Monday, September 26, 2005

:: A strong hold ::

in the course of life there will be several strongholds that get the better of us. be it anger, pride, jealousy, greed, lust.... they take us down and take over, leaving us wondering if there is anything that remains which we still have control over. through this period of time i realise what a strong hold bitterness can be. the sermon on sunday came at a very apt time. although 16 brothers and sisters, (including my cousin) received baptism and rededicated their lives to the Lord, the message of bitterness hit like huge wave, knocking me over and sending me along on top of it. i'm glad it came though, because i could have used a little nudge....

dictionary.com says:

bit·ter ( P ) Pronunciation Key (btr)adj. bit·ter·er, bit·ter·est
1. Marked by resentment or cynicism: “He was already a bitter elderly man with a gray face” (John Dos Passos).

resentment or cynicism.. can come from so many sources. we may feel bitter because we've been lied to, betrayed, hurt, abused, afflicted.... and this feeling is almost impossible to curb.... because it is completely logical to be bitter.

"looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled;"
Hebrews 12:15

bitterness is more than a feeling. it is like a root; hiding below and remaining unseen. but underneath the surface it grows fast, wild, and deep. like a root, bitterness takes hold, grows into blind rage, defiling our thoughts with evil and heightening our sensitivity in a negative way. it causes us to play host to irrational thoughts which results in senseless actions. much to my surpise, i learnt that bitterness destroys. it ruins not just your relationship with the person you're bitter against, but also to everyone else around you. before you know it, it begins to jeopardize your relationship with God too.

i think to overcome bitterness is to not even play host to it. when we get hurt, we have a choice not to be bitter about it. it is not enough to just disregard bitterness: for all you know you may be surpressing it inside. if a weed starts to grow, it is not enough to just cut it off; it'll grow back. we have to yank it out by the roots. we are told to "look carefully".. to be aware of potential roots before they have a chance to grow.

there is no better way to overcome bitterness than to remind ourselves of the grace of God. in fact, we ought to immerse ourselves in its abundance. when things didn't go our way, we felt bitter about our circumstances.. but how many things go in the opposite of God's way when He looks down upon this diseased and decaying world? despite all that, His grace never stops flowing into it....

whenever we sin against God, does He count it against us or try to get even? when we look at something we're not supposed to, does He render us blind? when we say things which we aren't supposed to, does He cut off our tongues? He has every right to, and the power to, but He chooses not to because He loves us. He never owed us anything.... but yet we sometimes behave like He owes us the world. forgive me Lord, if i ever made such requests thinking that i deserve for it to come true.

the next time you want to scream "unfair", take one step back and ponder about what injustice He went through just to get us out of this mess. it was our wrongdoings that put Him on that cross on that very first Good Friday, and love that kept Him there until His job was done. when i think about how life seems to be "unfair" to me, i think about how much worse it would have been if not for Him. to the very people who let Him down, He gave His life for them.

for the very people who owed a debt they could not pay, He paid for them a debt He did not owe.

that's grace. is it amazing, you ask me. heck, i would definitely think so. =)

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.
"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

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12:41 PM

Saturday, September 24, 2005

:: Quality Time ::

YP said we ought to eat before the session on friday started at YG, and i offered to buy dinner for us. YP turned to the little one and said, "you follow sister jean to and buy dinner lah." she gave me some money, and i was on my way, with the little one trailing behind me.

It was just a few blocks' walk.. with her hand in mine we strolled to the coffee shop. i asked what lessons she had that day, partly out of concern, but i really wanted to check if she went to school at all. she had the habit of changing into her uniform to go out to play and be absent from school.
we approached the cai fan stall, looking at the colourful array of dishes. she asked me what some of them were called. being a muslim, she wasn't as familiar to the food the chinese eat.

after buying the food, we weaved our way through the narrow aisles of the Sheng Shong mart looking for canned drinks. there weren't any cold ones, and we settled for two large packets of lime juice back at the coffee shop. she helped me carry them, and i laughed as she made a face when she tried the sour drink.

we went back to YG, just at the void deck of the block she lives in. i know children like her deserve so much more...... at least a functional family. but yet i also know that all these wonderful things would be given to them according to His perfect timing, and as we serve Him and the children that we come in contact with, we await His calls and directions, feeling our hands in His, just like hers in mine when we took that walk to block 128.

