remember?

2007-03-29T13:20:00.000+08:00

29th March, Thursday
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxynz. 27 letters in the alphabet. dun believe go and count. ;)

how do you describe feelings? happy, sad, worried, elated, joyful. how to describe combination feelings? like you feel happy bout something but sad about the other. how to describe such feelings? sappy? hapd? haha. ever felt ?????????? haha.

once upon a time i was in church doing up some nice decorations for a wedding service to be held the next day. i went over to help an auntie paste something down using scotch tape. pull, cut...i had both hands on each end of the tape....paste....eh? i said it pretty loud, "why this scotch tape not sticky?!" apparently i attracted germaine's attention and she popped her head over. then she started laughing non stop. hahaha. so duh.

i think i'm born in the year of the goof. always goofing things up. hahaha....

rach tungling graduation today. should be fun. going back to church of singapore, which is the church that i grew up in as a kid. got class till 315, going home first to change and put down stuff. the grad students all wearing nice nice, some guys wearing coat and tie. sheesh. i'm suppose to wear a bit nicer too. haha. cos gonna take photo. ;)

today's io exam was ok. 4 questions, 1 hr. managed to answer all the questions but i realised 1 answer was almost totally out of point. *shrugs* as quoted by elaine, "8 marks is a difference of 3 grades." scary man. went for breakfast with the group after that. the conversation steered towards the differences between guys and gals. some real complicated stuff there. laugh like siao man. weili 1 was telling us about his "story", the girls kept siding with the his gf insisting he was in the wrong. obviously the guys were on his side. haha.

sometimes people just want to be heard and understood. unfortunately its alot easier to give advice or criticize the person in their mind. (random thought, not connected to the above)

another rubbish post...

a light hearted moment

2007-03-27T09:51:00.000+08:00

27th March, Tuesday
thurs i've got this exam for a module called intelligent organizations. i spent the whole of my monday, which is a rest day, reading thru the book. told rach in the afternoon that i'd never finish studying plus i read already can't get into my head. the following sms conversation transpired in the evening when i was about to call her.

rach: you finished studying?

me: nope, i'm into this thing called lifelong learning. can never finish studying.

rach: lifelong learning is for "old people". haha.

me: (picks up the phone and calls her)

haha. so cheeky right? lol.

the blogs becoming too serious, must post something diff once in a while. hahaha.

take the gift and give another one

2007-03-26T23:16:00.000+08:00

26th March, Monday
ah ha! the message today was really good/relevant/timely whadever you want to call it. the preacher was an elderly man, looks so serious but he can be quite funny, esp the part he shared when someone called him e.t. haha. he's called l.t. can't rem the full name, paisei. anyway, he mentioned the cross in his sermon which was entitled walking by faith and not by sight. along the way he asked this question, "what does the cross symbolize? when someone tells you that christians should 'carry the cross of Jesus', what does he really mean?" that got me thinking for a while, and immediately the words pain, suffering and sacrifice came to mind. then he said that the cross is actually symbolic of self giving. tada! so anti climax right? but i still thought it significant enough to make an effort to run it thru my mind for memory.

so at night i was doing my qt as usual praying and all and almost suddenly, the full weight of the message seemed to dawn upon me. i felt tears welling up in my eyes. din really cry lah. haha. man liu blood don't liu tears. cos i've been wondering alot recently about the future, specifically, about what i'm gonna do when i graduate. the tried and tested path is, of course, finding an accounting/auditing/tax related job, the other option is to go into full time youth ministry. getting a job is pretty straight forward, not much worry there. its the idea of going full time that gets me on the seat of my chair. frankly i'm worried, worried about so many things i couldn't find space enough to list it down. kidding. like would i be a suitable candidate? i'm intensly worried that i'll reach a point and end up stagnating the rest of my life away. i don't wanna be like that, i wanna be sure that i can be effective! then theres the worry about finance. you've got to know my family background to be fully clued in on this but lets just say that a full time ministry position will never be as rewarding monetarily as a job in auditing. and so it was with this backdrop, that the weight of this morning's message came a-crashing upon me.

it struck me hard. like boom. haha. Jesus death on the cross was symbolic of self giving. not only that, in fact it was the ultimate act of self giving. it just dun get any bigger man. the guy laid down His life, not for himself but for someone else. He gave His life man! what more can a man give? is it possible to give more? i seriously doubt it. He gave me the gift of life, in exchange for his death. could i ever give back to Him more than what He gave to me? could i outgive him? well, all these years, i've served in the youth ministry (aga aga 9 yrs), the time i've spent, the sacrifices i've made. even if i added all these together they wouldn't amount to much. even if i let go of a well paying job to serve Him my whole life, even that would not add up. He paid the ultimate price, He gave the ultimate gift. and so the only logical thing for me to do, i think is to give my life to Him. even then, that could never, ever, be too much.

listen!

2007-03-21T16:41:00.000+08:00

21st March, Wednesday
was reading the book celebration of discipline by richard foster. how apt, considering discipline is not one of my strong points. got stuck at chapter one for a long time, but now i’m picking it up again. was reading about desiring the voice of the living God. how cool is that to have God speak to you! i can’t think of anyone in this world who wouldn’t want that for themselves. especially if yur having real trouble deciding between the better of two paths when both paths seem equally acceptable. so anyway, here are the israelites, the people God has chosen for himself, the ones whom he first revealed himself personally to, these same people turn around and happily decide that they would rather have a human king than to have God as their king. this is symbolic because its like they relegate themselves 1 level down. so instead of listening from God direct, they wanna put someone inbetween to listen to God for them. they are in effect becoming second hand listeners. pause a mo here, din we just say that we’d love to hear from god direct? it seems the reality is we want to hear from god direct only if its convenient. where it isn’t convenient we’d not mind if we were second hand listeners, like the israelites. to be fair, the israelites weren’t helped by the fact that all the other countries surrounding them had human kings and they seemed to be prospering. but here’s where it gets interesting. i mean, we’ve looked at this whole thing from our point of view, like what do we want, how we feel and how we think…..so what does God think? here’s what i think God thinks, or rather what the bible says God thinks. within the context of that episode i described about the israelites, there we actually detect a note of sadness when God says, “they(israelites) have rejected me from being king over them” 1 samuel 8:7. remember the last time you got rejected? =( sad huh?

i think we can safely draw out a lesson from this, that is that God wants to have a direct hotline to us not a secondhand hotline. or to put it in closer proximity, he wants to be family, not just a distant relative. he is sad when we settle for anything less than a personal relationship with him.

and so ps 40:1 has become my tagline recently. “i waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.” cos i know i don’t hear from God a lot of the times because i don’t have the patience to wait for him to reply. when i refer to hearing from God, i don’t mean the general impression or feeling kind. cos i was inspired while reading genesis and how God spoke to abraham. it is so different from what we experience today, where we hear a “word” from God. this guy hears sentences and paragraphs, enough to fill a storybook. i’m not saying a “word” is no good, but i am saying we shouldn’t be satisfied with just a “word” when God actually has much more to tell us. so that’s where i’m heading. will let you know if i have any progress. =)

experiences to remember

2007-02-07T01:19:00.000+08:00

7th February, Tuesday
they say these things mould us, they shape us, they change the way we percieve people, things and life in general. they come in all shapes and sizes, different forms and full of suprises. some are good some are bad, some are happy others sad. experiences are part and parcel of life. when you go out to look for a job as a fresh grad, they ask you if you have working experience. when you talk to someone and comfort them they ask you how can you understand what i'm going through unless you have experienced it yourself. when you move into a new phase in life you always ask for advice from people who've been there before, they will share with you their experience. but are all experiences good for you? i'm pretty sure you know of people who've gone through bad experiences and come out worse off from them.

