Transparency Is Idealistic..well, pretty much.

First of all, there's no need for alarm over the all-too-familiar title of this post (at least for those who regularly check out Jon's blog). Like what Jon mentioned, more often than not there had been times when I realize that certain topics are best left untouched on this blog. Or anywhere else online for that matter. It's really not quite possible to be totally transparent, totally honest when you have the Internet as your writing medium. Beats me how some people post everything under the sun on their blogs, especially when it concerns private matters like their love life *gasp* or dark secrets that you wouldn't even dare imagine.

For me, these people really take things too far...but then again, it's their freedom I suppose. How ironic that the paperback diary now have a totally opposite twin in the form of electronic journals. Back then reading someone's diary was considered unethical and looked down upon as a dishonest behavior but in this day and age, millions of people are seemingly just begging to have their online diaries read. Not that it's a bad thing of course (I mean, I'm one of them too). But the issue remains that I'll never be able to bring myself to be a hundred percent open and honest. The the inability to be transparent is...to be frank I really don't know if it's a good or bad thing. Perhaps it reflects sensitivity on my part. Then again maybe there are just too many things that I stash away in the corners of my heart and memory, hoping they'd never see the daylights again. Either way,only God knows me through and through, inside out outside in up down left right from the rising of the sun till it's going down...and to have my whole life played out again when I meet God, I really wonder if I'll stand the the test of fire...

But before you try to sign in to your blogger to view my 'invisible' posts like how Jon masks his, I'm sorry to say that I don't have any at the moment :D (does it work this way for blogger in the first place?) Oh well,I'll ponder about this some other time. On another topic, I'm currently playing CS Source with Justin over the net using a LAN emulator called Hamachi. Anybody fancy joining us can just drop me or Justin a line :D Maybe I'll go study now...(rightt)

So really?

Following my previous post that my blog was not unique enough, it seems that many other people think otherwise. Well, three people at least (you know who you are, except for the spammer that wanted to show me how to earn 900$ in a month...darn those marketing people). I really appreciate such positive feedback, and I never knew I was helping Justin to improve his vocab along the way (so maybe I should include a 'super unique' word for every post,haha) So before I get smacked on my forehead for not realizing my ability to write my butt off, just to quote from a fellow reader :D, I'll get back to my business of blogging. Thanks for reading guys!

Back in my high school days, my friends knew me as the nefarious 'CC guy'. CC didn't stand for chicken curry if you didn't already know, though I love chicken curry. Especially when there's ikan bilis and lots of kuah kari and.....(rumble rumble) But anyway, CC meant cybercafe and when it comes to inviting people to cybercafes, I was always the one who would nag everyone to go. "Come lah, for a while only mah. Haiya, tell your mom got St. John lah. Long time never play with you di leh.." And we'd never fail to go in groups of less than four people. We went pretty often, at least once a week. I left after I finished Form 3 to shift to KL and everytime I met back my old friends they would lament how they no longer go to cybercafes. "There's no one to ajak. Not like when you were around you would call everyone. Now we don't go to cybercafes at all..." Of course, that was like 3 years ago but surprisingly, my love for doing this whole 'invite-invite' thing is evidently still burning strong, as I discovered yesterday.

Ei Leen had invited my sis to go for ice-skating cause she was bringing two of her friends whom she is also inviting to camp. I had always been looking for a chance to go skating, and it was a great oppurtunity to tag along as well. However, I was the only guy going (Ei Leen + 2 girls + my sis + Justina = all girls), so I thought of asking a few more people to come together. At first I called Simon, then I called Christina. Later I thought of Arjund, so I had Simon call Arjund. Christina mentioned Liesl, Hannah, John and Jane. So I asked Christina to call Liesl, John and Jane while I called Hannah. After what must have been like more than an hour of calling back and forth to confirm this and that, the final list of people whom I had managed to gather was more than 10! Christina thought it was somewhat like the Fishster thing Jon had shown us, and I had wanted to illustrate it for you but alas, it would take me a while so I would work on it later and post it should I ever get it done :D

It was a nice day overall. I had learned to waddle on the ice rink but that was about it. I can't remember how many times I had to grab on to Justin and Simon to avoid falling down. Why, I even grabbed on to strangers a few times in my moments of desperation when Justin and Simon weren't around. But don't you worry, they were all guys in case you suddenly get the idea that I got 'lucky' at the skating rink, so to speak (nudge nudge, wink wink) Thanks to my incredible amount of luck and my ability to randomly hold on to other people for support, I only fell once! Yay! Not bad considering it was my first time ice skating eh? My sis wasn't so lucky though, she fell on the tip of her backbone, and she was groaning in pain back at home. Hope she didn't get any permanent injuries....

