Transparency Is Idealistic..well, pretty much.

First of all, there's no need for alarm over the all-too-familiar title of this post (at least for those who regularly check out Jon's blog). Like what Jon mentioned, more often than not there had been times when I realize that certain topics are best left untouched on this blog. Or anywhere else online for that matter. It's really not quite possible to be totally transparent, totally honest when you have the Internet as your writing medium. Beats me how some people post everything under the sun on their blogs, especially when it concerns private matters like their love life *gasp* or dark secrets that you wouldn't even dare imagine.

For me, these people really take things too far...but then again, it's their freedom I suppose. How ironic that the paperback diary now have a totally opposite twin in the form of electronic journals. Back then reading someone's diary was considered unethical and looked down upon as a dishonest behavior but in this day and age, millions of people are seemingly just begging to have their online diaries read. Not that it's a bad thing of course (I mean, I'm one of them too). But the issue remains that I'll never be able to bring myself to be a hundred percent open and honest. The the inability to be transparent is...to be frank I really don't know if it's a good or bad thing. Perhaps it reflects sensitivity on my part. Then again maybe there are just too many things that I stash away in the corners of my heart and memory, hoping they'd never see the daylights again. Either way,only God knows me through and through, inside out outside in up down left right from the rising of the sun till it's going down...and to have my whole life played out again when I meet God, I really wonder if I'll stand the the test of fire...

But before you try to sign in to your blogger to view my 'invisible' posts like how Jon masks his, I'm sorry to say that I don't have any at the moment :D (does it work this way for blogger in the first place?) Oh well,I'll ponder about this some other time. On another topic, I'm currently playing CS Source with Justin over the net using a LAN emulator called Hamachi. Anybody fancy joining us can just drop me or Justin a line :D Maybe I'll go study now...(rightt)

So really?

Following my previous post that my blog was not unique enough, it seems that many other people think otherwise. Well, three people at least (you know who you are, except for the spammer that wanted to show me how to earn 900$ in a month...darn those marketing people). I really appreciate such positive feedback, and I never knew I was helping Justin to improve his vocab along the way (so maybe I should include a 'super unique' word for every post,haha) So before I get smacked on my forehead for not realizing my ability to write my butt off, just to quote from a fellow reader :D, I'll get back to my business of blogging. Thanks for reading guys!

Back in my high school days, my friends knew me as the nefarious 'CC guy'. CC didn't stand for chicken curry if you didn't already know, though I love chicken curry. Especially when there's ikan bilis and lots of kuah kari and.....(rumble rumble) But anyway, CC meant cybercafe and when it comes to inviting people to cybercafes, I was always the one who would nag everyone to go. "Come lah, for a while only mah. Haiya, tell your mom got St. John lah. Long time never play with you di leh.." And we'd never fail to go in groups of less than four people. We went pretty often, at least once a week. I left after I finished Form 3 to shift to KL and everytime I met back my old friends they would lament how they no longer go to cybercafes. "There's no one to ajak. Not like when you were around you would call everyone. Now we don't go to cybercafes at all..." Of course, that was like 3 years ago but surprisingly, my love for doing this whole 'invite-invite' thing is evidently still burning strong, as I discovered yesterday.

Ei Leen had invited my sis to go for ice-skating cause she was bringing two of her friends whom she is also inviting to camp. I had always been looking for a chance to go skating, and it was a great oppurtunity to tag along as well. However, I was the only guy going (Ei Leen + 2 girls + my sis + Justina = all girls), so I thought of asking a few more people to come together. At first I called Simon, then I called Christina. Later I thought of Arjund, so I had Simon call Arjund. Christina mentioned Liesl, Hannah, John and Jane. So I asked Christina to call Liesl, John and Jane while I called Hannah. After what must have been like more than an hour of calling back and forth to confirm this and that, the final list of people whom I had managed to gather was more than 10! Christina thought it was somewhat like the Fishster thing Jon had shown us, and I had wanted to illustrate it for you but alas, it would take me a while so I would work on it later and post it should I ever get it done :D

It was a nice day overall. I had learned to waddle on the ice rink but that was about it. I can't remember how many times I had to grab on to Justin and Simon to avoid falling down. Why, I even grabbed on to strangers a few times in my moments of desperation when Justin and Simon weren't around. But don't you worry, they were all guys in case you suddenly get the idea that I got 'lucky' at the skating rink, so to speak (nudge nudge, wink wink) Thanks to my incredible amount of luck and my ability to randomly hold on to other people for support, I only fell once! Yay! Not bad considering it was my first time ice skating eh? My sis wasn't so lucky though, she fell on the tip of her backbone, and she was groaning in pain back at home. Hope she didn't get any permanent injuries....

Unfortunately, things didn't go so well on the way home from pyramid. My dad had to go out of his way to fetch me, Arjund and Simon. He had other things to do and was really really upset when by the time I finally reached home. He's not the kind to scold you, he just keeps it to himself and puts on the "I'm not happy with what you had done" kind of face. Oh well...lesson learned: better plan things in advance the next time. It felt really bad to had to trouble dad like I did today, because I know that he already has to work very hard to deliver summonses (his job) and here I go asking him to fetch me here and there...-sigh- Looks like I have a lot to repay dad for once he finally retires and I get a stable job......

But I suppose I should end the post on a happy note. Everyone had fun (those who can skate at least) and I finally got the chance to skate. At least now I can tell people that I've skated before :D I'd be back in Kuantan till Tuesday, so I probably can't get the fishter diagram done any time soon. In the mean time, happy holidays people!

