the YISS conference over the weekend by Fr. Gino was surprisingly good. i say surprisingly not because i didn't expect Fr. Gino to be superb or anything other than fabulous - but because i dragged myself to St. Theresa's church on Saturday with such bad grace. i was literally having to drag my physical self all the way to Bukit Merah because i had a million and one reasons for not wanting to go. i felt disgusting cos i could feel the cramps starting up (i had just gotten my period that Saturday morning); i felt horrible and grouchy towards every single person and i just felt like snapping at every single living thing; i'd argued with my mother over everything i was wearing before leaving home - from top to earrings to shoes.

so many excuses for not wanting to go, so many ways i could justify my reluctance to attend the conference.

but i was real glad i went though, even though God had to drag me kicking and screaming, almost against my will. i attribute my ability to turn up for the conference in spite of my strong inclination to just heck it and allow my anger and irritation and pain from the cramps to dissipate over an afternoon spent at home to God - not me. in the end, i wasn't that deaf as to ignore the Spirit telling me to just shut up and go, and i'm so thankful.

after the weekend, i feel like i'm a changed person. not because of the weekend - though they were definitely mighty good and superb - but because the sessions precipitated a realization within myself and an acceptance of certain gifts God has so graciously bestowed on me but i have been keeping in poor stewardship all this while.

my attitude towards prayer and my spiritual life has been changed deeply. not a hundred-and-eighty-degree change, as many people often describe their encounters with the Holy Spirit and the embracing of Jesus as Lord and saviour of their lives; but my change seems more subtle, and yet i recognise it so clearly.

it all stemmed from Fr. Gino reminding me again about the definitive choice we have to make as Catholic charismatics - a resounding YES to Jesus, and an equally resounding NO to sin in our lives. even though i may have made that choice for the first time once before, it doesn't necessarily mean that i don't have to consciously remake this choice over and over again as i stumble and grope my way out of life's snares and obstacles. i realise that i thought i had made that choice before, and so, no longer have to bother with continuing to choose Jesus completely and reject sin totally in my life. which, up until the weekend, i didn't realise.

and how do i continue to keep making that choice for Jesus and reject sin? by praying. praying deeply, praying everyday, and meditating on the Word of God because that is God's love letter to us, anyway. God may not speak to me in bolts of lightning and rumbling thunder, in a fiery burning bush or in the parting of any sea - but He definitely can and will speak to me through His Word. how could i have not realised that until now? you have no idea how much more i treasure my Bible now that that realisation sunk in. i used to gobble up books pretty darn quickly, and lap up every single word and description in the books as the scene came alive in my own mind and the beautiful words of the prose washed over me. i loved reading, i loved books. i had and have a gift of reading and of words, of understanding sentences quickly and well. i don't understand how i could have failed to realise that my Bible is a book too, and the most beautiful and delectable one at that, too. it's better than my Harry Potter collection, my Blind Assassins, or Lolitas, anyday. those are fiction, the tales they tell are but tales - even if they are quite breathtaking and epic in scale, allowing my mind to run wild and free in the fieldscape of my imagination. the Bible is a personal love novel from my God to me, it's not imaginary or fiction, it's real. the promises God makes in the pages of the Bible; fantastical as they may sound, they're real and true, and i know that now ever so much better.

i love praying, now. i really want to expand my knowledge on my spirituality and so many other things pertaining to the mysteries of the Godly realm. put that gift of intellect to good use and deepen my spirituality rather than to just read for the sake of reading. the beauty of the gift of intellect is that once my intellect is convinced of something, it translates into my heart pretty soon after.

my eyes have been growing pimples in them, lately.

first my right eye, now my left eye! looks like mom's Eye Bright pills aren't really working, eh? they're supposed to be improving my eyesight - acting as antioxidants and all, but well.. heh. more thingys have taken to growing under my eyelids lately, rendering blinking a rather painful reflex action.

i've really been trying to tune my body clock back to normal sleeping patterns, but it's not working! i have to really drag myself out of bed at 10am every morning when the alarm rings. maybe i should aim for 930am, soon. i'm hoping to be able to jump out of bed bright and cheery at 9am every morning when school term begins in 2 weeks!

these days, inane things to blog about keep coming to me. like my sudden improvement in doing housework, my also-sudden desire to read more literary books besides Harry Potter. oh, and also my increasing need for a vaccum cleaner to work its magic in my room.

what other unimportant things i feel the need to blog about? oh, the stupidity of the CORS system. the sudden onslaught of pms on my system - something i haven't felt for the longest time ever, i even thought i was pms-free! the eruption of bumps all over my forehead. the warped weather these days which i think is largely due to global warming - we're gonna suffer the consequences of global warming and air pollution, soon. my teeth are getting crooked again and i think it's time to take out the trusty ol' retainers of my teenage years and put them on nightly, again.

planning for SEP after my CORS headache is over. planning for an internship next holiday, too. i'm this close to the working world, i'd better start getting ready cos 3 years ain't a long time. my spending habits have improved in the last month, largely due to my self-imposed imprisonment at home to ensure i don't spend. but i feel like shopping again, and i think it's cos of the influx of cash in my wallet again now that August has arrived and July has left me far behind.

my heart's at peace now and i'm no longer the angsty, upset kid i was a few months ago. so complicated, i was! i'm a lot less messed up now, and i think it's cos i don't mess myself up and let God lead me into doing whatever he wants me to do. i've given up trying to struggle for my own happiness, it just doesn't work. i've found out that God's way is always the best for me, but i tend to meander onto other possible paths and take detours and roundabouts before getting to that destination. but then again, if i hadn't trodden on those paths that i did, i wouldn't be the sum of who i am today, either. cried much, hurt much, but also learnt much, and grown much.

i don't deny that some things still bother me. but it isn't like, a pressing bother. it's more like those that come into your mind very randomly and unless you entertain the thought, it leaves you alone again soon after.

and, i need to exercise.
and sleep now. it's 330am. shucks. i'm not helping my lost cause.

today/the last few days has/have been one of those days when i feel annoyance bubbling up from somewhere inside me and threatening to completely engulf me and explode outwards to the people around. funny though, since i ought to be a more peaceful, God-loving, happy person going through the experience of Parish Renewal in the Parish Renewal Experience. pah! i haven't been more unsettled, irritated, and overall, more FRUSTRATED in a long time.

i surmise it's cos i feel i've been dragged to this to accompany my mom, hence the bad grace and the sense of being victimised or made use of. the angry tears keep threatening to well up and i feel like throwing a tremendous tantrum - but happily enough, i still possess enough presence of mind not to lose any semblence of self-control.


i sense the need for God to come into my life fully again, cos i don't know where all this anger and irritation is coming from. it seems as though sometimes, there's this other beast living in the body people know as Kelly, and it's making me feel all this bestial wrath. roar? i think i'm no more bestial than a cat, but you know what i mean lah.

lovely greyish sky today again! it's been like this the last few days. i love this kinda weather. makes me feel good staying at home, makes me want to stay home. good actually, this wanting to stay at home. cos i'm terribly TERRIBLY broke! so for the remaining of this week AND next week, i'm not gonna go anywhere that involves spending money.

the one thing that would make my homestay more cosy and enjoyable would be rain! then i can curl up in bed and take a lovely afternoon cat nap.

speaking of cats. one of those friendly neighbourhood cats attempted to get into my room early this morning! i awoke to the sound of things falling to the floor and scuffling by the window. upon further investigation, i saw dirty little pawprints on my wall - evidence of the kitty's break-in this morning.

it doesn't look like it's gonna rain afterall. :( was looking forward to curling up in bed to the sound of the pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof shingles.

things have been quiet on this blog lately cos i haven't been able to put my thoughts into words. paradoxical, really, how there's so much happening up there in my mind, but when i probe deeper - nothing much at all either.

met Lynette today for a catch-up! realised that i've missed being with her. you never know how much something means to you until it disappears from your life. then you start to see that gaping hole where it once resided. friendships are all a bit like that. when i get frustrated with the way things are going, i tend to turn away from people and just keep looking within. keep turning to me and wondering what i'm feeling, why i'm feeling, and just shut everything else out.

sometimes i feel like there're a lot of things i gotta say to quite a lot of people. but then i just don't feel like talking for many reasons. i just choose to not bother about these outstanding things that ought to be settled cos i don't want to stir things up in my life. things have reached an equilibrium and i just don't want to move from this vantage point where at least the boat doesn't rock and i don't feel like throwing up from sea-sickness.

strangely enough, it's starting to get lonely where i am. though it doesn't seem to warrant loneliness from anywhere - loneliness nonetheless engulfs me and leaves me gasping for air. it's like an uncalled for sort of feeling that just creeps up on me and ambushes me.

some things just trigger reactions or memories that force me to behave strangely, still. i'm frustrated, and yet resigned to the fact that maybe, things will always be like that for me. as normal as normal gets, but not entirely tension-free or awkward-less. i'm wary about talking or sharing about myself; increasingly, as the days go by. not a good thing to be proud of, and yet i suspect it's a defense mechanism too that kicks in to prevent me from ever getting shell-shockedly hurt again. i've given up trying to bring people by the hand over to my point-of-view, to try to show them where i'm coming from and how the sunset looks from my opposite ledge. it's been a few months since i've given up and i can safely say i'm a much less emotionally wrecked up person now.

and so, we just exist as friendly strangers.

