I'm not really sure what has happened to me, but over time, I have become less tolerant and patient of others. In normal circumstances, I would normally ignore or laugh irritations away, but it seems apparent, that I have become cankerous, cranky, grumpy and angsty too. This became all the more manifested after I signed up to be a relief teacher - as if it was not already frustrating to teach monsters who couldn't care less. Perhaps I am projecting too high an expectation on those poor kids, who probably came from bad family backgrounds and circumstances and thus are the way they are today, but somehow I feel that there is no excuse in not putting in effort to at least listen, or display some semblance of manners. How bloody rude and obnoxious can people get??As someone has said, maybe Brianhyde is popping out his monstrous face. Go back! I don't want Brianhyde. I want Brianekyll back!

God grant me the serenity to accept the things
I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and
wisdom to know the difference.

God grant me the serenity to deal with all the idiots that cross my path as well. (And the wisdom to know where to hide the bodies :P )

I need to get out more. I need a breath of fresh air. I need the peace that only God can give. These few weeks have seen an emotional roller coaster ride in my life - a ride of worrying, frustration, envy, anger, irritation, tiredness, sadness, contemplation...It would be an understatement if I said I feel overwhelmed. I need to start dating God and spending more time with Him.

As I was aimlessly surfing foodie blogs like I normally do, I was hit by the revelation that the secret of good food blogging, lies in where and which part of society you come from. For good pictures and good places to blog about, one has to hail from the upper and stiffer lipped crust of society. Think how about it - how else is one supposed to afford the blinking DSLR, the 18-35mm 1:3.5-4.5, 28-105mm 1:3.5-4.5D with Macro function, 50mm 1:1.4D, 50mm 1:1.8D, 85mm 1:1.8, 24mm 1:2.8, the studio flash, portable flash and last but not least, the Lastolite reflector that are so necessary for good shots? Those are not even taking into account, editing software, calibrating software yedda yedda yedda. These things are what make even the humble kopitiam pau look seductively glamourous!

Of course being of the upper crust, one is given more freedom of choice with regard to where one can eat as well. Don't mind me please. I'm just sour. *rolls eyes*

There might be no words to describe this, but it is strange that it comes as suddenly and as unannounced. The heart is heavy - filled with a deep sense of sorrow. The heart is overwhelmed by a wave of loneliness that threatens to drown and I am frailing about, threshing my arms, struggling not to be pulled in by the strong currents of doubt, fighting to keep my head afloat.

This heaviness is suffocating. I cannot breathe. Like talons and claws ravaging my soul, I am torn and broken down, made weary with an insatiable hunger, an aching within the heart. It is as if the sorrows and problems of the world had suddenly crashed upon me and I can no longer bear the weight of it all.

The barrenness, and I can only call it so, because of how destitute and desparate it makes people become- it attacks and burdens the senses, it tricks and it contrives with sweet nothings that smother into ash. If the earth was created out of nothing, then this darkness threatens to engulf whatever that was created.

Jesus, Jesus I call out to you. Take this weariness, this sadness, this heaviness away. You have annointed me with the oil of gladness and I stand sanctified in Your image and under Your protecting hand. You are my consoler, my help, my rock and my refuge. You are all that I have. Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

Psalm 23:1 The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.

I had the strangest dream. I was in a market place of sorts and as I was running up the steps, I dropped my slipper, so I had to get a new one. The funny thing was that the market, which looked like a pasar malam that was held indoors, was devoid of any store holders, except one, whom I recognised as a very old secondary school classmate. Let's call him Curly S, because he had extremely curly hair. It was apparently Siesta time and all the store keepers had simply abandoned their things and went back home to sleep. There being no storekeepers, and me, pretending not to know Curly, because I hate awkward conversations, decided to borrow a pair from one of the stores. In the background, JY. from the CSS (apparently it was a CSS outing of sorts?), calls out to me, to hurry up because something was about to start.

So we made our way to the said gathering place. I thought I saw the foot of the cross, but then again, it was standing beside bronze statues of some unknown religion- I'm thinking it's some place in Thailand, because of the oil wicks floating in lotus like containers, so I'm not very sure. At the entrance, I thought I saw DS. and I tapped him in recognition, but he morphed into someone else. JY by this time had disappeared, so I went in alone. It was all very strange, for the place appeared to be a gymnasium - there were planet fitness posters on the side of the wall and it had television screens all around that were showing some Science video featuring Einstein.

Then I notice JY at one end of the room, who asks, "eh what's this ah?" and I awake.

