14:13.

From Charpinkie about the Boomerang Theory:

"some people have this connection... that no matter what happens... no matter how u stray, or go out to seek 'greener pastures', or simply just lead separate lives, in the end, u just return back to that one person because of that special connection. I suppose that's true.... There comes a point where u realise that it's not just the shared history or the level of comfort that draws you back to a person. It's just that irreplaceable spark and connection, I guess"

Will this be how it goes?

13:34.

"And You feel like no one before
You steal right under my door
And I kneel 'cause I want You some more
I want the lot of what You got
And I want nothing that You are not"

- Original Of The Species, U2

Am I getting ready to leave the ground?

Because the world looks so different when I am on my knees. Sometimes, all I can see are carpet and dust. And all I can feel is that I want You some more.

I have not vocalised this before until last night - The S k y e T who left Singapore 10 months ago and the S k y e T now is so different, miles apart. When I said that during an unscripted testimony last night at the last official OCF meeting for the semester, my soul took a step back in realisation of the worth of my words.

My life is a tornado, a whirlwind, sliding doors, escalators... a seagull's bounce just before it flies, a sparrow's bewilderment when it gets blown out of a tree, the landscape when clouds cover the sun and switched the world's lights out. In the vapour, in the wind, in the stuff one can't never catch, I see my life.

All that I can't leave behind I take with me in the luggage of me. And may God find it fit to use what I have, and may what I do leave behind be of some worth. I have no idea if I have left something, make some dent, changed the order in the slightest bit for good.

Maybe I am learning to say goodbye.

Throughout my life, at those crossroads - End of Sec school, end of Poly, end of jobs... it has not been hard to walk away. More often than not, it has been easy to move on. There have been trepidation, of course but I have been eager to go on to something new, start a new chapter, carry on writing the pages of my days. This time, it's not the same.

I am honestly not sure what is going to happen.

But I am staying on my knees.

And I am not going to get up.

I want to see God face to face while in this mortal flesh.

18:39.

For once, I slept early and dozed off by 1am.

I woke up at 340am, irritated about being a vicious mozzie's meal, before my mind was stunned into clarity by the yellow almost-full moon looking right in at me through the picture window. Went to the bathroom, counted four bites on my right arm, went back to the futon, applied the trusty Ping An Oil from home (from Hong Kong), and... logged onto Msn.

The unusualness of how the day was started perhaps set my random mood for the whole day.

By the way, I love going to Vic Mkt for a short run - one where my arms don't fall off from carrying purchases - in the early afternoon on a sunny day. Shades on, slippers on, no jackets required... if one could bottle feelings like they can capture moments with cameras and videos, this is one I want bottled.

And I will like to bottle the whole of Vic Mkt in two formats - the usual one and the night mkt which started yesterday - in those ship in a bottle capsule. Only on much larger scales. And take them home with me.

U2's album is so good. I can't not smile :>

Having a drum set at home is so good. I can't not laugh.

Music is so precious, I thank God You made it and left it with us.

Despite every uncertainty, and there are so many, I feel happy. The sun shines through said picture window, Bono is singing A Man And A Woman (his wife is so fortunate...), and in a short bit, I would be going out to have dinner with some friends.

Life is good.

The freedom of having your own living space is addictive. But yet, I won't seek to have my own pad in Singapore. It would be different, yes, perhaps too different for me to want it.

And you know, perhaps none of these should ever be bottled. Because life here is so beautiful because it is alive. Because it is fluid. Because it is not mine to control or hold. Because it holds me, not vice versa.

I love hearing live music in my own house.

I love it all.

Cool-whee.

Thank You, Lord. I love You so.

13:55.

"For I am convinced
that neither death nor life
neither angels nor demons
neither the present nor the future
nor any powers
neither height nor depth
nor any thing else in ALL creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
- Romans 8:38, 39

22:59.

Hey... if you read the previous two now-deleted posts, don't worry. Dismiss them as PMS, which is really true, and accept them as a Christian's, a person's life struggles. If I worried you or disturbed you, I apologise. You just had peeks into my darkest moments. Am I ok now? I know, believe and feel that all things work together for the good of those who love God and I am trusting and walking on.

Yup.

01:06.