my heart is heavy and inexplicably, everything hurts more than it should. we're all lonely deep down inside. i'm no exception. i'm trying to not yield to my desires and immediate wants, to stop thinking about myself all the time and think also for those whom i love and care about. but all these extra cares are wearing me down even though i've barely begun to even try to shoulder them and i'm lost.

for a while, i thought i knew where i was headed. i thought i had everything figured out and my life was finally going to be settled and dandy. how wrong i am, because there's still so much i don't know, so much i'm unsure about. it's during times like these when i feel that my veneer of grown-up-ness and the surety and confidence that being a young woman brings - all melting away to reveal the lost little girl i still am deep inside. i think i know what i'm doing, i think i know what i'm saying, and then it all explodes in my face and i'm not sure about what i even knew to begin with.

when i see the disappointment, when i see the hurt and sadness etched in, when i see that i selfishly caused it all - i hate myself for it all the time. careless words, careless thoughts, carelessness all around. everything around me dripping in carelessness.

i'm single-handedly managing to ruin everything once again and i'm wondering how i even managed such a magnitude of confusion. i undermine my own prowess at ruining things, sometimes. this tendency to self-destruct is terribly dangerous, but how to curb it i have no clue.

then when i try to turn to God and fling myself at his feet, all that wells up in me is an overwhelming sense that he loves me. i love you, over and over again. but i don't want to be comforted, i don't want to find refuge; i want an answer. i want help. i want direction. then i feel bad cos i remember how God loves me so and i don't understand how i can just flick that knowledge aside. and i go round and round in my own head.

i'm terribly sad suddenly and i wish i knew what to do about everything. what wouldn't i give to make things right again for everyone? i'm beginning to wonder if i have a reversed Midas touch about me - everything i touch gets messed up. but then again, i remember the world doesn't revolve around me, so i'm not The Only Factor in so many things. variables i don't even know about could have contributed to the mess.

i suddenly also feel un-understood at all. not misunderstood. un-understood. that sometimes no one bothers to try to understand where i'm coming from - but that could be my own fault because most of the time, i give off the air that i'm perfectly understood and fine. i'm so cautious about certain things now, so careful about treading certain paths - and yet in all the care i take, carelessness still inevitably seeps in and ruins everything. like one of those land mines you take painstaking care to avoid, but you end up walking right into one of those potholes right in front of you in the end.

today on my way home, i was thinking about a lot of things. wondering if i could do certain things. if i could give up certain things for certain other things. wondering what would be the best thing to do. not the easiest thing this time, but the best thing for everyone. calculating my opportunity costs, and getting fed up with calculating cos i can't deal with emotions the same way that i deal with my numbers in algebra. if the equation doesn't add up - just chuck the number away.

i'm still human, after all!

Sentosa, Cathedral, Soup Spoon and Thai Express yesterday!

yummy day, yummy time i had.

days like these make me wanna stay forever where i am. and yet i also know somewhere in the back of my mind that days like these won't last forever. they're just fullstops between sentences, and the story goes on after the fullstop with yet another sentence.

as i was praying last night, something troubled me muchly. ah actually. many things trouble me muchly these days even though i seem to have minimal reason to be troubled. it's the smallest things that cause me great trouble, actually.

tomorrow always comes. even though sometimes you don't want tomorrow to come and you just want today to stay forever. all the tomorrows of my life, what do they hold in store for me? i wish i could take a peek into the future and see how my tomorrow next year will look like. on one hand, i'm ready to just heck it all and let myself get swept up in everything going on around me. don't bother to think, just do and worry about the consequences later on. but on the other, it's all too important to me to just ignore and pretend i'll be able to deal with the repercussions later.

unfortuntately, things don't always go the way we want them to. if only i knew for sure, if only i knew what i had for sure, if only i knew what i can give for sure.

God's voice is becoming increasingly faint in my life these days and i so desperately want to keep straining my ears to listen out for him. someone once chided me for clinging on tightly still in spite of everything. just let go, just give it all up to God, he said. but i choose to hang on still - hang on to God and never let go. it's tough to not give in to my physical and mental exhaustion and just do whatever pleases me. isn't it odd how your struggles seem the toughest to you? probably because they're tangible to you, whereas to others looking on, they can only imagine what you're going through - and what people imagine always doesn't measure up to what's actually going on.

SGL meeting on Saturday reminded me terribly about this verse in the bible in Ecclesiastes.

Vanity of vanity, and all is but vanity!

and i'm afraid this is what everything's about. everything in my life thus far seems to have been to feed my vanity, horrible, needy thing that it is. work is vanity, toil is vanity, and the list goes on. it's hard to accept that, but i think there's some degree of truth in what the guy Qoheleth says. to some extent, everything that we do save the pursuit for God in our lives as a personal journey - is vanity. i say pursuit of God as a personal journey cos sometimes i feel that people (especially in communities) 'seek' God because they want to attain spiritual status over their peers. i'm not guiltless of that, mind you, but being aware of this possibility helps keep me in check and makes me evaluate my pursuit of God in my life and examine my intentions behind everything i do. it's not easy to maintain such a high degree of self-awareness. sometimes you just wish you didn't know so much about yourself, cos it seems like the more you learn about yourself, the uglier a person you appear to be.

upon discovering what a horrible, yucky person i am deep inside, i shuddered and wanted to die. wanted to just stop it all, stop knowing so much. it's hard, it's definitely not pretty. you wonder why God loves you so much in spite of your yuckiness, then you stop and berate yourself cos you know that God's love for you is unconditional. not for laudable reasons and merits about you, but unexplanable, undeserved, and illogical sometimes.

i wish people'd practice what they preached. talking so much and knowing so much isn't enough in life. don't live in fear, someone told me. nothing doing, i say now. i'm suddenly very tired of everything and i'm not quite sure what to do anymore.

i've more or less planned out my timetable for next semester already. by some divine providence, my entire schedule sort of suits my nocturnal nature! my earliest class is 11am, and i'll end at 6pm most days. and.. i have a 4-day week! i have Fridays off. yes, even with tutorials planned in. most amazingly, there were no tutorial slots on Friday for any of the modules i'm planning to take.



i'm looking forward to the semester. looking forward to getting a good start to the sem, working hard and getting (hopefully) much better results. mods next sem seem a lot more interesting, for one thing! actually, arts mods are all seemingly a lot more interesting i guess.



am currently waiting for my painted toe nails to dry before i put on the top coat. i realise i only bother to repaint my nails when i'm feeling good about myself. like, i'll do everything. cut my finger nails, shave my legs, the works. i think i only bother to take care of me when i feel there's reason to do that. shouldn't it be like, the other way round? or a year-round, all-the-time kinda thing?



have been increasingly frustrated where my prayer life is concerned lately though. i'm mightily unsettled and confused, i can't decide what to do, and it's making me IRRITATED.

some days, i just sit where i am and stare out of my bedroom window, watching the fluffy white clouds float by in the deep blue sky.
other days, i fling myself down onto my bed and stare up at the ceiling, watching the spider weave its web and letting the bright light blind me.

what goes on beneath the calm surface?
wouldn't you like to know.

don't want to lose me, don't want to have to change myself - i say. but nonetheless, i tell you i'll try. so hard, but no choice. i'll have to try. ain't worth it, not to. my feelings, i'm learning how to control them a bit. ignore them a bit. leave them be a bit. shuffle them down the rankings of my Important-Things list a bit.

my middle name, Marie, means bitterness. and other cheery things like sea of sorrow and the like. sort of gives me a license to be melancholy, doesn't it? melancholy never leaves me. it's always lurking somewhere deep in me - i suspect i was made with a huge dose of melancholy and the like when God was creating the fibres of my being in heaven. there's always that little tinge of sadness in the reccesses of my soul, and i'm learning to just embrace it as part of me and not worry too much about it.

i'm happy now, i'm contented and very much happily and contentedly in love. with life, with him, with God, with everything. but at the same time, there're little vestiges of things that keep nibbling on my heels and annoying me, like one of those toy dogs that keep snapping at your heels when they want to play and you don't want to play with them. i'm learning how to ignore these left-over irrational nonsensical things, but to be able to do that i'm taking drastic measures - or am about to, anyway. i don't know if taking the most drastic and retardedly over-the-top course of action is the way to go, but i don't know how else to deal.


from Keats' Ode to Sorrow
... To Sorrow,
I bade good-morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind:
I would deceive her,
And so leave her,
But ah! she is so constant and so kind.

Beneath my palm trees, by the river side,
I sat a weeping: in the whole world wide
There was no one to ask me why I wept;
And so I kept
Brimming the water-lily cups with tears
Cold as my fears.

