Excuse me

while I have a little chat with myself.

I hate studying

No need to elaborate, really.

Patience

God has quirky ways of breaking you down and teaching you to learn to be patient.

After three attempts of trying to take my IP Law exam and failed on all three accounts because the tutor postponed the paper each time (amazing right?). I'm really quite pleased to say that I've learnt to be patient and accepting.

Or maybe I'm just really jaded. But I don't think so, cause in the weirdest way, I'm actually quite happy it happened. :p

Dearest

China University of Poutical Science and Law,

Why can't things go right, for once? Sometimes it can get overwhelmingly frustrating, you know? Just spare me the agony, let me take sit through my four exam papers and go home.

And no, it really is spelled poutical. It says so in my school foolscap. The title and the school crest.

Love is patient....Love is patient...

23 more days to go, STILL 4 more exams to take (grr), one holiday to look forward to. :)

What am I doing

one day before the exam.

Copying out rows of Chinese characters because the examination is about testing your copying speed, not how much knowledge you have in the subject.

Thus, I have an aching hand and an ugly handwriting. :(

Phone calls

You said you wanted to call today and it scares me a little. It scares me because I wrote you a letter back then, poured out heart and soul. Actually it might only be tears which were spilled, the words smudged into a blur of purple and water. It scares me because in that minute puddle contains my little fears and vulnerabilities, not so little frustrations and gripes accumulated and have found release on a school foolscap. It scares me because we have not spoken much in years, and even if we had, my memories reveals pathetic one-sided conversations. It scares me because I've flown a great distance to escape, to take a break, to try and forget.

After all, to love, to forgive from afar is always, and has always been, much easier.

28 days later...

Not quite sure how to feel. Brain's too full of swirling Chinese characters bumping into each other in a random fashion, Brownian motion of certain tardiness. Then settling down to a line, a sentence that makes no sense. A silent grip of sudden anxiety, yet with a tinge of nonchalance...the prospect of failure.

I make no sense. It was simply an impulse to throw out English words I wish I had better control of.

Leaving two days after the last paper. Perhaps a quick exit will make separation more bearable. I'll miss Beijing, I think I will...but sometimes the frustration at the cloying slowness and missing (restricted) bits and pieces of the internet can be rather overwhelming.

I'm frustrated

The dawdling attitude of CUPL's admin is really getting to me. I can't book my air tickets because that particular teacher can't confirm the date (it's only a date, for goodness' sake!), and I'm fast becoming irritated with him as a person and teacher as well. Still I'm entertaining the thought of booking my flight anyhow. Just that sense of being worried that there'll be no seats available...

These hot days are mad blood boiling. And it doesn't help that I've developed little ulcers all over my lower lip, making it horribly painful and the lip-bearer feeling horribly unhappy with everything.

Love is patient...Love is patient...

Much to give thanks for

A thousand times I failed
Still your mercy remains
And should I stumble again
I'm caught in Your grace

Everlasting
Your light will shine when all else fades

What am I doing now

Fighting for attention with a certain online game. I really am such a loser. :x

Happy one-more-year, Joel :)

Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders build in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. - Psalm 127:1-2

Hillsong Concert

There was so much hype about it and many people turned up (as early as 4pm when the concert was supposed to start at 7pm!). But being much blessed, I was roped in to be an usher for the day, along with Ammily, Huixian and Jiasong. We had much better treatment - there was no need to queue up outside, there was food and we had great seats, up close with the performers. I really enjoyed myself and it was cool to see many people (only foreigners) turn up, worship God and pray for China together. It was very refreshing. I even met a few familiar faces, including a Taiwan missionary I met in EARC a few years back. And it was so much fun hanging out with the three others, it was almost hilarious.

I think I miss the 'Charismatic' atmosphere, and also the English-speaking community. But still since I've resolved to hang out with locals to understand China more, I shall continue doing that for the last month. It hasn't been easy sometimes so I need loads of strength from God to press on. Worshiping at Haidian Church has its commendable and shortcomings (as all churches), but mostly I feel I'm not being fed enough or the Chinese sermons are too difficult to comprehend, and not to mention rather sleep-inducing sometimes. Also I have my reservations here and there, and it might be too late to rectify anything. I'll just let God lead.



Happy ushers!














Worshiping God













I'm really really amused by Arthur and how much he's connected to Singapore. ;p

Children's Day!

1st June is Children's Day which is, if I understood correctly, the day the 少先队was established and on this day the primary school children celebrate it's establishment and would enter the the so-called party. (I hope I have understood 校长or小王叔叔correctly.) Anyhow, the teachers of 信心小学took great effort to come up with a Children's Day celebration at a nearby University to allow the students an opportunity to perform and have fun. Evidently, they did have fun (the whole place was pretty chaotic) and the tired ones were the teachers. After the concert, 校长looked at me, gave a sigh of relief and said, '感谢主！' Which was really, what all that mattered. :)



Evidently Children's Day








红领巾which is the red tie we're wearing. The students tied it for me as a way of thanking the teachers. Red represents the blood split in order to establish the Communist Party.














Primary 5 girls presenting a dance item.









Haha, I thought it was really funny how the kids got bored while waiting for the bus and simply whipped out a chess set and started playing, like those usual groups of old men playing chess on the streets.






This is Feifei, thinking that he's a fowl of some sort. (He was doing this while being totally unaware that someone was taking his photo. ;p)











It was an eye-opening experience, (especially when they had this whole procession in front, with the saluting and red flags) and it just made me love China more. Reminded me of this Chinese New Year programme that they show on CCTV every year. Last year they had this bunch of migrant kids reciting a poem about how their parents are contributing to the society through hard labour and how the migrant kids are not as well-off as the city kids and hence have less opportunities. Most of the audience cried during the performance and I simply brushed it off as them being melodramatic or some odd Chinese sentiment I didn't understand. But having this experience and seeing how difficult it is to run a school for such children and how they have much less privilege really made me appreciate all these.