A Warrior's Journey

Sometimes when I call E on the phone, it would be quite late for me over here. Bearing in mind that Sydney has a 2 hour time difference, it would often be 1-2am over here and we would still be talking. Sometimes, this disturbs my housemates who are trying to get some sleep and/or work done. So what do I do? I pull the extra long phone line and bring the phone into the bathroom to talk to her. Haha... I hear Alexroy did a similar thing last time too. Anyway, she has since had her comp repaired thanks to my trusty computer specialists and now she has Skype installed as well. So last night I was talking with her on Skype. I didn't want to disturb my housemates and I wanted to have some privacy as well. So how? I immediately thought of the wireless capability of the Mac and switched on my Airport and lo and behold, there I was talking to her on Skype in the bathroom with my computer on my lap. Macham like one big handphone. I had headphones on and I was speaking into the built-in mic. I didn't know if the wireless router would be able to handle such data transfer rates, and I wasn't sure if it would work. I do now and I reckon we'll be having more conversations this way.

In about 2 week's time, Aaron (from TPCCC) will arrive in Sydney to commence studies in my school, studying design. Aaron is a fellow designer. One of the few back in our student days in Singapore Campus Crusade for Christ. I've not seen much of his works but from what I hear, its quite good. I'm just glad to have a fellow crusade brother with me in Sydney. In a land of foreign faces, its good to see at least one familiar face. What's more he'll be in my school so add another soldier to the Lord's army in reaching that place and ministering to my Hongkong friends. I am sure I will come to know this brother more and more and we will sharpen each other like iron sharpens iron.

Chang Yao is also thinking of coming over for holidays. Glad that one of my many mentors from crusade is coming over. Chang Yao has never discipled me directly but he did lead a mission trip to Thailand I was once on and from then on I found I could share with him about my life whenever I needed a listening ear. Maybe I need a listening ear now. Ah well, he's here for a holiday so a holiday he will get. Hehe.

And so shall I, less of WoW, more of Skype.

Me and my pet lion, Ryushi, aboard the goblin zeppelin. Yes, I'm an orc with glasses.

As a media professional working with new media technologies, it is always very interesting for me to see/explore emerging trends in new media and internet media. One of these is in the springing up of online communities in MMORPGs. Which in case you're unaware of means Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. One such game is World of Warcraft, which I am currently playing. And to show you an example of said community. Here is a snapshot of a 'guild meeting' I had recently. Everyone of those people with a tag above their name belongs to a real life player sitting somewhere in front of their computer. We are 'The Southern Cross', a guild whose members are more or less in Australia.

Remember the old familiar prose 'Footprints' in which a man and the Lord were walking and they saw a pair of footprints?
Here is another version. A version I find to be more true than the previous.

*ripped from Dotz's blog.

Its so cold I'm literally shivering as I'm walking along the street. In the daytime. Must ask Aaron bring some scarves...

That's the only word I can think of as I browse through my ex's website. Yes, for those of you who are unaware, I did get attached once before. Back in 1999. Those of you from Ngee Ann would not know much about it I guess, only those from SPCCC (where I spent a year in) would have a vague memory of her. No, she's not from SPCCC lah, but from SPCF (Christian Fellowship). I guess only seniors from NPCCC, or people around my age group will know about her. People like Cheng Hui. Sayyong, Chaoxiang. We knew each other from DAT (Diploma in Architectural Technology) and were in fact, classmates. After relating to each other as platonic friends for a year, we decided to get attached. Looking back, I realise it wasn't a mutual decision based on the prompting of the Spirit. I sorta 'persuaded' her to be my girlfriend. Such is the danger of 'an eloquent tongue.' No wonder the Bible says the tongue is like a viper. What attracted me to her was her heart for God. And for those of you who have a vague remembrance of what she is like, I felt I wanted to, had to protect her. Back then I was one crazy nut. She was in SP and I was in NP. So I would travel to SP everyday after school and spent time with her in school (Archi students have no life, every waking moment in the studio, I would know cos I was one) and then send her home to... Marine Parade. before going home to Bishan. West to East to North again, spanning the whole island man. My parents probably realised I was attached though I didn't tell them. Imagine your son not being home much and always saying he is at a friend's place. And I guess the NP seniors must be also thinking how 'foolish.' "Look there he goes to SP again. Wah, day in day out, no fail ah. he must really miss SPCCC." Haha, yah right. I did miss my time in SPCCC but not that much cos I was already starting to get quite involved with NPCCC. We spent a lot of time alone together and sometimes with our mutual friends in Archi. On hindsight I guess it wasn't very healthy. In fact, there were many aspects of our relationship that wasn't very healthy. I shan't go into details here but if I were a little more mature back in those days, I would probably be able to spot the destructive habits we both had and prevented 'disaster.' We probably wouldn't even have gotten attached if I were a little more mature.

