Who will take a day off to sit with you in the sun

In JC, there was this friend of mine in the Exco. I haven't spoken to him properly at all since we left school, but we were kind of close once - I shared some of my stories with him, and he shared some of his with me. People used to say he was cute, and one day he said "But being cute is useless! I want to be hot!" #randomsidetrack

Justin wasn't my closest confidante, but the little stories mattered, and he was there for me when all I needed was strength. Like the time just before our final camp activity when I broke down at the staircase, feeling nauseous, worried that I might not be able to participate, and he told me that everyone was proud of me, and that I was going to do this well. And the time he physically supported me even as he himself shouted in pain. And all the moments he made me let him take over my duties.

Anyway, one certain memory will always remain vivid as day. It was the Teachers' Day celebrations and I was a wreck. Crying at assembly. Crying at the bleachers. Staring at my phone. Pauline skipped a free lunch just to accompany me, and my amazing foster siblings tried to lift my mood at Vivo. When they left, I called Justin. I said that I was feeling like crap and I wanted him to come and take me somewhere, anywhere, just to lie down and forget. He said "okay I'll be there in half an hour."

While waiting, I called Weiliang and sat at the amphitheatre on the top floor, sighing about our problems. He made me say "life is good" enough times to start smiling again. Then Justin arrived and insisted on carrying my bag and said he knew of a pretty place a short distance from Vivo.

So we walked and walked in the 3pm heat towards Keppel Bay and I ranted myself dry and he didn't say a word or offer any advice - all I needed was to get it out of my system. Then we found a pavilion and I turned on some music and we took benches on opposite sides of the pavilion and just lay there. For about an hour. Not saying a word.

And then in the late afternoon we moved to a little grassy field nearby. From there we could see the sun set without any obstructions at all. It was lovely. We just sat there in the prickly grass, exchanging a few words every five minutes, soaking up the quiet and the calm.

We barely did anything that day, but it still remains such a precious memory. My mind has been at war with itself a lot recently, and so often I wish I could escape into a field and lie in the morning sun and feel myself get lost in the atmosphere. So often I wish I could simply call a friend up whenever I just needed someone to be there, whether or not we'd be having a chatty dinner or simply sitting in silence for hours. I wish I had a close friend who understood the beauty of quiet, simple companionship, and who would escape from time to time with me.

I know I'll find that family again soon, and I wonder if he'll be the new guy I'd call, or her, or him for a down-to-earth chat about how life sucks, or him to simply lie down at the rooftop garden with me.

I look at various things now, like his insane laugh and her spontaneity and his loud lame remarks and the her I've always known, and wonder if I'll still miss that about them in ten years' time. I wonder if he'll put his arm around me and call me his sister, or if she and I will have our HTHTs late into the night in each other's rooms, or if he will become my fellow warrior in Christ or someone who will continually inspire me.

Till then, I'll be looking forward to the next time I get to lose myself in a morning field with a friend with whom I share a comfortable silence; with whom I have the reassurance of love.

So she ran away in her sleep

And you think, shit you, you learnt this lesson two years ago. Can't expect anyone to be any more like you.





When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach so
She ran away in her sleep
And dreamed of paradise
Every time she closed her eyes

When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach
And the bullets catch in her teeth
Life goes on, it gets so heavy
The wheel breaks the butterfly
Every tear a waterfall
In the night the stormy night she'll close her eyes
In the night the stormy night away she'd fly

And dream of paradise
She'd dream of paradise

And so lying underneath those stormy skies
She'd say "oh, I know the sun must set to rise"

This could be paradise

I'll tell you a story about friend-love

I want our Hello / Good-bye hugs to be a few beats longer than a casual friend hug 
But never so long that it becomes a lover's embrace.
And if we were to be sitting on the same couch watching a movie
I might lean my left arm just a little bit against your right arm
But never would I put my head on your shoulder or try to hold your hand.
Because that would be weird.

(I think I am in friend-love with you)


I came across this post a while ago, and shared it on Facebook because I thought it was insanely sweet. And sad. I didn't really understand it, though, and never thought I would. Didn't think it was possible to feel something not just between the lines but both sides in full; anything more than a close friendship with someone who was only a friend. I just thought it was meant to be exaggerated. Not so realistic. But I knew someone who understood it very well, and I found it weird - an emotion I had yet to fathom.

It's funny when you think of a friend, that you think of as nothing more than a friend, and with whom you want nothing more, and you realise that words somehow seem inadequate to describe how you feel. Or that you'd rather not try to explain it, because it will always, always, be misunderstood. You don't know why you seem to enjoy his hugs more. Or why you just want to have a pointless chat, or you just want to hear his voice on the other line. It doesn't need to be a deep personal conversation; just a reassurance that your pal's virtually right there. Or why when things get more sombre it's suddenly bare, heart-to-heart, and everything else simply falls away. Why missing him takes all of one day. Why you like it when he pats your head. Why a simple comment stabs. Even if this friend isn't one particularly close to you, or one with whom you never run out of things to say. Why you absolutely love it when he speaks his heart, and you somehow remember it more clearly than other similar chats you have with other friends. Why he seems to be able to lighten your mood in all of two minutes, even if he isn't very tactful at doing it. Just being there. Why even when you're unhappy with something he said, his nervousness shows in the cracks and it just makes you want to smile.

I should definitely stop here, because I feel myself beginning to exaggerate already, and I know this has a huge potential to be taken the wrong way, but it's nothing like that. Maybe this is what people mean when they see their friend as a brother or sister.

Right now, I'm in the kind of mood that tells me it's time to go to bed and spend a long time swimming around in a sea of melancholy in my head.

Don't we just love crashing into walls?

How we seem to have an innate aversion to what's good for us. To rules, to advice, to anything that someone says you should do for the better. We refuse to take refuge on dry land; we subconsciously find ways to plunge into the deep. We want to drown. We want to feel that adrenaline rush, that hopelessness, the stab of fear.

I have a friend who lives my life. She is me, and I am her, in the sense that we somehow have such stunningly similar experiences, and saying that we can relate to one another is an understatement. We lead parallel lives.

I tend to run into walls a lot. I don't think I do it deliberately, but sometimes I'm pretty sure my heart is attracted to pain. This friend of mine, we grew up together. She has always been the stronger one, but the pains of being eighteen sometimes prove too overpowering to bear.

Today, she found herself being shoved against a wall - one of those walls that make you love to hurt.

She pushed herself away.

I love her for that. I love her for how much I can rely on her for everything. To hold my pain, to understand every nuance of emotion I try to describe. And you might not read this, but please know that I love you. We tell each other about the people who enter and leave our lives. I'll always have you by me, and you'll always have me. Never leave me.

Years from now we'll still have our endless chats and hysterical laughs (remember the time we both happened to laugh and slap our thighs in exactly the same way?) and crazy inside jokes when we bring up certain guys' names from eons ago. Decades on, we'll be talking about families and kids, looking back at our own school lives.

Don't know what I'd do without you.

The cultured superstitious

We look at ourselves in the year 2013, all big and new and grown-up, and think we're so much more enlightened than the people in the past. We know so incredibly much about the Earth and the workings of the universe now, and we can even form speculations about behavioural natures, whether it's with regard to ourselves or animals or God, imposing on everything else what we call rationalisation. Advances in technology have brought us so far. All those people before us, all their weird superstitions and dubious medical practices, we've moved on from that.

The truth is, we're still very much steeped in superstition. We've just replaced the word with "theory" or "concept" or some long scientific term. Something that's backed up with opaque terminology and years of research. We think we've mastered the workings of the world, but we still know practically nothing. We're just as superstitious. Maybe we're all wrong about everything.

Experience Yale-NUS, again

So, when Dean V told us about the idea of a Mystery Internship - where they find out as much as they can about us to determine where we should go, and they don't let us know where that is until the day we get on the plane - there was a short pause, and then everyone clapped. And people gave comments like "It should be somewhere we haven't gone before"and "It should be a place where we can't speak their language".

 And this is why I love Yale-NUS.

