That you are here—that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

 (subject line from: O! Me! O Life! by Walt Whitman)

The other night, I was a mess, a total wreck; I was trying to do a uni exam (sigh), which was particularly hard because for the whole week, I’ve just been bombarded with insecurities, mostly about me being a woman. My whole being felt so unpeaceful. In the middle of this episode, an image came inside my head of someone giving me a flower saying, “I know you like them, you deserve one.”  

 A voice says, “Cry out.” (Isaiah 40:6) 

So I cried, “I know I’m not glorifying You with my thoughts at the moment and with how I see myself, but I need you to help me.You have to romance me right now.  I need you to pursue me. A flower. Anything.”  I finished my exam the following night, I’ve been tired the whole day and I was completely ready to crash. But something inside me said NO. When I think about it now, everything suddenly makes sense, coherent, like a series of events suddenly were linked together.

Let him lead me to the banquet hall, and let his banner over me be love. (Song of Songs 2:4)

The wind was particularly nice and cool that night. I could feel it blow through my house, enticing me, and I found myself being led outside. What happened next took me by surprise. It was like a scene in the movie where the girl gets blindfolded by her boyfriend and takes her to a place, a room, to experience something he put effort in preparing. And when she opens her eyes, there lies before her a candle-lit room, with rose petals all over the floor, a warm dinner set on a table for two and a random violinist in the background playing some sweet music. (haha yes, clearly a hopeless romantic) 

It was like that when I got to the park outside my house, but instead of a candle, I got the almost-full moon above me, illuminating the whole place. It was like swimming in a pool of incandescent light. I sat down and the whole cloudless night sky stretched out in front of me. I wore my glasses, which was rare because I don’t usually wear them out. But I found myself looking directly at Venus, which was sparkling like a diamond; and across from it, Mars, its red-ness (?) contrasting beautifully against the blues and the grays. Right in between the two planets is my favourite constellation, the Great Hunter Orion. (I just found out that one of the stars that compose his sword which hangs from his belt is actually not a star, but a NEBULA, a nest for birthing stars! ^_^) 

And as if that wasn’t beautiful enough, not too long after I sat down, a COMET came flying past! God knew I’ve never seen one before, he knew that I often dream of seeing one (I had a dream before where I was inside a glass box in outer space and everywhere around me, above, and below, was an array of meteor shower.o_O) and he gave me one. It’s like he was saying, “Are you ready for this?”  This silver string started from behind me and just went down into the horizon.

It was AMAZING. The whole thing, the whole scene, from the breeze to the moon to the planets and the stars, to the comet. I just had to laugh; the whole thing was entirely made to romance me. There I was, asking for a flower, but I got the whole she-bang instead.

In the old mediaeval days, a banner was used on knights who have done exceptionally well in battle, an act that honoured the king. Everytime they go out to battle, they carry this banner to show everyone what they’ve done. When I was at my lowest, God told me to stop trying so hard by myself. He told me to let him carry my heavy burdens in exchange for his banner that I have to put up every single day. On it, for everyone to see, it says, “I love this woman. I chose her, I am hers and she is mine. When you look at her, you’ll know what my love has done.”

When I got home, I got a text from Shelah saying she loves me and that there’s something about me that changes a room’s atmosphere whenever I walk in. I answered her, ‘I glow, because I’m loved.’ And possibly for the very first time ever, I actually believe that. I am loved. Not just a general love, but a strong, pursuing love. A love that started before I was conceived, even before my parents met; a love that chose me, made me and will complete me in time. I exist for this.

“Had we but world enough, and time.”

WARNING: The following post may contain book/movie spoilers of Audrey Niffenegger’s TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE. Do not read on if you have the tendency to rage and abuse those who kill plot lines before you got to know them. Please, I am a tiny Asian girl.

I just thought I’d jot down my favourite lines from the book. All of them from Henry. And yes, because I am a nerd.

 

“I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going, and she cannot follow.”

“But you know: you know that if I could have stayed, if I could have gone on, that I would have clutched every second: whatever it was, this death, you know that it came and took me, like a child carried away by goblins.”

“Clare I want to tell you, again, I love you. Our love has been the thread through the labyrinth, the net under the high-wire walker, the only real thing in this strange life of mine that I could ever trust. Tonight I feel that my love for you has more density in this world than I do, myself: as though it could linger on after me and surround you, keep you, hold you.”

