Before the morning?

There are two ways to explain my current situation;

1. Either I'm going through what I'm going through to learn something new

OR

2. IF Calvinism is true, then perhaps I'm just not lucky enough to be loved by God.

My family is the biggest burden I have so far. The fact that I lost the only few friends whom I can ever express myself too adds on to it.

I've had enough of my mother not having a job yet not wanting to help me out in things that she can help me out with. I've had enough of her nagging. She's been working so much all her life, so find, she showed her love by money. Once the money stopped flowing, she pretends that she's been a great mother who spends time with her kids since young and knows them perfectly well. Heads up, you don't know me at all.

My dad. Arrogant and unreasonable, the worse combo. I study in the day and go for my tuitions, and what happens at night? I used the internet, and with a holiday tomorrow, I use it past midnight.

He goes on and on about how it's been affecting my results and how I'm using it too much but like wha-?!

I worked for my trials, I've improved on almost every single paper by at least a 10 mark margin and still you say it's not enough?

All I want is a short break before SPM, and you can't give it to me because you refuse to be "disobeyed"

Come to think of it, my upbringing was terrible.

Why am I so different from my sister in terms of confidence? Why am I so not confident in all I do and say? Why do I have such a temper?

My dad has a worse temper than me so...check.

The last time I heard them say "sorry" to me genuinely was probably when I wouldn't stop crying as a kid. They have an ego so high that even when they're wrong, they always somehow twist the situation "We MIGHT be wrong, but your response was also wrong so... blabla"

I don't understand. When you do something wrong, you apologize! You don't point out mistakes in someone else's reaction to your wrongdoing first!!!

The blame was always placed on me, so perhaps that's why I'm always so insecure in my beliefs, my faith and my friends.

God knows how much I yearn for someone I can pour my tears out to again.

Will I grow up to be a bitter man? Will I hold on to the hatred in my heart and take revenge on the ones who started it all?

Or will I be the better man and show the unloving what love is?

Only time will tell.

And today...

No pictures today, using my old computer!

I just need a friend.

Yes I ranted a really long post but I just decided to not post it.

The greatest day of history

A few "disastrous" events has happened in my life for the past week. Events that made me go "God, you kidding me?"

It seems that it's my gut response to put the blame on someone when life sucks.

But God is smart, very smart. The philosophy that he put me through has given me only one ability over a few others. I was given the ability to think. To think past my emotional barriers when thinking with your emotions becomes tempting. It's hard, but I thank God for it.

I have no looks to surpass others.

I have no real skill that is better than the average layman.

I sometimes even question my self-worth.

So what does God want to do with this lousy piece of clay when there are so many better pieces of clay to use?

This, I think is one problem with the view of Calvinism. If man had no free will, then God picks and chooses who does what. No one has the ability to try his best for God.

But before I go on, let me recap on what horrendous events happened this week:

Conflict and dejection from the body of Christ?

I had a quarrel with Huey Lin and a small one after that with Aaron. I should be used to it, but I'm just tired of being reconciled with people and just feel awkward with them again. I've been tolerating them for so long, but I'm about to go booms. Let's face it. I have a really opinionated personality. I've been into conflicts and clashes with almost all of the youth. Some my fault, some their fault. It's just hard mixing with EVERYONE knowing that you'll clash with them either way. I'd love to just hang around with the people that I CAN click with, and ignore the rest. But that would be mean. TBH, I also feel discriminated as a thinker by the youth leadership. I don't know if it's the case, but with what Ivan has been telling me. I do feel that I'm being looked as a person of pure reason and no faith. But Ivan only knew half of the story of my faith. He only knew of my doubts and questions. He doesn't know how I overcame doubts by diving into the richest source of knowledge in the world- Internet philosophy(it was more of being "pushed" into it). To sum it all up, I believe in the God of Christianity and the divinity of Jesus Christ. I believe in the doctrine of the resurrection and all. But why do I feel a little offended because I hold to different interpretations of certain scripture, and because I believe in these because of reason? Has God endowed me with reason only to forgo the use of it? Though these are just my assumptions.