is it possible that two different people go through the same experience and yet come out of it differently? sure! take the example of lance armstrong, stricken with cancer yet in the following years after not only did he recover, he went on to become one of the greatest cyclists ever. but for every lance armstrong there are others who are unable to come to terms with their illness and the quality of their lives deteriorates even after they recover.

in the christian circle, we talk about God using our experiences for his glory and that is true. how better to encourage someone who lost a child through miscarriage if you yourself have had the same experience and testify that God has given you strength to see you through? but again, the question arises, can the same situation happen to 2 different people and have a different outcome? sure! one person may come to terms with the tragedy and still be thankful to God, the other person may become bitter and resentful. that is where the bible, the word of God helps us to understand and come to terms with the sometimes cruel experiences that come our way. it is like an electronic scanner, the kind that you see in supermarkets. unless you have a good and proper scanner you can't really decipher the data that the bar code on the item contains. without the scanner, the bar code looks like a mumble jumble of lines. in the same way, without the wisdom and revelation in the bible, we look at life and it just looks like a mumble jumbled mess of random events. the moment we take up the scanner, the bar code begins to have meaning and so when we look at the bible we then begin to realise that life on earth is more than a bunch of random events placed together but rather an intricately woven piece of art and the picture is one of love, God's love for mankind.

John 3:16 "for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son(Jesus), that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

what is really important, really

2007-01-21T01:00:00.000+08:00

21st January, Saturday
each of us is made unique. we are unique in our physical attributes, like our voices, our finger prints, our intelligence, our looks, our personalities etc. these are pretty obvious, but what came to my mind was how unique we are when it comes to what we think is important to us. when you are a certain age you think that finding the right secondary school is the most important thing, at another age you think that looking fashionably sharp is the most important, at another age you realise that you aren't complete without a significant other so finding one becomes the most important thing, at another age you think back on your life and wonder what significance it has been and you realise that making the remainder of your life count for something is the most important thing, perhaps at another point you also think that your parents have made huge sacrifices to bring you up and so making it up to them and taking care of them is the most important thing to you. indeed each one holds a thing important to them that is different from any other. but i do sometimes wonder where god fits in to the equation.....

i have to admit the things that surround me in this world take my attention easily, simply because they are tangible and they have an "in yur face" kind of attribute about them. if you had a mosquito bite on yur nose, it'd catch yur full attention because the itch is sooo tangible and you just can't get rid of it. which is why i easily get caught up in living my own life, i sometimes forget about god. ouch. i'll be really honest, there was a time not too long ago when i couldn't even find the time to read my bible, say 2 chapters a day. no time no time, busy busy busy these were some of the choice excuses i would feed my brain to stave of the hunger of guilt. and it just went on and on and on before i snapped out of it. i do look back at that time with disgust. if i was honest, i'd say i was busy busy busy, but not too busy to go catch a 2 hour long movie.....no time no time no time, but got soo much time to play dota (an average game is 1.5hrs)....tired tired tired, but sit infront of the tv/computer for hours on end.

if yur wondering why i'm talking bout this is cos i read a passage in matthew that provoked me deeply. matt 13:45-46 "..the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. when he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it". when i read this passage at first i thought this guy is either a crazy nut, or he's not. in which case he must have stumbled upon something, something precious and so important that he was willing to give up everything he had just to pursue that thing. have you found that thing that is so important that it would change your entire life if you had it? if your answer is yes, then you might wanna ask yourself again, is the pearl that you hold really a fine pearl? or just an imitation? or worst, you find one day that you are clutching on to nothing but thin air....what is your fine pearl? are you looking hard for it? it'll change your life.

i don't know about you, but i've found my fine pearl. jesus, saviour, lord, friend. =)

reflections of the day before

2007-01-17T00:34:00.000+08:00

17th January, Tuesday
nothing spectacular in my reading today, but i'm still on schedule. =)

i attended my cousin's memorial service last sunday. it seemed like yesterday, i was driving with all my might to reach the hospital when i got a phone call from my mom telling me my cousin had passed on. i remember slamming my hands on the steering wheel with frustration, i would've kicked myself if i could but i was driving. i wanted to kick myself so hard cos i remember a few days ago we were gonna visit him but becos of some lame reason we didn't, he said it was okay and we thought there would always be another day. that day never had a chance to come, and now it was no more. i wanted to kick myself because it took me so long to make my way down to the hospital, i remembered recieving a call from mom when i was walking to church for musician practice at 2pm, i was leading. mom told me something happened but she didn't know how serious it was and she would update me as soon as she knew. if only i had immediately rushed down i'd at least have seen him a last time before he passed on....

anyway, i was suprised that a year later my cousin's cell group requested their pastor to hold a memorial service for him. suprised that these people who were in no way related to him, remembered him enough to organise the service. i would've thought that by now most people would have moved on with their busy lives and clean forgotten about him but it seems they still remembered. it was a touching service, my uncle spoke about how tough it had been through this past year. i think they were very touched that my cousin's cell group organized the memorial service for them. as i was sitting by the side during the service, it reminded me what church should really be like. people who go out of their way to help another believer in need. a place that extends beyond the four walls of the church where we hold our service and into the walls of every heart.

Thought of the Day

2007-01-16T01:13:00.000+08:00

January 16th, Monday
can't quite rem the first thing that i wanted to blog in but here's the second. was reading a passage about abraham's journey to the promised land and it set me thinking. god spoke to him a couple of times before about how his descendents would be as countless as the sand, how they would inherit the promised land and that he needed to obey and leave the land of haran. then in the later passages that follow god speaks again, this time with greater clarity, saying that the sin of the canaanites had not yet reached it's fullness. you would think that god would have told him everything at once but it seems in this case that the picture was revealed to him a bit at a time.

this is my learning point cos i would prefer maximum clarity before making a decision, i mean who wants to be unsure? but then sometimes god reveals just enough for you to get a glimpse but not be able to cling on to it so that you cling on to him instead. its gonna be "rubber meets the road" time come december when i graduate. wonder what the future holds...

theres something that i remember i wanted to write down too, but for the life of me i can't quite rem. arghh. its like the other day i'm trying to rem wad is that korean restaurant that serves free flow of food for bbq....then the next day it dawned on me. seoul garden. ahahah. you think i'm doing senile right? i can't guarantee i'm not. lol. theres another thing i forgot the other day, but i forgot what i forgot. -_-" i dun think senility sets in at the age of 25....maybe 26? haha. nah.

