Monday, October 31, 2005

1210. sg time.

" Make my life a prayer to You
I wanna do what you want me to
No empty words
and no white lies
No token prayers
no compromise

I wanna shine the light You gave
Thru Your Son You sent to save us
From ourselves and our despair
It comforts me to know You're really there

Well I wanna thank you now for being patient with me
Oh it's so hard to see when my eyes are on me
I guess I'll have to trust and just believe what You say
Oh you're coming again
Coming to take me away

I wanna die and let You give
Your life to me so I might live
And share the hope You gave me
The love that set me free

I wanna tell the world out there
You're not some fable or fairy tale
That I've made up inside my head
You're God the Son and You've risen from the dead! "

- Make My Life A Prayer To You, Keith Green

Saturday, October 29, 2005

17:08.

me:

Why do artists paint, writers write, photographers shoot?

We seek to immortalise someone else's beauty which in one rare moment was unveiled. Humbled to be privy, enraptured by the echos of eden, we capture it.

We capture it because it's in our very soul's essence to do so. We capture it because it is our revolt against all that is wrong in the world, our protest against how linear time sweeps such beauty away from us. We capture it because it is good.

And with it, we hope to show our fellow sojourners the goodness that still exist in our living.

'cause we see very clearly too, like you do, no doubt, that the world is quite screwed up. and we, like you, no doubt, see too that the world still possesses great beauty of the Divine.

So in this cosmic time frame the world walks a one-way street in, we create, we press the "stop" button when the good passes so we can look at it again when everything else seems grey, wrong and stinking bad.

We are watchmen on the towers, history keepers, scribes. Largely forgotten, sometimes despised and labelled as voyeurs, almost never money-ed and probably scorning such categorised rewards with inarticulate understanding.

Why do artists paint, writers write, photographers shoot?

Because it is what we are meant to do.
16:57.

A re-post, from two years back in this blog, an article written a dozen years ago. Some bit cynical, whimsical and even among such traits, probably guilty of romanticising.


Published 1993 Sept 24
Author: A sad Lat if

SINGAPORE takes pride in its food. I do not mean the confluence of so many culinary cultures here, though that is important. I am talking about the way people eat.

I used to visit a restaurant - "eating-place" is more accurate - in Kerbau Road, off Serangoon Road. There, at peak hours, would gather a congregation of the hungry, appetites sharpened into devotion by long hours of toil. Some
moulded stone and mortar into the houses and roads of Singapore. One wrote about Singapore on computer screens.

Those who had just arrived would sit back in grateful expectation after ordering their food. I joined them.

As the food arrived, we dipped our fingers slowly into the rice, feeling its heat. We spread it out as if to increase its yield, spicing its taste with salivary waiting. The vegetables and spices were mixed in, slowly, calmly. We mixed them in a little more, the pace increasing.

And then, in the abandon of delicious freedom, we began eating. Rice, avial, sambar, papad, more, pickles, meat, egg or fish, we ate it all, great, shameless quantities of it all. Ours was a gusto which, if watched by the merest of artists, would have turned his canvas into a masterpiece.

The food swept into us, strengthening our limbs and gratifying our hearts, uniting a ragtag band of devotees into seamless, undistracted impatience.

It cost $3 for the chicken-meal, $2.50 for the fish-meal. The rice and vegetables were unlimited. The pieces of meat or fish were fixed. But the gravy was unlimited.

The restaurant has since moved, leaving no address behind.

THE closure of the restaurant meant the destruction of a community, for me, anyway. For it was there I learnt that a community is a group of people united by a common purpose though they may follow different paths, rarely agree with
each other and often have little to do with each other as individuals.

Which brings me to the market.

If you go to a market quite late in the day, when prices are likely to be lower than during peak hours, you will see old women scanning the remaining fish. They smile with a kind of sheepish greed that is meant to disarm the vendor but actually irritates him. Though the fish themselves are becoming second-rate, the vendor can be quite rough with these second-rate customers.

That attitude becomes doubly irksome if he happens to be nice to you, a proper customer who is late because he did not have the time - not because he did not have the money - to come earlier.

And when the old lady smiles at you because you are trying to make things a little better for her by smiling, you know that the only thing you can do is write.

I AM sometimes tempted to divide the world into three groups: states, unreal people and real people.

