Led worship at Sunday service this morning, probably 3 months since the previous Sunday I led because I sort of recall the last one being in June. This year somehow just seemed like a lot lesser worship leadings for me on all the usual Friday Sunday slots, but it still feels like a lot! What with Gracehaven and combined camps and services. Alright la, trade off. But today was different because I decided that we should all do without chordsheets and play entirely by ear. Which was both risky and adventurous, but it went quite well despite all the mistakes. Shall work on that more and let the guitar be entirely secondary to my leading!

Recently I've been thinking a lot about worship stuff, particularly when I've been trying to "impart" some of the essential skills to Ming Hui Jolene Meng Ren Melanie. They're going to be worship leaders for the end-of-year camp, and it's not like I'm the best person to do it but I really really feel a strong calling to just help and mentor where I can. And the talk of the town is on exaltations and free worship being an essential part of leading (my personal thoughts la). Then the feedback that came back to me from some of them, about my leading this morning, was that I was doing a little too much of it and it wasn't too smooth at certain points. Hahaha. Alright, I'll keep learning and practicing too.

I should have noted much earlier that I finished my first Coetzee and Ishiguro novels, thanks to the literature module that I'm taking now. Of course I've heard of both writers' literary prowesses, and all the flitting mentions from my bookworm friends who extol the brilliance of both of them. But for some strange reason or another, I've never really sat down with any of their books until I had to take this compulsory module to fulfil my literature minor. Not regretting it the least bit! Because Ishiguro is so elegant and poignant that it's really hard not to empathise with, flawed though the characters may be. And because Coetzee is so down-to-earth and succinct that it's equally difficult not to like his logic and practicality. Definitely more of them to come.

Recess week kinda flew by, I started out with tonnes of work but now the load has been slightly halved and I'm wondering where am I going to find the time to do the other half. I wish I wasn't such a pig; I really really require 7++ hours of sleep everyday and it's really difficult to wake up in the morning. Once school starts, I really cannot afford to stay up so late every night. I'll really just sleep throughout the day and miss all my classes. Next week I have 2 mid-term tests, both of which remain unprepared because I clean forgot about it.

Should sleep now. I've got 2 tuitions to give, and a worship prac to lead, and aiming to complete two module's worth of unfinished readings tomorrow.

This morning, while getting out of my house to get to lunch, I realised that the NParks people or HDB or somebody uprooted the familiar tree by the walkway just downstairs of my block. There's not even a stump left, it's just a mangle of remnant roots and wood shavings and some leaves. It's almost as if the tree hadn't been there, if you don't look closely enough.

And I'm mightily upset. I know enough about trees to identify it; it's a wild cinammon tree. It's not a very significant tree to me, like it's not as if I put a swing there or I built a tree house there or I hid in the tree trunk or I climded it before. Okay I don't think you can do that to any of the trees in Singapore. Those are more like Enid Blyton adventures. But still, I walk past it almost every day, and it is an essential part and parcel of my landscape. In geography we call it sense of place, which put very simply just means the intangible experiences that make up your connotations of a place. So familiarity may be homely, thus such. I guess the removal of the tree constitutes a destructive sense of place for my neighbourhood.

They're burning all my bridges. So where do I go now.

I didn't sleep the whole night, and I'm not yet feeling the effects of it! Okay this is actually quite a foolish statement to make, because I'm sure later in the day I will feel like my eyes want to (and will) droop anytime. In any case I'm on top of the world now, because I stayed up all night to finish my essay! It's only a thousand words but it took the whole night because of the tedious need to synthesise everything and paraphrase from authors. One thing I never get is that given a thousand words, you can never get much creativity to throw in some of your own original ideas, so what happens is that I'm just summarising all that has been written on feminist geography. It's so pointless and I don't really think the lecturer will be interested to mark a hundred of the same essays. But aargh whatever I've done my part, now prof, give me my A!!

I don't have school till 12 noon, and theoretically I can sleep for about 2 or 3 hours, but I think I better not risk it. If I go to bed now, I don't think I will wake up until youth service tonight. No no no. I'll just find some miscellaneous stuff to occupy me for the next few hours. Or I'd just go school early. Hahaha there's a one week term break to study next week, so I'm feeling like it's holidays and my exams are totally over!

