Me and Andrew....YO Man Wassuppppp!!

Me and Nicholas during Church Camp 2004..someone said last week he looks like my brother..hmm....

Amazing Experience

Yo what's up!??!?!? I just finished my exercise today. And before this i had such an amazing experience. Today i was thinking of passing my friend and his pastor a book each. One was "The Great Controversy" to my friend and the other was "From Sabbath to Sunday" to the pastor. I bought the first book last week but couldn't find the 2nd book in ABC(Adventist Book Center). So i resorted to going all the way to church to get that copy from the library to give to this pastor. On the way i was also unsure of whether i was making the right choice, to give these books to them. And i was speaking inside myself that if it's not God's Will, then may the bus break down on the way there. I had to rush to church then back to dover rd to meet my friend. It was really a rush and it was amazing firstly that i arrived on time. Usually i'm late for about 10 mins but i was early there and i caught my friend walking towards me to the auditorium. Yup, the bus didn't break down after all. Ok that's fine and i forgot all about it. I passed the 2 books to him and asked him to help me give the 2nd book to his pastor and i left. On the way back i had to take bus 74. Halfway through the journey the driver re-ignited the engine and i suddenly remembered the "test" i said in my heart. I was thinking it can't be such a coincidence right? If it really breaks down then does it mean that it wasn't God's Will for me to pass the 2 books to them? If that's the case, then why let the bus break down AFTER i have handed it to them? After a few seconds, the bus was on its way. But i noticed that the airconditioner was not on and i was riding in an enclosed container with no air ventilation. Then, at the next stop, the driver started telling the passengers to get off the bus and get another one. I told him i was dropping off the next 3 stops so it was fine for him and there was a lady that didn't mind no air and i guess her stop was much further. I thought she was crazy to not change but anyway, at my stop i alighted and the driver gave me a complimentary ticket that allowed me to take bus 74 next time for free. I was still unsure why it was such a coincidence. Then i came out with this conclusion. What i had wanted was for the bus to break down on my way to meeting my friend. Ok, that didn't happen. So it means that it was God's will. And i believe God wanted to further re-assure me that i did the right thing so he allowed the bus to break down but not by my definition of breaking down. It was the air con that broke down instead. I'm not surprised God works in such ways. When we try to think of the many ways of how God is going to help us, suddenly God provides another way that you've never thought of before. It's the same case like that. And i was able to go back home without the bus actually breaking down. Yup, this just proves that God IS always working with us! Especially in circumstances where we are faced with dilemnas, that's the time when amazing things happen.

I'll just end with one of my favourite quotes from EGW
"Our heavenly Father has a thousand ways to provide for us of which we know nothing. Those who accept the one principle of making the service of God supreme will find perplexities vanish and a plain path before their feet."

How i spent my christmas.

Ok i'll just list the points. It's church day today and so we had a special christmas service at church in the morning which lasted until 115pm. And mandy decided to be a librarian and asked me again. She actually wanted to be one last few weeks and i just roped her in. So right now there are a total of 7 librarians!! And there are only 2 adults - aggie and june. If i had a choice, i'll have a good mix of librarians but i guess the youth are more enthusiastic. So next week we'll be meeting up to discuss on our future. I guess some will go out like maybe aggie who would need to spend more time with her new born child. Someone once commented that the library is so small, why need so many librarians? And so i don't want to make it like a club such that everybody would think it's someone else's job.

In the afternoon we had MAD(makinng a difference). So we played some great games inside. One of which was we were in a circle with one empty seat. And the person in the middle had to try to sit on the empty chair while the rest of us would occupy it before he could. Then to make the game easier, we had 2 persons. And that meant 2 empty chairs. At one time i waited until there were 2 consecutive empty chairs and taunted the "monkeys" until the last minute where i jumped with my butt 2 chairs across..lol..shuqin who was beside me was shouting away asking me to move it and when i did, she had to react the same way and jump 2 seats away.lol..that was so funny.

After MAD, almost everybody had their own programs. Most of the young adults went home leaving the teens. The teens went off the CCK and i heard that barbara lost her bag when they were taking neo print. What a sad incident. I tell you, if i was there, i would have ran out of the shop and started searching for the culprit and if i see him i'll...*entermeanwordhere*...him to pieces. Anyway, it's sad that it happened but luckily her IC wasn't there.

At 830 i met up with sammy and jess and we really had a good time chatting at macdonalds. Chatted until past midnight then we went back. It's amazing that we could click so well too. And it's 1am now and just got back and i guess i'll stop here.

2 Crimes

Just read today's newspaper. A couple of interesting crime news. First one i read was about the bravery of an NUS undergraduate,A, who caught a molester when he saw him running out of the lift with the girl bleeding and bruised inside. His bravery is really commendable and i ask myself whether i'll do the same thing and with such a quick response. What happened was the molester attacked the girl in the lift and when the lift door opened on the 9th floor, he ran out while A thought both of them had quarrelled. And of course he didn't want to interfere if it was a couple quarrelling. It reminded me of the time when i saw a boy threatening a girl to tears at novena mrt station. I didn't want to interfere as both of them obviously knew each other and assumed they were just quarrelling. Besides, the guy didn't throw any punches at her. So i thought i'll just keep myself at bay. Back to what had happened, A saw her bruises and asked what happened, then the girl said he tried to rape her and that's when A started to give chase. He caught up with him while the police came after a few minutes. I really wonder what's going on in those few minutes the police are on the way. Thankfully, A didn't put up a struggle so there was no brawl and it was stated that both of them waited downstairs for the police to arrive - quite an awkward situation to be in. Both these stories just gets me more prepared to respond to such situations but of course i won't want to get into these kind of sticky situations.

Another story i read was a mad bus driver who ran over a cyclist. There was a lorry parked in front of him and he wanted to overtake it by going to the opposing lane. The sickening thing was he saw a big group of cyclists (40 of them) cycling in the opposing lane and the leader of the pack had motioned to him to slow down and cross into their lane to overtake the lorry. And what did this bus driver do? He just gave the middle finger and continued his way. The poor cyclists scrambled to slow down and to bunch up together so space was given for this errant bus to pass while the cyclists tried to motion him to stop. Unfortunately, the bus banged into a cyclist and dragged him 7m, pinning him under the wheel. One of the cyclist who was a plastic surgeon advised no one to touch the injured fellow. The ambulance arrived after 15 mins while the bus driver and occupants remained inside. And again i wonder the scene during those 15 mins - a tense environment definitely. Based on what i've read, i'd say the bus driver was definitely at fault as he had clearly seen a huge group of cyclists and as stated, he gave them "the middle finger". I think he was either possessed by demons or not happy with his life to do that.

oh well...i guess i should blog abit. I haven't been utterly productive this week. Still been playing the online game aspereta. Guess i just have to pull myself back to reality..ahhh..

Visited 2 Churches today

I had a chance to visit 2 churches today. Initially i just wanted to go for one where it talks about prophecy. I shall not name the churches i went to and shall call them A and B. I went to A and its title was Israel,Oh,Israel. It basically talked about how God had chosen Israel, gave it warnings and that it was destroyed and finally Israel will be restored. As i saw the presentation, i realised that the verses he used were all plucked from some parts of the bible like ezekiel and isaiah to come out with the story about Israel and its final settling into their land. Now don't get me wrong, collecting bible verses from other books is one good way for bible study, but what i didn't agree upon was that the verses he used had been reluctantly utilized to get that prophecy and thus, used totally out of context. Sorry i don't have examples to show but basically that's my experience. So far in my study of Adventist doctrines, there is a very convincing presentation of each doctrine like sabbath, state of the dead and that if we try to use verses from other places of the bible, we know that "oh, ok this is part of the jigsaw puzzle of the state of the dead" and ultimately we get a nice picture of the whole doctrine. For church A, how i felt was "Are you sure that verse applies to your prophecy? Or are you taking out that jigsaw piece from an existing picture and trying to fit into your own picture?" Basically that's how i felt and i really pitied the ppl there as they don't know what it is to have solid bible study. Church A has further cemented my faith in the SDA church and put more pressure on me personally to be students of the Bible because it's easy to be well versed in it as we have all the resources available.

My friend who brought me to church A had told me that there is a christian bookshop at another church. So after church A, we went to church B but found out that the bookshop was closed and only opened after the service so we attended it. This church was also a traditional church like church A. The senior pastor was an old guy of about 80 and i think half the time he talked about "We have to trust in God because he saved us and died for us". I didn't know the sermon title so i give them the benefit of the doubt that their sermons normally aren't so shallow. But even then, presenting the gospel of salvation can be much more solid and interesting. And again, his way of using the bible to show us how the coming of the messiah was predicted was not that convincing and powerful.

In summary, i thought both churches didn't have an easy and convincing way to present bible doctrines and prophecy. It's unlike the seminars we have like Jon Paulien and Geoff Youlden where it was so interesting throughout and after that, you could see ppl going up to them to ask more questions. For this 2, it was not that convincing and thus was abit boring. Ok yes, i've not been talking well about these 2 churches but i can't help it since i'm already been exposed to such easy and convincing bible studies set forth by the SDA church.