Had an utterly exhausting and incredibly amazing experience at my second Experience Yale-NUS Weekend - this time, helping out as a student intern. The American students arrived on Thursday, 1.35am, and from Thursday to Monday I got between one and a half to three hours of sleep per day. Ran around. Got to pick up people from the airport. Had great conversations with people from L.A., Texas, Turkey, Senegal, Nepal, India, Japan and more. They were all so excited about being in Singapore and trying stingray and chilli crab and all the "local food".

Gardens by the Bay!

I'll post better pictures of all of us when the other students post theirs up. On Thursday at lunchtime, when the kids were all jetlagged but still excited, we took them to a comfortable cafe because we thought they'd be too tired and uncomfortable to try local food just yet. And they were all like, "What's the most local dish here?" "Can we go and get something more local on our own?" "Will we get to try local stuff later tonight?"

I love how everyone's so adventurous and curious and excited. But maybe that's why we're all here.

Here's just one of the many amazing people I met at the weekend - Julia Versel from Senegal. She's really the sweetest thing and it was so nice having her around. I really hope she takes up Yale-NUS's offer; I have a feeling we'll click fantastically in school.

And here's Tuktu from Turkey; also extremely sweet, sincere and warm, and who also happens to be a concert pianist! Had some lovely chats with her and I love her views. 

Here's Kishin from Japan, whose hobbies include doing DJ mixes even though he does prefer chatting with friends in a quiet atmosphere to the noisiness of a club, and who made this super creative awesome pair of shoes using traditional Japanese socks (tabi). Everyone can't wait for him to sell them. He'll become famous. I sent him off at the airport and we spent half an hour standing around a giant globe talking about places like Eritrea and Yemen and this interesting island called Iturup which is "occupied by Russia but claimed by Japan".

And here's Shrabya from Nepal! My dad loves Nepal, but I've never been there before, and I learnt so much from him. I'm so fascinated. Can't wait to go there one day.

Also, shoutouts to other people I had great conversations with, like Belinda Lei, Feimei Zeng and Rohan Naidu!

It was a fantastic four days. Everyone had so much personality. (Shoutout to Jolanda Nava, Kelsi Caywood, Bernard Stanford, Akash Salam, Stephen Turban, Katie Zheng, Maggie Schumann, Luke Heine and SO many more - it was so fun having all you hilarious and fun-loving people around, and I'm so glad I met you all!) It was great meeting all these enthusiastic, excited, driven and adventurous people, who shared my concerns and hopes for Yale-NUS. And SMART people, like Jungo Kasai whose English is self-taught and who picked up enough Chinese to be able to converse in the language in the short span of 2-3 weeks. I'm really thankful to have been a part of it, even though I was extremely tired and very very blur at times, causing a lot of trouble and frustration to everyone. It's amazing to see the kinds of people Round 1 brought in, and I can't wait to meet the admitted students of the next two rounds. 

Woohoo!!!

one of those mornings

Your heart pumps like you haven't slept and just drank three cups of coffee on an empty stomach. You feel like you could drop dead any moment, but you can't go back to sleep. You can't be bothered to rush to school. You want to stroll at your own super-leisurely pace, because your heart is weighing you down. You can't explain it and you have no idea why, but your heart just feels so heavy. You don't feel like talking. You reply everyone in a soft, tired voice. You don't feel like sitting up straight. You're a sad slushy blob. All you want to do is lie in some nice sunny field and soak in the happy rays and feel your gloomy tunes seep into the soil and have someone to hold. You're surrounded by good pals, yet feel so alone. Your heavy heart yearns for somewhere far away and just one friend, a friend to lie in the quiet of the morning with you, not to say a word.

I found a tidal wave begging to tear down the dawn

Ruo Wei introduced this song to me when I asked him if he knew any good songs about perseverance - I was writing farewell cards to Rachel and Geri when we were about to finish our internship at Crescent last March. I fell in love with that particular line the moment I heard it, and now it's my Twitter profile description, my Whatsapp status, my blog title. I wondered why some people didn't get it and thought I was just trying to act cool with some chim phrase like that, and then I remembered that not everyone had the privilege of being a Literature student. So here goes (I'm not going to do the whole song, just that one line)...

I found a tidal wave begging to tear down the dawn

This song uses swimming as an extended metaphor (or conceit) for the process of struggling through obstacles in life. Why swimming? Well, it's a lot harder than walking, because of the density of water. You need to get from one place to another but it seems like the water is always holding you back. The water just makes you wish you could simply lie still and let the waves take you, akin to the pressures of life that make you wish you could just escape, but then you'd end up somewhere you don't want to be. It's tough, but you have to endure and get through it.

Dawn is the first appearance of light before sunrise. Daybreak. The end of night. Daybreak is the first sign of hope after a period of darkness.

A tidal wave creates an image of a surge of water - now, seawater's not a very pleasant thing in this song; here you are trying to swim out of your obstacles with all the pressure coming at you hard, and now a huge wave of water wants to take you down. You could, very possibly, drown.

A tidal wave - a huge surge of obstacles - they come at you during a period of darkness, and the wave threatens to wipe out any hope of light to end it all. Like the light at the end of a tunnel - you're surrounded by darkness, waiting for that hint of light, when something comes and blocks out the hole at the other end, so the light will never come.

"Begging" personifies the wave. It suggests that the wave isn't a random force of nature coming along - it's there with a purpose. It has a strong will to take you down, the will of a desperate person. "Tear" is also a part of the personification - it doesn't want simply to block out the light of dawn in darkness; it wants to rip apart the very first bit of hope.

"I found a tidal wave begging to tear down the dawn" - I've been swimming in a sea of darkness, unable to find my way with all the pressure of the water getting to me. My muscles are aching; I've been swimming all night, and I'm just looking for the hint of day. This sea of obstacles is dragging me down. I need to plough through the mess. I can't find my way. I need some light. Then this massive wave comes along, the very last straw, that threatens to take out all my hope.

I found a tidal wave begging to tear down the dawn
Memories like bullets, they fire at me like a gun
I swim for brighter days despite the absence of sun
Choking on salt water; I'm not giving in
I swim

To a girl who's bold

To Anthea Wang, and all the other teenage girls in the world

I just read a Yahoo! article about you, and decided to look you up on Google more. I'm not a creepy stalker; I am sensitive to the beauties of everyday life, and I see the most beauty in a person's story.

I'm only a little older than you, and I just wanted to let you know that I think you're a very strong person. Sometimes we give in to things, and we think that when people praise us, they don't really know us - they haven't really seen us. Sometimes we see the worst in ourselves, and believe things that are not true. I hope that when you read what I have to say, you won't think I'm one of those people. I hope this post encourages you a little, and I hope you realise that I'm not one to write something if I don't fully believe in it.

I think you're incredibly strong, even if you think you might not be sometimes. You're strong to choose to stay true to yourself, even if it isn't what seems to be what others want for you. You have your values and you choose to stick to them, even if you feel pushed. And even for something like choosing to defer your O's - it's a bold decision you had to make, and there must have been a lot of pressure to go either way, and I'm proud of you for being able to withstand that. To have thought about it and made a decision, despite all the arrows from both sides, whether from others or from yourself. Sometimes we think through things elaborately in our head, and it's frustrating when people think you made the decision rashly simply because you're a little girl. I know how it feels. I know how it feels when people belittle and dismiss. You held your own, and I'm proud of you.

People say things about us sometimes that make us question ourselves - whether it has to do with our looks, our values, or our pride. I want to say that I think you're really pretty. Not in the 'you're beautiful the way God has made you' way, but I genuinely do think you were born with a beautiful face. And what's even more important than one's physical appearance is the aura that a person radiates. When you're genuine and happy and comfortable with yourself, it's very evident. When you're confident enough of yourself to reject what others say about what you need to do to look better or be more popular or gain attention, it shows in your aura.

I'm going to make a pretty bold comment - I think the Kpop industry has reached its peak, and it won't be too long before it slowly, but surely, fades away. Yes, it's sleek, full of hot guys and cute girls. But they're pretty much all the same. Music is about expressing who you are, showing what life has made of you and connecting with others in a way that transcends language. Music is the song of the soul. It's individual and raw. Unfortunately, the Kpop industry, in my opinion, is a lot like a factory line. They make you who they think people want you to be, and you are hardly your own.

