moved.

k guys i have moved... my livejournal is here --> http://www.livejournal.com/users/jewelblue/

i'll still keep up this blog though for... i dunno, remembrance's sake? :) also to redirect pple i guess.

or to write stuff i don't want pple to comment on!! :P hardly happens, this, but you never know...

moving...?

i have been bugged to either get a tagboard, or move to livejournal. tagboards aren't free (oops tt sounds miserly hee but i just don't like the whole e-commerce thing) and livejournals are... well okay they're cool. but i dunno. kinda like the blog look better. *grinz*

but if i dun move then friends can't respond to my postings... hmm. :/

but if i move i lose all my old entries. *sob* i can cut-and-paste but tt ain't the same...

and i just like blog. i like my blog title.

maybe the real reason is that if i move, i have to set up a new acct all over again. and find my friends all over again. which is kinda like friendster all over again. which i don't really wanna repeat the experience of :P

BUT if i don't move... my friends can't reply. *sighhhh*

questions quoshtions. to move or not to move. it's 3am in the morning and i haven't done anything i wanted to and i should sleep pretty soon. but now i got the qn stuck in my head i can't sleep til i settle it. to move or not to move, to move or not to move...

sigh i think i'll move... but it will be with longing and regret. *looks back sadly at blog* sayang, sayang...

something beautiful

got this frm an event posting tt i'm sending around...

"While 'Sayang' is commonly equated to love, its implications go beyond just love. It has a variety of meanings that is rich beyond its common English translation. For example, tender affection, caresses, hugging and all the cuddly, nuzzly things between persons. The word also has other meanings, denoting a sad, wistful sense of pity, a passing of an opportunity - or an age."

yes. sayang sayang. sweet sad word. shall be happier later :)

please

please, God, take me now. i don't want to be a carnal creature, to suffer exhaustion and thirst and pain. i know i'm one of the least qualified people to say this but i don't know how else to put it. every word i say i hurt someone. every time i smile it darkens someone's day. God, make me an angel instead of a human... please...

claire dear i know i promised you i'd post sth for you here, but i just can't find it tonight... i'm sorry dear i'll post it soon enough ok? keep checking back...

for the person i'm talking to: you know who you are, and you know i don't know how to respond. please forgive me for being myself. if i had been someone else it'd be different, but you know who i am, i know who i am and God knows who i am. i can lie to myself and you but end of the day i can't escape His gaze. i'm sorry.

please forgive me... everybody. please.

if i didn't like children so much i'd cut out my womb

period.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD
PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN
owww.
*mutters under breath*

managed to finish 8pgs of the musical script. happy with that but must work harder. must do making of nation response paper now tho. not happy with that.

is too pained to continue. owwww

foooooood.

know what? i ate food just now, and i was happy. *beams* i can seriously see how eating disorders affect people so easily. it's the food i tell you. the food.

read somewhere that this fella ate McStuff for a month to try and see the effects, and apparently his body kinda broke down... wow. but then again, anybody who eats the same food for a month FOR FUN probably doesn't have a functioning mind either. okay, so maybe he was making a point. but my point being that nobody'd be stupid enough to eat that food 3 times a day after day after day for a month right? not even a week! heck, not even 2 days!! i doubt even 2 consecutive meals... moderation in everything remember?

ahh misleading food. never eat the crumbs at the bottom of a cardboard box. i almost swallowed a lump of glue; fortunately i wondered why the crumb i was eating was so chewy. bleahhhh. and over-MSG-ed stuff makes you wanna puke after that. or maybe it was the glue.

if i can't defeacate tonight i'll know why.

Woohoooooooooooo

hahaha life has been... INTERESTING so far. i meant to post some time ago that i felt happy, then sth happened which was not-so-happy, then i felt really really tired, and now i'm like happy tired happy... hahaha bet that all just sounded so bimbotic. let me restate that:

1) i was happy sometime ago (probably because i more or less sorted things out with myself and with God)
2) i was not-so-happy =>i remembered at 2am Sunday night that i had a response paper due next day... and i hadn't even read the readings yet!!! NOT happy. which leads to--
3) i was really really tired =>coz i spent the night doing the paper and lay down in bed at like 7.30am to catch 2hrs sleep b4 bundling myself off to sch at 9.30 for my 10am class... or rather mum bundled me, i was hardly awake...
4) now: am happy (coz paper is handed in uneventfully and there's no work due tmr -- i think) and tired (because i didn't really get a chance to sleep much now did i?) and happy (partly because i'm so tired i don't really know whether i'm happy or not so i think i'm happy, but also because artsradar seems to be such a success. *beams*)

ooh ooh i haven't posted about artsradar yet. actually not much pt even if i do coz not that many pple actually know abt my blog... heh. :P but oh well. i am still rather pleased with its success so i shall post it here. (45 members as of today!! :)

