On Love and Forgiveness

Forgiveness, I’m still in the learning process of this subject these days. Seriously it proves to be a thousand times harder than all the medical books added together. Expected. It is actually always the same thing over and over again, but funny enough, it only gets harder and harder each time I had to face it.

I forgave, for all the times you apologize.

I forgave, for all the times you made me cry.

I forgave, for all the hurting.

I forgave, for all the waiting.

I forgave, for almost everything.

Yes, I do have a big heart. Never really bitched about anyone, anything, never really breathed much of a complain. So is it that this heart of mine is to be broken without fear or guilt? I don't understand.

I can't seems to understand anything now. Not even you, not even myself. I think I know this feeling. It felt like back then. Back to when I once penned down a post, two years ago. And true enough, when I reread it, it actually made sense. It actually made impact. And I am afraid.

"Forgive me for my ignorance, so as for my quietness, my lack of conversation at all times. Most of the time, it's just that I don't understand. It's just that I have nothing to say. Sorry. There were times when every one of you seems like a stranger to me, so familiar & yet, so unfamiliar. I can't juggle too much of these feelings, so I’m used to keeping everything to myself. Keeping everything in silence. I hide myself beneath a mask of what you see of me now. There are two sides of me---the part where I want to shout it all out, & the part where I just want to shut myself up & cry. I kept both to myself, & created one for you. One that you are so familiar with. So there. Please call me FAKE. For I too, no longer know who I am."

You see, when I can't see myself, it is then I know that deep down I'm hiding. Back under the cold mask of which took me so long to rid of, over the years. That's my problem. I hide when reality grows ugly, I run away and pretend like nothing had ever happened. I had became so good that I can even manage to convince myself. And I'm still jumping around, fooling and laughing like a carefree, happy girl.

It’s farce, I know. The realness I’m faking is making me disgusted of myself.

**********

I need to forgive and forget. If that ain't possible, I know that I'll be leaving soon. And that last resort is something I really wouldn't want to do. For one thing, I suck at saying goodbye.

I'll break, somehow or rather.

**********

So I turned to God for inspirations.
I prayed hard, and as though He lit a light in me, I suddenly remembered something in a book of my friend's that I had actually flipped through while waiting for CA to start, almost a year ago. It was this book, Boy Meets Girl by Joshua Harris, discussing how biblical courtship worked for him and his wife, Shannon. There was this one part which lingered in my thoughts for long. When your past comes knocking, was the catchy title. It was a story based on real experiences.


It was a day, months after starting their relationship, when they decided to open up to each other. Went that in her younger days, Shannon hadn’t fully led a life of God’s consent. Apparently many a time, she had let her feelings and desire take over her spiritual conscience. To be more straightforward, she had committed sexual sins with her boyfriends in the past… and the story goes...


Anyhow, the issue there is, how you can face past sins (in this context, sexual sins) and experience God’s forgiveness.

The book illustrates Joshua’s struggle between forgiving and leaving. Yes, it is never easy to forgive. Especially when it concerns someone that you love, someone whom you care about so much, whose even a single word or a single glance would you hold ever so dearly in your palms. Sometimes, things are always easier said than done. Which is why many a time, when truths are revealed, relationships shatter.

But God is ever-forgiving.

It was said in the book:

1. Because of the Cross, you can absolutely sure of God's love for you and His complete forgiveness of your past sin.

2. Because of the Cross, you can confess your past sin to your loved one, even when you have to risk losing him/her forever.

3. Because of the Cross, you can forgive the past sin of another person.

There is no sin that is beyond the scope of God’s forgiveness, as long as you truly repent. Yes, God is THAT forgiving. Praise the Lord!

So I guess the point is, (just in my way of thinking) when you reflect on it, God forgives, and you too, gotta learn to forgive. For by forgiving those who sins against you, you are following God’s footsteps. But the process might take long. This is when prayers are really essential. When you are weak but still gotta struggle, with feelings to juggle, prayers do help a lot. You can open up to Lord, all your hurt and distress, all your struggles and pain, and He always understands.

And so I will.

***********

It's hard to forgive sometimes, dear Father.

It's hard to move on, dear Father.

There will still be scars even if it's mended, Father.

There will still be thorns in my heart, Father.

There'll be times it still hurts, and tears might still fall, Father.

