elohim

in Your strength i can crush an army;
with my god i can scale any wall.
god's way is perfect.
all the lord's promises prove true.
...
for who is god except the lord?
who but our god is a solid rock?
god is my strong fortress,
and He makes my way perfect.
He makes me as surefooted as a deer,
enabling me to stand on mountain heights.
He strengthens my arm to draw a bronze bow.

You have given me my shield of victory;
Your help has made me great.

(2 samuel 22:30-36)

to walk with, & not in retrospect

i have been like scattered sand - yes, i am bold & will go after things i desire, but what i had desired was to find love & affection in fallible human beings, corporeal human beings whom i hoped would be able to satisfy my propensity for carnality - as i wrapped my arms around myself & rocked myself to sleep on bad nights i thought of how nice it would be to have someone physical to hold me, not how nice it would be to be immeasurably satiated by the incorporeal God, my lord whom i knew (in my head yes, not in my heart) has the ability to satisfy even the thirstiest of hearts. i refused - how could i when touch is my love language, how could i touch & feel loved by someone who lives in the heavens, the stars, the seas, the soil beneath our feet, whose omnipresence is more than i can bear, more than what i can fill in the spaces between my fingers, or my outstretched arms, whose boundlessness i cannot kiss nor tangibly feel? & so i lost myself to the shadows of pursuing after insatiable things, after fallible people like myself, & got disappointed again & again by people who lost interest, who couldn't commit, who didn't seek after my heart as fervently as i had romanticised in my head. i only prayed for the want of things, not for the want of christ himself. i had desired to find a partner who will devote his heart to God, but have failed to realise that he too will look for someone after God's own heart, not after the things of this world, things i had fiercely been in pursuit of. i have always thought the problem doesn't lie with me - but to a large extent it does, it does, it does: unless i find back the anchor of my heart that is You, & You alone, i will never be satisfied.

looking back on my journal entries, i remember the times that i had lived & breathed of You, during my a lvl days. those were the hardest of times, but they were also the best of times, particularly in terms of the immense wealth i had in my soul & spirit. on the eighteenth of october 2k14 i recall a leader from church taking the time to pray for me, prophesizing that You will take me from 'strength to strength & glory to glory', adding that You will take me from one level of glory to a higher level of glory. until i went back to that particular entry tonight i had always thought You had fulfilled that promise utterly - the first clause when i survived the ordeal of alvls with so much grace left to spare, the second when i finally got taken off the waitlist at the last moment it was stipulated to close. it was such an arduous wait i thought it was more than i could bear - for someone who loved clarity so much i had shed so many hot tears not knowing the tenability of my future with unwavering certainty until the last moment. i always thought the chapter of that prophesy had closed then - but now i can see that it was just the tip of the iceberg, the former 'glory' preceding the latter 'to glory'.

since then You have indeed taken me higher & higher: from learning the ropes of fundraising to raising close to the 20k mark on my own; from eschewing from every events-planning related commitment (except for gym concert'12 which i was coerced to be a part of) to organising (come this mid-january) my fourth political conference to date, from feeling at a complete loss wrt summer plans after my application for the santander scholarship fell through last december to the bestest of bestest time in new york city & (if all goes well) spain this coming summer. i have always forgotten You in the moments leading up to these victories & only remembered in retrospect, but You never have.

life with You in the peripheries until things go awry is such a convenient life to live. but as we waited for the fireworks to erupt at the close of 2k16 & i marvelled at how You have taken the brokenness of my best college orientation buddy (who left) & completely transformed his grades & perceived self-worth, as we both agreed that a life lived without You seems better until it gradually gets so incredibly emotionally tiring & utterly empty, as we both pledged individually to begin growing in You come 2k17,

for once in my life i anchor my new year's resolution in You: to do things together with You, not in retrospect.

goodbye 2k16

with every year i find a tune that characterises me - last year oh my muu's expression was the tune that made me feel like i could rebuild myself over & over again. as 2k16 draws to a close odesza's always this late will forever remind me of new york & everything that came with it - the feeling of losing myself in a spirit of sheer aliveness that brims, brims & overflows, the inexplicable feeling of solitary night walks down the streets of manhattan spaciously flanked by two majestic buildings - ceaseless bc of its grid-like structure, or losing myself in the sea of people at 14th street union square with sheryl sandberg's 'lean in' clutched close to me - feeling like i can be anything i want to be as long as i put my mind to it & grit my way through - in spite of being a woman, in spite of all these sickening gender stereotypes, or wandering lost in the poetic drizzle on my last night till' i found the brooklyn heights promenade overlooking the gorgeous skyline of 'the concrete jungle where dreams are made of'.

