Filling Up Those Time-Pockets

I think I should be pretty happy and satisfied now. I've got two things in my hand to fill up my time when I'm at home, and that doesn't include shopping (which I usually do).

Firstly, I got to serve as transcriber for my pastor's daily audio devotionals. Link as below.

http://www.youtube.com/evangelistmikeredick

The transcribing just started out so not every day is transcribed yet. There's also Pastor Jason's devotionals but so far I'm only doing Pastor Mike's, which I feel is the more challenging one because he talks quite quickly. Sometimes it is necessary for me to listen many times before I completely get what he says. And the speed at which he talks made me feel inclined to speed-type too, so my first transcribe ended with my last fingers of both hands feeling rather dead.

I'm glad to be able to serve in this area, as the devotionals are also spiritual food to my soul, and I hope, to many souls as well. As usual, I sometimes have my doubts about this non face-to-face outreach thing, always wondered that who would come across such devotionals besides regular church members (if they are interested), unless the pastor or preacher is a really famous one. Oh me of little faith! I always need to remind myself that God can use any channel, any vessel, in His own time and way to convict and convert. I need to learn to trust in His power and grace.

Another thing which I'm doing now is trying to read a 1,000 over page text book on laboratory instrumental analysis lent to me by my team leader. So far it has been three days and due to various reasons (such as need for huge sleep amounts for night shifts), I have only read 5 pages. Will try to be do better in the coming off-rest. :( Still I can see why this is going to be a useful book. I won't be ploughing through the whole book entirely, but at least I would be able to finish reading most of the relevant parts and it will help me develop in my job. I'm really thankful for my team leader's generosity in offering to lend me his book, and being willing to explain things that I don't understand.

Today was another of those Sundays where I go to church after night shift. My colleagues probably think it's a length too far to go for 'religious obligations', but I feel otherwise. I sustain myself to going to church after night shifts not because of any virtue of myself, but only because God is worthy of worship. Going to church weekly doesn't make us 'good' because it's some responsibility we managed to fulfill, but it is solely because God's greatness and goodness demands this worship.

When I was considering whether or not to take up this shift job this was my primary concern. Will I be missing church regularly because of shift work? Will I put my work before my worship? I think to some extent there is already some compromise. Like how I leave BS half-an hour early for night shift. Like how I miss Sunday service every once a month because of morning shifts. Therefore I make it a point not to miss any services that I could attend.

It is not easy to stay awake after night shifts. Because it's not enough just to drag myself to church, I need to stay alert all through as well, otherwise it will be meaningless. Thank God so far He has sustained me with His strength and love. Every time when I sing for worship after night shifts, I am so glad in my heart that I came, because I feel His sustaining power and grace. Because I feel His worthy-ship.

Me Fats Soon

I'm going to be super fat (well, in relative terms) around 26 days from now. And nope, sadly (or maybe not) this doesn't refer to any of my body parts. However I'd rather this thing gets fat rather than my body does (for now). I'm talking about my bank account!

I did not kena lottery/jackpot/lucky draw or anything. I am simply, by effect of my own carelessness, getting a salary backpay next month.

What happened was last Friday one of my colleagues who was as new as I told me to check my e-payslip again because she found out that she wasn't getting double-paid as we should on public hols. It turned out that it was the same for me too! Apparently I (or we) did not notice this because on our payslip it was listed that our shift allowances for public holidays were already doubled. However, our basic pay were not. It turned out that some option wasn't checked by HR and that was why we haven't been getting our pay.

So they are back-paying us next month. And I am getting my basic pay for SIX public holidays in one month's salary on top of my usual pay and allowances. I guess this is the largest debit figure I'll be seeing in my account so far (moderated by CPF deduction though). And I think the next step is to change my savings account settings for March so the bulk of it converts into untouchable savings before I am tempted to help boost Singapore's economy in my own way.

Anyway, on a separate note: I think I've found a niche in church which I can potentially serve in! Everything is not finalized yet, but I've been praying about it since I first knew about this. :) I guess next to music (or maybe on par to music), this is the area which I think I can serve best, and would enjoy serving in the most.

