Musings After Week 7

This semester has been a rather slack one. :) I like it! But I don't know how much difference it will make to my results.

I'm going out tomorrow to visit the Family Service Center that we could (hopefully) do community service at. It's tiring having to constantly change plans like this. But in the end I think we'll make it. :) My MNO team is a nice one to work with, at least so far.

I'm practicing for Phoenix Fest and NUS Open House for CME and the Rugged Hallways respectively. I don't know why but I don't really have much mood for music nowadays. I once said that my music reflects who I am at a point of time? That's really true. It sounds listless now, no energy, despite my constant trying and trying I can't put that little extra 'oomph' in that my songs badly need. The tactics and beats are there, but the emotions won't come.

I told JH (he's playing violin for me) today that our playing lacks something. He says, well, there's not much we can do. It's true also. CME used to be a big family team playing together, so much that even when practices are tough it's a joy to listen to and play with. Now there's just two of us. I always feel it's my fault not being able to carry on Farid's legacy. True enough, last year's CME did quite well in terms of performance quantity and quality. In fact I never realized we did that well until I started looking backwards. But one thing I never managed to instill into my members (that Farid did): CME is a family, and the fun thing about belonging is our being able to jam together. I lost that quality out. And now, it's almost gone forever, until some Chairperson in the next few generations revives it.

Hall points are out. My points are the lowest so far in the past 3 years. But I don't really mind - because the effort I put in is the least in the past 3 years too, and my points are enough for me to stay on in hall. I know there are people who are dissatisfied with their points too. So I should be quite thankful that mine quite aptly reflects my efforts for hall this year. So far dissatisfaction stems from two reasons: 1) Points don't match effort. 2) Points match effort, but alas, fall short when compared to other people.

Sometimes I think when we don't compare ourselves to others, we'd be so much happier, and satisfied. Easier said than done though. The world isn't fair. Sometimes you're unfairly better off than other people. Sometimes it's the other way round. You'd never really complain when it's the first case. In my case, I often have quite an effective way of solving the 'unfair' problem. Jesus paid for my sins and credited righteousness I don't deserve in my account. That's ultimate unfairness that tip scales to my side all the way. And because He loves me, nothing else will be unfair anymore. It will just be part of His big, big plan for my life. It's always wonderful to have this assurance.

One thing that made me quite happy this week was the new wall paper I found:

http://snooglezoo.com/wp-content/gallery/cute-wallpapers-1024x768/owl-family.gif

It's my new wallpaper now! I can't post it here because I somehow couldn't resize it or move it around. But it's super cute! And I love it. Makes me feel much better when I open my laptop to do my mundane FYP work of looking through 690 chemicals, checking their pka and recording their charges one by one. Thankfully Jon helped with some Excel codes, making the thing less tedious. However, it's still an awful chore, that I can hardly learn anything from. Hopefully this phase of the FYP will be over soon!

Rainbow Connections

I heard this song long ago once upon a time during my childhood, and heard it again from RH Choir. Something made me google this song today, because it's actually a nice song. I never thought it was orginally sung in The Muppet Show haha.

LOL. It's quite nice once the initial part is kinda gotten over with.

The Carpenter's version :) Has more feeling I think.

Why are there so many
Songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side
Rainbow's are visions
They're only illusions
And rainbows have nothing to hide
So we've been told and some chose to believe it
But I know they're wrong wait and see

Someday we'll find it
The Rainbow Connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me

Who said that every wish
Would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that
And someone believed it
And look what it's done so far
What's so amazing
That keeps us star gazing
What so we think we might see

Someday we'll find it
That Rainbow Connection
The lovers the dreamers and me

Have you been half asleep
And have you heard voices
I've heard them calling my name
Are these the sweet sounds that called
The young sailors
I think they're one and the same
I've heard it too many times to ignore it
There's something that I'm supposed to be

Someday we'll find it
The Rainbow Connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me

Redeemed How I Love To Proclaim It

"I sing for I cannot be silent

His love is the theme of my song."

Remembering the words we sang in the hymn Redeemed last Sunday.

