// Chase this light.

Most people miss their whole lives, you know. Listen, life isn't when you are standing on top of a mountain looking at the sunset. Life isn't waiting at the altar or the moment your child is born or that time you were swimming in deep water and a dolphin came up alongside you. These are fragments. Ten or twelve grains of sand spread throughout your entire existence. These are not life. Life is brushing your teeth or making a sandwich or watching the news or waiting for the bus. Or walking. Everyday, thousands of tiny events happen and if you're not watching, if you're not careful, if you don't capture them and make them count, you could miss it.

You could miss your whole life.

// They won..?

So I stayed over at Kalai's with Jerilyn to watch the match on Wednesday night.

"What match?" you may ask.

EXACTLY.

I (and the rest of the world, save for the lucky souls in St Jakob Park) managed to miss Klose's goal and Turkey's equaliser, saw Lahm doing his thang (at the mother of all last-minutes), and didn't see Germany actually win. It was hilarious when we tried to call Starhub. The machine operator was like, "Sorry, our hotline is fully engaged at the moment. Please try again later." and when I got through, "Sorry, our hotline is closed. Opening hours are from 8am to 8pm. Please try again tomorrow." I wonder how furious fellow Euro fans got that night. Bet reactions in the pubs and clubs in Germany and Turkey were interesting. :D

Anyways, because of the thunderstorm and power failure in Vienna, all Starhub could do was to show an apology note on the teevee screen. That left me camping out on Soccernet's live commentary and the other two morons promptly falling asleep on the couch. Before the transmission failed, the score was 1-1 and they were hoping for either side (they stopped caring who even before half-time) to win so they wouldn't have to watch during extra time and penalties. So when Klose made it 2-1 (thanks to trusty Soccernet), they were super relieved. But when Turkey equalised 7 minutes later (Germany really sucked at defending), all three of us were like, "Nuuuuu" for completely different reasons. Teehee.

To put the cherry on top, Germany played so badly that even I thought Turkey deserved to win. The defense was shaky with Lehmann being more of the Mr Hyde than Dr Jekyll (he's so eccentric, I miss Oliver Kahn), the passing was disorganised, Ballack and Klose were no where in sight while the rest were all over the place without the ball... And what was Lahm doing as a leftback defender?! Bless his little soul that he made ammends for all his mistakes with that 90" goal. Germany might've roasted Turkey for an early Thanksgiving, but they'd get trashed by Spain on Sunday if they continue to play like that. What a disgrace!

And I was thinking... What if something like this would happen with our own lives? When what is important to us is being snatched away from right under our noses, leaving us completely helpless and reeling with shock. And all we can do is to feebly protest and sulk because many circumstances are out of our control and we just can't do anything about it. I wonder if we'd feel frustrated and outraged and blame others. I wonder if we'd shrink into a corner and wallow in self-pity and blame ourselves.

Or we would be deeply humbled and stop relying on our own strengths, and fully understand that because many things are not in our control, we must trust and rely on the strength of The One who has all things in His control.

It's a choice every human being must make every day of his life. And just like how Turkey chose to hold their heads high with pride even though they were robbed of their well-deserved glory, I choose to look towards God, in which all things are possible through Him.

Anyway something totally rundom.

It's only 3pm and the dood behind me has downed a grand total of six cups of coffee. And he's off to the pantry for another cuppa. I'm severely astounded with his capacity for caffeine. Is it safe to drink so much of that vile stuff? I can't even finish a single-shot expresso without cringing. /=

Ah well. Thank God for green tea! :)

// Classic moments and priceless memories.

There's no work tomorrow and since I don't have to wake up at ungodly hours of the morning, I have been having the time of my life surfing Facebook groups and stumbled across THIS:

You Know You're in IB When...

