I was tying to take a picture of this girl without her knowing...

But she turned around and looked at me.

See, she had a bag with a white first-aid cross on it, and below the symbol were these words:

"In Event of Zombie Attack, 

Follow Me"

I looked her in the eye, took a glance to her bag, and smiled.

She smiled back.


Too bad she wasn't taking the same bus as me.

Habakkuk 3:17-18

¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not bud

   and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

   and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

   and no cattle in the stalls,

¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the LORD,

   I will be joyful in God my Savior.

It began with Jason asking me to sit down

Fencing was over and he began to question me in a rather concerned way.

"So how, did your father talk to you?"

Whut?

"Now that he knows about you being... You know... Has he spoken to you about it?"

Now you see, dad used to pick me up after fencing, so the team knows him.

"I told your dad about you."

I stared at him half expecting him to burst into laughter, but he didn't.

"Don't worry... It gets better."


Later on Florence came and put her arm around me and asked, "So how are your parents taking it?"

My glance fell to the floor as I replied, "they left the house."


That was when we could finally laugh.

I must say that was one of the greatest trolls I've ever experienced. It was especially good because it caught me in a way that I was not able to respond without making it seem like I was tring to hide something.

But it also made me think.


In a culture that is saturated with romance, it's almost a crime to be single for an extended period of time. With such a worldview it was easy to suspect me of being gay.


I'm not gay. In fact this year I've seen 2 plays, trespassed into 2 nature areas that were closed to the public, visited several different faculty canteens and watched the sunset in school from several locations- and each of these I did with a girl friend, though not the same one each time. (You know... I have a feeling when I actually do get a girlfriend, our dates are going to be terribly exciting. But I digress.)


As of late, the reasons for not getting a girlfriend are getting stronger.

First, I have a calling, and it's not a simple one.

Second, I am not worthy of the kind of girl I desire, until I become the man I desire to be.

The thing is that both of these affect each other. It's not fair to get attached now if I have dreams of living a poor and simple life. And on the other hand, to be taking a girlfriend now might well compromise on my calling, which I dare not to do.

So the main issue is this: I've still not self actualised.

I quote Elrond from LOTR, as he spoke to Aragorn regarding his calling to take the throne of Gondor (so as to rally the forces of good to banish evil once and for all) and his desire for Elrond's daughter:

"Therefore, though I love you, I say to you: 

Arwen Undómiel shall not diminish her life's grace for less cause. 

She shall not be the bride of any Man less than 

the King of both Gondor and Arnor."

I was speaking to my lecturers this week about my dreams for the future.

Plans are taking shape. I'm going to try to do an honors year to learn research methods, so that once I'm on the field in India I can conduct my own research and bring home not just stories but academic studies. But till then, I need to pull up my cumulative average point to qualify for writing a thesis.


It means hard work, and that must come first for now- for the sake of the kingdom, I lay down my rights.

Coincidence? I think not.

My Facebook news feed looked like this:

Yet

Emo song by Switchfoot.



Singing of a desperate hope.

It's an almost suicidal kind of hope.


It somehow reminds me of this other video from the game Halo.

Master Chief only says 2 words in this trailer.



Not yet.

I got out of the lift and approached my home

It was a long day that did not end well, and having missed the last bus home, I was both physically tied and emotionally weary.

As I neared the gate, I felt my heart burning in me with frustration at the way the day turned out. I stopped a few steps from my gate, frowning and upset.

No. 
This cannot be the way. 
I cannot be bringing all of this home. 
It would not be fair to Marianne.

I prayed for God to take these troubles from me, heaved a sigh of relief, and finally began opening the gate.

There was movement inside the house as my sister, having heard me opening the gate, rushed to unlock the door for me.

I smiled.

The Toys of this Age

Man... I want to be a kid again.

I Heart Tumblr Cartoons

Ryan was asked to prepare breakfast and spread kaya

"So do we get to lick the fork after?"

"Something in you breaks when you watch your comrades fall"

I feel I'm going back into my saving the world mode again.

I would never have considered doing this if the circumstances were different.

It scares me. But I must do this.


Starting to sound like Stephanie now.


God, please help me do this right.

Fencing trains the mind

Sure there's a sport called Chess Boxing.

But have you heard of Magic Fencing?

Today I introduced Marianne to my school friends

Namely Melanie, Auntie Kim (the tray return station lady), and Jessy (the Vegetarian stall auntie).

Who needs words when you have music?

Art becomes life

Last semester I acted in a play as a single dude who had to balance working and dating outside with his responsibilities at home, taking care of his little girl.

Week 2

Yes, it's been 2 weeks already.

This week has been a week of learning.

I learnt that our MRT systems are run on Windows.

And that ArtFriend sells wizarding wands.

And that it can rain heavily while the sun is scorching.

And I learnt that there sometimes is little difference between lectures in school and tumblr at home.

It's been a slightly more emo week.

Things at home are not where they should be.

Look at my bed. Oh the horror.

Without mom around, the bedsheets and pillowcase no longer match.


Hahahahah. No lah Marianne is doing an amazing job washing and cleaning.


