hello.
this has got to be my 20th time i am here at starbucks ION after class. i was intending to continue writing my paper (that i have been struggling with for the past 2 weeks) but i thought it would be nice if i just added a quick update on how things are going.

i don't know what my readers are thinking, but reading my past few posts could give a clue that i am pretty whacked. and i guess i am. or rather i was. it is strange how a worst day is the best day that God shows Himself. arch, it is kinda annoying though, the journey. and i think i am like one of the most temperamental christians anyone can meet. i go into crazy downs and then surge up into highs and run mad like dogs then go cry like a monster… i don't know. that's life for 'drama melancholic shawn' i guess.

can't we all just cut to the chase and get an express ticket to finding out the meanings of everything? is it that necessary to go through all the mood swings, troubles, fights and struggles? when will be the day when i fin my perfection? in my psychology class, i learnt that having the right behavior is not everything, but also a good will and character. that takes process and the poop in our lives kinda nurtures that good sweetness in the fruit.

i was just talking to jean just yesterday and i churned out a saying that impressed myself. "content is the hardest thing to find, not happiness" and how true it is. i find that in my life i am always asking for more and seeing what i have less. how this is not good enough, how i need to be more of this and that. sure getting better is important… but sometimes perfectionist can get hard on themselves and when they find mistakes, you just wanna give up cause being all rounded and 'finished' is just unattainable. success is not the art of not making mistakes but the dance of not giving up. that's wise saying number two, mind you.

i am becoming to be like the science experiment of the class. in my class of aunties and ang mo uncles, i am (quite often) the disruptive one that keeps asking questions. i am sure nicktan will nod his head violently when he reads this. he always complains that i ask too many questions in our bible classes and hence resulting in a very long class. hahaha i don't know la! i just feel kinda annoyed sometimes that christians have became kinda self-absorbed and fearful? i don't know. i mean i love God, i love the church and i love the loud, always-on-high-drugs region qigebage but… sometimes we get too happy that God made us better that we think everyone is sick to the bone. ugh.

just the other day i was so pissed off with this student of mine in class. that i protested her beliefs in front of the class.

we are all humans aren't we? sure, i got to experience the reality of Christ, that is all because of God's grace on us. then why are we like crucifying every single person out there when we also were once monsters? hahaha we got into a violent debate after my protest and it was kinda fun. i am happy that i got some of my classmates to see a fraction of my point of view. they are really nice people. they treat me like their son. in fact, i am like EVERYONE's son at school hahahahaha

i can talk about this like really long. but i guess i won't because the truth is, i don't have answers. and i don't think any human on the world has all answers. good thing to take away? God is super nice and super smart. Thank God christianity is about Christ and not all about humans right. hahah all glory goes to Jesus amen!

wah my ice peppermint latte is really super good. God bless christmas starbucks drinks.

hello.
there i was, buzzing around in my air shuttle bumming around... until in the break of the night, i opened up this can of worms and found a letter rolled in a parchment. the paper was soaked in a wormy brown grime and the letters can barely be seen. curious scene.

what is this i am feeling? i don't like this very mch. i feel like there is this divider within my person that voids me from my self. i don't nderstand this. i came to my own resoltion and was fine days ago bt now, i am back where i was.

i keep replaying things in my head. my dreams have been the same for a few nights now. i try to stop block it ot bt there are always other things, other people that remind me of yo.

i hate yo. yo have moved on to daily parts bt yo left us in the shelter of yor thnderous voice and stormy frstrations.

i am lost. i tell myself i am strong, that i have to be strong, that i mst be strong, that i mst be stronger. but the trth is, i am lost. this is not the first time that is happening, i shold be alright! right? people learn from their experiences right? why is my experiences not helping? i always end p like this. i tried writing a manal in my head bt the procedures are not working. am i hngry? am i grmpy? why is that school girl bgging me so mch? why am i complaining abot this man whom i don't even know? why so angry?

i don't know what did i do wrong this time. i was not involved before both of yo took me in and now, everything is clear on yor side and i feel like i am hanging there, left where yo left. what happened really? why i everything always so sdden? a sdden beginning, a sdden leaving, a sdden yelling and a sdden ending.

why like this? please help me understand.
these questions has been haunting my sleep, my friends.