I was supposed to blog about Sunday, but I reached home at like 3.30am on that night, then Monday came and went, and Tuesday is on the verge of coming and going too. Anyway Sunday was good because it's one of those long long days where you're packed right from early morning all the way till late at night, and somehow everything just went according to plan. Sunday service worship, then "sneaked" out to conduct the Sec 1 and 2 Christian education thing, which wasn't as terribly chaotic on a Friday evening cell group! They're out to get me I'm very sure. But in any case, what followed for the rest of the day had mostly to do with Gracehaven worship, what with practice and then going down there for more practice. The actual worship was nothing short of great, except that I started tearing onstage when it just felt so moving, then you know when you cry your nasal tracts starts to get choked up and I couldn't reach all the high notes after that. But I think that's how God works, I sometimes think emotions can somewhat be a debilitating weakness whenever you're onstage, but when God touches you you really can't help but be in his presence. In any case I need to tear lesser because it's just hindering my singing hahaha. And then we went to send Tammy off to London after that! Which explains the very long day.

And yesterday, I was up till 4am doing up a presentation for today. Which I think is really idiotic because my classes start at 8am today, and it's the odd Tuesday when it's my longest day in school. But anyway my prof said he likes my concepts but he asks if I really know all the stuff there is to know about! Which is kinda spot-on, because I left the presentation until the last possible minute and obviously I couldn't have read as widely as he wanted me to. But in any case it's over. And I finally went down to science faculty today for lecture and to find my missing pencil case! I must have looked like an idiot pacing around in the middle of a lecture (not my lecture somemore, that's the best bit) and I couldn't find my pencil case anywhere. Then I went stationery shopping right after that. Hahaha.

Okay, shall sleep early and wake early tomorrow too! Time to tackle the essay. It's only a thousand!

The weekdays ended yesterday with two missing items for this week. My huge pencil case is presumably somewhere in school, and I highly suspect it's in LT27 at science faculty. I have science lectures every Tuesday and Friday, but yesterday being public holiday, I couldn't go down to verify its existence. In all likelihood I'll only next go down to science for lectures only, so come Tuesday I have quite little to believe that my pencil case will still be there after one entire week. Then last night I lost my water bottle! Okay technically it wasn't my bottle, because I kinda just took it from church because it was lying around for so long without anyone claiming it or using it! So it was quite ironic that the same bottle got lost in church. This I suspect is somewhere in the auditorium or social hall, but I couldn't find it last night and I sort of just gave up after finding for a while.

I don't like losing things. Don't like the thought that there's something missing from me and that item is lying aroung somewhere, but I don't know where is it and I cannot retrieve it. It's not the value of the object that's lost, because I get upset when I misplace my guitar picks too! Just don't like losing things.

I want to thank God because today I finally found the exact highlighter refill for the exact colour that I'm using for all my modules this term! My sister introduced that highlighter to me, and she said what's good about that was the refill option. The highlighter itself costs $1.30, and the refill pack (with 3 small bottles) is $1.60, so technically for the price of $2.60 I have bought 4 highlighters! What's more, my sister claims to have used this same highlighter for 2 years and she kept refilling it and it's still usable now!! I am wowed because I run through highlighters relatively quickly, or maybe that's cos I was using free highlighters last year which were all cheapo-looking. And this highlighter brand that my sister recommended would have been a panacea, but the thing is, I just can't seem to find the refill pack for my colour at anywhere at all! All the bookstores I've been to said it was out of stock. But just this morning, I made a detour to the school co-op bookshop just to check if they have it there, because a week ago I was there and they didn't have it, but I thought I could just try my luck because I had nothing to do too. Lo and behold hahahaha tadaaaaaa it was there!

Okay. This post is... Hmm. Sleep.

I miss guitar playing. Ever since I started school I have been neglecting the Baby Taylor loaned from Matthew, and the Maestro was lent to Dezmand for a while, but now that it's back with me, I'm not doing anything with it either. It badly needs a string change to get me inspired to play it again! But I'm procrastinating because for today's worship practice I'm going to use the corps guitars, so I never really got down to changing the strings. Sigh. Busy school.

