What now?

If i had the power to change the world... oh imagine the wrongs i would make right... busy
If i could 'fix' the wrongs in people and have them see what i see... i'd probably change everyone..

But it ain't my right... and gosh would it be a boring world to live in if everyone thinks like me...

I think I've learned to accept that.. but sometimes it feels helpless... staring from afar.. what then can i do? a question i need to find an answer to...

BERSIH 2.5

Ladies and gentlemen.. this post is not to express my views on the recent rally in KL.. I have already over-indulged myself on fb and i am going to stop...

I think i was perfectly fine with everyone having their own opinions about the thing... then fb gets flooded with very shallow comments by people who have no idea what they are talking about... that infuriates me a lot... what is worse is when you know who these people are and all you think is.. huh?? this guy??

people who had ZERO interest in your own campus elections are suddenly super interested in general elections... i'm not even going to mention their knowledge level about our current system... let alone how they can be experts and claim that these are the measures needed for clean elections... I really have no comment for those who don't even know some of the claims made by bersih but yet have bersih pic badges in their profile...

People expect the best from the government... i expect bearable mistakes.. but yet the government fails on both accounts... But let me pose a question ... what do we expect from ourselves?? should we not expect any less?? if we demand the government to clean up should we not have cleaned up ourselves first? what major hypocrites we would be...

One of the most common things you see on fb statuses is pointing out how the government has wasted billions of taxpayers money on ridiculous stuff and expanding their own pockets... how true... but i've also seen jpa scholars and PTPTN loan takers waste these very same resources on 300 dollar watches, iphones and lcd televisions.. I'm not kidding...  i wish i were about the television... well, we're not very different are we...

One may say.. nope.. i don't do that... or my parents pay my expenses... but let me take it one step further... for those studying in public universities... do you not know that your fees have been subsidized substantially by taxpayer's money? you could almost call it a scholarship...  let me give you figures.. i'm paying roughly RM5000 for my 4 years here in UM for a RM60000 course my international student friends have to pay.... Now ask yourself this... ever skipped a class? ever slept in a class? we all can be honest with ourselves.. especially those uni courses like Hubungan Etnik and TITAS... now again imagine what you were doing instead of being in that class... sleeping in your room? shopping in mid-valley?? now don't tell me its not the same as what the government is doing because that is double-standard...

What i'm trying to get at is that we should all take a deep look at ourselves and think.. are we hypocrites? let's face it.. we don't expect the government to change.. if it were to change, we expect new people to rise up... but things aren't going to change for the better if the new people we so hope for comes from a pool of people with this attitude...

Whatever the implications of this rally.. let's clean ourselves up first alright? bersih 2.5 in operation...

purging the emo in me...

Ladies and gentlemen... I officially announce to you... that I am a firm believer in Murphy's law...
Anything that can go wrong WILL and MOST SURELY go wrong....

In fact some things which you never thought could go wrong will also go wrong... It is after all a flawed world we live in. The motivation behind this blog post is just to get all this pent up frustration and disappointment out of my system... my facebook has been clogged up with emo-fied messages and i don't think its good...

I just don't understand it... I've slogged for 2 semesters.. so tired at times i just wanted to break down.. at times the only things keeping me going were the god-sent friends who supported me.. and just looking forward to a long deserved break from the craziness in UM...

And now even that is going to be taken from me?? What?? 4 months holiday now reduced to approximately a month spread out intermittently?? Little by little my holidays were sliced away.. 2 weeks, 1 week, another week.. but now 1 month!!
At first i was just angry... telling myself i'm not going through with it... but then i realise.. i can't run away at all... i'm trapped... there is no choice.. well congratulations.. you have broken my willpower... you have managed to beat me down to submission despite my defiance... you happy now??

People advise me to look at it positively.. be open minded about it.. and its true.. i should.. and i usually am... but i'm just so tired of it... i've been open minded for the past 2 semesters... telling myself its a learning experience... its good training... it will help me later on in life... just a while longer....
But its been that way for ages... but you know what? there is no little while longer is there? there is no guarantee that it will end here.. in fact it was supposed to end ages ago..

So what now? I really don't know..


I guess God has a plan... and that whatever happens.. no matter how it knocks my spirit down... when i look back i will see a different picture.... Now i see it may take many years for that to happen... For now i just don't want to be defeated...

I am a Jonah

Hmmm.. was reading me bible the other day and i thought it would be fun to read the famous sunday school story of Jonah again....
The story seemed funnier than i last remembered it. haha..
Just for the sake of it.. This is how the story goes...
A long long time ago... cheh.. so dramatic..

there was this guy la.. his name was Jonah..
see he was this prophet who lived sometime in the old testament.. ( a prophet is someone who is God's messenger) Now Jonah was living his own mundane life in the city when one day God tells him to get up and go to the city of Nineveh (henceforth known as 9veh XD) to deliver a message of doom!

