The last days of the man in the mirror

Theres so much to talk about, being the last few days of ruse and all, so a forewarning; this post IS going to be very very long post...so the journey of a thousand words, like scholarship/med applications, begins with a single word.

This is what I get for not updating regularly, ANYWAY...

.....the second last week of school! WHAAAAAAAAAA SO LITTLE TIME LEFT!!!! D: If it weren't for the fact I like to maintain my sense of dignity, the only way i'd leave ruse would be through getting dragged out kicking and screaming. Though time makes enemies of us all, and I guess thats life, gotta move on ahead =)

Pranks! hehehe...moving past the i.room, haven't done many things globally... since most of the pranks are on alan, I shall change the font colour to make it fittingly suited to him. I believe we have created the symphony that I shall call "The storming of Alan's Bag" over the past few days. At last: the fruits of the 1st movement; "Alan getting phwned". If you listen carefully; the phone goes off at 6s, and a rather audible [at the time] oh shhhhhh- at 14s =).

Thanks sam for letting me use your camera! :D

Then, we have the second movement; "the nuggeting" The plan is basically this: I nugget my own school bag [which I dont use], and then got darthgaylord to wrap it up in layers of garbage bags. In other words, it was designed to be a decoy; and obviously, it has paid off: After 5 minutes of unwrapping [I believe the vid is on youtube? ask the dg-lord]...It looks like alan has unwrapped the decoy..only to find; wait, thats not his bag! wheres the real one? Oh, there it is! In the meantime, the real bag was wrapped up in 5 layers of garbage bags xD. Be thankful time constraints prevented your bag from being nuggeted too. =P Movt. 3: Plan failed- put heavy tiles into the bag. apologies everyone for overestimating alan's upper body strength; should've put the tiles more sequentially [honestly...i thought all those tiles wouldn't have made a difference] ><" Movt 4.: Revenge is a dish best served cold. And it is a sweet sweet dish xP. Props to you for nuggeting my bag and then hiding it, Alan. But of course, in war; one doesn't mope over their losses, but plan out their counter attacks. Poor Alan; got his reaction on camera; though the look on his face was goooold when he saw his bag =P All is well xD Current score: James-4 Alan-1

Ok, onto other things! Junior uniform day; It was frightening alarming to see how many of us could've passed off as juniors =P. It's also worth reflecting on the past here; and really notice how we've matured and been shaped over the past few years....or in my case; become lamer and lamer =P
I'll minimise the pain for capped/dialup users, and upload everything in the next few days....but for now:

The most awesome english class, as juniors [oh, and adrian too =P]

Hey look! its Jason, Alan and James* [permuations and combinations! :D]

[*not necessarily in that order, oh wait, it is =)
Next thing!; Cadet dinner! [and lanning with people before that]. Thank you Cabbage and the year 11s very muchly for the...ummm...gift? It's good to start off with small weights. xD hopefully i can get past 3 pushups by the end of the year xP. Go to belles blog, she has elaborated way more than i can possibly ever bother to =) But in short, it was an awesome night; and I stand by the fact that my current sickness has NOTHING to do with my eating 2 chillies >=(. [Btw...has the buddha video been uploaded yet? :D]


Baby photos! For those that went to HP08- you might remember this :P
1 year old pic; Apparently I look the same? I'm not one thats good at looking at the past photos and comparing similarities...
speaking of which-

Hey, I wonder who them peoples are! [Year 6 photo] I guess being the friend i've known the longest [and subseuqently the person who has had to put up with my crap the most =], it would be fitting that you get the "first ever luvo james has made" prize!

I guess somethings never change xD

Next notable event:
Oh 24th september, red was your colour. If not red, then a crapload of things happening in the single day.
-Red were the skies the greeted me in the morning; It sure looked...pretty; even if it was eerie/ resembled a bushfire/something revelation-esque. Which also poses the qusetion; when the end of the age comes; would I be ready for it? Would you? The most honest answer for me is; no...theres still too many things in my head thats been distracting me, and sometimes its hard to fight the current of life's challenges.
Menai? Or Mars =P. [And you thought your place was bad xD] 10 years from now people will probably look at it and scream "PHOTOSHOPPED!"

-Red my umat results I have; and red was the background of the sheet that contained the muchly [and painfully] anticipated 2 digit percentile [and grats to those with 3]. Shan't say more, though I'm content; no right to complain, no right to be jealous.

