I seek refuge in music.

he minor thirds, major fifths... the discordant, destitute sounds of aching desperation; each phrase yearning set a decent tone for the next...

These tones seems hauntingly familiar to the course of life. My life. The life that I've been entrusted with.

Some tones will strike beautifully to the heart, while others destroy and tear apart (as if this was their intended purpose), and yet others heal with the beat...

Love me.

Love me deeply.

I know not what I have. All.

Why entrust me with All? I'm unworthy of such a calling. Can I help it that I'm selfish?

I'm not giving by nature. Gifts of time, flowers... love...

I feel the wrong chords poking at my heart. They hurt so badly... yet I know another who hurts infinitely more.

How to move forward? Where to start? What to do? Who first? Why?

Why so N? Is it not enough? It seems so. Push for L? Nature not I. How? How? How?

A beautiful companionship has been formed... Two Squirrels. Each a fantastic colour; playing amongst the branches, they feel comfort... they trust companionship.
The rainbow disappears into the bleak sky... Golden scampers off with nary a puff of L... leaving his aching Pinky in a puff of disappointment and lack of belonging.
Un-L. She knows not which branch to leap to... for Golden is the one that she loves. How can she move, when her heart is in him? Planted, it is... but withering has also started.

Golden returns to his abode. Sensing the tides of time raging against his soft fur, he becomes lost in concentration; hoping that he isn't left behind...

But what of Pinky? her beating heart stirs in fear at this sudden betrayal; the trust is lost... the bond broken... and the companionship... Taken For Granted.

Oh when will I understand what I have...

God, in this bleakness, I cry out to you... it is so shameful for me to come to Your feet and beg... I'm unworthy... the two hearts that beat within are waiting on discipline... and dedication.

How shall I prioritise? What is more important? Who is more important? You Are.

If we could work together... lower your expectations, and I'll be aware of the need to be there for you. Please consider this. Else we might lose.

Lose... I'm not fond of that prospect. I don't want to lose P.

P... you're my DG. SFS. My d.

Giving you any less... would be shameful of me.

The work I do now... I must thank God for the opportunity. People around are so gifted and ever-willing to help at every opportunity. It is a shocking revelation of a populous as talented working under the same roof... doing the same things as I...

And yet, despite my amazement, I am eclipsed in all ways... because these same people prove to be competition (even though they mean not, or perhaps otherwise) when it comes to work... and promotions...

After all, how am I, a non-techie able to compete with someone like Hero in terms of BW?

I'm not even confident enough about the terms to explain/teach the software to people... True, YS recommends that this is the path I should follow for the time being, but I cannot help but feel a little inadequate around someone like Hero.

It is after lunch on Friday... the 27th... and once again, God is speaking to me through His word...

Excerpt from 'Fellow Workers' from Daily Bread:

"... but the two worked together: Moses before the people; God in the hidden depths of the earth. Moses and God were fellow workers.

There are always two agents in every fruitful work: willing workers and a faithful God. The human part is to do whatever God has asked us to do - strike the rock. God's work is to make the water flow..."

Indeed, I hope you'll see that I'm extrapolating the context of this text WAY into the secular world of work and competition amongst colleagues... but I seek your indulgence; look at it this way:

The work that I'm doing at the moment is what God has destined for me in His plan. Somewhere down the line, I'm going to be a better servant for His cause because of these experiences here in the workplace; in particular, my work with Hero. It will not please God, I am sure, if I were to waste my time complaining about how great the 'competition' is... and how inadequate I am...

So for now, I'm asking God for the strength to continue on as He has supported me for this half-year. I shall remain faithful and not complain any longer... Thank You Lord...

You have spoken to my heart.

He's Back.

VaniPriSe's intended function is once again realised, with the piercing advent of reminders of how distanced L is from God. In a truly appalling state, L's true nakedness and vile-nature is exposed for all the world to see... No other way will his beating heart take the shame of hypocricy any longer... He is this:

Addicted to Porn.

Should, by chance, fate, or God's Will, someone personally-attached to him in any way, shape or form, be taken aback by such a declaration; he has no remorse that you heard/now know. He struggles with the lack of accountability. Never before has he been able to trust another with such a personal confession... And then, there'd be these thoughts in your head:

"He's crazy! Why'd he confess on the Internet? Isn't he afraid that I or others like me might look at him differently??"

You'd be wrong about the crazy bit. He wants to share it in this most-naked fashion... for it'd be the best way... It's risky, but he'll take his chances with his brothers/sisters... Please be gracious. Please try not to judge... He realises his hypocricy... and think of the naked-ness as a 'punishment' of sorts....

