The Chronicles of Guojun

2009-06-27T14:07:00.005+08:00

Everybody and anybody with a TV/ radio/ mobile/ Internet would have know that Michael Joseph Jackson passed away 2 days ago.

Death has always been a fascinating subject for me.

My Pastor often quotes this guy that says: "The statistics of Death is fascinating - One in one person dies!"

My Pastor also say "Christianity is not a religion. It is a relationship with our Creator God". Which means the next time I fill up a form I can go ahead and put in my religion as "Jedi".

Over the past 2 days, television is filled with news, videos and tributes to the late superstar. And as I see all these shows, I cannot help but realise how much he has influenced our culture and music in the past 2 decades.

Another thing I realised: How people say bad things about him when he was alive and how much people paid tributes to him after he had died.

How... hypocritical...

But I guess I am just as guilty of it. Making fun of him when he was alive and thinking how great he is after he had died, and thinking what a loss the world had experienced.

There are many people whom we loved to hate. Isn't it? Myself included. Some people, I wished I can kill them myself. some, I rather kill myself than be anywhere near them. But maybe, we don't really hate them that much. Maybe, if we had understand that every human is precious despite their flaws which, by the way, we all have. then maybe there will be less fighting, less killing and less hurting. Then maybe we will have a more peaceful world.

Maybe?

Let's try again...

2009-06-22T20:55:00.002+08:00

Hi.. Its me...

The 1st time I blogged in almost 2 years... Since then I have gotten married, gained 10kg and started balding... so my wife tells me...

Its amazing what two years can do to a person right...

As I was typing this.. My 31st birthday quietly approaches...

Anyway, maybe I will say why I stopped blogging.. By saying why I started... I started blogging, I think, because I had so many things, unhappy things, stored inside of me that I wanted an outlet. So blogging gave me this outlet. Just take a look at my previous posts and you can see a lot of dark posts.. (partly also because I used a black background for my blog).. a lot of angry posts, a lot of depressed posts..

But since then, I have become a lot happier. I think this has a lot to do with me finding the love of my life, who is of course now my wife. So, slowly, I lost the urge to blog my thoughts. Its not that I stopped having thoughts, neither have I totally given up on blogging. In fact, many times I did have some things that I want to write in this blog.. But I just can't find the motivation. Plus the busy-ness of everyday life just keep me away.

But recently, I met some of my old friends whom many asked about my blog. Seems like many people (like 3 of them) missed my blog rather much. So I am encouraged to start writing again.

So this is it. A blog about re-starting to write my blog... Let's see how long I can keep up on this..

A Tribute to CPT Ho Si Qiu

2007-08-27T22:36:00.000+08:00

CPT Ho Si Qiu passed away on 26th August 2007. He collapsed after completing the Army Half Marathon and passed away shortly after.

Si Qiu is a good man and a wonderful person. I have never met anyone else whom I respect as much as him. For his integrity, his helpfulness, his kindness, his professionalism is his work... the list goes on.

I thought I had a lot to say. But right now, I cannot think of any words.

Then again, words that I say cannot describe how good a person he is. It is my privilege to be able to know him in 3Guards. It is also my regret that I did not have the chance to know him better.

Rest in peace, brother. I know your soul is with the LORD now. And for that, I am consoled.

2007-07-30T21:04:00.000+08:00

It's been about 1 and half weeks since I came back from Shanghai. People have been falling sick since we came back from there. My girlfriend just fell sick over the weekend also. Sigh...

Just had an eventful weekend as well... Take-the-City Walkaton and Cell retreat together... as well as BBQ. (My gf went back and became sick after that)... Think I also going to fall sick soon... My mouth is full of ulcers now.... =( Btw, the food from BBQ whole sale taste great. Can get from there if you going to have BBQ next time.

Back to work today again... Things at the office have been different since 2 of my buddies left the place... And everything seems a lot more dull at work nowadays.... Sigh... It's great to have good people to work with, but I guess we just have to work with what we got.

Back??????

2007-07-23T18:38:00.000+08:00

Hi all,

how is everybody? Does anybody miss reading my blog? hands up if you miss reading my blog. Well, I do miss writing, and I do miss writing my blog.

Part of the reason I stopped is due to the lack of time, having kept busy with a lot of things. The other part is that I sort of ran out of things to write. My desire to share with the world has stopped for a while. And my desire to write was buried in the mundane routine-ness of life.

Well, the last post read that I would be flying to Shanghai for Qian Qian Shou Project. This post reports that I just came back. Haha. No, I did no go for 3 months there. Just one week.

Oh yes, in addition to missing my blog, I also missed many of the blogs which I used to read most religously (sometimes more than I read my Bible.. Haha)

Back to Shanghai... as in back to the topic on Shanghai, not back to the place Shanghai... I had a lot of fun there, even though the temperature is about 36 - 37 C. And I learnt a lot of things there as well.. And made a lot of new friends. Good new friends.... Hee..

I also passed a birthday 1 month ago. Exactly 1 month ago... No birthday wish list like last year so not too many presents... Got some Haiggan Daz voucher and some nice stuff from my girlfriend. No "many many" birthday wishes like last year as well.... Heehee... 29 years old liao... Going to the big THREE O's soon... Then people will start calling me "Uncle!" already....

Okay enough for now... Ha... Dunno when is the next time I will blog again....

Hey hey....

2007-04-21T10:32:00.000+08:00

It's been a busy week..... I signed up for the Shanghai Summer Camp again!! Check out last year's July posts to see what we did last year.... Heehee.. Can't wait to go again.... My girlfriend is in charge of fund raising, as she did last year..... So you all must support support.... Watch out for more of this later....

Sorry this is a short update... See you again soon.... =)

Re-Blog again....

2007-04-06T09:07:00.000+08:00

Hihi...

I'm finally back again.... Sorry for neglecting it for so long....

The past 3 months has been crazy with lots of stuff. Work mainly... But finally its over... Heehee... But now will be busy with girlfriend... But I will still try to update at least once a week... Try lah.... Haha..

After a 3 months hiatus, hopefully you will start to see more cheerful things in my blog.. Things has been looking up in all sides of my life... Work, Romance, Ministry... All are begining to go out of darkness and into the sunshine....

Since my life is moving into the sunshine... Maybe I should consider changing the colour of my blog from black to something brighter? Haha... See what is the general opinion... (we army people must always obey the General... Haha..)

Must do some house cleaning of my blogs also... And remove all the un-used links....

Oh ya... Here's a picture of my girlfriend....

Pretty or not? Pretty can say in my comments... Not pretty dun say anything... She will be very sad wan..... Heehee

Lijiang 2006

2006-12-15T09:44:00.000+08:00

Hey... It's been a long long time since I last updated this blog...

Anybody still reading this?

Me has been fine... Busy with work and church stuff as usual... Just came back from Lijiang last sunday. This is the 2nd time I went there to teach English. I went there last year at about the same period. But this time, the focus is different..

"We are changing China one student at a time"

Anyway, I had a lot of fun there.. Making new friends and spending time with the old.. In the whole one week there, we did a lot of things and experience a lot of stuff. In addition to teaching the schools, we also took some time out for fun.. Visiting the tourists sites and climbing the famous Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.

Have more photos but no time to upload... Maybe next time....

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekends......

2006-11-04T08:49:00.002+08:00

I am bad at thinking of creative titles....

What have been interesting in my life nowadays?

Nothing much really... I've got a new boss in work, busy with my preparation for my Lijiang trip, baking and selling cookies... going to church....

My life's pretty boring... Haha..

Haven't been catching up with many of my friends though... I guess the busy-ness of life dulls the quality life itself... Many times we focus on the urgent things and forget the important things of our life. Many times we just do the things we need to do and forget about the things we have to do...

How are you my friends? Just leave a short comment and we will catch up shortly... Hee...

The good things is, tomorrow I will be going out with FF and E to celebrate their oldness.. which means I have to think of getting some presents... or just pay for their food. (and after that we can all celebrate our fatness)

More cookies baking and selling later today... Need to raise more funds for the Lijiang trip... Anybody wants to sponsor? I need a lot a lot a lot of money... Hee...

Weekends are always more busy than weekdays....

I wanna blog....

2006-10-24T23:33:00.000+08:00

I had a great LOOONG weekend the past few days... I caught 4 movies... I think....

Exiled was not bad, but I din really like the ending... I dun like endings when everybody dies... But still quite interesting and entertaining to watch... I think I have been watching quite a few HK traids movies lately...

Actually not really. The last one I watched was the Election 2.

Then I watched The Prestige on Sunday night. I thought it was good. The bad thing is that I already knew the ending before I watched, so it's not so nice. But still I enjoyed the process entirely. However, not all my friends enjoyed the show... Some prefered something more light hearted.

Watched The Black Dahlia on Monday morning.. This is the 3rd thing I saw Scarlet Johanson this month... Which means she's the BIG thing now... Not a bad show... except that its another mind twister... My friend was still a bit blur when we came out of the theatre. But all in all it was quite good.

Death Note. Now that was the best movie. The character "L" was totally cool... although a bit weird... I think the actor captured the essence of "L" from the comic very well.. Which is why I was totally captivated in the show. Death Note 2 will be out in Dec... Will definitely catch it.

In addition, I also managed to tour the entire Vivo City on monday. All I can say is that I am not impressed. Such a big shopping centre and they do not a any shops dedicated t0 comics or guitars... so disappointing...

I spend the whole of today in cell group and the Lijiang meeting.. nothing much to report there...

All in all I had a wonderful weekend.. And Death Note was the best part of it...

Thats all... back to work tomolo.... Yeah!!!!!!!!!!

Revisiting Lijiang

2006-10-19T22:08:00.000+08:00

Happen to chance on a documentary on Channel U today on the City of Lijiang in China. The documentary talks about how it came about and how it is surviving now.. And it brings back many memories of the trip that I made last year.

If you check out my enties in December last year, you will see a section where I talked about my trip to Lijiang. The scenes I saw on TV is just like that which I saw in the place itself...

Ahhh..... Memories memories....

The good news is....

I'm going again this year!!! Yes! I will be going to Lijiang again, to teach the kids there some English.. just like last year...

I thank God for this opportunity to go again, because I had seen many many beauitful sights there, and I so want to see it again. Lijiang is very much different for Shanghai, which is so urbanised. Lijiang is more rual and scenic..

More beautiful.

Lijiang is significant for me. It was my 1st step to China (not including Taiwan). It was my 1st service/ humanitarian trip. It marks my 1st night under the stars for a long long time. It was so beautiful. The trip was filled with God's love and joy.

I can't wait to see the Lijiang stars again.

The ninth Tuesday

2006-10-17T19:16:00.000+08:00

Wanted to blog.... But again, I can't sit down long enough to churn out a decent blog. People complain either I never blog or my blog is too short.

Being reading Tuesday with Morrie for a while now. Read quite slowly cos of the lack of time, and also to absorb all this messages. Really nice book to read, especially for people who are searching for something more to their life than just working for money and acumulating worldly possessions.

On this particular chapter, Morrie talks about spending time with your love ones, and giving them all your attention when you are with them. It struck me cos I realise that I always get distracted easily when I spent time with people. Most of the time, I get bored after a while and start taking my handphone out and start playing games.

I always get distracted and almost never give my fully attention to somebody. So I should try and start to change.

We learn something new everyday, dun we?

Thanks to Kenneth for lending me the book.

Tuesdays are for reflections... Issit? Hee...

The haze is really bad nowadays. And it irks me that I am not able to go for my running. Its been 2 weeks since I last ran... And I cannot continue because of the haze. Maybe I will just go into the gym and run the treadmill the next time.

Actually I'm not a running person. My feelings for running borderlines on hate and dislike. Maybe its because I can't run fast. That's why I hate it. Or maybe it's because I hate running, that's why I can't run fast. It's a chicken or egg thing...

Today is Tuesday. Time for cell group. Hope I have more time to churn out entries like this. Cheers

Of Wars and Rumours of Wars

2006-10-12T22:17:00.000+08:00

Had a hard time trying to log into blogger. But now that I am here, I'm not sure what to blog...

Heehee.

I guess most of us are aware of the N.Korea issue with the rest of the whole. N.Korea basically set itself up against the rest of the whole by sturbbonly went ahead with her Nuclear bomb testing. Really, I cannot comprehend what they are thinking in their heads. What do they hope to achieve by making itself the enemy of the rest of the world?

N.Koreans should read the sermon that I wrote earlier.. And maybe so should US.

This is in church, Pastor talked about the reality of the end times. The possiblity of having a device implanted in our hands or forehead, as predicted by the Bible 2000 years ago. So that we can use the device to buy all the things we need, not unlike the EZ-link or Cash Card. The infamous mark of the devil: 666...

Many things are happening as the Bible has predicted. Wars and rumours or wars, earthquakes, mark of the devil.. All these are realities. Of course, many chose not to believe, and expect logical/ scientific explanations to discount the facts. And of course, the mother of all explanations: its all a coincidence.

But there is no more urgent a time than now. To decide for yourself: If what Jesus said was not true, he would be a lunatic and a liar. Such a man has no authority to found a great religion. If what Jesus said was true, then repent. The end is near.

Sorry, I a bit the "religion fanatic" today, but that's what I'm feeling now...

2006-10-09T20:43:00.000+08:00

Hey!!! Leave your comments in my blog leh.... Dun comment in my Msn/ SMS/ email leh... Sigh...

Watched Scoop yesterday after church... OK lah... quite interesting... but the ending fell flat... like the conclusion of my sermon like that.... Haha... Can't wait for Death Note to come out next week... Heehee

"Genius vesus Genius"

That basically sums up the movie. Sounds good, no?

My 1st Sermon on blog...

2006-10-08T22:29:00.000+08:00

Spent the most of last week preparing for my sermon, which I delivered today as part of my Sunday class training in church. This is the 2nd time I delivered a sermon. The 1st time was in the church's Young Preacher's competition sometime last month. (where I got axed in the 1st round. Haha)

Thanks to all the people who helped me in the crafting out of the message. (I received good comments in regards to the content itself.) The people who helped are, in no order of merit: Juni, Joshua Chu, Kenneth Loh, Shishan, Sophia Tan, Theresa Seetoh, Huiling, Ailing, Hong Pin, Denise, Jiahui, Kelly, and Pastor Jeffery (although I din manage to talk to him in the end. Heehee)

Hope I din miss anybody out...

I delivered my sermon in class this morning and after that allowed the rest of the class to critic my sermon.

Good Points about my sermon:
Very good content (from Ps Seng Lee leh!!)
Interesting delivery
Excellent one-liners (from PS Hee Jhee)
Good projection in voice.
Effort put in is evident (from Ps Seng Lee also...)
Examples are great and relevent

Points to be improved: (all from PS Seng Lee...)
Reading from paper...
Posture/ body language
re-state important/ good points
Need to link the intro and main points
Conclusion fell flat

Ok, for those who have time to spare, can read the sermon that I spend the last week preparing. Feel free to leave comments if you have any. Thanks!!

George W Bush announced earlier this morning:

“The United States of America will, from this very moment onwards, stop all her offenses against Al Qaeda and the terrorists. From today onwards, we will allow them to bomb us, cut off our heads and kill us. We will not retaliate, and neither will we run away. We will pray for them. And they have done all their killings, they will realize that they are in the wrong, and we will win the war.

Because we believe that the strongest offense is to have no defense.”

How many of you think that that was not true and I made it up?

Ya, its not true. But turn with me to Matthew Chapter 5 verse 38 – 48

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

‘You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’

In those few verses, Jesus told us not to resist an evil person, to love our enemies and be perfect. Because our heavenly Father is perfect.

In the verse, the Greek verb for resist comes from the root word ‘stasis’, which means ‘violent rebellion’ or ‘armed revolt’. And Jesus showed us how not to do it. Turn the other cheek, give him more than he asked for, and do not turn away anyone who wants to borrow money from you. These are all the examples that Jesus gave. But when I talked all the people around me. And they all had reservations as to how literal are we to take this verses.

In other words, do we really let them strike the other cheek?

Of all the strategies of battles and wars, there is none as simple and effective as this:

That the best defense is a strong offense.

Meaning to say, in a battle, the best form of defense one can have to attack the enemy with a strong offense.
But I suspect that Jesus preached other wise, that to advance the kingdom of God, the best offense is no defense.