I'm still not over youu?

Actually I am. Rachel was my best friend. She was the only person outside my family circle who has ever heard me cry (excluding childhood events lah of course). She was there when my faith was at breaking point, when my life was a messy disaster. She cared when no one else bothered.

But a few series of events happened last year. And now, we're just like strangers. Recently I got the chance to talk to her again. To be honest, Rachel is a very different person to me now. After the whole conflict she tells me that it's up to me if we still wants to be friends "lor". She says that well, if I still want to be close to her, then I'll have to go to her instead of her trying anything at all. I do believe that she has her faults in this conflict, and I do believe that I am not the only one who thinks so. But still, the very fact that the one person whom I held so dear to me has became someone who just wouldn't give a crap about our friendship anymore was disheartening and discouraging.

I failed my driving test!!

That's right. I failed.

I failed parking because I was oh so blur and careless.

I failed the road test with a GSM because I used my leg brakes instead of my hand brakes and was careless there as well.

I won't blame the car or the JPJ examiner. It was my fault. I should've gotten more sleep knowing how much of sleep I need to get through the day like this. I shouldn't have ate seafood sushi knowing that I have a big day tomorrow.

I was nervous.

I sucked.

Mid-terms?

My mid-term results were horrible. Nuff said.

So with all the failures and heartbreaks going around, where's my hiding place? What is God telling me? Does God hate me?

You see, through my failures, God has showed me things that I would not have seen when I am heartily happy with what I have been doing.

Through my weaknesses, he has showed me where I am weak at, and why I needed to be humbled to see it. My will is not as strong as I thought it was. Therefore I have to resist all temptations, even temptations of pride early instead of head on because I know how I'll get owned in a head to head battle with Pride.

Through my failures, God has showed me the consequences of not obeying him multiple times and thinking that what I do will not have any adverse effects- Like staying up late before my driving test to Troll CJ in LoL. That extra one hour of sleep could have gave me the alertness to pass my test and save my parents RM360. He has taught me also not to underestimate my studies and not be like my friends, friends who are born with the natural ability to do math and memorize so well last minute. I can't. I have limits.

And through everything, God has shown me mercy. I got to get extra close to people like Alicea and Phei Fern through the turmoil...

And thank God for that.

Getting closer to Phei Fern helped me see past what I already know of her and made me realize how much she has been doing for me and how much she actually sacrificed for her friends.

And Alicea? She was the first person I informed about my problem with the Church that arose recently and also talked to her about what I've been through with EHEM for the past 3 years.

Despite doing really well for her driving test, she kept on encouraging me to not give up despite knowing that I failed the easiest part of the test. She didn't diss me or anything, she just kept the support up. If I wasn't sleepy, that encouragement could've went a looooong way. And despite knowing how I only got 4/20 because of a GSM for my road test while she got 20/20, she didn't go "omg how you fail?! it was so easy!" She still gave her support like a mother would give to her child. (Even my family dissed me for failing btw)

And also, I got closer to Yuen Wei. Sure, he might be a tad annoying when he talks politics all the time and when he won't stop talking and joking around about serious matters. But well, what can I say, he does know when to help and when to cheer someone up. I guess the only thing he should learn now is to know when to stop joking -.-

What deer-deeer friends I have stumbled upon!

And so, life is not a snapshot. I might be going through crap right now, but I guess, I can expect brighter days up ahead as long as I turn my eyes upon the greatest conceivable being- God.

Running away again

And he's running away...

I've been reconciled with the best friend. At a price. Our best-friendship. We're now just acquaintances, but that's better than being enemies.

Haiyoh. If you don't know the full story of anything, don't lah jump to conclusions.

The post was edited because of fear that a few narrow-minded individuals would jump straight to their own conclusions based on their pre-held prejudices.

Jeesh what happened to you? When did you become so arrogant?

