early mornings

06Mar10

Another early morning for me.
I decided to camp out in the kitchen instead of hanging out in the room. didn’t wanna wake liz up. I realise she seems to wake up everytime i wake up. So attempting to let her sleep more. (:

I don’t know what it is about Switzerland that’s making me constantly wake up so early. I’m sure it’s not jetlag. Hello, I’ve been here for a month already. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the fresh air?

Spent the better half of the morning playing bridge online. Yes, life here is pretty uneventful. Because going out entails dressing warm, putting on socks etc. And even if I do decide to do all that, go out and do what? We’ve already seen the lake. Everything else entails more shopping/spending money. I don’t particularly want to sit by the lake in winter either. I’ll wait for spring to do that.

Hmm. We’ve officially paid rent for March. And we’re officially a month in. School’s finally going to start in about 10 days. I’m mostly apprehensive about it though. The term Master Courses is becoming increasingly daunting to me. And I’ve just read the IMC course syllabus here. It’s not easy. I know it’s just pass/fail, but the pressure’s still there.

I’ve been delaying London for too long. I don’t know how to ask my relatives for free lodging because I’ve never been very close to them to begin with. Maybe I should beg my parents to bring me there when they come up.

Everyday here is passing like we’re wasting/rotting away in our rooms. I don’t know how to keep myself intellectually stimulated. And I don’t know what project I should take up. And! I’ve been procrastinating one of the biggest things that I was hoping to settle during my time here. I’m scared. Everytime I open a new webpage/ the book Cerelia lent me, all these questions pop into my head, and I feel so fake for reading such things. Nothing seems to satisfy my questions. I know that the Earth, and other miraculous things definitely have a higher power behind it.

It’s the personal God that I don’t understand. My entire christian life, I’ve never had a personal relationship with the big guy. I see people around me telling me how they had such a great conversation with Him, or heard His guidance, etc. For a long time I used to think it’s simply because I wasn’t listening enough. But everytime I try to still my heart, and try to listen out for Him, my stupid brain gets in the way. I get distracted way too easily. And this continues to go on and on. And it just gets me more upset with myself. Like I’m simply not trying hard enough. And thoughts like, “If God is so great, why is He making me try so hard? To the extent I start to doubt myself and Him?” I know everyone encounters periods of time where God is silent in their lives. But how is it possible for God to never be present at all?

It’s like, sometimes it even comes to a point that you purposely make cases for Him. The “I’ve seen His works in my life…” I suppose thinking back. I can claim confidence walking into exam halls because of a verse I decided to hold on to. Or the miraculous Bs I get when I was expecting fails. But really, is that all He’s doing for me? it can’t be right? This great and powerful God only works in my academics? And even then my academics are not like straight As.

I’ve gone for mission trips. I suppose I see His love shining through the people I’ve seen working there. Such love for His people. But then I also read other books about humanitarians who do so much as well, and their not Christians. I see friends who aren’t christians readily volunteering to do community work, standing up for the elderly on the train. Etc.

And in this church, nobody came to see me off except Angel and Anna. Even my cell group, decided cell group was more important than seeing one of their cell members off.

Ahh. I should stop now. I have a tendency to keep going on and on till the whole thing becomes some huge overraction. And crying in the kitchen isn’t good for me or for any poor unsuspecting person who walks in. I’ve been struggling with this personal God for a while now. I don’t know what else I can do.

Pray for me. Because I don’t think I can, it’s starting to feel like I’m talking to a wall when I pray now.

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lazy saturdays

28Feb10

so we spent the entire saturday sitting in front of our laptops watching and re-watching japanese/korean dramas. it’s a little sad really how we’re already spending gorgeous saturdays indoors when we have a whole town out there. sad truth is that it’s really expensive to go out. dreams of café hopping are mostly pipe dreams because an average cup of coffee here isn’t cheap.

second time we’ve cooked soup this month. :D it’s so awesome. really makes me think of home, and happy that we can pull off soup. it’s really hard to go wrong with soup. and it counts for like 3 – 4 meals. so we save money that way too :D

just came back from bern/luzern. it was pretty. going up to basel and zurich tomorrow. we should probably start packing i suppose.

i’m still not used to the fact that we’ll only be starting school on 15th of march.

by the way, our level people are having a rocking party outside. it sounds like fun. but tiring fun, because english isn’t the primary mode of communication. and lots of alcohol is involved. i sound like such a wet blanket, guess we’re just not really in for the party mood here. we’re quickly establishing a reputation for ourselves. most boring, anti-social people on level 3 yo!

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switzerland 16 days in

21Feb10

1. it’s been ages since i blogged here. mostly because i forgot my password, that being a huge bummer in having multiple accounts on different blog sites.

2. i’m in lugano now. it’s this small little city in the italian canton of switzerland. don’t feel too bad, i didn’t find out about till late last year too. and i still don’t know much about it. i do know it’s small. we’ve been to pretty much the entire city district already. it’s pretty sweet living like a 5 minute walk to school. ok 5 minutes seems really little. let’s make it like 7 minutes. the entire city (or what i’ve seen of it anyway) is pretty gorgeous. the lake is breathtaking. and is still waiting for me to pay it a visit at night/sunset/sunrise. i promise to do so one day.

saying that pictures are aplenty is an understatement. 6 girls, 3 dslrs and 3 p&s = 6 months worth of photos crammed up in 2 weeks. pretty epic. and it’s not good because after a while you get really lazy with taking shots cos you just think the other person’s gonna take it anyhow. but i’ll make an effort, despite my humble little p&s who’s battery life is nothing to boast about.

ironically the picture about is from a nearby city called bellinzona. i like the picture alot, it’s something i hope to do so soon when spring comes around. we have a beautiful park here, i think it’s a brilliant place to people watch.

a talk with angel last night reminded me that this is truly a God-given time for me to find Him, and remember myself as His child again. i’ve been pushing the slowly degradation of my relationship with Him in the furthermost back of my mind, i’m still a little unsure of how i’m going to go about doing it.

we’re (liz, jun hua, jingyu) and i are heading down to Luzern & Bern tomorrow. i’m pretty stoked because it sounds like an arts hub, with gorgeous architecture and epic museums etc. i have a few days to myself over the next 6 months here, i might want to go back again to some of these places to explore on my own.

inspiration is running on a low here. the journal and the blog entries are mostly just recounting the events that passed. i think it’s because i’m wasting alot of my energy worrying about largely trivial things. hope it will get better soon. time passes slowly yet amazingly fast in this place.

goodnight.

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