Gratitude and glory

God, thank You for answering my prayer that day. You blessed clarity to my vision and only then could I stop from staying at the same place. I think things would've been much worse if You hadn't done so. You saved me from a lot of pain. Thank You for always looking out for me, dropping hints, and protecting me like how a Father does to His child.

God, thank You for the results I've gotten. Honestly without You I don't think I could've made it thus far.  For the strength You've given me, for the courage You've bestowed upon me, for the quiet support You've been giving me in everything I do, thank You so, so much. It feels as though my Father is encouraging me.

God, thank You for blessing my dream. It's such a miracle that You and only You are able to do so. You didn't just bless my dad's mind. You gave me a direction. You told me that this is in fact the path You wish for me to take, and that's, I believe, the greatest encouragement and approval that I've ever received. Thank You for having faith in me, thank You for believing me that I can do this.

God, thank You for giving me rest whenever I desperately need it. "Go rest and do not bother about the rest, I will handle it. Now rest, my child." I can imagine You saying this. :) No matter how wrong the way I was dealing with everything, You took care of me, held me together and never allowed me to break down from overworking myself. I felt that You were there. I knew that someone was holding me together. Were You sad? I knew You were there giving me support.

God, thank You for giving me a chance to adjudicate. You gave me much more than I ever expected. I went there just to spectate the competition and support my friends from CHS but You gave me a chance to adjudicate. I started off as just a panel but You made me a chair of a room. After that you put me as one of the adjudicators from the adj core's panel, giving me such a valuable chance to learn. You allowed me to break as student adjudicator and I paneled with another adjudicator from the adj core. You knew I had no chance to debate but You made a way for me. To learn.

God, thank You for giving me a chance to try something I've never once thought of. English forum. Thank You for believing me I can do it, when I have trials to prepare for, three teachers' expectations to meet, sub-editor's work to do, design edits to complete as a design executive, a debate competition to prepare for, and this. I'll try my best.

God has worked so many miracles in my life, each of different magnitudes, but never failed to show that the impossible can be possible in His hands. All of these things have served to glorify Him.

Sometimes, even being happy despite everything glorifies Him.

Blessed

I've been blessed with another miracle, and many more albeit diminutive.

I believe that God drops hints to guide us through, even through our chain of thoughts. God's love is really too immeasurable; He pays attention to the greatest details, even the abstract.

I'm nothing, without Him. Often things happen seemingly without any reason. Like misty sand flowing down the hourglass, they're as hard to grasp and understand. As days grow into years, it sometimes take a decade or two to realize how fortunate you truly are, as though only then does the clarity shaken you.

"I know that when you're determined to do something, you'll go all out till you succeed."
"And of course you can't run away from the first pay-cheque treat too."

The people around me have been giving me a lot of encouragement to live my dreams. Thank you Ms Dawn and Aaron.

Blessed. Inundated with bliss and assurance to know He's in this with me, as I embark on a long journey. No matter how stormy seas may be, I know I'm safe. Because He's with me.

Glass globe of a child

It can take only a day to render decades of effort in building a family to nothing.

Who doesn't desire to live in a house with no quarrels? Anyone back in their younger days would be very willingly to trade their most treasured toys for their parents to stop quarreling, but parents traded in a part of their kids' hearts and childhood instead.

To a child, the things and the people around them in their early years form their world. Their world is small, yet complete and serene. Very serene. But the pillars of their world waver, and pebbles and crumbs fall from the roof while the child witnesses his or her parents hammer the child's opaque, glass-enclosed world. A glass globe no longer. Destruction has always been an easy route. Yells, the sound waves are so capable of shaking the house in the heart, and all the items on the shelf come crashing onto the ground, that echoes and overpowers all the other sound waves. Soon that's all you hear.

I would have traded in a lot for quality time with my family. I wished my dad had done so.

There's no one to blame. There was just the integrity, sense of righteousness and self-control which he was devoid of. And they say it takes two hands to clap. Especially in a family, or even in a relationship. Perhaps this was where problems arose.

I played with water in the garden today. I wished my dad had been willing to share fun moments with us, I wished he had wanted to go on little adventures with us. I wished, but it never happened. An incomplete childhood is like a completed jigsaw puzzle with a piece missing.

There was a thorn, and as time passed the skin around it thickened.

I remember mentioning that to someone. A while ago.

Though, there's no use looking backwards. Repeatedly reading the first chapter of a story with an undesired ending wouldn't change anything, would it?

Just a raw thought.

Star-gazing

Star-gazing. It's quiet. Lying in a meadow of the outskirts with the scent of fresh soil as the cold breaths of air tickle your cheeks, the night sky, has its depth of black and unknown whirls of ocean blue leave you in curious wonders on how deep the sky is as if it was the ocean. Losing sense of where you are as your soul strolls relaxed and the cold air ventilating your void cavity, you gaze at the stars and play connect-the-dots for as long as gravity allows your eyelids to. Beautiful stars.

