Time heals...or does it?

Time doesn't always heal. Things will heal with time, most times. But God ALWAYS heals - in His time. Be it a wound or a scar.

When everything seems to go wrong.

When everything seems to go wrong, there's nothing I can do but listen to that small voice in my head.

When everything seems to go wrong, there's nothing I can do but hope for the best.

When everything seems to go wrong, there's nothing I can do but accept that life happens.

When everything seems to go wrong, there's nothing I can do but accept the fact that I can't have everything I want in life.

When everything seems to go wrong, there's nothing I can do but realise that I'm not the only one in the world going through this.

When everything seems to go wrong, there's nothing I can do but be reminded that I have friends and family who will support me through these times.

When everything seems to go wrong, there's nothing I can do but pray.

When everything seems to go wrong, there's nothing I can do but rely on God.

When everything seems to go wrong, there's nothing I can do but to trust in God.


And when things still don't go my way despite surrendering to God...I'm rest assured that in His time, everything will fall into place because He has a better plan for me.

"Trust in the Lord and lean not on your own understanding; in all of your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight."     Proverbs 3:5-6 

The most dreaded question: "How are you?"

"How are you?"

"How's life?"

"How've you been?"

"But really, how've you been lately?"

I hate it when people ask me those questions. I mean, I don't hate them for asking those questions, it's more like I hate answering those questions. Why? Because I don't know myself. If life's going well, then yeah, life's good. I'll end the conversation at that. But no, I usually don't know how my life is going, my standard answer would always be "Good! ..I guess" or "Fine. I guess" or "Umm..pretty good?" Or something along those lines. On the other hand, when things aren't going to well, I'd say "Alright...not great but yeah I'm not gonna tell you about my problems and how depressed I am right now cause I'm not that close to you and I suck at expressing myself anyway so yeah".

And how do people usually respond to my answers? "Okaay...you don't seem too happy". But what am I supposed to say? I don't even know, lol. Sometimes I don't want to sound like an idiot, so I just make something up. Like "Oh good, went on a road trip last weekend. Had a blast, mate" and yeah the subject usually shifts towards another direction after that.

But really, how do you guys even answer those questions? Do you really mean what you say? Cause I definitely don't. Most times anyway...

When God speaks.

Earlier this year, I attended my first ever OCF Easter camp in Melbourne and I've to say, it exceeded my expectations. F and B asked if I could play the bass for them if I was going for Easter camp and I thought, well..I guess I could help out. So yeahhh, I honestly did not step foot onto the camp site expecting much, but man, God was just so gracious to me. He gave me opportunities to serve even without me asking, readied an awesome group of people with whom I spent most of those 5 days with, provided such good camp food (or rather, good OCF chefs!) although again, I wasn't expecting much because c'mon, which camp actually serves good food, right? ...wrong. From lasagna, to chicken rice, to roasted chicken, to cheese toasties...I couldn't have asked for better camp food LULZ. But most importantly..God spoke to me and revealed Himself to me even though I was not earnestly seeking Him at that time, and I did not ask Him for anything. But He came, when I was least expecting it. He showed up, tugged my spirit gently, and He let me know that He, indeed, was real.

These events happened 5 months ago, but I just wanted to share my story with everyone. And this is also a gentle reminder to myself, of God's goodness and graciousness to me. P/S I will be copying and pasting my testimony from Facebook! So here goes...

During ministry night, I went up for prayer, and I didn't feel that God put anything into my heart in particular to be prayed for, but I just went anyway. I just knew that I felt very spiritually dry.

Then EH started praying for me and she kept saying that I should trust in God and be more confident in whatever I do. After that JT also prayed for me, I said I didn't know what to pray for so I asked him to pray for anything. He also prayed the same thing as EH which I thought was okay la, a bit cool.

On the very last day, I received a long note from my mortal and at the end he said "you are so loved by our Heavenly Father! A father who protects His beautiful daughter like a roaring lion, never doubt yourself for if the Lord is with you, who can be against you?" It never occurred to me that it all interlinked. Until right before I stepped out of the barn house (where we had all our sessions), I picked up a piece of 'rubbish' to throw away, but it actually turned out to be a verse from Jeremiah 17:7-8 which said "But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a fear of drought and never fails to bear fruit" (Sorry in advance, to whoever that sticky note belonged to, I kinda just took it home with me haha).

