BLOGGER



Youngest kid of six with an inferiority and black sheep complex, but determined that God saves not just his soul to heaven but the remainder of his manic-depressive life, so others won't say he became a Christian and remained a jerk.


MAIN THEMES

On identity
i won't be transparent before i'm opaque. and you'll get to know me starting from the small things: who my favourite bands are. what kind of movies i like. who are my heroes.

On Christianity
I’m convinced that when confronted with sincere, real love, the Jesus factor will become obvious. But let’s not plant the cross before we carry it. I’m not trying to con you.

On dreams
Some dreams are meant to be achieved. I know that. But maybe other dreams are meant to drive us, privately. Never known to anyone but ourselves.


OTHER THEMES

On melancholy
It is a sadness that, when choosing between crying and sighing, will choose sighing. I'd almost say that melancholy is being sad about sadness itself.

On memory and nostalgia
It saddens me when life moves forward and people decide that certain things are worth forgetting.

On language
I've learnt that the word irregardless is filed as a non-standard word in the English language. That's a lexicographer's way of saying it's not a real word.

On politics
Crowds are fickle things. So when we stand in the thousands and cry against the present government, do we know who we're actually crying for?

On society
People always want the best for themselves. But I want to sometimes take second or third or fourth best, just so that the loser down the road doesn't always have to come in last. It must feel like shit to always come in last.

On growing old
Leasehold property make me feel sad. It doesn't matter how old the family photos are that you put on your wall. It's your family but it's not really your wall.

On philosophy
I ask you, if God loves everyone, and if God is also incapable of loving evil, how can there be such a thing as an evil man?

On a daily basis
One line quips, like this.


CHAT





Thursday, October 01, 2009



There's a big difference between working very hard for the man and working very hard building your own house.

i've slogged before as an employee. it feels like chickenshyte. you feel like they're sucking the life out of you. and now, i'm slogging as a business owner, but i'm feeling the difference. it's tiring. it's more tiring. and sometimes, it's just downright rubbish, but when you sit back and look at the work you've done, there's a sense of satisfaction because this thing now belongs to you. and you've planted a tree into your own business' frontyard. and when this tree starts fruiting, i'll be here to pick it up. and for all the exhaustion, i've not been feeling as spiritually bankrupt as the working hours suggest i should be.

i guess i'm seeing some purpose behind all the rigours of my current life.

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Genusfrog [ 6:08 pm ] | 3 comments

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

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Genusfrog [ 5:04 pm ] | 0 comments

Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Between full day casting sessions in the weekends, unending amount of work in the weekdays, a kids party to help host this saturday, a missions training trip next weekend, breaking world cup news (which follows with breaking world cup story), an FA Cup final victory last Saturday, borrowing chairs, paying rent, getting my car diagnosed, buying birthday gifts, doing my taxes, getting my car fixed and returning chairs, life can still be thoroughly fun.

People who fill their lives with things have no excuse if they don't get enough sleep, feel tired, can't concentrate, burn out or lose interest in everything. It's strange, isn't it, that the activity that was born out of an irrepressible zest for life is the same activity that kills that life.

How tricky a rope we walk.

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Genusfrog [ 1:57 pm ] | 0 comments

Monday, April 04, 2005
THE SHOVING-DOWN-AN-OVERSIZED-BURGER SYNDROME

My mind is scattered. i sit here with a meal in my mouth larger than my teeth can sink into and i am tossed around. i fear where i am. in some ways, i am excited for myself but i am also fearing what lies ahead. it's strange, you know, when one feels all mixed inside and a right foot looking forward is met by a left foot afraid of the world.

i shouldn't be! and i know i'm sounding cryptic, and i also shouldn't be!

all-in-all, i can only say that i've organised my life quite horribly and a good system needs to be put in place lest everything really goes awry. april is gonna be one massive month for me. i've just double-booked tusday night, with both the media team and to shop for bibles with ash. while this is a matter easily gotten around (rescheduling with ash, i guess), it serves as an ominous reminder of the terrible things that can happen if i let things go the way they are.

this second quarter is gonna really test my organisational growth and i hope that by the end of june, i'll have something to shout about.