Anyway, after church B, i visited the church bookshop and went around checking out what they had. I realised that alot of stuff which Life bookshop sells weren't sold here which was a disappointment for me as i had wanted to buy some books for the library. The books that i saw were to me 1) controversial and 2) not popularly found in other christian bookshops. Personally i felt the congregation were not given the best kind of food and it hurts me. It's like selling books that would make you more confused about what you're reading and ultimately you would think that the bible is a difficult book to study where in fact it's not. Anyway, had to vent. After that, i went to the cult section. They had 2 columns of it and i was naturally looking for books about SDA. Most of the space taken up were talking about Mormonism or Jehovah's Witness and i only found 2 very thin booklets about SDAs. It was so thin that i thought that it wasn't a fair study on why the author thought that SDAs are a cult or dangerous. Anyway, inside contained the common complaints that EGW had been a plagiarist and was contradicting the bible and of course about the sabbath too and blah blah. Oh well...like what geoff youlden said, that's what happens when you're different, ppl notice and start to condemn you on your uniqueness and saying that you have apostasized from the mainstream churches.

Someone's watching and influencing you!!

today was quite a busy day in church for me. I had to play sabbath school, teach for lesson study and play again for worship service while the youth were leading worship. For lesson study we went through Daniel chapter 10 and 11 where it talks about the unseen forces present in our world. In fact in Dan 10:13, the angel Gabriel says "But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia." Gabriel had wanted to meet Daniel earlier but couldn't as he was "held up". Basically he was held up because he was trying to counteract the opposing forces that were fighting for the influence of King Cyrus' mind. And at that period, King Cyrus had received alot of false complaints from the Palestinians that the Jews, who were trying to rebuild their city were causing trouble. So naturally Gabriel had to do something to influence King Cyrus to do the right thing. And thus, the lesson learnt is that i'm not living alone in my room! That when i'm sleeping there's someone or some angels too and that there are good and bad angels trying to influence my decisions. Remember in cartoons you see one character thinking and 1 good angel pop up and 1 bad angel pop up? Well, although it's purely cartoon, but it has some truth in it that unseen forces DO affect our decisions.

Ok, and the first part of Daniel 11 is about the kings of the north and south. Basically that's the most difficult part of the book of Daniel in understanding as there are a few interpretations of it and not one of them can fully apply to it. Shucks..i can't say "I know the book of Daniel"..i only can say "I know the book of Daniel, except the first part of chapter 11"..BTW, there are 2 Myths about the Book of Daniel

-It's too difficult to understand
-It's a sealed book and will never be understood

Both are FALSE. Anyone who has went through Pik Yee's youth class or went through the Focus on Prophecy lessons will testify to it. It's EASY!!!(Except 1st part of chapter 11)

I was just talking to a christian friend of mine. Coincidently he has a prophecy seminar also and wanted me to attend. I looked through the topics and it wasn't about the book of Daniel but was about the signs of the 2nd coming. Oh well, i'd wanted to see what they believe so i asked him what other materials he had in church. He said he had none and said i could have a one to one bible study with his pastor. That was very nice of him but i was actually looking for resources his church had about Daniel that were more easily available. And he went on talking about the different bible classes his church had. Hmm....but that wasn't what i wanted too. Anyway, what i learnt from is that being SDA is cool as we have a much better understanding of Daniel while other churches are still blur of. But that means that we have a greater responsibility too. As it says, the more you know, the more you're responsible of. Anyway, he was so kind to take my queries so i thought i'll go and attend the seminar about the 2nd coming tomorrow. They say they'll be talking about the microchip being the mark of the beast or whatever and how the Jews will finally go back to Israel and then the end will come. Although this is not how the Bible interprets it, but i thought i'll go and update myself on how the other christian churches interpret it so i know more clearly where we(SDAs) are.

Library stock take

yes! It's time to blog again after so long! Hmm..yesterday we had library stock check which lasted from 10am to 630pm. Barbara and I were the first ones and tricia came later. Andrew was supposed to come but he totally forgot all about it..so blur!!!! But he's cute because he's blur..so anyway.haahah.. In the end he didn't come as he had to attend to his long lost relatives. The library stock take was a very productive one. We did most of what had to be done and pastor gave us about 30 new cds for the library! Also, we have yet to register about 40 good books that were donated to us. With all this new stuff coming in, old stuff had to be got rid off as the library is too small. (I'd been bugging pastor for a bigger room but i guess we have to settle for the current one.sigh...otherwise i'd want to put a comfortable couch in there and impelment barcode scanning.) So we phased out the casette tapes and took out the older and not so popular books to be given or sold next time. Probably we'll put those books up for grabs for a donation so we can get more stuff..muahahhaa.

Ok got to go off...

A

Today, somebody, whom i shall refer to as A, gave me a good lesson to learn. A had poked at one of my achilles heel again and so i wasn't too mirthful about it. It's rare that such instances occur as i'm a phlegmatic person. And what had transpired had procured my exacerbation and aggrandized the acrimony towards A, that's why i'm querulous now and hope that by composing my gripe, it'll allay the peevishness within me. It was such a coincidence that i had thought of methods and resources of improving my abilities as the honcho and i presume i should thank the heavens for this opportune incident, albeit being reiterated.

Oh well, dinner time!

Just got back from a long day. In the day time i went alone to church by taxi as i had to be there early to practise for sabbath school worship with tracy and weeleng but i was late by 10 mins. Was supposed to be there at 845am. And i think it was the first time i reached church so early. And at 2pm i had a sabbath school meeting to discuss the next quarter's theme. We decided to come out with a very useful theme that everyone will benefit. It's based on the book by dale carnegie, the guru of people skills and it's entitled "How To Win Friends And Influence People". The author is christian but of course we'll be adding a more christian perspective to it too. So watch out for the next quarter's sabbath school because it's gonna be more exciting and useful!

After that we had a young adult's meeting at 3pm. Had a 2.5 hour meeting regarding restructuring the young adult's ministry and the youth ministry. There will be exciting new developments including a "bible syllabus" that will be looked into further in the coming year. That means there'll be formal classes like bible101, bible202.hehe..just like a school.

For dinner, me, jeffrey,boon leong, jj and peifong went to the jap restaurant at clementi. They had raised their prices by a dollar and so it wasn't the cheapest jap store in town as they had said before. We talked alot regarding relationship issues and we found out the dramatic relationships peifong had. He said he once flew all the way to hongkong with 2 luggages - 1 filled with his gf's fav foods and the other filled with something else. And when he got there the gf was so touched..of course lah..so dramatic..i don't know whether i'll ever do that..haha. I thought that only happened in the movies. Anyway, after going to macs for dessert, we headed back home and saw an old man sitting on the ground at the busstop near the escalator going up to the mrt. He was holding his left thigh and we thought he had fallen and tried to help him up with his cane. But apparantly after a few questions, we found out he was a beggar..shucks..then we just left.

This whole week i've been playing an online game called "Aspereta" so i think that's the culprit for me not being able to complete most of my resolutions..ahhh.

NZ recognises same-sex unions

NZ recognises same-sex unions
New Zealand's parliament has passed controversial legislation to recognise civil unions between gay couples.

Conservation Minister Chris Carter, who is planning a civil union with his partner Peter Kaiser as soon as the law takes effect, told parliament that history was being created.

"Today I sense tremendous joy and enthusiasm. We will have an opportunity we have always been denied," he said. (What BS)

And the world slides further into moral decadence...

got back from church camp!

Got back from church camp today. It was a very fun-filled experience. I found out once again that fun in church camps only comes about when there are people you can "play" with. It's not fun when you want the time spent in church camp to be longer but it's only you that's gonna be left alone there. We had a couple of new faces appear in camp too and also ppl from dunman. Seems like our church camp is gaining a reputation across the singapore sda churches. And it's gonna be better next year! Well of course the visitors were brought by some good laymen who bothered to invite them too and i'm grateful for that. That's what evangelism is about - YOU make the effort. But sadly, not many were followed up upon sufficiently in my opinion. Anyway, i'm starting to realise that jeffrey has changed. Like what some of the young adults said, "Ever since he joined Tyco (his new company), he's become more dirty minded, money minded and heck-care." hahhaa...apparantly for the camp he shared the room with peifong. I was there with them at one time and they seemed to click quite well with each other. They were walking history books so to speak. There was one conversation which revolved around King louis IV or Edward and i was left there staring at them, wondering where they were reading off all this information. Well, that was one part about them. The other was when on saturday night they had ordered room service, ie, both of them had ordered food to their room. And we had agreed to meet in room 209 already but still they wanted to enjoy. Boon Leong then made a funny remark as we were waiting for them in room 209, that they were enjoying their honeymoon together. i burst out laughing man...that was so true. oh well..enough blogging..

Bye Bye Singapore

Today is the last day i'll be in Singapore!!! Yup, no more Singapore for me because tomorrow i'll be going to Johor. I just got a new travel bag today. Went with my dad to Mustafa centre in the afternoon. Mustafa really has lots of bags so i took some time to check out all of them before deciding on one. And that one was stuffed in the shelf with some others. I like to take my time doing shopping for the thing i want. The good thing is, when i get it, i can tell myself that i have put in effort to get what i want and the other thing is i'll cherish that thing more. So today i got a travel bag that is like a sports bag but it has 2 wheels at the base end so i can pull it like a trolley. Paid only $25 for it's cheap for what it is. It's amazing how cheap bags can get now. After that i had bible study with andrew in church where we talked about the God's true church(Discover Lesson 25). We have one more lesson to go before we wrap that series up and move on to another one. After that we had dinner and chanced upon joyce's mum and brother at NTUC. And we saw joyce coming out of the game shop. After a few words we parted and we went to CD Rama to find the CD by The Twins. Too bad they didn't have that CD because i liked the song which they sang in The Twins Effect II and i wanted to get the album. I also admire vocal harmonies that's why i'm confident that the songs inside are good. Oh well, i've packed my bags and i'm ready for tomorrow!

