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. 

So after last night's gave-it-all Good Friday youth service, I'm now in some state of atrophy because I'm really just very exhausted! I wonder how do the pastors and worship leaders of churches with large congregations do it, week in week out they have mega services with just about the same level of high energy! Read somewhere that Mondays are sometimes a bad time for a pastor to take a break from the weekends because of all the adrenaline high and they will feel like they will want to keep going on! Haha I think I definitely won't fit into that bill, I'm so tired and drained out. 

The service was massive, I'm really glad to be part of the church with people who are genuinely sincere in loving God. Was battling cough and cold and couldn't sing most of the stuff that I want to sing, but somehow somewhere I could hear people who just kept on singing and singing and singing even though I stopped telling them where to go next, and they were basically just leading for me. Haha maybe it was the rest of the vocalists aiya I'm not sure I only know it sounded angelic and nothing like I've heard before. 

And it's only Saturday today. Weird thing about having a public holiday on Friday automatically makes it feel like it's Sunday. I'm thankful for the speedy and timely recovery, even though I still feel unwell slightly. And it gives me a breather for Sunday to make some semblance of the entire Easter significance.  

Just came off a super high fever, I hit 39.1 degrees last night and it was quite scary because I remember hallucinating slightly and kept tossing in bed and couldn't sleep! But the fever broke this afternoon, I'm now in a race to get fit for tomorrow. Leading worship for Good Friday tomorrow, and probably think that I cannot reach the high notes because my voice is quite affected. Haha will see how tomorrow.

Revision is in shambles because of this dratted sickness. But I shall catch up! 

I'm not doing particularly very well this semester, haha majority of the assignments and tests and essays that I've gotten back so far were a huge SIGH. It almost makes it not worthwhile to have spent so much time on it. But aargh whatever, it's time to study for exams! A few days ago I just learnt that you cannot S/U those modules that are within your own faculty!! All along I thought that you only can't S/U the major modules only, and I was still happily thinking that if anything I can make use of that option because I haven't S/U-ed anything since I started my undergraduate course! Oh my gosh all of a sudden I have to study really hard and not be complacent. And I have two more small assignments which are bothering me. I just can't wait to get them over and done with, but at the same time I feel like I want to ace them because of all the poor results so far, so it's taking longer than usual. 

Minor updates of the weekend included Gracehaven worship service, which as always is ever a blessing for me to be there. I think the dynamics of Gracehaven changed a lot since I first went there, but it's still great to be part of something greater. And the topic for that evening was the 40 Days of Purpose topic on how we were each made to last forever, so I said something like "life is a dress rehearsal for the Kingdom of heaven". But Colonel Downer went up and said something to the effect of "life is not a rehearsal because you only get one chance at it, so live it well". Hahaha I am slightly puzzled at the antithetical conclusions! Both makes sense to me and I don't think she was rebuking me when she said that, but it got me panicked slightly because I almost thought I said the wrong thing! Anyone with the theology to help me hahaha email me please. 

And the last update have to do with the cell members. Been trying to go out with them for breakfasts and dinners as much as my time allows. It's supposed to help me slightly too, because I'll ask them out for breakfasts before Sunday service, hence it forces me to wake up earlier and be on time for service too! And have been trying to support in prayer and in all the "pastoral visits" as much as I can. Sometimes I think it's a burden and a chore, other times I thank God for the opportunity to be a part of their lives. I think the greatest joy comes from growth and positive influence, and when they begin to trust you for the little things it makes it all the more worthwhile. Someone told me somewhere that cell leaders have to get down and dirty with the members all the time, so would the meal times be considered down and dirty? Heh! At the beginning of this year I said will commit to one more  year (or was it one last) of cell group leading, which will most likely extend beyond that I think hahaha but I'm refusing to think any further than the end of this year. Because it forces me to think of how much I can achieve within this time that I have, and it's more effective and more goal-oriented and such.. 

It's been a three week hiatus for this blog space/place haha, but I'm just coming off the busiest times for almost every NUS undergrad! Was crazy with loads of last minute essays and projects and presentations, but have managed to plough through all of them. Yesterday night I went to bed at 10pm for the first time in weeks or months I have no idea. It's real funny how when I was younger I refused to go sleep at 10pm ever, but now if I ever do get the chance to sleep that early I'll gladly grab it. My to-do list seems to be never-ending it just keeps adding to itself! No sooner have I cleared the list for the night, the next night it just adds on a new set of stuff that needs to be completed.

