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At twenty and one-point-six-three/four/two (can't remember) tall, I am a girl who loves many things, and detests a few. Not very fond of setting out a whole list of 'about me's, so... just read on. :)


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friends and credits

skin by: Jane
Sunday, July 05, 2009 @ 5:45 PM
bye, holidays

I can feel the holidays slipping away like sand through my fingers. It's July all of a sudden, bidding's the talk of the town, work starts again tomorrow - there goes the good sleep and spontaneous activities.

Had a good one month break, nonetheless. I did many things that the luxury of time could allow... going to miss that very soon.

Anyway. This epigram made me laugh while I was exploring Da Vinci's works yesterday with a friend at the science centre:

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

Leonardo Da Vinci sure knows how to put common law lawyers down.

Haha alright, never mind me. The exhibition was filled with Da Vinci's countless scribbles and ideas, some coming to life with actual structures of his inventions that were on paper. At some point I was in awe of this man's genius, because his understanding of almost every discipline under the sun - physics, the human anatomy, art, you name it, he mastered it - was so deep despite the lack of a formal education. Perhaps the queerest thing about him was that he wrote backwards, from right to left. So try as I might, I couldn't read his writing unless I brought a mirror along.

Along the way, I learnt that the man was a perfectionist. Never satisfied with what he did, he always tried to seek more knowledge, to invent more wondrous things. Towards accomplishment, he said:

Men of accomplishment never sit to wait for things to happen. They went out and happened to things.

I walked out of the place feeling a tad more inspired, so the money spent was worthwhile. =) Whether the next 4 weeks will be fruitful at that firm is mostly up to me, and I hope to accomplish something, even as a tiny intern.



Saturday, June 27, 2009 @ 11:45 PM
neda

A shot, she collapses. The people rush toward her body and shout her name; her eyes open wide in shock and swivel round, once, twice. Hands scramble to keep her awake, she chokes, and then - blood, so much blood gushes out from her face. Her nose, her mouth, her ears have blood flowing out of them... and she stops breathing.

It was injustice magnified. After seeing the video for myself I stared into space for a moment, in quiet shock at the sheer ludicrity of it all.

I ran a google search on her name, and she is now a matyr of some sort, who even has a page on Wikipedia dedicated to her. The whole world seems to be sitting on an edge, waiting to see how fiercely the protestors retaliate to the tyranny of the Iranian authorities. But what unsettled me the most was the fact that Neda was an ordinary girl. An ordinary person, just like me and you.

She reminds me to be grateful for the safety of the Singapore streets. But even more so, she provokes me to step out of my little cocoon of comfort, and fight.

It is uncanny, how a short clip like that can invoke that much emotion.



Thursday, June 18, 2009 @ 10:43 AM
stop shortsuffering

If there is one thing that makes my heart accelerate a bit faster and the blood heat up, it is when promises made to me are broken. At the outset I seem to have every right to be irritated, but if the breaking is due to seemingly valid reasons, should I keep feeling lousy?

All of us have either been perpetrators, or victims of promise-breaking in one way or another. I say I'll be there at 3pm, then at 2pm I say my baby brother needs babysitting and so I can't be there at 3pm. 'Sorry...Let's meet another time.' And so that 'another time' becomes the redeeming phrase, the postponed appointment. Nothing wrong with that.

It wasn't until this holiday when I have had the opportunity to take a real break, and build better relationships that I came to realise that my threshold for things like that isn't as high as I thought. Very unusually, I have been a pangseh victim for a record number times in the last three weeks or so. It's as if my patience is being put to a new test all over again, and every time a next friend/family does it, it takes a kind of renewed strength to say, 'It's okay.' and meaning what I say.

Not too long ago, I was alone thinking to myself and partly reeling from a series of such episodes, the actors being different persons close to me each time. As small a matter it might have been objectively, collectively the events had my heart pressed to a corner, wanting to just scream 'I've had enough!' and hide in a cave after that. Then a still, small voice spoke.

Love suffers long and is kind.

'HUH? How am I supposed to do that?'

And just when I thought my capacity to love cannot get any greater, God has challenged me over and over again this holiday, to do so to people whom at first sight have their faces scream 'I'm undeserving!'; family and friends who unwittingly cross the lines I assumed I could shut an eye to easily - all of this underscoring one truth: for Him to have asked His Son to carry the heavy cross that bore the weight of our sin must have taken a love that is so gracious. It is a love that I cannot comprehend, even until now.



Monday, June 08, 2009 @ 10:53 PM
'I don't need a saviour.'

I'm happy, I'm doing what I like, my family's stable, I have a boyfriend/girlfriend, life's good. Why do I need an extra committment like God? I'm good where I am; I don't kill, rape or murder - I lead an upright, decent life. That should be enough for me.

Is it really enough for you?

The Bible says that all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God. In other words, leading an upright, decent life by our own strength very often isn't enough to wipe away the stubborn stain of sin upon each of us.

I say that, even with the acknowledgement of the fact that my life before knowing God wasn't bad. In fact, it wasn't even neutral. It was good. I was doing okay in school; my parents loved me and I knew that; I even won some prize for good conduct in secondary school. 'Ah, yes... Xiaohui is a good girl.' - typical commentary by the relatives who came over to visit every now and then.