I am still just human, there are loads I might not be able to bear, Father.

Help me, Father. Help me through, I pray.

Hear me, Father. Hold me strong.

Amen.

************

Guess I need time to re-evaluate.

Lord, shine your light on me, shine it so I can see which way to take. Either way, I'll lay my fate fully on your hands, dear Lord. For you are the almighty God who loves us so, & my only hope you are.

Am still praying hard.

Orientation @ IMU

Disclaimer : Long post ahead.
Warning : Might cause discomfort of eyes and neck pain.
Note: Make sure you are in a comfortable position and have ample time on hand before proceeding to read this post.

So I had got through my 2-week-long orientation and 2 weeks of lecture too; no worries, I'm still alive & breathing. Thank God.

Orientation wasn't as nightmarish as what I heard from the seniors. Wasn't at all torturing, in fact, I thought it was real FUN. But I'm sure the new friends & wonderful OOs I met definitely contributed loads to the joy of orientation. Kudos to the orientation committee too, who'd all worked so hard to make it a success. Just so you know, the effort you guys put into this wonderful orientation is greatly appreciated by us. Salud.

It'll be yards long if I were to ever blog on everything about orientation, so I'll just touch on the tip of the iceberg for every event throughout the weeks, and let the pictures explain the rest.


First, the ice-breakers. Srsly we were DRENCHED! With water, soya sauce, eggs, flour, ink... But it was fun and whats more, my beloved group 9 (The Mix) won!!! It was indeed a great start, our spirits were so high, we even won all the cheer fights! (thanks to Min Yi's earth-shaking voice =p)



This was during dry ice-breakers. And yup, when I was clean and dry. =p And that siao kia with me is beloved Mr Orientation President...
(btw, I was wearing the orientation t-shirt... Theme: Checkmate. I simply love the word 'pawn' there on my sleeve...lol)



This was after wet ice-breakers, with our winning cheer Hoo-Hah!!!
Supper at mamak after that, along with 'interrogating sessions'... T.T (No pics to show.)



Next on was Indoor Treasure Hunt. It was sorta complicated and challenging, especially with the presence of dark knights and dark bishops whose job are to 'take our lives'. (and seriously they did scare the life out of us by ambushing and attacking us unaware) Indoor treasure hunt was supposed to be fun, with all the clue-searching in the dark and even a chess game at the end, but somehow it didn't went well for our group. For one reason, we kena sabotaged. Our clues were nowhere to be found, some were moved out of bearing, some were torn at the edge... even more, some disappeared and magically reappeared again when we went back to search for the 2nd time... Intentional or not, I wouldn't know. But still, we'd already tried our best. At least we won our chess game, which places us in 2nd last place. Not that bad... ^_^



We did have lots of fun during the mamak session after the exhausting hunt... Thanks Justin for the "who is this?" game!


Outdoor Treasure Hunt totally compensated for it. It was carried out at the Bkt Jalil park nearby. It was loads and loads of fun...and getting dirty. Pity the guys, with their half-naked bodies smeared with oil and ink and all... what a sight for us girls... =p (no, I'm not even half as horny as ahem.. other girls in my group; you know who u are!)
Just that the raw egg with twisties part was a little disgusting. Poor MinYi, she swallowed almost 3 quarters of that, while I ate the other one quarter. Moreover the smell of raw egg lingered in my mouth for ages... eww yucks!



And again, for treasure hunt, we champed it. So all the hardship we went thru were WELL WORTH!!!^_^



Jay dipping her hand into some unknown liquid (I figured out oil, kicap, water, chili sause, dried chili, carrots...) to find a 20 cents shilling...



Passing a ??? (some kind of vege) with our feet... it's darn slippery, coated with oil and all...



Our group OO leader, Sylvester and another guy, with the epic titanic pose... lololololol...



