The last few days in a nutshell:

Dinner at Serengeti with the girls!

Watched Hairspray! Good morning Baaaaltimore!

Went to the driving range!

Went out with Jasmine!

Isn't that little peabook above adorable? I can't believe it costs $28 but it was so cute. Hap-pea-ly ever after!
This midsem break has also been littered with lots and lots and lots of DVDs.
Okay, my arms feel like they don't belong to me any longer thanks to the little stint at the driving range.
Bye!

I can't sleep, again. Restful slumbers have been eluding me of late, and I'm left in a tangle of rumpled sheets and restless fatigue. My last-ditch attempt at curing this in the last few days has been to eat copious amounts, letting the blood rush to my digestive system, giving my prowling mind a sweet food-coma-induced respite. The result? Bellyaches, indigestion and a lot of unwanted fat in unwanted areas.

It's been a blue-stained weekend of melancholia and pms pangs. I spent a lot of the weekend mulling over this sudden shaft of loneliness and insecurity which came and clouded my senses. Nothing concrete, nothing explicable; foggy but real. Like how people are so arbitrary, so unpredictable, so..... inconsistent. We're like vapour. I've been sitting around finding friendships evaporate into weak puffs of steam or solidifying into melty iceblocks or even some shapeshifting like liquid in containers. It's this evanescence, this wavering lack of certainty that really terrifies me sometimes.

I remember the day before this deluge of emotion washed over me, I was reminded of Psalm 23.. "The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not be in want.." and I prayed for it to work in my life. Timely enough, little yearnings tugged at my heartstrings, dissatisfaction buried itself in my chest, fear and melancholia began to take over. What better way for His Spirit to teach me not to be in want by besetting me with desires and fears that can be quenched only by Him! I really need to learn to depend on Him completely, following my Shepherd always, and letting His grace be sufficient for me. As I was reading the Psalm again, I think a real challenge for me is written in verse 4:

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me."

I struggle so much already even when I go through the littlest things. But written so eloquently in this Psalm, that even though the gloom of impending death casts its shadow, Jesus is our light, our sovereign, our shepherd. His presence and love alone is enough to drive out all fear, His word is enough to lend comfort to our hearts. Something I really need to learn and apply!

On some days I feel really useless, average and mediocre. Nothing special.
On some days I feel really lonely and insecure, like my heart is balancing on rickety poles.
On some days I just can't sleep, can't focus, my nerves snapping on frayed ends.
On some days I feel like I'm being left behind, stranded far far behind in the middle of nowhere.

Some days like, today.

Sighhhh, I think it's just pms and every other little thing magnified times ten and rolled into a weary ball. But whatever it is, I feel pretty crap.

This is so embarrassing. I just realised (thanks Steve) that 8 + 5 = 13 and is not 15!!!!!!!
HOW RETARDED CAN I GET. Laughing at Laura when oops.. the joke's on me heehee.
Anyway, I am very sure I didn't say 15 over the phone. Very, very, very sure.
Whatever, I am so embarrassed.

Midsem break is (officially) here!
I kickstarted my midsem break by watching Stardust with Prawno.


Which is very much my kind of movie; filled with beautiful ethereal people, hocuspocus, and the medieval chivalry of good prevailing over bad. And I know it sounds silly, but I have this weird fascination for rickety quaint cottages sticking up like crooked matchsticks on rolling hills with me stretched out beside a roaring fire eating some delicious broth out of a chipped wooden bowl. It's like I used to have this moneybox which was carved to look like exactly what I've described and as a little girl I always wanted to live inside it.
I CAN'T WAIT TO GET MY HANDS ON THE BOOK!! :)

I also ate hainan chicken rice for the first time in aaages. Makes me miss my grandmother's and Maxwell hawker centre's chicken rice. Which honestly has to be the best chicken rice I've ever tasted (Maxwell).
I also had my first taste of Killerpool (killipool..?! No clue how to spell it) with Taiki, Lisa, Quinton, Puff and Helen at Helen's house and......... and my pool skills are still Terrible :(

I want to eat Singaporean/Malaysian food.

