You know how it seems as though all forces of nature have come together to create that perfect picture – that one second when all comes together just right… just to show you how graceful the world is.

And in every single frozen expression and in every breath of air… therein trembles the signature of a Creator that cries out – “I am here! I’ve created this moment just for you… cuz I Love you…cuz I Love you…”

I realise my fascination with words… stems from the urgency to capture every single powerful emotion that wracks the inner core of my being – in exactness… To store these emotions in a way that I can later come back and comprehend… I rarely record events… cuz they mean less to me, than what I feel rite at that moment… and to cut out all the crap… that’s wat it really is… life lived in a whirlwind of emotions, driven by our desires, encapsulated by our sensual memories… the smell, the sound, the rays of sunlight at a particular time in day, hitting the world just the right way, recollects to mind a particular emotion – in a particular time.

Déjà vu?

And its something about how pictures capture a thousand words, and how words can capture a million emotions. Just a glimpse of another life, the jarring sense of undeniable longing to recapture that scene one more time.

And anything can trigger it… the smell of cologne, the cigarette smoke that lingers in their clothes, a smile, the way the sun glances of the snow, or the reflection on an icy stream, a hot cup of coffee, the shouts of little children in a different language, laughter, thunderstorms, music…

Yea, risking soundin morose – rite now, I miss those nite walks from Shu to Starbucks, cold crisp air that clear your head in an instance and the misty, incessant raining and raining that eventually you get used to. The dampness causing your pants to stick your skin, that dry just before you have to walk in the rain again. How the breeze always smells of the sea just as you reach the steps in the car park. How cold the rain makes your cheeks… and how the wind to sting them as it whips pass you… and your umbrella turns inside out. Yeps them useless things. The aroma of coffee and chocolate mingled with the sounds of pure jazz – curling up in those cushy red plush chairs with my diary and mp3 player, all warm and snug … thinking… you know the pleasure you get being in the midst of everyone, yet being all alone. Peppermint mocha… che amore.

Rain, rain - cuddle... sigh

“Not much for conversation, I still find need to pray.
Sometimes I get tired of walking through these ordinary days.
If nothing else I get to see you even if we never speak.
The harm of words is sometimes we don't quite know what they really mean.

I don't know where, I don't know how.
I don't know why, but your love can make these things better.

Let me lay down in this field and stare up at the sky.
I hope the days and clouds turn into something as they pass us by.
And maybe you could settle for a skyline faded blue.
I hope that you might settle for this love I have for you.

I don't know where, I don't know how.
I don't know why, but your love can make these things better.

I don't know where, I don't know how.
I don't know why, but your love can make these things better. “ – Jars of Clay

(Pictures Acknowledgement: National Geographic)

(A deviation by =raun)

   -- from "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway

the ice is thin enough for walkin'
the rope is worn enough to climb
throat is dry enough for talkin'
world is crumblin', but i know why
world is crumblin', but i know why

storm is wild enough for sailing
bridge is weak enough to cross
this body frail enough for fighting
i'm home enough to know i'm lost
home enough to know i'm lost

Chorus:
it's just enough to be strong
in the broken places, in the broken places
it's just enough to be strong
should the world rely on faith tonight

land unfit enough for planting
barren enough to conceive
poor enough to gain the treasure
enough a cynic to believe
enough a cynic to believe

[CHORUS]

confused enough to know direction
sun eclipsed enough to shine
be still enough to finally tremble
see enough to know i'm blind
see enough to know i'm blind

[CHORUS x 2]

should the world rely on faith tonight
should the world rely on faith tonight
tonight
tonight
tonight
tonight
tonight

                    - Jars of Clay



(Picture Acknowledgement: A deviation by `mnoo)

The brutality of being confounded by the very image of yourself strikingly drawn in clear relief… words which echoes painfully in your heart… calling recognition… asserting clan-hood and kinship… the understanding of souls…

Can one’s soul be torn between to halves? Can recognition resemble many forms and take many shapes? Can friendship emerge between the obvious offsetting of the path of “more-than-that”… who is to say? Can reconciliation between heart and mind – clear the hurdle of God-sanctioned love? And who is to say?

Will there be neon-signs? Or love… like a runaway train… never going back… pull you down the one-way track? Has passion and lust blinded the way of love? Pure sweet love…

Or like chains we are bound by the frustration of brokenness and despair… hating the loneliness yet hiding behind its skirts, that we may not have to dare the frontier of pain and hurt. Hating the needing… yet needing the loving… afraid to commit, skirting the issue behind the mask of cordiality.

