3.43am

and I'm still working on this monster paper in the library, hungry and stressed out about my (non) thesis and about the increasingly irritating noise level of the guys 10 feet away from me, and my paper's impending deadline, when I bump into the smiley cleaning lady on my way to the bathroom who probably doesn't sleep at this time of the night, 5 days a week, and who probably has kids at home, who is probably doing this for her kids at home, like millions of other people around the world, when I realise... being this blessed gives me no reason to be stressed. Just a little perspective.

Nani Kama Wewe Bwana

Hello! Now that I'm nearing the end of my semester, I'm beginning to realise that I don't put up personal photos very much, or write about the smaller details of my life, which I guess are important too. So here are some recent reasons for happiness, with an opportunity to post up photos! I wrote the first few about a month ago, but for some reason, never published this post. In the past few weeks I've had so many more things to be thankful for that I'm going to add them here :)

1. We made bubur cha cha over the weekend, and having some in the fridge reminds me of home, and of mummy, and of SPM days when I would go for bubur cha cha seconds, because mummy often made it especially for me!

2. I stumbled upon stroopwafel in a little shop while picking something up, and I was so excited to see one of my favourite biscuits in a little shop just outside the Yard! It's all gone now, but I'm happy -- I've had enough wafel-y goodness to last me several weeks! Edit: I mentioned to June that stroopwafel is one of my most favourite snacks in the world, and a week later when I was having a difficult time with schoolwork, there was a pack on my desk waiting for me as soon as I got home!

Pretty as a flower!

3. This pretty wall decal! I remember Chelle bouncing towards me during the summer when she was in Kuching, her eyes shining, as if she had just discovered the greatest invention ever. "Do you know what a wall decal is?! LOOK LOOK!" She proceeded to whisk out her camera, displaying an array of photos of Audrey Hepburn stick-ons, beaming. So this is where I got the idea from, and since then, each time someone comes to our room, June and I have a fun time (trying to) trick them into thinking that June painted it on our wall! They usually believe us... for all of 10 seconds.

4. Last week I bought a pomegranate+apple body butter on sale -- and I haven't regretted it since! It feels wonderful smelling like pomegranates and apples, especially when I'm about to go to bed :) Edit: I still smell like pomegranates and apples! :)

5. A few weekends ago, my friend Steph and I held a thank-you dinner for some of the leaders in our fellowship. And we had a fun time making yong tow foo and other Malaysian dishes of sorts!

6. Here she is! A little about Steph: We're on the same exec team, and I'm thankful for her to bits; she always has a positive attitude, something good to say about someone, and a real heart for Jesus. I found out while cooking that she's always willing to learn too; she hurt her finger with the knife but still kept going. I tell you, peeling and stuffing ladies' fingers is like, her thing. Here's something to note: look at her happy face... and then at the box of durian in her hands! I told her that I needed to take a photo because it was a historic moment, at least in my life (and maybe in hers too) that she actually liked my favourite "smelly" fruit!

Of the many conversations I have with American friends about Malaysia, durian comes up pretty often. Because I haven't yet found a way of describing it accurately, I normally say things along the lines of, "it tastes creamy and sweet, kind of like custard...", "it has a different kind of sweetness." Sometimes I indulge them by offering up somewhat more famous descriptions of the durian, "tastes like heaven but smells like hell," "it was in one of the Fear Factor episodes," etc. But Steph came up with a definition I'd never heard of before (and which does not make sense to me); she said, "I think it tastes like dumplings! But if I were to compare it to a fruit, I'd say it tastes more like a soft pear... so in an ideal world, the durian is a pear that tastes like dumplings." A friend of ours listening to our conversation then said, "it sounds to me like the both of you were eating different fruits."

I think that's what it is. Too many people have a misconception of the wonderfulness that is the Durian. Fear Factor, seriously?

Some folks from my Christian Fellowship!

7. Aren't we a diverse bunch? I love singing worship songs in different tongues; sometimes we do some songs in Swahili (this is where the title of the post comes from: Nani Kama Wewe Bwana means Who is like you, Lord? in Swahili), and we've done some in Mandarin and Korean, too. Last year I went through a phase of listening to worship songs in Indonesian and in Mandarin, and I think I should revisit that phase -- it reminds me of how BIG my God is!

A couple of the Singaporean boys half busy at work making Serimuka -- see below!

