| Wednesday, September 23, 2009 |
| wow. long time no see! |
i'm not even sure if anyone is following my blog anymore, lol.
i haven't posted for so long, it's been over a year! had trouble logging in because i couldn't remember my password. just kinda felt like there was really no point posting when there was so much i couldn't put into words, so much i couldn't understand, so much i was still processing, and so much i couldn't say.
i've realised that i'm a very private person afterall and i'll reserve my thoughts and ramblings for those closest to me. which means i probably won't be posting much, if at all.
a lot has happened in the past couple of years. i often wonder if my life would be 'better' if certain people had not come into my life, if i had chosen to take another path at certain crossroads. but i can't say i have regrets because it's not like everything has been horrible. good things have come along with the shitty stuff, and i wouldn't wanna throw out the precious baby with the bathwater.
besides, of what use are regrets? what's done is done.
i've changed. i used to think i was mature for my age. well, maybe i was, and my chronological age finally caught up with my mental one, lol. seems like my chronological age is chugging along happily while my mental age shuffles along reluctantly, dragging its feet like a petulant teenager.
there, i said it. i feel like a teenager, overwhelmed by what it means to be an adult. i'm nearly three years past legal adulthood, but in so many ways i still act and think like a child. and it's embarrassing, really, to realise that you're not as mature as you thought you were.
one major event that happened since i started this blog is that i left my first home church. i won't go into the details. i felt righteous and liberated at first, and believed i had found a new church that i would eventually grow to love and feel that i belong to. somehow, though, it just didn't take. maybe because it was so huge, i ended up feeling as insignificant as i did before i left my old church (the ironic thing is that my old church was tiny).
that was three years ago, and i still have some major unresolved issues. the people at my old church? they were my family. they were my friends. they were my leaders, people i looked up to for wisdom, support, and guidance. yet towards the end i felt betrayed, neglected, used. that's probably the real reason why i left, although there were other factors. after that, i'm not sure i can trust another church person anymore, regardless of whatever church they attend. in a way it's not their fault; sometimes people get so caught up in the 'mission' that they forget that people matter, and that relationships need to be nurtured.
nobody is perfect, and people will disappoint at some point or other. maybe it was misguided of me to hold my church members up to a higher standard than i do my 'secular' friends. but in a way they encouraged it. if only people could be more genuine with each other and not hide behind facades.
i seem to have digressed again, as i often do. the point is: i totally bought into the vision of life that my first church provided me with. i thought i had come home at last; this was it. for five years i poured my life and heart (and a lot of sweat and tears) into this vision. it was blind faith, and when i finally saw the cracks, it was too late. i had emptied myself out by then.
and now? i am still searching for my values, searching for myself. experimenting. i still believe in God, a personal God. when such a great love touches you like that, it stays with you. as for the rest of it... i don't know anymore. i no longer identify myself as a christian, because that places me in the same box with a lot of bull that i just don't buy anymore. my beliefs are deeply personal, and cannot be classified so easily. i'm not a christian. i'm just me, and God loves me. end of story. i don't go to church, i don't tithe, i hardly read the Bible. all of that is just extraneous. even if i did go to church, tithe, and read the Bible daily, it shouldn't be because that's what christians are supposed to do; it should be because God loves me. and He loves me regardless of whether i do those things. as of now, i'm just not into these things.
call me a hypocrite. maybe i am. maybe i'm just justifying and rationalising. but you know what? He doesn't care. labels are given by people. in the Bible, when God speaks, He never refers to those He speaks to as 'christians'; He calls them by name. He doesn't give a crap whether you wanna call yourself a Baptist, a Lutheran, or a Catholic. yet all this holds so much meaning for us human beings.
anyway, i've been meaning to post something about leaving church, since it had, and still has, so much impact on my life. i had meant to write a detailed post about exactly why and how i left, but too much time has passed and i've moved beyond that. there are things i miss about church. the fellowship, for instance. most of all, i miss the certainty i had about my life. i was once so sure what life was all about. i had a compass and a map, and (in my mind) trusty guides. now everything's just floating around, and it's scary, having to find my own way. amazingly, the only thing that's not changed is Him.