My roomie left in a big yellow cab about 11 hours ago. Feels like the ending of a chapter. I am glad we had Sat's night bash for her. Special stuff helps saying goodbye easier. Germie rocks. I thank God that our staying arrangements worked out so very well.

[Hope Margaret Drive's Char Kway Teoh was avail, dear ;) ]

In 28 days time, it will be my turn to leave. Last night, I felt a very strong urge to stay here. It wasn't a new thing but neither is it one of those I-must, dug-in-heels stuborn insistence.

Singapore has so many things for me. Both places do. Less than an hour ago, as I was closing my room's door, I felt a sudden strong twinge of desire to be home in Singapore and with my family. It's strange how both places seem to be simple in their own ways. Life is simpler here in some aspects, and yet, life is simpler in many aspects too in Singapore. At the moment, I feel like I don't want to fight any more or try to make sense of things, I want to cuddle into bed, maybe shed a few tears of uncertainty and drop into sleep. And I want to remember and know that I am sleeping in the Everlasting Arms and that in my weakness, He is made strong.

I blame PMS for my mood.

I need to be quiet. It feels a bit like I am driving on a bridge that has broken off and I am about to get to that point where every thing stops or drops. Either that, or I fly.

Help, God, help.

00:17.

Music purchased in the last three days:
CD - SGT Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles - AUD13.99
CD - Perfect Day, Lou Reed - AUD8.99
CD - Dark Side Of The Moon, Pink Floyd - AUD13.99
CD - Symphony Nos. 40 & 41, Mozart - AUD1.99
DVD - Rattle And Hum, U2 - ASUD24.95

The stuff I like can be found cheap here. Whee.

16:02.

I took forever to do this, and God knows I am not even sure of these companies I am sending my resume to. But three emails later, and a read though a friend's story of how God led him to greater heights in a land where he didn't speak the language or know the system after he quit the paper a few weeks after I did have heartened me amazingly so.

I am singing the lyrics of Zoo Station, U2:

"I'm ready
I'm ready for the laughing gas
I'm ready
I'm ready for what's next
I'm ready to duck
I'm ready to dive
I'm ready to say
I'm glad to be alive
I'm ready
I'm ready for the push"

And I am going to send out more emails with my neat little pdf resume out tonight.

For now, I am going to take advantage of the 26 degrees weather (I feel like I am burning up just sitting in my room) and go hit the park with my laptop. It's my date with God and we are going to think through some stuff.

The joys of Someone who will never let you go.

21:59.

"From the place where morning gathers
You can look sometimes forever 'til you see
What time may never know, what time may never know
How the Lord takes by its corners this whole world
And shakes us forward and shakes us free
To run wild with the hope, to run wild with the hope
The hope that this thirst will not last long
That it will soon drown in the song not sung in vain
And I feel the thunder in the sky, I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name"
- Calling Out Your Name, Rich Mullins

22:30.

Perhaps I am "just another writer still trapped within my youth", like (yup) Dan Hill sung in his wrenching 80s power ballad.

Quotes that comforted me today, derived from books I eventually exercised enough self-control to put back on their shelves at Word just now.

"The central story of my life is about nothing else. An unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction." - CS Lewis

If I look back on my 23 years, one of the threads that has remained on the forefront of my consciousness and being is this dissatisfaction. It breaks me and keep breaking me. Whoever I thought I was has been shattered in the wrestling with the Almighty.

I sometimes - not unoften - half-kill myself questioning if this sanity-bending drive could be just because I am screwed up.

I am searching for the me before the world was made. Maybe I am searching for my face before the world was made, as wonderfully expressed by Yeats.

[And Bruce Springsteen's singing Hungry Heart now].

Today, I walked the streets and felt an infinite sense of my finite-ness.

The Swiss-German theologian Karl Barth wrote, "The will for life is also the will for joy. It is hypocrisy to hide this from oneself. A person who tries to disbar himself from joy is certainly not an obedient person."

Now and then, I have been bothered by how infinitely normal I am becoming. I have always thought that with the meaning of life, comes happiness and all else. I am back at a place where I still believe that but with a difference, the different-ness of now having felt personally the desire for happiness in an articulated aware fashion. And there were times when I questioned my desire, if I could want it more than Numero Ono, and I wasn't sure if this fairly new (in its clarity, it was new) want was right.

God, your love is teaching me how to kneel.

