You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up... To more than I can be

-----------------------------

I was sitting down in the science library, trying to focus despite the unfamiliar surroundings, and the smell of mold in the air. Before I could warm my seat, my phone rang... It was Dad, and it wasn't the usual nagging or SMSes that he always sent me daily.
"The hospital called, they told us to make our way down as fast as we can. And to bring her IC along. They couldn't get your aunt. Let's go down now".

I immediately packed my things. Raced down the stairs as silently as I could.

We all knew it was coming. But, I didn't have enough time. At the very last moment, I doubted myself... I still failed to treasure the time I had with her. As I waited anxiously, around the canteen awaiting the yellow vehicle, I met with some whom I told the news.

"Is it alright?"
"Are you okay?"

I was.
Is it wrong to be?

All there was left to do was the administrative part of things.
We were told to anticipate this, many years before. Yellow man already didn't know what to think. Not that he ever tried to think.

I was the first to arrive. What greeted me was no longer a grandmother who couldn't speak my language, on the bed struggling to take her every breath. It was a mere cadaver, life sucked out of her earthly shell and eyes wide open like it had never been for a while now.

Up till now, I purposed only to see cadavers of people I never knew. Because I dissect and play with their innards in Anatomy class.

It wasn't hard to hold back the tears.
But it was hard to keep the waves of memory from washing up the shore of eternal regret.

The last time I saw her was 2 days ago.
Why didn't I come yesterday? I could have!
But I chose to wake up early to meet a friend for breakfast instead.
Is it wrong?

As my aunt cried and shouted for her to come back.
And we monitored the 12-lead ECG that she was hooked up to.
I don't think she's alive anymore.

The nurses said she can still hear us. "There's still abit... see here..." said the nurse pointing to the miniature fluctuations in the ECG.
Well, okay... I'd take her word for it. Maybe I'm not that smart afterall....
Maybe, she'd be able to return...


We tried to relieve the agony, and come to terms with everything with a little joke by the bedside.

But in the end...
this woman whom i lived with me for a few months when i was 6 years old.
met once at a hawker centre at 9 years old.
visited at her one-room apartment when i was 19 years old.
spent time with fortnightly while i was 22 years old.

has departed.

I was the horrible grand daughter who bullied everyone.
She was the loving grandmother who did all she could to accommodate my unreasonable requests, rude, spiteful, inconsiderate...

Surprisingly I still do recall what I demanded of her while I was on my way to PAP Kindergarden. How I mocked her, and she just did it without dignity to make me smile.
I feel so terrible. What a monster I was. am.

She was alert on Sunday and Monday.
All I could do was sit by her and try to read my Drug Quiz 2.
I didn't understand what she was saying.
And she couldn't understand the MP3s on my iPod which I place in her ears.
Why didn't I visit her on Monday. Why didn't I prepare the mp3 I wanted her to hear, immediately after I reached home on Sunday?


My final regret. was that I undoubtedly grew weary of being a good grand daughter. I didn't try harder.

I have done much more. than if I didn't have God.
But my regrets are really, minimised.

We all tried to smile. and pretend we have lives that are more important.
knowing inside, she has led a lonely hard life.

I wish they knew.
and never forget her.

I wish she didn't say "My life won't stop just because of this"

I wish I didn't had to call and persuade everybody to stop being busy and come to the hospital, to the death bed.

I wish I could have insisted that the silly doctor removed the urinary catheter and made her last days more comfortable.

I wish I had learnt my dialects well.

I wish I can love the rest of them even better, before they depart from this world.

谁言寸草心 抱得三春晖

If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants

Dedicated to a beloved grandmother. Mdm See B.C.
widowed at a young age.
raised her only 3 year-old son.
and took in another young girl.
a faithful follower of Christ and a remarkable woman in difficult times.

kimberle says that zebra fishies like lots of friends and lots of marbles.
if i were a zebra fishy, my friends would be myself and my marbles would be home organisation tools.

