Wishes

"All they knew was that they fitted together like stacked spoons..."

"Now is the winter of our discontent."

All she knew for sure was that life was like the sea. Eternally in motion, ever changing but always of the same essence.

The blueness would ebb away eventually, she knew, like the tides that lapped on stone and wore them smooth. The rough edges that she cut herself on would be pared down.

All the inadequacies and failures and humiliation and petty disappointment and envy, she poured into a song. Not a beautiful song. A broken song, with a defeated melody. The song of a slave dying under the oppressive sun. But hers all the same.

Slowly, detachedly; she detached herself from her clothing. From the world. Like a baboon picking lice from its fur.

As she plunged freefall tumbling into the ocean; she wondered if it was painful to die. Whether one just melted away like mousse on the tongue, or if there was a brief struggle with the Hooded Reaper before one surrendered with a sigh.

The water did not slap her like a cement floor but parted and received her like a turquoise down blanket. She knew she was dreaming, then.

Life would never be this perfect. Never this simple. Just her, and the sky, the sea.

Thoughts of a 19 year old

Just sitting at my computer, writing, typing, surfing Facebook while reading news on the US election while trying to study Chemistry for a test the next day. Typical night, except maybe my heart is pounding a little harder than usual due to anticipation...

Just then, I hear a rustling of my (duck-themed) curtains and a DUCK card pokes through. My roommates dash in, wishing me Happy Birthday, giving me the card and a gift. I am surprised and delighted, because it's only 11.50pm and people usually do this after 12. Then, I am blindfolded so that everything is blackness and my roommates lead me outside, to don't know where...

After an interminably long of stumbling up and down staircases, along corridors and the open air, my roommates guiding me by hand, I ask where we are going. Of course, I don't get a straight reply. Someone periodically pokes me and knocks me on the head.

We finally seem to be going somewhere, and as we enter a room I can hear the low whine of an air-conditioner. We're in the common room, I know as much from the numerous birthday parties that we've had here before, all at midnight, of varying numbers and rowdiness.

They shush each other, and suddenly the familiar melody of "Happy Birthday..." begins. Sounds like a lot of people. At the end my blindfold is removed, and I see that there WAS a lot of people. The room was pretty full (unlike in some parties where so few people came, I felt embarrassed for the birthday boy/girl) Much more than what I expected who would care.

So self-conscious, standing there with all these people smiling at me...yet I understood then, what it is to be valued, to be loved and cherished and feeling appreciated by the company. I took time to recognise and thank everyone who came to hug me personally, and heard so many kind words that I probably can't remember. I remember the general sentiments.

There was a beautiful chocolate cake (and tasty too!), a huge homemade card with people's messages in it, some individual cards and presents...I think I was just overwhelmed. I knew people had tests, quizzes the next day; and it was not a weekend. They had so many other things to finish, but they came, even if only to give a hug and a smile and a "Happy Birthday". And my friends went to so much trouble to organise it. Perhaps it's not that grand, that extravagant...but I have only known these people since last September, yet they would do this for my sake? Friendship is a wonderful thing which I will never truly understand, but will always marvel at and try to be good at.

And then there were others, who couldn't be there but sent their wishes, their gifts, even their precious time for a conversation which is a gift in itself (Shiny! Tsuey! Wei who wanted to talk but I was out...sorry) ...because I love talking and listening to friends almost as much as eating and sleeping. Speaking of which, we (me and close friends) went for a dinner tonight at a great Thai restaurant not far from my school, and they wouldn't let me pay.

I realise that I do these friends, these schoolmates injustice if I do not take them at their word. If when they say, "You're such a great friend," I downplay their statement to a conventional phrase, while I take criticisms to heart. There must be balance, and slowly I'm reaching that point of equilibrium, going closer every day. Especially now that I'm 19 years old.

And also I realised once again that there is no end to giving. That through my self-conscious, awkward, sometimes inappropriate manner of showing concern and love for others; people have gained comfort. That my confused ramblings about their problems were perceived as guidance. That my instant noodles which I forgot that I lent them, were still on their minds. What I'm trying to say is, don't despair if you aren't perfect in the way you treat others. So long as you try, people will see your good intentions and they will love you for it. And what I thought I was giving away though I didn't mind it at all; was returned into my hands doubled, wrapped up, with interest.

Maybe we should stop comparing ourselves to others, looking at what they have and we don't, but look around at others. I mean, truly. Instead of glancing enviously at the other table where everyone is laughing uproariously, talking to the quiet person next to you.

And if we saw how much God loves us, so much more than friends or family or lovers or even soulmates...we'd live like we have nothing to lose, only everything to gain. And that is the true reality when we live in step with Him.

Mumblings + NS Nostalgia

There are days when you feel like you're swimming in soup, and that's still ok, because you know you're going to be dredged up sooner or later and you'll be thrown into a gumbo bowl with spicy enchiladas, and that's when life will get interesting.

I think one of the best pieces of advice that I've been given is that no matter what happens, I'll be ok. Sounds rather bland and not profound at all, but it definitely gives comfort at times when I think my life has made no difference. That people may like me in a vague, dorky way; but forget me if I'm not there. That I'm not truly living the way I should live. That I do only what is required of me and nothing else.

