Shuen told me that I had better eat my grapefruit today. Jo said it was better to carry bananas around because then you would be forced to eat them in case they went bad. Hmm. Maybe later.

Security Grapefruit

There's this huge juicy grapefruit I put into my bag 2 days ago. I love the smell and I've been meaning to eat it, but I am too lazy to peel it because it gets so messy. I will eat it soon, that's what I always say. But it's more like a security grapefruit.. so if the world has a sudden WW3, I can hide in a nuclear safe area and eat my grapefruit piece by piece.

SOMETIMES

When that special someone takes your side
When they simply will not see you as fat
When they do silly things that make you feel at home
When they flail at comforting but do better than anyone else
When they JUST ARE.
That's all I need from you
That's what best friends are for.

When you're at your worst, you still make me feel better than anyone could have. Because you're you. And I don't need you to be anything else for me, just you is more than enough and I love you just as much as when I realised we were chums for life. Or in a more Hannah Montana style- Best Friends Forever BFF WOO!

I hope you know who you are because you deserve better than to be stuck in a crappy place and I wish I knew how to get you out of it but I don't quite. But I guess we try and work our magic on each other, just talking helps. Being far away feels sucky. Feeling close to you makes me warm and fuzzy like nothing else.

You're still making waves the way you did when we were in sec school. You listened to Blue and Kelly Clarkson. I listened to Nichole Nordeman. And the day you took my CD home by mistake u nearly died. hahaha.

I love remembering.

---

On another note, my croquette.. do NOT look like.. Appendages.

*mumble mumble- * gutterbrains.

Croquette Day

Today, the 25th of June, is Croquette day. Because I made sweet potato croquette and because my best friend (shareholder of foodisyumyum enterprises) just got attached to the croquette maker yesterday! I'm so excited!

Many Happy Returns of the Day to YL and Lydia!

The croquette turned out wonderfully soft and sweet on the inside and perfectly crunchy and tasty on the outside! Many cheer for Croquette!

I know that this picture of the croquette looks pretty bad.. But it tastes good ok! It's just the camera and the lighting. I promise. It was my phone camera.

I made a video of how I made the croquette and I will upload that soon ok? Along with "The truth about ice cream bread." PAN WA PAN DESU YOOO~~~!!!!!! (And there is panko on the croquette! Yum!)

--

In other news my prac is going to come to and end soon and I am busy tying up loose ends and trying to think of what to buy for all the staff that have been nice to me and made my learning curve... a real curve! Kyo wa samui yo! So I should bathe now and not later.

*** Syndrome

I've got what Su Re says, the last lap syndrome with no name. I was spacey all morning but didn't do badly, just slow. I really want to do well for the next two weeks and finish it all off properly. I'm just so tired.

I think I'm just floating on His favor right now. My own self cannot finish this. I'm so thankful He is here.

Come to Perth

There is one reason to come to perth! The cutest ice-cream lookalike bread!

I know it's not much incentive but look at how cute the bread is!

Please come to perth! *puppy eyes*

[~lyddie~*]*Random acts of kindness... senseless acts of beauty...~** says:
i think of you more than just during winter la.. you're engraved deep in my memories of sunshine and so much more. =)

Oh, when it's make or break you never know whether the coin will fall topside or down.

This is just one of those wonderful times when it's fallen topside and I feel like my day's been made all over again. Thank you deer.

-

I don't know that I've done very well. I feel like I've failed this time.

Show Me

Body dysmorphia is a terrible psychological disease that makes people feel like a part of their body doesn't belong to them. We think the people who feel like a hand or a leg don't belong are really very crazy and don't understand the importance of the body's wholeness.

Well, to some extent, we all have a little bit of that. we feel like some parts of us aren't right or nice and we wish it away fervently, denying it's function or right to stay. In truth, every part of us makes us what we are, every fat molecule and freckle/pimple. But to be loved for who we are is not in our control. To be accepted is not a choice we make for ourselves. Being judged is hard, so we change ourselves, hoping to defer, or better still, change other people's opinions of ourselves at every cost. Weigh your wages. Which is better? Do we really have free choice to look and dress as we would?

Some days I have a soaring sense of how human I look, and I feel good about it. Some days that gets crushed by a word or a look or a passerby. Some days I do feel beautiful and try to look presentable at the very least. Some days are just bad for one's health in the self-value department.

What I really meant to say is that the point is not to change who you are to avoid the negatives. It's to change how you think to love youself best, because it's no point others thinking whatever it is they think when you don't think the best for yourself.

I'm sleepy and a bit jaded.

Another Day

It's just another day at work- it's becoming comfortable, much more relaxing after jumping around on the seat of my pants for mid placement assessment. Things will be ok and the placement is ending very soon. I have too many things to complete before that time! Such as the brochures. Gah. And the case study.

#'s motivational inspiration is wonderful to behold. It is not the lofty quote of a conqueror, it's the broken understanding of a person who knows what life now means. Sure, PD changes you. But not that much.

Tomorrow is Friday. It's great! I miss Divinia so much.

Classic Case

I have waited all my clinical life to meet someone like this. And i nearly laughed out loud, which was bad. 3 times I wanted to burst out in giggles, but I thought better of throwing my career out the window. But score. I've finally met the classic Aphasic.

Life is getting better slowly. At least I am on the other side of 4 weeks, and it is going to fill itself out at some point. I'm pretty ready to move on to new things.. but on the other hand my stuff here isn't done. I'm excited to be finishing soon.