This is Laura.

(over the phone..)

L: What is 8 plus 5? Hmm.. Twe... eh?! Twen.. eh?!
S: FIFTEEN.
L: oh yeaaaah!

haha! What a retard :P

After the grueling spate of exams, my body is finding it hard to adjust to equilibrium and I am in a perpetual state of listless lethargy, floating in a blank field of nothing. It's a rather nice feeling, save for the fact that my body doesn't feel like my own and I can't summon any energy to do anything, but all things equal, walking around like everything's put on mute has a silent jaunty cadence to it. Abit like watching one of those classic black-and-white films with no sound; the laughter, the jokes, the conversation... everything bobbing to some rhythm only I can hear.

Anyway, Interesting Things That Have Happened Tonight (minus Laura's call)

1. Cleaning

I have spent a good portion of tonight squatting in the shower stall armoured with flimsy cheap thongs and rubber gloves against a bottle of corrosive mould-killing bathroom gel/bleach, scrubbing between the tiles with my old toothbrush because tomorrow heralds the second inspection of our unit by the D-lady who has hinted with not so subtle overtures that our unit needs to be ".. sparkling". Weeell, our bathroom is definitely clean, but I don't know about that pristine sparkling whiteness because no matter how hard I scrubbed, some of the ridges still stubbornly bore that tinge of grey which could get me into alot of trouble!

And I should have taken a picture of my old toothbrush. At some point in time admist the frantic scrubbing, I recall gazing at my toothbrush with forlorn amusement because right at that second, I felt exactly the way my toothbrush looked; bent backward with skewed bristles stuck in frazzled angles. Doused with an extra dose of self-absorbed pity, I truly could identify with my toothbrush.
Agghhh... I hate cleaning.

2. FINM2401 Results

Praise God in aaaaaallll His unfathomable infinite goodness because despite having guessed more than half the exam, He has blessed me with a very undeserving mark of 11/15.
And it was truly all Him and none of me at all because.................. ... .. . . I was in utter shock.
Praise Him!

Tomorrow's the last day of uni before the much-awaited and absolutely delicious midsem break!
Can't hardly wait. I need to catch up on sleep, study and have lots of downtime fun (:

Hyuuuk. The weekend passed very eventfully with me holing it up on Friday night running through copious amounts of notes and then exploding into a frenzy of chopped up timetables and sheer exhaustion.

On Saturday, I spent a grand total of 10 minutes at home.

6.00 am - woke up, had brekkie, scanned through notes
8.00 am - did my 50% exam
1.00 pm - did my 70% exam
2.30 pm - rushed home to pick up my guitar and change my top (it was sweltering)
3.00 pm - praise and worship prac at church
5.30 pm - Mike Kwok was supposed to pick me up but was late. Found a blue-tongued lizard I mistook for a snake, yelling ohmygosh SNAKE SNAKE! and hopping onto a chair
6.00 pm - Mike Kwok picked me up
6.30 pm - had dinner and ice cream
7.00 pm - YF
10.00ish? - they wanted to hang out at Ping's to watch rugby
1.00 am - HOME SWEET HOME!

Sunday kind of rolled by in brain-dead fatigue, drifting through mechanical muted motions. I didn't feel quite myself until after my three hour nap, which wasn't altogether pleasant either because I'd fallen asleep wedged in a very uncomfortable position my living room couch.

And I've just gotten back from my driving lesson which was bad, bad, bad. It was almost as if I'd forgotten how to drive or something. For some reason my brain didn't register that braking was absolutely necessary and I'd go veering off a turn at 40km/h or something completely not safe-driving-worthy, especially for a noob like me.
:(

Most of today hasn't even kicked off yet, but already it feels like one big messy uncooperative bad hair day; bad driving lesson, no food, no more shampoo, exam tomorrow, bleary eyes.... YAGH!

