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This is not a post about graduation or someone's birthday. It's not about something happy. But it is about something worth remembering. I quarrelled with my mom yesterday for the first time in about 25 years of my life. I love my mom a lot. I know her intentions have always been pure, genuine, good. But I also know how I feel about her words and actions. Through talking to my friends, significant others, and prayers, I finally found the courage to voice out how I'd been feeling all these years... ... without crying and interrupting the flow of the conversation . I hurt my mom by expressing myself and how I felt. There was great anger released yesterday and somewhat some form of relief thereafter. But some anger remains because there was no conclusion; there was no consensus; no understanding made at the end of the day. There's a guilt that resides within me and won't go away. Because I love my mom. And I hurt her. Though we both said sorry today, th

It's not easy to hurt yourself You got to climb mountains and walk through hell And even then, you know it's just as well It's better to end than to dwell Why is beauty a reason to forgive? Why not death, but to live? Why carry on when you have nothing to give? There's nowhere to smile, nowhere to grieve There's nowhere to smile, nowhere to grieve.

"행복해?"   A simple, but difficult question to answer these days. I've lost touch with what it means to feel happiness because... whenever I do, a moment later, my reality becomes filled with great uncertainty and anxiety. And this cycle becomes so unbearable that it haunts me in my dreams every night. It is hard to build a sand castle near the waves, hard to reach the shore when the tides overwhelm you again and again, but there will always be a way. God will make a way. So until that day comes, I'll hold on to that hope and take a friend's advice; count my blessings, and hope that the little flowers I see afloat keep me above the waters, help me look up to the one where my help comes from, and lead me to the shore. I'm very thankful for this friend in my life, and I too, hope will stay in my life for a very long time. There was longing, There was waiting, And the rain poured, But it won't last It'll surely pass All that I've endur

It's almost close to a year since I first saw a counsellor at my school. Although it has been a rollercoaster ride getting to where I am now, I'm grateful for the skills I acquired along the way -- be it from education, my counselling sessions or even friends I met along the way who helped and are still helping me through this period of time. I know this is a late celebration, but since a month ago, for the first time, I felt free. It's not yet the freedom I fully hope for, but I believe even this amount of freedom is for the best at this time. So hurray to.. bearable progress :) People do not exist as individuals alone in the world, we live with many other individuals and their own stories. We live as units; families, couples, friends... So it's important to understand others in that context.... This knowledge that stuck with me since year 1 in university has also kept me stuck in many philosophical dilemmas... but I'll leave that to you guys to discover -- the

I think that it's great I'm awake at this hour. There is peace and quiet and no one to be concerned about at the moment. Lately, due to the COVID-19 situation, I've had a lot of worries about the wedding and it increasingly became a stressful topic for me. I understand that planning a wedding isn't easy and many couples already find it stressful. Fortunately for me (or so I thought), I actually had more time on my hands, so it was easier for me to appreciate and enjoy each step of the plan. However, that happy moment didn't quite last as the COVID-19 situation worsened. My hope for the dream wedding just slowly died. I think things need to be viewed in context for people to understand my level of distress. Earlier in March, I had another fallout with my sibling. We ended off the conversation cutting off ties. It gave me great relief, yet immense pain. We didn't have the best sibling relationship, but we did have good memories together when we were younger.

Life Update V It's been a few weeks since I told my parents about my future plans and my condition. I think they're taking it pretty well. They've been very understanding, being more patient with me. I guess prior to telling them these things, they must've been acting out of a lot of confusion. Maybe my disclosure helped them piece some things together. It made me wonder about whether it was still worth it to disclose this information to her . These past few months have been difficult, yet liberating. I struggled letting go of a certain expectation of someone. I struggled letting go many expectations of myself and others. I've been slowly coming to acceptance of a new me in this new world. I also came to learn a lot about what I need not be; who I can choose to be. I guess that's where the liberating part comes in. School was over in December, grades came out at the end of the year, I missed graduating with second upper honours by 0.02, let out a big sigh,

Life Update IV Does high performance equate to happiness? I'm beginning to see where I stand and accept myself for the abilities and capabilities that I have. I believe that brings.. peace at least.

Life Update III I could be blogging more because it's the holiday season and I miss the feeling of typing out a chunk of words, but... I am very glad to record it here that I had a happy dream last night. The dream was full of resolve from my past hurts and hope for a brighter future from here on out. Was it the meds? Was it that I finally begun doing my quiet time? Was it the events of that day? Was it my happy hormones screaming out because I might get a cat soon? Could it be all of this? Perhaps. I'm just happy . And it's rare. So I'll take it all in while I can.