Cordiality – merely a façade that hides the pain and frustration… as I make it pass another meeting… another face… another conversation… it’s a bunch of laughs… but does it clear away the emptiness that lurks behind every giggle?

Waiting for The Sign. And sometimes... the path isn’t clear … and the waiting confounds the senses and you are distracted…

Ah and we pray for discernment… and wisdom… and patience and trust.

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”

May I truly seek and search for righteousness Father. That living in the world pressures us into self-reliance. But I will not budge from this place… ‘til your presence goes with me… for I will not lose You… to other things…

And to know.. the meek inherit the world… the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven… and those that mourn shall be comforted… but especially… that those who seek your righteousness… they shall be filled. May we be filled with Your peace… and be wholly filled in perfect fullness and satisfaction… Your will be done.

It’s weird being sick. It’s even kinda funny, since I never get sick… and I really don’t understand how my body isn’t responding the way I want it to… like yesterday…

Heh… I’m so disorientated and its even hard for me to walk from my room down the stairs… but since I had that 8 hour break in between classes, I decided to study downtown. I just kept getting colder and colder indoors, YH thought it was totally hot and that I was totally crazy… but agreed to move to an outdoor café. That was cold too –

Heck... but I did manage to finish my torts reading for this week… Deciding whether I would go for class… dizzy, cold… hmph my responses were unusually slow… and I needed to pee… so I meandered slowly to the washroom… Uh… and I guess I was concentrating so hard on getting into a cubicle without fallin on my face that I didn’t realise it… but when I unlocked the door and came I… I almost scared the hell out of a really stunned dude.

Oh yea… bad news… it took me quite a while to register… scared/shocked dude… oh my!... gents!!!... oh my urinals!! crap!!! Hehe… so I mumbled something… and washed my hands and walked out… hehe… the dude was so confused… he kept looking at me and the urinals – I think he figured he must have gotten into the wrong washroom.

Anyways… I haven’t had so much sleep in ages – and my mind is wide awake and I’m as chattery as a chipmunk on speed… but my body is crying out for more rest!! 11 HOURS of sleep… muahahaha… I feel lazy and luxurious.

I keep looking back at how I managed to walk back from Cold Storage Jelita to my place and I’m still speechless with amazement… I remember concentrating on putting feet before one another and singing all the way back… yes yes… mad… really – It was like climbing mount everest and when I arrived home that’s how I felt… muscles and all…

Nopes… I could not have made it to sch today… so I checked out this blog my friend sent me… he says I look like the author… which… hehe… don’t know whether to take in a flattering manner or not… but here it is.

My, my it’s interesting – and I thought I was egoistical… plus some of the comments really hehe… are very funny… and they really do touch… a part of me… no really – I really enjoyed the latest entry… since I actually recently wrote something very similar… its not up tho… shocking isn’t it … hehe – uh… not anything abt the being male part thankews.. nopes… I lurve being a girl… yea… uh anyways… I’ve been reading her entries and my mind’s really messed up now… oh… life, oxygen… (yea but its true abt bad boys anyways... )

Humility. God I need you to cleanse my mind – Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the world.

Hmmm…

(Picture Acknowledgement "The Way Out is THrough" - A deviation by *hbynoe )

"I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
- William Butler Yeats –

I guess that being a people-person has become a habit in itself…

That taking charge of situations and coordinating plans is merely secondary nature…

And sometimes I wonder… am I being presumptuous? Am I being bossy and rude?

When I play the game according to your rules, does it grit your nerves that the fight is fair?

When I disappoint your expectations – does it bother me more than you? Or am I merely hallucinating in my strive for perfection and eagerness to please? Are you even a little ticked off? Or do you already appreciate the effort I put into things… and I am being self-indulgent, wallowing in my need for human approval…

Haha...

