The Week that Was

It’s been over a week since I’ve blogged. Were did that week go? Here’s a brief account:

Was away in Pangkor from the 12th to 14th, Monash Business Club trip. Left Sunway at 7.30am and arrived at 2 pm. Travelling saps your energy and I slept at 4 am the previous night. The journey back topped that, we left the site at 10.45 Monday morning and reached uni at 6.30pm. Well, there was a 1 hour lunch stop. All in all though the place was pretty run down and I was tired and in an awkward state of mind, it was a good getaway. I liked the expanse of sea and sky, granite rocks, sea breeze and moonlight.

Celebrated Joseph’s birthday with the cell in Swenson’s on Tuesday. Cason and Wei Wen had the brilliant idea of buying him a kiddy party pack and we made him wear the hat and use all the noise-makers. Still waiting for the photos! Slept at 3 the day before but was up by 11 to do housework. Our maid disappeared two Saturdays ago, household chores are going to feature fairly prominently in my daily to-do-list. Oh, I started the first few pages of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon on Monday and I decided to read a few more chapters before I tucking in early, but ended up staying up till 2am to finish the entire book. Another late night.

The whole of Wednesday was spent in church helping out the 11-12 year old VBS class. Slipped out during one teaching session to take a 20 minute catnap in an empty room. Reached home at 6.30pm and went back out for prayer meet at 8.30. It was Alvina’s birthday so the plan was to go over to Sunway Perdana and surprise her in Kenneth’s place. Usual waiting around for everyone to arrive and get organized but it was fun to have about 20 of us crammed in the apartment, stayed till almost 12.30. Another late night.

Went in to church again after I got up to help out in the office the next day and stayed till 5. Back home for a quick dinner and came back out for worship practice at 7.30. During practice, Timmy called to ask if I was interested in catching the Harry Potter show at midnight ‘cos there was a spare ticket and I decided to go. Unfortunately there wasn’t another ticket for Liz. The movie ended at about 2.30 and I went for a drink with Li Jin, Vincent, Alex, Ker Liang, Timmy, Feli and Mark, pretty amusing hanging out with them. Cason, Terence, Wei Wen and Wei Yen went back. Found out later that Terence had a midterm paper the following day, crazy fella. Slept at 4.

Sadly due to the extremely late night, I couldn’t wake up on time to send Tim out for his fencing training. Was supposed to leave the house at 8.30 put we left 15 minutes later and though I pulled up in the parking lot at 9 according to my clock, he was considered late and punished. Needless to say, he was furious with me and I avoided him when he came back at 5. Went straight to church after that till my mom and sisters came by at 11 to pick me up. We went to MidValley to shop for a prom dress for Sarah and found a really gorgeous lilac one, which is a nice change from a conventional black gown. Maybe I’ll borrow it for Tze Siang and Siaw Jiun’s wedding this Sat, if the rest are dressing up too. Have to ask around. Anyway, we finished in MidValley at 3 and I went back to church for a short while before coming back home to do a few chores and then going for dinner at the Tan’s place with the rest of the cell. I think eating together before cell does wonders in laying the groundwork or mindset because the whole session after dinner-ice-breaker, worship, discussion and mamak-was excellent.

Saturday was basically housework and errands till church. Went early with Cason and Liz-he was on the keyboard, Liz on LCD duty and I was the soundwoman. This was my first time mixing since set up our new compressors properly and re-tweaked the equalizers, and the difference was noticeable. I received two compliments on my mix!

Was up rather late today, lazed around till noon then started ironing. Had an amusing, insightful lunchtime conversation with my mom and siblings over dating and marrying within the church, then ironed again till it was time to go rock-climbing at the Summit with my cellies. My first time, fingertips are raw from the rough climbing holds and ropes. Came home to a seafood dinner with my mom’s family. Time to shower now, it’s past midnight.

I think that this must be the first time I’ve actually written directly about what I did. How mundane.

Birthday Profile-Joseph Hung Yong Jing

A shout out to my spiky-haired, robin-eyed, chirpy friend! Who incidentally happens to be rather bird-brained at times too, hahaha. God bless today and God bless you! I am eternally grateful for being blessed with such a fine sounding-board, crap-talker and all-round friend; a friend who is a great encourager, listener and occasional punching bag. I have been inspired by his earnest, innocent faith- unmarred by querulousness, straying stints, or disappointments through unmet expectations; a child-like and pristine faith.

It’s really been awesome knowing him, though he says that I’m too unpredictable for him to understand where I’m coming from at times. Understand this, I like it that way and it’s almost as if there’s a random switch in my head somewhere that I flip. What fun is there in completely understanding anything? Approximations are always way more dynamic and interesting. Gives rise to spontaneity and possibilities and such. Anyway, that is probably why the most common word I hear him use is ‘strange’. As in, “Oooh, strange”, “You’re so strange”, “That’s so strange”, or simply, “Huh? So strange”. I think that I shall respond the next time with, “I’m strange, but you’re queer.” Heh.

