Inspiring Songs

Love these songs by Casting Crowns. Gosh! It's so well and beautifully written!

The lyrics were not pretentious or meant to be crowd-pleasers but they speak of the harsh reality itself, where people tend to avoid or where songwriters would butcher all their depression and hatred into one song, thus forgetting that they were still stepping on solid ground here on Earth.

I won't be posting all the lyrics here but I would like to insert the lyrics for "Does Anybody Hear Her", partly because I am a female and also because the song speaks so much to young people like you and me today, of how easily we can fall into the wrong crowd just because we wanted temporary bliss and pleasure and how we Christians, although we call ourselves one, but we pass judgment in our heart (not to forget eyes) on other people without realising how it can turn that person off towards Christ.

I confess I am one of them and I am ashamed of what I have done. I would like to apologise and ask for forgiveness, to all whom I have snubbed or have been judgmental upon in my life. Lofty glances from lofty people indeed didn't help the world to be reconciled to our Father in heaven.

She is running a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction

She is trying but the canyon's ever widening

In the depths of her cold heart

So she sets out on another misadventure just to find

She's another 2 years older

And she's 3 more steps behind

*Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?

Or does anybody even know she's going down today

Under the shadow of our steeple

With all the lost and lonely people

Searching for the hope that's tucked away in you and me

Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?

She is yearning for shelter and affection

That she never found at home

She is searching for a hero to ride in

To ride in and save the day

And in walks her prince charming

And he knows just what to say

Momentary lapse of reason

And she gives herself away

* repeat

If judgment looms under every steeple

If lofty glances from lofty people

Can't see past her scarlett letter

And we've never even met her

*repeat

He is running a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction

Children of God, we play a very significant role in this broken world, providing the light of hope and love to the lost in this world. Let us not forget Jesus's commission to us and that people need the Lord as much as we need Him.

Does Anybody Hear Her - Casting Crowns

Who Am I - Casting Crowns

Hooray...hooray! It's a Hollie, hollie Day!

Yay!! After going through the last mid sem paper for the week (nope, it's not the end yet. Still have Criminal Procedure Code) and going nuts over Civil Procedure assignment, I can finally take a break to take a breather. It's been a hectic semester this year, and final year is not fun at all. I still remember my 2nd year where I went over to my coursemates' house (everyone in the house were law students. So, you can imagine the commotion we made then...) and played games ranging from mahjong to uno to snap... Screaming our lungs out with the high risks of us being herded back to the balai polis for making such a racket in the quiet and peaceful neighbourhood.

Teresa Kok's been freed after 8-days in VIP detention (6ft by 8ft cell... VIP indeed huh...). Good news indeed. Tomorrow's Bar Council EGM would be fun. Wish I could be there to watch but since I have no locus standi and I'll be going back to my beloved hometown Kuantan (with my monster nephew in toll), all I can do is just wait and then check everything out online.

The wonders of technology.

A holiday's not so much of a holiday for me as well as this would be the time where I can actually sit in the library and try to finish all the various assignments still waiting for me. Darn~ Where is justice in this world?

Anyway, happy holidays to my fellow friends and fight on fellow comrades in our attempts to level our mountains of work.

Sungha Jung Playing Guitar-With or Without You

This guy is psycho!! (prodigy dude~~)

Justice, Where Art Thou?

Well, as we speak of justice and freedom post 9/11, 3 rightful citizens of Malaysia were arrested under the draconian preventive law, ISA yesterday before the very noses of other Malaysians. Raja Petra (been in the limelight and police radar for quite some time), Teresa Kok (Seputeh MP) and Tan Hoon Cheng (very innocent Sin Chew reporter) were whisked away ala Hollywood movie and were brought around the country in their black "fleet" of escorts (why would they need so many officers to arrest just 1 individual at a time).

Raja Petra was deemed to be a threat to national security (ermm.... i think all Opposition members, bloggers and journalists are deemed to the a threat now).

Teresa Kok was arrested for inciting hatred towards Muslims for her protest on the azan issue (looks like the person *hint* *Toyo* who threw the stone managed to hide his hand well enough or he had a "Big Daddy" to hide behind when Justice confronts him...)

Tan Hoon Cheng was arrested for reporting on the Chinese Malaysian = Squatters issue by now unpopular Ahmad Ibrahim. She has since been released this evening. (Better be, coz her arrest doesn't seemed to make sense at all! Being arrested for doing the right thing and for doing her job. Reporting on what she and tons of others heard as well as being arrested to "protect" her from possible assassins). What's the world (the Malaysian world) becoming?

As many Malaysians back home, sitting on their cosy couch are expressing their outrage, anger and disbelief over this incident, many parties and groups were already gathering forces to "invade" Bukit Aman's front gate and other places for a mass vigil as well as Bar Council having an EGM on 20/9/08 to discuss the arrests, I will be sitting here in my aunt's place blogging about what I feel along with other young Malaysians who are and might be doing the same thing right this minute.

