chantal

I met Chantal over coffee yesterday. Comfort and familiarity and safety found their way into our conversations, in between the sharing of our summers, of travels and school in the past semester, of our fear of growing up. She had just finished summer school in imperial, and had a wonderful time with people from all over the world. She told me about her friends, whom I know only by name and/or little experiences she shares with me. She sounds like she’s doing well and that makes me glad. Memories from secondary school came up in instances, like when ms ho called us mousey: I remember when the both of us were elected as head and vice-head of mgpb and ms ho called us into the fishtank meeting room tucked away in the corner between the computer labs and the staff room. It was our first time meeting with our new positions, and the both of us were very apprehensive and were careful about what we said as we were just testing the waters. Ms ho however, was not pleased at how meek we were and reprimanded us for being mousey and not speaking up. We came up of that meeting shaken. It’s funny when looking back at it now – ms ho does not remember it anymore I think. But I doubt Chantal and I will ever forget it. Chan said she remembers me cutting my hair myself in one of the toilets in school with Tanya or something, that I cant remember. But if she said it happened, it probably did at some point. It’s funny. I’ve been weird since forever.

I told her about my summer – from the day/roadtrip I took with Shelby and clare to starved rock, where it rained and it was gloomy and we were so cold and so drenched. Clare just texted me and Shelby a photo of some of the polaroids we took that day. we stopped at this weird shop thing where they sold all sorts of stuff and walked around to keep warm for a bit, then headed to this ice cream shop that had bright blue walls. When the rain cleared up we drove around the neighborhood which was somehow devoid of all mankind. But really pretty. I told her about hanging out with Sonia and joseph the last week in Chicago, where we woke up having slept through half the day, took another hour or so to decide where to eat for lunch, walked around a bit, decided where to eat for dinner (which 4/5 times was probably Chinatown), then headed back to the apartment for movie or sleep. Also, driving to camp and camp and the nights with the fairylights and campfires, and paintball and lake-jumping, and canoeing. I told her about teaching too, about how I could see myself doing it for a while.

She told me about joelle and the durians. And how she ate like more than 20 seeds in the span of two days because she did not want to waste them. And bicarbonate-fied her house after so that when joelle came, in case she did not like durian, she wouldn’t be repulsed. But it turned out that joelle likes durian.

We talked about how everyone seems to be older, and growing up is happening so quickly lately. I don’t think you will ever feel like you’re older than 19. It’s as if you grow up till that age, and though biologically you age, but I don’t feel like you ever feel like you grow older. But I don’t know. we are definitely still really young though. It’s just two years of a lot of changes I think.

It was really nice to catch up. We’ve been friends for so long (this is the 12th or 13th year maybe?) and our friendship has changed so much it’s hilarious and also I’m really grateful for her.

a post that i don't like but here it is anyway

that night by singapore river. i'll be back by lake michigan soon.

mixed feelings

i've been listening to "we dance" by bethel a lot.

You steady me

Slow and sweet, we sway

Take the lead and I will follow

Finally ready now

To close my eyes and just believe

That You won't lead me

Where You don't go

When my faith gets tired

And my hope seems lost

You spin me round and round

And remind me of that song

The one You wrote for me

And we dance

And I've been told

To pick up my sword

And fight for love

Little did I know

That Love had won for me

Here in Your arms

You still my heart again

And I breathe You in

Like I've never breathed 'till now

When my faith gets tired

And my hope seems lost

You spin me round and round

And remind me of that song

The one You wrote for me

And we dance

And we dance

And we dance

Just you and me

And I will lock eyes

With the One who's ransomed me

The One who gave me joy for mourning

And I will lock eyes

With the One who's chosen me

The One who set my feet to dancing

Oh we dance

We dance

We dance, we dance

Oh we dance

Just You and me

It's nice to know I'm not alone

I found my home here in Your arms

there's something very comforting about the idea of dancing with Jesus. just Him and me without the noise of the world and of bad thoughts and knowing that it's safe and it's all going to be okay. not that it isn't. i've been desiring that peace and certainty, without taking action to seek it or to pursue it. and i know God will meet us where we are and He continues to love me and pursue me even if i don't. but it's hard for His presence to come and fill me when i'm not paying attention or i'm being preoccupied with other things. and i know He just sits at the door of my heart waiting. and i've just kept the door pretty much closed. or slightly open and whispering to Him when i need Him, but not letting Him step in. and i'm struggling to open that door. and i have been since cfw. and there's commitment again and again to surrender. but that commitment has been hard to fulfil. but He has been faithful. He always is. i don't understand why but He just is. good. He is good. has always been. will always be.

