When sun rises and stars blink

Looking out the window each morning and night, I see the same images - all except the colour; it's bright yellow during the day and dark black during the night. As each day passes by, the time left for each other also shortens.

A friend once shared with me, one should find time to spend with close friends now that they are still here with us, rather than wait till they have left (for all reasons) then think about going out with them.

It is selfish just to spend time developing a friendship just for the sake of boosting the friend's self-esteem, or building the foundation of faith, so a friend said. As a result, when the friend can stand on one's own, the initial friend lets go so the friend can move on. There silence filled the communication atmosphere, though little thoughts of kindness do travel through the air now and then to keep the string attached.

The thought of wanting the best for the friend has been reflected back: that just making friends for that reason and letting the friend go after the 'mission' has been accomplished are one-way acts, for one's own personal benefits not wanting to have further relation with the friend.

But whatever happened to mutual understanding and lasting friendship? Two friends are true friends if both can still maintain good relationship despite the many silent moments spent together. Is that even true?

I'm confused at how perception changes the whole human mind. I have yet to find out how to channel my sight to see the unique perception of others. Until then, I shall see the sun rise and stars blink each day and night.

Ready to Leave

Ever had a phase in life to move on and leave the past behind as it is? Hmm.. I've never actually been in that phase, but coming soon is the preparation to leave.

Leaving to where? No idea. But I'm leaving my past.

It's a tough decision to make that made us chose this path. The balance of benefits for all parties, the fine line to draw for all. I don't figure myself being excited to leave, as that was how and where I became who I am now. I dislike going out, away from the "mother's wings" as people term it, but life has to move on.

And so, 3 months perhaps; I shall leave.

A new phase of life. A new outlook on living. A new me?

Embrace the change, endure the toughness, enlarge the view of life.

Move on~!

Careless

The week was a really holiday break. Life practically stopped just for the fun of the festival and I forgot about everything else except living the best of the week.

And of course, the consequences that come with it.

Somehow too long a break can reduce the effeciency of the brain and I end up being very careless with almost everything which lead to dissatisfaction of mind.

With the currect change in the cycle of life (supposedly new year has begun), productivity is to be enhanced. Less of the bad, and more of the good.

The future, I can't predict. But all I know is that someone's holding me to face it. With that, I trust and live in faith.

What next

With the recent theft case to kick start 2010, aside from turning a year older, it was rather ridiculous to get me down on my seat the whole time.

The case brought me so down that life felt some fear and injustice. What came next was nerve-wrecking, madness.

The thought of being kind was pushed, the heavy weight of responsibility crowned upon. Who else would have felt that would be next. Changes.

Life was not good, but it was never that bad. Optimism.. call on it and it will return to serve you. Hard as it is, one moment to cherish - one season to cheer.

The sun never fails to rise each new day, so does God never fail to love the sinner no matter how he hates the sin.

Looking Forward

After practically mourning for 7 days after the incident, life's heading a U-turn to get back to having things done again. It was tough, to look back at it and see what could have been done before it really happened. But no one could predict it happened there and then, so things happen for a reason. Just had to accept that.

Got replacements, tried a hang of it - not too bad, lots to learn. Confusing enough yet not as nerve-wrecking. Glad. Just realised I lost more things to those early 'Santas' than I thought.

A good start, to keep me up and about. Optimism, life's never better without it. And the past lurks back to haunt things down. The dislikes.

Everyone's doing great I suppose. What can I say, people change, time flies - but God never fails.

Lev 26:12 - I will be your God, and you will be my people.

Segulah Yahweh: God's own possession.

How perfect it feels to be loved. :)

16 Jan 2010

This marks the 200th post.

It also talks about the first ever break-in at my house.

My one-year old laptop was taken, alongside the bag with my Aussie parrot, mouse, cooler pad and one-week old NEW ear phones! Sigh.

My only gold pendant given by my beloved grandaunty was taken. Sigh sigh.

My drawer was forced open and my old currency were taken, together with some 1 ringgit coins.