Anyway, I was reading her online portfolio/website and 'sad' was the only word I could think of that would sum up my feelings after going through her website. I hadn't known how much she had backslided (if you were able to gauge such a thing in the first place). Once we broke off, we maintained a huge period of silence, then the occasional sms here and there before total silence up till now. I did try to find out how she was amongst mutual acquaintances but other than finding out she left her church and started attending another church, I had no concrete information though I suspected she backslided through her writings in Friendster. Now looking at her website, I realised she has really backslidden. And she has stumbled indeed. It pains my heart to see her write that way about her God, her church. Using all that past tense. Was this the girl whom I had once fallen in love with? Whose heart I came to love? She seems so foreign now. I know its not my fault that she is the way she is now. Even though there was this huge sense of guilt for the longest time. God has led me to see that it was an attack on my heart and He has thwarted it in His grace and love. But I still can't help feeling a sense of loss. Kind of like losing something you loved but is beyond your ability to get back. She's with someone new, my guess is that he isn't Christian. My prayer is that she will realise she can't live without God. And praying is the only thing I can do.

She just sent me a coupla pictures from her church retreat. Looking at the pictures remind me of how much I miss her... and also how much I've not been taking pictures while I'm in Sydney, haha. Maybe I should send her a pic of myself with my hair tied behind (not completely a ponytail that kind) like a Japanese bushi (武士) that kind...

Haha, shocked that my hair already so long liao?

Tonight will be my first attempt at making a traditional chinese chicken soup. Went out to buy a chicken just now. And woot, made it in time for the Australian Post to come collect the letters from the mailbox, hehe.

I've written it. Hopefully by the time you read this at HT house, after having your scrumptious dinner, it would have been sent. And hopefully you'll be able to receive it 3-4 days later, barring the efficiency of the Australian Post.

以德服人，我要以德服人。

你煮我洗，我煮也是我洗。都是我洗，我手快洗冻了。

Holidays are here! I don't have lessons till the 25th of July. Some things lined up, all of them mostly happening in July. 2 Christian camps. One is the Overseas Christian fellowship one which, surprisingly, not many UNSW OCF brothers are going cos I think they're all at the Hillsongs Conference. I reckon I will go for the Hillsongs conference next year. Anyone from Singapore interested in joining me? So it'll be a handful of UNSW OCFers like myself and most of the USyd people.

Next camp is the FEVA one which I want to go and have agreed to go but am rather apprehensive about going. This is probably because I will be the only 'foreigner' amongst them since 99% of their ranks are native born Australians or 2nd generation Aussie-born asians. I know I know, coming to Australia is about experiencing new cultures, getting the grober buzz and all that. I'm fine with that. Its just gonna be a lil difficult communicating with them. It won't be so much of a problem for me to understand them. Its them understanding me that is the issue. I have to learn to slow down my speech and enunciate my words carefully I guess.

But whatever am I going to be doing for the month of June~~?? All my camps are in July, June is a whole month of 'zuo boh' for me. The rest of my housemates have either their thesis presentations or exams to go through and Wernz is like visiting Melbourne and all that. I could visit other places also lah cept the place I wanna visit the most is Singapore. Anyone wanna sponsor me a plane ticket? Not much lah, about $1200 should cover it. So what is a man to do cept stay home and play WoW (World of Warcraft). Oh and yeah, work on a script.