And I knew it wasn't all just a coincidence. I always felt inadequate to do things, even tasks for God. And I think that is a bit self centered of me. To decide not to take up on certain tasks just cause I don't think I can do it (by relying on my own strength). And I think my feeling of inadequacy is stopping me from carrying out God's purpose in my life, so I just wanna encourage everyone that, I believe, God can and will use us no matter how little we think we have to offer, but if God is with us, nothing else can stand against us.

I hope my story has managed to encourage at least some of you out there, especially those who feel incompetent in one way or another. I'm not saying I overcame the feeling of incompetence, but I definitely learned to put my confidence in Christ and not in myself. Because God is made strong in our weaknesses. :)

The piece of 'rubbish' that i found. :P [EDIT: After 5 months, I found out (literally just 5 minutes ago) that Steffi was the one who wrote this verse...HAHAHAHHAHAAH too funny, but 'twas really a blessing in disguise! God is so funny. Heh.]

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 

-2 Corinthians 12:9 -

Procrastination 101: How NOT to be the 'pro' in procrastination.

I...have the shortest attention span ever. Okay, maybe not the shortest. But yes, I have a really short attention span. And I get super, duper, easily distracted by everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything. But! Fret not, for I have come up with ways that have helped me focus on what I'm doing and be more efficient in producing work.

1) Don't do your work in a place where you know you'll be easily distracted (i.e at home).

2) If you're like me and can't do 5 minutes of work without being distracted when you're not in the presence of others, then girl (or boy, if you're a boy lol), you need to go to the library or something right now! That really, really helps me concentrate a lot more when I'm doing work.

3) You could put your cellphone 1 mile away from you if you want, cause like they all say, out of sight, out of mind. But yeah, that just doesn't really do it for me as I'd get anxious and all without my phone LOL. But, what I'd do is put my phone either on airplane or do not disturb mode so that I don't get notified when I receive a text etc.

4) Put on some music! Use earphones. I don't know about you, but this kind of helps me block out the world. And I'd feel ONE with my academic essays, you know? In perfect harmony. Or something.

5) But obviously, if you can't do work while listening to music, then don't do it. Lol...

6) Set targets as to when you think you want to finish each section of the assignment by. However, if your assignment is due the following day, I suggest you don't even waste time setting targets and just dive right in. (Personally, I don't do this even though I know I should. But I just don't.)

7) Have some snacks ready to munch on while doing work! Unless you're fasting or are on a diet. But again, you could opt to consume foods that won't lead you to gain much weight or clog up your arteries and ultimately lead to an infarction or in other words, a heart attack.

8) Like Nike says, JUST DO IT.

Now, all that is left for me to do is follow my own advice and get right on with my marketing campaign analysis assignment now...

FITTING IN: Transitioning to a new environment

I was reading through my recent posts, and realised that I haven't talked much about my life at all (For the love of carbs, I haven't blogged in forever...haha! But I really do miss blogging.) and sooo, I decided to write this blog post for those who are finding it hard to fit in, whether you're new at school, university or just anywhere in general, really.

Firstly, let me just start off by saying that, I was never really an outspoken person to begin with, and I hardly took the initiative to strike up a conversation with a random person...until I went to Thailand. I don't often tell you life stories, but I shall attempt to type my life out, right here right now lulz.

So at the end of 2010, I moved to Bangkok and attended ISB. It was a completely new environment for me, in terms of the country itself, the language, the culture, the people, the school, the american syllabus, just basically, everything was different. And the school was so massive that it was actually pretty difficult to make friends at first, considering how much of an 'introvert' I was at that point in time. I hardly talked or even laughed when I was at school. The first 3 months was tough, but I obviously made it through my sophomore year! And mind you, I need end up making good friends. :)

After grade 10, I moved to another school to do A levels. SHB. It was definitely a smaller community in SHB, so I think that was a big factor as to why it was easier for me to make friends. And I really did make some really good friends then.

After 2 years, I moved back to Malaysia where I enrolled for Monash's October Intake which was...a pretty small intake, actually. So, this was where my journey really started.