zero

2006-05-03T15:14:00.000+08:00

May 3rd, Wednesday
i write on inspiration, no inspiration = no write. even when i write poems its like that too, cannot kek out the creative juices one. kek too hard wait sai come out instead. but then on the otherhand you can't wait for inspiration forever, you can wait forever until also sai come out and no inspiration. aiyoh, its a lose lose situation. haha. so i decided to sit infront of the com and start some thoughts and hopefully the thing flows. yup, dear reader : this is a good time as any to click that trusty little box marked "x" at the top right corner of the internet explorer window before you get bored to death. haha.

the mundane...
my results are partially out, even as we speak more are plodding along the way into my school's online website. i've got a B+ in audit and assurance, B+ in management of people at work and a B in computer as an analysis tool. poetry results coming out at 5pm today, haha. nervous. then theres finance left, dunno why the professor is taking so long...maybe need to dhl the papers back from hongkong. lol. he's a hk prof. in the meantime i've been working at knight frank part part time. part part cos the hours are short, cannot even consider as part time so part part time. looking for a less part-ier time job, applied for life bookstore at tm but no reply, walked into the seven eleven across the road to ask but they dun have, no internship either so i'll prob start on some comm service stuff and complete it by this hol. 80 hours altogether, no joke. if u wanna sell flags can sell until yur legs turn jelly also cannot finish. also need to find a balance between effeciency and meaningfulness cos i could prob do a short camp and finish all the hours in 4 days but i don't think its very meaningful. so i'm still on the look out.

reflections...
i've been chairman of the youth group for about a year and a half already, and i still can't answer the question of what it takes to create a successful youth group. i hope that the youth group can provide a platform to train, encourage, guide and produce youths who have a passion to reach out and touch peoples lives for the better and are equipped to know how to do that effectively, and that we can provide a community that loves, cares and encourages youths within the group and readily accepts new people regardless of individual differences and from there the cycle of training, encouraging and guiding these new people to reach out perpetuates itself. but how to get to there from where we are now? no use just talking, must have concrete ideas and plans to move ahead with.

i've heard stories about missionaries who go to unreached people groups to spend half their lives there to spread the gospel to them only to see little or no fruit and yet years after they have passed on, the number of converts suddenly begin to mushroom. that really isn't my cup of tea, i'm not a big fan of that. i believe that in our context, if we do the right things the right way, lay the right foundation, move in the right direction and sustain a high level of committment and passion to what we do we will see the fruit of our labour. there are examples of such groups who have been able to do that, mega churches in singapore have appeared in recent years and the one that comes to the fore of my mind is city harvest. they grew from a teeny weeny cell group in the early 1990's to become one of the leading churches in singapore. you can critisize them for their brushes with hollywood or their aggresiveness in reaching out to people but you can't deny the fact that they are effective in what they do. reaching out and touching people's lives. and at the very heart of the matter that is what i want to see in the youth group too, that we are effective in what we do. its about touching someone's life, beyond the surface and the layers that we all put up and into the heart, the longings, the lackings, the dissappointments, the hopes, the shattered dreams, the struggles, the fears, the hurts, the pains that we all have buried deep inside to plant a seed. a seed of hope, of truth, of light, of eternal destiny.

we have, we can and one day we will.

excuse the scatteredness of my thoughts.

Poems poems

2006-04-18T23:56:00.000+08:00

April 18th, Tuesday
i handed in my 12 poems yesterday. phew. i squeezed my brain dry of all its contents already, i'm a walking blockhead now. haha. should recover in a few days when water vapor slowly seeps back into my brain via osmosis. thought i'd just put up one of my poems here. it came as a suggestions from my prof, after reading my journal (which i cut and paste from parts of my blog, haha) he said that i should try a singlish poem. so here's my first raw attempt...it's meant to be kinda humorous, then again knowing my sense of humour....haha. so here goes...oh! and pardon that reference to india, no ill intent intended.

Wah Lao Eh
Oi! Why you so li dat?!
Auntie carry big NTUC plastic bag
You blind or act blur?
Close eyes pretend not there
You think she will just disappear meh?

Oi! What you problem lah?!
Got rice to eat happy already
People small kid in India
Want to breathe a bit more air
Also not enough ah you here complain

Oi! Last warning hor!
Uncle you park here like this
Your grandfather road ah?
Illegal leh, next time I saman you
Dun geh geh say waiting only

Aiyoh boy ah!
Why never do homework again
You grow up wait become roadsweeper
Cannot! Must study good okay?
Be lawyer, doctor earn lotsa money

Yar lah, yar lah
Dun keep nagging can?
I got study but my cher lousy
His fault I fail exam hor
I sure hang pig head outside his home ah!

Dun play play

trivial stuff.
my mom's been watching da chang jing recently. faithfully sitting behind the tv every night from 10pm to 11pm without fail. i hate to say this but i've been following the show the past few days too! ahhhhhh! haha. i can't believe i said it. its actually a not bad show lah, i don't watch it for the hunk tho and neither for the gal cos she ain't that pretty anyways, i watch it cos its kinda interesting lah. but korean dramas have a habit of being long winded, i rem watching some other korean drama and they put this scene on about the family eating over dinner and it went on for like an hour i think. then theres this other scene where the guy holds the girl for dunno how long but very long lah, then the camera keeps circling them over and over, and over and over and i don't understand why they aren't tired standing up for so long cos i'm tired just watching and getting half dizzy along the way. but so far da chang jing has spared me from such agony so i will keep watching. haha. its really not bad lah, you should try watching too.

back to basics : blogging rule no.1

2006-03-22T18:03:00.000+08:00

March 22nd, Wednesday
there is a rule for blogging and only ONE rule. ignore at your risk. i remember learning this rule a year ago, having read it from a blogger more senior than myself. i consciously kept to this sacred rule until recently. and i really regret this lapse, gravely sorry in fact. so here’s the warning once again to all:

blogging rule number one and only
“do NOT type your entry on the blog’s web entry page.”

i mean NEVER ever do that unless you have a) mega memory or b) mega memory. You run the risk of losing your entire post, which doesn’t really matter to anyone else except that it took your EFFORT and your TIME and thousands of BRAIN CELLS that could have been used for other more productive purposes. if you haven’t guessed already, i typed a huge entry onto the web page and i couldn’t post it in. in my final moments of desperation i tried ctrl c to copy the entire entry over as a last resort but it didn’t work! argh. and i lost an entire 15+++++++++++++++++++++++++ minutes of work. i actually contemplated retyping the entry but a) i do not have mega memory and b) i do not have mega memory.

its been a while but i have since recovered from that little blip and decided to hazard another post on a completely different topic. was gonna talk about this person who tried to buy a tudong, which happens to be someone close to me. ahem. ahah. but i exhausted all my brain juice when i typed it in my poor lost entry. but its funny lah, if yur interested toggle down my links list and look for this link named “cuzzie”. super hilarious. i think she posted in another entry recently to try and hide that previous maluating post, but its still there so just scroll down for your reading pleasure. hahaha.

first paper in 20 days. i’m feeling the heat already. i could possible go on ranting about this excel project that i’ve been wasting so much time on, but then again this blog ain’t about such rants as mundane as such so i’ll spare you guys the gore.