In You, I am both common and unique, child and adult, cynical yet trusting, alive and dead... being more contradictions that I identify as I live in You. Keep me Yours, Lord. My mind is a whirlwind and a firewall all at once, and my heart is out of control.

Jesus, You are my best friend.

And You will always be.

19:20.

I walked away from a 30 percent sale at Guitar Paradise.... Could have got my start-up electric guitar for AUD118.

*looks at just-purchased Vic Firth drumsticks and sticks bag (purchased at Drummers Paradise) for consolation*

23:10.

Let me tell you about Mornington.

Five of us made the 2-hour drive up to this coastal area on Nov 2, a public holiday which name I cannot recall (it's something about the Melbourne Cup and races...).

The idea for a roadtrip was vocalised on Oct 25, during coffee after Urban Life, City Church's cell groups. We planned on making it on a Saturday but Nov 1, again after Urban Life, this time at a jazz club we hit after cell group, Raymond announced he couldn't make it on Sat due to an Ethopian wedding he was due to attend. So there in the Bennett's Lane, bathed in blue-ish glow in a club that rapidly un-filled after the band ended, we decided to do the road trip the day after.

And that was a full paragraph of information that you didn't need to know and I have no idea why I chronicled.

Any how, yes. Mornington.

If happiness could be measured, then I was perhaps guilty of being excessively happy. If indeed happiness could ever be excessive.

From pancake breakfast along Chapel, shouting to Nirvana in the car along with James and Kenneth while Germaine and Ray just stare (I think...) to screaming at the coastline (twice) from a lookout cliff in a fashion akin to every other movie or television drama character who did so before. Never mind that we waited half an hour for James and Ken to pick us up, never mind that we were going with a carload of people mostly unfamiliar to us. From scattering salt on Kenneth at Portsea, running out in the pouring rain to take picture of Skye Road and me with the road sign (kudos to Germie) and every other little thing that happened... flip, really just even being in the car, I was happy. The rain could not stop that, being in slippers during pouring rain was but an insignificant matter, as was being cold and at times, wet.

I was happy when Germie and me went downstairs at 745am to meet Ray and wait for the car, I was happy when we were all sprawled on our living room's floor at the end of the day about 10.30pm, every one engaging in nonsense. And if I am using the three words too often in this post, it's because I was really... happy.

The darnest thing was that after they left, and Germie started her tussle with the essays in the living room while I sat on my futon in our room, I felt some sadness. Nothing lasts forever.

Maybe that utterly weird ritual with candlelights, incense and a would-be pen portrait on - of all surfaces... - toilet paper in James' modified beng (heh) car could be inscribed with meaning beyond what we understand.

If you went "huh?" at that description of a seeming weird ritual, you are justified in doing so. 'fraid I don't quite have words to describe the whole event and what happened leading up to it. In sum, I ran back to the car half-drenched from shooting Skye Road [inserts big grin] to find my roadtrip kakis lighting tealights and incense, the same good friends who proceeded to chant some pseudo latin before each blowing out an incense. That was the Skye memorial. Hah.

If T N P and OCF and all of last and this year have been the heightened lessons or rather, increased manifestations of God's work in teaching me to love, then I have to say that that day in Mornington was a heightened exercise in happiness.

Germie, Ray, Ken, James... thank you.

And pictures are on the photo blog.

18:08.

Arafat dead.

01:59.

"I will go where You send me
Jesus, take me now I'm Yours
I'm Yours
I lay my life on the altar
Every thing I give to You alone
Here I am"
- Here I Am, Planet Shakers

This song, the theme song for July Camp, will always mean so much to me.

I don't sing songs just because that is what I am supposed to do in church or OCF or Urban Life. I sing because I want to, because I need to, and because I have A Reason to sing. I worship with my mind too.

And with all songs, I am aware of lyrics and I evaluate biblical correctness and how much I mean the words that pass my lips.

I guess to sum that up, it's just that I won't sing without heart and conviction because empty words are simply that - empty.

So I've sung the songs, evaluated the thoughts and meant the words. I have given my heart, Lord. And now, I live them. I lived them, am living them, and will live them.

Wherever it is You want me, Lord, here am I. And I will go.

I'm not digging my heels in and forcing my time. I will only dig my heels in if You say stay but the world protests to make me move. Where you want me to be, I will go. For only in You am I complete.

