so exam week so aptly fell right smack onto holy week, and what do you know? my very own walk down calvary. and aptly so, i finally break free from the reins of exams on saturday morning. funnily, it's business processes, my cross for almost every monday night of the term!! (long story). and on saturday night, i will celebrate the easter vigil mass. and it'll be kind of like a resurrection for me too.

this whole period of lent. wow. really zoomed by just like that. sundays during lent, i'm sitting in church. it's the 1st sunday of lent. and suddenly it's the 5th. then suddenly, palm sunday comes and we're all holding up our palms (as in the leaves, the really poky ones) and kids are poking their parents and siblings with them and lent is over. just like that.

yet, as i look back over these weeks of lent, so much has happened, within and without. and it's amazing how it all happened in like what, 6 weeks?? how a prayer answered turned my world upside down and left me feeling almost totally deserted at some point and then, soon enough set my heart burning more than it ever did before. yes, in a way, it was my own 40 days in a desert. my own journey like the shepherd boy in the alchemist. the desert...has always fascinated me. how something so barren can enrich and nourish the soul. have you ever seen a desert? for real? i think i mentioned before that i once did. from the plane. and i was totally in awe. because seeing it from that level allowed me to see just how vast and bare it was. it was an awesome sight. like a golden ocean that stretched forever. i could see no beginning and no end. i'm learning to appreciate the beauty of the deserts in my life. there is nothing there, and yet it is ALL there.

so straight after this period of recharging my ammo and this whole process of discovery begins another. again, so apt. a new adventure if i may call it so. next wednesday, i leave for germany. and then, the states. that's 4 months away from home! and my whole summer vacation! i am scared, excited, sad, relieved, stressed, happy, apprehensive, curious, one helluva rojak inside! oh, all the things i have to pack!!!

you know, when i was young, and when we said all those "when we grow up things", i said i wanted to be an adventurer. when i made my brothers act in little skits we put up for fun, i always played the adventurer. shireen the adventurer. i guess i never left that behind. and now i'm 21, an adult so they say, but i'm still shireen the adventurer. and everyday, is nothing short of an adventure. some people ask me how's my day. and if you really got me talking, it's hard fo me to tell you it was just great or ok. so much goes on in a day, in me, around me. by the end of each day, i'm full of stories to tell, as though i just came back from some long expedition. everything has the power to inspire, to speak to me and touch something in me. especially when i let my heart be open. she told me, that my heart, my mind, my life were flowers, all the same one flower. she told me to let it open and see how beautiful it was. i recall that message from time to time and everytime i recall it, i learn something new because of all that has gone on in between.

today, i got home and they said i had a parcel. i was sooooo happy. i love it when i get mail. except that i hardly ever do! except for bank statements. and well this time, i didn't just get a postcard or one of those. i got a parcel!!
all the way from japan! thanks (japan) adrian!! i will not throw away the parcel wrapper for sure!!

ok i want to go on and on and on because my mind is so alive now and i want to talk about everything! but it's 346am and a little (not that little maybe) chimpanzee-by-day-werewolf-by-night might end up looking like a panda because of me if i don't sleep now!

so.......i won't hold these thoughts. i'll let them go for now. but should they ever come again...

so goodnight, world! :)

i was at the stations of the cross yesterday. a few things struck me...

usually, a feeling of weariness and impatience creep over me even before the stations begin. i just think about all the kneeling and the standing that is to come and how it is not just one but FOURTEEN stations i have to go through. i think about the seeming dreariness of it all and what i'll be doing after that as a reward for going through it. something like the feeling i used to have before netball trainings, just that the only difference was, for stations, i still WANTED to go back. i wanted to go back not because anyone forced me to or i felt obligated to. i want to go back...only because i am in love.

and there i am, sheltered from the rain in an air-conditioned church. the bright lights above illuminate our little stations books so that we read out his passion. cushioned pews make kneeling slightly more merciful. and for 30 minutes, just 30 minutes, i relive his passion, trying to see what he saw, what he heard, how he felt...what they saw, what they heard, how they felt. except that, i was not the one who felt the stinging blows of the cruel whip, who wore that crown of thorns,who carried that cross, who fell three times, who sipped the vinegar, who spilled crimson as the nails tore into flesh and bone. no, i was not the one who hung there, stripped and emptied. what is my tiredness? what is my feeling of dread?

and i think to myself. what if i were there then? would i have shook my head sadly as i looked at that man with those crazed eyes, burning like fire? would i have been one of those who said, "ah, poor, crazy man. he was a nice guy. if only someone had talked him into his senses. all these son of god stories. ah, what a crazy world"? and then, would i have just walked on home, be sad for a while about the state of things in the world outside, and then just gone on with life, tending to my sheep or drawing water from a well? the way i do when i watch CNN and get greeted by statistics about fatalities of a bomb explosion in iraq?

or would i have followed this man, with those eyes burning like fire, even unto the folly of the cross?

it was one helluva gamble he took. who would have taken him seriously? would i have? are you kidding? what a crazy thing he said! what a crazy thing he did! things! but...i have fallen in love nevertheless. he loved me first, even before i knew him.

and this love, it defies all reason. reason is only as far as i can see. it limits life, and my view of it. love is infinite and has no boundaries.

i look upon the love of my parents for me and how they knew and loved me even before i saw their faces in my human form. how they were with me, whether i was bathing in the glory of my successes or rolling in the mud of my defeats. and there, i see how he has loved me.

a boy looks at a girl and feels her eyes connect to everything in him and his heartbeat falls into a beautiful and chaotic rhythm. and there, i feel his infinite power and love in his one infinite gaze.

a man dies on a cross for someone who doesn't even care. oh, the folly of that cross. and there, i see how love has conquered death and all logic.

birds do it, bees do it,
even educated fleas do it,
lets do it, lets fall in love!

because we can't help but fall in love. so stop trying to resist! hee. =)