Update 29/10

Attention all jymers! this sun i will be bringing 2 friends to jym. they are coming to observe the church and the activities (and also interview pastor henry) as part of a cultural diversity project. they are both non christians, so try to give them a good impression of the church, and of our faith wherever possible. first impression very important! put on a show if need be. haha.

as for me, i went with a catholic to a guanyin temple at bugis... asked the person at the counter (giving out those lots and lips) all the questions we needed to know about. and then before we left, he gave us an angbao, in it was a piece of paper with printed words and symbols, supposed to be a good luck charm. i kept it as a nice souvenir.

then i went home and opened it up, and just for fun, went to ask my mom about it. little did i expect that she had such a strong reaction to it and advised me to throw it away... she actually believed that it could have been prayed upon and therefore have spiritual elements that could disturb our home... well i certainly doubted so, especially since its printed and produced in mass, and not hand written. but after thinking about it, i decided to throw it away. not ebcause of that spiritual thing, but because it could stumble me, like what if suddenly i get alot of good luck, then when it gets lost i lose my good luck too? then i would be led into believeing it. so yeah, into the bin it went.

i was really tempted to test it out, leave it in my room and see if anything funny comes about. but then i would be challenging the spirits (if there was) and i wouldnt know what the consequences would be. so in the end i tried something else - i said a prayer over it in Jesus' name, to neutralise any spiritual powers that it may have. now it would be just a piece of art to keep as a souvenir.

i also made a donation of 40cents to the temple coffers just out of goodwill. after that i kinda regretted it... it shows that im supporting their religion and contributing to the extension of their kingdom. lucky nobody there knows im actually a christian.

A lvls starting real soon, and Just another 2 weeks before O lvls are over, after that everyones gonna be free and easy and partying away. for most ppl holidays alr started. i know some unfortunate ppl still cant get their rest in the holidays, but still. and then here am i starting my school term just after many has ended theirs for the year. while i had my holidays, everyone was so busy. now when they are enjoying, i am busy. and it just must be that the church camp falls on my test week! poly schedule can be so detestable many a times. But thank God the short holiday starts just in time for me to go for the mission trip. give and take.

im already starting to get choked and deprived of time even at the first few weeks of the term. ccas have stepped up on activities, random workshops being held, and i had to act tough and sign up for sports elective and some weekly workshop starting in jan... that would mean that evryday has activities after school, and its not ending very early... leaving me with that little bit of time in which i have to do my projects and tutorials, and when tests come, studies. oh great, i have to somehow create time to meet the demand.

if its gonna be so bad this term, it would only be worse next term, when the bigger projects pour in simultaneously... followed by semestral exams at the end. history repeats itself and manifests tragedy even further.

Challenge of faith

while hanging with my classmates during break time, i dunno how it started, but suddenly they started talking about religion. i was the only chrisitan at the table, the rest being free thinkers and 2 catholics. it first came to the rituals and practices of some religions, especially catholics. and so this catholic guy, who obviously wasnt very loyal to his faith, started telling of catholic beliefs/practices in a rather ridiculing manner, and from there it flowed into christianity, since they have lots similar.

So he said, "according to the bible, God had to send his son Jesus, who is also himself (which makes it very complicated alr), to die. and somehow, He had to do this in order that humanity be saved." his point was more about why God couldnt just take away the sins without the birth and death of Jesus which all seems like just a ritual, since in the end Jesus is back to the same position. its been sth ive been having doubts about too. i could have said sth about the atoning sacrifice, in place of those animals which had to be used before Christ. but i replied with something else instead.

i said "people are not just saved automatically by Jesus' death. there still needs to be faith and relationship on their part."


then a freethinker girl, having chrisitan exposure from st margs, told me (not in exact words, but giving that impression) "see thats the thing about relationship with God. when i ask my christian friends, on what basis do you believe that God is real and that your actually praying to an existing, living god? they always cant prove it, except just by faith. its just like an 'i think therefore i am' kinda thing... when you pray to God, your actually just talking to yourself, to give yourself a self assurance and to sync out your thoughts and beliefs. and so this strengthens your resolve to think and act in a certain way, and when you actually do get the results, you say its God's work when actually its just all your own doing... "

