It’s Time

Man this month has been incredibly hectic. Why? It’s because of this

Yep thats about right.

I’m ready to pop the question. Now it’s just a matter of time.

Wish me luck guys and gals!

Away

I’ve been wondering a lot of things lately.

They’re the things I always think about and could never find an answer for.

Like why do girls insist on wearing shorts / short skirts in 8 degree weather.

Why do people press the pedestrian button at the traffic lights and then run across the road anyway.

How come no matter how the closer you live to church you’ll still be late for it anyway?

And one question that’s been bugging me most is why in the world is there no cheap places to eat at Sydney CBD???

After a while of thinking and rehearsing I realised that all the things I’ve been wondering about – be it shorts in winter or jaywalking – it’s not about whether they have answers. It’s just about asking the question.

I find that when I’m wondering about something, the first step to any sort of answer I’m thinking about is simply to ask the question.

This weekend I hated my life.

I seriously hated most of the things about it.

I hated the way that I have to go to work everyday only to find that I’m not filled by what I do. I hated the fact that I give my all at work and yet there are just some of those who doesn’t want to pull their weight and I’m forced to do their work on top of mine. I hated that I have not yet found friends in this so called popular city.

I hated that I was here.

Jack Johnson describes my feelings perfectly in one of his songs. I just want to be a thousand miles away at times.

Just to be somewhere else

Anywhere else

Any place else but here.

What if

So..

I found something else about myself today.

There was a party.

Well there was this party.

It’s something official, organized. It was meant to be a night off for me.

It was a room full of people, full of interactions and full of laughter.

It was THE party.

Everyone wanted to be there.

I walked out.

I honestly still don’t know why.

It’s not like I don’t know the people. It’s not like I don’t like the party.

It’s like…

Hmm…

Have you ever felt that feeling when you walk into a room and know instantly that you don’t want to be there?

A classroom full of students – first day of school.

A church with hands raised – first time you were there.

That moment on recess just when you walk out of the door and realize that now you gotta find somewhere or someone to sit with.

What if I feel that feeling when I’m with my friends?

What if I don’t really know them?

What if they don’t really know me?

What if I don’t really know me?

All these what if questions just boil down to one singular, most underlining and most important question that always lies at the back of my head.

Why did I walk out?

Again I’ll be very honest I don’t know. All I know is that I felt that feeling and I honestly don’t know how to even describe it.

Unwelcome

Uninvited

Unknown

I know I felt like I don’t belong there.

And there’s something else now gnawing at my soul.

Would this be different if he stayed?

Would this be a different me if my dad stayed when I was 5 instead of walking away?

I guess I’ll never really know.

Human Doing

Today I don’t feel like doing anything.

Man.

I’m listening to Bruno Mars right now and he got it. You guys ever had that time when you’re just passing by then you hear a song in the radio and then you realize that that’s exactly what you feel right then and there?

that’s what I’m feelin right now.

I honestly don’t feel like doing anything.

I wanna have a staring contest with the wall.

I wanna cook 2 minute noodles in 1 minute.

I wanna write a huge email complaining about everything in life and send it to terminator@skynet.com.

I wanna go to the closest restaurant to my house, order tap water, and then go back home, forbidding myself to take anything but right turns.

Yep, I’m honestly feeling like I don’t want to do anything.

And it’s okay.

All I need

So I saw today what I expected a long time ago.

Honestly I shouldn’t be surprised by this, I knew it was coming.

But nonetheless, it surprised me anyway.

Have you ever had those moments when you think you were okay but the smallest thing sends your world crashing down?

I had one of those today.

I saw a picture of Her and Him together.

I’d honestly be lying if I said that it didn’t affect me. So I’m gonna lie –

I’m fine.

Why? I guess it’s because I don’t have anyone to talk to here except for Song.
I guess it’s also because here I have no one I can trust. No one again, except for Song.

