aid be really effective?" -- in class, I feel so inspired to actually write out an essay because today happens to be the day the Live 8 concerts take place. In fact, it's so true that you don't have to mug for GP because really, it's all so amazing and horizon-broadening that I don't even see it as mugging anymore. So whatever my classmates say, I say GP's probably the most useful subject I've ever taken (:

I wish I could be part of something huge and world-changing like helping out in a cause for Debt Cancellation, that sort of thing. And it's so disheartening how a lot of people have no idea things like this are happening, and they're focused on silly, trivial things. Maybe I'm in no position to judge because after all, people are free to live their lives the way they want, but sometimes, I just wished the world were a lot less myopic and focused on their own interests. Which is why I'd love to be able to have lots and lots of money and resources at my disposal because I think there're so many good causes worth fighting for. But of course, a multitude of resources will never just drop upon my life just like that, so I shall just continue looking for the opportunities to contribute, even if it's insignificant.

Well anyways, the first week of school is over and we are now 6 weeks away from the PRELIMS ): Hence, I will stop here and finish reading up on how we can all Make Poverty History.
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