"the powerful thing about religion is that its based completely on faith. so it is able to influence people into believeing almost anyhting. its like 'i believe pigs can fly, because my mommy told me so. why is this so? because i just believe it is'. "
referring to some religion that believes you have to do a sort of yoga to get rid of some alien spirits in you that are causing all the negative emotions and behaviours like anger, anxiety,etc (of which the whole thing was inspired by a creative storybook..) he said, "for all you know the bible could have been just another storybook written by other imaginative writers too (and youre led into believeing it)"
"its written by many authors over many centuries, and all harmonised together.." i said
"many story writers over many centuries, then" was his reply. =.=

and this is the defence, or offense, whichever the case, that can be used against whatever proof i could give to why God and the spirit is real and active. just one word - Coincidence. Truly, there is no solid undeniable proof of the existence of God. there is no way you can prove someone wrong who thinks that everyhing that seems like God's work are just coincidences and freak accidents. i could tell of whatever God has done for me. no matter how much i believe God's hand was in it, i know ill wont be able to convince them so.

when i think about the theory of coincidences, combined with what the girl said about praying to yourself, i just cant help but feel uneasy about it. it is the unease on the fact that they still stand unrefuted. of course i still sincerely believe in God and His plans all these time, but i can feel my faith significantly shaken by these; the stength of my belief has weakened. This kind of things are what Satan would want us christians to hear and take consideration of...

I pray that the Lord would guard our hearts and minds, for me and anyone else who may be swayed by such doubts.

A new start, a new hope

I have been dreading going to school again for the past week. spells the start of a whole semester of more torture. from the way it seems and should be, each preceding semester should only get harder. i just set my mind to go through with it anyway, hoping the expereince from past sem would have toughened me to tide through this sem without feeling so much torment.


today is the start of a whole new semester, and the first time going to school for lessons proper from springdale. and it turned out to be such an interesting day! not because very amusing events happened today, but because of new changes introduced, giving me glimpse of hope for a better semester and times ahead.


First of all, i didnt expect the results to be out so soon and to come at that time. just at the first lesson of the semester, the lecturer flashed the posting results.... I AM ACCEPTED TO DISNEY WORLD!!! yeahheh! i actually expected to anyway. and true enough they were so not stringent with recruitment criteria - everyone who applied from my cohort got accepted =.='

quite disappointing though was the position i was posted to - F&B. a lot of us didnt get our first or second choice either. i guess they put me there because of experience and since i indirectly consented also. but oh well, another opportunity to continue from where i left off. i now have a year to change my mind, if any dire need arise.


There was also another surprise... we now have a new classmate. a refreshing change to the class and its formations i known for the past 1.5 years. he brings hope of shaking the social formations and situations that have developed among the class, which has not been in my favour. well today when he came to join the class, everyone were already so stuck up in their own cliques and did not even make the effort to make this new guy welcome. only 1 or 2 others. so i was the first to start talking to him. he didnt give me a good first impression, but as i continued to talk i found he is actually a decent soul; a welcome edition to the class, especially for me. he did not transfer into the course halfway, but belonged to the pioneer batch and was just continuing after a year of deferment.


then came the first tutorial, which was also the last lesson for the day. and we were required to form groups already. and it seems that 3/4 of the class were all having conflicts within their project groups and strongly objected to staying in the previous sem groups. the new guy told me about all his group problems in his previous class. glad to know that its not just my group, and not just me. So we decided there was urgent need to form new arranged groups such that everyone will have a balance of happiness with the groupings.


so i end up in a group with 2 ppl i can relate to, 1 i am happy working with, but 2 who are known to be slackers or unable to produce quality work. they worry us, but i still think havign those 2 are better than having the other 2 in my last sem group, who are unreasonable, volatile and having attitude problems leading to soured relations between us. and i would rather enjoy my work and get slightly lower project grades because of them, then to put up with hostile group members.

i now have reason to believe things will get better this semester. Thanks be to God.

Whats this about?

I just realised after searching the lyrics, that it is quite a trend in almost all of Elton John's songs that there is a lot of symbolic phrases... very cheem ones. there is also roughly enough clues to identify the theme, but there would be some phrases that are also semingly really irrelevant to the theme. the songs are nice; good music and singing and the cheem lyrics may make it sound deep, but when it comes to finding meaning in the song... thats where its loses out.

heres 2 examples of songs from the album Love songs 1995 - 'Sacrifice' and 'Daniel'.

SACRIFICE
i figured out the theme to be about a troubled marriage in which infidelity comes in. bold words are those that are effective clues to the theme. red words are those that i really dont know what it means or refers to. green are those that seems irrelevant.

verse 1
It's a human sign
When things go wrong
When the scent of her lingers
And temptation's strong

Into the boundary
Of each married man
Sweet deceit comes calling
And negativity lands

Chorus
Cold cold heart
Hard done by you
Some things look better baby
Just passing through

And it's no sacrifice
Just a simple word
It's two hearts living
In two separate worlds
But it's no sacrifice
No sacrifice It's no sacrifice at all

verse 2
Mutual misunderstanding
After the fact
Sensitivity builds a prison
In the final act

We lose direction
No stone unturned
No tears to damn you
When jealousy burns

DANIEL
this one is quite clearly about a brother, or very close friend, going away for quite a long time. this time, the red ones dont make sense or dont link to the theme. green is just unnecessary.