Let me give you some examples:

In the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. unwittingly became the leader of the American Civil Rights movement. At that time, the Blacks in America have no civil rights whatsoever in the country. They are not allowed to go to restaurants, toilets or even churches meant for white people. And Martin Luther King Jr fought for the rights of these people. He took the teachings of Jesus literally when He said “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

And this is how he fought his war. Day and night, he and his followers endured beatings, jail terms and even death threats for the cause they believed in. During the entire time, King and his men took all the evil thrown to them without hitting back. Many had died during that time, eventually including King himself.

One thing that one of his followers said summed up their whole belief: ‘I will let them kick me and kick me until they have kicked all hatred out of themselves and into my own body where I will transform it into love.’ This is how they fought the war.

But in 1965, they finally won the war. And the blacks became equal citizens in America with equal rights to vote.

Gandhi, too, used the same methods to free half a billion Indians from British rule in the early 1900s. He too took the words of Jesus literally when he read the verses that was shared.

When asked about his interpretation of the verse, he said this:

"I suspect he (Jesus) meant you must show courage - be willing to take a blow, several blows, to show that you will not hit back or turn aside. And when you do that, it calls on something in human nature, something that makes his hated decrease and his respect increase... and I have seen it work"

Of course, I believe that when Jesus talked about these things, they are far from being passive and resigned responses to violence and injustice. Neither do we suffer senseless violence without any reason or purpose.

Jesus himself responded firmly to an unjust blow to the face in John 18:22—23. When he is being questioned by the High Priest, an officer strikes him. Jesus responds by saying ‘If I have spoken wrongly, bear witness to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?’

Being struck on the cheek, being sued for your shirt, All these are examples of humiliation, of someone being stripped of their dignity. Jesus taught that We shouldn’t avenge our ‘honour’ — that by freely offering our other cheek or offering our inner shirt, we show that we are secure in our status before God and therefore do not value human honour. At the same time, this response forces the aggressor, to see the dignity of his victim. The aggressor’s power trip is rendered meaningless when what he demands is offered freely. The victim’s dignity is restored and at the same time the aggressor is shown the injustice of his actions. Then they are given a choice whether to continue or cease their violent behaviour. This model offers a way of breaking out of the cycle of violent relationships. It also gives power to the powerless and gives a chance for repentance to the oppressor.

We all demand justice, for it is right of God. Justice that law gives is a punishment. But Justice that love gives is a surrender

I know I have shared something that is immensely difficult. Even as I speak, The US is preparing to go to war to N Korea, Thailand just witness a coup and the rest of the world is still fighting the war against terrorists.

But we can be the change that we want to see in the world. We can start with ourselves. Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” I know this is something that is not easy. In fact, it is very difficult. CS Lewis said “Forgiveness is a swell idea, until you have somebody that you have to forgive.” But God says love your enemies. Because God loves them. For He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. So we must love them as God loves them.

Jesus gave us a clue in the last part of the verse: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” By our own strength, it is impossible. But with God, everything is possible. We love because He 1st loved us, and gave us the strength to love. Therefore, we can look to God for strength and wisdom, to show us how we can love our enemies.

Abraham Lincoln, the great American president said this: “Am I not destroying my enemies when I made friends of them?”

Who is your enemies? Who do you find it hardest to love? We all need to look deep into our hearts with full honesty to find those that we find difficult to love, or even those we self-righteously enjoy hating. They may be your tyrant boss, your evil colleagues, your wicked teachers, your irritating relatives, or even your loud and noisy neighbours. These are the people around us that we cannot imagine changing. These are our greatest enemy.

Now you have heard the message. God’s call is for us to love our enemies. Is there an enemy in your life that you need to love? Is there somebody that you need to forgive? Come and repent. And ask for God’s strength for you to love them.

Short????????????????

2006-10-05T22:33:00.000+08:00

Most people who saw my blog complained that my entry was too short.

Well, here's another short one....

I'm going to Lijiang again this Dec!! thank God that I am able to go... Initially was thinking I was not able to go because it clashes with my work. But now the LJ trip was brought forward and I can go again!

Praise the Lord!

I think my retirement plan is to set up an English school in China and teach the kids there....

Cool or not?

I'm back... ...

2006-10-03T21:47:00.000+08:00

Hey... I'm back... after so many weeks...

What have I been doing? Lots of stuff.. One thing is the SM2 Camp, cell groups and stuff.. Joined a young preacher's competition... And many stuff that I cannot remember...

I sincerely appreciate and thank all that has been constantly checking my blog for updates and asking me about it.

1 thing I have learnt this period of time: and that is I really spent a lot of my time on urgent but unimportant matters. That is why I cannot remember so many of the stuff that I did in the past month.

Last Sat I had some time, cos I went back to office only to find that I was not able work. So I have a free Sat morning. I can't remember when is the last time I had a free Sat morning. i.e. I can't remember the last time I watched cartoons on a sat morning. Ha!

The other question is: What has God done in my life?

A few things actually. Some stuff in my personal growth, some towards my destiny in Him. Most of all, God helped me forgive some people that I should have forgiven long time ago.

I just wanna say that I'm glad to be back. Will blog more in time to come. Hee.... Thanks everyone for waiting....

A Short Tribute

2006-08-16T20:43:00.000+08:00

Not sure if anybody noticed... Nowadays, I dun have much time to blog. And if I do, I blog and complain about how I have no time to write my blog. Haha.

Such is the irony of man.... Or maybe it's just myself.

Today marks the death anniversary of Elvis Presely. 29 years ago, today in 1977, Elvis Presely passed away. Some say its due to heart attack; some say its due to drug overdose. There is also a group of people who believed that the aliens took him.

I suppose everybody knows who Elvis is. The 1st time I really listened to his music was in 2002 in Australia. Having to stay in the SWB training area for 2 whole months, the only form of entertainment I had was an old cassette player, and I managed to get hold of one Elvis #1 collection cassette and I had been hooked since.

Who can forget such classics as Love me Tender, Heartbreak Hotel, Blue Suede Shoes and Hound Dog?

Give him a chance, and let him prove to you that he is indeed "The King".

Haha... its starting to sound corny..

I love his music, but I know little about the Man himself. Some say that he is a spiritual man, with renditions as such Amazing Grace, Dixie Land/ Battle Hymn of Republic and Cry in the Chapel; and stories of him praying and going to church and sharing the gospel. But I also heard that he spent his last days in all forms of debaucharies. Only God knows.

Whatever it is, we all remember him for his music more than anything else. Happy deathday, Elvis..

And be reminded, for the rest of us, to finish the race of faith in good grace.

Hello Hello??

2006-08-09T11:53:00.000+08:00

Hello? Is this blog still alive?

Long time never write blog liao... Long time never read people's blog also... So sorry to all my blog friends.....

I have been keeping myself occupied with a lot of activities.. Running around everyday and seldom touch home before 10pm each day. Sometimes I will reach home after midnight. So I have little energy left other than to bath, check mail and sleep...

What's there to update in my life? Nothing much really. No girlfriend or anything... Am kept busy with work and church, organising SM2 events and going out with friends. SM2 wise, I'm helping to organise the SM2 camp which is in the 1st week of September.

Work wise, its still the same with nothing new. Its quite busy a period for me until mid-September. October will be quite very the free, with nothing in the work plan...

Yeah! Wake me up when September ends~

Got 2 super belated birthday presents this week.. 1 is a cash card with super a lot of money inside.... and the other is 2 book call "5 people you will meet in heaven". Hee... Thanks people!!

One week...

2006-08-06T22:09:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates...

Watched a few movies this week....

Click - Not bad... quite funny and heart warming..

Dragon Tiger Gate - Still ok... could use more fighting scenes though... Filmed at one of my NSF's home in Hong Kong...

Too Fast Too Furious: Tokyp Drift - Super Yawnzz....

Also went out with Jade to eat Xiao Long Bao. We ordered a tray of 10.. She ate 7 of them and I ate only 3....

Also went guitar shopping with Liting... She's the one buying... but not yet... just look see 1st....

That's my week... Thanks for reading...

2006-07-30T21:30:00.000+08:00

It's been a long time since I blogged. In fact, effectively, its been almost 1 month since I wrote something about my life on this blog, other than my Shanghai trip 2 weeks ago.

Mostly I have been busy with work and ministry stuff. Work is not much really. Its more of church and ministry stuff which is taking up most of my free time.

But it is good.

Planning a couple of SM2 events and helped out in the "Take the City Walk" organised by our church on Saturday.

I think this is the 1st photo of the cell group I posted on this blog since I joined it last year. Everybody's there except Ma and Jerry.. Ok lah.. I think this is a great cell group, because they read my blog too..

Ok, thats all for now.. hopefully I will blog down more of my reflections soon...

Shanghai trip....

2006-07-25T14:54:00.000+08:00

I'm sorry that I delayed this post for sooo long. This is my Shanghai trip post.... Mostly pictures actually...

Or maybe I start with a short summary of what we did there...

Me and the Singapore team flew to Shanghai on 9th July 01.00am and we reached at about 06.00am in the morning. From there, we started training on community service work as well as magic tricks... Until Thursday which is our performance day. Friday and Saturday is our RnR and Friendship Day and we flew back on Saturday night....

Ok.. on with the pictures...

This is our 1st lunch in Shanghai... Pretty good stuff... and not as oily as they say it would be...

And this is our 1st group picture that the Singaporeans took before we start work... The background is is our favourite convienence store where we got all our daily necessities...

This is our small group together with the Shanghainese... Good friends we have made with these people...

This is our group practising the magic tricks... or not....

The real master at work..... That's our magic teacher, Mr Lawrence Khong

This is me on performance day... doing a rope trick...

And conjuring up 4 aces...

A little group photo at the community where we performed...

Dog tired after the performance...

L. O. V. E....

The most meaningful thing of this camp, compressed into one mahjong paper... "The real Magic is YOU!!"

Big group photo on Friendship day.

Last day... Certificate of Participation...

We love Roland...

And Ji Qiang...

The whole JR net in Shanghai.... pretending to be Superman...

and Spiderman....

JR Guys....

SA-Ke family...

Kenneth guys...

After that on the last day is our RnR... And what is going shanghai without going to The Bund?

Fun at the Bund 1....

Fun at the Bund 2...

Thats the last photo before we flew back to Singapore.... Its really great fun to be Shanghai for that 1 week, even though I fell sick for a while. I made a lot of friends and learnt a lot of things... But most important of all, I learnt that...

My buddy is a lecher...

1st thing 1st...

2006-07-18T18:40:00.000+08:00

This is the 1st photo we took at the airport before we fly to Shanghai last last Sat. This is the SA-Ke group, with the people going as well as the people sending us off...

1st row: Lawrence
2nd row: (from the left) Theresa, Cherie, Liting, Sophia, Jen Lee, Sarah, Yanglin, Racheal
3rd row: (from the left) Kelvin, Me

That's all for now... More updates and photos later...

2006-07-17T22:53:00.000+08:00

I'm back!!!

Well, actually I have been back since Sunday morning. I touched down at Terminal 1 on 0500hours. But I have been busy with a lot of stuff since then. That's why I only blogged now.

I got a lot of things to report and a lot of pictures to show for this trip but I will do it a bit later. For now, that's all I have to say.

And also that I'm really glad to be back.

2006-07-08T13:38:00.000+08:00

Am going to Shanghai tonight...

Busy packing....

Hope I have a blessed trip.... =)

2006-07-06T22:54:00.000+08:00

Nothing much to blog....

Now everyday I go home and watch VCD...

Mask Rider 555!!!

Just finished Disc 9....

2006-07-04T22:42:00.000+08:00

I ate 01 x Earthquake at Swensons' with 2 other friends just now.

SIN SIN SIN...

Feel so fat now...

Bought the Mask Rider 555 VCDs just now also... and watching it now... Wahaha.. so happy...

complain complain.. always complain....

2006-07-03T22:14:00.000+08:00

Okok... when I dun blog, people complain. So when people complain, then I blog... so when you see me blog, that means people complain again. Wahaha

I finally got my ukulele!! So happy!! Thanks to Miss 12MustardSeed for the much coverted present. I really like it very much.... Maybe I will post the picture another time.. Very lazy now... I also got a cute soft toy doggie from my Buddy Xie Wei which I like very much also.. Heehee.. (but dun worry, I'm not gay)

Had a really busy weekend (as usual). I spend the whole day playing driver to my cell leader's bridal car for his church wedding on Saturday. I'm driving partly because he is using my dad's car as the bridal car... I have no pictures for this also... All in all, it was a tiring day for the wedding, but very fun lah...

After the wedding, me and a few friends went to watch Superman Returns at Plaza Sing. Usually I'm the one who organise movie outings with my friends, but this is the biggest one I have organised so far. 94 people turned up in total, and we filled more than 60% of the cinema. Quite fun, but very hard to organise the people.. One guy even got lost and went to the wrong cinema.. Wahaha..

All in all, I enjoyed myself at the movie. Superman was quite good I think, despite whatever reviews they gave.

Sat was the church wedding, and sunday was the wedding dinner. So far, I did not have a good impression on Rasa Sentosa (though I did not tell the couple), but last night's even was not so bad, except the waiter keep forgetting the drinks we ordered.

Yesterday's church service was wonderful. The message was simple yet powerful.

Simply love Jesus.

More birthday pictures...

2006-06-27T23:21:00.000+08:00

These are from the celebration with my SM2 at East Coast Park on Sunday evening...

This is the Awfully Chocolate that they bought for me.. looks super chocolatey.. and it is... looking at it makes me feel hungry again...

This are the guys that are present... actually most of them are still not back in spore yet... plus Ps Jeff is there as well... Oh ya, and one more girl who is suppose to be not in the picture... cos it's guy's picture mah...

These are the girls from my group. Same, most of them are not back yet... Ps Rachael is there as well.. All very pretty right? Wahaha..

That's all for now... still waiting for my Ukulele, which somebody has already promised me... heehee

My 28th birthday...

2006-06-26T21:00:00.000+08:00

As promised, I will record my birthday ~~weekend~~week today.

The 1st to celebrate for me is the cell group on Tuesday. Was totally surprised as I did not expect for it to be so early. Had my 1st cake and my 1st 2 presents. Both are on my wish list. The Casio watch and the Chinese Audio Bible. Thanks guys.

My next cake was on Wednesday, baked by my mother. The normal stuff: Sing song, cut cake. Ang Bao.

Oh ya, my house tenant, Melissa bought me a nice t shirt and gave it to me after the cake cutting.. Thanks! No photo of it though.. Cos I wore it to church yesterday and its now in the wash.

Nothing much on Thursday..

Friday was the actual day, but it was spent working late.. But the office bought a cake (number 3) and celebrated for me as well. I did not expect for it either. No ang bao or pressies though... Wahaha..

Saturday was a bit more happening. After working for half a day, I met Jade for lunch, as well as exchanging of presents. Her birthday is actually 26th, which is today. Happy birthday babe!! (this morning she complain I never wish her...) She got me a cool but evil looking t-shirt... which I'm not sure if I can wear to church... Wahaha.

After that I went for a meeting with some of my friends, where Ze Jun got me a frame with my name written in ancient Chinese calligraphy, all the way from China. This is one of my favourite present.. =)

In the evening, I met FF for dinner and movie. She bought me a thumb drive, as I predicted.. But I never expect it to be 1GB so much... Heehee... Thanks babe!! We watched Scary Movie 4, which was like darn lame. Please dun waste your money watching it...

Sunday was spend in church, as usual, followed by dinner with my SM2 kids.. They just came back the day before (on Saturday) and they came all the way to Expo to celebrate my birthday with me. Never expect the cake too... They got me this chocolate cake from Awfully Chocolate.. or something like that...

Oh ya, met Jiahui in church, where she got me a Christian book on BGR issues, titled "When God Writes My Love Story". Heehee. Thank you too!!

So total I got 4 cakes.. and many presents.. (I know some people still got present for me but haven't pass to me yet.. Wahaha.. Thanks in advance!) The only thing that I wanted very much but did not get is the Ukulele.. Oh well...

That's basically is my 28th birthday in June 2006. I felt very loved, and had a lot of fun. Haha! Practically everybody's birthday wish for me is to get a girlfriend this year.. Wahaha. Eh... I try my best lor...

birthday greetings

2006-06-25T10:10:00.000+08:00

Last year, I noted down all the sms messages that wished my happy birthday during that period. This year, I am going to do the same...