our jg youth soccer team won CEFC by a slender margin of 8 goals to 1. haha. i’m kidding. we WHACKED them!!! ahahaha. to be fair, we played well and they had a goal disallowed. the game was actually much closer than the scoreline suggests but we took our chances well and that made all the difference. the mood of the day would have been excellent except it was marred by the fact that the captain ball gals lost to the aunt’s in 2 consecutive matches. i’m sure they’ll do better tho cos they din field their strongest team. my cuzzie din play either, that aspiring tudong wearer. dunno why, but i suspect she was hunting for more tudongs. haha. kidding! (dun beat me). kk, that’s all better not say no more before i de zui more people. haha.

amateur poet

2006-02-24T00:41:00.000+08:00

February 24th, Thursday
currently feeling ^_^

proud. proud of my poem.

i've been attending poetry class for the last 8 weeks. before you think that i'm losing my mind i must say that i attend because it's part of my study requirements in smu, i haven't gone crazy. haha. i did find the first lesson interesting though, thats why din wanna drop the course. interesting because i'm trying my hand at something i wouldn't normally touch with a 10 foot pole. haha. wrote a few crappy poems but here's one that i actually got to ryhme. its very funny how i came up with inspiration for this poem cos i actually started off wanting to write about that old lady on the mrt that i gave my seat up to (a few posts ago). so i started off trying to describe my reluctance to get out of bed, to show that reader that i was really tired and sort of explain why i din let go of my seat the first time. then it somehow evolved into something else. here goes...

brand new day

the gentle rays had come to prey
each time they neared, i edged away
my eyes wore heavy, refusing to budge
but i had no choice, i knew as much
so i moved my hand and raised a knee
and from this slumber, i did break free

now upright, i took a long deep breath
the smell of air like a sweet caress
twas at this moment! it dawned on me...
the source of this new day. was Thee
and so a smile lit up my face
i said, "thank you God, for Your deep grace"

but i don't think my prof will like it. he prefer's deep, dark, multi-layered poems. not the kind of nice happy ending kind of poem. oh well, one man's meat is another man's poison. i'm not too bothered, i'll get around to writing a deep poem soon enough. dun have a choice, my grades depend on it. i ain't gonna write a love poem either, cos i've seen love poems aplenty on blogs and also the valentine's day edition of today and they either make my hair stand or they make my intestines churn affecting my stomach causing restlessness of the contents inside possibly resulting in an eruption of food ingredients. i.e. to puke. haha. yeah, nice love poems are few and far between so i shan't risk it cos the chances of creating a cheesy poem are way to high. nuh-uh. out of bounds. so anyway poem 2 is on the way, at least 1 line worth of it. no inspiration sia. i may need to take a walk out to some naturey place to soak myself in the surroundings and hopefully get inspired. in the meantime, i'm gonna prepare what to say on sat. phew. tough, i don't wanna say stuff that are so "duh" and yet i'm trying to rack my brains out to bring some freshness to a pretty mundane topic. ahhhh. stress. feel like moses now, telling God i can't speak well leh. how??? but i know the answer already lah so i'm trying to work on it, trusting God that He will use my voice to speak what He wants to say. coincidence? maybe so, my topic is "a new voice".

kay, i never proof read this entry so i hope the thoughts aren't so scattered as to be unintelligible. tired. i'm out.

who do people think you are

2006-02-21T21:59:00.000+08:00

February 21st, Tuesday
currently feeling =))

ahhhhh...holiday week. but lotsa stuff to do. project meetings here and there, tuition 3 times this wk, people to call up, speaking this sat, musician on thurs, lifegroup on fri, audit assignment, peoms, journal to update, revision to do, cat proj to think about, christian basic class to prepare....wah.

hey ya'll, help me out by clicking on this link. its a "who do people think you are" kinda thing. be honest when you answer or else wun be accurate. stole the idea from heidi's blog.

http://kevan.org/johari?name=littlegreeenpea

smile =)

2006-02-16T11:34:00.000+08:00

February 16th, Thursday
currently feeling -_-" but =)

haha. this currently feeling thing isn't working too well. looks confusing. anw. thurs are official poetry days cos i'm taking a class on creative writing. sounds cool right? but in effect its a poetry class. so the class is at 3:30pm but got project meeting so have to reach school early in the morning at 9am. meeting only for 1 hr nia then from 10am to 3:30pm i stay in school beat mosquito. that explains the -_-".

woke up this morn at 7:15. sleeeepy. i know i'm considered fortunate lah cos schooling people need to wake even earlier so i shan't complain. i zombie-ed towards the gate, down to the bus stop, closed my eyes a while on the bus(although only 3 stops), then cross over to the mrt. so the plan was to leave home earlier then can take mrt to pasir ris and back so got seat mah, or else from tampines confirm stand all the way for 30mins to city hall, which i did. i boarded the mrt to pasir ris still can choose seat, it was that empty. i closed my eyes.....when i opened it was back at tampines again, wah then the best thing happened. you wouldn't believe it. its like undescribable lor....

eh gotta go for lunch. haha. i'll complete this later.

as i was saying. an old lady walked into the cabin and ambled to the precise spot in front of me. i know this sounds evil but at first i pretend to close my eyes. so paikia right? hai, tired leh somemore i purpurly go to pasir ris and back just to get a seat. man. i close my eyes for like 5 secs and a still small voice started tugging at my conscience. i tell you that feeling very strong and it din go away. that 5 secs seemed like eternity, but in the end i gave in lah cos felt very bad for ignoring the old lady. so i did what every kind citizen ought to do and gave up my seat. i stood all the way to city hall feeling tired and sleepy but also feel good lah. if i din stand up i think i deserve to be knocked on the head a million times for being so selfish and act blur. haha. moral of the story? be courteous lah. =)

today.

2006-02-14T23:25:00.000+08:00

February 14th, Tuesday
currently feeling >_<-ish

hi friends, a new feature to this blog is the above "currently feeling" description. basically it describes how i am currently feeling. (haha, wad were u expecting??). no legend is provided though, you think geography map ah? everything tell you sui sui. dun hab lah this is blog leh, suppose to be arty, must suggest, paint a picture, throw an image, intrigue the mind, stimulate creativity and be multi layered. haha. my poetry prof say one hor. not happy go find him.

Summary of post - RANT.

haha. unlike the above, this is not an additional feature but will only pop up for this particular entry and this entry alone. its like a warning sign, if yur in a ranty mood then please dun read cos it may aggrevate yur condition thus requiring medical treatment. on the other hand if yur feeling too cruisy and dull-ish you might consider this post a try. here goes...

i mean no offence. really. but i don't get the opposite sex. i really don't. you think i'd be a bit smarter after 25 years on planet earth. you'd think i'd know how they work since i have a mother, a grandmother, 5 aunts on 1 side, 5 on the other, 2 female cousins on 1 side, 5 on the other, 6 LTB girls and many other friends in school. you'd think i know. but you know wad? you never know. i think the way they function is a bit like an 32 bit encryption code which i don't have the key to unlock, the code just scrambles my head. or like the ocean, its vastness and depth uncomprehendable. or like the sky, you think you know how high you are but you really never know. or like a computer that breaks down, you don't know why it goes kapoot...when it goes, it just goes. i don't get it...i really don't. i ain't no mindreader...not a master of body language....can't read your thoughts thru yur eyes...nono. nothing like that. i'm just an ordinary being. i know what you tell me, what you don't i can only guess. hai. that i am not good at.

