I look at book - words don't register
I pray, my mind is noise - God I can't hear you
Sedated - I cannot sleep, I fear it
My heart thuds - counsel slips past me
I weep, or try to - there are no more tears, ever.
I will try again now

I am home.


The world is like a war out there.


Went to the supermarket earlier at lunchtime, stocked up on foods that could save me the strain of going out of the house to eat, on the pretext of buying food that will last in case of emergencies. In honesty, I really no longer want to go out of the house if I could.

I really wish tomorrow wouldn't come. Really wish.

prayer

I am an emotional wreckage -


I prayed; to alleviate my sense- and worthlessness.


What I got as disguised relief instead were these thoughts reeling through my mind: the ten commandments -yes, I know, perhaps a little passe. Reciting them through my mind, I got to the eighth one I could remember and I felt, shit, I already committed so many wrongs I needn't have to go up to nine and ten. I am so screwed. I couldn't remember them properly anyway. Then God says, 'See, I saved you. I saved you! From these sins. The price for these mistakes was on me on the cross.'


It did little to help my feelings of loss and helplessness, I thought I needed a vision of re-direction, something specific, to uplift my dread and help me sleep at last. Nope. But I was thankful the importance of my salvation came back to me, this whole point of being a Christian. Then, a few moments later it all fizzled out of me, these thoughts.


Lying on my bed beside C while conversing all these thoughts in my mind with God, silence, and sleep eluded me. Lorazepam had yet to kick in, only half a tab anyway. I got up quietly, guilty for probably stirring C in his sleep, and turn on my computer monitor. Nothing I read online gave me relief. I clicked on Bloglines, and chose to read my feeds from Bible Gateway. This is what I got:


“Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”


Now I know why He talked again about Him saving me. Joy of life its very self and salvation from my shame, that precedes everything else. Including motivation and willingness for living passionately, including sustenance for living. If you don't know how much worth your life is, such that someone had to die for you, then how can you have a desire for life and the strength to go through it?


I am so thin from nothingness, like a chewing gum pulled from cement floor by a dirty shoe. I cannot say I need willingness and sustenance, I do not need anything. But my very soul will die for it. I cannot deny it further, it has happened, I now realise tonight, that I am falling apart, and I have no one who knows why, not even myself. How far apart?


I have no answer for you, because I do not even know so myself.


Three hours left to waking, I wish tomorrow never comes. I said that aloud earlier tonight, and C said, 'Don't say that, it has double meaning you know.'


Make me willing, and sustain me. But first, restore to me the joy of your salvation.

warcraft

For a half hour I listen to C tell me stories. Fiction, of course. (It is a pleasure listening to him, he knows so much).


Oh, and what about. He tells me the whole Warcraft story. About how the human paladin prince Arthus turns to the da-ark si-ide when he sought to attain Frostmourne (a nice sword) to defeat the Burning Legion. Et cetera. It is all a lovely story really, but I am not the best to re-tell it.


So anyway now in World of Warcraft, the Burning Legion has retreated to restricted parts of Azeroth, and the Alliance and Horde factions, after previously working together to defeat the Burning Legion, are now enemies due to racial differences. And boy do I hate the Alliance (spoken like a true Horde, as C would quip bemused) but I shall not go further on that point.


Anyway, Averlorn is a troll and trolls are lovely. (Will update with a screenshot of Averlorn when I soonest can). Aboriginal in nature, the night elves of the Alliance evolved from the trolls, hence the similar pointy ears. Trolls live in secluded off-road settlements, usually coastal. And they love percussion and dance. Within the trolls, there was much infighting, and many clans emerged. The players in the game are all Darkspear trolls, but there also are evil clans such as Witherbark, Bloodscalp, and the Zulian. Trolls were primarily axe-throwers (how primitive!) but under the leadership of Thrall, the orcish warchief who led the orcs back towards shamanistic instead of demonic magic, trolls can also now be magic-casters.


How did C know all this? Warcraft 1, 2, 3, plus the Frozen Throne, and now World of Warcraft, and soon, the Burning Crusade (chronological order of the Warcraft legends), he plays them all and from a long time ago.


The whole story sounded like LOTR and similar.

corporate dressing for ladies

This is completely out of topic of the usual.


I enjoyed dressing corporate, as I did before. A suited female with the right details never fails to turn my eye. Having said that, there are some details one must note to be well- and professionally-dressed for the Shenton Ways of Singapore.

1. Please don't wear slip-on mules with suits. You are not a clerk. Anything in a suit should come with strapped in heels or pumps.
2. Please don't let down your long hair, lovely or not. Long hair should remain up, not down, unless you are going for the helpless female routine.
3. Please wear some makeup - unless you are in Shop and Save as the customer from upstairs buying things (me, for example).
   
4. Please wear fitted jackets, not robes that are a size too big. Button when walking or standing only, not when seated.
5. A shirt and skirt or pant combi is not a suit, it is dress-down for casual environments or weekend work.

Introspection is just another clever way of designing nice words and sentences to solve problems.

letter about being ill

Dear friends,


Last week, I was feeling feverish and having chills, and was extremely tired to the point of incoherence. And had gastric pains, till today, on and off.

Today I am officially haze-bugged. Had five minutes of lunch-buying and now I am very very ill: cannot breathe properly, chest hurts, headache. Panadol-ed and Ventolin-ed. Still ill. Is the haze better at night? I ponder about dinner-buying later. Would love to rest now but I am too unable to breathe properly to rest, nor do anything else save tell my world that I might die.