< Are YOU an arts enthusiast? Like to know more abt the Singapore arts scene but don't have the time to scour countless websites and online mags? ArtsRadar aims to do just that for you! :)

We:
1) collect event/contest/publication/audition notices from our personal emails, thru word of mouth, from online websites, even newspapers if we think they sound sufficiently interesting
2) condense them all into ONE weekly missive
3) send it to you!
All you have to do is email us at artsradar@hotmail.com and it's done!

Wait wait that's not all! We're constantly checking the radar for notable/noteworthy arts organisations that could link up in various ways! Email us if you're looking for collaboration/cooperation/hobnob-ination! :)

Also coming up: Events Calendar comprising all arts happenings in the S'pore arts scene, plus reviews of events that have been attended and Statements of Trend (i.e. THIS group is good at doing THIS kind of theatre, etc etc). "But how can you aim to do so much??" you ask in shock. Well we don't promise to succeed in all of them at once, but with YOUR help, we can give it as good a shot as anyone can!! To that end, if you're a web designer interested in working with us to get up websites for the Calendar and Reviews+Statments of Trend, let us know! If you go for an event and write a review, send it to us! (Note that such reviews will have to be a little more formal and objective since we will be basing Statements of Trend on these for the newer arts groups.) If you want to join the Radar team (i.e. the team that does the searching for and analysis of events, currently consisting of -- *gulp* -- me), send us a note and you'll be welcomed with open arms! :) There's room for everyone in ArtsRadar...

But ah, lest you shy away from getting EVEN more involved in arts stuff (increase in arts involvement very often coincides with decrease in time spent on work/school/otherstuff) I shall offer the consolation that you can merely sign up for the event notices, sit back and watch the arts scene come to you! (no excuses for whining about a non-existent S'pore arts scene, now. heh) Simply email artsradar@hotmail.com, and get the ball rolling today! :)

-->Grace Toh (artsradar admin)
p.s. Do feel free to fwd this mail to your friends and family who are arts enthusiasts too! Vive La Compagnie! :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ArtsRadar is a branch of the Creative Arts Programme (CAP) Alumni.
CAPsite: http://capalumni.undonet.com
Online forums: http://invisionfree.com/forums/CAP_Alumni
For CAPers not on the alumni mailing list, email CAP-ital-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to subscribe. (free of charge!! :P)
*If you know of anyone who would like to be on the ArtsRadar mailing list (anyone interested in the arts, need not be a CAPer) please send an email to artsradar@hotmail.com and we will see to it promptly :)
~~"CArPe diem!"~~ >

now is that cool, or is that cool?? hahaa... :) i've even got a celebrated figure on the list. it's like semi-celebrity!! hehe. it's cool in a way but adds pressure to perform too ahhhh coz we've got to live up to what we promised. i hope i can do it. i hope i can do it and keep my sanity. this is so fun :)

muahahahaha. off to inflict artsradar on friendster. g'nite world :)

All happy now

i think red is truly a happy colour. i have been wearing as much red as possible the whole of todae n everybody who sees it seems happy. (happy)

but i guess it's truly God's doing. after that talk wif my mum, n reading 4 consecutive days of daily bread, i'm almost convinced to dump the other quiet time material i was doing coz it didn't seem to help me at all n only made me more aware of how much more i had to do, while daily bread just totally helped me to see it all, cleared my mind and everything... but at the same time i shouldn't be so complacent so i guess i'll keep reading that harder one, only i'll read daily bread at the same time too so i won't be too stressed out every day.

tmr is reorganising day. i'm hoping to get lots of things done. which reminds me that if i wanna do so, i gotta go sleep now. but i must state this on my blog first so that i don't chicken out of it later. TMR IS REORGANISING DAY.

g'nite :)

Cried in the car...