My whole collection of ear rings was taken, goodness knows why. No gold. No silver. I'm left with one pair which was not in the box apparently.

My hard discs were supposed to be taken, but somehow the thieves removed the casing and reluctantly put it back on the table? I suppose they realised they've taken enough documents in the laptop itself rather than destroy my whole life worth of works and memories by taking away my hard discs.

The dvd player was taken.

My dad's laptop alongside his office documents and pendrives and all his stuff in the bag was shouldered away.

The door grill was badly shaped. The door was replaced. Total losses estimated about RM5k.

We'll never know how precious something is until it is gone.

Thank God grandma was out with us for lunch. It was a mid-day break in. I'll never forget today. Ever.

Age + 1

The time of the year to let go of the past and start the new year with a new hit!

Thank you everyone for making it a great one.

Life's never been better.

Thanks for the wishes, the SMSs, the calls, the laughter, the smiles, the JOY, the SALT water, the screams, the cake, the friendship, the love, the THOUGHTFULNESS, the Christ in you.

I had a HAPPY birthday to kick off a new year. :)

God bless ya all..

Silent Night..

Christmas sure is in the air... With carols ringing in the shops and malls, we cannot run away from the fact that the year is coming to an end, besides celebrating Jesus' birth at Christmas! Speaking of which, lots to do before the year ends..

The nights would have been like silent, if not for the loud singing of the 'Silent Night' song. The sense of self-keeping comes back, where one feels all are so quiet no matter how noisy the surrounding is.

I'm back in the company of young saints, lovely and lively. The fact that I was once like them, and now no longer the same; it brings back good memories.. that we were once young and had the chance to live our lives as such. Life today is so different, no more as silent as before. There is always a ball rolling, no matter how bumpy or holey the road may be. It won't stop, till life stops itself.

I dropped again. Got one fire ignited but extinguished another. It's so blank to be in the midst of everything. A good sleep didn't help much either. The news. Crashes everything.

All the more, the voice says "Don't be silent, get up! Get up and move!!" Should I?

Spreading

I just noticed how fast news spread. And how fast creepy crawly things compete with them.. I don't want it to spread anymore. It makes you scratch and tear it open.

Imposing pain to heal; that's psychological problem.

How great it is to have everything smooth.

Pandemic?

Yet again, another season of sneezing and choking before sleep.

Sometimes I wonder if I've got the Influenza. Kept falling into it lately. Twice in 3 months? My old record was once a year.

Down to meds again, with side effects of drowsy-ness, cranky-ness and lazyness. Forgive me if I snap at you. Uncontrollable neurons.

Wish it is not study period, but it is. Sadly.

The Silver Lining

Ever had the experience where you get hit so badly by the strong wind (just as how Kuching is down with heavy rain lately - due to the 'ending' strong wind from Sumatera), and that you get flown away, or if not you are clinging unto something really desperately.

But with every dark cloud, there is a silver lining.

Notice the "ends" of the cloud? Just like how there is a horizon when you look out into the sea.

And from these, we know that no matter how violent the wind blows, and no matter how fierce the waves are, there will always be something to hope for in the end. It's just the matter of wanting to hope for the better, and see the best; or hope for the worse, and witness the worst.

I just got hit by the "ends" of the neighboring typhoon and I fell down really badly. But I'm holding on still, to the best I could - so that when the wind passes, I will stand up again and smile at the blue sky above me.

Rest-more-less

With the fact that fever cooked up yesterday and extinguished my fire, I fell into a more or less "rest-more" mode. All I wanted to do was sleep. Sounds good for a sick person no?

Well yeah, I slept. And (phone call!) woke up, and slept and (biological clock rang - time's up!) woke up and... So much for rest that didn't seem like rest at all. It made me worse.

Fever went down a little and I remained like a lifeless soul. Terrible feeling. To say I were to rest, I ended up watching tv and reading about Oligopoly? How restless my day was. The night was spent with no benefit that I woke up at midnight just to feel my body heating up again. There went rest in heat.

