Twenty-Twelve

So I guess I owe everyone a long report and explanation about what I’ve been doing for the last six months and why I haven’t posted a single article online for a while. Let’s get straight into it.

 

University

So the main thing that kept me from being able to blog was my uni routine. I’ll have to admit that third year provided the most amount of struggle for me: the amount of workload, the difficulty of the workload, and the sheer number of things I had to try and do outside of uni. After much stress and studying, I managed to get through this second semester, a little more bruised than in my previous years; but I suppose things are still going well for me academically.

 

My partake in CBS this semester was severely hindered by the unfortunate times of my lectures, namely having class during ALL the CBS talks and the like. I had a similar timetable in second year, can’t really remember what it was like back then, but I was still able to serve as a Bible Study leader (also despite not being to attend any leaders’ meetings). Yeah I suppose that was a struggle too, but it went reasonably well I think.

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Okay so moving on, I’ve been on holidays since mid-November. Here are some of my highlights in the holidays.

 

K-Pop Concert

Truly a night to remember, being my first Korean music concert and all. My last university exam was on that day (in the afternoon to be precise), so I was frantically rushing to the venue after my exam. My seats weren’t great (as you will soon see in the video below, but I had a blast watching all the different Korean artists perform and seeing all the wonderful stage production that other artists would normally never bother with. Koreans really do ante it up when it comes to stage production. Here is my fancam of my favourite performance of the night:

 

 

Terrigal Roadtrip

A week or two later I went on a roadtrip with some other people in my grade up to a nice beach house in Terrigal. We spent the three days there at the beach, playing games, jamming, and serving one another in preparing food and helping with washing up. It was a pretty cool experience getting to know the people our grade better. Props to the guys for doing most to all of the cooking; and to the girls for helping us clean up afterwards. This reminds me that I have some videos I need to upload from roadtrip…

 

My 21st

At the end of last year, I turned 21, had a nice Asian-themed party (to which very few people tried to honour the theme); but it was fun seeing all the people who managed to free up some time to drop by. Received some nice presents and some encouraging messages from a lot of people. I suppose I was a bit disappointed at the number of people who dropped out, even though they said they would come, I guess I’m not that important haha. But I was still glad at the number of people who did come. Still waiting on my photographer to upload photos haha, but in the meantime here’s my response video that I shot on my actual birthday:

 

 

One of the things I was really excited about for my birthday was getting an SLR. I’ve been testing it out heaps and trying to get the hang of taking good photos and editing them, not as a hardcore professional hobby, but more as a “I don’t just want a simple 1-second photo”; yeah. So my photo quality should be vastly better now.

New Years Eve

We had our (now) traditional CBS New Years party. But due to the sheer number of Christians in Commerce, we could only invite a select number of them to spend New Years with; the point of the party was to get to know one another better (something that is hard to do with a large group of people) and to also help pass on responsibility from our grade to the younger grades seeing as we are getting old and will be graduating soon. I gave a short talk on Acts 1, hoping to encourage not only the younger students, but all of us to step up and think hard about opportunities to evangelise since our freedom in university will soon be coming to an end. I believe I was the only one who stayed up all night, it was hard as usual but wasn’t impossible. Went to church the next morning and then had a few people chill over at my place in the afternoon. Here’s a photo of my grade (or the ones who could make it that night). This was taken with my new camera.

 

Actually I realised that this photo is kind of pointless seeing as I already have one above of our grade on our roadtrip. I also snuck away to my church’s NYE party too that night, perhaps that photo should be more appropriate:

 

Coastal Walk in the South

Early this year, I went down south for the first time and hiked (sort of) near some southern beaches. It was a good change of pace because most of our socials would always take place around where we live (in the north) because that’s where most of us reside. But for the sake of those who lived in the south, we thought it fair to venture down to where they lived and hang out with them there. Half the awesomeness of the day was in the walk and chatting with each other; the other half was in our luxurious crab dinner in Beverly Hills:

 

^ I thought this was a pretty awesome photo xD

 

 

Yeah I think that’s enough highlights for now.

 

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Looking to 2012

I suppose that as I come to this year, there is quite a lot to reflect and learn from last year. One of the things I want to change from last year is the way I do ministry. Last year, whilst dealing with a lot of administrative matters for church and CBS, I found that I had little time to build relationships with the people I was ministering to; I found that I didn’t know them as well as I have should and as a result it hindered my influence in encouraging them to grow in the love and knowledge of Christ. As a result, this year I’m going to try and focus less on admin matters, but put my time and energy into building relationships with the people under my care, and the people who do need to be cared for. I do hope that being freed to work on my relationships will help me to be a better witness for Christ to all my friends, particularly my non-Christian ones; that hopefully I’ll get opportunities to help explain to them what a relationship with Jesus is all about. That is my primary goal for this year.