... and scared my family to death. particularly my bro since he was arguing wif me over some small thing a few moments b4 that. but it wasn't him, really it wasn't, it was just my feelings taking over me again. must be PMS.

then again i don't think it's all that unjustified. i was so happy tonight, u know? we'd had reunion dinner wif my mum's family and the company was good and the food was plentiful and boy, you shoulda seen the scallops -- BIG. yeah, i was happy. then we came home and i had a nice time wif my parents; doing the yearly "bao hong bao" before the first day of visiting... and arranging sweets and all that. all cheery and full of fun, logged on to check mail and wish pple happy lunar new year (after sending countless sms that is) and *boom* i get hit again.

why does this happen? i thought i had enough to deal with already. i mean yeah, first time i get the msg, u know? i'll work on it, just leave me some time to try... i mean maybe you wanna remind me but really some things cld be said nicely u know? i just felt totally struck down and silenced once more... i couldn't say anything last time and it really isn't going to help if you do this again you know.

i mean i know i shouldn't take this so personally, there's truth in it and besides i suppose you're doing it for the edification of the whole group but there's just sth niggling there that doesn't sit right with me and it's messing up my whole emotional balance and i struggle to sleep each night. do you know that? do you mean to cause that? i like to think you don't, but sometimes bare words can seem more cutting than they actually are. this is getting me so down, and sometimes i wonder if i should just step back, step away, but i can't because God put me there and who am i to question if He's right? i just have to keep working at it i guess. just do my job even though i've lost that blush of enthusiasm for it. it's a responsibility; i guess it doesn't have to be a pleasure as well. but oh, how i wish things were different!

then again, it must be as that speaker at FT said: "The first mark of being a Christian is love. The second is suffering." yeah i guess if i look at it that way i can grit my teeth and bear it somehow. it won't be easy but i've told myself from the beginning that i'm such a small, insignificant person, with such small ability for this role, that i have to trust God in everything and let HIM shine through... let HIM lead. and now i just have to believe that. i've always had problems with the fear of God -- because i always viewed Him as a friendly entity, and it never occurred to me that He IS God, and He is great, and it is only out of the goodness of His heart that He treats us like children, like His friends... i need to learn that awe of Him all over again. and i guess this could be one of the ways that i'm learning it.

but this is a really hard lesson, and i just wish i could sleep at night. you're not alone Dawn when you say you wish you could sleep. it's escapist to say i don't want to think about it, but i can't do much even if i DO think about it... i mean there's nothing that i have to say to the group right now, at least nothing that is impt and can be condensed. i'm not even confirmed yet; not yet a full member of the church. sometimes i really feel like the most inferior, the most immature in the whole group, and i'm taking on this huge role??? and i want to ask God why but it's so disrespectful to. i'm just so messed up and confused here. God... please give me strength!

i don't even dare to reply anymore. i don't even dare to talk on forums anymore. i'm drawing into myself, and i don't like it, i really don't. am i doing the right thing? is there something else i should be doing? should i react in one way or another? i don't know, God! i'm just so lost and hurt and confused. and i shouldn't be, but that doesn't change the fact that i am. i just don't know how to deal with this; i wish i did dear God...

i'm crying now, and it's horrible. i don't look very palatable even at the best of times, and this is not one of them. how can i be happy tmr? i hope i can be happy tmr. it's not very nice to show "a black face" as my mum wld say, at other pple's houses. i want to be polite and friendly and caring, but how do i do that when i'm not even sure what kind of a person i am, i'm not even sure if everybody hates me for talking too much when there is absolutely no need for doing so???

there, i've said it. yes, i talk too much. i've always wielded the fact like a shield when anybody showed the slightest sign of irritation, and i suppose it's "all coming back to me now" and i find my shield has cracked and can't protect me anymore. i do talk too much, i do, i do. and i SHOULD cut down, yes i should i should. but dear me, it feels like i'm pulling off an arm and a leg and it HURTS... it really does like deep chest pain hurt not just the "oh i'm so hurt that i'm not a perfect person" kindof hurt. i just don't like being plain and uninteresting. i don't know if that's me. maybe that kindof thing SUITS me. you know, no frills, just direct and straight to the point. i mean, i'll be ever so much more efficient and get much more things done. but i wouldn't enjoy it as much. but was my enjoyment ever supposed to be accounted for in the first place?