I would say, this is a very dumb attempt to thwart or slow the Opposition down.

Plain STUPID.

Who on Earth would arrests clearly (in the eyes of the public) an upholder of justice, a hero or a brave soul speaking the truth and this time now? Surely they would have to fire their war strategists this instance for their plain stupidity and for shooting themselves in the foot.

Creating a mess in an already messed-up political scene was a big no-no. Even someone in primary school would know this.

So instead of wasting my time spitting out expletives (which I don't do) and rage on this, I would like to say only this.

Everybody knows what you (Govt) did last time and now.

No need to hide and justice is chasing up behind you.

You can run but you can't hide.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely and God knows.

So, the choice is yours, people.

The truth is out there.

Remembering The Forgotten

I forgot that today is 11 September 2008. But people also refer to this day as 9/11, a date which might be embedded in some of our memories forever. For those who are too young to remember, it is a day when evil seemed to triumph over good. It is a day where we see the worst in humanity, and also the best in mankind.

I will always remember seeing images of how commercial airliners, Boeings 747 were used as projectiles to fulfill missions in extreme ways... How it were driven into the Towers in NYC, leaving gaping holes staring into the shocked faces of fellow New Yorkers and the world alike.... How it all came crashing down like dominoes in a toy store... How desperate people were feeling then, when fear and panic overcame them... People leaping off hundreds of meters from their office windows when they see no hope left for them to escape from the burning inferno... Chaos and noise, they came hand in hand.

That was not the only horror the world saw on that day: 9/11.

News of another plane found crashed in Pennsylvania, which was on its way to its final destination, only to be thwarted by brave souls onboard the fateful flight then, with the vision of saving more lives than letting it take more victims than it should have.

We salute these heroes who overcame it all and rise up above the fear of death to save lives.

We too, have not forgotten Pentagon, where evil managed to claim many lives too in the name of God. We remember that fateful day indeed.

I was still young then, 16 years old, old enough to understand the whole terror yet still young to imagine and emphatise with all the emotions felt then. I couldn't soak in the pain, anger, shock... the magnitude of it all then. But now, I could register how it must have been then, how horrible this tragedy was, as we were just entering into the 21st century.

I was naive then. How could something like this happen now? It looked and appeared like it was something medieval... like a war.

Yes, war.

This is something I have never experienced before in my life and I thank God every day for peace and security that I have. But what about the others? Even today, Georgia vs Russia? Israel vs Palestine? Darfur? There's too many conflicts to be named today, which saw blood being spilled like streams of river, probably enough to fill the Nile.

"You don't understand." That is what the older people tell me.

Indeed. I do not understand. It is simple enough to know that to end fights, we must stop punching each other. Then talk. Yet, it is difficult to do so. This... I do not understand, and probably will never understand why.

Power. Lust. Greed. Fame. Wealth.

The mechanism of the world and how it works. This is how I see it.

It might robably sounds sardonic but do pardon me as this is how I do see reality.

But the other side of me... the child in me still see the goodness in people, the hope and beauty that all of us are still holding hands and helping each other despite our differences in many aspects. The beauty of us helping each other without any ulterior motives and suspicions behind all the goodwill.

How will it be in the future? Are we wiping away the last piece of hope holding this world together? Are we succumbing to violence and evil along with the inevitable truth that we're destroying ourselves and our children by eroding Earth?

Think about it. There are many out there who lay forgotten, thinking they are just another insignificant string waiting to be blown away by the fabric of time.

But take heart! There are always people out there...

Remembering the forgotten.

Racism: Who Decides Who Are The Supremes?

The "Ahmad Incident", as most Malaysians (especially with the Chinese Malaysians) would know, was something outrageous and scandalous that it just have to conquer the headlines of every major newspaper for a week now. According to Ahmad, who was turned into a notorious superstar courtesy of this incident (otherwise just another unknown politician from some part of Malaysia), the Malaysian Chinese are just "SQUATTERS" and we do not have any rights whatsoever in this country called Malaysia.

Well, as a Chinese Malaysian, I'm not sure whether to take up my placards and head out to Dataran Merdeka to protest (everyone's favourite past time these days) or to just sit at home, sipping on my coffee as Tony Bennet serenades me with his sexy voice, with the papers in my hand and laugh at Ahmad's foolishness and stupidity.

Our ancestors (both Malay and Chinese) might be rolling in their graves this very minute over the foolish remarks made just to get the 5-minutes of fame as they believed in living together in harmony everyone are like siblings to them. Looked at how many Chinese children being adopted by Malay families and raised as their own and vice versa. Maybe that "someone" who wanted the 5-minutes of fame (he got his fame alrite, although not unlike that of Britney Spears'... famous all for the wrong reason) should go back to school and study his history again. No offence however, I do think our history books in school should undergo a review again as I have no idea what are we feeding our kids these days in history classes...

