Happy tears

Thank you Debby for making my day.
The words you said that pealed back the dark layers of storm clouds, and brought in a strong burst of sunshine.
I'm so happy to hear the news you have for me,
but infinitely happier to know that I'm enough of a friend to you, that you'd take the trouble to tell me, to make my day.
That's just so precious.

You know what "thank you"s are all about right?
Most of the time, they're just polite pleasantries, but sometimes, just sometimes, you get a real reason to make you go down on weak knees and scream a "thank you" from your heart.
Ofcourse we don't even get to express all that emotion in that way, but even if I did, it'd be scarcely enough to reveal a glimpse of the gratitude that really floods my entire being.
My entire being.
That's the word really.
It feels like, my heart's standing beside a warm fireplace on a cold winter's morning.

So thank you Debby.
God must have heard my cries, and sent you as an angel in disguise eh?

lol so today ain't that bad a day afterall!
Nah, today,
I'm the luckiest being on the planet!

The real new chapter

It is very very brilliant and exciting to know that the very people around me for those 2 years of my life, are emerging as the champion of their circumstances in present times.

I can not describe the pride I felt when I heard of the amazing achievements each coffebean had achieved.
Congratulations to my dear friends!!
Congratulations not because of all the As attained,
Congratulations because all that 4 years of hard work has bore fruit for you!

All those time we met over golden buns and chinese tea,
I could only have guessed how hard you had to work,
imagine how it would be like to endure TOP test after TOP tests,
emphatise with the cacoon-like nature of existence.
Hard work, hard work and nothng else but hard work.
It must have been 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration like how Sir Thomas Edison would have put it.
Finally, finally, finally,
emerging from your cacoon of sweat,
you are a beautiful butterfly!

So go seize the day!
Better yet, go seize the world!
You've earned your rightful position in one of the premier college of the state, Hwa Chong!
A new realm of tantalising possibilities now lay at your feet, an adventure unfolds.

Sometime today two years ago, I embarked on a "new" chapter of my life.
Only 2 years later, today, however are the significance of my choices coming through to me.
This is the real new chapter!

Somehow, hearing about how my Cedarian friends did for the O's really woke up something in me.

I wonder, what I would have achieved myself had I chosen the conventional path.
Again, I can only allow imagination to lead me.
I am reasonably certain I would have done well enough to earn the liberty of choice too.
Then what next? Surely I would more likely have become a student of Hwa Chong than VJ.

This intrigues me to no end.
What does this mean for me? Where would I be now if I'd remained in Cedar?
What is it like to have never known VJ and all that's in it?
If only I can enter the other realms in the parallel universe.

If anything, the essential question here is really simple.
What have I missed out on?
What was the opportunity cost?
And yet, there's no question of better alternatives to the path I have chosen.
I am more certain of that than anything else.

I have given up the certificate.
I have given up a black-and-white certification of personal achievement.
And yet,
yet I have developed social confidences,
intellectual maturity, more competent leadership, precious friendships
and countless other things in areas I cannot even put a name to.
I am convinced
we have poached no less fish than we would have had.

We still live in a meritocratic country though.
A meritocratic state in an era where technology nor social science has found an alternative to prove competency other than figures on a certificate.
And so,
there will come a day, not too long from now, where we will have to demonstrate that competence. We will have to prove ourselves on the same scales.
In the A's
In the working world
In the greatest exam of all - Life!

I will be ready when that day comes.
Ready to prove that Victoria is something more



Take me to the place Lord
Where there's nothing else but me and You
Longing for Your presence
I know that You are calling me to You

Here I stand
And long for Your embrace
Nothing else
Could ever take Your place

Come Holy Spirit
Fall in this place
I need more and more of You
Fill me again with the power of Your Spirit
Lord I'm crying out for
More and more of You

Lord I'm crying out for
More and more of You



Yes.
I need more and more of you Lord.

All Honour and Glory

All that I was, All that I am, all that I ever will be.
All honour and glory goes to you Lord, goes to you.

In you I found my refuge,
in you I found my strength.
You have blessed me with strengths so that I may better the lives of the people around me.
You have blessed me with weaknesses so that in me, your perfection may be amplified.
Indeed, who am I without you.
And if you are with me, who can be against me?

Thank you God for Chen Lao shi,
Thank you God for VJC,
Thank you God for good grades,
Thank you God for family
Thank you God for all my teachers,
Thank you God for the love around me,
Thank you God for health,
Thank you God for strength to carry on,
Thank you God for being my alpha, omega, beginning and end.

All honour and Glory goes to You.

To learn
to cry
to love
to try
to live again.

Making mistakes

Sometimes, we do say and do things that make absolutely no sense at all,
on hindsight.
On hindsight.
The sad thing about this is,
the damage is usually done long before you discover you've made the mistake.

