大家总是跟我发牢骚，说他们觉得他们读的东西非常不有趣。我跟他们讲，至少你们读的都是英语, ok? 你们不要 complain 了可以吗？给我一点同情心吧。show me some love and compassion please. 谢谢你们的爱心和关怀。我想蓉珍看了这个 post 会骂我华文真的是很差劲，应该多多读。

完了。

mother: are you late for class?
chloe: yes.
mother: that's terrible!
chloe: mummy, it's a nine a.m. class. what were you expecting?

but it took longer than i expected to get to school because traffic was heavy (hurrah for too many cars on dunearn road) and because i'm hum chee i'm now sitting outside the seminar room making notes despite rui's repeated entreaties to just go in. which might actually be more useful than being in class.

i kept tearing on saturday too, listening to kathy troccoli's my life is in Your hands. immensely comforting - and a piano song too, to boot.

my life is in Your hands
my heart is in Your keeping
i'm never without hope
not when my future is with You

my life is in Your hands
and though i may not see clearly;
i will lift my voice and sing
'cause Your love does amazing things
Lord i know my life is in Your hands.

banana fritters and the like: actually i don't really like goreng pisang
rui and i were talking about boyfriends today, just before i left school to go home for dinner. and on the way back in the bus and during the walk back to my house from the bus stop (i stopped at esso on the way in to buy a starhub pre-paid card top-up card - quite a waste of plastic this is turning out to be, even though zac efron's likeness is printed on them) it came to me quite clearly and suddenly that what jon and i have is precious; too precious to be frittered away on fearing and worrying that things will go wrong, that we'll lose each other.

a comforting, peaceful thought plucked out of the cold rain-fied twilight air, like the drops of rain which fall from the trees when the wind blows through them after a shower.

so that was something to be thankful for today. truly, all things fall into place when we turn our eyes upon Jesus.

i love going back to church on saturdays. everyone dresses down, and it was nice to see a certain old couple (who shall remain unnamed) who probably don't have informal clothes doing so. the wife was dressed in one of her tweed pant suits and the husband in a long-sleeved shirt and pants. but she wore birkenstocks, not her usual court shoes, and he wore a pair of rather lok-kok sandals.

i'm glad, too, that i chose to make the sacrifice and sing with the dawnbreakers - there's nothing like seeing old, old couples holding hands, kneeling at the altar rails and praying together. it makes me tear sometimes, and it gives me hope because i'm reminded of how much God blesses those who love Him above all else, reminded of how He has promised that His love will see jon and i through.

it hasn't always been easy, these past few weeks, and i don't know how it's going to be for the months to come. but i do feel that i've matured a little since jon left, and that we've somehow arrived somewhere today.

i'm learning to find security in God, learning what it is to truly love: i think it does entail letting go, in a way, because ultimately we all belong to Him. and it's only when He's writing your love story that you can be sure come what may, He will make everything beautiful in His time. no matter if there are tears and insomnia along the way which no amount of dark, dark chocolate can cure (well, maybe it can).

i've found that trying to keep up with jon's life in india and trying to make him live my life with me back here just made me terribly unhappy, put unnecessary pressure on the both of us, and distracted me from what was important (and wonderful, and a blessing) for us.

like how we should actually enjoy being so far away from each other (what an adventure), and be affirmed as we miss each other more with each passing day that this is truly meant to be. there ain't gonna be no being apart next time, there'll just be the both of us, weird toilet, sleeping habits and all. undone laundry, bills to pay, ants on the kitchen counter that refuse to go away no matter that you're practically asphyxiated yourself spraying baygone at them.

also, i've come to see that just because we don't "exchange information" everyday it means we're growing apart - on the contrary, it probably means we're growing closer and anyway, that's not what real communication's about. and we both agreed when he left that this was to be time meaningfully used for God. if i'm not going to accept it for the wonderful blessing that it is, i'm not going to be able to see Him working in our lives.

now that's not going to be worth missing out on.

joel (jon's second brother) came to church yesterday bearing a hello panda multi-pack, for me because i was so sad that jon's away. and my lovely abibobeeboo very kindly acceded to my request that she write me a letter of encouragement, which was chock full of bible verses and all and reminded me to strive to be a better person for Christ and to shine like the light in the universe that i ought to be now that it is no longer i who live but He that lives in me.

i've decided to crash a certain evidence professor's tutorial tomorrow morning at 0900. it's almost 2300, i have to prepare for it now.

