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.

Labels: , ,



Genusfrog [ 6:08 pm ] | 3 comments

Sunday, August 16, 2009


Where am I?

has a lot changed? was it long?

not very long. but it's felt long. i feel groggy.

have i got stories? i think they're stories. some of them i can tell. yeah. some of them i definitely can tell. 

wait, let me get up.

i think i'm gonna stay up for a while. 

Labels: ,



Genusfrog [ 4:21 pm ] | 1 comments

Friday, August 14, 2009



Poke.

Poke.

I think he moved.

Labels: ,



Genusfrog [ 11:09 am ] | 2 comments

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Labels: ,



Genusfrog [ 5:17 pm ] | 0 comments

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
MAKES ME WANNA SHOUT

Today, i wanna say that life with God is so much better.

i always hear them say it in church: "personal revival". corporate revival, national revival, all that grandiose mass return of orphans to their Father starts with each person getting revived inside for themselves.

today, i just don't know what else to say.

except perhaps that i am tasting first hand how good God is to those who set Him first. have i set Him first? i don't know. but like the subtitle of this blog alludes, i'm trying. for the first time in maybe years, i'm genuinely trying to not just set him first but to know what else is vying for number one and bring them down a rightful notch. will this exercise go down the same path as many previous attempts to, so to speak, "get it right"? maybe. maybe not. maybe i'll be trying all my life.

regardless, i want to thank God today for turning around a really monstrous technical problem i've been having for three weeks now. relapse after relapse had left me wrecked with frustration and what sometimes feels like defeat but, as i've recently been reminded, if God is for me who can be against me?

i don't know how right or wrong i've been in the past three, four days, but i know today that God is for me. there is no way, no chance that i could have surmounted some of my tech problems if God did not first move the right people into my path, and then personally get involved. and yes, i know, this is about as hopeful as my blog has been since its inception.

thank you sha.
thank you jon.
thank you kim.
thank you bob.

thank you thay.

thank you Jesus.

makes me wanna shout.

Labels: , ,



Genusfrog [ 11:04 am ] | 0 comments

Monday, April 28, 2008
THE TOY SOLDIER'S LEGS

When i was young, i read a short story about two fellows who shared a toy soldier. it was a fine toy soldier, except that one of its legs was shorter than the other.

they sat down around the soldier and thought about what to do. the first fellow said "let's cut some off the other leg". the other fellow agreed. and so they cut some off the longer leg. as luck - or good storytelling - would have it, they ended up cutting too much off that leg.

so one leg was still shorter. just that it was now the other leg.

"what shall we do now?" the first fellow thought.
"i'll cut some off the first leg", the second fellow answered.

and so they cut some off the first leg. true to form, they cut too much off it, and the poor toy soldier still had one longer leg than another.

the story goes that by the time both legs were of the same length, there wasn't much leg left on either side of the soldier. and though he was now a stable soldier, he was also now a very short one.

today, i feel like that soldier.

Labels: ,



Genusfrog [ 10:12 am ] | 4 comments

Monday, February 18, 2008
ON OLD FRIENDS: THE YOUNG AND DYING

Today, i'm overwhelmed by an incredible feeling of sadness.

i went back to muar for a wedding dinner this weekend. by and large, i had fun meeting old classmates, exchanging stories and seeing one of my closest friends from school get married. but somewhere between joyous exclamations and saving numbers i may never use, something a lot more insiduous was going on.

i heard about a primary school friend who became a bit of a local singing sensation. apparently, growing up was good for him and he turned out good looking. so he also had a modelling career going for him. some years ago, he crashed his car somewhere outside town and died.

this reminded us of another primary school friend who died in our teens. that night, i found out that he overdosed. my friends said he'd been on drugs since standard six.

there was another guy who got into tons of debt, and loansharks, among others, wanted him dead. his girlfriend left him and his family kicked him out. he told a friend that he wanted to kill himself. the next worse fate eventually befell him and he went mad. they say he started talking to walls. he got committed to an asylum of sorts for a year, and supposedly came out improved. but as soon as he gets better, everybody wants him dead again.

this guy - his grandma used to bring him lunch every day to school. she really doted on him there. i even remember a teacher teasing him for it. this same teacher is now overweight, retired and doing odd jobs to pass the time.

not every story is tragic - some are almost parodic. one friend, best known in our days as a real jerk, ended up with two wives. they all live together and somehow have to get along. apparently, there was a double childbirth thing going on. the first wife bore a daughter, the second bore a son. i don't know whether to laugh or cry.