Visit to the dentist

I just got back from a visit to the dentist. I've not gone there for 4 years already. And i wanted to go back to the same dentist that i went 4 years ago. It was the holland v one and when i got to the supposed place, i couldn't find the clinic at all! It was supposed to be opposite cold storage but i couldn't see it so i called them up and they told me they had moved to the one above coffee bean and that they had done so 4 years ago. Oh well. I walked up the stairs and was in an unfamiliar lobby with the receptionist attending to some guy. Obviously i was blur at the whole place and didn't know where to go. Out of nowhere, Dr Lee (the dentist's name) popped out from the side door and greeted me by name, asking me to come in. How in the world does she know it was me. Anyway, i went in and asked about teeth whitening. Hmm...she said if i really want to whiten my teeth i need to have that capsule with the gel over my teeth and leave it there for 1 hour, doing it regularly. And i thought she could just make my teeth white just like that. But anyway, she got rid of all my calculus/plaque on my teeth and once again, i felt clean! During the process of it, it wasn't that clean as i was bleeding throughout. She had to not only clean the plaque off my teeth but also those which were behind the gums so it really aggravated my gums alot. I wonder why some people don't even get plaque on their teeth at all. She also advised me to get rid of the wisdom teeth. I've expected that she'd say that but i won't take them out since they are fine. I don't think they will decay and get holes in them either so i'll spare myself the pain and money and pray that nothing will happen next time..hehe. And i paid a total of $50. Joyce told me it was less than $50..nearly there..and 4 years ago i had paid just $33. Now she has raised prices. Maybe i'll look for another one next time i go.

I just finished studying the book of daniel!!!!!!!!!!! Yippie!!! It was the first time i've went through it with relative depth. So now at least i am familiar with the prophecies of daniel that includes the important dates and events. But i intend to go through it again as it wasn't really a super solid study. It was basically for my own understanding and "testing the waters" so to speak. It wasn't that difficult after all because i used the study guide here. It's 147 pages and it was highly interesting, that's why when i was really really bored this afternoon, i decided to pick it up and study it for the past few hours. It's really interesting especially the part where unseen forces actually influence world events like when the angel Gabriel had to come back to daniel after 3 weeks as he was battling out with the princes of persia. All in all, it was a nice first round of study and I may attend the prophecy seminar in jurong church next month. I realise it's 32 lessons and i just found out there's an official website for this which offers online lessons. So i have to decide whether to follow the online lessons or attend the talks in church..hmm. It will not only cover Daniel but Revelation too. grr.. i think Revelation is going to be abit more tricky as it picks off from where Daniel left by revealing more about Daniel's visions. And currently, i feel the book of Revelation is a difficult to understand book. That's natural i suppose, after hearing all the similar sentiments about this book from other christians too. But i shouldn't say it's difficult until i dive into it as i've done with Dnaiel. Now i say the book of Daniel isn't difficult at all! Go study for yourself using the lesson guide!

festive season

I couldn't believe i had slept for almost 3 hours just now. Hai..that's not good..rightfully i should sleep the most 1.5 hours for an afternoon nap. I think it's because of the lack of oxygen in the room. My windows were slightly open only and there wasn't much ventilation too. Oh well..this week is the last week of November and that means christmas is coming soon! Again, it's back to the festive mood and of all public holidays, christmas is the most fun and the one where i get to the mood. Maybe because everyone is celebrating too. It's not as much for chinese new year. Hm...i guess i'll shop abit too to get new clothes since i've saved up some money. I feel a sense of accomplishment for what i've got this month, contacts and new pair of glasses. hehe...but amidst all this fun, i gotta study!!!! ahhhh, that's what i'm struggling with now...gotta start getting serious now.

Sentosa

Today was a youth/young adult outing to sentosa. We had a great time and in all there were about 24 of us. Well, the fun part is that all of us did have fun even though it rained after a while and continued raining even when we were going back.

For me right now, it's a new week ahead and that means i need to come up with new resolutions. I guess i'll be having new resolutions each week so that i'll keep a tab on myself on how well i've spent my time.

New Specs Ordered

I thought i'll just blog abit..yesterday i went with sammy to get new spectacles. I ordered it at the shop at citilink..can't remember the name. but it has black frames and the sides were thick. I thought that would bring a new look to me after all this years as i had realised to my surprise that i had stuck to the same shape for about 3 generations of glasses! No wonder some people told me to change specs and that it looked old! Actually i had thought my current one was almost 4 years old but i found out it was barely 2 years old!!! Oh well, now i'm changing and i hope the new one would be lighter too.

The 2 laws

Today was another night of the LIFE AFTER LIFE seminar. So far having faithfully attending all the nights, i find his meetings very insightful. I get to learn things i don't know. Like for the word "law" in the bible, he mentioned that whenever we read that word, we must ask ourselves what law is it referring to because it's used in a generic way. There are 2 laws mentioned in the bible, the ceremonial law with the sanctuary service and sacrifices and practices, and the 10 commandment law which God wrote with his own finger. He didn't even trust Moses to write it down. But he trusted Moses to write the ceremonial law. So with this understanding in mind, whenever i read the new testament and encounter some texts like Col 2:14-17 or Romans 6:14,15 or whatever texts non-sabbath keepers quotes, i know how better to answer them. Firstly we need to know which law it's talking about. And i was asking Geoff after the seminar, how about the sacrifices that were practised even before Moses' time because they had to sacrifice a lamb and it started from Adam. He said that what Moses got was a more formal proclamation of the sacrifices. And at this point, God also added to it the various feast days too. Come to think of it, the 10 commandments are also treated likewise. As in they have been in existence since the beginning before sin came in and were formally proclamed on Mount Sinai. Ok to illustrate with my own points..

Before Sinai

Moral law
Before sin, informal commandments were in place. Because without sin there is no law. So when satan sinned, it implied there was a law for him to break in the first place.

Ceremonial law
"It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come."(Gal 3:19) It existed AFTER sin came since Adam's day(sacrifice of the lamb on the altar) and is to last until Christ's death. That's when the curtain was split in two.(Matt 27:51).

At Sinai

Moral law now called the 10 commandments
Formal declaration of moral law into 10 precepts. God wrote with His own hand. Added to it were commandments to honor your parents.

Ceremonial law now called the Mosaic law
Formal declaration of the ceremonial law. God entrusted Moses to write it. Added were the feast days and other ordinances.

After first coming

10 commandments still in effect and are to last until Christ comes the 2nd time.
Mosaic law no longer in effect as it was to point to Christ' first advent.

MBTI test result

Got this from barbara's blog and i took the test.

Outgoing (E) 56.76% Withdrawn (I) 43.24% Realistic (S) 65.63% Imaginative (N) 34.38% Intellectual (T) 57.89% Emotional (F) 42.11% Organized (J) 62.16% Improvised (P) 37.84%

Your type is: ESTJ

You are an Administrator, possible professions include - government employee, pharmaceutical sales, auditor, computer analyst, technical trainer, project manager, officer manager, factory supervisor, credit analyst, electrical engineer, stockbroker, regulatory compliance officer, chief information officer, construction worker, general contractor, paralegal, industrial engineer, budget analyst, data base manager, funeral director, cook, security guard, dentist.

Take Free Career Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

I think it was about 3 years ago that i did the formal MBTI test. Then, my result was INTJ. Seems like it's different now. Those in bold-italics are what i'm interested in. hehe..

Sad and Irritated

Today was a LONG day! And finally it's over!!!!!!!!!!! I was in YWC the whole day since 9am because the previous night i was told to go there to do some amazing last minute work that should have been done a month ago! Yeah, so you say, how in the world did i finish it so fast? Well, give thanks to God first. He was the one that provided me such a good brain and fast thinking.hehhee..it was a good experience though. I learnt that i could still work under stress and it also taught me to handle myself better when the next stressful situation crops up. I was disappointed today that my friend couldn't turn up because he got a terrible flu. Seemed to me that the devil has worked so hard such that my friend was striken by such an illness. It was only just the day before that he told me he could come and today this happened...i feel so sickened by this thought, that we are not fighting against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers..things that i have no control of unless God steps in. hai...to make matters worse, stephen msn me today telling me that he's not coming. I told him it's the most important seminar in the whole series and his church will NEVER teach him this. He said yeah..the church will teach him and i was even willing to bet with him for $1000 that nobody will tell him about it. He still didn't believe me. Well, of course he had sufficient reason not to believe me but at least he could have spent a few hours listening to the seminar and then not come again if he wants. Now, he's not going to hear of the topic again unless someone tells him but it's not going to be his church for sure. Why did i say his church is never going to tell him?? Because if the pastor says that saturday is to be church day, then he will lose alot of members firstly because alot of them work on saturday and secondly some of them believe that sunday worship is right because the majority are keeping sunday. The latter do so because they are guilty of not studying the bible for themselves with an open mind. Hai..

