cyberspace junkyard

The world is orange

A strange thing. I think my world is being overrun by oranges in a manner not unlike Ally McBeal.

I am sitting at my desk, having just finished eating an orange, with orange post it notes stuck all over my computer, containing messages to call people, having just gotten off the phone with someone (who has an Orange phone) and am now watching an "orange" screen mate skip rope, do push ups and generally float around my computer screen.

HELP!

Catharsis

I remember learning that rather large and heavy word during Year 9 English, when we discussed Hamlet's catharsis in Shakespeare's play of the same name.

I don't think I had one this morning, but I did have a bit of a "light bulb moment". I was thinking about selfishness.

Mind you, not in the petty, jealous way which is so often portrayed in movies and TV shows. This was more just a realisation of the motivation behind decisions I make and the things I plan for myself. People dream. They have goals, aspirations and objectives. They set out short term plans and long term visions of where they envisage their life to be. Have you ever stopped and wondered though, how all these grand dreams for yourself fit into the bigger scheme of things?

Sometimes, something will happen that makes you evaluate where you are going and whether or not God has something else in His plan for you. It could be as simple as a friend gently reminding you of something, or something you read. Other times it's more like getting hit by a 2 tonne truck. Whatever the method though, I was just thinking about how often I'm reminded that the things I do and say affect other people. It's all well and good to live life the way we want to but at the end of the day, it just doesn't work like that. We not only have to live with other people in this world, but also under the Creator of this world.

What a foreign concept to think that you don't put yourself first. Enough of those mantras about "loving yourself" or "how to achieve the life you want" or "how to gain power". It's about putting others before yourself - thinking about their needs and at times sacrificing what you want for them. That's what love really is. And it's about putting God first - not living the life you want, but the life God wants for you.

The world of Ebay

I just purchased my first item from Ebay! It was a limited edition Final Advance Promotional Poster of Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. I'd like to thank, Ebay, The World Wide Web, Peter Jackson for making such an awesome movie and an especially big thank you has to go to my work colleagues who egged me on and chipped in some extra money when I went over my budget. Oh, and I have to thank my lawyer, legal counsel and attorney. This moment is so much bigger than me.

I am excited.

I think I have been initiated into the heady world of bidding and buying. I was just thinking though - how is it that Ebay works? How does a community (as it calls itself) like that able to function based on the trust of people you have never met and are never likely to. What is to stop someone from creating fake identities and causing havoc amongst other well meaning buyers and sellers? There has to be something there that keeps it all together and somehow, miraculously, keeps it alive.

It must be the Ebay community code.

All for one and one for all.

Old friends

You know when somethings are just too uncanny to be termed a mere conincidence?

This morning while enjoying the scenic tran trip from Yagoona to Wynyard, I happened to think of a girl who was in my bible study group last year who had spent the first quarter of the year in Orange. I made a mental note to write her an email and see how she was going.

The train was chugging along happily when we pulled up at Wiley Park. I must admit that I caught a glimpse of a red leather jacket but thought no more of it until....

she bounded into the train carriage. Turns out it was the same friend I had been reminding myself to email just 15 minutes earlier! We spent the next 20 minutes catching up which was great as she's only spending a week in Sydney before flyuing to Perth to see her family and then heading to China for a month!

Serendipity? A fluke? I think not!
We were both really happy to have bumped into each other and to have a chance to talk, share and encourage each other cos we hadn't seen each other in such a long time. God works in amazing ways.

Entertaining Stew

Just came back from lunch with a friend at the Dundee Arms Pub on Sussex St. I just want to take 5 minutes to confirm my love for two things...

1. The Entertainment Book
Using a voucher from this book - a meal which would have ordinarily cost $13 was now just $6.50
Love it.

2. Stew
Stew, you ask? I have a thing for stew. Especially a hearty stew served on mashed potato. Bonus points if a roaring log fire is involved! Now, if I could only find a man who could cook me a lamb stew...

Love looks not with the eyes...
but with the mind ::: Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

While reading a Lea Salonga fan's website, I came across some intriguing thoughts about the nature of love. Here's an excerpt :::

* Never try to change your loved one to suit your own taste. It defeats the purpose of falling in love with him/her for what he/she really is.

* After being with each other for so long, never forget the little things that made you fall in love with him/her more.

* It's pointless to be in a relationship if you can't see yourself spending the rest of your life with your bf/gf. True love is not a pastime.

* When you fight, what's the use of prolonging your agony? Don't let pride waste time that should be spent happy together.

* Say "I love you" because you mean it, and not because you have to.

* Never take for granted the word "friend" in boyfriend and girlfriend. Do all the sweet, mushy stuff that couples do, but don't ever forget that your bf/gf is a friend too.

I'm being teached

It's Tuesday, which means that I leave work at 4pm to go to uni to do some work on my thesis. Do you know that it has been 19 years straight that I've been studying?

What is university anyway? Nowadays it has morphed into a muddled collection of faculties, full of modern day academics and boasting administrators that try to make it a profitable organisation that's in the black at the end of the day. So how do you reconcile the concept of higher learning with turning over a profit? Does it mean that you open your doors to teaching skills and professions that can be taken into the working world as opposed to generating original thought amongst the students and thereby turning them into future academics? What is about those years of toil and slog, culminating in a piece of paper which could potentially determine the direction of the next 40 years of your life? I still find it baffling that I can spend a month researching a paper and pouring every ounce of original thought and objective opinions that I have into it, and still get the same mark as when I stay up the night before, writing (in my opinion) a shoddy paper that nonetheless is exactly what I know the tutor wants to read.