TAUPOD LIVES! i'm very happy for you rui.

just came back from the juris break, and we saw scruffy-hot english exchange student - i got into the lift with him and his friend and i realised that, a) he reeked of cigarette smoke; b) he was extremely unshaven; and c) he wore a thin leather thong around his neck - which i think is extremely unbecoming on men.

a fortiori, i love my chinese boy(s). yalan says good because now there are more hot guys for HER. oh well.

R.I.P., taupod. rui i hope you got a fair share of the assets when his grandfather split them.

and josh, i am so sorry but i love my current campus too much to feel very much for the fact that the government (rather rudely) chased smu out of bukit timah. otherwise it's a well-produced mini-documentary though i have to apologise once more, i sorta kinda agree with joe's (again, rather rude) comment. the real world honestly isn't much better - in fact it's far worse. this is singapore, the national religion is money. but we can buck the trend and show everyone how much better life can be, come on! we didn't become christians for nothing.



we celebrated shannon's birthday on saturday night at island creamery. imagine, seven of us attacking an ice-cream cake with forks because it was too frozen for us to cut into slices. the white island creamery cake with rainbow sprinkles and gummies is essentially a block of cookies and cream ice-cream in the shape of a cake. i'm waiting for the pictures which might never come, but i got three white gummies so i'm happy.

this week i shall find something to be thankful for everyday and i shall attempt to blog about it if i'm not too lazy.

i just read yalan's blog. i love all of you many many from the bottom of my heart. yalan rui mag jean. thank you for the lovely friday night.

well time makes older children get older, i'm getting older too
of late, it has become increasingly difficult for me to write; to sing, play the piano, give "presentations" to people - the formal ones, the informal ones. anything that requires me to put myself on the line and risk being torn apart because my feelings and thoughts will be made known to everyone around me. like my juris presentation, and today's life-sharing at cell.

i don't know what it is. i'd like to think i've become more diffident and self-effacing because i've matured over the years and i therefore don't need to justify myself with my words anymore (least of all with fancy schmancy deep-ish musings about life), and therefore i'm also now more willing to listen to other people. yet sometimes i feel i've just become painfully shy and i get the idea that people aren't really interested in what i have to say because frankly, i'm not exactly interested in what they have to say either. in fact, there are times when i think the only thing i have worth to talk about is God and how i'm able to love, how He has given me this wonderful ability to love - and the best thing of all, how He has enabled me to love and understand Him. because everything else is vanity and chasing after the wind.

don't get me wrong. i love sitting around doing nothing with the girls, having ridiculous conversations about nothing at all: like my conversation with rui today about what to name my children next time, or lunch with yalan where we talked about something utterly ridiculous. i can't quite remember what it was that we talked about but i remember laughing very hard. i even like studying, like coming online to have conversations with people. all these very wordly things - and then, as i turn off my laptop for the night i sit back and wonder if i've spent enough time with God today.

it's been incredibly difficult having jon away. i never thought it'd be this hard, for me. or maybe i did think it would be, knew it would be, but just didn't want to admit it to myself. it's okay, really - i'm good. i'm doing well, i'm not terribly depressed; i just can't seem to shake off the feeling that something's missing. we've just talked, and he's right. i have to truly want to stop feeling that something's missing, want to stop feeling that i want to have something sad to talk about. human beings are weird that way - so often even we christians settle for the worthless when we've already seen what it's like to choose the worthy.