Life Update II If there was any major obstacle to overcome, I'd say it'd be my childhood. Who knew I'd be spending my 20s trying to recover from it? Recently, I felt God telling me about the importance of His Word and the church. I've never felt so far away from my faith before until I heard my youth leader and pastor's sharing recently which struck a chord in me. The devil uses what is seemingly right to destroy my relationship with God. I should've known when I felt weak to even sing worship songs to God in church last year (I kept feeling overwhelmed). The daily battles don't get easier when layers of my childhood slowly peel off like an onion. Losing Orlie is something I can't even begin to imagine happening, yet I know death is inevitable for every living creature. Life is complicated. I am tired. I am dumb. but I can't give up because there're people who love and support me, there're people who believe I can g

Life Update Time never stops The beginning of a man's worry Time waits for no man Like the wind, it does as it wishes. I'm entering my 4th year in uni and so many things have happened over the past two years (since my last post). Well, to be exact, a lot of things happened in the past 10 months -- before that was really just a lot of stress from studying and the bi-yearly breakdowns. I just wanted to remind myself to forgive. Going back to 10 months ago around mental health day, what happened was a huge blow to me. I never expected myself to react the way that I did. I never found it harder to breathe, so painful to scream, so mad I wanted to punch the wall until my knuckles bled (yeah, I didn't), and so shocked at my reaction I felt I lost my mind. I was so confused... All I could think of was how I thought I'd forgiven these people in my life, put the past behind me and moved on, but how I reacted really showed how much ill-feelings I'd harboured toward

Love Is Kind Someone once taught me that kindness meant being the door amongst the wall of thorns... And I believe that to be true because in a world full of people, full of suspicions of one another, the only way to tear down the walls of suspicion or hostility is kindness. It is like inclusiveness . Well then, why is kindness seen as love? That's because the moment you stop being inclusive, the moment you stop involving someone in your life, wouldn't that equate to ignorance? What is the opposite of love again? Right, it isn't hatred, it's ignorance . And that's the last thing you'd want to do to anyone you care about. Also, the last I checked, it's the last thing any human being would want either. Of course, there are systems and cycles in place for every human being. We all have our lives to live and it can't possibly revolve around socialising 24/7, but I believe it takes wisdom to grow in kindness, to enlarge our capacity to love, to offer

University I can literally cry over it. Not simply because it's stressful. That's such an understatement of what I'm going through now. I appreciate the skills and knowledge I get from my university and I totally understand how "knowledge is sweet ". I totally agree on this point by the way. But what I can't stand is how this is achieved at the expanse of something larger. Something that I recently discovered to be a part of myself. A part of my identity as a person on this earth. Having to take in something new is almost as if trading this precious part of me for something less precious. I can't let that happen... And yet, I somehow have to...? You can clearly tell my confusion in that whole paragraph alone, but trust me, it gets worse. I don't get how I am able to work on an assignment I put my blood, sweat and tears into, and forget all knowledge of it the following week (when I get back to it for edits). It's like some sort of scary nig

Desperately trying to cling on to the pieces of myself wherever I go.

Gardens By The Bay GBTB is one of Singapore's best tourist attractions! Indeed, during the festival, I barely squeezed my way through many families and even photographers who'd been at a spot for who knows how long! I made a trip down to GBTB (flower dome) to bring my grandma out to see some flowers because she really loves them and you know what they say, photos you snap may not look like how you see it in real life. I'm not even talking about photoshop nor any form of editing.. But here is my #nofilter mini album of GBTB I created to show you just how beautiful all these flowers are.. (p.s. Click to enlarge the images!) ^ These were so gorgeous.. I looked up and just gazed at them as I walked through a small tunnel of vines and flowers. I'm not gonna lie, I was too busy admiring these flowers, I didn't take a second look at their names... ^ This. is. my. FAVORITE. We also explored other parts of G

"Don't cry for idiots ," they said. "They're not worth your tears," they said. Then what about non-idiots ? Are they, then, worth my tears?

Longing It's been a few days without seeing Ben and I think I'm malfunctioning. Missing you, bæ .

