New Year

This New Year seemed to me somewhat more "New" than the previous one. Last year I looked ahead and saw a full year spent within the clutches of hell. This year I suppose it helps that freedom is close at hand. Furthermore this year will really be a year of new beginnings, not only because of ord but also because of the start of university.

However, one cannot help but feel uncertain. I will be free from army soon, but sometimes I feel the damage that has been done is permanent. Two years that have been wasted will never be returned. I worked hard for my place in KCL and given the circumstances it was truly a blessing that I even managed to secure a place. Yet army has made me weary. Somehow the prospect of spending 5 whole years studying medicine and graduating only at 26-27 seems more depressing after wasting 2 years in army. 2 years wasting my life away when people in NUS Med were already pursuing their education. And well, the real hard work only begins after Med school. Sometimes I wonder whether it really is worth all that time, effort and LOTS OF MONEY just for some very very idealistic aspirations. Furthermore 5 years away from home is a long time. To start working and being self sufficient at 27 is really really old.

I know that in the end I will still probably go ahead with it. Its been my dream for a long time and still is even after considering the cons. I am however certain that I will need God's strength and guidance to get me through this. So I guess New Year's Resolutions:

1) Learn to depend more on God and have a closer walk with him.
2) Survive the rest of NS.
3) Spend the 6 months break before university meaningfully.
4) Drivers license -.-
5) Remember how to study so I dont fail my first Sem in King's.
6) Develop a zest for life?


The verse on the front page of the Wesley Methodist Watch Night Service programme was from Psalm 31:15: "My times are in your hand". Reminds me of the old Robert Browning poem where ACS got its motto from...

"Our times are in his hand

Who saith, ``A whole I planned, "

And just to complete the nostalgia, I might as well include the poem at the front of the school magazine. Rather apt I think, for ushering in the New Year.

At the Gate of the Year
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'

And he replied,
'Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!'

So I went forth and finding the Hand of God
Trod gladly into the night
He led me towards the hills
And the breaking of day in the lone east.

So heart be still!
What need our human life to know
If God hath comprehension?

In all the dizzy strife of things
Both high and low,
God hideth his intention.

by Minnie Louise Haskins
                                 

"What need our human life to know if God hath comprehension?" This is something that I wish I understood better...