So the weekend came and went, and I'm rather tired out. Not getting enough sleep because I hang out till quite late at night and when I get home I'm still rushing things that need to be done. The hall rental was one of the more demanding ones that I've done, and it won't be one which I will forget in a hurry! Don't get me wrong the people were fantastic, just glad to be a part of it. It got quite emotional at some parts and it was really touching to hear about transformed lives and changed hearts. I don't really know most of the people and I didn't really talk much with them too, but I'm just amazed at how God chooses to work his plans and purposes for different people. 

And it was really befitting that I came off that rental into Gracehaven's worship service tonight! I sort of brought along all the heart for justice and compassion into tonight's worship, and it was a huge difference in the kind of attitude as I went onstage. Trusting God for all the seeds that we've planted, and hoping that somehow somewhere it'll make a huge difference. 

Tomorrow is the last day for me to tie up all the loose ends before I head off to Malaysia! All pumped up for the youth camp camp camp! Most parts of it, I don't really know what to expect because I only know a handful of the Malaysian youths who will be there at the camp, and I only have vague ideas of how their worship will be like and everything. Well if I were to compare with Kuching and Tamil camp two years ago, then this will be nothing short of extraordinary! I need to pack, change currency, prepare worship and sharing, aargh barely have enough time for all of it tomorrow. 

Today at church Alicia led this song that went like this:


I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do


I wish to possess the kind of faith that shows me miracles and hope and dreams and visions. 

I can't really recall doing much for the past two days except to camp at the mixer in the auditorium right in front of the stage! Have been kept busy with hall rental rehearsals for Andrew & Grace Home, they are having some fundraising concert and it's quite tremendous! Easily one of the more demanding hall rentals because they have practically everything from drama, dance, guitars, drums... And usually I am quite distant with hall rentals because most times it's like just another job to me. I smile and meet people who tell me what to do and assist with all the technical stuff, then when the concert or event is over we all go separate ways and probably don't see each other again. But somehow this particular rental struck a rather good impression, mostly because of my experiences with Gracehaven and I see the similarities with another home for youth-at-risk. Hahaha maybe this is a calling from God to go into a ministry like this! It's just something different, in terms of the attitude and the atmosphere I see. I'm impressed, the staff must be doing something good at the home.

And over the course of this month, I've come to realise that actually I am serving in church alongside with some of the best people I've ever known in my life. Several meetings with mentors or worship people or whoever else, and I love being part of an amazing team of talented and passionate people all for God's glory. Right now there's tonnes of stuff going on for all the combined camps at Youth Dept, I'm just chipping in wherever I can. 

This summer vacation is looking to be really great. Can't wait for Malaysia camp next week. I'm absolutely slacking my guts out cos I'm not really working, but at the same time I'm busy with so many church stuff that it feels like I'm doing something. Hahaha first thing is to regain my erratic sleep. 

Should clarify a small point since the last post. I'm currently learning an Indonesian praise song because of Malaysian camp! Min Jie and I thought that it might be good if we included a Malay or Indonesian praise and worship song, although I do expect that majority of the youths attending will be Chinese ethnically. We wanted initially to find a song that had English translations alongside the Malay/Indonesian version, but there weren't any. So anyway I was listening to songs from True Worshippers, and I really liked this song called "Yesus" which somehow just spoke to me even though I didn't really understand what the lyrics meant. Google Translate helped a bit in the decision to lead this song, and consequently it meant that this song is on repeat at every opportunity I can get, because Bahasa Indonesia is and was never one of the languages I've ever tried to speak. Although the smattering occurrences of some Malay words that I happen to know made it slightly easier, on the whole I'm stumped at all the more nuanced pronunciations and some assimilation of vowels and whatever else.

Sometimes I like to listen to foreign languages praise albums! Although I haven't much of them, I've got one album of Hillsong Kiev but that doesn't really count because it's mostly familiar Hillsong songs translated into Ukrainian, so I do know in some sense what they are singing about. I've got a few albums from True Worshippers, courtesy from now Lt Fiona's brother who passed them to me the last time I was at Kuching. I don't know what they're singing or praying about, but I do know that it's got something to with worshipping God and giving praise to Him hahahaha. It's like reading a Bible verse at some international service in your mother tongue, or like that time at Tamil camp and I couldn't understand a single word! Always amazing to know how the same God connects across different languages and cultures. 

