happy anniversary!

yay! blog is one year old! *beams* (haha, what were you thinking?)

been reading a lot of my old entries lately, and am quite amazed at the stuff i actually wrote down... heh. more intelligent and frequent entries from now on i hope, with a new server and user interface!

i have MOVED!

:)

ben & jerry's ice cream flavour test

BROWNIE BATTER! You scored 77% SWEET, 66% CHUNKY, and 59% UNIQUE!

brownie batter ice cream with a rich brownie batter swirl Mmmm....you are a very sweet mix indeed! You are warm, loving, and caring to all those around you, but you're not boring in the least! You have a wild streak and a creative, unique streak, too. You are a great friend, an interesting person, and you know how to have fun without ending up crouching over a toilet bowl. Nice!

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 63% on SWEET You scored higher than 46% on CHUNKY You scored higher than 28% on UNIQUE

Link: The Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Flavor Test written by weered1 on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

wanna go cycling?

Since it's Valentine's Day, I thought I'd post something I came across some time ago on Joanna's blog , which I feel is quite appropriate for the season...

"Being together with someone else is often mistakenly believed to be a so-called 'higher state of being' or higher status than the state of being single. This is not true. It does not make you happier or more able to deal with life than the average single person (although it has been proven that marriage does increase the lifespan of the guy). It also does not mean that you are more loveable or in any way superior to the average single person. What it IS is it's a lot harder than being single. It has its advantages as well as disadvantages, of course. Hence the bicycle analogy.

What it IS is like going cycling on a tandem bicycle rather than an ordinary single-person bicycle. Because, of course, life is like a journey that everyone must undertake. Bits of it are through nice straight roads, bits of it through sunny countryside, bits of it (rather long bits if you ask me) are through rocky dark hills and valleys with nasty sharp bits to cut you if you fall, bits of it are on hair-raising cliff edges etc etc etc, you get the idea. Let's imagine that everyone is doing the trip on bicycles.

When two people get together, they trade in their single bicycles for a tandem bicycle. It's slower than a single bike, it's less agile, it falls down more easily and negotiates bends more clumsily, and it takes time getting used to being able to synchronise with your cycling partner. It's less efficient - you both have to work a lot harder to cover the same distance. You won't be able to spend as much time with your friends on single bikes as you used to because sometimes you're just concentrating on not falling off, and other times you just can't keep up with them.

You can't just hop off anytime you want either, and you have to both agree on where you want to go because you'll need your cooperation to get anywhere. You can't afford to do things like showing off by cycling without your hands, either, because now you have too much responsibility to do the tricks that you're good at. And you quickly learn to develop a lot more patience and capacity for sorrow and being hurt than you'd ever need if you were on a single bike.

But on the other hand, now you have company on the journey. You have someone to whom you can point out interesting things on the way, who can laugh at jokes with you and admire the scenery with you. (Of course, people on single bikes have the company of other people on single bikes to do all this with, except I suppose it's to a different degree.) And when it's cold and dark and rocky you have someone to go through it with you so that things aren't so scary. And if you fall down, you both get hurt together, but I guess you can help each other up too. I think the important bit is where you can enjoy each other's company. Because that's what will ultimately make the journey more bearable... and what will make the switch from single bikes to a tandem one a logical decision.

I suppose everyone has to ask themselves if it's worth it."

something's gotta give

i've lost count of the number of things i've forgotten in the past 2 weeks... i can't recall what i did yesterday, neither can i remember what i'm supposed to do 3 days from now... i can't recall what i said 3 hours ago, and i can't remember what anyone told me 6 hours ago (even if it were anything juicy argh). i even forgot to sms my musicians the worship prac timing til less than 24 hours before worship prac, even though i was working on worship stuff for most of the 3 days prior to that. urgh. i've lost count of the number of times i've forgotten to sms my dad in the short time it takes for me to get from the pgp carpark to my room, although he'd remind me a gazillion times before i'd get out of the car.

i dunno what i'm doing already. can't concentrate on anything long enough to make any sense out of it. can't think straight, don't even know what i'm saying sometimes, whether i'm making the right decisions. so many thoughts running through my mind that scream for some sort of organisation, some sort of resolution...

i need to talk. with something other than my telepathic pillow. if i can even find the time to talk my thoughts out in the first place la.