It’s times like this when I realize that there are times in this world that will test you on what you truly believe in. When all the layers and all the walls that we put up and we set up and all the defenses that we’ve set just comes down

Crumbling

Crashing

Tumbling

Down.

There are times in this world when even the world will challenge why we believe what we believe.

Today was one of those times for me.

And I realized one thing.

I can live without a lot of things in this world.

I can live without friends. Hard? DEFINITELY. but possible.

I can live without money.

I can live without family around me.

I can live without Internet

Without a computer

Without backup or support or a group that I can hang out with

I can live without love.

But I cannot live without Jesus.

Because He’s the one that makes sense of all this.

The Gift: Angelfeather

I just came back from a trip to Melbourne to see my best mate. It was, for lack of better words, absolutely awesome.

It’s amazing that even though we lost contact for a couple of years we came back and caught up as if it were yesterday. Even more amazing was how much we’ve changed over the past years. I know he used to tell me that he would never borrow from the bank to buy a house. Now we’re sitting at a coffee shop talking about the best interest rates for what bank.

But what’s even more amazing is how some things haven’t changed at all.

He still plays guitar. Passionately.

What’s even more amazing is that he still has this black leather guitar strap that he used in high school. After all these years it still meant something to him. honestly, he changed so many guitars but that one strap is still there

I reckon he values that wrinkled old furry strap more than he values his thousand dollar guitars.

That thing meant everything to him, though I don’t know what. Even though it meant nothing to me.

That strap was both nothing and everything.

There are things in this world that means nothing, but also means everything.

I remembered this scene from Inception (awesome movie btw) where the characters come across a room full of people sleeping. They didn’t come there to sleep, says the old bald man, they come here to be woken up, because the dream has become their reality.

Because they were able to choose another place to live in, another reality.

Sometimes I wish that too Angel.

Sometimes I wish I can live in my dreams. Where I can live a thousand lives. Where I can be a hunter, a pilot, a daredevil. Where things can be as I want them to be.

Where I can be anywhere else but here.

I saw your story Angel, and I just wanna say

It’s okay.

It’s okay to feel what you’re feeling.

Its okay to hate life.

It’s okay to not be where you want to be right now and wish that you’re a thousand miles away.

All those things that you are feeling is part of being human.

I felt those too.

What I’m not okay with is this seed planted in your heart that you’re useless.

You’re not.

I’ve always been proud to have you as one of my angels, one of my Kids. I’m proud because I know that you’re a fighter. You’re one of those people who faces through fire and pain and come out the other side shining. You’re one of those very unique people that for some reason or another, will not stop at anything and will not let anything get you down.

I’m proud of you because even when the world is against you, you stood tall, did a Kung Fu pose, gestured them towards you, and yelled: “BRING IT ON BISHES!!!”

Like guitar straps and cut out coffee cups, You may mean nothing to the world, but you mean everything to me byutiful.

Don’t let the world tell you otherwise.

I love you.

- If you were a doodling on the wall, I’d put a frame around you and convert my house to a museum so that everyone can see my masterpiece.

Coffee cups and artifacts

Ya know nowadays I always take a 2 hour train ride home.

What with Song’s place so far away from the city and all that, it means I have to take the train back and forth. The journey translated to Perth language would be like from Joondalup to Fremantle.

It’s a very long thumb twiddling session.

At any rate, what DO you do in 2 hours of sitting down? I’m gonna quickly glance around to see what everyone else is doing.

There’s a guy talking to another guy. Hmm…okay.

There’s a guy looking outside the window, pouting. Maybe he left something and forgot to bring it in a place two hours ago. Wouldn’t wanna be in his shoes.

There’s another guy playing on his iPhone. ooo! Apple brothaz!

Hang on a sec, why are the people in my carriage all guys?

Oh wait, there’s a girl there. She’s talking to another girl about another girl whose nail polish matches the nail polish of the girl she’s talking to. Confused? So am I.