9:32 PM

Monday, September 19, 2005

:: Hahaha!!! ::

this is for all my friends who have been in choir. (most of those who read my blog happen to be.) took it from icecubez's blog, who took it from her friend's blog.. its just too funny! (i do love insider jokes. haha!) it contains a HIGH element of truth, and i've never read a more accurate stereotyping article.

THE YOUNG PERSON'S GUIDE TO THE CHORUS

In any chorus, there are four voice parts: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. Sometimes these are divided into first and second within each part, prompting endless jokes about first and second basses. There are also various other parts such as baritone, countertenor, contralto, mezzo soprano, etc., but these are mostly used by people who are either soloists, or belong to some excessively hotshot classical a cappella group (this applies especially to countertenors), or are trying to make excuses for not really fitting into any of the regular voice parts, so we will ignore them for now. Each voice part sings in a different range, and each one has a very different personality. You may ask, "Why should singing different notes make people act differently?", and indeed this is a mysterious question and has not been adequately studied, especially since scientists who study musicians tend to be musicians themselves and have all the peculiar complxes that go with being tenors, french horn players, timpanists, or whatever. However,this is beside the point; the fact remains that the four voice parts can be easily distinguished, and I will now explain how...

THE SOPRANOS are the ones who sing the highest, and because of this they think they rule the world. They have longer hair, fancier jewellery, and swishier skirts than anyone else, and they consider themselves insulted if they are not allowed to go at least to a high F in every movement of any given piece. When they reach the high notes, they hold them for at least half again as long as the composer and/or conductor requires, and then complain that their throats are killing them and that the composer and conductor are sadists. Sopranos have varied attitudes toward the other sections of the chorus, though they consider all of them inferior. Altos are to sopranos rather like second violins to first violins - nice to harmonise with, but not really necessary. All sopranos have a secret feeling that the altos could drop out and the piece would sound essentially the same, and they don't understand why anybody would sing in that range in the first place - it's so boring. Tenors, on the other hand, can be very nice to have around; besides their flirtation possibilities (it is a well-known fact that sopranos never flirt with basses), sopranos like to sing duets with tenors because all the tenors are doing is working very hard to sing in a low-to-medium soprano range, while the sopranos are up there in the stratosphere showing off. To sopranos, basses are the scum of the earth - they sing too damn loud, are useless to tune because they're down in that low, low range - and there has to be something wrong with anyone who sings in the F clef, anyway.

THE ALTOS are the salt of the earth - in their opinion, at least. Altos are unassuming people, who would wear jeans to concerts if they were allowed to. Altos are in a unique position in the chorus in that they are unable to complain about having to sing either very high or very low, and they know that all the other sections think their parts are pitifully easy. But the altos know otherwise. They know that while the sopranos are screeching way on a high A, they are being forced to sing elaborate passages full of sharps and flats and tricks of rhythm, and nobody is noticing because the sopranos are singing too loud (and the basses usually are too). Altos get a deep, secret pleasure out of conspiring together to tune the sopranos flat. Altos have an innate distrust of tenors, because the tenors sing in almost the same range and think they sound better. They like the basses, and enjoy singing duets with them - the basses just sound like a rumble anyway, and it's the only time the altos can really be heard. Altos' other complaint is that there are always too many of them and so they never get to sing really loud.

THE TENORS are spoiled. That's all there is to it. For one thing, there are never enough of them, and choir directors would rather sell their souls than let a halfway decent tenor quit, while they're always ready to unload a few altos at half price. And then, for some reason, the few tenors are always really good - it's one of those annoying facts of life. So it's no wonder that tenors always get swollen heads - after all, who else can make sopranos swoon? The one thing that can make tenors insecure is the accusation (usually by the basses) that anyone singing that high couldn't possibly be a real man.. In their usual perverse fashion, the tenors never acknowledge this, but just complain louder about the composer being a sadist and making them sing so damn high. Tenors have a love-hate relationship with the conductor, too, because the conductor is always telling them to sing louder because there are so few of them. No conductor in recorded history has ever asked for less tenor in a forte passage. Tenors feel threatened in some way by all the other sections - the sopranos because they can hit those incredibly high notes; the altos because they have no trouble singing the notes the tenors kill themselves for; and the basses because, although they can't sing anything above an E, they sing it loud enough to drown the tenors out. Of course, the tenors would rather die than admit any of this. It is a little-known fact that tenors move their eyebrows more than anyone else while singing.