Saturdays are mostly my home-alone days. and my favourite day of the week for now.
yea, just a few years back Saturdays I won't be home, the whole day since I needed to travel all the way to church to 'fellowship' (according to them, but according me is waste my time) with kiddies.
but now i don't need to and i discovered this secret garden of time (:
Now Saturdays, i can sleep until 自然醒 - 我的精神粮食之一。
mainly cos by that time everybody else have left home to go about their own business...

today I couldn't help but started washing things that are so dirty... 家丑不可外扬。but, my home is full of people to busy to care and it is more dirty than hostels cos maybe sometimes they have cleaners to do the work.

I hung the clothes, and arranged the hangers in colours according to the rainbow. but apparently that didn't stop the rain from coming, so I had to keep the clothes I hung out.
I also 炖-ed some soup (:
My mom bought a new little China pot. That makes enough soup for one person..
I threw carrots and pork ribs, dried scallops and some gouqizi in. It boiled the whole day now, and its now in my nice little room of a world of my own, but its too hot to drink. :) It has not salt in it, but a sweet taste of carrots.

Today I took out the trash, in the little bin just near the sink... OMT. there were maggots.
not the first time but the most extensive infestations ever. I think it was always this extensive just that nobody bothered to flip over some things to discover them.
Saturdays I don't look at the clock, but I think I spent a good few hours getting rid of the maggots and where they have infested. I didn't have time to pack my OWN room after that... since the day was already well spent.
but i generally did some cleaning or i will die like the zebra fishies do.

Now my brain being nocturnal, I'm chilling in my rocking chair savouring my already cooled soup, and then embarking on another noctural adventure in the ocean of notes and redundant informations to memorise. not that the info is redundant. but its lame to memorise them.
I know my soup and cleaned room floor would be there to lift my spirits.

i wonder which fish am i most like - solitary, nocturnal, organisational, fastidious
maybe i should check out the facebook quizzes. or kim, go make one!

well, it was a great privilege. as it always is, to serve the people you love dearly.
it's like being recognised and loved back altogether in one action.

the person who has touched me so greatly, and been there through my nonsensical ramblings is moving on with her life. I guess I didn't feel much, through all the things I know I had to do... throughout the whole wedding, being there on time, doing up the tasks on the time line...
while she was preparing I thought I could have helped more...
while I was helping I feared I'd mess things up...
after all, it has been a great long while I did projectionist and with all the sophisticated instruments, of co-ordinating cameras, screens, views, timing, songs, videos all in synchrony.

it was her big day. and i really wanted the best for her...
I'm glad I had loads of help, and by God's grace, the rapport with people I met for the first time in my life today.... worked so well :)

it was when everybody left the church, and there was just uncle alvin eating since we were all busy hungry throughout the day... and when we gathered around them to just talk... that I understood perhaps why tears have a role on such joyous occasions.
I was a tinge of happyness, mixed with the reluctance to part.
Mummy was really pretty tonight, as she always have been. and will always be....

and even as i left the group and sat on the long journey home... i had time to even pause and think of the entire day past. i had not yet congratulated them, but i hope my actions did.

i have never followed through an entire wedding like this, the whole day before... and now that I have, i cease to think that it is really a bane of life, a relic of the past that women of this current age have to awkwardly fit into. and hearing the accolades heaped on the late Mrs LKY... it seems that there is a mystery i have yet to uncover... yet there's some tinge of sadness to see a loved one go on to this stage.

i wonder why. perhaps it is innate in human nature. that marriage is akin to leaving everything else as secondary compared to their partner now. and though it is desirable, maybe we humans cannot stomach being demoted in the hearts of the people we love.
maybe that is why. from ages past to present, marriages are splash of joy and tears. a myriad of chaos and order... because everyone battles within themselves.... in letting go and holding on.

i really question if we can love just any one person. forever.

I am a happy girl! (:
I have been so busy so tired but so fulfilled.
I am such a nerd but thank God for I believe He is putting the joy back in my life, after a saga of many other issues in the past few years. :p I start to feel I have a life!
even though I am in year 4 now, not doing FYP...
I have so much more electives and stuff to do this semester but I am excited about learning new things! It's this curiousity all over again. I can't believe I requested a closed stack book on Lupus just because I found it on google doing a little assignment, and was really dying to read the pages not shown on googlebooks! :P

