Lord of Heaven and Earth

oh Father stay close, don't let me stray

freezing cold places

so my dad stopped me from applying to wisconsin thinking i'll freeze myself there. now i'm applying to a small ulu place where the nearest town is Minneapolis. O_O lets hope theres lots of snowy sunny days up there!

so cool

Did you know that the word "POSH" comes from maritime language?! The best cabins on Indiaman, a sailing ship that travelled between Britain and India, were the cooler cabins on the North side of the ship. Ones labeled as "Port side going Out, Starboard going Home"... or simply - POSH cabins

Happiness is a personal choice. It does not need to depend on the things that happen around/to us.

Now i just need to believe that.

http://theweek.com/article/index/99512/the-last-word-he-said-he-was-leaving-she-ignored-him

much needed..

glory to God, Monday is a public holiday!

Just a visitor

so he visited, we had a good dinner, drove us home, then he drove off. being together is only temporary. can we only have goodness for a short while...

There's a raging sea, right in front of me, wants to pull me in, bring me to my feet

So let the waters rise, if You want them to, I will follow you, I will follow you

1 Peter 1:4-7

In his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope, ... and into an inheritance..., kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.

the power of our hearts

http://consciouslifenews.com/the-rescuing-hug-and-power-of-emotions/113772/
such joyful girls they've grown up to be: http://4nielsens.blogspot.com/

My opposition party is spending too much time refuting untrue claims. This time could be better spent on useful stuff instead of defending themselves against baseless attacks!

http://wp.sg/2011/08/media-release-on-untrue-claims-of-curtailment-of-pap-grassroots-activities-in%E2%80%A8-hougang-smc/?awesm=fbshare.me_AdRqE&utm_campaign=&utm_medium=fbshare.me-facebook-post&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_content=fbshare-js-large

i hope you're doing well.

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/a-love-letter-to-a-friend/

oh no... I missed it.. =(

Forgiveness is one thing. reconciliation is another.

http://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2011/07/16/a-closer-look-at-forgiveness/

forgiveness doesnt depend on the offender, reconciliation does. carefully observe changes in attitudes and behaviour before reconciliation.

because life is too difficult

dumb little man and their useful tips for life

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2011/06/powerful-ideas-that-will-bring-greater.html

Women. we can turn the world around. by being women, not by taking on characteristics of men.

blessed beyond belief

for a wonderful lab, amazing supervisors

for insightful discussions, great companions and great friendship

for perfect timing

for the lessons in life

today's message says...

that strong family makes a healthy foundation for life's adventures.
Family to support you in times of need, to challenge you to grow, to celebrate with you in times of victory. sweet.

so I'll stand

with arms high and heart abandoned

graduate school applications

i havent even started and i'm already headaching.

i feel like i know enough things in enough depth that i dunno what to do my phd in (cos i dun wanna study all the immunology again or all the individual infections again)

but i don't feel like i know how to be a scientist yet, ask questions, design experiments, make sure i have all my controls, think about all the confounding factors..

vaccine trials?

more infection immunology?

...structural biology?

what about pharmacology..

bookmarked for reading

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201104/6-clues-character

Attributes in people that are generally accurate in the long term

my facebook status

i wasn't expecting great popularity, likes and comments on my status.

it reads: after 2 days of scrubbing my toilet is SHINY =D

so many people came to 'like' it, i think people who like it, like it for at least 1 of 3 reasons:

1- they like my standard of cleanliness, ie shiny

2- they like that i care about the cleanliness of the toilet

or 3- they like that i was honest about the previous state of my toilet (it really wasn't that bad, if it was bad enough i would have been unable to sleep, my housemates can testify to me sleeping late because i was cleaning the loo)

i didn't think i needed a particularly good reason for cleaning up the house before i have guests. mum or friends, i always thoroughly clean up the house before my guests come: my room, the kitchen, the toilet. (yes i have an obsession with the loo)

and the reason is not about being 'fake'. i may be comfortable living in 'dirty' conditions, but my guests might not, and as a host my primary responsibility is to make sure my guests are comfortable. the toilet is an intimate area, you don't want to worry about getting fungal/bacterial/viral infection because you used a dirty toilet. the kitchen is where you prepare food, you don't want your guests coming to see the state of your kitchen and wondering if the food you cook is really properly edible or whether they will get food poisoning from poor kitchen cleanliness.

