friday i'm in love.

thank God it's friday. :)

But it's alright when you're caught in pain
And you feel the rain come down.
It's alright when you find your way
Then you see it disappear
It's alright though your garden's gray
I know all your graces
Someday will flower in a sweet sunshower
--chris cornell

papa loves mambo.

PAPA LOVES MAMBO
MAMA LOVES MAMBO
look at 'em sway with it,
gettin' so gay with it,
shouting "OLE!" with it, wow! (ooh!)

you know.. i was contemplating putting up a nice song (probably v depressing sounding from my taste) to munch on. BUT i didn't! cos i'm in a really happy and silly mood. and happy and silly moods call for happy and silly songs. haha.

he goes to, she goes fro
he goes fast, she goes slow
he goes left 'n' she goes right
(papa's looking for mama but mama is nowhere in sight!)

hoohoo what a funny song i love this. haha. whee! ok so this is the deal. i was in a foul mood yesterday it was a bad day. but i went for a long walk to clear my head and then i was better. but you know even though it's gone, the day is just is no longer in the running for being the best day of the week. yeah. so i'm weird.
ANYWAY. so today i actually manage to stay awake through my WHOLE history of china lecture! and that 's saying alot because it's hard. can't fault the poor guy i mean he really knows what he's talking about and all, it's just with my lack of ability to stay awake 15 minutes into any lecture compounded with needing to be paying extra attention to hear each word he says.. it's hard. haha so yay me i stay awake.

plus i finished my computer science assignment! which was kinda stressing me out. honestly, it's hard for me to study things that i don't have a particular grasp of. i hate admitting that i don't know how to do smth and i'm always too proud to ask for help. (which is why i hated econ so much. i was just shitty at it and i didn't even get when ppl helped me.) it just frustrates me. yup. so i finished my assignment. i'll even get extra credit for handing it in early! (the due date is sunday at midnight so i'm REALLY early!) hoho i'm such a good student! -beams- ok so this is an anomaly i'm usually up till 4am finishing work due the next day. but still. so i was in the computer lab from 3 till (let's see i left at..) a quarter to 1. and in between i went for wind symphony for 2 hours. so yeah it was long day. cos history was at 10. anyhoo i'm not making sense i think you can just tell i'm kinda happy and i can't really put my thoughts together. i know i'm going to be just as stressed out and just as happy when i finish my assignment next week and the week after that and the week after that. haha. so yeah.

but for now i'm happy. just happy. :)

papa loves mambo....

happiness abounds in room 201.

on a different note, i'm VERY happy to say that i managed to squeeze myself on a flight back home on the 19th of December! i was SO ecstatic when i managed to. prior to this the earliest flight i could get was christmas eve, which means i get back on the 26th! i mean, i miss the WHOLE of christmas day! what a way to spend christmas right? on a plane. not at school, not at home. just up in the air somewhere.

so i was SO shocked when i called again and they said they had space on the 19th! (i was planning originally to waitlist myself on the 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd AND 23rd.) i mean ALL these flights are ALREADY full! so moral of the story is that i have to book VERY early. bah. anyway i got it and i feel so happy i'd dance around my room in sheer joy but for the fact that i actually am very comfy in my deskchair. haha. so i'll just do a little happy wiggle. -wiggle- haha. yay! YAY!

haha. well as you can tell, i'm happy. hallelujah! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. ok i'm off.

building blocks of faith

some weeks past by really quick and some past by reallllllllly slow. thankfully this week was a fast one. haha. i think it's been a good week on the whole. i'm still surviving, still enjoying, not sick yet. honestly, i'm literally AFRAID to fall sick here. i don't know, but it's a big thing for me, cos usually when i get sick, i'm just TOTALLY out of it. i mean, i don't get sick very often, but when i do, it really knocks me out COMPLETELY. ok i'm just expressing myself. i'm not sick and i don't think i will be for awhile. i feel healthy. haha. (so i'm weird like this, sue me.)

just got back from like a Christian fellowship group thing. you know, what actually bugs me (in a good way) is that i have, i actually have, too many to choose from. i mean, i feel relatively comfortable in all of them! so how do you choose? there are like 2 on friday nights. haha. one's like a more... casual one, focussing on evangelism and stuff, so it's not heavy stuff you know? it reminds me of YPG back home. the other is like, in groups, discussing like, typical first-year problems,how to deal with them and stuff. and they're different and i can't compare! haha. it's funny how things work out like that.

it's true though, that it's like having a family away from home, when you get together with people who share the same beliefs as you. it's like you know each other already at a particular level and i feel a little more at ease than i would if it were any other university group. and i don't feel like i'm alone.


some nights, it's hard to keep up with my spritual walk when i have so many things to do; pressing things like homework due the morning of the next day (which should of course, have been done the day before this). or when i get back at 2 in the morning and i just want to crash. it's bad cos i know that they're just excuses, nothing more. i'm old enough to know when i'm creating excuses, and when i'm not. you know when you're younger, you just lie to yourself and you don't even recognise that you're just giving excuses? well i've grown past that already. i've grown up to see that each day is like putting a buiding block into a jenga set. facing temptation, and overcoming allows you to put up a block. if you fail that day, you give in, a block is taken off.