The state we know about. Unreal people are the kakis of the state.

They owe their livelihood indirectly to the state as a source of power. Conservatives, democrats, situational democrats, anarchists, armchair anarchists, intellectuals, economists, staid senior leader/feature writers (Selfews), Contentious news reporters (Connerps) snapping at the Selfews' ideological heels - all are hangers-on of the state, pretenders to imaginary thrones, parasites feeding on suspect lineages, unreal people all.

Those at the receiving end of their actions are real. Children, housewives, students, teachers, hawkers, entrepreneurs, engineers, doctors, lovers stealing a kiss in the dark, rubbish-cleaners, dreamers - these are the real people of the world.

Unreal people speak: Real people are spoken about. Unreal people write: Real people are written about. Real people love or at least make love: Unreal people make money by writing about love.

Now, mark me, I do not have anything against the state. I do not understand those who are railing forever against "the state", as if there was a viable alternative to it. Nor am I saying that real people are "good" and unreal people "bad". Life is hardly as uncomplicated as that, and roles do overlap.

The loan-shark is a real person, but I doubt that you would want him as your friendly next-door neighbour. No one but journalists (if even they) likes journalists, but imagine a world without (unreal) journalism.

Which brings me to my point. Journalism is perhaps the only unreal profession which exists only because there are real people around. Democrats could chant passages from De Tocqueville and economists could continue to disagree with each other, but only journalists are privileged to enter the lives of real people without knocking. They are suffered, as all intruders are, but they are suffered on trust. And it is that trust they need to keep when they write.

I HOPE that the thoughts on food and markets are some small proof of this, even though I am a Selfew who was once a Connerp. Though this is not always possible, I feel that it is better to try and describe things well than to explain them, for most explanations debase the thing being explained.

"To discover the various uses of things is the work of history," Marx wrote, on the first page of the first volume of Das Kapital. He himself lived up to that challenge quite well; as someone said recently: "No other writer gives more vivid, intense accounts of modern 'things'. No one has better described the ambience of a great textile mill or the misery of a brickfield or the enigmatic nature of commodities."

Unlike his successors, Marx was not a Marxist; unlike them, the early Marx at least understood how important it was to allow things to speak for themselves instead of getting polemic to speak for them. It is not surprising that Marx was once a practising journalist; so was Dickens.

SO IT is that real people create real situations, and that journalists must write about them.

I was travelling by bus last week. At a stop, I was looking around idly, when my eyes fell on two teenage schoolgirls. One of them was waving at a student who had entered the bus and saying something; the other was giggling, her right hand cupped lightly over her mouth.

What a sight. I do not have a sister, but if I did, and if she at 16 had giggled like that, my brother's-heart would have awakened from its slumber and soared on the wings of her laughter. Dear girl, hold on to your laughter; keep your giggling youth as long as you can. For one day you will be as old as I am. You will not only have to think before you speak, but think before you laugh.

But, then, as a journalist, you will have the freedom to capture your captivity and turn it into words.
16:48.

Sort out my head
Someone
up above
Please

Sort out my heart
You
up above
please

Too stretched to do anything else but cling

cling
cling

when consciousness hardly seems like a gift
and though eyes closed the pain refuses to sleep

i cling

again, Lord, it seems all too much for me

i look to You
i look to You

i cling.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

15:36.

"And I know it's not the first time
and it will not be the last...
when You find me here on my knees
praying for the storm to pass"

- How Do I Love Her, Steven Curtis Chapman

Feels like it has been forever since I have been in the house alone on an afternoon.

I think it's going to storm in an hour or so, I hear distant rumblings, it's a Thursday afternoon.

Today marks the first time I ever experience co-payment medical fees. Under the benefits as a full-time staff, I pay 10 % of the total bill when I visit the clinics affiliated to the designated medical company for my company.

It is pretty cool when the nurse warns you that one of the medication is pretty expensive and then charges you a whopping... $3.

I reckon that made the 35 minute walk I took to find that place worthwhile.

And not that any one who doesn't know woodlands well will understand this but why on earth is block 883 so far away from block 888? Where got 20-minute walk to find somewhere which is supposed to be 5 blocks away loh.

I think I properly broke in the mint green havianas r a y sent me traipsing around the neighbourhood.