which brings to mind this incident with the LTB peeps, i think it was vday last year we were celebrating at the kopitiam at old campus. some of you were commenting how you agreed with yur bf's not to spend money on flowers for vday cos its so ex? rem? then ya'll said that actually you really really hope that yur bf will still buy the flowers all the same. lol. see what i mean? nothing is really what it seems, not everything you hear is what it means. hai. come come, somebody please tell me i have misunderstood you all.

again. no offense, i'm just stating the facts. nothing malicious intended. haha. better say properly wait scully some annonymous blogger see liao offended then report to police. wait kenna jail for inciting gender disharmony/riots. lol.

aiyah but in the end i talk so much also like that. i love my mom, my grandmom, aunts and cousins and i appreciate my female friends too. so dispite all my "decoding" problems, these people still form an important part of my life and i wouldn't do without them either. so on this wonderful valentines day, let me wish all of you a happy and fulfilling relationship with your current spouse/spouse to be/gf/gf to be/bf/bf to be and may all yur good beginnings have fantantic endings. God bless! =)

(model blog entry. start low, end high. start by ranting and blabbing, get it all out of your system and then end on a nice note. haha)

Currently feeling (same as above)

mountain out of a molehill

2005-11-30T22:30:00.000+08:00

November 30th, Wednesday
you'd think that after half a life time of studying for exams that you'd be a pro by now. esp since the s'pore system is totally exam oriented. the truth is? i don't feel half prepared. 4 more papers in the next 3 days. -_-" i read a whole page and i can't seem to rem exactly what i read. thats it, when i finish my degree at 27 i'm gonna do further studies OVER MY DEAD BODY. lol. so fierce. this person's memory can't take all the long thesis' and discourses anymore. what happened to the "1+1=2"? profound logic encapsulated in a simple sentence. nowadays u get formulas like !@$(%)@!$($)!@#(. see? so complex they don't even turn out right when you try to type them out on a blog. haha. lame.

anw. change topic. this kinda describes how i feel right now.

ever stood infront of a hill and watch it grow bigger and bigger? and bigger? and then bigger? and then even BIGGER? well, sometimes i feel that way. the hill just keeps getting bigger. the bigger the hill becomes the smaller i become. the smaller i become the more i compare myself to the hill and the even smaller it makes me feel. vicious cycle. brings a comparison to a passage in the bible that talks about a group of 10 people who only saw the big obstacles and their small selves and decided to call it a day. god made those people walk around the desert for 40 years. ouch.

okay, so i'm not as bad. its not like i don't see god in the picture, i do. maybe not 100% clear all the time but yes he's in the picture all right. he's there, always there. he is our source, our strength, our salvation. but you know what? trusting in god doesn't always make the big hill go away. sometimes it does(divine intervention), sometimes it doesn't and sometimes it doesn't but you wish it did so you just assume the big hill away. technically thats called "forgetfulness". just like a big pimple on your face, walking away from the mirror doesn't mean that the pimple is gone just because you can't see it. thats simplistic, naive. the pimple is there whether u like it or not. i think that kinda describes my situation. the car goes forward only if you step the accelerator, you don't step? it dun go anywhere.

kay, so i trust that god is here in this situation and i look up again. wao, big hill getting bigger. i mean face it, sometimes circumstances are just out of your control. yikes, no way out? well truth is theres always a way out. the hill might not get any smaller, and you can try to wish it away, or you can start by making the preparations to cross it. make your plans well, chart your path, anticipate the pitfalls, know your route, assemble a team, get what you need, get going and don't stop till you reach your destination. its not an easy journey, frought with obstacles along the way, detours, dead ends and stuff but you know that if you persevere you'll reach the end. another bible passage encourages us to run the race with the aim to finish cos it ain't good enough to just start.

at times a change of perspective is in order. if you stop staring at the multi million storey high hill and allow yourself to be overwhelmed by its immensity and height, you could actually realise that if you were in a space shuttle high above the sky, that same towering mountain would be but a speck among the vast expanse of land. a matter of perspective, your perspective or god's perspective. its your attitude that determines your altitude. big mountains get conquered, one step at a time. can be done, will be done. must be done.

hope i've made sense to your reading.

disclaimer by the author: this post does not set out to be a "one size fits all" answer to all mountain climbing problems. note that big hills represent different things to different people who live in different situations. if you can identify with what i'm going through please understand that this solution applies specifically(but not exclusively) to me, therefore an exercise of wisdom is in order if you wish to apply to your unique situation. cheers. ;)

blood is thicker than water. anytime.

2005-10-10T10:24:00.000+08:00

October 10th, Monday
wanna talk about something neutral today. every entry also talk about myself, even i also find it boring sia. haha. so shall talk about my family.

dad's a taxi driver. sole bread winner of the family. hardworking, self sacrificing, lives to provide. his idea of giving his kids a good upbringing is to provide for our daily living and to give us a good education. since i was young he would always tell me to study hard, excel in what i do because the best gift that he could give me was a good education and that i should treasure that and not take it for granted. he would remind me that he won't always be around and one day i would have to strike it out on my own, my education would help me to do just that. dad isn't too passionate about government, he's definately not a pap man, he's got this really cool pot belly, and his first reaction to a tight pair of pants is, "dear why you wash until my pants shrink". haha. yeah my dad's cool in his own way.

mom's a housewife. equally passionate and caring and self sacrificing in all she does. poor mom lives with 4 boys in the house. one big boy, one medium boy and two small boys. all these years she also never complain. when i was still a small boy, mom stopped working as a secretary(i think) to look after me. hee, of course mah. precious son. haha. in those days they had things called typewriters instead of computers and shorthand was still in vogue. mom was an expert typer. she could type a 10 page document faster than you can count from 1 to 10! haha. okay, not really. but she won a couple of awards in her company as the fastest typer around. dunno how many hundred words a minute. very fast lah. i rem mom saying that when she was younger she wanted to learn to play the piano because she liked the sound of it. but she didn't have the opportunity to learn, maybe thats y i was carted off to to learn the art of playing the piano when i was 8 or 9. child prodigy eh? nah. never really enjoyed it. although i have a grade 6. mom rules the house man, she cooks, washes, cleans, irons, folds, tidies, packs and organises the affairs of the house. sometimes i wonder if she morphs into an octopus when nobody is around. mom is always thinking of others before herself. she's always puts the family above herself, eat less food so that her 3 hungry monsters can eat more, wake up early to prepare breakfast and send these little monsters to school, go out and buy dinner for the hungry monsters when we are lazy and the list goes on. mom is great, i think she's the best mom in the world. (no offense). haha.

