Lessons from 2006 / God and the Aesthetic Experience / New Year entry
Jan 2007 -
My third-favourite George Herbert poem (after "The Collar" and "The Temper")

THE PEARL.

Matt. XIII.

I KNOW the wayes of learning ; both the head
And pipes that feed the presse, and make it runne ;
What reason hath from nature borrowed,
Or of itself, like a good huswife, spunne
In laws and policie ; what the starres conspire,
What willing nature speaks, what forc’d by fire ;
Both th?old discoveries, and the new-found seas,
The stock and surplus, cause and historie :
All these stand open, or I have the keyes :
Yet I love thee.

I know the wayes of honour, what maintains
The quick returns of courtesie and wit :
In vies of favours whether partie gains,
When glorie swells the heart, and moldeth it
To all expressions both of hand and eye,
Which on the world a true love-knot may tie,
And bear the bundle, wheresoe’er it goes :
How many drammes of spirit there must be
To sell my life unto my friends or foes :
Yet I love thee.

I know the wayes of pleasure, the sweet strains,
The lullings and the relishes of it ;
The propositions of hot bloud and brains ;
What mirth and musick mean ; what love and wit
Have done these twentie hundred yeares, and more :
I know the projects of unbridled store :
My stuffe is flesh, not brasse; my senses live,
And grumble oft, that they have more in me
Then he that curbs them, being but one to five :
Yet I love thee.

I know all these, and have them in my hand :
Therefore not sealed, but with open eyes
I flie to thee, and fully understand
Both the main sale, and the commodities ;
And at what rate and price I have thy love ;
With all the circumstances that may move :
Yet through these labyrinths, not my groveling wit,
But thy silk twist let down from heav’n to me,
Did both conduct and teach me, how by it
To climbe to thee.

* * *

Knowing You, Jesus
Graham Kendrick

All I once held dear, built my life upon
All this world reveres, and wars to own
All I once thought gain I have counted loss
Spent and worthless now, compared to this

Knowing you, Jesus
Knowing you
There is no greater thing
You're my all, you're the best
You're my joy, my righteousness
And I love you, Lord

Now my heart's desire is to know you more
To be found in you and known as yours
To possess by faith what I could not earn
All-surpassing gift of righteousness

Oh, to know the power of your risen life
And to know You in Your sufferings
To become like you in your death, my Lord
So with you to live and never die

* * *

The 10 top truths learnt in 2006:

1. Following God's will may occasionally appear to mar the aesthetic experience of one's life, but in reality, it is the most complete aesthetic experience possible, and the only way to live life to the full.

2. All good things must come to an end. To make way for better things. It is not wrong to give up some dreams in order that others may be lived.

3. Suffering is always present in life. But with God in charge of one's life, suffering becomes an agent of change and growth rather than a cause for depression. It is natural to feel sad about suffering, but God can give us happiness and peace in the midst of it, no matter how great - and "all things work for the good of those who love Him", even suffering.

4. Communication between people in this life will never be perfect. In every relationship there is bound to be sadness - there is no such thing as a completely happy relationship. For this reason, in order for a romantic relationship to work it is important that both parties adhere to a higher standard of behaviour - rules made by God - and that neither party makes up the rules of the game by themselves, which they can change to suit their convenience.

5. "Men are weak" - Elrond. Don't trust people unless they have proved that they can be trusted.

6. Have confidence in yourself. You are of as much intrinsic worth as any other human being. Don't let people take advantage of you.

7. It is meaningless, and certainly not pleasurable, to live for one's 'pleasure'. One needs to live for a higher cause.

8. In order to make friends and connect to other people, you have to expect not to communicate perfectly and to be often misunderstood. Just speak your mind, be prepared to make a fool of yourself, and enjoy the ride.

9. "There is no such thing as an ugly woman, only a lazy (or ignorant) one".

10. Just because someone says something that sounds beautiful it does not mean that it is true.

* * *

"And all ye need to know": Following God's will is not a betrayal of the aesthetic experience (a sequel to 'More Than Conquerors')
07.01.07

The reason I wrote out the lengthy entry below was because this is extremely different from what I used to believe before 2006.

Unsurprisingly for someone whose intellectual development was based on the poets, I used to have much greater faith in 'the human spirit', the human individual (as opposed to the human crowd, which I was already disillusioned with) - a lot more faith that as individuals people would wish to do good to each other, a lot more faith that they would keep their word. I used to find human emotions, celebrated in centuries of poetry, a lot more beautiful than I now do. I used to have greater faith in self-discipline and the power of the choices we make to change the world. I used to have greater trust in feelings ('trust your feelings, Luke'), and would often insist to follow out my feelings till their natural conclusion.

