In the middle of exams period now, have finished two papers and still have two remaining next Tuesday before I am a free bird. But immediately right after is Kids Games and a whole lot of other things on the to-do list to complete, because I have report back for reservist middle of December and that's like most of the vacation gone. Heh oh well busy busy.

And thankful for all the people who always volunteer to buy food, or run errands for me when I'm studying in church! My revision progress is real slow but at least I am studying haha I'm close to just throwing it all up in the air and go into exam hall cooking up some balmy storm.

Have a half-marathon to run next Sunday, and I'm totally not prepared for it. They say try to aim to at least attempt 60~70% of the required distance as part of preparation, but I didn't do anything more than 7km this whole month except for tonight with Coleman. Aching muscles and dead tired. How to study.

Okay last thing, happy for my cell and the way they are growing. Getting out with them more because it's holidays, hahaha at the expense of revision but I will make up for it somewhere. And glad for all the opportunities to communicate with the Pri 6s this year, because I kinda think it's gonna be one of the smoothest transitions I'll have ever. They are calling my uncle =(

Another half an hour till my birthday, and I am sitting here being dubious about my age! Hahaha 2011 minus away 1988 is 23 right??? I am 23 this year right? Haha not saying that I am the oldest person alive, but I feel old and I fall into the category of twenty-somethings trying to find a job and get married and start a family. But that's not going to happen till another couple of years when I graduate from university and bam here we go into being fully adult, assuming that I'm all ready to marry.

Anyway, it really didn't feel like the eve of my birthday, truth be told I wasn't even keeping track until mid-day today. And if I were to use a hackneyed and trite word, it would have to be "surreal" because I really think this whole waiting-for-your-birthday thing is very surreal. My birthday is just another day, that's what I always say. But when I'm actually waiting for it to happen it really is very surreal. So this post represents my last gasps at being 22 and grasping at air to stay relevant concurrent ebullient.

Oh and while I'm at that. Today I realized that I will be taking on my 5th batch of Sec 1 youths starting next year. Have been trying to form communications with them since middle of this year, trying to find out who are the little children that will terrorize me next year. I've been trying to catch them after Sunday service or whatever, got to know some of them closer at the Pri 6 camp a while back... But I told myself the work won't really begin until they get hold of my email or phone number or Facebook and start having sustained conversations with me. Today Auntie Christina told me they are telling everyone to sign up for Kids Games because Uncle Guan You will be there too! I am happy for the former news, but not the latter! What Uncle Guan You!! And with that I caught one or two of them on chat. Uh oh it's been 5 years and I barely counted. Half a decade.

Okay 20 minutes to go now. 

This post simply has to be written, and I will not do it justice if I do not say it as it is. You can view this as a mini-continuation post from two or three days ago, which I mentioned somewhere that I was asked to lead worship at Balestier Corps new building opening ceremony. So yup, leading worship isn't something new for me hahaha, I've done it enough times to know what to do, and it's almost as if it were routine? Heh I think that's the danger of doing something too many times, that ministry becomes formulaic and form without substance. Of course I try really hard not to fall into a rut, each opportunity to serve God through worship leading or sharing the message or anything, I really hope something special will happen and I put in my best. 

But I gotta confess slightly, I kinda remembered going into this Balestier worship not focusing fully on what I need to focus on. Partly because it was a very busy weekend with other worship leading AND message sharing engagements AND incomplete essays, so in all honesty Balestier was not high on the priority list. And then we had to have worship prac without a drummer because Spencer will be late, but I had very very good musicians who agreed to play for me, so much so that I remembered this specific prayer thanking God for blessing me with a team of musicians that are much more experienced than I am! And we kinda headed into the actual worship with only half an hour of rushed practice with the full team, without much clue what to do or where to go with each song. Onstage into worship I really don't really remember much of what happened, but I know it just kinda reached automatic pilot mode because the songs were familiar and it didn't rely on me to get to where I needed it to go, it was all natural and flowing. And coming off it wasn't too difficult either, I was nervous to close and couldn't wait to get off haha. 