Ding Zejun@ 0003hrs: Guo Jun, Happy Birthday! Best wishes to you! =) Ada@ 0020hrs: Happy Birthday!!! Sherry Tay@ 0058hrs: Morning birthday guy! Haha.. Happy birthday! God bless u! Gan Jiahui@ 0125hrs: Tis is e day, this is e day, tat e Lord has make. Let us rejoice, let us rejoice n b glad in it. Hi bro. This e day that God created u! Amen for His great work! :) i bless u w fruitfulness. Everywhere u go, u'll shine for Him w great joy n love! =) CPT Gan Eng Seng@ 0209hrs: Happy birthday. Xie Wei@ 0822: Hey hey. Buddy, my friend... What ever,... Happy birthday to you ha, and I saw your blog, you looks so greedy ha :-D Serena@ 0831hrs: It's 23rd june, guojun's birthday! Happy birthday! You have a nice day! And may all your dreams and wishes come true! Melissa@ 0835hrs: happy birthday to u =] Lynette Wan@ 0846hrs: Happy blessed birthday brother Juni@ 0901hrs: Happy birthday Wee Lyn @ 0910hrs: Happy birthday dear! May u have a blessed year ahead n may God work miracles and magic in ur life. May your faith grow like the mustard seed tree Faye@ 1026hrs: Heya, happy birthday! Another year older, another year wiser! Have fun! :-D Charles Phoon@ 1032hrs: Happy birthday sir another year older liao. Time to find gf liao Li Jun Hua@ 1045hrs: Happy birthday! Joshua Chu@ 1146hrs: HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Kelly Low@ 1355hrs: happy bday brother. :-) Yue Her@ 1549hrs: Yo today is your birthday right? Have a blessed and fruitful year ahead! Gail@ 1735hrs: Happy birthday to you :) Sophia Yap@ 1827hrs: Hey Guo Jun, blessed birthday to you! Mayyou be filled with our Father's love to you come to the knowledge of His grace and mercy for you. God bless you! Wei Xin@ 1905hrs: Oh, it's ur bday today. Happy birthday! Noel@ 1935hrs: Happy birthday! Ben Ang@ 2019hrs: Chew sir... Ben here... HAPPY BIRTHDAY... Sing Ai@ 2122hrs: Happy bday today! What r u doing to celebrate? Celebrate w u when e (SM2) kids come back. Liting@ 2130hrs: Dear bro, is it ur bday today? Happy Birthday! May e Lord bless u n Enlarge ur territory! May His hand b upon u n keep u from harm, so u'll b free frm pain! I pray tt u'll grow closer2Him! Theresa Seetoh@ 2250hrs: happy 29th birthday! (<=I'm 28 only lor...) Jen Lee@ 2255hrs: Happy birthday guojun! I Thank God for all the many ways tat you'r a blessing. Have a wonderful year ahead! Cherie Ho@ 2257hrs: Hey happy birthday! May God shower u with his blessings n give u wisdom and insights as u do his work. may he enlarge ur territory n protect u! :) Rensheng@ 2324hrs: Hi Guo Jun, realise it's your Bday today... Happy Birthday...hope u had fun... Sophia Tan@ 2347hrs: Jus before e stroke of midnight... Happy Birthday! 24th June - Elisabeth@ 1025hrs: Happy birthday! Pee Lay@ 1252hrs: Hey bro, belated hapi bday =) Kelvin Poh@ 1748hrs: Happy belated birthday Cindy sent me an sms on 1900hrs but I accidentally deleted it... =( Lien Wei Jie@ 2238hrs: Hey happy belated birthday!hope u enjoyd!may ur wishes come true!

In addition, there are also an E card from Sing Ai, and blog comments from Wai Leong, Wai Kian, FF, veii and Sherry to send their birthday greetings.. I just compared with the greetings and wishes I got last year... And the difference is so much!! Thanks everybody!!! Will blog on the happenings of my birthday tomorrow... I think...

Added: Sorry, I forgot to put Siwei's name in. He wished me well via blog comments as well.. Thanks man.

Happy 28th Birthday to me.

2006-06-23T22:49:00.000+08:00

Just a quick update for my birthday...

Thanks to everybody who, in one way or another, made the effort to remember my birthday. I had received a lot of SMS-es, E cards, blog comments... etc wishing me happy birthdays. Also not forgetting all whom I had met, and will meet, in person over the weekend.

I got so many SMS-es that I have to clear my inbox 3 times today, otherwise I have no more space for new messages.

Will make a consolidation of all the stuff I got.. by Sunday night...

Thanks again!!! Those still holding on to my presents please pass to me soon!! Haha.

Happy Birthday to me!!!

2006-06-22T22:49:00.000+08:00

1 more hour...

One more thing...

2006-06-21T20:48:00.000+08:00

I want....

Slimming pills!!!

CAN SOMEBODY GET ME 2100 SLIMMING PILLS SO THAT I CAN DOWN 30 PILLS A DAY FOR THE NEXT 10 WEEKS!!!

Attention Attention!!!

2006-06-20T23:32:00.000+08:00

Update on birthday pressie status...

Now I've got the ear phone (though I haven't really used it yet). And today I got a Chinese Audio Bible from the cell (I expected it already... Haha.) plus a digital watch from Kenneth (which I did not expect, So.. Thanks very much Kenneth!!). So please take note when you are buying me present hor....

I know a lot of people love me and want to get me nice gifts for my birthday.. Heehee.

Other things still available for grabs... (as in you grab and give to me...)

Ukulele!! (I dun mind a few of these actually..)

Motor cycle helmet (motivation for me to complete my bike course.. kinda losing the drive now...)

Thumb drive (this has become an essential part of our lives.. yet I am lacking it)

DVD player (I want I want!!!)

and other stuff I have blogged before... like shirts, shoes, Christian books (I have quite a lot of those already.. except maybe books on BGR.. Heehee...) guitar stuff (except a tuner hor... I got like 3 or 4 of those already..) and even generally music related stuff is great.

Oh ya!! Anybody got Masked Rider 555 VCD? I wanna watch...

3 more days to my birthday....
This is took during the cell's surprise birthday celebration for me just now..

quickie updaty

2006-06-19T23:03:00.000+08:00

I spent the last Saturday in rest + a little shopping therapy. Think the rest was much needed, but then I haven't rested enough I think. Went to Bugis Junction in the afternoon with Jade for some shopping therapy. Usually, she is the one who shops, but today it was me. I discovered an addition 200+ in my bank but I did not know where it come from. But that doesn't stop me from spending it happily.

Sunday was spent full in church as usual, and the rest I had on Sat was totally nulified.

Work is slightly busy today cos reservist come in liao.

Met up with FF and E after work. Had the best time with them. Dinner was at Asian Kitchen at City link followed by dessert at Hagendaz at Raffles City. *fat*fat*. I think the last time we met was in last Oct. Cos someone got (<- notice the past tense) boy friend so very busy mah...

So tired.. going to sleep.. tomorrow another long day...

busy busy week...

2006-06-17T10:59:00.000+08:00

Another busy busy week has gone past. Which explains why I haven't been updating my blog again. I am very sorry, especially to my friends and readers. And neither have I been reading much of your blogs, other then the daily essentials like Finicky Feline's.

So what have been happening this week? Sunday was a busy day, starting from 7.45am at Expo Hall 8 selling all the cookies I have baked. Sales was great and we managed to sell all the cookies, brownies and all the other stuff that we had made. And we made a profit of 2,000+ in total. Yeah!

After church in the afternoon, we went to celebrate Pastor Eugene's 50th birthday. It was quite touching to see all his friends and family giving testimonies of how Ps Eugene had touched their lives in so many ways.

If I have one word to describe Ps Eugene, it would be this: Ps Eugene is Inspirational.

The weekdays were pretty occupied to the max. Woke up at 7am for work, until 6pm before going for other activities, which include Kenneth's wedding planning, church activities and a movie on Wednesday night.

I watched 'Cars' on Wednesday night with Daniel and Elisabeth. I thought it was a great movie, and I can't decide Cars or Over the Hedge was better. Really enjoyed myself. Has lunch with 12MS on friday at North Point Sakae followed by Ben and Jerry's ice cream at the zoo. Haha. Quite fun.

Boss was not around the whole week because he took leave to watch the World Cup. Which means office was not too busy for the past 5 days. But come next week will be more busy, because the reservist are coming in for training for one week.

Next week is also my birthday.. But I will spend it working late cos we got a lot of training that day. Oh well, life is like that.

Oh ya, an update on my birthday list. I got a ear phone from Sherry already. So I dun need one.. Haha. Other than that, the rest are still the same... Ukulele, Casio watch, Chinese audio Bible, Thumb drive, motor cycle helmet, a few guitars and guitar accessories, a DVD player, a good pair of running shoes, some nice shirts... etc...

Notice I added a few things.. Haha.

Of striking of cheeks

2006-06-10T08:46:00.000+08:00

9 am Saturday morning, and no one is on Msn...

Did I wake up too early? Oh wait, I forgot. Last night was the opening match for World Cup. Everybody should be still sleeping now. I suppose Germany won? I dunno, it's just not my "cup" of tea.

2 weeks ago, a dear friend of mine had her wisdom tooth extracted. And she came to church with a left side of her face more swollen than Moses Lim's tummy after a buffet dinner. And in jest I told her "The Bible tells us that if someone strikes you know your right cheek, you must let him strike your left cheek also!" (see Matthew 5:39)

Heehee.

Almost everybody knows that phase from the Bible. Even non-Christians knows of it. But few, very few people practice it, except maybe when they are the one doing the striking of cheeks. My personal conviction is that I am to follow it to the best I can. Of course I am not perfect. I often have the urge to defend myself, to retaliate, to strike back, even harder.

Mahatma Gandhi led India in numerous social and economical reforms solely on that principle. Though he was not a Christian (he was barred from entering the church), he read the Bible religiously and followed many of the teachings Jesus taught. He led the Indians in rebel against their British colonial masters, he tried to reform the Chaste system and prevent bloodshed between the Moslem and Hindu community.

Gandhi had very strict instruction against his followers fighting back against their attackers whenever he led a demonstration. He rather take all the beating, or call off the demonstration, then have his conviction revolted.

In his own words, he interprets the words of Jesus, "I suspect he meant you must show courage - be willing to take a blow, several blows, to show you will not strike back nor will you be turned aside. And when you do that it calls on something in human nature, something that makes his hatred decrease and his respect increase."

Martin Luther King Jr. He took over this principle from Gandhi and led America in social transformation in the 1960s. Using the same non-violence ideology and convictions, he destroyed the racial discrimination in America. In the process, his churches were burnt, he himself beaten and thrown to jail and many times threatened with death, so were many of his African-American brothers. But he never return so much as a finger to his attackers. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated and killed in the process of his fight. But now I'm sure everyone can see the fruits of his labour the US.

Not sure how this entry developed to here... or why. Maybe I'm in a mood for a better world... or something...

Whatever! I'm going to bake cookies again now!

I want a miracle

2006-06-09T19:17:00.000+08:00

Finally, I got some time for a proper update.

But I dunno what to write... Ha!

Think I got about 800 cookies in the jar now... Plus the ones my friends have made we should have about 3000. Then tomorrow we will pack the thing. Plus tomorrow we will make some more to top up. Hopefully we can have a good sale on Sunday.

This week has been another hectic week, with magic class on Monday, cell group on Tuesday and church leader's meeting on Wednesday. Tired, but am still excited. Probably is the on coming Shanghai trip and Miracle Weekend at the end of this month. But most importantly, my birthday is coming!! Heehee.

I know what I want for my birthday already! I want a miracle!

Yes Lord, for my birthday present this year, I want a miracle. For everything else, there's MasterCard.

No kidding. Money can buy everything I have stated before, but there are some things nobody can give me, except God Himself. So God, please grant me my wish:

A miracle catch on the Miracle Weekend itself.

Thank You.

Virgin Cookie Baker

2006-06-08T11:36:00.000+08:00

Updated @ 2338hrs....

Hi... sorry for the lack of updates these past few days... Am still coming home close to midnight everyday. Am so tired... So I decide to take a break today and not go to work.

I took leave lah..

Thought I could have a restful day today, but turns out I will be spending the whole day baking cookies. Wahaha. The story is this:

As some of you all know, I am going for a Shanghai trip with my church in July, and we need to raise funds for the trip. So one of the fund raising activities is cookie baking... My initial item was actually playing the guitar and singing to get people to donate and somebody else is suppose to make the cookies. But after some mis-comm and a lot of discussion later, there is not enough people to help make cookies, so I have to offer my services..

The best thing is I have never baked a cookie before!! Wahaha. So fun. Hopefully everything will turn out well..... Oh Lord bless me! The 1st batch of dough is already made and put into the freezer...

Will update more later...

------------------------------------------------------

Done for the day... should have about 500 cookies I think... Special thanks to Lily, Melissa and my baby sister Guo Min for helping out. Heehee.

Here is the "secret" recipe that I got from my mom. (who is in Thailand, by the way):

Looks pretty simple enough...

And this is the dough before it is send to the furance:

This is the end product:

part of it anyway. The bottle contains exactly 150 cookies. I ate 3, I think. Not bad lah... for 1st timer...

YEAH!! So proud of myself!!! Heehee...

Yeah!!

2006-06-03T20:33:00.000+08:00

Went out with Xiao Bai today. He is called Xiao Bai because he used to be very fair... And he is one of favourite Sergeants in BRC because we share the same passion for guitars.. He is such a good player and he taught me a lot of things when we were still in BRC.

Aiyo... I developing double chin...

Had a good time catching up with him over lunch at Plaza Sing before we proceed to Le Meridian for a guitar clinic.

This is the 1st time I attended a guitar clinic by Yamaha. The clinician today is George Lynch, who is a world renowed heavy metal guitarist, but the clinic itself is on acoustic guitars. Check out the set up of the set before the whole thing started.

Quite cool. He can play really well and he is also very warm and friendly to the floor. We were totally impressed with his playing! Even though it was about one and half hours long, it felt like time is too short there... Managed to get a picture of him on the set.

Overall, it was quite fun. Oh ya, must thank Kelly for letting me know about this so that I can attend this clinic. Thanks babe!

Ran into an old classmate in Le Meridian after the thing, and he was having his wedding there! Haha! And I accidentally stepped on his bride's gown... Congrats Alexis!

And I had something new today:

~~Winter~~Rock Melon flavour Kit Kat, courtesy of Hokkaido. So er... cute right? Haha. Really taste like ~~winter~~rock melon...

Heavy week...

2006-06-03T08:33:00.000+08:00

The week so far has been tiring, with everyday ending close to midnight, except for Tuesday.

Monday was project SMILE. Thursday was for the SM2 open cell, with Wednesday preparing for it. And Friday was cell group itself. (just note that cell group and open cell is 2 different things..)

So I slept in a bit today... until 9am then I wake up. Usually I'm up by 7am.. Heehee.. but still slightly tired... Not much to do in the morning.. Just playing guitar and blog.. Which is good...

It's been not a very good week... Got scolded quite a few times, at work and outside; for valid reasons and unjustified ones... Guess life is like that, I just have to take it in my stride. The saddest part of the week is when I backed my car into the pillar when I was parking (AGAIN!!!) and broke the brake lights cover... Sigh...

Eyes getting tired.. Guess I'm still not 100% rested yet... Will go look for breakfast and maybe somemore rest... Hope I will be back tonight...

2006-06-02T00:20:00.000+08:00

Added something to my top 10 list..

Today is our 1st open cell.... Yeah!! So exciting!!!

Wake up call..

2006-05-30T20:21:00.000+08:00

I sort of screwed up at work for the last 2 weeks. Sigh... Really dunno what I am doing.. Very distracted for the last 2 weeks. Issit because of my $$$ issues? Well, maybe yes, for that has been taking up a lot of my attention. But I dun want to to find excuses. Really must buck up...

Dunno why, I get distracted from work every once in a while. Why can't I give 100% to my work like everybody else? Maybe I need a vacation? I dunno. Kinda restless also, and can't concentrate at work.

Maybe its because I haven't been sleeping much? Weekend been burnt for the past 2 weeks.. But that's no excuse too.

Woke up at 4am on monday to send LT off at the airport.. Very tired.. but I had a good time chatting with her before she flew off.

I went for Project S.M.I.L.E yesterday. SMILE stands for Sharing Magic In Love Everywhere, and it is part of my church's program to bring smile to people's face using magic tricks. Learnt quite a number of tricks and had a lot of fun, but really need a lot of practise.