On random occasions, and often when you're caught off-guard, memories can be stars too. Stars that leave you staring at the ceiling as three o' clock comes in silence. Puffs of cold air that uncovers the dust and brushes your numbed pain receptors alive. Pangs of pain that get you so desperate to thwart them. You look around the room for something to end this session of dull pain so isolated in you, unreachable as though it had attained a depth of the night sky. The box of medicine contains nothing to help for a while. Arcoxia won't work. While you run in desperation in between wakefulness and slumber, you stare at the ceiling, blank. Utterly blank.

These days.

I hope the preparations for the next two, and also my last two, examinations will be normal. Enough spending the last four examinations like this.

Where time sets a reality to passion

In a paradigm where clocks and the concept of time do not exist, I would live a different life, perhaps. A life of a dreamer, not wary of anything as lives around her speed frantically like cars on main roads.

I would drown myself in the passion for languages. Words, how breathtakingly beautiful they are. Syntax, the formation of sentences. Linguistics, the scientific study of human language. Among all components and subfields, I love words most.

However as I look deeper into words, the basic component of a language, I see another world. A world of usage, history, meanings, sounds, sentimental value, strength, combination, ability, flow and order. It comes down to words, principles, exceptions and systems. A lovely abstract thing.

I could treat words like humans as if they have a personality of their own. They talk, interact, function, work, feel and react. Some are opposites of each other and some are birds of the same feather.

If they are unable to live in that way and if they cease to exist, there would be a hollow vacuum within the language, or cease to function nor live at all. Then their personalities fade as if washed by the rain, and everything soon falls like old paint on a wall.

Time, perhaps is something placed into the world we live in to reduce entropy in our lives, to bounce us back to reality.

Then, in this reality we live in, where does my passion lie?

Science, where theoretically chemistry exists prior to the existence of biology and physics, is a world I subconsciously chose to be in. I took a biological take to science. Biology, the study of living organisms. In what way I view this field of science is similar to how I view the world of words.

Cells, the basic component of physical life or as we call the building blocks of an organism. But the building blocks of cells are elements. Chemical reactions on a cellular level.

Hence the passion for the collaboration between biology and chemistry.

To me, linguistics and biochemistry are science, both down to the building blocks, system and order. But biochemistry is alive and has processes.

I guess this is how my brain has been wired to be.

Perfection and imperfections

Nothing is perfect. An advice so commonly given to people that it has lost its meaning. When asked, everyone agrees. Question is, do their actions coincide with their agreement to this seemingly simple statement?

It happens to all philosophical theories. Well understood but never fully applied.

Again nothing is perfect, we are never exceptions to the rule. Why is it that whilst having clearly understood, the application of these theories in the way we perceive and think is virtually zero? Yes we can be rational and more rational but the soil from where our rationality buds out from has been tarnished by what we call sin.

Regardless of all the rationality you are equipped with, the eyes you see from has been tarnished. The clarity of our vision was never crystal to begin with. Plagued with sin, restlessness and the peripheral effects of the invention of time, we already stray away from God's teachings as we think and live.

We sin everyday but do we realize it?

Countries, systems, the law, they're never perfect. Our country is vexed with racial issues but which country isn't? Laws have loopholes. Our judiciary system is heavily flawed. The grass may be greener on the other side but the grass here is greener than most places. Something to be thankful for.

But can we determine the root of a problem based merely on the imperfections an institution, a school, a country, a system has but not other potential contributing factors? Not wise. Perhaps I'm too heavily 'scienced'. A hypothesis never immediately equates to a conclusion as with no adequate relevant information no analysis can be done and thus no conclusion can be made. Prejudice? Maybe. Another sin.

The seek for perfection deals a great magnitude of damage in ways we can't foresee, too. Defying and disrupting nature has its price. Often exorbitant.

I pray that the world doesn't get any uglier from this point. The world needs healing and people need to be mended.

Sealing

I could have toppled over if I hadn't gone down the slope slowly. I could have fallen steeply and crashed onto the ground.

Lethargy came snowballing its way down. I knew but did I care?

I couldn't.

What exactly, did I allow myself to do, if any at all?

I didn't know how to seal selectively. Or perhaps it just couldn't be sealed by its own. Perhaps it just couldn't.

Something has gone very wrong. What is it I don't know.

This is not me, I realize that. I've realized quite a few things, but I'm indifferent about it; this is not me.

It doesn't matter to me how I'm feeling nor what reactions I have towards something. It doesn't matter what I have to say nor what's happening to me. Virtually nothing matters. Perhaps I've stopped caring. And that's a problem if it stays out of me for too long.

I'm losing parts of me. My identity.

Devaluing on purpose.

I'm doing nothing.

I've just stopped caring. I don't want this to happen, but I can't seem to be able to do anything. Have I stopped struggling?

Mechanical and emotionless. Cries in helplessness. I beg for guidance. I beg You, God.

Nevertheless I'm trying to stay steady and strong. What to fight for? More questions.