41

I pray I only get as much rest as I need to continue fighting well.

40

I was awoken by strong wind and rain.

Jumping to my feet, I rushed to close all the windows in the house.

Then I sat down and felt the crushing sense of loss.

I was having a wonderful dream.

The sense of loss is not because I had to wake, but that I had to forget.

We forget our dreams by the time we get out of bed.

So what I normally do is have a very long alarm that gets louder and louder over 15 minutes. It starts with slow music that does not wake me, but affects me in my dream, drawing me slowly towards the surface. I become conscious that I am dreaming and quickly recall as much as I can of what just happened in my dreams. Then the music gets louder and I start to awaken, but I stay down and don't start thinking about reality yet, instead focusing all my attention on the memories of my dreamscape. By the time my last loud alarm sounds, I have moved all my dreams to storage memory, and I get up and quickly type my dreams down, for they will still be forgotten in a couple of days.

Today I woke even before my first alarm rang.

(I did not copy this playing music thing from Inception though they did use it in the movie. I was doing this way before the movie was shown, and thus identified with the movie a lot.)

So without the time to package the memories, I lost almost all recollection of the past 8 hours. I forgot meeting the girl I liked, I forgot what I said to her, and I forgot how the conversation went. I forgot everything except the fact that I met the girl I liked and said something significant to her (and because I can't remember what I said, I think having this memory sucks more than forgetting everything). Felt as though I just wasted my last 8 hours.

-:-

In the lift on the way to school, I looked at myself in the mirror, and completely did not recognise myself.

I look like a totally different person.

-:-

I arrived at fencing and everyone who saw my FB was interested in my eyelashes.

Only the girl who did not add me on FB noticed my hair was dyed red now.

39

We humans are great at categorizing things. 

Big, small, black, white, tall, short. 

We're good at categorizing people too.

But the problem with any categorization we have is that
there will always be people who can't be categorized.

-

See, I went to school today with curled eyelashes.

Nothing wrong with that right? 

Wrong.

This creates a problem when I need to find a place where I belong.

People who go here don't have curled eyelashes. 

So where should I go?

Curled eyelashes are not enough to get you in here. 

(I stood outside the door long enough to take this picture... 

and didn't feel welcomed.)

Where was one like me to go?

Thankfully, NUS has a place designated specifically for me.

Western Saloon

So I was in quite a pathetic state when I met my hair dresser.

He gave me my usual cut. 5 dollars.

His neice came and served meiji milk.

And she offered tuna spread on cream crackers.

Gary, my stylist, asked if I was in a rush.

I wasn't.

He offered to dye my hair to the colour I first wanted.

I consented.

I was given another glass of meiji milk.

I got my hair coloured and washed.

So...

1 cut,
1 colouring
1 wash
2 glasses of milk
4 tuna spread crackers

For 5 dollars.

This is why I keep going back to Gary.

Sorry I'm late. I got stuck in a door...

I was walking out of school when my right calf suddenly started hurting.

I limped down Kent Ridge, worried about how I was going to fence tomorrow.

I pushed open AS7's glass door and saw a whole lot of people at the lobby as I hobbled in.

The heavy door swung close before I had cleared it and caught 2 of my fingers in its jaw.

I wanted to scream in pain but there were too many people around.

I hobbled out and down Kent Ridge, holding my throbbing right hand with my left.

It was particularly difficult climbing down the stairs.

There's a line across my middle fingertip, and black lines appearing below my middle and 4th finger nail now.

I arrived at the glass door of my hair stylist's saloon approached with caution.


How am I going to fence tomorrow?

38

I am smashed.

Well in several ways.

Watched over an hour of non stop interviews with people who don't fall clearly into male of female categories. Drag kings, drag queens, lesbians, gays, butches, lesbians who marry transexuals, bisexuals...

Fenced with a girl today who smashed me up good. 2 girls actually, separately. Like I said, now is the time I will lose and lose and lose. All senior fencers, and I'm training to catch up from the bottom.

But the most interesting thing I learnt today was the concept of negative space.

When an object is defined by what is around it.

37

I like Mac.

They never crash.

I went to school the whole day just to use a video editing program on the school Mac, which I have on my own Mac. This is why:

I worked till the school com crashed.

Randomness

"You fit the theory of evolution. Random."
-Wan Jun, TCPC

"Justin is unpredictably unpredictable."
-Huiqi, KPC


Randomness is difficult.

Today was my Sabbath, and after missing last week's, I was excited about it. But when mom asked me what I was doing today, I found it difficult to say "I don't know". While it was half true that I didn't know what I was going to do, I did know that I was going to spend time with God. I was not wasting time idling (as the phrase "I don't know" may imply), but I just didn't know where God would lead me.

Maybe this is why it is so difficult to set a day aside for God, because it's so difficult to explain what you're doing. I don't know...


Last night at 2am dad found I was still awake and asked me to turn in.

So at 2.45am I went to bed, said a prayer for Cheryl Chan doing her 24km route march to the floating platform (for her Basic Military Training Passing Out Parade) and closed my eyes.

5.45am. She was 2.4km from the ending point, and I was still not asleep.

And I realised I have not seen the sunrise this whole year. Not even in India when I woke at 4am. (The mountains blocked the sunrise you see...)

So I thought... "God... since I can't sleep... might as well right?"

The next thing I know I was at the best spot for watching the sunrise in Punggol. My LRT station platform.

You roughly see what looks like 3 suns here in this picture. What I saw were 3 lighted areas- green on top (no idea why), yellow in the middle (the sun), and red below (the clouds burning).