it's not sad really, him being away. having oodles of time with the girls has been a blessing, and besides, there are more difficult things in life coming up. although i pointed out to him that mortgages and kids getting into trouble will be different because we'll be in the same country and hopefully living in the same flat by then, having gotten married. we'll be together. this is a different kind of difficult.

at times i wish we didn't have facebook, msn or email. or snailmail even. then i wouldn't have to keep expecting things, and getting disappointed. i know what i should do, and jon's been incredibly patient and direct (which i'm thankful for, even though it hurts to have your faults pointed out to you). i need to lower my expectations, and not put pressure on myself to come online. because i hate having that pressure, and it makes me hate the fact that we have so many means of communicating even though i should be thankful for them. as in, i have the idea if they weren't there i wouldn't expect so much communication or any communication for that matter.

but there you have it - we are an instantly gratified generation, and i've gotta learn to deal with it God's way. that's the only way i'm ever going to battle the evil forces of the world the bible talks about, taking comfort in the fact that with Jesus we already have the victory. and i will be thankful for all this "adversity" (i have three square meals a day, enough pocket money and public buses to take me to school - water at the turn of the tap and electricity at the flick of a switch. adversity? huh?) because it's just going to bring me closer to God. i have been neglecting Him, really. not turning to Him whenever i'm down which is when i really need it, but finding other things to fill the space that jon's left. when answers aren't enough, when friends, people, msn, silly facebook groups, ANTM isn't enough - there is Jesus. i've forgotten that of late. and then i wonder: is He really everything to me, more precious and more worthy than anything this world has to offer, as i realised a little over two weeks ago? i was sure of it then, and i'm sure of it now. so why am i not living like i am?

what's more, just today, i shared in cell that we COULDN'T desire to choose worthlessness after we'd chosen what was worthy because we'd remember how it felt to choose what was worthy. but i guess we can, and i'm living proof of it right now. it does feel "good" to wallow in self-pity and think about the distance and the bad things instead of how sweet this time of separation is in its own way; how, if we do things God's way, we'll be able to look back on this entire time and laugh about bad internet connections during class (in india), the vegetarian food (jon is a carnivore) and totally random and silly poems written on the spur of the moment.

and i want that. i want to look back and see that i was strong because God wanted me to be so that i could glorify Him and enjoy His love so much more, being alone and without the one person i love the most in the world bar my parents and grandparents. i want to look back and see that i wasn't just self-aware of my own shortcomings but that i recognised in my weakness that if i accepted the sufficiency of His grace His strength would be perfected in me.

i want to look back and be able to say that i fought the fight and finished the race well. there have been too many years of heartache, nights of sleeplessness and tears: i do not want to go back there again, for i have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. it is only my own humanness now that keeps me from surrendering all my fears and worries to Him.

if the facebook group reaches 1253 members i will name my son wah and my daughter, zee. so they can be Wah Lau and Lau Zee respectively. tris suggested Hong - Lau Hong. and rui suggested chek, neng, sar (how do you spell one two three in hokkien) because lau2 is floor/level in hokkien and they'd be first floor second floor third floor depending on the order in which they were born.

now that lawnet has ceased to work for many of us (why? please, school admin, provide us with a reason?) we're resorting to other means to continue finding cases online - save trees mah. and it's showing me up for the chao mugger i was in year one. i actually know how to work lexisnexis, which means i must have been paying attention during those seemingly useless "learn how to use X legal research database" sessions.

i'm getting older i think, not in a "oh i have many aches and pains way"but, i'd like to believe, in a nice sort of way.

remember when -
snails were just creatures who seemed to appear en masse after a heavy rain, creatures who made a nice crunchy sound when you (very cruelly) stepped on them just to hear aforementioned sound, or a car ran over them as you were passing by. and sometimes you had the good fortune of stepping on a pregnant snail and got to feel particularly disgusted and grossed out at the sight of the yellow eggs and slime. feelings we all rather like to feel actually, if only we admit it to ourselves. there's something rather satisfying about being in control, something to be said for natural sado-masochistic tendencies.

on the way to check out the calling cards at the mama shop just now i chanced upon two snails; a big one and a smaller one. probably mother and daughter. they were moving very slowly, the smaller snail in front. i resisted the urge to step on them, something i'd have done without thinking when i was about eight. i wished them well, and i hope they made it to their destination in one piece.