Been practically lazing my days at church now, because if I stay at home I'll just be on the computer the entire day doing nonsense and rubbish stuff. At least I'll find some company there even if I have nothing significant to do. But I do have to prepare for some stuff like lessons and message and worship, and I am kinda neglecting them because it feels like work and studying all over again and I really just want to take a very very long break! I'm doing shopping and watching movies and catching up with lost friends and spending more time with cell people. Which explains the first cell outing to Escape Theme Park today. I've never been there before, and in all honesty I don't think I've been missing much because the rides are kinda kiddy and there were just about one or two main attractions.

I can't wait for June to come because I've signed up for a slew of camps to fill up my summer vacation! I've decided that I will not want to take up any work this holiday, I want to just eat and sleep and wake up at anytime when I want hahaha. But yeah back to the camps, the most recent upcoming one is Malaysian youth camp which I'm really excited for! Usually all the stuff that I do with Malaysian corps are always a reminder of how blessed things are back in Singapore, and how God is constantly at work everywhere. Actually I'm excited for all the camps la, I want to go into them ready to rah rah garh garh and be expectant of the good things to come. But for the time being I need to learn how to sing a Indonesian worship song! Cannot get the correct pronunciations ahaha probably will need help very very soon.

And if cell group members have taught me anything these two weeks, it is how important youths are to the church and how that huge responsibility sometimes falls on their cell leaders (me) to nudge them in the right directions. Big shoes to fill. Recently I've been talking to a couple of their younger siblings, and some of them are borned in the year 2001 or 2002 and so on! Gosh I'm from the 1980s, and they are actually from this side of the millennium!! There's a ten-year age gap between my youngest cell member and myself. People sometimes ask me if I plan to stay at sec 1 and 2 cells for the next two years too, but without realising it I've been in this lower secondary cell group for the fourth year already and I'm still enjoying the challenges everyday.

Now, off to bed, because I want to wake up early tomorrow to get my straggling work to order.

The end of exams have been wonderful, I'm happily enjoying the first few days of my carefree life! It's only been about two or three days only, but I feel like I have nothing to worry about and I can go anywhere I want and I have no work to do! Of course, the no work to do is a bit subjective hahaha. But I've found a new source of entertainment: Tintin comics! Huge thanks to Andrew (my cell one) because he came to church on Friday with one of those 3-in-1 collection books, and I was like AAAHHHHHH can I borrow please please please then he said he has the entire collection and he's memorized every plot! Tintin is like my primary school favourite read, apart from Harry Potter I think haha. I remember getting to the school library to borrow every single Tintin comic that they stock, and I always hate the fact that they have missing titles from their collection! Heh but now it's nostalgia time as I indulge in them all over again.

And the General Elections came and went! I'm upset that my Bishan-TP GRC is still PAP-governed. I'm all for change and progress haha! And I admire Chiam See Tong's endearing spirit for a cause that he believes in. But the voting electorate has decided that they favour PAP, and I'm just glad my vote represented my voice in this political stake. Elsewhere, I think the results for Aljunied were woots!!! As I'm writing now, I hear that there are petitions and protests for a by-election in Potong Pasir, for Tin Pei Ling to be removed from Parliament, for George Yeo to be exchanged for someone else, blah blah. I think it's a bit silly, if petition all these then we vote for what? Cmon man, accept the results as indicative of the voter's choice. Never mind that Lina Chiam lost by 114 votes, it was a fair game even if it was a close fight. Much as the GRC system is to be blamed, and I really really think TPL don't deserve a seat in Parliament, but the fact is people still willingly voted for her and her party! And it is at this point that I risk Jolene calling me an ugly Christian again hahaha but I really think people like TPL and Vivian Balakrishnan don't deserve to be my politicians at all, I don't like them, and if I'm in that GRC I will not vote for them in even if they're bunched together with MM and SM and PM! No means no, blame the GRC flaw, and if people really didn't want TPL, they would have voted against her party. I would if I could. 

Now I can't wait for the next elections. Hahaha I wanna go rally! 

