bringing forth

As a result of bad sleeping postures which consequences I only realise after the harm has been inflicted (very Murphy's Law); and my reluctance to adopt more conventional sleeping postures, I have sufffered the onset of the Muscle Ache.
This has led to necessary costly intervention tactics also known as the Massage Parlour.
I hardly use certain explosive Singlish phrases but now I must...
Wah Lau!!! Super pain man! Whoever said massage was always comfortable? But perhaps I should clarify - the one I went for was acupoint massage which meant that the masseurs attacked (yes attack I believe) certain points, applying significant pressure to stimulate blood circulation, aid healing of ailments, improve the internal energy or whatever within the body, and provoke occasional wails from newbies like me.
There I was squirming in pain as he attended to my sciatica [just found out it is on the back near the hips... lower back perhaps?] and my neck and shoulders.
When I left it felt like it was all worth it. But now the specific acupoints which were targetted are rather pain. Well it is an exchange I am happy with considering how difficult it was to sleep before this because of the throbbing pain.
Value for money? Sure, I napped for two hours just before writing this post. =)

Praise the Lord for acupuncture!

I am in Melbourne, at last, and enjoying it in many ways. There is this awesome freedom just hanging out with friends (or for now, it's mainly Clara =) - a freedom with tremendous spillover effects, ie. I will write normally and not gargle out some post which leaves some friends going - Huh?
heheheh
Suddenly all these pressures which have been building up so consistently over the past few weeks in Singapore are now slipping away. And my body which has been reacting against all this is gradually healing, with God's grace and mercy no less. Reading Spurgeon's devotional today which was based on Philippians 4:11 -
'I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content'
To be content indeed for I have put so much on myself and focused on my circumstances that I have become doubtless overwhelmed. So allow me to meditate on this Scripture. Spurgeon begins by saying: 'These words show us that contentment is not a natural propensity of man.' How true! I keep on thinking that things should and will get better. How can I better improve my lot in life? Has something slipped my mind which is actually really important? Is contentment the best state to be in? I have grown so accustomed to expecting a something more that being content seems like a paler, weaker cousin by comparison. Achieve! Expect! Demand! And it doesn't get too easy for me, considering how I'm a person wired to get things done efficiently as best as possible.
I know I have to erase what I have grown used to and embark on a new journey of learning. Somehow I find it easier to be content in Melbourne than in Singapore. Why? Is it because I really started on a fresh clean slate here and that's how I associated life in Melbourne with myself? But should the differences matter? I don't want to respond in such vastly different ways to myself just because of location.
He remains the same wherever I am. A constant Who teaches me what it is to be content, whichever the place, people, time, emotional/physical/mental/spiritual states I am in. And that IS comforting because many times we don't know how to comfort ourselves. Even when left in the hands of those who know and love us the most in this world, sometimes somethings don't come through. Save He. Save He indeed.
Yet I am glad I am back here. Hiatus perhaps? Pause perhaps? What I need is a Selah moment. Make that an extended Selah moment - precious time with my best Friend. Cruising along the freeway back to the city I feel I am familiar ground. The concrete barricades along the roads, the trees hunched by harsh Melburnian winds, the cloudy skies... somehow, I am home.
While the apartment hasn't appeared yet and there are bills here and there to be settled, I know He has everything settled. All these responsibilities are but responsibilities I know will be handled anyway. [He knows me, the planner and get-evverything-sorted-out one] But there are the emotions, the thoughts, all that no one else understands in all their individualised complexity which He knows full well. And that is comforting, so reassuring and healing in the nature of their encompassing knowledge.
And the most comforting thing of all is His presence. This is honestly something I am still trying to grasp in all its beautiful entirety. Why? because oftentimes I hear my voice before I hear His. heh. Yet above all I believe that being in Melbourne is a blessing. As they sing:
So blessed! I can't contain it
So much I gotta give it away
Your love taught me to live now
You are more than enough for me!

The load's lightening, my smile's brightening, this heart knowledge is enlightening.