Sooo, long-winded story aside, I was very very surprised after everything ended, Rachael from Balestier's youth came up to me and suggested that we should have a inter-corps worship exchange, because they all thought that our music style was really different and more importantly, they really felt God through the worship. That put me in a huge fix, because I didn't have the heart to tell her that as far as I knew, it was pretty normal to us! But a few days later I received another affirmation from Didi, this time from Twitter, that Sunday was great and God was there. I'm like, someone please teach me how to respond humbly to compliments because I will just pooh-pooh it because it's always human tendency to beat yourself down and say nahhh not me laaaa. But the third and most recent was last evening, when Meena agreed that Balestier felt like it was a youth camp, and His presence could really be felt because it was like a combined service but strictly was really not? Haha and in part due to the games too, which I was happily jumbling up people's shoes. 

But there you go, three confirmations and three different times from three different sources. It doesn't get clearer than this, if I continue to ignore this, the next thing that God needs to do to show me something is to throw some lightning bolts at where I am currently sitting and jolt me into action. But it's just amazing to me how something that I think is so unworthy can be transformed into something that others perceive as brilliance or magnificence or splendour of God. I didn't seek out to transform lives when I headed into Balestier, and I think it really isn't up to me to decide what God wants to do with this jars of clay. I look back now and kinda wished that I put in more effort into this or into that, hahaha but I don't think it would have made much difference if God hadn't been the one to transform. I'm just so thankful and so blessed to be a part of this, and it needs somewhere a miracle to convince me otherwise that that Balestier evening was not a special kiss from heaven. 

Recently I've been catching colds far more often than I should! And it's quite bad, because there are mornings when I wake up and I thought that it was just the occasional sinus attack, but it goes on for the whole day and degenerates into terrible sneezing bouts and headaches and leaky nose. Don't know what's wrong with my nose and I try not to aggravate it. I think the doctors will probably tell me that it's something to do with dust or some mild allergy. But no point for me to worry about dust mites because I'm living in a rented apartment now anyway haha, and this problem has been around even before I shifted. Gaargh. 

And I try my best not to depend on my antihistamine medicines too much, because I don't want to develop some drug immunity due to excessive or frequent medication. Haha or can someone tell me that this fear is not founded in concrete medical proof? Whichever way it is, I try to delay medication as long as I can, and hoping that the cold will just go away on its own. But more often than not, it kinda worsens. 

And and and and! I wanna gripe about the antihistamine medicine that I've been taking regularly! I am allergic to paracetamol, so I need to be very careful with medicine haha. I switched from the usual chlorpheniramine tablets to Clarinase about 3 to 4 years ago, I think it was due to one afternoon when I desperately needed medication and someone just got me Clarinase from the pharmacy. But anyway, they bill themselves as non-drowsy and fast relief, but each time I take it, I fall into some stupor and everything gets groggy! So much for non-drowsy!! Anyway Clarinase used to be those 4 to 6-hour tablets, so the effect kinda wears off within that time frame after you get well. But last year they've switched it to 24-hour extended release tablets, which means that the drug effect slowly releases its medication over 24 hours! Which means each time I take one of those stupefacient pills, my reflexes slow and my speech slurs and I don't think properly, for about one whole day. Nonsense la what non-drowsy??? It makes me want to sleep each time! 

I think Auntie Adeline used to always tell me that all these non-drowsy flu tablets are all a lie, because when you are sick you just have to rest and recuperate in order to recover. Most of the time I cave in to the drowsiness, because I really cannot take it hahaha I don't want to fight the fatigue. And mostly I wake up feeling much better, and I'm thinking this isn't any different if I had continued with my chlorpheniramine medication! That one is a sure potent drowsy-inducing sleep pill, I take one and I need a bed within half an hour. And Clarinase obviously does not keep me awake, I'm just hesitant and reluctant to switch medication. Haha alright I need to go back to sleep, Clarinase is in extended release. 