Wait! Wha??! Message of Doom?? In the bible? yup that's right.. message of doom. See 9veh was this great big city.. and like most great big cities.. they are greatly and BIGLY (is that a word? ) corrupted... in other words.. schmeevil.... yes.. evil....
What God wanted Jonah to do.. was for him to waltz up to the hostile citizens of this great big schmeevil city.. alone... and tell them that God was going to destroy them if they did not turn from their schmeevil ways... keywords... evil,alone... definitely not winning the most desirable task award i would say..

So what does Jonah do?? He's hilarious... he runs in the direct OPPOSITE direction... no kidding... haha.. firstly.. literally the opposite direction haha... secondly, trying to run away from God .. like hello? not possible o.O

so he goes on this boat from Joppa heading towards Tarshish... when God sends a storm in their way.. Now the boat was caught in this ferocious storm and all the sailors were like frantically throwing their cargo to make the ship lighter ... what was our dear hero doing?? sleeping =.=" well.. the captain woke him up later of course...

now the crew kinda sensed the divine nature of the storm and believed it was because somebody had done something to anger God... so they threw lots and obviously Jonah was pointed out... hence ensued some sort of interrogation... and Jonah admitted everything... so the captain asked him...

"What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?"
 "Pick me up and throw me into the sea," jawab Si Jonah
"“and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you."

But the Crew... so kind hearted... kinda ignored him and continued their efforts to survive.. trying to row back to shore... imagine that... if it were me ar... you asked for it isn't it?? wish granted...
*fiiiuuuuu booomm*splash* Sayonara....
But in the end.. the crew decided.. there is no other way la.. so they reluctantly threw him off into the sea.. all the while praying for forgiveness... such nice people... ironically Jonah is the prophet...
and sure enough.. the storm stops...

Now here comes the interesting part... God sends a Great Fish  to swallow Jonah up...(No, it isn't a whale like the kiddy book pictures suggest...) and he stays in the belly of the beast for 3 days and 3 nights... @.@ Wha??!! yup thats right... God saves Jonah by the most outrageous of methods... not only that... he gets vomitted out on dry land too!! Hard to believe? I'll get to that later...

Anyhu.. Jonah gets the picture... he can't run.. he probably can't hide either... so he gets to doing the task assigned... Goes up to the great big 9veh and delivers the unwanted news... To my surprise!!! wahh whole city... 1200000 citizens repent and turn from their ways!! Lesson 1 ..Never underestimate the power of God... Lesson 2.. who am I to judge people so quickly... o.O

Now, you'd think Si Jonah would be happy and continue his life right?? wrong... he merajuk O.o
Why??? coz his prediction of doom didn't happen... not too good on the reputation.. and he  felt this 9veh ppl deserved to be punished. Instead God was going to let them go.

Wahh... I would have sent lightning down on this Jonah to kill him... but no.. God dealt with him gently... showing him through a plant which shaded him and died.. which is another story.. and i digress coz its getting too long...

As i was saying earlier... This story is from the bible... and i believe it to be absolutely true... Many may argue... how is it possible that this si Jonah can survive in this Fish's belly? Some believe that the fish part was purely metaphorical... representing something else... Either way, what convinces me of this story is Jonah himself.... his reactions.. so silly... so rebellious... so arrogant... so selfish... so brat-ish but ever so human... SO REAL...
Isn't this how all of us react to things? that would have been exactly what i would do... no matter how funny and ridiculous i find it... I AM JONAH.. oh gosh i can't stand myself..

But the greatest part of it all... how God was so patient with Jonah... led him back through and astounding U-turn.. not letting him get harmed throughout... and then at the end of it all... Jonah was merajuk-ing??
But God still dealt with him gently... all i can say is WOW... i want that so much... do you want that too??

***interesting fact***Jonah means dove***It is possible to live in the belly of a whale***

disinterested

I thought time at home would cure me.. well it isn't working... i realised i've just been disinterested in everything... just not really me... crazy moody on the inside... guess i should change up the pace a little...

see.. lost interest in blogging already.. oh well...

Finding the way

Have you ever felt a sudden sense of panic? Out of the blue.. when you think you're at the height of a point in your life.
I guess people would never have guessed... apparently i look calm and collected all the time.. someone who is in control and looks like he knows what he's doing...

But at that moment in time.. in the middle of blurry faces i just felt lost... suddenly i just felt how insignificant my life has been... and probably will be... doing things i dislike but do well... pleasing people around but end up exhausted and drained... too tired to even enjoy good company...

I know i've grown a lot. And its great to see how far i've come. But.. essentially i'm still the same person.. still insecure, still introverted.. someone who enjoys doing background work... living a simple but satisfying life.. away from the fast lane...
Maybe i just wanted to prove something... to who I'm beginning to wonder..

At the beginning i could still see the meaning in things.. but i seem to have lost sight of that... I just want to go back to the beginning... where the meaning is clear...

things have been confusing to say the least.. i don't know how to deal with it.. just have to wait on God's timing... i really hope i don't panic and act rashly... its been staring in my face 24/7

On another note.... people have pointed out and partly i've noticed... I'm a people pleaser.. and a workaholic.... i probably will die young...

skema from young..

