Weird Dreams

I woke up today with the strangest dream. And about all the people...

And I forgot about it until now, four-o-eight in the afternoon.

I dreamt I was trying to evacuate or somthing. Some evil dominating thing, perhaps George Orwel's 1984 has got into me, either that or Kim Possible cartoons. With my mom and dad, we were trying to pack things up into suitcases and I remember looking at some books.

So, we appear at a large courtyard of some sorts, like the middle of Times Square, only with buildings looking more Asian and toned down. I get this notion of helping out at Michael Jackson's performance. Only thing is: No crowd and no bodyguards or media personnel. Only children who are being fed spagetthi with meat balls.

I was holding onto my velveted journal and I wanted to get his autograph. I think I saw an elongated version of it in my dream. I may have seen Michael Jackson's face, but he didn't sing. There were definitely barricades and a white stage. One moment there were a lot of children and people and someone swinging on a swing, then the next, there would be a haunting quality to the scene.

Can dreams get much weirder? I think it was due to the "Heal the World" song they repeatedly played during breaks at a course I went for yesterday.

And no, Michael Jackson did not mean anything more to me than a good singer who supported humanitarian causes.

Journal Entry 04

Shame. That's the word I picked from the book of psalms today. Quite appropriate, since our class was defeated in the literature drama competition. But that's okay with me. I was the mere costumes' designer.

There must be something wrong with me, otherwise the same problems can't keep hitting a person. Why do people seem to exclude me so much and make claims that I'm excluding them? Well, I don't write private notes or sit next to the person and make-believe an invisible wall and pretend to be a psychaitrist and ask my friend to humor me. Sorry, I've gotten over this, but its a very classic example.

Well, I don't hide things. I feel guilty when I do. People know what I think of them, but I don't see why friends won't come clean to me. I guess I'm not the confidant people want. Too something-something or lacking in something-something. Its even harder when talking to you, God. I know I'm special, that I'm really important to God, that I shouldn't judge or assume or bother about what other people whisper in my full knowledge (hey, i don't hire private investigators or have loyal people to glean such information out). Its impossible to find the equipoise for this relationship.

I can't wait for Sunday, where I'll be my family. The world is a hard place to live in and one just whishes that we could live protected and sheltered, nto subject to shame or ridicule. Like me, to a certian extent, when I was emcee for the play, only told of the role less than 12 hours before, and decided to wear the tent like skirt Portia was supposed to wear but dumped for a more tailored suit. Not that I can blame anyone. that's the thing about it. Are people afraid that they'll hurt me or blatantly disregarding my feelings. Screaming "MY EYES, THEY BURN!!!" while running out of the bathroom... yeah. But I'm quite over that too, I'm thankful that I had fun all the same.

Maybe I'm just too proud, as Mrs. Wong says our generation is. I just don't want to feel like a pigmy when in truth, classmates in school push you around anyhow. Lesson learnt then. I just have to let go. Disconnect but stay ready for any erson who needs a ear or a hand.

Amen

I'm quite worried. There's a debate (practice) tomorrow with another school and yesterday's debate made me feel so inadequate. I wonder how much is enough. Of course one can always do better than the next person, but is that enough? What do people expect of me? I know that I can think on my feet better than some, but I get frustrated when I get a technical glitch with my computer or someone says something really out of point in a debate.

That's unimportant, the thing is that I sometimes dream really weird things. Last night I dreamt I was in my school P.E. shirt and shorts and started moving my legs around a lot on top a table in the teacher's staff room, while I was talking to the teacher. Someone later commented that I looked like a hooker or something to that extent. I only felt vaguely embarrassed and ashamed. Like I was Charlie Gordon in Flowers for Algernon. As I think back, I can't decide if I really saw my classmates and a teacher there. Or if its just my sub-conscious mind working, whatever theory that is. Dreams are peculiar. But I do hope they don't reflect real life. But I've never been comfortable in the P.E. attire.

I think Flowers of Algernon has really influenced me this week. I can't help wondering if I'm mentally or emotionally retarded. Or if I am an incompetent person doing something trivial which is of great importance to me. What about God's will? Oh, freedom of choice sometimes hampers your own decision. Oh Lord, why is it so difficult sometimes to get weird things like dreams and events sorted out.

