This is ridiculous.

I thought I could sleep it off, but I woke up depressed.

And apparently I lost the will to stay healthy. I got a bad sore throat. My voice isn't working.

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Created at 3:30 AM
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I've had such a bad spate of cumulative failure recently that I really want to quit.

I want to get away from everything, just for a while, and not have anyone ask about me or why or talk about where I'm at.

I just want some ME time.

What's the point of telling yourself that you can live to fight another round when you meet failure after failure every week.

This would be the worst downtime I've had in months, and I don't find it funny anymore.

And when I don't find falure funny, it's not a good thing. It's not a good thing for me.

God am I really this weak? Am I really only this strong? If I NEED to be that strong, then seriously, I'm tugging on that emergency lever now. I need some help. Desperately. If not, I'll most certainly give up. By tomorrow.

And yes, if you wanna stop respecting me now, it's the perfect time to do it. I'll take a long time to get myself back together, thank you very much.

But if I do.

It means I've overcome something. And when a man gets past a barrier, he becomes stronger.

In the meantime though.

I'm still down. Really down. And I'm blogging this on purpose to archive this, so when I look back, if I actually manage to pick myself up from all this nonsense that's been happening to me, I can finally laugh at it. Cos I'll find it funny by then.

Now though.

I don't feel like laughing.

I have a terrible headache, I'm tired, my body's aching, and I feel like shit.

Way to go, strong and fearless leader.

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Created at 7:31 PM
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"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from youselves, it is the gift of God -not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do " (Eph. 2:8-9)

So there's this confusion in many of our hearts, that if we don't do good works and preach like Christ called us to do, we can't get God's nod of approval, and we won't get to heaven. Or something around those lines eh?

There's a misunderstanding here.

We don't get into heaven by being a missionary, or serving like crazy. Or simply by being a goody goody mommy's boy. WRONG. WRONG.

We got to trace the steps, trace the steps!

Christ died on the cross for all our sins. Why did He have to die? He had to become the sacrificial lamb for our sins, which no other sacrifice on earth can replace.

Here we go...

EVERY fellow on earth has sinned, like it or not.

You can be the good Christian, or the bad boy Christian, or the lukewarm Christian. Every type has sinned and will never stop sinning, WHETHER we do good works or not!

There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins. -Ecclesiastes 7:20

Why did God have to intervene? Because when we sin, we cannot get close to God, who is holy, sinless and pure. Because we sin, we die. The wages of sin is death, Romans 6:23

So for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God DID NOT send His Son into the world to condemn the world, BUT to SAVE the world through Him. Whoever BELIEVES IN HIM is not condemned (-John 3:16-18a) to living a life away from the glory of God, and into eternal death after we die. Emphases mine.

God sent His son Jesus to die for us to propitiate the wrath of God.

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppresses the truth by their wickedness. Romans 1:18

Does the above sound familiar to you? It should! That's you and me there! Wicked in our very nature. Who can say that they are sinless, when the Bible says that Man has fallen?

This Jesus saved us from all hell, literally, by being THAT sacrifice in propitiation, to save us from this wrath of God. In dying for us when WE were supposed to die, the price for our sins had been PAID FOR, and thus we no longer need to die eternally, but we can be with Him in heaven.

And where does all that come from?

GRACE!

Did God save you because you deserved it? Obviously, no! It is by His grace you have been saved. And whether you like it or not, however many good works you do or however LITTLE, it's His grace that gets you to heaven anyway. If you believe in this power of Christ, you're saved. And if you're saved, you're saved. That's why it's called grace: getting something we don't deserve.

Till the day you STOP BELIEVING. That's when you doubt and you no longer hold on to God's promise of eternity, ie stop believing in it and denounce Christianity, you lose the inheritance of eternal life too. John 3:18b, ...but whosoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

And as BELIEVERS, we're COMMISSIONED to go out and spread the gospel and serve in the body of Christ and all. BUT again. Does that mean that if we believe, but we don't serve, it means we don't get to heaven?

The answer is NO. Even lukewarm Christians who don't serve get to heaven.

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained from the law, Christ died for NOTHING! -Galatians 2:21 (emphasis mine) The law meaning justice as defined by man. If we can only be deemed righteous through our own concept of righteousness, through good works and all, then Christ would have died in vain!

That's why we're all working so hard to spread the gospel in the first place: if a new Christian starts learning and growing in Christ and suddenly his life is taken from him before he can start serving -or even start learning about the Word!- then how?! Go to hell ah? OF COURSE NOT. That is falsehood. When we pray for a dying man and he accepts Christ because he BELIEVES in Jesus, we have faith that when he goes the next moment, he'll be with Jesus. This is because by His grace, He's done His side of the bargain, and that by having FAITH in this promise that stems from GRACE, this dying man, who never served, who never learnt anything about the Bible, will get to be with God after death.