Please, feel free to give me any ideas on what to do for June eh?

Wah liew, I never knew I live in the Matrix. Maybe this explains why the kuay chap at the kopitiam below my block tastes like chicken. For how do the machines know what kuay chap tastes like?

I've finally fallen sick in Australia. And right after I've cleared all my projects. Zai zai.
Haha, He has sustained me till I've finished all my work.

I've been reading this book by John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire and it has been quite insightful so far. I like his books and they make great sense to me. Many may argue that his books are all about the same thing and well, 'Aren't we all after the same thing?' Someone, I think it was Victor Toh, who recommended me to his books. First one I read was Wild at Heart which was my first 'for men' book. It made a great deal of sense to me and while I was in the army, his book The Sacred Romance was a source of encouragement in my darkest hour in the 'hellhole' that was the School of Armour.

Anyway, I've been reading Desire on and off for about a few months now and as always, it has been a refreshing read. I can't nor wish to start blogging exclusively about what I've learnt over here in this blog. You should go get the book. I still need to digest a lot of stuff. I will mention something I've read in the book that I find quite interesting.

Many of you might know, some of you might not, that marriage is God's metaphor or symbolic representation of His love for the church and our consummation in Him. I don't know about you but as a man, I've always struggled with understanding this bridal imagery. Because how is my masculinity able to relate to this picture? Should I take on femininity to relate to God? What does it mean to know God as my Lover? I guess it can be summed up by what Mike Mason writes,

"My wife's body is brighter and more fascinating than a flower, shier than any animal, and more breathtaking than a thousand sunsets. To me, her body is the most awesome thing in her creation. Trying to look at her, just trying to take in her wild, glorious beauty... I catch a glimpse of what it means that man and women have been made in the image of God. If even the image is this dazzling, what must the Original be like?"

Indeed.

I had an interesting chat with my classmate from Hongkong the other day. We all know that back in HK, everyone speaks Cantonese right? However, you might or might not be aware that the average Hongkonger peppers his daily speech with bits and pieces of English. And all along I thought it was only the Singaporeans who lapse into this habit of lapsing into another tongue when we're conversing in English. In Singapore, we do so because we started with a colony of migrants who spoke a wide variety of languages. As we progressed and evolved, it is natural that all our languages kena rojak ham balang mixed together to produce what we affectionally call Singlish. Hongkong on the other hand, is made up almost entirely of chinese! True it started off as a Brit colony but unlike Singapore, English is not their first language. Their language of administration remains Cantonese. I was curious to find out why Hongkongers spoke the way they do.

Fortunately, my friend was able to shed some light. In HK, though the language of instruction and administration remains Cantonese, they are taught almost exclusively in the English vocabulary. Take Mathematics for instance. Remember all the formulas and functions one must get acquainted with? Sine and Cosine, integrate, differentiate etc. All these are taught with relation to the English vocabulary. All them computer terms that a computer engineer has to learn, well they're all in English too. Even Physics and Chemistry stuff, well, you guessed it, in English vocabulary again. The system is unlike in the mainland where everything, and I do mean everything, gets taught in 国语. As a result, you get the sticky situation of students being taught in Cantonese interspersed with all that English vocabulary. Which is why the average Hongkonger, would always pepper his speech with bits and pieces of English. When it comes to conversational English however, they cannot make it already lah. It just proves that language is something that is fluid, constantly evolving based on the circumstances of culture and its people. No matter how much you strive to achieve or master a certain language in its 'purest' form, you will be affected by your culture and even by the people whom you interact with. To the extent that there is no way your language will be 'pure.'

