"Four o'clock in the morning, my mind is filled with a thousand thoughts of you" hahaha gosh this becoming quite a hazardous thing to do, posting song lyrics as my blog post starters which relate aptly to the time. I assure you seriously that I did not plan to wait till the time just so I can include that in. But today was a day where I met a lot of friends after not seeing or hearing anything from them for a long time. Strangely it had to be all on today. So the list ran something like primary school friends, army friend, former church friends, friend that I did project with two years ago, and friend from some church. With the passage of time and everything that happens in each others' life, it's happy to know that somewhere out there people are finding life worthy for them to live as well as I do.

And after the brief catch-up, it takes me some frantic Facebooking to verify everything about what the other person is doing now, maybe leave a half-sincere message to go out for a meal sometime, great for the chance meet-up, blah blah. And it's almost a travesty when I discover that we aren't even Facebook friends. Which really gets me thinking sometimes about the fragility of human relationships? I remembered not too long ago that you were crying on my shoulders over something which seemed really tragic at that time, but looking back now and seeing where it took you, it hardly mattered at all. I remembered that time when we did that club notebook thing where we filled it with mazes and short stories which we will take turns to write, hardly seems all that mature now. I remembered the lunch where we sat for hours and poured out everything that we had concerning our ideas of faith and what it meant to us, and now it's just hello new set of problems, different
seasons.

I do wonder if the other party goes through an equally thoughtful reminiscence of the old times like I do. Or, if at all, this should be accepted as part and parcel of growing up and getting old. Who would have thought that at that gangly prepubescent age, you would turn out so well-built. Who would have thought that you two will eventually get married. Things change, and people go through so many different seasons too. I don't know if that friendship that mattered quite a lot to me a few years ago still holds the same weight now.

Okay, sleep I go. Long day tomorrow. 

Doing what I do with the sec one and twos sometimes gives me a certain insight into what grabs their attention and what they find amusing. Whenever I study about postmodernism in university, the lecturers just love to say that "you generation are literally born into the postmodern age". Which is kinda true, we were at the cusp of huge technology changes and Internet and iPods and iPhones; everything is configured to be visual and instantaneous. But sometimes I have to disagree with the lecturers, because the youths that I hang out with ten years my junior are even more crazy than I am about instantaneous visuals. If I'm borned into that age, then they ARE the postmodern age. But enough about postmodernity conditions, here are three Internet stuff that I've come across in my two or three years being a cell leader for that age group. Each one is as buffling and obscure and it's mystifying why they are crazy over it at their respective ages.

• Charlie the Unicorn

I distinctly remember being extremely new to the 13-14 year old age group and I'm trying to fit into their age and understand what rocks their boat. And it wasn't until Samantha and Celine found out OH MY GOSH YOU DUNNO CHARLIE THE UNICORN and then they happily and jumpily and crazily showed me this, that they really felt as though they successively inducted me into their lives. For the life of me I still don't know what this is about, and watching it again now I would point at it and say po-mo! But three years ago it seemed like the biggest thing on earth and I was Charlie the unbelieving unicorn to them, because I was a skeptic and old man and pragmatic and grumpy. And they kept threatening to bounce on me each time I refused to do their nefarious biddings, and I can't remember how I endured all the "Chaaaarrrlieeee" chants they did!

• Miss Swan

This one was a year later, and supposedly a year wiser when it comes to these things, but Andrea and Eunice demanded that they borrow my laptop this instant to watch this, because some teacher in their school showed them Miss Swan and they wanted to watch the rest of the series! There are many other Miss Swan misadventures, you can watch it if you like this kind of humour, but it proved as bad a idea as Charlie the unicorn because for about two months after that, they were speaking in Miss Swan's bumbling accent. Jolene and I will ask them questions to Bible study and they answered in Miss Swan speak, and when we get annoyed they'll mock sob and "where did the love go"! Gets me all irked up, but hard to stay annoyed for long because right after that they will laugh like crazy and it's impossible not to share their joy at Miss Swan. 

• Nyan Cat

This is the most recent, and arguably most annoying! Courtesy of Si Xuan, because I've heard of it but I don't know what is this cat thing so she showed me the website. It's just the Nyan Cat flying through space, and the music looped to infinity to irritate people! Okay the tune is catchy for the first ten seconds, and anything beyond that is agony. And if you go to the website you can apparently Nyan for many seconds and you can post that score on Twitter, but it's essentially just letting the browser sit there for hours and chalk up a respectable count while listening to the looped song! I have no idea how something as simple as this can be so annoying, and I have no idea why would the world all over love such things! Anyway Si Xuan says she wants to nyan at me tomorrow, I don't know how this will turn out. 