- Relatives that have been dead for years come visit you and suggest that you get some sleep.
- You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing you've said it before.
- Trees begin threatening you.
- You can see individual air molecules vibrating.
- You believe that if you think hard enough, you can levitate.
- You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing you've said it before.
- You and Reality file for divorce.
- It appears that people are speaking to you in binary code.
- You have great revelations concerning Life, the Universe, and Everything else, but can't quite find the words for them before the white glow fades, leaving you more confused than before.
- You discover the aesthetic beauty of school supplies.
- You begin to talk to yourself, then disagree about the subject, get into a nasty row about it, lose, and refuse to talk to yourself for the rest of the day.
- You yell: "STOP TOUCHING ME!!!" even though you're the only person in the room.
- You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing you've said it before.
- Five words: "WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?!?!?!?!?"
- You can spell "Baccalaureate".
- "I.B., therefore I B.S."
- "IB has an honor code?!?!"
- "Friends" and "fellow IBers" are interchangeable.
- You go to bed at 3AM and think, "Oh, it's an early night!"
- Social life? What's that?
- You've fooled yourself into believing that colleges actually care whether you're in IB or not.
- You try to wake up fast enough to catch yourself sleeping - and succeed.
- You talk to yourself in the 3rd person.
- You write sentences on multiple choice tests.
- It's okay to fail, so long as you are not alone.
- You frequently catch yourself saying "What?? We had homework??"
- You don't drink, but you find it a convenient way to explain how you dressed yourself in the morning.
- You finish your extended essay shortly after midnight. Your smile of satisfaction fades when you remember to start on your World Lit paper.
- Desperate to fill up your CAS hours, you claim watching a black and white movie as "creativity" and walking your dog as "activity", and your teacher approves it.
- You've sold your soul... to a teacher... for a C... for the 9 weeks...
- You cloned yourself so you could sell your clones' souls to other teachers for Cs for the 9 weeks again (hey, there may be a profit to be made in this).
- Your idea of impure thoughts is whether or not to copy math homework.
- You can count your last quiz grade on one hand.
- You wonder if there's Cliff's Notes on the Calculus book.
- You don't really cheat - you just tell people the answers.
- 'Cheating' became too difficult, so you took up telepathy.
- You've consulted tarot cards for hints on a History test.
- You have the library on speed dial.
- You've developed an imprint of your book bag in your back.
- Your best hope for most classes is either divine intervention or a strategically placed lightning bolt.
- Your books weigh more than you do.
- You can lead your way through a frog's intestines with your eyes closed.
- You forgot about that pesky Extended Essay thing until the night before it was due.
- You consider giving up going to the bathroom permanently to give you more time to study.
- You have convinced your parents the "1" you received on your IB Physics exam was really the "top 1% of all IB students worldwide".
- You think the meaning of life is: G = -RTlnK.
- You plagiarise from Cliff's Notes for the "What is Truth?" ToK paper.
- It's essential to learn to live with occasional failures.
- You find that you overreact when you get 2 points marked off on your homework.
- You find that you spend more time sleeping in class than at home.
- Tests are no longer singular efforts!
- Your list of excuses for not doing your homework is the length of Anna Karenina.
- You exceed the 4,200 word limit on the Extended Essay (by over 1000 words).
- The simplest words you know are at least 10 letters long.
- You find yourself spelling words out on scantrons. You are deeply saddened when you can only find one letter of "IB SUCKS!"
- You show up 4 hours late to an IB test and still manage to get a "5".
- During a Chemistry test, instead of doing the work, you write a random answer program in your TI-82 and get the highest score in the class.
- You can type 70 words per minute - on a TI-89.
- Brewing coffee takes too long, so you just eat the beans.
- The bags under your eyes are heavier than the ones carrying your textbooks.
- You haven't seen light in so long you glow in the dark.
- You can count the number of hours you sleep each week on one missing hand.
- You've taught yourself how to take naps while walking to your next class.
- You clean up your room and find a bed.
- You wonder about things like what would happen if your car traveled at the speed of light and you turned your lights on.
- The words: "Oh my God! There's a triad in this poem!"
- You enjoy finding out the hard way why normal distribution should work.
- It's the little things that confuse you.
- You find all the "glitches" in movies.
- You use your ToK background to analyze Winnie the Pooh's Book of Quotations.
- Free time?
- You've mastered the art of procrastination so well that your research paper finishes printing just seconds before you have to leave for school.
- Your college professors' grading systems seem a little too lenient.
- You managed to write 4,000 words on the subject "Hitler was a nice guy, wasn't he?" (sarcasm not included).
- You're not certain if you want to get laid, layed, or laid to rest.
- To celebrate finishing your IB exams you decide to be really wild and go for coffee.
- You hold "parties" to study.
- You look forward to your parties.
- Your fellow IBers look forward to your parties, attend them, and do actual studying there.
- You forget your brother's name because you haven't seen him in two years.
- Wait... what brother?
- "Anybody wanna play some cards?"
- You see your Extended Essay advisor more than you see your parents.
- You know how to integrate a chicken and can take the derivative of water.
- You've set an Apple II and your TI in a race to see which one could count to infinity the fastest.
- You took out the cheesy infinity code and substituted a Pi-calculating code.
- Your TI won.
- Better yet, you won, because you can name Pi to several hundred digits more than they could.
- No, you definitely won, because you caught an error in both of the final results.
- The Apple II was wrong by a larger amount.
- You derive formulas for fun. From first principles.
- The offer of bonus marks for combed hair results in a dramatic improvement in your appearance.
- Whenever you're watching a movie you find all the motifs and themes... without even trying.
- You start to laugh hysterically when you're writing a bibliography because a book has TWO authors.
- You find juxtaposition in places you shouldn't be looking for it.
- You relax vicariously through your non-IB friends (what non-IB friends???)
- The number 42 actually means something.
- Your goal for the year is to complete every item on this checklist.

