Sarah Wong.

HWACHOOOONG

2012-02-07T19:32:00.003+08:00

Orientation for has been fun and draining all at once, I really thank God for my OG/CT and the fact that looking back I don't regret my first choice despite the culture shock and the initial feeling of being somewhere I don't belong, every day I understand a bit more why I'm here and I'm crazy excited for the next two years of my life :)

If I could

2012-02-02T21:48:00.008+08:00

If I could choose three things I would keep forever and never lose they would be: faith, the people I love and a sense of awe and wonder of the world, because these are the things that keep me going, differentiates every day from the last and makes me want to write.

Life as of now

2012-01-26T20:10:00.004+08:00

- results/JAE/ waiting for posting

- baking everything I possibly can before school starts

- reading all the cheap books I got from BKK/KL

- finished Project Runway Season 8 over CNY

- discovering strange genres of music I never knew existed

- wandering through town on weekday mornings

- drinking coffee as late as I want since I have nothing to sleep early for

- watching Les Miserables on DVD now (best musical of all time!!!)

In short, life is good :)

happy 2012

2012-01-03T10:53:00.003+08:00

It's 2012 and everything's new again, a new start to a new year with new opportunities, and it's all quite surreal because I always thought somehow I wouldn't make it past 2011 because I couldn't ever picture myself where I am right now. Is this the time when people are supposed to abandon their blogs/ all traces of their former life? Haha ok whatever I'll decide that when school starts. Anyway the past few weeks have been such a meaningful close to a meaningful year, I'm infinitely grateful to the people who gave the smallest amounts of their time/effort/words to me this year because I really felt the support (esp during Os) and love (esp during Christmas) and it really made my year :) HAPPY NEW YEAR be excited for the year ahead it's gonna be a good one!!

How long

2011-11-13T10:04:00.000+08:00

Nothing there is nothing yet in truest form
We walk like ghosts upon the earth
- The Fall, Gungor

OLVLS IN 24HRS

2011-10-23T17:19:00.003+08:00

Friday, January 28, 2011:
I think school has been quite nice so far. I like anything that I can't find anything to dislike about and it's been a pretty smooth-sailing couple of weeks. Okay maybe that's just me and the reality of how close O levels just hasn't really hit me yet.

ahhhh just hit me already

The most important thing

2011-10-19T15:27:00.002+08:00

I overheard a conversation that day, at mcdonalds with earphones plugged in without the music playing, between two adults sitting to my right. So the man tells the woman she has a habit of judging people too quickly. The woman gets a bit upset, denies it for a while, but then accepts the criticism. Seeing she is upset the man tries to comfort the woman and goes "It's okay you're just like that, you can't help it" which is about the worst attempt at comforting anyone ever. The woman gets a bit hysterical and she sounded like she was crying or maybe she was laughing in disbelief I couldn't tell. Then after a long silence she asks the man, "So what is the most important thing in life?" He doesn't answer. "Money?" No answer. Then it got a bit weird and they finished their coffee so they got up and left.

At first I was like whoa that was out of the blue but then I guess when a person starts examining himself/herself it opens his/her eyes to a lot of things. And they were really quite old looking, as working adults. So it got me thinking, do people really ask the same questions all their lives? It's such a scary thing.

It's as if everyone is walking on the same road, and every now and then people will pause for a minute, stop and wonder why they're even walking, and where they're headed. Then after a while they see everyone else walking, forget their questions and keep on walking, only to come to another stop a few years down the road, with the same questions unanswered.

Thinking these things probably because everyone's studying like mad now haha it's so very close to Os and I'm still not feeling the urgency, which is why I'm here blogging instead of doing chem which is bad so I should stop here.

Wow it's been a while

2011-09-27T22:33:00.003+08:00

Realised how long it's been since my last post and became a bit sad that I've lost the feeling of having my heart so full that words were effortless and necessary. Not overwhelmed by much nowadays, not even by stress which I wish I feel more of, except maybe an overwhelming appreciation for family. Wish I had more control over over my actions though, I dislike (not hate because it's too strong) the feeling of regretting saying something the moment I've said it, and the feeling of being too tired/weak to do the things I know I should do, to find myself and be her. Maybe it's just the feeling of feeling lousy haha but I'm pretty content right now actually just with having the future to look forward to. It's enough for now.

"if you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for?"

2011-08-20T13:18:00.004+08:00

Just finished reading Life of Pi since I now have the leisure of time to digest it* (oh yes prelims is over and it's too early to resume studying but not too early to feel guilty about wasting time) which I liked, it's been a while since I've read a good meaningful fiction novel. Okay but it's a bit long-drawn so if you have the patience to get through it I'd recommend it.

Whoa I have so much time right now I spend too much time trying to decide what to do. I could do anything! Bake! Cycle! Take three showers! I'm really not used to this freedom. Maybe I should make a list.

I feel so satisfied at this moment in time I can't even begin to describe it. It's the feeling that "there will always be more than enough"* and one of those times when I can't understand how I've ever been anything but happy. And I am so incredibly grateful for so many things right now, also the rain, which never fails to make me feel like everything is going to be alright.

*f451 reference I have come to believe it's one of most amazingly written books of all time haha is it not

7/12

2011-07-27T17:12:00.004+08:00

Been a while since I've talked about the goings on in general. It's a very happening time of the year, now. Can't believe we're past halfway through the year honestly I'm starting to feel the stress of Sec 4 I've been anticipating for so long. All this unnecessary pressure seems so trivial in the scheme of things, still, but I guess it's what matters for us right now.

So prom happened under the guise of Founders Day Dinner which was one night of wearing fancy clothes and eating fancy food at a fancy hotel that passed by way too fast, but it was fun all the same, filled with the feeling of being surrounded by people who've seen you through a considerable fraction of your short-lived life. Photos soon maybe!

Now that it's over there's prelims to deal with which I'd shoved to the back of my mind until just yesterday. This would be a good time for my nerd side to act up so maybe I'll even enjoy the studying. It's possible haha I've seen it done before so now I'm officially entering study mode see you around!

Maybe we've been living with our eyes half open

2011-07-20T17:59:00.004+08:00

There are so many times when I find myself losing faith, when truth becomes relative and its edges blurred by religion and hypocrisy and self-awareness. And each time I do I feel the sudden, immeasurable weight of being alone, to the point it becomes nearly unbearable, when something or someone comes along to pull me back onto my feet, to remind me that no, there is no such thing as chance, or fate, and no, what is isn't what it was supposed to be, and yes, there is something there to find, people aren't meant to live their whole life searching.

The feeling you feel when you want to keep feeling it

2011-07-11T20:46:00.002+08:00

This is just a post to say that as of this moment, I'm happy. Because that's one emotion I realise I don't express enough up here. And to prove it, :)

Isaiah26:3

2011-07-10T21:05:00.002+08:00

I feel like my life is stablizing somewhat, in the process of coming to terms with myself and the people around me. This week has been pretty relaxing and I'm learning my lesson in worrying less. But I guess what I've been discovering most of all is how not to have faith in myself to be the person I should be, but have faith in God's ability to make use of the person I am and while I can't testify to my own strength I can testify to His. I'm going to start trying to live in the here and now rather than in the there and then just because I realised one is not any less of a reality than the other yeah it took me a while haha but I'm working on it.

Knowing there's a greater day

2011-07-03T20:05:00.006+08:00

No weeping
No hurt or pain
No suffering
You hold me now
You hold me now

And we're back!

2011-06-26T07:50:00.000+08:00

Mission trip was really fun and such an amazing experience we learnt so, so much I hope all of us never get over it. It kinda reminded me why church is so important, I had forgotten for the longest time. Because it's so incredibly difficult being a Christian sometimes, feels like it's you against the world and it's an endless struggle.

Church is not a group of perfect people, we label and judge and criticise too readily too often, we're full of everything we shouldn't be. But still there's something there, something that always reminds me of why I started believing in the first place and that's the feeling of being in a family. You don't choose your family, you accept them because there's something deeper that holds you together.

It's the way we see the world, the way we see ourselves, and the way we see one another that sets us apart and brings us together. The constant effort to live the way we know we should even though we fail over and over again. And the knowing that others feel and face the same things as I do makes me feel like I'll never have to be alone.

