“Real isn’t how you’re made,” said the Skin Horse.  “It’s a thing that happens to you when a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said that Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.  “When you are real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once like being wound up?  he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once.  You become.  It takes a long time.  That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept.  Generally by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints, and very shabby.  But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

read the whole story here.  This story is by Margery Williams.  it’s really charming and rather touching.  I just love children’s books.  the older i get the more i like them.

i have to agree with Rabbit that being real can seem scary when you think of ‘uncomfortable things happening’.  Real is something that’s not easy to be in our superficial world.  I’m so thankful for my church family and friends who love me and allow me to be my real self.  i agree with Skin Horse that it takes a long, long time.  to love is to expose your heart to being hurt.  but being real but shabby must surely be better than being lovely and unapproachable.    hopefully i will still have some hair left.  :)

my days of anonymity are  numbered.  now i have dear friends harassing me  to update my blog.   (well, two to be exact.  you know who you are.  thanks to them i’m writing this rambly post as a stopgap measure.)

well i do like writing, the only problem is laziness.  haha.  i think if i wasn’t a music teacher i would have liked to be an english teacher who also wrote stories..  that took forever to get finished.  not sure if my tenses are right in that sentence.  it’s ok.  i’m a music teacher.

am i really?

everyday i see young people and children who do not know know that there is a God who loves them.  in fact, i spend a lot of time with them over the weeks and months.  in one sense, i’m their teacher.  in another sense, i’m like a beggar who found amazing food and feel this compulsion to tell other starving people about this yummy feast i’ve been enjoying!

i’m learning how to follow God’s timing, to know when to share a little bit of this incredible amazing life i’m having because of His extravagant love.  i’m not saying that i’m always happy.  happiness comes and goes.

if my life is anything special, it’s because i’m extravagantly loved.  everyone should live life loved.  i don’t fully understand it, but there’s someone who loves me simply because of me.   someone who cared so much for me that He gave His life for me.

but when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy.

and

the Lord appeared to us in the past, saying:  “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving kindness.”

if you’re my friend and you’re reading this blog, chances are that i’ve prayed for you to know the kindness of the Saviour.  maybe you already know Him.  or maybe you and i have totally different viewpoints.  it’s ok.   i treasure each of you and your friendship.  thank you for reading my ramblings!  :)

just as well i’m a participant of the dailymuscle transformation camp – i need to work off the results of my cooking experiments!

this book that i bought is modern Japanese cooking by harumi kurihara.  her first book won the ‘recipe book of the year’ award, so i was sold.  haha.  it does seem like it was written for the western audience, it doesn’t claim to be a ‘how-to’ on tradititional Japanese cuisine, which also would be too much for a novice like me to grasp.  i love the Japanese way of eating – small amounts of many types of food, with meticulous attention to detail and freshness of the ingredients.

the other cookbook in my humble collection is a birthday gift from my sister.  it is perhaps the opposite of Japanese cooking – big mounds of  hearty, English (and Italian inspired) fare.. it’s honest to goodness Jamie Oliver.

wow, i guess i really have to cook something now that i’ve talked so much about cooking.  :)  if you’re lucky, i might get around to some cooking and actually putting it up on my blog before slipping into the (almost-year-round) blogger’s block.  ok fine, apathy.  call it whatever you like.  for now, it’s back to admiring the beautiful food photographs.  :D

she composed a piece called “A Spooky Nightmare” and played it in this lesson.  i was really impressed with her composition because it was pretty scary sounding!  she used the lowest octave, and asked me to pedal for her (too far for her legs!) and proceeded to play a really well-thought out piece that really did sound convincing.  it was in c minor, it had a bit of chromaticism and ended with a big, loud tone cluster in case you weren’t terrified already. since then she’s composed another few pieces, each with a distinct character and mood.  let’s see what’s next!

i’m not exaggerating when i say that that first week was one of the toughest things i’ve ever had to do..  it was comparable to climbing mount kinabalu, which is another story for another day.  back to the first day, the warm ups were so tiring that i was starting to wonder if i could do this thing.  the instructors were cheerfully piling on the torture and made all the workouts look so easy.   by halfway, i had to stop and fight the waves of nausea that were coming over me.   all desire to ‘save face’ were gone, i knew i couldn’t go on.  the real pain, however was the next 2 days!  i couldn’t even close my car trunk without getting cramps.

and why did i decide to do something so extreme when normally climbing the 3 floors up to my music school is all the exercise i’m getting?  well, i wanted to get fitter, and look better.  just without quite so much sweat and hard work.   yes, yes that’s sounding ridiculous now i know.  haha.

one thing for sure, when you’re doing your 10th push up and your muscles are screaming at you (yes, i know, ten isn’t many..)  you start to have flashbacks of your past life..  erm, i mean your past meals.  like the nasi lemak breakfast, the chips, cheesecake..  at that moment, they stopped being yummy meals but villains taunting my feeble attempts to work them off my waist.

do i feel better?  am i looking better?  i can’t really tell whether i’m looking any different, but i certainly am getting stronger!  like how every week i feel less and less like throwing up.  :)  and there’s something fun about doing all those lunges, squats, push-ups and crawls with other trainees.  oh no, did i say it was fun?

looking at how great our coaches look is a definite motivation.  our female coach has such an amazing body and absolutely not a trace of tummy fat, it’s really a motivation to keep going.  watching the other trainees push themselves hard also makes me wanna be less of a wuss.

no pain no gain, right?