I'm glad you recognised that, and rejected it.

This sounds cliche, but I really want you to understand it, because you helped me understand it: Everyone is beautiful precisely because of who they are. Everyone has had different experiences and struggles. Everyone has a different personality. When someone tries to make you like someone else, or to make you fit into a certain mould, you lose a little of your uniqueness that people find intruguing. It's like pruning a tree. When you try to shape it to look like another tree, the bit that was uniquely his falls off, and he becomes another one of 'em. It's precisely the uniqueness that makes a person intruguing. No one else has had exactly the same experiences or personality as you, ever, and the things about you that are different from everyone else is what people find fascinating. A perfect, altered, beautiful face is a pretty object, but forgettable - one of the rest. An unconventionally beautiful face with a sparkle of uniqueness is intriguing. Don't you agree?

You're young, and there's so much ahead of you. I'm sure you discovered a lot more about yourself through this experience, and I'm glad you went for it too. It was, after all, an experience that very few had the privilege of getting, and self-discovery is priceless. I'm sure you've discovered how strong you are capable of being, too, and how the journey of strength will be lifelong.

I personally took a gap year, which means that I decided to go into university only this year even though I should have started last year (I graduated from JC in 2011). A lot of Singaporean adults think it's a stupid and useless thing to do, because I'm wasting a year - one year's worth of a university graduate's working salary does amount to quite a fair bit, and I'm giving up all that money just because I'm choosing to go to a brand new university that only starts in 2013 - also a risky move. But I've been making good use of this time - I've taught at two schools, waitressed and spent a month travelling in the UK alone; I'm interning at my university's office and giving lots of private tuition; I'll be going to bible school before university. Have I made use of the time productively in terms of money-earning? No. But have I gained a lot in immaterial terms? Definitely.

The experience I gained was priceless. I guess I saw a bit of a similarity between us in the sense that we both took a break from school to do something unconventional; adults may think it's impractical, but we've gained so much from the experience. Never, ever doubt that.

I want to say that I think you're a beautiful (I truly mean it) and strong person, and I can tell you've matured a lot in your thoughts. I'm happy for everything you went through, the amazing and the terrible. It's an experience people would die for, but through it all, you stayed true to yourself and learnt a lot. Thanks for your story.

If you happen to want to talk to me a little more, you can email me at karenhowenee@gmail.com :)

Overthinking Shitting

(In response to Sau's Overthinking Hugs)

Disclaimer: THIS IS COMPLETE RUBBISH

So my tuition tonight just got cancelled, and I was thinking of meeting Theo after work instead, so that I could go shopping with Sumay tomorrow. But I decided not to meet him tonight in the end because I felt like shitting, and I don't like shitting anywhere outside home. Don't like doing number twos in public places. And he was like, but you're going to be living at Yale-NUS for the next four years! And I'm like yeah...I was thinking of making trips all the way home when I need to shit in the future. I have this phobia of my hair and whatever smelling gross. Like, if I shit I HAVE to bathe.

Side note: Yesterday at work they had these leftover Starbucks coffee carrier thingies. I thought they were really pretty so since they were going to be thrown away I took one home and made it my own! :D

Crescent, the O's, and pride

At around this date last year, I was teaching at my alma mater with Geri and Rachel Louis, calculating Sec 4s' 'O' Level scores and completing that Powerpoint presentation to be shown in the hall before the release of results, to make sure everything was right. It wasn't that significant to us because we didn't know many of the students from that batch, but it was still fun to know that we were looking at these girls' results while they were probably freaking out in panic somewhere.

Didn't go back this year, but I sure miss that nerve-wrecking, nail-biting excitement. Every year, the news stations come down, and we know we're tops again. (Together with St. Nick's. I have nothing against St. Nick's. The friends I have from there are absolutely amazing.)

Every year, they talk about our average score of 9-point-something and how we're a Band 1 school yet again, and every year we cheer and laugh and for a moment, we forget our own nervousness, and just bask in our pride for the school.

I guess I'll miss that, whether it's for the O's or A's. Sitting in the hall hearing your friends' names being called on stage and just feeling so proud of them. That crazy excitement. Insane tension. Just a tsunami of all the emotions in the world in one auditorium.

This year, the Straits Times posted three pictures of Crescentians crying upon the release of their results, with the caption " Disappointment and tears flowed with the release of 'O' Level results at Crescent Girls Secondary". (Yeah, for the record, it's Crescent Girls' School!) It sparked a huge rage among Crescentians, present and past, and they started ranting on Twitter, Facebook etc, because people felt it was an invasion of the privacy of those whose crying photos were posted without their permission, and it portrayed us in a pretty negative light. I mean, one happy photo and one sad photo, fine. But three sad photos? And apparently the other schools' photos had everyone smiling and all.

So anyway, it sparked an outrage on social media, and apparently someone emailed a teacher, who called the Straits Times, who took the photos down and replaced them with happy ones (The happy ones are so nice; why didn't they use them in the first place?), and corrected the name of our school.

In response, people who weren't from Crescent tweeted things like "Looks like the girls from @CrescentSoFly showcased the power of social media & made @STcom change their photos. Not bad. #OLevelResults" and "I'm not from @CrescentSoFly but I find it cool that those girls were so united and civilised even when fighting for themselves. #Impressed".

Yup. I didn't get to witness all this first-hand because yesterday was an insanely hectic day at the office. Left the workplace at 11pm. Credits to this junior who blogged about the entire thing!

But yeah. I'm just really proud of this school, and so glad to be able to call it my own. I'm proud of the unity and how we all stick up for one another. How the school has brought us up, how we sit like guys and change in class, how we team up. I remember when I was in Sec 4, the Council tried to introduce a new cheer to replace our old one ('Give me a C!'). My class and those around me decided that it was a stupid idea, and refused to cheer to show our disapproval. We never heard the new cheer again, and the C-R-E-S-C-E-N-T cheer stayed.

I'm proud of how the school brings us up to be gracious, yet persistent, and never to settle for anything less than the best of ourselves. I'm proud of the culture of love and selflessness. I've had friends who gave up their lunch breaks just to be with me when I was down, even if I wasn't close to them. I'm proud of our integrity, and the nurturing love. Secondary school is a time where we all fall, but we knew we were all falling together, and so we shared that understanding and helped one another get through our own tough times. I'm proud of my Crescentian friends, who have gone on to pursue bright paths, but who have all remained big-hearted, gracious and sincere.

Still Nineteen

Was editing my Blogger profile and I can't bring myself to say I'm twenty. Not yet. Twenty's too big of a jump. It screams "No longer a teenager! I'm all grown up and independent". Twenty is one of 'em slim girls with long straight brown hair and shades walking down Orchard Road in her spaghetti top or bodycon dress and heels too high and who have that aura of confidence and beauty about them. Or maybe that's twenty-two. Or whatever. Twenty doesn't portray an enthusiastic chubby babyface who doesn't like makeup or heels. Twenty is a big number. What the heck, I'm J4!!!

Nineteen's a nice, safe number. I'm the senior teen, but still in that comfortable zone. Oh, I'm nineteen. Forgive me when I do stupid things on my internship; I'm all fresh and new. Oh, I'm nineteen. Old enough to be like a friendly tutor / guide to my tuition kids who can relate to them, and not old enough to be someone they don't feel like getting close to.

And girls in Singapore usually start university when they're nineteen, not twenty. And if you're American or British or Australian, you're in university at 18! I'm on a gap year and that's like a break from life. Like I halted time and age for me, and then I'll start university with all the other 18- and 19-year-olds; we're all on the same level.

Maybe it's because I'm on a gap year that time seems to have paused for me. I did a lot of stuff in 2012, but there has been no school year / academic calendar to keep time in check the way I'm used to. Whatever the case, I've got a lot of time to get used to 2013. I'm not prepared to take the '1' out of my age just yet.