I guess I haven't been blogging much because I'm trying to get my mind and heart in the right place before being honest so I won't end up saying things I'll regret later. Yep I'm currently quite confused and I don't really know how to put it into words so I'm fine just keeping it to myself for now. School starts and I'm hoping things won't just return to normal but at the same time, I kind of do.

Off to Svay Rieng

2011-06-12T23:59:00.002+08:00

I'll be leaving for Cambodia tomorrow until next Tues but I guess it won't really disrupt the regularity of my blog posts. Really really hope I can set aside all the distractions in my mind and in my heart and give this trip my 100% to make the most of this short period of eight days we're spending over there. Do keep us in prayer :)

You know,

2011-05-25T22:50:00.005+08:00

All this time and I'm still learning to accept the way things are instead of the way things should be and making so many mistakes along the way.

Looking Outwards

2011-05-17T16:22:00.003+08:00

"Does it really matter that our circumstances are difficult? Why shouldn't they be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we remove God's riches from our lives and hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it removes God fromt he throne of our lives, replacing Him with our own self-interests. It causes us to open our mouths only to complain, and we simply become spiritual sponges - always absorbing, never giving, and never being satisfied. And there is nothing lovely or generous about our lives."

Came across this last night and realised it's definitely something I need to work on. It's so easy to feel like the world is falling apart when it revolves around you.

holding on

2011-05-11T18:13:00.007+08:00

I can't remember when I first started feeling like this. These days I feel as if I'm observing myself from afar, a bystander, watching this girl who doesn't know anything about life live, and when she speaks I hear my own thoughts, the ones I've rehearsed in my mind, and she recites them as if they were lines of a one-woman play - one character and many mirrors, as the mirror images repeat after her, saying the same words, over and over again, and as I watch the show I cannot tell the character apart from the images, and soon everything is in images and there is no knowing what is real anymore. I am so, so tired of appearances I can't even begin to describe it, because I know deep down I'm no different from anyone else and if we knew how alike we really are, flaws and all, maybe we wouldn't be so afraid of the truth. As much I hate this feeling it's here to stay and I can't see it ever going away, at least not forever, and I can't help but wonder if it would be better to just not feel. But I know there is still something worth holding on for, to hold onto, and life is not a pit but a tunnel, and at the end of it, there's something there that always will be.

Are we meant to be this confused this young?

2011-05-04T21:00:00.000+08:00

"Watch out for intellect, because it knows so much it knows nothing and leaves you hanging upside down, mouthing knowledge as your heart falls out of your mouth"

- Anne Sexton

Sweet Sixteen

2011-04-15T11:38:00.001+08:00

I had the best birthday in the world and I really want to thank everyone who made turning 16 so special for me I love you guys ♥

DOUBLE GOLD ALL THE WAAAAYY

2011-04-07T19:21:00.007+08:00

YESTERDAY WAS AMAZING and I'm crazy proud of everyone :)

Had so much fun screaming until our voices cracked and sitting in the sun until we were red. Got really sentimental when we realised that this was going to be our last Billy Banja at our last finals together and how much we were going to miss the team when we're gone and how we'll all be separated next year and it's just sad to think about.

Love you guys loads I honestly couldn't have wished for a better team <3

formspring

2011-04-01T23:17:00.004+08:00

Haha I've actually had this for a while but completely forgot about it until now so here it is. I don't really want to publicise it very much because I don't want to spend my life answering questions but just so you guys know it exists, ask me anything!

"If vision is the only validation then most of my life isn't real"

2011-03-30T08:56:00.002+08:00

Because at times like this I feel so much that I know there's something inside me bigger than myself. Feelings are fleeting but this one is one I don't ever want to stop feeling.

And yes so many times the world leaves me lost and confused and I begin to realise how many things I'll never be able to understand. But trying to live by myself and for myself is crazy tiring, and what if, somehow, I didn't have to? Some just see it as idealistic, but what if, for once, the truth and the ideal were the same thing?

As we try to untangle the threads of existence it just gets more and more tangled, until we are left with a mess so convoluted we give up trying. And maybe we're not meant to be able to make sense of it, because what we know now is such a small fraction of what is. I keep saying these things because I keep thinking them I guess.

Because at the end of what we know as everything, what is there left to hold on to but the truth behind it?

Where is the scholar?

2011-03-29T22:47:00.002+08:00

Science doesn't even begin to explain half the things that happen everyday.

this is the world

2011-03-20T10:42:00.004+08:00

"Sometimes I like to get away from the saddening crowd
Sometimes I feel my life is all in vain
...After all, what is it worth?"
- Maddening Shroud (2002), Frou Frou

"If I could just speak up, I think I would say that there is no truth,
There is only you and what you make the truth"
- Don't Know When But A Day Is Gonna Come (2002), Bright Eyes

"And look at the stars
Don't they remind you of just how feeble we are?
Well it used to, I guess"
- New Deep (2003), John Mayer

"You want to put your trust in some solid thing,
Yeah, its a drug to us all.
But there's no ideal inside of me,
So I got nothing at all."
- Nothing At All, The Shins (2003)

"Are you desperate to find something more, before your life is over?"
- Welcome to My Life (2004), Simple Plan

"And you can't find nothing at all
If there was nothing there all along"
- Crooked Teeth (2005), Death Cab For Cutie

"We will become silhouettes, when our bodies finally go"
- We Will Become Silhouettes (2005), The Postal Service

"You told me this has always been worth living,
But what's really worth living anymore?"
- Sleeper 1972 (2006), Manchester Orchestra

"In the scheme of things, well, we're nothing at all"
- The Riddle (2006), Five For Fighting

"I never, saw it coming
Waiting for something, for nothing"
- Nothing Ever Happened (2008), Deerhunter

"If you're still alive, my regrets are few
If my life is mine, what shouldn't I do?"
- Help I'm Alive (2008), Metric

"Hey we're just bleeding for nothing
It's hard to breathe when you're standing on your own
We'll kill ourselves to find freedom
You'll kill yourself to find anything at all"
- Hey Now (2008), Augustana

"I want to change the world, instead, I sleep
I want to believe in more than you and me
But all that I know is I'm breathing."
- Be OK (2008), Ingrid Michaelson

"Cause I need freedom now
And I need to know how
To live my life as it's meant to be"
- The Cave (2009), Mumford and Sons

"Please don't tell me you know the plans for my life
I can run away and leave you here to stay inside dreaming"
- Oh My God (2010), Cults

"The truth is waiting to
be found, I trust that I will take it.
I would give my life to be."
- Human (2010), Ellie Goulding

What a curious life

2011-03-19T22:15:00.003+08:00

"Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all"
- In An Aeroplane Over The Sea (1998), Neutral Milk Hotel

sometimes i think

2011-03-18T20:38:00.003+08:00

If everybody expressed themselves in words, the world would drown in poetry.

just read the headlines

2011-03-15T20:50:00.003+08:00

The world is going crazy and we are in it.

we are very intricate

2011-03-02T19:49:00.003+08:00

Wow I have been very fascinated by science lately. Haha I know it sounds completely geeky but seriously science lessons have been very interesting recently.

I think sound is very amazing and it's hard to imagine that sound waves exist when they're invisible and does not occupy space. If something is invisible and does not occupy space how else can it exist? And sound seems so hmm intricate, with frequency and amplitude and everything.

And wow the nervous system is crazy complicated. I wasn't really paying attention in class today but I do know now that electric signals can translate into thoughts which translate into actions within seconds and how is that possible. Sometimes I even move my fingers just to watch my joints work during Bio lessons because it feels like it's the first time I've really seen them move haha they work so well and they look so strange.

Imagine trying to construct a human robot with all the features and functions of a real human being with mechanical parts. It would be insanely complex and very impossible. Just think that we are like that human robot with all those mechanical parts and we are possible at the same time.

CTs are over but we are all still as stressed as ever haha I guess that's what this year is going to be like.

what next

2011-02-27T20:10:00.002+08:00

I guess sometimes all people need is to know there is someone else out there who feels the same things they feel and is just as confused about these feelings as they are.