8. Some of us Singaporean and Malaysians get together to cook sometimes, and they know that I love Malaysian food and fruits! The other day, after coming from a terribly difficult Chinese test (which I did ok in, thank God) I received two packs of frozen durian from Sergius + June!

9. For beautiful weather! It's been the warmest Fall/Winter has been, and only today did I start wearing my puffy jacket. Two days ago, it was 20 degrees Celcius, and it felt almost like home. Today, it snowed for the first (actual) time. Isn't Boston weather crazy??

10. For the reminder that Christmas is here! In church we've begun singing Advent hymns (in addition to the Hillsong, and Travis Cottrell, and Matt Redman) so it makes for a nice mix. And my dorm (or house, as it is called), has taken the liberty to put up Christmas lights everywhere!

11. For the reminder that we're Halfway There -- below is a picture of some of the juniors (third-years) belting out Bon Jovi's Livin' On a Prayer at my house's semesterly Currioke study break (Currier House + Karaoke, ha ha ha). We went down for all of 20 minutes to watch some of the fun; how different Karaoke looks like when it's not at a wedding dinner, featuring a middle-aged man struggling with the highest notes in Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You, to the polite nods of a patient crowd. I managed to sit out on this one as my respectable little Asian girl self, until I got roped in to the next song and realised that it's actually kind of fun (not really) to be wrapped up in the middle of a bunch of classmates celebrating the past two years, the next two, and everything that means something to each one of us. When you sing and dance with every bit of life in you, it must mean something, deep inside.

I wonder what it would mean for each one of us, instead of warbling to the classic Bon Jovi tune, "Whoooah, we're halfway there!" -- to be asking daily, nani kama wewe, Bwana? Who is like you, Lord?

and to know the answer -- No one. What a difference it would make in my life, and perhaps in yours, too. Thank you, Jesus

Far more beautiful

Three Sundays ago, as I was walking back to campus with a few friends, I turned to my left and caught sight of the sunset -- the blue, the purple, the pink, the yellow and everything in between -- and knew that I had to stop to take a quick photo. I love sunsets, because there are never two that are quite the same. And as soon as I looked, I knew that I hadn't seen this one before; maybe it was the cathedral in the foreground, and the way the sun and its shadow rivaled playfully for the attention of their beholders; or that -- for the first time in a while that I stopped to admire the beauty of a sunset it wasn't behind the steering wheel; that it seemed close enough to touch, like rainbow-coloured candy floss.

So I took my trusty ol' Lumix out of my bag and froze an image of the scene to supplement my (already? ack!) failing memory. And then I walked extra fast to catch up with my friends who were just about wondering where I had gone, and with the traffic light, counting down 6, 5, 4, 3 more seconds to cross.

Looking back on that Sunday at the crossroads, I am amused at how positively apt it all was -- at a crossroads? a walk back home? stopping to admire a beautiful sunset with 6 seconds to cross the road. And all this right before my month of unending midterms and papers -- I would have thought it would serve as a gentle caution to not lose sight of the actual goal in my little marathon, and the reasons I'm running it in the first place.

Turns out I was wrong, because I had to be reminded several times in the course of the past month, by way of lack of sleep and an uneasy peace, and an inconsistent understanding of God as my rock. During those moments, hours, and times of the day when I had lost sight of Him, He would ever so gently remind me to shift my gaze back upon the One who never fails -- like sticking post-it note upon post-it note on my mirror, until it is covered fully with reminders of how I am so dearly loved by the Creator of All things, leaving me a little ashamed at how all along, the only thing I could see in the mirror was myself.

Will you believe that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom?

Would you seek me and live;

Remember how I fed the five thousand men!

Jesus wept... see how He loved him!

Do you not know that I pursue you?

Be still and know that I am God.

But shame, guilt, inadequacies, and unrest are all momentary in the light of Him who is forever the same. There may be 6, 5, 4, 3, seconds (and counting) left, but I'd rather stop for a little while and look to Jesus, like Sunday's sunset but far more beautiful, remembering with whom and for whom I'm running the race, than win without. With that, here's to the final lap of my semester :)

for now,

I'm inclined to agree with Calvin:

Thanks for the reminder, Nick!

Grace starts with G (sus)

In my Chinese history class, we'd been learning about Buddhism when we were asked to look at images painted based on one of the Lotus Sutra parables -- the Lotus Sutra is one of the most influential sutras on which the Mahayana sect of Buddhism was founded.