Feeling thankful

Today, all of a sudden, I felt really thankful. Not the usual thankful-that-I'm-living-in-Singapore or thankful-I'm-alive stuff, but something a little more tangible.

I'm thankful I've been so protected, always surrounded by nurturing and loving people, growing up in schools that taught me how to love and live. But I'm even more thankful that I'm not ignorant or oblivious to others who haven't been as fortunate to have grown up in such enriching, positive environments. I've got friends in schools / classes where bullying and wrist-slitting are common, fifteen-year-olds sell condoms or offer finger f**ks for $5, Sec 2s are in boys' homes... Even in my church, I've got as many friends from ITE as from JC (excluding those from NUS since I met the NUS CHC group recently), and I realise how blessed I am to never have had to worry about not making it into the Express stream or to JC or university. It's a reality, and I'm always humbled when I think I could have been born into a different family and have been less lucky in my exams, ended up in an environment that was less enriching. I would probably have turned into a very different person; I'm not that strong.

Thankful that I grew up in a little neighbourhood primary school with some great teachers and amazing friends. Mdm Beena and Mrs Foo are the two teachers who impacted me the most, treating us kids like young adults, giving us issues to ponder about. I remember how I was the only Chinese girl who spoke English at home, and all the Chinese girls in my P6 class sat together for recess, and when I went to the table they'd all immediately code-switch from Chinese to English. And I loved my P4-P5 clique, where I was, for a year, the only Chinese - the things I learnt and the festivals my friends invited me to were always eye-opening, and they always treated me with so much warmth.

Thankful that I spent my preteen years at Crescent. Secondary school is usually a time of rebellion, but in Crescent, that energy is usually translated into insane enthusiasm and the warmth of a family. We had our own share of fun, and I'm so glad for the experience of a girls' school. Thankful for the teachers who pushed us so hard, for really value-adding.

Very thankful that I somehow do well for the major exams, despite not having to slog it out. Maybe it's the whole work-hard-play-hard thing; I only thrive academically in panic, and when panic sets in, I really start working hard. But the rest of the time is spent on everything except studying, and I'm glad that I haven't needed to be a slave to Singapore's education system in order to score well.

So thankful that I never had to worry about not being able to make it into a university. The JC system isn't for everyone, and I've got friends who were really worrying about not being able to make it into a university at all. People with the money have the option of going overseas if they aren't able to make it to the course of their choice here, but most don't, and for them, it's local or nothing. I'm not too fond of the mugging culture in the universities here either, and wanted to go overseas to really enjoy my university life. (But Yale-NUS came about, and I'm not looking back!) But really, in Singapore, they push you into a mould that might not necessarily be right for you. I've got friends who really suffer as a result.

I detest the stigma that my friends feel they're branded with as a result of this. Just because they're in the Normal stream, or they didn't make it to JC, or they didn't do well in the really difficult Singapore-Cambridge GCE 'A' Levels, they feel like they're a shame, they feel dumb, they feel undeserving. Put them in just about any non-Asian country in the world, and they'll probably still come out above average.

Look at the Singapore Institute of Management, which hands out degrees from the University of Buffalo, University of Sheffield, University of Manchester, U of Sydney, Warwick, and more, which definitely aren't bad globally. And yet, if you're in SIM, it usually means you scored too badly to make it into the other Singaporean universities. I hate the stigma. It's always about how many As you got, what course you're in, and all that, and the whole culture makes people feel like that's what their worth is based upon.

Oh, this turned into a rant. Anyhow, I'm so thankful to be given so many great opportunities to the extent that I take them for granted sometimes. I'm so thankful to be blessed academically - not doing unbelievably well, but well enough not to have had to worry about whether or not I can make it to the express stream or JC or university. And I'm thankful not to be ignorant to the circumstances of those who are not as blessed academically or financially, because I've got a lot of friends who don't even know anyone who come from a different socioeconomic background. People whose circle of friends are all from Medicine or Law, who aren't close to anyone who lives in a HDB flat, who think not owning a car in Singapore is unheard of. It's ridiculous.

Also thankful for my family and how I've been brought up. In a family of scientists, I'm thankful that my parents also constantly exposed my brother and me to the arts, taking us to all these plays and musicals. I'm thankful for the fascination for the sciences that my parents have given me, and yet how they've never pushed me to take a path I don't want. (In fact, maybe they should have pushed a little more.) I'm thankful that my mum kept telling me to take a course that I wanted - back then, I was bent on Literature - and that the jobs would follow somehow. I'm thankful that they never really pressured me to study hard. I'm thankful for their big hearts - my friends say my parents are really nice - and how they've passed a little bit of that compassion and kindness on to me. Thankful that Mum grew up in a very poor family, and Dad loves taking his schoolkids on overseas CIP trips, and that they both constantly remind my brother and me to have a spirit of generosity, love, and gratitude.

In the spirit of Charlie

Dear friend,

I'm writing to you because I need to tell, but I don't know who to go to, because everyone expects me to have a set opinion or at least have made up my mind about stuff. The truth is that I don't know, and I don't want to think about going left or right anymore. I just miss certain times and things, and sometimes the memories, memories of our secret moments and just curling up beside him and our first kiss and the times when he said I was beautiful, they creep into my head and I don't want to let them go. Or when we linked arms and I kissed him on the street and it didn't matter.

People ask me if I really like him, if I'm sure, if there's a future - why do I have to be certain about everything? Is it okay just to float in between and not be sure? I know they want to help, but making me speak out with certainty what I don't know for sure isn't comfortable. Neither is trying to make a decision. Either option makes me want to run away. It's just the memories and his kindness and how much he cares. And how sweet he is. He doesn't deserve to be let down time and time again.

College is just around the corner, and I'll have to go, but something tells me his heart might choose to stay put. If only he could forget me, things would be easier. In college they expect you to be all grown up and mature and independent, but people don't realise that when it comes to issues within, sometimes we're at a complete loss, and maybe it's okay. Why do we have to make things black and white? Can't we float in the middle until things come to a conclusion? At a place that's comfortable, and there will always be that look in our eyes that say we share something between us that's special. And the smile. And if things go where they shouldn't, the tears will come and remind us.

I don't know. I don't feel like thinking about it anymore, and I don't want to make up my mind anymore. I just want him to know he's such a special boy who deserves to protect his lovely heart.

Love always,
Sam

The weight of a promise

"...God did not lead them along the main road that runs through Philistine territory, even though that was the shortest route to the Promised Land. God said, "If the people are faced with a battle, they might change their miss and return to Egypt." So God led them in a roundabout way through the wilderness toward the Red Sea..." Exodus 13:17-18

Sometimes God goes about a terribly long-winded route to take us places, when we feel He could have just given us the blessing sooner, without having to go through a forest of crap. But isn't it amazing that sometimes He does it because He knows our weakness, yet loves us so much that He will not even give us a chance to fall away from His promised blessings? That even if we rebel against Him and try to run away, it won't stop Him from leading us to where He wants us to go. 

I feel this speaking to me in a very powerful way, especially in the midst of all this, after weeks of mental turmoil. 

Thank You, God, that you know I'm weak and rebellious and full of doubt, just as the Israelites were, yet You won't let go of the blessing and legacy you have promised for my life, the goal You have placed in my heart. 

We all think we're right, but maybe we're all wrong.

"Just as the Infinite can never be totally objectified in words, always transcending our finite definitions of God, perhaps the words themselves, at least in their totality, also always lie beyond our reach, escaping any final objective meaning."

Christians never fully agree with one another on their beliefs. There are the many denominations, and then each individual chooses to accept and reject certain teachings according to his/her own understanding of God and the faith. How we perceive God is shaped by our era, culture, and personal experiences.  Is there a physical place called Heaven and Hell? Is a more Calvinist or Armenian outlook correct? Should baptism be conducted via sprinkling or immersion? Should babies be baptised? Is it right to do this and that?

