the reasons why I MUST NOT complain

I must not complain that I do not have time because I actually have time.

1. I still have time to watch Thai drama
2. I still have time to check facebook
3. I still have time to take a nap

The things that I need to do now is to reduce the amount of time that I use for point 1 to 3 and allocate it to study.

Achievement of yesterday:
Managed to watch only 6 minutes of 1 episode --> still need it to practice listening. Hehehe.
Managed to check facebook only for important stuff like doing publicity.
Thank God I could sit still for around 4 hours to study.. YEAYYY!! :):) 

JIAYOU FERNINDA!!!! ADD OIL!!!

Thank you Lord for yesterday and this new day :)
Somehow I always feel happy and energized after Legion meeting. I feel inspired and motivated by listening to other Legionaries' stories. Thank you, Mother Mary!

writing!

I seriously need to train my stamina in writing. I've just got my first draft of introduction back from my supervisor and it is RED, red-red-red-red EVERYWHERE! Thankfully my supervisor is a very nice lady. I can hear her tone in the email is not a condemning tone like "Your writing sucks!" Thank God for my supervisor's kindness. I can even feel her concern in her email and she's really willing to help me to improve my writing and discuss about the draft next week. Thank God!

Why did I say that I need to train my stamina in writing? It is not only because of the length of the pages that I need to write, but also the amount of information that I need to integrate in an introduction. It's too overwhelming for me and after half an hour sitting in front of my laptop, I already feel tired. Yesterday I brought my research proposal draft to the writing hub in the library and I felt sooo embarrassed because the mistakes that I made are the silly ones. The draft really gave the impression that I did it in a rush (it's quite true) and I did it carelessly (this one I was trying not to be careless, but I was careless in writing that piece). The moment I stepped out from the writing hub, I felt so ashamed that I had sent that piece to my supervisor too.

Even though I feel so embarrassed that my writing looks like rubbish, I am quite happy and grateful that God has given me strength to learn from the mistakes. My mom said, "If you don't make mistakes, you don't learn," or other people say, "Learn from other people's mistakes." I knew that if I didn't have the guts to send the draft to my supervisor, my draft would not be much better even though it means that I have extra time because I won't feel the urgency to change and improve. At least now I know that as my supervisor said, I've done my research quite exhaustively. It's time to sit and write properly.

Sighhhh.. I hope I have enough time to produce a good writing. Can you imagine if I graduate from NUS still with a bad writing?? Hmm, or perhaps it's not a bad writing, perhaps I just need to put MORE effort in writing, practice MORE, write more, and organize more. ADD OILLLLLLLL, FERNINDAAAAAA!!

warzone!!!

I don't even have space to sleep! I think Mother Mary is stressed being in my room... :(:(:(
The good thing about last night was I managed to to write my research proposal (60%?70%?) Thanks to my friends who kept encouraging me :):)

Okay tonite I'm gonna do massive clean up of my room. I can't take it anymore. I already lost a Thai homework coz my papers are too messy.

being honest to myself

I don't feel like writing a research proposal.
Is it what I really want?
I'm scared that it's only the effect of laziness, but I don't feel motivated to write the proposal.

I wanna force myself so I can really see whether it's meant to be or not. I wanna try, but I really don't feel like writing the proposal. I thought it's something that I've been wanting to do? Why isn't there any motivation to do it?

no pain no gain

Just last Sunday I wrote about how fun it was to try rock-climbing right? Well, my arms and back were aching for 2 days after the climbing course. Hahaha.

It's quite easy to say "No pain no gain!" In reality, we do complain, we do sigh, we do scream when we experience the pain because of the effort we put to gain something. We sigh when we have thousands of pages to read, I complained when I had to climb the stairs after dance practice, and so on and so forth. This experience is worsened by the fact that a lot of instant things are offered by this world. Hungry at night? Cook instant noodle! Pissed off with someone? Tweet your feeling!

Compared with my uncle has to study and work at the same time for 7 years to get his bachelor's degree, I'm kinda lucky because I can focus on study without thinking about tuition fee (for now at least). Need journal articles? No need to go to library and find the hard copies, just key in the keyword and "whooosh", articles appear on my laptop, but I am still lazy to read articles despite this privilege.