Also back in my home-church, I think I'll be doing Chinese-English translation most of the time from now on most of the time. There are two major areas in my academic life that I've really tried hard to develop: firstly music, and secondly, languages. I never planned these as careers, and never even pushed myself that far to really excel in them. But these are the two things that I feel, really let me be who I am; even when sometimes I'm not sure who I really am. And these are the two things I really do from my heart.

I'm really thankful to have the opportunity to serve God in these two areas. Both through my strengths, and my weaknesses. Every time I serve I see things which I am weak in, and probably would never be strong at. My piano playing hits a bottle neck, and is always without artistic flair. My verbal translations are kind of OK as long as you do not look at my facial expressions (or rather the lack of them) when I'm speaking. And my writing, as I've mentioned umpteen times - attempt to be a bit of everything, but never the whole of it. But it is because I see these weaknesses, I learn to depend on God to work out the fruits of my hands. And it is because of this dependence - I learn not to despise what I have despite it being, apparently, 'not enough' in the eyes of a rational man.

Breaking Boundaries

I realized very long ago that I'm a girl who lives in a box. A box with boundaries defined mainly by habits, family upbringing and principles. While some of these things are good, others are very limiting. Ironically although I am aware of these boundaries I find it really really hard to change myself or my circumstances to break free of them. (Guess why I stuck to the same hairstyle for years though I knew I looked awful in it. Guess again why my current hairstyle has not changed since then.)

And it's not just the hair. It's the type of clothes I wear, the way I learn things, the way I do things, things I do, things I do not do, places I go, my perception of what's right and wrong, things I spend my money on, music I listen to, and even areas in which I serve in church, and areas which I want to develop myself in. In fact I can say that I am one of the most self-limiting of people I've ever met. Whatever changes I eventually made were of very gradual phases, and most of them were done because they were necessary. Otherwise, they were made because of some push from somewhere, or influence of other people.

I will never spearhead any radical development plan or birth of new ideas. In fact I was appalled by the notion that as RHCME Chairperson in my second uni year, I was supposed to improve the committee by making new changes. Sad to say I had tried to to keep those to a minimal, and credit for whatever good things that came out of that year goes largely to Andrew (who was a Year 1 freshie at that time). My idea of chairing the committee was keeping things status quo. Needless to say, I was okay as a chairperson, but at the same time, mediocre.

If I were Singaporean, PAP would have a field day throwing propagandas at me. The 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' mentality, 'culture of fear', 'don't rock the boat', etc are created for people just like me. People who are just aiming for mediocracy, security, but not development. Well, maybe development, but only the kind that is safe.

I don't want to be like this. But this is me, and how can I not be me? How can a stay-at-home couch potato transform into an adventurer? How can Bilbo Baggins at the age of 50 venture out of his comfy hobbit hole to join an unknown bunch of dwarfs to reclaim their gold from a much-feared dragon Smaug?

I think the only time I took the initiative and stepped out of my comfort zone to learn/try new things on my own was when I was doing my industrial attachment during my final uni year. In fact, now when I look back, I don't know what came over me those first few weeks. I was, I think, more enthusiastic than even new recruits. I dug files, and folders, and opened links to get hold of whatever information I could about the pharmaceutical world. I said 'hi' to other colleagues and asked their names (only for the first two months though). I read every single forwarded email, and 99.99% of them didn't concern me or my work. I read HR-related Harvard-published articles, did web-based courses that are not required of me, read research papers during my free time, and talked to other colleagues who sat next to me on the bus on the way back to find out how lab systems work.

How I wish - how I wish that IA student was still in me. I wonder how she got there in the first place, but the information she gleaned on her own, the contacts she made, the impressions she formed: seriously made me wonder if that was really me.

I want to be like that. Excited to learn new things, keep wanting to learn new things. Not to be afraid of making mistakes, or think when watching a demo that I'm going to mess up this and that later. I still am excited about my now, but there is no drive, no push to stretch my limits. I only want to learn as much as I comfortably could, and not as much as I really could. Sometimes when my colleague tells me how strenuous his own trainings used to be, how they were really (sometimes unreasonably) stretched: I would think that kind of training lifestyle would be useful to me. Not pleasant, definitely; but most certainly useful. Just the same way I was forced to be independent when my supervisor was on leave during IA days and I had to follow up on all her threads. Was telling another colleague another day - that it is grace given to me from my trainer to be lenient with me; but it is my responsibility NOT to be lenient with myself. I wonder how much of that statement I'm keeping up.