Please help me. I need the safety that David talks about in the book of Psalms. I wish that I could curl up into a ball and ignore the Literature test, the friends, the exams, the expectations, the numerous events being thrown onto me. Bu that's life ain't it. Shall just live with it.

journal entry 03

Deliverance. Sigh, if only it were so simple. I’m thankful that I went for L.T.’s talk. At least I won’t be tempted into thinking that I’m not following Your will any longer. But Lord, please give me signs and open and close doors to tell me. I’m glad that I don’t have to be worried about not hearing you per se in the verbal sense.

Thanks for brining me through this reasonably alright week. Friends have remained at tolerable levels. The tests should have gone well. Bless me for the Mother Tongue oral and the Merchant of Venice test and drama night. Oh, and please, please, please, the debate team really needs divine intervention. Okay, this is a bit too plead-y, but just help the juniors and me debate well, clearly and with structure.

I miss my friends. Those in primary school and in church, past and present. Melanie. Shannon. My whole discipleship group. I feel like I am living for Sundays sometimes. I feel so at home with them its odd. But that’s fellowship and accountability isn’t it?

I’ve been thinking back to that Christian self-help book. Every Young Woman’s Battle by Shannon Ethridge; guarding your mind in a sex saturated world. I’m going to keep the off week, which means no weird videos, no fiction books which I have read over and over again, no music with such and such implications. I’ve been battling it and I think it is helping. I don’t intentionally look for such-and-such books as my friends imply. Its just that sometimes you don’t know what you are getting yourself into. Ah well, play safe with the classics.

It’s getting a bit difficult. In tuition class the two students who sit next to me are the really trendy sort. Short shorts (not too short but still past the thigh’s mid point) and well, some people at church too. I mean, I can’t criticize it or anything but I still get irked out over such things. It shouldn’t be an overactive conscience right? Sometimes I just wish that I could still fit in a little more, but ah well, that only happens sometimes. So long as I am others-first at the same time I’m sure it’ll show through. Someway, somehow.

It sounds really superficial, what I’ve just written. But I feel like I can talk to you about anything and everything. And so openly that I don’t mind showing this on my blog. I still can’t think of you all the time and I’m still not so sure if I want to go for the WOW camp. Urgh. Sometimes it is just so tricky. I just feel like relaxing but with my home with such a close proximity to church I think I won’t have a clear conscience. That article on mind-your-body, people can only guess how different people process their thoughts and morals and ethics.

I liked Fantasia from Greensleeves. To imagine You allowed a folk song to be created around four centuries ago to be sustained till today in this epithet in the classical genre. And it becoming a beautiful Christmas carol.

Sometimes I feel like getting away from this life. But I’m sure I have some work here to do. Bless my mom, she seems so stressed with her work becoming a teacher. And my dad. Who knows what will happen tomorrow but you? And yet, we still have free will. It’s a beautiful thing, the right to choice.

Amen

journal entry 02

Well, blogger isn't up to standard today.

I've been thinking a lot about family. And about my life.
Today I asked my parents a question: If you had to lose one of your senses, which would it be? My mother said taste, which was my answer too. My dad said touch, so that he wouldn't feel pain. I guess we're different, but I can't imagine not touching all the things God gave us. The rain, the cotton sheets, a friend's warm touch, a firm handshake, flower petals, the brush of a stranger,and the wind. Oh the wind. Perhaps it was Paulo Coelho's Alchemist that made me love the wind so much, but since I read On Angel Mountain by Brian John, I can't get the word "zephyr" out of my life.

I'm thankful for all those comments that have been appearing on my blog, even if some are anonymous. I won't go out of my way to find out who it is though. Some things like tests and problems with friends and Alessa, our debate trainer being mad at us. I have it easy compared to a lot of other girls, and compared to a lot of other people in the world. Sometimes though, I wish that I could understand the acceptance some people so gracefully allow in their lives.

