Hello, Year 2!

Hello! I am shy, but can be kinda cute on a good day
*perasan* nah, I just adore bunnies.
Pic credit. Found on flickrcc.net

First of all, here's a shoutout to all the juniors in USM who just successfully completed their week-long orientation: welcome to USM! You have just started the 3 or 4-year long process of finding your way through campus (and Penang Island), learning tons of new stuff, and going through a roller coaster of experiences.

And here's a ''senior pledge'' that I made myself:
I will help to the level best I can. I will not try too hard to deal with things or give advice that I can barely set an example, neither will I refuse help when I am able to do so. I will move onward from the position of the one asking help and attention to the one who gives help and attention. :)

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"I will move onward from the position of the one asking help and attention to the one who gives help and attention."

The above transition isn't a easy one. For one, I am very ''manja'' and like to be taken care of, as well as sensitive, so people tend to thread lightly around me once they know me really well. When I'm sad, I want to cry as loud as I can; when I'm mad, I want to kick and scream as yell. As 3-year-old as that sounds, all of me seems to be resistant to grow up. If I can, I want to be ''sayang''ed forever...but in reality, that only happens to little children.

I fear, often, that if I let go of the need to be taken care of, then really no one would take care because well...I'm independent? And independent people are supposed to find friends and fun on their own, do things on their own. I'm afraid - that's why I tend to want to cling to people a lot so that I don't need to face my fears. When one faces their fears and challenges, they can only do it alone. No one can face their fears for them.

But it must be done. Time, opportunities, and people's patience are limited. What needs to be heard, has been said already and there must be some other healthier way to talk to people who care about me on my emotional health- maybe update them on progress instead of complaining all the time.
(Besides, I have to admit, it is tiring by itself to carry so much negative energy. After being emo for long periods, I do want to talk about sunshine and happy things. You know what? If I had a pet of my own, I'm gonna name it Sunshine or Joy, just to remind myself to be happy.)

So I will try to face my fears, at the expense of my ego (I always think facing specific fears makes me look stupid) and the possibility of success at 50/50. If it succeeds, allright - that I ought to celebrate - and if not, then at least I won't live with the regret of not trying.

Here's to life, allowing myself to make mistakes, letting my guard down, and to year 2, which officially starts tomorrow. Now, need to move stuff back from the store at my hostel, because I miss sleeping with a proper pillow, bedsheets and blanket for the past week...

Reality: Snapshot #1

Photo Credit: Khánh Hmoong

A five-minute post Camp Cameron snapshot on life so far.

Today, I messed up. I dilly-dallied and lazed around, didn't do my Bible reading like I wanted to, fell into a bad habit that I thought I got over with, felt envious of my friends who could drive, and then argued with my mom about the very same issue after that. I still feel this intense need to prove to my parents, and to everyone else, that I can, because I feel like I cannot and need their validation to 'prove' that I can. I don't feel like a transformed, victorious person in Christ at all, at least not today! I feel like giving up. I really do. After all, it's what I always do. When friends don't respond to invitations to makan together one, two times, I stop calling them together. I'd rather shop alone then to make plans with people who might not come along anyway. I'd rather be a hermit, under a shell, whatever you'd call it. I give up.

I give up. I'd rather not try than crash and burn again, in anything. I'd rather condemn myself beforehand than to actually fail.

Yet the God that I encountered in Camp Cameron was there the whole while even before that, asking me to look at Him:

Debra, though you may give up on yourself too easily, and though you always assume that everyone else has given up, too, I have never, and will never, give up on you.

All that self-condemning is a shield from people's condemnation, which most of the time exists in the realms of imagination anyway.

Deb, it's okay to feel pain, it's okay to hurt, but don't give up so fast-lah! There's so much in life that might be missed out if everything also give up so easily.

I will hold on.

Photo Credit: Neil Krug, text mine

ps. more on Camp Cam, and other happenings in June/July, soon :)