Sometimes, there are so many ideas one has but so few of them actually come to fruition. Right now I believe the answer to that is focus, focus, focus. Tend to the glowing embers of your passion and stoke them up to a fearsome fire, and then narrow it into single flame jet and then....

unleash it.

-----------------------------

And another part, written last Friday (4 April, 2008):

How strange, to have a flashback in the HK airport on a windy, slightly chilly day while waiting for the A22 bus back to Lam Tin MTR station after sending my mum off on a plane back home. One simple song, unheard for months, playing on my MP4 player - "Pencinta Wanita" by Irwansyah and I am transported in my mind's eye to where I was slightly over a year ago...

Hot sun pan-frying us a delicious dark brown. Special of the day:toasted homo sapiens (fine yougn specimens of only 18 years old), stewed in their own sweat and oil. Ewwwww.

Sunging 'Pencinta Wanita' in the bathroom with the cold showers running, laughing in our separate cubicles. Scrubbing clothes on the smooth stone surface next to the giant water tank/tub. The one you weren't allowed to bathe in. The same one that I stepped into and soaked in like a queen on the last day of camp. Reading out loud the notes some of us received from infatuated comrades, declaring everlasting love - and ridiculing them mercilessly, secure in the boy-free zone of our dorm room. Celebrating birthdays with cake and snacks brought from the only convenience shop a.k.a our lifeline operating there. Dressing up in Baju Melayu complete with sampin and performing Dikir Barat.

Food memories alone deserve their own paragraph. Eating mandarin oranges, Chinese New Year's biscuits, fried meehoon and other goodies spread out like a king's banquet on old newspaper in the common area. Baby's moms' irresistable chicken curry, mutton kurma, coconut candy and a host of Deepavali treats. My malay friend's whole family who came on a visiting day and treated me to home-cooked Perak laksa. In the canteen food where there was chilli on EVERYTHING. Even noodles at breakfast. Pimples sprouted on even the clearest faces. Stockpiling and sharing biscuits for a 6 am pre-exercise morning snack.

Beneath the glittering highlights that stand out in my mind, I remember the dull background of daily life. Missing friends, family. Resentful that I was wasting 3 months of my life in a programme I didn't sign up for. Looking forward to weekends when I had my hp back and could call home, my best friends and my sister. Feeling that I didn't belong anywhere. Not with the Cantonese-speaking Chinese, with their casual racism, anti-government sentiments and in-depth knowledge of Oriental celebrities and HK TV dramas (ironic, that the 1 Chinese girl who was unable to appreciate HK drama series' is the one who goes to study there for 2 years). Not with the Perak Malays, although they were really nice people on the whole; or with Kelantanese Malays with their completely different local dialect and for some of them, their kelantanese flirtiness (we speculated that it was because they were usually deprived of interactions with the opposite sex in the conservative PAS-led state). Certainly not with the Tamil-speaking Indian girls, just because they stuck to themselves and I couldn't understand what they were saying.

All these come to mind when I think back on NS. And though I thought I knew about life, NS humbled me. I lived, worked and played with prison's guards' children, doctors' children, teachers' children, farmers' children. People who scored 10As for their SPM result (which was announced the day after we left) and people who scored 3.

And I realised that all my book knowledge, my academic achievements, my English proficiency did not count for all that much. When I couldn't shine my boots even after spending tons of energy and time, it was my dormmates who helped me and realised that my brush was contaminated with too much shoe polish ("Kiwi"). The trick is to have only a little bit or else the boots will look matte. And when I had to dress formally at night, they helped iron the silk baju kurung. And my friends would always adjust my cap for me, because I jsut couldn't get the angle right. Another friend taught me a Kelantanese song. And I will never forget the night when my next-bed mate told me about how the prisoners escaped from the jail and set the building on fire, and her father the prison guard locked their family in the house, huddled together, armed with a parang. They were so along until police reinforcements came. How that was the scariest experience of her life.

I believe this experience, those 3 months, taught me to see people in a different light. To love them despite the differences and sometimes arguments, and to understand where they're coming from. That in the end, barring colour, race, sex, background - we are not so different after all.

I get onto the bus, knowing that without being in Gopeng baking for 3 months, I probably wouldn't be here at all.

Randomly

Since when have I been hurtable.



Since when can a sentimental thought turn my stomach and make my eyes swim dangerously in tears.



Must be approaching that time of the month.



But the good news is...



I am not that terrible a people judge after all.



And why do all my friends ALREADY know about my (almost addictive) sleeping habit??! It's not THATTT obvious, is it?



Argh. It probably is.

Grateful

There is nothing like

Family
Friends
Laughter
Long-distance phone calls
Chats over cheesecake and coffee

to fill up this deflated float and help it get back in line, bobbing on its way to the sea.

Thank you, everyone. For everything, large or small, that you have given to me. Even for reading this. Your love is never forgotten.

Eden and the Cross

What I miss most about Eden is the feeling of certainty. Everything He made was perfect, everything He did was right. There was no doubt and no fear. We had not learned what those words meant, then.

