Next destination - Iceland

Stills from here

This girl has got it!

Have you?

Eleven's end

Basked in golden
Green leaves waving
Ever so shyly
In the wind

I thought of you
Thought you softly
I didn't even have to try

A tapir
White tiger
The zebras

Life is not often
in black and white
Yet it is clear
In this champagne sunset
It ends here

The only way to end
a year
that ends with eleven.

Tune of my heart

Adagio für Streicher

Samuel Barber

Sehr schön.

雨水流露我的心

雨季又来了

雨不停的在下

好想让雨水流露我的心

也许。

只有这样。

我的心酸
也可以随着泪水流走

***

Elephant chain

P told us about the story of the elephant who was chained as a baby and although he was strong enough to break the chain when he got bigger but he did not because he did not succeed before.

Sounds pretty much like something you have heard before. A bird caged up too long that it does not try to fly even when the cage door is open. P was drawing an analogy with some old men he has been working with - steeped in their experience, are not willing to try despite a change in times.

I wonder if I had become old before my time. I really hope not. I want to break the chains bravely and balance on a beach ball by the sea someday.

Violence is not always visible

There was a recent UN ad competition  - Say no to violence against women. Trine Sejthen from Denmark took the top prize for her work - Violence is not always visible (below). 

This is something close to heart, being a woman.

Off hand, I recall a couple of friends physically abused by their boyfriends. Although they have left their abusers, it was after much suffering and an awakening that this was not how they should be treated. It made me realise that might be many more girls in their plight and not knowing what to do.

At the time when they were hit, they must have thought it was an accident, believing it will not happen again. 

Ladies,

You know there is no excuse.

Once is warning enough

Ring the bell.

Talk to someone

Run while you can.

Everyone,

Spread the word 

Stop violence against women and girls.

***

If you need to talk to someone, you can contact Aware Helpline:

Mon - Fri

3pm - 9.30pm

1800 774 5935

***

Single-hearted

To be able to know what you want

And pursue it single-heartedly 

That is beautiful

Whenever I look at Danielle Kroll's illustrations, it feels like I am meeting her.

In a way, I feel like I know her.

Is that strange?

Nonetheless, it's so beautiful to see one pursuing their dream,

their passion

enjoying what they do 

everyday

***

不在乎。。。

Still from Sovil et Titus ad 

A beautifully written piece that made me cry.

Read it here

又寂寞又美好

by Jimmy Liao

Someday

Dream (not-so) auto-mobile
Picture by Danielle Kroll

Don't bring me down

By Danielle Kroll

If you have let it go,
Don't bring it down

It will be happier as it rise into the sky!

Don't be afraid

Taken from here

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;

A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

A time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

A time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones,

and a time to gather stones together;

A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose;

A time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew;

A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate;

a time of war, and a time of peace.

What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?

I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world on their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

- Ecclesiastes 3: 1 - 12

On Job

God's working all things together for the good to them that love Him, and how can you lose?

You just can't lose; there's no way of losing. The Church could just really find that out. If you could positionally find your place in Christ, then all these other things would just fade away like a shadow. Every one that cometh to God, that's true, must have the shadows, and temptations, and fears, and so forth, but just don't get all tore up about it.

What's a little suffering for a little while, knowing that the glory of God will be revealed in the last days when Jesus comes, when we'll be made like unto Him? He's just working everything together. Did you know, maybe if you were sick, or something happened to you, that God might've had to do that just to bring you a little closer to Him?

- William Branham on 'Job'

Wait

They that wait upon the Lord
Shall renew their strength
They shall mount up
With wings as eagles
They shall run and not be weary
They shall walk and not faint
Teach me Lord, teach me Lord, to wait.

Butterflies

What gives you butterflies in the stomach?

Perhaps it's someone?

Someone I know?

Club 29

*

I just got initiated today

&

thank you

for being my friend

 

 

***

O Youth!

Penguin turns 50!

I went to the exhibition with Xinyi and we had a chill time hiding at the end of the Level 1 aisle to have our dinner.

This year, in celebration of their 50th anniversary,

they published 50 mini classics and I just got myself Conrad's 'Youth'

I love Conrad 

(& Hemingway)

 (wait, and Sir Arthur too)

For something written at the end of the 1800s to still affect me the way it did just goes to show it's a classic true to its form. 

'-the feeling that I could last for ever, 

outlast the sea, the earth, and all men;

the deceitful feeling that lures us on

to joys, to perils,  to love, to vain effort

- to death;

the triumphant conviction of strength,

the heat of life in the handful of dust,

the glow in the heart

that with every year

grows dim, grows cold, grows small,

and expires-

and expires too soon, too soon,

- before life itself.'

It's poetic, isn't it?

In His Time

He hath made every thing beautiful 

in his time: 

also he hath set the world 

in their heart, 

so that no man can find out the work 

that God maketh 

from the beginning to the end

Ecclesiastes 3:11

Asia Literary Review - Spring 2011: Burma

I was reading the Asian Literary Review by Jack Picone today on the reportage on Burma and here is the part that did strange things to my heart:

'In a run-down border clinic I saw a 14-year-old boy, given only local anaethetic, having a leg amputated with a blunt saw. The boy had stepped on a landmine during his flight from Burma. He didn't utter  sound during the operation, but his eyes had the glazed expression of someone who is in such agony he is incapable of feeling more pain.
I realised then I had seen the same expression many time before.'

This followed with images not for the faint hearted. There was a picture of the operation where the fibula and tibia were jutting out like the two pieces of bone you get after cleaning off a chicken wing. It was crude and heartwrenching as the glazed look on the face of the boy on the mirroring page stared out of the page.

Can we do something? Anything at all?