goodbye guys .. cya in 3 weeks.  

i actually like my new hair cut! 

weeli and me before our tragic losses.. 

the cutting process...sad huh.. 

weeli and me. 2 and 1 mugs of dark beer respectively. both sporting cool new hair-dos 

some time later .. Jun reveals her sinister side .. too late, Shaun's already hooked .. 

how it all started, the pic on friendster that attracted my attention .. 

National Slavery .. no, Service

I'm botak! Pre-maturely botak! Haha. I'm kinda enjoying it though, it was a nice hair cut at QB-Shell, Milliena Walk, with a cool Japanese hairdresser who cut and shaved off my hair carefully, resulting in a nice even shave that I heard is impossible to get from the SAF barbers. So I'm happy.

Went swimming today. It was interesting seeing the little droplets of water fly off my head when I run a hand over it. No more running of fingers through hair, its running of hand over head. =)

Cutting, or rather, shaving off my hair also helps to mentally prepare me for NS. As Japheth said, when your hair is gone, you have nothing else to lose. That's not exactly true; I'm leaving behind my bed, mp3s, computer, laptop, 3 episodes of naruto, full metal alchemist, smallville, church, father, and last and most important, Jun. My Jun. *mimicks look of ultra-posessive boyfriend*

God, your will be done.

The Canon

My favourite classical piece is the Canon by Johann Pachelbel. In fact, I think it is safe to say that the Canon is my all time favourite song. My favourite girl is Jun. My favourite girl plays my favourite song beautifully. My beautiful girlfriend plays the Canon beautifully.

Hm, that must have been how I wrote when I was nine. Haha. I was at Jun's place today. And apart from training for a career in couch potato-ism, I learnt how to play the Canon! Or at least a very, very minor part of it. Jun plays it wonderfully, and she generously volunteered to teach me, a music idiot, to play it.

I close my eyes when she plays, my body swaying with the music, my senses enveloped in her music, my soul uplifted, my mind cleared of all distractions. I love it. Then I feel a pang of regret - I can't play the piano. I love music, but I have no musical talent whatsoever. It's pretty sad.

I was talking to Shawn, Jun's younger brother, and he asked me if I watched soccer. Nope. Prefer basketball? Nope. Play soccer? Nope. Basketball? Nope. At that point I decided to help him out and just say that I don't do sports. Later on in the conversation when Jun was playing the piano, he asked if I could play the guitar. Nope. Drums? Nope. Again, at this point, I volunteered that I have no musical talent. I can't even sing well man. Haha. Then a thought crossed my mind, what the fuck have I been doing with my life? With my childhood? With my Youth? Nothing man.

I felt like shit. And to state the truth, my stuttering is irritating the shit out of me. Or maybe I should be honest and say that it's depressing me. I'm getting depressed by my inability to express myself as eloquently verbally as I can with text. Sigh, I'm really at a loss as to what to do, am I going to spend my life being handicapped like this? Or would some miracle happen and I'll be normal one day. Perhaps there's a therapy I can attend. The ironic part would be that I would call the hospital and stutter that I want to know more about cures for stuttering and if they have any programs for it. Ironic. Depressing. Limiting. Embarrassing. Furstrating.

Sometimes when I have a dreamy look in my eyes, or I look upset and said it's nothing. It's me being furstrated at the latest manifestation of my stuttering. The proper sentence usually builds in my mind, then it passes through logic control, "can I successfully utter and form all those words?", some warpped part of my mind says "no", then proceeds to translate the sentence into some juvenille level form with easier to pronounce words. Or at least that's what my mind thinks. There's nothing physically wrong with me I believe, I speak perfectly well when I'm alone. Er, yes sometimes I do talk to myself. Haha. And when I pray aloud, alone. No problemos.

I miss Jun.

Learning to play the Canon helped a little. I was almost overwhelmed with fears of failure. Jun encouraged me, and kept telling me to "chill" and reminding me that there's no "pressure". She tried praising me, but I think I sniggered. She said I played beautifully. If my playing was beautiful, her's must be heavenly. Haha, actually her playing _is_ heavenly.