hello.
ladies and gentlemen! presenting the BIG FINALE (well at least the programe claim it is) that we all have totally (not) been waiting for. here we are at the ring! on one end… super man! ooo watch out for that feisty energy! and hah! the other end is sultry siren! watch her move! well well well, who will win this battle between right and wrong? no one has any idea! the truth is, we don't really care anyway! you might have already watched the secrets on TV and come on… everyone knows this is just a big act. right? it is all e-n-t-e-r-t-a-i-n-m-e-n-t. no one means what they say or do right? so stop squirming at your seats little children. it is all dandy. yes it is! it will all end in an anti-climax, no real harm done! after this, we can all just go back on our merry ways to have dinner. ok ok ok! get ready audience! it is starting soon. are you ready for yet another emotional post trauma experience? well, no choice now, it is starting already. since you are stuck here, why not just come out of that shell and watch! ah ha! get ready, here comes the fiiiirrrsssttt bloooooow!!! *snap!* kodak moment.

i hate you.
everyday, more.

hello.
another day, another story i guess. i gave mom a miss call in the morning and when she called me back, i found out that she was already at the airport. i guess my sms went to her a little later than usual. mom is flying off to thailand again to do whatever she does best - shopping and spend tons of money.

the house is never the same without anyone. i know that sounds very 'duh' but i hate that shift of personality in the household when anyone is gone… i know i have always been a mama's boy. so when mom goes off, i do get a little uncomfortable. it always seems like mom, though highly judgmental and cynical, is always the one i can complain/talk to. just the other day i nagged at myself for my incompetence to be successful in my life, or reach some kind of benchmark. she said its my fault and i make my own choices and that i am a loser. i was pissed off, then i was inspired. i am going to do up my web portfolio and make a benchmark for myself! mom afterwards starting to skip around the house and do some kind of pony prance. i guess that's her way of cheering me up.

today i scooted over to school to photocopy my readings. i have 247 pages to read about christian psychology. not uncommon for your average theologian perhaps. zzz. well it so seems that i have the hurry disease, its pretty common for twenty-first century babies. in short, we hate our lives and want more more more more out of everything. so we go into mad drunk frenzies of workaholism and do everything and anything that we diieeeeeee. well, some consolation in there is that i met jesus. or else i will be running around like a hyperactive squirrel that is running around doing errands and building mountains with chestnuts. well, not that i am not hyperactive anyway… or mad. or dying. but aiyah i don't know la. according to the book, i am also guilty of obsessive consumerism. zzz. another common symptom for a twenty-first century baby. who cares. i am stressed. i don't 'want' it. i need it. i deserved it. yay for retail therapy. (hahaha so much for conviction)

anyway, i have got 50 pages done. so that's a little bit of an accomplishment. and i have got myself snow leopard on my mac! it is sooooo sweeeeet.

and seriously man. i heart ion starbucks. the. best. place. to. study. manly voice cute girl was at the cashier today. like always, you block out the sound and its fine. (booming and low): HELLO SIR. DO YOU WANT A CHEESECAKE TO GO ALONG? sigh. i hope christmas comes soon. it will give me an excuse to buy her lozenges.

hello.
when i woke up this morning, i was greeted with a sms, cold sweat and confusion. my mind was still dazed from the horrid superhero nightmare that i had for the past few hours; and yesterday's tv moment surrealism. i hobbled down my bed and while walking out of my room, i saw the marks on the wooden floor. only then i realize (regrettably) that yesterday was not a dream.

some parts of the story is sad. some parts fearful. some parts anger. and others, love. just a few months ago i met conner in the middle of a song. and he agrees that as much as he wants to scream and tear the house down, there is always this lingering bond that prevents us all from giving up. love has always been his shackle; and imprisonment is his only hope. all that's remembered is the tension, the flying objects, the lights, the yelling, the crying, the running, the phone calls, the dial tones, the maybe impressions, the sobbing door, fifteen dollars and the sms. not uncommon i guess, these symptoms do come by quite often. its just that there was nothing much for quite sometime now and conner has let down his guard. not as bad as the other time, but still, it is the boring stuff that makes us normal. sometimes, its good to be normal.

nothing much we can do now i guess. i prayed really hard though. sigh, it seems like there was really much unspoken about me! i hope this post has confused you as much as this has confused me.