JOHN KEATS


i feel a lot like that sometimes, that misery and melancholy loves me dearly and is ever so constant in my life, so faithful. ah well.

i am the most horrible person alive and i ought to be flung into the sea.

i am a horrible specimen of a human being and i am disgusted with myself.
i know what it's like to be hurt by someone i care for, and i tell myself that no, i will never do the same thing.
and do i not do it?

no.

over and over and over and fricking over again.

wicked girl. i deserve not to be loved.

the past 2 days have seen me waking up at record early mornings! i was up at 7am this morning for 8.30am mass, and 10am yesterday morning to make it down for worship at 1.15pm.

that'd be good, all this early morning waking-up - if i slept earlier too. but i haven't. i haven't been able to. i haven't been sleeping well the last few days, having to stay up till 5am to exhaust myself to sleep so i don't think and think my brains out as i drift away to sleep.

my thoughts crowd my head at night just before i fall asleep and make it very noisy in there. it makes it hard to sleep even after i've quietened myself down somewhat. hence, the need to tire myself out to the point that i don't think, i just sleep.

conversation with God these days are somewhat dominated by 2 main things. i think God must be getting bored of me - who doesn't get bored with someone who keeps nattering on about something over and over, even when there's nothing new to say? ah well.

it came to me last night that i'm immeasurably peturbed and i don't like this feeling. i don't like feeling what i am feeling, and i try to chuck it out. try, have tried, am trying. not succeeding? but rah, it's frustrating. i'm not masochistic, i don't like to experience pain. it's only natural for me to want to protect myself. but is that right?

funny, i don't hear any one else asking themselves "is that right?" before they decide to do or say things. if everyone did that, people would cause each other a lot less hurt. i'm aware that my words and actions have certain repercussions, and i try to minimize that. God wouldn't want me to be going around ignorantly hurting others with careless words or deeds, and i wouldn't want to either. don't want to. God said in Galatians 5 to love my neighbour. love my neighbour before i can love God. i think that's the order - if i can't even love my neighbour who's right in front of me, how can i claim to love God who i can't even see? well, true, it's a lot easier to dislike people who we can see, too. but it's also a whole lot easier to love the other people we see.

i can't decide what to do, in all honesty. i'm not sure i'm willing to put myself in such a postion again when i'm on the brink of blissful freedom and i'm just about to fling myself out of the door and run far far away to a nicer elsewhere. i don't want things holding me down, those chain balls that drag me down and keep me from taking flight. i want to live, and i do or don't do certain things so i can really live. not exist, live. i don't want to exist in misery anymore. so all those things that cause me misery must go. i don't want to exist in unwantedness, either. so all those things that cause me to feel unwanted must go, too. all these negative feelings in me, i don't need them anymore. they must all go. i'm this close to running from them. do i want to sit down for a minute to think and risk not being able to shake off those shackles? i'm not sure i want to.

i'm not sure i'm so unselfish either. i'm not sure i'm able to, either.

i'm so aware of what i think and feel, and yet unable to really say anything cos i'm trying so hard to bury everything in my subconscious, banish them to the realms of my subconscious. it makes it all the harder, knowing what i know and feeling none the better for whatever i'm doing, and yet having to bear the brunt of judgement too on top of the horrid feeling i'm already feeling.

the stakes are much higher this time round. i cannot afford to slip up again.

my prayer for the 7th of July 2007 (07.07.07!):


Father God, that you will show me what you want me to do.
that you will lend me some of your infinite patience, oh, just a little.
Father, i want to know that you are all i need, that you are more than enough for me.
i want to know this with my heart.
let me not feel bitter whenever feelings of being unwanted, unloved or rejected prick me,
because you want me, you love me, and you want to embrace me.
and there is no need for bitterness.

Father God, i ask that you send down your Spirit upon me,
that you send down your sweet Spirit of gentleness onto me.
let your Spirit fill my heart with your love, God.
love for everyone around me, whether they deserve it or not.
Spirit, please teach me how to be wise,
how to be patient,
how to be loving,
how to be forgiving.
i want to do what's right in your eyes, Lord,
and not what my willful heart desires for itself.

you see the depths of my heart, God,
you see the things that i've hidden so well or buried so deep.
and through the ugliness, through the mess,
you still love me,
and i thank you, Lord, for loving me undeservedly.

whisper to me your guiding words, Lord.
root out all that will lead me away from you,
and instead, replace them with what will lead me to you.
let me not live in my selfish ways anymore,
but live in me everyday of my life.

Amen.

okay. sleeping on the pull-out bed in MY ROOM everynight for the last say, 4, 5 nights - is not funny at all.
not funny AT ALL.
having to creep around in my room for fear of waking my mother up - isn't really very funny either.
having to apologise when i sneeze or cough in my room - is totally unfunny.

i can't sleep like this anymore. either my nose will lose it completely, or i will. the dust on the bed that i'm forced to sleep in is present in huge quantities.
so huge, that my sinus problem just kicks in and runs away.
if the air-con man doesn't repair the air-con in my mother's room soon, i am going to find someone who can because i cannot live with my mother taking over my room for much longer without not saying anything remotely unpleasant to her. for 5 days, i've been gritting my teeth and saying "sure mom, you can sleep in my room tonight again" (even though she didn't really need to ask, she just plops herself on my bed anyway) with a painfully forced little smile on my face.

i wake up today with severe dust allergy symptoms kicking in and i want to cry out of frustration. tonight, tomorrow night. rah. i bet the air-con won't be repaired on Friday still, and i have to endure ANOTHER bloody week. i think i will come downstairs to sleep on the sofa or something. i need my personal space back.

my days have been surprisingly busy, surprisingly! aites, bad english here. oh well. my language is deteriorating terribly, given that we hardly have to write many essays in uni, anyway.

feeling loads better now! cramps have almost deserted me (many hoorays and whoops of joy for that!), got my allowance for the month, and things at home are somewhat at an equilibrium for now too.

i take back what i said the previous post, though. i haven't lost respect for her. on the contrary, i still do respect her. i still do love her, very much.

i respect her because she loves him. even though it's so hard to find reasons to keep on, she does it anyway. even though to her, he deserves none of her love, she does it anyway. and that is why i respect her, because i know how it feels - and it sure as hell doesn't feel good. that is why she keeps emphasizing the importance of eventually being with someone who loves you, who you know for sure loves you. i never understood why she kept harping on it, but now i think i can sort of understand. it's so you don't get hurt most of the time, it's so you're not on the losing end, it's so you don't end up feeling so despairingly frustrated at your own stupidity.

the hardest lessons that people have to learn is to love unconditionally. is to love like how God loves. everytime someone tells me about how difficult it is to love unconditionally, the extent of unconditional - it always hits me hard and i feel for them immediately. everytime someone crys because they still love in spite of a myriad of reasons telling them not to, i feel too cos i know how it feels. it's frustrating, it's so hard to understand, to accept, and ultimately, you just want to stop loving cos you want to stop the hurt. stop caring, then stop hurting. so many people around me right now who're learning what it's like to love unconditionally, like how God loves, and nothing i can do except to tell them that i know how it feels. exactly how it feels. God prolly taught me then so i'll be able to relate now.

and what also struck me was that it seems as though girls learn unconditional love a lot quicker than guys do. i'm not saying guys are incapable of it, but it seems as though girls have a greater propensity to stumble upon it in the course of their loving someone. living examples around me, living example in me.

it's such a hard, painful lesson to learn, and oftentime you just want it all to stop.

i'm glad i saw it through though, cos i'm where i am now because of everything i've learnt. i'm glad i didn't shut off completely - although i was so close to doing that - or i wouldn't be who i am now, either.

it'd be a pity to let one failed attempt to find mutual unconditional love hinder other attempts. i learnt what i could from it all, the memory still stings badly, but that's all it is after all - a memory. i wouldn't want to lose myself to memories.



i do want to live. very much. i do want to keep living. very much. i'm grateful for having lived, too. i got this in an email recently, and it really struck a chord within me since.

we make them cry, those who care for us.
we cry for those who never care for us.
we care for those who will never cry for us.

i never want the first line to be true for me again. i'm going to live my life trying not to let anyone who cares for me cry for me anymore. too painful, too cruel, too heartless, too ignorant.

i feel disgusting. absolutely disgusting. time of the month, time of suffering.
i didn't ask to be born like that. i didn't ask for my body. i had no choice. i was born like that. cramps will be the death of me before i turn 30. i've been having them every single lousy month since almost 10 years ago now, and it's not getting any better.

i have no respect for her anymore, too.
unreasonability ranks very low in my books. i have very little patience for that.

killmenowplease. sure, there's such a lot of life to see. but i'm so tired of the pain that plagues me, of so many things, that sometimes i just think it doesn't matter if i don't wake up tomorrow. just slip away quietly in my sleep, so my soul can take flight and find its way to God where it belongs, anyway.

as i sit here feeling goosebumps prickle me and my feet feeling oh-too-cold and my hands trembling with the sharp waves of pain, i'm not looking forward to tonight when she comes home and goes on her rants again. nothing i say makes a difference, she's beyond reasoning and it's taking all my self-control to stop myself from saying a lot of cutting things. today, as i tried to close my eyes and sleep the cramps away, she didn't - couldn't - leave me in peace. even though i was obviously in some sort of pain, she couldn't leave me alone. fling the door wide open, scream scream scream, demand me to do stupid things. when i say something, i'm rude. when i keep quiet cos i can't say anything, it's too painful to open my mouth, i'm rude also. never satisfied, that's what she is.

let her think whatever she wants already. i'm too drained from this afternoon to explain anything. i hate being me, i hate having my body. i didn't choose to be like this, can't you see? if i could, there're so many things i'd choose to leave out from me and my body. RAH. frustrated and so tired.

i'm glad i decided i felt okay enough to join my community for the fantabulous outing tonight! enjoyed myself with everyone tremendously! kudos to Alison & Aloy for planning everything and making sure we were all having fun and eating well and all! :)

had steamboat dinner at Marina South. omg, i really stuffed myself i think. ate a lot a lot tonight. and i think i just shortened my lifespan by 10 years. i ate A LOT of carsenogenic (i have like, NO idea how to spell this word, i'm sorry) food that was charred on the grill. i was too lazy to pick the black bits off and too hungry to wait, so i just ate.