Some customers who patronise the Bunalun Takashimaya organic food store I worked in can be so unintentionally hilarious. Two cases in point, all witnessed by my workmate Yanty; and all related to tea.

a. A lady comes into the store and heads toward the shelf of herbs and spices. She proceeds to rave about the Lemongrass tea she's been drinking, 'Really good stuff eh!'. She takes the small bottle of Lemongrass herbs. Yanty explains, 'Maybe you're referring to our Lemongrass tea there.' pointing helpfully toward the other shelf packed with tea. 'No no, it's this one.', our lady insists.
The Lemongrass tea is a blend of lemongrass herb with black darjeeling tea leaves. Thankfully she didn't enthuse too much to the point of buying the herbs as a gift for someone else.
The 'tea' would have been too refreshing.

b. Another lady comes into the store and asks if there was any of the Aromatic tea for sampling. Yanty whips out a small plastic container with the blend of rosebuds, orange zest, green darjeeling tea leaves and cinnamon in it. How do most people sample tea? If there's no brew to drink, it's through smelling right?
Before Yanty could stop her from doing so, our lady proceeds to chew one of the rosebuds and of course swallow it whole, no water involved.

After Yanty finished telling her quirky anecdotes, I thought that as an assistant in the store who has to prep herself for future such encounters, I should give it a shot too.
The rosebud was fragrant indeed, very aromatic... indisputably helping the tea blend live up to its namesake.

These are super wicked! I would love having them in my Melbourne apartment. What could possibly be cooler than Fix-Them-Yourself, affordable, very unState-of-the-arts cardboard speakers?

Apart from Bang & Olufsen of course. ^^

I am supposed to write what is weird about me. What if I find them weird, but you my dear reader, do not?

THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the 'six weird things about you' blog post. People who get tagged need to write their own six weird things post and state the rules clearly. At the end of the post tag six more people and don’t forget to leave a comment on their blog to tell them they have been tagged and tell them to read your blog.

6 Weird Things About Lux

One Weird: I count the number of times I sip my drink from a straw and the spoonfuls of soup/pudding which enter my mouth. They tend to be odd numbers - 3 or 5 and maybe sometimes 7 or (3+5)=8. Having said that I try to ensure the spoon enters my mouth from the center - symmetrically. If it doesn't I'd drink again this time trying to equal what I did on one side earlier, by repeating it on the other side.

Two Weirds: My dreams tend to be very architectural in nature. They usually feature me either 1) witnessing a chase but not being actively involved myself 2) moving around a complex web of rooms, traversing larger plots of land 3) doing all the above again and again. This is where the sense of deja vu begins: I can repeat a fairly similar dream the following night, or even a few nights later. Somehow the space I move within seems all too familiar...

Three Weirds: I quietly breed scenarios in my head, using my fertile imagination and previous acting experiences to nurture them into mini-monsters. I will imagine myself as a character, suddenly slip into it and 'live' it out for that moment or so. It doesn't matter where I am - toilet, shopping mall, office corridor, gym, I will become the character. So do not be surprised if you sight me talking to myself. I am a normal girl with just that tendency to bring the mental 'real' into her physical 'real'.

Four Weirder: I thoroughly enjoy placing both my legs on the table as I use the computer or read a book, with my butt and back rested on the swivel chair. Right foot over left foot.

Five Weirded: For those who know me for a while, you're not new to my relatively infamous list of foods I dislike. What I dislike doesn't mean I puke when I'm duped to eating them. They simply don't excite me. Lets see: banana, sweet potato, cucumber, tomato, zucchini, eggplant, brinjal, persimmon, soggy pears and apples, lychee, rambutan, guava, water chestnut, sugarcane anything, shredded coconut, prawn, crab, oyster, clam, mussel, white chocolate, marzipan, licorice, jelly beans, lard, mutton, pickled vegetables, warm goat's milk, fried anchovies, salami...
Salami sounds weird so I think I'll pause here for now.

Six Weirdo: I wept buckets in Gladiator (in the cinema, no less, with friends around me) when Crowe's character was stabbed in the back before his fatal duel with Phoenix's character. It was so unfair!!! I don't know of anyone who watched the movie and cried in the scene. I don't think I'm weird; just that everyone else's heartless! *pout*

Okie, I don't regularly read people's blogs and certainly don't leave comments here and there. Those I read have already been tagged to do this. So sorry but I guess I can only tag two: Zinny and BCs, please share your weirdness with me >.<
And for all the others who do read, here's some pennies for your thoughts... and Share Them With Me!!!

