from cheryl's desk

unplugged

2012-01-24T23:19:00.001+08:00

I was reading the song Shaun mentioned below and this is one of the interpretations that crossed my mind. My head was too heavy last night to write more :p

I know it's not a Christian song and what came across my mind is probably rather far-fetched from what the songwriter meant it to be, haha ... but I was thinking about how the song mentioned gifts and it got me thinking about our spiritual gift.

You know, sometimes we may be called to use our spiritual gift to gently correct someone in love. For example, those with teaching and pastoral gift. It will not always be easy, but as the song lyrics go, we should never give up on anyone even when we watch them going astray. Use the gift God gave you, and persevere on with much prayer :) Easier said than done, but it helps to remember that it's the Lord's work, not ours. It's the Lord's church, not ours.

Okay, random thoughts about the song I mentioned below. Time to sing Hayden's birthday song. Happy birthday to the cutest boy in town :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

the new year and shaun's song

2012-01-24T00:05:00.001+08:00

Welcome, 2012! Yes, I'm 24 days late to welcome the new year :p

Sekarang aku sudah jadi cikgu sekolah, hehe. My desk at work :

Books, notepads, stationaries, timetable, yada-yada. It's been good learning new things this year :)

Today is the first day of CNY. It has been filled with :

Bentong's homemade ice-cream

Bak kua

Pineapple tarts

Reading

... and solving mystery games :p

Head heavy, wanna sleep deeeee, but I'll end with the lyrics of a song. I posted on the YP wall, asking for songs that are famous now, because of an upcoming YP project. Only Shaun answered, with the following song. Found the lyrics interesting :)

************************************************************

I WON'T GIVE UP - JASON MRAZ (excerpts)

I don't wanna be someone who walks away so easily
I'm here to stay and make the difference that I can make
Our differences they do a lot to teach us how to use
The tools and gifts we got yeah, we got a lot at stake
And in the end, you're still my friend at least we did intend
For us to work we didn't break, we didn't burn
We had to learn how to bend without the world caving in
I had to learn what I've got, and what I'm not
And who I am

I won't give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I'm giving you all my love
I'm still looking up
Still looking up.

I won't give up on us (no I'm not giving up)
God knows I'm tough enough (I am tough, I am loved)
We've got a lot to learn (we're alive, we are loved)
God knows we're worth it (and we're worth it)

I won't give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I'm giving you all my love
I'm still looking up

*********************************************************************

I can't use the song above for the YP project though. I need a fast song. This song is too sloooooow. Sigh :p

Okay....sleep time....

2011 highlights

2012-01-21T12:57:00.001+08:00

I know. It's been ages. I've been busy :p New job and all! But I feel odd blogging about 2012 without ending 2011 properly, lol. So here you have it - my highlights of 2011, which includes the ups and downs (in random order):

1. Mille crepe

2011 was a year FULL of Mille crepes for me! The first time I tasted it was in January 2011, and I've been eating it since !!! Yummmmy~!

My first Mille crepe at Nadeje, Malacca. Home of Mille crepes!

Food Foundry@Seksyen 17 PJ sempena CL's birthday

A shop at Sg Wang

Mei's homemade sempena my birthday

Nadeje Malacca again, in September

2. Roller-blading!!!

3. Leaving YA :(

Leaving YA was tough, but ...

4. Serving in YP
...joining YP and serving in YP is an immense joy, a thrill to the soul to be used by God to mold these young Christians as they grow in the Lord and in the knowledge of His Word :)

5. Driving the Comm Car (Pajero) as volunteer for START's extra mile race.

Holding the walkie-talkies. Bergaya je, haha.

We, Comm car people, having Nasi Lemak for breakfast after about 9 hours through midnight of not sleeping and just driving and driving and shooting shots, tweeting and media coverage.

It was a cool experience because I was the 'lady driver'. All my passengers were guys! :p Girl power! ;) Haha. Don't anyone make no more lady driver jokes in me presence :p I drove 4 men for 12 hours through midnight so that they could cover the event through their communication devices! :p

6. The arrival of Cooooooooookie monsterrrrrrrrrr!!!!

7. Learning a new craft!
Got myself interested in metal work - making earrings and bracelets from metal and beads. Cool venture :)

My craft space@home

8. YP Mission exposure!

Visiting Logos-Hope and getting to know the land crew, having dinner with them :)

9. New cooking ventures
-Tried cooking some new dishes in 2011:

Pak Cham Kai. Thank God it was successful, that friends whom I've invited over for dinner said it's one of the nicest they've tasted. Thank God :)

Chicken chop with Brown sauce. The hubby loved it

What can be yummier than fries baked in brown sauce and topped with melted cheese? ;)

Baked chocolate banana cake for the first time! And because it was so successful, I baked it again and again about 3 times over after that! Lol

My first attempt at a 'real' cake decoration

Lotsa rum tiramisu! Baked it about 3 times as well, the latest was for YP's BBQ. I cut down on the rum for the YP one, but could still smell the rum and Moses was quite happy that evening! He kept going back for more, and saying (with the Moses face), "This is gooooood!" Me reckons the rum might have been a tad bit too much LOL

Rich chocolate-coated microwave brownies. This isn't the first time I'm baking brownies, but it's the first time I'm trying out the 5-minute microwave brownie recipe, and it was reaaaaallly good!

10. First tastes
Mille crepe wasn't the only thing I tasted for the first time in 2011. Below are the other new 'first tastes' in 2011 :

Red Velvet! Something I've been curious about for ages since I first read about it on Adele's blog. Finally got to taste it :)

Macarons! These crazy expensive little French desserts have become famous. Too bad we didn't realize how famous it would have become or we could have sampled some in Paris itself in 2010. Aah well.

My failed attempt at trying to make Macarons! Lol. Looks like karipap

Nothing can be yummier than bacon! Bacon wrapping straw mushrooms. Without meaning to sound frivolous, it is : To.die.for. :p

11. New games!

Munchkin, Bang and Kakerlakensalat

We're game freaks! Not boring ones like Classic Monopoly (We like Deal though!) and Scrabble but fun, crazy, strategy ones ;)

12. Instagram squish moments

Get out of my way you little Kelisa!

I'm thirsty :p

Wake up! It's late! See, the sun is already shining through!!!

NOOOOOO! The building is falling!

I'm gonna sneeeeeeeze!!!!

13. Cover girl

And finally .... in 2011 ... appearing on the cover of a magazine! :p Wannabe, lol.

defining who you are

2011-12-27T21:50:00.001+08:00

I love June's latest blog update. It speaks a lot about what I sometimes struggle with, although I'm not as diverse as she is. It's especially poignant at this point in time when I'm looking at a career change and broke into tears when my mom questioned me about it. Sometimes I too struggle with whether I should focus only on music or only in teaching school subjects. Why can't I do both? Here's some excerpts from June's post :

"So, what do you do?

A lot of people ask me that question. And i’m guilty of asking the same of others. At this point, you must know two things: 1) I don’t really have an answer to that question, and 2) I don’t know why I ask other people what they do, because most times I have found that it has no bearing on their character. It’s not something i’m proud of, and i’m trying hard to mend my ways.

I do lots of things.

This year, I did a lot of corporate writing, worked with UNICEF as a consultant, started a little events company .... I worked with various companies, NGOs and individuals to bring different ideas to fruition, some of which (I sincerely hope) helped make a difference to people in need.

Next year, I hope i’ll be doing other things. So when people ask me what I do, I always say i’m a “writer”, because it’s the most honest answer I can give in the shortest time. If you think about it, all the stuff I do requires some writing at some point (from emails, to reports, to articles, to scribbling my name on a contest form hoping to win a free trip to Honolulu etc.)

But this usually invites more questions, such as: “What do you write about?”, “Who do you write for?”, and the inevitable, “Are you a blogger?”.

[By the way, the standard answers to those questions are: 'Nonsense', 'Anyone who will pay me', and 'NO'.]

I think I spent quite a bit of time being bothered by not knowing what defined me, but i’m over it now.

People work their whole lives so that they can have business cards that spell out their role in society. I have known people who got angry with bosses who didn’t provide them with name cards. Maybe it’s a social tool, as i’ve noticed how people give out name cards as if it’s going out of fashion.

Back when I was doing my pupillage in a big corporate law firm, the other pupils would look forward to the end of pupillage because it meant having their own 8′ x 8′ office with their name in gold letters on the door, and name cards that told the world they were doing something important. As you progressed in the firm, you were upgraded to bigger rooms; and when you made partner, you got a room with windows or some sort of view, depending on seniority.

I remember naively asking my boss at the time why people worked hard so that they could be enslaved in a box for the rest of their lives. Working 10 years to get your own parking space and a room with a view just didn’t make sense to me. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t last very long in the corporate world.

Personally, I prefer to look into someone’s eyes, smile, and say “Hello, I’m June” before any exchange of name cards. It’s a warmer way, brings people closer, and makes them want to call you more. It also took a while for me to buy into the whole name-card-for-business idea, but I do have some now.

When faced with the question “What do you do for a living?” My good friend Oliver used to answer, “I skate, draw, and play for a living. And to make money I do other things.”

Similarly, I laugh, play, and fall in love every day. People will snigger and demand a “serious answer” when I tell them that, but I really don’t feel like I have a JOB because I really enjoy what I do..."

have yourself a merry little christmas

2011-12-26T11:41:00.001+08:00

Christmas cupcakes

Turkey and stuffing

Absolutely yummylicious fat and juicy pork sausages and glazed ham from Australia

Daddy slicing the ham

Caesar's salad with Parmesan cheese, bacon bits and croutons

Mama's acar

Portuguese Devil Curry

A nice bottle of wine to down it all

Christmas presents!!! Thank you! I'm always very touched when people remember us at Christmas - the trouble taken to buy a gift and wrap it up, or even write a sweet card - touches me coz it shows that the giver was thinking of you at that point in time. Really sweet, warms my heart.

Blessed Christmas, all! It's my 'favouritest' time of the year. Don't forget the true meaning though! Jesus born to save you from your sins.

on the eve of Christmas eve

2011-12-24T10:49:00.001+08:00

Pancakes for breakfast

A game of Bang for supper

Christmas came early! Lol. After the gospel rally, some of us got together at my place and wanted to play some games. Just before that, Stephen gave the hubby and I a Christmas gift.

Then while looking through which game to play, Stephen said, "Open your Christmas present, jie!"

I was hesitant coz I've never opened any gifts before Christmas. I love the thrill of anticipation opening bit by bit on Christmas day and the days after.

But well, we were all gathered together and Stephen seemed to indicate that there is a connection between one of the games we were trying to figure out and his Christmas present for us.

So what the hey, open la! ;) He was sooooooo sweet, he bought us :

... the game Bang with extension cards! Super cooooool. And I was (and still am) super touched. Such an expensive pressie. Touched.

So we played .... Bang! My first time. Nice game :)

Learning the ropes

Stephen challenging Jeya to a duel

Thanks, Steph!

Had a great day from breakfast, lunch and bowling in the day time, to the gospel rally and the wonderful game of Bang after the stroke of midnight :p Only setback now is an itch in my throat and the occasional need to cough :p Nooooooooooooo~! Not right before school/tuition starts! Sigh. Fighting it. So far, not full-blown yet. Drinking lotsa water and downing cough syrup. I shall.win.this.battle. LOL.

three random things

2011-12-22T20:27:00.001+08:00

I love my khakis. Or what-do-you-call-ems? They're super comfy and convenient for putting handphone and wallet when malas to carry handbag :p

Saje took the picture above a few seconds ago of me in my khakis lying on the bed, thinking about ... next year :p Sigh. Is it God's will? I don't know.

The headmaster wasn't joking when he asked me, "Are you flexible?" I thought he meant if I was flexible when it came to being able to do many different types of things. Yes, I am jack of all trades, to a certain extent.

Then he continued his sentence : "Can you teach P.E.?" and I answered, "Eek, you mean that kinda flexibility? Physically flexible?"

I've already been having silly girlish oh-it's-so-unimportant dreams of wearing typical teacher-like pencil skirts and nice collared shirts, and the headmaster now wants me to teach P.E.!

*Pling*! That's the sound of shattered glass for dreams of being a sweet teacher. Looks like I'll have to be in track bottoms and big t-shirts instead! Lol.

Hmm, come to think of it, the khaki looks above kinda suits the P.E. teacher look right? LOL.

Don't worry lah One has got to start somewhere right? I'm also offered English lah. P.E.'s just one of those extras thrown in as well. Sigh. So, macam mana? Aku tak tau lah.

My first handmade earrings!!! I made 3 pairs for Christmas gifts :) Maybe I should just make jewellery and bake cakes for a living instead :p

I miss her!!!! Picture courtesy of Tze. Really miss her. She's so cute.

you have two cows?

2011-12-18T00:07:00.001+08:00

Some of these are seriously funny. Thought I'll share these with you for some comedic relief. Read these at a quaint little ice-cream shop in SG.

Traditional Corporation
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

A French Corporation
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.

A Japanese Corporation
You have two cows.
You redesign them so that they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create clever cow cartoon images called 'Cowkimon' and market them world-wide.

A British Corporation
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

An Italian Corporation
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You break for lunch ...

A Swiss Corporation
You have 5000 cows and none of which belong to you.
You charge others for storing them.

An Indian Corporation
You have two cows
You worship them.

A Malaysian Corporation
(p/s You can tell where the SGporeans are coming from with this!)
You have two cows.
You signed a 40-year contract to supply milk at RM0.06 per litre. Then midway through, you raised the price to RM0.60 or you cut the supply.
When the buyer agrees to the new price, you change your mind again and now want RM1.20. The buyer decided you can keep the milk and they go look for milk that comes from recycled cows or the cow urine instead.
Your two cows retire with the prime minister.

Singaporean Corporation
You have two cows.
One cow-peh and one cow-bu.

bichester in Malaysia?

2011-12-17T01:07:00.001+08:00

On our way back from Singapore, we stopped at this new place called 'Johor Premium Outlets' which was just officially launched a few days ago.

It's like Bichester Village in England! Which is the main reason why we stopped lah. Expensive branded goods at cheaper prices. What more can one ask for, eh?

Looking at that logo, yes the Nike factory outlet is here! Speaking of that, to the person who asked me to look for something for him if I happen to be at either of these sports outlets *coughyouknowwhoyouarecough*, Nike factory outlet pun tarak lah! My sister says that style is out of fashion dee :p Lol.

Writing it here coz I'll most probably forget to tell you in person :p

A walk thru the area.

The shoes in one of the outlets were arranged in boxes like below. Took this picture coz so ngam one of the shops we went to in Singapore oso displayed their stuff in the same manner. Thot it was peculiar only to Singapore, but cross the border oso jumpa!

Got relatively cheap Levi's and discounted Fossil as well! Too bad this place is all the way in Johor, near the 2nd link to Singapore. Not a stone's throw away :(

What did I buy? Nothing much. Lol. Yes, there were a lot of good buys, but nothing I need ;) Just picked up a pair of cheap peejays from Cotton On and scrungies from Evita Peroni. Happy =)

snippets of singapore

2011-12-16T00:01:00.001+08:00

My first time in Singapore in December! Back when we were going almost annually because of work, it was almost always mid-year. So I was excited to see the much-raved about Orchard Road Christmas decorations.

Giant snow flake bauble! This picture taken especially for the one who loves snow baubles *coughyouknowwhoyouarecough*. Here's a life-sized one!

Orchard Road Christmas Deco this year. I wasn't impressed lol. It looked just like normal decorations. The only one I liked is the last photo above because it had a bible verse. Actually, I feel One Utama's deco last year was the loveliest (the winter English village). In fact, our mall deco seems to be better lah :p

Lunch with Kit and Jeanne after church. Pak Cham Kai and olive rice. Nice :)

And Singapore is, of course, to me, a lot about ...

1. Chocolates! Haha. Primarily because one can find imported candies there which can't be found back home here.

2.Gelato

3.Unusual shops

Top row, cute craft shop. Second row, cute stationery show with color coded merchandise and a cookie shop. Crazy expensive cookies - one standard sized tin for S$42. One interesting thing though - Nasi Lemak cookies, and it actually tasted good!!! Exactly like Nasi Lemak!!! Seriously.

Charlie Brown Cafe! So cute!

4.Unusual food

I love looking for pork-laden and alcohol-laced food whenever I'm in Singapore, hehe. Joy :)

REAL alcohol ice-cream!!!

A visit to the toy museum. Nice :)

Kit's condo where we stayed. Really lovely place, like a hotel

My purchases! Hehe. Food, food ... and more food! What else to buy in Singapore, right? Chocolates and Bagel Chips. I love Bagels! (with cream cheese!) And of course, some food souvenirs (and a postcard) for loved ones :)

Oooh....I forgot. The main reason why we went to Singapore :

To watch Broadway's Wicked the Musical! It was AMAZING. One of the most spectacular stage shows I've seen thus far. Amazing use of technology, equipments and 'stage tricks'. Loved it :)

Can't believe it's only one more week to Christmas! Time flies. And I've got an interview to teach in a private school next week.