“I have given you a life of suspended animation. I don’t mean to say that you have nothing. You have created beauty, and meaning, in your art, and Alba, who is so amazing, and for me: for me you have been my everything.”

“If I had to live on without you I know I could not do it.”

“I love you, always. Time is nothing.”

Distracting lists and Redbulls

5 basic symptoms to know that your life has been consumed by UNI:

1) Your diet is reduced to nothing but energy drinks, instant noodles and bread.

2) Realisation that your social life with real people is basically non-existent and is replaced by the company of books, articles and essays.

3) Retardation of social skills, when, NAY, IF, you ever come in contact with humans (again); language either sounds like all those essays you’ve done (intro-argument-conclusion) or some sort of  gibberish.

4) Metamorphosis of physical appearance, that is, skin becomes the colour of various shades of pale and pasty gray, dark circles under your eyes become bigger than your eyes itself, and acne, dear moses, ACNE.

5) When someone asks you if you want to do something fun, the first image that comes to your mind is sleeping for 24 hours straight.

 

Ugh. My face is breaking out again. Must be uni. It has to be. I can look at my physical predicament in one of two ways: one, that because this is due to stress, and stress is due to uni load, and uni will continue for 2 more suicidal years, these facial buggers are more-or-less semi-permanent OR; two, acne is related to puberty, puberty is to adolescence, adolescence is to young, preppy, careless teenagers whose major life questions consist of who’s going out with who.

I prefer to choose the latter.

(Just releasing some frustration, I always do this. Bear with me. Love-love, baby~)

 

Romantique

The first time I have ever seen a timepiece mechanical watch was when a friend showed me one when I was in Japan. I forgot who had it, it’s either a Swiss person (it would make sense) or this French guy. But anyway, I think he said his grandfather gave it to him (or I could possibly be making this story up, I love romanticism). And it’s this watch where you could open up the back bit to see all the mechanical engineered tinkerings inside. Haha I obviously do not know what they’re called. Nuts and bolts? Wheels and cogs? But I remember exclaiming, “Omg it doesn’t have a battery?!” <–ignorant

So after I realised there are watches that do not rely on batteries of some sort, I sat there looking at the wheels turn, amazed that the only thing it ran on was the person’s pulse. If there’s any chance of you seeing one, just watch it; it’s so hypnotic in a very soothing, relaxing way.

I completely forgot about it until I remembered it today and my adventurous mind started to wander again. There are no profound revelations here, my apologies. But just an image of myself stumbling upon an old, un-commercialised (but well-known in the area) watchmaker shop somewhere in Switzerland. And I was buying a timepiece watch, something I’d pass on to my children and their children’s children from the shop’s master watchmaker itself. And my undeniably awesome husband would be taking me back to the same shop every 3-5 years for the same watchmaker to service it.

*dreams* (gah, stupid photos. Why are you so tiny?!) I am getting so stressed out here, someone please take me to Switzerland now. If you can’t, you know what to get me for Christmas.

Suddenly, I’m not so little anymore.

Thought:

Every single, seemingly small decision I make,

affects my purpose.

What I do with my purpose

affects my generation.

What happens in this generation will

affect the generation after.

“That is why we said, ‘Let us get ready and build an altar–but not for burnt offerings or sacrifices’. On the contrary, it is to be a witness between us and you and the generations that follow that we will worship the Lord at his sanctuary with our burnt offerings, sacrifices and fellowship offerings.Then in the future your descendants will not be able to say to ours, ‘You have no share in the Lord.’” Joshua 22:26-27

Passing the randomness around

Jhoni said I get frustrated easily. I would beg to differ, except I believe that. And hence why I put up peEVE.

So in my hermit-stage of essays and frustrations, things like music help me relax. And because I don’t download pirated copies (much), I’m so grateful for YouTube and its videos of virtually anything my random world likes. Yes, I do know I sound like the biggest geek now. But not as geeky as certain people who post comments on YouTube. Wait, actually no, I like geeks. These people though annoy the crap out of me; I call them YouTwits–haha! I do love my wordplay. Click on it to read my rant, or check out my other rants on my peEVE page.