***
today i crashed a singapore studies lecture (spent most of it reading dworkin) with quentin and toshi and deborah (who is the sister of one of our dear friends, CHRISTOPHER YEO. who's that who's that?? - alright for the uninitiated she's caleb's sister but we don't like these references to people who are studying overseas and not here. plus we've forgotten who he is, this christopher character) and they've got a project coming up. quentin said he was going to do his on construction workers and how they're such a big part of the changing landscape of singapore, yet we give them so little credit and look down on them.

well, the mama shop couldn't offer me a better deal than the singtel hello! card (amazing!) so i took off to the 7-eleven near forture, which is fairly near my house, to purchase a starhub pre-paid card. which they didn't sell. and because i was on the wrong side of the road and crossing to take a bus would have been too much of a bother i walked all the way to the 7-11 at sixth avenue.

whilst i was waiting for the cashier to register my pre-paid card, three or four maids came in in quick succession to buy top-up cards for various pre-paid cards, pulling money folded many times over from their pockets, probably able to come out because their employers were having dinner.

and what quentin said today hit home: these are people too. i don't think we ever quite realise that. they've got families waiting for them, they went through adolesence and had turbulent emotions whilst growing up just like us.

i missed jon very much today, and for a while i felt rather spineless for being part of the instantly gratified generation. what of those people who went to war, world wars one and two? they could only write letters which could take up to months to arrive at their intended destinations. or the construction workers and maids who have no msn, no skype - and calling home (especially to india, now i know) takes up a fair amount of their pay. and here i was feeling gloomy because jon (in typical guy fashion) didn't charge his phone and went off travelling without a charger, thus making him uncontactable.

his mum suddenly called me though, which was truly an answered prayer - whoever it was who prayed that i would find some comfort today, thank you :) and i smsed abi "abi boo i need yoo" and she called and we had a time of prayer too. what a privilege to be able to carry everything to God in prayer, and to be able to share one's burdens this way.

one of my biggest gripes now is that debussy's petite suite is for piano, FOUR HANDS. obviously i don't have four hands, only two, and jon's away. en bateau will have to wait.

would debussy dismiss it as drivel?
we were studying (admittedly playing scrabbulous, more like) in school on tuesday when ruishan said, maybe we should switch mp3 players to see what we're each listening to - but then you've probably got a lot of christian music?

and i told her, nah i don't really like christian music nowadays (honestly. but if you gave me a cd with hymns done interestingly and a capella i'd reconsider). most of - five-eighths - of my playlist is classical music, i said, because i wanted something value neutral (the rest is jazz, ella fitzgerald and joe pass. if you want just let me know).

of the five-eighths, there's only holst's jupiter that isn't by debussy or debussy and ravel.

i was preparing for my juris presentation which just happened, and as all philosophy students will agree, it's quite a frustrating thing to dissect theories especially when you're sleepy. which got me to thinking whether debussy would have thought they (the theories) were drivel and there was so much more to life. and i decided that anyone who could write about life the way he did would probably have thought it was drivel.

the names of his songs are all in french and all in one folder so i don't know what i'm listening to but it doesn't matter, really.

that being said, i enjoy jurisprudence very much. my tutor pointed out to me today that i seem to be a bit muddled in my views, so perhaps it's time for me to stop trying to defer to the world and look at things properly from God's point of view.