To my fellow Christian brothers and sisters, I believe many of us have faced this question before. We look at the Christians who are serving and we ask, is this fair at all? I serve, he/she doesn't, but we all go to heaven anyway! What's the deal here?

Yes, it isn't fair. If it were fair, we'd ALL be roasting in hell whichever way.

It's a PRIVILEGE to serve. It's a privilege to know the joy that comes from doing good works IN HIS NAME. We KNOW and UNDERSTAND His GRACE and therefore we have strength to serve only because we recognise that. Let us not judge our brothers and sisters who aren't serving or in the missions field, but instead be models of Christians who indeed know the light, who have experienced God's grace some way or another, and thus are serving and working for the Lord.

We, the ones who have seen and understood, are the ones who need to hear this message. Because we know and we have experienced the grace of God before others have, we simply cannot lie down and be fed. We HAVE to go out first, and to pray about where to serve in missions, because we have already been fed and we have understood and experienced God's work in our lives.

Perhaps the lukewarm or so-called bad Christians have heard the message and have been warming the pews for years... But that is not for us to judge, because it is only in God's timing and plan that we rise up to serve. "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Eph 2:10

Remember in John 21:21-22, where Peter asks about the fate of another disciple? Jesus replied, what is that to you?

So what is that to you? Let's observe our own walks, and let us hold fast to the truth that we have already been saved... It is now time to live a life guided by the Spirit and Word, which calls us to do the many things that Christians in the missions field and in ministries are doing now.

If you think you aren't gonna get to heaven because you haven't been doing enough, think again! Understand that it's the grace that gets us to heaven, not the amount of things you do. It's the understanding of His grace and love for us that makes you want to serve fervently, not the other way round!

By His grace, you will get to heaven, even if you continue to sit in church like it were nothing to you. But this grace that saved the entire world from sin... you, my fellow Christian brother/sister. If you haven't been serving, or are not hungry for doing works in His name...

Then really. Does this grace from God Himself mean so little to you?

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Created at 7:40 PM
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I read from a friend's blog that...

(no quotes here!)

If a man desires a woman, she can't do anything to turn him away.

If a man doesn't like a woman, she can't do anything to make him stay.

(I can't remember the exact wording -and the exact wording had a lot more impact!- but that's more or less it.)

So...

Who in the world came up with that?!

A woman can get a man to notice her too. And if a woman doesn't want a man to stay, what can he say?

I actually had a lot in mind to talk about earlier but er, I forgot what I wanted to say.

I will make such a fantastic journalist. My articles will be short and to the point and they will be in newspapers like everywhere. Hoo ha ha.

ANYWAY.

I've long lost the buzzing clicking feeling you get when you know, you're talking to someone and you think you like him/her. I've dismissed every single bit of romantic feeling I've gotten for girls over the past year and 9 months, and counting.

I move on so fast I think I must be really heartless. Emotionless. Everytime I go crazy over someone, I can get over her completely just by willing myself to do so over a couple of days.

I used to do that in the past too, but it didn't use to clear out so quickly.

Sometimes, and only some very few times, I wish I could change reality.

Why only sometimes? Well... I don't know. My life is such a blast. And I have such an awesome God and saviour. Most of the time I'm just really thankful and I think really, I can't have it any better. Just look at my NS life for example. I'm one out of a few million who actually succeeded in getting a place in my unit, starting from post BMT.

But... It's just this particular department of my life... That bites me in the buttocks sometimes. You know?

Sometimes it feels as if you only need to change that ONE condition in that person's life, just ONE thing, and you'd have a perfect romance.

Just one.

But of course it's not true. If not God wouldn't have planned it that way.

Humans tempt themselves too much. Way too much.

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Created at 5:26 PM
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My muscles are aching from the best workout I've done in the past 3 months. I think it's best to keep my workouts like that: just 1 hour long, with some space for cardio and core after. I didn't feel the aches yesterday, but this morning the aching was so bad I swear, my shirt couldn't come off properly cos I couldn't raise my arms high enough. Great aches hurt well.

I know that last line doesn't make me sound very peace-loving and pacifistic, but whatever.