 

Another thing I do want to work hard towards is defending the truth of the gospel, for fear that a lot of Christians lack the core truths and hence fail to understand what Christianity is all about. I’ve noted some ministries and churches in Sydney that may be preaching unsound doctrine; not things that are “completely” but where the truth is not evident for one reason or another. I know that it’s hard to correct a lie once it’s been implanted in someone’s mind, so I hope to be able to target these “untruths” before people root their beliefs firmly into them. And yes that will raise questions for me as to whether I know the truth or not; I hope to be able to address that concern soon in the coming weeks.

 

And of course lastly there’s university still to consider. My fourth year seems to be a bit more relaxed than last year. In a sense, you could say that this is my “second” 3rd year, because most of the courses I’m doing are just third year courses that I couldn’t fit into last year. As such, the courses I’m doing shouldn’t be difficult and so hopefully I will get that time and energy to focus on the goals I’ve listed above, as well as aim to get a graduate position in something. With my free time at uni, I hope to be able to meet up with some of you guys and to spend time getting to know you better, for the purpose of encouragement and edification (in case the objective wasn’t clear). We all need to ration our time carefully, so let’s use it as efficiently as we can.

 

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In the meantime I will be heading up to Hong Kong next week, for about 4 weeks. If you have something you want me to buy for you, please message me as soon as you can. Stay tuned for more posts and updates from Hong Kong. My next serious article will be on the theme of “Regret”, it shall be up soon.

MSB – Semester 2, 2011

Now that the Mid-Sem Break has come, I guess I’ve got a bit of time to relax and reflect over how things have been since MYC, or maybe the whole year for that matter. Anyway, this semester at uni has been much much more relaxing than last semester. Having that one free day (as opposed to no free days) makes a huge difference in my energy levels. I’ve felt much better over the course of this semester about everything I’m doing. Shall probably go through each thing in some detail.

 

Uni

So in having four days this semester rather than five, the only major drag is that I have five courses to worry about, rather than four (sadly two of my math courses count as half a course each but have nearly just as much work as a full course). I regrettably have to admit that I’ve lapsed back into my pattern of not doing any of my tute homework again; I powered through the first week’s worth of homework and again things just died starting the week after that. However, that hasn’t stopped me from getting decent marks in my assignments and class tests. There is some real confusion in how I’m doing reasonably well in my courses even though I’m not really put much effort into studying. Surely in response to my last post, “where was God in all this?” He was there the entire time carrying me through all my uni work, that’s where.

 

The rest of the semester is looking fairly well; there are still assignments and test to come but I suppose we will always be facing them anyhow. And being my third year of study, there must be some moderate degree of difficulty to my courses, otherwise it wouldn’t really be called “third year”. A somewhat downside to uni right now is my lack of success in internships. Of course having put minimal effort into my applications and research, one could only blame me and my lack of effort. All hope is nearly lost for me but that’s okay, I have stronger intentions to go to Hong Kong at the end of this year; and I trust that God will provide a job for me when the time comes, there is no real need to go out of my way to desperately search for one now. Sounds like a stupid view to adopt, I can’t say that I’m fully convinced that it will work out well for me but I certainly prefer this path more.

 

 

CBS

Leading another fairly large Bible Study group again this semester alongside our MTSer, Alan. Groups are all guys or all girls this semester (obviously I’m leading an all guys group). One good thing about my group is that I know a fair number of them already prior to this semester so establishing a relationship with the group was easier. Following up on the group isn’t too hard as I have ample ways to contact them. My major setback each week is my inability to wrap up the Bible Study on time. In fact that happens at youth group too haha. Sadly during set group times such as Bible Study, we don’t really have the freedom to chat for hours on end; we’re limited to that one hour. But when your group gets good discussion going, it’s hard to make them move on to finish the study.

 

I get a few opportunities here and there to chat to my group members to see where they’re at in their Christian lives; it’s many and usually only for a short moment but gradually I think my group is maturing in their faith and their desire to glorify God at uni. Managed to get into a really good conversation on the train once with one of my group members; it was good to find out more about that person’s circumstances and to understand what they hope to get our of Bible Study and such. Hopefully I’ll be able to give him what he needs in those areas in the coming weeks.

