so my thingy in church is to regulalry clean the children’s nursery. and whilst i gripe and groan sometimes that i’ve to wake up at 7.30 to get to church early to do it, the conversations with the early kids are totally worth it.

kiddio #1
me: hello, what is your name?
kiddio: christabelle joy shen something something
me: shen somethingsomething?
kiddio: i forgot my chinese name

wah and i thought not being able to write your chinese name was bad enough…

<two minutes later>
kiddio#1 takes out a big bag of candy but cant open it.
me: (opening up bag) which one do you want?
kiddio: the red one
me: why the red one? do you know what flavour it is?
kiddio: yup. red flavour.

C.S.Lewis wrote in the Great Divorce that sometimes the questions we want to ask God may actually sound ridiculous when we get to heaven, like asking God whether we can smell the colour nine. Well, this girl can taste the colour red. HAHA.

———

in come the wellywellywool twins. identical girls who look very demure but are real screaming tyrants. and who also don’t know the lyrics to baabaablacksheep. they think it goes ‘baabaablacksheep wellywellywool’. heehee

rachel: jiejie *incessant chatter* jiejie *incessant chatter*
me: how do you know magdalene is your jiejie?
rachel: because my mummy told me jiejie came out first.
magdalene: my mummy say i came out first and then rachel
rachel: yah i was inside when jiejie came out so i am the meimei
me (to rachel): oh, so what were you doing inside?
rachel: i was drinking.

wah. such a profound biology lesson. HAHA.

i like the translation of the Bible i read where Paul says that apostles are meant to be ‘managers of God’s mysteries’ (1 Cor 4). i think kindergarten Sunday School teachers are definitely apostles.

as an antidote to studying for the really boring exam which is coming up on monday, i’ve been making birthday cards. (: birthdays, mine or otherwise, make me happy and i thoroughly enjoy making birthday cards! birthdays remind us of the day we popped into the world and made our parents happy (since well, children are a gift from God). and so i cram all my wishes and sparkliness on that one wordy scrap of paper.

but today i made a card of a different sort, a condolence card. and i didn’t know what to say. how do you even begin to express your condolences to a mother whose 2yearold kiddo just passed away? standing in the church office folding the blue order of service with the special Dora the Explorer cover and seeing the words ‘the funeral of a child’ more than 200 times does not numb you to reality. at all.

yet the words of Jesus come to mind when He said “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” We do not know why jill left so early, but we know she found rest; and so would kelly and jon in due course. we do not know why such a seemingly difficult yoke and heavy burden had to be placed upon kelly and jon, but we know that Jesus says His yoke is easy and His burden is light. it is easy and light only because Jesus already took the hardest yoke and the heaviest burden for us.

And we know that our God was human, a man of sorrows, accquanited with grief. And this God is also a with-us-God, who hears our every cry, who heard jill’s every cry, who will hear kelly and jon’s every cry. And we can say with confidence that jill fought the good fight, she ran the race (no matter how short it may have seemed), and she kept the faith.

and it was so apt that tonight in the funeral parlour, with the pretty blue helium and dora the explorer balloons, they sang her favourite sunday school song. let it shine!

This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine,
Let it shine,
Let it shine.

Let it shine til Jesus comes,
I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine til Jesus comes,
I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine til Jesus comes,
I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine,
Let it shine,
Let it shine.

rereading my notes on actornetworktheory (ANT) is toughstuff, especially when it now has to be applied in environmental analyses for the exam. *konks*

previous notes say that: ANT shows the importance of interconnectedness, concentrating on the relational aspects of connection: not so much a more-or-less permanent structure but rather what forms can be generated out of potential relationships. It is network as a way of thinking that is significant in ANT, not network as a thing. Notions of society as a thing assumed the importance of boundaries (often about exclusive identities) but ANT sees boundaries as fluid, porous, contingent with interesting outcomes for theorisation of the State. Whilst relationship is everything in ANT, these relationships are unfixed.

—–

it is highly ironic that the happiest i’ve been in a few weeks had to be whilst dreaming (yes, how is it possible to be dreaming and know you are happy? i don’t know but yet i know). and the worst thing about waking up from a happy dream is to recognise that it was a dream. that is seriously uncool. so uncool it can be depressing almost.

a dream, some (lack of) words, some phone words.  now that’s actornetwork theory for you.

i checked this with almost as much trepidation as checking the online release of exam results.

‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ – Gandhi.