my birthday! =D so fun! 

ReaLLL nice.

ah. spent today celebrating yvonne's birthday. quite fun actually, haha. I spent 1 hr over the oven baking 4 loaves of herb bread for them and the folks. tho' cold, the herb bread was... mummamia. =D first time i'm preparing food for others...besides curry chicken, heh heh heh. *pray no one get food poisoning...* had a nice chat wif sarah, haha, she wanted to learn guit from me! (dollar signs ringing in my head) no lah, huh, i not so marnee-minded one. cheh. =D

i think the best was when we went bowling after dat. so fun! haha! my first game really buang but the second game got 146 *gives the stiff-upper-lip*. Hee hee hee. (so tyco.) but it was real fun leh. one of the few bowling games where i'm not so hung up about how many longkangs i dunked into...

got another drama performance looming on thurs. piang eh. i think after this sem my ability to remember lines will suddenly IMPROVE. Maybe, just then, I can start remembering memory verses.

boy am i refreshed. Thank God. time to take on the rest of the wk. =)

The Lord just spoke.

And he said,

"Learn to stop striving...grow in quietness and trust."

A day to myself. Finally.

Yesterday, for the first time in a long long time, I actually broke down and cried. This morn too.

One main song stuck in my head is the hymn my dad's been singing lots and lots, especially during fishing. It goes:

"I'm going home to see my Saviour
I'm going home, no more to roam
I'm just a-crossing over Jordan
I'm just a-going, going home."

Obviously the first thought that comes to me is, boy, does my father really wanna go Home. I don't think anyone can question his desire tho. He's practically devoted all his life ever since a young man to serving the Lord, and gone through as much pain and suffering a man can take, whether from without or within. And I think the song fits him well -- he's been roaming far too long, methinks. And honestly I don't see many of my pals who have fathers who know his home is his cross. That's so for my dad. And, in a sense, it's so for me too.

Y'noe, I really wanna go Home too. In fact, that's why the song's in my head. Whenever I think about my cross, I get real upset and wish I could just 'go on up'. And yesterday thinking about that cross really weighed me down. Felt so crushed, and fearful that I might not ever be able to get up. And then the Army songs comes in, "I don't wanna lead an Army life. OC pls let me go, Sgt pls let me go, Mama, I wanna go hooome."

But I know why I can't go home yet. I have a mission to finish, at least, a mission for myself. A mission to grow into the likeness of my Saviour. And change is very painful indeed. Very painful--

The one comfort I have now is "Amazing Grace":

"Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come
T'was Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home."

I will not indulge my feelings too much tho. But a day to myself to feel what I am feeling is very relieving.

Boy am I shack

Before I begin, our Hongkie said LAH. Grrrr. He has become contaminated. *clenched fist*

But he's a Christian too. Ha. There's still hope.

Spent the whole of last night without sleeping. Wed was supposed to be my 'free day' but instead I spent it on a lot of ministry. =) Had the NUS outreach, quite fun...this is the first time Cherlyn and Siming came to the outreach. I've to say that our ability to keep things short and simple has improved! I went under 1.5 hrs! YEA!

Subsequently, had a board mtg, and then a whole night LANing which left me the next day REAL high and dry. U noe, I need to develop some kinda discipline to say 'no' to people. (and to myself.) Doing all these stupid things really sucks. Fun, but damaging to health.

How was today? Hmmm, the pure grace of God. Had a theatre "skit" in which, of all people, *I* had the most lines (not as if the rest of them needed to memorise ANYTHING lor). And when we were rehearsing, 1 hr before the presentation (which is graded), I still couldn't remember my lines! *sob* But during the actual presentation, everything flowed smoothly, (yes, I remembered my lines-- I still can't figure out how it happ!) and I got a commendation from my teacher hahahaz. =) Yea. Feels so shiok lor.

Singapore's Natural Education (SNE01)

Today, as a very guai student in school, I've learnt that:

1. When you speak in a Hongkie accent, you must remember your intonations.

To pronounce
a. 'desk', say "tehhsk" (the 'teh' must have the chinese di yi sheng)
b. 'and', say "ehnd" (the 'eh' di yi sheng again)
c. 'fair', say "fehr" ( yesh, u get the idea)
d. 'unsuccessfully', say "un-sut-set-fully"
e. 'very funny', say "veh-fuh-nee" ("veh" in di er sheng, "nee" in di si sheng)
f. 'probably', say "puhbubblee"

and this one takes the cake

g. 'Lobachevsky', say "Lobak-chor-skee" (sound so hokkien. Our resident Hongkie has been contaminated.)

