我

是不会轻易地认输！

所谓

"不经一番寒彻骨焉得梅花扑鼻香？”

Phil 4:7

Damai sejahtera Allah, yang melampaui segala akal, akan memelihara hati dan pikiranmu dalam Kristus Yesus.

平安来自上帝，这是凡人所不能理解的，

这平安会在基督耶稣里保护你们的心灵和意念。

the Strength.

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save.

He will take great delight in you,

he will quiet you with his love,

he will rejoice over you with singing.

Zephaniah 3:17

The Passion of Mary-Margaret. I call it the nun-book. hehe. it's not exactly a 'nun'-book but a fictional story about this religious sister named Mary-Margaret. A story about how she wanted to live her whole life serving God as a sister but then end up leaving the order and got married to her old time crush who became a male prostitute+drug addict........ haih, long story. :p

It's something like The Shack book. not the story line. but the moral of the story.

Although it's fictional, i couldn't help but thinking there must be someone in this world living out this kind of life - dedicate her life to God, serving Him wholeheartedly.

I kind of felt the goosebumps when i just started to read the book, especially when it comes to those lines describing why and how she wants to live her life for God, blah blah blah. How can she love her God to that extend? Don't we have the same God? How is she able to turn the bitterness in life into something that spurs her to continue her walk with God? As i continued reading the book.. she has Jesus as her Friend and she knows God loves her and she has no doubt of that.

I met up with a friend today. Although she did the talking most of the time, it was good. i have great respect for her tenacity in life, her passion for God, etc etc. she pointed out one thing - how we think of God shapes how we love God and the quality of relationship we have with God.

That's a pretty 'something' for me to think and work through.

We all like to decide our own sacrifices.

That's the mistake i always make.

fictional, yet real.

I need Strength to carry on.

i'm feeling turtl-ish

taken during my first visit to UMS

it feels good to see turtles again.

where to

i'm back.

lest i forget.

Soon, this year is coming to an end.

The past one month has been crazily busy! CRAZY!!!!

Looking at the analysis of the results for F2 Maths final exam, i couldn't believe i have made it through another year with tonnes and tonnes of hard work, sweat and tears. And indeed, there's reward at the end of the race. i must say that i am pretty impressed with my self. :)

"be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God,
failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day.
Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down,
and when your herds and flocks grow large
and gold increase and all you have is multiplied,
then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God,
who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."
Deut 8:13-14

There were many opportunities to push myself to do more this year.

In this final week of school, i guess there's no better time to rethink and reflect on all that i have gone through.

it's been a fruitful year. and i know i have really done my very best in everything that i laid hand upon.

*great experience in Kuching for basketball competition. that was one of the most exciting times of the year where there's adrenaline pump everyday for one whole week.

*extra maths classes for the E Gang that bore fruit where all of them went from an E (fail) to at least a C, one even went from E to A. Ok la, except one boy la, he failed ALL his maths paper this year, oh poor thing. Anyway, it feels good to see their eyes lightened up when they got their maths papers. And it feels even better when they came back to thank you before they leave school for holiday.

*f4 bio - during Sept test, i scolded (this is an overstatement) a boy who got 7 out of 40 objective questions correct. i told him if he were to do this again, he is going to TELAN the OMR paper. And guess what, he passed his bio paper this time and improved a whole lot in other subjects too! Oh gosh. it's pretty unbelievable. well, i am glad that he put in effort to make things better for himself.

*f5 bio - i have really done all that i could. it's up to God to make things work. i have to remind myself that whatever the outcome is, it cannot be my fault anymore. Simply because i have done my best to teach them, to do extra classes, to meet some of them for 'private' tuition.

*Borneo Jungle School - what a great experience living in the jungle! A sakai like me have seen so little of the real world. The best moment - standing in the dark, all torch-lights were off, all you see is the starry night with all those weird weird sounds of insects.

