campfire

I saw worship in tonight's open Mic.and it was beautiful.

I vaguely remember jonlee telling me this - that there will be times that Im tired or not in top shape and i search for comfort in the people i spend a lot of my time with (ie arrow students) but i shouldnt because i ought not to be dependent on them for certain emotional gaps. Though now in a slightly different context, i am forcing myself into a lockdown in my room while i get over this strange mix of tiredness and desire for familiar intimacy. On a completely different note, this is what happened after i typed up my previous post: crazyman suddenly taps my shoulder and commands me to "get off the phone!! you've been on it the whole time!!" i put it aside but i also told him that i was reading. He raised his eyebrow. And i told him that i could get books on my phone. And we ended up having a pleasant albeit short discussion on the boon and bane of mobile phones. I think there are certain things that Melbourne has taught me well :) thanks for reminding me that he is also another (hu)man.. Just slightly crazier than me. (f. I think i will join the boys on tuesdays.)

I vaguely remember jonlee telling me this - that there will be times that Im tired or not in top shape and i search for comfort in the people i spend a lot of my time with (ie arrow students) but i shouldnt because i ought not to be dependent on them for certain emotional gaps. Though now in a slightly different context, i am forcing myself into a lockdown in my room while i get over this strange mix of tiredness and desire for familiar intimacy. On a completely different note, this is what happened after i typed up my previous post: crazyman suddenly taps my shoulder and commands me to "get off the phone!! you've been on it the whole time!!" i put it aside but i also told him that i was reading. He raised his eyebrow. And i told him that i could get books on my phone. And we ended up having a pleasant albeit short discussion on the boon and bane of mobile phones. I think there are certain things that Melbourne has taught me well :) thanks for reminding me that he is also another (hu)man.. Just slightly crazier than me. (f. I think i will join the boys on tuesdays.)

deliberate isolation

I vaguely remember jonlee telling me this - that there will be times that Im tired or not in top shape and i search for comfort in the people i spend a lot of my time with (ie arrow students) but i shouldnt because i ought not to be dependent on them for certain emotional gaps. Though now in a slightly different context, i am forcing myself into a lockdown in my room while i get over this strange mix of tiredness and desire for familiar intimacy. On a completely different note, this is what happened after i typed up my previous post: crazyman suddenly taps my shoulder and commands me to "get off the phone!! you've been on it the whole time!!" i put it aside but i also told him that i was reading. He raised his eyebrow. And i told him that i could get books on my phone. And we ended up having a pleasant albeit short discussion on the boon and bane of mobile phones. I think there are certain things that Melbourne has taught me well :) thanks for reminding me that he is also another (hu)man.. Just slightly crazier than me. (f. I think i will join the boys on tuesdays.)

Many students have been asking me when toastbar will open. I have been caught with nothing to say. Is this just going to be about me wanting to do other things and thus not caring about what these people now miss? is this me giving up too easily? giving up on what? It is ironic how they are the reason i don't want toastbar yet they are the reason i would wanna reopen toastbar. If toastbar comes back, that would mean i don't get to hang out with them when i want to. Customer first. I also realise that the constant gaming cannot go on. It is so unhealthy for the boys and for the space. It makes the place less engaging. A lot less engaging. K back to toastbar. Im giving up on back end operations. I don't like it. I will do it if i were under other circumstances. But the situation now is this: I've been asked what i want to do, with no expectation of me to continue toastbar. Secondly, i've been asked to think carefully and wisely about what i want to do for my remaining months here and not just do something for the sake of meeting another person's expectations. There will be plenty of that in the future. That idea of thinking for myself and asking myself what i, elisa, really wanna spend my time on the next 3.5 months, is something I've had difficulty getting my head around. Its spoiling me.. Almost. But in a good way. A way that forces me to make choices that come out of who i am..

he knows he's human too

Im on a tram with an angry man who has a screw loose. he is taking to himself. shouted at me for using my phone. and grumbles at the tram to go faster. just two minutes ago however, he looked up at another old man who was getting off the tram and said to him'have a good day son.' and what i found most remarkable was when theold man in his early sixties turned around and saio'thank you sir.'