2. Girl with flu and a red nose sitting next to me does not like to be shown on Channel Newsasia. =) Says her life's very private. =|

3. I agree with her actually. That her life's private is the only thing I know about her. =P Ok, fine. Not the only thing. But maybe the most personal thing about her which really holds true.

4. That same girl with long hair sitting next to me makes what would have been a usually boring class a lot more enjoyable. =D

5. That you should never take ANYTHING that says "Economics" thinking it will actually help you in business. Rather, it'll probably help you in the "micro"economics of your own pocket. (I took the chance during lecture, while half-snoozing, to charge my laptop battery. Got free (unlimited) supply, got personal (unlimited) demand, of course got equilibrium lah!)

Daniel's 2nd meditations

Was brooding about yesterday's sermon as I was in JB yesterday. Ha. For once I felt justified to rant. We had the right theology, the right emphasis, the right attitude (I hope, if I can't judge my attitudes who else but God can?)... yet I won't say nothing happened, but it didn't match up to expectations.

Ha. I react and yet observe my reactions with detached curiousity. My reaction? Quite simple. The song "Knocking, knocking on the doors of heaven" is an understatement. I'm quite angry actually. Angry as in seriously fed up. Fed up that after so long of pressing in to this area, it's still not enough-- i.e. my reliance on God is still not enough.

Yet I'm not giving up. No no no...make me angry like that, where got give up one. Piang eh I'm gonna do whatever it takes to learn lor. If it takes humility, I better learn it. If it takes less human cleverness, it better happen (for me). I'm very fustrated that some simple thing like the promise of God to impart the Holy Spirit to his people is something I cannot flow into.

On the other hand, you can say I'm still observing my own reactions. Which is quite interesting. The Scriptures say that the KoG is something violent men take by force. Not sit there, tiao kah, wait for God to "make sth happen". It's pounding on the doors of heaven lor. Lots of prayer, lots of tears. And this is where I ask myself, how much have I paid so far.

I hope I'm angry enough to go to God, pound on his door, shed tears for the lost, and for the sheep who need His Spirit. And at the end of the day, this is the answer I'm left with: I'm a growing Christian. And growth is painful -- to know that we are far from adequate. And so to the Adequacy of Him I go.

ah. what a mixed day.

today's a pweety interesting day. for some unknown reason I got up at 5.30 a.m. and I couldn't sleep, so I decided to go set up this blog...then now I find out 1/2 my world has a blog and I'm a newbie hahaz.

got a spiritual attack as i went back to sleep at about 10 something, a real clue to my life that I cannot fool around with sin and not get burnt man. thank God I got up and claimed the forgiveness of God over my life and told the enemy to shoo off. After that was a lot better. Weak, but better.

So what did I do for the rest of the day? I studied. Heh. Not bad huh. Catching up with all the work of the past 3 weeks which I know everyone procrastinates on...but I don't think I can afford to do that. =
I hope this blog doesn't make me Mr Melancholic again u noe. Ha. Had enough of that during JC days and carrying on to the army. I hope my uni days holds better stuff for me...than to be endlessly brooding.

"I want something else, to get me through this, semi-charmed kind of life...bay-bee, bay-bee"

I finally got myself a blog

After a long, long time, I finally got myself a blog. Why? 'Cos I need to rant.

The 1 thing I realised last week? I lack a listening ear. Was online at 1.30 a.m. in the morn 'cos I could not sleep. A lot of conflicting emotions within...and at that time, just at that time, was searching for someone I could just tell all this to. I logged online and realised that every1 was asleep. -duhh-. I should've known.

the Lord was merciful tho. Sent the most unlikely person I'd see online: my fren who's in UK. at least talking to her got something off my heart. it's very funny how she consoles...by convincing me that my line of thinking is absolutely wrong. Haha. Shou3 xia4 bu4 liu2 qing2. Didn't even leave me a tinge that my thinking was correct. Ha. I think the most hilarious thing is that I actually felt consoled that way. brings everything u noe about counselling to a bummer.

I need to rant I need to rant I need to rant I need to rant...you get the idea.

So...maybe a blog might just turn out to be the best idea. Some space on cyberspace to let out some steam. =P

If this sounds a bit melancholic, that's 'cos it's 6.18 in the morning and I woke up at 5 feeling that I slept too much. =)

War III roX!