Bracing ourselves for the maggie mee bath... (it's cooked maggi mee, plus the ajinomoto soup, diluted with cold water) *find it quite refreshing though =p*




CF station, the best station of all. It's only posing and camwhoring...(our talent...muahaha) The theme for this photo is --- Stages of Human Growth. (note the dead person at the left end..ROFL)





Poor guys, doing "facial"... (it's flour plus cucumber and other unknown substance)








Wet, dirty, but happy us... at the end of the day... =p


And on Sunday, Track Trip. Out of IMU activity, that was. Our destination were Lot 10, BB Plaza, and Pavillion. No no, not to go shopping of course, but to film videos, commercials, and camwhore according to posters around the destination. And it doesn't matter one bit to us that people kept staring as if we were some out-of-mind idiots and all. (Eh, kua ha mi kua!!! Wa lang mm si xiao gai la...)
& the best thing was, on the way back to IMU, we sang The Bachelor Boy song all the way on the LRT. Damn enthu wei...


At the start of our track trip!!!



Posing as L'oreal girls...



Imitating the Padini poster behind us... with some sporting passer-bys (the couple on the right)




Posing as Tugu Negara, in Lot 10... which got us scolded by the shop owner in the end... T.T





Normal group photo in front of Pavillion, before we head back to IMU.

************

The second week came by, mostly comprised of performance-based events. Tuesday was Dress Code. It was some screening of videos that each of the orientation groups made earlier. We were all given a specific theme, which we were asked to film a video based on it. Our group's was trailer to a horror movie. And I was the ghost. (wuuuu wuuu) It took us quite a lot of effort, getting up at 6am to film the dark deserted IMU building and PBL rooms... but the reviews for our trailer were good, we even got a standing ovation!!! Even though in the end we lost by 2 marks to the leading team, we were still pretty satisfied about our work.


The next day we had Telematch. The most physically-challenging orientation activity. And the one which we got MOST DIRTY AND STINKY AND HURT... (It was a wonder how Wei Jin and I still manage to overcome the pain and dance on the next day, considering that he hurt his knees, had leg cramps twice while I had a large piece of skin scraped off my left feet... ouch!!!)
But what's more, ahem ahem... MORE TOPLESS GUYS!!! muahahahahahaha.....


We started off clean and fresh...



Caterpillar Walk!!! Across muddy grounds summore, serious, the mud even got into my underpants! Swt...



Decorating the guys to the theme - India. Srsly I don't know why butter on the nipples have anything to do with that theme... =.=




Posing with our 'masterpieces'... =p



Maheen wanted to take a bath...


Fore-and-aft method of transporting people to the other side @ First Aid station.



Seniors VS juniors Tug Of War...



Still going strong after telematch... we rock!!!


And still right the day after, we had Variety Nite. A night of stage performances. Perhaps the best and cleanest event we ever had in the whole orientation. But the practice part for our performance was friggin' hectic. Except for the dance part I was going to do with Wei Jin (yes, we were to dance a Rumba together instead of the usual lovey-dovey actings), which we prepared 2 days ago; everything else were last-minute. We finalized the plot only around 1am on the day of V.Nite itself. Discussed, practised and painted props till 4.30am in the morning before we finally headed off to bed... totally exhausted.


But guess what, WE WON VARIETY NIGHT!!! And to be frank, V.Nite was a blast. We had the most fun ever, despite all the previous hassle and frustration due to lack of time for preparation, unsettled plots, disagrement on stuff... etc...
Thanks everyone for the hard work you guys did to make this a success!!!


The preparation... our movie theme : Pirates of The Carribean



Jack Sparrow! Wonderful props and design right?


Davy Jones, the tentacle guy... He looks less scary with weeds as tentacles... =p


Gracias everyone who had made the performance a success...



Me and my partner, Wei Jin, in one of our Rumba move... Thanks everyone who love our dance. There were still many flaws really, but I really appreciate the support you guys gave us... ^_^

Finale Nite was on Friday, the last day of orientation. Just a dinner together, to watch performance, to dance, and to announce the overall winner for the M209 Orientation-Checkmate. The theme was Back And White. And for our ever-so-creative group 9, we went dressed in Black and White alrite, but... as OLD FOLKS. While everyone else were twirling around in elegant dresses and suits, we made our grand entrance, pushed around in wheelchair, holding walking sticks or bent over, walking in slow and shakily. I never knew dressing up as old people could be THAT fun. We even had a family tree planned out for that, complete with great grandfather, bachelor uncles, old spinsters, bimbotic aunts, old couples with rebelious children, and even a mistress (which is me, but still 103 years old.. oh no.. sorry I forgot, it's 102 only..)




Taking a group photo after making our grand entrance... lolx...