Here's an outline of my workout:

Lat pulldowns: 4 sets of 10-15 reps, weight marking 80-120

Close grip underhand lat pulldowns: 4 sets of 8-12 reps, 90-110

Seated rows: 4 sets of 13-15 reps, 36-51

Upright cable rows: 4 sets of 13-15 reps, 60-80

Machine shoulder press: 4 sets of 7-12 reps, 32-36

Machine vertical chest press: 4 sets of 7-12 reps, 54-64

Cable pushdown: 4 sets of 11-12 reps, 60-80

Cable curl: 4 sets of 9-12 reps, 60-80

(cable curl and pushdown done back to back, so one set consists of one set of pushdown and curl)

All those were the major exercises I did. I don't know what the minor exercises are called so I can't list them here. All of that takes about an hour, and is for a general workout. I don't mind repeating that on Friday.

Any suggestions to improve my workout are welcome!

Just to clarify, I'm not doing this to grow obscenely huge muscles. I just need to keep lean and in shape. I'm not into protein powder and I do not desire looking like a huge walking ball of muscle, so don't give me the O.O look when I tell you I've been working out and you tell me that I don't look buff. For some reason everyone keeps giving me that response, and it's getting a little off-putting. Balladeers can't look too muscular, if that's the justification that you want.

Also, I've been searching for job oppurtunities, performing oppurtunities and a good and reasonably priced hairstylist. I need someone to help me spruce up my image too... A little bit of presentation is needed if I want to hit the streets performing.

All this investment is in faith that I eventually will have places to sing in and that people are gonna hear me.

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Created at 1:52 PM
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No not cockroaches. But I just have to get this out of my system and I don't know how to tell anyone or who I could tell who would understand. And yes, blogging about it is the stupidest way to deal with a situation like this BUT I CAN'T CARE. It's killing me, it really is.

Should I even risk it? But gosh, it's killing me harder than any other time I've had to deal with this.

God please, take ___ out of my mind. I don't know why it feels wrong, and yet I don't know why I want __ __ ____ ___ so bad. I don't know why I want to tell ___ ___ _ ____ either.

It's twisting me inside out thinking about it and thinking about the hurt I'll have to go through again. And again. And again. Please God, that one time two years ago IS ENOUGH.

I don't even know if this is right and I don't even know why it feels so wrong...

If they say I'm a cold, heartless machine, then please let me be one know. For the love of all things good, please. I've been thinking about ___ everyday for the past 6 days and I can't believe it either. EVERYDAY. EVERY MOMENT.

God, I always thought after that incident I could be on my toes and in complete control of my emotions, but no, it's only been a week and I'm dying inside.

I don't want to let go of _____ ________ and yet I know I have to douse the fire somehow.

WHY?! I've always gotten through all these scenarios like this. Putting out every fire, every spark in my heart, just because that one incident happened. Will this screw my life over forever?

And by blogging it out, I just screwed this whole scenario over. It won't end well now because I blogged about it. Everytime I blog about it, it crashes down on me and screws me over.

If only God could make this clear to me now. And every other time. I wouldn't have to go through all of this hoping and wishing for's and tearing down of my heart.

On a very good plus side, it's helped me write some of the best ballads I've ever written in my lifetime. 3 ballads in one week is one heck of a roll I'm on.

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Created at 7:00 PM
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Not to blog, you wish ah. But to write songs. I've been getting several song ideas in my head recently and I've been writing songs furiously at work... After I "graduate" from music and drama company I'll have no more access to pianos, so I'd better write like crazy while I'm in mdc.

If I ask you to listen to a song I wrote, do not be alarmed. It is simply a process to vet my songs and to decide if I should scrap a song or keep writing it. I need people to determine if the tune(s) in my songs are from familiar songs which I don't know of so I can get the green light.

I'm STILL writing ballads like I said I would at the start of the year... Which is odd since I don't have a girlfriend/am not in love/am not brooding/am not emo/am not looking. I'm taking ideas from every corner of my life, and I mean every corner, so if it so happens anything I write in a song sounds like what happened between me and you, it probably IS about what happened between me and you.

Not that I'm very specific about these things, like most ballads AREN'T. Oh well.

I desire to return to the simple and draw nostalgia and emotion from there... The art of the memorable, nice, lovey-dovey, feel-good love song has been utterly lost in our generation.

It's been pretty taxing on my brain, but it's rewarding hearing my colleagues give me thumbs ups/thumb ups/thumbs up for my songs. (ns has definitely killed my english. Iz dead) It's not so gratifying however, to have a tune you wrote getting stuck in your head.

Oh by the way.

A cockroach flew straight into my face yesterday.

SMACK.

Initially I thought it was just a big beetle. So I swiped it off in a hurry, but wow, that was one heck of a huge beetle. We don't get moby-dick-proportion beetles in this part of Singapore.

It went under the sofa and my Dad caught sight of it. He dragged it out and moby dick ran out. These guys sure run fast. Duh, they have six legs.