October 2013, I went for orientation--alone--not knowing who I'd be meeting there. I was already a pretty different person by then, I told myself that I was going to talk to people and make new friends, and that was just what I did. Whenever there was a chance to talk someone, I'd just grab that opportunity to have small talk and who knows, they might just end up being my BFF lol (or not). I bumped into many old friends whom I've not met for years, and it was great, but I didn't hang around them forever lol. On Day 3 of orientation, I already found myself hanging out with a group of girls who I hardly knew, but they were so fun to be with and I felt like I'd known them for weeks already. But the funniest thing I remember was, one of them, K, said that her first impression of me was that i was "damn scary and intimidating", because I spoke with an 'accent' and she also told me that she thought I was the "I'm so pretty I'm so smart ha ha ha *flips hair*" type of girl. That totally cracked me up HAHAHA I died. To cut the long story short, I'm super glad that I took the initiative to talk to so many people, or I would never have met such an amazing bunch of people. Really. I met the greatest of friends back in Monash.

And thennn, after about 9 months...I left for Melbourne in July 2014. I was really sad to leave this amazing bunch of people that I've grown love, but oh well, LIFE GOES ON ya feel me? Transitioning to Melbourne wasn't hard to be honest, I was already used to moving schools/countries etc., and I knew quite a number of people here already. However, I still found it difficult to find close friends that I could hang out with and stuff. There were times where I felt pretty lonely, but I think it's really important that you don't let the loneliness get to you, if you know what I mean. I love making new friends, so even though I didn't have a close group of friends that I could talk to whenever I wanted to, I still took the initiative to get to know people. I won't lie, there's bound to be times where I just don't feel like doing anything, but I think I'm doing myself a huge favour by taking the initiative to talk to people, even if you're "the new kid on the block" and you think they should be the one to come up and talk to you first. Just because I'm the new one, it doesn't mean that I have to wait for people to come and talk to me, because sometimes, things just don't go our way and we end up getting disappointed. So if you can help yourself, why not?

I have to be honest though. There are times where no matter how hard you try to get to know some people, you guys are just never gonna get along well or be able to click. But it doesn't matter, if you think you've tried, then so be it. Maybe you'll be better off with a different group of friends!

Right now, I'm still hoping and praying that God will send me good friends--friends that I can hang out with, talk to about anything, build me up as a person and just..I don't know, be a good friend. :) But I believe that I'm going to have an even greater semester next year, and that I'll make those friends. On a side note, I've met sooo many people here that have been such a blessing to me, and have made an impact on my life here; whether big or small, whether they know it or not. Especially those from OCF. I'm really thankful that I went for the OCF orientation alone before classes even started. Haha, these are the people that build me up spiritually while I'm here in Melbourne, and I'm grateful for them.

So to you guys out there who are finding it hard to fit in....don't give up! Gather up the courage to talk to people, and you might soon grow to love people! I assure you, you'll never regret it, and you'll meet sooo many great people. :)

Day 20: Get real. Share something you're struggling with right now.

I'm struggling with this post. Lol. Kinda.

Well, I guess..one of the struggles I'm facing right now has to do with my course options. Never in my life have I thought of pursuing Psychology as a major and it also never occurred to me that I would be taking an arts subject in uni because, well...I did science all my life. But then again, uni is the time where I'm supposed to navigate away from my inner Asian being and try out new things that I think I would find interesting, right? Right. Oh well what's life without taking risks....hmm anyway. Yeah. I'm not very sure (at all), what I want to do after I'm done with my studies. That's a bit of a struggle for me but for now, but I'm just taking it one step at a time. Plus, there's no use worrying. So, I'll just leave my worries to God.

I have a constant struggle of managing my time wisely. I, for one, have never been able to manage my time wisely. I think that's pretty sad, lol. Sure, I could, if I tried realllyyy hard but I'm just too much of a bum sometimes, it's depressing. It's weird how I grew up to be a totally different person compared to when I was still in kindergarten. The first thing I always did when I came back home was do my homework. I loved it ahahah call me weird.

I sometimes struggle with self esteem. I know, I may seem confident to some of you, but in front of others, I'm not. I tend to put myself down at times, and I know that isn't a very good thing. When it comes to things like tests, exams, presentations, performances..I lack confidence. It gets to me sometimes, but like I've said before in one of my earlier posts, it's getting better and I'm still working on it.

Afterall, struggles are meant to be overcome and make one stronger, ain't that right? :)

xx