not by might, not by power...

it's been a while since i've been reminded that i'm not facing life alone. somehow, when the chips are down, it seems like it's me taking on the entire world all on my own. and when my knees are buckling and trembling under the immense weight of it all, just as i'm about to fall, God slots something like this in to remind me that He is with me throughout and ever present in the people i can be proud to call and acknowledge as family, blood or otherwise. i'm not alone, and i only need look to the great people He has surrounded me for the strength to keep running the race...

I Will Run To You

Your eye is on the sparrow
And Your hand, it comforts me
From the ends of the Earth to the depth of my heart
Let Your mercy and strength be seen

You call me to Your purpose
As angels understand
For Your glory, may You draw all men
As Your love and grace demand

And I will run to You
To Your words of truth
Not by might, not by power
But by the spirit of God
Yes I will run the race
'Till I see Your face
Oh let me live in the glory of Your grace

introducing... the nintendo wii.

dumbasses like chee soon juan baffle me with their absolutely nutty(if somewhat amusing) antics(and stupidity). exams baffle me with questions that twist and turn my brain inside and out. the weather baffles me because i never know when the clouds are just gonna sweep in and start pouring, and neither do i know when the sun will peer out from behind the dark grey blinds of cloud. parents baffle me by giving their kids strange names, like atom or apple or waffle or jack-in-the-box or poodle or whatever.

and now, nintendo, amidst the xboxes and playstations, decides to name their new kid, wii. as in 'we'.

reading the press release pained me due to the intense corniness. thinking about the mockery and toilet jokes the name can conjure is cringe-worthy. hopefully, the console will really make one go whee, or should i say wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.

it's not about us. it's about wii.

wonder if anything can faze me from here on in.

one of the better days of this dark exam period...

*beams*

it's been a while since i've had a really good day. for once i actually feel like i've done some good and proper studying done. ok, my paper is in 10 hours time and i still have ground to cover, but at least i don't feel the utter confusion i felt during maths and computing.

i've had a couple of good chats with good friends whom i haven't talked to in a while... ah.

topped off with a message from a certain someone that just brought a smile to my face. you know who you are. thank you =)

politics: greg fires a salvo...

and people wonder why singapore has virtually no competition politics wise. as pissed as i am with regards to this whole nkf debacle(i will resist the temptation to lambast gerard ee and the "*new*" nkf board... lest i draw a lawsuit upon myself since apparently there's no such thing as 1) innocence until proven guilty, 2) gratitude to predecessors, who actually built up the foundation they're happily plonking their fat bottoms on with the millions of dollars in reserve and 3) total anonymity on the interenet. soooo...), i think the opposition parties in singapore aren't exactly the brightest bulbs in the box.

kudos to the workers' party for just laying down criticism at the pap in a subtle, but poignant manner. i believe credit must be given where credit is due, and i think the remarks made by their secretary general were tactful, yet sharp enough to draw a response from the MM. sure, the comment was rebutted, but still, it was a good try.

however, contrast this to a jackass like chee soon juan. sometimes, it really makes me wonder if this guy is actually paid to pull off his antics. i mean come on, can't the guy take a hint? his accusation of pap going all out to destroy his party, is, ironically, giving the pap reason and just cause to smack him. the fact that a law was just passed to ban podcasts and he goes on and releases one is pretty much as analogical to covering oneself in fish guts, jumping into a shark-infested ocean and slitting one's wrist for good measure. the sharks WILL come...

it baffles the mind really. it's people like this that keep the pap in power. simply because there's no one else better to withstand the scrutiny. ok, it must be tiring waiting election after election. and surely patience wears thin, leading to outbursts. but if you're giving your opponent the opportunity to fault you, you're basically shooting yourself in the foot and destroying all the hard work you've done in the past. i may not agree with everything pap, but i sure as hell wouldn't wanna put the reins of my country in the hands of jokers like chee soon juan. imagine him going up to malaysia and pulling off these stunts. or better still, going up to the states and accusing dubya of covering up the whole WMD issue in iraq like he is with the pap and nkf now.

change might be good, but if a system is functioning(even with the hiccups inherent in every system), why go out to reinvent the wheel? please do wake up your idea, dr chee. you're not exactly a fitting and prime example of someone who can lead a nation. and your antics simply aren't gonna get us through. not as a people. not as a nation. maybe in a jim carrey movie, but not here in functional, if boring, singapore.

