Saturday, March 10, 2007

hugging a box.

carlene!! i received your package this morning!! haha the delivery man woke us up and my roomie went to collect to open the door at 8am for the man. i didn't think much of it and went back to sleep. until i woke up, brushed teeth and washed face, and as i pass by the tv on the way to my table i saw it!!! ahhhhh. what a nice way to start my day. =) esp when it's the last day of winter quarter!

i immediately sat down and grabbed by scissors and opened it. super a lot of masking tape lah. heh. i saw hello pandas! and marinating sauces and tom yam paste!! ahhh i'm so super excited. i read 1/2 of the postcards before realising i'm gonna be late for class. as usual. reluctantly i put everything back and rushed to change and met my neighbours to walk to school.

then i came home and explored every inch of the box and read every card twice. haha. tears almost welled up in my eyes. i saw my beloved meiji sweets and maggi porridge and more hello pandas and more tom yam paste! ahhh the best laid at the bottom. strawberry fran. i don't even need to look, i couldn't recognise the box. =) =)

reading the cards made me miss my friends in SBS even more. because in UW i'm most of the time on my own in classes. no one to take sleeping pictures of during lectures, or frantically refer to lab reports before a deadline, no lunch khakis and meiji factory outings and yucky coffee from the vending machine and trips to cafe by the quad convenience store and chatting with the aunties about snowskin mooncakes. =) i look forward to being back in school with that bunch of friends. as in really really looking forward. thanks carlene, ed, champ, andrea, RC(where's your card?!?! i also noticed don't have lanpei, huimin also!), lanpei, huimin, yoke peng, stephy, jingyin, samuel, angie and jac! love you guys loads.

speaking of long distance packages. i've been meaning to send back stuff to you carlene, 'cos your birthday presents are sitting in my room! i bought them in vancouver and when i came back, i just realised, that i put all my gifts away 'cos of the limited space in my tiny room. okok. i better get to doing that when i come back from spring break.

anyway winter quarter ended today. i've been thinking about this quarter yesterday night, and as i prayed to the Lord i realised there's just so many things to thank God for. true, that many unpleasant things have happened and things aren't always going the way it's supposed to go or the way you want them to go. but in the midst of those things, i'm learning to look for things to be thankful for so i don't become some mean, snappy, grumpy, grouchy, annoying girl.

take for example 2 days ago. i was happily on my way to school. thinking about the afternoon of working on my assignment with shian chi at the hub (like NTU's SAC, but much nicer). and without warning, on a slightly uneven road surface, i twisted my ankle and fell. it didn't help that i was carrying my bag, a laptop bag and hugging 2 books. i fell in the middle of the road and had a hard time getting up. and my ankle was hurting like ****. i couldn't even walk or see straight. i sort of limped to the side and brushed off the muddy wet stains on my coat and jeans. it was drizzling you see. and i guess i had every reason to be grumpy that day. at first i was SO unhappy. my ankle hurt and i couldn't walk fast or properly. my coat and jeans were dirty. my hands were dirty and i was late for class. and i had so many things to carry.

i was resenting and blaming everything, until i thought: it's a good thing i didn't wear a skirt today, 'cos i initially wanted to as the weather was turning warmer and i was sick of jeans. but i woke up to a rainy day so decided to stick to jeans and boots. if i had worn a skirt, that would be really bad. cuts, bruises and stains on my very very nice skirt from mango. and it's also a good thing i wasn't eating breakfast. if not it'll be wasted and i would have fallen more badly. and i started to look at things in perspective and actually thanked God for this. besides that, my friends were really really nice and offered to carry my bags, walk with me to school and back, offering advice of sprained ankles and remedies. and i've learnt to appreciate my friends even more.

i think God is truly wonderful for His exceedingly abundant grace. all through this quarter. as i read 1 timothy this week i'm again so deeply encouraged by Paul.


we all know that Paul was a bad man before he came to know the Lord. he was so bad he even persecuted Christians, until the Lord spoke to him. after that he became a faithful servant of God and he writes about that exceedingly abundant grace that the Lord showed him and how He came to this world to save all the sinners.

i see that grace everyday. in everything. even that strawberry-filled hello panda biscuit.

Labels: grace, life in seattle, thoughts, UW

This girl posted at 6:00 AM