There-there-there-go! Miss Swan style.

Perhaps it will be good for me if I explain my absence from this blog and also absence from Singapore last weekend! Kuching did me great, being able to get out of Singapore and totally ignore all school/church work for a while. Of course that had its consequences, because now I'm struggling to play keep-up with all my module readings and books. But it was a good trip, the brass band was up there to support with various playing engagements, and I was up there as admin guy or photographer or worship leader (one which I had to readily volunteer to justify me being up there heh). Caught up with the old friends, most of whom are like the second or third time that I'm meeting them only, but they are so jubilant at my arrival in Kuching again and I'm just warmed by their hospitality. Made new friends too, next time I see them I've gotta get more stuff.

Elsewhere, I am absolutely dying in my school work. I have many many Victorian literature to read, the novels are brilliantly written, just that I am a slow reader and unfortunately I do not have time on my side to savor each book. And I regret to say that the tutorial for one of the lit modules was absolutely horrendous. It was a presentation on Wuthering Heights, the guy was speaking in English, his choice of words were a little upmarket but no problem I knew most of the meanings of his vocabulary, he had no foreign accents, he spoke quite fluently, just that for the life of me I couldn't understand head to tail what concept or theme or idea he was trying to bring forth. He went on and on about some abstractions which I totally do not see any link at all to the novel, and it got so bad that to hide my obvious jaw dropping what-is-this-nonsense, I had to pretend to refer to the novel here and there, scribble some notes. When he finished I half expected the professor to exclaim in bewilderment too. But nope, the whole class began to critique positively on his presentation, and they were similarly talking in English but I just couldn't understand what they are trying to debate about!! I mean, it can't be just me right? There was not a thing I understood and I sat there like an idiot grasping at things that were whizzing above my head but never catching it. I have no idea how on earth I am going to sit for the mid-term test next week. 

Will be on a plane and flying to Kuching in less than 12 hours, and I don't really know why I am going on this trip. Haha the bandsmen are going up to support them with a funfair that they're going to have, and Daniel sort of just asked if I wanted to go and I was free either way so I just said yes. But it was an opportunity that I can't have said no to also, been there two years ago and was richly blessed by the people there, and have quite a few friends there whom I simply cannot not visit. Is it wrong to go for personal reasons then!? Hahaha but I will be admin guy and photographer.

It's only the end of week 3 in school and I feel like I am severely behind work! Gosh how did it end up like this. 

I love my literature classes. I really do. I don't write as well as I should, and I don't read as much as I should, but I love the way how I can sit in class and listen about the vastly different comments on a text or film or image or whatever we're given to analyse. It's the lit classes that throw me completely off my comfort zone. When I walk into a geography module at the start of the term, I already know what to expect. Probably because I've been through more geog classes than most people so after a while you know the scopes of research and academia that goes into urban cities, development, tourism, economy, etc. But my lit classes are a colossal mystery prior to the first lecture. The module names go "Psychoanalysis" and "Tragedy" and "16/17/18/19/20th Century" and I will be okayyy so what happened centuries before my time, and all the concepts are way too philosophical for me to comprehend in a single day.

And somehow everyone seems to know it better than I do, they exchange insightful critiques and complicated verbose that happen all above my head and I'm grasping at thin air. I sit there like a blubbering idiot wondering what are the books I need to read to be able to present dialectics like they could. Whatever that I want to say I'm always hesitant to eject, because I constantly think that it smacks of high school touch-and-go tripe which barely scratches the surface. But I've also learnt that there really is no condemnation and shame in my lit classes. They kinda like building up and adding onto what the previous comment was, so I try to make sure that I speak up among the first few hahaha so that whatever I banal stuff I say establishes the ground and then people build on for me and they'll quote me "like what Guan You said earlier"! Or else I will propose outrageous ideas, mainly because I don't really have much else to add, and so I go on and question whether that character is bisexual. Then there will be this huge debate for or against that.

Which brings to mind how I walked today into the smallest and most intimate lit tutorial I've ever had thus far. The immediate trouble was that all of them seemed to be lit majors and they apparently know each other, so I kinda just hid in my corner acting all smug and mighty because I really didn't know anyone in that class. Okay to be truthful it really felt like one of those book clubs! There were only like ten people, and the venue was the prof's office, which was cramped with wooden bookshelves towering all over the place and there were stacks of Penguin Classics in each shelf. Tell me if this doesn't seem like one of those quaint book attics and all of us were packed into this tiny abscess discussing Victorian authors. But for the nice people and new friends that I've met, it was worth the shoulder-to-shoulder squeeze. I highly suspect that this is one of the tutorials which I really cannot bluff my way through, and already they are imposing their imprints everywhere. I mean, it's one thing to enjoy Great Expectations, but I get a little bit scared when they gush in girly-speak "I lurrrrve Dickens". Heh but that's another post for another time. Right now I can't wait for next week's book club.