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Genusfrog [ 3:14 pm ] | 0 comments

Tuesday, February 22, 2005
ZOMBIE

written late saturday night. ok, so it's a long way from realtime blogging, but i forgot.

Is something wrong with me? or is this just one of them days?

i've been proper blur today. there are some days, i get into my car, i start it up, and then it is as if i blank out and the next thing i know, i've parked my car somewhere and i'm getting out. at times like that, how i get from a to b is a complete mystery to me. am i thinking? descartes said cogito ergo sum... i am probably thinking, perhaps too much. yet, can i say that at such times, i am? well, i know what i am not. i am not am.

today's been like that. but for the fact that i've not driven - not that i might remember if i did (and in fact, i did. cyberjaya to pj, very early this morning. i made it back in 31 minutes flat) - i've spent the best part of today walking into parking meters, stepping into large holes in the road, banging things over, sometimes repeatedly, and not hearing anything anyone says to me. i was awoken just now, ernest came banging on my door asking me to go out with the rest of them. i was awoken from deep sleep stage. the kind of sleep you get into after only 2 hours of falling in. i got up, black as night (as it was, night), and walked into the wall in the bathroom. i was halfway washing my face when i asked ernest "what time is it?"

i feel like an absolute zombie. i've had about 4 hours of sleep in two days spread across two lousy sleep sessions, each notable for a rude awakening. even as i type this into notepad, i can't see the words one by one, it is all a haze. i had been reading earlier today, my primer on postmodernism. and over dinner, i somehow managed to guide lennie through a bitesize history of cultural epochs. and how the postmodern condition reacted against modernity. now, there is nothing before my eyes but radial patterns and a flashing light. and there's nothing on my mind now, no, not even... if i said it it would be on my mind. if i said it, it am. or rather, it is.

now, i'm just zonked. i need to lie down.

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Genusfrog [ 1:11 am ] | 0 comments

Thursday, February 17, 2005
MY HAPPENING FRIDAY NIGHT

ooh, the singapore budget is coming out.

*

everybody likes a friday night. it's the kind of night you spend with your peers in happening places. to some, that will constitute a club or a pub or tub somewhere. for me, there's no more happening place than church (and all who agree say AMEN!).

when i was in melbourne, i became obsessed about my cultural identity. i went off and really questioned my own chineseness, and after the questioning was done, i answered it by performing my chineseness: writing it, listening to it, watching it, eating it. my cultural identity, so to speak, was in complete cahoots. xiang jiao ren in melbourne uni taking classes about post-mao history from an aussie tutor who spoke mandarin in beijing accent. i thought i was so confused. and then, i came back and everything became snug again.

for some, though, coming back to malaysia after studying abroad isn't so snug. and that's what's gonna be happening at my happening church this happening friday. we're having our first young adults gathering themed There and Back Again - we'll be discussing the challenges of coming back from overseas and settling down... a discussion i assume ranges from the practical (settling down) to the indentical (ok, so identical isn't the adjective form of identity, but i'll stretch this language all i like!)... to the identical (setting roots).

so it seems like a meeting tailor-made for me. not only is it exactly what i went through, but it is also something i sometimes continue to deal with on an everyday basis. five years overseas is a long time, mind you. and that is why, after looking forward to this meeting so much, i'm not at all impressed by the fact that i'm gonna have to miss it.

you see, the singapore budget is coming out this friday. for my company to get the report out, it needs to hit the printers before 6am on saturday morning. so i, along with a couple of other guys, will be working through friday night.

now, this just sucks, doesn't it? my happening friday in church has gone bust, for what? singapore's budget. i tell you, when the fish hits the roof, it rains scales.

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Genusfrog [ 4:06 am ] | 0 comments