But noone else knew the thoughts that I had then, thoughts that occupied my mind though I consciously seldom let them control the way I behaved.

Often, jealousy and envy raged when qian, or even close girlfriends of mine got compliments when I didn't. Against my parents were words that cut deep, whenever I didn't get from them what I wanted. Told lies many, many times to escape sticky situations I was afraid to face. The list goes on. Yet perhaps the worst feeling was that of guilt... knowing that I was less than a perfect person, and having no way of redeeming myself apart from repeated self-rationalising, that it was okay, I am only human, humans make mistakes... and as long as I learn from them, it is alright.

But it wasn't alright. I was tired of putting on a facade that hid the darker thoughts which filled my mind. And I was afraid, somehow, that I would sometime down the road pay for what I've done. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. If this gift were real, I wanted it.

Try as I might, I couldn't deny that my apparent uprightedness was a mere front - I needed someone greater, to help me to become real about my weaknesses, and to overcome. I needed a saviour who could take away the guilt I felt so often. I needed to know what I was made to do with every breath I'm taking.

We do need Him, no matter how good a life we're leading on our own.



Wednesday, June 03, 2009 @ 4:16 PM
the june chronicles #1

On qian's urging we rented this movie to watch, and boy oh boy. I declare we are Wing Chun enthusiasts now and long to fight the dark side to save the dignity of our beloved country. Or family. Or whatever. Just let us fight. *does the starting kungfu move*

My favourite part? When the Japanese General asked for Master Ip's name, and he replied as a matter-of-fact, '我只是一个中国人'. At that moment my heart was full of patriotism - that's odd - I don't exactly hail from China, but my Chinese roots certainly felt so... alive when he said that.

Okay, okay... this is just a movie but come on, can't a girl dream she can save her fellowmen from the bad guys, just like how this Master Ip did? Swing palms to the left, swipe fists to the right, elbow shove to the centre, and BAM the bully falls flat at the force of my roundhouse kick.

Come back to reality, xh.

Sigh. This June, I am relatively free. I say relative, because most friends are either interning, or travelling, or are occupied with serious stuff on the weekdays while I am generally... not occupied. Which explains the movie!

Movies, actually. ;)

Books, too. Lately I found two good ones in the library: one's a literary adaptation of John's story in the Bible and the other, somewhat like a reflection of The Time Traveller's Wife, one of my all-time favourite novels. While picking up one to read by the BBC (Big Black Couch) a couple of days ago, I suddenly had a sense of deja vu - as if I'm picking up something I used to do a lot, before the other things kinda took over...

There is also the Give Proper English Tuition to Sister plan that will kick start (formally, officially, finally) this weekend. Maybe the Learning to Cook idea will be revived, for fear that the Mother might nag at me being a lousy housewife in the future.

In the long future, I tell her. It scares a twenty year old to know that she has to don an apron, whip up a meal, give her husband a massage and put the kids to sleep, anytime soon. While I am young... there is still much action to be part of. I want to serve my generation, and this June it is time to figure out just how I can go about doing it.

Lazybones, that seductive aquaintance, better not get over me.



Thursday, May 28, 2009 @ 9:17 AM
cool piece of poetry

if I get to the base of things, of desire, all I really want to do is sing,
and run. to sing well and loud, to run tirelessly, to be thoroughly
exhausted with good work done.

this is what I want.

to know who God is, and how he works, and what his hands and eyes
look like, and fire.


- Rapture Red & Smoke Grey, Sarah Gordon



Sunday, May 24, 2009 @ 11:11 AM
plans

Now that work at AGC's over I finally have the liberty to take things slower, and organise. Stacks of paper are to my left, books leftover from everywhere are arranged kinda haphazardly in an overloaded cupboard, and I need to find out where the random ants are coming from. Eeks.

It's almost halfway into 2009. There are unfinished goals, new goals, and goals I've thankful to have met, albeit only barely. I'm flipping to the goalsheet we as a church were encouraged to fill at the beginning of the year, and as I scan through what I wrote there is a sense of dissatisfaction... like there's more I could do.

While I leave that to personal reflection there are a couple of things bugging me at present, one of them being whether I should apply for exchange in the first half of next year. And if I want to, where I should go. The past hour I have spent scrolling through universities, courses offered, and what not - now there are 2 universities I'm looking at: Southampton (UK), and Yonsei (South Korea).

They're vastly different in location and courses offered, but I would be very happy if my application for either goes through. The former, because of the potential extensive travelling I get to do and the individual modules offered; the latter, for economic reasons and the opportunity to experience a completely different legal system, it being a civil law country. Coincidentally I've had the opportunity to speak to people who have personally studied in both universities before, and they share with such nostalgia and excitement that I got a bit infected too.

But I'm aware of the costs involved. Not just money but the fact that I would be away for so long... the uncertainty is something to be grappled with. The draw of living independently in another country is so attractive nonetheless - of late, many have told me that it is beneficial to get out of this little red dot and live elsewhere for awhile, because we tend to be too sheltered here.

Hmmmmm. I will apply, and see which doors open. Thinking about exchange makes my heart beat a little faster. :)