I don't really know what is it that I want to bring across in this post. 

Today I found out that I actually can teach guitar entirely in Mandarin-speak! Never ever thought that I would be walking down this path, and this is definitely one of my better achievements for this year! Just taken up a new guitar tuition job for this three ladies that I have never met before, and the only caveat in the job description was that they requested for the lessons to be conducted in Mandarin and that they want to learn worship songs in Mandarin too. My knowledge in that area is severely limited to as many of the handful of times I have assisted Chinese Corps with their praise and worship segment, and even then I cannot remember the songs that they introduced me to! The worship songs I know in Mandarin are all the ones that have been translated from their English counterparts. 

So it was with some trepidation that I'm taking on this job, and possibly continuing it for the next few months or so. I had to Google Translate last night for specific nouns like music note, chord, guitar string, metronome, tuner, octave haha oh my it took me quite a bit of time just to memorize all that! But I thank God that I lasted through the entire hour plus plus with barely an English word muttered, apart from all the music notes like C sharp heh there's no Mandarin alternative to that right?? Happy for the new friends made, and I'm determined to learn more Mandarin worship songs. This reminds me strongly of leading that Indonesian/Malay praise song at Malaysian Camp. Cool, my worship ministry is going multi-lingual. 

Hahaha 1.15am now and it's so apt to sing "it's a quarter after one, I'm all alone and I need you now..."! It's on my repeated playlist for a while because I like the harmony for that song. And nope, I am not deliberately holding out till 1.15am just so that I can be cheesy and include that lyric in. But yeah, anything beyond this time and it will be what Joanna would term an "odd hour" because I've been sleeping at 5am so much in the past three months! And I don't think my body clock ever adjusted back from the crazy summer holidays sleep circadian. I have friends in university who still keep telling me that three four months after not meeting, I still have that same dazed sleepy look on my face like I'm constantly tired. Nahh I think they meant to say I have small eyes. Or my slight-curly messy hair is giving me that dream look. 

But I really feel like I can function and operate best at night. I plain cannot study much in the day, and at night my brain activates some spark plug somewhere and my thoughts go into some whirlpool. Haha I kinda like how my room and laptop and seat is my recess and my silo for all the crazy things that happen in my head at night. I think whole universes are being borned and stars are smashing and creating new planets and whatnot this instant now. It's crazy, and I really should go write a book or something. 

Right now I am reading John Donne and Christopher Marlowe. Not the best things to read at a quarter after one because of blank verses and out-of-my-era English and Elizabethan tragedy and outrageous conceits. 

This is the one thousandth post for this blog! Well, at least according to the counter on Blogger, and barring any drafts that are not posted or any unaccounted for entries. This is a milestone to reach, and keeping in mind that it took a relatively long time to reach this many posts! First began this blog waaay back in 2004 when I was still actively playing Neopets hahaha and when I still have dial-up connection at home just to get on the Internet. But yup, it's a miracle that I'm still posting here with the advent of Twitter and Facebook and all sorts of other social media! Feels like this blog is a dinosaur in comparison to instantaneous, on-the-go updates at Twitter.

And I am constantly reminded that this virtual space is always a simulacrum of a diary equivalent if I do keep one? I know I am literally borned into the postmodern society where everything is based on the immediate visual, and sometimes it's hard to perceive that I have this archive of thoughts and feelings collected over the years in some, err, ethereal space. Intangible, yet constantly accessible, haha it blows my mind. I would be really sad if somehow the main blog server crashed or I accidentally deleted this blog, and I lose everything that I have written here. Should I back up my blog entries hahaha???

Elsewhere, I know that I am in some form of technological trouble when I start to think that all the display screens of electronic devices are all touchscreen! For those who have yet know I recently jumped on the iPhone bandwagon, and I'm getting very used to the entire "what I want I poke at it" concept. It's really cool and quite intuitive, except that this morning I was on my old iPod and I wanted it to repeat the song it just played and I stupidly jabbed at the screen several times before realizing that it is not touchscreen! Of course the iPod worked with the clicker wheel, and I felt like a fool. But yup, I remember the days when mp3 players came in 128MB and 256MB and 512MB, and then the iPod came along and revolutionized everything, and now iPhone and everything is so radical and different and technology changed every quotidian habit. Although sometimes I think that I am the one regressing technology, and I totally understand why my mother has huge pains and troubles with her new touchscreen phone too. Think my sister and I are both taking turns reprimanding the mother what to do and what not to do just to get her to call/SMS. The tables are turned now. Wahaha. 