one of our close high school friends appears to have the success story of the night. he's now in singapore, making a five digit salary. well done, i guess. except that he works for a whiskey company, and that comes on the back of successive employs by tobacco and alcohol giants. today, the success story of my school is a very wealthy chain smoker and almost-certain heavy drinker. so i ask you - what is your marker when you measure something like success?

it turns out, i'd be sad not just for all these folks who weren't there, but also for one right by me. a very old, very dear friend, for lack of a better word, looks every bit like an alcoholic. i think he's always felt like he needed to prove himself, and i think to him, being accepted by a group means a lot. i've always sensed that about him.

cut to ten years later - the boy becomes a man and he discovers that he has an enormous threshold for holding liquor. so i guess it shouldn't have surprised me that he spent large portions of the night taking on drinking challenges, impressing tons of guys and being carted along for the toasts. he finds his acceptence. and i guess he gets their respect. but for what? so he can die young?

we were all held together at some point in school. and that same institution, which is supposed to shape us all commonly, eventually spits us all out into lives that couldn't be more different. some of us are dead. some are mental. others are roaring down the highway to untimely deaths. some of these people hold big jobs. but really, what's it all for?

you.

twentysomething.

are you fast tracking your life so that people can say you're a success? they don't take scores at thirty. they only start counting the day you die.

Labels: , ,



Genusfrog [ 10:53 am ] | 2 comments

Wednesday, January 23, 2008
ON SWITCHING ON AND OFF

Are you someone who can compartmentalise?

cos i'm not. people who can compartmentalise are those who can box up their emotions and thoughts and worries with nice solid dividers. when they're dealing with one, all the rest remain neatly tucked away inside their 5 by 5 cubicle in the brain. i envy those people. cos i'm nothing like that. and being able to compartmentalise would make the quality of my life right now just that much better.

me, my thoughts and emotions blur into each other. a relational gash creeps into office work, a money problem creeps into lunch hour. nothing inside me respects its own boundaries. they're like a backpackers dorm or a nudist beach - very little, if not nothing, is sacred, and all my joys and woes walk into each other's rooms without so much as a knock on the door. needless to say, this kind of thing makes a person quite crippled.

but there are people who can switch on and off. they get into a fight. 15 minutes later, when they need to put their head down and work, they switch the fight off and switch the work on. they know how to will themselves into saying "not now" and they plug out and plug in completely. when the work is done, when the fight can be dealt with, they plug back into it and resume. how robotic, i used to think. how absolutely soulless and mechanical. i would never want to be like that.

but it's so practical, ya know. i start this year thinking that i'd like to learn how to compartmentalise a bit more. maybe not to the extent that i trade in the concerned soul in me for mr ruthless efficiency, but perhaps just to the extent where a minor icky thump doesn't strike me down with paralysis.

aah... the life of a robot. they always make me feel so foolishly human.

Labels: ,



Genusfrog [ 10:09 am ] | 1 comments

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
ON SUICIDE

"How many deaths must it take till we know that too many people have died?"
- Bob Dylan, Blowin in the wind

A lot of the time when we hear about a suicide, we ask ourselves and the people around us, what would make a guy do that? what would make him so hopeless that he had nothing else to live for? and when we ask these questions, we ask them on the assumption that a very heavy event triggers a guy to find a rope, tie it onto his curtain rail, stick his head in it and hang himself.

but i think it's not like that at all. i think it's like this: when a damaging event happens, it puts a noose around a man. but he doesn't just hang himself because of it. he goes out walking every day with that noose looped around his head. he will meet people with it, talk and have drinks, maybe even joke about it.

it's then left to circumstances to do the rest of the work. and what they do to him - metaphorically speaking - is they put dark veils over his face. they do this so that the world looks a little dimmer. a relationship hurt continues to squeeze. another veil. a creditor telephones another time. another veil. the question is not how traumatic the trigger incident was but how many veils he has over his face so that his whole world looks, over time, less and less hopeful, and more and more constricting.

and when it gets dim enough - when circumstances have overpowered him enough - he remembers the noose around his neck. and he uses it. he jumps off a building, he slits his wrists, drinks poison, hangs himself.

there's no point being dark for the sake of being dark. suicide is as real and confronting for me today as it was about seven years ago when i walked in it myself. and if i've learned anything between then and now, it's that pain without redemption is meaningless. we hear a sad story, we feel terrible about things, and then a week passes, work piles up, friends take us out and we forget about it. that's pain without redemption.

i want to redeem something from this. i have friends who are constantly walking on threadbare rope. i have friends whose lives are built with very thin glass. i want to help put a plank beneath their feet. take them from their glass vessels and put them in vessels of stone. if you don't have friends who are awkwardly built like that, then your friends have done very well for themselves. but i know one or two. and i know i can't save their lives. but maybe if they'll let me get close enough, i can help take off some veils. make the world a bit friendlier again.

it's rude to face suicide so early in the year. but bob dylan is right. if this doesn't jolt us into caring a bit more for our fragile friends, i don't know what else it's gonna take.

