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Walking by faith is something easy to say, but hard to do especially when things don't go as planned. But we try all the same, and I'm no exception. This blog is in some ways cathartic, in others a means for me to pen my thoughts and struggles as I walk this life and learn to trust God more with each passing day.


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friends and credits

skin by: Jane
Sunday, April 29, 2007 @ 4:52 PM
so now i wait.

How dreadful, to be kept in suspense this way. The written test for law at nus went alright. A hypothetical did come out, with added twists and turns, which was interesting actually; whether I answered wisely is perhaps another story. =p

To want something is a funny emotion. Before you get it, or when you are on your way to getting it, it occupies your mind completely, like a banana hanging just out of your reach and you're jumping so hard, jumping with all your might to have a bite. Then I imagine the banana is suddenly lowered, you get a bite, then what? You're happy, you're contented, but is it enough?

I think I have a weakness, to always expect more out of myself.

So if I get into nus law, I'll be happy, I'll be contented. It'll mean the first step of my dream is achieved. But I can't shake off the feeling that the delirious happiness will ebb away (of course it will, i guess) . And if I don't, I'll be disappointed for sure, because it'll mean my I'm a major step backward from this dream.

But I've a lot to be thankful for - to have gotten this far has been an achievement in itself! Back in jc, when people asked me what I wanted to do, I couldn't help but feel all self-conscious when I said 'law'. It seemed an ambition too far to reach, with the lacklustre grades I got in GP. Was the bottom 9 percent once for a common test in GP, and I remember pushing the dream to the back of my head, choosing not to think of it, lest I get disappointed. I think I remember telling mav I didn't want to do law anymore. It wasn't about not wanting to do law anymore at that point in time, I realised recently - it was about being afraid to get disappointed.

That dark monster called disappointment - I need to learn to confront it.

Anyway, I got accepted into NTU mass comm! And mav too! =) I think SMU rejected me; people are getting their letters and my application is still being processed. I should be disappointed, but somehow I'm alright, honestly. I'm still trying to figure out why I'm alright. Maybe because SMU's too expensive. Or maybe cos it's too adultish. Gosh, my EQ is horrible.

There are so many people I want to catch up with; sometimes I wish everyone will quit their jobs and meet me for dinner. Hahaha oops that's selfish! I want to blog about the topic of 'best friends' but that'll have to take eons, and I feel like eating dinner already.

So now I wait. I need a time machine!



Friday, April 27, 2007 @ 4:16 PM
'so how do you spend time with your family?'

To have a question like that in an interview - if it isn't a blessing, I don't know what it is!

When I emerged from the room, I was smiling.=))

Thank God!



Thursday, April 26, 2007 @ 2:51 PM
i love google

i love google
it makes me wanna giggle

mind full of legal
'nus law interview' my fingers wriggle
the keys on the board jiggle
then poof! results jingle

page after page my eyes ogle
man i need to eat a pringle
and perhaps wear a goggle
then bingo! something made me giggle

i love google.



Haha this is the first time I successfully composed a poem that rhymes throughout! Anyway, this was what made me giggle:

i dun have any substantive advice, but tot that i could share my own experience with you.in my year i had to send an essay on "why i wanna study law at nus" before going for the interview and the written test.

for the interview the profs (there were 2) asked me for the reason i chose law. (SMU was not available yet, so the question may now be "why law at nus") and they referred to my essay. they also asked why engineering was my second choice. (yep they know) and asked me for a social issue to discuss... with that i plunged into a discussion about errant lawyers making off with their clients' money. then they asked me what area of law i was potentially interested in, and they finished off by asking me "would you defend someone whom you know committed a crime, knowing he would get away scot-free".(gosh i cant believe i actually remember)

as for the written test i received a hypothetical to discuss. a hypothetical is a essentially a fake case. as i had no knowledge of the law yet, my arguments were mostly those u would find in a GP essay. the case was basically of a final-year medical student who negligently killed a man by performing CPR on him. the man had been saved out of a swimming pool from drowning and was unconscious. so the question was whether the medical student should be held liable for causing the man's death. (i argued for the med student)so yup these were my experiences, hope they help. =)

This was from a random blog I chanced upon, thanks to google. It was exactly what I'd hoped to find - experiences of the interviews in the recent years. yippee!

Would I defend someone whom I know committed a crime, knowing he would get away scot free? Should that medical student be held liable?

Think, xiaohui, think.



Monday, April 23, 2007 @ 6:28 PM
'why are the sops so airy?'

As I blog-hop and satisfy my kaypohness, I can't help but feel very excited for njchoir. Every junior's blog I read talks about syf, with the kind of zest that I'm a bit envious of. I miss that feeling, having to work towards a goal that is so real and so tangible, with a group of like-minded friends.

Nonetheless I'm immensely proud of the unity and passion they have. *grins*

So JIAYOU, njchoir!



@ 12:02 AM
this is it.