Happy Birthday ol' Cuz

At the request of Justin, I shall attempt to make my blog updates speedier :D

Lately, I've been having blogger's block, if there actually exists such a term in the first place. Not knowing what to write, I guess my blogger persona's having an identity crisis ... I'm at a loss as of what to write for my blog, and also how to write what I want to write. The 3 blogs that I regularly check are Justin's noodle-shop and Jon and Simon's Xanga blogs and each one has a very distinctive style and also subject matter. While Simon and Jon focused more on Godly and spiritual issues, Justin's one is more humorous and is a pitstop so to speak for many people. Sorta like mamak I guess, always the happening spot to hang around evident from the constant postings on the chat board :D

And here I am, thinking hard how to write my blog. What to blog about in the first place? What kind of style to use? Informal? Formal? Manglish? Or english-English? I had wanted Justin's warm casualness, Jon's professional touch and also Simon's depth...not to mention Crissy's natural mastery at painting imageries with seemingly ordinary sentences. Kinda weird that I should feel like this because the real me has not really suffered from any identity crises before. Yet my blogger persona right now is truly confused. Even if I didn't want to, I'd subconsciously try to style my writing after Jon, Simon or Justin. Maybe I shouldn't read other people's blogs too often (^_^)

I suppose that a blog, at the very core is just a channel for expressing views, opinions and thoughts. Perhaps that's what I didn't take into consideration, jumping into the blogging bandwagon without any real idea of what to accomplish or achieve in the first place. I shall remember that the next time I post. Not to give the impression that it's a bad thing to be influenced by other people's blogs, I just want a little bit more originality and transparency, transparent in the sense that I can actually write what I want to write, in the way that I want to write it and not because certain things that certain people wrote in certain ways. Now that's for certain :D

On a brighter note, just wanna say Happy Birthday to my one and only (I have many cousins,but there's only one Justin so the term applies) cuz Justin Lee!! Sorry I couldn't get the best models available, I thought I could at least get one nice one but ended up with a kinky bunny instead....can't wait to see how you gonna display THAT without being thought of as serong-minded, haha. Oh well, have a great year ahead!

Happy Birthday ol' Cuz

Hope you like the present I got ya... Should've put more quality-control over the passwords. Next year have to plan harder wei :D Oh well, have a nice year ahead haha.

Post a post

What shall I say...not exactly in the mood to type something but thought that I should post something ordinary, rather than finding every opportunity to write about life-changing encounters with God (not that I don't like too, but I just thought that I should write about OTHER stuffs too, lest you guys think that I'm too holy) So lately it's been normal. Yup. Just, ordinary. Of course, I know that I should appreciate the good life that I'm living, but sometimes I just wish for some sort of action. Especially after what John mentioned, I wished that I could experience more Godly encounters (oh no, here I go again...)

Most of you would know that I mentioned NS to be a fun experience. Well, thats because it really was, but not just in the conventional way. Sure, I loved hanging around with friends 24/7, flying the Flying Fox, failing the obstacle course (okaylah, failing's not exactly fun but..) and most importantly soaking in the sense of FREEDOM. Don't get me wrong here, there are hundreds of rules and regulations to follow but I meant freedom in the sense that I'm away from the protective eyes of my parents. No one to fend for me but myself.....and God. The camp was where I experienced God the most, because being all alone and vulnerable, I only had the LORD to turn to. And turn to Him I did...

I still remember how I boldly asked the LORD to guard my locker from all the itchy-handed people there. I hooked my key to my pencil case's zipper and everyday, after locking my locker I'll just leave my pencil case under my bed. Talk about crazy, and come to think back of it I'm quite perplexed as of what had made me do so. True enough, God must've put angels around my locker because I've never lost a single cent...it was about trusting God I guess though I struggled between trusting and testing the LORD. Unfortunately for my bedside friend, he lost two mp3 players after about a month. That made me insecure, so I later took off my keys and attached it to my wrist instead. Until now I still wonder whether I had made the right choice...

It was also during the camp that I've managed to attend Sunday worship in English, Mandarin and Tamil all in the SAME day!! Talk about frustrated, my friend Billy (Hi there if you're reading this :D) was awfully upset that Sunday worship literally took the entire Sunday. Time's precious lah in NS as we were rarely allotted enough free time to do personal things like wash our clothes and stuff like that. Well, at least now I know how the phrase "Jesus is the King of Kings" sounds in Tamil slang xD

I'll also never forget the one incident that involved a girl called Adeline (I hope she's close to the LORD now). You should know better what happened, Justin :D To put it simply, that was the one time when I genuinely felt God move in me. It was unmistakable, the strong powerful rush of the heart. Heck, I thought I was having a heart attack, but feeling that God was pushing me in a certain direction, I threw caution to the wind. What ensued after that was truly a memorable experience. (Sorry I can't really publish what exactly had happened, not until I get Adeline's permission) I don't know how other people have encountered God before but mine was certainly anything but expected. It must have been amazing for the prophets of old who had direct access to God Himself....

And what better way to enjoy Malay food than to eat at the camp's canteen for two months straight? Sambal and curry are served often and I won't say that I really miss the food there but it's not too bad. Sometimes it's even delicious, like the Ayam Masak Merah plus a special order of Burger Ayam Tambah Telur (drool.....) But on really bad days they serve us Ikan Goreng Batu Style. You heard me right, I said Batu. Real, hard rock. It's an absolute mystery how they managed to fry the ikan tenggiri to such an extreme level of hardness...not even our Penolong Ketua Jurulatih (a tough army veteran) could chew on that thing.

Actually I wasn't planning on posting about my NS experience but I just drifted into the idea somehow. Guess I'd just end the post here, although I know it feels like a half-written novel that didn't get past the first chapter. Another day, another time. Now if only there's a way to recycle the 10+ hours that I've wasted today since coming home from school........

The mail from God

Today, a mail came in for me. "Ah ha, did I win a contest?", I wondered gleefully. But when I glanced at the letter, I was disappointed. It was one of those newsletters from India. For those of you who didn't know, I am the Secretary Treasurer of my church's youth group and we sponsor two children around the world, one in Lebanon and one in India. The organisation in India handling the sponsorship program, CMCT (Christian Missionary Charitable Trust i think) mails newsletters to sponsors like me (well, I represent the youth group). I opened the letter but only read it about an hour later cause my sis was asking me a maths question that she couldn't answer (PMR paper).