THE BASSES sing the lowest of anybody. This basically explains everything. They are stolid, dependable people, and have more facial hair than anybody else. The basses feel perpetually unappreciated, but they have a deep conviction that they are actually the most important part (a view endorsed by musicologists, but certainly not by sopranos or tenors), despite the fact that they have the most boring part of anybody and often sing the same note(or in endless fifths) for an entire page. They compensate for this by singing as loudly as they can get away with - most basses are tuba players at heart. Basses are the only section that can regularly complain about how low their part is, and they make horrible faces when trying to hit very low notes. Basses are charitable people, but their charity does not extend so far as tenors, whom they consider effete poseurs. Basses hate tuning the tenors more than almost anything else. Basses like altos - except when they have duets and the altos get the good part. As for the sopranos, they are simply in an alternate universe which the basses don't understand at all. They can't imagine why anybody would ever want to sing that high and sound that bad when they make mistakes. When a bass makes a mistake, the other three parts will cover him, and he can continue on his merry way, knowing that sometime, somehow, he will end.

Top Ten Reasons for Being a Soprano
1. The rest of the choir exists just to make you look good.
2. You can entertain your friends by breaking their wineglasses.
3. Can you name an opera where an alto got the man?
4. When sopranos want to sing in the shower, they know the tune.
5. It's not like you are ever going to sing the alto part by accident.
6. Great costumes - like the hat with the horns on it.
7. How many world famous altos can you name?
8. When the fat lady sings, she's usually singing soprano.
9. When you get tired of singing the tune, you can sing the descant.
10. You can sing along with Michael Jackson.

Top Ten Reasons for Being an Alto
1. You get really good at singing E flat.
2. You get to sing the same note for 12 consecutive measures.
3. You don't really need to warm up to sing 12 consecutive bars of E-flat.
4. If the choir really stinks, it's unlikely the altos will be blamed.
5. You have lots of time to chat during soprano solos.
6. You get to pretend that you are better than the sopranos, because everybody knows that women only sing soprano so they don't have to learn to read music.
7. You can sometimes find part time work singing tenor.
8. Altos get all the great intervals.
9. When the sopranos are holding some outrageously high note at the end of a song, the altos always get the last words.
10. When the altos miss a note, nobody gets hurt.

Top Ten Reasons for Being a Tenor
1. Tenors get high - without drugs.
2. Name a musical where the bass got the girl.
3. You can show the sopranos how it SHOULD be sung.
4. Did you ever hear of anyone paying $1000 for a ticket to see 'The three Basses?'
5. Who needs brains when you've got resonance?
6. Tenors never have to waste time looking through the self-improvement section of the bookstore.
7. You get to sing along with John Denver singing "Aye Calypso."
8. When you get really good at falsetto, you can make tons of money doing voice-overs for cartoon characters.
9. Gregorian chant was practically invented for tenors. Nobody invented a genre for basses.
10. You can entertain your friends by impersonating Julia Child.

Top Ten Reasons for Being a Bass
1. You don't have to tighten your shorts to reach your note.
2. You don't have to worry about a woman stealing your job.
3. Or a preadolescent boy stealing your job.
4. Action heroes are always basses. That is - if they ever sang, they would sing bass.
5. You get great memorable lyrics like bop, bop, bop, bop.
6.If the singing job doesn't work out, there's always broadcasting.
7. You never need to learn to read the treble clef.
8. If you get a cold, so what.
9. For fun, you can sing at the bottom of your range and fool people into thinking there's an earthquake.
10. If you belch while you're singing, the audience just thinks it is part of the score.

