When I survey / pages

I think I am one with my office chair. Ok, i'll stop the loathing.

Alan wrote a really beautiful email about our cell group today, it really warms my heart to see that, hey, there's actually this wonderful side in each of us. I think that email is classic, and Alan downplays himself when he is writing about himself, ha.

(my TnT cell group is awesome, if you're interested, ask Titus)

And solely for my own super-duper feel-good's sake, this is how he described me:

Always the bearer of very funny cold jokes as well as a very visual communicator with God. Victor has a very unique gift that is expressing himself in art forms. His two strongest anointing are music and poetry. God gives him something, he processes it, and shares it with the rest of us from the stage and from his blog. To us, Victor is a very special person in our eyes because he has such a character that is so likeable, so clever, yet so modest. We have a lot to learn from him. :) Currently, he's a busy dude working 42 hours a day so he has to skip CG sometimes, but we always welcome him with open arm. Pray that his workload will lessen as well.

haha. "yeah, woo hoo! but am i really that good? how weird it is to be seen as too artistic and seemed not normal", I heard myself.

Well, if it's true, I wish I could express myself better in person and in conversations, and wished I were really that clever. hehe.

Partly felt a little glad to be working, made me more practical, sensible and less cloudy. Loved the way you aged nearer to a level when love is spending time with others, patience, and seeing beauty in brutal reality and sincere weakness. Of course I am not there yet, let the first step urge the second ba.

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Pages
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Have you ever heard of the story of the legend of....? Where the common folk turns hero, maybe by dire circumstances, through the lost of something really important, or by hard work or chance. The story of a lifetime, the classic romance, the pauper turned prince, duckling to swan, darkness to sunrise, nerd to super-cool, insignificance to greatness, deepest impossible hurt/emptiness to healing and soaring.

Probably today there's nothing, but what if we are a character in a story, and the pages kept flipping. Given a chance, hold His pen, what would we choose to write or draw in the next page. Or if you are as speechless as I am when holding the heavy little pen, at least, what would we name the title of the next chapter, which page would we put a bookmark on, which page would we tear off/treasure. Which way would you look at, will you flip back, read the current page or flip forward first? Which page excites you most? The colorful ones, the empty ones, the torn ones, messy-writing ones, or neatly written and perfumed one?

What makes a great book? Of course a great cover would be the best, everybody sees the cover first. I guess. Oh ya, and then the contents, everything in the story went well, some cute little hiccups, but everything went really, really well. hmm.. What would the ending be? The friend who stayed loyal till the end when the world crash & burn? The square-peg and round-hole strangers who ended up in the greatest love story & marriage? Modern-day Robinson Crusoe? The dysfunctional family that changed the society for good? The predictable normal guy/girl who lived and wonders? The fearless and wild that ended up broke/rich with little tingles of uncommon sense and meaning?
What would u prefer? Fiction, non-fiction, children, self-help, religious, jokes, fantasy, instructional?

hmm..

If the character dies in the end, if even mid-way, will you read it? Will you skip the scary parts of the chapter? Will you first read the part where the character gets married to whom or stays single forever, what choices of further study is given and taken away, when will children be given, great chances being spotted and taken, any preventive steps to take note of, anything to prepare for?

Oh, I remembered. If we write our pages wrongly, we can always send it to our neighbour for review. Remember your neighbour? He is nice, but some people find him quirky, nosey. Some don't see him before therefore think there's no such guy in our neighbourhood. Some of my friends ignore him cos he's not really the type they hang out with.

As for my perfect little house, a little messy (actually a lot and some things falling apart) but perfect, he always come knocking on my door looking for a nice chat with fantastic fresh smelling cookies to offer. No strings attached.

After a while, guess what, i got to know that he is a New York bestseller author! What priviledge and chance to have him look through my self-written pages. He helps change the lines, adds vivid colour and dynamics to the storyline, but before this, he guides me on the technique and concepts of writing. I didn't know there is so much thought and effort needed in even writing a sentence, in plotting a good twist, to engage the senses and capture my heart and readers.

Now my book is better, in a way. At first I thought it won't be my book anymore due to the numerous amendments, but as I look through again from the first pages, seems like it brings out the best in me, of course it has the unmistakeable signatures of my neighbour, but strangely it is something I can call my own.

The book is currently going into the 3rd chapter, and it's already about 2-inches thick. Continue writing anyway, love it to bits. Lately he said that he's going away for a while, a conference somewhere, and asked that I give him the book a while and watch what surprising things he is able to write. He promised to keep in touch. Well, I am still not sure until now, in fact, it is my book right. Dunno la, I think i'll hold it for another day to decide.


--end, i think--

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I created a new survey at the right upper column, fill in ba. =) And i would love to hear comments if the above short passage makes u think.