i'll just end abruptly here, since i'm stuck and can't think of a nice conclusion. =P |
posted by esther @ 5:39 PM  |
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| Monday, November 10, 2008 |
| a picture says a thousand words... |
Or maybe i'm just lazy to blog :P Anyways! Went for buffet lunch at Sakura at SAFRA Tampines today and saw this...  Hilarious. I suppose they meant the flesh of the mango. Was probably translated from Chinese directly.  Taken at Cineleisure the day my exams ended. I'm stomping on the cars below! Lol. We celebrated Nisa's birthday too!  Saw this at Burger King and stole a shot...  Taken at Sweet Ring at Bukit Timah. Stollen buns, anyone?  Satu ringgit oni! Cheep cheep! **** Went to visit a friend's lomo photo exhibition at the Post Museum on Sunday. Saw Fiona Xie at church on the same day, but didn't snap a pic.  I only took pics as they were starting to take down the exhibition...    Guy in pink plastered his pics all over his body!  Wall of photos with a common theme. Hmm, this pic is supposed to be upright, I forgot to rotate it :P  Post-it board for visitors.  Writing on the wall.   Blythe doll lomo-montage, inspired by Andy Warhol.   My friend painting over the wall to hide the marks left behind...  Random window shot. Lol |
| posted by esther @ 4:06 PM |
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| Wednesday, October 15, 2008 |
| more random pics |
 I laughed out loud to myself in the lift when I saw this ad in the White Sands lift... guess babies need to look good too!
 Sandwich (I keep typing 'sandwish!!) I made for myself. Wheat bread, lettuce, tomatoes, cream cheese, and tuna mayo (Ayam brand) spread. Delicious!
 The sky looked like this one morning at about 7 am...and my photo does it no justice at all! Still, you have an idea...it was all pink and purple. Gorgeous.
 Table at Coffee Club. Ate here with Sheena to celebrate my birthday. We had to climb in to sit. Very unglam but cute. I donno why there's this glowy effect, but I like it. Maybe my camera is smeary, lol. I had the most chill and low-key birthday this year. But I was happy. I got a lot of birthday wishes, and they mean more to me than presents. Anyway, the things I really really want are really big ticket items...like a new camera, things like that. Or things that nobody can give. |
| posted by esther @ 10:38 PM |
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| Monday, October 06, 2008 |
| random photos |
Random, badly-shot photos from my camera phone:
 This is what my LCD screen on my laptop looked like one day...  Then I got a new PC!!! :D And I'm lovin' it. Look at that ultra cool blue light! Lol. Seriously, after being on a laptop for the last 8 years or so, and having to deal with slow loading and lots of lag - especially when I run graphic-heavy games and programmes like Second Life (SL) and crashing and freezing up half the time, this is like... heaven. Now I can play music, be on MSN, surf the net and SL at the same time and experience only minimal lag! Also, I kind of love the new speakers, and the huge screen... I'm still way more used to typing on my laptop, though, despite the fact that it's (the laptop) is missing its 'W' key - thanks to one over-enthusiastic wiping down. I also have no BlueTooth on this PC, and only a trial version of Microsoft Office... So, good thing my laptop is still functioning. I don't know when it's going to give out, but it seems ok as long as I don't play the Sims or SL for too long.  I took this pic to show my friend because I couldn't figure out how to remove the PC cover to replace my new graphics card > . < Yes, I'm really a n00b when it comes to stuff like this... Silly me, I didn't realise there was a lock there that said "OPEN" =.=
 Yet another pic taken because I didn't know where to put my graphics card!! I was seriously frustrated that day man.
 Also taken to show my friend. "Why your fan so kiasu one," he said.
 He sent this back to me to show me that I had to remove that bracket over there so that I could fit in my graphics card. For a day or two after that I kept getting ribbed because I didn't know I had to remove that thingy... "It's common sense what." Yeah, common sense for someone who works as a programmer?? Oh well, at least I got it in like finally!!!  Prawns caught during a very good prawning session. 3 hours, 2 rods, 23 prawns (I think).  My friend's 9 year old spaniel Tracy. So cute and gentle, she climbed onto my lap while I was kneeling on the floor!!! *explodes from cuteness*  Tracy gnawing away at a giant bone. She shares it with the golden retriever. Couldn't manage to take a pic of the golden retriever because it was so hyper!  My lift lobby a month or so ago...they were doing upgrading.
 Fallen signboard at Pasir Ris Park. I thought it was funny how they surrounded it with red tape, almost like a crime scene... |
| posted by esther @ 6:40 PM |
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| Monday, September 29, 2008 |
| what is love? |
I read this on a friend's blog...
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"I've been searching for the meaning of love for a long, long time.
I understand the love between a mother and her child, between families, between owners and pets, but I've never truly understood the love between two different persons who come to meet at a certain stage of their lives.
Many people have tried explaining to me, but none of them have ever given me a satisfactory answer. Which also means probably no one knows the meaning of that kind of love too.
They say no matter what kind of glitches in the relationship, love can conquer all. But what is the meaning of that love? You care for someone and you take care of someone and.. then what? What is it that makes you love someone so much that you can use that love to conquer all the glitches?
What is love?