The difference between sunsets (that I usually watch) and the sunrise, is that you can't watch the sunrise for long. It gets more intense by the second till- you can look at it no further. Thus I was done watching the sunrise just past 7am. And as I looked in the distance I could see the marina bay sands resort. Yes, we can see it from Punggol. So I thought, "God, since i'm already at the station... might as well right?"

So I took the train towards the marina bay floating platform for Cheryl's POP. But I did not have the ticket for entry.

I reached Dhoby Gaut interchange with no idea what time the parade started or how I was going to get in. As i waited for the circle line train to pull in, I took out my GPS phone to find the way, and a woman approached me.

"Excuse me, do you know how to get here?"

She pointed to a map to the marina bay floating platform printed on a ticket for the POP.

"I'll take you there!" I said happily.

Her name was Angeline and she had a young son named Bryan with her. She was going to see her brother (I thought she was going to support her other son *facepalm*). She was surprised to find out I was going to support a girl, and that I had no ticket. For the record, she didn't have an extra.

I brought them all the way to the floating platform and the parade had already started. I walked close to Angeline and Bryan and talked to them to show we had come together as passed the soldiers manning the entrances. Seeing a guy, a girl and a kid, the soldiers let us through without checking our tickets (even though the kid looked like he had caucasian heritage and both of us were Chinese). Heh. God provides!

So we enjoyed the parade, and I had much fun talking to both of them about the army. Then the troops did a march past, and we went forward to see them up close (we were half way up the stadium, a long way off). I was separated from Angeline with this huge crowd moving to the front.

March past over, the crowd dispersed back to their seats, and I found Angeline.
But she had lost Bryan in the crowd.

A stadium that can seat 30,000 was not where you want to lose a kid. I was as anxious as her and after taking down her number, began searching. She approached the sergeant ushers for help. They had the "Oh no what are we going to do now" look on their face.

After checking around us and realising he was no where near where we last saw him, I started to think like how Bryan would, and formulated that he might have found a way back to his seat. So I moved upwards, and found the boy close to where we were previously sitting. I waved to the soldiers to tell them he was found as Angeline came up to him and kissed him on the head.

It moved me so much. I don't know why... to see a mother kiss her child. Maybe because I felt a little of what she was feeling for the past few minutes.

So the parade came to a close, family were invited down to the parade square to find their new soldiers, I bid Angeline and Bryan goodbye, and walked to the other side of the stadium to find Cheryl. I think i'm quite good at finding people, because although her church friends and family were sitting very close to where she was standing, I got to her before the rest and was the first to congratulate the visibly moved girl.

I met the Toong Chai people like Wan Jun and Ernest who came to support her and we took turns carrying her field-pack as the group tried to get as far as possible from the crowd to get a taxi. We had to go through city-link and ended up at City Hall interchange where Chee Hong randomly bumped into us. (Chee Hong is the pastor from TCPC. Woah.) He didn't even know the parade was today.

We said goodbye to Cheryl and her family. I was hungry, and it was only 10am. So I said, "since I'm already here... might as well right?"

So I headed up with Wan Jun for my first McDonalds breakfast since after I returned from India. And who else was I to bump into but Samuel who joined us for a short breakfast. Sam soon headed off for his project meeting while I shared with Wan Jun what a struggle my past week had been, and how God pulled me through so I just wanted to take today to remember his faithfulness. She asked me if i often do such random stuff like coming down for a random someone's POP. Sometimes?

I added, "One thing I realised is that girls understand very little of what a guy goes through in the army. But Cheryl, having gone through BMT and a 24km route march, can at least understand some of it. And I want to support her for that. I don't get to talk to her much, so coming down for her graduation is my show of support."

I waved Wan Jun off and walked through the wind and the rain. Since I was here... might as well...

Go to Cat Socrates! But it was still too early, so I went to the library to look for my mainland Chinese friends, who i did not manage to find. I borrowed "Watchmen" and was pleased I could do so with my drivers license. Then back to Cat Socrates to buy film and drink drinks and talk to Hellen the shop keeper about my trip to India and the shots i took.

Desiree was thinking of coming to Cat Socrates. She asked my to buy her stuff.

A girl came through the door and I crashed into her. Intentionally.

Huiqi!!!


Inspired by the wall in Cat Socrates, I went to Art Friend to buy materials to do up my own wall. But I could not find the stuff I needed. Then suddenly...

Huiqi!!!

She was holding exactly what I wanted to buy. So scary. We both bought the same things.

So I came home in the afternoon and did up my room wall, taking down all the 40 over post-its and putting the new design up. Thus was my date with God.


What was my plan for the day at 5.44am this morning?
"I don't know"

What was my actual day like?
-Watched my first sunset this year
-Made 2 new friends on the train
-Watched my friend gradate from BMT
-Helped a woman find her lost son
-Met my friends from TCPC
-Ate with Sam Soon and Wan Jun
-Visited my fav shop, Cat Socrates
-Went shopping with Huiqi
-Redecorated my room wall.

Sometimes, all God wants us to do, is be obedient. Obedience often sounds random, but that's only random if God is not in the picture.

God is not random.

"The lot is cast into the lap,
but its decision is from the Lord."
-Proverbs 16:33

In other words, God controls the falling of the dice. How willing are we to place our time and money on his bets and not our own?

36

Bible study today.

We were asked why we cheer so loudly for our sports teams or pop idols but not for God.

We declare our amazement and love for these things but we're silent about God.

I realised that analogy doesn't work so well for me.

I don't cheer for bands or sports teams.

I was trying to figure a good analogy for myself.

What do I really love?

Oh. Oh yeah.


Okay...


I resolve to love God the way I love girls.


Starting tomorrow. It's a Sabbath.

I have a date with God, long overdue.