 

Other than my Bible Study group, it’s been cool chatting to a few people in our CBS hangout room at uni. I literally only have those two hours of break at uni on Wednesday and each week they seem well spent in chatting with other people in my faculty and hearing their thoughts and opinions on different matters. Seeing how the whole faculty is growing makes me feel more relieved about stepping back as a leader at CBS and entrusting that role to the younger students, and giving them a chance to lead and such.

 

 

Church

I think after many years of changing around the leadership structure and working out goals and stuff, we’ve finally started to settle down into a routine where we can get things efficiently and plan strategically and dynamically for various goals at the same time. We might not have found the most optimal method in organising things and getting things done but by the grace of God we’ve managed to make huge improvements from how things were at the start of the year. A more concrete and solid foundation has allowed us to look after the people at our church better and helped us chase up newcomers more effectively. And for once we can actually start thinking about really long term goals; so not about what we plan to do next week or next term; but rather we can actually think about things such as leadership structure next year and the year after. Hopefully this second half the year (well, final third to be more precise) will see us able to reach and convict people with the gospel of Jesus and compel them to give their lives to Him for His glory.

 

As for youth group, even though I said before that I feel discouraged at times about how things might not go well on some weeks, I think it might because I’ve been trying to focus on the group as a whole, when rather the real growth takes place through individual relationships. And getting to know the youth better over the last few months (and the first half of this year) has really helped me understand them better and see how much they’ve matured over the years. Surely, to not waste my life, it means I have to put more effort into individual relationships so that I can find ways to encourage and grow the people under my care. Perhaps I’m not quite ready to lead the youth group as a whole but in directing which way our youth group is heading I think I’m beginning to see that it starts deep down at the roots of friendship and unity in Christ. Only after we’ve built upon those roots may we then progress as a youth group living and serving Jesus.

 

 

Summary

All in all I think this semester has allowed me to find renewed strength in the things I’m doing; and while I’ll feel anxious here and there about all the other things I need to do (particularly my assignments right after this post), if God has been able to carry me through thus far, what worry would I need to have in other things? Of course it doesn’t mean I live my life carelessly, but it means I can afford to give up more of my time for things such as this blog, since clearly if I held back every time, I’ll continually find an excuse to put these things off, and that would be pretty bad particularly when I tell my youth to read their Bibles daily. Probably shouldn’t ask them for something as challenging as that unless I’m prepared to do that myself.

 

In the meantime, more work awaits me, as well as a lot of 21sts, along with my own 21st. So many things to do; but so many more things to do for Christ. It shall be a good final four months to the end of this year.

Biorhythm

Not really sure what the word actually means but from what I gather, biorhythm describes how well you are in sync with your maximum potential, given the optimal conditions. To use less technical terms, biorhythm would be how “in the groove or “in the mood” you are as you go about doing things in your daily life on a particular day, when compared to a typical good day that you have. But I think biorhythm also determines how well you sync with the rest of things in the bios, the biosphere(?); which in other words is how well you interact with people and things around you.

 

Good biorhythm would be when you have a good day, things go well for you, and every conversation you have is a good one; things are just going your way. Bad biorhythm would be the opposite; everything goes wrong and you can’t seem to hold a normal conversation with anyone. So as an update for my life, being cooped up at home studying my head off for an impending 4 exams over 8 days has really lowered my biorhythm, as it always does.

 

For me to get an understanding of it, I reckon it’s just the amount of stress that prevents me from “syncing” well with the rest of nature. When it comes to having a conversation, the stress will just be on my mind and distract me from paying attention to the person/people that I’m talking to. At the same time, it will also distract me from focusing on the other things I’m doing, like driving, and not least of all, studying. As such, when my biorhythm is low, like for the next week or two, I just won’t be good at interacting with other people. So if you end up in a conversation with me, forgive me if I’m not as bright as I would normally be.

 

At the same time I guess bad biorhythm really messes me over in everything I do and think. Like obviously there’ll be mixed feelings of depression and excitement, hatred and love, going all over the place; mood swings would be a simple way to put it. Low self esteem kicks in and at time things will just feel really bad. But that’s okay. Everyone should be familiar with having “bad days”, and a few will also know what it means to have a long period of “bad days”. The feeling of bad biorhythm is not something that can be shaken, nor is it something to be worried too much about; people just naturally feel bad at times.

