he makes my day again

i dreamt of him last night. his office was having a team building training in a big open space that i happen to be. i saw him in the midst of a great pool of people. i was thinking of walking up to him but i didn't want to make the first move*. so i just kept both my eyes on him. i watched him talk and laugh among his friends, i was pretty happy for him.

then one of his leader gather all of them including us. that guy actually made me go up the stage to say something. GREAT! now he can see me. after i walk down the stage i saw him walking towards me from afar. i walked to that direction but i pretend i didn't know he is there*.

kai: hi!
cy: hey! where have you been?
kai: there is something i kept in my heart all these years.

a moment of silence...

kai: i still love you, do you know that?
cy: ... but you never come and find me :(
kai: i did, i came to find you at your white gate but you are not there.

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*i am still a girl in my dream. i was still reluctant to make the first move.

not that i still want to be with him but to find him again is like i found a piece of myself that i left with him when he walked away from me. honestly, not sure if that is true but i started feeling more insecure and hard to trust someone after my relationship with him. even though it is a dream, it is pretty sweet to have someone come and tell you he still loves you after all these years :)

did i tell you i like to dream, i have a lot more interesting dreams but some of it are just not suitable to be shared now haha... just that i find myself closing my eyes hard at times hoping that i will never wake up from some of those dreams. sweet.
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i am pretty sure he will never read this blog because i don't think he uses the internet at all. but i just found out that justin read this blog when he told me "i know about that cassette". oopsss.

i had been thinking of you

it had been a busy week, juggling between the conference and work. i do not really have the time to check any blog. all the time that was left i used it to sleep. but that had not keep me from reflecting on my life and journalling. i have not stop thinking, i guess i just can't stop. why do ppl do this or why not?

this is one set of my many thought: i wonder how many times do ppl visit my blog in a day? what do they do when they keep visiting and find out that i have not update my blog. will they give up checking? will they reason that my life had been uneventful? will they call to find out how i am doing? or at least sms me? why do they not want me to know they visit my blog? what if i have a way of finding out, will they still visit my blog? why do ppl who doesn't know me read my blog? why kind of person do they think i am? do my thoughts inspire ppl at all?

i know i had said this before but i am really curious? is my blog just a reading material or you read because you want to know how i am doing? i dare say if you do read my blog you will really know how i am doing because i am not a blogger that blogs my routine but more like the condition of my heart. therefore my entries can be contradictory at times because that could be just how i felt that day.

some of my entries might sound pretty depressing but i was just trying to be honest with how i feel. and yes i am a very emotional person. i know not everyone know how to react to that but bare with me i am trying to be truthful to how i feel.

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what about the conference? i will blog about it later. ps nick told me to keep a journal for 21 days and ask God to give me direction. i am not sure why that magic number. keep your eyes on this page especially those of you that are struggling from quater-life crisis because i asked him this question: "how do you know that you are stagnant (stuck) or it is just a waiting process (ministry of darkness-when God seems silence though present)?" the million-dollar-question, he gave me a fairly good answer. i am processing myself now.

déjà vu

ppl used to tell me i am always very sure of what i want to do. i guess so too. but the decisions i made the last 2 years somehow made even myself doubt i am sure anymore. maybe because the choices i made are so different from what is common. definitely ppl has stop commenting me for that.

i am very busy this week, still got work to catch up with, so i am really not free to check anyone blog. for some reason i clicked the blog of this guy who doesn't even update his blog like for months. i would not have click his blog if he doesn't tell me he had updated it. just wanted to tell you how peculiar that is for me to visit his blog.

when i was reading the blog line upon line i felt a déjà vu feeling. it seems to be things that had cross through my mind before. in case i forget how i felt, i just repeated all those words today. i was in a conversation with this team member in the conference which i hardly know. it was not part of the topic but somehow i just told her my current stage. as i share with her as i had with many, i wonder if she understands what i mean. maybe ppl just don't understand why i need to stop everything to just love God. somehow i began to doubt everytime i see the strange facial expressions on ppl faces or just maybe the silence had been too long. but really i don't know what is the next step. even now i am not sure if i had fully grasp the revelation that had cause me to made those decisions. till i get that maybe things will never change but for now i am comforted that my decisions are not abnormal. someone far away at the other side of the world actually feels exactly what i am feeling. i guess God just need to stop me from thinking "what am i doing?" to "what is He doing?" again.

i surely feel something if not i would not had type this entry because i am really busy if you get what i mean.

currently busy with this

i am currently attending this conference.

8am-7pm: conference
7pm-8pm: dinner
8pm-till dawn: work

and the cycle repeats itself for the next few days.

i will tell you if it is worth it the next few days to sacrifice my sleep. for now i just feel it is a blessing to see all of us who were once in youth ministry, now in all different stages of our lives praising God together once again.