And Dad immediately exclaimed...

It's a cockroach.

I think something in me threw up and swallowed it back in all at once. A cockroach smacked into my face.

Then the cockroach scurried past me and FLEW INTO MY BROTHER'S ROOM. I swear I saw it fly into his room.

(editor's note: all of that happened in about 30 seconds)

So Dad and I went hunting for it, armed with Baygon and.... Well, just one can of Baygon.

We never found the little fellow abomination of abominations even after flipping over the laundry and a whole lot of paraphernelia (omg I used a big word I am saved) and maybe everything that could be flipped over.

But we never found it.

And Mum asked me to wash my face because cockroaches carry several germs. So I did.

TODAY. I was happily using the computer for dunno what reason just like how everyone else in the world uses the computer for dunno what reason and suddenly MY MUM YELPED.

AAAAHH. Cockroach.

Then I was like gosh. Where.

From the shoe rack area in the living room.

I was like how did the little bugger (literally a bug heheheheheh. Heh. Heheh.) fly into my brother's room and then appear at the shoe rack area.

It could be one of the following:

1. It hid somewhere in my brother's room. OMG somewhere in my brother's room lie a set of cockroach footprints. Or more than one set. Yah.

2. It did not actually fly into my brother's room.

...

3. THERE'S MORE THAN ONE OF THOSE THINGS OMG

I think it's no. 3.

Anyway, it was pretty active and it crawled all of one metre onto our magiclean broom head. And my Mum was telling me to watch the fellow as she got Baygon and a roll of newspaper. She was like, make sure the fellow doesn't go anywhere.

I was like, how do I do that. What if it runs away.

And she didn't answer me. Oh well. Not every question in life has an answer.

...Aaaaand, she got her Baygon and the newspaper roll.

She handed me the newspaper roll.

What can you deduce from that?

Oh well. She sprayed the fellow down and it ran under the TV shelf. Then she sprayed it out. And guess what? It ran out, and IT FLEW.

From my understanding of nature and biological processes, somehow not every cockroach flys around even all of them have wings. Only BIG NASTY ONES.

Gosh this was a BIG NASTY ONE. And by cross-referencing to my superior knowledge of The Way of Nature, I concluded that this guy was indeed the idiot that smacked into my face yesterday. No. 3 can no longer be possible because for some strange reason not every cockroach likes flying.

Enter newspaper roll. BANZAIII. WHACK.

And guess what. Every whack I whacked missed the fellow. It only blew him all over the floor.

I need to equip something to up my accuracy.

Anyway, the idjit was weakening by the moment and this could have been the result of one of the following:

1. BAYGON.

2. The almighty wind from the sheer power of my newspaper whacking that has -50% accuracy and +50% attack power. I go gym one ok. I zhng my arms pls.

3. The aura of hate I have for cockroaches.

so it flew from the impact all the way into a little space between the bottom of our kitchen drawer and the floor, and proceeded to wither.

Using my aura of hate for cockroaches and trying to make up for the fact that I missed most of the time, I whacked the guy in the little crevice so hard there was a sound effect that needed a bass boost.

WHOOM. Something like that.

Anyway, the guy never stopped moving. Even at the last bit, it still shook its little creepy disgusting leg. Or foot. Whatever you call a roach's feet.

Have you ever seen cockroaches up close? I'm sure you have. Had my theology not been sound enough, I can almost proclaim that Satan created these things. Cockroaches are NOT beautiful. The bottom of my foot is a sanctuary of purity compared to the Angelina Jolie of roach world.

I told my Mum, Mummy, it's not dead yet. It'll come back to life. See the moving leg?

She said, it's dead already lah. And proceeded to shove it into a piece of newspaper and crush it.

I was like OMG. IT'LL BE BACK. I SAW IT MOVE.

Won't lah. She said, and threw it away.

What are things you can learn from this episode?

1. BAYGON FTW

2. Actually, that's about it. Get your Baygon today.

So why the segue from writing ballads to cockroaches, of all things?

You figure that one out. I've smelt enough Baygon today. Eeks. Even the vapour of Baygon has the capability to kill brain cells.

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Created at 5:34 PM
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Name: Jerrold Hong
Age: 19 (as of 2008)

I'm an avid music lover. I love singing and (surprise surprise!) I actually sing in tune. Studied in a certain PAP kindergarten before moving on to LPS, then BBSS (which rocks), followed by PJC for PAE (which undoubtedly ALSO rocks) and lastly, ACJC (ROCKS THE MOST). I live in BUKIT PANJANG (not Choa Chu Kang or Bukit Batok), at Senja Grand, the new estate which forever undergoes upgrading (surprisingly without any noise).

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