As for my duty... well the bills arrived, along with letters from CPF for my parents who are not around. Panic.

I now need to worry about retirement.

Oh and while talking to my friend Valerie about dreams, a beetle flew into the house.

Talk about the collective unconscious huh!

So yeah... it's been a more emo week. Maybe coz i saw Marianne less.

Or maybe coz this week was the last time I'll be seeing Stephanie Brown till the end of the semester.

Or maybe coz my friends are emo too.


But it's not a bad thing for me to be emo.

When I can't find what I need from friends, I become emo.

When I'm emo, I draw away from people coz they cannot satisfy.

And when i'm alone, I turn to the only one who can.


And then I can meet people again, happily filled with joy from a greater source.


Next week... tutorials begin, and I'm preaching on Sunday. Busy busy busy!

Science and Religion

This may be a little over your head, but try to understand this.

You'll see God in a different light.



I was especially interested in the part about how a being of a higher dimension can see through a being of a lower dimension. We look at a 2D square and we in the 3rd Dimension can see all sides of it, and we can see into it, but on the flat world the 2D square can only see at most 2 sides of a square next to it on the same plane.

In the same way, something of the 4th dimension doesn't just see our face or our back the way we see others in the 3rd Dimension, but it sees all sides of us at one time, and sees right through us.

In non-scientific terms,

For the LORD sees not as man sees: 

man looks on the outward appearance, 

but the LORD looks on the heart.

- 1 Samuel 16:7

We can't imagine how this works, because we are lower beings.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, 

   neither are your ways my ways,” 

            declares the LORD. 

- Isaiah 55:8

But we can roughly get the idea from science.


If you're religious, don't write off science.

If you're all for science, don't laugh at the religious.


We may not understand the specifics, but we get the big picture.

Both ways.

I'm one who needs mental preparation...

...before meeting people. I need time to think and get into the right frame of mind before meeting someone or I don't know how to respond.

Thus it stressed me much today when my appointments for the next 4 days just got rearranged. All of them.

I was walking around listless in school, and wasn't able to greet people in the same way that they greeted me along the corridors. I guess I was not ready to meet anyone I had just became friends with (who didn't know me well), but was hoping to talk to someone who I could let my guard down with.

I found none such and ate dinner alone.


As I was finishing my meal, Auntie Kim motioned to me from behind her stacks of dirty dishes. I carried my dinner to the table next to her tray collection point and asked how she was doing.

It's difficult, she said in her dialect-ridden mandarin. She lamented that she's working herself crazy. Then after a sigh, she looked up from her plates and asked if I was going crazy studying too.

Kinda... I replied. It wasn't books that was killing me, but it was not like I had any idea what was.


Auntie Kim told me she takes things a day at a time. Thinking too far ahead worries her- for today's work is intense, and so is tomorrow's, and the day after. But what has tomorrow's concern got to do with today for her? Nothing. So she carries on with today's work, and is happy when it is done.

I left her alone to her work as I headed for fencing, where I was joyfully overwhelmed by the sheer number of experienced sabre fencers who just came in. When it rains, it pours.


The day ended well, but for all the things I was thankful for, I was most glad that Auntie Kim hasn't retired.

So What Happened to the Dinosaurs?

There are many theories, but the most prominent are, according to Tumblr...

Either they saved us all...

Or we killed them all...

Or they were all so emo that they died.

Captain America

You were meant for so much more you know?

Peggy Carter

Harry Potter-mon

I was thinking what it would be like if Harry Potter and Pokemon did a tie up.

It actually works you know, there being so many creatures in Harry Potter.

The cover of "Goblet of Fire" could be Harry trying to outrun a Charizard.

And Voldermort's snake would be a Seviper. (Arbok is a Cobra, Nagini is a viper)

Luna Lovegood would definitely have a Misdreavus, because that pokemon basically has her personality.

Dumbledore would have Ho-oh, the legendary fire pheonix.

Then I realised I wasn't the first to think of this.

Thus began a very fun time googling images made by people who had shared my brilliant idea.

There were some that were weird...

There were some that were weirder...

But then there were some that were outright brilliant.

As I sat down in the LRT cabin...

...I felt her hand on my shoulder, grabbing at my shirt.

I turned to look at her, and I smiled.

"Ah? Cor cor is not a pole," her mother said.

I didn't mind being thought of as a pole to the adorable little girl in her arms.

I wasn't sure if she was a girl, for at such a young age it is difficult to tell. But her clothes looked a little like girl's clothes so I assumed the toddler was a girl.

I smiled at her, and though she did not smile back, she never broke her gaze away from me for as long as I was facing her.

She reached out to my shoulder again, and I took her tiny hand with one of my fingers.

This is what you call...

Via Desiree

1 Week Later

It's been a week since mom and dad left.


Someone asked me if i'm enjoying the freedom.

You know, I never felt a lack of freedom with mom and dad around, so things are worst now coz i have not just freedom but responsibilities.

I preferred the freedom alone. Kekekeke.


So here's the highs and lows of week one-


On the downside...