Stupid me allowed Jun to attempt a brave, but foolish and poorly thought-out stunt. She had a bad fall and injured her face and hands. Check out her blog..

Smile Jun dear, I love you. Abrasions and all =). Thank God your fingers weren't broken, otherwise I'll be deprived of your beautiful music.

Thank God for you. I'm sorry for not being there for you tonight. Sometimes I can be a real dimwit. I always thought I was pretty sensitive, and prided myself a little for it. After knowing you, I think otherwise. *grin*, sorry babe.

smu

I'm sitting at a wooden benchtable, you know, those tables with 2 benches on either side of them? Yeah, those. What do people call those anyway? Benchtable sounds pretty okay to me.

Maybe it's where I am. I think I'm in the ISM, Information..Studies..Managment(?) building in SMU, and the people who I encountered thus far have been anything but "cool" man. Isn't the the common assumption? That SMU students are cool? With the recent news articles about the "SMU difference" and the rumours, legends and myths that erm, SMU girls..and guys I'm sure, are hotter than others.

Ok, let me describe the people who walked past me. The worse was this nerdy looking clown. I did my staring thing again; those of you who hang around me will realise I have this weird tendency to stare/gawk at people whom I think are with ridiculous looks or behaviour? What right do I have to judge? None. I'm mean. Buzz off.

Back to that guy. The first thing I noticed was the dated westlife song, emitting from _somewhere_. I looked up, and saw this clown, in khakis I think - can't really remember, with jet black hair side parted and gelled smoothly down. A laptop was in his right hand, clutched to his side, the way people carry books, and the westlife song was playing on it's speakers. Hrms, I realise my descriptive skills aren't excellent, but I hope you get the picture. He was slithering his way to the vending machine located on my left, dragging his feet and I think trying to look cool. I just stared .. followed his progress as he bought his drink and slithered back in the direction he came from. Only after he was out of my side did the words come to my mind .. "WHAT THE FUCK?!" I don't know if he was trying to be cool or what, being a walking jukebox and all, just to get a drink. Wtf. He certainly didn't impress me. Wait a minute, now that I'm typing this, I realise there might be another reason for his behaviour. Like me, he might be alone with his laptop. That would explain why he had to bring his laptop along while he gets a drink! Ah .. but then again, that doesn't explain the cheesy westlife song nor the smug expression he had on his face. "helloooooo girls..i have a lappie, and i listen to cool westlife songs! want me?" I think I'm just being mean. Haha.

I just realised that I spent a couple of paragraphs just describing that guy, and I've lost interest in describing the rest. Let's just say a lot of uncool people trying to be cool walked past me. There was one wearing 3/4 slacks, slippers, a t shirt, and a stripped long-sleeves shirt. And he had the same smug expression. Wtf. And then there are the typical geeks, which I do not have a problem with .. t-shirts, gold-rimmed specs, jet black short hair, blue jeans. Yeah. I'm a geek too. So no complains about them. Haha ;D

Anyway, what the hell am I doing in SMU anyway, you ask. I'm waiting for Jun. She has dance, and I'm entertaining myself till 9pm till she's done and we'll go for supper. I'm hungry man. Just had dinner at 6, but that's besides the point. hungry hungry hungry!

er wait..a cute girl just walked past...ok make that 3. one walked off and two stopped at the benchtable in front of me. Hrms..ok.

Jun, I was just observing, not gawking. You're the best :D

(i just overheard a conversation between a gay-looking fitster student and his tutor, or so i assume. like shit, they were talking about CINDERALLA, in a damn serious tone. The guy was talking the element of reward involved in the story, that cinderalla was all nice and subservient only because she wanted the reward of a fairy godmother giving her what she wants. Then, the tutor said that cinderalla didnt have a choice, cause she was an orphan.

cinderalla didnt freaking know that the fairy godmother exists. Guy minus one point. (tutor just said "the idea of a fairy godmother is something very powerful")