Thoughts that are going a lot through my head are how I'm really rusty in worship leading and guitar on-stage, how I have stopped reading any of my notes since the mid-term break, how to keep reaching out to the cell group, whether I should buy more frivolous stuff like shades or a really cool film camera, and so on.

Revival's in the air. 

So I took to the stage yesterday with my guitar, after two months of not leading worship ever. Not the longest break that I've had I think, but it definitely made me feel like it was all very unfamiliar. And gosh I realised how rusty I've become! Playing and singing and leading seems so daunting all of a sudden, and I really struggled to get my act together haha! But Gracehaven was great, it's always a blessing to be there.

Thoughts and prayers are with Japan as they weather through all the natural hazards. It wouldn't have meant as much to me if I hadn't met people from the Salvation Army corps in Japan previously. Their territory is quite small, but I remember being very inspired by their territorial commander Commissioner Makoto Yoshida when I was in Hong Kong. 

I've been kept really busy for most of March, had quite a bit of assignments and tests and whatever. Still surviving, but now that it's almost middle of March, I'm losing a bit of steam and motivation. Woke up this morning feeling like I really don't want to do anything, and it's really the wrong day to have this sort of depressive emo moods, because I have a 10% test today! But I kinda woke a little too late for it, and instead of studying last night I was knocked out cold on my bed for 12 hours straight. So I kinda took it as a sign that this mid-term test is not meant to be. And the worst of it all was I forgot that there was a practical submission today! Which was really stupid because I offered to do so but I didn't go school today, and it was a miracle my project mate was still in school, except that it was a late submission. UGHH I will work harder for this module for the rest of the assignments and for the final exam I don't like physical geography modules.

And just about the most interesting thing that happened this week was getting to see fruit flies twitching under a microscope! They anaesthetised it to sort of make them immobile so that we can examine them, and I have to say that the experience is really very surreal, because the fly was really hugely magnified and I can even see the individual hairs and it's red eyes and feelers and abdomen and all. It's like right in front of my face and I can reach out and touch it. And the worst part was there were a few which started wriggling their legs, which was just hugely amusing haha! Okay I think it was just fascinating to me because I've never taken any life sciences classes in my life before, and the opportunities to use the microscope during my primary and secondary school days were really once in a blue moon. So I started examining my pen, my phone, my paper under the microscope haha!

In other news, I'm going to Pulau Semakau tomorrow morning, and it's like my first Geography field trip with NUS. Funny thing is that even though I'm majoring in Geog, I hardly do anything Geog-ish with the department or with the Geog Society outside of the school curriculum. Semakau was because I missed the chance to go during JC days, and this was too good an offer to miss. And, I ordered the Shure Super 55 through Amazon! It was an absolutely don't-think-just-click purchase, because I really have no strong use for it except for its stunning looks. But we shall see, I'll vindicate a use for it when it arrives in the post.

I shouldn't let a bad day today affect my mood. Gaarfffgghhh.

Not too long ago I really was very tempted to get a Gibson SJ-200, but it retailed like $8000 plus plus at Swee Lee and there was no way I could convince myself spending that much on a guitar. Recently I found out I could get it at $4000 odd if I go to other guitar retailers overseas, but still what a significant amount of money! But look at the beauty. And now I'm looking at the Shure Super 55 because it looks so retro and fun! And coincidentally Elvis Presley uses both of them, guitar and mic! The Super 55 is way more affordable, should I should I should I?? Frivolous buy, but awesome looks!

I think I actually prefer it when lecturers give page limits instead of word limits for their assignments! So far, all the written essay assignments that I've had to do all included a pre-stipulated maximum number of words. And that sort of became my criterion for judgements on what is required of that essay? Hahaha for 1000 odd words I don't need to put in that much effort for originality, because the number of words just do not allow for a lot of personal interactions; and for 5000 words I need to borrow a truckload of books because I need to show that I read a lot for the essay and I am capable of personal thought and blah blah.

But this semester I have, for the first time in my life, page limits instead of word limits! I have no absolute way of gauging how much I have to put in for four pages, with a 1.25 inch margin all around, 12 font with double spacing. But I realised that it actually allowed my thought processes to flow better than all the previous essays I've ever put my guts into. After I'm done with all the margins and spacing and whatever requirements, I just type and type in some stream of consciousness that is surprisingly coherent. Maybe it's because I don't have to keep running the word count function, and maybe because with a word limit then I would go "I'm halfway through a thousand words", and I would be aiming to cut down my number of words, because I almost always exceed the word limit.

But with page limits, filling the pages with words seems more logical and more proper, if it is even considered proper. Haha alright, back to the essay, it's flying and taking form quicker than I imagined it to be.