times like this i realise how much i really live for myself and not for God. if my life were truly God-centred i don't think i'll be having all these vacillations. human flesh and pride; worldly thoughts and ideals. but i always thought becoming like Christ was a long lifetime process, and some pple go faster and some go slower and those that go slower do so coz they can't handle so much at one time. and i thought i was one of those pple. but am i? maybe i'm just lazy. maybe this is prodding me, telling me to hurry it up. is it? dear God, i don't know...

i guess end of the day there's just one thing i can stick to, and it's this: "Whatever you do, do it as to the Lord, and not as to Man" (i'm sure i've misquoted this verse but i really have no clue as to where in the Bible it might be; new testament maybe?) basically the idea that Man can say what they want but ultimately it is God who will judge what is right. and although some men may speak the words of God and provide needed admonishment, there are times when all you can do is ask God to show you the right thing and then do it and never mind what they say. i guess i have to learn to do that this time. i just pray that God will help me to succeed.

and just to cheer everybody up a bit: Happy Lunar New Year to all out there (if there's any) :)

Still troubled

i don't know why, but i'm still troubled over something that happened recently. i know i shouldn't, but that doesn't stop me from feeling doubtful of myself all the time and wondering if i can really make it as a leader. i didn't ask for this -- never did, but it came my way and God saw to it that everything fell into place, and now i'm just hyperworrying that everything's gonna fall apart. i shouldn't, really. i think i need help.

it must be my pride acting up again. i've always thought (for long periods of time, at least) that i hadn't any, but at times like this the ugly beast rears its head and i'm looking all too disgustedly at myself behaving like a little kid. 5 mins ago mum added onto that by coming into my room and complained that i (along wif my dad and bro) never moved without being pushed and how tired she was pushing us to do this and that all along (for example, changing our bedsheets and so forth). i could see where she was coming frm, but at the same time i felt so bone-tired about everything i had to do, and i really didn't know how to respond so i said nothing. i've been doing that an awful lot nowadays. maybe this is good. maybe this is training me to shut up more. my tongue (and in certain cases, my fingers) has run away with me more than once and i've always told myself i'd be careful what i say from now on. so maybe this is practice.

i don't know, and i've got to go now. but i'm still troubled. i wish i weren't.

Late night again

i told myself i was gonna do this but i think my brain's gonna give up on me anytime soon.

at any rate today was a good day... i think. FT was awesome, the speaker really spoke to issues i was dealing with and i'm having a struggle with myself all over again. angela also told me some really gd stuff i need to think over about how to be a Christian and an artist at the same time and not compromise either... totally changed my pt of view and i shld really go thank her. think i'll find her email add tmr and send her a msg. but as for the info itself... i need to allocate one day to really sit down and deal with this; i'm thinking tmr wld be a gd day to start but i hope the stuff i have to do doesn't take over everything like it usually does.

so much to do
musical
homework
organising
artsradar
other writing

deardear there is so much to do. it isn't very early now either and i have a 10am class. sleep grace sleep!!!

New year. New blog!

*rereads blog* just realised how LONG ago my last post was... heheh. guess it's time to take this ol' blog out of the dust-pile and shake it up a bit... i wish i knew html tho coz now all i have are the nice boring standard templates... owell at least this one's BLUE *griinz*

well well what shall we make this blog into? actually my purpose for taking this out again is coz i feel kinda bad abt whining and blabbing on everybody else's forum and website except mine. so since i have a blog, might as well use it rite? :)

i have to get a comments page somewhere, and nicer templates. this is gonna take some getting used to. but well at least i can form the impression tt i'm talking to an audience even if i'm not really, see? :P and i can go on and on without tiring all my frens out...

owch i just realised it's like 3.30am. but i'm not sleepy. mum knows why. guess i won't type it here (some things you just don't tell everyone, u know?) but suffice it to say i was quite down, and ended up wasting my time playing online games to cheer myself up. (ok, so maybe that was an excuse. it's such a bad excuse that it proves i was/am perturbed, right? :P) i think it might be coming to that time of the month again, which is why i have to cry.