I'm reading "In the likeness of God" By Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey. It's so brilliant! It makes medical connections between God and biology and it fascinates me to no end. It's really encouraging to read as well. Highly recommended!

the hopes

1. The pages are still unwritten. The pen is in my Maker's hands.
2. We, using probability, have a chance, no matter how slim, at winning this thing I want.
3. Existentialism must become Epicurean. Carpe Diem!
4. Victory.

An enourmous technology seems to have set itself the task of making it unnecessary for one human being ever to ask anything of another in the course of going about his daily business. We seek more and more privacy, and feel more and more alienated and lonely when we get it.
-Philip Slater

Looking at that statement, it sounds like foolishness, but having experienced the phenomenon, I identify myself with the carcinogenic force of human selfishness and seek remedy with contrition.

Home Sick

I'm Home, sick. Well, I am homesick as well. haha. Halfway through PD group this morning my mind started swaying in the most disconcerting way and I was ready to throw up anything and everything in my stomach. Fortunately I had barely anything to eat so I couldn't hurl on any of the patients. I left for home and cancelled tomorrow's appointments in case. I don't know if I can work tomorrow or if it is simply a bad idea.

Anyway. I had the worst itchy tights experience this morning. I was walking to work and the new woolen (or as twin says... 'woolen') tights mum got were really scratchy. The more i walked, the worse it itched. And my walk was 20 minutes long, so by the time I got to the A block toilets I was ready to strip down faster than you could say "free show". That's not the worst part. I was wearing the tights because my pants were a good many sizes too big for me. So they were falling right off me as I walked and I had to go and ask the secretary to give me string to hold my pants up. Which was hilarious to everyone in the office, and Justine and I imagined the desire to strip on the street, just to get rid of that horrid itch. Argh! People should put up life lessons so everyone knows: CHECK IF YOUR TIGHTS ARE ITCHY BEFORE GOING WALKING! Am I the only one getting in trouble with this sort of dumbbrain stuff?

Reality Checks Hard

Today was a day with hard reality checks. One patient was for a PEG tube, and may die in the process, another has nowhere to go and cried. It's heartbreaking, and reality checking.

Two Funny Things

The secretary picks up the phone and says, "I'm trying to eat my banana. What do you want?" And Kaung drops a smint on the floor and goes crazy. "Medication on the floor, medication on the floor! Nobody move!" He scourages around and finds the dropped smint, offering it to a nursing assistant. "Want a smint?"

Birthday dinners in order with the central zone gang. Char Char Bull simply does not impress me quite that much. =( Good food is always found at home, or maybe my taste is super cheap. Sharon called during dinner! I keep thinking she will turn up to dinner. =( Poos. Vanessa was so cute. She thought Dennis and I had been going out for 3 years. Hoho.

Tomorrow is Thursday. Another week will soon be over.

John 8:12-30.

"Yet no one seized him, because his time has not yet come." (vs. 20)
"Even as he spoke, many put their faith in him." (vs. 30)
It's nice to see the work of God behind the scenes while Jesus continues to press forward confidently in the natural.

John 9:1-12

Wash in the pool of Siloam (this word means sent). The healing only comes after obedience. The outworking end result only happens after we obey the command to go. To be sent. To do as asked.

It was never in my interest to rule or govern, because it would be of no benefit to anyone, and that myself included.

Yet I hesitate to submit for fear of being abused in my submission, thinking that authority of authority has gone on a coffee break, but how wrong I am.

We play our quiet lives and live hum-drum, waiting for a bout of excitement to hit us, and when it does we do not in the least enjoy it in the way we say we will, for it is often too much upon our narrow backs. What we forget is that in overcoming our misadventures, we bring glory to the one who put us here in the first place. Flailing and failing pieces of inanimate pottery, we wonder how such miracles may work themselves, but we have forgotten Ruach Elohim, the God who breathes life.

In the last fight when the white witch advances and we think we will die trying and wonder where in the world Aslan is, remember that we do not see the full picture-the question is, are we with him? He who answers, to the death- is the one who fights with the peace of life eternal.

John 8:58- "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"

It was the non-grammatical word structure that made it truth. It is a continuous present tense, a daily gift that can be opened and re-opened, a reclaiming and a re-surrender. A proclaimation of what is and always will be. He is 'I AM'. Has he ever needed to be more? To claim Him Himself, not his gifts or his words, not his actions past or future, is truly the greatest gift and His only necessary sacrifice. He is mine. Have Him if you will, His invitation stands.

Sacrifice and re-sacrifice. claiming and re-claiming. Oh, walk and talk with Him- no money, shopping, mental rearrangement of thinking and pop self help talk can replace the normality He gives me, the feeling that I was made as I am, to be. And that I am being right here right now. Bring me to tarry next to you, let us walk in the place you chose and built, let us lie under stars to hear of things unheard of, to talk of you and of yourself, your plans. Give me more of you, empty me so I can store you. And in our precious conversations build us together, ever twined in unreleasable security.

I trust, simply because I do not understand. If I did, i would not have to trust. I wish I had eyes that would see into what He sees. But he saw before I did what would happen and what is to happen. He knows what to do. The facts don't change, but my blindsightedness does. At some point, I have to put forth a hand and take hold of a promise I don't understand at all, no matter how incredulous it sounds. Is that not a miracle? Something performed when it seems impossible?

Let me walk anew- every train ride, every step, every new breath, every word spoken in human exchange, every tone and look, every patient, every session, every assessment, every written note and every report- show yourself to me in every corner turned. It's not a romantic desire, it's a desperate cry. Be God of everything, and I need to know I am not alone. I am so relieved you are here.

Prayer

Whether you admit it or not, His plans for you are still there. And still good.

There will be a place in your life that no one else understands but God. And you have to accept that.

We make mistakes. And do wrong things. But God died for that. And if I don't claim it, I'm taking him forgranted.