Here we have a painting of busy pre-modern China; artisans, farmers, and religious leaders are diligently minding their respective businesses. Some are painting, there is a man who is ushering an ox and its cart, there are a few who seem to be chanting -- but, if you are like i was a couple of weeks ago, all these guys are completely superfluous and the one of utmost significance in this painting is actually the little brown figure cleaning up horse dung (you thought he was doing some sweeping right behind to the horse didn't you) in the bottom left hand corner.

His name is Poor Son, because that's exactly what he was. A labourer, dressed in nothing but rags, having wandered from village to village for a wage that would barely feed his hungry stomach, sporting a disheveled semblance to a beggar on the street, PS was stumbled upon by his father, Wealthy Dad (WD), many years after he had left home. WD, although greatly rejoicing in his heart for the son who was now found, refrained from telling anyone that this was his son and offered him a job cleaning up horse dung instead: he knew that his son was intimidated by his great wealth, and would need to earn the joy that comes with attaining a sonship -- even if not for his father, for his own dignity, in the very least.

One day, after 20 long, grueling years of hard work and a lot of horse dung, PS is called in to WD's bedside along with the who's who in the Buddhist circle; kshatriyas, laypeople and ministers. At this point, WD is terribly ill and knows that it will not be too long before he departs, so he declares to all present at his bedside that which he had kept from his son for 20 years: that PS is his true son, that WD is PS' true father, and that all his wealth is now rightfully inherited by the son that was once lost.

Doesn't it sound like a parable many of us have come to love and cherish? I'd never heard about this one before, but upon reading it, I realised that despite its seeming similarity to the Prodigal Son parable in Luke 15, the take-away points for both of them are worlds apart. Central to the text of the parable of the Poor Son is the idea that one needs to train the mind daily, through suffering and overcoming karma, in order to become a bodhisattva. The notion of grace is absent in the Lotus Sutra parables, and foreign to all the Buddhists in the world today.

But thank God for a God like mine; for one who continually pursues me, is always ready to forgive me, and, despite the ways that I have wronged, or disobeyed, or even cursed him, he is exactly like the father in this story:

"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. Luke 15:20b

And this makes all the difference. So much fervor in the way He loves! Truly does He pursue me, and you, with more devotion than we could ever know.

Life is like a marathon

What's waiting for you at the finish line?

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us
throw off
everything that hinders/ and the sin that so easily entangles

and let us run with perseverance
the race marked for us.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith"
Hebrews 12:1,2

Dream a thankful list

So what do you do when it's 3.20am and you're not able to sleep; when you'd been lying in bed for the past 2 hours thinking about tomorrow's Chinese dictation, taking out the trash in your bathroom, next week's midterm, dinner appointment with a friend you hadn't seen in a while but on second thought you may not have time for dinner you'll just have a sandwich, your friend's gchat status that says her current mood is: meh, another friend's facebook status: so much work, so little time to do it!, catching up on emails, the beautiful (warm) weather that seems to have vanished with yesterday's dinner, the assignment due tomorrow (... oh yeah, the assignment due tomorrow!), the research paper proposal due next week, the bruise on your hip, the phone bill you need to pay, the call you need to make and the form you need to fill out --

And all you want to do is...

go outside and run around on a field

listen to the sounds of the ocean on a lazy beach

and eat durian dim sum (one of my favourite things)

... all the things that you cannot do. You feel bummed, stressed out, weary, and, unsurprisingly, hungry.

Here's what you do (as testified by a friend of mine who has been doing this every night since she was 14): list 3 things that you are thankful for
... and then you find that as the list goes on, you fall asleep thankful, the stress of 3 minutes ago slowly diminishing with each numerical increase.

Here's mine:

1. for heat in the room, for these cold, cold days
2. for friends and dinner and the ability to have both in one sitting
3. for papers and exams, and the opportunity to learn
4. for a mum who reloads my phone for me!
5. for the fun of making serimuka and baking bread this past weekend
6. for the red trees outside my window
7. for having had a super relaxing summer
8. for an understanding professor
9. for dedicated and supportive IV staffworkers
10. for scarcity of strength to realise an abundance elsewhere

... I could go on, but I find myself falling asleep, less stressed out :) (See, it works!) So if you find yourself in the same position, don't forget to list your thankful things -- things will seem a lot better than your mind (at 3am) makes it out to be.

"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?... But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you"
Matthew 6:27, 33