T.F. Tenney once said:

Many people stayed up to watch 2009 come in. I stayed up to make sure 2008 left!

Although I did not look at the clock with relief when 2011 came in, I must say that I can relate to what he felt.

Retrospective
2010 was a great year in many aspects. some (shareable) cherishable bits include:
- Corpus offer
- Prefects' board, MUN, the SALT
- studying (passionately - Emily Tay and Mike Tan can vividly testify) for A-levels
- a great birthDay
- visiting Singapore, church camp @ Cameron, BNM + BTN Camps
- returning to KK: family, summer job, the CORE, church
- Europe trip with family: England, Switzerland, France
- going to Uni

And that's where it kinda (unkindly) fell apart. It wasn't big or dramatic, but I felt a subtle and gradual loss of focus and direction creep over me. Before I knew it, I found myself feeling that I was like a speedboat wandering aimlessly in a sea of apathy - with a steadily diminishing fuel tank..

I was actually excited about going to Cambridge. And when I got there, I liked it loads too. It was awesome. I found my subjects stimulating, the lectures interesting and the supervisions fun. The architecture was amazing. Friends were abundant, the people amicable and in every corner interesting people were waiting to be met. And there was so much to get involved in, sports, arts, politics, Church, food, games...

But somehow my boat ended up in that cheerless sea. The thing is, all this wasn't very evident. I hadn't changed externally, and inside I still kept the same values and dreams. But I remember looking at my (oh so dear! -and a story in its own right, something i may share some other day- ) black note book not too long ago and looking through entries I'd written earlier in 2010. I wondered where on earth all that zeal, enthusiasm, discipline and mirth overflowing from my writings a few months ago had gone to. In fact, an observation of my writings over the term gave a record of my emotional health which looked somewhat like the RBS performance over the past 3 months:


Up and down and up and down, but basically, down.

Perspective
I'm not sure of the exact reason for this bearish behaviour, but I suspect it was largely the big change that came about with settling in a new environment: Doing new things in different ways; eating different food in new ways (they use forks for their rice here); simply looking around you at the radical dissimilarity and wondering "what in the world am i doing here?"

Indeed, i think a question that inevitably rises when you are displaced from the familiar is one of Identity. Frankenstein's creature aptly expresses this universal sentiment which change augments:

What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them.

I thank God for my time at the CCCF Houseparty, where our study of the book of 1 Peter in the Bible reminded me of the answer to this age-old question. I shall not enter into an in-depth description of what we read, but here's the key points:

“Once you had no identity as a people;
now you are God’s people.
Once you received no mercy;
now you have received God’s mercy.”

Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. Be careful to live properly...

1 Peter 2:9-10, NLT

This has two parts: (1) that we now have identity because of God; (2) this world is merely temporary. The first is following up on a statement made earlier in the book (1:3) that God gave us "new birth into a living hope." Indeed, coming to Jesus for the first time is like being born again, and finding our new identity in Him. This ties in with (2), that this new identity transends the finite material world.

Well, that's great theory. And as you may be wondering right now, how could such a philosophical proposition really affect us? That's where my recent week(s) in Birmingham comes in. For the first time in quite a while, I took the time to spend talking with Jesus (praying) more consistently: put aside the many distractions and gave him room. These words I quoted just now are just words in and of themselves. But "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children." In those times alone with God, the reality of His presence assured me and reminded me of who I am and where I'm headed. Or rather, who he is and thus what I am.

Prospective
Thus I begin the new year. And thus I'm fixing - as in currency fixing, where discrepencies are immediately balanced by market manoeuvres - my trust and heart in him. They say crises bring out the true nature and quality of things, people and institutions, testing them to the very core. I think the change I recently experienced did that, demanding a reassessment of what lied within. I sumbit that the test shall be passed.