Friday, 27th April, 9.30am, NUS Faculty of Law.

I will do my bestest, and leave the rest up to Him. Made a decision not to be worried over all the competition, because it is not going to help me. If I get in, praise God. If I don't, praise God too.

This line is going to repeat in my head relentlessly, because I really believe it.

* * *

The interview at NTU went quite pleasantly. In fact it didn't seem like an interview; it was more like a meet-the-students kind of session, with laughter and sincere opinion-sharing. Not to mention the free good food. To be honest I left the school with a much greater impression of it, thanks to how the whole thing went. I wish all the interviews I have to go through in life are going to be like that. =)

Summary of the week to come: pray, read, think, dream. Go go go!



Monday, April 16, 2007 @ 3:55 PM
halfway there

April, May, June, July.



WHAT! I HAVE ONLY FOUR MONTHS LEFT?!



As much as I miss studying and the whole idea of 'school', there is a part of me (quite huge, too, in fact) stubbornly clinging to the notion that my life will remain blissfully status quo. Until I don't know when.



If you looked into my profile, I typed 'slacking and being busy (subject to circumstances)' as one of the things I love doing. I believe I'm enjoying the slacking more and more these days. Is it a bad thing? After all the work and the teaching and the hanging out - I find things like reading, watching teevee, going online without the urgency that I have something more important to do immensely therapeutic. Ahhhh.



So what am I to do now that I have four months left, and it's already halfway before the reality of being a student (please God let me be able to add a 'law' before the 'student' a couple of months down the road) hits?



Not that I'm not having fun now. I am. I just want... the fun to be more meaningful? Does that make sense?



And so... I've signed up as a volunteer with TOUCH Community Services, every Monday. And am seriously planning to visit Nana in June. It sounds like I'm fantasizing (even to myself), because when I asked my parents it was a flat no. There's always a plan B, though *winks*.



Though I have no idea what plan B will be. Bleah.



Another interview coming up, this Saturday! This time it's with NTU, for Communication Studies. As much as I try to convince myself that this interview is so important because should I not get into law, the course can very well be the one I'll end up in - I cannot leh. What's wrong with me??!



Part of the letter states:



'you may also wish to bring along your portfolio of creative works so that the interview panel may assess your other abilities...'



There's something about the 'you may also wish'. I can't shake off the feeling that it indirectly means 'you jolly well bring if not you can say byebye to mass comm'.



Can I sneak into the Council Room in NJ to steal the all the banners 38th CPU did?



I'm that desperate.



Then again, I don't need a portfolio to prove I am creative.



WAIT. CPU = CREATIVE and publicity unit. I'm getting excited here I think I may have found a solution!!

























Okay. I haven't. Sigh.



I shall leave that for further mulling.


On a side note, I have been faithfully listening to this album by Olivia Ong over, and over, and over again. I wouldn't call it amazing, or out of this world - maybe addictive is the word. Bossanova is a style of Brazilian jazz music that is 'more complex harmonically and is less percussive' according to Wiki (what an apt description), and in my own words, it just makes you feel... very comfortable loh. Somewhat like the immediate feeling when you hit the bed after a long day.

Would you be surprised if I say this lady is a 19 year old Singaporean, based in Japan? She doesn't have the Carrie Underwood kind of voice, just the... very comfortable kind of voice.

I am hooked on bossanova - this album, to be specific. Ask me to send you some of the songs if you're interested!

Thanks, roy. =) (though you won't get to read this anytime soon - u're prolly learning how to avoid swallowing water while diving in Sembawang Reservoir, hurhur) Oh well. I'm missing a dear friend!




@ 12:31 AM
fighting on

No victory without a fight, they always say. I believe it, truly and totally now.


thank you counterpart.=)



Tuesday, April 10, 2007 @ 12:10 AM
a frog?

Something about the ministerial payrise to the figure 2 point something million per annum on the papers didn't stir up indignation, nor envy, nor a vague sense of injustice within. Oddly, I felt generally neutral. Like it is something I don't have a part of, something that is waaayyy high up, beyond the places I can reach, even on tip-toe or aggressive jumping.

Maybe it's largely due to the fact that my livelihood depends almost wholly on my parents' salaries, and that I don't pay any kind of tax. Even the term tax feels alien. *shakes head*

Apathetic? I doubt so. Too young? Maybe.

But I can't shake off the feeling of being slightly disturbed. Million is a term I see in lottery wins, in Donald Trump television programmes, in Forbes - I see it everywhere. Yet it is a term I cannot seem to feel familiar with, especially when the way I live is nowhere near the million dollar mark.

So when our ministers - capable, very capable in my opinion - now earn that kind of money, is it natural for me (us, perhaps) to feel distant from them? The 'they're beyond my league' feeling - I kind of feel it in my parents, and a bit in myself.

Granted, I do feel they deserve the recognition. I'm biased, I might have been brainwashed, but I think my country has got the best leaders in the world.