Last Friday was my very first tracting experience. I shared the gospel verbally before, but never had the experience of tracting. We were giving out tracts in NUS explaining the theme of the gospel in small groups of three or four. I was with Alvin and Justin. We met a girl from China doing her work in the Engineering faculty, and I was glad that she allowed us to talk with her about the gospel and salvation in Jesus Christ.

Salvation is a gift to the dying world, that all one needs to do is accept. Sometimes people do find it hard to accept because it is hard to believe that something so wonderful can be free. But the motivation of the gospel is love from God, and when you love someone, you would do anything for them. The price is already paid when God demonstrated His love through sending His Son Jesus Christ to earth to pay for our sins on the cross.

I used to look down on tracting as an activity that is not strong enough to generate genuine faith. Who would believe in a piece of paper with words and myth-like characteristics (to some), especially in a world now overloaded with information? But when Stacey shared with me her experience in tracting, sharing with a student from China, who was led to come to church, I was immediately rebuked for belittling the power of God's salvation. How far can words move a person? The truth is there, but how can a heart tell the truth in this world of lies? How do we know the truth?

God is the truth, and unless the Spirit impresses on our hearts, and the hearts of our fellow men, any amount of eloquent speeches is useless. Unless God opens their eyes and ears, and unless they respond to the message with an open heart, to hear that quiet knocking. Sharing the Gospel is not the work of men, but the work of the Spirit. And God, He does not call the qualified, but qualifies the called.

The motivation of the Gospel is love. The motivation of Gospel sharing is also love, the love of a redeemed believer towards God, and subsequently, towards his unsaved fellow men. Yet how much do we let fear hinder us from sharing the water of life to a dying world, and from the ones we love most? How timid our love is.

I'm glad Campus has finally chosen tracting as our outreach programmes. Besides building up our courage in proclaiming the gospel, it also demonstrate reliance on the power of God, and His salvation. Hopefully this will help me be more burdened for others, and be confident and faithful to share the gospel more.

Second half of CNY

sMy 2nd part of Chinese New Year is spent trying to catch up with datelines I so blissfully ignored during recess week. The fact that I have to battle ants on my study table, and a horrible internet connection doesn't help much either. Fortunately Jon placed a modem in my room, so my connection is quite stable now.

I think my weak foundation in integration is killing me now. Really need to master this if I need to get my work done quickly. And nanotechnology in medicine is kind of driving me mad now. But at least it's only article reading, and not that much of calculation.

On the other hand, I'm really enjoying my Biz modules. I still think that MNO project is a bother because it's rather hard to get things done within a short timeline. But at least the project requires us to help other people which is a good thing. And I get to practice writing email-proposals again. Somehow I've been doing this non-stop since I was in Year 2. Learning more and more ways to communicate with people better, and manage teams. Terminologies are a pain though, but once you remember them they can be oh-so-interesting. And my MNO tutor handed me a big compliment regarding my role play yesterday (giving performance appraisal). He's really very nice. I rarely get compliments from teaching staff in NUS so those I get I remember well. I even remembered that a lab TA praised me once for using my fumehood properly and asked my classmates to follow suit.

The more I go through my biz modules, the more I realize that my need for affiliation and recognition is higher than I thought. Like the compliment thing - the type I like to get is not 'oh you play the piano so well', but rather 'you brought out the feeling of that song', or ' i like the way you handled that'. Specific compliments encourage me more. And on the other hand, I know this is horrible, but I don't handle criticism that well. To be honest, listening to criticisms make me very uncomfortable and I shun them. Some people attach criticisms with adjectives - you did this because you're 'weird' or 'lazy' or stuff like that. Somehow critisms that refer to an action (e.g. not clearing up my study table), is more effective, and don't hurt as much compared to those that targeting an attribute (lazy and disorganized because my table is messy). I know that I AM lazy and disorganized because I didn't clear up my study table. But it helps not to mention it you see. And another reason why my table looks like a war zone is because I don't have time to clean it (yea, excuses I know).

Simon taught us this song which he put on his blog last Friday:

You know, I'd never notice the words were so special until he pointed them out. I need to have a sense of personal mission for God.

Okies :) Back to integration.