Labels: , , ,



Genusfrog [ 10:46 am ] | 1 comments

Monday, December 03, 2007
ATLAS AND JESUS

Atlas and Jesus both had heavy loads. one bore the world and the other its sins. both are often pictured hunched, burdened by the weight on their shoulders.

but that's about it. atlas, in all his celestial splendour, looks nothing like the jesus who was disfigured and "marred beyond human likeness". atlas isn't going anywhere with the load on his back- he just seems to stand there, keeping everything afloat. but jesus is going somewhere. he is stumbling forward with his cross because he has a destination. and while both carried their respective weights as punishment, something tells me that only one of them was carrying it out of love.

i've been carrying a load on my back this whole year. it's not been fun. sometimes, i feel a bit like both atlas and jesus: the atlas bit is the bit where he goes nowhere with his burden, holding up the responsibility of his own actions; the jesus part is the bit about being marred beyond recognition. some days, my spirit feels marred like that.

but after twelve months of weightlifting, it's definitely been too much atlas and too little jesus. and the operative difference here is that there is no love in the hoisting of my self-imposed yoke. at some point, i fell out of love and it's felt every bit like zeus telling me to go stand in a corner since.

there ought to be love.

there ought to be a lot more love than this.

and there's much to be hopeful if it's a cross i'm carrying and not the celestial heavens. i'm dreading the bit where i get nailed to my cross and spat at but that's the only way to get the bad shit out of the way before the better days roll back in. as for atlas, man, i don't wanna be standing around forever.

not like that, geddit? not like that.

Labels: ,



Genusfrog [ 11:17 am ] | 0 comments

Sunday, October 14, 2007
CORONATION

I am an antichrist. i am an anarchist.
- The Sex Pistols, Anarchy in the UK

A lot has happened since my last uprising. i reveled in my coup d’etat. admired all the rebel heroes. how revolutionary they were! how modern. how cataclysmically violent! ah, was it not mao who said that a revolution is not a dinner party? i loved it. every minute of it.

it’s all empty now. there’s no more beer in the can. the roads have been unswept for weeks and there’s grass growing out of the sidewalk cracks. there are sunny days still, but they've only given me cloudy joy. otherwise, it’s just a blustery existence. they say that revolts don’t work because revolters don’t know what to do when they stop revolting. i am an anarchist. today, i let up.

i met you. you were gentle. gentle with yourself, and gentle with me. you smiled, but only after you were finished talking. you looked unsure. were you unsure about me? if you were, it showed, but i didn’t let it stop you. it felt good to see you. it felt good to let you walk near me.

pull up a chair.

i’m sorry it’s dusty. your feet… i’m sorry. i didn’t clean this place up. i’ve left it like this for a while now.

i’ve got this thing. i want you to wear it. have you heard of arcade fire? they call this thing a crown of love.

here.

from now on, can you call the shots? i’m not good at this. and can you help me clean up the streets? wash the walls and pull out the weeds? i’m no good at decoration. maybe you can help me dress this place up.

now that you’re here, it’s okay. you can tell me what to do. i’ll listen. and i’ll try my best to follow. you can tell me if i’ve crossed the line. here’s some chalk. you can draw new lines.

just be around. i don’t want you to not be around. and while you’re around, wearing my crown of love, i’ll listen to you.

i’ll try my best to follow.

Labels: ,



Genusfrog [ 9:49 pm ] | 1 comments

Monday, July 24, 2006
I will prevail.
I will get by this.
I will survive this.
They can't beat me into submission.
They can press me.
They can't crush me.
They can strike me.
They can't destroy me.

Labels:



Genusfrog [ 8:46 am ] | 2 comments

Wednesday, July 19, 2006
i've been flitting between extreme burning passion for a cause or a job and complete indifference towards the whole world. some days, i feel so fired up, like i can take on everything and scold everyone whom i think is doing things wrongly and have an opinion and be all gung ho about life and living. then on other days, i couldn't be bothered to change lanes even if i'm stuck in a queue and the lane next to me is empty. i can't explain why i can be so motivated and driven to achieve things and get life going on one hand and on the flip side just switch and become uninterested in things and get all ecclesiastical about life.

havel. havelim. hakol. havel.

i don't wanna be down about it. i wanna be ON. i wanna be white hot with desire for God and life and purpose. now it seems like every three days of ripping fire is followed up by three days of bland, tasteless indifference.

what am i supposed to do?