and then theres the discussion about being a woman:

basically my 'defence' to cleaning my toilet before my mum came was that i didnt want her going on about how i'm not fit to be a woman, which i said in a half joking manner. clearly it didnt quite come across as a joke cos my friend was appalled: "utter rubbish, ur fitness to be a woman bears no relation to the state of your toilet; u do not have to make ur toilet sparkle just to prove to society or ur mum that u r a woman." my darling mum has her curious definitions of being a woman, like knowing how to wash dishes in her unique systematic way, or combing your hair every morning, or having a neat room. it probably rubbed off a little on me and my definition of being a good woman includes having a proper standard of hygiene. maybe i'm the only one going to people's houses and passing judgement on people's standard of hygiene based on kitchen and toilet cleanliness. i'm not doubting that i am a woman, and i'm not proving that i'm a woman. i have my personal principles and i keep by them.

besides, if my mum, after seeing the state of my toilet, decides to scrub it down for me. she's not going to stop just because i say so, and her scrubbing down my toilet is going to make me feel awful. doesn't that kind of show that I still need my mum to clean up after me?

coffee and baileys is keeping me up longer than i should.

wisewords

Winston Churchill: "One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half."

music genius

the lyrics are amazing. and so is the use of 5/4 beats in the verses, and the seamless transition from 5/4 to 6/4.

exams

bane of my life.

i don't know whether i wish for them to be more drawn out. just don't have enough time, brain space and brain power for the last 2. argh effects of exhaustion. and now i'm tired before lunch, my tummy feels strange when it is hungry and still feels strange when i eat, and because i'm already tired i think post prandial lethargy will be worse. maybe i need some chocs and brain stimulants.

make the deaf hear, make the blind see

Today I watched videos from a couple who have lots of tattoos and piercings, their videos was about their really cute babies..

and I watched a couple of videos about pink dot 2010.

and I thought sometimes the people who look flawed on the outside, are the people who are least flawed on the inside. and those who look perfect on the outside could be motivated by all the wrong things, they are merely building up a kingdom of self.

and I realised that my ability to embrace people who are different from me, who are different from the norm, reflects what I value on the inside..

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 2 Timothy 4:3

are you only listening to what you want to hear?

this is so true.

when sin dehumanises people..
Because sin is antisocial, it tends to dehumanize the people in our lives.
No longer are they objects of our willing affection. No, they quit being the people we find joy in loving.
Rather, they get reduced to one of two things. They are either vehicles to help us get what we want or obstacles in the way of what we want.
When your wife is meeting the demands of your wants, needs, and feelings, you are quite excited about her, and you treat her with affection.
But when she becomes an obstacle in the way of your wants, needs, and feelings, you have a hard time hiding your disappointment, impatience, and irritation.

This is where another eloquent biblical observation comes in. It is that we are kingdom-oriented people. We always live in the service of one of two kingdoms.We live in service of the small, personal happiness agenda of the kingdom of self, or we live in service of the huge, origin-to-destiny agenda of the kingdom of God.
From TGC

on womanhood

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2011/05/05/susan-hunt-redeeming-womanhood/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+between2worlds+%28Between+Two+Worlds%29

i'm going to need to start enjoying writing..

"I think it's far more important to write well than most people realize. Writing doesn't just communicate ideas; it generates them. If you're bad at writing and don't like to do it, you'll miss out on most of the ideas writing would have generated." http://www.paulgraham.com/writing44.html

mol and cell biol TO immuno

forget minuscule. think GLOBAL.

Today David Stroud said he observed that

Men who grow up without a Father lack the strength required of Manhood, not physical strength but emotional strength, strength of character, to deal with difficult issues.

Women who grow up without a Father lack the affirmation of self worth, and turn to other things for that, one such is pleasing others with sexual favours.

wow.