I've spent half my lifetime watching time go by
And wondering where it went
When I try to fall asleep at night
I lay there feeling spent

Contemplating what the next day's gonna hold for me
Tossin' turnin', my mind is churnin'
Thoughts won't let me be

Every morning meets me with a list of all I have to do
Every evening greets me with the knowledge that I'm never through
Every taste of success makes me vow to never fail
Feels like I just chase my tail

Chorus:
There's gotta be something more than running circles for a living
Gotta be something better than just trying to survive
Gotta be some important puzzle piece that I am missing
Gotta be something more to life.

If every picture tells a story, Mine must be a mystery
'Cause I lose sight of who I am
And who I'm supposed to be
Looking back on what I've built
And all that I've achieved
Only leads me to believe

There's gotta be something more than running circles for a living
Gotta be something better than just trying to survive
Gotta be some important puzzle piece that I am missing
Gotta be something more to life.

Tired of these hopeless places
Bored with my earthly things
So I must fill my empty spaces
With the love that heaven brings

~ Something More - Ginny Owens

sigh... i think i think too much...

Unthinking faith is a curious offering to be made to the Creator of the human mind.

- ripped off hui*leng's msn nick

gorillas and pandas

this morning, i'm up so early because i simply cannot stay asleep despite having slept past 3am last night... i wonder if it's the result of that big, fat and bloody (well bloody after i killed it la) aedes mosquito i killed on my arm last night... but something tells me the flush i feel all over isn't because of that (or at least i really hope it isn't). gosh i wonder what can possess me to be wide awake before 8am?? i hope this doesn't continue to happen too often or the panda shall be back in earnest at the rate i sleep late and wake up early urgh. :p

deceptively overwhelmingly distractively busy

hmm.. has been a really long time since i last posted something. i think this december period has been deceptively overwhelmingly busy... have been spending a lot of time running around, but it doesn't feel as if i've been doing much running around. haven't spent a lot of time at home either, and the time at home has seemed even shorter because of the amount of time i've spent at home being distracted by things i keep thinking i should be doing but not doing, which ties in to the running around during the time not spent at home thing. so in short, this december period has been busy not because i've really been busy but i've been thinking about so many things and getting distracted by them that i've been feeling really busy. which explains the deceptive bit of the busy-ness.

"distracted from what?", you might ask. well, i'm not too sure either, but one of the observations i've made about being busy or distracted is that i turn very apathetic and bo chup. things don't move me that normally will. anntic was almost a drag to get through because all i'd wanted to do throughout the whole time was get away from all the people at the camp and have some quiet, no-need-to-think-of-stuff-i-have-to-do or be-distracted time. i'd clam up and stop commenting on stuff that i don't agree with or think is cool cos i'd get all can't-be-bothered, or even cynical, thinking that i'd be just wasting my breath talking... or even selfish, thinking that i've contributed enough with all my other commitments and that its time i kept quiet and absorbed instead.

then there was meet camp... and the whole flurry of stuff i thought had to be done before that. "i thought" referring to the fact that i spent time thinking about what had to be done which actually had to be done, not referring to thinking about what had to be done but didn't get done or didn't actually have to be done. meet camp itself was a pretty fun experience, though i must say that the non-stop of activities from the beginning of 2005 until meet camp had just totally drained me and put me in a not very conducive or optimal state to do a lot of learning during these 2 christian camps.

but i guess i still learnt quite a bit. the most important of which is the absolute necessity to keep up with regular quiet time. hvaen't been doing that since after exams and i think it shows. life becomes a meaningless cycle of activities and the apathy towards these things have even crept into my spiritual life. the prospect of falling away from God suddenly seems so real... the statistics (what, 80%?) often thrown around in christian circles suddenly doesn't seem like such a joke anymore. and that scares me. could that happen to me, ever? i don't want it to happen... and i thank God for all the stuff thats still keeping me accountable and reminding me of the great gift that i have already, and of the many many millions of people out there who are not as rich as i am, who don't have this precious gift that i do, many who are searching and waiting for an answer, an answer they don't even know the question to. even though some of these activities are what's wearing me out, but i thank God for them, because i've realised that these things would never have worn me out if i had stuck to whats impt in the first place -- growing in my relationship with Him and maintaining an open channel of communication with God, not shutting Him out and off.

but i still wish i had a chance to switch off this hols. ahhh well.......