We all make ripples all the time.
We make ripples when we speak, when we write, when we move, when we interact and when we commuinicate.
I want to make the good kind of ripples, not the ones that are foolish, mean and hurtful.

What happened this evening will serve to remind me to be mindful of the things I do and say.
I will learn from this mistake.

SAY NO TO NO

Isn't it high time someone got negative about negativity?
Yes it is.
Look around. The world is full of things that, according to
nay-sayers, should never have happened.
"Impossible."
"Impractical."
"No."
And yet "Yes"
Yes, continenets have been found.
Yes, men have played golf on the moon.
Yes, straw is being turned into biofuel to power cars.
Yes, yes, yes.
What does it take to turn no into yes?
Curiosity. An open mind. A willingness to take risks.
And,
when the problem becomes most insoluble,
when the challenge is hardest,
when everyone else is shaking their heads,
to say: let's go

It's TGIF day!

Yep, you got that right, it's TGIF day! (Thank God It's Friday) day!
Whew, thank God it's friday cos the week has been exceptionally tiring.

Somehow, like IP, JC life is tiring too, but in a curiously different way.
Maybe it's all the long, drawn-out lectures which isn't conducive to student participation.
Maybe it's because there is a queer lonely feeling when you're no longer sitting in hexagonal tables.
Nah... I'll choose to think it's because I have yet to adapt to the new system.

It is a sad thing, but the sting will be away in no time.
We've just gotta learn to embrace change.
Adapt, adapt, adapt.

Popped by T31 today to get our stuff cleared out.
It made me so sad to see all our stuff - textbooks, files, test tubes and all - being swept into the big red bag.
I expect most of it will probably end up in the 1LIFE fund eventually...
It wasn't totally sadness though, it warmed my heart to see the '08 juniors so enthusiastic and excited about their IP journey.
It makes me really proud to see the bright green one plastered against the window panes too, bright and green for all to see.
I am convinced the v11 legacy will live on in our new v11-ers.
Yes, it's the v11 legacy. Our legacy.
Come all ye v11-ers!! Let's fight to keep the flame alive!!!

In other news,
LT5's air-con is finally back! Goodbye Sahara and welcome Antarctica!
LT5 really is a place of temperature extremes :P

Our first debate of the season begins tomorrow with the Pedra Blanca case in SRJC.
Go team go, it's kickass time!

The 08s33 and 07s33 angel and mortal is finally picking up after more than a week of stalling.
So here's where the goodies start raining down, and all of us fattens up in time for the taking of height and weight in week 4! xD

We are finally starting on our abstract for Research Module.
With our concerted effort and some luck, we should be able to finish the report in time for SSEF (S'pore Science & Engineering Fair) Gotta give this my best shot, make every drop of blood sweat and tears we shed during the holidays count! =)

Hong Wen (primary school) BBQ coming up next friday
It's gonna be a blast!!

Monday will be cousin Max's first month celebration!
What a happy happy time!! Another addition to the Chow family! If I'm not wrong, cousin Max is the 23rd Cousin I have! xD

With so much going on, the new year sure looks exciting!
Indeed, it's the "what next?" and "how next?" questions that keeps us on the edge of our seats.
Come on everybody, we're on our way!

Phil Collins - Tell everybody i'm on my way (Brother Bear)

Tell everybody i'm on my way
New friends and new places to see
With blue skies ahead, yes i'm on my way
And theres no where else i'd rather be

Tell everybody i'm on my way
And i'm loving every step i take
With the sun beating down,
yes i'm on my way
And i can't keep this smile off my face

Cause theres nothing like, seeing each other again
No matter what the distance between
And the stories that we tell, will make you smile
Oh it really lifts my heart
So tell'em all i'm on my way
New friends and new places to see
And to sleep under the stars, couldn't ask for more
With the moon keeping watch over me

Not the snow and not the rain,
can change my mind
The sun will come out, wait and see
And the feeling of the wind In your face can lift your heart
Oh... theres no where i'd rather be

Cause i'm on my way now
Well and true
I'm my way there
I'm on my way now(x3)

Tell everybody i'm on my way
I just can't wait to be there
With blue skies ahead,
yes I'm on my way
And nothing but good times to share

So tell everybody I'm on my way
And I just can't wait to be home
With the sun beating down yes I'm on my way
And nothing but good times to show

I'm on my way
Yes, I'm on my way!

Wise words prevail

Effective communication is maximum impact, minimum speech because it is never what you say, but what others hear.
Isn't it amusing that even in communication, there's such a thing as absorption saturation point?

So while we often babble on and on, we are like the wacko stick and the pinata - we often miss the point.
It is the sincere, simple and short(indeed short sharp and sweet :P)messages that more often hits the spot.

Nuggets of wisdom live on forever in the minds of the inspired - effecting change and becoming beacons of guiding light.