Posting this as I just managed to navigate my way to where i wanna go at NUH! I have a class here in another hour, and honestly this place is a labyrinth with all the different departments and whatnot. Yup, school have started for me, after months of binning around and being able to wake up as late as I want everyday heh. I have two literature modules covering the Renaissance and the 19th century, two geography modules, and the NUH one is reproductive health hahaha.

And have been busy with many church things! We were at a leaders' retreat last week, then had a funfair yesterday, and was at Gracehaven for their service. Funfair in particular was fun! My cell group probably didn't require as much preparations as the other cells, but it was still a lot of work!

I'm eavesdropping on the conversations of these two NUH staff ladies who're sitting beside me for lunch now. One is attending a course on benefits of carbohydrates, and the other just came down for lunch from a busy emailing day. Feel so medical scientific gaargh. Okay I shall not neglect this blog space. But my next post is my thousandth I think haha

One thing that is beginning to irk me (and probably bugger at myself to do something) is seeing some of the youths being a bit too liberal with vulgarities and swear words on social media. It's probably not too common to open my Facebook and Twitter and be greeted with words that probably should be symb*lized or striked or in any form of censure suitable. And all the more disturbing if they are friends from my church and I know them well enough and I really really don't see the need for such strong words. Well, "strong words" is probably an euphemism hehh.

Well I definitely would understand, and in all honesty and admissions of guilt I have cursed and swore and fallen more times than I should into that trap before. I came from an all-boys primary and secondary school, and boys of course hold nothing back from swearing! Well okay not so terribly in primary school. We were still measurably innocent, so we will play games like "bus first bus second then bus what?", or there's the "sack A sack B then sack what?" hahaha! I can't believe I used to think "sexy" was one of those huge vulgarities! Then of course, someone in the class will eventually learn some swank Hokkien curse, so we upgraded our pronunciation games to "translate chicken white in Chinese". And whenever some unsuspecting guy says it, either unknowingly or he really does not know the meaning, there will be a huge uproar ORH HOR HE SAID SEXY ORH HOR HE SAID A BAD WORD.

If saying "sexy" was the worst sacrilege and the biggest sin in primary school, then I wished you could hear the kind of language that we use to converse in secondary school! It was a marvel how we can use the infamous "fuck" as a noun, adjective, verb, adverb, pronouns if we can wrangle it, hahaha you name the parts of speech and we'll fit it somewhere somehow into the sentence. We had teachers hauling us up for tongue slips and forcing us to look up the word in the dictionary and copying word-for-word the definitions listed in it. We heard stories of certain individuals who dared utter as tiny a breathy hint of some fricative "ffffuuu" in front of the principal or the discipline master, and he was forever an untouchable legend. Christian or not, churched or unchurched, it was the only true way of talking to a fellow teenager really. You simply have to include some form of it somewhere in your speech.

Then we all graduated and entered junior college, and all of a sudden all forms of swearing and cussing and vulgarities died to a minimum. Because there was this huge jump from an all-boys school environment into a co-ed (girls!!!!!!) one, somewhere along the way we all came to some tacit agreement that we cannot appear uncouth or vulgar. We pepper our converses instead with mild versions like "bloody" or "effing" or "fishcake". Kind of like a regression really, everyone became hyper-conscious of being cultured and civilized. But the saving grace for those sailors at heart was during literature class, when we learnt that "fuck" and "prick" and "cunt" and all sorts of other swear words were perfectly acceptable. I remember going through a poem or novel or something that utilized "fuck" in an elegant way! And the huge topic about sex, considered too taboo and obscured from all manners of discussion with girls in our presence, well what can I say? Hahaha we discussed poems aloud about "having a good bonk" and "getting that girl to fucking open her legs" and "gay kinky sex"! Never ever possible with mainstream curriculum, but I had really good lit teachers who made the words come alive, and we will giggle and gasp but deep down we were probably all raging hormones.

And then it was time to serve the nation in the army. Haha needless to say, all those years repressed in JC were like an unleashed demon. We would all angrily and hot-bloodedly join in dissing some commander for some unfair punishment. It was back to an all boys environment again. And there was no adequate way to not reprieve those inner angst because we all resented the crap that we had to go through. I think my commanders thought it the way that if you don't swear at your soldiers, then it becomes some nanny army. Within ourselves it was no different, we've probably each been swore at in our faces more times than we could count, and so for our daily conversations with each other we included more swear word varieties and more degrading adjectives! Kinda helps that you have people from all sorts of background, so the JC kids will teach the ITE people really uncommon English adjectives like "imbecile" or "nincompoop", and the ITE people will explain the Hokkien slang they just used. Hahaha like a social exchange, hope I didn't just pigeon-holed society into classes but that was the personal case for myself.