LOL why am I plugging this so much?! Because I get to share my entertainement with you guys. Aww…

For the record though, I have nothing against YouTube commenters (?); some of them are fun to read. I came across this one comment on FooFighter’s ‘Best Of You’ video. Talking of Dave Grohl, the band’s lead singer:

“In my next life, I want to be reincarnated as Dave’s microphone.

LOL”

Hahaha! Yes, LOL indeed. If I believed in reincarnation, at the moment, I would like to be reincarnated as the mug Jason Mraz drinks of first thing in the morning.

Or the apparatus of which he smokes his doody. “LOL”

(Side)note: Clearly, the result of essays.

Everytime a child says ‘I don’t believe in fairies,’ there’s a a little fairy somewhere that falls down dead.

Ok so there’s this Facebook campaign that is calling all the atheists everywhere to come together on the 8th of November to have a minute of prayer to deny God.

Ahh people, who needs to watch T.V. when I get all the entertainement I want in real life?

The description says:

http://atheistconvention.org.au

As you may already be aware, recently the Atheist Founation of Australia and the Global Atheist Convention websites were the target of a significant DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack, which began on Monday 19 October.

This is a call to all non-believers and advocates for freedom of speech to join us in a global co-ordinated minute of prayer with the aim of inundating God (in this context, the Christian god, God, as distinct from the Greek god, Zeus, the Egyptian god, Ra etc etc) with so many useless prayers that it causes his divineness to go offline as as result of our own DDOS (‘Divine’ Denial of Service).

The prayer minute will be at exactly 8pm (Eastern Standard Time) and 9am (Greenwich Mean Time) on Sunday 8 November 2009.

The prayer can be about anything you want (but say it as frequently as possible in the minute we have assigned to ensure DDOS is achieved) or to whomever god you want. Its mostly directed at the Christian god so as to ensure we don’t get too many return to senders from other gods.

10 thousand bonus points to those who can pinpoint what is so wrong here.

 

“If God limited himself only to what WE want and need, then he wouldn’t be who he is.”

 

When you say he doesn’t exist, the only thing that will go ‘offline’ is your heart–not him.

I don’t know, I’m just thinking, imagine if the big crowd who will go to this, turned their prayers of denial into prayers of acceptance, imagine what God would do with that instead.

For The Win

As most of you could probably relate, for the past couple of weeks I’ve found it so hard to be passionate. What with all my assignments wearing me down and hormones going crazy I started focusing on things that are not worth my time. Most people liken passion to fire, but at the moment, my one feels more like tidal waves: they get bigger, then crash right back down. Whilst on the race, I made a pit-stop and paused a little too much.

A couple of days ago, I got back one of my big essays for uni, and expecting that with all the blessings God has been giving me recently, He’s going to add another by giving me a Distinction for this essay. But guess wat? I didn’t even get a credit, let alone a distinction. I got another measly pass, the same mark I’ve been getting all throughout my uni life. And I got so frustrated. I started questioning things. Myself mostly. Where I’m at.

Am I meant to be doing this?

Maybe I’ll just drop this course and look for a job, move on with my life.

Maybe I’m in a different story.

I’m not good at what I do.

Surely, 4 years of getting the same mark, that must say something.

And I got so down. Seriously. I ended up focusing on things that I didn’t have. Or things that I had but lost. I wasn’t blaming God or anything. I was just blaming myself. And so I slept with a heavy heart, asked God to just give me more strength to do the two essays I’ve got left, which by that time, I wasn’t even motivated to do anymore. I mean what for right? Should I even put any effort, knowing that I probably wouldn’t get what I deserve? I woke up, dragging myself in front of the computer, making myself feel better by doing what I have to do.

Maybe some of you are like that now; having felt elated with passion, you realise your circumstances haven’t changed. Failed relationships, demanding jobs, insecurities–these are the things that don’t really help keep that fire burning.

And so I was frustrated that I ended up screaming in my head, “No God, right now I don’t want your strength; right now, I want answers!” And man, what he does with demanding faith. He gave me Deuteronomy 4:32-38  (biblegateway dot com for the win!).

