There is no blog title to this post because there are so many things in my mind waiting to be written, or rather, typed out.

Many things happened this week. I was busy and slightly lethargic (it's sleep deficit) but at the same time, strangely aware of my surrondings and my thoughts. You know how some people are caught up with being busy and they become oblivious to everything around them? But for me, I wasn't oblivious. I was busy, but not ignorant or unaware.

Here are the thoughts for this week..

#1 I have read and heard how Facebook is just too much of a superficial social networking utility. Some people just add other people whom they would not even call friends.

But for me, I love Facebook. I am not going to criticise people who add acquaintances just to increase their number of "friends". I don't do that, but when acquaintances add me, I just accept it, in hope that we can probably become friends.

Now back to why I love FB. This website helps me to keep updated about the things that are happening in my family. I feel that FB has allowed my cousins and me to be closer even when they are in other parts of the world and even when we don't meet up often.

Through FB, I know how my little nephew Iggy is growing to be like, I know my cousin just went for a triathlon, I know that another of my cousin in Auckland recently had a gathering. We share memories (baby photos, to be exact) and we comment and laugh at our past. I feel close to them.

And when we really do meet up, we would joke about what we wrote and did on FB. It is a pity that seemingly close virtual friendships don't translate into close friendships in reality but for me, kinship felt more real because of FB.

#2 I realise I like advertising, especially the really smart ones. Here's one that I watched in lecture this week. It's entitled Mr. W.




And here is the one I did with Denise and Van for our faux personal events company, Cherie Moments. Our advertising strategy is to distribute mineral water with this customised label to executives and professionals (our target market). We figured that no one takes flyers anymore so we will distribute chilled mineral water bottles to them during lunchtime. Who can resist, especially in hot, hot Singapore?



#3 I just finished Anne Rice's novel "Christ the Lord - Out of Egypt". Anne Rice can safely say that she has converted another fan to her works - ME! She portrayed little Jesus as such a bright, young and innocent boy but at the same time, with such deep wisdom for his age. The way she wrote, I can almost imagine myself breathing the dust of Bethehem.

If you all know, Anne Rice is famous for her vampire novels. But when she began to embrace her faith in God again in 2002, she began to explore the beginning of Christianity and the divinely human nature of Jesus.

She wrote in a first-person account, meaning, the protagonist was little Jesus himself. I could almost feel Jesus. So human. So real but at the same time, lies his essence of being God.

Here's an excerpt towards the end of the book. Here is little Jesus, at around 8 years old, grappling with his birth.

I looked up at the first few stars coming through the twilight. Born to die, I thought. Yes, born to die. Why else would I be born of a woman? Why else would I be flesh and blood if it wasn't to die? The pain was terrible I didn't think I could bear it...

When will the angels fill up the sky with singing so that I can see them? When will angels come to me in my dreams?...

A quiet fell over me, just when I thought my heart would burst.

The answer came as if from the earth itself, as if from the stars, and the soft grass, and the nearby trees, and the purring of the evening.

I wasn't sent here to find angels! I wasn't here to dream of them. I wasn't sent here to hear them sing! I was sent here to be alive. To breathe and sweat and thirst and sometimes cry.

And everything that happened to me, everything both great and small, was something I had to learn! There was room for it in the infinite mind of the Lord and I had to seek the lesson in it, no matter how hard it was to find.

It was so simple, so beautiful...

Oh, yes, I would grow up and there would come a time when I would leave Nazareth, surely. I would go out into the world and do what it was I was meant to do. Yes. But for now? All was clear. My fear was gone.

It seemed the whole world was holding me. Why had I ever thought I was alone? I was in the embrace of the earth, of those who loved me no matter what they thought or understood, of the very stars.

"Father," I said. "I am your child."

I was so touched. Yes, Jesus was like you and me, filled with struggles about what we are going to be in life. But eventually, when little Jesus knew, it was so beautiful. That last line just made tears well up in my eyes.

Hmm... this has been a long post but I feel so happy that I can share my thoughts with you all.

I probably will be very busy again next week (project meetings, exam revision and a 2000-word film review waiting for me to complete!) but well, I'll just live each day on its own and trust that God will bring me through everything!