Interestingly, for the past two weeks or so I had been getting my priorities all screwed up. Homework was at the bottom while getting my BitTorrent to work was top. I must've spent like countless hours on my PC trying to fix one thing after another. Somehow, my PC never works the way it should, giving me errors that are often too embarrassing to even mention. One thing is that I'm very arrogant when it comes to things like this. If I couldn't get something to work, I'll hopelessly spend all my time until I either get it to work or I have no more time left. Which explains why I dislike maths, problems I can't solve really bug me to no end....

But back to the matter, I was really feeling down in the dumps because I messed up my time management. (WHY?!?!?! WHY WON'T YOU WORK PROPERLY FOR ONCE YOU LOUSY PIECE OF SILICON!!!!) I had realised that I spent so much on the computer that I was suddenly 'too busy' for God. "Oh no, it's too late too read the Bible. Oh well..." And then the letter came, and as I read the letter I was yet again surprised, and amazed at how God decided to take such a long route to answer my prayers. The letter contained a lot of prayer items for the missionary workers that toil and labour everyday over at India. Halfway through the letter, a prayer was inserted. It read like this:

TOO BUSY

Forgive me, Lord, that I allow
My days and hours to be
So filled with trifling tasks, that oft
I find no time for Thee,

My thoughts are so oft occupied
With countless earthly things,
When Thou wouldst have them mount on High
By faith with eagle wings.

So many duties round me press,
That rob me of the time
I fain would spend with Thee, my Lord,
In fellowship divine.

Too busy - O forbid, dear Lord,
That I should ever be
Too much engrossed in worldly tasks
To spend an hour with Thee!

That I should let the din of life
Drown out Thy voice of love,
And, groveling in the "sands of time"
Lose out on things above.

O help me, Lord, to take the time -
To set all else aside,
That in the Secret Place of prayer,
I may with thee abide;

To hear what thou wouldst say to me,
And hold communion sweet;
To praise Thy precious worthy Name
And worship at Thy feet;

To hearken to Thy holy will,
To feel Thy cleansing pow'r -
O may I ne'er let aught deprive
My soul of this blest hour!

It couldn't have been at a better time. It's truly amazing how circumstances and situations can be used to God's advantage. I never thought that the answer to my prayers would come from India! But as it stands, I owe God a lot of quiet time. And I'm afraid that if I keep telling God I have "no time", God would say the same thing when I finally meet Him. I guess I'd just end this post with this line: Do not limit God according to your own expectations, God does things in ways that we as humans would never ever have imagined (^.^)v ." Cheers!

See

I have two eyes, you have two eyes. Barring all those who are disabled either from birth or by unfortunate accident, we all have the same two eyes, no more and no less. Our vision's stereoscopic, by scientific definition. I'm pretty sure that man could not have come this far without our good ol' eyes, and God probably made eyes for us so that we would be able to enjoy the beauty of God's works, but......

Your eyes are the windows to your souls, they say. Cliched, yes....but true. Too true...many times, the things that we see shape our personality, our minds, the way we think, the way we feel..to put it in the simplest terms, it affects our very souls. Hence the phrase "To see is to believe" (I have it on my NS shirt, haha) is often the number one mantra for most people. Just by what we see alone, it's often too easy to pass hasty but hardly accurate judgements. (It's actually kinda late now but I just thought that I should blog about this at the very least..)

This week has been a wonderful one for me, mostly due to the fact that I've just only turned 18 last Thursday (my friend said that I can now finally visit the 'I need love' shop...shivers). I received really nice SMS-es,with the first one coming in at the wee hours of 12.02AM and I have Justina to thank for that :D It was totally great to celebrate my birthday this year because people actually remembered. I was happy that my friends sent me messages and that my classmates asked me to go to Summit to watch a movie, and like the Sims, my social bar was totally recharged that day. But as I reminisced about it, I suddenly realised something more important. On my birthday my mom fried a delicious piece of fish, made fried chicken drumsticks, prepared red-coloured boiled eggs (it's a Chinese custom if you didn't already know) AND made a nice, cool glass of lemonade (ahhh....) so that I could gulp it down straight after coming back from school. And I was really satiated, having feasted like a king but now that I ponder about it...

Ever since I was small I could see that I have a father and a mother. I could see that my mom works hard doing household chores. I could see that dad works equally as hard to earn money to feed the family. But what I couldn't see for a very long time was WHY they had to trouble themselves so. My dad loves me, and I could feel it when he yanks out ten dollar notes for me to spend even though he hardly has enough money to pump gas (his car runs on gas) these days, while my mom loves me even more as she works her butt off everyday just to make sure that I am well-fed, grow up healthy and always have clean ironed clothes to wear. It's always been like that, but it's just that my eyes failed to 'see' these things before this. How could I have been so blind?

Nowadays, I feel that I often rely too heavily on these two eyes of mine, it's just all too easy to take things as they seem. "Ohhh, he looks mean. Better not mess with him..". "Hey, she looks cute, and kind too...". "It looks like I'm just too busy with Form Six to have time for other things,shucks." And the list just goes on and on and on...

Hahhhh....I guess this explains why it's been hard to connect to God lately. It's easy for me to make connections when I see things, but God being the invisible being that He is, I've always had a lot of trouble trying to fill up my spiritual tank. But that's also one of the reasons why I've always looked forward to TRU: it's the best place that I could think of to power up my spiritual batteries. At TRU, I don't try to think about God. I don't try to talk about God. I just...perceive. I suppose that when it comes to communicating with the great and mighty God who is up there, if my mind fails and my mouth falls behind, then all I have left is just my heart. And that's how it works best.."God works in ways that we cannot see"

I just pray that I would be to have more of that ability to see deeper into things. To perceive with both my eyes AND my heart and soul and conscience. But even if I had eyes a gazillion times more powerful than that of an eagle, I would still never be able to see things the way God does. When I was in my NS camp, there were two occasions when God gave me the opportunity to sort of 'look' into the souls of two individuals and it was indeed a very valuable experience. It showed me just how little that my frail pair of eyes is capable of seeing...