Unfortunately, things didn't go so well on the way home from pyramid. My dad had to go out of his way to fetch me, Arjund and Simon. He had other things to do and was really really upset when by the time I finally reached home. He's not the kind to scold you, he just keeps it to himself and puts on the "I'm not happy with what you had done" kind of face. Oh well...lesson learned: better plan things in advance the next time. It felt really bad to had to trouble dad like I did today, because I know that he already has to work very hard to deliver summonses (his job) and here I go asking him to fetch me here and there...-sigh- Looks like I have a lot to repay dad for once he finally retires and I get a stable job......

But I suppose I should end the post on a happy note. Everyone had fun (those who can skate at least) and I finally got the chance to skate. At least now I can tell people that I've skated before :D I'd be back in Kuantan till Tuesday, so I probably can't get the fishter diagram done any time soon. In the mean time, happy holidays people!

Happy Birthday ol' Cuz

At the request of Justin, I shall attempt to make my blog updates speedier :D

Lately, I've been having blogger's block, if there actually exists such a term in the first place. Not knowing what to write, I guess my blogger persona's having an identity crisis ... I'm at a loss as of what to write for my blog, and also how to write what I want to write. The 3 blogs that I regularly check are Justin's noodle-shop and Jon and Simon's Xanga blogs and each one has a very distinctive style and also subject matter. While Simon and Jon focused more on Godly and spiritual issues, Justin's one is more humorous and is a pitstop so to speak for many people. Sorta like mamak I guess, always the happening spot to hang around evident from the constant postings on the chat board :D

And here I am, thinking hard how to write my blog. What to blog about in the first place? What kind of style to use? Informal? Formal? Manglish? Or english-English? I had wanted Justin's warm casualness, Jon's professional touch and also Simon's depth...not to mention Crissy's natural mastery at painting imageries with seemingly ordinary sentences. Kinda weird that I should feel like this because the real me has not really suffered from any identity crises before. Yet my blogger persona right now is truly confused. Even if I didn't want to, I'd subconsciously try to style my writing after Jon, Simon or Justin. Maybe I shouldn't read other people's blogs too often (^_^)

I suppose that a blog, at the very core is just a channel for expressing views, opinions and thoughts. Perhaps that's what I didn't take into consideration, jumping into the blogging bandwagon without any real idea of what to accomplish or achieve in the first place. I shall remember that the next time I post. Not to give the impression that it's a bad thing to be influenced by other people's blogs, I just want a little bit more originality and transparency, transparent in the sense that I can actually write what I want to write, in the way that I want to write it and not because certain things that certain people wrote in certain ways. Now that's for certain :D

On a brighter note, just wanna say Happy Birthday to my one and only (I have many cousins,but there's only one Justin so the term applies) cuz Justin Lee!! Sorry I couldn't get the best models available, I thought I could at least get one nice one but ended up with a kinky bunny instead....can't wait to see how you gonna display THAT without being thought of as serong-minded, haha. Oh well, have a great year ahead!

Happy Birthday ol' Cuz

Hope you like the present I got ya... Should've put more quality-control over the passwords. Next year have to plan harder wei :D Oh well, have a nice year ahead haha.

Post a post

What shall I say...not exactly in the mood to type something but thought that I should post something ordinary, rather than finding every opportunity to write about life-changing encounters with God (not that I don't like too, but I just thought that I should write about OTHER stuffs too, lest you guys think that I'm too holy) So lately it's been normal. Yup. Just, ordinary. Of course, I know that I should appreciate the good life that I'm living, but sometimes I just wish for some sort of action. Especially after what John mentioned, I wished that I could experience more Godly encounters (oh no, here I go again...)

Most of you would know that I mentioned NS to be a fun experience. Well, thats because it really was, but not just in the conventional way. Sure, I loved hanging around with friends 24/7, flying the Flying Fox, failing the obstacle course (okaylah, failing's not exactly fun but..) and most importantly soaking in the sense of FREEDOM. Don't get me wrong here, there are hundreds of rules and regulations to follow but I meant freedom in the sense that I'm away from the protective eyes of my parents. No one to fend for me but myself.....and God. The camp was where I experienced God the most, because being all alone and vulnerable, I only had the LORD to turn to. And turn to Him I did...

I still remember how I boldly asked the LORD to guard my locker from all the itchy-handed people there. I hooked my key to my pencil case's zipper and everyday, after locking my locker I'll just leave my pencil case under my bed. Talk about crazy, and come to think back of it I'm quite perplexed as of what had made me do so. True enough, God must've put angels around my locker because I've never lost a single cent...it was about trusting God I guess though I struggled between trusting and testing the LORD. Unfortunately for my bedside friend, he lost two mp3 players after about a month. That made me insecure, so I later took off my keys and attached it to my wrist instead. Until now I still wonder whether I had made the right choice...