Obtained a fever for the past two days! Hahaha I used the word "obtain" because there was one night when I only slept like an hour or so, just to prepare for the next day's class. It turned out that whatever I prepared, the lecturer didn't really go through. Anyway my sleep was disrupted for the next couple of days because I really need to cover up for my sleep debts, and there just wasn't enough time to sleep all day. Hence the fever was a bit like asking for it. Was running around school yesterday woozy and dizzy until I went to see the campus clinic and they told me I have fever, but not that serious.

Okay. Time for work again.

Here's to a blog post where I don't really have anything significant to blog about, but I just want to siphon my thoughts (and delaying studies). Okay shall start with this episode at cell group which I thought was really cute and funny, and it has been stuck in my head ever since Friday. We were talking about Jesus being the light of the world, then somehow the question came to what kinds of light are there in the world? So for a while the answers were pretty straightforward, like torchlight sunlight moonlight headlights blah blah, until Eunice said "as light as feather"!! Hahahah! Jolene and I thought we've heard the worst of it, until Andrea came in, continuing in that vein, she said "satellite"! I thought that was really cute of both of them, and it's a pity if I don't share that.

And, talking about which, teachers' day is coming, so naturally I need to send a message to my two tuition students to "inform" them that teachers' day is coming! Heh note the insidious intent. But with the expectance of heartfelt gratitude and outpouring of thanksgiving, all I got was Eunice replying "so?", then Joanna said she can't wait to "go back to her primary school"! SIGHH. At least Hong Yu promised me something nice, even though I don't really teach her officially cos I help her on a phonecall-to-phonecall basis haha. But I'm very very proud of Eunice, she managed to pass most of her subjects this term, including her dreaded maths!

I really should go and sleep. Have tonnes of things that I'm aiming to complete by tomorrow.

Ahhahaha I caught the time it is 12:34pm now. Just a short note before I go to school. After waiting for weeks, I'm finally going to have a copy of Global Shift by Peter Dicken! All the copies in all the NUS libraries are out on loan since last week and last I checked, there was a waiting list a mile long and I probably won't get the book till October at that rate. Usually for popular books like these, the NUS library will have a copy of it in the RBR which is some reserved or restricted section where you can only loan books for two hours, so that everyone will have a fairer chance of getting hold of a particular book. They've got all the later editions in RBR, but they just don't have this 2007 edition in RBR, so it's been a mad rush for everyone trying to get hold of those precious copies! And I placed a reservation for a copy under some reference section last week, and finally finally finally the person returned it early and I'm going to get it later! My inner kiasu auntie says YES WHOO HOO YIPPEE!!

Okay. Off to school. My sister asked me to bring some of her stuff to school cos she's staying in hall. She asked for hair clips and hair pins, and I deliberately chose all the butterflies ribbons hahahaha I've never seen her wearing those before. Then she asked for FBTs, and my gosh never ever! That's bordering on underwear. No. Next time if I'm really a teacher and some student turn up for class in FBTs, I'll chase her out.

The return to school has been much of a normalcy to me. Yeah it kinda feels weird after a three month break, but surprisingly I was able to pick up rather quickly. Maybe cos it's the second year now, and I'm feeling superior to all the freshies! My sister being the biggest one of them hahaha. There are nights when she came to me asking silly questions like "can we go in early into the lecture theaters before the lesson starts" and I reply "no no no you cannot do that the cleaner will chase you out". And I share a module with her this semester.

That said, a very very big change to my life happened last night! I changed my minor to English Literature instead of English Studies (which is just a combination of Lit and the English language itself). Okay actually it wasn't very drastic because the difference is just that I have to take two more Lit modules than the previous minor. But I felt like it was a big decision that I had to make! What if I really do become a teacher next time, and with Eng Studies I can teach both the language and Lit, but now with it only being restricted to Lit, I can only take the Lit classes??? Okaayyy it probably doesn't matter in the long run, and I sound really infantile. Alright that means I'll get to read more books, which I think will probably interest me more rather than sit through modules on grammar or tenses or stuff like that.

It's National Day today, and I recited the Singapore Pledge and the National Anthem at 8.10pm today! Hahaha 2010 2010h oh my gosh this is so cool! How come they never do it for the past few years? Okay la the time is harder to count, like 2009 then it has to be 8.09pm. And I tried my best to be patriotic through my choice of the colours I wore today. Well, at least until I got onto a bus full of old uncles and aunties dressed in red too, and I realised that I was the only one below the age of 60 clad in red too? Not that that made me ashamed, but what happened to all the reddish young people! Maybe they all went for NDP already haha.