Here's a small unknown fact that will probably just go unnoticed in church as time goes by. About close to four months, I told the Sunday worship leaders over a meeting that I wanted to take a break from Sunday service worship for the next two years or so. Mainly for reasons to focus more on cell group and co-leaders. It was quite a tough decision to make, but at the same time it did not take too long for me to come to that conclusion either. Tough decision, because I have really enjoyed being a part of the music that happens on Sunday services, and I've been in a wonderful team that helped to sharpen me spiritually and musically. And relatively fast decision, because I think at the start of this year I really wanted to be more focused and I felt that cell group with the addition of two new co-leaders had to take priority.

A couple of years back I did a similar stepping down from Friday youth service worship team, at that probably because I really couldn't take my increasingly hectic worship schedules. Hahaha I remember those back-to-backs when it seems like there's never-ending songs for me to plan, sing, practice or play. No sooner had I finished one service, I have to go back and plan for the next two. Haven't had crazy periods like those since then, and more so even now. I used to think that my involvements in the worship ministry was kinda superfluous to everything else that I'm doing in church, that it was not one of my main core ministries, that if I ever wanted to offload then worship would be the first. But I think God kinda winged that back at me and helped to affirm and anoint whatever that I've been doing with my singing or my guitar playing.

Worship still continues with or without being on stage, and I thank God for all of the experiences and talents and blessings and rewards all these years. Eh nope, guitar won't be rusty too, I've just got the latest Gracehaven worship schedule, and Min Jie just asked if I can do Good Friday's service.

There's this German confectionery brand called Ritter Sport, you should have heard of them chocolate bars, I think they are relatively common in Singapore. They have quite a few varieties like dark chocolate or milk chocolate with hazelnuts or with almonds or something. And in my opinion, the best thing about Ritter Sport is that each variety comes with its own special colour! Call it my cheap thrills or whatever, but I really enjoy going into some supermarket and seeing green and red and white and blue in neat rows on the display shelves, and knowing that I can pick any one of those colours (or variety) should I ever feel like having a Ritter Sport chocolate snack.

But for all the colours and types at my choice disposal, I almost always fall back on the one with the yellow packaging which says 'Cornflakes' on it. Hahaha I like choices and I like being able to deliberate on my chocolate decisions. For most parts of it, that is a good thing to me, except that my final purchase would almost invariably be dear old 'Cornflakes', reason being it's my favourite among all the choices! And actually that's a slight misnomer, I can't really put claim to it being my favourite, because I don't exactly remember trying the other varieties at all! Once upon a long time ago I tried 'Cornflakes' and I liked it so much that it became my default purchase among the smorgasbord.

Okay this post makes me sound a bit air-headed, but everytime I look at all those choices on the shelves I tell myself one day I shall try this and another day I shall try that, but the impulse of the moment is always to reach for the one that I'm most familiar with. Kinda like never ever stepping out of my comfort zone right? Hahaha and here's the twist in a really dark sense of humour, cos on Valentine's Day I received two Ritter Sport chocolate bars, in any other colour but yellow! One of them is 'Raisins and Hazelnut', another is 'Dark whole hazelnuts'. It's cruel because I don't really like my chocolates to have nuts and raisins and fruit bits! The two of them are currently residing in my fridge and earning my deepest suspicion, because I seriously doubt if they are anywhere as good as 'Cornflakes'. But then again if I didn't receive them as presents, I probably would never get around to trying these varieties ever.

In the purest of all honesty, I was very tempted to give them away for the next friend who celebrates a birthday hahahaha. But no. I will try them and eat them.

A oompletely non-related and slightly random observation, but I'm completely enthralled whenever I see a keyboardist/pianist using a Nord Keyboard, from the Swedish company Clavia! I can't remember when I first noticed someone using the keyboard, but you really can't miss it because I think most of their keyboards are an electrifying red, and it's really difficult for me not to like it for its colour. They've got several models I don't really know how to determine if a particular keyboard is good or not because I'm not adept with a piano. But I used to think that when it came to analogue or digital keyboard sounds or synthesizer or padded sounds, I thought the ones to beat are the Yamaha Motif series and the Korg M3s and even the Rolands.

Again, I have to emphasize that I know next to nothing according to keyboards! Ask me about guitars and I might hold a better conversation on that topic. But I like it because it's visually stunning (RED!) and makes a bold statement. When we were up in Stockholm last year, I think one of the keyboardist was using one. Think the keyboardist at Taylor Swift concert was using one too. It sounds kinda shallow to just like a gear because of its appearance, but I would be pretty sure the keyboards could hold well the layering and the holds and whathaveyou, was never a keyboardist/pianist, and probably won't be in the near future. But if I'm one, I'll be soooo tempted to fetch one for a princely sum.

