Sometime ago I decided to locked the door and hung a "Fatigue" sign on it but despite that, Mister G kept knocking on my door persistently.

Interestingly, I was struck by today's gospel and Father's sermon. It's about 2 men who build their houses. The wiseman built his house on rock while the foolish one built his on sand. At a glance you can't tell any difference. Only when disaster stikes, the one that was built on rock stands firm. Similar to our lives, the one whose faith was rooted in Christ is able to withstand obstacles. And it took 2 parables to knock some senses to me.

It's weird because I don't usually take the catholic news but today I did. Took the last copy off the shelf. Can't believe I actually bother to flip and read through it too! Surprisingly I was drawn to page 14-a clean and neat layout that stood out among the rest of the cluttered pages. In it, was this headline that says "Why it is more blessed to give than to receive". (Quite a long article so I'll just extract some stuff that struck me.)

Saint Vincent de Paul once gave an instruction to his religious community that sounded something like this: "When the demands of life seem unfair to you, when you are exhausted and have to pull yourself out of bed yet another time to do some act of service, do it gladly, without counting the cost and without self-pity, for if you persevere in serving others, in giving yourself to the poor, if you perservere to the point of completely spending yourself, perhaps someday the poor will find it in their hearts to forgive you. For it is more blessed to give than to receive, and it is also a lot easier!"

We all know that there is a certain humiliation in needing to receive, just as there is certain pride in being able to give. The things we often complain about are really our greatest blessings: What is worse than being too busy? Having nothing to do. What is more painful than having to give away something we own? Having nothing to give away. What is harder than being dragged out of bed to minister to someone in need? Being the person who is in bed and who needs someone to help him or her. What is harder than being brought to our knees by the demands of those around us for our time and energy? Being on our knees asking someone else for his or her time and energy. It is more blessed to be able to give than to receive, and it is easier.

Care-givers often feel vicitimized by those to whom they are giving of themselves. We've even coined some terms for this: "Compassion fatigue", "Compassion burnout". Not suprisingly, many good people resent the demands of the poor. The temptation is to give up and give in; give up on going the extra mile and give in to temptation to resign and take care of ourselves.

Labels: thoughts

Wooo..ahhh...it just gets better each time! Love this new artwork-sit back, relax, admire and enjoy. I think this is what I intend to do for now: create more illustrations because the satisfactory level could go up to 100%. It's better than anything else.

Such a pity I didn't take part in tiger! But it's ok...sometimes we just have to wait till we're fully ready to grab opportunities. In the mean time, we just have to keep refining ourselves.

Labels: artwork

I'm happy because this new illustration style is getting me all hyped up. This piece is way better than the previous one. Practice makes perfect, I'm getting better at it.

On a side note, here's some stuff that struck me...

Story about a stubborn kid
A boy created a wonderful art piece and he decided to show it to his mother. He told his mother that he is going to make it look a thousand years old. In order to do so, the art piece needs to be heated under a low flame. Upon hearing that, his mother offered to help him out but the boy kept insisting that he wanted to do it his own way. Eventually his mother gave in and let the boy do it his own way. However, the boy wasn't careful with the flame and it burnt up his entire art piece till it left only a small piece.

Why do we have to get our fingers burnt before we realise that it's a mistake made? -Stupid People

A line from a tv drama
"People often chase after something they wanted and when they finally have it, they have to fight the fear of losing it."

Labels: artwork, thoughts

Yay! I finally did 1 vector illustration! Ok i'm happy. Just need to further develope my skills. Anyway it's quite different from my usual vector style but the outcome's pretty interesting. Now I know what I really liked about design-illustration and photo manupulation. Lately, I'm into pastel pink and beige colours too. They're so soft and sweet!

Labels: artwork

The alarm beeped at 7.30a.m this morning but I woke up and set it to 8a.m instead. Went back to sleep and it beeped again. Forced myself out of bed. I think it's been awhile since i slept and woke up early. Looks like my body clock have gone haywire already.

It felt like a lazy day. Been wanting to do up some vector illustration but I was just too lazy or caught up with other things to do so. At the rate, I'm becoming stupid by the day. Felt like my brain's not put to use at all.

Labels: random, short

This is bad-I just have this bad feeling that my portfolio is not up to standard at all. How?? I think this is the first time I felt so insecure about my works. Sigh. I really wonder if i'm able to secure an internship placement in an ad agency. If not, I'll go back to graphics. Maybe ask ex-boss if there's a place for me.

Redo my resume too. Can't believe the old one looks so uncreative and immature.


Redo the ad. So far this is the most successful piece. Matt and Addi's one turn out crap! That's fustrating!! Maybe i should go bury my portfolio deep underground.

Labels: works

It's 4.28a.m in the morning and i didn't feel tired at all. I think the sleepiness will only get to me in the afternoon. It's quite a surprise that ivy's up at such hour too and she said we've become robots. I thought it's quite a funny statement she made. Anyway it's good to have some company at this hour. Catch up a little on life and realise that we're in a lost state. That's a bad shape to be in, just have figure how to get out from there.

Time waits for no man-I think I need to tune my mentality a little. Let's quit holidaying and get back to business. Do up the portfolio and land myself somewhere in the ad industry. Although it's tempting to slack but at the same time it's unhealthy too. Alright, looks like the sleepiness has finally crept in. I'm hitting the sack now. Had a great day spent at minds cafe too.