From Lee Weiling's column in Mar 2010

"I am with Mahatma Gandhi on this score. When asked once if he felt under-dressed when he met the King of England and Emperor of India, he replied: 'The King was wearing enough clothes for both of us.'

Part of the reason I share this sentiment is that I detest the consumerism so rife in our society. I see many of my patients, especially the older adolescent and young women, dressed in clothes that must cost them at least half their monthly salaries. I also see wealthy women dressed in fabulous concoctions that must cost the equivalent of many months of a bus driver's salary.

I try to remind myself that it is their right to spend their money as they wish. My personal values are mine, and I have no right to impose them on others or judge others by my own yardstick.

Still, I would discourage my readers and friends from placing too high an emphasis on their attire, whether it be undergarments or over-garments. Like other material possessions, expensive clothes are 'red dust', giving their wearers only a transient illusion of physical beauty.

Physical beauty will eventually fade. To place too great an emphasis on it will one day cause psychological distress.

By renouncing as many items of 'red dust' as possible, we would be less tied down emotionally by material luxuries and we would become better and more charitable people."

At some point in the future, should someone compile all of lee weiling's essays in Sunday Times into a book I will buy many copies of it.

Today's message says

you don't go to find meaning in life, you bring meaning to your life.

Meaning isn't something out there waiting for you to discover. The meaning of your life is what you infuse it with - beauty or ugliness, happiness or sadness. It is totally your choice, and God wants it to be your choice because God gave you free will.

omg i cant believe i'm making myself drink tomato juice to get rid of my stuck nose. it is disgusting, and diluting it out just increases the volume. it is salty and sour at the same time and my taste buds are so overwhelmed.. eeks eeks. seems like the only way to get it down is to add chilli oh my my..

today i realised that of all the labs i've gone to, there's one thing in common: you can bring food food and more food and no one will ever get tired of it

The good man and the power of forgiveness

“David Marshall is responsible for 200 murderers walking freely the streets of Singapore.”

http://thinkhappiness.blogspot.com/2006/08/meeting-david-marshall-in-1994.html

10,000 words really feel like word diarrhoea.

2 consecutive 3 ams. i'm going to KO tmr.

Through you all things are possible to him who believes -thanks james.

when sight makes you blind

i think some of the most important things to 'see' are things that you need to close your eyes and feel

needs and strength

I always warned myself against needing anyone too much. The more you need and depend on someone else, the less you're able to stand on your own, the weaker you become. But there's one, where the more you go to Him, the more you need Him, the more you're able to draw strength from Him, and this strength will not run out.

what is a levels..

when u come to final year at uni. i wished my first 2 years could pre-empt the difficulty of 3rd year. oh my god.

today's message says

that family is not a name for a group of people, but the quality of relationships between them.

Relationships grounded in mutual love, trust, caring and forgiveness. In all the ups and all the downs of life. Look closely, - who is really your family, and who in truth are just strangers in for the ride?

Fruit of the Spirit

Love Joy Peace Patience Kindness Goodness Faithfulness Gentleness and Self-Control

a day of good things

sun! greece! and my graduation photo! omg!

girls (and guys) should bother less about the way they look and bother more about the way they behave. you can only change how you look to a small extent after big expenditure, but you can change the way you behave without monetary cost and yet affect so many people more deeply.

in the mood

for everything except shopping and studying. haha never thought they would one day fall in the same category

shopping is the bane of my life

ok so i know i need new clothes. but nothing in the shops really entice me. how?

omg i didnt know i can get so agitated and be so unable to focus just by watching and then listening to my housemate wash dishes. why does something so small bug me so badly! argh..

hidden themes of culture makers.

Worship. Discipline. Failure. Glory.

Dunford house

there are some places in the world, that are so clean, so pure, with no pretense, and you feel it bursting with all things good, protected from all the pollution, noise, deception and chicanery of the other world. and you feel like you want to be like that, to be cleansed, to forever stay in such a place. but no one stays in one place for all their life, so I hope that I can still bring that feeling with me even after leaving.

she's amazing

and I want to dance to this.

greece or not?