Verse 1
Daniel is travelling tonight on a plane
I can see the red tail lights heading for spain
Oh and I can see Daniel waving goodbye
God it looks like Daniel must be the clouds in my eyes.


Verse 2
They say spain is pretty though Ive never been
Well daniel says its the best place that hes ever seen
Oh and he should know, hes been there enough
Lord I miss daniel, oh I miss him so much

Chorus
Daniel my brother you are older than me
Do you still feel the pain of the scars that wont heal
Your eyes have died but you see i
Daniel youre more than a star in the face of the sky


Daniel is travelling tonight on a plane
I can see the red tail lights heading for spain
Oh and I can see daniel waving goodbye
God it looks like daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes
Oh God it looks like daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes

anyone has good suggestions on what the red phrases could mean and refer to?

SP's library is a great source for my music library. in fact, most of my songs on the laptop are ripped off the borrowed album CDs. its so much more convenient than buying them at stores. its free, just located at my school, and returned after a week so the CDs doesnt clutter up space at home. also, i dont need to consider and analyse so much before getting the CD and wont regret if the songs are not nice - somehting that would be if i had to pay to get the CDs. the disadvantage though, is that i dont have access to the newer recently released albums. but songs are never obsolete.

borrowing and trying out albums from the library over the year has left me with a considerable collection of nice songs and good albums. its time i should list out some of the best ones. these albums are ranked based on how many favourite songs there are, and how much of the songs are at least nice to hear. not having many tracks i would to skip. also considering the overall 'niceness' of all the songs. as can be seen, my top albums come from a mix of different genres.

1. Love changes everything - sarah brightman
2. truly madly completely - savage garden
3. ultimate alabama - alabama
4. Pure - hayley westenra
5. Love songs 1995 - elton john
6. unbreakable - westlife
7. life in cartoon motion - mika
8. long road out of eden - the eagles
9. measure of a man - clay aiken
10. borrowed heaven - the corrs

Expiry date

Last night i went with my family to have my dad's birthday dinner. he decided to ask his parents along as we were going to a restaurant near their place. when my dad gave them a call at about 6, to remind them and inform them that hes coming now, my grandpa was kinda surprised and seemed like he never knew. they even eaten their dinner already. it was either that grandma forgot all about it and dint tell gp, or they both forgot. and dinner at 6?? its like their bio clock gone wrong.

In the past year or 2 i have observed my paternal grandparents deteriorating a lot. grandpa has hunched more, recently started to bald almost completely, leaving only some short white hairs. walking is also becoming more and more of a difficulty for him. grandma now suffers mild dementia, with the early symptoms of being easily forgeful and disoriented. so now gp has to rely on gm to move around, and gm has to rely on gp for information. and once this reliance wont work anymore, the only choice left is to place them in the care of others. i also read recently articles on dementia and the really dreadful effects of its later stages. i can only pray that grandma's wont develop to that state. i would rather she die of a sudden heart attack (touch wood) than to go through all the suffering which the whole family would share too.

they both look increasingly shrivelled with time.i cant tell and have no clue on how long they can cope, and how long more they can last. everyone has an expiry date, but it is never printed out for us. only God knows beforehand when the exact date is. but we are able to see from the signs and speculate.

Ageing is like a game of uno stacko. . as the game progresses, it will only get more and more unstable, and the signs of collapse more evident. but sometimes we play it well and though it looks like its gonna fall anytime, it still continues to stand. sometimes its built well so it can reach rather high without getting too shaky. or sometimes a careless mistake causes serious damage to the strucure or collapses it. but one thing is for sure, that it will eventually fall. and the shakier it gets, the greater the tension gets, and the more careful we are not to topple it. it can get quite agonising at the later parts, when the signs are so obvious but you dont know when its gonna collapse.

late life can be rather miserable. less abilities, more disabilities, every part of the body deteriorating; some faster than others, widening age gap between you and the new generations, getting more unfamiliar with the changing world, and worst of all, losing more and more of you peers until it becomes a desolate generation with only the young ones for company. i pity those old folks who have no young friends or relatives to visit them often.

today my grandfather was taken into hospital again. such a stubborn person. despite warnings from his relatives and doctors and knowing that his legs are weak, he still went out to NTUC this afternoon, ALONE. the result - he fell again and got a bump on his head. this the second time hes going to hospital because of a fall. he should at least go with grandma. that stubborn old man should at least think of those who may be affected if anything happens to him, if not for himself.