based on Psalm 139:

主耶和华，你已经鉴察了我。
我坐下，我起来，你都已晓得。
我行路，我躺卧，你都细察，
你也深知我一切所行。
我舌头上的话，你没有一句不知道。
你在我前後环绕着我，按手在我身上。
这样的奇妙，是我不能测透，
你的至高你的尊贵，是我永远不能所及。

我可以往哪里去躲避你的灵？
我可以往哪里去逃可躲避你的面？
我若展开清晨的翅膀飞到地极，
就在那里，你的双手也必引导我。

God spoke.

***

yesterday, my Chinese friend asked,”Will you ever consider a relationship in China?” my reply,”There’s no facebook!” hahaha.

***

today, i finally understood what they mean when they say that Chinese women do chase after men because it happened to my friend! hahaha, i had quite a good laugh honestly.

my friend, M, was waiting for his friends at a shopping mall when this woman, W, asked to borrow his handphone. He agreed (he’s an American Chinese you see) and she sent an SMS to her friend (that’s what she claimed). after that, she kept SMSing my friend but he ignored the SMSes. he felt quite guilty (he’s a nice guy) and replied her and told her about our Sunday service. she agreed to join us and all of us were trying to protect him from her. hahaha!

i had the opportunity to sit next to him with her directly opposite him and there was once when she fished out her Nokia phone with a 5 megapixels camera to take a photo of him. i just looked at him and i was trying very hard to contain my laughter. he had the –.- look which was quite rare. you should see how the entire church tried to protect him. thankfully, he is leaving tomorrow :)

***

i want an instant camera! is that called a polaroid? ive got valid reasons! its because everytime i go to a remote place, such as Yubeng in Shangri-la, i can take photos with the locals and take the photos with me but they cant :( wont it be nice if they could? to them its something new and they do like taking photos :) i dont trust snail mail, especially to remote areas. and i cant guarantee that i will be back again you see. how how how?

i held a DSLR for the first time! all i can say is that its heavy and i could feel all the flabs on my arms shaking :P

i was at a Tibetan cafe with my friend, planning our next destination(s).

i learnt a phrase from my Tibetan friend, L and i wanted to clarify the actual meaning of it as ive got a feeling that it might mean something different from what he said. anyway, we asked the waitress who is from Tibet and guess what her reply was. she said that the Yunnan Tibetan sounds really weird and in fact, sounds more like Cantonese. *bursts out laughing* oh well.

ive just expanded my collection of travel books and magazines by another 20 cm. i think the current collection in all is about 1.5 m. heh. they should stop printing such beautiful pictures in their books.

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O Lord.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say,”Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light will become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

it was meant to be a short getaway trip. but the Lord planned much more than that for us. we had the chance to share the gospel with little kids, some villagers and some local tourists. i think it can be summed up with 1 Peter 3:15-16 :) ill save the details for another post.

there was a law student from the States with us and you know what, his name is the same as abi’s dad who’s also my church’s Pastor-In-Charge! and he shared the Word on Sunday morning in Mandarin but abi’s dad does it in English :P took me a while to realise that the reason why his name sounds familiar is because its the same as our Wesley PIC :)

law law lawwww. today we started our bridging course before we begin our rotations. everything was about law. it sounded like the doctors here get sued quite often. or perhaps our teachers wanted us to be really careful when we begin work. being a doctor here has been described as “一脚医院，一脚法院", with one foot in the hospital and the other in court. being a doctor here is quite stressful and they dont get paid much.

facebook can be a scary place too! the law student told us that they have used facebook as evidence in a lawsuit :X some employers even fired some employees because they saw photos of them getting drunk.

yay! done with my papers! i shall not think about them for now.. im off to the outskirts of Beijing this weekend. ive not planned my next weekend though. i have plans. plans for some tuning out of this world and tuning in to myself. oh well, it depends on the weather. somewhere with just me, my book and my camera. probably the book which Yiwen lent me-- “What’'s so Amazing about Grace?” or i might hang around Beijing in the end.. find a nice cafe to laze around with a book, probably somewhere with hutongs for some wandering after that :)

hmm, dont you think that the boy above will be surprised if i were to pop up one day with this photo for him? :)

***

my friend booked her air tickets to Urumqqi (intentional spelling mistake) long ago. i wonder if she’s still going. i would have joined her if it wasnt for school..

GIVE ME BACK MY FACEBOOK!

i feel like a tortoise living in a mountain hole! ahhhh! first, it was youtube. next, blogger. now, facebook. SIGH. stop this censorship! its annoying! what’s next? msn? email? skype? handphone? snail mail?

ive always wanted to visit Tiiibet and Xiiinjiang one day but at the rate things are going, i fear for my safety. because im Han. (im NOT Chinese, im just Singaporean.) sigh. i always imagine myself caught in some riot and then i try to flash my little red book, aka the very precious passport, and the locals would think that its an imitation (they have imitation Threadless shirts here too on top of LV and blah) and just reduce me and my passport to ashes.

its not too bad being a Han over here when you think of it. you will still get ripped off but probably less than the Caucasians and such. i just try to avoid talking too much and giving myself away. anyway, the Northerners think that im from the South and the Southerners think that im from the North :P

hmm, coming from MGS isnt that bad too. at least it makes my Chinese sound like that of a Korean or Japanese. and maybe they will believe that my passport is real and that im not a Chinese.

one last paper before the weekend arrives! next week sounds pretty relaxed! :)

:( today’s paper was TOUGH.

***

my friend’s daughter saw this 阿姨 whom she recognises, walking down the street while holding hands with her bf. she has never seen that guy before and gave her dad a puzzled look. my friend’s reply":”That guy came from somewhere else and is new here. 阿姨 is holding his hand so that he won’t be lost.” hahaha, that’s kind of true. that guy came from Shanghai and was here for a short visit :P

***

yesterday, someone shared about her camera being stolen. ouch :( so sad :( if anyone wants to steal my camera, you can take it away but leave my memory card behind. because i carry my family and friends in it..

***

“…From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

Luke 12:48