God, I present you my heart

“Stop dwelling on past events and brooding over times gone by;” Isa 43:18

God, with this line, I surrender to you my emotions. Whatever longings and desire that I once had, God, safeguard it till I need it once again. Let your will be done, but as of now, keep me in your word. God, I feel that I have no reason to torture myself anymore. If I had to be judged, I will only be answerable to you and to myself and not to the words of men.

For too long I have abandoned my inner peace through you via my selfish desires, for too long I have been brooding over past regrets that has no relevance to my future. God, I am tired. I am tired of the constant lows that I have to feel. My goal now is for me to live a life of happiness.

I once asked my friend, "Has life as a christian made your life any better? Has it made your life easier?"He told me, no life didn't become easier. But life became better. Because it was through the hard times in life, that he appreciates what God has done for him, that God has allowed him to grow. God, despite being a Christian for 20 over years of my life, I still feel like an infant. Being emotionally carried away with a quest to find a sense of belonging. Perhaps,through these years of my life, I have been looking at the wrong direction.

God, I surrender my emotions to you once again. Keep me objective, not subjective, keep me wholesome without the instant sugar high that the world is offering me.

Amen

Self laddering technique.

A friend once asked me, "If I find myself lonely and single, will I lose my mind and become a psychopath?" I replied to her, "Absolutely not." Because I felt there is so much to life than to just feel lonely.

But, reality is so different. When that same friend put me aside, the feeling is awful. I felt abandoned.

Was I being used? The first question to enter my head.
Did I do something wrong? The second question to enter my head.
Can I rectify it? The third question to enter my head.

For the first 2, I can't affirm the answer. But for the final, the answer is clear. There is nothing I can do about it. This leads to another question.

How can I stop thinking about it?

The conclusion is, I can't. The only thing I can ask is, "What have I learnt from that friendship?"

I learned to be more sensitive to others. I learned to be more self confident when dealing with people. And for writing this, I learned to be more self forgiving. That being oversensitive, is not a flaw, but a gift given by God. For it increased my capacity to love others. I learned that I have to stop hurting myself if I want to be happy.

To that friend, she will not be my friend, but she will not be my enemy. I am not obliged to help her, but I have no reason to hate her either.

Life's little lessons 3

Regrets. I always lived with them, I have always felt the pangs of pain in my heart. Even now, I am feeling the pain of it. It's a word that always starts a sentence with if. But there are really not that many ifs in this world. The fact is the world still moves on no matter how much you look back at it. You will end up in the losing end ultimately. Still, it bothers me quite substantially. But its still a long road on.

With regrets, comes self pity. I have potentially lost 2 friends through my behaviour. Its only when reality strikes that you realise that you are trying to make the world revolve around you. But the fact is that, you are just moving linearly with time and everyone can see you as the abnormality.

I wish I can reconcile with these friends. But humans being human, it is unlikely you will get a second chance. Which brings me to the second point, don't try to force your presence into another person's life. Do it slowly. And if you find that you can't enter their lives, walk away, give them some space. Finally, stop blaming yourself. We all learn from our mistakes. Move on and do not let that emotion get the better of you.

My last point, in the event that you can't convince a friend, then move on from her. No point regarding a person as a friend who has no regards for you. Friendship is a win-win situation. Both parties are supposed to benefit from it. But if the friendship has degraded to the point where it is no longer transparent, and that you are treated transparently, then there is no point feeling hurt about it. Trust and communication is critical, without it, it is no longer a friendship. But of course don't dismiss every cold shoulder as an end game, there is always a reason for that cold shoulder. Most importantly, ask and see if you can resolve it. Don't let it drag on for too long.

I don't have a lot of friends, so those who I really cherish means a lot to me. But, sometimes, a hard decision might have to be made.

Life's little lesson 2

Sometimes your emotions can be your greatest enemy. In the process of worrying and feeling sorry for myself, I have possibly lost quite a number of friends. But there is not much point in agonizing over it. What's done is done, feeling sorry for yourself takes you nowhere.

Clear up the mess if you can. If you managed to resolve the situation, congratulations. You won back a friend. If you didn't, its alright, take it as a lesson learnt. Control your feelings from now on. But never put yourself down, you will only bring further grief to yourself. Be happy and let it radiate from yourself. Once you are happy, others will notice. Do not live in the past, live for the present and the future. Regrets are acceptable, for its only through disappointments that you learn.

Life's little lessons

Its months since I have written anything here. The past 9 months had been an emotional roller coaster for me. Personally, I think I did not handle myself well. But I think I have learnt countless little lessons during this period, the most important of which, was positive thinking.
To those who know me, I don't reveal my emotions out publicly except to the few I trust. But I feel that you guys deserve a word of thanks from me. So if you find yourself being referenced inside the text that follows, please accept it as a word of thanks.

