afghan thoughts

i just finished reading a novel set in Afghanistan, written by a British author who loved the country so much she made it her home.

i have so many thoughts buzzing in my head

do you ever realize that beautiful places are not enough to capture people's hearts? only beautiful places with people that contain deep sorrow, great love, greater pride, war, poverty, grief, and deep culture have that sort of capacity.

i also thought about the author who probably decided she loved Afghanistan more than London. obviously, Afghanistan has something that she'll never find in her native land. i think that the biggest and most powerful thing that Afghans have is the love for their land. and i think she probably knows too that it's something she can admire and find fascinating, but she can never share it no matter how much she wants to because it's nearly impossible for her to truly become one of them. it's like how, at a sporting competition, we may look at a very strong, united and spirited team with envy and then back at our own casual, friendly but disjointed team with dissatisfaction. of course i'd want to be part of the other team that has so much more life and spirit and desire, but i can't because i am just not one of them.

it's too bad for the people who are a part of the global city culture or the borderless world mentality. they can never create and experience a love as powerful as that. and it's a shame that people are pushing so hard for a globalized world as the best ultimate goal that they forget their roots. on a side note, i think that globalization has brought some good, but in truth it's just all about $$$ for the rich bastards. academics may study the impact of globalization on culture and stuff like that and make it seem special and taken care of, but honestly globalization doesn't bother about culture, people, and beauty. they just get blended into a bland concoction and that's it.

yeah it's amazing how my thoughts can wander.. i'm a true woman haha

weweresheep somemore

I see a generation
Rising up to take their place
With selfless faith
With selfless faith

I see a near revival
Stirring as we pray and seek
We're on our knees
We're on our knees

Hosanna
Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me

Break my heart from what breaks yours
Everything I am for your kingdoms cause
As I go from nothing to
Eternity


it really astounds me. to my bones. it's crazy...

i'd been struggling these few weeks.. with certain issues. and I'd told God that I didn't see how I could get out of it. But just help me. Even then, I thought... even if He were to help me, I don't know if I can be helped.
tonight, it was insane. the pastor's message just shot me right in my face.

God also put something else deep into my heart tonight. something I know He'd spoken to me about a long time ago. But it had faded away. tonight, He reminded me about it.

seriously I don't know why I always go to these mega worship gatherings with an equivalent megaton of skepticism. I think that the surround sound and the world class worship band that create the "high" atmosphere often blurs the experience of God's presence. people just go there to enjoy themselves, feel "high" in spirit with a huge crowd singing clapping jumping raising their arms together. like is there real meaning in these music gatherings? But each time, God proves me wrong. I always learn that whoever worships in truth with his heart will find God in it.

weweresheep

Praise the Lord!
what sweet words to sing. I often ask for the Lord's blessing, but rarely think of blessing Him. I always have this mindset that the act of blessing is a top-down thing. but well, this is a relationship. God wants to be blessed too.

living out my life as a blessing to God and as a form of worship is a constant challenge. and it will be forever, till the day He takes me home.
we may stumble, but we will not fall.

well. I'm at a crossroad right now. I'm in an absolute dilemma. what should I choose?
the offer is so tempting. money + stability. but i still have my dreams that float around in the clouds. What does God say?

Let me not to the marriage of minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on the tempests and is never shaken:
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

- William Shakespeare

KL

the weekend trip was awesome! we loved the foods man. looooooooove. it was damn good fun traveling with the girls and kev :D and our wonderful host. and their interesting friends. and all the stories.

I maintain my opinion - when I travel, company is the most important!

haha i wish we could do this all over again. more days, more food, MORE REST.

fishsoupbubbleteajapanesecrabsduriansmamakwantonmeewondermilkmoreduriansjapanesetea...

okies. time to shower and start on my novel! (i skipped school today hurhur)

a wish come true!

my mom really came to church with me today. she almost didn't, but she did. at the very last minute. God is crazy. all the way to church, I couldn't believe it. I also couldn't believe my mom was really there sitting beside me. As I watched aunty Jane and aunty Esther and my mom yakking away, it was so surreal. For 5 years I prayed for this day.. I'd dream that she would step into a church with me, but I'd never really believed that it would happen even though I keep telling myself to have faith.

it didn't matter that she never believed in Jesus, it didn't matter that she has always thought my religiosity out of this world. It didn't matter that she had to leave early. It just meant so much to me that she was there. I don't know how to say it. The feeling of having a loved one, or someone I love very deeply, by my side in church just means a lot to me. I can't exactly pinpoint the reason behind it. It makes me immensely joyous inside.

