In the afternoons

"Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy - meditate on these things". 


 - Philippians 4:8

Heaven only knows

 

You are God-sent. Thank you for being in my life. 

I am happiness

Happiness is truly just something you choose to be. That's all there is and that's how it is.

And you just look through me

So I went to this really cool place where cool people wore cool clothes and drank cool drinks and listen to cool music and talked to cool people and thought they were too cool for you and were so cool.
But the problem was, everyone was thinking the exact same thing.

"Vanity of vanities; all is vanity"

And so I sat down & sipped my tea

You were right there

Truthfully, I believe there is a reason why God gave me no sisters, three brothers, to lead this unconventional life, and to be so problematic people prone. I dont know how I would live this life any other way. Here's another truth, I think its taking its toll on me. I feel quite worn out.
But then again, dont we all?
My bad.

  "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

1 Corinthians 13

Still in love with love

What do you do when you feel restless every other day? How do you quench fire in your heart? What answers do you give yourself?
Well, you tell yourself it's normal of course.
And then you sip tea and feel content for that moment.

Day 2

4/8
I overestimated my memory span so I only jotted down very little for the first couple of days. We decided to spend today re-painting Aunty Chat's place, and doing an overall spring cleaning. If I'm not mistaken, it used to be a church (that was why it was at the shop lots). We managed relaxedly with only one roll paint brush, a mini brush and two scrapers. The girls mainly dusted and swept while the boys scraped and painted. Because everything is better with music, I was so glad that Frank brought his mini speakers. That was when I found out that Jo can't whistle, I feel so sad for her. I love to whistle!

Anyway by later afternoon, we got hungry (we ate congee for breakfast) and adventurous. We first visited the lovely 711, where I got a magi cup for lunch (my gastric was still bad) and the boys tried a hawker stall outside. Frank ate so much pork&chicken that it was scary. So we wanted to walk to this mall called Tops which was the nearest. Which really wasn't that near at all, cause oh you know men with directions, never admitting whenever they are lost (or that it IS very far). The walking there was fine and enjoyable really, tried some street food and sight seeing. And also learning that most of the ladies in Thailand don't shave their legs.. forgive my observant eye. By the time we got to Tops, we found out that no one actually needed to buy anything that any other shops couldn't provide. We just wanted to go to a mall. Because it is big, air conditioned, efficient. Because everybody just likes going to a mall right? When we were done 'shopping', Jo wanted to take the cab back, I wanted to take the motor taxi back, but the boys again insisted that it wasn't that far after all but it was only far because we got lost. So for the sake of some bahts we walked back. It was still far by the way and we were exhausted. The king's car passed by us when we were about to reach, and we quickly stopped our tracks when everyone else stood still.

That evening we followed Aunty Chat and her family to a Messianic Service. I left out the name of the hotel we were in, and the name of the speaker. I remember that he was white and he reminded me of Colonel Sanders (don't google him up). People danced during worship and although I had no idea of the lyrics, Jo and I were very encouraged to see this elderly woman in front of us really doing her thang. After service, this very nice lady pastor treated us to Wan Tan Mee which was damn good! I thought I was gonna share one with Jo but I had to have one for myself. Aunty Chat's husband (we never got around to his name, we called him pastor), ate his with huge spoons of sugar! By this time, I noticed that every shop provides sugar & chilli flakes.

Oh by the way, there was this dead lizard in Aunty Chat's kitchen which stayed there for the next couple of days. Sorry, I've got 'dead lizard' in my journal.

Sam

They call us we

Tomorrow is my brother’s birthday. If I remember right, the last gift I bought for him was 2 packets of Ayamas cheese sausages, wrapped in newspaper when he was about 9. The year before that, I bought Mars, Snickers & Kit Kat, taped but unwrapped. Shit, that’s almost 10 years ago. I must have bought him something in between… Last year for my 19th birthday, he gave me a two thousand pieces puzzle. I was incredulous and I refused to accept his joke. It was a joke I found out much later on, but the Paramore tickets inside of it wasn’t. This I must tell you that I cried. He skipped school the week before, took a bus after my dad was out of sight and went to Central to get on a bus for KL. He did all of this in his school uniform, I wondered how many unpleasant frowns he had to ignore. Mind you, he has never been to The Gardens or whatever it is called, but he managed. After purchasing the ticket, he had TGI and took a bus back to Central, then to school. Waited for my dad, and resumed all things mundane. No one would have guessed that he just left the state and got back within 5 hours in his school uniform on a Monday.
Anyway, I got him a gift this time. It’s not Ayamas but it’s Farmcow! Oh, he loves his hot dogs. Back to sentiments, I was shopping for my best friend actually; she told me she liked the checkered shirts from Brands Outlet. He was helping me to find sizes when I suddenly thought of his horrible wardrobe. I don’t think he has bad taste, just bad clothes. I meant bad as in torn, bleached, with holes. So he tried on the men sizes and he looked really good! I told him to get the tighter ones to accentuate his arms and chest.. He said he wants it wrapped and to maybe not buy it yet since his birthday is only the next week, he wants to be ‘surprised’. After saying that, he walked away and pretended not to look.
Right now, I am just waiting for his clothes to be washed. He has seen the wrapping paper that I bought for my nephew, assuming that I’d use the same one to wrap his ‘surprise’. Which I am, but I am going to wrap something else in it. His boxers. See why I am only going to wait for them to be washed.. Actually I thought using the dirty ones would be way cooler, I went to his laundry basket but I couldn’t do it. Okay I know it’s gross, but I can’t think of anything else funnier! Haha, I can’t wait to see the look on his face! I am going to ask him to open them after dinner. I’ll give him his real present after that, of course also wrapped.
Take that!
26th July
Ps/ in the end, I used two of his dirty boxers instead. Don’t ask me how it was.

