i am scared

I am afraid. Truly I am.
My heart is gripped with fear like never before.

Never have i ever been in such a position before exams, the 1st paper is about a week away, and despite 3 weeks of studying 6 hours a day minimum, which subsequently went up to 10-12 hours in the last week, still render at the stage that if i were to take any paper now, I almost definately won't pass.

If only I have one more week. That would make a hell lot of difference.

But I don't. I am scared. My heart cannot deny the fear that grips me.

Fact is, humanly speaking, no matter how I prepare this last few days, there's no way I'm going to be able to scrape it this time. Knowing my abilites and my limitations, I know there's no way. And thoughts like this have been going through my mind even as I went to bed last night.

I woke up with the same thoughts this morning, but I was reminded of the song, which goes:

God will make a way,
When there seems to be no way.
He works in ways we cannot see,
He will make a way for me.
He will be my guide,
Hold me closely to His side.
With Love and Strength for each new day
He will make a way.

By a roadway in the wilderness,
He'll lead me.
And rivers in the desert will I see.
Heaven and earth shall fade,
But His Word will still remain,
He will do something new today.

His word will still remain. Times like these, when everything is beyond me, all I can do is hold on to the promises of God.

Psalm 25:1, 2, 15, 20

To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul.
O my God, I trust in You;
Let me not be ashamed...

My eyes are ever toward the LORD,
For He shall pluck my feet out of the net...

Keep my soul, and deliver me,
Let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You.

And this is the one that I want to be able to say with all my heart.

Psalm 27: 1, 3, 5, 7,9

The Lord is my light and salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?

Though an army may encamp against me,
My heart shall not fear;
Though war may rise against me,
In this I willbe confident.

For in the time of trouble,
He shall hide me in His pavillion;
In the secret place of His tabernacle
He shall hide me;
He shall set me high upon a rock.

Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice!!
Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.

Do not hide Your face from me;
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not leave me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation.

Psalm 28: 1, 2, 6, 7

To You I will cry, O Lord my Rock;
Do not be silent to me,
Lest, if You are silent to me,
I become like those who go down to the pit.
Hear the voice of my supplications
When I cry to You,
When I lift up my hands toward You holy sanctuary

Blessed be the LORD,
Because He has heard the voice of my supplications!
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;
Therefore my heart greatly rejoices
And with my song I will praise Him.

Psalm 27: 14

Wait on the LORD;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the LORD!

I will wait on You O my God. I need a miracle from You.

Random

It's been a long three months. Lots of work, capped of with a final marathon of exams needing to be done at sprint speed. 6 papers in 2 weeks!! No wonder people say 2nd year of Actuarial Science is the hardest. Third year what so hard? FYP only marrr... :P (i know that statement's gonna come bite me back in the ass...watch out for a post on it in about 6-8 months time)

Anyways, enough of exams and work. Who wants to listen to boring stuff like that. I'll always remember what a girl from church told me when I told her I had spent the weekend doing my assignments : "You're so booorrrriiing..." =_=" like i had a choice....hmmph!!

So i think i'll blog on something else. Like for example my guitar heroes....

Well I'm no fret flying rockstar of a guitarist, my housemates (and generally the entire block of apartments) will testify to the noise that they hear on a frequent basis. Hey, i know its bad, but thats why i practice maa...

Anyways, let's not digress. On to my guitar heroes:

Tommy Emmanuel


You won't hear him on the radio in our pop/hip-hop(dangdut??) music culture today, but heck, he's one of the maddest guitarist around. If you listen to his music, you'd think there's a whole band 3 guitars playing when there's actually only one. Totally superb. I don't really dig his style (but mainly because I won't be able to play like him even after 100 years of practice), and neither does my playing have much of his influence, but something very basic and simple that he said kept me going through the times when i felt like chucking my guitar out of the window (more like sell on ebay) when i was frustrated with non-existent progress, "Whatever you do, never give up." That sentence has kept me doggedly going all these while. *looks to housemates, sorry guys, blame uncle tommy*

Eric Clapton


I think he was my first ever guitar hero. Some people don't think he's that good, but this guy's guitar playing gives a whole new meaning to term emo-music. This one la real emo, not the rubbish called simple plan that 14 year old kids go crazy about. Aiyo he coming to london la this may, but one ticket now costs 145 pounds.... eeeeek!! If only i knew earlier.

Slash

Ok, so maybe he's not the best role model for kids out there, taking drugs, smoking ciggies onstage pulling of solos, but heck man, I think every guitarist at one point of their lives wanted/ still wants to play guitar GnR style. Very very influential. And I like that hat.

John Mayer


Ok Ok i confess I'm a fan. AND HE'S GOOD OK! Partly because I invested some money buying his Room For Squares CD out of impulse one day. And also the tab book. And many hours of practice. *smirks* By the way he has a new band now called John Mayer Trio, and they have pretty good stuff too. Blues rock style.

Zakk Wylde
His music is not for the faint hearted. Screaming guitars punctuated with pinch harmonics ever interval, mad solos. But anyways heard his playing from Ozzy's No More Tears album and liked it very much. I'll be singing Mama I'm Coming Home this May 19th. Nasi lemakkkkk!

And finally,

Paul Gilbert

If the romans worshipped guitarists, he'd be one of the gods. Probably zeus (although that is open for debate). He's one of those guys whose playing skills are on a totally different level from every one else. I've been listening to his stuff daily at least twice a day. Haha. Its mad la. He's mad. Whoever heard of using a power drill to play guitar? I mean, Hendrix used his teeth, but man, this guy uses a BLOODY DRILL. And he's got the coolest website ever. Plus usually when I hear these guys playing, i wanna give up straight. But his playing inspires me for some reason.

And i just realised i forgot to put Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi's gutiarist) and Mike Einzieger (Incubus) in. But I also malas want to type, and I doubt anybody made it this far down reading it anyways....

Oh well.

Time for pro evo before apu comes to take his controllers back.

[Edit: Oh shit we played to 6am in the morning. I hate myself for doing things like this... sigh]

this says its all

a conversation on skype with my housemate (which i shall not name) which got me quite worried.

[10:50:10 PM] choongchingyek says: well at least i'm not un-gay

I guess one can conclude that being un-something means that he is something.

I'm bolting the doors tonight.

Stupid blogspot

I was looking at my past archives when i noticed the header titled February 1990.

Wait a minute. I was only 6 years old in 1990. There was no internet at that time. There was no computer in our house. Internet not invented then too. Curious, i clicked on it.

SO THATS WHERE THE MISSING POST WENT!

stupid blogspot.

Investment Markets

Shit happens. Too often in the past few days.

This is probably the most painful piece of coursework i have ever done. More interestingly, it is also a group project which i managed to complete without meeting my group member. Interesting.

Yes it was hell for 4 days, no sleep, countless redoing due to initially misunderstanding and then later misinformation. What the heck. And when i handed it in yesterday i was so relieved thinking that this bitch of a coursework is finally over.

And when i woke up this morning, guess what i found? A page of the coursework that i left out. And its a saturday today so the office is closed and i cant take it in. Gotta wait till monday.

Oh yeah, did i mention that the deadline was yesterday?

Just when I thought it was clear to cross the road, a truck came right up and ran over me.

Sigh. Life, oh life.

Now to do that thing called stochastic modelling.