Here are some from Mr Teo which have since been preserved in the recesses of my mind.
He said and I quote:

1) It is never about how good you are, but how good you want to be. So it is important to challenge yourself. Do not be afraid to step out of your comfort zone.

2)Do not be afraid, there is no such thing as a maximum potential, there is no fixed potential. As long as you are willing to further yourself, you will always grow.
Your system will conspire to bring you further, but you must want it, you must be hungry for it.

3) Lastly, always seek to better the people aroud you.
Be the salt and the light of the world

Thank you Mr Teo

Redefining Inertia

The first few weeks of the new school term are littered with new definitions.
Fresh insights into things not unfamiliar.
As we stumble through like blind molerats,
as we forge in which direction seems forwards to us,
as we scramble to re-establish,
to re-create,
to re-discover;
we are ill-able to carry ourselves forward as one piece - no.
the feeling, living, breathing part of us remains land-locked
in times past,
in wistful wishes,
in sentimental repertoire.

Regret is
watching familiar faces walk by, waving hello, and yet realising it is indeed only the face one knows, and not the soul behind it. If time could make concessions for the "should have beens,"
I would want nothing more than
to know more than your face,
while we could still call each other classmates.

Admiration is
seeing piles of IP1 Physics notes undergoing photostating in the photocopying shop, and thinking how nice it would be if one of them was meant for you. To slowly savour, and enjoy during Physics lessons.

Freudian slip is
asking your new classmates for the next tutorial venue, hearing "V31," and catching yourself hoping you had heard her say "T31" instead.

Grandmotherhood is
Watching IP1s enjoy bridging curriculum and wishing you had a bridge that could bring you from the "now," back to the good ole days.

Nostalgia is
looking up from the second floor corridor at the bright-green one, plastered against the window panes of T31.

It seems to be staring back down at me, as if to say, "Yes, I miss you terribly too."

2 Timothy 1:7

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline

-2 Timothy 1:7

Dear God,

Everything's shifting and changing these days, everyone is looking for their place.
Help me to find my own place, my directions and confidences in you.
Be my pillar and habour oh Lord,
for I am weak and small, but your power, love and grace shrouds my imperfection.
Lord, you know my heart, and you know that I love and wish to serve the people around me.
Help me to be true to myself that love may be evident in my speech, my actions, my thoughts, and every particle of my being.
That through me, others may be strengthen and blessed.



Don Moen- Throne of Praise

Jesus, we lift you on our praises
So every eye can see Your face
Your power and grace
Behold You as You really are

Servants

Servant leadership.
Isn't it curious how such a concept arises?

What does it mean to serve?
For me, I think the ability to conceive service to community is just amazing.
Amazing because willing servanthood defies nature.
It defies nature because the ability to put others before oneself is very much a phenomena in the Animal Kingdom.
Every beast for itself. Yet humans have evolved to grasp the exact opposite doctrine.

And how did we arrive at that?
There must be something we have, or we know that the others don't.
Something linchpin to the entire self-sacrificing spirit that we are able to adopt.
Is it just compassion? love?
That doesn't seem to be the entire story, seeing other animals like crocodiles and dogs are too capable of acts of deep affection.

I imagine the deeper reason stems from the fact that humans are capable of having a higher order comprehension of life and death.
We are probably the one single species who have comtemplated more on such issues than any other species (if at all.)
Evidence of this is all around us; we humans conceive afterlife,
religions are born exclusively to mankind,
and we have ideas on how one should live and die.
So while animals live and die,
we humans do not simply pass through the motion of life.
Instead, we are aware of what it means to be alive.

Surely somewhere along these lines the human asks : "what then, is the meaning of life?"
Indeed, we have eventually come to question the futility of life - if we should all live, only to die at the end of life's journey.
And this is where willing servanthood comes in.

Wiliing servanthood is subconsciously conceived because

we realise that only when one places the larger community above and before oneself,
can one present added value to the society; an added value that surpasses their own lifetimes, and live on even into others' lives.

Let's take a look at the story of Shutruk Nahunte:

I am Shutruk Nahunte, King of Anshand and Sussa, Sovereign of the land of Elam. I destroyed Sippar, took the stele of Niran-Sin, and brought it back to Elam, where I erected it as an offering to my god.

Shutruk Nahunte - 1158 B.C

Shutruk nahunte!
King! Sovereign of the Land of Elam! Destroyer of Sippar!
Behold! His accomplishments can not be found in any history book. Why?
Because great ambition and conquest, without contribution, is without significance.
What will your contribution be?
How will history remember you?

So let us learn how to serve

The manure picker of poriat farm

I have a friend.

His name is Jabez. Jabez works as a manure picker at poriat farm on the land of tripoli.
There are many animals at poriat farm - pigs, horses, sheep, geese, chickens and cows.
The manure picker of poriat farm picks up all manners of manure on poriat farm.
But Jabez chooses to do more than that.