It doesn't make sense for my mum to fly here twice in a matter of 2 weeks. she doesn't even enjoy the sea like I do. will greece be affected by the libyan violence?

**

i think i'm volunteering too much. it is making me =(

all you appearing offline ppl.... >=|

i should be at KOKO tonight. =/

asleep at 6pm

I want a grad trip. to greece. no i don't think i wanna go to anywhere else. i have a hunch it is going to be a solo trip. =/

stupid girl.

i feel that as i grow older i get dumber. simple things that i just don't see, and it is not because i'm tired.

running controlled experiments is soo difficult! omg i didnt know i would be saying this when i'm in uni!

today i realised that dyslexic people are geniuses!

a glorious weekend

where good things happened

toy story 3 is super awesome! who wants to watch it again!

blueskies

I'm surprised by my perkiness despite sleeping at 4am yesterday.

phd

Is it very bad if the place I do my PhD is determined by whether or not it is sunny, whether or not it is close to the sea, whether or not I can visit canadian rockies and alaska? There MUST be one small productive lab with a good PI, in a subject area I'm interested in such a place?

what am i doing!! garrrrr

so significant!

It gives me a strange kind of happiness to see that Singapore time is given when Elsevier ScienceDirect (where you can read lots of papers online) goes down.



ok but i want to read the paper argh

Revelations

So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead.

every day where my computer starts up without problems is a day to give thanks.

every day where my results look acceptable is a day to give thanks.

every time I don't get constipation is a time to give thanks. omg.

if only everything had simple answers.

Why do people do good?

I'm getting increasingly irritated by Immunology department's stinginess with marks. Thanks for the nice comments, I just couldn't reconcile the comments with the marks.

discovered

3 songs today written for Emily haha

1 by 莫文蔚

1 by Lady Antebellum

1 by Francesca Batistelli

lol

gah

some people can easily choose between going out/chilling with friends and work.. so envious.
i have trouble choosing between family and work. i think i even have trouble choosing between myself and work.

beer is the bane of my life

i stay in a house with no guys. so why did i find crushed cans of carlsberg stuffed into my toilet minibin, and cans of fosters and carlsberg taking up space in my fridge?

Cornwall

where the oceans are emotional

and many seagulls are disciples of Jonathan Livingston Seagull - experts at their crafts

I really wished you were there. because I thought you would have absolutely loved the serenity there.

On this day of your life, we believe God wants you to know ... that you learn what you do.
If you worry a lot, then day after day you are learning how to worry even better. If you think about doing something a lot, then you are learning how to think about doing. Every moment you are happy, you are learning how to be even happier. Every time you act, you are learning how to take an action even better. What is it that you've been learning today? What is it that you want to learn tomorrow?

when is my graduation ceremony? =/

**

my heart just wants the simplest answer. my brain wants to look at, think about all the possible options and pick and choose.

today someone said, that forgiveness comes from love.

troubled

http://flaneurose.blogspot.com/2011/02/being-lower-income-student-in-elite.html

and all of us reading it try to dissociate ourselves from that being described. =S

social

tonights conversation was full of house parties, clubbing, drinking, sex (incl cyber, in the air, suckers, proper, in others beds) and waking up next to someone you don't know without your pants. i have nothing to add other than laughter. maybe i shouldn't have postponed bible study.

unpardoned

it wasnt weakness to temptation

it was a conscious rationalised decision

the weakness lies in being convinced that he can only be right.

CNY eve dinner

The table was really quiet for a 10 people dinner. I guess maybe having it at a restaurant would have made it less obvious. maybe the strange shopping centre-like CNY songs made the silence all the more obvious. perhaps we were all people who get asked questions during CNY and not ask people questions. so when suddenly no one is asking questions the table is really quiet. maybe we all just didnt know everyone else well.