It was also during the camp that I've managed to attend Sunday worship in English, Mandarin and Tamil all in the SAME day!! Talk about frustrated, my friend Billy (Hi there if you're reading this :D) was awfully upset that Sunday worship literally took the entire Sunday. Time's precious lah in NS as we were rarely allotted enough free time to do personal things like wash our clothes and stuff like that. Well, at least now I know how the phrase "Jesus is the King of Kings" sounds in Tamil slang xD

I'll also never forget the one incident that involved a girl called Adeline (I hope she's close to the LORD now). You should know better what happened, Justin :D To put it simply, that was the one time when I genuinely felt God move in me. It was unmistakable, the strong powerful rush of the heart. Heck, I thought I was having a heart attack, but feeling that God was pushing me in a certain direction, I threw caution to the wind. What ensued after that was truly a memorable experience. (Sorry I can't really publish what exactly had happened, not until I get Adeline's permission) I don't know how other people have encountered God before but mine was certainly anything but expected. It must have been amazing for the prophets of old who had direct access to God Himself....

And what better way to enjoy Malay food than to eat at the camp's canteen for two months straight? Sambal and curry are served often and I won't say that I really miss the food there but it's not too bad. Sometimes it's even delicious, like the Ayam Masak Merah plus a special order of Burger Ayam Tambah Telur (drool.....) But on really bad days they serve us Ikan Goreng Batu Style. You heard me right, I said Batu. Real, hard rock. It's an absolute mystery how they managed to fry the ikan tenggiri to such an extreme level of hardness...not even our Penolong Ketua Jurulatih (a tough army veteran) could chew on that thing.

Actually I wasn't planning on posting about my NS experience but I just drifted into the idea somehow. Guess I'd just end the post here, although I know it feels like a half-written novel that didn't get past the first chapter. Another day, another time. Now if only there's a way to recycle the 10+ hours that I've wasted today since coming home from school........

The mail from God

Today, a mail came in for me. "Ah ha, did I win a contest?", I wondered gleefully. But when I glanced at the letter, I was disappointed. It was one of those newsletters from India. For those of you who didn't know, I am the Secretary Treasurer of my church's youth group and we sponsor two children around the world, one in Lebanon and one in India. The organisation in India handling the sponsorship program, CMCT (Christian Missionary Charitable Trust i think) mails newsletters to sponsors like me (well, I represent the youth group). I opened the letter but only read it about an hour later cause my sis was asking me a maths question that she couldn't answer (PMR paper).

Interestingly, for the past two weeks or so I had been getting my priorities all screwed up. Homework was at the bottom while getting my BitTorrent to work was top. I must've spent like countless hours on my PC trying to fix one thing after another. Somehow, my PC never works the way it should, giving me errors that are often too embarrassing to even mention. One thing is that I'm very arrogant when it comes to things like this. If I couldn't get something to work, I'll hopelessly spend all my time until I either get it to work or I have no more time left. Which explains why I dislike maths, problems I can't solve really bug me to no end....

But back to the matter, I was really feeling down in the dumps because I messed up my time management. (WHY?!?!?! WHY WON'T YOU WORK PROPERLY FOR ONCE YOU LOUSY PIECE OF SILICON!!!!) I had realised that I spent so much on the computer that I was suddenly 'too busy' for God. "Oh no, it's too late too read the Bible. Oh well..." And then the letter came, and as I read the letter I was yet again surprised, and amazed at how God decided to take such a long route to answer my prayers. The letter contained a lot of prayer items for the missionary workers that toil and labour everyday over at India. Halfway through the letter, a prayer was inserted. It read like this:

TOO BUSY

Forgive me, Lord, that I allow
My days and hours to be
So filled with trifling tasks, that oft
I find no time for Thee,

My thoughts are so oft occupied
With countless earthly things,
When Thou wouldst have them mount on High
By faith with eagle wings.

So many duties round me press,
That rob me of the time
I fain would spend with Thee, my Lord,
In fellowship divine.

Too busy - O forbid, dear Lord,
That I should ever be
Too much engrossed in worldly tasks
To spend an hour with Thee!

That I should let the din of life
Drown out Thy voice of love,
And, groveling in the "sands of time"
Lose out on things above.

O help me, Lord, to take the time -
To set all else aside,
That in the Secret Place of prayer,
I may with thee abide;

To hear what thou wouldst say to me,
And hold communion sweet;
To praise Thy precious worthy Name
And worship at Thy feet;

To hearken to Thy holy will,
To feel Thy cleansing pow'r -
O may I ne'er let aught deprive
My soul of this blest hour!

It couldn't have been at a better time. It's truly amazing how circumstances and situations can be used to God's advantage. I never thought that the answer to my prayers would come from India! But as it stands, I owe God a lot of quiet time. And I'm afraid that if I keep telling God I have "no time", God would say the same thing when I finally meet Him. I guess I'd just end this post with this line: Do not limit God according to your own expectations, God does things in ways that we as humans would never ever have imagined (^.^)v ." Cheers!