Today's rather fine, fever left early this morning which I had to be grateful for. And now I'm so called 'quaratined' at home that things got more restless. Sigh.

I want ice-cream sundae.

ILI

I caught it. Out of the blue, green, orange whatever weather... flu. It's so annoying. The fact that there are things to get done urgently and I'm down with this annoying water streaming down my nose like some free-flowing stream.. Disgusting it may sound, but it's terribly annoying when you're busy. Bear with me if you're to continue reading.

I am not to dwell in my flu. Don't worry. I'll just talk alongside it. :D

ILI. Well it does concern me, with the "What if" questions.. I'm sure you know what kind of questions I'm referring to. Had to bear the headache for waking up middle of the nights to breathe. Dad said it sounded like I turned into a goldfish. ('Cause he said I had to gasp for air every now and then with sadly blocked nose) Oh yea, similar. Not that I can help it.

Picture courtesy of google search.

So it's down to day two. Let's see who wins the fight. White blood cells, you there?

Anyway, it you've got something similar, do practise proper hygiene and if need be, do consult a doctor to make sure you are well enough not to spread to others. I'll do my part, while you do yours and stay away from me - just this once. :)

The Week

Ah I'm back... :)

After a whole long week of ....rush and all sorts of feelings and experiences, time to get back to reality and sit here and type again. So what's with the week?

Sunday - Tuesday: Mid-Term review of the Pastoral Focus on the Family by Archdiocese of Kuching. Had the priviledge of sharing my life story to 300 delegates from 11 parishes including the Shepherd and all other priests.. wow. :)

But with the car cooking my patience on the second day and causing lots of inconveniences and panic and worries, ah.... I almost died of I-don't-know-what-to-do... yet things just unfolded fine on its own at its own time.

Wed - "Break time" before the 'second half' of the week. Supposingly to get rest and take a break off the 3-day conference and prepare for the Leadership Formation camp (LFC) but... as usual, last minute-ness and craziness ate me up. Battery almost ran flat.

Thurs morning - supposingly get all shopping done for camp the day before but something else crept up and somehow things had to be done alone and unknown. So shopping carried forward and was "supposed" to go up Mt Singai in the morning but the car meragam again and caused more casualties. I got to rest no doubt, (well I needed it in the first place) but then things at camp happened and there were miscommunication and...no one's cooking for us? Thank God for an angel who just 'happened' to be at camp who's taking cooking lessons so he cooked for us with a team of half-pail knowledge assistants. :D

Camp dragged for 48 hours and we got back Kuching on Sat evening, of which we (as if not tired enough) went for makan and minum at Open Air and then back to office to chit chat and then later at night went to McD for a farewell drink with the "camp chef" before he leaves for studies.

Sunday - How time flies. It's a week gone. Supposed to get the assignment done, yet nothing's ready. Quiz on Monday yet I was flat at home, recharging. Mum insisted to go back to her dad's place so had to tag along and spent half morning, lunch and half afternoon there... Pond harvesting. :) Swimming in the mud for the guys = cool~ Got back home and dozed off for 15 minutes before going out again. I almost died. My legs ached madly, going up and down the mountain twice. I salute those guys going up and down 4-5 times, each time carrying stuff up, eg. diesel 5 gallon x 3 sets x 6 persons. Thank you guys. :) I'm sure you will be rewarded with muscles soon.

Sunday night - dinner. And there we laughed like crazy people who've never laughed before. Now with 4 crazy animators, we have a new generation of crazy student leaders. :S

Monday - morning I couldn't get my brain to work. Dad drove me home to sleep after mass and breakfast and I only touched on supply and demand 3 hours before the quiz. Brain froze at the start of it, but got it done in the end. Hope all's fine.

And so... the week's over. I've got office work piling up, camp work to be finished and some minors here and there to get settled. Life's just the beginning of something new. When one thing's done, something new and better creeps up. Till then, goodnight!