Hrms, i like the tutor's accent. and now she's talking about how people always want riches, and well..basically good stuff..without work..without effort. Good..Good. "want to be smart..but dont want to study..want to be rich..but dont want to work. thats why they yearn for a fairy god mother to give them what they want without work"

I think the guy is a student in scriptwriting or something. vvv interesting. I like smu. hrms, and the gay guy knows the 2 girls. they all have nice english accents. oo and the gay guy has trying-to-be-cool hair too. he has short black hair with a little blond streak at the back. like someone dabbed the back on his head with gold paint. *shrug*

now the tutor is talking about chinese opera, and the its possible evolution. part of it is that modern chinese opera uses more realistic make up, in contrast to traditional chinese opera that was sacred and used unrealistic make up. ah..wtf. thats it im gonna stop writing down what i hear. bye!)

Even educated fleas do it

Jazz is playing softly in the background. I smile when I hear the saxophone, remembering what Jun said about "jazzy music" and the saxophone in particular. I definately have to stock up on more jazz tunes =)

Life is good. My muscles are aching, skin is sore in several places, part of a fingernail on my right hand chipped off, with a cute little open wound on the same finger, and I'm pretty sleep-deprieved. But, life is good. Why? In danger of sounding like Jeryd(you guys really have to check his blog out, the word "mushiness" was coined for him), I'll say having Jun in my life makes it beautiful.

I remember the lyrics of a song by Depeche Mode that goes, "all the things I detest, I will almost like". This is true with Jun, she introduced me to chocolate ice cream, Ben and Jerry's "Phish Food" to be exact. We shared a tub of it last night, and it was, wonderfully delicious. I don't like chocolate, and don't really like ice-cream, but the "Phish Food" rocked! All the things I detest, I will almost like =)

Oh I have to explain why my muscles are aching and my skin is sore. Nothing romantic about that. Participated in arguably Singapore's biggest bouldering event of the year, Climb On Singapore! It was held at Palawan Beach, Sentosa, with over 30 boulder routes, of which I tried only .. 12? I almost died. Seriously almost died, my bones and muscles were protesting in agony at the unfair punishment I was subjecting them to. I had abrasions on my chest and forearms from scrambling up a huge artificial rock, complete with a rough surface expected on natural rocks.

I tired out halfway through the competition - you know you're pumped out and gone when you can't even lift your ass off the mat on a sit-start route. Baby-sitted Eujing, Weeli's brother, who wanted to go swimming in the sea, but couldn't as his mother didn't want to let him go unsupervised in the water. Shaun was there to save the day. Haha. He's 8 actually, but looks and behaves like he's 6. Really cute. I'm not saying he's dumb though, in fact I think he's rather intelligent, with good vocab. Can't think of any examples off hand but I remember being surprised when he used certain words when we were playing.

We co-operated in building a well right where the tide ends, me building the well, and he building a sea wall in front of the well to protect it. Haha, we had fun, and I felt young again. After some time I realise it was a pretty futile effort though, cause the sand only holds together cause it's wet, and by keeping the water away from the sand, it dries up, and starts to crumble. On the other hand, the tide comes in, and with every contact with the front wall of the well, some sand gets washed away. I could spend a life time protecting and rebuilding the damn thing. It was fun, while it lasted, but an announcement by the Emcee that there were packets of Nasi Lemak going for $1.50 caused a swift change in my attention. Oh .. I had 2 packets. Yummy.

A song from the De-lovely soundtrack goes "Let's do it .. let's fall in love!" after arguing that birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Well, on a slightly less romantic note, dung beatles push shit around, should we do it too? Haha. Anyway, let's fall in love! Hey, waitaminute, I AM in love =)

Oh .. and I missed church today. Sorry .. let's just say I was too tired. Will make it next week! =)

shaun weeli jeryd..year 1 poly 

dad and i..korea..2000 

me and my mum .. when i was 15.  

youth group @ fuji ice palace 

jeryd, shaun, weeli, colin, japheth. attack of the geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeks. okay jeryd's a bloody punk. the rest all geeks =p 

=) 

On my 20th birthday

*to the tune of "twelve days of christmas"* On my 20th birthday my true love gave to me ..

in chronological order..:

1) a surprise by turning up unannounced at my front door

2) a slice of Secret Receipe mango cake that was absolutely delicious

3) a self-compiled music cd with specially selected tracks from her music library. (unlike music pirates like me, hers was in the form of a cd shelf that's taller than me. imagine going through that number of cds and ripping tracks to the computer for burning. *applause* I take my hat off you my dear, you're really sweet!)