And something for the females:
"I wish IB would get on its international knees and lick the ballsack I do not have."

Okay time to sleep before I go on a guilt trip about how many trees I've killed and attempt to transmorgify used tissue paper back to their natural state.

// Me.

Who am I?

That's easy. I'm a child of God.

What am I like?

That's a little bit harder.

"You are a strong girl."

"Stop being an escapist."

"Thanks for being so inspiring."

"You lack passion and hunger in you."

"You're a great (pun-intended) addition to this CG."

"With your size, who's gonna marry you?"

"I love the way you love people."

"You treat this house like a hotel."

"You're such a sweet girl."

"Zel, stop being a bitch."

"I can see God in you."

"Are you in a cult?"

"You are genuine."

"Stop lying to yourself."

Can we be so many things to so many people at so many times? Doing a personality test to find out what you're like, choosing the word that describes you best out of 4... I can be all those words if I wanted to. If that person wanted me to.

So in those times of solitude, the person I am just before I fall asleep and just after I awake, where there is no switch to turn on for the world... Can I actually be nothing at all?

After two worrisome weeks, I finally saw the moon in Macau's night sky. Funny I've never thought of the moon before all my life, but I notice its absence when it gets hidden behind the clouds. Those who were with me when I kept asking where the moon was can fully testify to how anal I got.

And then I think about how the female protagonist in Accuracy of Death said, "Death is similar to the Sun. There is nothing special about it. In fact, it is very common. But it is very important."

And in my case: Life is similar to the moon. There is nothing special about it. There are more than six billion souls on this planet so Life is indeed common. But it is very important. There may be nothing special about our lives, we may be completely normal and uninteresting, we may be nothing at all in this big, big world. But we are definitely important. That when our friends go on holidays, when our loved ones go missing, when we die, others will notice. Just as the moon is meant to be in the sky at night, our lives are meant to be lived. It doesn't matter what we are like to others. We are meant to just be.

So, what am I like?

Nothing special, but important. Just like you. :)

// Chase this light.