8:20 PM

Saturday, September 17, 2005

:: The sun, the maths, and the Italian ::

one fine day.... one fine day i will fail my microecons B.

i have cultural gap with my italian prof. he mumbles in class, i don't pay attention, and the module is difficult.

its full of maths!! and oh, how i abhore mathematics.

of all modules, this one has two mid-terms instead of one. actually, if there are two, they're not called mid-terms anymore.. it would become one-third-terms.

besides stress from school work, the reason we're all feeling out of sorts these days is because of the sun.

yeah, the sun. sunspot activities to be precise.

you see, the sun has these dark pigmentations called sunspots. (duh) they're about the size of a few earths big, (woah what was that.) they're a few times the size of earth.... and they happily combust on the surface of the sun.

however, in an estimated cycle of every 11 years, some naughty sunspots would explode, upsetting the magnetic field on earth. some geographers believe sunspot activities have resulted in hurricanes.. (Katrina, dear?) and other tidal-related weather phenomena.

the magnetic fields in our bodies are also affected by sunspot activity. it makes us feel tired and out of focus. this explains the "tai yang yu" (rain tho the sun is shining brightly) and the extra hot sun we're getting these days..... as well as the sudden surge in road accidents.

i sure hope it kills those darn Aedes mozzies while they're at it. make them grow faint and blur their vision as they buzz in the sweltering heat. then they'll fly in zig zags and fly into a wall.

i do miss geog. sigh. but now i have to face my microecons once again.

9:42 PM

:: It's finally here!! ::

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totemo suki desuyo! i many many like.

its many many nice. Image hosted by Photobucket.com

12:39 AM

Sunday, September 11, 2005

:: Jean's prayer ::

Dear Lord,

You see all these sorrow in my family, and You know all our hearts better than we ever will.. How i wish that even in this time of sadness, that i will still be able to continue to sing praises to You, and be joyful in the fact that all these would work for a greater good.

all these i know.... but right now i just feel angry at myself. i know i haven't been a good child, a good servant.. even if i knew that this moment would be a golden oppurtunity for me to share about Your love to my closest kins.. i just hesitate to do so even when i know i should... and i don't even know why. i don't know what's holding me back, even if i feel such a great urge.... but i don't even have the courage to mention Your Name..... i cannot find the strength to step out of my own comfort zone to talk about something foreign to them.. to tell them that You love them and know all their troubles.. why are these things so hard to say?

there are so many things i ought to do, but i chose to ignore.. so many things i ought not to do, but indulged in instead.. i have been so disobedient, that Lord if You should ever take me and judge me right now, all my iniquities would be like a baton, breaking my legs and making me lose my footing.. i won't even be able to stand. because Lord, obeying Your Law was never easy. Your faithful followers constantly urged us to repent and obey.. a clear implication of how much reminder we need in our daily walk with You. obeying Your Law goes against every fibre of our sinful being.. it takes effort, and involves sacrifice on our part, to do what You want instead of what we want. because what You want is so different, but so much better....

i wish i have the courage to just speak of Your Name...... almost with reckless abandon.. because i want it to be at the tip of my tongue.. because i never wanted to hide all these things in my heart.. because its too good not to share.....

but will those around me receive it gladly? will they join me in my dance, or stand by and mock? will they only choose to respect my faith, but just watch from a distance? or will they come near..... and ask if they too, could dance with me, just for You.

i don't want to just be a closet Christian, because my innermost desire was always to glorify You. sometimes my inadequacy to do so buries that zest.. sometimes temptations of the world distract me from acting the way i truly want to.. sometimes.... i just feel like giving up. won't You give me just a fraction of Your infinite wisdom? Your influence and power to transform hearts i have never doubted before.

i don't want to just secretly slip Gospel tracks into my dad's bedroom.. i want to communicate with my family.. and tell them face-to-face how great You are, and how they too can depend on You. i don't want them to sound like just outlandish claims, because they are truths. teach me how i can reach out.. to touch them with the greatest story ever told.. and never lose focus of my innermost desire. teach me how to shine for you among the darkness, like a bright star that will always lend its light to those in need.. polish me so that i may reflect Your light.. shape me so that i will become more like You..

these were all i ever wanted. and these i know You will give in Your time........ =)

Your child always,
Jean

11:02 PM

Thursday, September 08, 2005

:: Hmm... ::