Daunting, but exciting at the same time.

how one year has flown by

2011-12-10T00:32:00.001+08:00

Tomorrow will be the last official teaching day in YP for the year. Next week will be our farewell BBQ. It has truly been a blessed year in YP. The year has seen the young people going through series on the Reliability of the Bible, the Overview of the Bible as well as Bible Doctrines. It has truly been a joy teaching and learning together with them as we prepared for classes. Also been a blessing working with the rest of the staff.

Looking back I remember how hesitant I was at the beginning of the year to leave YA and start serving in YP, mostly for selfish reasons of familiarity and comfort.

But being in YP this year has truly, truly been (for lack of a better word) awesome! It's really humbling to be involved in the lives of these young Christians - their spiritual growth, their walk with the Lord and personal development. One of the most blessed things this year was to be able to witness 5 of them taking the step of obedience in baptism.

The LORD alone be magnified and praised!

Throughout this year, the vision has been to ground them and for better fellowship. We started having pre-meeting games (handled by the hubby) for those who arrive early, to enhance fellowship and bonding.

During singspiration, the YPs lead (like how it's done in YA) the singing, not the teachers. It's good training ground for these young Christians, hehe. It was amazing to watch how one particular YP grew from the beginning of this person's first song-leading 'duty' to today. Really encouraging!

Teaching sessions are conducted in two parts, the first part being an open session taken by the hubby or Lean. The second part is usually in classes, either discussion based or further teaching, by those who take the role of teaching.

Then it's after class games. This is handled in turns by the hubby and Chee Hao because the rest of us feel we can't handle games well, and the both of them do a better job at it ;) I guess basically that's how service in YP works. Serve in the area you think you can help out in, but for the areas you know you're bad at, someone else will do that. After all, the hand can't do the job of the eye ;)

All in all, the joy at the end of the day is in serving the young people for Him. One of my most thankful teaching moments in YP are the moments when the girls I teach in class come up to me and ask me Biblical questions. It's such a joy to see the Word of God take root in their hearts, and even more humbling to let the Lord use weak people like us :)

In You alone Lord, is my strength.

voila!

2011-12-07T17:35:00.002+08:00

Staying home for 3 days in a row gets kinda tiring haha. But it was needed. Much needed. Can't wait to get out tomorrow, have dim sum breakfast with the girls and then head on to do some wholesale shopping :) It will be my first time there, so should be fun :)

Meanwhile, my 3 days home was filled with bead-making and house-refurbishing. Here's a look at my newly refurbished library.

I made it up to look like Avillion in PD. The once refugee room which used to have only a queen-sized mattressnn for guests now has a bed and looks like this :

I put a divan to act as a cozy little corner for reading whenever we don't have guests and a guest bedroom when we do :)

The new cupboard beside the bed/divan. At last our guest will have somewhere to store their clothes and bags :)

It's also used to store our many games :

Space for guest pillow, guest clothes, hangars. I love the boxes above. Gives it a cosy Ikea feel :)

So, if anyone needs a guest room, lemme know :) Will be our pleasure to host you whenever needed, now that we've done this room up better :)

Let's continue panning around the guest room aka library to get a look at how else it and been refurbished. This is the same book shelf, with a cozy yellow couch in the corner for reading books.

Audio keyboard corner with speakers and controllers.

Craft space! Used for craft moments, wrapping presents, writing letters. My container of wrapping papers right beside it. Can you see it? And I have a little corner on the right side of that table for books I'm currently reading.

Right beside the craft space are all the craft supplies, tuck nicely and neatly at one corner :

Beads, buttons, findings, tools, pliers, cutters, felt cloth, wires, sewing machine, craft books, notepads, postcards, cloth. All there :)

Happy :) Really nice feeling when everything's organized! Stephen will be nicely surprised this weekend hehe.

Ta-Dah. This is my fourth bracelet :

My favorite color purple this time! Forgive the blur shots. Had to use my iPad to take those bracelet shots this time.

And my flower acrylic charms and alphabet beads arrived today!!

Yay! 6 different colors to represent my 6 YP girls. Guess who belongs to which color? ;) BUT I've modified the patterns and charms chosen la. The above was my initial idea but I had to improvise-on-the-go to make it look better.

So there you have it. What I did with my 3 days home :p Can't wait to get out tomorrow, see the sun, feel the breeze and do some worth-it wholesale shopping! :)

a new craft!

2011-12-06T12:16:00.001+08:00

Someone asked me what I'm going to do with my December holidays. I answered the person, "Learn a new craft!" And that's just what I've been doing over the weekend.

I'm learning to make wire bracelets! Hoping to add earrings and necklaces to my repertoire soon too, but am starting off with bracelets. And boy, has it been fun! ;)

I'm not into wearing bracelets now (except wrist bands and the plain simple black kinds, and for formal occasions like weddings) and I love my necklaces with a black base. BUT I do not represent womankind in general and I know many women and girls who love pretty bracelets, earrings and necklaces. Thus, my choice to endeavor into this area, because they really make great gifts! :D Women in general love the allure of pearls, precious stones, butterfly charms and just pretty little trinkets ;)

The relatively recent history of how I decided to get into wire bracelet making is this : I wanted to get something nice for the YP girls for Christmas. Last year, Siaw Chek got similar Swarovski necklaces for a group of us girls and I thought it was a really nice gift - having similar necklaces with other girls, as if representing a certain bond.

So I thought of doing something similar for the YP girls this year. Except, not all of them wear necklaces plus it would be too similar an idea coming only the year after!

Hence, I thought of bracelets. I went online to look for suitable ones, and lo and behold - they were priced quite expensively, and the cheap ones reputedly look cheap!

So the idea came to me to make my own ones!!! That started a whole venture into sourcing for the materials needed. I owe a lot of my sourcing needs to someone *coughyouknowwhoyouarecough* ;) Sitting in The Gardens on my iPad on gTalk, she patiently helped me source for the right findings :)

Thus begins my jewellery-making adventure :) I've made 3 so far. Here are the photos :

My very first handmade bracelet! In yellow beads. I had to use the beads I have in my collection, which admittedly is slightly inferior because I bought them years ago with other intentions, not for wire bracelets.

Close up. At first, I have to make the right loops on the wire with the right tools. Then thread in the 3 beads and make the same loops on the opposite end of the wire to close up the opening.

Make several of those, then join them together with jump rings, and a clasp.

Ta-Dah! Simple explanation of how it's done.

I'm giving away that first bracelet I made to someone who loves the color yellow - Hannah ;) It's coming your way, Hannah! To be delivered with Sarah and Bekah's birthday presents :)

After that, I wanted to try some 'hanging' beads, so here's my second bracelet :

Red colored one with hanging butterfly beads. Dunno who to give this to! Anyone want?

And my third one :

White pearl-like beads. I made this without jump rings and with a lobster clasp instead but the lobster clasp failed me :( The lobster clasp sent by my beading resource kinda low quality :(

But I love this best because of it's simplicity. Pretty, white and simple. I already know who I wanna give this to ;) The one who loves white.

By the way, none of the above bracelets I made are for Christmas presents hehe. Or else I won't post it here. Its all my try-outs and I'm giving them all away for fun! :)

Pardon me though, coz it's not as 'fine' and it might be a bit 'cheap looking' coz I went for silver findings instead of brass, pewter or copper. But it's my first few tries, so paham-paham saje lah ;)

Looking forward to making my own gifts :) It's fun ;) Made with lotsa love, tears and sweat hehe ;) Doesn't that make it MORE meaningful? Lol.

the sweet sound of drums

2011-12-02T23:35:00.001+08:00

credits : photo from online

During today's Christmas hand mime practice, when the director mentioned 'drum roll', every subsequent drum roll got me dreaming ... I started missing those days of playing church songs with Mun Onn on the drums, Geoffrey on the bass and yours truly on the piano. If you're reading this MO, yes ... I miss those days!!!

It's a good thing I don't have much to do in the hand mime, so I can afford to daydream a little during the stanzas and the early parts of the chorus. Haha. Oops, the director reads this! *smiles at jaya and acts innocent* So yeah, dreamed about the way things used to be, my younger jamming days haha.

Also kinda miss playing the drums :p Okay, I'm not great like MO lol, but I remember playing the drums for the children's choir. Hey, my parent's house has a drum set ok! Don't play play. Lol.

So when that drum roll in the Christmas hand mime piece comes in, that's what I'll be thinking off - how I miss playing the drums and how I miss jamming with MO and Geoff back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and policemen wore shorts ;)

Aah ... sweet memories. Things we will never be able to experience again :(

lessons on a train ride

2011-12-01T17:41:00.002+08:00

Pic from online

Today, I did something I rarely do. I took the train. In my original plan, I was gonna blog about the woahs and woes of today's train ride (:p) but I changed my mind since, after the train ride back.

It's amazing how God speaks through even the simplest of things, and I cannot help but share what I learned today. On a train ride. Yup.

There I was, sitting down quietly when I noticed a 'pakcik' standing nearby. The first thought that ran through my head was, "Should I give the 'pakcik' my seat?".

Then, soon after that thought popped in my head, I was inundated by other conflicting thoughts like how heavy my bag was and how I was already feeling queasy and how there were young men seated who should give their seats instead since I'm a lady, how scared I was to even open my mouth and talk to him to offer my seat, and what would I gain in return for offering my seat ....

WAIT.

What was that last thought?

Yup. You read that right. Immediately the Lord taught me a valuable lesson there and then in that train. The lesson of love. The lesson TO love. WITHOUT expecting return.

"... having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end." John 13:1b

Oh how selfish we can be, always expecting something for what we put in. Honestly, that also becomes the reason for either unhappiness or self-absorbency.

It was a good lesson. A good reminder. And one most timely too.

LOVE. But don't expect to be loved back.
GIVE. But don't expect to receive anything.
BE A FRIEND. But don't expect to get a friend.

Continue loving and caring, even if no one loves you back. I believe, as His children, that's what He would want us to do.

"By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:35

:)

A lesson well taught. Thank you, Lord.

tinseltown starts!

2011-11-30T14:42:00.002+08:00

Started my Christmas wrapping!!! And my presents counter :)

This year, I decided to cut things down. By cutting things down, I mean that I've come to feel that running around shopping for every.single.person.in.church to become rather meaningless, especially if I'm not particularly close to them.

I don't know. I just find it absolutely weird to not talk to that person the whole year even if we see each other in church, and then on Christmas day to go up to that person, wish him/her 'Blessed Christmas' and give her a gift :p

After all, remember this saying? :

"Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts.The only gift is a portion of thyself" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

So if I don't even spend time giving off a portion of myself with some, how meaningful can my gifts be, right?

But the hubby is the kindest soul on earth and always wants to make sure that I have a gift for every.single.person.in.church! :p

So this year, I told the hubby that I wanna do things slightly differently. While I still have some gifts for people I'm not close too (coz I couldn't resist giving them something I thought is suitable!), but I will cut down a lot.

First, I decided to give something smaller and simpler to those I'm not close to in church. Really simple. Eh, but don't salah faham ... If you get something small that I'm not close to you haha! There's one close friend who doesn't really 'celebrate' Christmas so I thought she'll be happy with something simple from me too :)

Second, decided not to give everyone this year, especially since I'm not working with the YAs anymore, some of their gifts (those whose parents are at church too) will be a general 'family gift'. Be prepared. Lol!

Third, I'm aiming at buying and wrapping all church gifts by 10th of December! This is because I don't want the season to be a 'season of aimless meaningless rush!'

PLUS

Fourth, I wanna focus a bit more time on leisurely shopping for those I'm closer to. Just wanna get them something a bit more meaningful. So I'm clearing all 'mandatory' (Lol! That sounds so sad right? Forgive me for the expression!) gifts first and then slowly leisurely experience the joy of shopping for something more meaningful for the ones closer to me - which is family, the YPs and a small bunch of close friends :)

Don't worry. If you're reading this, you're probably one of those I'll be spending a bit more time getting something meaningful for ;) Lalala.

furry boys in tees!

2011-11-30T09:58:00.001+08:00

I've always wondered what will my indoor doggie look like with those doggie baju. I had a chance to buy one that day coz pei yee showed me where she bought the ones she got for her cute Barnaby!

Aren't they cute?

pei yee's Barnaby

barnaby's soooooo cute

my cookie monster

He looks snuffed up in his baju. Haha!

silly riddle

2011-11-29T14:26:00.001+08:00

I heard a silly riddle today. Or at least I think it's silly. Maybe you might see some logic behind it, of which if there is then kindly enlighten me :p It's part of a major newspaper ad some more >.<

Q: You're stuck in a locked room. There's a mirror and a table in the room. How do you get out?

A: Look into the mirror and see what you saw. Take the saw and cut the table into half. Two halves make a whole (hole). Climb through the hole and get out of the room.

*cue : toink-toink-toink-toink music*

sticky bones

2011-11-29T00:03:00.001+08:00

Went to Morganfields Home of Sticky Bones for lunch on yesterday's public holiday :)

Imagine a whole rack of pork ribs :p Yums~! And as Chek says, these kinda meals are best enjoyed with a bigger group coz then you get to taste a bigger variety of stuff! :) I loooove food!!!

Guess what drink they have here? Cherry Coke!!! I've been curious about Cherry Coke ever since Pete and Terri's meal pictures from America :p Seems like its a very American drink :p

Doesn't it look tantalizing?

Putting on bibs so that we can get downright messy with the ribs!

Okay, I know the last two pics of the waiter wearing our bibs for us will catch my sister by surprise when she reads this! Haha. Yes babe! Guess who's working part-time at Morganfields during his school hols?

Yeah, I know the waiter. That's why he is smiling so kindly for the camera! None other than one of my cousins, Shaun.

Aside from ribs, we also got nachos, salad, sausages and bacon!

And the dish above, was absolutely yummy! 3 of my favorite food in the world all mixed together - fries (i.e. potatoes), cheese and bacon bits! :p Served with sour cream. Super Yums :D

Proof of its cheesiness!!! Lol

No better way to eat ribs than to get your hands dirty!!!

It was great. A place I wouldn't mind going back to. It's also a place I would love to bring my family to because I know my dad and sis will truly enjoy a good meaty meal!! :)

We almost wrote in the comment card, "Shaun should be promoted as manager!!!" LOL. It's funny because Shaun is still in high school and he is like the youngest staff there. Saje.

Hmm. I wonder what Pei Yee wrote in the comment card! ;) Had a nice time with you guys eating :)

the moon and the stars

2011-11-27T17:44:00.001+08:00

Something I need to remember. Correction, something a couple of us need to remember. The saying is very true because I know I will always make time for someone who is important to me.

But, the thing I need to remember is this - the other way around - Other people might not always make time for me because I'm not important to them. It shows. You will make time for people who are important to you, not just slot them in because you're free or because no one else is free to hang out with you. A back-up plan. A reserve player.

I know the beauty of a friendship where both care for each other and will always have time for one another. Granted, people get busy with their own lives, but at the back of your mind, you know that you've got a friend.

Cherish such people. Such moments. Such friends. Love all regardless, of course ... but learn to appreciate the ones who you know will always 'have your back'.

(But hey, aren't stars more beautiful? Wakakakakaka)

visitation

2011-11-26T21:21:00.001+08:00

Home visitations are always a blessing, I believe, both to the host and to the ones who visit them. No wonder YA used to do visitation quarterly!

But it wasn't until a group of us visited someone's house a few months back that I truly began to appreciate the value of godly visitations. A time of singing praises to Him, prayers and encouraging one another in the private realm of a person's home - there's really something uplifting about it, and I've begun to see how important such visits are.

YP visited Uncle and Aunty James today, by their request. They have been wanting to encourage our young people in their spiritual walk by sharing their testimonies.

Here are some of the pictures :

The group

Singspiration session

Aunty Rajes sharing her testimony

Makan time!

Oh yeah...forgot. November and December birthday babies celebration too!

It was a good and blessed time. The YPs had fun and the teachers had fun too. And I believe our lovely wonderful hosts enjoyed the company. It's good for the young ones to learn from the experiences of our beloved older adults in church. Truly, a blessing.

titbits

2011-11-26T09:39:00.001+08:00

1. My new reads :

And :

Yes. I know college is so way behind me already lol! I was asked to vett (or vet? vat? vatt? How do you spell that word anyways? Lol!) the book for the library. Cool haha, coz it's my first time vetting (:p) for the library! *Bangganya* hehe.

2. The long line at Big Bad Wolf :

Dua jam bayar wei. Giler....

3. Porky burger!!! At Sg Long pasar malam :)

fabulous friday

2011-11-26T00:02:00.001+08:00

Had a great day out with 4 YPs. I treasured the bonding session :)

Our sticky encounter :

Our free coke :

No purchase needed :) Cool eh?

