i have spent three nights at my new place. and i'm loving it! i eat what i want when i want and i'm concentrating on my work more than i have at home! bearing in mind that i have one housemate around and she's pretty passive and doesn't walk around the house a lot and the other housemate who's up in queensland, being treated to the nice warm sun by her boyfriend (i still don't know much about her). oh, plus my room is at the end of the flat so not much happens at my end anyway...well, except when someone goes to the toilet. i can hear that.

more later. i don't have internet at home.

i got my keys today! excited and apprehensive. wondering how i'm going to deal with the yet unknown housemate.

can you prescribe a way to die alone? -zao

"i want to encourage and give hope whether it's to people who were born Christian or people who never considered God. i'm not trying to convert anyone, but i want to tell people how great i feel. that's why my songs aren't just, 'oh, my girlfriend broke up with me and i'm jealous of her new boyfriend.' i want to tell people God is love. That's my eternal, unchanging reality."

[aaron weiss of mewithoutYou]

today...

they were laughing as the train pulled to a stop.

the doors beep open.

leisurely, he stood up and slung his bag over his shoulder. she was still spooning icecream into her mouth. he faced her, as if to pose, then bent down to pick her school bag up and slung it over the same shoulder.

they made their way off the train just before the doors closed. she danced around him on the red tiles as they made their way to the creaky escalators.

i wonder if she had to ask him or did he do that out of love?

photos for the cross & beyond are up! thanks to all participants in making it a great night especially those who built the different stages, the cooks and teck who did a superb job being beaten in almost 10 scenes over two nights. well done!

click on the picture to get the rest of it.

she remembers.

she remembers sitting next to him. her adoring eyes were almost always looking at what he was doing. he asked to borrow a colour pencil. happily, she placed her box between them.

she remembers one day after recess he wasn't sitting in his seat anymore. she kicked up a fuss and wanted to sit next to him. she was told she had to sit in this new place. she looked next to her and saw no one she knew.

she remembers looking over to where he was sitting. he was getting comfortable with another.

thus was her first disappointment.

FINE, she silently screamed. you don't get to share my colour pencils with me.

she remembers getting on with her life.

slave to control

we as humans are hardwired to want to control the environment around us. in Genesis, God gave man control over all the animals and plants on earth (Gen 1.28). because God gave us control, over centuries, man invented equipment of comfort like chairs, electricity and light, cars, computer, internet, etc.

BUT there's a downside to all the control. the results are not perfect. there's pollution in the air. the ozone layer is thinning. the environment is out of control and getting worse (not that it was in our control in the first place). and because we are humans, the desire to control to spills over from relationships to careers, from finances to everyone we encounter. but we all know that we can't control life and where it takes us.

the surge (young adults) group is doing a six week study on exodus and the introductory lecture was fascinating. in life, people exercise control by:

1. storing up things (i.e. egyptians with tombs filled with treasures hoping that they will follow them into the next life and the more the better the next life is going to be)
   
2. consolling ourselves with pleasure (by distracting ourselves from the fact that we have no control whatsoever of our lives)
3. becoming pharoh/man-god (where self is the centre of the universe)

moses in Exodus tries to get God to define himself when he encountered the burning bush but God can't be defined by us. "i am what i am" he said (exodus 3.14, NKJV). the funny thing is, moses tried to do the right thing by his people when he killed the egyptian to save his own countryman from a certain death (exodus 2.11-12). but he was doing it in his own strength. God appeared to him in the desert where it's dangerous and where trying to make a living in a place without a steady supply of fresh water (such as the nile) can literarily kill you.

during the time israel was slave to egypt, the thing holding them back was the relative comfort of living close to fresh water was. eventhough they had squatters for houses and working conditions were absolutely terrible, the had a steady supply of food. in the desert, it's tough and hard to live.

the challenge? am i willing to travel from the safety of where i am to where God is in the desert where it is tough to live?

i don't know. i know that if i tried with my own strength, i will most definitely fail.

grace

sometimes listening to another share about their relationship with God during on of the devotion sessions before gravitate, i get struck down with with bouts of jelousy. everyone else's walk is so much better than mine. but the grass is always greener on the other side, isn't it?

there are lots of stuff that i know in my head but have never really lived it or felt it. one of which is God's grace. 'my grace is sufficient for you' (NIV)/'my gracious favour is all you need' (NLT) [2 cor 12.9] has always been just a phrase from the Bible. never really meant anything to me until two weeks ago.

it was the last week of my clinical placement and my supervisors previously told us that they mark our continuous clinical assessment (CCA) marks in the last two to three weeks of the six week placement. when i got my feedback at the end of week five, i was more than a little worried but i figured that i could get my marks up to the passing level by the end of the last week.

THEN i was sick for half of monday and all of tuesday so there was no showing my stuff then. on top of that, i had a clinical exam on the wednesday and the final feedback was on thursday! absolutely no way i could do enough to bump my marks up. based on my descriptions, my friends thought i aced the exam. i wasn't so sure.

i was neglecting my relationship with God for about two weeks prior and knowing i had no right to ask Him and expect Him to come to my rescue, i did. i failed really badly last year due to a mixture of an overly strict supervisor who marked me at a graduate level and not as a third year and a lack of time spent studying on my part. i really didn't want to fail again and have physiotherapy closed off as a career path.

it was then that i truly knew what Godgiven grace was. i more than passed the clinical component of neurological physiotherapy. it's so easy to just attribute this to the supervisors being 'nice' because i was sick or me, being the genious that i am, scraped through the end all by myself.

it was definitely not me, i can tell you that. definitely an intervention by a higher power, the big guy upstairs.

that's it! i got a date i'll be moving out. 22nd july. lessthanamonth! i'm excited!

okay. i can be bothered to post this picture up. but not bothered enough to take a picture of my other hand. so this is what you'll get. try and guess which hand it is. the first correct answer wins a massage from me! claim it on friday/sunday if you see me around. not applicable to those who do not know me...or rather, if i don't know you personally, your comments won't be wasted because i'll read them, but you won't be able to claim a massage from me. um, if you don't understand what i just said, excuse is in the post below. i don't think i quite understand what i said either.

i hate being sick

sick today...well, actually, sick for the whole weekend but being sick today is the one that really counts. like being able to miss the second half of the clinic day so i didn't have to stay and take part in the 'selfstudy' time before the absolutely meaningless stroke discharge meeting and the physio inservice which is unbelieveably boring at times. oh, wait. that was cancelled and everyone could go home at 2.30 instead of 3.45pm. oh, goodie. i left at lunchtime, anyway.

last night i saw jesse mitchell (anita/ange, let me know if this is not his last name) perform. jack johnson/pete murray type music. pretty good. but i was tired and being sick didn't help either. but i'm glad i went. got to learn what guys' issues with girls are.

i just realised my thought processes are a little wonky this morning. i called my patient 'she' in front of him.

[jesse]