Stomach's grumbling. Shall eat some supper. Here's another language observation: Why is it that descriptions of financial-related stuff tend to be unclean? Phrases like "filthy rich" and "dirt cheap" and "living hand to mouth". So unhygienic! =P

It's 3am in the morning, and I'm struggling to get to bed soonest. But I took a two hour nap this afternoon, so it kinda compensates for the time being? Can't believe that school is starting again in a day's time, and I realise that I will very soon have to start downloading my readings and purchasing my textbooks and start to keep up with the readings again. Which is why I'm trying to rush all the stuff which I can complete now before the term begins officially, although it might as well have already begun because Monday's National Day. Small things like worship chords, new worship sets, tidying my table, blah.

Played at Chinese Corps this morning, with the Baby! And considering the very early timing of the morning, I was surprised that I managed to pull through the entire service and understand everything. I always liked Chinese church services because everything sounds so eloquent and precise. Shall make more often visits there.

And this is from my diminutive observations, but the British like to say "brilliant", the Australians like to say "amazing", the Americans like to say "awesome", and the Singaporeans like to say "good"

I keep saying that I am neglecting this thinking space and how much I yearn to resume the once-regular accounts of my life, but to actually get down to blog something proper is really like a huge chore. And it's no excuse really, because everytime I open my Firefox my homepage is my blog, so there's no way I could have missed this site. I guess if I really wanted to, I'd easily hit 2 posts a day, but Twitter/Plurk is so much more convenient because it shortens my life to 140 characters haha.

Still, nothing beats actually sitting down to craft this blog post. Gets the writing juices flowing.

Anyway, I'm almost nearing the end of my holidays. School starts next Tuesday after National Day, so I'm back to lectures and assignments and projects. I'm taking three geography modules and one literature and a chemistry module on atmosphere! No idea how they will all turn out, but looking forward to something to do after such a long break. Haha, and that would mean having to adhere to a strict sleeping regime, because I'm like getting to bed at 3 or 4am nowadays and waking up waaay after noon the next day.

And I'm trying to drag my fitness back on track too! I need to clear my annual IPPT before my birthday, and just in case I don't make it, I've booked my test slot in September. It's crazy because I haven't jogged properly for the longest time and I'm trying to gain back as much as I can. Terrible.

Led worship with a Taylor guitar tonight! Matthew left behind his Baby Taylor for me before going overseas, and I can't put it down ever since. I really pity my Maestro, not sure how it feels playing second fiddle (pun intended) to the BT. But it's really a joy to play the BT; the tone doesn't sound very full but it's definitely very rich! Think this shall be the start of a trend for the next few weeks hahaha, only problem is that it doesn't have a plug-in option and I have to use an external mic. But I'll work around that.

Okay, gotta sleep soon. Have a worship prac with Chinese Corps tomorrow morning, and I'm looking forward to it because I've never played for a Chinese church service before! English have, Tamil have, but Chinese don't have. We'll see tomorrow, hahhahaha.

Back from Europe for slightly more than a week now, and I'm still acclimatising to the difference in time zone and the way my body clock is kinda tipsy. I find myself awake up till 5am these few days, then I sleep in for most of the day until 1pm?? Or maybe it's just my late nights that are reversing my sleeping routine. Anyway, much has happened since I'm back, the biggest thing being the two consecutive worship leadings last Sunday at corps and at Gracehaven. One of the craziest because of the lack of preparation and two in a row on the same day and it was practice from 8am to 8pm the entire day. But God's good as always, and it was fantastic.

Trying to plan ahead in time of all the things that I need to do for the second half of this year. And, trying my hand at sorting and editing the photos from Europe so that I can start showing people! I'm quite pleased with the film photos which are already developed. Most of the unpleasant ones were due to incorrect shutter exposures and camera shake, if not they've captured what I wanted to take actually.

Okay time for bed, before I turn zombie and start biting people.