***
if jon and i were to be nominated as a couple for superlatives - yes, that annoying facebook application - we would be voted most likely to get into the weirdest scrapes. which other pair believes in being strangely honest (and i meant honest such that it's strange), or chooses to go on exchange to places where there's no toilet paper, where msn and skype seem to be blocked and budget calls on 1516 from singapore cost 30 cents a minute? (95 cents on singtel budget plan, but thank God for starhub pre-paid cards, 11 cents a minute)

moral of the story, choose china cause at least there's msn. although i do love chappati and i'm sure you like it too. but we'll see when i get to beijing (if i get to beijing) whether it'll be quirkily charming enough to add to our superlatives nomination, if ever there was one.

i was frantically calling starhub and m1 to ask about their idd plans last night, after finding out from 1516 that it's 30 cents a minute to bangalore, off-peak. thanks to abi who provided me with all the numbers.

m1 was useless, i queried about that super funny "this is mumbai ah. in-dee-ah," ad which offered free calls to india and the guy told me i had to sign up for some sunperks plan. he also seemed in a hurry to put down the phone. singtel was way better although the guy sounded very sheepish when he told me it was 95 cents a minute. then there was starhub, lovely starhub, with the very chirpy customer service officer even though it was around eleven p.m. who sounded so pleased to tell me that there was an offer until 31 dec for 11 cents a minute on 018 calls to india from a pre-paid card.

we'll see about the connection after i get the card, haha. for now it's google chat, coupled with erratic power/internet failures which means we get cut off mid-chat. endearing in its own way, something to remember and laugh about when we're older and greyer. i love these things that remind us of a time when technology was less advanced and life, simpler.

我很伤心因为我的华文文章再吃掉很多时间。还有，文耀的 MSN 出了问题所以他不能和我谈天。我也miss 了他的电邮，来不及上网和他谈天。　:(

for everyone who doesn't have chinese encoding, the above reads:
i am very sad because my chinese essay is taking too much time. (ok i wanted to say it's just taking way too long and it's very irritating) and also jon lau's msn has problems so he cannot talk to me and i got his email a bit too late so i wasn't in time to get google chat so we could talk. so sad. (which is represented by the :( because i am unable to find the cheng yu that will allow me to express my sadness).

ok la i'm not very troubled actually. i'm more troubled by my chinese essay! wenzhao took a cursory glance at it just now and told me to my face that it was essentially an essay in english, i.e. grammatical structure wise and all.

简直是
完了！！

in the wee small hours of the morning

it's far too late for me to be up and blogging - or is it far too early? it's one oh-three a.m., and i have an evidence lecture at nine which i fully intend to go for. i was almost tempted to say "i have an evidence lecture at nine tomorrow." why do we always refer to the coming day as tomorrow even when we're talking about it after midnight?

***
so we grow together, like to a double cherry,
seeming parted, but yet an union in partition;
two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
so with two seeming bodies, but one heart
- helena, from a midsummer night's dream

jon's leaving for india on sunday, and we've been staying up to talk for the past two weeks or so - hence my new pimple and distinctly dark shadows ringing my eyes. yesterday we went for bak chor mee - i waited until nine-thirty p.m. to have dinner with him - and after eating bak chor mee we sat in the car just talking.

(i love undercooked liver! i can see some of you looking disgusted but it is so good. especially when found in bak chor mee drenched in vinegar and cooked by the skinny auntie who smokes, at the coffeeshop next to fei siong.)

so i've become used to staying up, and today's no different, probably helped along by the cup of coffee i very reluctantly drank so i wouldn't fall asleep during chinese class. i can still taste it now; i usually have my coffee without sugar kopisikosong but the uncle must have made a mistake and forgot about the kosong. it tasted perfectly awful, i didn't like the sweet aftertaste at all.

but tonight we haven't talked and i don't think we're going to, because jon's out for supper with his friends. and because i couldn't sleep, not just yet, i turned to my bookcase and decided to re-read fifteen, by beverley clearly. abigail didn't quite like it but i do.

it's like all good childrens' books, capable of being re-read until you know all your favourite parts of the story, yet still making you think and feel all - is sappy the word? or is it wisdom, or the glad realisation of how far you've come?

which i believe i have. i've said this so many times in so many posts in this third revival of this blog, and i think i will go on saying it for a long time more, God willing.