Resolution:
I must become a better guitarist! I must! I must!

The usual stuff...

2006-05-28T21:18:00.000+08:00

Was thinking hard about what I did yesterday.

Yes, I watched X men in the evening. Overall ok lah. I give it 3.5 stars. I did not expect the movie to deviate from the comic so much. I'm not a hard core hard of X Men but I thought it's a little different from what I had remembered. And the movie is a little too short for a blockbuster.

Wolverine and Storm ruled the show this time round, while Cyclops died shortly after the movie started. Dun expect X Men 4 to be coming out anytime soon... since almost all of them died in the movie... Haha.

Played pool with my pastor after that. This is the 1st time I played pool with him. He was good. It was fun. We played until 1am, so pastor cannot scold me for sleeping in church today. Haha. Hopefully there is more chance to play next time.

Sunday is spent mostly in church.. as usual...

Oh ya, just a note: often times, when you do your part to help other people, and you do it long enough and constantly enough, people will tend to take you for granted. But once in a while, somebody will remember and say a 'thank you'.

Hee, not sure if you understand what I'm talking about. But it's ok. I understand can liao.

Sometimes I blogged to 'you', meaning 'you' who read my blog... not sure if anybody blog like that also... Maybe I should start blogging more for myself? Maybe...

My top 10 + 1(birthday) list

2006-05-27T07:56:00.000+08:00

In view that my birthday is coming up in one month's time, I'm sure many of my friends are very eager to know what I want for my birthday. So I'm doing a birthday wish list here... Heehee. So you all know what to give for my birthday. And you all got approximately 3 weeks to hunt for them.

1. Taylor 914ce acoustic guitar ~ $7,000
Hee! I can dream, can't I? I touched one earlier this week.. And thought to myself: Wow!! How can a guitar sound so good?

2. Paul Reed Smith Single Cut electric guitar ~ $4,000
One of the best electric guitar around... Another dream. Oh well.... I can dream on....

3. Fender Standard Stratocaster ~ $2,000
One of the most converted guitars of all time, used by musicians throughout electric guitar history. So I want one too.

Ok ok, I admit. The 1st 3 are an impossibility. But you'll never know. Maybe a senile old woman decide to give me one of these for no reason? Like I said, one can dream mah...

Now for more practical stuff....

4. Ukulele ~ $50 - $100
Small guitar like instrument. Small and cute. Thought of expanding my musical repertoire. Better if you get a ukulele chord book as well.. Hee! A lot of music shops got sell... except Yamaha la...

5. Motorcycle Helmet ~ $80
If I die in a motor cycle accident without a helmet, it's your fault! Hee. Btw, I still stuck at the stupid lesson 3 for my bike course... =(

6. Thumb drive ~ < $100
My thumb drive spoilt the last time... Still haven't got time to buy one... I got a suspicion a certain Feline will buy me this... Heehee.

7. Pair of ear phones ~ $5 - $100
Actually my Ipod earphone spoilt liao. That was quite long ago also. But I haven't decide if I should buy a good earphone or a cheap one. Maybe somebody can decide for me.

8. A good keyboard ~ $1000
This is another impossibility, which I forgot to put just now. Been looking at one of these for very long also.. Also no money to buy..

9. Casio digital watch ~ $70
My watch has been with me for quite a while now, and it's spoiling also (I cannot read the last digit now) I dun need a G-shock or what. As long as it can i) tell time, ii) got alarm, iii) got stop watch (important cos I need to time my run during my trainings), iv) a count down timer and of course, v) lighting.

10. DVD player ~ $100
A cheap one will do. So that I can watch my Led Zeppelin concert in the comfort of my own room.
10. Chinese Audio Bible ~ $50
Not sure of the actual price. But I think can get it in Trumpet Praise. Heehee

11. Reverse Sensor for my car!!!!

Ok. That's my top ten list. I may update and change if I thought of new stuff.

Many times, my gal pals come and ask me what to buy for a guy friend's birthday. Actually, its not very difficult, if you know what he likes. Boys will always like toys. If he like guitars, then get him some guitar stuff.. like guitar picks or a metronome. If he likes football then get him a Liverpool/ Arsenal/ Man Utd jersey. If he like cars get him something to put on the dashboard. If he like gadgets stuff then get him something to enhance his toys... Like for me, I like guitars and comics.. so you can think along these lines also.

It's not hard right? Now you know what I want, you can go hunt for my birthday present now. Haha.

I am back.

2006-05-26T21:03:00.000+08:00

Finally, I am back. Sorry for not updating much for the last two weeks.

After my IPPT, my past 2 weeks has been a sort of daze. No matter how much I sleep, I just dun seem to have enought rest.

Can't seem to remember the major events for the past 2 weeks....

Last weekend was Encounter Weekend. Which was good. For once, I do not have to think about God having to deal with this or that part of my life. And I am able to go there and just enjoy the pressence of God. And for that I give thanks.

Attended a 2 days WITs course, which is a good break from work. Otherwise, I would be busy preparing the Road Show for my Squadron.

Watched Over the Hedge and Davinci Code too. Over the Hedge was great. I really enjoyed myself, as well as my little sisters and her 2 friends. Davinci Code was ok. Not fantastic. Going to watch X-Men this Sat. Hope it will be good.

That's all for now. Will update more tomorrow.. or later...

I am still very tired...

2006-05-24T20:29:00.000+08:00

2006-05-18T22:57:00.001+08:00

I am tired.

Update?? ?? ??

2006-05-17T20:28:00.000+08:00

Eh... People complain I very long never update blog... So I update lor...

Not much to update really, I have some ideas in my mind but have no mood to develop it.

Oh ya, Cleared my IPPT yesterday, Sliver and improved somemore. Happy, but not entirely satisfied. I had hoped to do better. So probably I will try again the next time round. But now, my body is aching all over.

Many people never update their blog also... Like the person who complain that I never update blog, also never update blog....

No motivation to work this week. Maybe cos I just come back from a wonderful long weekend, or maybe it's I just had my last public holiday for a long time to come... Haha..

I'm just blogging for the sake of blogging... I dun really have anything that I want to say.... Wahaha...

Me am very very poor now. Only left with 30 dollars in my bank. Saw 2 new comic books in Junction 8 today, which I wanted to buy. But cannot. This is the first time I had this feeling... I'm slightly worried, but not very. Still am going to watch Davinci Code and Over the Hedge this weekend. Wahaha.

Yesterday I tried to organise a cell outing.. Which only 3 of us turned up. The cell leader said he would come but in the end fly aeroplane. 3 out of 8 is about... 40%? Ok lah... We had Carl's Jr for dinner followed by an hour of pool at Marina Square. Haha... We still had fun without all those people...

Wed night... 2 more days of work before Encounter Weekend... Jia You ba...

Me and my comic books

2006-05-13T10:59:00.000+08:00

I started reading comic books when I was in Sec 2. I still remember my the very 1st books that I bought. It was Dragonball Z book 31, 32 and 33.

This is a classic Dragonball picture.

Wahaha.

Dragonball is really a classic comic to read. I still remember that time I was thinking I must preserve my collection so that I can pass down to my descendents generations to come. Wahaha. So funny now that I've come to think of it. I still have the entire series in my storeroom somewhere, or is it in my brother's room now?

Comic books has been greatly influential in my growing up years. As I have practically no friends during my secondary school days, I seek comfort, laughter and even some form of existence in the stories that I read. They greatly affect the way I think and act and the way I behave. That's why I've got such a silly face in my profile pic.

I have since read many many many comic books, from Slamdunk to 3x3 Eyes to the current Naruto and Bleach. Although now I have read much much less than before. I used to read many titles at one go, spending up to $50 a week on the new comic books. Now I just spend maybe $5-$10 per month.

And like most comic enthusiasts, I dreamt of drawing comics myself one day. And I took some lesson during my Uni days for it. Real fun. Here are some of the "better" creations I have come up with:

1st, some full body pictures..

This is based on the the comic Captain Tsubasa.

I drew this by copying the action of Akari Sendoh of Slamdunk. Btw, my very 1st email address is a.sendoh@pac. But that is not working anymore.

Then some headshots...

This is based on the popular DNA2 (DNA Square) The lead character.

And these 2 will give you an idea of what my dream girl will look like.... Haha.

M:I 3 2

2006-05-12T22:31:00.000+08:00

Had an interesting day today.

For one, I took the MRT again. Today I decide to ditch my car and use the Mass Rapid Transit again. Save money mah! Haha. It's nice to be taking the MRT again. But this time I forgot to bring a book or my ipod, cos I always read and listen to music when I take public transport. Wahaha. Kinda fun to be taking public transport again.

The destination is Orchard MRT where I met my SM2s for lunch. After that we watched Mission Impposible 3. Wahaha. This is the group that missed it the 1st time I watched it because of their curfew. I'm so happy that I can watch together with them this time.

We went to Lido for our movie and this is their 1st time there. A lot of eyebrows were raised when they saw Jade, who joined us for the movie, for the 1st time. Wahaha. Probably will explain to them later.

Everybody liked the movie very much. Yeah!

Me and my guitars

2006-05-12T09:57:00.000+08:00

You have heard of my passion for guitars. Many many times I have talked about them. I started with learning to play for cell group about 5-6 years ago and it developed from there.

The gears I have acquired:
Telecaster 52' reissue - This is the original electric guitar. In 1952, Leo Fender designed and produced the 1st successful electric guitar and changed the entire music history. Details and pictures here.
I got this via the internet from an expat staying in 6th Ave. Its a real bargain. The listed price in shops is SGD$3,500. I got it for less than half of that. It's in very good condition when I got it, but now its a little scratched.

Epiphone Flying V (Red) - I fell in love with the Flying V immediately after I watched School of Rock. (The little kid played a white Gibson's Flying V in the movie). I got the guitar shortly after the movie, at a second hand guitar shop, for the price of $400. (listed price is $950). Had to fix a few bugs before I got it singing, but it was worth it. Something like this, but red in colour.

Epiphone Casino - I blogged this before here. This is my latest addition and I have not bought another guitar for a long time. Made famous by John Lennon of The Beatles, it is my most beautiful guitar. And its a dream to play. I got it for $650, from $1,000. Specs and pics here, though the colour is different.

Variax Acoustic - I got this of a second hand shop also, Cash Converters, for half its original price of $2,400. It's an acoustic guitar but it can only be played plugged in. The magic of this guitar is that it can "imitate" the sounds of 16 different sounds, including that of a 12-string, nylon, Jazz guitar and even banjo. More of it here.

Taylor Baby- Having a baby is a most troublesome thing. And it is so for this guitar. It is one of my favourite to play cos it sings like no other and I brought it almost wherever I go, even to Lijiang in Dec 2005. But it is a nightmare to maintain. The humidity of Singapore is just too high for her. The top has since cracked, but I managed to glue the thing together with an additional pick-guard added. Super ugly now, but it still sings beautifully, and I still love it. That's true love, I guess. Listed price is $480 but I doubt anybody will pay $50 for what I'm having now.

Takamine Hirade Classical - This is my only classical guitar now. It's one of Takamine's best in it's time, though I dun think they produce it anymore, and I can't find the website for this model. The wood combination is perfect, with the solid Indian Rosewood back and solid Spruce top, it's voice is rich, deep and resonant. Though I'm not much of a classical player, I used it to learn some finger picking songs.

Then I have my Yamaha FG-411VS, and Grand YSC 45-E. These are the very very 1st guitars that I got. Although they are budget guitars with no fancy pansy stuffs, I love them because they are the ones that grew together with me in my formative years. I have since modified them to better and more playable states, and usually they are the ones I pick up and play when I get into the mood to. In fact, the FG-411VS stands waiting beside my bed, ready to be played anytime.

Heehee, dun ask me why they are the same colour. It just happens.. Now they are a couple guitar!

In addition to guitars, I need stuff like amplifiers, effects and loads of other stuff. I got a Marshall JCM 2000 - DSL 401 as my main amp and what can I say? It rocks! And it keeps the neighbaours up all night. I also got a Ibanez acoustic amp, a Beringer V-amp, Dunlop Crybaby, Boss' DS2, and CH1.

Of course, having all these guitars and stuff doesn't make me a good player. And I dare not say that I am. I still have a lot of training and practising to do, but I do dare say that I am having fun and will be having fun in a long time to come.

3 days worth of blog...

2006-05-11T21:49:00.000+08:00

3 days worth of blog?

Well, maybe... These 3 days a lot of things went through my mind and heart... Not sure what to blog actually.

On the happier side of things, I attended the BRC ORD BBQ yesterday. It's good to be back to the company again. Seeing the old faces and talking about the good o' times together. I'm sorry I had to leave earlier and cannot stay for the whole thing.

See Giles' little tribute to the commanders of BRC.

-------------------------------------

Right now, I am in a very "I hate myself" mood. I hate myself because I cannot say "no" to some things or some people.

Like for example, yesterday a colleague came and look for me, and asked to borrow some money. Because he needs to redeem his wife's gold necklace by the end of the day or else she will divorce him.

How can I say 'no' to a request like that? Maybe some people can think that his marriage or divorce is his own business, not mine, or anybody else's. But I cannot ignore a pled for help like that. Although he has borrowed money from me before and not returned still, I cannot find the heart to turn him away just like that.

So in the end I lent him the whole of my this month's pay for him to redeem his wife's necklace. He has promised to return the money (the amount he used to redeem the necklace, not the sum he had borrowed from me before) by the end of this week but I have yet seen the money. And the truth is, I am not very optimistic about getting back my money.

Did I do right or did I do wrong? I really dunno. I know many people reading this must be thinking I am very stupid. Now I got problem surviving for the rest of the month cos I got less than $100 left in my account.

God, please tell me, what am I to do? Did I do right or did I do wrong? And why me? Why Why Why? Is it because I am stupid? Issit because I need to learn to be more prudent with my money? Issit because I had been proud and careless in my spending? Please teach me!!!

One more thing, I really hate myself for always striving for acceptance from other people. No matter how much I try, I cannot run away from this. Almost everything and anything I do is to make people happy, so that they will like me.

Love. It is the one thing I had longed for as long as I remember. I know God loves me, but only in my mind. Sometimes my heart feels it, but everyday, my spirit and my soul seems to be thirsty without end, a thirst that cannot be quenched. God loves me. I know, but I do not know. What is this love that most of the time I cannot feel? And where do I go to seek it? My soul cannot find rest.

Unable to fully understand God's love for me, I turn to other people for love. But I cannot find one that can love me as much as I desire. So I turn back to God. Where am I to go? Lord! God! Help me!

Monday Blues

2006-05-08T21:17:00.000+08:00

I can't remember the last time I suffered from Monday blues. But today was just terrible.

I think I enjoyed myself too much over the weekend. That's why I feel so drained today.

Blue Blue Monday Blues...

But thank God I still manage to get some work done.

Anyway, last night, before I went to sleep, I wrote an email to the hostel management regarding the movie outing we were suppose to have with my SM2s. It goes something like this:

I'm sorry for the mis-comm about the movie. We will take note the next time we organise an activity. We should all follow the hostel rules.

Regards
GJ

Something like that. As you can see from my previous posts, I was very upset about the incident. So why did I initiate the apology? Well, the reason is a little complicated to explain. Maybe it's suffice to say that sometimes proving you are right isn't everything. There are other things to consider, like the hostel-student relationship, hostel-befriender (that would be me) relationship and the befriender-student relationship.

Like a lot of times when a couple quarrels but in the end one of them gave in because they know that some things, being right is not the most important. the relationship is.

Not sure if the analogy fits.

And I believe it takes greater strength to initiate the reconciliation.

Anywayz, as I was saying, super Monday Blues today. can't wait to get out the office the whole day. and I rushed to go home the minute I am able.

Spend most of the night watching So You Think You Can Dance again. Was quite surprised that Craig got eliminated. He is one of my favourite male dancers in the show.

End of Weekend...

2006-05-07T22:40:00.000+08:00

M:I 3 was great!!!

At least me and the people I watched with think so...

Other things I did this weekend:
Celebrate SM2 birthday
QQS initial meeting
SM2 Karaoke Competition
Biblilogy and Christology class
SM2 guitar lesson

Tired... am just going to sleep now...

Early Saturday Morning

2006-05-06T08:51:00.000+08:00

Today is Election Day!

Of which I am not involved.