WE WILL WIN THE WAR

2011-02-25T23:54:00.001+08:00

http://redsports.sg/2011/02/24/mgs-rgs-b-tennis-final-11/

One more time, go -

2011-02-17T19:55:00.003+08:00

THANK GOD FOR YESTERDAY :)

There was one point everyone was so sure we were going to lose but everybody pulled themselves up and pulled through in the end and we ended up winning 4-1! I think our pre-match motivation session was really quite effective and aww it was a great moment.

Guys we're still in the running for gold!! MG TENNIS ALL THE WAY <3

i wish i knew better

2011-02-15T20:27:00.002+08:00

There is so much to say that I can't say and I feel like one day I'm just going to explode from all these words I've accumulated and never used to describe feelings I never understood because I keep waiting thinking they're going to go away and maybe things don't matter as much once they're gone but I'm sick of waiting and everything still matters all the same.

CNY2011

2011-02-04T17:27:00.003+08:00

It's the second day of Chinese new year and almost everybody in the house is asleep at 5.22p.m. in the late afternoon. Haha I'm not even kidding. There's a bunch in the living room who fell asleep in the middle of LOTR which is only understandable because it was the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring. And then there's two behind me and one in the next room. The only mobile people are on their computers so there are practically zero signs of life in the house.

It's an odd-numbered year and we're spending our CNY in Singapore. CNY here is very different and hideously untraditional haha but it's enjoyable.

Yesterday was spent at home with the party going on opposite our house at Grandma's place. After a family-traditional lunch of Indian food, most of the kids came over to watch How To Train Your Dragon which we had to pause, rewind, then play three times over to accomodate latecomers.

Then we had the 2nd Pineapple Tart Tasting Competition which involved each of us to vote for one of eight different types of tarts. 4 was the ultimate winner, decided after a three-way tie with 1 and 7. Haha it was really intense.

This CNY holiday feels longer than most, because of the 5-day weekend we have, inclusive of Monday. I love this feeling of having things to do and having the time to do it.

Happy Chinese New Year!!

2011 So Far

2011-01-28T23:44:00.002+08:00

I think school has been quite nice so far. I like anything that I can't find anything to dislike about and it's been a pretty smooth-sailing couple of weeks. Okay maybe that's just me and the reality of how close O levels just hasn't really hit me yet.

Still, somehow it feels like this year has been going on for a long time. I can't really remember much about the time when school did not exist and we woke up late and every day felt like a Saturday. The only thing I'm really affected by is a lack of sleep which plummets me into a very detached state of mind so I look very distant when I do nothing at all.

Australian Open has been quite exciting! This is one of the first few times I'm actually following a grand slam and aware of all these players and their long names just because it's permanently on outside in the living room.

A few seconds after the women's finals I checked Li Na's Wikipedia article to see if it had been updated and I thought 'haha what loser spends the last few seconds of the finals waiting to edit a Wikipedia article' and then I realised I was the loser who spends the first few seconds after the finals checking Wikipedia articles.

Our tennis season starts on Monday and I have a feeling this first match is the most important match we're going to play this year. Whatever circumstantial disadvantages we face I guess all we can do is try and have as much fun as we can out of it and keep heading in a gold-ward direction. Haha competition is always exciting.

Just finished reading The Virgin Suicides from Nat and it was less strange and abstract than I thought it would be. I think it's a really good book and it is definitely very pretty and I now understand why people place it against floral backgrounds and take photos of it and put it on Tumblr.

I alternated between that and What The Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell and I read either depending on what I felt like thinking about haha. They're both quite thought-provoking but in two vastly different ways. If you want to feel artsy read TVS and if you want to feel intelligent read WTDS.

Okay end.

Who is to say what we are II

2011-01-24T21:52:00.007+08:00

Maybe there are no opposites, only characteristics strung along two ends of the same line. Or maybe character is more dimensioned than we think it is, and it is confusing because it is like a cube we look at with two-dimensioned eyes. Then after a while we start to get dizzy trying to understand what it is and we just accept it as a square.

Overdue

2011-01-15T23:23:00.004+08:00

*Some photos stolen off FB sorry

School!

2011-01-07T16:36:00.002+08:00

School has started and we all just can't get over the fact that we are Secondary 4 students.

This year I don't expect to have much free time past this first week of school that just passed, so I'll probably be up here slightly less haha if I'm not blogging infrequently enough.

I am quite looking forward to the year ahead through the stress and studying and everything. There's something about having a goal to work towards that's exciting haha as difficult as it'll be to get there.

One second I feel so old and the next I feel so young and the next I just feel like I'm somewhere in the middle nearing some kind of crossroads in my life with all these decisions. Haha okay I'm probably not there just yet though, not for another few years at least. But wow do I hate making decisions. Especially the ones that matter.

I'm guessing this year will be about priorities. A hierarchy of different areas in my life, and it's up to me to decide the criteria for it. It's going to be hard.

Haha look at me being all naive at the beginning of the year, before I have any idea what to expect. Okay from here on out I have zero expectations, just aims. That's okay right.

Happy Back To School Everyone!!

Haha what an obvious oxymoron.

And suddenly the year was gone

2011-01-01T20:18:00.004+08:00

Okay so it's 2011 now!

Haha that's going to take a lot of getting used to. It hasn't been not 2010 for a whole year.

I would be lying if I said it was a long year, or if I said it wasn't the best year I've lived through so far. Learnt a lot this year; about life, about people, about myself.

Anyway as I do every year I looked back at the resolutions I made 12 months ago, and in my opinion,

2010 New Year Resolutions

1. Remember God's place in my life
2. Start writing more
~~3. Do something about my Chinese~~
~~4. Get out of my own world~~
5. Don't lose myself
6. Be there for people
~~7. Shut up and let it go~~
~~8. Become long-sighted~~
9. Prioritize
~~10. Look back on 2010 in 2011 and have no regrets~~

What's left is what I've failed to fully accomplish in 2010, which will have to be carried down to my 2011 list of resolutions.

2011 New Year Resolutions

1. Remember God's place in my life
2. Start writing more
3. Don't lose myself
4. Be there for people
5. Prioritize
6. Trust readily
7. Know I know nothing
8. Give without expectations
9. Have a little faith
10. Make this year count

Here's to another great year ahead!

Pre-Christmas

2010-12-23T10:07:00.002+08:00

This EOY holidays has been the fastest thing I've seen go by in my life. After school, ROCS3, after ROCS 3, Australia, after Australia, Christmas preparations, after Christmas preparations, Christmas shopping, after Christmas shopping, JYM camp, after JYM camp, Christmas week, after Christmas week, Taiping, after Taiping, school.

Okay but I'm not complaining because it's really been a very fun couple of weeks. I have no idea how I'm going to manage getting Christmas things done in time for Christmas though. Or holiday homework in time for school reopening.

Hope everyone's having a great pre-Christmas!! And Merry Christmas just in case I don't get a chance to wish you in time.

A thousand times I've failed

2010-12-19T20:50:00.003+08:00

Camp afterglow was great and I was really very touched by all the testimonies. JYM Camp 2010 was really amazing and definitely the best camp I've had so far in terms of a lot of things. Really had a lot of fun with everyone and it was just great :)

And yeah I really feel like I need to share about everything I experienced during camp because all of it was just very real.

I was honestly very not looking forward to camp at all. Especially the part about the tents. I was just stressed and tired and very moody from everything and I didn't really know what to expect out of this camp and I didn't want to have expectations because that's when you're vulnerable to disappointment.

Before this camp, I was really struggling with some serious doubts I had about my faith. There were just so many that I found myself wondering if there was even a God at all, and thinking that if there wasn't, I wouldn't be able to carry on carrying myself from day to day knowing that I'm not really heading anywhere. There would be no point in doing anything, ever. And the thought of this really brought me down, that this is all there is and will ever be and I couldn't imagine living like that.

But what I experienced during these past few days is really something I'm still reflecting on and something I can't make sense out of but something that I won't be able to let go of for a long time.