before dinner though, was Mass at the Cathedral! attending Mass there was a mixed experience for me, though. on one hand, it was like so stuffy, and slightly uncomfortable cos the seats had rigid backings and the kneelers were solid wood. but on the other, i really loved the atmosphere of the entire place. it was so quaint. i loved the candles burning in their candle sticks by the altar - they looked like they belong in a castle or something. like those in the Beast's castle in Beauty & the Beast! and the pipe organ's pipes. omg, that was so cool. there were pipes all around the church. i imagine the people who attended Mass there even before THX sound system was invented already had access to surround sound every Mass when the organ was played. it was reminiscent of the Phantom of the Opera, i felt. the entire feel of the church.

so anyway. after dinner, some of us made our way down to AMK hub to catch a late night movie! Transformers! we caught the 2am show cos the 12.50 show was sold out by the time we got there. it was the coolest show i've watched in a long long time, i must say! although it wasn't on my to-watch list of shows initially, watching it changed my mind completely. i'm glad Carol and i decided to stay till 2 to catch it! it was good. you'd think that amid all the action and fighting, there'd be no tear-inducing moments, eh? wrong!! i was this close to crying a couple of times in the movie (although i must admit it were pretty silly reasons to feel like crying haha). it is NOT just a guy's show to watch. although all the machines and transformers may seem more masculine than anything else. i throughly loved the show. it was oh, so cool. no other word to describe it. shan't spoil it for those who haven't catched it by blabbing on about it! oh, and the girl was hot. the captain was hot. hot people make me feel more friendly towards the show overall. like how Jessica Alba is practically 90% of the reason why i faithfully made Fantastic 4 a show on my to-watch list every year for both the movies so far.

so yes, that would explain why i'm still blogging and this time of the night. 5.45am. actually, i'm waiting for my hair to dry out more before i sleep. the smoke from the steamboat dinner permeated my clothes, my hair, my entire being, so i HAD to wash everything out.

Wil keeps prompting me to rethink my decision to leave the core again, since the retreat and since i so stupidly-bravely claimed the gift of leadership for God and from God during the retreat, too. i'm kinda reluctant to think again, cos i thought that decision-making process was behind me and i could lay it to rest, finally. it wasn't an easy decision to make, cos i knew so very well why i was so adamant on leaving but i had so much trouble articulating it to the rest of the core in a way i felt comfortable sharing. in the end, it just ended up with me seeming childish, petulant, and ridiculously stubborn and even selfish. but i just left it at that because i couldn't find it in me to explain, and i also thought and think that it wouldn't matter what i said anyway - they wouldn't and won't understand.

it's not running away, is it? by not explaining myself, it's not being a coward, right? i'm just doing something i think will save everyone a lot of time and energy. rah. i really hate it when my effort to try to make things simpler for everyone is eventually misconstrued as childishness or selfishness, and results in people being annoyed with me for reasons beyond my comprehension - when really, what i really meant to do was to cut the annoyance out. even at the expense of myself and what i feel.

i think i should start being kinder to myself and allow myself to step in when my good intentions are taken and completely twisted and contorted into something beyond recognition.

i'm so reluctant to re-visit that thought, even toying with that thought scares me somewhat. i don't want to think about staying on in the core, i don't want to think about it. the year to come may be more than what i can handle and i may snap. as it is, i think i've been doing well the last few weeks. when things have settled down a fair bit and i'm less riled up and disliked. oh okay, who am i kidding. i know i can deal with the coming year if i put my mind to it. God has already said he'll help me, if i so decide to stay on. has already said he'll give me strength and wisdom to deal with certain situations, said he'll be with me every step of the way. but do i want to? do i want to subject myself to being the subject of immense dislike and annoyance for no other reason save that i am me? right, it looks ridiculous even as i type it down. how can i be disliked just by being me, right? trust me, been there done that, and it is as ridiculous as it sounds.

it is not right to hate someone just for who she or he is. it is just not right. sure, you can justify that feeling with a lot of "oh, she's so annoying and she says stupid things and does irritating things", but when push comes to shove, that's just not reason enough. i've never not liked anyone just he or she is exactly just he or she is, because i cannot find enough reasons to sustain the dislike. i always find something to like in the end. always always. so when i hear about people not liking someone simply cos she's herself, or when i hear someone doesn't like me simply because i'm me, i get so worked up. because it makes no sense to me at all. i believe it's ultimately a choice we all make to like or dislike a person.

ah well. i am starting to get irritated just thinking about it. shall stop here and read a bit before sleeping.


there's a song that's inside of my soul
it's the one that i've tried to write over, & over again.
i'm awake in the infinite cold
but you sing to me over, & over again.
so i lay my head back down
& i lift my hands and pray
to be only yours, i pray
to be only yours
i know now,
you're my only hope.

sing to me the song of the stars.
of a galaxy dancing, and laughing, and laughing again.
when it feels like my dreams are so far
sing to me of the plans that you have for me over again
so i lay my head back down
& i lift my hands and pray
to be only yours, i pray
to be only yours
i know now,
you're my only hope.

i give you my destiny.
i'm giving you all of me.
i want your symphony,
singing in all that i am.
at the top of my lungs
i'm giving it back.

so i lay my head back down
and i lift my hands, and pray
to be only yours, i pray
to be only yours, i pray
to be only yours,
i know now
you're my only hope.
*only hope/mandy moore.


i just realised this is a song from me to God.
sing to me of the plans that you have for me, over again.

i want to entrust all my plans to God, i want him to sing to me of the plans he has for me over again, i just want to feel safe in the knowledge that God has good plans in store for me even if it seems hard now, i just want to feel loved knowing that God likes me for who i am, likes - and so much more - even as people don't, i just want God to sing to me because i know he's there in music.

i am satisfiedly tired today. felt i spent a productive day - even though i spent a large part of the day in town. again. for the 10 millionth time. but well, the 2 hour tuition at night saved my day, i think.

you know, i think my period is coming soon. i felt supremely crampy a lot of today and felt my heart sink closer and closer to my toes as i felt wave after wave of the stupid cramps come at me. my body runs like clockwork! the last period i had was exactly 4 Saturdays ago.

okay, too much info maybe.

after today, i realised that i've been spending far too much and i really need to STOP. especially when i get paid for tuition come Monday, i need to make sure i save a substantial amount of that in the bank. and make sure that substantial amount STAYS in the bank. i'm despairing at my spending habits, to be honest. in the last week, i have spent...... omg, too much money. i bought 2 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of shorts, a top. doesn't seem like much when i put it like that, but it's a lot!! omg omg. what has gotten into me, i wonder. i'm shopping with a ferocity and vigor that's a bit new to me. and it's only been this week.

next week will see the end of my renagade shopping spree. i will control my money. i will not succumb to consumerism. i will not give in to my materialistic desires just because i feel so-and-so and feel that i have the right to do what i want. like i realise that a lot of the time when i'm pissed off or feel miserable or downright shitty, i feel like i have the license to do whatever i want to cheer myself up. like the last time someone pissed me off, i stomped into a shop and started picking out things i'd been wanting to buy for the longest time ever. i was this ready to just whipping out my atm card and just paying everything by nets. then this little voice in me stopped me from walking to the cashier and i said to myself: are you sure this is worth it? you might regret how much you're spending now when you get back home and have to explain your purchases to the parents. so yes. didn't get all the things i was so close to getting.

as i was waiting for the mrt to arrive today on my way to town to meet Mel and Chels, i began to think about loving a person, and loving love. being in love with somone, and being in love with love. how do i know whether i actually love the person for who he is, and not because i love the fact that he loves me? it's so easy to delude myself into thinking that i'm in love with someone for so-and-so reasons. but when i put aside a lot of my emotions, i start to introspect and question what it is i really feel. then i remember someone told me before, that if you can easily replace the person you think you're in love with and easily say "oh, i love him too.", then it's more likely than not me being in love with love. but if i take away the person and put someone else in his place, and i can't feel the same way about the replacement, can't bring myself to feel for the replacement the same way, can't love the replacement like how i used to love the other person, that's probably me being in love with the person.

i'm slightly scared of loving and being loved, now. it's such a powerful emotion, it's so easy to get sucked into the intensity of it all and just be consumed by the feeling. well, then i suppose that isn't love as how it's meant to be anymore, but love warped and twisted beyond recognition, into something we lose ourselves in. seeing so many people struggling in relationships around me, it makes me skeptical about being in a relationship myself, sort of. it makes me wary, makes me wonder like hey, how come always like that? i refuse to lose who i am in a relationship, refuse to become a different person for the worse, refuse to become too dependent, refuse - absolutely refuse - to be unable to function without the other person. it's so scary, being so totally dependent and reliant on another person. i don't think it's very healthy, either, anyway. i think what i need to keep doing is to keep taking steps back when i actually find myself in a situation like that, take a step back and evaluate my thoughts, my actions and words and feelings. introspect, understand why i think or feel or say things a certain way. and if i know it's wrong, stop me from going there again cos i know it's not right.

what if, what if.

what if.




still a little bit of your taste in my mouth
still a little bit of you laced with my doubt.
still a little hard to say what's going on.
still a little bit of your ghost,
your witness.
still a little bit of your face i haven't kissed.
you step a little closer each day
still i can't say what's going on

stones taught me to fly
love taught me to lie
life taught me to die
so it's not hard to fall,
when you float like a cannonball.

still a little bit of your song in my ear
still a little bit of your words i long to hear.
you step a little closer to me
so close, that i can't see what's going on.