But with their pay packets being so transparent now, and being so huge too, as a normal commoner living in a HDB flat, I don't know - I am not exactly ecstatic about it.

I'm too young, perhaps. To have 'a sense of proportion' that Mr LKY mentioned. The term thousand and hundred and ten seems so much more palatable than million, to me and to a lot of us I think. Maybe I need to get out of the well and stare out at the big wild world.



Saturday, April 07, 2007 @ 2:07 PM
too fast, perhaps.

I'm talking about time. Somehow it's whizzing by, and I don't even realise it. Mrs Leong (my upper sec form teacher) invited 4/2 over to her place for a gathering yesterday, and as I rode down the escalator at Admiralty with Angela, tapped my ez-link on the reader and saw the people I used to see everyday two years ago, each looking different in their own ways, there was a subtle movement, maybe stirring within. That 2 years have gone.


I don't regret it, of course. I just wish time could walk instead of sprint.


The gathering was nice, nonetheless. The skinny little boy I used to see in the staff room (Mrs Leong's son, Leawin) has become taller and fleshier, and for the first time (I think) I saw Sherwin, Mrs Leong's daughter. She reminded me of Hyon Jin, my piano tutee. At first sight, angelic, and on closer inspection, there seems to be something less angelic waiting to spring out if triggered. Haha Hyon Jin isn't as angelic as I thought her out to be, but I think I've become more patient with her. I still enjoy teaching her, of course, but I've become more wary, that's all.


Then catching up with people - Eunice, Yingsan, Delon, Weiliang, Samuel, Yidan etc; everyone had their special story to tell, and despite the periodic awkward moments (which I think definitely happens when one hasn't seen another for so long), it felt good updating each other, and laughing over hilarious memories.


Like Mrs Leong sharing with us how Leawin likes to smell her butt.

Or when one of our math teachers was caught on tape scratching his butt and then smelling his fingers.


Haha. It's the Easter holidays! The first time I'm truly celebrating it, and now I know what it means to 'rejoice in the Lord'. Bummer that my family backed out last minute to come for the Easter service; I was terribly disappointed. Should've known that my parents were the volatile kind. Arrghh but this can only spur me on to try again, and again... and again. lkjshdflkajsfhl.


The Easter drama at service yesterday was good. Not as creative as the Christmas drama I felt, but the message was clear nonetheless. At the scene where Jesus was crucified, my tears kept flowing at the enormous injustice; even I surprised myself. Kept reminding myself that the man wasn't Jesus, he was just a very good actor, yet I could feel His pain, and the sheer magnitude of His sacrifice.


Jesus had to make the sacrifice for you to be reunited with Me. The sorrow eventually diminished, replaced at the end of the service with a sense of unrivalled joy. =)


Anyway. Nana is shifting! To a house that is '2556 sq feet', according to the brochure she mailed to us. According to memory I think my house here in humble Bt Panjang is like 140 sq feet? So does that mean her house is almost twenty times bigger? AHHH. I'm so excited and envious for her!!!


Happy Easter everyone. =)



Monday, April 02, 2007 @ 10:09 PM
of updates and reflections

Whoa. It feels like I haven't blogged for a long time. Now it feels odd looking at the blogger screen, like there's so much to say but there is some kind of a block. Let's see...

The smu interview! To be honest I didn't emerge from it feeling confident that they will accept me. 1. The essay was a brutal reminder that I need to better my writing skills (considering the fact that the last time I wrote a proper intellectual essay was like last Nov) 2. I could have done better at the interview if I had taken the time to read the papers every single day 3. I think competition is strife. Blah.


Nonetheless this interview is good training for the much much more important ones coming up soon.


The past week I've been busy trying to finish up work from the project based job, and hallelujah I finished it today! You have no idea how monotonous it can get sometimes, just sitting there and organising millions of words.


Alright, hundreds.


And njchoir alumni practice! I thought my passion for choral singing kind of fizzled out, but when I got back down to doing it I felt the familiar tinge of excitement at hearing voices forming chords. Fizzled out? Nahhh maybe not anymore.


My fellow cell group mate Mavarick left for Germany to study last Saturday. He got me thinking, if given the chance, will I have courage enough to uproot myself and live in a foreign place alone where the language and culture is entirely different, for years? I don't know. It is a tantalising option, one that also requires stepping out of my comfort zone. No yummy hawker food? No singlish? No family? No friends?


This is why I kind of admire people who go all out to study overseas. For me, I'm settled on a local education. =)


Charlene, Mav (I'm thinking of the female mav now hurhur) and me at pastamania where we held a farewell lunch.


My cell's currently combining with another, so right now its huge! Not seeing mav around during cell and service needs some getting used to...


Oh mans what if rhoda goes?!! Sighh.


Anyway, I had a question for myself recently.


What is the single most important thing I am looking for in a guy?


The answer came almost immediately, like a big banner in my mind's eye: someone who loves God as much as I do or even more. Then the rest will follow.


=)