When people talk about discipline, whether it is in study or in physical training, they remind me of some talks that my friends in Opus Dei gave to me: the importance of spiritual discipline. Yes, I do feel that it's getting harder to sit still and just listen to God in my room. The laptop is here, the phone is at the other side. Very sad, right? I mean, to spend just 15 minutes in the morning to sit still and talk to the Creator, who never disappoints you, who never has bad mood and abandon you, who always always and always listen to you, laziness still obstructs you. But yeah..we need this discipline coz prayer is supposed to be like breathing, without burden, and we do it because we LOVE God and God has loved us in the first place.

When I was in high school, the nun told us that "You must study everyday minimum 4hours!" At that time, 4 hours sounded sooo much, but in NUS, if we study properly, actually 4hour-study is not enough. Now that I am thinking about it again, it's not a matter of how long you sit in the reading room, but how you should build the habit of studying consistently till you don't feel it as a burden.

So yeah...no pain no gain!! :)

a productive day

I'm trying to write regularly on my blog now and not depending on my mood.
Let's review today's activities. Hahaha. Today was quite productive, Thank God :) I wrote thesis intro in the morning and studied for my PL4218 Psychological Assessment this Friday, but unfortunately, I dozed off at 5pm (till 6.30pm!!!!!!!!!!!!!) *duhh*

Lesson of today:
it's good to study moving from one place to another place after 1-2 hours so you do not feel bored :) Hehehe.
Secondly, draw a circle divided by 4 (like a pie), and color every 15 minutes that you spend exclusively for study (It's Fr Joe's suggestion!). Then, you'll realize how much (or how little) time you spend to study coz you won't color the time you spend to go to toilet, to buy a drink, etc. It helps you to draw a graph on how much you time you spend really focusing on your study.
Thirdly, think of someone, offer up your study for him/her. There are many reasons to pray and to offer sacrifices :):)

cheerssss!!

Welcome to week 6!!!

Half of the semester will be gone S-O-O-N!!! Cool... 7 more weeks + 1 week reading week + 1.5 weeks of exams then my vacation will be coming. Woohoooo :)

Anyway, let me talk about things that have made me happy in these few days:
1. Faith Formation Talk given by Sr. Sandra from Verbum Dei. She taught us how to do Lectio Divina (literally means Divine Reading). Basically it consists of 6 steps: Lectio (reading), Meditatio (reflection), Oratio (Praying), Contempatio (contemplation) + Mission and Action. She inspired me to not feel discouraged with my ups and downs in praying using scriptures. Let's start all over again :)

Last Friday, after the talk, I met an old friend (a senior). I didn't recognize her initially *duhh*. It was such a great feeling to meet her again :)

2. Yesterday I walked from MacRitchie Reservoir to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. It was fun :):) MacRitchie is beautiful. Bee, my friend from Laos, also taught me new Thai vocabularies along the way. Hehehehe.

In the afternoon, there was a recollection at Opus Dei. I fell asleep in fhe first talk and meditation *duhhh* But overall, I think the recollection was very interesting. It was a great chance for me to reflect on my journey from India and back in Singapore, as a final year student.

3. Today I got a reply from the school that I'll be working with for my data collection, so yeay! This Thursday I will be able to send out questionnaires :) Thank God! My literature review has been progressing too. It is still messy, but I'm very grateful that I start writing some stuff at least :) So...tomorrow I must finish packing the questionnaires and writing my first draft.

4. I got my certificate for level 1 Climbing Course. Wait! It doesn't mean that I'm a good climber yet, hahaha, had to struggle A LOT today :(:( My leg was even trembling when I felt tired climbing up, but I enjoyed doing belay. It was interesting to learn different types of climbing and the equipments and I felt connected with Bee as buddy-climber-belayer. Hahaha. I believe she's very good in locking position because I lost balance a lot and 'fell', Thank God that Bee saved me for so many times!!