I feel like blogging about something happy today. Seems like my blog has been an emo dump of late. Anyway, i don't quite know what to blog about that is happy...

I noticed how i like to look back on past experiences.. thinking of all the things i used to do and comparing them somewhat to what i do now. What i can say about my childhood was it was pleasant. Rather uneventful actually.. something which was pointed out to me recently. But still, i would classify it as carefree and sheltered. What i mostly remember was cycling around, watching tv and playing with lego.

All the while, I have great parents who disciplined me early.. as a result i was kind of the guy who follows rules to the dot.So, i mostly stayed out of mischief and was probably a teacher's pet @.@
Didn't quite understand what i was doing in school until about standard 3 which was when i started to take my studies a little more seriously.

I think that early upbringing was vital in shaping who i am now. Flash forward.. I'm still someone who follows rules quite religiously. For example, I still wear my matric card around campus.. I'm still me. There are changes... there are improvements as well. But fundamentally I'm still that little boy who wandered the hallways of SKTRJ with his hair uncombed. In a way I'm glad I'm still nerdy.. simple and optimistic. HAHA..

I don't really know the point of this post.. but I'm excited to see how my now will affect what I am to be... I have hopes and dreams and a general idea of who i want to be. I foresee excitement soon as my first year in UM draws to a close and as the events of my life unfold i will observe the shaping of myself. No matter what though I'll still bet my money on being nerdy haha.

Until i have better things to blog about...

A little confession, A big thanks..

Somehow i always have the urge to change people. I feel like walking right up to them and tell them... "this is how you should live your life."
All this while i had the notion that it was always for their own good. I was helping them. I have the best intentions. But the more i think about it... its a very selfish thing to do. Advising then demanding and almost expecting that they change. Such arrogance i must say.

But that's just not how life works isn't it?
I look in the mirror and I am ashamed. Maybe some part of me needs to feel like i'm helping out in a noble way. Selfishness. Just to feed my own emotional insecurities.

I really don't think it started off this way. But i guess somewhere along the lines.. the true intentions got blurred out. It's sad that it got this way. But I'm glad i came to my senses. After all.. a clear conscience is the best mattress.

Ahah.. now that that is out of my system, just wanted to acknowledge and thank God for helping me through a period of unbelievable madness. Minggu KEBATIM, MPD 2 phases, Easter, and APK...
For the first time in my life i could foresee days which i knew very well would break my spirit. Days shrouded with blackness so much so that i didn't want to face it. Almost a month long without break or a chance to just savor the completion of something. I didn't like it at all. I knew i would be stressed out.. i knew i would have insufficient sleep... i knew my studies will suffer... But mostly because i knew i would become somebody i didn't like... snappy, naggy, grumpy tim..
I even pre-warned close friends. But God was good.

He sent me angels to keep me going all throughout the time. Like sweet reminders and boosts of happiness and encouragement. I owe it to my friends and family XD

Seriously.. it was all i had to keep me from breaking down. And I'm really not kidding. There were times where i wanted to run out and break something. I was even entertaining thoughts of being knocked down so that i wouldn't have to face the days.
When i came home last week... i was close to tears... no exaggeration. God is just so so good.. Reminds me.. you don't tell God how big your problem is... you tell your problem how big God is...

God is awesome!

What's the verdict??

I always knew I would return someday. I've always loved writing and facebook doesn't really cut it as an outlet for me.

The last time I posted, I was on the verge on entering the doorways of University Malaya and here I am now in the midst of my second semester. Oh how time flies.
Its been fun for the most part. The experiences have been draining but undoubtedly satisfying. Through it all  I've grown to love my course and my course mates, my college and my collegians and University Malaya has been kind so far.

Like what many have said before, campus life will be the time you get a glimpse of the so-called real world as you trudge carefully out of the cocoon you've been so comfortable in. So what's the verdict? (Also the title of the upcoming PKV Easter play) What is this glimpse that i have seen?

The one thing that strikes me the most is how much hurt, pain and sadness there is in the world. The disappointments I've seen are real and are scarring. Scars that are obvious by how people live so defensively, cautiously, paranoid even. How they tenaciously guard themselves from feeling the same hurts. Some losing hope in hope itself.

Maybe I've been blessed. Whatever hardships I've faced so far are not as remotely close to what people have faced. Probably why my life's optimism is looked upon with skeptical eyes. At times, I'm just left speechless. It's just sad when people just stop hoping for something better.

A stark contrast to how my life has been before is how friendship is treated like a one chance thing. You are my friend up until the point you wrong me. So fragile these friendships are. The picture I had previously was by no means all rosy and pleasant. But friendship was something you fought for, something you would scale the highest mountains for just a chance at patching up. It seems now that people would much rather throw it all away to save the heartache.

Sometimes, the more i think of it, the more depressing it is. But it just goes to show how much the world needs God. How much they are missing the message of forgiveness and love. I really hope that i can somehow show this to them. Things never seem right until you put God in the picture. Only then, you see the perfect picture.