stones taught me to fly.
love taught me to cry.
so come on, courage!
teach me to be shy
cos it's not hard to fall,
and i don't wanna scare her.
it's not hard to fall,
and i don't wanna lose her.
it's not hard to grow,
when you know that you just don't know.
*cannonball/damien rice

i can't believe i spent the last 3 hours and 45 min talking on the phone! the lucky girl was Stef. haha. but yes, 3 hours and 45 minutes is rather incredible, but i reckon it's cos we haven't caught up in a long time.



had a good chat, amid the drama unfolding at home!



my parents' air-con died. which seems to have nothing to do with me, right? wrong. my mom told me to switch off my room's air-con (because apparently my air-con eats up their air-con's supply). so here i am, in Carol's room, and dad in my room, and Carol in mom's room.



i spent the last two nights sleeping on the pull-out bed.. in my room. yes, in my room. my mom conveniently moved over to my bed and kicked me onto the floor. i think my nose couldn't take it though, cos i've been having sinus problems the last two days.



come to think about it, my last week has been pretty packed. i'm going out tomorrow, again, and Saturday too. met Chels today, Tri the day before, and spent Tuesday cleaning out my table and talking to Chels in the afternoon. Monday with Tri. tomorrow with Mel and Yisi and maybe Chels. Saturday with zj, and maybe my sister. whenever my days get overly packed, i start to take a step back and wonder why. maybe i'm overthinking.



'tis a new feeling. not very nice. but the nice long talk with Stef staved some of it away. i think it's temporal.





5-hour phone conversations.



:(

had a fantabulous day with Tri again yesterday! watched Nancy Drew at Lido - long time since i've been there, it seems! ate a lot of pasta at nydc and was full till 12am! shopped at Far East and bought quite a lot of things. which i'm starting to feel bad about, since mom has been trying to get me to cut down on my spending.

think i shall start keeping accounts. like how i keep zj accounts, yeah, i'm gonna keep Kelly's accounts too.

then stayed up till 4am at Tri's place playing world of warcraft and just talking in her super single bunk bed! love my girl days with her cos we never run out of things to talk about and can talk about anything under the sun. and, i'm 100% me in front of her, which i really appreciate! no need to cover up some parts of me or tweak some aspect. she knows me through and through, sees me for what i am - and vice versa. sometimes, we don't even have to say anything and we already know what the other is thinking or feeling. ah, the beauty of real friendship.

meeting Chels on Thursday! another person i reallyreally enjoy spending time with. with Chels, i realise how we can be so alike, and yet so different. i guess we haven't been able to spend a lot of time with each other lately, what with all the camps she's had to go to and my own other distractions and doings. plus, we don't have the luxury of living near each other like Tri and i. but we'll work with what we have lah.

i've been best friends with Tri for close to 7 years now; and Chels, coming 4 years. looking back, i've been really blessed to have always had people i loved and who loved me with me at every point in my life. even before Tri. but as we all grow and change, the people we spend our time with inevitably changes, too. i really hope i won't lose these people i have with me now, even if i go on my next phase of life. and vice versa. the people we spend time with also changes and shifts with circumstance and life-stage.

okay, anyway, i'm gonna do some cleaning this afternoon to appease mom. clean, then nap. sounds like an exciting afternoon in store for me, eh. haha. it's a very relaxing kinda lifestyle, i must say. i won't have the luxury of such slothiness when school begins in about a month, so i am going to lap it all up now while i still can and feel the bones turning lazy in my body.

& yes, hello to you in Paris too.

came back from the zj retreat today. retreat was good, gave me quite a lot to chew on. i guess partly cos i'm moving on from one position in the community as a core team member to somewhere else in the community doing other things. i must say though, i'm not as confident as i make myself out to be regarding where i'm next called to serve in zj. where i am in my community now, it's gonna change in the next few weeks as i step down from the core and take my place as whatever else i'm gonna do. which sub-ministry to serve in, how i'm going to contribute to the best of my ability and capacity, what my place in my community is going to be or has been - so many changes. i should have the flexibility of mind and whatever else to embrace these changes as they occur, just take things in my stride.

oddly enough, even as i decided to step down from the core, i felt that there still is a large amount of unfinished business on my part. as if there's still a lot of me to give as a core team member and a lot i can accomplish in this role, except that i'm adamant on leaving. why the adamance? why the inability to look at situations unbiasedly, detached from emotions and based on functionality? i'm afraid that by stepping down now, it'll break my momentum in my growing into my role as a core team member. and that i'm stunting my own capacity to serve.

i guess it's a risk i have to take in deciding. trust that God will give me the impetus to grow again into whatever role i choose to fulfill at whatever point in time, that nothing is impossible through him and that i shouldn't limit myself. shouldn't - an ideal. but have i been limiting myself? oh yes, definitely.

a lot going on in my life right now, so much so that it's getting increasingly cluttered with a lot of thought processes and decisions and feelings. things ought to be straightforwarder now, right? ought to be - again, an ideal. i'm under a lot of pressure to make the right decisions, pressure from myself to decide, knowing that what i choose will affect others. at the same time, i don't want to live my life for others too. Edwina said in the retreat today that there always is a choice to be made between making a choice for ourselves, or compromising. i agree. but what she didn't really expound on also was that in compromising, we've also made a choice. to compromise our own desires and beliefs for others.

i don't want to have to keep choosing to compromise. because there isn't a better course of action to take, because it's the lesser of the two evils, because it's the course that will bear the least consequences, whyever.

but i also acknowledge that my decisions, whatever they may be, inevitably end up having an effect on the lives of others, however big or small. well, i mean the effect on the lives of others would depend then on the importance of the decision to be made. sometimes, i feel like i do things for others at my expense. even if it comes with the price of having to bear unwarranted judgements or hurtful perceptions, i grin and bear it. telling myself it's for the better, for everyone's good and so i should not be selfish. and it's painful when the effort to not be selfish or whatever comes across as being the total opposite. comes across as being totally selfish and bratty and incredibly horrid. it's so terribly hurtful, so is it stupid to keep grinning and bearing it? is it a noble but foolish act on my part to try to bite off more than i can chew and ingest?

God made me with human limitations. even though i like to proclaim that everything is possible through God, i think sometimes everything is possible through God only if he wills it. if God wills me to bear a certain load, he'll give me the strength to do it. but see, he'll give it to me. because it's what he wills, he'll help. but if it's not in line with what he has planned for me, i can only achieve so much, limited by my human self and capacity. and when i've taken on more than i can, i'll break - if it's not what God wants for me.

bleah i hate it when i go on my God tirades cos i always end up sounding like i'm putting God in a box. which i'm not, really. but i'm trying to put some order into my understanding of God and not just take everything in its messy chaos. maybe that's how i got God, at first. as too big, too messy, too immense for me to comprehend at all. like, i knew he was all these, but then because there's so much to know, i only scratch the surface for everything i knew. really, the surface. but when i start to sort out what i know and what i've found out about God, when i start to use my God-given ability to use my intelligence to rationalise things and put some sort of logic to madness, i know things so much better in my heart on top of knowing things in my head. i think the difference between knowing something in my heart and head lies in the really believing for yourself vs the other people truth. i'm always really glad when i start to feel the wheels and cogs in the brain machinery whirring because i feel that's when i begin to really believe, after i get through the entire thought process.

i am the sum total of my experiences. things that happened to me, no matter how significant or insignificant they may be to others involved; as long as they're significant to me, will affect me as i grow and add on to my person. maybe subtract, even? there we have story truth vs fact truth. as long as something's truth to me, the vehicle used to convey the truth to me doesn't matter. but when that something is retold to someone else, it becomes a lie. because the vehicle used to convey that isn't accurate, isn't in accordance with what actually happened. but to me, it's truth. so something could have happened to me and hence remains as my truth, no matter how it's told or what anyone does to convulate the story. but to someone else involved in the happening, seeing things from his or her point-of-view and forming his own truth, my truth becomes a lie and no matter how accurately i retell the story to him, it's nothing but a lie. ahh, i love war lit. was introduced to this whole concept of 'story truth' during Mrs. C's lessons, which Edwina brought up again during the retreat today. (and Chels and i had a 'ohhh we love war lit!' moment of ecstacy again for the 10th time since graduating from ac, then.)

a lot more to say but i shall keep it for another day. need to take the time to reorganise my thoughts and put them into words. words are my sand in my playground of life. i use words to give wispy thoughts in my head shape and a distinct form, like how a girl imagines a sandcastle in her mind and brings it to life using sand.

i shoulda thanked God for the gift of words instead of leadership when we did the exercise yesterday night. spent 1 hour reflecting and staring at the tealights after that. it was an ethereal feeling, just sitting in the dark and staring at the flickering flames dancing in the velvety darkness. brought me back to the time 6 months back at the ym retreat, when my drive to serve God was reawakened again by Edwina's team, too. there was this night when i sat in the darkness staring at dancing candle flames, acknowledging certain ugly truths that resurfaced in me and bringing my thoughts to life as i scribbled furiously in my journal. sat there for a long time too, just dredging up things i had to face and feeling my chest constrict as i finally said to myself yes, hello, you're still there. damn you, but hello anyway. not an easy feeling to deal with too often, i must say. last night too, was an exact replica of that night in January. lying on the floor getting hypnotised by the fragile light, feeling the first tendrils of certain thoughts tickling my mind again and having to finally finally acknowledge that yes, i know you're there - much as i hate to say hello to you, and finally bringing them to life and giving them solid shape and a reality as i scribbled just as furiously in my journal. it was surreal, and yet familiar and achingly painful.

it's true then, that we always try to run away from the ugly truths about ourselves even if we've come so close to acknowledging them in the face so many times before. that it's hard to see yourself for what you really are. the challenge after that is to still love myself for exactly what i am. today's last activity was a prime example - it seemed as though people didn't wanna face up to what they were or what their friends might've thought they were, precisely because what we see isn't pretty, polished, glamourous, PR-ey, or even remotely what we perceive ourselves to be. i struggle with that as a person even now, put 20 people struggling to embrace that reality for themselves together and inevitably, not everyone's gonna be able to do it.

i love my community, i love zj, i really do. i just wish we were all a lot more honest with each other in so many ways, top-down, left-right, all around. and open, too, to what we all need. i guess when we're all so emotionally attached to certain notions or visions or things, it's hard to remain objective and unbiased. same, for my daily living.

ah, God draws parallels in all aspects of my life.

it's 7.55pm.

it'll be 9pm in close to an hour.

i am sad-ish. but does that matter? i have a lot of things to do tonight, don't think there's time to feel even slightly sad or anything of the sort, anyway. and, silly reasons to be sad, anyway! i mean, it's just... nothing.

the next few weeks will be mine to lose.