Are life's lessons really to be learnt at uni or is the grand tradition of institutions such as the Univesity of Sydney or the University of New South Wales, both of which I've attended, now just a finishing school that dictates you must have qualifications to make anything of yourself in life?

Cynicism aside - I have a supervisor this year who is a cut above the rest. She's tossed aside the idea of lectures and tutorials to run small group seminars where each of us are encouraged to present our thoughts on certain readings and concepts in an open forum to be discussed amongst 2-3 of our peers and elders. We learn by appreciation, by criticism and most of all by thinking for ourselves. A novel idea indeed.

Pasta with your Pastor

Well.

Monday night was certainly... interesting to say the least. The pastor of my church invited my family to dine with them. His wife cooked up a storm - no pasta, but prawns, fish, chicken, vegies and other signature Singaporean food. All in all, it was a rather pleasant evening, but I am relieved that it is over.

Why?

Well, I suppose I'm still affected a little by what happened on June 23rd, 2001. Cyberspace Junkyard didn't exist then so you won't have any background reading unless I spend a couple of days typing it all up. The short story is my heart got broken. The slightly longer story is that when it happened, a bunch of friends, family and my pastor jumped into the fray, so talking about it with anyone who knows about it is still twinge-inducing.



Anyway, the heart recovered, I recovered, we all recover some day, right? You can never put a vase back together the same way after it's been shattered, but it'll still hold water if you use the right glue.

Some lyrics to ponder. Both of these excerpts are songs from the concept album of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Soppy, trite and unnecessary, I know, but what the hey, it's the Tuesday Blues. I used to dwell on this kind of thinking a lot, but it only gets to me occasionally now. Besides, I have a much greater hope for my life - and that is my hope in Jesus Christ, my Lord and Saviour. As Eponine sings in Les Miserables. "He was never mine to lose | Why regret what could not be | These are words he'll never say | Not to me, not to me, not for me "

You were once that someone who I followed like a star
Then suddenly, you changed
And now I don't know who you are
Or could it be
That I never really knew you from the start?
Did I create a dream?
Was he a fantasy?
Even a memory is paradise for all the fools like me.
Now remembering is all that I can do
Because I miss him so
When I look at you

---

Each moment is a fight
Not to rush into your light
Not to move closer, but to make you disappear

I'll forget you
God help me see the way to let you go
I do not want you
And still you steal each breath I'm breathing from me
With just a look
You overcome me
And I let you
I'll forget you
When I die
I will forget you
I will forget you


AH! That's quite enough wallowing for one day! :)

Gotta dance, gotta sing, gotta slay

At long last! the musical extravangza that is Buffy episode #607 is showing in Australia!
Once More With Feeling is Joss Whedon's creation that combines two of my favourite things - Buffy and musicals! You can't go wrong, and with his brilliant spoken and musical writing skills, the episode promises to be a night to remember!

My VCR has been set and so have my expectations!

Descending into craziness

Actually, now that I have settled down to start some more work, I have to pause to note that I did something rather crazy this morning.

What might that be, you ask?

bungee jumping?

sky diving?

drag racing?

Well, the truth is, I got up at 5am this morning to attend a yoga class. Uh huh - crazy, I know!
It has been about 2 months since I was a regular at this class, and the muscles that I newly discovered I had those many weeks ago had since retreated into un-used safety. Well, those muscles have now revealed themselves again, and demand to be tones and strengthened. Who's to argue anyway - I'm too tired!

So it seems that my streak of craziness will continue and I'll be back next Friday morning.

Ola!

*sigh*

It has been one of those weeks that serve no purpose than to try your patience, test your optimism and really challenge your time management skills.

I can almost say that I have come out the other end unscathed - just a mere 6 hours to go until this work day is over.

What I am looking forward to is feasting on a Spanish paella at Capitan Torres for lunch. There's something about the idea of venturing down to the Spanish sector in the heart of multicultural Sydney, to sit beneath the dim lighting and dark atmosphere and tantalise your tastebuds with some gorgeous Spanish food. Gorgeous might be a strange word to describe a meal, but you would feel the same way to see fresh seafood tossed with aromatic rice and tender chicken in a pan that you just know has been the receptacle for many a paella in the past - and then to espie the waiter emerging from the open kitchen bearing the afore mentioned combination after miraculously melding together in the oven.

My mouth is watering already and I'm going to have to do some work now to take my mind off my appetite.

Plant a seed, watch it grow

I might have to convert this cyberspace junkyard into a 5 star hotel if I'm gonna spend any more time here.
I've done a bit of redecorating, which of course you won't see if you're here for the first time and you haven't been through the creation process like me and my friend, who I've got on the phone with me. She's the one who planted the seed in my head that has corrupted me and turned me into a blog-ette. Go and be converted by reading her blog

Black is black unless it's icky green

And 40 minutes later I now have a black background. This is hard work.

I haven't touched html code since 1st year uni which is a whole 5 years ago. Ah, those were the blissful days - when sleeping was a daily requisite and not a luxury. When all you needed to get through your day was a pack of cards and 4 friends who could play 500.

Thinking is overrated
My brain already hurts from trying to come up with a user ID, page title, page description and url so I really need a break from this thinking thing.

Thinking is highly overrated.