And I love you, I love you, I love you...
like never before.

Tonight's the last night that I will sleep in my bed. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that. I am feeling the mad panic rise in me, then I will live in a nomadic life for 2 weeks before going back to Singapore.

Packing's been a blur. Rediscovering. Late night conversations till 6 am. Dealing with and letting go. Meeting Amy, staring at familiar strangers, and strange family. Hard and fast relationships, and then the walls. Walls and rafts. Who I am and Home.

Shhh.

Dear Lord, I thank you for this year and for your blessing. Thank you for this Utopian existance that you have bestowed upon the 8 of us. Lord you are here and you are Good. I bless your name. There's great pain in leaving, and I have to admit that I haven't handled it well at all. I have to learn balance, moderation, sensibility and pacing in my life. But God, there is always room for grace. For now father, I commit this family into your hands. We will no longer be together like this, ever. We have just started to know each other but we've reached the end. We will drift apart and forget many things. And this is perfectly ok. I've done my reeling and ranting, and I'd like to believe that I can finally move on. Just... please... dear God... keep them.

I have made this my home.
And the great wordless pain here reveals the value of the past year.
I can barely breathe.

Linger

I've started packing since my finals are all over. They went well. God is good. But for flashes in time, I almost wish they'd never end. I have finally fallen in love with my living situation and packing to move out -forever- is tantamout to torture. I walk around the quad dragging my emotions behind me, screaming and kicking. I don't want to leave.

At the same time, I can't wait to leave. To be back in Singapore where things are familiar and make sense. To see old familiar faces and to show them how much more I am. Beauty abounds. To see my mummy, daddy and brother all over again and to live with them. God has blessed me with such a good easy life, what am I and what do I have now to serve?

Then I can't wait to move into the basement, MY place for once, for maybe 2 years or so. We'll see.

I look back at my second year in university and I have to admit that it has been THE best year of my life thus far. I can't say that I felt happy more often, but when I did. Boy was I happy. Similarly, when I faced emotional issues, boy were they issues. To a certain degree, I recognise how these issues got in the way of living, but well, it's a struggle. Thank you Angie, for contantly reminding me of what i remind you.

So much to let go off, and so much to move on to. I'm at the stormiest, most intense period of my life, with much to feel, live and express. I am the flashy billboard that rises against the placid blue sky that tells you what to buy to be ME. Where I am now is the epitome of vibrancy and action. I am alive.

I'm in love, and subsequently, in pain.
What will I do without you?

"The monk should not imagine that in a chaotic age like ours his only funcion is to preserve the ancient attitudes and customs of his Order. These are necessary and valuable indeed in so far as they are vital and fruitful, and help us to live more freely and more consciously in the mystery of Christ... the monastery should be something more than a museum. If a monk merely keeps in existence monuments of literature and art and thought that would otherwise decay, he is not what he ought to be, He will decay with what is decaying all around him.

The monk does not... exist to preseve anything, be it even contemplation or religion itself. Heis function is not to keep alive in the world the memory of God... the function of the monk in our time is to keep himself alive by contact with God."

There we go.
I want to be a monk. (might as well. I've already got the hair.)

"But in its essentials - solitude, poverty, obedience, silence, humility, manual labour, prayer and contemplation - monastic spiritual does not change."

~ Thomas Merton:

Basic Principle of Monastic Spirituality

Mmmmmm, life in the presence of God is infinately better then anything else. There are things that I am starting to become aware of myself that I would like to remove. New forms of communication and love that I need to learn, and a whole bunch of people that I need to learn to start loving. Here and now.

I met up with Deanna Pfort, and Wendy Dubois yesterday to discuss the future of TAGS in Vancouver. It was strange being in the presence of adults (Wendy, who was once a Pastor in my church, is now running Neighbourlink) who listened and molded and were really interested in my ideas and opinions. I'm too used to getting my thoughts graded and handed back to me, their only actualization to be found on my Student Transcript. But here, finally, life to thoughts. And the prayer, no one has ever prayed for my duel-culturalness before, and now i'm starting to wonder what all this means.