But, praise God, because in His infinite mercy, I'm feeling rather chipper today! And, David's gonna drive me to the supermarket so I can get food and shampoo. Honestly, as cliched as it sounds, little things do make a difference :)
And I thank God for all the people out there who have gone out of their way to help me and help me to understand His love just that wee bit better.

"If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him."
1 John 4:15-16

I think there's one thing knowing that God loves you, but relying on it is another matter altogether; surrendering in obedience and saying All of You, none of me. Simply because His grace and love is sufficient for us.
And sometimes it's through these little things that make me realise God is not just the God of the big things, but the small things too. And letting my sinful nature take over in even in the littlest of ways like frustration, fear, irritability, is disobedience and not reliance on the love and grace that God has shown us through His son Jesus Christ which is all-sufficient and our source of hope and strength.

I'm updating with a massive photo upload. Nobody likes reading the superfluous words that I write so hopefully lots and lots and lots of photos will compensate for my lack of updates!

YF Wine & Cheese Night
Great night, great talk, great speaker and lots of fooooood. Can't go wrong there.



Lisa's Birthday

I don't have any pictures of us at the picnic because I was too busy hanging out at the food table to whip out my camera and start snapping. Which is a real pity because I love party photos littered with colour and festive activity; reminds me of party poppers and confetti! Maybe when Helen tags me photos on facebook I'll have them. AND I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN PICTURES OF THOSE SANDWICHES WHICH WE SLAVED OVER!

Angie's Birthday

Happy (belated) birthday Angie darrrrrrrling! So sorry this post is late, because I know we're both busy mugging our behinds off for tomorrow's gruesome twosome. Anyway, this is to tell you how much I love you and how you're such a God-sent to me; always there with a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, and who can forget what a fantastic law and shopping buddy you are! You've brought sooo much sunshine and laughter into my life. LOVE YOU you oldddddd hag. Haha

Okay, sooooo... we (Amanda, May and me) endeavoured to surprise Angie on her actual birthday to inject some spark into an otherwise dreary and most hapless day (two exams in one week, yiiikes). Armed with a cake and gigantic matchsticks, I'm not sure if we managed to successfully surprise the birthday girl because...

"We'll light the candles in two minutes....... OHMYGOSH SHE'S HERE!"

"Oh crap, the flame went out."

"Do it again!"

"All the candles are going out!"

"You do it.... OH NO! There's wax on the cake!"

"Sing real quick before the flames go out! ... happybirthdaytoyouhappybirthdaytoyouhappybirthdaytoangie....."

(and May's not in any of the pictures because she came late)

So..... what have I been doing all week? Holing myself up (trying) to study my behind off for twooooooooo exams tomorrow! 50 and 70 percent! aghhalhhghlkkd.... save me. My concentration span has lapsed into an average of ten minutes and I've let my mind wander off into the realms of blogger. So here I am uploading photos and wiling the precious minutes away.

I am going crrrrrrrrraaazyyyyyyyy. Ok bye.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LISA CHIO!
I don't think you ever read this (haha) but happy 18th anyway :) You're an awesome sister-in-Christ and such a great friend and thank you for always having me over and treating me like family. I feel really blessed having met someone like you and I hope you had an awesome 18th! All grown up now :)

-

In a nutshell, the weekend was fun and fabulous albeit feeling tremendously short.
I shopped, tried to study, cooked, attended YF's Wine and Cheese Night, slept over at the Chios, helped baked unsuccessful crispy and chewy cupcakes, went to church at southside, made an enormous number of sandwiches for Lisa's birthday, ate, played soccer for the first time in years (and realise how much I suck at the sport), played with an adooorable dog, had dinner at the Chios, came home, realised how much I smell and now I'm showered and blogging for the sake of blogging.

There's a sweet, satisfied exhaustion stinging my limbs and once my hair is semi-dry, I am going to pop straight into bed.
Pictures another time.
Goodnight :)