With the pig manure, horse manure, sheep manure, geese manure, chicken manure and cow manure, Jabez the manure picker spends his non-manure picking moments distilling the manure into a fine fertillizing serum.
He then pain-stakingly furnishes the poriat apple trees with this fine fertilizing serum.
They reward him with 12 barrels full of the best apples in tripoli.
Jabez would distribute all these apples to the animals of poriat farm, leaving all but 3 for himself.

The work of a manure picker is hard, but Jabez enjoys his job.
He starts each morning with a prayer. He prays he will pick the manure well, and do poriat good.
Jabez is a happy manure picker.

Today however, Jabez is a very sad man.
He tells me his world of manure picking has come crashing down on him.
This evening, Jabez was on his way home after a day's manure picking, when he happened to chance upon the cuckatoo bathing in a roadside puddle.
Now, the cuckatoo was a rare bird to find on the ground. He was always in the air, dancing with the winds and cuckatoo-ing at the things down below.
"To what do you owe that radiant smile on your face, Jabez?" the cuckatoo asks,
"well, serving the animals of poriat makes me happy," Jabez answers.
"Are you deaf Jabez? They do not cheer, they jeer."
"what do you mean?"
"My poor man Jabez, take a look on your behind, the animals have not been kind." And took flight, the cukatoo did.
When the puddle was still again, Jabez turned for the first time, and examined his back's reflection on the puddle's surface.
The ripples distorted the grafitti that greeted him, but the affliction was unmistakable. All the way down his sides and back where his eyes had never roamed, were scrawled on remarks of spite and ridicule.
And they weren't all freshly written. Jabez realised the animals had for a long time been jeering behind his back.

The animals wanted to be the manure picker of poriat farm.
For that job, they get to stick a blade of grass behind their ear. They thought it'd make them look cool.
Looking back, Jabez realised why the percy the pig always snorted whenever he stooped low to clear the pigs' manure. Or why the horses once hid the manure down the well so he had to spend half the day down the well in knee-deep manure, to get it out of the well again.
Or why...
Or why...

And when he realised these, he was torn. torn. torn. torn.
It wasn't simply the stupidity of the animals, in their imagination of manure picking as fame's fantasy.
And it wasn't just because all that had kept him manure picking, was the belief in good for the animals.

Why, the animals who think these of him!
Weren't they his friends? He had thought so.
Jabez was crushed.
Crushed because the 5 of his bestest animal friends had thought him a hypocrite.
Crushed because the cuckatoo had kept their scrawls from him for so long.
Crushed because his fantasy land of the friends he thought he had, was obliviated.
How could they have been so snide about his manure picking?!
How could they have read the paintaking apple planting as pure hypocrisy?!
After all the shit he went through?
Jabez now wonders if something that hadn't even existed at all could be obliviated in the first place.
Beyond this 4 walls of concrete, it is raining very very hard.

But that doesn't matter anymore.
Jabez feels cheated.
He writes, and I quote:

"When I think of all the time I lost, I could cry"

I have a friend.

It's been awhile since I last blogged, and my my my what a lot of things have transpired since Christmas!
Of notable mention:
1) Family Fiesta - a most cherished night of fun, games and family love.
2) Orientation - particularly the failures and successes of Registration (day1) & CCA walkabout (day2)
3) Welcome 2008 - new classes, new teachers, "new" school; same vision, old determination, 1 belief.

2007 has been such a beautiful year, and I have so much to say about it!
But more on that some other time maybe. For now, it's the new year that's compelled me to blog.

One wonders, what kind of a year would 2008 be.
Jourdan would have me believe 2008 would be the "best year yet," and there is little doubt about that.
I believe, whatever happens from now till 31 December 2008, the battle victory is secured as long as lessons are gleaned from it. And that's something within my control.
That said, to move to the extreme laissez-faire end of the spectrum,
however phlegmatically saintly an attitude that is, is hardly conceivable.
The truth is, we are all not here to see anything happen.
Not just anything.
We have come together with different ideas of what should happen and how.

In the year 2008 especially, this is the very thing that makes the year tremendously exciting.
The initial phases are ofcourse linchpin to the entire affair, it's got me over the edge of my seat to see and be involved in how the chess pieces are set.
The excitment surges then ebbs away at the conceivement of a chess game though.

Let's go back to the basics:
Finis Origine Pendet - The end depends upon the beginning.
Increasingly though, the question for me is not "what?" but rather "how?"
How do we go about it?
How was it possible in the past?
Then again, there is the constant reminder that knowledge in itself, is a means, and not an end.

Time and tide will not wait for me to mull over questions with elusive questions though.
Whatever's gonna happen will happen soon,
and we'll just have to take to it like ducks take to water.
This is, afterall, not the first time the cheese has been moved.

Let's go on a cheese hunt!