I was watching the telly on the bus today [yes, there are tellies on buses in Singapore which most often than not show irritating shows. if the show isn't irritating (discounting the news) it's put on repeat often enough to irritate you]. The scene from a locally-produced Mandarin drama serial showed two buffed men in their boxes (?!!) holding some position that shouts: there's a fight going on!
Fine.

Then the conversation starts. You know it's not good when the fight scene features more talk than moves.

Guy A: I know we're standing here like a couple of naked trees. Let's continue the fight somewhere else.
Guy B: mutters something equally silly but unfortunately more forgettable.

A couple of naked trees? My goodness! Maybe something got lost in translation or I just don't know a good Chinese/English idiom.
But naked trees sounds really... odd.

I was recently looking at a signboard. It was marketing mints to keep your breath clean and people-friendly. And it comes in 3 flavours!
Fresh
Peppermint
Peach

It suddenly dawned on me: when was Fresh a flavour?

Some statistics:
47 kilograms on the scale in the bedroom in spore
163 centimetres though this varies from here to there

They should consider using other means of measurement, namely clothes. Why? Because clothes can be just as exacting, critical, appraising, cruel and brutally honest as machines. Paired up with human eyes and any self-knowing individual's instinct, who needs to spend extra on some fuddy-duddy piece of technology?

The culprits:

• a pair of cornflower blue boardshorts I bought when I was 14 years old. found them in a pile today. putting them on I realised my hips supported them better than 7 years ago. having said that, thank goodness my thighs didn't squeeze the room out of the pant legs
• a padini authentics polo dress, dark blue with red and white stripes across the collar, and a bold USA in white on the front. parents bought this when I was like 12??? so proud to see it rise inches above my knees. proud also to say that when glanced in profile, the silhouette is not as pole-like as it once was. once more, the dress wasn't pulled taut.
• a pink checked collared shirt my dad bought when I was, say 13??? very very pretty, some donna girl brand I've never seen before or since the shirt arrived. I remember walking out of Takashimaya after work only to realise that one of the shirt buttons have popped open, and I was revealing more flesh than necessary. Embarrassing! This shirt so bluntly puts it across: lux your arms have increased in diameter, your torso has lengthened considerably, and you have to be thankful to puberty for at least one other thing. heh.

pssst: before you get too excited that you can still fit into clothes you bought a decade ago and want to strut it out for all to witness... ensure you actually look as fresh as you feel.

Taken from Charles H. Spurgeon's devotionals. I was truly comforted and inspired.

'The dove came in to him in the evening'
Genesis 8:11

Blessed be the Lord for another day of mercy, even though I am now weary with its toils. Unto the preserver of men lift I my song of gratitude. The dove found no rest out of the ark, and therefore returned to it; and my soul has learned yet more fully than ever, this day, that there is no satisfaction to be found in earthly things - God alone can give rest to my spirit. As to my business, my possessions, my family, my attainments, these are all well enough in their way, but they cannot fulfil the desires of my immortal nature.
'Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.' It was at the still hour, when the gates of the day were closing, that with weary wing the dove came back to the master: O Lord, enable me this evening thus to return to Jesus. She could not endure to spend a night hovering over the restless waste, nor can I bear to be even for another hour away from Jesus, the rest of my heart, the home of my spirit. She did not merely alight upon the roof of the ark, she 'came in to him'; even so would my longing spirit look into the secret of the Lord, pierce to the interior of truth, enter into that which is within the veil, and reach to my Beloved in very deed.
Blessed Lord Jesus, be with me, reveal Thyself, and abide with me all night, so that when I awake, I may be still with thee.
I note that the dove brought in her mouth an olive branch plucked off, the memorial of the past day, and a prophecy of the future. Have I no pleasing record to bring home? No pledge and earnest of lovingkindness yet to come? Yes, my Lord, I present Thee my grateful acknowledgments for tender mercies which have been new every morning and fresh every evening; and now, I pray Thee, put forth Thy hand and take Thy dove into Thy bosom.