2 things that annoy me to no end in the mornings:

1. the upstairs neighbour drilling and drilling and drilling at 9am in the morning. for what? i don't know. but evidently, whatever he was trying to make a hole in didn't co-operate cos it went on till 12-ish.


2. the upstairs neighbour kids running around like elephants for 4 hours straight. i'm beginning to suspect my bedroom's just under the kids' playroom or something.




went shopping yesterday after watching Fantastic 4 with Tri. i had a close call with my wallet yesterday! i lost it for a grand total of an hour. had to walk all the way back from Far East to Cine to attempt to look for it. luckyluckylucky the Cine people found it on the floor with all the money still inside! (that was a bonus)

spent most of my money on make-up yesterday. mascara, eyeliner, lipstick. there're still a lot of things i feel like getting before i go back to school, so i think i have to double up my tuition efforts. why the sudden need to shop, though? i wonder. is it a symptom for something? i wonder, too.

but whatever lah. i don't want to psychoanalyze myself anymore. i am what i am, i say. if i feel like shopping, it's just one of those moods. if i feel grouchy, it's also one of those moods. but to write everything off as 'one of those moods', would it be oversimplifying me? as Rachael Yamagata so succintly puts it, you simplified me down to slogans on the wall.

stop it, Kelly! stop talking to yourself. or you'll turn schizo sooner or later.


i have my eye on a bag and shoes already. let the saving begin!

rather much a lot on my mind today. i feel like taking a nap.

yawn. i am sleepy and want to sleep the afternoon away.

it's only 3.40pm. what the heck, i think i shall.

today was one of those immensely boring, dreary days.

coughing fit plaguing me still, though. ditto for the disobedient nose. decided to take a flu tablet to try to fight the virus or bacteria or whatever is making me ill. slept the afternoon away in a bid to shake the flu off, but woke up with my nose still feeling stuck and my throat dry and itchy. think i shall go to the doctor if the flu doesn't wear off soon.

read my old books today as i lazed in bed in the afternoon. re-read some of the Animorphs books i used to lap up as a kid some 10 years ago. i dunno why i'm digging up all these old books instead of reading some of the new ones i haven't touched before. nostalgia seeping in, i suppose. how the good-old-days were gone so fast, how burdenless i was then as i devoured book after book.

fantastical tales are meant for us to get lost in. i still do manage to lose myself in make-believe worlds every now and then, supremely reluctant to come back to the world i belong in. the world i reside in has its beautiful moments, but it also has its hurtful memories, and i am afraid of stumbling upon them once again. there is nothing like time to heal our wounds, people say. well, true enough. but wounds inevitably don't heal well - they tend to scar and leave their mark on you. my kneecaps have 3 scars decorating them now even as i type these in. those open bloody wounds i had all those years ago, they healed, but they also scarred. left those shiny, puffy, white scars on my body; sometimes black, ugly marks too. as i look as those marks, i remember how i fell or hurt myself and the memory comes back because the scar reminds me.

i don't know what emotional scars look like, but i reckon they work they same way as physical scars.

you know the song Drops of Jupiter by Train?

the man singing asks the girl he was singing to:

tell me: did you fall for a shooting star?
one without a permanent scar?

people seem to be scared of getting involved with people with emotional scars that don't leave them. it's always a point of contention, the emotional baggage that one carries and never leaves behind. sometimes, even the slightest fall leaves a scar on you. especially if your skin was pretty much unblemished up to the point of the fall; the slightest stumble scars you and leaves a mark there permanently.

i scar easily, physically. the slightest scratch or drawing of blood always leaves a mark behind. an ugly dark gash that sometimes heals white with time. i have marks from mosquito bites, blisters, shallow scratches. things that don't scar others easily because of the make-up of their skin - scars me.

i suspect emotionally, i'm like that too. scarring too damn easily. well, excuse me for living, maybe. some people don't get scars from mosquito bites, some people are unaffected by shallow scratches. non-issues to them. but these stupid things scar me nonetheless, and though i wish i wouldn't scar so easily over non-issues, i do. live with it, huh. yeah. live with it.

life's a lot better now, i shouldn't complain! ingratitude and being less-than-content is so not becoming. a lot to be thankful for still. i need to get my prayer life back in some sort of order again.

watched Shrek 3 with the family today at the new AMK hub. twas fun, at first! then it just kinda fizzled into one of those arguments between me and mom/dad over the camera (which i'd accidentally dropped). mom saw me dropping it from the corner of her eye and sounded the alarm - which alerted dad and resulted in him cussing and swearing at my carelessness. then he saw me holding my phone and started kicking up a fuss about the phone always being in my hands and blahblah.

i could feel my temper rising astronomically because i mean, come on, everything was going perfectly well and fine and everyone was jolly happy, until then. well, i mean, discounting the fact that dad found out i'd forgotten to lift up the handbrake while driving from home to AMK hub (he kicked up a minor fit over that, only, thankfully), it was all fine and dandy.

i think my temper made things worse a little though, so i must really hold my tongue and not bite back at the parents when they go on their rants. learnt my lesson this afternoon, so when mom went on her cleaning tirade and started making me get out of bed to watch dad mop the floor and go downstairs to bring clothes up - i just bit my tongue and did what she wanted. spare all of us the hassle of having to argue over practically nothing.

i'm not getting well. my sniffles are back and my head hurts and my throat tickles and the nose is stuck and i feel like just flopping on my bed and sleeping right now even though i'd slept the whole afternoon away already.

must be all the late nights catching up with me. sleeping for 3, 4 hours a night for a couple of nights in a row is no fun in the long run, i think. my eyes are puffy and swollen today as a result of the lack of sleep. rah.

and. there are ants in my room. bloody hell. i don't know where the heck they're spawning from, i don't know where on earth they've been marching to, i don't know why they just can't get the hell out of my room and leave my table and me in peace. i'm getting bitten all over and I AM GETTING IRRITATED WITH THE INFESTIMAL THINGS CLIMBING ALL OVER MY TABLE AND EVEN DARING TO STRAY TO MY LEGS.

get a nest, man.



i scare myself with my intensity, sometimes. how i can be so convinced about something, stubbornly clinging on even when i have more than enough reasons to jump ship. of course, when there're a million reasons for me to hang on to what i believe in, it makes the conviction seem more measured, more logic-ed out in my mind, more reasonable. but then there're the other times when my conviction is borne out of just one sole reason; that's when i start to cling on for dear life and even though i think i'm a little looney for clinging on, i do so, anyway.

i don't quite like the feeling of being annoying. i annoy myself with that feeling.

went for mass today with the family. realised i haven't been attending mass with them in a fairly long time - what with the weeks with YES running and me having to attend 6.15 Saturday evening mass instead of the usual 8.30am mass the family attends like clockwork and the recent weeks with one thing or the other cropping up.

staying out the last few nights after supper. i really could get used to this kinda life, you know. but at the same time, i'm also wary of losing myself so completely in this whole thing. on one hand, i think this could work out. i could make this work, i know i can. but on the other hand, another little voice in me cautions: are you sure you wanna make this work? are you gonna lose yourself while you're at it?

i don't want to have to do a complete 180degree change to suit other people. i'm mightily puzzled by how i'm perceived by others, sometimes. i don't think i'm stuck up, no i don't think so. i'm not prickly and hard to get along with - at the very worse i'm just not super friendly, but not difficult either. i don't step on others' toes very often, if at all. i'm mild, usually. i'm quiet when you first meet me unless i'm already with a group of people i'm already very comfortable with. i'm smiley enough. so what gives? i don't get it.

if it's something that's genuinely bad about me, i'd like to know what it is so i can change that less-than-desirable part of me. but if it's a general air of dissent, then what am i to even make of it all?

frustrated, everytime i think about it.

i'm getting a little too dependent, which is not good at all. i'm getting a little too expectant, which is even worse. i need to start grounding myself firmly on solid ground again first before i take off into some great somewhere.