the platitude 'new year new me' sounds cliché af but i think it perfectly encapsulates what 2k16 has been for me. sitting on the steps outside ngee ann city civic plaza on the 2nd of january 2016 with bun j talking about our lives & futures ahead i could never have envisaged the adventures i had this year -

the lows were excruciating all time lows: dealing with one of my best college friend leaving college / dealing with feeling at a complete loss wrt my summer plans (by mid feb everyone had their summer nailed down & i still had no clue) / almost missing my flight to nyc bc of an insane visa problem / getting stranded for three days alone in a foreign country / toxic people / emotional exhaustion from feeling played to varying degrees by so many boys & having to pick myself up after every single one of them / dealing with the death of a classmate / dealing with feeling inadequate in almost everything i put my hand to / nights sleeping at 4am & running on caffeine all day bc i was just so overwhelmed with work etc. those nights that i could only sit on my bed & cry for want of someone to hold me, or to help me pull myself together, those nights that i could only sit at utown green suffused with a choking bout of numbness that i couldn't snap out of regardless of how hard i tried - those nights were so tough i sometimes wanted to just efface into the walls forever,

but the highs were also off the charts: the friendships strengthened & restrengthened, the invincible feeling of assimilating into new york city & being there not as a tourist but almost like a local - living, cooking, working, gymming etc., the kickass feeling of making the best out of a curveball thrown my way & feeling in control i.e. when i got stranded in hk on my solitary flight back, experiencing the high of being suffused with so much affection in my heart with cuddles & kisses - albeit temporal, of waking up somedays feeling so beautiful in my own skin, of finally stepping up to something that had scared the crap out of me & realising it really wasn't as scary as i had imagined in my head/surpassing my personal expectations by nearly hitting the 20k mark, of discovering that i can always find my inspiration in the gym, of conquering my first GA module even as i had felt so little at the beginning as the only soph - all these little & big victories culminating into the rollercoaster highs i experienced running throughout 2k16 -

2k16 was an insane year swinging on two ends of the spectrum & leaving no middle ground, but i wouldn't have had it the easy way either. personal growth is so important to me, & i aspire to keep growing, to keep improving, to keep experiencing. i have never forgotten that the good things in life are all from You, even though sometimes i act otherwise, so thank You

& here's to an enriching 2k17. 

dip

i think i spoke too soon

i think i'm tired of everything in the interim, dying to move back but also dreading the rigour of next semester

i miss the gym though - perhaps this is the reason why i'm feeling like this; all i'm doing is eat sleep email read repeat

contentment

i do not dare speak for the future, but as of this very moment:

compared to last winter, i think i am in a much happier state of mind -

i may currently be a half-faced chipmunk but to have taken out my impacted wisdom tooth that had caused me so much agony in my busiest days last semester (i never get headaches but when it was emerging from my gum & chafing against my molar it made my head a wreck) - knowing that i will not have the time & the convenience of staying at home for a stretch of time if i had procrastinated it to next semester

to have gone on a road trip with friends (albeit a short one) - i've always wanted to do something like that but until I took on new york & hong kong alone i don't think my parents ever thought i was capable of leaving sg soil for leisure without them

to have made concrete plans wrt picking up bahasa melayu again - & feeling the euphoric rush of digging up extremely familiar-sounding words long forgotten from the archival recesses of my brain

to be able to envisage & concretely dream about what i'll be doing for half of summer 2k17: this time the prospect of being stranded in a country for a prolonged period of time where its first language will be my fourth (how unparalleled an experience that will be: i survived new york bc its first language is very much mine; i survived hong kong bc its second language is also very much mine; i survived m'sia bc if english fails i know i can count on four & a half years of archival malay to tide me through basic conversations; will i be competent enough after another semester of spanish for it to be my life buoy for *crosses fingers* a month alone in spain?)

to have single-handedly risen up to challenge of the one thing that (just thinking about it) had scared the crap out of me throughout the year, & realise at this point in my life that i am not only still holding up but also close to the 10k mark

to be able to spend my days sprawled on the couch to read, read & read / or spend 3am mornings vicariously living through the lives of highly idealistic, fictitious korean characters

& lastly, to have felt the affectionate grip of a warm hand as we cruised through christmas wonderland together

if this is not contentment i don't know what this is.

to give in to the flow

zhuangzi was right - the world is far too vast & too complex to be weighed down by the concretisation of things that cannot be concretised by & into mere labels. i could never understand how his life philosophy could be a perpetual whirlwind of abstrusity when i first entered college but now i think i know better & gradually understand; as i find myself growing & exposing myself to the obscurities in the world in thought & action do i realise there is indeed no manichean world, only the shelteredness of a bubble-like environment intending to deceive you into thinking there exists one ruled by labels & structures, to trick you into conforming to the falsity of absolute morality & order.

jesus teaches us to condemn the sin & not the sinner: in the same vein, it is possible to feel for the action but not for the person. it is possible to not feel & feel all at once. it is the other half of the feeling that twenty is prime. it is also possible to deceive your heart into thinking it is a momentarily a fireplace - loneliness makes it all possible, but i will not damn loneliness to the depths of hell bc it teaches me things about myself that i have hitherto not known. i am just thankful for communication & a truck ton of honesty, with myself, & with the people around me.

i am a complex being - paradoxical, confused, a language person, a visual person, a touch person - amongst many others that i may not have found words for. but i am so human, & for that i am thankful.

winter break

make plans, concretise, do something - if only to feel better, to feel more alive. just don't stay idle & let your thoughts roam free to disempowering places. be your own rice.