And the tall giraffe :

Lol. Had lunch at Dave's Deli. Do you know both Dave's and Waffle World offer 30% discount during lunch hour from 12noon to 3pm? So the normal quarter chicken which costs RM16++ only comes to RM11.20 :) Now you know ;)

The final week. A surprise gift, a warm and lovely time getting to know someone this week and a major decision. Isn't life exciting? ;)

midnight musings

2011-11-25T00:24:00.001+08:00

Sitting here at midnight with a huge burden on my shoulders and those whom I badly want their opinions are already asleep. Sigh. Oh how I need the wisdom Abigail (David's wife, Bible) had right now.

On a lighter and separate note, new menu at Mewah Club : wok and grills. Check out the food in front of us :

Urm, IF you can see the food hehe. Sorry it was dark and my phone no camera light :p

Now, where is a Dear Thelma when you need one at midnight? Or the Befrienders? Sigh.

cakes ahoy!

2011-11-19T13:51:00.001+08:00

My first time trying to 'professionally' decorate a cake!!!

Okay, it didn't turn out that professional, but there's always a first time for everything right? It was a lot of fun and I'm hoping to be able to try more :D

The hubby helped write the words. I spread the main icing on, levelling it, and piped the shell patterns at the side.

Second cake :

Did that all by myself this time. Sides look a bit messy probably coz it's chocolate cheese so it kinda melted here and there a bit, haha. Chocolate cheese cake decorated with mini chocolate flakes and pastry hearts.

I never thought I'd bother to try decorating cakes. Was always contented just to be able to bake cakes! But it was really fun dolling those cakes up. Hoping for more practice until they look decent enough :)

yp moments

2011-11-18T23:53:00.001+08:00

Pre-meeting activities :

the cup game

UNO

After class activities :

Pictionary Man

I love these kids! Being with them on Saturdays is one of the things I enjoy doing each week :)

the way we were

2011-11-16T09:36:00.001+08:00

My ti ti has grown up since.
I miss my ti ti (little brother)

three things

2011-11-14T16:01:00.001+08:00

1. Cute surprise
One day, really out of the blue, I got a surprise whatsapp from Mo :

A real surprise coz I don't normally receive texts from Mo. Nice surprise :) Was very touched to be amongst those he decided to whatsapp after getting wifi. Aww.

2.

I do :)

3. Quote time!

We should love everyone, regardless. It is most Biblical to do so. But I found the quote below rather interesting because I know what it's like to truly love a family member/friend to the extend that you would never even look at your schedule when they need you. You'll just be there for them because you love them and being with them is one of the most wonderful feelings :)

thoughts at midnight

2011-11-11T23:53:00.001+08:00

To give up or to fight on?
I don't know.

of cakes and colouring pictures

2011-11-11T16:45:00.001+08:00

Yay! Managed to make 3 trays of Chocolate Cheese Cake with Oreo biscuit base and 1 tray of Tiramisu :D In one day. Tired. Haha.

That's the Tiramisu. Was so happy it turned out better this time (although I haven't tasted it yet) coz the sponge fingers sat quietly at the bottom :) I soaked that layer in coffee and rum ;)

The chocolate cheese cake. I haven't decorated it with chocolate shavings yet. I don't know if I'll spoil it when I attempt to decorate it coz I'm no great cake maker haha. We'll see ;)

You know, I was so bored the other day, I ended up doing some iPad colouring and coloured these :

Yeah, you know I'm bored :p I actually love colouring. I can actually sit there and color my 6-year old students' pictures in their music book, alongside them when they do their theory colouring exercises :p

Need.to.move.my.*ahemrearendahem*.and.get.some.real.work.done.soon.

a beautiful mind : of amazing discoveries and fun facts

2011-11-10T14:04:00.001+08:00

There's just SO much to discover and learn in life! Of course, some things are more important to know than others. But they all tickle my mind nonetheless.

An asteroid/meteoroid near earth

I've been following the news about this giant meteoroid which passed near earth last Tuesday. Some of the interesting things I've learned while teaching this subject (Science Form 3) is that even though hundreds of meteors enter our earth's atmosphere everyday, most of them burn up in the sky due to heat produced from friction, and the ones who hit the earth have never, in history, ever hit humans.

Anyway, following the news on this meteoroid brought me to a link about this thing called the 'Tunguska event' and it was really interesting learning about it. I shall not bore you, my readers, about details on this event, just in case you're not the kind who is interested in asteroids and meteoroids and the like. And if you are interested, just wiki it yourself ;)

The Tunguska event in Russia, 1908

I know I'm old and there was a point in time when my brain grew lazy and I was somewhat satisfied with whatever I already knew, being too malas to soak up any new information ... but I think I'm changing. Haha.

I've come a full cycle kua. The *coughcough* 'learned' person in me who was on the Dean's list *coughcough* during Uni days, whom non-English educated people were afraid of approaching *coughcough* and whom friends vouched would graduate with First Class Honours to make our department proud *coughcough* is somewhat awakening from her slumber! :p

Maybe I'm afraid I might get dementia when I'm old, hence the need to exercise my brains. Muahahahahaha. *rollseyes*

Speaking about dementia, I also read today that, contrary to what most people believe, dementia can be prevented by being active physically, NOT doing crossword puzzles or sudoku (basically, brainwork).

So apa lagi? Get active physically! Run, skate, jog! Haha.

Hope you're not getting tired of my bits and pieces of trivial information from my various readings, haha!

Some trivia (which I quizzed the YPs on, lol)

1) Which is the smallest country in the world?

Answer : Vatican City. It may be called a city, but it's actually a country because it has it's own ruler, own government, own everything lah! It has a total of only about 880 people living in it, but thousands of visitors daily. Don't know why? Go find out yourself. Otherwise this will be one long blog post full of facts that even though some might be interested in, not everyone will be ;)

2) Which is the biggest island in the world?

Did you answer Australia? If you did, you're WRONG. Gotcha!

I used to think the biggest island is Australia, but Australia is classified as a continent so it cannot fall under the category of island. Interesting eh?

So what's the answer? Greenland :)

Okay, one last question and then I'll stop rambling :p

3) Which is the smallest island in the world?

Lalala. Dum dee dum. Bet no one reading this knows ;) Unless YP punya orang lah.

The YPs guessed Pulau Tioman and dunno which other local islands. They should've known nothing in Malaysia can win in the superlatives department. Haha. Well, except for Mount Kinabalu, the highest mountain in SEA.

Ta-dah! :

Thats the smallest island in the world! A little island northwest (if I remember the bearings correctly!) off UK. It's called Bishop Rock. It houses only a light house and nothing else. Prisoners used to be sent there with only a limited supply of water and bread and left to die there >.<

Okay. I'm done rambling. Hope you have as much fun discovering new things as I do :)

*pics from online

spring cleaned, reorganized, and ready to roll!

2011-11-08T10:37:00.001+08:00

Hiya! Yes, I'm bored. Lol. Finished reading one out of my four books yesterday :) So doing some online time before heading back to reading the rest!

Oh yup, I forgot to mention one more comment on my bangs. The hubby said sometimes the bangs make me look like a boy :p BLEK!!! I do.NOT.wanna.look.like.a.BOY!!!!!! :p

See, the odd thing is, the hubby said (about my bangs), "Cute! Look like a boy!" >.< How did the words 'cute' and 'looking like a boy' wind up in the same sentence??? >.< Grrrr. I am girl :p

I did some spring cleaning. Spring cleaning my phone lah, haha! Like, seriously. Ever since my birthday when the iPad arrived, I've been ignoring how messy my phone has gotten. Urm, for your information, our apples get messy when we keep on downloading apps without arranging them properly. :p My apps were all over the place, I couldn't find what I was looking for!

Now, at least its in order. Phew.

Have you ever heard the saying, "If you wanna know a lady, take a look into her handbag?" Well, most times my handbag only has my wallet, phone and maybe mints. So no clues there.

But I'm letting you peek into my Epal ;) I've been wanting to share this for quite a long while d coz it's my way of sharing a part of me with my readers :)

It'll be fun, I promise. Hehe. Got some really cool things in my Epal that I wanna share with you all too :) Here it is : my reorganized Epal pages, from first to last :

My home page. Can you see :

1) My prayer journal. To jot down prayer items amongst my 5 prayer warriors :)

2) Vlingo. The app I can talk to and it will type out for me messages, FB statuses and even call someone for me, just by voice command :) Yup, a more basic version of Siri and Iris.

I also changed my quick buttons to include Instagram (which is a cool photo-sharing app) and Twitter - the stuff I check everyday :p

Okay, MOVING ON ... Page 2 :

My online page :p Worth mentioning :

1) Dropbox!
It's kinda like iCloud but this can be used on a normal PC too :) Amat berguna untuk aku ... For those lazy days when I don't wanna transfer my pictures to my laptop using a cable, just put it in Dropbox and voila...it appears on my laptop :) Don't you just love technology?

My entertainment page. A grrrrrreat app :

1) Rad.io - Seriously cool and free :) It streams radio stations from all over the world so I've been able to have music accompany me at home, which is cool .... Coz my portable CD player sudah lama rosak.

What's great-er about it is that you can get Christian radio channels! Songs, messages. And yesh even Christmas channels all year round! Highly recommended :) This is what keeps me company when I'm doing household chores :)

My photo apps page!!! I have SO many photo apps, I had to put them into many folders. Worth mentioning :

1) Quickpix - press once, and it snaps a lotta times repeatedly. It helps when wanting to capture fast photos like kids moving or clouds in a moving car :)

My games!!! Nothing worth mentioning haha. Okay, well maybe :

1) Bleep. It's Taboo but cooler coz you don't need the actual set ... Just the phone :) Marks all recorded by the phone itself. Cool eh?

Bibles and reading-related materials.

Music and various entertainment. Superb apps :

1) Shazam. A must-have if you're the type who hears a song and starts trying to recall the title of the song. Shazam is really amazing. Just press it during a song and it will tell you the title and artist of that song!!! Cool, eh?

2) Ocarina - a cool, haunting-like musical instrument. Just YouTube it and you will find many songs recorded with it. You will have to learn how to play it first though! ;) The song I love playing on it is 'Somewhere over the rainbow'. Sounds ethereal.

And so now you have just had a glimpse into a part of me :p Don't try looking into my handbag. Nothing much there. It's all in my phone ;)

7 pages. Perfect number. Lol.

bangs

2011-11-07T23:51:00.001+08:00

Okay, this is old news by now, but it happened about 3 weeks back ...

Bangs! :p I got me hair cut with bangs!

This was very much inspired by Koe Yeet ever since START's concert for orphans :

She's so cute! Hubby asked me why I wanna cut bangs like hers coz her hair looks like 'rambut kena gigit anjing', but it does not to me! She is just so adorable :p Next to Lois Rue-Ee, that is! *winks at Tze*

Hmm....for all that 'rambut kena gigit anjing' hodge-podge lol, 2 people said they liked my bangs:

1.Tze, who was so sweet (as usual :)), touched my new bangs and told me at fellowship dinner that he likes my new hair cut :) Thanks, Tze.

2. The other person is Pei Yee :) She said she would like to follow me and try cutting bangs too ... but is afraid that it might not suit her. Aiyah, I'm sure it will suit her lah :)

Okay, that's it! Enough of being vain, lol! This is the first time I've posted something about Koe Yeet too :) Many people caught my attention during my encounters with START's work amongst the orphanages, in different ways. Most of them were very inspiring.

But I don't feel a short post like this will do my stories about them justice :) So ... I'm just updating about my bangs! Muahaha. My bangs are still a bit short at certain areas, it irritates my eyes. But enough said. Don't wanna be vain ;)

of being grounded and birthday dinners (an oxymoron?)

2011-11-07T14:32:00.001+08:00

Inilah syllabus baru YP ;)

Basic Christian doctrines to ground our Christian youth, for example Doctrine of God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Man, Sin, Salvation. Heavy stuff, but exciting :) It might take us all the way to next year if cannot cover all in time!!!

Thank you *coughyouknowwhoyouarecough* for the above slogan you found online. Believe it or not, the YP staff agreed on teaching doctrines first, and then we got your idea, and so ngam...both matched! ;)

Ahem ahem ... I did the poster above lol. Okay, not the 'roots' drawing la, coz I have no patience to learn gimp yet :p but basically, the cut and paste parts muahaha. Picture from online hehe. Tak tau malu, lol.

Totally unrelated : Was looking through my file photos and realized I haven't blogged about a lot of things yet. So here are some birthday dinner photos!

Aunty Gaik's birthday dinner buffet at Shogun, One Utama.

Dennis' birthday dinner at Bubba Gump, The Curve, with Dennis, Robin, Alycia and Ee May. Had a hilarious round of Taboo after that! ;)

Ling's birthday dinner with a few close friends at Mei Lin's house. I have a cute story to share about that night but it has to do with how awesome it was to be a part of this particular home visitation, singing songs together and of course, Tze already knows ... how cute Lois Rue-Ee is ;) but we'll leave that for another post because it's totally unrelated to 'birthday dinners' hehe.

Have a good day-off peeps!

my current reads

2011-11-05T14:59:00.001+08:00

Ideally I should be reading only two books at any one time (ideally for me, lah! Haha. I know some will scorn at the idea of reading more than one book at a time).

You see, I've always needed a change in taste. I'm like that with food. Can't take the same flavor at one go. Need changes :p

So it's the same with my readings. I prefer having one 'heavy' book (Christian, non-fiction) and one 'light' book (fiction, chick flick, novel, comics) so that I can read either one when in different moods ;)

In-between-classes reading calls for lighter books while more time calls for heavier ones ;)

So right, I'm very confused as to how I ended up with 4 books as my current read!!!

1) A really gross (but sometimes fun) book for lighter (albeit non-eating) moments :

Mind you, there were times when I kinda felt like puking reading it. Good fun tho, lol. Enzymes, bacteria, puke, and Typhoon Mary :p

2) A REAL book. Lol. A good one too, but it has got me jotting every single good point the author has in my iPad, so that slows my reading down a bit. Didn't wanna just read it through without digesting the points :p

3) A silly chick flick. It's a very silly one that I don't even wanna put its picture here coz I would NOT recommend it to anyone at all. But it's still quite an amusing entertainment for me, and a good in-between-books-and-housechores kinda read.

4) Another proper book :p See? I have a 50-50 ratio of light versus heavy books LOL. I'm taking ages with this book and I feel bad already :p The hubby told me to return the book to its rightful owner if I can't finish it, but the thing is - I wanna finish it coz of my own interest and questions on the galaxy and yes, aliens. But it has a lot of heavy facts, thus slowing me down a lot >.< Apologies to the rightful owner for taking so long to finish this :(

And those, are my current reads :p

...and off we go!

2011-10-31T12:17:00.000+08:00

Harlo harlo :) So guess what? It's 2 months until the end of the year and some of my students' parents decide to take both months off...so I'm feeling the holiday mood already :p In fact, I officially have no more classes on Fridays until the end of the year ... so yeah, lol. Jangan jeles ;) 3-day weekend *big grin*

And right now ... I'm on holiday :D Like seriously! I'm going to be away for a few days, here :

Guess where?

Gonna be staying on these water chalets:D

Hoping to just chill, soak in the sight of the sea which I love, and read some books. Oh yeah, play with my macro lenses too :)

The only thing that makes my heart a tad bit heavy is that I won't be around for her special little private dinner gathering because I was looking forward to it since she asked last week :( *hugs-to-you-and-you-know-we-love-you-even-tho-we're-not-gonna-be-there-sobs*

But other than that, I'm looking forward to leaving it all behind and ... well, holidays are always splendid, right? Bid me adieu, lol. Two books, my Bible, my macro lenses, my i-Screens and some suntan lotion. I'm ready :)

the real deal ;)

2011-10-29T22:52:00.002+08:00

I wanna share this music video which focusses on 1 Corinthians 13 and John 15:13. We saw this after watching a documentary on the growth of the churches throughout Asia and the 10/40 window.

What struck me in this music video is a very good reminder of what love is. Yes, this is the real 'love is...' (as compared to one of my earlier blog posts - the one with cartoon pictures hehe). The real deal. The real scoop on love.

The thing that tugged at my heartstrings is a good reminder that love is NOT selfish and it is NOT self-seeking. Love does not think of yourself, and love doesn't put yourself first. Love puts others first.

So, whenever you feel as if you've been wronged or someone has hurt you, stop and remember that love thinks not of your own self. Love always wants what's best for the other person.

There are too many selfish feel-good statements going around, especially on FB quotes (you know, all those 'You've been hurt, stop caring about the ones who hurt you, treasure only the ones who will treasure you' kinda statements). It's time to get back to the basics, and remember that love is not self-seeking. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love is not easily angered.

After all, if there is no greater love than he who lays down his life for his friends, we can't be self-seeking right? Because if we are, we won't lay down our lives for our friends. Love is sacrifice.

Watch the video ;)

This is my love

Let's learn to love each other more, the Biblical way.

tell me wiki

2011-10-26T23:19:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was the first time I noticed something in the all-familiar verse 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness....' Matthew 6:33.

Sometimes verses become so familiar that we overlook certain things and I've always seen this verse to be synonymous with seeking God first. That's when I noticed what it actually says!!!