The weekend was arguably one of the busiest and craziest for the entire year. There were some hall rentals on Friday, led worship at Balestier on Saturday, Pri 6 / Sec 2 graduation and Gracehaven worship and sharing the message on Sunday, all amidst two 2000-word essays that were due on Monday! Okay I really really left it very late, because I was busy with other things and I was trying to get some semblance of exam revision started, which kinda ended up neglecting the essays to focus on all the other things. But I have to say, every single one of the weekend programme went well, and I'm thankful that all the essays are finished and done.

Glad that Balestier Corps finally shifted to their new building, and celebrating their 75th! Haha not that I desperately wanted them to get out from our church building, but kinda think it's rather befitting that they get their own building, with new equipment and everything! Will miss having the Balestier people around every weekend. I'm so used to meeting all of them every Sunday and that's the weekly catch-up. And of course, it was a privilege for me to play for worship in a couple of their services, and having them around so often that it is almost taken for granted. But yeah, Balestier is not far from Bishan haha.

And glad that Gracehaven was great, it was my first time sharing the message there, and I keep going on about how it is really quite different when I first started leading worship there. Because all the old old people that I know have mostly discharged from the home, and the newer people I have only interacted on limited occasions. But I still think that it is very important to go in and support, because you just have to start somewhere from Salvation Army's social services. And grateful for all the opportunities.

Elsewhere, my house which was undergoing renovation, it is 80% completed now, but we are repainting the whole house so it will still take a while. And Dad's back from Philippines for a couple of weeks. Okay, gotta study for exams in the coming week, I need to tear myself away from all the distractions. 

I'm seriously procrastinating and taking my time to complete these two remaining essays. Yes aargh just when I thought I was done with the mad slew of assignments two or three weeks ago, I still have two major ones due on 14th November. And probably why I am not really getting down to serious work is because, well, there's still another ten days! It's the first time all term that I actually started early and didn't leave it till like 48 hours before the time deadline to start work haha. The downside is just that I don't have any urgency and no strong impetus to get it done at all, and I highly suspect it will just remain mulling and milling without writing itself for the next few days.

Elsewhere, there are a few things that I need to keep in mind so that I have ample time to complete my assignments on time and also to begin some semblance of revision for final term exams. Balestier Corps is shifting back to Balestier, sharing for Gracehaven, Pri 6 graduation, and possibly some more stuff which I can't recall offhand. November will probably be crazy, and I'm only at the beginning of the month. 

The weekend was awesome for a number of reasons. First was that I eventually got down to agreeing to share my Bangladesh trip experiences for this year's group that will be going up. My captive audience were like 5 aunties, or aunties-to-be. Hahaha but it was so full of God, and I am really thankful for opportunities like these that gives me a reason to share. Privileged and thrilled to be a part of World Vision's movement. They're trying to get me down as a more permanent volunteer. We'll see where this leads to heh.

Second cool thing was my first visit to Universal Studios! Invitation to go cos there were free tickets from Joanna, with Shihui and Meng Ren and Anastasia (new friend). It was Halloween celebration, so there were zombies walking all over and ghouls and vampires. My first time on a major roller coaster too, probably not doing it again anytime soon haha. Hate the drops. And final thing to mark the weekend is the first running exercise since goodness knows when. Participating in a half marathon in Dec, and I am totally in trouble because I have not been running or exercising at all. Won't have the time too I think, because school is just so busy with assignments and exams. Muscles are aching now, but I aim to do at least a 15km before the event. Have a month to go haha

Today marks day one of my very first involuntary house eviction since I moved to Bishan when I was like 2 or 3. Mum has decided that the house badly needed a face-lift, so we're revamping the entire kitchen and the toilets, and eventually there will be a wall repaint. The renovation workers came this morning to demolish everything, and we're currently housed at my neighbour's apartment because it's too dusty to live with the rubble and debris. And just in case you were planning to pay me a surprise visit or something equivalent on that one-in-a-trillionth odds, I am just down the corridor on the same level from my original home. It is literally next door, which helps greatly because it makes for easy shifting of all the necessities we require at this temporary home for the next month or so.

