lifesong
Everyone needs compassion
Love that's never failing
Let mercy fall on me
Everyone needs forgiveness
The kindness of a Saviour
The hope of nations
Saviour, He can move the mountains
My God is mighty to save
He is mighty to save
Forever author of salvation
He rose and conquered the grave
Jesus conquered the grave
So take me as you find me
All my fears and failures
Fill my life again
I give my life to follow
Everything I believe in
Now I surrender
Shine your light in
Let the whole world see
We're singing, for the glory
Of the risen King
Jesus, Shine your light in
Let the whole world see
We're singing for the glory
Of the risen king
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
-3:19 pm
I finally have the time to actually write something after a long period of silence. Feels good typing what's in my mind here. The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity and an emotional rollercoaster ride for me. If you're wondering, I have been busy with my board function Speech Day and it practically made me occupied 24/7. It's stressful I tell you, and note that Mel Tan was my co I/C. But I am sooooo relieved that it is FINALLY over. Though reports and post-mortem has to be done, I'd rather put it aside first and enjoy sudden free spaces of time I now have.
The fact that I survived the past two weeks without breaking down is purely a testimony to God's abundant providence and grace. My sleep pattern was disrupted and that caused a lot of other problems to be compounded. There was this point in time when I felt like there it was just too much for me to handle. I went through some days dazed in school due to the lack of sleep, totally messed up my math test, and just wasn't my usual jovial self. Dad reminded me that it was no use using my own "horse power", but to work smart, we have to depend on God's strength and wisdom. So I decided to change my attitude. God came first before whatever else, and before I started my work, I would do TAWG first. This refreshed my mind and gave me hope to finish my piles of work. God has yet again been so faithful to me and shown me that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!
To those people out there whom I know are struggling with work, keep in mind this verse and draw strength from God to live through each day. He will see to your every need. Jordan, Daniel, Gayle and Cyn, take care yea? Don't get too stressed up and remember to get enough rest or else you wouldn't be able to cope with whatever comes your way. I'll be praying for you guys.
The Joy of the Lord is our strength!
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Thursday, August 12, 2004
-6:29 pm
Just came home from school where I stayed back for a house comm meeting. Didn't get hantamed by the teacher unlike what I expected. The games capts kinda messed things up for the inter-house games and the records are rather incomplete. But I realised that the session was rather okay and we had a fruitful discussion on how we could improve attendance matters and activity stuff. The teacher said that most of us would most probably be asked to continue next year if there is "no violent objections". Sigh. None of us wants to stay on next year. Taking on house this year totally screwed my Semester 1 results! I don't mind mentoring though. But it's really a hard job, and it'll be difficult for the newcomers to really get everything running without experience.
Heard from Jun that she knows the results for HP. BREAKING NEWS! Hot off the press from Mr. Png. Pity it took so long. Jun also asked me if I was still sticking to my decision of no exco. That sort of opened up a fresh wound. Made me consider it again. ARGH! I hate this. But I feel that I want to contribute to the board. So much so much! I'd like to work with my fav batchmates too. *Big sigh and pulls a long face* Mom won't be happy to hear this. They're short of 2 peeps for exco. !!!!!!! *stops short of maniacally pulling hair out* Think I'll be able to manage exco? Oh dear...
Anyways, I found out a lot of cool stuff I could be doing with this blog from Gabriel. Funky cursors, pics and all. I'm dying to upload a nice pic beside the header. But I guess I'm lazy and don't really want to spend the time doing these stuff to beautify my blog. Then again, it might end up looking tacky. I shall be content with this simple template. Besides, just found out that my cousin deleted the Picaso picture uploading programme from my computer when he was ridding it of viruses. Always happens- the downloaded programmes disappear. What a shame too, considering the time I spent downloading it. Boo. Note to self: remind him not to delete my programmes.
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Friday, August 06, 2004
-8:20 pm
I think it is only during the National Day celebration period that I feel this influx of patriotic sentiments. During SS yesterday, the teacher brought up a conflict on the government's part regarding the slogan of our society. It is ironic (everything's about irony it seems) that just barely one month before ND when they tell us to be ONE PEOPLE, there is a day on the 21st of July when they tell us to CELEBRATE OUR DIFFERENT CULTURES. I mean, it is so confusing as to what exactly they want to promote. Can't they just make up their mind?
Anyways, I went around school today in a huge baggy red T-shirt and berms, with my hair tied up in a bun hidden under a cap and a shark tooth "necklace". Basically, I'm trying to look like a male punk to match the theme of our class- we were supposed to come in couples dressed to match. Guess where we got the idea from? ROMANCING SINGAPORE! This excludes gays and lesbians. My "girlfriend" was Cynthia and she was so much more dressed up than me. I think we looked really great together, haha. But if the teachers didn't know about our class theme, they'd think that I really was kinda weird. Karwei and Cranj were able to pull it off with such style and charm though. They both looked really hot! ;D It's funny how Karwei can be so chio when she's girly and be so handsome when she cross-dresses. Don't get any funny ideas though. If she becomes HP or VHP, I tell you the Sec Ones will go crazy for her.
