[C'EST MOI]
living paradox. individualist with anarchistic tendencies.
eludes eminence but appreciates subtle recognition.
capricious yet dependable. clandestine and unfathomable.
cynical realist who succumbs to the occasional idealism.
[J'AIME]
music. films. feasting & drinking. team sports.
good company; family, friends and those who share similar interests.
It's not about the mood or the music. It's not about aromatherapy and burning sweet-smelling oils. It's not about the fresh air or the closeness to nature.
It's about having a rooted, unfaltering heart, a sound mind, and a well of faith that no matter what the circumstances are, good things will follow. Psalms 23 vs 4: Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
vs 6: Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
It's never easy having to deal with the exams among other things (like the freak shock I had for a moment when I thought I didn't get the FYP of my choice, but thank God it's still not yet finalised), and when you think it can't get any more complicated, you have to deal with adults who act like kids. Literally.
Seriously, I've heard of quarrels over bills, responsibilities, infidelity etc etc. but who has heard of screaming and arguing over a tin of biscuits that apparently went missing?
Author's note: It is with deep regret to divulge that till now, there is still no trace of the missing Mr. Tin-of-Biscuits. Interviewed parties have claimed to have no clue about his whereabouts. Sources speculate that he was not kidnapped, but instead walked out on the family as it buckled under the pressure of having to deal with neglect and the ongoing insanity. It remains a baffling mystery and every member in the household shall be held accountable for the safety of Mr. Tin-of-Biscuits. We plead guilty to our irreponsible actions against Mr. Tin-of-Biscuits and petition for him to come back home to us so that peace can be restored.
Think this sounds silly? Imagine what it was like being caught in the middle of an open-air firing session that circled on this subject.
Sometimes I really don't know how to react to certain issues. It's hard to keep silent the deep urge to say how I feel, to debate and assert my position but how can I? How can I converse like an adult if everything that I say will just seem like disrespect to you?
It's probably not my position to say anything anyway.
After all, giving a piece of my mind probably won't make the situation any better. It's just an avenue for me to release the pent up frustrations. I'll just leave it to God. He's a worker of miracles. Who better to salvage the situation than the Helper himself?
[Time of Confession] 12:24 PM 0 Wisecracks for Me
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Tuesday, April 25, 2006
I just wanna...
Right now, I just wanna climb back into my comfy, warm bed and sleep.
Even if it means continuing the bad dream from just now.
It's not even daybreak yet and I'm out of bed. Need to make up for lost time yesterday when I zonked out before 10pm because I was exhausted from the 307 exam. It was super draining cos the stupid subject coordinator, also the guy who can't speak pwoperr ingweesh (and thus the bulk of us are not getting what he's been teaching all semester), decided to make us do a whole lot of questions, in the same amount of time.
For 2.5 hours I was writing non-stop at 200km/h. Bless the person who invented correction tape.
I left the examination hall with a limp left hand and a woozy vision with nothing but my untidy (yes, for once) handwriting swimming in front of me.
I still have 3 more papers to go. Gosh, I can't seem to ever reach the end!!!
Dear God, help me stay strong and not crawl back into bed. For now.
[Time of Confession] 5:38 AM 0 Wisecracks for Me
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Friday, April 21, 2006
A Whole New Chapter
A tiny storm of excitement was stirred up recently and it has its good points and bad. For one, I'm in the midst of my exams and any news big enough to get me excited is really not good for my concentration.
God is faithful and He answered my prayers; my application for the accelerated BSc(Hon) programme was approved and...
I will graduate by the end of this year!
How cool is that! It's amazing, when I think back, it seemed like only yesterday that I started uni life. 3 years have zoomed by and in a way, its a blessing that I'm leaving before the uni sucks the students dry with all the sickening fees. That, of course, is another issue.
There are suddenly so many possibilities, all the ideals that used to cross my mind are moving closer - soon they'll be within reach. It's the chapter of life when I will become more proactive , exploring my options, going out into the world beyond academics and experience the vast opportunities and so much more. I can almost smell the thrilling road ahead and I know I will be taken care of no matter what cos my Jesus is my shepherd and He will carry me through every step of the way.
I'm bouncing with enthusiasm and elation at the thought of this major change but right now, I must focus, and concentrate on acing my papers. Focus, J, focus!!
Before that, some handphone pics to unload: Another thing that makes me happy - a big cup of bubble tea with pearls for cheap cheap $1.80 only! Gone are the days when we had to fork out $2.50 per cup in JC... One good thing about staying home - I can make my own yummy breakfast! Garlic cheese and tomato omelette. Oishii!
Okay, back to the books.... *whimpers*
[Time of Confession] 8:22 PM 1 Wisecracks for Me
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Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Of snot and special treatment
It's just a day away to my first paper and it's just unfortunate that the flu bug caught up with me. I've been downing loads of fluids and vitamin C and am entrusting my health and my exams into God's hands. I know He will take me through this. With or without the snot!
I've been home everyday trying to beat the snooze to prepare for the exams. I'm itching for it to be over quickly so I can go out and play and stop looking like an ah-soh. You see, I can't really be bothered with appearances since I'm home all the time, plus the late nights are showing pretty noticeably under my eyes.
<-- see what I mean? So anyway, I was minding my own business with the lecture notes and all when the doorbell rang and a postman stood at the door with a parcel. 'Ooh is that for me?' 'Joy Chua.' <-- He didn't sound very friendly. (Probably taken aback at my unkempt appearance. Oops.)
And there sat the box.
The handwriting on the box was so neat that my mum asked me, "You wrote that yourself?"
Erm...why would I do that??
Anyway, with beautiful handwriting and the 'airmail' sticker from New Zealand, there can only by one sender....