Great grandfather and great grandmother competing against the other groups for the Best Dressed Award.



Funny that at the end of the night, we looked much younger, and much more energetic. (the powder on our hair & our old ppl makeup wore off...=p)

Nevertheless, it was a night to remember, as our group was crowned THE OVERALL CHAMPION for M209 Orientation - Checkmate!!! Weeeeee!!!!



Rejoycing together.

(Sorry, I don't have the photo of us receiving the hamper from Mr Presie Joash yet... will upload next time when I get it.)

Before I end, let me shout out...

I heart you , group 9!!!

Till I Can Make It On My Own

Recently I'm pretty into this song. It's old really, not sure who was the original singer, but I just sorta stumbled upon the Billy Gilman's version not long ago. The lyrics captivates me a lot. And it sounds extra touching, with his kiddo voice and all. *winks*


What's more, it feels kinda like my theme song for now.. coping with my new life here. It's hard sometimes but, I'm sure I'll get on with it. I just wanna give thanks to God for blessing me with such great friends and seniors who stay with me through all these time. Not just to accompany me at times I might ever feel lonely, but to offer me advices along the way, picking me up whenever I fall, offering help whenever I need them... and yeah, till I can make it on my own.

But one thing for sure, even when I've fully adapted to life here and all in future, I won't wanna walk the rest of the way on my own. For I am happy being with you all.

I’ll need time, to get you off my mind, and I may sometimes bother you, try to be in touch with you, even ask too much of you from time to time, now and then, Lord you know I need a friend, till I get used to losing you, let me keep on using you, till I can make it on my own.

I’ll get by, but no matter how I tried, there’ll be times you know I’ll call, chances are my tears will fall, and I’ll have no pride at all, from time to time, but they say, How there’ll be a better day, but till then I’ll lean on you, that’s all I meant to do, till I can make it on my own.

Surely someday I’ll look up and see the morning sun, without another lonely night behind me, then I know I’m over you and all my crying’s done, and no more hurting memories will find me.

But till then, Lord you know I’m gonna need a friend, till I get used to losing you, let me keep on using you, till I can make it on my own, till I can make it on my own…


And gracias again guys for being there for me. ^_^

And to you Siao Kia, (although you always call me Siao Za Bo for who-knows-whatever-reason), I feel really blessed having a senior like you. ^_^
Thanks for the help, and thanks for the books. You'd patiently (though I'm sure sometimes you might be pissed off as well...lol...) answered all my questions & concerns, even the most random ones like where is the aircond place to eat in Sri Petaling... (okay srsly that wasn't my idea, it was under my group's request.. btw, sorry for bothering you at lecture T.T)

To grp 9 ppl : Gone ady la, what's left of my reputation!!! Sob...

Anyway, it's midnite so... ciao for now, thx Lau for the internet!!!

Shattered...

11.09.2009

How many times can I break till I shatter?

Everyone around me was asking me to chill. Be phlegmatic, they say. But surprisingly, I couldn’t.

It shocked me as well. I never, never used to lose my calm. Maybe this time was different. I didn’t know it meant so much to me.

I never knew.

It was not like any other feeling I remembered. It was this feeling as if the whole world came crashing down on you at that very moment. Speechless was all I could be. Maybe it would be better if I could cry. But surprisingly again, the tears just won’t come. And I just got stuck on the verge of breaking down.

It hurts. It friggin’ hurts. It stings like someone giving you a cold slap right on your face. And I so hope it could be a real slap instead. Even that might be better. At least the physical pain won’t last as long.

I never thought you would ever hurt me.

What made it a lot worse was that it wasn’t for once or twice. Four times. Yes, four. They tell me I gotta let it go. So I did. Once I did, twice I did… but I really don’t know why it kept coming back to me, time after time. Seriously, how many times can I take before I break?

So I left. I don’t want to stay another minute, I can’t bring myself to say another word, can’t even bear to have one more look.

I was afraid.

They wouldn’t understand. And I just couldn’t tell them. How could I ever tell when I myself was just as confused? This heart of mine, why oh why, even I couldn’t understand it now.

I’m shattered. But still, the tears won’t fall.

You see, this had nothing to do with you, even when everything’s about you. Maybe just between me and myself.

I really should have listened to my friends.

I’m still learning to forgive and forget.