House search (part 1)

Since it is likely going to be once-in-a-lifetime affair which is not going to end painlessly soon, I think I should record my experience. As my fixed deposits are ending (with one more coming by mid-July), I have been more active and serious in searching for a condo to buy. My top priority is not to move somewhere too far from my current location as I still want to be near the church or it will be a huge factor for me to start stop going church again.

It has been frustrating because with the amount I can afford currently, 2 BR is mostly out of my reach for those condos near my current place. There is one condo which is not older than others (TOP 2012) and one 2 BR unit put on sale is still tenanted until Feb next year while another one which is vacant is ridiculously priced. As I would like to move in as soon as possible, I will KIV those tenanted for now. The vacant one was originally listed 18% more expensive than the most recent transaction. Last week, the listing price was reduced by 60k and it is still 13% overpriced.

I went to view yesterday and the current condition does not justify the price seller asked. While the wall is okay, the flooring definitely needs some work. My standard as a homeless is already quite low so I doubt anyone will accept that price. Anyway I was not too upset because I preferred the other unit which is still tenanted because with the same unit size, the other unit only has 1 bathroom instead of two which means there is more space for the master bedroom. That master bedroom has more windows and feels more airy too.

Of course I am 'gambling' as I cannot predict the future. I do not want to lock myself in since February is still 8 months away. There is possibility that people may reduce price or more units put up on s ale. At the same time, perhaps someone would already buy the unit with tenancy.

There is another 2 BR in another condo which is also ridiculously priced at 20% more than the last transaction in the same condo. This one has a very enthusiastic agent who updates the listing very frequently. I do not think this one will sell since at such ridiculous price when the location is least convenient among the condos around my area.

It seems that God still wants me to be a homeless wanderer. Haiz.. Surprisingly I do not feel as agitated or frustrated after the viewing yesterday. In fact, I was chill when there was no update since Tuesday when I said I was interested in that unit. Only suddenly on Saturday morning my friend agent asked me if I could do viewing in the afternoon. I think after giving up on praying to die and giving up everything to God, it is easier to trust that eventually God's plan for prevail. For now I can only pray for sellers to drop their prices or for the one tenanted until February to be still unsold until end of the year. Or maybe God has other plan beyond this.

Death (wish) is defeated

I am so emo to the point of googling: Is it wrong to pray for my own death? As emo as it sounds, I believe everything is part of God's plan. I come across a website sharing that some biblical figures, other than Tobit, who had actually prayed for death too. Job prayed for death when he felt the suffering was too much. Moses prayed for death because he was tired being the leader of ungrateful and constant complaining people. Jonah was angry because God saved those he wished would be punished. Elijah would rather die than be killed by those wanting to kill me. If God did not grant what these holy people were asking, a sinner like me who is asking the same thing has zero chance to be granted. I surrender, Lord. No point for me thinking and asking for early death since I know it is not gonna come if it is not Your time yet.

Now it seems that my 'anyhow' answer for the grace of faith during introduction round at Sunday's pilgrimage preparatory session actually came from God. Now all I can pray for is indeed for faith that everything in my life is God's plan and everything will turn out good, and for faith that He will guide me to a future according to His plan too. Meanwhile, I can only pray for strength and patience until the time comes when everything is revealed to me and all the hardships I have gone through are not just senseless suffering.

I finally had a slip with my diet too. I had too many coins and decided to get the bottled mocha drink. Haiz.. I hope this was just a once-off and the temptations will stop. I thank God that I managed to resist buying Kettles after gym since today is the last day of sale (2 packs for $8.45). I even tried to 'bargain' that I should have a break and reward since I am just 1 kg away from my goal to have a break. I supposed the guilt from mocha helped me to resist not to fail twice. I checked the nutrition labeling of Kettles and wooo! No wonder I was damn fat and my blood pressure was going up when I could be eating 4 bags a week in past. Each bag contains more than 500mg sodium and 500kcal. I hope this is going to haunt me everytime I am tempted in the future.

More signs

God kept me busy for the remaining of this week that I did not have much time to dwell in self pity. I usually procrastinate for the bulletin but somehow I managed to complete it this week. It took me two evenings since there was no need to burn midnight oil. More importantly, I was fed up and ran out of inspiration when editing one of the stories. It had some repetitive parts as well as points which were jumping around. The break was worth it because on the following evening, the divine inspiration came and it was so much clearer on how to rearrange and edit the story.

The frustration was a checkpoint for me to keep my head from growing to big. English was my weakest subject and my O Level was saved because of Higher Malay. It was by God's grace that somehow I was able to get B3 for GP in JC to be able to be where I am right now. In fact, never in my dreams I would ever thought I would ever be an editor when I changed job. Since this is a gift from God, perhaps it is of His purpose for me to use it for those not so good in English.