So I ended exams today, with what must be the worst semester ever since I first got into university. Getting crappy assignment grades, not really keeping up with course readings, skipping a good half of the lectures for two modules, left almost everything to last minute! But it's all over now, this semester will be a bare scrape-through, although I generally think the final exams were much better than what I expected. I was very sorely tempted to write forbidden stuff for my final paper today! It's a geography module on gender and the prof's a feminist academic who is generally a nice lady, but I don't really like how she always makes small insinuations like "guys just never listen" or stuff like that. I find it extremely ironic that she keeps going on about how women are always typified into the private and reproductive home-spaces because of hegemonic essentialist ideals, but she peppers her lectures with stuff like that probably out of zest or for entertainment's sake, but I take offence grr grr grr! So I was on the verge of writing "for the sex worker, the night-time is the best chance for her to get laid" which would be a) derogatory b) not gender-neutral language c) colloquial language d) un-feminist in every single way! Okay maybe not the most witty line I could think of, but I wanted to rile her up haha. But I couldn't bring myself to write that down and I probably would be in heavy guilt and can't sleep for days, so I tamed the diction down. Anyway my respect for sex workers has increased tenfold since visiting Amsterdam last year, and another a hundredfold after taking this module.

And consequently I missed most of the General Elections' activities because of exams! Was busy revising and couldn't spare extra time for all the rallies. Which is a shame really, I'm really excited to vote and exercise my choice/voice and just when my exams ended, the next day is cooling-off day. I think I really disagree with them threatening to my vote with lift upgrades and covered walkways and a fresh coat of paint for my block. Dislike the general arrogance and hypocrisy of the incumbent. I think I behave exactly like a spoilt young brat, there is really a generation gap hahaha! But they just issued a unprecedented apology. On the other hand Chiam See Tong is really admirable. Oh well anyway I head into the voting station on Saturday practically nonpartisan, because to date I have not gone to any rallies, and neither PAP nor SPP candidates have ever visited me on their many walkabouts they seem to be doing all day, well everywhere except my block. For all they claim that they've been serving here for years and blah blah, I really really never see any of my MPs in my entire life before. All I got is the PAP manifesto and many lorries driving around shouting garbled speeches.

I'm studying hard for my remaining two papers and my choice of location for most of my revision time is the church office! It's almost always noisy there over the weekend, but it's the place where I can be most productive as long as I don't bring my laptop along. I really cannot study at home because there's always the laptop or computer tempting me to go online and waste time, and then there's my comfy bed which gets me asleep in approximately 3 minutes flat. The lighting in my room is not the best too because I am lazy to invest in a study lamp and the my head keeps casting shadows over my notes! 

And thanks to Tyrus and Andrea, I've listened to more radio in the past three days than I've ever had in the past three years! They've been blasting 98.7FM through some old left-behind radio in the office. I think I almost never tune in to the FM radio stations on my own free will, because there's already the iPod with a few thousand songs and I'm constantly listening to Christian music anyway hahaha work hazards of a worship leader. But the radio is good, sometimes I need to hear people talking amidst all the songs, only thing is that 98.7FM's song library probably ranges around fifty, because they just keep playing the same songs over and over again every few hours or so. 

Okay just found out that internet can stream radio stations! I thought they cancelled it the last time. Okay am I slow or what. 

Right in the middle of exams now, I have two more papers left and they're the content-heavy ones. I feel like I haven't really done much work this semester because of all the unfinished readings and last minute revisions! If there is any term to scrape through, it would have to be this one because of all the disappointing assignments and my tardiness. But exams has been quite fine so far, were quite manageable considering that these were modules that I skipped majority of the lectures or I didn't really follow with the readings. Aargh I'm a lousy student this sem, really horrible. I don't know what I did with all my time.

Elsewhere, general elections is round the corner! I'm off the age of 21 already and glad for the chance at some semblance of political say in my country's governance, because there's some contest in my area! Never been much interested in political news till now, and I always recall shooing Khairul away whenever he starts one of his tirades. Now I am able to empathize with some of the stuff that he fights for, and I realize I really really cannot stand the arrogance and ignorance of some of the stuff they claim over the biased media! But voting is secret and political slants are personal so I shall take this topic off blog spaces hahaha. I shall give more for church offering this week, thank you Grow and Share package.