Theology?

Beautiful leaves planted at Yuen Wei's mansion...

Theology. C.S.Lewis once described it as a map in his famous book, Mere Christianity(If I've recalled correctly). You might believe in God without any theology, but that is like sailing in water without a map. Now, maps aren't always 100% perfect just as much as our theology might not be, but at least it helps lead you to your desired destination.

Theology isn't as simple as it seems. Many many Christians have different theories and beliefs about certain aspects of Christianity, but it's definitely worth noting that they're all labelled as Christians because they at least do share a few core theologies in common. (Mere Christianity does a ngawwfully good job at summarizing what all Christians believe.)

It gets harder, let me tell you, when Theology meets philosophy. Theories of Divine providence, theories of atonement, theodicies... It's not just arguing using scriptural support anymore. Thinking about God is not easy. We can try to fathom the Great Mystery, but man, it's no easy feat doing so.

But in light of all this, I thank God for allowing us to be able to go to him as we are, without immense knowledge of sorts. It's just that for the some of us here who were called to well...think... I guess things aren't that simple haha.

Of VBS and testimonials...

Meet Hannah. She's so cuuuuuuute!

Anyway, CbC's annual VBS happened on the 3rd and 4th of June and I was a part of it (as a photog, no surprise eh?)

To tell you the truth, I did feel a tad down due to certain issues that I was already facing, and to add salt to my wound, an argument broke out between me and one of my best friends during VBS itself. It's funneh. She was one of those people that I'd go to if I really needed to talk to someone about something, of course I wasn't as comfortable with talking heart with her as much as I was with my umm...old... best friend (I know having multiple best friends might be an oxymoron, but calling a few of them "close friends" doesn't seem to do justice to how close they really are to me). So with all of the closest people to me gone, I really had to keep everything in me in, which wasn't easy.

No one noticed anything except this little indian kid who came up to me and said "eyh brother, don't sad la, I know you sad." It made my day and I guess I started loving kids a whole lot more after that.

...It didn't change the fact that I still had no one to just talk to about the snowballing problems that had been troubling me for a few months now.... I just needed to let something out, but to whom?

And I guess God worked right there when that happened. To be completely honest with you, I always had this impression on Aly that she was those sort of girls who are umm... well lets just say that I always portrayed her as a woman CEO(in a bad way la). No it wasn't necessarily a bad impression, just that I didn't think of her as the sort that would care much or anything else. So why am I suddenly talking about her? Well because I got pwned. I was talking to her casually and then from there the discussion moved on to one of my issues. Which was when I realized that I had been so wrong about her... THANKS ALY!

So with a few things off my back finally, I guess it's safe to blog about what some of my issues were about.

I often go to GT on Sundays, visit their cell sometimes, and I even went for DUMC once alr.

Yes, to be honest, I was actually thinking of "switching" churches. I've been contemplating on that due to several reasons. Now the reason why I'm still staying was because I was trying to examine myself more to see whether I'm making my decisions based on selfish and arrogant reasons or genuine reasons.

After the talk yesterday, I guess, I was pretty much convinced that I won't solve anything by jumping.

To sum it all up....

HANNAH SO CUUUUTE!!

Photography update #1

It's been awhile since I posted here so I guess I'll start with talking about my new lens; The Canon 15-85 IS USM.

The sharpness of the lens is significantly sharper than my old lens and the IS lets me do really nice low light sometimes. I do miss my constant f2.8 aperture, but I think the exchange for a good price+better focusing+2 years warranty+huge range was worth it. Yes, I cannot thank Goldfries enough for recommending this lens to me as the range helped out so much during my coverage of VBS.

I didn't really do a really good job for VBS though, was still getting used to the lens and RAW processing. I was also struggling due to memory shortage since I was shooting in RAW.

Yes, the above picture was taken at the butterfly park in the National Science Center that we went to for our VBS outing.

Yes, it was taken at f8 with the Canon 15-85 lens. and it was post processed.