for a long time my best pals were my lego toys and he-man figures, playdough and ninja turtles. so you can understand my excitement when my first kid brother came out. i was so excited i went to help mom make milk, change the diapers when he poo poo, carry him, rock him to sleep, play with him, make a fool of myself just to make him laugh. (i was p6 then). haha. those were the days. then came along the other little monster, so now there are 3. (plus myself, that time still considered little lah. haha.) shall continue this entry at another time.........(to be continued)

what? ^%%$^@#$@

2005-10-04T21:47:00.000+08:00

4th October, Tuesday
wah i tell you ah, this person really make my blood boil. really. first time ever, EVER i feel sooooooo hot in my life sia. and i din even see the person face to face. if he is in front of me i tell you. i sure give him one good KANA JI on the head. grrr. the person wrote the most out of whack thing i've ever read in my whole life, on his website and THAT really flamed me up man. its like i tell you, you know your mother right? the one who produce you? yah yah, that one. you know ah, i can prove to you using greek and hebrew words that she is not your mother. what you have believed in since you were born is all a LIE, is what the world has been telling you. so please open up your hearts and your minds and let the voice of conscience in your brain speak to you the truth that i am about to prove to you. walao! its like WAD lor -_-" knowledge of ancient languages very powerful ah, sorry lah i dunno, i'm stupid can? insult my religion, insult my beliefs, insult my intelligence, insult my church, insult my understanding of language!!!!!!!!ARGHH. wah i really buey tahan man. i read ah tay's blog that long email. i tell you the claims the guy is making is totally off! and i mean really OFF! its like huh? which bible you reading sia. the MOV one ah? My Own Version. no doubt he can prove this and prove that blah blah blah, and it is really convincing i tell you. but he prove already the conclusion also dun make sense at all. and after proving the only conclusion pple can come to is so not from my bible man?!! there's nothing wrong with my translation hello?! there's something wrong with your over doubting, over sensitive, over critical brain!

kay, calm down ivan. its been 2 days already and yur still hot about it?

YES I AM! i think it is irressponsible for a writer to make such claims and make it in such a convincing fashion that can easily mislead other people into believing the half truths he is presenting. OF COURSE I BUEY SONG LAH!!! grrrr. you tell me my mother is not my mother and when i ask you so who is my mother you say "DUNNO, but i just know she is not your mother" WALAO. the cheek of the guy.

kay, calm down ivan. don't make this a personal attack on the person, maybe he's made an honest mistake.

like that is waaaay no. i mean, i send you an email and ask you to explain the fishy part to me and you reply me with a cut and paste of basically every single article that is found on your website?! you think i'm dumb i can't go click the link myself to find the articles ah!? if i could find the answer in the mess of words you claim to be reliable articles then i wouldn't need to send you an email would i!! you know what? its as if the person is trying to confuse me in the mess of words he sent in reply to my query. like who replies an email that is worth 39 pages in a microsoft word document?! THIRTY NINE PAGES. font 12, new times roman. hello? i asked for a reply not a stoopid thesis for goodness sake. sheesh. some people, really have the knack of getting on my nerves.

kay. don't want to get a heart attack so young do you?

haha. okay, chill. hai. sigh. why do people like to complicate matters? why do they like to fish for sharks in swimming pools? why do they pick on the dirt in the sink that doesn't exist? i mean why are they sooo free to dig up contoverial matters and procede to spam their views on the internet. what happened to responsibility? sheesh.

in case yur still wondering why i'm cheesed of with this fella whom i've never met, here's why. he presents a half truth as the whole truth, supports the facts that favour his argument and conveniently ignore those that cast doubt on it. i can understand if you do such a thing in your own quiet corner, i still don't agree with it in principle but at least it only affects you. but if you paste it up on a website for all to see and claim that those who do not buy your idea are either A) blind, B) stuck in their ways, C) stupidly ignorant D) simply dumb, then i take offense to that. firstly you have been dishonest, secondly, intentionally misleading and thirdly irresponsible for trying to spread confusion. if yur a 5 year old kid who doesn't know better i can understand, but not from someone who claims to have done his homework for the past 15 years! i think all he's done the past 15 years is copy answers from the back of his assessment book. blehh. really cheesed off man. huff, puff, kay, i shall cool down now. grrr. buey tahan.....

ps: dear reader, please understand that when i gave the example of mother i din actually mean that those were the exact words that transpired in our email conversation. it was just meant as a figure of speech.

think of yourself less, think of others more

2005-10-03T19:14:00.000+08:00

3rd October, Monday
in every person there are always many blind spots, whether you like it or not. faults in our behaviour and character that we choose to ignore or we rationalize away or simply never realize existed.

for example, a person who is naturally abrasive in his comments, if he realises it, may still choose to ignore the fact the he has such a problem. he may even rationalize it away by explaining that he is a truthful person and he can't help but tell the truth regardless of people's feeings. or perhaps he may not realise that his remarks are cutting and abrasive because it has been so much a part of him all his life.

then there is the example a person who is naturally lazy, if he realises it, my still choose to ignore it and continue to be lazy. he may justify his behaviour by saying that he was born that way, can't help it or he could give the example of people rushing around all the time in fast paced Singapore, not having time to slow down and smell the flowers and say that he doesn't want to fall into that trap therefore continues to be lazy. or perhaps nobody in his life cared to tell him that he has a problem with lazyness. all his life he has managed to clear his PSLE, O'level's, A'level's, Poly exams, Uni exams by slacking thru the term, studying last minute and getting away with excellent results because he is just smart.

what about a dishonest person, someone who has a knack for telling half the truth and getting away with it. he may realize that he isn't telling the whole truth and yet ignore it because telling half the truth always lets him get away with his mistakes. he may even rationalize his behaviour by saying "i'm not lying wad, still telling the truth but just a small part, not my fault that the other person go and make his own assumption. i din lie, i just didn't tell everything, even though i only mentioned one part of the truth, but still the truth right?" worse still, a person who lies through his teeth and does not know it. i seriously doubt such a person exists. -_-"

and you know what feeds this phenomenon? its when the person is self centred. anyone can justify basically anything if the reasons for his behaviour are selfish. but is this really the way God wants us to behave? selfishly? my school principal once quoted a famous man saying "don't ask what the school can do for you, ask what you can do for the school". being selfish means always asking what benefit you can get from something, someone, somewhere. to be unselfish means to ask what you can bring to a group, what you can do for someone, how you can help the situation, make things better. so clear is the distinction and yet most times we stop short at the selfish bit all our lives and we never move on to the unselfish bit.

which makes you wonder, if jesus thought selfishly the night before he died on the cross, where would we be? he could have snapped his fingers and disappeared into heaven never to be seen again, and he wouldn't have any problem justifing his actions because afterall he is the son of god, he could have saved himself and let us all perish, he didn't owe us a living and yet he did what he did out of unselfish love. are we then to model what christ has done or should we instead carry on living our own selfish, self centred lives. well, thats up to you to decide. ;)

disclaimer: i'm not trying to say that christians ought to be perfect please don't get me wrong. the writer of this blog is one perfect example of such a flawed christian. all i'm trying to say is this, think of yourself less, think of others more. its not easy, but everyone has to start somewhere eh?

dun worry, be at peace

2005-09-20T23:41:00.000+08:00

20th September, Tuesday
been worrying a fair bit recently. disclaimer: please read with a pinch of salt, don't read too much into things that i write in this entry just take at face value.

worried about studies.
last sem i was taking things easy and in the end i got B's which don't really help my GPA at all. dun wanna fall back into slack mode this term and get disappointing results. afraid that i'll disappoint my mom, my dad and myself. therefore i have resorted to shutting my com at all times during lectures and writing down notes so as not to be lost. have been faithfully doing most of my homework and a bit of revision here and there rather than wait till last min. only ponned 1 class so far. feel bad about it already. i promised myself not to do that again.