I need to have mustard seed faith.

I cannot wait for this school year to end.
For God's sake hurry up.

I just need a little time to stablize and think. I think I act more mature then I really am and the folly of it gnaws at me. I feel like humanity after the fall, when the intellectual and technological advancement overstreched the moral and cultrual capacity to handle it.

I did reach a point when I felt like all my knowledge in history and econ came to absolutely nothing. So what if I know more, I don't think I'm any the better for it.

Countdown: 24 more days.

What if it all means something?

"Dear Hannah

I am touched by your love for others, even willing to sacrifice your crowning glory. I will pass my donation to your parents.

I deeply appreciate what you are doing as my younger sister is a cancer patient. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in June 2001, underwent six months of chemotherapy treatment and was in remission for a year. Then in early 2003, the cancer spread to her lungs and she went undergo chemo again. She was monitored for a year and early this year underwent chemo again as the tumours had grown. For the last two chemos, she was bald as the chemo caused hair loss but thank GOD for this round, the LORD preserved her hair. It was a very traumatic experience and one of her friend (also a cancer patient) gave her a wig. So thank you for donating your beautiful hair to make a wig for the cancer patients. It means a lot to them.

Looking forward to seeing you. GOD bless and use you for HIS glory."

It must have really hurt to write this, and I am blessed. I am still trying to remember that everything happens for a reason. And that I don't necessarily have to be agreeable toward every moment or season in my life. Pain is very crucial in life, deprivation is too.

You give and take away.

I understand that I will get there.
I'm only just starting to see how far away I am.

"there's nothing we can take to heaven...

...except relationships "

~ Mark

Naked I came and Naked I will leave.

Purseless and bankrupt.

"...On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.
" 'Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, "Live!" I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels. Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare.
" 'Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD , and you became mine."

~Eze 16:4-8

I LIE ALL THE TIME

I got a flood of comments on my previous post pertaining to my bald state of being. For starters, yes I am serious about feeling the inner urge to "EAT VEGETABLES, FIGHT FOR PEACE AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND WEAR HAND-WOVEN CLOTHES" It's amazing what image does to you. But I understand this to be all fallicious and not worth exploring, so I won't launch to the hemp clothing and herb gardens. Although in defence, much of my seriousness is waught with sacarsm.

But I am listening to Sinead O 'Connor.

Moving on to more important thoughts.

"i love you hannah. you screw up all my stereotypes"

~Eric

I had lunch today with Mel. I sometimes wonder if he is the Male me. And today I realise why I love angie so much and why we get along so well, still and despite. That at the end of the day, we can sit in our own worlds and still hold hands. There is no demand for me to cross over to her realm, and no demand for her to yield to mine. She isn't mine, but she is with me. We don't possess, but persue. There needs to be such freedom in relationships. To just be.

And to be comfortable with that.

And in the midst of all this head space, I had to come to terms with timing and choices. That at the end of the day, you could have everything needed and still not find success, especially in relationships. The layers of history that build a man are not so simple. But anyway, at the end of the day, I think I can disapprove, be outside, be glowered at, be silent and clueless...

and still love.

Maybe later, we can/will talk.

But I will have to choose carefully.

I still remember, and have dreams.

We have our ways, we have our beings. Lets not take it out on each other.

Anyway, back to my conversation with Eric, I learnt over lunch today that it isn't a wonder most people can't get their heads around me. I can't get mine around myself.

"You need new stereotypes"

~ Me

Whatever.

How could I possibly know what I want when I was only twenty-one?

Unreal.

I've shaved my head.

I SUDDENLY ONLY WANT TO EAT VEGETABLES, FIGHT FOR PEACE AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND WEAR HAND-WOVEN CLOTHES.