and you dare to say out loud that you hold a phd. pffft.

computing induces nausea, headaches, copious amounts of profanity that leads to psychosis, neurological disorder and eventually, death.

looking at past years exam papers for computing, i've concluded that students roughly need a 2.0GHz processor(preferably intel P4s), 1GB of ram plus a 70gig hard drive with windows xp(having windows vista won't hurt) to tackle the questions.

unfortunately, i think my operating system is windows 95 running on a P1 133MHz, with 32 meg ram and a 2gig hd. think we're gonna have a problem here... or we're gonna need a serious system upgrade and overhaul...

that sinking feeling...

well... i guess i don't have much to say about this disaster that's gonna be my FE1007 maths 2 paper that's gonna occur in 7 and a half hours time. or maybe i do. but even with this whole crazy fracas of dad's case going on in the background, i guess i'm the source of my own undoing... not putting in sufficient effort throughout the semester, not attending lectures, not starting revision earlier... i think i thoroughly deserve a good rollicking from anyone who knows just how little effort i put into this paper. the dark side of me really wonders why people bother to wish me good luck and that with the kinda effort that's gone into the preparation for this paper, i hardly deserve even the slightest shred of pity or goodwill...

damn my dark side. words cannot express the gratitude i felt for all the well wishes i received. especially for all you wonderful ppl who checked up on dad... it really did my soul plenty of good and warmed my heart. i don't know how i'm gonna get through the paper, or even hope to live up to the good lucks and all the bests, but i will battle with what little knowledge i have every step of the way. i will not despair, and i will not succumb to this sickening feeling in the core of my being. i will face the music with honour, even if it means staring failure straight in the face. and when i receive my just desserts, i will gracefully accept them and move on, be it to leave this whole thing behind or face this adversary once again. once again my friends, thank you and God bless you all. you all really know how to make a silly, foolish boy like me feel like the most blessed person on the face of this planet...

the goodness of Providence... according to sherlock holmes

"What a lovely thing a rose is! There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion. It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers."

Gethsemane

it's been a while since i've had one of those really spiritual God experiences in church. i went for this lenten vigil not knowing what to expect. sure, bro. mike was speaking, and he was the main reason that had me sign myself up for this, but obviously he wouldn't have been speaking from 9.30pm till 5am the next morning, so there was a real element of the unknown when i started rallying troops for this vigil. but God speaks to us all in mysterious ways... and i guess i heard a thing or two...

well, the night kicked off with praise and worship... which basically set the tone for the evening. a pinch too energetic and charismatic for me to like to the fullest, but it definitely set the energy level for the night. even when everything ended after palm sunday mass, the lead worship leader was still prancing in front of the altar with so much energy and zest. if only i could study overnight like that and prance to the exam hall... anyway, after that came brother's first talk about the importance of love in our lives. it was fantastic, and brother basically left the whole congregation in stitches. jokes aside, brother's content has seldom changed, and whenever he speaks about going out to love others as well as ourselves, it never fails to leave that warm fuzzy feeling of reassurance in my heart. in the end, the most basic common denominator in life is love. we were made to love and be loved, and that is our calling in life.

brother's 2nd talk was just as great as the 1st, which asked each and every one of us, what are your distractions? distractions referring to those that distract us from the love of God. even the gifts He sent us can become distractions, and we've gotta do our best to always live up to that call. "the love in your heart wasn't put there to stay; love isn't love until you give it away" was another of his memorable lines (which he recalls seeing from the love of his life at the time as a "15 year-old retard". yeah his exact words. ;) . honestly, you can never find these kinda lessons outside of the Roman Catholic church. not with the same degree of humour, not the same degree of depth.

of course, not everything was about brother michael broughton. while he was a major plus point, there were other significant parts of the program. there was stations of the cross, of which the impact was magnified intensely with each station showing the corresponding scene from The Passion of Christ. it's so easy to read the bible and gloss over the suffering that Jesus underwent. Jesus was scourged, crowned with thorns, condemned to death. Jesus fell once. twice. thrice. met Mary on the way. nailed to the cross. died. buried. The Passion does away with all this sanitisation and shows how Jesus really suffered with every step he took on the way to Calvary. and everyone cringed at sight of the nails piercing his wrists. i was jarred by this as well, but it was heartbreaking to watch Mary look her son in the face as he stumbled on, bleeding and exhausted. it reminded me that there's no love on this earth like a mother's for her child, and it really really struck me. hard. every loving mother will always hurt at the sight of her child in agony, and the pain flows both ways. yet both knew what had to be done, and went with it.

