I still remember this year's Easter message, pastor remarked that many people enjoy and look forward to Christmas ever year. The decorations, the small baby in the cradle, the giving and the joy. Yet no where in the Bible were we asked to remember or celebrate the birth of Christ. But Jesus, in the last supper, did ask his disciples to always remember his death. The body broken, the blood that flowed - his death to complete the work of salvation.
This messaged stayed in my mind for more than half the year, and somehow changed my outlook of Christmas. Christmas, as commercialized as it is, does in a way, draw people to pause and ponder its true meaning. Why the babe, the wise-men, the shepherds, the stars, the lowly birth in the manger, angels heralding His birth. Everyone loves the baby, loves the joyous birth, and somehow it is so hard to connect that this babe, Christ, would grow up to walk the path of the suffering, to be nailed on the cross to bear the sins of the world. Somehow Christmas and Easter become two very differently themed occasions, when they should be in a way, one and the same.
While Christmas is filled with church activities, carols, programmes, gifts and reunion dinners, this year I learned that salvation is the focus of Christ's coming, and it should be the thing I focus on. Instead of the night of Christ's birth itself, to remember why He came, and how this has become personal to me.
On a separate note, due to certain complicated changes that arose most last minutely, next semester, I'll be doing my FYP (Final Year Project), and will postpone my industrial attachment plans to Semester 7 in July instead. On one hand, I look forward to taking more modules this semester, especially since I have the freedom to choose most of them. On the other hand, I am a bit worried about doing FYP this early, but I guess I'll just have to make that up with putting in extra work and research.
Exam results were out yesterday, and they were exactly the same as what I had been experiencing semester after semester. I can't tell how numbed my feelings were towards them already. Learning is indeed a journey to be enjoyed, but still, people do have to be evaluated at the very end of the journey. My family remained supportive regardless of the fact that my performance was really 'below average' all the time. Coming into NUS has really been an adventure that had awakened myself to come to the awareness of where I really stand in a competitive academic society. It is painful to realize that you will always stay that way because you don't learn as fast, because your passion doesn't match up with others, and because you don't put in as much as you really should.
There is a limit for everyone, and I don't think I've stretched myself as far as I really should. There is always room to push oneself further, but with what consequences? I always wanted to be a high achiever in academics, and given another chance to start over in NUS, I believe I would have done things differently, worked harder and pushed myself to the max. But as it is, even with what I'm currently putting in, I'm compromising a whole lot of things just to study harder, and it would be dangerous to compromise further and lose myself. For what it is for man to gain the world, and lose his soul?
Nevertheless, a new semester is ahead, for me to strive harder and learn more before I leave university and enter the working world. And I believe, as always, God's grace is sufficient for me, and that is always enough for me to carry on.
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