In the previous night i met a man sitting at the corner in the auditorium. Pei fong asked me to talked to him the first thing he saw me come up. Pei fong had told me about this man and had wanted me to explain things to him since i'm better equipped. I thought this guy was a sincere person wanting to know more about the Sabbath so i was enthusiastic. I let the guy talk for about 5 mins along with some simple questions and i knew what kind of guy was he. He was the kind that was so closed minded that not even a sharp knife had a chance. He had taken out a huge stack of notes from his bag and referred to them saying "All the statements you ppl say have been refuted here"..i looked at some of them and i noticed that he had printed those from some non-sda website. Again i was exasperated because this guy was claiming to be open minded and yet he didn't bother to go to official sda sites to check out what we have to say about his "refutations to our statements". I was sad that a person could have been so deceived by satan and be so closed-minded..yet again, satan seemed to have an upper hand. So i told myself it's not worth it to tell him what i think because all he will do is point me to his stack of toilet paper and say that it's all argued there. If he were that smart, he would tell me why himself instead of pointing to his stack of toilet paper. So i decided to try to prise myself out of the conversation(or one sided conversation) since i'll be wasting my time with him...i mananged to do so finally saying that i wanted to watch the video on screen.

resolutions for this week

Ok i haven't fulfilled some goals i want to accomplish so i better list them to remind me.

This is all i aim to achieve this week:

- Transfer the jurong site to a local webhost
- Start to study my ASP.NET book
- Cut hair....DONE on monday
- Get a pair of glasses..DONE on thursday
- Go to a dentist
- Finish YWC corporate report...DONE on tuesday
- Get a present for someone going for baptism..DONE on thursday

me vegetarian?not yet..

It was another frustrating time with the violin. But this time i made a little progress as i was able to get a more comfortable hold and could balance the violin using my chin and shoulder only. The problem is i don't think i'm holding it with maximum comfort still and i'm dying to find out how. I spent most of my hour adjusting the shoulder rest and positioning the violin on my shoulder. The rest was playing the C scale again. Ahhh...i hope practise would make me comfortable or i really need to get a teacher..just that i don't want a teacher as i can learn it at my own pace and i don't want to go for classes right now. Another choice is to drop by Mr Lee's violin classes on saturdays but then i'm not sure whether he'll take time off to teach me then as he has 10 other students in there. Shucks...i'm starting to realise that it's much harder to play violin than a guitar on your own.

As for the rest of the day, i had to wake up early to attend the Power up your Health seminar at YWC. Over there we learnt benefits of a vegetarian diet. This includes lower risk of cancer,diseases, high cholesterol, high blood pressure. Yes i do know of these advantageous of getting into the vegetarian lifestyle, but still there is the inertia to include meat in my diet. I guess it's about convenience and satiety. When i go out it's easy to order a dish with meat whereas if it's a plant-based dish, it's most probably yong tao fu only or the mixed veggie rice. I eat the mixed veggie rice often but i include a portion of meat there. I can't imagine having no meat because the thought of becoming thinner scares me as i may not be getting enough calories. And eating yong tau fu seems unable to fully gratify my appetite and caloric intake unless i order another bowl. Oh well..i'm still very unsure about all this and not clear of the path to take (including not losing weight) if i get rid of meat altogether. Another reason why it's hard is because my family are not vegetarian too, so they either cook fish or chicken. Hmm..i guess if i were to become a vegetarian, it has to depend on my future partner..niack!

spectacle search

Recently got back from dinner with some of the young adults this time. Went out with junjie, jeffrey, boon leong, pei fung, weeleng, agnes and another lady. Went to jurong point food court. We had to separate ourselves into 2 groups to sit at 2 tables. It was packed with people and i think yes, the population of singapore is really too many. So we had a good time of sharing and talking about what's up with each other's lives. For me it was the same old boring description, that i am preparing for my exams. Nothing absolutely wacky or happening happened during the past few weeks for me. After that, us guys went to the specs shop as jeff and i wanted to get new specs. After about half an hour we decided on what we wanted. The one i chose is more classy than what i'm wearing now. It was much more elongated at the sides, such that it stretched horizontally. And it was half framed - frame on top, frameless below. I can't find a picture of it on the web. Anyway, the frame with the lenses would set me back by $323. That's alot of money for me considering that i got my current one at 200 plus and i'm not working yet. Oh well, i'll go to another spec shop another day. As for jeff, his was $280 and he decided to contemplate on whether he wants to get it from there or not.

I haven't had a chance to wear my contacts the 2nd time as i've been out the whole day and the next time i wear it i'm only allowed to put it on for less than 6 hours. So since i'll be playing tennis tomorrow, i'll put it on then.hehe..

Contact lenses

Today is the 3rd day of the seminar and i felt tonight's session was better than the first 2 nights. It seems that geoff (the speaker) is more direct in his approach to the bible now. I was disappointed that not many outsiders came..it seemed to me that most of them were people who were already SDAs and some were repeat seminar goers from the past seminars. The seminar hall today was about 60% - 70% filled tonight and the turnout was better than the first two nights. But i was thinking, it's not a disappointment after all, because we do have people who are christians of other churches faithfully attending these seminars and also our own people are going for their own benefit too. After all, the seminar is not only to evangelise to non-believers, but also to meet the need of our own souls. I was delighted to know that derrick had been attending the past 3 nights faithfully. I hope he will ultimately benefit and come back to church a new and revived believer of God.

Before the seminar i was out with derrick and andrew to get myself a pair of contact lenses. The lady said that some people can take up to 2 hours just to put on a pair. I was flabbergasted..how could someone take so long?? So i told myself i'll just do what a man's got to do - put on the contact lens for the first time. Yes it was the first time, and i had to get used to the idea of pulling back my eyelids exposing my eyeball and placing the soft lens on it. That was fine and it took me a few tries to get the hang of it. The more difficult part was taking it out. Almost like extracting your eyeball off its socket but not that bad. I had to use 2 fingers to pinch the lense and pull it off. Thankfully i did it and the whole consultation took about 20 minutes and was proud of my achivement. So i decided to treat both of my associates to yoshinoya. I was glad i was accompanied by them..that's what friends are for right? Yup, so that's about my highlight. I'll continue to tell more about my contact lens experience tomorrow.

The fundamental technique of violin playing

i was enthusiastic about learning violin and thought it was going to be a matter of positioning my fingers and getting used to the bow movements but never had i thought the most fundamental technique would get in the way - holding the violin. I had borrowed a shoulder rest from Andrew since holding a violin on my collarbone was unimaginable. Balancing a violin on the collarbone is no joke especially for a person as bony as I..hehe. Today i decided to take out the violin and use the shoulder rest to really start practising my technique. But what took me almost an hour was to hold the violin and adjust the shoulder rest to fit my hold, and it's not finished yet. I don't feel as comfortable as I think i should be but definitely much better than without one. sigh..it's not as easy as holding a guitar..anyone can hold a guitar..but not everyone can hold a violin properly. My left hand was tired due to the upheld position. However, i made sure that i didn't go away without learning any violin bowing. So i played the C scale. do re mi fa so la ti do...after playing for a while, i realise that i could do it quite well. Even the transitioning(esp switching strings) was impressive to me for i had that problem of doing it previously. I felt like a virutoso violin player, though it was the most basic scale every violinist should know. That was my moment of fantasy with the simple rhapsody. I played a couple more times and decided to call it a day. I had to find out how to hold the violin properly first.

This is my share of neo prints. You can notice most of them were unprepared or badly taken. The 2nd photo was us thinking where to pose when the camera was faster than our decisions.stupid machine.haha. The 2nd column is the pics of nicholas and truddy. As mentioned before, there were 22 of such prints taken..lol. But with such "waste", i guess we agree that we had a very fun and crazy time during the neo print sessions.

neo prints

Yesterday
It was an amazingly long day for me in a couple of months. I woke up at 7am and had to prepare to reach church at 830 for the bus to fetch us to pasir ris park where we'll be with the pathfinders too. The route that the bus driver used was very incomprehensible initially. Instaed of going west towards pasir ris, we realised that he was going towards Tuas! Actually it was found out by shaun and it was only us at the back row who were aware of the situation. And we ended up going to woodlands and then finally pasir ris. But surprisingly it took just 45 minutes which is the same time if you took from clementi mrt to pasir ris. Because in the beginning we had thought that the driver was trying to be funny and wanted to tour singapore or what. oh well..

So reached pasir ris park at 930am and the pathfinders had their games while the youth just sat at the benches chit-chatting. Shaun and nicholas went to the swings to play and i decided to follow them and pushed them. I'd joked that i would push them very hard that they would reach horizontal.haha..but nicholas was scared so i didn't do it. Later on shuqin came and sat on the swing and gary pushed her and he pushed so hard that she really went up horizontally..it was like being swung up high like a rag doll..hahhaa.oh my then after that gary didn't push so hard anymore. I also had 2 grape popsicles. I bought the first one because before that i was giddy and felt like vomitting after sitting on the "satellite dish". It's like a merry go round lah. I shouldn't have sat on it. Shaun also felt like vomitting so i guess some people just can't take such stuffs and i think it's to do with the ear. I also can't play first person shooter games as after 30 minutes or so i won't feel so right and have to head to bed to recuperate. The grape popsicles were the best popsicles i've ever had. It was not only cool but it was icy cool! You could feel the icyness at the top of your mouth and i was enjoying the popsicle with shaun and some others by the sea...so relaxing. Andrew, bobo and nicholas were on the beach playing around and then came gary..i was noticing gary as he went up nicholas and then suddenly you see gary trying to drag him to the sea to throw him there and nicholas screaming his guts out..hahaa..it was so funny..but of course gary didn't throw him in. After finishing my popsicle i decided to do the same thing for fun...and nicholas freaked out again and went hysterical like a crazed cat..hahhaa..he's really cute isn't he?