I had to change two feeder buses to get back home.

Whinge (and weird acting stomach) aside, it has been a nice day.

I was sitting at the kitchen table just now, reporter's notebook out and reporter's mind planning workflow for a story, deciding whether to call a newsmaker for a short interview and whether to call my ed to brief and debrief so I can arrange for an intw on sat.

Then, it hit me - you know, girl, you can do this tomorrow. really. Shoved the workaholic to the back seat and decided to enjoy the day.

Sg has been stormy the past week, and I reckon I love it. Makes the walk to the clinic not as warm and heaps more enjoyable. Makes the mood more mellow.

October seems to be really taking its time to move along.

But we are going to make it.

Dad's got our back.

*lops off to take it easy, and journal some*

Peace out.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

16:35.

Yet will I praise You.

"I'll sing for joy at the works of Your hands
Forever I'll love You
Forever I'll stand
Nothing compares to the promise I have in You"
- Shout To The Lord

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

14:10.

The past few days, probably the whole past week really, were started in the same style - I woke up slightly earlier or immediately at my alarm with uncharacteristic total mental "awakeness", body aching but mind completely unerringly up. Makes me get out of bed faster than I usually do.

Today, I didn't, choosing to snuggle my face into the pillow and will myself to return to sleep for a chance to dream.

I was dreaming that I was on a familiar street - Elizabeth, coming down from the hospital's side, that round about bit, past the yellow and blue building and the various shops flanking the roads.

Was on a bus with church friends, the same folks who just came back from a China mission trip. Was chatting with them before looking up and suddenly realising I am in Melbourne, that home is just two hundred metres away on the right.

I got up from my seat, tried to make my way to the front, the rickety bus swaying me from side to side. And I was quiet and half in shock at how I am almost home, how I unexpectedly just turned up here (weren't we supposed to be in rural China? the bus sure felt like it's supposed to be er, rustic), and I was talking loudly over the din, telling whoever would listen that I live here, trying to direct the unseen driver to drive to the left so I could stop outside of CCBC.

Then the alarm rang.

I woke up, thought to myself "maybe they (bosses at work) are sending me for a junket soon or something" then burrowed in to try to get back home.

It's exactly 60 days till I see you again.

And I wish the days will disappear, fast forward straight to the fourth week of December.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

20:29.

Say what?

It has been a good day, good week, good month. Yes, the politicking, wrestling, continuous (not continual) pushing on seem to had cast a general dreary hue over the landscape of the past month. But yet, despite everything, it has been good.

I'm blessed. Beyond any thing, I am.

The big social, hierarchy of human contrasts and behaviour is filled with way too many layers and way too convoluted for me to understand.

Yes, so I am built such that I still try.

But I am thankful.

I am thankful for that. Thankful that I can sit here and type a post about what's in my head.

So I may fight learned behaviour in faith and life but I am free. I am free to think what I want, I am free to make arguments, I am free to decide and live.

I am thankful... very.

Despite everything that You shown me, Dad, everything about the world, the not very good stuff right down to the what-the-heck-is-going-on-bits... I am thankful that I am not sheltered from such. Not hid from the cynism and pain.

I want every bit that life has to offer. I want every thing You have for me. I want to fulfil my calling completely totally absolutely without the hums and huhs.

I am not afraid to still say I am not satisfied. I am contented but I am not satisfied. There is way more than this and way way more than what I can even imagine or comprehend.

And even if the folks around me don't get it and think me insane or deluded, oh Dad, I believe.

You made me, me.

Such simple words, duh words even, kids in sunday school could give you that textbook perfect answer yet I am in awe.

I accept myself. I know myself. I love myself.

Because I am more than worthy now that You have set me free.

I don't want to fight myself any more. I fight men, I wrestle with You, I do my share of bouts and spats. I am not fighting me anymore because I am because You are.

And You know every thing - all the things I don't get and may never truly get, all the things I feel that makes me cringe up and cry in the secret place, all the thoughts in my mind that sometimes give me headaches, tangled are their knots and intense are emotions.

You know. And I know this - that Lord You are good and Your mercies endure forever.

Clear the way, Lord. As I prepare the way for You, make a way for me.

For You are good. You are good. You are good.

And for eternity and with all that I am and have and ever hope to be, I love You most.