Perfection

Heard of perfectionists? I'm sure you've encountered one or two or even a few whom you can think of right now. :)

Perfectionists. Who are they?

Someone once told me, don't be too perfect in doing things... lest when things run away from your perfection, you will end up in despair. Well, quite true.

In terms of my own religious belief, perfection only suits God. To be a perfectionist means you are trying to be God. Well that struck me a while, for I am a person who wants to see things running in order with no mistakes etc. Somehow it seems not so right now. :)

Let's just let things run on its on. We plan yes, but we leave our planning to the One who's going to carry it out.


P/S: Mid-Term Review just ended. LFC camp coming up. Today's Wednesday and I'm running on almost-flat battery. So much for a holiday break.

The Last Goodbye

People always say, "Treat others well today, for fear you will not be able to see them again tomorrow." How life is a mystery to all - it comes and goes, but unknown to our human senses when it will be taken away.

I used to not be too attached to "departing feelings"; even when my maternal grandmother left when I was about 12 I knew nothing about death. To me she just went to sleep in that special box of which those who sleep in it will never wake up again. I didn't shed a tear during her funeral, not realising the reason to cry.

After a friend's death about three years ago, I felt it. Sensing that loss in my heart, though we were not close friends in school. Her funeral was well attended by schoolmates, all the front pews full of uniformed students. During the goodbye speech by a good friend of hers, I was touched till tears trickled down. I knew deep inside she had crossed the line and entered a place we humans cannot enter, with joy. But I just couldn't accept reality that I would never see her again, nor give her that huge hug she loved so much. So young, 16 and she's left. God loved her more.

Coming back to reality, attending many funerals after hers was like waves hitting me one after another. Every time I hear of someone's death - especially those of my friend's be it grandparent or parent, it stirs that sorrow within. What would it be if I were to be that friend, facing the death of someone I love - to say the last goodbye and not hearing any response in return? How would I tell myself that he/she has gone back to the Father and is safe from all pain and harm? How would I tell those beside me how great he/she has lived his/her life and that we should live our lives better as he/she wished? How am I going to say goodbye with a smile on my face when all that is in me turn their backs and mourn endlessly?

We die. Anytime. I've been anxiously waiting, not to sit in the front pews any one of these days. I do not wish to do reading for the last time for anyone of them. I do not wish to say the last goodbye so soon. But who am I to say when I will sit there and when I will not. Who am I to wish for prolonged living, when everything is about pain and suffering. Who am I to decide when to die, or when to see others die. Such selfish being of mine.

I just pray and hope that in this short period we have on earth, life and death be according to Your will. May you comfort us in times of sorrow, and lead us to comfort others when their sorrow arises. Let it be done, as you will it to be.

Away

While you are reading this, I am away for a South East Asia gathering somewhere outside Malaysia. It's a hectic August for me, with my schedule fully packed and more to come, finding empty slots in my planner.

Being away from home without guardians outside Malaysia is a first-time for me. I am no traveller, and my survival skills can be rated top from below. But yea, leaving it all in God's hands. :)

So.. how are you doing back home? :)

I'll try to find time to share my experience during my absence, and hopefully you will learn something too!

Sharing is caring, indirectly gaining.

Upcoming

The document's out. Preparations must be done. Thought it was not right to do it that way, so we did it another way yet now it was consented to do the former. ...what a waste.

Anyway, upcoming events!

Ever wondered why sometimes we get soooo excited about a certain event coming up very very soon, and when the event date comes nearer by just a week, you tend to lose those anxiety and excitement? I suppose that happens when you have too much to look forward to, till you forget which one to be more excited about. And it's happening.

It seems rather a tasteless feeling that things and people fail you one after another. As people would always say, give them another chance. Yea. Another chance. And another, and another, and another... so that you'll be given chances too, when it hits back on you one day. Ah... the counter-attack.