have a good week ahead sonny. i wrote two songs this weekend. maybe i'll record them soon. :)

hello.
the photo is a picture of jiahao and i at one of our deployments while in the navy. we were chilling together with a bunch of loud officers at a bar in kota kinabalu. well, the story ends with me having beer forced down my throat and i puked my guts out. somewhere in the middle, i was singing and dancing wildly while the other officers cheered me on. ha~

tonight i met up with the old RNS bunch. if you are wondering what is RNS, it stands for Radar Navigation Specialist. yes, i was a navigator for the singapore navy during my two years of national service. i know many of you find it hard to believe, especially after hearing my adventures about driving and getting lost in other countries.

my two years in the navy was really good. God really blessed me with a good bunch. of course the initial stage onboard ship was really crap. during the dinner, my sergeant remembered me telling him that i cried. hahah i didn't cry. i teared in the toilet cubicle in my quarters. telling you why i cried would probably make you laugh though: it was the stupidity of my superior (not rns. this guy was in charge of all the quartermaster duties on board RSS Endurance) that made me so frustrated, angry and helpless that i teared. we had to take tests to prove that we were quick thinking sailors and i must say that the questions in these tests were just dumb. before that test, i have failed like 273527 times already and it has been 3 months since all my friends have passed (if you fail, your punishment is to do duty EVERYDAY.) anyway, i failed because of this question: what is officer richard lim's car license plate number? WHAT KIND OF NORMAL NON-STALKER HUMAN WILL REMEMBER CAR PLATE NUMBERS?! *smacks head*

anyway, the gathering was fantastic. we laughed about old stories as my officer and superiors marveled at my stories about how jiahao and i worked together to shield off this another member of our department's gossips about us. he was a professional actor and slacker! argh can't stand him. haha talking about those things made me remember how jiahao was real nice and big-hearted. he would often take blows for me and help me do operations that i am often clueless about - one of them was helping a helicopter land on our ship deck.

so we had fishhead steamboat and chinese dessert after that. very very nice night. our RNS happy family is reunited! hahah it was relaxing, warm and toasty la. :)

hello.
just thought that i might post something so that i'll have an excuse to post that real nice photo i took from jean's lomo camera. i stumbled upon michael buble's new song on youtube and i like it a lot. very cute, happy lyrics! haha don't we all wish we can meet our other half in a supermarket too and then shoppers dance in the background while nice paper things snow down.

--

I might have to wait
I'll never give up
I guess it's half timing
And the other half's luck
Wherever You are
Whenever it's right
You come out of nowhere and into my life

Mmmmm ♪♪♪

And somehow I know that it will all turn out
And you'll make me work so we can work to work it out
And I promise you kid I'll get so much more than I get
I just haven't met you yet

--

why buble suddenly so happy ah :D and ya, you should read this article CNN wrote about singapore. made me smile and toasty and proud. :) eh, this blog post is not very normal. i usually end melancholic or in some low tone...

hm.... ok, how about this.

my fish tank has now a death count of 8.
mollies were gone today. saw the tetras nibbling on an eye before i left work.

hello.
haha, i just got my sister to take a snapshot of my new shirt that i bought and it just so happens that it fits well into this post i guess... (really like my new shirt!)

anyway, i just want to say thank you; a warm thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of you that have been patient with me. thank you for being there, listening, waiting out for me to sort myself out. and i am honored to know the amount of cares, thoughts and prayers that went out for me. didn't know i meant this much.

the other day i received a letter from a friend. my heart went all toasty while reading it as i remembered the days of old when i was 'better.' i guess i have been thinking too much about could bes and wandered off wondering about the maybes; and got lost in the greys. i have taken a step back to my step one - back in school - and i feel much better already. it is two weeks away to my final exams and handing up of my papers... and a few months before i go into another depth deeper into my theological studies.

pretty excited for next year. i want to start a new chapter. this year has been a collection of try-outs for me and i have learnt much. i know now that i don't really know much about myself and what i think i know, is really just what i think i know and not the real thing. well, i know in the future i will get my moments and question if this is what i want. but then again, i don't know what i want many times. when i do find something that i want, i want something else. for certain though, this is what God wants.

and yes, thank you God for being patient with me.
help me love You more.