i've always feel the need to document life. and i often wonder if i spend too much time thinking about documenting and documenting things in life, and if i'm not spending enough time being present, enough time... living. my fingers have been busy with my phone, often editing photos, posting statuses, sharing posts, writing. i find myself checking again and again, for notifications of approval, of affirmation. and i don't like myself for doing that. but i've realised that the deeper longing i think i have, is for interaction, and to connect with people again. and it's funny that i don't do the straightforward thing of calling them up, or texting them directly, but instead share what i want them to see, with a whole bunch of strangers that happen to be my 'friends' on facebook, or my followers on instagram. i know posts about social media have been rampant, and there are mixed views about it. and indeed, like everything else lately, there are many things that aren't simply black or white, but span the grey areas. i was having a conversation with courtney. and we touched on this topic a little. she was telling me about how she does not understand why when we are meeting up with people, there are ones that choose to be less present, being on their phones. and she questioned if there is a fear of being present. and perhaps there is. and it is so easy nowadays, if there's a silence, people don't work through it. phones are simply whipped out to fill the awkwardness. but people didn't use to have these devices, and people used to talk, and connect and truly know each other. is seeing a friends' sharing online enough for us to feel like we know enough to keep them on the fringe of our friendship circles? it's also ironic how i'm posting about this. social media's weird. i don't really like talking about this/writing about this perhaps in some form of escapist reflex, i shall leave this topic with a poem by sarah kay.

Paradox
When I am inside writing,
all I can think about is how I should be outside living.
When I am outside living,
all I can do is notice all there is to write about.
When I read about love, I think I should be out loving.
When I love, I think I need to read more.
I am stumbling in pursuit of grace,
I hunt patience with a vengeance.
On the mornings when my brother’s tired muscles
held to the pillow, my father used to tell him,
For every moment you aren’t playing basketball,
someone else is on the court practicing.
I spend most of my time wondering
if I should be somewhere else.
So instead, I have learned to shape the words thank you
with my first breath each morning, my last breath every night.
When the last breath comes, at least I will know I was grateful
for all the places I was so sure I was not supposed to be.
All those places I made it to,
all the loves I held, all the words I wrote.
And even if it is just for one moment,
I know I will be exactly where I am supposed to be.

last week of attachment. not going to write about it but i'm thankful for the privilege to be able to teach. 

i wish you a wonderful week ahead. i will write more/better soon.

collaging helps me to

make sense of things

putting two completely

unrelated images side by side

or laying them one on top

of the other

results in

a relationship between

them

taking them

a p a r t

makes them but

two

separated entities

again

on teaching, kind of.

Evelyn and I had lunch with mr yeo today. He asked us how our attachment was going, how we found the school and we told him about what we were studying in uni. I asked if he had kids and he told us about his three very successful children. He spoke about how he pushed them to do sports and how he felt sports and academics were very interrelated and the attitude in sports will carry over to the academics. He is the teacher in charge of cross-country for the school, and I started to ask him about how he ran it (pun not intended) and if he still runs himself. He said he did and he was still doing half marathons and marathons. Hearing people run always amazes me. I used to love running at some point, but have come to dislike it because I get lazy and bored. Mostly lazy. I think. And running isn’t easy, which can be something appealing or repulsive. I used to like the challenge and would push myself every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday during trainings, going even I did not feel like it, and giving (most of the time) my all for the fartleks, intervals or long distance running. I should run again. hm. Saying it and actually acting on it are two very different things. Mr yeo talked about passion. And how it doesn’t matter if you are good at running or not, if you have the passion, the students will be able to tell and you will be able to inspire them. It’s the same in teaching too, he was saying. That moe may appoint us to be teachers, but our students are the ones who actually determine if we truly are teachers. 