My Darling Grace!!
She sent a box full of love and sweet well-wishes, literally! A whole load of munchies to keep me on a sugar high throughout the exams.
I'm going to get well soon so I can indulge and enjoy these little pieces of heaven.
*blessed*
[Time of Confession] 2:01 PM 0 Wisecracks for Me
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Thursday, April 13, 2006
Crossing lines
My darling of a professor just made me love him even more when he sent an email to tell me that my 3 pages of hard work and sweat (aka my lab report) was MISSING. Did I just say love? Oops, I meant hate.
Oh well, it IS a thin line between love and hate.
What a joke. I handed in the report together with Von into the allocated box (where we slot in all our assignments) months ago (on the 3rd of March, to be precise) and now, when I'm strangling myself to study harder and faster for the exams, he tells me that my report is M.I.S.S.I.N.G. How convenient.
He really know how to choose his timing ah!!
To think I was cutting him some slack when I told Grace that he wasn't that bad this semester... not as mean as before... but disappointingly, he is still a prick.
And the tag 'Hitler' shall remain on him for as long as... as long as I'm on the right side of the line.
[Time of Confession] 5:40 PM 0 Wisecracks for Me
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Solitude
It's such a relief to be back at home.
The mess doesn't even bother me that much anymore. It's funny how circumstances change people.
I never wanted it to be this way though.
I want to be strong, to believe that in spite of my situation, my God is still with me. But at the end of it, no matter how I was comforted that His presence was with me, I still knew that humans were not created to live in isolation. Even Adam had Eve.
I have no one.
That's basically what the past few days have been for me. And it's enough to drive me a little over the edge. I feel so deprived from human contact that the lack of emotional support was overbearing. I didn't even feel hungry enough to eat.
Does the problem lie with me then?
My sister asked me if I'm anti-social.
I hope not...
I'm hard to get to know and I don't like wearing my heart on my sleeve. I don't open up to people easily but aren't most people like that too? At least I save putting up a front with a big wide grin to please the masses.
So does this make me anymore unpleasant as a person as anyone else?
[Time of Confession] 5:04 PM 0 Wisecracks for Me
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Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Some people just don't get it (Part 2)
Some people spend their entire lives studying the mechanisms of cancer and searching for new drug targets but end up not only with nothing helpful, they remain unknown in the research community.
A woman who contracted uterine cancer had the tumour removed and everyone knows her name (everyone who deals with cell culture, that is)... because her smart-ass doctors went to culture the tumor cells that have not stopped growing in the past 50 years and are now supplied to labs as HeLa (short for Henrietta Lacks, the lady's name) cells for cell studies.
Sounds fair?
[Time of Confession] 2:58 AM 0 Wisecracks for Me
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Monday, April 03, 2006
Some people just don't get it
"During the 20-minute interview, the precocious child impressed the interviewers by explaining the Schroedinger equation."
Get this: an 8 year old boy explaining an equation that is taking the life outta me to apply in molecular mechanics.
When I was eight, I was running around the field trying to get my brother to let me join in the soccer games.
When I was eight, I was struggling with division and multiplication.
When I was eight, I was forced to sit at the piano for at least 30 minutes a day.
When I was eight, I didn't freaking know a thing about quantum physics!!! 'What's that? Can eat one?'
This, by the way, is old news already... it just bugged me again because I'm being thrown into absolute confusion studying computational biology.
Some people like me.
[Time of Confession] 9:15 PM 0 Wisecracks for Me
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Sunday, April 02, 2006
Weekend Maid Becomes Fat
Lest the MOM comes after me for verbal assault on domestic help, I'm really just talking to myself, about myself.
The weekend is like my nemesis, almost as much as is my coming home. It's such an intense affair of love and hate, I can't really decide if I'd rather do with or without it.
You see, at the stroke of midnight on Friday, or basically, the moment I set foot into my house, my getup of presentable chic-ness is reduced to rags. I become the Cinderella of Hougang. The 5 days of looking normal diminishes into a faint memory. My cheerful spirit is knocked left, right and centre as I enter and am greeted by a house (5-room flat with upstairs and downstairs, mind you) of clutter, mess and absolute horror. H-O-R-R-O-R.
I cannot bear to describe what I see for the sake of my poor heart.
I have become so accustommed to living alone with my own neat (literally) space, I cannot imagine moving home this May. Even if it is only for 3 months. The thought of living in the midst of a grubby mess is worse than taking up a Fear Factor challenge. I'm worried about how am I even going to breathe if one day, the towers of newspapers decide to cave in on me? *shrudder*
So anyway, while I'm appreciative that I get to 'book out' of the boring campus every weekend (neat but boring... can't get the best of both worlds, sadly), I have to face a whole load of chores when I get back. What's a weekend without time to relax? Crap right? So I take it out on my appetite and start to eat for comfort. Not a very good outlet for distress when you have tons of junk food stocked up (because good meals are seldom prepared), a sofa and a tv.
Another worry just crept in when I think about the 3 months at home.
I might become fat, flabby and unhealthy.
NOoooooooo.... it would cost too much to change my wardrobe if I found that I no longer fit into any of my clothes! For the sake of my bank account, I must control my hand, food and mouth disease before it's too late.
*slumps into the sofa*
Maybe later. I'm exhausted from doing the laundry and shoveling a path among the newspapers.
[Time of Confession] 1:57 PM 0 Wisecracks for Me
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]>
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<-- see what I mean? So anyway, I was minding my own business with the lecture notes and all when the doorbell rang and a postman stood at the door with a parcel. 'Ooh is that for me?' 'Joy Chua.' <-- He didn't sound very friendly. (Probably taken aback at my unkempt appearance. Oops.) 