Then you might ask, so where's the Christian in me? I know kinda well that there's some form of discipline that I should upkeep, like I cannot really have parents going after me because I swear like a sailor in front of their children in church. And I know really well too, when I'm placed outside of the church environment into school or army, the temptations to just fit in with everybody's conversation and peppering my speeches with a little "fuck" will go unnoticed because everyone is saying it. But I also know very very well, and this is for the record and for my own strong reminder, that no one has ever vilified me for NOT saying the f-word. A couple of times I will get some of my army mates saying I seldom swear and I am very holy and when I swear it means I am really angry. That always convicts and evicts me, because I know I swear more often than I should. But no one has ever forced me to swear with them involuntarily.

For me the temptation to swear like any other guy, it is always there. For girls maybe not hahaha, but I may be generalizing and going down a slippery slope here. But yes, I know very very well that a good tree should bear good fruit, and I know that the tongue is a fire, and I know that out of the same mouth shouldn't come curses and praises. And now that I'm a lot older and knowing that I hold more responsibilities than most people would in church, I really am ashamed sometimes of not keeping my own tongue in check. And I've been in youth leadership since the later years of secondary school, so all the more no reason for me not to control and be disciplined. I cannot swear outside of church and go into church onstage and lead worship, I cannot tell my cell members not to swear but I do it frequently outside.

Kinda convoluted, but I understand perfectly why some people swear all the time, but but but I also understand perfectly for a need to not even swear at all. I would speak firsthand that it is not an easy temptation to battle. And it doesn't help that it is the human mind's innate instinct to swear! A long while ago I was reading Steven Pinker and his analysis on why people swear, and he kinda argued that it is in our nature to swear all the time and it is an emotional need to express something, good or bad. The reason why I didn't bother censuring all the "fucks" in this blog post also is that I think "fuck" is just normal a word as any, it's only the intent that we give behind it that makes it taboo and omitted from mainstream press. I don't want to give the devil victory just because it is an unacceptable word to use, but at the same time I don't want to give the devil victory too because I have every choice not to use that word too. It's a double-edged sword haha I think it may be too confusing for this time now, but yup, bottom line is, to worship in Christ gives me no reason to swear.

This is a confusing post. Now what do I do to encourage others to do likewise? 

Two weeks since the last post, and I must say that I am really enjoying my holidays! I'm glad I don't have to work or anything, because most days I can wake up as late as I want! But this also means that I'm up at night till weird unearthly hours, like now. I seem to come alive at night hahaha. But yeah, holidays meant that I am able to spend more time with friends and go out and everything. Able to devote more time for cell group, organize this and that, travel around Singapore heh I've been trying to stay out of house as much as I can and as late as I can, because if I'm home I will just be on the laptop screen. Need to get a life before school begins.

And yep, I'm on the smartphone bandwagon now! It's taken me a little while longer than most people, but I think it is really power at my fingertips! I can do so many things away from the computer. Though the downside is I'm constantly connected, no excuses not to respond. Maybe one day I shall just turn it all off and enjoy the peace. Trying to do something with the slowly-rusting guitar too. Nothing beats learning new stuff and getting the chance to put them into practice! I'm discovering new chords and triads and inversions.

This is really more of an update than anything else. 

I'm the kind of person that does not follow the three-second-rule when food drops on the table or on floor. It's especially prevalent if the food happens to be fries or chips or bits of chocolate or biscuits, you know, things that are relatively solid and dry. If it's "wet" stuff like veggie or noodles or fruits or whatever else then I might think twice. The surface that the food drops on also matters slightly. If it's chips on carpet floor, without a question into my mouth it goes. If it's normal flooring or table, I'll have to see the cleanliness condition first. Of course there are times when it's a clear no, like if it drops into some puddle of water or dusty floor haha.

I'm also the kind of person that gladly eats expired food as long as they seem generally edible to me. If it's canned or bottled drinks past its sell-by date I will just gurgle it down because I think it's generally safe laa. Expired packs of chips or chocolate or expired bottles of Nutella, oh well in my stomach they go. But I may draw the line with pastry or bread, and maybe milk-based stuff like soya bean.