I suppose this is part of God's plan because during the first preparatory session for the Holy Land pilgrimage today, the coordinator confirmed with me about being a writer. Surprisingly, no one stepped up for that yet. Someone who did that on the previous trip shared that it was challenging and tiring to keep track and be able to get a summary of the day by the end of the day. Hearing this discouraged me because I wanted to enjoy and do nothing. After seeing the writing from the previous trip, they are actually similar to my blog posts after my own trip. Since it is something that I have been doing (although for my personal consumption), I officially say yes and let's see how it goes.

It was difficult to reflect on what I am hoping to get from the pilgrimage. Honestly I am fearful of hoping for anything because I will end up disappointed if I do not get, just like how I feel that my prayers have not been answered. After crystallising my thoughts, I suppose what I am looking for the grace of peace with my past (what has happened to me), grace of affirmation for my present that everything is indeed God's plan for me, and grace of direction for my future.

I am getting clearer messages that I should not pray for death since it will not be granted. Earlier this week, when I was posting emo facebook status, one friend messaged me and when I told him not to worry because I will never commit a suicide since it means a direct way to hell. His reply was "At least you can pray.". During the sharing today, someone said that I should be happy if I feel that I have achieved everything that I want in my life because that means I give the rest of my life to God. The most hilarious and unexpected comeback was from my friend's mum who was in the car when my friend dropped me home. She commented that my place should be huge because this is an older estate. I told her that it is not my place since I am only renting and I am only looking forward to my room in heaven which Jesus has prepared. She replied that the seminary would be able to provide a free room for me to stay.

I am very tired now since I could not really sleep last night. I drank Pokka bottled hojicha tea after 4pm Novena yesterday so the effect of avoiding all these tea and coffee drinks for the past month is clear: my body gets very sensitive to them again. Previously I could even drank them after dinner and slept like a baby. By the way, yesterday was also the first time that my petition was read during the Novena service. Unfortunately, my prayer is still unanswered :( After that, I asked how my godma is doing and it seems that her allergy issue is still unresolved and getting worse. Haiz..

I went out for lunch with a friend before going to the pilgrimage preparatory session just now. It was frustrating because he jio-ed me last Monday to go together but nearer to today, I could not tell whether the plan was still on or not. I do not know if he was busy or perhaps he changed his mind but too paiseh to tell me. I decided not to be too proud and pretended as if the plan was still on and this morning he asked whether we should have lunch together. I am not too particular about food so I let him decide. Korean food is simply not my taste even up to now. Haha... Let's see if we still will go together for the next sessions ba.

Spiritual attack

What is the point of living when I cannot eat, cannot play game, cannot sleep what/whenever I want? Haiz.. These are the last few things that I am still enjoy doing. I rushed through the latest Genshin Impact event on Sunday just before the event ended. This is the second consecutive event that I had to do so which means that I did not really have the time to play as much as before for at least the past month. My body has not adjusted to my attempt to sleep by 12 midnight and I have been not been able to sleep throughout the 7 hours as I hope for. Most of the time, it is because I need to pee which means I need to take my night supplement earlier so that I do not overdrink nearer my bed time. Even the chickens downstairs start to wake me up again while last month I was worried that I no longer slept as light as usual as I was no longer bothered by them.

I decided to have a cheat day to keep my sanity in check. My body was sore after gym yesterday and I skipped yesterday's banana with the excuse that soreness indicated that I needed some protein. I had yong tau foo for lunch earlier and I went for 2 extra ingredients from the minimum order. I know I will not cheat with potato chips since it will be difficult to return to avoidance once I restart again. Thus sugary drinks become the next big temptation. Thank God I remember that I still can get 0% sugar drinks as an alternative. With that, I shall close the cheat day for now and continue with the war.

The intention of going for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land is to be closer to God. Not surprising that the evil one is not happy about this and the spiritual attack I have been feeling for the past months. No matter how disciplined I am with my daily prayers and scripture readings as well as the weekly Novena and Mass, I keep feeling disconnected and ignored by God to the point of thinking perhaps I should just stop doing all these. At this point, it is no longer feels like a temptation but more like a test and tribulation.

Few weeks ago, I felt envious at others and angry at God that I had no talent to offer for the pilgrimage preparation. Seeing how some people already stepped up, I swallowed my pride to offer what I thought I could still do. When I did not get 'picked', my pride made me feel rejected and dejected. It is kind of ironic since right from the start, my original intention was to not do anything so that I can fully experience the trip without thinking of these additional tasks. So what exactly do I want?