After we went back from pasir ris, the youth-shaun,nicholas,james,weixiang,truddy- decided to head to jurong point to have our tea. It was only 4pm and i guess they had nothing better to do so i thought i'll just join them too and fellowship with them. Junjie also came along and told all of us during our time at mos burger that he liked weeleng. haha...then at one point we were giving him advice on how to chase her and what not. He was also so proud to point out that he had 1 girlfriend before and that me and weixiang had none. In a way he was trying to mock me but i quickly replied that 1 gf before means he had 1 failure..hahaha..with that, everyone burst out laughing. Oh well, having many "experiences" isn't a big deal...hehe. After that we headed to the neo print shop to take some neo-prints..yeah 7 of us squeezed into the machine (it was $6) and tried to pose at different positions. But it was very very messy as we didn't have time to pause and think and everytime we saw the seconds ticking down before the shot. So we shouted alot and i shouted too that the time was counting down and scrambled to pose. After seeing the final results, we were quite disappointed as what happened was, the machine actually cropped the actual photo and in most of the pictures, all of us did not have full faces except for nicholas and truddy. And that meant that in 22 out of maybe 35 pictures, it was nicholas and truddy..hahaha..such a waste and such stupidity that there was nothing you could do but laugh. Here we were trying to take pictures and the machine wasn't user-friendly as it had japanese instructions so we had a hard time knowing what next to do.
With that wasted effort, we decided to take another one with another machine. This time it's the $8 one. Again we squeezed in and thought it was going to be fine this time. But lo and behold, during the roughly 30 seconds we were in there, the same situation cropped up. There was much scrambling. I was sitting at the corner and i wanted to change position as i had 3 shots taken so i got up and so did some of them and tried to think of where to sit but before anyone could think, i saw the clock ticking down and again it was a 3 second count down and i shouted to the rest that the clock was ticking and immediately everyone scrambled to stop laughing and pose. It was a totally wacky and funny time we had taking neo-prints..haha..

food

today after church james came up to me and asked me to go for dinner at his place. I reached his place at 6pm and realised that he had been cooking since 4 and barbara had been there then. Later on, gary,shuqin,sergeoh,jessica and weixiang came. And we waited and waited. It was amazing that james took 5 hours to prepare chicken, shredded carrot and leak, mushroom soup, potato with egg. Yes from 4pm right until 9pm. But the food was delicious especially the mushroom soup. I had two bowls of it even. The mushroom was shredded into very tiny pieces and you just enjoyed each gulp of it.hehe..I don't know how to cook a proper meal myself and i would love to know how one day. As i'm a person who likes being efficient, i guess i'll see how i fare next time preparing dinner for 7 people.

well, have to head to bed early so i can wake up early to go to pasir ris tomorrow with the pathfinders. ciao.

Cars are more beautiful now

It's friday and i've not done much studying this week because i was caught up with freelance work and excess gaming. I tried out need for speed underground 2 demo and it didn't seem very spectacular. In my mind i was actually envisioning how nfsu 3 would be. I think once that comes out i got to upgrade my computer first. (I'm thinking of getting a 512mb ram and 64mb pci graphics card for my desktop as it's potential is not fully exploited)I've played 1 before and thought it was very well done as you can modify your car and make a lousy and ugly mazda miata into a sporty and souped up miata. I couldn't believe how much nicer the car looked when you included front/rear bumpers, skirting, hood-change, rim-change and adding the decals. Before i played the game, i was noticing the cars on singapore roads and wondering why they are so clean and neat unlike in the US where you see cars that have been modified like anything and some of them with excess decals. Look on singapore roads now and you will see an occasional beefed up car. My idea on what prompted car drivers to be more bold is because of nfsu. After playing it, they finally realised that they can do so much to thier own car. And being a car appreciator, i like this kind of eye-candy on the roads. Perhaps when i work and have the money, i'll buy a second-hand mitsubishi lancer or eclipse for about 60k and then spend 20k to accessorize it. Hmm....

eclipse

lancer

Here's a 6 min excerpt from a promo cd i found on the net. They are promoting their electric violins that are termed "viper" and "sabre".This guy can play the violin like he's playing an electric guitar.

Another one that looks like a guitar. This is called "sabre"..the previous one is called "viper".

Looks like a guitar..but it's a violin..haha.

violin, bluegrass

At least tonight was much more fun. I decided to borrow my mom's violin and learn how to play it. Why? Because i was inspired by hilary hahn. I thought she was coming to singapore in december but i couldn't find her concert on the sistic website. Oh well, anyway i had wanted to pick up violin a few times before. The first time since Mr Lee formed the violin class i had wanted to be in it but i was so busy with church responsibilities that i hadn't had the time to invest in violin lessons. After which there were several instances where i would pick up my mom's violin and try to play a few notes, but it turned out screechy. Then i would put down the violin and let the aspiration drown. But not now, i'm greatly inspired and moved to be a violinist! I found a great website on learning violin and also found some videos online. Check out the fiddle sampler here. The second part is where the fun starts and it will surely give you a high, albeit for a while. Over here is a jam session with 2 guitarists. And finally here is a bluegrass performance with the a bluegrass band. Yup, i like bluegrass so i appreciate all this stuff. Really brings me back to where i once had a house by the river with me sitting on the porch playing the guitar.(dreaming)

sniper

ok it's been a relatively boring day for me that's why i decided to blog it out. In the morning i studied one chapter which was quite good. At noon time i was deciding whether to head down to the market to have my lunch or not. There wasn't any left over food except for some chicken so i thought i'll just cook 2 packets of noodles and get it done over with. First i boiled the noodles and i threw away the water as i was advised that the water contained the wax used to preserve the noodles. After that i added some vegetables and some pieces of chicken and cracked an egg inside and voila.. my lunch. I couldn't wait for my lunch to end because i had just gotten the film "Sniper 3". It is a sequel to "Sniper 2" which i had watched 2 months ago. I enjoyed the show but there wasn't much action here. I would want to watch "Sniper" but i can't seem to get my hands on it yet. I read somewhere that even though i liked sniper 3, there may be people who may not appreciate it because of the slowness of the show or something like that. Because snipers tend to wait for hours/days for their target. But in the series, it doesn't show him waiting for hours but still the slowness is there as the movie concentrates on his thoughts and actions before the shot. Slow and determined are the key words. This provides a heightened sense of attentiveness and apprehension. But unfortunately, the 2 films didn't reach this ideal as there were stories they had to fulfill too.

Ok, enough blabbering about the movie. I need to get back to study. Had a bath first thinking that i could study better but the weather is still warm!!! At least i have my fan running...then at 8 i'll have to meet up with a DVD interest to do some exchanging. oh man, my mind is not working well..i think i need some music...grr..

sdak dinner

ok i just got back from the SDAK dinner. I was quite surprised that i was invited in the first place because i'm not even a staff member and i don't remember helping out in their kindergarten in a major sense. The only time i helped out was during lantern festival as a game master. Well, i guess they don't have many people so they called everyone.. even those who helped out abit. I found the food wasn't that fantastic. It was vegetarian food yes, but still it could have been prepared in a more delicious way. What i had thought was potato felt rubbery. Truddy tasted it and felt weird. I told her it was mock potato..haha. Tricia then said "har?potato is vegetarian, still must mock?" haha...sometimes i find them so funny. I guess that's where the fun comes when u're in a group. You make stupid remarks and jokes.

Anyway, i should be preparing to get to bed..

Need new clothes!

Listening to: Madonna - Take A Bow

I just needed to let it all out. Most of you know i'm not working so that means i don't have much money to splurge on myself. The problem is i need to get a new wardrobe of clothes. grrr....the existing "stuff" i have are abit outdated for me. That's the problem with fashion, they get out of date in a few years. Like the checked shirts i had last time, it sure looked good on me a few years back but now, not many people wear it and i'm too old for them..haha. So there are two things i need to do.
1)Clear my wardrobe and cupboard of old and unwanted clothing. My cupboard is stuffed with so many tshirts and shorts and i realise that i only go through the top layers and not what's underneath. So there's alot of unneccessary stuff down there so to speak. The problem is i need to find a way to get rid of it and the dustbin is not the solution. Any takers?
2) Buy new clothes. Yes i desperately need to get new clothes that not only look my age but make me look more like a professional. After all, i'm going to be a microsoft certified professional soon..hahaha..anyway i need clothes for working life and not just ANY kind of shirt or pants, but really good quality and reasonably priced too. Problem is i'm not working so i can't pay for all that..yet. The only thing i can do is to wait until i start working. My mum is waiting for me to start working so she can quit her job and enjoy life. And i still have my exams to take which i hope to do in december. I just have to keep studying everyday and hopefully i'll be able to cover everything that's needed. grr....being a professional is ABIT tough but it's worth it. My friend was amazed as she said "wah so early upgrade yourself already"..hahaha..yup, so i can concentrate on work and not be bothered about having to attend upgrading classes. Now i feel i'm just about to be powerful and rich(sorry pls allow me to dream ok!). And once i get those clothes, my next resolution is to gain weight. Of course my ideal weight gain is maybe 15 kg and that will be hard unless i take supplements of which i plan to do....ONCE i work and earn money to buy those. I just hope that work doesn't consume too much of my time and rob me of my exercise too.

