Stepping Up.

Its beeeeeennnnnn aaaa loooooonnnnnngggggggg whiiiiiiiillllleeeeeeee

I just couldn't bear to open my blogpage again...for good reasons excuses which I shall keep to myself, making it an even better excuse...

And many things have happened no doubt. I only remembered to hit on the blog again after so long, when Ann Ee told me to update my blog, to which I reflexly replied "oh you read it ah?" lol. Never thought people would open my blog, or whats left of it. But its time to talk again, as briefly as possible (but it won't be), on what transpired over the past 3 months or so.

I'll call this post...

Stepping up.

A highly condensed life story for the past..uh. 6 months?

Now its no secret (or it was?) that I was a "sleeping" Christian for a good part of my teen life, degenerating to a point when I was no different than the average crowd, I'll admit, and had a lot of underlying problems coming along with it. Despite this, God had still provided for me and delivered me through the times I needed it most, such as PMR, SPM and even AUSMAT, when I thought I'd be just a normal dude who would just get through it, do well enough, and get to some half-decent course in some decent uni. But more than that, the Lord blessed my Biology exam in a way that up till now I could never understand, elevating it to getting 91 in the final written exam, scaled to 100 after evaluating internal assessment and performance compared with others in the cohort, getting the Special Cert. of Distinction and Special Subject/Course Award in Bio, which I received in Perth back in February. That was indeed a joyous moment for me, as I was definitely one lacking in confidence (my bio lecturer would attest to that, and has tried to buck me up and I thank her immensely for being a blessing to her students) and am known to be a horribly slow learner (and still am, lol). Just to show how much God has blessed me in spite of my "low point" in life.

Now, some of you know I nearly got into Pharmacy either in Perth/Adelaide. But as wayy before my dad insisted I applied for Medicine, so I applied only Monash, partly cos' I was lazy to repeatedly travel to different parts of the world (exaggerating here) for interviews and what not. And in the end I got offered Medicine. My first response? The ever infamous 'Why Lord'? We all know Medicine is a killer from the get-go. The study workload is obscene. The expectations gargantuan. And the burden of responsibility insurmountable by most, as its lives we're handling. Pharmacy in comparison still gave me time to myself, and sufficient cash to get by. I didn't get it. But I knew that at the moment that offer came, its like God telling me "Step up to it, boy". And step up I had to, even if it meant "sacrificing my youth" (I'm about to see how true that is, eventually).

So up I went mid-late February. Later joined by my JB gang consisting of Sin Nah, Eric, Weng, Vysh. Orientation and transition camp was a great time of knowing my to-be PCL members in Group J - which I'll talk about another time. One fine day Eric just asked me to attend Acts Church 10th Anniversary on 28th Feb, which I tagged along with Weng. And that day wasn't that...impactful for me at that time yet anyway, as one - we came late. and two - I was still in the "sleeping" mode. The food was the draw at that time (admittedly, hehehe), BUT one perhaps unnoticeable but great blessing was the Acts 10 Umbrella door gift, which up till now has actually bailed me out many times - Praise the Lord for such a simple yet helpful item. But later, I had this feeling that just prompted me to go to Acts. And I did the following Sunday. Nowww I don't remember details but I enjoyed it, and kept coming back again and again.

And at one particular service by Pastor Kenneth (which again, I don't remember. Terrible memory T.T) I just felt a tugging by God, telling me to come back to the right path, as I've been gone away long enough. Which brings about again the story of the Prodigal Son, long gone, wasted his life away, but comes back broken and the Father accepted him again lovingly. Right hand shot up and then on, the fight to rededicate my life back to the way Christ wanted it, has begun. As always, stepping up ain't easy, having being on "hiatus" for what seems like many years, degenerating to near nothingness. But with the help of the few good people and friends in Acts who supported and encouraged me, like Charles, Shaun Kang, Lucas, Michelle, Alvin, Ann-Marie (sorry if I didn't mention your name, but I appreciate it nonetheless!) and so on, its been less difficult.

But its still difficult. Workload is immense. Still lagging behind. But I try to put in the quiet times and devotion any time I can. Still, the one thing that has made life so much better to live, is that I only need believe that Father, Son, Holy Spirit, are always with me. No matter what. That knowledge and believe and faith in it alone was all it needed to take me out of a generally solemn depressive state to a more accepting and optimistic outlook of life. No doubt stumbles and hits come their way, but with this renewed purpose and strength, the Lord will take me by the hand and up to my feet again.

As for the colourful words from previous posts and previous phase of life? Lets just say I've put those days behind me. The "big time colourful words" ( you know what I mean) are shelved for the most part. Smaller ones still need some work around it. But with God's grace and providence, it too will fade.

Stepping up to it has been hard, and some times what we do might not make sense, but I feel that its for better things to come.

I'll stop here for now. Gotta study now @.@

God bless!

slowpoke.

Pokedex entry of slowpoke in Pokemon yellow

Incredibly slow and sluggish. It is quite content to loll about without worrying about the time.

Slowpokes entry in pokemon red/blue

Incredibly slow and dopey. It takes 5 seconds for it to feel pain when under attack.

well, I'm actually pretty worry-free, too. Most of the times anyway





No, I'm not gonna be writing an exhaustive fan-boy post of slowpoke. (uh, though it's adorable, in a way.harhar ) Instead, I'm gonna break a startling revelation for everyone whom I've known, know, and about to know (thats, if anyone ever reads this at all. Which, to the best of my knowledge, carries with it a probability of 0.0534 per person...probably.)


In everything I do, I'm about as fast as that fella up there. just pretty darn slow in (almost) everything I do. From getting up, to brushing teeth, to eating, to reading, to driving (yes, I AM slow while driving, contrary to what you MAY think) to gaming (not as high on reflex, again, contrary to what you MAY think)...


when running, (I can say it this time) I'm about as fast as THAT fella. Up there.


utterly slow in forming ideas and plans, in visualising concepts and....you get the point.


snail-like in forming impromptu (and equally barbed) responses to any sudden, stinging, scathing verbal attacks/challenges on me...whatever the reason




even my various neurones are apparently high on morphine low on ATP or maybe they just go in a longer route in coils as I take longer than a split second delay to react reflexively (which may cause a few...usually avoidable mishaps. hmm) be it from pain receptors or......neurones for carrying data brought in by light (wow, light!) through the eyes and to the brain...



sadly its the same case even in understanding and absorbing the oh-so-important knowledge, be it in class. or whatever. Even my dad thinks I should have done A-levels instead of AUSMAT cos he thinks 10 months in a course is too short for this slow brain....sigh.




On a slightly brighter note, my saving grace would be...

1) I write pretty fast. Cos' if I don't, I probably wouldn't be able to complete most of the incessantly morbid essay papers in SPM (be it English, lovely Malay, History, the Sciences or...moral.) and I wouldn't be a ble to jot down notes sufficiently quick, too.

2) I type just as fast too. Maybe a bit faster. Or a lot more. Otherwise, handling more than 2-3 conversation windows on messenger isn't exactly gonna be something enjoyable. (what with all the complaints of me "neglecting" the others. Still happens when I have 5 or more to handle, though)

3) slowpokes can confuse people (via the Confusion move), so can I. (albeit in a different manner)
















...still not good enough to balance out the slowness, eh...