Maybe all of us are right. Maybe none of us are. Who are we, anyway, to think we can even come close to understanding the workings of His Kingdom? And do the intricacies even matter? I personally believe that regardless of whether we're all partially right or completely wrong, what really matters is the desire to seek and love God. In other words, it's the motives that God wants you to get right more than the little details. He might not want us to fuss over these questions as much as He wants us to simply commune with Him and dwell in the relationship.

 John receives a very vivid vision of Heaven in Revelations. Is only his vision the right one? If anyone else - prophets, leaders of the Church, or even any sibling in Christ - receives a vision of what they believe is God's revelation to them about Heaven, are they all wrong if it doesn't correspond with what John describes?

 Of course not! Again, I'm quite certain that we could all be right, or wrong. Who knows for certain what Heaven might actually be? Whether a place or dimension or the Kingdom here on Earth, what does it even matter? Perhaps all the visions that people have received over time is just God trying to reveal Himself to each individual in a way that they themselves can somewhat fathom. Maybe it really looks nothing like what anyone has ever received in a personal vision. But with the limitations of the human experience and understanding, it is all that God can give us to help us understand a Heaven that is magnificent, wondrous and glorious beyond our imagination.

Where is God in tragedy?

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;
And soonest our best men with thee do go--
Rest of their bones and souls' delivery!
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!
- John Donne


I'd just like to start by saying that this post isn't meant to prove God's existence to non-believers; I'm not trying to prove anything in this post. This post is meant to provide a personal viewpoint for believers who are struggling to find God's love and care in a world of pain.

A friend of mine mentioned how in light of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, many people questioned how it was possible that there was a God in this world who would allow something like this to happen. How twenty innocent, potential-filled children and six wonderful, selfless adults could die at the hands of one murderer while God simply watched on.

I think it's important for the believer to remember that while God always has a good plan for us, He also loves us enough to give us free will. Because we are His children, He gives us the liberty to make our own decisions. And free will is something He has given all of us; it's a gift that He won't take away. And many times, our free will clashes with someone else's will or even God's will, and we can't help the fact that some use that will very destructively; that a man used his free will to destroy innocent, beautiful lives. And God let the consequences of his will play out.

What about natural disasters? I'm not going to try to justify it; I'm not going to pretend I know.

Then again, what is death but the ushering into a new life? I like to picture us as fish in a tank. When a person dies, it's like God takes a fish out of that tank and simply transfers him to another tank - the transition from the mortal to the eternal. And all of us in the first tank are distraught, because our friend is gone forever. God, why did you allow an innocent one of us to be taken away?

But he isn't gone. He's simply in a different tank, one we can't see.

Death is definitely destructive in other ways. The shortest verse in the Bible - "Jesus wept" - follows the death of Lazarus. Jesus was the visible image of of God on Earth, the full example of His love. And even though he knew that death was simply a transit into eternity, He cried at the thought of losing his friend here. Jesus, the full representative of God, cried upon a friend's death. Death destroys human relationships, and God Himself understands our pain of losing a loved one; it's just important to remember that it never ends there.

I pray that even when we're distraught and dealing with the immense pain of losing people we love, He reminds us that their real lives have only just begun.


There are a lot of related but separate issues, like that of poverty / suffering, salvation and the age-old question: "Why would a caring, loving God allow evil and pain?" All three issues are entire separate discussions and it'd take me too long to type out. Maybe I'll talk about them in another post someday, but I guess I can just give a really brief summary of my thoughts on those issues:

On poverty and suffering: I think all of us are born with a life's test, something we struggle with our whole lives. For some of us, it's emotional vulnerability. It could be things that many people don't see as wrong but might struggle with in their Christian walk, like greed, selfishness and pride. Maybe it's the struggle to be a filial child, or a responsible parent, or to stay true to yourself in a corrupt world. Maybe it's lust. And for others, this test could be sickness, poverty, disability. These 'tests' are a lot more tangible and obvious, but they're a test of hope and character, too.

Salvation: I believe that Jesus is the way to salvation. Now, I know that what I'm going to say next might draw a lot of questions and some might call me a blasphemer or whatever, but I don't believe that God will look at a non-Christian whose heart was full of kindness, love, selflessness and faith in a greater hope and say, "I'm sorry; you were a great person, but you didn't believe in Christ and therefore you're going to Hell." After all, aren't we all His children? Weren't we all made in His image? (If you then ask "Well then, why become a Christian?", Christ is a lot more than a ticket to heaven, and well, Christianity works for me; Jesus's authority and existence is real to me.)

Classic question about evil and pain: There's so much more to God than our comfort. He is so much more than a needs-meeter. I think most of us agree that God's more interested in our character than in our comfort. Remember Job? God allowed everything - family, possessions, health - to be taken away from him, but He had a much greater purpose. Remember Judas? God allowed Judas to choose to betray Jesus and cause Jesus's death - but there was a greater purpose, and Judas's betrayal became His way of elevating Jesus "to the place of highest honour".


These issues and more will take forever to discuss, and I'm not planning to delve into them in greater detail right now. This post isn't meant to justify my faith or justify God; I just hope it brought an alternative point-of-view to any Christian (or curious non-Christian) who struggles with questions like I do.

Into Your hands, I commit again

26 Dec

It's a hard day for me. Tears ready to fall, a mind wallowing in doubt. I don't know if the recent decision I made was the right one. What if I had taken the other road? Would God still fulfil this goal He has given me, regardless of the route I decide to take? Why choose the path of pain? Is it necessary?

And at worship, I bow my head and say, God, why? Give me strength to do Your will... Am I suffering for nothing? Does it even matter?

And they sing.

This is my desire: to honour You

And later it comes, a song I sang while leading Chapel in school: Into Your hands, I commit again, with all I am, for You Lord. 

It tells me that it doesn't matter whether or not God would have given me all the same blessings had I taken the other, less painful route. What matters is that I made the choice because I made my fear of God a priority, and that is a worthy sacrifice, and it's my thought process - how I arrived at this decision - that God sees. 

Literature and the Liberal Arts

Q: I'm having a real hard time deciding what course to do in University; it seems as if I can never make up my mind over what I want to do as an occupation. My interests are very similar to yours, so I was wondering if you could give me some advice?

You know what I'll say. Liberal arts!

I was very bent on going to the UK to do a Literature / Creative Writing degree, but after a while I realised that writing is not as much about learning how to write as it is about ideas. And ideas come from everywhere, every single discipline, every issue in the world. In the UK I'd have spent three years on Literature, and pretty much only that. I mean, there'd be the chance to take other modules, but not as much as I'd have liked. I don't think it would inspire me as much as studying a whole range of disciplines and issues would. The thing I love about the liberal arts program is that they teach you to view something through multiple lenses - not just that of a writer but also through that of a historian, economist, chemist, philosopher, psychologist, whatever! The liberal arts introduces you to a range of issues and teach you to view them in different ways, analyse them from every angle.

And then, when you've been exposed to the various disciplines, you draw links between them, because in today's world, no discipline stands alone. With these links formed, you then focus on your major, and then your major becomes more than just one discipline. It's everything.

Literature, to me, is not a discipline. It's a whole range of world issues. Studying Literature means studying how people write about different issues and portray the human condition. You can learn how to write by looking at how other people do that, but not without taking a journey through the root of their inspiration, the issues themselves.

So if you're looking to study Literature, go for the liberal arts. Learn about Africa's history, or genetics, or Confucian ethics, so that when you pick up a novel that happens to address issues like the slave trade or genentic testing on fetuses or Chinese family values, it means so much more to you.

The best part is, I have no idea what career I'll venture into in the future, too. Right now, I think I'll probably work with an NGO. But with a liberal arts education, does it matter? You have the ability to connect ideas and disciplines; analytical skills and critical thinking skills are useful for any profession; most importantly, anything can be learnt. If you feel like going into medicine or law or something else that's very specialised after that, you'll do a postgraduate, but what you gain in the liberal arts will always stay relevant.

Random lookback

Freaking can't stand the crap I write. It's so bad. T_T

English Language & Linguistics tuition!

Okay guys I know my blog hasn't been properly updated for too long. I've yet to summarise my UK trip, talk about Australia, and everything else. Here's a short post.