A Blessing Lately, my youth group has been having talks about addiction to cursing/swearing/games... And I'd like to share a little about my experience. It won't take long, don't worry. I have always noticed myself holding back from the mainstream apps or games. I do this because I know that in my weakness, I'd usually get addicted to it pretty quickly. I'd end up replacing this specific app/game with the God-spot in my heart. It'd quickly rob me of true joy - joy that only the Holy Spirit can fill in my heart. No one and nothing else can. There was this one time, though having gone through this cycle many times, I'd failed to resist once again. I immersed myself in a phone app game. I paid so much for it, even. I'd never paid so much for a phone app - ever. And here I was, all ready to make necessary transactions to beautify my character. I missed doing my Quiet Time with God for many days, giving the excuse that I was too tired after playing m

"Oh Lord, give me wisdom ."

Forest by LAU Hi guys! So my friend approached me one day and asked if I could sing a part of his song.. Nope, I do not own this song, but once again I am doing a shoutout for a friend of mine. This one's called "Forest"   by LAU. Sit back, relax , sip on some coffee and enjoy! (: Click here to view more of LAU's work!

Working On It I have some things to confess... Confession #1 : It's been at least a month since I last wrote a complete song. Confession #2 : I did not regret taking a break. Confession #3 : I just wrote a song. I think that being a creative person, I just needed to find some space and time to gather ideas. Though simply put, there were many things going on in my life and many factors contributed to the lack of enthusiasm I had for music for the past month. #1: Insecurity I'm not the best vocalist in the entire world and I don't aspire to be one. It just kinda sucks to know that I'm just average and though I kind of try to be better, it doesn't really work because my goal is simply different. I just sing to deliver my songwriting ideas across in hopes that some talent agency out there would discover my song and decide to use it. I'm not great at singing, but it is a tool to help me.. Well, I can't help but feel inferior when I see great artistes

s c a r s and t r a c e s. Hi guys! Previously I uploaded a cover , but this time, it will be an original ! :D This one's beautifully & sincerely written by my dear friend, Loh Jing Yee. Let's see if you guys can guess the meaning of the song! (; Enjoy (; Click here if you wish to browse more of her works!

Teenage Life After some serious consideration - in the past minute - I have decided to do a post on "teenage life". Hey, everyone's different so I'm just going to share based on my perspective and slot in some of my experiences as a teenager. So they say that a teen is considered a "teen" when he or she is between 12 and 20 years old. So as long as your age has the "-teen" part at the end, you're a teen, if not, you're no longer one. As such, I feel pretty old right now. Well, OL DER , anyway. At 13, most Singaporeans go through this education system called "secondary school". At that age, everybody probably thought they'd have more freedom. Perhaps, even have the chance to go wild and free in school every day and the teachers wouldn't care less? RED BUTTON . That's a CRAZY misconception I keep hearing of!! Yes, while it is true that as you grow older, you get more freedom, but I believe now as I look back - and

Crystals (Cover) My friends and I knew graduation wasn't the end. We were dying for more fun with music. So we gathered and simply decided to do a cover of a song. I know this is long overdue, but here it is! A cover of "Crystals" by Of Monsters And Men, done by my friends and yours truly. Enjoy (: Click here if you wish to find out more about the Producer of the ^above^ song + video!

What sucks? It's been six months since you passed your driving test, within six months, you have never driven. Within the past few days you just started driving again, but you're not getting perfect scenarios, have two experienced drivers in the car giving different advice, then getting misinterpreted for being angry when you're really just confused - and in a real life situation, nobody's gonna wait for you to think in the middle of the road - so you raise your voice to ask them for a clear answer or else you'd upset a lot of drivers, but at the end of the day, you raised your voice in urgency, not anger, then today you almost got into an accident that's completely your fault, endangering the lives of your beloved parents, one already injured the day before, then have your dad lose trust in you completely. Day 4 of driving. But hey, that all sounds really stupid, right? At the end of the day, you just suck. So what sucks? You . Go take public transpor

Silence Is Gold . .. ... Recuperating .

Close To You by Carpenters (Cover) So I decided to do a cover for the first time. (: One of my all-time favs.

Confused Identity All this talk about having an identity.. I feel to many... in fact, to the majority of the world, they easily find who they are and act out of who they are. There is a small fraction of people - like me - who still can't figure it out. For a long time, I got stuck at that stage. I was very short-tempered because I couldn't find an answer that was obvious to so many other people. Some of them already know who they are, they act out of who they really are inside naturally. Some don't even realize they are already living out themselves. Me? I always thought I was satisfied. But my body said otherwise. My voice always quavered as if I was unsure or afraid of something. I always tend to frown. I walked with my back hunched. I walked with my head hung over most of the time without realizing it - and I'm not even a tall person (based on the assumption of people saying that tall people tend to slouch and all because they feel they stand out too much). I wasn