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p/s: dugong you know what you are missing :) we miss you.

if you are not there, you will not remember :)

when i was still in school. i heard of friends that had so many bfs that they can't remember how many exs they have. some forget their names and some forgotten the order of their exs. i cannot understand how can one says that she has ever love this person once in her lifetime and not remember anything about him.

in my car the other day with the cassette player on.

justin: did you compile the songs in this tape yourself?
chaiyen: ya. do you remember i gave this to you for your birthday? this was one of the thing you returned to me when we broke off.
justin: i can't remember so long already. (10 years ago)

when he got down from my car, he snatched my cassette. it is his since i said that.

i thought, too much this guy cannot remember what i gave him. the next day i saw the cassette cover that was still in my car. i looked at the design. it was something that i could had done only in my college years. ooppss. no wonder he can't remember, it wasn't part of our memories. it was for another ex of mine ;P hehehe so i made him return it to me but i didn't tell him why.

i don't have too many exs*. only one hand full :)

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* this includes the real and not real kind. also includes puppy love and to some unspoken commitment relationship. why this remark, it is because when i ask a guy this question "how many ex do you have?" they will normally not know how to answer me till i help them with this "including the real and not real kind". because to me i took every relationship seriously. i tried and i cried :)

more important than charming, smart and romantic

Stacy: you are always my first love. you are charming, smart and romantic. but when i am around you i feel lonely. i don't feel that when i am with mark. he is always with me and i need that.
Dr Gregory: *speechless*
TV series, House

what every girl is looking for-charming, smart and romantic guy. but what top the list is security. we can drop all of it for the latter.
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Stacy= the ex gf of Dr Gregory
Mark= stacy's husband

raw as i am

i am really proud of myself. i have never learn html in college. i remember i told myself i won't take multimedia, i am so web programme idiot. so i stick with things that don't move, prints and publishing.

i wanted to change the design for my blog for a long while. i mean i am a designer you know. this finally triggers me to do so.

btw if you do not know yet, i just like this style. you will see it in a lot of my work. first discover it when i was doing ish. realised that i find it really really fun when i was doing the Love to Recycle issue.

from there after i could not stop using it for cd albums design and on publications. eventhough the same style i try to bring variation to each different client.

i called it the raw style. maybe it is because i was trying to make my mundane life more fun when i start seeing the aethetic beauty in these things we see daily. extremely enjoy the part putting all kind of things-cans, boxes, wood-on my scanner. or maybe it is because i hope that people will see the same beauty in me for trying to be myself. raw as i am - insecure and honest of how i feel.

these are jobs i do without redoing. honestly it is those once-seen-approved kind of work. i can finally say art is the inner expression of the artist.

how are you today?

i thought with little on my plate i can handle things better. but it only make the pain more real. when you are busy you don't have much time to think and feel. i didn't want to allow myself to be like that. i create that room to think and work things out. not everyone appreciates that. you see, we live in a world where everyone is busy. they really are not free to think of how you feel. they just want to get their life right and their things done.

i'm tired
i am hurt but i came in with new smiles again
i am rejected but i initiate again
i am accused but i admit i play a part here

i am tired
can't you see i'm trying
can't you see i need my rest too
can't you see i trying to have a life as well

i'm tired
why should i be the only that needs to change
but i still do because i thought maybe you will appreciate that i try
at least i thought that will cause you to treat me just a little nicer

i'm tired
see if i wake up feeling better tomorrow
His grace is new every morning
but for today i had decided i am going to quit

i have enough of redoing this work. but maybe it is more than work.

remember "don't be affected by what other ppl think of you" are meant to make you feel better and not condemned, so that you can be a free man. it doesn't mean you can do anything you want and don't care about how others around you feel, let not your freedom be hell to others.

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at noon when i drop by at starbucks to get my lunch, the manager greeted me with a big smile "how are you today?" i have to admit i nearly cried and i really feel like answering him. no one had really ask me that for a long time.

again and again

i hate to be misunderstood. i told you sms is horrible. it conveys the message in a different tone. whatever it is, as usual it is too late. i feel horrible. my goodness i am so childish, i need to grow up. i want to go out and catch a movie. hopefully i will find my company, drained myself till i'm tired and go to bed. tomorrow has to be a better day.

by the way did you realise the very thing you hate happens in your life again and again. yah probably it will only stop occuring when you grow not to be affected by it anymore. i'm not sure if i will.

back to stage one

to be honest without me knowing it, there were a point of my christian journey when i was trying to climb the ladder of success. similar to the rat race in the world, i am trying to get it right as a christian. i begin to seek "how can i get the fullest blessing of God?" and "how does it benefit me if i do this?" what we ask is what we get. but after a while i feel like i know it all. it is almost like a text book. so even now going to church i have to ask for this childlike faith that i may see things in a new light.

learning what is right and not right began to shape how i look at people as well. i think i began to be very judgemental. but when i read the bible i see God that gives equal chance to both the jews and gentiles. so i pray as i continue to live among people that i may see God in my daily life.

i hope i am not entering into a post modernism thinking, i really am not saying that everything is right but i am saying everything must be judge differently because of the different circumstances. at the end of the day everyone has a good heart of the CREATOR. i am now beginning to see the Jesus that eats with the tax collector, the Jesus that says to the woman caught red-handed in the act of adultery "does no one condemn you? neither do i. go your way, from now on sin no more" and the Jesus that reaches out to thomas and allow him to touch his nail-pierced hand. i'm now searching for this part of God that is not often discuss about. for if i live at that time i will surely be found as one of those wretch.