As a disciple of the poets, particularly the Romantics, I believed that feelings had an intrinsic worth - that to ignore and suppress them was a sin against beauty. Not by God's law, but by an independent Platonic Truth (though there isn't REALLY such a thing, since God's law IS the sum of all Platonic Truths). My identity as a follower of poetry clashed at some of these points with my identity as a Christian - because often my feelings (which came from me) would run contrary to God's law (which came from God). When the two came into conflict, it always caused me a lot of anguish because I couldn't see it as me vs God and I should do God's will rather than my own - I saw it rather as Beauty (which always feels like Truth) vs God and at such times felt that to follow God was an aesthetic crime.

But in retrospect, human beauty (= human truth) and human wisdom can never be an equal alternative to God (=absolute Love, absolute Truth and absolute Beauty), who is much higher than that.

What I have since learnt is that feelings can be used against us as weapons by the devil - they can really destroy a person, break a person down till they can no longer be of service to society - they become whips of torture. They can turn a person away from God and lie that God is not worth following, that it is not worth abandoning dreams to follow God, that it is not worth dying to self to let God become bigger in one's life. They encourage self-centredness and lie that Real Life can be found in 'following your heart', when in reality it can only be found in following God.

One could waste one's life just 'following one's heart' and one's interest in this way, 'living as one likes', pursuing worldly happiness, not living as God likes and laying up one's treasures in heaven. In this way people can be fooled into wasting their short lives, instead of being used by God to do good, to change the world, to bring glory to His name, to tell the lost about Him, and to help society in practical ways.

The poets, who were all people who thought and felt so deeply that it was painful, all dealt with living in an imperfect world by celebrating the beauty in life amidst the imperfection. However, many of them made the mistake of thinking that certain imperfections were beautiful in themselves. They sometimes made the mistake of thinking that things which ran contrary to God's law were still perfectly beautiful although they ran contrary to it, though in reality the beauty they saw was imperfect because of the sin it involved.

And I think that a sign of 'growing up' is realising the truth: that true beauty is the beauty of harmony with God's law and the beauty of holiness; that the 'human spirit' is not that pretty after all, that people all incline towards evil, that sadness is a part of life which will always be there and must be lived with, and that it is foolish to spend one's life chasing after beautiful things to block off the ugliness or always listening to one's feelings in the hope that happiness will be found there.

The truth is that life contains a great deal of suffering, a great deal of lies and broken promises, and is never going to be aesthetically pleasing anyway, so disobeying God's law in order to 'obey' aesthetic law is just stupid, since it is God alone who can give us real peace and joy in the midst of suffering.

Coming to this truth is a long and painful process (it's taken me 21 years). All children are born with the memory of a perfect world, and to come to the realisation and acceptance that this earthly world is an imperfect one and that sadness is an integral part of life which one can never run away from is quite frightening. But with God's help, we can live with it and be on top of it all the time.

The truth is that Real Life, living life to the full, is not dependent on 'following your heart'. It exists in following God. And if one makes the choice to love God and disiciplines one heart to be fully for God, there will no longer be a contradiction - following one's heart WOULD mean following God; which is why this should be our aim.

In my entry 'More Than Conquerors' (May 2006), I lamented that I didn't want God to take away the things I thought were beautiful by opening my eyes to their flaws. God takes away our mud-pies to give us sand-castles, but if one had never seen a sandcastle one would not miss it. "Why rob him of the enjoyment of making mud-pies by showing him things that are so much better so that he'll never be able to see mud-pies in the same light again? That's not making him more happy - that's simply raising the standard that he needs to achieve in order to feel happy in future, surely? Aren't you just making life more difficult for him?"

But God does this because he doesn't want us to waste our lives being limited to childish, worldly ways of defining beauty. He wants us to chase after the right kind of treasure - not spend our lives working our fingers to the bone to earn Monopoly money.

God wants to spare us the pain of 'The Necklace', that story by Maupassant (one of the saddest stories ever written) - about a woman who spends her life working her fingers to the bone to pay for losing a necklace that turns out to be, in the end, worth much less than she thought it was. This is precisely what we are doing when we are ruled by our feelings instead of God's will - we are chasing after a treasure which has no real value and will not really count at the end of our lives.

