the littlest bobby

the only thing cuter than uhhhh, anything on cute overload is a little british child in a bobby outfit going, “ello ello ello ello, wot do we ‘ave ‘ere?”

ophelian

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble of hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
- Romans 8:35

i feel i have to work this out for myself again after an abysmal weekend of backsliding. how is it that after every mental victory, every spiritual high, there comes an attack worse than the previous one and it knaws and knaws into your bones. yet on monday i feel like i have gotten my answer already from Romans and Colossians… we don’t cling on to God by our fingertips. He holds on to us. and that should have been all the assurance i needed. realising that i have to humble myself– perhaps i have been the one who has been unlovable, i have been the one who has been unkind.

Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules
- Colossians 2:20

i want to submit, and i want to say, i know that degree classifications, and exam marks, and competition with other people don’t matter. i want to say, a career that is shiny and covetable is not important. i want to say, it is not what i want in life, it was what God wants in my life that matters– but it’s hard. there’s a little voice that is whispering, “but what about what i want in my life? am i to give it all up?” and i should be quashing this voice, because i know ultimately the plan for my future has always been filled with hope, and who am i to question this plan– but when everything is nebulous and unclear it is so difficult to let go let go and Trust.

like Pepper said on Monday, we know we already have this hope– there is hope. it has always been ours to keep. like Graham always says– we aren’t on the winning side, we’ve already won.

But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. 26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
- Romans 8:24-26

patience. hope. peace.

shhhh

Dear Miss Chin

APPLICATION FOR AN INTERNSHIP PROGRAMME IN THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

We acknowledge with thanks your application to participate in our
Ministry’s Internship Programme.

The overwhelming response that we have received has indeed made our
selection process difficult. After careful consideration, we regret that
you have not been shortlisted for the internship programme. Kindly note
that we do not enter into correspondence with regard to the reasons for
selection of candidates.

Thank you for your interest in our Ministry and we wish you all the best in
your future endeavours.

sigh. on top of this, the esplanade hasn’t replied me about my email yet, even though they replied cui’s. sad.

i know God is supposed to open another door everytime one closes, but it doesn’t stop you from feeling like you’re a failure.
—

—

(i thought i was better, but the tears couldn’t stop last thursday.)

aristocrat

interestingly, after going through it with en qi on friday, i opened my msn today to see that raining’s nick went “my Father is the King of Kings”.

hur hur. i told you i was a princess.

tumult

i don’t know why i’m letting all these little things bother me, but everything, everything’s been bugging me lately. all these things that ordinarily i would have let go and rolled with it, i keep holding on and turning in my mind over and over again and i can’t let it go. and i know i’m not supposed to try to solve it by myself because i can’t, and i know it is my fault my fault i am such a brat and i just keep asking for it over and over and over again.

but i just feel so dirty so dirty all over and i can’t be rid of this feeling everything is tainted and it will never be clean again, i can never be clean again– i am a stranger in my own house (possibly not anymore), and my own room and my clothes are dirty and my hair stinks and i am sweaty and i feel oily and my carpet has bits and pieces of dirt all over it, the bed lining is yellowed with god-knows-what the previous occupant did, and there is grime everywhere everywhere and i just don’t like the mud the wetness the dirty water that has stained everything i have it is on my coat on my socks on my jeans it is everywhere everywhere the dirt is everywhere i can’t deal with this it is driving me mad mad mad and perhaps i really am for letting this dirt get to me–

but perhaps it is not the dirt, it is the hatchet that is buried, and the silent subtle snubs from people, and the innocent callousness that people unknowingly inflict that is hurting me and when there is not even the clean sanctity of my room to retreat to anymore then i have nothing anymore have i?

i know the arguments against feeling this way in my head and i know i ought to know it my heart but something is stubbornly holding on to the hurt and the anger and the anxiety and it won’t let it go won’t let it go nothing is valid anymore nothing is clean anymore nothing is certain anymore.

why do i feel like such a failure. socially inept and unliked, and treated with tolerance– it is more than i should be asking for but it hurts it hurts and somewhere in there is anxiety of academia and for being such a lazy lazy lazy bum that i can’t even get my act together–

i think i’ve been going slightly mad lately again. but for once, i genuinely, genuinely am thinking that i might need professional help with this.

uproot

sigh. because blogger was having a problem with broken pipes and clashing horribly with fateback, and because i like wordpress’s system. i decided to move. it feels sad though, leaving behind the narcissus url i loved so much.

the url here happened more by accident than anything– and yes, it’s a real word. dictionary.com it, i dare you too.

and goodbye to dreams of a first class degree. my last term results for english are horribly dismal. granted, it’s a solid second upper score, but it’s demoralising. add that to the fact that i don’t quite love politics, and can’t score fantabulously in it– i think i’ll graduate as a mediocre student. and just– sigh. i just feel like i’m wasting all of my parents’ money now. and it’s just. depressive.

i don’t know what to do. i have a major exam coming, and i am completely blank about the module that just passed me by.

round robin

deep down inside, everyone’s boring. and we live each day terrified that someone else will find out.

sigh. vanilla bases and vanilla cores.

—

has been a day of deep conversations about everything under the sun… but the question remains unanswered. what makes us what we are? boring, interesting, liked, abrasive, kind, rude, eccentric, mundane? is it school, friends, family, or is this what we are to the very core of our existence, and nothing, nothing can ever change this.

it can’t simply be boiled down to us being made a certain way, can it? how awful and damning it would be. it’s like what en qi said to me a long time ago, in an argument about predestination– it is knowing we can be different, that there is a possible way out, that will give us the strength to really change. there are no types, no one is a flat paper cut out, diminished against the sun and the tulips– councillors are not universally popular and confident, pretty girls are not automatically nasty to geeks, men don’t have to be stoic and have the emotional capacity of a teaspoon.

because everyone is the same beneath it all, aren’t they? below the small stupid differences, there’s the big stupid similarities scrawled all over our souls– we are boring, we are petty, we want to be loved– all over all over the nasty stench of humanity, this stupid cesspool of life. i’m no more interesting than you are, no more loved than you are, no more smarter than you are, no better, no better than anyone else.

and it is this realisation isn’t it– that we are more similar to each other than different that gives us empathy, slippery and nebulous and bordering on self-centred narcissism, and allows us to see past ourselves to realise that everyone can and will feel the same, and it is not up to us to judge whether their emotion is any more valid than ours.

it’s just sad, ultimately. this sounds stupid, and fake, and forced, and most people will not believe a word of it– but i wish people would just be happy. i wish you would know you were loved all the time, i wish you would find security and stability, i wish you would find peace, i wish you would find self-acceptance, i wish you would lose your restlessness and come home–

but it is not up to any other human being to give or to grant and that is why we shall never be happy. we never shall.

Snowman Victim of Vicious Attack

See video proof here

and yes, it’s snowing. in march. england is strange, no?