Most people miss their whole lives, you know. Listen, life isn't when you are standing on top of a mountain looking at the sunset. Life isn't waiting at the altar or the moment your child is born or that time you were swimming in deep water and a dolphin came up alongside you. These are fragments. Ten or twelve grains of sand spread throughout your entire existence. These are not life. Life is brushing your teeth or making a sandwich or watching the news or waiting for the bus. Or walking. Everyday, thousands of tiny events happen and if you're not watching, if you're not careful, if you don't capture them and make them count, you could miss it.

You could miss your whole life.

// They won..?

So I stayed over at Kalai's with Jerilyn to watch the match on Wednesday night.

"What match?" you may ask.

EXACTLY.

I (and the rest of the world, save for the lucky souls in St Jakob Park) managed to miss Klose's goal and Turkey's equaliser, saw Lahm doing his thang (at the mother of all last-minutes), and didn't see Germany actually win. It was hilarious when we tried to call Starhub. The machine operator was like, "Sorry, our hotline is fully engaged at the moment. Please try again later." and when I got through, "Sorry, our hotline is closed. Opening hours are from 8am to 8pm. Please try again tomorrow." I wonder how furious fellow Euro fans got that night. Bet reactions in the pubs and clubs in Germany and Turkey were interesting. :D

Anyways, because of the thunderstorm and power failure in Vienna, all Starhub could do was to show an apology note on the teevee screen. That left me camping out on Soccernet's live commentary and the other two morons promptly falling asleep on the couch. Before the transmission failed, the score was 1-1 and they were hoping for either side (they stopped caring who even before half-time) to win so they wouldn't have to watch during extra time and penalties. So when Klose made it 2-1 (thanks to trusty Soccernet), they were super relieved. But when Turkey equalised 7 minutes later (Germany really sucked at defending), all three of us were like, "Nuuuuu" for completely different reasons. Teehee.

To put the cherry on top, Germany played so badly that even I thought Turkey deserved to win. The defense was shaky with Lehmann being more of the Mr Hyde than Dr Jekyll (he's so eccentric, I miss Oliver Kahn), the passing was disorganised, Ballack and Klose were no where in sight while the rest were all over the place without the ball... And what was Lahm doing as a leftback defender?! Bless his little soul that he made ammends for all his mistakes with that 90" goal. Germany might've roasted Turkey for an early Thanksgiving, but they'd get trashed by Spain on Sunday if they continue to play like that. What a disgrace!

And I was thinking... What if something like this would happen with our own lives? When what is important to us is being snatched away from right under our noses, leaving us completely helpless and reeling with shock. And all we can do is to feebly protest and sulk because many circumstances are out of our control and we just can't do anything about it. I wonder if we'd feel frustrated and outraged and blame others. I wonder if we'd shrink into a corner and wallow in self-pity and blame ourselves.

Or we would be deeply humbled and stop relying on our own strengths, and fully understand that because many things are not in our control, we must trust and rely on the strength of The One who has all things in His control.

It's a choice every human being must make every day of his life. And just like how Turkey chose to hold their heads high with pride even though they were robbed of their well-deserved glory, I choose to look towards God, in which all things are possible through Him.

Anyway something totally rundom.

It's only 3pm and the dood behind me has downed a grand total of six cups of coffee. And he's off to the pantry for another cuppa. I'm severely astounded with his capacity for caffeine. Is it safe to drink so much of that vile stuff? I can't even finish a single-shot expresso without cringing. /=

Ah well. Thank God for green tea! :)

// Classic moments and priceless memories.

There's no work tomorrow and since I don't have to wake up at ungodly hours of the morning, I have been having the time of my life surfing Facebook groups and stumbled across THIS:

You Know You're in IB When...

