It's been another great deal of a long time once again. I'm finding it difficult to translate all my thoughts here now that i got myself a personal journal but i shall just touch a bit on some of my thoughts on the past days/week. I must say that recently i feel incredibly blessed by the great deal of people surrounding me. It's not to say that i am popular, or i have many friends, but i have ALL these friends, i believe, that God intentionally brought into my life.

I do not believe in fate, because fate is randomed and while some may fathom about the wonders of the random chances and encounters in life, i would rather call it a 'planned' encounter for all of us. No more will it be a wonder, but it will all be a beauty when at the end of it all, you look back, and you tell yourself, now i understand why this person was brought into my life. Or why i felt a calling to study this subject in university. Often times, we do not understand why certain things had to happen at a certain time, inclusive of good and bad things but on hindsight, at the end of everything, we will begin to see the fantastic blurprint that has been planned for us.

Recently this week, i had interesting conversations with 3 different people. All equally meaningful although the length varies. And i realised that as i got to know them better, their likes and dislikes, their habits, their character, their ways for doing things, somehow, it's an out of this world experience. Why? Knowing a person to me, is like reading a novel with a protagonist in it. As we read on, be it fantasy, non-fiction, or even chinese swordfighting novels, we are introduced to the character more and more as the novel progresses. We would learn more about the protagonist, how he/she thinks, the thought processes, and why he/she does things in a certain way.

As i spoke to this 3 friends, it was like their life and thoughts flowing into me. And to this i feel that i've changed greatly. Really greatly. Friends who know me will know that i'm extremely boistorous with a loud voice and aggression when i talk. I will form opinions about people and i will judge them, be it their actions or their words. And before you even shake your head or wag your finger at me, know this, you have just judged me for what i have just said. Not only that, i love to impose my views on people, on what i think is right and wrong, and what they should have done. Probably, sometimes to glorify myself as the more superior individual, the more powerful person.

What pride i have in me. As they share with me their perspectives, thoughts and experiences, although to some i may not agree, i have began to understand them from their point of view, instead of my own myopic point of view. I realised that when i look at people from my own narrow field of vision, i will only see what i want to see and and more importantly, pick out WHAT I DO NOT WANT TO SEE. And we will pick the flaws and start judging them on that. And then start imposing our views.

Matthew 7:1-5 says "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in you own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

So, does that mean that when we see our friends erring, we just keep quiet and stand by the side, allowing them to continue in their errant ways? And who then can decide and say that he is wrong in his ways? And by what do we justify his wrong-doing? Our experiences and our own perspectives?

Let me suggest first to say that for the first question, if i were to choose between not telling the person how he has erred and going around gossiping and complaining to others about him, i would choose the first option. Many times, we are often guilty of gossiping and complaining and spreading rumours and gossips about people whom we have disliked, influencing others to form the same opinion as us.

For the follwing few questions, we have to first ask ourselves why do we think it's wrong? For me, the central authority of rights and wrongs comes from the bible. Because the central authority is from the bible, it is not my perspective and my views that is is right or wrong but God's. Many times we tend to justify our case by our own experiences and perspectives and by that we consider ourselves correct and just. In an example of pre-marital sex, having many teens with new "perspectives and insights" on the freedom of having pre-marital sex does not make it correct. In other words, the rights and wrongs of the central authority should not be hinged on perspectives and views but rather, on truths, in this case from God.

Another example is my take on clubbing. When i was in 17, my take on clubbing was that it was wrong and i frequently imposed my stand on people who goes clubbing. But now my perspective is that i still would not go to clubs, but i do not think it is wrong. The bible never says anything about clubbing or dancing. As for myself, i just do not like to frequent places with too much alcohol and scantily-clad girls. That is my own perspective, and not a truth. That's the difference.

The rest of my thoughts are still in the process of forming and all these are the thoughts i have ever since i woke up this saturday morning. Anyway for some updates on events in the past few days.

On sat, 30th september, i attended my ex cell group members', Alvin and Shuping's wedding at my church. It was really an extremely beautiful affair. The beauty of a christian wedding is that the focus is not on the lady, nor on the groom. It is rather, on Jesus. The whole service was just thanking God for his goodness and faithfulness to the couple. And of course there was an exhortation by their friend and then after some solemnisation ceremonies, were proclaimed married. My first time attending a christian wedding, and until now, it's still firmly in my mind.

On sun the next day, i met up with my class to play some games at the mind cafe @ princep street. I came late and they were in the midst of some dwarven mining card game. The next game we played was some teleparth game in which we have to find a partner and write on pieces of paper, words that we can think of which is linked to the word or picture that we pick randomly from a stack of cards. It's really quite fun although my pair was a bit cheating due to the fact that both me and zixu was paired together and we knew roughly what each other would write. An example would be for the word "laugh". Both me and zixu wrote "lol" on our papers and got it right. Anyway, that was the winning entry.

The class pic we took after everything minus seokfun who left abit earlier. Zhenjie and junyuan joined us awhile later for dinner and jianhong came when we are about to leave. As usual, my dear class did not know wad to do after dinner and proceeded to go our separate ways. Hahaha another reason why everything must be planned beforehand. But throughout i must thank chee keong for taking the time and effort to bring our class together again although there were notably some who could not make it due to some reaons. Nevertheless, was pleasantly surprised to see yida and junyuan whom i've not met in a year and of course binh, who seldom comes for class outing. I was really quite moved, even though she only joined us for an hour because i know how much effort it takes to join a group that you've not been out with for a long time, that sense of fear of rejection and detachness.

Wow, i can't believe i have typed so much although as usual, still never able to beat zixu. An interesting read would be today, saturday 7 Oct's straits times. Under the section of Saturday, they listed "25 under 25s to watch". It's interesting because of the certain ways they've taken to impact singapore. I like the story about the twins. This 2 ITE boys who was posted to normal technical and ITE, shattering their dreams of going to university and opening their own business together.

Their teacher in ITE never gave up hope on them throughout and eventually, both did well enough to enter the polytechnic with 1 of them even clinching the LKY award. They then wanted to help others too and so volunteered at Turning Point halfway house for recovering female drug addicts, hoping that with the knowledge of accounting, these ladies can move on in society in future and get jobs. They also participated actively in the polytechnic students welfare by raising like $11k to help those in need. They graduated this year at the top 10 percent of their cohort. 1 is planning to study accounting at NTU while the other is planning to study business administration in NUS.

This is just 1 of the remarkable stories i've read today. Youths who make a difference, empowering their lives to help others. Rather interesting isn't it?