Finally got my ass out and just jog a little. More like a space out session to just walk around and think of stuff. Look at what's happening around me or in my life and just ponder. As usual, my favourite activity. But I guess that's what keeps my mind active. Keep thinking...

Maybe that's also why my dear Salty friend keeps going to the gym nowadays. Might just be her way of sorting out the things in her life. All thanks to some immature and childish other half. Very scary how people just change so quickly. Even things that seemed so cool and blissful for the past couple of years can just crumble like that. Are there really things that people can tolerate? What if there are somethings people close an eye to at the moment, just suddenly blow up before you know anything? Scary. Even the respect you have for a person can be so easily erased overnight. Will it happen to anyone of us? Definitely. Maybe he should go for runs on his own to. Sort things out personally.

With Man and everything around us, the constant is change. But with God, He IS the Constant. Guess Joyce might just be right about this.

Anyway enough of cooling down after the long walk. Time to bathe and meet up with Qinlei. Owe her the long awaited ride in the van.

Till then, keep those grey matter thinking all the time

Wish that I could be whisked into an airplane now and just hide in some other country and backpack again. It's almost a year ago when we started our planning for the last trip to Europe. Can still remember each and everyday there. Heavenly..

So now it's just work hard again, save up again and target for another trip soon. Hopefully it can materialise. Hmm, where should the next place be. Greece? Spain? Scandinavian countries? Cambodia? Vietnam? Kathmandu? I'm game for all of them. Go and see the world before being tied down with more things on hand.

Had some time on hand during the day to wonder (as usual. my favourite activity when i'm free) about what to look forward to for the next couple of months. Hahah I live my days by the wkends and public holidays. Muahaha... Evil.

Yup, so the next trip will be to Malaysia! Cool! Thank God for the approval of my leave to join church camp. It's been almost 4 years since I last participated in the church camp. The last one was when I was back in JC1. Still remember how playful I was. Just play and chat the whole day with the entire gang who was there. And scramble back to my room to study for my first JC exams that were immediately after camp. Hahhaa... Nerdy me. But thank God I could get promoted back in JC.

Heh heh, looking forward to this church camp. Seems like the most adventurous one ever cuz the organizing team are the funky young families group! Whee!!!

Alritey, so it's time to look forward to that and start counting down. Think of the next holiday after June then..

Thank God today for such a wonderful day! Can't imagine that I actually knocked off at 630pm. Gosh, it's such a wonderful treat to a friday nite! Heh heh... Felt fantastic to just drive home from client's place and join the family for dinner at home. Amazing.. It's been a long time since I could go home before the sun sets, and to think that I've got some personal lazing around time at home. Haha.. Wonderful! Thanks to God!

But somehow, I just feel quite guilty leaving the client's place while the team is still there. Asked them whether I could help them, but somehow they didn't have anything to pass to me. So there I was stuck with my own work since the accountant wasn't around to provide me with essential documents. Continue and finish it on Monday then!

I'm so pleased with how the weekend's turning out. And there's the bday celebration, not forgetting time-out with my dear. Heh heh, you've finally got a mention on the blog! Cheers! Haha, other things are personal. Shhhhh....

What are we to do with our lives? What’s our very purpose of our being on this earth? Are we to live our lives trying to be the most outstanding and most noted person? To be more successful than our peers? To earn a quick buck so that we can enjoy an early retirement in the future?

How does all of these then look like when we read that as Christians, the very purpose of man is to please God? Yes, we all know that we can still please God in our workplace (or even some call it marketplace ministry), but how can we strike a balance between what is required of us at work and our service in God’s church?

Sometimes I wonder if it’s too naïve to say that I’m fine with living a simple life, not having to earn much or live a high-flyer type of life. But seriously, isn’t all these just quite so temporary? There are hoards of stories of successful people who were reduced to rags overnight. Their stories sound pathetic, but some are actually much happier when they possess less. Are the rich and famous necessarily happier than the poor farmer? Are not the powerful also targets of backstabbing and man’s evil manipulation? Are they not wary of people who get to friendly with them, who might harbour ulterior motives?