Anyway, end of what i want to express. I've to prepare for a meeting at SDACC. Ciaoz!

Listening to: Madonna - La Isla Bonita

ministry

Listening now: bond-Hungarian

I just got back from sharon's farewell dinner before she leaves for perth to study. At least she won't "suffer" from having a long distance relationship as her boyfriend is in perth too. Unlike boon leong where he just left for taiwan today to visit his taiwanese girlfriend. That's the big problem of having a ldr, you can't see the other person often and sometimes the other party isn't there when you need him/her. That's the problem that this world is facing with regards to bgr and it won't go away unless air travel tickets plummets to those of coaches to malaysia. Maybe if AirAsia and Tiger Airways start another pricewar then we can start seeing prices to other countries drop like hail. Perhaps they'll come up with tickets to australia from $2! But until then, the practicality of having a ldr is certainly not there and it takes alot of effort and commitment to sustain it. Whereas if the relationship is in the same place/country, then it's much easier to sustain as getting around is much more convenient and you can do things together too. As for me, my mom talked to me before to expand my boundaries to other countries like vietnam. I was shocked that she even mentioned it. Apparantly i'm at the age where alot of people are getting attached and this week alone, i've had friends teasing me and asking me "when i'm going to find one". I was even rumored to have said that i have taken a vow of celibacy. Oh man...i really don't know where that came from. But the fact is, i'm single and proud of it! And frankly, right now what i want more is tennis pals. As for the dinner tonight, we had dinner at tiong bahru plaza (thai express). I was quite reluctant to go to that place as my school was just the next block but anyway it was decided and i followed with the majority. Amazingly all of them turned up early at 7pm. I came in at 7:05pm and i was the last one there. I can't believe that all of them came early which was very unusual. I could have told them that i was drawing money from the atm and it toko me 5 mins that's why i was late! But i didn't push it. We had a good testimony from sharon about why she transferred to jurong church. It's because of the friendliness and the atmosphere there that attracts her. Thank God that is so. I almost want to put those words on the church website. haha...yes our church is maturing but hasn't fully matured. In other words, if the current pastor leaves, our progress will be much slower i believe. So i can actually see that we're struggling to get our structures in place so that when the time comes that he leaves, we can run most of the ministries ourselves. And i hope to get the evangelism committee to be more effective and active. What it does is any activity related to evangelism and also bible study of our own members. Another ministry i am looking next is starting program which follows what educational institutions have. We have structured classes like bible101,bible102,prophecy101...blah blah. With such modules in place, we can be sure more people are "taken care of" and have a well-rounded bible study rather than submitting them to the mercy of the bible teachers who choose their own topics to teach. This is an amazing article that writes about this.

Ok, think i'll stop here for now.

Listening now: sun yanzi: nong mei mao

Papa Loves You

It was another rainy day today. Luckily i don't have to go to school anymore so i can just stay at home and do my revision. Right now i've just finished my exercise so i thought i'll post something here.

Yesterday i saw a hongkong movie called "Papa Loves You". It's acted by Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Charlene Choi. I read the synopsis and found it interesting so i decided to watch it. It's about a dad who loves his daughter very much but yet, he has a problem that he's too gentle(or sissy) and rarely gets angry. His daughter rarely comes home and is very rebellious, getting into fights and threatening other students. And obviously she can't stand her sissy dad and doesn't respect him much. It makes it seem like her animosity will last but one incident happened that changed the course of events. After this incident, the she gets to understand how much her dad loves her. This is very well communicated by the few times when the movie just slows down with her deep in thought and looking at her dad in daily activities. And i thought this itself ought to give the movie a few stars to boast off. You often see this in love stories where the boy looks intently into the girl's eyes but this isn't like that. Rather, the moments are slowly and at first i am left wondering for the first few seconds what this section is about only to find out later that she is deep in thought and thinking how much her dad loves her. It somehow evokes a very deep understanding between me and the actress. Of course there are events in the show where it brings more life to the movie but i won't divulge it to avoid being a spoiler. It was an inspiring movie and it may be overly exaggerated but the lessons i learnt is to slow down and be more appreciative with what i have and the people around me.BTW, the movie may be out in cinemas soon so look out for it.(no prizes for how i managed to watch it)

Ok time to take a bath.

Another pic showing the storm clouds...(if it was a tornado it'll be more impressive yeah?) I don't have a good camera and i don't have good photography skills, but i do like to take the "great expanse" from the confined place i'm in.

It's only 4pm and it looks like there's a storm brewing.

library

Just got back from church and had dinner already. Today is the 100th anniversary celebration of the adventist church in singapore. I didn't know it had been here since 1904. It's really impressive to know that we're one of the oldest protestant churches in Singapore! Too bad during the slideshow they didn't take more photos to give us a better understanding of our work in Singapore during the 100 years. I noticed also that today's sermon was quite powerfully given by pastor kan. It's like he had really prepared this sermon well before his delivery. He gives me the impression that he's taking the dynamic presentation skills from those charismatic pastors in other churches. But well, a good thing is that he's not preaching the same style always so variety is good.

Also yesterday i had went to the doctor to get some antibiotics for my acne..grr..i was so sick about my acne condition that i had to resort to this. And i was telling myself that the reason why i have an acne breakout is because they know they have but a short time to live..hahaha...so for the next week, i'm hoping and looking forward to a new me!!!With a new face!!! And after that i'll probably go to an optician to get either a new specs or contact lenses. Glasses may suit me better as i have the studious look you see. So i have to ask different people to get their opinions on whether contacts would be fine too. Yup, with all this and a new face, it's extreme makeover!!!!muahahhahahaah.

Ok seriously, my resolution this coming week is to have my face cleared of acne and to look out for products that can detoxify my body. Oh yes, yesterday was my last day of class too!! yeah!!i'm out of school!!!!! Now i just have to sit down and start my studying to prepare for my exams which i plan to take in december. After classes this week, i had the inspiration to develop a program for the library since i was taught all the skills already. Man,i feel the POWER!!! But i'll see when i can do it...coz i have exams too..hmm

This morning my goal is to go visit the doctor after my class and get some antibiotics for my acne. It's as if the acne is playing around with me by staying there for so long. Making me feel abit down but i can't wait for next week where i'll be on antibiotics and my face will be clear again!(i hope)

Now i have to rush for class.

in class, z monster

Well, now i'm in class and i just finished one of my exercises, so i decided to write some words.

Yesterday i had a hair cut and that means i fulfilled one of my week's resolution!! What's remaining is to get rid of my acne...argh!!!!!Anyway, my dad told me to bring a bottle of chlorophyll drink and to finish it in class as he says it's good for the system. I hope that works and this is the 3rd day of me drinking green water. He bought the cholorophyll concentrate and it even has a mint flavor to go along with it, so your mouth will feel refreshed!!

Can't wait to finish the last day of class tomorrow. That means that i will have no more school and also i less chance of fighting the z monster each day. Luckily for me, last night i slept at 1145pm and so right now i'm amazingly wide awake!! I can't comprehend why 15 mins would make such a BIG difference to me for the next day. A few days ago, i read something about sleep debt. It says that alot of people thinks that you get sleepy after lunch and it's a normal response, but the article refutes this idea and says that it's because people didn't have enough sleep and have accumulated a sleep debt account that's why we get sleepy at that time of the day. It continues on to say that even if you don't eat lunch, the z monster will still come and attack you. It also says that if you don't have a sleep debt, you will not sleep no matter how boring the lecturer is...i kinda believe this theory. And it says the boring lecture actually reveals that you have sleep debt and is not a result of your sleepiness.hehe...i found all this quite enlightening.

I'll stop for now...

Driven

This week school resumes for me and today was really boring, especially after lunch. I don't know why, but at around 3pm, my brain stopped absorbing new information and i was fighting the z monster at the same time. When i got back home, it was such a big relief and thankful that it was all over. hahaa...makes it sound like sch is so bad.

I just finished watching Driven on channel 5. Haven't watched that show when it came out on cinemas and finally had the chance to watch it. As i'm an F1 fan, i was definitely interested in the show. It was a relatively good show and i recommend it as christian-friendly. It has no vulgarities, sex, adult jokes, violence and any of the contents that would make it an M-18. Best of all, Sylvester Stallone played the good guy when he was called back by his former F1 boss to race in order to help his team mate win. Through it all, not only did Stallone help Jimmy, his team mate, win but he was also the so-called reconciliater. He was the one who eased tensions among F1 peers, made friends with everyone and also encouraged jimmy to the top. Once again, it was an amazing show. Not many movies that are shown portray a main character with this reconciliatory spirit.

Pope John Paul II (1978-)

Pope John Paul II is the most traveled Pope in history, and has greaty expanded the global reach of Catholicism. He is an outspoken advocate of human rights, but his critics argue that his policies overlook the rights of women and homosexuals. In addition to renewing the ban on women priests and gay marriage, he released Evangelium vitae, which condemns abortion.
Note the words on the display screen.