Having a good class makes my day. Good class does not mean that the class needs to do well academically, or do art well, but them just being engaged and interested in their art making and seeing them enjoying the work that they do is what makes it a good class. To see that they have taken something away from class – be it as deep as taking to heart something you say and truly thinking or pondering about it, or as simple as learning how to make a tree out of paper and satay sticks, is humbling. There are classes though, that some plans just fall through, or the class happens to be tired or restless. I have not gotten to a point of being confident of making decisions on my feet and I think its something that comes with experience, that I am going to give myself leeway and time to grow in. it is a challenge, that I gladly accept. Maybe gladly is the wrong word. I accept, knowing that I’m going to struggle and at times just be on my bed and not wanting to do anything but just lie there and wait for life to pass me by (this has already happened a couple of times and it’s but week three). And it’s not that students are difficult, but I think its just the pressure on self, of wanting to do the best I can, how can I adapt to different classes/individuals, and what method of teaching suits the class/individual the best. I used to think that teaching the same thing to a couple different classes would be boring, but each class is so different. And each class isn’t just a body, but made up of individuals that are each very special in their own right. Human interaction to me is so important, and I feel that building relationships and people are about the most important part of life. It’s what gives life meaning I think, to connect with someone, to laugh over something, to cry together, to struggle together, to be awkward, to be embarrassed, to be real.

ramblings/thankful list

i had something very poetic in mind to write about this afternoon but i was complacent and did not write it down thinking i would not forget it, but i forgot it. so you're left with this post that is probably going to be 95% incoherent considering its 11.47pm on a sunday night (i know blogger is still showing time as chicago time) and mondays are always hard to face. which is why i'm putting off sleep and writing this post, in attempting to delude myself that escapism is always a viable option (it's not though. really.)

i'm still trying very hard to practice positivity and gratefulness. it hasn't been going very well to be honest. i'm currently having a late night snack: seaweed, a piece of green tea chocolate, two biscuits with biscoff spread. and it's come to that point that there is a bit of everything left and i can't decide what to eat first or last. make a guess. see if you're right. the seaweed went first. i think i'm going to alternate between the chocolate and the biscuit until they're both gone. ok the biscuit is now gone. green tea chocolate wins.

sorry back to positivity and gratefulness. it's just so easy to be negative and it's so easy to complain. i do those two too much until almost nothing that comes out of my mouth is worth listening to anymore. i want to speak in such a way that is encouraging, that builds people up, that strengthens faith, that brings about life. i'll slowly work towards that. let's start with a list of things i'm grateful for this week. i've been making lists a lot lately. i hope you like them. if not i'm sorry, more prose will come eventually when the poetry fairy decides to pay me a visit. watch this - Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius - ted talk about creativity i really enjoyed it (she ends with this which i think is brilliant: 

what I have to sort of keep telling myself when I get really psyched out about that is don't be afraid. Don't be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be. If your job is to dance, do your dance. If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed, for just one moment through your efforts, then "Olé!" And if not, do your dance anyhow. And "Olé!" to you, nonetheless. I believe this and I feel that we must teach it. "Olé!" to you, nonetheless, just for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up.)

ok. the list:

iced coffee is so good, especially with chums across from me, very thankful for her and how she keeps me grounded and calls me out on my crap gently and always encourages me.

to catch up with nic after a very long time, i don't even remember the last time we met. he's still the same. we're still the same weird insecure friends around each other knowing that it's a safe space to be real. i think. nic right. idk. HAHA. thank you for dinner. also. the cup of hot coffee before i met him was good too. coffee is always good. ah. 

dinners with the family. getting annoyed with the starhub tv box cos it keeps jamming. but the four of us being willing to wait for it to unjam. it's actually pretty hilarious. also, for mum who selflessly cooks for us and does so many things for us everyday. dad too, for driving me places all the time. the sister, for always encouraging me all the time and believing in me. 

catching up with cassie. met her at penang kitchen and satisfied my craving for their duck meesua. we went for ice-cream after too, the sesame oreo ice-cream at island is really good.

reminded of ac cell a lot this week too, travelling home with a few of them after prayer together, and seeing them around and catching up in bits and pieces. i wrote a bit of a poem about it, but i didn't finish. but this is the little bit of writing that i did:

there was a deep sense of comfort

on the bus home last night

familiarity and warmth filled the heart

with the few of us 

together again

it wasn't long, but it was enough

we journeyed together closely

for that year and a half

i understood what

finding family meant

through dinners and meetups and phone calls

through laughing together

but also crying together

and learning how to trust God together

tonight we are on the same bus home

journeying together again

literally

and i am grateful

to have been able to do life with you  

for campus prayer three nights in a row. there's something about prayer. i havent had the most active prayer life, but there's something powerful in corporately lifting our voices, arms raised, speaking and believing in faith for His will to be done. my personal prayer life needs work. 

joseph linao bought me a roll of fruit tips which was really nice :) i love sugar-covered candy. maybe if i eat enough of it, i'll become one. 