So yeahh..welcome to week 6!!
Main events this week:
1. Thai Listening Test - Friday
2. Psychological Assessment midterm test 20% - Friday
3. My own target of 1st draft lit review+methodology AND research proposal - Tuesday

ADD OIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank God for the great week :):)

Happy Thursday :)

I'm very grateful for today coz today I could take a breath for a while. I'm also very happy for the Patrician Meeting session today. We talked about "Why bad things happen to good people?" We talked about suffering and how it is not something bad, how to look at suffering not only from human's point of view (eg suffering = bad thing), how love can help us to embrace suffering (coz when you love someone, you are willing to suffer for the person you love), how suffering happens for a reason and through suffering we help in the work of redeeming souls, just like Jesus redeemed us through his suffering on the cross, and so on and so forth. Anyway, we should not categorize people as 'good people' or 'bad people' coz yeah..we try to be good, but we also make mistakes.

Looking forward for next Patrician Meeting.

Btw, today is the Nativity of Blessed Virgin Mary.
Happy bday, Mama Mary :)

Oh ya, yesterday we celebrated 90th anniversary of Legion of Mary. The Cathedral was filled by lots of people and there were banners of different praesidia. It's really cool!!! I was amazed and I was touched especially when I saw the older Legionaries, some had walking difficulties, did come to attend the mass. An old aunty held the poles of the banners after the mass was over while some other people helped packing up. I think it's really the power of love. I'd like to cite someone (I forgot where I read this), you can think about Jesus without thinking about Mary, but you can't think about Mary without think about Jesus. The senior legionaries, whom I really see them as some people who love Mother Mary sooooooooooo much, are the examples. Their love to Mary is also directed to Jesus coz Mother Mary's eyes are always at Jesus. So...don't feel afraid to honor Blessed Virgin Mary coz she won't take your love to Jesus for herself, she'll give EVERYTHING that we present to her and through her to Jesus :)

Pressure Cooker

Dear Lord,
this morning when I woke up, I felt "arrrghhh"..so many things to do..
noon : paper jam stopped my photocopying process of questionnaires
4pm: another problem..my ez link was running out of value in the middle of photocopying another set of questionnaires..

It's "only" week 5 and I start feel the pressure. I've just found out that the school that I'll be working with for my thesis is in the east part. There's a sense of happiness coz I'm really doing my thesis now, simple things like preparing questionnaires, following my supervisor to have a meeting with another school, really make me feel like "wahhh..cool!my real data collection has really started.." On the other hand, I start to feel that I don't have time to do ALL things that I need to do. Seems like I need to work and study SMARTER, not only HARDER.

Dear Lord,
today there's sort of a facebook status automatic update on my head, but it was directed to you. If I collect the status, it'll be like this:
6pm : While people start going to recruitment talk, I have not done anything for postgrad research application and I need to do it coz it's my plan A. How??????
4pm : Why "only" photocopying stuff took hours and hours coz of silly problems?
now: haven't prepared readings for tutorial tmr...

then my mom's voice popped up:
Just do it....don't think about it..don't complain..

Thank you, Lord, for today :)

God's first disciples are fishermen

It's interesting how Jesus called His first disciples. They were just ordinary men, fishermen who had not caught any fish on that day. There was a reflection somewhere that mentioned this Gospel reading to highlight that we are also called to serve the Lord in our ordinary life. While the Gospel mentioned that His first disciples were fishermen, just like other ordinary people, it's quite intriguing that most of us have the mindset that "I must be A, B, C, .... Z to serve Lord. I'm nothing, I'm no one. In Singlish, 'Cannot lah Lord....How come you call me to do a great work??' "

Let's jump to the other reading, five loaves and two fish. This Gospel might be the most famous Gospel reading among Kindergarten kids. I still remember how to sing the Sunday School song about five loaves and two fish. Now that we think about it again, these five loaves and two fish are whatever we have with us now. It might be our little time, our little thought, our little energy, but somehow God is able to MULTIPLY them.

Here is the challenge for today.. Do you wanna give a little bit of you and let Lord use them and multiply them? No matter how small and how sometimes we feel unworthy to serve our Lord, he calls us every day. Perhaps for our situation, when we are stuck with our lecture readings? or when we just sit in the bus and look at the elderly? or when we have lunch with our friends? and suddenly 'Toeng," sometimes we feel there's something pop up in our mind, an inspiration, a calling to do little thing for God.

Have a nice Thursday :)