JP

Early one morning, you find yourself standing in a deserted car park in central Singapore, taking in the sweet morning air. The cool wind gently brushes against your face, and you look around taking in the foliage of the nature reserves surrounding you. The sun had just risen.

You feel your favorite jersey gently clinging to your torso and your shorts fitting snugly, the elastic in both prevent them from flapping around in the wind; your skin enjoys the comfort of the garments, much like two old friends meeting after many years of separation. You enjoy their familiarity- human beings must be creatures of habit.

Better than that, you feel your treasured racer lean gently against your thigh. Like the threads on your back, the mechanical steed has a pleasant sense of familiarity, but more than that, as you hold it in your hand you feel the rush of adventure surge through you and your heart reciprocates by upping the tempo. It’s time to set off.

You straddle the steed and don your helmet, but before you put on your shades, you take a look at the sky. Clear and wondrously blue, save for the genteel and almost parallel few layers of stratus clouds on the far end. The birds too seem to love the weather: a group of the feathered creatures take advantage of the clear sky to ride the winds, as they traverse their aerial dominion in formation.The shades go on. You clip into your pedals before spinning, slowly at first, letting the muscles adapt to the movement, then faster and with greater force as you intuitively shift to and from the different gear ratios. Before you know it, you go down a long slope, taking advantage of the decent, you shift to the hardest ratio and accelerate downhill. The thrill of speed and the wind in your face is exhilerating, it amazes you as the surroundings rush past you in a blur. Speed is beautiful.

But not as beautiful as what you see next.

As you follow the bend on the road onto a bridge, you notice a dark blue body of water over which the bridge is constructed. Flanked by what must be lush green mangrove trees, the reservoir is generally still and gently reflects the sun’s radiance.

For a moment, all you can do is turn your head toward a sight that is unrivaled by any form Helenic beauty. The reservoir must have powers that you know not of, because your feet which have been spinning circles for the last hour, suddenly pause, as though they too need to stop and take the sight in.

As you gaze at perfection set in the foreground of the flawless sky, you think to yourself, there must surely be a God out there.

This week was very much blessed and eventful.

On Sunday evening, long after many of you die hard Harry Potter fans finished the latest book in the series, and unabashedly spoiled the ending for me, I read the first few chapters of Deathly Hallows. And what an extreme roller coaster it turned out to be. When the ride got to the big twist and turns, it struck me how J.K Rowling had managed to sneak the clues into all the books from the very start of the series- many of which I never fully understood, and in one pensive chapter enlighten all who followed the series. Going through the final moments of the epic series, I found her writing emotionally gripping and nothing short of brilliant.

The ending? I’m not going to spoil it.

Expelliarmus!

Along with that passing obsession, this week was pretty enjoyable. In Theater Arts class, we learned the basics of Kathakali dance, which was surprisingly more interesting to learn than to watch in video form. For those of you that don’t know, Kathakali dance productions go on for an average of 8 hours, and that’s loads of time to try and figure out what the codified hand signs mean.

Ultimate training on Monday was fun, the one on Thursday was fun as well but somehow also functioned as breeding ground for injuries. A couple had discs chucked in their faces, and I while playing barefoot, got my right big toe twisted to angle that it wasn’t made for, and had to shift it back to it proper place by hand. And yes, it did hurt.

Please pray for me to heal up quickly, I still want to be able to do the Charity BikenBlade.

Tomorrow, I’m probably going with the Theater Art people to watch the Greek play, Agamemnon.

That’s all for now, I’m too tired, need more sleep.

I was going to do this on the 4th, but eventually I didn’t. So excuse the lateness, Van has already beaten me to the punch.

This weekend, more specifically, the 4th and 5th of August, marks the 1st anniversary of Haven the musical. As far as I know this was the 2nd musical ACS (Independent) had ever staged, the first being Godspell. Haven, like its predecessor, was a musical about God and his ever abundant grace.

This is one of those experiences that I really thank God for and one that I will try my best to never ever forget.

Well, by the grace of God, this week went fine, the collection of donations for the Charity Bike n Blade have been coming in steadily but rather slowly. I’ve also recently got clipless pedals and cycling shoes for my bike! One day I’ll post a picture of the shiny steed right here.

Sadly, yesterday ended on a disappointing note. I didn’t go to school today because of a blocked nose and sore throat that I woke up with; that was coupled with the fact that I’ve been in sleep debt for the last few days, and because of some other stuff.

For once in a long while, I woke up unhurried, lay in bed for awhile, then sat up in bed and wrote a poem in my diary which I’ve neglected since February. So far I’ve spent today finishing up the book entitled Theft by Peter Carrey, which is tentatively my literature text for the Extended Essay. By God’s grace, I’ve managed to see some interesting themes to write about in the essay, and its looks like I won’t have to change books after all. I’ll do the essay proposal/outline later on.

Looking forward cycling tomorrow morning. Next week seems to be pretty much a holiday week with the only day for lessons in school being Monday, so the break is worth dreaming about too.

In Matthew 21:22, Jesus said: “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

On July the 19th, twenty three Christian South Koreans were kidnapped in Afghanistan. These South Koreans were there to perform volunteer medical aid. Two have been killed thus far, twenty one remain.

Please pray for them, for God to deliver them, to be present in their crisis.