I want to be a shinny pharmacist! yeah. shinnyy~ for God.
I hope I can still be happy in the gruelling dungeons of pre-registration training in the Singapore's closest thing to hell for fresh graduates. ok, i may be exaggerating.. but who knows. and with my pre-existing anxiety issues, I believe God will show Himself faithful through it all, despite hearing from my seniors about stress-related health issues arising from the job requirements!

anyway. It seems like I signed up for a bit too much this semester. Every week since the first week of school, I have been super busy on mondays, to the extent of sleeping at 4to6am! and then 8am to 6pm lectures on Tuesdays! thank God for the mid-week Wednesday breaks! I so need them! Assignments and projects never end! :S
but I feel that there is this light-ness. like everything is coming but I decided I still wanna have a balanced life, I still take time to relax and find myself so much happier (: I guess I am a human affter all, contrary to my past-personal belief. ha.
even teaching tuition seems easier, and my students seem to be able to understand better. I hope they improve! they are going to be my last two darlings :)

Only thing I need to work on is being more positive!
I have taken a new langauge - Bahasa Melayu. It's been such a drag I hope I can rid myself of such negativity :( I miss my Thai whenever I sit and learn all over again the basics of another language, and find the similarities of Thai and Malay, words that I can write in Thai script, now in Melayu~ O, endure! for the sake of being a good pharmacist to the Malay patients! Thank God I have a unexpected partner for Malay lectures! :) It was such a pleasant surprise seeing Joycelyn at the first lecture.. God is good all the time! heh.
last lecture I missed half of the malay lecture cos I saw aacaan weenaa outside during the break and spoke thai with her gaogao. so terrible to know i have forgotten so much of my beloved thai language! maybe one day I can have a job that involves shuttling between thailand and singapore, doing pharmacy work!

I love my life now, but I gotta sleep cos my head's splitting.
I'm going to bed in weariness and in joy... with my God watching over me and blessing me in everything!
to God be the glory (:

I've been home everyday for the past 5 weeks. with less than ten days going out of home excluding buying food from the hawker ten minutes away, and church. and most hours i'm just in my room and nobody's at home.
i'm a hermit! i love my room its so self sufficient!

maybe people will think i'm such a loner with no life, but i think i have been going many places in fantastical shinobi worlds and the land of Narnia, within reach of a cuppa hot tea & the comfort of my rocking chair (:

today i decided to get some food at 9pm.
i walked to the hawker, ordered some mee pok, sat down to eat staring outwards to the row of shop houses through a curtain of light drizzle.
it was closing time and the shops i have seen everyday since i was 3 years old were doing their intricate labour of shifting the shelves of shoes and hooks full of bags into the shop.
it's like clockwork, like a jigsaw puzzle, squeezing everything back into the shop....while some customers rushed in for a last minute purchase. they were all middle aged, the men with alopecia & the ladies kindda lil haggard...speaking little to each other, and working hard. then i noticed in the shadows, between me and the shop, there was a quiet old figure.

this elderly man was wearing a warm beige jacket, seating on a wheelchair all alone. his back was towards me and i couldn't see his face. i wonder, had his family went in to buy something? person after person walked out of the shop, passing by him like he was part of the pavement. ocassionally someone stopped in front of him, and i had hopes it was his family, done with purchasing. but aye, it never turned out to be. they were just checking out the things on display, that was placed so near to him.

i felt so sick, my mee pok wasn't quiet as delicious tonight.
though i was hungry at first, i almost didn't have the appetite to finish my meal.

probably the family who runs this shop was his, i thought. but they went on packing the shop, not seeming to know him or be bothered by such a unusual presence of an old man on a wheelchair.
i told myself i was going to at least push him under the shelter after i finished my meal, if nobody was 'claiming' him by then.

the shop was still packing and the uncles & aunties were still busy. then i saw among them, a silver headed ahmah. she was in the typical-est ah ma clothes. the sleeveless shirt and three quarter pants, that had mini flowers on it that u never could make them out until u were really close up. purplish outfit that is common for them. and she was carrying a black pouch as any local vendor does. she was packing too, but she stopped to talk to the ahgong.