-Red was what drenched my face and pants as i have had my first EVER nosebleed. Tbh, its not painful, I thought it was a runny nose [all the lights were off]...so just shrugged it off. *turn on the lights, look in mirr-* HOLY !#%*)#Q@)%97ZD WHAT THE !#%!?! Be glad I didn't have my camera with me =P. Though I looked like I emerged from some horror mass murder scene.
-Red[dy] was I not as it seems my body is repaying me for all the nosebleeds I haven't had in the past 17 years; 3 in the space of 48 hours..well, i guess experience makes one wiser =D

But the jewel you lost skies that followed were blue.

Veering away from Ted Hughes poetry and puns...Life goes on, and the dust of yesterday gets blown about by the winds of change.

Med/Scholarship Applications; Lining up at degians office for 2 hours! Wow, its just as slow as queues in disneyland! at least it wasn't so bad, just daunting knowing that ones future rests on the pieces of paper we're handing in...

Shades for aids + "last official friday" of high school life [stuff that, i'll still be there all of next week xD]. I really am going to miss James Rusewhen all this is said and done. But again, I'll save all the emoing for AFTER we're gone. Though for now, thank you to everyone whos been a source of encouragement, to keep me on track in the race, the good fight and keeping my faith [and this, i mean LITERALLY from 2 Timothy, not taken 'metaphorically'...well, I guess Treskin meant well taking from it; but its still taking it from the wrong context and meaning ><] If you're a capped/dialup internet person; bear with me, but I feel a need to post in this photo: The shady guys pic: doesn't the person 3rd from the left look so cool in those shades? :D Reckon that'd work well in his future career xD

And...to make a perfect segue into more relfection topics; I know this pic is old if you've seen it, but check this out, used to be an fb ad: [Credits to james xu and his fb page]

Check out the bottom one; deja-vu much? ...or should I say, deja-moo? xD

NOTE: This was real, though i don't think they show it anymore, since they took it without asking him first? We all know the real deal isn't the type to quit =).

I think that segues nicely into a time of spiritual reflection; I really thank Moo and Geoff and Tiff's encouragement over the past two years, particularly with Tuesday's leaders meetings, which really struck a chord somewhere in my heart...and it really got me thinking about a few things. I thank all the brothers and sisters [and also the family! both ruse and true] for keeping me in check spiritually, even if you really didn't intend it / aren't aware of it.

It's time I broke the hollow-ed mask on the surface once and for all, and hopefully this will stand as a lasting reminder for me in all the years to come.
I've been thinking; after tuesday's discussions, what Mr Woo. said is most definitely true; Uni is going to be a much more different place. People's hearts will be revealed by what is truly in their hearts. One could be a youth group leader, one could've been a dedicated iscf leader; and they can still fall away in the end.

The question is; has my life the past few years been Christ centre-ed? I'd rather you not say yes and praise me, if u wanted to answer; I would much rather be rubuked, corrected and advised. ..particularly with Galatians 1:10: "Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ."

I feel that all i've been doing; under the facade of "generosity" and "selflessness" theres the underlying intention of self-gain and appraisal from other people in my serving at ISCF, in general, the way i've acted in general; Instead of seeking to please God, I've been seeking to please people with God out of the picture...
Like how in revelation 2:4-5; My heart has forsaken, and forgotten the first love times; that Jesus loved me first! I do all these things; bible studies, talks, prayer; but to what purpose? "Deeds without If it weren't for His love and his support, I'd be falling back to pre-year 9 rice days, too dark to even share on this.

I can't change myself on my own; I need Him to change me from inside out, its more than just "willpower". I thank my youth group leader for sharing me this; Psalm 73:25-26 "

²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

It's always really encouraging to read up on Psalms; Even though david, the epic king of all the israelites in his time, is high and mighty; he still totally relies on God, not because He's some "genie" but because he knows that while he himself fails, there is One who is eternally and infinitely more powerful than he is. And....I guess, a term someone came up with [and full credits to you here], is to be a trog; totally reliant on God...and I hope I'll be constantly reminded of this passage. To carry on the motif of mirror/reflections; Lord, please change me in a way that will continue to receive and more importantly apply your word, to reflect upon myself and remeber it, not be "like the man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like."

In amidst the storm of hsc, applications, and umat....we still have God to shelter in; something [which I realised was from Psalms 121- read up on that!] from a song that is both a reminder and comforter:

Wow....this has turned into a really long post...i should really post more often at lesser lengths. Might add more reflections later. If you've spent as much time reading this as i have writing this, thanks! [and if you're a hsc student; why aint you studying right now? xD]. Final days of ruse; its going to be emotional; but since *breaks into song* we're all in this together! *gets lynched* we're a ruse family, we can still meet up, there are anniversaries in many years, and who knows; we may end up in the same uni =)

For now, enjoy your weekend everyone!

edit: darn...I've made so many non-sensical sentences; i guess this is what happens you you blog late into the night...ceebs correcting them >_>