There are a thousand other things on my mind every time I try to think about God. I have real difficulty giving complete attention to Him, even during a 'spiritually high' worship session or whatever. And there always seems to be something that stands in between us.

The first few sessions, I began to feel bits of things here and there. But I always found myself dismissing them as self-induced emotions more than anything else.

On the first night of DYC, we were reunited with our speaker from last year's camp, Mike Pilavachi, who I found out has a Wikipedia article when I tried to Google his name to make sure I spelt it correctly.

Even through his sermon whatever doubts I had were still in mind. Plus we slept really late the night before and I could barely keep myself awake. But I really appreciated the fact that he always makes us wait in silence for God to happen. Without the band playing, without the hype, without the distraction of external factors. For me it felt like I was completely exposed. As if I was just sitting there and there was nothing to hide behind anymore.

Then I began to feel something. Really really feel it, from the inside out. It was like a stirring and a trembling at once. And suddenly God was just the most real He had ever been to me up to that point and I knew I just couldn't deny the fact that He really existed any more. It felt like I was completely overwhelmed, and not just by my own emotions. It was so different this time. Tears came in awe of Him, and it was just wow and I couldn't control myself. I cried for how far I had strayed, for how lost I was on my own, for how broken I was in His presence, for how little I really had to offer and for how much He had done for me.

And okay after such an experience I really don't want things to go back to the way they were. I knew I needed a wake up call and this was it. I know I am really nowhere close to being the perfect Christian, and I'm going to fail God time and time again, but now I know for sure that He'll always be ready to welcome me back with open arms each and every time I wander off thinking I can make it on my own only to be proven wrong.

"You say God seems far away. Guess who moved." And yeah that was me for a long time.

I don't think it's possible to exaggerate when it comes to God. He is so beyond our exaggeration and human comprehension and everything else in this world. I think even though we as Christians don't have it all figured out, we believe in a God who does and that's enough.

And when the earth fades
falls from my eyes
You stand before me
I know You love me

I know You love me.

I will sing

2010-12-12T22:37:00.005+08:00

Lord You seem so far away
A million miles or more it feels today
And though I haven't lost my faith
I must confess right now that it's hard for me to pray

But I don't know what to say and I don't know where to start
But as you give the grace, with all that's in my heart

I will sing.

WANTED

2010-12-10T20:50:00.004+08:00

Due to my habit of lending books out nonstop because I'm always too lazy to bring them home from school, I am now missing the following books and for the most part I have no idea who I lent it to:

- The Perks of Being a Wallflower
- Twenties Girl (shan?)
- Nineteen Minutes
- Love, Rosie (keisha?)
- House Rules (haha sarahlim!!)
- Remember Me
- The Undomestic Goddess

If you have any of the above just let me know so I can't rest assured they're in someone's hands and I didn't really just lose it in the mess of my room. Thanks!!

Back from perth

2010-12-03T10:39:00.003+08:00

So we're halfway into the holidays and it's already December.

Perth was the best! Without the daily distraction of the internet it was the most of a holiday I've been on in a very long time. Everything was nice but twice the price. Visited places like beaches and wineries and art galleries and chocolate factories. We stayed south of the actual Perth city, 30 minutes from Bustelton and 10 minutes from Dunnsborough so we were quite far from technologically-advanced civilisation. I love little Australian towns they are very quaint and look just like those in the movies. And Australian people are so nice! I think it's partly their accent because it's very pleasant.

These days have been pretty fun especially since everyone's finally free at the same time to do fun holiday things. Mostly. But all this free time can really be a downer sometimes. I like life with some structure and predictability.

I realised that many of the photos I promised would be up aren't so posts lately have just been long and wordy without visual aid. I've just been so lazy to upload photos nowadays.

Okay well will try to update slightly more frequently but honestly I wouldn't count on it.

who is to say what we are

2010-12-02T22:00:00.014+08:00

"The mistake we make in thinking of character as something unified and all-encompassing is very similar to a kind of blind spot in the way we process information. Psychologists call this tendency the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)...The FAE also makes the world a much simpler and more understandable place...If we constantly had to qualify every assessment of those around us, how would we make sense of the world? How much harder would it be to make the thousands of decisions we are required to make about whether we like someone or love someone or trust someone or want to give someone advice?...But perhaps nature is bigger than our concepts...Character, then, isn't what we think it is or, rather, what we want it to be. It isn't a stable, easily identifiable set of closely related traits, and it only seems that way because of a glitch in the way our brains are organized. Character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context."

- Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point

Ar kun!

2010-11-21T16:58:00.003+08:00

Back from Cambodia! It was really tiring and fun and fulfilling and even though it's ended it doesn't feel like it's really ended.

Day 1: Stayed up past 12am packing because I am so disorganised and woke up at 4.30am to be at the airport at 5.45am. Arrived at the Siem Reap airport and checked into our hotel. Started our tour of the Angkor temples, lasting from morning all the way until the pinnacle of Angkor Wat and sunset. Had an international buffet at Amazon Angkor which was as nice as it sounds. Slept. Longest day ever.

Day 2: Travelled 6 hours to Phnom Penh. Played cards and listened to music and slept. At one of the toilet stops they were selling fried spiders and bananas and this girl came up to me and put a huge live one on my shirt, "You like spider? You take photo with spider and then you buy my bah-nah-nahs!" Arrived in PP in the evening and checked into our new hotel. Slept.

Day 3: Went to this village next to a dumpsite. I was and am still confused as to whether we were in Project Dumpsite or involved in Project Dumpsite or Project Dumpsite was the cleaning
up of the dumpsite which we were not involved in. Anyway we went to this T-house which was like a mini daycare centre and organised activities for the kids, e.g. origami, teaching English, pass the parcel. The kids there have to be the most adorable kids in the world, they're impossible not to at least like. Out of the blue we were brought to this fancy French restaurant like one of those with a
complimentary pre-meal basket of bread. It was a fantastic day. Returned to hotel. Slept.

Day 4: Visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum which is basically a high-school-turned-torture-prison-turned-heritage-site. During Pol Pot's four-year regime just thirty years ago, intellectuals, politicians, artists, etc, were sent to this prison, known as S-21,and underwent all sorts of torture, examples of which I won't mention here because it was very traumatising. Our tour guide had actually lived through the experience so it was very cool. Went to the Killing Fields as well which was just as sad. We finished unprecedentedly early so we ended up having time to visit the Russian market. Shopped quite a bit for Christmas presents and souvenirs at very nice low Cambodian prices. Went for dinner at a nice Thai restaurant where it started raining very very hard. By the time we got onto the bus the streets looked flooded. Returned to hotel. Slept.

Day 5: Re-visited the dumpsite and T-house only this time to give the kids a SPA DAY. Meaning washing hair, drying hair, combing hair and cutting nails. Did activities after, including making sock puppets, scrapbooking etc. The kids are so cute haha they started making sock mutants with multiple pairs of googley eyes and hair in the wrong places. Went for dinner at KFC, first fast food meal in forever. Returned to hotel. Slept.

Day 6: Mural day! Went to another T-house thing in another village where we were tasked to paint the walls of two rooms, continuing the legacy our seniors from last year left behind or something like that. Our group was given the computer room on the second level which was very small but with conveniently low ceilings. Spent about 8 hours painting in total, with a lunch break at Bubble Tea Cafe somewhere in the middle. The fumes really get to you after prolonged periods in a stuffy room and I was painting the ceiling so it was real messy. I kinda had fun though haha felt so accomplished after it was finally done and it looked so nice.

Day 7: Excited to go back but sad to leave Cambodia behind. Had a nice flight back home and arrived at 1pm. Came back with a one hour jet lag and a sore throat but it was nice to be back.

It was a great trip and I won't elaborate further because those two-hour debrief sessions really drained our vocabulary.

Okay so I haven't really had time to upload any photos here recently haha blogging has become more of an obligation than anything. I don't believe many people still come here on a regular basis. And I'm off to Perth tomorrow where I don't think there's internet so there won't be updates for another week. Struggling to keep this page alive!

I guess I'll wait until I'm finally back home and I find myself with nothing better to do. Although it's not long until Christmas. I'm already very feeling the Christmas spirit with all the decorations up everywhere.