And it's not just work. It's my whole Christian life too. How much time have I spent serving God? Is it really work that is holding me back? If my irregular shift timetable is a barrier to me formally serving in church, how am I serving the community, or even my friends/housemates in other ways? I haven't been doing enough, and I call 'work' out as an excuse. I haven't been stretching my limits, just walking within my comfort zone, letting the days pass just like that. How do I let God shine in and through my life?

I'm excited about going to Phillippines for school-evangelicalism in July for several reasons. Firstly, I need something to break myself out of this 'comfort zone' momentum. To focus on sharing the gospel and praying for people even just for a week, for me to get the priorities of my life right again. To experience the power of God through His gospel. To humble myself when I see how others grow in faith and works. Yes I am anticipating this - and I need to start preparing myself for now. Meanwhile I need to pray and start using baby steps to jump start little breakthroughs in my life. To let go, and let God.

虽然逆着风, 你給我勇气. This line of a song meant a lot to me when I heard them, because of what I wrote above. I have needed that 勇气 for a while.

Another Book Down

I finished yet another e-book of Brandon Sanderson's, The Alloy of Law, a stand-alone continuation of the Mistborn trilogy (and tonnes of other library books besides).

The thing that made this new world interesting is how it originated from the Mistborn world. Characters have interesting limited Allomantic/ Feruchemical abilities. None are Mistborn (possess a combination of all such abilities). And unlike Sanderson's usual fantasy world, this one is a bit more evolved. They actually have electricity and railway tracks, and instead of fighting with merely Allomantic/Feruchemical powers, they have guns and pistols and grenades. This changes the condition of the playing ground more than ever.

Anyway here's a summary of the four main characters for my own amusement. I love how characters in games and books have special abilities that give them an edge over others, and the abilities they lack provide their own limitations.

1) Wax. Forty-plus, supposedly main character in the book, but a little too boring for me. Still can't get over the fact that he accidentally killed his lover many many years ago, and is emotionally traumatized by the event. His Allomantic ability is to be able to push around metal objects (or be pushed backwards by them if the objects are heavier than he is). His Feruchemical ability is to be able to store up his weight in metal-minds (able to decrease weight at will), and use the stored up weight to dramatically increase his weight later. Logical and cool thinker.

2) Wayne. Also around the same age as Wax. But far more interesting. Cheery and optimistic. Has a talent in picking up and imitating accents of people around him, and to him, accents tell exactly who you, what you do and what you've been through. Master of disguise. These two points (and his witty snide remarks), easily makes him my favorite character in the book. His Allomantic ability is to be able to bend time bubbles, dramatically slowing down time for himself and those within his bubble, in which he can change disguises, create private conversations or move around. His Feruchemical ability is that of healing, he can store up health in his metal minds (thus making himself weak at the moment), to use the health for instant healing. However, the amount of health he can store up is very limited, and can be used up very quickly.

3) Marasi. Young girl, a bit of a nerd, fan of both Wax and Wayne, and crushes on Wax. I'm glad they didn't get together though, I didn't think they'd make a good couple. University student who studies criminology, blurts out random quotes from professors, psychological behavior justifications, and statistics from time to time, which can be quite useful. Quite good at using firearms. She is not a Feruchemist (cannot store abilities in metalminds), but is an Allomancer. Her Allomantic ability is opposite of that of Wayne's - letting her speed time up for those within her time bubble.

4) Mike. The Villian. Almost invincible because both his Allomantic and Feruchemical abilities come from the same metal (gold), allowing him to draw vast amounts of health into himself automatically; letting him heal instantly from any wound and regrow body parts, no matter how large the wound is. He plays the part as the good guy gone bad. Also quite a smart guy.

With those characters - there's so much potential for a good story in The Alloy of Law, and Sanderson has crafted it well. For once the love story is not overly cheesy (although I wish Marasi wouldn't blush so much, it's annoying); and I was actually glad she and Wax didn't get together despite their attractions for each other. It ended with a cliff hanger, and if there's anything I wish could be change in the tale - it would be getting Wayne a fun and witty girlfriend.