]]> http://wyeyi.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/pushing-my-limits/feed/ 1 wyeyi http://wyeyi.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/176/ http://wyeyi.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/176/#comments Sun, 15 Aug 2010 16:31:57 +0000 wyeyi http://wyeyi.wordpress.com/?p=176 ]]> do you meet some people and you just hit it off right away?  well, i suppose that’s what happened when i met these guys.  we were assigned the same flat at the halls of residence when i was studying in manchester.

i didn’t know anyone in manchester, so it was a big adventure going to a new country to study music.   after 2 weeks of staying in an empty flat, i was quite ready for some company!  instead of one new flatmate, i got two!  they turned out to be twins!  their parents are malaysian, and we had a lot of things in common.  Jee, Sian and I  decided to share the groceries and take turns cooking and washing. i must have been insane to agree to share cooking and washing with two 19-year olds, but then again, i was only 21.   (we had wok troubles, but otherwise we did turn out some good meals!)

soon, a third cellist joined us.  (yeah, i don’t know how i managed to survive being in close proximity to three cellists for a year, haha.)  he stayed on the same floor and decided that our food was just too good and came and joined the bandwagon.  Jakob is from sweden.  I’m very happy for my three friends because they have worked very  hard and that, combined with their tremendous talent have brought them a lot of places since.  they each have won major competitions and are doing very well indeed in the classical world.

i guess we became such good friends because we were almost like a family unit, staying in the same flat, cooking, arguing about the dishes, and whose turn it was to cook, sharing our ups and downs, arguing about doing the dishes..  oh did i say that already?

well, fast forward 6 years, and we’re still in touch (mainly around our birthdays, haha).  jakob and i have a plan to meet up before we turn 30.  the scary thing is that i don’t have much time left now!  the twins have family here so we got to meet more often, i guess on average once a year.

recently, Sian came to visit KL so here are some pictures from his birthday celebration!  Jee, i hope you had a great birthday too in Manchester!  however, i’m pretty certain your food wasn’t as happening as ours!

Sian, his cousins, one non-cousin, and I

the most amazing freshwater prawn noodles

ultra-sinful, wobbly melt-in-your-mouth pork

if you think that looked like an amazing dinner… well, it was!  we also had bitter gourd with salted egg, and soup.

we went for some drinks after that.  couldn’t get a table initially because the place was packed!  in the end we got a foldable table brought out for us that looked a lot like office furniture.

here a photo with everyone in it! and we got a better table, as you can see.

to end this post, here’s a toast to great friends and great friendships!

]]> http://wyeyi.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/176/feed/ 4 wyeyi Jakob and twins July-Aug 2010 040 July-Aug 2010 041 July-Aug 2010 038 July-Aug 2010 044 July-Aug 2010 049 http://wyeyi.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/happy-happy-birthday/ http://wyeyi.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/happy-happy-birthday/#comments Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:10:13 +0000 wyeyi http://wyeyi.wordpress.com/?p=173 ]]> tomorrow is the birthday of 2 of my really good friends.  they share the same birthday.  they were both my housemates in manchester, and they both play the same instrument.  really really well.  they actually also look a lot like each other. (yes, they are related, since you asked)

Happy early birthday to Sian and Jee!!!!!!!  :D  i can’t believe we met all those years ago.  (no need to count exactly how many years…)

Jee, you’re totally missing out!    come to KL lah!

Photos to come soon!

yes, i’m learning this jazz piece now.. the beauty in this piece is not just in the lush voicings that Bill Evans chose, but there is also logic in every line – right now that requires more  brain power than i possess to reproduce.  i especially like the bass line in the LH.

oh my. it’s mine! :)

i bought 3 yummy books that i’m going to be lost in for the next few days! two my murakami and one cat book. i have a feeling i’m going to really like this author (based on a few very promising flips in the bookstore).

yum! nice bag and nice books. i’m happy.

don’t be fooled by its pretty golden sheen.

i don’t know about you ppl out there, but i’ve always had a fear of these contraptions because they look like they could cause a lot of pain if you accidentally crimped your eyelids along with your eyelashes.  ow.

well, i bought some makeup yesterday and this curler came in the set that i bought so i decided to try it out.  i don’t think my eyes are particularly big (thanks to my genes..) and to top it off i have dark eye circles (concealer rocks) and apparently curling your eyelashes makes your eyes appear “wider, brighter and longer”, though i’m not sure why i want my eyes to look longer.

this is an example of  successfully-curled eyelashes:

but mine ended up looking rather different coz i didn’t dare to clamp too near to the eyelids.  wordpress is not allowing me to upload a picture i drew on paint to illustrate my point.  just as well, so no one gets to laugh too much at my expense.  haha.

well, since we are on the topic of irrational fears, did you know that there is such a phobia as a fear of flutes?

it’s called aulophobia.

if anyone who is reading this has aulophobia, please forgive me, but i found it rather amusing that a person can get tunnel vision, jelly legs and rapid heartbeat from this musical instrument.

and since i didn’t have anything better to do (well, actually i do.  but i’m digressing) i decided to google “phobia of pianos”.  well, it turns out that nobody is afraid of pianos (or maybe they’re too terrified to admit it) and there isn’t a name for “fear of pianos”.  i guess i should be happy.  haha.

ok, i can’t resist this but did you know that there is a phobia of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth?  don’t believe me?  it’s called arachibutyrophobia.

do you have an irrational fear?