It is a bad idea as well because I feel like my real home is still next door, but it is not livable and it doesn't make much sense to go back there at night. I think I envisioned it such that I could just stay out the whole day and escape from all the renovation and noise, then at night just go back to colonizing the study room and go to bed in my bedroom. Obviously this was highly idealistic, because now everything is boarded up and doors are locked and there's tonnes of boxes everywhere. I don't really favor the need to move, even if it is just temporarily.

Still adapting. Haha we are all creatures of comfort.

A lot of things on my mind, and it's all got to do with time and space. I think that as long as I'm still a part of this society, whatever the forms, there's always the occasional celebrations that you sort of have to be there for. Like birthday parties, new baby, gatherings. I'm fulfilling my social obligations this month, while at the same time finding enough time to bring my studies to some semblance of order. And once in a while I catch up with news of certain people and I am struck by (1) how they used to be my friends (2) how long since I met them or heard anything from them (3) how I should go about catching up. 

There's just something that I can't really put my finger down to it. In between all the itinerant journeys from school to home to church to guitar teaching assignments, I somehow feel mildly alive to be doing so many things all at once. The offer just came this morning from World Vision to share about Bangladesh trip last year, and something is preventing me from saying yes. Haha I don't know what is, I'm not shy I've got all the stories to tell I have marginally more time now than last few weeks I can easily do this, but I think I'm just lazy and trying to find excuses not to take it up. And then there's all the hall rentals and various church commitments in Nov and Dec which I so readily agree. This is a two-headed snake. 

The side-note is, I think I do not deserve the phenomenal grades that I got back for most of my assignments. For all the last minute procrastination and sleepless nights and general tardiness, I am amazed and thankful. At the start of this semester I told myself that I didn't want to treat my entire undergraduate degree like it's some cheapened second-rate experience, because I have been doing so past two years and I want to start justifying  my presence in the university haha. Not that it really worked out, but at least good marks are a way to start.

Chalked up yet another sleepless night while in the quest to complete my essay. Yup, sleepless is really no sleep. For the entire night. For the umpteenth time this semester, be it for essay or for assignments or readings or whatever. I am going to school and everyone is going to tell me I look horrible and if I am hopeful enough they will pat pat my head an tell me to sleep more. I know all these will catch up in time, I am shortening my life span, I'm going to collapse from exhaustion. But I really seem to have the most energy after 12midnight everyday. My brain comes alive and everything clicks at midnight and the essay flies. Haha not last night, at 4am I was still stuck at 500/2500 and it was a bit worrying. Or maybe I should just stop putting essays till the eleventh hour and then finally do something about it. 12midnight is when entire galaxies are birthed and the stars start colliding with each other to produce even more stars.

For now I am going to operate on screensaver mode in school and try and stay awake. I reckon I will last till 2pm then I will feel the toll from last night. Still have two more major assignments for this sem, but hey are due a month away and I haven't got any info on it yet. On a happy note, I'm going shopping for Priya adopted Bangladeshi tonight. Haha what do 14 year old girls like? Of a different culture of a different gender.

There are some things in life that I just do not have faith in. You know those plastic packets that they give you when you order hot drinks from the coffee shop? Yeah I have this irrational fear that the plastic will just decide to tear and all the liquid inside will spill out all over the floor. I think it comes from the fact that we use those same plastic packets for water bombs at camps! So everytime they put my hot coffee in one of those plastic packets, I have mental images of that coffee exploding on someone.

And then in school, they put the coffee in a proper cup with a proper lid, but it is not a styrofoam cup. Which meant that it will be too hot to hold it for long periods of time. So o combat that, you can take one of those small plastic bag material thing to loop around the cup and it will act as a carrier. But for the life of me I have never taken one of those things. I'd rather hold the cup physically without using that carrier thing. There's a way to hold it without getting scalded, just hold the top and bottom without holding it by the middle. Again I fear that the carrier will snap, because it is plastic bag material!! Or worse I fear that the carrier will inadvertently snap open the lid of the cup and I don't know and I will be spilling coffee while walking.

Guitar class with the three aunties taught me one thing today: to have simple, child-like faith. Because that's all that matters, knowing and believing without seeing. I need to trust and hope that everything works out fine.