I was thinking though, how much would I be willing to sacrifice for Christ. Alright, the time I'm using now or those precious Sunday mornings could be better used for something, but they are very rewarding. I feel energized by them. If someone chooses religion as the topic for discussion on the bus (Gwen), I like renewing my faith in the midst of Christians from other groups of Christians. Its confusing with the Catholics and the Protestants and the Anglicans and the Presbyterians and us Methodists, but I think I simplify things to a simple, "We're all Children of God". I'm kind of fearful that I take church as just a recharging point, I want my relationship with god to be much more intense and stronger than me getting a wake-up call which subsides by Monday morning. The quiet time has been helping.

I guess I've been dalliant with my time, but I think sometimes that I had rushed through childhood. One of my more vivid memories was when I was in kindergarten and we were all at the playground somewhere in Jurong. It was those old brown tile skeletal slide plus bridge type playgrounds located on a huge sand pit. Then a stranger, which was wearing black and honestly, now that I look back, looks like Michael Jackson. I was about four then? He was giving out those fruit flavoured heart candies after walking out of a taxi. The rest of the kids except me and a boy, with stubble hair on his head, went over jumping and skipping, clamouring for one. Both of us remembered the teacher's rules before they left for a while: Do not go near strangers. We faced each other and repeatedly shouted "STRANGER!" over and over and over. The teachers, two of them, one was a caucasion lady with cropped copper-gold hair, came forward and we rushed down the slide to expalin what happened.

Later, back in a class on the the second floor with blue carpeting, the students had to throw away the sweets into the waste-paper basket, saying "I will not accept sweets from strangers again". This is my most vivid memory of my childhood to date. That same boy had to go through the ritual even though he hadn't taken the sweets. I loved those candies and felt a little pang, but I was wondering and thinking up all sorts of poison that a person could put into a sealed sweet. And I remember that I wasn't called up to do it.

My parents say that I was always rather well-behaved and that friends would come and wonder how there could be so many breakable items on the shelves with such a little girl tottering around. In my grandparents' place last time, there was a whole shelving kept under lock full of small, exquisite bottles of purfume. I asked my dad why they were locked up. At my other grandparents' place, I would play dolls and the most long-term plot I had was the circus, where a guy would admire the girl balancing on the tightrope which was nothing but air.

The memories are coming back faster now. Miss Cecilia Lim, my primary school principal asking me to talk to her in the office about the school environment when I was Primary 1 or 2. At the church carnival where I bought the exact same doll that I had to throw away some time ago, just so that I could get those deep purple stockings and touch that golden hair that curled in a ponytail. And me wondering whether or not to buy the stuff toy cat they were selling which was from Barang Barang, that furniture shop. me saying my first testimony in front of the adult congregation when I was Primary Four, where I talked about the coma I had when i was four and how I thank God for letting me live. At the end, I said, out of something in the air or my mind or heart, "Praise the Lord", like so many other people said.

Me and Joni at the cabins looking at the stars in a packet we bought for a dollar, convincing ourselves that we could wish on them. And each of us wondering how many wishes we could make. Me puting them in an age old faded mickey mouse wallet of blue and pink with multiple compartments with mickey on one side and minnie on the other. My dad reading Enid Blyton and Pody (forgot the spelling) books to me at night where mom was working late. I loved the book on texture and I could hardly get through the story The Secret Door. It took us some nights. Me reading The pig with green spots when some irritating girl by the name of Nicole proclaimed it hers and me writing and crying on the pages, my name on every page, because my mother had got it for me. Me cutting myself with Joni's swiss knife when I was in Primary two and trying to make tribal markings on lollipop sticks. Mr Morrias, then a physical education teacher, suggesting elephant glue and then the principal calling my parents with me sheepishly saying that I wouldn't need stitches. Me scraping my knee on the road on the way home with my mother. Jan and Elly enrichment with Teacher Martin and receiving fruity gel squeezing things in tubes like those for glue and the Enormous Aligator by Roald Dahl. Me and Shannon eating and talking about art and hobbies at the staircases and little nooks in the school. Me sitting and blanking out after a good meal when Uncle Steven pronounced food as the thing to keep me quiet and my mother denying it this very night.

Eleven-twenty-two. There's a sad sort of chiming in the clock in the room and the bells of the steeple too, and up high in the nursery an absurd little bird, is popping out to say cuck-oo, we really hate to say it, but we really need to say it, to say good night, to you.

Thanks for the memories, God.
Amen