I am suppose to go for my motorbike Lesson 3 today again. But as I was getting out of bed and getting ready, lightning flashed and thunder roared. And rain started to pour. Sian Half! At that very moment, I decided that I will forfeit my 23 dollars lesson fee and not waste my time braving the rain for my lesson. Dun think it's worth it.

I decided that it is better that I get some rest in the morning before I embark to another busy weekend. Today's program starts from 1400hrs all the way to 2200hrs at night. And tomorrow will start at 0930hrs all the way to 2200hrs also. So is better that I get some rest now.

About last night, I was so so so ~~pissed~~ angry with the management of the hostel which my SM2s are staying in. The story is this:

As you all know, the movie of the week is the long awaited Mission: Impossible 3. And I planned to watch, together with some other people, some of my SM2 kids. Because the movie starts at 7pm (plus 20minutes of commercials, knowing GV's style) they will probably reach home at about 10pm after the movie. So we have the get permission from the hostel's management to stay out late, as their curfew is 8pm on Sundays.

After talking to their management, they say no problem, just fill up the application form for extension of curfew. So we did that and on my way to get the tickets. I got the tickets shortly after that. 14 in all, including 6 from my SM2 group.

But at about 1 hour later, one of the guys call me and told me that the management rejected their application and they cannot go for the movie. I was like "what happen?!" And they say it was too late. I asked to talk to the guy in charge, explaining to him that when I talked to lady in charge earlier she says no problem, and that I have bought the tickets. But that dogmatic old man refused to listen, and refuse to accept anything I say.

I was so ~~pissed~~ angry with that old man! He thinks he is right just because he is the management and he is old and so he doesn't have to listen to a young punk like me. I was so terribly upset by his attitude.

A few reaction came to my mind. I could communicate to him my displeasure by pronouncing on him all the curses I have grown accustomed to in the army.

"'Those words' have power!" my Sergeant used to tell me when I was still a chao recruit in BMT.

Indeed, power to bring down and break the human spirit, power to destroy and darken the soul, and power conjure up hell for both the curser and the accursed.

Anyway, my other reaction was to write a 'polite' email to MOE and tell them what kind of bad management they have at the hostel, with testimonies from my SM2 kids as well.

But I did neither of that. Firstly, because I have a more pressing issue at hand, which is how to get rid of the 6 extra tickets. (at press time, all the tickets have been claimed) and also, I did not want to create any trouble which will result in the management making things more difficult for my SM2s. So I left it at that... and went to pray that God will release me from my anger.

So there, I can't remember a time which I am more ~~pissed~~ angry in my life. But I feel much better now. And everything is more or less settled, except maybe I need to find some time for the 6 guys and gals to watch M:I 3 together.

Super Duper Uber Pissed...

2006-05-05T22:27:00.000+08:00

I am.

Think I will not say more. Cos I only have evil things to say about them now.

A Typical Day

2006-05-03T21:02:00.000+08:00

06.39am - Woke up. Woke up rather early today. Dunno why.

07.15am - Have breakfast. The usual: 2 slices of bread with chocolate rice inside. Plus tea with milk.

07.31am - Left for Work.

07.55am - Reach office. As usual, I start my work by checking some ~~meals~~ mails.

09.12am - Second breakfast. Another sandwich. Another cup of tea.

09.35am - Return to office for more work. Dun feel like working. Start sms-ing people to watch M:I 3 with me for this sunday evening. (anybody else interested?)

11.54am - Change to my running gear. Time for my run. 4km around the camp. I am trying to develop a discipline to pray as I run. I thought its a good idea, except that sometimes I get out of breath from all the running + praying together.

12.30pm - Finished my run and cooled down. Picked up a book (A Year With CS Lewis) and read for a while.

01.30pm - In army terms, its 1330 hrs (thirteen thirty). My boss came over and informed me that he is taking the rest of the day off to see a doctor for his knee. So I'm in charge for the rest of the day.

02.55pm - "Official" tea break time. Am hungry cos I ~~ran~~ skipped lunch. One of my guys suggested KFC so I got him to drive there to buy for everybody.

03.30pm - KFC came back. And so begins our Tunch.

03.45pm - Finished tunch. Went back to work.. Boss not around so not much motivation to work hard...

05.00pm - Half an hour more to closing time. Nobody has anymore mood to work and start playing games on the computer.

05.20pm - Had enough of games. All went up to change and get ready to book out.

05.29pm - All in my car, ready to book out.

05.30pm - Book out loh!

06.01pm - Reached home. Happy that I do not have any night appointments today. Watched a re-run of the series Holland V, followed by dinner and just basically lazing around the house.

07.30pm - Start playing guitar. Turn up to maximum volume and waiting for people to complain.

09.00pm - Nobody complained. So I stopped playing and start writing this blog... ...

Dreams

2006-05-01T22:18:00.000+08:00

Someone said that she dreamt about me a couple of nights back...

On the msn:

TS: i dreamt of you driving a lot of sm2s
TS: to this place called stansfield
TS: and you said it's in america
TS: and 2 of the sm2s i remembered in the car were wenhao, and ouyang shixiao
TS: the 2 peeps who went with lijiang with us
GJ: stanfield is not in US meh??
TS: i don't know where's that place but in the dream, you said it's in america
GJ: ok....
TS: is it true
GJ: i dunno.... sounds amex to me
TS: anyways, it's a cute dream because some parts are in cartoon
TS: and i dreamt of many others like SA, Liz etc.
GJ: must be a very long dream...
TS: yes it is. some parts i can't remember
TS: anyways, you're going to have sm2s to drive around soon!
TS: btw i dreamt of you and the other guys in your cell one day too.. together with SA too
TS: i dreamt that you, LK, SO and JC died in a fire in an attap house
GJ: wah.....
TS: then SA picked up a cola glass bottle (those kampong bottles)
TS: and said, "JC used to love to drink coke when he's alive!"
GJ: eh.....
TS: then suddenly, everything became bright, and you appeared! and i said, "aren't you dead"
TS: and you said, "No, look at me! I'm alive! - with somewhat inspiration from that of Jesus appearing to his discples"
TS: I thnk you did say something like "touch my flesh or something"
TS: then i was very happy for you cos i know you're not dead
TS: then after that, there was a loud alarm, and the starbucks-like armchairs we're sitting in starting moving..... towards a door
TS: then i met a lot of people in armchairs as well and everyone was happy
TS: and i woke up
GJ: hmm.....
GJ: ok....
GJ: quite scary... dunno wat it means
TS: why scary???
TS: actually, tell you the truth, i often pray that God will speak to me in dreams?
GJ: dun u think all these dreams mean something?
TS: you make it sound like they mean something bad?
GJ: scary as in i dunno wat will happen
GJ: and how it is connected to the dream
TS: oh but my dreams usually have positive feelings in it
TS: as i don't wake up feeling scared. unless it's disturbed dreams- i will wake up feeling terrible
GJ: thats a relief to hear
TS: the death dream came before the driving dream
TS: eh, don't be frightened by my sharing.
TS: i thought it's interesting to let you know?
GJ: hmm.........
GJ: i dunno how to feel
TS: maybe you should pray about it now that i've shared
TS: i pray that if God willing, He will reveal the meaning of my dreams to you
GJ: yeah
TS: amen
TS: to add, it's very glorious when you appeared and i know that you're not dead
GJ: wahaha
TS: to be honest, it felt semi heaven. and with the loud alarm bell ringing , and everyone approaching a door
TS: it's really quite bright

(continue chattering...)

How ah? Anybody can interpret dreams?

Down and upper

2006-05-01T19:37:00.000+08:00

This morning I talked about my struggle with self esteem and acceptance from friends... and immediately after that I went out and was tested again...

I dunno, maybe I am over sensitive, or my expectation is too high. There is this girl I was teaching guitar to. Today I met her she like she dunno me like that. Did not even say "hi". Dunno. Maybe she dun like me... or maybe she thinks I'm weird....

Maybe I am....

The afternoon was a lot better. I met up with Xie Wei to watch The Sentinel at Lido. It's been a long time aince I came to Lido. Ever since I was able to get $8.00 tickets at Golden Village Cinemas, I have ceased to visit Lido. I think it's been one and half years since then.

The Sentinel was not bad. Plot and pace is good and lets me oogle at Eva Longoria for a while. I thought she was quite pretty, although my friend says she's got a CFM look.

Realised they changed So You Think You Can Dance for Harry Potter. Sianz!! How can they do that? What's so good about Harry Potter anyway? Bleah!

I learnt the word "bleah" from Sharon Low.

Oh ya. Something to cheer me up. I got an e-card from Jen Lee today. At first I thought it was a mass email thingy, but it turns out she sends to me only. Because she found out I was the one co-ordinating her birthday party on friday and she wanted to thank me for it. Actually I wasn't the one suppose to co-ordinate, but I decide to take over in the mist of it cause things were getting... er... not neat... Haha.

Thanks Jen.

TV is showing GE stuff and GE stuff and GE stuff everywhere.. except Channel 5 which is showing Harry Potter now.

Going to start work again tomorrow... this long weekend passed so fast! Wahaha....

Up and downer

2006-05-01T07:57:00.000+08:00

Had a very frustrating start to my sunday yesterday.

I spent the whole morning preparing the song "When you say nothing at all" to teach in my guitar class but in the most crucial moment, I cannot get the song sheet printed out. I spend so much time trying to get the printer to work......

As a result, I was late in picking my friends up and going for prayer meet. In the process, I also made a few wrong turns and got lost for a while... ending up even later than I already was. The worst part was, I was suppose to set up my networks banner before the prayer meet... Sigh...

Anyway, I had a good time chatting with LT during our "lost" journey.

Service was good, I think. Once the pastor start preaching I know the word is for me.

"But Lord," Gideon asked, "how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family." Judges 6:15

I can always identify with people of low self esteem, cos I struggle with my self perception all my life, as well as finding love and acceptance with the people around me. But thank God He has brought me a long way, healing my hurts and teaching me to love.

I can't say that I know how to love a person as Love should. There are many times still, that I show love in order that people show love to me back. God is teaching me slowly (though I had wished it would be faster) to love as Love should.

Come taste and see, that the Lord is good.

As I was saying, I couldn't print my song sheet out which I spent the whole morning preparing, but it doesn't really matter, because in the end only 1 student turn up for my lesson yesterday... Wahaha...

Spent the evening playing with my cell group, though I was wiped out within 3 turns... Wahaha..

And this morning, my cheap thumb drive came into pieces...

The Election

2006-04-30T09:44:00.000+08:00

I'm going to talk about the Election!!

Nono... Not about the General Election which is plastering every front page of Straits Times everyday now... I got nothing to say about that... except maybe that Mr Chee should just shut up already....

Politics is not my forte.

The Election I am going to talk about is Election 2, the Movie. I watched Election part 1 several moons back with Miss Jade. And the election they talked about is no governmental election, but rather, the Hong Kong triads are electing their new chairman. So you see a lot of fights and blood all over the screen.

Election 2 continues with Lok (Simon Yam) ending his term as the chairman after 2 years and its time for another election. Lok, this time, becomes the bad guy (actually, its a HK triad movie, so they are ALL bad guys anyway) and desires to continue his reign in the Society. Of course that is against the rules, but there are no suitable canidates to take over him, except for Jimmy Lee (Louis Khoo). And so the fight begins.

Great movie and it has a lot of underlining political messages, though I thought Election 1 was more entertaining. Be warned, of the scene which earned this movie its M18 rating. It is where Jimmy took a chopper and cut off his enemy's arm, put it in the grinder and feed the meat to the dogs.. Very Very graphic. Turned my stomach a few times over.

Thats enough politics for me for a while....

The rest of the day is spent in church. Going for QQS meeting, congre meeting (never mind what they were if you dun know) and finally celebrating Jen Lee's birthday. I think the standard for celebrating birthdays in this cell group is very high. Which is very fun... Wahaha.

Lazy to put up the pictures...

I took a look at my bank account last night... and saw that I'm at the verge of bankruptcy... SOB!! God help me!!!!!!!

thurs and fri...

2006-04-29T09:05:00.000+08:00

Hey hey.... I'm a bit busy the past 2 days.....

Spend Thursday evening at my SM2's hostel... and by the time I sent my 2 other friends home, it's past 11pm... I had a good time chatting with my kids... but I think everytime must come up with new ideas to keep them entertained... Haha.. How ah? How to keep little kids entertained? Other then buying sweets and ice-cream for them.....

Last night was baptism service for some of my friends. Meaning to say, Yanglin, Sabrina, Sophia and Sarah were baptised into Jesus Christ through water last night. Thank God that I was able to go... because actually I had to stay back last minute for work... but then last last minute rain, thunder and lightning filled the skies so the work was postponed. Wahaha

And last night, 2 PRC guys gave their lives to Jesus.. Yeah! I will be following up with them.. and if everything goes well (fingers crossed x x), with God's blessing, I will be starting my own cell group soon!!! Wahaha.

More activities up this weekend... will blog more later..

Oh ya, I dun have to vote!! Wahaha. I think people living in Bishan too happy already, no point for opposition to come cos we all very happy with our PAP MPs... wahaha.... Happy holidays!

Sianz

2006-04-26T22:49:00.000+08:00

Another sianz day.

I went for my motorbike lesson 3 again today (third time liao) and it was raining when we started. We have to wear this stupid rain coat to ride in the rain.

And I got a totally lousy bike. For no reason it keep stalling. Then the rear brakes like not really working like that. Have to press hard before it reacted. Then when I press a bit too hard, the bike tyres locked and my bike went into a skid. That happened a couple of times and I almost fell.

Then my other complain: The stupid rain made the road so slippery that I have problem doing all the balancing courses. Ride a bit faster ten like want to slip off like that. Ride a bit slower then I cannot balance..

So its the stupid rain's fault. And the stupid bike also... Make me fail me Lesson 3 for the 3rd time. Sianz!

-----------------------------------------------------

I'm not sure if it is common to ALL man (and woman also) but very often, very very often, Man is very quick to blame others when something had gone wrong.

"It's the society's fault, it's my parent's fault, it's the teacher's/ classmate's/ boss's/ colleague's/ everybody else's fault but mine."

Very rarely will somebody stand up and say "The entire thing is my fault." Even if somebody says they are responsible, they usually 1) are only willing to take a certain part of the responsibility, and push the rest to somebody else, or 2) find some excuses to minimise his guilt.

Very rarely will people stand up and say "I screw up. I am sorry." More likely, they will say "I screw up, but its because..."

Adam was the 1st. After he ate the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (otherwise known as THE Apple), he said to God:"The woman you put here, she gave me the fruit and I ate it." In essence he is saying "God! It's your fault! You put the woman here!"

Admitting our mistakes is something that is not easy to do. Cos it hurts the very centre of our Pride. But if everyone (including myself) can be a little more humble, this world will be a much much better place....

I think...

Free Cone Day

2006-04-25T23:26:00.000+08:00

Had a great day today. Wahaha.

Me went to consume my 1st Ben and Jerry's ice cream today!

Saw this poster in FF's blog (wun link because it is password-ed) that says today is Ben and Jerry's Free Cone Day! That means they are giving out 1 free scoop of ice cream to everyone today! Wahaha. I have heard so much about B&J that I decide to try one for myself.

Good thing my camp is near the zoo, which has one B&J outlet and so I got my guys together during lunch time and we drove down for a quick ~~bite~~lick. The queue was not very long (expected cos not many people will be in the zoo at that time) and we got our ice cream within minutes. I think most of the people there are staff from the zoo.

The ice cream was great! I dunno what issit called, but I think it's vanilla with cookie dough inside. It was comparable to Hagendaz, imho... can't say which is better.. Haha.

Thanks FF for the tip. (It doesn't rhyme!)

When I came out from the zoo, the carparking fees is $3.80, which is quite expensive considering I parked there for like 20minutes. But no choice. Zoo'z parking is 3.80 per entry.

So I paid $3.80 for a free ice cream cone today! Wahaha.

They were suppose to give out the ice cream until 7pm or while stocks last. And judging from the crowd there, I dun think they can finish giving out by 7. I wanted to try my luck there again after work but I forgot about it and went straight home.

Today my 6 day old guitar student is playing for cell group. I wonder how she did?

New friend...