Labels: ,



Genusfrog [ 12:43 pm ] | 0 comments

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Labels:



Genusfrog [ 1:13 pm ] | 0 comments

Tuesday, July 05, 2005
YOUNG MAN CLAIMS HE IS "ALRIGHT"

Tuesday, Cyberjaya - The young man who has been posting in this blog all day has revealed in a press release that he is "alright". Fergus Ong, 25, who had "a rubbish day" yesterday has come out to thank all who called him worried, but wants to tell them that he is in good hands.

"Apart from a distinctly hollow feeling in my stomach, which could very well be attributed to a lousy lunch, i am feeling alright", Ong said. "I'm not always completely honest here - i play with my cards very close to me, and i only give peaks to the few i trust. sometimes, when i come on here and put honesty on the table, it can sound quite frightening, and rightly so. sometimes, turmoil and its resolution lose a lot when translated into words on a screen".

Ong also gave glory to God, of whom he says "has been like my best friend, and in fact is". He has been performing his duties at work as per normal and is looking forward to applying the "attitude of brokenness" spoken of on Sunday by SIB pastor, Dr Lew Lee Choo.

"Pastor Lee Choo said that you don't need an event to be broken, it's an attitude", continued Ong. "But I just had a conglomerate of small events and now I think I have the right attitude. They tell us to trust only in God, but it's always just a cliche until it becomes real to you".

Labels: ,



Genusfrog [ 6:56 pm ] | 0 comments

HELP!

God please get
my feet back
on the ground!

Labels: ,



Genusfrog [ 6:19 pm ] | 1 comments

PM: YOUNG MAN DESPERATELY SEEKS JESUS IN A TOILET

Written at night. It's happened again. I drove for twenty minutes home fro...

Labels: ,



Genusfrog [ 2:51 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.

Labels: ,



Genusfrog [ 1:11 am ] | 0 comments

Monday, January 10, 2005
THE MARTHA BLOG

After one week of 2005, i've concluded that i am still unsettled. the title...

Labels: ,



Genusfrog [ 1:54 pm ] | 0 comments

Friday, November 05, 2004
FOOD POISONING & THE NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE

on my way to work yesterday, i read about Peter cutting off the ear of some dude when they came to arrest Jesus. and Jesus scolded Peter saying "Shall i not drink the cup the Father has given me?" John 18:11. little did i know what cup i was to drink that day.

*

i'm 24 and up until yesterday, i can't say i've ever been in any near-death experiences. sure, vernon saved me in his pool once, but he's always saving me from walking into a hail of cars anyway... if those are near-death experiences then i have them all the time. yesterday, though...

i now know what it's like for my phone when the battery runs low and starts screaming. i was on the train on my way home and i was so fatigued from my food poisoning, i could barely stand and i could barely keep my eyes open. while in the monorail, this lady was nice enough. she told me "you don't look too well, i think you should take a sit". Thank you lady! wherever you are!

i was having a fever as well and the air cond was billowing into my face. you know, i kept mumbling with my eyes closed, "Father, please help me". i didn't know what else to say or do. in the midst of it all, i remembered Job praising God when he lost everything. i remembered asking my cell members during our recent debate "if suffering for Christ is gain, should we pray for alleviation of suffering?" (quite the cheeky one too). and then i remembered that morning's word - shall i not drink the cup the Father has given me? no choice, right? after all, he sends rain to the righteous and unrighteous alike. why should i be spared of a bad tummy once in a while?

(18SG)
i stopped off at Sentral, threw up in the toilets there and got on the ktm when halfway through, i started to feel completely mortal again. with one stop left before home, i left the train, threw up again there and crept ever so slowly to lie down on one of the benches. so there i was in my nice clothes and nice bag and all, curled up on a ktm station's bench circa 6.30 and pretty much falling asleep till the rumble of the next train woke me up to get back on board.

when i reached home, i plonked on the bed and awoke four hours later, dazed but alive.

*

Today, on the way to work, i was reading about how the jews flogged Jesus before he got crucified. in the bible, it isn't very graphic. they just say "they flogged Jesus". it's almost "so what?". but i also know that 2 Corinthians 1:5 says we must share in Christ's suffering just as we share in his glory. and i know the suffering i went through yesterday, it was a fraction, a glimpse of the suffering Jesus went through from the garden to the cross. that's kinda full-on. in the garden, Jesus asked God if it was ok to let this cup go by, but he knew it was for this very reason he came.

some cups are for us to drink. we don't have a choice. i don't know what yesterday's sickening experience was supposed to do for me in the larger scheme of things but i'm sure it has added to me. and for triviality sake, i'd like to think i've had a near death experience!

Labels:



Genusfrog [ 6:26 pm ] | 1 comments