Back from the holidaying in Europe and from the World Youth Convention in Sweden. I'm mightily upset with the false promises of cold weather, because all of the Europe summer is anything but. My long sleeve clothes were brought in vain, one sweater stayed permanently in the suitcase and the other was hardly used and eventually lent to someone else who needed it more. But God's been great, I enjoyed every blister on my feet and every tired-and-lack-of-sleep moment. The convention in particular, exceeded all expectations that I once previously (and myopically) had. Great to interact with people all over the world and worshipping God alongside in the ranks of the Salvation Army. They are some of the best people that I've met in my life, and again, I'm thankful for the way the Spirit works. Much to learn and much to go on in my experience.

It seems like each city trumps the other as we go along, so in that order, the cities that I enjoyed most was Stockholm (nice people), Amsterdam (nice countryside and city landscape), Berlin (nice directional ease), and Paris (nice charm).

I'm off to bed, to conquer jet-lag. I'm lost on all the social networking sites, but that doesn't really matter. I've gotta go right back to preparations and work. But first, I need my guitar back.

Berlin holds much splendour, with so much more colour and vitality and quotidian lifestyles that makes it much more worthwhile than ancient Paris. Was at the Berlin Zoo yesterday, then we tried to cram 3 museums in four hours due to some free passes after 6pm. And today we went out to Sachsenhausen concentration camp for the day.

Weather is hot, it finally exceeded 30-plus degrees since we arrived in Europe. And when I'm not battling the weather or trying to conquer the sights, I've been trying to get inspired and see things from a photographic angle! Hahaha thanks to Ming Hui and Kar Leong, I've got a film camera at my disposal, and I'm into my fourth roll of film now. My compact digital just fails at capturing the wonders of the architecture, but I'm too lousy at the film camera also. And when I'm not doing any of those, I'm trying to catch up on the life of Anne Frank. Got the book at the Holocaust memorial a few days back, in preparation for the Anne Frank museum visit in Amsterdam!

Alright. Travelling there tomorrow. What will the Dutch bring now?

We headed up to Germany, and in Berlin now eating currywurst and German pastries everyday. Was exploring the city itself today and was out in Potsdam today. Potsdam was kinda like Versailles haha. And, we tried to watch Germany versus Spain at Bradenburg Gate just now, but we kinda decided that it was too crowded and the screen was too small and people were getting drunk everywhere. So we headed to a smaller open field and watched the first half, and caught the second at our hostel common room. But for all our hype and support, Germany lost =(

Never mind we'll be in Amsterdam and rooting for Holland in the finals!

In Paris for the last two days now, and apart from getting disoriented on their metro after we land, it's been quite excellent so far. Got a view of the entire city from the Arc, was at the base of Eiffel, walked the entire length of Champs-Elysees. And today was museums free entrance day, so was at Louvre and d'Orsay, but I kinda felt that all the million dollar art-pieces were fleeting past me just like that. Hahaha dunno how to appreciate! But the museums audio guide helped somewhat. And as a last minute decision, we went out to Versailles unprepared, but managed a very rushed tour of the palace, and soaked in the sun at the gigantic park.

Hahaha they say traversing down Paris by foot is a surrealistic experience, but I've got blistered feet and sore muscles and I've never felt more alive because every step I take is a wince of pain.

Off to Berlin tomorrow. What will the Germans bring?

Travelling to Europe in another 9 hours or so? And I'm in a frantic pre-holiday frenzy because I'm trying to see if there's anything that I left out or haven't done before I go! I'm like trying to print out all the stuff that I think might come in handy in the midst of travelling, and I'm trying to recall if there's anything I've yet to settle. Hahaha. Maybe I should just give up la, just disappear for three weeks and come back then sort out the mess again. Not particularly excited yet! It hasn't quite hit me, but I think by tonight I will feel like a true blue tourist and lalalalala I'm gonna have fun!

And Founder's Day service is in 5 hours! Again this is one big thing that jitters me. I remember the last combined service on Good Friday, I came down with this massive attack of doubting and I was unnerved by the amount of people that came, even though the congregation size was somewhat like a Sunday service? A bit unlikely coming from me, especially when I've led worship so many times and I'm numbed to the stage frights. But of course it goes without saying that the Lord will be amidst the entire proceedings tonight. All the way!

Okay. Gotta do the chords for later's worship. I'm utterly unprepared.