worried about finance.
recently 1 of my tuition kids retrenched me cos he's been so busy in sch that he keeps canceling lessons. his mom thinks that the remedial he has in school is sufficient and that his time is too tight therefore the retrenchment. haha. in a way it free's up my time a bit more, which is a good thing or else i think this term i'll be walking zombie. but in another sense i have just lost $200 income per month. lol. not exactly a small sum. but actually in a positive way i've become more conscious about my spending and i even manage to save on some days. haha. then not to mention my "fining" system. haha. eh last week was bad man, $16 bucks. haha. i think its cos i put alot of items to do and sometimes in a day i really really really dun have time to do.

worried about the youth group.
now is the planning period for 2006 which explains why i'm worried. sometimes i look at the situation that we are in and the youths and leaders and i can't help but feel frustrated that things aren't moving as i would like them to be. i honestly believe that the current batch of youths and leaders have so much potential compared to what we have had in past years, even more than the batch during my time i would say. when i first became a leader i think that i was soooo un-zai if there is such a word. the only thing that i had at that time was probably a desire to serve and potentially make a difference in people's lives. skillwise, ability to communicate, leadership skills, i had close to nought. the only experience i had at leading was in my secondary school CCA as a scout patrol leader. perhaps the only other thing i had going for me was a willingness to learn and try new things. anw, when i look at the youths now i see a really fantastic bunch of young people that could potentially do really great things for God. which is why when i look at our current situation, i feel that there is so much more for the youth group to step up to. then i look at myself and think that i may not really be the best person to lead the group. i suck at planning, don't really look ahead far enough, not inspirational, not extremely hardworking, not really the "passionate type", not highly motivated, not detailed enough, not perfectionist enough, not good at making decisions, don't really have strong opinions most of the time...blah blah blah. aiyah the list very long lah, dun wanna type all. and sometimes i just wish God will just raise up somebody who is super zai and then one man show lead the whole youth group onwards etc etc etc. haha. maybe that will happen in the future i don't know, but at least for now and the coming year i'm sure that God wants to do something great in this youth group and i want to be part of the process of laying that foundation, a good, strong, lasting one. i know what i need to do, but i'm worried i'll lose steam midway, i'm worried that people don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, i'm worried that we aren't united as a team, i'm worried that we don't do enough, not passionate enough, i'm worried that pple misunderstand, i'm worried that there are youths who are going thru a crisis situation and we don't know or do anything about it, i'm worried the leaders themselves are going thru crisis situations themselves and noone's alongside to support them. worry worry worry. i know i'm not suppose to but then i also know that i shouldn't just conveniently sweep problems under the carpet and console myself with a "it'll turn out fine in the end". the more i observe, the more problems i see. don't get me wrong, i'm not being pessemistic but just being blunt. i see the cup half-empty in that there are plenty of problems but i also see the cup half-full because there is so much more that we can accomplish as a youth group.

the first two worries i've got them under control, not really a big issue. its only the last worry that bothers me the most. recently i was kinda dissappointed because i felt really helpless and powerless to change the situation. honest. fortunately a timely reminder came to me as i was reading a book on the fruit of the spirit. its found in Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight". i guess my takeaway from this is that i should remain concerned about issues but in the end must pray and trust God in all situations and He will make it all turn out well in the end. =))

not losing concentration

2005-09-10T13:25:00.000+08:00

10th September, Saturday
7 more days and i'd join the league of once-a-month updated blogs. haha. darn. k lah, no updates not on purpose but rather cos since school has started there hasn't been much time for much else. even my maplestory character has been marooned at level 30 ever since sch started. (dun ask me why i play ms tho) i recently put up this chart on my wall with a list of to-do things in a week, whole range of stuff from qt, reading, revision, exercise, tuition, hw, then to include all other things that i absentmindedly exclude, theres this column of 'others' that goes
1. being late for an appointment
2. breaking a promise
3. postpone what can be done today

haha. so it works like this, whenever i miss out to do something that i've planned already i'll cross it out. then for the number of crosses i accumulate thru out the week i collect $1 for each 'offence' an put it in the offering bag on sunday. cool huh? this is the 3rd week liao, first week was double digits. =( second week much better. then third week super off cos there was this 1 particular day i din feel like doin anything then earned myself a ton of crosses!! haha. in a way it motivates me to prioritize my time rather than spend it on doing stuff i enjoy the most but are the most meaningless as opposed to doing stuff i disenjoy the most but are the most neseccary. yup. actually why i explain all this is just to show how come my maplestory character is only level 30.

hahahahaha.......=p

going blind

2005-08-17T14:27:00.000+08:00

17th August, Wednesday
i'm going blind leh i think. i've had perfect eyesight all my life, i mean almost perfect, cos left eye 6/6 then right eye 24/6. something like that. but i can always see things perfectly cos i use the 6/6 eye. dunno which uncle say its cos i look at girl only use right eye thats y the degree so high. lol. like so -_-". anyway, recently i look at words from a distance then cannot see clearly. the worse part was when i went with kai, den and his gf to great world city to watch C&TCF. after the movie we went downstairs and i was looking for the signboard that says where to take the shuttle bus to orchard. i saw a cluster of signs a short distance away then i squint my eyes like mad cannot read the words! arggh. i ask kai help me see and he immediately was able to read the words out. =( my poor eyes.

so i went to make a pair of specs. y not contacts? cos its weird to have only on 1 eye and its weird to stick your finger in your eye twice a day, esp in the morning when yur sleepy. accidents can happen. so specs still better IMHO. haha. collected the specs just today, wearing them now. feels wierd. lol.

so that my entry doesn't come across as being overly superficial here's a dose of cheemness. haha. ;)

does god exist?

tada! pls post replies under "comments". if u think yes. why. or no. then why not.

thank youss

2005-08-05T02:00:00.000+08:00

5th August, Friday
before i start just wanna remind you that if you scroll down there's a wee little test that you can take, just for fun. =)

sometimes you don't know something to be close to your heart until its gone. well, i guess this to be true. was just thinking about the coming school year ahead and couldn't help but think back of all the friends i've made in school throughout the first year. coming to a foreign place not knowing ANYONE to start with, i was worried i couldn't fit in. i even imagined myself talking to the trees in SMU cos dunno anyone there mah. haha, a bit kua zhang right? it turns out that i've made many good friends in my time here so far, first it was my OG mates, then my lovely LTB mates, my financial accounting group mates and a couple of others i've got to know along the way. i am truly thankful. anyway, i've never said this before but you guys have been great, esp to my LTB friends, you've brightened up my uni life a great deal, all the project meetings, deadlines, outings and birthday celebrations have made the whole SMU ordeal a more bearable one. yup, gonna miss you guys when term starts. will try to meet up when theres a chance. haha. and elaine, i don't always pung seh okay...not always maybe only sometimes. haha. keep in touch peeps, stay cool, study hard. till we meet again. adios.