Lead us this week, Dad, lead us this week.

Shine in us, on us and out of us. For Your Name and Your Glory.

Amen.

And we are saying alrightokuhhuhamen.
15:56.

"You love me, Lord
stronger than any thing
You love me, Lord
more than my heart could sing
You love me, Lord
more than I love myself

You love me, Lord
You love me, Lord
You love me, Lord"

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

13:47.

My day started at 7.25am; someone else's days ended forever a few hours earlier.

Was woken up by a call from the office. A hotline caller had just called them - Someone jumped down at an apartment block near where I stay. The police spokesperson was uncontactable, could I just go down and check it out?

Sure, no prob.

Brushed teeth, washed face, pulled on jeans, tee, and lugged my bag - notebook, press pass, pens, camera - over my right shoulder and I was out of the door in less than five minutes.

I walked.

My ears open for any wailing or sirens, my eyes skimming what's ahead, looking for any thing to confirm the news or debunk it as the work of a prankster.

I walked past old folks doing taiji, kindergartens whose walls could not contain the children's glee at some nursery rhyme.

I walked.

And I found them.

Not the body, but people in shock and grief. A group of about eight young 20-somethings huddled near some benches, another two older men some distance away hosing down a spot on the ground.

Instinct is right at these stuff, found out later that was where the body was.

Approaching people who just probably heard or seen a friend or family jump to his death is not something any one fancies, I reckon. And less so when you are there on work, having to identify yourself as a reporter and trying to get info.

A girl, eyes rimmed red, shot me a look and waved me away. I tried again, this is my job, I try, that's what I always have to do. No go. I walked to the two men hosing down the ground, no blood could be seen, whatever cells that spilled out were washed away. They talk a bit, before shutting up.

I called the office, they drove off, I climbed stairs to knock on doors to ask for eyewitnesses.

The world is so normal though one just voluntarily chose death a while ago.

I did my job, I tried, I left and walked home when told I can drop it, we don't have enough to write a piece.

I returned to my home, sat down at my dining table, started eating the noodles Dad bought me. I wondered how the deceased's family will ever do something as simple as this again. I wondered if they will sit at the dining table and be remembered of their loss, I wondered if they will bear to walk along the same corridor their loved one jumped down at, I thought the family members must had left earlier with the body and left the friends behind. I wondered what happened.

On my way back, I had accidentally stepped on that big puddle of water and I flinched. Flinched because that was water that washed away someone's remains. In a while, that ground would be dry, nothing left to tell a story with.

Kids will skip over it, aunties, uncles, everyone will walk over it. No one will cast a second glance at it except for those who know.

And I wonder how they would ever live there again.

Suicide is a real deal to me but thankfully, not as real as it is to those folks.

There is nothing more to say.

Friday, October 14, 2005

14:50.

Ok, to avoid aggravating my former roommate :P, the ticketholder pictured holds a Sg-Melb-Sg return air ticket for myself.

Lots of stuff have been happening these past two weeks.

I'm a full-time staff now, God faithfully pulled things through, and so with the intangibles that comes with full-time (confirmation only comes after I pass the compulsory shorthand course), I now have annual leave.

Since it's pro-rated, the 21 days become 19 days.

And the Grace of God saw my editors approving my ahem, pretty long leave. From 27th Dec to 24th Jan. Thank God for the many Public Holidays during the period which stretched out the hol for me.

I fly on the night of the 23th, arrive on Christmas Eve and leave on Jan 18 thereafter Ray and I will decide whether to spend time in Sg or KL first.

Was told by colleagues such long leaves are not often approved, so thank God again.

Was warned that taking such a long leave is not a good idea when I'm awaiting confirmation but I said I will make sure I work extra hard now.

In fact, I will work super duper hard (someone kick me if I slack off, yeah) so I can perhaps take Off - In - Lieus (which you get when you work on a rest day) on Jan 25, 26 and 27 (Wed to Fri). Then, Ray and I can have more time in each other's homelands before Chinese New Year descends on the 29th (a sunday).

So that's about 71 days till I see my love again.

Until then, I will w.o.r.k sooooper hard.

:)

Tuesday, October 11, 2005


*takes a breath*
copyright/amadeo

Monday, October 10, 2005

22:23.

people r strange.