Argumentum Ornithologicum (Jorge Luis Borges, Dreamtigers, trans. Mildred Boyer and Harold Morland, University of Texas Press, 1964, p.29)

I close my eyes and see a flock of birds. The vision lasts a second or perhaps less; I don't know how many birds I saw. Were they a definite or an indefinite number? This problem involves the question of the existence of God. If God exists, the number is definite, because how many birds I saw is known to God. If God does not exist, the number is indefinite, because nobody was able to take count. In this case, I saw fewer than ten birds (let's say) and more than one; but I did not see nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, or two birds. I saw a number between ten and one, but not nine, eight, seven, six, five, etc. That number, as a whole number, is inconceivable; ergo, God exists.

i welcome any comments at all haha. just thought this was something rather interesting.

too much Analytical Skills is no good at all.

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on a lighter note... i was reading blogs of some friends, and many random thoughts just came into my mind. lunching with tree today also brought back lots of wonderful memories. we were sitting outside the Kopitiam foodcourt nostalging abt Prague.. smiling until our cheeks ached.... and the cigarette smells turned us off.

its always nice to know how friends are doing, knowing that they too, miss the times we all used to share together... knowing that we miss one another. i guess this is something uni will never ever take away from us.

speaking of uni, i was super blur duing microecons class today. geri and i have half a mind to transfer to Social Science. haha. don't stop us, Massi. (Massimiliano Landi, my bald Italiano prof.) by the way Massi, grid-patterened shirts DO NOT go with diagonally-striped ties. just a gentle fashion tip. it does no justice to your ang mor features the asian guys in class wished they had.

that's it, tmr i am going down to Paradiz center to get myself a subway cookie before i go to class.

10:12 PM

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

:: Jean In Black (JIB) ::

yesterday after school, i had a subway lunch that cost me $2 only.

but, alas, it is not to be anymore. after being a faithful customer, subway has decided to abolish the stamp system.. due to "frauds". did people make fake stamps? darn them.... but i will still eat subway no matter what, cos its the best-est nicest bread in the world.

*happily drinks Muji jasmine tea*

*happily does stats homework with Muji ruler*

often, i go to Muji to buy things just for the sake of it. this is bad. resistance is futile. i wonder how mum will react when she sees the Muji bottle on the desk now. she would probably go "you buy this drink for what? you want the bottle is it? den your sigg bottle how? i buy for you $30+ you go and use this plastic bottle just bcos got some ri4 ben3 zi4 on it."

heh heh.

but the good day was not to last. on the way home, as i was standing near the door, i decided to step out of the train when it reached kallang, so that other passengers could alight.

so much for giving way. because the stupid impatient driver closed the doors before i could go back in, leaving me stranded on the kallang platform. i even stuck my leg in between the doors out of panic, but managed to withdraw just in time. tomodachi looked out and saw me on the platform. oh boy, what a priceless reaction.

thankfully the next train was less crowded.

you tell me, how to be a gracious society?

10:30 AM

Saturday, September 03, 2005

:: Ups and downs ::

Yesterday's post sounded so depressing... i guess it was my illness, coupled with stress.

until i started on my stats homework today.

its actually quite fun! because you get to play around with excel, and they do all the calculations for you. plus, its quite shiok doing homework on the pretty Fujitsu Tablet, typing on the pretty grey keypad, looking at the pretty rotate-able screen.

and not to forget the pen. my classmate Jasmin calls it the Magic Pen.

so i guess uni ain't so bad.... Image hosted by Photobucket.com

"He who goes to bed with an itchy butt wakes up with a smelly finger."

11:18 PM

Friday, September 02, 2005

:: Uni..... the saga continues ::

Dear blog....

i fell sick. just when i thought i was beginning to like uni life, the harsh reality crashes upon me.

its been stuffing me up with so much new things, taking up alot of my time, that i am not able to hold on to the old things that are so dear to me.

is it my fault? is it poor time management on my part, or have you left me with little time and no options open?

i am so sad. i have no time to meet old friends, time with my family has been robbed, and now even time to "sit and thinking about stuff" has to be painstakingly set aside.

they say that you have more freedom in uni, but why do i feel so stifled?

anyway, abit no link, but i have photos of the kids at the youth center where i volunteer at. we had a dress-up game.

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