jinghui was really good with all the cooking, working hard for 5 hours on all the food and really preparing for like 30 people instead of 10 while taking advantage of his good friend kelvin. i think we were all bursting. and we had to tell him to just don't cook the last few dishes because we really didnt think we needed that. i hoped he factored in his travel costs cos waking up early getting to billingsgate and just getting all the food that he was going to cook was quite a feat. there was a MASSIVE bowl of cereal prawns, chili crab that seemed to me a bit overdone, super delicious salmon (omg i have to learn how to make that!), broccoli+mushrooms+scallops, and on top of that a lot of gyoza, wonton, fishballs mushroom meat balls and something they called cod for the steamboat (but really it is not cod)... Oh and I missed out the sambal stingray that i started on before everyone else came haha. certainly lots of surpluses for the year. and now i'm really tired from all that eating, and i kinda wish my mummy gave me ya sui qian to sleep on. haha

missed a video call from my mum =/

re-educate myself

i need to take out my brain, turn it upside down, give it a good shake, shake out the sound of my supervisor's voice talking, shake out what i already know, and re-look at this from my own perspective.

i just want to be lying in your arms now

cold

i'm wearing almost exactly the same clothes as i wore when i went skiing. and i'm still cold.

i am so so so sick of the cold. just thankful theres no rain/snow.

i miss the music that my computer's old brain had.

last kiss

I do remember the swing in your step

dreams

one day we will see what used to be ours from the point of view of an outsider

why i look like i'm overworked.

I am not free on Weds and Thurs and possibly Fri evenings. Please don't plan anything on these evenings for me. I should do this somewhere where ppl actually look.

curious thing to see in Czech

search Kutna Hora in google images: chandeliers made from bones! i wonder if i would feel like the place is filled with ghosts watching..

alpha course

even if i understand and have my questions answered, will i be able to believe in it and embrace it, or will i just find myself willing to subscribe to the way of living but not the entire belief?

best piece of advice for a scientist

On this day of your life, Xin Zi, we believe God wants you to know that... when what you are doing is not working, do something else.

Anything else. You'll only get the same results if you do what you have always done.

never grow up

the kind of dad, mum, brother, sister, son, daughter, friend that you are says more about you than your work does. so why do we put so much effort into being the best in studies/work and not so much effort into trying to be a good dad/mum/brother/sister/son/daughter/friend? is it because, maybe, it is easier to be good in your work than to be a good person? or are we just not putting enough effort on the latter?

as part of a complete kitchen education, we have to learn how to cook baby food:

i really wanna try those baby food that come in little glass bottles with a small baby's face on the outside. i told my mum once when we were at NTUC, she said, i thought you would have been awfully sick of it given how much of that i had given you when you were a baby. lol

no time

by the time i'm done with lab work, cooked, cleaned, showered, i'm too tired to study. this sucks.

out-of-place

like a red english telephone booth in the middle of a shopping mall in johor

i realise that i had forgotten how irritating london rain is

i am unable to get used to waking up in dark red skies instead of blindingly bright white skies

i still find it awkward to leave school at 5pm because i feel like i'm going home at 9pm

at 4pm i look out the window and think it must be 730pm

my jacket feels like it is too short, or i must have grown taller..

那年夏天我和你躲在那一大片宁静的海

在一个偏僻的石头上，在他们开发那个地方之前

在一个炎热的下午，在树阴下

走过了几个充满岩石的山丘，那灰色拥挤的沙滩，和出乎意料地冰冷的海水

在地的最南方，在白色的沙滩上，那片海闪亮着

my turn

10 hours..ish..

argh

i've just wasted 2 hours of me and my mum's sleep time.

revelation

the world was a beautiful place

until humans came along

some continue to make it an ugly one

while others attempt to make it better

Crackers 5 days too late and a day too early

My christmas crackers must have been delayed by the terrible snowstorms in Europe. The original plan was to stick it on/below the christmas tree that my aunt always used to put up and get the kids to pick one out for themselves, crack them, and exchange the gifts in them. But it didn't come in time, and there was no christmas tree, and I was pretty much voiceless on Christmas Day.