"Evermore... I am Yours evermore"
- Evermore, Planet Shakers

I am Yours. It was in City Church while singing this song when I started to pray. A leather tag on my jeans brands it as Levis'. Designers mark their creation with their names. When you are someone's, it is supposed to be reflected in your appearance. I asked to be branded, marked, as God's. As Jesus'.

"Whatever it takes, I will be one who lives in the fresh fullness of life
Of those who are alive from the dead, whatever the cost, whatever it takes"
- Cassie's song, The Kry

The journal of Columbine's High martyr arranged in song were lyrics and song on my lips this noon. So whatever it takes... whatever You need to do, Lord do in me. I want to reflect Christ. I want to truly be Light. I want people to be able to see that I am Yours.

"My prayer is still the same"
- Rain Down, Planet Shakers

You are telling me, You have been telling me an answer. We are back to the beginning. I will seek You first above all else. I believe, yes, I believe that once you find the meaning of life, every thing else - happiness and all that one existentially desires - fall into place. It's You, Lord, it's all about You. I will seek no one and nothing else.

You are my first love.

And I am Yours.

I adore You.

02:02.

A Place To Stand On, Rich Mullins
Well there's a lot of things working against me
But I know I can't lose
Yeah there's a lot of things working against me
But I know I can't lose
And there's a lot of miles still between me and my home
But I've learned a lot through the years, now
I'm more than just young
I got a lot of things working against me
But I know I can't lose

And there's a lot of love locked up inside of me
That I'm learning to give
Yeah there's a lot of love locked up inside of me
That I'm learning to give
So that like that bush in Sinai that burned but was not consumed
May the speed of my life throw sparks on the shadows of the tombs
I got a lot of love locked up inside me
I'm learning to give

So hold on to my hand yeah hold on to my hand
'Cause I need a place to run to and a place to stand

And there's a lot of things this world has hidden
That I'm learning to see
Yeah there's a lot of things this world has hidden
That I'm learning to see
Well I have seen some injustice but I've seen mercy too
I was blinded by the things I saw until I looked at You
There's a lot of things this world has hidden
I'm learning to see

So hold on to my hand hold on to my hand
'Cause I need a place to run to and a place to stand

Hold on to my hand yeah hold on to my hand
'Cause I need a place to run to and a place to stand

23:59.

Without You, there are no colours in my world.

22:41.

I reckon it must had been in Sec Three when a classmate or teacher mentioned a post-millenium year (2010? 2020? I can't recall) and I automatically went, "Oh my gosh, I probably be dead by then". The irrelevance of that comment in the light of the fact that 2000 was only four years away then was pointed out to me and I covered up my boo-boo with a "30 is like being dead" or something to that effect. You know, the usual pride of youth and teenage disdain towards age.

I used to think I was always grown up for whatever age I was at. Today, I just told someone that I don't think I will ever grow up. How cliched a line it may be, but I employed it. I'm 23, living in the year 2004 and moving as linear time dicates. And next year, I will be 24. And this story won't end until this earthly tent ends.

Do I feel like an adult? I don't think I have ever really felt like a child, not totally.

There are moments in my life when every thing seems to become real-er, clear-er and freezes for a spilt-second frame. They have happened throughout my life, from childhood to now, and perhaps what happen during those moments - or at least one thing that happens among every thing else - is that I really feel my skin. The outsider looking in becomes the onlooker from inside, from behind these brown eyes, as if I am not the first person.

So it is that I am still the same person. And if it's all right with you, we won't go into great discourses of identity as definition and memories and soul vis-a-vis Identity.

My finite-ness presses against my soul.

This afternoon for my first meal of the day, I chomped down a Big Breakfast (the joys of all-day breakfast menus... sigh) of one sausage, two eggs, two pieces of toast with butter, two strips of bacon, one hashbrown, some sauteed mushrooms, half a tomato and a black coffee.

Considering my breakfast normally consists of one toast and a coffee or tea with no sugar, this was properly unpreceded. The theory of good conversation, coffee and (oh all right, 12) bucks being a sure win was tested in that nice cafe ran by Italians with stereo speakers playing guitar music from the three guitar virtuosos at Bourke.