It’s only been two and a half months since he joined GT, but we clicked quite nicely right from the beginning. Since we were both going through similar situations, the foundation was laid through a fair bit of time spent venting to each other and then things continued from there. (I think that I ranted more than he did but oh, what can you expect. Being somewhat female, I would tend to go on and on about stuff and run around in circles-just ask long-suffering Liz. I would explain that it’s all part of the process of dealing with it, but I’m starting to go on and on…). We discussed issues of faith, living life and relating with humans. I do remember telling God maybe three months back that I wanted a close friend who could hear me out on things once again; it was a while since I had that and I missed it. I should qualify that by saying Liz has and always been my close friend, but you could say that I wanted the viewpoint of an outsider. So, it was very nice of God to arrange it all. Thank you, God.

Well. I do hope that my friendship can be as much of a blessing, that I can give in return what I have received. Thank you for everything here’s to a blessed year ahead.

Birthday Profile-Sarah Lee

My youngest sister turns 18 today. Many happy returns! (Though what that is supposed to mean, I have no idea. Return what? Return where?) As she’s in the midst of her finals now, we didn’t plan much of a celebration but I’d like to write a tiny bit about being her eldest sister. I think I make a tough sis.

I realized yesterday again that when it comes to relating among us four siblings; me, Liz and Tim are closer to each other than to her. For me, Tim made the transition from annoying kid brother who-should-be-seen-and-not-heard to someone whom I can yak my head off and hang out with some years back. Somehow, Sarah never did. Was it because I already had Liz? Maybe so. In fact, one of the reasons why she joined our cell was so that the three of us could share more common ground and learn to serve together. However, looking back at the six months she has been part of the Kools, I do wonder if we’ve managed to accomplish that at all. Maybe the fact that I and Liz are already so established caused her to take a backseat.

We both have rather strong characters, and diametrically oppose each other on many issues. This isn’t a negative situation, provided that we both learn how to resolve it with a large dose of tolerance and love. But that is mostly easier said than done. I know that I sometimes push a stand just to pique her. In fact, I enjoy vexing her. All in all, I acknowledge that it is this has contributed to her rather defensive nature. That, plus the natural stress of growing up under the shadow of two older sisters. I think that she has managed (or rather, God has enabled her to manage) that part rather well. It has made her into the gutsy, determined young lady she is and I’m proud of that.

Anyway, here’s my (publicized) personal message to her:

Dear girl, may you have a strawberry-flavoured champagne fountain from which you may drink from all the days of your life (figuratively speaking, of course). But please, don’t drink too much and get drunk (figuratively again). I know that you’re not used to drinking so you should start slowly (yes, I know you have started). And try getting advice from people who are more experienced than you are. Like me or Liz or maybe even Tim (you should try it one day, maybe it will shock him speechless).

Happy birthday.

By Tim Pruett

Canyons of concrete and steel, paths of asphalt, this is my home. The individual is gone. We are groups programmed into a manner of behaviour and viewpoints-hippies, silent majority, the establishment, black, redneck. Everything has its niche. It is despairing to view the controlled minds around me-unimaginative, uncritical, and very well programmed into their groups. Our societal medial grab out at our minds in an attempt to keep them from achieving individuality. My mind rebels against this. I was not created a machine!

It's been a while since I've posted. For now, I've run out of things to say so I'm resorting to sticking bits of writing that I like up.

Future Fear

I don’t know where to go after this and I envy those who seem so certain. I know that most of the people around me aren’t certain, but I guess that from the outside it doesn’t appear so to me. And I’ve been told that it’s normal for graduates to fear the next step, but that knowledge doesn’t offer any comfort. I’ve talked to people and gotten heaps of advice and there’s really no reason for me to still say that I don’t know what to do…but I still don’t.

I’m reminded of a scene from Slyvia Plath’s Bell Glass Jar, her semi-autobiographical novel about one woman’s descent into depression, mental breakdown and attempted suicide. Amazingly, I found the excerpt I’m referring to from quotegarden.com so I don’t have to rehash it. Here it goes: the protagonist, Esther Greenwood has a dream where

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”~Chapter 7

Indecision really does paralyze. Maybe I should add that the choices I’m faced with are not as grandiose as hers though *laughs. I only read Bell Jar once, three years ago, but it made a huge impression on me. Since I don’t have a copy (but I think that I should get one some time), I did a quick bit of refresher background reading it and one of the themes mentioned was the fear of death. I don’t remember that featuring in the novel and it sounded paradoxical, for why would someone who attempts suicide fear death? Found this on Cliftnotes.com (I’m sorry for stooping that low!):

“Esther's anxiety about death takes precedence over all other of her anxieties about life. Esther, in fact, is so stricken with fear that she often can have no reaction at all to things that happen—except to lie. For example, when Buddy [her boyfriend] asks her how she liked watching the birth of the baby, she hedges, "Wonderful, I could see something like that every day." Yet she is, in reality, quite overcome by the "awful ordeal" that the woman must go through. And she is angered by the attitudes of the male doctors. Yet she expresses none of this, even to Buddy. Her fears and anxieties keep her from even expressing her own honest emotions. She buries those too, and thus with her lack of courage, she leads herself straight to depression.
The fear of death is the backside of the fear of life. And Esther, like a child, is fearful of life. By not expressing this and giving vent to her feelings, in some attempt to declare the validity of her reality, her life, she is thrust back to her fears and then to the ultimate fear: fear of dying.”