It is a reminder for humility. Everything comes from God and even for offerings, He has the right to accept or reject since He knows the true motive in my heart. I came across a Youtube video about God tests before He will use someone. The purpose of the tests is to purify the intention to see if the person indeed wants to serve or if the person has ulterior motives. The tests are:

-Service (whether you are willing to serve and contribute with what you can offer)

-Hiddenness (when you feel invisible and unappreciated with what you are doing)

-Discouragement (when things do not turn out as well as what you expect)

-Faithfulness (whether you still press on even if you feel discouraged and hurt with what you are doing)

-Blessings (whether you forget God when things seem to be going great)

-Jealousy (when you feel that others are more blessed and have it easier than yourself)

-Faith (whether you can trust everything into God's hands, rather than your own)

Haiz.. instead of feeling jealous and angry, I should just focus on the bulletin which I am supposed to do :(

Divine reprimand

I received Tsume Ikigai statues of Gemini, Poseidon and Hades yesterday. Poseidon and Hades' boxes are surprisingly compact, which is a good thing, and it seems that I will not need to rent a new space for the next few statues. I will definitely need to reshuffle the boxes as I prefer for the boxes which still contain the statues to be on top of those without the statues.

I decided to read through the rest of the Book of Tobit to know how Tobit's life ended to find out that he passed away at the age of 112. What the!! This seems to be another divine reprimand after the homily about Ascension few weeks ago for me to stop praying to die. It is as if God was telling me off: keep praying for death like Tobit and I am gonna make you live until 112! Nooo... please no... A part of me still hopes that they miscalculated the years in the olden days and perhaps it was 42, not 112. But yeah, this is kinda crazy because I feel so discouraged and angry at God that I even dreamt about posting in my facebook that God does not exist and religion is a lie few days ago.

I am currently behaving like a spoilt brat to God and I am complaining for everything. When He gives me A, I would be angry why it is not B. When He gives me B, I would still be angry that it is not A instead. This morning I was complaining that majority had not sent me news update for the bulletin because I could not start preparing for the next bulletin yet. Now that my partner sent me the stories which she had finished editing, I am complaining because that means I can at least start preparing. Food is another example. Abstaining from the potato chips and sugary drinks annoy me so much, especially since my weight loss seems to be plateauing. Yet I felt so upset with myself after I had Popeye's for lunch yesterday and I overate for lunch yesterday. What is exactly I want? Sigh..

Not sure why I got the inkling to go to Takashimaya after gym this morning but it was nice to see the animefest at B2. It has been a blessings that I have no time to follow anime and game that much anymore since the prices for anime merchandises nowadays are mad. Anime figures nowadays are around $200 at least. Gosh! Previously when I was still crazy with collecting, anything above $100 already felt so expensive. In the end, I still bought something though. Hahaha... This time, Gundam Universe series for Heavyarms and Sandrock are on sale for $19 each. My patience pays off since I only bought discounted Wing and Deathscythe in December. Shenlong and Tallgeese are still not discounted so I shall wait. The emo thing is that my Sandrock box is crushed! I already chose and inspected to make sure I took the box with mint condition and I still missed it. Sian...

What a bummer

Tobit's Prayer for Death (Tobit chapter 3)

I feel so negative that I feel that even God is mocking me. Yesterday's reading from the book of Tobit. Both Tobit and Sarah prayed for themselves to die because their suffering was too much. God answered them by healing Tobit's eyes and driving the demon from Sarah so that she could marry. In contrast, I am in a similar spot and have been praying to die because my life is just suffering. Yet here I am still alive and suffer. Yesterday's quote from my perpetual calendar is from St Teresa of Avila: May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. So yeah, I am in deep shit according to this plan.

Adding to my list of stress is my annual leave. I thought my Holy Land trip would be 12 days but after looking into the itinerary closely, it would be 12 days of annual leave instead. Considering I want to go for CER, I need to apply visas and my Japan trip for April next year, it will be very tight for me. I know there is no point stressing over uncertain things, especially with CER and Holy Land trip, but haiz...

My body was still sore after yesterday's exercise and I skipped gym today. I was a bit rushing from office but I am glad that I made it for the weekday Mass. It certainly did not lift me up from whatever shit I am feeling now but at least it is part of my desperate attempt not to lose faith: to attend weekday Mass, rather than napping, on days when I skip gym. That was after the realisation on how I excited I was to go for weekday Mass when I stayed at my aunt's place last year which is just about 10 minutes walk from Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Here I am only 15 minutes walk away from Church of the Holy Spirit and the 5-minute difference is not really a big difference.