 

Of course the one obvious way in which other people can tell you have bad biorhythm is when the words or actions don’t come out right. I think that’s one thing we all try to hide from other people all the time if we ever find ourselves having a bad day; but sometimes we just can’t avoid some people. Not in some negative way, I meant like youth group for me; having a bad day and going to youth group really makes me feel bad that I’m not giving the kids my all, and of course when they make stupid jokes at you it’s normally okay to laugh off on a good day, but not quite the case on a bad day. And you say to yourself: do I really have to put up with this? The answer is no; but sometimes responsibility comes at the expense of our wellbeing, in which case the answer is yes, we do have to put up things we might not want to at times.

 

I think one of the main causes of this is when we don’t see other people for a long period of time. So I pretty much mean like being stuck at home everyday, whatever the circumstances are, in my case this would be for exams. I know one other person who can attest to a similar thing and had really bad biorhythm in that time. But that makes sense. When you don’t see anyone face to face for a long time, you just lose touch with the outside world, and you’re kind of stuck in this small bubble, like your house or your room. You basically forget how to interact with anything else. And when you see that you can’t interact properly with the things around you, you just start feeling bad because things aren’t working out. It will happen here and there, and will probably keep happening at times.

 

But rather than talk just about the problems, there are solutions; not the most obvious ones, and not that ones that provide quick effective relief (like panadol), but reading Bible definitely helps. Perhaps the most serious time I had bad biorhythm was during the HSC, and reading the Bible everyday when I was too tired to study really got me through the month or two without going insane. I guess God’s Word really helps put you back in tune with “nature” and how you should be interacting with God’s creation. To any year 12s reading, cling tightly to God’s Word after term 3, you’ll really need it.

 

For anyone else who wants to see me in my bad biorhythm state, I invite you to, but don’t expect an answer, you won’t always get one.

Daydream Syndrome

The title doesn’t really relate much to what I want to write here, by I like this song:

 

 

Anyway, thought I’d make one last update before uni starts again. I guess me whole holidays have been like a daydream; in a blink those 4 months have gone by and most of us are now back to the fast-paced lifestyle that is our tertiary education. It’s not a bad thing; it gives us something to work towards yet again, our so-called “future”. Like many others, I wished the holidays continued endlessly. I did a lot of stuff these holidays; I was productive in some sense. But again I hunger for more breaks, but that’s probably because these holidays were quite busy for me. That again is a good thing, because it keeps me from being completely idle; it is much better to be working than to be sitting still doing nothing and rotting away.

 

This semester is going to be more challenging than the last, yet again. 5 days a week is not a pretty thing. I haven’t faced such a cruel timetable since my very first semester back in first year. It really doesn’t help when you don’t have a day to rest: five days of uni, one day of work, and another day of church. I don’t really wonder how much I’ll suffer this semester; I know it’s going to be stressful most of the time, but it won’t be something that I won’t be able to manage, that’s for sure. My textbook costs have been limited to an odd $120 for this semester, just a single Actuarial Studies textbook. I had imagined this course to be more cost-demanding in the later years but it appears the staff are fairly light on costs. Oh, there is this $150-230 course pack for another course which I can obtain online, so I’m not going to buy that one.

 

I haven’t gotten enough sleep these past few weeks. Since the week of the Commerce Retreat, I’ve been trying to recover my energy but that hasn’t worked out so well. Having to double your efforts to cover for other people has really stunted my recovery. As such I’m not looking forward to uni tomorrow, apart from to see faces that I haven’t seen for weeks or months. Don’t really know why I’ve been so tired these days, but hopefully the start of uni will give me a change of pace that’ll be helpful, rather than make me more tired than I already am.

 

The last thing on my mind before I retire to bed is just my priorities in life now, uni life that is. In the past few months, having picked up so many commitments to Christian-related activities (“ministries” if you will), it feels like these commitment now rank higher than my university studies. Well at the moment I don’t see it actually happening but I get the feeling that once uni starts, I’ll do what I can to stay on top of my studies by any spare time I get on top of that will immediately be spent on my ministries. I mean, it’s a good feeling, being to put God first, even above my studies, but at the same time it feels like I may have crossed the boundaries for optimally dividing time between my duties and my Christian duties; even as Christians we can’t just entirely neglect our studies. I know I’m not going to do that, but having thought about it, I seem to be prepared to sacrifice my studies for emergencies relating to my ministries if the situation ever arises. I hope that never happens.

 

But until then, let’s see how this first week plays out. So many 21st birthday parties coming up; suddenly, money is no longer the only cost we incur to go to these once-off events, time becomes an issue too.