It says seek first the kingdom of God. Not God, but the kingdom of God. Aah, then you would ask me - Is there a difference? You tell me. I don't know, actually, which is why I'm blogging about it :p

Does anyone reading this know? I did some reading on what the 'kingdom of God' meant and one article I read says that it is not so much the physical kingdom of God as the spiritual kingdom of God, referring to salvation and those who are being brought into salvation.

How different would the verse be if we understand it as seeking first the 'kingdom of God'? Will there be any difference?

The part that intrigued me more is the 2nd part though - His righteousness. It was as though I was reading those words for the first time! I am to seek His righteousness! And that encouraged me a lot to rethink of practical ways in which I can seek His righteousness! Indeed, as Paul would say, I am the greatest sinner of all sinners and am in much need of His righteousness - to become more and more holy each day, until the day I stand before my Maker.

The verse compelled me to be more careful of my words, my actions and my thoughts. His righteousness! That's the standard! It made me pause to worship the Lord in song. He alone indeed is worthy to be praised!

But I still haven't fully grasped the first part of the verse. What am I to practically do to seek first His Kingdom? His kingdom. *pauses to think* Hmm, is there any Christian forum I could post such questions to? Haha. It's at times like this when I wish I could sit at the mamak with some of the more 'learned' amongst us and ask them all these bible questions >.<

I've been enjoying my readings. Had to miss it over the busy weekend but I've already finished 6 books from my big bad wolf stash (!), three-quarters through the 7th book, and trudging through another book that I found difficult to read initially.

Please, please don't tell me the dizziness I felt today is because I've been reading too much and need glasses :p NoooooooooOOOOOoooooooo.

a different but awesome week

2011-10-12T23:37:00.001+08:00

In a few minutes, I will be sipping vanilla milkshake while curled up on the sofa, finishing my novel. Bliss.

Believe it or not, I've actually become tired of my iScreens!!! Like, seriously. This week, all I've done is check the usual things I check online (which doesn't take more than 10 minutes) and then proceed to ... read a book!

(Usually I'll keep reloading the same screens, switching screens and when all else bores ... play an iPhone or iPad game).

Yes, I'm shocked at myself! Well, okay I might (if I'm in the mood) leave my gtalk on but ... I'm reading a book in the background if nobody's free to chat with me online!

I'm no avid reader like some others are. But this week, I took 3 days to finish a novel! That's fast for me, mind you. Unless you're comparing that to how fast I finished reading each Harry Potter book in the series, then Harry Potty wins lah! Lol. I remember I couldn't put the book down and read it right into the night, probably finishing it in 1 1/2 days the most!

I've been carrying my novel wherever I go and even reading it during lunch at the mamak :p That's the amazing thing. I can't believe that the thing that got me off my iScreens (i.e. iPad and iPhone) ... is a good book! Amazing, lol.

That said though, I still fare better with fiction books :p It takes way looooonger for me to finish a non-fiction book. Can't wait to get some Christian fiction on board Logos-hope this Saturday! Hope they're cheap :p Lol.

random equations ;)

2011-10-12T13:06:00.001+08:00

Remember this. Lol.

Done with crazy Add Maths sums for the day. Phew. Lol. But seriously, differentiation (dy/dx) isn't THAT bad. I know I loathed it at school, but it must have been because I was so busy with prefect duties, I missed half my Add Maths classes every week :(

A part of me actually wishes I had pursued a degree in Maths instead of Mass Comm but hey, Mass Comm is where all the cool kids hang out haha! Can u picture a geeky me sitting in the school corridors solving Maths problems? ;) Okay maybe, lol. I know I can be a geek sometimes >.<

But Maths IS fun. As is detective work. Maybe I just like solving things :p I'm sure I won't enjoy a full-time job looking at figures though ;)

Urm, how does what I'm talking about relate to the picture above? Not related actually haha. But I could make it relate ;) Since we're talking about Maths, then :

A girl shares with you her problem = NOT complaining
A girl shares with you her problem = she trusts you

:)
It's true!

love is ...

2011-10-11T11:04:00.001+08:00

I'm reduced to posting quote pictures because my laptop's wifi has problems so I can't blog about some of the things I've been wanting to blog about using my phone pics. Sigh. Oh well, I'll try to make it interesting nonetheless, ok?

Found a series of really cute drawings. I'm beginning to love tumblr websites although I don't really know how it functions. Wish I could draw as well as these people do! Here are some of the sweet ones :

Love is ... laughing together with you till our stomach hurts

Love is ... showing appreciation for each other

aww....

2011-10-09T23:40:00.001+08:00

SO cute
*faints* :p

be still and know.

2011-10-09T14:13:00.001+08:00

Sometimes the difficult part about praying is, it means waiting upon the Lord. And a lot of times, we would rather get things done NOW than to quieten ourselves and just ... wait.

We have an amazing God. I've seen God answering my prayers instantly, and sometimes the very next day!

But we know the light is not always green. Sometimes we will need to wait. And that's the hard part for people who are used to getting things done and taking matters into their own hands.

But that's exactly the lesson we need to learn. To be still, and wait upon the Lord as we pray. No one who has ever been still and waited upon the Lord has ever regretted it. Even if the answer was a no, the period of waiting upon the Lord would most likely, I believe, have been used by the Lord to yield our will to His. Or to teach us valuable lessons. Or to help us understand why it's a no.

Help me Lord, to be still and wait, although the end remains ... unseen as yet.

*****************
Sidenote :
Thanking the Lord for my prayer warriors - the small group who replied my email and been in constant contact these past 2 or 3 weeks over personal prayer items.

Keeping the numbers small so that I'm able to pray for each and every one of them. I don't want to be the kind of person who says : "I'll pray for you" and then don't actually pray in the end. So thankful for each of them. God has blessed me indeed.

If anyone's wondering, yup ada juga orang yang aku email the prayer warrior mail to tapi takde reply so I guess he/she/they have already got their own prayer warriors so that's cool :)

As for me, I'm blessed with those who replied. It's a blessing to be able to pray for you and a real comfort to know that you're praying for me :) Nothing can replace the unity I feel in Christ with you, the like-mindedness and the availability for each other :) I always look forward to reading your replies and personal sharing in the mails, and adding them on to my prayer list to be prayed for :)

Let us continue spurring each other on towards love and good works :D

sigh...we women. Lol.

2011-10-08T23:33:00.001+08:00

This is SO funny, but ashamedly true!

a bit of this and that

2011-10-07T22:46:00.001+08:00

It's Friday! The looooooooooongest away from Sunday. I love the picture above, especially the Sunday girl. That's how I look like on Sunday nights :p

Looking forward to the combined trip with YA to Port Klang :D

And had a lovely time today at practice. It's quite fun being behind Yee Ping and Yee Wen, standing between Grace and Vincent and in front of Alvin and Weng Keet :D It's very comfortable there and Grace occasionally does her funny reactions. At one point, Vincent and I were like ....star....ask for the star.... Lol. Saje, coz that's one of the few times our hands are used hehe. Then when Ping, Vincent, Yee Wen and I did the 'little child', we made him/her jump. Just for fun hehe.

I really wanted to make chocolate cheesecake for YP tomorrow, but after counting the price of cream cheese, fresh cream and Oreo biscuits, I decided to settle for the usual muffins. Lol.

I learned something a few days ago, from my reading of the portion on the book of Revelations for YP preparations. There are so many issues I feel strongly about or against, and I always feel the urge to be frank and just let things be known and speak my mind (I should have studied law?), but reading that book made me realize something ...

... in the end, everything will be made right. God is going to destroy this world and we will have a new heaven and earth. Every tear will be wiped away. Everything will be made anew and in the end .... some trivial things will not really matter anymore.

And if it really really burdens my heart, then I should stop and pray about it instead. Unceasingly.

Hmm, on second thoughts .... seeing as to how i like to let my views be known always, maybe I should have become a politician! :p

Oh btw, how right is this? :

Opinions? It sounds like a very comforting saying, but I don't think God gives you people 'to hurt you'. Just sounds wrong. Most of our 'hurt' is self-inflicted. Like we cari pasal or we err. It's just that the amazing thing is God teaches us lessons through it all :)

So... just wanna say I love you all - to the one I'm spending my life with : thanks for loving me; to those I share happy moments with : the awesome foursome, the good and close friends; and even to the one whom I hurt a year ago : the ex-sbf. I love you ALL, and I may not be perfect, but for some strange reason (haha), all of you will always remain in my heart :)

I love this line in the show I'm following now -

Aria : I know it's over, but I can't take it seeing you walking around, hating me.
Ezra : I can never hate you.

*so sweet*

the fact of the matter.

2011-10-03T23:46:00.001+08:00

A sombre reminder and timely rebuke (me rebuking myself lah!)

yay, weekend!

2011-10-01T15:07:00.000+08:00

Reminds me of BSF Quiet Time for Kids ;) We will put them all on their blankets and they are to lay down quietly and 'think about God' ;)

Had a rather interesting meeting last night. My heart felt warm upon arriving and seeing the ones I love :) It's been a long time since I've been in such a meeting and it felt good ;) no doubt there were interesting moments when opinions clashed as well as 'comic-relief' ones.

Saturday mornings are always good for sleeeeeeping in. I would have joined the girls in their inaugural effort of 'making her fit in by introducing her to Kajang's best breakfast', but as the comic strip above says : 'Sleep is important'. Lol.

A thank you goes out to *coughyouknowwhoyouarecough* for the Abercrombie&Fitch and Nicole yesterday :) *cartwheels* I'll wear it for you to see when I see you next :) This week, not a day went by that I didn't think of you and wonder how things are going, and saying a silent prayer for you. Hugs. Know that you're thought of and prayed for :)

Lined up for the weekend : DL's birthday barbecue :)

There's another person's birthday today. Here's a glimpse of this friend of mine. I don't mind sharing this snapshot of our FB mails coz there's nothing secret there and he doesn't mind anyway. This is the friend who will always have a special place in my heart :

He is a dear, dear friend and I like the way he is always so candid, honest and open with me. I mean, imagine a guy friend saying to you, "And I do miss hearing your voice". Well, it's because I'm married that, in a way, he is able to say these nice things without any 'salah faham' between either parties.

He is one of the few friends I have a song dedicated to. Haha, yeah. I have songs for certain really close friends which is about either our friendship or some experiences we went through. Maybe I'll share about that one day (the parts that I can share publicly, that is!). But for now :

Happy birthday, J.

You once said that fortune favors the brave.

Well, I sure hope you have found the 'fortune' you were looking for in the golden sands of Australia.

And if that 'fortune' you seek fails you, then please ... my dear friend J., please ...

... remember the Lord Jesus you once loved.

He still loves you.

the thing about time

2011-10-01T02:12:00.001+08:00

This is funny, but oh-so-true :

2011-09-30T12:44:00.001+08:00

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.
*knocks head against the wall*
When will I ever learn not to be stupid?

so true >.<

2011-09-28T14:55:00.001+08:00

photo update

2011-09-26T23:25:00.000+08:00

It's been some time since my last post, eh? So let's take the easy way out (easy for writing as well as reading, haha!) and do some photo posts ;) Photos are also helpful in remembering the weeks that have gone by ;)

********************************************

Snake!

Jeremy caught a snake in his house. I know most people hate snakes, but some of you might not know the 'past I had with snakes' ;) Lol. Yes, I could once tell you which snakes are poisonous, and if we took a trip to the reptile farm together, I'd probably be able to tell you the names of all the snakes there too :P ... provided they were local ones lah. Some of you know about this past of mine, but some don't. Ask me in person :)

Anywayz, back to Jeremy. I helped him identify the snake he caught. Well, not without help lah, lol. My knowledge has begun to rot over the years. I could once absorb information like a sponge - even my mom-in-law said so! Absorb information I did, but it's been some time since I last had any 'snake encounters' so I had to refer back to the snake book to identify the one above, and not to mention checking with Hans and the hubby too. It was kinda fun going back to what I used to know :)

******************************************

FOOOOOOOOOOOOD!

Steamboat porridge! Totally yummy :P A new shop opposite Jusco CS.

A new dessert shop, same row as the steamboat shop above.

Lunch with Steven and Joan when they came down from Singapore. The straw mushrooms wrapped with bacon above, was simply yummylicious!

*****************************************

My favourite Kipling wallet is one year old now!

I like it SO much, but the logo is fading already :(

No heart to change my wallet.

This was bought from a Kipling store in Bichester Village, UK

So there's no way I could just throw this wallet away.

**************************************

Lean-Jurvena's Wedding Project!

The girls recording a song as a wedding gift

Lunch together after that :)

**************************************

Okay, that's all I can update right now ... coz my laptop is giving problems getting online so I can't seem to upload any more pictures. Goooooooood night! :)

try to remember the kind of September

2011-09-18T00:09:00.001+08:00

It seems like it's been a long gap between posts. Only one reason for it - I haven't downloaded my photos from my phone :p Lol. Somehow my writing juices don't flow when I've got no photos to inspire me :p

So ... here are some short thoughts then, written as they surface on my mind :p

I don't know where the saying, "Wake me up when September ends" comes from, but September will always remind me of her, my mama. It's been 7 years since she passed away, and as my sis put it, life will never be the same for those who knew her. It's true. She's the most wonderful and loving person I've ever known and everyone who knew her, loved her. She was so much a part of my life, it's hard to believe she isn't around anymore. Yo amour kubos, mama.

One year on, September, for me, is the most bittersweet of months. Following very closely would inevitably be August but September reigns in bittersweetness. I can't believe it's been one year since my childhood dream came true, walking in the land of the books I used to read growing up. One year since we experienced oh-so-many memorable happenings, witnessed so many new sights and soaked in the beauty of Europe. One year since. Time flies, eh?

There are many more reasons that make September a bittersweet month for me. No one can deny the impact two deaths had upon me 7 years ago, 3 weeks apart of each other, both in September. I can still remember the first time I literally felt the weight of everything upon my heart after facing 2 deaths.

Wake me up when September ends then? Well maybe, maybe the September of 2004. But I wouldn't mind being back in UK again though, like last September. Hence, the bittersweetness of the month. But well, through it all, the Lord's Name is ever to be praised as we know that everything works out for the good of all those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

dwell with the Rose

2011-09-15T08:34:00.001+08:00

A Persian fable says : One day
A wanderer found a lump of clay
So savory of sweet perfume
It's odors scented all the room.
"What are you?" was his quick demand,
"Are you some gem from Samarkand,
Or pure nard in this plain disguise,
Or other costly merchandise?"
"No, I am but a lump of clay."

"Then whence this wondrous perfume - say!"
"Friend, if the secret I disclose,
I have been dwelling with the rose."
Sweet parable! and will not those
Who love to dwell with Sharon's rose,
Distill sweet odors all around,
Though low and poor themselves are found?
Dear Lord, abide with us that we
May draw our perfume fresh from Thee.
- Streams in the desert

of mysteries and unknown bridegrooms

2011-09-08T12:52:00.001+08:00

DOORS HD!

I love a good adventure. And mystery. Throw me a mystery to solve, with clues to figure out, and tasks to do, and I'm hooked! Oh, leave the sword fights and gun battles out. I don't relish any form of killing :p but a good detective story? You're on!

I found this cool game and downloaded it for free. It is a mystery about this young woman's childhood and what happened to her mother in the past. I was hooked on opening doors and clicking on clues, getting keys to fit locks and all .... until it led me to uncover a hidden safe *cue mysterious music*

I proceeded to open the safe, and ..... lo and behold .... a pop-up page appeared that said, "Enjoying Doors HD? To continue on in your adventure, purchase the full game at $6.99"

*Faints* Tellible. Blek. The end of the road for that adventure of mine.

******************************************

A funny whatsapp conversation between my sis and me. Names have been changed to protect the identity of the original person.

Sis: Hey, are you all going for Billy's wedding?
Me : (in my heart : Who's Billy???) Urm, I don't know who's Billy so I guess I'm not going.

Fast forward a few days later.

Sis: Hey, your wedding invitation card for Billy's wedding is here in our house.
Me: Ok ok thanks.... (pause) ... WHO'S BILLY???

tokyo street

2011-09-07T12:07:00.000+08:00

Dinner at Tokyo Street to celebrate EM's birthday!

Went with Dennis, Alycia, Robin, Eemay, Steven and Joan.

It's quite a simple little set-up, with everything Japanese around, from cute gadgets and soft toys to convenience stores, food and restaurants.

A glimpse of the stores on Tokyo Street.

Giant Domo!

Here's where we ate - Suki-ya. Japanese steamboat.

An array of different kinds of thinly-sliced meat :)

Beef, mutton, chicken.

What's different about the steamboat, is that it's not your usual clear soup and tom yam!

It's actually miso and kimchi ;)

The group! (minus 4 of us on the other table :P Joan took photos though ... which she'll probably upload on FB!)

Dennis giving the dorky look with his ice-cream and fake specs!

blessings

2011-09-06T20:03:00.001+08:00

Thanking the Lord for a blessed time with 5 people over dinner last night, and for the 3 friends whom I could sms today about matters close to the heart.