I'd love to write about the two individuals I mentioned but 'll save it cause if I don't sleep now, my eyes would definitely not be able to see anything tomorrow morning. It's already past midnight, my goodness...oh well, hope that wasn't too long a blog for you guys. Good night for now :D Oh, and pardon me if I used the word 'see' too many times. Ooops, I did it again... xD

See

I have two eyes, you have two eyes. Barring all those who are disabled either from birth or by unfortunate accident, we all have the same two eyes, no more and no less. Our vision's stereoscopic, by scientific definition. I'm pretty sure that man could not have come this far without our good ol' eyes, and God probably made eyes for us so that we would be able to enjoy the beauty of God's works, but......

Your eyes are the windows to your souls, they say. Cliched, yes....but true. Too true...many times, the things that we see shape our personality, our minds, the way we think, the way we feel..to put it in the simplest terms, it affects our very souls. Hence the phrase "To see is to believe" (I have it on my NS shirt, haha) is often the number one mantra for most people. Just by what we see alone, it's often too easy to pass hasty but hardly accurate judgements. (It's actually kinda late now but I just thought that I should blog about this at the very least..)

This week has been a wonderful one for me, mostly due to the fact that I've just only turned 18 last Thursday (my friend said that I can now finally visit the 'I need love' shop...shivers). I received really nice SMS-es,with the first one coming in at the wee hours of 12.02AM and I have Justina to thank for that :D It was totally great to celebrate my birthday this year because people actually remembered. I was happy that my friends sent me messages and that my classmates asked me to go to Summit to watch a movie, and like the Sims, my social bar was totally recharged that day. But as I reminisced about it, I suddenly realised something more important. On my birthday my mom fried a delicious piece of fish, made fried chicken drumsticks, prepared red-coloured boiled eggs (it's a Chinese custom if you didn't already know) AND made a nice, cool glass of lemonade (ahhh....) so that I could gulp it down straight after coming back from school. And I was really satiated, having feasted like a king but now that I ponder about it...

Ever since I was small I could see that I have a father and a mother. I could see that my mom works hard doing household chores. I could see that dad works equally as hard to earn money to feed the family. But what I couldn't see for a very long time was WHY they had to trouble themselves so. My dad loves me, and I could feel it when he yanks out ten dollar notes for me to spend even though he hardly has enough money to pump gas (his car runs on gas) these days, while my mom loves me even more as she works her butt off everyday just to make sure that I am well-fed, grow up healthy and always have clean ironed clothes to wear. It's always been like that, but it's just that my eyes failed to 'see' these things before this. How could I have been so blind?

Nowadays, I feel that I often rely too heavily on these two eyes of mine, it's just all too easy to take things as they seem. "Ohhh, he looks mean. Better not mess with him..". "Hey, she looks cute, and kind too...". "It looks like I'm just too busy with Form Six to have time for other things,shucks." And the list just goes on and on and on...

Hahhhh....I guess this explains why it's been hard to connect to God lately. It's easy for me to make connections when I see things, but God being the invisible being that He is, I've always had a lot of trouble trying to fill up my spiritual tank. But that's also one of the reasons why I've always looked forward to TRU: it's the best place that I could think of to power up my spiritual batteries. At TRU, I don't try to think about God. I don't try to talk about God. I just...perceive. I suppose that when it comes to communicating with the great and mighty God who is up there, if my mind fails and my mouth falls behind, then all I have left is just my heart. And that's how it works best.."God works in ways that we cannot see"

I just pray that I would be to have more of that ability to see deeper into things. To perceive with both my eyes AND my heart and soul and conscience. But even if I had eyes a gazillion times more powerful than that of an eagle, I would still never be able to see things the way God does. When I was in my NS camp, there were two occasions when God gave me the opportunity to sort of 'look' into the souls of two individuals (I'll blog about this another day) and it was indeed a valuable experience. It showed me just how little that my frail pair of eyes is capable of seeing. I'd love to write about the two individuals I mentioned but 'll save it cause if I don't sleep now, my eyes would definitely not be able to see anything tomorrow morning. It's already past midnight, my goodness...oh well, hope that wasn't too long a blog for you guys. Good night for now :D Oh, and pardon me if I used the word 'see' too many times. Ooops, I did it again... xD

So different

Lest anyone starts to get the impression that the author of this blog is going to abandon the blog soon, I thought that I should pen down (well not literally I guess), or should I say type down...oh forget it. Here's a snapshot of my not-so-ordinary Sunday then........

I woke up at five today. Yup, five. FIVE. Dang, really wished I could've slept a little more..I had to skip church today to attend this St.John's State Review thing, which turned out to be little more than a game of "let's see who can stand longer under the sun without fainting". So yeah, I stood a good number of hours today, and half my Sunday went to this totally unfruitful activity. At least now I know that next year around this time I'd most probably be 'busy', should I be so lucky to be invited to go again, so to speak :D

In the afternoon I didn't do much, just lazed around and studied a teensy weensy tiny bit. Then came the time to go to this play at Taylor's college called MOUSETRAP. Now having previously been to two drama/plays prior to this, I wouldn't say that I'm the kind of person who likes this sort of stuff very much. 'Julius Caesar' was a terrible experience because I couldn't understand the thick Roman accents while the more recent 'Broken Bridges' was pretty good but not exactly good enough yet to warrant genuine interest. So along came Justin saying "Hey Ken, wanna go or not to this play called MOUSETRAP? Come lah, it's very fun wan!" and being the 'i-can't-say-no...' person that I am, I ended up going also in the end.