*The sacrificial cow - that was the first time i saw how people slaughter a cow for Ibadah Qorban. And funny as it is, i kinda turned it into a science lesson while the adults are butchering the cow. I didn't know that the trachea of a cow is as big as the pipe that is fixed at the washing machine for the water to flow out. The best thing, haha.. the heart of the cow. For this i know why i identify so much with Cristina in Grey's.

Of course, not to forget the great times spent traveling around.. March Kundasang-Sandakan-LD trip, April-August Sandakan trip, April KK trip... with friends coming to visit.. blah blah blah.. :)

It's not just a bed of roses. i just don't feel like wasting time to count those thorns.

And tomorrow, i have one more assignment to do - kursus in semporna. hehe.

Enough of typing for the day!

we have worked really hard

i have worked really hard

to be where i am today;

it may not be 'physically',

but it's definitely

mentally and emotionally.

***

i watched a show, and there's this one part where the guy went for a drink with his friends. His friends were all businessman - either have or are starting their own business. Yet, this guy was just a paramedic, a civil servant. Well, his friends always commended him for having such a noble profession that could save the lives of people. Secretly, he was jealous of his friends because he had always wanted to start his own business and be a boss instead of being bossed around. He was jealous because his friends seems to have a better and more prestigious job, etc. Being a paramedic is not in his plans for life! He got entangled into this job because he needed money and he needed to prove something to his family.

To cut the long story short, something happened and made him realized that he actually enjoyed being a paramedic. And from then on, he decided to continue in this profession that he may save more lives....

***

This guy changed his mind. Was it because he has gotten comfortable with his job? Or was it because he has really found the true meaning as a paramedic, the joy of saving lives, the strength to carry on even if the patient dies?

***

the many similarities

and yet

one thing i see,

we have worked really hard

to be where we are today.

#16

get over it.

and move on.

there's no time to waste.

blink blink*

i need some photography outings to make my life slightly more colourful.

Let's trade shoes

I am pretty fed up with this certain thing that happens every now and then.

I have always walked the second mile. I dare not say for 'all situations in my life', but at least many of them. I try not to be calculative when it comes to carrying out the task given. I will do my best to get them all done as the way you wanted it. If a certain people couldn't get theirs done, I'm fine with you asking me to help out. That's because Someone walked and is still walking the second mile for me and my conscience tells me that it's good to help people and I still have an able body and I just want the whatever event we are working on goes well in the end of the day and we can all go back happily.

This mindset works for one time. two times. three times. four times.

There will come a time where it takes such a huge effort to think that way.

Let's trade shoes.

~~~

You always get your job done, on time, near perfection or nothing less than that, because you feel that leaving behind crap for someone else to clean up is a bad thing to do. And yet, you are the one always cleaning up other people's crap.

The good person next to you tell you that you should just do the same like them. Why care so much when no one give a darn about you when you are busy cleaning other people's crap?

You know there's truth in that short speech but because of conscience, you couldn't stoop down to that level. That filthy level of leaving behind unfinished business for the next person to suffer. And yet, you also couldn't come to terms with your altruistic behaviour.

You suffer.

Let's trade shoes.

~~~

There's many hardworking [read: dumb timid 'skema' workaholics] people around who will get their job done on time. They will even cover for you if you couldn't finish yours. But of course, it's better that you can get yourself away from those task. Avoid here avoid there. Best way to avoid, simply do so that next time no one dares to ask you to do anything. SAVED!

Well, if you are that unlucky, like what you read earlier - simply do lar! Just go and show your face a bit, arrange some pots and chairs, and then disappear right away so that no one can catch you and order you to make things look nicer and better. Leave those to the hardworking [read: dumb timid 'skema' workaholics].

You don't care what others say. You don't care if they say you are sluggish, lazy, etc. You don't care, because in the end, you still get paid more or less the same as those dumb-dumbs.

Why make your life so miserable when you can opt for the more relaxed one?