I used to think that what I read in the Bible were things that just happened in the past. They were GREAT, for lack of a better word, and are great examples of how God reveals himself to us; but I’ve always thought that those miracles–the cloud of fire, the victories–were things that happened to THEM and things that will never happen to ME. It’s different: my victories would consist of getting HD’s at uni, and landing a perfect job, and then maybe, changing the world. But when I got to that verse, God said to me that who he was then and who he is now has been the same ever since. And when I answered his call in this generation, whatever happened in those days, BECAME MY STORY TOO.

I will not live as this one person who got through uni and had a family and went to church; instead, when God looks at me, I want him to see me as someone who was part of this great story he’s created and that I continued it. I have been so consumed by winning this world’s standard: that if I get a Pass instead of a HD, if I wasn’t the best competitor, then I’ve pretty much failed it.  Those people that Moses led out of Egypt towards the land of milk and honey were in the wilderness for so many years, it’s safe to say that perhaps some of them or possibly most of them had started to think, “Crap, we’re going to die here, we’re not meant for anything better but this great harsh land of nothing.” But God was telling them and telling me now that: NO! Don’t look at your circumstances, because I don’t, I never do. The most important thing is you hear my voice, that I took you out of that miserable state you were in and bringing you to my victory; that I’m HERE running this race WITH YOU.

When most people around me strive to get that success to have that sense of fulfilment according to this world’s standards, me, I’m winning something else. Don’t forget what you’re running this race for and who you were before you got to the starting line. 4 years of uni feeling miserable for not getting the marks I thought I deserved; feeling that I’m not as smart as I thought I was, I can say that nothing much has changed. Well, definitely not my marker’s love for me anyway. For those who can relate to this, I want you to understand (like I have) the most important thing: Even though your situation hasn’t changed, YOU HAVE. When you chose to run God’s race, you’re not bound by your circumstances anymore. 

YOU’RE BOUND BY PURPOSE. 

So if you’ve felt like you’re at the pit-stop right now, go now, and keep running.

Pump it up

Ate Heids asked me something today: 

Ate Heids: “Aemi, Why do you worship?”

SHE CALLED ME AEMI!? What is this?!! (Aemi is my twin sister, if you’re a bit lost right now).

So after we’ve cleared up this little confusion, I was really hesitant to answer initially.  First of all, I had an essay to do, if I was to get intense, I’d rather it all be poured out on my essay and maybe get a HD for it. (ha sif!) Second, I was just not ready for that. Something so simple hey…Seriously Ate Heids, really, do you really want me to answer now?!

But I did and it led me back to this revelation I had a few months back (and if you love biology, hello, double bonus for you):

There are two ways (that I know of) to get the heart pumping faster than normal: one is when we exert force such as when we do exercises or any physical activities; two is under situations where we get excited or scared and adrenaline is released. In both cases, your body starts to need more oxygen and so an increase in oxygen level is crucial. To answer to that need, your heart starts to beats faster to get the oxygenated blood from your lungs to get to our oxygen-deprived muscles faster. 

And this was the most interesting thing that caught my eye: As our blood flow speeds up, our blood vessels expand considerably to accomodate more blood. When I was reading up on this, I was asking, “God what are you trying to say to me?” It’s so funny; when you ask, he’s always so excited to answer. I was on YouTube that time, listening to praise songs, and guess what song I was led to? It’s this song by avalon called OXYGEN.

HA! Coincidence? I think not! Here’s the chorus:

“You are my oxygen
I breathe You in
I breathe You out
You are my oxygen
You are my love
You are what life’s about”

And so it hit me: just as our bodies need more oxygen, when we desire MORE of God, our capacity to RECEIVE expands as well.

 And this is why I worship: when I abandon everything I hold on to and lay myself out there, I cease to exist, and I start living.

My challenge for you guys today, when you worship, do so with your heart pumping, your mind open, your soul screaming and as if everything in you is expanding for more of him.

Sensible non-sense

HA! I put up a new page! Presenting peEVE; a blog page catering solely to my rants and whinges, especially during that time of the month (apologies for unnecessary information). I put up my first peEVE on stereotypes. And in the most loving way possible, gosh they SUCK! haha Check it out, and if you have any ideas tell me!

Meanwhile, regular posts are on their way (ie still in my head). But I hope you get entertained nonetheless. Here are some funny baby photos! I don’t know why they amuse me, but this goes out to Brian, who has a strange fascination for weird baby faces. haha! You can view more baby tips here. 

Ciao, bella.