All the same, :) I suppose smiling is still top on my list. It gets very annoying that you know the other side of being on one side of yourself. Doubt if you get what I mean, but it's so hard to think of the fuller half cup at times. Sometimes I wish to just pour everything away and start refilling once more. It frusts when you try to go against your own human self, knowing better of the spiritual self. Ahh..

With all these upcoming events, I've been thinking whether I'm up for it. Whether I'm really into it now, as I awaited its arrival weeks and months ago. I don't know why all these were planned, but somehow I contradict myself lately. Perhaps leaving it up to God would be the best decision, yet at the same time to do some personal thinking as well. :S

GiveMeOnePureAndHolyPassion - song of my day. thoughts of my heart. cries of my soul.

Random

Blog has been rather quiet... because of the fact that everything's been just about deadlines and rushing rushing here and there.

So what's been going on?

*breathes*

Most of my days were spent in front of the computer screen, be it MS Word or Explorer or Media Player. So you can guess what I've been up to.

The days countdown to the big trip are reducing. Somehow problems start creeping out and miscommunications occur. Disappointments were there, but second chances were given.

Involvements have got to reduce for the time being, but it seems that the more I let go, the more new things come about and knock on my door. And these are no joke; all so challenging. I suppose that's how life moves ..in circles. When you're done with one, you're up for another. You can either be going to face a new problem, or are facing one now, or just finished settling your problem. You can never run away from them..for they are meant to teach you something new each time. It's how you carry yourself when you face these scenarios that make a great difference on how 'stressful' you will live.

Exam's coming soon. It's been 2 months just like that. After the big Asian Session & Council (ASC) in St Lukas, and IYCS leaving us KYCS great memories, I sort of miss it. The rush. Thanks to this, I got to know more new friends, and old friends became even closer. Thank you Lord~ So, exam. What to say, I'm admitting when the going gets tough, I tend to slack.... *screams in desperation* Assignment to submit in few days, and yeah. *smile* (Oh no~)

Yesterday was spent at the ecumenical centre, whole day for the spiritual growth seminar conducted by Holy Cross Ministry. I would say I spent 14 hours out of home, and 10 hours on the laptop. I'm glad I survived the long hours with the tiny strain in my head.

So... that's about it. There are more events coming up. More BIG events..all of them. Hmm, may the good Lord continue to guide us in our daily living. :)

Call On Jesus

A beautiful piece by Nicole C. Mullen.

Call on Jesus sung by Darlene Zschech.

Verse 1:
I'm so very ordinary, nothing special on my own.
Oh, I have never walked on water,
And I have never calmed a storm.
Sometimes I'm hiding away from the madness around me
Like a child who's afraid of the dark

Chorus:
But when I call on Jesus,
All things are possible
I can mount on wings like eagles' and soar
When I call on Jesus,
Mountains are gonna fall
'Cause He'll move heaven and earth to come rescue me when I call
La la la la la, la la la la la

Verse 2:
Weary brother, broken daughter,
widowed, widowed lover, you're not alone
If you're tired and scared of the madness around you
If you can't find the strength to carry on

Chorus:
When you call on Jesus,
All things are possible
You can mount on wings like eagles' and soar
When you call on Jesus,
Mountains are gonna fall
'Cause He'll move heaven and earth to come rescue you when you--

Bridge:
Call Him in the mornin', in the afternoon time
Late in the evenin' He'll be there
When your heart is broken,
And you feel discouraged,
You can just remember that He said He'll be there

Chorus (2x):
When I call on Jesus,
All things are possible
I can mount on wings like eagles' and soar
When I call on Jesus,
Mountains are gonna fall
'Cause He'll move heaven and earth to come rescue me

(back to top first time, 2nd time finish with "when I call")

La la la la la, la la la la la, la la la la la-a-a


Lately with all the hard-hit news coming to me one after another, shocking the mind out of me, this song truly inpires me to keep on moving.. For without God by my side, without Jesus being my light, I can't go on.

Friends can be there for you, but nothing compares to the shelter and warmth he alone can provide. But friends are signs that God cares, so thank you Lord for these people; and thank You too - you know who you are. :)