Just back from Taylor Swift's concert, I'm not a terribly crazy fan of her but I like her music, and was mostly there because Joanna couldn't find other people to go with to the concert! Joanna was like my personal DJ, she hollers to me the name of every song that they're playing. Don't get me wrong I've listened to Taylor Swift's songs before, and to "prepare" for this concert I listened to the new album a few times, but I just don't put the corresponding titles to the familiar music/lyrics, hence Joanna kept "how could you not know what song she's singing!" But it was a great show, I really love the way she flashes her mega-watt smile! Happiness came from great music, awesome guitars, nice animated displays... And more than anything now I'm inspired now that ukulele can be a stage concert instrument.

I suppose this post will be quite personal, but it's been something that has been on my mind quite a fair bit and it never really showed signs of abating completely. Something triggered the entire "family church" thingy that I took great lengths to resolve in the past two years. After service yesterday, Vivian suddenly decided that she wanted to draw a family tree of our church youths because she was enlightened by a lot of familial relations suddenly made known to her! Most parts of it went like "are you sure they are siblings" and "didn't know they are cousins", and she had to put all the relationships down on paper to make sense of it all! So she grouped immediate family members together, drew curly lines for cousins, linked all those who were in love... etc. Then the trouble came when we had to fit certain individuals who comes to church regularly, but their parents or their siblings do not attend any of our services. In the end we circumvented the problem by drawing isolated smiley faces for each of these people.

People like me.

I should clarify a bit that my parents used to attend church, way back in the 1990s when I first started attending Sunday School. My sister was with me all the way till her mid-secondary school age or so. But yep they stopped coming sometime somewhere. And the questions I tend to get a lot in church is, why did they stop coming, or what happened, or are they still attending some other church? I know it's pure concern more than anything, but I recall growing up in church in my teenage years, that everytime someone asked me those questions, I wished they would ask more about me who is the one attending church, rather than about my family who doesn't attend church. Of course that was my attention-seeking and young self muddling my way about my first forays into church ministry. A few years later I'm not the most wisest, but I think back and I see the difference in my thought processes.

I used to be quite envious when people share about how their families pray together at home, or how they've got cousins and aunts and uncles worshipping in the same church and they see each other every week. Then there were families who go to church together on Sundays and maybe two or three of these would be closer families and their children will grow up from young playmates. And the clincher was festive occasions like Christmas or Chinese New Year, where different families would visit one another or gather at a common place and all seems merry and dandy. Sure, this sounds slightly idealistic, but when my parents aren't that close to anyone in church and when my sister doesn't come, it sure feels like I'm all alone every Sunday and every Christmas and every CNY. My family is awesome and I love them very much, but there are times when I really wish we were all going to church together every week.

Okay this is not all negative, that is not to imply that I did not meet great mentors and friends who took me in easily and looked out for me like we were somehow related. I'm grateful to all of them who prayed for me constantly, or they were people I could cry to asking for help, or they gave invitations so readily that it sometimes made me feel almost embarrassed to accept it. I know church is the family of believers, but bottom line is I still feel like I stick out like a sore thumb when almost everyone has parents or siblings somewhere in church to call their biological family.

Enough rambling, I've tried to bring in my personal experiences into my cell group ministry, showing more interest in their lives and giving them more time outside of church. And even more so whenever I go to Gracehaven because I am constantly reminded of the need for reaching out and acceptance and social justice. And I've realised that if a person like me, after more than a decade and a half in church and I still feel left out, what more for newcomers into church. Need to show love, and till then I'm still a separate smiley face in Vivian's tree, but if not for my church family of believers I wouldn't be where I am today too.

It's Chinese New Year, and have been visiting quite a fair bit in the past three days. For most of the years my grandma's place (dad's side) is usually the only place my family visits on the second day. And even at that, lunch is just seven of us squeezed into a small table, perfunctory and almost methodical, which is also why I think my grandma's cooking pretty much defines most of my CNYs every year. There were more houses visited this year, and if I have to be specific in my lingo, the "more houses" would belong to friends, whereas my grandma's place are the relatives.

Somehow it seemed as if my time freed up a lot. I haven't really done much since the start of this year. In the past few years it felt like I was constantly running back-to-back races; no sooner had I just finished one, and I have half a sight on the next finishing line. But the first month of this year creeped by without much significant events, and I'm rested for the better. A lot more free time to take it a leisure's pace.

I need to catch up on my extremely delayed readings.