4) a "Yamakasi" vcd. Totally awesome, and I've been wanting to watch this show for years, ever since weeli introduced me to "le parkour", the sport this movie was based on.

5) a great day spent indoors listening to live performances from the upcoming album "Jun - unplugged", guessing the songs on my birthday cd, watching Yamakasi, and wrestling, which I won, naturally =)

6) wonderful candle-light dinner by the beach at East Coast Park, where my true love, knowing my culinary preferences, ordered me a Sirloin Steak, Rare. The restaurant brought Rare to a whole raw level, but haha, who am I, a blood lover, to complain? The steak was nice, the company nicer, and the ambience fitting.

7) as a condom is protection against pregnancy, so was the red plastic my true love whipped out from her bag of tricks. A disposable plastic covering to lay on the sand, effectively protecting our clothes from soiling. Unfortunately that was the end of the similarities between that, and a condom. *Grin*

8) a black Fossil leather wallet, produced once again from my true love's bag of tricks while we were lazing on above-mentioned plastic covering, enjoying the sea breeze, the stars, each other's company, and drinks - hooch for her, barcarddi breezer for me. I love the wallet =)

9) a wonderful .. wonderful day. =)

sweet gestures warms one's heart, some cause one's heart to melt, mine was warmed, till it melt. Haha. Okay, that was lame, but I was really really .. happy. h-a-p-p-y.

Thank you Jun =)

It's my birthday! But I'm cheating, this photo was from saturday at a celebration with my maternal relatives =p 

The question of God, Part I

Like many others, the question of who God is intrigues me. Not what he is, but who he is. Sure, he is the creator of the universe, the alpha and the omega, referred to by several names throughout the bible and, he with a capital H.

We were created in the image and likeness of God. Is that likeness limited to only our physical image, or are our humanly traits and needs a reflection of his? Perhaps "image" refers to our physical appearance, and "likeness" speaks of a deeper form of similiarity?

Of course, our nature has been corrupted by sin, but what if our innate desires - apart from our inherent *cough* need to pro-create, of course - are a reflection of God's desires? What am I talking about? Let's say, our need for companionship. Our fear of solitude, true solitude. Why did God even create us in the first place? Companionship. Our desire to be appreciated, to be praised. God created us to praise him. Is that a sin? Isn't that conceitedness? But how can one be called conceited if one is the highest being?

God is said to be perfect. He is perfect, I have no doubt of that, but is that only because there is no other being worthy to be compared with him? Of course he is perfect, everything is created by him. With whom do we benchmark him against? Lucifer? Arguably the most beautiful and powerful of all creation, fell short of his glory and was banished to earth. Simply put, Lucifer lost.

God created everything. He set the standards. He defined what was good, and what wasn't. Any flaws that he might have are considered "character traits", not flaws. He is a jealous God, openly admitting that in the Third Commandent. He also bears grudges, and dishes out punishments with a swift and strong hand. Example? Read the Third Commandent, "..visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, ..". Hell, the fact that we were born with sin shows the extent of his grudge bearing. Adam and Eve sinned, their descendents, us, are born with sin. Like, what the hell?

Allow me to digress a little, but, I'm really of the opinion that God should have killed those 2, and started over. Which was better, killing two? Or flooding the entire world save Noah and his family? And which is better, sparing Noah and his family to retain sin's bloodline, or kill all of them off and start over with an untainted creation? And which was smarter, planting the tree of knowledge of good and evil outside of the garden of Eden, or planting it where it was accessible to Adam and Eve and warn them not to eat of its fruit. Which would have been a better choice? To banish Lucifer and his blasted minions to earth with God's spanking new creation or to skip the transit and send the whole lot of them straight to hell? Speaking of choice, that must have been the reason why God did the previous two. How can he claim to give us free choice if he doesn't provide the alternative? Is God also bounded by rules? Why must God allow us free choice if in his omniscience he should have known that we would screw up? Why give the Ten Commandents when later down the road one of his servants would write in the bible that it is impossible for Man to please God with his own strength, meaning it is bloody impossible for Man to keep the Ten Commandents! Why set rules if you know they WILL be broken?