Simplicity can be nice at times. Just live my little life and be contented with whatever God blesses me with, don’t covet for more than I deserve.

:::::

Rare opportunity to think and blog during workhours. Hahah in fact, it’s my first. Really rare cuz senior’s not around and I’ve completed practically everything that I can do. Haha, so back to reading bible commentaries on revelation until my senior comes. Hee hee, thank God for the long break!

Monday blues are quite bad when you know you've gotta rush some job in 4days; from a 5day job which is already very rushed, to a 4day one so that my boss can come down to the client's place and review our work. Goodness...

Worked OT just today itself and I'm still at home trying to finish this up. Wonder if I can even finish it cuz I doubt my client's speed of work and efficiency. Hai.. Okay, press on and complain less.

Miss my dear already. Only 1day and it feels like so long. Can't imagine that I'm saying this online, but dunno who else to say to at this time of the night.

Alritey, kick myself in the butt and back to looking at the fixed assets.

Mantra for the night: I must love my job..

Night out with the Chans

The lovely Chan kids from Mauritius. Gosh, it's scary to see them from babies becoming running machines. Haha, they practically did their 100metre sprints in the restaurant. Amazing..

Taking this photo was such a joy. The 2 older ones (Ryan, 6; Christina, 5) used their 'da ge da jie' power to gather their younger siblings (Brian, 3; Jordan, 2) to pose for my camera. Haha so cute. Obviously my favourites are the 2 older ones. Very smart and mature. Always easy going and smiley. The cheekiest has to be Brian. Can't stand it when he tries to give you the puppy look when you scare him. Makes you melt. Argh.. He gets his way.

So I became the bean bag for them to run to me so that I can catch em. Wah, 4 of them combined can be quite a powerhouse. I was pushed and crammed into the corner. Scary when they come charging at you, but it's quite fun. It beats having to catch the boys who became monkeys jumping off the beds last yr.

It's always nice seeing the whole family get together yearly. From being the ones who were kids the last time my bro and myself went to Mauritius, to playing with their grandkids. Eee, sounds so old. But Chris made quite a gd point yesterday, it's nice to hear kids laughing and playing. Very warm and lovely.

And here's my all time favourite. The red indian chief of the kids, the little darling who teaches me bits of French everytime I see him, haha my personal translater and crowd controller when we're playing with his cousins. Little Ryan Chan! Getting older and more mature, so no more jumping off the beds. He quietly sits by the chair besides his dad, trying to finish his food so that he can feast on ice cream. Hahah..

It's great having one-on-one car rides with my dad. Most of the time it's so called 'boring' talk about life principles, but I love it when he does that occassionally. Over the years, I guess I've come to realise that I'm getting more and more like my dad in terms of some stuff or mentality that we share. Of course there are those differences, but I guess it's how I've been shaped by all these 'principled' talks. Thank God for dad's talks man, cuz its these values that make a person how he/she is. Much as I think we share the same views on certain things, dad's much stronger than me. I'm just a weakling. Haha.. But yeah, if he wasn't as strong, we would probably have crumbled when things were going tough a couple of years ago. Thank God for dad and more morning car rides! =)

Time to kick my ass and start the day on the right note. Haha, terrorize my clients and get my work done..

Seeing how old the last entry was kinda explains the state of my leisure web-surfing habits. Think I really need to eat back all my words abt worklife being better than schooling days. Man, it's really fighting battles everyday. Mentally draining. So I just knock out when I come home. Not to mention that I seldom sit around the tv and chat w my bros or parents. Miss that terribly.. But they're coming home! Tt's great! Meanwhile, I'm psychoing myself to love my job. Hard but better try, if not it's quite hard to endure it. Hats off to all those seniors and above who have suffered and are still hanging on (haha although we all know tt they're thinking of quitting too)

Came across this site of a man trying to accomplish something quite lovely - taking photos of one child from all the 192 countries in the world. Each child lives in NY and is either an immigrant or first generation child. Amazing ain't it?