Indeed, having a few, or even ONE good friend (and/or family) who knows you well and cares heaps for you, is better than a thousand who only knows you on the surface and aren't concerned about matters closest to your heart.

Looking forward to more drastic moves and soul-searching moments as I reorganize my life, take my Sabbatical and rethink my priorities.

the gospels

2011-09-05T12:46:00.002+08:00

Had a blessed time both teaching and learning about the 'difference' between the Gospels, that I feel compelled to share it here for the purpose of either encouraging someone, sharing what I discovered, or just as a refreshing reminder for those who already know all these ;)

I started off by asking each of them to describe me on a piece of paper, but to different audiences. One was to write as if she was writing about 'Aunty Cheryl' to Titus, another was to write about 'Cheryl jie' to her parents, and the other to her friends.

What was amazing is, even though the facts they wrote in the paper were the same (piano teacher, yada yada) ... but the one to Titus had :

"Aunty Cheryl is the one who bakes muffins that you like to eat during regional prayer meeting"

while the one for parents had, "Cheryl jie teaches us the Bible in YP"

I hinged onto that point and pointed out how Titus will definitely know me just by the muffins itself because he loves muffins, and because of the different audiences written to, the style of writing or the information divulged were from different angles.

Then I related it to the 4 Gospels.

Do you know that, aside from the normal differences we hear of between the 4 Gospels, even the way the Greek was written differs? I shall start with Mark because it's the oldest of the 4.

Mark. Written in grammatically poor Greek*, his audience was largely Gentiles who were new in the faith.

Matthew. The Greek he used had a very large Semitic influence, because his audience were the Jews.

Luke. Being a physician, he used very good and elegant Greek, his audience being wealthy urban Gentiles.

John. He used simple but symbolic Greek. What I discovered in my study was interesting. The book of John was written about 38 years later, and by then, John would have had a lot more years to really grasp everything that was happening around him, so he used a lot of symbolism to show deeper things in his Gospel. In fact, where the other Gospels use the word 'miracles', he uses the word 'signs'. He gives a lot more insight to things than the other 3 because of this. It's not just a 'reporting of what happened'.

Of course, aside from the usual teaching that Mark is a book of action which portrays the Lord Jesus as a servant, Matthew is the book that is written to Jews to show them that Jesus is the Mighty King, from the line of David (thus having the geneology of Jesus traced right back to David and Abraham), Luke portraying the Lord's humanity, the Lord as the Son of Man, and John portraying the Lord as the Son of God coming from heaven, I had some fun doing some word search with them - just to let them dig into the Word themselves, and see for themselves the differences ;)

We skimmed through each Gospel, and looked for these keywords, which essentially tell you the difference in each gospel :

Mark. 'Immediately' (or if you're using NIV, then 'at once')

Matthew. 'Fulfill what was spoken ...'

Luke. 'Son of Man'

John. 'Believe' and 'Son of God'

It was cool preparing for the class and even cooler skimming through the 4 Gospels to pick out those words. Hopefully, the study has made them clearer in knowing the difference between the Gospels. Of course, even though the focus or aim of writing (because of their audiences) differs, the accounts of the Lord Jesus are all in harmony with each other, which goes to show that the Bible is truly the Word of God :)

In closing, just a glimpse of the differences in Ezekiel 1:10. Notice the 4 types of faces? The Ox would best represent Mark's portrayal of the Lord as the servant and workman of the Lord, the Lion would remind us of Matthew's portrayal of Jesus as the righteous King of the Jews, the Man of course would be Luke's portrayal of the humanity of Christ and the Eagle would be John's portrayal of the divinity of the Lord as the Living Bread come down from heaven :)

That, in a nutshell, was what I taught last Saturday at YP. Now go quiz my students and see if they can tell you the difference or not? Haha. I'm curious to know if anything sticks in their heads!!! LOL.

p/s Sylvia .... this repetition here is for you to learn, since you didn't come last Saturday :D Hope it benefits you :) Shows you how marvellous the Bible is :)

*a correction : tradition dictates that Mark was written in another language (possibly Aramaic) and then translated to Greek, the copy of which was found was in grammatically poor Greek, probably reflecting on the translator rather than on Mark.

2011-09-05T00:48:00.000+08:00

my doggy is dying.

of torture instruments and (trying to be) artistic on day #4 Tuesday

2011-09-01T18:47:00.000+08:00

Okay, today ... I tried to get creative. Haha. Went to Malacca and tried to focus on being artistic with my pictures ;) I'm not much of a photography person - I don't have the eye for cool photos, but I tried my best to get artistic and creative and well ... here are some of my Malacca pictures! My photoshooting goal was to cut down on simply 'pointing and shooting' but trying more of framing and focussing :P Like, trying to visualize what shot I might want with the picture, and getting the right shot. Photography, afterall, is an art in itself!

So .... here, I present to you .... some of my (trying to be) artistic photos :P You are definitely allowed to 'beg to differ' lol!

The day in Malacca started with Dim Sum at (something) Beruang!

(Notice I tried to get some nice close-ups on the food, and not just simply point and shoot haha!)

After that ... a walk by the seaside at Pantai Klebang :D *cartwheels* Me looooooooves the sight of the sea :D *double cartwheels* ... Just walking by the seashore, looking out into the sea and watching the ships, and the sight of the casuarina trees *backflips*

Okay, nothing extraordinary about this pic. Just your regular run-of-the-mill beachside shot, but I had to take a regular beachside shot to show you all the picture of the urm, beach, no? :P

Me on the beach. My favourite flip-flops :P (except for the white words, but when pakai, cannot see the words dee lor :P) I like it coz of its ruggedness :P Love the rugged straps :P Hawaiannas has the same design ;) but overly priced :P

ANYWAYS, this isn't an artistic picture either. Sabar ...

Okay, here comes some self portraits :P but I tried to get 'artistic' ones. The framing in my mind was - the person is on one side of the picture, with the majority portion being the background ;) Dunno why I suddenly feel like doing 'people pictures' in this way :P

One of my proudest moments - capturing this seashell with my macro lenses and seeing the 'crystals' in the sand surrounding it :)

After the pantai, you'll never guess where we ended up at! Here's a (trying to be) artistic clue :

Malacca's SUfes bookstore!

After that, it was time for Baba food :)

And then, after walking on Jonker street, we went looking for Nadaje's Mille Crepe because it was on someone's to-do list, hehe. Both the outlets were jam-packed full of people! Sighs :( Holiday. But we got our mille crepes nonetheless! (Yay!) I think this was the only meal every.single.one.of.us.four enjoyed.

One of the highlights of the day (for me) is when we popped by the Torture Exhibition, which was very interesting and educational. I wished I had finished reading the Foxes Book of Martyrs but I guess it might help me understand the book better as well. It was quite depressing seeing the torture instruments and torture methods that were used in Medieval Europe. Truly an eye-opener. How much some people suffered for Christ! -.-

Branding instruments for different crimes. So sad. Makes one feel like a cow :P

A horrific way of capital punishment. Grilling the person (like BBQ!) to death on a rack :P

The picture above is a knee splitter. I think its name is self-explanatory :P

Some torture equipment to force people to utter certain words.

This is to cut or bludgeon a thief's hands.

Head crusher :P When the chin is placed on the metal rack ant the top part pressed down, the head will be crushed, starting with the 'popping' of the teeth. It's (for lack of a worse word) gross :P

The guilotine

The chamber with spikes. Go in, close door, you're spiked to death! :P

Spiky interrogation chair

Another gross thing. You lie down here, and you'll get stretched and pulled apart. Literally.

The saw. Sawn in half. The victim is hung upside-down on purpose, because hanging upside-down causes oxygen to get to the brain, which in turn keeps the person alive longer. So when the person is being sawn in half, he or she is NOT dead until the saw reaches much lower. So terrible right? Keeping the person alive to feel the pain :P Blueeek :P Those people were really 'sick'.

This one above was just as 'sick'. The victim's stomach is slit open (slightly kua) and the rope is tied to the intestines (while the person is still alive!) and then the intestines is reeled out slowly. Crazy people in medieval times!

I know, it was gross, but educational; and I always enjoy learning new things :P

Then we spotted .... new food!!!!

What can be better than potatoes? ;) It's one whole potato, use a machine to carve it out and voila!

Topped with seasonings of your choice - bbq, cheese, black pepper, paprika ...

And for dinner ...

Satay celup!!!

Let's end this post with another attempt at artistic shots. I was in Malacca, so I decided to take a shot of me in front of the Stadhuys building - but just the red bricks - to add to the 'so-called' creativity, instead of the usual tourist shots of the whole area. Again, with the 'frame me to the side of the picture' shot :P

Whatever, lah!

LOL ... thanks to my 'photographer' for the self-portrait shots, you-know-who-you-are. Had a great time with the 3 of you on this Malacca trip, although the 2 of you could have done better in the food department! *snickers*. Next time cannot take you both to eating-food places :P Blek ;)

day #3 Monday

2011-08-31T13:54:00.000+08:00

Recording equipment all set up :

Home studio :)

Breakfast with the hubby

Lunch with Mb coz he is working so went to his office area and had lunch with him there.

Forgot to take pictures! :P

After that, waited for Y to finish work, coz the hubby went off camping. Had dinner with Y and N at this new place in Alamanda :

Wild mushroom soup

Quite nice :) A LOT of mushrooms *yums*

And one of the yummiest carbonara ever tasted.

The restaurant has been having this "Buy 2 Pasta get 1 Free Pasta" promotion,

so the price is really reasonable :)

After that : Watched -

with Y and N.

Alamanda cinema very few people. It's like we had the whole place to ourselves.

How nice if Kajang could be like this every.single.day.of.the.year.

day #2 Sunday

2011-08-29T15:51:00.001+08:00

What did I do on day two of my holidays?

Why, watch Cars 2 of course! Hehe. Superb sequel :) Very touching and filled with some detective-spy investigations as well ;)

After that, had a good dinner with Francis, Robin and EeMay :

Good, spicy, Thai food! Sorry, still using my iPad to update me blog, so can't align my text properly :p

H dropped by my house the other day and he asked me, "So, how's ur blog getting along?" and I was so blur, didn't know what he was talking about, so I asked him, "Oh, did I tell you about the letter I received from (name of a very famous company)?" Ketoinks.

Home studio all set up, had a great talk with Y online, and chanced upon some great job prospects for G. Will be emailing him tonight to tell him about it :) A great job prospect in UK :) How coincidental, I was just thinking about G yesterday, wondering if he'll be back from UK this year because this is usually the time when he comes back home, and being the sweet Lower6 best friend that he is to me, he'll always find the time to squeeze me in to meet up, even when I don't realize that he's back home!

This reinforces to me the value of a friend. A friendship. And that same poem comes to my mind :

"Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself."

Y told me today that she enjoyed reading my blogpost on friends. She's so sweet. I think it's true though, that the greatest gift you can give a friend, is a portion of yourself. I like it how H randomly pops by our house every now and then. It's exactly what friends should be - a part of each other's lives.

There was even once when he popped by and I was still teaching. Little Rachel (Unc Jeff's daughter) was outside and H dengan selambanya asked her to keep the gate opened for him to ride his bike in, and Rachel was like, "Who's that?"

I guess H must be around our house quite often lately coz some of my church friends have gotten to know him already, which is cool. Personally, there's nothing that strengthens a friendship more than openness and welcoming a person into your life, and having your lives intertwine, just being a part of each other and sharing your lives with each other :)

Looking forward to tonight too, to spending time together with a bunch of people, overnighting at my house and the big trip tomoro! Of Boston and Planet of the Apes ;) Woohoooo! Oh, and woots too! (p/s The word 'woots' has just been added into the dictionary and the dictionary makes no connection to it having any reference to looting ;) Just FYI)

the changed cross

2011-08-29T11:46:00.001+08:00

"The Changed Cross" is a poem that tells of a weary woman who thought that the cross she must bear surely was heavier than those of other people, so she wished she could choose another person's instead. When she went to sleep, she dreamed she was taken to a place where there were many different crosses from which to choose. There were various shapes and sizes, but the most beautiful one was covered with jewels and gold. "This I could wear with comfort," she said. So she picked it up but her weak body staggered beneath it's weight. The jewels and gold were beautiful, yet they were much too heavy for her to carry.

The next cross she noticed was quite lovely, with beautiful flowers entwined around it's sculptured form. Surely this was the one for her. She lifted it, but beneath the flowers were large thorns that pierced and tore her skin.

Finally she came to a plain cross without jewels or any carvings and with only a few words of love inscribed on it. When she picked it up, it proved to be better than all the rest, and the easiest to carry. And as she looked at it, she noticed it was bathed with a radiance that fell from heaven. Then she recognized it as her own old cross. She had found it once again, and it was the best of all, the lightest for her.

You see, God knows best what cross we need to bear, and we never know how heavy someone's else's cross may be. We envy someone who is rich, with a cross of gold adorned with jewels, but we do not know how heavy it is. We look at someone whose life seems so easy and who carries a cross covered with flowers. Yet if we could actually test all the crosses we think are lighter than ours, we would never find one better suited for us than our own.

- from Glimpses through Life's Windows

holidays day #1 Saturday

2011-08-29T01:09:00.001+08:00

Day One of my holidays. Typing this from my iPad so the alignment might be a bit wonky. Long story, details not needed hehe.

Woooots! Day #1 started with a good swim :

followed by lunch at the very place where it all started this year, the very outlet where I made my decision by faith ...

followed by a fun time of playing this :

and a sweating out session of this :

I love the holidays :) A much needed break before facing the final quarter of the year!

I'll miss the hubby as he ventures into the jungles with H tomorrow. (Yes, I'm suddenly back into naming people by letters :p), because it sounds scary ... a jungle supposedly filled with snakes and tigers :p but well, H is a snake expert, so-to-speak, having survived the bite of a venomous viper!

Also wanting to catch up with R because I was too busy to reply his smses when he got back home from his vacay and fell sick soon after. Hope you're feeling better already, R!

And of course, looking forward to time with the girls in Malacca :)

I realized that I'm kinda silly. Maybe I'm too kind :p Lol. Self-righteousness is no righteousness, I know. But sometimes I am too willing to go out of my way for things that aren't necessary, wanting to do things for people when in the end, they just tell me in the face that those things aren't needed. "I don't need (this or that)". Hmm, actually this only happens with one person, haha! No one else does that to me >.< Oh well. Not the person's fault. I guess it's my fault. I should stop caring so much >.< I should just pull the plug, and get out of the way ;)

Looking forward to a week of spending time with the hubby, catching up with R, hanging out with the girls and some me-time. I guess that's all that really matters :)

the LORD feels my heart with joy and my cup runneth over

2011-08-27T22:23:00.006+08:00

If the point of my life were me,

what a miserable man i would be.

for my every effort that ends in failure and iniquity,

would only deepen my misery.

but my Master He says : "live not for you, but for ME,

That every weakness, magnifies MY Glory,

That although you're weak, I AM the Almighty,

and only through me, will you find true victory

and have the fullness of being all that you can be."

*WARNING : Sorry, my thoughts are a bit mixed up below.

Random bits and pieces on my mind. You have been warned :P

Thank you for posting this poem on FB today. It put a smile on my face and reminded myself of how we are full of weaknesses, failures and shortcomings. How we are far from perfect. But if we truly surrender ourselves to the Lord, to change us; every bit of us that needs changing, ... whether it is our 'short fuse', or 'untameable tongue', or 'impatient nature', or 'selfishness', or 'grumpiness', or 'moodiness', or 'self-righteousness', or 'unforgiveness' - whatever it might be that we're struggling with, the Lord can, and will, change us to be more and more Christlike, and it is really, only through Him, that we can find victory.

Anyway, this wasn't what I was gonna blog about, haha! It isn't even an issue in my mind, really. It just came, out of the blue, after reading the FB status above.

It's the hooooooolidays!!! And oh, how I need a break! Badly. Looking forward to the week ahead, to time spent alone just doing whatever I feel like doing. I'll probably finish watching Tze's DVDs, read some books and part of me itches to do some craftwork - yeah, it's only during holidays that I take out my little sewing machine and try to make something, haha (notice, I said 'try'!). Also in the plans would be the long-shelved aside recording, but more about that if it jadi!

Also looking forward to spending time with the hubby and with friends :D Malacca trip in store, jalan sini dan sana, some shopping perhaps and a day's outing to visit my favourite, urm ... someone who knows a part of me really well. Haha ;) Yes, I know - The holidays are only for one week :P

I'm still thinking about ah-pak-san on Wednesday morning *thinks*

************************************

I realized something yesterday. I realized that I'm the kind of person who values a friend more than valuing what we do together. Oh well, many people are probably like that too! But I just realized this yesterday.

