hmmm.

"I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the centre of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage heap; at a crossroad so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew and Latin and in Greek; at the kind of place where cynics talk smut and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where he died. And that is what he died about. And that is where churchmen ought to be, and what churchmen should be about.” - George MacLeod

perhaps i should have named oatmeal, eliot-

some of the brilliance might have rubbed off then.

two feathers have appeared on the former's otherwise bald american eagle's head; hope of handsomeness. in the meantime he remains single-minded and biasedly curious. sometimes he wrings my heart in his patient hopeless waiting, at others he drives me to name-calling and other insults, like today when i had to clean up after his poop inbetween reading eliot. mostly i am exasperated at my inconsistency.

does anyone else like eliot/the mill on the floss? credit goes to whoever called it a tragedy of the everyday; i can't agree more. and all that tension, be still my heart.

(haha oatmeal is so sleepy he's closing his eyes on standing on my laptop, but the silly bird refuses to go to his box.)

and-

hi 24, you have had me confounded for most of this year. but let's see what we can do with you.

i just spent the past hour or so cutting my hair :)

didn't know that much time was passing; it felt more like twenty minutes actually. and i must say i'm pretty darn pleased with the result; cheers.

in other news, i'm happily counting down to the end of july. work is such a refining process, really. but as g reminded us the past thursday, our work rests on Christ's- which is already perfect, already complete. crazy truth. this means no striving for merit, no search for validation or worth through the work of my hands. because His work was the ultimate fulfillment, i may do mine without fear. what a relief to the otherwise insatiable demands of the burden. liberte!

speaking of time and counting, i often wonder what 2012 will see. i am not insensible to the fact that 2011 has been pretty well swirled, like flavours rainbowing basic ice+cream. and it's only(already) july! i can smell the end of the year. :) -sniff sniff.

our work rests on Christ's- already perfect, already complete. thank God.

the new four letter word

so, work is still teh sadness.

i don't know what it is about work that turns otherwise would-be perfectly exuberant girls into serious ones, talking quietly while cocoa cream cheese muffins bake. why is it, that back in uni we could be stressed with essays and projects and yet, when meeting up over a cup of tea we could be so cheerful, so happy.

and why is it that events two years ago still count? once in awhile, i'll remember flashes of what transpired that blazing day by the reservoir, and a part of me ruefully concludes that if nothing else perhaps i have been proven true.

i don't know, i wish i did. every day i tell myself that this, the daily grind, calls of duty, meetings, behaviour management and classroom control has its purpose, and worth, in a place where i feel neither drive nor ambition, faithfulness is the offering i bring. to learn to do well at tasks that seem to demand what i am precisely weakest at. does it have to be dreary?

oh, stuff and bunnies. (and zirrafes)

so you know the patterns of my thoughts

hi weekend, a perfectly lovely one so far. i have just finished some soup and am content. yesterday i met mummy after seeing the doctor and we wrote a letter to my grand-uncle to china while waiting for daddy to come. today i heard a woman speak; she seemed to hold women in very high regard. maybe i should pick up a something, something to be interested in and work at. went shopping with gayle last night, not that we bought anything but it was so nice to be appreciating clothes. there was the prettiest coral dress, but not in my size, awh. after that i met the guys and a girl named charissa at old school. they morphed into a camera club without telling me, so scarf, dress and i ended up on a sleepy heap on the boards of the singapore river. sometime after four i reached home and woke up when daddy called my name. i am currently reading rudyard kipling; unbelieveable how it took me 24 years to get there. when i have children to read to this will be their bedtime story. speaking of bedtime, it's mine. goodnight world.

update: putting up a photo j took of me in said sleepy heap; not that i remember this

yours truly, in haste

i'd originally planned to write about colours, but mmmm.

hl mailed complaining about cute christian girls, and asking why 'must y'all be so cute'. i don't know the effects, but i could offer my sympathies (: that, and also because i don't know how else to reply.

i chopped open my first durian today, hurray. i came home hoping there'd be, and there was. only, this one wasn't cut more than a crack. for my mommy to inspect, i suppose. so i took the biggest knife i could find, visions of chopping thumb off, mentally positioning myself in anticipation should the cleaver separate from the handle, etc- it's hard to open a durian! in the end i took the stone thing- i don't know what it's called locally, but they use it when making som tum-and banged my way through. was rather proud of myself when everything fell apart, 1101e of surviving on a desert island, and all that.

so i'll be an asset on durian island, all i need is a knife and stone. let's go.