Simply love the photos of kids taken at their most natural moments.

As much as I enjoyed it, i'll leave the link here for you guys to enjoy. Those kids really makes you melt. Lovely........

http://www.nychildren.org

It's scary how time flies when you're at work and when life's changed quite a fair bit. So much has happened. Not that it's bad, but wah I wouldn't have expected myself to be doing the things I'm doing now.

Every week passes in a flash and it's wkends and Monday blues over and over again. No time to blog, and I kinda don't even feel like blogging.

Yeah so until I feel like blogging, this is gonna be a dead man's site.. Haha!

How our human brain functions is truly amazing. How we rationalize every single thing when sometimes you just go with your gut. So I even wonder whether we should think so much about everything. Wouldn't it be easier if you just don't try to justify everything, or work out every possibility? Oh well, talk about a complicated brain.

I wish I'm a child.

Many many thanks to Queenlay for your lovely postcard! Love it man! *muacks*

Boy, I didn't realise that you mailed it until my dad asked me how come there was a postcard for me from San Francisco. Haha! I was almost delirious after reading it. Man, I also wanna go there with you! Shld have packed myself into your suitcase at the airport instead of going Penang.

Qinlei: saw your photos of the places that you've been. Lovely! I wanna eat at Fisherman's Wharf too!!!! Thanks for the wonderful surprise! Wanna see your photos when you're back!

Attended some communications class yesterday as part of our training for work. Apparently, some experts say how a message is communicated across is based on this magic formula:
Chosen words - 7%
Tone of voice - 38%
Body language - 55%

Much as I know that I don't really fear speaking in front of crowds, it's also my pitfall; in that I am not very careful in choosing my words. Things that I say on the go as I speak tend not to be chosen carefully, and sometimes I wonder if I ever offend anyone with that. But I guess not yet, since I haven't heard any complaints apart from Joyce.

Think this is qutie a bad testimony being a Christian cuz I blurt words quickly. Not that I always swear, but I think words can be more carefully chosen. So this is just one of the issues that people gripe with in moulding their lives to be more godly, and mine's dealing with speech.

Application for the week: reign in and talk less

Penang was quite a bore apart from the makan sessions with the rest there. Nothing to see or do in Penang but eat. And it's quite disgusting to know how much I ate there.

Oh well, it was nice knowing a couple more people from that trip, although it would have been more of a blast if Selene was there to accompany me and Danielle. Silly lass who cheated us into applying for last batch. Thank goodness there were still the rest like Donny, Gillian, Joanne, Yun Rui and Tu Zhi who made the boring training sessions a tad more interesting.

And it's quite amazing how they can entertain themselves with the camera. Taking shots after shots. Haven't laid my hands on the photos but hahah it'll be darn fun to look at all of the photos. Truly amazing how they can keep on posing for the camera. Donny & Gillian, you guys are the best!

So it'll be back to training at Ocean Building for the next couple of weeks I guess. Oh oh, and thank God for the good news man! Just heard from my supervisor just minutes ago that my manager somehow managed to 'transfer' me back to his team! Goody! Not the best client profile, but nicer people to work with. Yipee!

Some people are just blind or they just do weird things..

For the first time in my life (apart from the time in Europe), I was quite scared of jaywalking at my place. Some weird taxi driver was going forwards and backwards repeatedly at the junction. I still thought it could be how some vehicles reverse a little upon stopping, but boy this cab was really reversing. And then he'll move foward to the white line again. Scary..

Enough to be horned at for jaywalking and almost getting hit the last time. As much as I don't really pay attention to traffic lights, what if his knee jerks and hits me?! Hahah morbid thoughts but yeah me and my vivid imagination.

Bon Voyage Steph!

Can't imagine that things can be so coincidental such that I'm due to be at airport today till 6pm and Steph's flight is at 8.40pm today too. Hahaa so I'll be perfectly on time to meet her and send her off!