Conscience? What's conscience? Some years down the road, sure you have ample time to amend those 'misdeeds'. Most important is, at this moment you are happily receiving your pay with a lousy performance any tom-dick-and-harry can give.

Let's trade shoes.

~~~

At the end of the day, we all sit at the meeting table.

You will ask, "What are the strengths and weaknesses of the program?"

Then someone will say, "All of us give full cooperation throughout the preparation for the event and therefore the event went on smoothly. We all worked with each other very well."

COOPERATION TOP LEVEL

because we the hardworking ones [read: dumb timid 'skema' workaholics] cleaned up those useless people's crap.

Happy ending.

the Hills are alive.

I have this picture hanging on the wall of my Shack. And I think it gives me the calmness i need.

Sometimes we just have to learn to accept [certain] things as they are, despite the rage that is growing within us like wild fire, enough to consume everything that crosses our path.

It feels terrible to know that you are put on the same weighing scale and you weigh the same as those useless people who are not even worth mentioning about. You are all selected. I don't understand how some people can be so dumb. Or they just act dumb and have no sense of responsibility, accountability.. and maturity.

The long hours of waiting in the airport two weeks ago made me end up with Frank McCourt's Teacher Man. Half way through and there's quite a lot of things he wrote about which hit home.

*

上有天， 下有地， 中间有良心。

I lift my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from?

#15

Beyond Description.

taken on the 4th September 11

on the way back to LD

what a wreck.

trains of thoughts going through my mind.

we are living in a big lie.

i am such a mess.

***

i don't know what else to expect in life.

i don't want to talk myself into believing something that is unlikely to happen.

what do you want?

Sandakan.

i was supposed to quit in june.

june left me with july. and july did the same thing to me and left me with august.

august. september.

any the many months to come.

how long more should i stay in this place?

i have been losing.. time after time. again and again.

Quitting would make me even a bigger loser, besides losing some great friends and the familiarity to life in this THM place.

And perhaps it's better for one to stay where she is when she's in a state of confusion over what she really wants in life.

"What is your passion?"

"I don't know."

"No, I think you know. It's in your heart, you know."

She knows me too well. She's right.

I know.

It's just that i'm trying to ignore it.

**

A relative passed away two weeks ago. it is a great loss to me personally and it's a regret that i don't have the chance to be there to bid goodbye. and her last words to me through my mum was 'keep on praying'. and that was during this year's chinese new year.

She had fought the good fight, completed the race and kept the faith.

***

and i have strayed a little bit too far.

one year and eight months.

Agnes Keith House in Sandakan.

In the end I learned that it isn't the outward circumstances which determines what one can endure, but something in oneself which either breaks, or stays intact, under strain. It isn't the difference in strain, it's the difference in tensile strength of people.

Agnes Newton Keith, Three Came Home,

pg 61-62

***

stress is building up.

and frustration is setting in.

i realised this change in me, that i couldn't express myself in words like how i used to do. not that i am very good at that, to start with. so whatever little that kind of ability i had, i'm now having even less.

Reading Three Came Home is like creating for myself another world. Diving into that world and see how they struggled through days of internment during WWII makes my THM life here seems like a trivial problem.

i wonder how they survived those days.

mine is kacang-putih in comparison to theirs.

yet, i also wonder how i survived one year and eight months, and still counting.

the tests on my tensile strength will keep on coming.

and i will keep calm and carry on.

i took a short break from school.

waiting for orang utan.

4 days plus in the jungle was really awesome.

the trip was tiring but yet there was so much fun. morning afternoon night - jungle trekking, jungle trekking and more jungle trekking. every day our activities started at 6 and ended at 9-ish. no time was wasted and it was all packed with activities, one after another.