I guess the entire week of playing by everybody’s rules and trying to break the ice, remember names that I can’t pronounce and giving up and giving in to merely remembering their countries… has drained the crap outta me… what with tutorial presentation… tutorial work… group events… cases… uwc conference… planning and meeting… organising day trips… remembering my Italian… coordinating last minute plans and carrying them out… Sunday sch class preparations… critic on my work…

I think I had just about as much people interaction that I could undertake in a week… yes…

While I like playing hostess and immersing myself in the myriad of different cultures … and enjoying the idealistic wondrous works that are even now being undertaken – to make the world a better place…

While I thank God for the like-minded group of law 1 students who have gathered to pray for each other and the faculty on Mondays…

And as well for VCF cell group on Tuesdays…

I think… (no actually I don’t … sigh… hehe… ) I shudder to face yet another group gathering – for a united purpose…

Yes… I need to be self-indulgent today… yeps… I apologise for that sounds selfish and stupid… but I really could not bring myself to go to the cell group meeting today… even tho I know I should have.

Instead… I went swimming.

And with the clear blue water over my head and sound of lapping waves in my ears, the water pressure caressing my arms and legs as finally the blood starts pumping into the main muscles… sun overhead… there is a silence.

No exercise for the longest time.

But in the cool, clear water… for a minute, I could pretend that I was 8 again – pretending to be a mermaid with my little sister. Haha… and in those indulgent moments… sigh… I realise with a sinking heart… nah…

I’d rather be a whale.

Haha…

Blue, blubbery, big and safe far away from civilisation – silently contemplating the meaning of the world in the midst of the watery flora and fauna of the underwater worlds…

Self-indulgent fantasy.. mmmhmpphh…

And then I got out of the water from my 25 laps… n almost fell on my face…

So much for exercise and fantasy .. blah blah.. haha

Blubbery whale.

And so now I’m happy and jovial and technically endorphin-filled…

I love the word “technically”… muahaha

And so I’ve retreated into myself... good times… good times…

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars."

And I feel great.

Haha...

I forgot how great it is to be understood. To be loved, for who you are... to be listened to by someone who truly wants to get to know you, because they respects you as an individual and knows they have something to learn from you.

And to feel exactly the same for that person... and truly, deeply respect them.

I forget that there are soooo many ppl out there that deserve my utmost respect... for what they do... for who they have become... for how they continually aspire to be better, to give more and to make more and more of a change.

I forget that there are ppl out there who not only are great, but are making a change in the world... one step at a time.

I forget to dream - I forget that I’m allowed to.

To go for it.

To naively feel that I can do something... without constantly berating myself of my lack of experience and my lack of connection... without fearing that I'll fail.

I'm glad I'm not dreaming alone.

And its ABSOLUTELY AMAZING to see Cristina, Toni, Dima, my prima, Anne and even Marc... because they understand... they understand that deep urge, that idealistic existence within us terribly spoilt young adults.

Spoilt by the chance of discovering ourselves and one another as individuals... not merely a product of our countries and cultures... but as people with 99% of the same DNA and all the same desires and need.

The need to be needed.

We all want to be needed... and so ... we serve...

And I deny it not... we serve because it makes us feel good to give... to love another person who needs it more than us... it makes you feel a useful... it makes you feel needed...

(seriously I’m rambling on... but my mind is bubbling over with the things I feel... and its no longer my mind that speaks... but my heart... yea I almost fell off my chair just shaking my head... haha... my fingers are powderful - they type tho the rest of my body has shut down)

Oh man... I’m so so glad I signed up for the UWC International Council... haha... I mean its really bloody flabbergastingly tiring - and taking 5 cabs today (hah withdraw money) running from NUS to UWCSEA again and again - so much so that the security guards know me by face and I don’t need to produce my security pass... no breathing time at all… ran from workshops to class and back… forget food and drink man… n washroom break… noooo…hehe… strong bladder ;)

I donch care... haha

Just one more time being in the presence of hugging/kissing spanish-speakers... or being hauled into the arms of an italian (albeit a very gorgeously aged female italian teacher) and being soundly kissed and hugged and clung onto... or the chance of being surrounded by soooo many different national costumes and watching 30 different national dances .... or eating food from those countries...

Its like coming home.

haha ironical isn't it?

But I find it so so comforting to be in a class of 50 people where after going half around the class giving our names and countries, i find we still haven’t repeated a single nationality yet... and after going a full round... we only have 4 Singaporeans...

:)

Singaporeans are cool. But when there are many of us... we're like... sheep. yes we are.

Man I’m really going to collapse soon…

K… so so blessed, so amazingly blessed :) Can’t wait for tomorrow :)

Miss UWC sooo much.

Al Castelo, Duino, 2004

Left to Right: Ada (Nigeria), me (Singapore), Cecilia (Uruguay), Telma (Portugal), Marion (France), Yuriko (Japan)

Love you guys so much...