The Dog Angel

You can’t fake how you feel about things. Personally, I felt I was wasting every bit of minute spending my day in between time slots doing marker render.
In the nutshell, I hate marker rendering. It isn’t a complain. It’s a feeling. It’s eats up your time, pronto.

The good thing about the day is that I had a 45 minute conversation my neighbour, Mr Yap.

For some reason, I like conversing with old people. People around 40 to 50. I used to like talking to kids particularly to my cousins when I was young but I guess when they hit their teenage years of puberty, animated talks seems to drift off. But yea, having a close friend way older or way younger than you widens your horizon of how people think as they share their experiences in life.

Mr Yap, is the” Dog Angel”. He goes around the neighbourhood nearly every evening to bless every dog with treats. That’s how we got to know him. He likes Rocky the best. I don’t have a picture of him but he has one of the most authentic smile I’ve ever seen in my life. His laughter could be felt straight from the heart. I actually like to catch glimpses of him laughing, watching the wrinkles crinkle and his eyes sparkle with life everytime he lets out a laugh. He would be absolutely perfect for a photography subject.

We talk about life, work, college, future, past, present. Listening to him sometimes feels like I’m walking on a road back to my father’s past. Where they were both in Victoria Institution once. They’ve built themselves with solid  education and character development, and love their school because of the care given there. VI was one of the reasons that my dad managed to work his way out of poverty. Perhaps if he had not been there he would still be living in the flats, unable to fund for any of our education.

I don’t know about other people, but I never like to take what I have for granted, especially since I came to One Academy. My personal experience and testimonies of what I’ve been through and what I learn is so much that I remain a partially open book. Yesterday, for some reason, bits and pieces of events being part of the CF popped out of my mind. A flashback I guess, from easter and Subang Rallies, toilet cleaning? Even sweeping the floors in the classroom when no one else would do it just popped out. I began to realize that a jigsaw puzzle of my past experiences seem to connect. God was building my character at the end of it. Everything was not done by accident. Every part of a situation thought me to lead, to follow, to serve, to do paper and administrative work, to plan, to persuade, to involve, to be part of, to learn humility, to even became a slave. Even negativity and doubt of how I thought that situations would not work seems to turn and become possible in what I see. I miss those days a lot. Because for a year and a half to now, I still do not have a personal sense of belonging to a church or a community.

But imagine if you realize what God has done with you in the past, then imagine what God will do to you in the future! Everyday I seem to have instant realization of something, hopefully is a gateway to greater understanding of what God intends for me to do.

One light conversation

sometimes, can get you excited and inspired again.

Thank you, Syed.

I cannot keep pushing aside my ideas and thoughts doubting that I can’t execute things as I imagined.
It’s such that an idiotic unfulfilled feeling that you have that vision and idea that keeps circulating in your head again and again and you keep asking yourself, “when?”
You need that kick of believe that things are achievable if you set a clear discipline for yourself to do it.

So when?

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Little slots of short Updates:

- I’m beginning my countdown to complete my projects as fast as I can. This sem is really relax. We have assignments but get plenty of sleep.  The days that I din’t get enough sleep was because I was watching  movies. Haha. So yea. But I feel a tinge of urge in me to discover something or learn something new. Even within a week of norms, each week was different and I experience something different. I really don’t want to one by one explain what I watch or seen or whatever but it’s in my own head that the excitement begans. The ideas that I only share with my sister.

- Sorry for the delay, Malacca Trip photos are finally uploaded on my ancient facebook.

- I got some of the lip sync videos from Syed. The ones he showed us last Sem. Anyone who needs  a copy can get it from me.

- Prayer meeting is finally ON!! On Mondays (8.30am), Wed & Fridays (9.00am). We’ll  work on encouraging people to join us. Working towards sustaining and keeping up the effort to make a difference. Please please please let there be a revo campus here in TOA….don’t want to come to a regret in not fulfilling God’s purpose for us.

Ye Old Kitchen

Point light study. Light and Shadow study. Observational study.

Shading took forever.

Larger view on DA.

The Moment

I had an instant realization over the significance of life and death a few days ago.

“If you know how to die, then you know how to live. ” Tuesdays with Morris.

I felt that I got an injection again. The prick makes you realize that you’re alive and the drug that floods into your veins gives you that terrible feeling of bitterness all over your body. A sudden realization that I could actually throw away all that I worked hard for all my life and still be alright if I cling on to Jesus.

Besides, life here on earth is only temporary.

I stop and think about the people around me. Suddenly, the love over the people around me just feels so real. That I appreciate my family, the church, my college, my lecturers, my teachers so much. Isn’t that silent prompting words that I hear from time to time now yells at the top of its lungs, ” Give back what God has given to you. Bless others as God has bless you.”

We are so selfish. In nature. In thought. In action. In deeds.
As a student seeking to stand out, craving for attention, wanting to be heard, wanting to be known.
Painted and clouded on our eyes is how much we strive to improve but not share the happiness of seeing someone else grow with you.