Angel

this morning i was leading the lesson study so we talked about daniel chapter 4 where king nebuccadnezzar wrote it. He dreamt a dream where he saw a tree being high and mighty in the midst of the earth, and it was the dwelling place of the fowls and beasts of the earth. After that, he saw it being chopped down leaving the stump. He couldn't understand the dream and so brought before him daniel and he interpreted it to him. After a year since the dream, the king was proud and looked before babylon and said " Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?"Dan 4:30. As soon as he spoke it, a voice came from heaven reminding him of his dream and immediately he became insane for 7 years. It was only until after that then he got back his reason and acknowledged that God was the person who had full authority and power to give the kingdom to whomever He wilt. So there goes the story of the king's realisation and repentence. I guess he was lucky enough to be given such a big miracle, it's like a big slap to him that made him wake up. And i tell you, last night i was reading about the city of babylon and it was so astounding i read until i had to tell myself to stop reading because i didn't have anymore time to prepare the lesson if i kept reading. Maybe next time i can have a class then i can tell more about Babylon, that great city.

Ok, so after the lesson teaching, i felt relieved that it was all over. Actually i find the book of Daniel to be VERY interesting. In fact, if there was a story i'd recommend, it would be Daniel. It's easy to understand and exciting too because of all the miracles that happened-at least for the 1st 6 chapters.

At night, we went to nat's house for his birthday party. And i think i shan't elaborate on that..i'll have someone else talk about it..haha..coz i was one of the victims there but of course i didn't mind..at least i didn't have to eat some funny food.

Anyway, i don't feel quite well today..have some break outs on my face and that itself spoilt my day today. So the plan for next week is to get rid of those acne and have a hair cut. For the week after, i'll probably go to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned and go to an optician to get a pair of contact lenses. And after that i'll be a new Sean!!! Muahahahahah.

the persistent widow

I just read joel's blog where he quotad a parable about the friend at midnight. There is another similar story that i would like to bring up and it's called the "unjust judge" or the "parable of the persistent widow".(Luke 18:1-8)

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: ‘‘In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
‘‘For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’”
And the Lord said, ‘‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

I think the lesson here is that God is telling us even the unjust judge would answer the widow's plea as long as she is persistent. So all the more would answer our prayers when we are persistent..so keep praying!!! And happy sabbath everyone!

mouth lazy

ok it's been some time since i ranted, so i guess i'll do it tonight..

i just got back from an outing. It was supposed to be a young adults cell group outing and we were to watch a movie. Initially boon leong had suggested watching wimbledon at suntec..but at the last minute, he said the cinemas weren't showing it anymore. And besides wimbledon, we couldn't decide on what other shows to watch as there weren't any good shows there too. I turned up late for the meeting which was scheduled at 630, came at 7 along and gary,shuqin,weeleng and junjie came shortly after. Boon leong and alex were waiting there. hai, really need to be early for meetings and not be late anymore. It's got to the point where i'm late almost all the time. Thankfully i'm never late for my job interviews. Yes, and i was reflecting on why i wasn't late for job interviews. It's because i use more of my brain when planning my trips. I account for the travel time, waiting time and other unforeseen delays. But for meetings like this, i realise i only took into account the travel time...haha..that's why. Oh boy, i got to change! Start being on time!!! So for this meeting, we didn't watch any movie and decided to have dinner together at Kingdom vegetarian store at suntec. I happened to see my tennis course mate there and did abit of catch up. I think i've had a busy day in the day time so i really didn't feel like talking during the meeting. Even until now, i feel my mouth is numb and lazy and my brain is depending on my hands to express my thoughts.

And today i was supposed to have bible study with andrew. I had planned to meet him at the void deck but because of some factors, i decided to move it to tomorrow. So today i spent the time exercising and vacumming/moping the house and tomorrow will be bible study...perfect planning..hahah. Yeah, i'm a disciplined person when it comes to exercising. I try to do it thrice a week and it will always be in the late afternoon. So i can start on sunday then rest one day and exercise again. If i do that, then my third exercise session will be on thursday. But because i start on sunday, it means i can have one day to play around with and i can last until friday for my 3rd session. So i will end the week with 3 exercise sessions. yup, i do sound disciplined.

Well, tomorrow is another day, i have to teach lesson study on saturday so i'll prepare tomorrow. Make sure i prepare well so i can teach well. The lesson is on daniel and you can have a look here.

Seminar

Right now it's only 11pm and i feel abit lethargic. Today i had quite a long study session of about 5 hours.(minus breaks) So i think that's the reason for it. Thankfully we were able to get seats. I had thought it would be packed or something. It was a cool day today so studying outside without aircon was perfect.(even had fans)

Just to tell you that i came up with the geoff youlden site here. You can refer your friends to this website regarding the upcoming seminar.

It's been a long time since i posted pics, so i guess since i'm waiting for the site to be uploaded, i'll just post a picture of my computer desktop!hehe...i just downloaded a new wmp skin that sits so nicely on top. This means if i don't like any song i can just click next instead of opening wmp always.

finally

ok finally they found out that there has been a compromise on the website. And at last when you type jurongsda.org you go to the right ip address. BUT, not everything is up yet, some features are not up as i have to upload everything...sigh...and i'm still searching around for alternative web hosts. One factor is will the web host submit the site to search engines? Coz search rankings are very important.

today i'll be meeting with weixiang, barbara and joyce to study. They have to study for their O levels while i have to study for my professional cert.(and i'm behind by 2 days!!)..right now i'm still waiting for the uploading of the site to be completed..grr.

helpless

i feel so helpless that the jurong site is down. And i have no idea why they are taking so long to fix the problem!!!! At least tell me their progress or what and not leave me guessing when they'll fix it. Anyway i think i'll get another web host after they fix it.

Just saw a chinese movie "my left eye sees ghosts" acted by sammi cheng...so touching..

Jurong site down

This morning i got a call from siow huat. He told me the jurong website is down...i checked and it was down..i think someone hacked into the server. I've sent an email to support but haven't received a reply yet. I feel frustrated as it's the 2nd time something weird has happened to the jurong church site. I feel like hosting it with another company but i shall wait and see what they will say.

Here's the steve balmer mtv if you can't get enough of him

Stand up for God!

ok guess i should blog abit. Today is the Sabbath day and i just got back from cell group. It was a very enriching cell meeting because about 6-7 non-cell members came. I was very happy that this cell group is attracting such people. And we went through daniel's story about him standing up for his faith and why he didn't bow down to the image.(Daniel 3)
It's interesting that Daniel wasn't the only one who didn't bow down. I believe that God had planned to have 3 other friends to also support him and also all 4 of them took a stand for their faith. This is all about supporting one another in times of testing. Imagine Daniel being the only one, i guess the situation would be abit different because he would probably be under greater stress if he was not strong enough. So with the group support, they were even willing to die in the fiery furnace. And though that story has been told and retold, it is still a wonderful story of how we can stand firm and be bold to proclaim what we believe. In Mark 8:38, it says that "If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” "

So i strongly believe wholeheartedly that whenever we have a chance, we just say what our principles are. If our friends notice we don't eat pork, don't just say "ya, i don't eat pork"..say something more to spur their interest and to get to know our faith too, something like "yes, i don't eat because of health reasons and because of what the bible says too. And also, it's not only pork i don 't eat but also seafood like prawns, crabs...". Whenever i boldly proclaim my principles, people would be very interested to know and it's a form of witnessing. So my friends, please don't be ashamed for what you believe in. Another incident i shared in my cell group was during army in pulau tekong, i was the only adventist there and so i had to carry a dummy rifle. As the bible says, we shouldn't kill and so we don't believe in killing people. That's why i had to carry the dummy rifle anyway. So obviously my friends will ask me why i was so special. I find that by telling all that they wanted to know and more, i could feel the acceptance from them. So of course the whole platoon noticed and understood why i believed what i believed. Then at the end of the course, we had a 20km route march where many platoons did it together.(more than 500 soldiers)..and i was the only guy carrying a blue dummy rifle. So because i had told my platoon mates about my believe and they understood it, i found that i had the support and it didn't make me feel that weird to be the odd-one-out. Therefore, i thank God for the opportunities he places for us to tell people our faith so that not only will they know more about christ, but maybe next time it will be easier for you too.

ok today i feel like a free being. Supposed to attend a video conference with some IT head in germany and after that i felt relieved it was over. Actually i don't even know why they asked me to attend..because in the whole discussion i only said a maximum of.......1 sentence. Firstly i'm not even hired yet and i'm called to go there...ok ok i'll stop my ranting..it's all over anyway. It was my first time attending a video conference. It was just this guy from germany and we were watching him on a big tv. The video frame rate wasn't high enough so you could see the slight lag and jerks.it wasn't smooth. I was thinking if they were using broadband and it's like that, then they better come up with a faster broadband. Even the audio was not so good. It was kinda muffled and i had to break past not only that but also his german accent. Oh well, let's put that behind me.

So today i also felt like smsing some ppl to attend friday's cell group. I smsed to 3 of them and the first 2 replied saying they were busy..then the 3rd one replied and said she would come..yippie!! Now i have to do a writeup on the pastor's page for the jurong site...hehe.

No matter what side you're on, John Kerry is on your side!

I just heard an audio file of a compilation of what john kerry (presidential candidate) has said. If it's a normal speech it's fine, but this is a compilation of all the contradictory statements that he supposedly said. Ultimately, it's just for laughs and the audio is fittingly titled "No matter what side you're on, John Kerry is on your side!"