All I want, most of the time, is just to spend time with a friend, to enjoy their presence. It doesn't really matter what we do. It's just being together that counts. Like for instance, I remember the time when K came over during her difficult days and needed a place to rest. We opened the mattress in my library and switched on the air-conditioner. K lay down on the mattress, I can't remember doing what - going through her songs I think, and I just lay down next to her doing nothing in particular. Probably just closed my eyes and rested alongside her. We hardly talked, but it felt good just doing that.

I can't deny that times like these also help strengthen friendships more.

You don't have to bring me to the highest mountain, or the nicest restaurant, or the most-fun hang-out place. As long as I'm with the people I love, it doesn't really matter what we do. I don't agree to go out with a friend because of the place we're going to. I don't agree to go out with a friend because of the food we're about to eat. I will willingly (and gladly) go out with a friend, just because he or she is my friend.

Another thing I find about myself, is that friends put a smile on my face. If I'm feeling blue, I appreciate having a good friend alongside; the very presence of a good friend alongside me cheers me up - just knowing that someone is beside me. Including the hubby of course! He is, afterall, my bestest friend :D

I wonder if there are people out there who are the opposite of what I just described? Those who will consider where you're going or what you're doing together rather than who you're going out with? Perhaps there are, I do not know. None is better than the other. It's just, well ... we're all made differently, and function differently ;)

************************************

But I thank the Lord for the lessons I've learned, not necessarily about what I just talked about above, but about certain lessons in life. He is indeed bringing me to something that I know not of myself, teaching me something deeper than the shallow things I've asked for; bringing me lessons that are beyond what I ever thought He'd bring.

And the wonderful thing is, I feel liberated. There has never been a moment like this for me before. The realization followed by the liberation. About a year ago, I struggled with myself. Pain, lost, grief. Today, I am free. A year ago, I might have become emotional over things. Today, I stand my ground. The realization didn't bring me tears. It brought me ... liberation. (okay, okay ... most overused word today, haha!)

I tweeted that it was the last straw on the camel's back. It also crossed my mind that it was the final nail on the coffin. And I FB-ed that the magic, is finally, gone.

And it never felt better :)

All is, truly, good.

*******************************************

"Rings and jewels are not gifts,
but apologies for gifts.
The only gift is a portion of thyself"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

**********************************************

the irony

2011-08-27T00:55:00.001+08:00

After spending months, hours, day after day and night after night just getting immersed with my gadgets, downloading apps, playing games, and just clicking here and there on all my I-gadgets and lappie, I've finally come to a point where I'm happy and contented to just sit down somewhere, curl up and ... read a book. NOT an e-book, mind you. A good ol' regular REAL book :) Just finished reading Charlotte's Web and am embarking on another book tonight. Aah, the simple pleasures in life :)

quiztime

2011-08-24T10:28:00.001+08:00

YP News :)

Last week was OT Quiz time ... after about 7 weeks of the overview on the Old Testament. Here are some of the quiz pictures (different camera from the ones seen on FB lah .... That was the hubby's camera, photos taken by Kuan. Below are the ones I shot with my iPhone).

Before YP games :) YP's focus this year has been very much on building up Christian youths in the Word of God and in forging a bond amongst themselves, before reaching out. We, the teachers, felt it was necessary as 99% (if not 100%, depending on whether any of their friends show up occasionally or not) of our YPs are Christians.

Our core group, comprising of, as I said, about 99%, are Christian youths. Thus the work is very much into spiritual growth and rooting them in the Word of God, essentially, non-evangelistic lah. Of course, in due time, we will start focusing on evangelism but before we can usher them out, we have to build them up :)

So thus, the emphasis on bonding through activities like the one above, and deeper studies of the word, like the OT survey and NT survey we're going through right now :)

The Quiz!!

Group One - Shaun, Joanne, Grace, Fei Sze, Yi Ching and Nagu

(Chee Hao not included, haha)

They gave Jordan's group a real 'run for the money' when they caught up and overtook their score later on in the quiz.

Group Two - Jordan, Adrian, Hsin Ren, Bekah, Chee How

The group that was leading all the way, until Shaun's group caught up, and finally went on to win.

Group Three - Moses, Sylvia, Oon Hou, Fei Yan, Xin Yi, Fei Shin

The group with the best actor for charades ;) and they did really well when they stepped up to challenge Jordan's group in Challengeburst. We should have had more Challengebursts! Haha.

The playing board.

Be prepared to Search the Scriptures, Boggle Your Brains, and show us if you have your Facts at your Fingertips ;)

The tokens.

The play-cards

Start-End!

The giant dice to throw ...

AND the games BEGIN!

Moving the token

Guess what OT story is this?

And ... guess what story is this?

We did a combination of games for the quiz, ranging from Pictionary to Charades to Outburst, Reverseburst, Challengeburst, Draw Your Swords and straightforward Questions. Hope it was a beneficial and fun time for the youths! Also, a time of learning :)

Can YOU tell us the list of the 10 plagues in the right order?

They could!

I was pleasantly surprised to see how well some of them retain information, although there were some head-banging moments. Haha.

listicles

2011-08-23T13:32:00.001+08:00

Recently learned the word above from reading a blog, and find that listicles can be quite fun!

Urm, from Wiki, here's the definition :

Listicle is a portmanteau word, a conflation of the terms and article. It is generally used in journalism and blogging to refer to short-form writing that uses a list as its thematic structure

So, lets start with a list. I wanted to start with an easier one but decided to make it a bit more fruitful/beneficial. So, starting with a harder one and have to put my thinking caps on now! Here's today's list :

10 Bible verses/passages most meaningful/memorable to you and why.

#ONE

Psalm 121. I memorized it in my youth and it was one of the psalms I leaned back onto whenever I felt as if the Lord was far away from me, or whenever I feel helpless.

#TWO

1 Samuel 2:30. If I remember correctly (because it was a looooong, looooong time ago), my church friend quoted this for me in a bookmark she gave me during one of my major exams (Form 3 kua...). It has since been a verse I use a lot, and it comforts me that the Lord will honor those who honor Him. A reminder that we are to put God first in all that we do, especially students who are facing exams.

#THREE

John 17:3. I cannot remember clearly in which context this verse popped up but I think this is one of those verses that really spoke to me when I first read it. Growing up, we sometimes fall into complacency and adopt the thinking that having eternal life is only about being in heaven, and thus eternal life starts when we die. This verse spoke to me a lot in the past, to show me that eternal life begins now, and it is about knowing God. And knowing God involves studying His Word.

#FOUR

Matthew 25:21. The verse that haunts me, even to this day. Because it's the very verse that I would love to hear from the Lord, but if I were to examine myself, I might not hear it at all :(

#FIVE

Joshua 1:9. A verse that, I'm sure isn't just a source of encouragement to me, but I'm sure it is also a source of encouragement to many out there.

#SIX

Job. Okay, I'm cheating a little haha. I can't think of any particular verse offhand, but just the whole book of Job. This is one book that I read and read for comfort when I was going through a difficult time back when I was in Uni. I remember lying down on the floor in my sister's room, possibly crying, and reading Job, while pleading to the Lord in pain.

#SEVEN

Psalm 40. I was sixteen, the most seventeen. This was the psalm that pulled me through whatever it was that I was facing at that time.

#EIGHT

Psalm 19. The first few verses, whenever I hear it nowadays, will always bring me back to the time in my past when we did a presentation on this psalm. It reminds me of the uncle I worked with to produce this, and the power point presentation he did. A nice memory :)

#NINE

Philippians 2:2 Our wedding verse.

#TEN

Philippians 4:7. Can't say why, but it is one of the most useful verses for me, in more ways than you might think ;) (Of course, every Bible verse is 'useful' and 'meaningful' lah :P)

*************************************

I've taken the challenge of starting a listicle! Now I wanna challenge the rest of you - especially those who are reading this who have blogs of their own, to take my listicle challenge and list down in your own blog, the 10 most meaningful Bible verses to you :) After you've done that, just add a link to my page :)

I know I started with a very difficult list. Very challenging one. I wanted to encourage each other, that's why - and I believe that there's more worth in talking about spiritual things ;)

The next listicle will be lighter, okay? ;) No promises though haha. I actually had a very deep serious thought-provoking and life-examining list on my mind ... lol. See my mood lah ;) I might just go with something totally fun like '10 things you love best about rainy days' or '10 things that make you happy' ;) Look out for my next listicle ;)

food, some diversion ... and more food!

2011-08-23T11:54:00.001+08:00

The cutest little fat bear .... to be EATEN!!!

Muahaha.

Bought from the small row of morning market stalls in Island Glades, Penang.

I ate his body, then left his head for last. It was difficult eating his head with his two eyes staring at me :P

but ... he was cute. And .... YUMMY!

I loooooooove sushi :) Especially salmon roe and chuka idako.

Mid-morning snack.

My list of birthdays :P

At one point in time, I actually wanted to see if I could fill up the whole list full,

just to see if my 400+ friends on FB could fit into the 365 days there are in a year haha.

This shot was taken with the intention of tagging Alex in IG coz it was reminiscent of his ever-famous 'God and coffee' photos (with his iPad), minus the coffee :P Yet to do that tho. The photo made it to my blog first :P

My favourite snack at PappaRich - Fried foochok :)

Reminiscing Jakarta.

My comfort/happy food :)

some whatsapp moments

2011-08-22T19:30:00.001+08:00

I always ramble about Instagram moments, but I've hardly talked about Whatsapp Photo Moments, so here are some of them :)

For the clueless, Instagram moments are photos I personally take with my phone. The whatsapp photos below are photos others have taken, and sent to me thru whatsapp :)

From you, when you wanted to cheer me up :)

Both photos above, from Richard, when he was in Swiss and wanted to share photos of his vacay :)

From you again :) Shopping orders ketika bekerja 'kat ofis. Haha.

There are probably more whatsapp photos around but I never thought I'd ever write a blog post on them one day, so they weren't transferred properly to my computer. Nonetheless, thanks for the whatsapp moments :)

for a moment

2011-08-22T10:58:00.000+08:00

For a moment, I was in a dance auditorium, sitting on the floor, in gym clothes;

Watching a bunch of strangers who have just become new friends - jumping and twirling on the dance floor,

showing what they can do.

Laughter and claps, a new-found camaraderie

a bond shared over a common love.

For a moment, I was walking through new hallways,

making new friends, greeting new people,

Learning new things, and feeling a sense of usefulness,

of appreciation, for who I am, what I like, and what I can do.

There's no place like being somewhere where everybody is of one accord,

doing what you love to do, embracing the things you hold dear to your heart.

And for that moment, it felt good.

one too many

2011-08-20T21:58:00.000+08:00

Funny and memorable moments today include :

The fifth Gospel

and

The eleventh plague!

Lol.

And before you scream 'heresy!', you must know the context it was in, to appreciate the moment :)

the future generation of the church

2011-08-18T11:56:00.000+08:00

Although I was hesitant to leave YA at the beginning of this year because I was already uber-comfy there, I have no regrets allowing the Lord to lead me out of YA into YP :D In fact, I feel so much more 'alive' spiritually now, ever since being in YP. I can really see that this is where He wants me to be - teaching God's Word amongst Christian youths and 2nd generation teenagers.

Things we do in YP - Listing down the Kings in the Bible - the good, the bad and the ugly ;)

Playing with candles, haha.

Drama competition on the Judges :

Group Samson. Highlights include Oon Hou doing the hula dance and Shaun doing the tai-chi.

Oh, not to forget, Jonathan gorging out Oon Hou's eyes ;)

Deborah and Barak.

Yi Ching did an excellent job :)

Highlights include Adrian laughing underneath the cloth even though he's supposed to be dead!

Gideon.

Highlights include Kong Lean's amazing acting skills as an idol (!) and ... of course,

Moses (need I mention more?)

Edmund's many faces as King Eglon.

Yes, he loves his food! (bottom left picture)

Other highlights : Ehud (and the amazing knife Jordan made) and an amazing hat by the YPs

Gideon mobilizing his army.

The YPs thought of everything by themselves, did all the props by themselves and pulled off the whole drama by themselves. They even networked amongst themselves to make sure each group member was there, wrote the scripts and delegated the jobs themselves. Good job, YPs :)

needed : more of Thee

2011-08-17T23:36:00.001+08:00

Wisdom can be attained when one spends time soaking in His Word and kneeling down before Him in constant prayer, keeping watch over the words one utters and in love, wanting to win a brother over instead of tearing him down.

We need so much more time in the closet, behind closed doors, with Him and Him alone before heading out into the world. Because it is only then that we are filled with the mind of Christ, and can be a blessing to people around us :)

That's my way of saying, "I need more of Thee, O Lord." :)

wise sayings

2011-08-17T01:46:00.027+08:00

"Many things are worth the fight but louder doesn't make you right" - Chris Rice

"A wise man's heart guides his mouth, and his lips promote instruction.

Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones."

- Proverbs 16:23-24

of photos and singing the blues

2011-08-15T22:51:00.000+08:00

I can't help but photoblog sometimes :P

Having a happy time with some church friends and Hans at the reputedly famous 'Lan Je' restaurant :)

Bottom-right : Hans trying to open the bottle of wine Alvin gave us from Thailand.

(p/s Ling, that's the friend whom I shared with you about today.)

Home-made carbonara by yours truly :P

I bought a slow cooker :) Sooooo that I could slow cook...hehe.

My first slow cooker dish - Chicken and corn soup :)

At SL's house. Was amused by how she sandwiched her eggs in with her iPad as she looked at the recipe to make brownies, hehe. Very cute sight, couldn't help taking photo of it!

At Lobsterman with the family.

Been a tiring week so far, although it's just the 1st day of the week! Can't seem to wake up early enough to go for a walk :( and somedays, the journey is tougher. I wish I was the one going off to Thailand too, but oh well. I miss the lure of the foreign land. 8 months into the year, and no overseas trip yet. Yet. Hoping for one in December, keeping my fingers 'crossed'.

This week looks like it's going to be one loooong week. Sigh. It's only Monday, and I'm already feeling tired! :( Mondays are usually easier :P

slaves or free?

2011-08-15T00:30:00.001+08:00

Someone told me recently that I've been photo-blogging more than writing (*winks* at the person) and this person said that he/she actually likes reading stuff (instead of just photos), so here it is. A written post. No photos ;) (Although I cheated, because about half of what you're about to read was copied and pasted from someone else's blog haha. Read on.)

Stumbled upon a random blog and was reading some of the posts on his blog, and came across this interesting post he was writing as he reflected on his life and the things he went thru in the past :

***************************************************************

"And in this period of time, I came to know someone, and we became like the bestest friends ever. The happy moments flew by in a year. Things were all good, all great, all going the way it should be, until something cropped up.

Being someone sentimental, I find myself trapped in my own emotions. I was a slave to my own emotions for quite a while losing this friend of mine. I told myself so many things, I had so many sleepless nights, I did so many things to save the friendship but to no avail. I told myself I would never wanna get so dependent on a friend or on anyone at all anymore.

.... I wish I could care less. I wish I could brush off these disappointments. I wish I could just say, “Oh, it’s okay lah. Anything. Up to you.”. But you know, sometimes, LIFE IS LIFE. And maybe that’s just my weakness. But I don’t want to be a slave to my own emotions again. It’s really tiring.

And life goes on.."

***************************************************************

No one's being emotional, don't worry ;) And no one's reminiscing. Not me, at least. It's just that, so ngam I read this a few days ago and reading that written from a random person whose life I know nothing about, made me realize that sometimes, our issues are more common than we think they are ;)

That said, I love what Spurgeon wrote (also posted on my FB) : "There is nothing so deluding as feelings. Christians cannot live by feelings".

Let us learn not to be slaves to our emotions nor slaves to our feelings. After all, we have the peace that passeth all understanding. Nothing should rock us, shake us nor move us, as we stand firm in Him. :)

more random moments

2011-08-12T14:39:00.001+08:00

Yummy dessert

Talk about making use of your fame :P

I didn't know he had a clinic, and what's with putting his astronaut pics at a medical clinic for?

Picture courtesy of Tze ;)

I thought this was cute haha.

What would I do without my Apples?

Afterall, an apple a day keeps the doctor away ;)

Can you imagine this as a typical scene for a teacher?

It is, for me.

But not during class lah :P

This is how my dining table looks like when I'm in-between classes.

Sometimes two screens, sometimes 3 screens (phone).

I think I belong in the IT line.

Lol.

Completely random - One of the things that make me feel most alive, is when I prepare for my YP class :)

moments.

2011-08-10T11:27:00.001+08:00

Chocolate doughtnuts at midnight ... when hunger pang strikes.

Straight out of the oven.

Elder at Starbucks

(Upon which the elder said, "Why? Elder cannot go to Starbucks, ah?")

Lunch with churchmates on Sunday after breaking-of-bread service.

A beautiful sunset over Sungai Jelok area

weighty issues

2011-08-08T14:30:00.004+08:00

I woke up earlier today and .... walked around the taman! (That's my way of exercising lah.) I weighed myself again this morning, and guess what? I'm 49kg today! One wonders how I could lose 2 kgs in my sleep hahaha! Or that 45 minutes of walking was that effective? Cool.

Anyway, today ... I bring to you .... the benefits of losing weight!

