Hadn't updated the blog for the longest time. So thought a sonnet will be the best replacement than a long post. It'll get you thinking and deciphering it's allusive metaphors and underlining meanings. Note to all, if you don't have time to blog, a sonnet always works the minds of those readers. It's a good sonnet with a monumental meaning. I'll think of something better for the next post :P

Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Shakespeare

A city filled with culture and beauty.




The Golden Triangle- a river that separates Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. Toilet, Black Bear?




Laos and the fine children of Vineyard Outreach.




The long neck karen tribe and a camp filled with soccer playing elephants.




There is no such thing as a little freedom. Either you are all free, or you are not free.

It may not be some heinous deed
That chills our hearts and chokes the seed;
It’s often just a trifling toy
That grabs our eye and steals our joy.
Gustafson


Got this off Our Daily Bread. Short lines filled with much truth and it would be no less than selfish to not share this revelation.

res⋅o⋅lu⋅tion
/ˌrɛzəˈluʃən/[rez-uh-loo-shuhn]
–noun

1. a resolve or determination: to make a firm resolution to do something.
2. the act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method, procedure, etc.
3. the mental state or quality of being resolved or resolute; firmness of purpose.
4. the act or process of resolving or separating into constituent or elementary parts.
5. the resulting state.


I thought it was about time I listed a list of resolutions for 2009, a task omitted last year. It's quite interesting how dictionary.com deciphers 'resolution'. It had subtly set a couple of pointers to meeting your rez-uh-loo-shuhn .

Here's my breakdown of what dictionary.com had to say;
1. Resolution requires firm determination
2. Don't just plan, there's gotta be some action going on!
3. There's gotta be a purpose or to put it in more proportion; a firm purpose
4. There is a need to breakdown and compartmentalize the different issues while dealing with one bigger matter
5. Resolution calls for results

In attempts in keeping my resolutions, I'll start by keeping the most important;
Resolution #17: List down your resolutions for 2009.

Yay! I've got one checked off the list!


Happy 2009!

Phew, six seven eight and there it is, Nine. It's the last hours of the last day of the last month of the year.

I thought Forrest Gump's saying aptly summed up 2008 ; 'Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get'. Amen to that. Life in 2008 was filled with surprises from low trying tides to great memorable times. It opened my eyes to discover what I have yet not seen and taught me various valuable life lessons, although those lessons tends to leave behind scars.

Looking back, I thought this year turned out pretty well. I enjoyed each second of it and appreciate every moment it had to offer. I'm grateful the year is ending well.

If I could share with you one thing I learnt this year it is this; Love life. I've learnt to be thankful for every single thing life has to offer; the joy, the pain, the hurt, the laughter, the stupidity, the craziness, the wreck, the helplessness, the "I don't know what's next" predicaments, the love, the everything. These things reminds me that I'm alive.

I thank God for a great 2008 and I pray that 2009 will be no less greater or bigger than the previous years. I walk into 2009 with my arms raised up and head lifted high knowing I've finished my race in 2008; and another finish line awaits me.

I'll end this year with the saying 'Life is something that everyone should try at least once'.


Philip loves Life.

It has come to that time of the year again; the one where I over explain myself about the flashing days that passed and how this year came and went so quickly. I guess I'll do it differently this year. We stand 12 days away from a new year and to triangulate and think about it in a different light, we actually have 12 days left for 2008 to complete what could have been. With not much time left at hand but still ample to conclude 2008 the best we can, I think it's about time we moved our butts than move our checklist to the following year.

We start out each year with hopes and dreams to achieve and the determination to make sure that each task on our checklist is ticked before the end of each year. The checklist maybe long or short but the one essential thing I learnt this year was that each task on the list needed a timeline to comply to. The timing from the beginning to when the task will be completed or perhaps that itself a hope to a fruition of a dream. Without that, a dream remains a dream with no practical thought put in or any effort the least to making the dream real.

That in mind, we've got 12 days, merely less than 288 hours to cross out the most on our checklist before the inevitable strikes and we dawn upon a new year. And before we start reflecting the year that was and start contemplating on planning the year that could have been again, I'll take this 12 short days to end this very year the way I dreamt it could and would have been. A wise man once said, 'It's not how you start the race, but how you end them'.

The year started well for me but the end seemingly clouded with worries and anticipation of what future it holds. Faith is a funny maneuver I'm grappling to understand. While its easier said than done, faith keeps you on the edge of your seat ready to topple you over at any time; very much unexpected like rough waves in the ocean. You won't know how big the next wave will hit and whether you'll fall and be divulged by the greatness of the sea. Or if you will be able to swim and get back on the board in anticipation of the next great hit of the waves. The irony of it all is the persistence in waiting for the next big wave to come, waiting in worries and excitement that perhaps the wave will collide at me, or perhaps it may possible be that I stood at the right time on my board and live every surfer's dream of riding that giant wave.

Yes, faith is a funny thing that I still find intriguing to understand. I still can't grapple every sense of the meaning of the word, but I learnt that it is all about timing. Faith doesn't fail. It just waits for the right time before it explodes and it soars you above the circumstances. After writing a little about it, I realized that faith needs time. Taking the first few steps of faith may be the toughest, but faith in Jesus never fails.

Let's go back to timing. I said we can and should plan our timing to meet our dreams. But above and beyond our own timing, there is His timing. We can plan everything, but not everything will go according to plan. Faith takes over when plans doesn't meet our timing, and when it chooses to meet His timing.

It's all about timing. But with what we have left, lets make our last 12 days of this year count!


Have yourself a blessed christmas!



*The post this time is long. I guess I had alot to say and tell myself. If you have read it, I hope it stirred something to think about.