The past 48 hours were a blur to me, because things happened so quickly and there were so much to do. I don't think I was very awake at all! But yeah, there was the Pri 6 camp from Thursday to Friday, and was co-leading worship for SAY service last night, and in between all those I had to find time to write a 2000-word essay that was due today 5pm. The only downside was that I was supposed to go Johor Bahru with the other cell members (Matt's cell) and I couldn't because there was no way my essay could have written itself while I'm away. Haha but oh well, essay is finished already and I enjoyed myself tremendously at P6 camp. 

For the record, I think it was my first children's camp? I've been on outings with Sunday School because it is sort of required in the job scope for Sec 1 and 2 cell leader haha, but I've never gone on an actual overnight camp or longer than a couple of hours or the such. It wasn't that difficult la hahaha I think P6 Sec 1 Sec 2 all very close to each other, so it wasn't terribly back-bending for me to connect to their wavelength. But I don't know how long I will be doing this haha, now the age gap is 11 years! But the highlights were giving them free reins to start barbecue fire and cook food, Kar Leong's sex talk with them (okay more like growing up talk), and low elements rope confidence course. I did learn that at P6 they are a lot more forgiving and more accepting. A whole lot less judgmental, they can tease me for not getting up to actually do the rope course, but they'll forget the next instant. If it were youth group I will never hear the end of it! But yeah I didn't go up because I was really tired from doing essay the night before. WBC retreat centre has assumed new meanings for me for staying up late there haha. And of course at P6 the tears came a lot more easily for everyone too. Hahaha. And it culminated in SAY service which was easily all about God. Love how each time is a new way to experience God and see his grandeur in unity. 

I think shall go watch a movie to unwind or something. My mind is a little bit twitchy from the essay exhaustion and it is like in some state of euphoric high from too much coffee in the past 3 days. 

I discovered today a new abbreviation, and I'm not very sure if it's really common or the next big thing, because I have never ever seen it before prior to this. It goes "TL; DR", usually posted as a form of comment or reply to a post, and it stands for "Too Long; Didn't Read". And I'm instantly blown away by the wit and sarcasm and irony that went into this, hahaha this is precisely the kind of stuff that changes my life and have me staring in wonder! I'm amazed at how laconic and succint the abbreviation manages to convey. It's still in good grammar shape, and it's like one of those dismissive I-simply-can't-be-bothered things that you throw at annoying smugly people. And considering that I've never seen it before, my usage of such will get people asking what in the world was that, and the tables are instantly turned because it is then my turn to be smugly and I can recite out syllable for syllable just what I thought about their smugness! That's not to mention the semi-colon use, which makes it so upmarket and touché and dribbling with class. This kind of stuff is way above your usual LOL or IDKIDC or TYVM. It's a comeback with a kick-ass attitude; like a instant blame on you being too verbose and garrulous, and calls for people to get specific to the point and stop beating around the bush.

And as I am writing this, of couse I am aware that I fall into that category of taking out too many words to say something. Haha I've lost track of the amount of times people berate me for being naggy, or how I just have a tendency to put too many words in a sentence to explain something. Hahaha this post is like some confused self-reflexive piece. One moment I would totally relish using TL; DR on people, and the next moment I can totally imagine people commenting TL; DR to me. It is the great irony of it that makes me so highly amused at this heh! I love language and words, and I love the way how each word with its own meaning can be put together into sentences and paragraphs to form entire different meanings altogether. And to me the more words the better, because it is then you get all the space to express your emotions through your diction.

A lot of people don't care of course, and society just demands us to be concise and precise all the time because nobody has time to read a long SMS or email. Lest I sound sanctimonious, I fall into that trap myself too, because it is those emails that exceed five lines which sit in my inbox for a couple of days before I realise I need to sit down, get into wordy mode and type a reply. Everything must be instantaneous nowadays, if you can't say it in three lines then you won't get my attention.