getting ice-cream with ziwei and crystal after service before prayer. 

swimming again. being underwater is liberating. to pull myself through the waters, and to hear nothing but the sound of bubbles and of the waters. to be engulfed in the waters is a wonderful feeling, of being surrounded, of somehow being held together by water and being immersed in a water body. it's like being part of something bigger but not really. i'm getting very incoherent. to be in the water again was really nice. i remember training for competitions in primary school. i was fast at breast stroke i remember. my coach thought i could win stuff. the best i did was forth though i think. it was still nice to feel like i was good at it. 

for llaollao and pontian. 

thankful for divine intervention/provision. needed a friend to talk to on saturday after prayer. drew happened to be at taiseng after dinner with his cell, and had a bit of time to spare before meeting his gf. managed to catch him just in time. and though we haven't talked in quite a while, we just carried on from where we left off. to have him listen the way he did, i was grateful for. he reminded me too, about having fun in teaching art, and making art. i always am focused on the doing, that i forget the process (even though that was what i was teaching my kids last week), and it was good to be reminded once again. i'm thankful for the friends God has brought along the way. we go all the way back to sec 4/5 working on coursework/prepwork together. that's like 5 years ago maybe.

for collage-making.

made a diorama for class, and had a lot of fun being creative and making things. i need to do that more. i made a unicorn out of blu-tack. it has a rainbow mane. and two blue eyes. 

for extended family dinners on sunday nights. durians especially. almost everyone was around today, it felt like cny. 

for quiet bus rides alone. 

have a wonderful week. 

being back home

I am occasionally (these days, more frequently than occasionally) hit by these intense moments of thoughts, that I am uncertain as to whether to determine them as moments of intense clarity or pure disillusionment.

Weekends are much more appreciated when it feels like I have to work for it. I forgot how short they are in comparison to the rest of the week, after having been in summer-mode for the past month, and even in the past semester, having Mondays and I cant remember if it was Wednesday or Thursday off too. But yes, in essence, weekends are treasured.

Saturday morning was great. It was the first time it had rained so heavily and for so long in the longest time. The feeling of waking up to the sound and the chill of rain, the very heavy kind, and you’re indoors, under the covers, there are few things that are better than that (okay perhaps maybe sitting by the lake with a cup of hot coffee or a warm fuzzy friend, but that’s one of the few). I was supposed to meet sera but I think the rain got us both hiding in our covers, and unwilling to get out of bed, so we postponed the meeting. We were supposed to meet in Holland village, and would get completely drenched anyway. After breakfast with the family, I finally had the time to read for a couple of hours, (with naps in between I think my brain has been mentally exhausted with the influx of information from the past week), before changing up and heading to church.

Meeting up with cell people has been greatly comforting as of late. I came back thinking that I would just turn up for cell, and for service and possibly not make any good friends (I guess singapore always just feels transitory and simply a place of waiting for the next semester, instead of the school semester of activity, and making friends and all that, even though both are the same duration of about three months). I have truly enjoyed being with them though. They went for dinner on Saturday night but I couldn’t join them because of family stuff, but they were still hanging out after I was done. I knew probably that the time I spent with them if I joined them would probably be equivalent to travel time home, but i just needed to be with them somehow even if it was just for a while, before the week started again. gavin told us about his crazy motorcycle experience, and delia her train incident, and we mocked sarah about her imaginary national fencing experience.

Sunday was spent at jubilee day of prayer with them too. It was pretty amazing to see so many believers coming together for a time of prayer and interceding for our nation. There were more than 50000 people all in the sports hub. To see worship songs, like “how great is our God” being flashed on the huge screens was really heartening. There’s something about proclaiming the greatness of God and declaring His goodness that makes it all the more real (it’s real enough already, but there’s a certain power in declaration). The unity of believers is something truly powerful and also empowering in coming together, and worshipping and praying together. As we sang a prayer of blessing over PM Lee, there was a deep sense of God’s peace and His presence so tangible that just came and rested among us.

Behold, how good and pleasant it is

when brothers dwell in unity!

It is like the precious oil on the head,

running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron,

running down on the collar of his robes!

It is like the dew of Hermon,

which falls on the mountains of Zion!

For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forever more.