I still standby my belief that I’m not here to just draw or paint. Our dreams seems so little to what God has plan for us.

Nutshell Proverbs

It’s a common verse. But today, it felt like a revelation.

Or God just gave me a kick when I needed one.

Beggars on the street

I’ll upload the rest in dg forums and maybe facebook on Thurday.

I feel a bit tired after our visit to Malacca. It’s one of those rare days when I’m just not prompted to do anything. Flash assignments is gonna take a while to complete. Maybe 3 days straight. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that it takes so many hours just to create a few seconds of simple animation. I’m used to it but people, including me, do take what we see as cartoons for granted. We don’t realize how many tons of frames animators had to draw.  There’s no magic when it comes to making cartoons, or painting pictures, or designing stuff, or making silk, paper, doing embroidery or making carpet.

Blanks

2 days ago, my dad told me Micheal Jackson passed away the first thing in the morning. I did not thought much about it the whole day until yesterday when the words slowly start to sink in.

“Is he really dead?”

Like suddenly a part of me just left. Just like if you had coffee every morning in the same coffee shop for 20 years and suddenly you realize the coffee house is being bulldozed. I’ve never thought that much about him until now.

The next question was, “wonder whether he’ll be  going to heaven or hell?”

I was a fan of his at 15. Before I knew who he was I thought he was a girl. Seriously. He looks like a girl, sounds like a girl, sings like a girl. I mean, at twelve I ask my dad “whose that girl?” or “girl or guy?” And I always thought that he was walking on horizontal escalators when he did the moonwalk. I thought it wasn’t possible. Only when I started digging out my dad’s old DVDs and watched all his videos, I went crazy about it. Not only me, but my eldest sis too.

My father told me before, ” Michael Jackson makes what hip hop is today look like trash.” I do agree with him. Since after I’ve watched Michael Jackson’s 1995 MTV awards performance, other MTV performance just looks so…so-so.

Yesterday I started playing back all his old songs. Some of his songs remain so much in my childhood that it’s impossible to not sing-a-long when the music is on the radio – Heal the World, Man in the Mirror, You are Not Alone, Billy Jean. Some, really inspirational. I felt pitiful for him because of all the curses of fame that made him to, his skin disorder, his sad childhood, people making fun of him, paparazzis catching his nose falling off of his face. I wonder how God judges these people?

Life is really too short. Life here on earth. I have been reminded that I’m here only for a while. It’s not too long until I turn 50 or 70. Today my mom told me that she heard testimonials from her friend about 5 colombian people who had the same dream about heaven and hell. She asked me,

“Guess whose in hell?”

“Who?”

“John Lennon.”

I didn’t look shocked. She started raving about his songs being inspirational and stuff like that. But I told her,

” Mummy, songs may be inspirational. But people can be deceived by wrong inspirations. He is speaking against God in a subtle way. Remember, you’re either against Christ or with him.”

At the end of the day, it’s not how much you achieve or became, or how famous or glamorous you are. It’s whether you are living your life pleasing to God’s eyes. After all, it’s heaven or hell isn’t it?

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I was a bit upset by some people yesterday. 2 namely. Both of them said the same words to me, “for fun.” I felt the urge so much to yell at them. In so many ways, we are that stupid.

Why are you smoking?
For Fun.

Why are you drinking?
For Fun.

Why are you sleeping with your gf?
For Fun.

Why are you taking drugs?
For Fun.

“For Fun” doesn’t even count as a valid reason. It’s classified as dumb, stupid, idiotic, invalid. Sometimes I look at the people around me I was so sure many had bright futures ahead of them. But when I saw them kick start a stupid habit I feel really really upset. If you were a true friend, whether or not you’re close to the person or not, you would tell them and be frank with them. As young people we always have this misconception that we’re gonna live forever. When we’re so comfortable with or day-to-day routines, our easy life, that we do not see poverty in front us, we are not facing heavy burdens of financial crisis. We slowly get absorb into our worldly lifestyle, thinking that everything would be fine if we did this or do that.

I was also pissed when I asked a friend about his problems, because he looked very depressed the last couple of weeks. He said that his coming to church because his waiting for God to help him. If God doesn’t, he’ll leave the church. Like? How can you simply test God like that? You were made for him, not vice versa. Honestly, to have emotions bottled up inside halfway maintaining your cool, I felt giving him a tight slap!! Lucky thing we have something called ’self control’.

I stand firmly at my statement and say to you, “Get real and serious about your life!! God has great plans for you, Christian or not, don’t waste you life on things that you should not be doing.”

Teahouse

It look me a while to finish reading Memoirs of a Geisha. Part of the reason was that I only read 2 chapters a week. Yea… But the book is just so captivating.

No more Japanese styles for me for a long while. Almost everyone’s doing Japanese. So I’m out.