Me? What am I doing?

I guess I’m reflecting.

Every single 2 hour train ride I’m on I like to take part of that time to just…reflect.

Just to remember things back then.

To remind myself of how Dad let people cross my path, people who developed who I am.

There were the good – mum, sister, friends, Kids, Song

The bad – mum, sister, that fat girl in 6th grade who always bullied me

And the ugly – mum, sis, and that other fat kid on 5th grade who bullied me.

Most of all right now though, I’m thinking of my Angels.

I remembered the time we have hanging out and having fun. I remembered that we went to dominos at like friggin 8pm at night and sit out and eat and play big two slumming outside at the park.

I remembered the time when we actually took the bus home countless of times and then I took the bus/train back. That was tons of fun!

I remembered when we played super smash bros and watched house under the guise of ‘helping’ out the games team for the ignite camp. I remembered the trouble I got into from pike subsequently afterwards – it was worth it xD

I remembered also the awesome time we had just hanging at home and watching sherlock Holmes and hanging out so late to the point that I had to sleepover Maestro’s house.

Most of all, I remembered the Sunday morning when I got this.

Yep, that’s right.

I still have it.

I Welcome you all to the Artifact.

These items, well they may mean nuts to others, but tell you what, these are incredibly precious to me.

To me, these are gateways to the time I once had.

Whenever I hold this in my hand, I remember.

We were sitting, all five of us including Ivan then, on the 2nd row to the front. I had the coffee in my hand and pastor D was preaching.

I remembered how disgusting the coffee was, but it was honestly the best coffee I’ve ever tasted.

I remembered that I was silently thanking Dad that for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to be anyone else except me.

That for the first time ever in my life,

I’m truly happy to have what I have.

So here I am in the train, about a year after that. Smiling contently because the only thing that I can think of was how funny you Angels were in my life and how awesome it was to have you here.

I know this blog is just about all I have left to contact you kids and I know that sometimes it’s not enough. Just know that you will all be in my heart forever Angels. And I want this blog to be a small glimpse of your home in my heart.

My two hour train ride is almost over, FINALLY! but there is something inside me that I just cant shrug off. I realized every time I think of you Kids,

Well I want the ride to begin all over again.

Root of Christians

With my work in Apple, I have an hour each day that I can fully devote to eating.

It

Is

Beautiful.

Sydney’s so big and so diverse that i can always get whatever it is that I fancy for that day. From noodle bars to Italian pizzas, from chinese takeaways to French crepes, from even German bakeries to Japanese sushis.

It was just a foodie’s heaven.

Yet despite all this, there’s always one place that can expect me to come most of my lunchtime.

McDonalds.

Yeah, I know right? It’s either them or that Coles deli across the street where I buy some chicken and instant noodles and combine them together in the microwave.

So anyway, I was in mcDonalds the other that and I just had a thought pop up to me. It was like some kind of film playing in my head. It was Soooooooo weird…

I saw this dad with his son, and they bought cheeseburgers. The dad had two drinks and while he was eating, the kid reached out to take one of it, but the dad didn’t allow him, saying: “don’t drink that.”

Weirdest thing ever I tell you.

So straight away my reaction was actually similar to the kid’s.

“why?”

And thats when I came back from my daydreaming, broken by the awesome phrase “next please!”

When I sat down, I can’t stop thinking.

Why?

Why can’t that kid have a drink?

I mean c’mon, you got two on the table there, you can’t drink both. The reason why you actually bought two was to give one for your son right? So why is it now you’re actually forbidding him to drink?

It really didn’t make sense.

What a nonsense one-liner.

I’m now in church.

Yeah my daydreams are crazy like that. One moment I’m munching on my deluxe chicken the next moment I see myself in a church. But that wasn’t the weird part.

I heard the pastor preaching and all I can hear is “don’t do…”

“don’t drink”

“don’t smoke”

“don’t forget to read the bible every day”

“don’t forget to pray every day”

All I can hear is all those one-liners again. And it begs me to ask the question:

“why?”