Maybe it's because I've never really had any major tummy upsets or stomach flu or food poisoning before. I do get the occasional bouts of diarrhoea, but I can usually trace it to the laksa I ate or that chendol I drank for supper. I'd like to think that I need to expose my stomach to all these kinds of (hopefully) mild bacteria so that it can get used to all these foreign bacteria and then develop antibodies and I will be stronger and fall ill lesser! Hahaha I don't know if this makes sense. But say for instance you go travelling and you eat some roadside hawker food. The locals eat it for years and they are used to it, but we are not, hence stomach upset. This is one of Dezmand's favourite doomsday predictions, that you spend $2 on foreign hawker food to end up spending $200 on medical bills! Which I sort of think can be prevented if our stomachs weren't so sheltered and pampered from the beginning. And I believe in the spirit of adventurism hahaha. I should be game enough to try weird local fruits and food and whatever else that they tell me is nice. I may not eat stuff like fried insects but hopefully I will pluck up enough courage to try it someday.

This is a rather personal opinion, but whenever there's stuff like expired Nutella or biscuits dropped on floor or expired Honest Tea hahaha, and I just wolf it down and people give me the weird stare or disgusted look, I always invariably think that they're spoilt and can't stomach tough conditions (pun intended). Haha no offence, I don't say it aloud and I generally think good of people, but this is what goes through my mind when this happens. I'd like to think that there are poorer people in poorer conditions than me battling hunger and their inability to even get food, and here's some processed food or canned stuff that may not spoil as easily as what the best-before date claims, and I should appreciate what I have instead of worrying about what it may do to my tummy. Or maybe, I need a hospital case of salmonella or cholera to jolt me from this sort of thinking. But cmon, I'm sure slightly expired food is not that bad right? Who's with me on this.

This is a response to the expired Vegemite that's in my fridge which Tim gave to me two years ago. And he told me to throw.

As I sit here and think about cell group (yet again), I need to keep reminding myself to be patient and to be loving. I think a lot of times I am always very tempted to just barge in and solve matters on my own! It's one of the biggest problems I've always had with myself. When people tell me about their problems or troubles, I tend to either be very dismissive about it or I start telling them what to do. Hahaha to me it's really like the way it is, you tell me a problem then I tell you what I think you should do to manage it lor! Or I will just say things like "it's like that one la" and that's it.

Sometimes I need to just pull back and not care so much. Other times I need to put in more effort and show more concern. I think next time when I have kids of my own I will deliberately let them fall down or get into tough situations so that they will learn on their own. But at the same time I will be praying like mad and itching to be protective and everything hahaha.

I was at Auntie Jenny's office this morning to help her with office administrative work. She works for Equipping Leaders for Asia and they organise and host leadership conferences, or at least that's what I gathered as much from my short period of time spent there. She approached me after the corps camp with an internship offer that I just could not possibly refuse! It included exposure to their ministry work, helping out with some of the conferences, getting to sit in for talks from some of the most-prominent names in churches and management positions, etc etc.

But I turned it down all the same, mainly because I love my holidays too much hahaha. Okay I really felt like I wanted a break and not do anything too heavy for a while. June's multitudes of camps was quite an upheaval, and I wanted to spend more time with cell group and mentees and doing stuff that I set out at the start of the year wanting to accomplish. And the reason why I was there this morning was because she still needed help with certain tasks, so I thought I could contribute my time in whatever ways I can.

And so I sat in front of her computer for an hour and a half duplicating CDs for their conference materials, then I spent another hour and a half putting them into their cases and putting leaflets and labeling them. The entire time I was there I kept on thinking gosh how BORING can this get and this is totally not what I want to do hahaha! I think I'm meticulous enough for these sorts of things, like I will make sure the CD is in perfect orientation and I will just double-check to see if the folder is really in the duplicated CD. But after like the 3rd or 4th one I am just dying and I keep thinking I'm meant for greater things and I'm stuck in this pigeonhole labeling CDs and goshhhhhhhhh!

I'm totally not cut out for administrative work, I will never be a cheerful secretary, I won't turn in sub-par products because I will QC everything, but I will grumble and whine and get impatient. I would sooner rather go do something loads more stressful like lead worship or share a message than duplicate CDs! The only person that I know will do this with excitement and enthusiasm is Andrea, because she will treat it like some tremendous task of paramount importance and unfortunately I don't share the same perspective as her. I know because I bribed her with ice cream to get her to do Powerpoint slides for thirty plus songs for camp haha. And brings to mind also when Captain Hary requested me to be flagbearer for Captain Zane Haupt's installation at youth service, I am super stressed! I kept thinking that the flag will  topple or how I might just drop it and I worry whether I have to wave it and how I was supposed to stand. Seriously hahaha all I probably had to do was to just hold the flag, but it makes me hugely nervous!