Lucky lass is going Sweden's Lund University for exchange for a whole semester. Gosh, I hope she posts photos and keeps everyone updated of her exciting stories of Sweden.

It'll just be another couple of weeks before I'm sending Xiao off again for her Hong Kong exchange. Sob.. Then again, why is everyone going for exchange? I want too! Erm a bit overdue, but yeah. Secret desire since uni days. Now I can only self-sponsor travel trips. Hai.

Looking forward to send her off! Hopefully Xiao goes to accompany me. Heh heh..

Just attended the first session of FOP on Sat night. It's been a while since both me and pkg went to Indoor for any Christian band thing. The last we heard Don Moen was when we were back in lower sec, helping to usher people together with the rest of the youth group. Goodness, how time flies.

Back to this year's FOP. Actually it's just my first FOP. Didn't make it to last year's cuz I didn't want to queue for hours just to watch Delirious perform. Guess I'm just not used to the too-charismatic way of worship. Since I met lovely Eunice, so she managed to squeeze in another 2 seats for me and pkg amongst the rows they got for their cell group. Yeah so it's was kinda strange for me to be sitting amongst a group of ultra charismatic people, attending a worship event.

Those speaking in tongues (not that I've something against it, but just that I'm very wary of whether so many people can have the same gift and worship in the same church at the same time. Isn't it that God provides a church with a variety of gifts so that the diversity can help the church?) and the jumping etc. Well, I used to be the jumping sort back in secondary school, and I still believe that it's alright to do anything you want to worship Him. It should be any form that is a reflection of a person's personal manner of worshiping. But it's just that I'm not that spontaneous anymore. By the time they came to altar call, pkg and myself just sat throughout, even as everyone around were standing.

The focus of FOP was a bit unusual to me. It's both worship and a segment on a series of messages for the entire 3-day event. And the message was kind of very pro-youth; talking about how misunderstood youths are by the older people in the church, and that we should not keep thinking of how we are weak but that we are worthy in God's eyes etc. Nothing wrong with that lah, but I couldn't catch a chunk of what the Argentinian paster was talking about. Overall the message seemed a bit too skewed towards supporting the young people, and challenged the adults to understand youths. Oh well, not for me to judge the sermon topic.

So I think I can only listen to contemporary Christian music on cd, but not in a live environment cause it becomes too commercialised and concert-like for me. I can only listen to them on the cd in my own little personal space. Live band is good, but not a real worship session for me.

Wonder how I'll take this coming Saturday's Planetshakers event at Max Pavillion. We'll see. God must work His way in me then.

PISSED PISSED PISSED!!!!!!

Oh my gawd, I took 2 hours plus to pick and choose those photos to develop from the trip. And my stupid computer has to say that I wasn't supposed to open other programs while its burning the disc. Argh... It took so long to sift through which ones I wanted to develop! Alamak, and I wanted to bring it for developing at granny's place later on. Crap. Gggrrrr.... Stupid program didn't even save a copy of the hundreds of photos that I picked. Shit! Have to do it again and I'm rushing to go out. Damn it.

Random thought #87:

If you had the choice of a mutant power or character out of X-Men, what would your choice be?

With full assurance of my destiny
O Lord, nothing gives me more joy than
To honour You, the Risen One

The Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Shall stretch over all mountain and waters
Over every heart and soul
Come reign and transform all mankind
To praise and glorify You

Praising and declaring our desires
Our thanksgiving could go on and on
Even time on earth ain't enough for me
Lord, let me praise You for all eternity in heaven

I will lift my hands to the King
To love You with all I have
I belong to You

Jesus, miraculous deeds You do
That no man can comprehend
We turned against You, yet You love and exhibit much more grace
Wash us clean; as clean as pure lambs
Thank You Lord for Your everbounding grace

Now take all that I have
My sould, mind and might
Direct me Lord to ways that please You
You and You alone are the object of my worship
My Lord and King - the Great Redeemer!

Worshipping You gives me joy
To dwell in Your house of love forever