To my surprise, it turned to be really entertaining and I was quite thoroughly occupied throughout the whole play, trying my best to figure out who's the real murderer and all. And when it finally ended , they called out all the people involved in the production. Everyone was clapping, cheerful and all. One of the them (she played a role called Molly in the drama) even got a nice bouquet of flowers from her cool, calm and stylish boyfriend. And then the whole scenario just sorta caught me, like here I am, among all these people. Such joy, such luxury that we have such an opportunity to enjoy ourselves like this..while at the very same time, people in different parts of the world go through really different circumstances. Just as we were watching the play, somewhere in Iraq there were also probably hundreds of innocent people getting killed by car-bombs, truck-bombs and what-nots. Just as we all enjoyed ourselves and had a great time there, many kids in rural and backward parts of India have no choice but to fight yet another night of howling coldness and paralyzing hunger. Just as we have the comfort of knowing that we have our nice and comfy beds to look forward to, those who live in the slums in America like the Detroit area know too well that peace and quiet is something that they could only wish for in their wildest dreams. It's just...different. Just so different.................................................................

Never say 'Yes' too soon...

Lately, I've been getting myself into all sorts of miseries just because I muttered the 'magic word' more often than I should've. The 'magic word' in question is the one word that seals big businesses, the one word that most people, if not everyone like to hear, the one word that most teenagers nowadays probably won't utter to their parents and also the one word that sometimes you wish you had not said when so hastily when trouble finally befalls you. The word being....'yes'. Just in the last week alone, I had somehow managed to put myself into such a tight situation just because of the above-mentioned 'magic word'.

Simon called me up in the middle of the week to ask if I could share something during TRU about the conference that we attended in SIB a few weeks back. So in my "Ah, it's gonna be a piece of cake" mindset, I said yes. No problem. Sure can wan. Then on Thursday, a teacher asked if anyone wanted to be the facilitator for this National Science Championship thing organised by Dumex (yeap, it's for kids). The reward is a national-level certificate (they say lah, I'm not so sure) and a handsome sum of RM25 a day. Wow...do you wanna join, Ken? Yes! Then later I realised that there's a briefing on Saturday afternoon 2-4 pm. Great...clash with TRU. So okay, never mind. I thought that I wouldn't get selected for it anyway. (They told me they'll choose who to go)

Then on Thursday night Aunty Collene called me to ask if I could lead the study on Acts for Saturday's TRU. Thinking that I'll just reject the Dumex job even if I do get selected for it, I said yes again. Yup, can lah Aunty Collene. No problem. No problem my foot it turned out to be the next day...I DID get selected for it because they couldn't find enough people. I had wanted to pull out but then I thought that I should be a man of my words, so I went along with it. By now I had almost wanted to kill myself for having committed myself to a thousand and one things without proper prior considerations. What to do, what to do? Anymore yes-es and I might as well hit my head against the wall...I was either going to miss TRU or the Saturday briefing for the Dumex thing, both of which was not exactly possible at that time...

Thankfully for me, the briefing got pushed to an earlier time so I managed to juggle between both the tasks without ending in disaster. But it did ruin my plan to go look for birthday gifts at Subang Parade, cause September just so happens to be a nice month to give birth I guess, (yes Simon, your theory is quite logical). But it was quite a lesson for me to refrain from making decisions too hastily, cincai-ly the next time. Always think carefully before you decide to commit yourself to something, be it helping a friend or doing a simple chore for your mom. If you are unable to keep your promises, you never know how much trouble you might cause others. Don't wait till it's too late to say no......

I want to post but....

Another Sunday, another long week ahead :D I had wanted to post something but looks like i better catch more 40-winks cause last night slept late. Pondering some issues now, i'll post it when it's appropriate and when I have the time. Now to prepare for a battle with yet another dreadful Monday....

The two sides of the coin :D

STUPID HARD DISK!!!! Unfortunately, I seem to be having hard disk probelms. My PC now hangs every other hour..anyone with a spare hard disk out there ? :D I also noticed that Blogger is quite sluggish compared to Xanga. Is anyone using the new Blogger Beta? It looks pretty cool...

Just yesterday, as I was walking out of the school (school's already over at that time of course, I don't ponteng wan :D) with my friends, we were chatting bout last week's school holidays. So yeah, I mentioned to my friend that I was at this conference in SIB KL and didn't do any sort of revision whatsoever during the entire week. Halfway through the conversation he said that "You know ah, you Christians ah, like to gather one oh..You see us Buddhists like to do stuff, like donate blood. So good what? I get paid ten bucks somemore..."

Lest you get the wrong impression of a heated religious debate, we were just chatting casually about it. (And I didn't get paid for MY blood...is A-type blood cheaper?) He couldn't finish his sentence when we came to the gate and he went off to the bicycle shack. I didn't really think about the whole matter but I just let it linger in my mind. At home, I thought about what he said and yeah, to a certain degree his comments made sense. It did feel like we (I'm saying SJGC in general) aren't doing much for the community. I mean, the way I see it the emphasis is more on spreading the gospel and less on community service, what with all the Christian concerts and conferences doing mass evengelisms here and there.

I found myself caught between the two sides of the coin. On one hand, we could really put some effort into giving a little back to the public community around us. It sure is easy to be complacent with our lives. I have many things that I complain about, like how I'd like a new laptop and more pocket money. But everyday when it's time for lunch or dinner, I know that I'd be stoned for such lack of gratitude. My mom's the kind to never let us complain that there's not enough food, so a typical meal could feed many poor and hungry people around the world. I mean, I have yet to see anyone else whose mom makes rice with fried eggs and nuggets for breakfast before going to school in the morning. Most of the people I've asked are lucky to have a glass of milk, let alone cooked rice. And all the time there are people out there who live in such terrible, horrible conditions that you could hardly imagine what it's like to be in their shoes.

But then again the more articulate among you might argue that we should put God first. That God is the one who is able to make things right, so our first priority is to worship him and pray for those who are suffering. Like, how much can you alone do to help other people? How much can one church do? Just sit back and wait for God to save the people. If there's anyone who can do it, it's gotta be God, right?

......................