Yeah anyway, I digress. I always hear stories of how people start their ministry work for God with small and seemingly insignificant stuffs, like setting up and keeping the chairs for service. Or flip lyrics sheets for Sunday School, things like these that they do for years before they eventually move on to giving mini lessons. And for all my life I can never understand how people have the tenacity and the faith to keep serving in the most mundane and menial kind of ministry work available! I greatly admire the ladies who stand there for two hours and do floral arrangements for Sunday service. I think if I have to prepare worship lyrics every week for projections, I will really uninstall Powerpoint from my computer and use it as an excuse to hand it over to someone else! But yeah, it's a constant reminder to me that people serve the Lord in different ways, and people have different capacities for their gifts and talents to shine, and the kingdom of God always starts with people doing the most infinitesimal tasks before anything else can go. Three or four hours today was a huge test of patience. But I will visit Auntie Jenny again next week and I will be a much happier person and take more pride in my tasks. 

What keeps someone up at 4am plus plus in the morning!? Well I've gotta say that my body clock is entirely topsy-turvy now, thanks to holidays and not having to work or study or do anything substantial, I've been sleeping at around 5am thereabouts almost every other day for the past three weeks. Get me to bed any earlier and I probably can't sleep as well as I could when I get to bed at 5am. This is ultimate pigging out and maybe it will disrupt my lifestyle eventually when I start school again or when I need to wake up early in the morning for certain stuff. But this is certainly almost circadian already, and I don't really know what I do at night till such crazy hours too.

Just a note to say that I've got quite a soft spot for retro, vintage, classic stuff! It's not something that I conscientiously seek out, but it's like how I got my Super 55 on a whim because it was just too nice to pass by, and I didn't really have a strong need for it! And I constantly think that the very first iPod and iMac is still the best-looking device for the Apple family, when all the rage now is with iPhone and whatever else. iPod classic is well, a classic, nobody wants a touch rotating wheel anymore when you have a touch screen device. Like how I prefer the old wooden pencils that you have to sharpen, instead of mechanical pencils. And just purchased a film camera off eBay because I really wanna try more film stuff and do vignettes or something. Friend was telling me that the world's going digital and everything is electronic, but I'm regressing and degenerating to things that don't hold value anymore in this world. Which kinda makes sense hahaha people everywhere are going on about their first DSLR, and well I'm getting an SLR too, just not digital haha.

Maybe it's just some of these small things that make me feel like a vintage and a classic, but yeah it's just a random point that I've been thinking about recently. 

Kinda neglected this space for the past two weeks or so, been really lazy to post anything up! I think this blog is becoming counter-productive; every time I think of the need to type very long sentences and having to have structured phrases and sentences and paragraphs, I'm put off by this and I go to Twitter or Tumblr instead! Lesser words, or if not no words at all at the other two platforms! But yeah anyway, all the camps are over and June is over too. It's been an awesome month, great fun, great experiences, great new insights. 

There's nothing much in my life, except that I am trying to get out of house everyday to escape from my mum! I'm not working you see, and I've turned down one or two job opportunities, partly because I am not very inclined to fix myself to a regular commitment when I'm on holidays!!!!!! Haha nah not entirely la, other reasons too. 

Actually I'm only posting this because I need to remind myself never to choose all new songs for an entire worship set list! One or two new songs is fine, but three out of three means I cannot hear them sing and I will think that it's too much to be. 

To sleep I go. 

I'm not bothering to unpack much from my bags, because in another couple of days I'll be hopping to Malaysia again for yet another church camp. It's almost like instinct hahaha I know what I need and what I don't need now. Okay I shouldn't be speaking as though I'm doing this all my life or it's my job or something, but 3 camps in a month is really a lot. There might be an extension to the trip though, although I'll only know within the next few days.

And I'm seizing maximum opportunities to capture the after-camp highs! Trying to remind everyone what they've learnt and trying to instill something that will hopefully be lasting for the future. I'm in the kind of state where you tell me anything now and I am all ready to firmly believe in it! Haha I've had people reminding me that I've just finished two camps where the presence of God was just so very evident, I shouldn't be unfazed by anything now! Which is kinda true, there's important work to be done that needs follow-up and everything.

On another note, I completely missed GAPS for the second school term consecutively. I didn't even keep track of the dates! But it's not that important right, it's just modules classification and whatever else. Oh well bah, the school should send reminder emails for these kinds of things closer to the date!!!