:) it was really sweet of my mother, and it's a very nice present from God. of course, I hope that my parents will discover Christ for themselves too.. it's all in His time. I dislike pushing it or preaching to them cos they hate it. yup but for now, thank you Father. it was indeed an unexpected blessing.

lessons on the Lord's sovereignty have been taking root lately. and it's been demonstrated in a number of ways.. it's reassuring to know that His sovereign plans will never be thwarted or ruined. His will is called a will for a reason. It is meant to be, and it will be done. It is the process of getting there that God uses to engage me, to build faith, to build patience, to build my understanding of Him, to build my trust, nurturing the relationship between the both of us.

~

I really like my students a lot. especially my normal classes. Besides being so rebellious, they are funny and cheeky and very cute. it's a joy watching them at school, teaching and interacting with them. and they can be hilarious. like in between lessons, they would take the camera projector on the teacher's desk and turn the camera on their classmates. and do things like examining their friends' pimples on the big screen with ludicrous comments. or pretending that they're making a film.

It's so different from the kind of classes i had when i was in secondary school. I know that they have huge baggages at home away from school, but the class feels so alive! They are very expressive, though (most of the time) not in the way a teacher would want. lol. On many occasions, I had a hard time stifling my laughter or my smile cos they're just so adorably funny. I needed them to be serious enough to absorb what I was trying to teach. If I were a student, I honestly wouldn't mind going to school with a class like theirs.

I've been practicing their english oral with them in small groups after school. it is another very effective way to get to know them and to let them know me. There's a Conversation segment where I throw out any topic that comes to my mind and they would talk to me about it. haha they are very interesting people.

The kite runner

didn't happen today. there was rain, and then there was no wind!

but we had a really relaxing day. ate like a pig and we headed to a little reservoir near the old national stadium. dusk was fabulous, cool and gentle. the sky was so pretty! we sat there and waited for the wind. we saw cute funny plants, and I later found their porcupine seeds stuck onto my shoelace! and for the first time in my life, I saw tiny moving seashells in the water..! we turned them over and the creatures were still in there. haha suaku to the max.

there we were, 2 idiotic girls fighting a kite in front of 10 cars parked along the reservoir (with couples doing everybody-knows-what in there). we fought to fly it in the tiny tiny breeze lol it was so retarded and funny.

I wish I could live in a kampong.

lightning!

I was looking of my window, peering at people below through the thick veil of rain. and then lightning flashed. it felt as though someone up in the sky with a huge ass camera was taking a photograph of all of us in my part of the world.

a time traveler, maybe? like in kate and leopold. haha. someone from the 25th century capturing lives in our present.

thoughts about thoughts

english is the best subject to teach. it's the easiest class where i can make use of practically anything in the world to conduct a lesson, to teach them writing, to let them see the world, and to know them better. i think that their thoughts are the most precious things i've ever gotten thus far in my short stint here. they convey a lot of insightful thinking, opinions, feelings, and inevitably things about themselves through utterly broken grammar and sentence stuctures. the things that they picked out of the film really surprised me. pleasantly (:

today, we screened it again for another class, and they loved it! i cannot wait to read their compositions.

i'm in the midst of compiling a little booklet of short stories for the students to practice their reading and writing. haha this is quite a bomb story. so freaking simple, but it's totally bull-eye.

The Sack

A Sufi Story from the Middle East

Mula came upon a frowning man walking along the road to town. "What's wrong?" he asked.

The man held up a tattered bag and moaned, "All that I own in this wide world barely fills this miserable, wretched sack."

"Too bad," said Mula, and with that, he snatched the bag from the man's hands and ran down the road with it.

Having lost everything, the man burst into tears and, more miserable than before, continued walking. Meanwhile, Mula quickly ran around the bend and placed the man's sack in the middle of the road where he would have to come upon it.

When the man saw his bag sitting in the road before him, he laughed with joy, and shouted, "My sack! I thought I'd lost you!"

Watching through the bushes, Mula chuckled. "Well, that's one way to make someone happy!"

~

the blade runs through my heart

today, for the first time in a long long while, i felt alive. rollerblading! it was quite scary but i totally loved it. learning something new, feeling something strange yet thrilling. falling down again and again and again. (honestly, i was hoping i could make it through without a scrape. FAT chance.) now i'm with a half broken knee and a stinging wound on my butt. i can't sit nor walk properly. i don't know how i'm going to survive sitting in my desk tomorrow and standing in the classroom. but all the pains on my body remind me of my accomplishment!! hees. happy. i can't believe i never even THOUGHT of getting down to trying it again all these many years. wuss.

now i can't decide if i should invest in a bicycle or a pair of rollerblades first. hawhaw.

thanks, al! really made my day. and for everything. loves you.

i thought that i could risk it. wrong. i thought that i could just give it a chance, what's the big deal being friends? nopes. that place was flooded with memories. i couldn't stand it.