This does not mean that following God means that we will not be happy until we get to heaven! On the contrary, following God is Real Life, life as it should be lived, with real peace and joy. And although as imperfect humans our feelings will not always line up with God's will, much of the time they will still coincide - and the more we school ourselves to hunger for the things that God hungers for and seek first His kingdom before other more temporal things, the more He will bless us with good things as well which will make us truly happy.

In fact, following God seems to restore pleasure in many things which those who chase after worldly pleasure grow tired of quickly. And this gives the lie to the belief (my old belief) that 'aesthetic experience' must be sacrificed in obedience for God.

At an age in life where many friends are growing tired of many simple pleasures and many things no longer satisfy as much as they once did, my own experience is that I do tend to be able to see a lot more beauty in life and grow happy very easily because of the smallest things - like a $1 ice-cream from Orchard Road, the sheer pleasure of being alive when running in the rain, or the joy of meeting an old friend or making a new one. The ability to take pleasure in small things is by the grace of God.

Many people who 'follow their heart' and everything that their eyes see without respecting God's law in the process have needs which grow more complex as time goes by, and the material things which they pursue fail to satisfy after a while - they will keep needing to scrabble for more and more things and novelties to keep them satisfied, and experience greater and greater dissatisfaction.

But the promise that God gives us, when Jesus said, "I have come to bring [men] life, and bring it to the full" - to bring us abundant life - is that we shall never run out of the ability to be satisfied and happy with the things that He has blessed us with in our lives, no matter how many or few or complicated or simple. He does not promise us many material blessings, but he does promise us that we shall always be able to experience happiness with what he gives us.

And more often than not, he goes on to shower us with blessings, many of which I have felt in the past year. Truly it is abundant life that we are given when we follow God. And there is no greater 'aesthetic experience'! With the higher Truth is the higher Beauty. Nothing is more beautiful than this - than being able to live in an irrational and unsafe world knowing that God is in control, and that one's life will not be wasted - and to, like GK Chesterton, be the happiest person on earth simply because "the stars shall stand / and the small apples grow".

====================

06.01.07

These few days, with the new year and all, I've been thinking quite a lot about how I've changed so much from a year ago - and, by extension, 3 years ago. I think there have been 3 main groups of things which my views have solidified a lot on, and these are:

(Note: Not everything in what comes below is 'Christian' belief - some is just my own personal thoughts)

1. Love and Relationships

What I believe:
1. Love is a choice. To love somebody means to be committed, respectful and 'loving' even when the 'feeling' is not there, because feelings are cyclical and unpredictable; sometimes they will be strong, sometimes weak and sometimes not there at all. In order for a marriage to work, both parties must understand this principle - you can't depend on feelings. Feelings cause people to dump each other in horrible ways, treat each other badly after marriage, and have affairs.

The existence of love cannot be proved except by observing it over time - and a long time, after the confounding factor of infatuation has worn off. When I say "I love you", it is not a measure of my feelings at the single moment of time that I say it. I mean that I have made a carefully considered choice to love someone, according to the definition above. It is a promise to love the person that he is now, that he was before, and that he will be in future. It is not a statement to be uttered lightly because it is the most important of all the binding oaths we can make. It is also a pledge of courtesy, to treat the person with the especial respect and grace due a loved one.

Most guys who say "I love you", unfortunately, have not yet understood the principle of love being a choice. They use it to describe a state of feeling, not as the statement of a decision that they have made or a pledge of good behaviour. They only mean "At this second in my life as I utter these words, I feel extremely attracted to you and want to be with you all the time, though I can't speak for how I may feel in a few days, months or years". They do not see it as a promise. Hence, one should never believe a guy who says "I love you" because he probably doesn't - not in the sense that love is.

2. The 'feeling' of being in love that one gets at first is not love, but infatuation. The depth of infatuation is not a guarantee of the depth of love. The depth of love is, like the decision to love, a choice, effort-dependent, and it grows with time.

Infatuation (="love at first sight") is like the foam on a root beer float. It is an important component of the beginning of every relationship - it tends to be what draws people to each other in the first place (and there is probably a good reason for it, as it is based on certain qualities which two people are naturally attracted to in each other), and can lead to a healthy and stable love-relationship. But it is not to be mistaken for the real thing. If you try to drink it, it is just bubbles; it won't fill you up. It is only the first course of a 10-course meal.