Cellular

I just watched the movie Cellular. It's about a lady who calls a guy telling him she's kidnapped. And if he doesn't do anything, the kidnappers will kidnap the dad and the son. Ok i don't want to introduce any spoilers here so i'll not talk about the storyline. All i can say is it's a fast paced show and it reminded me alot about the other movie Phone Booth. Not that it has the same storyline..no they are so different..but i recall that the pace of Cellular is very similar to Phone Booth. Amazingly, i was right because i found out that it was the same writer for both of them. It's also an inspiring film as it show how a simple guy, who is looked down by his ex gf because he's childish and irresponsible, can do so much in desperate situations.

Changes to this blog

Ok, i took some time to have a profile picture of me. I had wanted to put a picture there but couldn't find an appropriate one so i thought i'll use one with a very plain look.
Also i changed the caption to something more appropriate as this blog emphasizes more of what i think about my surroundings and circumstances

wah i didn't realise i've not blogged for so long. So i guess i'll write a couple of stuff. Yesterday was church day and we had some of the thomson church people attending. It's their church renovation so they are visiting other churches for the time being. My mom was supposed to preach that day but last minute she got sick and so pastor took over. I was wondering it was so last minute, maybe the sermon won't be well prepared. But the sermon turned out to be good so thank God for that. In the afternoon we had an ASF(Adventist students fellowship) meeting at SDACC church. And i was asked to be one of the panel of speakers. Initially i thought i was going to be like those MPs sitting behind a long table and answering questions from the floor..haha..but then it was a simple setting with just chairs for the 4 of us and the speaker(pik yee) asking us questions only. The topic was about managing stress and from that talk i am reminded how stress can affect us negatively. For example if we have exam stress and it's too much, it not only causes us to worry alot but it results in our minds not being able to think properly. It might also cause us to have insomnia and makes us more agitated. So my word of advice....don't do things last minute....BUT if you're already in the midst of a stressful situation, then the suggestions given are to talk to friends to let it all out or to occupy yourself with something else like exercise.

For dinner, some of us went to a vegetarian restaurant in eminent plaza. It was quite fun as andrew,james, ben and jer were there along with pastor, pik yee, gary , shuqin, tc and arlene. The food was delicious. I liked the noodles particularly as it felt soft and also the sauce was appropriate for the dish. What's special about this restaurant too was that you could see the cook preparing the food. For the noodles, you could see him making it and whacking it on the table. I asked andrew why they had to whack it on the table, he said it's to show off. Then i said, maybe next time cooks will whack the dough to the ceiling to prove they have more skill. haha..And he said what if there's a lizard up there...then it will get whacked and it will wonder what hit it...hahaha...okok better get back to what i'm supposed to do.

smoking

hmm...from the place i study(tiong bahru office), as i walk from the office to the shopping centre, i notice people standing around smoking. I was thinking to myself, don't they have a smoking-section?But then again, they are not allowed to smoke in the office toilets and there are no other open-air rooms so that's their only choice. I was reminded in my army days when i went to mindef camp. It was not really an army camp but the headquarters of mindef, so you could expect that the facilities are one of the best among the army offices. That time we were supposed to collect some old computers from mindef and use it for our own camp. As we arrived, we decided to head to the canteen. And my colleagues being smokers, they went to the back-alley to smoke. For me, i didn't want to stay alone so i followed them to the back. The alley was dirty..the walls, the ground...there's even a bench there(definietly to cater to those who are smoking). I also noticed that other officers were there in their uniform smoking...hmm...i wondered that time the same question..isn't there a better place for them to "do-it"? Hmm...but i guess that's the most appropriate place for them without flouting the no-smoking rule in mindef. I don't even know whether they are allowed to smoke even outside their offices. It's the same with NUS. No one is allowed to smoke ANYWHERE on campus so one fine day, i went to a relatively deserted study bench to plug in my laptop. NUS has a few areas where you could come face to face with its natural surroundings, and the bench was the closest to it. Suffice to say, there's even a back-alley. After a while, i saw a malay guy taking out a cigarrette as he walked there and smoked away.

Then there's also my lecturer now. As classes are quite long(930-530), we do have a few breaks. There was one day where i attended a make-up class with only me as the student..so it was a 1-1 teaching session. As we came to the end of one of the chapters, the lecturer just mumbled something like "give me a min" and he went out. I then sensed it was break time. It was funny coz usually he would tell me explicitly that it was break, this time he didn't so i had to "take the cue". So after going for my toilet and water break, i came back and waited for him to come back as i surfed the net. When he came back, i could smell cigarette smoke as he talked..so that's where he went-downstairs to smoke.

With all these experiences, it seems quite sad to know that if you are addicted to something, you have to "resort" to such circumstances(go to back alleys, smoke outside) just to keep with the no-smoking rule. I think as a more general application, it's not good to be addicted(to something bad).

i'm a seahorse!

Seahorse


?? Which Creature Of The Sea Are You??
brought to you by Quizilla

just now i had a bad experience...i got a call during class time and the lady that was supposed to hire me to do the project came up with too many promises that i had to fulfill. So i blurly agreed and it was only after the call that i realised what a big mistake i made. So i called back and clarified with her that we need more time to discuss the main requirements before anything is promised...hai....haven't even started work yet and i'm faced with this kind of work-related-problem. Anyway i also need to consider about my 3 exams for this course that i'm taking. I have to take it within the next 5 months and if i take up the project and if it's a big one, then i really got to study hard and work at the same time..sigh....i need help....not that i can't accomplish these 2 tasks but it'll just be more challenging.

Yesterday as i was going back from school, at tiong bahru mrt control, i heard a boy shouting to a girl. They looked like they were 20 and he was saying something to her and staring in a threatening way at her trying to intimidate her. At once i slowed down and tried to see what was happening, something inside me wanted to go up to the guy and try to resolve the issue but then i continued walking and staring at the guy. I thought if there was no physical attack then i'll not interfere. I could see the girl teary eyed and tried to go pass the boy to go in the gantry but he blocked her way. Even the control station personnel noticed what was going on. Anyway i just walked away and hoped nothing would happen. And if something did happen, then the control station ppl would intervene. During the mrt trip back to clementi, i started to think of different scenarios like if the guy really hit the girl then what would i do. The guy is slightly bigger than average. And i thought if that happened, then i would go up and do one of 2 things..1)punch the guy or 2) protect the girl while telling the guy to stop it. Based on my belief that we should love our enemies, i decided that i shouldn't start throwing punches but protect the girl. Even though my adrenaline would be quite high then, i had to control it. That guy was probably her ex-boyfriend so i pity girls who have such guys who are not only physically abusive but emotionally abusive.

I had dinner at the market near my block coz my parents wouldn't be at home and no one to cook dinner. So on tv, they were showing zoe tay and li nanxing as a couple. And there was this part where li nanxing was shown seeing another woman. And it was only by chance that zoe tay found out coz she was at a gym with this girl and she mistakingly took the girl's phone. So the rest of the story you can figure out. Ultimately zoe left home...hmm..it's really sad to hear of such news...but they are prevalent in the world.

I love this company!!!whooooooooooooooo

Today i had a fun day lazing around. At the same time i was checking out the available controls that i could use for my next project. I need to develop a windows application so i found a suite that would be useful in developing the user interface. You just look at the screenshot and it's very cool! That means i can come up with a program that looks like that! Another thing i did today was to look at the various microsoft videos out there. I found a steve balmer song with his 2 famous phrases,"I love this company" and "Developers, developers, developers, developers.." It's just so funny, but you gotta understand why it's so funny..steve balmer is the CEO of Microsoft you see. Ok you can click here to view the "Developers" video and here to view the "i love this company" video. For the latter, you can see the CEO coming up on stage dancing around and trying to get the audience on fire.hahhaa..for the former, you hear him chanting the word "Developers" 35 times. (You got to watch the 2 videos before you listen to the song)I think he's really bought into Microsoft. Seems like Microsoft is coming up with many new technologies and that is exciting in itself. The next new release of the windows OS codenamed "Longhorn" will be out in 2006. I've seen it and it's really really cool. Not only cool in looks but also cool in how you can communicate with other applications online. The key word is interoperability and one cause is using XML web services to do so. Also, Sun Java and Microsoft have agreed to work together so that both their products are more interoperable and that benefits the consumers of course. But they'll still be fighting and improving their products. That's what consumers want too. And we as customers, we just sit back and relax.

ok today i got back early from church. Reached home about 5pm. Had a birthday party for pik yee in one of the classrooms before that. And also we had testimonies by weixiang, junjie and wayne. Really inspiring to know that God has touched each one of them and brought them to where they are now. And jurong church needs more people like them!!!!

After having had 1 week's school, i guess tonight is the time to relax and just laze around. I thank God that i had a wonderful week even though it was packed with school. I feel that i'm getting back on track to what God wants me to do. And i hope that i stay on track. I'm thinking of starting a training program in church(just at the back of my mind) because i found out that all these years, we haven't got any. And it's all left to those people who are interested to study the bible themselves to be good at it. So i guess with this training program it will help alot. Now that many of the youths are having bible study, it's time to focus on the teachers themselves. In my school, we have Microsoft Certified Trainers to come and teach. And these teachers definitely were trained properly before they taught. And i find that such a system would benefit everyone if employed into our church. But, i really need God's wisdom and guidance in this matter. Also hope that there'll be other people who shares the same idea.