My friend went on to say that he felt Singaporeans were at an advantage in this. For even though our language isn't 'pure' english per say, we have the ability to converse with a great many cultures, compared to say the Hongkongers who would struggle to hold a conversation with the angmoh. We can speak english to the western world, we retain our Chinese roots in Mandarin (or tamil for Indians and Bahasa Melayu for Malays) and are able to speak with the rest of Asia. And given the many dialects we have, we are also able to converse in hokkien, cantonese, hakka etc. Personally, I've always felt that growing up in the Singapore system, with all its rojak language, was interesting to say the least. I've, however, never really seen it as an advantage (or disadvantage) till now.

...to take a break when you see this on your screen twice within the span of 15 minutes.

I went to school, hoping to digitize my video footage straight into my Powerbook so I can work on my video project over the weekend. Upon reaching school, I realised I had forgotten to bring the tape.

It was such a 'what the...' moment.

Ahhh... finally after 4 months, my semester has concluded. Well, somewhat lah. I still have a video project due next week but semester is more or less over for the rest of the COFA. No more lectures, no more tutorials, no more datelines. Hehe... It has been a semester full of surprises. But overall the Lord has been good, as always, and even though I did have some 'culture shock' in the beginning and some adjustment issues with just being outta NS and all that, I think I've been able to get on fairly well.

These past few days mulling/stressing/going-crazy over my Multimedia and 3D projects have been one of the most trying times of my academic experience. I don't believe I've ever been this stressed even while I was in Ngee Ann. Heck, live-firing day in Mortar Commander Course I also never this stressed. Am so glad its finally over.

Now, its time to turn 'invisible' for the next few weeks. This is because I live in a 'house of stress.' Everyone else in the house is busy with their exams and projects and such and if I appear to be very lobo, it ain't good. So for the next few weeks, I gotta take care to be 'out of sight, out of mind.' Haha, this might seem like I care about 'appearances' or that I care too much about how other people think of me. But its not like that. I for one, as do all those who know me well would attest, don't really care what others want to think about me so long as I'm accountable to God. But one thing I've learnt since coming to Australia is that we are responsible to a certain degree how others perceive us and if my actions, though justifiable before my conscience and before God, should cause others to stumble then I must be mindful to not let it stumble others. In a sense, bearing the 'weakness of the brethren' if you will, as exalted by Paul.

Sigh, all my COFA friends are going back to Hongkong... will be so sianz here. Most of my camps and stuff will only happen next month. What ever am I to do for the rest of June?

It seems Friendster has this horoscope function and guess what, me and E 'can overcome any bump' on the road. Wah, zun bor~ If only everything was a 'bed of roses.' Hmph, 'bed of roses'... Don't they know roses have thorns?

Who would have thought planning a date (and what would happen) would be so tedious? I'm currently writing for this Flash 'game' for a project in school that is like a linear date sim kinda thing. Having writer's block so I'm blogging. The irony. But alas, I really cannot think of anything man. Suffice to say, my dating habits have been somewhat non sequitur from the world's norms and conventions in dating. I guess it all started with that classic book by Joshua Harris, I Kissed Dating Goodbye and was subsequently followed up with many more 'classics' like Passion and Purity and Choosing God's Best and Josh McDowell's classic, The Secret of Loving which basically sum up my entire conviction/belief in BGR. And my goodness, do you realise BGR is an entirely Singaporean construct?

I didn't read all those books all at once of course, but they came along at specific points in my life when He was leading and teaching me in this area. I don't presume to know it all but as I'm learning, I realise the Christian is really called to a different standard when it comes to dating as the world knows it. Guard your hearts my brothers (and sisters) for it is the wellspring of life!

Ok, back to writing for my game... <bleah>

Untitled
by Silverchair

I'm just another body down
Internal bleeding round and round
And all I can think of are ways to die alone
And all I can think of are ways to die alone
A portrait of my skeletal gain
Left selfish and hungry so feed me the pain
Escape reality with new pain
Then let the cycle start again

And all I can think of are ways to die alone
And all I can think of are ways to die alone

Dream of content, a pain filtered farm
All I can say.......