The moment I bit into the sweet flesh of the forbidden fruit, I knew. I knew with awful certainty that my God was mighty beyond understanding and that I should be afraid of His greatness. I knew then my terrible power, that I could destroy what I had built; I could kill what had suckled at my breast.

And the sweetness of the fruit turned into bitterness on my tongue. It was wrong, all wrong, like eyes where ears should be or three mouths. And where did I learn the meaning of wrong?

I spit out the fruit with as much force as I can muster - it dribbles out of my mouth in a wavery trail of drool. I learn the meaning of weakness.

_________

I do not know my right from wrong, my front from back, truth from lies. The newspapers tell me what to think. The internet tells me who to support for the elections. The magazines tell me what I should be wearing this season. Sunday School tells me that I am unique and that Jesus loves me. Church tells me the times are evil and the world is coming to an end. They do not teach me how to love homosexuals, prostitutes, rapists, murderers without condoning their actions and morals. They cannot explain the difference between "us" and "them". Is the any difference, if all are flawed and all bleed when cut?

The fruit, that damn blasted fruit; that brought all men to their knees, that made us pitifully confused creatures perpetually floating in a mist of confusion and duality. But it wasn't the fruit, was it really? It was our desire. And all that was supposed to bring us closer to His status - our knowledge, our labour, our piety - have failed to bring us peace. Failed to restore Eden.

We stack our accomplishments like building blocks to make a pathway to heaven. They fall, each and every attempt, dangling uselessly like a trail of drool.

_________

And with knees bent, head bowed; my God takes away the fruit that poisons and chains me to desperation and hopelessness. He clothes me in righteousness and He lays upon my back two pieces of wood, fastened together -a cross. He tells me to walk with it, the rest of my days.

I speak from beneath that weight now; exhausted but triumphant, hurt but stubbornly pushing forward, doubting my faith but trusting in what I cannot see. Fully aware of my mortality and my fragility. But even as these cloudy eyes fill with tears, I know that one day they will shine radiantly with joy. And what is broken will be made whole, and this feeble life of mine transformed into something masterful, something beautiful.

A Birthday Post with a trip down MGS memory lane

This is the first time I'm doing this, so be honoured.

__________

You were the smart kid with round glasses in Form 1, a year younger than to the rest of us. Always sticking with Tsuey Xin and people you knew from primary school. I don't remember it all so well now, but I'll always remember that you stuck a "No Parking" sign on the chair when Ms. Chong (am I right?) came into class, and she sat on it without looking. You couldn't restrain your giggles.


In Form 2 you suddenly sprouted and I found myself having to look up at you (oh the shame...). As time went by, we continued being friends though not very very close. And in Form 3, we were all part of the big gang (the cool one, at least we thought so) that had so much fun in 3 Hornbill, that strangely-named class.

I seem to recall us getting closer in Form 4, what with having so many activities in common (prefects, CF, GB, Celcom...) and your leadership qualities started to bloom. We had a lot of fun that year. Frustration too. I have fond memories of going to your place, your mother's excellent sandwiches, laughing, watching Veggietales (or was that Form 5)? Good times.

Form 5 was a great year: less stressful in many ways than Form 4, and we became much closer then. You always provided a unique perspective to whatever issue we talked about, and was always so practical and matter-of-fact. I liked that I could discuss just about anything with you, and you spoke with windows and doors open - nothing to hide.

I hope you know, and anyway I'm telling you now, how great a help you were with CF and all the other stuff we had to do. And I enjoyed those discussions we had about God, His nature, our struggles and everything under the sun.

Since we left school, I'm really glad that this friendship hasn't withered; that though we rarely ever see each other we still can talk as frankly to each other and share each other's joys and worries. Though I don't know every little detail thats happening in your life and you, mine; I trust that when there's something big, there is a friend I have that I can share with and be sure that she will do anything she can to help and support me.

I appreciate you as a friend so much, Jobo (and JLoh and Joanna and all the weirder names we've called you over the years). I appreciate your intelligence and how more and more, its being accompanied with wisdom (James 3:13, v 17). I appreciate the fact that though you're forthright by nature (which is quite rare in our education system anyways), you've learned that tact can get better results sometimes. I appreciate that you stand up for what you believe in, that you have fears but are honest enough to admit them. That you wrestle with doubts instead of stuffing them into a corner. That you have an incredible sense of humour, albeit with cutting sarcasm sometimes (but so much less now, but not so little that it's too politically-correct).

Most of all, I appreciate how much you've grown as a person, how much you've matured (cliched word for growing up but quite appropriate) and how your rougher edges have been smoothened, your words become gentler and more thoughtful. I can see how God has worked in your life in the past year or so and I hope it's an encouragement to you, that though you may fail sometimes, you are being transformed into His image more and more.

Have a wonderful (belated) birthday and may this year be one of great joy and discovery, of boundless love, of peace, of fulfilling friendship, of all-consuming passion and purpose to live each day like you may never get one again.

Happy birthday, Joanna Loh Bao-Ern.

P.S. Should have been posted on 19/3, but I just crossed the deadline by 59 minutes!