Interestingly, because my PC died while I was halfway writing this, I went to look up for some info in my bible regarding this issue. And I came to 2 Peter something..it went "Since everything will be destroyed in this way,what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed it's coming....But in keeping with His promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness." Just like that, my questions were answered. (God must've thought very thoroughly about the questions that we would ask of him when He planned His salvation for us) It says 'holy and godly lives', so I take it that it goes back to obeying God's commands. The first being loving God fully and deeply, while the second loving our 'neighbours' as ourselves. Which means that yes, worshipping God comes first but it is also important that we make an effort to those around us who are not as fortunate as us. Community service, I feel, should come from having a close relationship with God where we realise how much he loves everyone and not just us, that we should feel compelled from our own hearts to spread God's love to other people, especially the non-believers.

I know it's hard, loving others as ourselves brings to mind something that only young children could do, like how they share candy, pillows, toys and what-nots so affectionately, sharing because they want to and not expecting anything in return. No wonder Jesus looked upon children so lovingly....

Lost in wonder...

Finally, I'm back home early today! Ah..in case you didn't know, as of now I am currently attending a youth conference (like a workshop lah) in SIB KL (http://sibkl.org.my/htm/home.htm) church. It started with an opening night concert on Tuesday and today was a full-day workshop. Anyway, I just thought I'd post about what happened on the Tuesday night concert...

So yeah, there we were: me, Simon, Arjund, Liesl, Jane, Shanice, Ii-Ern, Ii-Shan, Aunty Collene and Aunty Cindy. Of course, before that I think it deserves mention the fact that the ride to the SIB KL church was absolutely positively the zaniest,craziest one that I've experienced so far. I mean, I'd rather not elaborate on it but to sum it up let's just say that now I know KL people are the considered the rudest drivers around....

Okay, back to the concert..so there we were at the hall. Or SANCTUARY as they call it. And goodness it was big..so big. With two projectors projecting on both sides of the stage, the stage looked every bit suitable for an Eason Chan concert, or whoever else for that matter. Much to my chagrin, we had to sit closest to the stage. No chairs for us..(the seatings are ala cinema one) So okay. Nevermind. We sat. And when the event started, I was just sitting there blown away by the amazing programs that the church's media team came up with. It was so proffessional that I thought TV3 or something was there to record the event.

They made it seem like a real tv program, with the proffessional hosts and all. Humor was fairly abundant that night and we were certainly tickled pink by the emcees' antics. Not long after, the concert kicked off. It was the PlanetShakers super-energetic-jump-jump-jump that kind of worship style, as we all expected. I had never been really comfortable when in this kind of concerts, not too keen to lift my hands and jump around and preferring instead to just sing along. So, yeah, it was awkward..(they asked us to take five steps to the front in the beginning, and only Kelvin and I walked in front. When I looked back I was like 'What the??! Hoi, what you all doing at the back?!?!?" By now I was hopelessly close to the stage and what to do, when they started jumping I felt compelled to follow along. Ouch...

It was certainly VERY tiring to sing and jump around at the same time, so I take my hat off to the seven or eight on-stage singers who seemed to be running on Energisers while my Eveready left me breathless halfway through the songs....But one thing that I couldn't understand was that why need to jump? I mean...I just don't get it. So I did what I could, following the crowd somewhat aimlessly, not being able to really focus on worshipping and pulled back by my self-consciousness.

That was, until they sang the don't know how many-eth song...I kept thinking and pondering and finally, I figured out that it was never about jumping in the first place. Nor the fancy guitars. Nor the funky drum beats and the killer synthesizer tunes. It was just...just worshipping God. Just giving God all of me, giving Him everything; my soul, my mind, my body. Even if it's only for a moment. A minute. A second. It was about synchronizing with God's wavelength...the singing was just one of the means to help me do so. And two songs came to mind, first Martin Layzell's Lost In Wonder. The title says it all, lost in wonder...when truly close to God's presence, you are truly lost in wonder of just how awesome, how great God is. Another line in the song is "...lost in, love....", nicely summarising God's sea of love for us.

The second song that came to me was none other than Matt Redman's Heart Of Worship. I could feel it there. By removing the music mentally, all I saw were several pillars light signifying spiritual connection. The singers on stage all truly made an effort to connect and reach out to God, and I finally felt comfortable enough to jump with them. I jumped, because my entire focus by then was already on God. Being the mere human being that I am, jumping around was just what I could do to express my worship to God. But of course, rest assured that I won't be jumping around in church any time too soon. It's just that I've learned something about this whole worship thing. Slowly but surely, I am beginning to piece together the little fragments of knowledge that I have regarding this whole issue of what makes a true and whole-hearted worship. It remains though, that I still have a long way to go, and I'm certainly curious as to how we're gonna be worshipping God eternally in Heaven, with "no less time to worship God than when we first started". I just can't wait to know........

PC Blues...

Yesterday, I was still happily surfing the web with my trusty ol' computer when I happened to chance upon this cool program to change the looks of Windows. So okay, I got it. I installed it. Mana tau it clashed with what I previously installed (a similar program) and through a series of wrong moves I finally managed to bring my PC to its knees.....It literally suffered a heart attack and wouldn't go beyond the first 5 minutes after starting up before hanging. Of course, being the sensible and experienced computer user that I am, I just slapped my forehead and uttered the popular catchphrase of all the computer users who are just too curious for their own good:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

For that I was forced to spend the rest of my entire evening just to get my PC back to life. Take note that it's now just barely working and needs further maintenance. This is exactly what I hate most about computers: why are they SO easy to mess up with?!!? But then again, computers are made by humans, and being the fallen people that we are, it's just normal that our 'creations' don't work properly all the time I guess. The other thing is that I'm the only one in my house with enough experience to keep the PC running clean (my sis is a casual user while my bro doesn't have that much time to maintain the PC) so I've got 'heavy responsibilities',so to speak. And my sis asks me why I bother...doh.