2006-04-24T20:49:00.000+08:00

Made a new friend yesterday. It was the veii that commented on my blog a few times. And he has added me in his msn. Our first conversation goes like this:

veii: hi guojun
GJ: hihi
veii: well, you asked who i was
veii: so here i am
GJ: veii?
veii: uh, yes
GJ: oic....
veii: anyways - i like to read your blog - if you don't mind
GJ: ha!
GJ: of course i dun mind
veii: i want you to know that i think you are a good man - though it is kind of ridiculous to say that of someone i have never met
veii: just a gut feel
GJ: good man??
GJ: haha
GJ: everybody is a good man
GJ: dun u think?
veii: yeah - it's a nice thought
veii: but
veii: i tend to think it is the ones who have to ask themselves whether they have done good today that are the ones who are, well, really good
GJ: oic...

(chatter chatter...)

veii: well, here's something somewhat personal - i think you have taken a turn for the sunnier side - at least from your blog?
veii: i think that is good too..
GJ: u have been reading for long huh?
veii: haha - well, it is a very compelling and personal blog
veii: you have been dealing with your struggles - personal, professional and spiritual - quite publicly..?
GJ: i write for my own record lah...
GJ: there r some things i dun write also
veii: yeah - well, there's got to be more to a person than a blog, obviously
and of course, it's not like i'd e-mail or msn just any blogger i come across
veii: but i wanted to say something nice to you
veii: errr.. hope i have? Anyway, here's to a better week ahead
GJ: thanks
GJ: u've made my day

Ha! Nice to make a new friend, especially someone that appreciates your blog.

Evolution?

2006-04-23T21:54:00.000+08:00

Me been sitting here for a while. Have a burning desire to blog something but also had no idea what to blog.... I have many things that I want to blog, but I dun want to blog something if I do not have the time to fully develop my ideas....

Maybe I will talk about the Theory of Evolution. It is widely accepted that Charles Darwin is the man that proposed that the theory through his paper "The Origin of the Species" published in 1859. And since then, the general public has come to accepted that theory as a "fact".

But I totally disagree with the statement, or any claim that evolution is a "fact". Ok, I know that viruses and bacteria do mutate to become resistant to drugs and such. This, called Micro evolution, is scientifically proven to be true. But Macro evolution, which says that life start as a single cell and evolved to our current state, is (pardon my French) bullshit.

The Theory of Evolution cannot be true, and here are some of the reasons why:

1) The origin of life. In Darwin's time, it was believed that life can spring out of matter, like maggots that came out from a piece of meat. But Science have since proved that it is an impossibility to create life out of matter. The myth that life's 1st building blocks - a basic protein - was 1st created in the unstable atmosphere of Earth's formative years. But try as they might, evolution scientists, with their extensive knowledge and research, were unable to reproduce the said protein.

2) The formation of complex organs. Charles Darwin's Theory states very beautifully how one creature can "transform" to another by growing limbs, beaks, wings... etc. But it cannot explain the formation of a complex organ from a cell. For example, the 'eye' (not the movie 'The Eye') consists of the retina, the cornea, the pupil and muscles separated into some 40 different components. And any one of these is useless without the rest of the 'eye parts'. In other words, for an eye to be successfully evolved, all its component have to come into being simultaneously. The probability of a single protein forming by chance is calculated to be 1: 10 to the power of 950. That's 1 and 950 zeros behind. Dun even begin to think about the probability of an eye forming from nothing.

3) Creatures of flight. Evolutionary have us believe that birds learn to fly because they had 1st developed skin that help them glide and then later those skin "evolved" into wings. What they had forgotten to tell us, is that birds' skeletal and respiratory system is completely different from the rest of the animals. The skeleton of birds is hollow and light, hence allowing it flight. Any other animals' bones does not have this special feature. And the way the bird breathes is completely different from everybody else. But I'm sorry to say that I do not have the capacity here to fully explain it. But it is suffice to say that the Theory of Evolution cannot explain these at all.

4) The bipedal problem. Actually, man's ability to walk on 2 legs is an "evolutionary retreat". All studies have shown that walking on 2 legs is an evolutionary disaster. Our speed is greatly reduced, and so is our balance and mobility. That's why King Kong uses his hands to walk when he was acting in the movie...

5) The discovery of genetics and DNA. Actually, the discovery of genes and DNA completely debunked Charles Darwin's theory. The idea that life evolved slowly over billions of years becomes an impossibility. The only way life could "evolve" now is through mutation, changing of DNA and the genetic information which is to be passed down to the next generation (think X-Men). But so far, studies have shown that mutation only serves to destroy lives, not improve it.

There are many many other reasons and studies to prove that Evolution is a lie. But enough of that. I will talk about what I personally believe in.

I believe that God created the entire universe in 7 days. (and not 7000 days that some people suggest), starting with light and darkness on the 1st day followed by the plants, fishes and all the animals, and finally finishing with Man on the 6th day. On the 7th day, God rested from all His work.

Now, is that so hard to believe?

One more thing

2006-04-23T07:55:00.000+08:00

One more thing, in addition to my previous post...

Went for my motorbike Lesson 3 yesterday morning. This is my second time doing lesson 3. To my surprise, the instructor said that those that are repeating this lesson can ride and practise on their own.

And so I did.

Me and 3 others went ahead and do our own training. Lesson 3 consist of E brake, the plank and slalom. Basically I have no problem with all but the slalom, so I went ahead to practise on that immediately.

But try as I might, I could not get the trick of negotiating the short. Yes, I did that when I was doing my military bike before, but this feels totally different. Okok... Maybe I'm just finding excuses...

So I stopped and approached the insrtuctor for advice. But he was like:

Why? You want to do your own training what! Then now you anyhow ride the slalom. You and No. 2 the same!

He was refering to the guy with the tag number 2. And he dismissed me at that.

Argh!! I was fuming! But what to do? He dun want to teach... So I carry on riding on my own and try to find the trick for doing the thihng lor... Until the LAST 5 minutes of the lesson, then he stopped me and pointed out my mistakes. Then after that I have no problem doing the course. But then he still thinks I should come back and do Lesson 3 again.

Sian! Waste my time and money....

Down Down Down......

2006-04-22T21:38:00.000+08:00

Feeling down.

Hmm... where do I start?

Maybe I start with the 2 summons I got in the last 2 days. So stupid. I was going to turn left into my home mah.... so I go into the bus lane lor.... if not how to turn? Got a lot of things that I want to say to LTA now that I cannot put it down in print... Wahaha.

I wanted to go down to LTA and ~~complain~~ appeal but my friend WK say it wun be much use. So I think maybe I will not waste my time. But still! The summons total to $260. "White white" give to LTA. And its not my fault lor! Super sianz....

How? Any advice? What should I do? I dun think I should be fined cos its not like I delibrately go on the bus lane.. But then its unlikely that LTA will do anything...

Maybe I should approach my MP for help.... Haha....

Sianz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then the next thing is about my SM2 and my guitar group. Nowadays, I feel like I have reached the limit of what I am able to give them. Now I feel very lost and dunno what to do. Not sure if this feeling is really valid... or i'm just PMS-ing. But nowadays when I go down and see them, I feel kinda lost... Maybe I see that they are more or less able to take care of themselves already and maybe they dun need me anymore.

Hee, maybe that's what parents feel like when they see the children grow up.

Hmm... I think I'm crazy already.

So all these things combined, and feelings of inadecaucy slowly creep in... So now I feel kinda very down...

Wanted to get some chocolates just now as comfort food, the really very very good type, not Snickers or Mars Bar... But then I remember that Jesus is my comfort and my strength, not chocolates.

Mustard Guitar Fat

2006-04-20T19:59:00.000+08:00

Me met 12 MustardSeeds yesterday for dinner.

She told me she will be at Marina Square in the evening, so I told her to have Carl's Jr for dinner, which she agreed... And I expected to have Carl's Jr for dinner. Haha. I am filled with such expectance that I skipped lunch so that I can have a greater capacity for Carl's Jr burger. Then then it turns that the blur girl was at Meritus Mandarin instead of Marina Mandarin. Wahaha.

So we had Crystal Jade at Takashimaya instead. The food was not bad lah... but still... not my Carl's Jr (although start with "C" and "J" also...) I told my guys I'm skipping lunch so that I can have more space for Carl's Jr dinner later.... But then it never happen lor.... I never have my Carl's Jr last night.....

Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr Carl's Jr ........................

After, I sent her back and went to another friends place.

It's like this:
Yesterday afternoon, I received a phonecall from my friend, YL, saying that she needs to play guitar for cell group next Tuesday and the thing is, she doesn't know how to play guitar. Panic button! So I went down last night to her place to teach her how to play the guitar.

So she got less than one week for her to be trained to be able to play proficiently and to lead worship as well, so she's got a lot of work to do. We went through the songs she wants to use for next week, focusing on the ones that she could learn to play in a short (i.e 6 days) time. After that I got her to do some chords related to the songs, basic drills on how guitar playing and followed by practicing the songs.

I must say she is very talented. I think she can do it. Haha. The fastest I have taught a guy to play was about 2+ weeks. And he could play decently well for cell worship. So for YL, with a little hard work + her talent and commitment, I think she can do it. Yeah!

Nowadays I put on quite a bit of weight. So much I have problem fitting into some of my jeans... =(

So I keep telling myself to eat less.... But in the end I still eat quite a lot... well not really alot a lot lah... but still more than I should to lose weight... Keep telling myself to eat less, then turn around and start eating all the junk again....

I feel like FF trying to quit smoking.... Wahaha

Monday the 17th

2006-04-17T20:17:00.000+08:00

What a day.

Actually, only the morning was bad. But bad enough for me to take note of this date for a long time to come.

Monday the 17th: Almost as bad as Friday the 13th.

Since I had been posted to Sembawang Airbase, once in a while, me and the guys from my branch will go out to the nearby coffeeshop for roti prata breakfast. Today is one of these days.

So ,me and 5 other guys happily squeezed into my little Cerato and drove out of the camp to the coffeeshop nearby. 500m down the road, just before I turn into the estate with the coffeeshop, I was talking to the guys and did not notice that the traffic lights have gone red....

So I went right through it. When I realised what I had done, I was like "oops!" but didn't think much about it... until I turn around and saw the cameras beside the traffic lights. Darn! That's 12 points and 200 dollars! Sucks.

So I should be expecting to get the letter from the Traffic Police in 2 weeks time... unless the camera issit working... Din see any flash though....

Then when we went to the coffee shop, we realised that the prata shop was not open this morning. Argh! What a wasted trip and in addition, I had to forfeit 12 points and 200 dollars for nothing...

But we still decide to eat in the coffeeshop, so we went ahead and ordered our wanton mee and porridge and iced milos... Halfway through our breakfast, some Bangladash workers came beside us and started doing some roadworks... like 2metres away from our table! And the smoke and dust start to cloud all around us... It was so bad that we had to move our table away.

That's strike 3. And we're out.

Monday the 17th: Almost as bad as Friday the 13th.

Enough of that.

On a happier note, I had a wonderful Easter Sunday yesterday. Church was great! And so many people gave their lives to Christ, its a wonderful sight to behold. After that, we went to my cell mate, Joshua's place to have a Easter celebration party. We had a wonderful time there, and I made a new friend called Ken, which was great because he is also a guitar freak just like me.. Haha...

2 2s and 3 3s

2006-04-16T08:33:00.000+08:00

So far, weekend is so busy...

I have celebrated 2 birthdays in the span of 2 days and watched 3 movies in the span of 3. 1st 2 movies I have watched is Take the Lead and Heaven's Gates, Hell's flames.

The 3rd movie I watched this weekend, I watched last night. I think it's been a long time since I watched a movie with Miss E (not counting the HGHF). She only like high explosion+ high action + high body count type of movies. And not forgetting the high Hunk (not HULK) factor.

So yesterday we went to watch Firewall by Harrison Ford, whom I liked too. I think over all the movie was ok. A bit predictable and not a lot of exciting bits, but overall still ok. I'll give it maybe 3 or 3.5 stars.

I have one question though: Why do the bad guys always die in all these Hollywood movies? Why can't they go to jail or something? Or why can't they be suffering the endless torture of watch Phua Chu Kang for eternity?

Oh ya, Hollywood dun have PCK.

Speaking of Hollywood, why do all the big movie capitals have to copy Hollywood's brand name? 1st we have Bollywood from India, and now we have Sollywood from S.Korea. What's next? Do they have a Jollywood from Japan yet? Or do they call it Nollywood from the Nippon? Collywood from China? How about Singapore? We can't use Sollywood cos the Koreans beat us to it. I know! We can call it Sillywood.

And when is Hongkeewood going to start giving us quality movies again?

No offence to the Singapore flim-makers. And I confess that I enjoyed most of Jack Neo's movies.

Celebrated 2 birthdays for the past 2 days. Friday's was for one of my SM2's birthday. I sms-ed all the people in the group except the birthday boy. Suppose to be surprise mah! But then the real surprise came... The birthday boy is not around!! Wahaha. Quite funny. He went to the zoo to celebrate birthday with his friends. So we called him to come back so that we can celebrate with him.. Wahaha.

Then the next birthday, which is yesterday, we celebrated my cell mate, Daniel's birthday. Another surprise party, planned by his girlfriend. Wahaha. But then mission fail again. This time he came before we were ready to spring the surprise. Wahaha. So we had to ask him to go out and come back again... ...

Daniel's girlfriend, Liz, made alot alot alot of food, like really a lot of food. Think I ate like 2,000,000 calories yesterday.

Today is Easter sunday!

One movie and one movie

2006-04-14T16:30:00.000+08:00

I watched Take the Lead last night. It about this guy who thinks he can make the world a better place by teaching ballroom dancing to African American kids.

The critics gave it 2 stars. I gave it 4.

Personally, I enjoyed the movie because 1) I like all those heart-warming-feel-good-I-believe-I-can-change-the-world type of movies, like Coach Carter and... I can't think of anything else right now. 2) I absolutely adore ballroom dancing! I think I have mentioned it somewhere in my blog before, that I took ballroom with this girl I had a crush on when I was in Uni.

Jade, who watched the movie with me last night, enjoyed the movie too. So it should be worth more than 2 stars... really. And it is really cool to see the kids mix Hip Hop and ballroom together..

Anybody wants to go ballroom dancing with me? I'll buy you a flat and diamond ring.

Woke up early this morning cos was meeting my friend, Miss E for movie. Actually, its a Christian production called Heaven's Gates, Hell's flames. I did not invite Miss E; in fact, she invited me. Actually, she was invited by a friend who is also from my church. Then she asked me to go along with her.

Heaven's Gates, Hell's Flame was a significant production for me. It was originally produced as a play and then later converted into a movie. 10 years ago, I watched the play version for the 1st time and gave my life to Jesus Christ at Trinity Christian Centre. Today I watched the movie version and a lot of memories came back. And in some ways, I felt the 1st touch I felt from God 10 years ago.

It is like being born-again again.

Thank you God, for touching my life anew, and bringing me back to the 1st love I felt 10 years ago.

Evil Christians

2006-04-12T23:24:00.000+08:00

Sat down at 10.00pm in front of my computer, with full intention to start writing my blog immediately. Now its almost 11.30. Wahaha.

Had spent the last 1.5 hours chatting on msn....

My topic of the day is Evil Christians.

Christians are actually not "good" people. Precisely, Christians are Christians because they know that they are not good. In other (religious) words, they know that they are "sinners". Then the next thing they believe is that Jesus, the Son of God, died for their sins and at the same time, forgives them. Thus releasing them from the curse of their sin.

There is a lot more to elaborate than that, but right now, that will be sufficient.

My point is that Christians have flaws too. They have faults and they are not immuned to sin. Therefore, do not expect Christians to be super role model citizens or all holy-moly goody goody two shoes...

Christians are humans too. We are subjected to greed, lust, laziness and all the 7 sins depicted in the Hollywood movie, Seven. We try our best not to commit them, but a lot of times, we fail. Of course that doesn't make us murderers or rapist. Maybe we tell a white lie, or we did not return a mis-calculated change from the cashier. Or maybe we lost our temper at somebody today. All those things.

To err is human, to forgive is divine. And to know that one has erred and seek divine forgiveness is Christian.

But God will not leave us in our flawed state forever. Slowly, He will do a work in us and cause us to change for the better. Personally, I believe this is true, for this is the reality of my experience.

But pride. Pride is one thing that should not be evident in a Christian. For to seek forgiveness, one must first forgo his pride. And God has said in the Bible a lot of times, pride is the ultimate of all evils. Pride is what makes the devil the Devil.