For the fraud is coming out... naked before the world now that his God-fearing-outer-crust is gone...

I am addicted to porn.

I have been so for many years.

I struggle with it.

It deprives me of my time/fellowship/communing with God.

It's almost impossible to escape when I open a browser in the privacy of my room.

Today, I was challenged by the Holy Spirit within me, to choose... between the world, and the Almighty God. He could not have said it more clearly through his servant, Dr. Ng.

"Oh, how I love Your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on Your statutes. You have more understanding than the elders, for I obey Your precepts. I have kept my feet from every evil path, so that I might obey Your word. I have not departed from Your laws, for You Yourself have taught me. How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! I gain understanding from Your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path."

Psalm 119: 97-104

I will bury myself in the Awesomeness of God's Word. I will keep Him close to my heart, and I will appreciate that Porn and the other ways of this world are a vice-grip on my heart, and as such, I will CHOOSE to flee from their destruction.

God has already equipped me/us for the task of turning from sin...

The great discipline is this: To believe in God's Word and it alone... and more importantly, to live it out....

The next time you see him, L will be quite different. There'd probably a joy eminating from him, as he has hopefully gone down the route to victory over sin... he might have already chosen to walk down another road that does not lead to that hole...

He might be victorious in Jesus' name. Please pray for him, now that you know.

He is earnest in his conquest to please God.

I was thinking to myself last night... btw, I wasn't praying, and I didn't... but I was thinking that I should be spending more time communing with God and finding out His plan on how I should be living. So this is the first step: Our Daily Bread.

What if we didn't have faith in God but accepted instead the God-denying theory of evoilution? Suppose we had an atheistic view of life. Cornell University biologist Willim Provine declared in a public debate that if you're a consistent Darwinian, you realise there's no life after death, no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning for our existence, no free will. Life would be empty.

Instead of that bleak unbelief, we can open our hearts and minds to have faith in God as He has revealed Himself through His Son Jesus Christ. We can have forgiveness of our sin through His death on the cross. This not only assures us of a blessed eternity but also fulls our here-and-now experience with measurelee blessings of meaning and hope. We can know by the indwelling Holy Spirit that Jesus' words in John 8:12 are true: "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."

As we move along on our earthly pilgrimage, we don't need to stumble in the darkness of unbelief. Instead we can walk confidently in the light toward and eternity of unending blessedness. That's the difference faith in Jesus Christ makes.

- Vernon Grounds -

'The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." '- Psalm 14:1.

Come to the Light, 'tis shining for Thee,

Sweetly the Light has dawned upon me;

Once I was blind, but now I can see -

The Light of the world is Jesus...   - Bliss

You tell me... How can the potential onset of a life-changing moment still not cause fear? How does one still relapse into complacency even when there's reason for concern and more importantly, change?

Last Thursday I went to the Damansara Specialist Hospital to be warded for the night in preparation for an operation the next morning. Dr. Hari Rajah would remove 3 lumps from my neck, somewhere above the Adam's apple, in a chunk of flesh that looked a little like how a mussell would when extracted from its shell... except more 'meat-like'...

I was warded in a 4-bedded-room, with a fellow patient and his loving family... There I was prepping my little campsite for the night... putting on my sleep-wear and playing with my little Nintendo, I was oblivious to the fact that the coughing/vomiting/bulge-eyed man would be discharged the following afternoon... the reason being (according to the cleaning-lady) that he had little time left to live. I had been sleeping opposite a family who knew negativity and desperation at its final moments... the futile and yet eternal significance of spending as much time with their loved one before his death...

Obviously, the hospital is a place of recovery...

It also reeks of death.

I raise my hand in salute of the brave nurses who attend to the needs of the patients in their respective rooms... sometimes irrational and unreasonable, sometimes pleasant. I did my best to treat those who attended to me in the best way possible, lest I were to be regarded as cantankerous, crabby, or unappreciative. Get to know me... and you'll know that I'm by nature a very appreciative person...

So nurses on level 3. I salute you. Thank you for making my time there a pleasant one. Thank you also for attending to the needs of THAT man. Your work, though at times seeming unrewarding, will carry a fragrance long beyond your presence here on this earth... People will speak of your roles, if not your names, in ensuring their comfort through suffering...