Then after ND celebrations, I had Speech Day tech rehearsal. Everything went pretty smoothly and I could tell that the teachers were quite glad that we're rather organised. I do hope that SD turns out great, not to mention that this is a wonderful opportunity to sort of patch up the board's reputation. We had this attendance problem, not very large but still minorly disturbing. Some absences were not accounted for/ had invalid excuses, and these came from the sec 3s. Therefore I'm sending out a "scolding" mail to the yahoogroups and making sure this does not happen again. It is quite predictable as to who are the ones because it's always the same people not putting board as a priority. Sigh. Being in the role of disciplinarian is
not fun. Mel suggested something drastic, like giving their names to Mr. Png. I thought we should get Fai and Amy to blacklist them in their little black book. There should be a penalty for not doing what you're supposed to (refer to Kar's ___body joke).
All in all, I'm relieved that at least we have a
decent four day break from school. I'm going to use it to read the book I'd just borrowed from the RGS library- Life of Pi. Apparently it's quite a critically-acclaimed book- that was why I could pick out the familiar title. I don't even know if it's my cup of tea so hopefully it'll be rewarding enough to be worth my time. Happy holidays everyone! =)
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Thursday, August 05, 2004
-9:44 pm
Quotes of the day (from Mr. Colman Chua):
The Maori tribe of New Zealand originated from Mao Zedong (???!!!)
Mao Zedong means “Considerate Cat” in English translation.
Ask Sumin if she’s from the Philippines lah. (A demonstration of racism).
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I’ve learnt quite a lot in SS today. Mr. Chua started lessons with doing a mind map of the disadvantages of Multiculturalism. When he got the part about it decreasing gender equality, he told us two real life stories of how women were horribly mistreated in Pakistan. Evidently, Pakistan is historically a patriarchal society and still is today. Since males are valued and respected more than females, it seems that the former is empowered to mistreat the latter. In the case of the following story, even females can turn against one another.
When she turned 16, there was this young Pakistani girl who was married off to an 18 year old Pakistani guy. The husband loved his wife very much, but day by day, the girl's mother-in-law grew to dislike her (probably because the son was paying more attention to his wife than his mother). The mother-in-law would constantly complain about the wife to her other sons, and was rather hostile to her. The wife bore with it without a word because she was very close to her husband and didn't want to upset him.
One day, the husband came over her to Singapore to work. Left alone in Pakistan with her mother-in-law, the wife was oblivious to her mother-in-law telling her son that she was unfaithful, when she was not. The mother-in-law was infuriated that her son would remit money from Singapore back to only his wife, and not her, plotted to do something about it. With the help of her other sons, they dragged the girl into the kitchen, and with an axe, proceeded to chop off both her legs. In a bid to stop the bleeding, they dipped the struggling girl's amputated legs into a pot of boiling oil. Outside the house, the girl's brother and a few other relatives heard her screams of pain and rushed into the house to stop the brutal attack. The girl survived the vicious assault but the worse thing was, that the only form of justice the mother-in-law and her sons received was
ONE month jail. When a UNIFEM official interviewed the Pakistani authorities, they said "We can't do much about it because this is accepted in our society."
Out of over 1000 over cases of domestic violence against females in Pakistan,
only 2 gets heard in court, with
1 going through the full procedures of a court trial. This is the sad truth of reality. To us, it might just be a distant occurence, far from our safe home in Singapore. But we must realise at the same time how blessed we are to be born into a society were females are thought of as equals (generally). We do not face the risks that a paternalistic society might bring with it- with people being empowered to make life and death decisions for females. My heart really goes out to those women in the Middle East and I feel furious anger for those who have harmed them. But right now, I can't really do much to help except pray for God's protection over them.
Also another interesting point came up during the discussion of France's and Germany's joint decision to ban the wearing of the tudung in civil and schooling institutes. However, it is not written in the Koran that Muslims
must wear the tudung; it is only included in cultural laws made by Man. The irony here is that there is another religion is stipulated to wear a headdress- can you guess who? It is written in the Bible (Corinthians, Colosians, Leviticus, Nehemiah) that Christian women must wear a head covering. We don't even know about this commandmant, much less wear a head piece. Ironic isn't it? The people who are supposed to be wearing a head dress don't do so themselves, but expect other races to do the same. This is very puzzling as to why no clarification and review has been done on the rules throughout the years. If we were to say that we regard the rule because it only applies to that old era of people, does it mean that we also do not reject homosexuality, which is not condoned of in the same book of the Bible. Before we set out to judge others, I think we ourselves as Christians must be clear about our own rules first. Simple logic isn't it? Except that we don't make logic with that whole issue of it ourselves.