- Psalm 133

After parting with everyone and taking the train back, one person among the probably 40 ish thousand trying to leave from stadium mrt, there was a sense of solace and solitude, but also nostalgia somehow. i wanted to be in chicago suddenly: 

- in jones with clare and shelby;

- waiting for the train at chinatown with joseph, sonia, hope, yuka, ryan, junyu and tricia;

- with hope roaming the playground at midnight;

- in the car watching joseph and rachel dancing to "through heaven's eyes";

- by lake james (in wisconsin) with courtney; 

- or by lake michigan by myself.

i'll be back really soon though, 6 weeks. till then, it's making the best of singapore because it's ultimately still home, and there's so much to miss:

- times with family, monday and wednesday dinners either watching 118 or more lately, having really good conversations, or just eating a lot, and attempting to exercise once a week together but only mum and dad keep to that i think;

- meeting up with the rest of the moe people, and finally coming back together after close to a year, and still having fun and talking about anything and everything;

- campus camp, realigning back to God and realising the importance of community;

- binglin and her smelly shoes, and visiting aeb colleagues;

- city cycling with gracia;

- cell dinners and cell time and $1 pocky from the petrol kiosk that no one is excited about except me, sarah patronizes me at times so thank you sarah;

- so thankful for alex being back, spontaneous meetups i met her the first day she came back wuhu at acai, and today too. we were supposed to go to botanic gardens to walk, but ended up sitting in starbucks cos the outdoors was too hot. good conversations over iced coffee/green tea latte (they don't have green tea latte in the uk??);

- sitting in my room with sam, and hanging out like we used to;

- simply bread with tanya;

- finally meeting up with people i've intended to meet up with for the longest time, like daphne and darren, and truly properly catching up;

- dinner with delia "i hate thinking"/"but you're a thinker";

- walking around the city with janine (we ended up sitting more than walking and we probably spent more time shoe shopping than the sitting oops);

- spontaneously watching a movie tonight with the family in the living room, and walking out to see the double star (i think it's jupiter and venus but i'm not entirely sure). im really thankful to be able to see stars in the sky despite how bright our city is. though they are faint, they are still very visible if i look closely enough. these are moments that feel as though life stops, and the immensity of the universe consumes me.

i think i am all out of words so i'm going to leave it as that. i hope you had a wonderful monday and that your week will be a wonderful one as well :) find something to be thankful for. 

also, my church is hosting a broadway standard musical that is coming in from new york, "His Life" (http://www.trinity.sg/en/hislifemusical/ note: the link opens with sound that autoplays so you may wanna mute your device if you're playing it in a public space). it's definitely going to be exciting! check out the dates and see if you can make it, i would love to have you come join us. 

i wish you a wonderful week ahead. 

time heals some wounds.

i have in mind a couple of posts tonight but i will get to them as i feel like writing each one or when i find the time. 

met up with a very good friend today, at bar bar black sheep. we entered by the backdoor and the waiter asked if we would like to sit indoors or outdoors. we were so indecisive. we chose indoors in the end. they have an extensive menu (as tanya calls it, i happened to hear expensive when she said it, but she meant extensive). we placed our orders and started to catch up. 

i had not properly caught up with him over the past semester of being away i'm terrible at maintaining my friendships when im away i need to admit that, and the last time we met, i had not fully resolved within myself certain issues that affected us being friends but i did not realise it. only upon seeing him did i realise that things had not completely smoothen over. it wasn't the most enjoyable dinner when we met over winter break, and i was battling with a lot of bitterness, that made it hard to have genuine conversations. i basically just got through the dinner, attempting to be as cordial as i could be. i remember going home with a pit in my stomach.

we talked about what we had been up to over the past couple of months and recent happenings. and it was really nice to be able to encourage each other in our faith and see that we were both growing in Him, since the last time we met. it was i think inevitable that we started to approach the issue that had caused us to stop being friends for a period of time almost two years ago. finally being able to talk about it face to face without any bad feelings, and just honestly and genuinely addressing what had happened. and to hear from each other was liberating. there are some things that just need to be voiced and heard, for restoration to take place. but i think more than that, it was really time. this was one of those time things. one of those situations that nothing but time could solve. and i've come to believe that perhaps, time does heal some wounds. i wouldn't go all out and say all, but some definitely. and this was one of them. i didn't think so two years ago, a year ago, no, it just didn't feel like we would ever reach a point of being the friends we were again, and i felt at certain points, that perhaps it was time to give up trying to be friends at all. but you just know when a friendship is worth fighting for, and you don't stop fighting until the battle is won. 

i am immensely thankful to have our friendship back. it makes the two years almost worth it.