Will update after Perth and finish off all the posts-in-progress I have under Drafts!

Haha I still feel like I'm just talking to myself.

!!!

2010-11-09T13:19:00.002+08:00

Os tomorrow and Cambodia the day after. Haha so many mixed emotions all at once, anticipating and dreading the future at the same time. Halfway through studying sometimes I pause and do nothing for a while and start thinking about whether it's really worth it to study for Chinese like this because it's really just Chinese. After being unproductive for a period of time suddenly it hits me that the exam is tomorrow and I panic a bit and go back to studying. It's a semi-productive cycle. So that's how I've been spending my day up to now. Very looking forward to tomorrow to be over.

Yeah, I know it's late, but these times won't wait

2010-10-23T11:47:00.002+08:00

This is very amazing.

Everything Over Yay

2010-10-13T18:56:00.004+08:00

EOYS are over and haha I am very unused to this feeling of not having anything to do.

I'm in the midst of a five-day weekend inclusive of one exam-free day, two marking days and the usual weekend.

Celebrated on Tuesday playing L4D2 haha it was a real experience and really very amusing. I can almost understand why it's so appealing. All of us were just so bad at it we hardly got anywhere. After lunch we met up with Sarahloo and watched Shutter Island and played Balderdash haha learnt quite a few new words which I don't think will ever prove useful. What a nice relaxing end to everything.

Reached home at 1.30a.m. last night after seeing Hannah off at the airport as a cell after a bus ride from Tanah Merah to Clementi. It felt good not to be woken up by alarm this morning.

Times like these when there is so much free time you feel the need to make productive use of it like you have all year.

So what really is considered productive? Something which produces results? Something which contributes towards a goal? Something that counts, something that matters?

Like okay thinking about the upcoming Chinese Os, if I spend today studying for it, it might affect my results, which will in turn affect my chances of taking HCL, which may affect my ability to get into a JC I want, which may or may not affect my A level results, which will eventually decide what I'm going to do for the 3/4 of my life I hope I'll have left.

Okay but I admit this is more often than not a self-centered approach to productive. I never thought of studying as a selfish thing haha but I guess it could be in a way. How often do we study for anyone else other than ourselves?

Just hope I don't lose focus of the things that count the most in the process.

10 OCT 2010 10.10AM

2010-10-10T10:10:00.000+08:00

So at this moment in time it's 10/10/10 at 1010 and this moment will never come around again and I felt I had to do something to commemorate it before it was over haha so here you go.

1000000000000000bytes

2010-10-06T19:57:00.003+08:00

EOYs has been stressful I don't ever recall studying so much for anything in my life. The human brain has the memory capacity of 2.5 petabytes which amounts to a million gigabytes or 500 000 2GB thumbdrives. Who needs technology anyway.

Sometimes I think

2010-09-30T21:36:00.005+08:00

I am so grateful for the people in my life who remind me what makes doing things worth the doing and make sense out of the senselessness of everything in this crazy world. They probably don't know who they are but they are amazing and I wish they knew that.

For everything that happened in the first half of september

2010-09-20T17:34:00.002+08:00

Okay hello I think it's high time for an update.

It's raining madness outside but it's probably to compensate for the relative lack of rain for the past week.

The last thing I can remember is Teachers' Day. Baked rainbow muffins for the first time and it turned out pretty nice considering. After the celebrations and all that we went to watch Step Up 3 which was the second time for me.

OH YES I forgot, someone stole my wallet. Okay more accurately, I misplaced my wallet for a moment and in that moment someone stole it. So yes it was pretty much my fault. It sucks because I've been so careful about my things ever since the Christmas@BV incident and I felt quite stupid being so blur. I had EVERYTHING inside that wallet. Ticket stubs, neoprints, letters(!!), cards, EZlink, IC - everything except money which just makes it worse because my wallet didn't even do the thief any good.

I had to make a police report which was okay because the lady was really nice and kept joking with me about it haha. I guess I didn't realise how official a police report is. At 8.35p.m. I, along with 3 friends, walked into a "neoprints" store. The booth we entered was diagonally opposite the table at which I left my wallet. There was a curtain separating the interior of the booth and the exterior...I have no suspects in mind.

I guess I got over this faster than last time because I have slightly more practice letting go of things at this stage. So I refuse to let myself think about it anymore.

Okay so Teachers Day. We watched Step Up 3 and we went to visit the National Museum of Singapore. Felt quite artsy in our Alice in Wonderland get-ups, casually browsing through the exhibits.

There was a special exhibition called 'Head On' which featured 99 statues of wolves in a cycle; as they are running, slowly they ascend upwards, building in size, until they hit an invisible glass wall, then one by one, they fall to the ground, and the whole cycle starts again.

Okay it's quite hard to explain but I'll post photos soon. Basically it represents how history repeats itself and we just make the same mistakes again and again, blindly following the crowd in a search for a sense of direction. It was cool.

It's quite sad because such a fantastic museum is dedicated to a country with relatively shallow history and borrowed culture so even though everything looks really nice sometimes there just isn't as much behind it. I think the Singaporean identity will take a few hundred more years to be cultivated.

Okay September holidays passed by so fast I hardly felt it there.

There was Sec4Farewell which was a blast and really quite grateful to everyone who helped in one way or another. Haha treasure hunt was quite hilarious it's so fun knowing all the answers and BBQ+sparklers+bubbles in the rain was the best!

Acacia outing picnic@botanicgardens with bridge and Bible charades and frisbee, and then the next day DG outing mailto:studying@claudia and 24/7prayerslot@pinkhouse . Had a good time and good discussion we should do it more often :)

Went to KL to celebrate Mama's 80th birthday! Had fun@bookaccess with cheap cheap books I have enough books to last me the year. Everything is so much cheaper and yummier in Malaysia it's quite crazy.

Almost every book I've read in the past few months made it into my favourites list. But that's probably because I haven't read enough books in my lifetime to know what really composes of a favourites list.

Have-read books:
1. The Memory Keeper's Daughter
2. The Other Boleyn Girl
3. Twenties Girl
4. The White Tiger
5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower

To-read books:
1. Tuesdays with Morrie
2. The Lacuna
3. The Fourth Estate
4. Life of Pi
5. The Life of Hunger

Will-get books:
1. The Virgin Suicides
2. The Hunger Games
3. House Rules
4. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
5. Invisible Monsters

So anyway we arrived home pretty late on Saturday so that marked the end of our holidays.

A free ticket to Universal Studios was part of the YOG thank-you package but the catch was it was for the Thursday night before our English EOY paper.

The whole place is like a fantasy land with fantasy characters and fantasy fun! It's quite spectacular I never remembered Disney World seven years ago being anything like that. We had so much fun it was crazy but ended up going home late and waking up sleepy for our English paper. It was very worth it though.

So now everyone's in an EOY state of mind which is very sad but very productive. Without CCA it's just free time all the way once school's over and it's very hard to keep focus. We have our O level practicals over the next few days and I really hope I don't mess up like I did in almost every practical I've done this year.

Okay well I'll post photos soon I think! Until then I have some mugging to do.

Sometimes I think

2010-09-01T21:19:00.003+08:00

Why do we waste our lives believing in anything less than perfect when we know they'll disappoint us, one way or another, until we realise it's time to start believing in bigger things than ourselves?

jeux Olympiques de jeune

2010-08-25T19:48:00.004+08:00

Haha for a while I almost forgot I even had a blog.

YOG was a lot of fun and since it's the biggest thing that's happening in Singapore right now and it took up our entire last week I guess I'll just talk about it first.

Wow I have no idea which part of it I liked the best. I thought they overcompensated us for the week we spent ballkidding with privileges and free stuff. We probably would have done it with no strings attached besides doing the actual duty on court because it's such a nice view.

So we were on half-hour shifts, and in between we spent it playing the thumb game (Y) or Indian poker or cheat and getting free F&B and chasing after players for photos. For some reason the idea of being in a picture with someone practically our age who might be the next Federer or whatever except a lot better looking is so exciting it's worth sacrificing our dignity for.