I felt shiok to eat Burger King for dinner. Somehow I had this in mind from yesterday: if I were too tired for gym, I would go for Mass and then Burger King for dinner. Usually I am only tempted when there is a new menu but this time I do not even know if there is anything special. The meal is mediocre and overpriced $10 just for the angus truffle burger and since I eat Burger King once in a blue moon, I decided to add on the chicken fries for $4.80. I do not feel as guilty as usual to succumb to fast food, perhaps because I managed to resist buying iced yuan yang when I felt very sleepy in the office this morning. Haha.. But the dinner was rather satisfying without the guilt, although now I am regretting because my stomach is still full until this time. Definitely some extra weight from the dinner. Neverthless, I have decided not to keep weighing myself daily to reduce additional pressure and stress to lose weight as much as possible. I will keep it to once every two weeks or if I think my tummy is getting smaller.

And perhaps the most emo thing today was when I was approached by condo salespeople of an upcoming launch. Ouch.. that means I am no longer baby face and I have an uncle face now. Huhuhu T_T

Shattered dream

I met up with my friend, who is a property agent on Monday, and I thought I could already buy a house. Unfortunately the one I am aiming for is still tenanted until next year February. There is a similar unit which is vacant but the price is 20% more than market rate. Sigh.. Basically the ones I can afford are tenanted while those vacant are beyond my reach.

How long must I be patient with the fucked up maid? I have been the one cleaning the kitchen and all the dirt is her hair. Though I am glad that she can no longer cook now that the landlord has changed to a smaller steamer with no cooking function, it is still annoying to clean over her dirt. Honest I am getting very fed up and impatient to even think about just getting a one-room condo against the more reasonable approach to wait. Perhaps when it is God's time, there will be a vacant unit which are reasonably priced and within my budget.

My faith starts to waver. I am only considering places around my current place so that I will still be near to the Church of the Holy Spirit. Because I know when it gets inconvenient to just go to church, it is just a matter of time before I drift away again. Although I know they are still far away and no point stressing over them now, I am also getting worried about getting visa for my Holy Land trip as well as whether I will get the ballot for CER. Essentially, all the current worries and stress are all God-related and for the sake of my relationship with Him. Yet all I feel is that my prayers are unanswered and I am just getting frustrated. Haiz..

I think I should refrain myself from stepping on to the weighing machine as it is another stressor. It is demoralising not to see any progress despite my sacrifice of only eating like a monkey. I come across some youtube shorts and I learn that bread is also a refined carb which is bad to lose weight. Looks like I have to be more disciplined with my bananas for dinner and breakfast since I occasionally replace them with those packaged breads. It also does not help that I decided to check my BMI to realise that even 4kg loss so far, I am still overweight. I need to lose another 10kg to reach the idea BMI of 20 :( That is even more than my original goal of another 6kg.

At the end of the day, it is so tiring to think and pray about uncertain things in life. The only certain thing in life is death as everyone will eventually die, just a matter of when and how. And death is my only wish now. I have wasted my youth living as a homeless and only sickness and growing old await my future. Might as well skip them and straight away die.

Diet continues

As I am contemplating to break my potato chips avoidance because it does not seem to help me lose more weight, I was given a proof that there is another positive outcome when I went for blood donation this morning. My blood pressure was 106 which is back to my normal range. That was the first time in a long time that I was worried about fainting because for the past few donations, my blood pressure had been creeping up to 120+. Yes that is normal range but is considered almost 20mmHg increase from my normal. Because of this, definitely I will continue abstaining from potato chips for now. Hehe...

It was also the first time in a long time that the whole process took only 45 minutes. I think most people are going overseas for school holidays that the crowd was thin. No wonder I was able to book an appointment slot just barely two weeks ago. Haha.. 

I had a BBQ gathering with my church friends on Friday and it was a God-filled experience for me. I know some people who had been to CER and although they did not tell me what the activities were, they told me to just go and it would be a good experience. Because of that 'review', I went to kaypoh the facebook page of the Catholic Spirituality Centre. Now I find out that the registration starts about 1.5-2 months before the retreat. Since the next one is at end Aug, the registration should start end of this month until mid-July. Anyway it is registration for ballot which is not surprising since one of them told me that this retreat is very popular and she was even at waitlist during her time.

I find it crazy that I have actually started praying that I will be able to participate. I never even pray to win any ballot or lottery for money. Well since this is recommended by a priest, it is like my last resort to see if it can help me to overcome my giving up on life and wish of a youthful and early death. Seriously though, I think I have done well enough to remain faithful despite all the shit and bad cards that are dealt in my life so far. I cannot remember how many years it has been that all I ask from God is only for me to know my vocation and for health. Neither has been answered and I have given up. I never even pray for my future, wealth, a house, etc. Hence, there is nothing I look forward to other than an early death to set me free from this shitty life.