It's tough getting up early to do laundry before school. Marianne and I are short of sleep. More so Marianne than me.

There is an insurgency of ants. With us out of the house so much, the ants are back. And without mom around to stem the black tide, we're seeing them everywhere, and it's not coz we're leaving food around. They are in the sink, they are in my cup, they are in the walls, and their lines are too spread out to trace.

We ran out of shampoo.

I held up the ATM queue trying to update 4 bankbooks. I tried to put them into the POSB card slot. When I realised that it did not work, I tried the cash deposit slot instead.

On the upside...

I took over mom's table.

I took over mom's wardrobe.

I took over moms bathroom. (But had to borrow shampoo from Marianne)

The Ultimate Auntie in NUS is extending her territory.

(It started with me going to buy shampoo. It ended with me buying brown and black kiwi, hand soap that can protect my whole family that was on discount, dinner for tonight and bread for tomorrow's breakfast.)

The ants committed suicide in the fish tank.


Yeah anyway I put the plants in the toilet so that they will get the water vapour from my bathing and save me from having to water them. And I left the ants to be eaten by the fish so I no need to feed them, or get rid of the ants.

See? God provides.

Terminal 3

They have a display that slopes up from the ground to quite a height on one side and drops off steeply on the other side.

It's carpeted.

Create something like this that's begging to be climbed, and no sign will stop kids.

I saw every kid passing through climb up.

Some parents stop them from the start. Others tell them to be careful. Some let them fall.

I wonder what kind of parent I'll be.


And I wonder if a kid will enjoy breaking rules if he never tried keeping them.

My heart stopped

The First Day of School

The holiday was exactly 100 days long.

I counted.

In fact, I had hoped to write another account of the highlights of the second half of the holiday, but then today happened.

Yes, the first day of school was so action packed I can forget the holidays.


I woke up to a reply on FB from a girl I had messaged the night before.

I saw her in action during RAG, so decided to drop her a nice message.

She took it well, and her reply started my day well.


Arriving in school, I gave a friend of mine a vacuum cleaner for her birthday.

She was actually quite pleased with the compact and battery-less machine.

Only Justin can get away with giving a girl a vacuum cleaner.


Then I had lunch with Jon Ma and gave him his present.

It was a transformer toy which I thought was so cool when I saw it.

He thought it was so cool when he first saw it.


As I returned my plates, I saw my dear friend Auntie Kim!

So overjoyed to see her as I thought she had resigned, coz of the stress.

Even better news- they offered her shorter daily working hours!


So today I got to...

- Message a girl who had never known me,

- Hug a girl who had never hugged me,

- Sit next to a girl who was once in a complicated relationship on FB with me,

- Smile at the auntie who smiled at me,

- Fence with two new guys who did not trash me,

- Explore the science faculty with Melanie,

- And declare a minor in Gender, finally.


What an amazing start to the year.

Thank you my dear God, thank you.

Only on Tumblr...

Do you find classics like this...

Modified to mean something else altogether...

Or used as inspiration for totally new works of art.

My Mom

"These are air plants. They grow in the air."

I being stalked

The hits on my blog have doubled in the past week or two, but the comments on my blog have halved.

Anyway, Stephanie is turning out to be exactly what I hoped she would be.

Packing their life away

Oh so sweet...

Here to all my friends who just got engaged.

This...

Is going to take some getting used to.

Core Requirements

BGR with Stephanie Brown is amazing.

Sure do hope this feeling lasts.

How to contradict people:

Nostalgia

Now without referencing, try this quiz...


I scored 104 on the first try to my dismay.

Mostly due to spelling errors.


I have a friend who hit 149.

My current record is 130.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

Stephanie Brown

You could say it was love at first sight.

She looked nothing short of amazing the first time I saw her.


But now getting to know her, and I never thought I would...

I'm totally blown away.


She's in her freshman year, and I can't wait or school to start.

Do you think I'm sexy?

Wait, before you answer, would your answer to that question be the same as your answer to this question?

Drowning

I once saw a bird in the river.

Once the feathers are wet, they become too heavy to fly.

This bird was thus trapped on the surface of the water.

The more it struggled to stay afloat, the more its wings got wet.

The bird kept bobbing it head up and down on the surface of the water.

It kept struggling for a long time, grasping for air with its diminishing strength.

As time passed, I saw the head popping up above the surface of the water less and less.

And eventually no more.

Superman Returns

To Harbour Front.

Beauty and the Beast:

Stockholm Syndrome.

There isn't a better time to fast and pray...

Than when people are experiencing the worst famine in their lifetimes.

Free Association

This is one of those songs that makes me feel a little other-worldly.

It's almost as though it's singing of a suicidal kind of love.


As I listen to this I imagine a fog, so thick, over a lake.

All that can be seen is the girl on the edge of the shore getting into a small boat.

She has to go into the fog.

She has tears in her eyes, for she knows this is her journey of no return.

And the guy who is standing on the shore knows this too.

If he follows her, he too will perish.

But he has no reason to stay compared to his love for her.

And so as his tears fall, he gets into the boat and lets go of his life.

Just so he can spend a minute with her.