So I managed to tune myself to the correct frequency in time for the Singapore territorial youth camp, and it's been a great blessing for me as what I've been anticipating all month! I think it was rather difficult for me, because I just came back from an equally amazing Malaysian youth camp and so many things touched me over there. And the dust had barely settled, I'm still mesmerized by God's miracles and all the wonderful testimonies at Malaysia, they're still going on and on in Facebook, how to focus on Singapore??? But I kinda forgot that when you expect something to be as big as you expect it to be, God will always surpass that expectation and He'll be like "I told you so, but this is even better" because it's really hard to limit Him. 

Many many roles to take on at this camp, and when I reflect now I keep thinking that I should have said this or I should have done that, but nahh I think I should just be thankful for the way that God has used me over the four days. The theme is on worship, and without a doubt the praises were mind-blowing, every session was Spirit-filled. I'm totally exhausted partly because of too much tears! Each time I minister to someone at the mercy seat I think I cry more than the person does, because it really is such a blessing and an encouragement to hear each of their heartfelt prayer requests and testimonies. Could almost feel each pleading and each cry for God, and that's what keeps me going to serve and to bring more lives to Him. 

And now I'm falling sick and catching a cold. Voice is whiny and weird. One more camp to go for June, and that's in a few days' time. I am getting a bit disillusioned by camps, although in a positive way, for all the euphoria that they bring and all the good things that are constantly happening. In some sense when I break camp I need time to get back to life normally, yet at the same time anticipate good things. But it's just high and high and high, hardly a breather. Haha okay I really ought to get to bed, tired out totally. 

There was the monthly leaders' meeting today and my mind was constantly distracted and never focusing on what we were discussing on hand! Haha somehow or rather my mind kept going back to whatever happened at Malaysia camp. I'm still in the thought frame of all the testimonies and stories and blessings and needs for the Malaysian territory. It's almost as though whatever that's happening in Singapore is suddenly not as important to me now! Horror of horrors haha I had to keep reminding myself that I have a cell group here, I am in Central Corps, I serve here I lead worship here blah blah! 

But it was a good break for me, to be able to distance myself from what's happening back home and to go outside and to see the needs of the other part of the territory. It didn't exactly made it easier for me to find purpose in my ministry haha, but I'm just glad that I can get out for a while and not be so fixated on my cell group or mentees all the time. And now I wish that the camp had been longer, or that I should have followed one of them back to their corps and stay there for another two weeks or so! I definitely need a longer break. I wanna go overseas and be some itinerant ministry worker, serving wherever God sends and wherever has a need haha! Maybe it could happen haha. But more importantly, I have just a few days to get into the right frame of mind for Singapore youth camp. Have a message to prepare and worship songs that need inspiration. 

Right now talking to all the new friends on Facebook, because they're all suffering from camp withdrawal symptoms like me. I owe them photos which I've yet to put up. There's really no greater privilege than to serve in this huge family. What gives me the equipping and the qualification, I really have no idea, and I really just want to thank God for his grace and blessings in my life. 

Safely back from the Malaysian youth camp hours ago, and as always it's a great blessing to be a part of God's big family of believers! Had a tremendous time over there, loads of stories to tell. So my visit to Kuching and to the Tamil camp two years ago while I was working for Youth Dept helped familiarized me quite a bit, because I got to meet up with old friends who've grown up and have moved on to an even bigger ministry for God. And getting to meet new people and worshiping and leading alongside them, surely this has to be one of the most awesome privileges in the world! They were running in dizzying circles during worship, and we've managed to come up with actions for the theme song Nothing Is Impossible hahaha. Obstacle course made me feel like it was army all over again, and I'm not that unfit! Gosh so many things to praise God for the camp.

My nose is peeling slightly from prolonged periods under the sun. And I still feel as though I'm hanging the name lanyard over my neck. The thing about Malaysian camp, the way I try to compartmentalize, is that it's almost completely detached from the Singapore side, which meant that I'm going there more like a facilitator than an actual committee plan leader. Which also meant that I'm constantly encouraged and enriched by all the good things that the Salvation Army is doing up in Malaysia. The past two weeks made me feel like I'm a social worker! First the AG Home rental, then Gracehaven worship, and now youths mostly from the Malaysian homes. I really really do see the need, and I'm really amazed at the testimonies of transformations and changed hearts.

Kinda made me almost reluctant to come back to Singapore haha, because all of a sudden what I'm doing back here doesn't seem all that challenging compared to Malaysia! Hahaha but I cannot compare in this way la, it's two completely different ball games and each has its own strengths and challenges. I've got about four to five more days to get into the right frame for Singapore youth camp! Totally different situation, and I'm hoping that I don't get disillusioned by the multitudes of camps I'm going for! Right now I'm catching up with the work that came in while I was away. Have a feeling that they're going to be very active on Facebook adding friends and tagging photos.

Gotta crash to bed, absolutely tired out.