oh yeah i still need to get used to this crying thing... i mean sometimes i really can't see what i have to cry about you know? i have this wonderful life, wonderful home, family, privileges, talents all, but every now and then i "get the blues" as they say and i really have to cry and so i pick the silliest things in the world (usually) to cry over... it could get embarrassing over time. but now it's just silly. i wonder: does this mean that it's really impossible for a person who hasn't experienced certain kinds of suffering to ever really appreciate life in its full beauty? i mean yeah i know that there are pple dying of hunger and starvation, pple dying of dirt and disease, pple dying of being tired of living and so forth, but i still eat lavish meals (sometimes), still grumble that i don't have a perfect figure (actually this happens only when i go shopping, which is why i dislike shopping. then again it happens when i go swimming too, but i LIKE swimming. hmm. but i digress), and still whine that my life is so boring. boring?!?!?! when i have so many things to do?? but yeah, boring. i dunno.

i just want to write. i just want to sit in a huge library and read books all day, and write all night, and never venture out into the world to get hurt or scorned at or put down or disregarded. or judged. i know everybody says you can't write very much or very good stuff if you don't experience life in its entirety but maybe i can write good one-dimensional books. i don't know. i want to connect with people, but i don't want to connect with people. and sometimes i feel horrible because i feel like i'm only interacting with people coz i want to find out what life is like so that i can write. everything's about writing. i want to write. this is bad.

and this is really really bad considering i shouldn't be letting writing take over my life. passion, fair enough, but i really shouldn't forget my First Love -- God. i know i'm tremendously indebted to Him and He's my Lord and Creator but lately i've been feeling unmovable. i mean, shouldn't i be loving Him and deeply in love with Him all the time? i sing the songs but sometimes i wonder if i mean them like i should, or i'm just doing vocal cord exercise. it's a horrid, horrid feeling: like you want to love someone so, so much and to show that love and really appreciate them but sometimes you just forget and after that you get really really guilty... i hope it doesn't last. i like it when i was a kid, when i knew nothing complicating and all i felt was this deep sense of peace and security coz i knew God would take care of me no matter what. now that i've a mind of my own it keeps interfering and every day becomes instead a struggle, or rather a teetering between what's right and what's wrong... sometimes it's just what's right and what's not-so-right. somebody told me before (i think it was michael) that i was such an uptight person coz i was always balancing on the line btwn good and bad, always afraid of falling, but he (was it a he?) said maybe sometimes it's not bad to fall... you just pick yourself up again. but i don't know what i'm falling into; i don't know if it's a nice soft bed or an endless abyss, a bed of thorns or rippling stream, so i don't dare to fall just in case some unforseeable circumstance denies me the chance to get back up again. i've seen so many of my friends spiral downwards and downwards into muck and mire, and i don't want it to happen anymore please God... i want to save them all but i don't know if they'll want to be saved. i can't reach them with my short weak arms; God, please reach out and hold them! don't just touch them, hold them... and let them know that they are loved, that it's not to late to stop yourself falling, that You will still love them please God...

but sometimes pple kindof like the muck and mire. oh of course they would be happy to be saved, washed and dressed in clean white linen, but while they're in muck and mire they decide to enjoy it while they can; after all, everybody else is in some sortof muck aniwei!! then they wallow, and dig themselves in, and decide it's cooler down there than up there, and besides you have lower to fall... that sorta thing. i guess it's easier to just lie down and wait for someone to save you, than to be up there on the tight wire doing the balancing act.

but the show must go on. and i need to go and sleep sometime soon. i am waking up, what -- 10am? got class at 12. FT in the evening -- really hope to be revived in spirit and ready to do God's work then. so much is at stake here i really can't be slack at this kinds of things u know? talking about slack i am having difficulty accepting what i'm currently reading as part of my quiet time. i never knew it was so hard to be disciplined. i always thought i was a pretty good Christian; well like they say in Chinese "there's always a mountain higher than the next".

ooh brought the couplet home that i purchased frm the USP... it looks nice and my mum is very pleased with it. she wants me to translate; i can barely read out the words! but they are nice words though. things to do with nature -- very pretty.

so much more to say haha. can't imagine why i neglected my blog til now. this is therapeutic, of a sort. now the only debate left is whether or not i actually want to let my friends read this... *hmm on one hand it would be nice to know one is talking to actual PEOPLE out there but on the other hand not everything is addressing to a person sometimes i talk to myself or to God but then again if i have a blog and don't show it to anyone then i'll just go back to the forums coz i need human response and that would just irritate everybody again...* i'll decide tomorrow. this is a way too long blog. but it is MY blog and i'm talkative. haha. i am wondering how this is supposed to help me shut up in real life (looks like it might work the other way instead) but it is too late to think Serious Things and so i think i'll just shuttup, and go to sleep. g'nite world~