What is true love?"
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I found this really interesting.
When I was younger, I thought I knew: You meet someone, fall in love despite all your individual flaws and differences, you grow more in love as time passes and you weather storms together; somewhere along the way you get married, have children, and grow old and gray together. Communication, trust, and respect is important. So is humour, affection, and having good times together.
Now I no longer know. Maybe all that I've said above is still true, but nothing is as simple as it seems in theory.
I've seen people who get into, and stay into relationships for reasons other than love. The reasons are varied; some out of loneliness, some out of a sense of dependency on their partner, some out of convenience. Some for their children.
I've always believed that I should never be in a relationship if I'm not in love with my partner, and I still believe so. I say "I" because I believe that other people have their own views, or their own circumstances, and I should respect that. Who's to say what I would do if placed in the same situation?
In fact, sometimes when I hear and read of the trouble others go through in relationships: the mistrust, the self-doubt, the insecurity - I wonder if it's worth it. When the rush of first love (I don't mean literally your very first love, but when you first fall in love with someone) fades, what is left?
Another friend told me recently that he's not had a girlfriend for a really long time, but that he's used to being single, and would much rather stay this way (I think things have changed since then for him, but oh wells). I'm used to my way of life, with nobody controlling me and telling me what to do, nobody whose consent I need to seek before I want to do something, nobody I have to be accountable to. Except myself and my parents, and in lesser ways, my closest friends. The closer you get to someone else, the more their problems become your problems, the more their flaws irritate you. Seems like having a boyfriend or a husband is having your own problems multiplied by two.
Yet it seems that we were built with this innate desire to be close to others.
Am I being very pessimistic? No, I'm not being depressed or anything at the moment, just pensive, I suppose.
Getting to know a person is not something that can be accomplished in a few months, a year, or even years. Maybe it takes a lifetime to know someone, and even at the end of your natural life you'd still not know everything about the person you have been living with all this time. Very possibly, you'll never really know yourself, either, because you've not been tried and tested in every single situation available. There are a more than a million "what if's" in this world.
So how do you know that you've chosen right? How do you know that this is the person for you?
So hard to answer.
Even as I type, one of my closest friends has flown to the UK to spend six months with her boyfriend, whom she met online (!!!!!). I am really excited and happy for them; they're two of the nicest and most generous people I've met, and they deserve to be happy.
He once told me, "The ball is in her court now; if she doesn't want me then I will have no other woman."
My goodness, he made me soooooo jealous!
But then I got to thinking... how does he know he will never have another? At the heights of our passions, giddy with joy, we cannot contemplate the absence of that feeling. Even if we had previously lived a lifetime in that very absence.
Nevertheless, I hope that this visit of hers will be another leap forward for their relationship.
Maybe one just needs to take heart and have faith.
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On another note, I've been meaning to blog about many things, but just didn't find the time - always something else to do. And some things I'm not sure if I am comfortable with blogging about. I used to let it all out on here, just as I used to share many things with many friends. Somewhere along the way I decided that for some things, it's best to talk about them only with certain others.
In the past I posted my blog address everywhere, but I've not shared my blog address with many new friends for a long, long time. My too-transparent archives are the real reason. They're kind of embarrassing, even. I'm not really keen to let new people see the gong dai (this means very blur), somewhat overenthusiastic, hanging-out-all-over-the-place seventeen year old kid I was. Many things have changed in my life; I am one of the biggest things. Sometimes I think I'm wiser and more mature. At other times I feel like I've lost a big chunk of my naivete and innocence and wish I could face the world with the same abandonment again. 初生之犊不怕虎。As the Chinese saying goes, the young bulls (I think?) do not fear the tiger.
(This leads me to ponder if people really change or they just develop along the same path; ie. they grow more into themselves....have circumstances changed me, or have I simply discovered more of myself in them? Arrrrgh I think too much!)
But I don't want to delete this blog and start a new one either. Not sure why; maybe I'm just lazy. Maybe I'm attached to this blog despite its embarrassing archives. Don't want to make this a private blog that people have to sign in to read. Anyway, not like a lot of people read my blog also lor.
Pffff. I digress again! |
| posted by esther @ 8:29 PM |
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| Tuesday, September 23, 2008 |
| i can't stop listening |
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| posted by esther @ 3:31 PM |
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| Thursday, August 28, 2008 |
| I may be wrong but... |
Few things in life are as satisfying as the feeling of a squeaky clean floor under my feet.
Funny how I seem to have gotten used to cleaning the floor. It was a labour of love, which became a chore, and which has now simply become routine.
Funny how I've come to enjoy this routine, and the satisfaction of the result. |
| posted by esther @ 4:51 PM |
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