Award winning (Gold Medal) Myanmar Beer. Our friend there said it's good but we didn't get to try it nor buy it.


There were also other foodie-goodies: Huge mooncakes, beef floss, Indian fried rice. Yum.

What's your theological worldview?

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 75% Emergent/Postmodern 68% Neo orthodox 64% Charismatic/Pentecostal 64% Classical Liberal 46% Reformed Evangelical 46% Fundamentalist 39% Modern Liberal 32% Roman Catholic 4% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

dis·pos·sess (d?s'p?-z?s')
tr.v., -sessed, -sess·ing, -sess·es.

To deprive (another) of the possession or occupancy of something, such as real property.

min ga la ba

We step out of the airport safe, and a transit van is about to ferry us to our hotel. At first sight, Yangon seems indifferent. There are no colours, no smells, and no noises. It is not entirely peaceful, but rather disquieting, and at first I could not place my finger on why, or what was this sense of indifference about. They say you know the people through their culture and their passion, but there was hardly much culture nor passion about. Passion overflows through beaming smiles and gay colours that no artist-photographer could refuse. I hardly took very many photographs, nor had I the urge to. The distinctive traits of the Burmese - the applied patches of tanaka cosmetic on their faces, and their sarongs and long skirts - were all that I could say were truly not indifferent. Afterwards, in days to come, we saw much more that cleared a bit of this uneasy quiet about me.









We found out why, in our own ways, later, why the suppressed laughter and semi-smiles. Freedom is not a given in every place of this world, and if we faced oppression after a long many decades, faith wanes in more ways than one. One feels stagnant without growth, and then we all decline soon after. Hence the brain drain, net building dilapidation, and the heavy sense that nothing is possible even if you try. There are many secrets hushed save behind closed doors, even then it is oppressed faith that comes about half-aloud, not like the way we are supposed to be, shouting to mountains and demons alike. We do take freedom for granted if we have it, and our Singaporean oppression is nothing.


I had a vision of the city as if being a hard core of igneous rock being buried by much time and sedimentary layers. Some mountains are formed this way - through patient erosion of the soil, the final release of pressure from the removal of the sediments causes the pressure within the core igneous rock to suddenly expand. That was the Yangon I saw. Decades of pressure into seeming indifference, but erosion will occur, and that will cause the majesty of a solid mountain to arise and revive the silent land.


The Christians in Yangon that we met were educated and intellectual. They became good friends soon after we met, as they served us and escorted us while smiling and opening their hearts and homes. Their faith was small, but they still did serve the community, and their work was impactful. After they met us, on the last day of our stay there, they decided that they shall also do the same as we did, to send a mission team out of their city. Their pastor said they were sleeping Christians, not daring to do much. She was convicted, and spoke to the church that they shall go into the interior of northern Myanmar away from the capital, to serve the people there too, instead of just giving money, which they easily had as city folk. For years they never did much save for a slum nearby, and now they were inspired for greater things despite the pressures they faced. Here in Singapore, we give so little save to feel better for ourselves, and do even less.










When we first prayed for the ministry in the slum, I cried. They were not slum-dwellers by choice, but were forced to move out of their forest homes, into legalised slum dwellings on rent, which were made of bamboo walls and zinc roofs for some, thatched roofs and canvas shades for others. The forests were due for development it seemed. The slum land was not arable land. The people, mostly Indian, were really homeless in actuality. "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." I felt their forced homelessness, and I wept before I went to see them. There is only one goverment hospital in a very huge area of organised dwellings. The inner streets were unpaved, and were wet with potholes, a pain during the rainy season. The Yangon folks had come to this slum some years ago, set up a place of worship for the believers there, and also a free clinic, where volunteer doctors would come to minister through medical care twice a week. They set up a school for kids, preschool and above. Many kids are street bound otherwise. There is a loneliness and resignation on many faces. Life was survival, and sickness abounded.


But those who met God had a different countenance, and we witnessed the change in some when they decided to put their defenses away to seek a God who loved them. Worry changed to peace, and fear into courage. Spiritual causes are noble, but life is the one thing worth rejoicing for.










Besides praying for them and ministering to them the word of God, we also did things for the many kids that spent their time in that home. We played games, we sang many songs with them, showed them a movie, and they beamed. I led the team in conducting an art class, and they were happy too. We gave the church workers crayons and paper to work with the kids on their own after we left, now that they knew what they could do, as well as writing materials to each child. The kids are very well-disciplined, and the church workers who lead the children's school are very admirable in their leadership. They love all the kids despite their dirty hair, torn clothes and distended bellies, no one treated more fairly than the other.


The feeling of indifference eased on me, and love descended. I miss Myanmar already.

I'm back

Was home on Monday night, but still in physical rest state - sleepy most of the time, or sleeping. More soon.

Thursday morning I leave for Myanmar.


a place completely cut off of mobile telecommunications
(no auto-roam)

will be busy before I go, so no WoW.

will obviously not be able to play while I am there.


I promise, I will write loads, and post them here when I come back. I will be back.

(very soon, Monday night I will return)

indications that one has become a WoW player (and no longer just trying it out)

1. You think in WoW speak.
2. You talk in WoW speak.
   
3. You dream of the game, of your guild mates and online friends.
   
4. You start to think, "I would rather be in the Barrens" or similar.
5. You feel that time at work means time not playing WoW.
6. Whatever you do, you would rather be playing WoW.
7. You initiate conversations about WoW.
8. You wish your friends played WoW so you could initiate conversations about it.

abyss

Guilt.

Extremely distracted.

Telling self not to be worried.

Six weeks have passed.