Switchfoot and Surrender

Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here (everyone's here)
Everybody's watching you now
Everybody waits for you now
What happens next? (what happens next?)

I dare you to move (i dare you to move)
I dare you to lift yourself off of the floor
I dare you to move (i dare you to move)
Like today never happened
Today never happened before
Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here (the tension is here)
Between who you are and who you could be
And to now it is what now should be

(chorus)

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here

So Joseph has introduced me to this band Switchfoot. It's not the first time I've heard of them, but it's only tonight that I've made a conscious effort to get to know the band and their songs. This is because they're coming over here in Singapore on the 31st and Joseph has a way of obtaining $90+ worth of tickets for only $50. Unfortunately I didn't really know the band when he told me about it, so I was not really keen to go. But tonight he reminded me again in Google Talk (yeah I know, Jose, I haven't replied yet as of this writing hehehe), so I went to YouTube to check the band out.

I have become an instant fan!!!

I love their songs - clean and inspiring, with an alternative/rock beat.

I wasn't really aware that they had sung Dare You To Move, which I really liked when I first heard it in the movie A Walk To Remember (based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, of course).

I played the video, like, 5 times in a row. It has another version that I like better, but embedding was disabled so I couldn't put it up here. It can still be access here though.

***

So anyway. I am going to the lab again tomorrow. Friday - my whole day FYP day. But this semester I also have a 2-hr lecture on Fridays, so that means I would be staying back at the lab much longer to compensate for the lost hours.

I have been thinking. I hate my final year project so much. That is no secret. Almost every post is in one way or another related to my abhorrence for my FYP. Every day I wake up with these negative thoughts, negative feelings - that I feel I am poisoning myself. There are days when I am at the pinnacle of my disgust for what I am doing that I have contemplated on killing myself at the lab and leaving my body there, purposely in full view of the people so that they will have nightmares about me every night. It is like some form of revenge or something, because they are part of something I hate so much. I have thought of dripping my blood in my lab station and using it as ink to express my feelings. I tried writing an email to my supervisor ( I think I blogged about it), but it was ignored. Another email I wrote recently explaining some things regarding the interim presentation, something that I feel would clarify their doubts, was also ignored. Well whatever. I cried in the rain on my birthday because of that presentation, because I felt I have disappointed them. I emailed them as an attempt to regain their confidence in me, but what the heck.

I am tired of hating. It takes up so much of my energy.

Maybe I am being so negative about it. I cannot do this to myself anymore - filling my heart and mind with filth and scum as black as the ones found in the bioreactors at the lab. Sometimes it is really scary, and when I feel like I'm almost at the edge of my sanity I call up my parents. And of course there's always John. I also make myself aware that I have friends, remind myself that there are people who care.

And please, what would that make of me. Sometimes there is this dangerous lie that creeps in my mind that "sacrificing" my life is a noble undertaking to send the message across, to speak up for the "oppressed". I may sound overly dramatic, oh yes I am being overly dramatic, but I cannot really pinpoint myself too why I feel this way about my FYP. But anyway, my guardian angel (yes the celestial being) bumped my head into something and made me realize that the only message it would send is that I would have ended up being the ultimate loser who gave up on the rest of her life because of something that would have been over in five more months.

I realized that this FYP is a humongous obstacle, like a giant boulder blocking the path I am taking, and there is no way around it to get to the other side but to pass through it by making a tunnel. I have been drilling and hammering and making that hole through the boulder for some time now, and it has been very exhausting that majority of the time I'd feel like giving up. But see, God is so good, he even brought me a helper from the States...well, not so much to do the mechanical part, but as my personal cheering squad to help keep my sanity intact as I do my stuff.

Well where am I really getting at? I just realized that in order for me to finish this task, I just need to really offer it to God. I realized I've been doing this all along to please myself, or to please my supervisors. Well, both aren't working. I need to have some higher purpose for doing this, or else I would never be able to see it through until the end. I forgot that I can always draw hope on one everlasting source, and I should have already done that a long time ago.

I was told God's strength is made perfect in our weakness. Maybe this experience is a tool that God wants to use to show His greatness - because I tell you, if ever I survive this thing, it is not due to my own capabilities. I know my limitations, and though how embarrassing it may be, it is awfully apparent during these times. I always tell myself God has a purpose for everything He lets me experience in life. Well I just hope whatever happens, God's glory will be manifested.

So finally, I surrender this thing in the hands of the Almighty. I didn't realize I was struggling on my own that's why I kept on losing and stumbling, and the weight seemed unbearable. Now I'm making a conscious effort to personally acknowledge God as my partner in this, because He promised I can do all things through Him. And He never fails His promises.

There is still hope.