how many days have i had to take off a block from the stack (or stump more like.)? too many days we fail. too many days we let God down. but what's amazing is that we get a new chance EVERYDAY to replace that block and built upon it! how often is it that we get chance after chance after chance to make things right? can i take that step to make things right?

what is another day, if not another chance to turn your life around?

so i press on. i know each day brings new challenges and sometimes we fail. we fail alot of times. but you know what? i'm going to keep trying to build this. i will build it. because i refuse to give in. i won't.

we struggle. but it's good that we struggle; struggling means that we're ALIVE.

pictures are up!

hey so i kinda promised some of you that i'd post some pictures of things over here. and honestly i've just been so lazy.. plus the pile of work that i seem to have "suddenly" accumulated. (haha ok i'll admit it. i'm just lazy.) so here goes.

these are just shots of my (side of the) room if i knew how to paste them together so you'd all get a nice panoramic view i would, but i don't know how. haha so just use your imagination ok! yeah this one os my dismal closet space (don't worry i have like a drawer of clothes. just that you don't see it. so i'm not like naked and dying of frostbite.)

just my table and the window behind.. i'd tell you to excuse the mess, but i don't really care. i'm always messy anyway so yeah. deal with it. this is already pretty neat. see the pictures that i put up on my wall?? :)
my bed. it's right by the window! haha i like. except that one day i woke up to rain falling on my face. haha. but hey i guess that's a good thing for someone like me who can't ever wake up right? haha. but i love this spot. plus i have a comfy bed which doesn't squeak or sink. this makes me happy. even though my block is kinda crappy. but it's home. can you see the nice beach there right by the window? ooh i just feel like running off and going to honduras or bahamas or something. :)

more pictures and my poster! haha.

so that's about it for my room. didn't take pictures of my room mate's side of the room cos well, I wouldn't want pictures of my side of the room pasted all over the internet. ok not all over but you know what i mean. yeah so it's a pretty cool room. nice and big. but it's a little dingy. you won't know what i mean unless you come visit. so yeah. can't explain!

yeah and here are the ppl i hang out with. they're all not from my dorm.. they're from another dorm nearby. but i'm such a leech i'm over there all the time and i think i probably distract them from their work cos i'm never doing work so i'm just talking. or sleeping. or smth. haha. well. thanks for letting me hang out there all the time! i think i would be oh so lonely if i had to spend all my nights alone in my dingy room. haha.


so this is sharon (on the left) and elsa's making a funny face here. (hmm she's always making a funny face. haha.)
yeah another picture of sharon. she looks a tad dishevelled. i don't know why. probably cos she was sleeping or smth. hmm. oh well. so she's this chick from zimbabwe. (i'm serious!) yeah she's very strange and odd and we were jumping around the room to 'video killed the radio star' yesterday. potentially VERY embarrassing, but no one saw so that's fine. haha.
this is pik shuen. she is from canada. she is very small. i think probably small na's size. ok not that skinny and malnutritioned looking as small na (you need to eat more and get some sun don't spend all your time cooped up in the archi building! enjoy the good weather while it lasts because it become SO cold in the winter!). yeah so she's like a small blur thing, always getting lost - terrible sense of direction. haha and she's like a little kid sister sometimes. but she's like this SUPERB artist and i love her paintings and drawings and stuff. and she plays the electric guitar! (i'm secretly a groupie. haha) yeah so that's her.

another one of pik shuen and elsa i told you elsa always makes weird faces. haha. elsa's from texas and she's joined crew! (like multiple people canoeing) so she's going to be a tough ball of muscle soon cos the training is super siong. like everyday. wow. yeah.

ok so that's all for now i think. i gotta go bathe and do a bit of work before i sleep. tomorrow's monday and i need to take some preventive measures to combat the onslaught of monday blues. so i need to get more than 6 hours of sleep. ok byebye i will put up more stuff by and by. but don't count on frequent posts. ;) take care you guys in singapore i miss you all! (especially now when i'm talking about friends.) heh. i'm gone!


goodnight.

just me. and my music.

i bought a poster. i bought a poster of solitude. loneliness in jardin de versailles. i wonder why. it's just so.. painfully beautiful. somehow. i've always wondered if i were be it, obsessed about the idea of loneliness. that's not true. but i'm just drawn to it. remember that picture in australia with the abandoned chair that was bathed in the afternoon light that i just loved? why. remember that song in riverdance with the solitary bagpipe? i love that too. why. it's funny how some things just... sort of rell you in like a fish on a hook. funny huh.

just me, and my music. i don't need anything else sometimes.

but even i can recognise a lie. what i need, more than anyone on this earth could give.

i tried to escape. but i couldn't leave. me and my music. i kick myself in the head, but i still know that i can't leave it behind. somehow. i don't know why.

there are so many things i just don't know. but i guess some things are just.. sort of me. just me. and it's funny how you never know what you're about you don't know why you do the certain things you do.. you just do it. and most of the time, it just feels right. feelings lie too, you know. and they just love to misrepresent situations. they lie and thieve and rob you everything you have. feelings, emotions, blah blah blah.