1. It relieves your back and knees ... especially if you have a back or knee problem. Because, as some of us church friends discussed yesterday over lunch, you won't have to end up supporting excess weight, endangering your knees and back, because the bulk of our body weight will be supported by either of those body parts. So a surefire way to heal a back or knee problem? Lose weight ;) (Other than the chemical method of taking glucosamine for knees!)

2. It is definitely better for your health. Even thin people can have high cholesterol, what more if we're overweight? A brother-in-Christ showed me his medical results over the weekend and his cholesterol is high, even though he isn't fat! The hubby and I also had quite high cholesterol some years back when we were eating unhealthily.

Losing weight leads to a healthier you, as there are a lot of medical problems associated with weight gain - heart attack and diabetes to name a few. Our body, afterall, is the temple of the Holy Spirit, right? So we should make every effort to look after our body well. Someone even once told me this : He/she (I can't remember who!) believes that a Christian should ideally be neither fat nor excessively thin, because both extremes show that you are not in control of your body, and a Christian should never lose control of themselves. Even an elder told me recently that he felt that (someone) who was in (a very public teaching ministry) should lose some weight; he was surprised that this person had weight issues, being in the position this person was. (I shall remain discreet about who this person was talking about but it's not someone from church lah, don't worry lol!)

3. You can fit into any clothes you want to, and look good in it ;) Okay, I know this is not an important issue to some people, hence it is my last point, BUT it is a nice feeling when you don't have to worry about whether your upper thighs can pass through that pair of shorts or whether the zipper will break when you try on that pair of jeans. Everything fits and everything looks good. Need I say more? Lol.

Just as how we shouldn't slack spiritually, I think we shouldn't slack in looking after our healths too.

If it's not for my point no.3, then at least for points no.1 and 2.

I'm NOT talking about dieting or vomitting out the food you eat though. I'm talking about eating healthily (cut down on too much carbohydrates and fats, eat less greasy food) and exercising regularly :)

Let's go the .... Extra Mile! :)

p/s I did my morning exercise today wearing the above t-shirt. Didn't realise. Haha.

Macamlah aku 'ni pelari yang hebat :P

Until the hubby saw me return home and said, "Woohooo! Extra miler!"

Lol. The one and only xtramiler to me is Alex :) He's phenomenal.

Aku lari 1km pun tak tau boleh ke tak.

of panda ties and weight gain

2011-08-08T00:04:00.001+08:00

Vanilla muffins with nutella filling, especially packed for someone :) I took photo of this because I just love the cute panda ties :) Only 1 left in my collection now; gave off my 2nd last one along with the muffins above to someone whom I know can appreciate cute stuff :)

I'm 51kg, when I should be 48kg!!! I was 48kg some months back. Thanks to all the pigging out and extravagant living. Eat, eat, eat. Sigh, I can literally feel the fats spilling out from my sides :p Not a nice feeling. Don't like being fat-'ter' (I'm not being mengada. I'm speaking relatively to what size I was :p)

Time for me to exercise again!!! Tomorrow. Haha. Why do something today, when you can do it tomorrow? ;) *falls asleep, right after a BIG meal* (And you wonder how I put on 3kg?)

an IG photographer's moment

2011-08-06T10:25:00.019+08:00

First time receiving such a complimenting comment for my IG collage :

(read psychogeek's comment)

Wow! For a slight moment there, I felt like Pete! Because Pete always gets asked what effects he uses for his photos. Coz his photos are really great lah ... Thanks psychogeek, for that pete moment ;)

This was the actual photo :

My 2nd Jogoya trip in July.

thoughts

2011-08-05T01:07:00.001+08:00

Maybe I'm getting old, lol ... But I suddenly realize that I'm craving for more meaningful interactions; things with much more substance and depth, rather than having to deal with childishness and unnecessary issues.

I'm beginning to value an hour of meaningful conversation rather than two hours of nonsensical laughter and jokes over small, insignificant things; although I admit that it's some of these seemingly 'insignificant things' people share that might eventually draw them closer to each other.

I prefer mature, sensical conclusions rather than immature stands. I'd rather move on than to stand around trying to cast pearls before swine (although truth be told, most times I stand around instead).

By golly, I'm growing up! Or maybe I'm just not being as patient as I ought to be?

It was lovely yesterday, just sitting at the round table with her. Some conversations about our jobs, her health, the little one's eating habits (or non-eating habits!), and then just reveling in each other's presence without much words after that, just a quiet sense of peace and friendship; and the loving, warm hug after that as we parted.

Just an example. I guess I've come to appreciate simplicity. No extended messiness, no unwarranted complications. Simple maturity. I'm not saying I've already achieved that, but I'm saying that I'm beginning to prefer that.

Don't get me wrong though. I definitely enjoy a great deal of silliness and laughter, and I most assuredly have a loooong way to go towards real maturity myself. I love doing absolutely silly things sometimes, like taking a sudden unplanned drive somewhere far, far, away for no apparent reason (yes, I'd love to pull a PD drive again like the awesome foursome did many years ago) and do the occasional crazy stuff. I'm still fun and all that (lol!).

But, as I've said above, I'm just growing to appreciate straightforward maturity. Just live by the Bible and what God says. For example, God tells us to love; we love. Why argue about whether a person is loveable or not, or how badly he or she is in the wrong? God tells us to love. Full-stop. No 'ifs' and no 'buts'. No 'but Lord,...' either.

Maturity in the way we deal with things around us, and with people around us. Maturity in our decisions, and conclusions. I'm not there yet, but hoping the Lord will help me grow in maturity in Him as the years go by :)

birthday month part 2

2011-08-04T13:36:00.002+08:00

Continuation from my part 1 story here. Thanks all, once again, for touching my heart :) Below are some photos of some presents received. Thank you all!

The cupcakes above, and the box below. Cupcakes baked by Aunty Monica and decorated by Grace and Bekah. Sooooooooo sweeeet of them. I think this is my first time receiving cupcakes as a gift. Seriously. I've only baked and decorated for others, never got them myself. Thanks :) Me likey!

Woohoo! My biggest present! Paddie from the hubby :D There's a cute story behind it, but I think only Eng Aun and Oon Hou will wanna hear it, so I'll spare the rest of you the details ;)

Present from Ling (above is the wrapper, below is the present)

It has been keeping me company almost every morning now :)

From the Yang sisters :)

Mug with plastic cover so that I won't break the cover again! Haha.

Forgot to take photo of the mug though, so just the present here!

AND

I got a dress from Pheebs, Chris, the twins and Thiyagu :)

A purple Esprit bag from Jess :)

Ang-pows from mom and dad :)

Birthday lunch was the next day (coz of Bersih) at Bubba Gump in The Curve. I've been wanting to try Bubba Gump for some time now ...

There are 2 signs on your table. You are supposed to flash this sign when you want the waiter/waitresses to leave you alone :

And then when you want their assistance, you are supposed to flip the sign over to this :

The food was quite good :D except for the fact that the hubby and I can't eat that much, plus we had a buffet dinner at Jogoya waiting for us that night, so we took the bare minimum we could :

English clam chowder

(loved clam chowder ever since tasting it in Singapore!)

Yums~! *drools*

STILL ... it was TOO much for the both of us :P LOL. We ta-paued half of our meal! So I had Bubba Gump for lunch again the next day ;)

Coctail!! *hic*

(yes, there's an alcoholic in me :P Why else do you think I looooove rum and raisin ice-cream?? haha)

BUT ... very diluted lah. So Bubba Gump's food = excellent, but cocktails = fail.

Part of the deco at Bubba Gump

Birthday dinner at night with my family :

JOGOYA!!!

Buffet dinner.

Very expensive place, I can only go there when my dad belanja!

That said, I actually had the pleasure of going to Jogoya TWICE in the whole of July! Once was for this (my birthday, dad belanja) and once more was for company dinner, hehe. Boss belanja :)

Entertain yourselves with some photos of food at Jogoya! (Sorree a bit dark though...)

California roll! Yums!

The selection of desserts at Jogoya is fantabulous!

That's my 2 best ice-cream flavours! Rum&raisin and Chocolate :)

(Haagan Daz okay! ;) That's Jogoya for you!)

Aunty Gaik gave me vouchers for my birthday :) For TGIF, Italiannies and/or The Apartment.

So, the hubby and I went to the new TGIF in Alamanda :)

Part of the deco

What else to do but to play with the new iPad right? Hehe.

(Mine's white in colour :D)

Absolutely yuuuuuummmy dishes at TGIF :

Tacos. Super tasty. Highly recommended!!!

(although I still feel I've been shortchanged because I believe the tacos weren't served in real taco shells :P Blek. But the filling is reaaaaaally tasty!)

That's all! End of birthday post. Hungry now re-living all those pics haha.

It's the smell of the weeeeekend~! :D

life's simple pleasures

2011-08-03T10:05:00.000+08:00

Home-cooked pancakes for breakfast

today's reading

2011-08-03T09:57:00.000+08:00

We must remember that Christ will not lead us to greatness through an easy or self-indulgent life. An easy life does not lift us up but only takes us down. Heaven is always above us, and we must continually be looking toward it.

Some people always avoid things that are costly, or things that require self-denial, self-restraint, and self-sacrifice. Yet it is hard work and difficulties that ultimately lead us to greatness, for greatness is not found by walking the moss-covered path laid out for us through the meadow. It is found by being sent to carve out our own path with our own hands.

Are you willing to sacrifice to reach the glorious mountain peaks of God's purpose for you?

Be strong!

We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;

We have hard work to do, and loads to lift.

Shun not the struggle; face it.

It's God's gift.

Be strong!

Say not the days are evil - Who's to blame?

Or fold your hands, as in defeat - O shame!

Stand up, speak out, and bravely,

In God's Name.

Be strong!

It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong,

How hard the battle goes, the day how long,

Faint not, fight on!

Tomorrow comes the song.

Maltbie D. Babcock

"Be men of courage; be strong." (1 Corinthians 16:13)

random thoughts

2011-08-02T21:46:00.000+08:00

Came across a nice quote today :

"The right manner of growth is to grow less in one's own eyes"

- Thomas Watson.

I guess we all need less of us, and more of others :)

Lord, teach me to be humble, and to, "in humility consider others better than yourselves" Phil 2:3

Of course, this is still my blog lah, so it'll still have posts about myself LOL. Afterall, if I stop blogging about what happened in my life, people will start wondering what has happened to me blog, no? :P Okay, total randomness. Wanting to continue on a post, but somehow, not in the right frame of mind to blog. Still dreaming about baking brownies, especially when I get hungry mid-day :P

randomness

2011-08-01T20:57:00.001+08:00

First time my mom called me on the phone for no apparent reason, except to see if I've already eaten the mangoes she gave! That was nice - getting a phone call from my mom for no apparent reason :D

open and closed doors?

2011-07-31T17:37:00.002+08:00

A brother-in-Christ recently mentioned a blog which has very interesting posts, and as he said, the writer's post on Finding God's Will was particularly interesting! I wish I could just let everyone in church see that post and let it challenge their traditional views and beliefs, haha!

In my own QT reading, I came across an exact opposite and conflicting view! So I'm listing both views down here, and asking my readers what they think ;) Well, I don't have many readers here, so if this heads nowhere, then maybe I'll put it in my FB notes instead. Starting out here first coz I don't always enjoy the 400++ people reading things I post on FB :P I'm quite contented with the 10-20 plus people here instead haha.

There's so much more to the writer's post but I'm pulling out only one portion. He was talking about the Biblical ways of guidance which include special guidance, sovereign guidance, the moral will of God and wisdom.

Then he warns (or brings to our attentions) the 'traditional methods' which most of us use, which seem to actually have drawbacks, and interestingly, are not actually 'biblical'. These are his words :

***************************************

Traditional Methods
Having outlined the Biblical method of finding God’s will it is now necessary to mention some traditional methods used to ‘discover God’s will’ and their drawbacks.

1. Flip and Point Verses
A believer was in love and wanted to marry a non-believer girl whose name happened to be Nama Karunakaran. He diligently prayed for guidance and searched the Scriptures. He found ‘clear guidance’ in his Malayalam Bible in Psalms 23:6 where the words ‘Nama’ and ‘Karuna’ are found as ‘Goodness’ and ‘Mercy’.

2. Circumstances
Circumstances only define the context of the decision. Often Biblical convictions will lead us against the course of circumstances. E.g.: Acts 20:22-24.

3. Open/Closed Doors
Paul once walked away from an open door (2 Cor. 2: 12,13) and at another time tried again and again to open a closed door (Rom.1:10-13).

4. Peace of God
Colossians 3:15 is sometimes considered to be God’s stamp of approval and its absence, God’s red flag of warning. Exegetically, Colossians 3:15 refers to peace with one another and this passage has nothing to do with finding God’s will. Experientially, all major decisions in life entail responsibilities and result in consequences. Hence a lack of peace is normal when one faces a major turning point in life. Jesus Christ’s agony and prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is an example for this.

5. Promptings of the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit did not take hundreds of years to produce the Bible only to by-pass it. The two references to being ‘led by the Spirit’ (Romans 8:14; Galatians 5:18) have nothing to do with guidance and decision-making. The context of both references (Romans 8:13; Galatians 5:17) is sanctification – the process of walking in righteousness. Most often these promptings turn out to be nothing more than following one’s own subjective wishes/feelings and desires (which so often are untrustworthy)

- Dr. A. George

***************************************

I find his thoughts to be oh-so-true. Let me bring to your attention one thing though. His point on open and closed doors. I never realized Paul once walked away from an open door and tried to open a closed door.

This reminds me of Zeke's sharing last night at YA - how temptation is so subtle, and how his 'boss' has been 'opening doors' for him, granting him opportunities after opportunities to get higher and higher in the corporate world, but to what end? To the end of losing time with his family? To the end of compromising beliefs and stands?

How do we know if an open door isn't actually a temptation put in our way by the father of lies himself?

So I feel we should be challenged in our believe on God's guidance, about this whole 'open and closed doors' thingy.

I mentioned earlier on that I read something conflicting today. Here it is. Today's devotional reading :

***************************************

When you are unsure which course to take, totally submit your own judgment to that of the Spirit of God, asking Him to shut every door except the right one. But meanwhile keep moving ahead and consider the absence of a direct indication from God to be the evidence of His will that you are on His path. And as you continue down the long road, you will find that He has gone before you, locking doors you otherwise would have been inclined to enter. Yet you can be sure that somewhere beyond the locked doors is one He has left unlocked. And when you open it and walk through, you will find yourself face to face with a turn in the river of opportunity - one that is broader and deeper than anything you ever dared to imagine, even in your wildest dreams. So set sail on it, because it flows to the open sea.

God often guides us through our circumstances. One moment our way may seem totally blocked, but then suddenly some seemingly trivial incident occurs, appearing as nothing to others but speaking volumes to the keen eye of faith. And sometimes these events are repeated in various ways in response to our prayers. They certainly are not haphazard results of chance but are God opening up the way we should walk, by directing our circumstances. And they begin to multiply as we advance toward our goal, just as the lights of a city seem to increase as we speed toward it while travelling at night - F.B. Meyer.

***************************************

Aaaaah ..... how now?
*scratches head*

I've always been a 'non-thinking' (because I just blindly accepted that which was 'taught' to me by brothers and sisters around me through my years of spiritual growth) advocator of open and closed doors and finding peace, and yada yada.

But after reading through the earlier blog post, it really challenged me to re-think, re-view, re-consider, and re-evaluate.

As the author said, the Bible is full of guidance on issues like how wrong it is to marry a non-Christian, so what's there to seek anymore? Flipping and pointing out to verses that so ngam is the name of the non-Christian girl you wanna marry means that it's God's will for you to marry her? That's nonsense, isn't it? Because the Bible is already clear that we are NOT to be yoked with unbelievers.

So if open and closed doors were a manner in which to decide matters, then why would Paul have wanted to open a closed door, and close an open door? What about Zeke's example of how the doors are definitely opening for him now, but those doors will lead to him possibly having to compromise his values as he enters more and more into that world?

God has given us His Word. In it are both straightforward instructions of right and wrong, as well as principles behind how God wants us to live. Wouldn't that be enough for us, instead of begging for open and close doors, flipping random verses and holding them as doctrinal truth for that moment in time in regards to our situation, and (surprisingly) even the so-called peace we look for within us when needing guidance?

I wonder what others reading this think, because this challenges our age-old believe of relying on opened and closed doors (and also the 'peace we feel at the end of choosing a certain pathway', etc). Feedback, anyone? Thoughts? Opinions? What do you all think?

To me, it challenges my thinking and challenges me to be careful of how I pray. If I subsribe to the above, it would mean that it would be wrong for me to pray for opened and closed doors when someone is seeking for God's will.