I didn't think that 2006 would be such a life-changing route. I'm complaining of a sudden need to play basketball. I've not had the opportunity to exercise in almost a week now. I hate feeling lethargic. My muscles are degenerating slowly, but surely. I hate it.

But there's a time for rest and there's a time for aggressive building. I am so thankful for this time of rest.

You know, as I sit in my room now... it's 6.49 pm on Wednesday, the 18th of January, I'm living out my dream of having an evening to myself and being able to do absolutely nothing out of necessity or responsibility. In other words, I'm sitting in this chair, at this moment, with little a care! I'm on MC till the end of today, and what a fantastic week it has been!

It's almost as if I'm itching to get back to work ASAP! My productivity has gone to pot. That little patch of work I did on Tuesday, was honestly just for show. Hardly had any time to do ANYTHING in the office. Thanks for the concern by the way, guys... I really appreciate it. Despite the final intention, I appreciate the fact that your seeking correct information about my condition was out of genuine care at Some point. Thanks.

Eating hurts a little. I take painkillers twice a day. And more importantly, lots of antibiotics. Mum says this will weaken me. I'm not entirely certain. I look a little thinner now. I'll put it back on.

The most mundane things we do; we take for granted.

I'm a working individual, and I can see this happening whenever I move from my office chair. I see rampant consumerism and the supposed simplistic nature of product-delivery and advertising; and I cringe... and I rethink what it is that gives me pleasure in earning money...

Then it hits...

There are so many reasons to earn money. Chief-of-which is so that I can afford the basic necessities... things like food and necessary clothing... also so that I can give back to God a portion of the blessings that He has graced me with.

Other reasons would be so that I may treat myself to creature-comforts like toys, fancy meals, a comfy car, new shoes, etc...

I'll make it clear at this point that I make a distinction between the needs and wants. I'm not an indiscriminate-spender/spendthrift. I plan my purchases quite carefully, and if anything is beyond what I know am able to afford, I do not buy it.

Call me 'jaded' or old-fashioned, but when I walk around in shopping complexes, I see the myriad variety of products/services that are supposedly tailor-made for my generation's style-requirements, and I turn away... because most of these things don't appeal to me.

OK. For those who know, I bought 2 rather expensive gadgets recently. The first is the iPod Nano and the next, more recent one, is the Nintendo DS handheld gaming console. I bought both on impulse, and I'm glad to report that I do not regret it at all. I've not bought myself anything that luxurious/expensive in a long while... possibly since my Oakley shades... or the Gamecube back in UK... or the Oakley T-shirts...

So I do spend quite a lot on clothes and accessories. Impulsively, if I might add. Don't worry, there's no conclusion to this accusation that the world (myself included) is chock-full of consumers who are led in a dangle-style-and-fashion-as-a-carrot to believe that we should desire the latest products of someone's ingenuity.

I just wanted to say that I find it frustrating to be caught in this never-ending cycle. I sometimes wish I was less informed about the latest gadgets/fads to hit the streets... that I might not be tempted to buy them...

Then again, there are the stupidest things that become trendy... I'm not even going to go there...

My mind is refreshed with frustration. You know, coupons and stuff... and advertisements... they really get me boiling sometimes... they are always designed to tempt someone to spend more. It's a horrible thing to do... especially since the said designers/advertisers make so much money out of making people part with their money.

One might say that that's the way the cookie crumbles; and I would agree... it's just quite unnerving to see people being led to believe that their lifestyle can be just like the ones we witness in pop-culture... where the 'wants' become 'needs', blurring the once-distinct line bordering the two.

Is this God's design? I hope so. If it isn't, I don't really want much to do with it.

It's the 30th of December, 2005. An eventful year is not hard to come by... this one's just a little bit different. "Life-changing" is a term reserved for the most engaging of events.

Just got off the phone with father; I forgot to call him back and now he's less then pleased... anyway...

I owe him a lot of cash!

Just now I was in such a rush to transport stuff to P09 that I almost lost my patience... Well, I'm not the type to just let my thoughts be heard.. I'm the more silent, brooding type... So anyway, Hooi Leng, thank you for being thorough, but I was not really in the mood to receive such procrastination on account of error-detection... Of course I'd be kicking myself if you'd not warned me when you did.

Sleep Sleep is coming over...

I received that great call one day while I was in the LRT station at Dang Wangi. My delight could not be contained for a minute, as if I had received a brand new toy. I remember smiling so hard that day. And being happy about it was just the beginning!

