Give.

This is the semester of lousy grades. For the first time in my academic career, I am actually no longer an A student.

I am trying to find the redemption in this, and remember a time long ago when I used to preach on the evils of being defined by your grades.

Excuse me, tantrum's coming.

uncharmed.

Unblessed and broken. Bleh.

Like the sour aftertaste of medicine.

Teach me how to love.

There is something glamourously tragic about riding in the backseat of a car. Quietly. Converseless and careless. Or laden with cares and internal conversation. Whatever.

I just think that there is something novel about being in the backseat of a car.
Quietly.
Not something that happens very often.

You can't go on

Thinking nothing's wrong

Chesterton has a wicked sense of humor. And a lot to say about the state of humanity in our sin. It is a wonder though, that many of us (Christians included) have lost our notion of sin and fallenness. So much so that it is very easy to ignore and rationalize away the guilt that otherwise should riddle our spirits. Indeed as Chesterton purports, rational logic and not spirited art is the root of insanity and as it is impossible to communicate with the madman, it is even more impossible to communicate with the rational man. For this man, bred of the Enlightenment, hails solipsism and believes in himself, and hence is locked into the prison of individualism, with no sense of otherness. We are very small beings, and not built to be self-sufficient.

But then I wonder if my attempts to build community and relationships are actually worth anything. Or if they are but feeble representations of the circular, narrow, yet infinite arguments of the madman.

Who's gonna drive you home, tonight?

And through all this, I recall reading a thought off a page (off a hand-me-down chinese textbook no less), penned by Yishan:

"There is a joy in being a madman that only madmen will know."

And I think I know who's crazy.

Bonhoeffer said something about being real.

Forgive me.
~~~~

I need to be careful with myself.

My entire being
~~~~

Emotional pornography.

That's what it is.

Go ahead and erase the memory of me.

SILENCE

We are existing.

There is nothing to talk about anymore.
There is nothing left to say that is worth saying,
that will not fall to the ground,
flacid and limp like the hungry flesh
that once thought that it was satisfied.
And now thinking that it should keep pushing for more.
So halfway hanging, down the hallways of hummed space,
The ticking clock measuring each mute second of our pacing.

Let's just go.

RE: Dear Diary

ARGH ARGH ARGH! *#@%&#....

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Okay okay okay. I come home from starbucks to find shu giggling at my post and more pertinently, the comments to my previous post. Now I am a failure when it comes to confrontation or hostility of ANY sort, especially when it comes from me shooting my mouth off on public domain at 2 am. So I go raving mad. Naturally, my previous post hardly has any grounds or claims to truth whatsoever and I dance dangerously close to offending half the human population and damning myself to a life-long state of being despised by the other gender.

Unfortunately, by principle, I never delete previous posts. Once posted an entry becomes part of the landscape of this corner of the blogsphere that I have to deal with in terms of communication. Once the cat's out of the bag, you're never going to get it back in again. So we'll just deal with what we have left, snip snap and scratch.

But anyway, what do we have here?

I'm going to engage this as if this were a dialectic of some sorts. So, I've said something, and some have said somethings about this something that i've said. And I will say somethings, two things to be exact, in response to the things that they have said.

1) The context of the post, and of the things spoken of in the post aren't well represented in the entry. I wrote this in the emotional conduit of having watched Bridget Jone's Diary 2. Ahhh Bridget Jones. who's beau Mark Darcy travels around the world (no less) to save her from a Thai Prison despite being under the impression that she no longer loves him. So that's where being 'Saved' comes from.

Uh. The context of the problem lying with 'men' and not with 'us' isn't a male-female issue. It sounds like it, but uh, it was a part of a conversation which I think was dealing with particulars (me and two other people) then with the genders in question. Yes the gendered discourse is still there, and probably stronger then I'd like to admit. But at the end of the day, what was being said was more slanted toward 'lets not blame, and try to change ourselves to find guys, but recognise that we're not the only factors in the equation.' I think 'where did I go wrong?' is a question asked by too many girls, in too many wrong relationships. And by the wrong girls.

But while the comments weren't an attack on the male gender as a whole, they were dipictions of disappointment toward the relationships that I have seen and been engaged with. So unabashedly, yes, the male gender is involved in this, but not in the orientation or to the extent as was taken by my previous post.

A great guy friend once cautioned me "don't ask for a king if you're not a queen". Contextualized, this was spoken to mellow my zeal for the kind of relationship that I wanted and expected having being drawn out, quite painfully, of two other less-then-ideal relationships in a span of 6 months. It worked. But thinking about excellence from a christian perspective, I have come to the conclusion that that wouldn't work either. Instead, I should look for someone who is willing to grow with me, into the people that we're meant to be. So while I shouldn't be avoiding every guy who is less-than-considerate, less-than-Godfearing, less-than-patient, less-than-strong, I should be seeking to be the person that my future husband would want to be with. And I should look for someone who, above all, is willing to grow, willing to watch me grow, and is willing to grow together with me.

I've only met a couple of guys who have their hearts oriented in this direction and unfortunately, chemistry doesn't work with the brain very well.

And while I can say that I have been disappointed with the general male populous, I definately think that, as Dusty points out, that most males would be disappointed with the general female populous and from where I see things, they should be. But for me, disappointment shouldn't be a value-judgement, but a sense of despair at the mismatch of life-goals and orientations. And hence, my problem of lacking relationships, doesn't lie in me (in the sense that I am seeking to be everything that I should be for Him [both 'him's]) but in that I can't find anyone who seems to be interested in walking with me in that direction. And it was for this reason that I broke up with whoever I broke up with. It hurt. I loved him. But we weren't facing the same direction.

2) The statements in my previous posts aren't so much absolute claims to truth then they are depictions of my emotional landscape. I apologise for being insensitive to the multitude of possible renderings toward my language and writing. I don't have much of an excuse for this except that it was 2 am, and I was careless. But while what I said sounded like I was purporting some form of universal truth, it was meant to be a reflection of my very female feelings. I hope number 1) serves to support this. It's me and my feelings. Not the universe and truth.

Blogging is a very selfish enterprise. I uh, hope that this serves to clarify what I was really trying to say. And right now, I'm feeling so highschoolish about having to talk about boys and girls and gender and stuff that I think I'm going to be sick. I think I should just adhere to the advice of my atheistic roomie:

What would Jesus say? Don't put it on your blog if Jesus wouldn't say it. Would Jesus say that it was all men's fault?
~ Andre.

Point taken, lesson learned.

Dear Diary

It's two in the 'sodding' AM and the girls of 4822 have recently ajourned to our respective living spaces, sombered by the shadowy reality that Mr Mark Darcy exists only in Bridget Jone's world. But apart from being impressioned by hopeless depression at the lack of men who would travel round the world to be with you, much less save you, I have also decided to draw up a little 'December 31' report, albeit, ahead of time.

December 14, 2005

Fallen in love: 483924 times (seriously)
Boy friends: 1.5
Weight loss: -1 pounds
Loved: 1
Exboyfriends: 2
Evicted from a 7 year relationship: 1
Marriage proposals: 0

No, there is NO progress this year.

But as noted by a friend of mine, the issue probably doesn't lie with us, but with men. The singleness of some individuals is enough to prove that. But here I am looking at the boys in my life whom I have been romantically involved with and, despite them being beautiful in their own way, find more joy in having lost then in having been loved before.

Commitment doesn't start with both parties in the boat. It starts with the chase.

and in the waiting.

You never mustered the strength to fight for me.
~ Bridget.