As for the bible verse, above, as I sat in bed, sitting off sleep, that was the bible verse that kept coming to me. I have no idea what the dream means - probably too much carbohydates before I slept - thus the misfiring neurons, but I think what the verse means is very clear. All I need to do is to follow Jesus with my whole heart, mind and soul and all will be provided for. It might seem that amidst the noise of the market, the place that I was in, I was searching for God, but could not find Him because I was overwhelmed by the noise of the world. I was focusing so much on the sensory assault that I could not discern His still small voice.

With all the coupling that's going on, Brian feels a little lonely and his heart yearns for companionship.

This will probably need more research, but I'm thinking about mouldability, adaptability and the projection of identities. It seems apparent that human beings are like chameleons. We change our skins to fit in with the environment. For example, we start to emulate the people we admire, or are close to, by mimicking or following their behavioral gestures or mannerisms of speech and by picking up certain habits that were not ours to begin with. The human body starts mirroring the other person or persons, abeit not wholesale, but in little ways. This is especially true in dating - When the male or female begins to mirror the other person's actions, for example the girl crosses her legs and the guy crosses his legs too, the attractive-ness of the person is upped because the body sends out signals that both are compatible with each other. To bring in another example, perhaps stretching it a little, girls who are close friends with each other, begin to find that their menstral cycles start to synchronise with each other.

I have a number of theories in which people might find other people attractive. The first, is symmetry. The human body naturally seeks out symmetry, so the more symmetrical the form, the more balanced and thus more beautiful the person appears to be. (Thank God, I am at least round in my body shape - all sides being equal).

The second is the theory of mirroring. A person becomes attractive because he or she mirrors the self - acts like the self, talks like the self, behaves like the self.

The third, is the theory of projection. Our own desires are projected upon another person and thus we find him or her especially attractive, because the person appears to make manifest our hidden desires. This is a little complicated and will probably need more work formulating this into words, but these three things are currently what are floating about in my head.

What do you think?

Talking about the malleabilty of the body. Here's a bakery that sells bread in the shape of gruesome body parts. A little sick and mortifying, but completely suited for Halloween.

China's Chen Yi Bing

Japan's Makoto

I think I might have written something like this before, but then again, I'm longwinded, old and proned to repetition, so I'll just continue with the muse. Watching the Men's Gymnastics at the Olympics, I am moved by how disciplined and strong the bodies are and I came to the realisation that the human body is indeed amazing. It is mouldable, trainable and like clay, sculptable. It's fantastic how malleable and how adaptable the human physical form is. one can only imagine the elation of years of hard work and training coming to fruition in the attainment of a medal at the Olympics. It must have been many years of tears, pain and loneliness as they trained to become the great atheletes they are today.

Then again, watching all these people who are of my age or younger, achieve such mind-blowing feats of strength, grace and agility on an international stage, also makes me wonder what in the world have I been living my life for. It seems to me that I might have just wasted my life away. All 25 years of it.

Still, there's only so much self pity one can ooze out of his pores and I can either choose to do something about it, or lie around, wallowing in self pity and sloth. Even if I keep collapsing, even if people keep laughing at me, it's time to make the most of the gift of life that has been given to me. I can't afford to waste it anymore. There isn't much time left to waste. Like the phoenix, I will rise again from the ashes. I will rise again.

Having no money = Not funny at all.

There is no money to replace the broken cupboard, of which the back is already completely detached, so it's merely being supported by the side frames and looks more like the leaning tower of Pisa each day. There is no money to top up the EZ link card, so even if I had all the time in the world, I can't go wherever I like. There's no money to get a proper pair of jeans in which the zip stays and doesn't zip open by itself oh so often. There is no money to get the things I really need, much less the things I want. The bank account's zlitch, zero, kosong.

What I do have are the weight of family expectations, family loans and personal financial assistance to pay off and everyday, more and more people are asking me Joker's question, "Why so serious?" Well, damn right I am serious. Maybe it's age, but as the days pass, it seems that it is getting more difficult to be happy genuinely - I have noticed that my mood levels sync very well with the amount of money in the bank, so it's hello all-time grumpy, grouchy depression currently. Imbibing caffeine doesn't help at all. The crash comes all the more quickly.

What the Media Missed in Sydney

What the Media Missed in Sydney

Pilgrim Reveals Real Youth Day Story

By Sophie Caldecott

OXFORD, England, JULY 31, 2008 (Zenit.org). - A couple of weeks ago, more than 223,000 Catholics gathered together in Sydney to celebrate their common faith in the largest event Australia has ever hosted -- World Youth Day.