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i am probably categorised as a nuclear man with fragmented ideology from the book the wounded healer.

grace to love

i know i had wrote a lot about 'what-a-girl-should-do-and-not-do' and 'what-guy-should-do-and-not-do'. as i wrote down these issues that i repeatedly encounter in a relationship, i am saying it is true there are a lot we face in a relationship. i am stating the obvious facts that are probably not obvious. it is for self-check and is not intended to arouse your anger. as we girls play our role to nag less and you guys learn the magic of being more loving something beautiful will surely happen.

i was pretty close when i learn to love someone till i begin to look at my own needs. so it is your task guys, to love her till she forgets about herself. you girls to make him THE MAN because he sees himself through your eyes. i had not given up hope in GOD and in man. one day, i will surely find sufficient grace to love a person a lifetime. for now i wish you all the best.

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... he constantly invites his fellow man to ask real, often painful and upsetting questions, to look behind the surface of smooth behavior, and to take away all the obstacles that prevent him from getting into the heart of the matter. the contemplative critic takes away the illusory mask of the manipulative world and has the courage to show what the true situation is. .... more than anything else, he will look for signs of hope and promise in the situation which he finds himself... he knows that if there is hope for a better world in the future the signs must be in the present, and he will never curse the now in favor of the later. he is not a naive optimist who expects his frustrated desires to be satisfied in the future, nor a bitter pessimist who keeps repeating that the past has taught him that there is nothing new under the sun; he is rather a man of hope who lives with the unshakeable conviction that now he is seeing a dim reflection in a mirror, but that one day he will see the future face to face. (excerpts from the wounded healer)

the break-up

she comes back from work to prepare dinner for the guests that are visiting that night.
he lies down on the couch after a long day at work.

after dinner, she wants to clean up.
he is on the big couch again with his ps2.

you got a very upset gf because she wants some help. "i just want him to appreciate me".
you got a very upset bf because he needs to rest after a long day. "i throw my ass out there to work everyday so that hopefully one day you don't need to work. when i am back home i just need my space."

after that statement jennifer broke-up with the bf. she thought he will apologise and fix things up but he didn't. so she tried many ways to provoke him to action but things got out of hand. there is a point of time when a sorry would solve it but that moment doesn't last that long.

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this guy and i watched the same movie together but we didn't come to term who is right. maybe the two species will never come to term with this. the fact is girls need to feel appreciated, guys need things that are in a box (tv, ps2, newspaper, bed) to destress them. both are right, both deserve to be upset.

i always wish that there is a movie that can help guys understand how we feel but after this movie i realised it doesn't help. he turned to me after the movie "you cry in such a boring show?" of course, in fact i can cry over every line. i go knowing what to expect for this movie and i get exactly that. i guess that is why not many ppl like the movie, predictable/everday life. eventhough we all know exactly what will make the guy happy but we hardly get it right because we are just girls. we need love.

a girl every guy likes

had mahjong session with the girls yesterday.

this is one thing i learned. honestly i think they are really smart but i don't think i can be so cool as to not open my big mouth.

"don't leave your shoes outside the house, some fella will climb over your gate and steal your shoe"
"lock your car, ppl can easily start up your car and drive it away"
"can you don't leave your wallet everywhere keep it in your pocket"

don't guys just hate to hear these but honestly girls hate to repeat themselves too. our concern for your lost had made us become so uncool and naggy. as we walked out from her bf's house, we raised up the same concern "why he leaves his shoe outside? his car is not lock?" my goodness girls just have the eye for all these things.

she was prepared with her answer, "it's okie, leave it. i had told him so many times i told myself i shall not loss my cool over it anymore. hopefully he will learn his lesson soon." another girl agreed "yah i do the same, it is his money not ours."

wow i want to be a cool girlfriend too. i can see that i am not following the trend. so guys do you really prefer we do that?

memories

girl: maybe memory should remain as memory.
guy: MEMORY, a noun for something being remembered. how do we make memory in progressive tense?
excerpt from the movie almost love (korean)

Augustine mentioned something about this thing call memory. how meaningless. memory is something that is no longer real. it is already in the past. so is what you think about because it has not take place. so we are in between two time zones that are not tangible/real. yet to God he looks at time differently. He sees the yesterday, today and tomorrow all together so which part of the time are we living in? is it all three together?
paraphrase from the book The Confessions - Augustine

it is always says what you do with the now is important because that is the only thing you can do. i always thought that is true but recently i learned that even the now will soon become memories. what is now in 1 second will become memories. why do life past by us so fast. no room to make mistake, no room to change our mind. can't we slow down time when it is all sweet and nice, pause when need to make critical decision, rewind when we want to enjoy the moment again.

no, we can't rewind. for now this 'time' thing will continue to be a mystery to us. but we can close our eyes and enjoy that moment again. it can actually makes you smile :)

once my kids forever my kids

i told you my kids are interesting, this is really sweet.