Driving Test Tomorrow!! *freaks out* It's been so many months of learning and tomorrow is finally the test date. I'm worried as I've been feeling rather since past few days, especially since yesterday. I hope I'll get sufficient rest tonight, so I can focus well on the road and my surroundings tomorrow! Don't wanna see my instructors again... I mean, I really, really, really want to pass... OTL

Freedom is as beautiful as a blooming lily, but is capable of being dangerous like fire. As such, so is love. Hence, the importance of wisdom and hope, and also the reason for boundaries set in place for a fallen world. #thoughtoftheday

It's always after crying, you feel like you can laugh at anything. #thoughtoftheday 

What now? As I sat at the table with my youth pastor and other leaders of the youth group, I was lost in my own thoughts. I had my burdens outside, accumulated and I brought it along with me to today's meeting. Well, for one, not sure if I wrote it here in the blog, but I've come to a point where I have to make a decision on what I wanted to do for my future. So far, it's not clear, and I feel really insecure. If anything, that was at least one of my top worries..../burden... since I would most probably have to provide for people I love - I want to . That brings me to what this post'll be about. We were praying to receive from the Lord a word/message/image/revelation with regards to having a youth camp at the end of the year. I was totally disengaged by my own thoughts and worries, but I tried my best to focus. At the end of everything, I went home. I was talking to Luke for a good 4 minutes before my train stop arrived. It was then I realised... thinking about the

How Satan Stops Our Prayers Hey there, it's been awhile. Today I'd just like to share about a video a friend shared with me. However, before I do so, I'd like to say a few things.. Last week as I heard my friend give his testimony about fasting and what he realised fasting did to him, I was.. let's say, I didn't quite understand. He shared with me this video (which you will later on see) and after watching it - in fact, while I was watching it - I felt my heart move. Well, I mean, I felt the Holy Spirit telling me something and tears welled up in my eyes. I began to realise my many defeats and began to see the battlefield again which I lost sight of. I knew there was a battlefield. I knew I was fighting, but the severity of it all? I lost it. I lost sight of it all. That was serious because I realised how lukewarm I became. Now, I've never done this before and I am about to pray about it tonight, but I feel I should fast - for the first time - and seek G

Back to work. Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I had a pretty depressing day two days ago... It's been a long time, but I'm glad today's topic addressed the very core issue! Accountability . Maybe all I had been thirsting for was accountability to be established in this little cottage.. Anyways, although school has ended for me, I'm considering about what I'd wanna do after poly... I've actually done some research and felt that Belmont University might be right for me.. Then again, I don't really know about the procedures and stuff.. Also... what will I do if I really get accepted there? :( I can't bear to leave everything behind... I need to work maybe. I need to do something. something. maybe I'll be tribute too. haha... sigh. I've still got some leftover work to do, so shall get to that soon! I must say... listening to more of my course mates' originals has got me feeling more motivated, yet discouraged at the same time... B

I don't want to grow up. I don't see anything wrong with feeling that way now. My whole life has been chasing the "dream" of adulthood. Just when I'm entering it, I want to be a kid again. Perhaps due to insecurity of my future, perhaps I just want to because I missed out on some bits of my childhood/teen life. What's wrong? Oh here's what's wrong: "When you mature, you'll control your anger". Oh. So if I just wanna be a kid now, it means I'm not supposed to be able to control it right? There. There you have it, people. So for goodness' sake, if you're disturbed by my behavior now and cannot understand (I have already stated it in the beginning of the previous paragraph), please. just. don't talk to me. thanks. not that I hate you or anything, but it saves both you and myself the trouble of any stupid drama. I just want to be a kid, I don't want to be a idiotic angst kid. What's wrong with taking that h

Stressful times Just presented my ideas to my lecturers.. I think that all those weeks of working hard is finally paying off.. There's still much to be done and I can only say.. I'm really grateful to those around me who're very, very understanding. I've replaced my studies with God. I am aware of that. I am not ashamed of it, but neither am I proud of this. But I'll just admit it here. Because I want to be honest with myself about this. One funny thing happened yesterday though! On Saturday, after dinner, Ben sent me back and I did work after washing up. 11.15pm all the way to 10am the next day. I was so, so exhausted . I'm not sure what I did - wearing my IEMs on for too long, listening to my song over and over for so long - my ears just itched here and there. It was so.. so.. itchy. I didn't know why. On Sunday, after a short 2-hour nap, I headed to church and realised my left ear was clogged up. I couldn't hear much on my left ear. I panicked