On a lighter note, I borrowed two cameras for my brother's graduation day and snapped some really funny pics.

No prize for guessing what happens next :D

My sis, me and my mum. Note how it says 'UM' on top of my head. Looks almost like I'm wearing a cap...

My cousin Chi Mei and her sis. Photogenic eh?

To the battle station!!!


The battle station it is!!!

On a slightly different topic, I've always wished that I had a scanner actually. Then I'd be able to edit all my drawings on the computer...Puey Guan currently has my dream workstation : a WACOM tablet (to draw directly on the PC), a scanner and ORIGINAL photoshop software. Drool drool.... but armed with a 4 megapix Canon camera, this is what I managed to cook up using an ALMOST ORIGINAL (original in every way except that I didn't pay for it) copy of an Adobe software called ImageReady. Feel free to comment XDNote: I drew this on my chemistry notes,heheh

Kajang no more...

At the recommendation of my cousin Chi Mei, I managed to arrange with Justin to go to a musical titled ROCK YOU (or something like that) staged at Cempaka (a private school ). So okay , I went to the school's site to print out the map, but I couldn't. (stupid site) So I drew it out. On the map, it looked like a pretty easy route, straight and all. I mean, look at this :


Of course, I wouldn't be blogging bout this if we actually managed to make it there in time. Rather, we never found our way there...it did look like we were on the right track but from the moment we took a wrong turn (or so I think) everything after that just went awry.....we soon found ourselves driving aimlessly around the place. Heck, we took a U-turn after thinking that we took a wrong turn like I said earlier (the U-turn was VERY far from where we turned in) only to find that we were STILL on the wrong path. It was already dark and there was no way we could tell where we were. All we saw were signs leading to Kajang (cause the map said to follow the signs posted to Kajang)

And to make things worse, some parts of the roads that we passed had these really, really eerie-looking overhead sign boards. They had black stains all over them like you normally see in those horror movies. And almost the entire stretch of some particular roads were near pitch-black and empty...~shivers~

We were even more afraid when not realizing that we made a U-turn earlier, we came back to a very familiar spot, the overhead bridge where we made the wrong turn. We went like "Eh? What the? OH NO!!!! What's happening?!!?" and it certainly didn't help that Judson kept saying that he read of a similar story in Singapore Ghost Stories (a popular horror story collection series) about getting stuck in cursed roads or something like that....it was crazy to say the least.

Not to mention that we were spooked out by the Kajang road signs. They're everywhere! Whichever way we turned we still saw the 'Kajang' followed by an upwards arrow road signs. And there was this road fork where both the roads lead to Kajang apparently. It almost seemed like all the roads led to Kajang. If possible, I wish never having to utter this stupid word again. Stupid road signs....

But having failed to catch the musical, we didn't give up hope. Justina suggested we go to Shah Alam to see One In A Million (if you don't know what's that, ask your friends :D) at the studio, and to Shah Alam we went. The real interesting performance was by Faizal who managed to squeeze Ashley Simpson's L.O.V.E into a manly rock song!!! It was memorable alright, never thought I'd hear a guy's version of that song. And the night ended with....McDonalds. I'm surprised of course that there are more people around midnight than during the entire day...

Justin made pretty good use of McDonald's 'free fries' card and made a mini mountain of fries. Check his blog for the pic if you're curious XD

Not a proper post...

Just wanna post a link for a Japanese song. I thought the guitar licks (is that what you call it? licks...) were pretty cool,haha. Enjoy :D

http://rapidshare.de/files/28133503/Hirano_Aya_-_God_knows.mp3.html

Updating ain't easy...

While I really enjoyed the fact that some of you enjoyed reading my posts, I find that blogging has somewhat become a chore for me. Suddenly, I felt like I have 'fans' to answer to,so to speak. And this is just so different than when i first started blogging, when I blogged more for my own enjoyment. Now every post seems like it needs to be trimmed and edited to suit public tastes...but then again, maybe it's just me :D

Just want to say that I might seem like I take forever to blog but that's because I need to do research for the topics. Sure, I can hentam but the upcoming topic of my blog takes quite a bit of initaitive to pull off nicely. You'll know when I finally post it, or if you can't wait then you can ask Justin,haha. As I'm kinda busy this week (St. John's exam coming soon, this Saturday) I might not be able to post anymore this week but I'll do my best. Over and out guys!

The Birthday Cake Of The Century

Having just celebrated James' mom's birthday last week, this week I had the opportunity to celebrate yet another person's birthday. You know who you are, birthday girl. I'm not referring to Hannah cause I couldn't go for the whole surprise party thing(won't they sort of expect a surprise party if it's done too often?), Happy Birthday to Miss YJ!! (I didn't wish you cause it wasn't your birthday that day)

I must say that a tremendous amount of planning had gone into making this birthday celebration a success. The plan had to be chanced numerous times and countless hours were spent discussing the whole matter of where to celebrate and how to celebrate it. Zhen Ee was the one who wanted to celebrate it in the first place though I dunno why...nudge nudge wink wink :D He so semangat wanted to do it at Secret Recipe somemore. In the end we DID do it at Secret Recipe but the cake wasn't what we expected lah.....sorry YJ :oP

The dinner at Pizza Hut was at 6 plus, so I hung around for a while there after I arrived in front of Taylor's College shortly after 3 o'clock. And what a good thing it is that I'm not studying there, I don't think that I could get used to it ler...so much freedom. Too much freedom, in fact. Zhen Ee had mentioned to me of the one time when he was in Physics class and paying attention when suddenly, a couple sitting in front of him decided to lock lips. Right there. While the teacher's teaching. Like...woah. I would've had them hung and shot and hung again for such public disrespect if I were there :D

But this being about the birthday, I'd talk about that in the post. Back to the topic, I was wondering whether I'd be able to meet some of my old friends there and moments later,there they were: Brian+Catherine (I put the '+' sign cause couple), Kay Boon, Pik Ying and er..yeah. Them. And then I was wondering whether I'd meet Jasmine who's in Business School and funnily enough I saw her too while on the way to cafe. Why didn't I think whether I'd find a million dollars by the road side...darn.