I'm currently giving ELL lessons to two students: a home-schooled girl and an army guy. Enjoying it a lot. I love ELL. ELL tuition is really hard to come by 'cos it's such a new subject and those who are willing to teach it are mostly currently teachers who will probably charge you too much.

So. If anyone ever wants ELL lessons... contact me! I wasn't actually good at ELL in school until the last bit of J2, so I'm not one to contact if you're already doing it in school and just need an extra boost to make sure you get that A. But if you happen to be a home-schooled student or if you're retaking the 'A's as a private candidate and all, I'll be more than happy to help!

The easy way out

My flesh and my heart fail,
but God is the strength of my heart 
and my portion forever.

My grandmother told me about my aunt who had a terrible relationship with her mother-in-law right up till the death of the latter. My aunt was a Christian and had influenced her husband, and the husband's family hated that. Don't get baptised, said my grandmother. That way, if your husband was a Taoist or something, you could just convert, and you wouldn't land yourself in the same fate as your aunt.

The best thing to be, my grandmother said, was a free-thinker. That way, you could attend any religious festival. You could eat at a church or at a temple. You could pay your respects at a funeral with joss sticks or a prayer. So much easier, no conflict.


Faith was never the easy road. That's why it's worth anything at all - you believe in a God who loves you, and you want to spend your life loving Him, too. It's a high price to pay, but it's not about convenience. It's not about me and what's best for me. I'm no longer myself, I no longer live; Christ has taken my place in my life. It's about Him.

---

I said, well, why not? And he said I don't want you to take this road just because it's the easier one.

I made a difficult decision today. I decided not to take the easy way out. My life shouldn't be about me. I want He who is in me; I want to be His broken vessel.

I made a tough decision, and I hope I successfully stick through it, stay true to myself. I could have said yes and had a good time. It was so easy. So easy to linger in the comfort of limbo, or to make a convenient choice.

At worship today, I bowed my head and said God, I did this because I want to put You first. Won't You acknowledge it? Won't You come and be here with me? Is it worth it? Worth You?
And then the eleven-year-old sang:

I have a hope so sure; an anchor for my soul 
My peace in the worst of times, I trust in God alone 
Let every voice declare it now

My God reigns; His love will never fail me 
My God reigns; He's ruling over all 
In all my life, in every situation I know
My God is greater; my God is over all

Look into an old person's eyes.

You are cowering against the wall, enduring hunger pangs and gun shots. You are watching your siblings die in the hands of a faceless Japanese.

You are mourning over your hero of a father, but you must stay silent.

You will suffer, you will toil, to make sure your own future children will have a good life.

You're a timid mouse on the streets that reek of brutality. You hurry past a soldier. A blow. A stream of shouts across your head: you forgot to bow. You feel the flash of fear, real fear, where you don't know if you'll live another day.

Peace is nothing but a faraway dream; one they say you must forget. You force yourself to take these grains of nothing and create your own courage now, all by yourself, because the world always tramples what you live for.

You watch the smoke clear and a small, rebellious spark in your heart hopes that hell just might be passing over, even if only for a day.

And you realise, in the blink of an eye, that the poverty and simplicity you've always known have disappeared; this island has been scrubbed clean of its bloodstains, like none of it ever happened. Spick and span, gleaming with skyscrapers and technology, university degrees are given out like food rations; children are whining about not getting the latest video games. Your own kids have left you to lead a better life, just like you've dreamt for them.

But the Singapore you know is an old, old lady, a friend you haven't forgotten; her veins bleed stories of suffering and tears. The younger ones don't get it, they don't care. They don't see this old friend of yours; they see her immaculate makeover, complete with botox, whitening and spotless glamour. History is little more than banana notes and torture tales. Oh, how much you want them to know. You try so hard, but you can't do more than relate excruciating memories that live in your head as vividly as yesterday, at a family gathering around the dinner table. They don't bat an eyelid because the stories are too dramatic to be relatable. Too much to seem real.

You never thought you'd hit eighty, you never thought you'd be one of the tired ones. You feel it with every day. Your pace is slower, heavier. Your pauses are longer. Your voice is feebler. You are but a speck slowly disappearing into the wind, and the stories will be gone forever.

Quick update

Hey everyone! Was going to do a post about the UK but haven't found the time. It's been great meeting the Yale-NUS people again - movie on Saturday, baking on Sunday and work with the awesome interns on the weekdays. Also had a great time in church :) Will be going off to Australia to visit my dad who's finishing up his master's! SEE YOU

Wainbody Wood: The Search for Beauty

(long overdue post!)

7 Nov / Day 24 / Coventry

Yesterday I walked around Tocil Wood in the University of Warwick where I'm staying (with Jaslyn), and walked and walked and ended up at the math building and walked on beyond Heronbank to some farmy area outside the university where there was no one around to see me fall in mud. Yes, I was wearing my suede boots, the only pair of footwear I brought with me beyond London. Today I'm still determined to check out the woods, although equally as determined not to fall. I set out in the same pair of boots - they're already muddified, anyway - and walk through Tocil Wood this time, out of the University again. I have to get back by noon to go with Jaslyn and her friends to Birmingham.

By the time I'm out of the University, it's already past ten. I see a Wainbody Wood on Google Maps that's really big, so I head towards it. I don't expect it to be such a long walk.

Tight on time and aware that I'll be taking the same amount of time to get back, the walk down this endless road seems to take forever. The blue dot on Google Maps never seems to touch the woods. Then finally, Maps says I should cross the road and turn into a smaller lane.

I'm really anxious about the time now - it's eleven and I haven't even entered the woods yet! - so I take the first entrance that I see (first picture). It's lovely and woody, and I'm excited, but after a while the path gets too muddy for my noob boots. But I really want to continue...it looks so pretty up ahead... I don't want to turn back when this path looks like it's going to get really pretty...

I hear the tinkling of bells before a bunch of dogs appear, followed by a friendly woman who tells me I should go back to the small lane and walk a little further, to a different entrance that will lead me to a less muddy path. Reluctantly, I turn back, abandoning the beauty of the forest that seems to lie just ahead. If only I could walk a little further down this path.

I find what seems to be the main entrance. It's very pretty, trees and leaves all around, and every now and then when I take my eyes off the mud on the ground (very cautious about falling now!), I think, wow, look at what lies ahead! It seems to be a nice clearing / nice stream / nice dense area / nice leafy ground / group of pretty trees up ahead! I've got to get there!

And every time I reach 'that point in the distance' I realise I'm not in some nice clearing or in any area that's any prettier than where I was before, but then I see another point in the distance and think HEY it looks like something pretty lies ahead! and set off again. 

Thing is, I never reach a nice clearing or stream or any point of breathtaking beauty, any point that's any prettier than the other, before it's time to head back. Now, I realise that I kept thinking that there was a more beautiful area up ahead. Did I appreciate the beauty of wherever I was at those points in time? I was on a constant search for beauty without realising I was already in the midst of it.

The most important thing, then, was that I treasured each moment of being in the woods, taking in the beauty of every second. I hope I didn't neglect the beauty of the present in my pursuit of greater beauty that lay ahead. The future was no more beautiful than that present. Each second was equally beautiful. 

You know, you always hear people say "I just have to get through these few months, and then I'm out of here". We perpetually see ourselves as stuck in a crappy situation, when the good stuff lies just ahead. All we need to do is grit our teeth and get through this tough period, and then forget about it forever.

But that way, we'll never find true happiness. Truth is, every stage of our lives contains an obstacle, whether it's the exams or the army or university insanity or idling around having nothing to do with life. Or the stress of the workplace and the politics, or annoying kids that demand attention 24/7, or a marriage on the rocks. If we keep adopting the same mentality, we'll zoom through life never having found happiness. We'll be lying on our deathbeds thinking, what happened to the life I was supposed to have, what happened to the good times I promised I'd get to?