--
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." -Ezekiel 36:26

hello.
i am really curious to find out where this all takes me. and it seems that every time i start planning ahead, i meet dead ends within my heart. my mind teaches me dreams and my heart lingers in fear. in the middle, i try to find content.

and i think i might have found the way to find it. content i mean.. i realised that when you are not searching for something so hard, so desperately, it somehow finds its way to you. i have always applied this motto for love and relationships, and i guess somehow it applies to our futures as well. this might be a 'now' moment where i feel like this though because jealousy usually creeps into me when i compare myself with many others. haha really bad habit of mine. and i do get very fickle most of the time and change my precepts quickly... another bad habit of mine. haha. but apart from everything, i think when you aren't desperately trying to control your life (of course i don't mean idling, don't get me wrong!) and you begin to trust in God, the struggle kinda losens its grip on you.

easier said than done though. i am a workaholic by nature and i always swarm myself with thoughts that i am not accomplishing enough, not doing enough, not experiencing enough... and i freak out. i guess that was where i was on my birthday. i spent the day kinda quiet and 'reflective' (not emo okay) because deep down, i was having a mental breakdown. probably kinda disappointed in myself too cause i do feel that i wasted this year away trying to figure out what i am to do - and not taking seriously what that i was doing. in the struggle to grab all the cookies in the jar, i got only crumbs. and that made me mad.

twenty three dude. i was a noobish twit four years ago and wrecking my life with crazy things. life was a wavering wind and times were pretty unstable but it does have its charm. but then again, a life for charms isn't really a good bargain la.

truth is, i am clueless again and i am pretty much similar with where i was in the beginning of this year. but right now, i got a new mantra for myself: one step at a time shawn. right now, it is school.

school. shawn. tampines school.

:)

hello.
i know i am supposed to be doing my report/studying, but whatever la. anyway, this month i stepped back into school and took up major prophets on video class. really like the part where i start class at 11am! i wake up at a good 9am and slowly drag my feet to class; then sit in front of a tele in the library, watching margaret seaward teach away, as i take down notes with my highlighter and pen... but once in a while, i doze off and fast forward her. haha.

last week we had our net (outreach) parties and it was not too bad. jefferson brought all his gal-pals and for the first time, i got to meet the people that he messages so much during service. pretty happy, loud bunch. reminded me of days in poly with jenna and ade scurrying about in the studio, playing umbrella volleyball with the seniors. so we did a bbq and played games of my childhood... haha i guess the 10 years difference part comes in here. we played color tag at the playground, 20cent game and almost did block catching.. i got dunked in the pool (as expected) and got many good comments about my cooking (as expected too) wahahah! nigella's bbq sauce totally owns. little do they know that it is just ketchup, onions, garlic, herbs and sugar blended together. i had a really good time. well, i always enjoy myself when i am hanging out with the net or the two boys (plus joel, christian and yz too!)

really miss friend a lot. it has been a good one month now since he flew off. well, i think it is the work that we did together in the last few months that we kinda rekindled fond memories of poly siao. wah lao! can you just come back so we can go eat the abalone ba chor mee again? i went the other day with another group and it just didn't taste the same. i think it was the gossips that went along with the noodles that made it so tasty. hahahah

EDGE conference is going well. the main publicity part is out now and now just really having a hard time to push people to gain awareness about it. on certain days, i do get into a mood and just go "ARGH ASLDJLAKSJF" about it. there is just so much to do and too little time! but amazingly, God has been kind because i am still alive and my brain is not fried. this project has been really challenging. at the same time though, i am pretty excited to see how it will all turn out in december. i just wish the stupid youths will just stop calling it edgeconference.COM!! its freaking edgeconference.SG!!!! *smacks head*

mom and dad just came back from their honeymoon on tuesday and they are quite chirpy (i think its from all the lovin and gamblin in genting) they have not split their earnings with the children yet. maybe they lost money hahah. kimberly was telling me the other day before they left, "kor kor, i wish mummy and daddy will come back with a new brother for us.." super funny.

well, i was going to end this post announcing that my sis and i are going to set up a booth at Eureka Bazzars this sunday but it seems they had some kind of cock-up
and now it is postponed to another day. the lady called me when i was at dempsy with a couple of friends and she sounded super apologetic and kelian. sigh. might be hard starting businesses now. the company got laid off my many vendors so it ended up with them not being able to pay for the rent. well, google them to check them out if you are interested. but of course, visit EDGECONFERENCE.SG first.

good day maties.
wah jean was playing with her lomo cam the other day.. so envious. someday when i have more moo-lah i will buy my diana!

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