:) she placed her hand on his shoulder and talked in the most loving manner as i would imagine. now the ahgong's face turned to the side to reply. my vision was blur as of nowadays, and i couldn't see but only guess he was all at home. and that would be his lovely wife.

then as the closing got more labourious, requiring more strength for the largest racks to be pushed in, the ahma took a good old wooden stool and sat beside the ahgong.
OH! it wasn't drizzling anymore! I realised that i had kept checking if it was drizzling by judging a pool of water by the pavement. and the roof immediately above was dripping what was left of the rain just not too long ago.

they sat in silence, watching what i suppose to be their children closing the shop.
i can't fully describe it, but i felt tears welling up in my heart - not eyes. it was silly to cry eating meepok. it wasn't really that delicious...

i wish i was that ahma.
and i can't help but think... all these mundane troubles of life actually do make us much humane. than thinking of great lofty ideas without keeping my feet on the ground. about earning the biggest bucks about proving that poor grades doesn't equate low intelligence.

as i was finishing my meal, a lady interrupted my thoughts, to ask if she could sit at the same table as i was. she was busy, rushing off somewhere else after this quick meal, i could tell... and no sooner than she had sat down, she started staring at the store to see if her meal was going to be delivered to her (it was a self-service stall by the way).

so i laughed at the great contrast. of busy-er people in the stall with calmer state of mind.
and quickly finished every morsel in my bowl.

i took a detour to have a look at the sweet old couple from the front.
to my amazement i misunderstood so much of that scene!
that old man was not at all waiting in the drizzle, alone in the dark! he had a similar wooden stool that ahma was sitting on, placed in front of his wheelchair.
and wah seh.. he kiao kah (propped his legs up) on them until very shiok!

i was most foolish all this time. probably all my life up till recent years.

i wish i had a disposition of an old wise man. never ever jumping to conclusions and never ever reacting. yet having the capabilites of a smart ass. and the energy of a young person.
or maybe, i can begin to see the mundane things that i already have, just like this old couple has.

well, if growing up or growing old is about finding happiness in old boring things, i certainly have grown up.

yesterday was Sunday service, i hanged around and did whatever I was told to...
planned to chill out a few hours in starbucks before heading to the Tertiary ministry's annual BBQ

a little friend of mine didn't understand why i wouldn't be eating lunch with him.
so i ended up eating with him & my lunch date instead of just my lunch date & i.
and he couldn't wait till his dad bought him his lunch and feasted from my plate.

then chilling at starbucks, wasn't really as formal & structured as what i initially envisioned the conversation to be. I guess I was digressing a bit because the main topic was really rather awkward & painful to confront sometimes.
But I guess things went well enough.

then we spent more than an hour getting from Parkway Parade to Mountbatten Road. which would usually take a 10min walk. We almost reached the initial venue of the BBQ but it was changed to church back again because of the rain. So we had a little tour of east singapore within that hour, thankfully without a cost.

Tertiary ministry's dinner was pretty much an old man's game. Networking & getting to now people... being nice and relaxed. not anything exciting and not anything glamorous.


Its funny how I recount all as a uneventful, matter-of-fact, state of mind.
Indeed the day was actually much messy & disorganised...
with me being late for my duty on sunday, the little friend feasting of my plate NON-STOP. and eating my favourite peanuts, finding my way around parkway parade to find friends to head to the BBQ together.

But I went home happy.
some sort like that saturday i spent the entire day in church.

come August, with workload and tight schedules, I wonder if I'd be able to enjoy things that don't go my way on my weekends or not. and finding such simple happyness in events that don't give me any practical benefits.
hmmmm


oh. and my heater's got killed and a new heater is at his place.
ITS FREAKING SHIOK!
warm water on my back keeping me all warm and relaxing all my skeletal muscles when I got back home cured all the nausea i had from travelling excessively within a day. :) instant magic.

i am a very aloof person but i hate to be cold.
i wear jackets in temperatures most singaporeans find 'normal' & rush into full blast of UV radiation when singaporeans head for the shelters.

& my heater refused to work for the past few days already, close to a week.
i have been bathing at night, when i return, and freezing cold i didn't even have time to condition my hair. BrRrRrR.

today was so scorching hot up till 6pm.
no more rainy rainy days :) wee~
so i finally got time to use my face exfoliant, then slowly shampoo, condition my hair, lather soap and maybe later i shall put on face mask.

simple happyness!
it's when u temporarily lose something u already have & learn how to appreciate it more (:

yes. temporarily. it better start working soon.