"rachel and work are like two diametrically opposite notions"

- j's initial disbelief to news that i've been working for awhile

not that i think it's true; what was funny was his reaction. there were other things i said i'd remember, but somehow i didn't or else they lost their flavour and this was the only one absolute enough in excess to be memorable. some kind of humourous.

my toenail paints are taking ages to strip away, and meanwhile they scratch themselves hoarse. soon enough i will take stacks of paper and a black pen and exhaust myself of words and events, then sit and stare at pomogrenate vines till they turn into fireflies. before that happens though, i am going to eat durian. i had an awkward car moment yesterday.

i don't know why my knee's taking so long to heal this time; i think i am properly scared now and will not run long-distance again, i have joined the club of clanking bones. :( but at least there's the swimming pool, if i ever get down to that. knee, please heal soon- i cannot walk until you do.

thrown by one, meant for another

today my netball training came in handy, as i deflected a hurtling textbook before it reached its intended.

in other news, the clouds have been strange lately, calling me to stop and captivate. today they were almost alive, set against the wide white-blueness-

five

low-lying,

huge, silent, sitting

cloud sheep

awaiting their shepherd.

mass of thin runny clouds,

egg-white spread over a pan.

canyons too near to touch

base without beginning.

citadel of cities,

mighty and compelling,

glorious light so bright.

tired by tears

i thought my reaction (i teared) at the results of GE 2011 last night was mega, but i should see myself now.

many things could be said of Singapore's elections this year- if we gathered all the words written and spoken, commented and discussed, perhaps we would drown.

winners and losers, gracious defeats and arrogant presumptions. a man's character never meant so much: weighed by deed and fleshed for all to see.

dancing between the drops

abcde,

let me pick my way slowly through the pieces. the past four, almost five months have passed in a blur; it's unfair that happens because each day comes so vividly, they shouldn't get mashed up together like they didn't matter or have individualities, they did. i have gone from amused to novel, to blasé, to worn, to a hundred places in between. some days it feels like i stand in a white room while jigsaw pieces rain down upon me, things are breathless and piling up, the clues the obstacles, my hair loose falling down my back.

these months are for waiting, waiting is not so hard anymore. i sit sometimes, stand sometimes, move around like a stop-motion video. where i am has desks and chairs, cupboards and screens. the world is stopping for the weekend. i don't move as much as skirt, navigating between metal cages and books, glares and growls. now and then the clock breaks down and i am left dangling in space, leaning against the wall. sunlight fights for space with me and i lose time. everything is yellow and outside the glass panes are tiny men constructing a river from soil.

memories that flash have cheated, vietnam, mongolia and new zealand. impersonable, i have found the word. today i tried foreign, distant, past. i wonder why, and if it is because they wandered to other ports of call. the flavour is gone out of them- they are a stranger's memories. or perhaps i am the stranger, and these are someone else's memories seeking refuge in me. she keeps the flavours, i the chronology. once you were gone/it was never an honest world

there isn't really much else to say, except i think of the present and future all the time, and impassively of the past. i find hearts and size them up, sit on buses and lose myself. this is a time of waiting.

1) while waiting under a bus stop whose roof leaked, holding an umbrella over me i heard a fat man whistle, whistle a tune, whistle a hymn.

2) i have four letters scattered before the keys; one bound for australia, the other new zealand, one for bristol and one for home.

3) and yes hl, i can drive. why do you ask?

perhaps he's right

me: ... and at three i have a meeting-
j: yeah i'm going for it too
me: (stares for an inordinately long time while mind flashes various tables and people around tables trying to find j's face in one of them) oh... that's right.
j: you're in too many committees la

our newspapers are torn for space

g said that this year has been simply tragic, and she is too right. i still have no words for the 20th of march, and how a and m are still grieving. what does it all mean?

and then there's the new phase of life i have entered. i couldn't sleep last night, and got to thinking. news of a trip to yogyakata that i will not be able to take leave for was demoralising at midnight, and triggered waves of missing i had near forgotten. things that have changed since three months: thinking, time and community. i have been held under by this environment for too long, and have too many responsibilities out of it. what this means is there is no place and no space to think. and then i miss the ifg people- they're the home i left too completely too suddenly, i don't see them anymore.
i can't stay where i am too long; water will burst my lungs.

stories of loss and heroism are from time forgotten.

but that there had to be stories at all- beggars the mind.
is winged mars atop gaia now, that libya shoots its own people, and civilians prepare for violence? and how, that the catastrophe befalling christchurch should be entirely eclipsed by the pyre of japan. a 'threefold assault of shaking land, swollen water and... poisoned air', as one writer put it.

here, now, the rain falls over our land, beautiful. but no calm to the heart is offered, no ease to the consternation. no answer for the questions inside.
what adds on is the complete disparity of their situation and mine.

what is the response to be offered from one individual to nations, what can be offered at all. what does it mean to rise up to the challenge, this time?