Update 2015 November 20

It’s been kind of a long 2 weeks. Actually, a long 2 months. Well, a long 2 years. Can’t believe it’s only been 2 years since all this.

These few weeks have been extremely hard on my family, particularly my mother as she has to deal with both me and my older sibling’s problems, as well as keep in mind my grandparents’ failing health back in Singapore. It’s been hard on my older sibling too, especially with that time she spent the weekend looking for me instead of studying for her two tests the next day, and with living far from campus.

The Creatures are still in my head. I’ve called them The Wolves before (in my tags on this blog), I’ve called them Malcolms (Macs for short), I’ve called them Otherworldly Beings that Take Up my Headspace. I’ve called them Critters, to make them seem less powerful.
I still am not 100% sure about What is Reality. I’m still not sure that what I call The Grand Illusion (after a psychological term) is not true.
But I will cling to reality, and I will fight The Grand Illusion, and I will fight the Malcolms. Until they take up less and less space in my head. Perhaps one day they will disappear altogether.

I will fight.

The picture is two pieces of chocolate that yesterday’s advisor at the International Students Centre at my university gave me. I went there to figure out insurance coverage and immigration things. The person I spoke to yesterday, helped me out the first time as well. She reminded me that God loves me, very much, whatever else happens. The people around me constantly remind me of this, of their care, of God’s care.

I haven’t made it this far alone, and (with the part of me that still believes in God, that hasn’t given in to The Grand Illusion) I know that even as I go back to Singapore, God will carry me further, and He will keep me safe. And God and His people and my family and I, we will fight.
Most of the time, that’s not what goes on in my head, though. I don’t fight because it’s what God wants. I fight because that’s what I have to do. I don’t get a choice about it. But I do get a choice about how I fight, and I’m going to give this illness a run for its money.

On Reality

This is my brain when I talk to certain people

Black holes distort gravity.

This is my brain
when I talk to certain people

Culture distorts viewpoints.

Some people make it impossible for me to know what up and down are, which way is right and which is wrong. It’s like getting so caught up in the fact that The World Is Round (which it is) that ‘Up’ and ‘Down’ become meaningless, and I free-fall endlessly in a vacuum of loopy relativity. But then there are also people who just make sense. When you talk to them, they remind you that regardless of how much the earth just looks like a small marble spinning in space, it is still solid ground beneath my feet. I still walk on it. There is still a ground beneath me. And to all practical purposes, ‘up’ is still the sky. And it really is not that complicated.

It really. is. not. that. complicated.

2013.03.07 Thursday 23:07

My brain is short-circuiting.

Apologies for the ‘blah’s. This is like the sequel of another such drawing… but I just had to get it out there. And I KNOW THAT YOU HAVE FELT LIKE THIS AT SOME POINT yeah? like maybe NOW hmm?

There is just so much pain around me now. Not so much in me, but in the people around me. Back homes (Shanghai and Singapore), and here in New York.
I keep saying that since I do not know how to deal with it, and (in many of these cases) there is nothing I can do, therefore I am to give it all to God, because prayer is powerful. And yet– again and again, I come to the realization that I am still at a total loss of what to do about it. How can I help somebody else who is in pain? I cannot bear their pain, I cannot take it from them and carry it on my own shoulders. I have not been where they are, so do not have empathy (not that empathy can remove the sources of pain)– but Jesus has empathy. Although He is in very nature God, holy and perfect and flawless, He became a human–weak and vulnerable to hurt–to mediate between God and humankind.
This, therefore, is my hope for those in pain.
藉着基督，我们也有非凡的、永恒的希望。

I also see walls between people– all people. Everybody, even between those who should trust each other. They are almost tangible, almost visible, they are so thick and there are so many of them. Some of them we put up, and some are just there. Some are like glass, and some are paper-thin, and some are like huge brick walls. We do not let people in. We do not let ourselves out. How will we ever get through them?
The thing, I am learning, is to neither ignore the walls nor obsess about them, but to take them to God in prayer.

And lastly, I just have a lot of things to do at the moment, and don’t actually know how to do them.
I had thought that my planned university course, after this gap year, is what God wants. But for various reasons, I am starting to wonder if in fact it was just my wilful thinking. Why spend so much on school fees for a middling-to-just-solid university? It is making my applications frustrating, because I might just be careening pointlessly in a wrong direction.
On the other hand, that is what I had thought through the visa process to where I am now…

As I was reading in Romans 5 today morning, I will rejoice because I have hope of God’s glory, through Jesus’ grace–

“…We boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
Romans 5:2b-5, NIV

and so–
BRING IT ON.

Today, somebody actually told me:

History is just about memorizing things.

and I felt personally insulted.

My reply:
No, History is about analyzing things.

Later, at home, I told my mom and brother what had happened.

Brother: Well, you do have to memorize a lot.
Me: The point of memorization is to analyze, though.
Mom: Who was this who said it to you?
Me: Just some random person I met at the hairdressing shop.
Mom: Unfortunately, it’s a very common way of thinking– that the only three things worth studying are Medicine, Law and Engineering.
Me: They’re missing out.

Yesterday, by the way, I taught a 10-year-old (this one) about AD and BC; that the world is actually more than 2012 years old; and that humans actually existed before 0 BC. It was a new experience, I think… for both of us. But she catches on quickly.
I just wish she could understand what I mean when I say that neither the solar nor lunar calendars are ‘right’ or ‘stupid’.

By the time I finish University, she’ll probably be wondering why I’m so close-minded and don’t understand what she means when she says (insert new idea) .

I guess we’ll see how life will unfold.
That would be kind of nice, though. Within reason. There is questioning for the sake of knowing, and questioning for the sake of questioning. (I am guilty of the latter.) There are also some things that really shouldn’t be questioned, such as whether it is right to traffic humans.

This is your ‘long (but still unedited) post of the weekend’, because I’m super-busy this whole weekend (work (x1) + church (x2) + hairdressing (x1) + visa application (x2) + essay (x1) + video projects (x2)).
If you’re taking or marking exams, or applying for university, or if there is just something really
HARD
in your life at the moment, 加油! :)
Fare thee well.