I am very well aware that most of my blog posts will fit perfectly into the TL; DR category. Hahaha maybe that's why they have Twitter, it's 140 characters and nothing more. I think it's a fine balance. It's alright to be wordy at places, and unacceptable to be too short at others. Can you imagine if I submit a 140 character tweet as an essay assignment to my professor? Ah hahaha but one day if I really become a teacher, I'm going to write a fat TL; DR for all those who exceed word limits. And I will dot the dot and curl the comma accurately in that same penitential manner as required of that semi-colon.

Sleep patterns severely disrupted again, I only got to bed last night at 6am! And the start of this week looks to be another topsy-turvy week where I will not have a fixed sleeping pattern and everyone is going to comment that I look really tired and I lost weight. I think it's the long hair. Okay not really very long, but it's a mob on my head and the longer it grows the more wavy it becomes. My dad's hair is curly, but my mum's one is relatively straight, so I guess I got the in-between waves.

Anyway, I am really starting to like my guitar teaching assignments! This three ladies that I converse mostly to in Mandarin and I've been teaching them for a month odd or so now, I really like how their faith is so simple and straightforward. They are learning guitar because they want it to be like an avenue to praise God in their quiet time, and I am hugely impressed by the constant reminder to keep my life uncluttered. So many things threatening my attention everyday, and it's so difficult to not be bothered by everything that goes around me and to just focus. The other one is a French family, I'm teaching both the young daughter and her father. It put me in a huge fix because I was so afraid I will sound too old and rigid for the girl, and when it was her father's turn to learn, I had to work so hard to get rid of the "I'm-speaking-to-a-child" diction and tone, and a couple of times I caught myself belittling the dad! Gosh but all of them are an absolute delight, glad to know new people and to teach.

Okay. Sleep.

So it's ten minutes to 1am and I'm sitting here in front of my laptop tired and disappointed, all of me wanting to fire up at a lot of things and getting all irritated. A million thoughts about basic responsibilities and commitments and everything flashing through my mind, and I am blogging now because it keeps me from sending any unwanted emails or SMSes that will vent my displeasure. Hopefully by the end of this post I'm more calmed down and I will try and see from another perspective. 

I think that I've done my part to the best of my abilities already, and I have prayed more than sufficiently and I am more than ever willing to let go and jump into the deep end trusting that it will be alright. I worry all the time, and I keep trying to tell myself to just relax and let go and trust, but I think I'm always caught unprepared when my worries materialize in front of me. I really don't appreciate the way the circumstances is/was, and I really really am on the verge of just demanding an explanation and exhort some sort of answer. If not deemed satisfactory I want to say just choose the blue pill or the red pill, either take it or leave it, it ends here tonight or you continue on and don't abandon it again. 

But then again nobody really gets anything done by intruding into other people's lives and coercing stuff from them. Aiya I don't know what to do la, and all of me screams tired and despondent but I cannot, and I really just want another long break. 

Okay I shall backspace all the SMSes I typed but didn't send, leave it for tomorrow. 

This post is for the mentee that just flew to Shanghai! Haha it will probably go unread by her because last I checked she doesn't visit this virtual space much, unless I tell her imperatively to read and only will she grudgingly  do so, while skipping most of the verbosity found here. But yeah, two Saturdays ago we were planning a surprise party for Jolene at her place, and she was coming back from her own cell outing (of which they were in cahoots with us too) and she was very pleasantly surprised. And a few days later I conveniently overslept for her send-off at the airport, and oversleeping is an understatement because I woke up an hour after her plane took off! Considering the time to travel to Changi airport and the time for pre-flight check in and whatever, it's a massive lateness. And it wasn't the biggest mistake in the world in my opinion because she is only gonna be there for half a year or so, but it is the biggest mistake like at this point right now because I only found out the huge gap that she left behind.

Okay I'm probably only saying this because I am slightly irritated and facing a huge test of patience, but I think that a lot of times I take it for granted that she's just there doing the things that she does without really making a show of her doing the things that she does. And I'm always so flippantly habitual in telling the girls in my cell that if they have girly problems they can go find Jolene because I would never understand them. I can't exactly be there if they want a hug right? And then I always think people connect with their same gender a lot better than with the opposite, and I see how the girls share a bond with Jolene that I think I will never ever see with myself, cos it's just different! Which is kinda true haha I would totally imagine them telling the korkor one thing but telling the jiejie the same thing but with a lot more emotions and details and blah.