i think i haven't really been praying lately cos i don't want to hear God tell me anything i don't want to hear. today at mass was a perfectly good example. when i was kneeling down and feeling God in me in the silence of my heart, i had an inkling of what God wanted to tell me and my heart started pounding like crazy. but i forced myself to calm down again and just listen. who knows, it mayn't be what i think it is. but when i made myself listen to everything through, i was mightily disturbed.

we'll see what else God reveals to me over the weeks. no point getting so up-in-arms over something i've just begun to take to prayer. something that came to me today again was that to love is not to be selfish.

such an oft repeated line, but extremely hard to enact.

it's so hard to love enough to let go, love enough to share, love enough to put your own wants behind the needs of others. when you love someone, you set them free, yes? even at the expense of your own immediate happiness, sometimes. when you love someone, you don't keep him for yourself even though that may be what you want. self-seeking, self-serving, too too selfish. makes me feel so thoroughly disgusted with myself when i realise how selfish i can be. just because majority of the world is like that doesn't make it any more right. it just means we're all wrong together. sometimes, right and wrong becomes dependent on the people in power. what suits them, they deem right - and the majority follows those in power precisely because they have the power. what goes against what they want to do, they deem as 'wrong'. twisted, ain't it?

sometimes, i feel a bit like one of those fat goldfish that someone has released from it's safe little goldfish bowl, into the rapid river, and i'm trying so hard to negotiate the currents that threaten to sweep me away and just over the cliff edge of the waterfall and into the whirlpool below. in my little goldfish bowl, i was too safe. too protected by the glass. too protected by my parents. i thought i was a normal fish, but when i found a way out of my bowl and into the waterways, others saw me as a goldfish. too stuck up, too high-and-mighty, too everything. but i'm still just a fish, i still think. i'm no different from any ordinary fish. i have fins. i have scales. i have gills. i swim, like all other fish. it's only the perceived colour difference that make other fish not like me so. do goldfish cry? or do they just wag their glittery, filmy tails sadly as they swim against the current and try to not lose their identity as goldfish?

today, i am one sad little goldfish because i am starting to wish i wasn't born a goldfish. i wish i were born a guppy or a mollie or maybe an angelfish or whatever, one of those more sociable fish that live in tanks with other fishies and not in solitary goldfish bowls.

i can't help being a fat goldfish. :( while i wish i were born a guppy, i also don't want to become a goldfish fixated on transforming myself into a guppy. because i'm not. i can't grow a pretty tail overnight and shrink my body and lose my golden colour. i want to be proud of who i am, but it's getting increasingly difficult when so many people point out the million-and-one things wrong with me but don't notice the other hundred things that are right.

hopefully i will wake up a happier goldfish tomorrow morning. i will not be selfish anymore. Jesus loves all fishes, goldfish or guppy. cling on to that, i will, and not be bothered by guppies or fighting fish or angelfish who dislike me.

if a picture paints a thousand words,
then why can't i paint you?
the words will never show the you i've come to know.
if a face could launch a thousand ships,
then where am i to go?
there's no one home, but you
you're all, and you've left me too.
and when my love for life is running dry
you come and pour yourself on me.

if a man could be two places at one time,
i'd be with you.
tomorrow, and today -
beside you all the way.
if the world should stop revolving, spinning slowly down to die,
i'd spent the end with you.
and when the world was through,
then one by one, the stars would all go out,
then you and i would simply fly away.
*if/bread

spent the last 3 days in church, staying over with the worship team for con camp.

how time flies, i must say. sometimes you wonder how come 24 hours zips by so quickly that you don't even realise that the time is slipping away, so silently. how i wish i could hold on to some of the time that slips so surely out of my grasp, stop the clock from ticking and the hands from moving across the face.

all that'll remain tomorrow morning when i wake up is the distant memory and perhaps a normalcy that makes me wonder if everything was real in the first place. was it? even now as i sit here in the solitude of my room, i'm wondering if i imagined everything up. but the warmth in my heart tells me otherwise even as my mind tells myself to flick the switch that controls emotions in me off again for the time being.

i think i'll go with the quiet certainty in my heart rather than the noisy buzzing in the brain trying to convince itself of certain lies or half-truths.

to feel so warm in your embrace - that must be how it feels like to be in God's embrace. during pray over on Saturday night, a constant prayer i said for the confirmants was for them to feel the warmth of God's embrace, to stretch out their own arms to return that embrace, and know for sure that God loves each one of them so real-ly. to know without a doubt that God is their refuge and shelter and protection, and the safety and comfort of his embrace is real, tangible, right here right there. just a mere touch, and you know that you are much much much loved. how beautiful.

sometimes that certainty is too good to seem real and you plant seeds of doubt in your own mind to throw yourself off balance.

i am too tired to continue blogging. i shall go to sleep right now for the first time in a long time.


everything must begin right or it won't last right. i will see this through.

nothing, absolutely nothing, was what God said to me when i asked him what i should do.

that much was clear to me, so very clear. there so many things i could do - i'm rather ingenius. but for now, nothing will have to be something my ingenuity wrestles with.

to love God, to praise him because he's God and for no other reason - not just because he does good things for me or takes care of me - but simply because he is God, to receive everything he has done in my life with good grace and gratefulness even if it's not exactly what i want, to love God, that's what i'm slowly being able to do now with increasing conviction. it's a long long process, long long journey that ain't ever gonna end. i'm never gonna have enough of loving God, never ever gonna praise God enough - so i'll have to struggle till the day i die.

am i a confused kid, still? well, maybe. but that is inconsequential, completely inconsequential. i'll cut out all the knots if i can, but if some remain stuck in the ball of yarn, i'll leave it there and ignore it, pretending it doesn't even exist. if i pretend hard enough, it becomes true.

there's so much i need to learn from God, still. i still ask God to teach me so-and-so, this-and-this, everytime i pray.

teach me how to love the way you want me to, God. teach me how to be more like you to everyone. teach me not to expect anything other than good things from you, to take and receive. teach me to hold my tongue and be patient, lend me just some of your infinite patience, God. teach me to not want for myself but want for others.

teach me, teach me.

i woke up this morning with a bad stomachache. bodily dysfunction is becoming a normal for me - it's something that i start every morning with and end the day with too. a heavy head that pounds and pounds and pounds somewhere in the back of my skull, a stomach that retches as it wills - so many things wrong. and yet i don't feel overly disgruntled, either. i take things as they come and deal with each affliction one-by-one.


a couple of lines from Jerry McGuire that haunted me through the night as i slept last night.

you've got to be fair to her;
she loves you.
if you don't love her, you've got to tell her.

i pretended that the proposal by the car was real,
and that it might have just been a hypothetical.
- ididthis.
and at least i can do something about it now.



shut up. just shut up.
you had me at hello. you had me at hello.

went to Chinatown with pal today and bought a lot of little thingys. made our own necklaces! i feel so accomplished lah. i didn't know i had a hidden designer in me.

strangely though, i felt really terrible while i was out. like heavy-headed then suddenly light-headed then the feeling alternates. something must be wrong with me - even my menstrual cycle's a little.. hmm. think i should get myself checked by a doctor soon. my ears are perpetually stuck and that's making me feel scarily unbalanced about 90% of the time. perhaps it's some fluid imbalance in my ears or something.

several chats with several people got me thinking: would i allow myself happiness as the expense of those i care about? if i find happiness - but in that process of attaining that happiness, people i care about get hurt or end up miserable, would i really be happy? it's troubling me. i can't bring myself to allow myself happiness at the expense of those i love. even if the world preaches things about loving oneself and taking care of one's needs, etc, how can i feel good about someone else's misery?

it's so hard. i was asking God if it was right for me to be happy if it means that my friend is gonna get hurt. is that what he wants, truly? it can't be, right. we're all his children, he can't allow one child to get what she wants if it means depriving the other of what she wants and needs. that'd be favourtism and i know for sure God doesn't practice that. so how?

but then, in denying me of my own happiness, it'd come at a price too - someone else's happiness TOO, so how?

conundrum, conundrum. what to do?

it seems as though there's an opportunity cost for everything. gaining something inevitably comes at a price of something else. my happiness for yours. but wouldn't it be retarded if no one ends up happy and everyone's moderately sad together? lose-lose situation, if you ask me.

i won't allow myself to think anything other than what is happening. anything beyond what is physically happening before my very eyes is untrue because it has yet to happen. and so, i will not allow myself to hope. too often have i hoped and hoped and hoped, only to find the hope cruelly crushed and cold reality seeping in torturously.

sometimes i do or say things with the very best intentions behind them - but they inevitably end up distorted or misinterpreted and the good intentions don't count for nuts. and i have to put things right again. think before you speak, Kelly, think.

when i see people around me hurting so bad from unreciprocated love of any sort, my heart just breaks for and with them. i know how it feels, i know how painful it is, i know, i know. i know how shitty the feeling is, how overwhelming it is and how it cuts so deep, makes you feel so raw and tangled up at the same time, how unbearable the pain is until it no longer is sharp but tapers off to a dull, throbbing ache that's perpetually there inside. i know, i know, and i just want to cry for you who feels all that crap. i want to take away the pain and just let you feel the joy of having that object of affection love you too. it's amazing, that feeling, of knowing that the person who you've been wishing will love you too - loves you. it's so liberating, so comforting, a thousand times better than the unreciprocaty. but i think i need to face up to the fact that i'm not anyone's superhero girl, i can't make the worlds of all those who hurt okay again.

i know, darling, i know. oh how it hurts, how it stings, how it cuts. i know babe, i know. it hurt me before, it stung me before, it cut me before. it's one of the suckiest feelings in the world and if i could save anyone from that kind of agony, i would, i really would. even if it's at the expense of my happiness.