Therefore a Christian is not, when he is full of pride. And especially not when he thinks himself better than others because he is saved. That is why I am slightly disturbed when I came across the blog of this friend of mine. He seems have misplaced the emphasis of Jesus's teachings. Here are some of the things he wrote:

"I'm much more righteous, pure and stronger than you, so get off me before you pollute the air around me."

"Yes indeed I managed to be more "perfect" than normal guys..."

"I don't let the world judge what I do, becasue 99.999% of the world's inhabitants are blind and pursue worldly stuffs.."

"As I've proclaimed myself to be so much more righteous than anyone else around me, I stand in a very different light as they do..."

Not sure if he reads my blog. Doesn't really matter. I pray that God will teach him to have compassion and love, to be humble and forgiving, and heal him of the wounds of his heart.

What do you think? Comments?

Run Run...

2006-04-11T23:19:00.000+08:00

Cell came to my house for cell today...

hmm... that doesn't sound right...

but never mind....

We watched the Passion of Christ on projector in my room... wahahaha... it was fun.. Thank God, cos at first we couldn't get the sound out on my speaker. So we had to rely on the tiny speaker from the projector for sound, which is really really soft... but it turns out we can hear the movie perfectly well once everyone settles down and keep quiet.. haha.

Went for a run with some of the NS guys from my Squadron today. Turns out that airbase people are not as nua as I thought.. *ahem... Was trying to lead them at 1st, but in the end I ran slower than some of them... So paiseh...

Tomorrow is another day! Must continue training!! Jia You!!!!

finally... wahaha...

2006-04-10T21:51:00.000+08:00

Finally got some real work to do in the office. And suddenly all of them come at once... A bit overwhelming at 1st, but as the dust settles, things look more.. well.. ok...

Movies this week that I want to watch:
Take the Lead
Eight Below
Ice Age and V for Vendetta

but the last 2 has become low priority.. heehee.. I usually dun watch movies that are past their prime... I like to catch my movies on the opening weekend, although I had to pay a couple of bucks more, I dun mind because I get to enjoy the atmosphere of the full house cinema.

Haha.. Still cannot get over The Producers... So dun be alarm if you catch me laughing to myself out of nowhere...

My cell is coming my place to watch The Passion Of Christ tomorrow... need to go pack my room now...

My Saturday (part 2)

2006-04-09T10:11:00.000+08:00

Part 2..

After which, some of them went home while some of them (Ze Jun, Xiao Min and Huang Yi) and me decided to go to Marina Square to jalan jalan (walk walk) a bit. We went past the City Link where we saw Mark Li and Vivian Lai doing the live recording of some TV show. 王牌对王牌, if you know what show it is. The kids immediately took out their camera phones and start taking pictures of the celebrities they saw.

Vivian Lai really quite pretty. I think the last time I saw her show was in Holland V. But too bad she's married liao. Haha

Vivian Lai, taken from one of my kid's handphone.

Haha. After that, Xiao Min commented "I saw that guy (Mark Li) on TV before, hosting the comedy night show. Just now I wanted to go over and tell him he is so not funny!" Wahaha.

We proceeded to Marina where the girls start their window shopping, while I followed them around. I love to go shopping with girls... and entice them to buy stuff when they have no money to... Haha!

I heard this TWICE, from 2 different people yesterday:
The difference between a man and a woman - When a man wants to buy a pair of pants, he went straight to the shop and buy the pants. When a woman wants to buy a pair of pants, she would walk all over the shopping mall, spend $300 dollars, bought everything but pants!

Wahaha. I heard it twice in the same day by 2 different people. So it must be very true. Wahaha!

Watched The Producers yesterday in the evening, with Kenneth, Lynette and Joshua. The movie is a musical-movie + comedy. And it is SO FUNNY! Wahaha. I cannot stop laughing the entire time in the cinema. Oh ya, Skybellz, the show was really really very good. So good that I dun mind watching it again. I think the producers of The Producers were brilliant! And I think Uma Thurman was so cute in the movie! Definitely a 5 stars in my book.

My Saturday (part 1)

2006-04-09T09:02:00.000+08:00

As usual, My weekends is much more occupied than my week days. This post will be devided into 2 parts.. because it is so long....

Yesterday started at 0830 in the morning with me at the Singapore Safety Driving Centre for my 3rd motorbike lesson. Haha! I am so slow!!! Lesson 3 was on E-brake, plank and slalom... Never mind if you did not know what that means.... Haha.. After the lesson, the instructor told me I had to come back and repeat the class.. Kinda expected it... cos I never touch motorbike for so long liao.. forgot how to balance on the plank liao... and I keep falling off...

After the lesson ended on 1030, I went over to Marina Square and then Boat Quay. Sing Ai, church mate and co-befriender to our SM2 group, just got promoted and she is giving a lunch treat to everybody. And we ate at some Chinese Xi An/Shaanxi resturant whose famous dish is some unleaven bread in mutton soup.

That's Sing Ai in the centre. Possibly future Perm Sect in the making.. Haha.

As usual, I had a wonderful time with my SM2 kids. After which myself and the kids went to Swenson's to Charlie Echo (continue eating) .. Haha. so bad.... So fat already still eat so much.. eat ice cream some more... But more importantly is that me and the kids really have a good time lah. Except Ze Jun who was so full from the lunch that she cannot down a single spoon of ice cream.

I'm not sure why, but the kids always like to take picture of their ice cream before they eat them... Haha.

End of part 1. Part 2 later....

Thank God its Friday again

2006-04-07T23:39:00.000+08:00

Another week has past. Had some interesting events this week..

Wanted to watch Ice Age 2 on Monday and V for Vendetta on Thursday but neither of them materialized. The only movie that I will be watching, I hope, will be The Producers tomorrow evening.

On Tuesday, I realized that I cannot fit into my favourite pair of jeans, which set all alarm bells ringing. I have gained weight again. This leads to my running 5km almost everyday for the rest of the week. Tummy really grown bigger... Jialat.

On Wednesday, I visited IMH aka Woodbridge for the first time. Not I got problem lah.... brought a friend there.. that's all I will say..

Nothing much on Thursday, except I joined this holiday club thingy... can get good prices for hotel around the world... like 400+ for a 5 star hotel... dun have the details with me now though... But then again, I'm not sure if I got so much time and money for holidays now... See how lah... maybe can let my friends use or what..

Met up with Kenneth, my cell leader, today. We went to Marina Square for dinner and some chit chat. And despite my weighty issues, we decide to have Carl's Jr for dinner. This is the 1st time I have ever eaten at Carl's Jr, and I must say, I is really really as good as everyone says it would be. And the portion is so so big that I can hardly finish the burger. I ate the Double Western Bacon Cheese Burger, which, I say again, is really really very good. Now is close to midnight and I am still burping Carl's Jr.

If I was previously described as a Carl's Jr virgin, does that mean that I am now deflowered?

BTW, had a really good time catching up with Kenneth as well.

2006-04-03T20:15:00.000+08:00

Hahaha...

Have staring at this blank space for a while...

Dunno what to write..

Weekly weekend...

2006-04-02T22:53:00.000+08:00

Nowadays my weekends are more busy than my weekdays... Wahaha...

Went roller blading on Saturday. Very long never roller blade liao... Was surprise I can do it... Had a good time... especially with my sm2 kids....

After that we have BBQ and played some games...

But too bad only 5 of them from my group turn up....

Today is the usual church, guitar lesson whole day....

Am rather tired... Want to sleep....

Good Bye, COL Bernard

2006-03-31T19:34:00.000+08:00

A couple of entries ago, I wrote about an ex-Brigade Commander who passed away during the biathlon last Sunday. Today I attended COL Bernard's funeral at Mandai Crematorium.

This is the 3rd military funeral I have attended in my short career. 2 of them was in early 2003, where 2SG Hu En Huai was drowned during the Combat Survival Training and 1SG Kumar collapsed after a 5km run for his Ranger course selection. Then the 3rd is COL Bernard from the biathlon.

Looks like Guardsman cannot do running or water... or both together...

Okay, just joking... Sorry. Maybe this post is a bit heavy for jokes.

Military weddings and funerals I have attended both. Both are privileges reserved for the uniformed only. Both events are one of the most important in our lives, but we view these 2 ceremonies very differently. We tend to take the military weddings less seriously, and view military funerals more, well, gravely. Anybody can opt for a military wedding as long as you are in service, but only the selected few who died in duty can have a military funeral.

But that's not my point here.

I do not have the exact words with me now, but I remember distinctly that C.S. Lewis once said something like this: Our reaction towards death is most evident for theology. In other words, our very view of death suggests that there is something more to this life then to eat, drink and be merry... and then wait to die.

There will always be arguments for and against Theism. Until the day Jesus comes back to us, the debate will never end. But the death of a friend wakes up the eternity in our hearts and force us to look further than what our eyes can see.

This is something science cannot explain away, for who can measure the longing of the hearts?

By the way, it was Albert Einstein who said, "Science without religion is lame." But... again that's not my point here. Who is Albert Einstein anyway?

If nothing else, death reminds us that something is not right. How can something so natural feels... so unnatural? May I, then, suggest to you that death is NOT natural. It is a direct product of something gone terribly wrong. If you have lost a loved one, you will understand what I am talking about. You cannot help but think: THIS IS NOT RIGHT!

Well, the fact is, every ONE in ONE person die. That's the statistic of death. Some of us face death in fear, lost and grieve, while some of us can face death in hope. Hope that the person is in a better place and one day we will meet him again.

This is the hope of a believer, a Christian. I'm sorry if you find this post preachy, but this is the voice of my heart now. COL Bernard is a believer and one day I will see him again (and not have to call him Sir!) He has touched many lives, including mine.

Once again, I would like to say: Thank you Sir!

And till we meet again.

Of Female Friends

2006-03-30T21:51:00.000+08:00

The problem about having many good female friends, is that once they got attached or married, they have much less time for you.

Haha...

Am quite bored and restless today, so I sms-ed a few of my friends and ask to go out, but as I scroll down the list, I realised that I have not gone out with many of my good friends since they got attached/ married.

Platonic friendships. I do believe in them and I had made quite a few good female friends over the past many years of my life. Especially last time when I had problems communicating with guys and most of the friends I had were girls.

But it gets more difficult after they got attached. Since now they have to spend more time with their boyfriends. And not many reason justify her spending her evening with another guy instead of her boyfriend. And also if there are any good movies, they would rather watch it with their boyfriends than with me...

So in the end, I sms-ed a few of my single friends but nobody was free tonight. So in the end, I decide to go home and spend the evening with my wife aka guitar instead.

Which was not so bad after all... except that I still haven't watch V for Vendetta yet...

A Short Tribute to COL Bernard Tan

2006-03-27T23:27:00.000+08:00

COL Bernard Tan passed away yesterday. It was reported in the papers today. Front page. I was informed of the news yesterday afternoon as I made my way back from Muar.

Indeed, I was with a heavy heart.

COL Bernard was an ex Brigade Commander in 7 SIB when I was there. He was well remembered by the people there as a hard worker but also cared extremely for his people. An iron fist in a velvet glove, he was often described.

COL Bernard was a master with words. Quotes were his favourite forms of expressions. "Let a thousand flowers bloom", "the beauty of the AND" and many others were phrases he came up and used so effortlessly.

Many of you have heard "Give the man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and you feed him for life." But COL Bernard took it, added to it, and made it his own:

"Now, teach him to love the sea, and he will teach his children to love the same. They will build ships and vessels, and they will conquer the ocean."

Not exactly the exact words, but more or less.

Quotes like these often left us lost in its meanings but nevertheless, inspired us tremendously. Such is the legacy of him.

During his COC last year, I had the privilege of doing the tribute video for him, chronicling his achievements in the Brigade and how he touched the lives of the people who worked for him. What I see is this: Everyone who worked with him never fail to be touched by him.

Heavy hearted as I am, I know that I can take consolation that he is now in a better place. A devout and fervent Christian when he was alive, I believe that now his spirit is with at rest with the LORD.

God bless you, COL Bernard Sir. Although I did not have the honour to work closely under you, it was still an honour and privilege to be in the Brigade under your command for a year. May God bless your soul and may He continue to watch over your family.

Back from Muar

2006-03-26T21:19:00.000+08:00

Me is back!

On friday, I went back to work despite my unhealed illness. It was a bad choice. After spending half a day under the hot sun, I felt worst than ever before.

By the time I left office, I could feel my temperature on the rise again.

Met my cell group at 1900hrs before we proceed to the 2nd link at Tuas..

Had a good time at Muar. Will blog more tomorrow, maybe.

Now I need my rest....

Sit Rep...

2006-03-23T18:52:00.000+08:00

Finally, after 4 days, I am sober enough to write on my blog...

Been sick since monday, after a spiritually climatic weekend. Monday was still not so bad, it got worse on Tuesday and I hit rock bottom on Wednesday. Fever reached a high of 39.1 degrees. I think the last time I had such high fever was when I was in Primary school...

It was terrible. All I did was lie in bed whole day, getting up only for meals and medicine, and also going to the toilet. I was so weak and in a daze I could not do anything else..

Thank God I felt so much better today, though still a bit weak. I am able to move about and even type this entry. Yesterday, I couldn't even sit up for 2 minutes.

Tomorrow, me and my cell group will be going to Muar for a retreat. I will go regardless of my health, but most certainly I would like to go there in good health.

Can't wait for tomorrow... can't wait for the retreat.

Sick Man.

2006-03-20T20:14:00.000+08:00

I have fallen...
.
.
.
sick that is...

Think I have over exerted myself over the last weekend, with the G12 conference, church and guitar lessons, leaving me little time to rest. All these, plus a lot of shouting and singing and screaming at the conference, left me with a bad sore throat and a slight case of flu.

As a result, I practically stoned in office the whole day... Not that there is much work to be done at the kantor anyway...

Kantor means office in Indonesia... Heehee

My mother saw me popping 02 x Panadol Cold Relief and she got all worried and stuff, and her over-protective maternal instinct sprang into action. You know, she like: You must drink lotsa water... you must more rest... you dunno how to take care of yourself... blah blah blah....

MOMMY!!!! I going to be 28 years old already! I'm suppose to be oozing with the charms of a mature man. How can I ooze charms of a mature man if you keep treating me like a 8 year old kid?

Sigh...

Mommies... you love them, you hate them... but you can't live without them... Haha...

Just finish watching So You Think You Could Dance? Not too bad, I think. I like dancing. Maybe that's why I can appreciate this show better than I do American Idol.. Not that I am good at judging who are good dancers and who are not lah.. I just like to see people dance more than I like to see people sing...

I love to dance! I think dancers are so cool... and sexy... Oh So Sexy... I always wanted to find a girlfriend who can dance, and play the piano, and play the guitar.... who loves God and is not afraid to live her dream for Him.

Heehee.. I think is hard to find such a girl... Right now, I think I will just focus on the last point ba...

One who loves God and is not afraid to live her dream for Him.

ZZZ zzz ...

2006-03-19T21:47:00.000+08:00

This has indeed been a long and tiring weekend. Having spend almost my whole day in church, everything has finally ended.

Am so tired... Think I'm just going to bath and sleep...

Note: I've got a guy student to learn guitar today!!!! YEAH!!!

The best G 12 conference ever

2006-03-19T09:02:00.000+08:00

I think we just had the best G12 conference ever.

Just a quick background. 5 years ago, my church adopted the "G12 Vision", where G12 stands for "Government of 12". In short, each person is to find 12 person whom he will lead and disciple, and together they will reach the world for Christ. In very short lah...

And every year we have a G12 conference, where we re-align our selves to the vision and refresh our spirits for the race.

The conference started on Thursday evening (where Jayaxe saw me in Yishun mrt, waiting to pick up my friends to go to church together... and they were all late!!! Haha) until Saturday night. It was rather tiring I must say, where I had to wake up by 7am in the morning and I dun reach home until after 12 midnight after the conference. But I must say, the conference has been fruitful and up-lifting, to say the least.

Many things to take home from this conference. There is a new refreshment from the Revelation of the Cross, where He died for our sins and gave us victory. A renewal in the Heart to serve God and the authority that comes from servant-hood. There is the recollection of the 12 values of the vision, where actually we only talked about 7 of them Haha. We re-looked into the concept of 3 Generational Ministry and the issue of loyalty, and affirmed that we will give our best as long as we believe that this is what God has called the church to do.