Day 1

I decided to embark on a journey for two weeks with two strangers and a girl I have only met once in my life. It didn’t feel as crazy then as it sounds now actually. Jolene’s mom came to my place for a visit and invited me to go back with her to Penang last February; I had just finished my grade so I figured why not. We took the midnight bus and I arrived as a Valentine gift for Jolene. That was how we met. 

Jo is an English teacher. She studies law but her passion she realized, is to teach. This trip to Thailand was her idea, and she planned and made arrangements for our entire journey. Her purpose for this trip was simply to bless; with her teaching, with our presence wherever we went. I kept a journal and here it is. 

Day 1 – 3/8

We left Butterworth on the 2^nd of August at 2.45pm. The day before we packed a huge bag of toys, stationary, reading cards, etc for the children we were going to visit. We had our backpacks on and at least another two or three bag on each hand. Thank God it wasn’t fully occupied in the train else we wouldn’t have had place to sit after unloading our load. The air conditioning wasn’t working that afternoon; you know when that happens anything public feels a lot dirtier and unpleasant. Maybe this had to do with my train ride to Perhentian two weeks before, the café wasn’t air conditioned and there were cockroaches on the floor, table, ceiling.. Anyway, Alex’s mom was very kind to prepare food for our 22 hours ride. It was delicious even when chilled (the aircond worked in the evening later), there were 4 dishes! 

Jo and I were actually unwell before our journey started. She was having scabies and I was having very bad gastric pain from two days ago. So Jo covered herself and made sure no one touched her throughout the ride. My pains came and go every few minutes; it perplexed me so much because my gastric pain never lasts for more than a few hours. I couldn’t really sleep that night cause the pain was bad; all I wanted to do was to fart but it didn’t come! Oh, I informed the group beforehand don’t worry. 

We had devotion the next morning in the train and arrived at Samsen at 12pm plus, 3^rd Aug. It really set in then when every billboard and shop names I saw (can’t say ‘read’) were written in Thai. It still looked like home though, people had the same skin color and familiar features. We were welcomed by Aunty Chat and we took two taxis back to her place. We washed up and were told that we would be visiting an orphanage that evening. I then came across James 1:27 – “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world”. But we didn’t end up going.

The plan was to leave for Chiang Mai the next morning but there was a bad flood and all train tickets were refunded. Everyone else opted to take the bus instead so tickets were sold out too.  Nonetheless we were grateful. We later took a stroll out mainly to get some Eno for my silly gastric and were charged a little extra for it. When we found 7 11, it was like… somehow you could see a ray of light shining on it.. simply beautiful. They’ve got pork burgers, pork boxed rice, pork hot dogs, pork hot dogs wrapped with pork bacon, you name it. But that wasn’t the point. We took the bus to Victory Monument to get a sim card that night.

Aunty Chat was hosting a guy named Bince, pronounced ‘Bin’ who is an ex drug addict. He’s 19 and he was nice, he helped cleaned up our rooms which were used as storerooms. We slept on thin mattresses which were okay, but it wasn’t okay that the bind couldn’t be closed and the building opposite us looked haunted. Jo and I agreed that it would make a perfect bedroom scene for a scary Thai movie. The walls were stained with what I imagined to be struggling handprints. The boys on the other hand had a pleasant view of the King’s palace and his little garden AND their air conditioning was working. Yes, the King lived opposite us. That night I couldn’t sleep, I had a lot of disturbing images in my mind and felt really uncomfortable. I told Jo and she too, was having them. We took some time to pray and we later had a good rest.