Dreams are bad when all they do is leave the truth behind
Dreams are bad when negativity's a state of mind

Dreams are bad when all they do is leave the truth behind
Dreams are bad

This week is a time of great busyness for me. I've got 2 projects due next week and one of these happens to be my 3D animation project which should be giving me lots of stress considering I got a warning letter from the head of school regarding my performance in the subject. I'm now typing this in the labs on Anduril while waiting for the 7pm shuttle bus back to the main campus (my faculty, the College of Fine Arts, has its own downtown campus) where I will be attending the UNSW and USyd OCF combined meeting. They usually have their meetings at the Kingsford Church of Christ which is a short distance from where I live but today somehow managed to get hold a LT in school.

So in a rare moment of reprieve, i shall update my journal and my blog.

I've not been very consistent in my quiet time. Whether it be due to busyness or laziness I don't know. Either way is bad. The times when I am engaged in some form of spiritual studies, I've been reading this book by Tim LaHaye on the four temperaments which are basically Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy and Phlegmatic. This is not his first book but the second which compares the four temperaments to the various characters in the Bible according to their temperaments. The four main characters who get examined by him in the light of their temperaments include Paul, Peter, Moses and Abraham. The four big powerhouses in the ancient world. It has been insightful to say the least reading about the temperaments and how the Holy Spirit is able to bring about change to these individuals such that they are able to bring out the latent positive traits each possess while bringing their weaknesses under control. For each temperament has its strengths and its weaknesses. And no man/woman possesses all four but they are more of a mix like Sanguine-Choleric and Melancholy-Phlegmatic. Some rare individuals possess three but no man, till date is convincingly all four. Wait, there is one man. Its Jesus.

It was a revelation to me, to find out what temperament I am. It turns out, after some self reflection that I am a Melancholy-Choleric. I think those closest to me like Ron will be able to discern that immediately. As can I, hehe. Ron, for example is... haha, nah, shan't reveal it here. I think all the staff know liao anyway. Anyway, back to me, this being my blog after all... I realised that as a melancholy, I am very prone to bouts of self-pity and have a natural tendency to self-depreciate. And I am a perfectionist though I will be the last one to admit it. Nothing I can do (nor you for that matter) will satisfy me because of my seemingly high/impossible standards. I know, many of the staff have observed it as well. What can I do except say, 'you're right, folks~!' I am also very self-sacrificing and many a time, this is actually false humility which I am very much aware of. Melancholy people also tend to be apathetic, preferring to be followers rather than leaders. They need a push in the right direction before there is any action. We are also afraid of failure and its our human nature to back down from a project for fear of inadequacy. Sounds familiar? Yep, Moses the leader and prophet of Israel was a classic Melancholy who allowed God to use his life thus repressing many of the weaknesses inherent in a Melancholic individual. I also tend to have repressed anger, a trait I've come to notice more and more in my life. Couple this with the fact that I am also choleric, who are equally prone to anger, you have a 'volcano' waiting to explode. This anger is sin of course, which has to be confessed and dealt with like any other sin. Melancholic individuals are also prone to depression which I can identify with.

Although I am more melancholic than I am choleric, my choleric traits do show up from time to time. They usually happen when I am under stress. Which is bad since as a media student, the time when my datelines draw near (when I am stressed) is when I need my melancholic talents the most, haha. Ok let me list some traits of the choleric individual. He is prone to anger (as mentioned), has a spirit of self-sufficiency, prone to be very practical, have strong beliefs and can be quite controversial. The apostle Paul is a classic example of the Choleric temperament. He is also an example of how a Spirit-filled man is able to be completely transformed into a new creation that he bears little resemblance to a Choleric temperament with its inherent weaknesses.

Ok, enough ranting for today. Learning more about the temperaments had given me more insight as to why I act the way I do. With God's help, may I bring glory unto Him by using my Melancholic and Choleric talents while minimizing the flaws I'm prone to have.




Oh by the way, today was the first time its been so cold that I can breathe vapor outta my mouth. Brrr...