In a healthy relationship, infatuation (a feeling) should gradually be replaced with the genuine love (a choice). It is possible for a healthy relationship to bypass the infatuation stage, but it is impossible for something that is pure infatuation to last. The "sparks", "magic" or "romance" that ideally remain in a marriage are infatuation that, tempered by love, has grown into something more substantial - that is true romance.

The existence of infatuation can be seen in isolated actions which are wrongly termed 'romantic'. But actions do not prove the existence of love. The existence of love can be seen in the manner and conduct of the lover at any given point of time. Truly 'romantic' actions are only an extension of consistent, everyday feeling based on the decision to love - to be loving. They do not have to involve flowers and chocolates at all. (In fact, nowadays flowers and chocolates make me suspicious. I don't believe them. They do not say to me "I love you". They only say to me, "I find you attractive". Which is all very well - but no proof of love. I think I would only believe them after I'd been in a happy marriage for a few years.)

3. The choice to turn infatuation into love should not be based on the infatuation, but on logical reasoning and common sense as to whether the relationship is practicable. Eg if certain irreconciliable differences make themselves apparent, it is not advisable to make the choice to love based on infatuation, because starving infatuation is more easily done than trying to kill off love - as the very nature of love implies that one cannot reverse the decision so easily - at the very least it would be a matter of years.

3. The oft-quoted line by guys who try to convince girls to rush into romantic attachments with them, "Friendship kills love", is a fallacy. It is impossible to love anybody properly without knowing a person, without the existence of friendship, and this is why it is safer to let a firm friendship develop before making the choice to love - because if you make the decision to love first and then find that you cannot even be friends, it's going to fail miserably.

There is an exception for one type of love. It is sometimes possible to love someone without knowing them, but it usually means a life of celibacy and most people cannot keep it up. I believe that Dante Alighieri loved Beatrice. His was not simple infatuation; he made the choice, and the proof is that he stuck to it all his life. It is exhausting to love someone without expecting it ever to be returned; if he had not made a firm decision in the sense of genuine Love, he could not have stuck to it. And that is what makes Dante still the greatest of all the poets who wrote on love. What differentiates this very rare kind of love from obsession (much more common) is that the lover never does anything to inconvenience or harm the other person, only (if there is any contact at all) to promote their happiness and well-being. But this is completely self-imposed. There is no law of romantic love that says any human being must take it on themselves to choose someone to love and idealise their entire lives and never expect love in return. This not in God's law. It is not even a law of the poets (many of whom were cads and coxcombs). It was only the stilnovists, and we do not know if any of them really lived it out besides Dante.

4. However, the reverse is true: love (or pseudo-love) that does not work out can kill a perfectly decent friendship, which was often of greater value than the relationship that it degenerated into after love/infatuation came into the picture. One risks a friendship every time one chooses to love. (Which explains the role of infatuation - without it many people would not dare to take the first step.)

5. A guy who does not understand the concept that love is a choice will break your heart. At first he will claim that he 'loves' you when he is only infatuated, and then, when the infatuation blows away, will rush away at top speed and claim that he never 'loved' you at all. Which is true - he was only infatuated all along. The disaster lies in the fact that you gave him the benefit of the doubt and allowed yourself to be persuaded that he really did love you. That is why one must always exercise caution and never believe any 'I love you's unless they have been proved by the test of time.

Many of the poets confused infatuation with love (Shelley a notable example). Many more confused lust with love. Lust is a component of infatuation.

6. This does NOT mean at all that one has to take the weighty decision to love someone immediately with only infatuation to go on. One has to let friendship build up first, which will be a better gauge of whether the person you are infatuated with is compatible or not with you as a life partner. Infatuation, according to reputable research studies, takes at least 2 years to wear off completely.

7. Any guy who is put off when you explain the above 6 points to him, and decides to go off and look for an easier target, is only infatuated. Let him go.

8. There is no such thing as a love so deep that it cannot let go. Love cannot forget. But if it clings too tightly to something that it seeks to preserve, it will destroy it. Hence the expression "Love is ice held in the hand of a child" - Aeschylus.

9. When Louis Aragon wrote that "there is no happy love", what he really meant was, "there is no completely happy love". Because there isn't. Nothing in life can be completely happy. But there can be healthy love, which brings a lot more happiness than sadness.

10. One would go mad with worry for the person whom one loves if one was not able to trust that God loved him and was preserving him.