i wanna be

2005-08-03T23:49:00.000+08:00

4th August, Thursday
i admire people who are driven, passionate, perfectionist, hardworking, disciplined. honestly i don't think that talent makes a person successful, in fact in most cases a talented person easily becomes complacent. he may start off in life really well but it doesn't guarantee he'll finish up a roaring success. on the other hand if a person with average talent but is always seeking to improve, has the drive, the passion to do his best he has a very high chance of coming up on top at the end of the day. sometimes i reflect on my own life and i realise that when i'm left to my own i almost always end up churning up something mediocre, and i hate it. i think i've always had this mentality "do the least amount of work to achieve the satisfactory result". if you look at it positively then its called being efficient, but it looks more to me like lazyness, not achieving the best result possible. i read somewhere that there's 2 kinds of people, the first are extrinsically motivated. e.g. monetary reward, punishment, people's opinions. the second group of people are intrinsically motivated. e.g. personal satisfaction, sense of accomplishment. einstein, beethovan, leonardo da vinci, all these great people who were among the best in their field, which group do you think they belonged to? they belonged to the second group. i mean, did any of them end up with big bucks and fame and glory? no doubt they were recognised for their efforts and we remember them till now but were they big superstars in their days? i don't think so. they did the best they knew how, not for monetary reward nor for fame and glory but rather to be the best that they could be, do the most that they could, while they could.

i can say for sure i'm more inclined to being extrisically motivated, though i wish i was the other. sometimes i project myself forward 30 years and wonder what it'd be like. you know what? i'm afraid. afraid that i'd look back with regret that for the years that past, i was content with average, ordinary, mediocre. afraid that i'd regret not studying harder, being more disciplined, taking more initiative, going the extra mile, speaking up more, thinking of other people more....the list goes on. truth is i'm not much satisfied with where i am right now as a person. so much more to learn, so much more to achieve, so much more to strive for. god help me...

try this if you've got 5 mins to spare

2005-08-03T23:44:00.000+08:00

3rd August, Wednesday
a fun quiz i got from grace's blog. give it a try people. =)

take the test!
http://www.quizyourfriends.com/yourquiz_IM.php?quizname=050803114219-391019

see how you fared against the rest?
http://www.quizyourfriends.com/scoreboard.php?quizname=050803114219-391019

tagboard

2005-07-19T15:28:00.000+08:00

19th July, Tuesday
time to get my tagboard up....hai. try try try.

sign on?

2005-07-19T00:07:00.000+08:00

18th July, Monday
recently got a letter from the army recruitment centre about an invitation to join a career talk on the 30th July. apparently they are offering a study award as part of the terms for signing on as an officer in the armed forces. i have to admit that the offer is really tempting. they are gonna pay for the entire cost my uni school fees, not exactly a small sum, i think for my 4 years in smu it'll cost my parents more than 20k, plus theres a $9000 yearly allowance on top of that and a computer and hostel allowance, not to mention a guaranteed job upon graduation. a really good deal. so far i've talked to a couple of people about it and the feedback has been positive. my parents are open to the option too, except that dad has had bad experiences with bonds so he's always weary whenever that 4 letter word appears.

funny thing is, mom and dad always tell me not to worry about our finances but then i look at my dad working as a taxi driver trying to support a household of 5 and my common sense tells me it isn't as easy as they make it out to be. i guess they just don't want me to worry so that i can concentrate on my studies. at the end of the day i'm not about the money, we can make do with less, but i am keen to do what i can to ease the financial burden off my dad's shoulders. i mean all my life i've been sponging off my parents, i think its time i gave something back to the family. haha, sounds so wei2 da4. so although it'll probably mean signing off a good part of the best years of my life, i'm pretty much ready to do it. anyway we'll see how it goes, maybe in the end the army might not even want me. haha. leave it in God's hands, he knows best.

on a lighter note, i went to eat kamping soup today, the chinese kind. then went to top up the soup, at first i din know if it was allowed so i kinda asked in a sheepish way. heng the auntie nice, she say okay and give me almost a full bowl. of course no meat lah but the soup alone also shiok ah. but i still prefer the malay type, got more ooomph! haha. i didn't sleep 10 hours yesterday man, i only slept 9/1/2. which is actually a lot also lah. haha. but i din sleep 10 hours. bleh. its 12:30 now, just did qt a while ago then was thinking whether or not to play a game of dota first then sleep but i think i shall resist the temptation to do so and go turn in early instead. so thats all for today folks. peace out.

god

2005-07-14T19:54:00.000+08:00

14th July, Thursday
lead worship last sunday. everytime i lead its a new experience and i still get really nervous, even though its been more than half a decade since the first time i did it. last sunday was no different. you know sometimes the practice turns out great but somehow the actual worship turns out different? well, i was afraid that would happen again on sunday. spent the night before praying and committing the session to the Lord. i was reminded again for the upteenth time that i had very little control over the outcome of the worship and that it was God's presence and power that i had to rely on at the end of the day, all i could do was practice hard, pray and prepare as well as i could. that i did. i think the worship went well enough in the end, praise god. once again i'm grateful to Him for coming through for me time and again.

been working out the details of this blog for a while. so far i managed to put up my own pic as the background of the layout. accomplishment =). put in the links as well, and they actually work. accomplishment number 2 =). now left the tagboard, heh heh heh. you may think whats e big deal but you have to realise that i belonged to blogdrive before this. i.e noob land for new bloggers. so this is a pretty big step up.

went to ecp on wednesday with my ltb(leadership team building) buds. had a great time kayaking and blading, although i kanna burnt from the first activity and scraped my knee on the second, i still had fun. took 197 back from ecp and got pple complain that its the long way to the mrt cos gotta walk an extra 100m. lol. sorry, haha. went to pst jon and mich's place for bdae dinner. we had steak and potatoes and thailand coffee for dessert. managed to resist the temptation to have an ice cream at the end, so proud! haha. although i really wanted to eat but cuzzin keeps poking fun at the dissappearing length of my chin. booo. that makes us even, cos i poke about her having puffy cheeks. haha. no offense cuz. ;)

lastly, big mac meal costs 5bucks only. hah! couldn't help saying that...

finding the one

2005-07-07T08:28:00.000+08:00

7th July, Thursday
erm, i mean finding the right template. its 8:20am, AM in the morning and i'm sitting infront of my laptop. din sleep well the previous night, not sure why though, just couldn't get a restfull sleep. woke up at 6:00am in fact. so i thought why not come up with something new for a blog, like how difficult can it get right? just put up a picture, underline a few things, cut here, paste there...haha. wrong. 2 hours later and i still can't get the alignment right, the tagboard, font size...blah blah blah. what am i doing awake at this hour anyway?? lol. anyway, hope that this thing turns out okay. the first layout will probably suck cos its my first time so hopefully things will get better along the way. guess i'll have to resort to drag, drop, cut, paste for now. hopefully one day i'll graduate to html, haha, like real.

life is unpredictable...hmmm. except birth and death, can't run away. everything else inbetween is made up of choices you make. bad ones you learn from, good ones you thank for. there is someone who watches over all of us to make sure that even the worst choices you make can turn out with a good ending. i believe.

a new beginning

2005-07-07T07:03:00.000+08:00

7th July, Thursday
hello,

testing....123