Her perfect second life

Lately, my strange sister has taken on a liking to some game called STARDOM: HOLLYWOOD. You start off as an E-lister and work your way up to an A-lister. Sounds like the perfect game to get hooked on to, as a 14 year old.

Jie: Look! So this is my room.
HX: Oh, that's alright. Oh wait, it looks kinda messy. (swipes to the right to look at the rest of the room) Ewwk, why is there a rat in there?!
Jie: Oh, it's alright. The rat sometimes gives me money.

And we're talking about people getting hooked onto the false reality of glamour in virtual reality games, here my sis is being contented with having a rat in her room in her second life. Kwa kwa kwa

Just to fill this space

I haven't been a faithful penner of lovely thoughts for the past few weeks since the last update. I need to find time soon to do so; I want to capture what God has done in my heart and share it. All I can say is, He is doing great work in the hearts of my family. But there is one thing I wanna desire more, and it's more of His heart. More of this soon!

My neck keeps creaking. Sure sign of aging!

And, I need a haircut!

Square Post

Ah, such joy to be able to toast in bed till 6.30am, get up with a renewed vigour, go for a morning swim, ask God to hold the rain till after the swim, finish off by 8 and be home for a hot cappuccino, play abit of piano and worship a little, blog. I've lost that momentum to keep track of my life, partly because I used to on my online space, and then somewhere along the way of my arduous journey to find the meaning of my existence, started to question my intentions. 

But lately, I've been thinking about how this reflective space really does me good because I get these thoughts running through my mind the whole day, sometimes they get a little too crammed. Also, that ever since I underwent this huge change in my beliefs about eternity and going about establishing this love relationship with God (and in the process being humbled just about a thousand times), that I somehow felt the wish to be more private about my personal life. 

Take it as a renaissance of some sort, but a few days back, I awoke with that joyfulness in me- that awe I had when I used to turn a blind eye on the realities of the world, and then lost when I decided to pay heed to the human condition. But now, I am grounded with the truths of this world. And with that, I really do think that old, extrovert side of me is starting to come back once more. Oh, happy day!

This meant to be a square picture post, but I realised that square pictures, even though pretty, are not space efficient! So here goes my square and rectangle picture post: a snippet of my life since the year started.

2-month cough: we don't see God in our darkness, but He is still there. 

Tuition With Love: Gabriel being a teacher to Max! I am very proud of him. Love that I've seen him through his shy, fun, annoying, naughty and good times.

A bunch of kids I've grown to love over the past year. Appreciate our church so much to live out our mission of impacting lives through the love of God

First bouquet of flowers from a boy. It is sweet in many ways, but mostly because he finds flowers to be impractical, but yet worth all that impracticality

One of those morning brunches, where the rain is trickling outside and you're still happy even though your plans to take a walk have been thwarted

This was our "break fast" after 3 days of smoothie/juice fasting in the office! I must say, it was a fun time of going crazy and drinking strange smelling spinach drinks. Been great with my funny partners + Jo 

Nutella, you've nailed it with your new marketing ploy.

Though our relationship with each other go high and low sometimes, these are the 2 people I will love dearly in my life. We had peking duck here!!! mmm oishi.

Sorry, but we're just too lame around each other.

Taking a photo with very eligible singles.

Yay, a rekindled friendship from Sec 1! Still the same feisty, something so comforting about a shared memory.

Retard who appeared in my face as a french maiden, almost couldn't recognise her.

Ooo, lookie! A huge brinjal! Stop what you're eating and look at my prized find of the day prease.

This is Bloomsbury Bakers, the brainchild of my best friend, whom I've seen through from 13 till now. And having known her for half my life, It's amazing to see childhood dreams come to fruition.

This was a day that a couple of friends decided to dedicate their lives to the couch. Sleep, Eat, Watch movie, repeat. What a life. Awesome day, but only so in rarity.

Brunch day with fionaaaa pohpoh. :) One happy day with 2 awesome people.

Easter sunday: <3 God loves us all. That is all!

And since yesterday: the best 3 months with you ever!

Time to be out!

What is Love

The depths of the journey is more important than its end. Is especially true in relationships. During service last Sunday, I remember the guest speaker mentioned about how even as there may be external pull factors tempting one into gratifying our physical and emotional desires elsewhere, knowing that you have gone through the best and worst of your life together and supported each other is the foundation of commitment to one another. I thought, what is the end in marriages anyway? Sex? Children? A house? Double portion of assets? Going by how it's actually easier to get these things without going through the emotional investment in a relationship and the legal investment of that piece of paper, they all didn't make sense to me.

In the past year, it's definitely been a whirlwind for Han Yang and I. This sense of guardedness on both sides, second guessing each other, being excessively cordial, seeing the less savoury parts of each other - try as I might, I couldn't imagine God not being in this picture. For every time we talked things through, every time we clarified - humility, openness, honesty and love brought us to a common point where we grew to trust each other because we attested to each other's accountability to God. Only after spiritual intimacy, did emotional intimacy grow. A strange start to a relationship but something that I am thankful to God for. And with this decision to take the next step of commitment towards each other, on top of the excitement in getting to know this strange but funny boy even better, I hope that the kind of love that exists between us will know no boundaries when it comes to loving and serving others.

One of the few photos that we've ever took. We need to keep more memories!

Love is cheesy. And very often, bashful. Hehe.

Nature, Nurture, or Bible?

Watched this a couple of years back, and whether anot it painted the reality of whether this truly epitomises the Chinese society, I thought it a good socio-commentary at least on the relationship between individual, family and society. How each influences the other, and vice versa. At the end of the day, I realise, how much an individual allows different institutions to influence him in (negative) social mores could be due to a number of factors:

1) Not realising that such a relationship exists (Ignorance, lack of education to think critically)

2) Not having a sense of right or wrong (Of which, I'm inclined to question if one possesses full maturity of his mental faculties)

3) The age in which they are socialised (The younger, the more susceptible)

Result of post-Maoism China, I believe, is a generation that believes in clenching onto newly found democracy (and meritocracy, which ever the context applies), yet as a result of the gaping hole of faith in which it had so readily purged back in the 70s, gives rise to it (democracy or meritocracy) in a ruthless form. Communism without faith gave rise to Maoism. Democracy without faith, I feel, might be slightly better given the underlying principles of justice and equality, but is just as dirty and slanderous.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter which political climate we live in, I think the only thing that could save us from (1) Not realising truth, and (2) Not knowing moral truth, is the presence of an anchor of which we derive these truths from. We could always choose to go with the flow and we could always choose to go against the grain. It is the presence of knowing unfailing truth that makes these decisions much simpler.

Perspective in light of reading The Heavenly Man. The kinda book that gives me heart palpitations and cry both tears of sadness and joy as I read Brother Yun's testimonies of witness to Christ. Kudos to the people who stand firm and believe in the miracles of our God Almighty!