It came in the mail 2 days ago, all deformed but not broken. My brothers, my mum and I all had our go at attempting to open the crackers so they will crack properly. And figuring out what was the sense in the riddles found in each cracker. There were those that said, Q: What do you call an underground train full of professors? A: A tube of smarties. or Q: What do you call someone who makes clothes for rabbits? A: Hairdresser (Hare-dresser). and we couldn't figure out what was so funny/smart about "what do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back? a stick." and couldn't understand "what do you give someone who has everything? antibiotics." and there were little games that came in the crackers, and a magic trick I couldn't figure out how to perform. It was a nice afternoon nonetheless, so thanks lw for that =)

Last night was probably one of the quietest countdowns I've ever had. We didn't miss out on the countdown purely because we could hear the countdowns from other parties upstairs/downstairs. We make such a big fuss about a day that doesn't change anything, just a closing, and a time when we come up with new year resolutions, or hope for a better year. Because a year is never good enough.

Today I am reminded, by its faint echoes, of the bell that tolls on the 1st of every month.

brainwashed

they couldnt recover my C drive
would cost at least 1000 bucks to recover it
that's 7 years of my life.

23/01/11 on hindsight, maybe thats a good thing. it just might help with the forgetting

Christmas

The sun in London is brilliant, the sun in sg is overbearing
The grey skies in London are dreary, the lightning in sg is spectacular
tonight's the perfect day for wellies..

I'm feeling uninspired, guilty and sick.
What a terrible combination.

Late nights and early mornings make me tired at all the wrong times
When I had alcohol-free grape juice after dinner today, it felt so refreshing.
I'm sorry, commensal bacteria, for stressing you out. I promise I will be nicer to you from now on. Please get back into the right balance and get rid of the strep pyogenes now.

no time..

clubbing is absolutely decadent.
luckily i did it while i was still jet lagged.
luckily i dun need to sing today.

i'm not a dancer

all my life i've been doing my rendition of dances in front of my mum, in front of my window/mirror.. attempting to look graceful, but i never got there (and never will)
the first time i injured myself when i was dancing, i stepped on my own foot and broke my front 2 teeth.
the next time i injured myself when i was dancing, i fractured my 5th metatarsal.
no i'm not a dancer.

this is so sweet

On this day of your life, Xin Zi, we believe God wants you to know ... that the way you know you have found the right one is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with the person.
Having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. - a quote by Dinah Craik

..but this doesn't mean you have to be able to live with the person right.. what if this person's the best confidante but the worst roommate..

good and evil

couple of days ago I was having dinner in a German pub with people from my lab. and we were discussing about how we try to create this black and white world for our kids, when we tell them stories where there is a good person and there is a bad person and it paints a mistaken view of the world..
I always preferred stories where one person was either good or bad. It was too complicated for someone to be both good and bad. and I don't remember being brought up only on stories where there were 1 dimensional characters. I went to watch Wicked with jr, and it was a really good show, almost Disney-esque with disney budgets and disney music. and I thought how great it would be for children to read this story.
But I still wish the world had people who were either just good or just bad. My mum finds other people blaming her for things that have happened, and she takes the blame on herself and feels horrible for it. There's been lots of criticism on my Dad too, but he seems to not bother and finds that what he is doing is justified. Maybe he has had enough of guilt. maybe he doesnt care for what others think. If my mum could be a little bit stronger, whats done cannot be undone so blaming herself for it is not going to help. You can only hope not to make the same mistake again, and if there is anything that can be done to rectify the mistake, or make things better, to do them.
I find that one mistake can leave a black mark on you for a long time, but you're going to need to do so much more to redeem yourself. I find that trying to be kind, understanding, giving, is so difficult. Sometimes it attracts a penalty on yourself to be generous to others, and then you will have to convince yourself that taking the penalty is the right thing to do.. at the end of the day, no one will notice: you just want to be able to face yourself in the mirror and be able to accept yourself for the way you are..

i want

to become a tiny ball,

and bounce/roll/spin into a lost corner

and hide from the world

until dust gathers

kid

so i was walking from trafalgar square towards chinatown to get groceries

and i saw a bundled up little girl walking between her parents.

1.2.3 Weeee

i turned around to see her in the air hanging from her arms, pink head thrown back in a big laugh

how fun