* * *

2. Dreams and Decisions

1. One will have many dreams in life. Not all of them are compatible with each other. Some must be sacrificed.

2. No major decision that one makes in life is a choice between something that will make you completely happy and something that will make you less happy. In the best case, it is a decision between something that will make you more happy and something that will make you less happy. Either way, the outcome will still lead to a certain degree of sadness mixed with the happiness, because life in this fallen world is imperfect. There will always be sadness. Therefore, just because there is sadness does not mean that one has done anything wrong or made the wrong choice.

3. It is completely pointless to feel sad about this unchangeable fact, but it is natural and permissible to feel sad sometimes. The fact that some dreams have to be sacrificed is sad. The fact that they are sacrificed in order to make way for other dreams to come true is happy. Sometimes one will feel the happiness more, and sometimes one will feel the sadness more, especially with certain triggers. But when one walks with God, one can ask and trust Him to let one feel the happiness more often.

4. Dreams, in a different sense - actual dreams that one gets while sleeping - are not to be trusted. They entertain, they give hope, they depress. They may be warnings. But they do not accurately predict the future. Do not base important decisions on them. They may reflect truths. But they do not always do so, and they sometimes lie.

5. Feelings are not to be trusted any more than dreams are.

* * *

3. The Role of Prayer

1. A lot of things in this life are beyond our control. Only God can control them. In fact, we are a lot less in control of things in our lives than we think. The decisions in our lives will not always affect the course of events. One can do one's best and not do anything wrong, and things will still go wrong - and vice versa.

2. That is why praying is so important. Prayer really changes history and it is never wasted. Things in life, lost causes, the people around oneself - things which one feels completely helpless about... the only thing one can do, and the thing one SHOULD do, is pray.

3. The more time one spends praying, the less helpless one will really be in the face of many circumstances. Often, one can make great efforts in the physical world to try to change things by one's own actions and decisions which will not have the slightest effectiveness - which only prayer can solve.

This is why I want to spend a lot more time praying in 2007 instead of 'doing' things. I used to think that by doing some things rather than others, I could change the way things would happen and help more people, and while in the past I already knew prayer was important, I saw it more as something to help me see what decisions I should make and show me what to do rather than as a method in itself that would help. But now I think, beyond doing things, that prayer itself is the best thing I can do.. I will never be able to help things to go right and to help people more than really by praying. Because what I can never do and never guarantee, God will do.

* * *

Happy New Year everyone!
01.01.07

I think 2006, the year I turned 21, was probably the best year of my life. It was generally a year of extreme sadness dotted with bright points of happy events (maybe the saddest of the 5 years since I came to know God, but definitely never as sad as I used to be before I knew God), but the happy points were all these marvelous experiences which I think I was extremely fortunate to have! It's the year that many of my tentative friendships in medicine and in hall solidified into real, close friendships, the year that I lost a lot of innocence and childish ways of thinking and finally grew up, and the year of the most extremes of emotion. I've always been someone who lives by extremes (the kind of person who likes dark and white chocolate, but not milk chocolate because it's uninteresting), and it had all the extremes of emotion one could think of.

I believe the sad events of 2006 (so sad mainly because they were so shocking, showing me an ugly side of human nature I'd never believed was possible, so that it's utterly changed the way I see life and other human beings) were sent to me by God to bring change into my life, because without them I could never have grown to the extent I have been forced to grow this year :P The best result is that my life has finally developed a sense of balance which had been lacking all 21 years before :P many of my questions about life and ideological dilemnas have been resolved finally, and I have also grown up a lot in my faith and learnt to trust God unconditionally - and most of all learnt the truth of Romans 8:28 - that "all things work for the good of those who love Him"... all things, whether good or bad! This year I have seen amazing good come out of things that I thought could never result in any good.

By the grace of God, this year I've finally come out tops in my lifelong struggles with insomnia, low self-esteem and depression. Also, now I finally see a lot of human teachings and ideals for what they are - fallible human teachings and ideals. Everything that once appeared to me important seems unimportant in the big scheme of things, God's plan for history; and I've learnt that nothing in this life is indispensable except God, who is our ultimate source of strength and love. :D It has been a year of God's liberation from a prison of lies and loneliness.

2006 was also a very FUN year. It's a year in which I have been truly blessed by friendships with so many wonderful and loveable and loving people, a year in which I feel I have gained many real and strong friendships, and learnt how to be a lot less awkward around others and a little of how to be a better friend myself because you showed me the way by example. Thank you everyone! :)

My top favourite memories of 2006 (I have YET to blog about most of them!)

1. (Jan) The Hall Play in which I was set decor head - one of the biggest responsibilities in my life!