Walk in the park

These are the things i learnt today: 1) when you are a free flying post it, things can get stuck to you and that can be annoying or exciting. You no longer can easily slip round the bend through little gaps without things sticking to you. So for now.. Lts just say i only trust few people with the fact that im free flying 2) four years ago your eyes could only see so much and someone was able to show you things that impressed you. Now that youur eyes have seen more, they still can only s ee so much and it may feel like nobody will be able to impress you, but you feel that way only bqecause your eyes now know this much. So just wait and see, to see. 3) the things i notice about other people that annoy me and frustrate me, i also notice in myself. And life goes in this rythm where you get annoyed, reflect, then realise you condemn someone just like you and you are humbled to forgive and to work on your own weaknesses. 4) if you have you own agenda in a particular area, then you will be impressed and disappointed and you will want to mother over. So.. Let go. 5) if you dont want your kid to be like the other 'damaged' kids whom you despise, you wont be able to let go of ur own kids enough. Learn to respect and love those you despise first. Lessons from a walk in the park

week

week's gone by.
its been generally alright, just with sporadic uncontrollable moments that im really thankful for, strange as it sounds.
Got the most amount of work done today because I didn't really have to involve many people. managed to think through the under 18 students' care system and work it through with El,  went ahead to look for documents that i needed (i probably should have asked for permission first.. then again, i kinda know how ellie works), made lists, grouped people, printed necessary documents then rushed off to the U18 meeting. Not that i had to do all that, really, but the mess was bugging me all of last semester.

jacq and i spent a long time knocking on the doors of people who didn't turn up. but we only actually only knocked on 4 doors. reason being that we ended up have pretty long conversations with 2 people about completely unrelated things. gosh. extended corridor talk like that really energizes me.

OHHHHH so maybe THAT'S why i can't sleep and am still up at 4.15am!

heh. spent the rest of the night looking through the orientation schedule and doing up simple posters for each event. it'd be fun to see how people react when in the morning they see that the lifts have transformed from nothing till a community announcement room with posters telling you what's on when and where! schedule's packed out for every single day the coming week.

i'm also going to the snow tmr-sunday with a huge bunch of people from church.  i think part of why i said yes (albeit quite reluctantly) was because i wasn't quite sure how i was gonna be at this period in time, so i thought perhaps a getaway would be good.

this week, i again had this awake-from-slumber moment where i realised how irresponsible i can be. absent-minded. boooyaaahh.

split personality

this is the second time i'm hearing this comment: that i am different in front of different people.
i never really notice. and i still can't identify or fully understand what this means.
the only time i feel like i'm pretending is when i act as though there is no awkwardness between me and kv or ljh. but even they do the same - forced by circumstance.
everything else is elisa. or so i think. am i tricking myself??
maybe when i meet new people and do that whole small talk thing, i am different, but then again, that is still elisa. it's elisa-when-she-meets-someone-new.

i think it's now important to differentiate between genuineness and difference. i can be different in front of different people, but it does not mean i am not genuine. and difference can arise from the different role you play in each person's life. With some friends i'm more serious and thoughtful, with other friends i just chillax. With some people i'm motherly, with others i'm like a kid.  yeah i can see why someone would say i'm different in front of different people, but isn't that normal? or is it just me?

and just because i behave differently, does that follow on to mean that i am a different person? i think my values would still remain the same, my hopes, fears, securities, question, the things i take delight in - all these are still the same. but under different circumstances and with different people, all those get expressed differently, no?

AND.. there are also times where you wanna behave a certain way/do a certain thing/ think a certain way, but a little voice inside your head tells you otherwise. sometimes you choose to follow what you want, and other times you follow the little. both are equally me though, even though they may be battling against each other.

help me out here i hope i'm not being too much of a hypocrite.

quote

Maybe it is better to feel hurt or sadness knowing you have loved, than to not feel anything at all and not knowing whether there was love.