Please keep an open mind even after you read this. Don't let this affect your impressions/ perspective of things. Sometimes, I must admit that ignorance is bliss. Now after discussing this at length with Mr. Chua after lesson, I don't think I'll be able to sleep peacefully tonight.
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Tuesday, August 03, 2004
-9:19 am
Sometimes I think it is not good to know a friend too well. Or to have too close a friend. Because you know someone so well, you tend to find fault, to scrutinise the smallest of imperfections in the seemingly perfect appearance and satisfy yourself knowing that your friend has flaws, just like you do too. I'm not saying that I work that way, but I'm just pondering the implications of such habits. This does arise in somewhat of a tension between my friend and I recently, though I'm sure the feeling is not mutual. I may have appeared a little more irritable that usual I suppose.
Anyhow, during RS today, my mentor told us of the repercussions of sleep deprivation. She said that it causes us to be stressed easily and sets the stage for depression to take place. Students are not the only ones prone to it though, even teachers get it sometimes when they come to school with less than 3 hours of sleep. Problems that hit you one by one in the face just get compounded by the fact that your lack of sleep removes your ability to think clearly and in a rational manner, so things may seem too overwhelming for you to handle. That's when you break down apparently. She said that some teachers come to school deprived of sleep, and just after one unusually badly behaved and obnoxious class in the morning, they just go down to the teachers' room and cry. I'm not suprised; I would do that too if I were in their shoes. If adults can't handle it, much less us kids of just 15 years old?
That's why we should stop the assumption that if we don't have time to finish our work, we can use our sleep time to make up for it. Repeat after me: WRONG concept! No sleep = no health = no strength to study and do well in exams. It's a simple principal. I'm sure you people are smart enough so don't learn it the hard way I did. It was too high a price to pay.
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Monday, August 02, 2004
-8:43 pm
Darn I'm irritated. I urgently need to reach my partner for RS and she's not at home! I hope she has done her part for our geog project- that is to do the script for our powerpoint presentation. Our presentation is due tml and I bet she totally forgot all about it (she's always like that). She needs pple to reminder her to do stuff if not she just assumes she doesn't need to do it.
This reminds me of a "joke" that HP nominee- my dear classmate and batchmate- ONG KAR WEI told in her speech today , which I found to made a lot of sense that it appeared to. There was a story about four people named Anybody, Everybody, Nobody and Somebody. There was an important job to be done and Anybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.
I think that is definitely a prevalent occurence of our school, and sad to say, sometimes in the board. It really made me wonder (not to be presumptious), what I would strive for if I chose to run for HP. Actually, I can identify the most with Karwei's vision because I share her passion to make an impact on the discipline situation in school, which goes hand in hand with welfare, however ironic it may seem. For one thing, people just do not realise how important it is for them to abide by the rules the school has set for them in their entrance to this institution. Self-discipline is a form of self-regulation, which makes a champion and a successful student in the long run. Students also do not realise how difficult it is for the prefects to
enforce these rules; how painstaking and even guilt-ridden it can be sometimes. There are some prefects who, I'm proud to say, are strong and steadfast in their principals and values, so they would not waver in their positive, "no-double-standards" attitude towards booking.
But however unpleasant it is, I strongly believe it is a necessary measure taken to ensure that our school remains a proper and conducive place for learning. If things were just left to the students, our school compound would be filled with half-dressed students running amok, with wild, brightly coloured hair and goodness knows what. I may sound very diplomatic and politically correct (or lao gu tong), but I'm just a normal student, not a walking advertisement for the school administration. This is not propaganda; it's just my take on how forum on school policies have been going. I may seem conservative, but I am only willing to fight for what I deem reasonable and appropriate to change. The reason our school does not adopt a student council policy like The Chinese High is because the students do not have their basic respect for the school rules and self-discipline required to maintain the sanity of the school. If only students can follow the school rules without the prompting and spot-checks of prefects, then can we establish a trustworthy student council that is able to represent the student population in terms of changes in policy and the like.
We are already 15 years old (ok, maybe 13-16 yrs old) and so I infer that we are mature enough to discern the purpose and rationales behind school rules. When we grow into adulthood, we will still have company protocols and regulations to follow; no exceptions even if you're the boss. Right now, we have not earned our right to the freedom of having things done our way. We can only be patient and abide by the rules of the educational institution in which we are learning, and learn to do things the proper way first. Don't try to run even before you can walk.
PS: to think that I didn't even know what I was going to write about when I first started this post before this began to take shape -_-;
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