2. (March) Cycling at Pulau Ubin with Dawn, Neela, Jeremy, David, Rodney, Po Fun, Yucai, Yizhong (I hope I didn't miss anyone out) and its sequel, the movie marathon next day at my house ("Chungking Express", "The Thirteenth Floor" and "Shawshank Redemption")

3. (June) The Spain And Portugal Trip! With Mohana, Neela, MC, Kokwei, Janise, Jieli and Kelvin. More lovely travelling companions would have been hard to find!

4. (July) Amazing, wonderful, lovely surprise birthday party organised by Janice for me and Susan - a once-in-a-lifetime experience! I was very touched and have never felt so loved in my life. And another one later on organised by Siu Qey at which many old friends were reunited - at which I had a really good time :)

5. All the long runs! The 10 km Sheares Bridge Run with David and Jeremy Mong, the 9 km Terry Fox Run with Kokwei, Jeremy, Zichun and Lik Man, the half-marathon with Zichun in December. And of course, all that running I did with Jeremy in which we'd try to kill each other hahaha ("if anyone saw us they'd think we hated each other!" ~ Jeremy)

6. (October) Mohana and Neela's unforgettable party hahaha

7. (October) Night cycling with Dawn, Jeremy Mong, Rodney, Hui Lin, Victor Tak - and Qin Yong and Yucai for part of the way

8. (November) Watching Notre Dame de Paris, with Faith and Viknesk

9. (November) Playhouse [though I was quite sad on the day itself, I think it was a stellar achievement which made me really proud of our class!]

10. (December) Asrie's birthday celebrations at Settler's Cafe (where we laughed until we nearly cried at Shao Hui's charades).

11. Baking with Faith. And all the occasions where Faith, Dawn and self were together :)

13. (December) The recent VCF gathering at Danson's house where we laughed so hard (especially during the two-person charade involving Ben and Claris) we thought the neighbours were going to complain - and where there was twice the amount of food as people to eat it!

14. Every single one of the VCF meetings in KE hall. The CGs, the prayer meetings - times of friendship and sharing from the heart which I look forward to every week. Thank God for everyone in KE CF - Annie, Ching Mien, Zichun, Jene, Joel and the rest... they have really built me up a lot as a person over the year(s).

15. The IFG orientation camp for the students from China that I helped out at as an OGL for two days recently - it was a great experience making friends with everyone in my group, and I do intend to blog about it when I have the time!

And all those other times with friends, too numerous to mention! The numerous birthday parties, the tiring but sometimes very funny times during the different hospital postings, the intensive and hilarious Paediatrics interactive sessions, late-night mugging in the Med Library and shared exam stress on the eve of exams. The rare but frightfully funny and encouraging late-night MSN conversations with Steffy and other friends! Catching up with those who were in Singapore this year - our secondary school class reunion, watching Spirited away with Steffy, catching up with Rachel in Sushi Tei. Seeing off friends at the airport. Gatherings with VJC friends and the recent successful barbecue organised by Jac at the very windy Pasir Ris BBQ site! :) Discussing Playhouse with Amanda and Eleanor and borrowing pirate costumes from the hall master. Supper and FTs with the other VCF hall leaders and council members, especially Hui-En, Gillian and Carolyn. Laughing, working and bickering with Susan and Janice, my CG (clinical group) mates. Renewed friendships with friends like Jeremy Mong (my lecture theatre sleeping partner in M2 haha), now running buddy and sharer of love for Jay Chou, British humour, aeroplanes and many comedies :D Siu Qey's faithful recommendations of music and shows throughout the year and our rare meet-ups in person - which I treasure a lot :) And of course Viks, fellow KEVIIan, grammar-checker, dinner companion, and dramatic sneezer, with whom I shared the experience of making the first issue of the hall newsletter as well as those E-block movie marathons and donuts/ice-cream... and, who, like U-Liang, thinks I am fun to bully (argh!)

And definitely, 2006 would not have been such a good year without my roommate Dawn - who just by being a friendly presence in our room has made my double-room experience a really happy one :) Just by having a roommate to whom to say what's in one's mind and to talk things over sometimes, instead of just talking through it by myself as I've been used to all my life, I think I've learnt a lot about myself and gained a better perspective on life, and come to terms with many things.

And thank You God for making all these things possible, bringing me through 2006, and blessing me in so many ways :) and for a lovely church and family - which through everything have always given me unwavering support!

And that's all for now because I have to go and do my COFM report which I've left myself only one day to do! :D