It might not be the most ideal of situations, but treasure every second of the experience. If it's a bad one, we'll learn from it, and someday we'll look back and laugh at the days we allowed ourselves to fall. If you're in the middle of doing pushups for an hour straight in the sun with a heartless guy a year older than you breathing down your neck, someday you'll look back at the memory and admire your tenacity. You'll bask in the glory of the suffering. If you're on your bed crying and wondering if you'll ever get over that asshole, one day you'll look back at your younger days with a melancholic fondness. You'll look back at the strength you managed to muster and say you did well.

Stop yourself from time to time and ask if you're treasuring the present. If you aren't, change your attitude, or change the situation. The future isn't going to be any more beautiful than the present; all we have to do is remember to look up from the mud ever so often.

Friends in the worst of times?

It isn't that hard to find a friend to hold you up when you're at the lowest of times. If you're in the darkest of moments, those around you would be concerned; they wouldn't want you to land yourself in anything stupid, and they'd be concerned, they'd give you a hug, listen to you cry.

But that's just the deepest point in a valley. It's dramatic and people don't want you to die, so they'd feel obligated to be there for you. Those who show up during the hardest of times are definitely true pals, but don't forget the ones who notice and are there with you in the points leading up to the lowest, darkest moment, as well as those who bother to follow through that, who are there with you in the weeks you spend climbing out.

There are those who sense that something isn't right before you hit the bottom, who bother listening to your whines the whole long way down. Weiliang, for example, listened to my emo rants for a whole year before the real hurt arrived, at all the points leading up to the pit.

And there are those those who keep on checking if you're okay after that period of deepest darkness, making sure you don't fall back in. Alex was also prominently there for me at my lowest point, and he also saw me through every day of my upward crawl, sending me lovely quotes and great encouragements every single day for weeks leading up to the A's, making sure I was doing fine.

Those who are there for us before and after the worst of times are those we often forget to be grateful for. They're the ones who know we're not doing all that badly yet, but still make the effort to help us feel better. They're truly selfless, too.

Day 5 and I'm stranded

After lunch, Aunty Sian drops me off at the train station to try and get a refund for my ticket (to no avail). And then I'm off on my own, map in hand, determined to check out at least two museums.

I stray into a clothes store.

Forty-five minutes fly by and I'm still trying to convince myself not to get the beautiful Christmas cards. (Will have to sell some away, just a heads-up, they're REALLY PRETTY) I instantly fall in love with a wallet. And then it's drizzling outside, so I hop in and out of shops - from Next to River Island to Fatface. And then I'm like shucks it's almost four-thirty I need to get to the museums before they close!!! And then Mum reminds me that I'm supposed to Skype her, so I spend another twenty minutes in Starbucks. And then half an hour in Boots trying to decide on which face moisturiser to get. And WAIT TWELVE POUNDS FOR BURBERRY WEEKEND?! I spray it on my wrist and love it, and fall into the buy-or-not-buy dilemma again. And then I decide that I really need to get to the Ashmolean Museum.

I spend about forty-five minutes there and cover the basement. Gotta go back there soon. And then it's almost 6pm so I decide to head to Castle Street where I'm supposed to take the bus back to the vineyard.

- Okay, actual rant about interesting experience starts here -

So the bus arrives at 6.15pm - strange, the electronic guide said it was supposed to arrive in 24 minutes -  but I decide not to take it because I'll arrive at the bus stop before Aunty Sian and Uncle Richard get home, so they won't be able to pick me up from the bus stop, and in the dark, I'd rather wait at a lit, crowded bus stop near the city centre than at a completely unlit, deserted bus stop in the countryside.

A kind girl directs me to the bus timings schedule, and it turns out that the bus is scheduled to arrive at 5.50pm, 6.20pm and 7.20pm. So the bus that I deliberately missed was probably the 6.20 bus, and now I have to wait till 7.20. Argh!

I wait at the bus stop for another fifteen minutes looking at the electronic guide to see if they'll tell me when exactly the next bus will arrive, but my bus number never appears on the screen. At about 6.40 I give up and assume that the next bus will arrive at 7.20, so I make my way to a nearby restaurant to get a £5 burger meal -

WAIT THAT'S MY BUS

I say "shit" out loud and walk back towards the bus stop (for what?) and wonder what bus that was - the actual 6.20 bus, or the 7.20 bus, the last one. I stay at the bus stop and stare at the screen for fifteen long minutes (that's sixty seconds times fifteen of standing there craning my neck, mind you), hoping that my bus number will appear on the screen - if it doesn't, that might have been the last bus of the day.

Okay, okay, calm down now. Sniff your wrist. It smells so pretty. Gotta get that Burberry perfume.

Finally, at about 6.55, my bus number appears on the screen! It says it's arriving in 27 minutes - someone near me exclaims "twenty-seven minutes?!" - but I don't know how reliable that is since the count was 24 minutes off just now, so I decide to just sit there and wait until it arrives, so that I don't miss it again.

It's cold now, and the sky is dark. The crowd at the bus stop has now been reduced to two, including me. All my Whatsapp conversations have stopped - it's sleep-time in Singapore. Battery's low, so I switch off my 3G. Cut off. Now, I think, this is the kind of scene that is supposed to fuel some emo blog post - memories are supposed to be flooding me and I'm supposed to be all gloomy and wistful now - but there's not a hint of any of that. I'm cold and I need my bus to arrive. I look at the bar nearby and wonder if I should risk going in and grabbing a bite, so I wait for my bus number to pop up on the screen again, just to be sure.

After forever, the screen displays my bus number again. 19 minutes. That gives me until about 7.15pm. I go into that bar and check out their food and the burger meal's also £5, so I order one and ask if I can do a takeaway. "No, we don't do takeaways... The burger takes about ten minutes to make..." I'm like ARGH NO SERIOUSLY and my phone says 7.07pm so I say ah nevermind and rush back out. And the screen says 14 minutes more -.-

Cold, cold, where's my bus, and then FINALLY it says the bus is "due"! I'm so relieved that I even take a photo of it.

And I wait, and wait, and wait, and the bus doesn't arrive for at least another five minutes. Finally it comes and I get on. One stop later, these men get on and one of them goes, "So I was waiting for the 6.20 bus and I missed one that came at 6.15, and then I tried to get the timings for the next one but the system wasn't responding, so I walked into (eating place) and then I saw the bus go right past me! So I had to wait an hour for this bus!" I turned around and said that it happened to me, too. "Yeah, what a donkey, ey. Hate it," he said in that English accent.

I almost miss my stop at the countryside - everything's totally dark outside so I really wouldn't have known where to get off if I had not walked to the front and asked. When I get off, it's a starless, moonless sky, and the only lights come from the red traffic lights and the small Shell station sign (not the station itself) a distance away. I turn on my iPhone flashlight so that I can see where I'm walking. My breath makes that fog thing. I'm shivering. I'm carrying my coat, but I can't stop and put down my stuff and put it on when it's almost pitch dark. Being cold while your coat's draped over your arm - it's like thirsting to death in a boat in the middle of the sea.

As I'm heading towards the petrol station (where there's light), I hear someone call out to me. It's Uncle Richard! I cross the street and make my way to him. I'm all shivering and jittery in the car.

"So how was it?"
"Man, that was... an experience."
"A bad one?"
"An interesting one."

Reflections on what Christianity means

This will be a quick one, because lunch's coming soon.

A few months ago someone asked me why I was a Christian and how different my outlook on life would be without God. For me, knowing that there was something bigger than this life was so important because things weren't an end in itself. I mean, we dream to impact people and change lives, leave a mark when we pass away, but these people we impact will pass away too, and there are six billion people in the world right now, and if once you die everything about you vanishes with a poof and everybody else vanishes with a poof and the whole world will one day die away, then what's the point of this endless cycle of creation to death? Basically, God gave me meaning in life - life here is merely a preparation for an eternity with Him. It doesn't matter if I'm a law student who dropped out in my final semester or a kid who never does well academically or a businessman who loses everything overnight. What is success but transient? Bigger things await, and the key is in how you take what God has given you to glorify Him, whether success or failure, big or small.

I saw it as a selfish reason, though - my relationship with God was something I needed to have meaning in life. What if I was just holding on to a piece of philosophy because I found comfort in it? What was the point?