intimacy

i just came back from basketball with roberto, andrew, lucky and su ann. i'd say i've spent a lot of the trinity break looking out for things that people around me like doing, keeping an eye out for little pockets where i can plant ideas (oooh inception!) so that they can step up and start something themselves. so i lit up when roberto responded to my suggestion (of a weekly basketball session for the new semester) with a "why dont we start TOMORROW!!" i've also realised that as i start to feel more comfortable and confident in a group of people, i start noticing things i don't like. and it becomes all too easy to start picking the people whom you want to include. i'm a little more conscious of that dangerzone though. because i dont wanna be to anyone who ljh and kvl were to me. and i really hope if ever i fall into that trap someone who slap me awake and call me back to what it means to build healthy community. another things i've gotta watch out for when i get people started on running activities or programs is that it should be something they themselves really do want to do and are not doing just for my sake or just because i suggested to do it. because what i'll find is that if they themselves do not hold it, then once i step away, they will also follow my lead in stepping away and nobody will be left to hold out what once was. su ann cooked bakuteh today at my place. and she was such a gem. she was just alone in my apartment cooking while i was having a really long conversation with ellie and clearing out the old office. attempting to anyway. we invited new friends over to my place to share dinner with us. david brought his brother chee hoe, adam came, thomas and andrew as well, and they brought their friend lucky. surprisingly, dinner conversation had quite some substance. we talked about the muslim fasting and how some of us really respected them for being able to do such a difficult thing for 40 days, while the muslims said that it was actually really easy. our church has an annual 40 days of prayer and fasting as well but i dont know when that will start. it'd be nice to have at least some overlap. it was just simply delightful to have such personal conversations on our own beliefs (catholics, christians, muslim, taoists, buddhists and free-thinker all at the same table sharing bakuteh and KFC) and sense a kind of respect that is required for such open, non-offensive discussion. We also talked about how having a god is recognising that there is a greater authority that you are under, and whatever it is that rules your life, that's the authority you're under, that's kinda like your god as well. after basketball we also sat in one of the staff rooms at RMIT and chatted about corruption, a bit about our families and lifestyle. parents who are too busy for children. people who refuse to give in to corruption and believe in minimal corruption. i actually only wanted to say one thing when i started writing this post. that is, i really miss the intimacy and comfort of being loved so wholly and being secure in that love.

50% more to go

50% more to go. It’s been 6 months out of the one year that i’ll be here for.

 I had two very different questions yesterday from two very different people regarding my time here.

 the 18 year old boy asked me “actually, why do you want to stay here this year? If i were you i will start working. There are a lot of things you can do in one year you know? Don’t waste the year like that.”

 The 30-something year old man asked me “what gave you the courage to stay on to do this? I want to do something like that as well but I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know you well, personally, but just watching from a third person point of view, from afar, please be encouraged and know that you’re doing a very good job.”


 Haha it’s funny how differently people can look at the same thing. I’d say I see my work as somewhere in between those two. When i texted mum and sent her pictures of the jetty through my phone yesterday while i was out fishing with han cheng, david and Julian, she went “no work today?”. I replied with a “I can work from here”.

 Begs the question of how work is defined. I know i still have trouble describing to people what I have been doing. This year has been a real gift to me. I had one good conversation with Han Cheng yesterday, i think it gave the both of us food for thought. That i consider work. Spending time with Julian and including David, i consider that work too. This morning’s coffee with Joshua Pui about church, conflicts and next semester’s open mic was work. Prayer meeting straight after that till lunch time was work. Cooking for the trinity students who were having their exams last week was work even though it was over at my apartment. You could say I’m taking a break now as i write this. Consolidating the under 18 student name list later and paying them a visit later will be work. I used to get bogged down by the operational side of working out Toastbar but i realised that the real work was the people work. You don’t just get something to fly for the sake of getting something running up in the air. Work on your foundations and someone else can fly even if you dont.

 Sarah Soh asked me what i’ve learnt about myself this year. I couldn’t think of one specific thing on the spot. But Tim put it really nicely when he explained 2 Chronicles. The supposed good guys were called up and given choices or made to go through periods of time that really tested their substance. From the way they responded to the choices or their circumstances, their very response exposed things in them. You go through 2 chronicles and will find that you never really know who the good guys are or who the bad ones are. (sidetracked a bit..) but likewise, the way i responded to instructions involving technology, the way i responded to the absence of instructions but freedom to create my own work, responded to conflict, misunderstanding, mishandling of expectations, criticism, faithlessness of experts, people around me whom i thought i cared about, the challenge of cooking for 35 people despite having close to zero confidence in the kitchen, rejection and exclusion from a group of people, acceptance into a new culture, respect from an unexpected group of people, my own irresponsibility, struggling with value and identity in light of the success of aunty khoo, learning how to embrace, engage and empower.


 Next six months. Effectively only another 4 months with the students. Eeps! How do i build a community from which even caleb can glean from if he comes over 2 years from now?

thanks

I won't care if he is not around, but because i know that he will always be around, i can't.stand the awkwardness and i can't stand pretending like he is not there or that we are on talking terms. So seriously i wish someone could encourage him to man up and stop collectring balls on his side of the court after every time i take a shot.