I somehow cannot see today duplicated in Singapore - Spending five-and-a-half hours with a new friend whopping great brekkie, then chilling later at her place and watching Eat Drink Man Woman before I strolled home down Elizabeth road to cook dinner. It was one of those days with sun but a pleasure chill in the air still and it was that cool embrace of Spring that embraced me and strolled home with me alongside people who just knocked off work.

Solid good way to spend the day.

Maybe I am supposed to be slowly saying my goodbyes to this land and its people now but I keep falling.

I just keep falling.

00:38.

As I laugh louder and live harder and ride the emotional rollercoaster, it seems as if I am running to stand still. There are few things, or nothing in life which you can really count on. And as for people, the count only increases slightly.

Most of us walk through life lonely. Some of us find paper clutches to combat this. Others dare not reach out. And still more, there are some who are careful about reaching out in case love and friendship are really only just lonely people desperate for companionship wanting to get some.

If I could be categorised, I would be in that last category, concerned about motives and drive, both an observer of society as well as observer of myself and convicted that being alone does not at all mean being lonely.

Last year, God started to teach me more about loving. This year, the lesson continues - as it will throughout my life - and I have learnt and am learning to give and... to love.

The truth is this. In the last seven or so years I started attending church, I have never had as much spiritual support as I have right now here in Melb. And despite there being few options for a kaki if I spontaneously wanted to go grab a coffee, I feel connected to people in a way I don't reckon I have had for a long time.

The truth is this. I have fallen in love with all these people in OCF and church and when I board that Qantas/ British Airways plane on Dec 21, my heart would probably break into further pieces.

I find myself not really wanting to think a lot about the stuff on its way. And I wonder if my laugh has some hint of desperation. Some kind of desperation to just get all I can now, while I can.

In a paradox, I find too myself wanting to give. Give as much of myself away as I can. Give as much of whatever good I could possibly give away. Just give. The strangest thing might be that I honestly don't think it's about me. It's not about leaving the best image I can of S k y e T. It's not about desperately trying to ensure that I am remembered (not that being remembered is a nasty thought....). It's just not about this finite creature who lives by grace and day by day, is only becoming more aware of how much of a jar of clay she is, and an extremely broken, small and not user-friendly one too at that.

There are many things I want to write about. To God, who knows all things; to me, who knows nothing; and to you, readers who I have given access into my head. But for now, I am going to hit the sack. Am not sleepy but gastric pains are coming on and I don't want to stick around to have them come full-on.

Walking on the Melbourne streets at night is one of the most peaceful things in life. And before I leave, I hope I have another chance to encounter a flock of seagulls on the ground at night so I can run right into their midst and go "boo!".

02.51.

Slept at 6.06am yesterday. The sunrise was worth staying up a while longer for. Pictures sequence are haphazard. Apologies. I just really feel like posting every shot. I shot 120 photos over about 15 minutes. The light in the skies changes with every second every shot seems to me a different story. Life is good. Mornington's and Skye Road's pictures will be up in a few days.... :)

sweep. 5:55am.
copyright.skye.t/

Burn.
copyright.skye.t/

Unfurl. 5:56am.
copyright.skye.t/

The view from here. 5.51am.
copyright.skye.t/

Those thick, heavy clouds looked so much like curtains for the globe.
copyright.skye.t/

... and then it lifts....
copyright.skye.t/

This is my world. Wow.
copyright.skye.t/

God's watercolours.
copyright.skye.t/

The skies are on fire.
copyright.skye.t/

05:02.

America.

12:41.

I miss home.

It's not really about Singapore. Nor is it about how I already miss Melbourne even as I spend my last month or so here. Somehow, in my current stateless make-up, I yearn for that home I know I am going back to.

"Home... hard to know what it is if you never had one
Home... I can say where it is but I know I'm going Home
That's where the heart is" - Walk On

Less than an hour after I got up for the day, I was on this futon with my guitar, strumming and singing Rich Mullin's If I Stand.

"So if I stand, let me stand on the promise that You will see me through.
And if I can't let me fall on the Grace that first brought me to You!
And if I sing let it be for the joy that has born in me these songs
and if I weep let it be as a man who is longing for his ho-ome"

I don't have my heart.

I've given it to my God and Lord a long time ago.

Oh sure, I perpetually am tugging it back for the stupidest reasons.

But it's still with Him.

That's the only way it can live on.

Three chords, a red guitar and the truth.

And I miss drumming already.