The lack of regular posts is due to the many projects and essays that need to get themselves done. It's usually crunch time at this time of the semester, especially if you don't start preparing early for all the projects/essays. Failure to plan ensures the multiple onslaught of all the assignments and presentations from everywhere direction. But yeah, I've somewhat gotten tired of most of my group projects because I never ever could tolerate them anyway. Twitter is my complaining channel now, for everything that I cannot say on my Facebook and my MSN, I just tweet. Hahahaha.

Alright, time for bed. More, another time.

Jolene and I recently embarked on daily devotional readings of Our Daily Bread. Was quite surprised how far this has taken me, because it worked quite well even though the material isn't very in-depth. I think one of the biggest reasons why I skip quiet time sometimes is because I don't set aside time! And especially when school term begins, I hardly have motivation to read the school stuff, much less read long devotionals. Hence ODB makes a good alternative because I have it sent to my email, and I check my email everyday so I cannot miss it. And it's just concise enough so that I won't just "haiya another long email" and neglect it. Jolene doesn't keep me accountable much anymore (neither do I), but I still read them and sometimes I find myself reading it again several times in a day and trying to memorise the scripture of the day.

It's crunch time in the semester soon. I've got one group essay submission next week, and another the following. Add two group presentations in the next two weeks too. Gosh I can't wait for November to come. Not to say all my work will disappear in November! Got another two individual essays by mid-Nov, what a strange timing.

But for now, thoughts are on this Friday's worship. I wasn't supposed to be worship leading anything for October, but this Friday's one had a strange effect of making me validate it more than usual. Through God's grace, it'll be fine =)

Been slowly realising that I've been stuck in the longest musical rut for some time. I think in the past few months, my iPod is no longer the entertainment tool that it has used to be. Its role has now been relegated to a strictly utilitarian and absolutely functional use. In other words, I only use it when I need it! Gone are the days where the first thing I do before I embark on a long bus ride would be to set the iPod to auto-play an album or some songs or whatever. Nope, not nowadays. I still carry it in my bag with me wherever I go, but I only take it out when I need to refer a song to a friend, or when I need to connect it to the church mixer to demo some songs or to serve as pre-service music fill. It's lost the appeal where it once had whenever I'm bored, and it's just iPod and me, and we'll go to the ends of the music world.

And this is dire only because serving as a worship leader, I've discovered that my songs have almost become formulaic. There's little variation in the choice of the songs that I sing now because I realised that I've hit upon a tried-and-tested system which fits almost 80% of all the services that I'm required to lead! I just have to fit it to the theme of the service and the Holy Spirit is just prompting all the songs that I already have in my head because of this fixed system, and I no longer have to spend weeks in advance trying to plan my set lists. It's both good and bad, because experience takes over, but it also means I'm likely to keep repeating the same songs over and over again.

So I shall try to inject more variation and try more new stuff and mix things up slightly to break out of my rhythm and revive the iPod's heydays. Might as well anyway, because I'm currently reading Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, which is supposed to be a really good book because it won three Booker prizes! And you might be wondering how to achieve three Booker wins. It won it in 1981 in the year it was published, and again in 1993 for the 25th anniversary Booker commemoration, and again in 2008 for the 40th. It's as impressive as it can get, but sadly, the novel has not yet shown its magic to me yet. Fall asleep everytime after ploughing approximately 7 pages.

I have a small confession to make, albeit this is not the most favourable channel to do so. On the grounds that I don't think a lot of people read this blog (in any case I only know a handful of faithfully returning readers). But that is besides the point. I'm writing this because today's Our Daily Bread reading sparked something which I think needs to be addressed in my life.

The fact is, I've been losing meaning and purpose for Sunday services. I don't really see the point in going for Sunday services as frequently as before, because I really don't feel like I'm getting much out of them. I'm fully aware that this is not the kind of conduct and the form of example that I should be exhibiting. But it's been like that since the beginning of this year, where everything just seems meaningless and it's to the extent that I really question what's the point of persisting in dreariness. It's just not inspiring me in my Christian growth, I get better feeding elsewhere or from other forms, and the only thing that anchors my Sunday attendance is my occasional duties for worship ministry or for the new Sec 1 and 2 discipleship class.

Even then, during those times of serving in ministry, I feel like the best way to describe my feelings are just "orh, okay". Hahaha not the best way to describe it, but it's just that way. Nothing comes and nothing goes. I play guitar and I force myself to worship onstage without getting distracted. I lead worship and it's becoming easier for me now (from experience) to enter into my own free worship, but I can't escape the nagging feeling if I'm really leading the congregation. And when I'm part of the congregation, it's the probably the worst because I'm distracted by all the inadequacies and all the problems are magnified tenfold.

Which is why, it's not really a coincidence that I don't really bother setting alarm clocks for Sunday mornings when I'm not due for anything. And I can totally understand those who are disinclined to come church on Sundays. I feel like it's more of a formality that we're having a Sunday service now, rather than the celebration of like-minded believers in faith and in unity it is supposed to trigger. Okay that was according to the ODB reading for today. And this is in response to Yurong's small comment (and I know she accounts for the "handful of faithfully returning readers") at leaders' meeting this afternoon. Yes, church is less than a stone's throw away from my block, but there are times when I feel it's more worthwhile catching up on sleep rather than sit through service just for the sake for being there.

Strange that I don't feel the same way for Friday. Maybe because my cell group makes it amazing for me each time. Or maybe because I see hearts more ready and expectant. Or it can just be Satan's attack, in which case I'm not really doing much tho flee from the temptations of my bed. Like I stayed up most of last  night and only went to sleep at 6.30am this morning, which is, needless to say, a recipe for remaining asleep beyond 11am for service. Then again sometimes I just refuse to try or budge because I'm stubborn. Like my non-attendance of any young adult cell group, wich, I think will probably be the subject of another blog post in a similar fashion of retrospection.

And I suspect I will come into some form of vilification soon because of this post, or from my continued rebellion. We'll see where it takes me. Okay, enough has been said about this. Thanks for enduring thus far if you did.

I wonder why am I not sleeping again. It's past 5am and I'm still up doing nonsense, at the same time sporadically reading some of my Literature readings. I do enjoy my dabble in my Lit modules so far, but now that they are level 2 modules, it means that besides reading the texts itself, I have to read academic analysis stuff written on those texts. Which is rather a big step because level 1 just mostly require you to form a rudimentary response. I'm slightly glad that Lit for me is only a minor and not a major!

Elsewhere, a huge storm is brewing outside of my house right now. Okay it has subsided mostly, but there are still quite a lot of lightning and the rain is still relatively heavy. Hahaha that means I should go to bed soon, it's going to be cosy!

And I've yet to blog about Self-Denial service! Went into the worship without being fully prepared as a band I think. There were always a lot of uncertainties like, okay so who's going to do what at this transition, but I think it all turned out great. Self-denial and sacrifice makes for essential ingredients for the walk. And my pleasant surprises came from unexpected people in the congregation! The biggest surprise was my mum, who came to me this morning while I was still groggy and in bed. She said she walked in towards the end and heard me sing the closing songs. Hahaha I didn't even know she was there!

Alright. Shall finish this reading then it's bed bed bed.