I resigned from Weststar after half-a-year of raw fun and boredom (at times). It was an amazing experience, with lots of sadness inter-laced. R made sure of that at one point. But enough about that... :) I'd become so entrenched with the values of fast and expensive automobiles that I'd now required a 'plucking-outta-sky' routine... And that I got quite shockingly on my first day at work at >.

The sheer amount of material to absorb was incomparable to the simple read-through I had on my first day at the workshop... VTEC, i-Dsi, Overhead camshafts...

... LAN-ID, door-passcode, dresscode, VB 6.0, 'Value-Added', 'people-developer'...

Man... those things flew over my head so fast... I had little idea of what they'd mean 7 months down the line... Now I can say...

I wish I'd've paid more attention to programming.

There, I've said it... that's the one regret I have for this year... But to be honest, I'm pretty good at recognising and implementing loops and logic nowadays... Thanks be to Wira, Desmond and Kuan Fong...

On that note of thanks, I need to make it absolutely clear that I'm aware of my straying-away-from-God-somewhat... Perhaps some had noticed and expressed worry on my behalf... believe me, I've been thinking about it... and I've been trying to get back to God... I do believe that I am His and He is my God... That one thing is unchangeable...

Perhaps it's the circumstances and effects of my perhaps ill-decisions that have caused others to worry for my spiritual well-being... Please rest-assured that although I seem much more worldly now and I was earlier this year, I have not given up in the race... in fact, I proclaim my faith at the workplace at times, and I trust/hope that my behaviour is becoming of what is expected of a Christian... I ask for your prayers...

I have been misguided at some turns, and for that I express regret that I was not strong enough to resist temptation... but I am aware and confess of these sins regularly, constantly calling upon God's grace to release me from the never-ending cycle of falling-to-temptation...

I have myself to blame... it is not the Devil... it is my inherently sinful nature that is causing me this anguish of split-ended-ness... where I am on one-hand, God's and on the other extreme, totally human and sinful.

I met a great person this year. A great companion. We have had such a good time in these few months that we've known each other. That irreplaceable term of care, compassion and dedication rings true in my mind whenever I think of her name. She is special, for filiality, understanding and patience are rare qualities in ladies. I, for one, have searched... and have finally found. Thank you God. You've made me happy. Such a gift... Thank you...

Our meeting was chronicled and made true before and during BUM. A fated and planned union was this, and I complain not, for I am now spending time with a valuable person...

Quite an amazing year...

BUM was another milestone. I've not ever played in a band anywhere other than within church. So it was to my sheer delight that I met up with a bunch of professionals who were also very keen on music... And it seemed that I arrived at the right time too! God's timing is amazing, and my placement in Accenture was just right for BUM's requirement of a drummer... Fit the bill, I did. And much fun and repute did I gain.

Oh yes, and not to forget EPIK. I'd not been an editor before, but this was the perfect opportunity to practice my stickler-ship. Thanks to Wira, Doris, Johana, Audrey and Li Ling for all your hard work and contributions... I thought that issue was one of the better ones in recent memory...

I've met so many intriguing people this year that I'm struggling to count... Perhaps I should try and name a few for your benefit...

Accenture:
LSF, Yin Sern, Wira, Kuan Fong, Rizal Roshdi, Gary Leong, Basid, Betty, Felicia, Kok Leong, Vee Meng, Yew Cheong, Desmond, Philip, Ching Yee, Fakrul, Yue Jon, Agnes, Jeremy Lim/Liew, Fairuz, Swee Ching, Yong Tai, Juseleen, Zaki, Hoe Kah Soon, Lim Beng Choon, Adrian, Hwa Min, Amran, Audrey, May Ho, Annie, Li Leng, Li Ling, Li Ling, Li Ling, Ramon, Ker, Felix, Bill, Ivy, Fairuz Radi, Chooi Yuet, Geraldine, Wai Seng, Tat Chong, Chee Yuen, Wei Tse, May Ann, Cheryl, Raymond, Yuri, Yuan Hui, Wee Hee, Chee Onn, Marcus, Joanne.

There are prolly many more.

In case you're wondering, Hoe Kah Soon is the man that allowed me to have this job with ACcenture... I adore him for reasons that I myself am unsure of. He is such a blessed man, he knows it, and he makes it a point to be a blessing of encouragement and positivity to those around him. He inspires me by just being who he is. I see not any other way that he could inspire me more... you could say that I look up to him as I would my own father... and yet I know not him personally. Strange... Never had that kind of one-sided connection with someone I hardly know, before this...

But I know that punishment is a necessity for the ways I've mocked You... Please forgive me...