Morbidly I wonder if it is unhealthy to identify so much with Esther, except that in my capacity as a Christian, I do not fear dying. I just read somewhere death is only but the price that we pay for living. But I digress. The primary struggle here is with honest self-expression, probably because I am uncertain about the validity about what I feel, or why I even need to validate it.

Enough. I need to distract myself before my despondency spirals downwards any further. I was told yesterday that focusing on something else for a while helps resolve problems because it doing that allows it to die down. Might as well, though it sounds somewhat dishonest.

Adapted from a Poem by Jayne Edwards

Meant to include the following verse in my post on fear but I didn’t have the time. It articulates quite nicely a part of what I feel now that I’m supposed to have finished my final semester (yeah, I use the word supposed. It’s not certain till the results are released in December but I really am praying that I make it through; one cannot be completely certain).

hey-what’s the matter?
you maybe expected maturity . . .
I am young.
you want complacent smiles, reflecting
planned futures . . .
I am not certain of a future.
you expect confidence . . .
I am afraid.
but in a mechanical world
of false eyelashes
and too many words, I am beginning
to learn what it means to Reach Out!
I tried to retreat, just until
I could feel God
until He had given me the inside
groove on Absolute Truth.
I failed in my isolation . . . Alone
is no answer.
one hand expresses revolution or peace,
hatred or love . . .meaningless gestures
as long as that hand stays in a pocket.
but gestures can become promise
and promise is enforced by
commitment
when that hand reaches out
to another hand.
some hands are reaching out in
frustration and anger
I will reach out in love,
to others
to a tree-shaded Midwestern suburbs
to a world.
I am young, uncertain, and afraid
but, in faith, I will touch you
with Christ.

The ending is a lot more optimistic and lofty than I am at the moment now though. All I feel is black and white and I'm wound up small and tight and I don't know who I am. Still.

Birthday Profile-My Mom

Today, my mom was born, and I lay aside my gloomy reflections for a while to pay a tribute to her. This is my attempt to try and let her know (and everyone else who cares to listen) what a blessing she has been to me.

I don’t have much time to write, so the one aspect that I want to highlight is a phrase I read somewhere that says motherhood is a ministry, an act of service. I’ve been blessed to have a stay-at-home mom, and have consequently been able to observe this ministry in action up close. Through her, (I hope!) I’ve learnt a little about how to give cheerfully and how to put other people’s needs above mine without complaining. I am still trying to learn what it means to serve others sacrificially, but I think that I will really only understand it when I become a mom. If I become a mom.

But I think that one of the greatest lesson she has taught me comes from watching as she has learnt to take her failures as a mother to the cross and trust that God is sovereign and loving enough to redeem them. It is both humbling and liberating for me to have a parent that does not hide her failures, but is able to say that even when she is wrong, God loves and forgives. It allows me to fail and still not give up on myself, because God shall see me through.

Another lesson that I've learnt from her is to live for something larger than yourself. While preparing for a recent high school reunion, my mother remarked she has very few accomplishments to show for her life other than her family. Sometimes, that makes her feel small (even though she is already small in stature!). Many of her former classmates have both a career and family life but she doesn’t. She never got to complete her tertiary studies, never got the chance to experience/obtain many of the things that are considered essential today (no, I don’t really want to specify what). She never got to make a life of her own, to devote time to herself and her ambitions. In response, I have this from Philip Yancey’s Getting a Life:

“Inspection stickers used to have printed on the back 'Drive carefully—the life you save may be your own.' That is the wisdom of men in a nutshell. What God says, on the other hand, is 'The life you save is the life you lose.' In other words, the life you clutch, hoard, guard, and play safe with is in the end a life worth little to anybody, including yourself; and only a life given away for love's sake is a life worth living. To bring his point home, God shows us a man who gave his life away to the extent of dying a national disgrace without a penny in the bank or a friend to his name. In terms of men's wisdom, he was a perfect fool, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without making something like the same kind of fool of himself is laboring under not a cross but a delusion.”

Mom, of course giving up your life to serve four children and a husband (oh, ok. Make that five children) is foolish in the eyes of the world. Thank you for having the courage to go against the grain. I rejoice that God has truly raised you up from where you were and filled you with good things. May He supply all the fulfillment and contentment you so richly deserve, all the days of your life (even if that includes grandchildren. Epp!!) Amen.