So while she is escaping from everything in Singapore and working in Shanghai, I feel like the sec one and two cells is now led by three guys who will just neglect all the girls and steam-roller over all their feelings hahaha. Okay nah maybe not, but I miss her perspectives on the way I do things, and I miss her helping out by just being there. And of course I miss the friendship la haha it's just not the same knowing that she might be at church Thurs Fri Sat Sun and consequently feeling as though I always take this routine with such banality. It feels like forever that I've known her, not as well as I should or I could but might be because she was my cell member and then co-cell leader, which makes it all the more easier to just look out for her and pray for her haha. And when I'm through thinking that she always seems to be this little girl, God will always surprise me by showing that she's just as equal in Christ as any other. 

"Four o'clock in the morning, my mind is filled with a thousand thoughts of you" hahaha gosh this becoming quite a hazardous thing to do, posting song lyrics as my blog post starters which relate aptly to the time. I assure you seriously that I did not plan to wait till the time just so I can include that in. But today was a day where I met a lot of friends after not seeing or hearing anything from them for a long time. Strangely it had to be all on today. So the list ran something like primary school friends, army friend, former church friends, friend that I did project with two years ago, and friend from some church. With the passage of time and everything that happens in each others' life, it's happy to know that somewhere out there people are finding life worthy for them to live as well as I do.

And after the brief catch-up, it takes me some frantic Facebooking to verify everything about what the other person is doing now, maybe leave a half-sincere message to go out for a meal sometime, great for the chance meet-up, blah blah. And it's almost a travesty when I discover that we aren't even Facebook friends. Which really gets me thinking sometimes about the fragility of human relationships? I remembered not too long ago that you were crying on my shoulders over something which seemed really tragic at that time, but looking back now and seeing where it took you, it hardly mattered at all. I remembered that time when we did that club notebook thing where we filled it with mazes and short stories which we will take turns to write, hardly seems all that mature now. I remembered the lunch where we sat for hours and poured out everything that we had concerning our ideas of faith and what it meant to us, and now it's just hello new set of problems, different
seasons.

I do wonder if the other party goes through an equally thoughtful reminiscence of the old times like I do. Or, if at all, this should be accepted as part and parcel of growing up and getting old. Who would have thought that at that gangly prepubescent age, you would turn out so well-built. Who would have thought that you two will eventually get married. Things change, and people go through so many different seasons too. I don't know if that friendship that mattered quite a lot to me a few years ago still holds the same weight now.

Okay, sleep I go. Long day tomorrow. 

Doing what I do with the sec one and twos sometimes gives me a certain insight into what grabs their attention and what they find amusing. Whenever I study about postmodernism in university, the lecturers just love to say that "you generation are literally born into the postmodern age". Which is kinda true, we were at the cusp of huge technology changes and Internet and iPods and iPhones; everything is configured to be visual and instantaneous. But sometimes I have to disagree with the lecturers, because the youths that I hang out with ten years my junior are even more crazy than I am about instantaneous visuals. If I'm borned into that age, then they ARE the postmodern age. But enough about postmodernity conditions, here are three Internet stuff that I've come across in my two or three years being a cell leader for that age group. Each one is as buffling and obscure and it's mystifying why they are crazy over it at their respective ages.

• Charlie the Unicorn

I distinctly remember being extremely new to the 13-14 year old age group and I'm trying to fit into their age and understand what rocks their boat. And it wasn't until Samantha and Celine found out OH MY GOSH YOU DUNNO CHARLIE THE UNICORN and then they happily and jumpily and crazily showed me this, that they really felt as though they successively inducted me into their lives. For the life of me I still don't know what this is about, and watching it again now I would point at it and say po-mo! But three years ago it seemed like the biggest thing on earth and I was Charlie the unbelieving unicorn to them, because I was a skeptic and old man and pragmatic and grumpy. And they kept threatening to bounce on me each time I refused to do their nefarious biddings, and I can't remember how I endured all the "Chaaaarrrlieeee" chants they did!