We were pretty lucky to be on centre court, but it was stressful because of how tense it got during matches. I also got hit by the ball twice, once on the leg then in the stomach. Both times hurt but it was partially my fault for dreaming when I should have been looking out for incoming balls. We ended up on TV for bits of the finals and haha almost everyone who saw me commented on how funny I looked with my serious face :(

So yeah all of us are bummed that it's over and it'll never happen again, we were so upset about going back to school on Monday. We have loads of memories and keepsakes as souvenirs though, so that'll keep us going for while. Haha and a thousand photos.

There must be more than this

2010-08-20T23:09:00.004+08:00

"If we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can satisfy, we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for another world."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH.

2010-08-10T20:55:00.001+08:00

THE RIOTS!

2010-08-01T20:44:00.001+08:00

CTs have started and we have a five day weekend ahead oh my oh my. Haha I think test periods are actually pretty relaxing, without homework and training and everything that gets in the way of having free time. I'll post something up by the time it's over. Whenever I have free time I'm on Youtube or Tumblr and by the time I get bored of Youtube or Tumblr I'm too tired to think of anything to blog. We're having a studying sleepover later and studying and sleepover are two words that never go together so I don't know how it'll work out. These two months are like RACIAL HARMONY DAY FOUNDERS DAY BIRTHDAY PREFECT INSTALLATION BIRTHDAY NATIONAL DAY YOUTH OLYMPIC GAMES, in an endless chain of consecutive events. Okay I'm going to take a nap now bye.

Round and round

2010-08-01T19:41:00.000+08:00

Suddenly, she closed her eyes and she spun; round and round and round, and by the time she stopped spinning she had forgotten where she was and which direction she was heading towards in the first place.

Flowers trying to grow on flowers

2010-07-22T18:57:00.003+08:00

Okay I haven't been blogging at all but at least I'm not as inconsistent as I was during the Hiatus of August 2009. I haven't been very very busy but I've been very very distracted.

It's been flooding everywhere but at least there's rain to compensate for it. The weather has been magic! It's perfect for falling asleep which is what one third of the class is doing at any given moment in time.

O LEVELS CHINESE ORAL + LISTENING. We got a pretty easy topic for oral and I'm thankful for that. I don't know what I would have done otherwise. The examiners kept asking me questions about being a foreigner and all that so I guess my passage reading must have been really bad. Listening was okay except no one in the world had a similar answer scheme to mine. BAACDBBACD, anyone? Okay well I'm glad it's over.

I got BRACES. I never thought I would but I have. Like how I never thought I would get bangs, but look how that turned out. So far it hasn't been very fun. I can't pronounce certain words properly or eat anything harder than bread crust and I'm always paranoid about having food stuck in them.

Watched INCEPTION on Friday after Founder's. I heard it was confusing so I went into the cinema readily alert. It was very interesting and pretty original besides the fact that everyone compares it to The Matrix. I felt quite exhausted after watching it so if you're looking for something relaxing go watch Toy Story 3 or if you're looking for a laugh you can go watch Eclipse.

I finally resumed my reading routine after not having read anything for three months and compensated for it in the last few weeks. I enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl a lot, it's not at all as boring as it looks. I was quite upset over a Haruki Murakimi book which has pretty much put me off his books for the rest of my life. I don't think I'm very into artsy books like The Lovely Bones at all.

It's been quietly busy for the past few weeks, with tests and planning and projects and all that. Ahhh there's so much to do I don't even know where to start. "We begin by beginning, I guess."

I've been making up for my lost years of music recently by listening to old songs. Not like 70s old but like the earlier part of this decade old. I missed out on so much back then. We were talking about in primary school when all we knew were bands like Simple Plan and Good Charlotte and thought they were the best thing in the world. At least now we know better.

Okay I'm going to end today early. Goodnight.

Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself
Out there?

F451

2010-07-19T19:17:00.010+08:00

"Let you alone!
That's all very well, but how can I leave myself alone?
We need not to be let alone.
We need to be really bothered once in a while.
How long is it since you were really bothered?
About something important, about something real?"

Nothing but a pretty view, and no where to go but down.

2010-07-12T19:19:00.000+08:00

SPAIN WON SPAIN WON SPAIN WON!

Stayed up for my first World Cup match ever last night! I'm definitely not a football person but the match was built up with so much anticipation that I thought it would be worth three hours less sleep.

The match was made up of yellow cards and angry coaches and slo-mo replays of fouls and the crap sound coming from the vuvuzelas. Okay I thought both teams were really good but what do I know. Everyone on the field looked the same from afar.

Anyway RYC was pretty okay and I was happy to be in press because we had quite a few press privileges. It was really nothing like RMUN though. We're beginning to draft plans for MGMUN in 2011!

I hate the bright sunny weather. It makes every day draggy and dreary.

It's been pretty eventful for the past few weeks and I'm waiting for some time to pause and catch my breath and think about what I'm doing but I'm not going to get that time anytime very soon.

And haha look at this video Rachel showed me a while ago. Made my week.

* RYC photos from Shan

Sometimes I think

2010-07-11T19:51:00.000+08:00

We shouldn't aim just to be ourselves, but better versions of ourselves.

Talk all the talk with a model's smile,

2010-07-03T11:44:00.004+08:00

Wow I didn't even notice how fast these two weeks have gone by. Okay sorry I'm completely failing at this blogging more often thing.

The weather has been pretty much freezing lately. A sign of the end of the world? It's been raining every day, and the skies are too predictable. The lightning warning system has been blinking nonstop. I like it.

I can't think about what else I've been doing for the past weeks. Chinese oral is coming up, as in, the last Chinese oral exam I'll ever take in my life if I pass it. Everything else has been going pretty okay lately; school, tennis, life in general. It's been a peaceful period of time.

Okay I'm tired I can't think straight and I can't guarantee regular posts but I can guarantee trying to post regularly.

Don’t you ask me if its love my dear,
Love don’t really mean a thing round here ,
The fake scenes, the plastic-made dreams
Say you don’t want it, say you don’t want it

BACK TO SCHOOL.

2010-06-20T17:15:00.001+08:00

So I'm back from CHURCH CAMP and I didn't expect to have as much fun as I did. The hotel and the food and the sessions and the people were wonderful! Learnt a lot and enjoyed going out at night and Paranormal Activity and staying up until 6am talking and I really miss it :/

School has started and even though some part of me deep down inside missed it, it made me quite miserable for the most part of the weekend. Normally I get sick of the June holidays after four weeks but not this time, because we only had three weeks of it and it was filled with RMUN, outings, homework, shopping and camp. It was the fastest three weeks that have ever flown by and the funnest :)

With everything that's been going on, I've been experiencing somewhat of a spiritual low lately. Okay maybe more like a spiritual stagnancy. Looking through my archives, I realise that I felt the same way in June 2009. I know I don't make half the time I should for God and that's probably why and I should start working on that.

I don't like going through any of my posts before the end of 2009. Haha and mostly because I sound so annoying. But it's interesting in the way that I can observe how I've changed over these four years. I've kept this blog alive for so long because it's a documentation of myself at different intervals of my life, so when I grow up I can show this to my kids if the Internet hasn't crashed and died by then.

Will try to blog and write more often, I know I say this all the time and I haven't made any progress but oh well it's the thought that counts.

JUNE JUNE JUNE

2010-06-08T21:55:00.007+08:00

Okay so the holidays are here and it's June and we're almost halfway through the year.

So much has happened and changed since the last post.

RMUN. Hmm where to start.

So in RMUN my name is Norway and I'm from ECOSOC2 and we have to refer to ourselves in third person, as in "This delegate believes..." and I sit in between Pakistan and Nigeria in a freezing lecture theatre and debate about international intervention and sovereign wealth funds and resolutions and pass illicit notes and spend most of the time wondering what I'm even doing here. It's a mad world.

D&D was fun. Debater-types really know how to let loose. After jumping around for a while and forming conga lines we got tired so ECOSOC2 went outside to play truth or dare but without the truth. Tried to do a mass dance and auction off Libya and everybody there is insane.

So it was a great experience and I'm happy I went for it as much as we all were dreading it at the start. SCMUN up next!