i wish i didn't know how it hurts so, then i wouldn't be bothered so.

i don't want to be selfish. i really really don't. there has got to be a way.


i hate myself for hurting you.

expectations are a scary thing. they lend so much hope but then again when they fail to come through, you're completely crushed by the weight of the expectation that falls over your head.

i'd rather not anymore, thankyou.

no expectations about ANYTHING, Miss Kelly Ang. no more, even if the horizon's so rosy-like and seems like tomorrow's gonna finally come.

am so oddly awake, and yet not really awake. didn't get to sleep much last night, which i reckon will make my flu drag on longer than it already has.. - 5 bloody days and counting! what kind of stupid bacteria lurks for that long inside me?

my ears are so annoyingly stuck and my head's fuzzy! ohmygoodness my left ear has finally unstuck itself.

going to the airport tonight to get Tri - she's coming back from Hong Kong today!

i was young, but i wasn't naive,
i watched helpless as he turned around to leave.
and still, i have the pain i have to carry
a past so deep that even you could not bury it,
if you tried.

after all this time,
i never thought we'd be here.
when my love for you was blind,
but i couldn't make you see it.
that i loved you more than you'll ever know
a part of me died when i let you go.

i would fall asleep,
only in hopes of dreaming.
that everything would be like it was before.
but nights like this, it seems, are slowly fleeting
they disappear,
as reality is crashing to the floor.

after all this time,
why would you ever wanna leave it?
maybe you could not believe it.
-that my love for you was blind.
but i couldn't make you see it.
that i loved you more than you will ever know
a part of me died when i let you go.
*blind/lifehouse

after my feverish dreams of the afternoon, i woke up to realise: maybe i don't need this all after all.

maybe i can do this - without.
maybe i've been barking up the wrong trees all this while.

i dunno why, but although my memories are still the sweetest thing to lose myself in, i don't know if they ought to remain just that - memories, and nothing more. not something to yearn for, not a possible maybe, just something that happened, and happened, that's it. not gonna happen again.

amid the sniffling and headaches of the day and all the time spent in slumber to shake off the flu i'm nursing, it just seemed as if everything - everything - is inconsequential. like it all doesn't matter anymore, whatever has happened and will happen. if it doesn't, bully for me. if it does, bully for me too. i'll take things as they come, i'll live in the now of everything and enjoy living while i'm at it.

i'll spend time with the people who matter, the people whom i can love right now right here. i'll not concern my pretty head with what i could be doing, but just busy myself with what i am doing.

last night as i was talking to God just before falling asleep, he told me everything was gonna be okay. yes, everything. but whether okay in my terms or his, i don't know. but you know what? i don't care anymore. i'll just trust that the okay God has planned for me will be okay for me too, and hence because of this certainty that all will be well is the prevailing wind of the times, everything else becomes inconsequential as a result.

i need to shake my flu off asap, i can't breathe properly and i fear my nose is gonna drop off soon.

i am falling sick. whoop-dee-doo. maybe it's all the late nights kicking in.

my head's fuzzy and my nose's runny and my cpu processing speed is way low today. i feel like a pentium 2 only, today. i have zero inspiration to blog, zero motivation to move, zero motivation to do anything other than laze in my room. i guess being ill does give one a license to cut oneself a bit of slack.

heh, what slack am i talking about? i've been cutting myself plenty of slack ever since shaking off the shackles of studenthood the last day of exams That 30th of April.

that weekend was a memorable one, in so many ways you can't imagine how so.

i'm starting to get lost in my memories again these days and i'm not sure i want to shake myself out of my reverie anytime soon, cos that memory is so much sweeter than the present. and then, there are other memories i lose myself in too, for precisely the same reasons. it's odd how i can flip through the photo album of my mind and pick out the memory i want to relive - and do just that. everything else around me becomes inconsequential and just another something that happens; the relived memory claims me completely and i give myself up to it while it lasts.

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tired of being alive, sometimes. how i wish i could fall asleep for as long as i want to and never get up till everything's back to the normal i recognise and not the normal i'm forced to embrace.

today/yesterday/lately has been one of those periods when i wonder at who i am, really.

see, THIS is the result of my days blending into each other. days become periods, periods become times, and i don't have a clear sense of what happened when anymore.

i'm rather tired of putting up such an emotionless, empty front - or is it even a front anymore? the oddness has translated into a normal already and i can't decide whether that's a good thing or not. the only good i can see out of everything is that i'm not moodswinging dangerously anymore or losing myself in depression. i never want to go there again, nevernever, and now that i've picked myself up and found some sort of equilibrium again by pulling layers and layers over my eyes and locking up my heart somewhere a la Davy Jones, do i want to turn back and confront the root of it all? i don't, i so desperately don't. and yet, i know that if i want to find me again, i have to reach back down inside and get in touch with the emotions i've so calculatedly thrown out of my life to preserve any shred of sanity left in me.

i don't know if i can go through the turmoil again without just losing it and booking a one-way flight to Finland to just live out the rest of my life with the reindeers in Santa Claus Land. i don't know if i can go through the turmoil again without losing the people i have left in my life who i now hold so dear and yet paradoxically, end up pushing away too, cos i'm petrified of holding on to them too tight.

when you hold on to something too tightly and it's wrenched out of your grip cruelly and irreversibly, the blow is that much harder to bear. i tell myself i've stopped clinging on to people, stopped expecting anything from people, and yet i wonder how much of that is true. when a dull ache throbs somewhere in the recesses of my chest, i remember how it's like to get hurt and i realise i haven't rid myself of feelings yet, that i'm still warm and weakly human.

i don't even know what i'm trying to get at, what i'm trying to achieve. am i trying to become some calculated being that doesn't feel on impulse but rationalises everything before allowing it to translate into a feeling? or am i trying to prevent that 'person' from emerging from me? sometimes i think i'm trying to become that being, other times i think i'm trying not to become that person.

too much activity in my brain behind-the-scenes for my liking.

sometimes i think i'm a private person, sometimes i think not. sometimes i think i'm open to sharing my feelings with others, sometimes i think not. i'd like to know something concrete about myself for a change, thankyouverymuch, not just vague concepts of self that fluctuate scarily and change depending on the situation. i don't want to be a weathervane that does an about-turn when the wind changes direction. i want to stay in the same direction even when the wind starts to come from the opposite side.

this whole concept of closeness, of being 'close' to someone, is becoming increasingly alien to me as i'm increasingly alienated from more and more of the people i once considered 'close' to me. it's become a hypothetical ideal to have, something that was an opaque part of my reality once but is increasingly becoming more and more transparent as time passes and the horrid, bland blah-ness of being a close stranger becomes an existence by itself. i know things have to be this way, but i also know it's my choice whether or not i wanna hang around and hang on to this all.

why subject myself to such an unpleasant reality and existence when in another life, these would just be horrid shadowy concepts at the back of my mind and elicit an "oh dear, that kinda life would suck - that poor girl." response from me when confronted with such a hypothetical. i'd like such an existence to be a hypothetical, not a reality. already in my present existence, i'm constructing certain thoughts and beliefs to exist as a backdrop in my new reality so that i mask the effects of certain emotions or situations. it's like wrapping a horse's feet in sacking to soften the clip-clop of the hard hooves on the ground - the hooves still hit the ground whether or not you wrap them up in sacking, but when you do, the noise is reduced considerably and you can pretend away the reality of the horse putting down it's feet onto the ground because the noise isn't as jarring and is significantly softer.

i suppose i do a similar thing with myself; i wrap myself up in something or the other so that when certain things happen to me, it becomes less real to me because the impact is lessened considerably.

and Pun was right - i have been praying supremely hardly for a certain thing every day. i only just realised what it was that i've been praying for so hardly (i don't quite think there's such a word as hardly in this context, but who cares), and he's right, i have been praying every night and everytime i pray and talk to God. but i don't pray for it consciously, it just shoots itself out of my thoughts and to God without me constructing the thought or thinking: okay, tonight i will pray for this and this again. the realisation that it's been surfacing in my prayers without my invitation or conscious effort just saddens me some more because it's made me even more aware of what's going on deep inside me, still.

but strangely enough, i'm not sad sad, but just quietly sad. there's a difference between them two. quietly sad is when i just acknowledge that sadness in me, entertain the emotions that well up in my heart momentarily, and just throw sand over the sadness to bury it in me so that it's still there, but all anyone sees is the golden sand. sometimes when the wind blows the sand away, a bit of the sadness resurfaces and i catch a quick glimpse of the chest where it's stored - then when the wind blows sand back over, it's covered again and just as quickly as i saw it, it disappears again. i know it's there, but i can't see it and that's fine with me for now.


i worry i won't see your face light up again
even the best fall down sometimes,
even the wrong words seem to rhyme
out of the doubt that fills my mind
i somehow find that you and i collide.
i'm quiet, you know
you make a first impression
i found i'm scared to know i'm always on your mind



when i close my eyes and allow my mind to freefall into the exact moment where the waking and sleepy world starts to blend into each other and i find myself crossing that line, i realise that everything's jumbled up, and the messy, confusing pictures play themselves on the screens of my mind's eye. A becomes B and B becomes A-and-a-half and everything starts to look odd, and yet i don't want to leave that bizarre cinema that replays my life in strange variations. this is when the wrong words start to rhyme and you, i and you start to collide.