when can you tell when something's real? or does one just go through life, going through the motions?

monday blues, sunday happies.

i'll eat my words. it's SO hot today. and very sunny too. i think im going to go swim it's too hot. plus i feel very lazy and unfit, after having not done any exercise for AGES. hahah. well if walking to class back and forth everyday doesn't count for something i don't know what does. ;)

starting a new week today. and ive got the monday blues. ok but im hanging on. and i know everyone hates mondays, but i just thought i'd express myself. starting the engine has never been so hard, you know? it's like i've totally lost the mood to study. completely. haha. im behind in almost all my readings! but i finally started getting my act together starting saturday.cos i have a feeling that the slack-the-whole-way-then-cram-very-hard-for-exams method might not work so well here. haha. (a small voice in my head starts to whine: but i've never studied any other way! i don't know how!) oh well. knew that i would find challenge here right? one of the Cs that Pastor gave to us before we left. even in the smallest things that i should have probably done in singapore too. but honestly. it's something to see as a opportunity to discipline myself, and that's important. and i have the confidence! that i will overcome! (ok it's sounds entirely over-dramatic but it's true!)

i was talking to Pastor Eric at family group yesterday (it's like a branch-off of the church and the university fellowship) umm.... like sunday school! but at night. and i was just mentioning that i feel so bad that my parents are spending such humongous potloads of money sending me here. but he just kind of helped me to put things in perspective a little. i mean i know that it's really God's blessings that have brought me here, and have given me the chance to take my time and not be beholden to any organisations, or having to pay back any student loans and stuff, but i've always felt bad about it. he said, instead of feeling bad, why not feel grateful/thankful for this? and it's true. like i'd imagine that a thankful heart would enable me to be a stellar student! (haha no they don't actually use stellar here, i'm just in a weird mood.) like studying not only to glorify God, but to thank Him for His blessings upon me. hmm. yeah so it was a bit of a slap in the face that i had been so focussed on something that was the opposite of what i should have been thinking about. and you know apart from being a little mbrssed, i'm kinda relieved. somehow. i don't try to explain what i feel. feelings are too.... ambiguous to describe anything properly.

yeah so i'm going to have to go to the bookstore to see if one of my books has arrived, and then i gotta get to class. hope everyone's doing fine! drop me a comment or an email to say hi! :) take care ok?

back into the hothothothothothot sun. haha i'm such a singaporean, always complaining about the weather. if it's not too hot it's too cold. haha. ok bye now!

kudos to me!

so. starting out some place new is often always the hardest thing. and i have finally got off my big behind to come out of the ulu world that is university (even though this place is far from being remote compared to some other places in the states that i have had the (dis)pleasure of visiting.) and say hello to everyone.
it's hard i guess, starting out somewhere, anywhere. there are friends to make and decisions to make and things to buy and convictions to stick to, i think it's overall an extremely tiring process. but you never stop. you can't. you stop and you're just left behind whirling in everyone's dust. and you can't blame anyone cos you stopped. so i guess coughing and spluttering and sounding like a fish being fried in a frying pan (oh i miss singapore food so much.) while trying to keep up with things is the way to go. and there's no other way. keep it up keep it up!
haha well. all's good in my little bubble i do love this cos everything's just so new, like sleeping in newly washed sheets, it's fresh. out of the doldrums of monotonous education and into the bright sunlight! honestly, it's a little overwhelming, the freedom that you get here, you choose EVERYTHING by yourself and it's just... not the norm for me. or for anyone else for that matter. i guess, the people who came up with this certainly didn't think that it would also result in the pushing of one towards *shudder adulthood. funny. liberal learning.. it worked out very well certainly. out of the frying pan and into the fire. you think by scraping any general education requirements that you're ridding yourself of order and all the 'real world' situations when you just HAVE to do something because you just have to. but in reality, you're gaining the idea of what it means to be responsible for what you wanna take, what you wanna be, as you sit down to seriously choose which direction your semester is going to take. and that in itself, is such an adult thing to do.
oh well, it's inevitable that we'll all grow up and grow old and one day we'll get to that point, that particular temperature, where you just cant deny the fact that you can no longer be a kid anymore. it's a slap to the face, when you realise that you are just extending your childhood by remaining in school. there are people out there, nineteen years of age, raising their own families and living there adult life, taking care of another life. and here i am, almost nineteen, learning how to do my own laundry, living off my parents, and still feeling like i'm only 16 (because in reality the only difference in my life from then till now is the passing of the years.). it's depressing, really. but i have to live with it cos i have no choice. and it's a good non-option: sitting back and living off someone. sooner or later i'll take charge of my life, but till then, no point turning my head inside out trying to fit it the right way round. i'll get there someday, i'm sure of it.
anyhoo. hello to all of you i hope everyone's doing ok back in sunny singapore. it's starting to get nice and cool here in providence (oh i just love the name of this place.) finally and soon it'll be cold. so you guys get some sun for me! ;) have a good one guys.