Labels: thoughts

I'm currently hooked up by the song "Better In Time" by Leona Lewis. Ultra catchy melody and great vocal. Yes and I'm so in the mood for holiday and slacking. Just didn't feel like touching my portfolio at the moment. Looks like I might have to drag a little before I'm ready for internship. Let's hope I don't drag on for too long.

Anyway the past few days was spent doing up Michelle's invite card and watching ANTM cycle 9 on youtube. I'm rather satisfied with the final outcome of the card. Hopefully Mich would like it. Just had that sense of excitement at the thought of revealing the design to her.

As soon as I'm done with crowbar, I went to help ping out wif her installation for tiger translate.

Presenting Mer-tiger. Fusion of the merlion and tiger. Oh that's ivy with the supposedly crown for the tiger that we came up with but the tiger head looks weird with it.


That's quite an interesting shot. Caught in the act of gazing from afar.

Labels: song, update

My thoughts are all over the place but I just had to get them out.

Thur's alpha course was quite interesting because i thought God's commandment was rather strict and I wonder why he came up with them. Only to realise it was because of love and he didn't want people to get hurt. Even though the course helps to stir quite a bit of questions in my head but unfortunately there isn't any concrete answer one could gain from the sharing. It's just individual's perspective and opinions. I need to look for answers somewhere else.

It was friday and the mailbox had 2 letters for me. The first letter was from school regarding the scholarship for the degree year. I was rather surprised when i read it. The criteria has been revised, I'm now eligible for the scholarship. I could pay $5k lesser for my fees now. Cool.

The second letter was a cheque from my client. Horray! More cash flowing into my bank account. With the money I bought a new 1 gig samsung mp3 player that cost $70 only. Really love the sound quality produced by samsung mp3 players. So happy.

Also, it got me thinking about the analogy i came up with recently about the kingdom of heaven. If the criteria to my scholarship could change then maybe there's still hope entering heaven. Some time ago, when I found out that I'm unable to enter it, I fell into depression. Though Tm shared with me about her perspective on entering the kingdom of God, but eventually it left 1 burning question lingering in my mind. So yesterday I decided to ask Matt about it. "Why do people go purgatory?" He said it was because of sin. Heaven is a place where only the holiest exists. If we carry this baggage of sin and try to enter the kingdom of heaven, we're unable to survive in there. So people just had to go to this place called purgatory and hope that the people on earth could pray for them so that they may enter heaven. Now I feel better knowing that there's another alternative. Hmmm...but then again, another question just pop by in my head. Looks like i need to go find the answer again. If only there's this answering machine that could easily provide me with all the answers I need about the faith. I would like to own it.

Yesterday I received my birthday gift from hil too-An interesting book about the faith. Probably it's what I need right now too. Thanks alot!

I'm out of bed already but i think my eyes are still closed. That's why I'm stumbling all the time. I hope someday my eyes may be open.

Labels: faith, God, miracle

It's weird because I started having weird dreams consecutively for the past few days. First I dreamt about a panda and an old man. I was constantly trying to free this panda from the clutches of the old man. Only to realise that he means no harm at all. Then the following night I dreamt about some weird voting system that determines the new president and vice president of mpm. Yesterday night I dreamt of myself buying half a dozen of J-Co donuts. This dream makes the most sense because on our way home yesterday night, Andrena was craving for J-Co donuts and she made me crave for it too. So i went to satisfy all my cravings today. Manage to try out the J-Co donuts and i think it taste good. I quite like the green tea flavour donut. However if I were to compare between donut factory and J-Co donut, i think they both taste equally good but I'm more incline towards donut factory because of the orange box. It's much more attractive than the beige and brown box from J-Co. And I finally tried out the mango dessert at ice monster too. I think it's the closest to the one I've tried in hong kong. At least the ice cream didn't have that typical artificial flavouring found in many hongkong cafes because I think it's made from real mango. I'm happy to have my cravings all satisfied.

One last thing, if you're considering to watch dance of the dragon, I would strongly advise you to watch other movies instead. It's way too boring! Michelle, Joyce and I almost fell asleep in the cinema. First time ever, I was struggling in there. Everything about the movie was random and there isn't a proper story plot at all. Worst still, it's draggy and the dance moves wasn't considered entertaining at all.

Labels: dream

Attended the design workshop last friday and it was really very inspiring. Designers at the workshop includes Thomaz from BBH, Alan from Funk Builders and Pann from Kinetic. I'm impressed because they've really given alot of valuable advises. Probably someday I might end up like them. In an ad agency by day and a graphic designer by night. Overall it was a good exposure.

I would suppose the illustrator workshop was equally as good as the design workshop. As there's big names like momorobo, andy yang, eeshuan and anthony chong from geek signers present for the workshop. Too bad I just I had to miss it. Torn between religion and passion-That's disgusting! It was quite an emo saturday and thank you Joyce. You made me feel so proud of you.

Had been thinking alot these few days...and looks like the internal system is down at the moment. It needs to undergo some maintainence, so it won't be available for a period of time. But it'll come back some day, with better functions.

Labels: exposure, people