it was really an eye opener. the japanese culture - the way they teach and learn. and the rainforest - it is really beautiful and fill with life. what amazed me was there are many weird looking insects and animals - some look like centipedes but they are actually millipedes. *_*

and i got my leech certificate from BRL - for donating my blood to the tiger leech.

:)

this is about after an hour. fatty greedy tiger leech!

overall, it's really a great experience :)

you and me

among the others.

*i will be away for 5 days, deep in the jungle.*

this moment

it's like standing on one of the rocks

and super-undecided which is the next one to jump onto.

is it possible

i have a lot of things running through my mind.

i was thinking about the risk.

and i wished i could let my [inner] self speak.

but i don't think that can ever be possible.

#14

There was a day that I could sit face to face with you
Now that I'm away, I can't sleep the night through
Remember the time in your kitchen with wine
Dancing to the tunes of our blues

I'm going out, I'm gonna make a name for me and you
They can never say I never cared for you
'cause it's just not true

I know your vices and those are your choices
and I want to be there for you
This blaze of sunrise is burning in my eyes
And I want them to burn here with you

I do

I'm going out, I'm gonna make a name for me and you
They can never say I never cared for you
'cause it's just not true

I tried my best just to hide this away
but the earth cracks hard in Californ-i-a
and the earthquakes are giving me away

It's just not true, 'cause I care for you

- Make A Name for Me and You, Rachael Cantu

that's me trying

Green turtle hatchling.

i have been trying very hard to make things work.

but the harder i try, the more i fear.

this is really sickening.

The rough weeks after The Turtle Trip.

Chagar Hutang, Gloomy Morning with turtle trails

i have been working 6 days a week for 3 consecutive weeks.

long hours of meetings.

night classes.

the-very-terrible-bio and the-terrible-maths results.

after-school activities.

i thought of the mama turtles.

and i know i must press on, in whatever i am doing and planning to do.

i won't let you bring me down.

Chun Wah & Pei Sin

3rd June 2011, at Chin Woo Hall.

they have the biggest troop, the most cameras, the noisiest gang.. and there was so much fun!

pictures of their ROM.

she is the first among my group of close friends to get married.

isn't that awesome? :)

hatchlings

baby Green turtles.

one of my many favourite pictures of the turtle trip

it was a good week spent in a faraway place with no connection to the outside world unless when we're near the Laguna area.

*shall put up more pictures later.

holiday!

jia is going for turtle trip this friday.

May was a crazy angry month.

two weeks of freedom from sch = breathe freely = happy

i told the students that i shall accumulate my anger and frustrations and let in out when sch reopens... and thank them for giving me rubbish to mark ..

and what's up after the school break?

f5 BIO classes!!!!

adui...

and i think i should continue with the basketball training and prepare for next year. *0*

*but i'm kind of lazy*

i'm just a bit too indecisive at times.

this is

*wait for it....*

Classic!!!!!!

exams is boring. marking papers is frustrating.

and here comes a classic example ...
telling you that i don't teach and my students have learned nothing from me, not even common sense and basic understanding of English.

let me BANANA-fied you!!!

the expected answers - something related to tissue culture/cloning and its advantages.


i wonder what's going through her mind...

i think
there must be lots and lots and lots of banana treesssss and bananas
floating in the air while she's answering the question.

i think it's pretty pointless for me to go back to school at night to give extra classes.

what a waste of [my]time.

#13

Dragon Inn, Semporna.

"maybe what you want is right here."

#12

mandi laut.

sunny!

grassy

taken at Bkt Tengkorak, Semporna

orange.

at KK.

it was another great weekend spent away from this THM place.

:)

"that, you'll have to go figure out yourself"

Be as wise as serpent

and as meek as doves.

*

i think the world is a very bad place and there's a lot of mean people out there.... looking for chances to bring you down, to back stab you, to kill your spirit, to twist your dreams.

*_#

this kind of reality really upsets me.

*

i think some people can be so bad that they will do all kinds of things to sabotage you. they will step on you as if you're the rungs of their ladder to go higher.

mean people. i really don't get their point of doing that. ok, it probably makes them look good.

bongok betul.

*

some people are particularly helpful.