Is God following a pre-defined script? That events have to happen in a certain chronological order :

1) Create angels in the knowledge that one would rise against Him, and with the rebellion 1/3 of the angels will fall, effectively creating an alternative to God.

2) Create man perfect, give them the choice of obeying Him and not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or to eat of the fruit and ...

I'm tired .. Christians will know the events that I was supposed to list. But of course would be screaming bloody blasphemy.

I was supposed to be talking about the personality of God and the similarities between God and man. So let me resume.

God has dominion over all things created, and he placed Man above the "fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepts on the earth"(NKJV). Similar form of dominiance?

It's 3am .. I'll continue another day. Shit, did I mention, I'm a Christian, and no I have not turned apostate.

Sick

I'm trying hard not to swallow now. I'll allow the saliva to accumulate in my mouth till I have absolutely no choice, then I'll swallow. I try to supress my coughs, for each bout of coughing sends me into convulsions and irritates my sore throat even more.

I'm sick .. I think I have a fever, I need a doc. I've never had such bad sore throat in my life man .. in my life. My throat is freaking burrrrrrrrningggggggggggggg

a new lease of life

"If I wanted a perfect guy, I would have gone for a robot", she said while looking intensely into my eyes, leaning slightly forward towards me. I blinked, chuckled, and kissed her on the cheekbone.

Jun is a really special girl. With her, I tried to be Shaun version 3.0, a new and improved Shaun free from insecurities and a firm believer in allowing my girlfriend total freedom to do whatever she wants, including meeting up with ex-boyfriends, going out with other guys, doing whatever she wants. As long as she loves me, I thought, I'll be okay. And I told her that, but instead of appreciating that, and perhaps taking it for granted, she was disturbed. It might sound egotistical, but she looked at me, and thought she saw someone perfect. Too nice, too sweet, too open, too generous. It disturbed her. She felt she couldn't talk to me about what she feels, cause I laugh things off .. insecurities seemed non-existent, I was confident and I made it seem that her insecurities were petty and unfounded.

As my lips left her face, I looked her in the eyes and whispered, "perhaps we aren't that different after all". She had said that we were too different, she can't talk to me, she felt I wouldn't understand her .. or rather I'll only understand in a detached and superficial manner, because I don't know how it is to be insecure and unsure. Well, she was wrong there .. I think it safe to say I'm the king of insecurities, and it has screwed up my previous two relationships. I wanted what I have with her to last, that was why I resolved that enough is enough, insecurity won't plague me any longer.

How wrong I was. For a moment there I thought that my newly found love was leaving. How can you stay together with someone you can't talk to? I was close to despair. I said, "maybe there is something you should read", and showed her my diary, of sorts, where I wrote whenever I felt depressed and insecure, which was pretty often.

To cut the long grandfather story short, she turned away after reading through, looked at me, and said something along the lines of "that makes you more human. And I like that". She saw through my mask, uncovered my flaws, and loved me for them. My heart melted. I knew then, that perhaps I had found a treasure, someone truly special .. someone who'll love me as I am, someone who I can love fearlessly. I use the word "perhaps" only cause our relationship is still in its infancy, and still volatile. But I have faith, that this love I feel is not misplaced.

Hrms, my collection of events might have been a little jumbled, but the gist of it is there. Basically Shaun strucked gold. That's it. The past 5 days have been great .. and I wouldn't even try to describe it (no i'm not being lazy, buzz off =p) .. it was beautiful.

all things are made beautiful, when you're here with me. it's a long journey, but we have each other. I have found love, and love is all i need. Lean on me, Trust me.