i suppose these 3 bits stood out the most for me, for i find it hard to recall much else.

but make no mistake, i thoroughly enjoyed myself throughout this whole experience. and by God's grace, i managed to stay up throughout the evening and surivive till i reached home at 9am on palm sunday morning. and i don't think i could've made it without the fantastic company i had. it was an amazing vigil, and the company was an absolute Godsend to complement and make it so much more fulfilling. thank you fiana, peter, marian, goose, audren, james, bobby, joc and david. =)

and i couldn't have had the day end with an even better note with wayne rooney tearing arsenal apart with a match-winning performance, scoring one and creating one to leave me going to sleep with a huge grin on my face. two-nil to united, and the title race, even if unlikely, still very, very much alive.

thanks God, for another wonderful day in this thing that i call my life. love ya always. =)

as unpredictable as...

the weather. the weather's been absolutely bananas these few days... one minute the sun is bearing down on you with such immense heat, and the next thing you know, it's a raging tempest with buckets and buckets of rain. and before you decide what to do next, the storm just vanishes, as quickly and mysteriously as it had appeared... the only good thing about it is that at least the evenings are really nice and air-con cool... really could use a little less of the sun while walking to school, and while the cloud cover's perfect for strolling back, it ain't fun knowing that you could be caught in the deluge about to come when the wind starts howling and the sky is overcast... a little more consistency please, mother nature.

one body, though many...

wow. i've only heard this song on wednesday and i'm so in love with it right now... it keeps my hymns and worship songs playlist on my winamp for quite a while. i really wish i could put the song file online to accompany the lyrics, but i guess you'll have to do without father luke's awesome voice and deal with the beautiful lyrics until you ask me to send it to you (thanks for the file goose =). haha. anyway, enjoy.

One Body One Spirit
Fr. Luke Fong

Every one of us is born of God the Father
Every one of us is a sharer of His love
Every one of us needs someone else's love to see us through
And we find this in the Body of Christ

Deep within our hearts there beats the love of God
In our hands we hold our hopes and dreams
Open our eyes to the Holy Spirit's life
Every one of us bears the face of Christ

One body, though many
One Spirit, God's spirit
United together in Christ
One body, though many
One Spirit, God's spirit
United together in Christ

When we touch the love of God we will be able
To be active sharers in His holy life
And it matters not what talents skills or gifts each of us has
Just as long as we have answered God's call

After all the time we've spent on Earth is ended
And we hear God's invitation to His home
We can then be strong as we sing the Spirit's song
In the company of saints we will belong

One body, though many
One Spirit, God's spirit
United together in Christ
One body, though many
One Spirit, God's spirit
United together in Christ

We may be many but called to be one
We may be different but share in one vision
One vision

One body, though many
One Spirit, God's spirit
United together in Christ
One body, though many
One Spirit, God's spirit
United together in Christ

One body, though many
One Spirit, God's spirit
United together in Christ
One body, though many
One Spirit, God's spirit
United together in Christ

United together in Christ

no feeling like an honest day's worth of sweat...

wow. didn't know what to expect when jem asked me out to play street soccer yesterday at 3. 4 hours, lots of running, dribbling, passing, shooting, 2 cramped calves and sore legs later, i still can't believe i managed to do on the left flank. somehow i managed to really play beyond myself and turn in a good performance, running everywhere despite my sore calves and just having fun. dribbling past defenders, threading neatly weighted passes into the dangerous areas, having a few cracks at goal and assisting a few goals through throw-ins. even managed a pretty good solo goal, even if it did go in off the keeper.

at the end of the day, words cannot describe the feeling of relief and satisfaction after a seemingly tireless day of football. that feeling of exhaustion, coupled with the relief of finally being able to rest, plus the encouragingly good performance. just can't wait for the next bit of action i get to taste...

tacked on afterwards: it's pretty amusing how i only escaped with a nick on the pinky after flying thru the air on a concrete surface when my calf cramped up whilst running at full flight. even more amusing was how the right calf also decided to lock up while i was in mid-tumble. *note to self, never cramp up again. soreness is lasting and very uncomfortable.*