thank you for 2011.

i hope 2012 will just be a quick emotionless year for everyone, since it's gonna be a tough one but we're gonna pull through just like everybody else before us has.

2012 will be that bitter black cough syrup we all got to take, but shut our eyes and hold our breaths and hopefully with a little magic or something of that sort, miracles will happen.

quite a lot of junk, hehe. hence this jump break ♣♣♣

surviving.

camp. scared.

not to expect anything in return

i would love to have that trait actually, because i'd always be the opposite.
so these days have gone by in a whirl, just like how 2011 seemed transient and untouched.

23: 6 gardenian gathering. good laughs and old friends. it's so great to see how everyone has blossomed with the help of ms chow's affectionate 'showers of blessings'. paige and gwen were all same old and i vaguely miss primary school. no one can ever forget how we can humiliate ourselves to the core like noobs!!
peninsular plaza after that with the bren. greatest bargainer ever. actually i learnt that from the night market in pattaya already heehee. so glad we got our bags. ♥

24: i don't remember. we had ribs and baked potatoes and a peanut butter log cake and christmas movies and it was all-american awesome. and mass at olps. i feel so blessed for getting the feel of christmas there, although it's so tiny like a manger. oh, and lots of whatsapping and emoji spammage.

25: happy breakfast + morning catch-up with foreveryang! so glad for that. and normal christmas over at popo's house. yay, like a christmas two years ago, without all those travelling. and then a dinner afterwards. and idk. xmas is xmas. even if those bummer thoughts had to share my brain vacancy for the entire day. idk, but i think i'm foolish. a really, really foolish dude.

2 days to camp, so one more precious day left to enjoy LLL cant think deeply now, so this post is very numerally.

chasing pavements

there are some things i believe i have to believe haha and then there are like other things which are kinda hard to believe.
and i refuse to believe that---
idk, youuuuuuuu. but it's not that
still sick and headachey. don't really know what to do with life.

sunday

the newspapers talked about parents who lavishly spend 10000 on a child's birthday party, and the child might not even be able to fully appreciate it, since he's such a tender age.
and contrasting this to the little orphans in pattaya, who attend classes but don't have parents to pick them up every evening from class, and take great joy in singing jingle bells to us when we were there. i think the disparity's unreal.

let's not spoil our chances okay?

/
hi, sorry for spoiling a perfect sunday for you guys. :'/

meds and restlessness

because someone stolen the bike at ah yee's house yet again,
and we were fast forwarding the surveillance cameras to catch the culprit (but no evidence because the dude probably carried the theft out in the camera's blind spot)
and my mom speculated it could be spiritual orbs etc
and we talked about scary movies all the journey home
and my brother suggested we watch grave encounters just coz he's no balls to watch it, heh. (but really, no shiz.)
and my brave little sister was explaining to me how the plot of drag me to hell went (there is no fear in her bones at all)
me and her watched a very jerky 1.5 hour movie. but i am still scared sh*tless.

i guess i'm feeling a tad better after the 2 pills. other than that the day was unproductive and headthrobbing. gah. missed training again and wondering why i'm so *$&(@& weak.

i'm sorry for the unreplied texts, dashed plans and for not being healthier.

would you do something you don't enjoy

but had to do it anyway for the sake of others-
would you?

"blessed are those who have acquired wisdom,
those who have acquired understanding!
gaining her is more rewarding than silver,
her yield is more valuable than gold.
she is beyond the price of pearls*;
nothing you could covet is her equal
in her right hand is length of days;
in her left hand, riches and honour.
her ways are filled with delight,
her paths all lead to contentment."

resplendent glory/ warriors.

edge of glory.
{2985348694673969 papaya pics, FYEAHHHHHHH}

~knuckle touch~

 

hot dayum, i'm missing pattaya like a child misses his pacifier.

i can see god everywhere in my life, so praise him, raise him up up up higher!!!!! without this trip... idk who or what i'd be.

looking at the lunar eclipse for that very brief minutes made me realise how media has overdramatised things and now to me, seeing little beautiful (& rare) moments like the lunar eclipse feels normal to me. i think we've failed to neglect to see life's wonders because to us, american movies made jaw-dropping equivalent to spectacular, unworldly graphics and effects.
it's no wonder you can only find god in the stillness of one's heart.

in other news on the not-so-awesome side, half of december is gone and my motivation for anything other than thinking hasn't really geared up yet. pray that the importance of education collides with all of us soon.
/missing the daily mass processions so badly. where's dinner and the fabulous fruit cocktail and the occasional 'magic tricks'!!

won't ever let this slip away.

this nine days have been most surreal. best part was that we have 4000+ pictures to provide testament to this amazing experience. i feel so very affirmed of my faith as a catholic and really, without the prayers and intercessions and daily masses by father simon; without the chance to get close to the lord as an alter server for the very first time in my life on an international stage since singapore wants to be all old-fashioned.
and having the best sacrament of reconciliation in my life; i feel that if i don't do something for the needy now, i might have to live with a restless heart for a very long time. all that i've shared during reflections, i mean it and being eyes for the people- god's trying to tell us that we have a mission, to set singapore on fire with the love of god. all this spoken through his messenger, fr. simon, who is and always will be imo, the best priest ever. i actually listen to his homilies without drifting off as badly. or maybe there's just something about the stunning chapel. either way, i have this feeling and i'm embracing it for as long as i live.
i miss the bakery lady and her sweet voice and astounding cookies and toasty hot dogs, i miss greeting everyone in thai and seeing them smile, i miss acknowledging my family of ROME, i miss bren sheryl nat furt and magnum and the company and laughter. i miss nui because seeing her is already an inspiration in itself. it feels different now. i wanna go back to pattaya to hold the orphans and hug them.

being in singapore, i realise how mundane our lives are. being insensitive robotic and structured. never having the chance to really reach out.
there's just so much in pattaya. i feel quite empty now, yet there's a tinge of firmness in a sense that i know i'm going somewhere, going to do something and i don't wanna let father down, or the humanity of the singapore youth fall. it sounds impossibly ambitious but i hope i start somewhere. when one door closes another opens. i feel so heartened that i know what to do with my life; that it's not just all about facebook and having a social life. it's so much more, i can't even. and there are people in the mission like boob and knuckles and furt etc etc that made me inspired to lead with more compassion and heart. knuckles shows me how to love unconditionally like mother teresa. it's hardcore and amazing, how one can love so tirelessly. #salutesgratefully.

i will read my reflections over and over to get hold of the emotions in pattaya from room 315 to all over the redemptorist orphanage and beyond. thanks to so many people for this amazing experience. yes, i can say with conviction that they'll know we are christians by our love. and some part of me thinks that this trip may have actually saved my life, in an emotional manner. praise the lord, and amen to that.

♥♥♥