• Miss Swan

This one was a year later, and supposedly a year wiser when it comes to these things, but Andrea and Eunice demanded that they borrow my laptop this instant to watch this, because some teacher in their school showed them Miss Swan and they wanted to watch the rest of the series! There are many other Miss Swan misadventures, you can watch it if you like this kind of humour, but it proved as bad a idea as Charlie the unicorn because for about two months after that, they were speaking in Miss Swan's bumbling accent. Jolene and I will ask them questions to Bible study and they answered in Miss Swan speak, and when we get annoyed they'll mock sob and "where did the love go"! Gets me all irked up, but hard to stay annoyed for long because right after that they will laugh like crazy and it's impossible not to share their joy at Miss Swan. 

• Nyan Cat

This is the most recent, and arguably most annoying! Courtesy of Si Xuan, because I've heard of it but I don't know what is this cat thing so she showed me the website. It's just the Nyan Cat flying through space, and the music looped to infinity to irritate people! Okay the tune is catchy for the first ten seconds, and anything beyond that is agony. And if you go to the website you can apparently Nyan for many seconds and you can post that score on Twitter, but it's essentially just letting the browser sit there for hours and chalk up a respectable count while listening to the looped song! I have no idea how something as simple as this can be so annoying, and I have no idea why would the world all over love such things! Anyway Si Xuan says she wants to nyan at me tomorrow, I don't know how this will turn out. 

There-there-there-go! Miss Swan style.

Perhaps it will be good for me if I explain my absence from this blog and also absence from Singapore last weekend! Kuching did me great, being able to get out of Singapore and totally ignore all school/church work for a while. Of course that had its consequences, because now I'm struggling to play keep-up with all my module readings and books. But it was a good trip, the brass band was up there to support with various playing engagements, and I was up there as admin guy or photographer or worship leader (one which I had to readily volunteer to justify me being up there heh). Caught up with the old friends, most of whom are like the second or third time that I'm meeting them only, but they are so jubilant at my arrival in Kuching again and I'm just warmed by their hospitality. Made new friends too, next time I see them I've gotta get more stuff.

Elsewhere, I am absolutely dying in my school work. I have many many Victorian literature to read, the novels are brilliantly written, just that I am a slow reader and unfortunately I do not have time on my side to savor each book. And I regret to say that the tutorial for one of the lit modules was absolutely horrendous. It was a presentation on Wuthering Heights, the guy was speaking in English, his choice of words were a little upmarket but no problem I knew most of the meanings of his vocabulary, he had no foreign accents, he spoke quite fluently, just that for the life of me I couldn't understand head to tail what concept or theme or idea he was trying to bring forth. He went on and on about some abstractions which I totally do not see any link at all to the novel, and it got so bad that to hide my obvious jaw dropping what-is-this-nonsense, I had to pretend to refer to the novel here and there, scribble some notes. When he finished I half expected the professor to exclaim in bewilderment too. But nope, the whole class began to critique positively on his presentation, and they were similarly talking in English but I just couldn't understand what they are trying to debate about!! I mean, it can't be just me right? There was not a thing I understood and I sat there like an idiot grasping at things that were whizzing above my head but never catching it. I have no idea how on earth I am going to sit for the mid-term test next week. 

Will be on a plane and flying to Kuching in less than 12 hours, and I don't really know why I am going on this trip. Haha the bandsmen are going up to support them with a funfair that they're going to have, and Daniel sort of just asked if I wanted to go and I was free either way so I just said yes. But it was an opportunity that I can't have said no to also, been there two years ago and was richly blessed by the people there, and have quite a few friends there whom I simply cannot not visit. Is it wrong to go for personal reasons then!? Hahaha but I will be admin guy and photographer.

It's only the end of week 3 in school and I feel like I am severely behind work! Gosh how did it end up like this.