All of a sudden I was the kid.

So here I am waiting a reason that could make sense of all this. Maybe, maybe the dad that was in mcdonalds had a perfectly good reason not to allow his son to drink. Maybe one’s coffee and one’s coke and the kid reached for the coffee. Maybe the pastor had a reason too.

“if you truly believe that you are saved and that you are a Christian, this is what you’ll do”

I’ll cut to the chase here.

I think that reason is bullcrap.

So you’re telling me that if I don’t do these things I’m not a Christian? If I don’t do what you say because it is backed up by your version and interpretation of the bible, I dont believe that I’m saved and therefore, due to my unbelief I’m going to hell? Whats worse is that you’re telling me that if I don’t do these things, I don’t love Jesus?

Let me ask you a question.

Since when does Christianity have anything to do with doing?

Back in the ancient middle east, there’s a word for that. There were those people in that time who were concerned with the ‘what’ of things instead of the ‘why’ of things and then leading other people on to a reality that they can never live up to.

These were the people that were concerned with the ‘doing’ instead of the heart.

Those people were the Pharisees.

And when the Son of God, the object of their devotion, came down to tell them they had the wrong idea, they tried their best to prove Him wrong.

Sad, isn’t it?

Christianity was never meant to be a list of rules or a thing you’re supposed to get into. It’s never meant to be a ‘you’re either one of us or you’re out’ sort of thing.

Christianity isn’t even meant to be a religion.

Christianity is simply this:

I love you.

Stuffing up

And still be loved.

Screwing up

And still being called ‘my child’

Doing everything wrong

And still being called righteous.

At the end of the day, being a Christian has nothing to do with your walk or your actions or your words or your deeds.

It just boils down to three simple words.

I

Love

You.

That’s the Dad that we got.

I haz rawr sugar!

Awright!!

Since the event of my new iPhone I have done one mega long post on my blog concerning my point of view in life at this point – and guess what?

I forgot to save it -_-

RAwr

!!!!!

Can’t be so frustrated at myself as much as I am now -_- be sure though, I’m actually gonna keep up my blogging habits so that you kids can see what I’m up to!

Oh, and I saw some of your private blogs and read it over the days – just wanna say how proud I am of you kids writing these things down and expressing yourself keep it up!

Right now I’m actually waiting for my train to arrive so that I can go to work. So I’m gonna be either vegging out or making blogs – hmmm…. Not sure which one I should do yet hehehe.

Back !

Hello all!!!

I’ve just recently realized that my last blog post was on the 3rd of February – just about two months ago now.

O dear….

First of all let me just apologise to my readers out there who love reading my blog, most especially my kids who probably check wordpress often and get disappointed because there’s nothing there. I kinda get how you feel and it sucks to be waiting for something that never comes. I’ll do my darnest absolute best to keep on blogging. I’ve even installed an app on my new iPhone to keep and remind myself to blog.

So, on to more official things…

I’ve got a job in apple now yes it’s pretty amazing and yes I did work in the iPad launch and yes it was incredibly tiring -_- I’m gonna be such a full fledged apple guy by the end of this all!!!

I’m currently living in Sydney and Song’s living about 2 hours away in a town called wollongong. So what happens is that I have to hop on a train or she pick me up and we clock about 4 hours every week of travel time to see each other.

What else can I update you with? Hmm…oh I sadly still have not yet found a home church and a youth that j can devote my time again maybe it’s Dad’s way of saying that I should still spend more time with my kids hehehe.

Oh and yes, I’ve been keeping up to date with you all. I still know what’s going on at the Rocks and I still know what’s going on in Ignite. congrats on the new building guys!! And yes…I have heard of the things that’s been going on – more on that later…

So I think that would be it for the day. Tune in for more soon and just remember….

I still think of you guys and gals constantly