I guess, many times, we mix our own emotions and feelings, wants, needs and desires, and somehow redirect what we know as God's will, to realign it with ours. We must never forget that the heart is deceitful above all things (Jer 17:9). I like the way the author ends his post :

****************************

Conclusion
In moral and wisdom guidance, we are responsible to discover and obey God’s will; where as in special guidance and sovereign guidance, God is responsible. In order to free ourselves from the agony of prayerfully using our heads in a Biblical manner to make a responsible choice/decision, we resort to easy methods such as letting circumstances dictate decisions, using open/closed doors or flip and point verses, depending on our subjective feelings, spreading the fleece, etc. These are methods of ‘discovering God’s will’ because they all have one thing in common – we don’t have to think and we can hold God responsible for our choices. The Biblical methods require work - Bible study coupled with thinking and owning responsibility for one’s own choices.

In the final analysis, all wrong methods of discovering God’s will turn out to be nothing more than following one’s own subjective wishes/feeling/desires or a matter of being led by the will of another human being, while the believer goes about justifying his/her unwise decision on the pretext that ‘God led him/her.’ - Dr. A. George

****************************

birthday month part 1

2011-07-29T16:30:00.001+08:00

Just wanna say thanks everyone, for making my day special :)

July is an interesting month, not just because it's my birthday (:P) but because it's also the birthdays of many others around me, (so ngam!) like my dad's (love you!), some brothers and sisters in Christ (you know who you are) and even friends like Richard. All in all, I think I know at least 8 people (counting only those around me, NOT counting friends whom I don't meet or communicate with on at least a weekly basis!) whose birthday is in July!

I remember how I used to always remember WenLi's birthday (a close sister those days in kgc) because you just have to turn the number '9' upside-down (which is my birth-date) and you'll get hers - '6'th of July ;)

And little Chloe's on the 2nd. Always a week before mine ;) So whatever day her birthday is on, it'll be on the same day as mine :)

So, July is a lot of fun, hehe :)

My birthday month started on the 1st itself (lol) with dinner at Kissaten Jaya One, with two brothers and a sister in Christ :)

Then on the eve of my birthday, a group of us went for steamboat. The steamboat wasn't for my birthday lah. It was a sister's treat (thank you :)) but they surprised me at the end of the dinner with a birthday cake. *touched*

Tze and Chek trying to cook omelette in mussel shells!

Ling with the only vegetables she eats!

The birthday cake Alvin bought from Puchong.

Very cute box, ala Parisian cafes ;)

And very nice cake :)

Fruit yoghurt. Yums~!

Thanks for the cake. I liked it a lot.

Then, on my birthday morning (thank the Lord this year it was a Saturday, so it was nice to have the whole day off, instead of my birthday being on a weekday, which would mean a normal working day!), I went for dim sum wif the hubby, then joined by Uncle Jeff, Shaun and Adrian. My usual birthday breakfast will usually be either mcD's or dim sum, coz those are 2 of my favourite breakfasts! (Of course, I love pancakes best for breakfast and Tapper's would be perfect lol, but it's toooooo faaaaaaar awaaaaaaaaay!)

p/s Looks like a wedding card, eh?

Then lunch was nowhere. Hehe. Nowhere special anyway, coz apa mau buat? Bersih rally in KL on me birthday, so cannot travel far!

After that, another birthday cake (coffee cake this time) at YP - Thiyagu surprised me there, together wif Yee Loon. Got a sweet sms from a brother who said, "Happy birthday. Enjoy your surprise celebration later. Sorry I won't be there for the surprise coz I wasn't invited!" and my heart was sad, I wanted to sms the brother back and say, "Well, it's my birthday so I invite you!" haha, coz I didn't know he wasn't invited to the surprise, since the surprise is supposed to be, well .... a surprise, right? Poor brother. Not my fault. I didn't organize it. Wish both he and another sister were invited along, but well, I wasn't the organizer.

Forgot to take pictures lah. Grace and Bekah brought me right to the back of the kitchen, claiming they had something to talk to me about (coz I was in their group for the following week's group drama competition). The funny thing is, while they were talking to me at the back, people in front of the hall already started singing the birthday song! I wanted to ask them both, "Eh, whose birthday today lah?" coz I wasn't in front oso at that time! Lol. So sweet of all of them :) Thanks, you all! Love you all!

Then for dinner, my mother in law cooked up a storm! A storm of all my favourite food!

And Mei was SO sweet, she 'baked' (technically it isn't put into an oven lah!) my favourite cake. The one I've been raving about over and over and over here on my blog ~ Mille Crepe!!!

*drools*

That's all I have time to update about for now! Yup, I've got lotsa stories to tell, eh? Lol. Well, I'll continue my stories another day. Time to snooze before classes. Gotta head down to PJ for my dad's birthday pulak! Told ya! July is a full-of-people-who-are-dear-and-special-to-me-punya-birthdays! But then again, other months also got dear people's birthdays ;) like January, April, May, June, August, September, October, November, December. Hmm, that more or less takes up almost every.month.of.the.year.! :D

wah.

2011-07-25T00:33:00.002+08:00

I actually had a cute cartoon strip to put up but even at the extra large size, it's too small to read, so had to delete it and need to crop it ... but guess what? I'm handicapped cropping things with my lappie nowadays! Need to get it back into my Apple gadgets to get the work done! Tsk tsk tsk...

So, that would explain the empty post you might see, for those using Reader. Since I already started a post, I might as well just write something, haha!

Urm ... stumbled upon this page - http://entertainment.malaysia.msn.com/music/photos.aspx?cp-documentid=5080349

Famous rock-stars who are forever 27 ...

... because they died at 27!

Phew! I passed that age safely already, LOL. As if I'm a famous rock-star lah. Yes, Amy Winehouse died yesterday, at 27. She joins the 'forever 27' club - those who died at 27 - Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain ... I don't really listen to her songs nor do I know what songs she sings (yes, except for Rehab!), so it didn't strike any chord with me except for this one eerie, coincidental fact : A few months back, a friend blogged in his blog about how Amy Winehouse is one of those who will die early because of her drug and drinking problems. So it was kinda creepy when I was told today that she died. His prediction came true!!! :P

a bountiful of nutella

2011-07-22T13:52:00.001+08:00

*pic from online. I malas to take photo of my nutella jars then upload it just for one post :P

So urm, guess what? We went to UK and Nutella is WJ's favourite breakfast spread (and soon it became my favourite too over in the UK, having it for breakfast every.single.day. in Oxford!), and so we decided to buy TWO LARGE bottles of Nutella (weighing dunno-berapa-kg) and lug it in our suitcase all the way back to Malaysia (as if Malaysia didn't sell Nutellas!) because it was cheaper there :P

On top of that, Mei was so sweet to buy for us another LARGE bottle of Nutella as well, and so right, I have a couple of LARGE bottles of Nutellas left in the larder, expiring soon!

Why? Well, because I never got into the habit of eating breakfast back here in Malaysia. So those large bottles of super. yummy. imported. Nutellas are sitting in the larder, sitting prettily, with no one touching it! Sad, right?

SO .... here's my plan ;) I'm going to go find baking recipes, and bake Nutella goodies :D Starting with ...

Vanilla muffins with Nutella filling

Anyone want some? Seriously. I bought boxes all ready to give it away haha. I heard Alvin likes vanilla, and since the poor fella cut his fingertip off, then I guess some vanilla muffins will be going his way some time soon :) Any other orders? LOL.

*heads off to kitchen to bake*

larder and food genres

2011-07-20T10:23:00.001+08:00

An IG moment - when my larder was cleaned! :P

Baking stuff, cereals, drink powders, cooking ingredients, plates, pots and pans!

When everything's sorted out, then I love to cook, haha! Here's one of the meals I cooked a few weeks back :

Spaghetti bolognaise - my version of ;)

Some might find it ironic, but I actually find certain Western dishes easy to cook :) Easier than Chinese cooking, to a certain extent. I love whipping up pasta, like carbonara and bolognaise. It doesn't even take longer than an hour to make pasta! (Which is why, although I love pasta, sometimes I find it ridiculous to pay top price for it in restaurants when I know it costs much less and takes so quick to cook :P Would rather just cook it at home for a fraction of what it'll cost outside!)

The other thing I love baking is mac&cheese and lasagna! But wait! Come to think of it - those dishes aren't quite Western! Haha! It's Italian! So okay, I love Italian food :D Both cooking and eating it! Ironically, one of the easiest dishes to whip up in the kitchen ;)

That said, whipping up certain Western dishes ain't that much work either. I remember baking an English pie (from a recipe book I bought in England itself!) and I must say it's easier than slogging over the stove cooking sweet sour pork (koo loe yok) or soya sauce chicken :P

Then of course, I have my signature baked chicken wings and thigh (or drumsticks if you like :P). Just serve it with some homemade mashed potatoes (note : mashed potatoes are a bit more laborious :P but Chef Oliver's recipe yields reaaaally yummy mash potatoes!) or even easier, garlic butter rice ... and voila! You've got a meal ;)

Another successful Western dish I enjoyed cooking was my version of chicken chop and brown sauce ;) That one, a bit more work coz gotta coat the chicken pieces with bread crumbs and then deep fry it :P I malas to deep fry stuff altho I love eating deep-fried stuff :P LOL.

So, western dishes are quite fun to prepare, and some of it is just downright easy :P

Over to chinese food - well, that's a bit more of a different ball game. Would I say it's easy? To a certain extent, yes actually. Some chicken dishes are really easy to prepare, even the ones you think are difficult like my favourite chicken fried with cashew nuts and dried chillies (the ones they do in the restaurant - dunno what's the name...).

And steamed chicken rice is also very fun to make :D And nice to eat :D In fact, anything steamed is easy :P Steamed fish, steamed chicken, steamed whatever ... !

But the thing I don't fancy about cooking Chinese, is, I'll always have to come up with 2 dishes at least. And so that means double the work. Take pasta, for instance. One dish, and voila! You've got pasta :P With Chinese cooking, you'll need one vegetable, one meat dish, and if I'm extra hardworking, another side dish which is usually taufu or potatoes or eggs (depending on my level of laziness for that day! Haha)

And, to tell you the truth, I haven't cooked Chinese dishes in a while. Lately, it's been mainly Western. And instant easy stuff like pizzas :P The hubby seems to want to take over the cooking department already, LOL!

Maybe if I weren't working and was instead a 'FT SAHM' (full time stay at home mom) raising up kids or something, then perhaps you'd see me in the kitchen more often :P But as it is, most times I'm too busy teaching until late to do what I believe I actually enjoy more .... cooking! ;) (and baking! ;)

Fun fact : I actually set up a baking website because I thought I was dead serious at one point to venture into baking professionally (after my 'successful' chocolate banana and chocolate indulgence venture for fellowship dinner!) but shy to tell people the website address lah :P LOL. Wait until I am a better baker ;), IF that day ever comes! I'm really itching to bake tiramisu soon (ingredients already in my larder) and Forest Berries Cheesecake :P Let's see if that day ever comes :P Haha. By the way, my sis-in-law is a fabulous baker! ;) Her jackfruit (nangka) cheese cake was YUMS~! And so is her passionfruit cake :D And every other thing she bakes lah...

troublemaker

2011-07-19T14:43:00.001+08:00

I'm such a bother, that sometimes I'm tired of me! Sigh.
:(
Sorry to all who are tired of me. I'm asking the Lord to change me to be a better person

the scoop on bentos

2011-07-16T02:14:00.000+08:00

Okay, so right ... apparently there's this lunch time fad going on with people being taken up by Bento sets, delivered right to their office. The first thing that went into my mind when I saw them was, "Wah! I know it's cute, but people actually pay RM8.80 for plain rice with a mere 2 dishes and some small pieces of cut fruits?"

Some days, the meat dish isn't even much of a meat dish. Just some popiah skinned rolled diced meat, or egg with diced meat. Granted, there are some great dishes days when you get proper chicken pieces, but not always. I kept thinking of how smart these bento makers are - just cook some simple Chinese dishes with rice, and make it look cute! Kawaii-nya .... and it sells! Sheesh, why didn't I think of it first? LOL.

Here's an example of what it looks like :

It's actually quite cute, but I still feel it's overpriced. Go to the chap fan shop and you can have 3 dishes for under RM5. Or at least ngam ngam RM5. Yeah, sure ... your rice won't look so cute but what-the-hey, eh? Two dishes, some little pieces of cut fruit, and your rice decorated to look like pigs or bears or doggies or birds. Hmm.

So anyway, I went shopping by myself in MidValley some time this week right, and I wanted a really quick lunch. Nothing quick was available at a near enough distance, so guess what I had for lunch?

A bento set :P

LOL! Guilty as charged, BUT I didn't get it because it was cute, for the record, haha. As you can see in the picture above, MY bento set doesn't look cute. No cute bunny rice, or bear rice, or piggy rice! Still a Bento nonetheless :P

But guess what? It was SUPER YUMMY! Because the sauce they used, was Japanese sauce :P Yums~! I don't think the ones people are ordering from the above photo (taken from a real delivery place, whose name I shall not mention here) are Japanese dishes, coz they look like Chinese dishes - sweet sour pork, ginger chicken. I got the real deal, man! Japanese teriyaki sauced chuko idako, sausies and meat balls :D

I've been Bento-ed!

at the cross

2011-07-15T00:07:00.000+08:00

Oh, how true it is.

Something I need to learn. Something we all need to learn.

Thanks for that, Alex :)

I learned something else today though, from Oswald Chambers :

"Never look for righteousness in the other person, but never cease to be righteous yourself."

How true :) It all starts with myself. Let's learn to be 'righteous'* ourselves instead of expecting others to be righteous!

*disclaimer : We can never be righteous by ourselves of course, but well, you know what Oswald Chambers meant :P I'm not gonna go into a whole discourse on it here :P

He must increase, I must decrease.

2011-07-14T14:11:00.001+08:00

"The more we think like the world, the more we act like it, and that's how sin enters the church."

The above words were written by a brother in his FB status and it's amazing how accurately true it is.

What does the world think? Well, lots. But one of the things on my mind now, is the world always thinks of itself. Me, myself and I. How we are always right, and everyone around us is wrong. How the world owes us something, and we're determined to get it no matter what, and no matter who stands in our way.

Whatever happened to a poor spirit? A humble heart? Do we think that life is being tough on us and we deserve better just because we are 'good'? Well, the Bible has something to say about that. It says, "There is none good but one, that is God." Matt 19:17a.

Do we think that we cannot accept a brother or a sister in Christ just because he or she has wronged us or wronged someone else? What happened to the Bible verse that says, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

Do you think the brother or sister you dislike has done more wrong to you than the wrong you've done against Christ? How many times have we sinned? Lied? Thought bad thoughts? Harmed our neighbor? Murdered in our mind? ALL those sins of ours - Jesus died a painful, gruesome death on the cross to forgive us. And we find it so difficult to forgive our fellow brothers and sisters, who probably didn't sin against us as bad as our sins against the Lord Himself.

I'm not writing this to condemn or judge anyone. This comes as a solemn reminder that sometimes, we are too much in the world, and have become so moulded by it's thinking rather than burying our heads in the Bible and bending our wills to His. I'm just as guilty as anyone else over this matter.

The first step we need in our lives, is to be humble. To realize that there is no one righteous but God.

Are you feeling as if people have wronged you? Come humbly before God and those people and admit that there is none righteous. No one is ever fully wrong, or fully right in any matter. In any argument, it always takes 2 to tango. Two to clap. No one can fully say that, "I didn't do anything wrong! It was ALL his/her fault!" Only the Lord Jesus is sinless and suffered without doing anything wrong. Do we dare claim we're void of any wrong?

God loves the meek, the humble, the low in spirit, the contrite heart. So before we start behaving like those in the world and start shouting everywhere that we are innocent, and we did everything right, and why can't people see it's NOT my fault, and why do you have to correct me, and everyone points fingers at me, and everyone is judging me, maybe it might do us good to stop, and let the Lord take control of our words, thoughts and heart.

Do we think it's impossible to forgive someone? Well, of course it's impossible if we try to do it on our own. Do you think that God can't help you? Then are you undermining God's power? And most of all, are you undermining God's Words that tell us to love one another, and as far as possible, to live at peace with everyone? (Heb 12:14)

If we're spending more time getting upset with things and people around than reading His Word and letting it change us, then something is wrong.

We are people of a loving God, people of light. People who have the joy of Christ in us. Why is it then, that we don't seem to love, not walk in the light and are sometimes the most miserable people on earth, full of complains, quarellings and hatred for each other?

Simple. It's because we don't spend enough time at His feet. Humbled, lowly, opening His Word just to hear Him speak and to let Him change our hearts.

Once upon a time, I was very bitter over something in the past, a friendship that turned sour. Some of you will know what I'm talking about, because there was only one friendship in my life, that meant SO much to me, thus bringing such hurt when it turned that way.

It was not until I came to the feet of the Lord Jesus that He healed the pain and He changed me (and still is constantly changing me, for I'm not perfect). It takes a daily coming to the Lord to have our views, will and ways changed by Him. We need to fill ourselves fully with His Word. Otherwise, how can love, mercy and humility flow out of us?

a photo that almost made me shed a tear today

2011-07-10T00:02:00.003+08:00