ACACIA BBQ. Our first outing since our dissolution. Haha I don't think I could ever get sick of A Walk To Remember. It was nice seeing everyone again and playing L4D and toasting Mars bars and running around trying to throw John into the pool until he got so fed up he jumped in himself. Did not appreciate getting pushed in against my own will. We can save Paranormal Activity for another time!

FISH SPA. So we had this crazy idea to try one of those fish massage things where little toothless fish eat your feet because we were bored of movies and shopping. It was really really ticklish at first but it feels really good when you don't think too much about it. I like my feet now. We went to Swensens for lunch it was great catching up with everyone esp Sarahloo yippee yay.

Check this out its the song that played on my very first blog in P4 for the people who were still in my life back then. Brings back such memories.

Some videos that have made my past few weeks include this and this and this

I've stored holiday homework in a little corner at the back of my mind and I refuse to think about it until I'm forced to. Hate the fact that school's starting in a week this is by far the shortest, busiest June holidays ever.

CHURCH CAMP up next and leaving early to Malaysia tomorrow. Sad to miss council outing and JYM@ botanic gardens but oh well there'll be a next time.

Things that I have been wasting my time on include this and this and this.

Will try to blog more often I need to set my priorities straight.

I can't think of any inspirational quote or song lyrics off the top of my head right now so I will end this post like this.

Expect the unexpected

2010-05-28T17:25:00.007+08:00

ITS ALMOST JUNE HOW CRAZY IS THAT.

CLASS PARTY was the best. Went to Shan's house to barbecue and take photos and sing until the night went down.

Okay I can't really concentrate on talking about anything else other than OBS.

Things I Took To OBS:

- a thousand plastic bags
- insect repellent
- sunblock
- torchlight
- track pants
- undergarments
- toiletries

- etc.

Things I Took Back From OBS:

- mosquito bites
- sandfly bites

- remains of happy food
- a tan
- sunburns

- scratches
- bruises

- a hatred towards kayaking

- a love for oranges

- memories

- life lessons

I was in COUSTEAU in CAMP TWO and don't believe any of the stories people tell you about OBS because it'll never turn out the way you expected it to be. In the past four days I've rock-climbed, triaked, pitched tents, bathed in powder and peed on a beach and I am exhausted.

Feeling the burn of the sun on our faces, we hold our heads up. Oars slap the water in lapsed synchrony, as we paddle against the rising tide. Left, right, left, right. Our small orange-red boats drift, up and down, floated by foaming waves. The sea breeze gently turns into a violent wind that beats against our aching arms. We lift them high. We taste the salt of the sea and sweat on our skin. The roar of the ocean floods our ears. Our spirits are dampened, but not drowned. We keep moving forward. We’re almost there.

According to my holiday homework timetable I'm supposed to be doing my writing journal now, so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone by summarizing my kayaking experience up here in a strictly non-exaggerative manner.

The whole thing was quite bad. We kayaked for eight hours and nineteen kilometers around Pulau Ubin. It was pretty fun for the first two hours but after a while you just forget what it feels like to not kayak and then it gets not fun.

I've been feeling like I'm swaying from side to side for the last 36 hours in a way that simulates the motion of the ocean as we swayed in our kayaks. I think it's serious!!

I really regret not bringing my camera the sunsets on the beach were beautiful. All I have are the memories.

Made some new friends and shared some happy moments and all in all it was a good experience that I would never want to relive again.

Things I Have Learnt To Appreciate More After OBS:

- showers

- toilet bowls

- air con

- fans

- ice cubes

- oranges

- mattresses

- people who cook for me

- people who carry things for me

- people who clean things for me

- Singapore's water supply system

- Singapore's sewage system

- Singapore's waste disposal system

I HAVE SURVIVED OBS.

Bring on the world.

This delegate does not care

2010-05-13T17:21:00.005+08:00

Lately I've had absolutely no incentive to blog.

So you would think I would have absolutely nothing to be preoccupied with after CTs but you would think wrong. If it's not CTs, then it's RMUN, then tennis, then after-school Lit sessions, then OBS, then holiday homework, then church camp, then back to school and before you know it CTs will be round the corner once again.

It's not that I don't enjoy it, just not all at once.

RMUN was actually pretty fun. Debaters co-exist in a dimension of the universe where people speak in big words and read The Economist for pleasure and argue with each other and argue with themselves when there is no one else to argue with.

Math math math. Binomials are the death of everyone I think Math period on Friday was one of the longest periods we've ever had. And I find exponentials amusing they just look like very excited numbers. 2! 3! 4!

I've been laughing to myself quite a lot in class lately haha. Especially with our seats arranged in rows like that, since no one is around to hear me and give me strange looks.

I am not looking forward to the week ahead. Not not not.

Wish me luck.

2010-05-10T20:57:00.002+08:00

Whoa I haven't been blogging at all recently sorry it's been so busy promise I'll get back to it after CTs but not today in fact this will be my first early night in a week goodnight!

Hey May I missed you today

2010-05-02T09:17:00.002+08:00

Okay I haven't blogged for a crazy long time and all of a sudden its May!

Sorry this is in a rush I want to sleep very badly.

This year my birthday not only fell on international tax day, but on the day of all six items of PFT. Haha what are the chances.

It was pretty low-key but it was nice. Celebrated with the family, then SSYSS, then JYM. Everyone's presents are supposed to be 'on their way' and I doubt they're ever going to arrive at this rate. But I really appreciated all the cards and presents that I did get so thanks guys(:

School and everything that comes with it has been insane

Ahh lately so much has been happening I've had no time to feel anything much. Work, work, deadline, work, work deadline. And everything is just math math math sometimes I find myself solving math problems subconsciously in my head. I have a feeling I'm just waiting to explode.

I don't know I don't know I don't know.

Haha okay I'll feel less of a muddle in the morning goodnight.

Our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds;

2010-04-18T20:23:00.008+08:00

Cycle of Hope

Marina Barrage

Are You Happy?

ROCS3 Fair

The Tempest

PL Inspirations

Flea Fly Flo Fun/ Unofficial birthday!

HAHA.

2010-04-14T19:58:00.000+08:00

"I just don't like butterflies!"

"What! Why?!"

"Because I am a demon."

Sometimes I feel like crying

2010-04-12T17:45:00.005+08:00

For all the hurt in this world. For anyone who has ever felt lost or lonely or alone. For anyone who doesn't have a reason to get up in the morning. For anyone who has ever felt that no one would notice if they didn't exist. For anyone who feels they're dying a bit on the inside every day. For anyone who has ever wanted to just not live.

Because they don't know just how loved they are.

Dying, dying, deadlines.

2010-04-11T21:00:00.007+08:00

This week has been full of deadlines which usually come hand in hand with late nights and a lack of sleep. And I have a tiny hint of eye bags to prove it.

I don't even have time to elaborate because I have a speech to get done right now.

sarahloo: i have this sudden vision of you wearing the onegee tee

Usually her visions make little to no sense but I am actually wearing it! At this very moment in time. What are the chances! Or maybe there are none.

I am sorry I doubted your possession of supernatural powers.

Sometimes I think

2010-04-04T21:07:00.000+08:00

How can people see beauty in so much ugliness and not see God?

Words are powerful things.

2010-03-28T20:55:00.003+08:00

When we speak to someone, we are giving them words they can choose to forget, keep or store away. The words we forget may be dispensible, but every once in a while we let a few slip through the sieve of our fingers that we should've kept. And the words we keep are the ones we hold close to ourselves, until they grow into a part of who we are. But the words we store away in ourselves are the most dangerous - they are the ones that corrode us at our weakest points, that tear us down silently, until we feel like we don't have enough of ourselves for anybody.

Sometimes I think

2010-03-25T20:31:00.000+08:00

Being yourself is the easiest and the hardest thing to be.

You are amazing.

2010-03-22T20:54:00.002+08:00

People amaze me. Constantly.

Sometimes I think

2010-03-14T22:43:00.004+08:00

Isn't it funny how, in this world of visible, tangible, concrete things, God can be the most real thing in our lives?

Are You Happy?