Right now, when I question myself again, I realise I've had another way of looking at this for quite some time. Right now, God, to me, very obviously exists. I just can't deny it. Whether it's the God of the Christians or Muslims or Jews, it's a higher power in control, one that created everything and whom I can feel. Being  a Christian, to me, doesn't simply mean acknowledging that God exists and believing in Jesus; it means wanting to have a relationship with this God. You could acknowledge that God exists and yet not be a Christian; believing doesn't mean wanting to take the time to cultivate a relationship. As a human being, as something with life, love, compassion and goodness wired into me - along with the capacity to sin and areas where I fall drastically short, I am a testimony of God's work. As a body with life - not just a mass of cells - I am proof that God exists. Being a Christian just means I want to be with Him.

UK Day 1: Oxford

We're in London! And as I look down at the mass of buildings I think, there are so many people. How can there be so many buildings in one city? How many business, families, schools, just so many people and this is just one city -
And think, every single one of them knows Justin Bieber.

I mean, Michael Jackson, sure, practically the entire world knows him, and he was a legend. He deserved it. But Bieber? It's just...not right.

I walk out of the airport and realise I haven't cut off the Espirit label on my jacket.

I narrowly miss the bus to Oxford twice, so I'm stuck here for an hour. I step outside just to get cold. Lovely weather! Okay, it's getting bit too cold... why did I get an iced drink? Noob Singaporean. Well, good, cold is good! Treasure every biting second! Finally away from the Singapore heat!

Low brick walls, the cold, pigeons indoors, "Do not feed the birds" signs... this is it! I'm here!

At Gloucester Green, Oxford, Aunty Sian and I wait for each other for more than an hour - a misunderstanding about the cafe at which we were supposed to meet. 

In the car, Zoe and her friend sing along to We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, and Sasha has Mean on repeat in her room - I immediately need to Whatsapp the Taylor Swift fanboys Dylan and Jackie (CRAP I just realised that sounds like "Divian and Jacqui" :OOOO); how much they'd love it here!

Their house is lovely, and the girls are so friendly, open and genuine. Zoe warmed up to me really quickly, and made an effort to be friendly. The family is so close and loving, it's really nice just to be here with them. The girls are lovely and loveable, and as they have their funny chats with their dad, it isn't hard to see how a father will lay down his life to protect his children.

Old posts

Okay y'all, my old blog posts make me cringe. It's just that I can't hide a whole chunk at once - I'll have to click 'Save as Draft' for each individual post, and it'll take too long. Just... don't bring up my old posts to me and then laugh at me for being so dumb when I was younger. Dude I was fourteen. I was entitled to be dumb.

On a happier note, I'm going to the UK today!!! I'll be there for a month, and I'll be going to Oxford, central London, Edinburgh, Warwick and Barnet. Really excited, but I'm so unprepared - if I have the time, I'll do a post later about my Yale-NUS journey so far, something I've wanted to do for quite a while.

I love lazy Sunday mornings (where I don't have to wake up early to give tuition).

We can be heroes / Just for one day

The Perks of Being a Wallflower:

"Why do nice people choose the wrong people to date?"
"They accept the love they think they deserve."

"Why can't you save anybody?"

You know how sometimes you come across an old friend's Facebook status or Twitter feed and you realise she's going through crap and you know exactly, exactly how she feels, but you can't just text her because it'd be weird since you haven't talked to her in forever? Or how you might overhear a conversation and you feel like the stranger's words are your very own, and your heart really hurts for hers, but it'd just be weird to go up to her and say something? Or how you feel so much for a friend, and you want to give him a hug, but you don't want him to take things the wrong way?

I hate standing by watching and not being able to do anything to soothe the pain, because we all know how hurt feels; we all can relate to it, and we know that what we all need is a little bit of love. I've been so fortunate to be blessed with so many friends who are there when I fall. And I'm okay with being really sad. I know I can take it; I'll just write and cry and whine a little and tomorrow things will be okay. But I hate it when others are sad, perhaps because I blow up their emotions in my mind since I feel so intensely, and especially when there's nothing I can do to take away the pain. Or when someone's on the road to disaster at full speed and all you can do is watch. They won't listen; they don't want to.

We can't save anybody. We all need to crash into walls ourselves.

When I write, sometimes I hope that a broken heart finds this blog and realises that she's not alone in feeling that way, that I speak to her soul, and that I can bring her out of her pain. A few strangers, acquaintances and friends-of-friends have emailed me before to say that they came across my blog and I helped them emotionally in some way. That's when I remember my dream: to speak to hearts like a close friend, and let people know that I share their pain, to bring them out of it.

Sucks that I've been blogging too much emo crap that doesn't really help anyone. Just gets people bored of reading this blog.

So this is to anyone. If you've got a hurt, you know that I will empathise. If you're willing to open up to me, I will listen. Just a disclaimer, though, that I might feel very intensely for your situation, and I just might feel inspired to do a blog post about it. And you must accept my hug.

Train wreck

But love is not a victory march 
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

I'm sorry. I made a promise to a friend that the next post would be a happy one, but I keep putting them off and pain can't wait.

 There are some things that are doomed right from the start, like a train doomed to wreck. We all see it coming, but some stay at the platform and let it pass by, while some decide to hop on. Maybe we love the brilliant tragedy.

 I don't know what this is, but my hands are trembling. I'm taking deep breaths. I really feel like throwing up. I need to cry. I knew what I was doing. I built myself that train and took the front seat. Why? I didn't have to deliberately head for the wreck. I took the front seat and went full speed toward the wall.

 What is this, the deep breaths, the trembling, the nausea? I need to get off. I need a field. I need a hug and a cry.


Come on skinny love, just last the year 
Pour a little salt, we were never here 
Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer 

I tell my love to wreck it all 
Cut out all the ropes and let me fall 
Right in the moment this order's tall 

Aren't these the moments we live for

You should have kissed me
I was right on the edge and ready to fall

Forced distance

Ever felt like you had to force yourself to numb over, go cold, because if you relaxed your grip on yourself you'd start flying again, and you couldn't afford that kind of pain anymore, you couldn't afford to feel that raging fire of life?


"Just leave me alone," she cries. "It's what you want anyway."

"If you're going to put words in my mouth, then I'm going to put some in yours," I say. "I know what you're doing, and I know why you're doing it. I realise you're mad."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Lucy mutters.

"But you're not mad at me, You're mad at yourself. Because against all odds, in spite of the fact that you were so damn sure that you would hate working with me and coming to music therapy sessions, they started to work. And you like coming." I put the ukulele down on a desk beside me and stare at Lucy. "You like being around me."

She glances up, her face so raw and open that, for a moment, I forget what I was saying.

"So what do you do? You sabotage the therapeutic relationship we've built, because that way, you get to tell yourself you were right. That this is a load of bullshit. That it would never work. It doesn't matter how you do it or what you tell yourself is the reason we're in a fight. You ruin the one good thing you've got going because if you ruin it, then you don't have to deal with being disappointed later on."

Lucy stands abruptly. Her fists are clenched at her sides, and her mouth is a livid red slash. "Why can't you just take a hint? Why are you still here?"

"Because there's nothing you can do or say or any way you can act that will drive me away, Lucy. I am not leaving you."

She freezes. "Never?" The word is like tempered glass, broken and full of beauty.

I know how hard it is for her to lay herself bare, to expose the soft center under that hard shell. So I promise. I'm not surprised when the tears come, when she collapses against me. I do what anyone else would do, in that situation: I hold Lucy until she can hold herself.

- Sing You Home (Jodi Picoult)

Pour a little salt, we were never here

Emotions are measured by the level of energy in your voice, and by how difficult it is to smile. You don't feel like doing anything. You don't want to try to describe it because no words can suffice, and it'll just come out sounding stupid and inadequate. You'll let the songs do the talking for you. You'll just sit in the sunshine, feel the outside air take the million tiny specks of your burden far far away, take away the suffocation of a closed room.

You chance upon a glittering speck on the floor, and you find yourself smiling 

shit

that was the last straw