Despite the fact that a representative from almost every corner of the world could be found at this dynamic event, despite the atmosphere of elation, energy and love, and despite many interesting talks, the main -- perhaps only -- interest of the English media was the relatively small group of protesters who wanted to make sure that their objections to the Catholic Church didn't go unheard.

The angle the media was trying to spin on the story seems absurd to someone who was there, singing and dancing in the brightly coloured crowd. This was not just any crowd -- when else and for what other reason in the world would that many young people get together and be so considerate and friendly toward each other, so joyful and excited and unselfconscious without being drunk or on drugs? There was clearly something else going on at that gathering, something unique and fascinating that the media completely failed to pick up on, and it had nothing to do with protesters.

The protesters who made their presence felt around the events surrounding World Youth Day can be broken down into several main groups: representatives from the gay community, people angry about cases of sexual abuse in the Church, atheists trying to "educate ignorant believers," Protestants who believe that the Catholic Church is the "whore of Babylon" and people who believe that condoms are the solution to AIDS.

The smattering of various protesters holding signs and watching thousands of young Catholics pass by probably weren't sure what reaction to expect, but I would imagine they were prepared for the worst. Far from receiving abuse, however, the people holding the rainbow flag sporting the message "Gay, Free, Happy" received cheery waves and smiles, while many people assumed that the protesters holding the signs saying "Think: Don't Be a Sheep" were actually Catholic, and part of the World Youth Day crowd.

It took us a while to figure out that the leaflets handed to us as we walked out of the train station -- about how we are saved by God's grace and not by our own works -- were not actually from fellow Catholics, but from Baptists who were concerned for our souls.

Contrary to the expectations of the general public and, perhaps, the people who instated the "annoyance" laws, many World Youth Day goers relished the opportunity for some friendly discussion in the street with people who, on the whole, had little accurate knowledge and understanding of the Church and Catholic teaching.

I only wish we had had more time to talk to the protesters, getting to the root of their anger and sharing our point of view with them. Unfortunately, reducing an opinion down to a slogan on a T-shirt or a sign is rarely an adequate means of expressing an opinion.

One speaker, Christopher West, delivered a series of talks on Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body during the week in Sydney, and listening, I couldn’t help but be brought close to tears, wishing that the Church’s critics could hear this teaching.

This teaching is not the authoritarian, repressive set of rules that it is so widely believed to be. It is teaching of freedom, love and logic. This is the truth that the whole world is searching for, thirsting for desperately, whether or not they fully acknowledge it.

John Paul II exposed the flaws of modern thinking about sexuality, answering the deep ache for love that we all experience by pointing us back to the constant teaching of the Church throughout history -- the teaching that the human person has an inherent dignity, that we are created in God's image, and as men and women are described by him as being "very good."

I became deeply convinced that I am called, along with all the people of the Church, to witness to Christ by addressing this ache that the world is feeling. As West put it, there is only so long that you can eat out of the dumpster before getting sick. This world has been eating out of the dumpster for far too long, and it desperately needs to be shown the way to the wedding feast.

Benedict XVI commissioned us young people to be bold witnesses of Christ to the ends of the earth, praying for a new Pentecost and an outpouring of the Spirit. I for one am convinced that John Paul II's Theology of the Body holds a vital key for doing this.

Being part of World Youth Day is to experience the Church in all her varied glory and youthful energy. The various flags seen in Sydney that week pointed to the universality of the Church, her children being fed by the sacraments and living and breathing as one body, in Christ.

Perhaps the reason that the secular world was inevitably bound to miss the point of World Youth Day is because without Christ there is no way that humanity can be united in truth and love.

The great joy with which the young Catholics of the world greeted Benedict XVI proved that the Church is not only alive and growing, but ready to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking through Peter’s successor.

The secular media had to focus on the protesters, missing the real point of World Youth Day, because they didn’t know what to make of the Pope’s powerful words to the expectant youth of the Church: "Our world has grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and piecemeal responses, and the pain of false promises. Our hearts and minds are yearning for a vision of life where love endures, where gifts are shared, where unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth, and where identity is found in respectful communion.

"This is the work of the Holy Spirit! This is the hope held out by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is to bear witness to this reality that you were created anew at baptism and strengthened through the gifts of the Spirit at confirmation. Let this be the message that you bring from Sydney to the world!" (Address at Sydney Harbour, July 17).

* * *

Sophie Caldecott, a student of English literature at Durham University, participated in the World Youth Day pilgrim group from the Oxford Oratory. Her accounts of the event were featured in The Catholic Herald newspaper in Britain and in Second Spring magazine, published by Thomas More College of Liberal Arts.

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ZE08073110
2008-07-31
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This article is from the ZENIT news agency.

34 x 24 x 36


Something to think about