they only know how to say

i don't know.

ok, sometimes they also give a longer version of i don't know ...

"that, you'll have to go figure out yourself"

they don't even bother to give suggestions...

to me, that the most irresponsible thing a 'leader' can say to the people working WITH him/her. (not FOR him/her!)

haih. bodoh betul la some people. Cis, bedebah!

****

why are they like that waaaaannnnn?????

TBT!!!!!!

i told you i would drive away

There’s work waiting for me to do. There are certificates waiting to be collected and sent for photocopying. There are exercise books waiting to be marked, experiments waiting to be carried out.

And the list goes on.

I still haven’t really recovered from the fact that we will not be sent for the basketball competition.

“There’s always next year”, some said.

OK FINE. WHATEVER.

*
We had our getaway over the weekend.
And I think playing in the rain was the best part. :)

*
i'm halfway thru South of Broad. I think the story matches my jimo-ness.



sometimes, it's really a bit too late and you found yourself at the point of no return.
and you began to live in the world of 'what-if'.. The what-ifs filled up your mind every time you locked yourself in those moments.

Those Moments that stayed.

that's it

i wish there's an unending road trip.. and we just drive and drive.. and drive away.

a twisted dream that we die to make believe.




the week has been a weird one.

things happened and they hit hard.

and you wondered why some people can be so darn selfish, living at the expense of another person's life.

there will be no more TKC. no more representing the zone for basketball competition. they made us live in a lie. false promises. they gave us hope and then shattered that same hope into thousand pieces.

i am utterly disappointed.

our story

would you walk with me?

*
All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am

But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true, I was made for you

I climbed across the mountaintops
Travel across the ocean blue
I cross over lines and I broke all the rules
And baby I broke them all for you

Oh because even when I was flat broke
You made me feel like a million bucks
You do, I was made for you

You see the smile that's on my mouth
It's hiding the words that don't come out
All of the friends who think that I'm blessed
They don't know I'm in this mess

No they don't know who I really am
And they don't know what I've been through
Like you do, and I was made for you

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am

Oh but these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true, I was made for you
Oh yeah, and it's true that I was made for you
The Story, Brandi Carlile

still at work

i am waiting for time to fly pass.

past two weeks - busy and yet it was kind of fun. i still have to find time to do the special class for the form 5 who failed last year's bio paper.

it has been raining quite frequently and seriously, that's a very bad thing because we can't have our basketball training. and the condition of the basketball is pretty THM, even that is an understatement.


it's going to be a loooong week because i will be home alone.



tomorrow i have to teach PE, again.



i am looking forward to the next getaway.

once

you have adapted to this kind of life...

you'll be ok.



that's how the curve works.

march is saying goodbye

and
Hello, april!

#10

for you.

wonderland

you're like alice in wonderland.

let's drive away

and so i had two trips back to back. First in Kuching and that was a good, fruitful one. i had a 1 day break in LD and whoosh, the Kundasang trip!

we left home at about 6.30am.
the drive was very nice, despite the many crazy potholes.
we talked. we talked nonsense. we complained. we sang.

you'll definitely pass by the entrance to this plantation.
i have always wanted to take picture of the flowers with the clear blue sky.
it makes me feel as if i'm in another country.
:)

We reached Kundasang at about 11.30am and went in to Kinabalu Park. we spent some good hours in the park.

The next morning, we went for sunrise and then the COW PLACE!!

Mt. K.
These 3 were taken from the Desa Dairy Farm :P

I guess one of the beautiful surprises is the visit to Mahua Waterfall in Tambunan. The winding road into the park is kind of scary but it's good that we didn't turn back halfway. The scenery was breathtakingly beautiful.

and we found a huge pill milipede.

Our journey continued in Sandakan and we went to Labuk Bay. Not to forget the seafood breakfast at Sim Sim.

at Labuk Bay.

Back in LD.

i'm happy.

one week.

taken in Sandakan.

'why is love intensified by absence?'