2010-03-13T09:56:00.005+08:00

So it's the HOLIDAYS and I am not in a very peppy mood right now because everyone is off at camps and other countries and I'm stuck at home with a crazy amount of work and a schedule so tight I can't breathe.

Right now everyone's probably gathered around the campfire at adventure camp singing campfire songs. Such warmth and happiness.

Okay hmm I'll talk about school it's quite a happening place.

In Lit, we played around with the links on Wikipedia articles. Sarah asked me to get from 'Smelly' to 'pie'.

Smelly -> Smelly (performer) -> Earth, Wind and Fire -> Latin American Music -> Latin America -> Americas -> North America -> United States - Culture - Food -> Apple pie -> Pie

In Physics we learnt about the dynamics of contact lens and how it is physically possible for someone to have one stuck to their eye and how for every force there is an equal opposing force, so in that way if someone sues you for slapping their face with your hand you can sue them back for slapping your hand with their face with the same amount of force.

In Math we learnt about the beauty of indices.

In Biology we learnt about body morphs. And who is this mystery man who stole the "I'm not fat, I'm biologically effective" post-it from my diary it's been driving me crazy!

I took my Grade 5 theory exam on Saturday! I know I'm slow haha I could tell from the people sitting next to me in the examination hall. At least I got it over and done with.

Then the SJCK carnival which passed by so quickly I barely got the chance to explore. Then the few of us came back home to watch 17 Again and lie in bed and engage in serious discussion in the dark.

And then there were all these days after that.

Alright I need to go now I'll be back when my life resumes!

Happy Holidays.

2010-03-12T18:40:00.002+08:00

This is my life for the next few days. I am not happy.

What is happiness to you?

2010-03-10T19:05:00.002+08:00

Nobody said we were perfect.

2010-03-09T21:35:00.003+08:00

Imperfection GMH.

Ride From The Heart

2010-03-06T10:19:00.002+08:00

Cycle of Hope was wonderful(:

We were supposed to take charge of an NCCS booth at this cycling convention-carnival in lieu of the event. It was just so nice having people stop at our little booth in midst of the bicycle madness and write little notes to the cancer patients.

We were placed in the awkward shoes of one of those people you see on the side of the road who approach you and make you feel uncomfortable until you take one of their brochures. Sarah Lim practically pleaded with people to come to our booth haha.

Oh oh and Darren Lim was there! I had no idea who he was until yesterday but everyone else seemed so excited about him and he was so nice when he stopped by to contribute to our Rainbow of Hope. I held the clipboard that held the paper that Darren Lim touched with a pen!

By the time we were on the bus headed home it was about 9pm and we were exhausted but it felt good all the same.

I watched The Constant Gardener today and it was very nice. I think it measures up to the likes of Gladiator and Minority Report and 300 in my League of Great Movies.

It's been such an exhausting week I'm on the verge of collapse. Goodnight.

Alive.

2010-03-03T19:11:00.005+08:00

Just the thought of life is beautiful. The thought of pulse, this invisible movement that propels us forward, the thought that lives can be so interwoven that one can affect the other, the thought that in the weather of the world our life is a passing breeze, but to us, it is all that we really have.

I just feel so alive.

Will you die if I die?

2010-03-02T21:31:00.004+08:00

What a fortnight.

The Bdiv tennis team placed fourth. I know everyone's disappointed but we fought our way this far and we can't do more than our best so we should be proud of ourselves.

And oh yes HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHANTELLE SIM. Hope you were pleasantly surprised all of us love you loads(:

CTs are finally over. To be honest I don't feel the stress of CTs very much it seems like any other period of our Secondary 3 life to me. All the papers were quite pleasant except for Physics and Chinese. I'm crossing my fingers for better results than last year.

We went to celebrate this momentary end of CTs at Old Town Coffee and Udders. We met Mrs Yew there haha she looked so embarrassed to see us. It's like our private hangout now hardly anyone ventures there.

Nowadays the future is a prominent topic in our conversations. We just sit around and talk about death and how old we're getting. Cheer up guys, we're only fifteen.

I got caught in the rain on my way back home without an umbrella or a phone. I thought it would be nice to take the long way home since the weather was so lovely and I ended up wet and cold and the heart on my hand leaked pink rain and it stained my blouse. I was a happy mess by the time I got back.

What's there left to do with time besides piano, Tumblr and FB. Nothing.

Okay I am off to find something productive to do.

Hahah - no wait, I don't get it.

2010-02-25T19:45:00.005+08:00

Do you ever feel like the world is sharing a private joke that you're not in on?

On The Line.

2010-02-24T19:39:00.002+08:00

What do I like about tennis.

Let's say the score is 30-30. After a long rally of top spins, perfectly executed slices and drop shots from both sides, the server relents and collapses the ball into the net. Point to receiver. The score is 30-40.

Let's replay the point. It's 30-30. The server serves once, then twice, into the net. "Double fault!" Point to receiver. The score is 30-40.

Both equal to one point on paper.

Because that's just how life is, sometimes, isn't it?

At the end of the match, it doesn't matter so much whether you win or you lose or the games in between. It's how much respect you earn on the court.

Today was the Bdiv finals, RG vs. SC. I was linesman for the two-hour decider match. Halfway through the second set, the SC girl fell to the ground in the pain of a leg cramp. She was crying and everyone was waiting for her to throw in her racket but she literally picked herself up and kept going. I wish I could say she won that set but she didn't. She lost. The final score was 2-6, 4-6.

At prize presentation, when she stepped up to receive her runners-up medal, everybody cheered so loudly you'd think she had won.

I think she did.

"I bet that's Justin Bieber."

2010-02-20T16:30:00.002+08:00

All in all, I'd say this has been a pretty good week.

Yesterday we trained for three hours and ran our hearts out.

Last night we celebrated Jonan's 20th birthday where we ate ice cream, drank apple juice by the road, met a homophobe ("everybody gay!") and danced on an overhead bridge.

Today we watched the Fellowship as they journeyed through the Mines of Moria and burnt our love cookies.

Haha look at what YT just showed me. Made my day.

Sorry I've been so abrupt lately.

k gtg bb

My face is unfavourably bare.

2010-02-17T22:09:00.002+08:00

Haha I love this. Extra points for the British accent.

Tonight is

2010-02-17T20:17:00.000+08:00

One of those nights when nothing feels real.

Don't you love Chinese New Year

2010-02-15T21:52:00.005+08:00

I spent my CNY playing Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 2 on Recruit, doing Chinese homework, looking for a half-shaven cat and watching the Hannah Montana movie. How was yours?

CNYE

2010-02-13T19:17:00.006+08:00

I type this from across the Johor Straits. Was anyone else in one of the one million cars stuck at the cause way yesterday?

In the living room, a Chinese show is playing, one of those where the men are strong and quick and have braids. The kitchen is alive, and the air throughout the house is stained with spices. Dinner is served. The family gathers, armed with cameras, capturing the feast at every angle humanly possible. We sit down. Prayer is said. Amen. Abalone is rationed. Cantonese embedded English is exchanged across the table. Chopsticks click and soups are sipped and there's music playing and no one really knows where it's coming from.

It's actually starting to feel like Chinese New Year.

2010-02-11T21:47:00.003+08:00

When you're fifteen, you have way too much homework.

恭喜发财 and love!

HAHA.

2010-02-08T20:14:00.002+08:00

Today is

2010-02-07T19:31:00.004+08:00

One of those days when there's nothing I'd rather do than close my eyes and wish everything outside the world in my blanket away.

But the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair

2010-02-06T20:23:00.005+08:00

"I’ve given up on giving up slowly, I’m blending in so you won’t even know me
Apart from this whole world that shares my fate
This one last bullet you mention is my one last shot at redemption
Because I know to live you must give your life away"

- Be My Escape, Relient K

I think that

2010-02-03T19:24:00.004+08:00

Sometimes we don't realise how much influence we have, not as an exceptionally talented person or one who immediately commands attention, but just as a living, breathing human being.

I'll keep it short

2010-02-03T17:41:00.003+08:00

Okay so I haven't had time to update at all for at least a week. I've decided to blog in blocks during whatever time I can find in the tiny faults of my Sec 3 schedule. See you in a few sentences.