- Relatives that have been dead for years come visit you and suggest that you get some sleep.
- You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing you've said it before.
- Trees begin threatening you.
- You can see individual air molecules vibrating.
- You believe that if you think hard enough, you can levitate.
- You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing you've said it before.
- You and Reality file for divorce.
- It appears that people are speaking to you in binary code.
- You have great revelations concerning Life, the Universe, and Everything else, but can't quite find the words for them before the white glow fades, leaving you more confused than before.
- You discover the aesthetic beauty of school supplies.
- You begin to talk to yourself, then disagree about the subject, get into a nasty row about it, lose, and refuse to talk to yourself for the rest of the day.
- You yell: "STOP TOUCHING ME!!!" even though you're the only person in the room.
- You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing you've said it before.
- Five words: "WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?!?!?!?!?"
- You can spell "Baccalaureate".
- "I.B., therefore I B.S."
- "IB has an honor code?!?!"
- "Friends" and "fellow IBers" are interchangeable.
- You go to bed at 3AM and think, "Oh, it's an early night!"
- Social life? What's that?
- You've fooled yourself into believing that colleges actually care whether you're in IB or not.
- You try to wake up fast enough to catch yourself sleeping - and succeed.
- You talk to yourself in the 3rd person.
- You write sentences on multiple choice tests.
- It's okay to fail, so long as you are not alone.
- You frequently catch yourself saying "What?? We had homework??"
- You don't drink, but you find it a convenient way to explain how you dressed yourself in the morning.
- You finish your extended essay shortly after midnight. Your smile of satisfaction fades when you remember to start on your World Lit paper.
- Desperate to fill up your CAS hours, you claim watching a black and white movie as "creativity" and walking your dog as "activity", and your teacher approves it.
- You've sold your soul... to a teacher... for a C... for the 9 weeks...
- You cloned yourself so you could sell your clones' souls to other teachers for Cs for the 9 weeks again (hey, there may be a profit to be made in this).
- Your idea of impure thoughts is whether or not to copy math homework.
- You can count your last quiz grade on one hand.
- You wonder if there's Cliff's Notes on the Calculus book.
- You don't really cheat - you just tell people the answers.
- 'Cheating' became too difficult, so you took up telepathy.
- You've consulted tarot cards for hints on a History test.
- You have the library on speed dial.
- You've developed an imprint of your book bag in your back.
- Your best hope for most classes is either divine intervention or a strategically placed lightning bolt.
- Your books weigh more than you do.
- You can lead your way through a frog's intestines with your eyes closed.
- You forgot about that pesky Extended Essay thing until the night before it was due.
- You consider giving up going to the bathroom permanently to give you more time to study.
- You have convinced your parents the "1" you received on your IB Physics exam was really the "top 1% of all IB students worldwide".
- You think the meaning of life is: G = -RTlnK.
- You plagiarise from Cliff's Notes for the "What is Truth?" ToK paper.
- It's essential to learn to live with occasional failures.
- You find that you overreact when you get 2 points marked off on your homework.
- You find that you spend more time sleeping in class than at home.
- Tests are no longer singular efforts!
- Your list of excuses for not doing your homework is the length of Anna Karenina.
- You exceed the 4,200 word limit on the Extended Essay (by over 1000 words).
- The simplest words you know are at least 10 letters long.
- You find yourself spelling words out on scantrons. You are deeply saddened when you can only find one letter of "IB SUCKS!"
- You show up 4 hours late to an IB test and still manage to get a "5".
- During a Chemistry test, instead of doing the work, you write a random answer program in your TI-82 and get the highest score in the class.
- You can type 70 words per minute - on a TI-89.
- Brewing coffee takes too long, so you just eat the beans.
- The bags under your eyes are heavier than the ones carrying your textbooks.
- You haven't seen light in so long you glow in the dark.
- You can count the number of hours you sleep each week on one missing hand.
- You've taught yourself how to take naps while walking to your next class.
- You clean up your room and find a bed.
- You wonder about things like what would happen if your car traveled at the speed of light and you turned your lights on.
- The words: "Oh my God! There's a triad in this poem!"
- You enjoy finding out the hard way why normal distribution should work.
- It's the little things that confuse you.
- You find all the "glitches" in movies.
- You use your ToK background to analyze Winnie the Pooh's Book of Quotations.
- Free time?
- You've mastered the art of procrastination so well that your research paper finishes printing just seconds before you have to leave for school.
- Your college professors' grading systems seem a little too lenient.
- You managed to write 4,000 words on the subject "Hitler was a nice guy, wasn't he?" (sarcasm not included).
- You're not certain if you want to get laid, layed, or laid to rest.
- To celebrate finishing your IB exams you decide to be really wild and go for coffee.
- You hold "parties" to study.
- You look forward to your parties.
- Your fellow IBers look forward to your parties, attend them, and do actual studying there.
- You forget your brother's name because you haven't seen him in two years.
- Wait... what brother?
- "Anybody wanna play some cards?"
- You see your Extended Essay advisor more than you see your parents.
- You know how to integrate a chicken and can take the derivative of water.
- You've set an Apple II and your TI in a race to see which one could count to infinity the fastest.
- You took out the cheesy infinity code and substituted a Pi-calculating code.
- Your TI won.
- Better yet, you won, because you can name Pi to several hundred digits more than they could.
- No, you definitely won, because you caught an error in both of the final results.
- The Apple II was wrong by a larger amount.
- You derive formulas for fun. From first principles.
- The offer of bonus marks for combed hair results in a dramatic improvement in your appearance.
- Whenever you're watching a movie you find all the motifs and themes... without even trying.
- You start to laugh hysterically when you're writing a bibliography because a book has TWO authors.
- You find juxtaposition in places you shouldn't be looking for it.
- You relax vicariously through your non-IB friends (what non-IB friends???)
- The number 42 actually means something.
- Your goal for the year is to complete every item on this checklist.