There were times I had been wondering, why is it I am always unhappy.
There were times I would have been lying on my bed, wishing that God would remove the painful emotions from my heart.
But it was through these times learned that what I have been missing out is not the lack of positive emotions, but rather I chose not to understand what I have in abundance.

I learned that it is through sadness, that I appreciated the value of being happy.
I realised that it is through failing in love, that you learn that you have the capacity to love.
I realise that it is through the lack of appreciation, that you learn ambition.
I realise that it is through falling down, that you learn to get up.
I realise that it is through disappointment, that you learn to have hope.
I realise that it is through the lack of communication, that you learn to communicate
I realise that it is through a frown, that you will appreciate a smile.
I realise that it is through bitterness that you appreciate appeasement.

Most importantly, a smile can kill a tear, a positive thought can over shadow a negative one.
If I had to choose to be happy or sad over a matter, be happy because it feels so much better.
If you put on a bitter mask, nobody will come to you.
If you choose to wallow in self pity, nobody will pity you.
Things like these were taught by 2 friends of mine over the past 9 months. I believe I grew up a lot through them.

Of course there were several friends and family members who had contributed to this simple recipe to a positive life.

I will keep smiling, no matter how broken I feel. It just feels so much easier. So to those who have endured my whining, thank you for listening. For those who have left because of my whining, I am sorry. For friends who have walked away from me, come back, return. I am sorry.

Solo Photog: Dairy Farm Nature Reserve

Another of my photo-therapy, a trip to Dairy Farm Nature Reserve. Its a bit of an uncharted territory for me, but its really easy to navigate around.

So some animal shots I took.
The Golden Orb Spider. Its almost as big as my palm

Chocolate grass yellow

Common Mormon
Green Crested Lizard

Chocolate Pansy
Crab eating macau

Back to the Southern Ridges Again.

I was feeling a little blue, so I decided on a photo therapy. Before I knew it, I was at Habourfront MRT Station, getting ready for a long march.

Anyway this will be my first post for 2009, apologies for the lack of updates. I will add captions to the images when I am a little more free. This is especially so for the butterflies, where I have to do some species identification.

Merry X'mas!

Merry Christmas to all!

Gloomy Days

Ifrared Series

James never looked this cool.


A combination of IR and HDR


Likewise for this


Beauty of infra-red


Sinister yet beautiful

How to set up NTU webmail on Outlook

Taken from www.collinyeo.blogspot.com

This post serves as a guide to all NTU students who want to use their NTU Mail on Microsoft Outlook.

Before anything, download VPN from here

http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/cits2/ras/for_cms_ref/vpn.exe

Once you have downloaded it, install this software, it allows you to tunnel into the NTU's network. Remember to log in using your user name : student\xxxxxxx and your password.

After that launch outlook express.

I will add screenshots later. So these instructions will suffice for now.

1) Launch MS Outlook

2) Add a new account

3) Select "Microsoft Exchange Server"


4) Enter "MAIL24.student.main.ntu.edu.sg" as the Exchange Server"

5) ALL NTU Student start with a "#" in front of the name. So if you were to email me, you would like "#LAU WEE KIANG JEREMY" without the quotes. So under "User Name", you would like "#" followed by your name and click "Check Name" in order to verify.


Thats it. You can use your NTU mail with your MS Outlook.

Additional: To access the Public Folder, click on the Folder Icon at the bottom of the left panel.

A new phototechnique from flikr

From

Tennessee_Gator

I've been tinkering with this idea for getting sort of a muted color effect that's sorta neat. It also looks pretty good on portraits. Here's what I did.
1. Go to the channels pallet and command/ctrl + click on the RGB layers in the channels pallet. Making a selection of the luminosity.

2. Add a new blank layer. Hit "d" on the keyboard to get DEFAULT COLORS.
3. Invert the selection command/contol + shift + i.
4. Fill the selection with black.... option/alt + delete/backspace put in multiply blending mode.
5. Invert the selection command/contol + shift + i.
6. Add an new blank layer and fill with white command/control + delete/backspace and put in screen blending mode.
7. Add a hue/saturation adjustment layer and put saturation at +25 (to the right using saturation slider).

If you like this effect you can easily make and action of this by adding a new action before you do these steps and then clicking to close action in the actions pallet after you're done.

My CAD Project

Finally its over! The final product is completed! here's an image of my poster.

A bunch of Photos a Day

A Bunch of Photos A Day!