Although much thought went into planning the whole thing, it turned out to be a somewhat dull affair. Maybe it's because it wasn't a surprise. I guess that's how it works ler. Surprise surprise... Some more YJ got Bio test the following day lah, so I guess couldn't really enjoy lah. Anyway, I heard she was surprised today by some of her other classmates, so it kinda put a damper on the previous day's celebration. Haih...but the important thing is that you enjoyed yourself k, Miss YJ?

But anyway, the highlight of the celebration was not the cake itself (Secret Recipe Classic Cheese) but rather the way the candles were put!! I mean, I doubt anyone's seen this kind of candle arrangement. Have a look yourself, here's the original cake :

And here's the 'battleship-style' candle-lit cake....

TADAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You've got to give her credit man, cause she insisted that it be arranged this way. Memang creative betul...

Once again, hope you had a great time for this year's birthday, Miss Tan Yik Jing!!!!!!

So busy, yet still wasting time...

########################################################################
Due to the massive demands for biographies after the post that I wrote for Justin, I shall not write another biography for a while until the whole matter has subsided....JUST KIDDING!!! Don't worry guys, you'll get your share after I know you all better. Say, another year or two maybe. MAYBE....maybe :D
########################################################################


Aduh, looks like Lower Six won't be a honeymoon year for me ler. So many man, so little time....oops. That was a Dance Dance Revolution song,haha. Sorry for that. *Ahem*. So much homework, so much time..... but I'm wasting too much of it. And I just seem to have so many things to do, though this is relative and might not seem much to you. The thing is that I'm used to having entire months free back in my Form 4 Form 5 days. But now...

In the coming month (August) alone, I've got to study for my coming St. John's test, I have three friends' brithdays coming up, I need to work out the payments for TRU's treasury, I need to attend the SIB Youth Conference and we're not even into August yet!! College is probably tougher but for me this is just overkill. Just the other day I was worrying that I would not be able to pass the St.John's exam as I only have 2 weeks left to study and I 've forgotten a lot about first aid. Trouble trouble,and I began to think whether it would be worth it to renew my first aid certificate. All the other activities soon came along to haunt me and the thought of not having enough time to do everything bugged me a lot.


However, one night as I wanted to read the Bible, I picked up the red-coloured Bible Bytes (yea I know, it's really old) cause I saw it sitting so lonely among the books in the rack behind my desk. So I just flipped it and read some of the notes. Just a moment later I was reminded of this passage in Matthew 6 that says "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." And yeah, it sure made things a lot better for me. I've finally figured that if it's God's will for me to pass the exam, then I have nothing to worry about. Not in the sense that I don't have to study for it, but that I can rest easy knowing God would provide the means for me to overcome it.

I still lack time management skills but each day has enough worries of it's own I guess. No point thinking bout trying to save time tomorrow when I'm wasting time now. Gotta get going then guys, must try to save time!!

Cousinship at it's best...

This post is dedicated to my cousin, the one and only Justin Lee!!

I had known Justin for as long as I could remember, dating back to when we were just wee little tykes. Yeah, those were the days that I treasured, being young and carefree,or 'freely winged' as Crissy would put it. Justin used to come down to Kuantan (when I lived I Kuantan that time) together with his family to visit us and all the other relatives about once or twice a year. Of the 365 days in a year, the week or so that he would be in Kuantan had always been more memorable and enjoyable than all the rest of the days in the year put together. True enough, I remember little of my childhood days save for the times that I spent with him.

Back then before I knew about videogames, my favourite past time was watching Hindi movies. Yup, the three-hour, action-packed and ala High School Musical kind of Hindi movies. Then came along one of my uncles who brought home a console (can't quite remember what it was) and from then on Justin became my gaming partner-in-crime. Oh the many games that filled my childhood memories...

We also bought quite a number of gaming machines together, I bought the Sega Mega Drive, he had an Atari (I think) and later I got a GameBoy Pocket, then we both got ourselves a Playstation and a GameBoy Color. Following that Justin bought a PS2 three years later while my friend gave me a GameBoy AdvanceSP for my birthday. So yea, gaming goes way back in our cousinship because if it wasn't for games, I know I wouldn't have learned to speak English. He only knew how to speak in English so it became a necessity for me to brush up my English every year to better communicate with him. It used to be that we spoke more Malay I think, then Malay-English then English-English as of present. I have him to thank partly for my As in English language.

I must say that Justin had always been a very positive influence on me. As I often dwelled on all the negative aspects of situations and circumstances, to me Justin led a really good life both spiritually and socially. He always seemed to be so happy, with so many seemingly close friends . I envied the fact that his life was constantly sunny and enojoyable while I had to wade through thunderstorms and heavy rains more often than I would have liked. So everytime he came back to Kuantan I made it a point to learn something from him and I would experience positive 'high's, so to speak after he had gone back to Kuantan. And now I think I know why: it must have been his Christian upbringing and having been involved with the church's youths that he had developed such a good personality and mentality. Ah....

I think it would take me quite a while to really describe Justin as he is, but I'm sure that most, if not all of you who know him doesn't need to hear it from me to know that Justin's a great guy. If not, how would he have managed to woo (is that the right word i wonder :D) Miss Lee Xin Xin. It's pretty amazing that both Justin's parents' surnames are Lee and now his 'companion' is also from the Lee family line. Too bad mine's an obscure one,haha. 1 Timothy 5: 24-25 "The sins of some men are obvious, reaching the place of judgement ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them. In the same way, good deeds are obvious, and even those that are not cannot be hidden."

I think I would end here lah and instead just let you guys comment on the post. Had Justin done something good to you? Or was he naughty in the past (hmm..that'll be interesting) ? But here's a toast (a real one, not the marmalade toast from earlier) to the decade plus of great cousinship that you've given me dude. And I hope you like this: