Jonny! Jonnyjonnyjonny.

last week at home!

2006-07-27T18:39:00.000+08:00

It's my last week at home! On Sunday afternoon i will have to check in to Kent Ridge Hall =) my first taste of university hostel life! Haha.

tomorrow i have to go for a dean's talk and talk on subject things in LT 27 at 9am. hmm.

I need more cheapo FBT shirts! for hall life. and shorts. should i go and buy tonight? queensway should be open rite.

Ok going to eat dinner. bye! =D

OBS!

2006-07-20T23:18:00.000+08:00

I just came back from OBS yesterday! It rocked.

I made a lot of friends! And found some old ones too. Cos all the TS (L), TS (O) and EMS scholars go together and mix around in the various OBS watches.

The first morning we spent playing team building games. Then in the afternoon we went kayaking! i went with Sheena. she's really fit, our kayak went like a speedboat =D In the night, we went to something i've never done before, the OBS tunnel. It's a dark tunnel maze thing that is pitch black. the whole watch goes in single file and the door is locked behind the last person. the line of people hold hands and crawl/slide/duckwalk through a network of tunnels that go up, down, expand, shrink, go into rooms and have multiple choices of tunnels that lead to locked doors and dead ends. In TOTAL DARKNESS. no difference whether closing eyes or not. =P we found our way out in the end by staying calm and with good leadership at the ends of the chain =) Go Sheena and Joey!

The second day we climbed the inverted tripod tower in front of OBS! it's about 4 stories high. There was an inner climb and an outer climb, our group could use both. Go Marshall! I went the inner tower with Jene and the outer tower with Davina. Then we set off for out 2 day/1 night outdoor camping trip after lunch! =) We started off by hiking to various checkpoints which would finally end at our campsite in the evening. During the hike, i suspected Jene might have an injury, because her right hand and wrist was numb, and her back was painful. So i helped her carry her haversack. Weiming and Shawn eventually helped Yong Jeng and Charmaine carry their bags too. We reached the campsite at about 6.30pm, where we cooked dinner and set up camp. We then slept til the nexy day 6am.

The third day, we went to build a raft to drift in the quarry! it was really fun cos the instructors told us to attack the other boats like pirates. Luckily no one got hurt. It was really fun and refreshing because it was fresh water. after lunch, we kayaked back to OBS! I kayaked with Jene this time. We went through Pulau Ubin's swamps where the instructors threw mud at us. we also had to carry the kayaks over some land, when we stepped off the kayak, the swampy mud under the water sucked our shoes in until we could hardly walk. After we reached the sea, we kayaked into the sunshine until we reached OBS. It was a great moment. After dinner we went to build a model catapult with items that we had to bid for, using points we had scored during the outdoors journey.

On the fourth day, we competed our catapult with the other teams to see who could launch an egg the furthest. And our team got 2nd! It was really fun. After lunch, we went to do the last thing, which was a trapeze jump. We were supposed to climb to about 3 storeys high, say our commitment statement, then jump to a trapeze hanging about 2 metres from the platform.

After that, we had a debrief and went home =) It was a wonderful experience.

dead blog?

2006-07-08T11:02:00.000+08:00

This blog is like almost dead? because i suddenly have so many things to do! =P

The science camp in NUS was great! I made lots of new friends. I'm also involved in Rag and Flag Day for Science faculty, as a prop builder. I'm designing and building a "clone machine" =) Basically it is going to take up a lot of my time.

Grace came back from Australia! And! she bought me a super nice purple Nike tennis headband! =D It's really useful, it soaks up sweat much faster than caps. Thanks lots Grace!

I've been focusing practice on my tennis serves for about a week now. Improving slowly but surely. And i've used up my last batch of tennis balls. I've gotten used to losing balls at the rate of 1 per game. When i play about 4 games a week, they disappear pretty fast =P

Watched Nadal play Baghdatis in the semi-finals of wimbledon yesterday night. Actually i just watched half of the first set. But when Nadal broke Baghdatis' serve twice out of 3 times to lead 4-1, i didn't bother watching the rest of the match. When Nadal is winning EARLY in the match, especially in wimbledon, it's almost a given that he will win. Looks like a Nadal vs. Federer final! Woohoo!

Shopping list!

1) Cheap FBT soccer jerseys!
2) Tennis racquet overgrips
3) 1 or 2 more nice tennis shorts
4) Streetwear belt

choir!

2006-06-24T21:47:00.000+08:00

i have 167 views for my dancing video! =D yay!

Anyway. Tomorrow is youth sunday! We have been practicing a lot for the choir performance, until our voices are tired and worn out. We'll be performing 2 new songs tomorrow, one is called Sing, and the other one is called Agnus Dei. I like Agnus Dei! Because it's suited to my baritone voice.

Agnus Dei

Alleluia, alleluia
for our Lord God Almighty reigns
Alleluia, alleluia
for our Lord God Almighty reigns
Alleluia

Holy, holy
Are you Lord God Almighty
Worthy is the lamb
Worthy is the lamb
You are holy, holy
Are you Lord God Almighty
Worthy is the Lamb
Worthy is the Lamb
Amen

I can't remember what i spent this week doing! A lot of it was tennis. And also choir practice.

Oh! i'm going for NUS Science Faculty camp the whole of next week! =) I just went for the pre-camp briefing today. The camp looks pretty fun! And i will get to know the people in my faculty, which i will be interacting with for 3 or 4 years. This is good, because hardly anyone i know already has gone into NUS science.

Today was the last practice! And Timothy came! He came back from australia yesterday night. We'll be having lunch as the 85s after youth sunday tomorrow =D

ok goodnight!

tuition week!

2006-06-19T22:03:00.000+08:00

Finally updating! haha. with normal updates.

The past week i made a lot of trips around singapore giving tuition to a lot of different people. even though i'm the one who's volunteering the tuition, it turned out to be pretty stressful! haha.

On tuesday, i went to mel ko's house to give her a maths tuition. also formed a study plan for her and cleaned her room (to be more conducive for studying). =D Then in the evening we went to play tennis! after that we went back to the house and her mum gave me cake =)

On wednesday, i went to ting's house to give tuition to her and jason. I cleared ting's desk for her and also formed her study plan. We took frequent breaks to play burnout on jason's xbox. Then after that i tutored jason in maths.

been watching world cup at evan's house! he bought the cable TV thing. So far i've stayed over for 1 night of football. bet it'll be more frequent once the matches become better.

i've also been going for youth choir practice. we're going to sing in the sanctuary this sunday on Youth Sunday! There are 2 new songs which we have to learn. It's quite fun and interesting.

i also caught something! cough and blocked nose and dry throat from saturday to monday. stopped me from playing tennis for like a few days. i'm recovered almost completely now. will practise serves tomorrow morning, and play a game with evan in the night =)

Ok bye!

so i think i can dance!

2006-06-19T00:21:00.000+08:00

The video of me dancing in church camp is up! Click on the link below to see it on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NAvQt4e2yU

watch carefully and you can see how celine ( the girl dancing behind me) is confused by my stupid butt - shaking and forgets her steps =D Haha!

nadal wins roland garros!

2006-06-12T15:34:00.000+08:00

RAFAEL NADAL BEATS ROGER FEDERER TO WIN ROLAND GARROS FRENCH OPEN!

I made a trip to evan's house on sunday night to watch the Roland Garros French Open tennis finals between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. After 3 hours and 30 minutes, Nadal won the 4th set on a tiebreak to win the championship with 3 - 1 on sets, at 12.30am monday morning.

This win wraps up Nadal's 60th successive win on clay courts, and also marks Federer's failed attempt to be the 6th person in history to win all 4 grand slams.

I went to practise serves from 11 to 1 today. Was hot but with cloud cover, so it wasn't unbearably hot. Going to teach mel ko tomorrow! so need to prepare A maths. Haven't touched those in ages.

See ya!

church camp!

2006-06-09T22:04:00.000+08:00

Just back from church camp! =)

We went to Awana Resort in Genting Highlands for our church camp this year. Jeremy Ong hitched a ride with us in the car, and we drove up together with mark's and kenny's family, and peide tagged along with mark.

We reached the resort at about 5pm monday, and i checked into my 25th storey room with kenny my roommate. We were next to Alex and Jeremy. the lobby is on level 8, and the bottom level is level 7. The rooms all have a breathtaking view of the surrounding mountains and clouds, which sometimes enveloped the hotel. The temperature is generally cool, around 23 degrees.

The sermons were by Mr. Tony Yeo, and i must say he is a great speaker.He's interesting and knows his work. This year's camp theme was "Living For What Really Matters".

Overall, i think that last year's location for our church camp, at MINES Resort in KL, was a better choice. The sun and the sandy beach and the nice lagoon-pool were perfect for running and playing sports, and there were many shopping centres nearby. Awana Resort is cold and a bit run down, and is wet most of the time because of the heavy rains that come dutifully every afternoon. Also, it is in the middle of a mountainside with nowhere to visit, except Genting Highlands theme park which is so far away that we need to take a coach and a cable car just to get there.

On tuesday and thursday, we played tennis in the afternoon. There are 5 tennis courts there, and 4 out of 5 are in a horrible state because of disuse. the floor was blackened with rot and moss was growing. They only maintain 1 out of 5, and this court is odd because it has slight depressions, so that rain collects in puddles. It rained both times we played, and when a ball bounced into a puddle, it would dampen the bounce heavily and cause an unnatural bounce. We played badminton too on thursday.

On wednesday we took a trip to Genting theme park! We went on 2 rides in total, the Space Shot and the Corkscrew. The Space Shot was a ride in which the people are strapped into seats around a 10-storey column. the seats then are lifted to the top of the column, where there is an amazing view of the surrounding countryside. then the seats are dropped all the way down, and a force slows the seats so that it doesnt crash into the floor. the free-fall feeling of that ride was the scariest part. Kenny covered his eyes at the top! hahahaha. =D the Corkscrew is a roller coaster with quite a number of - guess? - corkscrew turns. It turned out to be less scary because we had sat the Space Shot before we went on the Corkscrew.

Thursday night was the final night, where i made everyone laugh with an over-zealous line dance parody. Expect the video to be on Youtube soon. =P We also had the Indian Chief and Indian Princess dress-up contest during the barbecue dinner, where we sent peide as Indian Chief and Esther as Indian Princess. We got an extremely unfair last place for both competitions! We put it down to "kiddie points", which means that the younger the kids, the more points they will get in dress-up competitions due to cuteness. Blah. In the end, Jurong Family Group got last place in the overall point standings. So horrible. Haha!

On friday morning we went back to singapore. Kenny forgot his shirt and left it in the closet during check-out, where i found it after i went back to double-check the room. Alex tagged along in our car in addition to jeremy, because the rest of his family was going to Muar to visit their relatives and he didn't want to go. So we had a a squeezy ride back to singapore.

I missed almost all the Roland Garros French Open tennis matches when i was in malaysia! I just reached home in time to catch Rafael Nadal's semi-final match against Ivan Ljubicic. Watching it now =) Nadal's just won two easy sets and doing pretty well with the third. Go Nadal!

queensway!

2006-06-03T13:49:00.000+08:00

On friday afternoon i went to queensway shopping centre to change the strings of my tennis racquet =) I needed to change it because the racquet face was feeling too dead, and was affecting my game. It was quite fun asking the tennis shop people about all the strings. At first i wanted to change to a Babolat Pro Hurricane string cos it's blue in colour =D Haha!

But in the end i got a hybrid Pacific string called Gear Blend. (See above picture) It's supposed be a specialised string for giving extra spin to the ball, because the mains (vertical strings) of the racquet are 'gear'-shaped, or have grooves parallel to the strings, which will catch the fibre of the tennis ball and give it more spin. That's pretty useful to my game, cos i use a lot of spin serves, undercuts and dropshots.

The string change cost me $25. besides that, i bought a Babolat RVS dampener that costs $9.50! =O But it's good lah. Very heavy damp. Also my mum sponsored me a new cap! She said it's because my cap always stinks like mad after a few games, and now with 2 caps, i won't have any excuse not to wash it after using it =D I bought a white Babolat one at $10.

After that, rushed back home to play tennis with evan at 5pm. The new strings felt much better, and the dampener rocks, i really recommend it. The Gear Blend really improves spin! At least a bit. Most significant improvement was to my dropshots, which became easier, more accurate and had more backspin. Control was also better, but i think it's because of the new strings.

At 7.30, mark, kenny and kaiyuan came over for bible study! We ate dinner, then studied John chapter 3. We also discussed a lot of other stuff. Bible study ended at 10pm, and kaiyuan went home. mark and kenny stayed over at my house. We played xbox and watched Pure Pwnage episode 10 on the laptop. The episode 10 is a bit emo and weird =P We slept at about 3am.

We then woke up at about 9.30 am, and my mum bought us breakfast =) Then i had to scan some documents to email to my MOE administrator, so 3 of us went to evan's house to borrow his scanner, cos i don't have one. We watched Final Fantasy Advent Children! Then his mum came home and told him to study and ordered us to help him, so we had to. =D After that we went home.

2 days to church camp! =D so exciting. Byebye!

blog!

2006-05-31T22:55:00.000+08:00

Ok! haven't been updating my blog for goodness knows how long.

Well i spent my week at KRSS. I really feel that kids like me better when i TEACH, rather than just babysit. It's like when i teach, the kids really sit down and listen to my lesson, and they WANT to learn, because of the way i make the lesson interesting and . If i just babysit, i am well liked anyway, but the level is less deep, it's like they know i'm just there for the sake of being there. I would definitely rather teach than babysit. Cos that was what i was doing in KRSS for the whole week. I can say that i didn't enjoy it as much as teaching in Tanglin.

But the good thing about KRSS is that it has plenty more nice young relief teachers like me! Tanglin had like NONE. And they helped me a lot in that they were screening lots of movies for the sake of the kids, who had nothing to do since their exams just finished the week before. they let me bring my class to their classes to watch the movies with them. So nice! thanks Wan Ting, Sarah and Rachel!

Oh well. At least i got my $330 for that week =) Gonna blow it on clothes i think.

Today i went to Sentosa cos the kids from Tanglin 1E1 asked me to go for their class outing/birthday party. It was pretty fun, we walked up and down the beach, played beach soccer, and swam. There are roving photographers who will take ur photo for free, and u can have it developed if u like it. When it finally came for us to cut the birthday cake, it was too big cos some girls didn't want to eat, so there was some left over. Then one of the girls took a bit of cream and smeared it on other people, so this started everyone off smearing cake everywhere. I got a lot of it cos i was too tired to run =P then in the end when there was no more cream left, they caught me and poured the ice bucket over me. It was extremely cold, so that woke me up and i walked to the toilet to wash off, ignoring the laughter from strangers from my appearance. bleah. fun day =)

Playing tennis with Grace tomorrow! 7.30am again, cos she doesn't like the sun. =D nites!

KRSS next week!

2006-05-18T22:56:00.000+08:00

I'm relief teaching at KRSS whole of next week! =) And, i'm teaching CHINESE! Like, i can't even string a sentence in chinese. I was quite generous in that i mentioned to the KRSS lady that i can't teach chinese at all. Then she said it was ok, because the syllabus was complete already, i just need to babysit. Yay! That week will get me a total of $260, with days ending at 1.30pm. Free money =D

Ok, i feel like tabulating my total tennis expenditure. Haha. Most expensive at the top:

$240 - Babolat Aeropro Drive racquet
$134 - 2 bags of tennis trainer balls at $68 each
$125 - Adidas Barricade IV tennis shoes
$63 - 3 various tennis shirts
$49 - 3 various tennis shorts
$48 - Ballport tennis ball 'hopper'

about $50 - Tennis court bookings, overgrips, various other stuff

Total: about $700!

Hahaha. lucky i earn money. tennis is an expensive sport.

Nadal!

2006-05-15T22:30:00.000+08:00

RAFAEL NADAL BEATS ROGER FEDERER TO WIN D'ITALIA OPEN!

After 5 hours and 10 minutes of nail-biting tennis, Nadal beat Federer in 5 sets with the final score of 6-7, 7-6, 6-4, 2-6, 7-6.

Federer bungled a double championship point on Nadal's serve to bring the game to a tie-break. One unforced error on Federer's part was enough to hand Nadal the championship with a 5th set tie-break score of (7-5).

This win is monumental to Nadal, as this is his 53rd straight win on clay courts, equalling the current record which was set 20 years ago. Beating the world no. 1, barely 3 weeks after doing so previously at the finals of the Monte Carlo Open, also cements his reputation as "King of Clay".

I'm a supporter of Nadal, so i'm definitely very happy and relieved at the result. When it was Federer's championship points, i was definitely worried. But Nadal and the Aeropro Drive proved victor in the end. Hooray! =D

arcadian stag!

2006-05-10T13:38:00.000+08:00

Hi guys! Just thought i'll explain the significance of my blog address, arcadianstag.

The Arcadian Stag comes from Greek mythology, and is the focus of the 3rd Labour of Hercules. Hercules was told that if he would serve Eurystheus for twelve years he would become immortal; accordingly he bound himself to the Argive king, who imposed upon him twelve tasks of great difficulty and danger:

(1) To slay the Nemean lion.
(2) To kill the Lernean hydra.
(3) To catch and retain the Arcadian stag.
(4) To destroy the Erymanthian boar.
(5) To cleanse the stables of King Augeas.
(6) To destroy the cannibal birds of the Lake Stymphalis.
(7) To take captive the Cretan bull.
(8) To catch the horses of the Thracian Diomedes.
(9) To get possession of the girdle of Hippolyte, Queen of the Amazons.
(10) To take captive the oxen of the monster Geryon.
(11) To get possession of the apples of the Hesperides.
(12) To bring up from the infernal regions the three-headed dog Cerberos.

Eurystheus commanded Hercules to capture the Arcadian stag, a magnificent beast with antlers of gold and hoofs of brass. Its speed was far beyond that of the swiftest beast known. Another thing that hampered his quest was that the Arcadian stag was the favourite pet of Artemis, who would not be happy if the animal was hurt. Hercules pursued it in vain for a year before he succeeded in inflicting a slight wound. Thus handicapped, the stag was captured by Hercules. While carrying it back to Eurystheus, he met Artemis, who was enraged at him. But when he explained the situation to her, she forgave him and allowed him to continue his journey.

I don't relate to the Arcadian stag or anything, but i think it's a pretty cool story =) The hoofs of brass might be the same weight as my Adidas Barricade IVs though. *clomp clomp* Hahah. They're great shoes, really comfortable, just HEAVY!!!!

Starting tennis intermediate classes at CCK stadium tomorrow! Yay!

nadal!

2006-05-06T22:19:00.000+08:00

Nadal using my racquet! =)

kent ridge!

2006-05-03T21:52:00.000+08:00

AEROPRO DRIVE!!!!

=)

This morning early morning, kent ridge secondary school called me at 7.10 am to relief teach! as i was a bit disoriented (had spent the previous night completing Unreal Championship on the xbox) i actually agreed. rushed there by 7.45am =P

Well in comparison, the kids are slightly less naughty than those in tanglin. but still, i felt a strange sense of not-so-niceness. I think i prefer tanglin to kent ridge =P like the kids at tanglin are cuter? and something about the building design in kent ridge makes me uncomfortable. I don't know why. = (

But everyone is really friendly and stuff. and got a lot of young teachers like me! =) and i saw Shi En! or Miss Liang. hahaha. and! i just found out she's a Biology teaching scholar too! So so cool rite! =D

I just changed my tennis racquet grip to a super funny colour! hahah. it's so ugly now. I combined a purple and teal grip to make a candy cane double over-grip. I call it peppermint! =D everyone will laugh when they see it. i can hardly bear to look at it myself. bwahaha.

gonna play tennis with brandon tomorrow! So fun. 2pm to 4pm. Hope it doesnt rain. Again.

blog?

2006-05-02T22:48:00.000+08:00

havent blogged for a while =)

today i played tennis in the early morning with hans and grace chew! pretty fun. we booked the court for just 1 hour, but nobody came so we extended the time to 3 hours for free! hahah.

then in the afternoon i went to cut hair, then i went to ginza plaza to play LAN. then my former students from tanglin sec called me to help them study, as their mid-year exams start next week. they said Macs and KFC were too noisy, so i brought them to the church building and asked whether i could use a room. They let me, so we studied until 6.30pm. after that i went home.

going to practise serves tml! haha.

barricade!

2006-04-27T22:43:00.000+08:00

my new shoes! =) so nice right. and i have an Adidas jersey, and a Wilson bag, which is the same colour scheme! Yay! =D hahah.

unreal championship!

2006-04-24T21:11:00.000+08:00

ooh. i need a break from relief teaching already. it's just the good money that keeps me going =) with today's work done, including CPF, i've earned close to $1000 for 13.5 days' work! and i take home 100% of pay, which means i've already brought home about $875.

today was pretty monstrous. after classes, 5 sec1 girls cornered me and STARTED HITTING ME WITH THEIR BAGS! and they hit quite hard larh. I REALLY DIDN'T DO ANYTHING TO DESERVE IT AT ALL. and no one saved me! a teacher WALKED RIGHT PAST. after a while they stopped hitting and demanded my MSN contact. =\ I gave it to them so i could get away. So horrible! D=

It's so nice that i haven't been contracted to teach tomorrow. everyone needs a break sometimes. especially from rabid kids. =)

I got a really great pair of tennis shoes. It'sa model of Adidas Barricade IV. But like everyone has it. but it's so nice! and the model has really nice colours! which is. red black white. but i bet people have also cos it's the nicest model D= okay i think too much of the kids are rubbing off onto me.

haha bye!

bittersweet!

2006-04-09T21:52:00.000+08:00

Today was baptism Sunday! But i woke up late at 9.30am. so when i hurried to the church, the baptism had just ended! so sad la. anyway there was soccer after church. we went to the usual soccer court, but people were playing there already. so we walked all the way to the one so far away at west coast road there. but there were people there too! so we hung around dejectedly until they offered to play with us 3-goal-change-teams. So we had fun playing =)

After that went backed and bathed, then i went to evan's house to hang out. and to return his The Da Vinci Code book that i borrowed previously. We played WOW and warcraft and watched youtube.com and uncyclopedia.com and talkingcock.com until 8pm. and he has this super funny section of the Chris Rock Show! The one that i watched, he did a mock-documentary titled "How To Keep Your Ass From Getting Kicked By The Police". It's really really funny.

Watching Gasquet and some russian no. 1 dude playing in the Davis Cup now. I think it's pretty cool, cos it's country vs. country, like Gasquet is playing with a french team for France, and the russian dude, well, for Russia. like his teammates include Marat Safin and other really pro russians. Like the World Cup! =D

I got contracted to teach in Tanglin Sec for the whole of next week! =) They like me! haha. So i'll have earned like 500 bucks for 2 weeks of work. I have some ideas on what to blow the cash on.

EXTRAVAGANT THINGS THAT I WANT

1. an Xbox 360 with Top Spin 2! ($800)
2. Ipod Video ($500)
3. a desktop computer ($1000)
4. a new nice handphone (about $400?)

CHEAP(ER) STUFF I WANT

1. a new bag of 60 trainer tennis balls ($70)
2. tennis shirts and pants! ($40 for an average Adidas garb)

hahahah. ok bye!

2nd day!

2006-04-05T10:10:00.000+08:00

Well yesterday i went for my 2nd day at Tanglin Secondary. I saw little kenny! haha. And his CCA is tennis! he uses a gray and black Wilson Hammer that i can't recognise. They go to NUS every tuesday for lessons.

Well my first lesson was with some sec2s. i had to go through a worksheet on sexual reproduction with them. besides putting up with the usual juvenile jokes that you find really funny at sec2 but not so much at 20 yrs old, i had to dodge plenty of inane personal questions.

Then in another sec1 class, i had to break up a fight between 2 kids arguing over who had rights to sit at a particular desk in the back of the class. And i had to start a test at that time too. So i asked one of the kids to help me give out the test paper, and while holding 2 struggling kids apart, i just shouted "Everybody got the test paper? Ok test 20 mins, start now! No talking!" In the end i made them sit at opposite ends of the classroom. Hahah.

And. one idiot sec1 BOY shouted "IF I WAS A GIRL, I WILL MARRY YOU!" Then the whole class condemned him as gay. Pretty funny actually. Maybe i better learn to be more strict. =P

I got relief teaching on Friday too. Haha. I also got USP interview on Saturday. I'm going to spend today reading up on USP to prepare for the interview. Hahah.

I've got some sort of sore throat too. I wonder whether it's because of the shouting or whether i'm down with something. =P

Ok byebye!

h

2006-04-03T21:42:00.000+08:00

I went to tanglin sec to relief teach today! i found it overall a positive experience. I was a bit scared at first, cos little kenny who studies there said the sec4s are beng, and i heard a story of how a student set a female teacher's hair on fire. Well, i had lots of fun! But i probably need to work on being mean to rowdy classes. It's just not in my blood yet to scold kids for making noise. Maybe cos when i was in school, i was usually the one making the most noise.

I reported at 7am, then the teacher gave me a timetable for the classes. It's a walk-around system for both teachers and students. I taught 2 sec1 classes for the first few periods. They are really cute and funny! And of course everyone likes relief classes for obvious reasons =D So i gave them a test first, then let them do their own stuff. I probably was too nice, they climbed all over me.

My next classes were sec4s in the physics lab. The sec4 girls in every class are quite funny. They all give me the same cheeky name. =P Haha! I think i'll be a bit meaner to them tomorrow for fun. =D

The sec5s i taught last were the most slack. But still not bad, in fact, more than half of them do their own work and study. It's like they're self-motivated. That's quite cool in itself.

Ok i'm going to sleep. Goodnight!

she is loving instead..

2006-03-31T21:09:00.000+08:00

The final choice:

<-------- BABOLAT AEROPRO DRIVE!!

I went with evan on monday to queensway to buy. I bought a really cool wilson white and black Ncode bag (hahah) with it! and it cost me a total of $280!! Hahah. So ex la.

It's world no. 2 Rafael Nadal's racquet. It's really very good. I had my doubts cos at first it seemed to have a super puny sweetspot and about zero power. But when i got used to it and started to swing long and deep with the big forehands, it puts the 'control' into control racquets. The spin potential is pretty satisfactory too, with the 16 / 19 babolat hurricane strings, especially as i'm quite obsessed with slice serves right now.

Sorry Head and Wilson! I'm a Babolat fan now =D

Well, i got an interview on 8 april to join University Scholars Programme in NUS. Lucas and my teaching friends say it basically forces you to choose modules that you would normally choose for yourself. And that it's tough and busy. Oh well.

I finally got a job as a relief teacher! this coming monday and tuesday i'm gonna go to Tanglin Secondary at west coast road to replace a scoence and maths teacher. hahah. Kent Ridge Secondary called me once before and asked me to be a chinese teacher. Chinese! I think the secondary school kids can teach ME chinese.

I went to buy some work shirts and pants today! 2 of each. cos john little had a sale and my mother had a letter that let us get a FURTHER 20% off. I got a nice yellow and black camo print trousers from Beach Road for $13 too, when i went to renew my passport.

Got bible study tml! at my house 12pm. i've been starting running regularly, to improve stamina. This is because, compared to the guys i play tennis with, i'm like a 50 yr old. I die in like 1 hour. So i need more stamina to keep up. I've also found a good motivation: i run to Ginza Plaza from my house, then i reward myself by playing LAN! Haha! Good idea right. But spend a lot of money.

I want to watch Ice Age 2! hahah.

party!!

2006-03-19T22:07:00.000+08:00

Yay! I've finished NS! Finally. It feels every bit as good as they say it is. =)

Tuesday was my ORD day. I went in the morning as usual, and by 9 am my documents were processed and i received my pink IC back. Then my boss was nice and let me go off early, since it was my last day. So i could go for kayaking! =D

So i packed all my stuff and brought it home. after lunch i went to kallang MRT for kayaking with the church youths. like 30 people came, and like 10 new people? pretty cool. we kayaked up and down kallang river the whole afternoon. i paired with bryan yeo. the heaviest combined weight there! haha. but we went the fastest, i don't know why. there was a funny game, where the instructors wanted us to raft up then change canoes with other people! means we have to get out of the unstable floating canoes and get across the raft of canoes to change seats with another person! i changed seats with huixin's friend, then they complained, so we changed back. pretty fun =)

On wednesday was ice skating! haha like 50 people came. Fuji ice palace. a lot of sec1 sec2s. there were 2 like really fat BB boys from kent ridge, they're really cute and round! alan says they resemble chipmunks. and they keep eating. i didn't know how to ice skate before, so it was a learning experience for me. the place was PACKED. cos that day was like unlimited time for students for 1 fixed price? maybe a wrong time for us to go. but its ok lah. anyway a lot of people couldn't skate either. I think i learn quite fast =) maybe i'll get myself a pair of rollerblades =D anyway i was moving pretty steadily like after 1 hour. so i helped out some other people who didn't know how to skate, like siyan and janessa. pretty fun, i made a few new friends. i had to leave at 5 plus so that i could get to my tennis class on time.

I'm going to buy a new tennis racquet! =) my dad and my mum gave me 100 dollars EACH to get myself a good new racquet. that's 200 bucks! hahahah. i've done my research, and i'll probably be getting a Head Flexpoint Heat or a Wilson Ncode Npro. if i'm mad i'll get the Wilson Ncode Six-One or the new Head Flexpoint Prestige.

I went shopping on thursday at orchard! pretty fun. then went to watch date movie at cineleisure! it's like extremely funny, it parodies like so many movies in a very funny brainless slapstick way. i think one of the funniest was a short Lord Of The Rings parody.

(The main characters are in a jewellry shop looking at stuff. then frodo, sam and gandalf rush into the shop and try to pawn the One Ring.)

Frodo: how much? *gives One Ring to the jewellry lady*
Jewellry lady: *bites the One Ring, smiles* ........ 50 bucks.
Frodo: WHAT?
*jewellry lady holds up a 50 dollar note. Frodo stares at it indecisively, then makes up his mind and snatches it*
Gandalf: *moaning* But that Ring could destroy all evil! (conceptually incorrect statement, as any LOTR fan will want to point out)
Frodo: Screw you, wizard! *turns to him and kicks him in the groin. Frodo and Sam run out of the store.*
Gandalf: *sinks to his knees in pain* *high pitched voice* My Precioussssssssssssss!

Haha! well it's funnier in the movie.

Watched Jason Mraz at the Esplanade on Friday! He's really talented. I don't think anyone can sing like him. But like everyone around us knew all his songs and stuff, so they laughed at a lot of *hidden* jokes that Jason cracked when he sang his songs, and i didn't understand. but it was pretty cool all the same. people kept shouting stuff, it was like some popstar party. There was one girl who shouted "Jason, i love YOU AND I BOTH!!" I thought it was so utterly retarded, but it was so funny also. It was worth the cost =)

On Saturday i went to church to discuss with lucas the march mania finale. after that i went to teach tuition, then i went back to church to eat dinner with lucas, brandon, alan and Mr. Gift Daniel.

On Sunday was DG outing day! I went to play LAN with Kenneth and some of the DGs. Then after lunch, Kenneth and me went to west coast park to play frisbee with the Young Adults. After that we went West Coast Macdonalds and wei-en talked to us. After that we went home =)

fun in the sun!

2006-03-12T21:59:00.000+08:00

2 more days to ORD!! Hooray!!

come 15th of march, 2006, i will be a free man! It's a great feeling.

yesterday was MTM at church! the events team planned for Fun In The Sun, then our teaching was about Samson, by wei-en. it was pretty refreshing to review an old story and look upon it with a new light.

after that we went to play tennis! Brandon played with me this time, i've never played with him before. Guang Rong and Jeremy Ong came too. Brandon let me try his Wilson Ncode 6-1 Tour and Head Intellligence Radical. I must say i liked the feel of the Head more. I'll most likely buy a Head Flexpoint racquet this week. Then we went back to my house and i cooked a spaghetti dinner for us. Then after that the guys went home.

This morning was Fun In The Sun in church! the youths all went for 1st service, then we went to west coast park for outdoor games. i was part of the planning committee so i went off at 9 to prepare first. my job was just to prepare and supervise 1 out of 5 station games. i managed to think up a new game for this event, which i named 'Cattail'.

--------

Cattail (outdoor/indoor active game for small groups)
--------

2 teams of 10 youths each, forming 4 human chains 'cats' (by holding hands) of 5 youths each.
each 'cat' has 1 'cat tail' held by one end of the human chain.
'cat tail' is a tennis ball tied to the end of a 2-metre long twine or raffia string. 'cat tail' is held by the free end of the twine/string, with the ball dragging on the ground.

game play is 2 vs 2 teams 'cats'

purpose is to forcibly tear or pull the cat tail from the 2 opposing teams.

The 'head' of the cat can use his 1 free hand to grab for the cat tail. All players can use their feet to try and step on the cat tail.

Once the tail is pulled off a cat, or if the human chain breaks in any way, the cat is gone from the game for that round. the game goes on until one side is completely out of surviving cats. the other side then scores a point.

--------

Mel Ko came and helped me out in my station. and she took my cap to wear! haha. She was really nice and helpful and funny. thanks Mel! The day was SO HOT. pretty much Burn In The Sun. after the games i went back to church and had lunch with the 85s. after that, jeremy ong, alex and evan came over to my house to play xbox. at 5pm they said they were hungry, so i cooked them spaghetti. cooked twice in 2 days! well then after that they went home.

Ice skating on wednesday! i can't skate! haha. oh well =)

ORD!

2006-03-09T20:05:00.000+08:00

5 days to ORD! It's incredible. Finally, it's all going to be over.

NUS starts in august. the way i see it, i have roughly 6 months between now and the beginning of school. What am i going to do? So far, I have a few ideas.

Get a new tennis racquet! Either a Head Flexpoint or Wilson Ncode. Characteristics my new racquet needs to have: 1) Heavy 2) Mid to Midplus size 3) Head-light 4) Tweener or Tweener-Player. Money is no issue =D Haha! I sound so rich. I'm thinking of the Wilson Ncode 6-1. It's Federer's racquet or sth. Anyone got another recommendation?

Start learning driving! Haha. Need to learn eventually.

Continue guitar lessons! Need to get a guitar that has strings close to the fratboard. My uncle just bought me a new one from China, i hope it's a good one. I'm going to get it tonight i hope =)

I'm also applying to a clerk job in the American Embassy. It pays about $1100 a month. Not sure whether it violates my contract with MOE or not. Gotta check it out. Because, when i was applying for relief teaching, i happened to mention to one of the lady teachers there that i had signed a bond for an MOE scholarship, and she said that I can't relief teach because i've become an employee of MOE! It sounds logical i suppose. But wouldn't i benefit from more teaching exposure?

Haha that's all i can think of for now. =) Nights!

H6.

So what should i do?

jason mraz!

2006-03-05T20:41:00.000+08:00

Ah la la la la
They listen closely to the verse I lay
Ah la la la la
It's all about the wordplay
Ah la la la love
The wonderful thing it does because
Because I am the wizard of ooh's and ah's and fa la la's

Yeah the Mr. A-Z
They say I'm all about the wordplay

scholarship!

2006-03-04T23:45:00.000+08:00

I've received the MOE teaching scholarship offer!

Thank God for the blessings He has given me. I must never forget to be humble and grateful.

They've offered me a local scholarship for studying Biology in NUS. Hopefully, if all goes well, I'll be teaching Bio in 2010. It's one of the subjects that i really like, so i'm especially thankful for that. Also, with my full tuition fees paid for, it lifts a substantial financial burden off my family. Pretty cool =)

Good morning Mr. Ho! =D

finally!

2006-02-27T22:26:00.000+08:00

finally! 5 more working days in army, and i'll be done with it. sigh. its been a long, looong road.

i guess my best advice to dudes entering army is,

it's just 2 years.

seriously. =)

ORD loh!

shoes!!!

2006-02-17T22:56:00.000+08:00

Today, Hush Puppies donated shoes to the Salvation Army for sale. They're selling them for 20 bucks a pair!! =D

My father works for the Salvation Army, and they gave employees an even better deal: 2 pairs for 20 bucks! That's like 10 bucks for each pair of Hush Puppies shoes!!! My family went to the Salvation army store at Bukit Timah today, and we bought a total of 16 pairs of shoes! Thats more shoes than i've ever bought before on one trip. And the shoes are good quality and quite a large range of choices and colours too. Haha =D

tennis!!!

2006-02-16T20:21:00.000+08:00

It's 1 month to my ORD! i ORD from army on march 14. It's been really a long awaited thing.

I went for MOE teaching scholarship interview on Valentine's Day morning. It's like they assume that people applying to be teaching scholars probably don't have a date lined up. Well true in my case =D hahaha!! They said my interview was at 10.15 am, but come half an hour earlier to register. So i went in at 9.45 am. I borrowed my dad's work clothes for the interview, because i don't have a single set myself. Then i waited... and waited... and waited. My interview finally came at 11.05 am! I waited like 1 hour and 20 minutes lor. There were a few other guys in the waiting room with me, and the last one was scheduled for 11.15 am. We all told him he would have a pretty long wait ahead of him.

Anyway I walked in, there was one guy and 3 women interviewers. They were all like teachers and principals from various schools. So the interview started, and at first i was really nervous, even though i kept stretching in the waiting room. My first few sentences were pretty hurried and a bit disjointed =p but as the interview went on, i pulled myself together and as the questions led on, i became more comfortable, and said quite a lot of my thoughts and pretty much managed to say what i would have liked to say.

So... I think the interview was not so bad, in fact it's most likely the best interview that i have done so far. That's not saying much still, but at least i have some hope =) I would really love to win the scholarship. i'll be teaching Biology, which i would love to teach! =D But if i don't, then i'll stick to Bioengineering, which i think shows some promise in the years to come, maybe as a researcher. But i would love to teach =)

Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you

Look how they shine for you.

dreams

2006-02-08T21:35:00.000+08:00

Dreams are just dreams
When they're stuck inside your head
And all it takes is a little help from you
You know it's true
That dreams are for real
When you see what I see
And you feel it too
We took the longest road
Just to make it harder
Let's do it all again
It only makes us stronger

Dreams
I guess we're just made of dreams
Nothin' else matters
As long as we believe
I'm lookin' at you
And I see my life
Passing before my eyes
And when the journey's over
And all my dreams come true
I'll dream of you

What do you see
When you look inside your heart
A little thought
Can walk a thousand miles
And change your life
When dreams lead the way
The impossible is suddenly in sight
Every step you take
Just brings it all together
You gotta keep the faith
When all seems lost forever

nooborush!

2006-01-31T21:18:00.000+08:00

Ok so on monday morning, the guys came over to play tennis. Evan, Jeremy ong and Andrew cai came. Then after that, Andrew wanted to use my condo gym, but guests were not allowed, so he just pretended he was a resident and used the gym. I suggested that he tell everyone he was Jonny, and that the vast difference in muscle size was due to "Well, I've been working out." =D Hahahahaha! Oh well.

Then in the evening the 85s went to mark loo's house! to bai nian =) Mrs Loo gives big big angpaos! =D Then we just sat around and talked. Then kenny wanted to watch The Myth on VCD, so we did, until 12am. Then Mark said that Heroes of Might and Magic V is out already, so we went on the internet and looked at screenshots and downloaded trailers. It's all completely 3D now, and the units and background look quite pretty. Back in the old days when i was in secondary school, we used to have these stay-overs at people's houses, and we would play Heroes of Might and Magic III the WHOLE NIGHT. Because it's a turn-based strategy game, so we would take turns going on adventures, building up enormous armies and it would culminate in a massive ultimate showdown battle between our armies. By this time we would be physically suffering from lack of sleep and painful eyeballs from staring at a computer screen in the dark for the entire night. Those days were really a memorable part of my schooldays. =) Hahah! Nerds. Haha! Maybe this year when i finish army together with the other 85s, we can have some long-awaited rematches =D

Then Mark's parents graciously let me and kenny stay over at Mark's house. In the morning we woke up and played Munchkins! Then we went to eat brunch. Then i went home.

In the afternoon, my parents wanted to go to IMM to look at digital cameras, because they got a $700 voucher, from renewing the broadband modem. So i went with them to look. The video and digital cameras are pretty nice, esp the slimmer (and more expensive) Nikon stuff.

After that i went home and played tennis! again. even though my body was still aching from tennis the previous day. haha.

I'm on leave tomorrow! =) I think I'll just rest at home lah.

relief teaching! =)

2006-01-27T23:06:00.000+08:00

Today morning i went to buona vista to hand in some particulars documents to MOE building for the teaching scholarship i'm applying for. There i also applied for relief teaching! =) Haha.

Then in the afternoon i packed up my room for chinese new year! especially all my old story books. i found my old legend of the condor heroes comics series in chinese! i collected all 18 books in secondary school. World of JJ in Bishan Junction 8. I used to go there every week to check for the newest in the series =)

Then i found something pretty special. My distant auntie from somewhere once gave me a metal box with felix the cat logo on it, it was from disneyland or whatever. It's in a pretty handy size, so i used it to keep special stuff, like things i felt were important or sentimental. But i kind of forgot about it and i only found it now. So it became a time capsule of sorts! It was full of stuff i found important when i was in secondary school and JC. Like the beautiful blue crystals we made in chemistry lab in secondary school! And especially letters. lots and lots of letters! =) I sat on the floor and looked through all. Sigh. So memorable. Then i stuck everything back in and kept it somewhere safe again.

After that in the evening my relatives came over for dinner! some pre-chinese new year celebration or whatever. The abalone was really quite large, like a big steak. My mum said it cost 50 bucks. Then she cut it up into slices and it looked a lot smaller.

My cousin came too! She can't make it to some extended family reunions because she's a hairdresser at some super super high class salon. So it's nice when she comes. She helped cut for taufiq batisah!! hahaha. And Jeanette Aw lives in her block! =D I heard my relatives say the cost for one haircut at her place can run up to 600 bucks. She's always been the good-looking one in the family. Haiz. =p She's one year older than me, looks like Fiona Xie and Fann Wong mixed. And her hair is always cool and nice because she can get first-class treatment. =D

Anyway we ate so much and the food still haven't finished! Sigh. If this continues i'll have to start exercising.

Patty Schnyder is my new favourite tennis player! =D She's cool.

Children's home!

2006-01-26T21:23:00.000+08:00

Hi! Haha i'm back on a Thursday! Yay! =D

Today my army camp sent us to do community service! We went to this children's home in Yio Chu Kang. We cleaned up the area and sorted through the donations and threw away the stuff that was useless. I must say that sorting donations takes up a lot of their time. And i almost threw away 2 boxes of new towels! Because i asked my boss whether the boxes were supposed to be thrown away, and he said yes, so i brought it to the dump. lucky i checked lor. So i had to bring the towels all the way back to the storage place.

Anyway, after that we had a chinese new year celebration steamboat lunch in camp! pretty funny. Everyone just threw everything into the soup at random times. So i decided it was probably a good idea to avoid the prawns. after all i am recovering from a diarrhoea spell (see previous posts). So after that they let us go home early! yay! =D

Happy New Year! =)

how i go

2006-01-22T18:13:00.000+08:00

I could tell you the wildest of tales

My friend the giant and traveling sales

Tell you all the times that I failed

The years all behind me

The stories excelled.

And I'm drying out

Crying out

This isn't how I go

I could tell you of a man not so tall

Who said life's a circus and so we are small

Tell you of a girl that I saw

I froze in the moment and she changed it all

And I'm drying out

Crying out

This isn't how I go

Hurry now

Lay me down

And let these waters flow

Flow...

Son I am not everything you thought that I would be

But every story I have told is part of me

And you keep the air in my lungs

Floating along as a melody comes

And my heart beats like timpani drums

Keeping the time while a symphony strums

And I'm drying out

Crying out

This isn't how I go

Hurry now

Lay me down

And let these waters flow...

Flow....

Let it flow

Son I am not everything you thought that I would be

But every story I have told is part of me

Son I leave you now but you have so much more to do

And every story I have told is part of you

Bye Yankai!

2006-01-21T00:07:00.000+08:00

Today morning i sent Yankai off to the airport! He's flying off to Cornell again, after his holiday here. He's a student at Cornell University in America, and he comes back every few months to visit his family. He's my neighbour =D

So i sat his car and his aunt and grandmother came too. His luggage weighs at least 46 kg! we weighed it at this weighing thing at the airport. monstrous. Then his grandma tripped over the weighing machine! so scary. lucky she was ok.

So then his roommate came with his parents. His roommate's parents treated everyone to Burger King! I got a free lunch =D Then we sent them off and Yankai's parents brought me back to clementi MRT.

I took the MRT to Bugis Junction to go shopping! =D I bought the new Wei Lian CD for my grandma! She really likes him. The CD cover is nice, and he sings quite well. I bought a nice normal maroon button shirt with collar from Bugis Junction for Chinese New Year. Then i went to Bugis Street to look around.

Bugis Street rocks! The clothes there are so so cool. And they're cheap! from $8 to max about $20. I found a nice green shirt for myself, and a present for Alex. His birthday is on the 25th.

Then i bought the most horrible green apple bubble tea i ever drank. The ice was grinded to slightly smaller than the straw, so when u try to suck up the pearls, the ice all goes up too! and its big enough to crunch, so u can't chew the pearls properly.

After the day of shopping i went home =)

Bye Yankai! see u in 4 months!

Timo's going overseas!

2006-01-18T20:43:00.000+08:00

Timothy Yeo just got a place in University of Melbourne to do Biomedical Science! He's going to leave in February! It's so soon! Wow.

Got pretty mixed feelings. But we gotta get a party bash together!! And, even more, his birthday is like coming soon but he will fly before it comes! He'll spend it with the Aussies!

So I gotta plan something. And invite Nick too, cos he's gonna go overseas too for Uni.

So many people leaving!!!!! Waaaaaaah!!!

100%!

2006-01-14T23:57:00.000+08:00

Today was 100% Praise And Worship! Pretty good stuff. It reminded me about how worship is for worshipping God, not about anything else. Guess i needed the reminder.

sick!!

2006-01-12T20:02:00.000+08:00

I'm sick!!

I had bad diarrhoea yesterday. Like it was pretty bad. I was pretty much shitting water the whole day. Like i couldn't eat anything? and i tried to drink a can of Milo, but half an hour later, i had to go again, and i can almost say that what came out looked EXACTLY like what i had just drank. it was exactly the same colour, like what i drank had just gone straight through me. I know Milo is brown too, but it's like a different colour from my usual?? Haha! Gross right =D hope i didn't put anyone off their dinners or anything. And i had like really terrible muscle ache too.

And then in the night i developed a fever. When i measured myself, i had a temp of 38.6 degrees. So i took 2 Panadols, then i went to the army medical centre. They drove me to see a army doctor in a nearby camp at around 11pm. My temp went down to 37.8 due to the panadols. But i was still having fever. Then the doc checked my tongue and said it was white and dry, and also that my heartbeat was too fast, which is a sign of moderate to severe dehydration. So he said i needed to be put on a drip! I was pretty freaked.

The army medic tried to put the needle in my arm. But, he tried for like 10 minutes, poking around here and there inside my arm, and said he couldn't find my vein! i was like prepared at first for the pain and stuff, but after he took out a second needle to try again, i was getting a bit panicky.The second needle took even longer, and he still couldn't find the vein! then he called the other medics to try. i was whining pretty loudly by then. Eventually, they gave up and called the doctor to do it. Apparently, my veins are smaller than usual or something. So the doctor came out and took out a THIRD needle! I was babbling nonsense already, maybe because of the combination of the Panadols and the injustification of being stabbed without purpose for 20 minutes. "No no no i don't have diarrhoea already don't have don't have don't poke can? i don't want can don't want or not please please don't have diarrhoea lah!...." Anyway the doctor was annoyed already by being woken up at 1am by his inept medics, so he ignored me and just jabbed me.

It took him about 20 seconds to find the vein. I must say that my confidence in army medics went down pretty sharply at that time.

So after the drip, i was hospitalised there for the night. In the morning, i woke up and they took my temp. It had reduced to 38.0 degrees by then, but that was still a fever. So they gave me thursday and friday MC and let me go home =)

happy new year!

2006-01-02T20:09:00.000+08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Haha. Well on 25th Dec was Christmas! It was pretty nice, with everyone giving each other Christmas cards and presents. =) I got a cool soccer ball pillow from Tab! =D And a fat rubber puffer fish bookmark from Ting. Hahah. This year seemed a bit rushed though, i felt that less people gave out less stuff than usual. Maybe just the hectic schedule.

On the 27th to the 29th was SLR. I went too as part of events team. The focus for the new year is Making Disciples, in any area of service we do for God. This year we also introduced the new ministry of WAH! besides the DGL, worship team and events team. WAH! is short for the Welcoming And Hospitality Committee. I think the most meaningful thing i learnt from SLR is that what we do in our service areas is for God and to make disciples, not for our own enjoyment or our own purposes.

31st Dec to 1st Jan was the watchnight party! The Watchnight Committee met earlier at 1pm to practise worship. By the way, the committee expanded to almost all the 88s, including Benita, Amanda, Yiling and Mozi! They also managed to rope in the 89 and 90 guys to play instruments for the singspiration, so we had a pretty rockin' worship thing going on. At 4 we had to vacate the chapel. So at 7.30pm we went for Watchnight Service! Plenty of people spoke to thank God about what He had done for them in the past year. So much thanksgiving that the Watchnight Service went into overtime, til about 10.15pm. So then our Watchnight Party started! The Worship session was held in the Chapel. After that we went downstairs to Grace Fellowship Hall to play games. I organised the games, also told a lot of corny Bible jokes. We had our countdown there, then after 12, we went to the Fish Tank for our Watchnight Finale!

We first locked the doors of the fish tank so no one could get in. We scattered tea lights near the windows and lit them, then switched off all the fluorescent lights, so that the only light was that coming from the tea lights, a warm glowing light reflecting off the tiled floor. Then, we led everyone in, and gave them 1 candle each and asked them to be quiet and take a seat on the floor. Then i asked about 5 people to come up first with their unlit candles. Then, i asked them to light the candle of the person in the Youth in the room that he/she LEAST knew, and introduce himself/herself. I would only proceed once all the candles in the room were lit. Then i asked them to blow out their candles, and do the same thing with a person who has done something that he/she has seen and appreciates. Lastly, i asked them to repeat the process with a person they would like to encourage. Lucas closed the event with a prayer.

The finale was pretty okay, as far as feedback went. The bad thing is, the candles dripped wax over the entire white tiled floor! Everyone was on their knees scraping the wax off their section of the floor, until Lucas said that everyone needed to sleep NOW, because there was church later in the morning. Something to learn. =D

The next day was the parent-youth get together event after church in the morning! It was pretty fun. But halfway, Peide, Kenneth and I went back to the fish tank to scrape the remainder of the wax off the floor. it took us 1 hour plus.

So that was my Christmas and new year! ok byebye!

post!

2005-12-14T20:40:00.000+08:00

Hi! haha. time to blog again!

So some eventful things happened these few days that i didn't blog.

First, before the youth camp, the 88 guys and me decided to stop playing DotA. Forever. Let me explain why.

It's because the game has just too many satanic ideas and connections to be ignored. Let me list down the most glaring points that we drew out. Christian brothers (and sisters?) who play DotA or have friends who play DotA, take note.

1) The level 4 combined item, which gives 23% life leech, among other things? Named the Satanic.
2) The name of the Doombringer hero, Lucifer.
3)The level 4 combined item labelled the Divine Rapier. How Godly can a video game be which makes a God out of a weapon?
4) The name of the Lord of Avernus is Abaddon. Ref. Revelations 9, this is another name for Apollyon the Destroyer.
5) This is the one that was the final straw for me. When you get 9 or 10 hero kills in a row, what does the game announcer proclaim you? the computer announcer shouts, "Godlike!!!" for 9 kills, and "Beyond Godlike!!!" for 10 kills. In reference to the Bible, the only way to seek Godlikeness is to repay evil with good. Not to kill 10 heroes.

These are just the most obvious ones that we have picked out. So, we decided that we should rid ourselves of DotA. I'm quite proud of the 88 guys for having the maturity to quit DotA with me.

So next was Youth Camp! I made it to the start of the camp on Sunday night, then i had to go back to army camp. On Wednesday night i managed to come out of army camp to visit the Youth Camp. When i arrived at the church, Wei-en was eating some lemons and there was a load of rubbish lying around him. He then proceeded to do several more 'punishments', which included some pretty horrible ones, like eating spoonfuls of wasabi and getting egged and eating cupfuls of butter and getting caned. This was like, he was taking the punishment for the camp groups, which every group had made some sort of mistake or broken some rule in camp, and actually the individual groups had to be punished by doing the horrible tasks, but then Wei-en took all the punishment on himself. Obviously, this is a mirror on what Christ did for us when He died for us on the cross to save us from our sins. I think it got the message across well, as the punishments were really distasteful, particularly when Wei-en threw up after swallowing 5 spoonfuls of wasabi.

On Saturday was Yengwai's and Hilmay's wedding! It's really nice to see them get married. Haha and the after-wedding buffet was very good! Like i ate a lot of food. Then we took pictures with the bride and groom, after like waiting for ages. Then i went to give tuition, then i went back to church to find alex and jeremy, who were still at ginza. So we were deciding where to go. We wanted to go matt's house, but he said he couldn't, so we went my house instead. Played Red Faction on the Xbox. Then this is the cool thing. I saw Guang Rong online at 11.30pm, and i asked him, half-jokingly, whether he wanted to come my house and sleep over, because alex and jeremy were sleeping over too. Guess what? He said yes! So powerful right. Like at 11.45pm he went offline, then at 12.15 he reached my house! He caught like one of the last buses. So after we played Xbox and watched some soccer matches on TV, we played cards in my room til 4am, then we went to sleep. Then at 8.30am we went for Youth Praise at church.

So on Sunday i went to church, then i went to play lan with the guys. but, the problem is, that lan pretty much sucks without DotA! it's true. So we spent the time playing standard game Warcraft, and Footman Frenzy. It's fun, but it's just really not very good. So after that Alex, Jeremy Ong, me and Evan went to Evan's house. There, we had a serious chat about lan. The main points were this: lan is turning out to be a form of idolatry and addiction for us. Secondly, it is very expensive. Thirdly, it takes up plenty of our time. Even when we are not playing lan, half the time we spend talking is about lan gaming. Lastly, without DotA, lan pretty much isn't very fun anymore. So, we made a second commitment! We have committed ourselves not to play lan, forever! Serious. people who are involved in this very big step is: Jonny, Alex, Evan and Jeremy Ong. We are doing this for God, and also for the sake of our future social lives. Haha =)

After that we walked down to my house for a BBQ! Guang Rong joined us. One important thing is, we have volunteered to be the planning committee for this year's Watchnight! This was suggested by Alex. So we are now in the process of planning Watchnight. Our team consists of 5 people for now. Alex is the Committee Chairman, Evan is the Worship and Music Coordinator, Jeremy Ong is the Games Planner, Guang Rong is the Public Relations Officer, and Jonny is the Watchnight Emcee! Haha =D Anyone who would like to help us in Watchnight preparations, feel free to join us, we need all the help we can get =)

This friday night there's night biking! =D haha. its going to be so fun! I've had previous experience biking on roads with Jeremy Ong, but this is going to be in the night! and with like 20 people! haha. pretty cool =)

Ok done. going to watch Pure Pwnage episode 9 now! just downloaded it =) bye!

newcomers party!

2005-11-27T00:40:00.000+08:00

today was newcomers party! in church rooftop. BBQ again. so its like my 2nd BBQ this month. all the oil and carbon and chicken and sausage and hash browns. sigh. unhealthy!

anyway it was pretty fun, i came a bit late at around 6.15pm, they were already playing icebreaker games. obviously a newcomers party is to welcome newcomers in the Youth. so the games were the kind of blow wind blow games that make everyone mix around.

so after the games we had the BBQ. we barbecued the normal things, chicken wings, sausages, otah, etc. then we cooked spam rosti delight! this time we added extra ingredients. wei en added otah to his spam rosti to create a spicy fishy flavour, while i added cheese! mine tasted very very nice. hah self praise. but it was really very nice to eat lah.

i think guang rong is really very powerful at talking to people! hahaha.

ok bye!

my birthday!

2005-11-20T18:15:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was my birthday party! Hahah. it was the biggest birthday i ever had. ok lah it was a shared birthday party with Matthias (19 nov) and my mother (20 nov), butit was really big! haha.

ok head count. i think about 70 people total, with around 50 youths! haha.

1) extended family! about 10.
2) Church 84s, 85s, 86s: 6 total. mark, peide, kaiyuan, lucas, guangrong, timothy.
3) Church 88s: about 12. evan, alex, jeremy ong, jeremy yeo, fredric, daniel tan, samuel huang, jason huang, yiling, benita, amanda, mozi.
4) Church 89s: about 8? not sure. edwin, jonathan, bennett, foongming, jia en, joanna, uh... oh.
5)Church 90s: like 10 - 15 or sth. sot, shi, ama, ting, eug, too many! can't remember.
6)Pine Grove dudes: uh. 10? rachel hui, rachel chew, hans, bala, junyi, mr & mrs daniel, mick, shen, samantha, i think that's it.
7) Jurong Family Group! around 10.

yeah that's it! did i miss out anyone? i think i did! please tell me if i did, esp the ppl i can't really remember.

Thanks to:

1) Foongming and Foongchin for buying Matt's birthday cake all the way from Bugis for me! And such a nice cake too! =D
2) Jonathan Lee for providing music from his ipod and the coolest compact ipod speakers!
3) The 88s for coming early at 5 to start up the 3 x BBQ pits!
4) Brian Yeo for buying my birthday cake for me! and cheesecake too! i'm really grateful man =)
5) The 90s for buying me the nicest Merci and Ferrero Rocher chocolates!
6) Ting for getting me Jocie Guo's Bu Pa La single! Haha i like listen to it all the time now.
7) The 85 dudes and celine and lucas and rachie loo and jeremy yeo for buying me such a cool black glass Bruce Lee clock from Molecule! It's so cool.
8) Hans for bringing wine! and making me finish it. haha!
9) My parents and Auntie Linda for cooking all the nice food and really making the entire party happen.
10) The people who stayed till 11.30pm to help me clean up, namely evan, jeremy ong, alex and yiling.
11) And everybody who came and made this party such a memorable one!

more birthday!

2005-11-16T21:23:00.000+08:00

Hi! haha i just thought of more cool things that i want!!!!

12) rollerblades! i don't know how to rollerblade.
13) a mountain bike! with a cool helmet and matching crash pads. hahahah. i wish.
14) Sugababes' Taller in More Ways! CD.
15) Pussycat Dolls' PCD! CD. PCD CD. PCDCD. argh headache
~~16) Guo Mei Mei's new single! the Bu Pa La one. haha i know it's a cover but its cute! and dancey. and it's $6.90! aaaaah!~~

kan dao zhang lang, wo bu pa bu pa la, wo bu pa bu pa la, wo bu pa bu pa bu pa la! *shake*
ai yi ah he, ai yi ah hoh, ai yi ah hoh, ai yi ah hahah! *shake*

wtvr. so retarded.

hahahaha! can't think of any more.

birthday!

2005-11-14T22:10:00.000+08:00

Hello! It's my birthday on 22nd! Yay! And i'm going to have a birthday BBQ on this coming Sat. So fun!!!!

Now i'm going to be shameless and list down the stuff that i want.

1) A new wallet! Mine is going to be destroyed soon. must have zip for coins and clear window.
2) A tennis coach that is cheap!
3) A tennis ball trainer rack! hahahah. no lah not needed.
4) Tennis shoes!
5) Adidas Dri-fit shirt! Tennis one pls.
6) Good salsa lessons! and a dedicated salsa partner. preferably female.
7) Membership to California Fitness!
8) Capoeira, Bodycombat or Yoga lessons
9) New shorts. and jeans. right now i have a grand total of 3 jeans. and 2 shorts.
10) Norah Jones CDs!
11) A night at the Esplanade watching a good theatre production.

Haha i can't think of much more.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! to me.

Bye!

funny!

2005-11-11T20:47:00.000+08:00

I found this entertainment news article on E!Online written by the very funny Ms. Sarah Hall.

K-Fed's Bum Rap
by Sarah Hall Nov 3, 2005, 2:20 PM PT

Ready or not, Kevin Federline is making his rap debut.

A clip of a track titled "Y'all Ain't Ready," from Federline's upcoming album, The Truth, was posted on the Internet this week by his producer, Disco D, providing listeners with an advance sample of Mr. Britney's dubious vocal abilities.

The clip rapidly traversed entertainment-related sites and blogs the Internet over, drawing derisive reviews wherever it touched down--which, to be fair, was what the impressively prescient Federline predicted in a line from the song.

"My prediction is that y'all gonna hate on the style we create, straight 2008," he raps on the track.

And how right he was.

"And you're sure this isn't just something off Vanilla Ice's Hard to Swallow album?" one commenter asked on Stereogum.com, a site where the track was available for download. "I'm about ready to start shaving stripes in my eyebrows."

"This has got to be a joke, right? Is he serious? Better yet, if he is serious, can we shoot him before he breeds? Oops, too late," lamented another commenter to the site.

Though there's already an abundance of human beings who can rightfully refer to Federline as "Daddy," the oft-cornrowed hip-hop hopeful isn't limiting use of the title to his own offspring.
No, according to the chorus of "Y'All Ain't Ready," K-Fed wants everyone to put the paternal title to use.

"Back then they called me K-Fed/ But you can call me Daddy instead," he suggests, demonstrating that he is an individual who recognizes both the power of rhyme and the importance of family.

Despite his eerily accurate prediction that people will hate the style he creates, Federline remains optimistic about the eventual response to his debut album.

"But I know that you really can't wait/ 'Cause people always askin' me when's the release date?" he intones. But he's not going to give it to us that easily, oh no.

"Well maybe, baby, you can wait and see/ Until then all these Pavarottis following me," Federline continues, coining a clever nickname for the paparazzi that we really just don't get. (Unless maybe it's like a private joke with Britney or something? Nope, we still don't get it.)

One thing's for certain: Spears does not need to worry about getting eclipsed by her baby daddy anytime in the near future.

On Thursday, an eBay auction selling a royalties percentage in her song "Everytime," from 2003's In the Zone, closed at nearly $173,000.

Spears is preparing to drop a remix album, titled B in the Mix, The Remixes on Nov. 22.
Mercifully, Federline's album doesn't have a release date yet.

It's so Jay Leno! Haha.

88 retreat!

2005-11-06T00:20:00.000+08:00

Hi! last night i slept from 8pm to today 7.30 am! so much. then i woke up and practiced for today's worship for camp com meeting. i had to transpose so many of them to G so that i could play them properly. anyway after that at 10 am i went to play tennis again! Yes tabi, i'm going to be pro soon! haha. But not so soon. need to get tennis shoes!

at 12 pm i finished tennis! i have a lump on my shin from tennis. it's because when i was practicing serve, i swung the racket 1 whole round downwards and clobbered my own shin! Ow. Well after that i showered ate lunch, then went to church at 1.30 pm to rehearse the worship with GR and mark. I had to bring my nice guitar in a cheap thin casing! then when walking up to the 4th floor i bashed the guitar into the steps like so hard. heart pain =(

the 88s were having retreat at the top floor, they are staying over from friday to sunday. so after rehearsing, at 2.30 pm we started the worship. the very first song, i started playing, then mark and GR both started singing off key!!!! is my guitar playing really so incredibly terrible???? AAAAAAAH!!!! the 90 girls started laughing so i started singing in key, to get the song started again. so it went quite well lah after that.

after the worship i had to go teach tuition. after worship, i went back to church to join in the 88s barbecue! it was on the rooftop garden. when i arrived some 88 guys and mozi were marinating the chicken wings. then they started smearing each other with the marinating goo for fun, so i took the completed chicken wings up to the rooftop garden. so the barbecue started! i first helped impale chicken wings (the same ones) with satay sticks. then i started to make rosti delight! it's actually a dish u can buy at Marche for $9.90, its like diced potato fried with meat, its pretty nice and oily =9 we used mashed up hash browns and luncheon meat. Self-mashed! haha.

Then after that the girls started singing songs and glen played evan's tiny guitar-banjo. after that i wanted to fry hash browns, so mozi and me came up with an idea. we wrapped up the hash browns with alum foil and just threw them into the fire! and they turned out pretty good too. =D

It is benita's birthday on the 8th! there was a cake and we sang happy birthday! so nice =) at 9pm we cleared up and threw away all the rubbish. then the guys all walked to west coast park. there we sat down and had a long talk and sharing. after that i went home at around 12 am.

tennis!

2005-11-03T21:29:00.000+08:00

on Wednesday night Mark and Guang Rong came over for worship practice, we will be doing worship for the youth camp com meeting on Saturday! I'm helping Mark and GR play guitar. I met GR at CCK mrt and we ate beef noodles at the food court there. Then we reached my house at 7.30pm. Mark said he would come at 8, but we waited until 9! In the end we called him, he said he was eating dinner with his parents! He could at least have called right. But at least he messaged GR, but he didn't get the message because he was pummelling away on my xbox. Haha.

So when Mark came we prepared until 11pm. Hope i can play the songs well! I need to capture the mood correctly, that's what makes all the difference.

I went to play tennis today morning again! we booked 8am to 10am but i didn't wake up til 8.30, so we reached the court at like 9. today was a family thing, i just played with my mum and dad. they used to play regularly a long time ago, and they still have some skill lor. and tennis is all about skill. my youthful vigour can't make up for it! haha. must train! but i must improve my grip. after 1 hour i can hardly hold the racket. blurgh.

So after that i watched power rangers movie on TV! It's not bad lor... i remember the time i used to love the power rangers. my mother bought the 2nd megazord for me! the animals one. after my PSLE i think. So cool. Haha.

After that i went out with the 88s. Bought some nice CDs! haha. Norah Jones Come Away With Me and Corrinne May Fly Away (her first album). I really like jazz and comfy songs =) After that went Evan's house for a while, then went home.

Ok Lost is on now! haha going to watch. they're gonna find out what is below the unopenable bunker door. bye!

Same side of the moon

2005-11-03T21:22:00.000+08:00

I'm looking out the window
Where we sat to watch the stars
There's a chill within the air
It makes my heart long for your touch
You may be miles away
But as I kneel to pray

I see the same side of the moon
That we'll be looking on when the world turns blue
And know that time and space can't come between me and you
We share the same side of the moon
And though you'll never see all my tears shine through
I know I can't be that far from you
If we're both looking on the same side of the moon

I picture you across the oceans
In your corner of the world
I pray the wind will blow my voice
And gently whisper in your ear
Your night may be my day
And though the seasons change

It's still the same side of the moon
That we'll be looking on when the world turns blue
And know that time and space can't come between me and you
We share the same side of the moon
And though you'll never see all my tears shine through
I know I can't be that far from you
If we're both looking on the same side of the moon

I know I can't be that far from you
If we're both looking on the same side of the moon

Banlist!

2005-11-01T22:20:00.000+08:00

I've been banned from warcraft! like my mum doesn't want me to play any more warcraft, DotA, or World of Warcraft. For ever.

Can't say this is a bad thing. Today was pretty cool, i invited the 85 and 88 guys to my house in the morning to play tennis! Though it was impossible, no one knows how to play properly except evan. So we spent the time just whacking the ball and cheering whenever we got a serve within bounds. i think we lost about 10 balls due to overzealous whacking. I'm planning to train more tennis, i'm going to play on thursday again! haha.

Then after that at arnd 12 we went to swim! and played with a rubber ball. then my mum prepared spaghetti for us all and arranged it picnic style at the poolside benches! so nice of her. Then we went back to my house to bathe. Then we played xbox for a while, but it spoilt! so we had like nothing to do. The 90s were at Sot's house planning youth camp, then they went down to poolside to play pool (haha), so we went to join them, played table soccer and pool. It was pretty fun! then they went back to sot's house, so we went to visit, we played 99 at sot's house for a while. Then i had to go to weien's house for dinner, so i shared a cab with Ama, she was going to a friend's party at 6th ave. Got lost and ama was like going to be late for her party, so i just got off the cab and found weien's house on foot.

At weien's house we played Bible Challenge! Its a board game, its not bad, the questions are good. So that was my day without warcraft! hahah. pretty nice =) bye!

WoW!

2005-10-23T21:05:00.000+08:00

Haha! new post.

Ever since the 88s promos finished, i've been spending weekend nights at Evan's house playing World of Warcraft. So far we have a lvl 25 Night Elf Hunter (Evan) and a lvl 11 or 12 Tauren Druid (Jeremy Ong). We take turns levelling the heroes through the night. For example, last Friday night (actually Saturday early morning) i played the Tauren Druid from 2am to 4.45am. When i found that i was falling asleep in the middle of fights, i passed the baton to Jeremy by waking him up (he's sleeping in evan's room on evan's sofa). Then he continues the game and i go to sleep. This way we can make the most use of our time. Haha super addicted! =D So nerdy too.

I went shopping at Bugis Junction and Bugis Street on Saturday night! So cool. I bought some really powerful maroon chrome Nike 90 street soccer shoes for $78 at Seiyu. Then i bought some washed jeans and a Bokano T-shirt at Bugis Street for $20 each! They're really nice. I got some compliments about the jeans at church on Sunday. And everyone wanted to try the Nike 90s! Haha. And i was in the fellowship hall, the 88 girls suddenly screamed at my shirt! I thought my shirt was like so hot. It has a guy's shadow and the word 'Bokano' on the front. Then Benita explained that they had a friend, whose nickname was Bonky, and guess what? they were screaming because the word on my shirt was slightly similar to their friend's nickname. So anticlimax and duh.

After church we played soccer! Pretty fun, different from our usual sedentary pasttime of DotA. A welcome change, i think i'll try to organise another one next week. Then i bought for the guys 5 super big gulps from 7 - 11. It was like carrying a water cooler. Haha then after that we played a game of DotA (haha... addicts) then Evan wanted to go to Bishan to cut hair! I wanted to cut hair too, so i thought of going with him for fun, but he said we'll be back home by 9.30pm! Too late for me. So i took the bus to a barber that i knew. But the place was closed! There was a hairdresser next to it and it said 'unisex salon', so i walked right in and got a haircut! So risky. But it came out fine, i'm quite happy with it. Haha.

My ankle's a bit tweaky after soccer, i twisted it a bit. Oh well it'll be fine soon i hope.

Haha nice long blog! Ok enough. Haha bye for now!

blog!!

2005-09-18T22:20:00.000+08:00

Hi! hahah. finally new post!

Today was Sports in September! went to west coast park to play outdoor games. we played touch rugby, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, softball and soccer.

I was in charge of softball, and i yelled my voice hoarse, because softball needs a lot of explaining for ppl who don't know how to play. it was pretty good! could have flopped because of ppl not knowing how to play. but after some in-game explanation, the teams really liked the game! they were so into it that when lucas came and asked everyone to take a water break, they all screamed "No! I Don't Want! I Want To Play On!" So we played 2 full innings and the final score was 8 - 5. So fun =)

One special mention is the volleyball net that we managed to set up. We managed to get a working volleyball net up in the field with a badminton net, 2 bamboo poles and 2 metal chairs. pretty good innovative idea by the events team =D made this year's SIS unique.

haha ok gtg back to camp now! expect more frequent posts soon!

blog.

2005-08-19T21:27:00.000+08:00

hi! haha my first post in like a month.

well, i have 6+ months left to ORD! Finally, leaving the army soon. Kenneth ORDs on March 13, then I ORD the next day on March 14. Peide is next in line, on March 30 i think. Then Mark and Changzhi in May, and finally Timothy in August. university looms on the horizon! aaaah!

I've been accepted into Bioengineering at NUS. Kenneth is taking Accountancy at NTU, Mark is going to Law in NUS. The rest i'm not sure. Heh.

I'm watching a documentary where 2 engineers are experimenting on aeroplane toilets. They look pretty nerdy... not a good sign. They're watching the waste (not real stuff, they replaced the * with white soya bean paste) shoot along the pipes at incredible speeds, because when you * on an aeroplane it's a good idea to lose the waste as quick as possible in case of turbulence. Sigh. Hope this doesn't mirror my future job. o.O

Well this week was a busy week in camp, but i actually enjoyed it pretty much though! Haha thanks Tab! I have a cell group in camp, and this week i led discussion. I prepared a topic on leadership, which i researched in a copy of Vantage Point. It's a Christian magazine that my mother puts on my table. The discussion went smoothly, everyone contributed their views pretty much.

well thats all for now. bye!

aough.

2005-07-16T23:48:00.000+08:00

haha so long never blog. sorry ting! i'm just sooo tired from NDP rehearsals. my back hurts and my stomach hurts and my feet hurt. squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak. squeak. squeak! sigh.

so painful. well never mind, pain is temporary but glory is forever. but all men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever. (1 Peter 1:24 - 25) Ok. Fine. Blarh. *flaps hands wildly overhead*

so painful. well, since NDP is on saturdays, my weekends are sundays and mondays. actually i kind of like it that way. it's like after church and stuff, i don't have to know that i'm going back to work on monday! haha. yeah, i'll miss it when it ends.

haha the new harry potter book is out! must go and buy. i'll use the money i get from giving tuition tomorrow. heard it cost 45 bucks. haha i must torture the kid a bit more this weekend, he's been becoming a little tardy with the homework i give him. hahahaha *evil dr. doom laugh* i've been making him do massive number multiplication as practice for mental calculation. example is 3859 * 5561. i make him do it mentally. after 2 hours of stressing him, he can do 4 digit times 4 digit mentally in under 5 minutes. i'm completely serious. though i think he's growing white hairs. oh well we all have to make some sacrifices yah? hahahhahahahhaha *very evil dr. doom tuition teacher jonny laugh*

haha that's all for today! will try to blog more.

oh no! never blog.

2005-06-03T23:22:00.000+08:00

Hahahaha! Oops never blog for ages. It's already June!

Well, i've recently found a talented singer, Corinne May. She's Singaporean born, based in the US. She sings beautifully, and the piano guitar melody is so refreshing and soothing. I recommend buying the CD. The songs have a faint baroque feel when played in sequence.

empty

2005-04-24T20:24:00.000+08:00

This weekend was so empty. It made me think.

I don't enjoy video games so much any more. It's so pointless. It doesn't benefit me in any way, it takes up my time, and spoils my eyesight.

I want to take my SATS II, so that i can apply for a scholarship again this year. I don't know much about anything yet. I have to find out. I don't even know what course i want to take in university! I want to find my calling. But i don't even know how to find my calling. I don't know where to start.

I saw an old flame at the bus interchange just the other day, after my guitar class. She was buying pastry at the bread shop, laughing about something. I didn't have the guts to say hi, i just ran away. I don't know why! We take the same bus home, so i had gathered my wits by the time i was waiting for the bus, was hoping she would take the bus too. Too bad she didn't come. I wonder why i didn't say hi.... sigh.

Went to eat at Paddy Fields today evening with my parents, our bill was $181 for 3 people! I think that's where i draw the line. It wasn't even a special occasion or anything. Food shouldn't cost that much. I keep thinking of the underprivileged people i saw on the NKF show, and i wonder why we waste money this way. I have to sort out this thought.

What does church mean to me?

2005-04-10T20:46:00.000+08:00

On saturday at 11am i went to church for perspectives talk, it was quite good, it talked about the uniqueness of Christianity and what beliefs prevent or inhibit us to understand Christianity. After that Peide and I went to Mark's house to play. I then went to guitar class, then back to church for choir practice. We were practicing singing a song for both the main services in church on Sunday the next day. This song is really beautiful, it's called What A Faithful God Have I. This was my first practice, they put me in the back row and exactly centre. I realised i could sing base for this song quite nicely (hopefully) so i did. I had trouble memorising the lyrics. It was really fun in the practice, Brandon and Mark and Melissa were there. They laughed at me for singing so low notes. Also, i renewed my thinking about singing songs to God. Singing songs are to praise God, and we are singing songs to God himself to enjoy, so we have to know and mean what we sing, otherwise we are just singing empty songs with lovely voices and sweet instruments, it means nothing.

On Sunday we went to sing! The first service i forgot many many lines of the song, i was so disappointed at myself, i was memorising late on saturday night. But in the second service i managed to remember more. After that we went to play soccer, today was a really hot day, my energy level sapped really quickly and i put up a lethargic performance. After giving tuition, my parents brought me to tanglin mall to eat at spageddies. Really good food there, though quite expensive.

Heh

2005-04-03T21:21:00.000+08:00

Haha missed one week of blog! Sorry. Well last week it was Good Friday! We went for the Good Friday service on March 25 at 10am, the sanctuary was packed. The combined choir of Mt. Carmel and Bible Church did a really nice half-musical thing, especially one nice song, i think its called Once And For All. After the service we went to Holland Village NYDC to celebrate Celine's birthday. The tabasco sauce is so watered down i bet i could drink from the bottle. After that like 10 people went to my house and played xbox videto games for the entire afternoon. And Guangrong, Kenneth, Alex and Jeremy Ong stayed until 10pm. 10 hours of xbox! After that felt quite guilty. It doesn't feel right to spend Good Friday playing violent video games.

On saturday i went to guitar class, then to Changzhi's house for a Lent party. His house is incredible, its a large bungalow, beautifully decorated. And his extended family stays in two more bungalows, adjacent to his house, all equally big, and interconnected. And he has a large garden plot bigger than a street soccer court, with a swing and a pseudo-treehouse-lookout-post.

This saturday was our first cell meeting of our 85 batch since we graduated from Youth Sunday School! We are organising this so that we can continue our growth in God's Word through teaching. We met at Mark's house at 8.30am. We first had a short singing worship, then Mark shared some of his visions for the group and what he wanted to achieve from the meetings. We took turns to share, then we closed and went for lunch. Kaiyuan went to my house for a while, then left for church. I went for guitar class, then went to church to discuss about an event we are planning for in May, a version of the popular Car Wars in former years.

This sunday was nice, First Sunday of the month, the youths met in the Fish Tank for First Sunday Youth Praise. After the singing, some people waiting to go university that volunteered to help out in the church came up to speak. Then we prayed for them, and then we sang Happy Birthday for the people who had their birthdays in April. In the main service, some of the 89 girls sat in front of us, they were so sleepy during the sermon. I saw FM take off her shoes and put her feet on the pew in front. I finally poked Melissa and gave her some candy so she wouldn't hang her head between her knees. The pastor was staring in our direction. Kenneth wasn't much better, he was sleeping openly. I wonder how any speaker can take such punishment, hahahaha!

Then after service a whole lot of us went to eat, then play DOTA. I realise i'm pretty good with the Ogre Magi. But not with others though. Oh well. Then i went to teach tuition. After that i went for dinner with my parents at Nooch. Pretty good. Went Borders for a while, then went home.

Ok bye!

Lost

2005-03-20T20:59:00.000+08:00

Hello. Well this week i took a day off on thursday, because friday was my 24-hour duty clerk duty. thankfully nothing happened.

Well on Saturday i went for MTM at church, it was a prayer meeting day. We were briefed on who to pray for and what prayer requests that the Youths had. So we split up from there to find a little corner of our own to pray in 2s and 3s. My group chose a room next to the Mt. Carmel worship practice, in the end we couldn't stand it because the music was too distracting, so we moved to the fellowship hall to continue.

At 5 i had to go to guitar class, so at 6 i went back to church, but they were wrapping up already. So i stayed behind to sit in at the Events team meeting. I don't know whether i'm in Events or not. I also volunteered as a helper in the Kent Ridge BB. All this on top of my primary job as Worship team. I wonder why i'm volunteering for so many things.

After that Jeremy Ong and i went to play DOTA at Aloha Cybercafe. The first game ended prematurely when everyone quit. The second game was better, i was playing Crystal Maiden and Jeremy played Phantom Assassin and we went on the same lane so we could coordinate. I got my fair share of kills from Freezing Field, quite happy with that. Although at the endgame Naix from the other team was invincible, but everyone suddenly quit then. Then Jeremy went to my house to borrow my Xbox video games.

Sunday morning was nice, i woke up early at like 7.30am to go downstairs and play some guitar by the poolside. Haha then i gave someone a wake-up call, we chatted for a while, then had to prepare to go to church.

At Youth Praise today was a discussion about what Service really means. I noticed that one of the boys from Alex and Evan's DG was really left out, he was just sitting by himself and facing away from the discussion. And the DGLs were like not doing anything. Later we went to KFC for breakfast, and i voiced out my concerns to Alex. He said he had his hands full with the rest of the kids. But Evan was like really sedated and morose, turns out he had a little tiff with his mother recently and had his handphone, home phone and computer privileges stripped away from him.

At church today was the BB and GB Enrolment ceremony, it was so nice, i saw a few of the BB boys i knew, also saw E. Hahaha! She smirked at me, so i grinned back. After the 2nd Service there was free lunch so i went to take noodles. Yiling and the 88 girls scolded me for taking too much noodles and looking so greedy. Alex and Evan were supposed to go for their DG lunch, but they tried to escape it. So they were given a little talk by Weien. Hehheh. Also Weisi came! Guess she's back from Oxford or Cambridge for holiday. Didn't dare to talk to her though. So cowardly.

After church i went to play street soccer with the guys. I was like super hyper and was jumping and rolling around the court today, and screaming rubbish. Maybe i have to learn to control myself better. Otherwise people will be frightened to play soccer with me.

Ok well hope Evan and Alex sort out their DG thing. Ok that's all for today! Bye.

Washing the church building!!

2005-03-13T20:16:00.000+08:00

Yay! This weekend is a nice weekend. On Saturday morning, i went to church at 10am to practise for worship on Sunday. I was a bit worried as our coordination was really off and we were unsure of the songs. Still it was fun.

Next at 1pm i went to clean up the church building! This month for the Youth Group at my church it's Service Month, its a month where we organise events that are connected with serving God. This year we are going to do 3 things, clean the church building, pick up rubbish around West Coast, and visit needy homes to help them with their chores. So on Saturday afternoon, i was cleaning up the Baptism Pool area in the main hall. This is especially important as there was going to be a baptism service done on monday. It would not do to have dirt particles floating when the baptism candidates were dipped, yeah?

Next i scrubbed the stage and mopped the floor in front of the stage, which was filthy. I covered the floor in soap powder and when we splashed water on the floor, the hall became one big soap puddle. I had so much fun sliding around and screaming! Though after that it was a tough job to get rid of the soap and water.

At 5 i went for my guitar lesson at Yamaha. Then i went back to church to continue worship practice. Yi En joined us then on the synthesizer. Daniel Tan and Kelvin Soh led worship, and Bennett and me playing guitar. I think my Yamaha lessons really helped my plucking. Anyway the songs sound a lot nicer with the synthesizer. Yi En is going for a diploma in Music! So cool.

Well on Sunday i came early to church at 8am to practise. So in the end the worship went well, and i successfully plucked 2 songs. Quite happy about it. After that we went to watch the Baptism service. Yiling, Amanda, Benita, Carol, Simon, Jonathan Ng and a few others were baptised. It was really nice. I wonder when i'll be ready to be baptised?

In the main service after that, Yiling and Carol shared their thoughts on being baptised. It was really interesting. After that I went to eat with the 89s at Macdonald's, bennett and edwin and the others. Never ate with them before, quite cool.

Ok that's what was interesting about my weekend. Byebye!

Worship Practice

2005-03-06T21:35:00.000+08:00

Hi! Back to blog. Well this week was busy, in a good way. Started off by going to Mark's house after lunch on Saturday to talk about starting a Bible Study group for the 85's. Peide and Kaiyuan came also. We aired our views and problems concerning getting a group started, the discussion progessed quite well.

At 4 something i left to go to my first classical guitar class! The class is quite nice, like 10 plus students, including 3 giggly MGS girls who laugh at anything, especially the nice but eccentric teacher. The class wasn't bad, though this first class was dealing with the basics only.

So at 6 i went to church for worship practice. I'm doing worship for youths this coming sunday, with bennett, jeremy yeo and kelvin soh. I managed to get the nice lady closing the office to open the youth room for us to use. Well, we managed to sort out the sequence of the worship session, but then we realised that bennett and i had major problems coordinating guitars. It's so terrible that we were thinking of doing each song solo, like i play some songs and he plays the others. He's the better guitar player though, so he'll be doing the harder songs.

Today i woke up so late! Like at 9.15am. So i rushed to church, when i reached the worship session was just finishing for youths. I sneaked in the back door, the room was like packed, i had to squat beside bryan yeo. at least i caught the funny publicity slideshow about the church cleanup service thing.

After church i went to play soccer, it rained like on and off so many times! Amanda and Celine came to watch us play too. Alex kicked the ball and hit Amanda twice! Not on purpose, of course. Hopefully.

My relatives came to dinner tonight, something not so nice happened, my uncle got drunk and started arguing with my mother about something, so my auntie dragged him off. So everyone went home.

Haha bye!

Fruitful day!

2005-02-19T22:20:00.000+08:00

Hi! i'm back. Today was potentially a fruitless day, but due to some chance it turned out to be a really great fruitful day! Today i went to church to help bryan yeo fold pamphlets. When i got there, i found out he was using a futuristic photocopier-monstrosity that photocopies, folds, combines the sheets correctly and staples them in the middle, and gives it to you all done. So all i did was watch the machine work, which both ethically and scientifically is not considered work.

Was going to call it a day, but Joses and Lucas and Bryan were going to a gig in town, a local band charity gig for the tsunami victims in Indonesia. So i followed them there, was at the YMCA auditorium, called Operation Restoration. Gig was really LOUD, we were sitting in front of the speakers, we listened to 4 bands then decided to call it quits and soothe our numb ears with the roar of evening rush hour traffic outside.

So after that i needed to buy a kind-of-late valentine's present for Ting, so we went to Plaza Singapura to find one. I finally decided on a little meaningful wooden plaque thing with her name, the meaning of her name and a relevant Bible verse on the plague. I'll give it to her tomorrow.

Then we realised that the Chingay parade procession was going on in Orchard Road! So we hopped out of the bus and went to take a look. I've never seen Chingay live before, it's pretty gaudy and colourful and lively, with floats and dancers and marching bands, and the atmosphere is unique. The crowd was choking though, so we gave up after a while and i took the bus home.

That's all i did today. Bye!

So angry today!

2005-02-18T22:12:00.000+08:00

Today i found out that my mother went into my e-mail account and deleted all my messages from my pen-pal! When i opened my e-mail account and didn't get any replies to my latest e-mail to my pen-pal, i got a little suspicious. Then i noticed that even the not-so-recent e-mails from my pen-pal that i neglected to delete were gone! So i asked my mother about it. She first said she only deleted my junk mail. Then i asked if she had deleted anything else. She mumbled something about she didn't know, or she forgot, or some rubbish. Then i asked if she had deleted anything from my inbox that WASN'T junk mail. She said maybe. Then i asked if she deleted anything from my pen-pal. She then muttered something about not talking to strange people. I mentioned that she told me she only deleted my JUNK MAIL. Then she said, 'Oh! Now i remember!'

I don't know why i kept my temper in check. She is being childish, paranoid and intrusive. Well i changed my e-mail password, so she can't squirrel her way in again. I just couldn't bring myself to confront her harshly about her annoying actions. Maybe it's because she's my mother. Maybe it's because i take the stand that angry words are destructive and tactful speech is productive for all. Anyway i'll definitely cool down after a while, even though i don't feel that way now. It hurts so much to have your trust betrayed.

I love Sundays!

2005-02-13T21:38:00.000+08:00

Sundays are the best days in my calendar. Today was a nice day! i went early to church today, then tried to find a shop that was open to buy a Vday present for Ting. Nothing was open so i went to meet Timothy at Macs. I asked him what would be a nice Vday present to buy, and he said a book. Sounds like a good idea. We went to eat breakfast at the food centre opposite, met his cousin Samuel there, he's from Mt. Carmel. Bears a significant resemblance to Timothy hehheh.

Well after church service there was supposed to be a karaoke party at Jonathan Ng's house. But when we got there we realised we had no karaoke CDs. So, we played party games until lunchtime. Lunch was fresh pizza and KFC chicken! Then i juggled oranges and squished some. well the party broke up at around 4, some of the guys went to my house to play NBA Live 2005. We managed to pile 6 big teenagers into one car! pretty torturous though for them, i wouldn't know actually, i was in the front seat. haha! well they left around 6pm.

haha that's all for now.

Yay!!! new template!!!

2005-02-12T23:17:00.000+08:00

Yay! Ting just helped me to renovate my bloggie page! It's so pretty now, so much better than the last one. Haha i promised to buy her a Vday present. Wonder what i should buy for her? And where? I don't even know what she likes. I never know what girls like to get for Vday or birthdays, they always take my presents with a fake smile on their faces and a less-than-enthusiastic 'wow, that's so nice.' Bleah.

Today i went visiting, went Cheryl's, Jia's and Michelle's house in that order. Michelle's house is the nicest house i've seen. It's a corner terrace on top of a hill, and resembles a holiday chalet from the outside. Really great decor, tasteful ornaments, great view of the skyline. And Eugene has great toys, and a nice guitar. Cool house. We sat in the living room and talked about our school days, the funny events that happened to us when we were like 7 or 8 years old. Some of the stories were really funny.

Haha that's all for today nites.

Elvis Costello

2005-02-12T01:01:00.000+08:00

Haha! my favourite new singer is Elvis Costello. Bryan Yeo and Lucas just went to some CD shop in Peninsula Plaza today and bought me a Greatest Hits album! Hahaha so nice. Of course i'll pay them back though.

Today i went to help Bryan to fold bulletins for Church service this Sunday. Wonderful how some simple menial task with friends can brighten your day. Then, i was going to play warcraft3 at the LANshop, but the place was full, so i went home.

That's one issue that i have to address with myself. I play video games in excess, and this is not only a waste of my time, it also makes me super unfit, and it strains my eyes. I like playing, but at the same time i feel guilty, also quite uncomfortable at the fact that i could be achieving something with my life with the time and money i fritter away at the computer. I guess i'll stop when the guilt overruns the addiction. hehheh. Or i find something else that is fulfilling. Haha, anyone with constructive suggestions for me? I welcome all ideas.

What's an Arcadian stag?

2005-02-12T00:47:00.001+08:00

Hahahahah!!!! New blog!!! first post here. Heehee.
Ok first topic! Arcadian stag. What is it? So many people have asked me. well, the arcadian stag was one of the labours of Hercules of greek mythology. In his 3rd Labour, he was asked to catch the arcadian stag. however, this stag was the cutest pet of the goddess of the Hunt, if i recall properly. Killing it would result in the goddess being very, very angry. so, puzzled Hercules trailed it for an entire year, but didn't dare to do anything. Finally, he used his arrows and shot the animal between its toes or hooves or whatever, pinning it to the ground. in this way, he completed the Labour. Nice story huh?

What's an Arcadian stag?

2005-02-12T00:47:00.000+08:00