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" - Galatians 3:28. This is what i believe in. This is how the Christians view it. We are all the same. You cut us with a knife, we still bleed the same red blood. We still feel pain. We still eat and sleep just like everyone else in this world, regardless of our skin colour. Whoever came up with the term white, yellow, black etc., was obviously ignorant. Probably he was uneducated as people in those eras, back when women were only chattels and any dissenters were "the child of the devil", so that is quite a legitimate reason. But what reasons or basis does Ahmad have to have come up with such irresponsible remarks?

The world will remember how Martin Luther King Jr led the march for freedom at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC on 28 August 1963. We will remember how bold he was, standing in front of the crowd, which represented the whole of the United States of America, defying the Caucasians and slave owners, the elites and the powerful to deliver one of the best speeches in history, what we know as "I Have A Dream".

"I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" - one day, right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers".

He represented the voiceless and powerless to deliver their pleas to the whole country to forget about the colour of their skin and the different cultures they have. We too, should be thinking the same as well. Who are we to determine whether our race is the supreme one or not? Are we sinking to the ranks of Hitler, who was willing to exterminate the Jews and other minorities so that the Germans (then), whom he believed to be from the Aryans, will be the supreme race on Earth? Are we willing to kill each other just to prove who's the stronger and who's the weaker?

I love this place called Malaysia and its diversity in life and culture. It was not easy for us to reach to such a state, where peace and mutual understanding prevails over us. My playmates from all races in primary school became my close friends in secondary school and we are still close friends, always looking for opportunities to have our "gossip" sessions either in mamaks or other coffee hangouts.

I have also seen and learnt a lot from my stint in the Asian Law Students' Association (ALSA) as well, which consist of 11 Asian countries as members. We do talk on "sensitive" issues but we do not resort to insults and arguments like what we see today. (No pun intended, but most of us are 20 years younger than most Malaysian Parlimentarians...)

Therefore, who are the supremes? The Malays (Hidup Melayu?), the Chinese, the Indians? It is not for us to decide, but for God to decide. Somehow, my gut tells me if God were to speak out, he'll say, " From dust you came and to dust you will return." - Go figure.

(no offence intended. Please don't lock me up in Kamunting...)

System Down...

I have (and still am) recovering spiritually and now I'm physically ill.

Huhu.... Must be a test! (Haha)

Now I'm struck with a bad case of flu (nose just wouldn't stop running), fever (my body felt like it's on fire), whooping cough (dry and heaty...macam kena TB)....

Walking for me feels like floating now.... head-spinning (kepala pusing-pusing in Indonesian)...

I justgot shushed by my cousin who thinks i'm blowing my nose too loudly like an elephant trumpeting for her herd...

I'm having a quiz tomorrow. Just finished 2 killer papers on Monday.

God help me.

Do pray for my speedy recovery yea.

*really kepala pusing-pusing now*

Goodnight people~

Road to Recovery

"My flesh and my heart may fail

but God is the strength of my heart

and my portion for ever"

-Psalm 73:26-

Even though the heavy clouds loom over my head, I still see hope peeping at me through the piercing sunlight through the thick blanket of troubles and doubts.

Praise the Lord, O my soul....

On The Edge...

Merdeka... But it wasn't emancipation for me.

Felt trapped in this weary world of mine, perpetually living under mountains of work and stress. I think being in my final year in law school is taking it's toll on me for real this time.

So much expectations and pressure to execute everything in perfection.

I am on the brink on a mental breakdown/meltdown and I hope it won't happened.

There's a sudden urge for me to just break down in tears and to scream out loud, then pack my bags and run off to some place where I do not know anyone and where the phone doesn't work.

I don't want to be contacted. I enjoyed a free life, travelling from places to places, seeing different things, watching the different ways of the world and listen to the stories they have to tell.

I don't want to imagine myself in a suit everyday, running from court room to court room or being confined in the claustrophobic office cubicle, churning paperwork after paperwork. There's just no fulfillment.

What's ahead of me? Can I just let go (do I have the choice and luxury to?) of everything and follow my heart (to explore the world and write of my experiences and journey around the world).

I find it hard to pray these days as my heart has been very heavy, burdened by this world. I can't hear God's voice nowadays, and I'm as dry as the bones written in Ezekiel. I'm in a drought here and it hasn't been raining for months now.

How long is this drought going to last? Will I be able to taste the rain? Will I be able to quench my thirst for the Holy Spirit soon?

How long more....? It's taking it's toll...

Will I be able to hold my fort?

My heart cries out to God. "I looked up to the hills and where does my help come from? My help comes from God..."