maybe 21 really is the age where we come of age. sitting next to jon and holding his hand yesterday morning (it was past midnight), thinking back on all the failed relationships and violent emotions of the past, realising that the past doesn't matter anymore just because, and not just because it cannot return. and yet it matters and will go on mattering insofar as it's taught us about who we are, is teaching us still how alike we are, and what a miracle, a blessing from God, we are to each other.

like ice-cold beer, an e flat major seventh chord; bak chor mee sua from circular road, sunsets by the singapore river. because you believe in true love and anyone who does will make mistakes - i know i have. and because God's writing our story, and as He wills, it will go on being written.

i don't look retarded enough in this picture but oh well. that's relative, considering i have cream from my birthday cake on my face. but my mouth is not open and i do not look weird.

for the fourth of october
three years ago today quentin and i led worship at the second last worship we'd ever have as official acjc students. if you count baccalaureate service maybe it was the third last one.

and we sang knowing You, which still remains one of my favourite songs of all time today - because knowing Him is the greatest privilege we'll ever get to enjoy on this earth.

all i once held dear, built my life upon
all this world reveres and wars to own;
all i once thought gain i have counted loss
spent and worthless now, compared to this:

knowing You, Jesus, knowing You
there is no greater thing;
You're my All, You're the Best,
You're my Joy, my Righteousness
and i love You Lord.

quen was shocked i remembered - but yes, it's a nice memory and one i shall always treasure. a half-hour of peace amidst the tumult of the wild, restless sea that was life then.

time after time
if time were a herb (parsley, sage, rosemary and time), would we be able to store it in bottles? and would time have different purposes, be able to be used to flavour different things? would we then be able to make the best of time, the most of time, upending the bottles we've encapsulated time in: into days as golden as pumpkin soup, a time for birth and growth; into days gloomy and chill, a sprinkling of happy time, warm comfort like steam. as if time, really a seasoning, could make our days better or worse.

then what of the bad times? the times to kill, to weep, to mourn? left to gather dust at the back of the shelf, never used, thrown out when musty?

but all time has a purpose, just like all herbs can be used to flavour something. a pinch of pensiveness into a day when you've not been thinking about much at all or been too absorbed in wordly matters. a day like a bowl of perfectly clear soup, the pensiveness reminding us of how human we are and how we must appreciate the mundaneness, the normalness of Everyday. the stuff miracles are made of, really.

or a dash of times of aspiration and desire, hunger and discontent, whichever way you want to see it, making the bowl of perfectly clear soup peppery, exciting.

and into the tangled, mess of spaghetti that's like life, that a woman's mind has been compared to, the time that is God's - a time of clarity, wisdom and understanding. humility, selflessness, and above all, love.

time is intangible, yet we speak of it as if it were tangible: the years months weeks days hours minutes seconds. we have already encapsulated time in the tick of our watch hands, the markings on the faces of clocks 12345678910112, dates, the numbers changing without fail at the stroke of midnight.

but time's just time. the sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises (ecclesiastes 1:5), the Earth orbits around the moon - what is dark and what is light are not night and day - unbound by anything, simply the state of what they are. what is the past? why do we say God's timing and then obsessively measure time, compare contrast and create boundaries for ourselves? how fast, how slow - it's just time, and once we realise that -

what would we realise?

that there's no reason to get flustered over things, that the past cannot return, that God's time is immeasurable and He does what He will and works in the continuum that is the universe with no reference to any clock or calender. what is a day, what is time, compared to eternity? who's to measure time by any standard, because everything that happened was in God's time?

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. ecclesiastes 3:11.

time; incapable of measurement, encapsulation, being bandied about. yet, used to add to sunlight and subtract from darkness. wasted, made the most of, kept.

neither life nor time will wait upon an understanding of both. wouldn't you like to be able to live as if this was eternity, as if life with Jesus was now?

***
although i have a chinese paper due next wednesday - IN CHINESE - and time is, sadly, running out.