But most importantly, there is a revival in my heart for the fulfillment of the vision within my own life, to seek my 12 disciple and go do mission work in China. Yeah. Have already signed up for the Thousand Linking Hands project. (I talked to Ps Jeffery immediately after Ps Eugene's message) Pray that I can get through the selection, cos place are limited actually.

I believed that all who went has been blessed by the conference. Personally, I have the privilige to go for all 3 days, because my boss has granted me leave for this event. I cannot help but think that those who did not manage to come for all the sessions has missed out much of what God has done in the church in the past 3 days. Much more so for those who did not manage to come at all. (I know some of you who read my blog did not go for the conference. Please understand that this is not to make you feel guilty or what, but just that I feel a bit sorry for those who missed it.)

As always, the conference ended in exuberant worship at the last message of the last day. But I wonder how many walked out of the conference really touched and changed? Yes, I believe there are many who has re-affirmed their commitment to the vision, but I fear that there will be people who, once returned to the busyness of their routine, forgot about the Lord's destiny for them.

Today is Sunday.

Tomorrow I go back to the office.

Will I forget my convictions then?

I dunno. I pray not...

Musings on a lazy Thursday afternoon...

2006-03-16T16:21:00.000+08:00

The time now is 1625hrs, 160306. I am alone in my office's internet computer, while the rest of my Branch mates are playing pool in the Crew Lounge, aka Mess.

Life is indeed very slow here. I have yet to get into the flow of my job yet, partly because I'm still learning the ropes and also partly because there are some administration hiccups and I can't get myself settled into the professional aspect of my job.

That's why I can be blogging here at 4pm in the afternoon and nobody cares about it. Haha. My new camp, or Squadron as they call it, is a very small and cosy place. Boss is still boss of course, but they are not so much rank consicious as compared to where I come from previously.

I noticed that most of the time, I blogged about what went on in my life, the daily routines and the "not so daily" sub-routines, not unlike a diary. What I hope to blog more in the future, though, are my thoughts on things that are happening, instead of just reporting the things happening around me.

Today, I received a sms from a friend, waking me up from my afterlunch nap. The message goes like this: Hi, can I invite you to my Church wedding at XX (date)? blah blah... Hope you can come. :) XXX(name)

Looks to me like a mass sms.

Anyway, the friend was an ex friend/ crush of mine, whom I had forfeited the friendship because I had feelings for her. We were from the same church and got quite friendly for a while but things did not work out. To keep the long story short, I had not spoken to her for a long while after that, and it is only in the recent that we start to exchange occassional greetings when we ran into each other in church.

So, I am deciding that I will not be attending her wedding. Seriously, I think her wedding got nothing to do with me. And I dun even like the guy!

Or maybe I'm just a sore loser. Haha.

Oh ya, this is her first (and probably last) appearance on my blog. Had never mentioned her before in any of my entries....

Ok, I'm sure now you guys are thinking like "how many girls does this guy like man!?" Haha. I have liked a few, at different times of my life, but not more than 1 at the same time lah... Haha. I'm not so bad...

Well, if you have been following my blog for a while, you would have known a certain "her" (Nope, this "her" is not the girl that sms me earlier) which I blogged extensively about until the later half of 2005. And I have not talked about her for a while... (ran a quick check, the last entry on her was 21 June 2005, I think)

Anyway, think it's about time I put a closure on this. In fact, I think the closure is is slightly overdue. (which reminds me, FF, have you paid the overdue fines which you owe the library? Fines for the books you borrowed using MY library card? Haha.)

She ("her", not FF) had got a steady boyfriend for more than half a year now... and that's all I know about her now actually... I had not spoken to her or had anybody talked to me about her for a very loong time. I still feel very sad whenever I see her in church, but much less so recently. I think God has healed me a lot of the hurts and the heart-brokenness (spelling?) that I went through. I think about 2 weeks ago, I came face to face with her, and I said "hi". (I got it down in blog somewhere)

Now, and only now, I can say that I thank God for putting me through this episode in my life, for it really has caused me to grow a lot. Sometimes I still sad that she is with somebody else, but now I know that during that time, I was not ready for a relationship and I would experience more hurts and heart breaks if I had gotten together with her then. And worse, I would cause her a lot of hurts and pains as well.

Well, that's that. It certainly pains me that things had to turn out this way, but I know that all things work for the good of those who loved Him. And I think now, I am ready to move on with my life and hopefully find somebody better. Heehee

Hmm... Probably I will not attend her wedding if she invites me also... Wahaha.

Cell surprise

2006-03-15T16:15:00.000+08:00

Had my first CO Parade in my new unit yesterday. And I was the Parade Commander! Ha! This is the first time I took the role of a Parade Commander in a parade. Previously, I had just been marching inside the ranks (when I was still in BMT and OCS) and once asa Contingent Commander for Guards Contingent during NDP 2004.

Super nervous and excited, to say the least. But overall, things went well. Had a good 1st experience, with no screw-ups on the Parade Square and everything went smoothly. Heehee.

Then in the evening, I had a great time at cell group as well. Got 2 really great surprises turn up in the middle of the cell.

In the middle of cell, when our cell leader was "scolding" us for not spending enough time on praying, the girls from the other cell came over and surprised us with food! And I mean FOOD!! Wahaha. There was cake and brownies and nachos and fruits of every kind. And my favourite Almond Jelly too! Wahaha.

BTW, for those who didn't know, in our church, the guys and the girls go to seperate cell groups.

Then the girls took turns to encourage each and every guy by saying all the nice things they think about us. Followed by the presentation of card to the guy. Gals, you have really out done yourselves this time. I must say that I am really touched and impressed. Never expect anybody to pull such a stunt. (Though the execution is a bit messy, but its ok. Can refine the process next time. Haha!)

Oh ya, here's my card:

And the 2nd surprise: Jonathan came back from China!! Wahaha. Jonathan is a fellow Christian brother who went to China a couple of months back to start his own food business there. Have been praying regularly for him, but never expect him to come back so soon. Turns out that there some things cropped up at his home and he had to come back for 2 weeks. Nevertheless, the cell was so happy to see him!!!

Welcome back Jon.

Monday monday...

2006-03-13T22:32:00.000+08:00

Today is another happy but tired day.

Took half day off from work, because nobody is working again, and brought my new guitar student to buy guitar. Turns out this new student is a very experienced and talented pipa player back in China, and she picks up the new instrument very quickly. And she has perfect pitch! that means if you are playing a note, she can tell the note you are playing is Do, Re or Mi, or whatever. She is really good.

After we bought the guitar, this student, another girl and myself went to the beach at Labordor Park and play guitar until sun-set.

Then I went over to Plaza Sing to watch Nannay McPhee with 2 other girls from my cell. The show is rather typical and predictable, but nevertheless, fun to watch.

That was my day. How's yours?

I realised that nowadays my eyes get tired very easily. Not sure if it is because I stared the the computer screen too much or what. Need to let my eyes rest now.

Of leaders and guitars

2006-03-12T21:43:00.000+08:00

Happy day this is. Not sure why I'm so happy though. Maybe I had a good session at SOL; maybe it's because I had a good time in church, maybe it's because I had 2 new students in my guitar class today.

Or maybe it's all of them added together. Wahaha!

The common theme in church and SOL is the same today. Well, not actually. But it speaks a message in unison, and that is in regards to being a leader. A leader is to shepherd, to manage and to lead a cell group. A person can be strong in one of these 3 (and usually is) but a leader needs to exercise all. A leader must possess dreams and visions, or else there is no direction to lead the people to, and the people will end up doing whatever they want.

The military has taught me much about leadership and being a leader. Such like a leader has to have a purpose and goal in mind; a leader must plan and consider all possibilities; and most of all, a leader must care for his people and be there for them regardless.

A Leader motivate and inspire. He gives faith to the faithless and brings love to the winter heart.

-------------------------------------------------------------

And regarding my guitar class, progress is a little slow, I think. But it can't be help, cos some are slower learner than others. Some more today 2 more new students joined in (girls again!), so I have to start teaching all over again. Realised the expectations of my students are actually quite high. Cos I have been going there without any plans of curricullum, and just teaching them some simple stuff. Probably I have to come up with more of a concrete lesson plan soon.

I WANT MALES STUDENTS LEH!! Hopefully next week got males students coming in...

Oh ya, I added another couple of blogs to my blogroll. Welcome Serene and Ah Lang. Serene is a link's link who came to read my blog. And Ah Lang was one of my ex trooper in the army. I'm really impressed with Ah Lang's blog. I din know a Maths teacher (to-be) can have such refined lingustics. Heehee. Added a few others as well, but they are not as important. Haha!

D.I.S.C. weekend.

2006-03-11T21:27:00.000+08:00

There are times when I, or anyone of us, was faced with intense adversity and overwhelmed by anxiety. True? There are times when frustration got the better of us and we lost sight of everything logical. No?

Had one of those times yesterday. Was totally frustrated... but suddenly God said, "Do you think I have forgotten you?" Then things started to change. 1st my heart started to change, then followed by the thing itself. With a little faith, everything is restored again. In the end, I came out victorious.

I will not elaborate what frustrations I experience, but I think I learnt somethinhg yesterday. Grace from God allows us to change our circumstances. Change starts from the heart, and a little faith goes a long way.

Oh ya, And dun expect God to give you too much of a good thing. He will give just enough.

------------------------------------------------------

Spend the whole day at NTU again today. Today we did DISC with the SM2 students. Last week was MI (Multiply Intelligence) and we continued with DISC this week. For the uninitiated, DISC stands for each of the characteristic traits a person posses. D - Domineering, I - Influential, S - Steadiness, C - Competency. I will not go into detail of each characteristic, if you want to know can attend the workshop next time. Haha.

I just confirmed that I am a S (super high) followed by a C. My D is practically non-existent. Haha. Had a good time with my group as usual, learning about one another's DISC and just getting to know one another better.

After the event, which ends about 4pm, I went down to Jurong Point to meet Miss E for dinner. Haha, suppose to give her her birthday present which I owe her since a million years ago. Wahaha. We arranged to meet at 6pm but she arrived almost at 6.45. Quite frustrated by the time she arrived... but then again, I'm used to it liao.

In the end I din buy her anything for her birthday, but treated her Fish & Co instead. (Heehee, saved money!)

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

2006-03-09T22:10:00.000+08:00

The best thing, or one of the best thing, I like about my current posting is that it has returned me the luxury of blogging again on week day nights. Something I missed when things got a little busy @ Bedok Camp.

For now, after a ~~hard~~ day at the office, I still have the energy to gather my thoughts and write them down on this blog. In addition, my new boss is a easy going guy who is easy to work with. The camp is much near to my house and the cook house food is way much better than that in Bedok Camp.

But thes best of all, I got my own parking lot. A lot that says TO in BIG, RED, BLOCK letters. YEAH! (my appointment is Training Officer)

On the down side, sometimes things get really very slow.... and I missed my guys back in Bedok Camp.

And there are no pretty girls in the Air Base (How can right!?!?)

Dear all, in regards to the previous post, thanks for your concern. I'm fine. Just reminiscing a forgotton memory...

One of those times

2006-03-06T22:58:00.000+08:00

Just feel a sudden urge to write this... a little love story of mine when I was in Uni.

Actually, I don't think anybody knows about this. Not that its a BIG secret or anything, but just that I never had the chance to.. I'm not going to put her real name here, but if you had known me back then, you'd probably know who I'm talking about.

Let's start from the top. In the 1st year of Uni, me and my buds were contemplating what ECAs we should join. There were 3 of us in the gang. Myself, Kpoh and Des. (so if both of you are reading this, you will know who I am talking about) And under the influence of Kpoh, we went on to join CACS, which is one of the bigger ECA in NUS at that time. We join the Community Service (Children) part of the organisation, which is good because there are a lot of pretty girls there. Of course that was not our primary motivation for joining that ECA.

Actually, to tell the truth, I wasn't really impressed by the girls there at that time. Not that there were no pretty and nice girls over there, but rather at that time, I did not know how to appreciate them.

I got to know this girl, lets call her FL, there. She was not bad looking, with rather unique features. (sometimes people asked if she was Korean) And she had very fair and beautiful skin. She is very very nice and was the most acommodating girl I know to date (it's last time that date lah)

We got along rather well, together with Kpoh and Des, and we become very close. In Uni year 2, she got interested in ballroom dancing, like Tango and Cha-Cha all that stuff and she was looking for people to join with her and be her dance partner. So, in the end I became her dance partner.

Because of that, we spent a lot of time together, 1st for CACS and after that for ballroom dancing. I guessed the feelings developed from there. Des and Kpoh had long suspected that I had a crush on her, but I never admitted it. Even until now, I have never made that official "I liked FL" statement before.

And there was a very good reason for that. FL had a boyfriend then. She got attached to this guy shortly before I got to know her, and they were together until towards the end of their Uni days.

But still, we continue to grow close, this time without Kpoh and Des. I think one of the most memorable time in my life is when I danced with her every week, learning Cha-Cha, Waltz, Tango and what nots. I like the feeling of holding her in my arms and both of us moving together with the music.

We were the best of friends for a long time, going out, talking and studying together. But only when her boyfriend was not around lah. For the record, that guy had a face that everybody wants to punch and nobody liked him. I never understand what FL saw in him that time.

We were so close that sometimes I would sleep over at her hostel if I was too tired and did not want to go home. Of course, we did not ~~do a Tammy~~ do anything. I just slept on the floor while she sleeps on the bed. Or sometimes she will sleep over at the boyfriend's room. Yup, we were very close, but I never got to the point of telling my feelings for her.

She broke off with her boyfriend during their last year in Uni (without any help from my part). But still I did not tell her. She had a lot of issues to sort out that time and I did not want to add stress to her.

Well, that was that. After Uni, we started to drift apart. She got her own issuses to settle and I got mine. And work got the better of us. She met other guys and me, other girls. We are still friends and meet up once in a while, together with Des and Kpoh. The last I saw her, she was together with a nice looking guy from her ex-company.

I did got to telling her my feelings once, that I "once" had feelings for her. But that was more like a casual remark. Sometimes I wondered how things would be like if it were... you know.. different.. and we could be together...

Well... sometimes...

Yawnzz

2006-03-06T20:18:00.000+08:00

Work is totally slow....

When I 1st came in last week and this Encik tells me to get used to the culture here, which is much slower than what I had when I was in Guards.

Haha.. Yup. Ve... ry... slow...

Its like waiting and waiting for 1730... and... wai... ting...

Oh ya, Had this safety forum this morning, which we have every quarter of a year. Saw a lot of dead people from scenes of accidents... With their faces in a bloody mess, arms flown off and everything.

Makes me think twice about getting a motorcycle twice ...

2 Movies and 1 ... something...

2006-03-05T20:45:00.000+08:00

Had a very full and filling (hence fulfiling.. keke) weekend again. A quick run through of the events...

Saturday morning started with a SM2 event, where they come and learn about the 8 Multiply Intelligence people have. Logical, Musical, Lingustics, Inter-personal... etc.. Had a great time learning about each other, as well as my own Intelligence inclination. Haha! Anyway, the test shows that I am more musically inclined (not surprised!!) followed by good intra-personal (2nd) and lingustic (3rd) skills.

After that, we did a little fun exercise where we wrote on a piece of card words of encouragement for one another.

Here's mine:

After that, I went to watch Munich at Plaza Sing with some of my cell mates and friends. I think Munich was quite well done, although some of the scenes are a bit graphics and not really necessary. It's a bit long (2 and half hours) but totally engaging throughout.

In my humble opinion,

Based on true story + Steven Spielberg = very good movie.

The movie lasted from 6pm to almost 9pm. Then I took a little break before I went in again for Underworld 2: Evolution. I enjoyed Underworld 1 very much, and that why I wanted to watch this also.

Not bad overall, although the storyline thins out towards the end and it was reduced to glorification of gore, gross and gruesome killings.

Its a miracle I did not fall asleep and managed to sit through the entire 2 movies.

Its also nice to note that I met 2 friends (Jiahui & Elisabeth from my Uni) who watch in the same theatre for Munich and another 2 friends (Cherlene and BF) in the same theatre for Underworld. Haha.

On Sunday, I had the usual SOL -> church -> guitar lesson -> go home and rest after dinner.

Quite tired already. Tomorrow is monday again. At least I like my new office and it has shorter working hours than before. Hee.