And something for the females:
"I wish IB would get on its international knees and lick the ballsack I do not have."

Okay time to sleep before I go on a guilt trip about how many trees I've killed and attempt to transmorgify used tissue paper back to their natural state.

// Me.

Who am I?

That's easy. I'm a child of God.

What am I like?

That's a little bit harder.

"You are a strong girl."

"Stop being an escapist."

"Thanks for being so inspiring."

"You lack passion and hunger in you."

"You're a great (pun-intended) addition to this CG."

"With your size, who's gonna marry you?"

"I love the way you love people."

"You treat this house like a hotel."

"You're such a sweet girl."

"Zel, stop being a bitch."

"I can see God in you."

"Are you in a cult?"

"You are genuine."

"Stop lying to yourself."

Can we be so many things to so many people at so many times? Doing a personality test to find out what you're like, choosing the word that describes you best out of 4... I can be all those words if I wanted to. If that person wanted me to.

So in those times of solitude, the person I am just before I fall asleep and just after I awake, where there is no switch to turn on for the world... Can I actually be nothing at all?

After two worrisome weeks, I finally saw the moon in Macau's night sky. Funny I've never thought of the moon before all my life, but I notice its absence when it gets hidden behind the clouds. Those who were with me when I kept asking where the moon was can fully testify to how anal I got.

And then I think about how the female protagonist in Accuracy of Death said, "Death is similar to the Sun. There is nothing special about it. In fact, it is very common. But it is very important."

And in my case: Life is similar to the moon. There is nothing special about it. There are more than six billion souls on this planet so Life is indeed common. But it is very important. There may be nothing special about our lives, we may be completely normal and uninteresting, we may be nothing at all in this big, big world. But we are definitely important. That when our friends go on holidays, when our loved ones go missing, when we die, others will notice. Just as the moon is meant to be in the sky at night, our lives are meant to be lived. It doesn't matter what we are like to others. We are meant to just be.

So, what am I like?

Nothing special, but important. Just like you. :)